From a2105b8c7a8d5e2e25d2108ca1f001aaa2a8e59a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: oliviergimenez Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2023 11:49:21 +0300 Subject: [PATCH] late commit --- data/crdat.csv | 1500 ++++++++--------- data/papers_in_ecological_journals.csv | 330 ++-- data/papers_in_methodological_journals.csv | 38 +- ...s_in_methodological_journals_annotated.csv | 0 data/savedrecs(1).txt | 0 data/savedrecs(10).txt | 0 data/savedrecs(2).txt | 0 data/savedrecs(3).txt | 0 data/savedrecs(4).txt | 0 data/savedrecs(5).txt | 0 data/savedrecs(6).txt | 0 data/savedrecs(7).txt | 0 data/savedrecs(8).txt | 0 data/savedrecs(9).txt | 0 data/savedrecs.txt | 0 figs/areas.png | Bin figs/authors.png | Bin figs/citingjournals.png | Bin figs/countries.png | Bin figs/journals.png | Bin figs/years.png | Bin recap_analyses.Rmd | 401 +++++ 22 files changed, 1335 insertions(+), 934 deletions(-) mode change 100644 => 100755 data/crdat.csv mode change 100644 => 100755 data/papers_in_ecological_journals.csv mode change 100644 => 100755 data/papers_in_methodological_journals.csv mode change 100644 => 100755 data/papers_in_methodological_journals_annotated.csv mode change 100644 => 100755 data/savedrecs(1).txt mode change 100644 => 100755 data/savedrecs(10).txt mode change 100644 => 100755 data/savedrecs(2).txt mode change 100644 => 100755 data/savedrecs(3).txt mode change 100644 => 100755 data/savedrecs(4).txt mode change 100644 => 100755 data/savedrecs(5).txt mode change 100644 => 100755 data/savedrecs(6).txt mode change 100644 => 100755 data/savedrecs(7).txt mode change 100644 => 100755 data/savedrecs(8).txt mode change 100644 => 100755 data/savedrecs(9).txt mode change 100644 => 100755 data/savedrecs.txt mode change 100644 => 100755 figs/areas.png mode change 100644 => 100755 figs/authors.png mode change 100644 => 100755 figs/citingjournals.png mode change 100644 => 100755 figs/countries.png mode change 100644 => 100755 figs/journals.png mode change 100644 => 100755 figs/years.png create mode 100644 recap_analyses.Rmd diff --git a/data/crdat.csv b/data/crdat.csv old mode 100644 new mode 100755 index d754e37..fe55127 --- a/data/crdat.csv +++ b/data/crdat.csv @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ some insights related to social network analysis data collection challenges - a abundance estimation based on optimal estimating function with missing covariates in capture-recapture studies,abundance; capture-recapture study; missing at random; optimal estimating function,STATISTICS & PROBABILITY LETTERS,LIU Y;ZHANG XZ;LI MK;LIU GF;ZHU L,"for the abundance parameter in capture-recapture studies with missing covariates, we propose an optimal-estimating-function-based estimator and develop a bootstrap procedure to construct the confidence interval. we illustrate our methods through simulations and the yellow-bellied prinia data. (c) 2019 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." rapid changes in dispersal on a small spatial scale at the range edge of an expanding population,dispersal; phenotypic plasticity; range expansion; spatial sorting; xenopus laevis,EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY,COURANT J;SECONDI J;GUILLEMET L;VOLLETTE E;HERREL A,"in expanding populations, the allocation of resources to life-history traits is expected to change rapidly after the colonization of a new area. understanding these changes is of crucial importance to predict the future changes in distribution ranges, and the possible impacts of expanding species on the colonized environments. both theoretical and empirical studies have provided some evidence for an increased dispersal at the range edge of expanding populations. because this phenomenon has been documented on large spatial scales, it seems difficult to determine what proportion of the phenotypic variation is due to the expansion process (spatial sorting) versus spatial variation in the environment (local adaptation). the aim of our study is to determine whether, in a small and recent expanding population, the dispersal capacity is increased at the range edge compared to the range core despite a minimal role of local adaptation. we studied the modification of dispersal capacity at the range edge of an expanding population of the african clawed frog, xenopuslaevis recently settled in western france. to do so, we used experiments to compare movements of individuals depending on their location in the population, and capture-mark-recapture field surveys to estimate variation in traits related to dispersal across the invasive range. both methods consistently showed significantly higher dispersal rates and distances, as well as in the relative length of the hind limb, at the range edge, for both sexes. this result is the first report suggesting that changes in allocation to dispersal, and not only traits associated with dispersal, can occur at a small geographical and temporal scale, where the role of local adaptation is likely minimal. this study fills a gap in an issue where it is currently crucial, for conservation purposes, to understand the mechanisms involved in range expansions." landscape genetic analyses of cervus elaphus and sus scrofa: comparative study and analytical developments,NA,HEREDITY,DELLICOUR S;PRUNIER JG;PIRY S;EIOY MC;BERTOUILLE S;LICOPPE A;FRANTZ AC;FLAMAND MC,"red deer and wild boar are two major game species whose populations are managed and live in areas impacted by human activities. measuring and understanding the impact of landscape features on individual movements and spatial patterns of genetic variability in these species is thus of importance for managers. a large number of individuals sampled across wallonia (belgium) for both species have been genotyped using microsatellite markers (respectively > 1700 and > 1200 genotyped individuals) and some individuals have also been followed using a capture-mark-recapture (cmr) protocol. the combined data set represents an unprecedented opportunity to study and compare the environmental factors impacting the interconnectivity of these large mammals. the present study describes and uses a landscape genetic workflow to compare spatial patterns of genetic variability and the impact of environmental factors on genetic differentiation. for the latter analyses, we investigate the correlation between genetic and environmental distances (pairwise approach) and also between local genetic dissimilarity and environmental conditions (point approach). preliminary analyses of cmr data confirm that motorways act as significant barriers to dispersal. however, analyses performed with the pairwise approach do not highlight any evidence of an impact of motorways on genetic differentiation, which is presumably due to their recent establishment. complementary analyses performed with the point approach reveal that low altitude tends to be associated with higher genetic dissimilarity. from a methodological point of view, the present workflow illustrates the complementary application of both pairwise and point approaches, as well as univariate and multivariate analyses." -"detection of antibodies against icoaraci, ilheus, and saint louis encephalitis arboviruses during yellow fever monitoring surveillance in non-human primates (alouatta caraya) in southern brazil",arboreal primates; emerging diseases; howler monkey; phlebovirus; virus,JOURNAL OF MEDICAL PRIMATOLOGY,DE ALMEIDA MAB;DOS SANTOS E;CARDOSO JD;NOLL CA;LIMA MD;SILVA FDE;FERREIRA MS;MARTINS LC;VASCONCELOS PFD;BICCA-MARQUES JC,"background free-ranging non-human primates (nhps) can host a variety of pathogenic microorganisms, such as arboviruses, which include the yellow fever virus (yfv). this study aimed to detect the circulation of yf and other arboviruses in three wild alouatta caraya populations in forests in southern brazil. methods we collected 40 blood and serum samples from 26 monkeys captured/recaptured up to four times from 2014 to 2016, searching for evidence of arboviruses by virus isolation, pcr, and neutralization tests. results viral isolation and genome detection were negative; however, we detected neutralizing antibodies against the saint louis, ilheus, and icoaraci viruses in three nhps. conclusions saint louis encephalitis, ilheus, and icoaraci viruses circulated recently in the region. future studies should investigate the role of nhps, other vertebrate hosts and wild vectors in the region's arbovirus circulation and the potential risks of the arboviruses to wildlife, domestic animals, and humans." +"detection of antibodies against icoaraci, ilheus, and saint louis encephalitis arboviruses during yellow fever monitoring surveillance in non-human primates (alouatta caraya) in southern brazil",arboreal primates; emerging diseases; howler monkey; phlebovirus; virus,JOURNAL OF MEDICAL PRIMATOLOGY,DE ALMEIDA MAB;DOS SANTOS E;CARDOSO JD;NOLL CA;LIMA MD;SILVA FDE;FERREIRA MS;MARTINS LC;VASCONCELOS PFD;BICCA MARQUES JC,"background free-ranging non-human primates (nhps) can host a variety of pathogenic microorganisms, such as arboviruses, which include the yellow fever virus (yfv). this study aimed to detect the circulation of yf and other arboviruses in three wild alouatta caraya populations in forests in southern brazil. methods we collected 40 blood and serum samples from 26 monkeys captured/recaptured up to four times from 2014 to 2016, searching for evidence of arboviruses by virus isolation, pcr, and neutralization tests. results viral isolation and genome detection were negative; however, we detected neutralizing antibodies against the saint louis, ilheus, and icoaraci viruses in three nhps. conclusions saint louis encephalitis, ilheus, and icoaraci viruses circulated recently in the region. future studies should investigate the role of nhps, other vertebrate hosts and wild vectors in the region's arbovirus circulation and the potential risks of the arboviruses to wildlife, domestic animals, and humans." "spatial dynamics and burrow occupancy in a desert lizard floodplain specialist, liopholis slateri",arid habitats; liopholis; persistence strategy; photographic mark-recapture; scat dna,JOURNAL OF ARID ENVIRONMENTS,TREILIBS CE;PAVEY CR;GARDNER MG;ANSARI MH;BULL CM,"1. desert river floodplains are resource rich but high-risk habitats. for surface-dwelling animals in these habitats, persistence is a trade-off between the advantages of relatively abundant food resources and the costs of episodic surface disturbances from infrequent but unpredictable rainfall events. 2. in central australia, there are few non-flying, terrestrial species that are specialised floodplain occupants, and their persistence strategies are not well understood. 3. using photographic mark-recapture and scat dna, we observed a population of one such desert floodplain specialist, slater's skink liopholis slateri, over four years to understand how it persists in these disturbance-prone habitats. 4. we found evidence of a highly mobile, but site stable population, with spatial clustering of burrows into local 'neighbourhoods'. there were relatively low fluctuations in population size among years, with a second seasonal breeding event following heavy rain in january 2015. we observed both long-term residence of individuals and long-term use of burrows at the site. 5. frequent movements within and among neighbourhoods, and regular burrow construction, suggest a population capable of dispersal in the event of high intensity disturbance. dispersing individuals and some neighbourhoods may act as recolonization sources in the event of a flood extirpating the core population." how extreme is extreme? demographic approaches inform the occurrence and ecological relevance of extreme events,birds; climate change adaptation; extreme events; fragmentation; microclimates; survival; winter climate,ECOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS,LATIMER CE;ZUCKERBERG B,"projected increases in the variability of both temperature and precipitation will result in the greater likelihood and magnitude of extreme weather (e.g., cold snaps, droughts, heat waves) with potential implications for animal populations. despite the ecological consequences of extreme weather, there are several challenges in identifying extreme events and measuring their influence on key demographic processes in free-living animals. first, there is often a mismatch between the spatial and/or temporal resolution of biological and climate data that could hinder our ability to draw accurate inferences about how species and populations respond to extreme events. second, there are multiple approaches for identifying an extreme event ranging from statistical definitions (e.g., standardized deviates) to species-specific biological thresholds. lastly, the impacts of extreme weather on species can vary as a function of differences in exposure and intrinsic sensitivity to climate variability. in the northern hemisphere, rapid warming has contributed to a ""wobblier"" jet stream that promotes the higher likelihood of cold arctic air moving southward and leading to more extreme winter conditions. due to these conditions, the upper midwest experienced two of the coldest winters in the past 35 yr during 2014 and 2015. we combined radiofrequency identification technologies with fine-scale weather data and standard capture-mark-recapture analyses to estimate weekly and overwinter survival rates of a common winter passerine, the black-capped chickadee (poecile atricapillus), in a near continuous fashion. using both statistical and biological definitions of weather extremes, we found that declining ambient temperatures reduced survival (despite the presence of favorable microclimates), and that biologically defined thresholds of extreme weather were better at explaining variation in survival than statistical ones. moreover, habitat fragmentation interacted with temperature to modify the exposure of birds to extreme weather with survival consequences, but sensitivity, as measured by body condition, did not appear to play a significant role. these results provide a novel contribution to the understanding of how extreme weather may interact with local- and landscape features to influence the demography of species and populations, and suggest potential opportunities for climate-change adaptation in human-dominated landscapes." range expansion is associated with increased survival and fecundity in a long-lived bat species,capture-mark-recapture; life history; rhinolophus hipposideros; range expansion; trade-off,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,JAN PL;LEHNEN L;BESNARD AL;KERTH G;BIEDERMANN M;SCHORCHT W;PETIT EJ;LE GOUAR P;PUECHMAILLE SJ,"the speed and dynamics of range expansions shape species distributions and community composition. despite the critical impact of population growth rates for range expansion, they are neglected in existing empirical studies, which focus on the investigation of selected life-history traits. here, we present an approach based on non-invasive genetic capture-mark-recapture data for the estimation of adult survival, fecundity and juvenile survival, which determine population growth. we demonstrate the reliability of our method with simulated data, and use it to investigate life-history changes associated with range expansion in 35 colonies of the bat species rhinolophus hipposideros. comparing the demographic parameters inferred for 19 of those colonies which belong to an expanding population with those inferred for the remaining 16 colonies from a non-expanding population reveals that range expansion is associated with higher net reproduction. juvenile survival was the main driver of the observed reproduction increase in this long-lived bat species with low per capita annual reproductive output. the higher average growth rate in the expanding population was not associated with a trade-off between increased reproduction and survival, suggesting that the observed increase in reproduction stems from a higher resource acquisition in the expanding population. environmental conditions in the novel habitat hence seem to have an important influence on range expansion dynamics, and warrant further investigation for the management of range expansion in both native and invasive species." @@ -19,29 +19,29 @@ the price of being bold? relationship between personality and endoparasitic infe a weighted partial likelihood approach for zero-truncated models,capture-recapture; elastic net; partial likelihood; poisson distribution; prediction; rao-blackwell theorem,BIOMETRICAL JOURNAL,HWANG WH;HEINZE D;STOKLOSA J,"zero-truncated data arises in various disciplines where counts are observed but the zero count category cannot be observed during sampling. maximum likelihood estimation can be used to model these data; however, due to its nonstandard form it cannot be easily implemented using well-known software packages, and additional programming is often required. motivated by the rao-blackwell theorem, we develop a weighted partial likelihood approach to estimate model parameters for zero-truncated binomial and poisson data. the resulting estimating function is equivalent to a weighted score function for standard count data models, and allows for applying readily available software. we evaluate the efficiency for this new approach and show that it performs almost as well as maximum likelihood estimation. the weighted partial likelihood approach is then extended to regression modelling and variable selection. we examine the performance of the proposed methods through simulation and present two case studies using real data." responses of the mussel brachidontes rodriguezii to aerial exposure: implications on growth and physiological condition,mytilidae; brachidontes rodriguezii; mussel; biofouling; intertidal coast,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,TORROGLOSA ME;GIMENEZ J,"the length of aerial exposure (i.e., environmental conditions) of an organism, due to daily tides, induces physiological responses. a mark-recapture field experiment was conducted in two intertidal zones (low tide and high tide) using the stain calcein am to determine growth, as measured by shell length, of the mussel brachidontes rodriguezii (d'orbigny, 1842) along its vertical distribution off the north argentinean coast. in the high intertidal zone, b. rodriguezii exhibited slower growth in shell length because of the physiological stress resulting from aerial exposure during low tides. in the low intertidal zone and during spring, b. rodriguezii exhibited faster growth in shell length. it is suggested that growth of b. rodriguezii relies on several environmental factors (temperature, photoperiod, and aerial exposure) that fluctuate according to tidal height." demography of a high-density tiger population and its implications for tiger recovery,breeding tigresses; corbett national park; population dynamics; pva; recruitment; source population; survival; terai arc,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,BISHT S;BANERJEE S;QURESHI Q;JHALA Y,"prioritizing conservation of source populations within landscapes is proposed as a strategy for recovering tigers globally. we studied population dynamics of tigers in corbett national park (cnp) in indian terai, which harbours the largest and highest density tiger population in any protected area of the world. through population viability models, we demonstrate the importance of cnp in tiger recovery within western terai. we camera trapped 521 km(2) of cnp using open population capture-mark-recapture framework between 2010 and 2015 to estimate annual abundance, spatially explicit density, survival, recruitment, temporary movements, sex ratio and proportion of females breeding. we model metapopulation persistence with and without corbett as a source within western terai landscape at different levels of poaching and habitat connectivity. in 6 years, we recorded 6,202 photo-captures of 307 individual tigers. annual tiger abundance and density were stable at 120 (se 19) and 14 (se 3) per 100 km(2) respectively. detection probability of tigers was 0.18 (se 0.03) and detection-corrected male:female sex ratio was female biased (0.80 se 0.13). apparent annual survival probability was 0.79 (se 0.05) for females and 0.60 (se 0.04) for males. survival of tigers in cnp (0.68 se 0.12) was lower than that reported for other populations. cnp tigers showed high reproduction with 54.8 (se 5.1)% females breeding and with addition of 35 (se 8)% as new recruits to the population each year. small tiger populations in western terai with moderate poaching could only persist through dispersal from cnp. synthesis and applications. corbett tiger population was characterized by a stable high density, high reproductive rate and low survival, resulting in high turnover rates (32%-48%) between successive years. such source populations could sustain low-level poaching and with habitat connectivity, recover tiger populations across the landscape. this study establishes potential thresholds that can likely be achieved by tiger populations under optimal natural conditions and highlights the importance of prioritizing conservation of source populations within tiger landscapes. this information can be used to plan and implement realistic tiger recovery programmes globally." -robust monitoring of the eurasian lynx lynx lynx in the slovak carpathians reveals lower numbers than officially reported,camera trapping; capture-recapture; carpathians; favourable conservation status; lynx lynx; population density,ORYX,KUBALA J;SMOLKO P;ZIMMERMANN F;RIGG R;TAM B;IL'KO T;FORESTI D;BREITENMOSER-WURSTEN C;KROPIL R;BREITENMOSER U,"the eurasian lynx lynx lynx population in the carpathian mountains is considered to be one of the best preserved and largest in europe and hence is a source for past and current reintroduction projects in central europe. however, its status in slovakia has been reported to the european commission on the basis of hunters ' reports and expert estimates that have never been validated by a robust scientific approach. we conducted the first camera-trapping surveys to estimate the density of eurasian lynx in slovakia by means of spatial capture-recapture models in two reference areas during 2011-2015. we estimated population density per 100 km(2) of suitable lynx habitat (posterior sd) as 0.58 +/- sd 0.13 independent individuals (adults and subadults) in the stiavnica mountains and 0.81 +/- sd 0.29 in veka fatra national park and surroundings. these are the lowest densities estimated using spatial capture-recapture models so far reported for the species, suggesting the lynx population in slovakia is below carrying capacity. we suspect that low densities may be attributable to undetected human-caused mortality. our results imply that official game statistics are substantially overestimated. moreover, the lynx population in slovakia may not be at favourable conservation status as required by the eu habitats directive. we therefore call for a thorough assessment of the density and trend of the slovak carpathian lynx population, and the establishment of a scientifically robust monitoring system." +robust monitoring of the eurasian lynx lynx lynx in the slovak carpathians reveals lower numbers than officially reported,camera trapping; capture-recapture; carpathians; favourable conservation status; lynx lynx; population density,ORYX,KUBALA J;SMOLKO P;ZIMMERMANN F;RIGG R;TAM B;IL KO T;FORESTI D;BREITENMOSER WURSTEN C;KROPIL R;BREITENMOSER U,"the eurasian lynx lynx lynx population in the carpathian mountains is considered to be one of the best preserved and largest in europe and hence is a source for past and current reintroduction projects in central europe. however, its status in slovakia has been reported to the european commission on the basis of hunters ' reports and expert estimates that have never been validated by a robust scientific approach. we conducted the first camera-trapping surveys to estimate the density of eurasian lynx in slovakia by means of spatial capture-recapture models in two reference areas during 2011-2015. we estimated population density per 100 km(2) of suitable lynx habitat (posterior sd) as 0.58 +/- sd 0.13 independent individuals (adults and subadults) in the stiavnica mountains and 0.81 +/- sd 0.29 in veka fatra national park and surroundings. these are the lowest densities estimated using spatial capture-recapture models so far reported for the species, suggesting the lynx population in slovakia is below carrying capacity. we suspect that low densities may be attributable to undetected human-caused mortality. our results imply that official game statistics are substantially overestimated. moreover, the lynx population in slovakia may not be at favourable conservation status as required by the eu habitats directive. we therefore call for a thorough assessment of the density and trend of the slovak carpathian lynx population, and the establishment of a scientifically robust monitoring system." integrated population models: model assumptions and inference,bayesian; heterogeneity; integrated population models; model assumption violation; parameter estimation,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,RIECKE TV;WILLIAMS PJ;BEHNKE TL;GIBSON D;LEACH AG;SEDINGER BS;STREET PA;SEDINGER JS,"integrated population models (ipms) have become increasingly popular for the modelling of populations, as investigators seek to combine survey and demographic data to understand processes governing population dynamics. these models are particularly useful for identifying and exploring knowledge gaps within life histories, because they allow investigators to estimate biologically meaningful parameters, such as immigration or reproduction, that were previously unidentifiable without additional data. as ipms have been developed relatively recently, there is much to learn about model behaviour. behaviour of parameters, such as estimates near boundaries, and the consequences of varying degrees of dependency among datasets, has been explored. however, the reliability of parameter estimates remains underexamined, particularly when models include parameters that are not identifiable from one data source, but are indirectly identifiable from multiple datasets and a presumed model structure, such as the estimation of immigration using capture-recapture, fecundity and count data, combined with a life-history model. to examine the behaviour of model parameter estimates, we simulated stable populations closed to immigration and emigration. we simulated two scenarios that might induce error into survival estimates: marker induced bias in the capture-mark-recapture data and heterogeneity in the mortality process. we subsequently fit capture-mark-recapture, state-space and fecundity models, as well as ipms that estimated additional parameters. simulation results suggested that when model assumptions are violated, estimation of additional, previously unidentifiable, parameters using ipms may be extremely sensitive to these violations of model assumption. for example, when annual marker loss was simulated, estimates of survival rates were low and estimates of immigration rate from an ipm were high. when heterogeneity in the mortality process was induced, there were substantial relative differences between the medians of posterior distributions and truth for juvenile survival and fecundity. our results have important implications for biological inference when using ipms, as well as future model development and implementation. specifically, using multiple datasets to identify additional parameters resulted in the posterior distributions of additional parameters directly reflecting the effects of the violations of model assumptions in integrated modelling frameworks. we suggest that investigators interpret posterior distributions of these parameters as a combination of biological process and systematic error." completeness of a newly implemented general cancer registry in northern france: application of a three-source capture-recapture method,capture-recapture; completeness; registry; age,REVUE D EPIDEMIOLOGIE ET DE SANTE PUBLIQUE,PLOUVIER SD;BERNILLON P;LIGIER K;THEIS D;MIQUEL PH;PASQUIER D;RIVEST LP,"background. - completeness, timeliness and accuracy are important qualities for registries. the objective was to estimate the completeness of the first two years of full registration (2008/2009) of a new population-based general cancer registry, at the time of national data centralisation. methods. - records followed international standards. numbers of cases missed were estimated from a three-source (pathology labs, healthcare centres, health insurance services) capture-recapture method, using log-linear models for each gender. age and place of residence were considered as potential variables of heterogeneous catchability. results. - when datawere centralized (2011/2012), 4446 cases inmen and 3642 inwomenwere recorded for 2008/2009 in the registry. overall completenesswas estimated at 95.7% (95% ci: 94.3-97.2) for cases in men and 94.8% (95% ci: 92.6-97.0) in women. completeness appeared higher for younger than for older subjects, with a significant difference of 4.1% (95% ci: 1.4-6.7) formen younger than 65 compared with their older counterparts. estimateswere collatedwith the number of cases registered in 2014 for the years 2008/2009 (4566 cases for men/3755 for women), when additional structures had notified cases retrospectively to the registry. these numbers were consistent with the stratified capture-recapture estimates. conclusion. -this method appeared useful to estimate the completeness quantitatively. despite a rather good completeness for the new registry, the search for cases among older subjects must be improved. (c) 2019 elsevier masson sas. all rights reserved." -urinary corticosterone metabolite responses to capture herpetological society and visual elastomer tagging in the asian toad (duttaphrynus melanostictus),amphibians; mark-recapture; welfare; stress; visual implant elastomer (vie),HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL,"NARAYAN EJ;GRAMAPUROHIT NP","herpetological research involving amphibians is increasingly using mark and recapture methods, employing various techniques such as toe-clipping and visible implant alphanumeric tags. visual implant elastomer (vie) is a new method available for herpetological surveys, involving a coloured dye inserted into the epidermal skin surface of frogs. previously, there has been only one study which demonstrated that the vie method does not generate a significant physiological stress response (using a faecal glucocorticoid method) in a captive amphibian species. physiological stress can also be quantified non-invasively using urinary corticosterone metabolite (ucm) enzyme-immunoassay in amphibians. in this study, we tested the physiological stress response of a common amphibian species, wild caught asian toads (duttaphrynus melanostictus), by comparing ucm responses to capture handling, sham control or vie marking method. adult males (n = 38) were captured and sampled for baseline ucm (t = 0 h) then marked either using the vie or sham (saline control), or only handled during capture. subsequently, urine samples were collected at t = 2, 12 and 24 h for toads within each group. ucm levels were quantified using an enzyme-immunoassay (eia) to determine differences among treatment groups and over time following capture. toads generated acute stress responses to all three groups, showing a change in ucms between baseline samples, 12 h, and 24 h samples. the mean ucm levels were not significantly different between the vie method and the control groups (capture handling or sham operated). these results indicate that vie method of tagging is no more stressful than routine handling of amphibians, hence in this context, the method does not have any additional welfare implications. future research should explore the limitations of vie tagging for long-term mark recapture studies, however, our current findings support its application as a minimally-invasive method for marking amphibians." -the incidence and prevalence of adult primary sjogren's syndrome in new york county,NA,ARTHRITIS CARE & RESEARCH,IZMIRLY PM;BUYON JP;WAN I;BELMONT HM;SAHL S;SALMON JE;ASKANASE A;BATHON JM;GERALDINO-PARDILLA L;ALI Y;GINZLER EM;PUTTERMAN C;GORDON C;HELMICK CG;PARTON H,"objective extant epidemiologic data of primary sjogren's syndrome (ss) remains limited, particularly for racial/ethnic populations in the us. the manhattan lupus surveillance program (mlsp) is a population-based retrospective registry of cases of systemic lupus erythematosus and related diseases, including primary ss in manhattan, new york. the mlsp was used to provide estimates of the incidence and prevalence of primary ss across major racial/ethnic populations. methods mlsp cases were identified from hospitals, rheumatologists, and population databases. three case definitions were used for primary ss, including physician diagnosis, rheumatologist diagnosis, and modified primary ss criteria. rates among manhattan residents were age-adjusted, and capture-recapture analyses were conducted to assess underascertainment of cases. results by physician diagnosis, age-adjusted overall incidence and prevalence rates of primary ss among adult manhattan residents were 3.5 and 13.1 per 100,000 person-years, respectively. capture-recapture adjustment increased incidence and prevalence rates (4.1 and 14.2 per 100,000 person-years, respectively). based on physician diagnosis, incidence and prevalence rates were approximately 6 times higher among women than men (p < 0.001). incidence of primary ss was statistically higher among non-latina asian women (10.5) and non-latina white women (6.2) compared with latina women (3.2). incidence was also higher among non-latina asian women compared with non-latina black women (3.3). prevalence of primary ss did not differ by race/ethnicity. similar trends were observed when more restrictive case definitions were applied. conclusion data from the mlsp revealed disparities among manhattan residents in primary ss incidence and prevalence by sex and differences in primary ss incidence by race/ethnicity among women. these data also provided epidemiologic estimates for the major racial/ethnic populations in the us." +urinary corticosterone metabolite responses to capture herpetological society and visual elastomer tagging in the asian toad (duttaphrynus melanostictus),amphibians; mark-recapture; welfare; stress; visual implant elastomer (vie),HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL,NARAYAN EJ;GRAMAPUROHIT NP,"herpetological research involving amphibians is increasingly using mark and recapture methods, employing various techniques such as toe-clipping and visible implant alphanumeric tags. visual implant elastomer (vie) is a new method available for herpetological surveys, involving a coloured dye inserted into the epidermal skin surface of frogs. previously, there has been only one study which demonstrated that the vie method does not generate a significant physiological stress response (using a faecal glucocorticoid method) in a captive amphibian species. physiological stress can also be quantified non-invasively using urinary corticosterone metabolite (ucm) enzyme-immunoassay in amphibians. in this study, we tested the physiological stress response of a common amphibian species, wild caught asian toads (duttaphrynus melanostictus), by comparing ucm responses to capture handling, sham control or vie marking method. adult males (n = 38) were captured and sampled for baseline ucm (t = 0 h) then marked either using the vie or sham (saline control), or only handled during capture. subsequently, urine samples were collected at t = 2, 12 and 24 h for toads within each group. ucm levels were quantified using an enzyme-immunoassay (eia) to determine differences among treatment groups and over time following capture. toads generated acute stress responses to all three groups, showing a change in ucms between baseline samples, 12 h, and 24 h samples. the mean ucm levels were not significantly different between the vie method and the control groups (capture handling or sham operated). these results indicate that vie method of tagging is no more stressful than routine handling of amphibians, hence in this context, the method does not have any additional welfare implications. future research should explore the limitations of vie tagging for long-term mark recapture studies, however, our current findings support its application as a minimally-invasive method for marking amphibians." +the incidence and prevalence of adult primary sjogren's syndrome in new york county,NA,ARTHRITIS CARE & RESEARCH,IZMIRLY PM;BUYON JP;WAN I;BELMONT HM;SAHL S;SALMON JE;ASKANASE A;BATHON JM;GERALDINO PARDILLA L;ALI Y;GINZLER EM;PUTTERMAN C;GORDON C;HELMICK CG;PARTON H,"objective extant epidemiologic data of primary sjogren's syndrome (ss) remains limited, particularly for racial/ethnic populations in the us. the manhattan lupus surveillance program (mlsp) is a population-based retrospective registry of cases of systemic lupus erythematosus and related diseases, including primary ss in manhattan, new york. the mlsp was used to provide estimates of the incidence and prevalence of primary ss across major racial/ethnic populations. methods mlsp cases were identified from hospitals, rheumatologists, and population databases. three case definitions were used for primary ss, including physician diagnosis, rheumatologist diagnosis, and modified primary ss criteria. rates among manhattan residents were age-adjusted, and capture-recapture analyses were conducted to assess underascertainment of cases. results by physician diagnosis, age-adjusted overall incidence and prevalence rates of primary ss among adult manhattan residents were 3.5 and 13.1 per 100,000 person-years, respectively. capture-recapture adjustment increased incidence and prevalence rates (4.1 and 14.2 per 100,000 person-years, respectively). based on physician diagnosis, incidence and prevalence rates were approximately 6 times higher among women than men (p < 0.001). incidence of primary ss was statistically higher among non-latina asian women (10.5) and non-latina white women (6.2) compared with latina women (3.2). incidence was also higher among non-latina asian women compared with non-latina black women (3.3). prevalence of primary ss did not differ by race/ethnicity. similar trends were observed when more restrictive case definitions were applied. conclusion data from the mlsp revealed disparities among manhattan residents in primary ss incidence and prevalence by sex and differences in primary ss incidence by race/ethnicity among women. these data also provided epidemiologic estimates for the major racial/ethnic populations in the us." "genetic determination of tag loss dynamics in nesting loggerhead turtles: a new chapter in ""the tag loss problem""",NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,PFALLER JB;WILLIAMS KL;FRICK MG;SHAMBLIN BM;NAIRN CJ;GIRONDOT M,"capture-mark-recapture studies that fail to account for the frequency and dynamics of marker loss risk generating biased demographic estimates. in this study, we used permanent multilocus genotypes (i.e., genetic tags) and a new enhanced tag loss model to quantify the tag loss dynamics for both passive integrated transponder (pit) and inconel metal tags applied to loggerhead turtles (caretta caretta) nesting on wassaw island, ga usa. our results indicate that tag loss is most likely to occur within the nesting season in which tags were applied and is maximal just after tagging (maximum likelihood estimates): 0.00098 pit tags day(-1) and 0.007 inconel tags day(-1). after that, pit tag loss was negligible and inconel tag loss remained low but constant at 0.00028 tags day(-1), such that after 5 years, the probability of losing one pit tag was 0.06 and losing at least one inconel tag was 0.46. the use of genetic tags in this study makes these the first truly accurate estimates of pit and inconel tag loss for marine turtles, and the new model of tag loss described herein represents an important advancement in the analytical methods used to estimate and compare tag loss dynamics." scale dependence of sex-specific movement in a small-bodied stream fish,fine scale; pit tags; sex-biased movement,FRESHWATER BIOLOGY,CLARK SR;KREISER BR;SCHAEFER JF;STEWART LK,"animal movement at localised scales is often modulated by competing pressures such as avoiding predators while acquiring resources and mates. the relative magnitude of these trade-offs may affect males and females differently, often resulting in sex-specific differences in movement. sex-biases in movement have been linked to mating systems (e.g. monogamy or polygamy) in birds and mammals; however, this relationship has received less attention among fishes. using passive integrated transponder tags and a series of stationary antennas, we evaluated the movement dynamics of a small-bodied, sexually dimorphic stream fish fundulus olivaceus over a 30-day period in a fourth-order tributary to the pascagoula river in mississippi (u.s.a.). we documented dissimilar sex-specific movement behaviours at different spatial scales that were likely to be facilitated by differential resource demands and competitive pressures. females exhibited an increased propensity to engage in longer, exploratory moves (>30 m); whereas most males remained active within an established territory, making few long-distance longitudinal movements. local activity levels (proportion of individuals moving) were positively related to density (manipulated during the study), and density was found to affect the magnitude of sex-specific movement. in contrast to females, males increased local activity and movement distance at the reduced density, presumably to expand territory size or mate-searching behaviours, suggesting local mate competition may suppress the movement distance of males. despite some evidence substantiating a relationship between movement and mating system, our results suggest that the documented sex-specific differences may be related to traits that co-evolve with mating systems, rather than the mating system per se. our findings also highlight the importance of spatial scale when evaluating patterns of sex-biased movement tendencies." -influence of salinity on relative density of american crocodiles (crocodylus acutus) in everglades national park: implications for restoration of everglades ecosystems,florida bay; spotlight surveys; detection probability; indicator species; estuaries,ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS,MAZZOTTI FJ;SMITH BJ;SQUIRES MA;CHERKISS MS;FARRIS SC;HACKETT C;HART KM;BRIGGS-GONZALEZ V;BRANDT LA,"the status of the american crocodile (crocodylus acutus) has long been a matter of concern in everglades national park (enp) due to its classification as a federal and state listed species, its recognition as a flagship species, and its function as an ecosystem indicator. survival and recovery of american crocodiles has been linked with regional hydrological conditions, especially freshwater flow to estuaries, which affect water levels and salinities. we hypothesize that efforts to restore natural function to everglades ecosystems by improving water delivery into estuaries within enp will change salinities and water levels which in turn will affect relative density of crocodiles. monitoring ecological responses of indicator species, such as crocodiles, with respect to hydrologic change is necessary to evaluate ecosystem responses to restoration projects. our objectives were to monitor trends in crocodile relative density within enp and to determine influences of salinity on relative density of crocodiles. we examined count data from 12 years of crocodile spotlight surveys in enp (2004-2015) and used a hierarchical model of relative density that estimated relative density with probability of detection. the mean predicted value for relative density (lambda) across all surveys was 2.9 individuals/km (95% ci: 2.0-4.2); relative density was estimated to decrease with increases in salinity. routes in enp's flamingo/cape sable area had greater crocodile relative density than routes in the west lake/cuthbert lake area and northeast florida bay areas. these results are consistent with the hypothesis that restored flow and lower salinities will result in an increase in crocodile population size and provide support for the ecosystem management recommendations for crocodiles, which currently are to restore more natural patterns of freshwater flow to florida bay. thus, monitoring relative density of american crocodiles will continue to be an effective indicator of ecological response to ecosystem restoration." +influence of salinity on relative density of american crocodiles (crocodylus acutus) in everglades national park: implications for restoration of everglades ecosystems,florida bay; spotlight surveys; detection probability; indicator species; estuaries,ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS,MAZZOTTI FJ;SMITH BJ;SQUIRES MA;CHERKISS MS;FARRIS SC;HACKETT C;HART KM;BRIGGS GONZALEZ V;BRANDT LA,"the status of the american crocodile (crocodylus acutus) has long been a matter of concern in everglades national park (enp) due to its classification as a federal and state listed species, its recognition as a flagship species, and its function as an ecosystem indicator. survival and recovery of american crocodiles has been linked with regional hydrological conditions, especially freshwater flow to estuaries, which affect water levels and salinities. we hypothesize that efforts to restore natural function to everglades ecosystems by improving water delivery into estuaries within enp will change salinities and water levels which in turn will affect relative density of crocodiles. monitoring ecological responses of indicator species, such as crocodiles, with respect to hydrologic change is necessary to evaluate ecosystem responses to restoration projects. our objectives were to monitor trends in crocodile relative density within enp and to determine influences of salinity on relative density of crocodiles. we examined count data from 12 years of crocodile spotlight surveys in enp (2004-2015) and used a hierarchical model of relative density that estimated relative density with probability of detection. the mean predicted value for relative density (lambda) across all surveys was 2.9 individuals/km (95% ci: 2.0-4.2); relative density was estimated to decrease with increases in salinity. routes in enp's flamingo/cape sable area had greater crocodile relative density than routes in the west lake/cuthbert lake area and northeast florida bay areas. these results are consistent with the hypothesis that restored flow and lower salinities will result in an increase in crocodile population size and provide support for the ecosystem management recommendations for crocodiles, which currently are to restore more natural patterns of freshwater flow to florida bay. thus, monitoring relative density of american crocodiles will continue to be an effective indicator of ecological response to ecosystem restoration." overcoming field monitoring restraints in estimating marine turtle internesting period by modelling individual nesting behaviour using capture-mark-recapture data,chelonia mydas; lepidochelys olivacea; internesting period; iteroparity; nesting abortion; eastern atlantic,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,HANCOCK J;VIEIRA S;LIMA H;SCHMITT V;PEREIRA J;REBELO R;GIRONDOT M,"marine turtles are intra-seasonal iteroparous animals; they nest from one to up to 14 times during the nesting season, laying up to 180 eggs each time. their annual reproductive effort can therefore be estimated from clutch size, nesting frequency, and length of the nesting season. moreover, the estimation of nesting frequency, usually obtained from the internesting period (i.e., the time in days between two nesting events) is essential for assessing the number of females in a population. however, the intemesting period is strongly influenced by variation in individual behaviour of the nesting female, including abortion of nesting attempts. it is also affected by imprecise detection of females during beach monitoring, often related with a lack of fidelity to the nesting beach. using an individual-focused model based on capture-mark-recapture data we were able to statistically characterize the nesting behaviour of the populations of green turtles (chelonia mydas) and olive ridley turtles (lepidochelys olivacea) in sao tome and principe (eastern atlantic). the developed model proposes a novel approach in estimating the internesting period, by including the different factors that lead to the heterogeneity observed in the duration of intemesting periods across a single season, corrected for the probability of a female aborting a nesting process. the calculated lengths of the intemesting periods for the two species are congruent with previous estimates, validating the model. furthermore, the inference of the rank of a nest for an individual female is predicted by the model with high accuracy, even when the recapture rate is low and the time between observations is long. a limitation of the model is its inability to estimate the true clutch frequency at the scale of the population but it was not its purpose." -unravelling the sex- and age-specific impact of poaching mortality with multievent modeling,capture-recapture; deer; gps; illegal hunt; multievent models; recovery; resighting,FRONTIERS IN ZOOLOGY,CORLATTI L;SANZ-AGUILAR A;TAVECCHIA G;GUGIATTI A;PEDROTTI L,"backgroundpoaching is a prominent source of hidden hurdles', cryptic impacts of human activities that may hinder the conservation of animal populations. estimating poaching mortality is challenging, as the evidence for illegal killing is not outwardly obvious. using resighting and recovery data collected on 141 marked red deer cervus elaphus within the stelvio national park (central italian alps), we show how multievent models allow to assess the direct impacts of illegal harvesting on age- and sex-specific survival, accounting for uncertainty over mortality causes.resultsmortality caused by poaching was consistently higher for males than for females in all age classes. in males, the probability of dying from poaching was higher for extreme age classes, while in females all age classes showed fairly similar values of poaching mortality. the strong bias in sex-specific poaching mortality was possibly due to trophy killing in adult males and bushmeat-like' killing for private or commercial gain in young males and in females.conclusionsa robust assessment of age- and sex-specific prevalence of poaching in wildlife populations is pivotal when illegal killing is of conservation concern. this provides timely information on what segment of the population is most likely to be affected. besides obvious demographic consequences on small populations, age- and sex-biased poaching prevalence may contrast with the need to maintain ecosystem complexity and may alter behavioral responses to human presence. the information provided by multievent models, whose flexibility makes them adaptable to many systems where individual-based data is part of population monitoring, offers a support to design appropriate strategies for the conservation of wildlife populations." +unravelling the sex- and age-specific impact of poaching mortality with multievent modeling,capture-recapture; deer; gps; illegal hunt; multievent models; recovery; resighting,FRONTIERS IN ZOOLOGY,CORLATTI L;SANZ AGUILAR A;TAVECCHIA G;GUGIATTI A;PEDROTTI L,"backgroundpoaching is a prominent source of hidden hurdles', cryptic impacts of human activities that may hinder the conservation of animal populations. estimating poaching mortality is challenging, as the evidence for illegal killing is not outwardly obvious. using resighting and recovery data collected on 141 marked red deer cervus elaphus within the stelvio national park (central italian alps), we show how multievent models allow to assess the direct impacts of illegal harvesting on age- and sex-specific survival, accounting for uncertainty over mortality causes.resultsmortality caused by poaching was consistently higher for males than for females in all age classes. in males, the probability of dying from poaching was higher for extreme age classes, while in females all age classes showed fairly similar values of poaching mortality. the strong bias in sex-specific poaching mortality was possibly due to trophy killing in adult males and bushmeat-like' killing for private or commercial gain in young males and in females.conclusionsa robust assessment of age- and sex-specific prevalence of poaching in wildlife populations is pivotal when illegal killing is of conservation concern. this provides timely information on what segment of the population is most likely to be affected. besides obvious demographic consequences on small populations, age- and sex-biased poaching prevalence may contrast with the need to maintain ecosystem complexity and may alter behavioral responses to human presence. the information provided by multievent models, whose flexibility makes them adaptable to many systems where individual-based data is part of population monitoring, offers a support to design appropriate strategies for the conservation of wildlife populations." reserve size and anthropogenic disturbance affect the density of an african leopard (panthera pardus) meta-population,NA,PLOS ONE,HAVMOLLER RW;TENAN S;SCHARFF N;ROVERO F,"determining correlates of density for large carnivores is important to understand their ecological requirements and develop conservation strategies. of several earlier density studies conducted globally, relatively few addressed a scale (usually >1000 km(2)) that allows inference on correlates of density over heterogeneous landscapes. we deployed 164 camera trap stations covering similar to 2500 km(2) across five areas characterized by broadly different vegetation cover in the udzungwa mountains, tanzania, to investigate correlates of density for a widespread and adaptable carnivore, the leopard (panthera pardus). we modelled data in a spatially explicit capture-recapture framework, with both biotic and abiotic covariates hypothesised to influence density. we found that leopard density increased with distance to protected area boundary (mean +/- se estimated effect = 0.44 +/- 0.20), a proxy for both protected area extent and distance from surrounding human settlements. we estimated mean density at 4.22 leopards/100 km(2) (85% ci = 3.33-5.35/100 km(2)), with no variation across habitat types. results indicate that protected area extent and anthropogenic disturbance limit leopard populations whereas no support was found for prey availability and trap array as drivers of leopard density. such vulnerability is relevant to the conservation of the leopard, which is generally considered more resilient to human disturbance than other large cats. our findings support the notion that protected areas are important to preserve viable population of leopards, increasingly so in times of unprecedented habitat fragmentation. protection of buffer zones smoothing the abrupt impact of human activities at reserve edges also appears of critical conservation relevance." towards a reliable assessment of asian elephant population parameters: the application of photographic spatial capture-recapture sampling in a priority floodplain ecosystem,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,GOSWAMI VR;YADAVA MK;VASUDEV D;PRASAD PK;SHARMA P;JATHANNA D,"the hitherto difficult task of reliably estimating populations of wide-ranging megafauna has been enabled by advances in capture-recapture methodology. here we combine photographic sampling with a bayesian spatially-explicit capture-recapture (scr) model to estimate population parameters for the endangered asian elephant elephas maximus in the productive floodplain ecosystem of kaziranga national park, india. posterior density estimates of herd-living adult females and sub-adult males and females (herd-adults) was 0.68 elephants/km(2) (95% credible intervals, crl = 0.56-0.81) while that of adult males was 0.24 elephants/km(2) (95% crl = 0.18-0.30), with posterior density estimates highlighting spatial heterogeneity in elephant distribution. estimates of the space-usage parameter suggested that herd-adults ((sigma) over cap (ha)= 5.91 km, 95% crl = 5.18-6.81) moved around considerably more than adult males ((sigma) over cap (am) = 3.64 km, 95% crl = 3.09-4.34). based on elephant movement and age-sex composition, we derived the population that contributed individuals sampled in kaziranga to be 908 herd-adults, 228 adult males and 610 young (density= 0.46 young/km(2), sd =0.06). our study demonstrates how scr is suited to estimating geographically open populations, characterising spatial heterogeneity in fine-scale density, and facilitating reliable monitoring to assess population status and dynamics for science and conservation." -a note on identifiability and maximum likelihood estimation for a heterogeneous capture-recapture model,capture-recapture; heterogeneity; identifiability; mixture model; population size,COMMUNICATIONS IN STATISTICS-THEORY AND METHODS,PEZZOTT GLM;SALASAR LEB;LEITE JG;LOUZADA-NETO F,"this article discusses identifiability and maximum likelihood estimation for a closed population capture-recapture model with heterogeneity in capture probabilities. the model assumes that the individual capture probabilities arise from a discrete distribution over the interval considering the complete likelihood, without applying any conditioning, we prove that identifiability holds under a restriction on the number of support points of the mixing distribution. under this identifiability assumption, we present a simple closed-form iterative algorithm for maximum likelihood estimation. interval estimation is carried by a bootstrap resampling procedure. the proposed methods are illustrated on a literature real data set and a simulation study is carried to assess the frequentist merits of different population size estimators." -validation of application superduplicates (as) enumeration tool for free-roaming dogs (frd) in urban settings of panchkula municipal corporation in north india,free-roaming dogs; application superduplicates; enumeration; rabies; dog-population; population-control,FRONTIERS IN VETERINARY SCIENCE,TIWARI HK;ROBERTSON ID;O'DEA M;GOGOI-TIWARI J;PANVALKAR P;BAJWA RS;VANAK AT,"a cost-effective estimation of the number of free-roaming dogs is an essential prerequisite for the control of rabies in countries where the disease is endemic, as vaccination of at least 70% of the population is recommended to effectively control the disease. although estimating the population size through sight-resight based maximum likelihood methodology generates an estimate closest to the actual size, it requires at least five survey efforts to achieve this. in a rural setting in india, a reliable estimate of at least 70% of the likely true population of free-roaming dogs was obtained with the application superduplicates shinyapp online tool using a photographic sight-resight technique through just two surveys. we tested the wider applicability of this method by validating its use in urban settings in india. sight-resight surveys of free-roaming dogs were conducted in 15 sectors of the panchkula municipal corporation in north india during september- october 2016. a total of 1,408 unique dogs were identified through 3,465 sightings on 14 survey tracks. the estimates obtained by the application superduplicates shinyapp online tool after two surveys were compared with the maximum likelihood estimates and it was found that the former, after two surveys, provided an estimate that was at least 70% of that obtained by the latter after 5-6 surveys. thus, the application superduplicates shinyapp online tool provides an efficient means for estimating the minimum number of free-roaming dogs to vaccinate with a considerably lower effort than the traditional mark-resight based methods. we recommend use of this tool for estimating the vaccination target of free-roaming dogs prior to undertaking mass vaccination efforts against rabies." +a note on identifiability and maximum likelihood estimation for a heterogeneous capture-recapture model,capture-recapture; heterogeneity; identifiability; mixture model; population size,COMMUNICATIONS IN STATISTICS-THEORY AND METHODS,PEZZOTT GLM;SALASAR LEB;LEITE JG;LOUZADA NETO F,"this article discusses identifiability and maximum likelihood estimation for a closed population capture-recapture model with heterogeneity in capture probabilities. the model assumes that the individual capture probabilities arise from a discrete distribution over the interval considering the complete likelihood, without applying any conditioning, we prove that identifiability holds under a restriction on the number of support points of the mixing distribution. under this identifiability assumption, we present a simple closed-form iterative algorithm for maximum likelihood estimation. interval estimation is carried by a bootstrap resampling procedure. the proposed methods are illustrated on a literature real data set and a simulation study is carried to assess the frequentist merits of different population size estimators." +validation of application superduplicates (as) enumeration tool for free-roaming dogs (frd) in urban settings of panchkula municipal corporation in north india,free-roaming dogs; application superduplicates; enumeration; rabies; dog-population; population-control,FRONTIERS IN VETERINARY SCIENCE,TIWARI HK;ROBERTSON ID;O DEA M;GOGOI TIWARI J;PANVALKAR P;BAJWA RS;VANAK AT,"a cost-effective estimation of the number of free-roaming dogs is an essential prerequisite for the control of rabies in countries where the disease is endemic, as vaccination of at least 70% of the population is recommended to effectively control the disease. although estimating the population size through sight-resight based maximum likelihood methodology generates an estimate closest to the actual size, it requires at least five survey efforts to achieve this. in a rural setting in india, a reliable estimate of at least 70% of the likely true population of free-roaming dogs was obtained with the application superduplicates shinyapp online tool using a photographic sight-resight technique through just two surveys. we tested the wider applicability of this method by validating its use in urban settings in india. sight-resight surveys of free-roaming dogs were conducted in 15 sectors of the panchkula municipal corporation in north india during september- october 2016. a total of 1,408 unique dogs were identified through 3,465 sightings on 14 survey tracks. the estimates obtained by the application superduplicates shinyapp online tool after two surveys were compared with the maximum likelihood estimates and it was found that the former, after two surveys, provided an estimate that was at least 70% of that obtained by the latter after 5-6 surveys. thus, the application superduplicates shinyapp online tool provides an efficient means for estimating the minimum number of free-roaming dogs to vaccinate with a considerably lower effort than the traditional mark-resight based methods. we recommend use of this tool for estimating the vaccination target of free-roaming dogs prior to undertaking mass vaccination efforts against rabies." transport infrastructure severely impacts amphibian dispersal regardless of life stage,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,CAYUELA H;BONNAIRE E;ASTRUC G;BESNARD A,"transport infrastructure such as roads has been reported to negatively affect dispersal. their effects on dispersal are thought to be complex, depending on the characteristics of the structure and the intensity of the traffic using it. in addition, individual factors, such as age, may strongly affect dispersal decisions and success when individuals are confronted with transport infrastructure. despite the importance of this topic for wildlife conservation, few studies have investigated the effect of transport infrastructure on individuals' dispersal decisions before and after sexual maturity. we examined the effects on two kinds of infrastructure, gravel tracks and paved roads, on the dispersal of an endangered amphibian, the yellow-bellied toad (bombina variegata). we used capture-recapture data collected during a five-year period on a large, spatially structured population of b. variegata. our study revealed that emigration rates increased with an individual's age, while dispersal distance decreased. it also showed that both tracks and roads had negative effects on immigration. the negative effect of roads was stronger than that of tracks. we additionally found that the effect of tracks on dispersal slightly decreased with a toad's age. in contrast, the negative effect of roads was severe and relatively similar across age classes." longitudinal study of amphibiocystidium sp. infection in a natural population of the italian stream frog (rana italica),amphibian decline; amphibiocystidium; emerging infectious disease; mark-recapture; mesomycetozoea; rana italica,PARASITOLOGY,FAGOTTI A;ROSSI R;CANESTRELLI D;LA PORTA G;PARACUCCHI R;LUCENTINI L;SIMONCELLI F;DI ROSA I,"mesomycetozoean-induced infections (order dermocystida, genus amphibiocystidium) in european and north american amphibians are causing alarm. to date, the pathogenicity of these parasites in field conditions has been poorly studied, and demographic consequences on amphibian populations have not been explored. in this study, an amphibiocystidium sp. infection is reported in a natural population of the italian stream frog (rana italica) of central italy, over a 7-year period from 2008 to 2014. light and electron microscope examinations, as well as partial 18s rdna sequence analysis were used to characterize the parasite. moreover, a capture-mark-recapture study was conducted to assess the frog demographics in response to infection. negative effects of amphibiocystidiosis on individual survival and population fitness were absent throughout the sampling period, despite the high estimates of disease prevalence. this might have been due to resistance and/or tolerance strategies developed by the frogs in response to the persistence of amphibiocystidium infection in this system. we hypothesized that in the examined r. italica population, amphibiocystidiosis is an ongoing endemic/epidemic infection. however, ecological and host-specific factors, interacting in a synergistic fashion, might be responsible for variations in the susceptibility to amphibiocystidium infection of both conspecific populations and heterospecific individuals of r. italica." estimating density and detection of bobcats in fragmented midwestern landscapes using spatial capture-recapture data from camera traps,bobcat; camera trap; density estimation; fragmentation; illinois; lynx rufus; spatial capture-recapture model; trap array,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,JACQUES CN;KLAVER RW;SWEARINGEN TC;DAVIS ED;ANDERSON CR;JENKS JA;DEPERNO CS;BLUETT RD,"camera-trapping data analyzed with spatially explicit capture-recapture (scr) models can provide a rigorous method for estimating density of small populations of elusive carnivore species. we sought to develop and evaluate the efficacy of scr models for estimating density of a presumed low-density bobcat (lynx rufus) population in fragmented landscapes of west-central illinois, usa. we analyzed camera-trapping data from 49 camera stations in a 1,458-km(2) area deployed over a 77-day period from 1 february to 18 april 2017. mean operational time of cameras was 52 days (range = 32-67 days). we captured 23 uniquely identifiable bobcats 113 times and recaptured these same individuals 90 times; 15 of 23 (65.2%) individuals were recaptured at >= 2 camera traps. total number of bobcat capture events was 139, of which 26 (18.7%) were discarded from analyses because of poor image quality or capture of only a part of an animal in photographs. of 113 capture events used in analyses, 106 (93.8%) and 7 (6.2%) were classified as positive and tentative identifications, respectively; agreement on tentative identifications of bobcats was high (71.4%) among 3 observers. we photographed bobcats at 36 of 49 (73.5%) camera stations, of which 34 stations were used in analyses. we estimated bobcat density at 1.40 individuals (range = 1.00-2.02)/100 km (2). our modeled bobcat density estimates are considerably below previously reported densities (30.5 individuals/100 km (2)) within the state, and among the lowest yet recorded for the species. nevertheless, use of remote cameras and scr models was a viable technique for reliably estimating bobcat density across west-central illinois. our research establishes ecological benchmarks for understanding potential effects of colonization, habitat fragmentation, and exploitation on future assessments of bobcat density using standardized methodologies that can be compared directly over time. further application of scr models that quantify specific costs of animal movements (i.e., least-cost path models) while accounting for landscape connectivity has great utility and relevance for conservation and management of bobcat populations across fragmented midwestern landscapes. (c) 2019 the wildlife society." -an evaluation of population indices for northern bobwhite,abundance; colinus virginianus; distance sampling; indices; mark-recapture; rolling plains; texas,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,KUBECKA BW;EDWARDS JT;LACOSTE LM;ROLLINS D;HERNANDEZ F;PEROTTO-BALDIVIESO HL,"northern bobwhite (colinus virginianus) populations are monitored using 2 general approaches-population indices and abundance estimators. due to their convenient sampling designs, indices are commonly used by land managers and researchers to predict or estimate hunting-season populations. we evaluated the efficacy of 4 bobwhite indices (spring cock [adult male] call-counts, autumn covey call-counts, roadside surveys, and helicopter surveys) to predict hunting-season population size by relating them to abundance estimators (minimum known population [no. unique trapped individuals each year], mark-recapture, helicopter-based distance sampling). data were collected at the rolling plains quail research ranch in fisher county, texas, usa, during 2009-2018. spring cock call-counts and autumn covey call-counts were analyzed at 2 spatial scales: ranch scale (1,781 ha) and point scale (i.e., within the presumed radius of audibility of listening points; 600 m or 113 ha). roadside and helicopter surveys were conducted at the ranch scale along 31- and 90-km transects, respectively. at the ranch scale, mean spring cock call-counts were a modest predictor of minimum known populations (r(2) = 0.54) and good predictor of mark-recapture estimates (r(2) = 0.80). at the point scale, the mean number of cocks heard was a poor predictor of densities surrounding points (r(2) = 0.0003) as estimated by distance sampling. the mean number of coveys heard during autumn counts was a significant predictor of both minimum known populations (r(2) = 0.88) and mark-recapture estimates (r(2) = 0.85) at the ranch scale but was a weak predictor of densities immediately surrounding listening points (r(2) = 0.22). helicopter surveys during november (individuals/km) were a significant predictor of minimum known populations (r(2) = 0.98) and mark-recapture (r(2) = 0.93). overall, roadside surveys (individuals/km) conducted during september was the best index for predicting minimum known populations (r(2) = 0.99) and mark-recapture estimates (r(2) = 0.97). our results suggest the linear relationship between indices and autumn-winter populations for bobwhite are stronger when conducted closer in time to hunting season and at larger scales. (c) 2019 the wildlife society." +an evaluation of population indices for northern bobwhite,abundance; colinus virginianus; distance sampling; indices; mark-recapture; rolling plains; texas,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,KUBECKA BW;EDWARDS JT;LACOSTE LM;ROLLINS D;HERNANDEZ F;PEROTTO BALDIVIESO HL,"northern bobwhite (colinus virginianus) populations are monitored using 2 general approaches-population indices and abundance estimators. due to their convenient sampling designs, indices are commonly used by land managers and researchers to predict or estimate hunting-season populations. we evaluated the efficacy of 4 bobwhite indices (spring cock [adult male] call-counts, autumn covey call-counts, roadside surveys, and helicopter surveys) to predict hunting-season population size by relating them to abundance estimators (minimum known population [no. unique trapped individuals each year], mark-recapture, helicopter-based distance sampling). data were collected at the rolling plains quail research ranch in fisher county, texas, usa, during 2009-2018. spring cock call-counts and autumn covey call-counts were analyzed at 2 spatial scales: ranch scale (1,781 ha) and point scale (i.e., within the presumed radius of audibility of listening points; 600 m or 113 ha). roadside and helicopter surveys were conducted at the ranch scale along 31- and 90-km transects, respectively. at the ranch scale, mean spring cock call-counts were a modest predictor of minimum known populations (r(2) = 0.54) and good predictor of mark-recapture estimates (r(2) = 0.80). at the point scale, the mean number of cocks heard was a poor predictor of densities surrounding points (r(2) = 0.0003) as estimated by distance sampling. the mean number of coveys heard during autumn counts was a significant predictor of both minimum known populations (r(2) = 0.88) and mark-recapture estimates (r(2) = 0.85) at the ranch scale but was a weak predictor of densities immediately surrounding listening points (r(2) = 0.22). helicopter surveys during november (individuals/km) were a significant predictor of minimum known populations (r(2) = 0.98) and mark-recapture (r(2) = 0.93). overall, roadside surveys (individuals/km) conducted during september was the best index for predicting minimum known populations (r(2) = 0.99) and mark-recapture estimates (r(2) = 0.97). our results suggest the linear relationship between indices and autumn-winter populations for bobwhite are stronger when conducted closer in time to hunting season and at larger scales. (c) 2019 the wildlife society." estimating the biodiversity of terrestrial invertebrates on a forested island using dna barcodes and metabarcoding data,28s; biodiversity estimation; coi; hauturu; leaf litter; little barrier island; new zealand; otus; soil,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,DOPHEIDE A;TOOMAN LK;GROSSER S;AGABITI B;RHODE B;XIE D;STEVENS MI;NELSON N;BUCKLEY TR;DRUMMOND AJ;NEWCOMB RD,"invertebrates are a major component of terrestrial ecosystems, however, estimating their biodiversity is challenging. we compiled an inventory of invertebrate biodiversity along an elevation gradient on the temperate forested island of hauturu, new zealand, by dna barcoding of specimens obtained from leaf litter samples and pitfall traps. we compared the barcodes and biodiversity estimates from this data set with those from a parallel dna metabarcoding analysis of soil from the same locations, and with pre-existing sequences in reference databases, before exploring the use of combined data sets as a basis for estimating total invertebrate biodiversity. we obtained 1,282 28s and 1,610 coi barcodes from a total of 1,947 invertebrate specimens, which were clustered into 247 (28s) and 366 (coi) otus, of which <= 10% were represented in genbank. coleoptera were most abundant (730 sequenced specimens), followed by hymenoptera, diptera, lepidoptera, and amphipoda. the most abundant otu from both the 28s (153 sequences) and coi (140 sequences) data sets was an undescribed beetle from the family salpingidae. based on the occurrences of coi otus along the elevation gradient, we estimated there are 1,000 arthropod species (excluding mites) on hauturu, including 770 insects, of which 344 are beetles. a dna metabarcoding analysis of soil dna from the same sites resulted in the identification of similar numbers of otus in most invertebrate groups compared with the dna barcoding, but less than 10% of the dna barcoding coi otus were also detected by the metabarcoding analysis of soil dna. a mark-recapture analysis based on the overlap between these data sets estimated the presence of approximately 6,800 arthropod species (excluding mites) on the island, including 3,900 insects. estimates of new zealand-wide biodiversity for selected arthropod groups based on matching of the coi dna barcodes with pre-existing reference sequences suggested over 13,200 insect species are present, including 4,000 coleoptera, 2,200 diptera, and 2,700 hymenoptera species, and 1,000 arachnid species (excluding mites). these results confirm that metabarcoding analyses of soil dna tends to recover different components of terrestrial invertebrate biodiversity compared to traditional invertebrate sampling, but the combined methods provide a novel basis for estimating invertebrate biodiversity." genetic tagging in the anthropocene: scaling ecology from alleles to ecosystems,demography; genomics; habitat loss; minimally invasive; noninvasive; population change; population ecology,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,LAMB CT;FORD AT;PROCTOR MF;ROYLE JA;MOWAT G;BOUTIN S,"the anthropocene is an era of marked human impact on the world. quantifying these impacts has become central to understanding the dynamics of coupled human-natural systems, resource-dependent livelihoods, and biodiversity conservation. ecologists are facing growing pressure to quantify the size, distribution, and trajectory of wild populations in a cost-effective and socially acceptable manner. genetic tagging, combined with modern computational and genetic analyses, is an under-utilized tool to meet this demand, especially for wide-ranging, elusive, sensitive, and low-density species. genetic tagging studies are now revealing unprecedented insight into the mechanisms that control the density, trajectory, connectivity, and patterns of human-wildlife interaction for populations over vast spatial extents. here, we outline the application of, and ecological inferences from, new analytical techniques applied to genetically tagged individuals, contrast this approach with conventional methods, and describe how genetic tagging can be better applied to address outstanding questions in ecology. we provide example analyses using a long-term genetic tagging dataset of grizzly bears in the canadian rockies. the genetic tagging toolbox is a powerful and overlooked ensemble that ecologists and conservation biologists can leverage to generate evidence and meet the challenges of the anthropocene." -increased population size of fish in a lowland river following restoration of structural habitat,citizen science; coarse woody habitat; golden perch; meta-population; murray cod; resnagging; scale; stream restoration,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,LYON JP;BIRD TJ;KEARNS J;NICOL S;TONKIN Z;TODD CR;O'MAHONY J;HACKETT G;RAYMOND S;LIESCHKE J;KITCHINGMAN A;BRADSHAW CJA,"most assessments of the effectiveness of river restoration are done at small spatial scales (<10 km) over short time frames (less than three years), potentially failing to capture large-scale mechanisms such as completion of life-history processes, changes to system productivity, or time lags of ecosystem responses. to test the hypothesis that populations of two species of large-bodied, piscivorous, native fishes would increase in response to large-scale structural habitat restoration (reintroduction of 4,450 pieces of coarse woody habitat into a 110-km reach of the murray river, southeastern australia), we collected annual catch, effort, length, and tagging data over seven years for murray cod (maccullochella peelii) and golden perch (macquaria ambigua) in a restored ""intervention"" reach and three neighboring ""control"" reaches. we supplemented mark-recapture data with telemetry and angler phone-in data to assess the potentially confounding influences of movement among sampled populations, heterogeneous detection rates, and population vital rates. we applied a bayesian hierarchical model to estimate changes in population parameters including immigration, emigration, and mortality rates. for murray cod, we observed a threefold increase in abundance in the population within the intervention reach, while populations declined or fluctuated within the control reaches. golden perch densities also increased twofold in the intervention reach. our results indicate that restoring habitat heterogeneity by adding coarse woody habitats can increase the abundance of fish at a population scale in a large, lowland river. successful restoration of poor-quality ""sink"" habitats for target species relies on connectivity with high-quality ""source"" habitats. we recommend that the analysis of restoration success across appropriately large spatial and temporal scales can help identify mechanisms and success rates of other restoration strategies such as restoring fish passage or delivering water for environmental outcomes." +increased population size of fish in a lowland river following restoration of structural habitat,citizen science; coarse woody habitat; golden perch; meta-population; murray cod; resnagging; scale; stream restoration,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,LYON JP;BIRD TJ;KEARNS J;NICOL S;TONKIN Z;TODD CR;O MAHONY J;HACKETT G;RAYMOND S;LIESCHKE J;KITCHINGMAN A;BRADSHAW CJA,"most assessments of the effectiveness of river restoration are done at small spatial scales (<10 km) over short time frames (less than three years), potentially failing to capture large-scale mechanisms such as completion of life-history processes, changes to system productivity, or time lags of ecosystem responses. to test the hypothesis that populations of two species of large-bodied, piscivorous, native fishes would increase in response to large-scale structural habitat restoration (reintroduction of 4,450 pieces of coarse woody habitat into a 110-km reach of the murray river, southeastern australia), we collected annual catch, effort, length, and tagging data over seven years for murray cod (maccullochella peelii) and golden perch (macquaria ambigua) in a restored ""intervention"" reach and three neighboring ""control"" reaches. we supplemented mark-recapture data with telemetry and angler phone-in data to assess the potentially confounding influences of movement among sampled populations, heterogeneous detection rates, and population vital rates. we applied a bayesian hierarchical model to estimate changes in population parameters including immigration, emigration, and mortality rates. for murray cod, we observed a threefold increase in abundance in the population within the intervention reach, while populations declined or fluctuated within the control reaches. golden perch densities also increased twofold in the intervention reach. our results indicate that restoring habitat heterogeneity by adding coarse woody habitats can increase the abundance of fish at a population scale in a large, lowland river. successful restoration of poor-quality ""sink"" habitats for target species relies on connectivity with high-quality ""source"" habitats. we recommend that the analysis of restoration success across appropriately large spatial and temporal scales can help identify mechanisms and success rates of other restoration strategies such as restoring fish passage or delivering water for environmental outcomes." integrated population models: powerful methods to embed individual processes in population dynamics models,data integration for population models special feature; density-dependence; eco-evolutionary feedback; heterogeneity; individual quality; integral projection model; integrated population model; population model; structured population,ECOLOGY,PLARD F;FAY R;KERY M;COHAS A;SCHAUB M,"population dynamics models have long assumed that populations are composed of a restricted number of groups, where individuals in each group have identical demographic rates and where all groups are similarly affected by density-dependent and -independent effects. however, individuals usually vary tremendously in performance and in their sensitivity to environmental conditions or resource limitation, such that individual contributions to population growth will be highly variable. recent efforts to integrate individual processes in population models open up new opportunities for the study of eco-evolutionary processes, such as the density-dependent influence of environmental conditions on the evolution of morphological, behavioral, and life-history traits. we review recent advances that demonstrate how including individual mechanisms in models of population dynamics contributes to a better understanding of the drivers of population dynamics within the framework of integrated population models (ipms). ipms allow for the integration in a single inferential framework of different data types as well as variable population structure including sex, social group, or territory, all of which can be formulated to include individual-level processes. through a series of examples, we first show how ipms can be beneficial for getting more accurate estimates of demographic traits than classic matrix population models by including basic population structure and their influence on population dynamics. second, the integration of individual- and population-level data allows estimating density-dependent effects along with their inherent uncertainty by directly using the population structure and size to feedback on demography. third, we show how ipms can be used to study the influence of the dynamics of continuous individual traits and individual quality on population dynamics. we conclude by discussing the benefits and limitations of ipms for integrating data at different spatial, temporal, and organismal levels to build more mechanistic models of population dynamics." -unexpected spatial population ecology of a widespread terrestrial salamander near its southern range edge,detection probability; density; home range; plethodon cinereus; red-backed salamander; spatial capture-recapture,ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE,HERNANDEZ-PACHECO R;SUTHERLAND C;THOMPSON LM;GRAYSON KL,"under the current amphibian biodiversity crisis, common species provide an opportunity to measure population dynamics across a wide range of environmental conditions while examining the processes that determine abundance and structure geographical ranges. studying species at their range limits also provides a window for understanding the dynamics expected in future environments under increasing climate change and human modification. we quantified patterns of seasonal activity, density and space rise in the eastern red-backed salamander (plethodon cinereus) near its southern range edge and compare the spatial ecology of this population to previous findings from the core of their range. this southern population shows the expected phenology of surface activity based on temperature limitations in warmer climates, yet maintains unexpectedly high densities and large home ranges during the active season. our study suggests that ecological factors known to strongly affect amphibian populations (e.g. warm temperature and forest fragmentation) do not necessarily constrain this southern population. our study highlights the utility of studying a common amphibian as a model system for investigating population processes in environments under strong selective pressure." +unexpected spatial population ecology of a widespread terrestrial salamander near its southern range edge,detection probability; density; home range; plethodon cinereus; red-backed salamander; spatial capture-recapture,ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE,HERNANDEZ PACHECO R;SUTHERLAND C;THOMPSON LM;GRAYSON KL,"under the current amphibian biodiversity crisis, common species provide an opportunity to measure population dynamics across a wide range of environmental conditions while examining the processes that determine abundance and structure geographical ranges. studying species at their range limits also provides a window for understanding the dynamics expected in future environments under increasing climate change and human modification. we quantified patterns of seasonal activity, density and space rise in the eastern red-backed salamander (plethodon cinereus) near its southern range edge and compare the spatial ecology of this population to previous findings from the core of their range. this southern population shows the expected phenology of surface activity based on temperature limitations in warmer climates, yet maintains unexpectedly high densities and large home ranges during the active season. our study suggests that ecological factors known to strongly affect amphibian populations (e.g. warm temperature and forest fragmentation) do not necessarily constrain this southern population. our study highlights the utility of studying a common amphibian as a model system for investigating population processes in environments under strong selective pressure." under-reporting of diagnosed tuberculosis to the national surveillance system in china: an inventory study in nine counties in 2015,NA,BMJ OPEN,LI T;SHEWADE HD;SOE KT;RAINEY JJ;ZHANG H;DU X;WANG LX,"objective the who estimates that almost 40% of patients diagnosed with tuberculosis (tb) are not reported. we implemented this study to assess tb under-reporting and delayed treatment registration in nine counties in china. design a retrospective inventory study (record review). setting counties were selected using purposive sampling from nine provinces distributed across eastern, central and western regions of china in 2015. primary and secondary outcome measures underreporting was calculated as the percentage of patients with tb not reported to tb information management system (tbims) within 6 months of diagnosis. delayed registration was estimated as the percentage of reported cases initiating treatment 7 or more days after diagnosis. multivariable logistic regression and an alpha level of 0.05 were used to examine factors associated with these outcomes. results of the 5606 patients with tb identified from project health facilities and social insurance systems, 1082 (19.3%) were not reported to tbims. of the 4524 patients successfully reported, 1416 (31.3%) were not registered for treatment within 7 days of diagnosis. children, tb pleurisy, patients diagnosed in the eastern and central regions and patients with a tb diagnosis recorded in either health facilities or social insurance system-but not both-were statistically more likely to be unreported. delayed treatment registration was more likely for previously treated patients with tb, patients with negative or unknown sputum results and for patients diagnosed in the eastern region. conclusion almost one in every five patients diagnosed with tb in this study was unknown to local or national tb control programmes. we recommend strengthening tb data management practices, particularly in the eastern and central regions, and developing specific guidelines for reporting paediatric tb and tb pleurisy. patient education and follow-up by diagnosing facilities could improve timely treatment registration. additional studies are needed to assess under-reporting elsewhere in china." "precarious employment, business performance and occupational injuries: a study protocol of a register-based swedish project",NA,BMJ OPEN,ORELLANA C;KRESHPAJ B;JOHANSSON G;BURSTROM B;KJELLBERG K;HEMMINGSSON T;AXEN M;DAVIS L;WEGMAN D;BODIN T,"introduction there is uncertainty regarding the trends in occupational injuries (ois) in sweden due to a significant and increasing problem with under-reporting to injury registers. under-reporting, in general, is likely to be exacerbated by the rise in precarious employment (pe), a set of unfavourable employment characteristics that would benefit from formal definition and study. pe and global trends are believed also to affect companies and their commitment to health and safety. the present study attempts to bridge these knowledge gaps and presents a study protocol for planned studies, with three main objectives: first, to review the literature for definitions of pe emphasising those that are multidimensional and operationalise components in routinely collected register data; second, to estimate the under-reporting of oi in swedish registers and third, using results from the first objective, to conduct large, register-based prospective studies, designed to measure effect sizes and interactions between pe, business performance and oi. methods and analysis first, a scientific literature review will be conducted, including scientific databases and grey literature. second, data from two major oi registers will be used to estimate the magnitude of under-reporting using capture-recapture methodology. finally, all residents aged 18-65 in sweden with any registered income during 2003-2015 will be included. data sources encompass swedish population and labour market registers with linkage to both the main oi register with national coverage and hospital records. trends in pe and oi will be explored, together with risk of oi associated with pe and business performance. ethics and dissemination the project has been approved by the regional ethics committee, stockholm (dnr: 2016/2325-31; 2017/2173-32). dissemination of study results will include a series of peer-reviewed papers, at least one phd thesis and one report in swedish, engaging relevant stakeholders. results will be presented in national and international conferences and through press releases to mass media." "accounting for heterogeneity when estimating stopover duration, timing and population size of red knots along the luannan coast of bohai bay, china",heterogeneity; jolly-seber; mark-recapture; migration; population size; red knot; state-space model; stopover duration,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,LOK T;HASSELL CJ;PIERSMA T;PRADEL R;GIMENEZ O,"to successfully perform their long-distance migrations, migratory birds require sites along their migratory routes to rest and refuel. monitoring the use of so-called stopover and staging sites provides insights into (a) the timing of migration and (b) the importance of a site for migratory bird populations. a recently developed bayesian superpopulation model that integrates mark-recapture data and ring density data enabled the estimation of stopover timing, duration, and population size. yet, this model did not account for heterogeneity in encounter (p) and staying (phi) probabilities. here we extended the integrated superpopulation model by implementing finite mixtures to account for heterogeneity in p and phi. we used simulations and real data (from 2009-2016) on red knots calidris canutus, mostly of the subspecies piersmai, staging in bohai bay, china, during spring migration to (a) show the importance of accounting for heterogeneity in encounter and staying probabilities to get unbiased estimates of stopover timing, duration, and numbers of migratory birds at staging sites and (b) get accurate stopover parameter estimates for a migratory bird species at a key staging site that is threatened by habitat destruction. our simulations confirmed that heterogeneity in p affected stopover parameter estimates more than heterogeneity in phi, especially when most birds had low p. bias was particularly severe when most birds had both low phi and p. bias was largest for population size, intermediate for stopover duration and negligible for stopover timing. a total of 50,000-100,000 red knots were estimated to annually stop for 5-9 days in bohai bay between 10 and 30 may. this shows the key importance of this staging site for this declining species. there were no clear changes in stopover parameters over time, although stopover population size was substantially lower in 2016 than in preceding years. our study shows the importance of accounting for heterogeneity in both encounter and staying probabilities for accurately estimating stopover duration and population size and provides an appropriate modeling framework." @@ -51,16 +51,16 @@ jointly estimating survival and mortality: integrating recapture and recovery da survival estimates of bird species across altered habitats in the tropical andes,anthropogenic disturbance; demography; ecuador; montane forest; secondary forest,JOURNAL OF FIELD ORNITHOLOGY,TINOCO BA;GRAHAM L;ASTUDILLO PX;NIETO A;AGUILAR JM;LATTA SC;GRAHAM CH,"the probability of long-term persistence of a population is strongly determined by adult survival rates, but estimates of survival are currently lacking for most species of birds in the tropical andes, a global biodiversity hotspot. we calculated apparent survival rates of birds in the ecuadorian tropical andes using a moderately long-term (11 yr) capture-recapture dataset from three habitats that varied in how much they had been modified by human activities (native forest, introduced forest, and shrubs). we fit mark-recapture models for 28 species with habitat as a covariable. for all species, recapture rates between sampling sessions were low and varied from 0.04 for rainbow starfrontlets (coeligena iris) to 0.41 for stripe-headed brushfinches (arremon assimilis) when averaged across all occupied habitats. annual survival rates varied from 0.07 for black-crested warblers (margarornis squamiger) to 0.75 for violet-throated metaltails (metallura baroni). we found no significant differences in survival rates either among habitats or species grouped by habitat specialization. because we found similar survival rates in native forest and human-modified habitats, our results support those of recent studies concerning the potential value of secondary habitats for the conservation of some species of birds in the tropics. however, our conclusions are tempered by the uncertainty around the estimates of survival rates. despite the relatively long-term nature of our study, obtaining survival estimates for bird species in this region was challenging, and either more years of study or modification of field protocols may be needed to obtain more precise survival estimates." "apparent survival of tropical birds in a wet, premontane forest in costa rica",abiotic effects; capture-mark-recapture; central america; climate; montane; precipitation,JOURNAL OF FIELD ORNITHOLOGY,SHOGREN EH;JONES MA;SANDERCOCK BK;BOYLE WA,"despite the importance of tropical birds in the development of life history theory, we lack information about demographic rates and drivers of population dynamics for most species. we used a 7-year (2007-2013) capture-mark-recapture dataset from an exceptionally wet premontane forest at mid-elevation in costa rica to estimate apparent survival for seven species of tropical passerines. for four of these species, we provide the first published demographic parameters. recapture probabilities ranged from 0.21 to 0.53, and annual estimates of apparent survival varied from 0.23 to 1.00. we also assessed the consequences of inter-annual variation in rainfall on demographic rates. our results are consistent with inter-annual rainfall increasing estimates of apparent survival for two species and decreasing estimates for three species. for the three species where we could compare our estimates of apparent survival to estimates from drier regions, our estimates were not consistently higher or lower than those published previously. the temporal and spatial variability in demographic rates we document within and among species highlights the difficulties of generalizing life history characteristics across broad biogeographic gradients. most importantly, this work emphasizes the context-specific role of precipitation in shaping tropical avian demographic rates and underscores the need for mechanistic studies of environmental drivers of tropical life histories." efficient sequential monte carlo algorithms for integrated population models,bayesian inference; capture-recapture; integrated population models; model comparison; sequential monte carlo; state-space models,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,FINKE A;KING R;BESKOS A;DELLAPORTAS P,"in statistical ecology, state-space models are commonly used to represent the biological mechanisms by which population counts-often subdivided according to characteristics such as age group, gender or breeding status-evolve over time. as the counts are only noisily or partially observed, they are typically not sufficiently informative about demographic parameters of interest and must be combined with additional ecological observations within an integrated data analysis. fitting integrated models can be challenging, especially if the constituent state-space model is nonlinear/non-gaussian. we first propose an efficient particle markov chain monte carlo algorithm to estimate demographic parameters without a need for linear or gaussian approximations. we then incorporate this algorithm into a sequential monte carlo sampler to perform model comparison. we also exploit the integrated model structure to enhance the efficiency of both algorithms. the methods are demonstrated on two real data sets: little owls and grey herons. for the owls, we find that the data do not support an ecological hypothesis found in the literature. for the herons, our methodology highlights the limitations of existing models which we address through a novel regime-switching model. supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear online." -demography and territorial behaviour of three species of the genus hetaerina along three tropical stream ecosystems (odonata: calopterygidae),dragonfly; damselfly; zygoptera; mark-recapture; neotropics; ecuador,ODONATOLOGICA,GABELA-FLORES MV;SANMARTIN-VILLAR I;RIVAS-TORRES A;ENCALADA AC;CORDERO-RIVERA A,"we studied the demography and territorial behaviour of three species of the dam-selfly genus hetaerina, h. aurora, h. caja and h. fuscoguttata, along three lowland streams in western ecuador: tabuga, buenaventura and moromoro. we measured recapture rates of marked individuals and estimated survival, longevity, sex ratio and population size of the most abundant species at each location. we found male-biased sex ratios in two out of three populations and high recapture rates of h. fuscoguttata on the tabuga river and h. aurora at the moromoro stream. we recorded male territorial behaviour and reproductive behaviour of the three hetaerina species by direct observation. at all study sites we recorded few reproductive events. conversely, we registered a high number of male-male agonistic interactions confirming that all species behaved in a territorial manner. we identified three clear behavioural strategies in males: territoriality, site fidelity and non-territoriality. however, we found no phenotypic correlates of males' strategies." +demography and territorial behaviour of three species of the genus hetaerina along three tropical stream ecosystems (odonata: calopterygidae),dragonfly; damselfly; zygoptera; mark-recapture; neotropics; ecuador,ODONATOLOGICA,GABELA FLORES MV;SANMARTIN VILLAR I;RIVAS TORRES A;ENCALADA AC;CORDERO RIVERA A,"we studied the demography and territorial behaviour of three species of the dam-selfly genus hetaerina, h. aurora, h. caja and h. fuscoguttata, along three lowland streams in western ecuador: tabuga, buenaventura and moromoro. we measured recapture rates of marked individuals and estimated survival, longevity, sex ratio and population size of the most abundant species at each location. we found male-biased sex ratios in two out of three populations and high recapture rates of h. fuscoguttata on the tabuga river and h. aurora at the moromoro stream. we recorded male territorial behaviour and reproductive behaviour of the three hetaerina species by direct observation. at all study sites we recorded few reproductive events. conversely, we registered a high number of male-male agonistic interactions confirming that all species behaved in a territorial manner. we identified three clear behavioural strategies in males: territoriality, site fidelity and non-territoriality. however, we found no phenotypic correlates of males' strategies." acoustic telemetry as a potential tool for mixed-stock analysis of fishery harvest: a feasibility study using lake erie walleye,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,FAUST MD;VANDERGOOT CS;BRENDEN TO;KRAUS RT;HARTMAN T;KRUEGER CC,"understanding stock composition is critical for sustainable management of mixed-stock fisheries. when natural markers routinely used for stock discrimination fail, alternative techniques are required. we investigated the feasibility of using acoustic telemetry to estimate spawning population contributions to a mixed-stock fishery using lake erie's summer walleye (sander vitreus) recreational fishery as a case study. postrelease survival was estimated after tagging and used to inform simulations to evaluate how contribution estimates could be affected by survival, sample size, and expected population contributions. walleye experienced low short-term survival after tagging, but showed higher survival after 100 days, likely allowing fish to return to spawning areas the following spring. based on simulations, accuracy and precision of population composition increased with an increase in the number of tagged fish released, and both appeared to stabilize when >= 200 tagged fish were released. results supported the feasibility of using acoustic telemetry to estimate spawning population contributions to mixed-stock fisheries in lake erie." "investigating perceptual biases, data reliability, and data discovery in a methodology for collecting speech errors from audio recordings",speech errors; methodology; perceptual bias; data reliability; capture-recapture; phonetics of speech errors,LANGUAGE AND SPEECH,ALDERETE J;DAVIES M,"this work describes a methodology of collecting speech errors from audio recordings and investigates how some of its assumptions affect data quality and composition. speech errors of all types (sound, lexical, syntactic, etc.) were collected by eight data collectors from audio recordings of unscripted english speech. analysis of these errors showed that: (i) different listeners find different errors in the same audio recordings, but (ii) the frequencies of error patterns are similar across listeners; (iii) errors collected ""online"" using on the spot observational techniques are more likely to be affected by perceptual biases than ""offline"" errors collected from audio recordings; and (iv) datasets built from audio recordings can be explored and extended in a number of ways that traditional corpus studies cannot be." -more than 5years! an unusually long-lived dung beetle (scarabaeinae) in an andean agricultural landscape,adult longevity; dichotomius; andean cloud forest; mark-recapture; sun-grown coffee,NEOTROPICAL ENTOMOLOGY,CULTID-MEDINA CA;MARTINEZ-QUINTERO B,"despite their importance as ecological indicators of anthropic perturbation, most of our knowledge about neotropical dung beetles (coleoptera: scarabaeinae) is derived from studies conducted at the community level. to date, at a global scale, there is still incipient knowledge about the population ecology of the scarabeinae species. the study of these insects at the population level offers new data pertaining to demographic aspects such as population size and adult longevity in the field. on the 6th of august 2017, within a patch of a cloud forest in the municipality of la celia in risaralda, colombia, we recaptured a male specimen of dichotomius aff. alyattes harold that was marked 5years ago, on the 15th of may 2012. the individual was marked with a number 8 on its right elytron and it was recaptured in the same patch forest, which has been sampled since 2008. after an exhaustive review of the field information and literature, this data represents the longest recorded longevity known for scarabaeinae. beyond being a fortuitous event, this recapture prompts a review of our ideas regarding the reproductive biology and vulnerability of dung beetle species in landscapes of high anthropic demand, with an emphasis on neotropical species." +more than 5years! an unusually long-lived dung beetle (scarabaeinae) in an andean agricultural landscape,adult longevity; dichotomius; andean cloud forest; mark-recapture; sun-grown coffee,NEOTROPICAL ENTOMOLOGY,CULTID MEDINA CA;MARTINEZ QUINTERO B,"despite their importance as ecological indicators of anthropic perturbation, most of our knowledge about neotropical dung beetles (coleoptera: scarabaeinae) is derived from studies conducted at the community level. to date, at a global scale, there is still incipient knowledge about the population ecology of the scarabeinae species. the study of these insects at the population level offers new data pertaining to demographic aspects such as population size and adult longevity in the field. on the 6th of august 2017, within a patch of a cloud forest in the municipality of la celia in risaralda, colombia, we recaptured a male specimen of dichotomius aff. alyattes harold that was marked 5years ago, on the 15th of may 2012. the individual was marked with a number 8 on its right elytron and it was recaptured in the same patch forest, which has been sampled since 2008. after an exhaustive review of the field information and literature, this data represents the longest recorded longevity known for scarabaeinae. beyond being a fortuitous event, this recapture prompts a review of our ideas regarding the reproductive biology and vulnerability of dung beetle species in landscapes of high anthropic demand, with an emphasis on neotropical species." inferring animal social networks with imperfect detection,bayesian inference; capture-recapture; multistate models; social networks,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,GIMENEZ O;MANSILLA L;KLAICH MJ;COSCARELLA MA;PEDRAZA SN;CRESPO EA,"social network analysis provides a powerful tool for understanding social organisation of animals. however, in free-ranging populations, it is almost impossible to monitor exhaustively the individuals of a population and to track their associations. ignoring the issue of imperfect and possibly heterogeneous individual detection can lead to substantial bias in standard network measures. here, we develop capture-recapture models to analyse network data while accounting for imperfect and heterogeneous detection. we carry out a simulation study to validate our approach. in addition, we show how the visualisation of networks and the calculation of standard metrics can account for detection probabilities. the method is illustrated with data from a population of commerson's dolphin (cephalorhynchus commersonii) in patagonia argentina. our approach provides a step towards a general statistical framework for the analysis of social networks of wild animal populations." white-footed mouse (peromyscus leucopus) habitat selection and amur honeysuckle (lonicera maackii) canopy use in an urban forest,peromyscus; lonicera; honeysuckle; arboreal; invasive species; parks; foraging behavior; log-linear,URBAN ECOSYSTEMS,PERSONS WE;EASON PK,"urban parks undergo significant changes in their community composition and habitat structure as a result of anthropogenic land-use changes. amur honeysuckle (lonicera maackii) dominates invaded urban parks and changes the vegetative community. this study examines the impact of l. maackii on white-footed mouse (peromyscus leucopus) foraging behavior and habitat selection. detailed vegetative and structural surveys allowed for analysis of habitat use. a capture-mark-recapture study was conducted in both the terrestrial and arboreal environment. we found that p. leucopus increased preference for the honeysuckle canopy when berries and leaves were present, but the primary habitat component selected for was coarse woody debris (cwd). peromyscus leucopus appeared to avoid areas heavily trafficked by people, regardless of habitat. we demonstrated that urban p. leucopus could adjust to the presence of a dominant invasive plant, but still appeared to retain a threshold tolerance for human presence. the arboreal behavior of p. leucopus suggests l. maackii can provide desirable habitat and has practical implications for nesting birds through egg predation. strong avoidance of human paths by p. leucopus has practical implications for lyme disease transmission." estimating density of an elusive carnivore in urban areas: use of spatially explicit capture-recapture models for city-dwelling bobcats,camera trap; carnivore ecology; lynx rufus; population estimate; secr model,URBAN ECOSYSTEMS,YOUNG JK;GOLLA JM;BROMAN D;BLANKENSHIP T;HEILBRUN R,"an important first step in managing urban carnivores or the habitat in which they live to reduce risk of conflicts with humans is to understand their basic ecology and population dynamics. traditional density estimators may be inappropriate in urban areas because of extensive areas of impermeable development but new techniques that include spatial structure could be useful within large urban metropolitan areas. yet to date, these techniques have largely remained untested. we evaluated whether spatially explicit capture-recapture models (secr) could provide a reliable density estimate of bobcats (lynx rufus) in the dallas fort-worth metroplex, texas, usa. we obtained 1003 photographs of bobcats in an urbanized landscape from june-november 2014, using 41 double camera stations spaced approximately 1.05km apart. we individually identified bobcats from their distinct pelage patterns and used secr to predict density throughout the study area. the overall density was at least one bobcat per km(2), which calculated to approximately 43 independent-aged bobcats across the entire camera grid, an estimate higher than documented bobcat densities in both rural and peri-urban studies in texas. our study revealed a high density of bobcats in an urban landscape despite most assumptions that bobcats require large areas of habitat and are sensitive to fragmentation." "upstream migration and altitudinal distribution patterns of nereina punctulata (gastropoda: neritidae) in dominica, west indies",amphidromy; citizen science; dominica; gastropod; neritidae; upstream migration,AQUATIC ECOLOGY,VILLENEUVE AR;THORNHILL I;EALES J,"the snail nereina punctulata has been observed performing amphidromous migrations (salt to freshwater migration, post-larval settlement) in the caribbean, with small- and medium-sized snails achieving maximum fitness at the mid- and high altitudes, but they may be restricted by energy stores. large snails show no difference in fitness across altitude, but their previous migration history dictates their high-altitude placement in watersheds. the factors determining the rate of migration have not yet been studied. in this study, we sought to understand how migration rate changes with shell size and altitude. we used mark-recapture to track individual snails across seven sites of varying altitude in a single watershed on dominica and measured the shell length of randomly collected snails at sites. volunteers were assisted with data collection in both cases. shell length was positively correlated with distance from river mouth, although smaller snails were more frequently found at high altitude, high flow sites. snails closer to the river mouth had faster upstream migration rates than those at mid-altitude. while we found large snails at higher altitude sites, there was no significant relationship between migration rate and shell size. our findings suggest that large snails do not migrate at maximal rates allowed by energy stores. we also observed erosion of the outer shell periostracum and calcium carbonate underneath, which was seen significantly more often on larger shells. we hypothesise that this erosion is a product of exposure of the structural calcium carbonate to low alkalinity in dominican streams, following an initial chipping of the periostracum." evidence for the effectiveness of controlling muskrat (ondatra zibethicus l.) populations by trapping,capture-mark-recapture; invasive alien species (ias); pest species; population dynamics; trapping,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,BOS D;KENTIE R;LA HAYE M;YDENBERG RC,"unambiguous evidence for the effectiveness of muskrat (ondatra zibethicus l.) control in well-established populations in mainland europe is lacking. yet, this evidence is important given ongoing public challenges to the need for muskrat control and the expressed political aim of the european union to eradicate invasive alien species, including the muskrat. in this study, indices of muskrat abundance based on livetrapping were compared among (i) sites at which muskrat control had been suspended for 3years (suspended trapping), (ii) sites with ongoing control by kill trapping (ongoing trapping) and (iii) a site at which control efforts had ceased more than 8years previously (no trapping). in the no trapping site, the muskrat abundance index was variable but consistently high, while in the ongoing trapping sites, the muskrat abundance index was consistently low. in the suspended trapping sites, the index of muskrat abundance increased from a level near that of the ongoing trapping sites to that of the no trapping sites. the findings are corroborated by population estimates based on data from robust design mark-recapture models and data from kill trapping. the results are interpreted as compelling proof for an effect of control on muskrat numbers, a basic premise of the control programme." -comparing the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of sampling methods for estimating population abundance and density of a recovering carnivore: the european pine marten (martes martes),(4-6): pine marten; population abundance; population density; non-invasive; trapping,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,CROOSE E;BIRKS JDS;MARTIN J;VENTRESS G;MACPHERSON J;O'REILLY C,"many methods are available to gather data on wildlife population parameters, such as population abundance and density, yet few have been compared or validated. we compared the efficacy of three survey methods (live trapping, hair tubes and scats) for estimating abundance and population density of the european pine marten (martes martes) in galloway forest, scotland. we evaluated these methods by, firstly, comparing the accuracy of the population estimate derived from each method, and, secondly, comparing the financial cost of each method. molecular analysis of samples from all three methods was used to determine sex and individual genotype. population abundance estimates were derived from capture-recapture programme capwire. the non-invasive methods (hair tubes and scats combined) detected 81% of known individuals, although hair tubes and scats performed poorly alone, detecting 48% and 52% of individuals, respectively. live trapping was the individual method that detected the most individuals (77%). hair tubes were the most expensive method, both in financial cost and personnel hours, whilst scat sampling was the cheapest method. there was a highly significant association between the sex of the animal and the total number of detections by method. the population abundance estimate from all methods combined was 32 (95% ci 31-35) and the population density estimate was 0.27 martens/km(2). this study indicates that a combined sampling approach comprising hair tubes and scats maximises the number of detections and provides a viable alternative to invasive live trapping." +comparing the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of sampling methods for estimating population abundance and density of a recovering carnivore: the european pine marten (martes martes),(4-6): pine marten; population abundance; population density; non-invasive; trapping,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,CROOSE E;BIRKS JDS;MARTIN J;VENTRESS G;MACPHERSON J;O REILLY C,"many methods are available to gather data on wildlife population parameters, such as population abundance and density, yet few have been compared or validated. we compared the efficacy of three survey methods (live trapping, hair tubes and scats) for estimating abundance and population density of the european pine marten (martes martes) in galloway forest, scotland. we evaluated these methods by, firstly, comparing the accuracy of the population estimate derived from each method, and, secondly, comparing the financial cost of each method. molecular analysis of samples from all three methods was used to determine sex and individual genotype. population abundance estimates were derived from capture-recapture programme capwire. the non-invasive methods (hair tubes and scats combined) detected 81% of known individuals, although hair tubes and scats performed poorly alone, detecting 48% and 52% of individuals, respectively. live trapping was the individual method that detected the most individuals (77%). hair tubes were the most expensive method, both in financial cost and personnel hours, whilst scat sampling was the cheapest method. there was a highly significant association between the sex of the animal and the total number of detections by method. the population abundance estimate from all methods combined was 32 (95% ci 31-35) and the population density estimate was 0.27 martens/km(2). this study indicates that a combined sampling approach comprising hair tubes and scats maximises the number of detections and provides a viable alternative to invasive live trapping." abundance estimates and habitat preferences of bottlenose dolphins reveal the importance of two gulfs in south australia,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,BILGMANN K;PARRA GJ;HOLMES L;PETERS KJ;JONSEN ID;MOLLER LM,"informed conservation management of marine mammals requires an understanding of population size and habitat preferences. in australia, such data are needed for the assessment and mitigation of anthropogenic impacts, including fisheries interactions, coastal zone developments, oil and gas exploration and mining activities. here, we present large-scale estimates of abundance, density and habitat preferences of southern australian bottlenose dolphins (tursiops sp.) over an area of 42,438km(2) within two gulfs of south australia. using double-observer platform aerial surveys over four strata and mark-recapture distance sampling analyses, we estimated 3,493 (cv= 0.21; 95%ci = 2,327-5,244) dolphins in summer/autumn, and 3,213 (cv= 0.20; 95%ci = 2,151-4,801) in winter/spring of 2011. bottlenose dolphin abundance and density was higher in gulf waters across both seasons (0.09-0.24 dolphins/km(2)) compared to adjacent shelf waters (0.004-0.04 dolphins/km(2)). the high densities of bottlenose dolphins in the two gulfs highlight the importance of these gulfs as a habitat for the species. habitat modelling associated bottlenose dolphins with shallow waters, flat seafloor topography, and higher sea surface temperatures (ssts) in summer/autumn and lower ssts in winter/spring. spatial predictions showed high dolphin densities in northern and coastal gulf sections. distributional data should inform management strategies, marine park planning and environmental assessments of potential anthropogenic threats to this protected species." experience and survival in migratory european robins erithacus rubecula and song thrushes turdus philomelos negotiating the baltic sea,NA,BIRD STUDY,SNELL KRS;THORUP K,"capsule: there were survival costs for adult european robins erithacus rubecula grounded at coastal sites following departure, but not for young robins or song thrushes turdus philomelos. aims: to compare survival costs of crossing the baltic sea in autumn in adults and young of two passerines: the smaller european robin and the slightly larger song thrush. methods: we calculated the mortality of experienced adults and those embarking on their first migration, modelling survival in a capture-mark-recapture framework using ringing records from three bird observatories on the periphery of the baltic sea. we tested the subsequent age- and species-dependent 12-month interval survival of autumn migrants caught before, during and after the barrier. results: survival did not differ in relation to the capture site, however, results revealed species-specific post-capture survival. adult european robins encountering an ecological barrier on autumn migration had lower survival probability than that of immature birds, and less than a third of adults at following intervals. yet, in song thrushes, adult survival estimates were similar over all time intervals, and estimates for both age classes were comparable to those derived from breeding sites. conclusion: experienced individuals of the smaller species are likely to become grounded at the periphery of the ecological barrier as a result of physiologically limiting conditions. species- and age-dependent survival also highlights potential inherent biases of sampling birds at coastal bird observatories." monitoring population dynamics and survival of northern crested newts (triturus cristatus) for 19 years at a pond in central europe,amphibia; urodela; newts; triturus; monitoring; capture-recapture; recruitment; persistence,SALAMANDRA,VON BULOW B;KUPFER A,"a population of northern crested newts, triturus cristatus, was studied for 19 consecutive years (1998-2016) using individual recognition allowing the quantification of population dynamics and survival rates. starting with a relatively high estimated number of adults (251 +/- 55) and a long stable phase (144 +/- 25) the population dropped six-fold (39 +/- 10) by the end of the study. the population failed to recruit in nine years including a reproduction failure over four consecutive years of the 19-year study period. the yearly adult survival ranged from 18 to 98% with no differences between the sexes. likely related to relative favourable survival rates of individuals older than 4+ of age and adult longevity of more than 16 years the population persisted. more long-term studies are urgently needed to assess how population dynamics are subject to local environmental factors or demographic patterns of the population itself." @@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ alzheimer's disease: estimating its prevalence rate in a french geographical uni natal habitat and sex-specific survival rates result in a male-biased adult sex ratio,adult sex ratio; hatching sex ratio; limosa limosa limosa; mark-recapture; sex-specific survival,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY,LOONSTRA AHJ;VERHOEVEN MA;SENNER NR;HOOIJMEIJER JCEW;PIERSMA T;KENTIE R,"the adult sex ratio (asr) is a crucial component of the ecological and evolutionary forces shaping the dynamics of a population. although in many declining populations asrs have been reported to be skewed, empirical studies exploring the demographic factors shaping asrs are still rare. in this study of the socially monogamous and sexually dimorphic black-tailed godwit (limosa limosa limosa), we aim to evaluate the sex ratio of chicks at hatch and the subsequent sex-specific survival differences occurring over 3 subsequent life stages. we found that, at hatch, the sex ratio did not deviate from parity. however, the survival of pre-fledged females was 15-30% lower than that of males and the sex bias in survival was higher in low-quality habitat. additionally, survival of adult females was almost 5% lower than that of adult males. because survival rates of males and females did not differ during other life-history stages, the asr in the population was biased toward males. because females are larger than males, food limitations during development or sex-specific differences in the duration of development may explain the lower survival of female chicks. differences among adults are less obvious and suggest previously unknown sex-related selection pressures. irrespective of the underlying causes, by reducing the available number of females in this socially monogamous species, a male-biased asr is likely to contribute to the ongoing decline of the dutch godwit population. skewed adult sex ratios (asrs) may affect population dynamics and sexual selection. we report a male-biased asr in black-tailed godwits that results from male-biased survival during the pre-fledging period and adulthood. the relative difference in sex-specific survival during pre-fledging was higher in low-quality habitats. our study demonstrates how both habitat-dependent and independent demographic processes acting at different life-history stages can influence the number of males and females available to reproduce in a population." estimation of the numbers of the far eastern leopard (panthera pardus) in russia,numbers; camera trap; population; recapture; resident; leopard; panthera pardus,ZOOLOGICHESKY ZHURNAL,LUKAREVSKIY VS;LUKAREVSKIY SV,"the far eastern leopard, panthera pardus orientalis, is one of the rarest subspecies of large cats in the world. its numbers used to be estimated at 25-50 individuals. new methods of research using automatic cameras and molecular-genetic diagnostics failed to provide exhaustive information as well. our work was carried out in 2011-2013 in the southwest of the primorsky territory: from razdolnaya river in the northeast to the border with north korea in the south and china in the southwest. we chose a model area of 503 km(2), where we installed a network of 41 pairs of reconyx rapidfire rc60, hc500, hc600 photo traps, high-speed automatic digital cameras with infrared motion sensors and infrared illumination, this allowing to obtain 1 frame per second. information was removed from the photo traps once in four months. two methods were used to survey the leopard population: direct extrapolation of the number of registered leopards during the year over the model area across the subspecies' entire distribution area; and a modified method of capture program utilized to determine the population density, which is also based on the principle of re-catching, taking into account the spatial relationships between animal registrations (space capture-recapture, secr) when using spacecap program. an ""effective trapping area"" was determined for correct extrapolations, one designed as a variant of half the average distance between two re captures (1/2mmdm). this allowed us to obtain a buffer zone with a width of 5.66 km. the ""effective trapping area"" amounted to 1023 km(2). apparently unsuitable habitats were exclud from this area. in 377 pictures obtained with photo traps we identified 27 leopards, 10 of them males, 10 females, 7 individuals remained unsexed, while 10 individuals unidentified. extrapolating these data to the entire territory taken up by potential leopard habitats in the russian far east, i.e. over an area of 3502 km(2), allows us to conclude that the numbers of leopards total about 96-100 individuals, of which about 60 animals are resident and 35-40 are young, nomadic individuals. however, given the previous counts of leopard numbers, traces of which were found in an area of 2.233 km(2), the overall estimate of the population is likely to be lower and will be about 60-65 leopards." effects of agroecosystem landscape complexity on small mammals: a multi-species approach at different spatial scales,scale of effect; habitat diversity; occupancy; species richness; landscape heterogeneity; bayesian inference,LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY,SERAFINI VN;PRIOTTO JW;GOMEZ MD,"contextthe effect of landscape complexity on biodiversity is an important topic in landscape ecology, and spatial scale is key to understand true species-landscape relationships.objectiveswe assessed the effect of landscape complexity on the occurrence of small mammal species and species richness at different spatial scales in an agroecosystem of central argentina.methodswe performed two capture-recapture samplings in 50 sites with different landscape complexity covering a similar to 452km(2) area. we used a multi-species analysis following a bayesian approach. we modeled species occurrence as a function of landscape complexity (estimated through the shannon habitat diversity index) at six spatial scales.resultswe found that the occurrence probability of species that are favored by agriculture intensification increased with the decrease of landscape complexity, whereas that of species dependent on natural habitats decreased. some species occurred over the whole range of landscape complexity, one species was only present in the simplest landscapes and the others occurred at intermediate and high values of landscape complexity. species richness increased with landscape complexity. on average, our results suggest that landscape complexity is perceived by small mammals at a spatial scale of 150-200m.conclusionslandscape heterogeneity is a key factor to maintain biodiversity and species persistence in agroecosystems. an important finding of our study is that a complex landscape at 200m (16ha) spatial scale would benefit most small mammal assemblage species. this result would be key to define management strategies for biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes of central argentina." -evaluating european life conservation projects: improvements in survival of an endangered vulture,capture-recapture; conservation programme success; egyptian vulture; environmental education; long-term monitoring; mortality; poisoning; ring loss,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,BADIA-BOHER JA;SANZ-AGUILAR A;DE LA RIVA M;GANGOSO L;VAN OVERVELD T;GARCIA-ALFONSO M;LUZARDO OP;SUAREZ-PEREZ A;DONAZAR JA,"long-lived avian scavengers are threatened worldwide and thus, are common targets of conservation plans. however, scientific evidence of both the factors limiting populations and effectiveness of management actions are greatly needed in order to develop more efficient and successful conservation strategies. we assessed the effectiveness of conservation actions applied within a life-nature project aimed at improving the long-term survival of the critically endangered canarian egyptian vulture: including education campaigns for public awareness and control of illegal poisoning and the modification of power lines to reduce the risk of accidents. we formulated a multievent capture-mark-recapture model to obtain estimates of survival for juvenile, subadult and adult birds accounting for probabilities of resight, recovery and losses of metal and colour rings. models supported a substantial enhancement in survival for subadult and adult birds and a moderate improvement for juveniles after the implementation of life actions. ring loss probabilities became notably high in the middle to long term. poisoning events became very rare after life was implemented, suggesting a positive effect of environmental education and awareness campaigns. entanglements and collisions in power lines were also efficiently mitigated. instead, electrocutions became the most identified cause of death in the post-life stage. synthesis and applications. our results highlight the improvement of survival in a threatened island vulture population after the implementation of a european life conservation project. on small islands, with small human populations and few stakeholders, education and awareness campaigns can be especially effective for biodiversity conservation. we also demonstrate the need to complement conservation programmes with long-term monitoring, which is essential to evaluate the effectiveness of actions, especially for long-lived species. foreign language abstract resumen las aves carroneras de larga vida estan amenazadas a nivel mundial y por ello son objeto de numerosos planes de conservacion. sin embargo, para mejorar la eficiencia y el exito de los planes de conservacion, se requieren mas estudios cientificos que evaluen los factores que limitan sus poblaciones y la efectividad de las diferentes estrategias de conservacion. hemos evaluado la eficacia de las acciones de conservacion llevadas a cabo dentro del marco de un proyecto life para mejorar la supervivencia a largo plazo del alimoche canario, una subespecie en peligro critico de extincion: campanas de sensibilizacion y divulgacion para reducir el uso de venenos y modificacion de tendidos electricos para reducir el riesgo de accidentes. para ello, hemos desarrollado un modelo multievento de captura-recaptura que permite estimar la supervivencia de juveniles, subadultos y adultos teniendo en cuenta las probabilidades de observacion, recuperacion de cadaveres y perdida de anillas de metal y pvc. los modelos mostraron un considerable aumento de la supervivencia de subadultos y adultos, junto con un ligero aumento de la supervivencia de juveniles, tras la implementacion de las acciones del proyecto life. la probabilidad de perdida de anillas fue alta a medio-largo plazo. tras la implementacion del programa life las muertes por envenenamiento pasaron a ser escasas, lo que sugiere un efecto positivo de las campanas de sensibilizacion y divulgacion. las colisiones y los enganches en tendidos electricos tambien fueron mitigados de forma efectiva. por el contrario, las muertes por electrocucion no cesaron, convirtiendose asi en la principal causa de mortalidad detectada.sintesis y aplicaciones. nuestros resultados destacan el aumento de supervivencia en una especie amenazada - una poblacion insular de alimoche - tras la implementacion de un proyecto life europeo. en islas pequenas, con poca poblacion humana y un numero reducido de agentes sociales, las campanas de sensibilizacion y divulgacion pueden resultar especialmente efectivas para garantizar la conservacion de la biodiversidad. es necesario complementar los programas de conservacion con seguimientos a largo plazo para evaluar la efectividad de sus acciones, especialmente en el caso de especies de larga vida. our results highlight the improvement of survival in a threatened island vulture population after the implementation of a european life conservation project. on small islands, with small human populations and few stakeholders, education and awareness campaigns can be especially effective for biodiversity conservation. we also demonstrate the need to complement conservation programmes with long-term monitoring, which is essential to evaluate the effectiveness of actions, especially for long-lived species." +evaluating european life conservation projects: improvements in survival of an endangered vulture,capture-recapture; conservation programme success; egyptian vulture; environmental education; long-term monitoring; mortality; poisoning; ring loss,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,BADIA BOHER JA;SANZ AGUILAR A;DE LA RIVA M;GANGOSO L;VAN OVERVELD T;GARCIA ALFONSO M;LUZARDO OP;SUAREZ PEREZ A;DONAZAR JA,"long-lived avian scavengers are threatened worldwide and thus, are common targets of conservation plans. however, scientific evidence of both the factors limiting populations and effectiveness of management actions are greatly needed in order to develop more efficient and successful conservation strategies. we assessed the effectiveness of conservation actions applied within a life-nature project aimed at improving the long-term survival of the critically endangered canarian egyptian vulture: including education campaigns for public awareness and control of illegal poisoning and the modification of power lines to reduce the risk of accidents. we formulated a multievent capture-mark-recapture model to obtain estimates of survival for juvenile, subadult and adult birds accounting for probabilities of resight, recovery and losses of metal and colour rings. models supported a substantial enhancement in survival for subadult and adult birds and a moderate improvement for juveniles after the implementation of life actions. ring loss probabilities became notably high in the middle to long term. poisoning events became very rare after life was implemented, suggesting a positive effect of environmental education and awareness campaigns. entanglements and collisions in power lines were also efficiently mitigated. instead, electrocutions became the most identified cause of death in the post-life stage. synthesis and applications. our results highlight the improvement of survival in a threatened island vulture population after the implementation of a european life conservation project. on small islands, with small human populations and few stakeholders, education and awareness campaigns can be especially effective for biodiversity conservation. we also demonstrate the need to complement conservation programmes with long-term monitoring, which is essential to evaluate the effectiveness of actions, especially for long-lived species. foreign language abstract resumen las aves carroneras de larga vida estan amenazadas a nivel mundial y por ello son objeto de numerosos planes de conservacion. sin embargo, para mejorar la eficiencia y el exito de los planes de conservacion, se requieren mas estudios cientificos que evaluen los factores que limitan sus poblaciones y la efectividad de las diferentes estrategias de conservacion. hemos evaluado la eficacia de las acciones de conservacion llevadas a cabo dentro del marco de un proyecto life para mejorar la supervivencia a largo plazo del alimoche canario, una subespecie en peligro critico de extincion: campanas de sensibilizacion y divulgacion para reducir el uso de venenos y modificacion de tendidos electricos para reducir el riesgo de accidentes. para ello, hemos desarrollado un modelo multievento de captura-recaptura que permite estimar la supervivencia de juveniles, subadultos y adultos teniendo en cuenta las probabilidades de observacion, recuperacion de cadaveres y perdida de anillas de metal y pvc. los modelos mostraron un considerable aumento de la supervivencia de subadultos y adultos, junto con un ligero aumento de la supervivencia de juveniles, tras la implementacion de las acciones del proyecto life. la probabilidad de perdida de anillas fue alta a medio-largo plazo. tras la implementacion del programa life las muertes por envenenamiento pasaron a ser escasas, lo que sugiere un efecto positivo de las campanas de sensibilizacion y divulgacion. las colisiones y los enganches en tendidos electricos tambien fueron mitigados de forma efectiva. por el contrario, las muertes por electrocucion no cesaron, convirtiendose asi en la principal causa de mortalidad detectada.sintesis y aplicaciones. nuestros resultados destacan el aumento de supervivencia en una especie amenazada - una poblacion insular de alimoche - tras la implementacion de un proyecto life europeo. en islas pequenas, con poca poblacion humana y un numero reducido de agentes sociales, las campanas de sensibilizacion y divulgacion pueden resultar especialmente efectivas para garantizar la conservacion de la biodiversidad. es necesario complementar los programas de conservacion con seguimientos a largo plazo para evaluar la efectividad de sus acciones, especialmente en el caso de especies de larga vida. our results highlight the improvement of survival in a threatened island vulture population after the implementation of a european life conservation project. on small islands, with small human populations and few stakeholders, education and awareness campaigns can be especially effective for biodiversity conservation. we also demonstrate the need to complement conservation programmes with long-term monitoring, which is essential to evaluate the effectiveness of actions, especially for long-lived species." population closure and the bias-precision trade-off in spatial capture-recapture,mortality; population dynamics; recruitment; spatial capture-recapture; time-to-event modelling,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,DUPONT P;MILLERET C;GIMENEZ O;BISCHOF R,"spatial capture-recapture (scr) is an increasingly popular method for estimating ecological parameters. scr often relies on data collected over relatively long sampling periods. while longer sampling periods can yield larger sample sizes and thus increase the precision of estimates, they also increase the risk of violating the closure assumption, thereby potentially introducing bias. the sampling period characteristics are therefore likely to play an important role in this bias-precision trade-off. yet few studies have studied this trade-off and none has done so for scr models. in this study, we explored the influence of the length and timing of the sampling period on the bias-precision trade-off of scr population size estimators. using a continuous time-to-event approach, we simulated populations with a wide range of life histories and sampling periods before quantifying the bias and precision of population size estimates returned by scr models. while longer sampling periods benefit the study of slow-living species (increased precision and lower bias), they lead to pronounced overestimation of population size for fast-living species. in addition, we show that both bias and uncertainty increase when the sampling period overlaps the reproductive season of the study species. based on our findings, we encourage investigators to carefully consider the life history of their study species when contemplating the length and the timing of the sampling period. we argue that both spatial and non-spatial capture-recapture studies can safely extend the sampling period to increase precision, as long as it is timed to avoid peak recruitment periods. the simulation framework we propose here can be used to guide decisions regarding the sampling period for a specific situation." "seasonal variation of mortality, detectability, and body condition in a population of the adder (vipera berus)",capture-recapture; predation; seasonal variation; survival; vulnerability,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BAUWENS D;CLAUS K,"we analyzed seasonal variation in mortality rates in adult males and females of the european adder (vipera berus), using data collected during a 13-year capture-recapture study (2005-2017) in a large population. we concurrently obtained quantitative information on the seasonal variation in the detectability and body condition of adders. our results show strong seasonality in body condition, encounter, and capture rates of adult adders, and these patterns differ markedly between sexes and between breeding and nonbreeding females. seasonal variation in mortality rates was however virtually nonexistent in males and moderately low in both breeding and nonbreeding females. in addition, we found no evidence for among-year differences in the seasonal mortality schedules of males and females. during periods of intensive basking, both males and pregnant females are highly visible for humans, but are not subject to strong natural mortality. this low susceptibility to predation is presumably induced by various factors, including the limitation of overt exposure to short periods of time and specific microhabitats, the dorsal coloration pattern that provides cryptic protection and possibly also an aposematic warning signal, and presumed seasonal differences in the foraging behavior and food requirements of natural predators. our data provide some evidence that female adders, but not males, are relatively vulnerable to predation during the seasonal migrations between the hibernation and feeding habitats. mortality in the females was not much elevated during their breeding years, but was notably highest in the spring of the ensuing nonbreeding year. after giving birth, reproductive females are extremely emaciated and have a weakened general condition. they then run the risk of dying from starvation either before, during, or after hibernation. the higher mortality after giving birth, that is sustained over a period of ca. 9 months, should be considered as an indirect and delayed survival cost of reproduction." abundance and ecological associations of small mammals,cascade mountains; deer mice (peromyscus maniculatus); habitat; humboldt's flying squirrels (glaucomys oregonensis); mark-recapture; oregon; population cycle; townsend's chipmunks (neotamias townsendii); western red-backed voles (myodes californicus),JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,WELDY MJ;EPPS CW;LESMEISTER DB;MANNING T;LINNELL MA;FORSMAN ED,"effective conservation and management of small mammals require knowledge of the population dynamics of co-occurring species. we estimated the abundances, autocorrelations, and spatiotemporal associations of 4 small-mammal species from 2011-2016 using live-trapping mark-recapture methods on 9 sites across elevation and canopy openness gradients of a late-successional forest in the h. j. andrews experimental forest, on the west slope of the oregon cascades. we also quantified species-specific spatial variation in adult sex ratios and body mass. we used huggins closed capture models to estimate site- and year-specific abundances of 4 target species: humboldt's flying squirrels (glaucomys oregonensis), townsend's chipmunks (neotamias townsendii), western red-backed voles (myodes californicus), and deer mice (peromyscus maniculatus). we estimated the temporal autocorrelations among site- and species-specific abundance estimates and used generalized linear mixed effects models to investigate the effects of 7 spatiotemporal covariates on species-specific mean abundance estimates. species-specific adult sex ratios, juvenile to adult ratios, and adult body masses were not widely variable among study sites. abundance estimates varied by as much as 4-fold among years and 6-fold among sites. humboldt's flying squirrel abundance was temporally autocorrelated at intervals of 1 and 5 years, townsend's chipmunk abundance was temporally autocorrelated at intervals of 1-4 years, and western red-backed vole abundance was temporally autocorrelated at 1, 4, and 5 years. mean fall abundance estimates were associated with elevation and climate and in some cases, canopy openness and berry-producing shrubs, but the direction of the association differed among species for some covariates. our findings could provide additional management tools for small-mammal abundance objectives, and highlight the importance of careful covariate selection in studies using indices of small-mammal abundance. (c) 2019 the authors. journal of wildlife management published by wiley periodicals, inc. on behalf of the wildlife society." @@ -84,7 +84,7 @@ dissecting the paleocontinental and paleoenvironmental dynamics of the great ord small logging roads do not restrict movements of forest rats in bornean logged forests,barrier effects; capture-recapture; dispersal; linear openings; malaysia; small mammals; tropical deforestation,BIOTROPICA,HEON SP;CHAPMAN PM;BERNARD H;EWERS RM,"selective logging is driving the proliferation of roads throughout tropical rain forests, particularly narrow, unpaved logging roads. however, little is known about the extent of road edge effects or their influence on the movements of tropical understory animal species. here, we used forest rats to address the following questions: (a) does the occupancy of rats differ from road edges to forest interior within logged forests? (b) do roads inhibit the movements of rats within these forests? we established trapping grids along a road edge-to-forest interior gradient at four roads and in three control sites within a logged forest in sabah, malaysia. to quantify the probability of road crossing, rats were captured, translocated across a road, and then recaptured on subsequent nights. we caught 216 individuals of eight species on 3,024 trap nights. rat occupancy did not differ across the gradient from road edge to interior, and 48 percent of the 105 translocated individuals crossed the roads and were recaptured. this proportion was not significantly different from that of rats returning in control sites (38% of 60 individuals), suggesting that small roads were not barriers to rat movements within logged forests. subadults were significantly more likely to return from translocation than adults in both road and control sites. our results are encouraging for the ecology of small mammal communities in heavily logged forests, because small logging roads do not restrict the movements of rats and therefore are unlikely to create an edge effect or influence habitat selection." sampling design and analytical advances allow for simultaneous density estimation of seven sympatric carnivore species from camera trap data,camera trap; spatially explicit models; multispecies; population density; sampling design,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,RICH LN;MILLER DAW;MUNOZ DJ;ROBINSON HS;MCNUTT JW;KELLY MJ,"population density is a fundamental parameter needed to assess wildlife populations but is difficult to obtain given species are often wide-ranging and elusive. photographic capture-recapture techniques do not require direct observations and thus, have become a common approach for estimating wildlife densities. to date, however, these studies have typically focused on single species. our research explores study design- and analytical-based approaches for expanding photographic capture-recapture studies to assess multiple species simultaneously. we developed a hybrid-sampling scheme that varied inter-camera distances and used simulations to test the efficacy of this design versus a systematically spaced grid in estimating densities of species with varied space use. through simulations we found the hybrid design facilitated density estimates for a wider range of species with little or no cost in accuracy for most species. we implemented a hybrid camera design across a 1154-km(2) area in northern botswana to estimate densities of lions, spotted hyenas, leopards, wild dogs, servals, civets, and aardwolves. we estimated densities of these small- to wide-ranging carnivores, where all or some portion of the population was individually identifiable, using spatially explicit capture-recapture and mark-resight models. mean estimates ranged from 1.2 (95% ci = 0.72-1.99) lions to 10.1 (95% ci = 8.69-11.63) spotted hyenas/100 km(2) and provided empirical information needed for the conservation of these species in botswana. our research demonstrates how photographic capture-recapture studies can be expanded to estimate the densities of multiple species versus just a single species within a community, thus increasing the conservation value of this globally implemented approach." "divergent population trends following the cessation of legal grizzly bear hunting in southwestern british columbia, canada",population recovery; brown bear; pradel robust design; small population; ursus arctos; spatial capture-recapture,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MCLELLAN ML;MCLELLAN BN;SOLLMANN R;LAMB CT;APPS CD;WITTMER HU,"we conducted dna capture-recapture monitoring of grizzly bears (ursus arctos) from 5 to 17 years after hunting was stopped in two adjacent but genetically distinct populations in southwestern british columbia, canada. we used spatial capture-recapture and non-spatial pradel robust design modelling to estimate population density, trends, and the demographic components of population change for each population. the larger population had 21.5 bears/1000 km(2) and was growing (lambda(pradel) = 1.02 +/- 0.02 se; lambda(secr) = 1.01 +/- 4.6 x 10(-5) se) following the cessation of hunting. the adjacent smaller population had 6.3 bears/1000 km(2) and was likely declining (lambda(pradel) = 0.95 +/- 0.03 se; lambda(secr) = 0.98 +/- 0.02 se). estimates of apparent survival and apparent recruitment indicated that lower recruitment was the dominant factor limiting population growth in the smaller population. factors limiting reproductive rates and population density could include poor habitat quality, particularly the abundance of high-energy foods, genetic allee effects due to a long period of population isolation, or demographic effects affecting infanticide rates. the cessation of hunting was insufficient to promote population recovery for the low density, isolated population. our research highlights the importance of considering mortality thresholds in addition to small population effects and habitat quality when recovering large carnivore populations." -satellite-detected forest disturbance forecasts american marten population decline: the case for supportive space-based monitoring,land-use change; spatial capture-recapture; american marten; remote sensing; monitoring; species distribution model,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,CLARE J;MCKINNEY ST;SIMONS-LEGAARD EM;DEPUE JE;LOFTIN CS,"limited monitoring resources often constrain rigorous monitoring practices to species or populations of conservation concern. insufficient monitoring can induce a tautology as lack of monitoring resources makes it difficult to determine whether a species or population deserves additional monitoring resources. when in-situ monitoring resources are limited, remote habitat monitoring could be a useful supplementary tool, as linking parameterized species distribution models to spatially explicit time-series of environmental correlates allows iterative prediction of population change. yet the performance of predictive forecasts or hindcasts has been difficult to evaluate. we paired contemporary field data, historic population estimates, and a remotely-sensed archive of landscape change to evaluate predictions of american marten (martes americana) population decline owing to habitat loss in maine, usa. we estimated contemporary spatial patterns in marten density relative to landscape disturbance with spatial capture-recapture models. we compared current density estimates to historical density calculations to evaluate population decline, and compared historical calculations to habitat-based model predictions to evaluate the efficacy of habitat monitoring as a proxy for direct monitoring. marten density was negatively associated with the proportion of surrounding regenerating forest, and point estimates within focal townships were 50-80% lower than historical calculations. habitat-based hindcasts of marten density across our entire focal area interest suggested a smaller population decline (roughly 50%) within our focal area. thus, although habitat-based predictions underpredicted marten decline, they provided correct directional inference. habitat monitoring and predictions from species distribution models may provide useful inference about population changes given trends in habitat at limited expense when in-situ information is lacking." +satellite-detected forest disturbance forecasts american marten population decline: the case for supportive space-based monitoring,land-use change; spatial capture-recapture; american marten; remote sensing; monitoring; species distribution model,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,CLARE J;MCKINNEY ST;SIMONS LEGAARD EM;DEPUE JE;LOFTIN CS,"limited monitoring resources often constrain rigorous monitoring practices to species or populations of conservation concern. insufficient monitoring can induce a tautology as lack of monitoring resources makes it difficult to determine whether a species or population deserves additional monitoring resources. when in-situ monitoring resources are limited, remote habitat monitoring could be a useful supplementary tool, as linking parameterized species distribution models to spatially explicit time-series of environmental correlates allows iterative prediction of population change. yet the performance of predictive forecasts or hindcasts has been difficult to evaluate. we paired contemporary field data, historic population estimates, and a remotely-sensed archive of landscape change to evaluate predictions of american marten (martes americana) population decline owing to habitat loss in maine, usa. we estimated contemporary spatial patterns in marten density relative to landscape disturbance with spatial capture-recapture models. we compared current density estimates to historical density calculations to evaluate population decline, and compared historical calculations to habitat-based model predictions to evaluate the efficacy of habitat monitoring as a proxy for direct monitoring. marten density was negatively associated with the proportion of surrounding regenerating forest, and point estimates within focal townships were 50-80% lower than historical calculations. habitat-based hindcasts of marten density across our entire focal area interest suggested a smaller population decline (roughly 50%) within our focal area. thus, although habitat-based predictions underpredicted marten decline, they provided correct directional inference. habitat monitoring and predictions from species distribution models may provide useful inference about population changes given trends in habitat at limited expense when in-situ information is lacking." "impact of long-term behavioural studies in the wild: the blue petrel, halobaena caerulea, case at kerguelen",behaviour; capture/recapture; human impact; long-term studies; multievent model; seabirds,ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR,BERGES M;CHOQUET R;BONADONNA F,"the study of animal behaviour contributes to our understanding of how individuals or populations live and survive. to this purpose researchers often manipulate, in a broad sense, wild animals in sensitive periods, such as breeding, when animals are accessible/available. few studies, however, show the impact of these manipulations on the survival of individuals. in this study we measured short- and long-term impacts of experimental manipulations on a small colony of blue petrels at kerguelen archipelago where behavioural studies have been performed since 2006. we developed two models to measure potential impacts of manipulation: (1) a new multievent model that allowed us to account for different severity classes of experimental manipulation independently and (2) a model that allowed us to consider the cumulative impact over several years of these experimental manipulations. we found no evidence that our experimental manipulations have negatively affected survival or breeding probabilities either in the short or in the long term. conversely, similarly to other capture-recapture studies on blue petrels, survival was shown to be dependent on the birds' experience (birds that probably bred for the first time versus birds that had already bred several times before) and the breeding probability to be dependent on the year, possibly because of environmental conditions. (c) 2019 published by elsevier ltd on behalf of the association for the study of animal behaviour." impacts of freshwater aquaculture on fish communities: a whole-ecosystem experimental approach,baci design; fish farm; life history changes; mark-recapture; nutrient loading; size distribution shifts,FRESHWATER BIOLOGY,RENNIE MD;KENNEDY PJ;MILLS KH;RODGERS CMC;CHARLES C;HRENCHUK LE;CHALANCHUK S;BLANCHFIELD PJ;PATERSON MJ;PODEMSKI CL,"aquaculture is a growing global industry; freshwater aquaculture has significant potential for expansion in canada, but growth of the freshwater sector has been slow due to concerns over potential environmental impacts and a lack of information on potential impacts to native fish communities. to provide guidelines and target variables for evaluating aquaculture impacts on freshwater fish communities, we operated an experimental aquaculture farm as a whole-lake experiment where 10,000 rainbow trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) were raised annually from 2003 to 2007. impacts were assessed using up to 8years of pre-impact and 8-10years of post-impact data. prey fish abundance increased dramatically during aquaculture but declined sharply following the experiment. high abundance of littoral minnows in autumn was not observed during spring and, combined with size distribution data, suggests high overwinter mortality of adult minnows. white sucker (catostomus commersonii) abundance and body condition declined during and after aquaculture, with evidence of overwinter juvenile recruitment failure in the last 2 years of operation, although size-at-age increased. the adult abundance of lake trout (salvelinus namaycush) doubled during aquaculture, due to a combination of (a) increased growth rates of young trout and (b) earlier age and larger sizes at maturation. within 2years following aquaculture, lake trout abundance declined by nearly 50% to background levels, suggesting a large increase in lake trout mortality once operations ceased. these changes were not observed in nearby reference lakes. while aquaculture appeared to benefit some species (slimy sculpin [cottus cognatus], minnows, lake trout), prolonged declines in white sucker abundance and condition and continued depression of mysis densities and optimal oxythermal habitat availability nearly a decade following operations suggest potentially long-term impacts at this magnitude. importantly, this experiment highlights important indicator species and life history traits for monitoring of freshwater aquaculture impacts on native fish communities." group b streptococci declining incidence in infants in germany,invasive streptococcal infections; streptococcus agalactiae; incidence; neonatal; infant; germany; capture-recapture method,PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASE JOURNAL,WICKER E;LANDER F;WEIDEMANN F;HUFNAGEL M;BERNER R;KRAUSE G,"group b streptococcus (gbs) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in newborns worldwide. from 2000 to 2008, national guidelines in germany recommended intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis for pregnant women displaying risk factors (eg, perinatal anogenital gbs colonization, rupture of the membranes >= 18 hours before birth) for the vertical transmission of gbs to their children. in 2008, these guidelines were revised to advocate universal, culture-based screening for gbs colonization among all pregnant women between 35 and 37 weeks of gestation. for the period 2009-2010, our prospective active surveillance study assessed the incidence of invasive gbs infections in infants 0-90 days of age in germany. we did this by means of a capture-recapture analysis of 2 separate, independent systems (pediatric reporting versus laboratory reporting). we compared our results with those from a previous study by employing an equivalent design (2001-2003). we detected a 32% reduction in gbs incidence, from 0.47 per 1000 live births (n = 679) in 2001-2003 to 0.34 per 1000 live births (n = 450) in 2009-2010. this decline primarily is tied to a reduced number of gbs cases in children under 1 week of age. in 2009-2010, the ratio of early-onset disease to late-onset disease reversed from 1.52 (206:136), as determined in 2001-2003, to 0.75 (92:122). this study is the first to assess changes in the incidence of invasive gbs in germany after the implementation of the guidelines for intrapartum prophylaxis for pregnant women colonized with gbs." @@ -101,11 +101,11 @@ cascading trend of early paleozoic marine radiations paused by late ordovician e a truth commission did not tell the truth: a rejoinder to manrique-vallier and ball,armed conflict; capture-recapture; count data; human rights data; multiple imputation,RESEARCH & POLITICS,RENDON S,"rendon (2019) showed that the indirect estimation of total killings in the peruvian truth and reconciliation commission introduced a distortion. two of the original analysts, manrique-vallier and ball (2019), provide an indirect defense of their work using new data, and argue that this supports their unprecedented indirect method over the direct estimator. in this rejoinder i show that their new figure of 17,687 killings by the shining path is closer to the direct estimate of 18,341 than to their indirect estimate of 31,331 killings. i also show that the indirect method systematically produces impossible negative predicted killings and overfits massively. i reiterate my conclusion that their indirect estimates are unreliable and should be retracted." integrating multiple data types to connect ecological theory and data among levels,bayesian statistics; ecological modeling; population ecology; community ecology; ecological dynamics; integrated models; inverse models; individual based model,FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,YEN JDL;TONKIN Z;LYON J;KOSTER W;KITCHINGMAN A;STAMATION K;VESK PA,"ecological theories often encompass multiple levels of biological organization, such as genes, individuals, populations, and communities. despite substantial progress toward ecological theory spanning multiple levels, ecological data rarely are connected in this way. this is unfortunate because different types of ecological data often emerge from the same underlying processes and, therefore, are naturally connected among levels. here, we describe an approach to integrate data collected at multiple levels (e.g., individuals, populations) in a single statistical analysis. the resulting integrated models make full use of existing data and might strengthen links between statistical ecology and ecological models and theories that span multiple levels of organization. integrated models are increasingly feasible due to recent advances in computational statistics, which allow fast calculations of multiple likelihoods that depend on complex mechanistic models. we discuss recently developed integrated models and outline a simple application using data on freshwater fishes in south-eastern australia. available data on freshwater fishes include population survey data, mark-recapture data, and individual growth trajectories. we use these data to estimate age-specific survival and reproduction from size-structured data, accounting for imperfect detection of individuals. given that such parameter estimates would be infeasible without an integrated-model, we argue that integrated models will strengthen ecological theory by connecting theoretical and mathematical models directly to empirical data. although integrated models remain conceptually and computationally challenging, integrating ecological data among levels is likely to be an important step toward unifying ecology among levels." a small native predator reduces reproductive success of a large invasive fish as revealed by whole-lake experiments,NA,PLOS ONE,POOLE JR;BAJER PG,"the extent to which native fish communities might control the success of invasive fish has been of interest to ecologists, but it has been rarely addressed using experiments. we conducted an experiment in six small lakes in the upper mississippi region to test the effects of a small native predator, bluegill sunfish (lepomis macrochirus) on the recruitment of a large, invasive fish, the common carp (cyprinus carpio). bluegills are predominant throughout the region and were previously shown to consume carp eggs and larvae. we stocked both lakes at each of our 3 sites with adult carp (spawners) and one lake at each site with bluegills. we repeated the experiment at two of the three sites for two consecutive years. in each lake we assessed the abundance of post-larval carp one month after spawning (backpack electrofishing surveys) and at the end of the season (mark-recapture). for each site/year combination, catch rate of post-larval carp was typically an order of magnitude higher in control than bluegill lakes, but it often declined quickly over time. the abundance of end-of-seasonal juveniles was significantly higher (no 95% ci overlap) in control lakes than in bluegill lakes, except for one pair of lakes during one year when both the control and bluegill lake had similar, low abundance of end-of-season carp. overall, our results support the hypothesis that common carp recruitment is substantially reduced in habitats dominated by bluegills. we also suggest our results may be applicable to other species, and that managers should explore how predation on early life stages may control other invasive species." -ecological and social correlates of natal dispersal in female and male thorn-tailed rayadito (aphrastura spinicauda) in a naturally isolated and fragmented habitat,dispersal strategies; fray jorge national park; inbreeding avoidance; kin competition; population density; reproductive consequences,AUK,BOTERO-DELGADILLO E;QUIRICI V;POBLETE Y;CUEVAS E;KUHN S;GIRG A;POULIN E;KEMPENAERS B;VASQUEZ RA,"sex-biased natal dispersal is predicted to be a consequence of differences in the costs and benefits of dispersal perceived by each sex. although female-biased dispersal has been described for numerous birds in heterogeneous landscapes, studies documenting sex-related differences in the causes and consequences of natal dispersal in fragmented habitats are comparatively scarce. we used capture-mark-recapture data and genetic analyses in a population of thorn-tailed rayadito (aphrastura spinicauda) from north-central chile in order to investigate how the possible causes and consequences of dispersal are linked to sex-specific dispersal behavior in a naturally isolated and fragmented forest habitat. we analyzed 36 recaptured post-fledging birds to test whether female-biased dispersal reflected differential responses between sexes to potentially long-term acting selective pressures related to habitat fragmentation and high population densities. in this population, females disperse long distances (median distance: 780 m), whereas males are mostly philopatric (median distance: 85 m). results suggest that female dispersal is possibly a response to the local density of breeding birds and mate availability, and comes without apparent reproductive costs. inbreeding avoidance was not evident, but females may already be decreasing the probability of mating with relatives by moving away from their natal neighborhood where male kin usually remain. our findings also indicate that male dispersal, while reduced in relation to females, can result from a tradeoff between the social benefits of settling near the natal territory and the associated costs of high breeding densities and kin competition. an increase of paternity loss was evident for males moving long distances. follow-up studies should assess the differences in the costs and benefits of within- and between-fragment dispersal in this population." +ecological and social correlates of natal dispersal in female and male thorn-tailed rayadito (aphrastura spinicauda) in a naturally isolated and fragmented habitat,dispersal strategies; fray jorge national park; inbreeding avoidance; kin competition; population density; reproductive consequences,AUK,BOTERO DELGADILLO E;QUIRICI V;POBLETE Y;CUEVAS E;KUHN S;GIRG A;POULIN E;KEMPENAERS B;VASQUEZ RA,"sex-biased natal dispersal is predicted to be a consequence of differences in the costs and benefits of dispersal perceived by each sex. although female-biased dispersal has been described for numerous birds in heterogeneous landscapes, studies documenting sex-related differences in the causes and consequences of natal dispersal in fragmented habitats are comparatively scarce. we used capture-mark-recapture data and genetic analyses in a population of thorn-tailed rayadito (aphrastura spinicauda) from north-central chile in order to investigate how the possible causes and consequences of dispersal are linked to sex-specific dispersal behavior in a naturally isolated and fragmented forest habitat. we analyzed 36 recaptured post-fledging birds to test whether female-biased dispersal reflected differential responses between sexes to potentially long-term acting selective pressures related to habitat fragmentation and high population densities. in this population, females disperse long distances (median distance: 780 m), whereas males are mostly philopatric (median distance: 85 m). results suggest that female dispersal is possibly a response to the local density of breeding birds and mate availability, and comes without apparent reproductive costs. inbreeding avoidance was not evident, but females may already be decreasing the probability of mating with relatives by moving away from their natal neighborhood where male kin usually remain. our findings also indicate that male dispersal, while reduced in relation to females, can result from a tradeoff between the social benefits of settling near the natal territory and the associated costs of high breeding densities and kin competition. an increase of paternity loss was evident for males moving long distances. follow-up studies should assess the differences in the costs and benefits of within- and between-fragment dispersal in this population." spatial capture-recapture for categorically marked populations with an application to genetic capture-recapture,genetic mark-recapture; identity diversity index; microsatellites; partial identity; spatial capture-recapture; spatial mark-resight; unmarked spatial capture-recapture,ECOSPHERE,AUGUSTINE B;ROYLE JA;MURPHY SM;CHANDLER RB;COX JJ;KELLY MJ,"recently introduced unmarked spatial capture-recapture (scr), spatial mark-resight (smr), and 2-flank spatial partial identity models (spims) extend the domain of scr to populations or observation systems that do not always allow for individual identity to be determined with certainty. for example, some species do not have natural marks that can reliably produce individual identities from photographs, and some methods of observation produce partial identity samples as is the case with remote cameras that sometimes produce single-flank photographs. unmarked scr, smr, and spim share the feature that they probabilistically resolve the uncertainty in individual identity using the spatial location where samples were collected. spatial location is informative of individual identity in spatially structured populations because a sample is more likely to have been produced by an individual living near the trap where it was recorded than an individual living further away from the trap. further, the level of information about individual identity that a spatial location contains is related to two key ecological concepts, population density and home range size, which we quantify using a proposed identity diversity index (idi). we show that latent and partial identity scr models produce imprecise and biased density estimates in many high idi scenarios when data are sparse. we then extend the unmarked scr model to incorporate categorical, partially identifying covariates, which reduce the level of uncertainty in individual identity, increasing the reliability and precision of density estimates, and allowing reliable density estimation in scenarios with higher idi values and with more sparse data. we illustrate the performance of this ""categorical spim"" via simulations and by applying it to a black bear data set using microsatellite loci as categorical covariates, where we reproduce the full data set estimates with only slightly less precision using fewer loci than necessary for confident individual identification. we then discuss how the categorical spim can be applied to other wildlife sampling scenarios such as remote camera surveys, where natural or researcher-applied partial marks can be observed in photographs. finally, we discuss how the categorical spim can be added to smr, 2-flank spim, or other latent identity scr models." generalized spatial mark-resight models with incomplete identification: an application to red fox density estimates,camera trapping; generalized spatial mark-resight; incomplete identification; mark; red fox; telemetry,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,JIMENEZ J;CHANDLER R;TOBAJAS J;DESCALZO E;MATEO R;FERRERAS P,"1. the estimation of abundance of wildlife populations is an essential part of ecological research and monitoring. spatially explicit capture-recapture (scr) models are widely used for abundance and density estimation, frequently through individual identification of target species using camera-trap sampling. 2. generalized spatial mark-resight (gen-smr) is a recently developed scr extension that allows for abundance estimation when only a subset of the population is recognizable by artificial or natural marks. however, in many cases, it is not possible to read the marks in camera-trap pictures, even though individuals can be recognized as marked. we present a new extension of gen-smr that allows for this type of incomplete identification. 3. we used simulation to assess how the number of marked individuals and the individual identification rate influenced bias and precision. we demonstrate the model's performance in estimating red fox (vulpes vulpes) density with two empirical datasets characterized by contrasting densities and rates of identification of marked individuals. according to the simulations, accuracy increases with the number of marked individuals (m), but is less sensitive to changes in individual identification rate (delta). in our case studies of red fox density estimation, we obtained a posterior mean of 1.60 (standard deviation sd: 0.32) and 0.28 (sd: 0.06) individuals/km(2), in high and low density, with an identification rate of 0.21 and 0.91, respectively. 4. this extension of gen-smr is broadly applicable as it addresses the common problem of incomplete identification of marked individuals during resighting surveys." -directional selection on body size but no apparent survival cost to being large in wild new zealand giraffe weevils,alternative reproductive tactics; brentidae; exaggerated traits; mark-recapture; sexual selection; size-assortative mating,EVOLUTION,LEGRICE RJ;TEZANOS-PINTO G;DE VILLEMEREUIL P;HOLWELL GI;PAINTING CJ,"when an individual's reproductive success relies on winning fights to secure mating opportunities, bearing larger weapons is advantageous. however, sexual selection can be extremely complex, and over an animal's life the opportunity to mate is influenced by numerous factors. we studied a wild population of giraffe weevils (lasiorhynchus barbicornis) that exhibit enormous intra and intersexual size variation. males bear an elongated rostrum used as a weapon in fights for mating opportunities. however, small males also employ sneaking behavior as an alternative reproductive tactic. we investigated sexual selection on size by tracking individual males and females daily over two 30-day periods to measure long-term mating success. we also assessed how survival and recapture probabilities vary with sex and size to determine whether there might be a survival cost associated with size. we found evidence for directional selection on size through higher mating success, but no apparent survival trade-off. instead, larger individuals mate more often and have a higher survival probability, suggesting an accumulation of benefits to bigger individuals. furthermore, we found evidence of size assortative mating where males appear to selectively mate with bigger females. larger and more competitive males secure matings with larger females more frequently than smaller males, which may further increase their fitness." -"what keeps ""living dead' alive: demography of a small and isolated population of maculinea (=phengaris) alcon",flight period; foodplant availability; genetic diversity; life span; mark-recapture; species persistence,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,NOWICKI P;DEONIZIAK K;DZIEKANSKA I;KOSTRO-AMBROZIAK A;PLAZIO E;RUTKOWSKI R;SIELEZNIEW M,"small and isolated populations are prone to future extinctions and thus perceived as living dead'. although generally considered to be of low conservation value, their existence can still enhance species survival at the landscape scale through improving the connectivity of other populations and facilitating some (even if little) gene flow. we investigated the demography and genetic status of a tiny and highly isolated local population of maculinea (=phengaris) alcon near its distribution margin with the aim of identifying the features that allow it to persist. the study comprised intensive mark-recapture, surveys of gentiana pneumonanthe foodplants and butterfly eggs laid on them, as well as genetic analyses. the population has been found to be characterised by low genetic diversity and estimated at only a few tens of individuals. the foodplant availability turned out to be the most obvious factor limiting m. alcon abundance. nevertheless, the life expectancy of adult butterflies is fairly long, and their flight period very short, implying that most individuals occur within the same time window. together with the relatively little protandry observed, i.e. almost synchronous emergence of males and females, this increases the chances of random mating among the individuals. moreover, the butterflies move freely across the core habitat fragment. all things concerned, the effective population size is presumably not much lower than the recorded population size. our findings provide guidelines for pinpointing those among living dead' populations that are likely to be the most persistent and thus worth conservation efforts aimed at preserving them." +directional selection on body size but no apparent survival cost to being large in wild new zealand giraffe weevils,alternative reproductive tactics; brentidae; exaggerated traits; mark-recapture; sexual selection; size-assortative mating,EVOLUTION,LEGRICE RJ;TEZANOS PINTO G;DE VILLEMEREUIL P;HOLWELL GI;PAINTING CJ,"when an individual's reproductive success relies on winning fights to secure mating opportunities, bearing larger weapons is advantageous. however, sexual selection can be extremely complex, and over an animal's life the opportunity to mate is influenced by numerous factors. we studied a wild population of giraffe weevils (lasiorhynchus barbicornis) that exhibit enormous intra and intersexual size variation. males bear an elongated rostrum used as a weapon in fights for mating opportunities. however, small males also employ sneaking behavior as an alternative reproductive tactic. we investigated sexual selection on size by tracking individual males and females daily over two 30-day periods to measure long-term mating success. we also assessed how survival and recapture probabilities vary with sex and size to determine whether there might be a survival cost associated with size. we found evidence for directional selection on size through higher mating success, but no apparent survival trade-off. instead, larger individuals mate more often and have a higher survival probability, suggesting an accumulation of benefits to bigger individuals. furthermore, we found evidence of size assortative mating where males appear to selectively mate with bigger females. larger and more competitive males secure matings with larger females more frequently than smaller males, which may further increase their fitness." +"what keeps ""living dead' alive: demography of a small and isolated population of maculinea (=phengaris) alcon",flight period; foodplant availability; genetic diversity; life span; mark-recapture; species persistence,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,NOWICKI P;DEONIZIAK K;DZIEKANSKA I;KOSTRO AMBROZIAK A;PLAZIO E;RUTKOWSKI R;SIELEZNIEW M,"small and isolated populations are prone to future extinctions and thus perceived as living dead'. although generally considered to be of low conservation value, their existence can still enhance species survival at the landscape scale through improving the connectivity of other populations and facilitating some (even if little) gene flow. we investigated the demography and genetic status of a tiny and highly isolated local population of maculinea (=phengaris) alcon near its distribution margin with the aim of identifying the features that allow it to persist. the study comprised intensive mark-recapture, surveys of gentiana pneumonanthe foodplants and butterfly eggs laid on them, as well as genetic analyses. the population has been found to be characterised by low genetic diversity and estimated at only a few tens of individuals. the foodplant availability turned out to be the most obvious factor limiting m. alcon abundance. nevertheless, the life expectancy of adult butterflies is fairly long, and their flight period very short, implying that most individuals occur within the same time window. together with the relatively little protandry observed, i.e. almost synchronous emergence of males and females, this increases the chances of random mating among the individuals. moreover, the butterflies move freely across the core habitat fragment. all things concerned, the effective population size is presumably not much lower than the recorded population size. our findings provide guidelines for pinpointing those among living dead' populations that are likely to be the most persistent and thus worth conservation efforts aimed at preserving them." dispersal in a metapopulation of the critically endangered danube clouded yellow butterfly colias myrmidone: implications for conservation,life span; mark-recapture; sex-biased dispersal; forestry; mobility; virtual migration model,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,SIELEZNIEW M;DEONIZIAK K;DZIEKANSKA I;NOWICKI P,"colias myrmidone has suffered a dramatic decline in europe, and now its occurrence is restricted to just a few countries. we investigated one of the last viable metapopulations (knyszyn forest, ne poland), where the butterfly is almost completely dependent on forestry, inhabiting some clearings and young tree plantations rich in larval food plants (chamaecytisus ruthenicus) and nectar resources. intensive mark-recapture studies were performed in 2017 on eight occupied patches separated by 0.5-5km. the overall population size of imagoes in the second brood was calculated at about 750 individuals. sex ratio was shown to be well-balanced and average residency was estimated at 5.6 days. dispersal occurred mostly between neighbouring patches, and isolation of patches contributed to the high mortality of emigrants. the average distance covered during dispersal was significantly higher for males. however, females left small patches much more readily than males. these patches were probably used only as stepping stone' sites in dispersal. restricted dispersal could be related to barriers created by forest stands but it is also not excluded that individuals living in an isolated metapopulation become increasingly sedentary and our results are an early warning sign. the most distant local population was clearly isolated, with hardly any immigration from the other populations. to maintain a network of more stable habitat patches some clearings should be left deforested and appropriately managed. however this goal is difficult to achieve under the current forestry rules and therefore (re)creation of habitats on other available open areas should be considered." exposure of breeding albatrosses to the agent of avian cholera: dynamics of antibody levels and ecological implications,capture-mark-recapture; disease ecology; immuno-ecology; maternal antibodies; seabird; serological dynamics; survival,OECOLOGIA,GAMBLE A;GARNIER R;JAEGER A;GANTELET H;THIBAULT E;TORTOSA P;BOURRET V;THIEBOT JB;DELORD K;WEIMERSKIRCH H;TORNOS J;BARBRAUD C;BOULINIER T,"despite critical implications for disease dynamics and surveillance in wild long-lived species, the immune response after exposure to potentially highly pathogenic bacterial disease agents is still poorly known. among infectious diseases threatening wild populations, avian cholera, caused by the bacterium pasteurella multocida, is a major concern. it frequently causes massive mortality events in wild populations, notably affecting nestlings of indian yellow-nosed albatrosses (thalassarche carteri) in the indian ocean. if adults are able to mount a long-term immune response, this could have important consequences regarding the dynamics of the pathogen in the local host community and the potential interest of vaccinating breeding females to transfer immunity to their offspring. by tracking the dynamics of antibodies against p. multocida during 4years and implementing a vaccination experiment in a population of yellow-nosed albatrosses, we show that a significant proportion of adults were naturally exposed despite high annual survival for both vaccinated and non-vaccinated individuals. adult-specific antibody levels were thus maintained long enough to inform about recent exposure. however, only low levels of maternal antibodies could be detected in nestlings the year following a vaccination of their mothers. a modification of the vaccine formulation and the possibility to re-vaccinate females 2years after the first vaccination revealed that vaccines have the potential to elicit a stronger and more persistent response. such results highlight the value of long-term observational and experimental studies of host exposure to infectious agents in the wild, where ecological and evolutionary processes are likely critical for driving disease dynamics." optimizing release strategies: a stepping-stone approach to reintroduction,reintroductions; translocations; bayesian multievent model; marmota vancouverensis; monitoring; mark-recapture; post-release survival; release strategy,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,LLOYD NA;HOSTETTER NJ;JACKSON CL;CONVERSE SJ;MOEHRENSCHLAGER A,"evaluation of alternative management strategies enables informed decisions to accelerate species recovery. for reintroductions, post-release survival to reproductive age is a key parameter influencing population growth. here, we trial a 'stepping-stone' method to maximize the success of captive-bred animals when the availability of more suitable wild-born release candidates is limited. our approach makes use of relatively safe and established wild populations to prepare captive-bred individuals for eventual translocation to a final release destination, thus building resilience through establishment of multiple populations over time. we developed a novel multievent model integrating encounter history and biotelemetry data to evaluate reintroduction strategies for the critically endangered vancouver island marmot marmota vancouverensis. we compared post-release survival of 176 individuals (52 wild-born, 47 captive-bred marmots released directly to destinations, and 77 captive-bred marmots released with a stepping-stone approach). survival estimates to prime breeding-age (pba), were then used to quantify expected success of potential release strategies. our analysis indicates that post-release survival varies by source population and release method, as well as age, season, year, and years since release. conditional on an objective of maximizing survival to pba, our results suggest that using wild-born marmots for translocations as often as possible, and stepping-stone captive-bred marmots prior to final release, will result in the best outcomes. there was a 0.86 probability that survival to pba was greater for captive-bred marmots released as yearlings using a stepping-stone approach (survival to pba mode = 0.13, 95% cri = 0.05-0.30) than for captive-bred animals that were directly released to destination sites as one-year-olds (survival to pba mode = 0.04, 95% cri = 0.01-0.24). consequently, the stepping-stone approach yields much higher population establishment or growth potential than previous release strategies that used captive-bred marmots. optimizing the combination of release candidates, sites and timing can thereby increase the effectiveness of reintroductions." @@ -114,8 +114,8 @@ seasonal climate effects on the survival of a hibernating mammal,capture-mark-re decline in abundance and apparent survival rates of fin whales (balaenoptera physalus) in the northern gulf of st. lawrence,abundance; capture heterogeneity; capture-recapture; fin whale; site fidelity; survival rate; terminal bias,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SCHLEIMER A;RAMP C;DELARUE J;CARPENTIER A;BERUBE M;PALSBOLL PJ;SEARS R;HAMMOND PS,"estimates of abundance and survivorship provide quantifiable measures to monitor populations and to define and understand their conservation status. this study investigated changes in abundance and survival rates of fin whales (balaenoptera physalus) in the northern gulf of st. lawrence in the context of anthropogenic pressures and changing environmental conditions. a long-term data set, consisting of 35 years of photo-identification surveys and comprising more than 5,000 identifications of 507 individuals, formed the basis of this mark-recapture study. based on model selection using corrected akaike information criterion, the most parsimonious cormack-jolly-seber model included a linear temporal trend in noncalf apparent survival rates with a sharp decline in the last 5 years of the study and a median survival rate of 0.946 (95% confidence interval (ci) 0.910-0.967). to account for capture heterogeneity due to divergent patterns of site fidelity, agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis was employed to categorize individuals based on their annual and survey site fidelity indices. however, the negative trend in survivorship remained and was corroborated by a significant decline in the estimated super-population size from 335 (95% ci 321-348) individuals in 2004-2010 to 291 (95% ci 270-312) individuals in 2010-2016. concurrently, a negative trend was estimated in recruitment to the population, supported by a sharp decrease in the number of observed calves. ship strikes and changes in prey availability are potential drivers of the observed decline in fin whale abundance. the combination of clustering methods with mark-recapture represents a flexible way to investigate the effects of site fidelity on demographic variables and is broadly applicable to other individual-based studies." neurobehavioral problems in children with early-onset epilepsy: a population-based study,cognition; behavior; preschool; infants; cognitive impairment,EPILEPSY & BEHAVIOR,HUNTER MB;YOONG M;SUMPTER RE;VERITY K;SHETTY J;MCLELLAN A;JONES J;QUIGLEY A;TALLUR KK;CHIN RFM,"purpose: neurobehavioral problems (i.e., cognitive impairment/behavior problems) are a major challenge in childhood epilepsy. yet there are limited data in children with early-onset epilepsy (cweoe; onset <= 4 years), the period in which the incidence of childhood epilepsy is highest. this study aimed to determine the prevalence, spectrum, and risk factors for neurobehavioral problems cweoe. methods: this prospective, population-based, case-controlled study identified children with newly diagnosed early-onset epilepsy in south east scotland using active multisource capture-recapture surveillance (may 2013 - june 2015). the cweoe and controls completed an age-appropriate neurobehavioral assessment battery across seven domains: general cognitive ability (gca), adaptive behavior, externalizing, internalizing, executive functioning, social functioning, and autism spectrum disorder (asd) risk. results: fifty-nine cweoe were identified with an ascertainment of 98% (95% confidence interval [ci] 94, 103). forty-six (78% [95% cl 65.9, 86.6]) cweoe (27 male, median age 25.5, range 1-59, months) and 37 controls (18 male, median age 31.5, range 3-59, months) consented for study entry. the cweoe were similar to controls in gender, age, prematurity, and family history of psychopathology. but not socioeconomic status (fisher's exact test [fet] < .001). neurobehavioral assessments were carried out a median of 2.97 (interquartile range [iqr] 1.51-4.95) months post epilepsy diagnosis. more cweoe (63% [95% ci 48.6, 75.5]) had neurobehavioral problems compared with controls (27% [95% ci 15.4, 43.0]); p < 0.01. this observation was independent of socioeconomic status. multidimensional problems were prevalent in cweoe with 43% having two or more different domain-level problems; gca impairment, adaptive behavior, internalizing, social functioning, and asd risk were particularly marked. risk factors varied by domain. discussion: this novel study using comprehensive psychometric assessments found that neurobehavioral problems in cweoe were detectable, common, and multidimensional. the degree of cooccurrence implies that problems are the norm, and multidimensional screening should be considered at epilepsy onset. the findings could aid policy development on health and educational provision in cweoe. (c) 2019 elsevier inc. all rights reserved." assessing a threatened fish species under budgetary constraints: evaluating the use of existing monitoring data,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,GWINN DC;TODD CR;BROWN P;HUNT TL;BUTLER G;KITCHINGMAN A;KOEHN JD;INGRAM B,"because of the high costs of collecting field data, many species recovery and management plans do not include a monitoring feedback component to measure the success of interventions and refine management strategies. here, we demonstrate how leveraging existing monitoring data can provide broad-scale, cost-effective information about a threatened fish species, the murray cod maccullochella peelii, which is of cultural and recreational importance in australia. we applied a bayesian hierarchical model of abundance to murray cod catch data collected as part of broad-scale, general condition monitoring in the murray-darling basin. the model uses replicated sampling at spatially independent sites to disentangle the confounding effects of detection probability and abundance on catch data. we demonstrate the reliability of the analysis for determining trends in abundance with a simulation study, and we show that basinwide abundance of murray cod declined by over 50% between 2010 and 2013. we found that detection probability of murray cod can vary substantially across space and through time, suggesting that accounting for variable detection will be important in any future evaluation of murray cod populations. this study highlights variable detection as an issue in monitoring regimes and demonstrates a method for the cost-effective use of existing monitoring data to evaluate species abundance trends." -"estimates of adolescent and adult congenital heart defect prevalence in metropolitan atlanta, 2010, using capture-recapture applied to administrative records",capture-recapture; congenital heart defect; prevalence,ANNALS OF EPIDEMIOLOGY,RASKIND-HOOD C;HOGUE C;OVERWYK KJ;BOOK W,"purpose: although congenital heart defects (chd) are one of the most common types of birth defects in the united states, subnational prevalence estimates beyond early childhood are limited. methods: we used capture-recapture methodology and logistic regression to estimate chd prevalence per 1000 residents as of january 1, 2010, separately for adolescents and adults treated and living within five metropolitan atlanta, georgia counties, during 2008-2010. results: data sources differed by age. adolescents (n = 1621, aged 11-20 years) and adults (n = 3176, aged 21-64 years) were captured from at least one source. we estimated chd prevalence to be 7.85 per 1000 adolescents (estimated n = 3718 [95% ci: 3471-4004]) and 6.08 per 1000 adults (estimated n = 12,969 [95% ci: 13,873-18,915]). when we included persons found in age-inappropriate sources, prevalence estimates increased to 11 per 1000 adolescents and 6.5 per 1000 adults. conclusions: this method for obtaining subnational prevalence estimates provided reasonable prevalence results and identified needs for service improvement. only one half of adolescents and one-quarter of adults with chd were in health care within a 3-year time frame, suggesting need for better access to health insurance, transition care, and an increased number of physicians specializing in chd care. (c) 2018 elsevier inc. all rights reserved." -slow natal dispersal across a homogeneous landscape suggests the use of mixed movement behaviours during dispersal in the darwin's frog,movement ecology; natal dispersal; random walk; rhinoderma darwinii; spatial capture-recapture; terrestrial amphibian,ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR,VALENZUELA-SANCHEZ A;CAYUELA H;SCHMIDT BR;CUNNINGHAM AA;SOTO-AZAT C,"dispersal is a key process in ecology and evolution. both theoretical and empirical evidence in actively dispersing organisms support the general notion that the use of nearly straight dispersal paths is a highly efficient way to maximize dispersal success in heterogenous landscapes. in homogeneous landscapes, in contrast, the benefits of a straighter dispersal path could be outweighed by an increase in risk costs, favouring the evolution of tortuous dispersal paths resulting in a relatively slow dispersal. empirical support for this theoretical prediction, however, has remained elusive. to explore this theoretical prediction, we studied the movement behaviour of the southern darwin's frog, rhinoderma darwinii, a fully terrestrial amphibian inhabiting a highly homogeneous environment (i.e. south american temperate forest). using spatial capture-recapture data collected over a 4-year period in wild populations, in combination with statistical and simulation modelling, we found evidence of a slow natal dispersal lasting one year or more. in contrast, adults exhibited high site fidelity, having a median annual displacement of 3.64 m. a correlated random walk model produced synthetic distributions of juvenile annual displacement that were nearly identical to the empirical data, suggesting that a plausible explanation of juvenile dispersal is the use of routine movements (with high path tortuosity) over short temporal scales (<3 months) integrated over the year along a relatively straight dispersal path. we predict that for species living in homogenous landscapes, this behaviour likely reduces many of the costs associated with the transient stage of dispersal. specifically, periods of routine movements might reduce risk costs (e.g. dying due to starvation or predation), while the integration of these periods along a straight line maximizes dispersal distance while minimizing energetic costs. (c) 2019 the association for the study of animal behaviour. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +"estimates of adolescent and adult congenital heart defect prevalence in metropolitan atlanta, 2010, using capture-recapture applied to administrative records",capture-recapture; congenital heart defect; prevalence,ANNALS OF EPIDEMIOLOGY,RASKIND HOOD C;HOGUE C;OVERWYK KJ;BOOK W,"purpose: although congenital heart defects (chd) are one of the most common types of birth defects in the united states, subnational prevalence estimates beyond early childhood are limited. methods: we used capture-recapture methodology and logistic regression to estimate chd prevalence per 1000 residents as of january 1, 2010, separately for adolescents and adults treated and living within five metropolitan atlanta, georgia counties, during 2008-2010. results: data sources differed by age. adolescents (n = 1621, aged 11-20 years) and adults (n = 3176, aged 21-64 years) were captured from at least one source. we estimated chd prevalence to be 7.85 per 1000 adolescents (estimated n = 3718 [95% ci: 3471-4004]) and 6.08 per 1000 adults (estimated n = 12,969 [95% ci: 13,873-18,915]). when we included persons found in age-inappropriate sources, prevalence estimates increased to 11 per 1000 adolescents and 6.5 per 1000 adults. conclusions: this method for obtaining subnational prevalence estimates provided reasonable prevalence results and identified needs for service improvement. only one half of adolescents and one-quarter of adults with chd were in health care within a 3-year time frame, suggesting need for better access to health insurance, transition care, and an increased number of physicians specializing in chd care. (c) 2018 elsevier inc. all rights reserved." +slow natal dispersal across a homogeneous landscape suggests the use of mixed movement behaviours during dispersal in the darwin's frog,movement ecology; natal dispersal; random walk; rhinoderma darwinii; spatial capture-recapture; terrestrial amphibian,ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR,VALENZUELA SANCHEZ A;CAYUELA H;SCHMIDT BR;CUNNINGHAM AA;SOTO AZAT C,"dispersal is a key process in ecology and evolution. both theoretical and empirical evidence in actively dispersing organisms support the general notion that the use of nearly straight dispersal paths is a highly efficient way to maximize dispersal success in heterogenous landscapes. in homogeneous landscapes, in contrast, the benefits of a straighter dispersal path could be outweighed by an increase in risk costs, favouring the evolution of tortuous dispersal paths resulting in a relatively slow dispersal. empirical support for this theoretical prediction, however, has remained elusive. to explore this theoretical prediction, we studied the movement behaviour of the southern darwin's frog, rhinoderma darwinii, a fully terrestrial amphibian inhabiting a highly homogeneous environment (i.e. south american temperate forest). using spatial capture-recapture data collected over a 4-year period in wild populations, in combination with statistical and simulation modelling, we found evidence of a slow natal dispersal lasting one year or more. in contrast, adults exhibited high site fidelity, having a median annual displacement of 3.64 m. a correlated random walk model produced synthetic distributions of juvenile annual displacement that were nearly identical to the empirical data, suggesting that a plausible explanation of juvenile dispersal is the use of routine movements (with high path tortuosity) over short temporal scales (<3 months) integrated over the year along a relatively straight dispersal path. we predict that for species living in homogenous landscapes, this behaviour likely reduces many of the costs associated with the transient stage of dispersal. specifically, periods of routine movements might reduce risk costs (e.g. dying due to starvation or predation), while the integration of these periods along a straight line maximizes dispersal distance while minimizing energetic costs. (c) 2019 the association for the study of animal behaviour. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "resilience of tropical, freshwater fish (nematabramis everetti) populations to severe drought over a land-use gradient in borneo",el nino drought; freshwater fish; oil palm; logged forest; antagonistic interaction; mark-recapture; secr,ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS,WILKINSON CL;YEO DCJ;TAN HH;FIKRI AH;EWERS RM,"biodiversity-rich forests in tropical southeast asia are being extensively logged and converted to oil palm monocultures. in addition, extreme climatic events such as droughts are becoming more common. land-use change and extreme climatic events are thought to have synergistic impacts on aquatic biodiversity, but few studies have directly tested this. a severe el nino drought in southeast asia in early 2016 caused 16 low-order hill streams across a land-use gradient encompassing primary forest, logged forest and oil palm plantations in sabah, malaysia, to dry up into series of disconnected pools. the resulting disturbance (specifically, increased water temperature and decreased dissolved oxygen concentration) tolerated by the fish during the drought exceeded any worst-case scenario for climate change-induced warming. we quantified the biomass, density and movement of the dominant freshwater fish species, nematabramis everetti (cyprinidae), in these streams across this land-use gradient before, during, and after the 2016 el nino drought period. density of n. everetti was significantly lower in logged forest streams than primary forest or oil palm streams, and the biomass of individuals captured was lower during drought than prior to the drought; however, there was no change in the biomass density of individuals during drought. the distance moved by n. everetti was significantly lower during and after the drought compared to before the drought. we detected a significant antagonistic interaction on biomass of captured fish, with the magnitude of the drought impact reduced land-use intensified. populations of n. everetti were surprisingly resilient to drought and seem most affected instead by land-use. despite this resilience, it is important to monitor how this widespread and abundant species, which provides an important ecosystem service to local human communities, is affected by future land-use and climate change, as logging, deforestation and conversion to plantation monocultures continue across southeast asia." demographic consequences of climate variation along an elevational gradient for a montane terrestrial salamander,capture-recapture; growth; life history; mcmc; plethodon; survival,POPULATION ECOLOGY,CARUSO NM;RISSLER LJ,"climate change represents a significant threat to amphibians. however, for many species, the relationship between demography and climate is unknown, which limits predictive models. here, we describe the life history variation of plethodon montanus using capture-recapture data over a period of 4 years, along an elevational gradient to determine how survival and growth vary with climate, and how these relationships vary with elevation. we used a hierarchical model to estimate asymptotic size and growth rate and a spatial cormack-jolly-seber model to estimate the probability of capture and survival and dispersal variance. we found that during the active season, growth and survival rates are both positively affected by precipitation; however, while survival was positively affected by temperature at all elevations, higher temperatures led to a decrease in growth at lower elevations, while at higher elevations the opposite was true. during the inactive season, we found reduced growth rates, whereas survival was lower compared with the active at lower elevations but was higher at higher elevations. increased inactive season temperatures resulted in decreased survival while we found that temperature, amount of snow, and elevation interacted to influence survival. at low elevations, which were warmer, survival decreased with increasing snowfall but at higher elevations, survival generally increased with increasing snowfall. our results demonstrate that understanding how the environment can affect salamander demography to develop mechanistic models will require knowledge of the actual environmental conditions experienced by a given population as well as an understanding of the overall differences in climate at a given site." joint species movement modeling: how do traits influence movements?,birds; community model; hierarchical model; joint species model; moths; movement model; statistical model,ECOLOGY,OVASKAINEN O;RAMOS DL;SLADE EM;MERCKX T;TIKHONOV G;PENNANEN J;PIZO MA;RIBEIRO MC;MORALES JM,"joint species distribution modeling has enabled researchers to move from species-level to community-level analyses, leading to statistically more efficient and ecologically more informative use of data. here, we propose joint species movement modeling (jsmm) as an analogous approach that enables inferring both species- and community-level movement parameters from multispecies movement data. the species-level movement parameters are modeled as a function of species traits and phylogenetic relationships, allowing one to ask how species traits influence movements, and whether phylogenetically related species are similar in their movement behavior. we illustrate the modeling framework with two contrasting case studies: a stochastic redistribution model for direct observations of bird movements and a spatially structured diffusion model for capture-recapture data on moth movements. in both cases, the jsmm identified several traits that explain differences in movement behavior among species, such as movement rate increasing with body size in both birds and moths. we show with simulations that the jsmm approach increases precision of species-specific parameter estimates by borrowing information from other species that are closely related or have similar traits. the jsmm framework is applicable for many kinds of data, and it facilitates a mechanistic understanding of the causes and consequences of interspecific variation in movement behavior." @@ -126,11 +126,11 @@ modest immigration can rescue a reintroduced carnivore population,endangered; gr the black brant population is declining based on mark recapture,arctic; banding; black brant geese; branta bernicla nigricans; capture-mark-recapture; lincoln estimator; mexico; population dynamics; yukon-kuskokwim delta,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SEDINGER JS;RIECKE TV;LEACH AG;WARD DH,"annual survival and recruitment in black brant (branta bernicla nigricans) have declined since the 1990s, yet aerial surveys of the global population have been stable or even increasing over the past decade. we used a combination of a lincoln estimator based on harvest information and band recoveries, and marked-unmarked ratios in bag checks in 1 harvest area in mexico to estimate the number of adults in the population during 1992-2015. we produced weighted means from the 2 kinds of estimates for years in which we had data for both, with weights equal to the inverse of the variance of the individual estimates. we treated the black brant population as consisting of 2 subpopulations. one population consisted of breeding black brant on the yukon-kuskokwim delta (ykd), alaska, usa, and the other consisted of arctic (northern alaska, western canada, and eastern russia) breeders, and nonbreeders and failed breeders from the ykd that underwent molt migration to the arctic. for the global population estimates, we assessed potential bias due to differential marking and harvest of the 2 subpopulations, which was approximately 1%, probably because band recovery rates were similar for the 2 subpopulations. population estimates declined from 229,980 (average for 1999-2002) to 161,504 (average for 2012-2015). population estimates based on estimated harvest were variable but more stable in the later years of the study, when larger numbers of brant hunters were included in the sample. we suggest that the combination of lincoln estimates and bag check data provides a reasonable and cost effective approach to monitoring the population. (c) 2018 the wildlife society." time-for-space substitution in n-mixture modeling and population monitoring,hierarchical models; monitoring; population dynamics; population size; species decline; trend,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,COSTA A;ONETO F;SALVIDIO S,"population size is a fundamental state variable in ecology, and the analysis of temporal variation in abundance (i.e., detection of trends) is a prime objective in wildlife monitoring. however, population abundance cannot be directly observed because part of the population remains undetected and methods that account for imperfect detection are often not used. capture-mark-recapture approaches give reliable estimates of abundance but are time- and effort-consuming. in the last decade, the application of hierarchical, or n-mixture, models that use repeated counts of unmarked animals seem to give great advantages in the estimation of population size. hierarchical models require repeated surveys at multiple sites, but sometimes only data obtained for a single site in successive years are available. we applied the time-for-space substitution implemented within the n-mixture modeling framework to estimate population size and evaluate the dynamics of the endangered european leaf-toed gecko (euleptes europaea) surveyed >20 years. we compared these results with capture-mark-recapture estimates obtained from the same population and over the same time period. estimates and trends were comparable and both methods indicated similar population declines; moreover, n-mixture modeling indicated temperature affected detection. therefore, the application of the time-for-space substitution in hierarchical modeling seems valuable and may be useful in species monitoring and conservation. (c) 2019 the wildlife society." absence of pcb hot spot effect in walleye sander vitreus from lower green bay of lake michigan,NA,ARCHIVES OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINATION AND TOXICOLOGY,MADENJIAN CP;DEMBKOWSKI DJ;ISERMANN DA;BATTERMAN SA;CHERNYAK SM;COGSWELL SF;HOLEY ME,"under certain conditions, polychlorinated biphenyl (pcb) concentration in individuals of one sex of an adult fish population may exceed that of the other sex by more than a factor of two. this phenomenon, known as the pcb hot spot effect, has been postulated to be contingent upon the following two conditions: (1) presence of a pcb hot spot in the bottom sediments of the aquatic ecosystem, such that prey pcb concentrations in the hot spot region are substantially higher than prey pcb concentrations in locations distant from the hot spot, and (2) habitat use varying between the sexes, such that individuals of one sex inhabit the hot spot region to a considerably greater degree than individuals of the other sex. to test whether pcb concentrations in walleye sander vitreus from lower green bay of lake michigan displayed a pcb hot spot effect, whole-fish pcb concentrations were determined in ten female and ten male adult walleye from the population spawning in the fox river, the main tributary to lower green bay. in addition, mark-recapture data for the fox river walleye population were analyzed to determine differences in spatial distributions between the sexes. results revealed that the ratio of mean pcb concentration in males to mean pcb concentration in females was only 1.13, indicating the absence of a pcb hot spot effect. this result was corroborated by the mark-recapture data analysis, which showed no significant difference in habitat use between the sexes. thus, although condition 1 was met, condition 2 was not met. consequently, the pcb hot spot effect was not observed in the fox river walleye population. lack of a significant difference in pcb congener distributions between the sexes further corroborated our conclusions." -from science to practice: genetic estimate of brown bear population size in slovenia and how it influenced bear management,noninvasive genetics; mark-recapture; brown bear; ursus arctos; wildlife management; population size; science and policy; citizen science,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,SKRBINSEK T;LUSTRIK R;MAJIC-SKRBINSEK A;POTOCNIK H;KLJUN F;JELENCIC M;KOS I;TRONTELJ P,"rapid development of molecular genetics has provided ecologists and wildlife managers with a powerful set of tools for studying and monitoring wildlife. we applied these tools to estimate the size of the brown bear population in slovenia in 2007. in the years after the estimate was made public, we followed how this estimate affected policy and management actions in slovenian bear management. we designed and executed a large-scale noninvasive genetic sampling across the range of this species in the country with a network of volunteers and estimated the size of the brown bear population in slovenia using mark-recapture modeling. in a highly intensive 3-month sampling in autumn 2007, we collected 1057 samples. a total of 931 samples were successfully genotyped, yielding 354 different genotypes. using mark-recapture and correcting for the edge effect caused by bears moving in and out of the sampling area across the slovenian-croatian border, and accounting for detected mortality, we estimated winter population size (after annual mortality, before reproduction) at 424 (95% confidence interval 383-458). we also observed an uneven male and female ratio of 0.405 and 0.595, respectively. using citizen science, we managed to conduct a highly intensive large-scale sampling with modest financial resources, something that would be impossible to do otherwise. we produced the first robust, scientifically defensible estimate of the brown bear population size in slovenia. although at first reluctantly considered by managers as equivalent to other traditional population monitoring data, awareness of the importance of the estimate grew with time. it became the first reference point for understanding population dynamics, a basis to which current and future development of the population is being compared to. as such, we can expect it will profoundly affect slovenian bear management in the years to come." +from science to practice: genetic estimate of brown bear population size in slovenia and how it influenced bear management,noninvasive genetics; mark-recapture; brown bear; ursus arctos; wildlife management; population size; science and policy; citizen science,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,SKRBINSEK T;LUSTRIK R;MAJIC SKRBINSEK A;POTOCNIK H;KLJUN F;JELENCIC M;KOS I;TRONTELJ P,"rapid development of molecular genetics has provided ecologists and wildlife managers with a powerful set of tools for studying and monitoring wildlife. we applied these tools to estimate the size of the brown bear population in slovenia in 2007. in the years after the estimate was made public, we followed how this estimate affected policy and management actions in slovenian bear management. we designed and executed a large-scale noninvasive genetic sampling across the range of this species in the country with a network of volunteers and estimated the size of the brown bear population in slovenia using mark-recapture modeling. in a highly intensive 3-month sampling in autumn 2007, we collected 1057 samples. a total of 931 samples were successfully genotyped, yielding 354 different genotypes. using mark-recapture and correcting for the edge effect caused by bears moving in and out of the sampling area across the slovenian-croatian border, and accounting for detected mortality, we estimated winter population size (after annual mortality, before reproduction) at 424 (95% confidence interval 383-458). we also observed an uneven male and female ratio of 0.405 and 0.595, respectively. using citizen science, we managed to conduct a highly intensive large-scale sampling with modest financial resources, something that would be impossible to do otherwise. we produced the first robust, scientifically defensible estimate of the brown bear population size in slovenia. although at first reluctantly considered by managers as equivalent to other traditional population monitoring data, awareness of the importance of the estimate grew with time. it became the first reference point for understanding population dynamics, a basis to which current and future development of the population is being compared to. as such, we can expect it will profoundly affect slovenian bear management in the years to come." comparing abundance-based and tag-based estimates of coho salmon marine survival,life-cycle monitoring; mark-recapture; ocean survival; population monitoring; survival estimators,FISHERIES MANAGEMENT AND ECOLOGY,COCHRAN SM;RICKER S;ANDERSON C;GALLAGHER SP;WARD DM,"obtaining reliable estimates of marine survival is essential for understanding anadromous salmon population dynamics. two common approaches to estimating marine survival are (a) dividing abundance of returning adult salmon abundance by abundance of smolts from the same cohort, or (b) tagging a portion of the migrating smolts and estimating the return rate of tagged adults. this study compared these two approaches to estimating marine survival for coho salmon, oncorhynchus kisutch (walbaum), across multiple years in three california streams. abundance-based survival estimates were higher than tag-based estimates; average estimates for the two techniques differed from 1.5-fold to 7.4-fold across streams. one likely cause for these divergent estimates is migration of juveniles from natal habitat before smolt trapping begins, resulting in an underestimate of smolt abundance and an overestimate of marine survival rate for the abundance-based method. estimates of marine survival obtained from abundance estimates and tag returns are not directly comparable." "taxonomic and conservation implications of population genetic admixture, mito-nuclear discordance, and male-biased dispersal of a large endangered snake, drymarchon couperi",NA,PLOS ONE,FOLT B;BAUDER J;SPEAR S;STEVENSON D;HOFFMAN M;OAKS JR;WOOD PL;JENKINS C;STEEN DA;GUYER C,"accurate species delimitation and description are necessary to guide effective conservation of imperiled species, and this synergy is maximized when multiple data sources are used to delimit species. we illustrate this point by examining drymarchon couperi (eastern indigo snake), a large, federally-protected species in north america that was recently divided into two species based on gene sequence data from three loci and heuristic morphological assessment. here, we re-evaluate the two-species hypothesis for d. couperi by evaluating both population genetic and gene sequence data. our analyses of 14 microsatellite markers revealed 6-8 genetic population clusters with significant admixture, particularly across the contact zone between the two hypothesized species. phylogenetic analyses of gene sequence data with maximum-likelihood methods suggested discordance between mitochondrial and nuclear markers and provided phylogenetic support for one species rather than two. for these reasons, we place drymarchon kolpobasileus into synonymy with d. couperi. we suggest inconsistent patterns between mitochondrial and nuclear dna are driven by high dispersal of males relative to females. we advocate for species delimitation exercises that evaluate admixture and gene flow in addition to phylogenetic analyses, particularly when the latter reveal monophyletic lineages. this is particularly important for taxa, such as squamates, that exhibit strong sex-biased dispersal. problems associated with over-delimitation of species richness can become particularly acute for threatened and endangered species, because of high costs to conservation when taxonomy demands protection of more individual species than are supported by accumulating data." a mark-recapture approach for estimating population size of the endangered ringed seal (phoca hispida saimensis),NA,PLOS ONE,KOIVUNIEMI M;KURKILAHTI M;NIEMI M;AUTTILA M;KUNNASRANTA M,"reliable population estimates are fundamental to the conservation of endangered species. we evaluate here the use of photo-identification (photo-id) and mark-recapture techniques for estimating the population size of the endangered saimaa ringed seal (phoca hispida saimensis). photo-id data based on the unique pelage patterns of individuals were collected by means of camera traps and boat-based surveys during the molting season in two of the species' main breeding areas, over a period of five years in the pihlajavesi basin and eight years in the haukivesi basin. an open model approach provided minimum population estimates for these two basins. the results indicated high survival rates and site fidelity among the adult seals. more accurate estimates can be obtained in the future by increasing the surveying effort both spatially and temporally. the method presented here proved effective for evaluating population size objectively, whereas the results of the current snow lair censuses are dependent on varying winter conditions, for instance. we therefore suggest that a photo-id-based non-invasive mark-recapture method should be used for estimating saimaa ringed seal abundances in order to ensure reliable, transparent population monitoring under changing climatic conditions." -reality and risk: a refutation of s. rendon's analysis of the peruvian truth and reconciliation commission's conflict mortality study,casualty count estimation; capture-recapture; estimation risk; peruvian truth and reconciliation commission,RESEARCH & POLITICS,MANRIQUE-VALLIER D;BALL P,"we refute s. rendon's recent criticism of the 2003 peruvian truth and reconciliation commission (trc) conflict mortality study. we first show that his most important result, an alternative estimate of the mortality due to the maoist guerrillas of shining path (sendero luminoso), is lower than existing observed data and is therefore impossible. we then analyze his statistical approach and find that it is affected by a subtle form of selection bias. we contrast his approach to the trc's using tools from statistical decision theory, and determine that his method is inadequate for this problem-and that the trc's approach is, at minimum, better. without advocating for the trc's original results, we conclude that rendon's approach and methods are inferior to the trc's original work." +reality and risk: a refutation of s. rendon's analysis of the peruvian truth and reconciliation commission's conflict mortality study,casualty count estimation; capture-recapture; estimation risk; peruvian truth and reconciliation commission,RESEARCH & POLITICS,MANRIQUE VALLIER D;BALL P,"we refute s. rendon's recent criticism of the 2003 peruvian truth and reconciliation commission (trc) conflict mortality study. we first show that his most important result, an alternative estimate of the mortality due to the maoist guerrillas of shining path (sendero luminoso), is lower than existing observed data and is therefore impossible. we then analyze his statistical approach and find that it is affected by a subtle form of selection bias. we contrast his approach to the trc's using tools from statistical decision theory, and determine that his method is inadequate for this problem-and that the trc's approach is, at minimum, better. without advocating for the trc's original results, we conclude that rendon's approach and methods are inferior to the trc's original work." remarkable long-distance returns to a forage patch by artificially displaced wild bumble bees (hymenoptera: apidae),bumble bee; artificial displacement; long distance travel; mark-recapture; colored numbered tags; bombus vosnesenskii; forage resource,JOURNAL OF APICULTURAL RESEARCH,RAO S;HOFFMAN G;KIRBY J;HORNE D,"bumble bees are believed to minimize travel distance and time while seeking foraging resources, and to memorize landmarks and return to forage patches visited earlier. given these abilities, if a worker is displaced, will it switch to a new forage resource close by or will it navigate back to the original forage patch? to address this question we collected 210 bombus vosnesenskii workers from an ornamental spirea patch, marked them with numbered tags, transported them in a cooler, and released them at seven distances, from 1.5 km to 16 km, in each of two directions. each worker that returned to the spirea patch was recaptured, and re-released at its first release location. over 8 observation days, 54 workers from 11 release locations returned to the spirea patch. of these, 16 were recaptured twice, 13 three times, 5 four times and 1 five times. nine workers returned from release distances >= 10 km, including one from 16 km, despite the presence of multiple rewarding resources between the release location and the spirea patch. returns were rapid-three workers released up to 5 km away were recaptured within 4 h, while a worker from 13 km returned within 30 h of release. wind direction, wind speed, and release direction had significant (p < 0.05) impacts on release-to-recapture-times. also, workers returned significantly (p < 0.001) more quickly during subsequent trips compared to their first return. these findings highlight the ability of displaced bumble bee workers to travel long distances, and to navigate back to familiar forage patches." estimating natural mortality of atlantic bluefin tuna using acoustic telemetry,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,BLOCK BA;WHITLOCK R;SCHALLERT RJ;WILSON S;STOKESBURY MJW;CASTLETON M;BOUSTANY A,"atlantic bluefin tuna (thunnus thynnus) are highly migratory fish with a contemporary range spanning the north atlantic ocean. bluefin tuna populations have undergone severe decline and the status of the fish within each population remains uncertain. improved biological knowledge, particularly of natural mortality and rates of mixing of the western (gom) and eastern (mediterranean) populations, is key to resolving the current status of the atlantic bluefin tuna. we evaluated the potential for acoustic tags to yield empirical estimates of mortality and migration rates for long-lived, highly migratory species such as atlantic bluefin tuna. bluefin tuna tagged in the gulf of st. lawrence (gsl) foraging ground (2009-2016) exhibited high detection rates post release, with 91% crossing receiver lines one year post tagging, 61% detected after year two at large, with detections up to similar to 1700 days post deployment. acoustic detections per individual fish ranged from 3 to 4759 receptions. a spatially-structured bayesian mark recapture model was applied to the acoustic detection data for atlantic bluefin tuna electronically tagged in the gsl to estimate the rate of instantaneous annual natural mortality. we report a median estimate of 0.10 yr(-1) for this experiment. our results demonstrate that acoustic tags can provide vital fisheries independent estimates for life history parameters critical for improving stock assessment models." rat in a cage: trappability of urban norway rats (rattus norvegicus),capture-mark-recapture method (cmr); ecology; norway rat; rattus; trappability; trapping bias; urban,FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BYERS KA;LEE MJ;BIDULKA JJ;PATRICK DM;HIMSWORTH CG,"understanding the local ecology of urban norway rats (rattus norevgicus) is necessary to inform effective rat mitigation strategies. while capture-mark-recapture (cmr) methods can be used to acquire such ecological information (e.g., abundance, movement patterns, and habitat use), these techniques assume that all individuals of the study population are equally trappable. to test whether urban rats adhere to this assumption, we conducted a 4-week cmr study in an urban neighborhood of vancouver, canada, to evaluate whether rat characteristics (i.e., age, sex, size, wound status, and infection with the pathogen leptospira spp.) were associated with trappability. we found that the majority of rats entered traps in the first 2 weeks of trapping, and that larger rats were caught earlier in the trapping period. however, smaller, sexually immature rats were recaught more often than were larger, sexually mature rats, suggesting that prior capture affects the ability to recapture urban norway rats. this highlights the need for cmr studies to account for size, sexual maturity, and prior capture when interpreting data." @@ -139,54 +139,54 @@ prevalence of injecting drug use in estonia 2010-2015: a capture-recapture study size-logging interactions and population dynamics in tropical understorey birds,apparent survival; eastern himalaya; fecundity; natal dispersal; reverse time mark-recapture; understorey insectivores,CURRENT SCIENCE,SRINIVASAN U;QUADER S,"demographic vital rates (e.g., fecundity and survival) determine population size and viability. however, how anthropogenic habitat change differentially influences these dynamic population processes for species with different traits remains unknown. crucially, this limits a mechanistic understanding of species-and community-level patterns in response to intensity of habitat change, and therefore, impedes robust prediction of future species responses. we investigated how size (across 26 forest birds, spanning almost an order of magnitude in body mass) and habitat modification (logging intensity, from intact forest to a 2.5-fold reduction in tree density) might interact to influence survival, reproduction and dispersal. data were collected over five sessions under the robust design in a capture-mark-recapture framework and analysed using reverse time capture-recapture models. we found that smaller species were more fecund with increased logging intensity, and dispersed from more heavily logged to more intact forest. with increasing size, species reproduced better in progressively more intact forest, and dispersed from intact forest into more logged forest. these results indicate important trait-linked differences in the relative significance of various demographic processes in influencing species responses to varying intensities of habitat change. separating the mechanistic processes underlying observed patterns is crucial to understanding and predicting anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity." cluster capture-recapture to account for identification uncertainty on aerial surveys of animal populations,capture-recapture; neyman-scott process; palm intensity; spatial capture-recapture; thomas process; unmanned aerial vehicles,BIOMETRICS,STEVENSON BC;BORCHERS DL;FEWSTER RM,"capture-recapture methods for estimating wildlife population sizes almost always require their users to identify every detected animal. many modern-day wildlife surveys detect animals without physical capturevisual detection by cameras is one such example. however, for every pair of detections, the surveyor faces a decision that is often fraught with uncertainty: are they linked to the same individual? an inability to resolve every such decision to a high degree of certainty prevents the use of standard capture-recapture methods, impeding the estimation of animal density. here, we develop an estimator for aerial surveys, on which two planes or unmanned vehicles (drones) fly a transect over the survey region, detecting individuals via high-definition cameras. identities remain unknown, so one cannot discern if two detections match to the same animal; however, detections in close proximity are more likely to match. by modeling detection locations as a clustered point process, we extend recently developed methodology and propose a precise and computationally efficient estimator of animal density that does not require individual identification. we illustrate the method with an aerial survey of porpoise, on which cameras detect individuals at the surface of the sea, and we need to take account of the fact that they are not always at the surface." "tiger density, dhole occupancy, and prey occupancy in the human disturbed dong phayayen - khao yai forest complex, thailand",camera trapping; cuon alpinus; density estimation; panthera tigris; spatial capture-recapturea,MAMMALIAN BIOLOGY,NGOPRASERT D;GALE GA,"large carnivores have been declining due to a combination of factors including habitat loss and fragmentation, prey loss, and direct persecution. tiger panthera tigris and dhole cuon alpinus are endangered and emblematic of problems facing large carnivores globally. we estimated tiger density, dhole occupancy and prey availability within the dong phayayen - khao yai forest complex, a world heritage area in thailand that has potential as a 'recovery site' for both species. camera traps were set near bait stations designed for bear monitoring. a bayesian spatial capture-recapture approach was used to estimate tiger density and occupancy of dhole and their prey. camera traps were deployed in two areas, khao yai (78 locations, december 2009-may 2011) and dong phayayen (45 locations, december 2012-august 2014). tiger was not detected in khao yai. we detected 9 tigers (2 male, 4 females, and 3 unknown sex) in dong phayayen. tiger density was 2.1 (95% ci 0.5-5.3) individuals per 100 km(2) based on an individual heterogeneity model. dhole occupancy was higher in khao yai (64%) than dong phayayen (55%). prey occupancy was 9-53% higher in dong phayayen. wild pig sus scrofa had the highest occupancy rates, followed by gaur bos gaurus, sambar rusa unicolor and muntjac muntiacus muntjac, respectively. although dong phayayens tiger density was lower compared to populations estimated in some better-known protected areas, our data suggest it has potential as a regional tiger (and perhaps dhole) recovery site. however, dong phayayen, like many sites in the region, faces significant threats from wildlife hunting and rosewood (dalbergia spp.) poaching that need to be addressed urgently if this small population is going to survive even the near term. (c) 2019 deutsche gesellschaft fur saugetierkunde. published by elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." -"asian water monitors (varanus salvator) remain common in peninsular malaysia, despite intense harvesting",abundance; cites; density; hunting; non-detriment; population demographic; sustainable use; wildlife trade,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,KHADIEJAH S;RAZAK N;WARD-FEAR G;SHINE R;NATUSCH DJD,"context each year, between 50000 and 120000 asian water monitors (varanus salvator, to >2 m total length) are harvested from the wild in peninsular malaysia for their skins. under the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (cites), international trade is allowable only if it is sustainable. aims to assess the sustainability of malaysia's harvest of water monitors by quantifying the abundance and demography of v. salvator in the wild, and to develop cost-effective methods for estimating the parameters needed to evaluate sustainability. methods we conducted trapping surveys to determine the abundance, population demography and density of v. salvator in four habitat types in five states in peninsular malaysia in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2018. key results of 1025 lizards captured, only 63% (mostly females) were within the preferred body-size range exploited for commercial trade. densities were high (37-372 lizards km(-2) based on estimated population sizes; 1-35 lizards km(-2) based on number of animals captured). anthropogenic habitats (e.g. oil palm plantations) contained denser populations of monitors than did natural habitats where no hunting occurs, but mean body sizes were smaller. conclusions despite intensive harvesting for many decades, v. salvator remains abundant and widespread. harvesting alters the demographic structure of lizard populations, but harvests of v. salvator in malaysia are likely to be sustainable because a significant proportion of the population is not exploited. implications ongoing monitoring is required to continually reassess harvest sustainability. for this purpose, relatively simple population approaches, such as line-trapping transects to elucidate relative abundances, can provide important data on the makeup of hunted populations of water monitors more cost-effectively than can mark-recapture studies for assessments of sustainable use of these economically important lizards." -assessing red drum spawning aggregations and abundance in the eastern gulf of mexico: a multidisciplinary approach,acoustic telemetry; capture-mark-recapture; fish; fisheries management; genetic tracking; movement ecology; population abundance estimation,ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,LOWERRE-BARBIERI SK;TRINGALI MD;SHEA CP;BURNSED SW;BICKFORD J;MURPHY M;PORCH C,"many marine fish form spawning aggregations (fsas) and exhibit meta-population stock structure, affecting reproductive resilience and the optimal spatial scale of management. red drum use a known fsa site off tampa bay (tb fsa site) and another presumed fsa site off charlotte harbor (ch fsa site). we studied these sites for 3 years (2012-2014) to assess space use and annual abundance at the tb fsa site using: (i) genetically profiled fish, non-lethally sampled by purse seine (n=9087); (ii) aerial surveys (n=37); and (iii) acoustic telemetry (n=122 fish). thousands of fish concentrated at the tb fsa site to spawn each year, dispersing afterward to an area of at least approximate to 150km along the coast and 90km offshore. fish acoustically tagged at the tb fsa site showed strong annual spawning site fidelity (91% in 2013 and 85% in 2014) and the straying rate to the ch fsa site to the south was low (6-13%). annual abundance at the tb fsa site varied, with the estimated abundance in 2013 being four times greater than that estimated for 2014. similarly, aerial surveys in 2013 sighted 2.5 times as many aggregations as in 2014. however, fine-scale space use, which typically goes unassessed in abundance estimates (short-term surface behaviour and temporary migration), also differed between these years and needs to be integrated into future capture-mark-recapture models." -common octopus settled in human-altered mediterranean coastal waters: from individual home range to population dynamics,coastal management; demography; detection probability; home range; population parameters; spatially explicit capture-recapture (scr) model,ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,ARECHAVALA-LOPEZ P;MINGUITO-FRUTOS M;FOLLANA-BERNA G;PALMER M,"a spatially explicit capture-recapture (scr) model was applied to estimate simultaneously population parameters and individual activity (i.e. home range size) of o. vulgaris, based on experimental mark-recapture data in a human-altered mediterranean coastal area. seventy-two octopuses were captured, tagged with subcutaneous pit-tags and released. nineteen tagged individuals were recaptured (recapture rate: 26.4%) in the same area over the study period, which spanned over 6 months. population sizes and densities decreased over the study period, from 337 octopuses (8 ind. ha(-1)) in september-october to 105 octopuses (2.5 ind. ha(-1)) in february-march. the highest recruitment probability was estimated to occur at the beginning of the study but it clearly decreased over time, while mortality probability during a fishing period slightly increased. mean specific growth rate was 0.82 +/- 0.11 day(-1). individual home range or activity area ranged from 2.8 ha to 7.3 ha (median home range radius: 121.8 m). overall, these results suggest that human-altered coastal habitats, which are characterized by abundant shelters, abundant food and absence of predators, can act as settlement and growth areas for juveniles and adults of o. vulgaris. furthermore, the methodologies applied in this study are recommended as innovative tools to improve management actions of coastal resources." +"asian water monitors (varanus salvator) remain common in peninsular malaysia, despite intense harvesting",abundance; cites; density; hunting; non-detriment; population demographic; sustainable use; wildlife trade,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,KHADIEJAH S;RAZAK N;WARD FEAR G;SHINE R;NATUSCH DJD,"context each year, between 50000 and 120000 asian water monitors (varanus salvator, to >2 m total length) are harvested from the wild in peninsular malaysia for their skins. under the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (cites), international trade is allowable only if it is sustainable. aims to assess the sustainability of malaysia's harvest of water monitors by quantifying the abundance and demography of v. salvator in the wild, and to develop cost-effective methods for estimating the parameters needed to evaluate sustainability. methods we conducted trapping surveys to determine the abundance, population demography and density of v. salvator in four habitat types in five states in peninsular malaysia in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2018. key results of 1025 lizards captured, only 63% (mostly females) were within the preferred body-size range exploited for commercial trade. densities were high (37-372 lizards km(-2) based on estimated population sizes; 1-35 lizards km(-2) based on number of animals captured). anthropogenic habitats (e.g. oil palm plantations) contained denser populations of monitors than did natural habitats where no hunting occurs, but mean body sizes were smaller. conclusions despite intensive harvesting for many decades, v. salvator remains abundant and widespread. harvesting alters the demographic structure of lizard populations, but harvests of v. salvator in malaysia are likely to be sustainable because a significant proportion of the population is not exploited. implications ongoing monitoring is required to continually reassess harvest sustainability. for this purpose, relatively simple population approaches, such as line-trapping transects to elucidate relative abundances, can provide important data on the makeup of hunted populations of water monitors more cost-effectively than can mark-recapture studies for assessments of sustainable use of these economically important lizards." +assessing red drum spawning aggregations and abundance in the eastern gulf of mexico: a multidisciplinary approach,acoustic telemetry; capture-mark-recapture; fish; fisheries management; genetic tracking; movement ecology; population abundance estimation,ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,LOWERRE BARBIERI SK;TRINGALI MD;SHEA CP;BURNSED SW;BICKFORD J;MURPHY M;PORCH C,"many marine fish form spawning aggregations (fsas) and exhibit meta-population stock structure, affecting reproductive resilience and the optimal spatial scale of management. red drum use a known fsa site off tampa bay (tb fsa site) and another presumed fsa site off charlotte harbor (ch fsa site). we studied these sites for 3 years (2012-2014) to assess space use and annual abundance at the tb fsa site using: (i) genetically profiled fish, non-lethally sampled by purse seine (n=9087); (ii) aerial surveys (n=37); and (iii) acoustic telemetry (n=122 fish). thousands of fish concentrated at the tb fsa site to spawn each year, dispersing afterward to an area of at least approximate to 150km along the coast and 90km offshore. fish acoustically tagged at the tb fsa site showed strong annual spawning site fidelity (91% in 2013 and 85% in 2014) and the straying rate to the ch fsa site to the south was low (6-13%). annual abundance at the tb fsa site varied, with the estimated abundance in 2013 being four times greater than that estimated for 2014. similarly, aerial surveys in 2013 sighted 2.5 times as many aggregations as in 2014. however, fine-scale space use, which typically goes unassessed in abundance estimates (short-term surface behaviour and temporary migration), also differed between these years and needs to be integrated into future capture-mark-recapture models." +common octopus settled in human-altered mediterranean coastal waters: from individual home range to population dynamics,coastal management; demography; detection probability; home range; population parameters; spatially explicit capture-recapture (scr) model,ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,ARECHAVALA LOPEZ P;MINGUITO FRUTOS M;FOLLANA BERNA G;PALMER M,"a spatially explicit capture-recapture (scr) model was applied to estimate simultaneously population parameters and individual activity (i.e. home range size) of o. vulgaris, based on experimental mark-recapture data in a human-altered mediterranean coastal area. seventy-two octopuses were captured, tagged with subcutaneous pit-tags and released. nineteen tagged individuals were recaptured (recapture rate: 26.4%) in the same area over the study period, which spanned over 6 months. population sizes and densities decreased over the study period, from 337 octopuses (8 ind. ha(-1)) in september-october to 105 octopuses (2.5 ind. ha(-1)) in february-march. the highest recruitment probability was estimated to occur at the beginning of the study but it clearly decreased over time, while mortality probability during a fishing period slightly increased. mean specific growth rate was 0.82 +/- 0.11 day(-1). individual home range or activity area ranged from 2.8 ha to 7.3 ha (median home range radius: 121.8 m). overall, these results suggest that human-altered coastal habitats, which are characterized by abundant shelters, abundant food and absence of predators, can act as settlement and growth areas for juveniles and adults of o. vulgaris. furthermore, the methodologies applied in this study are recommended as innovative tools to improve management actions of coastal resources." """hot deals at sea"": responses of a top predator (bottlenose dolphin, tursiops truncatus) to human-induced changes in the coastal ecosystem",behavior; coastal ecosystem; habitat management; human activities; marine top predators; mediterranean sea; social structure; tursiops truncatus,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY,LOPEZ BD,"the main response of top predators to human-induced environmental changes is often behavioral. although human activities regularly impose a disturbance on top predators, they can also be a source of reliable and concentrated food resources for species with a high degree of behavioral plasticity. this study represents the first assessment of the influence of these resources on migratory patterns and social interaction of a marine top predator, the common bottlenose dolphin, tursiops truncatus. pollock's closed robust design models and association analyses were applied to data collected over 9 consecutive years of research in a coastal area subject to significant use and pressure by humans. photo-identification data were collected year-round during 955 boat-based surveys, resulting in 1638 common bottlenose dolphin group encounters. results of this study revealed a significant upward trend in density of bottlenose dolphins, preferences for a coastal area with higher human pressure, and a reduction of the social interactions associated to a temporal switch to the food sources provided by human activities. the observed link between human activities and changes in common bottlenose dolphin behavior aim to contribute to a better understanding of the ecology of a marine top predator and provide some of the needed baseline data, from which effective management and conservation strategies can be designed." -multi-state open robust design applied to opportunistic data reveals dynamics of wide-ranging taxa: the sperm whale case,abundance; capture-mark-recapture; mobile taxa; multi-state open robust design model; opportunistic data; photo-identification; popan model; population dynamics; sperm whales (physeter macrocephalus); survival; temporary emigration; transients,ECOSPHERE,BOYS RM;OLIVEIRA C;PEREZ-JORGEO S;PRIETO R;STEINER L;SILVA MA,"capture-mark-recapture methods have been extensively used to estimate abundance, demography, and life history parameters of populations of several taxa. however, the high mobility of many species means that dedicated surveys are logistically complicated and expensive. use of opportunistic data may be an alternative, if modeling takes into account the inevitable heterogeneity in capture probability from imperfect detection and incomplete sampling, which can produce significant bias in parameter estimates. here, we compare covariate-based open jolly-seber models (popan) and multi-state open robust design (msord) models to estimate demographic parameters of the sperm whale population summering in the azores, from photo-identification data collected opportunistically by whale-watching operators and researchers. the structure of the msord also allows for extra information to be obtained, estimating temporary emigration and improving precision of estimated parameters. estimates of survival from both popan and msord were high, constant, and very similar. the popan model, which partially accounted for heterogeneity in capture probabilities, estimated an unbiased super-population of similar to 1470 whales, with annual abundance showing a positive trend from 351 individuals (95% ci: 234-526) in 2010 to 718 (95% ci: 477-1082) in 2015. in contrast, estimates of abundance from msord models that explicitly incorporated imperfect detection due to temporary emigration were less biased, more precise, and showed no trend over years, from 275 individuals (95% ci: 188-404) in 2014 to 367 (95% ci: 248-542) in 2012. the msord estimated short residence time and an even-flow temporary emigration, meaning that the probability of whales emigrating from and immigrating to the area was equal. our results illustrate how failure to account for transience and temporary emigration can lead to biased estimates and trends in abundance, compromising our ability to detect true population changes. msord models should improve inferences of population dynamics, especially when capture probability is low and highly variable, due to wide-ranging behavior of individuals or to non-standardized sampling. therefore, these models should provide less biased estimates and more accurate assessments of uncertainty that can inform management and conservation measures." +multi-state open robust design applied to opportunistic data reveals dynamics of wide-ranging taxa: the sperm whale case,abundance; capture-mark-recapture; mobile taxa; multi-state open robust design model; opportunistic data; photo-identification; popan model; population dynamics; sperm whales (physeter macrocephalus); survival; temporary emigration; transients,ECOSPHERE,BOYS RM;OLIVEIRA C;PEREZ JORGEO S;PRIETO R;STEINER L;SILVA MA,"capture-mark-recapture methods have been extensively used to estimate abundance, demography, and life history parameters of populations of several taxa. however, the high mobility of many species means that dedicated surveys are logistically complicated and expensive. use of opportunistic data may be an alternative, if modeling takes into account the inevitable heterogeneity in capture probability from imperfect detection and incomplete sampling, which can produce significant bias in parameter estimates. here, we compare covariate-based open jolly-seber models (popan) and multi-state open robust design (msord) models to estimate demographic parameters of the sperm whale population summering in the azores, from photo-identification data collected opportunistically by whale-watching operators and researchers. the structure of the msord also allows for extra information to be obtained, estimating temporary emigration and improving precision of estimated parameters. estimates of survival from both popan and msord were high, constant, and very similar. the popan model, which partially accounted for heterogeneity in capture probabilities, estimated an unbiased super-population of similar to 1470 whales, with annual abundance showing a positive trend from 351 individuals (95% ci: 234-526) in 2010 to 718 (95% ci: 477-1082) in 2015. in contrast, estimates of abundance from msord models that explicitly incorporated imperfect detection due to temporary emigration were less biased, more precise, and showed no trend over years, from 275 individuals (95% ci: 188-404) in 2014 to 367 (95% ci: 248-542) in 2012. the msord estimated short residence time and an even-flow temporary emigration, meaning that the probability of whales emigrating from and immigrating to the area was equal. our results illustrate how failure to account for transience and temporary emigration can lead to biased estimates and trends in abundance, compromising our ability to detect true population changes. msord models should improve inferences of population dynamics, especially when capture probability is low and highly variable, due to wide-ranging behavior of individuals or to non-standardized sampling. therefore, these models should provide less biased estimates and more accurate assessments of uncertainty that can inform management and conservation measures." "density-dependent fitness, not dispersal movements, drives temporal variation in spatial genetic structure in dark-eyed juncos (junco hyemalis)",assignment indices; density-dependent dispersal; density-dependent fitness; junco hyemalis; philopatry; spatial genetic structure,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,LIEBGOLD EB;GERLACH NM;KETTERSON ED,"some studies have found that dispersal rates and distances increase with density, indicating that density-dependent dispersal likely affects spatial genetic structure. in an 11-year mark-recapture study on a passerine, the dark-eyed junco, we tested whether density affected dispersal distance and/or fine-scale spatial genetic structure. contrary to expectations, we found no effect of predispersal density on dispersal distance or the proportion of locally produced juveniles returning to the population from which they hatched. however, even though density did not affect dispersal distance or natal return rates, we found that density still did affect spatial genetic structure. we found significant positive spatial genetic structure at low densities of (postdispersal) adults but not at high densities. in years with high postdispersal (adult) densities that also had high predispersal (juvenile) densities in the previous year, we found negative spatial genetic structure, indicating high levels of dispersal. we found that density also affected fitness of recruits, and fitness of immigrants, potentially linking these population parameters with the spatial genetic structure detected. immigrants and recruits rarely nested in low postdispersal density years. in contrast, in years with high postdispersal density, recruits were common and immigrants had equal success to local birds, so novel genotypes diluted the gene pool and effectively eliminated positive spatial genetic structure. in relation to fine-scale spatial genetic structure, fitness of immigrants and new recruits is poorly understood compared to dispersal movements, but we conclude that it can have implications for the spatial distribution of genotypes in populations." the survival of hatchery-origin pinto abalone haliotis kamtschatkana released into washington waters,archipelago; benthos; fishing; invertebrates; modelling; recovery; subtidal,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,CARSON HS;MORIN DJ;BOUMA JV;ULRICH M;SIZEMORE R,"wild populations of pinto abalone (haliotis kamtschatkana) in washington state have declined by 97% since 1992, despite a fishery closure since 1994. no recruitment has been detected recently, indicating probable reproductive failure due to low densities. a pilot programme placed a total of over 11,000 hatchery-origin juveniles, age 18-22months, at 10 sites in the san juan islands. observed (naive) year1 survival averaged 10.2% (0-23% range) and was most influenced by site compared with lineage or size-at-outplant. families survived in the approximate proportions that they were outplanted, and there was little support for an effect of size-at-outplant on survival. etection was low due to the small chance of sighting individuals on complex substrate. when derived from repeated sampling, an upper bound on naive detection rate averaged 0.38 and increased with size. when derived from a closed capture-recapture model, average detection was estimated at 0.19. growth was highly variable and confounded with detection, but an average 3.4% of detected outplants across all sites (0-7.5% range) had reached reproductive size in 2017. a state-space model of exponential population growth was modified to account for imperfect detection and yielded an estimated density of abalone for each survey. seven out of eight sites included in the model remained above a target abalone density of 0.3m(-2) throughout the project. the majority of tagged abalone made little net movement over weekly and annual timescales, although some emigration likely reduced survival estimates. the restoration programme is transitioning from a pilot phase to a production phase, including optimization of hatchery and outplant processes. existing well-performing sites will receive additional cohorts every 4-5years to maintain aggregation densities. new sites will replace poorly performing ones, although this is hampered by a poor understanding of the mechanisms behind site performance." a note on dual system population size estimator,coverage error; undercount; capture-recapture; administrative data,JOURNAL OF OFFICIAL STATISTICS,ZHANG LC,"several countries are currently investigating the possibility of replacing the costly population census with a population data set derived from administrative sources, in combination with a purposely designed population coverage survey. we formulate the assumptions of the dual system estimator in this context, and contrast them to the situation involving a census and a census coverage survey." a hierarchical bayesian approach for handling missing classification data,cervus elaphus nelsoni; classification data; demographic ratio; elk; hierarchical bayesian statistics; missing not at random data; multinomial distribution; proportion estimation; sex ratio; wildlife management,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,KETZ AC;JOHNSON TL;HOOTEN MB;HOBBS NT,"ecologists use classifications of individuals in categories to understand composition of populations and communities. these categories might be defined by demographics, functional traits, or species. assignment of categories is often imperfect, but frequently treated as observations without error. when individuals are observed but not classified, these ""partial"" observations must be modified to include the missing data mechanism to avoid spurious inference. we developed two hierarchical bayesian models to overcome the assumption of perfect assignment to mutually exclusive categories in the multinomial distribution of categorical counts, when classifications are missing. these models incorporate auxiliary information to adjust the posterior distributions of the proportions of membership in categories. in one model, we use an empirical bayes approach, where a subset of data from one year serves as a prior for the missing data the next. in the other approach, we use a small random sample of data within a year to inform the distribution of the missing data. we performed a simulation to show the bias that occurs when partial observations were ignored and demonstrated the altered inference for the estimation of demographic ratios. we applied our models to demographic classifications of elk (cervus elaphus nelsoni) to demonstrate improved inference for the proportions of sex and stage classes. we developed multiple modeling approaches using a generalizable nested multinomial structure to account for partially observed data that were missing not at random for classification counts. accounting for classification uncertainty is important to accurately understand the composition of populations and communities in ecological studies." estimating abundance of a cryptic social carnivore using spatially explicit capture-recapture,canis lupus; monitoring; noninvasive genetic sampling; population estimation; spatially explicit capture-recapture; wolf,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,ROFFLER GH;WAITE JN;PILGRIM KL;ZARN KE;SCHWARTZ MK,"estimating population abundance of wolves (canis lupus) in densely forested landscapes is challenging because reduced visibility lowers the success of methods such as aerial surveys and enumeration of group size using radiotelemetry. however, regular population estimates of wolves are necessary for population monitoring and sustainable management. we used noninvasive hair snaring and spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) to estimate wolf abundance on prince of wales island (pow), alaska, usa, during 2012-2015. we monitored 36-82 hair-snare stations weekly for 9-11 weeks during autumn. the noninvasive study area covered 1,683 km(2) during 2012-2013 and was expanded to 3,281 km(2) during 2014-2015. we identified 57 individual wolves during the study period using dna from hair follicles genotyped at 10 microsatellite loci. we used population density estimates using secr (2013: 24.5 wolves/1,000 km(2) [95% ci = 14.4-41.9 wolves/1,000 km(2)], 2014: 9.9 wolves/1,000 km(2) [95% ci = 5.5-17.7/1,000 km(2)], 2015: 11.9 wolves/1,000 km(2) [95% ci = 7.7-18.5 wolves/1,000 km(2)]) to predict the autumn population for the pow management unit (2013: 221.1 wolves [95% ci = 130-378]; 2014: 89.1 wolves [95% ci = 49.8-159.4]; 2015: 107.5 wolves [95% ci = 69-167]). we detected and redetected more wolves and increased the precision of the density estimate after increasing the hair sampling intensity and sampling area in 2014-2015. our results demonstrate that estimating wolf abundance using noninvasive sampling and secr was feasible and reliably applied producing a statistically robust population estimate for monitoring wolf populations in densely forested areas. these methods have promise for application to widely ranging carnivores at population-level scales and may be especially useful when regular density estimates are necessary for management and conservation. (c) 2019 the wildlife society." comparison of aerial survey methods for elk in arizona,cervus canadensis; detection probability; double-observer; elk abundance; hybrid model; mark-recapture; population; sightability,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,BRISTOW KD;CLEMENT MJ;CRABB ML;HARDING LE;RUBIN ES,"elk (cervus canadensis) populations in arizona, usa, have historically been managed using estimates of relative abundance. recent questions related to the influence of large wildfires, habitat alterations, and predator-prey relations have increased the demand for absolute estimates of elk abundance. between 2014 and 2016, we conducted experimental helicopter surveys of selected areas to compare several methods designed to model elk detection and estimate abundance. we conducted annual autumn helicopter surveys in 3 areas that contained radiocollared elk, and recorded information on covariates affecting both detection (i.e., vegetative cover, vegetation type, burn category, group size, activity, and ambient light) and observer bias (i.e., observer position, pilot experience). we used information theory to rank a set of candidate a priori models to determine which covariates affected detection and select the most parsimonious models among sightability, double-observer, and hybrid modeling methods. we then used the top model from each method, as well as a simultaneous double-count method, to calculate annual site-specific elk abundance estimates for comparison with concurrent mark-recapture abundance estimates, which we assumed best represented the true population size. the best supported models included all detection covariates, with the influence of covariates on elk detection generally adhering to expectations. relative to mark-recapture estimates, the best performing hybrid model generally provided abundance estimates that were more accurate than double-observer models and more precise than sightability models. the most economical methods to implement were the simultaneous double-count and double-observer methods because these methods did not require model development or presence of marked animals, but they occasionally appeared to provide biased and overly precise abundance estimates. although the hybrid model required substantial cost to develop, our results suggest that our hybrid model now provides the most cost-efficient and accurate implementation option for estimating elk abundance in similar habitats and under similar conditions in arizona. (c) 2019 the wildlife society." -validating camera trap distance sampling for chimpanzees,animal survey; comparative evaluation; monitoring; pan troglodytes verus; spatial-explicit capture-recapture,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY,CAPPELLE N;DESPRES-EINSPENNER ML;HOWE EJ;BOESCH C;KUHL HS,"the extension of distance sampling methods to accommodate observations from camera traps has recently enhanced the potential to remotely monitor multiple species without the need of additional data collection (sign production and decay rates) or individual identification. however, the method requires that the proportion of time is quantifiable when animals can be detected by the cameras. this can be problematic, for instance, when animals spend time above the ground, which is the case for most primates. in this study, we aimed to validate camera trap distance sampling (ctds) for the semiarboreal western chimpanzee (pan troglodytes verus) in tai national park, cote d'ivoire by estimating abundance of a population of known size and comparing estimates to those from other commonly applied methods. we estimated chimpanzee abundance using ctds and accounted for limited availability for detection (semiarboreal). we evaluated bias and precision of estimates, as well as costs and efforts required to obtain them, and compared them to those from spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) and line transect nest surveys. abundance estimates obtained by ctds and secr produced a similar negligible bias, but ctds yielded a larger coefficient of variation (cv = 39.70% for ctds vs. 1%/19% for secr). line transects generated the most biased abundance estimates but yielded a better coefficient of variation (27.40-27.85%) than ctds. camera trap surveys were twice more costly than line transects because of the initial cost of cameras, while line transects surveys required more than twice as much time in the field. this study demonstrates the potential to obtain unbiased estimates of the abundance of semiarboreal species like chimpanzees by ctds." +validating camera trap distance sampling for chimpanzees,animal survey; comparative evaluation; monitoring; pan troglodytes verus; spatial-explicit capture-recapture,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY,CAPPELLE N;DESPRES EINSPENNER ML;HOWE EJ;BOESCH C;KUHL HS,"the extension of distance sampling methods to accommodate observations from camera traps has recently enhanced the potential to remotely monitor multiple species without the need of additional data collection (sign production and decay rates) or individual identification. however, the method requires that the proportion of time is quantifiable when animals can be detected by the cameras. this can be problematic, for instance, when animals spend time above the ground, which is the case for most primates. in this study, we aimed to validate camera trap distance sampling (ctds) for the semiarboreal western chimpanzee (pan troglodytes verus) in tai national park, cote d'ivoire by estimating abundance of a population of known size and comparing estimates to those from other commonly applied methods. we estimated chimpanzee abundance using ctds and accounted for limited availability for detection (semiarboreal). we evaluated bias and precision of estimates, as well as costs and efforts required to obtain them, and compared them to those from spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) and line transect nest surveys. abundance estimates obtained by ctds and secr produced a similar negligible bias, but ctds yielded a larger coefficient of variation (cv = 39.70% for ctds vs. 1%/19% for secr). line transects generated the most biased abundance estimates but yielded a better coefficient of variation (27.40-27.85%) than ctds. camera trap surveys were twice more costly than line transects because of the initial cost of cameras, while line transects surveys required more than twice as much time in the field. this study demonstrates the potential to obtain unbiased estimates of the abundance of semiarboreal species like chimpanzees by ctds." an automated program to find animals and crop photographs for individual recognition,animal detection; capture-recapture; computer vision; histogram of oriented gradients; image processing; individual identification; photo identification,ECOLOGICAL INFORMATICS,BUEHLER P;CARROLL B;BHATIA A;GUPTA V;LEE DE,"detailed data on individual animals are critical to ecological and evolutionary studies, but attaching identifying marks can alter individual fates and behavior leading to biases in parameter estimates and ethical issues. individual-recognition software has been developed to assist in identifying many species from non-invasive photographic data. these programs utilize algorithms to find unique individual characteristics and compare images to a catalogue of known individuals. currently, all applications for individual identification require manual processing to crop images so only the area of interest remains, or the area of interest must be manually delineated in each image. thus, one of the main bottlenecks in processing data from photographic capture recapture surveys is in cropping to an area of interest so that matching algorithms can identify the individual. here, we describe the development and testing of an automated cropping program. the methods and techniques we describe are broadly applicable to any system where raw photos must be cropped down to a specific area of interest before pattern recognition software can be used for individual identification. we developed and tested the program for use with identification photos of wild giraffes." on the turing estimator in capture-recapture count data under the geometric distribution,capture-recapture data; geometric distribution; heterogeneity; count data; variance estimation,METRIKA,ANAN O;BOHNING D;MARUOTTI A,"we introduce an estimator for an unknown population size in a capture-recapture framework where the count of identifications follows a geometric distribution. this can be thought of as a poisson count adjusted for exponentially distributed heterogeneity. as a result, a new turing-type estimator under the geometric distribution is obtained. this estimator can be used in many real life situations of capture-recapture, in which the geometric distribution is more appropriate than the poisson. the proposed estimator shows a behavior comparable to the maximum likelihood one, on both simulated and real data. its asymptotic variance is obtained by applying a conditional technique and its empirical behavior is investigated through a large-scale simulation study. comparisons with other well-established estimators are provided. empirical applications, in which the population size is known, are also included to further corroborate the simulation results." the first winter influences lifetime wintering decisions in a partially migrant bird,arrival time hypothesis; capture-recapture modelling; dominance hypothesis; facultative partial migration; fidelity; pied avocet; recurvirostra avosetta; site fidelity index; survival; wintering tactic,ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR,CHAMBON R;GELINAUD G;PAILLISSON JM;LEMESLE JC;YSNEL F;DUGRAVOT S,"in facultative partial migration, flexibility of wintering behaviour throughout the bird's lifetime (i.e. switching between migrant and resident tactics and vice versa) may be considered an advantage because it allows individuals to cope with environmental conditions. quantifying the extent of flexibility of wintering behaviour and identifying the related factors (environmental and individual variables) are crucial issues. the present study addressed these issues in a european subpopulation of a shorebird species, the pied avocet, recurvirostra avosetta, that displays three distinct wintering tactics: strictly resident, locally resident and migrant. we explored tactic fidelity over consecutive years from the bird's first winter by testing the influence of age and estimating more specifically the long-term consistency of the first wintering tactic. we also explored tactic-related survival. based on a 10-year ringing study carried out on five french colonies and on capture-recapture modelling, we showed that birds were highly faithful to their first wintering tactic over consecutive years and when a change occurred, it was mainly to wintering in the french atlantic area. we also found a moderate decrease in fidelity to the migrant tactic over consecutive years with age. complementarily, the fidelity of locally resident and migrant individuals to their first wintering site was remarkably high. finally, survival over winters was particularly high and did not depend on tactic. at the individual scale, flexibility of wintering tactic was therefore limited over the study period. despite a slight age effect, other biological information failed to support the 'arrival time and dominance hypotheses', commonly suggested to explain age-differential migration. additional factors, including the absence of harsh winters, habitat quality and advantages of site familiarity, can be put forward to interpret the main results. (c) 2019 the association for the study of animal behaviour. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." environmentally mediated reproductive success predicts breeding dispersal decisions in an early successional amphibian,amphibians; dispersal; habitat disturbance; multievent capture-recapture models,ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR,BOUALIT L;PICHENOT J;BESNARD A;HELDER R;JOLY P;CAYUELA H,"dispersal is a central mechanism in ecology and evolution. dispersal evolution is driven by a trade-off between costs and benefits, which is influenced by interindividual variability and local environmental conditions (context-dependent dispersal). many studies have investigated how dispersal decisions may be influenced by environmental factors, including density, predation and interspecific competition. yet few have attempted to examine how habitat disturbance may affect the dispersal process in spatially structured populations. in early successional species, one might expect individuals to adjust their dispersal decisions based on two main factors that potentially have an influence on reproductive success: patch size and the level of patch disturbance. in this study, we examined how these two factors affect breeding success and dispersal decisions in an early successional amphibian, the yellow-bellied toad, bombina variegata. to this end, we used capture-recapture data collected on a spatially structured population occupying 28 breeding patches. we took advantage of recent developments in multievent capture-recapture models to detect signs of context-dependent dispersal. the results revealed that the probability of successful reproduction and the number of newly metamorphosed individuals increased with both the size and the proportion of disturbance of a patch. in addition, our results showed that the factors affecting breeding success also influenced breeding dispersal probability. large patch size negatively influenced emigration probability; in contrast, it positively influenced immigration probability. equally, higher disturbance had a strong negative influence on emigration probability and slightly positively affected immigration probability. these findings strongly suggest that individuals make context-dependent dispersal decisions, adjusted to maximize future fitness prospects in a patch, allowing them to better cope with rapid changes in environmental conditions resulting from the ecological succession process. this opens new areas of potential research into the role of dispersal in organism specialization along an ecological succession gradient. (c) 2019 the association for the study of animal behaviour. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -low-risk population size estimates in the presence of capture heterogeneity,capture-recapture; horvitz-thompson estimator; length bias; risk,BIOMETRIKA,JOHNDROW JE;LUM K;MANRIQUE-VALLIER D,"population estimation methods are used for estimating the size of a population from samples of individuals. in many applications, the probability of being observed in the sample varies across individuals, resulting in sampling bias. we show that in this setting, estimators of the population size have high and sometimes infinite risk, leading to large uncertainty in the population size. as an alternative, we propose estimating the population of individuals with observation probability exceeding a small threshold. we show that estimators of this quantity have lower risk than estimators of the total population size. the proposed approach is shown empirically to result in large reductions in mean squared error in a common model for capture-recapture population estimation with heterogeneous capture probabilities." +low-risk population size estimates in the presence of capture heterogeneity,capture-recapture; horvitz-thompson estimator; length bias; risk,BIOMETRIKA,JOHNDROW JE;LUM K;MANRIQUE VALLIER D,"population estimation methods are used for estimating the size of a population from samples of individuals. in many applications, the probability of being observed in the sample varies across individuals, resulting in sampling bias. we show that in this setting, estimators of the population size have high and sometimes infinite risk, leading to large uncertainty in the population size. as an alternative, we propose estimating the population of individuals with observation probability exceeding a small threshold. we show that estimators of this quantity have lower risk than estimators of the total population size. the proposed approach is shown empirically to result in large reductions in mean squared error in a common model for capture-recapture population estimation with heterogeneous capture probabilities." assessing the effect of density on population growth when modeling individual encounter data,audouin's gull; capture-recapture; gibbs variable selection; open population estimation; population dynamics; pradel model; rate of population change; temporal symmetry model,ECOLOGY,TENAN S;TAVECCHIA G;ORO D;PRADEL R,"the relative role of density-dependent and density-independent variation in vital rates and population size remains largely unsolved. despite its importance to the theory and application of population ecology, and to conservation biology, quantifying the role and strength of density dependence is particularly challenging. we present a hierarchical formulation of the temporal symmetry approach, also known as the pradel model, that permits estimation of the strength of density dependence from capture-mark-reencounter data. a measure of relative population size is built in the model and serves to detect density dependence directly on population growth rate. the model is also extended to account for temporal random variability in demographic rates, allowing estimation of the temporal variance of population growth rate unexplained by density dependence. we thus present a model-based approach that enable to test and quantify the effect of density-dependent and density-independent factors affecting population fluctuations in a single modeling framework. more generally, we use this modeling framework along with simulated and empirical data to show the value of including density dependence when modeling individual encounter data without the need for auxiliary data." integrating vital rates explains optimal worker size for resource return by bumblebee workers,bombus vosnesenskii; demography; foraging; nectar; optimal size; pollen; survival; trade-offs,FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY,KERR NZ;CRONE EE;WILLIAMS NM,"size-number trade-offs in reproduction are commonly observed in nature. bumblebee (bombus spp.) colonies produce workers that vary considerably in size. this variation suggests that colonies face potential size-number trade-offs when producing workers. here, we estimated size-based vital rates of bombus vosnesenskii workers using colonies reared from wild-caught queens. we conducted a mark-recapture study to estimate worker survival as a function of body size. we also collected data on pollen and nectar loads as well as foraging trips using a radiofrequency identification system to estimate daily resource return as a function of body size. we integrated survival and daily resource return to estimate lifetime resource collection and offset these estimates by the size-based worker production costs. we found size-based trade-offs among workers of different sizes. smaller workers had higher survival, but larger workers returned with more resources per day. the largest workers made slightly fewer foraging trips per day. overall, larger workers made the greatest lifetime contribution to both nectar and pollen collection. however, once the benefits of larger workers are offset by their higher production costs, intermediate-sized workers were the optimal for net resource contribution according to our models. many previous studies have found that larger workers outperformed smaller workers with foraging and in-nest tasks, yet these studies have not integrated multiple fitness components or worker production costs to quantify net resource contribution towards colony growth. accounting for trade-offs between costs and performance changed our conclusions about optimal body size from being large to being near the observed average. similar approaches of integrating multiple vital rates may resolve apparently suboptimal life histories in other taxa. a is available for this article." niche partitioning in carabids: single-tree admixtures matter,carabus spp; gender differences; mixed forest; point pattern analysis; single-tree effect; toroidal shift test,INSECT CONSERVATION AND DIVERSITY,WEHNERT A;WAGNER S,"the importance of tree mixtures to the faunal and floral biodiversity of forests has been documented on many occasions, but little is known about the relationships between single-tree effects, such as litter distribution and carabid beetles. the aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between the occurrence of carabid beetles and the locations of admixed oak trees within a scots pine (pinus sylvestris l.) stand. individuals of four carabus species were collected in dry pitfall traps in a pine forest with single admixed sessile oaks [quercus petraea (matt.) liebl.]. the capture-mark-recapture technique was used to differentiate carabid beetles by species, gender (female, male), and development stage (imagines, larvae). three zones of influence were defined according to the distribution of oak leaf litter. the beetle counts from trap data were transformed to a point pattern by means of a random-field approach where it is assumed that the beetle count per trap is representative of a specified number of single points in the square surrounding the trap. spatial patterns specific to species, gender, and development stage were observed relative to the oak tree locations. females and larvae of c. coriaceus and c. hortensis had a high affinity to the oaks, whereas c. violaceus revealed a negative association to the oak trees. no clear trend could be observed for c. arvensis. it was concluded that single-tree admixtures of oaks affect the spatial patterns of mobile organisms (e.g. coleoptera) serving as ecological niches in pine forests." -census and contemporary effective population size of two populations of the protected spanish moon moth (graellsia isabellae),capture-mark-recapture; conservation; inbreeding n-e; insect; microsatellites; phased emergence; variance n-e,INSECT CONSERVATION AND DIVERSITY,MARI-MENA N;NAVEIRA H;LOPEZ-VAAMONDE C;VILA M,"graellsia isabellae is a protected lepidopteran both in france and spain; however, there has been considerable debate over its conservation status. recent literature emphasised the need of monitoring population size in the different mountain ranges where this iconic species occurs. we used mark-capture-recapture and genotypes of nine molecular microsatellite markers to estimate the census (n) and contemporary effective population size (n-e) of two spanish populations extending over similar size areas (10-15 km(2)): puebla (eastern spain) and ordesa (western pyrenees). only adult males were captured and analysed, as sampling was based on the use of the synthesised female sex pheromone. estimates of n were rather different in the two populations: 3398 males in puebla (95% ci = 2875-4145) and 1500 in ordesa (95% ci = 1229-1932), although the area occupied by the populations was larger and more densely forested in ordesa than in puebla. several lines of evidence pointed to a moderate-large contemporary n-e at puebla (173-178 individuals) and a one-order of magnitude lower n-e at ordesa (27-49). thus, n-e/n ratios were very low (0.026 and 0.01 respectively). we recommend g. isabellae to be classified as of least concern under the iucn criteria; however, the high temporal fragmentation index and the very low values of the n-e/n ratios obtained for this species, as compared with those recorded for most others, are usually taken as indicators of actual threat for their conservation. as a cautionary measure, managers should aim at maintaining gene flow by ensuring connectivity of pinus sylvestris in these areas." +census and contemporary effective population size of two populations of the protected spanish moon moth (graellsia isabellae),capture-mark-recapture; conservation; inbreeding n-e; insect; microsatellites; phased emergence; variance n-e,INSECT CONSERVATION AND DIVERSITY,MARI MENA N;NAVEIRA H;LOPEZ VAAMONDE C;VILA M,"graellsia isabellae is a protected lepidopteran both in france and spain; however, there has been considerable debate over its conservation status. recent literature emphasised the need of monitoring population size in the different mountain ranges where this iconic species occurs. we used mark-capture-recapture and genotypes of nine molecular microsatellite markers to estimate the census (n) and contemporary effective population size (n-e) of two spanish populations extending over similar size areas (10-15 km(2)): puebla (eastern spain) and ordesa (western pyrenees). only adult males were captured and analysed, as sampling was based on the use of the synthesised female sex pheromone. estimates of n were rather different in the two populations: 3398 males in puebla (95% ci = 2875-4145) and 1500 in ordesa (95% ci = 1229-1932), although the area occupied by the populations was larger and more densely forested in ordesa than in puebla. several lines of evidence pointed to a moderate-large contemporary n-e at puebla (173-178 individuals) and a one-order of magnitude lower n-e at ordesa (27-49). thus, n-e/n ratios were very low (0.026 and 0.01 respectively). we recommend g. isabellae to be classified as of least concern under the iucn criteria; however, the high temporal fragmentation index and the very low values of the n-e/n ratios obtained for this species, as compared with those recorded for most others, are usually taken as indicators of actual threat for their conservation. as a cautionary measure, managers should aim at maintaining gene flow by ensuring connectivity of pinus sylvestris in these areas." determinants of age at first reproduction and lifetime breeding success revealed by full paternity assignment in a male ungulate,age at maturity; age structure; alces alces; hunting; individual heterogeneity; male mating success; life history; sex ratio,OIKOS,MARKUSSEN SS;HERFINDAL I;LOISON A;SOLBERG EJ;HAANES H;ROED KH;HEIM M;SAETHER BE,"age at first reproduction is an important determinant of individual variation in reproductive success in ungulates, but few studies have examined its relationship with later fitness-related traits in males. we used a long-term individual based study of a harvested moose population to quantify the individual reproductive performance and survival of males, as well as to examine the determinants of age at first reproduction and consequences of age at first reproduction on lifetime breeding success. the probability that a male successfully reproduced at the age of two was negatively related to the mean age of adult males in the population, but the relationship weakened with increasing population size. large antlers and large body mass relative to other males in the population increased the number of calves sired at their first successful mating season. in addition, those that successfully reproduced as two year-olds were more likely to sire calves the next year, making them more productive at a given age compared to those that first reproduced at the age of three or older. we emphasize the importance for males to start reproducing as soon as possible in a harvested population to gain lifetime fitness benefits, as surviving the hunt is a major determinant of reproductive success in this population. we found no costs of early reproduction in males, hence leading to high individual heterogeneity in male reproductive performance. the apparent lack of reproductive costs could partly be explained by the age distribution in the population, individual variation in early-life body mass and antler size, and differences in probabilities of being hunted of successful and unsuccessful males." brood size affects future reproduction in a long-lived bird with precocial young,barker robust design; branta bernicla nigricans; breeding probability; costs of reproduction; demographic buffering; lack's clutch size hypothesis,AMERICAN NATURALIST,LEACH AG;SEDINGER JS;RIECKE TV;VAN DELLEN AW;WARD DH;BOYD WS,"estimation of trade-offs between current reproduction and future survival and fecundity of long-lived vertebrates is essential to understanding factors that shape optimal reproductive investment. black brant geese (branta bernicla nigricans) fledge more goslings, on average, when their broods are experimentally enlarged to be greater than the most common clutch size of four eggs. thus, we hypothesized that the lesser frequency of brant clutches exceeding four eggs results, at least partially, from a future reduction in survival, breeding probability, or clutch size for females tending larger broods. we used an 8-year mark-recapture data set (barker robust design) with 5 years of clutch and brood manipulations to estimate long-term consequences of reproductive decisions in brant. we did not find evidence of a trade-off between reproductive effort and true survival or future initiation date and clutch size. rather, future breeding probability was maximized (0.92 +/- 0.03 [se]) for manipulated females tending broods of four goslings and was lower for females tending smaller (one gosling; 0.63 +/- 0.09 [se]) or larger (seven goslings; 0.52 +/- 0.15 [se]) broods. our results suggest that demographic trade-offs for female brant tending large broods may reduce the fitness value of clutches larger than four and, therefore, contribute to the paucity of larger clutches. the lack of a trade-off between reproductive effort and survival provides evidence that survival, to which fitness is most sensitive in long-lived animals, is buffered against temporal variation in brant." female-biased dispersal and non-random gene flow of mc1r variants do not result in a migration load in barn owls,NA,HEREDITY,DUCRET V;SCHAUB M;GOUDET J;ROULIN A,"non-random gene flow is a widely neglected force in evolution and ecology. this genotype-dependent dispersal is difficult to assess, yet can impact the genetic variation of natural populations and their fitness. in this work, we demonstrate a high immigration rate of barn owls (tyto alba) inside a swiss population surveyed during 15 years. using ten microsatellite loci as an indirect method to characterize dispersal, two-third of the genetic tests failed to detect a female-biased dispersal, and monte carlo simulations confirmed a low statistical power to detect sex-biased dispersal in case of high dispersal rate of both sexes. the capture-recapture data revealed a female-biased dispersal associated with an excess of heterozygote for the melanocortin-1 receptor gene (mc1r), which is responsible for their ventral rufous coloration. thus, female homozygotes for the mc1r(white) allele might be negatively selected during dispersal. despite the higher immigration of females that are heterozygote at mc1r, non-random gene flow should not lead to a migration load regarding this gene because we did not detect an effect of mc1r on survival and reproductive success in our local population. the present study highlights the usefulness of using multiple methods to correctly decrypt dispersal and gene flow. moreover, despite theoretical expectations, we show that non-random dispersal of particular genotypes does not necessarily lead to migration load in recipient populations." estimation of population size when capture probability depends on individual states,abundance; closed population; individual heterogeneity; transition probabilities,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,WORTHINGTON H;MCCREA RS;KING R;GRIFFITHS RA,"we develop a multi-state model to estimate the size of a closed population from capture-recapture studies. we consider the case where capture-recapture data are not of a simple binary form, but where the state of an individual is also recorded upon every capture as a discrete variable. the proposed multi-state model can be regarded as a generalisation of the commonly applied set of closed population models to a multi-state form. the model allows for heterogeneity within the capture probabilities associated with each state while also permitting individuals to move between the different discrete states. a closed-form expression for the likelihood is presented in terms of a set of sufficient statistics. the link between existing models for capture heterogeneity is established, and simulation is used to show that the estimate of population size can be biased when movement between states is not accounted for. the proposed unconditional approach is also compared to a conditional approach to assess estimation bias. the model derived in this paper is motivated by a real ecological data set on great crested newts, triturus cristatus. supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear online." -estimating the number of people who inject drugs in a rural county in appalachia,NA,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH,ALLEN ST;O'ROURKE A;WHITE RH;SCHNEIDER KE;KILKENNY M;SHERMAN SG,"objectives. to demonstrate how we applied the capture-recapture method for population estimation directly in a rural appalachian county (cabell county, wv) to estimate the number of people who inject drugs (pwid). methods. we conducted 2 separate 2-week periods of data collection in june (""capture"") and july (""recapture"") 2018. we recruited pwid from a syringe services program and in community locations where pwid were known to congregate. participants completed a survey that included measures related to sociodemographics, substance use, and hiv and hepatitis c virus prevention. results. in total, 797 surveys were completed; of these surveys, 49.6% (n = 395) reflected pwid who reported injection drug use in the past 6 months and cabell county residence. we estimated that there were 1857 (95% confidence interval = 1147, 2567) pwid in cabell county. among these individuals, most reported being white (83.4%), younger than 40 years (70.9%), and male (59.5%). the majority reported injecting heroin (82.0%), methamphetamine (71.0%), and fentanyl (56.3%) in the past 6 months. conclusions. capture-recapture methods can be applied in rural settings to estimate the size of pwid populations." +estimating the number of people who inject drugs in a rural county in appalachia,NA,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH,ALLEN ST;O ROURKE A;WHITE RH;SCHNEIDER KE;KILKENNY M;SHERMAN SG,"objectives. to demonstrate how we applied the capture-recapture method for population estimation directly in a rural appalachian county (cabell county, wv) to estimate the number of people who inject drugs (pwid). methods. we conducted 2 separate 2-week periods of data collection in june (""capture"") and july (""recapture"") 2018. we recruited pwid from a syringe services program and in community locations where pwid were known to congregate. participants completed a survey that included measures related to sociodemographics, substance use, and hiv and hepatitis c virus prevention. results. in total, 797 surveys were completed; of these surveys, 49.6% (n = 395) reflected pwid who reported injection drug use in the past 6 months and cabell county residence. we estimated that there were 1857 (95% confidence interval = 1147, 2567) pwid in cabell county. among these individuals, most reported being white (83.4%), younger than 40 years (70.9%), and male (59.5%). the majority reported injecting heroin (82.0%), methamphetamine (71.0%), and fentanyl (56.3%) in the past 6 months. conclusions. capture-recapture methods can be applied in rural settings to estimate the size of pwid populations." evaluation of fecal samples as a valid source of dna by comparing paired blood and fecal samples from american bison (bison bison),bison; yellowstonenational park; fecal dna; microsatellite; str; heterozygosity; allelic dropout,BMC GENETICS,FORGACS D;WALLEN RL;BOEDEKER AL;DERR JN,"backgroundthe collection and analysis of fecal dna is a common practice, especially when dealing with wildlife species that are difficult to track or capture. while fecal dna is known to be lower quality than traditional sources of dna, such as blood or other tissues, few investigations have verified fecal samples as a valid source of dna by directly comparing the results to high quality dna samples from the same individuals. our goal was to compare dna from fecal and blood samples from the same 50 american plains bison (bison bison) from yellowstone national park, analyze 35 short tandem repeat (str) loci for genotyping efficiency, and compare heterozygosity estimates.resultswe discovered that some of the fecal-derived genotypes obtained were significantly different from the blood-derived genotypes from the same bison. we also found that fecal-derived dna samples often underestimated heterozygosity values, in some cases by over 20%.conclusionsthese findings highlight a potential shortcoming inherent in previous wildlife studies that relied solely on a multi-tube approach, using exclusively low quality fecal dna samples with no quality control to account for false alleles and allelic dropout. herein, we present a rigorous marker selection protocol that is applicable for a wide range of species and report a set of 15 str markers for use in future bison studies that yielded consistent results from both fecal and blood-derived dna." effectiveness of road mitigation for common toads (bufo bufo) in the netherlands,habitat fragmentation; road mortality; road mitigation; amphibian tunnel; amphibian fence; toad; population effect,FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,OTTBURG FGWA;VAN DER GRIFT EA,"roads and traffic may have major impacts on amphibian populations, primarily as a result of amphibian road mortality. a variety of measures have been developed to prevent road mortality of amphibians, such as the construction of fences to keep the animals off the road and amphibian tunnels to provide them a safe passage. we carried out a capture-mark-recapture study to evaluate the performance of two tunnels and permanent drift fences for common toads at a local road in the netherlands. we found that of the marked toads only 31% used the tunnels to cross the road. we assessed four possible explanations for the fact that a proportion of the toads did not use the tunnels: for toad groups that used the tunnels, as compared to toad groups that did not use the tunnels, (1) the mean distance between the location of first capture and the nearest tunnel was significantly smaller; (2) the mean movement distance along the fence was significantly larger; (3) the number of toad groups that walked in the wrong direction after encountering the drift fence was lower; (4) the mean number of nights between first and last capture of the toad group was significantly higher. over all study years 28% of the migrating toads-marked and unmarked-that attempted to cross the road ended up on the road pavement, despite the mitigation. migrating population numbers decreased with about 75% after the mitigation measures were installed. we emphasize that better baseline studies on where toads cross before mitigation and improved knowledge on effects of tunnel design and the distances the animals move along a drift fence are vital to mitigate road impacts properly and maintain viable toad populations. we recommend to base tunnel densities on the mean movement distance of the toads that move only small distances and spent relatively little time along the drift fence, install drift fences that go well beyond the location where toads cross the road, take appropriate measures at entrance roads and at fence ends and consider alternatives to tunnels and fences, such as the creation of breeding waters on both sides of the road." increasing trends in fecundity and calf survival of bottlenose dolphins in a marine protected area,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,CHENEY BJ;THOMPSON PM;CORDES LS,"estimates of temporal variation in demographic rates are critical for identifying drivers of population change and supporting conservation. however, for inconspicuous wide-ranging species, births may be missed and fecundity rates underestimated. we address this issue using photo-identification data and a novel robust design multistate model to investigate changes in bottlenose dolphin fecundity and calf survival. the model allows for uncertainty in breeding status, and seasonal effects. the best model estimated an increase in the proportion of females with newborn calves from 0.16 (95% ci = 0.11-0.24) in 2001 to 0.28 (95% ci = 0.22-0.36) in 2016. first year calf survival also increased over this period from 0.78 (95% ci = 0.53-0.92) to 0.93 (95% ci = 0.82-0.98). second year calf survival remained lower, but also showed an increase from 0.32 (95% ci = 0.19-0.48) to 0.55 (95% ci = 0.44-0.65). females with newborn calves had a slightly higher mortality than those with older calves, but further work is required to evaluate potential costs of reproduction. this study presents a rare example of empirical evidence of a positive trend in reproduction and survival for a cetacean population using a marine protected area." morphological and behavioral correlates of long-term bird survival in selectively logged forest,apparent survival; body mass; eastern himalayas; mark-recapture; mixed-species flocks; understorey birds; vital rates,FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SRINIVASAN U,"the response of biodiversity to land-use change has been a central focus in applied ecological research for close to half a century. however, despite a vast body of literature, our understanding of how species' traits influence demographic vital rates in anthropogenically-modified habitats is remarkably scant. such an understanding is crucial because vital rates determine population viability in modified habitats, and underlie emergent occupancy, abundance and community-level patterns. i used capture-recapture analyses to estimate variation in survival of birds in intact and logged tropical montane forest in the eastern himalayas. in general, variation in body mass and alternative behavioral strategies (e.g., mixed-species flocking vs. solitary behavior) were not associated with survival differences in intact forest. however, year-round residents, and species that did not participate in mixed-species flocks had appreciably lower survival in logged forest compared with intact forest. solitary foragers, for instance, faced a 30% decline in survival in logged forest compared with intact forest. non-migratory habit and solitary foraging behavior might make species vulnerable to extinction in logged forest through reduced survival, an especially important process in influencing population viability. identifying how species' traits modulate their response to land-use change is crucial to predict population responses to forest modification, and to better plan and manage biodiversity-friendly forest use." -effects of individual misidentification on estimates of survival in long-term mark-resight studies,capture-recapture; citizen science; error rate; false positives; individual misidentification; mark-resight,CONDOR,TUCKER AM;MCGOWAN CP;ROBINSON RA;CLARK JA;LYONS JE;DEROSE-WILSON A;DU FEU R;AUSTIN GE;ATKINSON PW;CLARK NA,"all ecological measurements are subject to error; the effects of missed detection (false negatives) are well known, but the effects of mistaken detection (false positives) are less understood. long-term capture-recapture datasets provide valuable ecological insights and baselines for conservation and management, but where such studies rely on noninvasive re-encounters, such as field-readable color bands, there is the potential to accumulate detection errors as the length of the study and number of tags deployed increases. we investigated the prevalence and effects of misreads in a 10-yr dataset of red knots (calidris canutus rufa) marked with field-readable leg flags in delaware, usa. we quantified the effects of misreads on survival estimation via a simulation study and evaluated whether removal of individuals only reported once in a year (potential misreads) influenced survival estimation from both simulated datasets and our case study data. we found overall apparent error rates of 0.31% (minimum) to 6.6% (maximum). observer-specific error rates and the variation among observers both decreased with the number of flags an observer recorded. our simulation study showed that misreads lead to spurious negative trends in survival over time, particularly for long-term studies. removing all records in which a flag was only recorded once in a sampling occasion reduced bias and eliminated spurious negative trends in survival but also reduced precision in survival estimates. without data filtering, we found a slight decrease in red knot annual survival probability from 2008 to 2018 (beta = -0.043 +/- 0.03), but removing all single-observation records resulted in no apparent trend (beta = -0.0074 +/- 0.02). spurious trends in demographic rates could influence inference about population trajectories and resultant conservation decision-making. data filtering could eliminate errors, but researchers should carefully consider the tradeoff between precision obtained by larger sample sizes and potential bias due to misreads in their data." -drivers of survival in a small mammal of conservation concern: an assessment using extensive genetic non-invasive sampling in fragmented farmland,agricultural intensification; capwire; cormark-jolly-seber; mediterranean farmland; microtus cabrerae; road effects,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,PROENCA-FERREIRA A;FERREIRA C;LEITAO I;PAUPERIO J;SABINO-MARQUES H;BARBOSA S;LAMBIN X;ALVES PC;BEJA P;MOREIRA F;MIRA A;PITA R,"although important to guide conservation management, detailed demographic studies on rare or elusive species inhabiting fragmented, human-dominated landscapes are often hampered by the species' low densities, and the logistic and ethical constraints in obtaining reliable information covering large areas. genetic non-invasive sampling (gnis) provides cost-effective access to demographic information, though its application to small mammals is still scarce. we used gnis to infer on the demography of an endemic small mammal, the cabrera vole (microtus cabrerae), occurring as a spatially-structured population in a 462-ha mediterranean farmland landscape. we intensively sampled fresh vole feces in four seasons, extracted the dna, and performed individual identification based on genotypes built using nine microsatellites. we then estimated population size and individual survival relative to environmental variables, controlling for heterogeneity in capture probabilities using capture-mark-recapture modelling. population size increased during the wet season and decreased during the dry season, while survival remained constant across the study period. individuals captured along road-verges and around water-bodies survived longer than those captured near agricultural fields. the use of gnis on a heterogeneous landscape such as our study area allowed us to demonstrate that human land-use activities affect cabrera vole demographic parameters in mediterranean farmland, with implications for conservation planning towards its long-term persistence. our approach can be widely applied to other elusive small mammals of conservation concern, but for which informative demographic data are still scarce." +effects of individual misidentification on estimates of survival in long-term mark-resight studies,capture-recapture; citizen science; error rate; false positives; individual misidentification; mark-resight,CONDOR,TUCKER AM;MCGOWAN CP;ROBINSON RA;CLARK JA;LYONS JE;DEROSE WILSON A;DU FEU R;AUSTIN GE;ATKINSON PW;CLARK NA,"all ecological measurements are subject to error; the effects of missed detection (false negatives) are well known, but the effects of mistaken detection (false positives) are less understood. long-term capture-recapture datasets provide valuable ecological insights and baselines for conservation and management, but where such studies rely on noninvasive re-encounters, such as field-readable color bands, there is the potential to accumulate detection errors as the length of the study and number of tags deployed increases. we investigated the prevalence and effects of misreads in a 10-yr dataset of red knots (calidris canutus rufa) marked with field-readable leg flags in delaware, usa. we quantified the effects of misreads on survival estimation via a simulation study and evaluated whether removal of individuals only reported once in a year (potential misreads) influenced survival estimation from both simulated datasets and our case study data. we found overall apparent error rates of 0.31% (minimum) to 6.6% (maximum). observer-specific error rates and the variation among observers both decreased with the number of flags an observer recorded. our simulation study showed that misreads lead to spurious negative trends in survival over time, particularly for long-term studies. removing all records in which a flag was only recorded once in a sampling occasion reduced bias and eliminated spurious negative trends in survival but also reduced precision in survival estimates. without data filtering, we found a slight decrease in red knot annual survival probability from 2008 to 2018 (beta = -0.043 +/- 0.03), but removing all single-observation records resulted in no apparent trend (beta = -0.0074 +/- 0.02). spurious trends in demographic rates could influence inference about population trajectories and resultant conservation decision-making. data filtering could eliminate errors, but researchers should carefully consider the tradeoff between precision obtained by larger sample sizes and potential bias due to misreads in their data." +drivers of survival in a small mammal of conservation concern: an assessment using extensive genetic non-invasive sampling in fragmented farmland,agricultural intensification; capwire; cormark-jolly-seber; mediterranean farmland; microtus cabrerae; road effects,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,PROENCA FERREIRA A;FERREIRA C;LEITAO I;PAUPERIO J;SABINO MARQUES H;BARBOSA S;LAMBIN X;ALVES PC;BEJA P;MOREIRA F;MIRA A;PITA R,"although important to guide conservation management, detailed demographic studies on rare or elusive species inhabiting fragmented, human-dominated landscapes are often hampered by the species' low densities, and the logistic and ethical constraints in obtaining reliable information covering large areas. genetic non-invasive sampling (gnis) provides cost-effective access to demographic information, though its application to small mammals is still scarce. we used gnis to infer on the demography of an endemic small mammal, the cabrera vole (microtus cabrerae), occurring as a spatially-structured population in a 462-ha mediterranean farmland landscape. we intensively sampled fresh vole feces in four seasons, extracted the dna, and performed individual identification based on genotypes built using nine microsatellites. we then estimated population size and individual survival relative to environmental variables, controlling for heterogeneity in capture probabilities using capture-mark-recapture modelling. population size increased during the wet season and decreased during the dry season, while survival remained constant across the study period. individuals captured along road-verges and around water-bodies survived longer than those captured near agricultural fields. the use of gnis on a heterogeneous landscape such as our study area allowed us to demonstrate that human land-use activities affect cabrera vole demographic parameters in mediterranean farmland, with implications for conservation planning towards its long-term persistence. our approach can be widely applied to other elusive small mammals of conservation concern, but for which informative demographic data are still scarce." detection of male oriental fruit fly (diptera: tephritidae) susceptibility to naled- and fipronil-intoxicated methyl eugenol,oriental fruit fly; naled resistance; methyl eugenol sensitivity; pyrosequencing,JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY,CHEN PH;WU WJ;HSU JC,"naled-intoxicated methyl eugenol (me) is commonly used to control oriental fruit flies, bactrocera dorsalis (hendel) (diptera: tephritidae), in taiwan. however, non-responsiveness to me and pesticide resistance in oriental fruit flies may reduce control efficacy. in this study, mark-recapture experiments were used to analyze the effects of naled-intoxicated me on field and naled-resistant fly strains. me non-responsiveness was tested in field, naled-resistant, and susceptible strains and pyrosequencing techniques were used to detect frequencies of point mutations on organophosphate resistant alleles in field strains. finally, the effects of fipronil-intoxicated me were analyzed to determine whether control efficiency could be enhanced through the use of alternate pesticides. control efficiency of naled-intoxicated me was found to be significantly lower in the field and resistant strains compared to the susceptible strain. me non-responsiveness was found to be 1.7-1.9% in our lab-reared strains (both naled-resistant and susceptible) and 3.4-4.3% in field strains. results of our pyrosequencing study found frequency of resistant alleles in captured male field flies to be significantly lower than that of the original population, indicating that it is highly probable that resistant flies may escape from traps. finally, capture rates of naled-resistant flies increased when naled was replaced with fipronil in attractants, showing that use of pesticides with different modes of action could possibly increase control efficiency of intoxicated me attractants." the adequacy of aging techniques in vertebrates for rapid estimation of population mortality rates from age distributions,age estimation; aging error; birth rate; demographics; mark-recapture; survival rate,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ZHAO MJ;KLAASSEN CAJ;LISOVSKI S;KLAASSEN M,"as a key parameter in population dynamics, mortality rates are frequently estimated using mark-recapture data, which requires extensive, long-term data sets. as a potential rapid alternative, we can measure variables correlated to age, allowing the compilation of population age distributions, from which mortality rates can be derived. however, most studies employing such techniques have ignored their inherent inaccuracy and have thereby failed to provide reliable mortality estimates. in this study, we present a general statistical model linking birth rate, mortality rate, and population age distributions. we next assessed the reliability and data needs (i.e., sample size) for estimating mortality rate of eight different aging techniques. the results revealed that for half of the aging techniques, correlations with age varied considerably, translating into highly variable accuracies when used to estimate mortality rate from age distributions. telomere length is generally not sufficiently correlated to age to provide reliable mortality rate estimates. dna methylation, signal-joint t-cell recombination excision circle (sjtrec), and racemization are generally more promising techniques to ultimately estimate mortality rate, if a sufficiently high sample size is available. otolith ring counts, otolithometry, and age-length keys in fish, and skeletochronology in reptiles, mammals, and amphibians, outperformed all other aging techniques and generated relatively accurate mortality rate estimation with a sample size that can be feasibly obtained. provided the method chosen is minimizing and estimating the error in age estimation, it is possible to accurately estimate mortality rates from age distributions. the method therewith has the potential to estimate a critical, population dynamic parameter to inform conservation efforts within a limited time frame as opposed to mark-recapture analyses." population genetics reveals high connectivity of giant panda populations across human disturbance features in key nature reserve,conservation genetics; gene flow; giant panda; population connectivity,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,QIAO MJ;CONNOR T;SHI XG;HUANG J;HUANG Y;ZHANG HM;RAN JH,"the giant panda is an example of a species that has faced extensive historical habitat fragmentation, and anthropogenic disturbance and is assumed to be isolated in numerous subpopulations with limited gene flow between them. to investigate the population size, health, and connectivity of pandas in a key habitat area, we noninvasively collected a total of 539 fresh wild giant panda fecal samples for dna extraction within wolong nature reserve, sichuan, china. seven validated tetra-microsatellite markers were used to analyze each sample, and a total of 142 unique genotypes were identified. nonspatial and spatial capture-recapture models estimated the population size of the reserve at 164 and 137 individuals (95% confidence intervals 153-175 and 115-163), respectively. relatively high levels of genetic variation and low levels of inbreeding were estimated, indicating adequate genetic diversity. surprisingly, no significant genetic boundaries were found within the population despite the national road g350 that bisects the reserve, which is also bordered with patches of development and agricultural land. we attribute this to high rates of migration, with four giant panda road-crossing events confirmed within a year based on repeated captures of individuals. this likely means that giant panda populations within mountain ranges are better connected than previously thought. increased development and tourism traffic in the area and throughout the current panda distribution pose a threat of increasing population isolation, however. maintaining and restoring adequate habitat corridors for dispersal is thus a vital step for preserving the levels of gene flow seen in our analysis and the continued conservation of the giant panda meta-population in both wolong and throughout their current range." -"ecology of the growth of anolis nebulosus (squamata: dactyloidae) in a seasonal tropical environment in the chamela region, jalisco, mexico",age class; capture-recapture; chamela jalisco; growth parameters; sexual maturity; von bertalanffy model,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HERNANDEZ-SALINAS U;RAMIREZ-BAUTISTA A;CRUZ-ELIZALDE R;MEIRI S;BERRIOZABAL-ISLAS C,"juvenile growth rates are thought to be restricted by available food resources. in animals that grow throughout the year, such as tropical lizards, growth is therefore predicted to be faster during the rainy season. we test this prediction using a population of anolis nebulosusby describing the growth trajectories of both sexes using nonlinear regression models, and we then correlate the growth rates of individuals with food available in the environment, precipitation, and temperature. the von bertalanffy model fits the growth rates of the females better, while the logistic-by-length model fits the males better. according to both models, the males grew faster than females, reaching slightly smaller sizes at adulthood. males reached sexual maturity when 35mm long, at an age of seven months, and females matured at 37mm (svl), taking nine months to reach this size. in 1989, juvenile males and females grew more in both seasons (rainy and dry) than adults; for 1990, there were no differences by season or between age classes. these results are interesting since in the 1989 and 1990 rainy seasons, practically the same orders of prey and the greatest abundance of prey available in the environment were registered. a possible explanation could be that predation was more intense in 1990 than in 1989. there is little evidence that food, temperature, and humidity affect growth rates of a. nebulosus, refuting our predictions. this is mainly due to the low variation in growth observed in 1990. therefore we think that the growth of this species reflects a complex combination of ecological and genetic factors." +"ecology of the growth of anolis nebulosus (squamata: dactyloidae) in a seasonal tropical environment in the chamela region, jalisco, mexico",age class; capture-recapture; chamela jalisco; growth parameters; sexual maturity; von bertalanffy model,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HERNANDEZ SALINAS U;RAMIREZ BAUTISTA A;CRUZ ELIZALDE R;MEIRI S;BERRIOZABAL ISLAS C,"juvenile growth rates are thought to be restricted by available food resources. in animals that grow throughout the year, such as tropical lizards, growth is therefore predicted to be faster during the rainy season. we test this prediction using a population of anolis nebulosusby describing the growth trajectories of both sexes using nonlinear regression models, and we then correlate the growth rates of individuals with food available in the environment, precipitation, and temperature. the von bertalanffy model fits the growth rates of the females better, while the logistic-by-length model fits the males better. according to both models, the males grew faster than females, reaching slightly smaller sizes at adulthood. males reached sexual maturity when 35mm long, at an age of seven months, and females matured at 37mm (svl), taking nine months to reach this size. in 1989, juvenile males and females grew more in both seasons (rainy and dry) than adults; for 1990, there were no differences by season or between age classes. these results are interesting since in the 1989 and 1990 rainy seasons, practically the same orders of prey and the greatest abundance of prey available in the environment were registered. a possible explanation could be that predation was more intense in 1990 than in 1989. there is little evidence that food, temperature, and humidity affect growth rates of a. nebulosus, refuting our predictions. this is mainly due to the low variation in growth observed in 1990. therefore we think that the growth of this species reflects a complex combination of ecological and genetic factors." toward reliable population density estimates of partially marked populations using spatially explicit mark-resight methods,camera trap; capture-recapture; fox; maximum likelihood; mesopredator; survey design; vulpes vulpes,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CARTER A;POTTS JM;ROSHIER DA,"camera traps are used increasingly to estimate population density for elusive and difficult to observe species. a standard practice for mammalian surveys is to place cameras on roads, trails, and paths to maximize detections and/or increase efficiency in the field. however, for many species it is unclear whether track-based camera surveys provide reliable estimates of population density. understanding how the spatial arrangement of camera traps affects population density estimates is of key interest to contemporary conservationists and managers given the rapid increase in camera-based wildlife surveys. we evaluated the effect of camera-trap placement, using several survey designs, on density estimates of a widespread mesopredator, the red fox vulpes vulpes, over a two-year period in a semi-arid conservation reserve in south-eastern australia. further, we used the certainty in the identity and whereabouts of individuals (via gps collars) to assess how resighting rates of marked foxes affect density estimates using maximum likelihood spatially explicit mark-resight methods. fox detection rates were much higher at cameras placed on tracks compared with off-track cameras, yet in the majority of sessions, camera placement had relatively little effect on point estimates of density. however, for each survey design, the precision of density estimates varied considerably across sessions, influenced heavily by the absolute number of marked foxes detected, the number of times marked foxes was resighted, and the number of detection events of unmarked foxes. our research demonstrates that the precision of population density estimates using spatially explicit mark-resight models is sensitive to resighting rates of identifiable individuals. nonetheless, camera surveys based either on- or off-track can provide reliable estimates of population density using spatially explicit mark-resight models. this underscores the importance of incorporating information on the spatial behavior of the subject species when planning camera-trap surveys." "an approach for assessing paddlefish polyodon spathula (walbaum, 1792) populations using mark-recapture information",NA,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ICHTHYOLOGY,KRAMER N;PHELPS Q;TRIPP S;CIESLEWICZ P;HERZOG D,"historically, management of fish populations has been achieved through the use of age-derived estimates of growth and mortality. for long-lived species such as the paddlefish, polyodon spathula, the validation of calcified structures is necessary to correct for the presence of false annuli or the absence of growth rings. regardless, numerous studies on paddlefish populations throughout their range have continued the use of un-validated age estimates to evaluate dynamic rate functions. the use of mark-recapture studies has been applied widely to evaluate growth of short-lived fishes, but only recently to a few long-lived freshwater fishes (i.e. white sturgeon, shovelnose sturgeon, and pallid sturgeon). this study provides the first simultaneous evaluation of both mark-recapture and age-estimate information in determining population characteristics for paddlefish. in doing so, this study has determined that the p. spathula population in the black river below clearwater dam, missouri is sustainable. additionally, mark-recapture information is sufficient to produce accurate and reliable assessments of paddlefish populations in lieu of validated aging structures; future management should be centered on accurate scientific methods, which is not the case when using un-validated aging structures (e.g. scales, otoliths, fin rays, dentary bones) to determine population parameters. mark-recapture information can provide an accurate, alternative source of growth and mortality information for use in evaluating and managing paddlefish populations throughout their range." are we overestimating recovery of sturgeon populations using mark/recapture surveys?,NA,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ICHTHYOLOGY,HAXTON TJ;FRIDAY MJ,"mark-recaptures studies are often conducted to monitor trends in sturgeon populations. however, many of these studies experience low recapture rates, minimal movement between marking-recapture phases suggesting that sturgeon as a group are not conducive to mark-recapture techniques. in this study, two mark-recapture studies that were conducted differently were reviewed. a study was conducted on the mattagami river using random nets set throughout the study area in both the mark and recapture phases. the other study was conducted on lake of the woods and marked sturgeon in tributaries during the spawning period and the recapture phase within the lake and river during the summer foraging period using random nets sets. sturgeon's conduciveness to mark-recapture studies was assessed on the mattagami river mark-recapture study by determining detection probability (p) using a hierarchical bayesian model with data augmentation among three effects: individual effect, temporal effects, and behavioural response effects. detection probability was constant over individuals and temporally suggesting model m-0 (otis, burnham, white, & anderson, ) was suitable for lake sturgeon in the mattagami river; only the m-0 would converge for the lake of the woods study. for this study, the assumption that ""all individuals have the same probability of being captured during the marking phase"" was believed to have been violated given approximately 16%-20% of adult lake sturgeon from a population spawn within a year. a population estimate accounting for p provided estimates 56% lower than calculated by a chapman modification of the peterson estimate for a closed population. bias was believed to have been introduced as the lake of the woods population did not account for the non-spawning adults that were encountered during the recapture phase and not vulnerable during the initial marking phase. this was not unique to the lake of the woods study as other sturgeon studies, especially multi-year, assumes a closed population which potentially biased estimates and overestimated their recovery." which population density affects home ranges of co-occurring rodents?,coexistence; intraspecific competition; movement; species interaction,BASIC AND APPLIED ECOLOGY,CASULA P;LUISELLI L;AMORI G,"animal space use patterns can be affected by the intra- and interspecific density of individuals competing for resources, with home ranges generally decreasing with increasing population density. by applying spatially explicit capture-recapture models implemented in the r package secr, we study whether home ranges of co-occurring yellow-necked mice, apodemus flavicollis, and bank voles, myodes glareolus, are related to population density of (a) conspecifics (intraspecific density), (b) the other sympatric species, a. flavicollis or m. glareolus (interspecific density), or (c) total rodent density (a. flavicollis plus m. glareolus). home ranges of both species were negatively related to intraspecific population density, and were not related to interspecific density or total rodent density. given that rodents tend to reduce home ranges if resources are abundant, this pattern may merely result from the higher abundance of resources generally associated with high density populations, if the two species were responding to different subsets of resources. however, intraspecific density could directly reduce home ranges, because conspecifics are more likely to interfere with each other due to the overlapping of space use patterns. therefore, results suggest complementary space or resource use patterns between species, with consequent weak competition and niche differentiation. across several years and population densities, home ranges of the two co-occurring rodents thus appear to be affected by conspecifics only, suggesting that the two species may coexist in the study area owing to limited space or resource use overlap. (c) 2018 gesellschaft far okologie. published by elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." big-data approach in abundance estimation of non-identifiable animals with camera-traps at the spots of attraction,abundance estimation; camera-traps; big-data; bayes naive classifier,BULLETIN OF THE SOUTH URAL STATE UNIVERSITY SERIES-MATHEMATICAL MODELLING PROGRAMMING & COMPUTER SOFTWARE,IVANKO EE,"camera-traps is a relatively new but already popular instrument in the estimation of abundance of non-identifiable animals. although camera-traps are convenient in application, there remain both theoretical complications (such as spatial autocorrelation or false negative problem) and practical difficulties, for example, laborious random sampling. in the article i propose an alternative way to bypass the mentioned problems. in the proposed approach, the raw video information collected from the camera-traps situated at the spots of natural attraction is turned into the frequency of visits, and the latter is transformed into the desired abundance estimate. the key for such a transformation is the application of the correction coefficients, computed for each particular observation environment using the bayesian approach and the massive database (db) of observations under various conditions. the proposed method is based on automated video-capturing at a moderate number of easy to reach spots, so in the long term many laborious census works may be conducted easier, cheaper and cause less disturbance for the wild life. information post-processing is strictly formalized, which leaves little chance for subjective alterations. however, the method heavily relies on the volume and quality of the db, which in its turn heavily relies on the efforts of the community. although the construction of such db could be rather difficult and controversial, it is much easier than the solution of the initial abundance estimation problem. moreover, such a rich db of visits might benefit not only censuses, but also many behavioral studies." -impacts of nonnative brown trout on yellowstone cutthroat trout in a tributary stream,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,AL-CHOKHACHY R;SEPULVEDA AJ,"nonnative trout are a considerable threat to native salmonids, yet our understanding of the mechanisms behind interspecific interactions remains limited. we evaluated the impacts of nonnative brown trout salmo salar on a population of yellowstone cutthroat trout oncorhynchus clarkii bouvieri in montana. we contrasted diets, growth, and survival of yellowstone cutthroat trout occurring in allopatry (i.e., where no brown trout were present) with individuals sympatric (i.e., co-occurring) with nonnative brown trout. we assessed summer and autumn diets using gastric lavage methods and survival and growth using mark-recapture analyses. overlap in diets at sites where yellowstone cutthroat trout were sympatric with brown trout was high during july (horn's index: h = 0.94) and october (h = 0.83). in the presence of brown trout, yellowstone cutthroat trout growth rates were significantly lower for juvenile (<175 mm) length and adult (>= 175 mm) length and mass than in allopatric sites. allopatric yellowstone cutthroat trout survival was greater across size-classes; the most pronounced difference was in the age-2 size-class (125-175 mm). together, these results in concert with observed changes in length-frequency data, indicating a considerable lack of yellowstone cutthroat trout recruitment where they are sympatric with brown trout, suggest the negative implications of brown trout are notable." +impacts of nonnative brown trout on yellowstone cutthroat trout in a tributary stream,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,AL CHOKHACHY R;SEPULVEDA AJ,"nonnative trout are a considerable threat to native salmonids, yet our understanding of the mechanisms behind interspecific interactions remains limited. we evaluated the impacts of nonnative brown trout salmo salar on a population of yellowstone cutthroat trout oncorhynchus clarkii bouvieri in montana. we contrasted diets, growth, and survival of yellowstone cutthroat trout occurring in allopatry (i.e., where no brown trout were present) with individuals sympatric (i.e., co-occurring) with nonnative brown trout. we assessed summer and autumn diets using gastric lavage methods and survival and growth using mark-recapture analyses. overlap in diets at sites where yellowstone cutthroat trout were sympatric with brown trout was high during july (horn's index: h = 0.94) and october (h = 0.83). in the presence of brown trout, yellowstone cutthroat trout growth rates were significantly lower for juvenile (<175 mm) length and adult (>= 175 mm) length and mass than in allopatric sites. allopatric yellowstone cutthroat trout survival was greater across size-classes; the most pronounced difference was in the age-2 size-class (125-175 mm). together, these results in concert with observed changes in length-frequency data, indicating a considerable lack of yellowstone cutthroat trout recruitment where they are sympatric with brown trout, suggest the negative implications of brown trout are notable." identifying pre-spawning aggregation sites for bonefish (albula vulpes) in the bahamas to inform habitat protection and species conservation,fish conservation; spawning aggregation; spawning behavior; albula vulpes; mixed-methods approach; recreational fisheries; acoustic telemetry,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,ADAMS AJ;SHENKER JM;JUD ZR;LEWIS JP;CAREY E;DANYLCHUK AJ,"many species of tropical marine fish aggregate to spawn, and the dynamics of these aggregations make them especially susceptible to overfishing and habitat loss. spawning aggregations tend to attract reproductive adults from a large geographic area, sites are traditionally used across generations, and larval dispersal can help supply regional fish stocks. thus, anthropogenic impacts to spawning sites can have population-level consequences over local and regional scales. a critical component in the challenge to conservation of aggregation-spawning species is identification and subsequent protection of spawning sites. here we summarize fieldwork conducted to create a protocol for identification of pre-spawning aggregation sites for bonefish, albula vulpes, in the bahamas. the mixed-methods, field-based protocol includes traditional ecological knowledge, assessment of spawning readiness, tracking using acoustic telemetry, behavioral observations, and mark-recapture, that combined meet the requirements for identifying pre-spawning aggregation sites. pre-spawning site identification, in conjunction with information on other life stages and habitats, is essential for successful spatial management strategies. since bonefish and many other tropical fishes that form spawning aggregation are data poor' and occur in regions where enforcement of fishery regulations is lacking, spatial management is often the best conservation strategy. this protocol builds upon similar previous efforts to identify spawning sites for groupers and snappers, and will contribute to information needs for conservation is an essential component in the conservation of aggregation-forming species such as bonefish across broad spatial scales." measuring site fidelity and homesite-to-pre-spawning site connectivity of bonefish (albula vulpes): using mark-recapture to inform habitat conservation,mark-recapture; recreational fisheries; conservation; site-fidelity; homesite-to-pre-spawning site connectivity; marine protected area; bonefish (abula vulpes),ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,BOUCEK RE;LEWIS JP;STEWART BD;JUD ZR;CAREY E;ADAMS AJ,"effective marine habitat protection requires life history information, including identification of connected adult habitats and spawning sites, and movement information throughout those areas. here, we implemented a mark-recapture study in the bahamas archipelago to estimate patterns of site fidelity, and to determine what homesites are connected to pre-spawning sites of economically important bonefish (albula vulpes) across multiple islands. we captured over 7000 bonefish via seine netting, marked them with dart tags, and relied on fishing guides and anglers to report recaptures on abaco, grand bahama, and andros. mark-recapture results from the three islands showed that 60-80% of bonefish were recaptured within 5km of their tagging site. across the three islands, mean distance between mark and recapture was less than 11km, suggesting space use that is tractable for effective marine reserve implementation. we also found that pre-spawning sites housed individuals from multiple homesites that were separated by distances up to 75km. with these connections in mind, conserving bonefish spawning biomass necessitates habitat protection in multiple home areas, along migratory corridors, and at pre-spawn and spawning locations. our case study illustrates how mark-recapture of a c&r species can be used to identify habitats for protection. information from this mark-recapture study contributed to the designation of six national parks aimed at protecting habitats used by bonefish, as well as other spatially overlapping species." -connectivity mediated by seasonal bonefish (albula vulpes) migration between the caribbean sea and a tropical estuary of belize and mexico,mark-recapture; local knowledge (lk); sport fisheries; albulidae; pre-spawning; fisheries management,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,PEREZ AU;SCHMITTER-SOTO JJ;ADAMS AJ;HEYMAN WD,"bonefish (albula vulpes) are an important resource for catch-and-release fishing in the caribbean sea. understanding movements within and between the caribbean coast (cc) and chetumal-corozal bay (cb) in mexico and belize is crucial for identifying and protecting home ranges, migration routes, pre-spawning and spawning sites. we used a mixed-methods approach to document dynamics of bonefish movement. we collected fishers' local knowledge (lk) using qualitative methods including workshops, key informant interviews, participant observation and field notes about bonefish seasonal movements. we then used mark-recapture (8816 tagged, 569 recaptured) method to understand bonefish movements by size, location and season. bonefish were significantly larger in cc than in cb. we documented several seasonal movement patterns. a southward movement within cb during the rainy season was likely driven by salinity changes. this was followed by an eastward long-distance migration during the norths or cold front season between the bay and the caribbean sea, likely for spawning, as we document likely spawning readiness, pre-spawning behavior and synchronized to the fore-reef at one of two pre-spawning aggregation sites in a world heritage site in the cc of belize during november and december of 2018. there was then a northward movement during the dry season as a journey back to home ranges. the information presented herein can inform resource management and protected areas planning towards a bi-national conservation and management of bonefish and its habitats." +connectivity mediated by seasonal bonefish (albula vulpes) migration between the caribbean sea and a tropical estuary of belize and mexico,mark-recapture; local knowledge (lk); sport fisheries; albulidae; pre-spawning; fisheries management,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,PEREZ AU;SCHMITTER SOTO JJ;ADAMS AJ;HEYMAN WD,"bonefish (albula vulpes) are an important resource for catch-and-release fishing in the caribbean sea. understanding movements within and between the caribbean coast (cc) and chetumal-corozal bay (cb) in mexico and belize is crucial for identifying and protecting home ranges, migration routes, pre-spawning and spawning sites. we used a mixed-methods approach to document dynamics of bonefish movement. we collected fishers' local knowledge (lk) using qualitative methods including workshops, key informant interviews, participant observation and field notes about bonefish seasonal movements. we then used mark-recapture (8816 tagged, 569 recaptured) method to understand bonefish movements by size, location and season. bonefish were significantly larger in cc than in cb. we documented several seasonal movement patterns. a southward movement within cb during the rainy season was likely driven by salinity changes. this was followed by an eastward long-distance migration during the norths or cold front season between the bay and the caribbean sea, likely for spawning, as we document likely spawning readiness, pre-spawning behavior and synchronized to the fore-reef at one of two pre-spawning aggregation sites in a world heritage site in the cc of belize during november and december of 2018. there was then a northward movement during the dry season as a journey back to home ranges. the information presented herein can inform resource management and protected areas planning towards a bi-national conservation and management of bonefish and its habitats." atlantic tarpon (megalops atlanticus) nursery habitats: evaluation of habitat quality and broad-scale habitat identification,citizen science; early life history; habitat management; recreational fisheries; essential fish habitat,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,WILSON JK;ADAMS AJ;AHRENS RNM,"coastal habitats are threatened worldwide by habitat loss and degradation. these habitats play a crucial role as fish nurseries. unfortunately, it is difficult to determine the impact of habitat degradation for many species because data are lacking on early life history metrics including growth (0.07 +/- 0.04 se mm/day in this study), survival (apparent annual survival 0.007 (95% ci: 0.001-0.033 in this study), emigration (27% in this study) and the spatial extent and condition of these habitats. the juvenile life stage of atlantic tarpon (megalops atlanticus), an economically important species in the caribbean, sub-tropical and tropical atlantic, and gulf of mexico, depends upon wetlands and marshes. a mark-recapture study designed to measure juvenile tarpon growth in an altered mangrove habitat in florida (usa) found that juvenile tarpon exhibited slow growth and emigrated at small sizes. the low scores on these metrics, in combination with a broad knowledge gap on the extent and condition of juvenile tarpon habitats in florida, caused concern about the conservation prospects for tarpon and the fishery it supports. to provide information necessary to formulating an effective conservation plan for tarpon, we used citizen science to identify juvenile tarpon habitats and to characterize them as natural or altered (a first-level measure of direct, physical habitat change). a comparison of angler reports and habitat assessments with scientific field assessments showed that using anglers is an efficient and effective means of identifying juvenile tarpon habitats and providing a first-level assessment of habitat condition. this study provides a baseline for ongoing and future habitat conservation and restoration efforts for juvenile tarpon and other species that also use these habitats as nurseries." -habitat-related differences in the adult longevity of two ecotypes of a specialized butterfly,boloria eunomia; bog fritillary; endangered species; life span; mark-recapture; population size; ecotype; butterflies,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,SIELEZNIEW M;KOSTRO-AMBROZIAK A;KLIMCZUK P;DEONIZIAK K;PALKA K;NOWICKI P,"the life expectancy of adult butterflies is highly diverse. substantial variation may be found among closely related species, and even on the intraspecific level, where it could be associated with sex, genetic differentiation, diet and weather conditions. we compared the demographic parameters of populations of the regionally endangered boloria eunomia butterfly living in two different habitats. across its boreal-mountane distribution range in europe, b. eunomia occurs in two ecotypes associated with wet meadows and raised bogs using distinct both larval and nectar plants. we carried out simultaneous studies of both ecotypes through mark-recapture surveys of two large populations in ne poland, located close to each other. a total number of 1124 and 644 individuals were marked at the bog and meadow sites respectively, and 51 and 33% of them were recaptured at least once. the estimated adult population size of the bog population (about 3000) was twice as large as that of the meadow population, which however was characterized by more than three-fold higher density. the emergence of imagoes was highly synchronized, and protandry was evident. the sex ratio was slightly male-biased and the mean capture probability was significantly higher for males. more importantly, the estimated life span of males was considerably shorter than that of females at each site. finally, both sexes of the 'meadow' ecotype lived significantly longer than those from the raised bog. the detected pattern can be related to distinct larval food plants and/or nectar resources, different pressures from predators, genetic variation and morphological differences affecting thermal properties. further investigations would be useful to reveal if the shorter adult life span translates into reduced viability of bog populations and consequently whether they are potentially more threatened, at least in the southern margins of the distribution range in central europe." -seasonal demography of the threatened montevideo redbelly toad (melanophryniscus montevidensis) in a protected area of uruguay,melanophryniscus montevidensis; montevideo redbelly toad; survivorship; transition rate; abundance; activity patterns; conservation,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,BARDIER C;MARTINEZ-LATORRACA N;PORLEY JL;BORTOLINI SV;ALONZO NC;MANEYRO R;TOLEDO LF,"estimates of demographic parameters are scarce for neotropical amphibians, a concerning fact because this region has the highest proportion of threatened amphibians in the world. we conducted a 3-year study where we applied a robust capture-mark-recapture design to assess the importance of breeding and non-breeding activity patterns over the survival rates, detection probabilities, and abundances of the montevideo redbelly toad (melanophryniscus montevidensis (philippi, 1902)), a threatened anuran from uruguay. the best models grouped seasons into hot and cold periods cyclically, were state-dependent in transition probabilities, and were time-dependent in detection probabilities for adults, but had constant detection probabilities for juveniles. averaged estimates suggest a high survivorship rate during cold seasons (above 80%), but lower probabilities (below 60%) during hot seasons, especially for males. analogously, the non-breeding activity had a seasonal pattern, with higher activity during spring and higher sheltering rates during autumn. these activity rates negatively influenced the averaged survivorship rates of adult males and females. long-term (matrix) projections of seasonal survivorships, along with assessments of the causes of these patterns, should be carried out to determine extinction probabilities and possible threats for the conservation of the genus melanophryniscus." +habitat-related differences in the adult longevity of two ecotypes of a specialized butterfly,boloria eunomia; bog fritillary; endangered species; life span; mark-recapture; population size; ecotype; butterflies,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,SIELEZNIEW M;KOSTRO AMBROZIAK A;KLIMCZUK P;DEONIZIAK K;PALKA K;NOWICKI P,"the life expectancy of adult butterflies is highly diverse. substantial variation may be found among closely related species, and even on the intraspecific level, where it could be associated with sex, genetic differentiation, diet and weather conditions. we compared the demographic parameters of populations of the regionally endangered boloria eunomia butterfly living in two different habitats. across its boreal-mountane distribution range in europe, b. eunomia occurs in two ecotypes associated with wet meadows and raised bogs using distinct both larval and nectar plants. we carried out simultaneous studies of both ecotypes through mark-recapture surveys of two large populations in ne poland, located close to each other. a total number of 1124 and 644 individuals were marked at the bog and meadow sites respectively, and 51 and 33% of them were recaptured at least once. the estimated adult population size of the bog population (about 3000) was twice as large as that of the meadow population, which however was characterized by more than three-fold higher density. the emergence of imagoes was highly synchronized, and protandry was evident. the sex ratio was slightly male-biased and the mean capture probability was significantly higher for males. more importantly, the estimated life span of males was considerably shorter than that of females at each site. finally, both sexes of the 'meadow' ecotype lived significantly longer than those from the raised bog. the detected pattern can be related to distinct larval food plants and/or nectar resources, different pressures from predators, genetic variation and morphological differences affecting thermal properties. further investigations would be useful to reveal if the shorter adult life span translates into reduced viability of bog populations and consequently whether they are potentially more threatened, at least in the southern margins of the distribution range in central europe." +seasonal demography of the threatened montevideo redbelly toad (melanophryniscus montevidensis) in a protected area of uruguay,melanophryniscus montevidensis; montevideo redbelly toad; survivorship; transition rate; abundance; activity patterns; conservation,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,BARDIER C;MARTINEZ LATORRACA N;PORLEY JL;BORTOLINI SV;ALONZO NC;MANEYRO R;TOLEDO LF,"estimates of demographic parameters are scarce for neotropical amphibians, a concerning fact because this region has the highest proportion of threatened amphibians in the world. we conducted a 3-year study where we applied a robust capture-mark-recapture design to assess the importance of breeding and non-breeding activity patterns over the survival rates, detection probabilities, and abundances of the montevideo redbelly toad (melanophryniscus montevidensis (philippi, 1902)), a threatened anuran from uruguay. the best models grouped seasons into hot and cold periods cyclically, were state-dependent in transition probabilities, and were time-dependent in detection probabilities for adults, but had constant detection probabilities for juveniles. averaged estimates suggest a high survivorship rate during cold seasons (above 80%), but lower probabilities (below 60%) during hot seasons, especially for males. analogously, the non-breeding activity had a seasonal pattern, with higher activity during spring and higher sheltering rates during autumn. these activity rates negatively influenced the averaged survivorship rates of adult males and females. long-term (matrix) projections of seasonal survivorships, along with assessments of the causes of these patterns, should be carried out to determine extinction probabilities and possible threats for the conservation of the genus melanophryniscus." using spatially-explicit capture-recapture models to explain variation in seasonal density patterns of sympatric ursids,demography; density; noninvasive genetic sampling,ECOGRAPHY,STETZ JB;MITCHELL MS;KENDALL KC,"understanding how environmental factors interact to determine the abundance and distribution of animals is a primary goal of ecology, and fundamental to the conservation of wildlife populations. studies of these relationships, however, often assume static environmental conditions, and rarely consider effects of competition with ecologically similar species. in many parts of their shared ranges, grizzly bears ursus arctos and american black bears u. americanus have nearly complete dietary overlap and share similar life history traits. we therefore tested the hypothesis that density patterns of both bear species would reflect seasonal variation in available resources, with areas of higher primary productivity supporting higher densities of both species. we also hypothesized that interspecific competition would influence seasonal density patterns. specifically, we predicted that grizzly bear density would be locally reduced due to the ability of black bears to more efficiently exploit patchy food resources such as seasonally abundant fruits. to test our hypotheses, we used detections of 309 grizzly and 597 black bears from two independent genetic sampling methods in spatially-explicit capture-recapture (secr) models. our results suggest grizzly bear density was lower in areas of high black bear density during spring and summer, although intraspecific densities were also important, particularly during the breeding season. black bears had lower densities in areas of high grizzly bear density in spring; however, density of black bears in early and late summer was best explained by primary productivity. our results are consistent with the hypothesis that smaller-bodied, more abundant black bears may influence the density patterns of behaviorally-dominant grizzly bears through exploitative competition. we also suggest that seasonal variation in resource availability be considered in efforts to relate environmental conditions to animal density." "a multistate open robust design: population dynamics, reproductive effort, and phenology of sea turtles from tagging data",abundance; asynchronous breeding; capture-recapture; clutch frequency; eretmochelys imbricata; phenology; remigration probability; residence time; survival; unobservable state,ECOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS,KENDALL WL;STAPLETON S;WHITE GC;RICHARDSON JI;PEARSON KN;MASON P,"understanding population dynamics, and how it is influenced by exogenous and endogenous factors, is important to the study and conservation of species. moreover, for migratory species, the phenology and duration of use of a given location can also influence population structure and dynamics. for many species, breeding abundance, survival, and reproductive performance, as well as phenology of nesting, are often the most accessible, and therefore, practical elements of their life history to study. for a population of hawksbill sea turtles (eretmochelys imbricata), we modeled population change for nesters and total adult females, survival, and breeding probability, from 25 yr of intensive tagging data. we modeled breeding probability as a function of the number of years since last breeding and tested for differences between neophyte and experienced nesters. for each year, we also estimated the number of clutches deposited per female, and phenology of use, for neophytes and experienced nesters. to implement the analysis, we developed a novel generalized multistate open robust design mark-recapture modeling framework, with parameters for survival and transition probabilities, and for each primary period, state structure and arrival, persistence, and detection probabilities. derived parameters included abundance of observable and unobservable components of the population, residence time, expected arrival and departure periods, and per-period intensity of study area use. abundance of nesters increased over most of the time series. survival probability was 0.935 +/- 0.01 (estimate +/- se). virtually all hawksbills skipped at least one year of nesting. breeding probability increased by skipping a second year, but then decreased thereafter. subsequent breeding probability was lower for neophyte nesters than for experienced nesters, but the effect was weaker than the effect of years since breeding. clutch frequency varied by year, with no discernable pattern of differences between neophytes and experienced nesters. mean arrival and departure dates also varied, with a slight shift of nesting activity to earlier in the season. the multistate open robust design model developed here provides a flexible framework for modeling the dynamics of structured migratory populations and the phenology and duration of their seasonal use of study areas." non-circular home ranges and the estimation of population density,anisotropic detection function; density estimation; home range; non-circularity; radiotelemetry; spatially explicit capture-recapture; study design; telemetry-scaled non-spatial estimator,ECOLOGY,EFFORD MG,"spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models have emerged as one solution to the problem of estimating the population density of mobile and cryptic animals. spatial models embody assumptions regarding the spatial distribution of individuals and the spatial detection process. the detection process is modeled in secr as a radial decline in detection probability with distance from the activity center of each individual. this would seem to require that home ranges are circular. the robustness of secr when home ranges are not circular has been the subject of conflicting statements. ivan et al. previously compared the secr density estimator to a telemetry-scaled non-spatial estimator. i suggest that the apparent non-robustness of secr in their study was a simulation artefact. new simulations of elliptical home ranges establish that the secr density estimator is largely robust to non-circularity when detectors are spread in two dimensions, but may be very biased if the detector array is linear and home ranges align with the array. transformation to isotropy reduces bias from designs of intermediate dimension, such as hollow square arrays. possible alignment of home ranges should be considered when designing detector arrays." @@ -198,24 +198,24 @@ estimation of movement and mortality of atlantic menhaden during 1966-1969 using multi-state dead recovery mark-recovery model performance for estimating movement and mortality rates,atlantic menhaden; brevoortia tyrannus; brownie mark-recovery model; mark-recovery study design; mark-recapture,FISHERIES RESEARCH,LILJESTRAND EM;WILBERG MJ;SCHUELLER AM,"multi-state mark-recovery models are used to estimate movement and mortality rates of terrestrial and aquatic animals. these models have become especially popular in the last 20 years since technology and statistical techniques have improved to accommodate the extensive data requirements. however, the ability of multi-state mark-recovery models to estimate movement rates has received little evaluation, with few studies exploring the effects of alternative release and recovery designs on the bias and precision of estimates. our objectives were to evaluate the effects of the spatio-temporal pattern of releases, pattern of recovery efforts, and number of releases on the performance of a multi-state mark-recovery model. we generated mark-recovery data from a spatial model and fitted them using a multi-state dead recovery model that included prior distributions on movement rates, natural mortality, and catchability. we generated data using a spatially variable schedule of releases and effort, and a release size of about 1 million individuals to mimic a mark-recovery study conducted for atlantic menhaden brevoortia tyrannus in the late 1960s. we also ran alternative scenarios of sample size and spatially uniform releases and effort, either by themselves or in combination to determine their effects on the accuracy of the estimates. the model generally produced unbiased estimates of mortality rates with median error < 0.02 yr(-1) for all scenarios, but some biases were present for the movement rates. movement rates and catchability were more accurately and precisely estimated in scenarios that included spatially uniform fishing effort, while spatially uniform releases had little to no effect on bias or precision of estimated movement rates. increased sample size improved accuracy of all parameter estimates except for the lowest movement rates. future mark-recovery experiments that use a multi-state dead recovery model may benefit from distributing recovery effort uniformly over time and space." phase- and season-dependent changes in social behaviour in cyclic vole populations,extrinsic; intrinsic; myodes; population cycles; territoriality,BMC ECOLOGY,JOHNSEN K;DEVINEAU O;ANDREASSEN HP,"backgroundsocial behaviour has been linked to hypotheses explaining multiannual population cycles of small rodents. in this paper we aimed to test empirically that the degree of space sharing among adult breeding female voles is higher during the increase phase than in the crash phase, and that the degree of sociality is positively related to population growth rate as suggested by lambin and krebs (oikos 61:126-132, 1991) and andreassen et al. (oikos 122:507-515, 2013). we followed 24 natural bank vole myodes glareolus populations over an area of 113km(2) by monthly live trapping throughout a complete population cycle of three summers and two winters.resultsusing spatially explicit capture-recapture models, we modelled the overlap in adult female home ranges and total population growth rate per season. we identified an increase phase before and during the peak density observation and a crash phase following the peak. female home range overlap were seasonal- and phase-dependent, while population growth rate was associated with season and female home range overlap. high female home range overlap in the increase phase corresponded to a high population growth rate.conclusionswe suggest that intrinsic social behaviour plays a key role in the increase phase of vole population cycles, as social behaviour leads to an increased growth rate, whereas extrinsic factors (predation and/or food) initiate the crash phase. our results are consistent with those of other studies in a variety of small rodent species." capturing correctly: a reanalysis of the indirect capture-recapture methods in the peruvian truth and reconciliation commission,armed conflict; capture-recapture; human rights data; kriging; multiple system estimation; multiple imputation,RESEARCH & POLITICS,RENDON S,"the truth and reconciliation commission (trc) in peru is usually cited as an example of how capture-recapture methods can help improve our understanding of mass violence from incomplete observed data. using 25,000 documented death records, the trc estimated a total of 69,000 killings, and that the shining path was the main perpetrator, in contrast with the raw data where the peruvian state appears to be responsible for the most killings. one feature not often noticed is that the trc applied an unusual indirect procedure, combining data on different perpetrators and lumping together missing perpetrator data in one group. i show that direct estimations with strict stratification by perpetrator and accounting for missing data do not support the results of the trc's indirect approach. i estimate a total of 48,000 killings, substantially lower than the trc estimate, and the peruvian state accounts for a significantly larger share than the shining path. rather than an example of correcting biases in the observed data through capture-recapture methods, the trc actually introduced further distortion." -temporal and demographic variation in partial migration of the north atlantic right whale,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,GOWAN TA;ORTEGA-ORTIZ JG;HOSTETLER JA;HAMILTON PK;KNOWLTON AR;JACKSON KA;GEORGE RC;TAYLOR CR;NAESSIG PJ,"animal movement plays a fundamental role in the ecology of migratory species, and understanding migration patterns is required for effective management. to evaluate intrinsic and environmental factors associated with probabilities of endangered north atlantic right whales eubalaena glacialis migrating to a wintering ground off the southeastern united states (seus), we applied a multistate temporary emigration capture-recapture model to 22 years of photo-identification data. migration probabilities for juveniles were generally higher yet more variable than those for adults, and non-calving adult females were the least likely group to migrate. the highest migration probabilities for juveniles and adult males coincided with years of relatively high calving rates, following years of higher prey availability in a fall feeding ground. right whale migration to the seus can be classified as condition-dependent partial migration, which includes skipped breeding partial migration for reproductive females, and is likely influenced by tradeoffs among ecological factors such as reproductive costs and foraging opportunities that vary across individuals and time. the high variability in migration reported in this study provides insight into the ecological drivers of migration but presents challenges to right whale monitoring and conservation strategies." -"population parameters of green turtle adult males in the mixed ground of atol das rocas, brazil",mark-recapture; population modeling; breeding ground; south atlantic,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,GROSSMAN A;DAURA-JORGE FG;SILVA MD;LONGO GO,"while there is an established and expanding body of literature on population trends of sea turtle nesting females, studies focusing on male sea turtles are only recent (although they have increased over the past 10 yr). filling this gap is important for understanding sea turtle population dynamics. we provide the first estimates of demographic parameters of adult males from the mixed ground of rocas atoll, an important breeding and feeding ground for green turtles in the south atlantic. abundance estimates were obtained from a 5 yr mark-recapture effort between 2003 and 2007 using open-population models. annual abundance estimates varied from 86 to 146, and the total estimated number of males that used the area within the study period was 294 individuals (superpopulation). differences among estimates indicate a transient pattern (i.e. marked individuals that were never recaptured) and highlight open population dynamics, where there is a mix of transient and resident animals using the area for breeding and/or feeding. most recaptures occurred in consecutive years or in 2 yr intervals, indicating some level of site fidelity. a similar pattern also influenced apparent survival estimates, with annual survival varying between 0.47 and 0.51 when considering transients and residents, and between 0.78 and 0.80 when considering only residents. it was not possible to evaluate population trends based on the 5 yr mark-recapture data, as robust projections would require 18 yr of monitoring with comparable effort. therefore, understanding the open dynamic of this population requires a long-term monitoring effort, and is critical for understanding the role of rocas atoll in the conservation and management of green turtles in the south atlantic." -assessing habitat quality when forest attributes have opposing effects on abundance and detectability: a case study on darwin's frogs,amphibian; conservation; habitat degradation; multinomial n-mixture model; unmarked,FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,VALENZUELA-SANCHEZ A;SCHMIDT BR;PEREZ C;ALTAMIRANO T;TOLEDO V;PEREZ I;TEILLIER S;CUNNINGHAM AA;SOTO-AZAT C,"forest management can be used to increase the local abundance of species of conservation concern. to achieve this goal, managers must be sure that the relationships between the targeted forest attributes and the focal species abundance are based on robust data and inference. this is a critical issue as the same forest attributes could have opposing effects on species abundance and the detectability of individuals, impairing our ability to detect useful habitat quality surrogates and to provide correct forest management recommendations. using spatially stratified capture-recapture models (a.k.a. multinomial n-mixture models), we evaluated the effects of stand-level forest attributes on detection probability and local abundance for the endangered southern darwin's frog (rhinoderma darwinii), a forest-specialist and fully terrestrial amphibian endemic to the south american temperate forest. our results show that an increase of stand basal area and a decrease of daily microclimatic fluctuation (i.e. an increase in structural complexity) were positively associated with the local abundance of r. darwinii. these stand-level forest attributes also explained the among-population variation in detection probability, although the relationships were opposite to those for abundance. consequently, an analysis of raw frog counts (i.e. not adjusted for imperfect detection) did not reveal all the factors associated with local abundance. our results provide further support to previous claims that raw counts of individuals should not be used, generally, as a proxy of abundance in species inhabiting forest ecosystems and elsewhere. more importantly, the opposite effect of forest attributes on abundance and detectability observed in our study highlights the need to use methods that quantify species-habitat relationships in a robust way and which take habitat-specific imperfect detection into account." -"agreement between primary care and hospital diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: a cross-sectional, observational study using record linkage",NA,PLOS ONE,O'NEILL B;KALIA S;ALIARZADEH B;MOINEDDIN R;FUNG WLA;SULLIVAN F;MALOUL A;BERNARD S;GREIVER M,"people with serious mental illness die 10-25 years sooner than people without these conditions. multiple challenges to accessing and benefitting from healthcare have been identified amongst this population, including a lack of coordination between mental health services and general health services. it has been identified in other conditions such as diabetes that accurate documentation of diagnosis in the primary care chart is associated with better quality of care. it is suspected that if a patient admitted to the hospital with serious mental illness is then discharged without adequate identification of their diagnosis in the primary care setting, follow up (such as medication management and care coordination) may be more difficult. we identified cohorts of patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder who accessed care through the north york family health team (a group of 77 family physicians in toronto, canada) and north york general hospital (a large community hospital) between january 1, 2012 and december 31, 2014. we identified whether labeling for these conditions was concordant between the two settings and explored predictors of concordant labeling. this was a retrospective cross-sectional study using de-identified data from the health databank collaborative, a linked primary care-hospital database. we identified 168 patients with schizophrenia and 370 patients with bipolar disorder. overall diagnostic concordance between primary care and hospital records was 23.2% for schizophrenia and 15.7% for bipolar disorder. concordance was higher for those with multiple (2+) inpatient visits (for schizophrenia: or 2.42; 95% ci 0.64-9.20 and for bipolar disorder: or 8.38; 95% ci 3.16-22.22). capture-recapture modeling estimated that 37.4% of patients with schizophrenia (95% ci 20.7-54.1) and 39.6% with bipolar disorder (95% ci 25.7-53.6) had missing labels in both settings when adjusting for patients' age, sex, income quintiles and co-morbidities. in this sample of patients accessing care at a large family health team and community hospital, concordance of diagnostic information about serious mental illness was low. interventions should be developed to improve diagnosis and continuity of care across multiple settings." +temporal and demographic variation in partial migration of the north atlantic right whale,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,GOWAN TA;ORTEGA ORTIZ JG;HOSTETLER JA;HAMILTON PK;KNOWLTON AR;JACKSON KA;GEORGE RC;TAYLOR CR;NAESSIG PJ,"animal movement plays a fundamental role in the ecology of migratory species, and understanding migration patterns is required for effective management. to evaluate intrinsic and environmental factors associated with probabilities of endangered north atlantic right whales eubalaena glacialis migrating to a wintering ground off the southeastern united states (seus), we applied a multistate temporary emigration capture-recapture model to 22 years of photo-identification data. migration probabilities for juveniles were generally higher yet more variable than those for adults, and non-calving adult females were the least likely group to migrate. the highest migration probabilities for juveniles and adult males coincided with years of relatively high calving rates, following years of higher prey availability in a fall feeding ground. right whale migration to the seus can be classified as condition-dependent partial migration, which includes skipped breeding partial migration for reproductive females, and is likely influenced by tradeoffs among ecological factors such as reproductive costs and foraging opportunities that vary across individuals and time. the high variability in migration reported in this study provides insight into the ecological drivers of migration but presents challenges to right whale monitoring and conservation strategies." +"population parameters of green turtle adult males in the mixed ground of atol das rocas, brazil",mark-recapture; population modeling; breeding ground; south atlantic,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,GROSSMAN A;DAURA JORGE FG;SILVA MD;LONGO GO,"while there is an established and expanding body of literature on population trends of sea turtle nesting females, studies focusing on male sea turtles are only recent (although they have increased over the past 10 yr). filling this gap is important for understanding sea turtle population dynamics. we provide the first estimates of demographic parameters of adult males from the mixed ground of rocas atoll, an important breeding and feeding ground for green turtles in the south atlantic. abundance estimates were obtained from a 5 yr mark-recapture effort between 2003 and 2007 using open-population models. annual abundance estimates varied from 86 to 146, and the total estimated number of males that used the area within the study period was 294 individuals (superpopulation). differences among estimates indicate a transient pattern (i.e. marked individuals that were never recaptured) and highlight open population dynamics, where there is a mix of transient and resident animals using the area for breeding and/or feeding. most recaptures occurred in consecutive years or in 2 yr intervals, indicating some level of site fidelity. a similar pattern also influenced apparent survival estimates, with annual survival varying between 0.47 and 0.51 when considering transients and residents, and between 0.78 and 0.80 when considering only residents. it was not possible to evaluate population trends based on the 5 yr mark-recapture data, as robust projections would require 18 yr of monitoring with comparable effort. therefore, understanding the open dynamic of this population requires a long-term monitoring effort, and is critical for understanding the role of rocas atoll in the conservation and management of green turtles in the south atlantic." +assessing habitat quality when forest attributes have opposing effects on abundance and detectability: a case study on darwin's frogs,amphibian; conservation; habitat degradation; multinomial n-mixture model; unmarked,FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,VALENZUELA SANCHEZ A;SCHMIDT BR;PEREZ C;ALTAMIRANO T;TOLEDO V;PEREZ I;TEILLIER S;CUNNINGHAM AA;SOTO AZAT C,"forest management can be used to increase the local abundance of species of conservation concern. to achieve this goal, managers must be sure that the relationships between the targeted forest attributes and the focal species abundance are based on robust data and inference. this is a critical issue as the same forest attributes could have opposing effects on species abundance and the detectability of individuals, impairing our ability to detect useful habitat quality surrogates and to provide correct forest management recommendations. using spatially stratified capture-recapture models (a.k.a. multinomial n-mixture models), we evaluated the effects of stand-level forest attributes on detection probability and local abundance for the endangered southern darwin's frog (rhinoderma darwinii), a forest-specialist and fully terrestrial amphibian endemic to the south american temperate forest. our results show that an increase of stand basal area and a decrease of daily microclimatic fluctuation (i.e. an increase in structural complexity) were positively associated with the local abundance of r. darwinii. these stand-level forest attributes also explained the among-population variation in detection probability, although the relationships were opposite to those for abundance. consequently, an analysis of raw frog counts (i.e. not adjusted for imperfect detection) did not reveal all the factors associated with local abundance. our results provide further support to previous claims that raw counts of individuals should not be used, generally, as a proxy of abundance in species inhabiting forest ecosystems and elsewhere. more importantly, the opposite effect of forest attributes on abundance and detectability observed in our study highlights the need to use methods that quantify species-habitat relationships in a robust way and which take habitat-specific imperfect detection into account." +"agreement between primary care and hospital diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: a cross-sectional, observational study using record linkage",NA,PLOS ONE,O NEILL B;KALIA S;ALIARZADEH B;MOINEDDIN R;FUNG WLA;SULLIVAN F;MALOUL A;BERNARD S;GREIVER M,"people with serious mental illness die 10-25 years sooner than people without these conditions. multiple challenges to accessing and benefitting from healthcare have been identified amongst this population, including a lack of coordination between mental health services and general health services. it has been identified in other conditions such as diabetes that accurate documentation of diagnosis in the primary care chart is associated with better quality of care. it is suspected that if a patient admitted to the hospital with serious mental illness is then discharged without adequate identification of their diagnosis in the primary care setting, follow up (such as medication management and care coordination) may be more difficult. we identified cohorts of patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder who accessed care through the north york family health team (a group of 77 family physicians in toronto, canada) and north york general hospital (a large community hospital) between january 1, 2012 and december 31, 2014. we identified whether labeling for these conditions was concordant between the two settings and explored predictors of concordant labeling. this was a retrospective cross-sectional study using de-identified data from the health databank collaborative, a linked primary care-hospital database. we identified 168 patients with schizophrenia and 370 patients with bipolar disorder. overall diagnostic concordance between primary care and hospital records was 23.2% for schizophrenia and 15.7% for bipolar disorder. concordance was higher for those with multiple (2+) inpatient visits (for schizophrenia: or 2.42; 95% ci 0.64-9.20 and for bipolar disorder: or 8.38; 95% ci 3.16-22.22). capture-recapture modeling estimated that 37.4% of patients with schizophrenia (95% ci 20.7-54.1) and 39.6% with bipolar disorder (95% ci 25.7-53.6) had missing labels in both settings when adjusting for patients' age, sex, income quintiles and co-morbidities. in this sample of patients accessing care at a large family health team and community hospital, concordance of diagnostic information about serious mental illness was low. interventions should be developed to improve diagnosis and continuity of care across multiple settings." capture-recapture methods for data on the activation of applications on mobile phones,heterogeneity; jolly-seber model; poisson regression; robust design,JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN STATISTICAL ASSOCIATION,YAUCK M;RIVEST LP;ROTHMAN G,"this work is concerned with the analysis of marketing data on the activation of applications (apps) on mobile devices. each application has a hashed identification number that is specific to the device on which it has been installed. this number can be registered by a platform at each activation of the application. activations on the same device are linked together using the identification number. by focusing on activations that took place at a business location, one can create a capture-recapture dataset about devices, that is, users, that visited the business: the units are owners of mobile devices and the capture occasions are time intervals such as days. a unit is captured when she activates an application, provided that this activation is recorded by the platform providing the data. statistical capture-recapture techniques can be applied to the app data to estimate the total number of users that visited the business over a time period, thereby providing an indirect estimate of foot traffic. this article argues that the robust design, a method for dealing with a nested mark-recapture experiment, can be used in this context. a new algorithm for estimating the parameters of a robust design with a fairly large number of capture occasions and a simple parametric bootstrap variance estimator are proposed. moreover, new estimation methods and new theoretical results are introduced for a wider application of the robust design. this is used to analyze a dataset about the mobile devices that visited the auto-dealerships of a major auto brand in a u.s. metropolitan area over a period of 1 year and a half. supplementary materials for this article, including a standardized description of the materials available for reproducing the work, are available as an online supplement." "abundance estimates of an isolated population of common bottlenose dolphins tursiops truncatus in walvis bay, namibia, 2008-2012",africa; cetaceans; closed population model; conservation; demographic parameters; mark-recapture; photo-identification; robust design model,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,ELWEN SH;LEENEY RH;GRIDLEY T,"the coastal population of common bottlenose dolphins tursiops truncatus found in namibia is regionally isolated and unique. this population faces several potential anthropogenic threats, especially in walvis bay, including boat-based tourism, a commercial harbour undergoing expansion, and aquaculture for oysters and mussels. between 2008 and 2012, 238 boat-based surveys were conducted, resulting in 170 encounters with bottlenose dolphins. overall, group sizes varied from 1 to 45 individuals (mean 10.7). encounter rates, group sizes and total numbers of animals identified were higher in winter than in summer field seasons. the number, and survival and immigration parameters, of bottlenose dolphins using walvis bay was investigated using robust design and huggins closed-population mark-recapture models. the highest numbers estimated were in the first and last years of the study, with estimates of 74-82 in 2008 and 76-77 in 2012 (numbers identified and upper 95% confidence limits). the only previously available data, from an incomplete study in the early 1990s, suggested that the population was between 100 and 150 individuals at the time. although no linear trend in population size was obvious during the current study, the clear evidence of isolation, small population size, low annual birth rate, and potential long-term decrease in numbers since the early 1990s is concerning. further work to collect data on demographic parameters is urgently recommended with a view to obtaining increased protection for this species." "movement patterns of an endemic south african sparid, the black musselcracker cymatoceps nasutus, determined using mark-recapture methods",dart tags; fisheries management; linefish; marine protected area; poenskop; resident species; site fidelity,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,MURRAY TS;COWLEY PD;MANN BQ;MAGGS JQ;GOUWS G,"this study made use of data from three long-term fish tagging projects along the south african coastline to investigate the movement behaviour of the endemic black musselcracker cymatoceps nasutus (sparidae). from 1984 to 2016, a total of 3 430 c. nasutus (178-980 mm fork length) were tagged (with small plastic dart tags) throughout the species' distributional range, with an overall reported recapture rate of 7.2%. recaptured individuals displayed high levels of residency, moving an average of 14.8 km, with time-at-liberty ranging from 0 to 6 809 days. the majority of recaptures (84.6%) were made within 1 km of the tagging sites; however, some large-scale movements, of up to 528 km, were recorded. although c. nasutus individuals moving greater distances were characterised by greater mean sizes (mm fork length) at time of recapture, the distances moved by juveniles were not significantly different from those of adults (p > 0.05). low levels of connectivity among coastal regions were therefore expected due to the high degree of residency displayed by this species. combining traditional management approaches together with a well-designed network of no-take marine protected areas is likely to be the most effective way to protect this vulnerable species. a lack of data on the movements of adults remains a challenge, but this could be overcome by tracking large individuals tagged with long-life acoustic transmitters." applying the capture-recapture method to estimate road traffic deaths and injuries in three non-contiguous cities in the philippines,middle-income country; road injuries; capture-recapture analysis; estimation; underreporting,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INJURY CONTROL AND SAFETY PROMOTION,RIVERA AS;LAM HY,"in establishing goals for the philippine road safety plan, police data were used. police reports are likely underreporting. we apply capture-recapture analysis to determine expansion factors and estimate the true incidence. three cities were visited where data on deaths (2014) and injury (january-march 2014) from hospitals, police and civil registry were collected. matching was done to generate a final list of injured and dead individuals. the chapman method was used for estimating the true number of cases. police data exhibited underreporting in all site. expansion factors of the police data range from 5.4 to 29x for deaths and 3.2 to 47x for non-fatal injuries. expansion factors are likely useful to estimate the true incidence of road traffic injuries in areas with weak injury surveillance systems such as the philippines." evaluation of trap designs and food attractants for trapping eucryptorrhynchus scrobiculatus (coleoptera: curculionidae)(*),eucryptorrhynchus scrobiculatus; tree borer; trap type; trapping system,BIOCONTROL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY,YANG KL;WEN XJ;ZHANG GY;WEN JB,"eucryptorrhynchus scrobiculatus (motschulsky) is a serious pest of tree of heaven, ailanthus altissima (mill.) swingle in china. laboratory choice tests were conducted to compare attractiveness of vinegar, ethanol, apple juice, the vinegar-ethanol mixture (ve), vinegar-apple mixture (va), ethanol-apple mixture (ea) and vinegar-ethanol-apple mixture (vea) to e. scrobiculatus. vea showed significantly higher attractiveness to e. scrobiculatus than vinegar, ethanol, apple juice alone, ve, va or ea. the field experiments were conducted to evaluate the efficiency of commercial pitfall traps baited with different ratios of vea (apple: ve, m:m) for trapping e. scrobiculatus. field evaluations showed that the number of marked and wild e. scrobiculatus in traps baited with the vea (apple: ve, 30:70 ratio, m:m) was significantly higher than traps baited with other ratios of vea. further testing of four types of trap baited with this vea (apple: ve, 30:70 ratio, m:m) indicated that captures in homemade pitfall trap design were significantly higher than in any other trap design (commercial pitfall traps, cross-vane versus traps and six-unit-funnel traps). the results demonstrated that homemade pitfall traps baited with the vea (apple: ve, 30:70 ratio, m:m) have potential for e. scrobiculatus monitoring." "comparison among three body parts and three software packages to optimise photographic identification of a reptile (tuatara, sphenodon punctatus)",body patterns; (is)-s-3; non-invasive; photo-id; stripespotter; wild-id,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,MELLO RDR;JARVIE S;HAZLEY L;CREE A,"individually identifying animals is key to ecological research. natural marks and patterns of animals that remain stable through time may be used to identify individuals, either manually or with the aid of software. here we compare the performance of three body parts (chest, right side and right eye) for individual identification of tuatara (sphenodon punctatus) using three software packages (wild-id, (is)-s-3 and stripespotter). we also explored pattern stability over time for the chest and right side, and whether the identification rate differed between life-history stages (adults and juveniles) for this long-lived reptile. we used photos of 196 tuatara, including captive and free-roaming individuals. in an initial analysis with a subset of individuals, chest and right side gave better identification rates than the eye when analysed usingwild-id (the best-performing software). in a further analysis using all photos andwild-id, the false rejection rate was lower for chest (0.6%) than right side (2.4%). although the effect of time on matching scores for chest (up to 3.5 y) and right-side (up to 1.8 y) was significant, it was not large enough to reduce the matching rate; furthermore, no difference in identification rate between adults and juveniles was detected. overall, chest was the best-performing body part and wild-id the best-performing software. thus, appropriate choice of body pattern for analysis may significantly increase the matching rate, and, as previously shown, software packages vary in performance." -age-dependent capture-recapture models and unequal time intervals,age-dependent models; capture-mark-recapture; missing data; survival probability,ANIMAL BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,SANZ-AGUILA A;PRADEL R;TAVECCHIA G,"age-dependent capture-recapture models and unequal time intervals. estimates of survival probabilities in natural populations can be obtained through capture-mark-recapture (cmr) models. however, when capture sessions are unevenly spaced, age-dependent models can lead to erroneous estimates of survival when individuals change age class during the time interval between two capture occasions. we propose a solution to correct for the mismatch between time intervals and age class duration in two age class models. the solution can be implemented in different ways. the first consists of adding dummy occasions to the encounter histories and fixing the corresponding recapture probabilities at zero. the second makes use of the log-link function available in some cmr software (e.g. program mark). we used simulated and real data to show that the proposed solution delivers unbiased estimates of age-dependent survival probabilities." +age-dependent capture-recapture models and unequal time intervals,age-dependent models; capture-mark-recapture; missing data; survival probability,ANIMAL BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,SANZ AGUILA A;PRADEL R;TAVECCHIA G,"age-dependent capture-recapture models and unequal time intervals. estimates of survival probabilities in natural populations can be obtained through capture-mark-recapture (cmr) models. however, when capture sessions are unevenly spaced, age-dependent models can lead to erroneous estimates of survival when individuals change age class during the time interval between two capture occasions. we propose a solution to correct for the mismatch between time intervals and age class duration in two age class models. the solution can be implemented in different ways. the first consists of adding dummy occasions to the encounter histories and fixing the corresponding recapture probabilities at zero. the second makes use of the log-link function available in some cmr software (e.g. program mark). we used simulated and real data to show that the proposed solution delivers unbiased estimates of age-dependent survival probabilities." confidence intervals for the closed population size under inverse sampling without replacement,bootstrap; capture-recapture; closed population; interval estimation; inverse sampling; likelihood ratio,COMMUNICATIONS IN STATISTICS-THEORY AND METHODS,MOHAMMADI M,"inverse sampling is an appropriate design for the second phase of capture-recapture experiments which provides an exactly unbiased estimator of the population size. however, the sampling distribution of the resulting estimator tends to be highly right skewed for small recapture samples, so, the traditional wald-type confidence intervals appear to be inappropriate. the objective of this paper is to study the performance of interval estimators for the population size under inverse recapture sampling without replacement. to this aim, we consider the wald-type, the logarithmic transformation-based, the wilson score, the likelihood ratio and the exact methods. also, we propose some bootstrap confidence intervals for the population size, including the with-replacement bootstrap (bwr), the without replacement bootstrap (bwo), and the rao-wu's rescaling method. a monte carlo simulation is employed to evaluate the performance of suggested methods in terms of the coverage probability, error rates and standardized average length. our results show that the likelihood ratio and exact confidence intervals are preferred to other competitors, having the coverage probabilities close to the desired nominal level for any sample size, with more balanced error rate for exact method and shorter length for likelihood ratio method. it is notable that the bwo and rao-wu's rescaling methods also may provide good intervals for some situations, however, those coverage probabilities are not invariant with respect to the population arguments, so one must be careful to use them." -"winter site use by afro-palearctic migrants in ghana: site persistence and densities of willow warbler, pied flycatcher, melodious warbler and common redstart",afro-palearctic migrants; density; ghana; itinerancy; recurrence; wintering,OSTRICH,THORUP K;SORENSEN IH;WILLEMOES M;LERCHE-JORGENSE M;FJELDSA J;TOTTRUP AP;JACOBSEN EM;REEVE AH;OTENG-APPAU R;ASAMOAH A;LEHMBERG T,"little is known about the variation within and among species of long-distance migrants in behavioural strategies and habitat choice on their non-breeding grounds. we report results from regular ringing operations carried out during the winter seasons 2009-2013 and transect counts in 2013, 2015 and 2016 in the sudan savanna zone in ghana. the best supported capture-mark-recapture model included species-specific probabilities of stay between within-season periods but no differences in resighting probability among species or sites. this model indicated that less than one-third of the willow warblers phylloscopus trochilus and half of the melodious warblers hippolais polyglotta stayed at wintering sites during more than 10 d, whereas for pied flycatcher ficedula hypoleuca and common redstart phoenicurus phoenicurus up to 90% stayed for more than 10 d, indicating itinerant wintering behaviour in the warblers and longer non-breeding residency in pied flycatcher and common redstart. densities varied among years, but pied flycatchers were consistently most numerous in well-matured woodland habitat and willow warblers in disturbed habitat. recaptures among years were too low for meaningful estimates of winter site fidelity, yet recurrence was recorded in three species. we speculate that habitat use is directly related to degree of territory defence and itinerancy. utilisation des sites d'hiver age par les migrateurs afro-palearctiques au ghana: persistance dans le site et densites de pouillot fitis, gobemouche noir, hypolais polyglotte et rougequeue a front blancpeu de choses sont connues sur la variation au sein des especes de migrateurs longue-distance et entre celles-ci dans leurs strategies comportementales et leurs choix d'habitats sur leurs aires de non reproductrion. nous apportons des resultats issues d'operations de baguages regulieres realisees durant les saisons hivernales de 2009-2013 et des comptages par transects en 2013, 2015 et 2016 dans la savane soudanienne du ghana. le modele de capture-marquage-recapture le plus soutenu inclue des probabilites de sejour specifiques a une espece entre les periodes intra saisonnieres mais pas de differences de probabilites de re observation au sein des especes ou sites. ce modele indique que moins d'un tiers des pouillots fitis phyllocopus trochilus et la moitie des hypolais polyglotte hippolais polyglotta restent au site d'hivernage pendant plus de 10 jours alors que les gobemouches noirs ficedula hypoleuca et rougequeues a fronts blancs phoenicurus phoenicurus restent, a hauteur de 90%, plus de 10 jours, indiquant un comportement d'hivernage itinerant chez les pouillots fitis et hypolais polyglotte et des sejours non reproductifs plus longs chez les gobemouches noirs et rougequeues a front blanc. les densites presentent des variations d'une annee a l'autre, mais les gobemouches noirs sont plus nombreux dans les habitats forestiers matures et les pouillots fitis dans les habitats perturbes. le taux de recapture d'une annee a l'autre etaient trop faibles pour en tirer des estimations fiables quant a la fidelite aux sites d'hivernages, cependant des recurrences ont ete enregistrees pour les trois especes. nous suspectons que l'utilisation de l'habitat est directement correlee a la fois au degre de defense du territoire et d'itinerance." +"winter site use by afro-palearctic migrants in ghana: site persistence and densities of willow warbler, pied flycatcher, melodious warbler and common redstart",afro-palearctic migrants; density; ghana; itinerancy; recurrence; wintering,OSTRICH,THORUP K;SORENSEN IH;WILLEMOES M;LERCHE JORGENSE M;FJELDSA J;TOTTRUP AP;JACOBSEN EM;REEVE AH;OTENG APPAU R;ASAMOAH A;LEHMBERG T,"little is known about the variation within and among species of long-distance migrants in behavioural strategies and habitat choice on their non-breeding grounds. we report results from regular ringing operations carried out during the winter seasons 2009-2013 and transect counts in 2013, 2015 and 2016 in the sudan savanna zone in ghana. the best supported capture-mark-recapture model included species-specific probabilities of stay between within-season periods but no differences in resighting probability among species or sites. this model indicated that less than one-third of the willow warblers phylloscopus trochilus and half of the melodious warblers hippolais polyglotta stayed at wintering sites during more than 10 d, whereas for pied flycatcher ficedula hypoleuca and common redstart phoenicurus phoenicurus up to 90% stayed for more than 10 d, indicating itinerant wintering behaviour in the warblers and longer non-breeding residency in pied flycatcher and common redstart. densities varied among years, but pied flycatchers were consistently most numerous in well-matured woodland habitat and willow warblers in disturbed habitat. recaptures among years were too low for meaningful estimates of winter site fidelity, yet recurrence was recorded in three species. we speculate that habitat use is directly related to degree of territory defence and itinerancy. utilisation des sites d'hiver age par les migrateurs afro-palearctiques au ghana: persistance dans le site et densites de pouillot fitis, gobemouche noir, hypolais polyglotte et rougequeue a front blancpeu de choses sont connues sur la variation au sein des especes de migrateurs longue-distance et entre celles-ci dans leurs strategies comportementales et leurs choix d'habitats sur leurs aires de non reproductrion. nous apportons des resultats issues d'operations de baguages regulieres realisees durant les saisons hivernales de 2009-2013 et des comptages par transects en 2013, 2015 et 2016 dans la savane soudanienne du ghana. le modele de capture-marquage-recapture le plus soutenu inclue des probabilites de sejour specifiques a une espece entre les periodes intra saisonnieres mais pas de differences de probabilites de re observation au sein des especes ou sites. ce modele indique que moins d'un tiers des pouillots fitis phyllocopus trochilus et la moitie des hypolais polyglotte hippolais polyglotta restent au site d'hivernage pendant plus de 10 jours alors que les gobemouches noirs ficedula hypoleuca et rougequeues a fronts blancs phoenicurus phoenicurus restent, a hauteur de 90%, plus de 10 jours, indiquant un comportement d'hivernage itinerant chez les pouillots fitis et hypolais polyglotte et des sejours non reproductifs plus longs chez les gobemouches noirs et rougequeues a front blanc. les densites presentent des variations d'une annee a l'autre, mais les gobemouches noirs sont plus nombreux dans les habitats forestiers matures et les pouillots fitis dans les habitats perturbes. le taux de recapture d'une annee a l'autre etaient trop faibles pour en tirer des estimations fiables quant a la fidelite aux sites d'hivernages, cependant des recurrences ont ete enregistrees pour les trois especes. nous suspectons que l'utilisation de l'habitat est directement correlee a la fois au degre de defense du territoire et d'itinerance." estimating snow leopard density using fecal dna in a large landscape in north-central nepal,panthera uncia; density; annapurna-manaslu landscape; noninvasive; spatial scale,GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION,CHETRI M;ODDEN M;SHARMA K;FLAGSTAD O;WEGGE P,"although abundance estimates have a strong bearing on the conservation status of a species, less than 2% of the global snow leopard distribution range has been sampled systematically, mostly in small survey areas. in order to estimate snow leopard density across a large landscape, we collected 347 putative snow leopard scats from 246 transects (490 km) in twenty-six 5 x 5km sized sampling grid cells within 4393 km(2) in annapurna-manaslu, nepal. from 182 confirmed snow leopard scats, 81 were identified as belonging to 34 individuals; the remaining were discarded for their low (<0.625) quality index. using maximum likelihood based spatial capture recapture analysis, we developed candidate model sets to test effects of various covariates on density and detection of scats on transects. the best models described the variation in density as a quadratic function of elevation and detection as a linear function of topography. the average density estimate of snow leopards for the area of interest within nepal was 0.95 (se 0.19) animals per 100 km(2) (0.66-1.41 95% cl) with predicted densities varying between 0.1 and 1.9 in different parts, thus highlighting the heterogeneity in densities as a function of habitat types. our density estimate was low compared to previous estimates from smaller study areas. probably, estimates from some of these areas were inflated due to locally high abundances in overlap zones (hotspots) of neighboring individuals, whose territories probably range far beyond study area borders. our results highlight the need for a large-scale approach in snow leopard monitoring, and we recommend that methodological problems related to spatial scale are taken into account in future snow leopard research. (c) 2019 the authors. published by elsevier b.v." what has happened to the females? population trends in the aesculapian snake at its northern range limit,zamenis longissimus; population size; sex ratio; northern range limit; extinction,GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION,KUREK K;CMIEL AT;BURY S;ZAJAC B;NAJBEREK K;BABIASZ R;MUSILOVA R;BAS G;NAJBAR B,"populations at the edge of their main range of distribution are often exposed to suboptimal environments. they therefore exhibit a greater susceptibility towards habitat changes and often clearly differ in their structure and dynamics from populations in the main range. here we define population parameters of the aesculapian snake zamenis longissimus, a species endangered in europe, at its northern range limit based on data obtained in the valley of the river san (bieszczady mts., se poland) in 2009-2013. we focus on the spatial and temporal sex ratio patterns by comparing data obtained in 2009-2013 with published records from 1990 to 1998 and five other northern populations (1 from the main range, 1 at the northern edge of its contiguous range, and 3 entirely isolated ones). using the capture-mark-recapture (cmr) method, we estimated the population size to be about 230 snakes. our data show that among adults the percentage of females (17.74%) in the san valley population was significantly lower than in those other five populations and the same population studied two decades earlier. because of the male-biased sex ratio, we estimated the effective population size to be about 74 snakes. this disproportion between the sexes in adults may be interpreted as an early stage of the population extinction process at the northern range limit of this species' distribution. it is probably due to the limited availability of egg-laying sites, compelling females to undertake longer movements, which may heighten the risk of mortality. (c) 2019 published by elsevier b.v." -"a nationwide, population-based prevalence study of genetic muscle disorders",prevalence; neuromuscular; muscular dystrophy; population-based; epidemiology,NEUROEPIDEMIOLOGY,THEADOM A;RODRIGUES M;POKE G;O'GRADY G;LOVE D;HAMMOND-TOOKE G;PARMAR P;BAKER R;FEIGIN V;JONES K;AO BT;RANTA A;ROXBURGH R;KRISHNAMURTHI R;STEWART J,"background: previous epidemiological studies of genetic muscle disorders have relied on medical records to identify cases and may be at risk of selection biases or have focused on selective population groups. objectives: this study aimed to determine age-standardised prevalence of genetic muscle disorders through a nationwide, epidemiological study across the lifespan using the capture-recapture method. methods: adults and children with a confirmed clinical or molecular diagnosis of a genetic muscle disorder, resident in new zealand on april 1, 2015 were identified using multiple overlapping sources. genetic muscle disorders included the muscular dystrophies, congenital myopathies, ion channel myopathies, gne myopathy, and pompe disease. prevalence per 100,000 persons by age, sex, disorder, ethnicity and geographical region with 95% cis was calculated using poisson distribution. direct standardisation was applied to age-standardise prevalence to the world population. completeness of case ascertainment was determined using capture-recapture modelling. results: age standardised minimal point prevalence of all genetic muscle disorders was 22.3 per 100,000 (95% ci 19.5-25.6). prevalence in europeans of 24.4 per 100,000, (95% ci 21.1-28.3) was twice that observed in nz's other 3 main ethnic groups; maori (12.6 per 100,000, 95% ci 7.8-20.5), pasifika (11.0 per 100,000, 95% ci 5.4-23.3), and asian (9.13 per 100,000, 95% ci 5.0-17.8). crude prevalence of myotonic dystrophy was 3 times higher in europeans (10.5 per 100,000, 9.4-11.8) than maori and pasifika (2.5 per 100,000, 95% ci 1.5-4.2 and 0.7 per 100,000, 95% ci 0.1-2.7 respectively). there were considerable regional variations in prevalence, although there was no significant association with social deprivation. the final capture-recapture model, with the least deviance, estimated the study ascertained 99.2% of diagnosed cases. conclusions: ethnic and regional differences in the prevalence of genetic muscle disorders need to be considered in service delivery planning, evaluation, and decision making. (c) 2019 the author(s) published by s. karger ag, basel" +"a nationwide, population-based prevalence study of genetic muscle disorders",prevalence; neuromuscular; muscular dystrophy; population-based; epidemiology,NEUROEPIDEMIOLOGY,THEADOM A;RODRIGUES M;POKE G;O GRADY G;LOVE D;HAMMOND TOOKE G;PARMAR P;BAKER R;FEIGIN V;JONES K;AO BT;RANTA A;ROXBURGH R;KRISHNAMURTHI R;STEWART J,"background: previous epidemiological studies of genetic muscle disorders have relied on medical records to identify cases and may be at risk of selection biases or have focused on selective population groups. objectives: this study aimed to determine age-standardised prevalence of genetic muscle disorders through a nationwide, epidemiological study across the lifespan using the capture-recapture method. methods: adults and children with a confirmed clinical or molecular diagnosis of a genetic muscle disorder, resident in new zealand on april 1, 2015 were identified using multiple overlapping sources. genetic muscle disorders included the muscular dystrophies, congenital myopathies, ion channel myopathies, gne myopathy, and pompe disease. prevalence per 100,000 persons by age, sex, disorder, ethnicity and geographical region with 95% cis was calculated using poisson distribution. direct standardisation was applied to age-standardise prevalence to the world population. completeness of case ascertainment was determined using capture-recapture modelling. results: age standardised minimal point prevalence of all genetic muscle disorders was 22.3 per 100,000 (95% ci 19.5-25.6). prevalence in europeans of 24.4 per 100,000, (95% ci 21.1-28.3) was twice that observed in nz's other 3 main ethnic groups; maori (12.6 per 100,000, 95% ci 7.8-20.5), pasifika (11.0 per 100,000, 95% ci 5.4-23.3), and asian (9.13 per 100,000, 95% ci 5.0-17.8). crude prevalence of myotonic dystrophy was 3 times higher in europeans (10.5 per 100,000, 9.4-11.8) than maori and pasifika (2.5 per 100,000, 95% ci 1.5-4.2 and 0.7 per 100,000, 95% ci 0.1-2.7 respectively). there were considerable regional variations in prevalence, although there was no significant association with social deprivation. the final capture-recapture model, with the least deviance, estimated the study ascertained 99.2% of diagnosed cases. conclusions: ethnic and regional differences in the prevalence of genetic muscle disorders need to be considered in service delivery planning, evaluation, and decision making. (c) 2019 the author(s) published by s. karger ag, basel" "how safe are industries in india? ascertaining industrial injuries in dadra and nagar haveli, india by capture-recapture method",capture-recapture; dadra and nagar haveli; dalys; industrial injuries; ncrb; srs,INDIAN JOURNAL OF OCCUPATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL MEDICINE,YADAV SS,"context: every year, more than 4 million people die from injuries worldwide. india reported 413,457 deaths due to unintentional injuries in 2015. manufacturing industry is a major contributor to injury morbidity and mortality. aims: this study aims to estimate the burden of industrial injuries in dadra and nagar haveli, india. settings and design: dadra and nagar haveli is a small territory spread over 491 sq. km, having a population of 343,709 as per 2011 population census. methods and materials: the two-sample capture-recapture method was used for ascertainment of fatal and non-fatal injuries reported from 1st january to 31st december 2017. the first capture was data of injuries extracted from first information reports registered by the police. the recapture was data of injuries reported by the government health facilities. statistical analysis used: chapman estimator was used to derive total fatal and non-fatal injuries. an analysis was done using microsoft excel software. results: according to police records, there were nine fatal and eight non-fatal injuries during the study period. health facilities reported 21 fatal and 113 non-fatal injuries. six cases of fatal and 3 cases of non-fatal injuries were found in both the data sources. the capture-recapture analysis estimated 30 fatal (95% ci: 20 to 40) and 225 non-fatal injuries (95% ci: 90 to 420). conclusions: both records of police and government health facilities underestimate fatal and non-fatal injuries with under-reporting more pronounced in police records." -"laboratory capacity of greek hospitals for diagnosis of salmonellosis and surveillance systems' performance in the years of economic crisis, 2010-2016",laboratory capacity; notification rate; salmonellosis; surveillance system; underreporting,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,MELLOU K;SARANTI-PAPASARANTI E;MANDILARA G;GEORGAKOPOULOU T,"austerity might have affected the capacity of public hospitals in greece to diagnose salmonellosis (laboratory capacity) over the period 2010-2016, as well as the performance of the existing surveillance systems. the scope of this paper is to present data on laboratory capacity over these years, as well as the results of a two-source capture-recapture study (data from mandatory notification system and national reference laboratory system for salmonella). the main findings were that: (a) laboratory capacity was high and steady besides the financial crisis, (b) the estimated number of laboratory-confirmed cases (n = 6017, 95% ci 5892-6142) resulted in an incidence rate (7.9 cases/100 000 population) almost twice than that reported by the two systems mandatory notification system (mns); 4.1 and national reference laboratory system (nrls); 4.5 cases/100 000 population, (c) underreporting was high for both systems (mns; 47.5% and nrls; 42.8%) and (d) differences by geographical region, size and type of hospital were identified. we suggest that (a) specific interventions are needed to increase completeness of the systems by type of hospital and geographical region, (b) record linkage can help in estimating the disease burden in a more valid way than each system separately and (c) a common electronic database in order to feed one system to the other could significantly increase completeness of both systems." +"laboratory capacity of greek hospitals for diagnosis of salmonellosis and surveillance systems' performance in the years of economic crisis, 2010-2016",laboratory capacity; notification rate; salmonellosis; surveillance system; underreporting,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,MELLOU K;SARANTI PAPASARANTI E;MANDILARA G;GEORGAKOPOULOU T,"austerity might have affected the capacity of public hospitals in greece to diagnose salmonellosis (laboratory capacity) over the period 2010-2016, as well as the performance of the existing surveillance systems. the scope of this paper is to present data on laboratory capacity over these years, as well as the results of a two-source capture-recapture study (data from mandatory notification system and national reference laboratory system for salmonella). the main findings were that: (a) laboratory capacity was high and steady besides the financial crisis, (b) the estimated number of laboratory-confirmed cases (n = 6017, 95% ci 5892-6142) resulted in an incidence rate (7.9 cases/100 000 population) almost twice than that reported by the two systems mandatory notification system (mns); 4.1 and national reference laboratory system (nrls); 4.5 cases/100 000 population, (c) underreporting was high for both systems (mns; 47.5% and nrls; 42.8%) and (d) differences by geographical region, size and type of hospital were identified. we suggest that (a) specific interventions are needed to increase completeness of the systems by type of hospital and geographical region, (b) record linkage can help in estimating the disease burden in a more valid way than each system separately and (c) a common electronic database in order to feed one system to the other could significantly increase completeness of both systems." "annual survival, site fidelity, and longevity in the eastern coastal population of the painted bunting (passerina ciris)",annual survival; longevity; mark/recapture; painted bunting; passerina ciris; site fidelity,WILSON JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,SYKES PW;FREEMAN MC;SYKES JJ;SEGINAK JT;OLEYAR MD;EGAN JP,"a long-term study of annual survival, longevity, and site fidelity in the eastern coastal population of the painted bunting (passerina ciris) during the breeding season was conducted from 1999 through 2018 in the outer coastal plain of the atlantic coast of the united states. painted buntings were uniquely color-banded from 1999 through 2003 at 40 study sites paired at 20 locations from southeastern nc south to northeastern fl. survival analysis used capture histories through 2005 for 994 birds banded as hatch-year and 2,420 birds banded as post-hatch-year (adults). annual estimates of apparent survival (1999-2004) averaged 0.71 and 0.66 for adult males and females, respectively, and 0.33 for hatch-year birds. we did not find evidence that survival differed in relation to latitude or extent of human development near study sites, although estimates for adult females were higher for birds banded on sheltered islands compared to the mainland. expected time in the population, based on estimated survival, was 3.9 and 3.4 years for adult males and females, respectively. the oldest observed birds were a 14-year-old male observed in june 2016 at harris neck national wildlife refuge, ga, the site at which he had been banded in july 2003 as a second-year bird, and a 13-year-old male seen at ft. george island, fl, in june 2016, 2 km across a tidal estuary from the site where the bird was banded in august 2003 as hatch-year. the males were sighted at these 2 sites in 9 and 11 different years, respectively. overall, 78% (males) and 81% (females) of resightings and recaptures of birds banded as adults occurred at the same study site where individuals were banded, compared to 59% (males) and 60% (females) of birds banded as hatch-year. known mortalities of banded buntings included 9 birds trapped for the caged-bird trade. this study shows the potential for high survival and longevity in the eastern coastal population of the painted bunting, and given evidence of high site fidelity in the breeding range, the vulnerability of the population to human development along the southeastern us coast as well as to illegal trapping." seasonal survival and migratory connectivity of the eurasian oystercatcher revealed by citizen science,citizen science; migratory connectivity; multi-state; partial migration; program mark; seasonal survival,AUK,ALLEN AM;ENS BJ;VAN DE POL M;VAN DER JEUGD H;FRAUENDOR M;OOSTERBEEK K;JONGEJANS E,"migratory connectivity describes linkages between breeding and non-breeding areas. an ongoing challenge is tracking avian species between breeding and non-breeding areas and hence estimating migratory connectivity and seasonal survival. collaborative color-ringing projects between researchers and citizen scientists provide opportunities for tracking the annual movements of avian species. our study describes seasonal survival and migratory connectivity using data from more than 4,600 individuals with over 51,000 observations, predominantly collected by citizen scientists. our study focuses on the eurasian oystercatcher (haematopus ostralegus), a species that has experienced a substantial and ongoing decline in recent decades. multiple threats have been described, and given that these threats vary in space and time, there is an urgent need to estimate demographic rates at the appropriate spatio-temporal scale. we performed a seasonal multi-state (5 geographical areas within the netherlands) live- and dead-recoveries analysis under varying model structures to account for biological and data complexity. coastal breeding populations were largely sedentary, while inland breeding populations were migratory and the direction of migration varied among areas, which has not been described previously. our results indicated that survival was lower during winter than summer and that survival was lower in inland areas compared with coastal areas. a concerning result was that seasonal survival of individuals over-wintering in the wadden sea, an internationally important site for over-wintering shorebirds, appeared to decline during the study period. we discuss the outcomes of our study, and how citizen science was integral for conducting this study. our findings identify how the demographic rates of the oystercatcher vary in space and time, knowledge that is vital for generating hypotheses and prioritizing future research into the causes of decline." "investigation and estimation of the prevalence of drug addicts in xichang, china",capture-recapture analysis; estimation of prevalence; injecting drug-users (idus); reliability and validity,MEDICINE,CHEN KJ;BIAN CR;SONG BL;GAO G,"to use a new method to estimate the prevalence of drug addicts in xichang for the first time and to suggest that chinese center for disease control and prevention should strengthen surveillance and intervention for them. the capture-mark-recapture (cmr) method of 3 correlated sources under the simple random sampling and its formulas detailed in this paper were applied to a survey of issues relevant to drug addicts in xichang, china. to view half a year as reacquisition time, the prevalence of drug users in xichang could be 5264 in 2014, accounting for 0.7% of the resident population of the same year. this investigation method and its formulas studied in this paper have both high reliability and high validity, being worthy of promotion in terms of estimating the prevalence of drug addicts in other parts of the world." @@ -225,25 +225,25 @@ monitoring amphibian species with complex chromatophore patterns: a non-invasive "harbor seal pup dispersal and individual morphology, hematology, and contaminant factors affecting survival",harbor seal; phoca vitulina; contaminants; survival; dispersal; stranding; telemetry; postweaning; juvenile; health,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,GREIG DJ;GULLAND FMD;HARVEY JT;LONERGAN M;HALL AJ,"understanding the factors affecting individual harbor seal (phoca vitulina) survival is essential for determining population level health risks. we estimated postweaning dispersal, and modeled the effects of morphology, hematology, and blubber contaminants on the survival of recently weaned harbor seal pups using a mark recapture framework. we deployed satellite transmitters on apparently healthy pups captured in san francisco bay (sfb, n=19) and tomales bay (tb, n=7), and pups released after rehabilitation that stranded along the central california coast preweaning (n=21). dispersal distances were further than previously reported for harbor seal pups (maximum=802 km) which has implications for understanding risks to this vulnerable age class. we found differences in body condition, serum immunoglobulin and thyroxine (t4) concentrations, white blood cell count, and blubber organohalogen contamination (oh) among the three groups. overall, increased t4, decreased oh, and increased mass were associated with greater survival probabilities; whereas, among stranded seals, greater mass gain, shorter time in rehabilitation, and admission to rehabilitation earlier in the season were associated with greater survival probabilities. attention to these latter factors may improve the success of rehabilitation efforts. for wild pups, reduction of legacy contaminants and direct causes of mortality, such as ship strike, may enhance pup survival." use of hidden markov capture-recapture models to estimate abundance in the presence of uncertainty: application to the estimation of prevalence of hybrids in animal populations,anthropogenic introgression; capture-recapture; hidden markov models; hybridization; multievent models; prevalence; viterbi algorithm,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SANTOSTASI NL;CIUCCI P;CANIGLIA R;FABBRI E;MOLINARI L;REGGIONI W;GIMENEZ O,"estimating the relative abundance (prevalence) of different population segments is a key step in addressing fundamental research questions in ecology, evolution, and conservation. the raw percentage of individuals in the sample (naive prevalence) is generally used for this purpose, but it is likely to be subject to two main sources of bias. first, the detectability of individuals is ignored; second, classification errors may occur due to some inherent limits of the diagnostic methods. we developed a hidden markov (also known as multievent) capture-recapture model to estimate prevalence in free-ranging populations accounting for imperfect detectability and uncertainty in individual's classification. we carried out a simulation study to compare naive and model-based estimates of prevalence and assess the performance of our model under different sampling scenarios. we then illustrate our method with a real-world case study of estimating the prevalence of wolf (canis lupus) and dog (canis lupus familiaris) hybrids in a wolf population in northern italy. we showed that the prevalence of hybrids could be estimated while accounting for both detectability and classification uncertainty. model-based prevalence consistently had better performance than naive prevalence in the presence of differential detectability and assignment probability and was unbiased for sampling scenarios with high detectability. we also showed that ignoring detectability and uncertainty in the wolf case study would lead to underestimating the prevalence of hybrids. our results underline the importance of a model-based approach to obtain unbiased estimates of prevalence of different population segments. our model can be adapted to any taxa, and it can be used to estimate absolute abundance and prevalence in a variety of cases involving imperfect detection and uncertainty in classification of individuals (e.g., sex ratio, proportion of breeders, and prevalence of infected individuals)." precision gain versus effort with joint models using detection/non-detection and banding data,abundance; data integration; integrated population models; recruitment; study design; survival; western bluebird; wildfire effects,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SANDERLIN JS;BLOCK WM;STROHMEYER BE;SAAB VA;GANEY JL,"capture-recapture techniques provide valuable information, but are often more cost-prohibitive at large spatial and temporal scales than less-intensive sampling techniques. model development combining multiple data sources to leverage data source strengths and for improved parameter precision has increased, but with limited discussion on precision gain versus effort. we present a general framework for evaluating trade-offs between precision gained and costs associated with acquiring multiple data sources, useful for designing future or new phases of current studies.we illustrated how bayesian hierarchical joint models using detection/non-detection and banding data can improve abundance, survival, and recruitment inference, and quantified data source costs in a northern arizona, usa, western bluebird (sialia mexicana) population. we used an 8-year detection/non-detection (distributed across the landscape) and banding (subset of locations within landscape) data set to estimate parameters. we constructed separate models using detection/non-detection and banding data, and a joint model using both data types to evaluate parameter precision gain relative to effort.joint model parameter estimates were more precise than single data model estimates, but parameter precision varied (apparent survival>abundance>recruitment). banding provided greater apparent survival precision than detection/non-detection data. therefore, little precision was gained when detection/non-detection data were added to banding data. additional costs were minimal; however, additional spatial coverage and ability to estimate abundance and recruitment improved inference. conversely, more precision was gained when adding banding to detection/non-detection data at higher cost. spatial coverage was identical, yet survival and abundance estimates were more precise. justification of increased costs associated with additional data types depends on project objectives.we illustrate a general framework for evaluating precision gain relative to effort, applicable to joint data models with any data type combination. this framework evaluates costs and benefits from and effort levels between multiple data types, thus improving population monitoring designs." -covariate and multinomial: accounting for distance in movement in capture-recapture analyses,covariate; dependent estimates; link function; multinomial logit; transformations; variance-covariance matrix,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GUERY L;ROUAN L;DESCAMPS S;BETY J;FERNANDEZ-CHACON A;GILCHRIST G;PRADEL R,"many biological quantities cannot be measured directly but rather need to be estimated from models. estimates from models are statistical objects with variance and, when derived simultaneously, covariance. it is well known that their variance-covariance (vc) matrix must be considered in subsequent analyses. although it is always preferable to carry out the proposed analyses on the raw data themselves, a two-step approach cannot always be avoided. this situation arises when the parameters of a multinomial must be regressed against a covariate. the delta method is an appropriate and frequently recommended way of deriving variance approximations of transformed and correlated variables. implementing the delta method is not trivial, and there is a lack of a detailed information on the procedure in the literature for complex situations such as those involved in constraining the parameters of a multinomial distribution. this paper proposes a how-to guide for calculating the correct vc matrices of dependant estimates involved in multinomial distributions and how to use them for testing the effects of covariates in post hoc analyses when the integration of these analyses directly into a model is not possible. for illustrative purpose, we focus on variables calculated in capture-recapture models, but the same procedure can be applied to all analyses dealing with correlated estimates with multinomial distribution and their variances and covariances." +covariate and multinomial: accounting for distance in movement in capture-recapture analyses,covariate; dependent estimates; link function; multinomial logit; transformations; variance-covariance matrix,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GUERY L;ROUAN L;DESCAMPS S;BETY J;FERNANDEZ CHACON A;GILCHRIST G;PRADEL R,"many biological quantities cannot be measured directly but rather need to be estimated from models. estimates from models are statistical objects with variance and, when derived simultaneously, covariance. it is well known that their variance-covariance (vc) matrix must be considered in subsequent analyses. although it is always preferable to carry out the proposed analyses on the raw data themselves, a two-step approach cannot always be avoided. this situation arises when the parameters of a multinomial must be regressed against a covariate. the delta method is an appropriate and frequently recommended way of deriving variance approximations of transformed and correlated variables. implementing the delta method is not trivial, and there is a lack of a detailed information on the procedure in the literature for complex situations such as those involved in constraining the parameters of a multinomial distribution. this paper proposes a how-to guide for calculating the correct vc matrices of dependant estimates involved in multinomial distributions and how to use them for testing the effects of covariates in post hoc analyses when the integration of these analyses directly into a model is not possible. for illustrative purpose, we focus on variables calculated in capture-recapture models, but the same procedure can be applied to all analyses dealing with correlated estimates with multinomial distribution and their variances and covariances." making use of multiple surveys: estimating breeding probability using a multievent-robust design capture-recapture model,auxiliary data; breeding propensity; elephant seal; incidental observations; intermittent breeding; robust design; unobservable state,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,OOSTHUIZEN WC;PRADEL R;BESTER MN;DE BRUYN PJN,"increased environmental stochasticity due to climate change will intensify temporal variance in the life-history traits, and especially breeding probabilities, of long-lived iteroparous species. these changes may decrease individual fitness and population viability and is therefore important to monitor. in wild animal populations with imperfect individual detection, breeding probabilities are best estimated using capture-recapture methods. however, in many vertebrate species (e.g., amphibians, turtles, seabirds), nonbreeders are unobservable because they are not tied to a territory or breeding location. although unobservable states can be used to model temporary emigration of nonbreeders, there are disadvantages to having unobservable states in capture-recapture models. the best solution to deal with unobservable life-history states is therefore to eliminate them altogether. here, we achieve this objective by fitting novel multievent-robust design models which utilize information obtained from multiple surveys conducted throughout the year. we use this approach to estimate annual breeding probabilities of capital breeding female elephant seals (mirounga leonina). conceptually, our approach parallels a multistate version of the barker/robust design in that it combines robust design capture data collected during discrete breeding seasons with observations made at other times of the year. a substantial advantage of our approach is that the nonbreeder state became observable when multiple data sources were analyzed together. this allowed us to test for the existence of state-dependent survival (with some support found for lower survival in breeders compared to nonbreeders), and to estimate annual breeding transitions to and from the nonbreeder state with greater precision (where current breeders tended to have higher future breeding probabilities than nonbreeders). we used program e-surge (2.1.2) to fit the multievent-robust design models, with uncertainty in breeding state assignment (breeder, nonbreeder) being incorporated via a hidden markov process. this flexible modeling approach can easily be adapted to suit sampling designs from numerous species which may be encountered during and outside of discrete breeding seasons." estimability of migration survival rates from integrated breeding and winter capture-recapture data,bayesian; cormack-jolly-seber; demography; integrated population model; mark-recapture; migration; migratory connectivity; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,RUSHING CS,"long-distance migration is a common phenomenon across the animal kingdom but the scale of annual migratory movements has made it difficult for researchers to estimate survival rates during these periods of the annual cycle. estimating migration survival is particularly challenging for small-bodied species that cannot carry satellite tags, a group that includes the vast majority of migratory species. when capture-recapture data are available for linked breeding and non-breeding populations, estimation of overall migration survival is possible but current methods do not allow separate estimation of spring and autumn survival rates. recent development of a bayesian integrated survival model has provided a method to separately estimate the latent spring and autumn survival rates using capture-recapture data, though the accuracy and precision of these estimates has not been formally tested. here, i used simulated data to explore the estimability of migration survival rates using this model. under a variety of biologically realistic scenarios, i demonstrate that spring and autumn migration survival can be estimated from the integrated survival model, though estimates are biased toward the overall migration survival probability. the direction and magnitude of this bias are influenced by the relative difference in spring and autumn survival rates as well as the degree of annual variation in these rates. the inclusion of covariates can improve the model's performance, especially when annual variation in migration survival rates is low. migration survival rates can be estimated from relatively short time series (4-5years), but bias and precision of estimates are improved when longer time series (10-12years) are available. the ability to estimate seasonal survival rates of small, migratory organisms opens the door to advancing our understanding of the ecology and conservation of these species. application of this method will enable researchers to better understand when mortality occurs across the annual cycle and how the migratory periods contribute to population dynamics. integrating summer and winter capture data requires knowledge of the migratory connectivity of sampled populations and therefore efforts to simultaneously collect both survival and tracking data should be a high priority, especially for species of conservation concern." effects of distance on detectability of arctic waterfowl using double-observer sampling during helicopter surveys,aerial survey; detection probability; distance sampling; mark-recapture,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ALISAUSKAS RT;CONN PB,"aerial survey is an important, widely employed approach for estimating free-ranging wildlife over large or inaccessible study areas. we studied how a distance covariate influenced probability of double-observer detections for birds counted during a helicopter survey in canada's central arctic. two observers, one behind the other but visually obscured from each other, counted birds in an incompletely shared field of view to a distance of 200 m. each observer assigned detections to one of five 40-m distance bins, guided by semi-transparent marks on aircraft windows. detections were recorded with distance bin, taxonomic group, wing-flapping behavior, and group size. we compared two general model-based estimation approaches pertinent to sampling wildlife under such situations. one was based on double-observer methods without distance information, that provide sampling analogous to that required for mark-recapture (mr) estimation of detection probability, (p) over cap, and group abundance, (g) over cap, along a fixed-width strip transect. the other method incorporated double-observer mr with a categorical distance covariate (mrd). a priori, we were concerned that estimators from mr models were compromised by heterogeneity in (p) over cap due to un-modeled distance information; that is, more distant birds are less likely to be detected by both observers, with the predicted effect that (p) over cap would be biased high, and (g) over cap biased low. we found that, despite increased complexity, mrd models (delta aicc range: 0-16) fit data far better than mr models (delta aicc range: 204-258). however, contrary to expectation, the more naive mr estimators of p were biased low in all cases, but only by 2%-5% in most cases. we suspect that this apparently anomalous finding was the result of specific limitations to, and trade-offs in, visibility by observers on the survey platform used. while mr models provided acceptable point estimates of group abundance, their far higher stranded errors (0%-40%) compared to mrd estimates would compromise ability to detect temporal or spatial differences in abundance. given improved precision of mrd models relative to mr models, and the possibility of bias when using mr methods from other survey platforms, we recommend avian ecologists use mrd protocols and estimation procedures when surveying arctic bird populations." -estimating age-dependent survival when juveniles resemble females: invasive ring-necked parakeets as an example,age-specific survival; capture-recapture; delayed plumage maturation; multievent models; ring-necked parakeet; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SENAR JC;ARROYO L;ORTEGA-SEGALERVA A;CARRILLO JG;TOMAS X;MONTALVO T;SANZ-AGUILAR A,"many species only show sexual dimorphism at the age of maturity, such that juveniles typically resemble females. under these circumstances, estimating accurate age-specific demographic parameters is challenging. here, we propose a multievent model parameterization able to estimate age-dependent survival using capture-recapture data with uncertainty in age and sex assignment of individuals. we illustrate this modeling approach with capture-recapture data from the ring-necked parakeet psittacula krameri. we analyzed capture, recapture, and resighting data (439 recaptures/resightings) of 156 ring-necked parakeets tagged with neck collars in barcelona city from 2003 to 2016 to estimate the juvenile and adult survival rate. our models successfully estimated the survival probabilities of the different age classes considered. survival probability was similar between adults (0.83, 95% ci=0.77-0.87) and juveniles during their second (0.79, 95% ci=0.58-0.87) and third winter (0.83, 95% ci=0.65-0.88). the youngest juveniles (1st winter) showed a slightly lower survival (0.57, 95% ci=0.37-0.79). among adults, females showed a slightly higher survival than males (0.87, 95% ci=0.78-0.93; and 0.80, 95% ci=0.73-0.86, respectively). these high survival figures predict high population persistence in this species and urge management policies. the analysis also stresses the usefulness of multievent models to estimate juvenile survival when age cannot be fully ascertained." -disease-structured n-mixture models: a practical guide to model disease dynamics using count data,bayesian; dail-madsen model; disease ecology; emerging infectious diseases; generalized n-mixture model; hierarchical models; host-pathogen interaction; mark-recapture models; multistate models; occupancy model,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,DIRENZO GV;CHE-CASTALDO C;SAUNDERS SP;GRANT EHC;ZIPKIN EF,"obtaining inferences on disease dynamics (e.g., host population size, pathogen prevalence, transmission rate, host survival probability) typically requires marking and tracking individuals over time. while multistate mark-recapture models can produce high-quality inference, these techniques are difficult to employ at large spatial and long temporal scales or in small remnant host populations decimated by virulent pathogens, where low recapture rates may preclude the use of mark-recapture techniques. recently developed n-mixture models offer a statistical framework for estimating wildlife disease dynamics from count data. n-mixture models are a type of state-space model in which observation error is attributed to failing to detect some individuals when they are present (i.e., false negatives). the analysis approach uses repeated surveys of sites over a period of population closure to estimate detection probability. we review the challenges of modeling disease dynamics and describe how n-mixture models can be used to estimate common metrics, including pathogen prevalence, transmission, and recovery rates while accounting for imperfect host and pathogen detection. we also offer a perspective on future research directions at the intersection of quantitative and disease ecology, including the estimation of false positives in pathogen presence, spatially explicit disease-structured n-mixture models, and the integration of other data types with count data to inform disease dynamics. managers rely on accurate and precise estimates of disease dynamics to develop strategies to mitigate pathogen impacts on host populations. at a time when pathogens pose one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, statistical methods that lead to robust inferences on host populations are critically needed for rapid, rather than incremental, assessments of the impacts of emerging infectious diseases." -are nest defense behaviours and fitness components linked in white-rumped swallows (tachycineta leucorrhoa)?,boldness; capture-mark-recapture; life-history trade-off; mark; pace-of-life; personality; nestling size; nest success,BEHAVIOUR,WISCHHOFF U;MARQUES-SANTOS F;BONETTI G;MANICA LT;ROPER JJ;RODRIGUES M,"how are personalities maintained in wild animal populations? a possible mechanism is the existence of trade-offs between fitness components (survival and reproductive success) among behavioural types. we investigated this trade-off in white-rumped swallows (tachycineta leucorrhoa) by capturing adults and monitoring their reproduction over time. we focused on the personality trait of nest defence against a human. we found that swallows with different levels of nest defence had similar probability to return from migration between two years (a proxy for survival). in one year, swallows that defended their nests more boldly were also more likely to succeed. however, nest defence was not linked to nestling weight or number of fledglings. thus, we found no evidence of a trade-off between fitness components. it is possible that the investigated relationships become relevant only in extreme years that severely alter the costs and benefits of this behaviour." +estimating age-dependent survival when juveniles resemble females: invasive ring-necked parakeets as an example,age-specific survival; capture-recapture; delayed plumage maturation; multievent models; ring-necked parakeet; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SENAR JC;ARROYO L;ORTEGA SEGALERVA A;CARRILLO JG;TOMAS X;MONTALVO T;SANZ AGUILAR A,"many species only show sexual dimorphism at the age of maturity, such that juveniles typically resemble females. under these circumstances, estimating accurate age-specific demographic parameters is challenging. here, we propose a multievent model parameterization able to estimate age-dependent survival using capture-recapture data with uncertainty in age and sex assignment of individuals. we illustrate this modeling approach with capture-recapture data from the ring-necked parakeet psittacula krameri. we analyzed capture, recapture, and resighting data (439 recaptures/resightings) of 156 ring-necked parakeets tagged with neck collars in barcelona city from 2003 to 2016 to estimate the juvenile and adult survival rate. our models successfully estimated the survival probabilities of the different age classes considered. survival probability was similar between adults (0.83, 95% ci=0.77-0.87) and juveniles during their second (0.79, 95% ci=0.58-0.87) and third winter (0.83, 95% ci=0.65-0.88). the youngest juveniles (1st winter) showed a slightly lower survival (0.57, 95% ci=0.37-0.79). among adults, females showed a slightly higher survival than males (0.87, 95% ci=0.78-0.93; and 0.80, 95% ci=0.73-0.86, respectively). these high survival figures predict high population persistence in this species and urge management policies. the analysis also stresses the usefulness of multievent models to estimate juvenile survival when age cannot be fully ascertained." +disease-structured n-mixture models: a practical guide to model disease dynamics using count data,bayesian; dail-madsen model; disease ecology; emerging infectious diseases; generalized n-mixture model; hierarchical models; host-pathogen interaction; mark-recapture models; multistate models; occupancy model,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,DIRENZO GV;CHE CASTALDO C;SAUNDERS SP;GRANT EHC;ZIPKIN EF,"obtaining inferences on disease dynamics (e.g., host population size, pathogen prevalence, transmission rate, host survival probability) typically requires marking and tracking individuals over time. while multistate mark-recapture models can produce high-quality inference, these techniques are difficult to employ at large spatial and long temporal scales or in small remnant host populations decimated by virulent pathogens, where low recapture rates may preclude the use of mark-recapture techniques. recently developed n-mixture models offer a statistical framework for estimating wildlife disease dynamics from count data. n-mixture models are a type of state-space model in which observation error is attributed to failing to detect some individuals when they are present (i.e., false negatives). the analysis approach uses repeated surveys of sites over a period of population closure to estimate detection probability. we review the challenges of modeling disease dynamics and describe how n-mixture models can be used to estimate common metrics, including pathogen prevalence, transmission, and recovery rates while accounting for imperfect host and pathogen detection. we also offer a perspective on future research directions at the intersection of quantitative and disease ecology, including the estimation of false positives in pathogen presence, spatially explicit disease-structured n-mixture models, and the integration of other data types with count data to inform disease dynamics. managers rely on accurate and precise estimates of disease dynamics to develop strategies to mitigate pathogen impacts on host populations. at a time when pathogens pose one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, statistical methods that lead to robust inferences on host populations are critically needed for rapid, rather than incremental, assessments of the impacts of emerging infectious diseases." +are nest defense behaviours and fitness components linked in white-rumped swallows (tachycineta leucorrhoa)?,boldness; capture-mark-recapture; life-history trade-off; mark; pace-of-life; personality; nestling size; nest success,BEHAVIOUR,WISCHHOFF U;MARQUES SANTOS F;BONETTI G;MANICA LT;ROPER JJ;RODRIGUES M,"how are personalities maintained in wild animal populations? a possible mechanism is the existence of trade-offs between fitness components (survival and reproductive success) among behavioural types. we investigated this trade-off in white-rumped swallows (tachycineta leucorrhoa) by capturing adults and monitoring their reproduction over time. we focused on the personality trait of nest defence against a human. we found that swallows with different levels of nest defence had similar probability to return from migration between two years (a proxy for survival). in one year, swallows that defended their nests more boldly were also more likely to succeed. however, nest defence was not linked to nestling weight or number of fledglings. thus, we found no evidence of a trade-off between fitness components. it is possible that the investigated relationships become relevant only in extreme years that severely alter the costs and benefits of this behaviour." land tenure shapes black bear density and abundance on a multi-use landscape,american black bear; habitat; hunting; population estimation; resource-selection function; spatially explicit capture-recapture; ursus americanus,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,LOOSEN AE;MOREHOUSE AT;BOYCE MS,"global biodiversity is decreasing rapidly. parks and protected lands, while designed to conserve wildlife, often cannot provide the habitat protection needed for wide-ranging animals such as the american black bear (ursus americanus). conversely, private lands are often working landscapes (e.g., farming) that have high human footprints relative to protected lands. in southwestern alberta, road densities are highest on private lands and black bears can be hunted year-round. on protected lands, road densities are lowest, and hunting is prohibited. on public lands under the jurisdiction of the provincial government (crown lands), seasonal hunting is permitted. population estimates are needed to calculate sustainable harvest levels and to monitor population trends. in our study area, there has never been a robust estimate of black bear density and spatial drivers of black bear density are poorly understood. we used non-invasive genetic sampling and indices of habitat productivity and human disturbance to estimate density and abundance for male and female black bears in 2013 and 2014 using two methods: spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) and resource-selection functions (rsf). land tenure best explained spatial variation in black bear density. black bear densities for females and males were highest on parkland and lowest on crown lands. sex ratios were female-biased on private lands, likely a result of lower harvests and movement of females out of areas with high male density. synthesis and application: both secr and rsf methods clearly indicate spatial structuring of black bear density, with a strong influence based on how lands are managed. land tenure influences the distribution of available foods and risk from humans. we emphasize the need for improved harvest reporting, particularly for non-licensed hunting on private land, to estimate the extent of black bear harvest mortality." combining capture-recapture data and known ages allows estimation of age-dependent survival rates,age; bayesian; individual growth; otoliths; state-space; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BIRD T;LYON J;WOTHERSPOON S;TODD C;TONKIN Z;MCCARTHY M,"in many animal populations, demographic parameters such as survival and recruitment vary markedly with age, as do parameters related to sampling, such as capture probability. failing to account for such variation can result in biased estimates of population-level rates. however, estimating age-dependent survival rates can be challenging because ages of individuals are rarely known unless tagging is done at birth. for many species, it is possible to infer age based on size. in capture-recapture studies of such species, it is possible to use a growth model to infer the age at first capture of individuals. we show how to build estimates of age-dependent survival into a capture-mark-recapture model based on data obtained in a capture-recapture study. we first show how estimates of age based on length increments closely match those based on definitive aging methods. in simulated analyses, we show that both individual ages and age-dependent survival rates estimated from simulated data closely match true values. with our approach, we are able to estimate the age-specific apparent survival rates of murray and trout cod in the murray river, australia. our model structure provides a flexible framework within which to investigate various aspects of how survival varies with age and will have extensions within a wide range of ecological studies of animals where age can be estimated based on size." a local evaluation of the individual state-space to scale up bayesian spatial capture-recapture,computation speed; local evaluation of the state-space; spatial capture-recapture; wolverines,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MILLERET C;DUPONT P;BONENFANT C;BROSETH H;FLAGSTAD O;SUTHERLAND C;BISCHOF R,"spatial capture-recapture models (scr) are used to estimate animal density and to investigate a range of problems in spatial ecology that cannot be addressed with traditional nonspatial methods. bayesian approaches in particular offer tremendous flexibility for scr modeling. increasingly, scr data are being collected over very large spatial extents making analysis computational intensive, sometimes prohibitively so. to mitigate the computational burden of large-scale scr models, we developed an improved formulation of the bayesian scr model that uses local evaluation of the individual state-space (less). based on prior knowledge about a species' home range size, we created square evaluation windows that restrict the spatial domain in which an individual's detection probability (detector window) and activity center location (ac window) are estimated. we used simulations and empirical data analyses to assess the performance and bias of scr with less. less produced unbiased estimates of scr parameters when the ac window width was >= 5 sigma (sigma: the scale parameter of the half-normal detection function), and when the detector window extended beyond the edge of the ac window by 2 sigma. importantly, less considerably decreased the computation time needed for fitting scr models. in our simulations, less increased the computation speed of scr models up to 57-fold. we demonstrate the power of this new approach by mapping the density of an elusive large carnivore-the wolverine (gulo gulo)-with an unprecedented resolution and across the species' entire range in norway (> 200,000 km(2)). our approach helps overcome a major computational obstacle to population and landscape-level scr analyses. the less implementation in a bayesian framework makes the customization and fitting of scr accessible for practitioners working at scales that are relevant for conservation and management." -variations in age- and sex-specific survival rates help explain population trend in a discrete marine mammal population,calf survival; capture-recapture; mortality rate; population dynamics; sex-specific survival; tursiops,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CIVIL MA;CHENEY B;QUICK NJ;ISLAS-VILLANUEVA V;GRAVES JA;JANIK VM;THOMPSON PM;HAMMOND PS,"understanding the drivers underlying fluctuations in the size of animal populations is central to ecology, conservation biology, and wildlife management. reliable estimates of survival probabilities are key to population viability assessments, and patterns of variation in survival can help inferring the causal factors behind detected changes in population size. we investigated whether variation in age- and sex-specific survival probabilities could help explain the increasing trend in population size detected in a small, discrete population of bottlenose dolphins tursiops truncatus off the east coast of scotland. to estimate annual survival probabilities, we applied capture-recapture models to photoidentification data collected from 1989 to 2015. we used robust design models accounting for temporary emigration to estimate juvenile and adult survival, multistate models to estimate sex-specific survival, and age models to estimate calf survival. we found strong support for an increase in juvenile/adult annual survival from 93.1% to 96.0% over the study period, most likely caused by a change in juvenile survival. examination of sex-specific variation showed weaker support for this trend being a result of increasing female survival, which was overall higher than for males and animals of unknown sex. calf survival was lower in the first than second year; a bias in estimating third-year survival will likely exist in similar studies. there was some support first-born calf survival being lower than for calves born subsequently. coastal marine mammal populations are subject to the impacts of environmental change, increasing anthropogenic disturbance and the effects of management measures. survival estimates are essential to improve our understanding of population dynamics and help predict how future pressures may impact populations, but obtaining robust information on the life history of long-lived species is challenging. our study illustrates how knowledge of survival can be increased by applying a robust analytical framework to photoidentification data." +variations in age- and sex-specific survival rates help explain population trend in a discrete marine mammal population,calf survival; capture-recapture; mortality rate; population dynamics; sex-specific survival; tursiops,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CIVIL MA;CHENEY B;QUICK NJ;ISLAS VILLANUEVA V;GRAVES JA;JANIK VM;THOMPSON PM;HAMMOND PS,"understanding the drivers underlying fluctuations in the size of animal populations is central to ecology, conservation biology, and wildlife management. reliable estimates of survival probabilities are key to population viability assessments, and patterns of variation in survival can help inferring the causal factors behind detected changes in population size. we investigated whether variation in age- and sex-specific survival probabilities could help explain the increasing trend in population size detected in a small, discrete population of bottlenose dolphins tursiops truncatus off the east coast of scotland. to estimate annual survival probabilities, we applied capture-recapture models to photoidentification data collected from 1989 to 2015. we used robust design models accounting for temporary emigration to estimate juvenile and adult survival, multistate models to estimate sex-specific survival, and age models to estimate calf survival. we found strong support for an increase in juvenile/adult annual survival from 93.1% to 96.0% over the study period, most likely caused by a change in juvenile survival. examination of sex-specific variation showed weaker support for this trend being a result of increasing female survival, which was overall higher than for males and animals of unknown sex. calf survival was lower in the first than second year; a bias in estimating third-year survival will likely exist in similar studies. there was some support first-born calf survival being lower than for calves born subsequently. coastal marine mammal populations are subject to the impacts of environmental change, increasing anthropogenic disturbance and the effects of management measures. survival estimates are essential to improve our understanding of population dynamics and help predict how future pressures may impact populations, but obtaining robust information on the life history of long-lived species is challenging. our study illustrates how knowledge of survival can be increased by applying a robust analytical framework to photoidentification data." the recent past and promising future for data integration methods to estimate species' distributions,data fusion; integrated distribution model; joint likelihood; spatial point process; species distribution modelling,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MILLER DAW;PACIFICI K;SANDERLIN JS;REICH BJ,"with the advance of methods for estimating species distribution models has come an interest in how to best combine datasets to improve estimates of species distributions. this has spurred the development of data integration methods that simultaneously harness information from multiple datasets while dealing with the specific strengths and weaknesses of each dataset. we outline the general principles that have guided data integration methods and review recent developments in the field. we then outline key areas that allow for a more general framework for integrating data and provide suggestions for improving sampling design and validation for integrated models. key to recent advances has been using point-process thinking to combine estimators developed for different data types. extending this framework to new data types will further improve our inferences, as well as relaxing assumptions about how parameters are jointly estimated. these along with the better use of information regarding sampling effort and spatial autocorrelation will further improve our inferences. recent developments form a strong foundation for implementation of data integration models. wider adoption can improve our inferences about species distributions and the dynamic processes that lead to distributional shifts." -annual abundance and population structure of two dung beetle species in a human-modified landscape,cloud forest; cormack-jolly-seber; mark-recapture; scarabaeinae; seasonality,INSECTS,BARRETTO JW;CULTID-MEDINA CA;ESCOBAR F,"population studies are essential for understanding different aspects of species' biology, estimating extinction probability, and determining evolutionary and life history. using the mark-recapture method, we studied the abundance and population structure of dung beetle species (deltochilum mexicanum and dichotomius satanas) over one year in a human-modified landscape in mexico. we captured 1960 individuals with a net recapture rate of 11%. deltochilum mexicanum had a higher rate of recapture (14%) than dichotomius satanas (5%). annual variation in abundance was similar for both species, with maximum abundance occurring in summer and a marked reduction during winter. deltochilum mexicanum was dominant inside the forest, and its abundance was influenced by vegetation cover, temperature, and humidity. dichotomius satanas was more frequent outside the forest, and none of the considered environmental variables affected its abundance. the adult sex ratio of deltochilum mexicanum was female-biased, whereas that of dichotomius satanas was male-biased. the maximum estimated population size was similar for both species, but deltochilum mexicanum had a higher number of new individuals and survival rate. since species with different biological attributes presented a similar pattern of abundance and population structure, we conclude that environmental conditions are the main regulator of dung beetle populations in the human-modified landscape." +annual abundance and population structure of two dung beetle species in a human-modified landscape,cloud forest; cormack-jolly-seber; mark-recapture; scarabaeinae; seasonality,INSECTS,BARRETTO JW;CULTID MEDINA CA;ESCOBAR F,"population studies are essential for understanding different aspects of species' biology, estimating extinction probability, and determining evolutionary and life history. using the mark-recapture method, we studied the abundance and population structure of dung beetle species (deltochilum mexicanum and dichotomius satanas) over one year in a human-modified landscape in mexico. we captured 1960 individuals with a net recapture rate of 11%. deltochilum mexicanum had a higher rate of recapture (14%) than dichotomius satanas (5%). annual variation in abundance was similar for both species, with maximum abundance occurring in summer and a marked reduction during winter. deltochilum mexicanum was dominant inside the forest, and its abundance was influenced by vegetation cover, temperature, and humidity. dichotomius satanas was more frequent outside the forest, and none of the considered environmental variables affected its abundance. the adult sex ratio of deltochilum mexicanum was female-biased, whereas that of dichotomius satanas was male-biased. the maximum estimated population size was similar for both species, but deltochilum mexicanum had a higher number of new individuals and survival rate. since species with different biological attributes presented a similar pattern of abundance and population structure, we conclude that environmental conditions are the main regulator of dung beetle populations in the human-modified landscape." "metapopulation dynamics of roseate terns: sources, sinks and implications for conservation management decisions",demography; density dependence; dispersal; immigration; integrated population model; metapopulation dynamics; roseate tern; seabirds,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,SEWARD A;RATCLIFFE N;NEWTON S;CALDOW R;PIEC D;MORRISON P;CADWALLENDER T;DAVIES W;BOLTON M,"habitat management to restore or create breeding sites may allow metapopulations to increase in size and reduce the risk of demographic stochasticity or disasters causing metapopulation extinction. however, if newly restored or created sites are of low quality, they may act as sinks that draw individuals away from better quality sites to the detriment of metapopulation size. following intensive conservation effort, the metapopulation of roseate tern (sterna dougallii) in nw europe is recovering from a large crash in numbers, but most former colonies remain unoccupied and hence are potential targets for restoration. to inform conservation efforts, we studied the dynamics of this metapopulation with a multistate integrated population model to assess each of the three main colonies for important demographic contributors to population growth rate, source/sink status and possible density dependence. all three study colonies are managed for roseate terns (and other tern species) in similar ways, but the demographic processes vary considerably between colonies. the largest colony is a source involved in almost all dispersal, and its growth is determined by survival rates and productivity. productivity and juvenile apparent survival at the largest colony appear to be density-dependent. although the mechanisms are unclear, this may provide an increasing impetus for emigration of recruits to other colonies in future. the smallest of the three colonies is a sink, relying on immigration for its growth. simulation models suggest the metapopulation would be c. 10% larger in the absence of dispersal to the sink colony. this work indicates that, due to variable site quality, aims to enhance both distribution and size of metapopulations may be mutually exclusive. in this case, before future attempts to encourage recolonisation of former sites, assessments of site suitability should be undertaken, focusing on food availability and isolation from predators to maximise the likelihood of attaining levels of productivity and survival that avoid creation of a sink population to the detriment of the overall metapopulation size." multiple density-dependent processes shape the dynamics of a spatially structured amphibian population,amphibian; density dependence; dispersal; population growth rate; spatially structured populations; survival; triturus cristatus,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,CAYUELA H;SCHMIDT BR;WEINBACH A;BESNARD A;JOLY P,"understanding the mechanisms that regulate the dynamics of spatially structured populations (ssp) is a critical challenge for ecologists and conservation managers. internal population processes such as births and deaths occur at a local level, while external processes such as dispersal take place at an inter-population level. at both levels, density dependence is expected to play a critical role. at a patch scale, demographic traits (e.g., survival, breeding success) and the population growth rate can be influenced by density either negatively (e.g., competition effect) or positively (e.g., allee effects). at the scale of an ssp, although positive density-dependent dispersal has been widely reported, an increasing number of studies have highlighted negative density-dependent dispersal. while many studies have investigated the effects of density on population growth or on dispersal, few have simultaneously examined density-dependent effects at the scale of both the local population and the entire ssp. in this study, we examine how density is related to demographic processes at both the pond level (survival and population growth) and the ssp level (between-pond dispersal) in a pond-breeding amphibian, the great crested newt (triturus cristatus). the study was based on 20 years of individual capture-recapture (cr) data (from 1996 to 2015) gathered from an ssp made up of 12 experimental ponds (""patches""). we first used a cr multievent model to estimate both survival and dispersal rates in specific ponds as a function of distance between ponds. then, using a second cr multievent model, we examined whether survival and recapture rates were influenced by population density in a pond. lastly, we used state-space time series models to investigate whether density affected population growth in each pond. our results found a positive density-dependent effect on survival and a negative density-dependent effect on departure. in addition, the findings indicate that population growth was negatively related to density in all 12 ponds. these results support the hypothesis that in ssps, density may have multiple and contrasting effects on demographic parameters and growth rates within local populations as well as on dispersal. this study underlines the need to better understand how density dependence may influence potential trade-offs between life-history strategies and life-history stages." -"some observations of cancer pagurus linnaeus, 1758 (decapoda, brachyura) in deep water",NA,CRUSTACEANA,BAKKE S;BUHL-MORTENSEN L;BUHL-MORTENSEN P,"available species information pages and fact sheets define 100 to 200 m as the maximum depth of occurrence for cancer pagurus. we here present some observations from video transects conducted in sognesjoen, norway, where numerous individuals of adult c. pagurus were observed at more than 400 m depth. within the area investigated, 81 live crabs, 3 dead crabs/exuviae, and 32 areas with concentrated shell remnants were counted. in addition, several areas were covered with obvious crawling tracks from crabs. spatial variation in the density of live crabs, remnants, and tracks varied between 0 and 52 crabs/100 m(2). size estimations based on 19 individuals showed an average carapace width of 14.5 cm. possible explanations for why the crabs are present at these depths, are discussed." +"some observations of cancer pagurus linnaeus, 1758 (decapoda, brachyura) in deep water",NA,CRUSTACEANA,BAKKE S;BUHL MORTENSEN L;BUHL MORTENSEN P,"available species information pages and fact sheets define 100 to 200 m as the maximum depth of occurrence for cancer pagurus. we here present some observations from video transects conducted in sognesjoen, norway, where numerous individuals of adult c. pagurus were observed at more than 400 m depth. within the area investigated, 81 live crabs, 3 dead crabs/exuviae, and 32 areas with concentrated shell remnants were counted. in addition, several areas were covered with obvious crawling tracks from crabs. spatial variation in the density of live crabs, remnants, and tracks varied between 0 and 52 crabs/100 m(2). size estimations based on 19 individuals showed an average carapace width of 14.5 cm. possible explanations for why the crabs are present at these depths, are discussed." dna from scats combined with capture-recapture modeling: a promising tool for estimating the density of red foxesa pilot study in a boreal forest in southeast norway,density estimation; genetic sampling; meso-predator; scatology; red fox; secr analysis,MAMMAL RESEARCH,WEGGE P;BAKKE BB;ODDEN M;ROLSTAD J,"in spite of its important role as predator of small game species, estimating the density of red fox vulpes vulpes has been hampered by the species' highly variable ranging pattern and elusive behavior. dna analysis from scats combined with spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) modeling might remedy this. in a 50-km(2) coniferous forest in southeast norway, we collected scats on logging roads in late winter. dna was extracted, amplified, and genotyped using 11 microsatellite markers. of 184 samples collected, 126 were genotyped successfully, of which 46 (36.5%) produced individual genetic profiles. twenty-five of these were different individuals: 13 females and 12 males. nine of them were identified in multiple scats; mean recapture rate among all was 1.8/animal. applying a conventional capture-recapture model (capwire) to the genotyped samples, 36 (95% ci 26-52) different individuals were estimated to have been present in the area during the sampling period. for estimating population density, we constructed three differently sized occupancy areas based on distances between recaptures, viz. 1/2 and 1/1 mean maximum distance moved (mmdm) and the local convex hull home range method (locoh). areas varied from 60km(2) (1/2mmdm) to 112km(2) (mmdm), producing density estimates of 0.60 and 0.32foxes/km(2), respectively; the 95% locoh range method produced an estimate of 0.44animals/km(2). based on secr modeling, the density was estimated at 0.38 (95% ci 0.21-0.70) animals/km(2). smaller confidence intervals are expected with more appropriate sampling design than used in this pilot study." "abundance estimates of guiana dolphins (sotalia guianensis; van beneden, 1864) inhabiting an estuarine system in southeastern brazil",abundance; mark-recapture; robust design; photo-identification; guiana dolphins; sotalia guianensis,AQUATIC MAMMALS,DE MELLO AB;MOLINA JMB;KAJIN M;SANTOS MCD,"baseline demographic information is essential for effective conservation and management strategies for most living species. the abundance of guiana dolphins (sotalia guianensis) is poorly known, yet species conservation is considered a high priority in areas where human activities may induce population declines. this study estimated abundance for guiana dolphins in the cananeia estuary (25 degrees 03' s, 47 degrees 55' w) in southeastern brazil using mark-recapture data and pollock's robust design model. systematic boat-based photo-identification surveys were based on data collected in the summer and winter of 2015 and in the summer of 2016. a total of 55 capture events allowed identification of 133 different individuals. the best model indicated a population with random temporary emigration, a time-constant survival rate, and heterogeneous time-varying capture probabilities among primary periods. the temporary emigration rate (gamma '' = gamma') was 0.05 (+/- 0.03). estimated population sizes were 430(95% ci: 410 to 451) individuals in the summer of 2015, 384 (95% ci: 366 to 403) individuals in the winter of 2015, and 414(95% ci: 392 to 438) individuals in the summer of 2016, indicating that environmental variables among seasons may have a mild effect on the estimated size of this surveyed population. these estimates should stand as an important baseline for future comparisons. systematic, long-term monitoring of this population is recommended, and is required to accurately assess population trends." -"the use of capture-recapture methods to provide better estimates of the burden of norovirus outbreaks from seafood in england, 2004-2011",capture-recapture analysis; food safety; gastrointestinal infections; norovirus; outbreaks,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,HARDSTAFF JL;CLOUGH HE;HARRIS JP;LOWTHER JA;LEES DN;O'BRIEN SJ,"norovirus (nov) is the greatest cause of infectious intestinal disease in the uk. the burden associated with foodborne outbreaks is underestimated in part because data are dispersed across different organisations. each looks at outbreaks through a different lens. to estimate the burden of nov from seafood including shellfish we used a capture-recapture technique using datasets from three different organisations currently involved in collecting information on outbreaks. the number of outbreaks of nov related to seafood including shellfish in england was estimated for the period of 2004-2011. the combined estimates were more than three times as high (n = 360 using chao's sample coverage approach) as the individual count from organisation three (n = 115), which captured more outbreaks than the other two organisations. the estimates were calculated for both independence and dependence between the datasets. there was evidence of under-reporting of nov outbreaks and inconsistency of reporting between organisations, which means that, currently, more than one data source needs to be used to estimate as accurately as possible the total number of nov outbreaks and associated cases. furthermore, either the integration of reporting mechanisms or simplifying the process of reporting outbreaks to organisations is essential for understanding and, hence, controlling disease burden." +"the use of capture-recapture methods to provide better estimates of the burden of norovirus outbreaks from seafood in england, 2004-2011",capture-recapture analysis; food safety; gastrointestinal infections; norovirus; outbreaks,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,HARDSTAFF JL;CLOUGH HE;HARRIS JP;LOWTHER JA;LEES DN;O BRIEN SJ,"norovirus (nov) is the greatest cause of infectious intestinal disease in the uk. the burden associated with foodborne outbreaks is underestimated in part because data are dispersed across different organisations. each looks at outbreaks through a different lens. to estimate the burden of nov from seafood including shellfish we used a capture-recapture technique using datasets from three different organisations currently involved in collecting information on outbreaks. the number of outbreaks of nov related to seafood including shellfish in england was estimated for the period of 2004-2011. the combined estimates were more than three times as high (n = 360 using chao's sample coverage approach) as the individual count from organisation three (n = 115), which captured more outbreaks than the other two organisations. the estimates were calculated for both independence and dependence between the datasets. there was evidence of under-reporting of nov outbreaks and inconsistency of reporting between organisations, which means that, currently, more than one data source needs to be used to estimate as accurately as possible the total number of nov outbreaks and associated cases. furthermore, either the integration of reporting mechanisms or simplifying the process of reporting outbreaks to organisations is essential for understanding and, hence, controlling disease burden." comparing clustered sampling designs for spatially explicit estimation of population density,bear; cluster; density; mark-recapture; simulation; spatially explicit; ursus,POPULATION ECOLOGY,CLARK JD,"spatially explicit capture-recapture methods do not assume that animals have equal access to sampling devices (e.g., detectors), which allows for gaps in the sampling extent and nonuniform (e.g., clustered) sampling designs. however, the performance (i.e., relative root mean squared error [rrmse], confidence interval coverage, relative bias and relative standard error) of clustered detector arrays has not been thoroughly evaluated. i used simulations to evaluate the performance of various detector and cluster spacings, cluster configurations (i.e., number of detectors arranged in a square grid), sampling extents and number of sampling occasions for estimating population density, the relationship between detection rate and distance to a detector from the animal's center of activity (sigma) and base detection rates, using american black bears (ursus americanus) as a case study. my simulations indicated that a wide range of detector configurations can provide reliable estimates if spacing between detectors in clusters is 1 sigma and 3 sigma. a number of cluster configurations and occasion lengths produced estimates that were unbiased, resulted in good spatial coverage, and were relatively precise. moreover, increasing the duration of sampling, establishing large study areas, increasing detection rates and spacing clusters so that cross-cluster sampling of individuals can occur could help ameliorate deficiencies in the detector layout. these results have application for a wide array of species and sampling methods (e.g., dna sampling, camera trapping, mark-resight and search-encounter) and suggest that clustered sampling can significantly reduce the effort necessary to provide reliable estimates of population density across large spatial extents that previously would have been infeasible with nonclustered sampling designs." coupled population dynamics of two neotropical marsupials driven by mesopredator's abundance,atlantic rainforest; capture-mark-recapture; didelphis aurita; mesopredator; metachirus nudicaudatus; popan,POPULATION ECOLOGY,KUHNEN VV;WEDEKIN LL;SETZ EZF,"according to the mesopredator release theory, when top predators are eradicated from an area, mesopredators become overabundant. didelphis aurita is the largest marsupial in the atlantic rainforest, and it occurs in higher abundances in the absence of top predators. this mesopredator has similar ecological requirements to the sympatric marsupial metachirus nudicaudatus. considering the similar requirements, and that d. aurita is about three times the size of m. nudicaudatus, our hypothesis is that the increase in d. aurita's abundance may negatively affect m. nudicaudatus' population. to test this hypothesis, we conducted a two-year capture-mark-recapture study in an area in the southeast of brazil where top predator community is depauperated. the relationship between the population dynamics of these two marsupials was analyzed by including abundance of d. aurita and environmental conditions as explanatory variables of the population parameters of m. nudicaudatus. we observed that all demographic parameters of m. nudicaudatus fluctuated over time and responded negatively to d. aurita abundance. our conclusion is that, at least on a monthly timescale, the interspecific relationship with d. aurita seems to influence more m. nudicaudatus' population than any other environmental covariate. these findings suggest that mesopredator release can promote negative effects on population parameters of other species within the same trophic level. considering that top predators are no longer present in most of the remaining atlantic rainforest fragments, the marsupial d. aurita has become a key species in this biome, with relevant consequences arising from its interspecific interactions." climatic drivers of pinyon mouse peromyscus truei population dynamics in a resource-restricted environment,apparent survival; capture-mark-recapture; climate change effects; realized population growth rate; recruitment; rodent demography,POPULATION ECOLOGY,SRIVATHSA A;TIETJE W;ROLLAND V;POLYAKOV A;OLI MK,"highly variable patterns in temperature and rainfall events can have pronounced consequences for small mammals in resource-restricted environments. climatic factors can therefore play a crucial role in determining the fates of small mammal populations. we applied pradel's temporal symmetry model to a 21-year capture-recapture dataset to study population dynamics of the pinyon mouse (peromyscus truei) in a semi-arid mixed oak woodland in california, usa. we examined time-, season- and sex-specific variation in realized population growth rate () and its constituent vital rates, apparent survival and recruitment. we also tested the influence of climatic factors on these rates. overall monthly apparent survival was 0.81 +/- 0.004 (estimate +/- se). survival was generally higher during wetter months (october-may) but varied over time. monthly recruitment rate was 0.18 +/- 0.01, ranging from 0.07 +/- 0.01 to 0.63 +/- 0.07. although population growth rate () was highly variable, overall monthly growth rate was close to 1.0, indicating a stable population during the study period ( +/- se = 0.99 +/- 0.01). average temperature and its variability negatively affected survival, whereas rainfall positively influenced survival and recruitment rates, and thus the population growth rate. our results suggest that seasonal rainfall and variation in temperature at the local scale, rather than regional climatic patterns, more strongly affected vital rates in this population. discerning such linkages between species' population dynamics and environmental variability are critical for understanding local and regional impacts of global climate change, and for gauging viability and resilience of populations in resource-restricted environments." @@ -264,7 +264,7 @@ a new mark-recapture approach for abundance estimation of social species,NA,PLOS hepatitis a surveillance: sensitivity of two information sources,hepatitis a; capture-recapture; estimated incidence,BMC INFECTIOUS DISEASES,CARMONA G;VILARO M;CIRUELA P;JANE M;GIRALT L;RUIZ L;HERNANDEZ S;DOMINGUEZ A,"backgroundthe frequency of mild forms of hepatitis a, especially in children, could lead to underreporting. the objective of the study was to investigate the sensitivity of two surveillance systems, mandatory statutory disease reports and the microbiological reporting system of catalonia, using capture-recapture techniques.methodsthe study was conducted in catalonia between 2011 and 2015. hepatitis a cases reported to two independent surveillance systems were included: statutory disease reports (sdr) and microbiological reporting system of catalonia (mrs). the variables collected were: age, sex, year of declaration, size of municipality (<10,000 and10,000), country of birth (spain or abroad), reporting centre (primary care/hospital) and notification method (electronic or paper). the capture-recapture analysis and the estimate of 95% confidence intervals were made using the chapman formula for comparison of two sources, both for the estimate of the total number of cases and the stratification according to variables. multinomial logistic regression was performed to obtain an adjusted estimate.resultsthe sdr had a greater overall sensitivity than the mrs (48.8%; 43.5-55.6 vs. 19.3%; 17.2-21.9). in cases aged <15years the sensitivity of both systems was higher (76.6%; 72.7-81 vs. 25.2%; 20.9-29.5) than in cases aged >15years (25.5%; 22.8-28.3 vs. 12.1%; 10-14.2). for those born in spain, the sensitivity was 57.2% (49.6-67.4) in the sdr and 27.1% (23.5-31.9) in the mrs, lower than that for foreign-born patients (58%; 51.2-66.8 vs. 49.1%; 43.4-56.6). in electronically-reported cases, the sensitivity was much higher in the sdr than in the mrs (47.2%; 42.3-52.1 vs. 9.4%; 6.5-12.3). no differences were observed according to sex, size of municipality, and year of declaration or reporting centre. the estimated total number of cases using the chapman formula was very similar to the adjusted estimate (1121; 985-1258 vs. 1120; 876-1525), indicating the robustness of the results.conclusionsthe sensitivity of the sdr was greater than that of mrs, especially in patients aged <15years, although for patients born abroad the difference in sensitivity was lower. reinforced surveillance combining the sdr and mrs improves the efficiency in the detection of cases." "reaction of bank voles (myodes glareolus schreber, 1780) to traps with the odor of synanthropic house mice (mus musculus s.l.) (mammalia: rodentia): a field experiment",myodes glareolus; olfactory cues; repellent; response to traps; house mouse; capture-mark-recapture technique,BIOLOGY BULLETIN,ZHIGAREV IA;ALPATOV VV;BABIKOV VA;SHCHUKIN AO;KOTENKOVA EV,"our hypothesis that exoanthropic forest rodent species (e.g., bank voles) avoid the urinary odor of the synanthropic house mice was tested in field experiments in august 2016. one count of the small mammals was carried out in each of two 4-ha fields by the capture-mark-recapture technique over 12 days. two hundred live traps (100 points, 2 traps per point) were exposed and controlled twice a day (early in the morning and in the evening) in each count. one trap in each pair served as the reference, while the second was the experimental one with 20 l of the urine of synanthropic house mice applied to a foam rubber surface every day. generally, bank voles chose the odorless trap more often (60.8% vs. 39.2%, (2) = 3.7, p = 0.054). adult individuals had a nonsignificant tendency to avoid the odor-emitting traps. immature (subadult and juvenile) bank voles reliably avoided the odor-emitting traps (a 2 : 1 ratio, (2) = 5.74, p = 0.017). a general linear model showed the influence of the age of voles on the choice of the odorless traps. the potential repellent role of sulfur-containing compounds in mouse urine is discussed." spatial variability of resident and nonresident populations of small mammals on a forest plot,small mammals; population number census; space use; sorex araneus; sorex caecutiens; clethrionomys glareolus,BIOLOGY BULLETIN,KALININ AA;OLEINICHENKO VY;KOUPTSOV AV;ALEKSANDROV DY;DEMIDOVA TB,"the resident population density and the numbers of nonresident common shrew (sorex araneus), laxmann's shrew (s. caecutiens), and the bank vole (clethrionomys glareolus) on an experimental forest plot (10 lines of 50 live traps each 7.5 m apart in a trapping region area of 20 ha) have been estimated. the capture-mark-recapture method with eight repetitions over three years was applied. a random spatial distribution pattern of the resident individuals of all the species across both the entire plot and each trap line has been identified. the accuracy of estimating the animal density and the activity of nonresident animals depends on the line lengths; in addition, the lines composed of 100 and 200 traps can characterize the assumptions to be satisfied (cv approximate to 30%) and to be fully satisfied (cv approximate to 20%), respectively, in terms of the entire land area. the data on the direct population density measurements for the entire land plot correspond to the data collected over the lines." -"ecological observations of the mexican mud turtle (kinosternon integrum) in the patzcuaro basin, michoacan, mexico",NA,CHELONIAN CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,APARICIO A;MERCADO IE;UGALDE AM;GAONA-MURILLO E;BUTTERFIELD T;MACIP-RIOS R,capture-mark-recapture and radiotelemetry was used in a population of the mexican mud turtle (kinosternon integrum) in the patzcuaro basin. calculated population size was 60 individuals. sex ratio was skewed to females (1:4.75). home range of the tracked females ranged from 0.08 to 2.7 ha and indicates a high fidelity with their aquatic and terrestrial microhabitats. +"ecological observations of the mexican mud turtle (kinosternon integrum) in the patzcuaro basin, michoacan, mexico",NA,CHELONIAN CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,APARICIO A;MERCADO IE;UGALDE AM;GAONA MURILLO E;BUTTERFIELD T;MACIP RIOS R,capture-mark-recapture and radiotelemetry was used in a population of the mexican mud turtle (kinosternon integrum) in the patzcuaro basin. calculated population size was 60 individuals. sex ratio was skewed to females (1:4.75). home range of the tracked females ranged from 0.08 to 2.7 ha and indicates a high fidelity with their aquatic and terrestrial microhabitats. "genetic differentiation of hawksbill turtle rookeries on st. croix, us virgin islands",NA,CHELONIAN CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,HILL JE;KING CM;STEWART KR;PALADINO FV;DUTTON PH,"we collected tissue samples from 41 nesting hawksbill turtles (eretmochelys imbricata) at sandy point national wildlife refuge, st. croix, us virgin islands, to characterize the genetic structure of this rookery in terms of mitochondrial dna; we compared haplotype frequencies from this rookery to those from buck island, another hawksbill nesting beach on st. croix. pairwise f-st comparisons showed that sandy point was demographically distinct from buck island (f-st = 0.501, p < 0.001), a finding reinforced by significantly different haplotype frequencies (chi(2) = 51.76, p < 0.001) and a lack of interchange of nesting females between both sites based on mark- recapture data. our results support the delineation of the nesting populations at sandy point and buck island into separate units for the purposes of management." population size estimation and linkage errors: the multiple lists case,probabilistically linked data; capture-recapture model; multiple system estimation; log-linear model,JOURNAL OF OFFICIAL STATISTICS,DI CONSIGLIO L;TUOTO T,"data integration is now common practice in official statistics and involves an increasing number of sources. when using multiple sources, an objective is to assess the unknown size of the population. to this aim, capture-recapture methods are applied. standard capturere-capture methods are based on a number of strong assumptions, including the absence of errors in the integration procedures. however, in particular when the integrated sources were not originally collected for statistical purposes, this assumption is unlikely and linkage errors (false links and missing links) may occur. in this article, the problem of adjusting population estimates in the presence of linkage errors in multiple lists is tackled; under homogeneous linkage error probabilities assumption, a solution is proposed in a realistic and practical scenario of multiple lists linkage procedure." muddy waters: an assessment of the suitability of zygocardiac ossicles for direct age estimation in the giant mud crab scylla serrata,NA,LIMNOLOGY AND OCEANOGRAPHY-METHODS,CROOK DA;ADAIR BJ;GRUBERT MA;SAUNDERS TM;MORRONGIELLO JR;DOUGLAS MM;KING AJ,"a fundamental characteristic of calcified structures commonly used for direct age estimation in animals is that new material is accreted cumulatively and preserved across ontogeny, thus allowing growth marks to be reliably observed and counted. direct age estimation in crustaceans has been problematic due to molting of calcified structures across ontogeny; however, recent studies suggest that gastric ossicle tissue is retained through molts and can be used for age estimation. we evaluate the use of sectioned gastric ossicles for direct aging of the giant mud crab scylla serrata. sectioned zygocardiac ossicles from crabs collected in northern australia are analyzed to determine: (1) whether putative annual age estimates can be reliably reproduced; (2) if age estimates are compatible with previous information; and (3) if ossicle growth is cumulative across ontogeny. our analyses show that readability of putative annual increments in sectioned ossicles is poor and age estimates imprecise in comparison to fish otolith studies. age-at-size estimates are broadly compatible with previous mark-recapture data from the same regions. however, analyses of ossicle growth morphology suggest that the zygocardiac ossicles are either shed or extensively reworked during ontogeny, thus casting doubt on the utility of gastric ossicles for direct age estimation in this species. we conclude that the ontogenetic growth morphology of structures used for crustacean aging needs to be carefully considered and that detailed information on the timing and frequency of increment formation-and at least some understanding of the underlying processes-is required before this method is widely adopted." @@ -281,7 +281,7 @@ an evaluation of statistical methods for estimating abundances of migrating adul implications of small population size in a threatened pitviper species,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,BRADKE DR;HILEMAN ET;BARTMAN JF;FAUST LJ;KING RB;KUDLA N;MOORE JA,"destruction and fragmentation of wildlife habitat often results in small, isolated populations that are highly susceptible to extirpation. in many cases, however, estimates of population size are lacking, precluding accurate assessments of population viability and sound conservation management recommendations. the eastern massasauga (sistrurus catenatus) is a federally threatened pitviper species that has been extirpated throughout much of its historic range attributable to agricultural conversion of wetland habitat and other synergistic threats. population size is generally unknown among extant massasauga populations, making site-specific management difficult. in this study, we estimated genetic effective population size (n-e) and census population size (n-c) for eastern massasaugas at two sites in southwest michigan. for each population, we used mark-recapture models to estimate n-e, and the linkage disequilibrium method to estimate n-e. our results revealed small n-c with approximately 108 (95% ci = 87-165) and 148 (95% ci = 102-295) adults estimated at our study sites in cass county and barry county, respectively. estimates of n-e were even smaller: approximately 29.5 (95% ci = 21.2-43.1) for cass county and 44.2 (95% ci = 30.8-69.3) for barry county. additionally, n-e/n-c, ratios were similar across study sites, suggesting some stability in this ratio for eastern massasaugas, at least for populations in close proximity. although we did not detect high levels of inbreeding or relatedness in either population, we caution that these small populations could become increasingly vulnerable to extirpation from unpredictable threats such as disease and climate change." sensitivity analysis using site-specific demographic parameters to guide research and management of threatened eastern massasaugas,NA,COPEIA,BRADKE DR;BAILEY RL;BARTMAN JF;CAMPA H;HILEMAN ET;KRUEGER C;KUDLA N;LEE YM;THACKER AJ;MOORE JA,"long-term demographic data are important for conserving populations of threatened and endangered species. collecting data specific to the population of interest can improve conservation success by allowing managers to make informed decisions, evaluate the efficacy of habitat management, and assess extinction risk. population viability analysis (pva), a tool commonly used to estimate extinction risk in threatened populations, is most informative when precise, population specific data are available. we used mark-recapture data spanning ten years (2008-2017) to estimate annual adult survival rates in a population of threatened eastern massasauga rattlesnakes (sistrurus catenatus) in barry county, michigan. using these survival estimates and ten additional parameter values obtained from our site and a nearby population, we modeled population viability over the next 100 years. we performed sensitivity analysis using latin hypercube sampling, followed by logistic regression to assess the relative influence of model parameters on extinction risk. we estimated annual apparent survival rates of 0.79 (95% ci = 0.69-0.87) for adult males and 0.78 (95% ci = 0.69-0.85) for adult females, which are higher than expected given the population's locality. results of our sensitivity analysis suggest that actions promoting high survival of adult females should be a management priority, followed by activities that facilitate high reproductive output and neonate survival. we recommend focusing future research and monitoring efforts on these parameters." feasibility of using computer-assisted software for recognizing individual rio grande cooter (pseudemys gorzugi),NA,COPEIA,SURIYAMONGKOL T;MALI I,"mark recapture methods used in population demography studies involve marking of animals, such as tagging, notching, and tattooing. these techniques are invasive and potentially harmful to the animals. photo-identification using natural animal markings is less invasive and has become more widely used for a range of taxa including invertebrates, fishes, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals. during 2016 and 2017, we studied the demographics of the rio grande cooter (pseudemys gorzugl) using traditional mark-recapture techniques (i.e., shell notching and toe clipping). however, p. gorzugi displays plastral marks that could potentially be used for individual recognition. because the photo-identification process 'by-eye' is time consuming, we tested the efficiency of three pieces of software, (is)-s-3 pattern(+), wild.id, and aphis, for individual identification of p. gorzugi using plastron pattern. matching results of each program were generated into ranks with the 1st rank being the most likely match. within the top 20 ranked images, wild.id yielded the highest number of correct matches (83.87%), followed by aphis (itm; 69.35%), aphis (spm; 67.74%), and (is)-s-3 pattern(+) (61.29%). we found the quality of photos significantly contributed to the software effectiveness; however, turtle age and plastron wear did not affect the accuracy of the photo-identification software. we concluded that wild.id can be used as a non-invasive photo-recognition technique for p. gorzugi in a short-term population study." -early returning long-distance migrant males do pay a survival cost,capture-mark-recapture; differential migration; fitness; optimal timing; protandry,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,LERCHE-JORGENSEN M;KORNER-NIEVERGELT F;TOTTRUP AP;WILLEMOES M;THORUP K,"timing of return to the breeding area presumably optimizes breeding output in migrants. how timing affects the other components of fitness - survival, has been comparatively little studied. returning too early in spring is expected to be associated with high mortality in insectivorous migrants when weather conditions are still unsuitable. yet, males in particular arrive early to get access to the best territories which have been suggested to cause arrival before it is optimal for their survival. for the outward migration in autumn, timing is presumably less directly associated with reproduction and fitness and how it might affect survival is not well understood. we use data of eight songbird species ringed across denmark to investigate how timing of return migration in spring and departure migration in autumn close to the breeding areas affects survival for short- and long-distance migrants. further, we compare survival optimum to the timing of males and females at a stopover site in denmark in three sexually dimorphic, protandric species. we find a clear relationship between return migration and survival which differs between short- and long-distance migrants: survival decreases with date for short-distance migrants and a bell-shaped relationship, with low survival for earliest and latest individuals, for long-distance migrants. in protandric species, the majority of males return before survival is optimal, whereas females on average return close to the survival optimum. the pattern of survival in relation to autumn timing is less clear, although a similar bell-shaped relationship is suggested for long-distance migrants. our findings support the predicted mortality consequences of too early return to the breeding grounds and also that selection for early return in males leads to suboptimal migration timing regarding survival." +early returning long-distance migrant males do pay a survival cost,capture-mark-recapture; differential migration; fitness; optimal timing; protandry,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,LERCHE JORGENSEN M;KORNER NIEVERGELT F;TOTTRUP AP;WILLEMOES M;THORUP K,"timing of return to the breeding area presumably optimizes breeding output in migrants. how timing affects the other components of fitness - survival, has been comparatively little studied. returning too early in spring is expected to be associated with high mortality in insectivorous migrants when weather conditions are still unsuitable. yet, males in particular arrive early to get access to the best territories which have been suggested to cause arrival before it is optimal for their survival. for the outward migration in autumn, timing is presumably less directly associated with reproduction and fitness and how it might affect survival is not well understood. we use data of eight songbird species ringed across denmark to investigate how timing of return migration in spring and departure migration in autumn close to the breeding areas affects survival for short- and long-distance migrants. further, we compare survival optimum to the timing of males and females at a stopover site in denmark in three sexually dimorphic, protandric species. we find a clear relationship between return migration and survival which differs between short- and long-distance migrants: survival decreases with date for short-distance migrants and a bell-shaped relationship, with low survival for earliest and latest individuals, for long-distance migrants. in protandric species, the majority of males return before survival is optimal, whereas females on average return close to the survival optimum. the pattern of survival in relation to autumn timing is less clear, although a similar bell-shaped relationship is suggested for long-distance migrants. our findings support the predicted mortality consequences of too early return to the breeding grounds and also that selection for early return in males leads to suboptimal migration timing regarding survival." non-linear effect of sea ice: spectacled eider survival declines at both extremes of the ice spectrum,bering sea; mark-recapture; sea ice; somateria fischeri; spectacled eider; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CHRISTIE KS;HOLLMEN TE;FLINT P;DOUGLAS D,"understanding the relationship between environmental factors and vital rates is an important step in predicting a species' response to environmental change. species associated with sea ice are of particular concern because sea ice is projected to decrease rapidly in polar environments with continued levels of greenhouse gas emissions. the relationship between sea ice and the vital rates of the spectacled eider, a threatened species that breeds in alaska and russia and winters in the bering sea, appears to be complex. while severe ice can impede foraging for benthic prey, ice also suppresses wave action and provides a platform on which eiders roost, thereby reducing thermoregulation costs. we analyzed a 23-year mark-recapture dataset for spectacled eiders nesting on kigigak island in western alaska, and tested survival models containing different ice and weather-related covariates. we found that much of the variation in eider survival could be explained by the number of days per year with >95% sea ice concentration at the bering sea core wintering area. furthermore, the data supported a quadratic relationship with sea ice rather than a linear one, indicating that intermediate sea ice concentrations were optimal for survival. we then used matrix population models to project population trajectories using general circulation model (gcm) outputs of daily sea ice cover. gcms projected reduced sea ice at the wintering area by year 2100 under a moderated emissions scenario (rcp 4.5) and nearly ice-free conditions under an unabated emissions scenario (rcp 8.5). under rcp 4.5, stochastic models projected an increase in population size until 2069 coincident with moderate ice conditions, followed by a decline in population size as ice conditions shifted from intermediate to mostly ice-free. under rcp 8.5, eider abundance increased until 2040 and then decreased to near extirpation toward the end of the century as the bering sea became ice-free. considerable uncertainty around parameter estimates for survival in years with minimal sea ice contributed to variation in stochastic projections of future population size, and this uncertainty could be reduced with additional survival data from low-ice winters." "making the most of sparse data to estimate density of a rare and threatened species: a case study with the fosa, a little-studied malagasy carnivore",camera trap; carnivore; cryptoprocta ferox; fosa; informed prior; madagascar; small-sample sizes; spatial capture-recapture,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,MURPHY A;GERBER BD;FARRIS ZJ;KARPANTY S;RATELOLAHY F;KELLY MJ,"sparse detections in camera trap surveys commonly hinder density estimation for threatened species. by combining detections across multiple surveys, or using informative priors in bayesian model fitting, researchers can improve parameter estimation from sparse capture-recapture data. using a spatial mark-resight model that incorporates site-level heterogeneity in the spatial scale parameter via a hierarchical process and prior information, we estimated the density of a threatened carnivore (fosa, cryptoprocta ferox) from multiple sparse datasets collected during extensive camera trapping surveys in northeastern madagascar (2008-2015). our objectives were to estimate density for six sites, examine the response of fosa density and movement to habitat degradation, monitor annual density trends across 7 years at two sites, and estimate fosa abundance in the makira-masoala protected area complex. we obtained a mean of 16.1 (se = 0.52; range = 2-49) fosa detections and three observers identified a mean of 3.62 (se = 0.09; range = 1-8) marked individuals per survey. fosa daily baseline encounter rate was very low (lambda(0) = 0.004; 0.003-0.006) and density/movement estimates were similar across forest types. density estimates at resurveyed sites suggested annual variability in density, with estimates trending lower during the final surveys [e.g. d = 0.39 (0.14-1.11) versus 0.08 (0.05-0.31) individuals per km(2)]. we estimated fosa abundance across the makira-masoala region to be 1061 (95% hpdi: 596-1780) adult individuals. on the basis of our estimate and the size of the region, we believe makira-masoala harbors a significant portion of the global fosa population. the conservation and management of rare species is commonly limited due to lack of population estimates. by combining detections across surveys, we overcame estimation issues and obtained valuable information on a threatened carnivore, allowing us to better assess its status and prioritize conservation actions. we advocate for practical use of sparse datasets for such data-deficient species." residency and reproductive status of yellowfin tuna in a proposed large-scale pelagic marine protected area,fish; fishing; no-take marine reserve; ocean,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,RICHARDSON AJ;DOWNES KJ;NOLAN ET;BRICKLE P;BROWN J;WEBER N;WEBER SB,"since the year 2000, the designation of remote, large-scale marine protected areas (lsmpas) has closed over 15 x 106 km(2) of ocean to commercial fishing. yet, while these mega-reserves have collectively made a major contribution toward meeting global targets for marine conservation, their effectiveness for the protection of highly mobile, pelagic species remains largely unknown. this study reports on the spatial behavior and reproductive status of yellowfin tuna (thunnus albacares) inhabiting a proposed lsmpa around ascension island (tropical atlantic), with the aim of evaluating the conservation benefits for this economically important species. using a combination of satellite archival tags and conventional mark-recapture it was shown that individual tuna can remain within ascension island waters for periods of between 100 and 200 days, with core residency areas (50% ""utilization distributions"") generally extending <200 km from shore. the vast majority of activity occurred within 92.6 km (50 nmi) of the island and coincided with a ""no-take zone"" established around the island in 2016. however, dispersive movements out of this zone were observed in some satellite-tagged individuals, possibly marking the beginning of more extensive oceanic migrations. gonad staging of 342 individuals sampled over a 32 month period found no evidence of reproductively active (ripe) individuals, strongly suggesting that tuna foraging around ascension island migrate elsewhere to breed. study results provide further evidence of the importance of oceanic islands as residency areas for pelagic megafauna, helping to justify their inclusion within lsmpas. in the absence of local recruitment, however, these individuals will remain susceptible to exploitation on spawning grounds located outside of reserves, ultimately limiting their effectiveness and thus calling for further research to identify and protect the areas where species are most vulnerable." @@ -293,8 +293,8 @@ re-assessing abundance of southern hudson bay polar bears by aerial survey: effe "effects of breeding success, age and sex on breeding dispersal of a reintroduced population of the crested ibis (nipponia nippon) in ningshan county, china",breeding dispersal; breeding success; generalized linear mixed effect model; crested ibis; reintroduced population,AVIAN RESEARCH,DONG R;YE XP;ZHONG L;LI X;LI M;WANG HQ;YU XP,"background breeding dispersal is an important ecological process that affects species' population dynamics and colonization of new suitable areas. knowledge of the causes and consequences of breeding dispersal is fundamental to our understanding of avian ecology and evolution. although breeding success for a wild and reintroduced population of the crested ibis (nipponia nippon) has been reported, the relationships between individuals' breeding dispersal and their breeding success, age and sex remain unclear.methodsibises' breeding dispersal distance, which is the distance moved by adults between sites of reproduction, was estimated based on the observations of consecutive breeding sites of marked ibis individuals. from observational and capture-recapture data (n=102) over 9years, individuals' breeding dispersal probability in relation to age, sex, and reproductive success was analyzed via a generalized linear mixed effect modeling approach.resultsour results show that 55% males and 51% females keep their previous territories following nesting success. failed breeding attempts increased dispersal probabilities. both females and males failed in breeding were more likely to disperse with greater distances than successful birds (females: 825216m vs 196 +/- 101m, males: 372 +/- 164m vs 210 +/- 127m). crested ibis exhibited a female-biased dispersal pattern that the mean dispersal distance of females (435 +/- 234m) was much larger than that of males (294 +/- 172m).conclusion our results are fundamental to predict the patterns of breeding dispersal related to reproductive success under different release sites. from the conservation point of view, landscape connectivity between the reintroduced populations should be taken into account in accordance with the distance of breeding dispersal." the effects of early sandbar formation on the abundance and ecology of coho salmon (oncorhynchus kisutch) and steelhead trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) in a central california coastal lagoon,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,OSTERBACK AMK;KERN CH;KANAWI EA;PEREZ JM;KIERNAN JD,"we investigated how extreme drought conditions influenced the abundance, growth, movement, and seawater readiness of juvenile coho salmon (oncorhynchus kisutch) and steelhead trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) in a small central california coastal lagoon. in 2015, the seasonal sandbar at the mouth of scott creek formed over 2 months earlier than average, effectively trapping fish in the lagoon for 7 additional months (mid-may through december) before outmigration opportunities eventually resumed. monthly mark-recapture sampling demonstrated that juvenile coho salmon and steelhead were able to persist in the lagoon during extended periods of high water temperature and low dissolved oxygen concentration. both salmonid species exhibited similar temporal trends in abundance, growth, and na+-k+-atpase activity levels during lagoon residence; however, abundance and growth rates were consistently higher for steelhead. stationary passive integrated transponder tag antenna detections revealed recurrent movement of individuals between the warm lagoon and cooler lower mainstem creek, suggesting individuals regulated key physiological processes by moving between the adjacent habitats. our study provides new insight concerning the consequences of drought for imperiled salmonid populations and underscores the importance of life-history diversity during extreme climatic events." survival estimates strongly depend on capture-recapture designs in a disturbed environment inducing dispersal,individual behaviour; demography; environmental disturbance,ECOGRAPHY,PONCHON A;CHOQUET R;TORNOS J;MCCOY KD;TVERAA T;BOULINIER T,"capture-recapture (cr) approaches are extensively used to estimate demographic parameters. their robustness relies on the selection of suitable statistical models, but also on the sampling design and effort deployed in the field. in colonial or territorial species showing breeding site fidelity, recurrent local perturbations, such as predation-induced breeding failure, may lead individuals to disperse locally or regionally. this might induce heterogeneity in individual cr histories and biases in demographic parameter estimates. here, we assessed the effect of buffer areas and multi-site designs on annual survival estimate accuracy and precision. first, using simulated data with and without a multi-site design, we compared survival estimates for different scenarios involving contrasted local and regional dispersal. then, using data from a local multi-site long-term monitoring survey carried out in a colony of black-legged kittiwakes, we tested the homogeneity of individual cr histories and compared survival estimates from three datasets including one or several breeding cliffs with or without buffer areas. results from simulations highlighted that a single-site design consistently led to underestimated or less precise survival values compared to a multi-site design. similarly, a multi-site design allowed detecting significant temporal trends while a single-site one did not. in the field-based study, adding buffer areas reduced individual heterogeneity, but all three datasets suffered from strong trap-dependence possibly due to individual breeding success affecting nest-site fidelity. implementing a multi-site design significantly improved the accuracy and precision of annual survival estimates, regardless of cr models applied. adapting the spatial scale of sampling design to the local environment and species behaviour is essential to provide robust parameters of key relevance for population monitoring and management. we show that implementing buffer areas and/or multi-site designs may be especially beneficial for long-lived species facing regular local perturbation events leading to local dispersal." -a spatially explicit hierarchical model to characterize population viability,capture-recapture; car model; demography; gopherus morafkai; multi-state model; population viability analysis; recruitment; sonoran desert tortoise; spatial autoregressive model; spatial variation; survival,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,CAMPBELL SP;ZYLSTRA ER;DARST CR;AVERILL-MURRAY RC;STEIDL RJ,"many of the processes that govern the viability of animal populations vary spatially, yet population viability analyses (pvas) that account explicitly for spatial variation are rare. we develop a pva model that incorporates autocorrelation into the analysis of local demographic information to produce spatially explicit estimates of demography and viability at relatively fine spatial scales across a large spatial extent. we use a hierarchical, spatial, autoregressive model for capture-recapture data from multiple locations to obtain spatially explicit estimates of adult survival (phi(ad)), juvenile survival (phi(juv)), and juvenile-to-adult transition rates (psi), and a spatial autoregressive model for recruitment data from multiple locations to obtain spatially explicit estimates of recruitment (r). we combine local estimates of demographic rates in stage-structured population models to estimate the rate of population change (lambda), then use estimates of lambda (and its uncertainty) to forecast changes in local abundance and produce spatially explicit estimates of viability (probability of extirpation, p-ex). we apply the model to demographic data for the sonoran desert tortoise (gopherus morafkai) collected across its geographic range in arizona. there was modest spatial variation in lambda<^> (0.94-1.03), which reflected spatial variation in phi<^>ad (0.85-0.95), phi<^>juv (0.70-0.89), and psi<^> (0.07-0.13). recruitment data were too sparse for spatially explicit estimates; therefore, we used a range-wide estimate (r<^> = 0.32 1-yr-old females per female per year). spatial patterns in demographic rates were complex, but phi<^>ad, phi<^>juv, and lambda<^> tended to be lower and psi<^> higher in the northwestern portion of the range. spatial patterns in p-ex varied with local abundance. for local abundances >500, p-ex was near zero (<0.05) across most of the range after 100 yr; as abundances decreased, however, p-ex approached one in the northwestern portion of the range and remained low elsewhere. when local abundances were <50, western and southern populations were vulnerable (p-ex > 0.25). this approach to pva offers the potential to reveal spatial patterns in demography and viability that can inform conservation and management at multiple spatial scales, provide insight into scale-related investigations in population ecology, and improve basic ecological knowledge of landscape-level phenomena." -natural selection on plasticity of thermal traits in a highly seasonal environment,acclimation; amphibians; atacama desert; natural selection; physiological plasticity; pleurodema thaul,EVOLUTIONARY APPLICATIONS,BACIGALUPE LD;GAITAN-ESPITIA JD;BARRIA AM;GONZALEZ-MENDEZ A;RUIZ-ARAVENA M;TRINDER M;SINERVO B,"for ectothermic species with broad geographical distributions, latitudinal/altitudinal variation in environmental temperatures (averages and extremes) is expected to shape the evolution of physiological tolerances and the acclimation capacity (i.e., degree of phenotypic plasticity) of natural populations. this can create geographical gradients of selection in which environments with greater thermal variability (e.g., seasonality) tend to favor individuals that maximize performance across a broader range of temperatures compared to more stable environments. although thermal acclimation capacity plays a fundamental role in this context, it is unknown whether natural selection targets this trait in natural populations. additionally, understanding whether and how selection acts on thermal physiological plasticity is also highly relevant to climate change and biological conservation. here, we addressed such an important gap in our knowledge in the northernmost population of the four-eyed frog, pleurodema thaul. we measured plastic responses of critical thermal limits for activity, behavioral thermal preference, and thermal sensitivity of metabolism to acclimation at 10 and 20 degrees c. we monitored survival during three separate recapture efforts and used mark-recapture integrated into an information-theoretic approach to evaluate the relationship between survivals as a function of the plasticity of thermal traits. overall, we found no evidence that thermal acclimation in this population is being targeted by directional selection, although there might be signals of selection on individual traits. according to the most supported models, survival increased in individuals with higher tolerance to cold when cold-acclimated, probably because daily low extremes are frequent during the cooler periods of the year. furthermore, survival increased with body size. however, in both cases, the directional selection estimates were nonsignificant, and the constraints of our experimental design prevented us from evaluating more complex models (i.e., nonlinear selection)." +a spatially explicit hierarchical model to characterize population viability,capture-recapture; car model; demography; gopherus morafkai; multi-state model; population viability analysis; recruitment; sonoran desert tortoise; spatial autoregressive model; spatial variation; survival,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,CAMPBELL SP;ZYLSTRA ER;DARST CR;AVERILL MURRAY RC;STEIDL RJ,"many of the processes that govern the viability of animal populations vary spatially, yet population viability analyses (pvas) that account explicitly for spatial variation are rare. we develop a pva model that incorporates autocorrelation into the analysis of local demographic information to produce spatially explicit estimates of demography and viability at relatively fine spatial scales across a large spatial extent. we use a hierarchical, spatial, autoregressive model for capture-recapture data from multiple locations to obtain spatially explicit estimates of adult survival (phi(ad)), juvenile survival (phi(juv)), and juvenile-to-adult transition rates (psi), and a spatial autoregressive model for recruitment data from multiple locations to obtain spatially explicit estimates of recruitment (r). we combine local estimates of demographic rates in stage-structured population models to estimate the rate of population change (lambda), then use estimates of lambda (and its uncertainty) to forecast changes in local abundance and produce spatially explicit estimates of viability (probability of extirpation, p-ex). we apply the model to demographic data for the sonoran desert tortoise (gopherus morafkai) collected across its geographic range in arizona. there was modest spatial variation in lambda<^> (0.94-1.03), which reflected spatial variation in phi<^>ad (0.85-0.95), phi<^>juv (0.70-0.89), and psi<^> (0.07-0.13). recruitment data were too sparse for spatially explicit estimates; therefore, we used a range-wide estimate (r<^> = 0.32 1-yr-old females per female per year). spatial patterns in demographic rates were complex, but phi<^>ad, phi<^>juv, and lambda<^> tended to be lower and psi<^> higher in the northwestern portion of the range. spatial patterns in p-ex varied with local abundance. for local abundances >500, p-ex was near zero (<0.05) across most of the range after 100 yr; as abundances decreased, however, p-ex approached one in the northwestern portion of the range and remained low elsewhere. when local abundances were <50, western and southern populations were vulnerable (p-ex > 0.25). this approach to pva offers the potential to reveal spatial patterns in demography and viability that can inform conservation and management at multiple spatial scales, provide insight into scale-related investigations in population ecology, and improve basic ecological knowledge of landscape-level phenomena." +natural selection on plasticity of thermal traits in a highly seasonal environment,acclimation; amphibians; atacama desert; natural selection; physiological plasticity; pleurodema thaul,EVOLUTIONARY APPLICATIONS,BACIGALUPE LD;GAITAN ESPITIA JD;BARRIA AM;GONZALEZ MENDEZ A;RUIZ ARAVENA M;TRINDER M;SINERVO B,"for ectothermic species with broad geographical distributions, latitudinal/altitudinal variation in environmental temperatures (averages and extremes) is expected to shape the evolution of physiological tolerances and the acclimation capacity (i.e., degree of phenotypic plasticity) of natural populations. this can create geographical gradients of selection in which environments with greater thermal variability (e.g., seasonality) tend to favor individuals that maximize performance across a broader range of temperatures compared to more stable environments. although thermal acclimation capacity plays a fundamental role in this context, it is unknown whether natural selection targets this trait in natural populations. additionally, understanding whether and how selection acts on thermal physiological plasticity is also highly relevant to climate change and biological conservation. here, we addressed such an important gap in our knowledge in the northernmost population of the four-eyed frog, pleurodema thaul. we measured plastic responses of critical thermal limits for activity, behavioral thermal preference, and thermal sensitivity of metabolism to acclimation at 10 and 20 degrees c. we monitored survival during three separate recapture efforts and used mark-recapture integrated into an information-theoretic approach to evaluate the relationship between survivals as a function of the plasticity of thermal traits. overall, we found no evidence that thermal acclimation in this population is being targeted by directional selection, although there might be signals of selection on individual traits. according to the most supported models, survival increased in individuals with higher tolerance to cold when cold-acclimated, probably because daily low extremes are frequent during the cooler periods of the year. furthermore, survival increased with body size. however, in both cases, the directional selection estimates were nonsignificant, and the constraints of our experimental design prevented us from evaluating more complex models (i.e., nonlinear selection)." "peromyscus responses to alternative forest management systems in the missouri ozarks, usa",deermice; even-aged management; missouri ozarks; mofep; small mammals; uneven-aged management,FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,GITZEN RA;RENKEN RB;FANTZ DK;WOLF AJ;JENSEN RG;FAVARA J;MILLSPAUGH JJ,"operational-scale forest management experiments are long-term investments because harvest treatment effects may be dynamic throughout one or more rotation lengths. we examined deermouse (peromyscus spp.) abundance over the first 20 years of the missouri ozark forest ecosystem project (mofep), which assesses ecological responses to even-aged, uneven-aged, and no-harvest forest management systems applied at landscape scales in the missouri ozarks. in the spring of each of 11 sampling years, we sampled peromyscus populations on two permanent trap grids on each of nine study sites (n = 3 sites per management system). management entries occurred in 1996 and 2011, with small mammal sampling conducted during two pre-treatment years (1994-1995), and years 2-5 (1998-2001), years 13-14 (2009-2010), and years 16-18 (2012-2014) after the first entry. we estimated abundance for each grid in each sampling year with bayesian closed-population mark recapture models, and modeled variation in abundance with negative binomial log-linear mixed effects models. uneven-and even-aged management systems caused similar increases in peromyscus abundance that were detectable shortly after the first management entry [proportional effect of even-aged management on peromyscus abundance vs. no-harvest management: posterior median = 1.8, 95% credible interval 1.0-3.2; proportional effect of uneven-aged vs. no harvest management = 1.7 (1.0, 2.8)]. these effects were not surprising given positive effects of harvest treatments on understory cover and food resources. however, the consistency of this increase was less expected, as we observed no conclusive dissipation of harvest effects even in years 13-14 after the first entry or amplification of harvest effects after the second entry. observing extremely high system-wide yearly variation in peromyscus abundance, we did not detect evidence of increasing divergence in effects of these three management systems or of any area-wide trends in abundance during 1994-2014. however, over subsequent decades, we expect higher potential for divergence in peromyscus abundance as the three management systems differentially shape forest structure and tree species composition. thus, the mofep study offers a unique framework for building and testing hypotheses about patterns and mechanisms of long-term changes in ozark forests and effects on vertebrate communities." caste-specific demography and phenology in bumblebees: modelling beewalk data,citizen science; mixture models; phenology; population trends; productivity; stopover models,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,MATECHOU E;FREEMAN SN;COMONT R,"we present novel dynamic mixture models for the monitoring of bumblebee populations on an unprecedented geographical scale, motivated by the uk citizen science scheme beewalk. the models allow us for the first time to estimate bumblebee phenology and within-season productivity, defined as the number of individuals in each caste per colony in the population in that year, from citizen science data. all of these parameters are estimated separately for each caste, giving a means of considerable ecological detail in examining temporal changes in the complex life cycle of a social insect in the wild. due to the dynamic nature of the models, we are able to produce population trends for a number of uk bumblebee species using the available time-series. via an additional simulation exercise, we show the extent to which useful information will increase if the survey continues, and expands in scale, as expected. bumblebees are extraordinarily important components of the ecosystem, providing pollination services of vast economic impact and functioning as indicator species for changes in climate or land use. our results demonstrate the changes in both phenology and productivity between years and provide an invaluable tool for monitoring bumblebee populations, many of which are in decline, in the uk and around the world. supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear online." understanding habitat quality for preble's meadow jumping mouse: how survival responds to vegetation structure and composition,grass cover; habitat; preble's meadow jumping mouse; shrub density; survival; zapus hudsonius preblei,JOURNAL OF FISH AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SCHORR RA;MIHLBACHLER BS,"habitat loss is the primary conservation concern for many rare species; yet, it is unclear what habitat components are vital for the persistence of many rare species. the preble's meadow jumping mouse zapus hudsonius preblei (pmjm) was listed as threatened under the endangered species act because of habitat loss in colorado and wyoming. the pmjm is restricted to dense shrub cover and dense herbaceous vegetation along wetland and riverine systems. although it is well established by researchers that pmjm infrequently leave these habitat types, it is unclear what riparian vegetation structure and composition is important to pmjm survival. we collected and analyzed a 14-y pmjm vegetation-monitoring data set and a pmjm mark-recapture data set to assess the influence of vegetation structure and composition on pmjm annual survival. using individual, group, and site-specific covariates we estimated survival and evaluated the influence of such covariates on annual survival. annual survival for pmjm was low (< 10%), increasing with body mass, grass cover, and shrub cover, and decreasing with meadow vole microtus pennsylvanicus captures. the pmjm use of and occupation of dense riparian habitats may increase individual survival, and likely increases population persistence. thus, habitat modifications that reduce grass cover and shrub regeneration, such as grazing, suburban development, and development-altered hydrology, will be detrimental to pmjm populations. given the low annual survival of pmjm, it is important for conserving pmjm populations to minimize disturbances to the vegetation structure, composition, and density, and the hydrologic processes that support them." @@ -310,7 +310,7 @@ high carnivore population density highlights the conservation value of industria neohelice granulata burrow fidelity behaviour related to landscape heterogeneity,flooding; fidelity behaviour; intertidal; crabs,HELGOLAND MARINE RESEARCH,NUNEZ JD;RIBEIRO PD;OCAMPO EH;LUPPI TA,"neohelice granulata provides an interesting animal model for studying behavioural process because it is widely distributed, ensuring variability related to different environmental conditions. the aim of this study was to analyse variation in site fidelity with relation to landscape heterogeneity. field observations were carried out in three geographically distant marshes in argentina (mar chiquita, san antonio oeste, and riacho san jose), which differ in their environmental characteristics and where crabs display different reproductive strategies. we analysed potential variation in burrow fidelity with relation to body size, sex and presence of vegetation (mudflat and saltmarsh) at all study sites. in addition, we analysed the influence of tidal flooding on fidelity in the mar chiquita saltmarsh. to achieve these goals, we used a mark-recapture method in which we tagged approximately 100 crabs during mid-summer for each zone at each site (a total of 668 crabs) for geographical comparison and approximately 370 crabs to evaluate the influence of tidal flooding. we found more faithful individuals in mar chiquita than in san antonio oeste and riacho san jose. for the san antonio oeste and riacho san jose populations and for mar chiquita previous to flooding samples we also found differences in site fidelity related to crab body size. at san antonio oeste and riacho san jose the relationship between size and proportion of faithful crabs was negative (smaller crabs were more faithful than larger crabs). in mar chiquita, a higher proportion of fidelity previous to flooding and a size-dependent response to flooding were detected, suggesting that fidelity may be modulated by tides having different effects on crabs with different body sizes. equal proportions of males and females displaying site fidelity were observed at all study zones and sites. our study suggests that n. granulata burrow fidelity behaviour changes with latitude and landscape (mudflat or saltmarsh) and can be sensitive to variables such as body size and frequency of flooding." relative efficiency of two models of ugglan special live-traps for capturing small rodents in boreo-nemoral forest,NA,ANNALES ZOOLOGICI FENNICI,KORSLUND L,"live trapping is an invaluable and commonly used technique for studying small mammal populations. there are several types of commercially available live-traps, but some models have been shown to differ in terms of species-specific efficiency. such differences could lead to biased results, and knowledge of such bias is important when comparing results of different studies. the ugglan special live-trap is one commonly used type, and it is available in several different models. i studied performance of the two most common models (no. 1 and no. 2) to find out whether they differ in terms of overall efficiency and body-mass-dependent efficiency, when trapping small rodents. i used 48 traps of each model in boreo-nemoral forest during three years, which amounted to 3456 trap nights, during which 268 bank voles (myodes glareolus) (26%) and wood mice (apodenius sylvaticus) (74%) were captured. there was no difference in body mass between the animals captured by the two trap models. model no. 2, however, was more efficient in capturing bank voles, but not wood mice, than model no. 1. this difference may have been caused by the difference in the entrance design. this species-specific dissimilarity in trap efficiency should be taken into account when using ugglan special live-traps in ecological research relying on mark-recapture methods. additional studies are needed to see if other species of small mammals arc affected in similar ways and if the differences are consistent among habitat types." "survival, abundance, and movement of a synanthropic population of the brown recluse spider, loxosceles reclusa (araneae: sicariidae)",joint live-dead models; mark-recapture; population structure; recapture probabilities; site fidelity,JOURNAL OF ARACHNOLOGY,CRAMER KL;HILEMAN ET,"we conducted a two-year mark-recapture study of a synanthropic population of the brown recluse spider loxosceles reclusa gertsch & mulaik, 1940 in northwestern illinois. we used joint live encounter and dead recovery models to estimate adult survival, recapture, and dead recovery probabilities. to estimate adult abundance, we used full-likelihood closed-population models. monthly survival was constant between sexes (0.73, 95% ci = 0.66-0.78), but males were less likely to be recaptured and an additive effect of time revealed highest recapture probabilities in september. the probability of recovering a marked adult that died during the study was 0.13 (95% ci = 0.07-0.24). average life expectancy for adults was 94 days, much lower than in prior laboratory studies. causes of observed mortality were predation by conspecifics and cobweb spiders (parasteatoda tepidariorum (c.l. koch, 1841)) or undetermined. a likely source of mortality for this sit-and-wait predator is starvation. model averaging of full likelihood closed-population models resulted in adult abundance estimates that were similar between males (28, 95% ci = 20 63) and females (28, 95% ci = 26 38). however, the total population of adults including those hidden in harborage (boxes, furniture, crevices etc.) was undoubtedly much higher. based on count data, immature spiders were as abundant as adults early in the year, gradually increasing to a peak three times greater by mid-summer. male spiders moved longer distances than females and were less likely to exhibit site fidelity. the average tenure of a female at a specific site was nearly 8 days." -"distribution, habitat, and population size of island night lizards on san nicolas island, california",NA,WESTERN NORTH AMERICAN NATURALIST,DROST CA;FELLERS GM;MURPHEY TC;KLEEMAN PM;HALSTEAD BJ;O'DONNELL RP,"the island night lizard (xantusia riversiana) was removed from the federal list of threatened species in may 2014. this strongly differentiated species is endemic to 3 of the southern california channel islands-san clemente, san nicolas, and santa barbara. suitable habitat for island night lizards is extensive on san clemente island, and the species is abundant there. habitat is limited and fragmented, however, on san nicolas island and small santa barbara island. bringing together extensive field surveys and mark-recapture sampling, we synthesize available data for island night lizards on san nicolas islam] and calculate population and density estimates for the species in major habitats on the island. island night lizards are widely distributed across most of the eastern half of san nicolas island. in contrast, they are nearly absent over the western third of the island except for isolated populations in boulder beach habitats. we combined mark-recapture population estimates with comprehensive measurements of the extent of cactus, boxthorn, and other habitat types on the island to arrive at a more accurate assessment of the status of island night lizards on san nicolas island. high densities of island night lizards on the island are found in small areas of cholla cactus (cylindropuntia prolifera; mean of 4100 lizards/ha), boulder beach habitat (mean of 3400 lizards/ha), and prickly pear cactus (opuntia spp.; mean of 1700 lizards/ha); low numbers are found in more extensive mixed-shrub habitat (mean of 250 lizards/ha). the u.s. fish and wildlife service requires a post-delisting program for ""monitoring the overall health of the island night lizard"" to assure the continued long-term viability of the species in its restricted distribution. the information on population size and habitat presented here will inform and guide conservation and management efforts by the u.s. navy on san nicolas island over the coming years." +"distribution, habitat, and population size of island night lizards on san nicolas island, california",NA,WESTERN NORTH AMERICAN NATURALIST,DROST CA;FELLERS GM;MURPHEY TC;KLEEMAN PM;HALSTEAD BJ;O DONNELL RP,"the island night lizard (xantusia riversiana) was removed from the federal list of threatened species in may 2014. this strongly differentiated species is endemic to 3 of the southern california channel islands-san clemente, san nicolas, and santa barbara. suitable habitat for island night lizards is extensive on san clemente island, and the species is abundant there. habitat is limited and fragmented, however, on san nicolas island and small santa barbara island. bringing together extensive field surveys and mark-recapture sampling, we synthesize available data for island night lizards on san nicolas islam] and calculate population and density estimates for the species in major habitats on the island. island night lizards are widely distributed across most of the eastern half of san nicolas island. in contrast, they are nearly absent over the western third of the island except for isolated populations in boulder beach habitats. we combined mark-recapture population estimates with comprehensive measurements of the extent of cactus, boxthorn, and other habitat types on the island to arrive at a more accurate assessment of the status of island night lizards on san nicolas island. high densities of island night lizards on the island are found in small areas of cholla cactus (cylindropuntia prolifera; mean of 4100 lizards/ha), boulder beach habitat (mean of 3400 lizards/ha), and prickly pear cactus (opuntia spp.; mean of 1700 lizards/ha); low numbers are found in more extensive mixed-shrub habitat (mean of 250 lizards/ha). the u.s. fish and wildlife service requires a post-delisting program for ""monitoring the overall health of the island night lizard"" to assure the continued long-term viability of the species in its restricted distribution. the information on population size and habitat presented here will inform and guide conservation and management efforts by the u.s. navy on san nicolas island over the coming years." "comparison of estimators for monitoring long-term population trends in deer mice, peromyscus maniculaius, on the california channel islands",NA,WESTERN NORTH AMERICAN NATURALIST,SCHWEMM CA;DROST CA;ORROCK JL;COONAN TJ;STANLEY TR,"capture-recapture methods are commonly used to estimate abundance and density of wild animal populations. although a variety of sophisticated analytical techniques are available to evaluate capture-recapture data, vertebrate monitoring programs often lack the resources (e.g., time, personnel, and/or analytical expertise) to apply these methods. as an alternative, simple population indices, such as counts of unique individuals, may provide sufficient information to detect meaningful changes in population size. in this study we investigated whether a population index, easily generated from mark-recapture data under all conditions, might be used to provide valid ecological information for managers interested in long-term population trends of deer mice (peromyscus maniculatus) on the california channel islands. in practice, determining the efficacy of estimating abundance from mark-recapture data and indices using empirical data (as opposed to simulated data) is difficult given the scarcity of long-term data sets that describe real populations. using mark-recapture data that span 18 years (n = 122 trapping events, >12,000 marked individuals) for deer mice on 2 of the islands, we compared density estimates obtained from several commonly used mark-recapture models and also compared these estimates to index counts. populations of island deer mice are extremely dynamic; estimated densities over the data period varied from 0 to >1200 mice/ha. density estimates from models in program capture and program density, as well as from model-averaged huggins models, were strongly correlated with each other and with the density index. densities calculated by the models and the index showed similar patterns of population variation and trend over time for all 5 sites. for long-term population monitoring and assessment of population trends in deer mice, our findings suggest that the use of a simple index may provide adequate understanding of ecologically relevant population changes, though data collection methods that allow for more detailed analyses using advanced modeling techniques should be maintained." "rising temperatures, molting phenology, and epizootic shell disease in the american lobster",disease prevalence; disease impacts; life history; crustacea; phenology; molting,AMERICAN NATURALIST,GRONER ML;SHIELDS JD;LANDERS DF;SWENARTON J;HOENIG JM,"phenological mismatchmaladaptive changes in phenology resulting from altered timing of environmental cuesis an increasing concern in many ecological systems, yet its effects on disease are poorly characterized. american lobster (homarus americanus) is declining at its southern geographic limit. rising seawater temperatures are associated with seasonal outbreaks of epizootic shell disease (esd), which peaks in prevalence in the fall. we used a 34-year mark-recapture data set to investigate relationships between temperature, molting phenology, and esd in long island sound, where temperatures are increasing at 0.4 degrees c per decade. our analyses support the hypothesis that phenological mismatch is linked to the epidemiology of esd. warming spring temperatures are correlated with earlier spring molting. lobsters lose diseased cuticle by molting, and early molting increases the intermolt period in the summer, when disease prevalence is increasing to a fall peak. in juvenile and adult male lobsters, september esd prevalence was correlated with early molting, while october esd prevalence was correlated with summer seawater temperature. this suggests that temperature-induced molting phenology affects the timing of the onset of esd, but later in the summer this signal is swamped by the stronger signal of summer temperatures, which we hypothesize are associated with an increased rate of new infections. october esd prevalence was approximate to 80% in years with hot summers and approximate to 30% in years with cooler summers. yearly survival of diseased lobsters is <50% that of healthy lobsters. thus, population impacts of esd are expected to increase with increasing seawater temperatures." multistate models of bigheaded carps in the illinois river reveal spatial dynamics of invasive species,program mark; asian carp; acoustic telemetry; invasion ecology; multistate model; fish passage,BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS,COULTER AA;BREY MK;LUBEJKO M;KALLIS JL;COULTER DP;GLOVER DC;WHITLEDGE GW;GARVEY JE,"knowledge of the spatial distributions and dispersal characteristics of invasive species is necessary for managing the spread of highly mobile species, such as invasive bigheaded carps (bighead carp [hypophthalmichthys nobilis] and silver carp [h. molitrix]). management of invasive bigheaded carps in the illinois river has focused on using human-made barriers and harvest to limit dispersal towards the laurentian great lakes. acoustic telemetry data were used to parameterize multistate models to examine the spatial dynamics of bigheaded carps in the illinois river to (1) evaluate the effects of existing dams on movement, (2) identify how individuals distribute among pools, and (3) gauge the effects of reductions in movement towards the invasion front. multistate models estimated that movement was generally less likely among upper river pools (starved rock, marseilles, and dresden island) than the lower river (la grange and peoria) which matched the pattern of gated versus wicket style dams. simulations using estimated movement probabilities indicated that bighead carp accumulate in la grange pool while silver carp accumulate in alton pool. fewer bighead carp reached the upper river compared to silver carp during simulations. reducing upstream movement probabilities (e.g., reduced propagule pressure) by75% into any of the upper river pools could reduce upper river abundance with similar results regardless of location. given bigheaded carp reproduction in the upper illinois river is presently limited, reduced movement towards the invasion front coupled with removal of individuals reaching these areas could limit potential future dispersal towards the great lakes." @@ -320,18 +320,18 @@ the epidemiology of avian pox and interaction with avian malaria in hawaiian for measuring agreement among experts in classifying camera images of similar species,bobcat; canada lynx; expert identification; image classification; lynx canadensis; lynx rufus,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GOOLIAFF TJ;HODGES KE,"camera trapping and solicitation of wildlife images through citizen science have become common tools in ecological research. such studies collect many wildlife images for which correct species classification is crucial; even low misclassification rates can result in erroneous estimation of the geographic range or habitat use of a species, potentially hindering conservation or management efforts. however, some species are difficult to tell apart, making species classification challenging-but the literature on classification agreement rates among experts remains sparse. here, we measure agreement among experts in distinguishing between images of two similar congeneric species, bobcats (lynx rufus) and canada lynx (lynx canadensis). we asked experts to classify the species in selected images to test whether the season, background habitat, time of day, and the visible features of each animal (e.g., face, legs, tail) affected agreement among experts about the species in each image. overall, experts had moderate agreement (fleiss' kappa = 0.64), but experts had varying levels of agreement depending on these image characteristics. most images (71%) had >= 1 expert classification of ""unknown,"" and many images (39%) had some experts classify the image as ""bobcat"" while others classified it as ""lynx."" further, experts were inconsistent even with themselves, changing their classifications of numerous images when they were asked to reclassify the same images months later. these results suggest that classification of images by a single expert is unreliable for similar-looking species. most of the images did obtain a clear majority classification from the experts, although we emphasize that even majority classifications may be incorrect. we recommend that researchers using wildlife images consult multiple species experts to increase confidence in their image classifications of similar sympatric species. still, when the presence of a species with similar sympatrics must be conclusive, physical or genetic evidence should be required." disease and climate effects on individuals drive post-reintroduction population dynamics of an endangered amphibian,batrachochytrium dendrobatidis; host-pathogen dynamics; mark-recapture; mountain yellow-legged frog; population establishment; recruitment; reintroduction; survival,ECOSPHERE,JOSEPH MB;KNAPP RA,"the emergence of novel pathogens often has dramatic negative effects on previously unexposed host populations. subsequent disease can drive populations and even species to extinction. after establishment in populations, pathogens can continue to affect host dynamics, influencing the success or failure of species recovery efforts. however, quantifying the effect of pathogens on host populations in the wild is challenging because individual hosts and their pathogens are difficult to observe. here, we use long-term mark-recapture data to describe the dynamics of reintroduced populations of an endangered amphibian (rana sierrae) and evaluate the success of these recovery efforts in the presence of a recently emerged pathogen, the amphibian chytrid fungus batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. we find that high b. dendrobatidis infection intensities are associated with increases in frog detectability and reductions in survival. when average infection intensities are high, adults are more likely to gain infections and less likely to lose infections. we also find evidence for intensity-dependent survival, with heavily infected individuals suffering higher mortality. these results highlight the need in disease ecology for probabilistic approaches that account for uncertainty in infection intensity using imperfect observational data. such approaches can advance the understanding of disease impacts on host population dynamics, and in the current study will improve the effectiveness of species conservation actions." fish dispersal in flowing waters: a synthesis of movement- and genetic-based studies,dispersal distances; dispersal kernels; isolation by distance; mark-recapture; restricted movement paradigm; telemetry,FISH AND FISHERIES,COMTE L;OLDEN JD,"enhancing our understanding of fish dispersal is central to the success of modern-day conservation efforts in freshwater ecosystems. however, methods seeking to estimate dispersal are diverse; ranging from direct estimation of individual movements, computation of dispersal kernels, to indirect assessment using measures of gene flow across riverscapes. an important question is whether results from these different approaches provide a consistent picture of the spatial scales of dispersal. here, we performed a review and meta-analysis of the literature reporting both individual movements and genetic data to characterize patterns of dispersal for riverine fishes globally. across all the studies considered (n-direct=206; n-indirect=205), our results suggest restricted magnitudes of dispersal for riverine fishes, but highlight a large heterogeneity among species, taxonomic orders and geographies. for instance, we found that the maximum parent-offspring dispersal distances varied from 69m to 1,086km (median=12km; n-species=107), whereas the dispersal spread derived from isolation-by-distance slopes (sigma(ibd)) from genetic data ranged from 19m to 250km (median=1km; n-species=56). comparisons of species-specific values also revealed significant and positive relationships between direct and indirect estimates of dispersal distances, indicating that organismal movement ability often translates into effective transmission of genes. finally, this global overview pointed to important geographic and taxonomic disparities in the study of dispersal for riverine fishes. we thus encourage researchers to broaden the taxonomic and geographical scope of future investigations and identify emerging research frontiers where new scientific efforts are needed." -density feedbacks mediate effects of environmental change on population dynamics of a semidesert rodent,environmental drivers; environmental stochasticity; life table response experiment; matrix model; perturbation analysis; population dynamics; rodent; vital rate,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,"NATER CR;VAN BENTHEM KJ;CANALE CI;SCHRADIN C;OZGUL A","population dynamics are the result of an interplay between extrinsic and intrinsic environmental drivers. predicting the effects of environmental change on wildlife populations therefore requires a thorough understanding of the mechanisms through which different environmental drivers interact to generate changes in population size and structure. in this study, we disentangled the roles of temperature, food availability and population density in shaping short- and long-term population dynamics of the african striped mouse, a small rodent inhabiting a semidesert with high intra- and interannual variation in environmental conditions. we parameterized a female-only stage-structured matrix population model with vital rates depending on temperature, food availability and population density, using monthly mark-recapture data from 1609 mice trapped over 9years (2005-2014). we then applied perturbation analyses to determine relative strengths and demographic pathways of these drivers in affecting population dynamics. furthermore, we used stochastic population projections to gain insights into how three different climate change scenarios might affect size, structure and persistence of this population. we identified food availability, acting through reproduction, as the main driver of changes in both short- and long-term population dynamics. this mechanism was mediated by strong density feedbacks, which stabilized the population after high peaks and allowed it to recover from detrimental crashes. density dependence thus buffered the population against environmental change, and even adverse climate change scenarios were predicted to have little effect on population persistence (extinction risk over 100years <5%) despite leading to overall lower abundances. explicitly linking environment-demography relationships to population dynamics allowed us to accurately capture past population dynamics. it further enabled establishing the roles and relative importances of extrinsic and intrinsic environmental drivers, and we conclude that doing this is essential when investigating impacts of climate change on wildlife populations." +density feedbacks mediate effects of environmental change on population dynamics of a semidesert rodent,environmental drivers; environmental stochasticity; life table response experiment; matrix model; perturbation analysis; population dynamics; rodent; vital rate,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,NATER CR;VAN BENTHEM KJ;CANALE CI;SCHRADIN C;OZGUL A,"population dynamics are the result of an interplay between extrinsic and intrinsic environmental drivers. predicting the effects of environmental change on wildlife populations therefore requires a thorough understanding of the mechanisms through which different environmental drivers interact to generate changes in population size and structure. in this study, we disentangled the roles of temperature, food availability and population density in shaping short- and long-term population dynamics of the african striped mouse, a small rodent inhabiting a semidesert with high intra- and interannual variation in environmental conditions. we parameterized a female-only stage-structured matrix population model with vital rates depending on temperature, food availability and population density, using monthly mark-recapture data from 1609 mice trapped over 9years (2005-2014). we then applied perturbation analyses to determine relative strengths and demographic pathways of these drivers in affecting population dynamics. furthermore, we used stochastic population projections to gain insights into how three different climate change scenarios might affect size, structure and persistence of this population. we identified food availability, acting through reproduction, as the main driver of changes in both short- and long-term population dynamics. this mechanism was mediated by strong density feedbacks, which stabilized the population after high peaks and allowed it to recover from detrimental crashes. density dependence thus buffered the population against environmental change, and even adverse climate change scenarios were predicted to have little effect on population persistence (extinction risk over 100years <5%) despite leading to overall lower abundances. explicitly linking environment-demography relationships to population dynamics allowed us to accurately capture past population dynamics. it further enabled establishing the roles and relative importances of extrinsic and intrinsic environmental drivers, and we conclude that doing this is essential when investigating impacts of climate change on wildlife populations." "lions and leopards coexist without spatial, temporal or demographic effects of interspecific competition",carnivore; demography; interspecific competition; multispecies occupancy model; panthera leo; panthera pardus; species density; temporal overlap,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,MILLER JRB;PITMAN RT;MANN GKH;FULLER AK;BALME GA,"although interspecific competition plays a principal role in shaping species behaviour and demography, little is known about the population-level outcomes of competition between large carnivores, and the mechanisms that facilitate coexistence. we conducted a multilandscape analysis of two widely distributed, threatened large carnivore competitors to offer insight into coexistence strategies and assist with species-level conservation. we evaluated how interference competition affects occupancy, temporal activity and population density of a dominant competitor, the lion (panthera leo), and its subordinate competitor, the leopard (panthera pardus). we collected camera-trap data over 3years in 10 study sites covering 5,070km(2). we used multispecies occupancy modelling to assess spatial responses in varying environmental and prey conditions and competitor presence, and examined temporal overlap and the relationship between lion and leopard densities across sites and years. results showed that both lion and leopard occupancy was independent ofrather than conditional ontheir competitor's presence across all environmental covariates. marginal occupancy probability for leopard was higher in areas with more bushy, hideable habitat, human (tourist) activity and topographic ruggedness, whereas lion occupancy decreased with increasing hideable habitat and increased with higher abundance of very large prey. temporal overlap was high between carnivores, and there was no detectable relationship between species densities. lions pose a threat to the survival of individual leopards, but they exerted no tractable influence on leopard spatial or temporal dynamics. furthermore, lions did not appear to suppress leopard populations, suggesting that intraguild competitors can coexist in the same areas without population decline. aligned conservation strategies that promote functioning ecosystems, rather than target individual species, are therefore advised to achieve cost- and space-effective conservation." evaluating spatially explicit density estimates of unmarked wildlife detected by remote cameras,bayesian; density; mark-recapture; monitoring; remote camera; spatial count model; spatially explicit; visual marking,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,EVANS MJ;RITTENHOUSE TAG,"1. remote cameras have become a promising, cost-effective tool for monitoring wildlife populations. yet, for species where individuals are indistinguishable, remote cameras' ability to provide robust and precise density estimates has been limited without the use of invasive marking. 2. using the american black bear as a model species, we evaluated methods for estimating wildlife densities using remote camera detections of unmarked individuals against estimates from spatial capture-recapture (scr) models using individual detections. we also tested the effect of incorporating varying proportions of marked individuals on model accuracy and precision. 3. spatial count (sc) models using unmarked individuals produced estimates of bear density within 0.6% of those from scr. we extended sc models to incorporate variation in density as a function of land use/land cover, and identified identical relationships between variation in bear densities and housing density as obtained using scr. incorporating individual detection data from simultaneous non-invasive genetic sampling lead to more precise, but biased estimates. 4. synthesis and applications. our results identify contexts in which camera count data can be used as an alternative to spatial capture-recapture (scr) when individual identification is prohibitive. spatial count models provided an accurate, but less precise replication of spatial capture-recapture density estimates and may provide consistent insights into spatial variation in density. mixed samples of camera counts and auxiliary individual detections are likely to be of limited use, but fitting spatial count models to populations with partial visual markings could improve their precision." evaluating conservation effectiveness in a tanzanian community wildlife management area,community-based natural resource management; conservation biology; ecological monitoring; impact assessment; ungulate; wildlife management area,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,LEE DE,"in tanzania, community-based natural resource management (cbnrm) of wildlife occurs through wildlife management areas (wmas). the wmas consist of multiple villages designating land and managing it for wildlife conservation in return for a portion of subsequent tourism revenues. the ecological success or failure of wmas for wildlife conservation is rarely quantified but is important for evaluating the efficacy of specific projects and the general concept of cbnrm. i used 3 analyses to evaluate the ecological effectiveness of wildlife conservation actions in the burunge wma. i compared wildlife and livestock densities inside and outside a wma using 1 year of distance sampling data and compared wild and domestic ungulate densities before and after the implementation of management changes that increased wildlife protections within a subsection of burunge wma using 6 years of distance sampling surveys. i also compared giraffe (giraffa camelopardalis) survival and population growth rate before and after the implementation of management changes that increased wildlife protections in a subsection of burunge wma using 5 years of photographic capture-recapture data. i found greater densities of wildlife and lower densities of livestock inside the wma compared with outside. after the management changes, i documented significantly higher densities of several wild ungulate species and lower densities of domestic ungulates in the wma. i found giraffe survival and population growth rate both increased in response to the management changes. results indicated the wma is effectively providing habitat and protection for wild ungulates while generally excluding domestic livestock. ungulate densities, and giraffe survival and population growth rate over time indicated the management changes enacted in 2014-2015 resulted in positive effects for wild ungulates. these combined results indicate the ecological effectiveness of burunge wma and provide evidence that cbnrm can have positive effects on wildlife populations, particularly when support to grassroots law enforcement is provided. (c) 2018 the wildlife society." cast away: drift as the main determinant for larval survival in western fire salamanders (salamandra salamandra) in headwater streams,amphibian larvae; population bottlenecks; catastrophic events; rainfall; discharge; salamandra salamandra; stream habitats; drift,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,REINHARDT T;BALDAUF L;ILIC M;FINK P,"unidirectional drift is amongst the most relevant population regulators in riverine animal populations. drift occurs randomly, but it can also be a behavioural response to abiotic and biotic stressors, or the result of catastrophic events such as heavy rain. in this study, we investigate the spatiotemporal distribution of larvae of the fire salamander (salamandra salamandra) in three headwater streams in the eifel mountains, western germany. we marked 568 salamander larvae to conduct capture-recapture estimates of abundance, and followed their individual fate throughout the season. population density of larval salamanders along the stream showed both strong temporal and spatial variation. random drift of salamander larvae was particularly rare, and drift did not result in a size structuring of larval populations in the field. yet, catastrophic events of high summer precipitation were the best predictor for pulse-wise restructuring of the salamander larvae's density distribution. strong discharge coincided with a severe decrease in population density, and thus appears to be the most relevant cause of mortality for salamander larvae. furthermore, we find strong indications that drift has the potential to influence this species' evolutionary processes, as well as its ecological prevalence." minimising trapping effort without affecting population density estimations for small mammals,small mammal; abundance; spatial density; catch-effort index; capture-recapture,MAMMALIAN BIOLOGY,CASTANEDA I;PISANUA B;DIAZ M;REZOUKI C;BAUDRY E;CHAPUIS JL;BONNAUD E,"improving species community diversity studies needs population abundances to be calculated. micromammal population densities are highly variable at small spatial scales. mark-recapture methods based on grid trapping is the most reliable technique to study density in small rodents, albeit it is time-consuming because it necessitates increasing the number of spatial replicates. here, we evaluated a live-trapping grid strategy to minimise field effort without decreasing the accuracy of small rodent population density estimations. we first computed spatially explicit estimates of population density using cmr histories from a large grid made by 100 traps set over 4 consecutive days and nights trapped twice per year between 2012 and 2015, and compared these estimates with those obtained from reduced session time and grid extent for two common rodent species: the wood mouse (apodemus sylvaticus) and the bank vole (myodes glareolus). we then compared density estimates to simpler catch-effort indexes of abundance for these rodents. spatially explicit density estimates from capture-mark-recapture over 4 consecutive days from grids set with a single trap interspaced 5 m on a 10 x 10 square were highly correlated (r-2 = 0.945) with density estimates after 4 consecutive days on a 7 x 7 square arrangement. the best performance of catch-effort indexes relative to 4 days on 10 x 10 square grid spatial density estimates for these two rodents was found when using total trapping events recorded on 8 x 8 grids over 4 days or 9 x 9 over 3 days (r-2 = 0.947 and 0.945 respectively). our results support the use of a reduced grid design over 4 days to obtain reliable spatially explicit density estimates. we also obtained a reduced duration of trapping at the expense of keeping larger grids when using catch-effort indexes. (c) 2018 deutsche gesellschaft fur saugetierkunde. published by elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." -large-effect loci affect survival in tasmanian devils (sarcophilus harrisii) infected with a transmissible cancer,adaptation; cancer; effect size; genotype-phenotype; gwas,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,MARGRES MJ;JONES ME;EPSTEIN B;KERLIN DH;COMTE S;FOX S;FRAIK AK;HENDRICKS SA;HUXTABLE S;LACHISH S;LAZENBY B;O'ROURKE SM;STAHLKE AR;WIENCH CG;HAMEDE R;SCHONFELD B;MCCALLUM H;MILLER MR;HOHENLOHE PA;STORFER A,"identifying the genetic architecture of complex phenotypes is a central goal of modern biology, particularly for disease-related traits. genome-wide association methods are a classical approach for identifying the genomic basis of variation in disease phenotypes, but such analyses are particularly challenging in natural populations due to sample size difficulties. extensive mark-recapture data, strong linkage disequilibrium and a lethal transmissible cancer make the tasmanian devil (sarcophilus harrisii) an ideal model for such an association study. we used a rad-capture approach to genotype 624 devils at similar to 16,000 loci and then used association analyses to assess the heritability of three cancer-related phenotypes: infection case-control (where cases were infected devils and controls were devils that were never infected), age of first infection and survival following infection. the snp array explained much of the phenotypic variance for female survival (>80%) and female case-control (>61%). we found that a few large-effect snps explained much of the variance for female survival (similar to 5 snps explained >61% of the total variance), whereas more snps (similar to 56) of smaller effect explained less of the variance for female case-control (similar to 23% of the total variance). by contrast, these same snps did not account for a significant proportion of phenotypic variance in males, suggesting that the genetic bases of these traits and/or selection differ across sexes. loci involved with cell adhesion and cell-cycle regulation underlay trait variation, suggesting that the devil immune system is rapidly evolving to recognize and potentially suppress cancer growth through these pathways. overall, our study provided necessary data for genomics-based conservation and management in tasmanian devils." +large-effect loci affect survival in tasmanian devils (sarcophilus harrisii) infected with a transmissible cancer,adaptation; cancer; effect size; genotype-phenotype; gwas,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,MARGRES MJ;JONES ME;EPSTEIN B;KERLIN DH;COMTE S;FOX S;FRAIK AK;HENDRICKS SA;HUXTABLE S;LACHISH S;LAZENBY B;O ROURKE SM;STAHLKE AR;WIENCH CG;HAMEDE R;SCHONFELD B;MCCALLUM H;MILLER MR;HOHENLOHE PA;STORFER A,"identifying the genetic architecture of complex phenotypes is a central goal of modern biology, particularly for disease-related traits. genome-wide association methods are a classical approach for identifying the genomic basis of variation in disease phenotypes, but such analyses are particularly challenging in natural populations due to sample size difficulties. extensive mark-recapture data, strong linkage disequilibrium and a lethal transmissible cancer make the tasmanian devil (sarcophilus harrisii) an ideal model for such an association study. we used a rad-capture approach to genotype 624 devils at similar to 16,000 loci and then used association analyses to assess the heritability of three cancer-related phenotypes: infection case-control (where cases were infected devils and controls were devils that were never infected), age of first infection and survival following infection. the snp array explained much of the phenotypic variance for female survival (>80%) and female case-control (>61%). we found that a few large-effect snps explained much of the variance for female survival (similar to 5 snps explained >61% of the total variance), whereas more snps (similar to 56) of smaller effect explained less of the variance for female case-control (similar to 23% of the total variance). by contrast, these same snps did not account for a significant proportion of phenotypic variance in males, suggesting that the genetic bases of these traits and/or selection differ across sexes. loci involved with cell adhesion and cell-cycle regulation underlay trait variation, suggesting that the devil immune system is rapidly evolving to recognize and potentially suppress cancer growth through these pathways. overall, our study provided necessary data for genomics-based conservation and management in tasmanian devils." application of a novel molecular method to age free-living wild bechstein's bats,chiroptera; conservation; dna methylation; epigenetics; mammals; wildlife management,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY RESOURCES,WRIGHT PGR;MATHEWS F;SCHOFIELD H;MORRIS C;BURRAGE J;SMITH A;DEMPSTER EL;HAMILTON PB,"the age profile of populations fundamentally affects their conservation status. yet, age is frequently difficult to assess in wild animals. here, we assessed the use of dna methylation of homologous genes to establish the age structure of a rare and elusive wild mammal: the bechstein's bat (myotis bechsteinii). we collected 62 wing punches from individuals whose ages were known as a result of a long-term banding study. dna methylation was measured at seven cpg sites from three genes, which have previously shown age-associated changes in humans and laboratory mice. all cpg sites from the tested genes showed a significant relationship between dna methylation and age, both individually and in combination (multiple linear regression r-2 = 0.58, p < 0.001). despite slight approximation around estimates, the approach is sufficiently precise to place animals into practically useful age cohorts. this method is of considerable practical benefit as it can reliably age individual bats. it is also much faster than traditional capture-mark-recapture techniques, with the potential to collect information on the age structure of an entire colony from a single sampling session to better inform conservation actions for bechstein's bats. by identifying three genes where dna methylation correlates with age across distantly related species, this study also suggests that the technique can potentially be applied across a wide range of mammals." prevalence of chronic pain with or without neuropathic characteristics in france using the capture-recapture method: a population-based study,chronic pain; neuropathic pain; electronic health record; prevalence; capture-recapture; epidemiology,PAIN,CHENAF C;DELORME J;DELAGE N;ARDID D;ESCHALIER A;AUTHIER N,"capture-recapture methods are increasingly used to determine the prevalence of numerous chronic conditions but have never been used in the context of chronic pain (cp). this study sought to provide up-to-date estimates of the prevalence of people experiencing cp +/- neuropathic characteristics in france using the capture-recapture method. in 2013 to 2015, 3 data sources were used: the french prescription drug database (d-list), the national hospital discharge database (h-list), and the french pain center database (p-list). patients aged 18 years and older treated with analgesic drugs for >= 6 months (d-list) or with a diagnosis of cp +/- neuropathic characteristics (h-and p-lists) were included. two successive capture-recapture analyses were conducted, with log-linear regression for each analysis performed. a total of 63,557 and 9852 distinct cases of cp and chronic neuropathic pain were captured, respectively. the estimated prevalence of cp and chronic neuropathic pain in the adults ranged from 27.2% (95% confidence interval: 26.1-28.4) to 32.7% (26.0-43.3) and from 5.55% (2.89-19.0) to 7.30% (6.40-8.41), respectively. most patients were female, median ages were 67 (55-80) and 63 (51-76) years for chronic and neuropathic pain, respectively. the analgesic drugs most frequently used in cp patients were paracetamol (62.1%), weak opioids (39.7%), and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (32.7%), whereas in neuropathic pain patients, anticonvulsants (45.3%), tricyclic antidepressants (18.1%), and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (13.3%) were more frequently used. this first electronic health record-based study on cp using the capture-recapture method revealed a high prevalence of cp, with a significant proportion of neuropathic pain patients." implications of survey effort on estimating demographic parameters of a long-lived marine top predator,bottlenose dolphin; conservation; home range; marine mammal; population parameters; reproductive biology; survival; wildlife management; abundance,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SYMONS J;SPROGIS KR;BEJDER L,"effective management of wildlife populations rely on knowledge of their abundance, survival, and reproductive rates. maintaining long-term studies capable of estimating demographic parameters for long-lived, slow-reproducing species is challenging. insights into the effects of research intensity on the statistical power to estimate demographic parameters are limited. here, we investigate implications of survey effort on estimating abundance, home range sizes, and reproductive output of indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins (tursiops aduncus), using a 3-year subsample of a long-term, capture-recapture study off bunbury, western australia. photo-identification on individual dolphins was collected following pollock's robust design, where seasons were defined as ""primary periods"", each consisting of multiple ""secondary periods."" the full dataset consisted of 12 primary periods and 72 secondary periods, resulting in the study area being surveyed 24 times/year. we simulated reduced survey effort by randomly removing one, two, or three secondary periods per primary period. capture-recapture models were used to assess the effect of survey intensity on the power to detect trends in population abundance, while individual dolphin sighting histories were used to assess the ability to conduct home range analyses. we used sighting records of adult females and their calving histories to assess survey effort on quantifying reproductive output. a 50% reduction in survey effort resulted in (a) up to a 36% decline in population abundance at the time of detection; (b) a reduced ability to estimate home range sizes, by increasing the time for individuals to be sighted on >= 30 occasions (an often-used metric for home range analyses) from 7.74 to 14.32 years; and (c) 33%, 24%, and 33% of annual calving events across three years going undocumented, respectively. results clearly illustrate the importance of survey effort on the ability to assess demographic parameters with clear implications for population viability analyses, population forecasting, and conservation efforts to manage human-wildlife interactions." parameterizing the robust design in the bugs language: lifetime carry-over effects of environmental conditions during growth on a long-lived bird,bayesian; branta bernicla nigricans; breeding probability; capture-mark-recapture; carry-over effects; fitness; population dynamics; robust design,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,RIECKE TV;LEACH AG;GIBSON D;SEDINGER JS,"since the initial development of the robust design, this capture-recapture model structure has been modified to estimate temporary emigration and expanded to include auxiliary information such as band recovery and live resight data using maximum likelihood approaches. these developments have allowed investigators to separately assess individual and group effects on true survival, site fidelity, and temporary emigration. additionally, recent advances in the bugs language have allowed researchers to develop increasingly complex, user-specified models in bayesian frameworks. the robust design has rarely been implemented in the bugs language, and previous attempts to parameterize the robust design in bugs exhibited strong bias in estimates of temporary emigration rates. given the limitations of current parameterizations of the robust design in bayesian frameworks, and our research objectives, we have developed a parameterization of the robust design in the bugs language that produces unbiased estimates of all model parameters. we use this novel model structure to examine lifetime carry-over effects of environmental conditions during early life on annual breeding probabilities of pacific black brent branta bernicla nigricans breeding on the yukon-kuskokwim river delta in western alaska. we found that individuals that were more structurally developed as goslings bred at increased rates as adults (beta = 0.14, f = 0.94), with no effect on adult survival (beta = 0.01, f = 0.62). additionally, we provide evidence for long-term declines in apparent survival of breeding adult females at the population level (beta = -0.01, f = 0.90). this novel model structure can be easily expanded (gibson et al., in press) and has important implications for population modelling at broad scales, where we apply it to a declining population of pacific black brent. given long-term declines in gosling growth on the yukon-kuskokwim delta, we predict future declines in population trajectories as a result of lifetime carry-over effects of environmental conditions during growth on adult fecundity and long-term declines in adult survival." -"burden of dengue among febrile patients at the time of chikungunya introduction in piedecuesta, colombia",dengue; chikungunya; colombia; disease incidence; fever surveillance; underreporting; clinical characterisation,TROPICAL MEDICINE & INTERNATIONAL HEALTH,CARABALI M;LIM JK;PALENCIA DC;LOZANO-PARRA A;GELVEZ RM;LEE KS;FLOREZ JP;HERRERA VM;KAUFMAN JS;ROJAS EM;VILLAR LA,"objective to estimate the age-specific incidence of symptomatic dengue and chikungunya in colombia. method results a passive facility-based fever surveillance study was conducted among individuals with undifferentiated fever. confirmatory diagnostics included serological and molecular tests in paired samples, and surveillance's underreporting was assessed using capture-recapture methods. of 839 febrile participants 686 completed the study. there were 33.2% (295/839) dengue infections (51% primary infections), and 35.9% (191/532) of negative dengue cases there were chikungunya cases. on average, dengue cases were younger (median = 18 years) than chikungunya cases (median = 25 years). thrombocytopaenia and abdominal pain were the main dengue predictors, while presence of rash was the main predictor for chikungunya diagnosis. underreporting of dengue was 31%; the estimated expansion factors indicate an underreporting rate of dengue cases of threefold for all cases and of almost sixfold for inpatients. conclusions objectif these findings highlight the ongoing coexistence of both arboviruses, a distinct clinical profile of each condition in the study area that could be used by clinicians to generate a differential diagnosis, and the presence of underreporting, mostly among hospitalised cases." +"burden of dengue among febrile patients at the time of chikungunya introduction in piedecuesta, colombia",dengue; chikungunya; colombia; disease incidence; fever surveillance; underreporting; clinical characterisation,TROPICAL MEDICINE & INTERNATIONAL HEALTH,CARABALI M;LIM JK;PALENCIA DC;LOZANO PARRA A;GELVEZ RM;LEE KS;FLOREZ JP;HERRERA VM;KAUFMAN JS;ROJAS EM;VILLAR LA,"objective to estimate the age-specific incidence of symptomatic dengue and chikungunya in colombia. method results a passive facility-based fever surveillance study was conducted among individuals with undifferentiated fever. confirmatory diagnostics included serological and molecular tests in paired samples, and surveillance's underreporting was assessed using capture-recapture methods. of 839 febrile participants 686 completed the study. there were 33.2% (295/839) dengue infections (51% primary infections), and 35.9% (191/532) of negative dengue cases there were chikungunya cases. on average, dengue cases were younger (median = 18 years) than chikungunya cases (median = 25 years). thrombocytopaenia and abdominal pain were the main dengue predictors, while presence of rash was the main predictor for chikungunya diagnosis. underreporting of dengue was 31%; the estimated expansion factors indicate an underreporting rate of dengue cases of threefold for all cases and of almost sixfold for inpatients. conclusions objectif these findings highlight the ongoing coexistence of both arboviruses, a distinct clinical profile of each condition in the study area that could be used by clinicians to generate a differential diagnosis, and the presence of underreporting, mostly among hospitalised cases." full likelihood inference for abundance from continuous time capture-recapture data,abundance; andersen-gill model; capture-recapture experiment; conditional likelihood; empirical likelihood,JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY SERIES B-STATISTICAL METHODOLOGY,LIU Y;LIU YK;LI PF;QIN J,"capture-recapture experiments are widely used cost-effective sampling techniques for estimating population sizes or abundances in biology, ecology, demography, epidemiology and reliability studies. for continuous time capture-recapture data, existing estimation methods are based on conditional likelihoods and an inverse weighting estimating equation. the corresponding wald-type confidence intervals for the abundance may have severe undercoverage, and their lower limits can be below the number of individuals captured. we propose a full likelihood inference approach by combining a parametric or partial likelihood with the empirical likelihood. under both parametric and semiparametric intensity models, we demonstrate that the maximum likelihood estimator attains the semiparametric efficiency lower bound and that the full likelihood ratio statistic for the abundance is asymptotically (2) with 1 degree of freedom. simulations indicate that compared with conditional-likelihood-based methods, the maximum full likelihood estimator has a smaller mean-square error, and the likelihood ratio confidence intervals often have remarkable gains in coverage probability. we illustrate the advantages of the proposed approach by analysing illegal immigrant data for the netherlands and prinia flaviventris data from hong kong." hierarchical mark-recapture distance sampling to estimate moose abundance,abundance; alces alces; density hierarchical model; mark-recapture distance sampling; moose; washington state,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,OYSTER JH;KEREN IN;HANSEN SJK;HARRIS RB,"estimating the abundance of wide-ranging wildlife, difficult under any circumstances, is particularly challenging when detection is low and affected by factors that also influence density and distribution. in northeastern washington, moose (alces alces) have evidently increased since the 1970s but spend most of their time under coniferous cover that makes detection from the air difficult. we used a bayesian hierarchical approach to incorporate habitat use (in the form of availability as a function of canopy closure) into a detection model within a mark-recapture distance sampling framework to estimate moose density. our model of availability used a latent density surface employing habitat use data obtained from 17 adult female moose wearing global positioning system (gps) collars. distance sampling data, obtained from helicopter surveys in winters 2014, 2015, and 2016, consisted of double-observer detections of 166 moose groups along 2,241km of systematically placed line transects within 29 survey blocks selected using a stratified-random design. we estimated moose density over the entire survey area as 0.49/km(2) (95% credible interval=0.33-0.67/km(2)). extrapolated to the 10,513-km(2) survey area, we estimated 5,169 moose (95% credible interval=3,510-7,034). our methodology allowed us to adjust for availability bias and produce an estimate even where detection was difficult but required many hours of helicopter flights, acceptable weather conditions, and the availability of gps collared-moose. (c) 2018 the wildlife society." within- and between-year variations of reproductive strategy and cost in a population of siberian chipmunks,capital and income breeders; carry-over effects; delayed survival cost of reproduction; hibernation; tamias sibiricus,OECOLOGIA,LE COEUR C;PISANU B;CHAPUIS JL;ROBERT A,"reproduction costs depend on the general life-history strategies employed by organisms for resource acquisition, the decision rules on resource allocation, and the resource availability. although the predictability of resource availability is expected to influence the breeding strategy, the relationship between predictability and strategy has rarely been investigated at the population level. one reason is that, while the resource availability is commonly variable in space and time, their predictability is generally assumed constant. here, we addressed the temporal variation of the breeding strategy and its associated survival cost in a hibernating population of tamias sibiricus, in which food resources vary in their availability between years and in their predictability within years. based on 11years of mark-recapture data, we used multi-event modelling to investigate seasonal variations in reproduction costs of female chipmunks that breed twice a year (spring and summer). in summer, during which a large variety and quantity of resources is available (income breeding strategy), the proportion of breeding females was consistent across years and reproduction yielded no mortality cost. in contrast, in spring, the proportion of breeding females was positively correlated with the amount of resources available for hibernation (partial capital breeding strategy). spring reproduction yielded no immediate cost, but induced a delayed mortality cost over the next winter if future unknown conditions were unfavorable. our findings highlight complex temporal reproductive patterns in a short-lived species: not only does the modality of resource acquisition vary among seasons, but also the decision rule to breed and its associated cost." @@ -341,9 +341,9 @@ previous exposure to myxoma virus reduces survival of european rabbits during ou dispersal and alternative breeding site fidelity strategies in an amphibian,dispersal polymorphism; dispersal syndrome; amphibian,ECOGRAPHY,DENOEL M;DALLEUR S;LANGRAND E;BESNARD A;CAYUELA H,"dispersal (i.e. movement from a natal or breeding site to another breeding site) is a central process in ecology and evolution as it affects the eco-evolutionary dynamics of spatially structured populations. dispersal evolution is regulated by the balance between costs and benefits, which is influenced by the individual phenotype (i.e. phenotype-dependent dispersal) and environmental factors (i.e. condition-dependent dispersal). even though these processes have been extensively studied in species with simple life cycles, our knowledge about these mechanisms in organisms displaying complex life cycles remains fragmentary. in fact, little is specifically known about how the interplay between individual and environmental factors may lead to alternative dispersal strategies that, in turn, lead to the coexistence of contrasted site fidelity phenotypes. in this paper, we examined breeding dispersal in a pond-breeding amphibian, the great crested newt triturus cristatus, within usual walking distances for a newt. we took advantage of recent developments in multi-event capture-recapture models and used capture-recapture data (946 newts marked) collected in a spatially structured population occupying a large pond network (73 ponds). we showed a high rate of breeding site infidelity (i.e. pond use) and the coexistence of two dispersal phenotypes, namely, a highly pond faithful phenotype and a dispersing phenotype. individuals that were site faithful at time t - 1 were therefore more likely to remain site faithful at time t. our results also demonstrated that the probability that individuals belong to one or the other dispersal phenotypes depended on environmental and individual factors. in particular, we highlighted the existence of a dispersal syndrome implying a covariation pattern among dispersal behavior, body size, and survival. our work opens new research prospects in the evolution of dispersal in organisms displaying complex life cycles and raises interesting questions about the evolutionary pathways that contribute to the diversification of movement strategies in the wild." "transatlantic movement in porbeagle sharks, lamna nasus",mark-recapture; tagging; stock-mixing; migration; atlantic,FISHERIES RESEARCH,CAMERON LWJ;ROCHE W;GREEN P;HOUGHTON JDR;MENSINK PJ,"previous evidence from mark-recapture studies indicates that porbeagles in the north atlantic are divided into two distinct and isolated populations in the east and west. however, studies of population genetics have found no genetic differences between these populations indicating some level of genetic exchange. this study presents the first record of transatlantic movement by a porbeagle tagged in ireland and recovered by a faroese vessel in canadian waters after more than 10 years at liberty." density-dependent adult recruitment in a low-density tropical tree,bayesian state-space; density dependence; janzen connell; population dynamics; remote sensing,PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,KELLNER JR;HUBBELL SP,"the janzen-connell hypothesis is a well-known explanation for why tropical forests have large numbers of tree species. a fundamental prediction of the hypothesis is that the probability of adult recruitment is less in regions of high conspecific adult density, a pattern mediated by density-dependent mortality in juvenile life stages. although there is strong evidence in many tree species that seeds, seedlings, and saplings suffer conspecific density-dependent mortality, no study has shown that adult tree recruitment is negatively density dependent. density-dependent adult recruitment is necessary for the janzen-connell mechanism to regulate tree populations. here, we report density-dependent adult recruitment in the population of handroanthus guayacan, a wind-dispersed neotropical canopy tree species. we use data from high-resolution remote sensing to track individual trees with proven capacity to flower in a lowland moist forest landscape in panama and analyze these data in a bayesian framework similar to capture-recapture analysis. we independently quantify probabilities of adult tree recruitment and detection and show that adult recruitment is negatively density dependent. the annualized probability of adult recruitment was 3.03% . year(-1). despite the detection of negative density dependence in adult recruitment, it was insufficient to stabilize the adult population of h. guayacan, which increased significantly in size over the decade of observation." -estimating apparent survival of songbirds crossing the gulf of mexico during autumn migration,migration; geographical barriers; survival; wind profit; fat stores; swainson's thrush,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,WARD MP;BENSON TJ;DEPPE J;ZENZAL TJ;DIEHL RH;CELIS-MURILLO A;BOLUS R;MOORE FR,"many migratory bird species are declining, and the migratory period may limit populations because of the risk in traversing large geographical features during passage. using automated radio-telemetry, we tracked 139 swainson's thrushes (catharus ustulatus) departing coastal alabama, usa and crossing the gulf of mexico to arrive in the yucatan peninsula, mexico during autumn. we estimated apparent survival and examined how extrinsic (weather variables and day of year) and intrinsic (fat load, sex and age) factors influenced survival using a mark-recapture approach. we also examined how favourability of winds for crossing the gulf varied over the past 25 years. fat load, day of year and wind profit were important factors in predicting which individuals survived crossing the gulf. survival estimates varied with wind profit and fat, but generally, fat birds departing on days with favourable wind profits had an apparent survival probability of greater than 0.90, while lean individuals with no or negative wind profits had less than 0.33. the proportion of favourable nights varied within and among years, but has increased over the last 25 years. while conservation strategies cannot improve extrinsic factors, they can provide opportunities for birds to refuel before crossing large geographical features through protecting and creating high-quality stopover sites." -"movements and dispersal of brown trout (salmo trutta linnaeus, 1758) in mediterranean streams: influence of habitat and biotic factors",river connectivity; headwaters; mark-recapture; salmonidae; management,PEERJ,APARICIO E;ROCASPANA R;DE SOSTOA A;PALAU-IBARS A;ALCARAZ C,"dispersal is a critical determinant of animal distribution and population dynamics, and is essential information for management planning. we studied the movement patterns and the influence of habitat and biotic factors on mediterranean brown trout (salmo trutta) by mark-recapture methods in three headwater streams of the ebro basin (ne iberian peninsula). fish were sampled by electrofishing on five occasions over 18-24 months and movements of over 3,000 individually tagged trout (age 1+ onwards) were recorded. most of the tagged fish exhibited limited movement and were recaptured within 100 m from the initial capture section. small seasonal differences in the movement pattern were observed, but in two of the streams, displacement distances increased prior the spawning period in autumn. the frequency distributions of dispersal distances were highly leptokurtic and skewed to the right and fitted well to a two-group exponential model, thus trout populations were composed of mobile and stationary individuals, the latter being the predominant component in the populations (71.1-87.5% of individuals). the mean dispersal distances, for fish captured at least in three sampling events, ranged 20.7-45.4 m for the stationary group and 229.4-540.5 m for the mobile group. moving brown trout were larger than non-moving individuals and exhibited higher growth rates in two of the streams. habitat features were not consistently linked to movement rates, but there were some interaction effects between stream and habitat characteristics such as depth, cover and water velocity." -bayesian modeling of individual growth variability using back-calculation: application to pink cusk-eel (genypterus blacodes) off chile,individual variability; von bertalanffy model; student-t distribution; pink cusk-eel; chile,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,CONTRERAS-REYES JE;QUINTERO FOL;WIFF R,"the von bertalanffy growth function (vbgf) with random effects has been widely used to estimate growth parameters incorporating individual variability of length-at-age. trajectories of individual growth can be inferred using either mark-recapture or back-calculation of length-at-age from growth marks in hard body parts such as otoliths. modem statistical methods evaluate individual variation usually from mark-recapture data, and the parameters describing this function are estimated using empirical bayes methods assuming gaussian error. in this paper, we combine recent studies in non-gaussian distributions and a bayesian approach to model growth variability using back-calculated data in harvested fish populations. we presumed that errors in the vbgf can be assumed as a student-t distribution, given the abundance of individuals with extreme length values. the proposed method was applied and compared to the standard methods using back-calculated length-at-age data for pink cusk-eel (genypterus blacodes) off chile. considering several information criteria, and comparing males and females, we have found that males grow significantly faster than females, and that length-at-age for both sexes exhibits extreme length observations. comparisons indicated that a student-t model with mixed effects describes best back-calculated data regarding pink cusk-eel. this framework merged the strengths of different approaches to estimate growth parameters in harvested fish populations, considering modeling of individual variability of length-at-age, bayesian inference, and distribution of errors from the student-t model." +estimating apparent survival of songbirds crossing the gulf of mexico during autumn migration,migration; geographical barriers; survival; wind profit; fat stores; swainson's thrush,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,WARD MP;BENSON TJ;DEPPE J;ZENZAL TJ;DIEHL RH;CELIS MURILLO A;BOLUS R;MOORE FR,"many migratory bird species are declining, and the migratory period may limit populations because of the risk in traversing large geographical features during passage. using automated radio-telemetry, we tracked 139 swainson's thrushes (catharus ustulatus) departing coastal alabama, usa and crossing the gulf of mexico to arrive in the yucatan peninsula, mexico during autumn. we estimated apparent survival and examined how extrinsic (weather variables and day of year) and intrinsic (fat load, sex and age) factors influenced survival using a mark-recapture approach. we also examined how favourability of winds for crossing the gulf varied over the past 25 years. fat load, day of year and wind profit were important factors in predicting which individuals survived crossing the gulf. survival estimates varied with wind profit and fat, but generally, fat birds departing on days with favourable wind profits had an apparent survival probability of greater than 0.90, while lean individuals with no or negative wind profits had less than 0.33. the proportion of favourable nights varied within and among years, but has increased over the last 25 years. while conservation strategies cannot improve extrinsic factors, they can provide opportunities for birds to refuel before crossing large geographical features through protecting and creating high-quality stopover sites." +"movements and dispersal of brown trout (salmo trutta linnaeus, 1758) in mediterranean streams: influence of habitat and biotic factors",river connectivity; headwaters; mark-recapture; salmonidae; management,PEERJ,APARICIO E;ROCASPANA R;DE SOSTOA A;PALAU IBARS A;ALCARAZ C,"dispersal is a critical determinant of animal distribution and population dynamics, and is essential information for management planning. we studied the movement patterns and the influence of habitat and biotic factors on mediterranean brown trout (salmo trutta) by mark-recapture methods in three headwater streams of the ebro basin (ne iberian peninsula). fish were sampled by electrofishing on five occasions over 18-24 months and movements of over 3,000 individually tagged trout (age 1+ onwards) were recorded. most of the tagged fish exhibited limited movement and were recaptured within 100 m from the initial capture section. small seasonal differences in the movement pattern were observed, but in two of the streams, displacement distances increased prior the spawning period in autumn. the frequency distributions of dispersal distances were highly leptokurtic and skewed to the right and fitted well to a two-group exponential model, thus trout populations were composed of mobile and stationary individuals, the latter being the predominant component in the populations (71.1-87.5% of individuals). the mean dispersal distances, for fish captured at least in three sampling events, ranged 20.7-45.4 m for the stationary group and 229.4-540.5 m for the mobile group. moving brown trout were larger than non-moving individuals and exhibited higher growth rates in two of the streams. habitat features were not consistently linked to movement rates, but there were some interaction effects between stream and habitat characteristics such as depth, cover and water velocity." +bayesian modeling of individual growth variability using back-calculation: application to pink cusk-eel (genypterus blacodes) off chile,individual variability; von bertalanffy model; student-t distribution; pink cusk-eel; chile,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,CONTRERAS REYES JE;QUINTERO FOL;WIFF R,"the von bertalanffy growth function (vbgf) with random effects has been widely used to estimate growth parameters incorporating individual variability of length-at-age. trajectories of individual growth can be inferred using either mark-recapture or back-calculation of length-at-age from growth marks in hard body parts such as otoliths. modem statistical methods evaluate individual variation usually from mark-recapture data, and the parameters describing this function are estimated using empirical bayes methods assuming gaussian error. in this paper, we combine recent studies in non-gaussian distributions and a bayesian approach to model growth variability using back-calculated data in harvested fish populations. we presumed that errors in the vbgf can be assumed as a student-t distribution, given the abundance of individuals with extreme length values. the proposed method was applied and compared to the standard methods using back-calculated length-at-age data for pink cusk-eel (genypterus blacodes) off chile. considering several information criteria, and comparing males and females, we have found that males grow significantly faster than females, and that length-at-age for both sexes exhibits extreme length observations. comparisons indicated that a student-t model with mixed effects describes best back-calculated data regarding pink cusk-eel. this framework merged the strengths of different approaches to estimate growth parameters in harvested fish populations, considering modeling of individual variability of length-at-age, bayesian inference, and distribution of errors from the student-t model." two pulses of morphological diversification in pacific pelagic fishes following the cretaceous - palaeogene mass extinction,ichthyoliths; cretaceous - palaeogene mass extinction; fish evolution; fish teeth; morphometrics; capture - recapture,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,SIBERT E;FRIEDMAN M;HULL P;HUNT G;NORRIS R,"molecular phylogenies suggest some major radiations of open-ocean fish clades occurred roughly coincident with the cretaceous-palaeogene (k/pg) boundary, however the timing and nature of this diversification is poorly constrained. here, we investigate evolutionary patterns in ray-finned fishes across the k/pg mass extinction 66 million years ago (ma), using microfossils (isolated teeth) preserved in a south pacific sediment core spanning 72-43 ma. our record does not show significant turnover of fish tooth morphotypes at the k/pg boundary: only two of 48 cretaceous tooth morphotypes disappear at the event in the south pacific, a rate no different from background extinction. capture-mark-recapture analysis finds two pulses of origination in fish tooth morphotypes following the mass extinction. the first pulse, at approximately 64 ma, included short-lived teeth, as well as forms that contribute to an expansion into novel morpho-space. a second pulse, centred at approximately 58 ma, produced morphotype novelty in a different region of morphospace from the first pulse, and contributed significantly to eocene tooth morphospace occupation. there was no significant increase in origination rates or expansion into novel morphospace during the early or middle eocene, despite a near 10-fold increase in tooth abundance during that interval. our results suggest that while the k/pg event had a minor impact on fish diversity in terms of extinction, the removal of the few dominant cretaceous morphotypes triggered a sequence of origination events allowing fishes to rapidly diversify morphologically, setting the stage for exceptional levels of ray-finned fish diversity in the cenozoic." climatic influences on demography of the california mouse (peromyscus californicus) in semiarid oak woodland,california mouse; climate change; climatic effects on demographic parameters; demography; population growth rate; pradel's model; realized population growth rate; recruitment,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,TIETJE WD;POLYAKOV AY;ROLLAND V;HINES JE;OLI MK,"the california mouse (peromyscus californicus) inhabits semiarid oak (quercus spp.) woodlands and shrublands of california's southern coast ranges and lower slopes of the western sierra nevada. from 1993 to 2014, we studied the demography of california mice in semiarid oak woodland in coastal-central california. using capture-mark-recapture (cmr) methods, we estimated apparent survival (phi), recruitment (f), and realized population growth (lambda), and tested for the effects of climatic covariates on these demographic rates. monthly phi averaged 0.869, but it varied temporally between 0.507 and 0.954. monthly f averaged 0.146 and ranged from 0.027 to 0.556. monthly lambda averaged 0.996; however, lambda also exhibited strong temporal variation, ranging from 0.636 to 1.373. tests of singular covariate models revealed that phi was positively influenced by total rainfall (regression coefficient, beta = 0.449), but negatively influenced by average temperature (beta = -0.394) and by variability in temperature (beta = -0.412) and rainfall (beta = -0.147). recruitment was positively affected by total rainfall (beta = 0.203) and rainfall variability (beta = 0.120); it was negatively affected by temperature variability (beta = -0.162). however, the effect of rainfall and temperature on california mice varied across seasons. during winter, high temperature increased both phi (beta = 0.690) and f (beta = 0.754), but in summer these hot conditions reduced phi (beta = -1.087) and f (beta = -0.517). rainfall positively affected phi in both seasons (beta = 0.141 in winter; beta = 0.614 in summer). although rainfall positively affected f in winter (0.319), it had no discernible effect in summer. warmer, drier, and more variable climatic conditions, together with increasingly pervasive habitat alterations, especially wildfire, may threaten the persistence of some california mouse populations." density and distribution of a brown bear (ursus arctos) population within the caucasus biodiversity hotspot,anthropogenic disturbance; armenia; camera trap; genetic tagging; large carnivore conservation; lesser caucasus mountains; mining; multi-method occupancy model; spatially explicit capture-recapture; threatened species,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,BURTON AC;FISHER JT;ADRIAENS P;TREWEEK J;PAETKAU D;WIKSTROM M;CALLENDER A;VARDANYAN R;STEPANYAN A,"population declines and extirpations of large mammalian carnivores are major concerns for global biodiversity conservation. many large carnivores are vulnerable to conflict with humans and attract conservation attention for their flagship appeal and ecological importance. coexisting with carnivores requires an understanding of carnivore distribution and abundance relative to human activities and disturbances. such knowledge is often hindered by the rare and elusive nature of carnivores and the lack of systematic ecological surveys in biodiverse regions facing high levels of threat. the caucasus ecoregion is one such biodiversity hotspot harboring several threatened mammal species for which there is a paucity of reliable data, including brown bears (ursus arctos). caucasus brown bear populations have declined significantly from historical times and may be isolated and vulnerable to disturbance from development activities such as mining, as well as increasing hunting pressure. to inform land-use planning and bear conservation in the caucasus ecoregion, we conducted systematic surveys in may-october 2015 in the foothills of the caucasus mountains within the vayots dzor region of armenia. we used noninvasive genetic sampling, camera trapping, and statistical models that account for imperfect detection to estimate density and distribution of the bear population in the 1,000-km(2) study area. across 34 sampling sites, we obtained 3,163 camera-trap photos of brown bears and genotyped 28 individual bears (7 males and 21 females). spatially explicit capture-recapture models revealed an unexpectedly high density of bears (59. 4 / 1 ,000 km(2) ; females = 44.6, 95% confidence interval, ci = 25.4-78.4; males = 14.8, 95% ci = 6.6-34.0), and multi-method occupancy models indicated that bears were distributed across most of the study area (psi = 0.85; se = 0.07). these results provide robust evidence that a significant population of brown bears persists in armenia's vayots dzor region, despite a history of hunting and habitat loss that have driven declines in brown bear populations throughout much of the caucasus ecoregion. continued persistence of this flagship species may be threatened by mining, poaching, and other anthropogenic pressures in the region, underscoring the urgent need for strategic conservation planning, impact mitigation, and expanded ecological monitoring within this biodiversity hotspot." @@ -357,11 +357,11 @@ clinical and epidemiological features of myasthenia gravis in chilean population avian demographic responses to drought and fire: a community-level perspective,avian demography; capture-recapture; drought; fire; hierarchical model; maps program; mist-netting; productivity; survival; vital rates,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,SARACCO JF;FETTIG SM;SAN MIGUEL GL;MEHLMAN DW;THOMPSON BE;ALBERT SK,"drought stress is an important consideration for wildlife in arid and semiarid regions under climate change. drought can impact plant and animal populations directly, through effects on their physiology, as well as indirectly through effects on vegetation productivity and resource availability, and by creating conditions conducive to secondary disturbance, such as wildfire. we implemented a novel approach to understanding community-level demographic responses of birds and their habitats to these stressors in the context of climate change at 14 study sites in the four corners region of the southwestern united states. a large wildfire affecting three of the sites provided a natural experiment for also examining fire effects on vegetation and the bird community. we assessed (1) trends in drought and end-of-century (2071-2100) predicted average drought conditions under mid-range and high greenhouse gas concentration trajectory scenarios; (2) effects of drought and fire on habitat (vegetation greenness); and (3) effects of drought and fire on community-level avian productivity and adult apparent survival rates. drought has increased and is expected to increase further at our study sites under climate change. under spring drought conditions, vegetation greenness and avian productivity declined, while summer drought appeared to negatively affect adult apparent survival rates. response to fire was mixed; in the year of the fire, avian productivity declined, but was higher than normal for several years post-fire. our results highlight important links between environmental stressors and avian vital rates that will likely affect population trajectories in this region under climate change. we suggest that the use and continued development of community-level demographic models will provide useful tool for leveraging sparse species-level data to provide multi-species inferences and inform conservation." state space and movement specification in open population spatial capture-recapture models,camera-trapping; dispersal; markovian movement; population dynamics; tigers; transience,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GARDNER B;SOLLMANN R;KUMAR NS;JATHANNA D;KARANTH KU,"with continued global changes, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and habitat fragmentation, the need for assessment of long-term population dynamics and population monitoring of threatened species is growing. one powerful way to estimate population size and dynamics is through capture-recapture methods. spatial capture (scr) models for open populations make efficient use of capture-recapture data, while being robust to design changes. relatively few studies have implemented open scr models, and to date, very few have explored potential issues in defining these models. we develop a series of simulation studies to examine the effects of the state-space definition and between-primary-period movement models on demographic parameter estimation. we demonstrate the implications on a 10-year camera-trap study of tigers in india. the results of our simulation study show that movement biases survival estimates in open scr models when little is known about between-primary-period movements of animals. the size of the state-space delineation can also bias the estimates of survival in certain cases.we found that both the state-space definition and the between-primary-period movement specification affected survival estimates in the analysis of the tiger dataset (posterior mean estimates of survival ranged from 0.71 to 0.89). in general, we suggest that open scr models can provide an efficient and flexible framework for long-term monitoring of populations; however, in many cases, realistic modeling of between-primary-period movements is crucial for unbiased estimates of survival and density." "the spatial structure of variation in salamander survival, body condition and morphology in a headwater stream network",amphibian; fitness; morphology; salamander; spatial ecology,FRESHWATER BIOLOGY,LOWE WH;ADDIS BR;SMITH MR;DAVENPORT JM,"1. understanding the spatial structure of individual variation is critical to assessing the mechanisms and scale of species-level ecological and evolutionary responses. but the continuity and complexity of streams can make it difficult to discern spatial structure, and data on individual variation spanning spatial scales are rare. 2. our goal was to objectively resolve the scale of ecological and evolutionary processes affecting the salamander gyrinophilus porphyriticus by testing for spatial structure in individual variation across a headwater stream network. we used 3 years of spatially explicit capture mark recapture data from four headwater streams in the hubbard brook experimental forest, new hampshire, usa, to test for individual variation in survival at three scales: (a) among c. 2-km(2) watersheds, (b) in 500-m downstream and upstream reaches within watersheds and (c) in riffle and pool habitats along reaches. we also tested for corresponding spatial variation in individual body condition and morphology to gain insight on the causes and implications of variation in survival. 3. survival of g. porphyriticus larvae was constant among watersheds, but differed by reach and habitat. larval survival was higher in upstream reaches than downstream reaches, matching the distribution of predatory brook trout (salvelinus fontinalis), which were restricted to down-stream reaches. larval survival was also higher in pools than riffles. survival of g. porphyriticus adults was constant at all scales. 4. larval body condition was higher in downstream reaches than upstream reaches. both larvae and adults differed in morphology at the habitat scale: individuals in pools had longer limbs than individuals in riffles. 5. negative covariation in larval survival and body condition at the reach scale suggests that there is a trade-off between fitness and proximate performance along streams. the surprising differences between habitats in survival and morphology show the potential for fine-scale ecology evolution interactions in streams, potentially driven by differences in flow and gradient conditions in riffles and pools. 6. our results suggest that the larval stage is key to understanding individual, population and community-level processes affecting g. porphyriticus. more broadly, this research provides a novel empirical link between traditional studies of fine-scale ecological complexity in streams and recent studies showing consistent spatial dynamics at the network scale. by documenting differences in survival, body condition and morphology at reach and habitat scales, we hope this work shows the feasibility and value of spatially explicit approaches to species-level ecological and evolutionary questions in streams." -male throat colour polymorphism is related to differences in space use and in habitat selection in tree lizards,alternative reproductive strategies; habitat selection; colour polymorphism; urosaurus ornatus; spatial distribution,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,PATERSON JE;BLOUIN-DEMERS G,"habitat selection is the disproportionate use of some habitats relative to their availability and is used by animals to maximize fitness. habitat selection has been the dominant framework for predicting the spatial distribution of animals, but different habitat selection strategies can occur within a population when there are physical or behavioural differences between individuals. colour polymorphism is often linked to differences in other behavioural and morphological traits, and may therefore affect habitat selection strategy. male ornate tree lizards (urosaurus ornatus) exhibit a throat colour polymorphism associated with differences in behaviour and in reproductive strategy. blue-throated males are dominant and defend home ranges containing several females; orange-throated males are either nomadic or sedentary and do not defend territories; and yellow- or green-throated males are reproductive parasites that sneak copulations with females. we tested the hypothesis that throat colour in tree lizards affects habitat selection and space use with mark-recapture data collected from 10 sites in the chiricahua mountains of southeastern arizona, usa. we found that males with green throats moved more than males with blue throats, and that males with orange throats occupied smaller home ranges. male ornate tree lizards were closer to the highest quality habitat than if their spatial distribution was random, and green-throated males had a more marked preference for the highest quality habitat than blue-throated males. we found no difference in the departures of body temperatures from the preferred body temperature range between males of different throat colours. survival rates were similar for blue-, green- and orange-throated males. we demonstrated that throat colour polymorphism in ornate tree lizards is related to habitat selection strategy and this may help maintain the colour polymorphism." +male throat colour polymorphism is related to differences in space use and in habitat selection in tree lizards,alternative reproductive strategies; habitat selection; colour polymorphism; urosaurus ornatus; spatial distribution,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,PATERSON JE;BLOUIN DEMERS G,"habitat selection is the disproportionate use of some habitats relative to their availability and is used by animals to maximize fitness. habitat selection has been the dominant framework for predicting the spatial distribution of animals, but different habitat selection strategies can occur within a population when there are physical or behavioural differences between individuals. colour polymorphism is often linked to differences in other behavioural and morphological traits, and may therefore affect habitat selection strategy. male ornate tree lizards (urosaurus ornatus) exhibit a throat colour polymorphism associated with differences in behaviour and in reproductive strategy. blue-throated males are dominant and defend home ranges containing several females; orange-throated males are either nomadic or sedentary and do not defend territories; and yellow- or green-throated males are reproductive parasites that sneak copulations with females. we tested the hypothesis that throat colour in tree lizards affects habitat selection and space use with mark-recapture data collected from 10 sites in the chiricahua mountains of southeastern arizona, usa. we found that males with green throats moved more than males with blue throats, and that males with orange throats occupied smaller home ranges. male ornate tree lizards were closer to the highest quality habitat than if their spatial distribution was random, and green-throated males had a more marked preference for the highest quality habitat than blue-throated males. we found no difference in the departures of body temperatures from the preferred body temperature range between males of different throat colours. survival rates were similar for blue-, green- and orange-throated males. we demonstrated that throat colour polymorphism in ornate tree lizards is related to habitat selection strategy and this may help maintain the colour polymorphism." statistical test for detecting overdispersion in offspring number based on kinship information,close kin mark recapture; negative binomial distribution; overdispersion; relatedness; sweepstakes reproductive success,POPULATION ECOLOGY,AKITA T,"in this paper, we develop a theory of a new statistic that tests overdispersion in offspring number on the basis of exactly known kinship relationships. the statistic utilizes the sample size and the number of kinship pairs found in a sample, specially the number of mother-offspring (mo) and maternal-half-sibling (mhs) pairs. given a sufficiently large sample size, the statistic proposed in this paper approximately follows a standard-normal distribution under non-overdispersed conditions (poisson's variance). we found that (1) the value of the statistic reasonably indicates whether reproduction is overdispersed at the 5% significance level; (2) the power of the statistic is determined primarily by the balance between the degree of overdispersion and the sample size; (3) in many cases, if the number of kinship pairs can be approximated by a normal distribution, false-positive and false-negative situations can be avoided. the proposed method can detect moderate-weak levels of overdispersion that produce few mhs pairs in a sample because the effect of the population size (which determines the number of detected mhs pairs) is canceled by the detection of the number of mo pairs. once the kinship determination procedure is established, this indirect measurement will be readily applicable to species even with weak overdispersion, expanding the available opportunities for understanding how overdispersion in offspring number affects ecological processes." modelling heterogeneity in detection probabilities in land and aerial abundance surveys in humpback whales (megaptera novaeangliae),aerial survey; detection probability; g(0); land-based survey; population survey,POPULATION ECOLOGY,DUDGEON CL;DUNLOP RA;NOAD MJ,"the effective management and conservation of animal populations relies on statistically-sound and replicable surveys to obtain estimates of abundance and assess trends. surveys of cetaceans, such as humpback whales megaptera novaeangliae, are difficult to conduct and are particularly affected by bias in detection probability. for example, the probability of detection of whales from land decreases substantially with increased distance from the platform. this distance effect is also true for aerial surveys, combined with the problem that animals are unavailable for detection (underwater) whilst in the field of view. we present a novel approach that combines corrected double-platform land surveys with corrected aerial surveys to obtain a robust estimate of g(0), the probability of detection on the survey line, for aerial surveys of migrating humpback whales. several sources of heterogeneity in detection probabilities were identified within the land and aerial surveys (including group composition, bearing of first sighting, number of groups being tracked simultaneously and cloud cover). after including these into our estimate of g(0), we found that only 29% of available whales are being detected on the survey line (g(0)=0.288), which is a considerably smaller estimate than many available for humpback whales using other methods. incorporating heterogeneity into the population surveys shows that we are likely to be underestimating the population size of whales on the east coast of australia. the implications of this result for their conservation and management in light of increased whale-human conflict is discussed." -brown rats (rattus norvegicus) in urban ecosystems: are the constraints related to fieldwork a limit to their study?,rattus norvegicus; urban ecosystem; trapping; fieldwork; guidelines,URBAN ECOSYSTEMS,DESVARS-LARRIVE A;BALDI M;WALTER T;ZINK R;WALZER C,"nowadays, the majority of human beings live in urban ecosystems, with this proportion expected to continue increasing in the future. with the growing importance of urban rat-associated issues (e.g. damages to urban infrastructures, costs of rat-control programs, rat-associated health risks), it is becoming indispensable to fill the identified gaps in knowledge on the urban brown rat regarding, among others, its density, home range, genetic structure, and infectious status. in this context, live-trapping is a crucial prerequisite to any scientific investigation. this paper assesses the main constraints and challenges regarding the urban field and describes the major steps to be considered when planning research on urban rats. the primary challenges are i) the characterization of the urban experimental unit; ii) the choice of a trapping design: the use of live-trapping in capture-mark-recapture design, in association with modern statistics, is highly recommended to answer ecological questions (although these methods, mostly developed in natural ecosystems, need to be implemented for the urban field); iii) the potential ethical considerations with regard to animal welfare and field-worker safety; iv) the building of mutually-beneficial collaborations with city stakeholders, pest control professionals, and citizens. emphasis must be put on communication to the public and education of field-workers. one major need of modern urban rat research is a peer-validated field methodology allowing reproducibility, repeatability, and inference from urban field studies and enabling researchers to answer long-standing key questions about urban rat ecology." -how to estimate population size in crocodylians? population ecology of american crocodiles in coiba island as study case,crocodiles; mark-recapture; population density; population ecology; population size estimate; relative abundance; spotlight surveys,ECOSPHERE,BALAGUERA-REINA SA;VENEGAS-ANAYA MD;RIVERA-RIVERA B;MORALES RAMIREZ DA;DENSMORE LD,"reliable estimates of crocodylian population size are desirable for both understanding the ecology and natural history of species and developing sound conservation and management plans. however, choosing appropriate methods to estimate population numbers can be difficult due to the paucity of comprehensive analyses regarding their effectiveness, robustness, and applicability. we estimated the american crocodile population size in the southern tip of coiba island, panama, using both spotlight surveys (messel's and king's visible fraction estimations) and mark-recapture (popan formulation-superpopulation) methods. we assessed and compared the outcomes of these methods with the overall capture record for the study area from 2009 to 2013, evaluating their applicability, accuracy, strengths, and limitations. using historical and current capture data, we defined a minimum population size of similar to 112 non-hatchling animals in our study area, which was larger than both messel's (19.00 +/- 7.50 individuals) and king's (25.71 +/- 7.25 individuals) population size estimates, revealing that these latter approaches clearly underestimate population numbers. we estimated a total population size that range between 147 and 257 individuals based on popan formulation grouping the data by sex and age groups as the most plausible population size of the american crocodile population in this area at the time. we analyzed and discussed sources of bias in population size estimations for all methods used in the present study, providing recommendations to minimize errors and improve estimations. finally, we analyzed and compared population ecology attributes obtained in our study with what have been reported in other insular and coastal areas across the american crocodile range, increasing knowledge about the ecology of the species." +brown rats (rattus norvegicus) in urban ecosystems: are the constraints related to fieldwork a limit to their study?,rattus norvegicus; urban ecosystem; trapping; fieldwork; guidelines,URBAN ECOSYSTEMS,DESVARS LARRIVE A;BALDI M;WALTER T;ZINK R;WALZER C,"nowadays, the majority of human beings live in urban ecosystems, with this proportion expected to continue increasing in the future. with the growing importance of urban rat-associated issues (e.g. damages to urban infrastructures, costs of rat-control programs, rat-associated health risks), it is becoming indispensable to fill the identified gaps in knowledge on the urban brown rat regarding, among others, its density, home range, genetic structure, and infectious status. in this context, live-trapping is a crucial prerequisite to any scientific investigation. this paper assesses the main constraints and challenges regarding the urban field and describes the major steps to be considered when planning research on urban rats. the primary challenges are i) the characterization of the urban experimental unit; ii) the choice of a trapping design: the use of live-trapping in capture-mark-recapture design, in association with modern statistics, is highly recommended to answer ecological questions (although these methods, mostly developed in natural ecosystems, need to be implemented for the urban field); iii) the potential ethical considerations with regard to animal welfare and field-worker safety; iv) the building of mutually-beneficial collaborations with city stakeholders, pest control professionals, and citizens. emphasis must be put on communication to the public and education of field-workers. one major need of modern urban rat research is a peer-validated field methodology allowing reproducibility, repeatability, and inference from urban field studies and enabling researchers to answer long-standing key questions about urban rat ecology." +how to estimate population size in crocodylians? population ecology of american crocodiles in coiba island as study case,crocodiles; mark-recapture; population density; population ecology; population size estimate; relative abundance; spotlight surveys,ECOSPHERE,BALAGUERA REINA SA;VENEGAS ANAYA MD;RIVERA RIVERA B;MORALES RAMIREZ DA;DENSMORE LD,"reliable estimates of crocodylian population size are desirable for both understanding the ecology and natural history of species and developing sound conservation and management plans. however, choosing appropriate methods to estimate population numbers can be difficult due to the paucity of comprehensive analyses regarding their effectiveness, robustness, and applicability. we estimated the american crocodile population size in the southern tip of coiba island, panama, using both spotlight surveys (messel's and king's visible fraction estimations) and mark-recapture (popan formulation-superpopulation) methods. we assessed and compared the outcomes of these methods with the overall capture record for the study area from 2009 to 2013, evaluating their applicability, accuracy, strengths, and limitations. using historical and current capture data, we defined a minimum population size of similar to 112 non-hatchling animals in our study area, which was larger than both messel's (19.00 +/- 7.50 individuals) and king's (25.71 +/- 7.25 individuals) population size estimates, revealing that these latter approaches clearly underestimate population numbers. we estimated a total population size that range between 147 and 257 individuals based on popan formulation grouping the data by sex and age groups as the most plausible population size of the american crocodile population in this area at the time. we analyzed and discussed sources of bias in population size estimations for all methods used in the present study, providing recommendations to minimize errors and improve estimations. finally, we analyzed and compared population ecology attributes obtained in our study with what have been reported in other insular and coastal areas across the american crocodile range, increasing knowledge about the ecology of the species." integrating multiple genetic detection methods to estimate population density of social and territorial carnivores,abundance; canis; coyote; data integration; density; hair sampling; individual heterogeneity; noninvasive sampling; scat sampling; social; spatial capture-recapture; territorial,ECOSPHERE,MURPHY SM;AUGUSTINE BC;ADAMS JR;WAITS LP;COX JJ,"spatial capture-recapture models can produce unbiased estimates of population density, but sparse detection data often plague studies of social and territorial carnivores. integrating multiple types of detection data can improve estimation of the spatial scale parameter (sigma), activity center locations, and density. noninvasive genetic sampling is effective for detecting carnivores, but social structure and territoriality could cause differential detectability among population cohorts for different detection methods. using three observation models, we evaluated the integration of genetic detection data from noninvasive hair and scat sampling of the social and territorial coyote (canis latrans). although precision of estimated density was improved, particularly if sharing sigma between detection methods was appropriate, posterior probabilities of sigma and posterior predictive checks supported different sigma for hair and scat observation models. the resulting spatial capture-recapture model described a scenario in which scat-detected individuals lived on and around scat transects, whereas hair-detected individuals had larger sigma and mostly lived off of the detector array, leaving hair but not scat samples. a more supported interpretation is that individual heterogeneity in baseline detection rates (lambda(0)) was inconsistent between detection methods, such that each method disproportionately detected different population cohorts. these findings can be attributed to the sociality and territoriality of canids: residents may be more likely to strategically mark territories via defecation (scat deposition), and transients may be more likely to exhibit rubbing (hair deposition) to increase mate attraction. although this suggests that reliance on only one detection method may underestimate population density, integrating multiple sources of genetic detection data may be problematic for social and territorial carnivores. these data are typically sparse, modeling individual heterogeneity in lambda(0) and/or sigma with sparse data is difficult, and positive bias can be introduced in density estimates if individual heterogeneity in detection parameters that is inconsistent between detection methods is not appropriately modeled. previous suggestions for assessing parameter consistency of sigma between detection methods using bayesian model selection algorithms could be confounded by individual heterogeneity in lambda(0) in noninvasive detection data. we demonstrate the usefulness of augmenting those approaches with calibrated posterior predictive checks and plots of the posterior density of activity centers for key individuals." estimating the probability of movement and partitioning seasonal survival in an amphibian metapopulation,anuran; boreal toad; conservation; dispersal; multi-state mark-recapture; transients,ECOSPHERE,MUTHS E;BAILEY LL;LAMBERT BA;SCHNEIDER SC,"movement of individuals has been described as one of the best studied, but least understood concepts in ecology. the magnitude of movements, routes, and probability of movement have significant application to conservation. information about movement can inform efforts to model species persistence and is particularly applicable in situations where specific threats (e.g., disease) may depend on the movement of hosts and potential vectors. we estimated the probability of movement (breeding dispersal and permanent emigration) in a metapopulation of 16 breeding sites for boreal toads (anaxyrus boreasboreas). we used a multi-state mark-recapture approach unique in its complexity (16 sites over 18 yr) to address questions related to these movements and variation in resident survival. we found that individuals had a 1-2% probability of dispersing in a particular year and that approximately 10-20% of marked individuals were transient and observed in the metapopulation only once. resident survival probabilities differed by season, with 71-90% survival from emergence from hibernation through early post-breeding and >97% survival from mid-/late active season through hibernation. movement-related probabilities are needed to predict species range expansions and contractions, estimate population and metapopulation dynamics, understand host-pathogen and native-invasive species interactions, and to evaluate the relative effects of proposed management actions." on the importance of having a good mother: maternal investment affects duckling mortality risk in wood ducks,duckling mortality; maternal effects; capture-mark-recapture,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,SEDINGER BS;STEWART KM;NICOLAI CA,"most avian populations experience more variation in recruitment than adult survival, and this drives much of the change in population growth rates from year to year. in duck species, the probability of duckling survival is an important component of recruitment into the breeding population. we investigated how variation in maternal investment in offspring by nesting female wood duck aix sponsa affected duckling mortality (1-survival) to 60 days of age using capture-mark-recapture techniques. our primary sample consisted of 3035 ducklings, from 545 nests, that were marked with uniquely coded webtags on the day of hatch over nine nesting seasons (2008-2016). we also included 4437 hatch-year and after-hatch-year individuals to increase precision on parameter estimates because some ducklings were not recaptured until after fledging. duckling mortality was greatest during the first week of life and approached zero by the second week after hatching. we observed a quadratic effect of hatch date on duckling mortality suggesting that successful females improve fitness by nesting early in the year, but not too early (15 days before mean hatch). increased egg volume and duckling mass reduced the probability of ducking mortality. our results suggest that risk of mortality for ducklings is influenced, at least in part, by maternal effects, which are manifested through energy allocation and behavior during the breeding season. as such, individual heterogeneity among breeding females affects duckling mortality risk and likely the recruitment process for wood ducks." @@ -380,7 +380,7 @@ intra- and interspecific densities shape life-history traits in a salmonid popul using temporary emigration to inform movement behaviour of cave-dwelling invertebrates: a case study of a cave harvestman species,facultative cave-dwelling species; harvestman; movement behaviour; multi- event models,ECOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY,BANCILA RI;PRADEL R;CHOQUET R;PLAIASU R;GIMENEZ O,"1. understanding of animal movement behaviour is critical for developing appropriate conservation strategies because of its profound implications for predicting species' responses to perturbations. to date there is a substantial knowledge gap of the movement behaviour of subterranean invertebrates. 2. in this study temporary emigration (te), the probability that an individual is absent from the cave on a given sampling occasion, was used as a method to inform on the movement and behaviour of cave-dwelling invertebrates. because these animals are difficult to study with traditional tracking techniques, the capture-recapture (cr) modelling framework was used to assess te and to account for imperfect detectability and unobservable states. 3. specifically, the influence of season, sex, and surface weather variables on the te of the facultative cave-dwelling harvestman species, paranemastoma sillii sillii (herman, 1871), was investigated. multistate cr models were used while accounting for individual heterogeneity on 999 individually marked adults of two populations inhabiting two caves, located in southwestern romania. 4. harvestmen demonstrated clear heterogeneity and seasonality in te. findings showed that the te of harvestmen exhibited variation between caves and there was little support for surface weather variables influencing te and for sex-specific te patterns. 5. these results show that the study of te patterns is useful to gain valuable insights into movement and intrinsic behavioural processes of cave-dwelling harvestmen. the method could potentially be used for other invertebrate groups with similar movement characteristics and when traditional tracking techniques are difficult." environmental causes of between-population difference in growth rate of a high-altitude lizard,phrynocephalus vlangalii; elevational variation; growth rate; food availability; activity period,BMC ECOLOGY,LU HL;XU CX;ZENG ZG;DU WG,"background: ectothermic animals living in cold (high latitude or high elevation) regions are predicted to grow slower due to limited thermal opportunities for activity and food resources than those living in warm regions. however, the qinghai toad-headed lizards (phrynocephalus vlangalii) grow faster and reach a larger adult size at a high-elevation site than at a low-elevation site. in this study, we aimed to identify the genetic and environmental causes of this between-population difference in growth rate by conducting mark-recapture and common garden experiments on juvenile growth rate, and investigating the thermal environment, lizard body temperature, potential prey availability at the two elevation sites. results: compared with low-elevation individuals, high-elevation juvenile lizards had higher growth rates in the field, but grew at similar rates in the laboratory. high-elevation lizards had higher active body temperatures than low-elevation lizards despite similar air temperatures in the period of field investigation. the high-elevation site had relatively more and larger preys than the low-elevation site. conclusions: inter-population difference in growth rate of p. vlangalii may primarily result from developmental plasticity in response to the difference in environmental resources, rather than genetic differentiation. the higher growth rate of high-elevation lizards is likely associated with higher potential food availability and higher active body temperatures." forest management and conservation of an elusive amphibian in the alps: habitat selection by the golden alpine salamander reveals the importance of fine woody debris,amphibian conservation; brushwood piles; edge effect; endangered species; forest management; occupancy,FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,ROMANO A;COSTA A;SALVIDIO S;MENEGON M;GAROLLO E;DE FATIS KT;MISEROCCHI D;MATTEUCCI G;PEDRINI P,"amphibians are declining worldwide and one of the major causes of such decline is habitat loss. forestry practices have a primary role in causing habitat loss and fragmentation, detrimental to amphibians. we studied the ecological requirements of a fully terrestrial and threatened amphibian, the golden alpine salamander salamandra atra aurorae, which is endemic to a small portion of the italian alps. this rare and elusive salamander lives exclusively in forest environments and forestry practices are considered among its major threats. we employed both a capture-mark-recapture (cmr) and an occupancy approach in fifty 400 m(2) plots, within a managed mixed forest dominated by norway spruce and to a lesser extent beech, and silver fir. modelling salamander occupancy as a function of site-specific habitat features allowed us to understand the ecological requirements of this salamander and provide precise guidelines for forest management. the application of hierarchical models (occupancy) for evaluating forest management plans is highly effective, requires less effort and is a less impacting methodology than cmr performed by searching for salamanders under shelters also in non-optimal weather conditions. distance from open pasture edges significantly affects the distribution of salamanders while, at a smaller scale, brushwood piles, classified as fine woody debris (fwd, diameter from 1 to 10 cm), play a key role in providing suitable habitat for this endangered amphibian. the importance of fwd in the conservation of small vertebrates is generally poorly studied and probably underestimated. however, our results show that fwd should be considered as an additional element that has to be managed to enhance habitat suitability for this and, intuitively, for other small forest vertebrates." -fungal infection has sublethal effects in a lowland subtropical amphibian population,capture-mark-recapture; chytridiomycosis; disease tolerance; wildlife disease,BMC ECOLOGY,BRANNELLY LA;CHATFIELD MWH;SONN J;ROBAK M;RICHARDS-ZAWACKI CL,"background: the amphibian chytrid fungus, batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (bd), has been implicated as a primary cause of decline in many species around the globe. however, there are some species and populations that are known to become infected in the wild, yet declines have not been observed. here we conducted a yearlong capture-mark-recapture study and a 2-year long disease monitoring study of northern cricket frogs, acris crepitans, in the lowland subtropical forests of louisiana. results: we found little evidence for an impact of bd infection on survival; however, bd infection did appear to cause sublethal effects, including increased capture probability in the field. conclusions: our study suggests that even in apparently stable populations, where bd does not appear to cause mortality, there may be sublethal effects of infection that can impact a host population's dynamics and structure. understanding and documenting such sublethal effects of infection on wild, seemingly stable populations is important, particularly for predicting future population declines." +fungal infection has sublethal effects in a lowland subtropical amphibian population,capture-mark-recapture; chytridiomycosis; disease tolerance; wildlife disease,BMC ECOLOGY,BRANNELLY LA;CHATFIELD MWH;SONN J;ROBAK M;RICHARDS ZAWACKI CL,"background: the amphibian chytrid fungus, batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (bd), has been implicated as a primary cause of decline in many species around the globe. however, there are some species and populations that are known to become infected in the wild, yet declines have not been observed. here we conducted a yearlong capture-mark-recapture study and a 2-year long disease monitoring study of northern cricket frogs, acris crepitans, in the lowland subtropical forests of louisiana. results: we found little evidence for an impact of bd infection on survival; however, bd infection did appear to cause sublethal effects, including increased capture probability in the field. conclusions: our study suggests that even in apparently stable populations, where bd does not appear to cause mortality, there may be sublethal effects of infection that can impact a host population's dynamics and structure. understanding and documenting such sublethal effects of infection on wild, seemingly stable populations is important, particularly for predicting future population declines." "a holistic approach to the age validation of mullus barbatus l., 1758 in the southern adriatic sea (central mediterranean)",NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,CARBONARA P;INTINI S;KOLITARI J;JOKSIMOVIC A;MILONE N;LEMBO G;CASCIARO L;BITETTO I;ZUPA W;SPEDICATO MT;SION L,"the growth of mullus barbatus has been widely studied using different methods, but no previous study has focused on age validation. the uncertainty in estimating the age of the red mullet by otolith reading is linked to the number of false-growth increments laid down before the annulus. the capture of red mullets in the early life stage allowed us to estimate their size at the metamorphosis from the pelagic to the demersal phase. the comparison between the metamorphosis size and the back-calculated length of the first growth increment clarified the position of the false growth increment on the otolith. moreover, the analyses of the otolith marginal increments in adult and juvenile specimens allowed us to define the deposition patterns of their annuli. the modal components of the length-frequency distribution analysis (lfda) were identified in the winter survey (elefan and bhattacharya methods), and they did not show significant differences from the length back-calculation of the annuli. moreover, no significant differences were found between the growth curves calculated by otolith reading (back-calculation and direct otolith reading) and the lfda. the agreement between the length-frequency results and the otolith age estimation either corroborated or indirectly validated the growth pattern estimated in the otoliths of the red mullet, mainly when the direct validation methods (e.g. mark-recapture, captivity, radiochemical) were difficult to implement, like the case of this species. the comparison of the results of the present work to previous mediterranean studies showed agreement with the slow growth pattern." minimum longevity estimates for some neotropical landbirds of southeastern peru,bird banding; life history; lifespan; manu national park; mark-recapture; tropical birds,WILSON JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,SCHOLER MN;MERKORD CL;LONDONO GA;JANKOWSKI JE,"relatively little is known about the longevity of free-living landbirds, especially in the tropics. we used mark-recapture data for birds originally banded in 2005 and 2006, and later recaptured between 2011 and 2016, to estimate minimum longevity for 20 species from southeastern peru. the oldest recorded longevity was 10 years, 6 months for a black-billed treehunter (thripadecres melanorhynchus). another notable record was for a russet-crowned warbler (myiothlypis comnata; 9 years, 2 months). our estimated minimum longevity records generally reflect the findings of other researchers, indicating that tropical birds are often markedly site faithful and long-lived." multiple challenges confront a high-effort inland recreational fishery in decline,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,CAHILL CL;MOGENSEN S;WILSON KL;CANTIN A;SINNATAMBY RN;PAUL AJ;CHRISTENSEN P;REILLY JR;WINKEL L;FARINEAU A;POST JR,"catch-and-release regulations designed to protect fisheries may fail to halt population declines, particularly in situations where fishing effort is high and when multiple stressors threaten a population. we demonstrate this claim using alberta's bow river, which supports a high-effort rainbow trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) fishery where anglers voluntarily release >99% of their catch. we examined the population trend of adult trout, which were tagged and recaptured using electro-fishing surveys conducted intermittently during 2003-2013. we constructed bayesian multisession capture-recapture models in stan to obtain abundance estimates for trout and regressed trend during two periods to account for variation in sampling locations. general patterns from all models indicated the population declined throughout the study. potential stressors to this system that may have contributed to the decline include whirling disease (myxobolus cerebralis), which was detected for the first time in 2016, notable floods, and release mortality. because disease and floods are largely uncontrollable from a management perspective, we suggest that stringent tactics such as angler effort restrictions may be necessary to maintain similar fisheries." @@ -405,32 +405,32 @@ estimating disperser abundance using open population models that incorporate dat the frequency of leg autotomy and its influence on survival in natural populations of the wolf spider pardosa valens,pardosa valens; antipredator behaviors; autotomy; fitness costs; predation risk; survival; wolf spiders; rabidosa santrita,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,BROWN CA;AMAYA CC;FORMANOWICZ DR,"autotomy occurs when an animal intentionally sacrifices an appendage to escape predation or free a limb. while immediately beneficial, loss of an appendage can lead to a variety of future costs. in many spiders, leg autotomy is common; previous work has sometimes demonstrated autotomy costs in some behaviors, while other times, no costs of autotomy occur. we examined frequency of autotomy in two riparian zone populations of the wolf spider pardosa valens barnes, 1959 and then used both mark-recapture work at these sites and laboratory predation trials to determine whether autotomy affected survival. autotomy occurred in 31% of spiders; males were more likely than females to have a missing leg, but female reproductive status (carrying an egg sac or not) was unrelated to leg loss status. at both sites, survival over 1 week in the field was significantly higher for intact spiders than for spiders missing a leg, for both sexes and both female reproductive states. additionally, when we paired intact and autotomized spiders with a predator (the larger wolf spider rabidosa santrita (chamberlin & ivie, 1942)), autotomized spiders were more likely to be attacked and eaten. our results suggest that leg autotomy in p. valens leads to a significant future survival cost, and we discuss how this cost may affect males and females differently." modelling sound attenuation in heterogeneous environments for improved bioacoustic sampling of wildlife populations,acoustic monitoring; bioacoustics; distance sampling; least-cost path models; sound attenuation; sound pressure audiogram; spatial capture-recapture; telemetry,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ROYLE JA,"1. acoustic sampling methods are becoming increasingly important in biological monitoring. sound attenuation is one of the most important dynamics affecting the utility of acoustic data as it directly affects the probability of detection of individuals by acoustic sensor arrays and especially the localization of acoustic signals necessary in telemetry studies. therefore, models of sound attenuation are necessary to make efficient use of acoustic data in ecological monitoring and assessment applications. models of attenuation in widespread use are based on euclidean distance between source and sensor, which is justified under spherical attenuation of sound waves in homogeneous environments. 2. in this paper, i develop a model of sound attenuation based on a non-euclidean cost-weighted distance metric which contains attenuation coefficients that characterize the attenuation of sound due to environmental heterogeneity in the vicinity of an acoustic sensor array. 3. i show that parameters of the proposed attenuation model can be estimated by maximum likelihood using experimental data from an array of fixed sources, thus allowing investigators who use bioacoustic methods to devise explicit models of sound attenuation in situ and apply them to localization of sources and density estimation. in addition, drawing on analogy with spatial capture-recapture models, i argue that parameters of the non-euclidean model of attenuation can be estimated when source locations are unknown. thus, the models can be applied to real field studies which require estimation of attenuation parameters or localization of signals. 4. models of heterogeneous sound attenuation allow more accurate descriptions of acoustic monitoring data, and therefore should produce more accurate estimates of ecological parameters of interest, including source locations, density, and movement trajectories. moreover, the ability to test specific hypotheses about the effects of habitat and landscape structure on sound attenuation can improve the design of acoustic monitoring arrays and lead to more efficient deployment of acoustic sensing technology." reintroducing a keystone burrowing rodent to restore an arid north american grassland: challenges and successes,burrowing mammals; capture-mark-recapture; cynomys gunnisoni; ecosystem engineer; tag loss; wildlife translocation,RESTORATION ECOLOGY,DAVIDSON AD;HUNTER EA;ERZ J;LIGHTFOOT DC;MCCARTHY AM;MUELLER JK;SHOEMAKER KT,"prairie dogs (cynomys spp.) are important ecosystem engineers in north america's central grasslands, and are a key prey base for numerous predators. prairie dogs have declined dramatically across their former range, prompting reintroduction efforts to restore their populations and ecosystem functions, but the success of these reintroductions is rarely monitored rigorously. here, we reintroduced 2,400 gunnison's prairie dogs (c. gunnisoni) over a period of 6 years to the sevilleta national wildlife refuge, in central new mexico, u.s.a., a semi-arid grassland ecosystem at the southern edge of their range. we evaluated the population dynamics of prairie dogs following their reintroduction, and their consequent effects on grassland vertebrates. we found postrelease survival of prairie dogs stabilized at levels typical for the species (ca. 50%) after approximately 1 month, while average annual recruitment was ca. 0.35 juveniles per female, well below what was required for a self-sustaining, stable population. extreme drought conditions during much of the study period may have contributed to low recruitment. however, recruitment increased steadily over time, indicating that the reintroduced colony may simply need more time to establish in this arid system. we also found well-known associates of prairie dog colonies, such as american badgers (taxidea taxus) and burrowing owls (athene cunicularia), were significantly more common on the colonies than off. after 7 years, we have yet to meet our goal of establishing a self-sustaining population of gunnison's prairie dogs in this semi-arid grassland. but despite the uncertainty and challenges, our work shows that reestablishing keystone species can promote ecosystem restoration." -abundance and catchability estimates of the atlantic blue crab callinectes sapidus based on mark-recapture data from the northern yucatan peninsula,callinectes sapidus; atlantic blue crab; density; jolly-seber model; catchability; cpue,JOURNAL OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM,VILLEGAS-HERNANDEZ H;POOT-LOPEZ GR;LOPEZ-ROCHA JA;GONZALEZ-SALAS C;GUILLEN-HERNANDEZ S,"a short-term jolly-seber mark-recapture model experiment is described. this experiment was aimed at estimating the rate of catch per unit effort (cpue) and the catchability coefficient (q) of the atlantic blue crab (callinectes sapidus) in the fishing port of sisal, yucatan, mexico. to estimate the local population size, 52 traps were deployed along four transects located in a coastal capture area of 3600 m(-2). the cpue and q were compared between the daily mark-recapture jolly-seber experiment and the bi-monthly (carried out every 2 months) samplings. the average abundance was estimated at 3475 individuals. all three suggested scenarios, applied to estimate densities, gave similar estimates, i.e. 0.0386, 0.0350, 0.0365 crabs m(-2) for the first (previously cited attraction radius), second (cpue per transect) and third (catchability-density relationship), respectively. based on the latter scenario, densities ranged from 27,900 (annual average) to 36,500 (spring) crabs km(-2). the average cpue of the daily mark-recapture experiment was estimated at 1.96 crabs trap(-1), whereas the average bi-monthly cpue was estimated at 1.13 crabs trap(-1). the q (per trap) was estimated at 0.0186 for the daily mark-recapture experiment and at 0.0247 for the bi-monthly sampling. both catchability and cpue increased in individuals whose size ranged between 110 and 170 mm cw. however, no significant difference (ancovas) was found between the daily and bi-monthly samplings neither in cpue nor in catchability. the use of both mark-recapture data and the jolly-seber model proved to be a fast and reliable method for estimating the abundance and catchability of atlantic blue crab." +abundance and catchability estimates of the atlantic blue crab callinectes sapidus based on mark-recapture data from the northern yucatan peninsula,callinectes sapidus; atlantic blue crab; density; jolly-seber model; catchability; cpue,JOURNAL OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM,VILLEGAS HERNANDEZ H;POOT LOPEZ GR;LOPEZ ROCHA JA;GONZALEZ SALAS C;GUILLEN HERNANDEZ S,"a short-term jolly-seber mark-recapture model experiment is described. this experiment was aimed at estimating the rate of catch per unit effort (cpue) and the catchability coefficient (q) of the atlantic blue crab (callinectes sapidus) in the fishing port of sisal, yucatan, mexico. to estimate the local population size, 52 traps were deployed along four transects located in a coastal capture area of 3600 m(-2). the cpue and q were compared between the daily mark-recapture jolly-seber experiment and the bi-monthly (carried out every 2 months) samplings. the average abundance was estimated at 3475 individuals. all three suggested scenarios, applied to estimate densities, gave similar estimates, i.e. 0.0386, 0.0350, 0.0365 crabs m(-2) for the first (previously cited attraction radius), second (cpue per transect) and third (catchability-density relationship), respectively. based on the latter scenario, densities ranged from 27,900 (annual average) to 36,500 (spring) crabs km(-2). the average cpue of the daily mark-recapture experiment was estimated at 1.96 crabs trap(-1), whereas the average bi-monthly cpue was estimated at 1.13 crabs trap(-1). the q (per trap) was estimated at 0.0186 for the daily mark-recapture experiment and at 0.0247 for the bi-monthly sampling. both catchability and cpue increased in individuals whose size ranged between 110 and 170 mm cw. however, no significant difference (ancovas) was found between the daily and bi-monthly samplings neither in cpue nor in catchability. the use of both mark-recapture data and the jolly-seber model proved to be a fast and reliable method for estimating the abundance and catchability of atlantic blue crab." "advances on the group composition, mating system, roosting and flight behaviour of the european free-tailed bat (tadarida teniotis)",bimodal cycle; harem; high altitude flight; reproduction; resource defense polygyny; songs,MAMMALIA,BALMORI A,"we investigated a large colony of european free-tailed bats (tadarida teniotis) in spain, using a combination of capture-mark-recapture data and direct observations. its social and reproductive organisation is complex and the mating system fits a ""resource defence polygyny"" model. in spring and autumn, aggressive interactions in flight, defence of roosts and mating songs of males to attract females occurred. according to our results, t. teniotis is organised in ""harems"" consisting of a dominant male and a variable number of females. in addition the sexual cycle displayed a bimodal reproductive pattern (this is unique and remarkable for european bats). the bimodal pattern coincided with peaks in food availability (moths) at high altitudes. presumably, roost-guarding activities (patrolling, advertising.) make males less prone to move away (e.g. at higher altitudes and longer distances) from roosts, resulting in differences in prey selection and in altitudinal segregation between sexes. this provides a plausible explanation for the differences in diet (predation of more sedentary vs. high-flying migratory moths) between males and females that has been found in published studies." -disentangling synergistic disease dynamics: implications for the viral biocontrol of rabbits,biocontrol; disease transmission; epidemiological dynamics; host-pathogen interactions; invasive species management; myxoma virus; rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus; virulence,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,WELLS K;FORDHAM DA;BROOK BW;CASSEY P;COX T;O'HARA RB;SCHWENSOW NI,"european rabbits (oryctolagus cuniculus) have been exposed to rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (rhdv) and myxoma virus (myxv) in their native and invasive ranges for decades. yet, the long-term effects of these viruses on rabbit population dynamics remain poorly understood. in this context, we analysed 17years of detailed capture-mark-recapture data (2000-2016) from turretfield, south australia, using a probabilistic state-space hierarchical modelling framework to estimate rabbit survival and epidemiological dynamics. while rhdv infection and disease-induced death were most prominent during annual epidemics in winter and spring, we found evidence for continuous infection of susceptible individuals with rhdv throughout the year. rhdv-susceptible rabbits had, on average, 25% lower monthly survival rates compared to immune individuals, while the average monthly force of infection in winter and spring was similar to 38%. these combined to result in an average infection-induced mortality rate of 69% in winter and spring. individuals susceptible to myxv and immune to rhdv had similar survival probabilities to those having survived infections from both viruses, whereas individuals susceptible to both rhdv and myxv had higher survival probabilities than those susceptible to rhdv and immune to myxv. this suggests that myxv may reduce the future survival rates of individuals that endure initial myxv infection. there was no evidence for long-term changes in disease-induced mortality and infection rates for either rhdv or myxv. we conclude that continuous, year-round virus perpetuation (and perhaps heterogeneity in modes of transmission and infectious doses during and after epidemics) acts to reduce the efficiency of rhdv and myxv as biocontrol agents of rabbits in their invasive range. however, if virulence can be maintained as relatively constant through time, rhdv and myxv will likely continue realizing strong benefits as biocontrol agents." +disentangling synergistic disease dynamics: implications for the viral biocontrol of rabbits,biocontrol; disease transmission; epidemiological dynamics; host-pathogen interactions; invasive species management; myxoma virus; rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus; virulence,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,WELLS K;FORDHAM DA;BROOK BW;CASSEY P;COX T;O HARA RB;SCHWENSOW NI,"european rabbits (oryctolagus cuniculus) have been exposed to rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (rhdv) and myxoma virus (myxv) in their native and invasive ranges for decades. yet, the long-term effects of these viruses on rabbit population dynamics remain poorly understood. in this context, we analysed 17years of detailed capture-mark-recapture data (2000-2016) from turretfield, south australia, using a probabilistic state-space hierarchical modelling framework to estimate rabbit survival and epidemiological dynamics. while rhdv infection and disease-induced death were most prominent during annual epidemics in winter and spring, we found evidence for continuous infection of susceptible individuals with rhdv throughout the year. rhdv-susceptible rabbits had, on average, 25% lower monthly survival rates compared to immune individuals, while the average monthly force of infection in winter and spring was similar to 38%. these combined to result in an average infection-induced mortality rate of 69% in winter and spring. individuals susceptible to myxv and immune to rhdv had similar survival probabilities to those having survived infections from both viruses, whereas individuals susceptible to both rhdv and myxv had higher survival probabilities than those susceptible to rhdv and immune to myxv. this suggests that myxv may reduce the future survival rates of individuals that endure initial myxv infection. there was no evidence for long-term changes in disease-induced mortality and infection rates for either rhdv or myxv. we conclude that continuous, year-round virus perpetuation (and perhaps heterogeneity in modes of transmission and infectious doses during and after epidemics) acts to reduce the efficiency of rhdv and myxv as biocontrol agents of rabbits in their invasive range. however, if virulence can be maintained as relatively constant through time, rhdv and myxv will likely continue realizing strong benefits as biocontrol agents." demographic response to patch destruction in a spatially structured amphibian population,amphibians; dispersal; habitat destruction; habitat rehabilitation; logging; spatially structured population; survival; yellow-bellied toad,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,CAYUELA H;BESNARD A;QUAY L;HELDER R;LENA JP;JOLY P;PICHENOT J,"1. economic activities such as logging and mineral extraction can result in the creation of new anthropogenic habitats that host specific biodiversity, including protected species. however, the legislation in many western european countries requires the rehabilitation of ""damaged"" areas following logging and mining operations, which can eliminate these early successional habitats. conservation managers face a dilemma in these situations, but often lack knowledge about the impacts of environmental rehabilitation on the population dynamics of pioneer species and so are unable to take this into account in their actions. 2. we investigated the demography of a spatially structured population of an endangered amphibian (bombina variegata) that uses waterbodies created by logging activities as breeding sites. using capture-recapture (cr) data collected during a 9-year study period, we examined how the destruction of breeding patches due to environmental rehabilitation affected adult survival and the long-term population growth rate. for this purpose, we used recently developed capture-recapture multievent models to estimate survival and dispersal rates in the spatially structured population. we then used these estimates to simulate population trajectories and viability depending on differing frequency of breeding patch destruction. 3. the multievent models revealed that dispersal not resulting from patch loss was relatively high and was sex biased. they also highlighted that patch destruction had a negative impact on adult survival. moreover, simulations showed that the increase in patch destruction frequency had a strong negative influence on the population growth rate, even when the number of patches remained constant over time. this impact was intensified if female fecundity was also affected." estimating size of drug users in macau: an open population capture-recapture model with data augmentation using public registration data,illicit drug users; open population; capture-recapture method; data augmentation; macau,ASIAN JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY,CAI TJ;XIA YW,"successful drug intervention policies rely on timely assessment of size of drug users and close monitoring of trend regarding drug abuse. taking advantage of data collected by the central registration system for drug abusers of macau (crsdam), this study applied open population capture-recapture models with data augmentation techniques to estimate the size of drug users and to identify influential factors on capture and survival probabilities from 2009 to 2014. in particular, the data augmentation technique was used to address missing data issues. the estimated size of drug users has been slowly declining from 2442 (95% bayesian credible interval [bci] 2042-2914) in 2009 to 807 (95% bci 654-1000) in 2014 with a small fluctuation of 2251 (95% bic 1950-2599) in 2011, and the estimated cumulative size of drug users is 6199 (95% bci 5651-6873), which is correspondent to a prevalence rate of 1.20% of the current population aged 15 to 54. although the estimated sizes of total, narcotic, and other drug users were declining, the size of stimulant users might be increasing. people who used narcotics as their first drug and who were reported by governmental agencies were more likely to stay in the registration system, while those who used needle injection were less likely to stay. governmental agencies, higher education, and using needle injection were negatively associated with the probability of capture over time, while using narcotics as the first drug was positively associated with it." growth and movements of mummichogs (fundulus heteroclitus) along armored and vegetated estuarine shorelines,spartina; phragmites; riprap; bulkhead; mark-recapture; decimal coded wire tag,ESTUARIES AND COASTS,CRUM KP;BALOUSKUS RG;TARGETT TE,"alteration of estuarine shorelines associated with increased urbanization can significantly impact biota and food webs. this study determined the impact of shoreline alteration on growth and movement of the estuarine fish fundulus heteroclitus in a tributary of the delaware coastal bays. fundulus heteroclitus is abundant along the east coast of the usa, and is an important trophic link between marsh and subtidal estuary. the restricted home range of f. heteroclitus allowed discrete sampling, and fish growth comparisons, along 35-65-m long stretches of fringing spartina alterniflora and phragmites australis marsh, riprap, and bulkhead. fundulus heteroclitus were tagged with decimal coded wire tags. of 725 tagged f. heteroclitus, 89 were recaptured 30-63 days later. mean growth rate (0.06-0.15 mm day(-1) across all shoreline types) was greatest at riprap, lowest at spartina and phragmites, and intermediate at bulkhead, where growth was not significantly different from any other shoreline. this suggests that discernible environments exist along different shoreline types, even at the scale of tens of meters. no difference in movement distance was detected at different shoreline types; most individuals displayed a high degree of site fidelity. forty-seven percent were recaptured within 5 m of their tagging location, although alongshore movements up to 475 m were recorded. estimates of relative f. heteroclitus productivity, using relative density data from a concurrent study, were highest along spartina and phragmites, intermediate at riprap, and lowest at bulkhead. therefore, despite greater growth rates along riprap than at vegetated shores, armoring reduces abundance sufficiently to negatively impact localized productivity of f. heteroclitus." "breeding-migration patterns and reproductive dynamics of two syntopic newt species (amphibia, salamandridae) at a temporary pond in southern greece",population dynamics; breeding ecology; population ecology; body condition fecundity,HYDROBIOLOGIA,METTOURIS O;PITTA E;GIOKAS S,"amphibian breeding-migrations are strongly influenced by environmental conditions. furthermore, an individual's breeding-migration pattern might be influenced by their sex, size, physiological state, and/or fecundity. from 2012 to 2014, we collected mark-recapture data for two syntopic alpine (ichthyosaura alpestris) and smooth (lissotriton vulgaris) newt populations in southern greece (the southern limit of their distribution), as well as morphometric data for individuals, and data on environmental factors. using these data, we studied the reproductive dynamics of these populations and assessed whether individual traits and environmental covariates influence their breeding-migration patterns. both species followed a similar temporal migration pattern, regardless of individual traits. migration to the breeding site was influenced by water availability, but not by ground temperature, rainfall or photoperiod. migration from the breeding site was not influenced by water availability, but was triggered by increasing water temperatures. our findings corroborate the few available studies of european newt populations occurring near the southern edge of their distribution. however, compared to numerous studies of northern european newt populations, our results suggest distinct breeding-migration patterns, as well as contrasting effects of environmental factors on these migration patterns. based on current climate change projections, the breeding period of southern newt populations breeding in temporary ponds could be severely reduced." increased reproductive investment associated with greater survival and longevity in cassin's auklets,double brooding; cassin's auklet; mark-recapture; individual quality; survival; heterogeneity,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,JOHNS ME;WARZYBOK P;BRADLEY RW;JAHNCKE J;LINDBERG M;BREED GA,"individuals increase lifetime reproductive output through a trade-off between investment in future survival and immediate reproductive success. this pattern may be obscured in certain higher quality individuals that possess greater reproductive potential. the cassin's auklet (ptychoramphus aleuticus) is a long-lived species where some individuals exhibit greater reproductive ability through a behaviour called double brooding. here, we analyse 32 years of breeding histories from marked known-age auklets to test whether double brooding increases lifetime fitness despite the increased mortality and reduced lifespan higher reproductive effort would be expected to incur. multistate mark-recapture modelling revealed that double brooding was strongly positively associated with higher annual survival and longevity. the mean (95% confidence interval) apparent survival was 0.69 (0.21, 0.91) for individuals that executed a single brood and 0.96 (0.84, 0.99) for those that double-brooded. generalized linear mixed models indicated individuals that attempted multiple double broods over their lifetime were able to produce on average seven times as many chicks and live nearly 6 years longer than birds that never attempted a double brood. we found that high-quality individuals exhibited both increased reproductive effort and longevity, where heterogeneity in individual quality masked expected life-history trade-offs." -robustness of eco-epidemiological capture-recapture parameter estimates to variation in infection state uncertainty,multi-event capture-mark-recapture; state uncertainty; partial observation; assignment probability; bias; precision; simulation; sir model,FRONTIERS IN VETERINARY SCIENCE,BENHAIEM S;MARESCOT L;HOFER H;EAST ML;LEBRETON JD;KRAMER-SCHADT S;GIMENEZ O,"estimating eco-epidemiological parameters in free-ranging populations can be challenging. as known individuals may be undetected during a field session, or their health status uncertain, the collected data are typically ""imperfect"". multi-event capture-mark-recapture (mecmr) models constitute a substantial methodological advance by accounting for such imperfect data. in these models, animals can be ""undetected"" or ""detected"" at each time step. detected animals can be assigned an infection state, such as ""susceptible"" (s), ""infected"" (i), or ""recovered"" (r), or an ""unknown"" (u) state, when for instance no biological sample could be collected. there may be heterogeneity in the assignment of infection states, depending on the manifestation of the disease in the host or the diagnostic method. for example, if obtaining the samples needed to prove viral infection in a detected animal is difficult, this can result in a low chance of assigning the i state. currently, it is unknown how much uncertainty mecmr models can tolerate to provide reliable estimates of eco-epidemiological parameters and whether these parameters are sensitive to heterogeneity in the assignment of infection states. we used simulations to assess how estimates of the survival probability of individuals in different infection states and the probabilities of infection and recovery responded to (1) increasing infection state uncertainty (i.e., the proportion of u) from 20 to 90%, and (2) heterogeneity in the probability of assigning infection states. we simulated data, mimicking a highly virulent disease, and used sir-mecmr models to quantify bias and precision. for most parameter estimates, bias increased and precision decreased gradually with state uncertainty. the probabilities of survival of i and r individuals and of detection of r individuals were very robust to increasing state uncertainty. in contrast, the probabilities of survival and detection of s individuals, and the infection and recovery probabilities showed high biases and low precisions when state uncertainty was >50%, particularly when the assignment of the s state was reduced. considering this specific disease scenario, sir-mecmr models are globally robust to state uncertainty and heterogeneity in state assignment, but the previously mentioned parameter estimates should be carefully interpreted if the proportion of u is high." +robustness of eco-epidemiological capture-recapture parameter estimates to variation in infection state uncertainty,multi-event capture-mark-recapture; state uncertainty; partial observation; assignment probability; bias; precision; simulation; sir model,FRONTIERS IN VETERINARY SCIENCE,BENHAIEM S;MARESCOT L;HOFER H;EAST ML;LEBRETON JD;KRAMER SCHADT S;GIMENEZ O,"estimating eco-epidemiological parameters in free-ranging populations can be challenging. as known individuals may be undetected during a field session, or their health status uncertain, the collected data are typically ""imperfect"". multi-event capture-mark-recapture (mecmr) models constitute a substantial methodological advance by accounting for such imperfect data. in these models, animals can be ""undetected"" or ""detected"" at each time step. detected animals can be assigned an infection state, such as ""susceptible"" (s), ""infected"" (i), or ""recovered"" (r), or an ""unknown"" (u) state, when for instance no biological sample could be collected. there may be heterogeneity in the assignment of infection states, depending on the manifestation of the disease in the host or the diagnostic method. for example, if obtaining the samples needed to prove viral infection in a detected animal is difficult, this can result in a low chance of assigning the i state. currently, it is unknown how much uncertainty mecmr models can tolerate to provide reliable estimates of eco-epidemiological parameters and whether these parameters are sensitive to heterogeneity in the assignment of infection states. we used simulations to assess how estimates of the survival probability of individuals in different infection states and the probabilities of infection and recovery responded to (1) increasing infection state uncertainty (i.e., the proportion of u) from 20 to 90%, and (2) heterogeneity in the probability of assigning infection states. we simulated data, mimicking a highly virulent disease, and used sir-mecmr models to quantify bias and precision. for most parameter estimates, bias increased and precision decreased gradually with state uncertainty. the probabilities of survival of i and r individuals and of detection of r individuals were very robust to increasing state uncertainty. in contrast, the probabilities of survival and detection of s individuals, and the infection and recovery probabilities showed high biases and low precisions when state uncertainty was >50%, particularly when the assignment of the s state was reduced. considering this specific disease scenario, sir-mecmr models are globally robust to state uncertainty and heterogeneity in state assignment, but the previously mentioned parameter estimates should be carefully interpreted if the proportion of u is high." "a multi-isotope (delta c-13, delta n-15, delta s-34, delta h-2) approach to establishing migratory connectivity in lesser snow geese: tracking an overabundant species",NA,PLOS ONE,FOWLER DN;WEBB EB;BALDWIN FB;VRTISKA MP;HOBSON KA,"expanding populations of north american midcontinent lesser snow geese (anser caerulescens caerulescens) have potential to alter ecosystems throughout the arctic and subarctic where they breed. efforts to understand origins of harvested lesser snow geese to better inform management decisions have traditionally required mark-recapture approaches, while aerial photographic surveys have typically been used to identify breeding distributions. as a potential alternative, isotopic patterns that are metabolically fixed within newly grown flight feathers following summer molting could provide inferences regarding geographic breeding origin of individuals, without the need for prior capture. our objective was to assess potential to use four stable isotopes (delta c-13, delta n-15, delta s-34, delta h-2) from feather material to determine breeding origins. we obtained newly grown flight feathers from individuals during summer banding at three arctic and two subarctic breeding colonies in 2014 (n = 56) and 2016 (n = 45). we used linear discriminant analyses to predict breeding origins from models using combinations of stable isotopes as predictors and evaluated model accuracy when predicting colony, subregion, or subpopulation levels. we found a strong inverse relationship between delta h-2 values and increasing latitude (r-2 = 0.83), resulting in differences (f-4,f- 51 = 90.41, p < 0.0001) among sampled colonies. no differences in delta c-13 or delta n-15 were detected among colonies, although delta s-34 in akimiski island, baffin island, and karrak lake were more enriched (f4, 51 = 11.25, p < 0.0001). using delta h-2 values as a predictor, discriminant analyses improved accuracy in classification level as precision decreased [model accuracy = 67% (colony), 88% (subregion), 94% (subpopulation)]. application of the isotopic methods we describe could be used to provide an alternative monitoring method of population metrics, such as overall breeding population distribution, region-specific productivity and migratory connectivity that are informative to management decision makers and provide insight into cross-seasonal effects that may influence migratory behavior." a bayesian state-space model using age-at-harvest data for estimating the population of black bears (ursus americanus) in wisconsin,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,ALLEN ML;NORTON AS;STAUFFER G;ROBERTS NM;LUO YS;LI Q;MACFARLAND D;VAN DEELEN TR,"population estimation is essential for the conservation and management of fish and wildlife, but accurate estimates are often difficult or expensive to obtain for cryptic species across large geographical scales. accurate statistical models with manageable financial costs and field efforts are needed for hunted populations and using age-at-harvest data may be the most practical foundation for these models. several rigorous statistical approaches that use age-at-harvest and other data to accurately estimate populations have recently been developed, but these are often dependent on (a) accurate prior knowledge about demographic parameters of the population, (b) auxiliary data, and (c) initial population size. we developed a two-stage state-space bayesian model for a black bear (ursus americanus) population with age-at-harvest data, but little demographic data and no auxiliary data available, to create a statewide population estimate and test the sensitivity of the model to bias in the prior distributions of parameters and initial population size. the posterior abundance estimate from our model was similar to an independent capture-recapture estimate from tetracycline sampling and the population trend was similar to the catch-per-unit-effort for the state. our model was also robust to bias in the prior distributions for all parameters, including initial population size, except for reporting rate. our state-space model created a precise estimate of the black bear population in wisconsin based on age-at-harvest data and potentially improves on previous models by using little demographic data, no auxiliary data, and not being sensitive to initial population size." influence of sex and transients on survival and detection probabilities of the southeastern beach mouse,capture-recapture; coastal dune; coastal strand; peromyscus polionotus niveiventris,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,BREININGER DR;ODDY DM;STOLEN ED;HUNT DK,"we used cormack-jolly-seber capture-recapture analyses to investigate differences in monthly survival of the southeastern beach mouse (peromyscus polionotus niveiventris) between sexes, between juveniles and adults, and effects due to the presence of transients that can bias survival estimates. we accounted for transients (e.g., nonresidents) by distinguishing survival for the initial month after an individuals' 1st capture from monthly survival after the 1st recapture. survival estimates for 1st captures and recaptures of females were 0.70 and 0.78, respectively. survival estimates for 1st captures and recaptures of males were 0.74 and 0.80, respectively. our results showed that a comparably small proportion of transients (females = 0.10; males = 0.08) can bias survival estimates." -a length-based mark-recapture model for estimating abundance and recruitment: removing bias due to size-selective capture gear,mark-recapture; growth; abundance; size selectivity; length-based model; bias,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,VAN POORTEN BT;TAYLOR N;O'BRIEN D;WALTERS CJ,"we describe an unbiased length-based, age-structured mark-recapture (lamr) model for estimating length based abundance and recruitment of fish populations. many mark-recapture studies employ capture gear that is size-selective, leading to a larger and faster growing marked sub-population with a different capture probability than the unmarked sub-population, resulting in a basic violation of assumptions for many mark-recapture models. persistent differences in marked and unmarked individuals are estimated in our model using growth type group accounting. simulation-evaluation results indicate that the model produces largely unbiased estimates of recruitment and abundance across a range of sampling scenarios and population life-history types, and is robust to growth parameter misspecification. however, in older, slow growing populations, the model is prone to 'smearing' of recruitment estimates across early year-classes. the lamr model is applied to data from multiple wild populations of rainbow trout to estimate recruitment and abundance. overall, results indicate that the lamr model addresses shortcomings associated with using size-selective gear in mark-recapture studies to produce reliable estimates of recruitment and size-based abundance." +a length-based mark-recapture model for estimating abundance and recruitment: removing bias due to size-selective capture gear,mark-recapture; growth; abundance; size selectivity; length-based model; bias,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,VAN POORTEN BT;TAYLOR N;O BRIEN D;WALTERS CJ,"we describe an unbiased length-based, age-structured mark-recapture (lamr) model for estimating length based abundance and recruitment of fish populations. many mark-recapture studies employ capture gear that is size-selective, leading to a larger and faster growing marked sub-population with a different capture probability than the unmarked sub-population, resulting in a basic violation of assumptions for many mark-recapture models. persistent differences in marked and unmarked individuals are estimated in our model using growth type group accounting. simulation-evaluation results indicate that the model produces largely unbiased estimates of recruitment and abundance across a range of sampling scenarios and population life-history types, and is robust to growth parameter misspecification. however, in older, slow growing populations, the model is prone to 'smearing' of recruitment estimates across early year-classes. the lamr model is applied to data from multiple wild populations of rainbow trout to estimate recruitment and abundance. overall, results indicate that the lamr model addresses shortcomings associated with using size-selective gear in mark-recapture studies to produce reliable estimates of recruitment and size-based abundance." limited latitudinal ranging of juvenile whale sharks in the western indian ocean suggests the existence of regional management units,movement ecology; planktivore; philopatry; elasmobranch; mark-recapture,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,PREBBLE CEM;ROHNER CA;PIERCE SJ;ROBINSON DP;JAIDAH MY;BACH SS;TRUEMAN CN,"assessing the movements and connectivity of whale sharks rhincodon typus through their range is difficult due to high individual mobility and limited knowledge of their behaviour following dispersal from coastal aggregation sites. here, we use a large set of photo-identification and stable isotope data (delta n-15 and delta c-13) to test the assumption that sharks frequenting aggregation sites in mozambique, tanzania, and qatar are a mixed stock, as inferred by genetic data. photo-identification revealed negligible connectivity among aggregation sites and none between the southern and central areas of the western indian ocean (mozambique and tanzania) and the arabian gulf (qatar). sight-resight data indicated that shark movements at each site could be best represented by a model that included emigration, re-immigration, and some mortality or permanent emigration. although there was high individual variation in the isotope profiles of sharks from each location, comparison with latitudinal isotope data suggests that sharks had shown site fidelity to within a few hundred kilometres of each study area over the period of isotopic integration. given the endangered status of whale sharks and regional differences in anthropogenic threat profiles, further studies-and conservation assessment efforts-should consider the possibility that whale shark subpopulations exist over smaller geographical scales than previously documented." -colonization and usage of an artificial urban wetland complex by freshwater turtles,snapping turtle; midland painted turtle; artificial wetland; lake ontario; sex ratio; common carp; restoration ecology; blanding's turtle; vhf; turtle road mortality,PEERJ,DUPUIS-DESORMEAUX M;DAVY C;LATHROP A;FOLLOWES E;RAMESBOTTOM A;CHRESTON A;MACDONALD SE,"conservation authorities invest heavily in the restoration and/or creation of wetlands to counteract the destruction of habitat caused by urbanization. monitoring the colonization of these new wetlands is critical to an adaptive management process. we conducted a turtle mark-recapture survey in a 250 ha artificially created wetland complex in a large north american city (toronto, ontario). we found that two of ontario's eight native turtle species (snapping turtle (sn), chelydra serpentina, and midland painted (mp) turtle, chrysemys picta marginata) were abundant and both were confirmed nesting. the blanding's turtle (emydoidea blandingii) was present but not well established. species richness and turtle density were not equally distributed throughout the wetland complex. we noted sn almost exclusively populated one water body, while other areas of the wetland had a varying representation of both species. the sex ratios of both sn and mp turtles were 1:1. we tracked the movement of snapping and blanding's turtles and found that most turtles explored at least two water bodies in the park, that females explored more water bodies than males, and that 95% of turtles showed fidelity to individual overwintering wetlands. we performed dna analysis of two blanding's turtles found in the created wetlands and could not assign these turtles to any known profiled populations. the genetic data suggest that the turtles probably belong to a remnant local population. we discuss the implications of our results for connectivity of artificial wetlands and the importance of the whole wetland complex to this turtle assemblage." -"population size of aegla longirostri bond-buckup and buckup, 1994 (crustacea, decapoda, anomura): comparison of methods with the mark-recapture technique in closed population",bayesian analysis; conservation status; population density; schnabel; schumacher-eschmeyer,"NAUPLIUS",BAUMART JS;COGO GB;MORALES FEC;SANTOS S,"the aim of this study is to estimate the population size of aegla longirostri bond-buckup and buckup, 1994 in a subtropical low-order stream using the mark-recapture technique. we also tested if the bayesian model is a promising estimator of population size. data were collected in two periods, in spring 2010 (seven-day sampling) and in fall 2011 (five-day sampling). the animals were sexed, measured, marked in the field, and released in the same spots from which they were collected. during the study period, 445 adults were captured (343 in the spring and 102 in the fall). the estimated population size was 1,005-1,028.8 individuals in the spring and 234-236 in the fall, according to the schumacher-eschmeyer and schnabel methods, respectively. the estimated population size using the bayesian analysis was 950.13 individuals in the spring and 210.08 in the fall. although the bayesian model is a more conservative approach, all methods showed similar and relevant estimations of population size." +colonization and usage of an artificial urban wetland complex by freshwater turtles,snapping turtle; midland painted turtle; artificial wetland; lake ontario; sex ratio; common carp; restoration ecology; blanding's turtle; vhf; turtle road mortality,PEERJ,DUPUIS DESORMEAUX M;DAVY C;LATHROP A;FOLLOWES E;RAMESBOTTOM A;CHRESTON A;MACDONALD SE,"conservation authorities invest heavily in the restoration and/or creation of wetlands to counteract the destruction of habitat caused by urbanization. monitoring the colonization of these new wetlands is critical to an adaptive management process. we conducted a turtle mark-recapture survey in a 250 ha artificially created wetland complex in a large north american city (toronto, ontario). we found that two of ontario's eight native turtle species (snapping turtle (sn), chelydra serpentina, and midland painted (mp) turtle, chrysemys picta marginata) were abundant and both were confirmed nesting. the blanding's turtle (emydoidea blandingii) was present but not well established. species richness and turtle density were not equally distributed throughout the wetland complex. we noted sn almost exclusively populated one water body, while other areas of the wetland had a varying representation of both species. the sex ratios of both sn and mp turtles were 1:1. we tracked the movement of snapping and blanding's turtles and found that most turtles explored at least two water bodies in the park, that females explored more water bodies than males, and that 95% of turtles showed fidelity to individual overwintering wetlands. we performed dna analysis of two blanding's turtles found in the created wetlands and could not assign these turtles to any known profiled populations. the genetic data suggest that the turtles probably belong to a remnant local population. we discuss the implications of our results for connectivity of artificial wetlands and the importance of the whole wetland complex to this turtle assemblage." +"population size of aegla longirostri bond-buckup and buckup, 1994 (crustacea, decapoda, anomura): comparison of methods with the mark-recapture technique in closed population",bayesian analysis; conservation status; population density; schnabel; schumacher-eschmeyer,NAUPLIUS,BAUMART JS;COGO GB;MORALES FEC;SANTOS S,"the aim of this study is to estimate the population size of aegla longirostri bond-buckup and buckup, 1994 in a subtropical low-order stream using the mark-recapture technique. we also tested if the bayesian model is a promising estimator of population size. data were collected in two periods, in spring 2010 (seven-day sampling) and in fall 2011 (five-day sampling). the animals were sexed, measured, marked in the field, and released in the same spots from which they were collected. during the study period, 445 adults were captured (343 in the spring and 102 in the fall). the estimated population size was 1,005-1,028.8 individuals in the spring and 234-236 in the fall, according to the schumacher-eschmeyer and schnabel methods, respectively. the estimated population size using the bayesian analysis was 950.13 individuals in the spring and 210.08 in the fall. although the bayesian model is a more conservative approach, all methods showed similar and relevant estimations of population size." """in a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings"": woodlands in an agricultural matrix maintain functionality of a wintering bird community",NA,PLOS ONE,SYIEM BL;GOSWAMI VR;VASUDEVZ D,"the agricultural matrix has increasingly been recognized for its potential to supplement protected areas (pas) in biodiversity conservation. this potential is highly contextual, depending on composition and spatial configuration of matrix elements and their mechanistic relationship with biological communities. we investigate the effects of local vegetation structure, and proximity to a pa on the site-use of different guilds in a wintering bird community within the pa, and in wooded land-use types in the surrounding matrix. we used occupancy models to estimate covariate-guild relationships and predict site-use. we also compared species richness (estimated through capture-recapture models) and species naive site-use between the pa and the matrix to evaluate taxonomic changes. we found that tree cover did not limit the site-use of most guilds of the community, probably due to high canopy cover across all chosen sites. exceptions to this were guilds comprising generalist species. shrub cover and bamboo cover had important effects on some woodland-associated guilds, suggesting a change in limiting factors for site-use under adequate tree cover. site-use across the matrix was high for all analyzed guilds. this was found to be due to three non-exclusive reasons: (i) presence of one or more ubiquitous species (found all across the landscape) within some guilds, (ii) redundancy of species within guilds that buffered against a decrease in site-use, and (iii) turnover in guild composition/abundances to more generalist species from pa to matrix. estimated species richness was higher in the matrix (107 +/- 11; mean +/- se) than in the pa (90 +/- 7), which may have been in part due to the addition of generalist species in the matrix. understanding factors that limit biological communities is crucial to better managing the ever-increasing matrix for biodiversity conservation. our study provides insights into the effects of different components of vegetation structure on the bird community in wooded land-use types in the matrix. we highlight the value of woodlands surrounding pas in maintaining multiple guilds, and hence, the functionality of a wintering bird community. however, we caution that the matrix may fall short in retaining some specialized species of the community." habitat-dependent effects of personality on survival and reproduction in red squirrels,boldness; capture-mark-recapture; exploration; habitat variability; sciurus vulgaris; trappability,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY,SANTICCHIA F;GAGNAISON C;BISI F;MARTINOLI A;MATTHYSEN E;BERTOLINO S;WAUTERS LA,"variation in intrinsic (body mass, reproductive condition) and extrinsic factors (habitat quality, spatio-temporal variation in food availability) can affect the costs and benefits of personality traits. relationships between personality and fitness components can vary with changes in population density and/or habitat quality. here, using capture-mark-recapture data of individually marked eurasian red squirrels (sciurus vulgaris), we explored whether indices of boldness and exploration are correlated with local survival in either of the sexes and with a measure of reproductive success in females, under different conditions of food availability. pca scores derived from the number of captures (trappability) and number of different traps where an individual was captured (trap diversity), in the first 1 or 2 years of presence, were used as indices of personality (boldness and pure exploration). the relationships between boldness and local survival differed between habitats in both sexes. bold squirrels survived better than shy ones in norway spruce forest, while in the other two study areas (scots pine or mixed spruce-fir forest), survival was lower for bolder squirrels. pure exploration behavior was negatively correlated with local survival in all habitats and in both sexes. female reproductive success increased with body mass and decreased with the tendency to explore, a relationship consistent across habitat types. bolder females did not have a reproductive advantage in years of poor food availability. we suggest that costs and benefits of boldness vary with spatio-temporal differences in availability of high-quality food resources which may help to maintain variation in personality in red squirrels in heterogeneous landscapes. differences in personality among individuals can affect their survival or reproductive success. we investigated the relationship between personality traits and fitness components in eurasian red squirrels under different food availability. we scored boldness and exploration using indices derived from capture-mark-recapture data. bold red squirrels survived longer than shy ones in spruce forest where food availability varied strongly between years. instead, in mixed forests with more stable food supplies, shy individuals survived longer. heavy females produced more litters in their lifetime than those with lower body mass. explorative squirrels were more likely to die young and to produce no or few litters, independent of the habitat they lived in. our results suggest that variation in personality traits within populations of eurasian red squirrels was maintained by changing fitness benefits in relation to habitat type in pulsed resource systems." integrating growth and capture-mark-recapture models reveals size-dependent survival in an elusive species,bayesian imputation; conservation; giant gartersnake; hierarchical model; integrated model; missing data,ECOSPHERE,ROSE JP;WYLIE GD;CASAZZA ML;HALSTEADO BJ,"survival is a key vital rate for projecting the viability of wild populations. estimating survival is difficult for many rare or elusive species because recapture rates of marked individuals are low, and the ultimate fate of individuals is unknown. low recapture rates for many species have made it difficult to accurately estimate survival, and to evaluate the importance of individual and environmental covariates for survival. individual covariates such as size are particularly difficult to include in capture-mark-recapture models for elusive species because the state of the individual is unknown during periods when it is not captured. here, we integrate a von bertalanffy growth model with a multi-state robust-design cormack-jolly-seber model to test for a relationship between body size and survival in the elusive, threatened giant gartersnake, thamnophis gigas. we take a bayesian approach to model the size of an individual during periods when it was not captured and measured, which fully propagates uncertainty in this unobserved covariate. we found strong support for a positive relationship between snake size and annual survival, with survival increasing with size up to a peak for adult snakes, after which survival either declines slightly or plateaus for the largest individuals. few captures of very small and very large individuals led to high uncertainty in the survival rates of these sizes. survival of giant gartersnakes was also positively related to the amount of precipitation and the cover of emergent and floating vegetation at a site. to our knowledge, our study is the first to estimate a size-survival relationship in a snake while fully accounting for uncertainty in the size of unobserved individuals. our results have implications for the management of this threatened species and illustrate the utility of integrating hierarchical bayesian models to the study of survival in elusive species." "extended screening of trypanosoma cruzi among the offspring of infected women. barcelona north metropolitan area, catalonia (spain), 2005-2016",chagas; mother-to-child infection; screening; offspring; spain,ENFERMEDADES INFECCIOSAS Y MICROBIOLOGIA CLINICA,ROMAN AA;SALLENT LV;QUILEZ OP;DIEZ SR;MILLAN NM;SANFELIU XV;CUEVAS OM,"introduction: to date, very little data is available on the extensive, familiar, serological screening of trypanosoma cruzi from infected-index cases. as it is a parasite with possibility of mother-to-child fetal transmission, the study of the offspring of chronically infected women has a special relevance. methods: an observational study using a capture-recapture method that evaluates the offspring serological status of women diagnosed with t. cruzi infection (positive serology) in the northern metropolitan area of barcelona during 2005-2016. results: a total of 238 women with positive serology for t. cruzi were identified. of these, 117 (49.2%) could be localized. their offspring summarized 300 individuals, of which 192 (64%) had serology records, with 23 positive for t. cruzi (11.98%; ci95%: 8.1-17.3). among the 53 children born within the study area, 5 (9.8%, ci95%: 4.2-20.9) cases of vertical transmission were recorded. all children born as of 2010 (the starting year of mother screening) had serological outputs. conclusions: offspring of t. cruzi-seropositive women showed a high rate of seropositivity. the prevalence of vertical transmission is also remarkably high but comparable to that obtained in other european studies. the main source of loss was non-accessible women. it is reasonable to formaly include extensive, familiar, serological assessment in chagas screening guidelines. in order to avoid losses, any eventual screening should be implemented at the time of the maternal diagnosis. (c) 2017 elsevier espana, s.l.u. and sociedad espanola de enfermedades lnfecciosas y microbiologia clinica. all rights reserved." -genetic non-invasive sampling (gnis) as a cost-effective tool for monitoring elusive small mammals,conservation genetics; conservation biology; population monitoring; cabrera vole; genetic parentage analysis; microtus cabrerae,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,FERREIRA CM;SABINO-MARQUES H;BARBOSA S;COSTA P;ENCARNACAO C;ALPIZAR-JARA R;PITA R;BEJA P;MIRA A;SEARLE JB;PAUPERIO J;ALVES PC,"genetic non-invasive sampling (gnis) may provide valuable information for population monitoring, as it allows inferences of population density and key behavioural traits such as dispersal, kinship and reproduction. despite its enormous potential, gnis has rarely been applied to small mammals, for which live-trapping is still the most commonly used sampling method. here we evaluated the applicability and cost-effectiveness of gnis compared with live-trapping, to monitor a metapopulation of an iberian endemic and elusive rodent: the cabrera vole (microtus cabrerae). we compared the genetic diversity, kinship and dispersal movements inferred using both methods. for that, we optimised microsatellite markers for individual identification of m. cabrerae, using both tissue (n = 31) and faecal samples (n = 323) collected from a metapopulation in south-western iberia. an initial set of 20 loci was optimised for tissue samples, from which 11 were selected to amplify in faecal samples. overall, gnis revealed a higher number of identified individuals (65) than live-trapping (31), and the estimated genetic diversity was similar using data from tissues and gnis. kinship analysis showed a higher number of inferred relationships and dispersal events when including gnis, and indicated absence of sex-biased dispersal. the total cost (fieldwork and genetic analysis) of each genotype obtained through live-trapping was three times greater than for gnis. our data strongly supports the high potential and cost-effectiveness of gnis for monitoring populations of elusive and/or threatened small mammals. we also illustrate how this genetic tool can be logistically feasible in conservation." +genetic non-invasive sampling (gnis) as a cost-effective tool for monitoring elusive small mammals,conservation genetics; conservation biology; population monitoring; cabrera vole; genetic parentage analysis; microtus cabrerae,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,FERREIRA CM;SABINO MARQUES H;BARBOSA S;COSTA P;ENCARNACAO C;ALPIZAR JARA R;PITA R;BEJA P;MIRA A;SEARLE JB;PAUPERIO J;ALVES PC,"genetic non-invasive sampling (gnis) may provide valuable information for population monitoring, as it allows inferences of population density and key behavioural traits such as dispersal, kinship and reproduction. despite its enormous potential, gnis has rarely been applied to small mammals, for which live-trapping is still the most commonly used sampling method. here we evaluated the applicability and cost-effectiveness of gnis compared with live-trapping, to monitor a metapopulation of an iberian endemic and elusive rodent: the cabrera vole (microtus cabrerae). we compared the genetic diversity, kinship and dispersal movements inferred using both methods. for that, we optimised microsatellite markers for individual identification of m. cabrerae, using both tissue (n = 31) and faecal samples (n = 323) collected from a metapopulation in south-western iberia. an initial set of 20 loci was optimised for tissue samples, from which 11 were selected to amplify in faecal samples. overall, gnis revealed a higher number of identified individuals (65) than live-trapping (31), and the estimated genetic diversity was similar using data from tissues and gnis. kinship analysis showed a higher number of inferred relationships and dispersal events when including gnis, and indicated absence of sex-biased dispersal. the total cost (fieldwork and genetic analysis) of each genotype obtained through live-trapping was three times greater than for gnis. our data strongly supports the high potential and cost-effectiveness of gnis for monitoring populations of elusive and/or threatened small mammals. we also illustrate how this genetic tool can be logistically feasible in conservation." estimating red deer (cervus elaphus) population size in the southern black forest: the role of hunting in population control,red deer management; density estimates; non-invasive genetic mark-recapture; structured population model,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,HAGEN R;HAYDN A;SUCHANT R,"numerous studies have addressed the question of whether hunting is capable of limiting the abundance of ungulates in the northern hemisphere. we investigated whether the hunting of red deer (cervus elaphus) has reduced their abundance in the southern black forest (area 17,500 ha), southern germany, since 2006. red deer abundance was estimated using data obtained from visual counts at winter feeding sites, track counts, and bag records. an age- and sex-structured population model to estimate the winter population size was also constructed using bag records. the estimated red deer population size was evaluated according to a non-invasive genetic mark-recapture approach. the results showed that the hunting of red deer can reduce their population size if the hunting regime is part of a holistic management concept that takes into account the uncertainty of population size estimates and is implemented at scales appropriate to the management of this species." -combining genetic non-invasive sampling with spatially explicit capture-recapture models for density estimation of a patchily distributed small mammal,cabrera vole; secr model; population biology; population size estimates; fragmented habitats; faecaldna,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,SABINO-MARQUES H;FERREIRA C;PAUPERIO J;COSTA P;BARBOSA S;ENCARNACAO C;ALPIZAR-JARA R;ALVES PC;SEARLE JB;MIRA A;BEJA P;PITA R,"estimating the size of animal populations is essential for understanding the demography and conservation status of species. genetic non-invasive sampling (gnis) combined with spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) modelling may provide a practical tool to obtain such estimates. here, we evaluate for the first time the potential and limitations of this approach to estimate population densities for small mammals inhabiting patchily distributed habitats, focusing on the endemic iberian cabrera vole (microtus cabrerae). using 11 highly polymorphic microsatellites and two sex-linked introns, we compared population estimates in november/december 2011 based on live-trapping and gnis and assessed the impact of distinct consensus criteria to differentiate unique genotypes. live-trapping over 21 days captured 31 individuals, while gnis over 5 days recorded 65-69 individuals. secr models indicated that individual detectability was positively affected by live-trapping capture success on the previous occasion, while for gnis, it was mainly affected by genotyping success rates and patch size. live-trapping produced the lowest density estimates (mean +/- se) of 16.6 +/- 3.2 individuals per hectare of suitable habitat (ind/ha). estimates based on gnis were higher and varied slightly between 25.2 +/- 4.0 and 28.8 +/- 4.5 ind/ha depending on assuming one or two genotyping errors, respectively, when differentiating individual genetic profiles. results suggest that live-trapping underestimated the vole population, while the larger number of individuals detected through gnis allowed better estimates with lower field effort. overall, we suggest that gnis combined with secr models provides an effective tool to estimate small mammal population densities in fragmented habitats." +combining genetic non-invasive sampling with spatially explicit capture-recapture models for density estimation of a patchily distributed small mammal,cabrera vole; secr model; population biology; population size estimates; fragmented habitats; faecaldna,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,SABINO MARQUES H;FERREIRA C;PAUPERIO J;COSTA P;BARBOSA S;ENCARNACAO C;ALPIZAR JARA R;ALVES PC;SEARLE JB;MIRA A;BEJA P;PITA R,"estimating the size of animal populations is essential for understanding the demography and conservation status of species. genetic non-invasive sampling (gnis) combined with spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) modelling may provide a practical tool to obtain such estimates. here, we evaluate for the first time the potential and limitations of this approach to estimate population densities for small mammals inhabiting patchily distributed habitats, focusing on the endemic iberian cabrera vole (microtus cabrerae). using 11 highly polymorphic microsatellites and two sex-linked introns, we compared population estimates in november/december 2011 based on live-trapping and gnis and assessed the impact of distinct consensus criteria to differentiate unique genotypes. live-trapping over 21 days captured 31 individuals, while gnis over 5 days recorded 65-69 individuals. secr models indicated that individual detectability was positively affected by live-trapping capture success on the previous occasion, while for gnis, it was mainly affected by genotyping success rates and patch size. live-trapping produced the lowest density estimates (mean +/- se) of 16.6 +/- 3.2 individuals per hectare of suitable habitat (ind/ha). estimates based on gnis were higher and varied slightly between 25.2 +/- 4.0 and 28.8 +/- 4.5 ind/ha depending on assuming one or two genotyping errors, respectively, when differentiating individual genetic profiles. results suggest that live-trapping underestimated the vole population, while the larger number of individuals detected through gnis allowed better estimates with lower field effort. overall, we suggest that gnis combined with secr models provides an effective tool to estimate small mammal population densities in fragmented habitats." genetic and genomic monitoring with minimally invasive sampling methods,conservation genetics; dna fingerprinting; individual identification; noninvasive genetic sampling; population demography; wildlife forensics; wildlife management,EVOLUTIONARY APPLICATIONS,CARROLL EL;BRUFORD MW;DEWOODY JA;LEROY G;STRAND A;WAITS L;WANG JL,"the decreasing cost and increasing scope and power of emerging genomic technologies are reshaping the field of molecular ecology. however, many modern genomic approaches (e.g., rad-seq) require large amounts of high-quality template dna. this poses a problem for an active branch of conservation biology: genetic monitoring using minimally invasive sampling (mis) methods. without handling or even observing an animal, mis methods (e.g., collection of hair, skin, faeces) can provide genetic information on individuals or populations. such samples typically yield low-quality and/or quantities of dna, restricting the type of molecular methods that can be used. despite this limitation, genetic monitoring using mis is an effective tool for estimating population demographic parameters and monitoring genetic diversity in natural populations. genetic monitoring is likely to become more important in the future as many natural populations are undergoing anthropogenically driven declines, which are unlikely to abate without intensive adaptive management efforts that often include mis approaches. here, we profile the expanding suite of genomic methods and platforms compatible with producing genotypes from mis, considering factors such as development costs and error rates. we evaluate how powerful new approaches will enhance our ability to investigate questions typically answered using genetic monitoring, such as estimating abundance, genetic structure and relatedness. as the field is in a period of unusually rapid transition, we also highlight the importance of legacy data sets and recommend how to address the challenges of moving between traditional and next-generation genetic monitoring platforms. finally, we consider how genetic monitoring could move beyond genotypes in the future. for example, assessing microbiomes or epigenetic markers could provide a greater understanding of the relationship between individuals and their environment." -consistent demographic trends in savi's pine vole between two distant areas in central italy,small mammals; microtus savii; live trapping; orchards; mark-recapture; population structure,FOLIA ZOOLOGICA,DELL'AGNELLO F;BARFKNECHT R;BERTOLINO S;CAPIZZI D;MARTINI M;MAZZA V;RIGA F;ZACCARONI M,"the savi's pine vole, microtus savii is an italian species living in grasslands, both natural and anthropogenic (i.e. agroecosystems) where it is generally considered a pest because it may damage crops and orchards. as for most rodent pests, the extent of the damage might depend on population density and temporal food availability (e.g. brown et al. 2007, jacob & tkadlec 2010). however, data on demographic parameters are not available, making ecologically-based management strategies difficult to plan. therefore, we conducted a study on savi's pine vole demography for one year in two study areas in central italy using capture-mark-recapture method. density values ranged from 3 to 32 ind./ha, the highest population densities occurred in october, while the lowest occurred in february-april in both study areas. turnover rates of both populations were very high, with time of residency usually no longer than two months. juveniles' survival was constant in both study areas, but it differed between the two populations regarding adults. the two populations showed similar demographic trends along the year with relatively small intra-annual fluctuations. the breeding season covered the whole year in both areas. the results here presented contribute to add meaningfitl information about this poorly known species, and could be useful to plan population control strategies for this rodent in agroecosystems." -demographics and spatial ecology in a population of cryptic wood white butterfly leptidea juvernica in northern ireland,cryptic wood white; leptidea juvernica; pieridae; population ecology; spatial ecology; host plant distribution; butterfly conservation,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,O'NEILL J;MONTGOMERY I,"the cryptic wood white leptidea juvernica is one of a newly-discovered species complex comprising three morphologically similar species in europe. in the british isles, l. juvernica is absent from great britain, but is widespread in ireland, where it has experienced recent declines; it is classed as a priority species in northern ireland. using a mark-recapture approach, this study aims to elucidate the population and spatial ecology of l. juvernica based on a population resident on a small, suburban site and to propose conservation measures. the results demonstrated that populations of l. juvernica, even on small sites, can reach high numbers during the peak flight season. unusually for european pieridae, there was only weak evidence of protandry in this population, possibly reflecting weather conditions prior to the flight season. the spatial distribution and abundance of l. juvernica was associated with the distribution of its larval host-plants, as well as maintaining close proximity to south-facing habitat edges for shelter. males had a closer association to sheltered habitat edges, whilst females were found more commonly on open ground with a shorter sward which was the preferred egg-laying habitat. long vegetation in sheltered areas was important for roosting during periods of non-activity. these results inform conservation measures which will benefit l. juvernica; appropriate measures focus on habitat management providing a mosaic of open, semi-natural grassland interspersed with tall vegetation, scrub, and trees." +consistent demographic trends in savi's pine vole between two distant areas in central italy,small mammals; microtus savii; live trapping; orchards; mark-recapture; population structure,FOLIA ZOOLOGICA,DELL AGNELLO F;BARFKNECHT R;BERTOLINO S;CAPIZZI D;MARTINI M;MAZZA V;RIGA F;ZACCARONI M,"the savi's pine vole, microtus savii is an italian species living in grasslands, both natural and anthropogenic (i.e. agroecosystems) where it is generally considered a pest because it may damage crops and orchards. as for most rodent pests, the extent of the damage might depend on population density and temporal food availability (e.g. brown et al. 2007, jacob & tkadlec 2010). however, data on demographic parameters are not available, making ecologically-based management strategies difficult to plan. therefore, we conducted a study on savi's pine vole demography for one year in two study areas in central italy using capture-mark-recapture method. density values ranged from 3 to 32 ind./ha, the highest population densities occurred in october, while the lowest occurred in february-april in both study areas. turnover rates of both populations were very high, with time of residency usually no longer than two months. juveniles' survival was constant in both study areas, but it differed between the two populations regarding adults. the two populations showed similar demographic trends along the year with relatively small intra-annual fluctuations. the breeding season covered the whole year in both areas. the results here presented contribute to add meaningfitl information about this poorly known species, and could be useful to plan population control strategies for this rodent in agroecosystems." +demographics and spatial ecology in a population of cryptic wood white butterfly leptidea juvernica in northern ireland,cryptic wood white; leptidea juvernica; pieridae; population ecology; spatial ecology; host plant distribution; butterfly conservation,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,O NEILL J;MONTGOMERY I,"the cryptic wood white leptidea juvernica is one of a newly-discovered species complex comprising three morphologically similar species in europe. in the british isles, l. juvernica is absent from great britain, but is widespread in ireland, where it has experienced recent declines; it is classed as a priority species in northern ireland. using a mark-recapture approach, this study aims to elucidate the population and spatial ecology of l. juvernica based on a population resident on a small, suburban site and to propose conservation measures. the results demonstrated that populations of l. juvernica, even on small sites, can reach high numbers during the peak flight season. unusually for european pieridae, there was only weak evidence of protandry in this population, possibly reflecting weather conditions prior to the flight season. the spatial distribution and abundance of l. juvernica was associated with the distribution of its larval host-plants, as well as maintaining close proximity to south-facing habitat edges for shelter. males had a closer association to sheltered habitat edges, whilst females were found more commonly on open ground with a shorter sward which was the preferred egg-laying habitat. long vegetation in sheltered areas was important for roosting during periods of non-activity. these results inform conservation measures which will benefit l. juvernica; appropriate measures focus on habitat management providing a mosaic of open, semi-natural grassland interspersed with tall vegetation, scrub, and trees." reproductive habitat provisioning promotes survival and reproduction of the endangered endemic damselfly calopteryx exul,conservation; restoration; oviposition; odonates; plants; oviposition; algeria,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,MELLAL MK;BENSOUILAH M;HOUHAMDI M;KHELIFA R,"effective habitat management is predicted to have positive effects on populations and species of conservation concern. although studies have shown that ecological processes such as colonization can be promoted after habitat management, we still need more information on the survival and reproductive consequences at the individual level in order to reach positive conservation outcome. here we assess the effects of reproductive habitat supplementation (host oviposition plant) on survival and mating success of an endangered endemic damselfly, calopteryx exul, using capture-mark-recapture data. we first determined that the species prefer to oviposit on floating leaves of potamogeton spp. based on cormack-jolly-seber modeling, we found that recapture and survival probabilities were positively affected by the number of the host oviposition patches of the host plant. moreover, we showed a strong positive relationship between adult lifespan and lifetime mating success. our results suggest that host-plant provisioning for reproduction not only increases the survival of individuals, but also increases the number of matings per lifetime. the procedure of supplying reproductive sites may enhance population growth of threatened odonates and other aquatic insects." mortality of mule deer fawns in a natural gas development area,anthropogenic disturbances; colorado; mule deer; natural gas development; odocoileus hemionus; population dynamics; predation; survival,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PETERSON ME;ANDERSON CR;NORTHRUP JM;DOHERTY PF,"recent natural gas development has caused concern among wildlife managers, researchers, and stakeholders over the potential effects on wildlife and their habitats. specifically, understanding how this development and other factors influence mule deer (odocoileus hemionus) fawn (i.e., 0-6 months old) mortality rates, recruitment, and subsequently population dynamics have been identified as knowledge gaps. thus, we tested predictions concerning the relationship between natural gas development, adult female, fawn birth, and temporal (weather) characteristics on fawn mortality in the piceance basin of northwestern colorado, usa, from 2012-2014. we captured and radio-collared 184 fawns and estimated apparent cause-specific mortality in areas with relatively high or low levels of natural gas development using a multi-state model. mean daily predation probability was similar in the high versus low development areas. predation was the leading cause of fawn mortality in both areas and decreased from 0-14 days old. black bear (ursus americanus; 22% of all mortalities, n=17) and cougar (felis concolor; 36% of all mortalities, n=6) predation was the leading cause of mortality in the high and low development areas, respectively. predation of fawns was negatively correlated with the distance from a female's core area to a producing well pad on winter or summer range. contrary to expectations, predation of fawns was positively correlated with rump fat thickness of adult females. well pad densities and development activity were relatively low during our study, indicating that the observed intensity of development did not appear to influence daily predation probability. our results suggest maintaining development activity thresholds at levels we observed to potentially minimize the effects of development on fawn mortality. however, we caution that higher development intensity and drilling activity in flatter, less rugged areas with less concealment cover could influence fawn mortality. managers should maintain low development densities in areas where topography and vegetation offer less concealment. overall, region-specific data (e.g., development intensity, topography, predator assemblages, and associated predation risk) are needed to better understand the effects of natural gas development on fawn mortality. (c) 2018 the wildlife society." application of bayesian robust design model to assess the impacts of a hurricane on shorebird demography,age ratios; american oystercatchers; bayesian population modeling; hurricanes; jolly-seber robust design; non-breeding demography; temporary emigration,ECOSPHERE,GIBSON D;RIECKE TV;KEYES T;DEPKIN C;FRASER J;CATLIN DH,"the increasing use of bayesian inference in population demography requires rapid advancements in modeling frameworks to approach the rigor and flexibility of the current suite of maximum-likelihood models. we developed an unbiased, jolly-seber robust design (jsrd) model that is both accessible and generalizable in a bayesian hierarchical multistate framework. we integrated band and age-classification data to estimate site entry, temporary emigration, and apparent survival rates, as well as estimate age-class specific abundances. the complete model parameterization is provided in the appendix s1, as well as tools for simulating capture histories and an assessment of model fit. we applied this model to determine whether these demographic processes in non-breeding population of american oystercatchers (haematopus palliatus) were affected by a major hurricane event (hurricane matthew) in coastal georgia. the jsrd model was demonstrably unbiased at relatively small sample sizes, and the majority of parameters were identifiable in the fully saturated model parameterization. in the model application, we found that hurricane matthew temporarily altered local population abundances of american oystercatchers through increased movements of individuals into and out of the observable population, but mortality rates were largely unaffected. together, our results suggest that american oystercatchers were largely able to avoid the immediate demographic consequences (i.e., reduced survival) of hurricane matthew. integrating age and band ratios from survey data allowed for more descriptive and potentially less biased estimates of age-specific abundance, relative to estimates generated solely from either mark-resight or survey data." @@ -438,31 +438,31 @@ long-term group membership and dynamics in a wild western lowland gorilla popula telemetry of co-occurring noble crayfish (astacus astacus) and stone crayfish (austropotamobius torrentium): diel changes in movement and local activity,ranging behavior; crayfish; diurnal cycle; conservation; czech republic,FUNDAMENTAL AND APPLIED LIMNOLOGY,DANEK T;MUSIL J;VLASANEK P;SVOBODOVA J;JOHNSEN SI;BARTEKOVA T;STRUNC D;BARANKIEWICZ M;BOUSE E;ANDERSEN O,"knowledge of movement patterns is essential for the effective conservation of noble crayfish (astacus (auto's) and stone crayfish (austropotamobius torrentium), two endangered species indigenous to central europe. radiotelemetry was used to evaluate diel changes in ranging behaviour and local activity of both species at a locality where they occur sympatrically. both species exhibited similar behaviour, migrating mostly in the upstream direction. movement probability differed significantly within both species between phases of the diel cycle. movement probability within 3-h tracking intervals was highest at dawn (18.18%) and night (15.32 %) in a. astacus, and at dawn (37.25 %) in a. torrentium. astacus astacus moved the longest distances during the dawn interval (3.70 m) and the shortest during the day (1.41m) and night (1.61 m) interval. the distances moved by a. torrentium did not differ significantly in different phases of the diel cycle. local activity was highest at dusk in a. astacus (40.6 % likelihood of activity) and during dusk and night hours in a. torrentium (30.8% and 24.2 % likelihood of activity). body size and environmental parameters (light intensity, weather, atmospheric pressure, water temperature and turbidity) also influenced crayfish behaviour. both species exhibited a post-handling fright response, which (e.g. in mark-recapture studies) can lead to the overestimation of movement rates and the extent of natural migrations." experimental evidence of long-term reproductive costs in a colonial nesting seabird,cost of reproduction; multi-state capture-mark-recapture modeling; experimental brood size manipulation,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,MCKNIGHT A;BLOMBERG EJ;GOLET GH;IRONS DB;LOFTIN CS;MCKINNEY ST,"trade-offs between current and future reproduction are central to the evolution of life histories. experiments that manipulate brood size provide an effective approach to investigating future costs of current reproduction. most manipulative studies to date, however, have addressed only the short-term effects of brood size manipulation. our goal was to determine whether survival or breeding costs of reproduction in a long-lived species manifest beyond the subsequent breeding season. to this end, we investigated long-term survival and breeding effects of a multi-year reproductive cost experiment conducted on black-legged kittiwakes rissa tridactyla, a long-lived colonial nesting seabird. we used multi-state capture-recapture modeling to assess hypotheses regarding the role of experimentally reduced breeding effort and other factors, including climate phase and colony size and productivity, on future survival and breeding probabilities during the 16-yr period following the experiment. we found that forced nest failures had a positive effect on breeding probability over time, but had no effect on long-term survival. this apparent canalization of survival suggests that adult survival is the most important parameter influencing fitness in this long-lived species, and that adults should pay reproductive costs in ways that do not compromise this critical life history parameter. when declines in adult survival rate are observed, they may indicate populations of conservation concern." population ecology of the freshwater turtle mesoclemmys vanderhaegei (testudines: chelidae),catchability; capture-mark-recapture; population structure; sex ratio; size structure; vanderhaege's toad-headed turtle,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,BRITO ES;VOGT RC;VALADAO RM;FRANCA LF;PENHA J;STRUSSMANN C,"we sampled mesoclemmys vanderhaegei in the upper paraguay river basin, in the cerrado ecosystem of central brazil. populations were sampled between 2010 and 2013, and we used capture-mark-recapture methods to determine the catchability, density, population size structure, and sex ratio of the populations. we sampled two protected areas (chapada dos guimaraes national park icgnipi and serra das araras ecological station [saes]) and we captured 300 individuals (77 at cgnp and 223 at saes) and made 343 recaptures in the two areas. some individuals were recaptured more than once. we estimated population sizes to be 90 turtles at cgnp and 245 turtles at saes. sex ratio was not significantly different from 1:1 at cgnp, whereas at saes there were more females than males. the population structure varied significantly between the two sampled populations with carapace lengths of turtles at cgnp normally distributed but not at saes. although both areas occur within the same ecosystem and are close to each other (180 km straight line distance), the populations possessed distinct demographic characteristics, possibly resulting from local patterns of environmental conditions and biological interactions." -population structure and natural history of creaser's mud turtle (kinosternon creaseri) in central yucatan,capture-mark-recapture; demography; density; sex ratio,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,MACIP-RIOS R;JONES MT;WILLEY LL;AKRE TS;GONZALEZ-AKRE E;DIAZ-GAMBOA LE,"creaser's mud turtle (kinosternon creaseri hartweg, 1934) is a kinosternid turtle that is widely distributed across the three states of the yucatan peninsula in southeastern mexico. although its distribution and habitat associations have been established for nearly three decades (iverson 1988), primarily anecdotal data are available on local population structure and natural history. we conducted a capture-recapture study of k. creaseri in small, limestone depressions (haltunes) distributed over about 650 ha of forested hills in the puuc hills region of south-central yucatan. we used baited funnel traps in seven haltunes with surface areas ranging from 2.3 to 54.9 m(2) for a combined total of 445 trap hours, and manually searched 20 additional small haltunes (<= 1.5 m semi-major axis). we captured, marked, and released 174 individual turtles. our sample included 21 adults (12 males and nine females) and 139 juveniles or hatchlings with carapace lengths < 90 mm. turtle densities ranged from 1.55-5.11 turtles/m(2) of surface water. preliminary results from our two-year sampling period provide no evidence of individual turtle movement between ponds. further, we report on novel ecological interactions of k. creaseri, such as attempted depredation of hatchlings by giant water bugs (lethocerus sp.), feeding behavior of trapped turtles on adult rio grande leopard frogs (lithobates berlandieri), and shared rock-crevice aestivation with the furrowed wood turtle, rhinoclemmys areolata. we also compiled new occurrence data for the species and report an expanded known distribution of this poorly known species." +population structure and natural history of creaser's mud turtle (kinosternon creaseri) in central yucatan,capture-mark-recapture; demography; density; sex ratio,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,MACIP RIOS R;JONES MT;WILLEY LL;AKRE TS;GONZALEZ AKRE E;DIAZ GAMBOA LE,"creaser's mud turtle (kinosternon creaseri hartweg, 1934) is a kinosternid turtle that is widely distributed across the three states of the yucatan peninsula in southeastern mexico. although its distribution and habitat associations have been established for nearly three decades (iverson 1988), primarily anecdotal data are available on local population structure and natural history. we conducted a capture-recapture study of k. creaseri in small, limestone depressions (haltunes) distributed over about 650 ha of forested hills in the puuc hills region of south-central yucatan. we used baited funnel traps in seven haltunes with surface areas ranging from 2.3 to 54.9 m(2) for a combined total of 445 trap hours, and manually searched 20 additional small haltunes (<= 1.5 m semi-major axis). we captured, marked, and released 174 individual turtles. our sample included 21 adults (12 males and nine females) and 139 juveniles or hatchlings with carapace lengths < 90 mm. turtle densities ranged from 1.55-5.11 turtles/m(2) of surface water. preliminary results from our two-year sampling period provide no evidence of individual turtle movement between ponds. further, we report on novel ecological interactions of k. creaseri, such as attempted depredation of hatchlings by giant water bugs (lethocerus sp.), feeding behavior of trapped turtles on adult rio grande leopard frogs (lithobates berlandieri), and shared rock-crevice aestivation with the furrowed wood turtle, rhinoclemmys areolata. we also compiled new occurrence data for the species and report an expanded known distribution of this poorly known species." within-spring movement of the georgetown salamander (eurycea naufragia),body condition; edwards plateau; gravid; karst; salamander movement,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,GUTIERREZ AM;GUESS ST;PIERCE BA,"movement is a critical ecological and evolutionary factor for many species, and understanding patterns of movement is important in conservation planning and management. faced with increasing urbanization, aquifer depletion, and pollution, spring- and cave-dwelling salamanders of the genus eurycea on the edwards plateau of texas are of conservation concern, yet relatively little is known about their patterns of movements within and between habitats. we studied movement of the georgetown salamander (eurycea naufragia) within two spring sites in central texas over 32 mo. using capture-recapture methods, we tracked the movement of individual salamanders and found limited movement at both sites: only 23% of recaptured salamanders at swinbank spring and only 17% of recaptured salamanders at twin springs moved beyond their 5 m section of original capture. a higher proportion of gravid salamanders than nongravid salamanders moved, and gravid salamanders exhibited a higher rate of movement. salamanders that moved had larger body size, and there was a positive correlation between rate of movement and body size. body condition, as measured by initial relative tail width, was not significantly different between salamanders that moved and those that did not move, and was not correlated with rate of movement. we found no differences in body condition or body size between salamanders that moved upstream and those that moved downstream. these findings arc consistent with other studies of headwater and spring salamanders that found limited dispersal. our findings suggest that eurycea naufragia exhibits limited movement within surface springs." "a new, noninvasive method of batch-marking amphibians across developmental stages",calcein; capture-mark-recapture; fluorescent label; mass marking; metamorphosis; monitoring; survey method; wood frog,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,ANDIS AZ,"organisms that undergo complex morphological change like many amphibian species pose a particular challenge for marking individuals with labels that persist across ontogeny. here, i detail a method for noninvasive, inter-stage, mass marking of wood frog, rana sylvalica (= lithobates sylialica), larvae with calcein. unlike other marking methods, such as tags or dyes, the calcein fluorochrome binds to hone and other caki tied tissue. the mark is administered via short-duration (3.5 min.) submersion in liquid calcein solution. this study demonstrates that calcein marking is a fast and reliablemethod for mass marking amphibians that persists through metamorphosis with no adverse mortality or growth effects. this marking method is especially useful for species that are sensitive to handling and manipulation. the persistence of calcein labels correlated positively correlated with the mass and developmental stage of the individual at the time of marking. calcein fluorescence appeared throughout the larval integument for 3 d after administration. afterward, i detected labels externally in skeletal tissue upon metamorphosis in all larvae marked at gosner stage 30 or greater. i detected labels 146 d after administration in 100% of post-metamorphic individuals marked as larvae over gosner stage 30 and marked within 19 d of metamorphosis. for larvae marked prior to gosner stage 30, 1 detected the label in 75% of individuals after 8 d and 54% of individuals upon metamorphosis. finally, i discuss the applicability of this technique in field studies and in other taxa." "the distribution, abundance and group dynamics of indian ocean humpback dolphins (sousa plumbea) in the emirate of abu dhabi (uae)",indian ocean humpback dolphins; coastal environment; arabian gulf; photo-identification; abundance; conservation,JOURNAL OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM,LOPEZ BD;GRANDCOURT E;METHION S;DAS H;BUGLA I;AL HAMELI M;AL AMERI H;ABDULLA M;AL BLOOSHI A;AL DHAHERI S,"the arabian gulf is one of the most heavily impacted water bodies raising serious concerns about the conservation status of many marine species. a limited coastal range and near-shore distribution make indian ocean humpback dolphins particularly vulnerable to mortality and traumatic injuries from heavy maritime traffic and gill-netting practices. prior to the present study, no research had focused on the ecology of this species in the arabian gulf despite the potential for human impacts. the mark-recapture method of photo-identification, undertaken during 55 boat-based surveys conducted between 2014 and 2015, was used to assess the occurrence, abundance and use of habitat of this endangered species along the coast of the emirate of abu dhabi (uae). in all, 368 h and 6703 km of observation were carried out over a period of 5 months, and 54 encounters were made with humpback dolphins. the group size ranged from 1 to 24 individuals and group composition showed that 79% of the observed dolphins were adults. abundance estimates were calculated and fitted with open population models. a review of all available data indicates that the studied population is the largest reported in the world with 701 (95% ci = 473 - 845) individuals. while their occurrence within abu dhabi near-shore waters is frequent, the survey area appears to be only a part of a much larger home range for this humpback dolphin population. the observation of multiple threats derived from anthropogenic activities increases our concerns regarding the conservation of this important dolphin population." "known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns: coverage in ms experiments",coverage; experimental design; mass spectroscopy,PROTEOMICS,KOZIOL JA;LI Y;SCHNITZER JE,"a mathematical model from ecology, namely, the capture-recapture model with a closed population and time-varying and heterogeneous individual probabilities of capture, is implemented to model the number of protein identifications across the various cycles of a mass spectroscopy experiment. rcapture, a package available in the r computing environment, can easily provide estimates of the cardinality of the proteome from such experiments. alternatively, model fitting can be undertaken in other software platforms, such as matlab, that can accommodate general linear models. it has not escaped our notice that capture-recapture models can be more broadly applied to other settings, so as to estimate the number of missing observations in an experiment." "sunning themselves in heaps, knots, and snarls: the extraordinary abundance and demography of island watersnakes",body size; capture-mark-recapture; life history; population estimation; process variance; realized population growth; survival; vital rates,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,KING RB;STANFORD KM;JONES PC,"snakes represent a sizable fraction of vertebrate biodiversity, but until recently, data on their demography have been sparse. consequently, generalizations regarding patterns of variation are weak and the potential for population projections is limited. we address this information gap through an analysis of spatial and temporal variation in demography (population size, annual survival, and realized population growth) of the lake erie watersnake, nerodia sipedon insularum, and a review of snake survival more generally. our study spans a period during which the lake erie watersnake was listed as threatened under the u.s. endangered species act, recovered, and was delisted. we collected capture-mark-recapture data at 14 study sites over 20years, accruing 20,000 captures of 13,800 individually marked adults. lake erie watersnakes achieve extraordinary abundance, averaging 520adults per km of shoreline (ca. 260adult per ha) at our study sites (range=160-1,600adults per km; ca. 80-800adults per ha) and surpassing population recovery and postdelisting monitoring criteria. annual survival averages 0.68 among adult females and 0.76 among adult males, varies among sites, and is positively correlated with body size among study sites. temporal process variance in annual survival is low, averaging 0.0011 or less than 4% of total variance; thus, stochasticity in annual survival may be of minor significance to snake extinction risk. estimates of realized population growth indicate that population size has been stable or increasing over the course of our study. more generally, snake annual survival overlaps broadly across continents, climate zones, families, subfamilies, reproductive modes, body size categories, maturation categories, and parity categories. differences in survival in relation to size, parity, and maturation are in the directions predicted by life history theory but are of small magnitude with much variation around median values. overall, annual survival appears to be quite plastic, varying with food availability, habitat quality, and other ecological variables." mind the trap: large-scale field experiment shows that trappability is not a proxy for personality,behavioural syndrome; capture probability; open field; small mammal; trap happy; trap shy,ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR,BREHM AM;MORTELLITI A,"behavioural tendencies vary consistently among individuals and this variation is known as personality. previous studies have found that personality traits measured through standardized behavioural tests predict trappability (i.e. 'trap happy' versus 'trap shy'). however, the nature of this relationship is unclear since it has been explored only within single species and never across environments. this is problematic because trappability is a labile characteristic that can vary between seasons, environments and years. it is essential to understand this link because there is great potential for the use of trappability as a proxy for personality. for example, if trappability reflects personality, this would allow researchers to extract personality data from long-term capture-mark-recapture data sets. to clarify this relationship, we designed a large-scale field experiment to measure personality and trappability in five small mammal species and across four distinct forest types. with an open field test, we quantified behaviour in 189 deer mice, peromyscus maniculatus, 170 southern red-backed voles, myodes gapperi, 42 american red squirrels, tamiasciurus hudsonicus, 58 woodland jumping mice, napaeozapus insignis, and 87 northern short-tailed shrews, blarina brevicauda. we identified personality in all five of our target species, and through mixed-effects modelling we found that personality traits did not predict different aspects of trappability. furthermore, trappability was not a repeatable measure (i.e. animals that were trap happy in one session were not necessarily trap happy throughout the trapping season). our results suggest that trappability cannot be used as a proxy for personality. (c) 2018 the association for the study of animal behaviour. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -experimental removal reveals only weak interspecific competition between two coexisting lizards,abundance; habitat selection; interspecific competition; ornate tree lizard; sceloporus virgatus; striped plateau lizard; urosaurus ornatus,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,PATERSON JE;WEISS SL;BLOUIN-DEMERS G,"competition for resources is an important mechanism that shapes ecological communities. interspecific competition can affect habitat selection, fitness, and abundance in animals. we used a removal experiment and mark-recapture to test the hypothesis that competition with the larger and more abundant striped plateau lizard (sceloporus virgatus h.m. smith, 1938) limits habitat selection, fitness, and abundance in ornate tree lizards (urosaurus ornatus (baird in baird and girard, 1852)). ornate tree lizards in the plots where striped plateau lizards were removed switched between habitat types more frequently and moved farther than ornate tree lizards in control plots. however, there were no significant changes in the relative densities of ornate tree lizards in each habitat type or in microhabitat use. we also found no changes in growth rates, survival, or abundance of ornate tree lizards in response to the removal of striped plateau lizards. our results suggest that interspecific competition was not strong enough to limit habitat use or abundance of ornate tree lizards. perhaps interspecific competition is weak between coexisting species when resource levels are not severely depleted. therefore, it is important to consider environmental conditions when assessing the importance of interspecific competition." +experimental removal reveals only weak interspecific competition between two coexisting lizards,abundance; habitat selection; interspecific competition; ornate tree lizard; sceloporus virgatus; striped plateau lizard; urosaurus ornatus,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,PATERSON JE;WEISS SL;BLOUIN DEMERS G,"competition for resources is an important mechanism that shapes ecological communities. interspecific competition can affect habitat selection, fitness, and abundance in animals. we used a removal experiment and mark-recapture to test the hypothesis that competition with the larger and more abundant striped plateau lizard (sceloporus virgatus h.m. smith, 1938) limits habitat selection, fitness, and abundance in ornate tree lizards (urosaurus ornatus (baird in baird and girard, 1852)). ornate tree lizards in the plots where striped plateau lizards were removed switched between habitat types more frequently and moved farther than ornate tree lizards in control plots. however, there were no significant changes in the relative densities of ornate tree lizards in each habitat type or in microhabitat use. we also found no changes in growth rates, survival, or abundance of ornate tree lizards in response to the removal of striped plateau lizards. our results suggest that interspecific competition was not strong enough to limit habitat use or abundance of ornate tree lizards. perhaps interspecific competition is weak between coexisting species when resource levels are not severely depleted. therefore, it is important to consider environmental conditions when assessing the importance of interspecific competition." using partial aggregation in spatial capture recapture,partially aggregated binary model; spatial capture recapture; wolverines,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MILLERET C;DUPONT P;BROSETH H;KINDBERG J;ROYLE JA;BISCHOF R,"1. spatial capture-recapture (scr) models are commonly used for analysing data collected using noninvasive genetic sampling (ngs). opportunistic ngs often leads to detections that do not occur at discrete detector locations. therefore, spatial aggregation of individual detections into fixed detectors (e.g., centre of grid cells) is an option to increase computing speed of scr analyses. however, it may reduce precision and accuracy of parameter estimations. 2. using simulations, we explored the impact that spatial aggregation of detections has on a trade-off between computing time and parameter precision and bias, under a range of biological conditions. we used three different observation models: the commonly used poisson and bernoulli models, as well as a novel way to partially aggregate detections (partially aggregated binary model [pab]) to reduce the loss of information after aggregating binary detections. the pab model divides detectors into k subdetectors and models the frequency of subdetectors with more than one detection as a binomial response with a sample size of k. finally, we demonstrate the consequences of aggregation and the use of the pab model using ngs data from the monitoring of wolverine (gulo gulo) in norway. 3. spatial aggregation of detections, while reducing computation time, does indeed incur costs in terms of reduced precision and accuracy, especially for the parameters of the detection function. scr models estimated abundance with a low bias (< 10%) even at high degree of aggregation, but only for the poisson and pab models. overall, the cost of aggregation is mitigated when using the poisson and pab models. at the same level of aggregation, the pab observation model out-performs the bernoulli model in terms of accuracy of estimates, while offering the benefits of a binary observation model (less assumptions about the underlying ecological process) over the count-based model. 4. we recommend that detector spacing after aggregation does not exceed 1.5 times the scale-parameter of the detection function in order to limit bias. we recommend the use of the pab observation model when performing spatial aggregation of binary data as it can mitigate the cost of aggregation, compared to the bernoulli model." reducing effects of dispersal on the bias of 2-sample mark-recapture estimators of stream fish abundance,NA,PLOS ONE,MCNAIR JN;RUETZ CR;CARLSON A;SUH J,"the 2-sample mark-recapture method with chapman's estimator is often used by inland fishery managers to estimate the reach-scale abundance of stream fish. an important assumption of this method is that no dispersal into or out of the study reach occurs between the two samples. violations of this assumption are probably common in practice, but their effect on bias (systematic error) of abundance estimates is poorly understood, especially in small populations. estimation methods permitting dispersal exist but, for logistical reasons, often are infeasible for routine assessments in streams. the purpose of this paper is to extend available results regarding effects of dispersal on the bias of chapman's estimator as applied to reach-scale studies of stream fish abundance. we examine for the first time the joint effects of dispersal and sampling variation on the bias of this estimator. to reduce the bias effects of dispersal, we propose a modified sampling scheme in which the original study reach is expanded, a central subreach is sampled during the mark session (sample 1), and the entire reach is sampled during the recapture session (sample 2). this modified sampling scheme can substantially reduce bias effects of dispersal without requiring unique marking of individual fish or additional site visits. analytical and simulation results show that sampling variation tends to create negative bias with respect to study-reach abundance, while dispersal tends to create positive bias; the net effect can be positive, negative, or zero, depending on the true abundance, capture probabilities, and amount and nature of dispersal. in most cases, simply expanding the study reach is an effective way to reduce dispersal-related bias of chapman's estimator, but expanding the study reach and employing the modified sampling scheme we propose is a better alternative for accurately estimating abundance with the same level of sampling effort." -some like it hot: from individual to population responses of an arboreal arid-zone gecko to local and distant climate,behavioral adaptation; body condition; body growth rate; climate change; el nino southern oscillation (enso); gehyra variegata; population dynamics; population size; survival; thermoregulation,ECOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS,GRIMM-SEYFARTH A;MIHOUB JB;GRUBER B;HENLE K,"accumulating evidence has demonstrated considerable impact of climate change on biodiversity, with terrestrial ectotherms being particularly vulnerable. while climate-induced range shifts are often addressed in the literature, little is known about the underlying ecological responses at individual and population levels. using a 30-yr monitoring study of the long-living nocturnal gecko gehyra variegata in arid australia, we determined the relative contribution of climatic factors acting locally (temperature, rainfall) or distantly (la nina induced flooding) on ecological processes ranging from traits at the individual level (body condition, body growth) to the demography at population level (survival, sexual maturity, population sizes). we also investigated whether thermoregulatory activity during both active (night) and resting (daytime) periods of the day can explain these responses. gehyra variegata responded to local and distant climatic effects. both high temperatures and high water availability enhanced individual and demographic parameters. moreover, the impact of water availability was scale independent as local rainfall and la nina induced flooding compensated each other. when water availability was low, however, extremely high temperatures delayed body growth and sexual maturity while survival of individuals and population sizes remained stable. this suggests a trade-off with traits at the individual level that may potentially buffer the consequences of adverse climatic conditions at the population level. moreover, hot temperatures did not impact nocturnal nor diurnal behavior. instead, only cool temperatures induced diurnal thermoregulatory behavior with individuals moving to exposed hollow branches and even outside tree hollows for sun-basking during the day. since diurnal behavioral thermoregulation likely induced costs on fitness, this could decrease performance at both individual and population level under cool temperatures. our findings show that water availability rather than high temperature is the limiting factor in our focal population of g.variegata. in contrast to previous studies, we stress that drier rather than warmer conditions are expected to be detrimental for nocturnal desert reptiles. identifying the actual limiting climatic factors at different scales and their functional interactions at different ecological levels is critical to be able to predict reliably future population dynamics and support conservation planning in arid ecosystems." +some like it hot: from individual to population responses of an arboreal arid-zone gecko to local and distant climate,behavioral adaptation; body condition; body growth rate; climate change; el nino southern oscillation (enso); gehyra variegata; population dynamics; population size; survival; thermoregulation,ECOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS,GRIMM SEYFARTH A;MIHOUB JB;GRUBER B;HENLE K,"accumulating evidence has demonstrated considerable impact of climate change on biodiversity, with terrestrial ectotherms being particularly vulnerable. while climate-induced range shifts are often addressed in the literature, little is known about the underlying ecological responses at individual and population levels. using a 30-yr monitoring study of the long-living nocturnal gecko gehyra variegata in arid australia, we determined the relative contribution of climatic factors acting locally (temperature, rainfall) or distantly (la nina induced flooding) on ecological processes ranging from traits at the individual level (body condition, body growth) to the demography at population level (survival, sexual maturity, population sizes). we also investigated whether thermoregulatory activity during both active (night) and resting (daytime) periods of the day can explain these responses. gehyra variegata responded to local and distant climatic effects. both high temperatures and high water availability enhanced individual and demographic parameters. moreover, the impact of water availability was scale independent as local rainfall and la nina induced flooding compensated each other. when water availability was low, however, extremely high temperatures delayed body growth and sexual maturity while survival of individuals and population sizes remained stable. this suggests a trade-off with traits at the individual level that may potentially buffer the consequences of adverse climatic conditions at the population level. moreover, hot temperatures did not impact nocturnal nor diurnal behavior. instead, only cool temperatures induced diurnal thermoregulatory behavior with individuals moving to exposed hollow branches and even outside tree hollows for sun-basking during the day. since diurnal behavioral thermoregulation likely induced costs on fitness, this could decrease performance at both individual and population level under cool temperatures. our findings show that water availability rather than high temperature is the limiting factor in our focal population of g.variegata. in contrast to previous studies, we stress that drier rather than warmer conditions are expected to be detrimental for nocturnal desert reptiles. identifying the actual limiting climatic factors at different scales and their functional interactions at different ecological levels is critical to be able to predict reliably future population dynamics and support conservation planning in arid ecosystems." compounding effects of human development and a natural food shortage on a black bear population along a human development-wildland interface,abundance; american black bear; climate; density; gps; human-bear conflict; integrated population models; population growth; spatial capture-recapture; ursus americanus,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,LAUFENBERG JS;JOHNSON HE;DOHERTY PF;BRECK SW,"human development and climate change are two stressors that threaten numerous wildlife populations, and their combined effects are likely to be most pronounced along the human development-wildland interface where changes in both natural and anthropogenic conditions interact to affect wildlife. to better understand the compounding influence of these stressors, we investigated the effects of a climate-induced natural food shortage on the dynamics of a black bear population in the vicinity of durango, colorado. we integrated 4 years of dna-based capture-mark-recapture data with gps-based telemetry data to evaluate the combined effects of human development and the food shortage on the abundance, population growth rate, and spatial distribution of female black bears. we documented a 57% decline in female bear abundance immediately following the natural food shortage coinciding with an increase in human-caused bear mortality (e.g., vehicle collisions, harvest and lethal removals) primarily in developed areas. we also detected a change in the spatial distribution of female bears with fewer bears occurring near human development in years immediately following the food shortage, likely as a consequence of high mortality near human infrastructure during the food shortage. given expected future increases in human development and climate-induced food shortages, we expect that bear dynamics may be increasingly influenced by human-caused mortality, which will be difficult to detect with current management practices. to ensure long-term sustainability of bear populations, we recommend that wildlife agencies invest in monitoring programs that can accurately track bear populations, incorporate non-harvest human-caused mortality into management models, and work to reduce human-caused mortality, particularly in years with natural food shortages." relationship between effective and demographic population size in continuously distributed populations,effective population size; genetic indicator; genetic monitoring; ldne; population trends,EVOLUTIONARY APPLICATIONS,PIERSON JC;GRAVES TA;BANKS SC;KENDALL KC;LINDENMAYER DB,"genetic monitoring of wild populations can offer insights into demographic and genetic information simultaneously. however, widespread application of genetic monitoring is hindered by large uncertainty in the estimation and interpretation of target metrics such as contemporary effective population size, n-e. we used four long-term genetic and demographic studies (>= 9years) to evaluate the temporal stability of the relationship between n-e and demographic population size (n-c). these case studies focused on mammals that are continuously distributed, yet dispersal-limited within the spatial scale of the study. we estimated local, contemporary n-e with single-sample methods (ldne, heterozygosity excess, and molecular ancestry) and demographic abundance with either mark-recapture estimates or catch-per-unit effort indices. estimates of n-e varied widely within each case study suggesting interpretation of estimates is challenging. we found inconsistent correlations and trends both among estimates of n-e and between n-e and n-c suggesting the value of n-e as an indicator of n-c is limited in some cases. in the two case studies with consistent trends between n-e and n-c, f-is was more stable over time and lower, suggesting f-is may be a good indicator that the population was sampled at a spatial scale at which genetic structure is not biasing estimates of n-e. these results suggest that more empirical work on the estimation of n-e in continuous populations is needed to understand the appropriate context to use ldne as a useful metric in a monitoring programme to detect temporal trends in either n-e or n-c." childhood cancer registration in new zealand: a registry collaboration to assess and improve data quality,data quality; cancer registry; children; completeness; accuracy; incidence,CANCER EPIDEMIOLOGY,BALLANTINE KR;HANNA S;MACFARLANE S;BRADBEER P;TEAGUE L;HUNTER S;CROSS S;SKEEN J,"aim: to evaluate the completeness and accuracy of child cancer registration in new zealand. methods: registrations for children aged 0-14 diagnosed between 1/1/2010 and 31/12/2014 were obtained from the new zealand cancer registry (nzcr) and the new zealand children's cancer registry (nzccr). six key data fields were matched using national health index numbers in order to identify and resolve registration discrepancies. capture-recapture methods were used to assess the completeness of cancer registration. results: 794 unique cases were reported; 718 from the nzcr, 721 from the nzccr and 643 from both registries. 27 invalid cancer registrations were identified, including 19 residents of the pacific islands who had travelled to new zealand for treatment. the nzccr provided 55 non-malignant central nervous system tumour and 16 langerhans cell histiocytosis cases which were not registered by the nzcr. the nzcr alerted the nzccr to 18 cases missed due to human error and 23 cases that had not been referred to the specialist paediatric oncology centres. 762 cases were verified as true incident cases, an incidence rate of 166.8 per million. registration accuracy for six key data fields was 98.6%. according to their respective inclusion criteria case completeness was 99.3% for the nzcr and 94.4% for the nzccr. for childhood malignancies covered by both registries, capture-recapture methods estimated case ascertainment at greater than 99.9%. conclusion: with two national registries covering childhood cancers, new zealand is uniquely positioned to undertake regular cooperative activities to ensure high quality data is available for research and patient care." -"first insights into puumala orthohantavirus circulation in a rodent population in alsace, france",behaviour; genetic diversity; population dynamics of reservoir host; puumala virus,ZOONOSES AND PUBLIC HEALTH,MONCHATRE-LEROY E;MURRI S;CASTEL G;CALAVAS D;BOUE F;HENAUX V;MARIANNEAU P,"in-depth knowledge on the mechanisms that maintain infection by a zoonotic pathogen in an animal reservoir is the key to predicting and preventing transmission to humans. the puumala orthohantavirus (puuv), the most prevalent orthohantavirus in western europe, causes a mild form of haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (hfrs) in humans. in france, this endemic illness affects the north-eastern part of the country. we conducted a 4-year capture-mark-recapture study in a bank vole population, combined with molecular analyses, to explore the epidemiological situation of puuv in alsace, a french region where human cases have occurred, but for which no studies have been conducted on this reservoir host. puuv-infected bank voles were detected in the 2years that showed high bank vole density with a prevalence of 4%. the individual puuv sequences identified in this study were similar from year to year and similar to other french sequences. on a very small spatial scale, the distribution of seropositive bank voles was very heterogeneous in time and space. the short distances travelled on average by bank voles resulted in spatial clusters of seropositive rodents, which spread only very gradually throughout the year." +"first insights into puumala orthohantavirus circulation in a rodent population in alsace, france",behaviour; genetic diversity; population dynamics of reservoir host; puumala virus,ZOONOSES AND PUBLIC HEALTH,MONCHATRE LEROY E;MURRI S;CASTEL G;CALAVAS D;BOUE F;HENAUX V;MARIANNEAU P,"in-depth knowledge on the mechanisms that maintain infection by a zoonotic pathogen in an animal reservoir is the key to predicting and preventing transmission to humans. the puumala orthohantavirus (puuv), the most prevalent orthohantavirus in western europe, causes a mild form of haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (hfrs) in humans. in france, this endemic illness affects the north-eastern part of the country. we conducted a 4-year capture-mark-recapture study in a bank vole population, combined with molecular analyses, to explore the epidemiological situation of puuv in alsace, a french region where human cases have occurred, but for which no studies have been conducted on this reservoir host. puuv-infected bank voles were detected in the 2years that showed high bank vole density with a prevalence of 4%. the individual puuv sequences identified in this study were similar from year to year and similar to other french sequences. on a very small spatial scale, the distribution of seropositive bank voles was very heterogeneous in time and space. the short distances travelled on average by bank voles resulted in spatial clusters of seropositive rodents, which spread only very gradually throughout the year." hemlock woolly adelgid invasion affects microhabitat characteristics and small mammal communities,eastern hemlocks; invasive insect; foundation species; forest disturbance; deer mice; southern red-backed voles,BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS,DEGRASSI AL,"hemlock woolly adelgid (hwa) invasion and preemptive logging practices alter the habitat structure of new england forests and may indirectly affect associated small mammal communities. microhabitat structure was measured and small mammals were censused in eight large experimental plots to quantify these effects. the harvard forest long-term ecological research experiment is a replicated two-block design that includes four similar to 0.81-ha canopy treatments: (1) hemlock control, (2) hardwood control, (3) girdled treatment, in which hemlock trees were killed by girdling in 2005 and left standing to simulate hwa invasion, and (4) logged treatment, in which trees were removed to simulate preemptive logging management practices. nine microhabitat characteristics were measured from plot photos revealing differences among ground and canopy microhabitat structure. small mammals were censused during high (2012) and low (2013) abundant years. populations of common species were estimated with mark-recapture analysis. perotnyscus spp. were not affected by treatment in either year, but southern red-backed vole populations were greatest in the girdled treatments in 2012 and rarely captured in 2013. between 6 and 9 mammal species were recorded in all treatments and species composition varied slightly. estimated species richness was greater in girdled treatments than hemlock controls, but did not differ between girdled and logged treatments, which suggests preemptive logging is as detrimental to some small mammal species as hwa invasion. overall, there is little evidence of a major shift in small mammal community structure in response to hwa invasion, with only minor changes in relative abundance both years." -a tooth wear scoring scheme for age estimation of the eurasian lynx (lynx lynx) under field conditions,age determination; teeth; wild felid; classification criteria; tooth replacement; method harmonisation,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,MARTI I;RYSER-DEGIORGIS MP,"within the framework of conservation actions for the eurasian lynx (lynx lynx), ageing of individuals is required to assess suitability for translocation and to investigate population dynamics and disease epidemiology. we aimed to develop a standardised ageing tool for free-ranging eurasian lynx, which would be non-invasive, time- and cost-effective, and applicable under field conditions. we used tooth pictures of 140 free-ranging lynx of known age from switzerland. tooth colour, calculus, number of incisor teeth and canine, premolar and molar tooth wear were recorded according to pre-defined criteria. statistical comparisons among the categories of each criterion revealed significant differences for all criteria. tooth colour and canine tooth morphology showed obvious and consistent alterations with age. together with the molar tooth shape, premolar tooth tips, incisor teeth and amount of calculus, they pictured the age-related changes in lynx dentition. crown fractures, enamel flaking and open pulp cavities were observed with an increasing prevalence over age but were also sporadically seen in juveniles. based on the obtained results, we developed a classification scheme distinguishing six age classes: < 1 year, 1-2 years, 3-6 years, 7-9 years, 10-13 years, ae 14 years. the scheme was subsequently tested with the same lynx. classification success rates of different readers ranged from 69 to 88% but errors did not exceed one age class. the homogenous tooth replacement pattern observed in lynx < 1 year allowed us to develop a separate ageing chart to age juveniles in months. the proposed scheme is a promising tool to objectively assign lynx to meaningful age categories." +a tooth wear scoring scheme for age estimation of the eurasian lynx (lynx lynx) under field conditions,age determination; teeth; wild felid; classification criteria; tooth replacement; method harmonisation,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,MARTI I;RYSER DEGIORGIS MP,"within the framework of conservation actions for the eurasian lynx (lynx lynx), ageing of individuals is required to assess suitability for translocation and to investigate population dynamics and disease epidemiology. we aimed to develop a standardised ageing tool for free-ranging eurasian lynx, which would be non-invasive, time- and cost-effective, and applicable under field conditions. we used tooth pictures of 140 free-ranging lynx of known age from switzerland. tooth colour, calculus, number of incisor teeth and canine, premolar and molar tooth wear were recorded according to pre-defined criteria. statistical comparisons among the categories of each criterion revealed significant differences for all criteria. tooth colour and canine tooth morphology showed obvious and consistent alterations with age. together with the molar tooth shape, premolar tooth tips, incisor teeth and amount of calculus, they pictured the age-related changes in lynx dentition. crown fractures, enamel flaking and open pulp cavities were observed with an increasing prevalence over age but were also sporadically seen in juveniles. based on the obtained results, we developed a classification scheme distinguishing six age classes: < 1 year, 1-2 years, 3-6 years, 7-9 years, 10-13 years, ae 14 years. the scheme was subsequently tested with the same lynx. classification success rates of different readers ranged from 69 to 88% but errors did not exceed one age class. the homogenous tooth replacement pattern observed in lynx < 1 year allowed us to develop a separate ageing chart to age juveniles in months. the proposed scheme is a promising tool to objectively assign lynx to meaningful age categories." "demographic, endocrine and behavioral responses to mirex in the south polar skua",capture-mark-recapture; catharacta maccormicki; ecotoxicology; vital rates; population dynamics,SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT,GOUTTE A;MEILLERE A;BARBRAUD C;BUDZINSKI H;LABADIE P;PELUHET L;WEIMERSKIRCH H;DELORD K;CHASTEL O,"population consequences of chronic exposure to multiple pollutants at low environmental doses remain speculative, because of the lack of appropriate long-term monitoring surveys. this study integrates proximate and ultimate aspects of persistent organic pollutants (pop) burden in free-living vertebrates, by coupling hormonal and behavioral endpoints, life-history traits, and population dynamics. blood samples (n = 70) were collected in south polar skuas during two breeding periods, in 2003 and 2005, and individuals were annually monitored until 2011. multi-state mark recapture models were used to test the effects of pop levels on demographic traits. survival rate and long-term breeding probability were not related to individual pop levels, whereas long-term breeding success significantly decreased with increasing blood levels of mirex, an organochlorine insecticide. at the proximate level, corticosterone (stress hormone) and prolactin (parental care hormone) levels were not linked to individual pop burden. nest defense in 2005 was significantly less intensive in chick-rearing skuas bearing higher mirex levels, suggesting reproductive behavioral impairment. matrix population models were then built to project the rate of population decline according to increasing mirex burden. although mirex levels were 2.8 times higher in 2003 than in 2005, the population-level effect of mirex was only detected in 2005, the year of higher corticosterone levels. the combination of endocrine traits with demographic analysis thereby enables to provide new support of synergistic interactions between pollutants and stress levels on long-term breeding outputs and population dynamics. (c) 2018 published by elsevier b.v." "spatio-temporal migratory dynamics of jasus frontalis (milne edwards, 1837) in alexander selkirk island, juan fernandez archipelago, chile",NA,PLOS ONE,ROMAN C;ERNST B;THIEL M;MANRIQUEZ P;CHAMORRO J,"knowledge about the spatial patterns and movements of crustaceans has gained importance since the creation of marine protected areas and the development of spatial management for benthic ecosystems. the juan fernandez spiny lobster (jasus frontalis) is an endemic marine species and most valuable resource that exhibits migratory dynamics in a highly spatially regulated fishery. to study movement patterns around alexander selkirk island, a mark-recapture program was implemented in 2008, when approximately 7000 non-commercial (undersized) lobsters were tagged and followed for nearly 14 months. using quantitative georeferenced data, this study revealed spatial structuring of juan fernandez spiny lobster and tested hypotheses about alongshore and inshore-offshore movements. eight clusters were identified around alexander selkirk island, with moderate time-varying connectivity between them. seasonal inshore-offshore movements were detected all around the island, but more conspicuously to the north. average travelling distance was 1.2 km (1.7 sd). our results confirmed that towards the end of austral spring males and females embark in a seasonal offshore migration to deeper waters, returning to shallower waters only during winter. these findings quantitatively consolidate the conceptual migratory model that local fishermen had already inferred for this resource from about a century of sustainable fishing." challenges and opportunities for monitoring wild nile crocodiles with scute mark-recapture photography,NA,KOEDOE,COETZEE BWT;FERREIRA SM;MACIEJEWSKI K,"the global conservation status of nile crocodiles (crocodylus niloticus) was last assessed in 1996. the species presents particular difficulty in monitoring because it can be cryptic, require expertise to handle, and caudal tail tags and transmitters are often lost. some studies advocate mark-recapture techniques based on photograph identification of the unique scute markings of crocodile tails as a non-invasive means of monitoring their populations. researchers developed this method with crocodiles in captivity. in this study, we test the technique under field conditions by monitoring crocodiles from 2015 to 2017 in the sunset dam in the kruger national park. using a cormack-jolly-seber open population model, we found that the dam may host 15-30 individuals, but that there is a high turnover of individuals and much uncertainty in model outputs. the dam's population thus has high rates of immigration and emigration. the method proved challenging under field conditions, as there was bias in identifying scute markings consistently. the efficient use of the method requires an exceptional quality of photographic equipment. animal crypsis, however, remains an issue. in this study, we discuss how to improve the mark-recapture photography methodology, especially to adapt the technique for citizen science initiatives. conservation implications: using scute mark-recapture photography presents challenges under field conditions. these challenges require innovative, practical and analytical solutions to successfully use the technique before monitoring programmes, aimed at ensuring the persistence of crocodiles in the wild, can be implemented." -challenges of implementing mark-recapture studies on poorly marked gregarious delphinids,NA,PLOS ONE,HUPMAN K;STOCKIN KA;POLLOCK K;PAWLEY MDM;DWYER SL;LEA C;TEZANOS-PINTO G,"population parameters of poorly marked gregarious species are difficult to estimate. this is the case for common dolphins (delphinus sp.), a genus known for its lack of distinctive marks resulting in a low mark ratio. furthermore, the widespread nature of common dolphins results in low recaptures. we developed reliable photo-identification protocols to ensure accurate identification of individuals in the hauraki gulf, new zealand. these protocols combined the use of nicks and notches and pigmentation patterns for identification and included the development of a distinctiveness threshold. the data were further stratified by the level of distinctiveness of each individual (as distinctive or highly-distinctive). photo-identification surveys were conducted from january 2010 to december 2013. mark-recapture techniques were implemented through a popan super-population approach to estimate seasonal apparent survival, capture probability and abundance of dolphins. a total of 2,083 unique adult common dolphins were identified, 51.3% were classified as d1 (highly distinctive; n = 1,069) and 48.7% as d2 (distinctive; n = 1,014). of all individuals identified, 34.3% (n = 704) were re-sighted over subsequent years. the proportion of marked dolphins (when compared to unmarked dolphins) was 26.3% for d1 and 46.4% for d1 & d2, respectively. apparent survival was estimated at 0.767 (ci = 0.694-0.827) for d1 animals, and 0.796 (ci = 0.729-0.850) for d1 & d2 combined. for d1 only, seasonal abundance varied from 732 (ci = 460-1,177) in autumn 2010 to 5,304 (ci = 4,745-5,930) in spring 2013. while the inclusion of d2 individuals may offer a more precise estimate of total abundance, the inability to determine additional sources of bias (for example, arising from under or overestimated mark ratios) meant that estimates for d1 individuals were deemed the least biased for this population. the photo-identification protocol, stratification of the data and steps taken to eliminate potential model violations provided a useful and novel approach to estimate population parameters for common dolphins. these approaches could be implemented for other large gregarious populations (>= 500 individuals) of animals with poor natural markings." +challenges of implementing mark-recapture studies on poorly marked gregarious delphinids,NA,PLOS ONE,HUPMAN K;STOCKIN KA;POLLOCK K;PAWLEY MDM;DWYER SL;LEA C;TEZANOS PINTO G,"population parameters of poorly marked gregarious species are difficult to estimate. this is the case for common dolphins (delphinus sp.), a genus known for its lack of distinctive marks resulting in a low mark ratio. furthermore, the widespread nature of common dolphins results in low recaptures. we developed reliable photo-identification protocols to ensure accurate identification of individuals in the hauraki gulf, new zealand. these protocols combined the use of nicks and notches and pigmentation patterns for identification and included the development of a distinctiveness threshold. the data were further stratified by the level of distinctiveness of each individual (as distinctive or highly-distinctive). photo-identification surveys were conducted from january 2010 to december 2013. mark-recapture techniques were implemented through a popan super-population approach to estimate seasonal apparent survival, capture probability and abundance of dolphins. a total of 2,083 unique adult common dolphins were identified, 51.3% were classified as d1 (highly distinctive; n = 1,069) and 48.7% as d2 (distinctive; n = 1,014). of all individuals identified, 34.3% (n = 704) were re-sighted over subsequent years. the proportion of marked dolphins (when compared to unmarked dolphins) was 26.3% for d1 and 46.4% for d1 & d2, respectively. apparent survival was estimated at 0.767 (ci = 0.694-0.827) for d1 animals, and 0.796 (ci = 0.729-0.850) for d1 & d2 combined. for d1 only, seasonal abundance varied from 732 (ci = 460-1,177) in autumn 2010 to 5,304 (ci = 4,745-5,930) in spring 2013. while the inclusion of d2 individuals may offer a more precise estimate of total abundance, the inability to determine additional sources of bias (for example, arising from under or overestimated mark ratios) meant that estimates for d1 individuals were deemed the least biased for this population. the photo-identification protocol, stratification of the data and steps taken to eliminate potential model violations provided a useful and novel approach to estimate population parameters for common dolphins. these approaches could be implemented for other large gregarious populations (>= 500 individuals) of animals with poor natural markings." incidence of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy in children is similar to adults,NA,NEUROLOGY,KELLER AE;WHITNEY R;LI SA;POLLANEN MS;DONNER EJ,"objective to determine the incidence of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (sudep) in children in ontario, canada. methods cases of suspected pediatric sudep occurring between january 1, 2014, and december 31, 2015, in ontario, canada, were eligible for inclusion. potential cases were identified through 3 sources: a national pediatrician surveillance program, child neurologist report, and screening of provincial forensic autopsies. cases were classified as definite, definite plus, probable, possible, and near/near plus according to criteria described by nashef et al. (epilepsia 2012). overall crude pediatric sudep incidence and the incidence of definite or probable pediatric sudep were calculated using estimates of the prevalence of pediatric epilepsy in canada drawn from government survey data and the number of children living in ontario. capture-recapture analysis was used to estimate the number of missing cases and determine an adjusted definite/probable sudep incidence. results seventeen cases of pediatric sudep resulted in an overall incidence of 1.17 (95% confidence interval 0.68-1.88) per 1,000 pediatric epilepsy person-years. the definite/probable incidence, including definite (n = 11), definite plus (n = 2), or probable (n = 3) sudep cases, was 1.11 (0.63-1.79). capture-recapture analysis indicated an estimated 21 (16-39) definite/probable sudep cases occurred during the study period, giving an adjusted incidence of definite/ probable sudep of 1.45 (0.90-2.22) per 1,000 pediatric epilepsy person-years. conclusion sudep may be more common in children than widely reported, with the incidence rate of definite/probable sudep in children being similar to rates reported in adults." -n-mixture models reliably estimate the abundance of small vertebrates,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,FICETOLA GF;BARZAGHI B;MELOTTO A;MURARO M;LUNGHI E;CANEDOLI C;LO PARRINO E;NANNI V;SILVA-ROCHA I;URSO A;CARRETERO MA;SALVI D;SCALI S;SCARI G;PENNATI R;ANDREONE F;MANENTI R,"accurate measures of species abundance are essential to identify conservation strategies. n-mixture models are increasingly used to estimate abundance on the basis of species counts. in this study we tested whether abundance estimates obtained using n-mixture models provide consistent results with more traditional approaches requiring capture (capture-mark recapture and removal sampling). we focused on endemic, threatened species of amphibians and reptiles in italy, for which accurate abundance data are needed for conservation assessments: the lanza's alpine salamander salamandra lanzai, the ambrosi's cave salamander hydromantes ambrosii and the aeolian wall lizard podarcis raffonei. in visual counts, detection probability was variable among species, ranging between 0.14 (alpine salamanders) and 0.60 (cave salamanders). for all the species, abundance estimates obtained using n-mixture models showed limited differences with the ones obtained through capture-mark-recapture or removal sampling. the match was particularly accurate for cave salamanders in sites with limited abundance and for lizards, nevertheless non-incorporating heterogeneity of detection probability increased bias. n-mixture models provide reliable abundance estimates that are comparable with the ones of more traditional approaches, and offer additional advantages such as a smaller sampling effort and no need of manipulating individuals, which in turn reduces the risk of harming animals and spreading diseases." +n-mixture models reliably estimate the abundance of small vertebrates,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,FICETOLA GF;BARZAGHI B;MELOTTO A;MURARO M;LUNGHI E;CANEDOLI C;LO PARRINO E;NANNI V;SILVA ROCHA I;URSO A;CARRETERO MA;SALVI D;SCALI S;SCARI G;PENNATI R;ANDREONE F;MANENTI R,"accurate measures of species abundance are essential to identify conservation strategies. n-mixture models are increasingly used to estimate abundance on the basis of species counts. in this study we tested whether abundance estimates obtained using n-mixture models provide consistent results with more traditional approaches requiring capture (capture-mark recapture and removal sampling). we focused on endemic, threatened species of amphibians and reptiles in italy, for which accurate abundance data are needed for conservation assessments: the lanza's alpine salamander salamandra lanzai, the ambrosi's cave salamander hydromantes ambrosii and the aeolian wall lizard podarcis raffonei. in visual counts, detection probability was variable among species, ranging between 0.14 (alpine salamanders) and 0.60 (cave salamanders). for all the species, abundance estimates obtained using n-mixture models showed limited differences with the ones obtained through capture-mark-recapture or removal sampling. the match was particularly accurate for cave salamanders in sites with limited abundance and for lizards, nevertheless non-incorporating heterogeneity of detection probability increased bias. n-mixture models provide reliable abundance estimates that are comparable with the ones of more traditional approaches, and offer additional advantages such as a smaller sampling effort and no need of manipulating individuals, which in turn reduces the risk of harming animals and spreading diseases." "front-loading life histories: the enduring influence of juvenile growth on age, size, and reproduction of primiparous female freshwater turtles",age and size at maturity; freshwater turtles; juvenile growth rates; reproductive traits of primiparous females,EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY RESEARCH,CONGDON JD;NAGLE RD;KINNEY OM,"primary questions: (1) how do juvenile growth rates influence age and body size at maturity of females of three species of freshwater turtles ? (2) are the patterns similar among species that occupied the same wetlands over the same three decades ? (3) what are the reproductive traits (i.e. clutch size and egg size) of primiparous females (first lifetime reproduction)? (4) is there evidence that adult growth rates subsequently reduce the initial differences in the body size and reproductive traits of primiparous females ? secondary questions: we asked several additional questions of painted turtles. are growth rates of older juveniles more similar to growth rates of young juveniles or adults ? what is the earliest age at which juvenile growth rate is detectably correlated with age and body size of primiparous females ? sample sizes of the other two species were too small to use for these questions. organisms: three long-lived freshwater turtle species: painted turtles (chrysemys pieta marginata), blanding's turtles (emydoidea blandingii), and snapping turtles (chelydra serpentina). field site: university of michigan, e.s. george reserve, southeastern michigan, usa. methods: we conducted a 33 year mark-recapture study to document juvenile and adult growth rates and age and body size at maturity of females. we used x-radiography to determine clutch size and egg widths of primiparous and older females of all three species. conclusions: (1) juvenile growth rate was the most influential trait determining within-population variation in life-history trait values of primiparous females of all three species of long-lived freshwater turtles, and that variation persisted for many years in older adults. (2) fast-growing juveniles of all three species matured earlier and at larger (or similar) body sizes than slow-growing juveniles. (3) the relationship between juvenile growth rates and age and size at maturity in painted turtles was established by age 4 years. (4) variation in indeterminate (post-maturation) growth was insufficient to reduce differences in reproductive traits within cohorts of females. (5) similar results from all three turtle species (families emydidae and chelydridae) suggest that the relationships between juvenile growth rates and age and size at maturity were established in a common ancestor early in the evolutionary history of turtles." -25 years of esped as a surveillance tool for rare diseases in children in germany: a critical analysis,incidence; surveillance systems; rare diseases; capture-recapture method; center for disease control and prevention (cdc); international network of paediatric surveillance units (inopsu),KLINISCHE PADIATRIE,EBRAHIMI-FAKHARI D;ZEMLIN M;SAUER H;PORYO M;GRAF N;MEYER S,"background the german paediatric surveillance unit (esped) was founded in 1992 to generate incidence data and detailed clinical descriptions of rare, childhood-onset diseases. methods retrospective analysis of the esped epidemiological data collection from 1992-2017, and analysis of all published national and international publications originating from esped surveys. center of disease control and prevention (cdc) criteria for evaluating surveillance systems (simplicity, flexibility, timeliness, usefulness, data quality, representativeness, stability and acceptability) were adopted and applied to available esped data. results between 1992 and 2017 esped completed 96 prospective studies on rare diseases in children. the 3 most frequent clinical entities were: infectious/communicable disease (n=30), neurological diseases (n = 14) and hematologic diseases (n=10). studies resulted in 337 publications in national and international journals. the median impact factor of the 192 journal publications with (impact factor) was 2,587 (range 0,032-28,409). the highest impact factors were seen in the fields of endocrinology/metabolism (n=130; median if=3,534), infectious diseases (n=83; median if=3,131) and hematology (n=37; median if=2,497). our analysis indicates that esped surveys meet cdc quality standards. conclusion esped surveys are an important contributor in the field of clinical epidemiology in children with rare diseases. the high quality of esped surveys is reflected by high-impact publications in both national and international journals." +25 years of esped as a surveillance tool for rare diseases in children in germany: a critical analysis,incidence; surveillance systems; rare diseases; capture-recapture method; center for disease control and prevention (cdc); international network of paediatric surveillance units (inopsu),KLINISCHE PADIATRIE,EBRAHIMI FAKHARI D;ZEMLIN M;SAUER H;PORYO M;GRAF N;MEYER S,"background the german paediatric surveillance unit (esped) was founded in 1992 to generate incidence data and detailed clinical descriptions of rare, childhood-onset diseases. methods retrospective analysis of the esped epidemiological data collection from 1992-2017, and analysis of all published national and international publications originating from esped surveys. center of disease control and prevention (cdc) criteria for evaluating surveillance systems (simplicity, flexibility, timeliness, usefulness, data quality, representativeness, stability and acceptability) were adopted and applied to available esped data. results between 1992 and 2017 esped completed 96 prospective studies on rare diseases in children. the 3 most frequent clinical entities were: infectious/communicable disease (n=30), neurological diseases (n = 14) and hematologic diseases (n=10). studies resulted in 337 publications in national and international journals. the median impact factor of the 192 journal publications with (impact factor) was 2,587 (range 0,032-28,409). the highest impact factors were seen in the fields of endocrinology/metabolism (n=130; median if=3,534), infectious diseases (n=83; median if=3,131) and hematology (n=37; median if=2,497). our analysis indicates that esped surveys meet cdc quality standards. conclusion esped surveys are an important contributor in the field of clinical epidemiology in children with rare diseases. the high quality of esped surveys is reflected by high-impact publications in both national and international journals." r2ucare: an r package to perform goodness-of-fit tests for capture-recapture models,arnason-schwarz; capture-mark-recapture; cormack-jolly-seber; model validation; r2ucare,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GIMENEZ O;LEBRETON JD;CHOQUET R;PRADEL R,"1. assessing the quality of fit of a statistical model to data is a necessary step for conducting safe inference. 2. we introduce r2ucare, an r package to perform goodness-of-fit tests for open single- and multi-state capture-recapture models. r2ucare also has various functions to manipulate capture-recapture data. 3. we remind the basics and provide guidelines to navigate towards testing the fit of capture-recapture models. we demonstrate the functionality of r2ucare through its application to real data." large-scale movements of postcopulatory female blue crabs callinectes sapidus in tidal and nontidal estuaries of north carolina,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,DARNELL MZ;KEMBERLING AA,"for migratory species, understanding the timing, direction, and mechanism of migration is critical for successful fisheries management. we investigated migratory movements of postcopulatory female blue crabs callinectes sapidus in three estuaries with different tidal regimes in north carolina using a mark-recapture study. all crabs tagged were within about 2weeks of the terminal molt to maturity (mating generally takes place immediately after the molt). in general, distances traveled (mean +/- se=6.8 +/- 0.6km) and net movement rates (0.5 +/- 0.05km/d) were quite low compared to those in previous studies of mature (but not necessarily recently molted) female crabs, suggesting that rapid seaward migration does not take place until several weeks after mating, presumably upon production of a clutch of eggs. although most crabs moved short distances (85% moved<15km), movement was generally oriented seaward, indicating that some down-estuary movement occurs prior to oviposition, especially in crabs mating in low-salinity estuaries that would be unsuitable for embryonic and larval development. crabs moving seaward in the weeks between molting/mating and first oviposition were likely walking rather than swimming and taking advantage of seaward currents, as indicated by the low movement rates and similarities among the three areas." accurate estimates of tag-induced mortality rates are contingent on the number of tagged and recaptured lobsters,NA,BULLETIN OF MARINE SCIENCE,KORDJAZI Z;FRUSHER S;BUXTON CD;GARDNER C;BIRD T,"tag-induced mortality (tim) biases many capture-recapture studies, leading to abnormally high mortality estimates in the first-year post-tagging. although models exist to account for this bias, estimating tim has been problematic and restricted to artificial environments. here, we use a method for estimating jasus edwardsii (hutton, 1875) tim in situ and demonstrate the conditions under which accurate estimates can be achieved. we use a long-term capture-mark-recapture study conducted since 2000 at the crayfish point scientific reserve (cpsr), hobart, tasmania, australia, to estimate the rate of in situ tag induced mortality and demonstrate the assumptions relating to sampling design that are required to achieve accurate estimates. tim estimates were high and relatively similar for both males and females. the similarity between sexes would indicate that for this species, combined sex estimates may be sufficient, which requires substantially less effort. estimates of tim were sensitive to the number of recaptured lobsters and at least 15 lobsters, tagged in an initial survey, had to be captured in two subsequent surveys. as recapture rates for lobsters over two subsequent recapture events are relatively low, this resulted in a large number of lobsters needing to be tagged in the initial survey. given that most tagging studies have at least three surveys, we suggest that the design incorporate the ability to also estimate tim. this is particularly important if tagging studies are used to estimate population parameters for exploited species, as not accounting for tim would lead to overestimation of resources and inappropriate catch allocations." @@ -470,19 +470,20 @@ estimating density for species conservation: comparing camera trap spatial count "on the ocean age of masu salmon oncorhynchus masou in a natural population, shiretoko peninsula, japan",cherry salmon; mark-recapture; oncorhynchus masou; ribbon tags; scale circuli; sea of okhotsk,JOURNAL OF ICHTHYOLOGY,MORITA K;SAHASHI G,"in the orumappu river, northeastern hokkaido, 667 wild masu salmon smolts were tagged and released. during annual monitoring within the river, 10 individuals were recaptured, and an additional individual was reported from a coastal fishery. all adult masu salmon were recaptured the year after their release, and all had spent one winter at sea. when examining scales of marked fish, four individuals lacked winter annuli and one individual had 2 or 3 resting zones (closely spaced circuli) in the oceanic zone. accordingly, we believe it is uncertain to assess age of adult masu salmon based solely on scale annuli." "robust estimates of a high n-e/n ratio in a top marine predator, southern bluefin tuna",NA,SCIENCE ADVANCES,WAPLES RS;GREWE PM;BRAVINGTON MW;HILLARY R;FEUTRY P,"genetic studies of several marine species with high fecundity have produced ""tiny"" estimates (<101 of the ratio of effective population size (ne) to adult census size (n), suggesting that even very large populations might be at genetic risk. a recent study using close-kin mark-recapture methods estimated adult abundance at n 2 x 106 for southern bluefin tuna (sbt), a highly fecund top predator that supports a lucrative (-$1 billion/year) fishery. we used the same genetic and life history data (almost 13,000 fish collected over 5 years) to generate genetic and demographic estimates of ne per generation and nb (effective number of breeders) per year and the nein ratio. demographic estimates, which accounted for age-specific vital rates, skip breeding, variation in fecundity at age, and persistent individual differences in reproductive success, suggest that ne/n is >0.1 and perhaps about 0.5. the genetic estimates supported this conclusion. simulations using true ne = 5 x 105 (ne/n = 0.25) produced results statistically consistent with the empirical genetic estimates, whereas simulations using ne = 2 x 104 (nein = 0.01) did not. our results show that robust estimates of ne and ne/n can be obtained for large populations, provided sufficiently large numbers of individuals and genetic markers are used and temporal replication (here, 5 years of adult and juvenile samples) is sufficient to provide a distribution of estimates. the high estimated ne/n ratio in sbt is encouraging and suggests that the species will not be compromised by a lack of genetic diversity in responding to environmental change and harvest." multiple anthropogenic interventions drive puma survival following wolf recovery in the greater yellowstone ecosystem,apex predators; biodiversity; competition; hunting; population dynamics; reintroductions,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ELBROCH LM;MARESCOT L;QUIGLEY H;CRAIGHEAD D;WITTMER HU,"humans are primary drivers of declining abundances and extirpation of large carnivores worldwide. management interventions to restore biodiversity patterns, however, include carnivore reintroductions, despite the many unresolved ecological consequences associated with such efforts. using multistate capture-mark-recapture models, we explored age-specific survival and cause-specific mortality rates for 134 pumas (puma concolor) monitored in the greater yellowstone ecosystem during gray wolf (canis lupus) recovery. we identified two top models explaining differences in puma survivorship, and our results suggested three management interventions (unsustainable puma hunting, reduction in a primary prey, and reintroduction of a dominant competitor) have unintentionally impacted puma survival. specifically, puma survival across age classes was lower in the 6-month hunting season than the 6-month nonhunting season; human-caused mortality rates for juveniles and adults, and predation rates on puma kittens, were higher in the hunting season. predation on puma kittens, and starvation rates for all pumas, also increased as managers reduced elk (cervus elaphus) abundance in the system, highlighting direct and indirect effects of competition between recovering wolves and pumas over prey. our results emphasize the importance of understanding the synergistic effects of existing management strategies and the recovery of large, dominant carnivores to effectively conserve subordinate, hunted carnivores in human-dominated landscapes." -clonal damselflies (ischnura hastata) are not significantly affected by mite parasitism,host-parasite interactions; odonata; coenagrionidae; acari; prostigmata; erythraeidae; parthenogenesis; red queen hypothesis; leptus killingtoni,ENTOMOLOGIA EXPERIMENTALIS ET APPLICATA,CORDERO-RIVERA A;VIEIRA V;UTZERI C,"we studied parasitism rate by the terrestrial mite leptus killingtoni turk (acari: erythraeidae) on asexual parthenogenetic damselflies, ischnura hastata (say), and sexual ischnura pumilio (charpentier) (odonata: coenagrionidae) on pico island (azores, portugal). we sampled 52 water bodies on the island and recorded whether ischnura specimens were parasitized. half of the water bodies had either dried up or were almost dry or did not have ischnura populations. in the remaining 23 ponds, mite parasitism was extremely low, with only 3.6% of i. hastata females bearing one or more mites. ischnura pumilio was rare on the island (61 specimens examined) and had also very few parasites (9.8% parasitism). we examined the biology of the mite and its effects on the host, by studying mite attachment behavior and seasonal abundance, in an intensive study of one pond (lagoa do landroal). at this pond, mite prevalence peaked at the start of the sampling period, with 32% of females of l. hastata parasitized and decreased continuously until the end of the study, when only 2% were parasitized. the analysis of mark-recapture histories of 1 748 females of i. hastata indicates that mites did not affect female survival or recapture rate. our results suggest that l. killingtoni is unlikely to represent a significant selective factor for odonates on the island of pico, if its density is as low as during the period of our study, although it could be relevant when it is locally abundant or during periods of outbreak." +clonal damselflies (ischnura hastata) are not significantly affected by mite parasitism,host-parasite interactions; odonata; coenagrionidae; acari; prostigmata; erythraeidae; parthenogenesis; red queen hypothesis; leptus killingtoni,ENTOMOLOGIA EXPERIMENTALIS ET APPLICATA,CORDERO RIVERA A;VIEIRA V;UTZERI C,"we studied parasitism rate by the terrestrial mite leptus killingtoni turk (acari: erythraeidae) on asexual parthenogenetic damselflies, ischnura hastata (say), and sexual ischnura pumilio (charpentier) (odonata: coenagrionidae) on pico island (azores, portugal). we sampled 52 water bodies on the island and recorded whether ischnura specimens were parasitized. half of the water bodies had either dried up or were almost dry or did not have ischnura populations. in the remaining 23 ponds, mite parasitism was extremely low, with only 3.6% of i. hastata females bearing one or more mites. ischnura pumilio was rare on the island (61 specimens examined) and had also very few parasites (9.8% parasitism). we examined the biology of the mite and its effects on the host, by studying mite attachment behavior and seasonal abundance, in an intensive study of one pond (lagoa do landroal). at this pond, mite prevalence peaked at the start of the sampling period, with 32% of females of l. hastata parasitized and decreased continuously until the end of the study, when only 2% were parasitized. the analysis of mark-recapture histories of 1 748 females of i. hastata indicates that mites did not affect female survival or recapture rate. our results suggest that l. killingtoni is unlikely to represent a significant selective factor for odonates on the island of pico, if its density is as low as during the period of our study, although it could be relevant when it is locally abundant or during periods of outbreak." testing the adaptive hypothesis of batesian mimicry among hybridizing north american admiral butterflies,batesian mimicry; convergent evolution; frequency dependence; hybridization; natural selection; speciation phenotypes,EVOLUTION,KRISTIANSEN EB;FINKBEINER SD;HILL RI;PRUSA L;MULLEN SP,"batesian mimicry is characterized by phenotypic convergence between an unpalatable model and a palatable mimic. however, because convergent evolution may arise via alternative evolutionary mechanisms, putative examples of batesian mimicry must be rigorously tested. here, we used artificial butterfly facsimiles (n = 4000) to test the prediction that (1) palatable limenitis lorquini butterflies should experience reduced predation when in sympatry with their putative model, adelpha californica, (2) protection from predation on l. lorquini should erode outside of the geographical range of the model, and (3) mimetic color pattern traits are more variable in allopatry, consistent with relaxed selection for mimicry. we find support for these predictions, implying that this convergence is the result of selection for batesian mimicry. additionally, we conducted mark-recapture studies to examine the effect of mimicry and found that mimics survive significantly longer at sites where the model is abundant. finally, in contrast to theoretical predictions, we found evidence that the batesian model (a. californica) is protected from predation outside of its geographic range. we discuss these results considering the ongoing hybridization between l. lorquini and its sister species, l. weidemeyerii, and growing evidence that selection for mimicry predictably leads to a reduction in gene flow between nascent species." first demographic insights on historically harvested and poorly known male sperm whale populations off the crozet and kerguelen islands (southern ocean),abundance; antarctic; mark-recapture; multistate; robust design; sperm whale; physeter macrocephalus,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,LABADIE G;TIXIER P;BARBRAUD C;FAY R;GASCO N;DUHAMEL G;GUINET C,"age and sex dependent spatial segregation has resulted in limited knowledge of the ecology and demography of sperm whale adult males feeding seasonally in high latitudes. this study focused on adult males interacting with the patagonian toothfish (dissostichus eleginoides) fishery operating off the kerguelen and crozet archipelagos. demographic parameters were estimated using a 10-yr-long photoidentification data set paired with multistate closed robust design capture-markrecapture models. the examination of a set of 29,078 photographs taken from fishing vessels during sperm whale depredation events resulted in identification of 295 individuals with nine visiting both study areas. dispersal between both study regions was estimated to be 1% per year. the mean annual number of interacting sperm whales was estimated to n = 82 (95% ci 58 141) in crozet and n = 106 (95% ci 76-174) in kerguelen. transient proportions were 13% in crozet and 26% in kerguelen. corrected for transience, apparent survival estimates were 0.953 (95% ci 0.890-0.993) in crozet, and 0.911 (95% ci 0.804-0.986) in kerguelen. these survival and population size estimates are the first for depredating adult males in high latitudes, and can be used in evaluating the current conservation status of this historically harvested stock and to investigate depredation trends in 35 both crozet and kerguelen islands." -assessing the abundance of bristol bay belugas with genetic mark-recapture methods,beluga whales; delphinapterus leucas; bristol bay; bering sea; genetic mark-recapture; popan; program mark,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,CITTA JJ;O'CORRY-CROWE G;QUAKENBUSH LT;BRYAN AL;FERRER T;OLSON MJ;HOBBS RC;POTGIETER B,"the bristol bay stock of beluga whales (delphinapterus laical) is genetically distinct and resides in bristol bay year-round. we estimated the abundance of this population using genetic mark-recapture, whereby genetic markers from skin biopsies, collected between 2002 and 2011, were used to identify individuals. we identified 516 individual belugas in two inner bays, 468 from kvichak bay and 48 from nushagak bay, and recaptured 75 belugas in separate years. using a popan jolly-seber model, abundance was estimated at 1,928 belugas (95% ci = 1,611-2,337), not including calves, which were not sampled. most belugas were sampled in kvichak bay at a time when belugas are also known to occur in nushagak bay. the pattern of genetic recaptures and data from belugas with satellite transmitters suggested that belugas in the two bays regularly mix. hence, the estimate of abundance likely applies to all belugas within bristol bay. simulations suggested that popan estimates of abundance are robust to most forms of emigration, but that emigration causes negative bias in both capture and survival probabilities. because it is likely that some belugas do not enter the sampling area during sampling, our estimate of abundance is best considered a minimum population size." +assessing the abundance of bristol bay belugas with genetic mark-recapture methods,beluga whales; delphinapterus leucas; bristol bay; bering sea; genetic mark-recapture; popan; program mark,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,CITTA JJ;O CORRY CROWE G;QUAKENBUSH LT;BRYAN AL;FERRER T;OLSON MJ;HOBBS RC;POTGIETER B,"the bristol bay stock of beluga whales (delphinapterus laical) is genetically distinct and resides in bristol bay year-round. we estimated the abundance of this population using genetic mark-recapture, whereby genetic markers from skin biopsies, collected between 2002 and 2011, were used to identify individuals. we identified 516 individual belugas in two inner bays, 468 from kvichak bay and 48 from nushagak bay, and recaptured 75 belugas in separate years. using a popan jolly-seber model, abundance was estimated at 1,928 belugas (95% ci = 1,611-2,337), not including calves, which were not sampled. most belugas were sampled in kvichak bay at a time when belugas are also known to occur in nushagak bay. the pattern of genetic recaptures and data from belugas with satellite transmitters suggested that belugas in the two bays regularly mix. hence, the estimate of abundance likely applies to all belugas within bristol bay. simulations suggested that popan estimates of abundance are robust to most forms of emigration, but that emigration causes negative bias in both capture and survival probabilities. because it is likely that some belugas do not enter the sampling area during sampling, our estimate of abundance is best considered a minimum population size." "health, medical and psychosocial care needs of older drug addicts (40+): a cross sectional study",health-related quality of life; drug abuse; older; cross-sectional study; care needs,GESUNDHEITSWESEN,WEHRWEIN A;SCHRODER G;LINDERT J,"background we aimed 1) to assess health, health-related quality of life and social care needs of substance-abusing individuals aged 40+ and 2) to investigate associations between health and psychosocial care needs. methods we estimated the size of the population by using capture-recapture methods. based on this sample size estimation, we conducted a cross-sectional survey with socio-demographic data, using standardized instruments including the sf-36 (36 items), a measure of physical disorders (14 items), social support, and psychosocial and health care needs and substance abuse (""european addiction severity index""). results 37 persons participated in this study (30 % women), 89 % reported at least one disorder. the general health perceptions (p = 0.011), vitality (p < 0.001), social functioning (p < 0.001), mental health (p < 0.001) and physical health dimension (p = 0.007) and mental health dimension (p < 0.001) were significantly lower in this sample than in the german normal population (51-60 years). 54 % reported having support needs. conclusion health-related quality of life and social functioning are major problems for older substance-abusing individuals. there is a great need to have specific healthcare concepts to respond to the medical and psychosocial care needs of this group of individuals." "increased sea ice concentration worsens fledging condition and juvenile survival in a pagophilic seabird, the snow petrel",antarctic; body condition; capture-mark-recapture; juvenile survival; seabird; sea ice concentration,BIOLOGY LETTERS,SAUSER C;DELORD K;BARBRAUD C,"polar sea ice is changing rapidly, threatening many taxa in the arctic and the antarctic. little is known about the effects of sea ice on early life-history traits of sea ice specialist species, although juvenile stages are a critical component of population dynamics and recruitment. we examined how annual variation in sea ice concentration (sic) affects juvenile survival and body condition at fledging in the snow petrel pagodroma nivea using long-term datasets encompassing 22 years for body condition and 37 years for juvenile survival. we show that sic and southern annular mode (sam), the principal mode of variability of the atmospheric circulation in the southern hemisphere, have strong nonlinear effects on juvenile survival and body condition. below ca 20-30% sic, body condition remained stable, but decreased almost linearly for higher sic. juvenile survival was negatively related to sic and to sam during the chick rearing period. we suggest that the base of the sea ice food web would be directly affected by sea ice conditions, thus acting locally on the abundance and structure of prey communities." increased risk of bone tumors after growth hormone treatment in childhood: a population-based cohort study in france,bone tumors; childhood; growth hormone treatment,CANCER MEDICINE,POIDVIN A;CAREL JC;ECOSSE E;LEVY D;MICHON J;COSTE J,"the association between growth hormone (gh) treatment and cancer risk has not been thoroughly evaluated and there are questions about any increased risk of bone tumors. we examined cancer risk and especially bone tumor risk in a population-based cohort study of 6874 patients treated with recombinant gh in france for isolated gh deficiency, short stature associated with low birth weight or length or idiopathic short stature. adult mortality and morbidity data obtained from national databases and from questionnaires. case ascertainment completeness was estimated with capture-recapture methods. standardized mortality and incidence ratios were calculated using national reference data. 111 875 person-years of observation were analyzed and patients were followed for an average of 17.4 +/- 5.3 years to a mean age of 28.4 +/- 6.2 years. for cancer overall, mortality and incidence were not different from expected figures. five patients developed bone tumors (chondrosarcoma, 1, ewing sarcoma, 1, osteosarcoma, 3) of whom 3 died (ewing sarcoma, 1, osteosarcoma, 2), whereas only 1.4 case and 0.6 deaths were expected: standardized mortality ratio, 5.0 and standardized incidence ratio from 3.5 to 3.8 accounting or not accounting for missed cases. most patients received conventional doses of gh, although one patient with osteosarcoma had received high dose gh (60 mu g/kg/d). this study confirms an increased risk of bone tumors but not overall cancer risk in subjects treated with gh in childhood for isolated gh deficiency or childhood short stature. further work is needed to elucidate the mechanisms involved." "efficacy of low-cost, side-scan sonar for surveying alligator gars",NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,FLEMING BP;DAUGHERTY DJ;SMITH NG;BETSILL RK,"side-scan sonar (sss) provides an efficient, nonintrusive sampling tool for many fisheries applications. professional-grade systems have proven useful for species-specific detection of large, distinctive fishes; however, these systems are often cost prohibitive for widespread use. lower-cost, consumer-grade systems are becoming increasingly popular for fisheries applications and have been used extensively to map aquatic habitat. however, these systems often produce lower-resolution imagery that may limit species-specific applications. we used experimental ponds stocked with known fish assemblages and a field-based mark-recapture study to determine the efficacy of a consumer-grade sss system in surveying alligator gars atractosteus spatula. three ponds were stocked with known abundances of alligator gars and other sympatric fishes. a fourth pond remained unstocked to assess false positives; a fifth was stocked only with other species to quantify misidentification. replicate sonar images of each pond were then recorded using a humminbird 998c system. for the field-based application, we used gill nets to mark and recapture alligator gars and estimate population size within a closed backwater of the guadalupe river, texas. following final recapture, we recorded replicate imagery of the backwater. imagery from both evaluations was interpreted by three independent readers of varying experience without knowledge of image origin. the results from the ponds indicated a low rate of false detection (7%) and misidentification (4%). the number of alligator gars identified was positively related to density; however, the probability of detection varied among readers (range, 0.27-0.71) and was positively related to experience. in contrast, all readers estimated alligator gar abundance in the backwater within 10% of the population estimated from the mark-recapture data. our results suggest that low-cost sss can provide an effective, noninvasive alternative to traditional sampling techniques for alligator gars." do butterfly activity data from mark-recapture surveys reflect temporal patterns?,butterfly behavior; insect ethology; lepidoptera; mark-recapture; resource allocation; time budget,JOURNAL OF INSECT BEHAVIOR,VLASANEK P;FRIC ZF;ZIMMERMANN K;NOVOTNY D;CIZEK O;KLECKOVA I;VRBA P;KADLEC T;KONVICKA M,"temporal patterns in butterfly behavior should reflect diurnal, seasonal and population-level changes in mate availability. investment into mating should peak at times when potential mates are at a maximum; at other times, individuals should save energy and focus on maintenance activities. to explore these assumptions, we re-analyzed mark-recapture data containing records of behavior for each handled individual: 15 species, 21 separate datasets, total of 20,828 activity records (13,223 males and 7605 females). we used ordination analysis, with activity categories as response variables and controls for dataset identity and weather effects. across species, basking and nectaring were prevailing morning activities, while mating peaked at afternoons. with the progressing season, males switched from maintenance behavior to mating activities, whereas opposite trend applied to females. density predictors (sex ratio, daily population size) revealed that mating concentrated to high densities of the opposite sex and that female oviposition, resting and nectaring increased under low density of males. exploring mark-recapture data for studying behavioral patterns proved to be fruitful but cannot replace focused observations or experiments." -characterizing spatio-temporal variation in survival and recruitment with integrated population models,cardellina canadensis; demography; distance sampling; elevation gradients; individual-based models; range shifts; spatio-temporal point process; species distributions,AUK,CHANDLER RB;HEPINSTALL-CYMERMAN J;MERKER S;ABERNATHY-CONNERS H;COOPER RJ,"efforts to understand population dynamics and identify high-quality habitat require information about spatial variation in demographic parameters. however, estimating demographic parameters typically requires labor-intensive capture-recapture methods that are difficult to implement over large spatial extents. spatially explicit integrated population models (ipms) provide a solution by accommodating spatial capture-recapture (scr) data collected at a small number of sites with survey data that may be collected over a much larger extent. we extended the spatial ipm framework to include a spatio-temporal point process model for recruitment, and we applied the model to 4 yr of scr and distance-sampling data on canada warblers (cardellina canadensis) near the southern extent of the species' breeding range in north carolina, usa, where climate change is predicted to cause population declines and distributional shifts toward higher elevations. to characterize spatial variation in demographic parameters over the climate gradient in our study area, we modeled density, survival, and per capita recruitment as functions of elevation. we used a male-only model because males comprised >90% of our point-count detections. apparent survival was low but increased with elevation, from 0.040 (95% credible interval [cl]: 0.0032-0.12) at 900 m to 0.29 (95% ci: 0.16-0.42) at 1,500 m. recruitment was not strongly associated with elevation, yet density varied greatly, from <0.03 males ha -1 below 1,000 m to >0.2 males ha -1 above 1,400 m. point estimates of population growth rate were <1 at all elevations, but 95% cls included 1. additional research is needed to assess the possibility of a long-term decline and to examine the effects of abiotic variables and biotic interactions on the demographic parameters influencing the species' distribution. the modeling framework developed here provides a platform for addressing these issues and advancing knowledge about spatial demography and population dynamics." +capture-recapture methods for the social and medical sciences,NA,BIOMETRICAL JOURNAL,MCCREA RS,NA +characterizing spatio-temporal variation in survival and recruitment with integrated population models,cardellina canadensis; demography; distance sampling; elevation gradients; individual-based models; range shifts; spatio-temporal point process; species distributions,AUK,CHANDLER RB;HEPINSTALL CYMERMAN J;MERKER S;ABERNATHY CONNERS H;COOPER RJ,"efforts to understand population dynamics and identify high-quality habitat require information about spatial variation in demographic parameters. however, estimating demographic parameters typically requires labor-intensive capture-recapture methods that are difficult to implement over large spatial extents. spatially explicit integrated population models (ipms) provide a solution by accommodating spatial capture-recapture (scr) data collected at a small number of sites with survey data that may be collected over a much larger extent. we extended the spatial ipm framework to include a spatio-temporal point process model for recruitment, and we applied the model to 4 yr of scr and distance-sampling data on canada warblers (cardellina canadensis) near the southern extent of the species' breeding range in north carolina, usa, where climate change is predicted to cause population declines and distributional shifts toward higher elevations. to characterize spatial variation in demographic parameters over the climate gradient in our study area, we modeled density, survival, and per capita recruitment as functions of elevation. we used a male-only model because males comprised >90% of our point-count detections. apparent survival was low but increased with elevation, from 0.040 (95% credible interval [cl]: 0.0032-0.12) at 900 m to 0.29 (95% ci: 0.16-0.42) at 1,500 m. recruitment was not strongly associated with elevation, yet density varied greatly, from <0.03 males ha -1 below 1,000 m to >0.2 males ha -1 above 1,400 m. point estimates of population growth rate were <1 at all elevations, but 95% cls included 1. additional research is needed to assess the possibility of a long-term decline and to examine the effects of abiotic variables and biotic interactions on the demographic parameters influencing the species' distribution. the modeling framework developed here provides a platform for addressing these issues and advancing knowledge about spatial demography and population dynamics." experimental test for a trade-off between successful nesting and survival in capital breeders with precocial offspring,band recovery; capture-recapture; chen rossii; cost of breeding; experimental manipulation; life history trade-off; ross's goose; survival,AUK,DRAKE KL;ALISAUSKAS RT;CALVERT AM,"life history theory assumes a trade-off between reproduction and survival. investigations of this trade-off in birds have focused primarily on costs of rearing altricial young, because such costs are assumed to be low in species with precocial young. we experimentally manipulated nest success to test for a trade-off between (1) raising offspring for up to 1 yr after successfully nesting and (2) survival in female ross's geese (chen rossii), a species with self-feeding, precocial young. we used multistate capture-resighting analysis that also incorporated recoveries of dead birds for inference about survival. we detected a general negative effect of successful nesting on survival, whereby point estimates of annual survival for successfully nesting females were consistently lower than those for failed nesters. failed nesters had a greater proportion of mortality attributable to hunting, judging from their higher rates of reported mortality by hunters compared to successful nesters; thus, a cost of breeding associated with successful nesting likely resulted from natural mortality factors during incubation and brood rearing, and not from exploitation by humans." "burden of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in karachi, pakistan: estimation through the capture-recapture method",out-of-hospital cardiac arrest; burden; two source capture-recapture,JOURNAL OF THE PAKISTAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION,RAZZAK JA;MAWANI M;AZAM I;ROBINSON C;TALIB U;KADIR MM,"objective: to assess the application of capture-recapture method as a potential strategy to estimate the incidence of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. methods: this cross-sectional study was carried out from january to april 2013 in karachi and comprised three public general hospitals, one public cardiac hospital, one private general hospital and two ambulance services. two-sample capture-recapture method was used: first capture was through cardiac arrest data from two major emergency medical services and second capture was from the five teaching hospitals. records from the hospitals and ambulance services were compared on 7 variables; name, age, gender, date and time of arrest, cause of arrest and destination hospital. matched and unmatched cases were used in the equation to estimate the incidence of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. results: of the 630 out-of-hospital cardiac arrest cases reported, 191(30.3%) related to the emergency medical services records and 439(69.7%) to hospital records. the capture-recapture identified only 9(1.4%) matched cases even with the least restrictive criteria and estimated the annual out-of-hospital cardiac arrest incidence as 166/100,000 population (95% confidence interval: 142.9 to 189.6). conclusion: capture-recapture method could be a potential alternative for providing population level data in the absence of organised health information systems." -breeding in a dry wetland. demographic response to drought in the common reed-warbler acrocephalus scirpaceus,bayesian; bird density; fluctuation; hydroperiod; monitoring; productivity; spatial jolly-seber; wetland,ARDEOLA-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,JIMENEZ J;HERNANDEZ JM;FELIU J;CARRASCO M;MORENO-OPO R,"mediterranean wetlands show remarkable seasonal and annual variations in their hydroperiod, i.e. the period during which they are inundated. climate change-induced hydroperiod reductions have been shown to affect marshland birds but more studies are needed to understand this process in mediterranean wetlands. the present study shows the demographic response of the common reed-warbler acrocephalus scirpaceus to an unusual and prolonged drought in the tablas de daimiel national park wetland (central spain). we used data from two constant effort mistnetting stations (2005-2013), and spatially explicit capture-recapture jolly-seber models. the reed-warblers continued reproducing in a dry environment for three years after the start of a dry phase, despite progressive declines in productivity, and ultimately stopped nesting in the fourth year. after the recovery of water levels in subsequent years, the population required another four years to recover a size and productivity similar to those preceding the drought. this situation may be common in the near future given ongoing alterations of the hydroperiod in mediterranean wetlands as a consequence of climate change and groundwater overexploitation. we also show that spatially explicit capture-recapture models allow the detection of changes in the populations of small passerines, and are an accurate approach to estimating their densities." +breeding in a dry wetland. demographic response to drought in the common reed-warbler acrocephalus scirpaceus,bayesian; bird density; fluctuation; hydroperiod; monitoring; productivity; spatial jolly-seber; wetland,ARDEOLA-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,JIMENEZ J;HERNANDEZ JM;FELIU J;CARRASCO M;MORENO OPO R,"mediterranean wetlands show remarkable seasonal and annual variations in their hydroperiod, i.e. the period during which they are inundated. climate change-induced hydroperiod reductions have been shown to affect marshland birds but more studies are needed to understand this process in mediterranean wetlands. the present study shows the demographic response of the common reed-warbler acrocephalus scirpaceus to an unusual and prolonged drought in the tablas de daimiel national park wetland (central spain). we used data from two constant effort mistnetting stations (2005-2013), and spatially explicit capture-recapture jolly-seber models. the reed-warblers continued reproducing in a dry environment for three years after the start of a dry phase, despite progressive declines in productivity, and ultimately stopped nesting in the fourth year. after the recovery of water levels in subsequent years, the population required another four years to recover a size and productivity similar to those preceding the drought. this situation may be common in the near future given ongoing alterations of the hydroperiod in mediterranean wetlands as a consequence of climate change and groundwater overexploitation. we also show that spatially explicit capture-recapture models allow the detection of changes in the populations of small passerines, and are an accurate approach to estimating their densities." efficient single-survey estimation of carnivore density using fecal dna and spatial capture-recapture: a bobcat case study,felid conservation; lynx rufus; multistrata spatial capture-recapture; noninvasive genetic sampling; population density; scat transects,POPULATION ECOLOGY,MORIN DJ;WAITS LP;MCNITT DC;KELLY MJ,"population density estimates are necessary to inform management and conservation, yet are difficult to obtain for cryptic species such as carnivores, and often require intensive sampling. we implemented a single-survey, closed session, scat sampling protocol to estimate bobcat density using fecal dna and spatial capture-recapture at two sites over five sessions in virginia, usa. we employed a poisson encounter model to allow for multiple detections on scat transect segments over a single collection interval, and compared single session and multistrata (closed, multi-site, multisession) spatial capture-recapture (scr) approaches to estimate density for each site and session. we found improved precision for most estimates using the multistrata scr approach, sharing data on baseline detection and individual movement across sites and sessions. we suggest the summer session estimates are representative of the resident population, that differences in density between summer and winter are representative of potential net recruitment, and that differences between consecutive summer sessions are representative of the net recruitment realized for the population (dependent on survival and emigration). finally, we assessed factors affecting precision in single session model estimates and provide recommendations to improve detection and reduce credible intervals that may be applicable across the bobcat range and to other carnivore species. the single survey transect methodology provides flexibility in monitoring carnivore populations specifically, or as part of concurrent monitoring for multiple carnivore species. this methodology has potential to dramatically increase the effectiveness of conservation and management dollars, improving our ability to monitor carnivore populations and assess conservation needs and actions." rainfall and population dynamics of grey pileated finch coryphospingus pileatus (aves: passeriformes) in a neotropical dry forest,abundance; apparent survival; caatinga; capture-mark-recapture; popan; recruitment,POPULATION ECOLOGY,DE MOURA PTS;DE PAIVA LV;SILVA CCD;CAVALCANTE LMP;PICHORIM M;FRANCA LF,"in tropical dry environments rainfall periodicity may affect demographic parameters, resulting in fluctuations in bird abundance. we used capture-recapture data for the grey pileated finch from a neotropical dry forest to evaluate the hypothesis that intra- and inter-annual survival, individuals entrance and population abundance, are related to local rainfall. sampling occurred across 3 years, with individuals captured, tagged and evaluated for age and presence of brood patch every 14 days. using the popan formulation, we generated demographic models to evaluate study population temporal dynamics. best-fit models indicated a low apparent annual survival in the first year (16%) compared to other years (between 47 and 62%), with this low value associated with an extreme drought. the abundance of juveniles at each capture occasion was significantly dependent on the accumulated precipitation in the previous 14 days, and the juvenile covariate was a strong predictor of the intra-annual entrance probability (natality). individuals entrance during the reproductive period corresponded to 53, 52 and 75% of total ingress for each year, respectively. the trend in sampled population size indicated positive exponential growth (n (initial) = 50, n (last) = 600), with intra-annual fluctuations becoming progressively more intense. low survival was relevant during population decline at study onset, while at study end intense individuals entrance promoted rapid population growth. thus, the indirect effects of rainfall and the combined effect of two demographic rates operated synergistically on the immediate population abundance of grey pileated finch, an abundant bird in a neotropical dry forest." "evaluating the completeness of hiv surveillance using capture-recapture models, alameda county, california",human immunodeficiency virus (hiv); surveillance; population size estimation; capture-recapture; bayesian modeling,AIDS AND BEHAVIOR,WESSON P;LECHTENBERG R;REINGOLD A;MCFARLAND W;MURGAI N,"hiv prevalence in alameda county (including oakland) is among the highest in california, yet the case registry may under-appreciate the full burden of disease. using lists from health care facilities serving socioeconomically diverse populations and the hiv surveillance list, we applied capture-recapture methods to evaluate the completeness of the surveillance system by estimating the number of diagnosed people living with hiv and seeking care in alameda county in 2013. of the 5376 unique individuals reported from the lists, 397 were missing from the surveillance list. models projected the total population size to be 5720 (95% ci 5587-6190), estimating the surveillance system as 87% complete. subgroup analyses identified groups facing a disproportionate burden of hiv as more likely to be detected by the surveillance list. the alameda county hiv surveillance system reports a high proportion of persons diagnosed with hiv within the jurisdiction. capture-recapture analysis can help track progress towards maximizing engagement in hiv care." @@ -491,7 +492,7 @@ wanted dead or alive: a state-space mark-recapture-recovery model incorporating hierarchical bayesian estimation of unobserved salmon passage through weirs,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,JASPER JR;SHORT M;SHELDEN C;GRANT WS,"we developed a hierarchical bayesian model (hbm) to estimate missing counts of chinook salmon (oncorhynchus tshawytscha (walbaum in artedi, 1792)) at a weir on the kogrukluk river, alaska, between 1976 and 2015. the model assumed that fish passage during a breach of the weir was typical of passage during normal operations. counts of fish passing the weir were missing for some days during the runs, or only partial counts for a given 24-hour period were available. the hbm approach provided more defensible estimates of missing data and total escapement than ad hoc or year-by-year model estimates, because estimates of passage for a given year were informed not only by counts for the current year, but also by counts for all previous years. the results of the hbm yielded less variable estimates of escapement than did ad hoc or year-by-year model estimates. the hbm represents a standardized approach to estimate missing counts and total escapement and eliminates the need for ad hoc estimates of missing counts. the model also provides managers with a measure of uncertainty around estimates of escapement and around estimates of hyper-parameters to define run curves in subsequent years with incomplete fish counts." on the robustness of n-mixture models,abundance estimation; bayesian p-value; count data; detection probability; n-mixture model; robustness,ECOLOGY,LINK WA;SCHOFIELD MR;BARKER RJ;SAUER JR,"n-mixture models provide an appealing alternative to mark-recapture models, in that they allow for estimation of detection probability and population size from count data, without requiring that individual animals be identified. there is, however, a cost to using the n-mixture models: inference is very sensitive to the model's assumptions. we consider the effects of three violations of assumptions that might reasonably be expected in practice: double counting, unmodeled variation in population size over time, and unmodeled variation in detection probability over time. these three examples show that small violations of assumptions can lead to large biases in estimation. the violations of assumptions we consider are not only small qualitatively, but are also small in the sense that they are unlikely to be detected using goodness-of-fit tests. in cases where reliable estimates of population size are needed, we encourage investigators to allocate resources to acquiring additional data, such as recaptures of marked individuals, for estimation of detection probabilities." linking demographic processes and foraging ecology in wandering albatross-conservation implications,capture-mark-recapture; diomedea exulans; population dynamics; vital rates,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,WEIMERSKIRCH H,"1. population dynamics and foraging ecology are two fields of the population ecology that are generally studied separately. yet, foraging determines allocation processes and therefore demography. studies on wandering albatrosses diomedea exulans over the past 50years have contributed to better understand the links between population dynamics and foraging ecology. this article reviews how these two facets of population ecology have been combined to better understand ecological processes, but also have contributed fundamentally for the conservation of this long-lived threatened species. 2. wandering albatross research has combined a 50-year long-term study of marked individuals with two decades of tracking studies that have been initiated on this species, favoured by its large size and tameness. 3. at all stages of their life history, the body mass of individuals plays a central role in allocation processes, in particular in influencing adult and juvenile survival, decisions to recruit into the population or to invest into provisioning the offspring or into maintenance. 4. strong age-related variations in demographic parameters are observed and are linked to age-related differences in foraging distribution and efficiency. marked sex-specific differences in foraging distribution, foraging efficiency and changes in mass over lifetime are directly related to the strong sex-specific investment in breeding and survival trajectories of the two sexes, with body mass playing a pivotal role especially in males. 5. long-term study has allowed determining the sex-specific and age-specific demographic causes of population decline, and the tracking studies have been able to derive where and how these impacts occur, in particular the role of long-line fisheries." -"capture-recapture and anti-tuberculosis drug prescriptions, balearic islands, spain, 2010-2012",tuberculosis; prescription drugs; capture-recapture; public health surveillance,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TUBERCULOSIS AND LUNG DISEASE,GIMENEZ-DURAN J;GALMES-TRUYOLS A;GONZALEZ-CORTIJO T;PORTELL-ARBONA M;BOSCH-ISABEL C;VANRELL-BERGA JM;NICOLAU-RIUTORT A;CAYLA JA,"setting: tuberculosis (tb) control requires accurate knowledge of tb incidence, but few studies have been published on tb incidence using individual data from drug prescriptions. objective : to measure the estimated completeness of regional surveillance system data before and after adding data from anti-tuberculosis drug prescriptions. design: we compiled data on all individuals who received specific anti-tuberculosis drugs from three sources-the passive surveillance system, the active surveillance system and the anti-tuberculosis drug prescription database-in the balearic islands, spain, between 2010 and 2012. we applied the capture-recapture method to measure completeness of data reporting. statistical significance was set at p<0.05, and 95% confidence intervals (cis) were calculated. results : we detected 605 incident cases, compared with an estimated incidence of 719 cases (95% ci 646-793), representing 84.1% data completeness. we detected 480 of an estimated 559 pulmonary tb cases (95% ci 501-617; 85.9% data completeness) and 125 of an estimated 161 extra-pulmonary tb cases (95% ci 113-211; 77.6% data completeness). conclusions : by adding a new source, we increased detection with respect to a previous study by 10.4% for all forms of tb, 9.7% for pulmonary tb and 13% for extra-pulmonary tb." +"capture-recapture and anti-tuberculosis drug prescriptions, balearic islands, spain, 2010-2012",tuberculosis; prescription drugs; capture-recapture; public health surveillance,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TUBERCULOSIS AND LUNG DISEASE,GIMENEZ DURAN J;GALMES TRUYOLS A;GONZALEZ CORTIJO T;PORTELL ARBONA M;BOSCH ISABEL C;VANRELL BERGA JM;NICOLAU RIUTORT A;CAYLA JA,"setting: tuberculosis (tb) control requires accurate knowledge of tb incidence, but few studies have been published on tb incidence using individual data from drug prescriptions. objective : to measure the estimated completeness of regional surveillance system data before and after adding data from anti-tuberculosis drug prescriptions. design: we compiled data on all individuals who received specific anti-tuberculosis drugs from three sources-the passive surveillance system, the active surveillance system and the anti-tuberculosis drug prescription database-in the balearic islands, spain, between 2010 and 2012. we applied the capture-recapture method to measure completeness of data reporting. statistical significance was set at p<0.05, and 95% confidence intervals (cis) were calculated. results : we detected 605 incident cases, compared with an estimated incidence of 719 cases (95% ci 646-793), representing 84.1% data completeness. we detected 480 of an estimated 559 pulmonary tb cases (95% ci 501-617; 85.9% data completeness) and 125 of an estimated 161 extra-pulmonary tb cases (95% ci 113-211; 77.6% data completeness). conclusions : by adding a new source, we increased detection with respect to a previous study by 10.4% for all forms of tb, 9.7% for pulmonary tb and 13% for extra-pulmonary tb." eastern massasauga demography and extinction risk under prescribed-fire scenarios,abundance; age-specific survival; eastern massasauga (sistrurus catenatus); extinction; litter size; michigan; prescribed fire; reproductive frequency,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HILEMAN ET;KING RB;FAUST LJ,"the use of poorly estimated or surrogate population parameter estimates to assess population viability may result in misleading predictions. consequently, a critical first step to understanding population health and the effects of land management practices on threatened species is estimation of site-specific demographic parameters. a major threat to the eastern massasauga (sistrurus catenatus) is habitat loss due to encroachment of woody vegetation and invasive species. current land management practices require periodic burning or mowing to maintain habitat suitability. although these methods improve habitat quality, they may also increase the risk of depredation due to reduced ground cover if burns are too extensive or cause mortality if conducted when snakes are active. we fitted contemporary capture-recapture and matrix models to an 8-year dataset to estimate population parameters for an eastern massasauga population near the range center of the species, where the largest number of eastern massasauga populations may still persist. from 2009 to 2016, we captured 826 eastern massasaugas 1,776 times. in general, annual survival increased with increasing age (age 0=0.38, age 1=0.65, age 2=0.67, age 3 females=0.71, age 3 males=0.66). abundance estimates ranged from 84 to 140 adults and annual reproductive frequency was 0.44 (95% ci=0.29-0.59). we simulated increased mortality due to prescribed burns during spring, fall, and late fall for 50 and 100 years. the baseline model, which incorporated current prescribed-fire practices, indicated a stable population with only a 0.2-0.6% probability of extinction over 100 years, suggesting that management practices at this site are sustainable if they remain unchanged. simulations of conservative increases in mortality due to fire changed the probability of extinction little over 50 years (0.7%) but increased probability of extinction up to 24.5% over 100 years in the most pessimistic prescribed-burn scenario. these prescribed-burn simulations may be comparable to burn regimes used at other eastern massasauga sites. the population parameters estimated here provide information needed for assessing range-wide population viability and investigating geographic variation in eastern massasauga demography. (c) 2018 the wildlife society. we estimated a suite of eastern massasauga population parameters using an 8-year capture-recapture dataset and simulated the effects prescribed fire during spring, fall, and late fall had on extinction risk. these prescribed fire scenarios, which may be comparable to burn regimes used by other land managers, changed the probability of extinction little over 50 years (0.7%) but increased probability of extinction up to 24.5% over 100 years in the most pessimistic scenario." likelihood ratio confidence interval for the abundance under binomial detectability models,abundance; binomial detectability models; capture-recapture models; confidence interval; distance sampling models,METRIKA,LIU Y;LIU YK;FAN Y;GENG H,"binomial detectability models are often used to estimate the size or abundance of a finite population in biology, epidemiology, demography and reliability. special cases include incompletely observed multinomial models, capture-recapture models, and distance sampling models. the most commonly-used confidence interval for the abundance is the wald-type confidence interval, which is based on the asymptotic normality of a reasonable point estimator of the abundance. however, the wald-type confidence interval may have poor coverage accuracy and its lower limit may be less than the number of observations. in this paper, we rigorously establish that the likelihood ratio test statistic for the abundance under the binomial detectability models follows the chisquare limiting distribution with one degree of freedom. this provides a solid theoretical justification for the use of the proposed likelihood ratio confidence interval. our simulations indicate that in comparison to the wald-type confidence interval, the likelihood ratio confidence interval not only has more accurate coverage rate, but also exhibits more stable performance in a variety of binomial detectability models. the proposed interval is further illustrated through analyzing three real data-sets." integrating immunomarking with ecological and behavioural approaches to assess predation of helicoverpa spp. larvae by wolf spiders in cotton,mark-recapture; bollworm; lycosidae; biological control; gut content; elisa,BIOLOGICAL CONTROL,RENDON D;HAGLER JR;TAYLOR PW;WHITEHOUSE MEA,"wolf spiders (araneae: lycosidae) are abundant ground predators in cotton fields that can provide important pest management services. these spiders can kill and consume larvae of the cotton bollworm helicoverpa spp. (lepidoptera: noctuidae) that survive foraging on bt cotton and descend from the plant to pupate in the soil. to determine predation frequency by wolf spiders in a bt cotton field, we indirectly assessed predation using helicoverpa spp. larvae marked with rabbit immunoglobulin g (igg; ""immunomarking""), and carried out capture-mark-recapture surveys to assess the likelihood of recapturing spiders. a laboratory feeding study with igg-marked larva demonstrated that igg is readily detected in spiders for up to 72 h after feeding. following the release of igg-marked larvae in a cotton field edge, 2.1% of spiders collected tested positive for the presence of igg, providing indirect evidence of predation. a capture-mark-recapture survey revealed that spiders had opportunity to encounter igg-marked larvae released along field edges, but only 6.7% of the spiders were recaptured, likely reflecting high spider mobility. in field feeding arenas, all three commonly encountered wolf spider species (tasmanicosa leuckartii, hogna crispipes, hogna kuyani) ate helicoverpa spp. larvae. these studies suggest that the low likelihood of spider recapture, and not prey rejection, is the most likely explanation for the low proportion of field-collected spiders testing positive for igg marked prey remains, and that the frequency of igg detection in spiders likely underestimated the frequency of predation events. we conclude that use of prey immunomarking together with capture-mark-recapture surveys can provide a powerful tool for assessing the effect of a predator on a prey species under field conditions." @@ -499,35 +500,35 @@ integrating immunomarking with ecological and behavioural approaches to assess p "estimating prevalence of illicit drug use in yunnan, china, 2011-15",prevalence; illicit drug use; estimation of population size; capture-recapture method; zelterman's estimate; heroin; methamphetamine; china,FRONTIERS IN PSYCHIATRY,ZHANG GB;JIANG H;SHEN JC;WEN PY;LIU XB;HAO W,"background and aims: yunnan has been one of the provinces most afflicted by illicit drug use in china. however, there have been few systematic studies on the prevalence of illicit drug use in the area. method: using data on illicit drug users registered in the police system, this study aims to estimate the population size of illicit drug users and the annual prevalence of drug use in yunnan from 2011 to 2015 using zelterman's capture-recapture method. results: in the 15-64 year-old population, the estimated prevalence rate of any illicit drug use was 0.81% (0.76-0.86%) in 2011 and 0.94% (0.90-0.98%) in 2014, representing a significant increase. the prevalence rate of heroin use decreased from 0.67% (0.63-0.73%) in 2011 to 0.57% (0.53-0.61%) in 2015, while the prevalence rate of methamphetamine use doubled from 0.20% (0.17-0.24%) in 2011 to 0.48% (0.460.50%) in 2015. the mean age of the 141,702 identified illicit drug users in yunnan from 2011 to 2015 was 32.2 years, and the majority were male, low educated, and peasants; nearly half were single and ethnic minorities. the ratio of the number of identified illicit drug users to the number of hidden users increased from 1:12 in 2011 to 1:5 in 2015. conclusion: the prevalence of illicit drug use in yunnan has been increasing. although the prevalence of heroin use decreased, methamphetamine use increased dramatically from 2011 to 2015. preventive strategies that are more effective in reducing illicit drug use are urgently needed in yunnan." large-scale variation in density of an aquatic ecosystem indicator species,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,SUTHERLAND C;FULLER AK;ROYLE JA;MADDEN S,"monitoring indicator species is a pragmatic approach to natural resource assessments, especially when the link between the indicator species and ecosystem state is well justified. however, conducting ecosystem assessments over representative spatial scales that are insensitive to local heterogeneity is challenging. we examine the link between polychlorinated biphenyl (pcb) contamination and population density of an aquatic habitat specialist over a large spatial scale using non-invasive genetic spatial capture-recapture. using american mink (neovison vison), a predatory mammal and an indicator of aquatic ecosystems, we compared estimates of density in two major river systems, one with extremely high levels of pcb contamination (hudson river), and a hydrologically independent river with lower pcb levels (mohawk river). our work supports the hypothesis that mink densities are substantially (1.64-1.67 times) lower in the contaminated river system. we demonstrate the value of coupling the indicator species concept with well-conceived and spatially representative monitoring protocols. pcbs have demonstrable detrimental effects on aquatic ecosystems, including mink, and these effects are likely to be profound and long-lasting, manifesting as population-level impacts. through integrating non-invasive data collection, genetic analysis, and spatial capture-recapture methods, we present a monitoring framework for generating robust density estimates across large spatial scales." a multi-event capture-recapture analysis of toxoplasma gondii seroconversion dynamics in farm cats,toxoplasmosis; domestic cats; capture-recapture; multi-event modelling; infection dynamics; serological titres; blotting paper; misclassification,PARASITES & VECTORS,SIMON JA;PRADEL R;AUBERT D;GEERS R;VILLENA I;POULLE ML,"background: domestic cats play a key role in the epidemiology of the parasite toxoplasma gondii by excreting environmentally-resistant oocysts that may infect humans and other warm-blooded animals. the dynamics of toxoplasma gondii seroconversion, used as a proxy for primo-infection dynamics, was investigated in five cat populations living on farms. methods: serological tests on blood samples from cats were performed every three months over a period of two years, for a total of 400 serological tests performed on 130 cats. variations in seroconversion rates and associated factors were investigated using a multi-event capture-recapture modelling approach that explicitly accounted for uncertainties in cat age and serological status. results: seroprevalence varied between farms, from 15 to 73%, suggesting differential exposure of cats to t. gondii. in farms with high exposure, cats could become infected before reaching the age of six months. seroconversion rates varied from 0.42 to 0.96 seroconversions per cat per year and were higher in autumn and winter than in spring and summer. conclusion: our results suggest inter-farm and seasonal variations in the risks of exposure to t. gondii oocysts for humans and livestock living on farms. the paper also discusses the role of young cats in the maintenance of environmental contamination by t. gondii oocysts on farms." -spatial capture-recapture design and modelling for the study of small mammals,NA,PLOS ONE,ROMAIRONE J;JIMENEZ J;LUQUE-LARENA JJ;MOUGEOT F,"spatial capture-recapture modelling (scr) is a powerful analytical tool to estimate density and derive information on space use and behaviour of elusive animals. yet, scr has been seldom applied to the study of ecologically keystone small mammals. here we highlight its potential and requirements with a case study on common voles (microtus arvalis). first, we address mortality associated with live-trapping, which can be high in small mammals, and must be kept minimal. we designed and tested a nest box coupled with a classic sherman trap and show that it allows a 5-fold reduction of mortality in traps. second, we address the need to adjust the trapping grid to the individual home range to maximize spatial recaptures. in may-june 2016, we captured and tagged with transponders 227 voles in a 1.2-ha area during two monthly sessions. using a bayesian scr with a multinomial approach, we estimated: (1) the baseline detection rate and investigated variation according to sex, time or behaviour (aversion/attraction after a previous capture); (2) the parameter sigma that describes how detection probability declines as a function of the distance to an individual's activity centre, and investigated variation according to sex; and (3) density and population sex-ratio. we show that reducing the maximum distance between traps from 12 to 9.6m doubled spatial recaptures and improved model predictions. baseline detection rate increased over time (after overcoming a likely aversion to entering new odourless traps) and was greater for females than males in june. the sigma parameter of males was twice that of females, indicating larger home ranges. density estimates were of 142.92 +/- 38.50 and 168.25 +/- 15.79 voles/ha in may and june, respectively, with 2-3 times more females than males. we highlight the potential and broad applicability that scr offers and provide specific recommendations for using it to study small mammals like voles." -adult size and sex ratio variation of cerambyx welensii (coleoptera: cerambycidae) in mediterranean oak (fagaceae) woodlands,NA,CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST,TORRES-VILA LM;MENDIOLA-DIAZ FJ;SANCHEZ-GONZALEZ A,"adult size is the trait most closely correlated with reproductive output in insects, but may also have important selective implications determining additional fitness gains. in longhorn beetles, adult size-mediated ultimate benefits may arise from mate choice, male antennal spread width or male fighting for mates. in this paper, we examined factors potentially shaping adult size of cerambyx welensii kuster (coleoptera: cerambycidae), an emergent oak (quercus linnaeus; fagaceae) pest. sex ratio and adult length/weight allometric relationships were also explored. overwintering adults were collected inside oaks in extremadura (southwestern spain) during 2011-2017 to ensure that larval development was completed in the wild. sex, host species, and wood quality affected adult size, though some interactions occurred and among-host differences were weak. adults collected inside older trees and wider branches were significantly larger. adult size was unaffected by either elevation, aspect, or population density. there was a robust allometric scaling in both sexes between elytral/adult length and weight, females being heavier than males and males longer than females when adults were large. female-biased sex ratios occurred in old/veteran trees and in dense/crowded larval populations. we discuss these results from an evolutionary perspective considering the potential impact of c. welensii adult size on population dynamics and management tactics." -"recapture probability, flight morphology, and microorganisms",bacteria; barn swallow; capture-mark-recapture analyses; fungi; hirundo rustica; microbiome,CURRENT ZOOLOGY,AL RUBAIEE Z;AL-MURAYATI H;MOLLER AP,"microorganisms on and within organisms are ubiquitous and interactions with their hosts range from mutualistic over commensal, to pathogenic. we hypothesized that microorganisms might affect the ability of barn swallows hirundo rustica to escape from potential predators, with positive associations between the abundance of microorganisms and escape ability implying mutualistic effects, while negative associations would imply antagonistic effects. we quantified escape behavior as the ability to avoid capture in a mist net and hence as a small number of recaptures. because recapture probability may also depend on timing of reproduction and reproductive success, we also tested whether the association between recapture and microorganisms was mediated by an association between recapture and life history. we found intermediate to strong positive relationships between recapture probability and abundance of bacillus megaterium, but not abundance of other bacteria or fungi. the abundance of b. megaterium was associated with an advance in laying date and an increase in reproductive success. however, these effects were independent of the number of recaptures. this interpretation is supported by the fact that there was no direct correlation between laying date and reproductive success on one hand and the number of recaptures on the other. these findings have implications not only for predator-prey interactions, but also for capture-mark-recapture analyses of vital rates such as survival and dispersal." -movement patterns of small rodents in lassa fever-endemic villages in guinea,mastomys natalensis; lassa virus; rhodamine b; capture-mark-recapture; rodent control,ECOHEALTH,MARIEN J;KOUROUMA F;MAGASSOUBA N;LEIRS H;FICHET-CALVET E,"the natal multimammate mouse (mastomys natalensis) is the reservoir host of lassa arenavirus, the etiological agent of lassa fever in humans. because there exists no vaccine for human use, rodent control and adjusting human behavior are currently considered to be the only options for lassa fever control. in order to develop efficient rodent control programs, more information about the host's ecology is needed. in this study, we investigated the spatial behavior of m. natalensis and other small rodents in two capture-mark-recapture and four dyed bait (rhodamine b) experiments in lassa fever-endemic villages in upper guinea. during the capture-mark-recapture studies, 23% of the recaptured m. natalensis moved between the houses and proximate fields. while m. natalensis was found over the entire study grid (2ha), other rodent species (praomys daltoni, praomys rostratus, lemniscomys striatus, mus spp.) were mostly trapped in the surrounding fields. distances between recapture occasions never exceeded 100m for all rodent species. during the dyed bait experiments, 11% of m. natalensis and 41% of p. daltoni moved from the fields to houses. we conclude that commensal m. natalensis easily moves between houses and proximate fields in guinea. we therefore consider occasional domestic rodent elimination to be an unsustainable approach to reduce lassa virus transmission risk to humans, as m. natalensis is likely to reinvade houses quickly from fields in which rodents are not controlled. a combination of permanent rodent elimination with other control strategies (e.g., make houses rodent proof or attract predators) could be more effective for lassa fever control, but must be further investigated." +spatial capture-recapture design and modelling for the study of small mammals,NA,PLOS ONE,ROMAIRONE J;JIMENEZ J;LUQUE LARENA JJ;MOUGEOT F,"spatial capture-recapture modelling (scr) is a powerful analytical tool to estimate density and derive information on space use and behaviour of elusive animals. yet, scr has been seldom applied to the study of ecologically keystone small mammals. here we highlight its potential and requirements with a case study on common voles (microtus arvalis). first, we address mortality associated with live-trapping, which can be high in small mammals, and must be kept minimal. we designed and tested a nest box coupled with a classic sherman trap and show that it allows a 5-fold reduction of mortality in traps. second, we address the need to adjust the trapping grid to the individual home range to maximize spatial recaptures. in may-june 2016, we captured and tagged with transponders 227 voles in a 1.2-ha area during two monthly sessions. using a bayesian scr with a multinomial approach, we estimated: (1) the baseline detection rate and investigated variation according to sex, time or behaviour (aversion/attraction after a previous capture); (2) the parameter sigma that describes how detection probability declines as a function of the distance to an individual's activity centre, and investigated variation according to sex; and (3) density and population sex-ratio. we show that reducing the maximum distance between traps from 12 to 9.6m doubled spatial recaptures and improved model predictions. baseline detection rate increased over time (after overcoming a likely aversion to entering new odourless traps) and was greater for females than males in june. the sigma parameter of males was twice that of females, indicating larger home ranges. density estimates were of 142.92 +/- 38.50 and 168.25 +/- 15.79 voles/ha in may and june, respectively, with 2-3 times more females than males. we highlight the potential and broad applicability that scr offers and provide specific recommendations for using it to study small mammals like voles." +adult size and sex ratio variation of cerambyx welensii (coleoptera: cerambycidae) in mediterranean oak (fagaceae) woodlands,NA,CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST,TORRES VILA LM;MENDIOLA DIAZ FJ;SANCHEZ GONZALEZ A,"adult size is the trait most closely correlated with reproductive output in insects, but may also have important selective implications determining additional fitness gains. in longhorn beetles, adult size-mediated ultimate benefits may arise from mate choice, male antennal spread width or male fighting for mates. in this paper, we examined factors potentially shaping adult size of cerambyx welensii kuster (coleoptera: cerambycidae), an emergent oak (quercus linnaeus; fagaceae) pest. sex ratio and adult length/weight allometric relationships were also explored. overwintering adults were collected inside oaks in extremadura (southwestern spain) during 2011-2017 to ensure that larval development was completed in the wild. sex, host species, and wood quality affected adult size, though some interactions occurred and among-host differences were weak. adults collected inside older trees and wider branches were significantly larger. adult size was unaffected by either elevation, aspect, or population density. there was a robust allometric scaling in both sexes between elytral/adult length and weight, females being heavier than males and males longer than females when adults were large. female-biased sex ratios occurred in old/veteran trees and in dense/crowded larval populations. we discuss these results from an evolutionary perspective considering the potential impact of c. welensii adult size on population dynamics and management tactics." +"recapture probability, flight morphology, and microorganisms",bacteria; barn swallow; capture-mark-recapture analyses; fungi; hirundo rustica; microbiome,CURRENT ZOOLOGY,AL RUBAIEE Z;AL MURAYATI H;MOLLER AP,"microorganisms on and within organisms are ubiquitous and interactions with their hosts range from mutualistic over commensal, to pathogenic. we hypothesized that microorganisms might affect the ability of barn swallows hirundo rustica to escape from potential predators, with positive associations between the abundance of microorganisms and escape ability implying mutualistic effects, while negative associations would imply antagonistic effects. we quantified escape behavior as the ability to avoid capture in a mist net and hence as a small number of recaptures. because recapture probability may also depend on timing of reproduction and reproductive success, we also tested whether the association between recapture and microorganisms was mediated by an association between recapture and life history. we found intermediate to strong positive relationships between recapture probability and abundance of bacillus megaterium, but not abundance of other bacteria or fungi. the abundance of b. megaterium was associated with an advance in laying date and an increase in reproductive success. however, these effects were independent of the number of recaptures. this interpretation is supported by the fact that there was no direct correlation between laying date and reproductive success on one hand and the number of recaptures on the other. these findings have implications not only for predator-prey interactions, but also for capture-mark-recapture analyses of vital rates such as survival and dispersal." +movement patterns of small rodents in lassa fever-endemic villages in guinea,mastomys natalensis; lassa virus; rhodamine b; capture-mark-recapture; rodent control,ECOHEALTH,MARIEN J;KOUROUMA F;MAGASSOUBA N;LEIRS H;FICHET CALVET E,"the natal multimammate mouse (mastomys natalensis) is the reservoir host of lassa arenavirus, the etiological agent of lassa fever in humans. because there exists no vaccine for human use, rodent control and adjusting human behavior are currently considered to be the only options for lassa fever control. in order to develop efficient rodent control programs, more information about the host's ecology is needed. in this study, we investigated the spatial behavior of m. natalensis and other small rodents in two capture-mark-recapture and four dyed bait (rhodamine b) experiments in lassa fever-endemic villages in upper guinea. during the capture-mark-recapture studies, 23% of the recaptured m. natalensis moved between the houses and proximate fields. while m. natalensis was found over the entire study grid (2ha), other rodent species (praomys daltoni, praomys rostratus, lemniscomys striatus, mus spp.) were mostly trapped in the surrounding fields. distances between recapture occasions never exceeded 100m for all rodent species. during the dyed bait experiments, 11% of m. natalensis and 41% of p. daltoni moved from the fields to houses. we conclude that commensal m. natalensis easily moves between houses and proximate fields in guinea. we therefore consider occasional domestic rodent elimination to be an unsustainable approach to reduce lassa virus transmission risk to humans, as m. natalensis is likely to reinvade houses quickly from fields in which rodents are not controlled. a combination of permanent rodent elimination with other control strategies (e.g., make houses rodent proof or attract predators) could be more effective for lassa fever control, but must be further investigated." "salmon-supported bears, seed dispersal, and extensive resource subsidies to granivores",brown bear; diplochory; myodes rutilus; northern red-backed vole; northwestern deer mouse; peromyscus keeni; scatter-hoarding; seed dispersal; seed-filled bear scat; ursus arctos,ECOSPHERE,SHAKERI YN;WHITE KS;LEVI T,"in salmon-rich environments, which once spanned much of the northern hemisphere, bears occur at exceptionally high densities. salmon, by growing bear populations, have the potential to exert wide-ranging effects on ecosystem processes. salmon-supported bears provide seed dispersal services to plants, and bear scats containing thousands of seeds may then be efficient nutritional resources for granivorous small mammals that also function as secondary seed dispersers while hoarding seeds for winter. we taxonomically identified and enumerated seeds in individual bear scats to characterize patterns of bear frugivory. we then combined estimates of seed abundance and digestible energy content to quantify the energy available to granivorous small mammals, and we quantified the proportion of the mouse population that could be supported by locally abundant bear populations in lowland salmon systems. we additionally monitored seed-filled bear scats with remote cameras to quantify small mammal visitation rates, and live-trapped small mammals seasonally to determine whether rodents visited bear scats proportional to their densities or whether some species preferentially selected for bear scats, and to assess whether seasonal variation in scat visitation was driven by density or selection. bears were an important initial dispersal agent for 12 species of fruit, particularly devil's club (oplopanax horridus) and blueberry (vaccinium spp.), which occurred in 80% (5839 seeds/scat) and 50% (10,719 seeds/scat) of scats, respectively. seeds in bear scats were intensively utilized and dispersed by small mammals, primarily scatter-hoarding northwestern deer mice (peromyscus keeni; 8.5 visits per day/4295 total visits) and larder-hoarding northern red-backed voles (myodes rutilus; 2.2 visits per day/1099 total visits), with visitation rates proportional to the seasonal density of each species. small mammals likely incurred significant nutritional benefits from seeds deposited in bear scats (kcal/scat, mean = 114, n = 71). in coastal alaska riparian areas, bears are potentially capable of indirectly subsidizing the energy needs of 45-65% of local deer mouse populations. thus, this work helps elucidate the role that salmon, by supporting abundant bears, plays in ecological communities via influencing seed dispersal and resource subsidies to the small mammals that compose the base of the food web." geographic variation and environmental correlates of apparent survival rates in adult tree swallows tachycineta bicolor,aerial insectivore; climate cycles; population ecology; recapture rates,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,CLARK RG;WINKLER DW;DAWSON RD;SHUTLER D;HUSSELL DJT;LOMBARDO MP;THORPE PA;DUNN PO;WHITTINGHAM LA,"determining demographic rates in wild animal populations and understanding why rates vary are important challenges in population ecology and conservation. whereas reproductive success is reported frequently for many songbird species, there are relatively few corresponding estimates of annual survival for widespread populations of the same migratory species. we incorporated mark-recapture data into cormack-jolly-seber models to estimate annual apparent survival and recapture rates of adult male and female tree swallows tachycineta bicolor in eight local breeding populations across north america for periods of 7-33 yr. we found strong site-specific and annual variation in apparent survival rates of adult swallows, and evidence of higher survival or site fidelity among males than females. there were no strong associations between putative overwintering region and survival. strength and patterns of winter climate-apparent survival relationships varied across four sites monitored for >15 yr; at one site, spring pond conditions, local spring precipitation and, to a lesser extent, winter north atlantic oscillation index were credible predictors of annual apparent survival. further work is needed to evaluate how survival is related to environmental conditions throughout the annual cycle and how these factors affect population dynamics of swallows and related species of conservation concern." survival costs of within- and between-season mate change in the european blackbird turdus merula,pair bond; divorce; mating,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,JANKOWIAK L;CHOLEWA M;WYSOCKI D,"many studies of socially monogamous birds discuss the adaptive role of between-season partner change, but only a handful of them refer to the benefits of pair fidelity in terms of increased survival. moreover, there are no studies describing the benefits of within-season mate retention. our data relating to an urban population of european blackbirds turdus merula enabled us to test the dependence of survival on pair faithfulness. because blackbirds divorce within and between seasons, we were able to test the influence of pair faithfulness on their within- and between-season survival and mate fidelity. for this purpose, we used a multievent capture-mark-recapture (mecmr) statistical model, which is based on recapture rates and different pair states (faithful to mate, paired with new partner, or dead). our study indicated that between- and within-season survival depends on pair states: pair-bond duration increases survival to the next capture occasion in both sexes. we found that the pair-bond duration to the current partner increased the chances of being with the same partner during the next breeding occasion, although we failed to find any within-season pair-bond influence for females. our results showed sex differences in mating at the end of the season: females had a much smaller chance of breeding with the current new partner in the next year. this study has demonstrated that within- and between-season survival is dependent on mate retention, and we discuss this in the context of how searching for a new partner could affect the birds' survival." drivers and constraints on floral latitudinal diversification gradients,fossil record; latitudinal diversity gradient; plants; pollen; richness; speciation,JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY,JARDINE PE;HARRINGTON GJ;SESSA JA;DASKOVA J,"aim: the latitudinal diversity gradient (ldg) is a primary emergent property of the biosphere, yet the cause(s) of this pattern are still debated. key to many hypotheses is the origins and maintenance of tropical hyperdiversity, and the role of climate in driving low latitude speciation. here, we analyse patterns of tropical and extratropical floral diversification and migration during the early palaeogene greenhouse interval, to shed further light on the relationship between climatic change, latitude and floral diversity. location: the early palaeogene, from similar to 63 to 42 million years ago, of the us gulf coastal plain (gcp) and colombia. taxon; terrestrial plants, using pollen and spores as a proxy. methods: we analyse species diversity trends using coverage and sample size-based interpolation and extrapolation, chao1 estimated richness, and evenness metrics. capture-mark-recapture (cmr) modelling is used to estimate origination and extinction probabilities. origination patterns on the gcp are separated into insitu speciation versus immigration. results: while colombian (tropical) palynofloral richness and origination rates increased in conjunction with warming, gcp richness remained stable. the single rise in gcp origination rates, coincident with the palaeocene-eocene thermal maximum, was largely driven by the immigration of eurasian taxa, rather than insitu origination, which was the case in colombia. main conclusions: these results show that the relationships among climatic parameters and diversification and dispersal are not straightforward. while temperature may have driven diversification in the tropics, other factors, such as precipitation, insolation or biological interactions, may have constrained diversification in the extratropics. furthermore, our results suggest that outward dispersal from the tropics was limited in the warm world of the early palaeogene, with most gcp immigrants being sourced from other extratropical regions. these findings suggest that the tropics and extratropics may have functioned independently at this time." an 18-year mark-recapture study of wood turtles (glyptemys insculpta) in michigan,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,SCHNEIDER AC;ARNOLD TW;HUBER PW;LEWIS TL,"wood turtles (glyptentijs insculpta) occupy forested streams at midlatitudes in eastern north america and are listed as endangered by the international union for conservation of nature, but few populations have been rigorously studied. we studied a population of wood turtles in michigan for 18 yr, individually marking 260 different turtles (146 females, 88 males, and 26 unsexed juveniles), including 118 turtles that we followed for one or more years using radiotelemetry. we analyzed our encounter data using a cormack-jolly-seber model in program mark; and we estimated total population size using a bayesian integrated population model that combined horvitz-thompson estimates of annual population size, mark-recapture estimates of annual survival, and derived estimates of annual recruitment. annual adult survival was 0.970 +/- 0.016 sd and annual recruitment to age 15 (mean age of first capture) was 0.058 4- 0.019 sd. over the 18-yr study, estimated population size grew from 770 (95% ci 631-928) to 1,196 (95' ci 977-1,444) individuals." assessing tag loss and survival probabilities in green turtles (chelonia mydas) nesting in malaysia,sea turtles; titanium tag; inconel tag; south-east asia; remigration,JOURNAL OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM,NISHIZAWA H;JOSEPH J;CHEW VYC;LIEW HC;CHAN EH,"the loss of external tags is one of the biggest problems in mark-recapture research. an evaluation of tag loss is therefore required to improve tagging methodology, select appropriate tag types, and accurately estimate population status and dynamics. we estimated tag loss probability of double-tagged green turtles (chelonia mydas) nesting at redang island, malaysia (05 degrees 49' n 103 degrees 00' e), from 1993-2014. for both titanium and inconel tags, we found a tag loss pattern with a high initial tag loss rate that decreased to an asymptote near a constant value above zero. the initial tag loss probability for titanium tags was higher than for inconel tags, and titanium tags were lost earlier than inconel tags in more individuals when both types of tags were attached. in addition, comparison of the tag loss probability of inconel tags attached during the period when tagging staff changed every year to that when senior tagging staff were not changed, indicated that lack of consistency in tagging staff affected the application of at least one of two inconel tags. estimated tag loss probability was incorporated into a recapture model, and annual survival probability was estimated to be 0.893 (95% confidence interval: 0.857-0.921)." -marine species range shifts necessitate advanced policy planning the case of the north atlantic right whale,NA,OCEANOGRAPHY,MEYER-GUTBROD EL;GREENE CH;DAVIES KTA,"rising global temperatures are causing a poleward shift in species distribution. range shift velocities are higher in the marine environment, with observed rates of 30-130 km per decade. both protected and exploited species will be at risk if marine species management policies are not structured to anticipate these range shifts. the 2017 mass mortality event of the north atlantic right whale showcases the detrimental impact of unanticipated climate-mediated behavior in a species protected by geographically and seasonally fixed policies. based on the results of a demographic capture-recapture model, right whales may face extinction in fewer than 30 years unless protective policies are expanded to cover their shifting distribution. increased support of long-term monitoring programs paired with environmental modeling research is critical to developing more proactive conservation management strategies and preventing further ecological crises." +marine species range shifts necessitate advanced policy planning the case of the north atlantic right whale,NA,OCEANOGRAPHY,MEYER GUTBROD EL;GREENE CH;DAVIES KTA,"rising global temperatures are causing a poleward shift in species distribution. range shift velocities are higher in the marine environment, with observed rates of 30-130 km per decade. both protected and exploited species will be at risk if marine species management policies are not structured to anticipate these range shifts. the 2017 mass mortality event of the north atlantic right whale showcases the detrimental impact of unanticipated climate-mediated behavior in a species protected by geographically and seasonally fixed policies. based on the results of a demographic capture-recapture model, right whales may face extinction in fewer than 30 years unless protective policies are expanded to cover their shifting distribution. increased support of long-term monitoring programs paired with environmental modeling research is critical to developing more proactive conservation management strategies and preventing further ecological crises." phenotypic selection and covariation in the life-history traits of elephant seals: heavier offspring gain a double selective advantage,early conditions; individual heterogeneity; phenotypic selection,OIKOS,OOSTHUIZEN WC;ALTWEGG R;NEVOUX M;BESTER MN;DE BRUYN PJN,"early developmental conditions contribute to individual heterogeneity of both phenotypic traits and fitness components, ultimately affecting population dynamics. although the demographic consequences of ontogenic growth are best quantified using an integrated measure of fitness, most analyses to date have instead studied individual fitness components in isolation. here, we estimated phenotypic selection on weaning mass in female southern elephant seals mirounga leonina by analyzing individual-based data collected between 1986 and 2016 with capture-recapture and matrix projection models. in support of a hypothesis predicting a gradual decrease of weaning mass effects with time since weaning (the replacement hypothesis), we found that the estimated effects of weaning mass on future survival and recruitment probability was of intermediate duration (rather than transient or permanent). heavier female offspring had improved odds of survival in early life and a higher probability to recruit at an early age. the positive link between weaning mass and recruitment age is noteworthy, considering that pre-recruitment mortality already imposed a strong selective filter on the population, leaving only the most robust' individuals to reproduce. the selection gradient on asymptotic population growth rate, a measure of mean absolute fitness, was weaker than selection on first-year survival and recruitment probabilities. weaker selection on mean fitness occurs because weaning mass has little impact on adult survival, the fitness component to which the population growth of long-lived species is most sensitive. these results highlight the need to interpret individual variation in phenotypic traits in a context that considers the demographic pathways between the trait and an inclusive proxy of individual fitness. although variation in weaning mass do not translate to permanent survival differences among individuals in adulthood, it explains heterogeneity and positive covariation between survival and breeding in early life, which contribute to between-individual variation in fitness." -identifying individual cougars (puma concolor) in remote camera images -implications for population estimates,NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,ALEXANDER PD;GESE EM,"context several studies have estimated cougar (puma concolor) abundance using remote camera trapping in conjunction with capture-mark-recapture (cmr) type analyses. however, this methodology (photo-cmr) requires that photo-captured individuals are individually recognisable (photo identification). photo identification is generally achieved using naturally occurring marks (e.g. stripes or spots) that are unique to each individual. cougars, however, are uniformly pelaged, and photo identification must be based on subtler attributes such as scars, ear nicks or body morphology. there is some debate as to whether these types of features are sufficient for photo-cmr, but there is little research directly evaluating its feasibility with cougars. aim we aimed to examine researchers' ability to reliably identify individual cougars in photographs taken from a camera-trapping survey, in order to evaluate the appropriateness of photo-cmr for estimating cougar abundance or cmr-derived parameters. methods we collected cougar photo detections using a grid of 55 remote camera traps in north-west wyoming, usa. the photo detections were distributed to professional biologists working in cougar research, who independently attempted to identify individuals in a pairwise matching process. we assessed the level to which their results agreed, using simple percentage agreement and fleiss's kappa. we also generated and compared spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) density estimates using their resultant detection histories. key results there were no cases where participants were in full agreement on a cougar's id. agreement in photo identification among participants was low (n=7; simple agreement=46.7%; fleiss's kappa=0.183). the resultant secr density estimates ranged from 0.7 to 13.5 cougars per 100km(2) (n=4; s.d.=6.11). conclusion we were unable to produce reliable estimates of cougar density using photo-cmr, due to our inability to accurately photo-tag detected individuals. abundance estimators that do not require complete photo-tagging (i.e. mark-resight) were also infeasible, given the lack of agreement on any single cougar's id. implications this research suggested that there are substantial problems with the application of photo-cmr to estimate the size of cougar populations. although improvements in camera technology or field methods may resolve these issues, researchers attempting to use this method on cougars should be cautious." -age estimation through skeletochronology and mark-recapture of free-living liolaemus leopardinus (squamata: liolaemidae) from chile,bone; body-length; high-altitude; lifespan; lines of arrested growth; lizards,PHYLLOMEDUSA,SANTOYO-BRITO E;FOX SF;NUNEZ H,"age determination is a crucial component of ecological studies. researchers have relied on different methods and techniques, for example mark-recapture, body size, and skeletochronology, to assess the age of free-ranging individuals. we used all three methods to estimate the age structure of a population of liolaemus leopardinus, a highly social and saxicolous lizard species endemic to the temperate region of central chile. this high-elevation and secretive species is considered threatened and, although efforts have been made to reveal more specific details about the species' natural history, crucial details of its biology are still unknown. our goal was to associate the number of lines of arrested growth (lags) to snout-vent length (svl) and use lags as an age estimation proxy on free-ranging individuals. for the skeletochronology analyses, a combination of toe-clips was collected when each subject was first captured in 2012-2013. svl for all captured individuals was recorded during two different field seasons (austral spring to fall of 2011-2012 and 2012-2013). svl data were also available for 10 individuals initially collected and permanently marked in 2005 (one juvenile and nine adults) and recaptured in 2011-2012. three of those 10 subjects were captured again in 2012-2013. our results revealed the formation of lags in l. leopardinus and a high degree of bone remodeling in both juveniles and adults. this bone remodeling combined with the high rapprochement in peripheral lags on the samples of the oldest lizards suggest that phalangeal bones are not suitable for age determination in this species. on the other hand, our mark-recapture results allowed us to assign individuals to four different age-classes when a subject's svl was associated with activity periods and recaptures. individuals of l. leopardinus are long-lived and their lifespan can exceed a decade. female lizards become sexually mature at three to four years of age." +identifying individual cougars (puma concolor) in remote camera images - implications for population estimates,NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,ALEXANDER PD;GESE EM,"context several studies have estimated cougar (puma concolor) abundance using remote camera trapping in conjunction with capture-mark-recapture (cmr) type analyses. however, this methodology (photo-cmr) requires that photo-captured individuals are individually recognisable (photo identification). photo identification is generally achieved using naturally occurring marks (e.g. stripes or spots) that are unique to each individual. cougars, however, are uniformly pelaged, and photo identification must be based on subtler attributes such as scars, ear nicks or body morphology. there is some debate as to whether these types of features are sufficient for photo-cmr, but there is little research directly evaluating its feasibility with cougars. aim we aimed to examine researchers' ability to reliably identify individual cougars in photographs taken from a camera-trapping survey, in order to evaluate the appropriateness of photo-cmr for estimating cougar abundance or cmr-derived parameters. methods we collected cougar photo detections using a grid of 55 remote camera traps in north-west wyoming, usa. the photo detections were distributed to professional biologists working in cougar research, who independently attempted to identify individuals in a pairwise matching process. we assessed the level to which their results agreed, using simple percentage agreement and fleiss's kappa. we also generated and compared spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) density estimates using their resultant detection histories. key results there were no cases where participants were in full agreement on a cougar's id. agreement in photo identification among participants was low (n=7; simple agreement=46.7%; fleiss's kappa=0.183). the resultant secr density estimates ranged from 0.7 to 13.5 cougars per 100km(2) (n=4; s.d.=6.11). conclusion we were unable to produce reliable estimates of cougar density using photo-cmr, due to our inability to accurately photo-tag detected individuals. abundance estimators that do not require complete photo-tagging (i.e. mark-resight) were also infeasible, given the lack of agreement on any single cougar's id. implications this research suggested that there are substantial problems with the application of photo-cmr to estimate the size of cougar populations. although improvements in camera technology or field methods may resolve these issues, researchers attempting to use this method on cougars should be cautious." +age estimation through skeletochronology and mark-recapture of free-living liolaemus leopardinus (squamata: liolaemidae) from chile,bone; body-length; high-altitude; lifespan; lines of arrested growth; lizards,PHYLLOMEDUSA,SANTOYO BRITO E;FOX SF;NUNEZ H,"age determination is a crucial component of ecological studies. researchers have relied on different methods and techniques, for example mark-recapture, body size, and skeletochronology, to assess the age of free-ranging individuals. we used all three methods to estimate the age structure of a population of liolaemus leopardinus, a highly social and saxicolous lizard species endemic to the temperate region of central chile. this high-elevation and secretive species is considered threatened and, although efforts have been made to reveal more specific details about the species' natural history, crucial details of its biology are still unknown. our goal was to associate the number of lines of arrested growth (lags) to snout-vent length (svl) and use lags as an age estimation proxy on free-ranging individuals. for the skeletochronology analyses, a combination of toe-clips was collected when each subject was first captured in 2012-2013. svl for all captured individuals was recorded during two different field seasons (austral spring to fall of 2011-2012 and 2012-2013). svl data were also available for 10 individuals initially collected and permanently marked in 2005 (one juvenile and nine adults) and recaptured in 2011-2012. three of those 10 subjects were captured again in 2012-2013. our results revealed the formation of lags in l. leopardinus and a high degree of bone remodeling in both juveniles and adults. this bone remodeling combined with the high rapprochement in peripheral lags on the samples of the oldest lizards suggest that phalangeal bones are not suitable for age determination in this species. on the other hand, our mark-recapture results allowed us to assign individuals to four different age-classes when a subject's svl was associated with activity periods and recaptures. individuals of l. leopardinus are long-lived and their lifespan can exceed a decade. female lizards become sexually mature at three to four years of age." spatial capture-mark-resight estimation of animal population density,capture-mark-resight model; density estimation; maximum likelihood; overdispersion; spatial mark-resight; spatially explicit capture-recapture,BIOMETRICS,EFFORD MG;HUNTER CM,"sightings of previously marked animals can extend a capture-recapture dataset without the added cost of capturing new animals for marking. combined marking and resighting methods are therefore an attractive option in animal population studies, and there exist various likelihood-based non-spatial models, and some spatial versions fitted by markov chain monte carlo sampling. as implemented to date, the focus has been on modeling sightings only, which requires that the spatial distribution of pre-marked animals is known. we develop a suite of likelihood-based spatial mark-resight models that either include the marking phase (capture-mark-resight models) or require a known distribution of marked animals (narrow-sense mark-resight). the new models sacrifice some information in the covariance structure of the counts of unmarked animals; estimation is by maximizing a pseudolikelihood with a simulation-based adjustment for overdispersion in the sightings of unmarked animals. simulations suggest that the resulting estimates of population density have low bias and adequate confidence interval coverage under typical sampling conditions. further work is needed to specify the conditions under which ignoring covariance results in unacceptable loss of precision, or to modify the pseudolikelihood to include that information. the methods are applied to a study of ship rats rattus rattus using live traps and video cameras in a new zealand forest, and to previously published data." continuous-time capture-recapture in closed populations,capture-recapture; likelihood factorization; markov chain monte carlo; nonhomogenous poisson process,BIOMETRICS,SCHOFIELD MR;BARKER RJ;GELLING N,"the standard approach to fitting capture-recapture data collected in continuous time involves arbitrarily forcing the data into a series of distinct discrete capture sessions. we show how continuous-time models can be fitted as easily as discrete-time alternatives. the likelihood is factored so that efficient markov chain monte carlo algorithms can be implemented for bayesian estimation, available online in the r package ctime. we consider goodness-of-fit tests for behavior and heterogeneity effects as well as implementing models that allow for such effects." -individual unique colour patterns of the pronotum of rhynchophorus ferrugineus (coleoptera: curculionidae) allow for photographic identification methods (pim),aphis software; capture-mark-recapture; curculionidae; individual identification; photo-identification; red palm weevil; rhynchophorus ferrugineus,JOURNAL OF ASIA-PACIFIC ENTOMOLOGY,DIAZ-CALAFAT J;RIBAS-MARQUES E;JAUME-RAMIS S;MARTINEZ-NUNEZ S;SHARAPOVA A;PINYA S,"photographic identification methods are of highly importance when it comes to reduce the animal's stress, pain and possible injuries during or after marking techniques and thus to increase the reliability of demographic parameter estimates. there is plenty of software available for photo-identification, allowing individual identification in capture-mark-recapture (cmr) methods using body patterns, spots and marks unique to each individual. however, these non-invasive methods have hardly ever been used with arthropods. in this study, aphis (automated photo identification suite) has been assessed as a software capable of identifying individuals in different samplings during catch-and-release sessions with dead specimens under laboratory conditions. for this individual identification, spm (spot pattern matching) and itm (image template matching) procedures were tested; achieving a success of 100% and 95.35%, respectively. in spm, the software itself matched the specimens almost automatically in half of the cases. however, it resulted more time-consuming than itm during the pre-processing of images. on the other hand, itm saves time during this step and still is able to detect recaptures accurately, yet more time may be needed when selecting the recaptures from the candidate list. thus, it can be attested that aphis is a competent and efficient software regarding photo-identification of rhynchophorus ferrugineus and species with similar and unique individual colour patterns in their pronotum." +individual unique colour patterns of the pronotum of rhynchophorus ferrugineus (coleoptera: curculionidae) allow for photographic identification methods (pim),aphis software; capture-mark-recapture; curculionidae; individual identification; photo-identification; red palm weevil; rhynchophorus ferrugineus,JOURNAL OF ASIA-PACIFIC ENTOMOLOGY,DIAZ CALAFAT J;RIBAS MARQUES E;JAUME RAMIS S;MARTINEZ NUNEZ S;SHARAPOVA A;PINYA S,"photographic identification methods are of highly importance when it comes to reduce the animal's stress, pain and possible injuries during or after marking techniques and thus to increase the reliability of demographic parameter estimates. there is plenty of software available for photo-identification, allowing individual identification in capture-mark-recapture (cmr) methods using body patterns, spots and marks unique to each individual. however, these non-invasive methods have hardly ever been used with arthropods. in this study, aphis (automated photo identification suite) has been assessed as a software capable of identifying individuals in different samplings during catch-and-release sessions with dead specimens under laboratory conditions. for this individual identification, spm (spot pattern matching) and itm (image template matching) procedures were tested; achieving a success of 100% and 95.35%, respectively. in spm, the software itself matched the specimens almost automatically in half of the cases. however, it resulted more time-consuming than itm during the pre-processing of images. on the other hand, itm saves time during this step and still is able to detect recaptures accurately, yet more time may be needed when selecting the recaptures from the candidate list. thus, it can be attested that aphis is a competent and efficient software regarding photo-identification of rhynchophorus ferrugineus and species with similar and unique individual colour patterns in their pronotum." bayesian propagation of record linkage uncertainty into population size estimation of human rights violations,capture-recapture; counting casualties; data linkage; decomposable graphical model; duplicate detection; entity resolution; multiple-systems estimation; multiple record linkage,ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,SADINLE M,"multiple-systems or capture-recapture estimation are common techniques for population size estimation, particularly in the quantitative study of human rights violations. these methods rely on multiple samples from the population, along with the information of which individuals appear in which samples. the goal of record linkage techniques is to identify unique individuals across samples based on the information collected on them. linkage decisions are subject to uncertainty when such information contains errors and missingness, and when different individuals have very similar characteristics. uncertainty in the linkage should be propagated into the stage of population size estimation. we propose an approach called linkage-averaging to propagate linkage uncertainty, as quantified by some bayesian record linkage methodologies, into a subsequent stage of population size estimation. linkage-averaging is a two-stage approach in which the results from the record linkage stage are fed into the population size estimation stage. we show that under some conditions the results of this approach correspond to those of a proper bayesian joint model for both record linkage and population size estimation. the two-stage nature of linkage-averaging allows us to combine different record linkage models with different capture-recapture models, which facilitates model exploration. we present a case study from the salvadoran civil war, where we are interested in estimating the total number of civilian killings using lists of witnesses' reports collected by different organizations. these lists contain duplicates, typographical and spelling errors, missingness, and other inaccuracies that lead to uncertainty in the linkage. we show how linkage-averaging can be used for transferring the uncertainty in the linkage of these lists into different models for population size estimation." chinko/mbari drainage basin represents a conservation hotspot for eastern derby eland in central africa,antelope; central african republic; giant eland; tragelaphus derbianus; trophy hunting,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,BRANDLOVA K;GLONEKOVA M;HEJCMANOVA P;VYMYSLICKA PJ;AEBISCHER T;HICKISCH R;MALLON D,"one of the largest of antelopes, derby eland (taurotragus derbianus), is an important ecosystem component of african savannah. while the western subspecies is critically endangered, the eastern subspecies is classified as least concern. our study presents the first investigation of population dynamics of the derby eland in the chinko/mbari drainage basin, central african republic, and assesses the conservation role of this population. we analysed data from 63 camera traps installed in 2012. the number of individuals captured within a single camera event ranged from one to 41. herds were mostly mixed by age and sex, mean group size was 5.61, larger during the dry season. adult (ad) males constituted only 20% of solitary individuals. the overall sex ratio (m:f) was 1:1.33, while the ad sex ratio shifted to 1:1.52, reflecting selective hunting pressure. mean density ranged from 0.04 to 0.16 individuals/km(2), giving an estimated population size of 445-1,760 individuals. chinko harbours one of the largest documented populations of derby eland in central africa, making chinko one of its potential conservation hotspots." estimating the number of people who inject drugs: a proposal to provide figures nationwide and its application to france,capture-recapture; france; injecting drug users; multilevel model; zelterman regression model,JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH,JANSSEN E,"background this article provides an original method of estimating the prevalence of injecting drug users (idu) in france. method in order to overcome legal restrictions hampering data linkage, the method relies on a single-source capture-recapture framework and makes use of individual data collected by a standardized survey conducted within treatment centres. taking the hierarchical structure of data collection into consideration, a multilevel zelterman regression model was used. results in 2014, last year idu were thought to be 103 800 (85 300; 130 000), prevalence of 2.6% (2.1; 3.2), and last month idu 86 000 (69 200; 110 400), prevalence of 2.2% (1.7; 2.7). estimates have been broken down by gender, revealing a 3 to 1 ratio of male-to-female; and age, showing young adults less prone to regular use of injection. it is thought that one idu out of three was seen in treatment centres in 2014. conclusion the number of last month idu has remained stable when compared with the last available figures calculated in 2006. nowadays idu include heroin, buprenorphine, polydrug and stimulant users. this greater diversity ought to be taken into account by prevention policies, and underlines the need for perennial monitoring of idu." assessing variability in juvenile brown shrimp growth rates in small marsh ponds: an exercise in model evaluation and improvement,NA,MARINE AND COASTAL FISHERIES,LEO JP;MINELLO TJ;GRANT WE,"brown shrimp farfantepenaeus aztecus support a commercially important fishery in the northern gulf of mexico, and the juvenile shrimp use coastal estuaries as nurseries. production of young shrimp from these nurseries, and hence commercial harvest of adults from the gulf, is highly variable from year to year. our recently published, individual-based model attempted to explain this variability as a function of habitat and the environmental factors such as temperature, salinity, and access to intertidal marsh habitat. we conducted a mark-recapture field study between april 12 and june 9, 2011, to provide growth rate data for model testing, as well as to further examine factors that affect growth, including available food biomass. brown shrimp growth rates were measured in three polyhaline marsh ponds over periods of 2 to 4weeks. we recorded hourly temperature and flooding data and measured biomass of infaunal food organisms. we parameterized our production model with input from 2011 to compare modeled output with observed data. mean growth rate estimates from the model were similar to the estimated mean growth rate observed in the field (1.13mm/d and 1.06mm/d, respectively); however, field growth rates differed significantly among three marsh ponds (1.02, 1.03, and 1.26mm/d). data on infaunal biomass suggest that spatial and temporal variability in available food organisms is related to differences in shrimp growth, and the inclusion of such information may enhance the model." blue catfish density and biomass in a tidal tributary in coastal virginia,NA,NORTHEASTERN NATURALIST,BUNCH AJ;GREENLEE RS;BRITTLE EM,"ictalurus furcatus (blue catfish) provide trophy recreational fishing opportunities in virginia's tidal rivers; however, potential ecological impacts are of concern. we used mark-recapture techniques and electrofishing in 2007 and 2014 to estimate blue catfish density and biomass in powell creek. a 66% decline in fish density occurred between 2007 (708 fish/ha) and 2014 (239 fish/ha) and biomass declined by 31% over the same timeframe (266 kg/ha to 185 kg/ha). these findings are supported by long-term monitoring trends in the tidal james river. here, we provide: (1) data relative to temporal shifts in abundance and biomass, (2) data for use in subsequent population-dynamics analyses, and, (3) points of caution when assuming temporally static populations for introduced species. we demonstrated the feasibility of low-frequency electrofishing and mark-recapture methods to estimate blue catfish abundance, and recommend use of the approach where catfish abundance estimates are important." -river damming drives population fragmentation and habitat loss of the threatened danube streber (zingel streber): implications for conservation,endangered species; fish; hydromorphology; hydropower; renewable energy; stream,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,BRINKER A;CHUCHOLL C;BEHRMANN-GODEL J;MATZINGER M;BASEN T;BAER J,"1. the danube streber, zingel streber, is a threatened and data-deficient percid fish endemic to the danube catchment. the study provides the first data on distribution, life history, and genetic structure of the species at the upstream limit of its historic distribution (south-western germany). 2. a 3-year survey effort with 143 fishing events identified several small, fragmentary populations covering only 7% of the historical range of the species. census population sizes (nc) of these subpopulations were estimated from mark-recapture data at < 200 individuals. effective population sizes (ne), calculated from genetic data (microsatellite genotyping), were much smaller still, at < 15 individuals, resulting in an nc/ne ratio of < 0.25, strongly indicating that populations are seriously affected by genetic drift and inbreeding, and are thus facing a severe extinction risk. 3. life-history parameters recorded during the study indicate a rapid life cycle, with both sexes probably attaining sexual maturity at the age of 1 year or older. spawning commenced at the beginning of april and fecundity was low (similar to 300-400 eggs per female). 4. genetic analysis and mark-recapture data indicate that subpopulations of the streber live in effective isolation, separated by impassable weirs that significantly reduce genetic connectivity between subpopulations. 5. the species is rheophilic, and limited to sites with flow velocities of similar to 0.7 m s-1. hydropower infrastructure may thus also have diminished the availability of suitable habitat by reducing flow rates. 6. only 32% of the historical range of the danube streber is now estimated to be morphologically suitable for the species. furthermore, relevant parts of this range are located upstream of dams and are therefore not accessible for natural recolonization. 7. the availability and accessibility of suitable habitats seem to be factors limiting the size of the remaining subpopulations. 8. conservation actions should address the restoration of degraded river habitats and increase the connectivity between isolated subpopulations of the danube streber." +river damming drives population fragmentation and habitat loss of the threatened danube streber (zingel streber): implications for conservation,endangered species; fish; hydromorphology; hydropower; renewable energy; stream,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,BRINKER A;CHUCHOLL C;BEHRMANN GODEL J;MATZINGER M;BASEN T;BAER J,"1. the danube streber, zingel streber, is a threatened and data-deficient percid fish endemic to the danube catchment. the study provides the first data on distribution, life history, and genetic structure of the species at the upstream limit of its historic distribution (south-western germany). 2. a 3-year survey effort with 143 fishing events identified several small, fragmentary populations covering only 7% of the historical range of the species. census population sizes (nc) of these subpopulations were estimated from mark-recapture data at < 200 individuals. effective population sizes (ne), calculated from genetic data (microsatellite genotyping), were much smaller still, at < 15 individuals, resulting in an nc/ne ratio of < 0.25, strongly indicating that populations are seriously affected by genetic drift and inbreeding, and are thus facing a severe extinction risk. 3. life-history parameters recorded during the study indicate a rapid life cycle, with both sexes probably attaining sexual maturity at the age of 1 year or older. spawning commenced at the beginning of april and fecundity was low (similar to 300-400 eggs per female). 4. genetic analysis and mark-recapture data indicate that subpopulations of the streber live in effective isolation, separated by impassable weirs that significantly reduce genetic connectivity between subpopulations. 5. the species is rheophilic, and limited to sites with flow velocities of similar to 0.7 m s-1. hydropower infrastructure may thus also have diminished the availability of suitable habitat by reducing flow rates. 6. only 32% of the historical range of the danube streber is now estimated to be morphologically suitable for the species. furthermore, relevant parts of this range are located upstream of dams and are therefore not accessible for natural recolonization. 7. the availability and accessibility of suitable habitats seem to be factors limiting the size of the remaining subpopulations. 8. conservation actions should address the restoration of degraded river habitats and increase the connectivity between isolated subpopulations of the danube streber." corvid control in urban environments: a comparison of trap types,city; corvus cornix; corvus frugilegus; human-wildlife conflict; hooded crow; rook; mark-recapture,NORTH-WESTERN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,KOVER L;TOTH N;LENGYEL S;JUHASZ L,"corvids, mainly hooded crows (corvus cornix l.) and rooks (corvus frugilegus l.) have colonised and spread in many european cities in recent decades. they are often considered as pests due to their noise, littering, aggression to humans and pets, and predation on birds of urban environments. consequently, the control and/or management of corvids may become necessary in many cities in the future. the aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of different trap types in catching crows and rooks in an urban environment. we experimentally tested four types of traps in the winter of 2014: bow net, larsen trap, swedish trap, and ladder entrance trap. as bait, we used bread, meat, fish, and live decoy birds. in 269 trap-days, we captured 23 hooded crows (with three birds recaptured 10 times), 34 rooks (three recaptured 11 times), and 3 magpies. the side-opening larsen trap (0.46 captures/trap-day) and the ladder entrance trap (0.37) were the most effective. we caught only juvenile hooded crows, and both juvenile and adult rooks, likely related to the wariness of adult crows. if a bird was captured in one type of trap, it was never recaptured in that type of trap. our study suggests that trapping may be an effective way to catch crows and rooks and that some trap types may be more efficient than others. we present detailed guidelines for trapping, which will be useful in environmental management, urban planning and development, nature conservation and wildlife management." population size estimation using multiple incomplete lists with overcoverage,multisource integration; capture-recapture models; latent class models; missing data,JOURNAL OF OFFICIAL STATISTICS,DI CECCO D;DI ZIO M;FILIPPONI D;ROCCHETTI I,"the quantity and quality of administrative information available to national statistical institutes have been constantly increasing over the past several years. however, different sources of administrative data are not expected to each have the same population coverage, so that estimating the true population size from the collective set of data poses several methodological challenges that set the problem apart from a classical capture-recapture setting. in this article, we consider two specific aspects of this problem: (1) misclassification of the units, leading to lists with both overcoverage and undercoverage; and (2) lists focusing on a specific subpopulation, leaving a proportion of the population with null probability of being captured. we propose an approach to this problem that employs a class of capture-recapture methods based on latent class models. we assess the proposed approach via a simulation study, then apply the method to five sources of empirical data to estimate the number of active local units of italian enterprises in 2011." rapid departure of roseate terns (sterna dougallii) following large-scale nest failure,black-crowned night-heron; breeding dispersal; nest failure; nest predation; nycticorax nycticorax; roseate tern; sterna dougallii,WILSON JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,SPENDELOW JA;EICHENWALD AJ,"nest failure of most pairs of roseate terns (sterna dougallii) at falkner island, connecticut, in 2002-2003 (due mainly to predation by black-crowned night-herons [nycticorax nycticorax]) was followed by the rapid departure of many of the failed individuals in both years. nine failed pairs (16.7%) stayed while 40 (74.1%) of 54 unsuccessful pairs left within 2 d following nest failure in 2002, and 7 pairs (21.9%) stayed while 25 (78.1%) of 32 unsuccessful pairs left within 2 d in 2003. individuals that departed this colony site by the end of june likely had time to prospect and renest at another colony site in the same year, and individuals that successfully renested at another colony site could have shown reduced colony-site fidelity to falkner island in subsequent years." "integrated analysis for population estimation, management impact evaluation, and decision-making for a declining species",bayesian inference; diamondback terrapin; mark-recapture; multistate model; population viability analysis; road mortality,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,CRAWFORD BA;MOORE CT;NORTON TM;MAERZ JC,"a challenge for making conservation decisions is predicting how wildlife populations respond to multiple, concurrent threats and potential management strategies, usually under substantial uncertainty. integrated modeling approaches can improve estimation of demographic rates necessary for making predictions, even for rare or cryptic species with sparse data, but their use in management applications is limited. we developed integrated models for a population of diamondback terrapins (malaclemys terrapin) impacted by road-associated threats to (i) jointly estimate demographic rates from two mark-recapture datasets, while directly estimating road mortality and the impact of management actions deployed during the study; and (ii) project the population using population viability analysis under simulated management strategies to inform decision-making. without management, population extirpation was nearly certain due to demographic impacts of road mortality, predators, and vegetation. installation of novel flashing signage increased survival of terrapins that crossed roads by 30%. signage, along with small roadside barriers installed during the study, increased population persistence probability, but the population was still predicted to decline. management strategies that included actions targeting multiple threats and demographic rates resulted in the highest persistence probability, and roadside barriers, which increased adult survival, were predicted to increase persistence more than other actions. our results support earlier findings showing mitigation of multiple threats is likely required to increase the viability of declining populations. our approach illustrates how integrated models may be adapted to use limited data efficiently, represent system complexity, evaluate impacts of threats and management actions, and provide decision-relevant information for conservation of at-risk populations." "population structure, movement patterns, and frequency of multiple matings in tenodera sinensis (mantodea: mantidae)",dispersal; home range; mantis; multiple mating; sexual cannibalism,ENVIRONMENTAL ENTOMOLOGY,CHRISTENSEN T;BROWN WD,"models of the evolution of sexual cannibalism show that the frequency of male mating opportunities has significant impact on male choice and male risk aversion. in this study, we examined ecological components that should affect opportunities for multiple mating in wild populations of the chinese mantid (tenodera sinensis saussure). while conducting mark-recapture studies of two field populations over the course of two seasons, along with global positioning system data on locations of individuals, we collected data on population densities, movement patterns, and individual ranges to estimate the overlap of adult males and female mantids. our results show that local populations of mantids range from 89 to 161 individuals and occur at densities ranging from 10 to 39 mantids per 1,000 m(2). males move greater distances daily compared with females, giving males larger home range sizes. the ranges of male mantids overlapped with multiple females, thus offering the potential for multiple mating by males. we directly observed 11 encounters between male and female t. sinensis, including one multiple mating by an individual male. the overall mate encounter rate for males was 12.5%. we also provide additional observations of interspecific sexual attraction between t. sinensis and mantis religiosa linne (mantodea: mantidae). mantids were most commonly found within the top 20% of two flowering plants, goldenrod (solidago linnaeus spp. (asterales: asteraceae)) and mugwort (artemisia vulgaris linnaeus (asterales: asteraceae)), which should place them in prime locations for capturing flying pollinators." -genetic mark-recapture improves estimates of maternity colony size for indiana bats,fecal dna; microsatellite; mark-recapture; myotis sodalis; noninvasive sampling; population size; survival rate,JOURNAL OF FISH AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,OYLER-MCCANCE SJ;FIKE JA;LUKACS PM;SPARKS DW;O'SHEA TJ;WHITAKER JO,"genetic mark-recapture methods are increasingly being used to estimate demographic parameters in species where traditional techniques are problematic or imprecise. the federally endangered indiana bat myotis sodalis has declined dramatically and threats such as white-nose syndrome continue to afflict this species. to date, important demographic information for indiana bats has been difficult to estimate precisely using traditional techniques such as emergence counts. successful management and protection of indiana bats requires better methods to estimate population sizes and survival rates throughout the year, particularly during summer when these bats reproduce and are widely dispersed away from their winter hibernacula. in addition, the familial makeup of maternity colonies is unknown, yet important for understanding local and regional population dynamics. we had four objectives in this study. for the first two objectives we investigated the potential use of dna from fecal samples (fecal dna) collected at roosts to obtain genetically based mark-recapture estimates of 1) colony size and 2) survival rates, for an indiana bat maternity colony in indianapolis, indiana. the third objective was to compare our genetically based colony-size estimates with emergence counts conducted at the same roost tree to evaluate the genetic mark-recapture method. our fourth objective was to use fecal dna to estimate levels of relatedness among individuals sampled at the roost. in the summer of 2008, we collected fecal pellets and conducted emergence counts at a prominent roost tree during three time periods each lasting 7 or 8 d. we genotyped fecal dna using five highly polymorphic microsatellite loci to identify individuals and used a robust-design mark-recapture approach to estimate survival rates as well as colony size at the roost tree. emergence count estimates at the roost tree ranged from 100 to 215, whereas genetic mark-recapture estimates were higher, ranging from 122 to 266 and more precise. apparent survival was 0.994 (se = 0.04) between sampling periods suggesting that few bats died or permanently emigrated during the course of the study. relatedness estimates, r, between all pairs of individuals averaged 0.055 ranging from 0 to 0.779, indicating that most individuals were not closely related. we demonstrate here the promise of using fecal dna to estimate demographic information for indiana bats and potentially other bat species." +genetic mark-recapture improves estimates of maternity colony size for indiana bats,fecal dna; microsatellite; mark-recapture; myotis sodalis; noninvasive sampling; population size; survival rate,JOURNAL OF FISH AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,OYLER MCCANCE SJ;FIKE JA;LUKACS PM;SPARKS DW;O SHEA TJ;WHITAKER JO,"genetic mark-recapture methods are increasingly being used to estimate demographic parameters in species where traditional techniques are problematic or imprecise. the federally endangered indiana bat myotis sodalis has declined dramatically and threats such as white-nose syndrome continue to afflict this species. to date, important demographic information for indiana bats has been difficult to estimate precisely using traditional techniques such as emergence counts. successful management and protection of indiana bats requires better methods to estimate population sizes and survival rates throughout the year, particularly during summer when these bats reproduce and are widely dispersed away from their winter hibernacula. in addition, the familial makeup of maternity colonies is unknown, yet important for understanding local and regional population dynamics. we had four objectives in this study. for the first two objectives we investigated the potential use of dna from fecal samples (fecal dna) collected at roosts to obtain genetically based mark-recapture estimates of 1) colony size and 2) survival rates, for an indiana bat maternity colony in indianapolis, indiana. the third objective was to compare our genetically based colony-size estimates with emergence counts conducted at the same roost tree to evaluate the genetic mark-recapture method. our fourth objective was to use fecal dna to estimate levels of relatedness among individuals sampled at the roost. in the summer of 2008, we collected fecal pellets and conducted emergence counts at a prominent roost tree during three time periods each lasting 7 or 8 d. we genotyped fecal dna using five highly polymorphic microsatellite loci to identify individuals and used a robust-design mark-recapture approach to estimate survival rates as well as colony size at the roost tree. emergence count estimates at the roost tree ranged from 100 to 215, whereas genetic mark-recapture estimates were higher, ranging from 122 to 266 and more precise. apparent survival was 0.994 (se = 0.04) between sampling periods suggesting that few bats died or permanently emigrated during the course of the study. relatedness estimates, r, between all pairs of individuals averaged 0.055 ranging from 0 to 0.779, indicating that most individuals were not closely related. we demonstrate here the promise of using fecal dna to estimate demographic information for indiana bats and potentially other bat species." observed resiliency of little brown myotis to long-term white-nose syndrome exposure,little brown myotis; myotis lucifugus; white-nose syndrome; wns; resiliency; reproductive rate; survival,JOURNAL OF FISH AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,DOBONY CA;JOHNSON JB,"white-nose syndrome (wns) is a disease that has killed millions of bats in eastern north america and has steadily been spreading across the continent. little brown myotis myotis lucifugus populations have experienced extensive declines; however, some localized populations have remained resilient, with bats surviving multiple years past initial wns exposure. these persistent populations may be critical to species recovery, and understanding mechanisms leading to this long-term survival and persistence may provide insight into overall bat and disease management. we monitored a maternity colony of little brown myotis on fort drum military installation in northern new york between 2006 and 2017 to determine basic demographic parameters and find evidence of what may be leading to resiliency and persistence at this site. total colony size declined by approximately 88% from 2008 to 2010 due primarily to impacts of wns. counts of all adults returning to the colony stabilized during 2010-2014 (mean=94, range 84-101) and increased after 2014 (mean = 132, range = 108-166). we captured 727 little brown myotis (575 females, 152 males) and banded 534 individuals (389 females, 145 males) at the colony. the majority of sampled bats showed evidence of recent past wns infection and exposure to pseudogymnoascus destructans, and we documented pervasive presence and limited viability of the fungus within the colony's main roosting structure. we recaptured 98 individually marked females in years after initial banding, and some individuals survived at least 6 y. ninety-one percent of all adult females, 93% of recaptured bats, and 90% of 1-y-old females (i.e., bats recaptured the first year after initial capture as juveniles) showed evidence of reproduction during the monitoring period. using mark-recapture models, we estimated annual survival rates of juvenile and adult little brown myotis during 2009-2016 and examined whether reproductive condition or evidence of recent infection of wns had any effect on survival. annual survival rates were similar between juveniles and adults, but highly variable, ranging from 41.0 to 86.5%. models indicated that neither evidence of recent past exposure to wns nor reproductive status were related to survival. no one parameter stood out as being responsible for this colony's continued existence, and it is likely that many interwoven factors were responsible for the observed resilience. although relatively high reproductive effort from all females (i.e., both1-y-old and > 1-y-old ) and intermittently suitable survival rates have led to the continued persistence of, and population increases in, this summer colony, mortality from wns and inherently low reproductive potential still seemed to be limiting population growth. until there is a better understanding of this overall potential resiliency in little brown myotis, we recommend considering minimizing disturbance and direct human involvement within these persisting populations to allow whatever natural recovery that may be occurring to evolve uninterrupted." consequences of electroshock-induced narcosis in fish muscle: from mitochondria to swim performance,bioenergetics; cost of transport; danio rerio; oxidative balance; oxygen consumption,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,TEULIER L;GUILLARD L;LEON C;ROMESTAING C;VOITURON Y,"adult zebrafish danio rerio were exposed to an electric shock of 3v and 1a for 5s delivered by field backpack electrofishing gear, to induce a taxis followed by a narcosis. the effect of such electric shock was investigated on both the individual performances (swimming capacities and costs of transport) and at cellular and mitochondrial levels (oxygen consumption and oxidative balance). the observed survival rate was very high (968%) independent of swimming speed (up to 10 body length s(-1)). the results showed no effect of the treatment on the metabolism and cost of transport of the fish. nor did the electroshock trigger any changes on muscular oxidative balance and bioenergetics even if red muscle fibres were more oxidative than white muscle. phosphorylating respiration rates rose between (mean 1s.e.) 1116 +/- 136pmol o-2 s(-1)mg(-1) and 1563 +/- 160pmol o-2 s(-1)mg(-1) for red muscle fibres whereas phosphorylating respiration rates only reached 873 +/- 127pmol o-2 s(-1)mg(-1) in white muscle. such an absence of detectable physiological consequences after electro-induced narcosis both at organismal and cellular scales indicate that this capture method has no apparent negative post-shock performance under the conditions of this study." combining data sources to understand drivers of spotted salamander (ambystoma maculatum) population abundance,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,DAVIS CL;TEITSWORTH EW;MILLER DAW,"robust methods for estimating abundance of wetland-breeding amphibian species, such as mark-recapture, are often resource intensive. this limits our ability to study the processes that influence species abundance. alternatively, more efficient sampling methods, such as indices based on visual encounter surveys (ves) (e.g., egg masses), may be biased by variability in detection probabilities and species biology (e.g., no. of egg masses per female). we combine data sources (i.e., ves and capture-mark-recapture) to provide an efficient technique for monitoring wetland-breeding amphibians. our study focuses on understanding factors that determine local abundance of spotted salamanders, ambystoma maculatum, in pennsylvania. we fast estimated abundance for a subset of wetlands using single-season, capture-mark-recapture data and then verified egg-mass counts collected from a wider network of wetlands as an unbiased index of abundance. we found a strong correlation between estimated adult abundance and estimated egg-mass abundance with an estimated ratio of one egg mass per adult per breeding effort. we next determined the factors that best explained variation in estimated a. maculation egg-mass abundance and consequently, adult abundance among sites. our ""best-fit"" model included effects for wetland hydroperiod and quadratic effects of mean water temperature. we also report positive, but weak, association with two cooccurring amphibian species, jefferson salamanders, a. jeffersonianum and wood frogs, lithobates sylvaticus. we demonstrate how combining sampling approaches can provide efficient abundance estimates in wetland ecosystems. in particular, positive co-occurrence among species indicates shared habitat preferences that may enable us to predict the presence of difficult-to-detect species using only ves." @@ -537,28 +538,28 @@ partial stratification in two-sample capture-recapture experiments,abundance; ba non-parametric estimation of the number of zeros in truncated count distributions,capture-recapture; chao's estimator; population size; turing's estimator,SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF STATISTICS,PUIG P;KOKONENDJI CC,"we present some lower bounds for the probability of zero for the class of count distributions having a log-convex probability generating function, which includes compound and mixed-poisson distributions. these lower bounds allow the construction of new non-parametric estimators of the number of unobserved zeros, which are useful for capture-recapture models, or in areas like epidemiology and literary style analysis. some of these bounds also lead to the well-known chao's and turing's estimators. several examples of application are analysed and discussed." site fidelity of intertidal fish to rockpools,NA,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ICHTHYOLOGY,ROMA J;DIAS M;VINAGRE C;SILVA ACF,"gobius paganellus, lipophrys pholis and coryphoblennius galerita are wide-spread intertidal fish that spend their earlier life stages in rock pools, and yet very little is known about their site fidelity behaviour. for these species, fidelity to rockpools may result in increased fitness costs in a predicted scenario of warmer sea water, due to the low thermal inertia of these water bodies. in this context, it is relevant to investigate these species' site fidelity. we made a mark-recapture study to assess the mentioned species' movements within and between rockpools. we tagged a total of 530 individuals of the aforementioned species with the visible implant elastomer and tracked their movement for a 7-month period. we found that site fidelity and specific rockpools conditions are important factors in distribution of intertidal blennies and gobies. we also examined the relations between rockpool volume, depth and site fidelity. we found that g. paganellus tends to remain in its original marking pool, with an average recapture rate of 20.5%, but showed no evidence of inter-pool movement. rockpool depth, however, proved to be important in the blennies' movements. our findings are among the first to prove that a mark-recapture method can be successfully used to track intertidal fish movements. in particular, we showed that g. paganellus presents site fidelity in intertidal rockpools during its early ontogeny for a period of two to three months." estimating the completeness of death registration: an empirical method,NA,PLOS ONE,ADAIR T;LOPEZ AD,"introduction many national and subnational governments need to routinely measure the completeness of death registration for monitoring and statistical purposes. existing methods, such as death distribution and capture-recapture methods, have a number of limitations such as inaccuracy and complexity that prevent widespread application. this paper presents a novel empirical method to estimate completeness of death registration at the national and subnational level. methods random-effects models to predict the logit of death registration completeness were developed from 2,451 country-years in 110 countries from 1970 +/- 2015 using the global burden of disease 2015 database. predictors include the registered crude death rate, under-five mortality rate, population age structure and under-five death registration completeness. models were developed separately for males, females and both sexes. findings all variables are highly significant and reliably predict completeness of registration across a wide range of registered crude death rates (r-squared 0.85). mean error is highest at medium levels of observed completeness. the models show quite close agreement between predicted and observed completeness for populations outside the dataset. there is high concordance with the hybrid death distribution method in brazilian states. uncertainty in the under-five mortality rate, assessed using the dataset and in colombian departmentos, has minimal impact on national level predicted completeness, but a larger effect at the subnational level. conclusions the method demonstrates sufficient flexibility to predict a wide range of completeness levels at a given registered crude death rate. the method can be applied utilising data readily available at the subnational level, and can be used to assess completeness of deaths reported from health facilities, censuses and surveys. its utility is diminished where the adult mortality rate is unusually high for a given under-five mortality rate. the method overcomes the considerable limitations of existing methods and has considerable potential for widespread application by national and subnational governments." -"a comparative study of enumeration techniques for free-roaming dogs in rural baramati, district pune, india",free-roaming dogs; enumeration; capture-recapture; dog counts; dog population management; rabies; mass vaccination,FRONTIERS IN VETERINARY SCIENCE,TIWARI HK;VANAK AT;O'DEA M;GOGOI-TIWARI J;ROBERTSON ID,"the presence of unvaccinated free-roaming dogs (frd) amidst human settlements is a major contributor to the high incidence of rabies in countries such as india, where the disease is endemic. estimating frd population size is crucial to the planning and evaluation of interventions, such as mass immunisation against rabies. enumeration techniques for frd are resource intensive and can vary from simple direct counts to statistically complex capture-recapture techniques primarily developed for ecological studies. in this study we compared eight capture-recapture enumeration methods (lincoln-petersen's index, chapman's correction estimate, beck's method, schumacher-eschmeyer method, regression method, mark-resight logit normal method, huggin's closed capture models and application superduplicates on-line tool) using direct count data collected from shirsuphal village of baramati town in western india, to recommend a method which yields a reasonably accurate count to use for effective vaccination coverage against rabies with minimal resource inputs. a total of 263 unique dogs were sighted at least once over 6 observation occasions with no new dogs sighted on the 7th occasion. besides this direct count, the methods that do not account for individual heterogeneity yielded population estimates in the range of 248-270, which likely underestimate the real frd population size. higher estimates were obtained using the huggin's m-h-jackknife (437 +/- 33), huggin's m-th-chao (391 +/- 26), huggin's m-h-chao (385 +/- 30), models and application ""superduplicates"" tool (392 +/- 20) and were considered more robust. when the sampling effort was reduced to only two surveys, the application superduplicates online tool gave the closest estimate of 349 +/- 36, which is 74% of the estimated highest population of free-roaming dogs in shirsuphal village. this method may thus be considered the most reliable method for estimating the frd population with minimal inputs (two surveys conducted on consecutive days)." +"a comparative study of enumeration techniques for free-roaming dogs in rural baramati, district pune, india",free-roaming dogs; enumeration; capture-recapture; dog counts; dog population management; rabies; mass vaccination,FRONTIERS IN VETERINARY SCIENCE,TIWARI HK;VANAK AT;O DEA M;GOGOI TIWARI J;ROBERTSON ID,"the presence of unvaccinated free-roaming dogs (frd) amidst human settlements is a major contributor to the high incidence of rabies in countries such as india, where the disease is endemic. estimating frd population size is crucial to the planning and evaluation of interventions, such as mass immunisation against rabies. enumeration techniques for frd are resource intensive and can vary from simple direct counts to statistically complex capture-recapture techniques primarily developed for ecological studies. in this study we compared eight capture-recapture enumeration methods (lincoln-petersen's index, chapman's correction estimate, beck's method, schumacher-eschmeyer method, regression method, mark-resight logit normal method, huggin's closed capture models and application superduplicates on-line tool) using direct count data collected from shirsuphal village of baramati town in western india, to recommend a method which yields a reasonably accurate count to use for effective vaccination coverage against rabies with minimal resource inputs. a total of 263 unique dogs were sighted at least once over 6 observation occasions with no new dogs sighted on the 7th occasion. besides this direct count, the methods that do not account for individual heterogeneity yielded population estimates in the range of 248-270, which likely underestimate the real frd population size. higher estimates were obtained using the huggin's m-h-jackknife (437 +/- 33), huggin's m-th-chao (391 +/- 26), huggin's m-h-chao (385 +/- 30), models and application ""superduplicates"" tool (392 +/- 20) and were considered more robust. when the sampling effort was reduced to only two surveys, the application superduplicates online tool gave the closest estimate of 349 +/- 36, which is 74% of the estimated highest population of free-roaming dogs in shirsuphal village. this method may thus be considered the most reliable method for estimating the frd population with minimal inputs (two surveys conducted on consecutive days)." quantifying lion (panthera leo) demographic response following a three-year moratorium on trophy hunting,NA,PLOS ONE,MWEETWA T;CHRISTIANSON D;BECKER M;CREEL S;ROSENBLATT E;MERKLE J;DROGE E;MWAPE H;MASONDE J;SIMPAMBA T,"factors that limit african lion populations are manifold and well-recognized, but their relative demographic effects remain poorly understood, particularly trophy hunting near protected areas. we identified and monitored 386 individual lions within and around south luangwa national park, zambia, for five years (2008-2012) with trophy hunting and for three additional years (2013-2015) during a hunting moratorium. we used these data with mark-resight models to estimate the effects of hunting on lion survival, recruitment, and abundance. the best survival models, accounting for imperfect detection, revealed strong positive effects of the moratorium, with survival increasing by 17.1 and 14.0 percentage points in subadult and adult males, respectively. smaller effects on adult female survival and positive effects on cub survival were also detected. the sex-ratio of cubs shifted from unbiased during trophy-hunting to female-biased during the moratorium. closed mark-recapture models revealed a large increase in lion abundance during the hunting moratorium, from 116 lions in 2012 immediately preceding the moratorium to 209 lions in the last year of the moratorium. more cubs were produced each year of the moratorium than in any year with trophy hunting. lion demographics shifted from a male-depleted population consisting mostly of adult (>= 4 years) females to a younger population with more (>29%) adult males. these data show that the three-year moratorium was effective at growing the luangwa lion population and increasing the number of adult males. the results suggest that moratoria may be an effective tool for improving the sustainability of lion trophy hunting, particularly where systematic monitoring, conservative quotas, and age-based harvesting are difficult to enforce." comparison of hoop-net trapping and visual surveys to monitor abundance of the rio grande cooter (pseudemys gorzugi),capture-recapture; abundance; pseudemys gorzugi; rio grande cooter; visual survey; status; distance sampling,PEERJ,MALI I;DUARTE A;FORSTNER MRJ,"abundance estimates play an important part in the regulatory and conservation decision-making process. it is important to correct monitoring data for imperfect detection when using these data to track spatial and temporal variation in abundance, especially in the case of rare and elusive species. this paper presents the first attempt to estimate abundance of the rio grande cooter (pseudemys gorzugi) while explicitly considering the detection process. specifically, in 2016 we monitored this rare species at two sites along the black river, new mexico via traditional baited hoop-net traps and less invasive visual surveys to evaluate the efficacy of these two sampling designs. we fitted the huggins closed-capture estimator to estimate capture probabilities using the trap data and distance sampling models to estimate detection probabilities using the visual survey data. we found that only the visual survey with the highest number of observed turtles resulted in similar abundance estimates to those estimated using the trap data. however, the estimates of abundance from the remaining visual survey data were highly variable and often underestimated abundance relative to the estimates from the trap data. we suspect this pattern is related to changes in the basking behavior of the species and, thus, the availability of turtles to be detected even though all visual surveys were conducted when environmental conditions were similar. regardless, we found that riverine habitat conditions limited our ability to properly conduct visual surveys at one site. collectively, this suggests visual surveys may not be an effective sample design for this species in this river system. when analyzing the trap data, we found capture probabilities to be highly variable across sites and between age classes and that recapture probabilities were much lower than initial capture probabilities, highlighting the importance of accounting for detectability when monitoring this species. although baited hoop-net traps seem to be an effective sampling design, it is important to note that this method required a relatively high trap effort to reliably estimate abundance. this information will be useful when developing a larger-scale, long-term monitoring program for this species of concern." development of a site fidelity index based on population capture-recapture data,capture-recapture; commerson's dolphin; indixes; occurrence; periodicity; permanence; site fidelity,PEERJ,TSCHOPP A;FERRARI MA;CRESPO EA;COSCARELLA MA,"background: site fidelity is considered as an animal's tendency to return to a previously occupied place; this is a component of animal behaviour that allows us to understand movement patterns and aspects related to the animal's life history. although there are many site fidelity metrics, the lack of standardisation presents a considerable challenge in terms of comparability among studies. methods: this investigation focused on the theoretical development of a standardised composite site fidelity index and its statistical distribution in order to obtain reliable population-level site fidelity comparisons. the arithmetic and harmonic means were used as mathematical structures in order to create different indexes by combining the most commonly used indicators for site fidelity such as occurrence, permanence and periodicity. the index performance was then evaluated in simulated populations and one real population of commerson's dolphins (cephalorhynchus commersonii (lacepede 1804)). in the first case, the indexes were evaluated based on how they were affected by different probability values such as the occurrence of the individual within the study area (phi) and capture probability (p). as a precision measure for the comparison of the indexes, the wald confidence interval (ci) and the mean square error were applied. given that there was no previous data concerning the distribution parameters of this population, bootstrap cis were applied for the study case. results: eight alternative indexes were developed. the indexes with an arithmetic mean structure, in general, had a consistently inferior performance than those with a harmonic mean structure. the index ih4, in particular, achieved the best results in all of the scenarios and in the study case. additionally, this index presented a normal distribution. as such, it was proposed as a standardised measure for site fidelity (standardised site fidelity index-ssfi). discussion: the ssfi is the first standardised metric that quantifies site fidelity at a populational level. it is an estimator that varies between zero and one and works in situations where detection is not perfect and effort can be constant or not. moreover, it has an associated ci that allows users to make comparisons." -under-reporting of pertussis in ontario: a canadian immunization research network (cirn) study using capture-recapture,NA,PLOS ONE,CROWCROFT NS;JOHNSON C;CHEN C;LI Y;MARCHAND-AUSTIN A;BOLOTIN S;SCHWARTZ K;DEEKS SL;JAMIESON F;DREWS S;RUSSELL ML;SVENSON LW;SIMMONDS K;MAHMUD SM;KWONG JC,"introduction under-reporting of pertussis cases is a longstanding challenge. we estimated the true number of pertussis cases in ontario using multiple data sources, and evaluated the completeness of each source. methods we linked data from multiple sources for the period 2009 to 2015: public health reportable disease surveillance data, public health laboratory data, and health administrative data (hospitalizations, emergency department visits, and physician office visits). to estimate the total number of pertussis cases in ontario, we used a three-source capture-recapture analysis stratified by age (infants, or aged one year and older) and adjusting for dependency between sources. we used the bayesian information criterion to compare models. results using probable and confirmed reported cases, laboratory data, and combined hospitalizations/emergency department visits, the estimated total number of cases during the six-year period amongst infants was 924, compared with 545 unique observed cases from all sources. using the same sources, the estimated total for those aged 1 year and older was 12,883, compared with 3,304 observed cases from all sources. only 37% of infants and 11% for those aged 1 year and over admitted to hospital or seen in an emergency department for pertussis were reported to public health. public health reporting sensitivity varied from 2% to 68% depending on age group and the combination of data sources included. sensitivity of combined hospitalizations and emergency department visits varied from 37% to 49% and of laboratory data from 1% to 50%. conclusions all data sources contribute cases and are complementary, suggesting that the incidence of pertussis is substantially higher than suggested by routine reports. the sensitivity of different data sources varies. better case identification is required to improve pertussis control in ontario." +under-reporting of pertussis in ontario: a canadian immunization research network (cirn) study using capture-recapture,NA,PLOS ONE,CROWCROFT NS;JOHNSON C;CHEN C;LI Y;MARCHAND AUSTIN A;BOLOTIN S;SCHWARTZ K;DEEKS SL;JAMIESON F;DREWS S;RUSSELL ML;SVENSON LW;SIMMONDS K;MAHMUD SM;KWONG JC,"introduction under-reporting of pertussis cases is a longstanding challenge. we estimated the true number of pertussis cases in ontario using multiple data sources, and evaluated the completeness of each source. methods we linked data from multiple sources for the period 2009 to 2015: public health reportable disease surveillance data, public health laboratory data, and health administrative data (hospitalizations, emergency department visits, and physician office visits). to estimate the total number of pertussis cases in ontario, we used a three-source capture-recapture analysis stratified by age (infants, or aged one year and older) and adjusting for dependency between sources. we used the bayesian information criterion to compare models. results using probable and confirmed reported cases, laboratory data, and combined hospitalizations/emergency department visits, the estimated total number of cases during the six-year period amongst infants was 924, compared with 545 unique observed cases from all sources. using the same sources, the estimated total for those aged 1 year and older was 12,883, compared with 3,304 observed cases from all sources. only 37% of infants and 11% for those aged 1 year and over admitted to hospital or seen in an emergency department for pertussis were reported to public health. public health reporting sensitivity varied from 2% to 68% depending on age group and the combination of data sources included. sensitivity of combined hospitalizations and emergency department visits varied from 37% to 49% and of laboratory data from 1% to 50%. conclusions all data sources contribute cases and are complementary, suggesting that the incidence of pertussis is substantially higher than suggested by routine reports. the sensitivity of different data sources varies. better case identification is required to improve pertussis control in ontario." estimation of a closed population size of tadpoles in temporary pond,amphibia; anura; capture-recapture; diversity; lentic environments,BRAZILIAN JOURNAL OF BIOLOGY,LIMA MSCS;PEDERASSI J;SOUZA CAS,"the practice of capture-recapture to estimate the diversity is well known to many animal groups, however this practice in the larval phase of anuran amphibians is incipient. we aimed at evaluating the lincoln estimator, venn diagram and bayes theorem in the inference of population size of a larval phase anurocenose from lotic environment. the adherence of results was evaluated using the kolmogorov-smirnov test. the marking of tadpoles for later recapture and methods measurement was made with eosin methylene blue. when comparing the results of lincoln-petersen estimator corresponding to the venn diagram and bayes theorem, we detected percentage differences per sampling, i.e., the proportion of sampled anuran genera is kept among the three methods, although the values are numerically different. by submitting these results to the kolmogorov-smirnov test we have found no significant differences. therefore, no matter the estimator, the measured value is adherent and estimates the total population. together with the marking methodology, which did not change the behavior of tadpoles, the present study helps to fill the need of more studies on larval phase of amphibians in brazil, especially in semi-arid northeast." -"demographic rates of two southeastern populations of painted bunting, 2007-2015",local survival; north carolina; passerina ciris; local population size; local recruitment; southeastern united states,CONDOR,YIRKA LM;COLLAZO JA;O'SHEA BJ;GERWIN JA;ROTENBERG JA;COBB DT,"painted buntings (passerina ciris) have been declining in the southeastern united states since the 1970s. a recent demographic assessment highlighted the importance of estimating demographic parameters, which have received little attention to date. the dearth of information is troublesome because attempts to reverse declining trends require a better understanding of the relationship between habitat quality and age-and sex-specific survival and recruitment rates. we used capture-mark-recapture data collected from 2007 to 2015 on bald head island (bhi) and at hammocks beach state park (hbsp) in north carolina, usa, to estimate local age-and sex-specific annual survival rates and local population size and recruitment rates using programs mark and lolasurviv. juveniles had lower local survival rates than adults (hbsp: 0.28 +/- 0.14 vs. 0.67 +/- 0.06; bhi: 0.28 +/- 0.04 vs. 0.57 +/- 0.02). local annual survival rates for males on bhi (0.50 +/- 0.03) were lower than those for females (0.57 +/- 0.02). age-specific differences were consistent with known differential age-dependent survival skills, and sex-specific differences were consistent with the potential influence of sexual dichromism. conservative estimates of population size on bhi averaged 101 juveniles and 263 adults annually. annual in situ reproductive recruitment averaged 28 individuals plus an additional 120 new immigrants, indicating successful reproduction and connectivity with neighboring coastal populations. local adult survival estimates from our 2 north carolinian study populations were similar to high-end estimates from across the eastern and western range of the species (similar to 0.60). finite observed population growth rate estimates between the bhi population(lambda = 1.10) and a south carolinian population (lambda = 0.87) underscore the potential role of differential habitat quality and the importance of information from multiple sites, including nonbreeding grounds, for proper inferences about the status of the species. reported vital rates provide a stronger foundation on which to base habitat quality as assessed with demographic parameters and to guide painted bunting conservation regionally." +"demographic rates of two southeastern populations of painted bunting, 2007-2015",local survival; north carolina; passerina ciris; local population size; local recruitment; southeastern united states,CONDOR,YIRKA LM;COLLAZO JA;O SHEA BJ;GERWIN JA;ROTENBERG JA;COBB DT,"painted buntings (passerina ciris) have been declining in the southeastern united states since the 1970s. a recent demographic assessment highlighted the importance of estimating demographic parameters, which have received little attention to date. the dearth of information is troublesome because attempts to reverse declining trends require a better understanding of the relationship between habitat quality and age-and sex-specific survival and recruitment rates. we used capture-mark-recapture data collected from 2007 to 2015 on bald head island (bhi) and at hammocks beach state park (hbsp) in north carolina, usa, to estimate local age-and sex-specific annual survival rates and local population size and recruitment rates using programs mark and lolasurviv. juveniles had lower local survival rates than adults (hbsp: 0.28 +/- 0.14 vs. 0.67 +/- 0.06; bhi: 0.28 +/- 0.04 vs. 0.57 +/- 0.02). local annual survival rates for males on bhi (0.50 +/- 0.03) were lower than those for females (0.57 +/- 0.02). age-specific differences were consistent with known differential age-dependent survival skills, and sex-specific differences were consistent with the potential influence of sexual dichromism. conservative estimates of population size on bhi averaged 101 juveniles and 263 adults annually. annual in situ reproductive recruitment averaged 28 individuals plus an additional 120 new immigrants, indicating successful reproduction and connectivity with neighboring coastal populations. local adult survival estimates from our 2 north carolinian study populations were similar to high-end estimates from across the eastern and western range of the species (similar to 0.60). finite observed population growth rate estimates between the bhi population(lambda = 1.10) and a south carolinian population (lambda = 0.87) underscore the potential role of differential habitat quality and the importance of information from multiple sites, including nonbreeding grounds, for proper inferences about the status of the species. reported vital rates provide a stronger foundation on which to base habitat quality as assessed with demographic parameters and to guide painted bunting conservation regionally." estimating dispersal in spatiotemporally variable environments using multievent capture-recapture modeling,capture-recapture; dispersal; dynamic landscapes; metapopulation; multi-event models; survival,ECOLOGY,CAYUELA H;PRADEL R;JOLY P;BONNAIRE E;BESNARD A,"dispersal is a key process in ecological and evolutionary dynamics. spatiotemporal variation in habitat availability and characteristics has been suggested to be one of the main cause involved in dispersal evolution and has a strong influence on metapopulation dynamics. in recent decades, the study of dispersal has led to the development of capture-recapture (cr) models that allow movement between sites to be quantified, while handling imperfect detection. for studies involving numerous recapture sites, lagrange et al. (2014) proposed a multievent cr model that allows dispersal to be estimated while omitting site identity by distinguishing between individuals that stay and individuals that move. more recently, cayuela et al. (2017) extended this model to allow survival and dispersal probabilities to differ for the different types of habitat represented by several sites within a study area. yet in both of these modeling systems, the state of sites is assumed to be static over time, which is not a realistic assumption in dynamic landscapes. for that purpose, we generalized the multievent cr model proposed by cayuela et al. (2017) to allow the estimation of dispersal, survival and recapture probabilities when a site may appear or disappear over time (model 1) or when the characteristics of a site fluctuate over space and time (model 2). this paper first presents these two new modeling systems, and then provides an illustration of their efficacy and usefulness by applying them to simulated cr data and data collected on two metapopulations of amphibians. model 1 was tested using cr data recorded on a metapopulation of yellow-bellied toads (bombina variegata). in this first empirical case, we examined whether the drying-out dynamics of ponds and the past dispersal status of an individual might affect dispersal behavior. our study revealed that the probability of facultative dispersal (i.e., from a pond group that remained available/flooded) fluctuated between years and was higher in individuals that had previously dispersed. model 2 was tested using cr data collected on a metapopulation of great crested newts (triturus cristatus). in this second empirical example, we investigated whether the density of alpine newts (ichthyosaura alpestris), a potential competitor, might affect the dispersal and survival of the crested newt. our study revealed that the departure rate was lower in ponds with a high density of heterospecifics than in ponds with a low density of heterospecifics at both inter-annual and intra-annual scales. moreover, annual survival was slightly higher in ponds with a high density of heterospecifics. overall, our findings indicate that these multievent cr models provide a highly flexible means of modeling dispersal in dynamic landscapes." -social status mediates the fitness costs of infection with canine distemper virus in serengeti spotted hyenas,canine distemper virus; exposure; fitness costs; infection risk; multi-event capture-mark-recapture model; resource allocation; social status; spotted hyena,FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY,MARESCOT L;BENHAIEM S;GIMENEZ O;HOFER H;LEBRETON JD;OLARTE-CASTILLO XA;KRAMER-SCHADT S;EAST ML,"1. the extent to which the fitness costs of infection are mediated by key life-history traits such as age or social status is still unclear. within populations, individual heterogeneity in the outcome of infection is the result of two successive processes; the degree of contact with the pathogen (exposure) and the immune response to infection. in social mammals, because individuals holding high social status typically interact more frequently with group members, they should be more often in contact with infected individuals than those of low social status. however, when access to resources is determined by social status, individuals with a high social status are often better nourished, have a greater opportunity to allocate resources to immune processes and therefore should have a smaller chance of succumbing to infection than individuals with low social status. 2. we investigated the risk and fitness costs of infection during a virulent epidemic of canine distemper virus (cdv) in a social carnivore, the spotted hyena, in the serengeti national park. we analysed two decades of detailed life-history data from 625 females and 816 males using a multi-event capture-mark-recapture model that accounts for uncertainty in the assignment of individual infection states. 3. cubs of mothers with a high social status had a lower probability of cdv infection and were more likely to survive infection than those with low social status. subadult and adult females with high social status had a higher infection probability than those with low social status. subadult females and pre-breeder males that had recovered from cdv infection had a lower survival than susceptible ones. 4. our study disentangles the relative importance of individual exposure and resource allocation to immune processes, demonstrates fitness costs of infection for juveniles, particularly for those with low social status, shows that patterns of infection can be driven by different mechanisms among juveniles and adults and establishes a negative relationship between infection and fitness in a free-ranging mammal." +social status mediates the fitness costs of infection with canine distemper virus in serengeti spotted hyenas,canine distemper virus; exposure; fitness costs; infection risk; multi-event capture-mark-recapture model; resource allocation; social status; spotted hyena,FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY,MARESCOT L;BENHAIEM S;GIMENEZ O;HOFER H;LEBRETON JD;OLARTE CASTILLO XA;KRAMER SCHADT S;EAST ML,"1. the extent to which the fitness costs of infection are mediated by key life-history traits such as age or social status is still unclear. within populations, individual heterogeneity in the outcome of infection is the result of two successive processes; the degree of contact with the pathogen (exposure) and the immune response to infection. in social mammals, because individuals holding high social status typically interact more frequently with group members, they should be more often in contact with infected individuals than those of low social status. however, when access to resources is determined by social status, individuals with a high social status are often better nourished, have a greater opportunity to allocate resources to immune processes and therefore should have a smaller chance of succumbing to infection than individuals with low social status. 2. we investigated the risk and fitness costs of infection during a virulent epidemic of canine distemper virus (cdv) in a social carnivore, the spotted hyena, in the serengeti national park. we analysed two decades of detailed life-history data from 625 females and 816 males using a multi-event capture-mark-recapture model that accounts for uncertainty in the assignment of individual infection states. 3. cubs of mothers with a high social status had a lower probability of cdv infection and were more likely to survive infection than those with low social status. subadult and adult females with high social status had a higher infection probability than those with low social status. subadult females and pre-breeder males that had recovered from cdv infection had a lower survival than susceptible ones. 4. our study disentangles the relative importance of individual exposure and resource allocation to immune processes, demonstrates fitness costs of infection for juveniles, particularly for those with low social status, shows that patterns of infection can be driven by different mechanisms among juveniles and adults and establishes a negative relationship between infection and fitness in a free-ranging mammal." "impacts of deforestation-induced warming on the metabolism, growth and trophic interactions of an afrotropical stream fish",cyprinid; energetics; global change; kibale national park; land use; mark-recapture; predator-prey interaction; thermal adaptation,FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY,FUGERE V;MEHNER T;CHAPMAN LJ,"1. in ectotherms, anthropogenic warming often increases energy requirements for metabolism, which can either impair growth (when resources are limiting) or lead to higher predator feeding rates and possibly stronger top-down trophic interactions. however, the relative importance of these effects in nature remains unclear because: (1) thermal adaptation or acclimation could lower metabolic costs; (2) greater prey production at warmer temperatures could compensate for higher predator feeding rates; and/or (3) temperature effects on trophic interactions via altered biological rates could be small relative to other, temperature-unrelated human impacts on food webs. 2. here, we examined effects of deforestation-associated warming on the minnow enteromius neumayeri, occurring in both forested (cool) and deforested (warm) streams located inside or nearby an afrotropical rainforest. combining approaches from physiological and community ecology, we quantified impacts of anthropogenic warming on the metabolism, growth and trophic interactions of this tropical ectotherm. we then compared these effects with impacts of land use unrelated to temperature. 3. in a long-term laboratory acclimation experiment quantifying the temperature dependence of growth and metabolism in e. neumayeri, warming increased metabolic rates and decreased growth (at a limited ration). we found no evidence of local (thermal) adaptation, with warming affecting farm and forest populations similarly. 4. then, using mark-recapture methods to quantify impacts of warming on performance in situ, we found similar growth rates in fish from deforested and forested streams despite their distinct thermal environments. this suggests higher prey consumption at deforested sites to compensate for greater metabolic costs, which could strengthen fish-invertebrate interactions. 5. finally, we developed a bioenergetics model to estimate fish-invertebrate interaction strength and quantify temperature-related and unrelated impacts of land use on this interaction. we found that although warming increased fish consumption, it apparently increased invertebrate production even more and thus had a net-weakening effect on estimated interaction strength. most importantly, variation in both fish and invertebrate density not directly related to temperature had a much stronger influence on estimated interaction strength than temperature effects on predator consumption and prey growth. 6. we conclude that ectotherms can sometimes offset the metabolic costs of warming with a small increase in consumption that hardly effects food web interactions compared to non-metabolic impacts of anthropogenic disturbances. future research should assess whether this is a common feature of heavily impacted ecosystems facing multiple stressors." "dynamic occupancy modelling reveals a hierarchy of competition among fishers, grey foxes and ringtails",bassariscus astutus; dynamic occupancy model; jolly-seber; pekania pennanti; source community; spatial capture-recapture; translocation; urocyon cinereoargenteus,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,GREEN DS;MATTHEWS SM;SWIERS RC;CALLAS RL;YAEGER JS;FARBER SL;SCHWARTZ MK;POWELL RA,"1. determining how species coexist is critical for understanding functional diversity, niche partitioning and interspecific interactions. identifying the direct and indirect interactions among sympatric carnivores that enable their coexistence is particularly important to elucidate because they are integral for maintaining ecosystem function. 2. we studied the effects of removing nine fishers (pekania pennanti) on their population dynamics and used this perturbation to elucidate the interspecific interactions among fishers, grey foxes (urocyon cinereoargenteus) and ringtails (bassariscus astutus). grey foxes (family: canidae) are likely to compete with fishers due to their similar body sizes and dietary overlap, and ringtails (family: procyonidae), like fishers, are semi-arboreal species of conservation concern. we used spatial capture-recapture to investigate fisher population numbers and dynamic occupancy models that incorporated interspecific interactions to investigate the effects members of these species had on the colonization and persistence of each other's site occupancy. 3. the fisher population showed no change in density for up to 3 years following the removals of fishers for translocations. in contrast, fisher site occupancy decreased in the years immediately following the translocations. during this same time period, site occupancy by grey foxes increased and remained elevated through the end of the study. 4. we found a complicated hierarchy among fishers, foxes and ringtails. fishers affected grey fox site persistence negatively but had a positive effect on their colonization. foxes had a positive effect on ringtail site colonization. thus, fishers were the dominant small carnivore where present and negatively affected foxes directly and ringtails indirectly. 5. coexistence among the small carnivores we studied appears to reflect dynamic spatial partitioning. conservation and management efforts should investigate how intraguild interactions may influence the recolonization of carnivores to previously occupied landscapes." spatially explicit abundance estimation of a rare habitat specialist: implications for secr study design,abundance; eastern cottontail; monitoring; new england cottontail; non-invasive genetic sampling; population estimation: shrubland; simulation; spatially explicit capture-recapture; sylvilagus transitionalis,ECOSPHERE,KRISTENSEN TV;KOVACH AI,"estimating abundance is an essential component of monitoring and recovery of rare species, and spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models provide the means for robust density estimation. previous work has elucidated principles of secr study design for large, generalist carnivores, but less attention has been paid to study design considerations for smaller species, with less extensive home ranges. here, we integrated data from an intensive pilot study with simulation modeling to evaluate the influence of survey sampling intensity on precision and accuracy in secr abundance estimation for a rare lagomorph that specializes on patchily distributed early-successional habitats. doing so, we obtained the first mark-recapture density estimates for the new england cottontail (sylvilagus transitionalis). capture probability and density on the landscape both impacted the required intensity of the sampling design. the optimal study design for robust estimation also required a greater number of traps relative to home range size or spatial extent than those recommended in prior secr studies. this divergence emphasizes that secr study design considerations will differ among organisms with varying spatial extent and habitat use. demonstrating the appropriate sampling design for a study system is important prior to embarking in a secr study. integrating pilot empirical data with simulations provides a powerful means for optimizing secr study design and for facilitating applicability of secr approaches to a wider array of organisms with varying habitat and space use. this methodology may be employed in planning a monitoring program that maximizes effectiveness while minimizing cost and effort, as part of the adaptive management approach to monitor and recover rare or endangered species." -application of capture-recapture method to estimate traffic accident mortality rate,mortality; capture-recapture; road traffic injuries,TRAUMA MONTHLY,ENTEZAMI N;HASHEMI-NAZARI SS;SOORI H;KHOSRAVI A;MIRI HH,"background: in many countries, disease registries are the main source of information necessary for planning and monitoring health-improving programs. in iran, there is no unified registry system for deaths due to traffic accidents, so organizations that are involved in traffic accidents report different statistics. this study aimed to assess traffic accident mortality rate and completeness of death registries in northern provinces of iran from march 21, 2010 to march 20, 2011 using capture-recapture method. methods: data of all traffic accident victims including last name, age, sex, and time of death confirmed by traffic police legal forensics organization, and hospitals were used to collect. then, different log-linear models proposed in the context of capture-recapture method were fitted to predict the number of cases missed by the sources. akaike information criterion (aic) and bayesian information criterion (bic) were used as goodness of fit indices to identify preferred fitted models. results: according to the prediction of the most fitted model, the total number of traffic accident deaths was 3857 of which, 727 cases were not documented by any of the responsible organizations. mortality rate due to traffic accidents was estimated as 53.73 with 95% confidence interval (52.41 -55.15) per 100000 population of the three provinces. the rates of legal medicine organization, hospitals, and traffic police department were 65.95%, 36.06%, and 16.85%, respectively. conclusions: incidence rate of fatal traffic accidents in northern provinces of iran is higher in comparison with other provinces. it seems that statistics reported by responsible organizations are underestimated, hence the need for application of methods like the capture-recapture method." +application of capture-recapture method to estimate traffic accident mortality rate,mortality; capture-recapture; road traffic injuries,TRAUMA MONTHLY,ENTEZAMI N;HASHEMI NAZARI SS;SOORI H;KHOSRAVI A;MIRI HH,"background: in many countries, disease registries are the main source of information necessary for planning and monitoring health-improving programs. in iran, there is no unified registry system for deaths due to traffic accidents, so organizations that are involved in traffic accidents report different statistics. this study aimed to assess traffic accident mortality rate and completeness of death registries in northern provinces of iran from march 21, 2010 to march 20, 2011 using capture-recapture method. methods: data of all traffic accident victims including last name, age, sex, and time of death confirmed by traffic police legal forensics organization, and hospitals were used to collect. then, different log-linear models proposed in the context of capture-recapture method were fitted to predict the number of cases missed by the sources. akaike information criterion (aic) and bayesian information criterion (bic) were used as goodness of fit indices to identify preferred fitted models. results: according to the prediction of the most fitted model, the total number of traffic accident deaths was 3857 of which, 727 cases were not documented by any of the responsible organizations. mortality rate due to traffic accidents was estimated as 53.73 with 95% confidence interval (52.41 -55.15) per 100000 population of the three provinces. the rates of legal medicine organization, hospitals, and traffic police department were 65.95%, 36.06%, and 16.85%, respectively. conclusions: incidence rate of fatal traffic accidents in northern provinces of iran is higher in comparison with other provinces. it seems that statistics reported by responsible organizations are underestimated, hence the need for application of methods like the capture-recapture method." do newborn adders suffer mass mortality or do they venture into a collective hide-and-seek game?,age-dependence; cormack-jolly-seber; detectability; snakes; survival,BIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY,BAUWENS D;CLAUS K,"in long-lived snakes estimates of survival rates in the immature age classes are notoriously difficult to obtain because the small, secretive juveniles are rarely caught in field studies. hence, it is assumed that in many species juveniles suffer high mortality. an alternative view holds that the youngest life stages are so elusive that they 'disappear' temporarily from the population. we conducted a long-term (2000-2016) mark-recapture study in a large population of european adders (vipera berus) and obtained demographic data for a large sample of individuals, including respectable numbers of immature and newborn snakes. estimates obtained by the cormack-jolly-seber method revealed dramatic age-related differences in yearly capture probabilities: they were much lower in the immature classes than in the adults. concurrently, we found no evidence for age-dependent differences in survival rates. hence, our inability to capture large numbers of immature snakes should be attributed to their low detection probabilities, not because they suffer high postnatal mortality. at least three traits contribute to the poor detectability of the immature snakes: (1) their small body size, (2) their lower thermal requirements and (3) their non-permanent emigration to the 'summer' or foraging habitats, which possess a greater food supply than the 'winter' habitats where searches for adders are habitually conducted. we tested two hypotheses addressing the proximate causes of time-dependent variation in survival during the adders' first year of life. results indicated that newborn adders suffered higher mortality during harsh winters, but we found no support for the hypothesis that the feeding status of the newborn snakes affect their survival probabilities." -"preliminary surveys of the endangered lord howe island cockroach panesthia lata (blattodea: blaberidae) on two islands within the lord howe group, australia",conservation; invasive species; island introductions; ship rat; threatened species,AUSTRAL ENTOMOLOGY,CARLILE N;PRIDDEL D;O'DWYER T,"little is known of the endangered lord howe island cockroach panesthia lata walker, 1868, other than that it disappeared from lord howe island following the introduction of ship rats rattus rattus (linnaeus, 1758) in 1918. with a rodent-eradication programme being planned for lord howe island, an opportunity exists to reintroduce p. lata once rodents have been removed. previous brief surveys of other islands within the lord howe group have found that p. lata still occurs on some of these islands. in this study, further surveys were conducted on two of those islands (blackburn and roach) to gain a better understanding of the distribution and abundance of p. lata there and to investigate potential survey techniques. brief observations were also made of the behaviour and ecology of the species. extrapolation from survey plots showed that although 60% of the estimated population of 10 000 individuals on blackburn island were living beneath the sole banyan ficus macrophylla desf. tree, p. lata was widely distributed across the island, utilising both native and exotic vegetation, including the introduced rhodes grass chloris gayana kunth. on roach island, the bulk of the estimated population of 3500 individuals occurred within leafy flat sedge cvperus lucidus r. br. habitat. panesthia lata seemingly spends considerable time sheltering within refuges rather than foraging on the surface; consequently, population estimates based on surface counts are underestimates. improving either the accuracy or precision of these counts risks damaging individuals and their habitat. mark-recapture techniques were not applicable for assessing the abundance of this species, but trials of novel attraction stations indicated that such devices could be useful for monitoring distribution and gross fluctuations in population size. panesthia lata appears to feed on any dead vegetation, but primarily leaves. individuals were relatively sedentary overnight, sheltering by day under any object that provided the appropriate microenvironment. soil characteristics in areas where p. lata sheltered were significantly modified, suggesting that this species may play an important role in soil conditioning and nutrient cycling. maintaining the rodent-free status of islands on which p. lata occurs is a high priority for this species." +"preliminary surveys of the endangered lord howe island cockroach panesthia lata (blattodea: blaberidae) on two islands within the lord howe group, australia",conservation; invasive species; island introductions; ship rat; threatened species,AUSTRAL ENTOMOLOGY,CARLILE N;PRIDDEL D;O DWYER T,"little is known of the endangered lord howe island cockroach panesthia lata walker, 1868, other than that it disappeared from lord howe island following the introduction of ship rats rattus rattus (linnaeus, 1758) in 1918. with a rodent-eradication programme being planned for lord howe island, an opportunity exists to reintroduce p. lata once rodents have been removed. previous brief surveys of other islands within the lord howe group have found that p. lata still occurs on some of these islands. in this study, further surveys were conducted on two of those islands (blackburn and roach) to gain a better understanding of the distribution and abundance of p. lata there and to investigate potential survey techniques. brief observations were also made of the behaviour and ecology of the species. extrapolation from survey plots showed that although 60% of the estimated population of 10 000 individuals on blackburn island were living beneath the sole banyan ficus macrophylla desf. tree, p. lata was widely distributed across the island, utilising both native and exotic vegetation, including the introduced rhodes grass chloris gayana kunth. on roach island, the bulk of the estimated population of 3500 individuals occurred within leafy flat sedge cvperus lucidus r. br. habitat. panesthia lata seemingly spends considerable time sheltering within refuges rather than foraging on the surface; consequently, population estimates based on surface counts are underestimates. improving either the accuracy or precision of these counts risks damaging individuals and their habitat. mark-recapture techniques were not applicable for assessing the abundance of this species, but trials of novel attraction stations indicated that such devices could be useful for monitoring distribution and gross fluctuations in population size. panesthia lata appears to feed on any dead vegetation, but primarily leaves. individuals were relatively sedentary overnight, sheltering by day under any object that provided the appropriate microenvironment. soil characteristics in areas where p. lata sheltered were significantly modified, suggesting that this species may play an important role in soil conditioning and nutrient cycling. maintaining the rodent-free status of islands on which p. lata occurs is a high priority for this species." estimating mortality rates among passerines caught for ringing with mist nets using data from previously ringed birds,avian; bird ringing; injury; mark-recapture; mortality; passerine; trapping; welfare,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CLEWLEY GD;ROBINSON RA;CLARK JA,"mist netting is the most commonly used method for catching birds for scientific ringing, but despite decades of use, there have been few attempts to quantify the associated potential risks to the individuals caught. any incidence of mortality through capture and handling, however low, is of potential ethical concern and may also introduce biases into the data. we estimate the mortality rate associated with capture of previously ringed (recaptured) passerines from the british and irish ringing scheme (c. 1.5 million records) caught using mist nets. the importance of species, age, mass, month, time, previous captures, and an index of predator occurrence was tested using generalized linear mixed-effects models. the average mortality rate was 0.0011, most of which was reported to occur before the individuals had been extracted from the nets (c. 70% of incidents). juveniles appeared to be at higher risk and the incidence of predation from mist nets was seasonal, with increased risk during the winter. species differed in their reported mortality rates with the apparent risk being greatest for chiffchaff phylloscopus collybita (0.0029) and bullfinch pyrrhula pyrrhula (0.0027). to improve our understanding (and hence minimize risk in future), we recommend collecting more complete data on incidences of mortality, and also injuries; exercising increased care when the species we have identified as being at greater risk are likely to be captured, and ensuring there are robust procedures for the checking of nets (as most reported incidents of mortality occur before handling). we also recommend that all ringing schemes should collate and make available data on capture-related mortality. overall rates of mortality associated with capture, although, were low and support the use of mist netting as a safe capture technique, without undue bias from mortality, when used by appropriately trained individuals." effects of flow-related variables on oversummer survival of juvenile coho salmon in intermittent streams,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,OBEDZINSKI M;PIERCE SN;HORTON GE;DEITCH MJ,"while many studies have established the importance of streamflow as a driver of fish population dynamics, few have examined relationships between survival of juvenile salmonids and flow-related variables in intermittent streams. with predictions for a higher frequency of drought conditions due to climate change and the associated increasing human demand for water during the dry season, understanding fish-flow relationships is becoming increasingly important for the protection of sensitive aquatic species. to examine the effects of low streamflow on juvenile salmonids rearing in small intermittent streams, we estimated survival and collected environmental data in four coastal california watersheds from 2011 to 2013. we used an individual-based mark-recapture modeling approach to evaluate the influence of flow-related variables on oversummer survival of pit-tagged juvenile coho salmon oncorhynchus kisutch stocked into eight stream reaches. survival was positively associated with streamflow magnitude, wetted volume, and dissolved oxygen and negatively associated with days of disconnected surface flow (days of disconnection) and temperature. days of disconnection best explained survival, though the relationship varied by geomorphic reach type. survival was lower in alluvial reaches than in bedrock and clay reaches and showed a faster rate of decline with increasing days of disconnection and drought condition. in all reaches, the onset of pool disconnection represented a turning point at which water quality, water quantity, and survival declined. for this reason, we suggest that days of disconnection (or the flow magnitude at which pools become disconnected) is a useful metric for identifying flow-impaired reaches, informing streamflow protection strategies, and prioritizing streamflow enhancement efforts designed to benefit sensitive salmonid populations in intermittent streams." -"combining genetic, isotopic, and field data to better describe the influence of dams and diversions on burbot movement in the wind river drainage, wyoming",NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,HOOLEY-UNDERWOOD Z;MANDEVILLE EG;GERRITY P;DEROMEDI J;JOHNSON K;WALTERS AW,"dams and water diversions fragment habitat, entrain fish, and alter fish movement. many burbot lota lota populations are declining, with dams and water diversions thought to be a major threat. we used multiple methods to identify burbot movement patterns and assess entrainment into an irrigation system in the wind river, wyoming. we assessed seasonal movement of burbot with a mark-recapture (pit tagging) study, natal origins of entrained fish with otolith microchemistry, and historic movement with genotyping by sequencing. we found limited evidence of entrainment in irrigation waters across all approaches. the mark-recapture study indicated that out-migration from potential source populations could be influenced by flow regime but was generally low. otolith and genomic results suggested the presence of a self-sustaining population within the irrigation network. we conclude that emigration from natural tributary populations is not the current source of the majority of burbot found in irrigation waters. instead, reservoir and irrigation canal construction has created novel habitat in which burbot have established a population. using a multi-scale approach increased our inferential abilities and mechanistic understanding of movement patterns between natural and managed systems." +"combining genetic, isotopic, and field data to better describe the influence of dams and diversions on burbot movement in the wind river drainage, wyoming",NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,HOOLEY UNDERWOOD Z;MANDEVILLE EG;GERRITY P;DEROMEDI J;JOHNSON K;WALTERS AW,"dams and water diversions fragment habitat, entrain fish, and alter fish movement. many burbot lota lota populations are declining, with dams and water diversions thought to be a major threat. we used multiple methods to identify burbot movement patterns and assess entrainment into an irrigation system in the wind river, wyoming. we assessed seasonal movement of burbot with a mark-recapture (pit tagging) study, natal origins of entrained fish with otolith microchemistry, and historic movement with genotyping by sequencing. we found limited evidence of entrainment in irrigation waters across all approaches. the mark-recapture study indicated that out-migration from potential source populations could be influenced by flow regime but was generally low. otolith and genomic results suggested the presence of a self-sustaining population within the irrigation network. we conclude that emigration from natural tributary populations is not the current source of the majority of burbot found in irrigation waters. instead, reservoir and irrigation canal construction has created novel habitat in which burbot have established a population. using a multi-scale approach increased our inferential abilities and mechanistic understanding of movement patterns between natural and managed systems." estimating incidence rate of hospital-treated self-harm in hong kong using capture-recapture approach,self-harm; incidence rate; capture-recapture; hong kong,CRISIS-THE JOURNAL OF CRISIS INTERVENTION AND SUICIDE PREVENTION,KWOK CL;YIP PSF,"background: a surveillance system for self-harm has not been established in hong kong. the existing data source has an unknown degree of underreporting, and therefore a capture-recapture method has been proposed to correct for the incompleteness. aims: to assess the underestimation of the incidence of self-harm cases presenting to hospital in hong kong using a capture and recapture method. method: two different yet overlapping hospital administrative datasets of self-harm were obtained from all public hospitals in hong kong. from 2002 to 2011, 59,473 distinct episodes involving 36,411 patients were identified. a capture-recapture model considering heterogeneous capture probabilities was applied to estimate the number of self-harm episodes. results: the estimated number of self-harm incidence was 79,923, equally shared by females and males. cases of self-harm by females were more likely to be ascertained than those by males. the estimated annual incidence rate of self-harm in hong kong from 2002 to 2011 ranged from 96.4 in 2010 to 132.7 in 2002. limitations: the proposed method does not include patients who required no medical attention and those where the patient consulted private doctors. conclusion: the capture-recapture model is a useful method for adjusting the underestimation of self-harm cases from existing databases when surveillance system is not available and to reveal some hidden patterns." pacific decadal and el nino oscillations shape survival of a seabird,capture-mark-recapture methods; climatic oscillations; cost of reproduction; el nino southern oscillation; pacific decadal oscillation; seabirds; survival,ECOLOGY,CHAMPAGNON J;LEBRETON JD;DRUMMOND H;ANDERSON DJ,"understanding and modeling population change is urgently needed to predict effects of climate change on biodiversity. high trophic-level organisms are influenced by fluctuations of prey quality and abundance, which themselves may depend on climate oscillations. modeling effects of such fluctuations is challenging because prey populations may vary with multiple climate oscillations occurring at different time scales. the analysis of a 28-yr time series of capture-recapture data of a tropical seabird, the nazca booby (sula granti), in the galapagos, ecuador, allowed us to test for demographic effects of two major ocean oscillations occurring at distinct time-scales: the inter-annual el nino southern oscillation (enso) and inter-decadal oscillations. as expected for a tropical seabird, survival of fledgling birds was highly affected by extreme enso events; by contrast, neither recruitment nor breeding participation were affected by either enso or decadal oscillations. more interesting, adult survival, a demographic trait that canalizes response to environmental variations, was unaffected by inter-annual enso oscillations yet was shaped by the pacific decadal oscillation and small pelagic fish regime. adult survival decreased during oceanic conditions associated with higher breeding success, an association probably mediated in this species by costs of reproduction that reduce survival when breeding attempts end later. to our knowledge, this is the first study suggesting that survival of a vertebrate can be vulnerable to a natural multidecadal oscillation." "individual heterogeneity and capture-recapture models: what, why and how?",NA,OIKOS,GIMENEZ O;CAM E;GAILLARD JM,"variation between and within individuals in life history traits is ubiquitous in natural populations. when affecting fitness-related traits such as survival or reproduction, individual heterogeneity plays a key role in population dynamics and life history evolution. however, it is only recently that properly accounting for individual heterogeneity when studying population dynamics of free-ranging populations has been made possible through the development of appropriate statistical models. we aim here to review case studies of individual heterogeneity in the context of capture-recapture models for the estimation of population size and demographic parameters with imperfect detection. first, we define what individual heterogeneity means and clarify the terminology used in the literature. second, we review the literature and illustrate why individual heterogeneity is used in capture-recapture studies by focusing on the detection of life-history tradeoffs, including senescence. third, we explain how to model individual heterogeneity in capture-recapture models and provide the code to fit these models . the distinction is made between situations in which heterogeneity is actually measured and situations in which part of the heterogeneity remains unobserved. regarding the latter, we outline recent developments of random-effect models and finite-mixture models. finally, we discuss several avenues for future research." -"population size and genetic variability of a relict population of an endangered butterfly, parnassius apollo filabricus",capture-mark-recapture study; conservation; endangered species; genetic variation,INSECT CONSERVATION AND DIVERSITY,MARTINEZ JG;MIRA O;SANCHEZ-PRIETO CB;BAREA-AZCON JM;TINAUT A,"parnassius apollo filabricus is a subspecies of apollo (lepidoptera, papilionidae) restricted to the sierra de baza-filabres range in southeastern spain that has become increasingly rare in the last decades, disappearing from most of its known locations. in this article, we calculate both census and effective population size of a local population discovered in 2009 that occupies c. 30ha. after 2years of capture-mark-recapture work we estimate a population size of about 100 individuals. genetic variation was characterised using 9 microsatellite markers and 29 individuals. effective population size was estimated from 13 microsatellites. the studied population is strongly differentiated from the nearby sierra nevada apollo populations, and its expected heterozygosity and allelic richness were higher than the average value for sierra nevada. genetic diversity of the population is not as low as expected by its small size, which points out to a recent population decline. we discuss the implications of these results for the conservation of the species." +"population size and genetic variability of a relict population of an endangered butterfly, parnassius apollo filabricus",capture-mark-recapture study; conservation; endangered species; genetic variation,INSECT CONSERVATION AND DIVERSITY,MARTINEZ JG;MIRA O;SANCHEZ PRIETO CB;BAREA AZCON JM;TINAUT A,"parnassius apollo filabricus is a subspecies of apollo (lepidoptera, papilionidae) restricted to the sierra de baza-filabres range in southeastern spain that has become increasingly rare in the last decades, disappearing from most of its known locations. in this article, we calculate both census and effective population size of a local population discovered in 2009 that occupies c. 30ha. after 2years of capture-mark-recapture work we estimate a population size of about 100 individuals. genetic variation was characterised using 9 microsatellite markers and 29 individuals. effective population size was estimated from 13 microsatellites. the studied population is strongly differentiated from the nearby sierra nevada apollo populations, and its expected heterozygosity and allelic richness were higher than the average value for sierra nevada. genetic diversity of the population is not as low as expected by its small size, which points out to a recent population decline. we discuss the implications of these results for the conservation of the species." heavy livestock grazing negatively impacts a marsupial ecosystem engineer,aepyprymnus rufescens; rufous bettong; potoroidae; rangeland; tropical savanna; habitat selection; manly selection ratio; ecosystem engineer,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,NEILLY H;SCHWARZKOPF L,"ecosystem engineers play an important role in resource availability and can be negatively impacted by anthropogenic disturbances, such as livestock grazing. the decline of digging and burrowing mammals in australia is partly attributed to agriculture, however little is known about their use of microhabitats, and thus, how they respond to different cattle grazing regimes. here, we examine the response of a marsupial ecosystem engineer, the rufous bettong (aepyprymnus rufescens) to cattle grazing strategies and vegetation types, and examine whether microhabitat selection is driving this response. we hypothesized that rufous bettongs would be negatively impacted by heavy cattle grazing due to their use of ground-level microhabitat features. we conducted a mark-recapture trapping survey among four grazing treatments and in two vegetation types (box and ironbark woodlands), at a 20-year grazing trial in northern australia. we modelled rufous bettong abundance in response to grazing treatment and vegetation type and determined microhabitat preference using manly selection ratios. we found that rufous bettongs preferred ironbark and avoided heavy grazing. thus, they avoided the areas of highest cattle utilization. on average, individuals preferred high grass and other terrestrial microhabitat variables of moderate complexity. our results indicate that habitat selection is contributing to the response of a marsupial ecosystem engineer to different grazing strategies. mammalian digging and burrowing ecosystem engineers should be a conservation focus on rangelands due to their positive influence on a suite of species, and their ability to potentially mitigate some of the negative impacts of cattle grazing on soil health." assessing the dynamics of natural populations by fitting individual-based models with approximate bayesian computation,approximate bayesian computation; individual-based models; metapopulation dynamics; multiple data sources; population dynamics,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SIREN J;LENS L;COUSSEAU L;OVASKAINEN O,"1. individual-based models (ibms) allow realistic and flexible modelling of ecological systems, but their parameterization with empirical data is statistically and computationally challenging. approximate bayesian computation (abc) has been proposed as an efficient approach for inference with ibms, but its applicability to data on natural populations has not been yet fully explored. 2. we construct an ibm for the metapopulation dynamics of a species inhabiting a fragmented patch network, and develop an abc method for parameterization of the model. we consider several scenarios of data availability from count data to combination of mark-recapture and genetic data. we analyse both simulated and real data on white-starred robin (pogonocichla stellata), a passerine bird living in montane forest environment in kenya, and assess how the amount and type of data affect the estimates of model parameters and indicators of population state. 3. the indicators of the population state could be reliably estimated using the abc method, but full parameterization was not achieved due to strong posterior correlations between model parameters. while the combination of the data types did not provide more accurate estimates for most of the indicators of population state or model parameters than the most informative data type (ringing data or genetic data) alone, the combined data allowed robust simultaneous estimation of all unknown quantities. 4. our results show that abc methods provide a powerful and flexible technique forparameterizing complex ibms with multiple data sources, and assessing the dynamics of the population in a robust manner." inference from single occasion capture experiments using genetic markers,genetic marker; method of maximum likelihood; method of moments; population size; single occasion capture,BIOMETRICAL JOURNAL,HETTIARACHCHIGE CKH;HUGGINS RM,"accurate estimation of the size of animal populations is an important task in ecological science. recent advances in the field of molecular genetics researches allow the use of genetic data to estimate the size of a population from a single capture occasion rather than repeated occasions as in the usual capture-recapture experiments. estimating the population size using genetic data also has sometimes led to estimates that differ markedly from each other and also from classical capture-recapture estimates. here, we develop a closed form estimator that uses genetic information to estimate the size of a population consisting of mothers and daughters, focusing on estimating the number of mothers, using data from a single sample. we demonstrate the estimator is consistent and propose a parametric bootstrap to estimate the standard errors. the estimator is evaluated in a simulation study and applied to real data. we also consider maximum likelihood in this setting and discover problems that preclude its general use." @@ -568,16 +569,16 @@ density trends and demographic signals uncover the long-term impact of transmiss effects of habitat quality and access management on the density of a recovering grizzly bear population,access management; connectivity; environmental change; grizzly bear; human-impacted systems; large carnivore; mortality; recolonisation; road density; spatially explicit capture-recapture,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,LAMB CT;MOWAT G;REID A;SMIT L;PROCTOR M;MCLELLAN BN;NIELSEN SE;BOUTIN S,"1. human activities have dramatic effects on the distribution and abundance of wildlife. increased road densities and human presence in wilderness areas have elevated human-caused mortality of grizzly bears and reduced bears' use. management agencies frequently attempt to reduce human-caused mortality by managing road density and thus human access, but the effectiveness of these actions is rarely assessed. 2. we combined systematic, dna-based mark-recapture techniques with spatially explicit capture-recapture models to estimate population size of a threatened grizzly bear population (kettle-granby), following management actions to recover this population. we tested the effects of habitat and road density on grizzly bear population density. we tested both a linear and threshold-based road density metric and investigated the effect of current access management (closing roads to the public). 3. we documented an c. 50% increase in bear density since 1997 suggesting increased landscape and species conservation from management agencies played a significant role in that increase. however, bear density was lower where road densities exceeded 0.6 km/km(2) and higher where motorised vehicle access had been restricted. the highest bear densities were in areas with large tracts of few or no roads and high habitat quality. access management bolstered bear density in small areas by 27%. 4. synthesis and applications. our spatially explicit capture-recapture analysis demonstrates that population recovery is possible in a multi-use landscape when management actions target priority areas. we suggest that road density is a useful surrogate for the negative effects of human land use on grizzly bear populations, but spatial configuration of roads must still be considered. reducing roads will increase grizzly bear density, but restricting vehicle access can also achieve this goal. we demonstrate that a policy target of reducing human access by managing road density below 0.6 km/km(2), while ensuring areas of high habitat quality have no roads, is a reasonable compromise between the need for road access and population recovery goals. targeting closures to areas of highest habitat quality would benefit grizzly bear population recovery the most." accommodating temporary emigration in spatial distance sampling models,bayesian hierarchical models; inhomogeneous point process; long-term monitoring; n-mixture model; over-dispersion; spatial distance sampling; spatially explicit models; superpopulation; temporary emigration,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,MIZEL JD;SCHMIDT JH;LINDBERG MS,"1. model-based distance sampling is commonly used to understand spatial variation in the density of wildlife species. the standard approach assumes that individuals are distributed uniformly and models spatial variation in density using plot-level effects. thinned point process (tpp) models for surveys of unmarked populations (spatial distance sampling) better leverage the spatial information underlying individual encounters, and in the presence of within-plot variation in density, may explain a larger proportion of the spatial variation in density. however, existing spatial distance sampling approaches are conditioned on the assumption that all individuals are present and available for sampling. temporary emigration of individuals can therefore result in biased estimates of abundance. 2. we extended spatial distance sampling models to accommodate temporary emigration (tpp model). using simulations of a thinned inhomogeneous point process, we assessed the performance of the tpp model relative to the temporary emigration distance sampling (teds) model, which implies a uniform distribution of individuals. in addition, we compared inferences between tpp and teds models using data for two passerine species in alaska. 3. parameter estimates from the tpp model exhibited improved coverage probability and precision relative to the teds model including a 26% reduction in the coefficient of variation (cv) of the population size estimate. 4. in the applied example, the teds model indicated weak relationships between abundance and habitat covariates, whereas the tpp model indicated strong relationships for those same effects, suggesting that spatial distance sampling models can provide considerably stronger inference in the presence of within-plot variation in density. in addition, the cv of the population size estimates for the two passerine species were 32% and 4% smaller under the tpp model. 5. synthesis and applications. we expect our extension accommodating temporary emigration will be a critical specification for spatial distance sampling models, particularly for studies assessing changes in the distribution and abundance of highly mobile species including passerines." tidal habitats support large numbers of invasive blue catfish in a chesapeake bay subestuary,mark recapture; invasive species; robust design; coded wire tags; individual heterogeneity,ESTUARIES AND COASTS,FABRIZIO MC;TUCKEY TD;LATOUR RJ;WHITE GC;NORRIS AJ,"the introduction of a non-native freshwater fish, blue catfish ictalurus furcatus, in tributaries of chesapeake bay resulted in the establishment of fisheries and in the expansion of the population into brackish habitats. blue catfish are an invasive species in the chesapeake bay region, and efforts are underway to limit their impacts on native communities. key characteristics of the population (population size, survival rates) are unknown, but such knowledge is useful in understanding the impact of blue catfish in estuarine systems. we estimated population size and survival rates of blue catfish in tidal habitats of the james river subestuary. we tagged 34,252 blue catfish during july-august 2012 and 2013; information from live recaptures (n = 1177) and dead recoveries (n = 279) were used to estimate annual survival rates and population size using barker's model in a robust design and allowing for heterogeneity in detection probabilities. the blue catfish population in the 12-km study area was estimated to be 1.6 million fish in 2013 (95% confidence interval [ci] adjusted for overdispersion: 926,307-2,914,208 fish). annual apparent survival rate estimates were low: 0.16 (95% ci 0.10-0.24) in 2012-2013 and 0.44 (95% ci 0.31-0.58) in 2013-2014 and represent losses from the population through mortality, permanent emigration, or both. the tagged fish included individuals that were large enough to exhibit piscivory and represented size classes that are likely to colonize estuarine habitats. the large population size that we estimated was unexpected for a freshwater fish in tidal habitats and highlights the need to effectively manage such species." -measuring the representativeness of a germplasm collection,coverage; allele conservation; seed accession,BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,HERNANDEZ-SUAREZ C,"many germplasm collections aim to preserve most of the genetic diversity present in a population so that the population could be regenerated, which provides genetic resources to ensure food security. this paper proposes a way to measure how well a germplasm collection achieve this goal. in the most common scenario, one has little information regarding the number and statistical distribution of alleles at every locus, and it is thus very difficult to measure the representativeness of the accession. here, we show how to use samples of allelic diversity at a sample of loci to estimate the representativeness of an accession based on the coverage of a sample with point and interval estimates. our approach avoids making unrealistic assumptions regarding the number of loci, the bounds for the number of alleles or their frequency distributions. depending on the sampling scheme of a collection, we differentiate between absolute or relative coverage. here, we demonstrate this methodology using data from the germplasm collection at the leibniz institute of plant genetics and crop plant research." +measuring the representativeness of a germplasm collection,coverage; allele conservation; seed accession,BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,HERNANDEZ SUAREZ C,"many germplasm collections aim to preserve most of the genetic diversity present in a population so that the population could be regenerated, which provides genetic resources to ensure food security. this paper proposes a way to measure how well a germplasm collection achieve this goal. in the most common scenario, one has little information regarding the number and statistical distribution of alleles at every locus, and it is thus very difficult to measure the representativeness of the accession. here, we show how to use samples of allelic diversity at a sample of loci to estimate the representativeness of an accession based on the coverage of a sample with point and interval estimates. our approach avoids making unrealistic assumptions regarding the number of loci, the bounds for the number of alleles or their frequency distributions. depending on the sampling scheme of a collection, we differentiate between absolute or relative coverage. here, we demonstrate this methodology using data from the germplasm collection at the leibniz institute of plant genetics and crop plant research." using growth ring formation to study growth patterns of exploited sea urchin (loxechinus albus) populations,loxechinus albus fisheries; genital plates; size-truncation; mark and recapture; fisheries management,FISHERIES RESEARCH,BALBOA C;MOLINET C;BARAHONA N;DIAZ PA;SUBIABRE D;GEBAUER P,"the formation of growth rings on the genital plates of two exploited subpopulations of the sea urchin, loxechinus albus, using mark-recapture methods, was studied. regression models for ordinal data were used to analyze their variability, and its effect on growth patterns was evaluated by comparing parameters of the resulting growth models. the observed formation of growth rings in l. albus from january 2015 to february 2016 allowed to determine the sea urchins age with 90% accuracy in the picuta subpopulation, while in the westhoff sub population, age was determined correctly in only 77% of cases, with a significant percentage of sea urchins over 50 mm td that did not form new rings, suggesting precaution to estimate age using growth rings formation in sea urchins. the particular hydrodynamic characteristics of picuta and their effect on the sea urchin distribution, could explain the observed growth rate stability despite 40 years of intense fishing. westhoff, a system where only shallow subpopulations of sea urchin have been recorded, showed growth rate changes possibly associated with size-age truncation resulting from the fishing selective effect. implementation of monitoring in non-fishing areas where trends in the local population can be followed, would help to identify key processes in l. albus population dynamics and design suitable management strategies of this socio-economically important resource." -"abundance and survival rates of three leaf-litter frog species in fragments and continuous forest of the mata atlantica, brazil",amphibia; brazilian atlantic forest; habitat fragmentation; abundance; mark-recapture; survival,"NATURE CONSERVATION-BULGARIA",STEINICKE H;PE'ER G;HENLE K,"habitat destruction and fragmentation alter the quality of habitats and put populations under the risk of extinction. changes in population parameters can provide early warning signs of negative impacts. in tropical forests, where habitat loss and fragmentation are vast, such indicators are of high relevance for directing conservation efforts before effects are irreversible. most of our knowledge from tropical ecosystems originates from community level surveys, whereas our understanding of the influence of habitat conversion on vital rates of species is limited. this study focused on the influence of anthropogenic habitat fragmentation on the survival probability and abundance of three leaf-litter frog species (rhinella errata, ischnocnema guentheri and i. parva) in forest patches of the atlantic rainforest of south-east brazil compared to a continuous forest. the species differ in their matrix tolerance: high for r. ornata and low for i. guentheri and i. parva and, thus, we examined whether their survival and abundance correspond to this classification. behnoeneina guentheri showed highest abundances in all study sites and low mortality in the forest patches compared to the continuous forest; i. parva was encountered only in isolated fragments, with very low mortality in one isolated fragment; and the matrix tolerant species had generally low abundance and showed no clear pattern in terms of mortality in the different sites. our counter-intuitive results show that even matrix sensitive amphibian species may show high abundance and low mortality in small forest patches. therefore, these patches can be of high value for amphibian conservation regardless of their degree of matrix aversion. landscape level conservation planning should not abandon small habitat patches, especially in highly fragmented tropical environments." +"abundance and survival rates of three leaf-litter frog species in fragments and continuous forest of the mata atlantica, brazil",amphibia; brazilian atlantic forest; habitat fragmentation; abundance; mark-recapture; survival,NATURE CONSERVATION-BULGARIA,STEINICKE H;PE ER G;HENLE K,"habitat destruction and fragmentation alter the quality of habitats and put populations under the risk of extinction. changes in population parameters can provide early warning signs of negative impacts. in tropical forests, where habitat loss and fragmentation are vast, such indicators are of high relevance for directing conservation efforts before effects are irreversible. most of our knowledge from tropical ecosystems originates from community level surveys, whereas our understanding of the influence of habitat conversion on vital rates of species is limited. this study focused on the influence of anthropogenic habitat fragmentation on the survival probability and abundance of three leaf-litter frog species (rhinella errata, ischnocnema guentheri and i. parva) in forest patches of the atlantic rainforest of south-east brazil compared to a continuous forest. the species differ in their matrix tolerance: high for r. ornata and low for i. guentheri and i. parva and, thus, we examined whether their survival and abundance correspond to this classification. behnoeneina guentheri showed highest abundances in all study sites and low mortality in the forest patches compared to the continuous forest; i. parva was encountered only in isolated fragments, with very low mortality in one isolated fragment; and the matrix tolerant species had generally low abundance and showed no clear pattern in terms of mortality in the different sites. our counter-intuitive results show that even matrix sensitive amphibian species may show high abundance and low mortality in small forest patches. therefore, these patches can be of high value for amphibian conservation regardless of their degree of matrix aversion. landscape level conservation planning should not abandon small habitat patches, especially in highly fragmented tropical environments." one-step estimation of networked population size: respondent-driven capture-recapture with anonymity,NA,PLOS ONE,KHAN B;LEE HW;FELLOWS I;DOMBROWSKI K,"size estimation is particularly important for populations whose members experience dispro-portionate health issues or pose elevated health risks to the ambient social structures in which they are embedded. efforts to derive size estimates are often frustrated when the population is hidden or hard-to-reach in ways that preclude conventional survey strategies, as is the case when social stigma is associated with group membership or when group members are involved in illegal activities. this paper extends prior research on the problem of network population size estimation, building on established survey/sampling methodologies commonly used with hard-to-reach groups. three novel one-step, network-based population size estimators are presented, for use in the context of uniform random sampling, respondent-driven sampling, and when networks exhibit significant clustering effects. we give provably sufficient conditions for the consistency of these estimators in large configuration networks. simulation experiments across a wide range of synthetic network topologies validate the performance of the estimators, which also perform well on a real-world location-based social networking data set with significant clustering. finally, the proposed schemes are extended to allow them to be used in settings where participant anonymity is required. systematic experiments show favorable tradeoffs between anonymity guarantees and estimator performance. taken together, we demonstrate that reasonable population size estimates are derived from anonymous respondent driven samples of 250-750 individuals, within ambient populations of 5,000-40,000. the method thus represents a novel and cost-effective means for health planners and those agencies concerned with health and disease surveillance to estimate the size of hidden populations. we discuss limitations and future work in the concluding section." reproductive success of whiskered tern chlidonias hybrida in eastern spain in relation to water level variation,migratory species; reproductive success; wetland; water level fluctuation; chlidonias hybrida; whiskered tern; hatching success; fledgling success,PEERJ,LLEDO AO;MATEO JV;MOLINER VU,"background. a study on the whiskered tern chlidonias hybrida was carried out between 2002 and 2009 in wetlands of eastern spain to evaluate how water level fluctuation affects its reproductive success (hatching, fledgling and breeding success). this species is catalogued as vulnerable in spain and has an unfavorable conservation status in europe. methods. our study includes 18 sampling areas from five wetlands, covering a total of 663 nests, 1,618 eggs, 777 nestlings and 225 fledglings. the colonies were visited at least twice per week in breeding period. the number of eggs and/or nestlings present in each nest were annotated each time the colonies were visited with the aim to compare the evolution of these parameters with time. hatching success was calculated as the proportion of egg that hatched successfully. fledgling success and breeding success were calculated as the proportion of chicks that fledged successfully and the proportion of eggs that produced fledglings. we used the kruskal-wallis test to analyze the differences in the dependent variables hatching, fledgling and breeding success among the wetlands and the sampling areas. we explored the relationship between the different reproductive success with the average fluctuation rate and the anchoring depth of nests, using statistics of the linear regression. results. it was observed that the reproductive success varied significantly in the interaction among the different categories of water level fluctuation and the different areas (using the kruskal-wallis test). our records showed that pronounced variations in water level destroyed several nests, which affected the whiskered tern reproductive success. considering all events that occurred in 18 areas, the mean (+/- sd) of nests, eggs and nestlings that were lost after water level fluctuations were of 25.60 +/- 21.79%, 32.06 +/- 27.58% and 31.91 +/- 21.28% respectively, also including the effects of rain and predation. discussion. unfavorable climatic events, such as strong wind, rain or hail, also caused the loss of nests, eggs and nestlings, even when wetland water levels remained constant. the influence of the anchorage depth of the nest and the water level fluctuation rate were analyzed and did not provide statistically significant results. it was not possible to establish a clear pattern on these latter variables, so further studies are needed to obtain more significant results. we propose to undertake similar studies in wetlands where the water level can be regulated, with the range of nest anchorage depth on the emergent vegetation being between 30 and 60 cm, which could improve the reproductive success in this kind of habitats. as recommendation, in water level controlled wetlands (that use sluices), it should not vary more than +/- 6 cm in a short time (1-2 days) once the nests are established since it negatively affects their reproductive success." increased male bias in eider ducks can be explained by sex-specific survival of prime-age breeders,NA,PLOS ONE,RAMULA S;OST M;LINDEN A;KARELL P;KILPI M,"in contrast to theoretical predictions of even adult sex ratios, males are dominating in many bird populations. such bias among adults may be critical to population growth and viability. nevertheless, demographic mechanisms for biased adult sex ratios are still poorly understood. here, we examined potential demographic mechanisms for the recent dramatic shift from a slight female bias among adult eider ducks (somateria mollissima) to a male bias (about 65% males) in the baltic sea, where the species is currently declining. we analysed a nine-year dataset on offspring sex ratio at hatching based on molecularly sexed ducklings of individually known mothers. moreover, using demographic data from long-term individual-based capture-recapture records, we investigated how sex-specific survival at different ages after fledgling can modify the adult sex ratio. more specifically, we constructed a stochastic two-sex matrix population model and simulated scenarios of different survival probabilities for males and females. we found that sex ratio at hatching was slightly female-biased (52.8%) and therefore unlikely to explain the observed male bias among adult birds. our stochastic simulations with higher survival for males than for females revealed that despite a slight female bias at hatching, study populations shifted to a male-biased adult sex ratio (> 60% males) in a few decades. this shift was driven by prime reproductive-age individuals(>5-year-old), with sex-specific survival of younger age classes playing a minor role. hence, different age classes contributed disproportion ally to population dynamics. we argue that an alternative explanation for the observed male dominance among adults sex-biased dispersal can be considered redundant and is unlikely, given the ecology of the species. the present study highlights the importance of considering population structure and age-specific vital rates when assessing population dynamics and management targets." health care providers' compliance with the notifiable diseases surveillance system in south africa,NA,PLOS ONE,BENSON FG;LEVIN J;RISPEL LC,"background the optimal performance of a notifiable disease surveillance system (ndss) is dependent on health care provider (hcp) compliance with communicable disease notification. hcp compliance ensures appropriate investigation and control measures by relevant health care authorities. this study examines the compliance of hcps with the ndss in south africa and factors associated with their compliance. methods a cross-sectional survey was carried out in three randomly selected provinces. we stratified by type of facility, and recruited clusters of hcps on survey day to participate. all consenting hcps in the randomly selected health care facilities on the day of the survey, completed a questionnaire that elicited information on socio-demographic characteristics and notification practices. the data were analysed using stata (r) 14, using the identifiers for stratum and cluster as well as the calculated sampling weights. results the study found that 58% of 919 hcps diagnosed a notifiable disease in the year preceding the survey. the majority of these professionals (92%) indicated that they had reported the disease, but only 51% of those notified the disease/s correctly to the department of health. paediatricians were less likely to notify correctly (or 0.01, 95% ci 0.00-0.12, p = 0.001). the factors that influenced notification were hcps perceptions of workload (or 0.84, 95% ci 0.70-0.99, p = 0.043) and that notification data are not useful (or 0.84, 95% ci 0.71-0.99, p = 0.040). the study found no association between correct notification and hcps willingness to notify, experience or training on the ndss, understanding of the purpose of the ndss, knowledge of what to notify, or perception of feedback given. conclusions the compliance of hcps in south africa with the ndss is suboptimal. in light of the important role of hcps in the effective functioning of the ndss, information on ndss usefulness and guidelines on correct notification procedures are needed to increase their compliance." population genetic analysis of the recently rediscovered hula painted frog (latonia nigriventer) reveals high genetic diversity and low inbreeding,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,PERL RGB;GEFFEN E;MALKA Y;BAROCAS A;RENAN S;VENCES M;GAFNY S,"after its recent rediscovery, the hula painted frog (latonia nigriventer) has remained one of the world's rarest and least understood amphibian species. together with its apparently low dispersal capability and highly disturbed niche, the low abundance of this living fossil calls for urgent conservation measures. we used 18 newly developed microsatellite loci and four different models to calculate the effective population size (n-e) of a total of 125 hula painted frog individuals sampled at a single location. we compare the n-e estimates to the estimates of potentially reproducing adults in this population (n-ad) determined through a capture-recapture study on 118 adult hula painted frogs captured at the same site. surprisingly, our data suggests that, despite n-ad estimates of only similar to 234-244 and n-e estimates of similar to 16.6-35.8, the species appears to maintain a very high genetic diversity (h-o = 0.771) and low inbreeding coefficient (f-is = -0.018). this puzzling outcome could perhaps be explained by the hypotheses of either genetic rescue from one or more unknown hula painted frog populations nearby or by recent admixture of genetically divergent subpopulations. independent of which scenario is correct, the original locations of these populations still remain to be determined." constraints imposed by a natural landscape override offspring fitness effects to shape oviposition decisions in wild forked fungus beetles,maternal effect; bolitotherus cornutus; heterogeneous environment; preference-performance; capture-recapture,AMERICAN NATURALIST,WOOD CW;WICE EW;DEL SOL J;PAUL S;SANDERSON BJ;BRODIE ED,"oviposition site decisions often maximize offspring fitness, but costs constraining choice can cause females to oviposit in poor developmental environments. it is unclear whether these constraints cumulatively outweigh offspring fitness to determine oviposition decisions in wild populations. understanding how constraints shape oviposition in natural landscapes is a critical step toward revealing how maternal behavior influences fundamental phenomena like the evolution of specialization and the use of sink environments. here, we used a genetic capture-recapture technique to reconstruct the oviposition decisions of individual females in a natural metapopulation of a beetle (bolitotherus cornutus) that oviposits on three fungus species. we measured larval fitness-related traits (mass, development time, survival) on each fungus and compared the oviposition preferences of females in laboratory versus field tests. larval fitness differed substantially among fungi, and females preferred a high-quality (high larval fitness) fungus in laboratory trials. however, females frequently laid eggs on the lowest-quality fungus in the wild. they preferred high-quality fungi when moving between oviposition sites, but this preference disappeared as the distance between sites increased and was inconsistent between study plots. our results suggest that constraints on oviposition preferences in natural landscapes are sufficiently large to drive oviposition in poor developmental environments even when offspring fitness consequences are severe." -do responsibly managed logging concessions adequately protect jaguars and other large and medium-sized mammals? two case studies from guatemala and peru,reduced-impact logging; multi-species occupancy model; spatial capture-recapture; madre de dios; peten; maya biosphere reserve; camera traps; forest management,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,TOBLER MW;ANLEU RG;CARRILLO-PERCASTEGUI SE;SANTIZO GP;POLISAR J;HARTLEY AZ;GOLDSTEIN I,"large areas of tropical forest have been designated for timber production but logging practices vary widely. reduced-impact logging is considered best practice and third-party certification aims to ensure that strict standards are met. this includes minimizing the number of roads constructed, avoiding sensitive areas and strictly regulating hunting. large scale camera trap grids were utilized in guatemala and peru to evaluate the impact of reduced-impact logging in certified concessions upon the large and medium-sized mammal fauna with special emphasis on jaguars (panthera once). spatial capture-recapture models showed that jaguar density in peru (4.54 +/- 0.83 ind. 100 km(-2)) was significantly higher than in guatemala (1.52 +/- 0.34 ind. 100 km(-2)) but in both regions, densities were comparable to protected areas. camera traps detected 22 species of large and medium sized mammals in guatemala and 27 in peru and a multi-species occupancy model revealed that logging had no negative impact on any of the species studied and actually had an initial positive impact on several herbivore species. we found no avoidance of logging roads; in fact, many species, especially carnivores, frequently used logging roads as movement corridors. our results indicate that well-managed logging concessions can maintain important populations of large and medium-sized mammals including large herbivores and large carnivores as long as hunting is controlled and timber volumes extracted are low. responsible forest management would therefore be an ideal activity in the buffer zones and multiple use zones of protected areas creating much less impact and conflict than alternatives such as agriculture or cattle ranching while still providing economic opportunities. logging concessions can also play an important role in maintaining landscape connectivity between protected areas." +do responsibly managed logging concessions adequately protect jaguars and other large and medium-sized mammals? two case studies from guatemala and peru,reduced-impact logging; multi-species occupancy model; spatial capture-recapture; madre de dios; peten; maya biosphere reserve; camera traps; forest management,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,TOBLER MW;ANLEU RG;CARRILLO PERCASTEGUI SE;SANTIZO GP;POLISAR J;HARTLEY AZ;GOLDSTEIN I,"large areas of tropical forest have been designated for timber production but logging practices vary widely. reduced-impact logging is considered best practice and third-party certification aims to ensure that strict standards are met. this includes minimizing the number of roads constructed, avoiding sensitive areas and strictly regulating hunting. large scale camera trap grids were utilized in guatemala and peru to evaluate the impact of reduced-impact logging in certified concessions upon the large and medium-sized mammal fauna with special emphasis on jaguars (panthera once). spatial capture-recapture models showed that jaguar density in peru (4.54 +/- 0.83 ind. 100 km(-2)) was significantly higher than in guatemala (1.52 +/- 0.34 ind. 100 km(-2)) but in both regions, densities were comparable to protected areas. camera traps detected 22 species of large and medium sized mammals in guatemala and 27 in peru and a multi-species occupancy model revealed that logging had no negative impact on any of the species studied and actually had an initial positive impact on several herbivore species. we found no avoidance of logging roads; in fact, many species, especially carnivores, frequently used logging roads as movement corridors. our results indicate that well-managed logging concessions can maintain important populations of large and medium-sized mammals including large herbivores and large carnivores as long as hunting is controlled and timber volumes extracted are low. responsible forest management would therefore be an ideal activity in the buffer zones and multiple use zones of protected areas creating much less impact and conflict than alternatives such as agriculture or cattle ranching while still providing economic opportunities. logging concessions can also play an important role in maintaining landscape connectivity between protected areas." complex demographic heterogeneity from anthropogenic impacts in a coastal marine predator,anthropogenic impacts; habitat heterogeneity; life histories; long-lived species; resilience; survival,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,ORO D;ALVAREZ D;VELANDO A,"environmental drivers, including anthropogenic impacts, affect vital rates of organisms. nevertheless, the influence of these drivers may depend on the physical features of the habitat and how they affect life history strategies depending on individual covariates such as age and sex. here, the long-term monitoring (1994-2014) of marked european shags in eight colonies in two regions with different ecological features, such as foraging habitat, allowed us to test several biological hypotheses about how survival changes by age and sex in each region by means of multi-event capture-recapture modeling. impacts included fishing practices and bycatch, invasive introduced carnivores and the severe prestige oil spill. adult survival was constant but, unexpectedly, it was different between sexes. this difference was opposite in each region. the impact of the oil spill on survival was important only for adults (especially for females) in one region and lasted a single year. juvenile survival was time dependent but this variability was not synchronized between regions, suggesting a strong signal of regional environmental variability. mortality due to bycatch was also different between sex, age and region. interestingly the results showed that the size of the fishing fleet is not necessarily a good proxy for assessing the impact of bycatch mortality, which may be more dependent on the fishing grounds and the fishing gears employed in each season of the year. anthropogenic impacts affected survival differently by age and sex, which was expected for a long-lived organism with sexual size dimorphism. strikingly, these differences varied depending on the region, indicating that habitat heterogeneity is demographically important to how environmental variability (including anthropogenic impacts) and resilience influence population dynamics." "evaluation of measles and rubella integrated surveillance system in apulia region, italy, 3 years after its introduction",apulia; evaluation; italy; measles; rubella; surveillance system,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,TURIAC IA;FORTUNATO F;CAPPELLI MG;MOREA A;CHIRONNA M;PRATO R;MARTINELLI D,"this study aimed at evaluating the integrated measles and rubella surveillance system (imrss) in apulia region, italy, from its introduction in 2013 to 30 june 2016. measles and rubella case reports were extracted from imrss. we estimated system sensitivity at the level of case reporting, using the capture-recapture method for three data sources. data quality was described as the completeness of variables and timeliness of notification as the median-time interval from symptoms onset to initial alert. the proportion of suspected cases with laboratory investigation, the rate of discarded cases and the origin of infection were also computed. a total of 127 measles and four rubella suspected cases were reported to imrss and 82 were laboratory confirmed. focusing our analysis on measles, imrss sensitivity was 82% (95% ci: 75-87). completeness was >98% for mandatory variables and 57% for 'genotyping'. the median-time interval from symptoms onset to initial alert was 4.5 days, with a timeliness of notification of 33% (41 cases reported <= 48 h). the proportion of laboratory investigation was 87%. the rate of discarded cases was 0.1 per 100 000 inhabitants per year. the origin of infection was identified for 85% of cases. it is concluded that imrss provides good quality data and has good sensitivity; still efforts should be made to improve the completeness of laboratory-related variables, timeliness and to increase the rate of discarded cases." no evidence for a negative effect of conspecific brood parasitism on annual survival of female prothonotary warblers,capture-recapture; conspecific brood parasitism; multi-event model,IBIS,TUCKER AM;BULLUCK LP,species that provide intensive parental care could suffer fitness costs associated with conspecific brood parasitism. here we evaluate the effect of conspecific brood parasitism on apparent annual survival probability of female prothonotary warblers protonotaria citrea using a multistate model with imperfect state assignment analysed in a hierarchical bayesian framework. we found no difference in annual survival probability between host and non-host females. these findings agree with previous work in that there seems to be little apparent cost of conspecific brood parasitism to female warblers in this system. @@ -598,7 +599,7 @@ novel method for identifying individual cetaceans using facial features and symm a mark-recapture-based approach for estimating angler harvest,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,HANSEN JM;VAN KIRK RW,"fishing effort in traditional creel surveys is derived from instantaneous angler counts, which in some fisheries can carry a high cost in personnel time, resources, and safety. to estimate angler effort more efficiently and at lower cost, we used mark-recapture methods to estimate weekly angler populations in pacific salmon oncorhynchus spp. and steelhead o. mykiss fisheries on the salmon river, idaho. weekly harvest estimates were the product of weekly angler population, mean number of days fished per angler per week, and mean harvest per angler per day. we compared traditional and mark-recapture estimates of weekly harvest using paired analysis on a sample of 48weeks. we found no significant difference in harvest estimates between traditional and mark-recapture methods, and the mark-recapture estimates in our fisheries could be made at a savings of up to 50% in vehicle mileage associated with conducting angler counts. however, the width of 95% cis around harvest estimates was significantly higher for the mark-recapture method, due to higher upper confidence limits resulting from right-skewness of the sampling distribution of the mark-recapture-based estimator. precision could be improved by replacing time spent on counts in the traditional method with more time spent capturing anglers at access sites, still providing savings in vehicle mileage." evaluating the effect of dam removals on yellow-phase american eel abundance in a northeastern us watershed,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,TURNER SM;CHASE BC;BEDNARSKI MS,"the negative effects of dams and the benefits of dam removal for anadromous fish populations have been well documented. effects of dams on catadromous anguillidae species may be less drastic, although documentation of the response of catadromous fishes to dam removal is limited. we developed a mark-recapture study design to estimate the abundance of catadromous american eel anguilla rostrata within a small coastal watershed and compare abundance estimates before and after barrier removal. in the mill river, taunton, massachusetts, four dams have or will be modified for passage or removed. mark-recapture sampling and modeling methods were developed and applied in lake sabbatia, the source of the mill river, over 4years from the initiation of restoration. rectangular eel traps had higher cpue than double-funnel traps used in previous studies, and a tag retention study found high retention rates by using established methods (94% overall). abundances of yellow-phase american eels have increased with improved passage and recruitment to sampling gear during the study period. dam removal could have substantial benefits to the coastwide stock of american eels, and methods to evaluate changes in abundances are important for resource management as well as restoration ecology and project selection." under-ice population density estimation of alaska blackfish,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,FRALEY KM;HAYNES TB;LOPEZ JA,"the alaska blackfish dallia pectoralis is an understudied but ecologically important mudminnow occurring in lentic ecosystems of subarctic and arctic alaska. we sampled a population of alaska blackfish during the winter months in an upland pond near fairbanks, alaska, and we used a simple mark-recapture estimator to provide the first population estimate for this species. we found that alaska blackfish density in the pond was approximately 0.27individuals/m(2), equating to an estimated biomass of 15g/m(2) of pond surface area, which is similar to density estimates reported for other mudminnow species. we tested capture methods and found that under-ice minnow trapping was a poor method during early winter (september-december) but was highly effective near methane sumps and areas of high muskrat ondatra zibethicus activity in late winter (march-april). qualitatively, nearshore minnow trapping, seining, and kicknetting during the ice-free season were less effective than under-ice trapping. cursorily, pelvic fin clips were more effective for batch marking of alaska blackfish than two types of subcutaneous tags, given the high numbers of individuals we captured and the species' relatively small body size and dark skin, which hindered tag visualization. we demonstrated that alaska blackfish can occur at high densities in their typical habitat, underscoring their importance as forage fish in alaskan freshwater ecosystems that support subsistence and sport fisheries for piscivorous fishes. extending this approach across the geographic range of alaska blackfish will improve understanding of the ecological role of this species in the varying aquatic ecosystems where it occurs." -counting bears in the iranian caucasus: remarkable mismatch between scientifically-sound population estimates and perceptions,bear abundance; spatial capture-recapture; noninvasive genetic sampling; perceptions; guesstimates; evidence-based conservation,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MOQANAKI EM;JIMENEZ J;BENSCH S;LOPEZ-BAO JV,"lack of reliable information on the status of species often leads managers to exclusively rely on experiential knowledge, opinions or perceptions, usually derived from personnel associated with natural resource management agencies. yet, the accuracy of these sources of information remains largely untested. we approached this challenge, which is particularly common for wildlife monitoring programs in developing countries, using a population of asian brown bears (ursus arctos) in the iranian caucasus as case study. we conducted a non-invasive, genetic, spatial capture-recapture (scr) study to estimate bear density across a core protected area, arasbaran biosphere reserve, and compared our estimate of bear abundance with rangers' perceptions as collated through interviews. the perceived abundance of bears by local rangers was between 3 and 5 times higher than our scr estimate of 40 bears (2.5-97.5% bayesian credible intervals = 27-70; density: 4.88 bears/100 km(2)). our results suggest that basing management of the local bear population on perceptions of population status may result in overestimating the likelihood of population persistence. our findings offer a scientific baseline for an evidence -based conservation policy for brown bears in iran, and the broader caucasus ecoregion. the majority of threatened terrestrial megafauna occur in developing countries, where collecting and analyzing demographic data remain challenging. delayed conservation responses due to the lack of, or erroneous knowledge of population status of such imperiled species may have serious consequences." +counting bears in the iranian caucasus: remarkable mismatch between scientifically-sound population estimates and perceptions,bear abundance; spatial capture-recapture; noninvasive genetic sampling; perceptions; guesstimates; evidence-based conservation,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MOQANAKI EM;JIMENEZ J;BENSCH S;LOPEZ BAO JV,"lack of reliable information on the status of species often leads managers to exclusively rely on experiential knowledge, opinions or perceptions, usually derived from personnel associated with natural resource management agencies. yet, the accuracy of these sources of information remains largely untested. we approached this challenge, which is particularly common for wildlife monitoring programs in developing countries, using a population of asian brown bears (ursus arctos) in the iranian caucasus as case study. we conducted a non-invasive, genetic, spatial capture-recapture (scr) study to estimate bear density across a core protected area, arasbaran biosphere reserve, and compared our estimate of bear abundance with rangers' perceptions as collated through interviews. the perceived abundance of bears by local rangers was between 3 and 5 times higher than our scr estimate of 40 bears (2.5-97.5% bayesian credible intervals = 27-70; density: 4.88 bears/100 km(2)). our results suggest that basing management of the local bear population on perceptions of population status may result in overestimating the likelihood of population persistence. our findings offer a scientific baseline for an evidence -based conservation policy for brown bears in iran, and the broader caucasus ecoregion. the majority of threatened terrestrial megafauna occur in developing countries, where collecting and analyzing demographic data remain challenging. delayed conservation responses due to the lack of, or erroneous knowledge of population status of such imperiled species may have serious consequences." estimating abundance of an open population with an n-mixture model using auxiliary data on animal movements,abundance; cervus elaphus nelsoni; elk; hierarchical bayesian statistics; multi-state mark-recapture; n-mixture model; population size; wildlife,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,KETZ AC;JOHNSON TL;MONELLO RJ;MACK JA;GEORGE JL;KRAFT BR;WILD MA;HOOTEN MB;HOBBS NT,"accurate assessment of abundance forms a central challenge in population ecology and wildlife management. many statistical techniques have been developed to estimate population sizes because populations change over time and space and to correct for the bias resulting from animals that are present in a study area but not observed. the mobility of individuals makes it difficult to design sampling procedures that account for movement into and out of areas with fixed jurisdictional boundaries. aerial surveys are the gold standard used to obtain data of large mobile species in geographic regions with harsh terrain, but these surveys can be prohibitively expensive and dangerous. estimating abundance with ground-based census methods have practical advantages, but it can be difficult to simultaneously account for temporary emigration and observer error to avoid biased results. contemporary research in population ecology increasingly relies on telemetry observations of the states and locations of individuals to gain insight on vital rates, animal movements, and population abundance. analytical models that use observations of movements to improve estimates of abundance have not been developed. here we build upon existing multi-state mark-recapture methods using a hierarchical n-mixture model with multiple sources of data, including telemetry data on locations of individuals, to improve estimates of population sizes. we used a state-space approach to model animal movements to approximate the number of marked animals present within the study area at any observation period, thereby accounting for a frequently changing number of marked individuals. we illustrate the approach using data on a population of elk (cervus elaphus nelsoni) in northern colorado, usa. we demonstrate substantial improvement compared to existing abundance estimation methods and corroborate our results from the ground based surveys with estimates from aerial surveys during the same seasons. we develop a hierarchical bayesian n-mixture model using multiple sources of data on abundance, movement and survival to estimate the population size of a mobile species that uses remote conservation areas. the model improves accuracy of inference relative to previous methods for estimating abundance of open populations." identification of sex pheromones and sex pheromone mimics for two north american click beetle species (coleoptera: elateridae) in the genus cardiophorus esch.,"elateridae; pheromone mimic; click beetle; (3r,6e)-3,7,11-trimethyl-6,10-dodecadienoic acid methyl ester; methyl (3r,6e)-2,3-dihydrofarnesoate; fuscumol acetate",JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL ECOLOGY,SERRANO JM;COLLIGNON RM;ZOU YF;MILLAR JG,"to date, all known or suspected pheromones of click beetles (coleoptera: elateridae) have been identified solely from species native to europe and asia; reports of identifications from north american species dating from the 1970s have since proven to be incorrect. while conducting bioassays of pheromones of a longhorned beetle (coleoptera: cerambycidae), we serendipitously discovered that males of cardiophorus tenebrosus l. and cardiophorus edwardsi horn were specifically attracted to the cerambycid pheromone fuscumol acetate, (e)-6,10-dimethylundeca-5,9-dien-2-yl acetate, suggesting that this compound might also be a sex pheromone for the two cardiophorus species. further field bioassays and electrophysiological assays with the enantiomers of fuscumol acetate determined that males were specifically attracted by the (r)-enantiomer. however, subsequent analyses of extracts of volatiles from female c. tenebrosus and c. edwardsi showed that the females actually produced a different compound, which was identified as (3r,6e)-3,7,11-trimethyl-6,10-dodecadienoic acid methyl ester (methyl (3r,6e)-2,3-dihydrofarnesoate). in field trials, both the racemate and the (r)-enantiomer of the pheromone attracted similar numbers of male beetles, suggesting that the (s)-enantiomer was not interfering with responses to the insect-produced (r)-enantiomer. this report constitutes the first conclusive identification of sex pheromones for any north american click beetle species. possible reasons for the strong and specific attraction of males to fuscumol acetate, which is markedly different in structure to the actual pheromone, are discussed." markov-modulated poisson processes as a new framework for analysing capture-recapture data,capture-recapture; likelihood; markov-modulated poisson process; non-constant time interval; uncertainty,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CHOQUET R,"1. opportunistic capture-recapture data consists of observations over non-constant time intervals and so fails to satisfy the basic assumptions of traditional capture-recapture models. analysing opportunistic capture-recapture data is often done by discretizing time intervals or summarizing data, but without taking into account the continuous time process of the state and/or the capture. 2. to deal with non-constant time-intervals, continuous time closed capture-recapture models have been proposed by yip, huggins, and lin (1996), hwang and chao (2002), schofield, barker, and gelling (2017) for estimating population size. more recently, a continuous time cormack-jolly-seber model has been proposed by fouchet, santin-janin, sauvage, yoccoz, and pontier (2016) to reduce bias in survival rates, and a two-state process has been proposed by choquet, garnier, awuve, and besnard (2017) to estimate reproduction rates and survival rates of young within a season. 3. the aim of the current study is to demonstrate how an approach based on a markov-modulated poisson process (mmpp) (freed & shepp, 1982) allows, in a similar way to a multistate model, to model opportunistic data, using several states. to this end, several multistate models were rewritten as mmpp models, showing, the potential for this approach to address the ecological questions as multistate models, but using an extended data framework. in particular, it is a useful framework for dealing with data that has unordered levels of uncertainty. 4. the methods were illustrated using simulations and analysis of data on the alpine ibex (capra ibex)." @@ -608,43 +609,43 @@ vaccine-preventable child deaths in new south wales from 2005 to 2014: how much demography of a stable population of crab plovers wintering in oman,apparent survival; arabian peninsula; barr al hikman; dromas ardeola; fecundity; finite range of change; integrated population model,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,BOM RA;VAN GILS JA;OOSTERBEEK K;DEUZEMAN S;DE FOUW J;KWARTENG AY;KENTIE R,"the monotypic crab plover dromas ardeola winters around the shores of the indian ocean and breeds in colonies on islands around the arabian peninsula. the iucn lists the world population of crab plovers as stable, but long-term survey data or demographic estimates regarding the species status are lacking. here, we use survey and demographic data collected from 2011 to 2015 to study the status of the population of crab plover at their most important wintering area: the barr al hikman peninsula in the sultanate of oman. our survey data showed that the population of crab plovers initially increased and then stabilized. the overall observed finite rate of population change () was estimated at 1.004 (0.995-1.013 95% bayesian credible interval [bci]), indicating a stable population (7000-9000 birds), that is possibly at carrying capacity. based on mark-recapture data, the mean annual apparent survival probability of crab plovers was estimated to be 0.90 (0.85-0.94 95% bci). we used counts of adults and yearlings to estimate the mean annual fecundity rate at 0.06 young per pair. using these demographic values, the overall mean expected finite rate of population change () was estimated to be 0.949 (0.899-0.996 95% bci), so there is a low chance that and overlap. and would completely match if about 450 crab plovers immigrate to barr al hikman each year. regional surveys show that yearling densities are higher closer to the breeding areas, so immigrants could be birds that during their first winter stayed close to their natal area. our study support the iucn listing of crab plover as stable, but further population-wide monitoring is required. from a conservation point of view it is important to continue monitoring because crab plovers breed and winter in a region that is rapidly developing." estimating abundance without recaptures of marked pallid sturgeon in the mississippi river,mark-recapture; nil recapture; population size; rare species; spatial structure,CONSERVATION BIOLOGY,FRIEDENBERG NA;HOOVER JJ;BOYSEN K;KILLGORE KJ,"abundance estimates are essential for assessing the viability of populations and the risks posed by alternative management actions. an effort to estimate abundance via a repeated mark-recapture experiment may fail to recapture marked individuals. we devised a method for obtaining lower bounds on abundance in the absence of recaptures for both panmictic and spatially structured populations. the method assumes few enough recaptures were expected to be missed by random chance. the upper bayesian credible limit on expected recaptures allows probabilistic statements about the minimum number of individuals present in the population. we applied this method to data from a 12-year survey of pallid sturgeon (scaphirhynchus albus) in the lower and middle mississippi river (u.s.a.). none of the 241 individuals marked was recaptured in the survey. after accounting for survival and movement, our model-averaged estimate of the total abundance of pallid sturgeon >= 3 years old in the study area had a 1%, 5%, or 25% chance of being <4,600, 7,000, or 15,000, respectively. when we assumed fish were distributed in proportion to survey catch per unit effort, the farthest downstream reach in the survey hosted at least 4.5-15 fish per river kilometer (rkm), whereas the remainder of the reaches in the lower and middle mississippi river hosted at least 2.6-8.5 fish/rkm for all model variations examined. the lower mississippi river had an average density of pallid sturgeon >= 3 years old of at least 3.0-9.8 fish/rkm. the choice of bayesian prior was the largest source of uncertainty we considered but did not alter the order of magnitude of lower bounds. nil-recapture estimates of abundance are highly uncertain and require careful communication but can deliver insights from experiments that might otherwise be considered a failure." fine-scale differences in genetic and census population size ratios between two stream fishes,census population size; effective number of breeders; genetic monitoring; mark-recapture; salmonid,CONSERVATION GENETICS,BERNOS TA;YATES MC;FRASER DJ,"comparing the ratio of effective number of breeders (n (b) ) to adult population size (n) among closely related coexisting species can provide insights into the role of life history on n (b) /n ratios and inform conservation programs towards limiting the loss of evolutionary potential in natural populations. we estimated n (b) and n in two coexisting salmonid fishes (brook trout and atlantic salmon) for 3-4 consecutive years in two small, adjacent streams in newfoundland, canada, using mark-recapture (n), linkage disequilibrium (n (b(ld))), and sibship frequency approaches (n (b(sib)) ). we found that n (b) /n ratios were about 20-fold greater in atlantic salmon than in brook trout (mean 0.20, range 0.06-0.56 vs. mean 0.02, range 0.01-0.05, respectively). this difference was consistent across n (b) estimators. in addition, we found that removing migrants reduced n (b) : the strength of the effect was weak for n (b(ld)) and much stronger for n (b(sib)). our results highlight the importance of subtle ecological differences and gene flow in shaping n (b) /n. they also provide some evidence that the linkage between demographic and evolutionary processes varies between closely related taxa and suggest that a more complete understanding of the n (b) /n range across various species is an important component of conservation genetics and management." -the interacting effects of forestry and climate change on the demography of a group-living bird population,climate change; forestry; demography; elasticity analysis; multi-state mark-recapture,OECOLOGIA,LAYTON-MATTHEWS K;OZGUL A;GRIESSER M,"anthropogenic degradation of natural habitats is a global driver of wildlife population declines. local population responses to such environmental perturbations are generally well understood, but in socially structured populations, interactions between environmental and social factors may influence population responses. thus, understanding how habitat degradation affects the dynamics of these populations requires simultaneous consideration of social and environmental mechanisms underlying demographic responses. here we investigated the effect of habitat degradation through commercial forestry on spatiotemporal dynamics of a group-living bird, the siberian jay, perisoreus infaustus, in boreal forests of northern sweden. we assessed the interacting effects of forestry, climate and population density on stage-specific, seasonal life-history rates and population dynamics, using long-term, individual-based demographic data from 70 territories in natural and managed forests. stage-specific survival and reproductive rates, and consequently population growth, were lower in managed forests than in natural forests. population growth was most sensitive to breeder survival and was more sensitive to early dispersing juveniles than those delaying dispersal. forestry decreased population growth in managed forests by reducing reproductive success and breeder survival. increased snow depth improved winter survival, and warmer spring temperatures enhanced reproductive success, particularly in natural forests. population growth was stable in natural forests but it was declining in managed forests, and this difference accelerated under forecasted climate scenarios. thus, climatic change could exacerbate the rate of forestry-induced population decline through reduced snow cover in our study species, and in other species with similar life-history characteristics and habitat requirements." +the interacting effects of forestry and climate change on the demography of a group-living bird population,climate change; forestry; demography; elasticity analysis; multi-state mark-recapture,OECOLOGIA,LAYTON MATTHEWS K;OZGUL A;GRIESSER M,"anthropogenic degradation of natural habitats is a global driver of wildlife population declines. local population responses to such environmental perturbations are generally well understood, but in socially structured populations, interactions between environmental and social factors may influence population responses. thus, understanding how habitat degradation affects the dynamics of these populations requires simultaneous consideration of social and environmental mechanisms underlying demographic responses. here we investigated the effect of habitat degradation through commercial forestry on spatiotemporal dynamics of a group-living bird, the siberian jay, perisoreus infaustus, in boreal forests of northern sweden. we assessed the interacting effects of forestry, climate and population density on stage-specific, seasonal life-history rates and population dynamics, using long-term, individual-based demographic data from 70 territories in natural and managed forests. stage-specific survival and reproductive rates, and consequently population growth, were lower in managed forests than in natural forests. population growth was most sensitive to breeder survival and was more sensitive to early dispersing juveniles than those delaying dispersal. forestry decreased population growth in managed forests by reducing reproductive success and breeder survival. increased snow depth improved winter survival, and warmer spring temperatures enhanced reproductive success, particularly in natural forests. population growth was stable in natural forests but it was declining in managed forests, and this difference accelerated under forecasted climate scenarios. thus, climatic change could exacerbate the rate of forestry-induced population decline through reduced snow cover in our study species, and in other species with similar life-history characteristics and habitat requirements." when carapace governs size: variation among age classes and individuals in a free-ranging ectotherm with delayed maturity,cohorts; indeterminate growth; longevity; tortoise; vbs,OECOLOGIA,ARSOVSKI D;TOMOVIC L;GOLUBOVIC A;NIKOLIC S;STERIJOVSKI B;AJTIC R;BALLOUARD JM;BONNET X,"juvenile growth strongly impacts life-history traits during adulthood. yet, in juveniles with delayed maturity, elusiveness has hindered age-specific studies of growth, precluding any detailed research on its consequences later in life. different complex growth patterns have been extracted from captive animals, suggesting species-specific trajectories occur in free-ranging animals. how pronounced are growth and body size variation (vbs) throughout a long-lived ectotherm's life? is vbs constant among age classes prior to maturity, or do compensatory and/or cumulative effects driven by long-lived-animal-specific strategies create distinct vbs cohorts, to ensure survival? to tackle the issue, we modelled growth data from continuous and dense annual capture-mark-recapture sampling (5096 body measurements of 1134 free-ranging individuals) of both immature and mature, long-lived hermann's tortoises. we analysed population, cohort, and individual-based growth and vbs. growth ring inferred ages were cross validated with annual recaptures in 289 juveniles. analyses unravelled an s-shaped growth curve and identified three age cohorts across which vbs increases in a step-wise manner. neonate-specific constraints and compensatory effects seem to control vbs until 4 years of age, possibly promoting survival with size. subsequently, a hardened carapace takes over and cumulative effects fuelled by faster growth progressively increase vbs. whereas ungulates are in a hurry to attain adult size before growth ceases (minimizing vbs), indeterminately growing tortoises can shape individual asymptotic sizes even after growth decelerates. tortoise size is clearly shaped by age-specific ecological constraints; interestingly, it is likely the carapace that conducts the strategy, rather than maturity per se." -no flood effect on recruitment in a louisiana black bear population,capture-mark-recapture; endangered species; pradel model; robust design; temporal symmetry; ursus americanus luteolus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CLARK JD;O'CONNELL-GOODE KC;LOWE CL;MURPHY SM;MAEHR SC;DAVIDSON M;LAUFENBERG JS,"a flood event in 2011 had minor impacts on apparent survival and movement probabilities of a small, isolated population of louisiana black bears (ursus americanus luteolus) in the upper atchafalaya river basin, louisiana, usa. however, the potential effects of the flood on recruitment of juveniles into the population, then listed as threatened under the united states endangered species act, were not evaluated. we used hair trapping data collected from 2007 to 2015 and pradel temporal symmetry models in a robust-design framework to investigate changes in per capita recruitment that could have resulted from the flood. we detected 91 bears (37 m:54 f) within the flooded area during our study period, ranging from 21 to 44 individuals/year. models that tested for reduced recruitment resulting from the flood were not supported more than models with constant recruitment, and the population growth rate did not decline. although we documented marginally lower recruitment following the 2011 flood, lag effects and detectability biases complicated our analysis. we suggest that wildlife managers continue monitoring recruitment and survival in this recently delisted black bear population given the potential for heightened flood frequency and severity in the future. (c) 2017 the wildlife society. using capture-mark-recapture hair trapping data from 2007 to 2015 and pradel temporal symmetry models, we investigated potential changes in louisiana black bear (ursus americanus luteolus) recruitment because of a flooding event that occurred in 2011 in the upper atchafalaya river basin, louisiana, usa. hypotheses of reduced recruitment were not supported and population growth probabilities did not decline but we suggest that wildlife managers continue monitoring this recently delisted black bear population given the potential for heightened flood frequency and severity in the future." +no flood effect on recruitment in a louisiana black bear population,capture-mark-recapture; endangered species; pradel model; robust design; temporal symmetry; ursus americanus luteolus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CLARK JD;O CONNELL GOODE KC;LOWE CL;MURPHY SM;MAEHR SC;DAVIDSON M;LAUFENBERG JS,"a flood event in 2011 had minor impacts on apparent survival and movement probabilities of a small, isolated population of louisiana black bears (ursus americanus luteolus) in the upper atchafalaya river basin, louisiana, usa. however, the potential effects of the flood on recruitment of juveniles into the population, then listed as threatened under the united states endangered species act, were not evaluated. we used hair trapping data collected from 2007 to 2015 and pradel temporal symmetry models in a robust-design framework to investigate changes in per capita recruitment that could have resulted from the flood. we detected 91 bears (37 m:54 f) within the flooded area during our study period, ranging from 21 to 44 individuals/year. models that tested for reduced recruitment resulting from the flood were not supported more than models with constant recruitment, and the population growth rate did not decline. although we documented marginally lower recruitment following the 2011 flood, lag effects and detectability biases complicated our analysis. we suggest that wildlife managers continue monitoring recruitment and survival in this recently delisted black bear population given the potential for heightened flood frequency and severity in the future. (c) 2017 the wildlife society. using capture-mark-recapture hair trapping data from 2007 to 2015 and pradel temporal symmetry models, we investigated potential changes in louisiana black bear (ursus americanus luteolus) recruitment because of a flooding event that occurred in 2011 in the upper atchafalaya river basin, louisiana, usa. hypotheses of reduced recruitment were not supported and population growth probabilities did not decline but we suggest that wildlife managers continue monitoring this recently delisted black bear population given the potential for heightened flood frequency and severity in the future." "evaluation of ageing accuracy with complementary non-lethal methods for slow-growing, northern populations of shoal bass",age accuracy; age validation; mark and recapture; micropterus cataractae; scales; von bertalanffy,FISHERIES MANAGEMENT AND ECOLOGY,LONG JM;HOLLEY CT;TAYLOR AT,"in the upper chattahoochee river basin, where some populations of shoal bass, micropterus cataractae williams & burgess, are imperilled, age and growth data are lacking. age and growth of shoal bass in this basin were assessed with non-lethal means using scales and mark-recapture. mark-recapture data allowed for estimation of accuracy and determination of effects of any scale-based inaccuracies on growth models. scale-based age estimates were accurate for 57% of the samples, and errors of 1 to 3years included equal numbers of over- and underestimates of age. von bertalanffy growth models based on scale ages were similar to those based on mark-recapture ages for ages 3-8 but noticeably divergent for younger and older fish. scales provided estimates of longevity up to 12years of age, and growth models produced from mark-recapture suggest scale ages underestimated age, especially for older fish. these populations of shoal bass live longer and grow slower than other populations, suggesting regional management strategies may be needed." -state uncertainty models and mark-resight models for understanding non-breeding site use by piping plovers,charadrius melodus; endangered species; migration; non-breeding; population estimation; shorebirds; survival,IBIS,COHEN JB;MADDOCK SB;BIMBI MK;GOLDER WW;LEDEE OE;CUTHBERT FJ;CATLIN DH;FRASER JD;GRATTO-TREVOR CL,"conservation of beach-nesting medium-distance migrants has focused on breeding areas because protection of nests is more tractable than protection of non-breeding habitat. as breeding ground management has encountered diminishing returns, interest in understanding threats in non-breeding areas has increased. however, robust estimates of non-breeding demographic rates and abundance are generally lacking, hindering the study of limiting factors. estimating such rates is made more difficult by complex population dynamics at non-breeding sites. in south carolina, endangered piping plovers charadrius melodus start arriving in july and some depart prior to december (the autumn-only population) while others remain through at least march (the wintering population). state uncertainty capture-mark-recapture models provide a means for estimating vital rates for such co-occurring populations. we estimated the proportion of the population entering the study area per survey (entry probability) and proportion remaining per survey (persistence rate) for both populations during autumn, and abundance of the wintering population, at four sites in south carolina in 2006/7 and 2007/8, taking advantage of birds previously colour-ringed on the breeding grounds. we made fairly precise estimates of entry and persistence rates with small sample sizes. cumulative entry probability was 50% by the end of july and reached 95% for both populations by october. estimated stopover duration for birds in the autumn-only population was 35 days in year 1 and 42 days in year 2. we estimated a wintering super-population size of 71 +/- 16 se birds in the first year and 75 +/- 16 in the second. if ringing programmes on the breeding grounds continue, standardized resighting surveys in the non-breeding period and mark-recapture models can provide robust estimates of entry and persistence rates and abundance. habitat protection intended to benefit non-breeding piping plovers at our coastal sites should be in effect by late summer, as many birds are resident from july to the end of winter." +state uncertainty models and mark-resight models for understanding non-breeding site use by piping plovers,charadrius melodus; endangered species; migration; non-breeding; population estimation; shorebirds; survival,IBIS,COHEN JB;MADDOCK SB;BIMBI MK;GOLDER WW;LEDEE OE;CUTHBERT FJ;CATLIN DH;FRASER JD;GRATTO TREVOR CL,"conservation of beach-nesting medium-distance migrants has focused on breeding areas because protection of nests is more tractable than protection of non-breeding habitat. as breeding ground management has encountered diminishing returns, interest in understanding threats in non-breeding areas has increased. however, robust estimates of non-breeding demographic rates and abundance are generally lacking, hindering the study of limiting factors. estimating such rates is made more difficult by complex population dynamics at non-breeding sites. in south carolina, endangered piping plovers charadrius melodus start arriving in july and some depart prior to december (the autumn-only population) while others remain through at least march (the wintering population). state uncertainty capture-mark-recapture models provide a means for estimating vital rates for such co-occurring populations. we estimated the proportion of the population entering the study area per survey (entry probability) and proportion remaining per survey (persistence rate) for both populations during autumn, and abundance of the wintering population, at four sites in south carolina in 2006/7 and 2007/8, taking advantage of birds previously colour-ringed on the breeding grounds. we made fairly precise estimates of entry and persistence rates with small sample sizes. cumulative entry probability was 50% by the end of july and reached 95% for both populations by october. estimated stopover duration for birds in the autumn-only population was 35 days in year 1 and 42 days in year 2. we estimated a wintering super-population size of 71 +/- 16 se birds in the first year and 75 +/- 16 in the second. if ringing programmes on the breeding grounds continue, standardized resighting surveys in the non-breeding period and mark-recapture models can provide robust estimates of entry and persistence rates and abundance. habitat protection intended to benefit non-breeding piping plovers at our coastal sites should be in effect by late summer, as many birds are resident from july to the end of winter." apparent survival of an arctic-breeding migratory bird over 44years of fluctuating population size,animal demographic rates; bewick's swan cygnus columbianus bewickii; global environmental change; herbivorous waterbirds; life history; mark recapture data,IBIS,WOOD KA;NUIJTEN RJM;NEWTH JL;HAITJEMA T;VANGELUWE D;IOANNIDIS P;HARRISON AL;MACKENZIE C;HILTON GM;NOLET BA;REES EC,"following increases in numbers during the second half of the 20th century, several arctic-breeding migrant bird species are now undergoing sustained population declines. these include the northwest european population of bewick's swan cygnus columbianus bewickii, which declined from c. 29000 birds on the wintering grounds in 1995 to 18000 in 2010. it is unclear whether this decrease reflects reduced survival, emigration to a different area, or a combination of both. furthermore, the environmental drivers of any demographic changes are also unknown. we therefore used an information-theoretic approach in rmark to analyse a dataset of 3929 individually marked and resighted bewick's swans to assess temporal trends and drivers of survival between the winters of 1970/71 and 2014/2015, while accounting for effects of age, sex and different marker types. the temporal trend in apparent survival rates over our study period was best explained by different survival rates for each decade, with geometric mean survival rates highest in the 1980s (leg-ring marked birds=0.853, 95% confidence interval (ci) 0.830-0.873) and lowest in the 2010s (leg-ring=0.773, 95% ci 0.738-0.805; neck-collar=0.725, 95% ci 0.681-0.764). mean (+/- 95% ci) resighting probabilities over the study period were higher for birds marked with neck-collars (0.91 +/- 0.01) than for those marked with leg-rings (0.70 +/- 0.02). weather conditions in different areas across the flyway, food resources on the winter grounds, density-dependence and the growth of numbers at a relatively new wintering site (the evros delta in greece) all performed poorly as explanatory variables of apparent survival. none of our 18 covariates accounted for more than 7.2% of the deviance associated with our survival models, with a mean of only 2.2% of deviance explained. our results provide long-term demographic information needed to help conservationists understand the population dynamics of bewick's swans in northwest europe." using spatial mark-recapture for conservation monitoring of grizzly bear populations in alberta,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,BOULANGER J;NIELSEN SE;STENHOUSE GB,"one of the challenges in conservation is determining patterns and responses in population density and distribution as it relates to habitat and changes in anthropogenic activities. we applied spatially explicit capture recapture (secr) methods, combined with density surface modelling from five grizzly bear (ursus arctos) management areas (bmas) in alberta, canada, to assess secr methods and to explore factors influencing bear distribution. here we used models of grizzly bear habitat and mortality risk to test local density associations using density surface modelling. results demonstrated bma-specific factors influenced density, as well as the effects of habitat and topography on detections and movements of bears. estimates from secr were similar to those from closed population models and telemetry data, but with similar or higher levels of precision. habitat was most associated with areas of higher bear density in the north, whereas mortality risk was most associated (negatively) with density of bears in the south. comparisons of the distribution of mortality risk and habitat revealed differences by bma that in turn influenced local abundance of bears. combining secr methods with density surface modelling increases the resolution of mark-recapture methods by directly inferring the effect of spatial factors on regulating local densities of animals." -"first population assessment of the asian water dragon (physignathus cocincinus cuvier, 1829) in thua thien hue province, vietnam",population size; capture-recapture method; trade; conservation; risk assessment,"NATURE CONSERVATION-BULGARIA",NGUYEN TQ;NGO HN;PHAM CT;VAN HN;VAN SCHINGEN M;ZIEGLER T,"the asian water dragon, physignathus cocincinus cuvier, 1829, was originally described from southern vietnam. wild populations of this species are strongly affected by harvesting, particularly in central vietnam, while potential negative impacts are not yet foreseeable. this study provides the first population size estimation using a capture-recapture approach and an evaluation of threats to and trade levels in p. cocincinus in thua thien hue province, central vietnam. field surveys were conducted at 14 sites of known occurrences of the species in thua thien hue during april and june of 2016 and 2017. the estimated population size of the species amongst these sites ranged from 232 to 250 individuals. the mean abundance varied from 1.98-2.64 individuals/100 m along inhabited streams. this study revealed harvest activities for local food consumption and to supply the pet trade. accordingly, imports of several thousand living individuals per year from vietnam into the eu were documented. it was further demonstrated that the level of negative impacts on different sub-populations is in accordance with respective abundances and the incidence of adults. this finding indicates that rising harvest levels in concert with decreasing habitat quality, might seriously affect the wild population of p. cocincinus in the future. thus, the authors herein emphasise the necessity for increased conservation measures and for monitoring of the species as well as its natural habitat in order to warrant a sustainable use of the species in the future." -the enemy of my enemy is my friend: native pine marten recovery reverses the decline of the red squirrel by suppressing grey squirrel populations,occupancy modelling; spatial capturer-capture; apparent competition; predator-mediated competition; pest-regulating ecosystem service; species interactions,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,SHEEHY E;SUTHERLAND C;O'REILLY C;LAMBIN X,"shared enemies may instigate or modify competitive interactions between species. the dis-equilibrium caused by non-native species introductions has revealed that the outcome of such indirect interactions can often be dramatic. however, studies of enemy-mediated competition mostly consider the impact of a single enemy, despite species being embedded in complex networks of interactions. here, we demonstrate that native red and invasive grey squirrels in britain, two terrestrial species linked by resource and disease-mediated apparent competition, are also now linked by a second enemy-mediated relationship involving a shared native predator recovering from historical persecution, the european pine marten. through combining spatial capture-recapture techniques to estimate pine marten density, and squirrel site-occupancy data, we find that the impact of exposure to predation is highly asymmetrical, with non-native grey squirrel occupancy strongly negatively affected by exposure to pine martens. by contrast, exposure to pine marten predation has an indirect positive effect on red squirrel populations. pine marten predation thus reverses the well-documented outcome of resource and apparent competition between red and grey squirrels." -"agreement between hospital and primary care on diagnostic labeling for copd and heart failure in toronto, canada: a cross-sectional observational study",NA,NPJ PRIMARY CARE RESPIRATORY MEDICINE,GREIVER M;SULLIVAN F;KALIA S;ALIARZADEH B;SHARMA D;BERNARD S;MEANEY C;MOINEDDIN R;EISEN D;RAHMAN N;D'URZO T,"patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (copd) or heart failure (hf) are frequently cared for in hospital and in primary care settings. we studied labeling agreement for copd and hf for patients seen in both settings in toronto, canada. this was a retrospective observational study using linked hospital-primary care electronic data from 70 family physicians. patients were 20 years of age or more and had at least one visit in both settings between 1 january 2012 and 31 december 2014. we recorded labeling concordance and associations with clinical factors. we used capture-recapture models to estimate the size of the populations. copd concordance was 34%; the odds ratios (ors) of concordance increased with aging (or 1.84 for age 75+ vs. <65, 95% ci 0.92-3.69) and more inpatient admissions (or 2.89 for 3+ visits vs. 0 visits, 95% ci 1.59-5.26). hf concordance was 33%; the ors of concordance decreased with aging (or 0.39 for 75+ vs. <65, 95% ci 0.18-0.86) and increased with more admissions (or = 2.39; 95% ci 1.33-4.30 for 3+ visits vs. 0 visits). based on capture-recapture models, 21-24% additional patients with copd and 18-20% additional patients with hf did not have a label in either setting. the primary care prevalence was estimated as 748 copd patients and 834 hf patients per 100,000 enrolled adult patients. agreement levels for copd and hf were low and labeling was incomplete. further research is needed to improve labeling for these conditions." +"first population assessment of the asian water dragon (physignathus cocincinus cuvier, 1829) in thua thien hue province, vietnam",population size; capture-recapture method; trade; conservation; risk assessment,NATURE CONSERVATION-BULGARIA,NGUYEN TQ;NGO HN;PHAM CT;VAN HN;VAN SCHINGEN M;ZIEGLER T,"the asian water dragon, physignathus cocincinus cuvier, 1829, was originally described from southern vietnam. wild populations of this species are strongly affected by harvesting, particularly in central vietnam, while potential negative impacts are not yet foreseeable. this study provides the first population size estimation using a capture-recapture approach and an evaluation of threats to and trade levels in p. cocincinus in thua thien hue province, central vietnam. field surveys were conducted at 14 sites of known occurrences of the species in thua thien hue during april and june of 2016 and 2017. the estimated population size of the species amongst these sites ranged from 232 to 250 individuals. the mean abundance varied from 1.98-2.64 individuals/100 m along inhabited streams. this study revealed harvest activities for local food consumption and to supply the pet trade. accordingly, imports of several thousand living individuals per year from vietnam into the eu were documented. it was further demonstrated that the level of negative impacts on different sub-populations is in accordance with respective abundances and the incidence of adults. this finding indicates that rising harvest levels in concert with decreasing habitat quality, might seriously affect the wild population of p. cocincinus in the future. thus, the authors herein emphasise the necessity for increased conservation measures and for monitoring of the species as well as its natural habitat in order to warrant a sustainable use of the species in the future." +the enemy of my enemy is my friend: native pine marten recovery reverses the decline of the red squirrel by suppressing grey squirrel populations,occupancy modelling; spatial capturer-capture; apparent competition; predator-mediated competition; pest-regulating ecosystem service; species interactions,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,SHEEHY E;SUTHERLAND C;O REILLY C;LAMBIN X,"shared enemies may instigate or modify competitive interactions between species. the dis-equilibrium caused by non-native species introductions has revealed that the outcome of such indirect interactions can often be dramatic. however, studies of enemy-mediated competition mostly consider the impact of a single enemy, despite species being embedded in complex networks of interactions. here, we demonstrate that native red and invasive grey squirrels in britain, two terrestrial species linked by resource and disease-mediated apparent competition, are also now linked by a second enemy-mediated relationship involving a shared native predator recovering from historical persecution, the european pine marten. through combining spatial capture-recapture techniques to estimate pine marten density, and squirrel site-occupancy data, we find that the impact of exposure to predation is highly asymmetrical, with non-native grey squirrel occupancy strongly negatively affected by exposure to pine martens. by contrast, exposure to pine marten predation has an indirect positive effect on red squirrel populations. pine marten predation thus reverses the well-documented outcome of resource and apparent competition between red and grey squirrels." +"agreement between hospital and primary care on diagnostic labeling for copd and heart failure in toronto, canada: a cross-sectional observational study",NA,NPJ PRIMARY CARE RESPIRATORY MEDICINE,GREIVER M;SULLIVAN F;KALIA S;ALIARZADEH B;SHARMA D;BERNARD S;MEANEY C;MOINEDDIN R;EISEN D;RAHMAN N;D URZO T,"patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (copd) or heart failure (hf) are frequently cared for in hospital and in primary care settings. we studied labeling agreement for copd and hf for patients seen in both settings in toronto, canada. this was a retrospective observational study using linked hospital-primary care electronic data from 70 family physicians. patients were 20 years of age or more and had at least one visit in both settings between 1 january 2012 and 31 december 2014. we recorded labeling concordance and associations with clinical factors. we used capture-recapture models to estimate the size of the populations. copd concordance was 34%; the odds ratios (ors) of concordance increased with aging (or 1.84 for age 75+ vs. <65, 95% ci 0.92-3.69) and more inpatient admissions (or 2.89 for 3+ visits vs. 0 visits, 95% ci 1.59-5.26). hf concordance was 33%; the ors of concordance decreased with aging (or 0.39 for 75+ vs. <65, 95% ci 0.18-0.86) and increased with more admissions (or = 2.39; 95% ci 1.33-4.30 for 3+ visits vs. 0 visits). based on capture-recapture models, 21-24% additional patients with copd and 18-20% additional patients with hf did not have a label in either setting. the primary care prevalence was estimated as 748 copd patients and 834 hf patients per 100,000 enrolled adult patients. agreement levels for copd and hf were low and labeling was incomplete. further research is needed to improve labeling for these conditions." spatial capture-recapture with partial identity: an application to camera traps,spatial capture-recapture; partial identity; camera trapping; multiple marks,ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,AUGUSTINE BC;ROYLE JA;KELLY MJ;SATTER CB;ALONSO RS;BOYDSTON EE;CROOKS KR,"camera trapping surveys frequently capture individuals whose identity is only known from a single flank. the most widely used methods for incorporating these partial identity individuals into density analyses discard some of the partial identity capture histories, reducing precision, and, while not previously recognized, introducing bias. here, we present the spatial partial identity model (spim), which uses the spatial location where partial identity samples are captured to probabilistically resolve their complete identities, allowing all partial identity samples to be used in the analysis. we show that the spim outperforms other analytical alternatives. we then apply the spim to an ocelot data set collected on a trapping array with double-camera stations and a bobcat data set collected on a trapping array with single-camera stations. the spim improves inference in both cases and, in the ocelot example, individual sex is determined from photographs used to further resolve partial identities-one of which is resolved to near certainty. the spim opens the door for the investigation of trapping designs that deviate from the standard two camera design, the combination of other data types between which identities cannot be deterministically linked, and can be extended to the problem of partial genotypes." on the reliability of n-mixture models for count data,ancillary statistic; capture recapture; log linear model; n-mixture models; partial likelihood,BIOMETRICS,BARKER RJ;SCHOFIELD MR;LINK WA;SAUER JR,"n-mixture models describe count data replicated in time and across sites in terms of abundance n and detectability p. they are popular because they allow inference about n while controlling for factors that influence p without the need for marking animals. using a capture-recapture perspective, we show that the loss of information that results from not marking animals is critical, making reliable statistical modeling of n and p problematic using just count data. one cannot reliably fit a model in which the detection probabilities are distinct among repeat visits as this model is overspecified. this makes uncontrolled variation in p problematic. by counter example, we show that even if p is constant after adjusting for covariate effects (the constant p assumption) scientifically plausible alternative models in which n (or its expectation) is non-identifiable or does not even exist as a parameter, lead to data that are practically indistinguishable from data generated under an n-mixture model. this is particularly the case for sparse data as is commonly seen in applications. we conclude that under the constant p assumption reliable inference is only possible for relative abundance in the absence of questionable and/or untestable assumptions or with better quality data than seen in typical applications. relative abundance models for counts can be readily fitted using poisson regression in standard software such as r and are sufficiently flexible to allow controlling for p through the use covariates while simultaneously modeling variation in relative abundance. if users require estimates of absolute abundance, they should collect auxiliary data that help with estimation of p." "survival rates of a reintroduced population of the crested ibis nipponia nippon in ningshan county (shaanxi, china)",NA,BIRD CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL,LI YF;YE XP;WANG M;LI X;DONG R;HUO ZP;YU XP,"a reintroduction project for the endangered crested ibis nipponia nippon was conducted in ningshan county (shaanxi province) on may 31, 2007. post-release monitoring of the survival of the reintroduced population was carried out extensively from 2008 to 2015. data collected over eight years after release were used to estimate the annual survival rate for different cohorts using a cormack-jolly-seber model with capture-recapture data. the mean annual survival rates for all individuals were estimated to be 0.738 (95% ci: 0.547-0.801) and 0.752 (95% ci: 0.478-0.887) for released birds. for different age classes in the recipient population, the survival rates were estimated to be 0.384 (95% ci: 0.277-0.504), 0.853 (95% ci: 0.406-0.978), and 0.812 (95% ci: 0.389-0.950) for yearlings, juveniles and adults, respectively. the higher mortality for yearlings has greatly decreased the survival rate and our focal population was indeed sensitive to changes in yearling survival. therefore, effective protection of yearlings was crucial to population persistence, as well as to juveniles and adults. the large proportion of mature individuals in our focal population indicated a gradually growing population. there was a slight bias towards males in the adult sex ratio with the increase of wild-born offspring, but it was not statistically significant. therefore, we conclude that the primary goal of establishing a self-sustaining population of the crested ibis in part of their historical range has been achieved. finally, we discuss factors affecting the survival of the reintroduced population and we propose some changes for future management of endangered species." using citizen science to estimate the coastal rainbow trout population of grass valley creek reservoir,citizen science; cpue; grass valley creek reservoir; mark recapture; onchorhynchus mykiss irideus; rainbow trout; schnabel population estimate,CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME,HINEY DC;KACZYNSKI KM;BANET AI,"native trout and other salmonid populations worldwide are in decline due to overfishing, drought, and altered flow regimes. the successful recovery of these species requires both population monitoring and stakeholder involvement. this study engaged citizen scientists in a continuous census mark and recapture survey to estimate the population of coastal rainbow trout (oncorhynchus mykiss irideus) in grass valley creek reservoir. fish were caught using hook-and-line sampling, marked via adipose fin removal, measured for fork length, and assessed for physical abnormalities. population size was estimated as 1,924 fish (95% confidence interval: 1,443-2,780), mean fish size was 283.9 mm (sd=57.1 mm) and 95% of the sampled population had no physical abnormalities. these methods can be broadly applied to lake habitats throughout california because they are straightforward, reproducible, and easily implemented by citizen scientists who are experienced anglers." -extraction of dna from captive-sourced feces and molted feathers provides a novel method for conservation management of new zealand kiwi (apteryx spp.),apteryx spp; conservation; feces; low-template dna; microsatellites; noninvasive,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,RAMON-LACA A;WHITE DJ;WEIR JT;ROBERTSON HA,"although some taxa are increasing in number due to active management and predator control, the overall number of kiwi (apteryx spp.) is declining. kiwi are cryptic and rare, meaning current monitoring tools, such as call counts, radio telemetry, and surveys using detection dogs are labor-intensive, yield small datasets, and require substantial resources or provide inaccurate estimates of population sizes. a noninvasive genetic approach could help the conservation effort. we optimized a panel of 23 genetic markers (22 autosomal microsatellite loci and an allosomal marker) to discriminate between all species of kiwi and major lineages within species, while simultaneously determining sex. markers successfully amplified from both fecal and shed feather dna samples collected in captivity. we found that dna extraction was more efficient from shed feathers, but dna quality was greater with feces, although this was sampling dependent. our microsatellite panel was able to distinguish between contemporary kiwi populations and lineages and provided pi values in the range of 4.3x10(-5) to 2.0x10(-19), which in some cases were sufficient for individualization and mark-recapture studies. as such, we have tested a wide-reaching, noninvasive molecular approach that will improve conservation management by providing better parameter estimates associated with population ecology and demographics such as abundance, growth rates, and genetic diversity." -differential adult survival at close seabird colonies: the importance of spatial foraging segregation and bycatch risk during the breeding season,adult survival; calonectris diomedea; capture-recapture; climatic index; demography; fisheries bycatch; mediterranean; remote tracking; risk map,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,GENOVART M;BECARES J;IGUAL JM;MARTINEZ-ABRAIN A;ESCANDELL R;SANCHEZ A;RODRIGUEZ B;ARCOS JM;ORO D,"marine megafauna, including seabirds, are critically affected by fisheries bycatch. however, bycatch risk may differ on temporal and spatial scales due to the uneven distribution and effort of fleets operating different fishing gear, and to focal species distribution and foraging behavior. scopoli's shearwater calonectris diomedea is a long-lived seabird that experiences high bycatch rates in longline fisheries and strong population-level impacts due to this type of anthropogenic mortality. analyzing a long-term dataset on individual monitoring, we compared adult survival (by means of multi-event capture-recapture models) among three close predator-free mediterranean colonies of the species. unexpectedly for a long-lived organism, adult survival varied among colonies. we explored potential causes of this differential survival by (1) measuring egg volume as a proxy of food availability and parental condition; (2) building a specific longline bycatch risk map for the species; and (3) assessing the distribution patterns of breeding birds from the three study colonies via gps tracking. egg volume was very similar between colonies over time, suggesting that environmental variability related to habitat foraging suitability was not the main cause of differential survival. on the other hand, differences in foraging movements among individuals from the three colonies expose them to differential mortality risk, which likely influenced the observed differences in adult survival. the overlap of information obtained by the generation of specific bycatch risk maps, the quantification of population demographic parameters, and the foraging spatial analysis should inform managers about differential sensitivity to the anthropogenic impact at mesoscale level and guide decisions depending on the spatial configuration of local populations. the approach would apply and should be considered in any species where foraging distribution is colony-specific and mortality risk varies spatially." +extraction of dna from captive-sourced feces and molted feathers provides a novel method for conservation management of new zealand kiwi (apteryx spp.),apteryx spp; conservation; feces; low-template dna; microsatellites; noninvasive,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,RAMON LACA A;WHITE DJ;WEIR JT;ROBERTSON HA,"although some taxa are increasing in number due to active management and predator control, the overall number of kiwi (apteryx spp.) is declining. kiwi are cryptic and rare, meaning current monitoring tools, such as call counts, radio telemetry, and surveys using detection dogs are labor-intensive, yield small datasets, and require substantial resources or provide inaccurate estimates of population sizes. a noninvasive genetic approach could help the conservation effort. we optimized a panel of 23 genetic markers (22 autosomal microsatellite loci and an allosomal marker) to discriminate between all species of kiwi and major lineages within species, while simultaneously determining sex. markers successfully amplified from both fecal and shed feather dna samples collected in captivity. we found that dna extraction was more efficient from shed feathers, but dna quality was greater with feces, although this was sampling dependent. our microsatellite panel was able to distinguish between contemporary kiwi populations and lineages and provided pi values in the range of 4.3x10(-5) to 2.0x10(-19), which in some cases were sufficient for individualization and mark-recapture studies. as such, we have tested a wide-reaching, noninvasive molecular approach that will improve conservation management by providing better parameter estimates associated with population ecology and demographics such as abundance, growth rates, and genetic diversity." +differential adult survival at close seabird colonies: the importance of spatial foraging segregation and bycatch risk during the breeding season,adult survival; calonectris diomedea; capture-recapture; climatic index; demography; fisheries bycatch; mediterranean; remote tracking; risk map,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,GENOVART M;BECARES J;IGUAL JM;MARTINEZ ABRAIN A;ESCANDELL R;SANCHEZ A;RODRIGUEZ B;ARCOS JM;ORO D,"marine megafauna, including seabirds, are critically affected by fisheries bycatch. however, bycatch risk may differ on temporal and spatial scales due to the uneven distribution and effort of fleets operating different fishing gear, and to focal species distribution and foraging behavior. scopoli's shearwater calonectris diomedea is a long-lived seabird that experiences high bycatch rates in longline fisheries and strong population-level impacts due to this type of anthropogenic mortality. analyzing a long-term dataset on individual monitoring, we compared adult survival (by means of multi-event capture-recapture models) among three close predator-free mediterranean colonies of the species. unexpectedly for a long-lived organism, adult survival varied among colonies. we explored potential causes of this differential survival by (1) measuring egg volume as a proxy of food availability and parental condition; (2) building a specific longline bycatch risk map for the species; and (3) assessing the distribution patterns of breeding birds from the three study colonies via gps tracking. egg volume was very similar between colonies over time, suggesting that environmental variability related to habitat foraging suitability was not the main cause of differential survival. on the other hand, differences in foraging movements among individuals from the three colonies expose them to differential mortality risk, which likely influenced the observed differences in adult survival. the overlap of information obtained by the generation of specific bycatch risk maps, the quantification of population demographic parameters, and the foraging spatial analysis should inform managers about differential sensitivity to the anthropogenic impact at mesoscale level and guide decisions depending on the spatial configuration of local populations. the approach would apply and should be considered in any species where foraging distribution is colony-specific and mortality risk varies spatially." radio-tracking suggests high dispersal ability of the great capricorn beetle (cerambyx cerdo),population ecology; species protection; coleoptera; flight; oak woodlands,JOURNAL OF INSECT BEHAVIOR,DRAG L;CIZEK L,"dispersal ability is among the key factors affecting the survival of species in today's fragmented landscapes. one of the most straightforward methods to provide direct measures of animal dispersal is telemetry. despite its merits, this method has rarely been used for saproxylic beetles. in this study, we examined dispersal ability of the great capricorn beetle cerambyx cerdo (coleoptera: cerambycidae), an endangered veteran oak specialist. using a radio-tracking approach, we tracked 26 individuals (15 males and 11 females) equipped with transmitters for 4 to 17 days (median 14). we observed no disturbance of movements or flight problems due to the transmitter. the daily probability of movement by an individual was 64% and the longest displacement in one day was 1498 m for males and 1080 m for females. for 15% of all individuals, the tracking distance covered was > 2200 m. our results indicate that c. cerdo individuals often move among trees over an area of several kilometres. such findings contrast with previous results based on a mark-recapture study. the relatively high mobility of the species should be reflected in strategies aiming at its conservation." -individual movements between local coastal populations of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in the northern and eastern black sea,bottlenose dolphin; population structure; mark-recapture study; connectivity; fragmented range,JOURNAL OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM,GLADILINA E;SHPAK O;SERBIN V;KRYUKOVA A;GLAZOV D;GOL'DIN P,"the black sea subspecies of the bottlenose dolphin (tursiops truncatus ponticus) is threatened and has a small range. its population structure is little known: it possibly includes a few local coastal populations. we assessed connectivity between coastal groupings in six localities along 800 km of the coastline based on records of photo-identified animals between 2004 and 2014. abundance of these groupings, as estimated, ranged between 76 and 174 individually distinctive dolphins. in total, there were 350 identified individuals, of which 91 (26%) were resighted within the same areas. however, only three cases of individual movements between local coastal populations were recorded at the distances between 135 and 325 km. therefore, despite the absence of physical barriers, the coastal black sea population is fragmented into numerous resident or locally migrating groupings with site fidelity. these local populations are loosely connected to each other with rare movements between them. this fragmentation can be a factor contributing to short-term fluctuations in abundance of black sea bottlenose dolphins and their decline in some localities, despite the potentially high population growth rate." +individual movements between local coastal populations of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in the northern and eastern black sea,bottlenose dolphin; population structure; mark-recapture study; connectivity; fragmented range,JOURNAL OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM,GLADILINA E;SHPAK O;SERBIN V;KRYUKOVA A;GLAZOV D;GOL DIN P,"the black sea subspecies of the bottlenose dolphin (tursiops truncatus ponticus) is threatened and has a small range. its population structure is little known: it possibly includes a few local coastal populations. we assessed connectivity between coastal groupings in six localities along 800 km of the coastline based on records of photo-identified animals between 2004 and 2014. abundance of these groupings, as estimated, ranged between 76 and 174 individually distinctive dolphins. in total, there were 350 identified individuals, of which 91 (26%) were resighted within the same areas. however, only three cases of individual movements between local coastal populations were recorded at the distances between 135 and 325 km. therefore, despite the absence of physical barriers, the coastal black sea population is fragmented into numerous resident or locally migrating groupings with site fidelity. these local populations are loosely connected to each other with rare movements between them. this fragmentation can be a factor contributing to short-term fluctuations in abundance of black sea bottlenose dolphins and their decline in some localities, despite the potentially high population growth rate." how many dolphins live near a coastal development?,abundance; boat survey; mark-recapture; open population modeling; tropical coastal dolphins,REGIONAL STUDIES IN MARINE SCIENCE,RAUDINO HC;DOUGLAS CR;WAPLES KA,"coastal developments continue to increase in western australia (wa) despite limited information on environmental consequences for coastal dolphins. as an example, a gas processing facility was constructed near the town of onslow in the pilbara region in 2012-2015. boat-based surveys to estimate abundance, density and movement patterns of two species of coastal dolphins in waters around the onslow development site and thevenard island began in 2015. employing popan mark-recapture models, the indo-pacific bottlenose dolphin (tursiops aduncus) total abundance estimate corrected for the unmarked proportion of the population was 79 se +/- 24 (ci 43-148) for onslow. there were insufficient resightings of australian humpback dolphins (sousa sahulensis) to model abundance accurately. the densities were similar between both sites for each species; 0.59 bottlenose dolphins per km(2) in coastal onslow waters versus 0.83 bottlenose dolphins per km(2) around thevenard island and 0.36 humpback dolphins per km(2) at onslow and 0.38 humpback dolphins per km(2) around thevenard island. the density of humpback dolphins, although low, is comparable to estimates across their range. movements of the two species between the island and coastal waters of the mainland was not detected. the australian snubfin dolphin was not sighted during these surveys. the study confirms that indo-pacific bottlenose and australian humpback dolphins use the waters near onslow, however the low re-capture rates suggest that their home ranges are larger than, and only partially overlapping, the 128 km(2) area. more intense sampling effort would be required to precisely estimate abundance for humpback dolphins. crown copyright (c) 2018 published by elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." "simultaneous modelling of movement, measurement error, and observer dependence in mark-recapture distance sampling: an application to arctic bird surveys",aerial survey; double-observer; mark-recapture distance sampling; measurement error; movement; point independence,ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,CONN PB;ALISAUSKAS RT,"mark-recapture distance sampling is a promising method for surveying bird populations from aircraft in open landscapes. however, commonly available distance sampling estimators require that distances to target animals are made without error and that animals are stationary while sampling is being conducted. motivated by a recent bird survey where these requirements were routinely violated, we describe a marginal likelihood framework for estimating abundance from double-observer data that can accommodate movement and measurement error when observations are made consecutively (as with front and rear observers), when animals are uniformly distributed during detection by the first observer, and when detections consist of both moving and stationary animals. assuming that all animals are subject to measurement error and that some animals can move between detections, we integrate over unknown animal locations to construct a marginal likelihood for detection, movement, and measurement error parameters. estimates of animal abundance are then obtained using a modified horvitz-thompson-like estimator. in addition, unmodelled heterogeneity in detection probability can be accommodated through observer dependence parameters. using simulation, we show that our approach yields low bias compared to approaches that ignore movement and/or measurement error, including in cases where there is considerable detection heterogeneity. applying our approach to data from a double-observer waterfowl helicopter survey in northern canada, we are able to estimate bird density accounting for movement and measurement error and corrected for observer heterogeneity. our approach appears promising for generating unbiased estimates of bird abundance necessary for reliable conservation and management." -mature exotic conifer stands have greater catches of the eu-protected geomalacus maculosus than adjacent peatland or clear-felled stands-implications for forestry,conservation; capture-mark-recapture; population estimates; before-after-control-impact-paired (bacip); slug,ANNALS OF FOREST SCIENCE,JOHNSTON E;KINDERMANN G;O'CALLAGHAN J;BURKE D;MCLOUGHLIN C;HORGAN S;REICH I;MC DONNELL R;WILLIAMS CD;GORMALLY M,"key message mature exotic sitka spruce (picea sitchensis; bong. carriere)-dominated stands, particularly trees of greater circumference, result in greater numbers of geomalacus maculosus (allman) captures than adjacent clear-felled stands and adjacent peatland with before-after-control-impact-paired analysis indicating lower catches of g. maculosus post-felling. context the discovery of eu-protected geomalacus maculosus in commercial plantations requires an understanding of the implications of forestry practices for the species within the context of sustainable forest management. aims 1. compare geomalacus maculosus captures across mature exotic sitka spruce-dominated stands, previously clear-felled stands and adjacent peatland habitats. 2. assess the suitability, for forest managers, of population estimate models for g. maculosus. 3. assess the implications of felling by comparing relative abundances of g. maculosus directly before and after clear-felling at a mature exotic sitka spruce-dominated stand. methods geomalacus maculosus catches were compared at four sites across two to three mature (43-45 years old) conifer stands per site, one clear-felled stand per site, and one adjacent peatland per site using refuge traps and hand searching. capture-mark-recapture studies were undertaken to estimate population sizes. a bacip (before-after-control-impact-paired) analysis was undertaken in one forest stand at one forest site to determine impacts of a clear-felling event. results mean catches of geomalacus maculosus adults in the mature forest stands were over 10 and 11 times greater than mean catches on peatland and clear-fell stands, respectively. the schnabel model for estimating population size was most suited for mature forest stands but could not be utilised for the other habitats. bacip analysis showed a significant impact of clear-felling with a 95% reduction in mean g. maculosus catches after a clear-felling event where none of the individuals marked prior to felling were recaptured compared to 21% recapture rates at the control site. greater tree circumference in mature conifer stands correlated with greater catches. conclusion guidelines are needed to ensure the protection of geomalacus maculosus in commercial forestry. interventions could include patch/tall stump retention at final felling and/or translocation of the protected species." +mature exotic conifer stands have greater catches of the eu-protected geomalacus maculosus than adjacent peatland or clear-felled stands-implications for forestry,conservation; capture-mark-recapture; population estimates; before-after-control-impact-paired (bacip); slug,ANNALS OF FOREST SCIENCE,JOHNSTON E;KINDERMANN G;O CALLAGHAN J;BURKE D;MCLOUGHLIN C;HORGAN S;REICH I;MC DONNELL R;WILLIAMS CD;GORMALLY M,"key message mature exotic sitka spruce (picea sitchensis; bong. carriere)-dominated stands, particularly trees of greater circumference, result in greater numbers of geomalacus maculosus (allman) captures than adjacent clear-felled stands and adjacent peatland with before-after-control-impact-paired analysis indicating lower catches of g. maculosus post-felling. context the discovery of eu-protected geomalacus maculosus in commercial plantations requires an understanding of the implications of forestry practices for the species within the context of sustainable forest management. aims 1. compare geomalacus maculosus captures across mature exotic sitka spruce-dominated stands, previously clear-felled stands and adjacent peatland habitats. 2. assess the suitability, for forest managers, of population estimate models for g. maculosus. 3. assess the implications of felling by comparing relative abundances of g. maculosus directly before and after clear-felling at a mature exotic sitka spruce-dominated stand. methods geomalacus maculosus catches were compared at four sites across two to three mature (43-45 years old) conifer stands per site, one clear-felled stand per site, and one adjacent peatland per site using refuge traps and hand searching. capture-mark-recapture studies were undertaken to estimate population sizes. a bacip (before-after-control-impact-paired) analysis was undertaken in one forest stand at one forest site to determine impacts of a clear-felling event. results mean catches of geomalacus maculosus adults in the mature forest stands were over 10 and 11 times greater than mean catches on peatland and clear-fell stands, respectively. the schnabel model for estimating population size was most suited for mature forest stands but could not be utilised for the other habitats. bacip analysis showed a significant impact of clear-felling with a 95% reduction in mean g. maculosus catches after a clear-felling event where none of the individuals marked prior to felling were recaptured compared to 21% recapture rates at the control site. greater tree circumference in mature conifer stands correlated with greater catches. conclusion guidelines are needed to ensure the protection of geomalacus maculosus in commercial forestry. interventions could include patch/tall stump retention at final felling and/or translocation of the protected species." "under-reporting of tuberculosis in praia, cape verde, from 2006 to 2012",tuberculosis; surveillance; record linkage; report,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TUBERCULOSIS AND LUNG DISEASE,DA LUZ EF;BRAGA JU,"setting: according to world health organization (who) estimates, the under-reporting rate for tuberculosis (tb) in cape verde between 2006 and 2012 was 49%. however, the who recognises the challenges associated with this estimation process and recommends implementing other methods, such as record linkage, to combat tb under-reporting. objectives : to estimate and analyse under-reporting of cases by tb surveillance health units and to evaluate tb cases retrieved from other tb diagnostic sources in praia, cape verde, from 2006 to 2012. design: this cross-sectional study evaluated under-reporting using the following data: 1) the under-reporting index from tb reporting health units (rhus), where the number of validated tb cases from rhus was compared with data from the national programme for the fight against tuberculosis and leprosy (npftl); and 2) the under-reporting index among overall data sources, or a comparison of the number of all validated tb cases from all sources with npftl data. results : the tb under-reporting rate was 40% in praia during the study period, and results were influenced by laboratory findings. conclusion: the tb under-reporting rate was very similar to the rate estimated by the who. tb surveillance must be improved to reduce under-reporting." "capture of time-loss overuse soccer injuries in the national collegiate athletic association's injury surveillance system, 2005-2006 through 2007-2008",quantitative methods; injury epidemiology; overuse injuries,JOURNAL OF ATHLETIC TRAINING,ROOS K;KUCERA KL;GOLIGHTLY Y;MYERS JB;ROSAMOND W;MARSHALL SW,"context: overuse injuries are reported to account for nearly 50% of sports injuries and, due to their progressive nature and the uncertainty regarding date of onset, are difficult to define and categorize. comparing the capture rates of overuse injuries between injury-surveillance systems and medical records can clarify completeness and determinants of how overuse injuries are represented in injury-surveillance data. objective: to estimate the capture rate of time-loss medical-attention overuse injuries in men's and women's soccer in the national collegiate athletic association injury surveillance system (ncaa iss) compared with medical records maintained by certified athletic trainers and assess the differences in completeness of capture and factors contributing to those differences. design: capture-recapture study. setting: fifteen ncaa institutions provided ncaa iss and medical record data from men's and women's soccer programs from 2005-2006 through 2007-2008. patients or other participants: national collegiate athletic association men's and women's soccer players. main outcome measure(s): time-loss medical-attention overuse injuries were defined as injuries with an overuse mechanism of injury in the ncaa iss or medical records. capture rates were calculated as the proportion of total overuse injuries classified as having overuse mechanisms in the ncaa iss and the ncaa iss and medical records combined. results: the ncaa iss captured 63.7% of the total estimated overuse mechanisms of injury in men's and women's soccer players. the estimated proportion of overuse injury mechanisms captured by both the ncaa iss and medical records was 37.1%. the ncaa iss captured more overuse injury mechanisms in men's soccer than in women's soccer (79.2% versus 45.0%, chi(2) = 9.60; p =.002) athletes. conclusions: from 2005-2006 through 2007-2008, the ncaa iss captured only two thirds of time-loss medical-attention overuse mechanisms of injury in men's and women's soccer players. future researchers should consider supplementing injury-surveillance data with a clinical record review to capture the burden of these injuries." estimating the size of an open population using sparse capture-recapture data,extrapolation; frequentist inference; mark-capture-recapture; population size estimation; sparse recaptures,BIOMETRICS,HUGGINS R;STOKLOSA J;ROACH C;YIP P,"sparse capture-recapture data from open populations are difficult to analyze using currently available frequentist statistical methods. however, in closed capture-recapture experiments, the chao sparse estimator (chao, 1989, biometrics45, 427-438) may be used to estimate population sizes when there are few recaptures. here, we extend the chao (1989) closed population size estimator to the open population setting by using linear regression and extrapolation techniques. we conduct a small simulation study and apply the models to several sparse capture-recapture data sets." -"combining noninvasive genetics and a new mammalian sex-linked marker provides new tools to investigate population size, structure and individual behaviour: an application to bats",chiroptera; molecular sexing; noninvasive genetics; parentage assignments; rhinolophus hipposideros,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY RESOURCES,ZARZOSO-LACOSTE D;JAN PL;LEHNEN L;GIRARD T;BESNARD AL;PUECHMAILLE SJ;PETIT EJ,"monitoring wild populations is crucial for their effective management. noninvasive genetic methods provide robust data from individual free-ranging animals, which can be used in capture-mark-recapture (cmr) models to estimate demographic parameters without capturing or disturbing them. however, sex- and status-specific behaviour, which may lead to differences in detection probabilities, is rarely considered in monitoring. here, we investigated population size, sex ratio, sex- and status-related behaviour in 19 rhinolophus hipposideros maternity colonies (northern france) with a noninvasive genetic cmr approach (using faeces) combined with parentage assignments. the use of the ddx3x/y-mam sexual marker designed in this study, which shows inter- and intrachromosomal length polymorphism across placental mammals, together with eight polymorphic microsatellite markers, produced high-quality genetic data with limited genotyping errors and allowed us to reliably distinguish different categories of individuals (males, reproductive and nonreproductive females) and to estimate population sizes. we showed that visual counts represent well-adult female numbers and that population composition in maternity colonies changes dynamically during the summer. before parturition, colonies mainly harbour pregnant and nonpregnant females with a few visiting males, whereas after parturition, colonies are mainly composed of mothers and their offspring with a few visiting nonmothers and males. our approach gives deeper insight into sex- and status-specific behaviour, a prerequisite for understanding population dynamics and developing effective monitoring and management strategies. provided sufficient samples can be obtained, this approach can be readily applied to a wide range of species." -"a retrospective assessment of the completeness and timeliness of meningococcal disease notifications in the republic of ireland over a 16-year period, 1999-2015",meningococcal disease; completeness; timeliness; ireland,PUBLIC HEALTH,O'LORCAIN P;BENNETT DE;MORGAN SL;CUNNEY RJ;COTTER SM;CAFFERKEY MT;O'FLANAGAN DM,"objectives: to assess how invasive meningococcal disease (imd) records held by the irish meningitis & sepsis reference laboratory (imsrl) compare to records of imd notifications reported on the national integrated electronic computerised infectious disease reporting (cidr) system. study design: we assessed the completeness, data quality and timeliness of imd notifications and reference laboratory records for the period between 01 july 1999 and 30 june 2015 by identifying discrepant and/or missing data items in a matched case data set and by measuring the timeliness of case reporting. methods: we matched anonymised cases notified to cidr to records based at the imsrl using birth, reporting and onset dates with gender and laboratory parameters of meningococcal strain characteristics and method of confirmation. completeness, data quality and the timeliness of notifications were assessed by a stratified sensitivity-based technique and by calculating the average difference between imsrl and cidr reporting dates. results: cidr recorded a total of 3163 notifications, of which 2759 (87.2%) were matched to imsrl records. completeness of imd case classification as confirmed was estimated to be > 99%. examining the levels of discrepant or missing data in both matched cidr and imsrl records as a measure of data quality, recording of demographic items and meningococcal group showed least differences, recording of laboratory case confirmation method and meningococcal strain characteristics were less well recorded, with detail on clinical presentation/diagnosis least well recorded. overall average annual difference between cidr and imsrl recording dates was 3.2 days (95% confidence interval 2.6-3.8). conclusions: a high quality of imd surveillance in ireland was demonstrated, but scope for improvements in timeliness and capture of enhanced surveillance data regarding date of onset and strain-specific characteristics were identified. (c) 2017 the royal society for public health. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -a simplified mark-release-recapture protocol to improve the cost effectiveness of repeated population size quantification,bog fritillary butterfly; boloria aquilonaris; boloria eunomia; capture-mark-recapture; catch effort; cranberry fritillary butterfly; long-term monitoring; mark software; sampling efforts,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,TURLURE C;PE'ER G;BAGUETTE M;SCHTICKZELLE N,"obtaining an accurate quantification of population size is often of prime importance in ecology and conservation biology (e.g. population viability analysis, a basic step for assessing species and population status in a given area and guiding effective conservation). when obtaining a reliable quantification of absolute (vs. relative) population size is required, mark-release-recapture (mrr) is a method of choice for many organisms. this is a highly reliable but costly procedure in terms of time and potential impact on species and sites. consequently, less costly alternatives are highly desirable for conservation and population ecologists. we present here a simplified mrr protocol to mitigate this cost of repeated mrr sampling with little compromise on the quality of the population size estimation. using one of the largest existing butterfly mrr databases, collected on two fritillary species over a period of 20years and >20 populations in belgium, we assessed the possibility to reduce the effort of collecting mrr data while keeping accurate quantification of total population size. by downsampling from the full datasets and calculating a range of demographic census metrics, we specifically investigated whether marking individuals is necessary, and whether the number of sampling sessions can be reduced. we found that (1) counting individuals is not enough: some individual marking, even in a simplistic way to differentiate newly recorded from previously seen individuals, is essential for estimating population size. (2) a simple linear conversion function (number of missed individuals for each marked one) can be used to compute population size from the number of individuals marked over a small number of mrr sampling sessions. (3) parameterizing this function is system specific, because it depends on detectability of individuals, but only requires an initial effort of traditional high-effort mrr in a few populations encompassing the expected range of population size, combined with previous knowledge on the species about potential factors affecting detectability. our simplified mrr protocol should allow scientists to obtain absolute population size estimates almost as good as with traditional high-effort mrr, but at a cost lowered in both the marking procedure and the intensity of field visits." +"combining noninvasive genetics and a new mammalian sex-linked marker provides new tools to investigate population size, structure and individual behaviour: an application to bats",chiroptera; molecular sexing; noninvasive genetics; parentage assignments; rhinolophus hipposideros,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY RESOURCES,ZARZOSO LACOSTE D;JAN PL;LEHNEN L;GIRARD T;BESNARD AL;PUECHMAILLE SJ;PETIT EJ,"monitoring wild populations is crucial for their effective management. noninvasive genetic methods provide robust data from individual free-ranging animals, which can be used in capture-mark-recapture (cmr) models to estimate demographic parameters without capturing or disturbing them. however, sex- and status-specific behaviour, which may lead to differences in detection probabilities, is rarely considered in monitoring. here, we investigated population size, sex ratio, sex- and status-related behaviour in 19 rhinolophus hipposideros maternity colonies (northern france) with a noninvasive genetic cmr approach (using faeces) combined with parentage assignments. the use of the ddx3x/y-mam sexual marker designed in this study, which shows inter- and intrachromosomal length polymorphism across placental mammals, together with eight polymorphic microsatellite markers, produced high-quality genetic data with limited genotyping errors and allowed us to reliably distinguish different categories of individuals (males, reproductive and nonreproductive females) and to estimate population sizes. we showed that visual counts represent well-adult female numbers and that population composition in maternity colonies changes dynamically during the summer. before parturition, colonies mainly harbour pregnant and nonpregnant females with a few visiting males, whereas after parturition, colonies are mainly composed of mothers and their offspring with a few visiting nonmothers and males. our approach gives deeper insight into sex- and status-specific behaviour, a prerequisite for understanding population dynamics and developing effective monitoring and management strategies. provided sufficient samples can be obtained, this approach can be readily applied to a wide range of species." +"a retrospective assessment of the completeness and timeliness of meningococcal disease notifications in the republic of ireland over a 16-year period, 1999-2015",meningococcal disease; completeness; timeliness; ireland,PUBLIC HEALTH,O LORCAIN P;BENNETT DE;MORGAN SL;CUNNEY RJ;COTTER SM;CAFFERKEY MT;O FLANAGAN DM,"objectives: to assess how invasive meningococcal disease (imd) records held by the irish meningitis & sepsis reference laboratory (imsrl) compare to records of imd notifications reported on the national integrated electronic computerised infectious disease reporting (cidr) system. study design: we assessed the completeness, data quality and timeliness of imd notifications and reference laboratory records for the period between 01 july 1999 and 30 june 2015 by identifying discrepant and/or missing data items in a matched case data set and by measuring the timeliness of case reporting. methods: we matched anonymised cases notified to cidr to records based at the imsrl using birth, reporting and onset dates with gender and laboratory parameters of meningococcal strain characteristics and method of confirmation. completeness, data quality and the timeliness of notifications were assessed by a stratified sensitivity-based technique and by calculating the average difference between imsrl and cidr reporting dates. results: cidr recorded a total of 3163 notifications, of which 2759 (87.2%) were matched to imsrl records. completeness of imd case classification as confirmed was estimated to be > 99%. examining the levels of discrepant or missing data in both matched cidr and imsrl records as a measure of data quality, recording of demographic items and meningococcal group showed least differences, recording of laboratory case confirmation method and meningococcal strain characteristics were less well recorded, with detail on clinical presentation/diagnosis least well recorded. overall average annual difference between cidr and imsrl recording dates was 3.2 days (95% confidence interval 2.6-3.8). conclusions: a high quality of imd surveillance in ireland was demonstrated, but scope for improvements in timeliness and capture of enhanced surveillance data regarding date of onset and strain-specific characteristics were identified. (c) 2017 the royal society for public health. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +a simplified mark-release-recapture protocol to improve the cost effectiveness of repeated population size quantification,bog fritillary butterfly; boloria aquilonaris; boloria eunomia; capture-mark-recapture; catch effort; cranberry fritillary butterfly; long-term monitoring; mark software; sampling efforts,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,TURLURE C;PE ER G;BAGUETTE M;SCHTICKZELLE N,"obtaining an accurate quantification of population size is often of prime importance in ecology and conservation biology (e.g. population viability analysis, a basic step for assessing species and population status in a given area and guiding effective conservation). when obtaining a reliable quantification of absolute (vs. relative) population size is required, mark-release-recapture (mrr) is a method of choice for many organisms. this is a highly reliable but costly procedure in terms of time and potential impact on species and sites. consequently, less costly alternatives are highly desirable for conservation and population ecologists. we present here a simplified mrr protocol to mitigate this cost of repeated mrr sampling with little compromise on the quality of the population size estimation. using one of the largest existing butterfly mrr databases, collected on two fritillary species over a period of 20years and >20 populations in belgium, we assessed the possibility to reduce the effort of collecting mrr data while keeping accurate quantification of total population size. by downsampling from the full datasets and calculating a range of demographic census metrics, we specifically investigated whether marking individuals is necessary, and whether the number of sampling sessions can be reduced. we found that (1) counting individuals is not enough: some individual marking, even in a simplistic way to differentiate newly recorded from previously seen individuals, is essential for estimating population size. (2) a simple linear conversion function (number of missed individuals for each marked one) can be used to compute population size from the number of individuals marked over a small number of mrr sampling sessions. (3) parameterizing this function is system specific, because it depends on detectability of individuals, but only requires an initial effort of traditional high-effort mrr in a few populations encompassing the expected range of population size, combined with previous knowledge on the species about potential factors affecting detectability. our simplified mrr protocol should allow scientists to obtain absolute population size estimates almost as good as with traditional high-effort mrr, but at a cost lowered in both the marking procedure and the intensity of field visits." performance of multistate mark-recapture models for temporary emigration in the presence of survival costs,bias; power; simulation; survival; temporary emigration,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HENLE K;GRUBER B,"temporary emigration is widespread in animals and plants and has important implications for ecological processes, evolution and the conservation of species. it is increasingly studied with capture-mark-recapture (cmr) models. temporary emigration provides particular challenges to cmr analyses if it involves movement to an unobservable state. a multistate model in which individuals may move between an observable and an unobservable state (called te model) was developed for such cases. the model assumes equal survival probability in both states. this assumption may be violated, especially if temporary emigration involves trade-offs between survival and reproduction. a comprehensive assessment of the effects of unequal survival probability on power to detect temporary emigration and on bias and precision of estimates is still needed to understand the applicability and limits of the model. we assessed power to detect temporary emigration for four goodness-of-fit tests and evaluated bias and precision of estimates for the te model and for its combination with a robust design. our simulation study, based on 16,650 parameter combinations, shows that temporary emigration is more challenging than currently usually acknowledged. the tests 2.ct and 2.c are largely independent of the difference in survival probability between the states. in contrast, test 3.sr is sensitive to the difference in survival probability but also to emigration probability. tests 2.c and 2.ct have high power if a large part of the population temporarily emigrates and a large fraction of the individuals return on the next capture occasion. under this condition, bias is low and precision adequate even if the assumption of equal survival probability is violated. bias and precision are also satisfactory if the assumption is met but unsatisfactory or unreliable for the remaining parameter space. we conclude that the uncertainties whether an appropriate model was selected and whether the estimates from the selected model may be biased should be clearly communicated and that every endeavour should be made to make the unobservable state observable." "comparing anadromous brown trout salmo trutta in small, neighbouring catchments across contrasting landscapes: what is the role of environment in determining life-history characteristics?",b-type growth; cohort analysis; orkney; salmo trutta; sea trout; smolt age,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,THOMSON M;LYNDON AR,"study of anadromous brown trout salmo trutta in orkney, u.k., burns (small streams) with a common-garden sea in scapa flow supports the key role of nutrient availability in fresh water, independent of day length, as a determinant of smolt age, with a systematic increase in mean smolt age from 1 to 3years related inversely to productivity. whole catchment (8km(2)) population budgets indicated annual smolt production of around 650 individuals from approximately 100 spawners. egg-to-smolt survival was 065%, while marine survival was estimated from mark-recapture to be between 35 and 10%. the question of b-type growth (accelerated growth immediately prior to or during smolt migration) was also addressed, with a strong negative correlation between b-type growth and size at end of winter suggesting that this represents a freshwater compensatory growth response. the data obtained indicate the potential importance of small catchments for supporting anadromous salmo trutta populations and suggest that small runs of spawners (<100 individuals) are adequate to maintain stocks in such situations. furthermore, they support the key role of freshwater productivity in determining life-history characteristics over small spatial scales, with orkney providing a useful natural laboratory for future research into metapopulation genetic structuring and environmental factors at a tractable scale." spatial patterns of the frog oophaga pumilio in a plantation system are consistent with conspecific attraction,colonization; habitat selection; nearest-neighbor analysis; neotropics; spatial ecology,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,FOLT B;DONNELLY MA;GUYER C,"the conspecific attraction hypothesis predicts that individuals are attracted to conspecifics because conspecifics may be cues to quality habitat and/or colonists may benefit from living in aggregations. poison frogs (dendrobatidae) are aposematic, territorial, and visually orientedthree characteristics which make dendrobatids an appropriate model to test for conspecific attraction. in this study, we tested this hypothesis using an extensive mark-recapture dataset of the strawberry poison frog (oophaga pumilio) from la selva biological station, costa rica. data were collected from replicate populations in a relatively homogenous theobroma cacao plantation, which provided a unique opportunity to test how conspecifics influence the spatial ecology of migrants in a controlled habitat with homogenous structure. we predicted that (1) individuals entering a population would aggregate with resident adults, (2) migrants would share sites with residents at a greater frequency than expected by chance, and (3) migrant home ranges would have shorter nearest-neighbor distances (nnd) to residents than expected by chance. the results were consistent with these three predictions: relative to random simulations, we observed significant aggregation, home-range overlap, and nnd distribution functions in four, five, and six, respectively, of the six migrant-resident groups analyzed. conspecific attraction may benefit migrant o.pumilio by providing cues to suitable home sites and/or increasing the potential for social interactions with conspecifics; if true, these benefits should outweigh the negative effects of other factors associated with aggregation. the observed aggregation between migrant and resident o.pumilio is consistent with conspecific attraction in dendrobatid frogs, and our study provides rare support from a field setting that conspecific attraction may be a relevant mechanism for models of anuran spatial ecology." genotyping validates photo-identification by the head scale pattern in a large population of the european adder (vipera berus),capture-recapture; double-marking; genotyping; individual recognition; natural markings,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BAUWENS D;CLAUS K;MERGEAY J,"capture-mark-recapture procedures are a basic tool in population studies and require that individual animals are correctly identified throughout their lifetime. a method that has become more and more popular uses photographic records of natural markings, such as pigmentation pattern and scalation configuration. as with any other marking tool, the validity of the photographic identification technique should be evaluated thoroughly. here, we report on a large-scale double-marking study in which european adders (vipera berus) were identified by both microsatellite genetic markers and by the pattern of head scalation. samples that were successfully genotyped for all nine loci yielded 624 unique genotypes, which matched on a one-to-one basis with the individual assignments based on the head scalation pattern. thus, adders considered as different individuals by their genotypes were also identified as different individuals by their head scalation pattern, and vice versa. overall, variation in the numbers, shape, and arrangement of the head scales enabled us to distinguish among 3200+ photographed individual snakes. adders that were repeatedly sequenced genetically over intervals of 2-3years showed no indication whatsoever for a change in the head scale pattern. photographic records of 900+ adders that were recaptured over periods of up to 12years showed a very detailed and precise match of the head scale characteristics. these natural marks are thus robust over time and do not change during an individual's lifetime. with very low frequency (0.3%), we detected small changes in scalation that were readily discernible and could be attributed to physical injury or infection. our study provides a conclusive validation for the use of photo-identification by head scale patterns in the european adder." -"laying on the edge: demography of green sea turtles (chelonia mydas) nesting on playa norte, tortuguero, costa rica",NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,VELEZ-ESPINO A;PHEASEY H;ARAUJO A;FERNANDEZ LM,"the most important nesting site for the green turtle, chelonia mydas, in the atlantic basin is costa rica's tortuguero national park (tnp). an important portion of this population nests on playa norte, an adjacent beach located to the north of tnp. using 10 years (2006-2015) of mark-recapture data, we estimated demographic parameters for green turtles nesting at playa norte. during the 10-year study period, 1573 nesting encounters were recorded, representing 1101 distinct individuals. open-population models estimated an abundance of 6004 (95% ci 5037-6970), representing the contingent of adult females that nested on playa norte at least once during the study period. this estimate includes females that died did not use playa norte as nesting site or became post-reproductive after the first nesting encounter as well as nesting and non-nesting adult females in a given year. this open-population abundance estimate and related demographic rates are also assumed to be robust against inter-nesting occurrences between playa norte and tnp, and between playa norte and other unmonitored and minor beaches. the mean annual survival rate was 0.85 (95% ci 0.76-0.91) and the realized annual population growth from 2006 to 2015 was 1.0179 (95% ci 0.7984-1.2978), indicating a positive trend characterized by an average 1.79% annual increase. the results presented here concur with results from studies of nesting females at tnp and highlight the importance of playa norte as a nesting ground for atlantic green turtles. in addition, our study demonstrated that reliable demographic information can be derived from nesting sites at the edge of a main nesting area if proper survey designs and analytical methods are used." +"laying on the edge: demography of green sea turtles (chelonia mydas) nesting on playa norte, tortuguero, costa rica",NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,VELEZ ESPINO A;PHEASEY H;ARAUJO A;FERNANDEZ LM,"the most important nesting site for the green turtle, chelonia mydas, in the atlantic basin is costa rica's tortuguero national park (tnp). an important portion of this population nests on playa norte, an adjacent beach located to the north of tnp. using 10 years (2006-2015) of mark-recapture data, we estimated demographic parameters for green turtles nesting at playa norte. during the 10-year study period, 1573 nesting encounters were recorded, representing 1101 distinct individuals. open-population models estimated an abundance of 6004 (95% ci 5037-6970), representing the contingent of adult females that nested on playa norte at least once during the study period. this estimate includes females that died did not use playa norte as nesting site or became post-reproductive after the first nesting encounter as well as nesting and non-nesting adult females in a given year. this open-population abundance estimate and related demographic rates are also assumed to be robust against inter-nesting occurrences between playa norte and tnp, and between playa norte and other unmonitored and minor beaches. the mean annual survival rate was 0.85 (95% ci 0.76-0.91) and the realized annual population growth from 2006 to 2015 was 1.0179 (95% ci 0.7984-1.2978), indicating a positive trend characterized by an average 1.79% annual increase. the results presented here concur with results from studies of nesting females at tnp and highlight the importance of playa norte as a nesting ground for atlantic green turtles. in addition, our study demonstrated that reliable demographic information can be derived from nesting sites at the edge of a main nesting area if proper survey designs and analytical methods are used." "an overview of population size estimation where linking registers results in incomplete covariates, with an application to mode of transport of serious road casualties",dual system estimation; linkage; missing data; register; coverage,JOURNAL OF OFFICIAL STATISTICS,VAN DER HEIJDEN PGM;SMITH PA;CRUYFF M;BAKKER B,"we consider the linkage of two or more registers in the situation where the registers do not cover the whole target population, and relevant categorical auxiliary variables (unique to one of the registers; although different variables could be present on each register) are available in addition to the usual matching variable(s). the linked registers therefore do not contain full information on either the observations (often individuals) or the variables. by treating this as a missing data problem it is possible to construct a linked data set, adjusted to estimate the part of the population missed by both registers, and containing completed covariate information for all the registers. this is achieved using an expectation-maximization (em)-algorithm. we elucidate the properties of this approach where the model is appropriate and in situations corresponding with real applications in official statistics, and also where the model conditions are violated. the approach is applied to data on road accidents in the netherlands, where the cause of the accident is denoted by the police and by the hospital. here the cause of the accident denoted by the police is considered as missing information for the statistical units only registered by the hospital, and the other way around. the method needs to be widely applied to give a better impression of the range of problems where it can be beneficial." a generalized chao estimator with measurement error and external information,chao estimator; external information; simex,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,DOTTO F;FARCOMENI A,"we present a generalized chao (gc) estimator based on a subject-occasion-specific design matrix. we then extend the gc estimator to (i) external information, in the form of non-linear constraints on subpopulation sizes and (ii) measurement error. for the first, we propose a reparameterization of the estimating equations. as a result, the constrained mle can be found with no additional computational efforts. for the second we generalize simex procedure to multiple measurement methods. in simulation we show that (even incorrect) external information can substantially decrease the mse. we illustrate with an application to a whale shark (rhincodon typus) population, where mostly jouvenile males are observed. we use external information on gender ratio of whale sharks to correct for low catchability of females, and our multivariate simex procedure to correct for measurement error in assessment of shark length. the resulting population size estimates are about 60% larger than the unconstrained-uncorrected counterparts." density of leopards (panthera pardus kotiya) in horton plains national park in the central highlands of sri lanka,camera traps; density; leopard; spatially explicit capture recapture; sri lanka,MAMMALIA,KITTLE AM;WATSON AC,"quantitative ecological data needs to inform management of the endangered, endemic sri lankan leopard. estimating habitat-specific leopard density and prey availability provides important baselines and improved understanding of the island-wide population. we used remote cameras in a spatially explicit capture-recapture framework to estimate leopard density (11.7 adult individuals/100 km(2)) and distance sampling to estimate prey density, within horton plains national park. sambar density was 178/km(2) within the central grasslands, which represent a spatially anchored resource for sambar and in turn, a highly clumped, abundant resource for leopards. this study represents the first robust estimate of leopard density in sri lanka's montane zone." -estimating jaguar (panthera onca) density in a preserved coastal area of french guiana,camera trapping; density; french guiana; home range; panthera onca; spatially explicit capture recapture,MAMMALIA,PETIT M;DENIS T;RUX O;RICHARD-HANSEN C;BERZINS R,"knowledge of the jaguar population is needed in french guiana that faces an increase of human-jaguar conflicts. we carried out a camera trap survey to assess jaguar local density and home range size in a preserved coastal area of french guiana. we ran spatially explicit capture recapture (secr) models. in our model, the scale parameter sigma, that is linked to the home range size, was larger for males (sigma = 3.87 +/- 0.59 se km) than for females (sigma = 2.33 +/- 0.30 se km). the assessed jaguar density was 3.22 +/- 0.87 se ind. 100 km(-2), which should be considered as an optimal density in a french guiana coastal area." -estimating animal density without individual recognition using information derivable exclusively from camera traps,animal movement; camera trap; density estimation; distance sampling; individual recognition; population monitoring; random encounter model; rest model; trapping rate; ungulates,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,"NAKASHIMA Y;FUKASAWA K;SAMEJIMA H","1. efficient and reliable methods for estimating animal density are essential to wildlife conservation and management. camera trapping is an increasingly popular tool in this area of wildlife research, with further potential arising from technological improvements, such as video-recording functions that allow for behavioural observation of animals. this information may be useful in the estimation of animal density, even without individual recognition. although several models applicable to species lacking individual markings (i.e. unmarked populations) have been developed, a methodology incorporating behavioural information from videos has not yet been established. 2. we developed a likelihood-based model: the random encounter and staying time (rest) model. it is an extension of the random encounter model by rowcliffe et al. (j appl ecol 45: 1228, 2008). the rest model describes the relationship among staying time, trapping rate, and density, which is estimable using a frequentist or bayesian approach. we tested the reliability and feasibility of the rest model using monte carlo simulations. we also applied the approach in the african rainforest and compared the results with those of a line-transect survey. 3. the simulations showed that the rest model provided unbiased estimates of animal density. even when animal movement speeds varied among individuals, and when animals travelled in pairs, the model provided unbiased density estimates. however, the rest model was vulnerable to unsynchronized activity patterns among individuals. moreover, it is necessary to use a camera model with a fast and reliable infrared sensor and to set the camera trap's parameters appropriately (i.e. video length, delay period). the field survey showed that the staying time of two ungulate species in the african rainforest exhibited good fit with a temporal parametric distribution, and the rest model provided density estimates consistent with those of a line-transect survey. 4. synthesis and applications. the random encounter and staying time model provides better efficiency and higher feasibility than the random encounter model in estimating animal density without individual recognition. careful application of the random encounter and staying time model provides the potential to estimate density of many ground-dwelling vertebrates lacking individually recognizable markings, and thus should be an effective method for population monitoring." +estimating jaguar (panthera onca) density in a preserved coastal area of french guiana,camera trapping; density; french guiana; home range; panthera onca; spatially explicit capture recapture,MAMMALIA,PETIT M;DENIS T;RUX O;RICHARD HANSEN C;BERZINS R,"knowledge of the jaguar population is needed in french guiana that faces an increase of human-jaguar conflicts. we carried out a camera trap survey to assess jaguar local density and home range size in a preserved coastal area of french guiana. we ran spatially explicit capture recapture (secr) models. in our model, the scale parameter sigma, that is linked to the home range size, was larger for males (sigma = 3.87 +/- 0.59 se km) than for females (sigma = 2.33 +/- 0.30 se km). the assessed jaguar density was 3.22 +/- 0.87 se ind. 100 km(-2), which should be considered as an optimal density in a french guiana coastal area." +estimating animal density without individual recognition using information derivable exclusively from camera traps,animal movement; camera trap; density estimation; distance sampling; individual recognition; population monitoring; random encounter model; rest model; trapping rate; ungulates,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,NAKASHIMA Y;FUKASAWA K;SAMEJIMA H,"1. efficient and reliable methods for estimating animal density are essential to wildlife conservation and management. camera trapping is an increasingly popular tool in this area of wildlife research, with further potential arising from technological improvements, such as video-recording functions that allow for behavioural observation of animals. this information may be useful in the estimation of animal density, even without individual recognition. although several models applicable to species lacking individual markings (i.e. unmarked populations) have been developed, a methodology incorporating behavioural information from videos has not yet been established. 2. we developed a likelihood-based model: the random encounter and staying time (rest) model. it is an extension of the random encounter model by rowcliffe et al. (j appl ecol 45: 1228, 2008). the rest model describes the relationship among staying time, trapping rate, and density, which is estimable using a frequentist or bayesian approach. we tested the reliability and feasibility of the rest model using monte carlo simulations. we also applied the approach in the african rainforest and compared the results with those of a line-transect survey. 3. the simulations showed that the rest model provided unbiased estimates of animal density. even when animal movement speeds varied among individuals, and when animals travelled in pairs, the model provided unbiased density estimates. however, the rest model was vulnerable to unsynchronized activity patterns among individuals. moreover, it is necessary to use a camera model with a fast and reliable infrared sensor and to set the camera trap's parameters appropriately (i.e. video length, delay period). the field survey showed that the staying time of two ungulate species in the african rainforest exhibited good fit with a temporal parametric distribution, and the rest model provided density estimates consistent with those of a line-transect survey. 4. synthesis and applications. the random encounter and staying time model provides better efficiency and higher feasibility than the random encounter model in estimating animal density without individual recognition. careful application of the random encounter and staying time model provides the potential to estimate density of many ground-dwelling vertebrates lacking individually recognizable markings, and thus should be an effective method for population monitoring." following the fate of facilitated migration in a small desert spring,NA,SOUTHWESTERN NATURALIST,KEEPERS K;KANE N;MARTIN AP,"human modification of the environment can result in the fragmentation and isolation of natural populations. if isolated populations are small, they may experience higher probabilities of extirpation from genetic, demographic, and environmental effects. one approach for managing fragmented and isolated populations is facilitated migration in which individuals are moved between habitat fragments. here we report on a study of a single system in which we followed the genetic and population consequences of facilitated migration. we moved a small number of pupfish (cyprinodon nevadensis pectoralis) from one small spring into another small spring that had become isolated as a consequence of human modification of surface hydrology. we followed the fate of immigrant, resident, and admixed fish over multiple generations using molecular identification of individuals and mark-recapture methods. the mark-recapture data revealed that survival probabilities for admixed individuals were about 20% greater than those for the original resident fish. furthermore, there was a steady increase in the proportion of admixed individuals, suggesting that immigrant alleles spread through the population consistent with the estimate of relative fitness. overall, the results suggest facilitated migration can have restorative effects over the course of very few generations, and these results, in the context of other studies, suggest facilitated migration is likely to be an effective strategy for managing populations that have become isolated as a consequence of human modification of landscapes." a test of positive association for detecting heterogeneity in capture for capture-recapture data,cormack-jolly-seber model; goodman-kruskal's gamma; goodness-of-fit,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,JEYAM A;MCCREA RS;BREGNBALLE T;FREDERIKSEN M;PRADEL R,"the cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) model assumes that all marked animals have equal recapture probabilities at each sampling occasion, but heterogeneity in capture often occurs and should be taken into account to avoid biases in parameter estimates. although diagnostic tests are generally used to detect trap-dependence or transience and assess the overall fit of the model, heterogeneity in capture is not routinely tested for. in order to detect and identify this phenomenon in a cjs framework, we propose a test of positive association between previous and future encounters using goodman-kruskal's gamma. this test is based solely on the raw capture histories and makes no assumption on model structure. the development of the test is motivated by a dataset of sandwich terns (thalasseus sandvicensis), and we use the test to formally show that they exhibit heterogeneity in capture. we use simulation to assess the performance of the test in the detection of heterogeneity in capture, compared to existing and corrected diagnostic goodness-of-fit tests, leslie's test of equal catchability and carothers' extension of the leslie test. the test of positive association is easy to use and produces good results, demonstrating high power to detect heterogeneity in capture. we recommend using this new test prior to model fitting as the outcome will guide the model-building process and help draw more accurate biological conclusions. supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear online." size-selectivity for british columbia sablefish (anoplopoma fimbria) estimated from a long-term tagging study,fishery size-selectivity; tagging-data; sablefish; anoplopoma fimbria; dome-shaped selectivity; stock assessment,FISHERIES RESEARCH,JONES MK;COX S,"the underlying size-distribution of commercial fish stocks is usually unknown, so fishery size-selectivity must be estimated as a latent process embedded within age-structured stock assessments. however, dome-shaped fishery size-selectivity, in particular, is often inestimable because decreasing selectivity is confounded with mortality at older ages. in this paper, we test for dome-shaped selectivity in british columbia's sablefish fishery using a long-term tagging data set. we incorporate alternative fishery size-selectivity assumptions within a mark-recapture framework based on an asymptotic logistic model and dome-shaped models using gamma and normal probability density functions. we also fit each model using both time-invariant and time-varying parameterizations. our results strongly suggest dome-shaped size-selectivity for tagged-sablefish in longline trap, longline hook, and bottom trawl fisheries. time-varying models were generally favored over time-invariant models, although alternative time-varying models often produced similar statistical fits. dome-shaped selectivity in longline fisheries could be a function of fishery targeting, fish movement, or by lower reporting rates for large size classes." @@ -653,27 +654,27 @@ forest bat population dynamics over 14 years at a climate refuge: effects of tim arenavirus infection correlates with lower survival of its natural rodent host in a long-term capture-mark-recapture study,arenavirus; morogoro virus; survival analysis; capture-mark-recapture; host-parasite interaction,PARASITES & VECTORS,MARIEN J;SLUYDTS V;BORREMANS B;GRYSEELS S;BROECKE BV;SABUNI CA;KATAKWEBA AAS;MULUNGU LS;GUNTHER S;DE BELLOCQ JG;MASSAWE AW;LEIRS H,"background: parasite evolution is hypothesized to select for levels of parasite virulence that maximise transmission success. when host population densities fluctuate, low levels of virulence with limited impact on the host are expected, as this should increase the likelihood of surviving periods of low host density. we examined the effects of morogoro arenavirus on the survival and recapture probability of multimammate mice (mastomys natalensis) using a seven-year capture-mark-recapture time series. mastomys natalensis is the natural host of morogoro virus and is known for its strong seasonal density fluctuations. results: antibody presence was negatively correlated with survival probability (effect size: 5-8% per month depending on season) but positively with recapture probability (effect size: 8%). conclusions: the small negative correlation between host survival probability and antibody presence suggests that either the virus has a negative effect on host condition, or that hosts with lower survival probability are more likely to obtain morogoro virus infection, for example due to particular behavioural or immunological traits. the latter hypothesis is supported by the positive correlation between antibody status and recapture probability which suggests that risky behaviour might increase the probability of becoming infected." genetic relatedness reveals total population size of white sharks in eastern australia and new zealand,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,HILLARY RM;BRAVINGTON MV;PATTERSON TA;GREWE P;BRADFORD R;FEUTRY P;GUNASEKERA R;PEDDEMORS V;WERRY J;FRANCIS MP;DUFFY CAJ;BRUCE BD,"conservation concerns exist for many sharks but robust estimates of abundance are often lacking. improving population status is a performance measure for species under conservation or recovery plans, yet the lack of data permitting estimation of population size means the efficacy of management actions can be difficult to assess, and achieving the goal of removing species from conservation listing challenging. for potentially dangerous species, like the white shark, balancing conservation and public safety demands is politically and socially complex, often leading to vigorous debate about their population status. this increases the need for robust information to inform policy decisions. we developed a novel method for estimating the total abundance of white sharks in eastern australia and new zealand using the genetic-relatedness of juveniles and applying a close-kin mark-recapture framework and demographic model. estimated numbers of adults are small (ca. 280-650), as is total population size (ca. 2,500-6,750). however, estimates of survival probability are high for adults (over 90%), and fairly high for juveniles (around 73%). this represents the first direct estimate of total white shark abundance and survival calculated from data across both the spatial and temporal life-history of the animal and provides a pathway to estimate population trend." how difficult is it to reintroduce a dragonfly? fifteen years monitoring leucorrhinia dubia at the receiving site,conservation translocation; dragonfly reintroduction; odonata; long-term monitoring,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,DOLNY A;SIGUTOVA H;OZANA S;CHOLEVA L,"conservation translocations (including reintroductions) are potentially powerful tools for wildlife conservation, and their use has increased worldwide. however, most studies have focused on vertebrates, with the long-term impact and ecological progress of translocations being neglected. moreover, such projects rarely target insects. the present study reports the long-term persistence of a population of leucorrhinia dubia (odonata: libellulidae) reintroduced to artificially created bog pools in the czech republic. eighty (pen)ultimate instar l. dubia larvae were translocated in 2001, and the dragonfly assemblage at the reintroduction site was monitored for 15 years following larvae release. in 2015-2017, the capture-mark-recapture method, the jolly-seber model, and exuviae collection were used to evaluate the demography of the translocated population. microsatellite analysis was performed to assess the genetic variability of source and reintroduced populations. over the monitored period, population size increased (80 larvae released vs. 108-115 exuviae and 75 adults at the end of the study) and l. dubia became a dominant species, whereas the composition and abundance of the local dragonfly assemblage were not substantially changed. these results indicate that reintroductions are effective measures for dragonfly conservation, as translocating a relatively small number of individuals led to the establishment of a self-sustaining population. using (pen)ultimate instar larvae was optimal for dragonfly translocation, but the availability of a high-quality habitat and the active collaboration with nature conservation authorities were vital for the successful outcome. genetic analysis suggested that the translocated population might serve as a source of genetic variation for the original population, if depleted." -"free-ranging domestic cats (felis catus) on public lands: estimating density, activity, and diet in the florida keys",felis catus; free-ranging domestic cats; predators; spatial capture-recapture; stable isotopes; trap-neuter-release,BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS,COVE MV;GARDNER B;SIMONS TR;KAYS R;O'CONNELL AF,"feral and free-ranging domestic cats (felis catus) can have strong negative effects on small mammals and birds, particularly in island ecosystems. we deployed camera traps to study free-ranging cats in national wildlife refuges and state parks on big pine key and key largo in the florida keys, usa, and used spatial capture-recapture models to estimate cat abundance, movement, and activities. we also used stable isotope analyses to examine the diet of cats captured on public lands. top population models separated cats based on differences in movement and detection with three and two latent groups on big pine key and key largo, respectively. we hypothesize that these latent groups represent feral, semi-feral, and indoor/outdoor house cats based on the estimated movement parameters of each group. estimated cat densities and activity varied between the two islands, with relatively high densities (similar to 4 cats/km(2)) exhibiting crepuscular diel patterns on big pine key and lower densities (similar to 1 cat/km(2)) exhibiting nocturnal diel patterns on key largo. these differences are most likely related to the higher proportion of house cats on big pine relative to key largo. carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios from hair samples of free-ranging cats (n = 43) provided estimates of the proportion of wild and anthropogenic foods in cat diets. at the population level, cats on both islands consumed mostly anthropogenic foods (> 80% of the diet), but eight individuals were effective predators of wildlife (> 50% of the diet). we provide evidence that cat groups within a population move different distances, exhibit different activity patterns, and that individuals consume wildlife at different rates, which all have implications for managing this invasive predator." +"free-ranging domestic cats (felis catus) on public lands: estimating density, activity, and diet in the florida keys",felis catus; free-ranging domestic cats; predators; spatial capture-recapture; stable isotopes; trap-neuter-release,BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS,COVE MV;GARDNER B;SIMONS TR;KAYS R;O CONNELL AF,"feral and free-ranging domestic cats (felis catus) can have strong negative effects on small mammals and birds, particularly in island ecosystems. we deployed camera traps to study free-ranging cats in national wildlife refuges and state parks on big pine key and key largo in the florida keys, usa, and used spatial capture-recapture models to estimate cat abundance, movement, and activities. we also used stable isotope analyses to examine the diet of cats captured on public lands. top population models separated cats based on differences in movement and detection with three and two latent groups on big pine key and key largo, respectively. we hypothesize that these latent groups represent feral, semi-feral, and indoor/outdoor house cats based on the estimated movement parameters of each group. estimated cat densities and activity varied between the two islands, with relatively high densities (similar to 4 cats/km(2)) exhibiting crepuscular diel patterns on big pine key and lower densities (similar to 1 cat/km(2)) exhibiting nocturnal diel patterns on key largo. these differences are most likely related to the higher proportion of house cats on big pine relative to key largo. carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios from hair samples of free-ranging cats (n = 43) provided estimates of the proportion of wild and anthropogenic foods in cat diets. at the population level, cats on both islands consumed mostly anthropogenic foods (> 80% of the diet), but eight individuals were effective predators of wildlife (> 50% of the diet). we provide evidence that cat groups within a population move different distances, exhibit different activity patterns, and that individuals consume wildlife at different rates, which all have implications for managing this invasive predator." tagging effects of passive integrated transponder and visual implant elastomer on the small-bodied white sands pupfish (cyprinodon tularosa),pupfish; tagging effects; passive integrated transponder tag; elastomeric tag,FISHERIES RESEARCH,PETERSON D;TRANTHAM RB;TRANTHAM TG;CALDWELL CA,"one of the greatest limiting factors of studies designed to obtain growth, movement, and survival in small-bodied fishes is the selection of a viable tag. the tag must be relatively small with respect to body size as to impart minimal sub-lethal effects on growth and mobility, as well as be retained throughout the life of the fish or duration of the study. thus, body size of the model species becomes a major limiting factor; yet few studies have obtained empirical evidence of the minimum fish size and related tagging effects. the probability of surviving a tagging event was quantified in white sands pupfish (cyprinodon tularosa) across a range of sizes (19-60 mm) to address the hypothesis that body size predicts tagging survival. we compared tagging related mortality, individual taggers, growth, and tag retention in white sands pupfish implanted with 8-mm passive integrated transponder (pit), visual implant elastomer (vie), and control (handled similarly, but no tag implantation) over a 75 d period. initial body weight was a good predictor of the probability of survival in pit- and vie-tagged fish. as weight increased by 1 g, the fish were 4.73 times more likely to survive pit-tag implantation compared to the control fish with an estimated suitable tagging size at 1.1 g (tl: 39.29 +/- 0.41 mm). likewise, vie-tagged animals were 2.27 dines more likely to survive a tagging event compared to the control group for every additional 1 g with an estimated size suitable for tagging of 0.9 g (tl: 36.9 +/- 0.36 mm) fish. growth rates of pit- and vie tagged white sands pupfish were similar to the control groups. this research validated two popular tagging methodologies in the white sands pupfish, thus providing a valuable tool for characterizing vital rates in other small-bodied fishes." integrated population models facilitate ecological understanding and improved management decisions,band recovery; fecundity; harvest surveys; integrated population models; survival; waterfowl management,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,ARNOLD TW;CLARK RG;KOONS DN;SCHAUB M,"integrated population models (ipms) represent a formal statistical methodology for combining multiple data sets such as population counts, band recoveries, and fecundity estimates into a single unified analysis with dual objectives: better estimating population size, trajectory, and vital rates; and formally describing the ecological processes that generated these patterns. although ipms have been used in population ecology and fisheries management, their use in wildlife management has been limited. data sets available for north american waterfowl are unprecedented in terms of time span (> 60 years) and geographic coverage, and are especially well-suited for development of ipms that could improve the understanding of population ecology and help guide future harvest and habitat management decisions. in this overview, we illustrate 3 potential benefits of ipms: integration of multiple data sources (i.e., population counts, mark-recapture data, and fecundity estimates), increased precision of parameter estimates, and ability to estimate missing demographic parameters by reanalyzing results from a historical study of canvasbacks (aythya valisineria). drawing from our own published and unpublished work, we demonstrate how ipms could be used to identify the critical vital rates that have had the greatest influence on population change in lesser scaup (aythya affinis), evaluate potential mechanisms of harvest compensation for american black ducks (anas rubripes), or prioritize the most appropriate places to conduct habitat management to benefit northern pintails (anas acuta). integrated population models provide a powerful platform for evaluating alternative hypotheses about population regulation and they have potential to advance the understanding of wildlife ecology and help managers make ecologically based decisions. (c) 2017 the wildlife society." post-breeding migration and connectivity of red knots in the western atlantic,altamaha river; calidris canutus rufa; isotope; jolly-seber; mark-resight; migratory connectivity; red knot; shorebird migration; stopover duration; stopover ecology,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,LYONS JE;WINN B;KEYES T;KALASZ KS,"red knots (calidris canutus rufa) have 3 distinct nonbreeding regions: 1 in the southeastern united states and caribbean, another on the northeast coast of brazil in the maranhao region, and a third along the patagonian coasts of chile and argentina. effective conservation and recovery of this threatened long-distance migrant will require knowledge of population structure, migration ecology, and abundance and distribution throughout the annual cycle. we conducted a stopover population and biogeographic assessment of knots at the altamaha river delta, georgia, an important stopover area in the southeastern united states. we estimated stopover population size and stopover duration during post-breeding migration in 2011 at the altamaha study area using mark-resight data, and we inferred nonbreeding regions for this stopover population using stable isotope ratios of carbon and nitrogen in feathers, and observations (sightings and captures) during boreal winter from across the hemisphere. with an integrated bayesian analysis of all these data, we also estimated the number of birds in the southeastern united states and northern brazil during boreal winter. for mark-resight analyses in georgia, we made observations of marked individuals during 14 weeks from early august to early november 2011 and detected 814 individually marked birds. we used the jolly-seber mark-recapture model and estimated the southbound passage population at approximately 23,400 red knots. in ongoing studies elsewhere, isotope samples were collected from 175 (21%) of the 814 birds detected in our study, and >= 1 sighting or capture record during boreal winter was located in data repositories for 659 birds (81%). isotopic signatures and boreal winter records indicate that the majority (82-96%) of the birds that stopped at the altamaha delta spend the boreal winter in the northern part of the nonbreeding range (southeast usa, caribbean, and northern brazil). knots migrating to the southeastern united states, caribbean, or brazil remained on the altamaha delta for 42 days, whereas birds migrating to tierra del fuego remained only 21 days. combining our estimate of the altamaha stopover population size (23,400 birds) and the estimated proportion in the northern nonbreeding region (82-96%), we derived a minimum estimate of the number of knots in the southeastern united states, caribbean, and northern south america during the boreal winter: approximately 20,800 knots, of which approximately 10,400 knots occupy the southeastern united states and 5,400 occupy brazil. our results provide additional evidence that coastal georgia is an important migration area for red knots, and provide information about population structure and migratory connectivity that will be valuable for conservation planning. (c) 2017 the wildlife society." -transcriptomics in the wild: hibernation physiology in free-ranging dwarf lemurs,cheirogaleus; differential gene expression; rna-seq; white adipose tissue,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,FAHERTY SL;VILLANUEVA-CANAS JL;BLANCO MB;ALBA MM;YODER AD,"hibernation is an adaptive strategy some mammals use to survive highly seasonal or unpredictable environments. we present the first investigation on the transcriptomics of hibernation in a natural population of primate hibernators: crossley's dwarf lemurs (cheirogaleus crossleyi). using capture-mark-recapture techniques to track the same animals over a period of 7 months in madagascar, we used rna-seq to compare gene expression profiles in white adipose tissue (wat) during three distinct physiological states. we focus on pathway analysis to assess the biological significance of transcriptional changes in dwarf lemur wat and, by comparing and contrasting what is known in other model hibernating species, contribute to a broader understanding of genomic contributions of hibernation across mammalia. the hibernation signature is characterized by a suppression of lipid biosynthesis, pyruvate metabolism and mitochondrial-associated functions, and an accumulation of transcripts encoding ribosomal components and iron-storage proteins. the data support a key role of pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase isoenzyme 4 (pdk4) in regulating the shift in fuel economy during periods of severe food deprivation. this pattern of pdk4 holds true across representative hibernating species from disparate mammalian groups, suggesting that the genetic underpinnings of hibernation may be ancestral to mammals." -"growing old, yet staying young: the role of telomeres in bats' exceptional longevity",NA,SCIENCE ADVANCES,FOLEY NM;HUGHES GM;HUANG ZX;CLARKE M;JEBB D;WHELAN CV;PETIT EJ;TOUZALIN F;FARCY O;JONES G;RANSOME RD;KACPRZYK J;O'CONNELL MJ;KERTH G;REBELO H;RODRIGUES L;PUECHMAILLE SJ;TEELING EC,"understanding aging is a grand challenge in biology. exceptionally long-lived animals have mechanisms that underpin extreme longevity. telomeres are protective nucleotide repeats on chromosome tips that shorten with cell division, potentially limiting life span. bats are the longest-lived mammals for their size, but it is unknown whether their telomeres shorten. using >60 years of cumulative mark-recapture field data, we show that telomeres shorten with age in rhinolophus ferrumequinum andminiopterus schreibersii, but not in the bat genus with greatest longevity, myotis. as in humans, telomerase is not expressed in myotis myotis blood or fibroblasts. selection tests on telomere maintenance genes show that atm and setx, which repair and prevent dna damage, potentially mediate telomere dynamics in myotis bats. twenty-one telomere maintenance genes are differentially expressed in myotis, of which 14 are enriched for dna repair, and 5 for alternative telomere-lengthening mechanisms. we demonstrate how telomeres, telomerase, and dna repair genes have contributed to the evolution of exceptional longevity in myotis bats, advancing our understanding of healthy aging." -toward reliable population estimates of wolves by combining spatial capture-recapture models and non-invasive dna monitoring,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,LOPEZ-BAO JV;GODINHO R;PACHECO C;LEMA FJ;GARCIA E;LLANEZA L;PALACIOS V;JIMENEZ J,"decision-makers in wildlife policy require reliable population size estimates to justify interventions, to build acceptance and support in their decisions and, ultimately, to build trust in managing authorities. traditional capture-recapture approaches present two main shortcomings, namely, the uncertainty in defining the effective sampling area, and the spatially-induced heterogeneity in encounter probabilities. these limitations are overcome using spatially explicit capture-recapture approaches (scr). using wolves as case study, and non-invasive dna monitoring (faeces), we implemented a scr with a poisson observation model in a single survey to estimate wolf density and population size, and identify the locations of individual activity centres, in nw iberia over 4,378 km(2). during the breeding period, posterior mean wolf density was 2.55 wolves/100 km(2) (95% bci = 1.87-3.51), and the posterior mean population size was 111.6 +/- 18.8 wolves (95% bci = 81.8-153.6). from simulation studies, addressing different scenarios of non-independence and spatial aggregation of individuals, we only found a slight underestimation in population size estimates, supporting the reliability of scr for social species. the strategy used here (dna monitoring combined with scr) may be a cost-effective way to generate reliable population estimates for large carnivores at regional scales, especially for endangered species or populations under game management." +transcriptomics in the wild: hibernation physiology in free-ranging dwarf lemurs,cheirogaleus; differential gene expression; rna-seq; white adipose tissue,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,FAHERTY SL;VILLANUEVA CANAS JL;BLANCO MB;ALBA MM;YODER AD,"hibernation is an adaptive strategy some mammals use to survive highly seasonal or unpredictable environments. we present the first investigation on the transcriptomics of hibernation in a natural population of primate hibernators: crossley's dwarf lemurs (cheirogaleus crossleyi). using capture-mark-recapture techniques to track the same animals over a period of 7 months in madagascar, we used rna-seq to compare gene expression profiles in white adipose tissue (wat) during three distinct physiological states. we focus on pathway analysis to assess the biological significance of transcriptional changes in dwarf lemur wat and, by comparing and contrasting what is known in other model hibernating species, contribute to a broader understanding of genomic contributions of hibernation across mammalia. the hibernation signature is characterized by a suppression of lipid biosynthesis, pyruvate metabolism and mitochondrial-associated functions, and an accumulation of transcripts encoding ribosomal components and iron-storage proteins. the data support a key role of pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase isoenzyme 4 (pdk4) in regulating the shift in fuel economy during periods of severe food deprivation. this pattern of pdk4 holds true across representative hibernating species from disparate mammalian groups, suggesting that the genetic underpinnings of hibernation may be ancestral to mammals." +"growing old, yet staying young: the role of telomeres in bats' exceptional longevity",NA,SCIENCE ADVANCES,FOLEY NM;HUGHES GM;HUANG ZX;CLARKE M;JEBB D;WHELAN CV;PETIT EJ;TOUZALIN F;FARCY O;JONES G;RANSOME RD;KACPRZYK J;O CONNELL MJ;KERTH G;REBELO H;RODRIGUES L;PUECHMAILLE SJ;TEELING EC,"understanding aging is a grand challenge in biology. exceptionally long-lived animals have mechanisms that underpin extreme longevity. telomeres are protective nucleotide repeats on chromosome tips that shorten with cell division, potentially limiting life span. bats are the longest-lived mammals for their size, but it is unknown whether their telomeres shorten. using >60 years of cumulative mark-recapture field data, we show that telomeres shorten with age in rhinolophus ferrumequinum andminiopterus schreibersii, but not in the bat genus with greatest longevity, myotis. as in humans, telomerase is not expressed in myotis myotis blood or fibroblasts. selection tests on telomere maintenance genes show that atm and setx, which repair and prevent dna damage, potentially mediate telomere dynamics in myotis bats. twenty-one telomere maintenance genes are differentially expressed in myotis, of which 14 are enriched for dna repair, and 5 for alternative telomere-lengthening mechanisms. we demonstrate how telomeres, telomerase, and dna repair genes have contributed to the evolution of exceptional longevity in myotis bats, advancing our understanding of healthy aging." +toward reliable population estimates of wolves by combining spatial capture-recapture models and non-invasive dna monitoring,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,LOPEZ BAO JV;GODINHO R;PACHECO C;LEMA FJ;GARCIA E;LLANEZA L;PALACIOS V;JIMENEZ J,"decision-makers in wildlife policy require reliable population size estimates to justify interventions, to build acceptance and support in their decisions and, ultimately, to build trust in managing authorities. traditional capture-recapture approaches present two main shortcomings, namely, the uncertainty in defining the effective sampling area, and the spatially-induced heterogeneity in encounter probabilities. these limitations are overcome using spatially explicit capture-recapture approaches (scr). using wolves as case study, and non-invasive dna monitoring (faeces), we implemented a scr with a poisson observation model in a single survey to estimate wolf density and population size, and identify the locations of individual activity centres, in nw iberia over 4,378 km(2). during the breeding period, posterior mean wolf density was 2.55 wolves/100 km(2) (95% bci = 1.87-3.51), and the posterior mean population size was 111.6 +/- 18.8 wolves (95% bci = 81.8-153.6). from simulation studies, addressing different scenarios of non-independence and spatial aggregation of individuals, we only found a slight underestimation in population size estimates, supporting the reliability of scr for social species. the strategy used here (dna monitoring combined with scr) may be a cost-effective way to generate reliable population estimates for large carnivores at regional scales, especially for endangered species or populations under game management." terrestrial habitat and individual fitness increase survival of a freshwater turtle in an urban landscape,capture-recapture model; chelodina longicollis; habitat connectivity; semi-aquatic reptile; urbanisation; wetlands,URBAN ECOSYSTEMS,HAMER AJ;HARRISON LJ;STOKELD D,"urbanisation is causing rapid land-use change worldwide. populations of freshwater turtles are vulnerable to impacts of urbanisation such as habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation, because many species require interconnected aquatic and terrestrial habitats. understanding the processes that underpin survival in urban areas is critical in managing species that may vary in their responses to urbanisation. here, we conducted a mark-recapture study of a common freshwater turtle (chelodina longicollis) at 20 wetlands over five years across a broad geographical gradient in a large and expanding australian city. our aim was to examine relationships between survival and a broad suite of local and landscape environmental variables, and body condition. using capture-recapture models, we found a positive relationship between the probability of survival of c. longicollis and the proportion of green open space in a 1-km radius around a wetland. there was a positive relationship between survival of female c. longicollis and body condition. survival probabilities generally did not differ substantially among males, females or juveniles, or seasons. we found evidence of adult turtle mortality resulting from recreational fishing. our results demonstrate the importance of terrestrial habitat surrounding wetlands for freshwater turtle survival in an urban environment. our results suggest that management actions for c. longicollis in urban areas need to protect green spaces surrounding wetlands (e.g. parks and remnant vegetation) and discourage human actions that threaten turtle survival. our study adds to mounting evidence that conserving freshwater turtle populations in urban areas requires managers to consider life cycle requirements over broad spatiotemporal scales." methods for studying earthworm dispersal,movements; landscape structure; connectivity; behavior; capture mark recapture methods,APPLIED SOIL ECOLOGY,MATHIEU J;CARO G;DUPONT L,"dispersal is a key driver of species composition and functional traits in earthworm communities. however, it has been largely overlooked in ecological literature on earthworms because it is particularly difficult to study. in this publication, we review recent developments that have been made in this field of research. we present methods to assess dispersal distance, such as capture-mark-recapture and molecular tools, and methods using dispersal corridors or x-ray imagery aiming at identifying the mechanisms triggering dispersal in earthworms communities." entrainment of juvenile and adult american shad at a pumped storage facility,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,MATHUR D;HEISEY PG;ROYER DD;WHITE EJ;SLOWIK AC;BLEISTINE RA;PRACHEIL BM;LONG KA;SULLIVAN TJ,"the american shad alosa sapidissima has been targeted for restoration to the upper susquehanna river, and entrainment losses at hydroelectric facilities on the river, including the muddy run pumped storage facility, are of concern for the potential growth of the american shad population. based on the integration of pumping volume, time of entrainment, and literature-reported diel emigration of juvenile american shad, the entrainment rate (n=145; 53 exposed to pumping) was estimated at 3.5%. the entrainment rate for adults (n=507) was estimated at 0.3-3.9%. using multistate mark-recapture models, the estimated entrainment probabilities () of radio-tagged juveniles were higher during periods of extended pumping (>1h; =0.093; 95% confidence interval [ci]=0.054-0.156) than at periods of no pumping or short-duration pumping (<1h; <0.0001; 95% ci=0.0-0.001); the high extended pumping occurred between 2300 and 0600hours. entrainment probabilities for adults were low (<0.02); the highest probability occurred for fish detected downstream of the intake during the peak portion of the run (=0.015; 95% ci=0.004-0.047). entrainment probability for most adult fish did not differ from zero. the low values of for both life stages were attributed to (1) the deep location of the intake (intake ceiling >11.7m below the water surface), (2) the surface orientation of american shad (upper 3.1m), (3) the low overlap between high-volume pumping and peak emigration/migration times, (4) the pumping volume relative to prevailing river flows, and (5) the prolonged, robust swimming speed of american shad, particularly that of adults (>2.2m/s), which exceeded the intake velocity (0.2-0.9m/s). entrainment of juveniles increased with co-occurrence of low incoming river flows, high pumping volume, and peak emigration times. quantification of migratory species' entrainment at pumped storage facilities requires integration of diel migration/emigration times with the frequency, timing, and duration of pumping volume." evaluation of invasive and non-invasive methods to monitor rodent abundance in the arctic,detection probability; direct and indirect observations; distance sampling; lemmings; monitoring; population dynamics; small mammals,ECOSPHERE,FAUTEUX D;GAUTHIER G;MAZEROLLE MJ;COALLIER N;BETY J;BERTEAUX D,"monitoring rodent abundance is critical to understand direct and indirect trophic interactions in most northern terrestrial ecosystems. however, logistic constraints can prevent researchers from using capture- mark-recapture methods, a robust approach to estimate abundance. our objective was to determine the correlation between abundance estimates of arctic lemmings obtained from live-trapping data with spatially explicit capture-recapture models (secr; n/ha) and abundance indices obtained from snap-trapping along trap lines (n/100 trap-nights), winter nest sampling along transects with distance sampling models (n/ha), burrow counting within quadrats (n/100 m(2)), and incidental observations (n/100 observer-hr). we also evaluated the impact of reduced sampling effort on the bias and precision of each abundance estimate. data from brown (lemmus trimucronatus) and collared lemmings (dicrostonyx groenlandicus) were collected each year from 2007 to 2016 on bylot island, nunavut, canada. snap-trapping (r = 0.90) and incidental observations (r = 0.92) yielded the highest correlations with live-trapping densities for brown lemmings, the most abundant species. when combining abundance of both lemming species, snap-trapping (r = 0.77) and incidental observations (r = 0.90) also yielded the highest correlations. indices from winter nests and burrows were also correlated (r > 0.50) with live-trapping densities, but to a lesser degree. we found that bias generally increased when effort was reduced for methods involving modeling of capture or detection probabilities (i.e., live-trapping, winter nests), but remained low for the other methods. in contrast, precision of estimates remained high when using secr models, but decreased substantially for the other methods during years of low lemming abundance. non-convergence of secr and distance sampling models generally increased when reducing effort and was frequent in years of low lemming abundance. interestingly, collecting > 200 h of incidental observations generated highly reliable estimates of lemming abundance compared to results from live-trapping, indicating that such non-invasive method can provide valuable data at low cost. we provide guidelines on other invasive or non-invasive methods that can be used when small mammals cannot be live-trapped and suggest the effort required to achieve a given precision." -"an adaptable but threatened big cat: density, diet and prey selection of the indochinese leopard (panthera pardus delacouri) in eastern cambodia",bos javanicus; food habits; intersexual differences; panthera pardus; population decline; spatially explicit capture-recapture models,ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE,ROSTRO-GARCIA S;KAMLER JF;CROUTHERS R;SOPHEAK K;PRUM S;IN V;PIN C;CARAGIULO A;MACDONALD DW,"we studied the indochinese leopard (panthera pardus delacouri) in eastern cambodia, in one of the few potentially remaining viable populations in southeast asia. the aims were to determine the: (i) current leopard density in srepok wildlife sanctuary (sws) and (ii) diet, prey selection and predation impact of leopard in sws. the density, estimated using spatially explicit capture-recapture models, was 1.0 leopard/100km(2), 72% lower than an estimate from 2009 at the same site, and one of the lowest densities ever reported in asia. dietary analysis of 73 dna confirmed scats showed leopard consumed 13 prey species, although ungulates comprised 87% of the biomass consumed (bc). the overall main prey (42% bc) was banteng (bos javanicus), making this the only known leopard population whose main prey had adult weight greater than 500 kg. consumption of wild pig (sus scrofa) was also one of the highest ever reported (22% bc), indicating leopard consistently predated on ungulates with some of the largest adult weights in sws. there were important differences in diet and prey selection between sexes, as males consumed mostly banteng (62% bc) in proportion to availability, but few muntjac (muntiacus vaginalis; 7% bc), whereas females selectively consumed muntjac (56% bc) and avoided banteng (less than 1% bc). predation impact was low (0.5-3.2% of populations) for the three ungulate species consumed. we conclude that the indochinese leopard is an important apex predator in sws, but this unique population is declining at an alarming rate and will soon be eradicated unless effective protection is provided." +"an adaptable but threatened big cat: density, diet and prey selection of the indochinese leopard (panthera pardus delacouri) in eastern cambodia",bos javanicus; food habits; intersexual differences; panthera pardus; population decline; spatially explicit capture-recapture models,ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE,ROSTRO GARCIA S;KAMLER JF;CROUTHERS R;SOPHEAK K;PRUM S;IN V;PIN C;CARAGIULO A;MACDONALD DW,"we studied the indochinese leopard (panthera pardus delacouri) in eastern cambodia, in one of the few potentially remaining viable populations in southeast asia. the aims were to determine the: (i) current leopard density in srepok wildlife sanctuary (sws) and (ii) diet, prey selection and predation impact of leopard in sws. the density, estimated using spatially explicit capture-recapture models, was 1.0 leopard/100km(2), 72% lower than an estimate from 2009 at the same site, and one of the lowest densities ever reported in asia. dietary analysis of 73 dna confirmed scats showed leopard consumed 13 prey species, although ungulates comprised 87% of the biomass consumed (bc). the overall main prey (42% bc) was banteng (bos javanicus), making this the only known leopard population whose main prey had adult weight greater than 500 kg. consumption of wild pig (sus scrofa) was also one of the highest ever reported (22% bc), indicating leopard consistently predated on ungulates with some of the largest adult weights in sws. there were important differences in diet and prey selection between sexes, as males consumed mostly banteng (62% bc) in proportion to availability, but few muntjac (muntiacus vaginalis; 7% bc), whereas females selectively consumed muntjac (56% bc) and avoided banteng (less than 1% bc). predation impact was low (0.5-3.2% of populations) for the three ungulate species consumed. we conclude that the indochinese leopard is an important apex predator in sws, but this unique population is declining at an alarming rate and will soon be eradicated unless effective protection is provided." detecting diversification rates in relation to preservation and tectonic history from simulated fossil records,NA,PALEOBIOLOGY,SMILEY TM,"for mammals today, mountains are diverse ecosystems globally, yet the strong relationship between species richness and topographic complexity is not a persistent feature of the fossil record. based on fossil-occurrence data, diversity and diversification rates in the intermontane western north america varied through time, increasing significantly during an interval of global warming and regional intensification of tectonic activity from 18 to 14 ma. however, our ability to infer origination and extinction rates reliably from the fossil record is affected by variation in preservation history. to investigate the influence of preservation on estimates of diversification rates, i simulated fossil records under four alternative diversification hypotheses and six preservation scenarios. diversification hypotheses included tectonically controlled speciation pulses, while preservation scenarios were based on common trends (e.g., increasing rock record toward the present) or derived from fossil occurrences and the continental rock record. for each scenario, i estimated origination, extinction, and diversification rates using three standard methods-per capita, three-timer, and capture-mark-recapture (cmr) metrics- and evaluated the ability of the simulated fossil records to accurately recover the underlying diversification dynamics. despite variable and low preservation probabilities, simulated fossil records retained the signal of true rates in several of the scenarios. the three metrics did not exhibit similar behavior under each preservation scenario: while three-timer and cmr metrics produced more accurate rate estimates, per capita rates tended to better reproduce true shifts in origination rates. all metrics suffered from spurious peaks in origination and extinction rates when highly volatile preservation impacted the simulated record. results from these simulations indicate that elevated diversification rates in relation to tectonic activity during the middle miocene are likely to be evident in the fossil record, even if preservation in the north american fossil record was variable. input from the past is necessary to evaluate the ultimate mechanisms underlying speciation and extinction dynamics." "coccidioidomycosis: an underreported cause of death-arizona, 2008-2013",coccidioidomycosis; cause of death; epidemiology; surveillance; capture-recapture,MEDICAL MYCOLOGY,JONES JM;KOSKI L;KHAN M;BRADY S;SUNENSHINE R;KOMATSU KK,"in arizona during 1997-2013, coccidioidomycosis increased from 21 to 90 cases/100,000 population, but coccidioidomycosis-associated deaths remained stable at 3-6 deaths/million population. we used the capture-recapture method by using death certificates and hospital discharge data to more fully estimate the total number of coccidioidomycosis-attributable deaths and compared this with published estimates. death certificates were included if any cause of death included coccidioidomycosis; hospital discharge data deaths were included if any discharge diagnosis included coccidioidomycosis and laboratory confirmation. among deaths during 2008-2013, we identified 529 coccidioidomycosis-attributable deaths from death certificates and 560 from hospital discharge data, with 251 deaths identified in both databases. capture-recapture estimated 1,178 total coccidioidomycosis-attributable deaths, compared with 164 deaths (underlying cause of death) or 529 deaths (any cause of death) on death certificates. coccidioidomycosis-attributable deaths are underreported from two-to sevenfold on arizona death certificates, demonstrating an education need for death certifiers to document coccidioidomycosis mortality." first microsatellite data on proteus anguinus reveal weak genetic structure between the caves of postojna and planina,conservation genetics; dinaric karst; endangered species; groundwater; microsatellites; proteus anguinus; subterranean,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,ZAKSEK V;KONEC M;TRONTELJ P,"the european cave salamander, proteus anguinus, or proteus, is the largest obligate cave animal in the world. it is an endangered and charismatic species of high conservation importance for subterranean waters. conservation genetic studies are hampered by the extreme size and repetitiveness of its nuclear genome. the aim of the study was to develop and characterize the first microsatellite markers for proteus, and test their informativeness at the level of individuals, populations and between populations in the postojna and planina caves in slovenia. twenty-three novel polymorphic microsatellite markers were amplified in 201 individuals from both caves using three multiplex reactions. the number of alleles per locus varied from three to nine. the loci are largely unlinked and conform to hardy-weinberg genotype frequencies. genetic equilibrium and an f-st value of 0.0024 suggest a nearly panmictic population in both caves separated by some 10km of subterranean river course, while bayesian clustering detected weak genetic structure. the microsatellites described fill the gap of urgently needed nuclear markers in proteus that can be applied in genetic mark-recapture studies, population monitoring and identification of management units to assist conservation efforts." a novel approach to estimating density of american badgers (taxidea taxus) using automatic cameras at water sources in the chihuahuan desert,american badger; anthropogenic water source; camera trap; chihuahuan desert; density; dorsal head stripe; secr; spatially explicit capture-recapture; taxidea taxus,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,GOULD MJ;HARRISON RL,"american badgers (taxidea taxus) are large members of the weasel family mustelidae. badgers are important predators and creators of burrows in ecosystems in which they occur, but they are not well studied. their range occurs over most of north america; however, most studies of badgers have occurred in california and the northern portions of their range, while few have occurred in southern habitats. badger density has been estimated in utah, idaho, wyoming, and british columbia with no estimates from desert habitats. to measure badger density in a desert habitat, we placed automatic cameras at anthropogenic water sources (drinkers) in the chihuahuan desert, identified individual badgers by their dorsal head stripes, and estimated density using spatially explicit capture-recapture analysis. we modeled the detection process for individuals as a function of time, survey region, a learned and trap-specific behavioral response, and a finite mixture model. we then hypothesized that soil composition, soil depth, and land cover influence variation in badger density. from 1,282 camera-nights, we recorded 301 badger visits (23.5 visits per 100 camera-nights) and identified 30 individuals 170 times. the top model included a trap-specific behavioral effect for lambda 0, a finite mixture model for the sigma parameter, which controls the spatial scale over which the expected number of detections declines, and indicated that soil depth was an important covariate explaining variation in badger density. estimated badger density was 0.10 badgers/km(2) (95% ci = 0.03-0.31), which is considerably less than the reported density estimates for nonendangered nondesert populations. our method helps provide researchers with an ability to estimate density for american badgers in arid ecosystems. with modification, our method may be used across the geographic range of badgers, facilitating better understanding of an understudied species." "exotic- and native-dominated shrubland habitat use by fall migrating swainson's thrushes and gray catbirds in michigan, usa",bird migration; stopover; habitat selection; habitat quality; invasive shrub; resource use; fruit; radio-telemetry,CONDOR,OGUCHI Y;POHLEN Z;SMITH RJ;OWEN JC,"the ability to locate high-quality stopover habitat has fitness implications for migrating landbirds, and alteration of stopover habitats due to human land-use change, including the introduction of nonnative plants, has been identified as a conservation concern. we tested whether the use and selection of shrublands dominated by exotic plants differed from that of native-dominated shrublands. specifically, we compared capture rates, transfer rates between habitats, within-foraging-range habitat selection, and food items of swainson's thrushes (catharus ustulatus) and gray catbirds (dumetella carolinensis) between exotic-and native-dominated shrublands in michigan, usa, during fall migration of 2012 and 2013. capture rates were >20% higher for thrushes and >250% higher for catbirds in native shrubland. capture-recapture data showed that birds moved from exotic to native shrubland at higher rates than vice versa. for radio-tagged thrushes and catbirds, native shrubland was similar to 30% more likely to be used than expected by land cover at the within-foraging-range scale. thrushes, but not catbirds, avoided exotic shrubs within their foraging ranges. native lindera benzoin fruit was >50% more likely to be found in fecal samples from both bird species in native-dominated shrubland than in exotic-dominated shrubland, and was the predominant food item in the former habitat type. collectively, our results suggest that fall migrating swainson's thrushes and gray catbirds select, and hence occur at higher densities in, predominantly native shrublands rather than exotic-dominated shrublands. one mechanism for this pattern may be their preference for certain native fruits, such as l. benzoin. our results suggest that native shrubland may be an especially important stopover habitat for frugivorous birds during fall migration." -accounting for uncertainty in duplicate identification and group size judgements in mark-recapture distance sampling,abundance; coefficient of variation; common dolphins; double-observer aerial surveys; group size; mark-recapture distance sampling,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HAMILTON ONP;KINCAID SE;CONSTANTINE R;KOZMIAN-LEDWARD L;WALKER CG;FEWSTER RM,"1. mark-recapture distance sampling (mrds) surveys with two independent observers are widely used to estimate wildlife population abundance. the analysis relies on accurate identification of duplicate sightings common to both observers, and correct judgements of group size, both of which are hard to achieve for species that exhibit complex grouping patterns. 2. in this paper, we examine the impact of these sources of uncertainty on bias and precision of abundance estimates, using a case study of 22 aerial surveys of common dolphins (delphinus delphis) in the hauraki gulf, new zealand. we develop a novel probabilistic method to identify duplicate observations, and account for various sources of uncertainty using a simulation-intensive approach. 3. for our case study, identifying duplicates using reasonable but arbitrary thresholds of time and angle discrepancies created a range of abundance estimates differing by up to 20%, whereas our novel threshold-free probabilistic analysis returned an estimate roughly central to this range. uncertainty in group size made a smaller impact of up to 5% on abundance estimates. all analysis choices returned similar values for the coefficient of variation, from 20 to 23%. 4. generating robust estimates of abundance, and accounting for all associated sources of uncertainty, is critical for informing conservation management. our novel approach provides a way to eliminate arbitrary decisions associated with mrds, and account for a wider range of uncertainties. our method allows for the reliable application of mrds to a wider range of terrestrial and marine species, and will be a useful tool for producing robust abundance estimates for species that exhibit complex grouping patterns." +accounting for uncertainty in duplicate identification and group size judgements in mark-recapture distance sampling,abundance; coefficient of variation; common dolphins; double-observer aerial surveys; group size; mark-recapture distance sampling,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HAMILTON ONP;KINCAID SE;CONSTANTINE R;KOZMIAN LEDWARD L;WALKER CG;FEWSTER RM,"1. mark-recapture distance sampling (mrds) surveys with two independent observers are widely used to estimate wildlife population abundance. the analysis relies on accurate identification of duplicate sightings common to both observers, and correct judgements of group size, both of which are hard to achieve for species that exhibit complex grouping patterns. 2. in this paper, we examine the impact of these sources of uncertainty on bias and precision of abundance estimates, using a case study of 22 aerial surveys of common dolphins (delphinus delphis) in the hauraki gulf, new zealand. we develop a novel probabilistic method to identify duplicate observations, and account for various sources of uncertainty using a simulation-intensive approach. 3. for our case study, identifying duplicates using reasonable but arbitrary thresholds of time and angle discrepancies created a range of abundance estimates differing by up to 20%, whereas our novel threshold-free probabilistic analysis returned an estimate roughly central to this range. uncertainty in group size made a smaller impact of up to 5% on abundance estimates. all analysis choices returned similar values for the coefficient of variation, from 20 to 23%. 4. generating robust estimates of abundance, and accounting for all associated sources of uncertainty, is critical for informing conservation management. our novel approach provides a way to eliminate arbitrary decisions associated with mrds, and account for a wider range of uncertainties. our method allows for the reliable application of mrds to a wider range of terrestrial and marine species, and will be a useful tool for producing robust abundance estimates for species that exhibit complex grouping patterns." overwintering steller sea lion (eumetopias jubatus) pup growth and behavior prior to weaning,steller sea lion; eumetopias jubatus; capture; recapture; mass; total body fat; lipid; buoyancy; weaning; dive; diving; time-depth recorder; tdr,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,REHBERG MJ;REA LD;EISCHENS CA,"we measured individual growth, looked for evidence of weaning, and examined the interaction of these changes with diving behavior in young-of-year steller sea lion (eumetopias jubatus (schreber, 1776)) pups in alaska, usa, during their first winter. steller sea lions employ an income breeding strategy, in which females provision their young over an individually variable period of months to years. thus, we set out to identify whether these young sea lions showed evidence of weaning during the challenging winter months, describe the nature of their growth during this time, and examine their behaviors in light of these changes. between 2005 and 2008, we captured 71 pups during early winter and recaptured 33 of these pups in early spring. mark-resight and stable nitrogen isotope ratios in vibrissae indicated most pups remained nutritionally dependent on adult females throughout the winter. all pups increased both mass and lipid mass, with half of growth contributed by lipid mass. changes in behavior were not correlated with growth excepting a weak but significant effect on rate of vertical travel. this study demonstrated that capture-recapture of steller sea lion pups is possible, provided seasonal timing, locations, and age classes are carefully considered for their likelihood of capture success." "hiv-care access among people with incarceration experience in st. petersburg, russia",NA,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH,RUIZ MS;HEIMER R;LEVINA OS;BADOSOVA NV;RASSOKHIN VV;BELYAKOV AN;BELYAKOV NA,"little is known about the clinical care experiences of hiv-infected persons in st. petersburg who have experience with incarceration. to address this question, we conducted a capture-recapture study to identify individuals who had been diagnosed with hiv infection while incarcerated and who subsequently presented for medical care in st. petersburg, russia following release from prison. we matched 292 hiv-positive prisoners tested by the prison system in 2010 to the medical records at the st. petersburg aids center in the following 4 years. the data analysis shows that as many as half of hiv+ prisoners fail to seek treatment in the community upon release. of those who had sought care post-release, only 36% were receiving haart. of the 109 individuals for whom tuberculosis testing was indicated post-release, 36.7% were found to be reactive. despite the limitations of the data, this study is the first of its kind to review records documenting hiv care among prisoners in russia post-incarceration. in addition to providing important descriptive information about this marginalized population, the findings from this study highlight areas where hiv control efforts could be improved in order to address the hiv epidemic in the russian federation." -mountains as barriers to gene flow in amphibians: quantifying the differential effect of a major mountain ridge on the genetic structure of four sympatric species with different life history traits,connectivity; dispersal; genetic clustering; isolation by distance; landscape genetics; migration rates per generation,JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY,SANCHEZ-MONTES G;WANG JL;ARINO AH;MARTINEZ-SOLANO I,"aim: to test the role of mountains as barriers to gene flow in co-distributed taxa with different life history traits. location: sierra de guadarrama, central spain. methods: we used larval genotypes of four amphibian species (epidalea calamita, hyla molleri, pelophylax perezi and pelobates cultripes) sampled on northern and southern slopes of sierra de guadarrama to describe genetic structure with f-st, migration rates per generation, clustering algorithms and resistance by elevation surfaces. we also recorded individual displacement events as a proxy of dispersal potential during a seven-year monitoring project based on capture-mark-recapture (cmr). results: all species travelled longer cumulative distances than those reported in the study area for p. cultripes (0.71 km). individuals of e. calamita travelled up to 3.55 km, followed by h. molleri (2.84 km) and p. perezi (1.51 km). pairwise f-st estimates showed lower overall connectivity in p. cultripes. average migration rates per generation were low in all species, with exceptions in same-slope populations of h. molleri and p. cultripes. clustering algorithms consistently recovered well-differentiated population groups of p. cultripes in northern versus southern slopes, but widely admixed areas were observed in the other species, especially near mountain passes. resistance by elevation surfaces showed a strong barrier effect of sierra de guadarrama in p. cultripes and suggested a potential role of topography in the genetic structure of e. calamita and h. molleri. main conclusions: sierra de guadarrama currently acts as a strong barrier to gene flow for p. cultripes and, to a lesser extent, for e. calamita, h. molleri and p. perezi. this differential effect can be partly explained by differences in life history traits, including dispersal potential. our findings support the general role of the central system as a key feature shaping population connectivity and genetic variation in amphibian communities." +mountains as barriers to gene flow in amphibians: quantifying the differential effect of a major mountain ridge on the genetic structure of four sympatric species with different life history traits,connectivity; dispersal; genetic clustering; isolation by distance; landscape genetics; migration rates per generation,JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY,SANCHEZ MONTES G;WANG JL;ARINO AH;MARTINEZ SOLANO I,"aim: to test the role of mountains as barriers to gene flow in co-distributed taxa with different life history traits. location: sierra de guadarrama, central spain. methods: we used larval genotypes of four amphibian species (epidalea calamita, hyla molleri, pelophylax perezi and pelobates cultripes) sampled on northern and southern slopes of sierra de guadarrama to describe genetic structure with f-st, migration rates per generation, clustering algorithms and resistance by elevation surfaces. we also recorded individual displacement events as a proxy of dispersal potential during a seven-year monitoring project based on capture-mark-recapture (cmr). results: all species travelled longer cumulative distances than those reported in the study area for p. cultripes (0.71 km). individuals of e. calamita travelled up to 3.55 km, followed by h. molleri (2.84 km) and p. perezi (1.51 km). pairwise f-st estimates showed lower overall connectivity in p. cultripes. average migration rates per generation were low in all species, with exceptions in same-slope populations of h. molleri and p. cultripes. clustering algorithms consistently recovered well-differentiated population groups of p. cultripes in northern versus southern slopes, but widely admixed areas were observed in the other species, especially near mountain passes. resistance by elevation surfaces showed a strong barrier effect of sierra de guadarrama in p. cultripes and suggested a potential role of topography in the genetic structure of e. calamita and h. molleri. main conclusions: sierra de guadarrama currently acts as a strong barrier to gene flow for p. cultripes and, to a lesser extent, for e. calamita, h. molleri and p. perezi. this differential effect can be partly explained by differences in life history traits, including dispersal potential. our findings support the general role of the central system as a key feature shaping population connectivity and genetic variation in amphibian communities." fitness correlates of age at primiparity in a hunted moose population,age of maturity; cost of reproduction; individual heterogeneity; life history; ungulates,OECOLOGIA,MARKUSSEN SS;LOISON A;HERFINDAL I;SOLBERG EJ;HAANES H;ROED KH;HEIM M;SAETHER BE,"trade-offs between fitness-related traits are predicted from the principle of resource allocation, where increased fecundity or parental investment leads to reduced future reproduction or survival. however, fitness traits can also be positively correlated due to individual differences (e.g. body mass). age at primiparity could potentially explain variation in individual fitness either because early primiparity is costly, or it may lead to higher lifetime reproductive success. based on long-term monitoring and genetic parentage assignment of an island population of moose, we quantified reproductive performance and survival, and examined whether early maturing females have higher total calf production than late maturing females. we explored if harvesting of calves affected the subsequent reproductive success of their mothers, i.e. also due to a post-weaning cost of reproduction, and whether there are any intergenerational effects of female reproductive success. there was a positive relationship between current and future reproduction. the probability to reproduce was lower for females that were unsuccessful the year before, indicating a strong quality effect on productivity. females that started to reproduce as 2-year olds had a slightly higher total calf production compared to those starting at age three or four. high-performing mothers were also correlated with daughters that performed well in terms of reproductive success. our results suggest that the observed individual heterogeneity in fitness could be associated with differences in age at primiparity. this heterogeneity was not affected by reproductive costs associated with tending for a calf post-weaning." from early life to senescence: individual heterogeneity in a long-lived seabird,capture-mark-recapture; delayed density effect; diomedea exulans; finite mixture model; individual quality; population dynamics; wandering albatross,ECOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS,FAY R;BARBRAUD C;DELORD K;WEIMERSKIRCH H,"although population studies have long assumed that all individuals of a given sex and age are identical, ignoring among-individual differences may strongly bias our perception of eco-evolutionary processes. individual heterogeneity, often referred to as individual quality, has received increasing research attention in the last decades. however, there are still substantial gaps in our current knowledge. for example, there is little information on how individual heterogeneity influences various life-history traits simultaneously, and studies describing individual heterogeneity in wild populations are generally not able to jointly identify possible sources of this variation. here, based on a mark-recapture data set of 9,685 known-aged wandering albatrosses (diomedea exulans), we investigated the existence of individual quality over the entire life cycle of this species, from early life to senescence. using finite mixture models, we investigated the expression of individual heterogeneity in various demographic traits, and examined the origin of these among-individual differences by considering the natal environmental conditions. we found that some individuals consistently outperformed others during most of their life. in old age, however, the senescence rate was stronger in males that showed high demographic performance at younger ages. variation in individual quality seemed strongly affected by extrinsic factors experienced during the ontogenetic period. we found that individuals born in years with high population density tended to have lower performances during their lifespan, suggesting delayed density dependence effects through individual quality. our study showed that among-individual differences could be important in structuring individual life history trajectories, with substantial consequences at higher ecological levels such as population dynamics." climate change leads to differential shifts in the timing of annual cycle stages in a migratory bird,breeding; european pied flycatcher; ficedula hypoleuca; fitness; mark-recapture; migration; moult; recruitment,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,TOMOTANI BM;VAN DER JEUGD H;GIENAPP P;DE LA HERA I;PILZECKER J;TEICHMANN C;VISSER ME,"shifts in reproductive phenology due to climate change have been well documented in many species but how, within the same species, other annual cycle stages (e.g. moult, migration) shift relative to the timing of breeding has rarely been studied. when stages shift at different rates, the interval between stages may change resulting in overlaps, and as each stage is energetically demanding, these overlaps may have negative fitness consequences. we used long-term data of a population of european pied flycatchers (ficedula hypoleuca) to investigate phenological shifts in three annual cycle stages: spring migration (arrival dates), breeding (egg-laying and hatching dates) and the onset of postbreeding moult. we found different advancements in the timing of breeding compared with moult (moult advances faster) and no advancement in arrival dates. to understand these differential shifts, we explored which temperatures best explain the year-to-year variation in the timing of these stages, and show that they respond differently to temperature increases in the netherlands, causing the intervals between arrival and breeding and between breeding and moult to decrease. next, we tested the fitness consequences of these shortened intervals. we found no effect on clutch size, but the probability of a fledged chick to recruit increased with a shorter arrival-breeding interval (earlier breeding). finally, mark-recapture analyses did not detect an effect of shortened intervals on adult survival. our results suggest that the advancement of breeding allows more time for fledgling development, increasing their probability to recruit. this may incur costs to other parts of the annual cycle, but, despite the shorter intervals, there was no effect on adult survival. our results show that to fully understand the consequences of climate change, it is necessary to look carefully at different annual cycle stages, especially for organisms with complex cycles, such as migratory birds." @@ -681,17 +682,17 @@ climate change impacts on the conservation outlook of populations on the polewar "marked underreporting of pertussis requiring hospitalization in infants as estimated by capture-recapture methodology, germany, 2013-2015",pertussis; incidence; infants; hospitalization; capture-recapture,PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASE JOURNAL,SCHIELKE A;TAKLA A;VON KRIES R;WICHMANN O;HELLENBRAND W,"background: in germany, pertussis became notifiable in eastern federal states in 2002 and nationwide in march 2013. infants are at greatest risk for severe disease, with a high proportion requiring hospitalization. we implemented enhanced hospital-based surveillance to estimate the incidence of pertussis requiring hospitalization among infants in germany and to determine the proportion of infants hospitalized with pertussis too young to have been vaccinated. methods: enhanced surveillance was implemented within a nationwide hospital surveillance network (esped). we defined cases as children less than 1 year of age hospitalized due to laboratory-confirmed pertussis with disease onset from 01/07/2013-30/06/2015. we matched cases to those ascertained in the national statutory notification system, and estimated incidence using capture-recapture methodology. results: the estimated annual incidence of pertussis requiring hospitalization in infants was 52/100,000 infants (95% confidence interval [ci] 48-57/100,000), with 39% under-reporting to the national notification system. during the two epidemiologic years under-reporting decreased from 46% to 32% and was lower in eastern than western federal states (21% vs. 40%). within esped, 154 of 240 infants (64%) were younger than or still at the age recommended for the first vaccine dose; 55 (23%) could have received one or more vaccine doses. median length of hospitalization was 9 days (iqr 5-13 days) and 18% required intensive care treatment. conclusions: our study revealed a high burden of pertussis in infants with marked under-reporting, especially in western federal states where notification was only recently established. strategies for the prevention of severe pertussis." using angling and electric fishing to estimate smallmouth bass abundance in a river,gear bias; hierarchical models; mark-recapture; micropterus dolomieu; piedmont; regulated river,FISHERIES MANAGEMENT AND ECOLOGY,MYCKO SA;KANNO Y;BETTINGER JM,"estimating abundance is fundamental to effective fishery management but can be challenging in a river where spatial and temporal heterogeneity may preclude the consistent use of a single sampling gear and different gears have differing size selectivity and capture probabilities of fish. in this study, the number of smallmouth bass, micropterus dolomieu lacepede, was estimated based on mark-recapture data from angling and boat electric fishing in a 4.2-km regulated section (mean width=115m) of the broad river, south carolina, usa. closed-population capture-mark-recapture models were fit in the bayesian hierarchical modelling framework with an estimated number of 2,380 fish (95% credible interval: 1,578-3,693) over 200mm tl, although simulations indicated that abundance would be slightly overestimated (<20%) when two gears selected for different individuals. integrating two gear types into a mark-recapture study can provide a method for assessing abundance in spatially or temporally heterogeneous habitats." large scale agriotes spp. click beetle (coleoptera: elateridae) invasion of crop land from field margin reservoirs,agriotes lineatus; agriotes obscurus; dispersal; mark-release; pheromone trapping; pitfall traps; wireworm,AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST ENTOMOLOGY,BLACKSHAW RP;VERNON RS;THIEBAUD F,"1 mark-release-recapture was used to investigate the dispersal of click beetles in spring wheat or fallow fields using edge or centre field releases. three types of pitfalls were used: gutter traps near field margins, as well as conventional pitfall traps or cross-traps consisting of four gutter trap arms leading to a central pitfall. capture of naturally occuring beetles was concurrently recorded. 2 in total, 6952 marked agriotes obscurus (males and females) and agriotes lineatus (males) were released and 14.74% were recaptured at some time during the present study. recovery rates ranged from 3.54% to 28.5%. 3 agriotes obscurus dominated wild populations, with 4011 males and 1672 females trapped compared with 17 males and three females for a. lineatus. males dominated early in the period, although the sex ratio tended towards equality as the season progressed. 4 generally, captures of a. obscurus males released in equal numbers at field edges followed a uniform distribution. there were differences for wild beetles caught in the same traps. 5 spatial trapping patterns of wild and marked beetles across the fields were similar. within 19h of release at the field edges a. obscurus males were captured >30 m away. 6 the crop type had a significant interspecific effect on trap counts for males and an intraspecific effect on a. obscurus females, reinforcing the need for caution when using trapping systems to monitor adult stages of these pests. 7 the results of the present study demonstrate that uncropped field margins comprise sources of click beetles. we also conclude that click beetles disperse much further than reported previously." -"predator arrival elicits differential dispersal, change in age structure and reproductive performance in a prey population",NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,PAYO-PAYO A;SANZ-AGUILAR A;GENOVART M;BERTOLERO A;PICCARDO J;CAMPS D;RUIZ-OLMO J;ORO D,"predators are an important ecological and evolutionary force shaping prey population dynamics. ecologists have extensively assessed the lethal effects of invasive predators on prey populations. however, the role of non-lethal effects, such as physiological stress or behavioural responses like dispersal, has been comparatively overlooked and their potential population effects remain obscure. over the last 23 years, we developed a mark-recapture program for the audouin's gull and an intensive carnivore monitoring program to assess how the appearance and invasion of the study site by carnivores affects population dynamics. we evaluate changes in turnover of discrete breeding patches within the colony, age structure and breeding performance. once carnivores entered the colony, the number of occupied patches increased, indicating a higher patch turnover. breeders responded by moving to areas less accessible to carnivores. more importantly, the presence of carnivores caused differential (and density-independent) breeding dispersal: experienced, better-performing breeders were more likely to leave the colony than younger breeders. this differential dispersal modified the age structure and reduced the reproductive performance of the population. our results confirm the importance experience in the study of populations. the role of differential dispersal for animal population dynamics might be more important than previously thought, especially under scenarios of global change." +"predator arrival elicits differential dispersal, change in age structure and reproductive performance in a prey population",NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,PAYO PAYO A;SANZ AGUILAR A;GENOVART M;BERTOLERO A;PICCARDO J;CAMPS D;RUIZ OLMO J;ORO D,"predators are an important ecological and evolutionary force shaping prey population dynamics. ecologists have extensively assessed the lethal effects of invasive predators on prey populations. however, the role of non-lethal effects, such as physiological stress or behavioural responses like dispersal, has been comparatively overlooked and their potential population effects remain obscure. over the last 23 years, we developed a mark-recapture program for the audouin's gull and an intensive carnivore monitoring program to assess how the appearance and invasion of the study site by carnivores affects population dynamics. we evaluate changes in turnover of discrete breeding patches within the colony, age structure and breeding performance. once carnivores entered the colony, the number of occupied patches increased, indicating a higher patch turnover. breeders responded by moving to areas less accessible to carnivores. more importantly, the presence of carnivores caused differential (and density-independent) breeding dispersal: experienced, better-performing breeders were more likely to leave the colony than younger breeders. this differential dispersal modified the age structure and reduced the reproductive performance of the population. our results confirm the importance experience in the study of populations. the role of differential dispersal for animal population dynamics might be more important than previously thought, especially under scenarios of global change." invasive pneumococcal disease in children under 16 years of age: incomplete rebound in incidence after the maximum effect of pcv13 in 2012/13 in germany,invasive pneumococcal disease; pneumococcal conjugate vaccination; school-aged children; germany,VACCINE,WEINBERGER R;VON KRIES R;VAN DER LINDEN M;RIECK T;SIEDLER A;FALKENHORST G,"objective: to identify a potential nadir of the impact of pneumococcal conjugate vaccination (pcv) in infancy on invasive pneumococcal diseases (ipd) in children under 16 in germany. methods: active surveillance on ipd based on two independent data sources with capture-recapture correction for underreporting. annual incidence rates by age group, serotypes, site of infection, and relative incidence reduction compared to pre-vaccination period (1997-2001) at nadir and for the most recent season are reported. we calculated vaccine coverage at the age of 24 months using health insurance claims data. results: 96-97% of children had received at least two doses of pcv since 2009. the maximum impact on overall ipd incidence was achieved in 2012/13 (-48% [95% cl: -55%; -39%]) with a rebound to -26% [95% ci: -36%; -16%] in 2015/16. non-pcv13 serotypes accounted for 84.1% of the ipd cases in 2015/16. the most frequent non-pcv serotypes in ipd in 2014/15 and 2015/16 were 10a, 24f, 15c, 12f, 38, 22f, 23b, and 15b. the impact at nadir was highest in children 0-1 years of age both in meningitis and non-meningitis cases, whereas the impact for other age groups was higher for meningitis cases. the rebound mainly pertained to non-meningitis cases. conclusion: the maximum impact of pneumococcal conjugate vaccination has been attained and signs of a rebound are apparent. sustained surveillance for ipd in children is warranted to assess whether these trends will continue. there may be a need for vaccines using antigens common to all serotypes. (c) 2017 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." completeness and reliability of mortality data in viet nam: implications for the national routine health management information system,NA,PLOS ONE,HONG TT;HOA NP;WALKER SM;HILL PS;RAO C,"background mortality statistics form a crucial component of national health management information systems (hmis). however, there are limitations in the availability and quality of mortality data at national level in viet nam. this study assessed the completeness of recorded deaths and the reliability of recorded causes of death (cod) in the a6 death registers in the national routine hmis in viet nam. methodology and findings 1477 identified deaths in 2014 were reviewed in two provinces. a capture-recapture method was applied to assess the completeness of the a6 death registers. 1365 household verbal autopsy (va) interviews were successfully conducted, and these were reviewed by physicians who assigned multiple and underlying cause of death (ucod). these ucods from va were then compared with the cods recorded in the a6 death registers, using kappa scores to assess the reliability of the a6 death register diagnoses. the overall completeness of the a6 death registers in the two provinces was 89.3% (95% ci: 87.8-90.8). no cod recorded in the a6 death registers demonstrated good reliability. there is very low reliability in recording of cardiovascular deaths (kappa for stroke = 0.47 and kappa for ischaemic heart diseases = 0.42) and diabetes (kappa = 0.33). the reporting of deaths due to road traffic accidents, hiv and some cancers are at a moderate level of reliability with kappa scores ranging between 0.57-0.69 (p< 0.01). va methods identify more specific cod than the a6 death registers, and also allow identification of multiple cods. conclusions the study results suggest that data completeness in hmis a6 death registers in the study sample of communes was relatively high (nearly 90%), but triangulation with death records from other sources would improve the completeness of this system. further, there is an urgent need to enhance the reliability of cod recorded in the a6 death registers, for which va methods could be effective. focussed consultation among stakeholders is needed to develop a suitable mechanism and process for integrating va methods into the national routine hmis a6 death registers in viet nam." estimating population extinction thresholds with categorical classification trees for louisiana black bears,NA,PLOS ONE,LAUFENBERG JS;CLARK JD;CHANDLER RB,"monitoring vulnerable species is critical for their conservation. thresholds or tipping points are commonly used to indicate when populations become vulnerable to extinction and to trigger changes in conservation actions. however, quantitative methods to determine such thresholds have not been well explored. the louisiana black bear (ursus americanus luteolus) was removed from the list of threatened and endangered species under the u.s. endangered species act in 2016 and our objectives were to determine the most appropriate parameters and thresholds for monitoring and management action. capture mark recapture (cmr) data from 2006 to 2012 were used to estimate population parameters and variances. we used stochastic population simulations and conditional classification trees to identify demographic rates for monitoring that would be most indicative of heighted extinction risk. we then identified thresholds that would be reliable predictors of population viability. conditional classification trees indicated that annual apparent survival rates for adult females averaged over 5 years ((phi)over-bar(5)) was the best predictor of population persistence. specifically, population persistence was estimated to be >= 95% over 100 years when ((phi)over-bar(5) >= 0.90, suggesting that this statistic can be used as threshold to trigger management intervention. our evaluation produced monitoring protocols that reliably predicted population persistence and was cost-effective. we conclude that population projections and conditional classification trees can be valuable tools for identifying extinction thresholds used in monitoring programs." -environmental dna (edna): a tool for quantifying the abundant but elusive round goby (neogobius melanostomus),NA,PLOS ONE,NEVERS MB;BYAPPANAHALLI MN;MORRIS CC;SHIVELY D;PRZYBYLA-KELLY K;SPOLJARIC AM;DICKEY J;ROSEMAN EF,"environmental dna (edna) is revolutionizing biodiversity monitoring, occupancy estimates, and real-time detections of invasive species. in the great lakes, the round goby (neogobius melanostomus), an invasive benthic fish from the black sea, has spread to encompass all five lakes and many tributaries, outcompeting or consuming native species; however, estimates of round goby abundance are confounded by behavior and habitat preference, which impact reliable methods for estimating their population. by integrating edna into round goby monitoring, improved estimates of biomass may be obtainable. we conducted mesocosm experiments to estimate rates of goby dna shedding and decay. further, we compared edna with several methods of traditional field sampling to compare its use as an alternative/complementary monitoring method. environmental dna decay was comparable to other fish species, and first-order decay was lower at 12 degrees c (k = 0.043) than at 19 degrees c (k = 0.058). round goby edna was routinely detected in known invaded sites of lake michigan and its tributaries (range log10 4.8 +/- 6.2 cn/l), but not upstream of an artificial fish barrier. traditional techniques (mark-recapture, seining, trapping) in lakes michigan and huron resulted in fewer, more variable detections than edna, but trapping and edna were correlated (pearson r = 0.87). additional field testing will help correlate round goby abundance with edna, providing insight on its role as a prey fish and its impact on food webs." +environmental dna (edna): a tool for quantifying the abundant but elusive round goby (neogobius melanostomus),NA,PLOS ONE,NEVERS MB;BYAPPANAHALLI MN;MORRIS CC;SHIVELY D;PRZYBYLA KELLY K;SPOLJARIC AM;DICKEY J;ROSEMAN EF,"environmental dna (edna) is revolutionizing biodiversity monitoring, occupancy estimates, and real-time detections of invasive species. in the great lakes, the round goby (neogobius melanostomus), an invasive benthic fish from the black sea, has spread to encompass all five lakes and many tributaries, outcompeting or consuming native species; however, estimates of round goby abundance are confounded by behavior and habitat preference, which impact reliable methods for estimating their population. by integrating edna into round goby monitoring, improved estimates of biomass may be obtainable. we conducted mesocosm experiments to estimate rates of goby dna shedding and decay. further, we compared edna with several methods of traditional field sampling to compare its use as an alternative/complementary monitoring method. environmental dna decay was comparable to other fish species, and first-order decay was lower at 12 degrees c (k = 0.043) than at 19 degrees c (k = 0.058). round goby edna was routinely detected in known invaded sites of lake michigan and its tributaries (range log10 4.8 +/- 6.2 cn/l), but not upstream of an artificial fish barrier. traditional techniques (mark-recapture, seining, trapping) in lakes michigan and huron resulted in fewer, more variable detections than edna, but trapping and edna were correlated (pearson r = 0.87). additional field testing will help correlate round goby abundance with edna, providing insight on its role as a prey fish and its impact on food webs." release mortality of endangered warsaw grouper hyporthodus nigritus: a state-space model applied to capture-recapture data,warsaw grouper; release mortality; capture-recapture; citizen science; state-space model,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,SHERTZER KW;BACHELER NM;KELLISON GT;FIEBERG J;WIGGERS RK,"warsaw grouper hyporthodus nigritus is a large-bodied, deep-water, demersal fish listed on the iucn red list as critically endangered. in the usa, harvest of warsaw grouper in recent decades has been heavily limited or prohibited. however, warsaw grouper is part of a multispecies snapper-grouper fishery, making this species vulnerable to incidental capture (and release) as bycatch, even if not targeted for harvest. therefore, release mortality is a primary concern for the recovery of this endangered species, especially given the potential barotraumatic effects of capture. here, we used a long-term (11 yr) data set containing capture-recapture information on warsaw grouper from a shallow site off the atlantic coast of florida. the data were collected through a citizen-science program, the south carolina marine game fish tagging program. we fit a state-space model to these data that accounts for-and provides estimates of-release mortality as a function of length. these estimates quantify the combined effect of immediate and delayed mortality. we found that release mortality increased with length, from expected values lower than 10% to values exceeding 70%. at a total length of 700 mm, near our observed mean, the expected release mortality was 34% (95% credible interval of 3-57%). in general, release mortality estimates were lower than might be assumed (similar to 100%) for a deep-water grouper. we suggest possible explanations for this result, such as the relatively shallow depth (similar to 49 m) of this study and the careful treatment of released fish, and conclude by discussing implications for future research and conservation." "estimating the total prevalence and incidence of end-stage kidney disease among aboriginal and non-aboriginal populations in the northern territory of australia, using multiple data sources",end stage kidney disease; renal replacement therapy; capture-recapture method; prevalence; incidence; data linkage,BMC NEPHROLOGY,LI L;GUTHRIDGE S;LI SQ;ZHAO YJ;LAWTON P;CASS A,"background: most estimates for end stage kidney disease (eskd) prevalence and incidence are based on renal replacement therapy (rrt) registers. however, not all people with eskd will commence rrt and estimates based only on rrt registry data will underestimate the true burden of eskd in the community. this study estimates the total number of northern territory (nt) residents with eskd including: those receiving rrt, those diagnosed but not receiving rrt and an estimate of ""undiagnosed"" cases. methods: four data sources were used to identify nt residents with a diagnosis of eskd: public hospital admissions, australia and new zealand dialysis and transplant registry registrations, death registrations and, for the aboriginal population only, electronic primary care records. three data sources contained information recorded between 1 july 2008 and 31 december 2013, death registration data extended to 31 december 2014 to capture 2013 prevalent cases. a capture-recapture method was used to estimate both diagnosed and undiagnosed cases by making use of probability patterns of overlapping multiple data sources. results: in 2013, the estimated eskd prevalence in the nt aboriginal population was 11.01 (95% confidence interval (ci) 10.24-11.78) per 1000, and 0.90 (95% ci 0.76-1.05) per 1000 in the nt non-aboriginal population. the age-adjusted rates were 17.97 (95% ci 17.82-18.11) and 1.07 (95% ci 1.05-1.09) per 1000 in the nt aboriginal and non-aboriginal populations respectively. the proportion of individuals receiving rrt was 71.4% of aboriginal and 75.5% of non-aboriginal prevalent eskd cases. the age-adjusted eskd incidence was also greater for the aboriginal (5.26 (95% ci 4.44-6.08) per 1000 population) than non-aboriginal population (0.36 (95% ci 0.25-0.47) per 1000). conclusion: this study provides comprehensive estimates of the burden of eskd including those cases that are not identified in relevant health data sources. the results are important for informing strategies to reduce the total burden of eskd and to manage the potential unmet demand, particularly from comparatively young aboriginal patients who may be suitable for rrt but do not currently access the services for social, geographic or cultural reasons." "incidence of type 1 diabetes in china, 2010-13: population based study",NA,BMJ-BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL,WENG J;ZHOU ZG;GUO LX;ZHU DL;JI LN;LUO XP;MU YM;JIA WP;YANG WY,"objective to estimate the incidence of type 1 diabetes in all age groups in china during 2010-13. design population based, registry study using data from multiple independent sources. setting national registration system in all 505 hospitals providing diabetes care, and communities of patients with diabetes in 13 areas across china, covering more than 133 million person years at risk, approximately 10% of the whole population. participants 5018 people of all ages with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes and resident in the study areas from 1 january 2010 to 31 december 2013. main outcome measures incidence of type 1 diabetes per 100 000 person years by age, sex, and study area. type 1 diabetes was doctor diagnosed and further validated by onsite follow-up. completeness of case ascertainment was assessed using the capture mark recapture method. results 5018 cases of newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes were ascertained: 1239 participants were aged <15 years, 1799 were aged 15-29 years, and 1980 were aged >= 30 years. the proportion of new onset cases in participants aged >= 20 years was 65.3%. the estimated incidence of type 1 diabetes per 100 000 persons years for all ages in china was 1.01 (95% confidence interval 0.18 to 1.84). incidence per 100 000 persons years by age group was 1.93 (0.83 to 3.03) for 0-14 years, 1.28 (0.45 to 2.11) for 15-29 years, and 0.69 (0.00 to 1.51) for >= 30 years, with a peak in age group 10-14 years. the incidence in under 15s was positively correlated with latitude (r=0.88, p<0.001), although this association was not observed in age groups 15-29 years or >= 30 years. conclusion most cases of new onset type 1 diabetes in china occurred among adults. the incidence of type 1 diabetes in chinese children was among the lowest reported in the study." -"site fidelity and population structure of blue land crabs (cardisoma guanhumi latreille, 1825) in a restricted-access mangrove area, analyzed using pit tags",cardisoma guanhumi; pit tags; mark-recapture; philopatric behavior; diel and seasonal activity patterns; mangroves,HELGOLAND MARINE RESEARCH,MORAES-COSTA D;SCHWAMBORN R,"understanding the patterns of displacement and site fidelity in blue land crabs (cardisoma guanhumi latreille, 1825) has important implications for their conservation and management. the central objective of this study was to analyze seasonal variations in site fidelity in c. guanhumi, a species that is intensively exploited in brazil, in spite of being part of the official national list of critically endangered species. this species currently suffers multiple severe threats, such as overharvesting and habitat destruction. c. guanhumi were sampled monthly at four fixed sectors that were delimited at the upper fringe of a restricted-access mangrove at itamaraca island between april 2015 and march 2016. one thousand and seventy-eight individuals were captured, measured, sexed, weighed, and their color patterns registered. of these, 291 individuals were tagged with pit (passive integrated transponder) tags. ninety-seven individuals (size range 27.0-62.6 mm carapace width) were successfully recaptured, totaling 135 recapture events. the largest interval between marking and recapture was 331 days. through the use of mark-recapture-based models, it was possible to estimate the local population as being 1312 (+/- 417) individuals (mean density 2.23 +/- 0.71 ind.m(-2)). considering the mean density of burrow openings and individuals, there were 3.4 burrow openings per individual. c. guanhumi showed a clear philopatric behavior. seventy-seven percent of recaptured individuals were recaptured in their sector of origin, and the remainder in an adjacent sector. site fidelity was higher in females. males showed minimum site fidelity in october, which is most likely related to be the onset of the reproductive season. the present study opens new perspectives for the definition of reproductive seasons, based on seasonal changes in behavior, and thus to improve the conservation of exploited and severely threatened species." +"site fidelity and population structure of blue land crabs (cardisoma guanhumi latreille, 1825) in a restricted-access mangrove area, analyzed using pit tags",cardisoma guanhumi; pit tags; mark-recapture; philopatric behavior; diel and seasonal activity patterns; mangroves,HELGOLAND MARINE RESEARCH,MORAES COSTA D;SCHWAMBORN R,"understanding the patterns of displacement and site fidelity in blue land crabs (cardisoma guanhumi latreille, 1825) has important implications for their conservation and management. the central objective of this study was to analyze seasonal variations in site fidelity in c. guanhumi, a species that is intensively exploited in brazil, in spite of being part of the official national list of critically endangered species. this species currently suffers multiple severe threats, such as overharvesting and habitat destruction. c. guanhumi were sampled monthly at four fixed sectors that were delimited at the upper fringe of a restricted-access mangrove at itamaraca island between april 2015 and march 2016. one thousand and seventy-eight individuals were captured, measured, sexed, weighed, and their color patterns registered. of these, 291 individuals were tagged with pit (passive integrated transponder) tags. ninety-seven individuals (size range 27.0-62.6 mm carapace width) were successfully recaptured, totaling 135 recapture events. the largest interval between marking and recapture was 331 days. through the use of mark-recapture-based models, it was possible to estimate the local population as being 1312 (+/- 417) individuals (mean density 2.23 +/- 0.71 ind.m(-2)). considering the mean density of burrow openings and individuals, there were 3.4 burrow openings per individual. c. guanhumi showed a clear philopatric behavior. seventy-seven percent of recaptured individuals were recaptured in their sector of origin, and the remainder in an adjacent sector. site fidelity was higher in females. males showed minimum site fidelity in october, which is most likely related to be the onset of the reproductive season. the present study opens new perspectives for the definition of reproductive seasons, based on seasonal changes in behavior, and thus to improve the conservation of exploited and severely threatened species." when roads appear jaguars decline: increased access to an amazonian wilderness area reduces potential for jaguar conservation,NA,PLOS ONE,ESPINOSA S;CELIS G;BRANCH LC,"roads are a main threat to biodiversity conservation in the amazon, in part, because roads increase access for hunters. we examine how increased landscape access by hunters may lead to cascading effects that influence the prey community and abundance of the jaguar (panthera onca), the top amazonian terrestrial predator. understanding such ecological effects originating from anthropogenic actions is essential for conservation and management of wildlife populations in areas undergoing infrastructure development. our study was conducted in yasunf biosphere reserve, the protected area with highest potential for jaguar conservation in ecuador, and an area both threatened by road development and inhabited by indigenous groups dependent upon bushmeat. we surveyed prey and jaguar abundance with camera traps in four sites that differed in accessibility to hunters and used site occupancy and spatially explicit capture-recapture analyses to evaluate prey occurrence and estimate jaguar density, respectively. higher landscape accessibility to hunters was linked with lower occurrence and biomass of game, particularly white-lipped peccary (tayassu pecan) and collared peccary (pecari tajacu), the primary game for hunters and prey for jaguars. jaguar density was up to 18 times higher in the most remote site compared to the most accessible site. our results provide a strong case for the need to: 1) consider conservation of large carnivores and other wildlife in policies about road construction in protected areas, 2) coordinate conservation initiatives with local governments so that development activities do not conflict with conservation objectives, and 3) promote development of community-based strategies for wildlife management that account for the needs of large carnivores." -implementation and evaluation of guillain-barre syndrome surveillance in puerto rico during the 2016 zika virus epidemic,guillain-barre syndrome; surveillance; puerto rico; zika virus,PUERTO RICO HEALTH SCIENCES JOURNAL,MAJOR CG;DIRLIKOV E;MEDINA NA;LUGO-ROBLES R;MATOS D;MUNOZ-JORDAN J;COLON-SANCHEZ C;GARCIA-NEGRON M;OLIVERO-SEGARRA M;MALAVE-GONZALEZ G;THOMAS DL;LUCIANO CA;WATERMAN SH;SEJVAR J;SHARP TM;RIVERA-GARCIA B,"objective: guillain-barre syndrome (gbs) is an uncommon autoimmune disorder that follows infection or vaccination, and increased incidence has been reported during zika virus (zikv) transmission. during the 2016 zikv epidemic, the puerto rico department of health (prdh) implemented the enhanced gbs surveillance system (egbsss). here, we describe egbsss implementation and evaluate completeness, validity, and timeliness. methods: gbs cases were identified using passive surveillance and discharge diagnostic code for gbs. completeness was evaluated by capture-recapture methods. sensitivity and positive predictive value (ppv) for confirmed gbs cases were calculated for both case identification methods. median time to completion of key time steps were compared by quarter (q1-4) and hospital size. results: a total of 122 confirmed gbs cases with onset of neurologic illness in 2016 were identified. capture-recapture methodology estimated that four confirmed gbs cases were missed by both identification methods. identification of cases by diagnostic code had a higher sensitivity than passive surveillance (89% vs. 80%), but a lower ppv (60% vs. 72%). there was a significant decrease from q1 to q3 in median time from hospital admission to case reporting (11 days vs. 2 days, p = 0.032) and from q2 to q3 in median time from specimen receipt to arbovirus laboratory test reporting (35 days vs. 26 days, p = 0.004). conclusion: egbsss provided complete, valid, and increasingly timely surveillance data, which guided public health action and supported healthcare providers during the zikv epidemic. this evaluation provides programmatic lessons for gbs surveillance and emergency response surveillance." +implementation and evaluation of guillain-barre syndrome surveillance in puerto rico during the 2016 zika virus epidemic,guillain-barre syndrome; surveillance; puerto rico; zika virus,PUERTO RICO HEALTH SCIENCES JOURNAL,MAJOR CG;DIRLIKOV E;MEDINA NA;LUGO ROBLES R;MATOS D;MUNOZ JORDAN J;COLON SANCHEZ C;GARCIA NEGRON M;OLIVERO SEGARRA M;MALAVE GONZALEZ G;THOMAS DL;LUCIANO CA;WATERMAN SH;SEJVAR J;SHARP TM;RIVERA GARCIA B,"objective: guillain-barre syndrome (gbs) is an uncommon autoimmune disorder that follows infection or vaccination, and increased incidence has been reported during zika virus (zikv) transmission. during the 2016 zikv epidemic, the puerto rico department of health (prdh) implemented the enhanced gbs surveillance system (egbsss). here, we describe egbsss implementation and evaluate completeness, validity, and timeliness. methods: gbs cases were identified using passive surveillance and discharge diagnostic code for gbs. completeness was evaluated by capture-recapture methods. sensitivity and positive predictive value (ppv) for confirmed gbs cases were calculated for both case identification methods. median time to completion of key time steps were compared by quarter (q1-4) and hospital size. results: a total of 122 confirmed gbs cases with onset of neurologic illness in 2016 were identified. capture-recapture methodology estimated that four confirmed gbs cases were missed by both identification methods. identification of cases by diagnostic code had a higher sensitivity than passive surveillance (89% vs. 80%), but a lower ppv (60% vs. 72%). there was a significant decrease from q1 to q3 in median time from hospital admission to case reporting (11 days vs. 2 days, p = 0.032) and from q2 to q3 in median time from specimen receipt to arbovirus laboratory test reporting (35 days vs. 26 days, p = 0.004). conclusion: egbsss provided complete, valid, and increasingly timely surveillance data, which guided public health action and supported healthcare providers during the zikv epidemic. this evaluation provides programmatic lessons for gbs surveillance and emergency response surveillance." pitfalls of significance testing and p-value variability: an econometrics perspective,meta-analysis; multiple testing; p-hacking; publication bias; p-value misinterpretations; p-value sample-to-sample variability; statistical inference; statistical significance,STATISTICS SURVEYS,HIRSCHAUER N;GRUNER S;MUSSHOFF O;BECKER C,"data on how many scientific findings are reproducible are generally bleak and a wealth of papers have warned against misuses of the p-value and resulting false findings in recent years. this paper discusses the question of what we can(not) learn from the p-value, which is still widely considered as the gold standard of statistical validity. we aim to provide a non-technical and easily accessible resource for statistical practitioners who wish to spot and avoid misinterpretations and misuses of statistical significance tests. for this purpose, we first classify and describe the most widely discussed (""classical"") pitfalls of significance testing, and review published work on these misuses with a focus on regression-based ""confirmatory"" study. this includes a description of the single-study bias and a simulation-based illustration of how proper meta-analysis compares to misleading significance counts (""vote counting""). going beyond the classical pitfalls, we also use simulation to provide intuition that relying on the statistical estimate ""p-value"" as a measure of evidence without considering its sample-to-sample variability falls short of the mark even within an otherwise appropriate interpretation. we conclude with a discussion of the exigencies of informed approaches to statistical inference and corresponding institutional reforms." behavioural and population responses of ground-dwelling rodents to forest edges,bank vole; wood mouse; survival; seed predation; personality; gud,HYSTRIX-ITALIAN JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,MAZZAMUTO MV;WAUTERS LA;PREATONI DG;MARTINOLI A,"forest edges can affect the behaviour, physiology and demography of small mammals. we tested whether there was a response in abundance, distribution, personality selection or foraging behaviour of ground-dwelling rodents to a forest-meadow edge in two study areas in northern italy over a 1-year period. we used capture-mark-recapture to evaluate species distribution, abundance, survival and personality, while giving-up density was used to test their foraging behaviour and the cost associated to it. all tests were carried out on the forest edge and at 50 and 100 m from the edge along three parallel transects 90 m long. we detected two species in both areas: apodemus sylvaticus and myodes glareolus. we found a neutral effect of the edge on species number, survival and on individual's personality (activity/exploration tendency). bank voles occurred more along the edge and both taxa took more seeds from trays along the edge. the hypothesis of edge avoidance was not confirmed in any of the variables examined. our study supports evidence that edge effects can be species-specific and that populations should be studied with a multiple test approach to investigate different eco-ethological responses to the edge when trying to reveal the functioning of ecotonal systems." flexible and non-invasive passive integrated transponder (pit) tagging protocols for tropical freshwater fish species,mark-recapture techniques; striped catfish; goldfin tinfoil barbs; mekong river,METHODSX,GRIEVE B;BAUMGARTNER LJ;ROBINSON W;SILVA LGM;POMORIN K;THORNCRAFT G;NING N,"passive integrated transponder (pit) tagging has proven to be an effective mark-recapture technique for many temperate freshwater and marine fish species, but its adaptability to tropical freshwater species remains largely unknown. nevertheless, many tropical river systems, such as the mekong in south east asia, are currently being developed at an unprecedented rate for their relatively abundant water resources. consequently, there is an urgent need for efficient mark-recapture technologies to understand and assess the impacts of human developments on the movement ecology of tropical freshwater fish species. this paper discusses the development of an optimal protocol for pit tagging tropical freshwater fishes, using two mekong river species - striped catfish (pangasianodon hypophthalmus) and goldfin tinfoil barb (hypsibarbus malcolmi) - as model species. the pit tagging protocol is flexible in that it allows the transponders to be placed in a variety of body locations. the protocol has high tag retention rates (>90%) and is non-invasive, since it does not affect fish growth or mortality rates. the application of pit tags can be used to evaluate the success of fishways and other remedial works for supporting crucial life-cycle processes potentially requiring fish passage, such as spawning. (c) 2018 the author(s). published by elsevier b.v." @@ -700,17 +701,17 @@ comparing wild and reintroduced populations of the threatened orchid diuris frag incidence of type 1 diabetes in navarre (2009-2016): higher in the southern regions of the autonomous community,type 1 diabetes; incidence; geographical distribution; seasonality,ANALES DEL SISTEMA SANITARIO DE NAVARRA,FORGA L;TAMAYO I;BERRADE S;IBANEZ B;ERDOZAIN RMR;GONI MJ,"background. geographical and seasonal variations of type 1 diabetes (t1d) are useful for establishing the key ethiopathogenic factors of the disease. the present work seeks to analyze the incidence rates of t1d in navarre for the 2009-2016 period, its geographical distribution and seasonal variations in birth and diagnosis in affected persons. methods. prospective study with one primary and three secondary sources. the completeness of the registry, determined using the capture-recapture method, was 96.08%. the confidence intervals of zone and onset season incidence rates were determined assuming an underlying poisson distribution. adjusted effect of onset age, sex, onset season and geographical area over changes in incidence rates were analyzed using a poisson regression model. comparison among areas was carried out after the corresponding adjustments of incidence by the indirect standardization method. results. four hundred and twenty-eight new cases were detected (incidence= 8.36/100,000 inhabitants per year, ci95%: 7.58-9.19). the disease is predominant in males (63% of patients). the incidence in children under 15 years was higher than in adults (21.54, ci95%: 18.43-25.02 vs. 5.94, ci95%: 5.23-6.71; p<0.001). incidence was highest in the four southern regions of navarre, most of the cases being in winter and spring. no differences were found regarding birth season over incidence. conclusion. navarre maintains a high t1d incidence in childhood that decreases progressively with age. sex, age group, geographical zone and onset season are independently associated with the incidence rates observed in the study." contributions of photographs to cetacean science,cetaceans; photo-identification; mark-recapture methods; line-transect methods; eastern tropical pacific; school size calibration; photogrammetry,AQUATIC MAMMALS,BALLANCE LT,"over four decades ago, a short paper demonstrated how photographs of free-swimming dolphins could be used to reveal scientific information about cetaceans. that paper, and a few others published during the same time period, illustrated a research technique that has become foundational in the field of marine mammalogy and resulted in a cascade of science. photographs can be used to identify individuals, providing insights into movements, migrations, site fidelity, school structure and stability, and abundance. photographs can be used to estimate group size and improve the precision of abundance estimates. photographs can characterize reproductive output at the population level. photographs allow for quantification of morphology, yielding insights into classification at a variety of taxonomic levels; and they provide a means to assess the condition and health of individual animals. and photographs can provide insights into behavior. the information photographs convey and their applications to cetacean research are ever-increasing. ultimately, photographs have provided a high-quality and relatively inexpensive means to increase the knowledge base for most cetacean species in all of the oceans of the world through research conducted by scientists of developed and developing nations, and through citizen science conducted by non-scientists." living on the edge: opportunities for amur tiger recovery in china,amur tiger; habitat use; density; occupancy modeling; cattle grazing; transboundary conservation,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,WANG TM;ROYLE JA;SMITH JLD;ZOU L;LU XY;LI T;YANG HT;LI ZL;FENG RN;BIAN YJ;FENG LM;GE JP,"sporadic sightings of the endangered amur tiger panthera tigris altaica along the china-russia border during the late 1990s sparked efforts to expand this subspecies distribution and abundance by restoring potentially suitable habitats in the changbai mountains. to guide science-based recovery efforts and provide a baseline for future monitoring of this border population, empirical, quantitative information is needed on what resources and management practices promote or limit the occurrence of tigers in the region. we established a large-scale field camera-trapping network to estimate tiger density, survival and recruitment in the hunchun nature reserve and the surrounding area using an open population spatially explicit capture-recapture model. we then fitted an occupancy model that accounted for detectability and spatial autocorrelation to assess the relative influence of habitat, major prey, disturbance and management on tiger habitat use patterns. our results show that the ranges of most tigers abut the border with russia. tiger densities ranged between 0.20 and 0.27 individuals/100 km(2) over the study area; in the hunchun nature reserve, the tiger density was three times higher than that in the surrounding inland forested area. tiger occupancy was strongly negatively related to heavy cattle grazing, human settlements and roads and was positively associated with sika deer abundance and vegetation cover. these findings can help to identify the drivers of tiger declines and dispersal limits and refine strategies for tiger conservation in the human-dominated transboundary landscape. progressively alleviating the impacts of cattle and human disturbances on the forest, and simultaneously addressing the economic needs of local communities, should be key priority actions to increase tiger populations. the long-term goal is to expand tiger distribution by improving habitats for large ungulates." -"bats of the serra da bocaina national park, southeastern brazil: an updated species list and a distribution extension for trinycteris nicefori (sanborn, 1949)",atlantic forest; chiroptera; faunistic inventory; species richness,BIOTA NEOTROPICA,DELCIELLOS AC;MOTTA A;DIAS D;ALMEIDA B;ROCHA-BARBOSA O,"the serra da bocaina national park (sbnp) is a large remnant of atlantic forest located within an endangered biodiversity hotspot, which contributes to the connectivity among protected areas in the region. despite the ecological importance of the sbnp, its bat fauna is poorly-known, and no comprehensive inventory is available. the present study provides an updated list of the bat species found in the sbnp. the four-year study was based on a capture-mark-recapture approach at four sites within the park, in the municipality of paraty, rio de janeiro state, brazil. a total of 22 bat species were recorded, representing two families, phyllostomidae (n = 19 species) and vespertillionidae (n = 3). this added 14 species to the known bat fauna of the sbnp, which is hereby updated to 24 species, including dermanura cinerea gervais, 1856, platyrrhinus recifinus (thomas, 1901), andmyotis ruber (e. geoffroy, 1806), which are listed as endangered in rio de janeiro state. the specimen of trinycteris nicefori (sanborn, 1949) captured in the present study is the first record of the occurrence of this species in rio de janeiro state. this record extends the geographic range of the species by approximately 650 km to the southeast. additional inventories, in particular at poorly-studied atlantic forest sites, combined with environmental suitability analyses, and taxonomic and biogeographic data, are urgently required to elucidate the distribution of many brazilian bat species, such as t. nicefori." +"bats of the serra da bocaina national park, southeastern brazil: an updated species list and a distribution extension for trinycteris nicefori (sanborn, 1949)",atlantic forest; chiroptera; faunistic inventory; species richness,BIOTA NEOTROPICA,DELCIELLOS AC;MOTTA A;DIAS D;ALMEIDA B;ROCHA BARBOSA O,"the serra da bocaina national park (sbnp) is a large remnant of atlantic forest located within an endangered biodiversity hotspot, which contributes to the connectivity among protected areas in the region. despite the ecological importance of the sbnp, its bat fauna is poorly-known, and no comprehensive inventory is available. the present study provides an updated list of the bat species found in the sbnp. the four-year study was based on a capture-mark-recapture approach at four sites within the park, in the municipality of paraty, rio de janeiro state, brazil. a total of 22 bat species were recorded, representing two families, phyllostomidae (n = 19 species) and vespertillionidae (n = 3). this added 14 species to the known bat fauna of the sbnp, which is hereby updated to 24 species, including dermanura cinerea gervais, 1856, platyrrhinus recifinus (thomas, 1901), andmyotis ruber (e. geoffroy, 1806), which are listed as endangered in rio de janeiro state. the specimen of trinycteris nicefori (sanborn, 1949) captured in the present study is the first record of the occurrence of this species in rio de janeiro state. this record extends the geographic range of the species by approximately 650 km to the southeast. additional inventories, in particular at poorly-studied atlantic forest sites, combined with environmental suitability analyses, and taxonomic and biogeographic data, are urgently required to elucidate the distribution of many brazilian bat species, such as t. nicefori." when is enough...enough? effective sampling protocols for estimating the survival rates of seabirds with mark-recapture techniques,NA,BIRD STUDY,HORSWILL C;HUMPHREYS EM;ROBINSON RA,"capsule: lower intensity mark-recapture studies, such as those undertaken by citizen scientists, provide an opportunity to improve the spatial representation of survival estimates for birds. colonial nesting birds are particularly suited to this because, for many species, large numbers of breeding birds and chicks can be located relatively easily. the minimum level of recapture effort required to accurately estimate true survival rates and detect temporal variation largely depended on the respective ringing effort. therefore, mark-recapture studies should consider both aspects of the field study when setting or adjusting minimum effort guidelines. furthermore, achieving reliable estimation with short time-series required more intensive survey designs, highlighting the importance of longevity when planning these studies.aims: to provide minimum guidelines of field effort that can be used to manage smaller projects that monitor survival rates, such as those reliant on citizen scientists.methods: we conducted a sensitivity analysis that evaluated the statistical power associated with using different mark-recapture survey designs to estimate a fixed true' survival rate and detect sources of temporal variation and individual heterogeneity within the population.results: isolating temporal variation with a good degree (90%) of certainty required the highest levels of survey effort. based on the assessed survey designs, we recommend studies that have a ten-year trajectory and a recapture rate of 0.6, aim to mark at least 200 new adults per year. the recommended number of marked individuals will decrease if it is possible to achieve higher rates of recapture. lower rates of juvenile survival and delayed reproduction mean that seabird mark-recapture survey designs that target both chicks and adults offer only marginal improvements in resolving the survival rates of adults, when compared to designs targeting adults only. however, collecting juvenile mark-recapture data provide access to age-specific vital rates that are also valuable for assessing the population dynamics of seabirds.conclusion: the addition of chicks is unlikely to improve the resolution of adult survival rates markedly, although for species with low natal dispersal and earlier ages of maturity, these data may allow the estimation of other vital rates, such as juvenile survival rates and age of maturity. implementing minimum effort guidelines potentially enables the effective management of smaller mark-recapture studies, thus minimising the risk that studies fail to achieve the data conditions necessary for robust estimation of survival rates." animal movement affects interpretation of occupancy models from camera-trap surveys of unmarked animals,animal movement; animal population density; camera trap; home range area; imperfect detection; movement simulations; wildlife monitoring,ECOSPHERE,NEILSON EW;AVGAR T;BURTON AC;BROADLEY K;BOUTIN S,"occupancy models are increasingly applied to data from wildlife camera-trap (ct) surveys to estimate distribution, habitat use, or relative abundance of unmarked animals. fundamental to the occupancy modeling framework is the temporal pattern of detections at camera stations, which is influenced by animal population density and the speed and scale of animal movement. how these factors interact with ct sampling designs to affect the interpretation of occupancy parameter estimates is unclear. we developed a simple yet ecologically relevant animal movement simulation to create ct detections for animal populations varying in movement rate, home range area, and population density. we also varied ct sampling design by the duration of sampling and the density of cts in our simulated domain. a single-species occupancy model was fitted to simulated detection histories, and model-estimated probabilities of occupancy were compared to the asymptotic proportion of area occupied (pao), calculated as the union of all simulated home ranges. occupancy model parameter estimates were sensitive to simulated movement and sampling scenarios. occupancy models overestimated asymptotic pao when a low population density of simulated animals moved quickly over large home ranges and this positive bias was insensitive to sampling duration. conversely, asymptotic pao was underestimated when simulated animals moved slowly in large-or intermediately sized home ranges. this negative bias decreased with increasing sampling duration and a lower density of cts. our results emphasize that the interpretation of occupancy models depends on the underlying processes driving ct detections, specifically animal movement and population density, and that model estimates may not reliably reflect variation in these processes. we recommend carefully defining occupancy if it is applied to ct data in order to better match sampling and analytical frameworks to the ecology of sampled wildlife species." "trends in sightings and population structure of white sharks, carcharodon carcharias, at seal island, false bay, south africa, and the emigration of subadult female sharks approaching maturity",white shark; sighting rate; sex ratio; photo-identification; population; life-history,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,HEWITT AM;KOCK AA;BOOTH AJ;GRIFFITHS CL,"a long-term sightings and photographic identification (photo-id) database documented the inter-annual and monthly trends in white shark (carcharodon carcharias) sightings, sex ratios and life-history stages at seal island, false bay, south africa, over the period 2004-2012. a total of 1105 sightings were recorded during 171 scientific surveys incorporating 577 h of observation (annual mean 64.10 h, range 23.71-178.69 h). the mean annual sighting rate was 1.87 (range 0.90-3.19) sharks per hour and sighting rates declined over the nine-year study period. it is unknown whether the decline resulted from an actual population decline, or was due to changes in shark distribution or environmental conditions, but it highlights the need for ongoing monitoring at this site. the overall sex ratio was 1.0: 1.0: 2.3 for male: female: unsexed sharks, respectively. of the 1105 sightings, 39% (n = 433) were photo-id'd, representing 303 individual sharks (112: 111: 80, male: female: unsexed) and 130 resightings. of the 303 photo-id'd sharks, 71% were sighted in a single year only, indicative of transient behaviour. of the 29% of sharks that were resighted in more than one year, 65% were resighted in the following year, indicating site fidelity to seal island, whereas 35% skipped one or more years between encounters, indicative of a temporary absence. the majority (60%) of the photo-id'd sharks were immature, 32% were subadult and only 8% were mature. no young-of-the-year sharks and few adults were recorded, indicating that seal island is not an adult aggregation site, nor a pupping or nursery area, but rather is best described as a seasonal feeding ground. large females were rarely resighted again after they approached length-at-maturity (>= 450 cm tl), whereas some adult males were recorded consistently across years. the emigration of subadult female sharks approaching maturity from seal island, combined with the small number of mature sharks of both sexes reported from any south african location, indicate that adult aggregation sites, and thus areas of reproductive importance, still remain unknown." -uncertain recovery of the north atlantic right whale in a changing ocean,capture-recapture; conservation; demography; endangered species; eubalaena glacialis; marine ecology; population modeling; right whale,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,MEYER-GUTBROD EL;GREENE CH,"human activities have placed populations of many endangered species at risk and mitigation efforts typically focus on reducing anthropogenic sources of mortality. however, failing to recognize the additional role of environmental factors in regulating birth and mortality rates can lead to erroneous demographic analyses and conclusions. the north atlantic right whale population is currently the focus of conservation efforts aimed at reducing mortality rates associated with ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear. consistent monitoring of the population since 1980 has revealed evidence that climate-associated changes in prey availability have played an important role in the population's recovery. the considerable interdecadal differences observed in population growth coincide with remote arctic and north atlantic oceanographic processes that link to the gulf of maine ecosystem. here, we build capture-recapture models to quantify the role of prey availability on right whale demographic transitional probabilities and use a corresponding demographic model to project population growth rates into the next century. contrary to previous predictions, the right whale population is projected to recover in the future as long as prey availability and mortality rates remain within the ranges observed during 1980-2012. however, recent events indicate a northward range shift in right whale prey, potentially resulting in decreased prey availability and/or an expansion of right whale habitat into unprotected waters. an annual increase in the number of whale deaths comparable to that observed during the summer 2017 mass mortality event may cause a decline to extinction even under conditions of normal prey availability. this study highlights the importance of understanding the oceanographic context for observed population changes when evaluating the efficacy of conservation management plans for endangered marine species." +uncertain recovery of the north atlantic right whale in a changing ocean,capture-recapture; conservation; demography; endangered species; eubalaena glacialis; marine ecology; population modeling; right whale,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,MEYER GUTBROD EL;GREENE CH,"human activities have placed populations of many endangered species at risk and mitigation efforts typically focus on reducing anthropogenic sources of mortality. however, failing to recognize the additional role of environmental factors in regulating birth and mortality rates can lead to erroneous demographic analyses and conclusions. the north atlantic right whale population is currently the focus of conservation efforts aimed at reducing mortality rates associated with ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear. consistent monitoring of the population since 1980 has revealed evidence that climate-associated changes in prey availability have played an important role in the population's recovery. the considerable interdecadal differences observed in population growth coincide with remote arctic and north atlantic oceanographic processes that link to the gulf of maine ecosystem. here, we build capture-recapture models to quantify the role of prey availability on right whale demographic transitional probabilities and use a corresponding demographic model to project population growth rates into the next century. contrary to previous predictions, the right whale population is projected to recover in the future as long as prey availability and mortality rates remain within the ranges observed during 1980-2012. however, recent events indicate a northward range shift in right whale prey, potentially resulting in decreased prey availability and/or an expansion of right whale habitat into unprotected waters. an annual increase in the number of whale deaths comparable to that observed during the summer 2017 mass mortality event may cause a decline to extinction even under conditions of normal prey availability. this study highlights the importance of understanding the oceanographic context for observed population changes when evaluating the efficacy of conservation management plans for endangered marine species." "estimating road traffic injuries in jinja district, uganda, using the capture-recapture method",road traffic injuries; capture-recapture method; jinja uganda hospital data; police data,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INJURY CONTROL AND SAFETY PROMOTION,MAGOOLA J;KOBUSINGYE O;BACHANI AM;TUMWESIGYE NM;KIMULI D;PAICHADZE N,"road traffic injuries (rtis) are commonly under-reported in low-and-medium-income countries. this study aimed to estimate the number of rtis and determine the magnitude of under-reporting by traffic police and hospital registries. a two-source capture-recapture method was applied to rti data from police and hospital registries. seven matching variables; sex of the injured, date, place, time, day of crash and road user type were used to get the matched cases. police independently reported 46 rtis and the hospitals reported 206 rtis. using the capture-recapture analysis, both sources estimated 313 rtis (95% ci 273-343). the police registry captured 14.4% of the estimated number of rtis and the hospitals captured 60.4%. the estimated number of rtis was higher than reported by either the police or the hospitals alone. neither the police nor the hospitals provided accurate data on rtis, calling for the strengthening of both sources of data." relative effectiveness of trapping and hand-capture for controlling invasive cane toads (rhinella marina),rhinella marina; cane toad; trapping; acoustic lure; invasive; pest management,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PEST MANAGEMENT,MULLER BJ;SCHWARZKOPF L,"management of invasive vertebrates is a crucial component of conservation. management strategies should increase the chance of removal of every individual, by exploiting behavioural characteristics, and by increasing the period over which removal occurs. for example, traps can operate automatically over long periods, and often include attractants to increase captures. management strategies for the invasive cane toad (rhinella marina) in australia include hand capture and trapping adult individuals (toads are attracted to an acoustic lure, and to insects attracted to a light, also on the lure). we used capture-mark-recapture analysis to compare the efficacy of trapping and hand capturing cane toads over 10 weeks, in townsville, australia. we trapped 7.1%-22.4% of the estimated population per week, and hand captured 1.7%-6% of the estimated population per week. trapping was more efficient than hand capture in our regime; overall, more toads were caught per trapping man-hour than per hand-capture hour. traps attract toads and maximise the period over which removal occurs; thus, the probability of removal for each toad was higher than by hand capture. because hand capture and trapping seemed to remove different toads, a combination of these methods may work well." wildlife disease ecology from the individual to the population: insights from a long-term study of a naturally infected european badger population,disease dynamics; disease ecology; long-term study; mycobacterium bovis; pathogen transmission; superspreader; wildlife epidemiology,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,MCDONALD JL;ROBERTSON A;SILK MJ,"1. long-term individual-based datasets on host-pathogen systems are a rare and valuable resource for understanding the infectious disease dynamics in wildlife. a study of european badgers (meles meles) naturally infected with bovine tuberculosis (btb) at woodchester park in gloucestershire (uk) has produced a unique dataset, facilitating investigation of a diverse range of epidemiological and ecological questions with implications for disease management. 2. since the 1970s, this badger population has been monitored with a systematic mark-recapture regime yielding a dataset of >15,000 captures of >3,000 individuals, providing detailed individual life-history, morphometric, genetic, reproductive and disease data. 3. the annual prevalence of btb in the woodchester park badger population exhibits no straightforward relationship with population density, and both the incidence and prevalence of mycobacterium bovis show marked variation in space. the study has revealed phenotypic traits that are critical for understanding the social structure of badger populations along with mechanisms vital for understanding disease spread at different spatial resolutions. 4. woodchester-based studies have provided key insights into how host ecology can influence infection at different spatial and temporal scales. specifically, it has revealed heterogeneity in epidemiological parameters; intrinsic and extrinsic factors affecting population dynamics; provided insights into senescence and individual life histories; and revealed consistent individual variation in foraging patterns, refuge use and social interactions. 5. an improved understanding of ecological and epidemiological processes is imperative for effective disease management. woodchester park research has provided information of direct relevance to btb management, and a better appreciation of the role of individual heterogeneity in disease transmission can contribute further in this regard. 6. the woodchester park study system now offers a rare opportunity to seek a dynamic understanding of how individual-, group- and population-level processes interact. the wealth of existing data makes it possible to take a more integrative approach to examining how the consequences of individual heterogeneity scale to determine population-level pathogen dynamics and help advance our understanding of the ecological drivers of host-pathogen systems." effect of light-level geolocators on apparent survival of two highly aerial swift species,NA,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,MORGANTI M;RUBOLINI D;AKESSON S;BERMEJO A;DE LA PUENTE J;LARDELLI R;LIECHTI F;BOANO G;TOMASSETTO E;FERRI M;CAFFI M;SAINO N;AMBROSINI R,"light-level geolocators are currently widely used to track the migration of small-sized birds, but their potentially detrimental effects on survival of highly aerial species have been poorly investigated so far. we recorded capture-recapture histories of 283 common swifts apus apus and 107 pallid swifts apus pallidus breeding in 14 colonies in italy, spain, sweden and switzerland that were equipped with 10 different types of geolocators (geolocator birds'), and compared their survival with that of, respectively, 215 common and 101 pallid swifts not equipped with geolocators (control birds'). data were analysed using both glmms with return rate as a proxy for survival and mark-recapture models to estimate survival while accounting for recapture probability. in all the analyses, geolocator birds showed reduced apparent survival compared to controls. geolocator weight was always lower than 3% of body mass, and did not affect survival per se. geolocators with a light-stalk, which is used in some geolocator models to reduce light sensor shading by feathers, decreased apparent survival more than models without light-stalk. apparent survival of geolocator birds significantly varied among sites, being much higher in northern europe. despite in our analyses we could only partly account for variable recapture probabilities among sites and for inter-annual variability in survival, our results generally showed that equipping swifts with geolocators decreased their survival prospects, but also that the magnitude of this effect may depend on species-specific traits. these conclusions are in line with those of other studies on aerial foragers. we suggest that future studies tracking the movements of aerial insectivorous birds should use devices designed to minimize drag." "survey of aquatic turtles on the savannah river site, south carolina, usa, for prevalence of ranavirus",chelonian; disease; ranavirus; south carolina; turtle; wildlife,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE DISEASES,WINZELER ME;HASKINS DL;LANCE SL;TUBERVILLE TD,"ranaviruses have the ability to infect amphibians, fish, and reptiles, and they have caused multiple amphibian die-off events in the us and europe. their prevalence in amphibian populations is much more commonly studied than in chelonian populations. we examined blood samples (n=286) from eight aquatic turtle species collected during 2008-14 on the savannah river site, south carolina, us, as part of long-term mark-recapture efforts. previous studies in the southeastern us found high prevalence of ranavirus in amphibians, but we did not detect ranavirus in any of the turtles sampled, suggesting the absence of the virus or its presence at a very low prevalence in aquatic turtles across the savannah river site during the years tested." -fish movement in an atlantic forest stream,coastal stream; migration; reproduction; stream dwelling fish,NEOTROPICAL ICHTHYOLOGY,MAZZONI R;PINTO MP;IGLESIAS-RIOS R;COSTA R,"given the importance of fish movement to the dynamics and maintenance of stream dwelling fish communities from the atlantic forest, we analysed patterns of fish movement in a coastal stream from southeastern brazil, using mark-recapture technique. displacement distance of each species were presented and discussed considering seasonal (rainy and dry) and body size patterns. we marked 10 species along the stream and recaptured 440 (34.6%) of the 1,270 marked fishes. the species with significant number of upstream moving individuals were astyanax janeiroensis, characidium interruptum, astyanax hastatus, parotocinclus maculicauda and awaous tajasica. only pimelodella lateristriga presented significant differences between resident and moving individuals. characidium interruptum and a. tajasica demonstrated greater downstream and upstream movement, respectively, moving up to 2,100 m. even after controlling for species identity we found no significant correlation between fish length and individual displacement distance. fishes moved longer distances during the rainy season, in accordance to the breeding season. patterns of fish movement were in agreement to life-history traits of many of the studied species and can be reflecting specific behaviour and morphologies." +fish movement in an atlantic forest stream,coastal stream; migration; reproduction; stream dwelling fish,NEOTROPICAL ICHTHYOLOGY,MAZZONI R;PINTO MP;IGLESIAS RIOS R;COSTA R,"given the importance of fish movement to the dynamics and maintenance of stream dwelling fish communities from the atlantic forest, we analysed patterns of fish movement in a coastal stream from southeastern brazil, using mark-recapture technique. displacement distance of each species were presented and discussed considering seasonal (rainy and dry) and body size patterns. we marked 10 species along the stream and recaptured 440 (34.6%) of the 1,270 marked fishes. the species with significant number of upstream moving individuals were astyanax janeiroensis, characidium interruptum, astyanax hastatus, parotocinclus maculicauda and awaous tajasica. only pimelodella lateristriga presented significant differences between resident and moving individuals. characidium interruptum and a. tajasica demonstrated greater downstream and upstream movement, respectively, moving up to 2,100 m. even after controlling for species identity we found no significant correlation between fish length and individual displacement distance. fishes moved longer distances during the rainy season, in accordance to the breeding season. patterns of fish movement were in agreement to life-history traits of many of the studied species and can be reflecting specific behaviour and morphologies." estimation of the prevalence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in the united states using national administrative healthcare data from 2002 to 2004 and capture-recapture methodology,amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; motor neuron disease; prevalence; prevalence ratio; capture-recapture; log-linear models; administrative data,NEUROEPIDEMIOLOGY,NELSON LM;TOPOL B;KAYE W;WILLIAMSON D;HORTON DK;MEHTA P;WAGNER T,"background: national administrative healthcare data may be used as a case-finding method for prevalence studies of chronic disease in the united states, but the completeness of ascertainment likely varies depending on the disease under study. methods: we used 3 case-finding sources (medicare, medicaid, and veterans administration data) to estimate the prevalence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als) in the united states for 2002-2004, and applied the capture-recapture methodology to estimate the degree of under-ascertainment when relying solely on these sources for case identification. results: case-finding completeness was 76% overall and did not vary by race, but was lower for males (77%) than for females (88%), and lower for patients under age 65 (66%) than patients over age 65 (79%). the uncorrected als prevalence ratio was 2.8/100,000 in 2002, 3.3/100,000 in 2003, and 3.7/100,000 in 2004. after correcting for under-ascertainment, the annual prevalence increased by approximately 1 per 100,000 to 3.7/100,000 in 2002 (95% ci 3.66-3.80), 4.4/100,000 in 2003 (95% ci 4.34-4.50), and 4.8/100,000 in 2004 (95% ci 4.76-4.91). conclusions: federal healthcare claims databases ascertained are a very efficient method for identifying the majority of als-prevalent cases in the national als registry, and may be enhanced by having patients self-register through the registry web portal. (c) 2018 the author(s) published by s. karger ag, basel" "using the capture-recapture method to estimate the incidence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in beijing, china",amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; incidence; beijing; capture-recapture; postmenopausal age,NEUROEPIDEMIOLOGY,ZHOU SH;QIAN SL;LI XH;ZHENG LP;CHANG WB;WANG LP,"background: to assess the total, gender-related and ageing process-related incidence rates of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als) in beijing, china. determine whether the decreased male to female ratio among postmenopausal age groups. methods: we used the 2-source capture-recapture method to estimate the incidence of als in beijing. the primary and secondary data sources were from diagnostic hospitals and assisted care institutions in the same area from 2010 to 2015. results: a total of 562 cases and 283 cases were extracted from 2 data sources, and a total of 962 patients diagnosed with als within the 6-year period were estimated (95% ci 883-1041). the average yearly incidence was 0.77/100,000 persons (95% ci 0.71-0.83). the female to male ratio was 1.63. the incidence was associated with age and peaked in the 55-64 year age group. there was no obvious decline in the male: female ratio among postmenopausal age groups. conclusions: the total incidence of als in beijing is similar to international reports. the onset of als is not merely the result of ageing. (c) 2018 s. karger ag, basel" population dynamics of house mice without mammalian predators and competitors,biodiversity sanctuary; competitor release; food limitation; invasive species; island; mesopredator release; mus musculus; new zealand; population density; secr,NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,WILSON DJ;INNES JG;FITZGERALD NB;BARTLAM S;WATTS C;SMALE MC,"mesopredator and competitor release can lead to population increases of invasive house mice (mus musculus) after larger introduced mammals are controlled or eradicated. in new zealand, mammal-resistant fences have enabled multi-species mammal eradications in order to protect indigenous species. when house mice are the only mammals remaining in these biodiversity sanctuaries, they may reach a high population density, with potential consequences for their indigenous prey. we studied mouse populations in the absence of other mammals for 5 years at mammal-resistant fenced forest sites at maungatautari, waikato. we used spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) to estimate mouse population density quarterly in two independently fenced sites, with contrasting levels of mouse management that were switched half-way through the study. in the absence of mouse control, mouse population density reached 30-46 ha(-1) at one site each year after summer breeding, and 23 ha(-1) at the other site. mouse tracking rates in inked footprint tunnels were positively related to numbers of mice captured in each session, but not significantly to mouse density. the highest mouse densities were similar to estimates in new zealand forest and alpine ecosystems after mass seeding (masting) events, but lower than estimates in another sanctuary and on some islands lacking larger terrestrial mammals. we suggest that in the absence of competition and predation from other mammals, food limitation may have prevented mouse populations from attaining very high densities in this mainland forest location." @@ -719,9 +720,9 @@ stray dogs in urban fragments: relation between population's perception of their movement and survival of wild chinook salmon smolts from butte creek during their out-migration to the ocean: comparison of a dry year versus a wet year,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,CORDOLEANI F;NOTCH J;MCHURON AS;AMMANN AJ;MICHEL CJ,"california's central valley (ccv) chinook salmon oncorhynchus tshawytscha stocks have declined substantially since the mid-1800s, with most listed as threatened or endangered or heavily supplemented by hatcheries. as the largest population of ccv wild spring-run chinook salmon, butte creek fish are an important source for promoting life history diversity in the ccv chinook salmon community. however, little information exists on butte creek juvenile mortality during out-migration to the ocean, which is considered a critical phase in the overall population dynamics. we used the juvenile salmon acoustic telemetry system to track the movement of individual fish, and we used a mark-recapture modeling framework to estimate survival of migrating wild chinook salmon smolts from lower butte creek to ocean entry at the golden gate bridge. survival and migration varied significantly among years; in 2015, which was a dry year, chinook salmon smolts migrated more slowly throughout their migratory corridor and exhibited lower survival than in a wetter year (2016); among locations, fish migrated faster and experienced higher survival in the lower sacramento river than in the sutter bypass and the sacramento-san joaquin river delta. our data suggest that higher flow at release and larger fish lengths both resulted in increased survival. our findings shed light on a critical phase of wild spring-run juvenile chinook salmon dynamics and could help to inform future restoration and management projects that would improve the survival and abundance of the ccv spring-run chinook salmon populations." abundance of bank vole (myodes glareolus schreb.) as an indicative factor of different forest structure and management in the drava plain region,myodes glareolus; seasonality; population size; estimate; popan model,SUMARSKI LIST,HORVATH GF;TOTH D,"differences in demographical patterns of the bank vole, myodes glareolus schreb. population, a frequent rodent species in the drava plain region, were analysed through spatial and seasonal changes of survival and capture probability as well as through habitat dependence of abundance. as part of the croatian-hungarian interregional programme (drava-intereco), small mammal population level monitoring was performed during 2007 applying the capture-mark-recapture method. trapping sessions were implemented in three forest habitats with different vegetation structure, two sample areas in lankoci forest, hungary (protected old forest and reforested habitat) and one sample plot in repas forest, croatia (habitat under forestry management) during a period of four months (july-october). the bank vole was an eudominant species in the three investigated habitats. the popan formulation of jolly-seber models was used to perform the comparative estimates of bank vole population traits. based on model selection, the first two best candidate models supported our hypothesis that survival and abundance were influenced by forest age and structure. our results confirmed that the bank vole is an appropriate indicator species to evaluate the population-level responses to the changes of forest structure and management." slow and unsteady: growth of the australian eastern long-necked turtle near the southern end of its natural range,chelodina longicollis; logistic; maturation; von bertalanffy,AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,CHESSMAN BC,"knowledge of growth rates and maturation times of freshwater turtles is important in assessing population viability. i analysed growth of australian eastern long-necked turtles (chelodina longicollis) from individual capture-recapture records spanning periods of up to 17 years for a population in gippsland, victoria, close to the high-latitude end of the species' natural range. juvenile growth was rapid and similar among individuals but adult growth was usually slow, highly variable among individuals and erratic within individuals over time. in addition, asymptotic body lengths were disparate among individuals for both males and females. von bertalanffy growth models fitted separately to males plus unsexed juveniles and females plus unsexed juveniles performed better than logistic models but tended to underestimate growth rates for very small and very large turtles and overestimate growth for medium-sized individuals. sexual maturity was estimated to be achieved at 10 years in males and 16 years in females, which is late compared with most estimates for other populations of c. longicollis and for other turtle species in south-eastern australia. the high variability of individual growth in this population makes age estimation from body size unreliable beyond the first few years of life." -from hope to alert: demography of a remnant population of the critically endangered atelopus varius from costa rica,amphibian decline; capture-recapture; chytrid; recruitment; seniority; trout,STUDIES ON NEOTROPICAL FAUNA AND ENVIRONMENT,GONZALEZ-MAYA JF;GOMEZ-HOYOS DA;CRUZ-LIZANO I;SCHIPPER J,"harlequin frogs have suffered severe declines across the neotropics. we present a population assessment for a recently discovered population of atelopus varius from costa rica. using mark-recapture methods from september 2011 to february 2013, we estimated survival and recruitments parameters using cormack-jolly-seber models. we obtained 222 captures and estimated low recruitment rates and high seniority. given estimates of population growth rates close to zero, the observed population seems to be stable during the study. however, contrary to expectations for seasonally reproducing species like a. varius, we did not find an increase in recruitment rates between dry and rainy season. we provide details on ongoing threats for the population, as well as propose conservation actions to mitigate these threats." +from hope to alert: demography of a remnant population of the critically endangered atelopus varius from costa rica,amphibian decline; capture-recapture; chytrid; recruitment; seniority; trout,STUDIES ON NEOTROPICAL FAUNA AND ENVIRONMENT,GONZALEZ MAYA JF;GOMEZ HOYOS DA;CRUZ LIZANO I;SCHIPPER J,"harlequin frogs have suffered severe declines across the neotropics. we present a population assessment for a recently discovered population of atelopus varius from costa rica. using mark-recapture methods from september 2011 to february 2013, we estimated survival and recruitments parameters using cormack-jolly-seber models. we obtained 222 captures and estimated low recruitment rates and high seniority. given estimates of population growth rates close to zero, the observed population seems to be stable during the study. however, contrary to expectations for seasonally reproducing species like a. varius, we did not find an increase in recruitment rates between dry and rainy season. we provide details on ongoing threats for the population, as well as propose conservation actions to mitigate these threats." impact of exceptional growth rates on estimations of life-stage duration in hawaiian green sea turtles,chelonia mydas; age at first reproduction; growth spurts; humeri; skeletochronology,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,MURAKAWA SKK;SNOVER ML,"the hawaiian green sea turtle chelonia mydas population has steadily increased since its protection under the us endangered species act of 1978. however, an understanding of their recovery status is stymied by lack of certainty regarding the population age structure. based on the observed slow growth rates of juveniles, current assessments place age at first reproduction in hawaiian green sea turtles at 35-40 yr, although a recent study suggests 23 yr for this population. it is possible that somatic growth dynamics such as growth spurts have been missed by traditional mark-recapture studies. skeletochronology provides annual longitudinal data on growth rates of marine turtles, allowing for the detection of rare but potentially important growth spurts. the present study uses skeletochronology to estimate growth rates and detect the frequency of growth spurts in 30-90 cm straight carapace length (scl) hawaiian green sea turtles. we found that growth spurts occurred throughout the life span, but peaked for males from 50 to 59.9 cm scl and for females from 70 to 79.9 cm scl. the growth rates were binned into 10 cm scl size class bins, and 4 methods were used to estimate the mean growth rate for each bin. we found that mean growth rates overestimated life-stage durations for each of the methods, although the expectation of the lognormal distribution gave the least biased results. our study suggests that infrequent growth spurts are not represented in mean growth rate statistics but that these spurts likely result in faster lifetime growth rates and lower age at first reproduction than has been estimated using traditional methods." -characterizing residence patterns of north atlantic right whales in the southeastern usa with a multistate open robust design model,mark-recapture; open robust design; phenology; residence; eubalaena glacialis; north atlantic right whale,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,KRZYSTAN AM;GOWAN TA;KENDALL WL;MARTIN J;ORTEGA-ORTIZ JG;JACKSON K;KNOWLTON AR;NAESSIG P;ZANI M;SCHULTE DW;TAYLOR CR,"effective conservation of endangered north atlantic right whales eubalaena glacialis requires information about their spatio-temporal distribution. understanding temporal distribution is particularly important, because a portion of the population migrates between high-latitude summer feeding grounds off the northeastern us and canadian maritimes coasts and lower-latitude calving and wintering grounds off the southeastern us coast (seus). here, we modeled seus residence patterns using photo-identification data from coastal south carolina, georgia, and florida from 7 winter seasons (2004/2005-2010/2011). we used multistate open robust design models to evaluate effects of reproductive status, demographic group, and environmental conditions on seus residence. model estimates accounted for temporal variation and imperfect detection and provided probabilities of entering the seus, staying in the seus, and being sighted in the seus. we also derived estimates for residence time and seasonal abundance. we observed staggered arrival and departure patterns and demographic differences in residence patterns that are characteristic of a differential migration strategy. calving females arrived earliest and, in most seasons, had mean residence periods more than twice as long as other demographic groups. conversely, adult males arrived the latest and had the shortest residence times. within-season detection was positively influenced by survey effort, and overall seasonal mean (+/- se) detection rate estimates ranged from 0.83 +/- 0.08 for non-calving adult females to 0.98 +/- 0.02 for calving females. results provide insights into right whale behavior, biology, and temporal distribution in the seus and can be used to evaluate spatially and temporally dynamic management measures." +characterizing residence patterns of north atlantic right whales in the southeastern usa with a multistate open robust design model,mark-recapture; open robust design; phenology; residence; eubalaena glacialis; north atlantic right whale,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,KRZYSTAN AM;GOWAN TA;KENDALL WL;MARTIN J;ORTEGA ORTIZ JG;JACKSON K;KNOWLTON AR;NAESSIG P;ZANI M;SCHULTE DW;TAYLOR CR,"effective conservation of endangered north atlantic right whales eubalaena glacialis requires information about their spatio-temporal distribution. understanding temporal distribution is particularly important, because a portion of the population migrates between high-latitude summer feeding grounds off the northeastern us and canadian maritimes coasts and lower-latitude calving and wintering grounds off the southeastern us coast (seus). here, we modeled seus residence patterns using photo-identification data from coastal south carolina, georgia, and florida from 7 winter seasons (2004/2005-2010/2011). we used multistate open robust design models to evaluate effects of reproductive status, demographic group, and environmental conditions on seus residence. model estimates accounted for temporal variation and imperfect detection and provided probabilities of entering the seus, staying in the seus, and being sighted in the seus. we also derived estimates for residence time and seasonal abundance. we observed staggered arrival and departure patterns and demographic differences in residence patterns that are characteristic of a differential migration strategy. calving females arrived earliest and, in most seasons, had mean residence periods more than twice as long as other demographic groups. conversely, adult males arrived the latest and had the shortest residence times. within-season detection was positively influenced by survey effort, and overall seasonal mean (+/- se) detection rate estimates ranged from 0.83 +/- 0.08 for non-calving adult females to 0.98 +/- 0.02 for calving females. results provide insights into right whale behavior, biology, and temporal distribution in the seus and can be used to evaluate spatially and temporally dynamic management measures." abundance estimates for management of endangered false killer whales in the main hawaiian islands,conservation; management; abundance; mark-recapture; false killer whale; hawaii; photo-identification; popan,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,BRADFORD AL;BAIRD RW;MAHAFFY SD;GORGONE AM;MCSWEENEY DJ;CULLINS T;WEBSTER DL;ZERBINI AN,"effectively using the best available data to meet management mandates for endangered populations is a common conservation challenge. false killer whales pseudorca crassidens occur as 3 distinct populations in hawaiian waters, including a resident main hawaiian islands (mhi) population that is endangered under the us endangered species act. a longitudinal, photo-identification dataset of 171 distinctive individuals and open mark-recapture methods were used to estimate current mhi false killer whale abundance as needed for management of this population. the data are from dedicated and opportunistic surveys conducted from 2000 to 2015 around the mhi and reflect unquantified spatiotemporal biases imposed by necessary sampling constraints. accounting for temporal variation and especially social group affiliation was important in modeling capture probability. sensitivity analyses found that the resulting time series of 16 abundance estimates is robust to some forms of sampling variability and bias. however, because the study area was partially sampled each year, the annual abundance estimates apply only to the portion of the population using the sampled area and may underestimate true population abundance. nonetheless, the resulting estimates and supporting evidence indicate that the mhi false killer whale population is relatively small; for example, only 167 (se = 23, 95% ci = 128-218) individuals were estimated to have used the sampled area in 2015. until data are available to estimate or overcome sampling biases, this estimation framework offers a tool for using data that have been regularly collected each year to produce current abundance estimates that are improvements over existing management inputs." longevity in some malagasy rainforest passerines,age; diet; longevity; madagascar; mass; songbirds; taxonomic group,OSTRICH,WOOG F;RAMANITRA N;RASAMISON AS;TAHIRY RL,"data on longevity is a prerequisite to understand the life-history strategies of a species. for malagasy songbirds no information has been previously published. therefore, we studied their longevity in a capture-recapture effort in a rainforest in eastern madagascar (maromizaha, andasibe) between 2003 and 2016. we present first data on the longevity of 23 species of malagasy songbirds. a female dark newtonia newtonia amphichroa (vangidae) and a grey-crowned greenbul bernieria cinereiceps (bernieridae) attained an age of at least 12 years, followed by two male madagascar brush warblers nesillas typica (acrocephalidae), female madagascar bulbul hypsipetes madagascariensis (pycnonotidae) and madagascar drongo dicrurus forficatus (dicruridae) that attained at least 10 years. there was much variation within some taxonomic groups, longevity did not increase with the mass of a bird species and most insectivorous birds lived longer than granivorous ones." "population estimation, distribution, and habitat preference of irrawaddy dolphins orcaella brevirostris (owen in gray, 1866) in the brunei bay, malaysian waters",NA,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,MAHMUD AI;JAAMAN SA;MUDA AM;MUHAMAD HM;ZHANG XL;SCAPINI F,"the population of irrawaddy dolphins in brunei bay, malaysia is currently under threat by anthropogenic activities. this study is aimed at contributing information on population size, group composition, spatial occurrence and habitat preferences of this dolphin species in the bay area. a total of 36 individuals (adults) of irrawaddy dolphins were identified using dorsal fin photo match software (darwin) by undertaking 297.91 h of boat-based dedicated surveys (april 2013 october 2015). by using the mark-recapture open-population parameterization, the estimated population size (adult) was 33 (95% ci. 28-39) with the apparent survival rate of 0.98 (0.89-0.99, se = 0.01). also, the recapture rate was 0.27 (0.14-0.45, se = 0.07) and the estimated individual entry rate from super-population was 0.15 (0.10-0.22, se = 0.03). the estimated entire population size was 41 (95% ci = 36-49) including calves. the observed mean group size was 6 (se = 0.66, range 1-18). two hotspots were identified for dolphin occurrences near lawas and labuan island at a sighting rate of 2.8-12.3 km(-2). the dolphins were encountered in the bay over the entire year with no seasonal differences. the observation of dolphin calves in the groups are a positive indicator that the dolphins are breeding successfully in the bay area and provide hope that the population will remain stable or increase in number. the dolphins showed habitat preferences of sea depths (2 to 9.99 m), surface water temperature (29 to 31.99 degrees c), and coastline distance (1.5 to 4.49 km). this study provides the first detailed information about irrawaddy dolphins in the brunei bay, malaysia, and may serve as a baseline for future comparisons. it can help researchers, conservationists, local marine park managers and policy makers to propose effective conservation and management plans in the brunei bay area." @@ -730,7 +731,7 @@ lizards in the suburbs: a single-garden study of a small endemic new zealand ski abundance and demographic parameters of bottlenose dolphins in a highly affected coastal ecosystem,anthropogenic disturbances; iberian peninsula; marine top predator; photographic identification,MARINE AND FRESHWATER RESEARCH,METHION V;LOPEZ BD,"this study presents the first robust estimates of abundance and demographic parameters of common bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in a highly affected coastal ecosystem along the north-eastern atlantic. seasonal abundance, apparent survival and temporary emigration rates were estimated using pollock's robust design models. photographic identification data were collected from 2014 to 2016 along the north-western iberian coast (spain). bottlenose dolphins were present year-round and with a high degree of occurrence in the study area, which is highly affected by human activity but is also a highly productive coastal ecosystem. local abundance of bottlenose dolphins ranged from 56 in autumn 2014 to 144 in winter 2015. apparent survival rate was high and constant, indicating no mortality and no permanent emigration. temporal emigration rates varied seasonally and were lower from autumn to winter, suggesting that dolphins had a high probability of returning during the winter period. the observed changes in abundance and emigration rates most likely reflect seasonal fluctuations in abundance of prey species in this area. these results provide important baseline information in an area subject to significant anthropogenic pressures and for future comparisons with other populations of similar characteristics under the pressure of human activities, such as fisheries and aquaculture." estimating feral cat (felis catus) density in a rural to urban gradient using camera trapping,camera traps; density; felis catus; home range; new zealand,NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,HANSEN CM;PATERSON AM;ROSS JG;OGILVIE SC,"control or eradication of feral cats (felis cattus) is necessary for a number of reasons, including controlling zoonotic diseases and protecting native species in new zealand. estimating feral cat density provides vital information about location and logistical effort required for control operations but current methods used to estimate feral cat densities are often labour intensive and invasive, and may not provide appropriate baseline data. we determined the effectiveness of using camera traps to estimate a feral cat population compared with live-capture trapping in a semi-rural park. camera trapping, with capture-recapture statistical modelling, was used to estimate population density of feral cats as between 1.06 and 1.19 cats/km(2) with an individual detection probability of 5.3% per camera/night. camera trapping (seven individual feral cats identified) was a valuable addition to live trapping of feral cats (four cats live trapped) and provided a cost-effective, non-invasive and potentially more accurate tool for wildlife managers and researchers to measure feral cat densities." molt patterns and sexing and aging criteria for ten species of high elevation landbirds from southeastern peru,andean cloud forest; definitive basic plumage; formative plumage; manu national park; molt cycle; parulidae; passerellidae; preformative molt; thraupidae; troglodytidae; tyrannidae,ORNITOLOGIA NEOTROPICAL,KENNEDY JJ;HEAVYSIDE J;JANKOWSKI JE;SCHOLER MN,"knowledge of molt patterns and their resulting plumages is useful for aging and sexing birds and, in monochromatic species, morphometric measurements can help to discern males from females. however, these data are largely undescribed for the majority of the world's bird species, especially in the tropics. we sought to classify the molt strategy for 10 species of neotropical passerines during their breeding seasons and considered whether a combination of wing chord, tail length and mass could be used to determine their sex. we used banding data from three years of mark-recapture study at wayqecha biological station (2900 m a.s.l.) along the east slope of the andes in southeastern peru to characterize molt and estimate morphological measurements. each of the species exhibited a complete definitive prebasic molt and either a partial (nine species) or partial-incomplete (one species) preformative molt, which we interpreted to be consistent with a complex basic molt strategy. for five of the 10 species, we found that wing, tail, and body mass measurements were useful in distinguishing between males and females. this study contributes to our understanding of tropical bird molt by providing previously undescribed aging and sexing criteria for some tropical landbirds common to high elevations of southern peru." -combining cluster sampling and link-tracing sampling to estimate the size of a hidden population: asymptotic properties of the estimators,asymptotic normality; capture-recapture; chain-referral sampling; hard-to-detect population; maximum likelihood estimator; snowball sampling,JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE,FELIX-MEDINA MH,"felix-medina and thompson proposed a variant of link-tracing sampling to estimate the size of a hidden population such as drug users or sexual workers. in their variant a sampling frame of sites where the members of the population tend to gather is constructed. the frame is not assumed to cover the whole population, but only a portion of it. a simple random sample of sites is selected; the people in the sampled sites are identified and are asked to name other members of the population, who are added to the sample. those authors proposed maximum likelihood estimators (mles) of the population size that derived from a multinomial model for the numbers of people found in the sampled sites and a model that considers that the probability that a person is named by any element in a particular sampled site (link-probability) does not depend on the named person, that is, that the probabilities are homogeneous. later, felix-medina et al. proposed unconditional and conditional mles of the population size, which derived from a model that takes into account the heterogeneity of the link-probabilities. in this work we consider this sampling design and set conditions for a general model for the link-probabilities that guarantees the consistency and asymptotic normality of the estimators of the population size and of the estimators of the parameters of the model for the link-probabilities. we showed that the unconditional and conditional mles of the population size are consistent, that they have different asymptotic normal distributions, and that the unconditional ones are more efficient than the conditional ones." +combining cluster sampling and link-tracing sampling to estimate the size of a hidden population: asymptotic properties of the estimators,asymptotic normality; capture-recapture; chain-referral sampling; hard-to-detect population; maximum likelihood estimator; snowball sampling,JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE,FELIX MEDINA MH,"felix-medina and thompson proposed a variant of link-tracing sampling to estimate the size of a hidden population such as drug users or sexual workers. in their variant a sampling frame of sites where the members of the population tend to gather is constructed. the frame is not assumed to cover the whole population, but only a portion of it. a simple random sample of sites is selected; the people in the sampled sites are identified and are asked to name other members of the population, who are added to the sample. those authors proposed maximum likelihood estimators (mles) of the population size that derived from a multinomial model for the numbers of people found in the sampled sites and a model that considers that the probability that a person is named by any element in a particular sampled site (link-probability) does not depend on the named person, that is, that the probabilities are homogeneous. later, felix-medina et al. proposed unconditional and conditional mles of the population size, which derived from a model that takes into account the heterogeneity of the link-probabilities. in this work we consider this sampling design and set conditions for a general model for the link-probabilities that guarantees the consistency and asymptotic normality of the estimators of the population size and of the estimators of the parameters of the model for the link-probabilities. we showed that the unconditional and conditional mles of the population size are consistent, that they have different asymptotic normal distributions, and that the unconditional ones are more efficient than the conditional ones." hidden population size estimation from respondent-driven sampling: a network approach,hidden population; injection drug use; network inference; population size,JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN STATISTICAL ASSOCIATION,CRAWFORD FW;WU JC;HEIMER R,"estimating the size of stigmatized, hidden, or hard-to-reach populations is a major problem in epidemiology, demography, and public health research. capture-recapture and multiplier methods are standard tools for inference of hidden population sizes, but they require random sampling of target population members, which is rarely possible. respondent-driven sampling (rds) is a survey method for hidden populations that relies on social link tracing. the rds recruitment process is designed to spread through the social network connecting members of the target population. in this article, we show how to use network data revealed by rds to estimate hidden population size. the key insight is that the recruitment chain, timing of recruitments, and network degrees of recruited subjects provide information about the number of individuals belonging to the target population who are not yet in the sample. we use a computationally efficient bayesian method to integrate over the missing edges in the subgraph of recruited individuals. we validate the method using simulated data and apply the technique to estimate the number of people who inject drugs in st.peters-burg, russia." survival and recruitment in the population ecology of the endangered bombina pachypus (amphibia: anura),capture-mark-recapture; demography; global amphibian decline; monti lepini; monti lucretili; population growth; tuscany,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,ANGELINI C;TIBERI A;CARI B;GIACHI F,"global amphibian decline is a subject of great conservation concern, yet often basic demographic information is absent, which prevents the understanding of population trends and the planning of effective conservation management. we analysed capture-mark-recapture data from six populations of the endangered bombina pachypus in order to understand the relative contribution of survival and recruitment to population growth, and to assess if any differences exist among populations in terms of their population dynamics. we found that survival was rather high and generally constant among sites, and recruitment was low, with the exception of two single years at one site. population growth depended on survival on all sites, except the years following high recruitment at one site. annual population size was generally lower than 30 individuals, but in one site it was estimated to be larger than 50. our findings suggest that juvenile survival is more important for population dynamics than recruitment from the larval to the juvenile stage. we also suggest that the low recruitment rates we recorded was a result of juvenile dispersal, and that when populations exhibited high recruitment it was due to occasional successful migration or local recruitment. this pattern could represent a way to counterbalance the risk of inbreeding in populations composed of few individuals, a common characteristic of populations of b. pachypus. finally, we suggest that conservation measures for b. pachypus should be planned at the landscape scale, and should not be limited solely to the breeding site and its close surroundings." "sex ratio and sexual size dimorphism in a mad-headed lizard, phrynocephalus guinanensis",toad-headed lizard; mark-recapture; sexual size dimorphism; growth rate; survivorship; sex ratio,ASIAN HERPETOLOGICAL RESEARCH,ZHANG KL;TONG HJ;WO YB;LIU NF;JIN YT,"phrynocephalus guinanensis has sexual dimorphism in abdominal coloration, but its ontogenetic development of sexual size dimorphism (ssd) is unknown. using mark-recapture data during four days each year from august from 2014 to 2016, we investigated the development of sex ratios, ssd, sex-specific survivorship and growth rates in a population of p. guinanensis. our results indicated that the sex ratio of males to females was 1:2.8. males had a lower survival rate (6%) than females (14%) across the age range from hatchling to adult, which supported the discovered female-biased sex ratio potentially associated with the low survival rate of males between hatchlings and juveniles. male-biased ssd in tail length and head width existed in adults rather than in hatchling or juvenile lizards. the growth rates in body dimensions were undistinguishable between the sexes during the age from hatchling to juvenile, but the growth rate in head length from juvenile to adult was significantly larger in males than females. average growth rate of all morphological measurements from hatchling to juvenile were larger compared with corresponding measurements from juvenile to adult, but only being significant in tail length, head width, abdomen length in females and snout-vent length in males. we provided a case study to strengthen our understanding of the important life history traits on how a viviparous lizard population can survive and develop their morphology in cold climates." @@ -738,12 +739,12 @@ a multiyear hierarchical bayesian mark-recapture model incorporating data on rec detection and correction of case-publication bias,NA,JOURNAL OF LEGAL STUDIES,CHENG EK,"case-publication bias, the possibility that certain legal outcomes may be more likely to be published or observed than others, carries significant implications for both legal actors and researchers. in this article, i propose a method for detecting and correcting case-publication bias based on ideas from multiple-systems estimation, a technique traditionally used for estimating hidden populations. i apply the method to a simulated data set of admissibility decisions to confirm its efficacy, then to a newly collected data set on false-confession expert testimony, where the model estimates that the observed 16 percent admissibility rate may be in reality closer to 28 percent. the article thus draws attention to the problem of case-publication bias and offers a practical statistical tool for detecting and correcting it." effectiveness of the field identification of individual natterjack toads (epidalea calamita) using comparisons of dorsa features through citizen science,epidalea calamita; natterjack toad; photo-identification technique; training; mark recapture; citizen science,HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL,SMITH S;YOUNG T;SKYDMORE D,"citizen science is now making an important contribution, both in the collection of large amounts of data over wide geographical areas and in promoting environmental awareness and engagement communities. however, as there are many participating observers, the reliability of the data collected needs to be assessed. this study used a citizen science approach to investigate whether dorsal features, when photographed, can be used in the identification of individual natterjack toads (epidalea calamita). epidalea calamita individuals from a population located at prestatyn, north wales, were captured, photographed and released in a legally compliant manner. forty human participants each completed a timed exercise to match photographs of individual toads that had been taken from different angles. sixty-five percent of the participants accurately matched photographs on their first attempt. the effect of training on the accuracy and speed at which participants could identify individuals from photographs was then assessed. twenty of the participants received basic training on recognising the key features of dorsal patterns before carrying out the exercise again. following training, average accuracy increased to 90% and participants were 415% quicker in completing the exercise than those that were untrained. the study revealed that basic training of participants who are involved in citizen science projects was beneficial by having a significant impact on accuracy and speed. in addition, we demonstrate that the dorsal features of tubercles and scarring are useful in identifying individuals of e. calamita in the field." the prevalence of multiple sclerosis in the metropolitan area of rome: a capture-recapture analysis,multiple sclerosis; prevalence; epidemiology; capture-recapture; italy; rome,NEUROEPIDEMIOLOGY,FARCOMENI A;CORTESE A;SGARLATA E;FEGATELLI DA;MARFIA GA;BUTTARI F;MIRABELLA M;DE FINO C;PROSPERINI L;POZZILLI C;GRASSO MG;IASEVOLI L;DI BATTISTA G;MILLEFIORINI E,"background: limited data are available on the prevalence of multiple sclerosis (ms) in central italy. the objective of this study is to estimate ms prevalence in the metropolitan area of rome. methods: we used the capture-recapture method to calculate prevalence estimates in the study area. the selected prevalence day was december 31, 2015. a total of 1,007 patients, with a definite diagnosis of ms according to the revised mcdonald's criteria, were considered for crude, age- and sex-specific prevalence estimation. results: the overall crude prevalence rate was 146.2 cases per 100,000 (95% ci 119.9-172.5). a higher prevalence rate was recorded in females (194.1, 95% ci 149.6-238.6) than in males (93.0, 95% ci 67.2-118.8) with a female to male ratio of 1.8. age-specific prevalence peaked in the 25-34, 35-44 and 45-54 years class; moreover, it was found to increase up to the 45-54 years age group in females and the 35-44 years age group in males, decreasing thereafter. conclusion: the results confirm that the metropolitan area of rome is a high-risk area for ms. (c) 2018 s. karger ag, basel" -documentation of a new zealand blue whale population based on multiple lines of evidence,blue whale; new zealand; photo-identification; abundance; acoustics; genetics; population connectivity; conservation,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,BARLOW DR;TORRES LG;HODGE KB;STEEL D;BAKER CS;CHANDLER TE;BOTT N;CONSTANTINE R;DOUBLE MC;GILL P;GLASGOW D;HAMNER RM;LILLEY C;OGLE M;OLSON PA;PETERS C;STOCKIN KA;TESSAGLIA-HYMES CT;KLINCK H,"species conservation depends on iobust population assessment. data on population abundance, distribution, and connectivity are ciitical foi effective management, especially as baseline information for newly documented populations. we describe a pygmy blue whale balaenoptera musculus brevicauda population in new zealand waters with year-round presence that overlaps with industrial activities. this population was investigated using a multidisciplinary approach, including analysis of survey data, sighting records, acoustic data, identification photographs, and genetic samples. blue whales were reported during every month of the yeai in the new zealand exclusive economic zone, with reports concentrated in the south taranaki bight (stb) region, where foraging behavior was frequently observed. five hydrophones in the stb recorded the new zealand blue whale call type on 99.7% of recording days (january to december 2016). a total of 151 individuals were photo-identified between 2004 and 2017. nine individuals were resighted across multiple years. no matches were made to individuals identified in australian or antarctic waters. mitochondrial dna haplotype frequencies differed significantly between new zealand (n = 53 individuals) and all other southern hemisphere blue whale populations, and haplotype diversity was significantly lower than all other populations. these results suggest a high degree of isolation of this new zealand population. using a closed capture recapture population model, our conservative abundance estimate of blue whales in new zealand is 718 (sd = 433, 95 % ci = 279-1926). our results fill critical knowledge gaps to improve management of blue whale populations in new zealand and surrounding regions." -assessment of a leishmaniasis reporting system in tropical bolivia using the capture-recapture method,NA,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE,EID D;GUZMAN-RIVERO M;ROJAS E;GOICOLEA I;HURTIG AK;ILLANES D;SAN SEBASTIAN M,"this study evaluates the level of underreporting of the national program of leishmaniasis control (nplc) in two communities of cochabamba, bolivia during the period 2013-2014. montenegro skin test-confirmed cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis (cl) were identified through active surveillance during medical campaigns. these cases were compared with those registered in the nplc by passive surveillance. after matching and cleaning data from the two sources, the total number of cases and the level of underreporting of the national program were calculated using the capture-recapture analysis. this estimated that 86 cases of cl (95% confidence interval [ci]: 62.1-110.8) occurred in the study period in both communities. the level of underreporting of the nplc in these communities was very high: 73.4% (95% ci: 63.1-81.5%). these results can be explained by the inaccessibility of health services and centralization of the nplc activities. this information is important to establish priorities among policy-makers and funding organizations as well as implementing adequate intervention plans." +documentation of a new zealand blue whale population based on multiple lines of evidence,blue whale; new zealand; photo-identification; abundance; acoustics; genetics; population connectivity; conservation,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,BARLOW DR;TORRES LG;HODGE KB;STEEL D;BAKER CS;CHANDLER TE;BOTT N;CONSTANTINE R;DOUBLE MC;GILL P;GLASGOW D;HAMNER RM;LILLEY C;OGLE M;OLSON PA;PETERS C;STOCKIN KA;TESSAGLIA HYMES CT;KLINCK H,"species conservation depends on iobust population assessment. data on population abundance, distribution, and connectivity are ciitical foi effective management, especially as baseline information for newly documented populations. we describe a pygmy blue whale balaenoptera musculus brevicauda population in new zealand waters with year-round presence that overlaps with industrial activities. this population was investigated using a multidisciplinary approach, including analysis of survey data, sighting records, acoustic data, identification photographs, and genetic samples. blue whales were reported during every month of the yeai in the new zealand exclusive economic zone, with reports concentrated in the south taranaki bight (stb) region, where foraging behavior was frequently observed. five hydrophones in the stb recorded the new zealand blue whale call type on 99.7% of recording days (january to december 2016). a total of 151 individuals were photo-identified between 2004 and 2017. nine individuals were resighted across multiple years. no matches were made to individuals identified in australian or antarctic waters. mitochondrial dna haplotype frequencies differed significantly between new zealand (n = 53 individuals) and all other southern hemisphere blue whale populations, and haplotype diversity was significantly lower than all other populations. these results suggest a high degree of isolation of this new zealand population. using a closed capture recapture population model, our conservative abundance estimate of blue whales in new zealand is 718 (sd = 433, 95 % ci = 279-1926). our results fill critical knowledge gaps to improve management of blue whale populations in new zealand and surrounding regions." +assessment of a leishmaniasis reporting system in tropical bolivia using the capture-recapture method,NA,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE,EID D;GUZMAN RIVERO M;ROJAS E;GOICOLEA I;HURTIG AK;ILLANES D;SAN SEBASTIAN M,"this study evaluates the level of underreporting of the national program of leishmaniasis control (nplc) in two communities of cochabamba, bolivia during the period 2013-2014. montenegro skin test-confirmed cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis (cl) were identified through active surveillance during medical campaigns. these cases were compared with those registered in the nplc by passive surveillance. after matching and cleaning data from the two sources, the total number of cases and the level of underreporting of the national program were calculated using the capture-recapture analysis. this estimated that 86 cases of cl (95% confidence interval [ci]: 62.1-110.8) occurred in the study period in both communities. the level of underreporting of the nplc in these communities was very high: 73.4% (95% ci: 63.1-81.5%). these results can be explained by the inaccessibility of health services and centralization of the nplc activities. this information is important to establish priorities among policy-makers and funding organizations as well as implementing adequate intervention plans." search strategies for conservation detection dogs,NA,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,GLEN AS;VELTMAN CJ,"monitoring rare or cryptic species can be challenging, especially with limited time and resources. dogs are often used for this purpose, but methods are highly variable. there is a need to optimise search methods for dog teams so that time and resources are used as efficiently as possible. some degree of standardisation is also desirable so that search results are comparable between different times and places. the discipline of search theory has developed effective methods to maximise the probability of detecting a search object and/or maximise the efficiency of a search. however, these advances have not been explicitly applied to the use of dogs to search for plants and animals in the wild. here, we provide a brief introduction to search theory, then discuss how ideas from search theory might be used to standardise and optimise the use of conservation detection dogs. we describe approaches that have been used, discuss their strengths and weaknesses, and suggest priorities for further research. standardised methods based on search theory could increase the effectiveness of conservation detection dogs, and make search results more comparable across different locations and times." multiple systems estimation (or capture-recapture estimation) to inform public policy,confidentiality; deductive disclosure; demographic factors; evidence-based policy; hidden populations; quantifying uncertainty; record linkage,"ANNUAL REVIEW OF STATISTICS AND ITS APPLICATION, VOL 5",BIRD SM;KING R,"applications of estimating population sizes range from estimating human or ecological population size within regions or countries to estimating the hidden number of civilian casualties in war. total enumeration via a census is typically infeasible. however, a series of partial enumerations of a population is often possible, leading to capture-recapture methods, which have been extensively used in ecology to estimate the size of wildlife populations with an associated measure of uncertainty and are most effectively applied when there are multiple capture occasions. capture-recapture ideology can be more widely applied to multiple data sources by the linkage of individuals across multiple lists, often referred to as multiple systems estimation (mse). the mse approach is preferred when estimating capture-shy or hard-to-reach populations, including those who are caught up in the criminal justice system, trafficked, or civilian casualties of war. motivated by the public policy applications of mse, each briefly introduced, we discuss practical problems with methodological implications. they include period definition; case definition; scenarios when an observed count is not a true count of the population of interest but an upper bound due to mismatched definitions; exact or probabilistic matching of cases across lists; demographic or other information about the case that influences capture propensities; permissions to access lists; list creation by research teams or interested parties; referrals (if presence on list a results, almost surely, in presence on list b); different mathematical models leading to widely different estimated population sizes; uncertainty in estimation; computational efficiency; external validation; hypothesis generation; and additional independent external information. returning to our motivational applications, we focus finally on whether the uncertainty that qualified their estimates was sufficiently narrow to orient public policy." "distribution, reproductive cycle, and food habits of the herbivorous snail chlorostoma lischkei off the coast of suttsu bay in southwestern hokkaido, japan",NA,NIPPON SUISAN GAKKAISHI,ONODERA R;SAKURAI I,"we examined the distribution, reproductive cycle, and food habits of the herbivorous snail chlorostoma lischkei, which predominates in the intertidal and subtidal zones off the coast of suttsu bay in southwestern hokkaido, japan, to evaluate the relationship between the activity of c. lischkei and the formation of large algal beds on coralline flats. as revealed by a mark-recapture experiment for 18 months using 1,672 marked snails, the snails released into the intertidal zone in june had moved to the subtidal zone by november and returned to the intertidal zone in may. histological observation of the gonads indicated that the snail had one spawning season per year, from july to september. gut content analysis revealed that food consumption of large algae, including fragments, gametophytes and young sporophytes, increased from november to march, while snails fed on benthic diatoms throughout the year. it is known that young sporophytes of annual algae such as undaria pinnatifida, desmarestia viridis, polysiphonia morrowii, and saccharina spp., invade the subtidal zone from december to january and then grow to macro-sporophytes by april. therefore, c. lischkei may be interfering with the large algal bed formation in suttsu bay through feeding activity." -survival estimates for the greater crested tern thalasseus bergii in southern africa,capture-recapture method; demography; leslie matrix; longevity; population dynamics; recovery model; seabirds; swift tern,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,PAYO-PAYO A;SANZ-AGUILAR A;GAGLIO D;SHERLEY RB;COOK TR;ALTWEGG R;RYAN PG,"the nominate race of the greater crested tern thalasseus bergii breeds only along the coast of the benguela region (west coast) of southern africa, where its population is increasing, in contrast to other species of breeding seabirds in the region which similarly depend on forage fish. although this population's trends are well known, its demographic parameters remain obscure. we used multi-event capture-recapture-recovery modelling to provide the first estimates of survival. the survival rate of birds older than two years was 0.93 (0.91-0.95); second-year survival was 0.93 (0.90-0.95) and first-year survival was 0.80 (0.73-0.85). a resighting of a 34-year-old bird is a new longevity record for the species. population growth rates projected with a leslie matrix model that included our survival estimates were very similar to estimates from annual counts of the breeding population (7-8% y(-1)), suggesting that these survival estimates adequately describe the species' demography. high survival rates have likely contributed to the species' recent population increase in the region." +survival estimates for the greater crested tern thalasseus bergii in southern africa,capture-recapture method; demography; leslie matrix; longevity; population dynamics; recovery model; seabirds; swift tern,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,PAYO PAYO A;SANZ AGUILAR A;GAGLIO D;SHERLEY RB;COOK TR;ALTWEGG R;RYAN PG,"the nominate race of the greater crested tern thalasseus bergii breeds only along the coast of the benguela region (west coast) of southern africa, where its population is increasing, in contrast to other species of breeding seabirds in the region which similarly depend on forage fish. although this population's trends are well known, its demographic parameters remain obscure. we used multi-event capture-recapture-recovery modelling to provide the first estimates of survival. the survival rate of birds older than two years was 0.93 (0.91-0.95); second-year survival was 0.93 (0.90-0.95) and first-year survival was 0.80 (0.73-0.85). a resighting of a 34-year-old bird is a new longevity record for the species. population growth rates projected with a leslie matrix model that included our survival estimates were very similar to estimates from annual counts of the breeding population (7-8% y(-1)), suggesting that these survival estimates adequately describe the species' demography. high survival rates have likely contributed to the species' recent population increase in the region." growth estimation of western population segment gulf sturgeon using length-at-age and mark-recapture data,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,ANDRES MJ;SLACK WT;PETERSON MS;KIMMEL KD;LEWIS BR;GRAMMER PO,"multimodel inference of length-at-age and tag-recapture data was used to estimate growth for western population segment (wps; populations natal to the pearl river, louisiana, and the pascagoula river, mississippi) gulf sturgeon acipenser oxyrinchus desotoi. four candidate growth models were fitted to the length-at-age data (n=174): a three-parameter von bertalanffy growth function (vbgf), a two-parameter vbgf, a power model, and a gompertz model. model support for each data set was estimated using akaike's information criterion. the gompertz model provided the best fit to our length-at-age data and had the lowest mean asymptotic maximum length (l). mean estimated growth parameters for wps gulf sturgeon were similar to those estimated for eastern population segment gulf sturgeon, but some of the mean parameter estimates fell outside of our 95% confidence intervals. three growth curves were also fitted to tag-recapture data (n=116): a reformulated two-parameter vbgf, the francis () grotag model, and a reparametrized gompertz model. the grotag model provided the best fit to our data; all three models had lower mean estimates for l compared with parameter estimates based on length at age but had similar mean growth coefficients. we also compared the observed growth of 47 individuals with their predicted growth based on parameter estimates of the gompertz length-at-age model and their age at tagging. we found that observed growth was generally less than what was predicted for juveniles and adults. for adults, we attribute this to the inaccuracies associated with age estimation for older individuals, which suggests that a tag-recapture approach might be the most appropriate method of modeling gulf sturgeon growth. our study (1) demonstrates the importance of fitting multiple models to estimate growth, (2) will enable more accurate growth comparisons for gulf sturgeon across their range, and (3) represents the most robust length-at-age and tag-recapture data set for wps gulf sturgeon." skewed sex ratio in a forest salamander: artefact of the different capture probabilities between sexes or actual ecological trait?,amphibians; capture probability; capture-marking-recapture; demographic parameters; females; males; salamandrina,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,ROMANO A;BASILE M;COSTA A,"sex ratio is an essential demographic parameter and distortions from a balanced sex ratio may have contrasting effects on the population dynamics. however, observation of distorted sex ratio using counts or captures may reflect an actual ecological trait of the studied population but may also be an artefact due to different capture probabilities of males and females. we compared results obtained from counts and capture-marking-recapture (cmr) on both sexes in a population of a forest dwelling salamander, salamandrina perspicillata, and we investigated if males and females had different capture probabilities. we surveyed available literature to compare information on sex ratio from other populations of s. perspicillata. the sex ratio from our counts was 0.65 and was significantly male-biased as reported in other studies. the estimated sex ratio from cmr data was 0.57. although males showed higher recapture rates than females in every capture session, these differences were not statistically significant. therefore, the skewed sex ratio towards males is not only an artefact due to different capture probabilities between males and females but reflects an actual demographic trait, although the magnitude of the skeweness was overestimated by counts." "apparent survival and long-term population growth rate of the kentish plover charadrius alexandrinus in mallorca, balearic archipelago, spain",population diagnosis; capture-recapture; island; migration; long-term monitoring,ARDEOLA-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,GARCIAS PJ;TAVECCHIA G,"during the last few decades, many breeding waders have been declining worldwide, probably due to the reduction of suitable coastal habitats. diagnosis of population parameters has become increasingly important for the conservation of waders. we used capture-recapture information of 214 adult kentish plovers charadrius alexandrinus, marked between 1977 and 2015 at two breeding areas in mallorca, spain, to assess any possible temporal trend in the survival probability. mean adult survival probability was 0.756 +/- 0.05 with no differences between the two areas. the sparseness of the data did not permit robust estimates of yearly survival. however, models with a temporal trend in survival probability were not retained. an age-structured population model including demographic stochasticity suggested a stable population (lambda = 1.024 +/- 0.09). perturbation analyses indicated that a 10% increase in mean breeding success (from 0.44 to 0.63), by reducing habitat loss or nest predation, would be sufficient to obtain positive population trajectories." @@ -751,7 +752,7 @@ connectivity among offshore feeding areas and nearshore spawning grounds; implic "rapid recovery of tigers panthera tigris in parsa wildlife reserve, nepal",camera trapping; conservation success; nepal; panthera tigris; parsa wildlife reserve; source-sink; tiger population,ORYX,LAMICHHANE BR;POKHERAL CP;POUDEL S;ADHIKARI D;GIRI SR;BHATTARAI S;BHATTA TR;PICKLES R;AMIN R;ACHARYA KP;DHAKAL M;REGMI UR;RAM AK;SUBEDI N,"information on density and abundance of globally threatened species such as tigers panthera tigris is essential for effective conservation as well as to evaluate the success of conservation programmes. we monitored tigers in parsa widlife reserve, nepal, using camera traps, in 2013, 2014 and 2016. once believed to be a sink for tigers from adjacent chitwan national park, parsa now provides a new hope for tigers. spatially explicit capture-recapture analysis over. survey years revealed an increase in tiger density from 0.78 to 1.38 individuals per 100 km(2) from 2013 to 2016. the tiger abundance was estimated to be seven (6-13), 11 (10-16) and 17 (17-20) in 2013, 2014 and 2016, respectively. resettlement of communities from the core area, reduced anthropogenic pressure, and improved security have made parsa wildlife reserve a suitable habitat for tigers. tiger abundance increased considerably within a 5 km radius of the evacuated village sites, from two in 2013 to eight in 2014 and 10 in 2016. population turnover has remained moderate (< 30 % per year), with persistence of individuals in multiple years. dispersing tigers from chitwan's source population accounted for a large portion (c. 40%) of the tigers detected in parsa. conservation efforts along with annual monitoring should be continued in parsa to sustain the increase and monitor the persistence of tigers. the chitwan-parsa complex should be managed as a single ecological unit for conserving the endangered tiger and other wide-ranging species." a pathway to recovery: the critically endangered sumatran tiger panthera tigris sumatrae in an 'in danger' unesco world heritage site,camera-trapping; density estimation; intensive protection zone; protected area management; single session occupancy model; spatially explicit capture-recapture,ORYX,PUSPARINI W;BATUBARA T;SURAHMAT F;ARDIANTIONO;SUGIHARTI T;MUSLICH M;AMAMA F;MARTHY W;ANDAYANI N,"reliable information on wildlife populations and the threats they face is crucial for assessing the performance of conservation strategies. as part of its efforts to improve the effectiveness of bukit barisan selatan national park in sumatra, indonesia, and aid the recovery of flagship species, the park's management authority designated a 1,000 km(2) forest block an intensive protection zone. to set a baseline from which to evaluate the performance of this zone, we investigated the density of tigers panthera tigris sumatrae, and spatio-temporal interactions between tigers, their principle prey and threats. the estimated density of tigers was 2.8 per 100 km(2), whereas in 2002 camera-trapping failed to record any tigers in the intensive protection zone. we found the study area contained a rich prey base, with muntjac deer muntiacus muntjak, macaques macaca nemestrina and wild pigs sus scrofa occupying 8598% of the area, and sambar rusa unicolor 61%. despite these promising findings we also recorded a relatively high number of people entering the park illegally, with 77 incidents over 6 months, of which 20% involved armed poachers. the poachers operated mainly at night and were concentrated in two locations. law enforcement patrol teams were active during the day, and therefore had little overlap with the poachers. prioritizing these at-risk areas for increased protection by rangers would further secure the intensive protection zone, and expanding ranger activity across the park would support efforts to remove the park from unesco's list of world heritage in danger." are corridors good for tigers panthera tigris but bad for people? an assessment of the khata corridor in lowland nepal,carnivores; nepal; panthera tigris; tiger; wildlife conflict; wildlife corridor,ORYX,WEGGE P;YADAV SK;LAMICHHANE BR,"as part of a landscape-scale programme for conserving tigers panthera tigris the khata corridor was established between bardia national park in nepal and katarniaghat wildlife sanctuary in india in early 2000. we examined its functionality by comparing the status of tigers and prey in the corridor and in the adjacent national park, using camera trapping, transect sampling and diet analysis of scats. tiger movement was inferred from the photographs, and tigerhuman conflict was assessed by means of questionnaires and interviews. the corridor harboured transient individuals as well as resident, breeding tigers. tigers with core areas in the corridor were also recorded in the two protected areas, and vice versa. wild prey was 34 times more abundant in the area of the national park bordering the corridor than in the corridor itself, and domestic livestock constituted 1215% of the tigers food in the corridor. livestock losses and human fatalities or injuries were relatively low compared to within the buffer zones of the national parks. despite such problems and restrictions on grazing and extraction of natural resources, local residents were generally positive towards tigers and the corridor. the successful establishment of the corridor and the positive attitudes of local people were attributable to community development programmes initiated to compensate for the imposed restrictions, financed by the government and national and international organizations. by linking bardia national park and katarniaghat wildlife sanctuary via the khata corridor, a protected tiger landscape of c. 3,000 km(2) was established in west-central nepal and northern india." -experiencing el nino conditions during early life reduces recruiting probabilities but not adult survival,early-life stress; life history; survival; recruitment; capture-recapture; el nino southern oscillation,ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE,ANCONA S;ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ;RODRIGUEZ C;DRUMMOND H,"in wild long-lived animals, analysis of impacts of stressful natal conditions on adult performance has rarely embraced the entire age span, and the possibility that costs are expressed late in life has seldom been examined. using 26 years of data from 8541 fledglings and 1310 adults of the blue-footed booby (sula nebouxii), a marine bird that can live up to 23 years, we tested whether experiencing the warm waters and food scarcity associated with el nino in the natal year reduces recruitment or survival over the adult lifetime. warm water in the natal year reduced the probability of recruiting; each additional degree (degrees c) of water temperature meant a reduction of roughly 50% in fledglings' probability of returning to the natal colony as breeders. warm water in the current year impacted adult survival, with greater effect at the oldest ages than during early adulthood. however, warm water in the natal year did not affect survival at any age over the adult lifespan. a previous study showed that early recruitment and widely spaced breeding allow boobies that experience warm waters in the natal year to achieve normal fledgling production over the first 10 years; our results now show that this reproductive effort incurs no survival penalty, not even late in life. this pattern is additional evidence of buffering against stressful natal conditions via life-history adjustments." +experiencing el nino conditions during early life reduces recruiting probabilities but not adult survival,early-life stress; life history; survival; recruitment; capture-recapture; el nino southern oscillation,ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE,ANCONA S;ZUNIGA VEGA JJ;RODRIGUEZ C;DRUMMOND H,"in wild long-lived animals, analysis of impacts of stressful natal conditions on adult performance has rarely embraced the entire age span, and the possibility that costs are expressed late in life has seldom been examined. using 26 years of data from 8541 fledglings and 1310 adults of the blue-footed booby (sula nebouxii), a marine bird that can live up to 23 years, we tested whether experiencing the warm waters and food scarcity associated with el nino in the natal year reduces recruitment or survival over the adult lifetime. warm water in the natal year reduced the probability of recruiting; each additional degree (degrees c) of water temperature meant a reduction of roughly 50% in fledglings' probability of returning to the natal colony as breeders. warm water in the current year impacted adult survival, with greater effect at the oldest ages than during early adulthood. however, warm water in the natal year did not affect survival at any age over the adult lifespan. a previous study showed that early recruitment and widely spaced breeding allow boobies that experience warm waters in the natal year to achieve normal fledgling production over the first 10 years; our results now show that this reproductive effort incurs no survival penalty, not even late in life. this pattern is additional evidence of buffering against stressful natal conditions via life-history adjustments." "survival of adult steller sea lions in alaska: senescence, annual variation and covariation with male reproductive success",population dynamics; demography; vital rates; life history; mammal,ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE,HASTINGS KK;JEMISON LA;PENDLETON GW,"population dynamics of long-lived vertebrates depend critically on adult survival, yet factors affecting survival and covariation between survival and other vital rates in adults remain poorly examined for many taxonomic groups of long-lived mammals (e.g. actuarial senescence has been examined for only 9 of 34 extant pinniped species using longitudinal data). we used mark-recapture models and data from 2795 steller sea lion (eumetopias jubatus) pups individually marked at four of five rookeries in southeastern alaska (seak) and resighted for 21 years to examine senescence, annual variability and covariation among life-history traits in this long-lived, sexually dimorphic pinniped. sexes differed in age of onset (approx. 16-17 and approx. 8-9 years for females and males, respectively), but not rate (-0.047 and -0.046/year of age for females and males) of senescence. survival of adult males from northern seak had greatest annual variability (approx. +/- 0.30 among years), whereas survival of adult females ranged approximately +/- 0.10 annually. positive covariation between male survival and reproductive success was observed. survival of territorial males was 0.20 higher than that of non-territorial males, resulting in the majority of males alive at oldest ages being territorial." estimating the likely true changes in rheumatic fever incidence using two data sources,health equity; incidence; public health; rheumatic fever; surveillance system,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,OLIVER J;PIERSE N;WILLIAMSON DA;BAKER MG,"acute rheumatic fever (arf) continues to produce a significant burden of disease in new zealand (nz) maori and pacific peoples. serious limitations in national surveillance data mean that accurate case totals cannot be generated. given the changing epidemiology of arf in nz and the major national rheumatic fever prevention programme (2012-2017), we updated our previous likely true case number estimates using capture-recapture analyses. aims were to estimate the likely true incidence of arf in nz and comment on the changing ability to detect cases. data were obtained from national hospitalisation and notification databases. the chapman estimate partially adjusted for bias. an estimated 2342 likely true new cases arose from 1997 to 2015, giving a mean annual incidence of 2.9 per 100 000 (95% ci 2.5-3.5). compared with the pre-intervention (2009-2011) baseline incidence (3.4 per 100 000, 95% ci 2.9-4.0), the likely true 2015 incidence declined 44%. large gaps in data completeness are slowly closing. during the period 2012-2015, 723 cases were identified; 83.8% of notifications were matched to hospitalisation data, and 87.2% of hospitalisations matched to notifications. despite this improvement, clinicians need to remain aware of the need to notify atypical patients. a possible unintended consequence of the national arf prevention programme is increased misdiagnosis." "population survey and management strategies of free-roaming dogs (canis familiaris) on saipan, commonwealth of the northern mariana islands",canis familiaris; introduced species; population structure; spatial distribution; public perception,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ANIMAL WELFARE SCIENCE,NIMER A;MENESES N;WATSON ZD;SHUSTER SM;BENFORD R,"the island of saipan, commonwealth of the northern mariana islands, is populated by free-roaming dogs who were introduced during world war ii. the local nonhuman animal control agency manages this population; however, the demographic information and public perception of this population remain unknown. to characterize the free-roaming dog population, an island-wide survey on saipan was conducted. photographic, mark-recapture data were used to estimate the population size per land type. age, sex, sociality, and behavior per land type were documented and associations between these variables were tested using g tests. the effects of land type and urbanization on dog abundance were also analyzed. lastly, in-person surveys provided data on the public perception of free-roaming dogs. four main findings are reported: (a) the population size of free-roaming dogs on saipan is estimated at 21,316. (b) most dogs encountered were sentry adults. (c) dog abundance increased with urbanization level and was highest in urban areas. (d) the public perceived free-roaming dogs as a health concern and suggested the implementation of leash laws and sheltering initiatives. this article discusses potential and existing population management strategies for free-roaming dogs on saipan." @@ -769,17 +770,17 @@ generalized spatial mark-resight models with an application to grizzly bears,ban capture-recapture abundance and survival estimates of three cetacean species in icelandic coastal waters using trained scientist-volunteers,abundance; survival; capture-recapture; volunteers; minke whale; white-beaked dolphins; humpback whale; iceland,JOURNAL OF SEA RESEARCH,BERTULLI CG;GUERY L;MCGINTY N;SUZUKI A;BRANNAN N;MARQUES T;RASMUSSEN MH;GIMENEZ O,"knowledge of abundance and survival of humpback whales, white-beaked dolphins and minke whales are essential to manage and conserve these species in icelandic coastal shelf waters. our main goal was to test the feasibility of employing inexpensive research methods (data collected by trained-scientist volunteers onboard opportunistic vessels) to assess abundance and apparent survival. no previous studies in iceland have investigated these two demographic parameters in these three cetacean species using open capture-recapture models accounting for imperfect and possibly heterogeneous detection. a transient effect was accounted for whenever required to estimate the population of resident individuals. identification photographs were collected by scientist-trained volunteers for 7 years (2006-2013) from onboard commercial whale-watching vessels in the coastal waters of faxafloi (southwest coast, similar to 4400 km(2)) and skjalfandi (northeast coast, similar to 1100 km(2)), iceland. we estimated an average abundance of 83 humpback whales (mn; 95% confidence interval: 54-130) in skjalfandi; 238 white-beaked dolphins (la; [163-321]) in faxafloi; and 67 minke whales (ba; [53-82]) in faxafloi and 24 (14-31) in skjalfandi. we also found that apparent survival was constant for all three species (mn: 0.52 [0.41-0.63], la: 0.79 [0.64-0.88], ba-faxafloi: 0.80 [0.67-0.88], ba-skjalfandi: 0.96 [0.60-0.99]). our results showed inter-annual variation in abundance estimates which were small for all species, and the presence of transience for minke whales. a significant increase in abundance during the study period was solely found in minke whale data from skjalfandi. humpback whales and white-beaked dolphins showed lower apparent survival rates compared to similar baleen whale and dolphin populations. our results show data collected by trained-scientist volunteers can produce viable estimates of abundance and survival although bias in the methods we employed exist and need to be addressed. with the continued increase in anthropogenic pressures on our three target populations in iceland our results can be used by relevant stakeholders to develop appropriate conservation strategies in the region." "ontogenetic changes in spot configuration (numbers, circularity, size and asymmetry) and lateral line in neurergus microspilotus (caudata: salamandridae)",spot ontogeny; larvae; postmetamorph; adult; lateral line; melanophore-free region,ACTA ZOOLOGICA,VAISSI S;PARTO P;SHARIFI M,"coloration in three of four species of the genus neurergus including n.microspilotus is characterized by the presence of yellow spots on a dark skin, but there is no available information about changes in spot configuration, speed of development and degree of association between melanophore-free region and the lateral line. in this study, spot numbers, spot circularity, spot size and spot asymmetry were studied during larval to adult growth in n.microspilotus during july 2012 to june 2015. the mean numbers of spots increased during the late larval stage till postmetamorphic period from 13.33 +/- 3.77 to 22.53 +/- 4.09 and reached 42.62 +/- 4.06 in adults. at the same time, the extent of spots gradually decreased in size from 5.80 +/- 1.00 to 3.57 +/- 0.97mm(2) and reached 3.55 +/- 1.42mm(2) in adults, but the spot circularity increased from 0.48 +/- 0.23 to 0.78 +/- 0.49 and reached 0.80 +/- 0.15 in adults. in adults, the numbers, circularity, size and asymmetry of spots remain stable with little but non-significant changes during the study period. histological study shows that formation of a melanophore-free region correlates with the development of the lateral line receptors. this study demonstrates that the effects of lateral line on chromatophores persist through middle larval stages but diminish as metamorphosis completes." spawning site fidelity and apparent annual survival of walleye (sander vitreus) differ between a lake huron and lake erie tributary,acoustic telemetry; capture-recapture; cormack-jolly-seber model; great lakes,ECOLOGY OF FRESHWATER FISH,HAYDEN TA;BINDER TR;HOLBROOK CM;VANDERGOOT CS;FIELDER DG;COOKE SJ;DETTMERS JM;KRUEGER CC,"fidelity to spawning habitats can maximise reproductive success of fish by synchronising movements to sites of previous recruitment. to determine the role of reproductive fidelity in structuring walleye sander vitreus populations in the laurentian great lakes, we used acoustic telemetry combined with cormack-jolly-seber capture-recapture models to estimate spawning site fidelity and apparent annual survival for the tittabawassee river in lake huron and maumee river in lake erie. walleye in spawning condition were tagged from the tittabawassee river in lake huron and maumee river in lake erie in 2011-2012. site fidelity and apparent annual survival were estimated from return of individuals to the stream where tagged. site fidelity estimates were higher in the tittabawassee river (95%) than the maumee river (70%) and were not related to sex or fish length at tagging. apparent annual survival of walleye tagged in the tittabawassee did not differ among spawning seasons but was higher for female than male walleye and decreased linearly as fish length increased. apparent annual survival of walleye tagged in the maumee river did not differ among spawning seasons but was higher for female walleye than male walleye and increased linearly as fish length increased. greater fidelity of walleye tagged in the tittabawassee river than walleye tagged in the maumee river may be related to the close proximity to the maumee river of other spawning aggregations and multiple spawning sites in lake erie. as spawning site fidelity increases, management actions to conserve population structure require an increasing focus on individual stocks." -water diversion reduces abundance and survival of two mediterranean cyprinids,barbus meridionalis; cyprinidae; hydrologic alteration; mark-recapture study; population density; squalius laietanus,ECOLOGY OF FRESHWATER FISH,MERCIAI R;BAILEY LL;BESTGEN KR;FAUSCH KD;ZAMORA L;SABATER S;GARCIA-BERTHOU E,"water flow is a fundamental characteristic required for the ecological integrity of stream ecosystems. however, populations of many freshwater fishes in the mediterranean region are threatened by man-induced drought due to water diversion. mark-recapture methodology is an effective tool for estimating fish abundance and survival probability, but it has been seldom used with mediterranean freshwater fish. we tagged over 2,400 individuals of two threatened cyprinids (mediterranean barbel barbus meridionalis and catalan chub squalius laietanus) inhabiting an iberian stream affected by water diversion, and used mark-recapture methods to evaluate the effects of flow, temperature and depth on their apparent survival and abundance at hydrologically altered and perennial reaches. based on estimates over the summer drying season, survival of mediterranean barbel was more than six times higher in an upstream reach with permanent flow than a middle reach impacted by water diversion. water depth was the most important habitat feature accounting for differences in survival, with both barbel and chub exhibiting higher survival and abundance at permanent sites farther downstream where flow had been restored and in an unaltered tributary. our results show clear negative impacts of water diversion on fish populations. both species, but particularly barbel, have life-cycle characteristics that may allow populations to recover quickly if natural streamflow was restored by conserving water and reducing water diversion." +water diversion reduces abundance and survival of two mediterranean cyprinids,barbus meridionalis; cyprinidae; hydrologic alteration; mark-recapture study; population density; squalius laietanus,ECOLOGY OF FRESHWATER FISH,MERCIAI R;BAILEY LL;BESTGEN KR;FAUSCH KD;ZAMORA L;SABATER S;GARCIA BERTHOU E,"water flow is a fundamental characteristic required for the ecological integrity of stream ecosystems. however, populations of many freshwater fishes in the mediterranean region are threatened by man-induced drought due to water diversion. mark-recapture methodology is an effective tool for estimating fish abundance and survival probability, but it has been seldom used with mediterranean freshwater fish. we tagged over 2,400 individuals of two threatened cyprinids (mediterranean barbel barbus meridionalis and catalan chub squalius laietanus) inhabiting an iberian stream affected by water diversion, and used mark-recapture methods to evaluate the effects of flow, temperature and depth on their apparent survival and abundance at hydrologically altered and perennial reaches. based on estimates over the summer drying season, survival of mediterranean barbel was more than six times higher in an upstream reach with permanent flow than a middle reach impacted by water diversion. water depth was the most important habitat feature accounting for differences in survival, with both barbel and chub exhibiting higher survival and abundance at permanent sites farther downstream where flow had been restored and in an unaltered tributary. our results show clear negative impacts of water diversion on fish populations. both species, but particularly barbel, have life-cycle characteristics that may allow populations to recover quickly if natural streamflow was restored by conserving water and reducing water diversion." optimising monitoring efforts for secretive snakes: a comparison of occupancy and n-mixture models for assessment of population status,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,WARD RJ;GRIFFITHS RA;WILKINSON JW;CORNISH N,"a fifth of reptiles are data deficient; many due to unknown population status. monitoring snake populations can be demanding due to crypsis and low population densities, with insufficient recaptures for abundance estimation via capture-mark-recapture. alternatively, binomial n-mixture models enable abundance estimation from count data without individual identification, but have rarely been successfully applied to snake populations. we evaluated the suitability of occupancy and n-mixture methods for monitoring an insular population of grass snakes (natrix helvetica) and considered covariates influencing detection, occupancy and abundance within remaining habitat. snakes were elusive, with detectability increasing with survey effort (mean: 0.33 +/- 0.06 s.e.m.). the probability of a transect being occupied was moderate (mean per kilometre: 0.44 +/- 0.19 s.e.m.) and increased with transect length. abundance estimates indicate a small threatened population associated to our transects (mean: 39, 95% ci: 20-169). power analysis indicated that the survey effort required to detect occupancy declines would be prohibitive. occupancy models fitted well, whereas n-mixture models showed poor fit, provided little extra information over occupancy models and were at greater risk of closure violation. therefore we suggest occupancy models are more appropriate for monitoring snakes and other elusive species, but that population trends may go undetected." differential effects of climate on survival rates drive hybrid zone movement,NA,CURRENT BIOLOGY,HUNTER EA;MATOCQ MD;MURPHY PJ;SHOEMAKER KT,"climate change has been implicated as driving shifts of hybridizing species' range limits [1, 2]. whether and how much hybrid zones move depends on the relative fitness of hybridzing species under changing conditions [3, 4]. however, fitness is rarely linked to both climatic conditions and movement of hybrid zones, such that the relationship between climate change and hybrid zone dynamics remains tenuous [5]. here we report how interactions between climate ( seasonal precipitation) and competitor densities result in steep differentials in survival, which in turn drive hybrid zone movement for two woodrat species (neotoma fuscipes and n. macrotis) in central california, usa. using 6 years of capture-mark-recapture data, we found that the smaller-bodied species, n. macrotis, and hybrids had survival advantages over the larger-bodied n. fuscipes in the contact region during dry winters and wet springs. this pattern of differential survival, with n. macrotis having a consistent advantage over n. fuscipes during our study period, matched the spatial dynamics of the hybrid zone, which moved steadily north into n. fuscipes territory, with its estimated center moving similar to 150 m north in 6 years. our findings provide a unique demonstration of range movements emerging from a complex interplay between climate and competition. although all study site areas experienced the same climatic conditions, competitive effects created a complex spatial pattern of survival differentials, which in turn influenced hybrid zone movement. characterization of fitness differentials derived from replicated demographic studies of contact regions between competitors should greatly improve our ability to understand and forecast climate-driven range dynamics." -"high genetic structure and low mitochondrial diversity in bottlenose dolphins of the archipelago of bocas del toro, panama: a population at risk?",NA,PLOS ONE,BARRAGAN-BARRERA DC;MAY-COLLADO LJ;TEZANOS-PINTO G;ISLAS-VILLANUEVA V;CORREA-CARDENAS CA;CABALLERO S,"the current conservation status of the bottlenose dolphin (tursiops truncatus) under the iucn is 'least concern'. however, in the caribbean, small and localized populations of the 'inshore form' may be at higher risk of extinction than the 'worldwide distributed form' due to a combination of factors including small population size, high site fidelity, genetic isolation, and range overlap with human activities. here, we study the population genetic structure of bottlenose dolphins from the archipelago of bocas del toro in panama. this is a small population characterized by high site fidelity and is currently heavily-impacted by the local dolphin- watching industry. we collected skin tissue samples from 25 dolphins to study the genetic diversity and structure of this population. we amplified a portion of the mitochondrial control region (mtdna-cr) and nine microsatellite loci. the mtdna-cr analyses revealed that dolphins in bocas del toro belong to the 'inshore form', grouped with the bahamascolombia- cuba-mexico population unit. they also possess a unique haplotype new for the caribbean. the microsatellite data indicated that the bocas del toro dolphin population is highly structured, likely due to restricted movement patterns. previous abundance estimates obtained with mark-recapture methods reported a small population of 80 dolphins (95% ci = 72-87), which is similar to the contemporary effective population size estimated in this study (ne = 73 individuals; ci = 18.0 - infinity; 0.05). the combination of small population size, high degree of genetic isolation, and intense daily interactions with dolphin-watching boats puts the bocas del toro dolphin to at high risk of extinction. despite national guidelines to regulate the dolphin-watching industry in bocas del toro and ongoing educational programs for tour operators, only in 2012 seven animals have died due to boat collisions. our results suggest that the conservation status of bottlenose dolphins in bocas del toro should be elevated to 'endangered' at the national level, as a precautionary measure while population and viability estimates are conducted." +"high genetic structure and low mitochondrial diversity in bottlenose dolphins of the archipelago of bocas del toro, panama: a population at risk?",NA,PLOS ONE,BARRAGAN BARRERA DC;MAY COLLADO LJ;TEZANOS PINTO G;ISLAS VILLANUEVA V;CORREA CARDENAS CA;CABALLERO S,"the current conservation status of the bottlenose dolphin (tursiops truncatus) under the iucn is 'least concern'. however, in the caribbean, small and localized populations of the 'inshore form' may be at higher risk of extinction than the 'worldwide distributed form' due to a combination of factors including small population size, high site fidelity, genetic isolation, and range overlap with human activities. here, we study the population genetic structure of bottlenose dolphins from the archipelago of bocas del toro in panama. this is a small population characterized by high site fidelity and is currently heavily-impacted by the local dolphin- watching industry. we collected skin tissue samples from 25 dolphins to study the genetic diversity and structure of this population. we amplified a portion of the mitochondrial control region (mtdna-cr) and nine microsatellite loci. the mtdna-cr analyses revealed that dolphins in bocas del toro belong to the 'inshore form', grouped with the bahamascolombia- cuba-mexico population unit. they also possess a unique haplotype new for the caribbean. the microsatellite data indicated that the bocas del toro dolphin population is highly structured, likely due to restricted movement patterns. previous abundance estimates obtained with mark-recapture methods reported a small population of 80 dolphins (95% ci = 72-87), which is similar to the contemporary effective population size estimated in this study (ne = 73 individuals; ci = 18.0 - infinity; 0.05). the combination of small population size, high degree of genetic isolation, and intense daily interactions with dolphin-watching boats puts the bocas del toro dolphin to at high risk of extinction. despite national guidelines to regulate the dolphin-watching industry in bocas del toro and ongoing educational programs for tour operators, only in 2012 seven animals have died due to boat collisions. our results suggest that the conservation status of bottlenose dolphins in bocas del toro should be elevated to 'endangered' at the national level, as a precautionary measure while population and viability estimates are conducted." the response of an arboreal mammal to livestock grazing is habitat dependant,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,NEILLY H;SCHWARZKOPF L,"inappropriate livestock grazing is implicated in the decline of vertebrate fauna species globally. faunal responses to grazing can interact with the vegetation community in which they occur. we measured the response of an arboreal marsupial, the common brushtail possum (trichosurus vulpecula vulpecula) to different cattle grazing strategies and vegetation types, and examined whether micro-habitat selection is driving this response. we hypothesised that where arboreal habitat is intact, brushtail possums would be resistant to the impacts of heavy grazing. we conducted a mark-recapture survey among four grazing treatments and in two vegetation types (box and ironbark), at a 20-year grazing trial in northern australia. we found that brushtail possums were resistant to the impact of heavy grazing in both vegetation types, but preferred the heavy grazing treatment in the box vegetation type. complex arboreal habitat and low ground cover was preferred, and high grass cover and low tree species richness avoided. most individuals exclusively used one vegetation type, with few using both, suggesting a 'matrix' vegetation between the box and ironbark may be creating a movement barrier. vegetation type should provide a context for determining the benefits to arboreal wildlife of adopting a particular grazing management strategy." estimating dispersal rates of steller sea lion (eumetopias jubatus) mother-pup pairs from a natal rookery using mark-resight data,NA,PLOS ONE,KUHN CE;CHUMBLEY K;FRITZ L;JOHNSON D,"to monitor population trends of steller sea lions (eumetopias jubatus) in alaska, newborn pups are counted during aerial surveys. these surveys are scheduled to occur after the majority of pups are born, but before pups begin to spend significant time in the water. some studies have reported dispersal of mother-pup pairs away from breeding beaches during the pupping season (july), which may influence survey results. using a multistate mark-recapture model with state uncertainty, we estimated the amount of dispersal during the pupping season based on observations of permanently marked sea lions. research was conducted at land-based observation sites on marmot island, alaska, between 2000 and 2013. both marked adult females with dependent pups and marked pups were observed at two rookery beaches from may to july. cumulative dispersal rates were minimal (< 1%) prior to the planned start of the aerial survey (23 june) and increased to 11.2% by the planned survey completion date (10 july). the increased cumulative dispersal rate during the remainder of the observation period (end of july) suggests potential bias in surveys that occur beyond 10 july, however surveys past this date are rare (< 10% between 1973 and 2016). as a result, movements of mother-pup pairs during the pupping season are not likely to influence aerial survey estimates." response of pumas (puma concolor) to migration of their primary prey in patagonia,NA,PLOS ONE,GELIN ML;BRANCH LC;THORNTON DH;NOVARO AJ;GOULD MJ;CARAGIULO A,"large-scale ungulate migrations result in changes in prey availability for top predators and, as a consequence, can alter predator behavior. migration may include entire populations of prey species, but often prey populations exhibit partial migration with some individuals remaining resident and others migrating. interactions of migratory prey and predators have been documented in north america and some other parts of the world, but are poorly studied in south america. we examined the response of pumas (puma concolor) to seasonal migration of guanacos (lama guanicoe) in la payunia reserve in northern patagonia argentina, which is the site of the longest known ungulate migration in south america. more than 15,000 guanacos migrate seasonally in this landscape, and some guanacos also are resident year-round. we hypothesized that pumas would respond to the guanaco migration by consuming more alternative prey rather than migrating with guanacos because of the territoriality of pumas and availability of alternative prey throughout the year at this site. to determine whether pumas moved seasonally with the guanacos, we conducted camera trapping in the summer and winter range of guanacos across both seasons and estimated density of pumas with spatial mark-resight (smr) models. also, we analyzed puma scats to assess changes in prey consumption in response to guanaco migration. density estimates of pumas did not change significantly in the winter and summer range of guanacos when guanacos migrated to and from these areas, indicating that pumas do not follow the migration of guanacos. pumas also did not consume more alternative native prey or livestock when guanaco availability was lower, but rather fed primarily on guanacos and some alternative prey during all seasons. alternative prey were most common in the diet during summer when guanacos also were abundant on the summer range. the response of pumas to the migration of guanacos differs from sites in the western north america where entire prey populations migrate and pumas migrate with their prey or switch to more abundant prey when their primary prey migrates." -sumatran tiger survival threatened by deforestation despite increasing densities in parks,NA,"NATURE COMMUNICATIONS",LUSKIN MS;ALBERT WR;TOBLER MW,"the continuing development of improved capture-recapture (cr) modeling techniques used to study apex predators has also limited robust temporal and cross-site analyses due to different methods employed. we develop an approach to standardize older non-spatial cr and newer spatial cr density estimates and examine trends for critically endangered sumatran tigers (panthera tigris sumatrae) using a meta-regression of 17 existing densities and new estimates from our own fieldwork. we find that tiger densities were 47% higher in primary versus degraded forests and, unexpectedly, increased 4.9% per yr from 1996 to 2014, likely indicating a recovery from earlier poaching. however, while tiger numbers may have temporarily risen, the total potential island-wide population declined by 16.6% from 2000 to 2012 due to forest loss and degradation and subpopulations are significantly more fragmented. thus, despite increasing densities in smaller parks, we conclude that there are only two robust populations left with >30 breeding females, indicating sumatran tigers still face a high risk of extinction unless deforestation can be controlled." +sumatran tiger survival threatened by deforestation despite increasing densities in parks,NA,NATURE COMMUNICATIONS,LUSKIN MS;ALBERT WR;TOBLER MW,"the continuing development of improved capture-recapture (cr) modeling techniques used to study apex predators has also limited robust temporal and cross-site analyses due to different methods employed. we develop an approach to standardize older non-spatial cr and newer spatial cr density estimates and examine trends for critically endangered sumatran tigers (panthera tigris sumatrae) using a meta-regression of 17 existing densities and new estimates from our own fieldwork. we find that tiger densities were 47% higher in primary versus degraded forests and, unexpectedly, increased 4.9% per yr from 1996 to 2014, likely indicating a recovery from earlier poaching. however, while tiger numbers may have temporarily risen, the total potential island-wide population declined by 16.6% from 2000 to 2012 due to forest loss and degradation and subpopulations are significantly more fragmented. thus, despite increasing densities in smaller parks, we conclude that there are only two robust populations left with >30 breeding females, indicating sumatran tigers still face a high risk of extinction unless deforestation can be controlled." breeding success affects the apparent survival of grassland passerines,survival rate; multistate capture-mark-recapture model; reproductive success; booted warbler; iduna caligata; whinchat; saxicola rubetra; yellow wagtail; motacilla flava,BIOLOGY BULLETIN,SHITIKOV DA;VAYTINA TM;MAKAROVA TV;FEDOTOVA SE;KRASNYKH NA;YURCHENKO YA,"the apparent adult survival rate is one of the key population parameters of migratory birds. the widely used cormack-jolly-seber capture-mark-recapture model has a number of disadvantages, the main one of which is the impossibility of discerning mortality and permanent emigration. the accuracy of survival estimates can be increased using a multistate capture-mark-recapture model, with the help of which it is possible to assess the survival of successful and unsuccessful birds separately. we used this model to estimate the apparent survival rates of adults in local populations of three ground-nesting passerines: booted warbler (iduna caligata), whinchat (saxicola rubetra), and yellow wagtail (motacilla flava), all breeding on abandoned agricultural lands. we studied the reproductive success of 472 marked pairs and analyzed individual capture histories of 814 birds. the previous reproductive success was found to influence significantly the apparent survival of adults. this relation was best expressed in the yellow wagtail (apparent survival of successful birds, phi = 0.39 +/- 0.06, vs. that of unsuccessful birds, phi = 0.19 +/- 0.06) and the whinchat (apparent survival of successful birds, phi = 0.32 +/- 0.05, vs. apparent survival of unsuccessful birds, phi = 0.10 +/- 0.05), but a little lower in the booted warbler (apparent survival of successful birds, phi = 0.33 +/- 0.17, vs. apparent survival of unsuccessful birds, phi = 0.16 +/- 0.13). unsuccessful individuals leave the study area for good, while most of the successful birds return there the next year. thus, the apparent survival rate of passerines evaluated with capture-recapture models is determined to a considerable degree by the previous reproductive success within local populations." "population dynamics of the european pond turtle, emys orbicularis (l., 1758) (testudinata: emydidae) from lake egirdir (isparta, turkey)",emys orbicularis; population size; sex ratio; lake egirdir,ACTA ZOOLOGICA BULGARICA,BAYRAKCI Y;AYAZ D;CICEK K;ILHAN S,"the lake egirdir is the fourth largest lake in anatolia, with an area of 468 km2. by using a mark-recapture method, the population of emys orbicularis was monitored for three consecutive years (2011-2013) and data regarding their population size, sex ratio and information about habitats used was gathered. during the whole sampling period, 4 juveniles, 105 males and 98 females were captured and marked. according to the popan model, the three-year super -population size of lake egirdir was calculated as 460 individuals. capture rate and survival rate was calculated as 0.17 and 0.61, respectively. sex ratio was determined nearly equal (males : females = 1.07). the lake egirdir population is the only one showing increasing trend among the mediterranean populations of e. orbicularis in turkey." -"preliminary data on the population of the sicilian pond turtle, emys trinacris fritz et al., 2005 (emydidae) inhabiting the gorgo tondo basso in the ""lago preola e gorghi tondi"" nature reserve, sicily, italy",emys trinacris; population abundance; sex ratio; body condition index,ACTA ZOOLOGICA BULGARICA,OTTONELLO D;ONETO F;MALAVASI S;ZUFFI MAL;D'ANGELO S,"the lack of data relating to basic life-history and population dynamics is one of the gaps to be filled in order to develop a proper strategy for the conservation of the sicilian pond turtle (emys trinacris). in this study, we present the results of the first year of a multi-annual monitoring program focusing on a specific wetland area, located within the ""lago preola e gorghi tondi"" nature reserve (sicily, italy). the sub population size was estimated with capture-recapture method at 719 +/- 47 turtles, with a mean density of 239.7 +/- 15.7 ind./ha. the overall sex ratio of the captured individuals was males-biased (2.9 : 1) but also a significant differences between spring and summer was found. we discuss this finding in relation to differential reproductive strategies of the sexes, with the support of data on movements and on body condition. the importance of a multi-year monitoring approach is underlined in order to get a better understanding of the factors that affect the population ecology." +"preliminary data on the population of the sicilian pond turtle, emys trinacris fritz et al., 2005 (emydidae) inhabiting the gorgo tondo basso in the ""lago preola e gorghi tondi"" nature reserve, sicily, italy",emys trinacris; population abundance; sex ratio; body condition index,ACTA ZOOLOGICA BULGARICA,OTTONELLO D;ONETO F;MALAVASI S;ZUFFI MAL;D ANGELO S,"the lack of data relating to basic life-history and population dynamics is one of the gaps to be filled in order to develop a proper strategy for the conservation of the sicilian pond turtle (emys trinacris). in this study, we present the results of the first year of a multi-annual monitoring program focusing on a specific wetland area, located within the ""lago preola e gorghi tondi"" nature reserve (sicily, italy). the sub population size was estimated with capture-recapture method at 719 +/- 47 turtles, with a mean density of 239.7 +/- 15.7 ind./ha. the overall sex ratio of the captured individuals was males-biased (2.9 : 1) but also a significant differences between spring and summer was found. we discuss this finding in relation to differential reproductive strategies of the sexes, with the support of data on movements and on body condition. the importance of a multi-year monitoring approach is underlined in order to get a better understanding of the factors that affect the population ecology." high annual survival in infected wildlife populations may veil a persistent extinction risk from disease,epidemiology; mark-recapture; myotis sodalis; population viability analysis; pseudogymnoascus destructans; white-nose syndrome; wildlife disease,ECOSPHERE,MASLO B;STRINGHAM OC;BEVAN AJ;BRUMBAUGH A;SANDERS C;HALL M;FEFFERMAN NH,"host response to emerging pathogens is variable, causing uncertainty about population-level impacts and challenging effective disease management. white-nose syndrome (wns) has caused catastrophic declines in some bat species, while others appear less impacted. developing predictive models based on observed survival patterns can generate testable hypotheses about mechanisms driving population dynamics and contribute to the development of targeted approaches to disease management. we conducted a mark-recapture study of federally endangered indiana bats (myotis sodalis) during 2011-2016. annual survival decreased from 0.78 (95% ci: 0.59, 0.89) and 0.79 (95% ci: 0.70, 0.86) for females and males, respectively, in 2011 to 0.74 (95% ci: 0.33, 0.94) and 0.75 (95% ci: 0.53, 0.89) for females and males, respectively, in 2015. we then modeled two explanatory mechanisms potentially driving the observed patterns: (1) phased exposure to disease through the spatial spread of the pathogen within the hibernaculum; and (2) cumulative mortality risk from iterative yearly wns infection. under a phased exposure scenario, models suggest that infected individuals have an average survival probability of 0.68, and disease prevalence is predicted to reach 100% within 9 yr of disease emergence. under the cumulative mortality risk hypothesis, survival probability of individuals decreases with each infection cycle. in either case, infected populations are predicted to stabilize at a negative growth rate. results suggest that indiana bats tolerate a pathogen load prior to onset of infection, leading to a less pronounced population decline than for other susceptible species. however, the long-term risk of wns to indiana bats may be more severe than current population trends suggest. to inform current conservation management, we performed a vital rate sensitivity analysis, which suggested that modest increases in survival (4-5%) through targeted intervention may return declining populations to stability (lambda = 1.0). demographic modeling approaches coupled with continued population monitoring can highlight important differences in disease response, and ultimately extinction risk, in host species allowing conservation practitioners to tailor intervention actions so that they will be most effective." point process models for spatio-temporal distance sampling data from a large-scale survey of blue whales,distance sampling; spatio-temporal modeling; stochastic partial differential equations; inla; spatial point process,ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,YUAN Y;BACHL FE;LINDGREN F;BORCHERS DL;ILLIAN JB;BUCKLAND ST;RUE H;GERRODETTE T,"distance sampling is a widely used method for estimating wildlife population abundance. the fact that conventional distance sampling methods are partly design-based constrains the spatial resolution at which animal density can be estimated using these methods. estimates are usually obtained at survey stratum level. for an endangered species such as the blue whale, it is desirable to estimate density and abundance at a finer spatial scale than stratum. temporal variation in the spatial structure is also important. we formulate the process generating distance sampling data as a thinned spatial point process and propose model-based inference using a spatial log-gaussian cox process. the method adopts a flexible stochastic partial differential equation (spde) approach to model spatial structure in density that is not accounted for by explanatory variables, and integrated nested laplace approximation (inla) for bayesian inference. it allows simultaneous fitting of detection and density models and permits prediction of density at an arbitrarily fine scale. we estimate blue whale density in the eastern tropical pacific ocean from thirteen shipboard surveys conducted over 22 years. we find that higher blue whale density is associated with colder sea surface temperatures in space, and although there is some positive association between density and mean annual temperature, our estimates are consistent with no trend in density across years. our analysis also indicates that there is substantial spatially structured variation in density that is not explained by available covariates." hidden markov models for extended batch data,batch marking; integrated population modeling; mark-recapture; open n-mixture models; viterbi algorithm; weather-loach,BIOMETRICS,COWEN LLE;BESBEAS P;MORGAN BJT;SCHWARZ CJ,"batch marking provides an important and efficient way to estimate the survival probabilities and population sizes of wild animals. it is particularly useful when dealing with animals that are difficult to mark individually. for the first time, we provide the likelihood for extended batch-marking experiments. it is often the case that samples contain individuals that remain unmarked, due to time and other constraints, and this information has not previously been analyzed. we provide ways of modeling such information, including an open n-mixture approach. we demonstrate that models for both marked and unmarked individuals are hidden markov models; this provides a unified approach, and is the key to developing methods for fast likelihood computation and maximization. likelihoods for marked and unmarked individuals can easily be combined using integrated population modeling. this allows the simultaneous estimation of population size and immigration, in addition to survival, as well as efficient estimation of standard errors and methods of model selection and evaluation, using standard likelihood techniques. alternative methods for estimating population size are presented and compared. an illustration is provided by a weather-loach data set, previously analyzed by means of a complex procedure of constructing a pseudo likelihood, the formation of estimating equations, the use of sandwich estimates of variance, and piecemeal estimation of population size. simulation provides general validation of the hidden markov model methods developed and demonstrates their excellent performance and efficiency. this is especially notable due to the large numbers of hidden states that may be typically required" @@ -791,29 +792,29 @@ does forest extent affect salamander survival? evidence from a long-term demogra "demography of the puerto rican racer, borikenophis portoricensis (squamata: dipsadidae), on guana island, british virgin islands",NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,HILEMAN ET;POWELL R;PERRY G;MOUGEY K;THOMAS R;HENDERSON RW,"guana is a 297-ha island in the british virgin islands, a private wildlife sanctuary where human activity is largely restricted to small areas associated with an upscale resort hotel. guana is free of mongooses and sustains a population of racers (borikenophis portoricensis; dipsadidae). between 2001 and 2012 we marked b. portoricensis with trovan passive integrated transponders and recorded 394 captures of 367 unique adults (males = 167; females = 200; sex ratio of 0.8 : 1) in an effective trapping area of 25.8 ha. using contemporary capture-recapture models, we estimated annual adult apparent survival, abundance, and realized population growth. we detected no difference in apparent adult annual survival of males (0.50, 95% confidence interval [ci] = 0.34-0.66) and females (0.50, 95% ci = 0.33-0.66). recapture probabilities of males (0.09, 95% ci = 0.04-0.18) and females (0.08, 95% ci = 0.04-0.16) were similarly indistinguishable. annual estimates of adult abundance ranged from 368 to 540, but confidence intervals overlapped broadly between years. we estimated realized population growth as 0.98 (95% ci = 0.75-1.28) over the 12-yr study. based on the effective trapping area (25.8 ha), average density was 19 adults/ha (range = 14-21 adults/ha). the low recapture probabilities suggest that animals spend much of their lives in areas not accessible to researchers, but we detected little evidence of substantive movement. the population on guana appears to be healthy, suggesting that declines elsewhere are indeed the results of human activities, especially the introduction of mongooses." performance and movement in relation to postmetamorphic body size in a pond-breeding amphibian,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,YAGI KT;GREEN DM,"we examined the effect of body size on locomotor performance and movement behavior in early postmetamorphic toadlets of fowler's toad (anaxyrus fowleri). dispersal, if strictly density dependent, should be favored among the relatively small toadlets that emerge from crowded growth conditions, but not among the relatively large toadlets that result from low-density conditions; however, smaller toadlets may have less physical capability to disperse than larger toadlets. the net result may thus be that actual dispersal probability is greatest among intermediate-sized toadlets. using toadlets of various sizes purposefully raised by manipulating their densities as tadpoles, we tested toadlet locomotor jumping endurance in relation to body size. we also compared the animals' initial body size against their overall movements in the wild, determined using capture-recapture methods, over 2 yr as they grew from toadlets to adults. we calculated movement rate and dispersal probability for each individual recaptured more than twice and determined whether successful movement strategies were correlated or uncorrelated. our results show that toadlets of intermediate size are most likely to disperse farthest, even though they do not necessarily exhibit the highest levels of endurance. therefore, knowledge of individual life experience across multiple life stages may be necessary to understand dispersal tendencies in amphibians and may be required in future studies aiming to predict dispersal and population dynamics." "population trends, survival, and sampling methodologies for a population of rana draytonii",NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,FELLERS GM;KLEEMAN PM;MILLER DAW;HALSTEAD BJ,"estimating population trends provides valuable information for resource managers, but monitoring programs face tradeoffs between the quality and quantity of information gained and the number of sites surveyed. we compared the effectiveness of monitoring techniques for estimating population trends of rana draytonii (california red-legged frog) at point reyes national seashore, california, usa, over a 13-yr period. our primary goals were to: 1) estimate trends for a focal pond at point reyes national seashore, and 2) evaluate whether egg mass counts could reliably estimate an index of abundance relative to more-intensive capture-mark-recapture methods. capture-mark-recapture (cmr) surveys of males indicated a stable population from 2005 to 2009, despite low annual apparent survival (26.3%). egg mass counts from 2000 to 2012 indicated that despite some large fluctuations, the breeding female population was generally stable or increasing, with annual abundance varying between 26 and 130 individuals. minor modifications to egg mass counts, such as marking egg masses, can allow estimation of egg mass detection probabilities necessary to convert counts to abundance estimates, even when closure of egg mass abundance cannot be assumed within a breeding season. high egg mass detection probabilities (mean per-survey detection probability = 0.98 [0.89-0.99]) indicate that egg mass surveys can be an efficient and reliable method for monitoring population trends of federally threatened r. draytonii. combining egg mass surveys to estimate trends at many sites with cmr methods to evaluate factors affecting adult survival at focal populations is likely a profitable path forward to enhance understanding and conservation of r. draytonii." -assessing the relative importance of intraspecific and interspecific interactions on the ecology of anolis nebulosus lizards from an island vs. a mainland population,aggression rates; capture-recapture survival modeling; caudal autotomy; encounter rates; island syndrome characteristics; video-recording,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,SILICEO-CANTERO HH;ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ;RENTON K;GARCIA A,"predation and competition are key ecological interactions that may drive island syndrome characteristics. however, the relative importance of these interactions in island and mainland environments is debated. we used anolis nebulosus inhabiting a region lacking congeneric species on the coast of jalisco, mexico, as a model to elucidate the ecological role of intraspecific and interspecific competition for an insular population and a mainland population. we conducted surveys to determine densities of anole and other lizard species at both sites. we also carried out capture-mark-recapture of anoles to determine survival and frequency of caudal damage. in addition, we used video-recordings of focal anoles to determine rates of intraspecific and interspecific encounters and aggression, with higher rates suggesting greater competition, and determined direct predation when focal anoles were eaten. we found a significantly higher density of a. nebulosus on the island. rates of intraspecific encounters and aggression were also significantly higher on the island. by comparison, interspecific encounters and aggression with other lizard species, as well as caudal autotomy, were higher on the mainland. we obtained few direct observations of predation, all of which were on the mainland, with no predation observed on the island, and survival was similar between populations. although we were limited by the fact that we had only one island and one mainland population, our results on lizard density and encounter rates provide evidence for these populations lacking congeneric species that intraspecific competition is stronger on the island than on the mainland, whereas interspecific competition is stronger on the mainland." +assessing the relative importance of intraspecific and interspecific interactions on the ecology of anolis nebulosus lizards from an island vs. a mainland population,aggression rates; capture-recapture survival modeling; caudal autotomy; encounter rates; island syndrome characteristics; video-recording,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,SILICEO CANTERO HH;ZUNIGA VEGA JJ;RENTON K;GARCIA A,"predation and competition are key ecological interactions that may drive island syndrome characteristics. however, the relative importance of these interactions in island and mainland environments is debated. we used anolis nebulosus inhabiting a region lacking congeneric species on the coast of jalisco, mexico, as a model to elucidate the ecological role of intraspecific and interspecific competition for an insular population and a mainland population. we conducted surveys to determine densities of anole and other lizard species at both sites. we also carried out capture-mark-recapture of anoles to determine survival and frequency of caudal damage. in addition, we used video-recordings of focal anoles to determine rates of intraspecific and interspecific encounters and aggression, with higher rates suggesting greater competition, and determined direct predation when focal anoles were eaten. we found a significantly higher density of a. nebulosus on the island. rates of intraspecific encounters and aggression were also significantly higher on the island. by comparison, interspecific encounters and aggression with other lizard species, as well as caudal autotomy, were higher on the mainland. we obtained few direct observations of predation, all of which were on the mainland, with no predation observed on the island, and survival was similar between populations. although we were limited by the fact that we had only one island and one mainland population, our results on lizard density and encounter rates provide evidence for these populations lacking congeneric species that intraspecific competition is stronger on the island than on the mainland, whereas interspecific competition is stronger on the mainland." ear tag and pit tag retention by white-tailed deer,ear tag; eid tag; metal tag; odocoileus virginianus; pit tag; tag retention; white-tailed deer,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,BELSER EH;HEWITT DG;REITZ RL;GANN KR;LEWIS JS;HELLICKSON MW,"white-tailed deer (odocoileus virginianus) have been marked with various tags for a wide variety of applications, such as longitudinal, movement, disease, and mark-recapture studies. tag persistence is critical to all these applications. we used nest survival models in program mark to estimate tag retention from 1) 832 free-range white-tailed deer marked with large plastic ear tags in both ears and passive integrated transponder (pit) tags in the leg and at the base of the ear, and 2) 412 free-range deer marked with metal ear tags in both ears, captured in texas, usa, 1997-2007. we calculated tag retention from 401 captive deer marked with 2 types of electronic identification (eid) ear tags (button or combi) in one ear and 36 captive deer marked with small plastic ear tags in one ear. annual retention rates were greatest for button eid tags (0.992; 0.983-0.998), combi eid tags (0.979; 0.953-0.996), small plastic ear tags (0.978; 0.965-0.995), and large plastic ear tags (0.958; 0.950-0.965). passive integrated transponder tags at the base of the ear (0.923; 0.910-0.935) and metal tags (0.909; 0.891-0.924) had fair retention rates. passive integrated transponder tags placed in the leg (0.779; 0.758-0.800) had the lowest retention rate. although many factors influence tag selection, eid tags and both small and large plastic tags demonstrate the greatest annual retention rates of both captive and free-range, marked deer. (c) 2017 the wildlife society." a remote marking device and newly developed permanent dyes for wildlife research,california least tern; colonial waterbirds; color-marking; marking remotely; permanent dyes; sternula antillarum browni,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,BAIRD P;ROBINETTE D;HINK SA,"noninvasive, safe, quick marking of individual animals using distinctive colors that are highly visible and persistent is a valuable methodology, but practical techniques and permanent safe dyes are lacking. here we describe a novel, remotely controlled dye machine to rapidly mark stationary animals in predictable locations, such as birds sitting on nests on the ground or mammals at a den or burrow site. from the month of june when birds were on eggs, using the machine, we spot-dyed 77 california least terns (sternula antillarum browni) at a colony in california, usa, in 4 days without handling them. concomitantly, we developed a suite of permanent (until molt or shedding), mainly phthalocyanine dyes that are incorporated chemically into feathers or fur of animals and cannot be preened or rubbed off, which have never been used before to dye animals. we found no toxicity of the dyes during in vivo testing over 1 month. this method of remote marking with permanent dyes should prove to be a useful method in animal ecology for distinguishing among individuals with minimal disturbance. (c) 2017 the wildlife society." -demography of southern australian bottlenose dolphins living in a protected inverse estuary,australia; bottlenose dolphin; capture-recapture; cetacean; demography; inshore; marine protected area; migration; population size; survival,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,PASSADORE C;MOLLER L;DIAZ-AGUIRRE F;PARRA GJ,"assessments of demographic parameters are essential to understand the dynamics of wild populations, and for their efficient conservation and management. here, sex-specific abundance, apparent survival and temporary emigration of southern australian bottlenose dolphins (tursiops cf. australis) in coffin bay (cb), south australia, is investigated. results are based on capture-recapture modelling of photo-identification data and molecular analyses of biopsy samples collected during boat-based surveys between september 2013 and october 2015 in the inner and outer areas of cb. the total super-population of dolphins (including calves) using the entire study area (263km(2)) was estimated with popan models at 306 (95% ci: 291-323), which included 71 (68-73) marked females and 57 (55-60) marked males. seasonal estimates of abundance for the inner area of cb (123km(2)) obtained with pollock's closed robust design models remained relatively constant over the two years (marked females: 52-60, marked males: 46-52, and total: 193-209). the high density of dolphins inhabiting the inner area (seasonal range: 1.57-1.70 individuals km(-2)), high apparent survival rates estimated for both sexes (females: 0.99; 95% ci: 0.96-1.0; males: 0.95; 0.82-0.99), and low temporary emigration rates (0.02; 95% ci: 0.01-0.11) indicate that the inner area of cb offers highly favourable habitat for these dolphins. high biological productivity and low predation risk may promote these demographic patterns in the inner area of cb. this study provides a robust baseline of sex-specific population demographics of southern australian bottlenose dolphins with important implications for future research and their management and conservation in south australia. 6-7-" +demography of southern australian bottlenose dolphins living in a protected inverse estuary,australia; bottlenose dolphin; capture-recapture; cetacean; demography; inshore; marine protected area; migration; population size; survival,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,PASSADORE C;MOLLER L;DIAZ AGUIRRE F;PARRA GJ,"assessments of demographic parameters are essential to understand the dynamics of wild populations, and for their efficient conservation and management. here, sex-specific abundance, apparent survival and temporary emigration of southern australian bottlenose dolphins (tursiops cf. australis) in coffin bay (cb), south australia, is investigated. results are based on capture-recapture modelling of photo-identification data and molecular analyses of biopsy samples collected during boat-based surveys between september 2013 and october 2015 in the inner and outer areas of cb. the total super-population of dolphins (including calves) using the entire study area (263km(2)) was estimated with popan models at 306 (95% ci: 291-323), which included 71 (68-73) marked females and 57 (55-60) marked males. seasonal estimates of abundance for the inner area of cb (123km(2)) obtained with pollock's closed robust design models remained relatively constant over the two years (marked females: 52-60, marked males: 46-52, and total: 193-209). the high density of dolphins inhabiting the inner area (seasonal range: 1.57-1.70 individuals km(-2)), high apparent survival rates estimated for both sexes (females: 0.99; 95% ci: 0.96-1.0; males: 0.95; 0.82-0.99), and low temporary emigration rates (0.02; 95% ci: 0.01-0.11) indicate that the inner area of cb offers highly favourable habitat for these dolphins. high biological productivity and low predation risk may promote these demographic patterns in the inner area of cb. this study provides a robust baseline of sex-specific population demographics of southern australian bottlenose dolphins with important implications for future research and their management and conservation in south australia. 6-7-" road-related landscape elements as a habitat: a main asset for small mammals in an intensive farming landscape,road verges; road ecology; motorway; microtus arvalis; apodemus sylvaticus; capture-mark-recapture,BASIC AND APPLIED ECOLOGY,JUMEAU J;BOUCHAREL P;HANDRICH Y;BUREL F,"road construction creates new habitats for a variety of species. in intensive farming landscapes, road verges may be the only suitable habitat for rodents. however, little attention has been paid to other road-related landscape elements (rrles), such as excavation slopes or the central islands of roundabouts, and their importance in a rodent territory. this study investigated all types of rrle in terms of rodent abundances and habitat quality. rrles were compared with the semi-natural elements of the studied landscape using a capture-mark-recapture protocol. four species and 3154 individuals were captured over a period of four months. relative abundance and habitat quality were higher in rrles than in semi-natural elements. mapping of the land scape showed that 86% of crop fields are accessible to microtus arvalis (and almost 100% for apodemus sylvaticus) fromroad verges. our results highlight the importance of road verges and all other rrles in the conservation of species diversity inintensive farming landscapes. (c) 2017 gesellschaft fur okologie. published by elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." how quickly do fish communities recover from boat electrofishing in large lakes?,electrofishing; fish community; lakes,JOURNAL OF FISH AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SMITH BJ;SIMPKINS DG;STRAKOSH TR,"for specific sampling questions researchers may need to target ideal habitats concurrently and collect reliable fish community data, but unfortunately, we know little about the recovery rate of fish communities in areas recently subjected to electrofishing. in small systems, electrofishing can quickly deplete a sample area but this effect is unlikely at larger spatial scales. we conducted an experiment to identify how quickly fish communities recover from electrofishing in green bay, an embayment of lake michigan. we conducted electrofishing at 31 sites that were randomly assigned to be resampled at 0.25, 1, 3, 6, 24, or 48 h postrelease of marked fish. we marked all fish >= 150 mm and released them at their capture site. we found no differences in catch per unit effort, mean total length, species richness, shannon's diversity, or shannon's evenness between marking and recapture runs for any length of recovery duration between electrofishing runs. we recaptured only one of 349 marked fish in the site where it was released. recapture of five fish in areas outside where they were released was unrelated to recovery duration between electrofishing events. in large, open systems like green bay, we found that disturbances caused by electrofishing are temporary (<15 min) and suspect that any fish removed are quickly replaced by new immigrants to the study area. due to high turbidity in this eutrophic-hypereutrophic system, we suspect that electrofishing efficiency was low; therefore resampling had the potential benefit of collecting individuals missed during marking runs. we conclude that fish communities in large lakes recover quickly following electrofishing and sites can be sampled concurrently within the same day and provide similar, or additional, fish community information." -"population density of central american tapir (tapirella bairdii) in cloud forest in totontepec villa de morelos, oaxaca, mexico",photo-traps; capture-recapture; conservation; siena madre of oaxaca,REVISTA MEXICANA DE BIODIVERSIDAD,BOTELLO F;ROMERO-CALDERON AG;SANCHEZ-HERNANDEZ J;HERNANDEZ O;LOPEZ-VILLEGAS G;SANCHEZ-CORDERO V,"the central american tapir (tapirella bairdii) is the largest mammal in the neotropics, and it is considered as an indicator species of habitat quality in tropical forests. the presence of a population of t bairdii has been recently reported for the sierra mixe in the state of oaxaca. here we estimated the population density of the central american tapir at this site using capture -recapture methods with camera traps and 5 independent observers. six individuals were detected in an area of 18.75 km(2), and a population density of 0.32 ind/km(2) was estimated for this site. this is one of the highest population densities reported for the genus, highlighting totontepec as an important area for the conservation of the species. (c) 2017 universidad nacional autonoma de mexico, instituto de biologia." +"population density of central american tapir (tapirella bairdii) in cloud forest in totontepec villa de morelos, oaxaca, mexico",photo-traps; capture-recapture; conservation; siena madre of oaxaca,REVISTA MEXICANA DE BIODIVERSIDAD,BOTELLO F;ROMERO CALDERON AG;SANCHEZ HERNANDEZ J;HERNANDEZ O;LOPEZ VILLEGAS G;SANCHEZ CORDERO V,"the central american tapir (tapirella bairdii) is the largest mammal in the neotropics, and it is considered as an indicator species of habitat quality in tropical forests. the presence of a population of t bairdii has been recently reported for the sierra mixe in the state of oaxaca. here we estimated the population density of the central american tapir at this site using capture -recapture methods with camera traps and 5 independent observers. six individuals were detected in an area of 18.75 km(2), and a population density of 0.32 ind/km(2) was estimated for this site. this is one of the highest population densities reported for the genus, highlighting totontepec as an important area for the conservation of the species. (c) 2017 universidad nacional autonoma de mexico, instituto de biologia." large-scale climate effects meet an amazonian butterfly: which population parameters respond to el nino?,enso; nymphalidae; survival; temporary emigration,ENVIRONMENTAL ENTOMOLOGY,KAJIN M;PENZ CM;DEVRIES PJ,"one of the most tangible outcomes of climate change is change in the frequency of el nino/la nina events. they have a large impact on rainfall in the western hemisphere, but their impact on tropical fauna is largely unknown. a decade long capture-mark-recapture study of the widespread ecuadorian butterfly nessaea hewitsoni (felder & felder) from an intact forest allowed us to analyze patterns of monthly and seasonal population dynamics before, during, and after an el nino event. el nino events did not affect long-term population size, but a 5-month delayed el nino led to temporary emigration of females, with their subsequent return. increased rainfall correlated with reduced survival in both sexes, but this effect was twice as strong in females. this investigation is the longest, continuous population study on any neotropical insect species. though we sampled on a modest scale, the magnitude of el nino events suggests that our findings likely reflect insect population responses across a much larger portion of amazonian forests. this study underscores the importance of analyzing multiple, interacting population parameters beyond local abundance in order to understand the biotic responses to el nino and climate change in tropical systems. had our analyses not included temporary emigration, no effect would have been detected because el nino did not affect local population abundance." using visible implant elastomer to study ammocoete populations with cormack-jolly-seber models,apparent survival rate; brook lamprey; capture probability; programme mark; sea lamprey; tagging,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,EVANS TM,"this study examined the efficacy of marking wild populations of lampreys with visible implant elastomer (vie) for 6-18months to examine ammocoete movements using cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) open-population models. these methods were tested on two lamprey populations in different river systems. american brook lamprey lethenteron appendix at dyke creek apparent survival (phi) was high in the summer and winter (c. 07), but declined after flow events in the spring and autumn. sea lamprey petromyzon marinus at oquaga creek phi in the top-ranked models varied with stream location and time. estimates of phi were similar to dyke creek during the summer (c. 07), but declined after flow events and remained low (c. 01) in winter. open-population models support current understanding of ammocoete movement, i.e. dispersal is driven by high-flow events at certain times of the year. the present study provides a framework to study ammocoetes with vie." the parent-offspring probability when sampling age-structured populations,close-kin; population dynamics; sampling probability; stable age distribution,THEORETICAL POPULATION BIOLOGY,SKAUG HJ,"we consider two individuals sampled from an age-structured population, and derive the probability that these have a parent-offspring relationship. such probabilities play an important role in the recently proposed close-kin mark-recapture methods. the probability is decomposed into three terms. the first is the probability of the parent being alive, the second term involves the mechanism by which individuals are sampled, and the third term is a contribution from the observed age of the parent. a stable age distribution in the population is assumed, and we provide an expression for how this distribution is perturbed by the information that an individual has given birth at a particular time point in the past or in the future. calculations are performed from the perspective of the offspring, but we also make comparison to the situation where the perspective is put on the parent. although the resulting probabilities are the same, the actual calculations differ, due to the asymmetry of a parent-offspring relationship. (c) 2017 elsevier inc. all rights reserved." caught in the mesh: roads and their network-scale impediment to animal movement,NA,ECOGRAPHY,BISCHOF R;STEYAERT SMJG;KINDBERG J,"roads have a pervasive multi-faceted influence on ecosystems, including pronounced impacts on wildlife movements. in recognition of the scale-transcending impacts of transportation infrastructure, ecologists have been encouraged to extend the study of barrier impacts from individual roads and animals to networks and populations. in this study, we adopt an analytical representation of road networks as mosaics of landscape tiles, separated by roads. we then adapt spatial capture-recapture analysis to estimate the propensity of wildlife to stay within the boundaries of the road network tiles (rnts) that hold their activity centres. we fit the model to national non-invasive genetic monitoring data for brown bears ursus arctos in sweden and show that bears had up to 73% lower odds of using areas outside the network tile of their home range centre, even after accounting for the effect of natural barriers (major rivers) and the decrease in utilization with increasing distance from a bear's activity centre. our study highlights the pronounced landscape-level barrier effect on wildlife mobility and, in doing so, introduces a novel and flexible approach for quantifying contemporary fragmentation from the scale of rnts and individual animals to transportation networks and populations." the 2012 census of agriculture: a capture-recapture analysis,NA,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,YOUNG LJ;LAMAS AC;ABREU DA,"the census of agriculture is conducted every 5 years, in years ending in 2 and 7. the census list frame is incomplete, resulting in undercoverage. not all operations on the list frame respond, and, based on the response, some misclassification occurs. in 2012, a capture-recapture analysis was conducted to adjust for undercoverage, nonresponse, and misclassification. this was the first time capture-recapture methods were used to produce official statistics for an establishment survey. the number of records on the census mailing list that were classified as farms was 1,382,099, and the published estimate of the number of farms was 2,109,303, a 34.5% adjustment. the adjustment was greatest for farms with low production levels and for specialty farms, both of which are difficult to identify and add to the list. the methods used are described. challenges that arose in the implementation process are discussed. areas for enhancement being targeted for the 2017 census of agriculture are highlighted. supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear online." -"movement and activity patterns of the nurse shark, ginglymostoma cirratum, in an oceanic marine protected area of the south-western atlantic",elasmobranch; mark-and-recapture; acoustic telemetry; ginglymostomatidae; endangered species; brazil,JOURNAL OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM,GARLA RC;GADIG OBF;GARRONE-NETO D,"the movement and activity patterns of the nurse shark, ginglymostoma cirratum, a vulnerable species off brazil, were investigated using mark-recapture and acoustic telemetry at an oceanic insular marine protected area, the fernando de noronha archipelago, brazil. a total of 93 sharks were captured and tagged, ranging from 82 to 265 cm of total length (tl). nurse sharks were captured throughout the year, and all life-stages used the insular shelf. fifteen sharks (16% of the total) were recaptured after periods at liberty ranging from 3.5 h to 705 days, and the distances between tag and recapture locations ranged from 0.07 to 3.5 km. site fidelity and movements of 10 sharks ranging from 107 to 265 cm tl were investigated for 18 months with an array of automated telemetry receivers. the mean period of detection of the monitored sharks was 66 days, ranging from 13 to 119 days. one individual 158 cm tl was monitored with active tracking for 17 days, with distances between daily locations ranging from 0.84 to 3.32 km, exhibiting movements similar to those of sharks monitored by automated telemetry. despite remaining motionless or exhibiting short range movements for several hours or days, nurse sharks can be relatively wide-ranging, and protected areas alone cannot be the only conservation measure used to protect this species, which requires a set of protective measures, including fisheries management." -"quantifying long-term population growth rates of threatened bull trout: challenges, lessons learned, and opportunities",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,BUDY PE;BOWERMAN T;AL-CHOKHACHY R;CONNER M;SCHALLER H,"temporal symmetry models (tsm) represent advances in the analytical application of mark-recapture data to population status assessments. for a population of char, we employed 10 years of active and passive mark-recapture data to quantify population growth rates using different data sources and analytical approaches. estimates of adult population growth rate were 1.01 (95% confidence interval = 0.84-1.20) using a temporal symmetry model (lambda(tsm)), 0.96 (0.68-1.34) based on logistic regressions of annual snorkel data (lambda(a)), and 0.92 (0.77-1.11) from redd counts (lambda(r)). top-performing tsms included an increasing time trend in recruitment (f) and changes in capture probability (p). there was only a 1% chance the population decreased >= 50%, and a 10% chance it decreased >= 30% (lambda(mcmc); based on bayesian markov chain monte carlo procedure). size structure was stable; however, the adult population was dominated by small adults, and over the study period there was a decline in the contribution of large adults to total biomass. juvenile condition decreased with increasing adult densities. utilization of these different information sources provided a robust weight-of-evidence approach to identifying population status and potential mechanisms driving changes in population growth rates." -reliable effective number of breeders/adult census size ratios in seasonal-breeding species: opportunity for integrative demographic inferences based on capture-mark-recapture data and multilocus genotypes,amphibians; demography; mating system; polygamy; sample size; sibship size prior,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SANCHEZ-MONTES G;WANG JL;ARINO AH;VIZMANOS JL;MARTINEZ-SOLANO I,"the ratio of the effective number of breeders (n-b) to the adult census size (n-a), n-b/n-a, approximates the departure from the standard capacity of a population to maintain genetic diversity in one reproductive season. this information is relevant for assessing population status, understanding evolutionary processes operating at local scales, and unraveling how life-history traits affect these processes. however, our knowledge on n-b/n-a ratios in nature is limited because estimation of both parameters is challenging. the sibship frequency (sf) method is adequate for reliable n-b estimation because it is based on sibship and parentage reconstruction from genetic marker data, thereby providing demographic inferences that can be compared with field-based information. in addition, capture-mark-recapture (cmr) robust design methods are well suited for n-a estimation in seasonal-breeding species. we used tadpole genotypes of three pond-breeding amphibian species (epidalea calamita, hyla molleri, and pelophylax perezi, n=73-96 single-cohort tadpoles/species genotyped at 15-17 microsatellite loci) and candidate parental genotypes (n=94-300 adults/species) to estimate n-b by the sf method. to assess the reliability of n-b estimates, we compared sibship and parentage inferences with field-based information and checked for the convergence of results in replicated subsampled analyses. finally, we used cmr data from a 6-year monitoring program to estimate annual n-a in the three species and calculate the n-b/n-a ratio. reliable ratios were obtained for e.calamita (n-b/n-a=0.18-0.28) and p.perezi (0.5), but in h.molleri, n-a could not be estimated and genetic information proved insufficient for reliable n-b estimation. integrative demographic studies taking full advantage of sf and cmr methods can provide accurate estimates of the n-b/n-a ratio in seasonal-breeding species. importantly, the sf method provides results that can be readily evaluated for reliability. this represents a good opportunity for obtaining robust demographic inferences with wide applications for evolutionary and conservation research." +"movement and activity patterns of the nurse shark, ginglymostoma cirratum, in an oceanic marine protected area of the south-western atlantic",elasmobranch; mark-and-recapture; acoustic telemetry; ginglymostomatidae; endangered species; brazil,JOURNAL OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM,GARLA RC;GADIG OBF;GARRONE NETO D,"the movement and activity patterns of the nurse shark, ginglymostoma cirratum, a vulnerable species off brazil, were investigated using mark-recapture and acoustic telemetry at an oceanic insular marine protected area, the fernando de noronha archipelago, brazil. a total of 93 sharks were captured and tagged, ranging from 82 to 265 cm of total length (tl). nurse sharks were captured throughout the year, and all life-stages used the insular shelf. fifteen sharks (16% of the total) were recaptured after periods at liberty ranging from 3.5 h to 705 days, and the distances between tag and recapture locations ranged from 0.07 to 3.5 km. site fidelity and movements of 10 sharks ranging from 107 to 265 cm tl were investigated for 18 months with an array of automated telemetry receivers. the mean period of detection of the monitored sharks was 66 days, ranging from 13 to 119 days. one individual 158 cm tl was monitored with active tracking for 17 days, with distances between daily locations ranging from 0.84 to 3.32 km, exhibiting movements similar to those of sharks monitored by automated telemetry. despite remaining motionless or exhibiting short range movements for several hours or days, nurse sharks can be relatively wide-ranging, and protected areas alone cannot be the only conservation measure used to protect this species, which requires a set of protective measures, including fisheries management." +"quantifying long-term population growth rates of threatened bull trout: challenges, lessons learned, and opportunities",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,BUDY PE;BOWERMAN T;AL CHOKHACHY R;CONNER M;SCHALLER H,"temporal symmetry models (tsm) represent advances in the analytical application of mark-recapture data to population status assessments. for a population of char, we employed 10 years of active and passive mark-recapture data to quantify population growth rates using different data sources and analytical approaches. estimates of adult population growth rate were 1.01 (95% confidence interval = 0.84-1.20) using a temporal symmetry model (lambda(tsm)), 0.96 (0.68-1.34) based on logistic regressions of annual snorkel data (lambda(a)), and 0.92 (0.77-1.11) from redd counts (lambda(r)). top-performing tsms included an increasing time trend in recruitment (f) and changes in capture probability (p). there was only a 1% chance the population decreased >= 50%, and a 10% chance it decreased >= 30% (lambda(mcmc); based on bayesian markov chain monte carlo procedure). size structure was stable; however, the adult population was dominated by small adults, and over the study period there was a decline in the contribution of large adults to total biomass. juvenile condition decreased with increasing adult densities. utilization of these different information sources provided a robust weight-of-evidence approach to identifying population status and potential mechanisms driving changes in population growth rates." +reliable effective number of breeders/adult census size ratios in seasonal-breeding species: opportunity for integrative demographic inferences based on capture-mark-recapture data and multilocus genotypes,amphibians; demography; mating system; polygamy; sample size; sibship size prior,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SANCHEZ MONTES G;WANG JL;ARINO AH;VIZMANOS JL;MARTINEZ SOLANO I,"the ratio of the effective number of breeders (n-b) to the adult census size (n-a), n-b/n-a, approximates the departure from the standard capacity of a population to maintain genetic diversity in one reproductive season. this information is relevant for assessing population status, understanding evolutionary processes operating at local scales, and unraveling how life-history traits affect these processes. however, our knowledge on n-b/n-a ratios in nature is limited because estimation of both parameters is challenging. the sibship frequency (sf) method is adequate for reliable n-b estimation because it is based on sibship and parentage reconstruction from genetic marker data, thereby providing demographic inferences that can be compared with field-based information. in addition, capture-mark-recapture (cmr) robust design methods are well suited for n-a estimation in seasonal-breeding species. we used tadpole genotypes of three pond-breeding amphibian species (epidalea calamita, hyla molleri, and pelophylax perezi, n=73-96 single-cohort tadpoles/species genotyped at 15-17 microsatellite loci) and candidate parental genotypes (n=94-300 adults/species) to estimate n-b by the sf method. to assess the reliability of n-b estimates, we compared sibship and parentage inferences with field-based information and checked for the convergence of results in replicated subsampled analyses. finally, we used cmr data from a 6-year monitoring program to estimate annual n-a in the three species and calculate the n-b/n-a ratio. reliable ratios were obtained for e.calamita (n-b/n-a=0.18-0.28) and p.perezi (0.5), but in h.molleri, n-a could not be estimated and genetic information proved insufficient for reliable n-b estimation. integrative demographic studies taking full advantage of sf and cmr methods can provide accurate estimates of the n-b/n-a ratio in seasonal-breeding species. importantly, the sf method provides results that can be readily evaluated for reliability. this represents a good opportunity for obtaining robust demographic inferences with wide applications for evolutionary and conservation research." examining the occupancy-density relationship for a low-density carnivore,carnivore; density estimation; detection-non-detection data; fisher; hair snares; non-invasive sampling; occupancy; pekania pennanti; remote cameras; spatial capture-recapture,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,LINDEN DW;FULLER AK;ROYLE JA;HARE MP,"1. the challenges associated with monitoring low-density carnivores across large landscapes have limited the ability to implement and evaluate conservation and management strategies for such species. non-invasive sampling techniques and advanced statistical approaches havealleviated some of these challenges and can even allow for spatially explicit estimates of density, one of the most valuable wildlife monitoring tools. 2. for some species, individual identification comes at no cost when unique attributes (e.g. pelage patterns) can be discerned with remote cameras, while other species require viable genetic material and expensive laboratory processing for individual assignment. prohibitive costs may still force monitoring efforts to use species distribution or occupancy as a surrogate for density, which may not be appropriate under many conditions. 3. here, we used a large-scale monitoring study of fisher pekania pennanti to evaluate the effectiveness of occupancy as an approximation to density, particularly for informing harvest management decisions. we combined remote cameras with baited hair snares during 2013-2015 to sample across a 70096-km(2) region of western new york, usa. we fit occupancy and royle-nichols models to species detection-non-detection data collected by cameras, and spatial capture-recapture (scr) models to individual encounter data obtained by genotyped hair samples. variation in the state variables within 15-km(2) grid cells was modelled as a function of landscape attributes known to influence fisher distribution. 4. we found a close relationship between grid cell estimates of fisher state variables from the models using detection-non-detection data and those from the scr model, likely due to informative spatial covariates across a large landscape extent and a grid cell resolution that worked well with the movement ecology of the species. fisher occupancy and density were both positively associated with the proportion of coniferous-mixed forest and negatively associated with road density. as a result, spatially explicit management recommendations for fisher were similar across models, though relative variation was dampened for the detection-non-detection data. 5. synthesis and applications. our work provides empirical evidence that models using detection-non-detection data can make similar inferences regarding relative spatial variation of the focal population to models using more expensive individual encounters when the selected spatial grain approximates or is marginally smaller than home range size. when occupancy alone is chosen as a cost-effective state variable for monitoring, simulation and sensitivity analyses should be used to understand how inferences from detection-non-detection data will be affected by aspects of study design and species ecology." -effect of drought on demography of pileated finch (coryphospingus pileatus: thraupidae) in northeastern brazil,demographic aspects; droughts; seasonal variation of resources; caatinga,JOURNAL OF ARID ENVIRONMENTS,TAVARES-DAMASCENO JP;SILVEIRA JLGD;CAMARA T;STEDILE PD;MACARIO P;TOLEDO-LIMA GS;PICHORIM M,"information on the effects of stochastic weather events on the survival of tropical birds can improve the knowledge of life history adaptations, allowing better demographic projection models to examine species persistence in light of global climate change forecasts. with this in mind, we conducted a mark recapture study on coryphospingus pileatus in the brazilian caatinga. we applied cormack-jolly-seber and robust design models to test the influence of sex, precipitation, drought and vegetation on demographic parameters. we found that the apparent annual survival of residents ranged from 31 to 49% in the first year and 65-77% in the second, depending on the area, sex and structure of the models used. controlling for an effect of time since marking, survival was substantially lower in a year affected by a severe drought, and was higher at a site with more open vegetation structure. the results showed little variation in survival of the species during the regular annual dry season and a decline greater than 50% in apparent survival caused by severe drought. this suggest that in prolonged drought the drastic reduction of food directly affects the productivity, reducing in survival observed over time and projecting a critical perspective for endangered species that may disappear due to climate change. (c) 2017 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +effect of drought on demography of pileated finch (coryphospingus pileatus: thraupidae) in northeastern brazil,demographic aspects; droughts; seasonal variation of resources; caatinga,JOURNAL OF ARID ENVIRONMENTS,TAVARES DAMASCENO JP;SILVEIRA JLGD;CAMARA T;STEDILE PD;MACARIO P;TOLEDO LIMA GS;PICHORIM M,"information on the effects of stochastic weather events on the survival of tropical birds can improve the knowledge of life history adaptations, allowing better demographic projection models to examine species persistence in light of global climate change forecasts. with this in mind, we conducted a mark recapture study on coryphospingus pileatus in the brazilian caatinga. we applied cormack-jolly-seber and robust design models to test the influence of sex, precipitation, drought and vegetation on demographic parameters. we found that the apparent annual survival of residents ranged from 31 to 49% in the first year and 65-77% in the second, depending on the area, sex and structure of the models used. controlling for an effect of time since marking, survival was substantially lower in a year affected by a severe drought, and was higher at a site with more open vegetation structure. the results showed little variation in survival of the species during the regular annual dry season and a decline greater than 50% in apparent survival caused by severe drought. this suggest that in prolonged drought the drastic reduction of food directly affects the productivity, reducing in survival observed over time and projecting a critical perspective for endangered species that may disappear due to climate change. (c) 2017 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "coyote, fox, and bobcat response to anthropogenic and natural landscape features in a small urban area",urbanization; coyote; spatially explicit capture-recapture; bobcat; camera trap; red fox; gray fox,URBAN ECOSYSTEMS,LOMBARDI JV;COMER CE;SCOGNAMILLO DG;CONWAY WC,"increasing urbanization across the southeastern united states presents unique challenges for wildlife; however certain species have learned to adapt and thrive in these environments. coyotes (canis latrans), bobcats (lynx rufus), red foxes (vulpes vulpes) and gray foxes (urocyon cinereoargenteus) are four common medium-sized carnivores that have become closely associated with urban areas. the goal for this study was to determine how urban landscape features influence density and occurrence of these species in a small urban area and to evaluate if any effects were similar to those observed in larger urban areas. we conducted two eight-week camera surveys in the city of nacogdoches, texas (pop. 32,699) and immediate surrounding areas in summer and fall 2013. we evaluated single-season spatially explicit capture-recapture and occupancy models to estimate density, and occurrence, respectively, based on anthropogenic and natural features around each camera site. coyotes (fall: 1.38 coyotes/km(2)) and bobcats (fall: 0.64 coyotes/km(2)) were associated with areas of green space, but their response to large and small green spaces changed seasonally. conversely, red foxes (fall: 2.53 red foxes/km(2)) were more likely to occur near developed areas and were less detectable in areas with greater probability of coyote presence in fall only. in summer, gray foxes (fall: 0.05 gray foxes/km(2)) were more likely to occur in areas with lower building density and closer to buildings. this study indicates coyotes, foxes and bobcats respond to small-scale urbanization in a similar manner as large-scale urbanization." minimum distance estimators of population size from snowball samples using conditional estimation and scaling of exponential random graph models,network sampling; hidden population samplihg; network size; link-tracing designs; social networks; hard-to-reach populations,COMPUTATIONAL STATISTICS & DATA ANALYSIS,ROLLS DA;ROBINS G,"new distance-based estimators of population size for snowball sample network data using exponential random graph models (ergms) are presented. after ergm parameters are obtained using conditional estimation it is possible to simulate networks from the ergm across a range of hypothesized sizes and then estimate the population's size. this is done by creating simulated snowball samples from the simulated networks and then minimizing their distances from an observed network statistic across network sizes. the number of nodes in the snowball sample (snowball size) combined with a moment-based distance is shown to be an effective estimator. for ergm conditional estimate parameters, the moment-based snowball size estimator can outperform a multivariate mahalanobis estimator, where the latter would be a maximum likelihood estimator under the assumption the network statistics are multivariate gaussian. ""extreme"" ergm scaling across network sizes, which prevents finding a minimum-distance estimate, is also discussed. (c) 2017 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." are removal-based abundance models robust to fish behavior?,depletion estimate; removal estimate; bias; mark recapture; abundance; fish behavior,FISHERIES RESEARCH,VAN POORTEN BT;BARRETT B;WALTERS CJ;AHRENS RNM,"removal methods are some of the most common statistical tools for estimating fish abundance in streams and lakes, yet they are prone to produce biased estimates when the assumption of constant capture probability is violated. in response, numerous authors have modified the classic removal models to control for non-constant capture probability. a variety of fish behaviors can cause capture, probability to vary across individuals or over time, such as dominance hierarchies, escaping capture or persistent individual differences in capture probability due to activity or aggression; yet knowing exactly which behaviors may affect capture probability is generally unknown. we assessed the robustness of five removal models (i.e., the leslie model, three behavior-dependent models and a density dependent capture probability model) and their ability to provide consistently accurate and precise abundance estimates irrespective of the exhibited behavior. we fitted each model to catch data generated from five behavioral models that mimicked a range of animal behaviors in a closed population. additionally, we evaluated the improvements that can be gained by including marked fish in the removal process and in that case, compared estimation models with a peterson mark-recapture estimation. results indicate that no single removal model is robust to non-constant capture probability, however, the density-dependent capture probability model performed moderately better than other models when only removal data were used. we found that the addition of marked fish results in a substantial improvement in accuracy and precision across all removal models when mark-recapture assumptions are met. however, these improvements diminished substantially when mark-recapture assumptions were violated. due to the difficulties in assessing assumptions, our findings suggest that including marked fish in the removal process may unknowingly reduce accuracy and precision of initial abundance estimate and that this type of experimental design should be avoided in many instances." reliable assessment of the incidence of childhood autoimmune hemolytic anemia,autoimmune hemolytic anemia; capture-recapture method; incidence estimates; pediatric,PEDIATRIC BLOOD & CANCER,ALADJIDI N;JUTAND MA;BEAUBOIS C;FERNANDES H;JEANPETIT J;COUREAU G;GILLERON V;KOSTRZEWA A;LAUROUA P;JEANNE M;THIEBAUT R;LEBLANC T;LEVERGER G;PEREL Y,"background childhood autoimmune hemolytic anemia (aiha) is a rare and severe disease characterized by hemolysis and positive direct antiglobulin test (dat). few epidemiologic indicators are available for the pediatric population. the objective of our study was to reliably estimate the number of aiha cases in the french aquitaine region and the incidence of aiha in patients under 18 years old. procedure in this retrospective study, the capture-recapture method and log-linear model were used for the period 2000-2008 in the aquitaine region from the following three data sources for the diagnosis of aiha: the obs'cerevance database cohort, positive dat collected from the regional blood bank database, and the french medico-economic information system. results a list of 281 different patients was obtained after cross-matching the three databases; 44 aiha cases were identified in the period 2000-2008; and the total number of cases was estimated to be 48 (95% confidence interval [ci]: 45-55). the calculated incidence of the disease was 0.81/100,000 children under 18 years old per year (95% ci 0.76-0.92). conclusion accurate methods are required for estimating the incidence of aiha in children. capture-recapture analysis corrects underreporting and provides optimal completeness. this study highlights a possible under diagnosis of this potentially severe disease in various pediatric settings. aiha incidence may now be compared with the incidences of other hematological diseases and used for clinical or research purposes." "vertical organization of the division of labor within nests of the florida harvester ant, pogonomyrmex badius",NA,PLOS ONE,TSCHINKEL WR;HANLEY N,"in the florida harvester ant, pogonomyrmex badius, foragers occur only in the top 15 cm of the nest, whereas brood and brood-care workers reside mostly in the deepest regions, yet the food and seeds foragers collect must be transported downward 30 to 80 cm to seed chambers and up to 2 m to brood chambers. using mark-recapture techniques with fluorescent printer's ink, we identified a class of workers that ranges widely within the vertical structure of the nest, rapidly moving materials dropped by foragers in the upper regions downward, and excavated soil from deeper upward. within the nest, only 5% of foragers were recovered below 20 cm depth, but about 30% of transfer workers and 82% of unmarked workers were found there. below 70 cm depth, 90% of workers were unmarked, and were probably involved mostly in brood care. during the summer, the transfer workers comprise about a quarter of the nest population, while foragers make up about 40%. workers marked as transfer workers later appear as foragers, while those marked as foragers die and disappear from the foraging population, suggesting that transfer workers are younger, and age into foraging. the importance of these findings for laboratory studies of division of labor are discussed. the efficient allocation of labor is a key component of superorganismal fitness." -migration confers winter survival benefits in a partially migratory songbird,NA,ELIFE,ZUNIGA D;GAGER Y;KOKKO H;FUDICKAR AM;SCHMIDT A;NAEF-DAENZER B;WIKELSKI M;PARTECKE J,"to evolve and to be maintained, seasonal migration, despite its risks, has to yield fitness benefits compared with year-round residency. empirical data supporting this prediction have remained elusive in the bird literature. to test fitness related benefits of migration, we studied a partial migratory population of european blackbirds (turdus merula) over 7 years. using a combination of capture-mark-recapture and radio telemetry, we compared survival probabilities between migrants and residents estimated by multi-event survival models, showing that migrant blackbirds had 16% higher probability to survive the winter compared to residents. a subsequent modelling exercise revealed that residents should have 61.25% higher breeding success than migrants, to outweigh the survival costs of residency. our results support theoretical models that migration should confer survival benefits to evolve, and thus provide empirical evidence to understand the evolution and maintenance of migration." +migration confers winter survival benefits in a partially migratory songbird,NA,ELIFE,ZUNIGA D;GAGER Y;KOKKO H;FUDICKAR AM;SCHMIDT A;NAEF DAENZER B;WIKELSKI M;PARTECKE J,"to evolve and to be maintained, seasonal migration, despite its risks, has to yield fitness benefits compared with year-round residency. empirical data supporting this prediction have remained elusive in the bird literature. to test fitness related benefits of migration, we studied a partial migratory population of european blackbirds (turdus merula) over 7 years. using a combination of capture-mark-recapture and radio telemetry, we compared survival probabilities between migrants and residents estimated by multi-event survival models, showing that migrant blackbirds had 16% higher probability to survive the winter compared to residents. a subsequent modelling exercise revealed that residents should have 61.25% higher breeding success than migrants, to outweigh the survival costs of residency. our results support theoretical models that migration should confer survival benefits to evolve, and thus provide empirical evidence to understand the evolution and maintenance of migration." parasite infection induces size-dependent host dispersal: consequences for parasite persistence,dispersal; plasticity; bayesian statistics; freshwater mussel; salmon,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,TERUI A;OOUE K;URABE H;NAKAMURA F,"host dispersal is now recognized as a key predictor of the landscape-level persistence and expansion of parasites. however, current theories treat post-infection dispersal propensities as a fixed trait, and the plastic nature of host's responses to parasite infection has long been underappreciated. here, we present a mark-recapture experiment in a single host-parasite system (larval parasites of the freshwater mussel margaritifera laevis and its salmonid fish host oncorhynchus masou masou) and provide, to our knowledge, the first empirical evidence that parasite infection induces size-dependent host dispersal in the field. in response to parasite infection, large fish become more dispersive, whereas small fish tend to stay at the home patch. the observed plasticity in dispersal is interpretable from the viewpoint of host fitness: expected benefits (release from further infection) may exceed dispersal-associated costs for individuals with high dispersal ability (i.e. large fish) but are marginal for individuals with limited dispersal ability (i.e. small fish). indeed, our growth analysis revealed that only small fish hosts incurred dispersal costs (reduced growth). strikingly, our simulation study revealed that this plastic dispersal response of infected hosts substantially enhanced parasite persistence and occupancy in a spatially structured system. these results suggest that dispersal plasticity in host species is critical for understanding how parasites emerge, spatially spread, and persist in nature. our findings provide a novel starting point for building a reliable, predictive model for parasite/disease management." evaluating a survey landscape for tiger abundance in the confluence of the western and eastern ghats,biligiri rangaswamy temple tiger reserve; camera trapping; capture-recapture method; tiger,CURRENT SCIENCE,LINGARAJA SS;CHOWDHARY S;BHAT R;GUBBI S,"due to the current depleting trends in tiger population, range countries have committed to double tiger numbers by the year 2022. however, some areas, including source sites, across the range countries lack scientifically estimated tiger numbers both at the larger landscape and at the protected area level. here we report a population of tigers, from biligiri ranga-swamy temple tiger reserve (brttr), using camera trap based capture-mark recapture in a spatially explicit likelihood and bayesian analyses that yielded an estimate of similar to 55 tigers with a density of about 6.8 tigers/100 km(2). brttr nestled in a larger tiger landscape, perhaps contributes dispersing individuals to the adjoining forests, calling for integrated monitoring and management efforts for the entire landscape. this data set could help in designing long-term, landscape level plans and outcomes." overland movement in african clawed frogs (xenopus laevis): empirical dispersal data from within their native range,aquatic; clawed frogs; dispersal; migration; pipidae; terrestrial; locomotion; stamina; performance,PEERJ,DE VILLIERS FA;MEASEY J,"dispersal forms are an important component of the ecology of many animals, and reach particular importance for predicting ranges of invasive species. african clawed frogs (xenopus laevis) move overland between water bodies, but all empirical studies are from invasive populations with none from their native southern africa. here we report on incidents of overland movement found through a capture-recapture study carried out over a three year period in overstrand, south africa. the maximum distance moved was 2.4 km with most of the 91 animals, representing 5% of the population, moving similar to 150 m. we found no differences in distances moved by males and females, despite the former being smaller. fewer males moved overland, but this was no different from the sex bias found in the population. in laboratory performance trials, we found that males outperformed females, in both distance moved and time to exhaustion, when corrected for size. overland movement occurred throughout the year, but reached peaks in spring and early summer when temporary water bodies were drying. despite permanent impoundments being located within the study area, we found no evidence for migrations of animals between temporary and permanent water bodies. our study provides the first dispersal kernel for x. laevis and suggests that it is similar to many non-pipid anurans with respect to dispersal." @@ -822,11 +823,11 @@ using data from respondent-driven sampling studies to estimate the number of peo "distribution and abundance of introduced seal salamanders (desmognathus monticola) in northwest arkansas, usa",NA,COPEIA,BUSH CL;GUZY JC;HALLORAN KM;SWARTWOUT MC;KROSS CS;WILLSON JD,"many reptiles and amphibians are gaining recognition as harmful invaders, highlighted by well-known examples such as the brown tree snake (boiga irregularis), cane toad (rhinella marina), american bullfrog (lithobates catesbeianus), and burmese python (python molurus bivittatus). in 2003, an introduced population of seal salamanders (desmognathus monticola) was found in spavinaw creek, within the ozark plateau of northwest arkansas. genetic evidence confirmed an introduction from northern georgia. very little is known about the status of this non-native population; thus, the objective of this study was to assess the current distribution and abundance of non-native d. monticola along spavinaw creek. we conducted repeated, low-intensity visual surveys along the 30 km extent of spavinaw creek in arkansas and used a hierarchical bayesian analysis to model the occupancy response of d. monticola and five native salamander species relative to river mile and habitat covariates. we also conducted a short-term closed capture-mark-recapture study to estimate abundance of d. monticola at the original collection site on spavinaw creek. we found a clear geographic pattern of distribution of d. monticola, with individuals found throughout the upper 10 km of spavinaw creek headwaters, but no clear habitat associations. estimated abundance of d. monticola was extremely high-14.5 individuals and 50 g wet biomass per m 2. our results reveal that introduced d. monticola are much more widely distributed than previously recognized and occur at high densities, suggesting that this recent invader could negatively affect ecosystems of spavinaw creek and surrounding watersheds in the ozark highlands." inference of timber harvest effects on survival of stream amphibians is complicated by movement,NA,COPEIA,CHELGREN ND;ADAMS MJ,"the effects of contemporary logging practices on headwater stream amphibians have received considerable study but with conflicting or ambiguous results. we posit that focusing inference on demographic rates of aquatic life stages may help refine understanding, as aquatic and terrestrial impacts may differ considerably. we investigated in-stream survival and movement of two stream-breeding amphibian species within a before-after timber harvest experiment in the oregon coast range. we used recaptures of marked individuals and a joint probability model of survival, movement, and capture probability, to measure variation in these rates attributed to stream reach, stream gradient, pre-and post-harvest periods, and the timber harvest intensity. downstream biased movement occurred in both species but was greater for coastal tailed frog (ascaphus truei) larvae than aquatic coastal giant salamanders (dicamptodon tenebrosus). for d. tenebrosus, downstream biased movement occurred early in life, soon after an individual's first summer. increasing timber harvest intensity reduced downstream movement bias and reduced survival of d. tenebrosus, but neither of these effects were detected for larvae of a. truei. our findings provide insight into the demographic mechanisms underlying previous nuanced studies of amphibian responses to timber harvest based on biomass or counts of larvae." seasonality in abundance and detection bias of birds in a tropical dry forest in north-eastern south america,behavioural responses; capture-mark-recapture models; closed population; rainfall; semi-arid,JOURNAL OF TROPICAL ECOLOGY,SILVA CCDE;PICHORIM M;DE MOURA PTS;FRANCA LF,"seasonal fluctuations inbird abundance are expected in semi-arid environments, but estimates may be biased if detectability is not considered. in a tropical dry forest in north-eastern brazil, we evaluated whether bird abundance is highly seasonal, and associated with time-specific variability in detectability. we mark-recaptured birds with mist nets over three field visits (3487 records from 75 species), and used closed-capture models to estimate detectability and abundance in birds divided into three groups (all, residents, insectivores). in the two dry periods, the best models resulted in capture estimates at least three times larger than recapture, and both estimates were twice that of when rains occurred on the day preceding sampling. abundance varied between dry and wet periods from 4.0 (from 115 +/- 34 to 479 +/- 144) to 13 times (183 +/- 8 to 2463 +/- 351). estimates were 1.5-3.2 times greater in the dry period when behavioural responses of birds were excluded from capture-recapture models. meanwhile, in the wet period the relative abundance was between 33-76% smaller than best-fit models estimated. this study found variation in avian abundance greater than that observed in other neotropical dry forests, and indicates that biases may be common when not including detectability." -no survival costs for sexually selected traits in a polygynous non-territorial lizard,allometry; fitness; handicaps; mark-recapture; selection gradients; sexual dimorphism; sexual selection,BIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY,GUIMARAES M;MUNGUIA-STEYER R;DOHERTY PF;SAWAYA RJ,"polygyny is a common mating system in lizards. in polygynous species, males usually display status badges and use weaponry to prevent reproductive access of competitors to mates. such secondary sexual traits are frequently linked to signalling costs and the handicap principle is widely used to explain the potential reduction of fitness components. here, we (1) evaluate the allometric relationship of two known secondary sexual traits with body size: head width (a weapon) and the total coloured lateral area (an ornament), (2) assess the effects of such traits on male and female survival probabilities and (3) evaluate patterns of linear and quadratic selection of both traits for the whiptail lizard cnemidophorus cf. ocellifer. we detected evidence of sexual dimorphism in both traits, but contrary to our expectations, both sexes presented hyperallometric growth of both weapon size and badge size. we found no support for the handicap principle since no detrimental effects of secondary sexual traits were found on individual survival probability. furthermore, no evidence of directional selection, neither stabilizing nor disruptive selection was found. the costs of faking signals in male animal contests could maintain the honesty, as previously suggested." +no survival costs for sexually selected traits in a polygynous non-territorial lizard,allometry; fitness; handicaps; mark-recapture; selection gradients; sexual dimorphism; sexual selection,BIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY,GUIMARAES M;MUNGUIA STEYER R;DOHERTY PF;SAWAYA RJ,"polygyny is a common mating system in lizards. in polygynous species, males usually display status badges and use weaponry to prevent reproductive access of competitors to mates. such secondary sexual traits are frequently linked to signalling costs and the handicap principle is widely used to explain the potential reduction of fitness components. here, we (1) evaluate the allometric relationship of two known secondary sexual traits with body size: head width (a weapon) and the total coloured lateral area (an ornament), (2) assess the effects of such traits on male and female survival probabilities and (3) evaluate patterns of linear and quadratic selection of both traits for the whiptail lizard cnemidophorus cf. ocellifer. we detected evidence of sexual dimorphism in both traits, but contrary to our expectations, both sexes presented hyperallometric growth of both weapon size and badge size. we found no support for the handicap principle since no detrimental effects of secondary sexual traits were found on individual survival probability. furthermore, no evidence of directional selection, neither stabilizing nor disruptive selection was found. the costs of faking signals in male animal contests could maintain the honesty, as previously suggested." using multiple data types and integrated population models to improve our knowledge of apex predator population dynamics,bayesian; brown bear; hierarchical modeling; integrated population model; kodiak island; ursus arctos,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BLED F;BELANT JL;VAN DAELE LJ;SVOBODA N;GUSTINE D;HILDERBRAND G;BARNES VG,"current management of large carnivores is informed using a variety of parameters, methods, and metrics; however, these data are typically considered independently. sharing information among data types based on the underlying ecological, and recognizing observation biases, can improve estimation of individual and global parameters. we present a general integrated population model (ipm), specifically designed for brown bears (ursus arctos), using three common data types for bear (u. spp.) populations: repeated counts, capture-mark-recapture, and litter size. we considered factors affecting ecological and observation processes for these data. we assessed the practicality of this approach on a simulated population and compared estimates from our model to values used for simulation and results from count data only. we then present a practical application of this general approach adapted to the constraints of a case study using historical data available for brown bears on kodiak island, alaska, usa. the ipm provided more accurate and precise estimates than models accounting for repeated count data only, with credible intervals including the true population 94% and 5% of the time, respectively. for the kodiak population, we estimated annual average litter size (within one year after birth) to vary between 0.45 [95% credible interval: 0.43; 0.55] and 1.59 [1.55; 1.82]. we detected a positive relationship between salmon availability and adult survival, with survival probabilities greater for females than males. survival probabilities increased from cubs to yearlings to dependent young 2years old and decreased with litter size. linking multiple information sources based on ecological and observation mechanisms can provide more accurate and precise estimates, to better inform management. ipms can also reduce data collection efforts by sharing information among agencies and management units. our approach responds to an increasing need in bear populations' management and can be readily adapted to other large carnivores." -longitudinal survey of two serotine bat (eptesicus serotinus) maternity colonies exposed to eblv-1 (european bat lyssavirus type 1): assessment of survival and serological status variations using capture-recapture models,NA,PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES,ROBARDET E;BOREL C;MOINET M;JOUAN D;WASNIEWSKI M;BARRAT J;BOUE F;MONTCHATRE-LEROY E;SERVAT A;GIMENEZ O;CLIQUET F;PICARD-MEYER E,"this study describes two longitudinal serological surveys of european bat lyssavirus type 1 (eblv-1) antibodies in serotine bat (eptesicus serotinus) maternity colonies located in the north-east of france. this species is currently considered as the main eblv-1 reservoir. multievent capture-recapture models were used to determine the factors influencing bat rabies transmission as this method accounts for imperfect detection and uncertainty in disease states. considering the period of study, analyses revealed that survival and recapture probabilities were not affected by the serological status of individuals, confirming the capacity of bats to be exposed to lyssaviruses without dying. five bats have been found with eblv-1 rna in the saliva at the start of the study, suggesting they were caught during virus excretion period. among these bats, one was interestingly recaptured one year later and harbored a seropositive status. along the survey, some others bats have been observed to both seroconvert (i.e. move from a negative to a positive serological status) and serorevert (i.e. move from a positive to a negative serological status). peak of seroprevalence reached 34% and 70% in site a and b respectively. on one of the 2 sites, global decrease of seroprevalence was observed all along the study period nuanced by oscillation intervals of approximately 2-3 years supporting the oscillation infection dynamics hypothesized during a previous eblv-1 study in a myotis myotis colony. seroprevalence were affected by significantly higher seroprevalence in summer than in spring. the maximum time observed between successive positive serological statuses of a bat demonstrated the potential persistence of neutralizing antibodies for at least 4 years. at last, eblv-1 serological status transitions have been shown driven by age category with higher seroreversion frequencies in adults than in juvenile. juveniles and female adults seemed indeed acting as distinct drivers of the rabies virus dynamics, hypothesis have been addressed but their exact role in the eblv-1 transmission still need to be specified." -utility of capture-recapture methodology to estimate prevalence of congenital heart defects among adolescents in 11 new york state counties: 2008 to 2010,capture-recapture; r package conting; adolescent congenital heart defects prevalence; bayesian modeling for capture-recapture,BIRTH DEFECTS RESEARCH,AKKAYA-HOCAGIL T;HSU WH;SOMMERHALTER K;MCGARRY C;VAN ZUTPHEN A,"background congenital heart defects (chds) are the most common birth defects in the united states, and the population of individuals living with chds is growing. though chd prevalence in infancy has been well characterized, better prevalence estimates among children and adolescents in the united states are still needed. methods we used capture-recapture methods to estimate chd prevalence among adolescents residing in 11 new york counties. the three data sources used for analysis included statewide planning and research cooperative system (sparcs) hospital inpatient records, sparcs outpatient records, and medical records provided by seven pediatric congenital cardiac clinics from 2008 to 2010. bayesian log-linear models were fit using the r package conting to account for dataset dependencies and heterogeneous catchability. results a total of 2537 adolescent chd cases were captured in our three data sources. forty-four cases were identified in all data sources, 283 cases were identified in two of three data sources, and 2210 cases were identified in a single data source. the final model yielded an estimated total adolescent chd population of 3845, indicating that 66% of the cases in the catchment area were identified in the case-identifying data sources. based on 2010 census estimates, we estimated adolescent chd prevalence as 6.4 chd cases per 1000 adolescents (95% confidence interval: 6.2-6.6). conclusion we used capture-recapture methodology with a population-based surveillance system in new york to estimate chd prevalence among adolescents. future research incorporating additional data sources may improve prevalence estimates in this population. birth defects research 109:1423-1429, 2017.(c) 2017 wiley periodicals, inc." -physiological and life-history plasticity in a harvestman species: contrasting laboratory with field data,NA,ANNALES ZOOLOGICI FENNICI,"NAYA DE;LARDIES MA;BOZINOVIC F","phenotypic plasticity is defined as the ability of an organism to produce different phenotypes in response to changes in internal or external environmental conditions. experimental modification of animal diets has been widely used to study phenotypic plasticity in physiological and life-history traits. here we compared the data from a previous experiment, conducted in a harvestman species, that was aimed to evaluate the effect of diet quality on maintenance costs (standard metabolic rate), growth rate, internal organ size (visceral mass) and fecundity (clutch mass and egg number), with new data obtained from field (mark-recapture) specimens. we assumed that of the two experimental diets tested before, animals in the field would probably consume the one of intermediate quality (i.e. have a generalist omnivorous diet), and then, we predicted that field animals should exhibit intermediate values for both physiological and life-history traits. we found that field animals and animals consuming a high quality diet showed a greater growth rate than animals consuming a poor quality diet. in addition, animals consuming a high quality diet showed a larger clutch mass than both field animals and animals consuming a poor quality diet, which, in turn, was related to higher maintenance costs. our results illustrate how animals adopt different life history strategies according to the quality of the diet that is available, which is correlated with phenotypic adjustments at the anatomical and physiological levels." +longitudinal survey of two serotine bat (eptesicus serotinus) maternity colonies exposed to eblv-1 (european bat lyssavirus type 1): assessment of survival and serological status variations using capture-recapture models,NA,PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES,ROBARDET E;BOREL C;MOINET M;JOUAN D;WASNIEWSKI M;BARRAT J;BOUE F;MONTCHATRE LEROY E;SERVAT A;GIMENEZ O;CLIQUET F;PICARD MEYER E,"this study describes two longitudinal serological surveys of european bat lyssavirus type 1 (eblv-1) antibodies in serotine bat (eptesicus serotinus) maternity colonies located in the north-east of france. this species is currently considered as the main eblv-1 reservoir. multievent capture-recapture models were used to determine the factors influencing bat rabies transmission as this method accounts for imperfect detection and uncertainty in disease states. considering the period of study, analyses revealed that survival and recapture probabilities were not affected by the serological status of individuals, confirming the capacity of bats to be exposed to lyssaviruses without dying. five bats have been found with eblv-1 rna in the saliva at the start of the study, suggesting they were caught during virus excretion period. among these bats, one was interestingly recaptured one year later and harbored a seropositive status. along the survey, some others bats have been observed to both seroconvert (i.e. move from a negative to a positive serological status) and serorevert (i.e. move from a positive to a negative serological status). peak of seroprevalence reached 34% and 70% in site a and b respectively. on one of the 2 sites, global decrease of seroprevalence was observed all along the study period nuanced by oscillation intervals of approximately 2-3 years supporting the oscillation infection dynamics hypothesized during a previous eblv-1 study in a myotis myotis colony. seroprevalence were affected by significantly higher seroprevalence in summer than in spring. the maximum time observed between successive positive serological statuses of a bat demonstrated the potential persistence of neutralizing antibodies for at least 4 years. at last, eblv-1 serological status transitions have been shown driven by age category with higher seroreversion frequencies in adults than in juvenile. juveniles and female adults seemed indeed acting as distinct drivers of the rabies virus dynamics, hypothesis have been addressed but their exact role in the eblv-1 transmission still need to be specified." +utility of capture-recapture methodology to estimate prevalence of congenital heart defects among adolescents in 11 new york state counties: 2008 to 2010,capture-recapture; r package conting; adolescent congenital heart defects prevalence; bayesian modeling for capture-recapture,BIRTH DEFECTS RESEARCH,AKKAYA HOCAGIL T;HSU WH;SOMMERHALTER K;MCGARRY C;VAN ZUTPHEN A,"background congenital heart defects (chds) are the most common birth defects in the united states, and the population of individuals living with chds is growing. though chd prevalence in infancy has been well characterized, better prevalence estimates among children and adolescents in the united states are still needed. methods we used capture-recapture methods to estimate chd prevalence among adolescents residing in 11 new york counties. the three data sources used for analysis included statewide planning and research cooperative system (sparcs) hospital inpatient records, sparcs outpatient records, and medical records provided by seven pediatric congenital cardiac clinics from 2008 to 2010. bayesian log-linear models were fit using the r package conting to account for dataset dependencies and heterogeneous catchability. results a total of 2537 adolescent chd cases were captured in our three data sources. forty-four cases were identified in all data sources, 283 cases were identified in two of three data sources, and 2210 cases were identified in a single data source. the final model yielded an estimated total adolescent chd population of 3845, indicating that 66% of the cases in the catchment area were identified in the case-identifying data sources. based on 2010 census estimates, we estimated adolescent chd prevalence as 6.4 chd cases per 1000 adolescents (95% confidence interval: 6.2-6.6). conclusion we used capture-recapture methodology with a population-based surveillance system in new york to estimate chd prevalence among adolescents. future research incorporating additional data sources may improve prevalence estimates in this population. birth defects research 109:1423-1429, 2017.(c) 2017 wiley periodicals, inc." +physiological and life-history plasticity in a harvestman species: contrasting laboratory with field data,NA,ANNALES ZOOLOGICI FENNICI,NAYA DE;LARDIES MA;BOZINOVIC F,"phenotypic plasticity is defined as the ability of an organism to produce different phenotypes in response to changes in internal or external environmental conditions. experimental modification of animal diets has been widely used to study phenotypic plasticity in physiological and life-history traits. here we compared the data from a previous experiment, conducted in a harvestman species, that was aimed to evaluate the effect of diet quality on maintenance costs (standard metabolic rate), growth rate, internal organ size (visceral mass) and fecundity (clutch mass and egg number), with new data obtained from field (mark-recapture) specimens. we assumed that of the two experimental diets tested before, animals in the field would probably consume the one of intermediate quality (i.e. have a generalist omnivorous diet), and then, we predicted that field animals should exhibit intermediate values for both physiological and life-history traits. we found that field animals and animals consuming a high quality diet showed a greater growth rate than animals consuming a poor quality diet. in addition, animals consuming a high quality diet showed a larger clutch mass than both field animals and animals consuming a poor quality diet, which, in turn, was related to higher maintenance costs. our results illustrate how animals adopt different life history strategies according to the quality of the diet that is available, which is correlated with phenotypic adjustments at the anatomical and physiological levels." using bayesian mark-recapture modelling to quantify the strength and duration of post-release effects in reintroduced populations,reintroduction; translocation; survival; mark-recapture; bayesian; openbugs,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,ARMSTRONG DP;LE COEUR C;THORNE JM;PANFYLOVA J;LOVEGROVE TG;FROST PGH;EWEN JG,"translocated animals often suffer elevated mortality during some acclimation period after release. such post release effects must be accounted for when estimating normal survival rates and therefore predicting population persistence. the standard approach for doing this is to nominate a fixed acclimation period, and either i) exclude survival data over that period, or ii) use model selection criteria to test whether survival differs over that period. we present a more flexible approach where the acclimation period is treated as unknown and is estimated simultaneously with the pre- and post-acclimation survival probabilities. we illustrate this approach using survival data for six reintroduced populations involving three new zealand forest bird species. analyses of the complete data sets (22-73 surveys conducted over 4-14 years) indicated that significant post-release effects occurred in at least one sex in five of the six populations, with 30-84% mortality attributable to post-release effects over acclimation periods ranging from 1 to 9 months. when we applied the approach to just the first year of data for each population, the estimated normal survival rates were consistent with those obtained from the complete data sets, and always at least as accurate as our previous approach of excluding data up to the next breeding season after translocation. the flexible approach therefore appears to be effective for accounting for post-release effects in survival estimation, and is beneficial in quantifying both the strength and duration of those effects so that pre- and post-release management strategies are better informed." an assessment of the efficacy of rub stations for detection and abundance surveys of canada lynx (lynx canadensis),canada lynx; detection probability; lynx canadensis; survey method; rub stations; hair snags; mark-recapture; british columbia,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,CROWLEY SM;HODDER DP,"barbed and scented rub pads that rely on a cheek-rubbing behavioural response are a standard survey design that has been used extensively across the range of canada lynx (lynx canadensis kerr, 1792). however, there have not been any published studies evaluating the effectiveness of rub stations for detecting lynx by comparing other simultaneous survey methods. we used a combination of paired rub stations and remote cameras at 41 sites to compare detection probabilities between the two methods and conduct a mark-recapture population estimate of canada lynx using rub stations to further interpret our findings. the detection probability calculated using cameras approached 1.0 for most of the winter season (mean = 0.88), whereas it remained less than 0.52 for hair rub stations (mean = 0.27). the low and variable detection probability using hair snags, high detection probability using cameras, and the potential gender or individual bias in rubbing behaviour based on our mark-recapture analysis suggest that rub stations are not the most efficient survey method available for canada lynx. until additional research incorporating spatial scale, seasonal timing, gender bias, and survey design is conducted, we urge caution in the use of hair stations that rely on the cheek-rubbing behaviour of canada lynx." using the robust design framework and relative abundance to predict the population size of pallid sturgeon scaphirhynchus albus in the lower missouri river,cpue; endangered species; population estimate; population viability; survival estimate,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,STEFFENSEN KD;POWELL LA;PEGG MA,"several population viability models were constructed to aid recovery in endangered scaphirhynchus albus, but these models are dependent upon accurate and precise input parameters that are not provided with standard catch per unit effort (cpue) indices. nine years of sampling efforts, under the robust design framework, provided 1223 unique captures with an 183% recapture rate. the annual population estimates varied from 40-73fishrkm(-1) for wild and 84-184fishrkm(-1) for hatchery-reared s. albus. the relationship between abundance (n) and annual trot-line cpue indices (x=70.726y+2533, r-2=091, p<0001) was used to predict an abundance of 13616 +/- 7142s.e.s. albus in the lower missouri river. the use of small-scale intensive sampling to develop a relationship with relative abundance indices reported here, may provide a framework for other fisheries management applications where large-scale intensive sampling is not feasible, but catch data are available." @@ -838,9 +839,9 @@ the robustness of brownie tag return models to complex spatiotemporal dynamics e from gestation to weaning: combining robust design and multi-event models unveils cost of lactation in a large herbivore,cmr; individual heterogeneity; juvenile survival; pyrenean chamois rupicapra pyrenaica pyrenaica; reproductive success; trade-offs; ungulates,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,RICHARD Q;TOIGO C;APPOLINAIRE J;LOISON A;GAREL M,"the cost of current reproduction on survival or future reproduction is one of the most studied trade-offs governing resource distribution between fitness components. results have often been clouded, however, by the existence of individual heterogeneity, with high-quality individuals able to allocate energy to several functions simultaneously, at no apparent cost. surprisingly, it has also rarely been assessed within a breeding season by breaking down the various reproductive efforts of females from gestation to weaning, even though resource availability and energy requirements vary greatly. we filled this gap by using an intensively monitored population of pyrenean chamois and by expanding a new methodological approach integrating robust design in a multi-event framework. we distinguished females that gave birth or not, and among reproducing females whether they lost their kid or successfully raised it until weaning. we estimated spring and summer juvenile survival, investigated whether gestation, lactation or weaning incurred costs on the next reproductive occasion, and assessed how individual heterogeneity influenced the detection of such costs. contrary to expectations if trade-offs occur, we found a positive relationship between gestation and adult survival suggesting that non-breeding females are in poor condition. costs of reproduction were expressed through negative relationships between lactation and both subsequent breeding probability and spring juvenile survival. such costs could be detected only once individual heterogeneity (assessed as two groups contrasting good vs. poor breeders) and time variations in juvenile survival were accounted for. early lactation decreased the probability of future reproduction, providing quantitative evidence of the fitness cost of this period recognized as the most energetically demanding in female mammals and critical for neonatal survival. the new approach employed made it possible to estimate two components of kid survival that are often considered practically unavailable in free-ranging populations, and also revealed that reproductive costs appeared only when contrasting the different stages of reproductive effort. from an evolutionary perspective, our findings stressed the importance of the temporal resolution at which reproductive cost is studied, and also provided insights on the reproductive period during which internal and external factors would be expected to have the greatest fitness impact." plausible link between circa'bi'dian activity rhythms and circadian clock systems in the large black chafer holotrichia parallela,two-day rhythm; pheromone trap; phase-response curve; beetle; mark-recapture,JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY,KAWASAKI Y;NISHIMURA H;SHIGA S,"two-day rhythms, referred to as circa'bi'dian rhythms, have been reported in humans and mosquitos. however, these rhythms only appear under constant conditions, and the functional mechanisms of 2-day rhythms were unknown. here, we report clear circabidian rhythms of large black chafers (holotrichia parallela, coleoptera: scarabaeidae) in both the laboratory and field. under 12 h:12 h light: dark (l:d) conditions at 25 degrees c, h. parallela appeared on the ground at the beginning of the dark phase every 2 days. under constant darkness, h. parallela exhibited free-running with a period of 47.9 +/- 0.3 h, suggesting the existence of a clear circabidian rhythm entrained to two 12 h:12 h l:d cycles. phase responses of the circabidian rhythm to light pulses occurred under constant darkness in a phase-dependent manner. phase responses suggest that there are two circadian cycles, each consisting of a less-responsive and more-responsive period, in a circabidian oscillation, and the circabidian rhythm is driven by the circadian clock. a markrecapture study showed that beetles repeatedly appeared on the same tree approximately every 2 days. however, the periodicity was not as rigid as that observed under laboratory conditions in that individuals often switched appearance days. for instance, a large precipitation made the 2-day rhythm shift phase by half a cycle of the rhythm at a time. we propose a novel function of the circadian clock characterized by the release of an output signal every two cycles to produce the 2-day rhythm." low downstream dispersal of young-of-year common carp from marshes into lakes in the upper mississippi river region and its implications for integrated pest management strategies,invasive fish; biological invasions; cyprinus carpio; outmigration; management; minnesota,MANAGEMENT OF BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS,LECHELT JD;KOCIAN MJ;BAJER PG,"in lakes of the upper mississippi river basin (umrb), invasive common carp (cyprinus carpio) employ a reproductive strategy in which adults migrate out of lakes to spawn in seasonally unstable marshes that have few egg and larval predators. the rates with which the juveniles outmigrate from marshes into adjacent lakes have critical management implications but have not been quantified using direct approaches. we used passive integrated transponder (pit) tags to quantify outmigration of young-of-year (yoy) carp from marshes into lakes in two systems in umrb. in both cases, marshes were located upstream of lakes and pit antennas continuously monitored the movement of carp. in the first system, which we monitored for three years, 0.2% to 5.5% of pit-tagged yoy carp outmigrated to the lake each year; highest outmigration occurred during mid-summer periods of low water level in the marsh. in the second system, which comprised much more extensive area of deeper marshes, 0.2% of yoy carp outmigrated to the lake. ageing and mark-recapture analyses confirmed that relatively few yoy carp recruited into the lake populations from the marshes each year (between 5 and 50 per hectare). our results show that yoy carp outmigration rates are low (< 6%) but can vary an order of magnitude among years. these findings are important for removal-based management strategies for carp in lakes of umrb by showing what adult removal rates are needed to compensate for juvenile recruitment from marshy nurseries." -spontaneous reporting of suspected narcolepsy after vaccination against pandemic influenza a (h1n1) in germany,germany; narcolepsy; pandemic influenza a (h1n1) vaccine; passive surveillance; pharmacoepidemiology; spontaneous reporting,PHARMACOEPIDEMIOLOGY AND DRUG SAFETY,OBERLE D;PAVEL J;KELLER-STANISLAWSKI B,"purposewe aimed at investigating whether, in germany, the number of individual case safety reports (icsr) of confirmed narcolepsy following pandemrix (r) vaccination notified to the paul-ehrlich-institut (pei, german federal institute for vaccines and biomedicines) was higher than expected when compared with the prepandemic background incidence rates. methodsicsr of narcolepsy after vaccination with pandemrix (r) notified to the pei until september 2016 were reviewed and validated according to the criteria of narcolepsy defined by the brighton collaboration (bc). cases fulfilling the criteria of bc levels of diagnostic certainty 1 to 4a with symptoms onset after vaccination with pandemrix (r) were eligible. adjustment for underreporting was performed with cases of narcolepsy recruited within the scope of the german narcolepsy study using capture-recapture methods. an observed versus expected (ove) analysis was conducted based on adjusted case numbers using risk windows for symptoms onset within 4 and 6months following vaccination. resultsby the end of september 2016, a total of 85 icsr of narcolepsy after vaccination with pandemrix (r) had been notified to the pei 52 of which were eligible. the ove estimates for the 4 and 6months risk windows were 3.8 (95% ci: 2.6-5.4) and 2.8 (95% ci: 2.0-3.9), respectively. the number of excess cases was higher in children and adolescents (15-fold and 11.7-fold increased ove estimate) than in adults (2.1-fold and 1.5-fold increased estimate). conclusionscompared with the prepandemic background incidence rate, the number of incident narcolepsy cases was 3.8-fold and 2.8-fold as high." +spontaneous reporting of suspected narcolepsy after vaccination against pandemic influenza a (h1n1) in germany,germany; narcolepsy; pandemic influenza a (h1n1) vaccine; passive surveillance; pharmacoepidemiology; spontaneous reporting,PHARMACOEPIDEMIOLOGY AND DRUG SAFETY,OBERLE D;PAVEL J;KELLER STANISLAWSKI B,"purposewe aimed at investigating whether, in germany, the number of individual case safety reports (icsr) of confirmed narcolepsy following pandemrix (r) vaccination notified to the paul-ehrlich-institut (pei, german federal institute for vaccines and biomedicines) was higher than expected when compared with the prepandemic background incidence rates. methodsicsr of narcolepsy after vaccination with pandemrix (r) notified to the pei until september 2016 were reviewed and validated according to the criteria of narcolepsy defined by the brighton collaboration (bc). cases fulfilling the criteria of bc levels of diagnostic certainty 1 to 4a with symptoms onset after vaccination with pandemrix (r) were eligible. adjustment for underreporting was performed with cases of narcolepsy recruited within the scope of the german narcolepsy study using capture-recapture methods. an observed versus expected (ove) analysis was conducted based on adjusted case numbers using risk windows for symptoms onset within 4 and 6months following vaccination. resultsby the end of september 2016, a total of 85 icsr of narcolepsy after vaccination with pandemrix (r) had been notified to the pei 52 of which were eligible. the ove estimates for the 4 and 6months risk windows were 3.8 (95% ci: 2.6-5.4) and 2.8 (95% ci: 2.0-3.9), respectively. the number of excess cases was higher in children and adolescents (15-fold and 11.7-fold increased ove estimate) than in adults (2.1-fold and 1.5-fold increased estimate). conclusionscompared with the prepandemic background incidence rate, the number of incident narcolepsy cases was 3.8-fold and 2.8-fold as high." evidence for habitat residency and isotopic niche partitioning in a marine-estuarine-dependent species associated with mangrove habitats from the east coast of south africa,fish nursery; sia; siber; trophic niche; visible implant elastomer,ESTUARIES AND COASTS,MULLER C;STRYDOM NA,"estuaries are valuable fish nurseries due, primarily, to an abundance of food and the provision of shelter in a spatially heterogeneous area. habitats within estuaries, however, vary in their specific supply of these two factors with more structurally complex habitats tending to offer more of both food and refuge. in this study, we investigated the site residency of an abundant estuarine-dependent sparid, rhabdosargus holubi, from two nearby but dissimilar mangrove habitats using two approaches: mark-recapture and stable isotope analysis. results showed that rates of residency for both short-(in the order of days) and long-term (weeks) were high. stable isotope ratios (carbon and nitrogen) were also used to compare the isotopic niche of two size groups between the two mangrove habitats. both small and larger juveniles from a more complex creek associated with red mangroves and seagrass had a significantly broader isotopic niche width when compared with the groups from the more homogenous white mangrove habitat. r. holubi appear to establish strong residency at sites soon after recruitment which may persist until their departure from the estuary despite apparent differences in habitat quality." -testing predictions of movement behaviour in a hilltopping moth,aggregation; erebidae; lek; mate selection; spatially structured populations,ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR,GROF-TISZA P;STEEL Z;COLE EM;HOLYOAK M;KARBAN R,"'hilltopping' is a common mate-locating behaviour exhibited by numerous insect taxa; individuals aggregate on summits, ridges and other topographic features, and thereby increase their likelihood of mating. recently, hilltopping has gained interest as a model system to study nonrandom dispersal. we tested four predictions from the hilltopping literature regarding individual movement behaviour and the resulting spatial distribution of summit aggregations. through observations and capture-mark -recapture studies using the day-flying tiger moth, arctia (formerly platyprepia) virginalis, we found evidence for all predictions. the highest densities of moths were associated with a few, high-elevation summits and were recaptured over multiple days. no individuals were found to move between summit aggregations and mated females had shorter residency times than males. we discuss our results in the context of the predictions, the behaviour of other hilltopping species, implications for population structure and spatial population dynamics. (c) 2017 the association for the study of animal behaviour. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +testing predictions of movement behaviour in a hilltopping moth,aggregation; erebidae; lek; mate selection; spatially structured populations,ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR,GROF TISZA P;STEEL Z;COLE EM;HOLYOAK M;KARBAN R,"'hilltopping' is a common mate-locating behaviour exhibited by numerous insect taxa; individuals aggregate on summits, ridges and other topographic features, and thereby increase their likelihood of mating. recently, hilltopping has gained interest as a model system to study nonrandom dispersal. we tested four predictions from the hilltopping literature regarding individual movement behaviour and the resulting spatial distribution of summit aggregations. through observations and capture-mark -recapture studies using the day-flying tiger moth, arctia (formerly platyprepia) virginalis, we found evidence for all predictions. the highest densities of moths were associated with a few, high-elevation summits and were recaptured over multiple days. no individuals were found to move between summit aggregations and mated females had shorter residency times than males. we discuss our results in the context of the predictions, the behaviour of other hilltopping species, implications for population structure and spatial population dynamics. (c) 2017 the association for the study of animal behaviour. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." applying citizen-science data and mark-recapture models to estimate numbers of migrant golden eagles in an important bird area in eastern north america,aquila chrysaetos; citizen-science data; golden eagle; kittatinny ridge; mark-recapture; raptor migration; pennsylvania; population estimation,CONDOR,DENNHARDT AJ;DUERR AE;BRANDES D;KATZNER TE,"estimates of population abundance are important to wildlife management and conservation. however, it can be difficult to characterize the numbers of broadly distributed, low-density, and elusive bird species. although golden eagles (aquila chrysaetos) are rare, difficult to detect, and broadly distributed, they are concentrated during their autumn migration at monitoring sites in eastern north america. we used hawk-count data collected by citizen scientists in a virtual mark-recapture modeling analysis to estimate the numbers of golden eagles that migrate in autumn along kittatinny ridge, an important bird area in pennsylvania, usa. in order to evaluate the sensitivity of our abundance estimates to variation in eagle capture histories, we applied candidate models to 8 different sets of capture histories, constructed with or without age-class information and using known mean flight speeds +/- 1, 2, 4, or 6 se for eagles to travel between hawk-count sites. although some abundance estimates were produced by models that poorly fitted the data ((c) over cap > 3.0), 2 sets of population estimates were produced by acceptably performing models ((c) over cap <= 3.0). application of these models to count data from november, 2002-2011, suggested a mean population abundance of 1,354 +/- 117 se (range: 873-1,938). we found that golden eagles left the ridgeline at different rates and in different places along the route, and that typically < 50% of individuals were detected at the hawk-count sites. our study demonstrates a useful technique for estimating population abundance that may be applicable to other migrant species that are repeatedly detected at multiple monitoring sites along a topographic diversion or leading line." response of lizards to high-severity wildfires in a southern united states mixed pine/hardwood forest,NA,COPEIA,DUARTE A;BROWN DJ;FORSTNER MRJ,"high-severity forest fires are increasing in large areas of the southern and western united states as the climate becomes warmer and drier. natural resource managers need a better understanding of the short-and long-term effects of wildfires on lizard populations, but there is a paucity of studies focused on lizard-wildfire relationships. we used a before-after, control-impact (baci) sample design to assess the response of three lizard species-six-lined racerunner (aspidoscelis sexlineata), prairie lizard (sceloporus consobrinus), and little brown skink (scincella lateralis)-to high-severity wildfires that occurred in the lost pines ecoregion, texas, usa. specifically, we analyzed monitoring data collected across 17 trapping sessions from spring 2008 to spring 2013 using stratified n-mixture models to estimate trends in lizard abundances, while accounting for environmental parameters that might influence lizard detectability. we found no evidence of a fire-induced change in abundance for any of the lizard species we studied, but there was an increase in detectability of a. sexlineata following the wildfires. detectability of a. sexlineata and s. lateralis increased with air temperature, detectability of s. consobrinus decreased with precipitation, and detectability was related to julian day for all three species. mean detection probabilities were low (<0.1), suggesting capture-mark-recapture methods at a subset of sample units should be implemented to derive more accurate estimates in future monitoring efforts. our results provide quantitative evidence of the short-term effects of high-severity wildfires on three widely distributed lizard species. given the wildfires did not result in decreased lizard abundances, managers should minimize their vehicle footprints off of roads during post-wildfire habitat restoration to avoid soil compaction and the potential for direct mortality." state-space mark-recapture estimates reveal a recent decline in abundance of north atlantic right whales,bayesian mark-recapture; eubalaena glacialis; open population abundance; recovery; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,PACE RM;CORKERON PJ;KRAUS SD,"north atlantic right whales (eubalaena glacialis muller 1776) present an interesting problem for abundance and trend estimation in marine wildlife conservation. they are long lived, individually identifiable, highly mobile, and one of the rarest of cetaceans. individuals are annually resighted at different rates, primarily due to varying stay durations among several principal habitats within a large geographic range. to date, characterizations of abundance have been produced that use simple accounting procedures with differing assumptions about mortality. to better characterize changing abundance of north atlantic right whales between 1990 and 2015, we adapted a state-space formulation with jolly-seber assumptions about population entry (birth and immigration) to individual resighting histories and fit it using empirical bayes methodology. this hierarchical model included accommodation for the effect of the substantial individual capture heterogeneity. estimates from this approach were only slightly higher than published accounting procedures, except for the most recent years (when recapture rates had declined substantially). north atlantic right whales' abundance increased at about 2.8% per annum from median point estimates of 270 individuals in 1990 to 483 in 2010, and then declined to 2015, when the final estimate was 458 individuals (95% credible intervals 444-471). the probability that the population's trajectory post-2010 was a decline was estimated at 99.99%. of special concern was the finding that reduced survival rates of adult females relative to adult males have produced diverging abundance trends between sexes. despite constraints in recent years, both biological (whales' distribution changing) and logistical (fewer resources available to collect individual photo-identifications), it is still possible to detect this relatively recent, small change in the population's trajectory. this is thanks to the massive dataset of individual north atlantic right whale identifications accrued over the past three decades. photo-identification data provide biological information that allows more informed inference on the status of this species." @@ -848,11 +849,11 @@ life history tactics shape amphibians' demographic responses to the north atlant identifying demographic and environmental drivers of recruitment and population growth in a cavity-nesting sea duck population,NA,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,LAWSON AJ;SEDINGER JS;TAYLOR EJ,"traits with the greatest proportional effects on fitness are typically conserved, and traits with larger temporal variation frequently play a dominant role in population dynamics. we examined recruitment patterns and population growth in common goldeneyes bucephala clangula (hereafter goldeneye), using pradel mark-recapture models from a long-term nest box study (1997-2010). our objectives were to estimate recruitment (f ) and population growth () relative to recruitment origin group (in-situ or unknown), investigate environmental and density dependent effects on these parameters, and evaluate potential immigration patterns. we detected group-specific differences for f (in-situ: 0.47 +/- 0.13 se, unknown: 0.31 +/- 0.04), and the proportion of boxes occupied by goldeneyes the year prior to recruitment had a significant negative effect on recruitment for the in-situ group ( = -1.04; 85% ci -1.29, -0.78), and a positive effect for the unknown group ( = 0.45; 85% ci 0.30, 0.61). the negative box occupancy effect in the year prior to recruitment, when in-situ yearling goldeneyes prospect for potential nest sites, suggests that local nesting densities may limit recruitment of locally hatched females. we identified two competitive models for , which averaged 1.04 +/- 0.03 and included interactions between recruitment origin group and a linear temporal trend, and the proportion of ducklings marked two years prior. by evaluating all levels of marking effort on , we determined that even if all hatched ducklings were marked in a given year, the resulting in-situ was consistently lower than all observed population-level s during the study, indicating that individuals produced outside of study area nest boxes contributed to . though female goldeneyes are considered highly philopatric, our results suggest that female natal and breeding dispersal may be more prevalent than previously thought, and the spatial scale at which these processes occur requires further investigation." differentiation of movement behaviour in an adaptively diverging salamander population,capture-mark-recapture; ecological speciation; microsatellite loci analysis; multistate mark-recapture model; passive implantable transponder tags; phenotypic plasticity; radio-tracking,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,HENDRIX R;SCHMIDT BR;SCHAUB M;KRAUSE ET;STEINFARTZ S,"dispersal is considered to be a species-specific trait, but intraspecific variation can be high. however, when and how this complex trait starts to differentiate during the divergence of species/lineages is unknown. here, we studied the differentiation of movement behaviour in a large salamander population (salamandra salamandra), in which individual adaptations to different habitat conditions drive the genetic divergence of this population into two subpopulations. in this system, salamanders have adapted to the deposition and development of their larvae in ephemeral ponds vs. small first-order streams. in general, the pond habitat is characterized as a spatially and temporally highly unpredictable habitat, while streams provide more stable and predictable conditions for the development of larvae. we analysed the fine-scale genetic distribution of larvae, and explored whether the adaptation to different larval habitat conditions has in turn also affected dispersal strategies and home range size of adult salamanders. based on the genetic assignment of adult individuals to their respective larval habitat type, we show that pond-adapted salamanders occupied larger home ranges, displayed long-distance dispersal and had a higher variability of movement types than the stream-adapted individuals. we argue that the differentiation of phenotypically plastic traits such as dispersal and movement characteristics can be a crucial component in the course of adaptation to new habitat conditions, thereby promoting the genetic divergence of populations." sex- and cohort-specific life-history strategies in mongolian gerbils (meriones unguiculatus),meriones unguiculatus; capture-mark-recapture method; sexual selection; monogamy strategies; precipitation constraints; adaptive switching,JOURNAL OF ARID ENVIRONMENTS,LIU W;ZHONG WQ;WAN XR,"information on life-history traits is crucial for understanding rodent evolution, ecology, and behavioral strategies. here, we report on the results from a 4-year study that collected data on the sexual and seasonal cohort (winter c-1, spring c-2, and summer c-3) life-history traits of mongolian gerbils (meriones unguiculatus) maintained in a natural enclosure, using monthly live trapping, in inner mongolia (china). we found no sexual differences in the observed longevity, age of maturity, potential reproductive life span, or dispersal in the year of their birth, apart from a male-biased dispersal after gerbils overwintered as adults. nevertheless, we did find cohort-specific life-history patterns in the above traits; for example, the c-1 females matured at a significantly earlier age than did the c-2 and c-3 females, while the c-3 gerbils commonly delayed their reproduction to the following year. moreover, 21.7% of c-1 and 6.1% of c-2 females bred more than one litter, yet none of the c-3 females did so during their birth-year breeding season. the average number of litters per female of c-1 was greater than that of either c-2 or c-3 in their birth-year breeding season. our results suggest that sex-specific life history traits may align with the predictions of sexual selection and the monogamy system hypothesis in mongolian gerbils. in addition, the seasonal cohort-specific life-history traits revealed here lend support to the hypothesis of an adaptive switching behavior from fast to slow development in the later-born gerbils as opposed to the hypothesis of direct environmental limitation, although the slight inter-annual variation detected is consistent with the precipitation constraints. (c) 2017 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -the status of rhinoceroses in south african national parks,NA,KOEDOE,FERREIRA SM;BISSETT C;COWELL CR;GAYLARD A;GREAVER C;HAYES J;HOFMEYR M;MOOLMAN-VAN DER VYVER L;ZIMMERMANN D,"african rhinoceroses (rhinos) experienced a poaching onslaught since 2008 with the epicentre in south africa where most of the world's rhinos occur. south african national parks, under the management of south african national parks (sanparks), are custodian to 49% of south africa's white and 31% of the country's black rhinos. we collated information on rhino population sizes in seven national parks from 2011 to 2015. we include and report on rhino surveys in kruger national park during 2014 and 2015. southwestern black rhinos increased over the study period, which allows sanparks to achieve its contribution to south africa's 2020 target of 260 individuals. south-central black rhinos declined over the study period because of poaching in the kruger national park, making it difficult for sanparks to realise a 9% increase per annum for its expected contribution to the south african target of 2800 individuals. for southern white rhinos, sanparks requires 5% annual growth for its contribution to the south african target of 20 400 individuals. to continue to evaluate the achievement of these targets, sanparks needs annual population estimates relying on total counts, mark-recapture techniques and block-based sample counts to track trends in rhino populations. sanparks' primary challenge in achieving its contribution to south africa's rhino conservation targets is associated with curbing poaching in kruger national park. conservation implications: the status and trends of rhino species in sanparks highlight key challenges associated with achieving the national targets of south africa. conservation managers will need to improve the protection of southern white rhino, while the department of environmental affairs need to be made aware of the challenges specifically associated with not achieving targets for south-central black rhino. outcomes for south-western black rhino have already realised and the good conservation efforts should continue." -genetic rescue increases fitness and aids rapid recovery of an endangered marsupial population,NA,"NATURE COMMUNICATIONS",WEEKS AR;HEINZE D;PERRIN L;STOKLOSA J;HOFFMANN AA;VAN ROOYEN A;KELLY T;MANSERGH I,"genetic rescue has now been attempted in several threatened species, but the contribution of genetics per se to any increase in population health can be hard to identify. rescue is expected to be particularly useful when individuals are introduced into small isolated populations with low levels of genetic variation. here we consider such a situation by documenting genetic rescue in the mountain pygmy possum, burramys parvus. rapid population recovery occurred in the target population after the introduction of a small number of males from a large genetically diverged population. initial hybrid fitness was more than two-fold higher than non-hybrids; hybrid animals had a larger body size, and female hybrids produced more pouch young and lived longer. genetic rescue likely contributed to the largest population size ever being recorded at this site. these data point to genetic rescue as being a potentially useful option for the recovery of small threatened populations." +the status of rhinoceroses in south african national parks,NA,KOEDOE,FERREIRA SM;BISSETT C;COWELL CR;GAYLARD A;GREAVER C;HAYES J;HOFMEYR M;MOOLMAN VAN DER VYVER L;ZIMMERMANN D,"african rhinoceroses (rhinos) experienced a poaching onslaught since 2008 with the epicentre in south africa where most of the world's rhinos occur. south african national parks, under the management of south african national parks (sanparks), are custodian to 49% of south africa's white and 31% of the country's black rhinos. we collated information on rhino population sizes in seven national parks from 2011 to 2015. we include and report on rhino surveys in kruger national park during 2014 and 2015. southwestern black rhinos increased over the study period, which allows sanparks to achieve its contribution to south africa's 2020 target of 260 individuals. south-central black rhinos declined over the study period because of poaching in the kruger national park, making it difficult for sanparks to realise a 9% increase per annum for its expected contribution to the south african target of 2800 individuals. for southern white rhinos, sanparks requires 5% annual growth for its contribution to the south african target of 20 400 individuals. to continue to evaluate the achievement of these targets, sanparks needs annual population estimates relying on total counts, mark-recapture techniques and block-based sample counts to track trends in rhino populations. sanparks' primary challenge in achieving its contribution to south africa's rhino conservation targets is associated with curbing poaching in kruger national park. conservation implications: the status and trends of rhino species in sanparks highlight key challenges associated with achieving the national targets of south africa. conservation managers will need to improve the protection of southern white rhino, while the department of environmental affairs need to be made aware of the challenges specifically associated with not achieving targets for south-central black rhino. outcomes for south-western black rhino have already realised and the good conservation efforts should continue." +genetic rescue increases fitness and aids rapid recovery of an endangered marsupial population,NA,NATURE COMMUNICATIONS,WEEKS AR;HEINZE D;PERRIN L;STOKLOSA J;HOFFMANN AA;VAN ROOYEN A;KELLY T;MANSERGH I,"genetic rescue has now been attempted in several threatened species, but the contribution of genetics per se to any increase in population health can be hard to identify. rescue is expected to be particularly useful when individuals are introduced into small isolated populations with low levels of genetic variation. here we consider such a situation by documenting genetic rescue in the mountain pygmy possum, burramys parvus. rapid population recovery occurred in the target population after the introduction of a small number of males from a large genetically diverged population. initial hybrid fitness was more than two-fold higher than non-hybrids; hybrid animals had a larger body size, and female hybrids produced more pouch young and lived longer. genetic rescue likely contributed to the largest population size ever being recorded at this site. these data point to genetic rescue as being a potentially useful option for the recovery of small threatened populations." "density, abundance, survival, and ranging patterns of common bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in mississippi sound following the deepwater horizon oil spill",NA,PLOS ONE,MULLIN KD;MCDONALD T;WELLS RS;BALMER BC;SPEAKMAN T;SINCLAIR C;ZOLMAN ES;HORNSBY F;MCBRIDE SM;WILKINSON KA;SCHWACKE LH,"after the deepwater horizon (dwh) oil spill began in april 2010, studies were initiated on northern gulf of mexico common bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in mississippi sound (mss) to determine density, abundance, and survival, during and after the oil spill, and to compare these results to previous research in this region. seasonal boat-based photo-identification surveys (2010-2012) were conducted in a section of mss to estimate dolphin density and survival, and satellite-linked telemetry (2013) was used to determine ranging patterns. telemetry suggested two different ranging patterns in mss: (1) inshore waters with seasonal movements into mid-mss, and (2) around the barrier islands exclusively. based upon these data, dolphin density was estimated in two strata (inshore and island) using a spatially-explicit robust-design capture-recapture model. inshore and island density varied between 0.77-1.61 dolphins km(-2) ((x) over bar = 1.42, 95% ci: 1.28-1.53) and 3.32-5.74 dolphins km(-2) ((x) over bar = 4.43, 95% ci: 2.70-5.63), respectively. the estimated annual survival rate for dolphins with distinctive fins was very low in the year following the spill, 0.73 (95% ci: 0.67-0.78), and consistent with the occurrence of a large scale cetacean unusual mortality event that was in part attributed to the dwh oil spill. fluctuations in density were not as large or seasonally consistent as previously reported. total abundance for mss extrapolated from density results ranged from 4,610 in july 2011 to 3,046 in january 2012 ((x) over bar = 3,469, 95% ci: 3,113-3,725)." -fragile coexistence of a global chytrid pathogen with amphibian populations is mediated by environment and demography,chytridiomycosis; demographic compensation; endemism; europe; prevalence,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,SPITZEN-VAN DER SLUIJS A;CANESSA S;MARTEL A;PASMANS F,"unravelling the multiple interacting drivers of host-pathogen coexistence is crucial in understanding how an apparently stable state of endemism may shift towards an epidemic and lead to biodiversity loss. here, we investigate the apparent coexistence of the global amphibian pathogen batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (bd) with bombina variegata populations in the netherlands over a 7-year period. we used a multi-season mark-recapture dataset and assessed potential drivers of coexistence (individual condition, environmental mediation and demographic compensation) at the individual and population levels. we show that even in a situation with a clear cost incurred by endemic bd, population sizes remain largely stable. current environmental conditions and an over-dispersed pathogen load probably stabilize disease dynamics, but as higher temperatures increase infection probability, changing environmental conditions, for example a climate-change-driven rise in temperature, could unbalance the current fragile host-pathogen equilibrium. understanding the proximate mechanisms of such environmental mediation and of site-specific differences in infection dynamics can provide vital information for mitigation actions." -"apparent survival and cost of reproduction for white-lined tanager (tachyphonus rufus, thraupidae) in the northern atlantic rainforest, brazil",NA,PLOS ONE,MACARIO P;PICHORIM M;DOHERTY PF;TOLEDO-LIMA GS;OLIVEIRA TM;CAMARA TPF;MELO SM;SILVEIRA JLS;ARAUJO JC;FRANCA LF,"understanding latitudinal variation in avian life-history traits has been a focus of many demographic studies around the world. however, we still know little about annual or intra-annual demographic variation within tropical regions or about how factors such as breeding season and precipitation influence demographic rates. in this study, we estimated intra-annual apparent survival of the white-lined tanager (tachyphonus rufus) using capture-markrecapture data from northeastern brazil. we tested whether survival varied seasonally (breeding vs. non-breeding), with rainfall, by age and residence status in our study area. intra-annual apparent survival was correlated with the reproductive cycle, being lower during the breeding (0.65 +/- 0.16 se) vs. the non-breeding season (0.97 +/- 0.05 se). the annual apparent survival (similar to 0.6) was relatively low for a tropical species. in both years, we observed highest abundance in spring (november, 3.1-3.7 birds/ha) and lowest abundance in autumn-winter periods (may-august, 1.1-1.4 bird/ha). the low survival during the breeding season probably reflects the trade-off between survival and reproduction and the cost of reproduction. our findings represent an advance in the understanding of the demography of tropical birds because we did not find a predicted high annual apparent survival, and we elucidated some aspects of intra-annual variation in survival. further exploration of latitudinal variation in demographic traits, especially in diverse, but poorly known habitats is needed to fully vet and develop life history theories." +fragile coexistence of a global chytrid pathogen with amphibian populations is mediated by environment and demography,chytridiomycosis; demographic compensation; endemism; europe; prevalence,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,SPITZEN VAN DER SLUIJS A;CANESSA S;MARTEL A;PASMANS F,"unravelling the multiple interacting drivers of host-pathogen coexistence is crucial in understanding how an apparently stable state of endemism may shift towards an epidemic and lead to biodiversity loss. here, we investigate the apparent coexistence of the global amphibian pathogen batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (bd) with bombina variegata populations in the netherlands over a 7-year period. we used a multi-season mark-recapture dataset and assessed potential drivers of coexistence (individual condition, environmental mediation and demographic compensation) at the individual and population levels. we show that even in a situation with a clear cost incurred by endemic bd, population sizes remain largely stable. current environmental conditions and an over-dispersed pathogen load probably stabilize disease dynamics, but as higher temperatures increase infection probability, changing environmental conditions, for example a climate-change-driven rise in temperature, could unbalance the current fragile host-pathogen equilibrium. understanding the proximate mechanisms of such environmental mediation and of site-specific differences in infection dynamics can provide vital information for mitigation actions." +"apparent survival and cost of reproduction for white-lined tanager (tachyphonus rufus, thraupidae) in the northern atlantic rainforest, brazil",NA,PLOS ONE,MACARIO P;PICHORIM M;DOHERTY PF;TOLEDO LIMA GS;OLIVEIRA TM;CAMARA TPF;MELO SM;SILVEIRA JLS;ARAUJO JC;FRANCA LF,"understanding latitudinal variation in avian life-history traits has been a focus of many demographic studies around the world. however, we still know little about annual or intra-annual demographic variation within tropical regions or about how factors such as breeding season and precipitation influence demographic rates. in this study, we estimated intra-annual apparent survival of the white-lined tanager (tachyphonus rufus) using capture-markrecapture data from northeastern brazil. we tested whether survival varied seasonally (breeding vs. non-breeding), with rainfall, by age and residence status in our study area. intra-annual apparent survival was correlated with the reproductive cycle, being lower during the breeding (0.65 +/- 0.16 se) vs. the non-breeding season (0.97 +/- 0.05 se). the annual apparent survival (similar to 0.6) was relatively low for a tropical species. in both years, we observed highest abundance in spring (november, 3.1-3.7 birds/ha) and lowest abundance in autumn-winter periods (may-august, 1.1-1.4 bird/ha). the low survival during the breeding season probably reflects the trade-off between survival and reproduction and the cost of reproduction. our findings represent an advance in the understanding of the demography of tropical birds because we did not find a predicted high annual apparent survival, and we elucidated some aspects of intra-annual variation in survival. further exploration of latitudinal variation in demographic traits, especially in diverse, but poorly known habitats is needed to fully vet and develop life history theories." transient state estimation using continuous-time processes applied to opportunistic capture-recapture data,breeding; continuous modeling; markov model; opportunistic data; survival,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,CHOQUET R;GARNIER A;AWUVE E;BESNARD A,"typically, analyze of capture-recapture data rely on standard protocols of individual detection. encounters and reencounters of marked individuals are made during short sessions separated by constant time intervals. very often, it can be reasonably assumed that the time between two sessions is the same for all individuals. however, in some studies, data is collected opportunistically within a season. this is often due to difficulties concerning fieldwork and/or a lack of people involved in data collection. it can also be intentionally chosen, for example, if collecting data within a season provides additional information on the status of the individual (e.g. whether it is a breeder or a non-breeder). when using capture-recapture data, opportunistic data has typically been analyzed by using discretize time intervals, to avoid taking into account the continuous-time processes of state and capture. in this study, we modeled the transition between a transient state (non-breeder) to one absorbing state (breeder) in a continuous process over time. a poisson point process was used to model the capture data, allowing us to directly model the opportunistic data set. the main advantage of this new approach is that it allows a full use of opportunistic data - i.e. all available information can be used. as an illustrative working example, we applied the approach to investigate alpine ibex (capra ibex) reproduction over one year. we jointly estimated the following parameters: the breeding rate in the summer and the survival rate of the young from birth to the following spring. our findings suggest that this modeling approach has the potential to open new perspectives in population ecology. (c) 2017 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." density-dependent signaling: an alternative hypothesis on the function of chemical signaling in a non-territorial solitary carnivore,NA,PLOS ONE,LAMB CT;MOWAT G;GILBERT SL;MCLELLAN BN;NIELSEN SE;BOUTIN S,"brown bears are known to use rubbing behavior as a means of chemical communication, but the function of this signaling is unclear. one hypothesis that has gained support is that male bears rub to communicate dominance to other males. we tested the communication of dominance hypothesis in a low-density brown bear population in southeast british columbia. we contrasted rubbing rates for male and female bears during and after the breeding season using ten years of dna-mark-recapture data for 643 individuals. here we demonstrate that male brown bears rub 60% more during the breeding than the non-breeding season, while female rubbing had no seasonal trends. per capita rub rates by males were, on average, 2.7 times higher than females. our results suggest that the function of rubbing in the rocky mountains may not only be to communicate dominance, but also to self-advertise for mate attraction. we propose that the role of chemical communication in this species may be density-dependent, where the need to self-advertise for mating is inversely related to population density and communicating for dominance increases with population density. we suggest that future endeavors to elucidate the function of rubbing should sample the behavior across a range of population densities using camera trap and genotypic data." mismeasured mortality: correcting estimates of wolf poaching in the united states,carnivore; endangered species; illegal; lethal control; mark-recapture; regulated take,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,TREVES A;ARTELLE KA;DARIMONT CT;PARSONS DR,"measuring rates and causes of mortalities is important in animal ecology and management. observing the fates of known individuals is a common method of estimating life history variables, including mortality patterns. it has long been assumed that data lost when known animals disappear were unbiased. we test and reject this assumption under conditions common to most, if not all, studies using marked animals. we illustrate the bias for 4 endangered wolf populations in the united states by reanalyzing data and assumptions about the known and unknown fates of marked wolves to calculate the degree to which risks of different causes of death were mismeasured. we find that, when using traditional methods, the relative risk of mortality from legal killing measured as a proportion of all known fates was overestimated by 0.05-0.16 and the relative risk of poaching was underestimated by 0.17-0.44. we show that published government estimates are affected by these biases and, importantly, are underestimating the risk of poaching. the underestimates have obscured the magnitude of poaching as the major threat to endangered wolf populations. we offer methods to correct estimates of mortality risk for marked animals of any taxon and describe the conditions under which traditional methods produce more or less bias. we also show how correcting past and future estimates of mortality parameters can address uncertainty about wildlife populations and increase the predictability and sustainability of wildlife management interventions." @@ -861,39 +862,39 @@ ecological and phenotypic effects on survival and habitat transitions of white-f data integration for inference about spatial processes: a model-based approach to test and account for data inconsistency,NA,PLOS ONE,TENAN S;PEDRINI P;BRAGALANTI N;GROFF C;SUTHERLAND C,"recently-developed methods that integrate multiple data sources arising from the same ecological processes have typically utilized structured data from well-defined sampling protocols (e.g., capture-recapture and telemetry). despite this new methodological focus, the value of opportunistic data for improving inference about spatial ecological processes is unclear and, perhaps more importantly, no procedures are available to formally test whether parameter estimates are consistent across data sources and whether they are suitable for integration. using data collected on the reintroduced brown bear population in the italian alps, a population of conservation importance, we combined data from three sources: traditional spatial capture-recapture data, telemetry data, and opportunistic data. we developed a fully integrated spatial capture-recapture (scr) model that included a model-based test for data consistency to first compare model estimates using different combinations of data, and then, by acknowledging data-type differences, evaluate parameter consistency. we demonstrate that opportunistic data lend itself naturally to integration within the scr framework and highlight the value of opportunistic data for improving inference about space use and population size. this is particularly relevant in studies of rare or elusive species, where the number of spatial encounters is usually small and where additional observations are of high value. in addition, our results highlight the importance of testing and accounting for inconsistencies in spatial information from structured and unstructured data so as to avoid the risk of spurious or averaged estimates of space use and consequently, of population size. our work supports the use of a single modeling framework to combine spatially-referenced data while also accounting for parameter consistency." "age, sex, and climate factors show different effects on survival of three different bat species in a woodland bat community",bats; survival; multi-event models; capture heterogeneity,GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION,CULINA A;LINTON DM;MACDONALD DW,"1. bats are the second largest mammalian order and important providers of ecosystem services including insect pest control, pollination and seed dispersal. yet, the lack of basic information on their demographic rates hampers detecting changes in population trends, and thus conservation efforts. 2. the elusive life-styles, that leads to imperfect and biased detection, limits the quantity of individually based information as well as the extent to which information can be utilised to assess accurate and unbiased demographic rates. 3. we overcome the problem of imperfect and biased detection using a multilevel capture-mark-recapture framework to produce robust estimates of survival during hibernation period, and to evaluate the effect of age, sex, social group, and external weather factors on survival and capture heterogeneity in three vespertilionid species ( myotis daubentonii, m. nattereri, and plecotus auritus) from the same woodland community. 4. while controlling for emigration and for the species-specific roosting group structure, we show that females survive better than males in two species, and that adults survive better than juveniles in all species - these survival differences being species-specific. only one external environmental factor ( average summer temperature) explained a substantial proportion of the between-year variation in m. daubentonii survival. 5. our study provides, for the first time, a robust estimate of annual survival in bats. we advocate careful attention to possible sources of biases when studying survival rates in the wild, considering species-specific life-history and population-specific features. considering these factors that influence wider community responses to environmental conditions is important for the effective conservation management of an area. (c) 2017 the authors. published by elsevier b.v. this is an open access article under the cc by-nc-nd license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)." using non-invasively collected genetic data to estimate density and population size of tigers in the bangladesh sundarbans,bangladesh; bengal tiger; genetic sampling; population density; sundarbans,GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION,AZIZ MA;TOLLINGTON S;BARLOW A;GREENWOOD C;GOODRICH JM;SMITH O;SHAMSUDDOHA M;ISLAM MA;GROOMBRIDGE JJ,"population density is a key parameter to monitor endangered carnivores in the wild. the photographic capture-recapture method has been widely used for decades to monitor tigers, panthera tigris, however the application of this method in the sundarbans tiger landscape is challenging due to logistical difficulties. therefore, we carried out molecular analyses of dna contained in non-invasively collected genetic samples to assess the tiger population in the bangladesh sundarbans within a spatially explicit capture-recapture ( secr) framework. by surveying four representative sample areas totalling 1994 km(2) of the bangladesh sundarbans, we collected 440 suspected tiger scat and hair samples. genetic screening of these samples provided 233 authenticated tiger samples, which we attempted to amplify at 10 highly polymorphic microsatellite loci. of these, 105 samples were successfully amplified, representing 45 unique genotype profiles. the capturere-capture analyses of these unique genotypes within the secr model provided a density estimate of 2.85 +/- se 0.44 tigers/100 km(2) ( 95% ci: 1.99-3.71 tigers/100 km(2)) for the area sampled, and an estimate of 121 tigers ( 95% ci: 84-158 tigers) for the total area of the bangladesh sundarbans. we demonstrate that this non-invasive genetic surveillance can be an additional approach for monitoring tiger populations in a landscape where camera-trapping is challenging. (c) 2017 the authors. published by elsevier b.v. this is an open access article under the cc by-nc-nd license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)." -larval assemblages of large saproxylic cerambycids in iberian oak forests: wood quality and host preference shape resource partitioning,cerambyx; ecological succession; niche differentiation; oak decline; prinobius; sympatry,POPULATION ECOLOGY,TORRES-VILA LM;ZUGASTI-MARTINEZ C;MENDIOLA-DIAZ FJ;DE-JUAN-MURILLO JM;SANCHEZ-GONZALEZ A;CONEJO-RODRIGUEZ Y;PONCE-ESCUDERO F;FERNANDEZ-MORENO F,"oak open woodlands are widespread in southwestern iberia and present outstanding ecological, biodiversity and socio-economic values. evergreen species (holm and cork oaks) are prevalent but deciduous oaks may be also locally important. three large xylophagous cerambycids are associated to these oaks, cerambyx welensii (cw), c. cerdo (cc) and prinobius myardi (pm). like other saproxylic insects, these cerambycids are essential to the nutrient cycle, wood degradation and tree hollow formation, significantly contributing to biodiversity in oak forests. these cerambycids may also potentially colonise healthy living trees and become harmful or pest species. factors driving their larval ecology are almost unknown, especially in oak forests harbouring mixed populations living in sympatry. wood samples (n = 500 bolts) from 348 colonised trees were examined during 2011-2016 across the extremadura region (41,634 km(2)). bolts were measured, scored into five wood quality classes, dissected, and all target cerambycids were collected, measured, reared and taxonomically identified. we then determined species-specific prevalence, niche breadth, niche overlap, age structure and population density depending on wood quality, host preference, tree part, wood size, altitude and sun exposure. wood quality and host preference were major factors segregating interspecific resource partitioning. cw was prevalent on cork oak decayed wood, and pm on holm oak degraded wood. host tree part was involved in cerambyx larval niche segregation, with cw prevalent in the fork/branches and cc in the trunk/base. pm was never found inhabiting deciduous oaks. our results may be useful to improve sustainable forest management practices in iberian oak open woodlands." +larval assemblages of large saproxylic cerambycids in iberian oak forests: wood quality and host preference shape resource partitioning,cerambyx; ecological succession; niche differentiation; oak decline; prinobius; sympatry,POPULATION ECOLOGY,TORRES VILA LM;ZUGASTI MARTINEZ C;MENDIOLA DIAZ FJ;DE JUAN MURILLO JM;SANCHEZ GONZALEZ A;CONEJO RODRIGUEZ Y;PONCE ESCUDERO F;FERNANDEZ MORENO F,"oak open woodlands are widespread in southwestern iberia and present outstanding ecological, biodiversity and socio-economic values. evergreen species (holm and cork oaks) are prevalent but deciduous oaks may be also locally important. three large xylophagous cerambycids are associated to these oaks, cerambyx welensii (cw), c. cerdo (cc) and prinobius myardi (pm). like other saproxylic insects, these cerambycids are essential to the nutrient cycle, wood degradation and tree hollow formation, significantly contributing to biodiversity in oak forests. these cerambycids may also potentially colonise healthy living trees and become harmful or pest species. factors driving their larval ecology are almost unknown, especially in oak forests harbouring mixed populations living in sympatry. wood samples (n = 500 bolts) from 348 colonised trees were examined during 2011-2016 across the extremadura region (41,634 km(2)). bolts were measured, scored into five wood quality classes, dissected, and all target cerambycids were collected, measured, reared and taxonomically identified. we then determined species-specific prevalence, niche breadth, niche overlap, age structure and population density depending on wood quality, host preference, tree part, wood size, altitude and sun exposure. wood quality and host preference were major factors segregating interspecific resource partitioning. cw was prevalent on cork oak decayed wood, and pm on holm oak degraded wood. host tree part was involved in cerambyx larval niche segregation, with cw prevalent in the fork/branches and cc in the trunk/base. pm was never found inhabiting deciduous oaks. our results may be useful to improve sustainable forest management practices in iberian oak open woodlands." shuffle up and deal: use of a capture-recapture method to estimate the size of stolen data markets,cybercrime; carding; stolen data markets; online property crimes; capture-recapture methods; size of criminal populations,AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST,MACDONALD M;FRANK R,"often overlooked in the measurement of crime is the underlying size of offender populations. this holds true for online property crimes involving the sale, purchase, and use of stolen financial data. though available data suggests that online frauds are steadily increasing, there are currently no estimates of the scope of this offender population. the current study addresses this issue by using capture-recapture methods to estimate the size of the population participating in stolen data markets over a calendar year. data analysis involved samples collected from three websites that facilitate financial crimes and frauds. findings suggest that markets are much larger in size than what can otherwise be observed, are heterogeneous, and that buyers outnumber vendors." some applications of genetics in statistical ecology,microsatellite; population genetics; genetic assignment; invasion ecology; mark-recapture; misidentification; genotyping errors,ASTA-ADVANCES IN STATISTICAL ANALYSIS,FEWSTER RM,"genetic data are in widespread use in ecological research, and an understanding of this type of data and its uses and interpretations will soon be an imperative for ecological statisticians. here, we provide an introduction to the subject, intended for statisticians who have no previous knowledge of genetics. although there are numerous types of genetic data, we restrict attention to multilocus genotype data from microsatellite loci. we look at two application areas in wide use: investigating population structure using genetic assignment and related techniques; and using genotype data in capture-recapture studies for estimating population size and demographic parameters. in each case, we outline the conceptual framework and draw attention to both the strengths and weaknesses of existing approaches to analysis and interpretation." from distance sampling to spatial capture-recapture,distance sampling; spatial capture-recapture; hierarchical model; poisson process; survival model; binary regression,ASTA-ADVANCES IN STATISTICAL ANALYSIS,BORCHERS DL;MARQUES TA,"distance sampling and capture-recapture are the two most widely used wildlife abundance estimation methods. capture-recapture methods have only recently incorporated models for spatial distribution and there is an increasing tendency for distance sampling methods to incorporated spatial models rather than to rely on partly design-based spatial inference. in this overview we show how spatial models are central to modern distance sampling and that spatial capture-recapture models arise as an extension of distance sampling methods. depending on the type of data recorded, they can be viewed as particular kinds of hierarchical binary regression, poisson regression, survival or time-to-event models, with individuals' locations as latent variables and a spatial model as the latent variable distribution. incorporation of spatial models in these two methods provides new opportunities for drawing explicitly spatial inferences. areas of likely future development include more sophisticated spatial and spatio-temporal modelling of individuals' locations and movements, new methods for integrating spatial capture-recapture and other kinds of ecological survey data, and methods for dealing with the recapture uncertainty that often arise when ""capture"" consists of detection by a remote device like a camera trap or microphone." -controlling invasive predators enhances the long-term survival of endangered new zealand long-tailed bats (chalinolobus tuberculatus): implications for conservation of bats on oceanic islands,mammals; rats; mustelids; predator control; climate change; population models,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,O'DONNELL CFJ;PRYDE MA;VAN DAM-BATES P;ELLIOTT GP,"invasive mammalian predators pose one of the greatest threats to biodiversity globally, particularly on oceanic islands. however, little is known about the impacts of these invasive predators on bats (chiroptera), one of the most specious mammal groups, and one of the most widespread groups of mammals threatened on oceanic islands (> 200 spp.). nearly 50% of the world's threatened bats are island endemics and because they are often the only native mammals on islands, they fulfil important ecological roles such as pollination and seed dispersal. long-tailed bats (chalinolobus tuberculatus) are critically endangered because of predation by exotic mammals, particularly ship rats (rattus ratios), introduced by humans to the island archipelago of new zealand. we monitored the survival of bats in three colonies in temperate rainforest in fiordland over 22 years. since 2009, we controlled predators during irruption phases and compared survival of bats in previously untreated areas with survival in forest blocks treated using rodenticides deployed in bait stations. survival was estimated using multi-state mark-recapture models in program mark 7.0 with > 15,000 bats tagged. survival was primarily dependent on year and age of bats, although seedfall intensity of the dominant canopy tree and predator management was also influential. survival in long-tailed bats was as high as, or higher, than figures for bats generally in years with low predator numbers or predator control. survival was markedly higher in treatment years when predators were managed (0.82 compared to 0.55). population modelling indicated managed colonies will increase (lambda > 1.05) whereas unmanaged colonies will decline (lambda = 0.89 - 0.98) under scenarios that reflect increased frequency of beech mast and predator irruptions. thus, effective predator control is essential for recovering long-tailed bat populations. warming temperatures indicate that predator irruptions are becoming more frequent, which would require more predator control in the future than at present if declines in bat populations are to be reversed. these results are relevant to the conservation of threatened bats on oceanic islands, given the abundance of exotic mammalian predators, particularly ship rats, on them." +controlling invasive predators enhances the long-term survival of endangered new zealand long-tailed bats (chalinolobus tuberculatus): implications for conservation of bats on oceanic islands,mammals; rats; mustelids; predator control; climate change; population models,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,O DONNELL CFJ;PRYDE MA;VAN DAM BATES P;ELLIOTT GP,"invasive mammalian predators pose one of the greatest threats to biodiversity globally, particularly on oceanic islands. however, little is known about the impacts of these invasive predators on bats (chiroptera), one of the most specious mammal groups, and one of the most widespread groups of mammals threatened on oceanic islands (> 200 spp.). nearly 50% of the world's threatened bats are island endemics and because they are often the only native mammals on islands, they fulfil important ecological roles such as pollination and seed dispersal. long-tailed bats (chalinolobus tuberculatus) are critically endangered because of predation by exotic mammals, particularly ship rats (rattus ratios), introduced by humans to the island archipelago of new zealand. we monitored the survival of bats in three colonies in temperate rainforest in fiordland over 22 years. since 2009, we controlled predators during irruption phases and compared survival of bats in previously untreated areas with survival in forest blocks treated using rodenticides deployed in bait stations. survival was estimated using multi-state mark-recapture models in program mark 7.0 with > 15,000 bats tagged. survival was primarily dependent on year and age of bats, although seedfall intensity of the dominant canopy tree and predator management was also influential. survival in long-tailed bats was as high as, or higher, than figures for bats generally in years with low predator numbers or predator control. survival was markedly higher in treatment years when predators were managed (0.82 compared to 0.55). population modelling indicated managed colonies will increase (lambda > 1.05) whereas unmanaged colonies will decline (lambda = 0.89 - 0.98) under scenarios that reflect increased frequency of beech mast and predator irruptions. thus, effective predator control is essential for recovering long-tailed bat populations. warming temperatures indicate that predator irruptions are becoming more frequent, which would require more predator control in the future than at present if declines in bat populations are to be reversed. these results are relevant to the conservation of threatened bats on oceanic islands, given the abundance of exotic mammalian predators, particularly ship rats, on them." designing cost-effective capture-recapture surveys for improving the monitoring of survival in bird populations,"survey design; optimisation; statistical power; cost efficiency, stage-structured population",BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,LIEURY N;DEVILLARD S;BESNARD A;GIMENEZ O;HAMEAU O;PONCHON C;MILLON A,"population monitoring traditionally relies on population counts, accounting or not for the issue of detectability. however, this approach does not permit to go into details on demographic processes. therefore, capture-recapture (cr) surveys have become popular tools for scientists and practitioners willing to measure survival response to environmental change or conservation actions. however, cr surveys are expensive and their design is often driven by the available resources, without estimation about the level of precision they provide for detecting changes in survival, despite optimising resource allocation in wildlife monitoring is increasingly important. investigating how cr surveys could be optimised by manipulating resource allocation among different design components is therefore critically needed. we have conducted a simulation experiment exploring the statistical power of a wide range of cr survey designs to detect changes in the survival rate of birds. cr surveys differ in terms of number of breeding pairs monitored, number of offspring and adults marked, resighting effort and survey duration. we compared open-nest (on) and nest-box (nb) monitoring types, using medium- and long-lived model species. increasing survey duration and number of pairs monitored increased statistical power. long survey duration can provide accurate estimations for long-lived birds even for small population size (15 pairs). a cost-benefit analysis revealed that for long-lived on species, ringing as many chicks as possible appears as the most effective survey component, unless a technique for capturing breeding birds at low cost is available to compensate for reduced local recruitment. for medium-lived nb species, focusing the nb rounds at a period that maximises the chance to capture breeding females inside nest-boxes is more rewarding than ringing all chicks. we show that integrating economic costs is crucial when designing cr surveys and discuss ways to improve efficiency by reducing duration to a time scale compatible with management and conservation issues." understanding inter-reach variation in brown trout (salmo trutta) mortality rates using a hierarchical bayesian state-space model,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,BRET V;CAPRA H;GOURAUD V;LAMOUROUX N;PIFFADY J;TISSOT L;RIVOT E,"successful management and protection of wild animal populations relies on good understanding of their life cycles. because population dynamics depends on intricate interactions of biological and ecological processes at various scales, new approaches are needed that account for the variability of demographic processes and associated parameters in a hierarchy of spatial scales. a hierarchical bayesian model for the resident brown trout (salmo trutta) life cycle was built to assess the relative influence of local and general determinants of mortality. the model was fitted to an extensive data set collected in 40 river reaches, combining abundance and environmental data (hydraulics, water temperature). density-dependent mortality of juveniles increased at low water temperatures and decreased with shelter availability. high water temperature increased densitydependent mortality in adults. the model could help to predict monthly juvenile and adult mortality under scenarios of global warming and changes in shelter availability due to habitat degradation or restoration." "does prey density predict characteristics of primiparity in a solitary and specialized predator, the canada lynx (lynx canadensis)?",canada lynx; lynx canadensis; snowshoe hare; lepus americanus; life history; placental scars; reproduction,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,REYNOLDS JJ;VANDER WAL E;ADAMS BK;CURRAN RM;DOUCET CM,"age at primiparity is a flexible life-history trait that purportedly responds to changing population dynamics and variable resource abundance. we examined placental scars in yearling canada lynx (lynx canadensis (kerr, 1792)) from the island of newfoundland and used pregnancy rates and litter sizes to indicate primiparity. we modelled these lynx productivity data with snowshoe hare (lepus americanus erxleben, 1777) population attributes using seven multiple a priori competing hypotheses. hare abundance showed peak, decline, and increase phases, and densities based on capture-mark-recapture estimates ranged from 0.11 to 1.19 hares.ha(-1). overall, yearling pregnancy rate was 23.5% and the model with hare abundance fitted alone had the most support. however, surprisingly hare abundance explained little (6%) variation in yearling pregnancy rate. mean (+/- se) litter size was 3.51 +/- 0.27. none of our covariate models provided unequivocal support for predicting yearling litter size. we speculate that individuals may exhibit behavioural plasticity such that they can dampen the impact of primary prey abundance on yearling pregnancy rate by exploiting alternate prey. furthermore, intraspecific social interactions may provide additional insight into the determinants of pregnancy rate in yearling lynx." pairing field methods to improve inference in wildlife surveys while accommodating detection covariance,american marten; density; false positive detection; martes americana; monitoring; multi-method; dependence; noninvasive methods; occupancy; spatial capture-recapture methods; survey design,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,CLARE J;MCKINNEY ST;DEPUE JE;LOFTIN CS,"it is common to use multiple field sampling methods when implementing wildlife surveys to compare method efficacy or cost efficiency, integrate distinct pieces of information provided by separate methods, or evaluate method-specific biases and misclassification error. existing models that combine information from multiple field methods or sampling devices permit rigorous comparison of method-specific detection parameters, enable estimation of additional parameters such as false-positive detection probability, and improve occurrence or abundance estimates, but with the assumption that the separate sampling methods produce detections independently of one another. this assumption is tenuous if methods are paired or deployed in close proximity simultaneously, a common practice that reduces the additional effort required to implement multiple methods and reduces the risk that differences between method-specific detection parameters are confounded by other environmental factors. we develop occupancy and spatial capture-recapture models that permit covariance between the detections produced by different methods, use simulation to compare estimator performance of the new models to models assuming independence, and provide an empirical application based on american marten (martes americana) surveys using paired remote cameras, hair catches, and snow tracking. simulation results indicate existing models that assume that methods independently detect organisms produce biased parameter estimates and substantially understate estimate uncertainty when this assumption is violated, while our reformulated models are robust to either methodological independence or covariance. empirical results suggested that remote cameras and snow tracking had comparable probability of detecting present martens, but that snow tracking also produced false-positive marten detections that could potentially substantially bias distribution estimates if not corrected for. remote cameras detected marten individuals more readily than passive hair catches. inability to photographically distinguish individual sex did not appear to induce negative bias in camera density estimates; instead, hair catches appeared to produce detection competition between individuals that may have been a source of negative bias. our model reformulations broaden the range of circumstances in which analyses incorporating multiple sources of information can be robustly used, and our empirical results demonstrate that using multiple field-methods can enhance inferences regarding ecological parameters of interest and improve understanding of how reliably survey methods sample these parameters." impact of disease on the survival of three commercially fished species,disease ecology; epidemiology; epizootic shell disease; fisheries; hematodinium sp.; mark-recapture; mortality; mycobacteria,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,HOENIG JM;GRONER ML;SMITH MW;VOGELBEIN WK;TAYLOR DM;LANDERS DF;SWENARTON JT;GAUTHIER DT;SADLER P;MATSCHE MA;HAINES AN;SMALL HJ;PRADEL R;CHOQUET R;SHIELDS JD,"recent increases in emergent infectious diseases have raised concerns about the sustainability of some marine species. the complexity and expense of studying diseases in marine systems often dictate that conservation and management decisions are made without quantitative data on population-level impacts of disease. mark-recapture is a powerful, underutilized, tool for calculating impacts of disease on population size and structure, even in the absence of etiological information. we applied logistic regression models to mark-recapture data to obtain estimates of disease-associated mortality rates in three commercially important marine species: snow crab (chionoecetes opilio) in newfoundland, canada, that experience sporadic epizootics of bitter crab disease; striped bass (morone saxatilis) in the chesapeake bay, usa, that experience chronic dermal and visceral mycobacteriosis; and american lobster (homarus americanus) in the southern new england stock, that experience chronic epizootic shell disease. all three diseases decreased survival of diseased hosts. survival of diseased adult male crabs was 1% (0.003-0.022, 95% ci) that of uninfected crabs indicating nearly complete mortality of infected crabs in this life stage. survival of moderately and severely diseased striped bass (which comprised 15% and 11% of the population, respectively) was 84% (70-100%, 95% ci), and 54% (42-68%, 95% ci) that of healthy striped bass. the disease-adjusted yearly natural mortality rate for striped bass was 0.29, nearly double the previously accepted value, which did not include disease. survival of moderately and severely diseased lobsters was 30% (15-60%, 95% ci) that of healthy lobsters and survival of mildly diseased lobsters was 45% (27-75%, 95% ci) that of healthy lobsters. high disease mortality in ovigerous females may explain the poor recruitment and rapid declines observed in this population. stock assessments should account for disease-related mortality when resource management options are evaluated." -variation in fine-scale genetic structure and local dispersal patterns between peripheral populations of a south american passerine bird,breeding dispersal; capture-mark-recapture; fine-scale genetic structure; intraspecific variation; natal dispersal; thorn-tailed rayadito,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BOTERO-DELGADILLO E;QUIRICI V;POBLETE Y;CUEVAS E;KUHN S;GIRG A;TELTSCHER K;POULIN E;KEMPENAERS B;VASQUEZ RA,"the distribution of suitable habitat influences natal and breeding dispersal at small spatial scales, resulting in strong microgeographic genetic structure. although environmental variation can promote interpopulation differences in dispersal behavior and local spatial patterns, the effects of distinct ecological conditions on within-species variation in dispersal strategies and in fine-scale genetic structure remain poorly understood. we studied local dispersal and fine-scale genetic structure in the thorn-tailed rayadito (aphrastura spinicauda), a south american bird that breeds along a wide latitudinal gradient. we combine capture-mark-recapture data from eight breeding seasons and molecular genetics to compare two peripheral populations with contrasting environments in chile: navarino island, a continuous and low density habitat, and fray jorge national park, a fragmented, densely populated and more stressful environment. natal dispersal showed no sex bias in navarino but was female-biased in the more dense population in fray jorge. in the latter, male movements were restricted, and some birds seemed to skip breeding in their first year, suggesting habitat saturation. breeding dispersal was limited in both populations, with males being more philopatric than females. spatial genetic autocorrelation analyzes using 13 polymorphic microsatellite loci confirmed the observed dispersal patterns: a fine-scale genetic structure was only detectable for males in fray jorge for distances up to 450m. furthermore, two-dimensional autocorrelation analyzes and estimates of genetic relatedness indicated that related males tended to be spatially clustered in this population. our study shows evidence for context-dependent variation in natal dispersal and corresponding local genetic structure in peripheral populations of this bird. it seems likely that the costs of dispersal are higher in the fragmented and higher density environment in fray jorge, particularly for males. the observed differences in microgeographic genetic structure for rayaditos might reflect the genetic consequences of population-specific responses to contrasting environmental pressures near the range limits of its distribution." +variation in fine-scale genetic structure and local dispersal patterns between peripheral populations of a south american passerine bird,breeding dispersal; capture-mark-recapture; fine-scale genetic structure; intraspecific variation; natal dispersal; thorn-tailed rayadito,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BOTERO DELGADILLO E;QUIRICI V;POBLETE Y;CUEVAS E;KUHN S;GIRG A;TELTSCHER K;POULIN E;KEMPENAERS B;VASQUEZ RA,"the distribution of suitable habitat influences natal and breeding dispersal at small spatial scales, resulting in strong microgeographic genetic structure. although environmental variation can promote interpopulation differences in dispersal behavior and local spatial patterns, the effects of distinct ecological conditions on within-species variation in dispersal strategies and in fine-scale genetic structure remain poorly understood. we studied local dispersal and fine-scale genetic structure in the thorn-tailed rayadito (aphrastura spinicauda), a south american bird that breeds along a wide latitudinal gradient. we combine capture-mark-recapture data from eight breeding seasons and molecular genetics to compare two peripheral populations with contrasting environments in chile: navarino island, a continuous and low density habitat, and fray jorge national park, a fragmented, densely populated and more stressful environment. natal dispersal showed no sex bias in navarino but was female-biased in the more dense population in fray jorge. in the latter, male movements were restricted, and some birds seemed to skip breeding in their first year, suggesting habitat saturation. breeding dispersal was limited in both populations, with males being more philopatric than females. spatial genetic autocorrelation analyzes using 13 polymorphic microsatellite loci confirmed the observed dispersal patterns: a fine-scale genetic structure was only detectable for males in fray jorge for distances up to 450m. furthermore, two-dimensional autocorrelation analyzes and estimates of genetic relatedness indicated that related males tended to be spatially clustered in this population. our study shows evidence for context-dependent variation in natal dispersal and corresponding local genetic structure in peripheral populations of this bird. it seems likely that the costs of dispersal are higher in the fragmented and higher density environment in fray jorge, particularly for males. the observed differences in microgeographic genetic structure for rayaditos might reflect the genetic consequences of population-specific responses to contrasting environmental pressures near the range limits of its distribution." "trypanosoma cruzi in free-ranging mammalian populations in south texas, usa",chagas disease; distribution; free-ranging mammals; triatomine insects,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE DISEASES,KRAMM MM;GUTIERREZ MR;LUEPKE TD;SORIA C;LOPEZ RR;COOPER SM;DAVIS DS;PARKER ID,"chagas disease, also known as american trypanosomiasis, is caused by the flagellate protozoan trypanosoma cruzi. it is a significant health concern in south and central america, where millions of people are infected or at risk of infection, and is an emerging health concern in the us. the occurrence of chagas disease in natural environments is supported by mammal host species, but those primary species may vary based on geographic location. in south texas, the primary host species for the disease is poorly understood, and required a field study to determine the spatial distribution of t. cruzi prevalence in free-ranging mammals. our study objectives were to determine the spatial distribution and prevalence of t. cruzi parasites in free-ranging mammals. we compared t. cruzi prevalence among species, among vegetative communities, and among different topographies (i.e., floodplain versus upland). from december 2011 through december 2013, 450 blood and tissue samples from geolocated free-ranging wildlife mammal species were analyzed with the use of polymerase chain reaction to detect protozoan t. cruzi dna. we also calculated mammal abundance with the use of mark-recapture methodology and recorded capture-site characteristics such as vegetation structure. we found that animals in grasslands had a significantly lower infection rate when summed across all species compared with animals in dense hardwoods and semi-improved woodlands (p = 0.001). a higher percentage of infections were found in the lower-elevation floodplain-65% (28/43) of animals sampled, compared to upland areas-25% (9/36) of animals sampled. our study suggested that common free-ranging meso-mammals supported t. cruzi in natural environments and are of public health concern in south texas. mitigation strategies should consider a range of management activities to include vegetation management, selective application of insecticides, and changes in human behavior in high-risk areas." "age- and sex-specific survival of california sea lions (zalophus californianus) at san miguel island, california",california sea lion; el nino; leptospirosis; mark-recapture; survival; zalophus,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,DELONG RL;MELIN SR;LAAKE JL;MORRIS P;ORR AJ;HARRIS JD,"we conducted a mark-recapture study of california sea lions (zalophus californianus) using pups branded on san miguel island, california, from 1987 to 2014, and annual resightings from 1990 to 2015. we used the burnham model (burnham 1993), an extension of the cormack-jolly-seber mark-recapture model, which includes recoveries of dead animals, to analyze age, sex, and annual patterns in survival. generally, females had higher survival than males. for female pups, the average annual survival was 0.600 and for male pups it was 0.574. yearling survival was 0.758 and 0.757 for females and males, respectively. peak annual survival was at age 5 and was 0.952 for females and 0.931 for males. pups with larger mass at branding had higher survival as pups and yearlings, but the effect was relative within each cohort because of large between-cohort variability in survival. annual variability in sea surface temperature (sst) affected survival. for each 1 degrees c increase in sst, the odds of survival decreased by nearly 50% for pups and yearlings; negative sst anomalies yielded higher survival. annual variation in male survival was partly explained by leptospirosis outbreaks. our study provides a unique view of one demographic parameter that contributed to the successful recovery of the california sea lion population." investigating the potential impact of trophy hunting of wild ungulates on snow leopard panthera uncia conservation in tajikistan,community-based conservation; diet; food habits; livestock; poaching; snow leopard; spatial capture-recapture; trophy hunting,ORYX,KACHEL SM;MCCARTHY KP;MCCARTHY TM;OSHURMAMADOV N,"declining availability of prey is potentially a major factor limiting snow leopard panthera uncia populations in tajikistan and neighbouring states. conservation initiatives to develop community-based trophy hunting programmes for ibex capra sibirica and argali ovis ammon polii aim to provide financial incentives for communities to limit poaching of wild ungulates. such programmes could help to reverse local declines in ibex and argali populations, and consequently snow leopard populations, while simultaneously improving the economic status of local people. however, in practice the desired effect may not materialize. to investigate the premise, we estimated the population density of the snow leopard, using a spatial capture-recapture model based on camera trapping in two study areas (each c. 1,000 km(2)) in the tajik pamirs: a well-managed trophy hunting concession and an otherwise similar area where grazing and poaching are unmanaged. we used distance-truncated counts to assess relative densities of wild and domestic ungulates between sites, and faecal analyses to compare the dietary habits of snow leopards. our data were limited in scope but suggested that the density of snow leopards and the relative density of wild and domestic ungulates may have been greater in the hunting concession, where wild ungulates accounted for a greater proportion of prey items. our results provide preliminary evidence that trophy hunting of ungulates may be a viable tool for achieving snow leopard conservation goals; however, we conclude that further investigation is necessary to adequately address the question." population dynamics of brown trout in a minnesota (usa) stream: a 25-year study,brown trout; density dependence; hydrology; mortality; population dynamics,RIVER RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS,MUNDAHL ND,"brown trout (salmo trutta) were surveyed by mark recapture in a 200-m section of gilmore creek, minnesota, annually during fall 1989-2013 to assess long-term trends in abundance. young-of-year (yoy) fish comprised >68% of the population annually, but age 3 and older fish were present in 23 of 25years. trout abundance varied irregularly, peaking every 4 to 6years. fall densities of yoy brown trout were positively correlated with median annual stream discharge but inversely correlated with 10% exceedance discharge in may, at a nearby gaged stream. changes in brown trout abundances were synchronized with those of trout in 2 nearby streams. annual mortality rates (mean=74%) and sizes of yoy trout were correlated with yoy densities, with high densities (>1.0 fish/m(2)) producing small size during fall and high cohort mortality. high yoy densities resulted in low proportional size structure-quality (pssq, <20%) 1 and 2years later. if similar brown trout population dynamics occur in other streams within the region, interpretation of short-term studies of brown trout (e.g., regulation evaluations, creel surveys, population response to habitat improvement, seasonal movements, and growth rates) may be confounded." -"the incidence and prevalence of systemic lupus erythematosus in san francisco county, california: the california lupus surveillance project",NA,ARTHRITIS & RHEUMATOLOGY,DALL'ERA M;CISTERNAS MG;SNIPES K;HERRINTON LJ;GORDON C;HELMICK CG,"objective. estimates of the incidence and prevalence of systemic lupus erythematosus (sle) in the us have varied widely. the purpose of this study was to conduct the california lupus surveillance project (clsp) to determine credible estimates of sle incidence and prevalence, with a special focus on hispanics and asians. methods. the clsp, which is funded by the centers for disease control and prevention, is a population-based registry of individuals with sle residing in san francisco county, ca, from january 1, 2007 through december 31, 2009. data sources included hospitals, rheumatologists, nephrologists, commercial laboratories, and a state hospital discharge database. we abstracted medical records to ascertain sle cases, which we defined as patients who met 4 of the 11 american college of rheumatology classification criteria for sle. we estimated crude and age-standardized incidence and prevalence, which were stratified by sex and race/ethnicity. results. the overall age-standardized annual incidence rate was 4.6 per 100,000 person-years. the average annual period prevalence was 84.8 per 100,000 persons. the age-standardized incidence rate in women and men was 8.6 and 0.7 per 100,000 person-years, respectively. this rate was highest among black women (30.5), followed by hispanic women (8.9), asian women (7.2), and white women (5.3). the age-standardized prevalence in women per 100,000 persons was 458.1 in blacks, 177.9 in hispanics, 149.7 in asians, and 109.8 in whites. capture-recapture modeling estimated 33 additional incident cases and 147 additional prevalent cases. conclusion. comprehensive methods that include intensive case-finding provide more credible estimates of sle in hispanics and asians, and confirm racial and ethnic disparities in sle. the disease burden of sle is highest in black women, followed by hispanic women, asian women, and white women." -"the incidence and prevalence of systemic lupus erythematosus in new york county (manhattan), new york: the manhattan lupus surveillance program",NA,ARTHRITIS & RHEUMATOLOGY,IZMIRLY PM;WAN I;SAHL S;BUYON JP;BELMONT HM;SALMON JE;ASKANASE A;BATHON JM;GERALDINO-PARDILLA L;ALI Y;GINZLER EM;PUTTERMAN C;GORDON C;HELMICK CG;PARTON H,"objective. the manhattan lupus surveillance program (mlsp) is a population-based registry designed to determine the prevalence of systemic lupus erythematosus (sle) in 2007 and the incidence from 2007 to 2009 among residents of new york county (manhattan), new york, and to characterize cases by race/ethnicity, including asians and hispanics, for whom data are lacking. methods. we identified possible sle cases from hospital records, rheumatologist records, and administrative databases. cases were defined according to the american college of rheumatology (acr) classification criteria, the systemic lupus international collaborating clinics (slicc) classification criteria, or the treating rheumatologist's diagnosis. rates among manhattan residents were age-standardized, and capture-recapture analyses were conducted to assess case underascertainment. results. by the acr definition, the age-standardized prevalence and incidence rates of sle were 62.2 and 4.6 per 100,000 person-years, respectively. rates were approximate to 9 times higher in women than in men for prevalence (107.4 versus 12.5) and incidence (7.9 versus 1.0). compared with non-hispanic white women (64.3), prevalence was higher among non-hispanic black (210.9), hispanic (138.3), and non-hispanic asian (91.2) women. incidence rates were higher among non-hispanic black women (15.7) compared with non-hispanic asian (6.6), hispanic (6.5), and non-hispanic white (6.5) women. capture-recapture adjustment increased the prevalence and incidence rates (75.9 and 6.0, respectively). alternate sle definitions without capture-recapture adjustment revealed higher age-standardized prevalence and incidence rates (73.8 and 6.2, respectively, by the slicc definition and 72.6 and 5.0 by the rheumatologist definition) than the acr definition, with similar patterns by sex and race/ethnicity. conclusion. the mlsp confirms findings from other registries on disparities by sex and race/ethnicity, provides new estimates among asians and hispanics, and provides estimates using the slicc criteria." +"the incidence and prevalence of systemic lupus erythematosus in san francisco county, california: the california lupus surveillance project",NA,ARTHRITIS & RHEUMATOLOGY,DALL ERA M;CISTERNAS MG;SNIPES K;HERRINTON LJ;GORDON C;HELMICK CG,"objective. estimates of the incidence and prevalence of systemic lupus erythematosus (sle) in the us have varied widely. the purpose of this study was to conduct the california lupus surveillance project (clsp) to determine credible estimates of sle incidence and prevalence, with a special focus on hispanics and asians. methods. the clsp, which is funded by the centers for disease control and prevention, is a population-based registry of individuals with sle residing in san francisco county, ca, from january 1, 2007 through december 31, 2009. data sources included hospitals, rheumatologists, nephrologists, commercial laboratories, and a state hospital discharge database. we abstracted medical records to ascertain sle cases, which we defined as patients who met 4 of the 11 american college of rheumatology classification criteria for sle. we estimated crude and age-standardized incidence and prevalence, which were stratified by sex and race/ethnicity. results. the overall age-standardized annual incidence rate was 4.6 per 100,000 person-years. the average annual period prevalence was 84.8 per 100,000 persons. the age-standardized incidence rate in women and men was 8.6 and 0.7 per 100,000 person-years, respectively. this rate was highest among black women (30.5), followed by hispanic women (8.9), asian women (7.2), and white women (5.3). the age-standardized prevalence in women per 100,000 persons was 458.1 in blacks, 177.9 in hispanics, 149.7 in asians, and 109.8 in whites. capture-recapture modeling estimated 33 additional incident cases and 147 additional prevalent cases. conclusion. comprehensive methods that include intensive case-finding provide more credible estimates of sle in hispanics and asians, and confirm racial and ethnic disparities in sle. the disease burden of sle is highest in black women, followed by hispanic women, asian women, and white women." +"the incidence and prevalence of systemic lupus erythematosus in new york county (manhattan), new york: the manhattan lupus surveillance program",NA,ARTHRITIS & RHEUMATOLOGY,IZMIRLY PM;WAN I;SAHL S;BUYON JP;BELMONT HM;SALMON JE;ASKANASE A;BATHON JM;GERALDINO PARDILLA L;ALI Y;GINZLER EM;PUTTERMAN C;GORDON C;HELMICK CG;PARTON H,"objective. the manhattan lupus surveillance program (mlsp) is a population-based registry designed to determine the prevalence of systemic lupus erythematosus (sle) in 2007 and the incidence from 2007 to 2009 among residents of new york county (manhattan), new york, and to characterize cases by race/ethnicity, including asians and hispanics, for whom data are lacking. methods. we identified possible sle cases from hospital records, rheumatologist records, and administrative databases. cases were defined according to the american college of rheumatology (acr) classification criteria, the systemic lupus international collaborating clinics (slicc) classification criteria, or the treating rheumatologist's diagnosis. rates among manhattan residents were age-standardized, and capture-recapture analyses were conducted to assess case underascertainment. results. by the acr definition, the age-standardized prevalence and incidence rates of sle were 62.2 and 4.6 per 100,000 person-years, respectively. rates were approximate to 9 times higher in women than in men for prevalence (107.4 versus 12.5) and incidence (7.9 versus 1.0). compared with non-hispanic white women (64.3), prevalence was higher among non-hispanic black (210.9), hispanic (138.3), and non-hispanic asian (91.2) women. incidence rates were higher among non-hispanic black women (15.7) compared with non-hispanic asian (6.6), hispanic (6.5), and non-hispanic white (6.5) women. capture-recapture adjustment increased the prevalence and incidence rates (75.9 and 6.0, respectively). alternate sle definitions without capture-recapture adjustment revealed higher age-standardized prevalence and incidence rates (73.8 and 6.2, respectively, by the slicc definition and 72.6 and 5.0 by the rheumatologist definition) than the acr definition, with similar patterns by sex and race/ethnicity. conclusion. the mlsp confirms findings from other registries on disparities by sex and race/ethnicity, provides new estimates among asians and hispanics, and provides estimates using the slicc criteria." effects of el nino on the population dynamics of the malay civet east of the wallace line,enso; el nino; civet; survival; population dynamics; mesocarnivore; climate; body mass,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,SEYMOUR AS;TARRANT MR;GERBER BD;SHARP A;WOOLLAM J;COX R,"the effect of climate on the population dynamics of rainforest vertebrates is known only for a limited subset of species and study locations. to extend this knowledge, we carried out an 8-year population study of a viverrid (malay civet viverra tangalunga) in the wallacea biogeographical region (buton island, sulawesi). civets were trapped annually from 2003 to 2010, during which there were four weak to moderate el nino events and one moderate la nina event. in indonesia, el nino events are associated with drier than normal conditions, while la nina is associated with wetter conditions. the number of individuals captured was strongly correlated with the 12-month summed southern oscillation index (soi) prior to trapping, with significantly fewer individuals caught in years with lower summed soi (i.e. stronger el nino conditions). adult civet body mass was significantly higher in el nino years; mean adult male and female body masses were 10.6% and 4.0% greater in el nino years. there was support for a 1-year time lagged effect of el nino on the apparent survival (1 - probability of disappearing from the study site due to death or emigration) of male (but not female) civets, which was approximately 50% higher in the year following el nino events. using spatially explicit capture-mark-recapture models, we were unable to detect any significant change in civet density between years, which was estimated as 1.36 +/- 0.14 (se) individuals km(-2). we suggest that increased apparent survival of males observed in the year after el nino events was brought about by reduced dispersal (possibly associated with a change in mating tactic) rather than reduced mortality." the application of non-invasive genetic tagging reveals new insights into the clay lick use by macaws in the peruvian amazon,parrot; ara chloropterus; clay lick; feather; genetic tagging; microsatellite; cmr,CONSERVATION GENETICS,OLAH G;HEINSOHN RG;BRIGHTSMITH DJ;PEAKALL R,"genetic tagging, the unique identification of individuals by their dna profile, has proven to be an effective method for research on several animal species. in this study we apply non-invasive genetic tagging from feather samples to reveal the genetic structure and estimate local population size of red-and-green macaws (ara chloropterus) without the need to capture these animals. the study was centered in the tambopata region of the peruvian amazon. here macaws frequently visit clay licks and their naturally molted feathers provide a unique source of non-invasively sampled dna. we analyzed 249 feathers using nine microsatellite loci and identified 221 unique genotypes. the remainder revealed 21 individuals which were 'recaptured' one or more times. using a capture-mark-recapture model the average number of different individuals visiting clay licks within one breeding season was estimated to fall between 84 and 316 individuals per clay lick. analysis of population genetic structure revealed only small genetic differences among regions and clay licks, suggesting a single red-and-green macaw genetic population. our study confirms the utility of non-invasive genetic tagging in harsh tropical environment to obtain crucial population parameters about an abundant parrot species that is very difficult to capture in the wild." genetic and individual assignment of tetraploid green sturgeon with snp assay data,polyploids; population assignment; bycatch,CONSERVATION GENETICS,ANDERSON EC;NG TC;CRANDALL ED;GARZA JC,"polyploid organisms pose substantial obstacles to genetic analysis, as molecular assay data are usually difficult to evaluate in a mendelian framework. green sturgeon (acipenser medirostris) is a tetraploid species and is facing significant conservation challenges, including bycatch in ocean fisheries. we present here novel molecular genetic assays and analytical methodology for green sturgeon that allow discrimination of fish from the two visually indistinguishable distinct population segments (dpss), and also provide individual-specific genetic tags. we show how the relative fluorescence intensity data from a standard quantitative pcr assay, designed for a biallelic single nucleotide polymorphism, can be grouped into ""genotype categories"" using standard analytical software and post-processing manipulation. we then show how these genotype category data can be used to discriminate green sturgeon from the southern dps, which is protected under the us endangered species act, and the northern dps, which is not. we also show how these data can be used to reliably identify individual green sturgeon, and can therefore be used in capture/recapture analyses. both types of identification are extremely accurate even when fewer than half of the assays are successfully called. we then apply these new techniques to show that proportions of the two green sturgeon dpss are extremely different in the two major fishery areas where they are encountered as bycatch. while these assays and methods do not provide data that can be used in pedigree-based analyses, they are an important advance in the application of genetic analysis to conservation and management of polyploid organisms." -effective to census population size ratios in two near threatened mediterranean amphibians: pleurodeles waltl and pelobates cultripes,abundance; capture-mark-recapture; conservation; genetic monitoring; linkage-disequilibrium method; sibship frequency method; sex-biased dispersal,CONSERVATION GENETICS,GUTIERREZ-RODRIGUEZ J;SANCHEZ-MONTES G;MARTINEZ-SOLANO I,"efforts to mitigate amphibian declines are hindered by a lack of information about basic aspects of their biology and demography. the effective to census population size ratio (n (e) /n (c) ) is one of the most important parameters for the management of wildlife populations because it combines information on population abundance and genetic diversity and helps predict population viability in the long term. few studies have calculated this ratio in amphibians, which sometimes show low ratios, associated with a higher extinction risk. here we integrate field-based (capture-mark-recapture studies, egg string counts) and molecular approaches (estimation of the effective number of breeders (n (b) ) and the effective population size (n (e) ) based on genotypes from larval cohorts and candidate parents) to produce the first estimates of the n (e) /n (c) and n (b) /n (c) ratios in two amphibians, the iberian ribbed newt pleurodeles waltl and the western spadefoot pelobates cultripes. additionally, we investigate sex-biased dispersal in both species based on direct (field observations) and indirect (genetic) evidence. both species showed similar ratios, slightly lower in pleurodeles (0.21-0.24) than in pelobates (0.25-0.30). observed displacement rates were low in both species (p. waltl = 0.51%; p. cultripes = 1.23%). we found no evidence for sex-biased dispersal in p. cultripes, but both direct and indirect evidences suggest a tendency for female-biased dispersal in p. waltl. we discuss differences in the genetic estimates of n (e) and n (b) provided by three inference methods and the implications of our findings for the management of these species, characteristic of mediterranean wetlands in the iberian peninsula and listed as near threatened." +effective to census population size ratios in two near threatened mediterranean amphibians: pleurodeles waltl and pelobates cultripes,abundance; capture-mark-recapture; conservation; genetic monitoring; linkage-disequilibrium method; sibship frequency method; sex-biased dispersal,CONSERVATION GENETICS,GUTIERREZ RODRIGUEZ J;SANCHEZ MONTES G;MARTINEZ SOLANO I,"efforts to mitigate amphibian declines are hindered by a lack of information about basic aspects of their biology and demography. the effective to census population size ratio (n (e) /n (c) ) is one of the most important parameters for the management of wildlife populations because it combines information on population abundance and genetic diversity and helps predict population viability in the long term. few studies have calculated this ratio in amphibians, which sometimes show low ratios, associated with a higher extinction risk. here we integrate field-based (capture-mark-recapture studies, egg string counts) and molecular approaches (estimation of the effective number of breeders (n (b) ) and the effective population size (n (e) ) based on genotypes from larval cohorts and candidate parents) to produce the first estimates of the n (e) /n (c) and n (b) /n (c) ratios in two amphibians, the iberian ribbed newt pleurodeles waltl and the western spadefoot pelobates cultripes. additionally, we investigate sex-biased dispersal in both species based on direct (field observations) and indirect (genetic) evidence. both species showed similar ratios, slightly lower in pleurodeles (0.21-0.24) than in pelobates (0.25-0.30). observed displacement rates were low in both species (p. waltl = 0.51%; p. cultripes = 1.23%). we found no evidence for sex-biased dispersal in p. cultripes, but both direct and indirect evidences suggest a tendency for female-biased dispersal in p. waltl. we discuss differences in the genetic estimates of n (e) and n (b) provided by three inference methods and the implications of our findings for the management of these species, characteristic of mediterranean wetlands in the iberian peninsula and listed as near threatened." demographic effects of prolonged drought on a nascent introduction of a semi-aquatic snake,invasive species; population ecology; conservation; climate change; watersnake; extreme drought,BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS,ROSE JP;TODD BD,"faced with a nascent introduction of a non-native species, conservationists need to quickly determine how a population performs in its new environment. although correlative models can predict environmental suitability at a coarse scale, they often neglect short-term climatic variability, instead relying on long-term averages. accurately projecting the fate of any particular introduction requires demographic data on how a population responds to a novel environment. the recent introduction of watersnakes (genus nerodia) poses a risk to california's already imperiled aquatic vertebrate fauna. despite inhabiting a seemingly suitable climate, a non-native nerodia sipedon population in central california is likely to have been affected by a prolonged extreme drought from 2012 to 2015. we studied the only known population of n. sipedon in california for 3 years from 2013 to 2015, and estimated its abundance and annual survival. its abundance declined from a peak of 218 (95% credible interval 149-313) in august 2013 to 97 (80-119) in july 2015. annual survival of n. sipedon from 2013 to 2014 (0.23, 0.13-0.39) and from 2014 to 2015 (0.29, 0.18-0.41) was lower than survival estimates reported from native populations. snake body condition, the abundance of large adult females, and prey availability all declined throughout the study. we conclude that the population of n. sipedon declined from 2013 to 2015, likely due to decreasing habitat and prey availability from the prolonged regional drought. this study highlights the importance of the effect of climatic extremes on the trajectory of introduced populations in a novel environment." understanding the demographic drivers of realized population growth rates,age structure; aythya affinis; bayesian analysis; global change; hierarchical model; integrated population model; matrix projection model; non-stationary environments; perturbation analysis; state-space models,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,KOONS DN;ARNOLD TW;SCHAUB M,"identifying the demographic parameters (e.g., reproduction, survival, dispersal) that most influence population dynamics can increase conservation effectiveness and enhance ecological understanding. life table response experiments (ltre) aim to decompose the effects of change in parameters on past demographic outcomes (e.g., population growth rates). but the vast majority of ltres and other retrospective population analyses have focused on decomposing asymptotic population growth rates, which do not account for the dynamic interplay between population structure and vital rates that shape realized population growth rates (lambda(t) = nt+1/n-t) in time-varying environments. we provide an empirical means to overcome these shortcomings by merging recently developed ""transient life-table response experiments"" with integrated population models (ipms). ipms allow for the estimation of latent population structure and other demographic parameters that are required for transient ltre analysis, and bayesian versions additionally allow for complete error propagation from the estimation of demographic parameters to derivations of realized population growth rates and perturbation analyses of growth rates. by integrating available monitoring data for lesser scaup over 60 yr, and conducting transient ltres on ipm estimates, we found that the contribution of juvenile female survival to long-term variation in realized population growth rates was 1.6 and 3.7 times larger than that of adult female survival and fecundity, respectively. but a persistent long-term decline in fecundity explained 92% of the decline in abundance between 1983 and 2006. in contrast, an improvement in adult female survival drove the modest recovery in lesser scaup abundance since 2006, indicating that the most important demographic drivers of lesser scaup population dynamics are temporally dynamic. in addition to resolving uncertainty about lesser scaup population dynamics, the merger of ipms with transient ltres will strengthen our understanding of demography for many species as we aim to conserve biodiversity during an era of non-stationary global change." -the spatial scale of time-lagged population synchrony increases with species dispersal distance,breeding bird survey; dispersal ability; dispersal distance; mark-recapture; mobility; population synchrony; spatio-temporal autocorrelation; time-lag; travelling wave,GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY,MARTIN AE;PEARCE-HIGGINS JW;FAHRIG L,"aim: time-lagged population synchrony, where spatially separated populations show similar fluctuations in abundance lagged over time, is thought to be driven by dispersal among populations. when dispersal is proportional to population density or positively density dependent, and individuals move readily from population a to population b, then as population a increases, the increased number of dispersers from population a to b will cause a subsequent increase in population b. if true, then time-lagged synchrony should be strongest at a species' typical dispersal distance, because the rate of exchange between populations will be greatest at that distance. location: united kingdom (u. k.). time period: 1994 - 2013. major taxa studied: birds (class aves). methods: we estimated the spatial scale of 1-year-lagged population synchrony for 76 u.k. bird species, using 20 years of bird count data collected at 2,415 locations by the british breeding bird survey. we then compared these spatial scales with published mean natal and breeding dispersal distance estimates (ranging from 0.1 to 25.8 km) for the same species based on an independent, large-scale, mark-recapture dataset of 492,272 bird recaptures in britain and ireland. results: we found strong, positive cross-species relationships between the spatial scale of time-lagged synchrony and mean natal and breeding dispersal distance estimates from the mark-recapture study. however, average spatial scales of time-lagged synchrony were more than 60 km longer than those from mark-recapture data, with scales ranging from 5 to 185 km. main conclusions: ours is the first study to show that the spatial scale of time-lagged synchrony increases with species dispersal distance. the scale of synchrony was larger than expected, probably because mark-recapture data underestimated the real dispersal distances, or because dispersal synchronizes populations at a larger spatial scale than that of dispersal (e.g., through formation of travelling waves), or both. nevertheless, the strong relative concordance is consistent with the explanation that time-lagged synchrony results from dispersal among populations." +the spatial scale of time-lagged population synchrony increases with species dispersal distance,breeding bird survey; dispersal ability; dispersal distance; mark-recapture; mobility; population synchrony; spatio-temporal autocorrelation; time-lag; travelling wave,GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY,MARTIN AE;PEARCE HIGGINS JW;FAHRIG L,"aim: time-lagged population synchrony, where spatially separated populations show similar fluctuations in abundance lagged over time, is thought to be driven by dispersal among populations. when dispersal is proportional to population density or positively density dependent, and individuals move readily from population a to population b, then as population a increases, the increased number of dispersers from population a to b will cause a subsequent increase in population b. if true, then time-lagged synchrony should be strongest at a species' typical dispersal distance, because the rate of exchange between populations will be greatest at that distance. location: united kingdom (u. k.). time period: 1994 - 2013. major taxa studied: birds (class aves). methods: we estimated the spatial scale of 1-year-lagged population synchrony for 76 u.k. bird species, using 20 years of bird count data collected at 2,415 locations by the british breeding bird survey. we then compared these spatial scales with published mean natal and breeding dispersal distance estimates (ranging from 0.1 to 25.8 km) for the same species based on an independent, large-scale, mark-recapture dataset of 492,272 bird recaptures in britain and ireland. results: we found strong, positive cross-species relationships between the spatial scale of time-lagged synchrony and mean natal and breeding dispersal distance estimates from the mark-recapture study. however, average spatial scales of time-lagged synchrony were more than 60 km longer than those from mark-recapture data, with scales ranging from 5 to 185 km. main conclusions: ours is the first study to show that the spatial scale of time-lagged synchrony increases with species dispersal distance. the scale of synchrony was larger than expected, probably because mark-recapture data underestimated the real dispersal distances, or because dispersal synchronizes populations at a larger spatial scale than that of dispersal (e.g., through formation of travelling waves), or both. nevertheless, the strong relative concordance is consistent with the explanation that time-lagged synchrony results from dispersal among populations." quantification of within- and between-farm dispersal of culicoides biting midges using an immunomarking technique,african horse sickness virus; arbovirus; bluetongue virus; capture-mark-recapture; ceratopogonidae; epizootic-haemorrhagic disease virus; ovalbumin; protein marking; schmallenberg virus; vector-borne disease,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,SANDERS CJ;HARRUP LE;TUGWELL LA;BRUGMAN VA;ENGLAND M;CARPENTER S,"1. culicoides biting midges (diptera, ceratopogonidae) are vectors of arboviruses that cause significant economic and welfare impact. local-scale spread of culicoides-borne arboviruses is largely determined by the between-farm movement of infected culicoides. 2. study of the dispersal behaviour of culicoides by capture-mark-recapture (cmr) is problematic due to the likelihood of mortality and changes in behaviour upon capture caused by the small size and fragility of these insects, evidenced by low recapture rates. to counter the problem of using cmr with culicoides, this study utilised an ovalbumin immunomarking technique to quantify the within-and between-farm dispersal of culicoides in southern england. 3. both within-and between-farm dispersal of culicoides was observed. of the 9058 culicoides collected over 22 nights of trapping, 600 ovalbumin-positive culicoides, of 12 species including those implicated as arbovirus vectors, were collected with a maximum dispersal distance of 3125 m. 4. this study provides the first species-level data on the between-farm dispersal of potential bluetongue, schmallenberg and african horse sickness virus vectors in northern europe. high-resolution meteorological data determined upwind and downwind flight by culicoides had occurred. cumulative collection and meteorological data suggest 1 5.6% of flights over 1 km were upwind of the treatment area and 84.4% downwind. 5. synthesis and applications. the use of immunomarking eliminates the potential adverse effects on survival and behaviour of insect collection prior to marking, substantially improving the resolution and accuracy of estimates of the dispersal potential of small and delicate vector species such as culicoides. using this technique, quantification of the range of culicoides dispersal with regard to meteorological conditions including wind direction will enable improved, data-driven modelling of the spread of culicoides-borne arboviruses and will inform policy response to incursions and outbreaks." -"lead and cadmium levels in galapagos penguin spheniscus mendiculus, flightless cormorant phalacrocorax harrisi, and waved albatross phoebastria irrorata",NA,MARINE ORNITHOLOGY,JIMENEZ-UZCATEGUI G;VINUEZA RL;URBINA AS;EGAS DA;GARCIA C;COTIN J;SEVILLA C,"heavy metals are a threat to wildlife, and they have yet to be analyzed in seabirds from the galapagos archipelago. to gauge their prevalence in galapagos seabird species, we collected and analyzed feather samples from galapagos penguins spheniscus mendiculus, flightless cormorants phalacrocorax harrisi, and waved albatross phoebastria irrorata in seven different breeding areas in 2011 and 2012 as part of an ongoing mark-recapture study. the results showed that lead is higher in penguins and cormorants; cadmium was found to be below the limit for quantification in all our samples. the heavy metals recorded did not have a clear local source related to human activities, as breeding areas are not located near populated areas. environmental media (soil, water), marine currents, and atmospheric deposition are possible sources." +"lead and cadmium levels in galapagos penguin spheniscus mendiculus, flightless cormorant phalacrocorax harrisi, and waved albatross phoebastria irrorata",NA,MARINE ORNITHOLOGY,JIMENEZ UZCATEGUI G;VINUEZA RL;URBINA AS;EGAS DA;GARCIA C;COTIN J;SEVILLA C,"heavy metals are a threat to wildlife, and they have yet to be analyzed in seabirds from the galapagos archipelago. to gauge their prevalence in galapagos seabird species, we collected and analyzed feather samples from galapagos penguins spheniscus mendiculus, flightless cormorants phalacrocorax harrisi, and waved albatross phoebastria irrorata in seven different breeding areas in 2011 and 2012 as part of an ongoing mark-recapture study. the results showed that lead is higher in penguins and cormorants; cadmium was found to be below the limit for quantification in all our samples. the heavy metals recorded did not have a clear local source related to human activities, as breeding areas are not located near populated areas. environmental media (soil, water), marine currents, and atmospheric deposition are possible sources." quantifying underreporting of law-enforcement-related deaths in united states vital statistics and news-media-based data sources: a capture-recapture analysis,NA,PLOS MEDICINE,FELDMAN JM;GRUSKIN S;COULL BA;KRIEGER N,"background prior research suggests that united states governmental sources documenting the number of law-enforcement-related deaths (i.e., fatalities due to injuries inflicted by law enforcement officers) undercount these incidents. the national vital statistics system (nvss), administered by the federal government and based on state death certificate data, identifies such deaths by assigning them diagnostic codes corresponding to ""legal intervention"" in accordance with the international classification of diseases-10th revision (icd-10). newer, non-governmental databases track law-enforcement-related deaths by compiling news media reports and provide an opportunity to assess the magnitude and determinants of suspected nvss underreporting. our a priori hypotheses were that underreporting by the nvss would exceed that by the news media sources, and that underreporting rates would be higher for decedents of color versus white, decedents in lower versus higher income counties, decedents killed by non-firearm (e.g., taser) versus firearm mechanisms, and deaths recorded by a medical examiner versus coroner. methods and findings we created a new us-wide dataset by matching cases reported in a nongovernmental, news-media-based dataset produced by the newspaper the guardian, the counted, to identifiable nvss mortality records for 2015. we conducted 2 main analyses for this cross-sectional study: (1) an estimate of the total number of deaths and the proportion unreported by each source using capture-recapture analysis and (2) an assessment of correlates of underreporting of law-enforcement-related deaths (demographic characteristics of the decedent, mechanism of death, death investigator type [medical examiner versus coroner], county median income, and county urbanicity) in the nvss using multilevel logistic regression. we estimated that the total number of law-enforcement-related deaths in 2015 was 1,166 (95% ci: 1,153, 1,184). there were 599 deaths reported in the counted only, 36 reported in the nvss only, 487 reported in both lists, and an estimated 44 (95% ci: 31, 62) not reported in either source. the nvss documented 44.9% (95% ci: 44.2%, 45.4%) of the total number of deaths, and the counted documented 93.1% (95% ci: 91.7%, 94.2%). in a multivariable mixed-effects logistic model that controlled for all individual-and county-level covariates, decedents injured by non-firearm mechanisms had higher odds of underreporting in the nvss than those injured by firearms (odds ratio [or]: 68.2; 95% ci: 15.7, 297.5; p < 0.01), and underreporting was also more likely outside of the highest-income-quintile counties (or for the lowest versus highest income quintile: 10.1; 95% ci: 2.4, 42.8; p < 0.01). there was no statistically significant difference in the odds of underreporting in the nvss for deaths certified by coroners compared to medical examiners, and the odds of underreporting did not vary by race/ethnicity. one limitation of our analyses is that we were unable to examine the characteristics of cases that were unreported in the counted. conclusions the media-based source, the counted, reported a considerably higher proportion of law-enforcement-related deaths than the nvss, which failed to report a majority of these incidents. for the nvss, rates of underreporting were higher in lower income counties and for decedents killed by non-firearm mechanisms. there was no evidence suggesting that underreporting varied by death investigator type (medical examiner versus coroner) or race/ethnicity." the network dynamics of co-offending careers,co-offending; criminal networks; dynamic networks; criminal opportunities; turning points; life-course criminology,SOCIAL NETWORKS,CHARETTE Y;PAPACHRISTOS AV,"despite the long-standing acknowledgement that crime is a group phenomenon, little research treats co-offending as a dynamic network process. this study analyses the individual and network processes responsible for long-lasting criminal relationships using co-offendingdyads from eight years of arrest records in chicago. results from proportional hazard models suggest that homophily with respect to age, race, gender, geographic proximity, and gang identity lead to sustained partnerships. victimization increases the probability of continued co-offending, while the victimization of one's associates dissuade continued collaboration. supra-dyadic processes (centrality, transitivity) influence the likelihood of continued co-offending. results are discussed regarding opportunities and turning points. (c) 2017 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." responses of small mammal communities to pinyon-juniper habitat treatments,NA,WESTERN NORTH AMERICAN NATURALIST,PETERSON ME;REBAR CE;EISENHART KS;STETSON DI,"small mammals should be considered in wildlife management decisions because they are an important component of ecosystems. we examined small mammal population abundances (n) on 4 habitat treatment types in colo rado pinyon pine (pinus edulis)-utah juniper (juniperus osteosperma) woodlands on the uncompahgre plateau, montrose, colorado. we trapped small mammals in sherman live traps on 4 habitat treatment types-including 2 types of management treatments (chaining, roller chop), sites with high drought-related mortality of pinyon pine, and sites of mature pinyon-juniper (pj) woodland-on 3 mesas. we modeled detection probability of deer mice (peromyscus maniculatus) and least chipmunks (tamias minimus) as a function of 4 treatment types on 3 mesas during 2 trapping periods by using huggins closed mark-recapture models. a variance components analysis was conducted to obtain abundance shrinkage estimates and to separate spatial process variance from the sampling variance to calculate the percent of variation in abundance estimates explained by treatment type, mesa, and trapping period. abundance estimates were higher for deer mice and least chipmunks on chaining and roller chop treatment sites than on mature pj woodland and pinyon pine natural mortality sites. the highest percent of variation in abundance estimates was explained by treatment type for deer mice (33.67%) and least chipmunks (61.45%) and secondarily by mesa for deer mice (21.64%). we calculated species diversity using shannon's, simpson's, pielou's evenness, and species richness indices, and we used analysis of variance to test for significant differences (p < 0.05) in species composition. species diversity and richness were higher on natural mortality sites than on chaining, roller chop, and mature woodland sites. our results indicate that chaining and roller chop habitat treatments within pj woodlands have a positive impact on deer mouse and least chipmunk abundances, whereas natural mortality and chaining treatments have a positive impact on small mammal composition." "life history, breeding biology and movement in a new species of carnivorous marsupial, the buff-footed antechinus (antechinus mysticus) and a sympatric congener, the subtropical antechinus (antechinus subtropicus)",mammal; life history; semelparous; breeding biology; dasyuridae; capture-mark-recapture,MAMMAL RESEARCH,MUTTON TY;GRAY EL;FULLER SJ;BAKER AM,"antechinus are one of just a few mammal genera worldwide which exhibit semelparous reproduction. consequently, the life history of many antechinus has been well studied. however, in the last few years, several new species have been described in the genus and their ecology is little known. here, the first multi-year ecological study of breeding, growth and movement in one of these species, the buff-footed antechinus, antechinus mysticus, was undertaken. over a 2-year period, monthly capture-mark-recapture data from two geographically close sites (similar to 2.5 km apart) in south-east queensland, australia, were collected. at one site, the subtropical antechinus, antechinus subtropicus, also occurred. this allowed the investigation of possible competitive effects between this larger antechinus species and a. mysticus. intensive trapping across the breeding season of a. mysticus also allowed the growth rates of pouch young of a wild antechinus population to be calculated for the first time. results showed that a. mysticus followed the synchronous, semelparous breeding strategy seen in all congeners. male a. mysticus were last caught in august, and females gave birth in september. average distance moved by a. mysticus was comparable with congeners. competition with a. subtropicus may affect a. mysticus because a. mysticus weighed more and malesmoved further when not in sympatry with a. subtropicus. however, female a. mysticus moved further when in sympatry with a. subtropicus, confounding clear interpretation. overall, the life history information obtained for a. mysticus provides a foundation for further research and will aid the conservation management of this new species." efficacy of n-mixture models for surveying and monitoring white-tailed deer populations,n-mixture models; white-tailed deer populations; odocoileus virginianus,MAMMAL RESEARCH,KEEVER AC;MCGOWAN CP;DITCHKOFF SS;ACKER PK;GRAND JB;NEWBOLT CH,"automated cameras have become increasingly common for monitoring wildlife populations and estimating abundance. most analytical methods, however, fail to account for incomplete and variable detection probabilities, which biases abundance estimates. methods which do account for detection have not been thoroughly tested, and those that have been tested were compared to other methods of abundance estimation. the goal of this study was to evaluate the accuracy and effectiveness of the n-mixture method, which explicitly incorporates detection probability, to monitor white-tailed deer (odocoileus virginianus) by using camera surveys and a known, marked population to collect data and estimate abundance. motion-triggered camera surveys were conducted at auburn university's deer research facility in 2010. abundance estimates were generated using n-mixture models and compared to the known number of marked deer in the population. we compared abundance estimates generated from a decreasing number of survey days used in analysis and by time periods (day, night, sunrise, sunset, crepuscular, all times). accurate abundance estimates were generated using 24 h of data and nighttime only data. accuracy of abundance estimates increased with increasing number of survey days until day 5, and there was no improvement with additional data. this suggests that, for our system, 5-day camera surveys conducted at night were adequate for abundance estimation and population monitoring. further, our study demonstrates that camera surveys and n-mixture models may be a highly effective method for estimation and monitoring of ungulate populations." manipulating waterbody hydroperiod affects movement behaviour and occupancy dynamics in an amphibian,amphibians; bombina variegata; dispersal; hydroperiod; movement,FRESHWATER BIOLOGY,TOURNIER E;BESNARD A;TOURNIER V;CAYUELA H,"species that occur in ephemeral habitats such as temporary waterbodies have evolved specific strategies that allow them to respond to spatial and temporal variations in water availability and quality. their life-history strategies, involving complex life cycles, have evolved to allow individuals to escape deteriorating environmental conditions when a waterbody dries up. these adaptations have led to the emergence of complex movement behaviour, which might then be expected to affect the spatiotemporal dynamics of reproduction. to date, few empirical studies have investigated how the risks of waterbody drying out affects movement behaviour at the individual level and how movement decisions then shape waterbody occupancy dynamics. in this study, we examined this issue in an endangered amphibian, the yellow-bellied toad (bombina variegata). for this purpose, we experimentally manipulated waterbody hydroperiod and collected capture-recapture and presence-absence data in 334 waterbodies located in 15 b.variegata populations in the region of geneva (switzerland) during a 5-year period (2012-2016). the results of our analyses reveal that the waterbody hydroperiod affects this species' movement behaviour. adults were less likely to leave waterbodies with a long hydroperiod both intra- and inter-annually. in addition, breeding occupancy strongly depended on a waterbody's hydroperiod. in particular, interannual changes in breeding occurrence were less frequent in waterbodies with a long hydroperiod. our findings show that the hydroperiod strongly affects ecological processes at different levels, from individuals' movement decisions to waterbody occupancy dynamics. the results demonstrate that adults adjust their movement decisions according to the risk of breeding failure driven by the hydroperiod, which then affects the waterbody occupancy dynamics." -cryptic disease-induced mortality may cause host extinction in an apparently stable host- parasite system,chytridiomycosis; cormack- jolly-seber models; darwin's frogs; epidemic and endemic emerging infectious disease; matrix population models; multi-state capture- recapture models,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,VALENZUELA-SANCHEZ A;SCHMIDT BR;URIBE-RIVERA DE;COSTAS F;CUNNINGHAM AA;SOTO-AZAT C,"the decline of wildlife populations due to emerging infectious disease often shows a common pattern: the parasite invades a naive host population, producing epidemic disease and a population decline, sometimes with extirpation. some susceptible host populations can survive the epidemic phase and persist with endemic parasitic infection. understanding host-parasite dynamics leading to persistence of the system is imperative to adequately inform conservation practice. here we combine field data, statistical and mathematical modelling to explore the dynamics of the apparently stable rhinoderma darwinii-batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (bd) system. our results indicate that bd-induced population extirpation may occur even in the absence of epidemics and where parasite prevalence is relatively low. these empirical findings are consistent with previous theoretical predictions showing that highly pathogenic parasites are able to regulate host populations even at extremely low prevalence, highlighting that disease threats should be investigated as a cause of population declines even in the absence of an overt increase in mortality." +cryptic disease-induced mortality may cause host extinction in an apparently stable host- parasite system,chytridiomycosis; cormack- jolly-seber models; darwin's frogs; epidemic and endemic emerging infectious disease; matrix population models; multi-state capture- recapture models,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,VALENZUELA SANCHEZ A;SCHMIDT BR;URIBE RIVERA DE;COSTAS F;CUNNINGHAM AA;SOTO AZAT C,"the decline of wildlife populations due to emerging infectious disease often shows a common pattern: the parasite invades a naive host population, producing epidemic disease and a population decline, sometimes with extirpation. some susceptible host populations can survive the epidemic phase and persist with endemic parasitic infection. understanding host-parasite dynamics leading to persistence of the system is imperative to adequately inform conservation practice. here we combine field data, statistical and mathematical modelling to explore the dynamics of the apparently stable rhinoderma darwinii-batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (bd) system. our results indicate that bd-induced population extirpation may occur even in the absence of epidemics and where parasite prevalence is relatively low. these empirical findings are consistent with previous theoretical predictions showing that highly pathogenic parasites are able to regulate host populations even at extremely low prevalence, highlighting that disease threats should be investigated as a cause of population declines even in the absence of an overt increase in mortality." an estimation of the average residence times and onshore-offshore diffusivities of beached microplastics based on the population decay of tagged meso- and macrolitter,microplastics; macroplastics; backwash flux; residence time; diffusion coefficient; upward terminal velocity,MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN,HINATA H;MORI K;OHNO K;MIYAO Y;KATAOKA T,"residence times of microplastics were estimated based on the dependence of meso- and macrolitter residence times on their upward terminal velocities (utvs) in the ocean obtained by one- and two-year mark-recapture experiments conducted on wadahama beach, nii-jima island, japan. a significant linear relationship between the residence time and utv was found in the velocity range of about 0.3-0.9 ms(-1), while there was no significant difference between the residence times obtained in the velocity range of about 0.9-1.4 ms(-1). this dependence on the utv would reflect the uprush-backwash response of the target items to swash waves on the beach. by extrapolating the linear relationship down to the velocity range of microplastics, the residence times of microplastics and the 1d onshore-offshore diffusion coefficients were inferred, and are one to two orders of magnitude greater than the coefficients of the macroplastics." chronic plasmodium brasilianum infections in wild peruvian tamarins,NA,PLOS ONE,ERKENSWICK GA;WATSA M;PACHECO MA;ESCALANTE AA;PARKER PG,"there is an increased interest in potential zoonotic malarias. to date, plasmodium malariae that infects humans remains indistinguishable from plasmodium brasilianum, which is widespread among new world primates. distributed throughout tropical central and south america, the callitrichidae are small arboreal primates in which detection of natural plasmodium infection has been extremely rare. most prior screening efforts have been limited to small samples, the use of low-probability detection methods, or both. rarely have screening efforts implemented a longitudinal sampling design. through an annual mark-recapture program of two sympatric callitrichids, the emperor (saguinus imperator) and saddleback (saguinus fuscicollis) tamarins, whole blood samples were screened for plasmodium by microscopy and nested pcr of the cytochrome b gene across four consecutive years (2012-2015). following the first field season, approximately 50% of the samples collected each subsequent year were from recaptured individuals. in particular, out of 245 samples from 129 individuals, 11 samples from 6 individuals were positive for plasmodium, and all but one of these infections was found in s. imperator. importantly, the cytochrome b sequences were 100% identical to former isolates of p. malariae from humans and p. brasilianum from saimiri sp. chronic infections were detected as evidenced by repeated infections (7) from two individuals across the 4-year study period. furthermore, 4 of the 5 infected emperor tamarins were part of a single group spanning the entire study period. overall, the low prevalence reported here is consistent with previous findings. this study identifies two new natural hosts for p. brasilianum and provides evidence in support of chronic infections in wildlife populations. given that callitrichids are often found in mixed-species associations with other primates and can be resilient to human-disturbed environments, they could contribute to the maintenance of p. malariae populations if future work provides entomological and epidemiological evidence indicating human zoonotic infections." "behavioral responses to annual temperature variation alter the dominant energy pathway, growth, and condition of a cold-water predator",food web; climate change; habitat coupling; lake trout; north-temperate lake,PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,GUZZO MM;BLANCHFIELD PJ;RENNIE MD,"there is a pressing need to understand how ecosystems will respond to climate change. to date, no long-term empirical studies have confirmed that fish populations exhibit adaptive foraging behavior in response to temperature variation and the potential implications this has on fitness. here, we use an unparalleled 11-y acoustic telemetry, stable isotope, and mark-recapture dataset to test if a population of lake trout (salvelinus namaycush), a cold-water stenotherm, adjusted its use of habitat and energy sources in response to annual variations in lake temperatures during the open-water season and how these changes translated to the growth and condition of individual fish. we found that climate influenced access to littoral regions in spring (data from telemetry), which in turn influenced energy acquisition (data from isotopes), and growth (mark-recapture data). in more stressful years, those with shorter springs and longer summers, lake trout had reduced access to littoral habitat and assimilated less littoral energy, resulting in reduced growth and condition. annual variation in prey abundance influenced lake trout foraging tactics (i.e., the balance of the number and duration of forays) but not the overall time spent in littoral regions. lake trout greatly reduced their use of littoral habitat and occupied deep pelagic waters during the summer. together, our results provide clear evidence that climate-mediated behavior can influence the dominant energy pathways of top predators, with implications ranging from individual fitness to food web stability." @@ -903,14 +904,14 @@ using optimal transport theory to estimate transition probabilities in metapopul "acetaminophen: knowledge, use and overdose risk in urban patients consulting their general practitioner. a prospective, descriptive and transversal study",acetaminophen; patients; knowledge; drug overdose; acute liver failure,THERAPIE,CIPOLAT L;LOEB O;LATARCHE C;PAPE E;GILLET P;PETITPAIN N,"introduction. - acetaminophen is the most involved active substance in both unintentional and intentional drug poisoning. however, its availability outside community pharmacies is being debated in france. methods. - we made, via a self-administered questionnaire, a prospective assessment of knowledge, use and acetaminophen overdose risk in patients consulting their general practitioner, in the metz metropole urban area, between may 2015 and february 2016. we estimated the prevalence of potential unintentional overdosage by capture-recapture method. results. - among 819 responding patients, only 17.9 % had a sufficient knowledge and 20.3 % were at risk for potential unintentional overdose. the risk was higher for patients aged over 55 years or belonging to socioprofessional categories of laborers and inactive. a good knowledge score was a protective factor for overdose risk (p < 0.0001). the liver toxicity of acetaminophen was particularly unknown. the prevalence of potential unintentional acetaminophen overdose was estimated at 1 tot % of the population. conclusion. - proposing acetaminophen outside of pharmacies cannot be recommended in france in such conditions. information campaigns are needed to limit the risk of unintentional overdose and its consequences on liver toxicity. (c) 2017 societe francaise de pharmacologie et de therapeutique. published by elsevier masson sas. all rights reserved." integrating sign surveys and telemetry data for estimating brown bear (ursus arctos) density in the romanian carpathians,carpathians; n-mixture model; population density; romania; track survey; ursus arctos,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,POPESCU VD;IOSIF R;POP MI;CHIRIAC S;BOUROS G;FURNAS BJ,"accurate population size estimates are important information for sustainable wildlife management. the romanian carpathians harbor the largest brown bear (ursus arctos) population in europe, yet current management relies on estimates of density that lack statistical oversight and ignore uncertainty deriving from track surveys. in this study, we investigate an alternative approach to estimate brown bear density using sign surveys along transects within a novel integration of occupancy models and home range methods. we performed repeated surveys along 2-km segments of forest roads during three distinct seasons: spring 2011, fall-winter 2011, and spring 2012, within three game management units and a natura 2000 site. we estimated bears abundances along transects using the number of unique tracks observed per survey occasion via n-mixture hierarchical models, which account for imperfect detection. to obtain brown bear densities, we combined these abundances with the effective sampling area of the transects, that is, estimated as a function of the median (+/- bootstrapped se) of the core home range (5.58 +/- 1.08 km(2)) based on telemetry data from 17 bears tracked for 1-month periods overlapping our surveys windows. our analyses yielded average brown bear densities (and 95% confidence intervals) for the three seasons of: 11.5 (7.8-15.3), 11.3 (7.4-15.2), and 12.4 (8.6-16.3) individuals/100 km(2). across game management units, mean densities ranged between 7.5 and 14.8 individuals/100 km(2). our method incorporates multiple sources of uncertainty (e.g., effective sampling area, imperfect detection) to estimate brown bear density, but the inference fundamentally relies on unmarked individuals only. while useful as a temporary approach to monitor brown bears, we urge implementing dna capture-recapture methods regionally to inform brown bear management and recommend increasing resources for gps collars to improve estimates of effective sampling area." accounting for imperfect detection of groups and individuals when estimating abundance,abundance; aerial surveys; distance sampling; double observer; grouped animals; mark-recapture-distance-sampling; n-mixture models,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CLEMENT MJ;CONVERSE SJ;ROYLE JA,"if animals are independently detected during surveys, many methods exist for estimating animal abundance despite detection probabilities <1. common estimators include double-observer models, distance sampling models and combined double-observer and distance sampling models (known as mark-recapture-distance-sampling models; mrds). when animals reside in groups, however, the assumption of independent detection is violated. in this case, the standard approach is to account for imperfect detection of groups, while assuming that individuals within groups are detected perfectly. however, this assumption is often unsupported. we introduce an abundance estimator for grouped animals when detection of groups is imperfect and group size may be under-counted, but not over-counted. the estimator combines an mrds model with an n-mixture model to account for imperfect detection of individuals. the new mrds-nmix model requires the same data as an mrds model (independent detection histories, an estimate of distance to transect, and an estimate of group size), plus a second estimate of group size provided by the second observer. we extend the model to situations in which detection of individuals within groups declines with distance. we simulated 12 data sets and used bayesian methods to compare the performance of the new mrds-nmix model to an mrds model. abundance estimates generated by the mrds-nmix model exhibited minimal bias and nominal coverage levels. in contrast, mrds abundance estimates were biased low and exhibited poor coverage. many species of conservation interest reside in groups and could benefit from an estimator that better accounts for imperfect detection. furthermore, the ability to relax the assumption of perfect detection of individuals within detected groups may allow surveyors to re-allocate resources toward detection of new groups instead of extensive surveys of known groups. we believe the proposed estimator is feasible because the only additional field data required are a second estimate of group size." -estimating extinction risk with minimal data,extinction; modeling; risk assessment; conservation; occupancy; cormack-jolly-seber models,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,WEISS-LEHMAN C;DAVIES KF;CLEMENTS C;MELBOURNE BA,"anthropogenic pressures on the global biome are causing widespread species declines and extinctions. assessing the extinction risk faced by individual species is a critical first step in combating this trend. however, we lack high quality demographic data to do so for the vast majority of plant and animal species. we present an efficient modeling approach to estimate extinction risk based on a statistical framework from the mark-recapture literature. we assessed the model's performance using a combination of simulated data, results from a protist microcosm experiment, and data from a long-term, large-scale habitat fragmentation experiment in southeastern australia. simulation experiments showed the model is robust to missing data as well as biological processes not included explicitly in the model's assumptions. fitting the model to data from the protist experiment yielded accurate predictions of the regional extinction dynamics observed in the system, even with a relatively low level of replication. finally, the model was able to accurately predict the observed dynamics in the habitat fragmentation experiment. the model provides a robust and accurate method to evaluate a species' extinction risk. since it only requires presence/absence data, applies to a wide range of survey designs, and allows for observational uncertainty and missing data, it can be applied to many datasets that existing models cannot accommodate. for these reasons, the model should be useful in conservation settings." +estimating extinction risk with minimal data,extinction; modeling; risk assessment; conservation; occupancy; cormack-jolly-seber models,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,WEISS LEHMAN C;DAVIES KF;CLEMENTS C;MELBOURNE BA,"anthropogenic pressures on the global biome are causing widespread species declines and extinctions. assessing the extinction risk faced by individual species is a critical first step in combating this trend. however, we lack high quality demographic data to do so for the vast majority of plant and animal species. we present an efficient modeling approach to estimate extinction risk based on a statistical framework from the mark-recapture literature. we assessed the model's performance using a combination of simulated data, results from a protist microcosm experiment, and data from a long-term, large-scale habitat fragmentation experiment in southeastern australia. simulation experiments showed the model is robust to missing data as well as biological processes not included explicitly in the model's assumptions. fitting the model to data from the protist experiment yielded accurate predictions of the regional extinction dynamics observed in the system, even with a relatively low level of replication. finally, the model was able to accurately predict the observed dynamics in the habitat fragmentation experiment. the model provides a robust and accurate method to evaluate a species' extinction risk. since it only requires presence/absence data, applies to a wide range of survey designs, and allows for observational uncertainty and missing data, it can be applied to many datasets that existing models cannot accommodate. for these reasons, the model should be useful in conservation settings." population biology of the sand forest specialist butterfly heliconius hermathena hermathena (hewitson) (nymphalidae: heliconiinae) in central amazonia),campina; campinarana; heliconiini; white sand forest,JOURNAL OF THE LEPIDOPTERISTS SOCIETY,SEIXAS RR;SANTOS SE;OKADA Y;FREITAS AVL,"the present paper describes the population parameters and natural history of heliconius hermathena hermathena (hewitson, [1854]), a sand forest specialist nymphalid butterfly. population biology was described based on a 14-month mark-recapture program in a site of open forest in part state, northern brazil. the population was constant through the year, with no marked peaks of abundance for both sexes, with females always less abundant. the range of the population size was 70-150 individuals ( with a maximum near 200 individuals). sex ratio was male biased, with males dominating most of the time. average residence time was of 35 days for males and 31 days for females, with a maximum of 139 days recorded for males and 129 days for females, with both sexes presenting survival curves approaching the type ii survival curve. males presented wing sizes greater than females in all months. adults were observed visiting five species of flowers as nectar and pollen sources and establishing communal nocturnal roosting aggregations on small shrubs. considering the fragility of the amazonian white sand forests, understanding the population patterns of h.h. hermathena can help future conservation planning for these potentially threatened habitats." estimating the number of female sex workers in cote d'ivoire: results and lessons learned,female sex workers; west africa; methods; size estimation,TROPICAL MEDICINE & INTERNATIONAL HEALTH,VUYLSTEKE B;SIKA L;SEMDE G;ANOMA C;KACOU E;LAGA M,"objectiveto report on the results of three size estimations of the populations of female sex workers (fsw) in five cities in cote d'ivoire and on operational lessons learned, which may be relevant for key population programmes in other parts of the world. methodswe applied three methods: mapping and census, capture-recapture and service multiplier. all were applied between 2008 and 2009 in abidjan, san pedro, bouake, yamoussoukro and abengourou. resultsabidjan was the city with the highest number of fsw by far, with estimations between 7880 (census) and 13 714 (service multiplier). the estimations in san pedro, bouake and yamoussoukro were very similar, with figures ranging from 1160 (yamoussoukro, census) to 1916 (san pedro, capture-recapture). important operational lessons were learned, including strategies for mapping, the importance of involving peer sex workers for implementing the capture-recapture and the identification of the right question for the multiplier method. conclusionssuccessful application of three methods to estimate the population size of fsw in five cities in cote d'ivoire enabled us to make recommendations for size estimations of key population in low-income countries." maximum empirical likelihood estimation for abundance in a closed population from capture-recapture data,abundance estimation; capture-recapture experiment; dual system estimation; empirical likelihood,BIOMETRIKA,LIU YK;LI PF;QIN J,"capture-recapture experiments are widely used to collect data needed for estimating the abundance of a closed population. to account for heterogeneity in the capture probabilities, huggins (1989) and alho (1990) proposed a semiparametric model in which the capture probabilities are modelled parametrically and the distribution of individual characteristics is left unspecified. a conditional likelihood method was then proposed to obtain point estimates andwald-type confidence intervals for the abundance. empirical studies show that the small-sample distribution of the maximum conditional likelihood estimator is strongly skewed to the right, which may producewald-type confidence intervals with lower limits that are less than the number of captured individuals or even are negative. in this paper, we propose a full empirical likelihood approach based on huggins andalho's model. we showthat the null distribution of the empirical likelihood ratio for the abundance is asymptotically chi-squared with one degree of freedom, and that the maximum empirical likelihood estimator achieves semiparametric efficiency. simulation studies show that the empirical likelihood-based method is superior to the conditional likelihood-based method: its confidence interval has much better coverage, and the maximum empirical likelihood estimator has a smaller mean square error. we analyse three datasets to illustrate the advantages of our empirical likelihood approach." hair cortisol concentrations correlate negatively with survival in a wild primate population,cort-fitness hypothesis; glucocorticoids; stress; fitness; body condition; parasitism; microcebus murinus; lemurs; madagascar,BMC ECOLOGY,RAKOTONIAINA JH;KAPPELER PM;KAESLER E;HAMALAINEN AM;KIRSCHBAUM C;KRAUS C,"background: glucocorticoid hormones are known to play a key role in mediating a cascade of physiological responses to social and ecological stressors and can therefore influence animals' behaviour and ultimately fitness. yet, how glucocorticoid levels are associated with reproductive success or survival in a natural setting has received little empirical attention so far. here, we examined links between survival and levels of glucocorticoid in a small, short-lived primate, the grey mouse lemur (microcebus murinus), using for the first time an indicator of long-term stress load (hair cortisol concentration). using a capture-mark-recapture modelling approach, we assessed the effect of stress on survival in a broad context (semi-annual rates), but also under a specific period of high energetic demands during the reproductive season. we further assessed the power of other commonly used health indicators (body condition and parasitism) in predicting survival outcomes relative to the effect of long-term stress. results: we found that high levels of hair cortisol were associated with reduced survival probabilities both at the semi-annual scale and over the reproductive season. additionally, very good body condition (measured as scaled mass index) was related to increased survival at the semi-annual scale, but not during the breeding season. in contrast, variation in parasitism failed to predict survival. conclusion: altogether, our results indicate that long-term increased glucocorticoid levels can be related to survival and hence population dynamics, and suggest differential strength of selection acting on glucocorticoids, body condition, and parasite infection." a general approach to model movement in (highly) fragmented patch networks,metapopulation; patch transition; spatial configuration; landscape connectivity; memory,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,MORALES JM;DI VIRGILIO A;DELGADO MD;OVASKAINEN O,"landscape heterogeneity can often be represented as a series of discrete habitat or resource patches surrounded by a matrix of non-habitat. understanding how animals move in such networks of patches is important for many theoretical and applied questions. the probability of going from one patch to another is affected in a non-trivial way by the characteristics and location of other patches in the network. nearby patches can compete as possible destinations, and a particular patch can be shadowed by neighboring patches. we present a way to account for the effects of the spatial configuration of patches in models of space use where individuals alternate between spending time in a patch and moving to other patches in the network. the approach is based on the original derivation of ovaskainen and cornell (j appl probab 40:557-580, 2003) for a diffusion model that considered all possible ways in which an individual leaving a particular patch can eventually reach another patch before dying or leaving the patch network. by replacing the theoretical results of ovaskainen and cornell by other appropriate functions, we provide generality and thus make their approach useful in contexts where diffusion is not a good approximation of movement. furthermore, we provide ways to estimate time spent in the non-habitat matrix when going from patch to patch and implement a method to incorporate the effect of the history of previous visits on future patch use. we present an mcmc way to fit these models to data and illustrate the approach with both simulated data and data from sheep moving among seasonally flooded meadows in northern patagonia.supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear online." "site fidelity and movement of a small-bodied fish species, the rainbow darter (etheostoma caeruleum): implications for environmental effects assessment",environmental effects assessment; fish movement; rainbow darter; site fidelity; small-bodied fish,RIVER RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS,HICKS KA;SERVOS MR,"small-bodied fish species are commonly used for the assessment of environmental effects because they are short lived, abundant, and they mature early. although they are generally considered to be less mobile than larger bodied species, relatively little is known about their movement patterns. in this study, we tagged 3,001 rainbow darters (etheostoma caeruleum) (76mm) in the upper grand river of southern ontario with visible implant alpha tags and elastomers in 3 riffles. five hundred sixty-five fish were recaptured over 4 recapture events (including spawning and nonspawning periods) over a spatial extent of 1900m. the rainbow darter demonstrated high site fidelity having a median movement of 5m and with 85% staying within the riffle in which they were originally tagged. most movements occurred during the spawning period, where males moved at a greater frequency and had a tendency to move longer distances (up to 975m). there was also a bias in the direction of movement, which was dependent on the recapture season. overall, the high site fidelity of the rainbow darter makes it a candidate, sentinel species for the assessment of environmental effects." -"outlanders in an unusual habitat: holothuria mammata (grube, 1840) behaviour on seagrass meadows from ria formosa (s portugal)",sea cucumbers; behaviour; unusual habitat; movement; population dynamics,TURKISH JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,SIEGENTHALER A;CANOVAS F;GONZALEZ-WANGUEMERT M,"holothuria mammata is one of the new target species from the mediterranean and atlantic. usually, it inhabits rocky bottoms, staying in crevices and holes during the day and leaving them in the night for feeding on sandy bottoms. however, it can be found in unusual habitats such as seagrass with diurnal and nocturnal feeding. this study provides information for the first time on the behaviour, density and small scale distribution of h. mammata in a seagrass habitat from ria formosa (s portugal). to reach these aims, a mark/recapture methodology was used. abundance was estimated through r statistical software v.2.15.3 (package ""rcapture""). the minimum area method was applied in grass gis v.6.4.2 for home range. size distribution was estimated applying a shapiro-wilk test. rayleigh test for randomness was applied to study the directionality of movements. a circular one-way anova was used to test for differences in movement direction. capture probability was higher on seagrass than sand and the total length of the individuals ranged from 13 to 25 cm. movement speed was between 4.7 and 14.7 m day(-1). movements were not directional. h. mammata differs in its behaviour from the related holothuria arguinensis occurring in the same habitat." +"outlanders in an unusual habitat: holothuria mammata (grube, 1840) behaviour on seagrass meadows from ria formosa (s portugal)",sea cucumbers; behaviour; unusual habitat; movement; population dynamics,TURKISH JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,SIEGENTHALER A;CANOVAS F;GONZALEZ WANGUEMERT M,"holothuria mammata is one of the new target species from the mediterranean and atlantic. usually, it inhabits rocky bottoms, staying in crevices and holes during the day and leaving them in the night for feeding on sandy bottoms. however, it can be found in unusual habitats such as seagrass with diurnal and nocturnal feeding. this study provides information for the first time on the behaviour, density and small scale distribution of h. mammata in a seagrass habitat from ria formosa (s portugal). to reach these aims, a mark/recapture methodology was used. abundance was estimated through r statistical software v.2.15.3 (package ""rcapture""). the minimum area method was applied in grass gis v.6.4.2 for home range. size distribution was estimated applying a shapiro-wilk test. rayleigh test for randomness was applied to study the directionality of movements. a circular one-way anova was used to test for differences in movement direction. capture probability was higher on seagrass than sand and the total length of the individuals ranged from 13 to 25 cm. movement speed was between 4.7 and 14.7 m day(-1). movements were not directional. h. mammata differs in its behaviour from the related holothuria arguinensis occurring in the same habitat." spatially explicit population estimates for black bears based on cluster sampling,abundance; black bear; clustered sampling; density; florida; spatially explicit capture-recapture; ursus americanus floridanus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HUMM JM;MCCOWN JW;SCHEICK BK;CLARK JD,"we estimated abundance and density of the 5 major black bear (ursus americanus) subpopulations (i.e., eglin, apalachicola, osceola, ocala-st. johns, big cypress) in florida, usa with spatially explicit capture-mark-recapture (scr) by extracting dna from hair samples collected at barbed-wire hair sampling sites. we employed a clustered sampling configuration with sampling sites arranged in 3x3 clusters spaced 2km apart within each cluster and cluster centers spaced 16km apart (center to center). we surveyed all 5 subpopulations encompassing 38,960km(2) during 2014 and 2015. several landscape variables, most associated with forest cover, helped refine density estimates for the 5 subpopulations we sampled. detection probabilities were affected by site-specific behavioral responses coupled with individual capture heterogeneity associated with sex. model-averaged bear population estimates ranged from 120 (95% ci=59-276) bears or a mean 0.025 bears/km(2) (95% ci=0.011-0.44) for the eglin subpopulation to 1,198 bears (95% ci=949-1,537) or 0.127 bears/km(2) (95% ci=0.101-0.163) for the ocala-st. johns subpopulation. the total population estimate for our 5 study areas was 3,916 bears (95% ci=2,914-5,451). the clustered sampling method coupled with information on land cover was efficient and allowed us to estimate abundance across extensive areas that would not have been possible otherwise. clustered sampling combined with spatially explicit capture-recapture methods has the potential to provide rigorous population estimates for a wide array of species that are extensive and heterogeneous in their distribution. (c) 2017 the wildlife society. we estimated abundance and density of the 5 major black bear subpopulations in florida with non-invasive spatially explicit capture-mark-recapture methods based on a clustered sampling configuration. clustered sampling combined with spatially explicit capture-recapture methods have the potential to provide rigorous population estimates for a wide array of species that are extensive and heterogeneous in their distribution." a new parameterization for integrated population models to document amphibian reintroductions,adaptive management; amphibian decline; anuran; hierarchical model; rana pretiosa; reintroduction,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,DUARTE A;PEARL CA;ADAMS MJ;PETERSON JT,"managers are increasingly implementing reintroduction programs as part of a global effort to alleviate amphibian declines. given uncertainty in factors affecting populations and a need to make recurring decisions to achieve objectives, adaptive management is a useful component of these efforts. a major impediment to the estimation of demographic rates often used to parameterize and refine decision-support models is that life-stage-specific monitoring data are frequently sparse for amphibians. we developed a new parameterization for integrated population models to match the ecology of amphibians and capitalize on relatively inexpensive monitoring data to document amphibian reintroductions. we evaluate the capability of this model by fitting it to oregon spotted frog (rana pretiosa) monitoring data collected from 2007 to 2014 following their reintroduction within the klamath basin, oregon, usa. the number of egg masses encountered and the estimated adult and metamorph abundances generally increased following reintroduction. we found that survival probability from egg to metamorph ranged from 0.01 in 2008 to 0.09 in 2009 and was not related to minimum spring temperatures, metamorph survival probability ranged from 0.13 in 2010-2011 to 0.86 in 2012-2013 and was positively related to mean monthly temperatures (logit-scale slope = 2.37), adult survival probability was lower for founders (0.40) than individuals recruited after reintroduction (0.56), and the mean number of egg masses per adult female was 0.74. our study is the first to test hypotheses concerning oregon spotted frog egg-to-metamorph and metamorph-to-adult transition probabilities in the wild and document their response at multiple life stages following reintroduction. furthermore, we provide an example to illustrate how the structure of our integrated population model serves as a useful foundation for amphibian decision-support models within adaptive management programs. the integration of multiple, but related, data sets has an advantage of being able to estimate complex ecological relationships across multiple life stages, offering a modeling framework that accommodates uncertainty, enforces parsimony, and ensures all model parameters can be confronted with monitoring data." assessment of individual and conspecific reproductive success as determinants of breeding dispersal of female tree swallows: a capture-recapture approach,capture-recapture data; dispersal; multievent model; reproductive success; social information; tree swallow,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,LAGRANGE P;GIMENEZ O;DOLIGEZ B;PRADEL R;GARANT D;PELLETIER F;BELISLE M,"breeding dispersal is a key process of population structure and dynamics and is often triggered by an individual's breeding failure. in both colonial and territorial birds, reproductive success of conspecifics (rsc) can also lead individuals to change breeding sites after a failure on a site. yet, few studies have simultaneously investigated the independent contribution of individual reproductive success (rsi) and of rsc on dispersal decision. here, we develop a modeling framework to disentangle the effects of rsi and rsc on demographic parameters, while accounting for imperfect individual detection and other confounding factors such as age or dispersal behavior in the previous year. using a 10-year capture-recapture dataset composed of 1,595 banded tree swallows, we assessed the effects of nonmanipulated rsi and rsc on female breeding dispersal in this semicolonial passerine. dispersal was strongly driven by rsi, but not by rsc. unsuccessful females were 9.5-2.5 times more likely to disperse than successful ones, depending if they had dispersed or not in the previous year, respectively. unsuccessful females were also three times less likely to be detected than successful ones. contrary to theoretical and empirical studies, rsc did not drive the decision to disperse but influenced the selection of the following breeding site once dispersal had been initiated. because detection of individuals was driven by rsi, which was positively correlated to rsc, assuming a perfect detection as in previous studies may have lead us to conclude that rsc affected dispersal patterns, yet our approach corrected for this bias. overall, our results suggest that the value and use of rsc as public information to guide dispersal decisions are likely dictated by multiple ecological determinants, such as landscape structure and extent, if this cue is indeed used." @@ -921,51 +922,51 @@ integrated population models reveal local weather conditions are the key drivers spatial capture-recapture analysis of artificial cover board survey data reveals small scale spatial variation in slow-worm anguis fragilis density,abundance; reptile; artificial cover object; home range; spatial capture-recapture; translocation,ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE,SCHMIDT BR;MEIER A;SUTHERLAND C;ROYLE JA,"vague and/or ad hoc definitions of the area sampled in monitoring efforts are common, and estimates of ecological state variables (e.g. distribution and abundance) can be sensitive to such specifications. the uncertainty in population metrics due to data deficiencies, vague definitions of space and lack of standardized protocols is a major challenge for monitoring, managing and conserving amphibian and reptile populations globally. this is especially true for the slowworm (anguis fragilis), a cryptic and fossorial legless lizard; uncertainty about spatial variation in density has hindered conservation efforts (e.g. in translocation projects). spatial capture-recapture (scr) methods can be used to estimate density while simultaneously and explicitly accounting for space and individual movement. we use scr to analyse mark-recapture data of the slow-worm that were collected using artificial cover objects (aco). detectability varied among aco grids and through the season. estimates of slow-worm density varied across aco grids (13, 45 and 46 individuals ha(-1), respectively). the estimated 95% home range size of slow-worms was 0.38 ha. our estimates provide valuable information about slow-worm spatial ecology that can be used to inform future conservation management." "rocky river wetland usage for education and recreation: early planning and implementation in anderson county, south carolina",NA,SOUTHEASTERN NATURALIST,KOZEL T,"the rocky river conservancy, anderson university, the city and county of anderson, sc, and local environmental groups are working in partnership to rehabilitate, preserve, and develop similar to 200 ha of forested and emergent wetland and contiguous upland located within the city limits of anderson, sc. the goal of the project is to provide a natural resource usable by the local community for education, and passive and active recreation, while safeguarding this unique and dwindling natural habitat. the environmental advocacy organization, upstate forever (greenville, sc), secured an epa grant for a hydrology assessment and long-range planning for the site. the long-range vision includes plans for construction of boardwalks, observation platforms, and a discovery center. anderson university faculty and students have been surveying the site's flora and fauna and collecting water-quality data. vertebrates documented include 21 species of fishes, 18 species of amphibians and reptiles, 120 species of birds, and 11 species of mammals. a tree-frog mark-recapture program has begun. clearing of overgrown trails, opening sites for access to wetland margins, removal of trash, addition of trail signage, and trail enhancement are underway. community and civic groups such as local garden clubs are being made aware of the resources available to them. the anderson university life-long learning program, and local teachers have visited and used the site. fund-raising, stepwise development without harming or altering the flora and fauna, and continuing to raise community awareness and buy-in of the value of this resource represent ongoing challenges." demographic analysis of imperiled eastern massasaugas (sistrurus catenatus catenatus),NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,JONES PC;KING RB;SUTTON S,"as quantitative modeling of wildlife populations increases, the need for accurate and precise estimates of demographic rates for these populations also grows. eastern massasaugas (sistrurus catenatus catenatus) are an imperiled rattlesnake species found mainly in the great lakes region of north america. we focused on an eastern massasauga population found on beausoleil island in georgian bay that was the subject of a 30-yr mark-recapture study for demographic analysis. we estimated multiple demographic values including annual adult survival, the temporal process variance of survival, population size, and population growth rate. annual adult survival did not differ significantly between sexes (males 0.74; females 0.73). the process variance of annual adult survival for males was 0.006 and was inestimable for females. this is the first estimate of process variance for eastern massasaugas and one of the few such estimates for a snake species. the use of the process variance of survival in population prediction resulted in a large decrease in estimated extinction risk compared to use of the total variance of survival (3% and 21% extinction risk, respectively). population size ranged from 35-77 (mean = 55), and realized population growth rate was equal to 1.02. our analysis showed the beausoleil island population was stable up to the end of the study (2008). demographic estimates can be used to guide management and conservation of this species." -"life histories and conservation of long-lived reptiles, an illustration with the american crocodile (crocodylus acutus)",capture-mark-recapture; crocodylian; demography; population dynamics; sensitivity analysis,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,BRIGGS-GONZALEZ V;BONENFANT C;BASILLE M;CHERKISS M;BEAUCHAMP J;MAZZOTTI F,"successful species conservation is dependent on adequate estimates of population dynamics, but age-specific demographics are generally lacking for many long-lived iteroparous species such as large reptiles. accurate demographic information -allows estimation of population growth rate, as well as projection of future population sizes and quantitative analyses of fitness trade-offs involved in the evolution of life-history strategies. here, a long-term capture-recapture study was conducted from 1978 to 2014 on the american crocodile (crocodylus acutus) in southern florida. over the study period, 7,427 hatchlings were marked and 380 individuals were recaptured for as many as 25 years. we estimated survival to be strongly age dependent with hatchlings having the lowest survival rates (16%) but increasing to nearly 90% at adulthood based on mark-recapture models. more than 5% of the female population were predicted to be reproductive by age 8 years; the age-specific proportion of reproductive females steadily increased until age 18 when more than 95% of females were predicted to be reproductive. population growth rate, estimated from a leslie-lefkovitch stage-class model, showed a positive annual growth rate of 4% over the study period. using a prospective sensitivity analysis, we revealed that the adult stage, as expected, was the most critical stage for population growth rate; however, the survival of younger crocodiles before they became reproductive also had a surprisingly high elasticity. we found that variation in age-specific fecundity has very limited impact on population growth rate in american crocodiles. we used a comparative approach to show that the original life-history strategy of american crocodiles is actually shared by other large, long-lived reptiles: while adult survival rates always have a large impact on population growth, this decreases with declining increasing growth rates, in favour of a higher elasticity of the juvenile stage. crocodiles, as a long-lived and highly fecund species, deviate from the usual association of life histories of ""slow"" species. current management practices are focused on nests and hatchling survival; however, protection efforts that extend to juvenile crocodiles would be most effective for conservation of the species, especially in an ever-developing landscape." -a field assessment of claw removal impacts on the movement and survival of stone crabs menippe spp.,renewable fishery; claw-only fishery; crab fishery; voluntary adherence; protection of spawning stock; survival,FISHERIES RESEARCH,DUERMIT E;SHERVETTE V;WHITAKER JD;KINGSLEY-SMITH PR;WILBER D,"claw-only crab fisheries are often marketed as renewable because crabs are returned to the water after declawing to regenerate claws and re-enter the fishery. the challenge of managing a claw-only fishery for stone crabs (menippe spp.) is compounded by varying regulations throughout their range that include the number of claws harvested from a crab and use of a seasonal closure to protect spawning females. we conducted mark-recapture studies to examine crab responses to claw removal in the field and compared claw handedness and type (crusher, intermediate, pincer) in a wild population to commercial landings to examine compliance with fishery regulations in a one-claw fishery with no seasonal closure. declawed crabs were recaptured less frequently than control crabs, particularly if claw removal created large wounds. control crabs were more commonly recaptured within one month of tagging and declawed crabs recaptured one to three months after tagging, suggesting that declawed crabs were less mobile or less motivated to feed initially after claws were harvested and that, over time, intact crabs left the study area. crabs with fishery-related, regenerated claws comprised 3% of crabs with legal claws. claw type ratios in a limited assessment of the commercial catch most closely reflected expected ratios consistent with a two-claw fishery, indicating that voluntary adherence to current one-claw fishing regulations is not universal. in fisheries needing better protection of spawning stock, a seasonal closure on fishing could be instituted to ensure better protection of spawning. (c) 2017 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +"life histories and conservation of long-lived reptiles, an illustration with the american crocodile (crocodylus acutus)",capture-mark-recapture; crocodylian; demography; population dynamics; sensitivity analysis,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,BRIGGS GONZALEZ V;BONENFANT C;BASILLE M;CHERKISS M;BEAUCHAMP J;MAZZOTTI F,"successful species conservation is dependent on adequate estimates of population dynamics, but age-specific demographics are generally lacking for many long-lived iteroparous species such as large reptiles. accurate demographic information -allows estimation of population growth rate, as well as projection of future population sizes and quantitative analyses of fitness trade-offs involved in the evolution of life-history strategies. here, a long-term capture-recapture study was conducted from 1978 to 2014 on the american crocodile (crocodylus acutus) in southern florida. over the study period, 7,427 hatchlings were marked and 380 individuals were recaptured for as many as 25 years. we estimated survival to be strongly age dependent with hatchlings having the lowest survival rates (16%) but increasing to nearly 90% at adulthood based on mark-recapture models. more than 5% of the female population were predicted to be reproductive by age 8 years; the age-specific proportion of reproductive females steadily increased until age 18 when more than 95% of females were predicted to be reproductive. population growth rate, estimated from a leslie-lefkovitch stage-class model, showed a positive annual growth rate of 4% over the study period. using a prospective sensitivity analysis, we revealed that the adult stage, as expected, was the most critical stage for population growth rate; however, the survival of younger crocodiles before they became reproductive also had a surprisingly high elasticity. we found that variation in age-specific fecundity has very limited impact on population growth rate in american crocodiles. we used a comparative approach to show that the original life-history strategy of american crocodiles is actually shared by other large, long-lived reptiles: while adult survival rates always have a large impact on population growth, this decreases with declining increasing growth rates, in favour of a higher elasticity of the juvenile stage. crocodiles, as a long-lived and highly fecund species, deviate from the usual association of life histories of ""slow"" species. current management practices are focused on nests and hatchling survival; however, protection efforts that extend to juvenile crocodiles would be most effective for conservation of the species, especially in an ever-developing landscape." +a field assessment of claw removal impacts on the movement and survival of stone crabs menippe spp.,renewable fishery; claw-only fishery; crab fishery; voluntary adherence; protection of spawning stock; survival,FISHERIES RESEARCH,DUERMIT E;SHERVETTE V;WHITAKER JD;KINGSLEY SMITH PR;WILBER D,"claw-only crab fisheries are often marketed as renewable because crabs are returned to the water after declawing to regenerate claws and re-enter the fishery. the challenge of managing a claw-only fishery for stone crabs (menippe spp.) is compounded by varying regulations throughout their range that include the number of claws harvested from a crab and use of a seasonal closure to protect spawning females. we conducted mark-recapture studies to examine crab responses to claw removal in the field and compared claw handedness and type (crusher, intermediate, pincer) in a wild population to commercial landings to examine compliance with fishery regulations in a one-claw fishery with no seasonal closure. declawed crabs were recaptured less frequently than control crabs, particularly if claw removal created large wounds. control crabs were more commonly recaptured within one month of tagging and declawed crabs recaptured one to three months after tagging, suggesting that declawed crabs were less mobile or less motivated to feed initially after claws were harvested and that, over time, intact crabs left the study area. crabs with fishery-related, regenerated claws comprised 3% of crabs with legal claws. claw type ratios in a limited assessment of the commercial catch most closely reflected expected ratios consistent with a two-claw fishery, indicating that voluntary adherence to current one-claw fishing regulations is not universal. in fisheries needing better protection of spawning stock, a seasonal closure on fishing could be instituted to ensure better protection of spawning. (c) 2017 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." "effects of scale of movement, detection probability, and true population density on common methods of estimating population density",NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,KEITER DA;DAVIS AJ;RHODES OE;CUNNINGHAM FL;KILGO JC;PEPIN KM;BEASLEY JC,"knowledge of population density is necessary for effective management and conservation of wildlife, yet rarely are estimators compared in their robustness to effects of ecological and observational processes, which can greatly influence accuracy and precision of density estimates. in this study, we simulate biological and observational processes using empirical data to assess effects of animal scale of movement, true population density, and probability of detection on common density estimators. we also apply common data collection and analytical techniques in the field and evaluate their ability to estimate density of a globally widespread species. we find that animal scale of movement had the greatest impact on accuracy of estimators, although all estimators suffered reduced performance when detection probability was low, and we provide recommendations as to when each field and analytical technique is most appropriately employed. the large influence of scale of movement on estimator accuracy emphasizes the importance of effective post-hoc calculation of area sampled or use of methods that implicitly account for spatial variation. in particular, scale of movement impacted estimators substantially, such that area covered and spacing of detectors (e.g. cameras, traps, etc.) must reflect movement characteristics of the focal species to reduce bias in estimates of movement and thus density." "wind conditions on migration influence the annual survival of a neotropical migrant, the western yellow-breasted chat (icteria virens auricollis)",climate conditions; wind; storm; yellow-breasted chats; neotropical migrants; climate change,BMC ECOLOGY,HUANG AC;BISHOP CA;MCKIBBIN R;DRAKE A;GREEN DJ,"background: long-distance migratory birds in north america have undergone precipitous declines over the past half-century. although the trend is clear, for many migrating species underpinning the exact causes poses a challenge to conservation due to the numerous stressors that they encounter. climate conditions during all phases of their annual cycle can have important consequences for their survival. here, using 15 years of capture-recapture dataset, we determined the effects of various climate factors during the breeding, wintering, and migrating stages on the annual survival of a western yellow-breasted chat (icteria virens auricollis) population breeding in southwestern canada. results: el nino effects over the entire annual cycle had little influence on the annual apparent survival of yellow-breasted chats. however, we found evidence that wind conditions during migration, specifically average westerly wind speed or the frequency of storm events, had significant adverse effects on adult annual apparent survival. in comparison, precipitation levels on wintering ground had little to no influence on adult annual apparent survival, whereas growing degree days on the breeding ground had moderate but positive effects. conclusions: in the face of climate change and its predicted impacts on climate processes, understanding the influence of weather conditions on the survival of migrating birds can allow appropriate conservation strategies to be adopted for chats and other declining neotropical migrants." a dynamic model for estimating adult female mortality from ovarian dissection data for the tsetse fly glossina pallidipes austen sampled in zimbabwe,NA,PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES,ACKLEY SF;HARGROVE JW,"human and animal trypanosomiasis, spread by tsetse flies (glossina spp), is a major public health concern in much of sub-saharan africa. the basic reproduction number of vector-borne diseases, such as trypanosomiasis, is a function of vector mortality rate. robust methods for estimating tsetse mortality are thus of interest for understanding population and disease dynamics and for optimal control. existing methods for estimating mortality in adult tsetse, from ovarian dissection data, often use invalid assumptions of the existence of a stable age distribution, and age-invariant mortality and capture probability. we develop a dynamic model to estimate tsetse mortality from ovarian dissection data in populations where the age distribution is not necessarily stable. the models correspond to several hypotheses about how temperature affects mortality: no temperature dependence (model 1), identical temperature dependence for mature adults and immature stages, i.e., pupae and newly emerged adults (model 2), and differential temperature dependence for mature adults and immature stages (model 3). we fit our models to ovarian dissection data for g. pallidipes collected at rekomitjie research station in the zambezi valley in zimbabwe. we compare model fits to determine the most probable model, given the data, by calculating the akaike information criterion (aic) for each model. the model that allows for a differential dependence of temperature on mortality for immature stages and mature adults (model 3) performs significantly better than models 1 and 2. all models produce mortality estimates, for mature adults, of approximately 3% per day for mean daily temperatures below 25 degrees c, consistent with those of mark-recapture studies performed in other settings. for temperatures greater than 25 degrees c, mortality among immature classes of tsetse increases substantially, whereas mortality remains roughly constant for mature adults. as a sensitivity analysis, model 3 was simultaneously fit to both the ovarian dissection and trap data; while this fit also produces comparable mortality at temperatures below 25 degrees c, it is not possible to obtain good fits to both data sources simultaneously, highlighting the uncertain correspondence between trap catches and population levels and/or the need for further improvements to our model. the modelling approach employed here could be applied to any substantial time series of age distribution data." "estimating mudpuppy (necturus maculosus) abundance in the lamoille river, vermont, usa",amphibian; detection probability; fisheries management; lampricide; mark-recapture; non-target; salamander,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,CHELLMAN IC;PARRISH DL;DONOVAN TM,"the mudpuppy (necturus maculosus) is classified as a species of greatest conservation need by the state of vermont. there is concern regarding status of populations in the lake champlain basin because of habitat alteration and potential effects of 3-trifluromethyl-4-nitrophenol (tfm), a chemical used to control sea lamprey (petromyzon marinus). the purpose of our research was to assess mudpuppy capture methods and abundance in the lamoille river, vermont, usa. we sampled mudpuppies under a mark-recapture framework, using modified, baited minnow traps set during two winter-spring periods. we marked each mudpuppy with a passive integrated transponder (pit) tag and released individuals after collecting morphological measurements. we collected 80 individuals during 2,581 trap days in 2008-2009 (year 1), and 81 individuals during 3,072 trap days in 2009-2010 (year 2). we estimated abundance from spring trapping periods in 2009 and 2010, during which capture rates were sufficient for analysis. capture probability was low (< 0.04), but highest following precipitation events in spring, during periods of higher river flow, when water temperatures were approximately 3 to 6 degrees c. during october 2009, management agencies treated the lamoille river with tfm. surveyors recovered more than 500 dead mudpuppies during the post-treatment assessment. overall, mudpuppy captures did not change between sampling periods; however, we captured fewer females during year 2 compared to year 1, and the sex ratio changed from 0.79: 1 (m:f) during year 1 to 3:1 (m:f) during year 2. our data may help wildlife managers assess population status of mudpuppies in conjunction with fisheries management techniques." genetic sampling for estimating density of common species,density estimators; fecal pellets; noninvasive genetic sampling; snowshoe hare; spatial capture-ecapture,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CHENG E;HODGES KE;SOLLMANN R;MILLS LS,"understanding population dynamics requires reliable estimates of population density, yet this basic information is often surprisingly difficult to obtain. with rare or difficult-to--capture species, genetic surveys from noninvasive collection of hair or scat has proved cost-efficient for estimating densities. here, we explored whether noninvasive genetic sampling (ngs) also offers promise for sampling a relatively common species, the snowshoe hare (lepus americanus erxleben, 1777), in comparison with traditional live trapping. we optimized a protocol for single-session ngs sampling of hares. we compared spatial capture-recapture population estimates from live trapping to estimates derived from ngs, and assessed ngs costs. ngs provided population estimates similar to those derived from live trapping, but a higher density of sampling plots was required for ngs. the optimal ngs protocol for our study entailed deploying 160 sampling plots for 4 days and genotyping one pellet per plot. ngs laboratory costs ranged from approximately $670 to $3000 usd per field site. while live trapping does not incur laboratory costs, its field costs can be considerably higher than for ngs, especially when study sites are difficult to access. we conclude that ngs can work for common species, but that it will require field and laboratory pilot testing to develop cost-effective sampling protocols." campylobacter jejuni infection associated with relatively poor condition and low survival in a wild bird,NA,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,TAFF CC;TOWNSEND AK,"campylobacter jejuni is the most common foodborne pathogen in industrialized countries. most human infections come from contaminated poultry, but wild birds are also known to harbor c. jejuni. wild birds are often described as asymptomatic carriers, but this assumption is based on domestic poultry research. we studied the effects of c. jejuni infection on body condition and survival of adult and nestling american crows corvus brachyrhynchos in davis, california. previous work demonstrated that more than half of the crows in this population are infected with c. jejuni and that at least some of the isolates carried by crows are similar to those found in domestic animals and humans. in this study, we compared the body condition of infected and uninfected individuals at the time of capture among adults (n = 44; 52% infected) and nestlings (n = 97; 77% infected). we subsequently monitored these banded individuals for up to 3 yr and used mark-recapture survival analysis to estimate relationships between infection status and later survival. we found that adult crows infected with c. jejuni were in poor condition relative to uninfected adults: average body mass of infected birds was 12% lower, whereas average body size did not differ between the two groups. likewise, apparent survival probability was lower for infected adults. in contrast, nestling body condition, fledging success, and survival did not differ by infection status. this is the first study to document adverse effects of c. jejuni infection in a free-living, wild bird. if these effects are widespread, c. jejuni exposure may be a cause of conservation concern for some species, especially when human activities increase exposure to infections or introduce novel strains to wild bird populations. our results add to the growing body of work demonstrating hidden long-term costs of seemingly mild infections in wild populations." -"decreasing population trend in coastal bottlenose dolphin (tursiops truncatus) from the gulf of guayaquil, ecuador",anthropogenic stressors; brackish; ecological status; estuary; habitat management; mammal,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,FELIX F;CALDERON A;VINTIMILLA M;BAYAS-REA RA,"1. the population status of the coastal bottlenose dolphin (tursiops truncatus) inhabiting the inner estuary of the gulf of guayaquil, ecuador (3 degrees s, 81 degrees w) was assessed. evaluated aspects included social organization, abundance and spatial distribution. 2. surveys focused on the western part of the estuary (posorja and estero salado) but other areas in the central and eastern inner estuary were also surveyed. 3. effort included 68 trips, 5001km of survey and 288.8h at sea. between 735 and 793 dolphins in 92 groups were recorded during the study. 4. dolphins are not evenly distributed but concentrated their activities in the mouths of large channels. 5. a cluster analyses indicated that dolphins organize in partially discrete subunits referred to as communities. 6. abundance estimations were obtained using mark-recapture modelling for two communities: posorja and estero salado (43 dolphins, 95% ci 37-49 and 65 dolphins, 95% ci 52-82 respectively). 7. four demographic parameters: average size of communities, average group size, average encounter rate and average density were compared with information obtained during the 1990s. in all cases the current values were between 39 and 54% lower; in the last three cases the difference was statistically significant. 8. possible causes of this apparent decline include bycatch, ship strikes, pollution and habitat degradation; however, none of these have been assessed in depth. most probably, different stressors are affecting dolphin communities to different extents. 9. a comprehensive assessment of the whole population inside the gulf is needed. identifying major threats is a priority to define concrete actions to prevent further population decline." +"decreasing population trend in coastal bottlenose dolphin (tursiops truncatus) from the gulf of guayaquil, ecuador",anthropogenic stressors; brackish; ecological status; estuary; habitat management; mammal,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,FELIX F;CALDERON A;VINTIMILLA M;BAYAS REA RA,"1. the population status of the coastal bottlenose dolphin (tursiops truncatus) inhabiting the inner estuary of the gulf of guayaquil, ecuador (3 degrees s, 81 degrees w) was assessed. evaluated aspects included social organization, abundance and spatial distribution. 2. surveys focused on the western part of the estuary (posorja and estero salado) but other areas in the central and eastern inner estuary were also surveyed. 3. effort included 68 trips, 5001km of survey and 288.8h at sea. between 735 and 793 dolphins in 92 groups were recorded during the study. 4. dolphins are not evenly distributed but concentrated their activities in the mouths of large channels. 5. a cluster analyses indicated that dolphins organize in partially discrete subunits referred to as communities. 6. abundance estimations were obtained using mark-recapture modelling for two communities: posorja and estero salado (43 dolphins, 95% ci 37-49 and 65 dolphins, 95% ci 52-82 respectively). 7. four demographic parameters: average size of communities, average group size, average encounter rate and average density were compared with information obtained during the 1990s. in all cases the current values were between 39 and 54% lower; in the last three cases the difference was statistically significant. 8. possible causes of this apparent decline include bycatch, ship strikes, pollution and habitat degradation; however, none of these have been assessed in depth. most probably, different stressors are affecting dolphin communities to different extents. 9. a comprehensive assessment of the whole population inside the gulf is needed. identifying major threats is a priority to define concrete actions to prevent further population decline." which temporal resolution to consider when investigating the impact of climatic data on population dynamics? the case of the lesser horseshoe bat (rhinolophus hipposideros),rhinolophus hipposideros; temporal resolution; model averaging; climatic variables; population demography,OECOLOGIA,JAN PL;FARCY O;BOIREAU J;LE TEXIER E;BAUDOIN A;LE GOUAR P;PUECHMAILLE SJ;PETIT EJ,"climatic variables are often considered when studying environmental impacts on population dynamics of terrestrial species. however, the temporal resolution considered varies depending on studies, even among studies of the same taxa. most studies interested in climatic impacts on populations tend to average climatic data across timeframes covering life cycle periods of the organism in question or longer, even though most climatic databases provide at least a monthly resolution. we explored the impact of climatic variables on lesser horseshoe bat (rhinolophus hipposideros) demography based on count data collected at 94 maternity colonies from 2000 to 2014 in britanny, france. meteorological data were considered using different time resolutions (month, life cycle period and year) to investigate their adequacy. model averaging was used to detect significant predictors for each temporal resolution. our results show that the finest temporal resolution, e.g. month, was more informative than coarser ones. precipitation predictors were particularly decisive, with a negative impact on colony sizes when rainfall occurred in october, and a positive impact for june precipitations. fecundity was influenced by april weather. this highlights the strong impact of climatic conditions during crucial but short time periods on the population dynamics of bats. we demonstrate the importance of choosing an appropriate time resolution and suggest that analogous studies should consider fine-scale temporal resolution (e.g. month) to better grasp the relationship between population dynamics and climatic conditions." -visibility and persistence of marker dyes and effect on the quality and mating competitiveness of mass-reared flies (diptera: tephritidae): anastrepha obliqua and bisexual and genetic sexing (tapachula-7) strains of a-ludens,marking-recapture method; dye; ptilinum; sterile insect technique,JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY,ARREDONDO J;RUIZ L;LOPEZ G;DIAZ-FLEISCHER F,"fluorescent dyes are commonly used in the sterile insect technique (sit) for marking insects for a proper identification after recapture. however, the quality of the mark must be balanced against insect performance, because dyes can negatively affect some parameters of insect performance and reduce their effectiveness in control with the sit. we determined the visibility and persistence and the effect of dyes on the quality of anastrepha obliqua (macquart) and anastrepha ludens (loew) (bisexual and genetic sexing strains) by testing four concentrations of a dye (day-glo) from 0 to 2.5 g dye/kg of pupae. visibility and persistence of the mark were positively affected by dose and negatively affected by the length of time the samples were kept in a solution of 75% alcohol. however, upon dissection, even the lowest dose of dye was visible under a fluorescence microscope. between dyed and undyed pupae (control), no significant differences were observed in rates of emergence, fliers and flight ability, and survival in two tests, with water and without food and without water and food, at any of the concentrations tested. furthermore, no significant difference in mating competitiveness was detected between control pupae and those dyed at 1.0 and 2.5 g dye/kg pupae. we discuss our results with the possibility of reducing the dose of dye in these three flies, because the heads are large enough to capture sufficient particles to permit identification with the current methods of detection." -comparison of photo-matching algorithms commonly used for photographic capture-recapture studies,amphident; aphis; capture-recapture; i3s; photographic identification; wild-id,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MATTHE M;SANNOLO M;WINIARSKI K;SPITZEN-VAN DER SLUIJS A;GOEDBLOED D;STEINFARTZ S;STACHOW U,"photographic capture-recapture is a valuable tool for obtaining demographic information on wildlife populations due to its noninvasive nature and cost-effectiveness. recently, several computer-aided photo-matching algorithms have been developed to more efficiently match images of unique individuals in databases with thousands of images. however, the identification accuracy of these algorithms can severely bias estimates of vital rates and population size. therefore, it is important to understand the performance and limitations of state-of-the-art photo-matching algorithms prior to implementation in capture-recapture studies involving possibly thousands of images. here, we compared the performance of four photo-matching algorithms; wild-id, i3s pattern+, aphis, and amphident using multiple amphibian databases of varying image quality. we measured the performance of each algorithm and evaluated the performance in relation to database size and the number of matching images in the database. we found that algorithm performance differed greatly by algorithm and image database, with recognition rates ranging from 100% to 22.6% when limiting the review to the 10 highest ranking images. we found that recognition rate degraded marginally with increased database size and could be improved considerably with a higher number of matching images in the database. in our study, the pixel-based algorithm of amphident exhibited superior recognition rates compared to the other approaches. we recommend carefully evaluating algorithm performance prior to using it to match a complete database. by choosing a suitable matching algorithm, databases of sizes that are unfeasible to match by eye can be easily translated to accurate individual capture histories necessary for robust demographic estimates." +visibility and persistence of marker dyes and effect on the quality and mating competitiveness of mass-reared flies (diptera: tephritidae): anastrepha obliqua and bisexual and genetic sexing (tapachula-7) strains of a-ludens,marking-recapture method; dye; ptilinum; sterile insect technique,JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY,ARREDONDO J;RUIZ L;LOPEZ G;DIAZ FLEISCHER F,"fluorescent dyes are commonly used in the sterile insect technique (sit) for marking insects for a proper identification after recapture. however, the quality of the mark must be balanced against insect performance, because dyes can negatively affect some parameters of insect performance and reduce their effectiveness in control with the sit. we determined the visibility and persistence and the effect of dyes on the quality of anastrepha obliqua (macquart) and anastrepha ludens (loew) (bisexual and genetic sexing strains) by testing four concentrations of a dye (day-glo) from 0 to 2.5 g dye/kg of pupae. visibility and persistence of the mark were positively affected by dose and negatively affected by the length of time the samples were kept in a solution of 75% alcohol. however, upon dissection, even the lowest dose of dye was visible under a fluorescence microscope. between dyed and undyed pupae (control), no significant differences were observed in rates of emergence, fliers and flight ability, and survival in two tests, with water and without food and without water and food, at any of the concentrations tested. furthermore, no significant difference in mating competitiveness was detected between control pupae and those dyed at 1.0 and 2.5 g dye/kg pupae. we discuss our results with the possibility of reducing the dose of dye in these three flies, because the heads are large enough to capture sufficient particles to permit identification with the current methods of detection." +comparison of photo-matching algorithms commonly used for photographic capture-recapture studies,amphident; aphis; capture-recapture; i3s; photographic identification; wild-id,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MATTHE M;SANNOLO M;WINIARSKI K;SPITZEN VAN DER SLUIJS A;GOEDBLOED D;STEINFARTZ S;STACHOW U,"photographic capture-recapture is a valuable tool for obtaining demographic information on wildlife populations due to its noninvasive nature and cost-effectiveness. recently, several computer-aided photo-matching algorithms have been developed to more efficiently match images of unique individuals in databases with thousands of images. however, the identification accuracy of these algorithms can severely bias estimates of vital rates and population size. therefore, it is important to understand the performance and limitations of state-of-the-art photo-matching algorithms prior to implementation in capture-recapture studies involving possibly thousands of images. here, we compared the performance of four photo-matching algorithms; wild-id, i3s pattern+, aphis, and amphident using multiple amphibian databases of varying image quality. we measured the performance of each algorithm and evaluated the performance in relation to database size and the number of matching images in the database. we found that algorithm performance differed greatly by algorithm and image database, with recognition rates ranging from 100% to 22.6% when limiting the review to the 10 highest ranking images. we found that recognition rate degraded marginally with increased database size and could be improved considerably with a higher number of matching images in the database. in our study, the pixel-based algorithm of amphident exhibited superior recognition rates compared to the other approaches. we recommend carefully evaluating algorithm performance prior to using it to match a complete database. by choosing a suitable matching algorithm, databases of sizes that are unfeasible to match by eye can be easily translated to accurate individual capture histories necessary for robust demographic estimates." microhabitat use in the amblypygid paraphrynus laevifrons,microhabitat preference; natural history; whip spider; movement patterns,JOURNAL OF ARACHNOLOGY,COREY TB;HEBETS EA,"amblypygids (order: amblypygi) can be found across different habitat types, each with very different microhabitat structure, including rainforests, deserts, and caves in the tropics and subtropics. most prior studies on amblypygid microhabitat use have focused on characteristics of trees and their relationship with amblypygid abundance, though many species regularly occupy refuges away from trees. here we explore microhabitat use in the amblypygid paraphrynus laevifrons pocock, 1894 through mark-recapture surveys conducted along creeks and trails in a secondary forest in southeastern costa rica. we identified (1) microhabitat characteristics associated with abundance of p. laevifrons and (2) resighting ratio-the likelihood of finding individual p. laevifrons over multiple nights, potentially in association with a particular area (a putative territory). we measured four microhabitat characteristics: (i) number of visible refuges, (ii) surface area of vertical substrate, (iii) estimated plant cover of substrate, and (iv) presence/absence of an overhang. we found that the number of p. laevifrons sighted did not differ across wet and dry seasons, but p. laevifrons were sighted in greater numbers in creeks than trails. the abundance of p. laevifrons was positively affected by the presence of overhangs, there was no effect of plant cover, and the positive effect of number of refuges was stronger in trails, where overhangs were less common, than in creeks. our results support earlier studies showing that amblypygids can be found more abundantly in areas with greater available refuges and potential shelter, suggesting that predation may be a strong source of selection on amblypygid microhabitat use." population dynamics of dromiciops gliroides (microbiotheriidae) in an austral temperate forest,capture-recapture; hierarchical bayesian analysis; natural disturbance; patagonia,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,OLIVER AB;AMICO GC;RIVAROLA MD;MORALES JM,"dromiciops gliroides is an arboreal marsupial endemic to the southern temperate forest located between 36 degrees s and 43 degrees s in both chile and argentina. this species is a key seed disperser of many native plants, including the keystone mistletoe, tristerix corymbosus. we studied the population fluctuation of d. gliroides and the possible effects of natural disturbances on the population. we estimated density, abundance, survival, and recruitment ratios for 7 years (2009-2011 and 2013-2016) at reserva llao llao, argentina, using capture-recapture techniques. a jolly-seber model with robust design was fitted using a hierarchical bayesian approach. the estimated mean abundance during these 7 years was 81 individuals. the highest abundances were observed in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2014 (98 individuals on average). the years with lowest abundance were 2013, 2015, and 2016 (60 individuals on average), which coincided with the occurrence of natural disturbances in the study area (eruption of the puyehue-cordon caulle volcano, the flowering of chusquea bamboo and a subsequent rodent outbreak, and an unusually dry summer). these results suggest that the observed population fluctuations of d. gliroides could be related to natural forest disturbances." evaluating the impact of man-made disasters on imperiled species: piping plovers and the deepwater horizon oil spill,piping plover; charadrius melodus; deepwater horizon oil spill; shorebird winter ecology; anthropogenic disturbance,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,GIBSON D;CATLIN DH;HUNT KL;FRASER JD;KARPANTY SM;FRIEDRICH MJ;BIMBI MK;COHEN JB;MADDOCK SB,"even in the presence of environmental safeguards, catastrophic accidents related to anthropogenic activities occur that can result in both immediate and chronic impacts on local biota. however, due to the unplanned nature of catastrophes, studies aimed to identify the effects of these accidents on an ecosystem and its inhabitants often have imperfect study designs that are reactive rather than proactive, resulting in methodological and analytical challenges. on 20 april 2010, following an explosion on the deepwater horizon oil rig, a well blowout occurred on the seafloor approximately 80 km off the louisiana coast in the gulf of mexico. this blowout resulted in the largest marine oil spill in united states history, which impacted critical migratory stopover and overwintering habitat for many seabird and shorebird species, including species of high conservation concern such as the piping plover (charadrius melodus). here, we assessed the potential longer-term demographic impacts of the deepwater horizon oil spill on piping plovers in a capture-mark-recapture framework. we examined whether a series of demographic processes, including probabilities of remaining at a specific wintering site, over-winter and annual apparent survival, winter stopover duration, and abundance varied among oiled and unoiled habitats. we found that the perceived amount of oiling on land, in water, and on individual birds, as well as numerous demographic processes, were spatially or temporally variable. however, we found little support that piping plover demography was negatively influenced by the magnitude of oil observed at an impacted area, or that demographic rates substantially varied between reference and oil impacted areas. nor did we find that piping plovers that were observed to be oiled had lower survival probabilities following the dwh oil spill relative to non-oiled individuals from the same winter population. although we did not find that the deepwater horizon oil spill substantially influenced piping plovers, our methods provide an analytical framework to more appropriately address both the near or long-term impacts of an anthropogenic disturbance on a species." google haul out: earth observation imagery and digital aerial surveys in coastal wildlife management and abundance estimation,abundance estimation; gray seals (halichoerus grypus); cape cod; remote sensing; earth observation,BIOSCIENCE,MOXLEY JH;BOGOMOLNI A;HAMMILL MO;MOORE KMT;POLITO MJ;SETTE L;SHARP WB;WARING GT;GILBERT JR;HALPIN PN;JOHNSTON DW,"as the sampling frequency and resolution of earth observation imagery increase, there are growing opportunities for novel applications in population monitoring. new methods are required to apply established analytical approaches to data collected from new observation platforms (e.g., satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles). here, we present a method that estimates regional seasonal abundances for an understudied and growing population of gray seals (halichoerus grypus) in southeastern massachusetts, using opportunistic observations in google earth imagery. abundance estimates are derived from digital aerial survey counts by adapting established correction-based analyses with telemetry behavioral observation to quantify survey biases. the result is a first regional understanding of gray seal abundance in the northeast us through opportunistic earth observation imagery and repurposed animal telemetry data. as species observation data from earth observation imagery become more ubiquitous, such methods provide a robust, adaptable, and cost-effective solution to monitoring animal colonies and understanding species abundances." resource availability and sexual size dimorphism: differential effects of prey abundance on the growth rates of tropical snakes,anuran; canalization; fecundity; plasticity; predator-prey; stegonotus cucullatus; tropidonophis mairii,FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY,BROWN GP;MADSEN TRL;SHINE R,"1. broad phylogenetic patterns in sexual size dimorphism (ssd) are shaped by sex differences in net selection pressures (e.g. sexual selection, fecundity selection, survival selection), but environmental and ecological factors can also affect the expression of ssd. 2. discussions of proximate ecological influences on ssd have focused on niche divergence; for example, increase in a prey type used by only one sex can elevate growth rates of that sex but not the other. food limitation also can generate spatial and temporal variation in ssd. under restricted prey abundance, curtailed growth may mask ssd even if the optimal size is greater for one sex than the other. because an increase in food availability elicits increased feeding and growth by the sex that benefits more from increased body size, variation in prey abundance can generate variation in ssd. 3. we used mark-recapture methods to study growth rates relative to prey (frog) abundance in two species of sexually dimorphic colubrid snake species in tropical australia. 4. in slatey-grey snakes (stegonotus cucullatus), a species in which larger body size enhances reproductive output in both sexes (because larger males win combat bouts, and larger females produce more/heavier eggs), increased abundance of frogs caused equivalent increases in growth rates in both sexes and hence did not affect ssd. in keelbacks (tropidonophis mairii), a species in which larger size enhances reproductive output in females more than males (reflecting a lack of male-male combat), increased abundance of frogs elicited higher growth rates of females only. thus, ssd in keelbacks was modified by prey abundance. 5. our results show that the magnitude of sex differences in adult body size can be influenced by proximate environmental factors and support the hypothesis of sex-specific targets for maximum feeding rates." the efficacy of clove oil as an anaesthetic and in euthanasia procedure for small-sized tropical fishes,eugenol; anesthesia; euthanasia; field experiment; fish manipulation,BRAZILIAN JOURNAL OF BIOLOGY,FERNANDES IM;BASTOS YF;BARRETO DS;LOURENCO LS;PENHA JM,"clove oil is used as a fish anesthetic because it is a natural and inexpensive product with low toxicity risks. the goal of the present study was to determine the appropriate concentration of clove oil for small-sized tropical fish to be used in mark-recapture studies or when individuals are to be sacrificed. we applied three different clove oil concentrations (d1=0.05 ml, d2=0.10 ml and d3=0.20 ml per 500 ml of water) on three small-sized fish species. we found a negative relationship between induction time and treatment for two species (hyphessobrycon sp. 1 and hemigrammus sp.), while concentration was unrelated to recovery time. fish body length was positively related to induction time in the d2 treatment for hemigrammus sp., and negatively for hyphessobrycon sp. 1 in the d1 treatment, but was unrelated to recovery time for three species and treatments. mortality rates varied across treatments, but higher rates were observed with higher clove oil concentrations. we conclude that 0.05 ml of clove oil per 500 ml of water is the most efficient dose for studies where fish will be released back to their natural habitats, while 0.20 ml of clove oil is recommended for studies that require fish euthanization for further laboratory analyses." -"the first confirmed decline of a delphinid population from brazilian waters: 2000-2015 abundance of sotalia guianensis in guanabara bay, south-eastern brazil",guiana dolphin; photo-identification; mark-recapture; pradel; pollock's robust design,ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS,AZEVEDO AF;CARVALHO RR;KAJIN M;VAN SLUYS M;BISI TL;CUNHA HA;LAILSON-BRITO J,"the abundance of guiana dolphins (sotalia guianensis) in guanabara bay, rio de janeiro, south-eastern brazil, was investigated during the period 2000-2015 using mark-recapture models applied to photo identification data. a combination of pradel's model and pollock's robust design was applied to estimate abundance and other population parameters, such as apparent survival (phi), capture probability (p) and seniority probability (gamma). total population size was estimated by correcting the estimates derived from the pradel robust design model for the proportion of marked individuals in the population. the corrected abundance estimates decreased drastically (37%) between 2000 (62, 95% ci 59-65) and 2015 (39, 95% ci 37-40), and can be explained by a combination of low survival and recruitment rates. determining the ultimate causes for the decline in this guiana dolphin population is difficult, but the likely reasons are of anthropogenic nature, such as by-catch, habitat degradation, intense traffic of vessels and exposure to immunosuppressive and endocrine-disrupting pollutants. we provide the first quantitative evidence of population decline in a delphinid from brazilian waters. conservation and management actions are urged to change this scenario. other local dolphin populations in brazil, which are exposed to the same impacts, may also be currently declining or are expected to do so in the near future. for this reason, we emphasize that anthropogenic impacts upon estuarine/coastal species that exhibit site fidelity warrant greater attention, because such impacts may lead to the same negative scenario observed in guanabara bay. (c) 2017 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -"social implications of a colony collapse in a highly structured vertebrate species (long-tailed bat, chalinolobus tuberculatus)",chiroptera; colony breeding; group living; home range; metapopulation dynamics; local extinction; social structure; mark-recapture,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,MONKS JM;O'DONNELL CFJ,"strong social structuring within a population can confer fitness advantages to group members, but may also affect the ability of a population to recover from local extinctions. opportunities to evaluate the dynamics of the collapse of a sub-population on a vertebrate population in the wild are rare, requiring a crash during a long-term study of marked individuals. endangered long-tailed bats chalinolobus tuberculatus, which are members of the widespread family vespertilionidae, live in closed social groups as evidenced by non-random associations of individuals and a low degree of mixing among colonies. during a 19-year mark-recapture study of long-tailed bats in the eglinton valley, new zealand, one colony of bats collapsed over a 2-year period in which numbers of introduced predators were high. we investigated individual-and colony-level implications of this local extinction event. survivors (11 known) were assimilated into the neighbouring colony during and immediately after the collapse, but retained higher association rates with individuals from their former colony. the neighbouring colony gradually extended its roosting range into habitat formerly occupied by the extinct colony. acceptance of individuals into other colonies demonstrates resilience of highly structured vertebrate populations to local crashes." +"the first confirmed decline of a delphinid population from brazilian waters: 2000-2015 abundance of sotalia guianensis in guanabara bay, south-eastern brazil",guiana dolphin; photo-identification; mark-recapture; pradel; pollock's robust design,ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS,AZEVEDO AF;CARVALHO RR;KAJIN M;VAN SLUYS M;BISI TL;CUNHA HA;LAILSON BRITO J,"the abundance of guiana dolphins (sotalia guianensis) in guanabara bay, rio de janeiro, south-eastern brazil, was investigated during the period 2000-2015 using mark-recapture models applied to photo identification data. a combination of pradel's model and pollock's robust design was applied to estimate abundance and other population parameters, such as apparent survival (phi), capture probability (p) and seniority probability (gamma). total population size was estimated by correcting the estimates derived from the pradel robust design model for the proportion of marked individuals in the population. the corrected abundance estimates decreased drastically (37%) between 2000 (62, 95% ci 59-65) and 2015 (39, 95% ci 37-40), and can be explained by a combination of low survival and recruitment rates. determining the ultimate causes for the decline in this guiana dolphin population is difficult, but the likely reasons are of anthropogenic nature, such as by-catch, habitat degradation, intense traffic of vessels and exposure to immunosuppressive and endocrine-disrupting pollutants. we provide the first quantitative evidence of population decline in a delphinid from brazilian waters. conservation and management actions are urged to change this scenario. other local dolphin populations in brazil, which are exposed to the same impacts, may also be currently declining or are expected to do so in the near future. for this reason, we emphasize that anthropogenic impacts upon estuarine/coastal species that exhibit site fidelity warrant greater attention, because such impacts may lead to the same negative scenario observed in guanabara bay. (c) 2017 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +"social implications of a colony collapse in a highly structured vertebrate species (long-tailed bat, chalinolobus tuberculatus)",chiroptera; colony breeding; group living; home range; metapopulation dynamics; local extinction; social structure; mark-recapture,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,MONKS JM;O DONNELL CFJ,"strong social structuring within a population can confer fitness advantages to group members, but may also affect the ability of a population to recover from local extinctions. opportunities to evaluate the dynamics of the collapse of a sub-population on a vertebrate population in the wild are rare, requiring a crash during a long-term study of marked individuals. endangered long-tailed bats chalinolobus tuberculatus, which are members of the widespread family vespertilionidae, live in closed social groups as evidenced by non-random associations of individuals and a low degree of mixing among colonies. during a 19-year mark-recapture study of long-tailed bats in the eglinton valley, new zealand, one colony of bats collapsed over a 2-year period in which numbers of introduced predators were high. we investigated individual-and colony-level implications of this local extinction event. survivors (11 known) were assimilated into the neighbouring colony during and immediately after the collapse, but retained higher association rates with individuals from their former colony. the neighbouring colony gradually extended its roosting range into habitat formerly occupied by the extinct colony. acceptance of individuals into other colonies demonstrates resilience of highly structured vertebrate populations to local crashes." annual survival and seasonal hunting mortality of midcontinent snow geese,arctic; harvest; hunting; mark-recapture; mortality; population management; seasonal; snow geese; survival,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CALVERT AM;ALISAUSKAS RT;WHITE GC,"annual banding programs have allowed the estimation of key demographic parameters for many populations of harvested wildlife, yet they often provide little insight into vital rate variation among seasonally occupied habitats or among regions with differing hunting regulations. for lesser snow geese (chen caerulescens caerulescens) in the midcontinent of north america, rapid growth in abundance and the consequent implementation of special conservation measures present a scenario where seasonal mortality estimates would be highly valuable. we evaluated variation in hunting mortality of adult and young geese among 3 seasons (autumn, winter, and spring) based on annual banding data from breeding colonies north and south of 608nlatitude, and seasonal hunting recoveries from the united states and canada. using band-recovery models and data covering 1999 through 2015, we first estimated annual survival for geese of both age classes and breeding locations, and then subsequently used seasonal hunting recoveries to derive estimates of seasonal hunting mortality and annual non-hunting mortality. simulation models validated the accuracy of this approach. hunting mortality in winter generally exceeded that during spring and autumn, but our estimates suggested that hunting mortality represented a small fraction of annual mortality for adult and young birds. consistent with recent studies, our estimates pointed to a greater harvest effect for the smaller subarctic population breeding near southern hudson bay, canada, than for the large arctic population breeding farther north. although mean kill rates were higher for young than adult geese, natural mortality for young was high and temporally variable, implying that some hunting mortality experienced by young geese during their first year could be compensated by natural causes of death. natural (non-hunting) mortality and annual survival showed greater temporal variation than seasonal kill rates in adults and young geese, highlighting the importance of non-harvest factors (e.g., climate, habitat, population density) to the dynamics of these populations. these novel estimates of seasonal kill rates and non-hunting mortality contribute further support to the notion that internal dynamics of the lesser snow goose midcontinent population, including natural mortality and recruitment, currently influence population trajectory more than ongoing interventions through harvest management. (c) 2017 the wildlife society." demographic consequences of fisheries interaction within a killer whale (orcinus orca) population,NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,TIXIER P;BARBRAUD C;PARDO D;GASCO N;DUHAMEL G;GUINET C,"individual heterogeneity in foraging behavior has been widely documented within predator populations. in highly social apex predators such as killer whales (orcinus orca), specialization may occur at the matriline level. a small population of killer whales has been documented to occur around the crozet islands. these whales feed on a wide range of prey items including seals, penguins and large whales, as well as depredate the local patagonian toothfish (dissostichus eleginoides) longline fishery. the level of interactions with fisheries varies greatly between matrilines. here, we present the results on the effects of such behavioral heterogeneity on the demographic trends of this killer whale population. we used photo-identification data from 1977 to 2011 in a mark-recapture framework to test the effect of varying levels of fisheries interactions on adult survival. we documented significant differences in survival between depredating and non-depredating whales, resulting in divergent intra-population demographic trends. these differences showed low survival, and thus a negative effect, for depredating whales when illegal fishing occurred (poachers used lethal methods to deter killer whales from depredating longlines). after illegal fishing stopped (2003-2011), the survival rates of depredating individuals exceeded the survival rates of non-depredating individuals, suggesting a positive influence of ""artificial food provisioning"". this effect was further supported by a higher population growth rate for depredating whales. this study highlights the potential demographic costs and benefits that cetaceans face from depredating fisheries and addresses the demographic consequences of both intra-population feeding specialization and the influence of anthropogenic changes in resource availability." "estimating the population size of female sex worker population in tehran, iran: application of direct capture-recapture method",sex workers; human immunodeficiency virus; women; capture-recapture; iran,AIDS AND BEHAVIOR,KARAMI M;KHAZAEI S;POOROLAJAL J;SOLTANIAN A;SAJADIPOOR M,"there is no reliable estimate of the size of female sex workers (fsws). this study aimed to estimate the size of fsws in south of tehran, iran in 2016 using direct capture-recapture method. in the capture phase, the hangouts of fsws were mapped as their meeting places. fsws who agreed to participate in the study tagged with a t-shirt. the recapture phase was implemented at the same places tagging fsws with a blue bracelet. the total estimated size of fsws was 690 (95% ci 633, 747). about 89.43% of fsws experienced sexual intercourse prior to age 20. the prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus infection among fsws was 4.60%. the estimated population size of fsws was much more than our expectation. this issue must be the focus of special attention for planning prevention strategies. however, alternative estimates require to estimating the number fsws, reliably." -high and variable mortality of leatherback turtles reveal possible anthropogenic impacts,bycatch; declining population; enso; long-lived; mei; sea turtle,ECOLOGY,TOMILLO PS;ROBINSON NJ;SANZ-AGUILAR A;SPOTILA JR;PALADINO FV;TAVECCHIA G,"the number of nesting leatherback turtles (dermochelys coriacea) in the eastern pacific ocean has declined dramatically since the late 1980s. this decline has been attributed to egg poaching and interactions with fisheries. however, it is not clear how much of the decline should also be ascribed to variability in the physical characteristics of the ocean. we used data on individually marked turtles that nest at playa grande, costa rica, to address whether climatic variability affects survival and inter-breeding interval. because some turtles might nest undetected, we used capture-recapture models to model survival probability accounting for a detection failure. in addition, as the probability of reproduction is constrained by past nesting events, we formulated a new parameterization to estimate inter-breeding intervals and contrast hypotheses on the role of climatic covariates on reproductive frequency. average annual survival for the period 1993-2011 was low (0.78) and varied over time ranging from 0.49 to 0.99 with a negative temporal trend mainly due to the high mortality values registered after 2004. survival probability was not associated with the multivariate enso index of the south pacific ocean (mei) but this index explained 24% of the temporal variability in the reproductive frequency. the probability of a turtle to permanently leave after the first encounter was 26%. this high proportion of transients might be associated with a high mortality cost of the first reproduction or with a long-distance nesting dispersal after the first nesting season. although current data do not allow separating these two hypotheses, low encounter rate at other locations and high investment in reproduction, supports the first hypothesis. the low and variable annual survival probability has largely contributed to the decline of this leatherback population. the lack of correlation between survival probability and the most important climatic driver of oceanic processes in the pacific discards a climate-related decline and point to anthropogenic sources of mortality as the main causes responsible for the observed population decline." +high and variable mortality of leatherback turtles reveal possible anthropogenic impacts,bycatch; declining population; enso; long-lived; mei; sea turtle,ECOLOGY,TOMILLO PS;ROBINSON NJ;SANZ AGUILAR A;SPOTILA JR;PALADINO FV;TAVECCHIA G,"the number of nesting leatherback turtles (dermochelys coriacea) in the eastern pacific ocean has declined dramatically since the late 1980s. this decline has been attributed to egg poaching and interactions with fisheries. however, it is not clear how much of the decline should also be ascribed to variability in the physical characteristics of the ocean. we used data on individually marked turtles that nest at playa grande, costa rica, to address whether climatic variability affects survival and inter-breeding interval. because some turtles might nest undetected, we used capture-recapture models to model survival probability accounting for a detection failure. in addition, as the probability of reproduction is constrained by past nesting events, we formulated a new parameterization to estimate inter-breeding intervals and contrast hypotheses on the role of climatic covariates on reproductive frequency. average annual survival for the period 1993-2011 was low (0.78) and varied over time ranging from 0.49 to 0.99 with a negative temporal trend mainly due to the high mortality values registered after 2004. survival probability was not associated with the multivariate enso index of the south pacific ocean (mei) but this index explained 24% of the temporal variability in the reproductive frequency. the probability of a turtle to permanently leave after the first encounter was 26%. this high proportion of transients might be associated with a high mortality cost of the first reproduction or with a long-distance nesting dispersal after the first nesting season. although current data do not allow separating these two hypotheses, low encounter rate at other locations and high investment in reproduction, supports the first hypothesis. the low and variable annual survival probability has largely contributed to the decline of this leatherback population. the lack of correlation between survival probability and the most important climatic driver of oceanic processes in the pacific discards a climate-related decline and point to anthropogenic sources of mortality as the main causes responsible for the observed population decline." "empirical estimation of recreational exploitation of burbot, lota lota, in the wind river drainage of wyoming using a multistate capture-recapture model",burbot; exploitation; multistate capture-recapture model; population density; recreational fishery; tagging,FISHERIES MANAGEMENT AND ECOLOGY,LEWANDOSKI SA;GUY CS;ZALE AV;GERRITY PC;DEROMEDI JW;JOHNSON KM;SKATES DL,"burbot, lota lota (linnaeus), is a regionally popular sportfish in the wind river drainage of wyoming, usa, at the southern boundary of the range of the species. recent declines in burbot abundances were hypothesised to be caused by overexploitation, entrainment in irrigation canals and habitat loss. this study addressed the overexploitation hypothesis using tagging data to generate reliable exploitation, abundance and density estimates from a multistate capture-recapture model that accounted for incomplete angler reporting and tag loss. exploitation rate mu was variable among the study lakes and inversely correlated with density. exploitation thresholds mu(40) associated with population densities remaining above 40% of carrying capacity were generated to characterise risk of overharvest using exploitation and density estimates from tagging data and a logistic surplus--production model parameterised with data from other burbot populations. bull lake (mu = 0.06, 95% ci: 0.03-0.11; mu(40) = 0.18) and torrey lake (mu = 0.02, 95% ci: 0.00-0.11; mu(40) = 0.18) had a low risk of overfishing, upper dinwoody lake had intermediate risk (mu = 0.08, 95% ci: 0.02-0.32; mu(40) = 0.18) and lower dinwoody lake had high risk (mu = 0.32, 95% ci: 0.10-0.67; mu(40) = 0.08). these exploitation and density estimates can be used to guide sustainable management of the wind river drainage recreational burbot fishery and inform management of other burbot fisheries elsewhere." varying demographic impacts of different fisheries on three mediterranean seabird species,bycatch; conservation; marine predators; multi-event capture-recapture; parameter uncertainty; population models; pva; seabirds; stochasticity; survival,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,GENOVART M;DOAK DF;IGUAL JM;SPONZA S;KRALJ J;ORO D,"fisheries have an enormous economic importance, but reconciling their socio-economic features with the conservation and sustainability of marine ecosystems presents major challenges. bycatch mortality from fisheries is clearly among the most serious global threats for marine ecosystems, affecting a wide range of top predators. recent estimates report ca. 200,000 seabirds killed annually by bycatch in european waters. however, there is an urgent need to rigorously estimate actual mortality rates and quantify effects of bycatch on populations. the mediterranean sea is one of the most impacted regions. here, we estimate for the first time both bycatch mortality rates and their population-level effects on three endemic and vulnerable mediterranean taxa: scopoli's shearwater, mediterranean shag, and audouin's gull, that die in different types of fishing gears: longlines, gillnets and sport trolling, respectively. we use multi-event capture-recapture modelling to estimate crucial demographic parameters, including the probabilities of dying in different fishing gears. we then build stochastic demography models to forecast the viability of the populations under different management scenarios. longline bycatch was particularly severe for adults of scopoli's shearwaters and audouin's gulls (ca. 28% and 23% of total mortality, respectively) and also for immature gulls (ca. 90% of mortality). gillnets had a lower impact, but were still responsible for ca. 9% of juvenile mortality on shags, whereas sport trolling only slightly influenced total mortality in gulls. bycatch mortality has high population-level impacts in all three species, with shearwaters having the highest extinction risk under current mortality rates. different life-history traits and compensatory demographic mechanisms between the three species are probably influencing the different bycatch impact: for shearwaters, urgent conservation actions are required to ensure the viability of their populations. results will be very useful for guiding future seabird conservation policies and moving towards an ecosystem-based approach to sustainable fisheries management." first report on a trichromatic lowland vipera berus bosniensis population in serbia,balkan adder; isolated population; rural landscape; dorsal pattern variation; conservation,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,NIKOLIC S;SIMOVIC A,"during a capture-mark-recapture (cmr) study in the lowland vipera berus bosniensis population inhabiting an agricultural landscape, we found that the snakes co-occur in three color morphs and that individual body coloration in adults changes in time. further investigations should reveal if different morphs offer some survival/selective advantages. although this population is isolated from conspecifics and exposed to numerous other anthropogenic pressures, snakes are relatively abundant hence the population is of considerable conservation significance. continuation of our cmr surveys should reveal its trends and prospects." adult demography of an isolated population of the threatened butterfly scarce heath coenonympha hero and its conservation implications,flight period; life span; mark-recapture; protandry; sex ratio; temporal fragmentation,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,SIELEZNIEW M;NOWICKI P,"scarce heath coenonympha hero is considered to be one of the most seriously threatened european butterflies, especially declining in western and central europe. it usually occurs in small, discrete colonies forming metapopulation systems, but the exchange of individuals between habitat patches is considered limited. therefore the persistence of the species in fragmented systems is likely to depend largely on the demography of local populations. we investigated a highly isolated population of the species in poland with mark-release-recapture (mrr). the seasonal population size was assessed at 168 adults, with a well balanced sex ratio. the slightly higher capture probability of females that we recorded is quite atypical for butterflies and may be related to the vegetation structure at the site. the flight period was relatively short (22 days), and the adult life span was estimated at 6.59 days, i.e., twice as long when compared with adult longevity in two other threatened coenonympha species. consequently, the temporal fragmentation index (i.e., the ratio of flight period length to adult life span) was calculated at 3.3, which is the lowest value recorded among all congeneric species, suggesting that temporal fragmentation is not a major problem in the investigated population. nevertheless, the population may be at risk of extinction due to its small size and isolation. moreover, the area of c. hero habitat has decreased considerably over the last decade due to afforestation. our findings indicate the need for immediate conservation actions, in particular for the removal of tree seedlings that encroach on the butterfly habitat." -incidence and prevalence of nmosd in australia and new zealand,NA,JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY NEUROSURGERY AND PSYCHIATRY,BUKHARI W;PRAIN KM;WATERS P;WOODHALL M;O'GORMAN CM;CLARKE L;SILVESTRINI RA;BUNDELL CS;ABERNETHY D;BHUTA S;BLUM S;BOGGILD M;BOUNDY K;BREW BJ;BROWN M;BROWNLEE WJ;BUTZKUEVEN H;CARROLL WM;CHEN C;COULTHARD A;DALE RC;DAS C;DEAR K;FABIS-PEDRINI MJ;FULCHER D;GILLIS D;HAWKE S;HEARD R;HENDERSON APD;HESHMAT S;HODGKINSON S;JIMENEZ-SANCHEZ S;KILLPATRICK T;KING J;KNEEBONE C;KORNBERG AJ;LECHNER-SCOTT J;LIN MW;LYNCH C;MACDONELL R;MASON DF;MCCOMBE PA;PENDER MP;PEREIRA JA;POLLARD JD;REDDEL SW;SHAW C;SPIES J;STANKOVICH J;SUTTON I;VUCIC S;WALSH M;WONG RC;YIU EM;BARNETT MH;KERMODE AG;MARRIOTT MP;PARRATT JDE;SLEE M;TAYLOR BV;WILLOUGHBY E;WILSON RJ;VINCENT A;BROADLEY SA,"objectives we have undertaken a clinic-based survey of neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (nmosds) in australia and new zealand to establish incidence and prevalence across the region and in populations of differing ancestry. background nmosd is a recently defined demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (cns). the incidence and prevalence of nmosd in australia and new zealand has not been established. methods centres managing patients with demyelinating disease of the cns across australia and new zealand reported patients with clinical and laboratory features that were suspicious for nmosd. testing for aquaporin 4 antibodies was undertaken in all suspected cases. from this group, cases were identified who fulfilled the 2015 wingerchuk diagnostic criteria for nmosd. a capture-recapture methodology was used to estimate incidence and prevalence, based on additional laboratory identified cases. results nmosd was confirmed in 81/170 (48%) cases referred. capture-recapture analysis gave an adjusted incidence estimate of 0.37 (95% ci 0.35 to 0.39) per million per year and a prevalence estimate for nmosd of 0.70 (95% ci 0.61 to 0.78) per 100 000. nmosd was three times more common in the asian population (1.57 (95% ci 1.15 to 1.98) per 100 000) compared with the remainder of the population (0.57 (95% ci 0.50 to 0.65) per 100 000). the latitudinal gradient evident in multiple sclerosis was not seen in nmosd. conclusions nmosd incidence and prevalence in australia and new zealand are comparable with figures from other populations of largely european ancestry. we found nmosd to be more common in the population with asian ancestry." -incidence of iga vasculitis in children estimated by four-source capture-recapture analysis: a population-based study,iga vasculitis; henoch-schonlein purpura; incidence; epidemiology; children; capture-recapture,RHEUMATOLOGY,PIRAM M;MALDINI C;BISCARDI S;DE SUREMAIN N;ORZECHOWSKI C;GEORGET E;REGNARD D;KONE-PAUT I;MAHR A,"objectives. the aim was to describe the epidemiological characteristics of childhood iga vasculitis (igav) defined by the eular/printo/paediatric rheumatology european society criteria in a population-based sample from france and ascertain its incidence over 3 years by a four-source capture-recapture analysis. methods. cases were prospectively collected in val de marne county, a suburb of paris, with 263 874 residents<15 years old. children with incident igav living in this area from 2012 to 2014 were identified by four sources of case notification (emergency departments, paediatrics departments, private-practice paediatricians and general practitioners). annual incidence was calculated, and a capture-recapture analysis was used with log-linear modelling to estimate case-finding completeness. results. we identified 147 incident cases [78 boys; mean age 6.5 (s.d.: 2.6) years]. the annual incidence (95% ci) was 18.6 (13.6, 24.5)/100 000 children. although only 10% of children were exclusively identified by non-hospital sources, the completeness of case finding was 62%, with an undercount-corrected annual incidence (95% ci) of 29.9 (23.7, 37.3)/100 000 children. the annual distribution of diagnoses consistently showed a trough in summer months; 72% of children had infectious symptoms (mainly upper respiratory tract) a few days before igav onset; and 23% had a north african background. conclusion. our study supports secular and geospatial stability in childhood igav incidence and adds further indirect evidence for a possible role of a ubiquitous, non-emerging infectious trigger. incidence studies from understudied areas are needed to disentangle the role of genetic factors better. capture-recapture analysis suggests that a substantial portion of igav cases may remain unrecognized in epidemiological surveys." +incidence and prevalence of nmosd in australia and new zealand,NA,JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY NEUROSURGERY AND PSYCHIATRY,BUKHARI W;PRAIN KM;WATERS P;WOODHALL M;O GORMAN CM;CLARKE L;SILVESTRINI RA;BUNDELL CS;ABERNETHY D;BHUTA S;BLUM S;BOGGILD M;BOUNDY K;BREW BJ;BROWN M;BROWNLEE WJ;BUTZKUEVEN H;CARROLL WM;CHEN C;COULTHARD A;DALE RC;DAS C;DEAR K;FABIS PEDRINI MJ;FULCHER D;GILLIS D;HAWKE S;HEARD R;HENDERSON APD;HESHMAT S;HODGKINSON S;JIMENEZ SANCHEZ S;KILLPATRICK T;KING J;KNEEBONE C;KORNBERG AJ;LECHNER SCOTT J;LIN MW;LYNCH C;MACDONELL R;MASON DF;MCCOMBE PA;PENDER MP;PEREIRA JA;POLLARD JD;REDDEL SW;SHAW C;SPIES J;STANKOVICH J;SUTTON I;VUCIC S;WALSH M;WONG RC;YIU EM;BARNETT MH;KERMODE AG;MARRIOTT MP;PARRATT JDE;SLEE M;TAYLOR BV;WILLOUGHBY E;WILSON RJ;VINCENT A;BROADLEY SA,"objectives we have undertaken a clinic-based survey of neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (nmosds) in australia and new zealand to establish incidence and prevalence across the region and in populations of differing ancestry. background nmosd is a recently defined demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (cns). the incidence and prevalence of nmosd in australia and new zealand has not been established. methods centres managing patients with demyelinating disease of the cns across australia and new zealand reported patients with clinical and laboratory features that were suspicious for nmosd. testing for aquaporin 4 antibodies was undertaken in all suspected cases. from this group, cases were identified who fulfilled the 2015 wingerchuk diagnostic criteria for nmosd. a capture-recapture methodology was used to estimate incidence and prevalence, based on additional laboratory identified cases. results nmosd was confirmed in 81/170 (48%) cases referred. capture-recapture analysis gave an adjusted incidence estimate of 0.37 (95% ci 0.35 to 0.39) per million per year and a prevalence estimate for nmosd of 0.70 (95% ci 0.61 to 0.78) per 100 000. nmosd was three times more common in the asian population (1.57 (95% ci 1.15 to 1.98) per 100 000) compared with the remainder of the population (0.57 (95% ci 0.50 to 0.65) per 100 000). the latitudinal gradient evident in multiple sclerosis was not seen in nmosd. conclusions nmosd incidence and prevalence in australia and new zealand are comparable with figures from other populations of largely european ancestry. we found nmosd to be more common in the population with asian ancestry." +incidence of iga vasculitis in children estimated by four-source capture-recapture analysis: a population-based study,iga vasculitis; henoch-schonlein purpura; incidence; epidemiology; children; capture-recapture,RHEUMATOLOGY,PIRAM M;MALDINI C;BISCARDI S;DE SUREMAIN N;ORZECHOWSKI C;GEORGET E;REGNARD D;KONE PAUT I;MAHR A,"objectives. the aim was to describe the epidemiological characteristics of childhood iga vasculitis (igav) defined by the eular/printo/paediatric rheumatology european society criteria in a population-based sample from france and ascertain its incidence over 3 years by a four-source capture-recapture analysis. methods. cases were prospectively collected in val de marne county, a suburb of paris, with 263 874 residents<15 years old. children with incident igav living in this area from 2012 to 2014 were identified by four sources of case notification (emergency departments, paediatrics departments, private-practice paediatricians and general practitioners). annual incidence was calculated, and a capture-recapture analysis was used with log-linear modelling to estimate case-finding completeness. results. we identified 147 incident cases [78 boys; mean age 6.5 (s.d.: 2.6) years]. the annual incidence (95% ci) was 18.6 (13.6, 24.5)/100 000 children. although only 10% of children were exclusively identified by non-hospital sources, the completeness of case finding was 62%, with an undercount-corrected annual incidence (95% ci) of 29.9 (23.7, 37.3)/100 000 children. the annual distribution of diagnoses consistently showed a trough in summer months; 72% of children had infectious symptoms (mainly upper respiratory tract) a few days before igav onset; and 23% had a north african background. conclusion. our study supports secular and geospatial stability in childhood igav incidence and adds further indirect evidence for a possible role of a ubiquitous, non-emerging infectious trigger. incidence studies from understudied areas are needed to disentangle the role of genetic factors better. capture-recapture analysis suggests that a substantial portion of igav cases may remain unrecognized in epidemiological surveys." toward accurate and precise estimates of lion density,density; maasai mara; panthera leo; precision; secr; spatial capture-recapture,CONSERVATION BIOLOGY,ELLIOT NB;GOPALASWAMY AM,"reliable estimates of animal density are fundamental to understanding ecological processes and population dynamics. furthermore, their accuracy is vital to conservation because wildlife authorities rely on estimates to make decisions. however, it is notoriously difficult to accurately estimate density for wideranging carnivores that occur at low densities. in recent years, significant progress has been made in density estimation of asian carnivores, but the methods have not been widely adapted to african carnivores, such as lions (panthera leo). although abundance indices for lions may produce poor inferences, they continue to be used to estimate density and inform management and policy. we used sighting data from a 3-month survey and adapted a bayesian spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) model to estimate spatial lion density in the maasai mara national reserve and surrounding conservancies in kenya. our unstructured spatial capture-recapture sampling design incorporated search effort to explicitly estimate detection probability and density on a fine spatial scale, making our approach robust in the context of varying detection probabilities. overall posterior mean lion density was estimated to be 17.08 (posterior sd 1.310) lions >1 year old/100 km(2), and the sex ratio was estimated at 2.2 females to 1 male. our modeling framework and narrow posterior sd demonstrate that secr methods can produce statistically rigorous and precise estimates of population parameters, and we argue that they should be favored over less reliable abundance indices. furthermore, our approach is flexible enough to incorporate different data types, which enables robust population estimates over relatively short survey periods in a variety of systems. trend analyses are essential to guide conservation decisions but are frequently based on surveys of differing reliability. we therefore call for a unified framework to assess lion numbers in key populations to improve management and policy decisions." a new strategy for diagnostic model assessment in capture-recapture,goodness-of-fit tests; model selection; power; transience; trap dependence; u-care,JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY SERIES C-APPLIED STATISTICS,MCCREA RS;MORGAN BJT;GIMENEZ O,"common to both diagnostic tests used in capture-recapture and score tests is the idea that starting from a simple base model it is possible to interrogate data to determine whether more complex parameter structures will be supported. current recommendations advise that diagnostic tests are performed as a precursor to a model selection step. we show that certain well-known diagnostic tests for examining the fit of capture-recapture models to data are in fact score tests. because of this direct relationship we investigate a new strategy for model assessment which combines the diagnosis of departure from basic model assumptions with a step-up model selection, all based on score tests. we investigate the power of such an approach to detect common reasons for lack of model fit and compare the performance of this new strategy with the existing recommendations by using simulation. we present motivating examples with real data for which the extra flexibility of score tests results in an improved performance compared with diagnostic tests." "consequences of severe habitat fragmentation on density, genetics, and spatial capture-recapture analysis of a small bear population",NA,PLOS ONE,MURPHY SM;AUGUSTINE B;ULREY WA;GUTHRIE JM;SCHEICK BK;MCCOWN JW;COX JJ,"loss and fragmentation of natural habitats caused by human land uses have subdivided several formerly contiguous large carnivore populations into multiple small and often isolated subpopulations, which can reduce genetic variation and lead to precipitous population declines. substantial habitat loss and fragmentation from urban development and agriculture expansion relegated the highlands-glades subpopulation (hgs) of florida, usa, black bears (ursus americanus floridanus) to prolonged isolation; increasing human land development is projected to cause >= 50% loss of remaining natural habitats occupied by the hgs in coming decades. we conducted a noninvasive genetic spatial capture-recapture study to quantitatively describe the degree of contemporary habitat fragmentation and investigate the consequences of habitat fragmentation on population density and genetics of the hgs. remaining natural habitats sustaining the hgs were significantly more fragmented and patchier than those supporting florida's largest black bear subpopulation. genetic diversity was low (a(r) = 3.57; h-e = 0.49) and effective population size was small (n-e = 25 bears), both of which remained unchanged over a period spanning one bear generation despite evidence of some immigration. subpopulation density (0.054 bear/km(2)) was among the lowest reported for black bears, was significantly female-biased, and corresponded to a subpopulation size of 98 bears in available habitat. conserving remaining natural habitats in the area occupied by the small, genetically depauperate hgs, possibly through conservation easements and government land acquisition, is likely the most important immediate step to ensuring continued persistence of bears in this area. our study also provides evidence that preferentially placing detectors (e.g., hair traps or cameras) primarily in quality habitat across fragmented landscapes poses a challenge to estimating density-habitat covariate relationships using spatial capture-recapture models. because habitat fragmentation and loss are likely to increase in severity globally, further investigation of the influence of habitat fragmentation and detector placement on estimation of this relationship is warranted." severe underestimation of pertussis related hospitalizations and deaths in the netherlands: a capture-recapture analysis,pertussis; whooping cough; vaccination; underestimation; hospitalization; death,VACCINE,VAN DER MAAS NAT;HOES J;SANDERS EAM;DE MELKER HE,"ojective: despite vaccination, pertussis has remained endemic, sometimes leading to severe disease. we aimed to quantify the completeness of reporting (cor) of pertussis hospitalizations and deaths in the netherlands. study design: cor was estimated using capture-recapture analyses. hospitalizations (2007-2014) from the national registration hospital care (hospital data) were matched to the notifiable infectious disease case registry (notifications) providing (month and) year of birth, gender and postal code. deaths (1996-2014) from statistics netherlands (death registry) were matched to notifications using gender, age, year of death and notification date. cases < 2 years (y) and >= 2y were analysed separately. chao's estimator estimated the total population, which was used to calculate cor. results: using strict matching criteria, we found 461 matches among 876 (hospital data) and 757 (notifications) hospitalizations < 2y. the population estimate of hospitalized infants was 1446, resulting in cor between 52% and 61%. for hospitalizations >= 2y (246; hospital data and 264; notifications) 43 matches were found, with a population estimate of 1512 and cor between 16.5% and 22%. among thirteen (death registry) and eight (notifications) deaths < 2y, seven cases overlapped. the population estimate was 16. cor of the two sources was 50-81%. with two (death registry) and eight (notifications) deaths >= 2y without overlap, the population estimate was 26 and cor 8-31%. conclusion: results showed substantial underestimation of pertussis hospitalizations and deaths. this has to be taken into account in evaluation of current and future immunization programs. (c) 2017 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -description of an establishment event by the invasive asian longhorned beetle (anoplophora glabripennis) in a suburban landscape in the northeastern united states,NA,PLOS ONE,HULL-SANDERS H;PEPPER E;DAVIS K;TROTTER RT,"the establishment of non-native species is commonly described as occurring in three phases: arrival, establishment, and dispersal. both arrival and dispersal by the asian longhorned beetle (anoplophora glabripennis motschulsky), a xylophagous cerambycid native to china and the korean peninsula, has been documented for multiple locations in both north america and europe, however the transitional phase, establishment, is not well understood for this species due to the need to rapidly remove populations to prevent dispersal and assist eradication, and the evident variation in the behavior of populations. here we describe the dynamics of an establishment event for the asian longhorned beetle in a small, isolated population within the regulated quarantine zone near worcester, massachusetts, usa. these data were collected during an opportunity afforded by logistical limits on the cooperative asian longhorned beetle eradication program administered by state, federal, and local government partners. seventy-one infested red maple (acer rubrum) trees and 456 interspersed un-infested trees were surveyed in an isolated, recently established population within a similar to 0.29 ha stand in a suburban wetland conservation area in which nearly 90% of the trees were host species, and nearly 80% were acer rubrum. tree-ring analyses show that within this establishing population, asian longhorned beetles initially infested one or two a. rubrum, before moving through the stand to infest additional a. rubrum based not on distance or direction, but on tree size, with infestation biased towards trees with larger trunk diameters. survey data from the larger landscape suggest this population may have generated long-distance dispersers (similar to 1400 m), and that these dispersal events occurred before the originally infested host trees were fully exploited by the beetle. the distribution and intensity of damage documented in this population suggest dispersal here may have been spatially more rapid and diffuse than in other documented infestations. dispersal at these larger spatial scales also implies that when beetles move beyond the closed canopy of the stand, the direction of dispersal may be linked to prevailing winds." +description of an establishment event by the invasive asian longhorned beetle (anoplophora glabripennis) in a suburban landscape in the northeastern united states,NA,PLOS ONE,HULL SANDERS H;PEPPER E;DAVIS K;TROTTER RT,"the establishment of non-native species is commonly described as occurring in three phases: arrival, establishment, and dispersal. both arrival and dispersal by the asian longhorned beetle (anoplophora glabripennis motschulsky), a xylophagous cerambycid native to china and the korean peninsula, has been documented for multiple locations in both north america and europe, however the transitional phase, establishment, is not well understood for this species due to the need to rapidly remove populations to prevent dispersal and assist eradication, and the evident variation in the behavior of populations. here we describe the dynamics of an establishment event for the asian longhorned beetle in a small, isolated population within the regulated quarantine zone near worcester, massachusetts, usa. these data were collected during an opportunity afforded by logistical limits on the cooperative asian longhorned beetle eradication program administered by state, federal, and local government partners. seventy-one infested red maple (acer rubrum) trees and 456 interspersed un-infested trees were surveyed in an isolated, recently established population within a similar to 0.29 ha stand in a suburban wetland conservation area in which nearly 90% of the trees were host species, and nearly 80% were acer rubrum. tree-ring analyses show that within this establishing population, asian longhorned beetles initially infested one or two a. rubrum, before moving through the stand to infest additional a. rubrum based not on distance or direction, but on tree size, with infestation biased towards trees with larger trunk diameters. survey data from the larger landscape suggest this population may have generated long-distance dispersers (similar to 1400 m), and that these dispersal events occurred before the originally infested host trees were fully exploited by the beetle. the distribution and intensity of damage documented in this population suggest dispersal here may have been spatially more rapid and diffuse than in other documented infestations. dispersal at these larger spatial scales also implies that when beetles move beyond the closed canopy of the stand, the direction of dispersal may be linked to prevailing winds." preliminary estimates of the abundance and fidelity of dolphins associating with a demersal trawl fishery,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,ALLEN SJ;POLLOCK KH;BOUCHET PJ;KOBRYN HT;MCELLIGOTT DB;NICHOLSON KE;SMITH JN;LONERAGAN NR,"the incidental capture of wildlife in fishing gear presents a global conservation challenge. as a baseline to inform assessments of the impact of bycatch on bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) interacting with an australian trawl fishery, we conducted an aerial survey to estimate dolphin abundance across the fishery. concurrently, we carried out boat-based dolphin photo-identification to assess short-term fidelity to foraging around trawlers, and used photographic and genetic data to infer longer-term fidelity to the fishery. we estimated abundance at approximate to 2,300 dolphins (95% ci = 1,247-4,214) over the approximate to 25,880-km(2) fishery. mark-recapture estimates yielded 226 (se = 38.5) dolphins associating with one trawler and some individuals photographed up to seven times over 12 capture periods. moreover, photographic and genetic re-sampling over three years confirmed that some individuals show longterm fidelity to trawler-associated foraging. our study presents the first abundance estimate for any australian pelagic dolphin community and documents individuals associating with trawlers over days, months and years. without trend data or correction factors for dolphin availability, the impact of bycatch on this dolphin population's conservation status remains unknown. these results should be taken into account by management agencies assessing the impact of fisheries-related mortality on this protected species." accounting for false mortality in telemetry tag applications,murray cod; trout cod; golden perch; capture-recapture; telemetry; tag failure,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,BIRD T;LYON J;WOTHERSPOON S;KING R;MCCARTHY M,"deaths of animals in the wild are rarely observed directly, which often limits understanding of survival rates. telemetry transmitters offer field ecologists the opportunity to observe mortality events in cases as the absence of animal movement. when observations of mortality are based on factors such as the absence of animal movement, live individuals can be mistaken for dead, resulting in biased estimates of survival. additionally, tag failure or emigration might also influence estimates of survival in telemetry studies. failing to account for mis-classification, tag failure, and emigration rates can result in overestimates of mortality rates by up two-fold, even when the data are corrected for obviously mistaken entries. we use a multi-state capture-recapture model with a misclassification parameter in estimating both the rate of permanent emigration and/or tag failure and the rate at which individuals are mistakenly identified as dead. we use this method on an annual telemetry survey of three species of native fish in the murray river, australia: murray cod (maccullochella peelii), trout cod (maccullochella macquariensis) and golden perch (macquaria ambigua). evidence for higher mortality rates in the first year post-implantation occurred for murray cod and golden perch, which is likely an effect of tagging and/or the transmitter, or transmitters shedding. using simulations, we confirm that our model approach is robust to a broad range of misclassification and transmitter failure rates. with these simulations we also demonstrate that misclassification models that do not account for emigration will likely be erroneous if live and dead animals have different probabilities of detection. these findings will have a broad interest to ecologists wishing to account for multiple sources of misclassification error in capture-mark-recapture studies, with the caveat that the specifics of the approach are dependent on species, transmitter types and other aspects of experimental design which may or may not be amenable to the misclassification framework. (c) 2017 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." "first citizen-science population abundance and growth rate estimates for green sea turtles chelonia mydas foraging in the northern great barrier reef, australia",green sea turtles; population abundance; growth rate; northern great barrier reef; citizen science; indigenous and community groups,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,HOF CAM;SMALLWOOD E;MEAGER J;BELL IP,"embayments and coastal reefs of queensland, australia have supported some of the highest densities of green sea turtle chelonia mydas foraging aggregations in the western pacific ocean. since industrialization, many cumulative threats have negatively impacted these turtles with some aboriginal communities concerned about notable reductions in local abundance and possible end to their customary hunting practice. guided by collaborators, population trends, survivorship and somatic growth were monitored at a broadly representative inshore site in edgecumbe bay, queensland, using a local citizen-science approach. the 12 yr time series of 1316 tagged turtles from 2003 to 2014 was analysed using capture mark recapture (cmr) and bayesian growth models. models indicated the population comprised of 4392 individuals in 2014 and is rebuilding at 8.3% yr(-1). the data did not support more complex models with age or timevaried survivorship or recruitment. overall survival (0.90 apparent survival yr(-1)) and growth rate (1.20 cm yr(-1)) were high compared to other green turtle populations globally. this study represents the first population modelling of green turtles foraging in inshore waters of the great barrier reef and north-east australia and will be an important proxy indicator for how other sites may be functioning. although methodology and resource capacity should be carefully considered, this study demonstrates that citizen-science cmr studies can generate valid data to support replicable, robust statistical modelling and allow indigenous communities to sustainably manage and protect turtles on indigenous traditional sea country within australia and worldwide." -sex-specific early survival drives adult sex ratio bias in snowy plovers and impacts mating system and population growth,asr; charadrius nivosus; mark-recapture; sex allocation; two-sex matrix model,PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,EBERHART-PHILLIPS LJ;KUPPER C;MILLER TEX;CRUZ-LOPEZ M;MAHER KH;DOS REMEDIOS N;STOFFEL MA;HOFFMAN JI;KRUGER O;SZEKELY T,"adult sex ratio (asr) is a central concept in population biology and a key factor in sexual selection, but why do most demographic models ignore sex biases? vital rates often vary between the sexes and across life history, but their relative contributions to asr variation remain poorly understood-an essential step to evaluate sex ratio theories in the wild and inform conservation. here, we combine structured two-sex population models with individual-based mark-recapture data from an intensively monitored polygamous population of snowy plovers. we show that a strongly male-biased asr (0.63) is primarily driven by sex-specific survival of juveniles rather than adults or dependent offspring. this finding provides empirical support for theories of unbiased sex allocation when sex differences in survival arise after the period of parental investment. importantly, a conventional model ignoring sex biases significantly overestimated population viability. we suggest that sex-specific population models are essential to understand the population dynamics of sexual organisms: reproduction and population growth are most sensitive to perturbations in survival of the limiting sex. overall, our study suggests that sex-biased early survival may contribute toward mating system evolution and population persistence, with implications for both sexual selection theory and biodiversity conservation." -estimation of oncologists' active supply in iran: three sources capture-recapture method,oncologist; capture-recapture; supply; iran,IRANIAN RED CRESCENT MEDICAL JOURNAL,BAYAT M;HARIRCHI I;ZALANI GS;AKBARI-SARI A;SHOKRI A;KHODADOST M;MIRBAHAEDDIN SE;YASERI M;JAAFARIPOOYAN E,"background: cancer is the third cause of death in iran. oncologists play a key role in declining the mortality rate of cancer. objectives: this study aims to accurately estimate oncologists' active supply by using 3 sources of capture-recapture (crc) in iran. methods: this was a cross-sectional study in 2015 targeting all oncologists in iran registered in 3 independent sources, a hospitals national survey (213), database of iran ministry of health and medical education (180), and the database of continuing medical education (173) were used to identify number of oncologists that were active. duplicate records between the 3 sources were identified and removed using the microsoft office access software. medical council codes, names, surnames, as well as national id codes were used for data linkage between the 3 sources. results: after removing the duplicate records, a total of 314 oncologists were identified. based on the selected model, it was estimated that the total number of oncologists were 533 in 2015. they included 325 adult hematologist-oncologists, followed by 88 pediatric oncologists, 47 surgical oncologists, 20 gynecologic oncologists, and 18 urologic oncologists. the estimated ratios for oncologist to population and oncologist to patients suffering from cancer were 0.67 and 1.34 per 100,000, respectively. completeness of data for all 3 data sources after removing duplicates was 59.13%. conclusions: this study highlighted the shortage of oncologists in iran and showed that the quality of iran specialists' registration databases needs improvement." +sex-specific early survival drives adult sex ratio bias in snowy plovers and impacts mating system and population growth,asr; charadrius nivosus; mark-recapture; sex allocation; two-sex matrix model,PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,EBERHART PHILLIPS LJ;KUPPER C;MILLER TEX;CRUZ LOPEZ M;MAHER KH;DOS REMEDIOS N;STOFFEL MA;HOFFMAN JI;KRUGER O;SZEKELY T,"adult sex ratio (asr) is a central concept in population biology and a key factor in sexual selection, but why do most demographic models ignore sex biases? vital rates often vary between the sexes and across life history, but their relative contributions to asr variation remain poorly understood-an essential step to evaluate sex ratio theories in the wild and inform conservation. here, we combine structured two-sex population models with individual-based mark-recapture data from an intensively monitored polygamous population of snowy plovers. we show that a strongly male-biased asr (0.63) is primarily driven by sex-specific survival of juveniles rather than adults or dependent offspring. this finding provides empirical support for theories of unbiased sex allocation when sex differences in survival arise after the period of parental investment. importantly, a conventional model ignoring sex biases significantly overestimated population viability. we suggest that sex-specific population models are essential to understand the population dynamics of sexual organisms: reproduction and population growth are most sensitive to perturbations in survival of the limiting sex. overall, our study suggests that sex-biased early survival may contribute toward mating system evolution and population persistence, with implications for both sexual selection theory and biodiversity conservation." +estimation of oncologists' active supply in iran: three sources capture-recapture method,oncologist; capture-recapture; supply; iran,IRANIAN RED CRESCENT MEDICAL JOURNAL,BAYAT M;HARIRCHI I;ZALANI GS;AKBARI SARI A;SHOKRI A;KHODADOST M;MIRBAHAEDDIN SE;YASERI M;JAAFARIPOOYAN E,"background: cancer is the third cause of death in iran. oncologists play a key role in declining the mortality rate of cancer. objectives: this study aims to accurately estimate oncologists' active supply by using 3 sources of capture-recapture (crc) in iran. methods: this was a cross-sectional study in 2015 targeting all oncologists in iran registered in 3 independent sources, a hospitals national survey (213), database of iran ministry of health and medical education (180), and the database of continuing medical education (173) were used to identify number of oncologists that were active. duplicate records between the 3 sources were identified and removed using the microsoft office access software. medical council codes, names, surnames, as well as national id codes were used for data linkage between the 3 sources. results: after removing the duplicate records, a total of 314 oncologists were identified. based on the selected model, it was estimated that the total number of oncologists were 533 in 2015. they included 325 adult hematologist-oncologists, followed by 88 pediatric oncologists, 47 surgical oncologists, 20 gynecologic oncologists, and 18 urologic oncologists. the estimated ratios for oncologist to population and oncologist to patients suffering from cancer were 0.67 and 1.34 per 100,000, respectively. completeness of data for all 3 data sources after removing duplicates was 59.13%. conclusions: this study highlighted the shortage of oncologists in iran and showed that the quality of iran specialists' registration databases needs improvement." breeding success affects the apparent survival of grassland passerines,apparent survival; multistate capture-mark-recapture model; breeding success; booted warbler; iduna caligata; whinchat; saxicola rubetra; yellow wagtail; motacilla flava,ZOOLOGICHESKY ZHURNAL,SHITIKOV DA;VAYTINET TM;MAKAROVA TV;FEDOTOVA SE;KRASNYKH NA;YURCHENKO YY,"the apparent adult survival rate is one of the key population parameters of migratory birds. the widely used cormack-jolly-seber capture-mark-recapture model has a number of disadvantages, the main of which is the impossibility of separating mortality and permanent emigration. the accuracy of survival estimates can be increased using a multistate capture-mark-recapture model, due to which it is possible to assess the survival of successful and unsuccessful birds separately. we used this model to estimate the apparent survival rates of adults in local populations of three ground-nesting passerines: booted warbler (iduna caligata), whinchat (saxicola rubetra), yellow wagtail (motacilla (lava), all breeding in abandoned fields. we studied the reproductive success of 472 marked pairs and analyzed individual capture histories of 814 birds of the three species. the previous breeding success was found to significantly influence the apparent survival of adults. this relation was best expressed in yellow wagtail (apparent survival of successful birds, phi = 0.39 +/- 0.06, vs that of unsuccessful birds, phi = 0.19 +/- 0.06) and whinchat (apparent survival of successful birds, phi = 0.32 +/- 0.05, vs apparent survival of unsuccessful birds, phi = 0.10 +/- 0.05), but a little lower in booted warbler (apparent survival of successful birds, phi = 0.33 +/- 0.17, vs apparent survival of unsuccessful birds, phi = 0.16 +/- 0.13). unsuccessful individuals leave the study area for good, while most of the successful birds return there next year. thus, the apparent survival rate of passerines evaluated with capture-recapture models is determined to a considerable degree by the previous reproductive success within local populations." -disentangling the effects of predation and oceanographic fluctuations in the mortality of two allopatric seabird populations,capture-recapture; climate; multievent; storm petrel; survival,POPULATION ECOLOGY,MATOVIC N;CADIOU B;ORO D;SANZ-AGUILAR A,"life-history traits of migratory seabirds are influenced by changing conditions at breeding and wintering grounds. climatic conditions and predation are known to impact populations' survival rates, but few studies examine their effect simultaneously. we used multievent capture-recapture models to assess mortality due to environmental conditions and predation in breeding european storm petrels (hydrobates pelagicus) in two allopatric colonies (mediterranean and atlantic). predatory mortality at the colonies showed annual variation, being around 0.05 in certain years. mortality at sea differed between the two oceanic basins, and was lower in the mediterranean colony [0.11, 95% ci (0.09, 0.14)] when compared to the atlantic colony [0.18, 95% ci (0.15, 0.22)]. the western mediterranean oscillation index (wemoi) explained 57% of the temporal variability in mortality of mediterranean breeders. in comparison, 43% of the temporal variability in mortality of atlantic breeders was explained by the winter st helena index (whix) and el nino-southern oscillation index (wenso). our results suggest that mediterranean breeders remain in this basin for wintering where they may face lower migratory costs and more favourable environmental conditions. in contrast, atlantic breeders' mortality may be due to higher cost of migration, changing upwelling conditions in the benguela current and heavy storms over their migratory route during la nina events. this study underlines the importance of modelling separately different causes of mortality when testing the effects of climatic covariates." +disentangling the effects of predation and oceanographic fluctuations in the mortality of two allopatric seabird populations,capture-recapture; climate; multievent; storm petrel; survival,POPULATION ECOLOGY,MATOVIC N;CADIOU B;ORO D;SANZ AGUILAR A,"life-history traits of migratory seabirds are influenced by changing conditions at breeding and wintering grounds. climatic conditions and predation are known to impact populations' survival rates, but few studies examine their effect simultaneously. we used multievent capture-recapture models to assess mortality due to environmental conditions and predation in breeding european storm petrels (hydrobates pelagicus) in two allopatric colonies (mediterranean and atlantic). predatory mortality at the colonies showed annual variation, being around 0.05 in certain years. mortality at sea differed between the two oceanic basins, and was lower in the mediterranean colony [0.11, 95% ci (0.09, 0.14)] when compared to the atlantic colony [0.18, 95% ci (0.15, 0.22)]. the western mediterranean oscillation index (wemoi) explained 57% of the temporal variability in mortality of mediterranean breeders. in comparison, 43% of the temporal variability in mortality of atlantic breeders was explained by the winter st helena index (whix) and el nino-southern oscillation index (wenso). our results suggest that mediterranean breeders remain in this basin for wintering where they may face lower migratory costs and more favourable environmental conditions. in contrast, atlantic breeders' mortality may be due to higher cost of migration, changing upwelling conditions in the benguela current and heavy storms over their migratory route during la nina events. this study underlines the importance of modelling separately different causes of mortality when testing the effects of climatic covariates." dealing with many correlated covariates in capture-recapture models,animal demography; population dynamics; principal-component capture-recapture model; snow petrel; survival estimation,POPULATION ECOLOGY,GIMENEZ O;BARBRAUD C,"capture-recapture models for estimating demographic parameters allow covariates to be incorporated to better understand population dynamics. however, high-dimensionality and multicollinearity can hamper estimation and inference. principal component analysis is incorporated within capture-recapture models and used to reduce the number of predictors into uncorrelated synthetic new variables. principal components are selected by sequentially assessing their statistical significance. we provide an example on seabird survival to illustrate our approach. our method requires standard statistical tools, which permits an efficient and easy implementation using standard software." -"first data on the population of the european pond turtle emys orbicularis at lake tonga, el kala national park, algeria",turtles; conservation; population structure; algeria,BIOLOGIA,TIAR-SAADI M;TIAR G;BOUSLAMA Z;SIROKY P,"the north african distribution of emys orbicularis (l., 1758) is rather local and discontinuous, with no data on the ecology of the algerian population so far. such data are essential in improving conservation efforts. altogether, 216 individuals were captured during 2013-2015, consisting of 212 adult specimens, 129 males and 83 females, giving a male-biased sex ratio of 1.6: 1. the jolly-seber index, of mark-recapture method, for the single year of 2015 was 451 +/- 646.4 turtles, giving a density of 82 turtles ha(-1). regarding size classes, 80% of males had a straight carapace length (scl) of 115-145 mm, 83% of females had a scl of 125-155 mm. comparison revealed significant sexual size dimorphism, females being larger and heavier than males; mean scl of males 128.8 mm, mean scl of females 132.8 mm; mean body mass ( bm) of males 336.9 g, mean bm of females 396.1 g. the largest specimen was a female with a scl of 167.5 mm and bm 680 g." -"ecology, health and genetic characterization of the southernmost green turtle (chelonia mydas) aggregation in the eastern pacific: implications for local conservation strategies",green turtle; juvenile aggregation; foraging ground; body condition index; heavy metals; blood chemistry; mitochondrial dna; natal origin; chile,LATIN AMERICAN JOURNAL OF AQUATIC RESEARCH,ALVAREZ-VARAS R;CONTARDO J;HEIDEMEYER M;FORERO-ROZO L;BRITO B;CORTES V;BRAIN MJ;PEREIRA S;VIANNA JA,"bahia salado, located in northern chile (27 degrees 41's, 70 degrees 59'w), is the southernmost foraging ground for the endangered green turtle (chelonia mydas) in the eastern pacific ocean (epo). to date, almost no information exists on its current status, nor on its connectivity with nesting rookeries in the epo. this study aims to inform on the genetic characterization, health and ecology of bahia salado's green turtle aggregation in order to provide baseline information for local conservation strategies. we describe population structure and residency times using mark-recapture method. we also examine health parameters (body condition index, blood profile and blood copper-cu and lead-pb concentrations) and regional connectivity through genetic analyses. our results indicate that this aggregation is composed exclusively of juveniles, with residency times varying between five to sixteen months. turtles exhibited a very good body condition; however they showed the highest blood concentrations of cu and pb described for c. mydas and for almost all sea turtle species. some biochemistry parameters (albumin, calcium, phosphorus, ast, triglycerides and creatinine) are also the highest ever reported for this species in the region. analysis of the 770 bp (base pairs) control region of the mitochondrial dna revealed four haplotypes, suggesting a strong genetic connectivity to the galapagos rookery. our study indicates that bahia salado's aggregation represents a developmental foraging ground, where juvenile green turtles thrive. although bahia salado's ecosystem seems to be a very suitable habitat for the species, the high levels of cu and pb, together with elevated ast, demand further research on the negative impacts of heavy metals on this aggregation. our results highlight the importance to protect this bay from anthropological activities, evaluate pollution sources and other local threats to this particular coastal ecosystem. we recommend year-round monitoring of the green turtle aggregation and other components of this ecosystem, incorporating participation of local seaweed collectors and the fishing community." +"first data on the population of the european pond turtle emys orbicularis at lake tonga, el kala national park, algeria",turtles; conservation; population structure; algeria,BIOLOGIA,TIAR SAADI M;TIAR G;BOUSLAMA Z;SIROKY P,"the north african distribution of emys orbicularis (l., 1758) is rather local and discontinuous, with no data on the ecology of the algerian population so far. such data are essential in improving conservation efforts. altogether, 216 individuals were captured during 2013-2015, consisting of 212 adult specimens, 129 males and 83 females, giving a male-biased sex ratio of 1.6: 1. the jolly-seber index, of mark-recapture method, for the single year of 2015 was 451 +/- 646.4 turtles, giving a density of 82 turtles ha(-1). regarding size classes, 80% of males had a straight carapace length (scl) of 115-145 mm, 83% of females had a scl of 125-155 mm. comparison revealed significant sexual size dimorphism, females being larger and heavier than males; mean scl of males 128.8 mm, mean scl of females 132.8 mm; mean body mass ( bm) of males 336.9 g, mean bm of females 396.1 g. the largest specimen was a female with a scl of 167.5 mm and bm 680 g." +"ecology, health and genetic characterization of the southernmost green turtle (chelonia mydas) aggregation in the eastern pacific: implications for local conservation strategies",green turtle; juvenile aggregation; foraging ground; body condition index; heavy metals; blood chemistry; mitochondrial dna; natal origin; chile,LATIN AMERICAN JOURNAL OF AQUATIC RESEARCH,ALVAREZ VARAS R;CONTARDO J;HEIDEMEYER M;FORERO ROZO L;BRITO B;CORTES V;BRAIN MJ;PEREIRA S;VIANNA JA,"bahia salado, located in northern chile (27 degrees 41's, 70 degrees 59'w), is the southernmost foraging ground for the endangered green turtle (chelonia mydas) in the eastern pacific ocean (epo). to date, almost no information exists on its current status, nor on its connectivity with nesting rookeries in the epo. this study aims to inform on the genetic characterization, health and ecology of bahia salado's green turtle aggregation in order to provide baseline information for local conservation strategies. we describe population structure and residency times using mark-recapture method. we also examine health parameters (body condition index, blood profile and blood copper-cu and lead-pb concentrations) and regional connectivity through genetic analyses. our results indicate that this aggregation is composed exclusively of juveniles, with residency times varying between five to sixteen months. turtles exhibited a very good body condition; however they showed the highest blood concentrations of cu and pb described for c. mydas and for almost all sea turtle species. some biochemistry parameters (albumin, calcium, phosphorus, ast, triglycerides and creatinine) are also the highest ever reported for this species in the region. analysis of the 770 bp (base pairs) control region of the mitochondrial dna revealed four haplotypes, suggesting a strong genetic connectivity to the galapagos rookery. our study indicates that bahia salado's aggregation represents a developmental foraging ground, where juvenile green turtles thrive. although bahia salado's ecosystem seems to be a very suitable habitat for the species, the high levels of cu and pb, together with elevated ast, demand further research on the negative impacts of heavy metals on this aggregation. our results highlight the importance to protect this bay from anthropological activities, evaluate pollution sources and other local threats to this particular coastal ecosystem. we recommend year-round monitoring of the green turtle aggregation and other components of this ecosystem, incorporating participation of local seaweed collectors and the fishing community." "distribution, size range and growth rates of hawksbill turtles at a major foraging ground in the eastern pacific ocean",marine turtle; eretmochelys imbricata; demography; management; conservation; panama,LATIN AMERICAN JOURNAL OF AQUATIC RESEARCH,LLAMAS I;FLORES EE;ABREGO ME;SEMINOFF JA;HART CE;DONADI R;PENA B;ALVAREZ G;POVEDA W;AMOROCHO DF;GAOS A,"hawksbill sea turtles (eretmochelys imbricata) inhabiting the eastern pacific ocean are one of the world's most threatened marine turtle management units. despite the fact that knowledge about the status of sea turtles at foraging grounds is a key element for developing the effective conservation strategies, comprehensive studies of hawksbills at foraging habitats in the eastern pacific remain lacking. for many years anecdotal information indicated coiba island national park in panama as a potentially important hawksbill foraging ground, which led to the initiation of monitoring surveys in september 2014. ongoing mark-recapture surveys to assess population status, generate demographic data and identify key foraging sites have been conducted every six months in the park since that time. to date, a total of six monitoring campaigns consisting of four days each have been conducted, leading to the capture and tagging of 186 hawksbills, 51 of which were recaptured at least once. the size range of captured individuals was 30.0 to 75.5 cm and largely comprised of juveniles. somatic growth rates of individual hawksbills were highly variable, ranging from -0.78 to 7.1 cm year(-1). to our knowledge, these are the first published growth rates for juvenile hawksbill turtles in the eastern pacific ocean. when these growth data are combined with information on hawksbill demography and distribution, our findings indicate coiba island national park is one of the most important known foraging sites for hawksbill sea turtles in the eastern pacific ocean." "effects of toe-clipping on growth, body condition, and locomotion of cane toads (rhinella marina)",NA,COPEIA,HUDSON CM;BROWN GP;SHINE R,"toe-clipping is a standard technique for marking reptiles and amphibians individually, but concerns have been raised about the impact of the practice on animal welfare, survival, and behavior. we used a long-term mark-recapture dataset to investigate the impact of toe removal on free-ranging adult cane toads (rhinella marina). our analysis of 213 toads showed no impact of the number of toes removed on growth rates for mass or snout-urostyle length, nor any effect on body condition. trials with sub-adult toads on a laboratory raceway revealed a short-term impact of toeclipping on willingness to move (i.e., decreased immediately post-clipping), but no other significant impacts on locomotion. in summary, toe-clipping had minimal effects on cane toad locomotor ability, growth rate, or body condition." effects of woody biomass harvests on a population of plethodontid salamanders in southeast indiana,NA,AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST,PEELE J;NIX C;RUHL P;CHAPMAN R;ZOLLNER P;SAUNDERS MR,"biomass harvesting removes unmarketable vegetative material from timber harvests for use as cellulosic bioenergy, leaving only leaf litter. to test whether biomass harvests negatively affect red-backed salamander (plethodon cinereus) populations, we set up coverboard arrays at 10 sites (mean 3.29 ha, range 2.35-4.61 ha) with varying degrees of biomass harvesting at the southeast purdue agricultural center (sepac) in jennings county, indiana. we monitored salamander artificial cover object (aco) arrays within each site from spring 2012 to fall 2015 and marked all salamanders with visible implant elastomers, generating capture histories for all individuals. using program mark and pollock's robust design we developed 10 a priori candidate models to test salamander population parameters, with variations on capture probability, recapture probability, survival, emigration, and immigration, as well as a set of models comparing preharvest and postharvest data. to incorporate precipitation events, we classified sessions as wet or dry based on total rainfall prior to sampling. the best performing models were those that incorporated the year, season, and amount of precipitation when estimating capture probabilities. linear regression results showed percentage of canopy cover and downed coarse woody derbies (dcwd) were significant predictors of salamander abundance. we also found no significant relationships between survival, dcwd, and canopy cover. our results suggest dcwd has some impact on variations in population sizes of red-backed salamanders, although other factors are likely contributing as well." @@ -973,13 +974,13 @@ logging and indigenous hunting impacts on persistence of large neotropical anima estimating cetacean density and abundance in the central and western mediterranean sea through aerial surveys: implications for management,NA,DEEP-SEA RESEARCH PART II-TOPICAL STUDIES IN OCEANOGRAPHY,PANIGADA S;LAURIANO G;DONOVAN G;PIERANTONIO N;CANADAS A;VAZQUEZ JA;BURT L,"systematic, effective monitoring of animal population parameters underpins successful conservation strategy and wildlife management, but it is often neglected in many regions, including much of the mediterranean sea. nonetheless, a series of systematic multispecies aerial surveys was carried out in the seas around italy to gather important baseline information on cetacean occurrence, distribution and abundance. the monitored areas included the pelagos sanctuary, the tyrrhenian sea, portions of the seas of corsica and sardinia, the ionian seas as well as the gulf of taranto. overall, approximately 48,000 km were flown in either spring, summer and winter between 2009-2014, covering an area of 444,621 km(2). the most commonly observed species were the striped dolphin and the fin whale, with 975 and 83 recorded sightings, respectively. other sighted cetacean species were the common bottlenose dolphin, the risso's dolphin, the sperm whale, the pilot whale and the cuvier's beaked whale. uncorrected model-and design-based estimates of density and abundance for striped dolphins and fin whales were produced, resulting in a best estimate (model-based) of around 95,000 striped dolphins (cv=11.6%; 95% ci=92,900-120,300) occurring in the pelagos sanctuary, central tyrrhenian and western seas of corsica and sardinia combined area in summer 2010. estimates were also obtained for each individual study region and year. an initial attempt to estimate perception bias for striped dolphins is also provided. the preferred summer 2010 uncorrected best estimate (design-based) for the same areas for fin whales was around 665 (cv=33.1%; 95% ci=350-1260). estimates are also provided for the individual study regions and years. the results represent baseline data to develop efficient, long-term, systematic monitoring programmes, essential to evaluate trends, as required by a number of national and international frameworks, and stress the need to ensure that surveys are undertaken regularly and at a sufficient spatial scale. the management implications of the results are discussed also in light of a possible decline of fin whales abundance over the period from the mid-1990s to the present. further work to understand changes in distribution and to allow for improved spatial models is emphasized." the causes of dispersal and the cost of carry-over effects for an endangered bird in a dynamic wetland landscape,environmental conditions; hydrology; initiation date; personal information; phenology; philopatry; public information; search costs; structural equation model,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,ROBERTSON EP;FLETCHER RJ;AUSTIN JD,"1. the decision to disperse or remain philopatric between breeding seasons has important implications for both ecology and evolution, including the potential for carry-over effects, where an individual's previous history affects its current performance. carry-over effects are increasingly documented although underlying mechanisms remain unclear. 2. here we test for potential carry-over effects and their mechanisms by uniting hypotheses for the causes and consequences of habitat selection and dispersal across space and time. we linked hypotheses regarding different types of factors and information (environmental conditions, personal and public information) predicted to impact reproductive success and dispersal for an endangered, wetland-dependent bird, the snail kite (rostrhamus sociabilis plumbeus). to do so, we coupled structural equation modelling with 20 years of mark-recapture and nesting data across the breeding range of this species to isolate potential direct and indirect effects of these factors. 3. we found that water depth at nest sites explained subsequent emigration rates via an indirect path through the use of personal, not public, information. importantly, we found that these dispersers tended to initiate nests later the following breeding season. this pattern explained a phenological mismatch of nesting with hydrological conditions, whereby immigrants tended to nest later, late nesters tended to experience lower water depths, higher nest failure occurred at lower water depths and higher nest failure explained subsequent breeding dispersal. 4. these results identified a novel potential mechanism for carry-over effects: a phenological mismatch with environmental conditions (water depth) that occurred potentially due to time costs of dispersal. our results also highlighted a substantial benefit of philopatry-earlier initiation of reproduction-which allows philopatric individuals to better coincide with environmental conditions that are beneficial for successful reproduction. 5. these results have implications for our mechanistic understanding and prediction of carry-over effects, and emphasize that local conservation strategies, such as water management, can explain future demography at distant sites connected through dispersal." advances in methods for estimating stopover duration for migratory species using capture-recapture data,e-surge; marbled newt; multievent models; recruitment; rentention probability; reproductive trade-off; semi-markov models; time-elapsed-since-arrival models; triturus marmoratus,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,GUERIN S;PICARD D;CHOQUET R;BESNARD A,"many species are migratory, resulting in a life cycle divided into periodic stages occurring in different habitats occupied for a limited amount of time. estimating the time spent in each habitat is crucial to understanding how individuals modulate their activities and thus to evolutionary ecology and conservation biology. several methods, including some recent promising advances, can be used to estimate stopover duration as well as arrival and departure probabilities at sites where individuals are monitored using capture-recapture sampling. our objectives in this study were to (1) describe the available models to estimate stopover duration, (2) illustrate with an original data set what kinds of questions can be addressed using the most recent methods, and (3) to provide in a detailed appendix a practical guide for implementing these methods in e-surge software. to illustrate the potential of these models for testing biological hypotheses, we used a capture-recapture data set on marbled newts (triturus marmoratus). we used time-dependent and time-elapsed-since-arrival effects (using both markovian and semi-markov processes for the latter) to model stopover duration and the probability of arriving in and departing from a breeding pond for this species and compared the relative performance of the resulting models. our findings showed a strong sex effect on stopover duration: females stayed on average 5.63 weeks in a breeding pond whereas males stayed only 3.03 weeks. in both sexes, the retention probability was mainly influenced by the time already spent there. consequently, individuals of the same sex stayed a similar amount of time in a pond, although they did not arrive simultaneously but successively. the selected data set demonstrated the flexibility of these methods and their potential relevance for applications in evolutionary ecology and conservation." -effect of toe-clipping on the survival of several lizard species,dactyloidae; marking methods; phrynosomatidae; survival; toe-clipping; xenosauridae,HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL,OLIVERA-TLAHUEL C;PEREZ-MENDOZA HA;ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ;RUBIO-ROCHA LC;BOCK BC;ROJAS-GONZALEZ RI;ZAMORA-ABREGO JG;ALZATE E;ORTEGA-LEON AM;MACEDA-CRUZ RJ;MENDEZ-DE LA CRUZ FR;SILICEO-CANTERO HH;SERNA-LAGUNES R,"toe-clipping is an extensively used technique for individual identification of amphibians and reptiles. however, this method might result in negative effects including reduced survival. in this study, we used capture-mark-recapture data obtained from ten different lizard species, including more than one population for two species, to examine whether survival rates varied as a function of the number of toes that were clipped. we used likelihood methods and multi-state models to estimate survival probabilities. specifically, we tested if the number of clipped toes had an effect on annual survival, comparing survival among groups of individuals that shared the same number of toes that were clipped. we found clear reductions in survival associated with the removal of several toes in seven study sites that correspond to five different species. these represent 37% of all the species and populations that we examined. therefore, we conclude that this marking method potentially causes severe damage and may lead to biased parameter estimates in ecological studies of lizard species. whenever possible, toe-clipping should be avoided and replaced by less invasive methods for individual identification." +effect of toe-clipping on the survival of several lizard species,dactyloidae; marking methods; phrynosomatidae; survival; toe-clipping; xenosauridae,HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL,OLIVERA TLAHUEL C;PEREZ MENDOZA HA;ZUNIGA VEGA JJ;RUBIO ROCHA LC;BOCK BC;ROJAS GONZALEZ RI;ZAMORA ABREGO JG;ALZATE E;ORTEGA LEON AM;MACEDA CRUZ RJ;MENDEZ DE LA CRUZ FR;SILICEO CANTERO HH;SERNA LAGUNES R,"toe-clipping is an extensively used technique for individual identification of amphibians and reptiles. however, this method might result in negative effects including reduced survival. in this study, we used capture-mark-recapture data obtained from ten different lizard species, including more than one population for two species, to examine whether survival rates varied as a function of the number of toes that were clipped. we used likelihood methods and multi-state models to estimate survival probabilities. specifically, we tested if the number of clipped toes had an effect on annual survival, comparing survival among groups of individuals that shared the same number of toes that were clipped. we found clear reductions in survival associated with the removal of several toes in seven study sites that correspond to five different species. these represent 37% of all the species and populations that we examined. therefore, we conclude that this marking method potentially causes severe damage and may lead to biased parameter estimates in ecological studies of lizard species. whenever possible, toe-clipping should be avoided and replaced by less invasive methods for individual identification." "population size and artificial waterhole use by striped hyenas in the dana biosphere reserve, jordan",arid; camera traps; hyaena hyaena; striped hyenas; waterhole use,MAMMALIA,ATTUM O;ROSENBARGER D;AL AWAJI M;KRAMER A;EID E,"striped hyenas have a widespread distribution in arid and semi-arid areas of africa and asia. however, very little is known about their population status or ecology. we used camera traps to estimate the population size and waterhole use patterns of striped hyenas visiting artificial waterholes in the dana biosphere reserve, jordan. the population size of hyenas at waterholes was estimated, using capture-recapture (identified from unique stripe patterns) method, to be nine animals in 2010 and 10 animals in 2012. waterhole visits occurred almost entirely at night, with monthly visitation rates increasing in the hotter summer months and as the duration from the last rainfall increased. in conclusion, our results suggest that the dana biosphere reserve provides safe drinking opportunities for a small population of striped hyenas and the use of these permanent artificial waterholes increases in the late summer months." "demographics, reproduction, growth, and abundance of jollyville plateau salamanders (eurycea tonkawae)",natural history; plethodontidae; reproductive phenology; von bertalanffy,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BENDIK NF,"insights into the ecology and natural history of the neotenic salamander, eurycea tonkawae, are provided from eight years of capture-recapture data from 10,041 captures of 7,315 individuals at 16 sites. eurycea tonkawae exhibits seasonal reproduction, with peak gravidity occurring in the fall and winter. size frequency data indicated recruitment occurred in the spring and summer. open-population capture-recapture models revealed a similar seasonal pattern at two of three sites, while recruitment was dependent on flow at the third site. females can reach sexual maturity within one year, and oviposition likely takes place below ground. the asymptotic body length of 1,290 individuals was estimated as 31.73 mm (at ca. two years of age), although there was substantial heterogeneity among growth trajectories. longevity was approximately eight years, and the median age for a recaptured adult was 2.3 years. abundance estimated from closed-population and robust-design capture-recapture models varied widely within and among sites (range 41-834), although, surprisingly, dramatic changes in abundance were not observed following prolonged dry periods. seasonal migration patterns of second-year and older adults may help explain lower ratios of large individuals and higher temporary emigration during the latter half of the year, but further study is required. low numbers of captures and recaptures precluded the use of open-population models to estimate demographic parameters at several sites; therefore, closed-population (or robust-design) methods are generally recommended. based on observations of their life history and population demographics, e. tonkawae seems well adapted to conditions where spring flow is variable and surface habitat periodically goes dry." persistent infections support maintenance of a coronavirus in a population of australian bats (myotis macropus),bayesian analysis; coronavirus; epidemiological modelling; myotis macropus; persistent infection,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,JEONG J;SMITH CS;PEEL AJ;PLOWRIGHT RK;KERLIN DH;MCBROOM J;MCCALLUM H,"understanding viral transmission dynamics within populations of reservoir hosts can facilitate greater knowledge of the spillover of emerging infectious diseases. while bat-borne viruses are of concern to public health, investigations into their dynamics have been limited by a lack of longitudinal data from individual bats. here, we examine capture-mark-recapture (cmr) data from a species of australian bat (myotis macropus) infected with a putative novel alphacoronavirus within a bayesian framework. then, we developed epidemic models to estimate the effect of persistently infectious individuals (which shed viruses for extensive periods) on the probability of viral maintenance within the study population. we found that the cmr data analysis supported grouping of infectious bats into persistently and transiently infectious bats. maintenance of coronavirus within the study population was more likely in an epidemic model that included both persistently and transiently infectious bats, compared with the epidemic model with non-grouping of bats. these findings, using rare cmr data from longitudinal samples of individual bats, increase our understanding of transmission dynamics of bat viral infectious diseases." -"estimating the real incidence of invasive listeriosis through an integrated surveillance model in use in lombardy (italy, 2006-2014)",incidence; listeria; surveillance system,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,ZOLIN A;AMATO E;D'AURIA M;GORI M;HUEDO P;BOSSI A;PONTELLO M,"the annual incidence of listeriosis in italy is lower (0.19-0.27 per 100 000 inhabitants per year) than in europe (0.34-0.52 per 100 000 inhabitants per year). since the observed incidence of listeriosis may be biased downward for underdiagnosis or under-reporting, this work aims to estimate the real incidence of listeriosis during a 9-year period in the lombardy region, italy. data on listeriosis cases were collected from national mandatory notification system (mainf) and laboratory-based surveillance system (labss). the two sources were cross-matched and capture-recapture method was applied to estimate the number of undetected cases and the real incidence of invasive listeriosis. five hundred and eighty invasive listeriosis cases were detected by the two sources between 2006 and 2014: 50.2% were identified only via mainf, 16.7% were recorded only via labss, overlaps occurred in 192 cases (33.1%). the mean annual incidence detected only by mainf was 0.56 per 100 000 inhabitants, which rose to 0.67 per 100 000 considering also the cases detected by labss. the capture-recapture method allowed to estimate an incidence of 0.84 per 100 000. the high incidence of listeriosis may be due to improved sensitivity of the surveillance system, but also reflect a real increase, associated with an increased population at risk." +"estimating the real incidence of invasive listeriosis through an integrated surveillance model in use in lombardy (italy, 2006-2014)",incidence; listeria; surveillance system,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,ZOLIN A;AMATO E;D AURIA M;GORI M;HUEDO P;BOSSI A;PONTELLO M,"the annual incidence of listeriosis in italy is lower (0.19-0.27 per 100 000 inhabitants per year) than in europe (0.34-0.52 per 100 000 inhabitants per year). since the observed incidence of listeriosis may be biased downward for underdiagnosis or under-reporting, this work aims to estimate the real incidence of listeriosis during a 9-year period in the lombardy region, italy. data on listeriosis cases were collected from national mandatory notification system (mainf) and laboratory-based surveillance system (labss). the two sources were cross-matched and capture-recapture method was applied to estimate the number of undetected cases and the real incidence of invasive listeriosis. five hundred and eighty invasive listeriosis cases were detected by the two sources between 2006 and 2014: 50.2% were identified only via mainf, 16.7% were recorded only via labss, overlaps occurred in 192 cases (33.1%). the mean annual incidence detected only by mainf was 0.56 per 100 000 inhabitants, which rose to 0.67 per 100 000 considering also the cases detected by labss. the capture-recapture method allowed to estimate an incidence of 0.84 per 100 000. the high incidence of listeriosis may be due to improved sensitivity of the surveillance system, but also reflect a real increase, associated with an increased population at risk." "habitat preferences of the grasshopper psophus stridulus, a charismatic species of submontane pastures",flagship; grasshopper; grassland; habitat preference; management; psophus; survival; sward; vegetation,INSECT CONSERVATION AND DIVERSITY,RADA S;SPITZER L;SIPOS J;KURAS T,"1. semi-natural habitats in europe host a substantial proportion of biodiversity, but they experience biodiversity loss due to ongoing agricultural changes. we regard the rattle grasshopper (psophus stridulus) as a charismatic species of species-rich submontane xerothermic grasslands. to enable conservation of the species and its habitat, we studied the habitat preferences of this formerly abundant grasshopper, now threatened and declining in many european countries. 2. in 2011, we applied capture-mark-recapture method to sample adults at four localities (czech republic), each divided into two subplots with different management and character of vegetation. in 2012, we carried out a more extensive study on habitat preferences, evaluating 179 grassland patches (24% of them occupied by p. stridulus). for each site, we recorded vegetation characteristics (sward height and density, cover of vegetation components, percentage of bare ground), slope, inclination and agricultural management. we used multistate models in mark software to analyse survival and movement probabilities between different subplots. data from the 2012 large-scale study were analysed by fitting several regression models. 3. the results show that the species preferred south-facing slopes with sparse, short vegetation and with patches of bare ground. sward density was the most important predictor of species presence. 4. for species conservation, we recommend controlling succession on the localities by regular management (grazing or cautious mowing) to maintain optimal habitat with sparse sward. we promote p. stridulus as a flagship and umbrella species of species-rich submontane xerothermic pastures." -an empirical evaluation of camera trapping and spatially explicit capture-recapture models for estimating chimpanzee density,camera trapping; chimpanzee; density; monitoring; spatially explicit capture-recapture; survey design,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY,DESPRES-EINSPENNER ML;HOWE EJ;DRAPEAU P;KUHL HS,"empirical validations of survey methods for estimating animal densities are rare, despite the fact that only an application to a population of known density can demonstrate their reliability under field conditions and constraints. here, we present a field validation of camera trapping in combination with spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) methods for enumerating chimpanzee populations. we used 83 camera traps to sample a habituated community of western chimpanzees (pan troglodytes verus) of known community and territory size in tai national park, ivory coast, and estimated community size and density using spatially explicit capture-recapture models. we aimed to: (1) validate camera trapping as a means to collect capture-recapture data for chimpanzees; (2) validate secr methods to estimate chimpanzee density from camera trap data; (3) compare the efficacy of targeting locations frequently visited by chimpanzees versus deploying cameras according to a systematic design; (4) evaluate the performance of secr estimators with reduced sampling effort; and (5) identify sources of heterogeneity in detection probabilities. ten months of camera trapping provided abundant capture-recapture data. all weaned individuals were detected, most of them multiple times, at both an array of targeted locations, and a systematic grid of cameras positioned randomly within the study area, though detection probabilities were higher at targeted locations. secr abundance estimates were accurate and precise, and analyses of subsets of the data indicated that the majority of individuals in a community could be detected with as few as five traps deployed within their territory. our results highlight the potential of camera trapping for cost-effective monitoring of chimpanzee populations." +an empirical evaluation of camera trapping and spatially explicit capture-recapture models for estimating chimpanzee density,camera trapping; chimpanzee; density; monitoring; spatially explicit capture-recapture; survey design,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY,DESPRES EINSPENNER ML;HOWE EJ;DRAPEAU P;KUHL HS,"empirical validations of survey methods for estimating animal densities are rare, despite the fact that only an application to a population of known density can demonstrate their reliability under field conditions and constraints. here, we present a field validation of camera trapping in combination with spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) methods for enumerating chimpanzee populations. we used 83 camera traps to sample a habituated community of western chimpanzees (pan troglodytes verus) of known community and territory size in tai national park, ivory coast, and estimated community size and density using spatially explicit capture-recapture models. we aimed to: (1) validate camera trapping as a means to collect capture-recapture data for chimpanzees; (2) validate secr methods to estimate chimpanzee density from camera trap data; (3) compare the efficacy of targeting locations frequently visited by chimpanzees versus deploying cameras according to a systematic design; (4) evaluate the performance of secr estimators with reduced sampling effort; and (5) identify sources of heterogeneity in detection probabilities. ten months of camera trapping provided abundant capture-recapture data. all weaned individuals were detected, most of them multiple times, at both an array of targeted locations, and a systematic grid of cameras positioned randomly within the study area, though detection probabilities were higher at targeted locations. secr abundance estimates were accurate and precise, and analyses of subsets of the data indicated that the majority of individuals in a community could be detected with as few as five traps deployed within their territory. our results highlight the potential of camera trapping for cost-effective monitoring of chimpanzee populations." evaluating population expansion of black bears using spatial capture-recapture,abundance; black bears; microsatellites; new york; noninvasive genetics; population density; range expansion; spatial capture-recapture,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SUN CC;FULLER AK;HARE MP;HURST JE,"the population of american black bears (ursus americanus) in southern new york, usa has been growing and expanding in range since the 1990s. this has motivated a need to anticipate future patterns of range expansion. we conducted a non-invasive, genetic, spatial capture-recapture (scr) study to estimate black bear density and identify spatial patterns of population density that are potentially associated with range expansion. we collected hair samples in a 2,519-km(2) study area in southern new york with barbed-wire hair snares and identified individuals and measured genetic diversity using 7 microsatellite loci and 1 sex-linked marker. we estimated a mean density of black bears in the region of 13.7 bears/100 km(2), and detected a slight latitudinal gradient in density consistent with the documented range expansion. however, elevation and the amounts of forest, crop, and developed landcover types did not influence density, suggesting that bears are using a diversity of resources in this heterogeneous landscape outside their previously described distribution. these results provide the first robust baseline estimates for population density and distribution associated with different landcover types in the expanded bear range. further, genetic diversity was comparable to that of non-expanding black bear populations in the eastern united states, and in combination with the latitudinal density gradient, suggest that the study area is not at the colonizing front of the range expansion. in addition, the diversity of landcover types used by bears in the study area implies a possible lack of constraints for further northern expansion of the black bear range. our non-invasive, genetic, spatial capture-recapture approach has utility for studying populations of other species that may be expanding in range because scr allows for the testing of explicit, spatial ecological hypotheses. (c) 2017 the wildlife society." "underreporting of congenital rubella in italy, 2010-2014",congenital rubella; surveillance; hospital discharge records; underreporting; capture-recapture method,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PEDIATRICS,GIAMBI C;BELLA A;FILIA A;DEL MANSO M;NACCA G;DECLICH S;ROTA MC,"in accordance with the goals of the world health organization regional committee for europe, the italian national measles and rubella elimination plan 2010-2015 aimed to reduce the incidence of congenital rubella cases to < 1 case/100,000 live births by 2015. in italy, a passive national surveillance system for congenital rubella and rubella in pregnancy is active since 2005. we estimated the degree of underreporting of congenital rubella, performing a capture-recapture analysis of cases detected through two independent sources: the national surveillance system and the national hospital discharge database, in the years 2010-2014. we found that 6 out of 11 cases tracked in the retrospective case-finding from hospital registries had not been notified to the surveillance system, and we estimated a degree of underreporting of 53% for the period 2010-2014. this approach showed to be simple to perform, repeatable, and effective.conclusion: in order to reduce underreporting, some actions aimed at strengthening surveillance procedures are needed. the adoption on a routine basis of the review of hospital discharge registries for case-finding, monthly zero-reporting, and actions to train and sensitize all the specialists involved in the care of pregnant women and the newborns to notification procedures are recommended." genotype-based estimates of local abundance and effective population size for hector's dolphins,abundance; effective population size; genotype mark-recapture; photo-identification; hector's dolphin; conservation genetics,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,HAMNER RM;CONSTANTINE R;MATTLIN R;WAPLES R;BAKER CS,"conservation and management decisions for wild populations are often based on demographic estimates of abundance ((n) over cap), and less frequently, on genetic estimates of effective population size ((n) over cap (e)). we used genotype based methods to estimate both parameters from the same set of biopsy samples, while also providing information on the geographic closure of a local population of hector's dolphins in cloudy bay, new zealand. the assumption of closure in cloudy bay was supported by the lack of genetic differentiation between the two survey years and the absence of any genetically detectable migrants. using recapture analysis based on genotype identifications, we estimated the abundance of individuals age 1(+) ((n) over cap (1+)) to be 269 (95% cl = 233 - 319, cv = 0.12). this was similar to, but more precise than, (n) over cap = 230 (95% cl = 130 - 407, cv = 0.30) from the more traditional analysis using contemporaneously collected photo-identifications. the (n) over cap (e) of the parental generation was 191 (95% cl = 23 - 362), and the resulting ($) over cap (e)/($) over cap (1+) of 0.71 was in reasonable agreement with species of similar life history characteristics. although (n) over cap (e) was below the recommended threshold (500, recently increased to >= 1000) thought to be necessary to preserve long-term evolutionary potential in perpetuity, genetic connectivity with neighboring populations on a generational time scale is likely to mitigate the negative effects of low local n-e. our work demonstrates the breadth of management-relevant information (e.g., n, n-e, sex ratio, genetic diversity, and connectivity to neighboring populations) that can be obtained from a genotype-based analysis, and how conservation implications can change when demographic and genetic population size are considered along with connectivity." @@ -990,11 +991,11 @@ uncertainty in empirical estimates of marine larval connectivity,connectivity; l estuarine retention and production of striped bass larvae: a mark-recapture experiment,chesapeake bay; estuarine turbidity maximum; larval retention; nursery volume; salt front; striped bass,ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,SECOR DH;HOUDE ED;KELLOGG LL,"mark-recapture experiments were conducted in the tidal nanticoke river (chesapeake bay) to determine how the salt front retains striped bass larvae and controls nursery production. during two spring spawning seasons, 25.1 million hatchery-produced, first-feeding larvae (5-12 days post-hatch) were released with chemically marked otoliths at selected locations and times. surveys tracked the spatial and demographic fates of released and naturally spawned larvae. released larvae dispersed rapidly within the freshwater tidal portion of the estuary and were retained above the salt front. their distributions overlapped with natural larvae. growth and mortality rates did not differ with respect to release location, but did vary with day of release, influenced by storm events and seasonal changes in temperature. in 1993, a group released during a storm event did not yield any recaptured larvae. zooplankton concentrations in both years were likely sufficient for successful larval feeding. in spring 1993, a season of relatively high freshwater flow, nursery volume was 2.1-fold larger and juvenile production from larval releases was fourfold higher than in 1992. we propose that increased nursery volume reduces variance in water quality, enhances retention of larvae within the nursery, thus increasing production of larval striped bass." "ski areas affect pacific marten movement, habitat use, and density",density; marten; martes caurina; movement; occupancy; recreation; ski area; spatially explicit capture recapture,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SLAUSON KM;ZIELINSKI WJ;SCHWARTZ MK,"alpine ski recreation is one of the most popular outdoor winter sports globally but often involves habitat modification and dense human activity, both of which can harm wildlife. we investigated the effects of ski area development and winter recreation activities on movement, occupancy, and density of pacific martens (martes caurina) in the lake tahoe region of california and nevada, usa by comparing 3 ski and 3 control study areas. we systematically surveyed martens using live traps and hair snares during spring-summer and winter seasons from 2009 through 2011 to identify how martens responded to the year-round effects of habitat fragmentation from ski area development and the seasonal effects of winter recreation activities. martens selectively moved between remnant forest patches with the shortest crossing distances across open, non-forested ski runs in both seasons, with the effect more pronounced in females. overall, habitat connectivity was reduced by 41% in ski areas compared to habitat not fragmented by ski runs. during spring-summer, occupancy rates were not different between habitat within or outside of ski operations areas. during winter, however, occupancy was significantly lower inside (52%) ski area boundaries than outside (88%) them. reduced detection probability in ski areas indicated martens also reduced the frequency of use of operations areas in winter. using spatially explicit capture-recapture models, we found that marten density did not differ between ski areas and controls during spring, but during winter female density declined at ski areas by 63% compared to spring-summer and was < 50% of female density compared to controls. this suggests that females seasonally avoid habitat in ski areas by shifting their habitat use to areas outside ski operations boundaries during winter. although male marten density did not differ, the lack of resident males > 3 years old coupled with higher annual turnover rates suggests male densities at ski areas may be reliant on annual male immigration. in winter, martens avoided using habitat in ski operations areas when recreation activity was greatest. winter ski recreation may not be incompatible with marten use of habitat in ski areas, but habitat fragmentation from ski areas affects marten movement and recreation activities affect seasonal habitat occupancy and female density. maintaining functional habitat connectivity, via networks of short ski run crossings that link habitat in and out of ski areas, will be important for maintaining or improving marten use of remnant habitat in developed ski areas. (c) 2017 the wildlife society" from blackbirds to black holes: investigating capture-recapture methods for time domain astronomy,NA,NEW ASTRONOMY,LAYCOCK SGT,"in time domain astronomy, recurrent transients present a special problem: how to infer total populations from limited observations. monitoring observations may give a biassed view of the underlying population due to limitations on observing time, visibility and instrumental sensitivity. a similar problem exists in the life sciences, where animal populations (such as migratory birds) or disease prevalence, must be estimated from sparse and incomplete data. the class of methods termed capture-recapture is used to reconstruct population estimates from time-series records of encounters with the study population. this paper investigates the performance of capture-recapture methods in astronomy via a series of numerical simulations. the blackbirds code simulates monitoring of populations of transients, in this case accreting binary stars (neutron star or black hole accreting from a stellar companion) under a range of observing strategies. we first generate realistic light-curves for populations of binaries with contrasting orbital period distributions. these models are then randomly sampled at observing cadences typical of existing and planned monitoring surveys. the classical capture-recapture methods, lincoln-peterson, schnabel estimators, related techniques, and newer methods implemented in the rcapture package are compared. a general exponential model based on the radioactive decay law is introduced which is demonstrated to recover (at 95% confidence) the underlying population abundance and duty cycle, in a fraction of the observing visits (10-50%) required to discover all the sources, in the simulation. capture-recapture is a promising addition to the toolbox of time domain astronomy, and, methods implemented in r by the biostats community can be readily called from within python. (c) 2017 elsevier bm. all rights reserved." -prevalence of fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (fop) in france: an estimate based on a record linkage of two national databases,fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva; epidemiology; prevalence; data bases; rare genetic diseases,ORPHANET JOURNAL OF RARE DISEASES,BAUJAT G;CHOQUET R;BOUEE S;JEANBAT V;COUROUVE L;RUEL A;MICHOT C;LE QUAN SANG KH;LAPIDUS D;MESSIAEN C;LANDAIS P;CORMIER-DAIRE V,"background: fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (fop) is a rare, severely disabling, and life-shortening genetic disorder that causes the formation of heterotopic bone within soft connective tissue. previous studies found that the fop prevalence was about one in every two million lives. the aim of this study is to estimate the fop prevalence in france by probabilistic record-linkage of 2 national databases: 1) the pmsi (programme de medicalisation des systsmes d'information), an administrative database that records all hospitalization activities in france and 2) cemara, a registry database developed by the french centres of reference for rare diseases. results: using a capture-recapture methodology to adjust the crude number of patients identified in both data sources, 89 fop patients were identified, which results in a prevalence of 1.36 per million inhabitants (ci95% = [1.10; 1. 68]). fop patients' mean age was 25 years, only 14.9% were above 40 years, and 53% of them were males. the first symptoms - beside toe malformations-occurred after birth for 97.3% of them. mean age at identified symptoms was 7 years and above 18 years for only 6.9% of patients. mean age at diagnosis was 10 years, and above 18 years for 14.9% of the patients. fop patients were distributed across france. conclusions: despite the challenge of ascertaining patients with rare diseases, we report a much higher prevalence of fop in france than in previous studies elsewhere. we suggest that efforts to identify patients and confirm the diagnosis of fop should be reinforced and extended at both national and european level." +prevalence of fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (fop) in france: an estimate based on a record linkage of two national databases,fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva; epidemiology; prevalence; data bases; rare genetic diseases,ORPHANET JOURNAL OF RARE DISEASES,BAUJAT G;CHOQUET R;BOUEE S;JEANBAT V;COUROUVE L;RUEL A;MICHOT C;LE QUAN SANG KH;LAPIDUS D;MESSIAEN C;LANDAIS P;CORMIER DAIRE V,"background: fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (fop) is a rare, severely disabling, and life-shortening genetic disorder that causes the formation of heterotopic bone within soft connective tissue. previous studies found that the fop prevalence was about one in every two million lives. the aim of this study is to estimate the fop prevalence in france by probabilistic record-linkage of 2 national databases: 1) the pmsi (programme de medicalisation des systsmes d'information), an administrative database that records all hospitalization activities in france and 2) cemara, a registry database developed by the french centres of reference for rare diseases. results: using a capture-recapture methodology to adjust the crude number of patients identified in both data sources, 89 fop patients were identified, which results in a prevalence of 1.36 per million inhabitants (ci95% = [1.10; 1. 68]). fop patients' mean age was 25 years, only 14.9% were above 40 years, and 53% of them were males. the first symptoms - beside toe malformations-occurred after birth for 97.3% of them. mean age at identified symptoms was 7 years and above 18 years for only 6.9% of patients. mean age at diagnosis was 10 years, and above 18 years for 14.9% of the patients. fop patients were distributed across france. conclusions: despite the challenge of ascertaining patients with rare diseases, we report a much higher prevalence of fop in france than in previous studies elsewhere. we suggest that efforts to identify patients and confirm the diagnosis of fop should be reinforced and extended at both national and european level." effects of sand grain size on habitat selection in steppe toad-headed lizard (phrynocephalus frontalis),habitat preference; agama lizard; sand substrate; desert grassland,ASIAN HERPETOLOGICAL RESEARCH,JI SN;LIAN X;JIANG ZG;LI LL;BI JH;LI CW,"to understand the effects of sand grain size on habitat selection, we conducted a field study on the steppe toad-headed lizard in hunshandake desert northern china. methods of mark-recapture and transect survey were used to investigate the density of steppe toad-headed lizards and the environmental variables. the comparison on lizard densities among the habitats with different environmental factors revealed that: 1) population density of the steppe toad-headed lizard differed significantly among the habitats with different sand grain size indexes (sgsis, representing roughness of sand substrate): the highest lizard density was found in the group with an sgsi of > 0.30, whereas the lowest density was found in the group with an sgsi of 0-0.15; and 2) vegetation cover, soil moisture, invertebrate diversity index, and abundance had no significant effects on the lizard density. these results implied that the sand grain size was the most important determinant of habitat selection for steppe toad-headed lizards in hunshandake desert. steppe toad-headed lizards could avoid structural habitats that have negative effects on their maximal sprinting capabilities. considering the changing sand grain size in the development phase of sand dunes, the sand lizard could be used as an indicator of the process of desertification." "identifying key demographic parameters of a small island-associated population of indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins (reunion, indian ocean)",NA,PLOS ONE,DULAU V;ESTRADE V;FAYAN J,"photo-identification surveys of indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins were conducted from 2009 to 2014 off reunion island (55 degrees e33'/21 degrees s07'), in the indian ocean. robust design models were applied to produce the most reliable estimate of population abundance and survival rate, while accounting for temporary emigration from the survey area (west coast). the sampling scheme consisted of a five-month (june-october) sampling period in each year of the study. the overall population size at reunion was estimated to be 72 individuals (se = 6.17, 95% ci = 61-85), based on a random temporary emigration (gamma"") of 0.096 and a proportion of 0.70 (se = 0.03) distinct individuals. the annual survival rate was 0.93 (+/- 0.018 se, 95% ci = 0.886-0.958) and was constant over time and between sexes. models considering gender groups indicated different movement patterns between males and females. males showed null or quasi-null temporary emigration (gamma"" = gamma' < 0.01), while females showed a random temporary emigration (gamma"") of 0.10, suggesting that a small proportion of females was outside the survey area during each primary sampling period. sex-specific temporary migration patterns were consistent with movement and residency patterns observed in other areas. the robust design approach provided an appropriate sampling scheme for deriving island-associated population parameters, while allowing to restrict survey effort both spatially (i.e. west coast only) and temporally (five months per year). although abundance and survival were stable over the six years, the small population size of fewer than 100 individuals suggested that this population is highly vulnerable. priority should be given to reducing any potential impact of human activity on the population and its habitat." importance of demographic surveys and public lands for the conservation of eastern hellbenders cryptobranchus alleganiensis alleganiensis in southeast usa,NA,PLOS ONE,FREAKE MJ;DEPERNO CS,"comparisons of recent and historic population demographic studies of eastern hellbenders cryptobranchus alleganiensis alleganiensis have identified significant population declines and extirpations associated with habitat degradation, poor water quality and disease, leading to nomination as a candidate for listing under the endangered species act. however, populations in the southern appalachian region of the range have received less attention despite relatively high levels of watershed protection due to the establishment of federally protected national forest and national park public lands. these watersheds likely represent some of the best remaining available habitat, yet the lack of published studies make assessment of population stability and viability very difficult. our objectives were to (1) conduct a capture-mark-recapture (cmr) demographic study and a point transect survey on the hiwassee river in tennessee which is designated a national scenic river, and is largely contained within the cherokee national forest, (2) quantify the size structure of the population, (3) compare abundance, survival and recruitment with historic and contemporary hellbender populations across the range, (4) assess the importance of this population and the significance of national forest and national park lands in the context of hellbender population conservation in the southeastern united states. we detected all age classes present, with larval hellbenders comprising 21.5% of captures. using a combination of static life table and cmr methods, we determined that survival rates during the first year were low ( similar to 10%), but were high (68-94%) for taggable sized hellbenders. density of hellbenders at the study site was very high (84 taggable sized hellbenders per 100m of river) compared to recent demographic studies conducted in other regions of the range. we detected hellbenders over similar to 28 km of river, with a mean density of 23 taggable sized hellbenders per 100m of river, and a total population estimate of 6440 taggable hellbenders. national forest and national park lands are likely to continue to play a particularly important role in providing suitable habitat for hellbenders in the southern appalachians. in fact, only six of 21 known hellbender locations in tennessee appear to show consistent larval recruitment, all of which are located within or adjacent to national forest or national park land." -natal and breeding philopatry of female steller sea lions in southeastern alaska,NA,PLOS ONE,HASTINGS KK;JEMISON LA;PENDLETON GW;RAUM-SURYAN KL;PITCHER KW,"information on drivers of dispersal is critical for wildlife conservation but is rare for long-lived marine mammal species with large geographic ranges. we fit multi-state mark-recapture models to resighting data of 369 known-aged steller sea lion (eumetopias jubatus) females marked as pups on their natal rookeries in southeastern alaska from 1994-2005 and monitored from 2001-15. we estimated probabilities of females being first observed parous at their natal site (natal philopatry), and of not moving breeding sites among years (breeding philopatry) at large (> 400 km, all five rookeries in southeastern alaska) and small (< 4 km, all islands within the largest rookery, forrester island complex, f) spatial scales. at the rookery scale, natal philopatry was moderately high (0.776-0.859) for most rookeries and breeding philopatry was nearly 1, with < 3% of females switching breeding rookeries between years. at more populous islands at f, natal philopatry was 0.500-0.684 versus 0.295-0.437 at less populous islands, and breeding philopatry was 0.919-0.926 versus 0.604-0.858. at both spatial scales, the probability of pupping at a non-natal site increased with population size of, and declined with distance from, the destination site. natal philopatry of < 1 would increase gene flow, improve population resilience, and promote population recovery after decline in a heterogeneous environment. very high breeding philopatry suggests that familiarity with neighboring females and knowledge of the breeding site (the topography of pupping sites and nearby foraging locations) may be a critical component to reproductive strategies of sea lions." +natal and breeding philopatry of female steller sea lions in southeastern alaska,NA,PLOS ONE,HASTINGS KK;JEMISON LA;PENDLETON GW;RAUM SURYAN KL;PITCHER KW,"information on drivers of dispersal is critical for wildlife conservation but is rare for long-lived marine mammal species with large geographic ranges. we fit multi-state mark-recapture models to resighting data of 369 known-aged steller sea lion (eumetopias jubatus) females marked as pups on their natal rookeries in southeastern alaska from 1994-2005 and monitored from 2001-15. we estimated probabilities of females being first observed parous at their natal site (natal philopatry), and of not moving breeding sites among years (breeding philopatry) at large (> 400 km, all five rookeries in southeastern alaska) and small (< 4 km, all islands within the largest rookery, forrester island complex, f) spatial scales. at the rookery scale, natal philopatry was moderately high (0.776-0.859) for most rookeries and breeding philopatry was nearly 1, with < 3% of females switching breeding rookeries between years. at more populous islands at f, natal philopatry was 0.500-0.684 versus 0.295-0.437 at less populous islands, and breeding philopatry was 0.919-0.926 versus 0.604-0.858. at both spatial scales, the probability of pupping at a non-natal site increased with population size of, and declined with distance from, the destination site. natal philopatry of < 1 would increase gene flow, improve population resilience, and promote population recovery after decline in a heterogeneous environment. very high breeding philopatry suggests that familiarity with neighboring females and knowledge of the breeding site (the topography of pupping sites and nearby foraging locations) may be a critical component to reproductive strategies of sea lions." collaborative and privacy-preserving estimation of ip address space utilisation,actively used ipv4 space; privacy-preserving capture-recapture,COMPUTER NETWORKS,ZANDER S;ANDREW LLH;ARMITAGE G,"exhaustion of the ipv4 address space is driving mitigation technologies, such as carrier-grade nat or ipv6. understanding this driver requires knowing how much allocated ipv4 space is actively used over time - a non-trivial goal due to privacy concerns and practical measurement challenges. to address this gap we present a collaborative and privacy-preserving capture-recapture (cr) technique for estimating ip address space utilisation. public and private datasets of ip addresses observed by multiple independent collaborators can be combined for cr analysis, without any individual collaborator's privately observed addresses leaking to the others. we show that cr estimation is much more accurate than assuming all used addresses are observed, and that our scheme scales well to datasets of over a billion addresses across several collaborators. we estimate that 1.2 billion ipv4 addresses and 6.5 million /24 subnets were actively used at the end of 2014, and also analyse address usage depending on rir and country. (c) 2017 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." estimating density and temperature dependence of juvenile vital rates using a hidden markov model,NA,INSECTS,MCELDERRY RM,"organisms in the wild have cryptic life stages that are sensitive to changing environmental conditions and can be difficult to survey. in this study, i used mark-recapture methods to repeatedly survey anaea aidea (nymphalidae) caterpillars in nature, then modeled caterpillar demography as a hidden markov process to assess if temporal variability in temperature and density influence the survival and growth of a. aidea over time. individual encounter histories result from the joint likelihood of being alive and observed in a particular stage, and i have included hidden states by separating demography and observations into parallel and independent processes. i constructed a demographic matrix containing the probabilities of all possible fates for each stage, including hidden states, e.g., eggs and pupae. i observed both dead and live caterpillars with high probability. peak caterpillar abundance attracted multiple predators, and survival of fifth instars declined as per capita predation rate increased through spring. a time lag between predator and prey abundance was likely the cause of improved fifth instar survival estimated at high density. growth rates showed an increase with temperature, but the preferred model did not include temperature. this work illustrates how state-space models can include unobservable stages and hidden state processes to evaluate how environmental factors influence vital rates of cryptic life stages in the wild." bayesian hierarchical multi-population multistate jolly-seber models with covariates: application to the pallid sturgeon population assessment program,capture-recapture; data augmentation; endangered species; lower missouri river; pallid sturgeon; state-space,JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN STATISTICAL ASSOCIATION,WU GH;HOLAN SH,"estimating abundance for multiple populations is of fundamental importance to many ecological monitoring programs. equally important is quantifying the spatial distribution and characterizing the migratory behavior of target populations within the study domain. to achieve these goals, we propose a bayesian hierarchical multi-population multistate jolly-seber model that incorporates covariates. the model is proposed using a state-space framework and-has several distinct advantages. first, multiple populations within the same study area can be modeled simultaneously. as a consequence, it is possible to achieve improved parameter estimation by ""borrowing strength"" across different populations. in many cases, such as our motivating example involving endangered species, this borrowing of strength is crucial, as there is relatively less information for one of the populations under consideration. second, in addition to accommodating covariate information, we develop a computationally efficient markov chain monte carlo algorithm that requires no tuning. importantly, the model we propose allows us to draw inference on each population as well as on multiple populations simultaneously. finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our method through a motivating example of estimating the spatial distribution and migration of hatchery and wild populations of the endangered pallid sturgeon (scaphirhynchus albus), using data from the pallid sturgeon population assessment program on the lower missouri river. supplementary materials for this article are available online." @@ -1005,11 +1006,11 @@ bayesian inferences of arthropod movements between hedgerows and orchards,earwig small high-definition video cameras as a tool to resight uniquely marked interior least terns (sternula antillarum athalassos),interior least tern; mark-recapture; resight; shorebird; sternula antillarum athalassos; video camera,WATERBIRDS,TOY DL;ROCHE EA;DOVICHIN CM,"many bird species of conservation concern have behavioral or morphological traits that make it difficult for researchers to determine if the birds have been uniquely marked. those traits can also increase the difficulty for researchers to decipher those markers. as a result, it is a priority for field biologists to develop time- and cost-efficient methods to resight uniquely marked individuals, especially when efforts are spread across multiple states and study areas. the interior least tern (sternula antillarum athalassos) is one such difficult-to-resight species; its tendency to mob perceived threats, such as observing researchers, makes resighting marked individuals difficult without physical recapture. during 2015, uniquely marked adult interior least terns were resighted and identified by small, inexpensive, high-definition portable video cameras deployed for 29-min periods adjacent to nests. interior least tern individuals were uniquely identified 84% (n = 277) of the time. this method also provided the ability to link individually marked adults to a specific nest, which can aid in generational studies and understanding heritability for difficult-to-resight species. mark-recapture studies on such species may be prone to sparse encounter data that can result in imprecise or biased demographic estimates and ultimately flawed inferences. high-definition video cameras may prove to be a robust method for generating reliable demographic estimates." habitat guild drives variation in apparent survival of landbirds in the great plains,cormack-jolly-seber models; habitat guilds; site fidelity; songbird; tallgrass prairie; woodpecker,WILSON JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,VERHEIJEN BHF;RINTOUL DA;SANDERCOCK BK,"many species of songbirds in the united states have shown widespread declines in population numbers during the last five decades. to understand ongoing declines and plan for conservation, researchers need reliable estimates of adult survival and site fidelity. however, variation in adult survival and site fidelity within and among species is substantial and could have consequences for management. estimates of adult survival are lacking for many bird species and ecoregions, including the great plains. in this field study, we used cormack-jolly-sober mark-recapture models to analyze encounter histories of 17 species of birds captured with a 13-year systematic mist-netting effort in northeast kansas. we estimated annual rates of apparent adult survival (01 and corrected for the probability of capture (p), and tested for effects of sex and breeding habitat guild. we present the first estimates of apparent survival for six species of songbirds, and the first estimates from the great plains for 13 species. apparent survival tended to be higher for males than for females, and we found a sex effect on the probability of capture for one species. unexpectedly, grassland- and shrubland-breeding species had higher estimates of apparent survival than forest-breeding species. our results did not support the prevailing viewpoint that birds breeding in dynamic landscapes, such as frequently burned grasslands, should show lower apparent survival than species that breed in woody habitats. we demonstrate that habitat plays an important role in the survival and site fidelity of songbirds, and that regional differences in habitat structure could drive variation in demography. understanding the drivers of true survival and site fidelity of songbirds will allow region-specific management for species of conservation concern." long-term monitoring of phengaris (lepidoptera: lycaenidae) butterflies in the pa (tm) elou surroundings (czech republic): is the waterway construction a serious threat?,extinction risk; phengaris teleius; phengaris nausithous; population size; natura 2000; threat assessment; waterway construction,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,VRABEC V;KULMA M;BUBOVA T;NOWICKI P,"the monitoring of sympatrically occurring phengaris teleius and p. nausithous metapopulations in the surroundings of pa (tm) elou, czech republic, was launched over a decade ago in connection with the planned waterway construction on the elbe river. the mark-recapture surveys were initially restricted to 10 habitat patches on the right river bank, but in 2010 three new patches were discovered on the opposite bank. we use the monitoring results for 2011-2015 to assess how the discovery of additional populations alters the impact evaluation of the prospective construction. the overall abundance of p. teleius in the recently discovered populations was about twice as high as on the right bank (ca. 2,800 vs. 1,400 adults on average), while the numbers of p. nausithous on both banks proved to be balanced (at ca. 600 adults on average). furthermore, we confirmed a substantial exchange of butterflies between population representing both banks, which indicates a well-integrated metapopulation in both species. since the waterway would partly destroy the two largest populations on the right bank, the potential loss due to its construction is estimated at 40.1-64.3% p. teleius individuals and 20.2-47.4% p. nausithous individuals occurring there. nevertheless, concerning the entire metapopulation, the predicted decline is considerably smaller, reaching 13.9-25.7% in p. teleius and 8.5-20.0% in p. nausithous. consequently, a long-term survival of the species is likely even in the case of the waterway construction, as long as appropriate management is applied on the unaffected habitat patches." -population demography of the endangered large blue butterfly maculinea arion in europe,age-dependent survival; distributional range; mark-recapture; protandry; sex ratio,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,OSVATH-FERENCZ M;BONELLI S;NOWICKI P;PEREGOVITS L;RAKOSY L;SIELEZNIEW M;KOSTRO-AMBROZIAK A;DZIEKANSKA I;KOROSI A,"demographic parameters such as survival, sex ratio and abundance can profoundly affect the viability of populations and thus are of primary importance in species of conservation concern. although numerous studies have been published on certain aspects of the ecology and evolution of the endangered large blue butterfly maculinea arion, there is still a lack of detailed knowledge on its populations' demography. moreover, m. arion populates a variety of xerothermic habitats throughout its european range using various food plants and host ants, which leads to complications in its conservation. our aim was to estimate demographic parameters of m. arion populations in different parts of its european range. detailed mark-recapture sampling was conducted on populations in four different countries. we often found that daily apparent survival probability declined with increasing age of individuals, but there was no difference between male and female survival. in smaller populations, the sex ratio was rather female-biased. our most interesting result was the lack of protandry in some populations that might be a consequence of selection against reproductive asynchrony in small populations or a polyandrous mating system. the perfect coincidence of male and female phenology can positively affect the effective population size, because the lack of reproductive asynchrony increases the chance of male-female encounters. abundance of the studied populations ranged between 100 and 1,600 individuals, smaller populations were on the verge of extinction. habitat of the threatened small populations was either overgrazed or abandoned, while habitat of larger, stable populations was lightly grazed." +population demography of the endangered large blue butterfly maculinea arion in europe,age-dependent survival; distributional range; mark-recapture; protandry; sex ratio,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,OSVATH FERENCZ M;BONELLI S;NOWICKI P;PEREGOVITS L;RAKOSY L;SIELEZNIEW M;KOSTRO AMBROZIAK A;DZIEKANSKA I;KOROSI A,"demographic parameters such as survival, sex ratio and abundance can profoundly affect the viability of populations and thus are of primary importance in species of conservation concern. although numerous studies have been published on certain aspects of the ecology and evolution of the endangered large blue butterfly maculinea arion, there is still a lack of detailed knowledge on its populations' demography. moreover, m. arion populates a variety of xerothermic habitats throughout its european range using various food plants and host ants, which leads to complications in its conservation. our aim was to estimate demographic parameters of m. arion populations in different parts of its european range. detailed mark-recapture sampling was conducted on populations in four different countries. we often found that daily apparent survival probability declined with increasing age of individuals, but there was no difference between male and female survival. in smaller populations, the sex ratio was rather female-biased. our most interesting result was the lack of protandry in some populations that might be a consequence of selection against reproductive asynchrony in small populations or a polyandrous mating system. the perfect coincidence of male and female phenology can positively affect the effective population size, because the lack of reproductive asynchrony increases the chance of male-female encounters. abundance of the studied populations ranged between 100 and 1,600 individuals, smaller populations were on the verge of extinction. habitat of the threatened small populations was either overgrazed or abandoned, while habitat of larger, stable populations was lightly grazed." food availability as a major driver in the evolution of life-history strategies of sibling species,age at first reproduction; bats; demography; life-history trade-off; multistate capture-recapture model; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ARLETTAZ R;CHRISTE P;SCHAUB M,"life-history theory predicts trade-offs between reproductive and survival traits such that different strategies or environmental constraints may yield comparable lifetime reproductive success among conspecifics. food availability is one of the most important environmental factors shaping developmental processes. it notably affects key life-history components such as reproduction and survival prospect. we investigated whether food resource availability could also operate as an ultimate driver of life-history strategy variation between species. during 13 years, we marked and recaptured young and adult sibling mouse-eared bats (myotis myotis and myotis blythii) at sympatric colonial sites. we tested whether distinct, species-specific trophic niches and food availability patterns may drive interspecific differences in key life-history components such as age at first reproduction and survival. we took advantage of a quasi-experimental setting in which prey availability for the two species varies between years (pulse vs. nonpulse resource years), modeling mark-recapture data for demographic comparisons. prey availability dictated both adult survival and age at first reproduction. the bat species facing a more abundant and predictable food supply early in the season started its reproductive life earlier and showed a lower adult survival probability than the species subjected to more limited and less predictable food supply, while lifetime reproductive success was comparable in both species. the observed life-history trade-off indicates that temporal patterns in food availability can drive evolutionary divergence in life-history strategies among sympatric sibling species." variable drivers of primary versus secondary nesting; density-dependence and drought effects on greater sage-grouse,NA,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,BLOMBERG EJ;GIBSON D;ATAMIAN MT;SEDINGER JS,"organisms seek to maximize fitness by balancing reproductive allocations against mortality risk, given selection pressures inherent to the environment. however, environmental conditions are often dynamic and unpredictable, which complicates the ability to achieve such a balance, and may require reproductive adjustments depending on prevailing conditions. we evaluated the effects of density-dependent, density-independent (drought), and individual (age, body condition) factors on nesting decisions of female greater sage-grouse in the american great basin. we obtained relocations and recorded reproductive histories from 287 radio-marked females over a period of 10 yr, and applied these data to a multi-state model that estimated probabilities of initiating a first nest (primary nesting rate) or a second nest, given loss of a first (secondary nesting rate). this approach allowed us to evaluate the relative association between nesting rates and covariates while accounting for imperfect detection of nests. sage-grouse primary and secondary nesting were influenced differently by density dependence and drought. primary nesting was high and relatively constant among years despite variable drought conditions, but was negatively associated with population size (density dependence). secondary nesting was lower and more variable compared to primary nesting, was similarly influenced by density-dependence, and was also sensitive to drought conditions. females known to initiate second nests were in better body condition than females that only initiated first nests, and females of intermediate age had higher primary nesting rates, whereas secondary nesting was unaffected by age. our results suggest that females were more flexible and responded more readily to changing conditions when allocating resources to second nests. these results are consistent with patterns that have been demonstrated for female allocation to clutch size in this system, and suggest that when conditions are poor second nests reflect a tipping point where reproductive costs (increased mortality) outweigh benefits (offspring reproductive value)." surviving at high elevations: an inter- and intra-specific analysis in a mountain bird community,adult survival; elevation; inter-specific variation; capture-recapture analyses; passerines,OECOLOGIA,BASTIANELLI G;TAVECCHIA G;MELENDEZ L;SEOANE J;OBESO JR;LAIOLO P,"elevation represents an important selection agent on self-maintenance traits and correlated life histories in birds, but no study has analysed whether life-history variation along this environmental cline is consistent among and within species. in a sympatric community of passerines, we analysed how the average adult survival of 25 open-habitat species varied with their elevational distribution and how adult survival varied with elevation at the intra-specific level. for such purpose, we estimated intra-specific variation in adult survival in two mountainous species, the water pipit (anthus spinoletta) and the northern wheatear (oenanthe oenanthe) in nw spain, by means of capture-recapture analyses. at the inter-specific level, high-elevation species showed higher survival values than low elevation ones, likely because a greater allocation to self-maintenance permits species to persist in alpine environments. at the intra-specific level, the magnitude of survival variation was lower by far. nevertheless, water pipit survival slightly decreased at high elevations, while the proportion of transient birds increased. in contrast, no such relationships were found in the northern wheatear. intra-specific analyses suggest that living at high elevation may be costly, such as for the water pipit in our case study. therefore, it seems that a species can persist with viable populations in uplands, where extrinsic mortality is high, by increasing the investment in self-maintenance and prospecting behaviours." -"non-invasively determined multi-site variation in pine marten martes martes density, a recovering carnivore in europe",martes martes; density; abundance; spatially explicit capture-recapture; conservation management; habitats directive,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,O'MAHONY DT;POWELL C;POWER J;HANNIFFY R;MARNELL F;TURNER P;O'REILLY C,"pine martens (martes martes) are subject to national and international conservation legislation throughout most of their european range. yet population density and abundance estimates, which are a key component of effective conservation management, are lacking in many countries. in this study, a large-scale non-invasive survey was undertaken in 14 forested study sites throughout ireland to assess variation in pine marten density and abundance. pine marten hair samples were collected in each study site and analysed using genetic techniques to determine individual identity data. density and abundance estimates were obtained using spatially explicit capture-recapture models and capwire. across all study sites, a total of 93 individual pine marten were identified and captured 217 times. estimated pine marten density varied from 0 to 2.60 individuals per km(2) of forested habitat, with all but a single site having estimated densities of <= 1 pine marten per km2 of forest habitat. mean population abundance estimates across all study sites ranged from 0 to 27 individuals. spatially explicit capture-recapture models on combined data across all 14 study sites provided a mean density estimate of 0.64 (95% ci 0.49-0.81). combining this with data on the current distribution and estimated area of forest habitat occupied by the species in ireland, the total pine marten population abundance of pine marten in ireland was estimated at 3043 (95% ci 2330-3852) individuals. this research has conducted the largest scale investigation of pine marten density and abundance in any part of its global distribution and provided an improved basis for future population assessment and monitoring of this species." +"non-invasively determined multi-site variation in pine marten martes martes density, a recovering carnivore in europe",martes martes; density; abundance; spatially explicit capture-recapture; conservation management; habitats directive,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,O MAHONY DT;POWELL C;POWER J;HANNIFFY R;MARNELL F;TURNER P;O REILLY C,"pine martens (martes martes) are subject to national and international conservation legislation throughout most of their european range. yet population density and abundance estimates, which are a key component of effective conservation management, are lacking in many countries. in this study, a large-scale non-invasive survey was undertaken in 14 forested study sites throughout ireland to assess variation in pine marten density and abundance. pine marten hair samples were collected in each study site and analysed using genetic techniques to determine individual identity data. density and abundance estimates were obtained using spatially explicit capture-recapture models and capwire. across all study sites, a total of 93 individual pine marten were identified and captured 217 times. estimated pine marten density varied from 0 to 2.60 individuals per km(2) of forested habitat, with all but a single site having estimated densities of <= 1 pine marten per km2 of forest habitat. mean population abundance estimates across all study sites ranged from 0 to 27 individuals. spatially explicit capture-recapture models on combined data across all 14 study sites provided a mean density estimate of 0.64 (95% ci 0.49-0.81). combining this with data on the current distribution and estimated area of forest habitat occupied by the species in ireland, the total pine marten population abundance of pine marten in ireland was estimated at 3043 (95% ci 2330-3852) individuals. this research has conducted the largest scale investigation of pine marten density and abundance in any part of its global distribution and provided an improved basis for future population assessment and monitoring of this species." five-year population dynamics of plateau pikas (ochotona curzoniae) on the east of tibetan plateau,ochotona curzoniae; population dynamics; precipitation; reproduction; survival; temperature,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,QU JP;RUSSELL JC;JI WH;YANG M;CHEN QQ;LI WJ;ZHANG YM,"small mammals mediate trajectories of vegetation change where both their density and the growing season are moderated by temperature and precipitation. on the tibetan plateau, the cold and arid climate particularly restricts the plant growing season, but the role of mammals' density and climate in moderating small mammal populations remains unknown. we conducted a 5-year mark-recapture study of plateau pikas (ochotona curzoniae) to test the relative importance of density-dependent and climatic factors on survival and reproduction. plateau pikas had seasonal fluctuations in density and survival. during the warm summer season (may-august), monthly survival was density-independent, ranging from 74.7 to 90.4%, but varied with sex and age, increased with precipitation and ndvi, and decreased with temperature. during the cold season (september-april), monthly survival was around 98%. density and precipitation had negative effects on reproductive success for the first and second litters of the year, and temperature showed consistently positive effects on reproductive success for both litters of the year. pika density and climate regulated together the population dynamics of plateau pikas. these data on the relationships between density and climatic factors on survival and reproduction are critical for the management and conservation of plateau pikas on the tibetan plateau." "estimating tadpole-detection rates using visual field surveys: effects of survey time, tadpole species and tadpole density",amphibian; babina subaspera; detection probability; elastomer; mark-recapture; occupancy model; odorrana splendida; stream,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,IWAI N,"context. when understanding species occupancy, estimation of detection probability for the target species is often required, provided by repeated surveys. however, if the actual detection probability of the species is determined experimentally, such estimates are not required, and the reliability of the occupancy data obtained by a particular survey effort can be determined. aims. the aim of this study was to determine the detection rate of tadpoles using visual field surveys, as well as to explore the effects of survey time, species and tadpole density on the tadpole-detection rate. the suitability of visual surveys for detecting tadpole occupancy was also assessed. methods. batch-identified tadpoles were released into several pools and repeatedly counted over successive days to calculate detection rates using visual observation. in experiment 1, the effects of tag colour, survey time (morning vs night) and species on the detection rates of two species of tadpoles (babina subaspera and odorrana splendida) were examined. in experiment 2, the effects of tadpole density on o. splendida were examined. key results. detection rates varied by survey time, species and tadpole density; mean rates ranged from 0.2 to 0.6 for b. subaspera and 0.4 to 0.8 for o. splendida, with higher rates at night. there was a negative relationship between detection rate and tadpole density. based on these detection rates, it was calculated that single visual surveys of o. splendida tadpoles can achieve detection probabilities near 1.0 when more than four individuals occur in a patch. conclusions. variations in detection probability should be considered in field surveys. if the factors that cause variations in detection rates are controlled, visual surveys of tadpoles should, at least in some species, provide detection probabilities near 1.0. implications. when repeated surveys to estimate species occupancy are not practicable, determination of the actual detection probability of the target species using real detection rates provides a robust alternative approach." population dynamics of the critically endangered toad atelopus cruciger and the fungal disease chytridiomycosis,NA,PLOS ONE,LAMPO M;SENARIS C;GARCIA CZ,"harlequin toads (atelopus) are among the most severely impacted amphibians by the emergence of chytridiomycosis, a fungal disease caused by the pathogen batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (bd). many species disappeared while others suffered drastic contractions of their geographic distribution to lower altitudes. a diminished virulence of bd in warm habitats was proposed to explain the survival of lowland populations of harlequin toads (i.e. thermal refuge hypothesis). to understand the mechanisms that allow some populations to reach an endemic equilibrium with this pathogen, we estimated demographic and epidemiological parameters at one remnant population of atelopus cruciger in venezuela using mark-recapture data from 2007-2013. we demonstrated that bd is highly virulent for a. cruciger, increasing the odds of dying of infected adults four times in relation to uninfected ones and reducing the life expectancy of reproductive toads to a few weeks. despite an estimated annual loss of 18% of the reproductive population due to bd-induced mortality, this population has persisted in an endemic equilibrium for the last decade through the large recruitment of healthy adults every year. given the high vulnerability of harlequin toads to bd in lowland populations, thermal refuges need to be redefined as habitats of reduced transmission rather than attenuated virulence." @@ -1024,9 +1025,9 @@ counting chirps: acoustic monitoring of cryptic frogs,acoustic array; acoustic s informing conservation strategies for the endangered atlantic sturgeon using acoustic telemetry and multi-state mark-recapture models,acipenser; animal movement; biotelemetry; bycatch mortality; capture-recapture; fishery closure; migration; model selection; population recovery; survival rate,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,MELNYCHUK MC;DUNTON KJ;JORDAAN A;MCKOWN KA;FRISK MG,"1. causes of non-intentional mortality may pose conservation challenges for long-lived, migratory species. recovery attempts for atlantic sturgeon acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus populations in the usa have mainly involved closures of targeted fishing, but bycatch mortality from fisheries targeting other species remains a significant obstacle. natural and fishing mortality levels are highly uncertain and difficult to separate, but quantifying spatial and temporal patterns of movements and total mortality can directly inform management policies regarding fishing activity that affects sturgeon. 2. subadult sturgeon were tagged with acoustic transmitters to track their movements with receivers deployed in active fishing areas within the new york bight. multi-state mark-recapture models were used to quantify seasonal patterns in survival and migration while accounting for detection probabilities of tagged fish. 3. movement patterns of sturgeon were highly variable among seasons along the long island coast, with frequent south-westward movements during the increase in sea surface temperature in spring. north-eastward movements were most pronounced during winter, when temperatures were lowest. sturgeon were less common along coastal long island during summer. 4. larger fish transitioned among strata more frequently, but also had slightly lower survival than smaller fish, which may result from selectivity for larger individuals caught incidentally in bottom trawl or gillnet fisheries. weekly total mortality rates, including both natural and fishing mortality, averaged 0.24%. highest weekly survival rates were observed during periods of decreasing sea surface temperature in autumn and winter, while lowest survival was observed during periods of increasing temperature in spring and summer while sturgeon migrated through areas of known bycatch. 5. policy implications. movement and survival patterns of atlantic sturgeon suggest that late spring, coinciding with periods of ocean bycatch in fisheries along the coast of long island, is a particularly sensitive period for atlantic sturgeon. conservation efforts could target these few weeks using real-time observations from acoustic telemetry and remote sensing technologies to implement in-season fishery closures, thereby reducing incidental mortality of atlantic sturgeon. such bycatch management measures would aid in recovery attempts of a long-lived, migratory population with endangered status." integrating count and detection-nondetection data to model population dynamics,dail-madsen model; detection probability; integrated population model; n-mixture model; occupancy; unmarked data,ECOLOGY,ZIPKIN EF;ROSSMAN S;YACKULIC CB;WIENS JD;THORSON JT;DAVIS RJ;GRANT EHC,"there is increasing need for methods that integrate multiple data types into a single analytical framework as the spatial and temporal scale of ecological research expands. current work on this topic primarily focuses on combining capture-recapture data from marked individuals with other data types into integrated population models. yet, studies of species distributions and trends often rely on data from unmarked individuals across broad scales where local abundance and environmental variables may vary. we present a modeling framework for integrating detection-nondetection and count data into a single analysis to estimate population dynamics, abundance, and individual detection probabilities during sampling. our dynamic population model assumes that site-specific abundance can change over time according to survival of individuals and gains through reproduction and immigration. the observation process for each data type is modeled by assuming that every individual present at a site has an equal probability of being detected during sampling processes. we examine our modeling approach through a series of simulations illustrating the relative value of count vs. detection-nondetection data under a variety of parameter values and survey configurations. we also provide an empirical example of the model by combining long-term detection-nondetection data (1995-2014) with newly collected count data (2015-2016) from a growing population of barred owl (strix varia) in the pacific northwest to examine the factors influencing population abundance over time. our model provides a foundation for incorporating unmarked data within a single framework, even in cases where sampling processes yield different detection probabilities. this approach will be useful for survey design and to researchers interested in incorporating historical or citizen science data into analyses focused on understanding how demographic rates drive population abundance." adult mortality in a low-density tree population using high-resolution remote sensing,bayesian state-space; capture-recapture; hierarchical bayes; population dynamics; remote sensing,ECOLOGY,KELLNER JR;HUBBELL SP,"we developed a statistical framework to quantify mortality rates in canopy trees observed using time series from high-resolution remote sensing. by timing the acquisition of remote sensing data with synchronous annual flowering in the canopy tree species handroanthus guayacan, we made 2,596 unique detections of 1,006 individual adult trees within 18,883 observation attempts on barro colorado island, panama (bci) during an 11-yr period. there were 1,057 observation attempts that resulted in missing data due to cloud cover or incomplete spatial coverage. using the fraction of 123 individuals from an independent field sample that were detected by satellite data (109 individuals, 88.6%), we estimate that the adult population for this species on bci was 1,135 individuals. we used a bayesian state-space model that explicitly accounted for the probability of tree detection and missing observations to compute an annual adult mortality rate of 0.2%.yr(-1) (se = 0.1, 95% ci = 0.06-0.45). an independent estimate of the adult mortality rate from 260 field-checked trees closely matched the landscape-scale estimate (0.33%.yr(-1), se = 0.16, 95% ci = 0.12-0.74). our proof-of-concept study shows that one can remotely estimate adult mortality rates for canopy tree species precisely in the presence of variable detection and missing observations." -rebuilding beluga stocks in west greenland,aerial survey; bayesian assessment; hidden markov model; line transect; beluga; sea ice cover; abundance estimates; cetaceans,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,HEIDE-JORGENSEN MP;HANSEN RG;FOSSETTE S;NIELSEN NH;BORCHERS DL;STERN H;WITTING L,"decisions about sustainable exploitation levels of marine resources are often based on inadequate data, but are nevertheless required for practical purposes. we describe one exception where abundance estimates spanning 30years and catch data spanning more than 40years were used in a bayesian assessment model of belugas delphinapterus leucas off west greenland. the model was updated with data from a visual aerial survey on the wintering ground in 2012. methods that take account of stochastic animal availability by using independent estimates of forward and perpendicular sighting distances were used to estimate beluga abundance. a model that appears to be robust to the presence of a few large groups yielded an estimate of 7456 belugas (cv=0.44), similar to a conventional distance-sampling estimate. a mark-recapture distance analysis that corrects for perception and availability bias estimated the abundance to be 9072 whales (cv=0.32). increasing distance of beluga sightings from shore was correlated with decreasing sea ice cover, suggesting that belugas expand their distribution offshore (i.e. westward in this context) with the reduction of coastal sea ice. a model with high (0.98) adult survival estimated a decline from 18600 (90% ci: 13400, 26000) whales in 1970 to 8000 (90% ci: 5830, 11200) in 2004. the decline was probably a result of a period with exceptionally large catches. following the introduction of catch limits in 2004, the model projects an increase to 11600 (90% ci: 6760, 17600) individuals in 2020 (assuming annual removals of 294 belugas after 2014). if the annual removal level is fixed at 300 individuals, a low-survival (0.97) model predicts a 75% probability of an increasing population during 2015-2020. reduced removal rates due to catch limits and the more offshore, less accessible distribution of the whales are believed to be responsible for the initial signs of population recovery." +rebuilding beluga stocks in west greenland,aerial survey; bayesian assessment; hidden markov model; line transect; beluga; sea ice cover; abundance estimates; cetaceans,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,HEIDE JORGENSEN MP;HANSEN RG;FOSSETTE S;NIELSEN NH;BORCHERS DL;STERN H;WITTING L,"decisions about sustainable exploitation levels of marine resources are often based on inadequate data, but are nevertheless required for practical purposes. we describe one exception where abundance estimates spanning 30years and catch data spanning more than 40years were used in a bayesian assessment model of belugas delphinapterus leucas off west greenland. the model was updated with data from a visual aerial survey on the wintering ground in 2012. methods that take account of stochastic animal availability by using independent estimates of forward and perpendicular sighting distances were used to estimate beluga abundance. a model that appears to be robust to the presence of a few large groups yielded an estimate of 7456 belugas (cv=0.44), similar to a conventional distance-sampling estimate. a mark-recapture distance analysis that corrects for perception and availability bias estimated the abundance to be 9072 whales (cv=0.32). increasing distance of beluga sightings from shore was correlated with decreasing sea ice cover, suggesting that belugas expand their distribution offshore (i.e. westward in this context) with the reduction of coastal sea ice. a model with high (0.98) adult survival estimated a decline from 18600 (90% ci: 13400, 26000) whales in 1970 to 8000 (90% ci: 5830, 11200) in 2004. the decline was probably a result of a period with exceptionally large catches. following the introduction of catch limits in 2004, the model projects an increase to 11600 (90% ci: 6760, 17600) individuals in 2020 (assuming annual removals of 294 belugas after 2014). if the annual removal level is fixed at 300 individuals, a low-survival (0.97) model predicts a 75% probability of an increasing population during 2015-2020. reduced removal rates due to catch limits and the more offshore, less accessible distribution of the whales are believed to be responsible for the initial signs of population recovery." the proximate causes of asymmetric movement across heterogeneous landscapes,asymmetric; chelinidea vittiger; dispersal; connectivity; matrix; opuntia; patch area; wind direction,LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY,ACEVEDO MA;FLETCHER RJ,"asymmetric movements, in which the probability of moving from patch i to patch j is not necessarily the same as moving in the opposite direction, may be the rule more than the exception in nature where organisms move through spatially heterogeneous environments. empirical tests of dispersal asymmetries are rare with even fewer tests of the mechanisms driving such patterns. we tested for the mechanisms of asymmetric movement in the cactus-feeding insect, chelinidea vittiger, using a combination of observational and experimental approaches. in the observational approach, we analyzed movements from mark-recapture data in a large plot for over 4-5 generations and tested for the role of differences in patch area and wind direction driving broad-scale asymmetric movements. in the field experiment, we translocated individuals to experimental arenas where we tested for the roles of patch area, wind, presence of conspecifics, and matrix height driving directed movements at fine spatio-temporal scales. we found that population-level patterns of movements in c. vittiger were generally asymmetric. at broad scales, observational data suggested that these asymmetries were related to variations in patch size, with movements being directed from small to large patches. at fine scales, experiments showed that movement was also directed from small to large patches, but this effect was mediated by the structure of the surrounding matrix. our results illustrate how and why movement asymmetries can occur across landscapes. accounting for such asymmetries may improve our understanding and prediction of spatially structured population dynamics and landscape connectivity." -remediation of upstream passage for migrating galaxias (family: galaxiidae) through a pipe culvert,connectivity; fish; migration; remediation,FISHERIES MANAGEMENT AND ECOLOGY,AMTSTAETTER F;O'CONNOR J;BORG D;STUART I;MOLONEY P,"movement through streams is critical for the maintenance of diadromous fish populations. numerous fish passage improvement techniques exist, and knowledge of their effectiveness is required to conserve target species. an existing 70-m pipe culvert was considered a barrier to the passage success of young-of-year (yoy) galaxias spp. as a result of high water velocity (0.9m/s). water velocity in the pipe culvert was reduced by installing a concrete weir downstream of the culvert. a lateral ridge rock-ramp fishway was installed to provide for the passage of fish over the weir, and baffles were installed in the upstream portion of the culvert to provide refuge from higher water velocity at this location. a baci design was used to determine whether passage success, measured using a mark-recapture technique, improved as a result of the remediation works. the probability of successful passage of yoy galaxias spp. through the culvert increased from 0.03 to 0.41 following remediation works and was similar to levels observed at a control site (0.33). the success of the fishway and baffles at this culvert provides an important case study for managers to adopt this technique to improve fish passage on a broader scale and range of other sites." +remediation of upstream passage for migrating galaxias (family: galaxiidae) through a pipe culvert,connectivity; fish; migration; remediation,FISHERIES MANAGEMENT AND ECOLOGY,AMTSTAETTER F;O CONNOR J;BORG D;STUART I;MOLONEY P,"movement through streams is critical for the maintenance of diadromous fish populations. numerous fish passage improvement techniques exist, and knowledge of their effectiveness is required to conserve target species. an existing 70-m pipe culvert was considered a barrier to the passage success of young-of-year (yoy) galaxias spp. as a result of high water velocity (0.9m/s). water velocity in the pipe culvert was reduced by installing a concrete weir downstream of the culvert. a lateral ridge rock-ramp fishway was installed to provide for the passage of fish over the weir, and baffles were installed in the upstream portion of the culvert to provide refuge from higher water velocity at this location. a baci design was used to determine whether passage success, measured using a mark-recapture technique, improved as a result of the remediation works. the probability of successful passage of yoy galaxias spp. through the culvert increased from 0.03 to 0.41 following remediation works and was similar to levels observed at a control site (0.33). the success of the fishway and baffles at this culvert provides an important case study for managers to adopt this technique to improve fish passage on a broader scale and range of other sites." statistical power of replicated helicopter surveys in southern african conservation areas,helicopter surveys; large ungulate counts; post hoc; post hoc power; power analysis; south africa,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,REILLY BK;VAN HENSBERGEN HJ;EISELEN RJ;FLEMING PJS,"understanding the ecology of large ungulates in southern africa requires accurate and precise measures of population size. recovery or exploitation of ungulates in reserves is currently instigated when population size changes exceed 15% per annum, but monitoring is usually undertaken with single counts from helicopters, for which precision and the power to detect change are untested. in essence, power being the strength of a monitoring result in showing change over time. retrospective power analysis is a useful technique to investigate the variability of single-count aerial surveys. using replicated helicopter-based counts of southern african ungulates and post hoc analysis, we investigated the power of currently used single-count surveys across five common ungulate species and 11 wildlife reserves. we expected high variability in count data and set alpha = 0.1 and 0.2 (alpha being the type i error rate), and asked two questions: 'how much does power vary in replicated aerial counts of southern african wildlife across reserves and species?' and 'can current single-count aerial surveys detect population changes in response to management actions or are the statistical errors intractable?' single counts were mostly unreliable; only one of 42 had sufficient power to detect meaningful changes in population size or their trends at alpha = 0.1, and only three had sufficient power at a = 0.2. power varied widely according to species (e.g. warthog, median power at alpha = 0.1; 0.12-0.37: blue wildebeest, median power at alpha = 0.1; 0.23-0.74), and, within species, between replicates and reserves. our retrospective calculations demonstrated insensitivity and ineffectiveness in most currently applied single counts from helicopters. consequently, it is impossible to interpret the effects of ungulate conservation actions on many southern african reserves. retrospective power analyses enables determination of which previous aerial surveys were useful for population assessment and adaptive management, and which should be discarded. we recommend that prospective power analyses are undertaken to determine future helicopter survey sample size and replication requirements, especially in small reserves." the peculiar breeding biology of the amazonian frog allobates subfolionidificans (aromobatidae),anura; dendrobatidae; ethology; leaf-litter frog; space use,ANAIS DA ACADEMIA BRASILEIRA DE CIENCIAS,SOUZA JRD;KAEFER IL;LIMA AP,"allobates subfolionidificans is a vulnerable and endemic leaf-litter frog from the state of acre, brazilian amazonia. we monitored a population of a. subfolionidificans through regular censuses and mark-recapture of 181 individuals during an entire breeding season to characterize its reproductive behavior. the space use of a. subfolionidificans individuals differed between sexes, with males using smaller and more segregated spaces. males defended territories and were aggressive against same-sex individuals, which was not the case in females. the daily cycle of calling activity showed peaks in the morning and in the afternoon, and the occurrence of reproductive events was positively correlated with monthly rainfall. the breeding behavior comprised vocal and tactile interactions, although the species lacked reproductive amplexus. egg and larvae attendance, as well as tadpole transport to water environments was performed mostly by males but occasionally by females, probably in cases of desertion by the father. this species is characterized by performing courtship, mating, oviposition, as well as egg and larvae attendance exclusively on the under surface of leaves, a unique behavior among members of the superfamily dendrobatoidea." a science-based approach to guide amur leopard recovery in china,amur leopard; camera trapping; human disturbance; cattle grazing; habitat use; zero-inflated model,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,WANG TM;FENG LM;YANG HT;HAN BY;ZHAO YH;JUAN L;LU XY;ZOU L;LI T;XIAO WH;MOU P;SMITH JLD;GE JP,"the future of the critically endangered amur leopard (panthera pardus orientalis) is at a crucial point, and effective conservation strategies implemented within its primary historical range in northeast china may determine the fate of this species. however, when a conservation plan was first developed for the species, scarce information on the leopards' status existed. to illustrate regional conservation challenges, we focused on the hunchun nature reserve and the surrounding area along the china-russia border, a potential stronghold for amur leopard conservation. we conducted large-scale data analysis with a field camera-trapping network to present the first population estimates for this species using a spatially explicit capture-recapture approach. we then used a zero-inflated regression model to analyze the relationship of leopards with major prey species and anthropogenic disturbances. our results indicate that leopards are returning to china, but most of them are part of a ""border population"" or are transient; their numbers are far too few to establish a healthy population. the spatial counts of leopards were noticeably high in areas with high prey richness and areas far from settlements and roads. areas with few prey species and high human and cattle use exhibited a greater probability of ""excess absences"" of leopards. mitigating human disturbances by progressively minimizing cattle and human impacts on the forest should be pursued along with habitat expansion for large ungulates, whose presence is essential for leopard occupancy. this study provides crucial information to support chinese government recovery efforts and for refining conservation practices in human-dominated landscapes to ensure the long-term survival of this species. (c) 2016 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." @@ -1035,7 +1036,7 @@ effect of haemosporidian infections on host survival and recapture rate in the b conservation implications of source-sink dynamics within populations of endangered maculinea butterflies,mark-recapture; population survey; resource availability; source-sink system; species conservation,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,TIMUS N;CZEKES Z;RAKOSY L;NOWICKI P,"conservation programmes are often based on snapshot information on animal abundance. however, land fragments with high numbers of individuals do not necessarily represent their natal areas, which are crucial for species persistence. a classic example of the above principle are source-sink systems, in which excess individuals emigrate from source areas during their lifetime and gather in sink areas. we demonstrated the existence of source-sink dynamics in two species of endangered maculinea (=phengaris) butterflies. sympatrically occurring m. nausithous and m. teleius were investigated with mark-recapture sampling during the entire flight period. in the first half of the season a great majority of butterflies were captured within the relatively small central part of the site, while later their numbers became similar between the site centre and its peripheries. the analysis of movements indicated that most individuals captured in the peripheral zone eclosed in the central zone. moreover, the timing of the sharp increase in movements from the site centre to its peripheries corresponded well with the period when the number of eggs laid in the former area reached carrying capacity, defined by the number of the sanguisorba officinalis foodplant flowerheads available for oviposition. within the peripheral zone the foodplant availability greatly exceeded the egg load, but in contrast the abundance of host ants (i.e. the other essential resource) was low, which presumably results in low maculinea larval survival there. our findings imply that setting conservation priorities over different land fragments should take into account dispersion of individuals among them." the role of small secondary biotopes in a highly fragmented landscape as habitat and connectivity providers for dragonflies (insecta: odonata),odonata; species diversity; habitat requirements; landscape fragmentation; man-made ponds; conservation management; connectivity,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,MAYNOU X;MARTIN R;ARANDA D,"habitat loss and degradation are considered major threats to freshwater biodiversity and to invertebrates in particular. these often irreversible processes may lead to local and regional extinctions of species, most notably of stenotopic taxa. in spite of this, a number of studies have shown that small habitat patches can sustain rich and abundant communities. the present work assesses the relevance of a group of four small man-made (secondary) wildlife ponds to odonata species diversity and abundance. results obtained on pond recruiting capacity, species richness, abundance and habitat use by means of exuviae collection and monitoring of adults using a capture-mark-recapture (cmr) method indicate the potential suitability of these small aquatic biotopes and the surrounding landscape as habitat providers and stepping stone connectors in the vallss lowlands (catalonia, spain). this region, close to the metropolitan area of barcelona, has severely degraded natural habitats and high landscape fragmentation due to infrastructure, urban and industrial expansion. a comparison among a greater number of sites (ponds and sections of streams and rivers) distributed across the region showed that adequately managed small waterbodies harbour richer odonata communities than others that are unmanaged or managed specifically for other types of fauna or uses. appropriate care of these small biotopes avoids disturbance and keeps them free from vertebrates like fish and waterfowl which, under certain conditions, may have a strong influence on the invertebrate communities because, apart from feeding on larvae, they may have a negative impact on macrophyte development and water quality. while rivers and streams, the only natural aquatic habitats in the area, may be both expensive and technically challenging to restore and manage successfully, the creation and/or restoration of small ponds and short river sections in suitable locations can be a cost-effective method for enhancing freshwater vegetation and invertebrate diversity in this impacted landscape." demographic consequences of translocation of overabundant canada geese breeding in urban areas,band recovery; branta canadensis; canada goose; culling; fidelity; goose management; nuisance; population; saskatchewan; survival,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,FLOCKHART DTT;CLARKE JB,"translocation is a common tool for managing nuisance canada geese (branta canadensis) in urban areas across north america. however, no previous research has assessed how translocation affects survival and philopatry at donor and release sites. such information is required for managers to decide if translocation is a suitable intervention to reach their management objectives. we used a joint multistate-dead recovery mark-recapture analysis to retrospectively measure the effects of translocation on survival and fidelity of immature and adult canada geese (n = 2,946 marked individuals). between 2009 and 2013, geese from wascana centre, an urban park in regina, saskatchewan, canada, were subject to translocation to cumberland lake, a remote lake more than 400km away. survival varied between immature (mean annual survival = 0.31, 95% ci = 0.24-0.40) and adult (mean annual survival = 0.72, 95% ci = 0.69-0.75) geese, but translocation had no effect on survival probability. however, translocated immature geese had a lower mean probability of returning to wascana (0.11, 95% ci = 0.07-0.18) compared to adult geese (0.83, 95% ci = 0.77-0.88). translocation is unlikely to lead to a reduction in population density in our system given that translocation does not influence survival and adults return at high rates after being moved. if translocation is the only management option available, then the focus should be on immature geese. if translocation is used as a management option to minimize the number of geese that would need to be lethally removed, then managers should translocate immature geese and cull adult geese to reach management objectives. (c) 2017 the wildlife society." -identifying critical habitat for freshwater turtles: integrating long-term monitoring tools to enhance conservation and management,ecological niche; trophic ecology; acoustic telemetry; stable isotope analysis; sia,BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,MICHELI-CAMPBELL MA;CONNELL MJ;DWYER RG;FRANKLIN CE;FRY B;KENNARD MJ;TAO J;CAMPBELL HA,"the effective conservation and management of threatened species requires comprehensive knowledge about resource utilisation. here we integrated tissue stable isotope analysis and biotelemetry to identify the predominant dietary resources of two sympatric species of freshwater turtle, and locate where those items were acquired. we deployed an array of underwater acoustic telemetry receivers to autonomously, simultaneously, and continuously, monitor the movements of the threatened elseya albagula and elusor macrurus, over a 12-month period. stable isotope (si) values (delta c-13 and delta n-15) were measured within the carapace of each species, and compared with si values within potential food items. the integration of movement information and carapace si data revealed that whilst these species had overlapping home ranges, there was less than 5% probability of inter-species dietary niche overlap. e. macrurus acquired food items consisting of bivalves, gastropods and aquatic insects within rocky riffles whilst e. albagula fed on filamentous algae and crustaceans foraged from the muddy and vegetated shallow margins of deep water pools. our findings differ from stomach content analysis and mark-recapture studies, which reported these species to have similar habitat and resource requirements. we argue that the observed disparity is because our methods provided a weighted measure of an individual's dietary preference and habitat utilisation over a broad time-scale, whilst stomach content analysis and mark-recapture studies offer only a single observation of an individual's dietary preference. the research demonstrates the utility of integrating passive acoustic telemetry and carapace stable isotope analysis for identifying critical habitat for freshwater turtles." +identifying critical habitat for freshwater turtles: integrating long-term monitoring tools to enhance conservation and management,ecological niche; trophic ecology; acoustic telemetry; stable isotope analysis; sia,BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,MICHELI CAMPBELL MA;CONNELL MJ;DWYER RG;FRANKLIN CE;FRY B;KENNARD MJ;TAO J;CAMPBELL HA,"the effective conservation and management of threatened species requires comprehensive knowledge about resource utilisation. here we integrated tissue stable isotope analysis and biotelemetry to identify the predominant dietary resources of two sympatric species of freshwater turtle, and locate where those items were acquired. we deployed an array of underwater acoustic telemetry receivers to autonomously, simultaneously, and continuously, monitor the movements of the threatened elseya albagula and elusor macrurus, over a 12-month period. stable isotope (si) values (delta c-13 and delta n-15) were measured within the carapace of each species, and compared with si values within potential food items. the integration of movement information and carapace si data revealed that whilst these species had overlapping home ranges, there was less than 5% probability of inter-species dietary niche overlap. e. macrurus acquired food items consisting of bivalves, gastropods and aquatic insects within rocky riffles whilst e. albagula fed on filamentous algae and crustaceans foraged from the muddy and vegetated shallow margins of deep water pools. our findings differ from stomach content analysis and mark-recapture studies, which reported these species to have similar habitat and resource requirements. we argue that the observed disparity is because our methods provided a weighted measure of an individual's dietary preference and habitat utilisation over a broad time-scale, whilst stomach content analysis and mark-recapture studies offer only a single observation of an individual's dietary preference. the research demonstrates the utility of integrating passive acoustic telemetry and carapace stable isotope analysis for identifying critical habitat for freshwater turtles." infection of the fittest: devil facial tumour disease has greatest effect on individuals with highest reproductive output,bayesian capture-recapture; disease burden; disease progression; disease risk; fecundity; individual fitness; pathogenesis; transmissible cancer; tumour growth,ECOLOGY LETTERS,WELLS K;HAMEDE RK;KERLIN DH;STORFER A;HOHENLOHE PA;JONES ME;MCCALLUM HI,"emerging infectious diseases rarely affect all members of a population equally and determining how individuals' susceptibility to infection is related to other components of their fitness is critical to understanding disease impacts at a population level and for predicting evolutionary trajectories. we introduce a novel state-space model framework to investigate survival and fecundity of tasmanian devils (sarcophilus harrisii) affected by a transmissible cancer, devil facial tumour disease. we show that those devils that become host to tumours have otherwise greater fitness, with higher survival and fecundity rates prior to disease-induced death than non-host individuals that do not become infected, although high tumour loads lead to high mortality. our finding that individuals with the greatest reproductive value are those most affected by the cancer demonstrates the need to quantify both survival and fecundity in context of disease progression for understanding the impact of disease on wildlife populations." individually mark-mass release-resight study elucidates effects of patch characteristics and distance on host patch location by an insect herbivore,carduus nutans; host patch location; mark-release-recapture; patch area; patch characteristics; plant density; rhinocyllus conicus,ECOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY,SEZEN Z;JOHNSON DM;SHEA K,"1. how organisms locate their hosts is of fundamental importance in a variety of basic and applied ecological fields, including population dynamics, invasive species management and biological control. however, tracking movement of small organisms, such as insects, poses significant logistical challenges. 2. mass-release and individual-mark-recapture techniques were combined in an individually mark-mass release-resight (immrr) approach to track the movement of over 2000 adult insects in an economically important plant-herbivore system. despite its widespread use for the biological control of the invasive thistle carduus nutans, the host-finding behaviour of the thistle head weevil rhinocyllus conicus has not previously been studied. insects were released at different distances from a mosaic of artificially created host patches with different areas and number of plants to assess the ecological determinants of patch finding. 3. the study was able to characterize the within-season dispersal abilities and between-patch movement patterns of r. conicus. weevils found host plant patches over 900m away. large patches, with tall plants, situated close to the nearest release point had the highest first r. conicus resights. patch area and plant density had no effect on the number of weevils resighted per plant; however, r. conicus individuals were more likely to disperse out of small patches and into large patches. 4. by understanding how r. conicus locates host patches of c. nutans, management activities for the control of this invasive thistle can be better informed. a deeper mechanistic understanding of host location will also improve prediction of coupled plant-herbivore spatial dynamics in general." "flight dimorphism is related to survival, reproduction and mating success in the leaf beetle oreina cacaliae",body mass; cost of flight; dispersal; life-history traits; trade-off; (wing) size,ECOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY,KALBERER NM;KOLLIKER M,"1. alternative life histories may be maintained in populations due to variation in the costs and benefits of the underlying strategies. in this study, potential costs of dispersal by flight were investigated as an alternative life-history strategy in the mountain-living chrysomelid beetle oreina cacaliae. 2. in this species, previous mark-recapture studies showed a dispersal dimorphism in both males and females. while a fraction of the population engages in flight in autumn and spring (in the following referred to as flyers'), the other part does not fly (non-flyers). flyers emerge earlier than non-flyers and feed on a spring host plant before the emergence of the main host plant. 3. in this study, the overwintering and dispersal locations were recorded over 7years in the field, flyers from the spring host plant were collected, and morphology and lifetime reproductive output and survival of collected flyers and non-flyers were compared. 4. a potential trade-off between flight and life-history traits was observed: flyers were smaller in size, lighter in body mass, had a lower lifetime fecundity and a higher mortality. 5. mating experiments of field-caught beetles in the laboratory showed that larger beetles had a higher (multiple) mating success, but there was no evidence for size-assortative mating. it is hypothesized that one reason for small beetles to disperse by flight might be to escape competition for mates with larger non-flyers. 6. the overwhelming quantity of beetles found on the spring host every year reveals that the flying strategy is successful, despite the costs and risks." @@ -1046,8 +1047,8 @@ black bear recolonization patterns in a human-dominated landscape vary based on bat wing biometrics: using collagen-elastin bundles in bat wings as a unique individual identifier,animal identification; bats; biometrics; e. fuscus; m. lucifugus; m. septentrionalis; p. subflavus,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,AMELON SK;HOOPER SE;WOMACK KM,"the ability to recognize individuals within an animal population is fundamental to conservation and management. identification of individual bats has relied on artificial marking techniques that may negatively affect the survival and alter the behavior of individuals. biometric systems use biological characteristics to identify individuals. the field of animal biometrics has expanded to include recognition of individuals based upon various morphologies and phenotypic variations including pelage patterns, tail flukes, and whisker arrangement. biometric systems use 4 biologic measurement criteria: universality, distinctiveness, permanence, and collectability. additionally, the system should not violate assumptions of capture-recapture methods that include no increased mortality or alterations of behavior. we evaluated whether individual bats could be uniquely identified based upon the collagen-elastin bundles that are visible with gross examination of their wings. we examined little brown bats (myotis lucifugus), northern long-eared bats (m. septentrionalis), big brown bats (eptesicus fuscus), and tricolored bats (perimyotis subflavus) to determine whether the ""wing prints"" from the bundle network would satisfy the biologic measurement criteria. we evaluated 1,212 photographs from 230 individual bats comparing week 0 photos with those taken at weeks 3 or 6 and were able to confirm identity of individuals over time. two blinded evaluators were able to successfully match 170 individuals in hand to photographs taken at weeks 0, 3, and 6. this study suggests that bats can be successfully re-identified using photographs taken at previous times. we suggest further evaluation of this methodology for use in a standardized system that can be shared among bat conservationists." survival rates of steller sea lions from oregon and california,california; eumetopias jubatus; mark-recapture; oregon; steller sea lion; survival,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,WRIGHT BE;BROWN RF;DELONG RL;GEARIN PJ;RIEMER SD;LAAKE JL;SCORDINO JJ,"due to significant population declines in the 1970s and 1980s, steller sea lions (eumetopias jubatus) were listed as threatened under the u.s. endangered species act in 1990, and subsequently partitioned in 1997 into an endangered western stock and a threatened eastern stock. we estimated survival rates from a mark-recapture study of 7 eastern stock cohorts marked as pups in california and oregon from 2001 to 2009 (n = 1,154 pups) and resighted range-wide from 2002 to 2013. first-year survival rates were among the lowest found for steller sea lions thus far, averaging 0.46 (range 0.21-0.72) for females and 0.44 (0.21-0.68) for males; yearling survival rates, however, were among the highest, averaging 0.85 for females and 0.81 for males. low pup and high yearling rates offset each other, however, so that cumulative survival rates to age 4, averaging 0.33 for females and 0.27 for males, were similar to those found in studies from alaska and russia. while range-limit effects and environmental variation may be related to the low and variable pup survival rates we found, populations in oregon and california nonetheless continued to grow, which contributed to delisting of the eastern stock in 2013. continued monitoring and incorporation of new information on vital rates into regional population models will help inform post-delisting monitoring for the eastern stock of steller sea lions." a hierarchical model for estimating the spatial distribution and abundance of animals detected by continuous-time recorders,NA,PLOS ONE,DORAZIO RM;KARANTH KU,"motivation several spatial capture-recapture (scr) models have been developed to estimate animal abundance by analyzing the detections of individuals in a spatial array of traps. most of these models do not use the actual dates and times of detection, even though this information is readily available when using continuous-time recorders, such as microphones or motion-activated cameras. instead most scr models either partition the period of trap operation into a set of subjectively chosen discrete intervals and ignore multiple detections of the same individual within each interval, or they simply use the frequency of detections during the period of trap operation and ignore the observed times of detection. both practices make inefficient use of potentially important information in the data. model and data analysis we developed a hierarchical scr model to estimate the spatial distribution and abundance of animals detected with continuous-time recorders. our model includes two kinds of point processes: a spatial process to specify the distribution of latent activity centers of individuals within the region of sampling and a temporal process to specify temporal patterns in the detections of individuals. we illustrated this scr model by analyzing spatial and temporal patterns evident in the camera-trap detections of tigers living in and around the nagarahole tiger reserve in india. we also conducted a simulation study to examine the performance of our model when analyzing data sets of greater complexity than the tiger data. benefits our approach provides three important benefits: first, it exploits all of the information in scr data obtained using continuous-time recorders. second, it is sufficiently versatile to allow the effects of both space use and behavior of animals to be specified as functions of covariates that vary over space and time. third, it allows both the spatial distribution and abundance of individuals to be estimated, effectively providing a species distribution model, even in cases where spatial covariates of abundance are unknown or unavailable. we illustrated these benefits in the analysis of our data, which allowed us to quantify differences between nocturnal and diurnal activities of tigers and to estimate their spatial distribution and abundance across the study area. our continuous-time scr model allows an analyst to specify many of the ecological processes thought to be involved in the distribution, movement, and behavior of animals detected in a spatial trapping array of continuous-time recorders. we plan to extend this model to estimate the population dynamics of animals detected during multiple years of scr surveys." -use of rapid ascertainment process for institutional deaths (rapid) to identify pregnancy-related deaths in tertiary-care obstetric hospitals in three departments in haiti,maternal mortality; pregnancy-related deaths; rapid ascertainment process for institutional deaths (rapid); haiti,BMC PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH,BOYD AT;HULLAND EN;GRAND'PIERRE R;NESI F;HONORE P;JEAN-LOUIS R;HANDZEL E,"background: accurate assessment of maternal deaths is difficult in countries lacking standardized data sources for their review. as a first step to investigate suspected maternal deaths, who suggests surveillance of ""pregnancy-related deaths"", defined as deaths of women while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of cause. rapid ascertainment process for institutional deaths ( rapid), a surveillance tool, retrospectively identifies pregnancy-related deaths occurring in health facilities that may be missed by routine surveillance to assess gaps in reporting these deaths. methods: we used rapid to review pregnancy-related deaths in six tertiary obstetric care facilities in three departments in haiti. we reviewed registers and medical dossiers of deaths among women of reproductive age occurring in 2014 and 2015 from all wards, along with any additional available dossiers of deaths not appearing in registers, to capture pregnancy status, suspected cause of death, and timing of death in relation to the pregnancy. we used capture-recapture analyses to estimate the true number of in-hospital pregnancy-related deaths in these facilities. results: among 373 deaths of women of reproductive age, we found 111 pregnancy-related deaths, 25.2% more than were reported through routine surveillance, and 22.5% of which were misclassified as non-pregnancy-related. hemorrhage (27.0%) and hypertensive disorders (18.0%) were the most common categories of suspected causes of death, and deaths after termination of pregnancy were statistically significantly more common than deaths during pregnancy or delivery. data were missing at multiple levels: 210 deaths had an undetermined pregnancy status, 48.7% of pregnancy-related deaths lacked specific information about timing of death in relation to the pregnancy, and capture-recapture analyses in three hospitals suggested that approximately one-quarter of pregnancy-related deaths were not captured by rapid or routine surveillance. conclusions: across six tertiary obstetric care facilities in haiti, rapid identified unreported pregnancy-related deaths, and showed that missing data was a widespread problem. rapid is a useful tool to more completely identify facility-based pregnancy-related deaths, but its repeated use would require a concomitant effort to systematically improve documentation of clinical findings in medical records. limitations of rapid demonstrate the need to use it alongside other tools to more accurately measure and address maternal mortality." -"what to save, the host or the pest? the spatial distribution of xylophage insects within the mediterranean oak woodlands of southwestern spain",kernel density estimations; mediterranean oak woodlands; oak decline; seda network; species distribution models; xylophage beetles,FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,DUQUE-LAZO J;NAVARRO-CERRILLO RM,"the mediterranean oak forests are currently in severe decline. although the oak decline has been mainly related to phytophthora sp. and extreme climatic conditions, there are other biotic factors - such as the beetle cerambyx ""complex"" - which are also implicated. the future climate change scenarios might aggravate this situation but also might enhance the dispersal and establishment of new beetle populations. we used the andalusian forest health monitoring network (seda network) to assess the current distribution of the beetles, using the kernel density estimation approach, and the current and future distributions using ensemble species distribution models. model predictions revealed that dasometric (normal diameter and frequency of oak trees) and climatic (number of days with mean temperature above 30 degrees c) variables were important to estimate the distribution of the cerambyx ""complex"". the model performance was analyzed by k, tss, and auc, which gave accurate (k > 0.56; tss > 0.59 & auc > 0.87) to very accurate (k> 0.63; tss > 0.64 & auc > 0.89) results for the models developed only with dasometric variables and with the combination of climatic and dasometric variables, respectively. we found four main regions where the xylophage beetles occur in andalusia and a larger area which satisfies the environmental requirements of these beetles. the current potential habitat suitability of the xylophage beetles might increase under future climate scenarios, which might enhance the dispersal, colonization, and establishment of new populations of xylophage beetles in andalusia. (c) 2017 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +use of rapid ascertainment process for institutional deaths (rapid) to identify pregnancy-related deaths in tertiary-care obstetric hospitals in three departments in haiti,maternal mortality; pregnancy-related deaths; rapid ascertainment process for institutional deaths (rapid); haiti,BMC PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH,BOYD AT;HULLAND EN;GRAND PIERRE R;NESI F;HONORE P;JEAN LOUIS R;HANDZEL E,"background: accurate assessment of maternal deaths is difficult in countries lacking standardized data sources for their review. as a first step to investigate suspected maternal deaths, who suggests surveillance of ""pregnancy-related deaths"", defined as deaths of women while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of cause. rapid ascertainment process for institutional deaths ( rapid), a surveillance tool, retrospectively identifies pregnancy-related deaths occurring in health facilities that may be missed by routine surveillance to assess gaps in reporting these deaths. methods: we used rapid to review pregnancy-related deaths in six tertiary obstetric care facilities in three departments in haiti. we reviewed registers and medical dossiers of deaths among women of reproductive age occurring in 2014 and 2015 from all wards, along with any additional available dossiers of deaths not appearing in registers, to capture pregnancy status, suspected cause of death, and timing of death in relation to the pregnancy. we used capture-recapture analyses to estimate the true number of in-hospital pregnancy-related deaths in these facilities. results: among 373 deaths of women of reproductive age, we found 111 pregnancy-related deaths, 25.2% more than were reported through routine surveillance, and 22.5% of which were misclassified as non-pregnancy-related. hemorrhage (27.0%) and hypertensive disorders (18.0%) were the most common categories of suspected causes of death, and deaths after termination of pregnancy were statistically significantly more common than deaths during pregnancy or delivery. data were missing at multiple levels: 210 deaths had an undetermined pregnancy status, 48.7% of pregnancy-related deaths lacked specific information about timing of death in relation to the pregnancy, and capture-recapture analyses in three hospitals suggested that approximately one-quarter of pregnancy-related deaths were not captured by rapid or routine surveillance. conclusions: across six tertiary obstetric care facilities in haiti, rapid identified unreported pregnancy-related deaths, and showed that missing data was a widespread problem. rapid is a useful tool to more completely identify facility-based pregnancy-related deaths, but its repeated use would require a concomitant effort to systematically improve documentation of clinical findings in medical records. limitations of rapid demonstrate the need to use it alongside other tools to more accurately measure and address maternal mortality." +"what to save, the host or the pest? the spatial distribution of xylophage insects within the mediterranean oak woodlands of southwestern spain",kernel density estimations; mediterranean oak woodlands; oak decline; seda network; species distribution models; xylophage beetles,FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,DUQUE LAZO J;NAVARRO CERRILLO RM,"the mediterranean oak forests are currently in severe decline. although the oak decline has been mainly related to phytophthora sp. and extreme climatic conditions, there are other biotic factors - such as the beetle cerambyx ""complex"" - which are also implicated. the future climate change scenarios might aggravate this situation but also might enhance the dispersal and establishment of new beetle populations. we used the andalusian forest health monitoring network (seda network) to assess the current distribution of the beetles, using the kernel density estimation approach, and the current and future distributions using ensemble species distribution models. model predictions revealed that dasometric (normal diameter and frequency of oak trees) and climatic (number of days with mean temperature above 30 degrees c) variables were important to estimate the distribution of the cerambyx ""complex"". the model performance was analyzed by k, tss, and auc, which gave accurate (k > 0.56; tss > 0.59 & auc > 0.87) to very accurate (k> 0.63; tss > 0.64 & auc > 0.89) results for the models developed only with dasometric variables and with the combination of climatic and dasometric variables, respectively. we found four main regions where the xylophage beetles occur in andalusia and a larger area which satisfies the environmental requirements of these beetles. the current potential habitat suitability of the xylophage beetles might increase under future climate scenarios, which might enhance the dispersal, colonization, and establishment of new populations of xylophage beetles in andalusia. (c) 2017 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." "sooty tern (onychoprion fuscatus) survival, oil spills, shrimp fisheries, and hurricanes",climate change; fisheries; migration; oil spill; seabirds; telemetry; survivorship,PEERJ,HUANG RM;BASS OL;PIMM SL,"migratory seabirds face threats from climate change and a variety of anthropogenic disturbances. although most seabird research has focused on the ecology of individuals at the colony, technological advances now allow researchers to track seabird movements at sea and during migration. we combined telemetry data on onychoprion fuscatus (sooty terns) with a long-term capture-mark-recapture dataset from the dry tortugas national park to map the movements at sea for this species, calculate estimates of mortality, and investigate the impact of hurricanes on a migratory seabird. included in the latter analysis is information on the locations of recovered bands from deceased individuals wrecked by tropical storms. we present the first known map of sooty tern migration in the atlantic ocean. our results indicate that the birds had minor overlaps with areas affected by the major 2010 oil spill and a major shrimp fishery. indices of hurricane strength and occurrence are positively correlated with annual mortality and indices of numbers of wrecked birds. as climate change may lead to an increase in severity and frequency of major hurricanes, this may pose a long-term problem for this colony." mark-recapture models identify imminent extinction of yaqui catfish ictalurus pricei in the united states,yaqui catfish; desert fishes; conservation; bayesian models,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,STEWART DR;BUTLER MJ;HARRIS G;RADKE WR,"data describing population abundance, survival, and recruitment informs species conservation status and conservation actions. acquiring these data remains challenging for rare and endangered species, especially freshwater fish, with similar to 37% threatened or extinct. the absence of data risks inaction, ineptness and ignorance that can contaminate conservation decisions to the species detriment. the solution is obvious: ensure credible data underpin species conservation. we focus on yaqui catfish (ictalurus pricei), an endangered, freshwater endemic to the sonoran desert (arizona, us and sonora, mexico). our method incorporates mark-recapture data, coupled with hierarchical bayesian state-space formulations of the cormack-jolly seber models and jolly-seber models, to quantify species growth, survival probability, recruitment probability, abundance and trends for the us population. yaqui catfish growth matched other ictalurid species. population recruitment is essentially zero (<0.01%) and annual survival high (>70-75%). overall, the us yaqui catfish population declined by 15% per year (lambda = 0.85). remaining catfish represent remnants of stocked progeny from the 1990s (age of 19-21 years), with us extinction predicted by 2018. a pulse of conservation activity followed by 20 years of unsuccessful management resulted in the us population collapsing while habitat degradation and introgression from non-native fish threaten most populations in mexico. now approaching global extinction, saving yaqui catfish requires collaboration between mexican and us biologists to establish species status in mexico, hatchery cultivation, habitat protection, habitat restoration and appropriate monitoring. work herein springboards recent conservation efforts to secure this species. published by elsevier ltd." single spaghetti tagging as a high-retention marking method for japanese common sea cucumber apostichopus japonicus,retention rate; tag shedding; survival rate; conventional tag; holothurians,FISHERIES SCIENCE,FUJINO T;SAWADA H;MITAMURA H;MASUDA R;ARAI N;YAMASHITA Y,"populations of sea cucumbers, including the japanese common sea cucumber apostichopus japonicus, have been seriously depleted worldwide due to overfishing. mark-recapture study is an efficient means of collecting ecological data. however, the use of such a method in sea cucumbers is difficult because they lack hard tissues in the body wall. here we tested the viability of various tagging methods on a. japonicus. first, we applied conventional tags using four different methods [single spaghetti (t-bar) tagging, double spaghetti tagging, ribbon tagging, and atkins tagging] to ten individuals per method in aquaria for 14 days. of the methods used, single spaghetti tagging had the highest retention rate. then we examined the retention rate of single spaghetti tags on ten individual sea cucumbers for up to approximately 6 months in rearing conditions. the single spaghetti tagging method showed a retention rate of 100% over at least 7 days, and 50% of the tags remained embedded after 56 days. the longest duration of tag retention was 174 days, at which time the experiment was terminated. these results indicate that single spaghetti tagging is reliable for both short- and longer-term studies, making it a useful tool for ecological and conservation studies in sea cucumbers." @@ -1059,7 +1060,7 @@ coding accuracy for parkinson's disease hospital admissions: implications for he completeness of cancer registry data in a small iranian province: a capture-recapture approach,registries; cancer; epidemiology; data collection; data accuracy; medical records; records management; study; methodological; health information management; iran; cancer registry; cancer statistics; capture recapture method; completeness of data,HEALTH INFORMATION MANAGEMENT JOURNAL,FARAROUEI M;MARZBAN M;SHAHRAKI G,"background and objective: the incidence of cancer is rising in iran, and hence it is important to assess the accuracy of the iranian cancer registry dataset. in this study, the completeness of the cancer registry in the kohgiluyeh and boyer-ahmad (k&b) province is evaluated. method: the data of registered cases of cancer of people who were living in the k&b province at the time of diagnosis were obtained from the provincial cancer registry offices in k&b, fars and all other neighbouring provinces. a capture-recapture method along with log-linear statistical modelling were used for analysis. results: the results indicated that of 2029 known cases of cancer, only 1400 (31%) were registered by the k&b cancer registry office. age-adjusted incidence rates for all common types of cancer rose from 307.0 per 100,000 (95% confidence interval (ci); 293.8, 320.3, based on observed cases) to 376.4 per 100,000 (95% ci; 361.7, 391.1, based on expected number of cases estimated by capture-recapture analysis) (p < 0.01). the completeness of cancer registry data varied significantly for different types of cancer. conclusion: results suggest that the provincial cancer dataset, which is a part of the national cancer registry programme, is neither complete nor representative. a major improvement in case finding, registry procedures and effective data sharing by provincial cancer registry offices is needed in order to provide valid data for epidemiology of cancer in iran." population dynamics of wild rodents induce stochastic fadeouts of a zoonotic pathogen,agent based model; apodemus flavicollis; dobrava-belgrade virus; stochastic fadeout; zoonotic spillover,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,GUZZETTA G;TAGLIAPIETRA V;PERKINS SE;HAUFFE HC;POLETTI P;MERLER S;RIZZOLI A,"stochastic processes play an important role in the infectious disease dynamics of wildlife, especially in species subject to large population oscillations. here, we study the case of a free ranging population of yellow-necked mice (apodemus flavicollis) in northern italy, where circulation of dobrava-belgrade hantavirus (dobv) has been detected intermittently since 2001, until an outbreak emerged in 2010. we analysed the transmission dynamics of the recent outbreak using a computational model that accounts for seasonal changes of the host population and territorial behaviour. model parameters were informed by capture-mark-recapture data collected over 14years and longitudinal seroprevalence data from 2010 to 2013. the intermittent observation of dobv before 2010 can be interpreted as repeated stochastic fadeouts after multiple introductions of infectious rodents migrating from neighbouring areas. we estimated that only 20% of introductions in a naive host population results in sustained transmission after 2years, despite an effective reproduction number well above the epidemic threshold (mean 45, 95% credible intervals, ci: 065-158). following the 2010 outbreak, dobv has become endemic in the study area, but we predict a constant probability of about 47% per year that infection dies out, following large population drops in winter. in the absence of stochastic fadeout, viral prevalence is predicted to continue its growth to an oscillating equilibrium around a value of 24% (95% ci: 3-57). we presented an example of invasion dynamics of a zoonotic virus where stochastic fadeout have played a major role and may induce future extinction of the endemic infection." hidden survival heterogeneity of three common eider populations in response to climate fluctuations,arctic; hidden states; life-history strategy; mixture models; multi-event; nao; seabirds,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,GUERY L;DESCAMPS S;PRADEL R;HANSSEN SA;ERIKSTAD KE;GABRIELSEN GW;GILCHRIST HG;BETY J,"understanding how individuals and populations respond to fluctuations in climatic conditions is critical to explain and anticipate changes in ecological systems. most such studies focus on climate impacts on single populations without considering inter- and intra-population heterogeneity. however, comparing geographically dispersed populations limits the risk of faulty generalizations and helps to improve ecological and demographic models. we aimed to determine whether differences in migration tactics among and within populations would induce inter- or intra-population heterogeneity in survival in relation to winter climate fluctuations. our study species was the common eider (somateria mollissima), a marine duck with a circumpolar distribution, which is strongly affected by climatic conditions during several phases of its annual cycle. capture-mark-recapture data were collected in two arctic (northern canada and svalbard) and one subarctic (northern norway) population over a period of 18, 15, and 29years respectively. these three populations have different migration tactics and experience different winter climatic conditions. using multi-event and mixture modelling, we assessed the association between adult female eider survival and winter conditions as measured by the north atlantic oscillation (nao) index. we found that winter weather conditions affected the survival of female eiders from each of these three populations. however, different mechanisms seemed to be involved. survival of the two migrating arctic populations was impacted directly by changes in the nao, whereas the subarctic resident population was affected by the nao with time lags of 2-3years. moreover, we found evidence for intra-population heterogeneity in the survival response to the winter nao in the canadian eider population, where individuals migrate to distinct wintering areas. our results illustrate how individuals and populations of the same species can vary in their responses to climate variation. we suspect that the found variation in the survival response of birds to winter conditions is partly explained by differences in migration tactic. detecting and accounting for inter- and intra-population heterogeneity will improve our predictions concerning the response of wildlife to global changes." -strategies to avoid the trap: stream fish use fine-scale hydrological cues to move between the stream channel and temporary pools,animal movement; habitat use; hierarchical bayes; mark-recapture; multistate model; river-floodplain,HYDROBIOLOGIA,ESPIRITO-SANTO HMV;RODRIGUEZ MA;ZUANON J,"for species living in highly variable environments, the ability to perceive and respond to environmental cues by moving into favorable habitats should convey evolutionary advantages. here we examined the spatial dynamics of an amazonian pencil fish species that shows seasonally varying use of stream channel and temporary pool habitats. we hypothesized that movement into the pools should be driven by cues that reflect availability of spawning sites, whereas movement out of the pools should be driven by cues that help avoid entrapment as water level declines. survival, detection, and movement probabilities were estimated from capture histories of individuals recorded on 13 surveys along a hydrological cycle. differences between habitats were small for detection probability and survival. movement from stream to pools was greatest during bankfull overflow, whereas movement from pools to stream was related to rapid decline in pool area. entry to pools during overflow may allow fish to choose favorable spawning sites while still permitting a swift return to the stream if conditions in pools deteriorate. the ability to interpret hydrological cues seems to allow pencil fish to cope with environmental uncertainty by timing its use of seasonally available spawning sites while avoiding entrapment in desiccating pools." +strategies to avoid the trap: stream fish use fine-scale hydrological cues to move between the stream channel and temporary pools,animal movement; habitat use; hierarchical bayes; mark-recapture; multistate model; river-floodplain,HYDROBIOLOGIA,ESPIRITO SANTO HMV;RODRIGUEZ MA;ZUANON J,"for species living in highly variable environments, the ability to perceive and respond to environmental cues by moving into favorable habitats should convey evolutionary advantages. here we examined the spatial dynamics of an amazonian pencil fish species that shows seasonally varying use of stream channel and temporary pool habitats. we hypothesized that movement into the pools should be driven by cues that reflect availability of spawning sites, whereas movement out of the pools should be driven by cues that help avoid entrapment as water level declines. survival, detection, and movement probabilities were estimated from capture histories of individuals recorded on 13 surveys along a hydrological cycle. differences between habitats were small for detection probability and survival. movement from stream to pools was greatest during bankfull overflow, whereas movement from pools to stream was related to rapid decline in pool area. entry to pools during overflow may allow fish to choose favorable spawning sites while still permitting a swift return to the stream if conditions in pools deteriorate. the ability to interpret hydrological cues seems to allow pencil fish to cope with environmental uncertainty by timing its use of seasonally available spawning sites while avoiding entrapment in desiccating pools." "life history patterns, individual heterogeneity, and density dependence in breeding common goldeneyes of the northern boreal forest",NA,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,LAWSON AJ;SEDINGER JS;TAYLOR EJ,"life history patterns and their associated tradeoffs influence population dynamics, as they determine how individuals allocate resources among competing demographic traits. here we examined life history strategies in common goldeneyes bucephala clangula (hereafter goldeneye), a cavity-nesting sea duck, in the northern boreal forest of interior alaska, usa. we used multistate capture-mark-recapture models to estimate adult survival, breeding probability, first-year survival, and recruitment probability using a long-term nest box study (1997-2010). we detected annual variation in adult survival, which varied from 0.74 +/-. 0.12 (se) to 0.93 +/-. 0.06. in contrast, breeding probability remained relatively high and invariant (0.84 +/- 0.11) and was positively related to individual nest success the year prior. nonbreeding individuals in one year were more likely to remain a nonbreeder, than attempt to breed the following year. first-year survival decreased with smaller residual duckling mass and larger brood sizes. probability of recruitment into the breeding population conditioned on survival was constant during the study (0.96 +/- 0.06), and did not vary among ages 2-5 yr-old. overall, goldeneyes exhibited high, but somewhat variable, adult survival, and high breeding and recruitment probabilities, which is consistent with observed patterns in bet-hedging species that breed annually in high quality breeding environments, but whose reproductive output is often influenced by stochastic events. demographic estimates from this study are among the first for goldeneyes within alaska. life history patterns are known to vary geographically, therefore, we recommend further examination of life history patterns within the distribution of goldeneyes." effects of environmental covariates and density on the catchability of fish populations and interpretation of catch per unit effort trends,capture probability; catchability; stock assessment; mark-recapture; fishery-independent surveys,FISHERIES RESEARCH,KORMAN J;YARD MD,"quantifying temporal and spatial trends in abundance or relative abundance is required to evaluate effects of harvest and changes in habitat for exploited and endangered fish populations. in many cases, the proportion of the population or stock that is captured (catchability or capture probability) is unknown but is often assumed to be constant over space and time. we used data from a large-scale mark-recapture study to evaluate the extent of spatial and temporal variation, and the effects of fish density, fish size, and environmental covariates, on the capture probability of rainbow trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) in the colorado river, az. estimates of capture probability for boat electrofishing varied 5-fold across five reaches, 2.8-fold across the range of fish densities that were encountered, 2.1-fold over 19 trips, and 1.6-fold over five fish size classes. shoreline angle and turbidity were the best covariates explaining variation in capture probability across reaches and trips. patterns in capture probability were driven by changes in gear efficiency and spatial aggregation, but the latter was more important. failure to account for effects of fish density on capture probability when translating a historical catch per unit effort time series into a time series of abundance, led to 2.5-fold underestimation of the maximum extent of variation in abundance over the period of record, and resulted in unreliable estimates of relative change in critical years. catch per unit effort surveys have utility for monitoring long-term trends in relative abundance, but are too imprecise and potentially biased to evaluate population response to habitat changes or to modest changes in fishing effort. (c) 2017 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." the influence of climatic variation and density on the survival of an insular passerine zosterops lateralis,NA,PLOS ONE,SANDVIG EM;COULSON T;KIKKAWA J;CLEGG SM,"understanding the influence of environmental factors on population dynamics is fundamental to many areas in biology. survival is a key factor of population biology, as it is thought to be the predominant driver of growth in long-lived passerines, which can be influenced by both biotic and abiotic environmental conditions. we used mark-recapture methods and generalized linear mixed models to test the influence of density and climatic variation, measured at a regional and local scale (southern oscillation index [soi] and rainfall, respectively), on seasonal variation in survival rates of an insular population of silvereyes (zosterops lateralis chlorocephalus), during a 15-year study period, off the east coast of australia. we found overall high survival rates for adults and juveniles (81% and 59%, respectively). local scale climate (i.e. rainfall) and density were the principal environmental factors influencing their survival, both with a negative relationship. a significant interactive effect of density and rainfall influenced survival as they both increased. however, survival remained low when density was at it highest, independent of the amount of rainfall. nestling survival was negatively influenced by rainfall and density, positively by soi, and chicks that hatched later in the breeding season had higher survival rates. the regional scale climate variable (i.e. soi) did not explain survival rates as strongly as rainfall in any age class. our results contribute to the understanding of insular avian population dynamics and the differential effects of environmental factors across age classes. climatic predictions expect el nino events to increase, meaning dryer conditions in eastern australia, potentially increasing silvereye survival across age classes. however, the long-term effect of lower rainfall on food availability is unknown; consequently, the outcome of lower rainfall on silvereye survival rates is uncertain." @@ -1071,14 +1072,14 @@ quantifying dispersal of a non-aggressive saprophytic bark beetle,NA,PLOS ONE,ME estimating survival in the apennine brown bear accounting for uncertainty in age classification,apennine brown bear; hair-snagging; multievent models; non-invasive genetic sampling; small populations; survival,POPULATION ECOLOGY,GERVASI V;BOITANI L;PAETKAU D;POSILLICO M;RANDI E;CIUCCI P,"for most rare and elusive species, estimating age-specific survival is a challenging task, although it is an important requirement to understand the drivers of population dynamics, and to inform conservation actions. apennine brown bears ursus arctos marsicanus are a small, isolated population under a severe risk of extinction, for which the main demographic mechanisms underlying population dynamics are still unknown, and population trends have not been formally assessed. we present a 12-year analysis of their survival rates using non-invasive genetic sampling data collected through four different sampling techniques. by using multi-event capture-recapture models, we estimated survival probabilities for two broadly defined age classes (cubs and older individuals), even though the age of the majority of sampled bears was unknown. we also applied the pradel model to provide a preliminary assessment of population trend during the study period. survival was different between cubs [i center dot = 0.51, 95% ci (0.22, 0.79)], adult males [i center dot = 0.85, 95% ci (0.76, 0.91)] and adult females [i center dot = 0.92, 95% ci (0.87, 0.95)], no temporal variation in survival emerged, suggesting that bear survival remained substantially stable throughout the study period. the pradel analysis of population trend yielded an estimate of lambda = 1.009 [se = 0.018; 95% ci (0.974, 1.046)]. our results indicate that, despite the status of full legal protection, the basically stable demography of this relict population is compatible with the observed lack of range expansion, and that a relatively high cub mortality could be among the main factors depressing recruitment and hence population growth." early-life density-dependence effects on growth and survival in subantarctic fur seals,arctocephalus tropicalis; capture-mark-recapture; growth model; marine top predator; population dynamics; state space model,POPULATION ECOLOGY,PACOUREAU N;AUTHIER M;DELORD K;GUINET C;BARBRAUD C,"understanding the regulation of natural populations has been a long-standing research program in ecology. current knowledge on marine mammals and seabirds is biased toward the adult component of populations and lacking are studies investigating the juvenile component. our goal was to estimate demographic parameters on the pre-weaning stage of a subantarctic fur seal (arctocephalus tropicalis) population on amsterdam island, suspected to be regulated by density-dependence. the influence of abundance on growth parameters (length and weight) and survival was assessed over a study period spanning 16 years. we evidenced a negative trend in population growth rate when density increased. density-dependence models were favored for pup body size and mass growth. abundance had a clear influence on body length at high population-density, pups grew slower and were smaller at weaning than pups born in years with low population density. abundance partly explained pup body mass variation and a weak effect was detected on pre-weaning survival. the causal mechanisms may be increased competition for food resources between breeding females, leading to a reduction of maternal input to their pups. our results suggested that pup favored survival over growth and the development of their diving abilities in order to withstand the extreme fasting periods that are characteristic of this fur seal population. this analysis provides significant insight of density-dependent processes on early-life demographic parameters of a long lived and top-predator species, and more specifically on the pre-weaning stage with important consequences for our understanding of individual long-term fitness and population dynamics." "seasonal migration by a terrestrial salamander, plethodon websteri (webster's salamander)",drift fence; mark-recapture; photo identification; rock outcrop; vie; visual implant elastomer,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,MANN TM;MANN DL,"we report seasonal, horizontal migration by a winter-active, terrestrial salamander, plethodon websteri, away from a limestone outcrop upon their emergence in the fall and toward the outcrop in spring. we made 3,597 captures (including recaptures) using a series of three drift fences erected at 9 m, 65 m, and 84 m from the outcrop. peak months for travel were november, when 98% of captures were on the sides of the fences facing the outcrop, and march, when 96% of captures were on the sides facing away from the outcrop, as expected if salamanders were moving away from the outcrop in fall and returning in spring. recapture of salamanders that we marked with visual implant elastomer confirmed that animals move from the outcrop in fall and initiated movement toward the outcrop in spring from as much as 150 m. to our knowledge this is the third report of horizontal migration in a plethodon species and the first to be confirmed by mark-recapture. we suggest that crevices in rocks provide refugia and oviposition sites deep enough to afford protection from heat and desiccation in summer for p. websteri, which is among the southernmost members of its genus. the requirement for rock outcrops for summer survival and nesting is relevant to management for p. websteri, which is ranked as imperiled or critically imperiled in four of five states in the usa in which it occurs. effective conservation requires protection of forest habitat where salamanders forage, summer refugia, and migration routes between them." -"remarkable male bias in a population of midland painted turtles (chrysemys picta marginata) in ontario, canada",mark-recapture; painted turtle; road mortality; sex ratio; urban; wetland,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,DUPUIS-DESORMEAUX M;D'ELIA V;COOK C;PEARSON J;ADHIKARI V;MACDONALD S,"we report on male sex bias in a population of midland painted turtle (chrysemys picta marginata) at a wetland near brampton, ontario, canada. the wetland is bisected by a major arterial road and characterized by high traffic volume and substantial wildlife-vehicle collisions. road mortality surveys conducted in 2011, 2013, and 2015 documented 217 dead turtles, of which 118 could positively be identified as midland painted turtle. from 2014-2015, we conducted a mark-recapture survey and captured 34 individual midland painted turtles. the male: female sex ratio of 21:4 is one of the most skewed sex ratios for this species on record. we attribute this skew to sex-specific road mortality amongst other possible factors such as predation and nesting conditions. this study adds to the general body of work that has found a male sex ratio bias in areas of high road mortality." +"remarkable male bias in a population of midland painted turtles (chrysemys picta marginata) in ontario, canada",mark-recapture; painted turtle; road mortality; sex ratio; urban; wetland,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,DUPUIS DESORMEAUX M;D ELIA V;COOK C;PEARSON J;ADHIKARI V;MACDONALD S,"we report on male sex bias in a population of midland painted turtle (chrysemys picta marginata) at a wetland near brampton, ontario, canada. the wetland is bisected by a major arterial road and characterized by high traffic volume and substantial wildlife-vehicle collisions. road mortality surveys conducted in 2011, 2013, and 2015 documented 217 dead turtles, of which 118 could positively be identified as midland painted turtle. from 2014-2015, we conducted a mark-recapture survey and captured 34 individual midland painted turtles. the male: female sex ratio of 21:4 is one of the most skewed sex ratios for this species on record. we attribute this skew to sex-specific road mortality amongst other possible factors such as predation and nesting conditions. this study adds to the general body of work that has found a male sex ratio bias in areas of high road mortality." invasive meningococcal disease in the veneto region of italy: a capturere-capture analysis for assessing the effectiveness of an integrated surveillance system,NA,BMJ OPEN,BALDOVIN T;LAZZARI R;COCCHIO S;FURLAN P;BERTONCELLO C;SAIA M;RUSSO F;BALDO V,"background epidemiology of neisseria meningitidis has been changing since the introduction of universal vaccination programmes against meningococcal serogroup c (menc) and meningococcal serogroup b (menb) has now become dominant. this study aimed to analyse the cases reported in institutional data recording systems to estimate the burden of invasive meningococcal diseases (imds) and assess the effectiveness of surveillance in veneto region (italy). methods analysis was performed from 2007 to 2014 on data recorded in different systems: mandatory notification system, national surveillance of invasive bacterial diseases system and laboratories surveillance system (lss), which were pooled into a combined surveillance system (css) and hospital discharge records (hdrs). a capture-recapture method was used and completeness of each source estimated. number of cases with imd by source of information and year, incidence of imd by age group, case fatality rate (cfr) and distribution of meningococcal serogroups by year were also analysed. results combining the four data systems enabled the identification of 179 confirmed cases with imd, achieving an overall sensitivity of 94.7% (95% ci: 90.8% to 98.8%), while it was 76.7% (95% ci: 73.6% to 80.1%) for css and 77.2% (95% ci: 74.1% to 80.6%) for hdrs. typing of isolates was done in 80% of cases, and 95.2% of the typed cases were provided by lss. serogroup b was confirmed in 50.3% of cases. the estimated imd notification rate (cases with imd diagnosed and reported to the surveillance systems) was 0.48/100 000 population, and incidence peaked at 6.2/100 000 in children aged <1 year old (60.9% due to menb), and increased slightly in the age group between 15 and 19 years (1.1/100 000). a cfr of 14% was recorded (8.7% in paediatric age). conclusions quality of surveillance systems relies on case ascertainment based on serological characterisation of the circulating strains by microbiology laboratories. all available sources should be routinely combined to improve the epidemiology of imd and the information used by public health departments to conduct timely preventive measures." "monitoring the saproxylic longhorn beetle morimus asper: investigating season, time of the day, dead wood characteristics and odour traps",cerambycidae; coleoptera; detection probability; freshly cut log piles; morimus funereus; pitfall traps,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,HARDERSEN S;CUCCURULLO A;BARDIANI M;BOLOGNA MA;MAURA M;MAURIZI E;ROVERSI PF;PEVERIERI GS;CHIARI S,"monitoring of rare or localized saproxylic species is essential for assessing species extinction risk and to investigate the ecological integrity of forests. morimus asper (sulzer, 1776) (coleoptera, cerambycidae) is a longhorn beetle for which many aspects of its biology are still unknown and this hampers the development of a standard monitoring protocol. here we investigated two different systems to attract m. asper in the reserve bosco della fontana (italy): freshly cut log piles (fclps) and pitfall traps baited with selected chemical compounds. the fclps were composed from logs of two tree species (quercus robur l. or carpinus betulus l.) utilizing wood of three diameter classes (small: 5-12 cm; medium: 13-30 cm; large: 31-60 cm). the occurrence and the detection of m. asper varied during the season and during the time of the day. m. asper was more common in the first half of the season and was more frequently detected at 20:00. occupancy models did not show a clear influence of log diameter and tree species on species occupancy. in contrast, when analysing the abundance data, a significantly higher number of individuals was intercepted on fclps made from q. robur and on those with a diameter above 13 cm. the baited pitfall traps did not catch any m. asper, even though some of the substances tested are known to attract other species belonging to the same subfamily (lamiinae)." -"context-dependent local movements of the blue-tailed damselfly, ischnura elegans: effects of pond characteristics and the landscape matrix",odonates; environmental context; capture-mark-recapture; individual tracking; translocation,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,LE GALL M;CHAPUT-BARDY A;HUSTE A,"the loss of ponds and the fragmentation of their surrounding landscape negatively impacts the biodiversity of wetlands, such as damselflies. they are short-distance dispersers and can be influenced by the quality of suitable habitats and the landscape matrix. the aim of this study was to test the effect of the environmental context (i.e. pond characteristics and the surrounding landscape) on movements and survival probability in a damselfly species, ischnura elegans. three approaches (i.e. capture-mark-recapture, individual tracking and translocation studies) were performed in northwestern france. the characteristics of ponds did not influence damselfly survival. however, the landscape context affected movements within ponds, and between ponds. individuals from open-field ponds moved over longer distances than individuals from urban ponds. moreover, in cases of disturbances, such as a pond drying up, movements from one pond to another were observed only in the open-field context. the ecological quality of the pond did not appear to affect survival of individuals, probably because i. elegans has a high tolerance to changes in ecological factors. however, higher local movements depend on the degree of openness of the landscape. landscape context is hence a key issue in damselfly conservation planning and in maintaining ecological continuities, such as along greenways and blueways, and specifically the degree of landscape openness during pond creation." +"context-dependent local movements of the blue-tailed damselfly, ischnura elegans: effects of pond characteristics and the landscape matrix",odonates; environmental context; capture-mark-recapture; individual tracking; translocation,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,LE GALL M;CHAPUT BARDY A;HUSTE A,"the loss of ponds and the fragmentation of their surrounding landscape negatively impacts the biodiversity of wetlands, such as damselflies. they are short-distance dispersers and can be influenced by the quality of suitable habitats and the landscape matrix. the aim of this study was to test the effect of the environmental context (i.e. pond characteristics and the surrounding landscape) on movements and survival probability in a damselfly species, ischnura elegans. three approaches (i.e. capture-mark-recapture, individual tracking and translocation studies) were performed in northwestern france. the characteristics of ponds did not influence damselfly survival. however, the landscape context affected movements within ponds, and between ponds. individuals from open-field ponds moved over longer distances than individuals from urban ponds. moreover, in cases of disturbances, such as a pond drying up, movements from one pond to another were observed only in the open-field context. the ecological quality of the pond did not appear to affect survival of individuals, probably because i. elegans has a high tolerance to changes in ecological factors. however, higher local movements depend on the degree of openness of the landscape. landscape context is hence a key issue in damselfly conservation planning and in maintaining ecological continuities, such as along greenways and blueways, and specifically the degree of landscape openness during pond creation." interspecific comparison of movement patterns among bitterling species in an agricultural ditch system,dissolved oxygen; interspecific comparison; mark-recapture; non-native species; species traits,ICHTHYOLOGICAL RESEARCH,MOROSAWA T,"patterns of movement are related to life history and/or species traits. understanding movement patterns of multiple species sharing the same niche may clarify coexistence mechanisms. therefore, the movement patterns of three bitterling species, acheilognathus tabira erythropterus, acheilognathus melanogaster, and rhodeus ocellatus ocellatus, were examined between june and november 2009 in an agricultural ditch system associated with lake kasumigaura in central japan. the mark-recapture method was used with a fixed releasing point in an approximately 5.5 km-long ditch. movement distances of a. t. erythropterus and a. melanogaster were longer than that of r. o. ocellatus, but the direction of movement was similar among the three species. however, r. o. ocellatus moved to locations with a low dissolved oxygen concentration and deeper water. these results suggest that r. o. ocellatus may adapt better to environmental fluctuations, because its tolerance to hypoxia is the highest of the three species. compared with r. o. ocellatus, a. t. erythropterus and a. melanogaster may move relatively longer distances to search for suitable habitats following an environmental fluctuation." population dynamics and threats to an apex predator outside protected areas: implications for carnivore management,camera trap; telemetry; snaring; human-wildlife conflict; panthera pardus; felid,ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE,WILLIAMS ST;WILLIAMS KS;LEWIS BP;HILL RA,"data on the population dynamics and threats to large carnivores are vital to conservation efforts, but these are hampered by a paucity of studies. for some species, such as the leopard (panthera pardus), there is such uncertainty in population trends that leopard trophy hunting has been banned in south africa since 2016 while further data on leopard abundance are collected. we present one of the first assessments of leopard population dynamics, and identify the key threats to a population of leopards outside of protected areas in south africa. we conducted a long-term trap survey between 2012 and 2016 in the soutpansberg mountains, and drew on a previous estimate of leopard population density for the region from 2008. in 24 sampling periods, we estimated the population density and assessed population structure. we fitted eight leopards with gps collars to assess threats to the population. leopard population density declined by 66%, from 10.73 to 3.65 leopards per 100 km(2) in 2008 and 2016, respectively. collared leopards had a high mortality rate, which appeared to be due to illegal human activity. while improving the management of trophy hunting is important, we suggest that mitigating human-wildlife conflict could have a bigger impact on carnivore conservation." estimating fish mortality rates using telemetry and multistate models,NA,FISHERIES,HIGHTOWER JE;HARRIS JE,"we simulated and evaluated multistate capture-recapture models to estimate mortality rates using telemetry data. four field designs were considered: (a) fixed receivers to estimate total instantaneous mortality (z), (b) manual searches to estimate instantaneous fishing (f) and natural (m) mortality, (c) fixed receivers combined with external high-reward tags to estimate f and m, and (d) manual searches combined with external high-reward tags to estimate m and fishing mortality rates associated with harvest (f-h) and catch-and-release death (f-cr) as well as the probability of death due to catch and release (alpha). estimates generally appeared to be unbiased for a simulated study with five periods and releases of telemetered fish at the start of periods 1-4. compared to estimating z, larger sample sizes are needed to achieve reliable estimates of component rates (f and m). estimates of component rates were more precise when that source of mortality was directly observed (m in design b, f in design c). the field design using fixed receivers and high-reward tags should be especially useful in practice, because manual searches are not required to estimate f and m. multistate models are useful for clarifying the connection between field observations and ecological processes. reliable estimates of mortality rates, coupled with information on behavior, habitat use, and movement, make telemetry a highly valuable tool for improving fisheries management and stock assessment." -graphical diagnostics for occupancy models with imperfect detection,dunn-smyth residuals; goodness-of-fit; imperfect detection; probability integral transforms,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,WARTON DI;STOKLOSA J;GUILLERA-ARROITA G;MACKENZIE DI;WELSH AH,"occupancy-detection models that account for imperfect detection have become widely used in many areas of ecology. as with any modelling exercise, it is important to assess whether the fitted model encapsulates the main sources of variation in the data, yet there have been few methods developed for occupancy-detection models that would allow practitioners to do so. in this paper, a new type of residual for occupancy-detection models is developed according to the method of dunn & smyth (journal of computational and graphical statistics, 5, 1996, 236-244). residuals are separately constructed to diagnose the occupancy and detection components of the model. because the residuals are quite noisy, we suggest fitting a smoother through plots of residuals against predictors of fitted values, with 95% confidence bands, to diagnose lack-of-fit. the method is illustrated using swiss squirrel data, and evaluated using simulations based on that dataset. plotting residuals against predictors or against fitted values performed reasonably well as methods for diagnosing violations of occupancy-detection model assumptions, particularly plots of residuals against a missing predictor. relatively high false positive rates were sometimes observed, but this seems to be controlled reasonably well by fitting smoothers to these plots and being guided in interpretation by 95% confidence bands around the smoothers." +graphical diagnostics for occupancy models with imperfect detection,dunn-smyth residuals; goodness-of-fit; imperfect detection; probability integral transforms,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,WARTON DI;STOKLOSA J;GUILLERA ARROITA G;MACKENZIE DI;WELSH AH,"occupancy-detection models that account for imperfect detection have become widely used in many areas of ecology. as with any modelling exercise, it is important to assess whether the fitted model encapsulates the main sources of variation in the data, yet there have been few methods developed for occupancy-detection models that would allow practitioners to do so. in this paper, a new type of residual for occupancy-detection models is developed according to the method of dunn & smyth (journal of computational and graphical statistics, 5, 1996, 236-244). residuals are separately constructed to diagnose the occupancy and detection components of the model. because the residuals are quite noisy, we suggest fitting a smoother through plots of residuals against predictors of fitted values, with 95% confidence bands, to diagnose lack-of-fit. the method is illustrated using swiss squirrel data, and evaluated using simulations based on that dataset. plotting residuals against predictors or against fitted values performed reasonably well as methods for diagnosing violations of occupancy-detection model assumptions, particularly plots of residuals against a missing predictor. relatively high false positive rates were sometimes observed, but this seems to be controlled reasonably well by fitting smoothers to these plots and being guided in interpretation by 95% confidence bands around the smoothers." estimating african lion abundance in the southwestern kgalagadi transfrontier park,panthera leo; african lion; kgalagadi transfrontier park; registration; individual identification; mark-recapture; track indices; minimum-known-alive,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,BEUKES BO;RADLOFF FGT;FERREIRA SM,"african lions (panthera leo) are threatened across their natural range. however, the kgalagadi transfrontier park (ktp) is a stronghold for the species. a population assessment in 2010 observed a skew in the sex structure with a greater proportion of males (56%) which raised concerns about the long-term sustainability of the greater ktp lion population. a key indicator of how a population responds to changes in population structure is population size. we conducted an intensive lion census between 2013 and 2015 in the southwestern ktp (14 250 km 2) driving 49 784 km over 317 sampling days, which resulted in 1162 lion sightings. registering the population through individual identification (n = 261) provided a benchmark against which other techniques could be measured and for a non-invasive marking technique. open-population mark-recapture provided the most precise estimate of population size (n = 246; 95% ci: 237-256). track indices (n = 242; 95% ci: 176-307) provided a similar best estimate, but were imprecise. minimum-known-alive calculations (n = 145) provided a gross underestimate. all the methods used in this study indicate a larger lion population size than previous estimates." an integrated population model for bird monitoring in north america,avian demography; bayesian hierarchical models; breeding bird survey; maps program; population growth; us geological survey; vital rates,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,AHRESTANI FS;SARACCO JF;SAUER JR;PARDIECK KL;ROYLE JA,"integrated population models (ipms) provide a unified framework for simultaneously analyzing data sets of different types to estimate vital rates, population size, and dynamics; assess contributions of demographic parameters to population changes; and assess population viability. strengths of an ipm include the ability to estimate latent parameters and improve the precision of parameter estimates. we present a hierarchical ipm that combines two broad-scale avian monitoring data sets: count data from the north american breeding bird survey (bbs) and capture-recapture data from the monitoring avian productivity and survivorship (maps) program. these data sets are characterized by large numbers of sample sites and observers, factors capable of inducing error in the sampling and observation processes. the ipm integrates the data sets by modeling the population abundance as a first-order autoregressive function of the previous year's population abundance and vital rates. bbs counts were modeled as a log-linear function of the annual index of population abundance, observation effects (observer identity and first survey year), and overdispersion. vital rates modeled included adult apparent survival, estimated from a transient cormack-jolly-seber model using maps data, and recruitment (surviving hatched birds from the previous season + dispersing adults) estimated as a latent parameter. an assessment of the ipm demonstrated it could recover true parameter values from 200 simulated data sets. the ipm was applied to data sets (1992-2008) of two bird species, gray catbird (dumetella carolinensis) and wood thrush (hylocichla mustelina) in the new england/mid-atlantic coastal bird conservation region of the united states. the gray catbird population was relatively stable (trend +0.4% per yr), while the wood thrush population nearly halved (trend -4.5% per yr) over the 17-yr study period. ipm estimates of population growth rates, adult survival, and detection and residency probabilities were similar and as precise as estimates from the stand-alone bbs and cjs models. a benefit of using the ipm was its ability to estimate the latent recruitment parameter. annual growth rates for both species correlated more with recruitment than survival, and the relationship for wood thrush was stronger than for gray catbird. the ipm's unified modeling framework facilitates integration of these important data sets." a field test of the effects of body composition analysis by quantitative magnetic resonance on songbird stopover behaviour,migration; orientation; radiotelemetry; capture-mark-recapture; white-throated sparrow; zonotrichia albicollis,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,KENNEDY LV;MORBEY YE;MACKENZIE SA;TAYLOR PD;GUGLIELMO CG,"quantitative magnetic resonance (qmr) is a non-invasive technology used to measure body composition. it has great potential to advance the study of energetics and fuel use of migratory birds. however, there is concern that exposure to a strong magnetic field during qmr analysis could affect magnetite-based geomagnetic senses of migratory songbirds which may be important for orientation and navigation. we used radiotelemetry and capture-mark-recapture analysis to test for effects of qmr analysis on stopover duration and departure orientation. there was no evidence from radiotelemetry data that qmr analysis influenced minimum stopover duration or departure orientation of black-throated blue warblers (setophaga caerulescens) in the spring or fall, or magnolia warblers (setophaga magnolia) in the spring. capture-mark-recapture analysis of white-throated sparrow (zonotrichia albicollis) ringing data showed no effects of qmr on transiency or recapture probability, but a slight increase in estimated stopover duration (days) in the fall. our study provides evidence that stopover duration and departure orientation of migrating songbirds are not significantly affected by qmr analysis with the exception of fall stopover duration estimates from mark-recapture models, and that qmr is a safe technique for the study of birds in the field." @@ -1086,12 +1087,12 @@ successful identification and discrimination of hatchery-reared blue crabs (call march of the sculpin: measuring and predicting short-term movement of banded sculpin cottus carolinae,leptokurtic dispersal; restricted movement; mark-recapture; passive integrated transponders; fishmove package; cottus carolinae,ECOLOGY OF FRESHWATER FISH,WELLS WG;JOHNSON TC;GEBHARD AE;PAINE RTR;HIX LA;FERRELL HN;ENGLE AN;PERKIN JS,"movement of fishes through space and time is critical for population regulation and community structuring, but the dispersal of many benthic stream fishes remains unstudied. we used passive integrated transponders to track the short-term dispersal of 51 banded sculpin cottus carolinae throughout a 600m reach of little creek in central tennessee during april and may. our objectives were to assess the efficacy of recently developed dispersal models, evaluate temporal variability in movement and determine whether individuals switched between stationary and mobile movement behaviours. observed movement distances did not differ from modelled leptokurtic dispersal kernels estimated using the fishmove package in the r statistical environment for 12 of 13 recapture occasions. leptokurtic dispersal kernel parameters including the mobile component (sigma(mob)) and shared stationary component (p) were temporally dynamic and differed from static median values reported for fishes in fishmove, while the more abundant stationary component (sigma(stat)) showed agreement with fishmove. the recapture occasion during which model predictions were not validated was associated with a large flow pulse that stimulated increased movement at the population scale. at the individual scale, 28 of 51 fish switched between stationary and mobile dispersal behaviour and the frequency distribution of switches was leptokurtic. collectively, our findings reveal an emergent property characterised by consistent upstream movement of banded sculpin despite variability in population-scale responses to flow and individual-scale switches in movement behaviour. this paradox represents the march of the sculpin, in which fish diffusively spread upstream at a constant rate despite multiscale variability in movement behaviours." the influence of incubation conditions and sex on growth and dispersal in hatchling lizards,dispersal; growth rate; incubation; lizard; sex bias,ETHOLOGY,GIFFORD ME;ROBINSON CD;CLAY TA,"dispersal is a critical process that has profound influence on ecological and evolutionary processes. many proximate factors influence natal dispersal, but it is currently unclear whether the conditions experienced during incubation play an important role. we manipulated incubation temperature and used mark-recapture of released hatchlings to test this hypothesis. we tested this hypothesis on the prairie lizard (sceloporus consobrinus) using two experimental islands in a local reservoir. incubation conditions influenced some aspects of hatchling morphology, but had little influence on the probability of dispersal. as generally predicted for a polygynous species, males were more likely to disperse than females; however, the growth rate of dispersing vs. resident individuals varied depending on sex. dispersive male lizards did not grow faster than resident males, whereas female dispersers grew significantly slower than resident females. although our study was not specifically designed to test for differential costs of dispersal for males and females, this pattern is consistent with recent research demonstrating sex-specific fitness costs of dispersal." male greater sage-grouse movements among leks,availability bias; centrocercus urophasianus; greater sage-grouse; interlek movements; lek fidelity; multistate mark-recapture; wyoming.,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,FREMGEN AL;ROTA CT;HANSEN CP;RUMBLE MA;GAMO RS;MILLSPAUGH JJ,"movements among leks by breeding birds (i. e., interlek movements) could affect the population ' s genetic flow, complicate use of lek counts as a population index, and indicate a change in breeding behavior following a disturbance. we used a bayesian multi-state mark-recapture model to assess the daily probability of male greater sage- grouse (centrocercus urophasianus) interlek movements and estimate factors influencing movements among leks. we fitted 145 males with solar argos global positioning systems platform transmitter terminals over 4 years (2011-2014) in carbon county, wyoming, usa. the daily probability of a male sage- grouse moving among leks ranged 0.003 (95% ci =0.000-0.010) in 2011 to 0.010 (95% ci = 0.001-0.021) in 2013, indicating high daily lek fidelity throughout the season, although there was a 5-42% chance annually a male would move at least once to another lek throughout the season (x days analyzed/m= 55 +/- 3.3 days [se]). interlek movement probabilities were strongly affected by day of year, peaking early in the lek season. interlek movements were positively associated with elevation. seasonal interlek movements occurredmore frequently than previously reported, and can bias lek counts in early spring as males move from low to high elevation leks, which reinforces interlek movements as a critical component of lek ecology. (c) 2017 the wildlife society." -population status of the jaguar panthera onca in one of its last strongholds in the atlantic forest,brazil; camera trap; carnivores; conservation; cormack-jolly-seber model; panthera onca; spatially explicit capture-recapture model; survival probability,ORYX,SRBEK-ARAUJO AC;CHIARELLO AG,"remaining jaguar panthera onca populations in the atlantic forest are restricted to eight regions, and all populations appear to be declining. we report on the status of one of the last populations in south-eastern brazil. we monitored this population with camera traps during june 2005-january 2013 in vale natural reserve. we estimated an abundance of 9 +/- se 1.98 jaguars (95% ci 9-17) and a population density of 3.22 +/- se 1.58 individuals per 100 km(2) (95% ci 1.29-7.98). annual survival probability over a 5-year interval was 78% (95% ci 58-98) and the recapture probability was 62% (95% ci 42-79). although our results are among the highest densities reported for the jaguar in this biome, the future of the population is threatened by genetic deterioration and local threats, including the expansion of an existing highway and depletion of the jaguar's native prey base as a result of poaching, and will depend upon urgent implementation of conservation actions. the necessary actions include establishing gene flow with other compatible populations, increasing surveillance against poaching, continuing population monitoring of jaguars and their main prey species, and implementing mitigation measures in relation to the impacts of the highway on local fauna." +population status of the jaguar panthera onca in one of its last strongholds in the atlantic forest,brazil; camera trap; carnivores; conservation; cormack-jolly-seber model; panthera onca; spatially explicit capture-recapture model; survival probability,ORYX,SRBEK ARAUJO AC;CHIARELLO AG,"remaining jaguar panthera onca populations in the atlantic forest are restricted to eight regions, and all populations appear to be declining. we report on the status of one of the last populations in south-eastern brazil. we monitored this population with camera traps during june 2005-january 2013 in vale natural reserve. we estimated an abundance of 9 +/- se 1.98 jaguars (95% ci 9-17) and a population density of 3.22 +/- se 1.58 individuals per 100 km(2) (95% ci 1.29-7.98). annual survival probability over a 5-year interval was 78% (95% ci 58-98) and the recapture probability was 62% (95% ci 42-79). although our results are among the highest densities reported for the jaguar in this biome, the future of the population is threatened by genetic deterioration and local threats, including the expansion of an existing highway and depletion of the jaguar's native prey base as a result of poaching, and will depend upon urgent implementation of conservation actions. the necessary actions include establishing gene flow with other compatible populations, increasing surveillance against poaching, continuing population monitoring of jaguars and their main prey species, and implementing mitigation measures in relation to the impacts of the highway on local fauna." puma puma concolor density estimation in the mediterranean andes of chile,camera trap; chile; density; mean maximum distance moved; mediterranean andes; puma concolor,ORYX,GUARDA N;GALVEZ N;LEICHTLE J;OSORIO C;BONACIC C,"knowledge about the puma puma concolor in the mediterranean andes of south america is scarce, with little information available about its distribution and ecology. the species has been hunted in the region for centuries and seems to be relegated to remote areas, where it still comes into conflict with rural communities. camera-trap surveys have been used to estimate puma density across the species' distribution, and this is a relatively cost-effective approach to generate information about species abundance. we tested the performance of this method in the andes of central chile, where the rugged topography, unknown detection probability, and an expected low density make abundance estimation by other methods unreliable or expensive. using a rotation of 17 camera-trap stations, for a total of 680 camera-days, we obtained 16 records of pumas and were able to identify four individuals in an effective sampling area of 628 km(2) (1/2 mean maximum distance moved) or 1,518 km(2) (mean maximum distance moved). capture-recapture models estimated a minimum density of 0.3 +/- se 0.07 to 0.75 +/- se 0.17 adult pumas per 100 km(2). this is the first estimate of the density of the puma in the mediterranean andes, and one of the lowest reported for the neotropics. although this low abundance does not necessarily imply a threat to the species, it suggests that the population is potentially vulnerable to threats such as illegal hunting. our findings demonstrate that camera trapping is an effective technique in difficult field conditions and may be the most appropriate method to assess puma densities in this region." the ecological impact of commercial beehives on invasive cane toads (rhinella marina) in eastern australia,anuran; apis mellifera; bufo marinus; conservation; exploitation; invasive species,BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS,SILVESTER R;SHINE R;OLDROYD B;GREENLEES M,"understanding the factors that affect an invasive species' viability and distribution has vital implications for biocontrol. in australia, invasive cane toads (rhinella marina) are anecdotally reported to utilise commercial beehives as a prey resource, but that interaction has never been studied in detail. we investigated the impact of apiaries on cane toads in northern new south wales via mark-recapture surveys, dissections, and camera-trap observations. cane toads were the most frequent visitors to apiaries, followed by bandicoots and corvid birds. cane toads at apiaries were more abundant and in better body condition (i. e., larger mass relative to snout-urostyle length) than were toads at nearby control sites. toads at beehives contained more prey items per stomach (mostly bees, which were never recorded in the stomachs of toads from other sites), and adult female toads at beehives had larger livers and ovaries relative to body size. we conclude that commercial apiaries attract cane toads, influence their diets, and increase their feeding rates and reproductive capacity. like other habitat modifications wrought by agricultural activities, honey bee colonies provide resources that facilitate the spread of cane toads through an otherwise harsh landscape matrix. minor modifications to beehives could exclude toads, thereby eliminating their positive impact on the invader." role of breeding and natal movements in lifetime dispersal of a forest-dwelling rodent,bequeathal; gene flow; movement ecology; population spread,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SELONEN V;WISTBACKA R,"the lifetime movements of an individual determine the gene flow and invasion potential of the species. however, sex dependence of dispersal and selective pressures driving dispersal have gained much more attention than dispersal at different life and age stages. natal dispersal is more common than dispersal between breeding attempts, but breeding dispersal may be promoted by resource availability and competition. here, we utilize mark-recapture data on the nest-box population of siberian flying squirrels to analyze lifetime dispersal patterns. natal dispersal means the distance between the natal nest and the nest used the following year, whereas breeding movements refer to the nest site changes between breeding attempts. the movement distances observed here were comparable to distances reported earlier from radio-telemetry studies. breeding movements did not contribute to lifetime dispersal distance and were not related to variation in food abundance or habitat patch size. breeding movements of males were negatively, albeit not strongly, related to male population size. in females, breeding movement activity was low and was not related to previous breeding success or to competition between females for territories. natal philopatry was linked to apparent death of a mother; that is, we did not find evidence for mothers bequeathing territories for offspring, like observed in some other rodent species. our results give an example of a species in which breeding movements are not driven by environmental variability or nest site quality. different evolutionary forces often operate in natal and breeding movements, and our study supports the view that juveniles are responsible for redistributing individuals within and between populations. this emphasizes the importance of knowledge on natal dispersal, if we want to understand consequences of movement ecology of the species at the population level." a new approach to estimate fecundity rate from inter-birth intervals,birth interval; birth probability; bottlenose dolphin; cetaceans; fecundity; generalized linear mixed models; mark-recapture data,ECOSPHERE,CIVIL MA;CHENEY B;QUICK NJ;THOMPSON PM;HAMMOND PS,"accurate estimates of fecundity rate are key to population assessments and effectively direct conservation efforts. we present a new approach to estimate fecundity rate based on the probability of a female giving birth, conditional on a previous birth t years ago, from which an expected inter-birth interval (ibi) can be estimated. we use generalized linear mixed-effects models to account for individual and temporal variability and apply the approach to individual reproductive histories of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) from the east coast of scotland. we estimate a fecundity rate of 0.222 (95% ci = 0.218-0.253) and an expected ibi of 4.49 yr (95% ci = 3.94-4.93 yr). we use simulated data samples to show that the approach produces estimates with a minimum bias of <3%. simulations are also used to investigate the effect of the most common data-driven biases in the estimates of birth intervals and fecundity rate; we recommend longitudinal studies of at least 10 yr and capture probabilities of at least 0.3 when using this methodology. the approach may be modified to incorporate other parameters of interest and should be applicable to any population with comprehensive data on birth intervals." -using fine-scale spatial genetics of norway rats to improve control efforts and reduce leptospirosis risk in urban slum environments,epidemiology; favela; individual-based sampling; intervention; landscape genetics; population genetics; public health; reservoir host; spatial scale; urban ecology; vector control,EVOLUTIONARY APPLICATIONS,RICHARDSON JL;BURAK MK;HERNANDEZ C;SHIRVELL JM;MARIANI C;CARVALHO-PEREIRA TSA;PERTILE AC;PANTI-MAY JA;PEDRA GG;SERRANO S;TAYLOR J;CARVALHO M;RODRIGUES G;COSTA F;CHILDS JE;KO AI;CACCONE A,"the norway rat (rattus norvegicus) is a key pest species globally and responsible for seasonal outbreaks of the zoonotic bacterial disease leptospirosis in the tropics. the city of salvador, brazil, has seen recent and dramatic increases in human population residing in slums, where conditions foster high rat density and increasing leptospirosis infection rates. intervention campaigns have been used to drastically reduce rat numbers. in planning these interventions, it is important to define the eradication units - the spatial scale at which rats constitute continuous populations and from where rats are likely recolonizing, post-intervention. to provide this information, we applied spatial genetic analyses to 706 rats collected across salvador and genotyped at 16 microsatellite loci. we performed spatially explicit analyses and estimated migration levels to identify distinct genetic units and landscape features associated with genetic divergence at different spatial scales, ranging from valleys within a slum community to city-wide analyses. clear genetic breaks exist between rats not only across salvador but also between valleys of slums separated by < 100 m-well within the dispersal capacity of rats. the genetic data indicate that valleys may be considered separate units and identified high-traffic roads as strong impediments to rat movement. migration data suggest that most (71-90%) movement is contained within valleys, with no clear source population contributing to migrant rats. we use these data to recommend eradication units and discuss the importance of carrying out individual-based analyses at different spatial scales in urban landscapes." +using fine-scale spatial genetics of norway rats to improve control efforts and reduce leptospirosis risk in urban slum environments,epidemiology; favela; individual-based sampling; intervention; landscape genetics; population genetics; public health; reservoir host; spatial scale; urban ecology; vector control,EVOLUTIONARY APPLICATIONS,RICHARDSON JL;BURAK MK;HERNANDEZ C;SHIRVELL JM;MARIANI C;CARVALHO PEREIRA TSA;PERTILE AC;PANTI MAY JA;PEDRA GG;SERRANO S;TAYLOR J;CARVALHO M;RODRIGUES G;COSTA F;CHILDS JE;KO AI;CACCONE A,"the norway rat (rattus norvegicus) is a key pest species globally and responsible for seasonal outbreaks of the zoonotic bacterial disease leptospirosis in the tropics. the city of salvador, brazil, has seen recent and dramatic increases in human population residing in slums, where conditions foster high rat density and increasing leptospirosis infection rates. intervention campaigns have been used to drastically reduce rat numbers. in planning these interventions, it is important to define the eradication units - the spatial scale at which rats constitute continuous populations and from where rats are likely recolonizing, post-intervention. to provide this information, we applied spatial genetic analyses to 706 rats collected across salvador and genotyped at 16 microsatellite loci. we performed spatially explicit analyses and estimated migration levels to identify distinct genetic units and landscape features associated with genetic divergence at different spatial scales, ranging from valleys within a slum community to city-wide analyses. clear genetic breaks exist between rats not only across salvador but also between valleys of slums separated by < 100 m-well within the dispersal capacity of rats. the genetic data indicate that valleys may be considered separate units and identified high-traffic roads as strong impediments to rat movement. migration data suggest that most (71-90%) movement is contained within valleys, with no clear source population contributing to migrant rats. we use these data to recommend eradication units and discuss the importance of carrying out individual-based analyses at different spatial scales in urban landscapes." epidemiology of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in southern germany,amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; registry; aging; cognitive impairment,JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY,ROSENBOHM A;PETER RS;ERHARDT S;LULE D;ROTHENBACHER D;LUDOLPH AC;NAGEL G,"the objective of this study is to determine the current distribution of clinical phenotypes and to estimate future trends of als incidence in western societies. we report on a clinical-epidemiological registry with a capture-recapture rate of > 80% and population-based case-control study in als patients in south western germany. 1163 incidents of als were registered. clinical and neuropsychological data were prospectively collected from 699 cases. the mean age at onset was 66.6 (sd = 11.6) years in prospective cases (n = 699). the site of onset was more frequently bulbar (34.1%) than lumbosacral (30.7%), cervical (27.0%), or thoracic (3.1%). cognitive deficits (ranging from 27.5 to 42.1%, depending on the screening instrument) and behavioral changes (29%) were frequently detected. the incidence rate dropped markedly after 79 years of age, and bulbar onset as well as cognitive impairment were more frequent in als cases > 75 years. the mean survival time of als cases from first paresis was 31 months. the age-standardized incidence rate (asr) of als in 2012/2013 was found to be 2.4 (95% ci 2.2-2.7) per 100,000 person-years (resulting in an asr of 3.1/100,000 with 100% coverage). based on the predicted age distribution of the german population, the incidence of als was estimated to be 4.5/100,000 for men and 3.3/100,000 for women in the year 2050. als prevalence will rise to about 9.2-9.8/100,000 person-years in germany in 2050. an increased proportion of patients with bulbar onset and/or cognitive deficits can be used as basic epidemiologic data on als for future health care decisions." unexpected decline in a population of speckled tortoises,corvids; demography; habitat suitability; homopus signatus; mortality; namaqualand; population dynamics; predation; succulent karoo; tortoise,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,LOEHR VJT,"long-lived, iteroparous species exhibit various mechanisms to overcome temporary unfavorable conditions and promote adult survival and population persistence. consequently, populations may appear relatively stable while subtle and slow-progressing threats cause their decline. the speckled tortoise (homopus signatus) is a long-lived, iteroparous species in south africa that is thought to be secure in areas that meet the species ' known requirements. to verify its stability, i monitored a dense speckled tortoise population, integrating 2 mark-recapture studies (2000-2004 and 2012-2015) in long-term joint live and dead encounters and popan population models. from 2000 to 2015, the study site remained fenced, ungrazed, and was not modified in any way, yet the size-class frequency distribution, sex ratio, and abundance of speckled tortoises drastically changed. population numbers decreased 66%, mainly because of the disappearance of juveniles and males. modeling results identified a reduction in the number of entrants into the population (via births and immigration) as the likely cause of population changes, whereas apparent survival remained high. observations, in part anecdotal, of increasing numbers of pied crows (corvus albus) on the study site suggest that increased predation on speckled tortoise hatchlings contributed to the population decline. examination of rainfall data for 1990-2015 did not reveal evidence of aridification in the study area, a documented cause of reduced reproduction in speckled tortoises. the results of this study caution against the assumption that areas in the range of the speckled tortoise that meet its known requirements can maintain healthy populations. (c) 2017 the wildlife society" "apparent survival of royal tern thalasseus maximus and sandwich tern t-sandvicensis at isles dernieres barrier islands refuge, louisiana, usa",adult survival; breeding-site fidelity; capture-mark-recapture; gulf of mexico; sternidae,MARINE ORNITHOLOGY,LIECHTY JS;MINOR AK;NEPSHINSKY M;PIERCE AR,"the isles dernieres barrier island refuge (idbir) in louisiana constitutes a major colonial waterbird breeding site but is also subject to tremendous rates of land loss and habitat degradation. restoration projects have been undertaken to sustain breeding waterbird populations on idbir, including royal terns thalasseus maximus and sandwich terns t. sandvicensis. however, very little is known about the population dynamics of these species in the gulf of mexico. the objective of this study was to determine the apparent survival rate and breeding-site fidelity for royal and sandwich terns at idbir. a capture-mark-resight experiment of breeding adult terns was conducted during 2012-2016, and adult survival rates were estimated using the cormack-jolly-seber model in program mark. adult royal terns (n = 283) and adult sandwich terns (n = 285) were color-banded over a four-year period, with 36% percent of royal terns and 23% of sandwich terns observed as returnees to idbir at least once in a subsequent breeding season. apparent annual adult survival estimates were 0.68 for both royal and sandwich terns, indicating some breeding-site fidelity but also a degree of emigration or higher-than-expected mortality rates. given that populations at idbir increased during the study period, we suspect emigration rather than high mortality rates as the reason for our low apparent survival estimates. these results support the hypothesis that waterbirds breeding in unstable habitats typically demonstrate weaker breeding-site fidelity, but further research is needed to determine factors affecting dispersal." @@ -1120,13 +1121,13 @@ augmentation provides nominal genetic and demographic rescue for an endangered c using a multiscale image processing method to characterize the periodic growth patterns on scallop shells,growth patterns; individual recognition; matlab package; multiscale image processing; scallop shell; space-based depth-first search algorithm,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,XING Q;WEI TD;CHEN ZH;WANG YF;LU Y;WANG S;ZHANG LL;BAO ZM,"the fine periodic growth patterns on shell surfaces have been widely used for studies in the ecology and evolution of scallops. modern x-ray ct scanners and digital cameras can provide high-resolution image data that contain abundant information such as the shell formation rate, ontogenetic age, and life span of shellfish organisms. we introduced a novel multiscale image processing method based on matched filters with gaussian kernels and partial differential equation (pde) multiscale hierarchical decomposition to segment the small tubular and periodic structures in scallop shell images. the periodic patterns of structures (consisting of bifurcation points, crossover points of the rings and ribs, and the connected lines) could be found by our space-based depth-first search (sdfs) algorithm. we created a matlab package to implement our method of periodic pattern extraction and pattern matching on the ct and digital scallop images available in this study. the results confirmed the hypothesis that the shell cyclic structure patterns encompass genetically specific information that can be used as an effective invariable biomarker for biological individual recognition. the package is available with a quick-start guide and includes three examples: ." matching habitat choice in nomadic crossbills appears most pronounced when food is most limiting,ecotypes; evolution of residency; local adaptation; loxia curvirostra; phenotypic dependent dispersal; south hills,EVOLUTION,BENKMAN CW,"of the various forms of nonrandom dispersal, matching habitat choice, whereby individuals preferentially reside in habitats where they are best adapted, has relatively little empirical support. here, i use mark-recapture data to test for matching habitat choice in two nomadic ecotypes of north american red crossbills (loxia curvirostra complex) that exist in the lodgepole pine (pinus contorta) forests in the south hills, idaho, every summer. crossbills are adapted for foraging on seeds in conifer cones, and in the south hills the cones are distinctive, favoring a relatively large bill. during a period when seed was most limiting, only the largest individuals approximating the average size of the locally adapted ecotype remained for a year or more. during a period when seed was less limiting, proportionately more individuals remained and the trend for larger individuals to remain was weaker. although matching habitat choice is difficult to demonstrate, it likely contributed to the observed patterns. otherwise, nearly unprecedented intensities of natural selection would be needed. given the nomadic behavior of most crossbill ecotypes and the heterogeneous nature of conifer seed crops, matching habitat choice should be favored and likely contributes to their adaptation to alternative conifers and rapid diversification." "population estimates for the sand lizard, liolaemus arambarensis: contributions to the conservation of an endemic species of southern brazil",extinction risk; iucn; liolaemidae; population size; robust model; survival,HERPETOLOGICA,MARTINS LF;GUIMARAES M;VERRASTRO L,"there have been relatively few studies on the population structure of species from countries having high levels of biodiversity, such as brazil, even though most species are at some risk of extinction. precise estimates of population parameters, such as abundance and survival probability, are necessary for evaluating the status of populations and developing management policies for species and their associated habitats. here, we used mark-recapture methods to model the demography of the sand lizard, liolaemus arambarensis, an endemic species of southern brazil. specifically, we estimated population size, survival probability, and sex ratio of three populations, while accounting for imperfect individual detectability. our goal was to evaluate how the population structure of this species reflects its conservation status according to the international union for conservation of nature (iucn) red list. the estimated population size of mature individuals was higher than 250 individuals but lower than 2500 individuals; therefore, the species should be categorized as endangered by iucn population criteria. monthly survival probability of adult females, adult males, and juveniles was relatively high (ranging from 0.74 to 0.85), whereas capture and recapture probabilities were low (ranging from 0.01 to 0.22). the accelerated degradation and alteration of sand lizard habitat, restinga areas of the southern coastal plain, highlight the importance of long-term monitoring to detect future patterns of fluctuation and possible population declines of its few known populations." -validation of photo-identification as a mark-recapture method in the spotted eagle ray aetobatus narinari,dorsal surface; double mark; i3s spot; mark-recapture; microchip; natural marks,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,GONZALEZ-RAMOS MS;SANTOS-MORENO A;ROSAS-ALQUICIRA EF;FUENTES-MASCORRO G,"the spotted eagle ray aetobatus narinari is characterized by pigmentation patterns that are retained for up to 3.5 years. these pigmentations can be used to identify individuals through photo-identification. only one study has validated this technique, but no study has estimated the percentage of correct identification of the rays using this technique. in order to carry out demographic research, a reliable photographic identification technique is needed. to achieve this validation for a. narinari, a double-mark system was established over 11 months and photographs of the dorsal surface of 191 rays were taken. three body parts with distinctive natural patterns were analysed (dorsal surface of the cephalic region, dorsal surface of the pectoral fins and dorsal surface of the pelvic fins) in order to determine the body part that could be used to give the highest percentage of correct identification. the dorsal surface of the pectoral fins of a. narinari provides the most accurate photo-identification to distinguish individuals (88.2%). (c) 2016 the fisheries society of the british isles" +validation of photo-identification as a mark-recapture method in the spotted eagle ray aetobatus narinari,dorsal surface; double mark; i3s spot; mark-recapture; microchip; natural marks,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,GONZALEZ RAMOS MS;SANTOS MORENO A;ROSAS ALQUICIRA EF;FUENTES MASCORRO G,"the spotted eagle ray aetobatus narinari is characterized by pigmentation patterns that are retained for up to 3.5 years. these pigmentations can be used to identify individuals through photo-identification. only one study has validated this technique, but no study has estimated the percentage of correct identification of the rays using this technique. in order to carry out demographic research, a reliable photographic identification technique is needed. to achieve this validation for a. narinari, a double-mark system was established over 11 months and photographs of the dorsal surface of 191 rays were taken. three body parts with distinctive natural patterns were analysed (dorsal surface of the cephalic region, dorsal surface of the pectoral fins and dorsal surface of the pelvic fins) in order to determine the body part that could be used to give the highest percentage of correct identification. the dorsal surface of the pectoral fins of a. narinari provides the most accurate photo-identification to distinguish individuals (88.2%). (c) 2016 the fisheries society of the british isles" estimating the count error in the australian census,undercount; capture-recapture; dual system estimator,JOURNAL OF OFFICIAL STATISTICS,CHIPPERFIELD J;BROWN J;BELL P,"in many countries, counts of people are a key factor in the allocation of government resources. however, it is well known that errors arise in census counting of people (e.g., undercoverage due to missing people). therefore, it is common for national statistical agencies to conduct one or more ""audit"" surveys that are designed to estimate and remove systematic errors in census counting. for example, the australian bureau of statistics (abs) conducts a single audit sample, called the post enumeration survey (pes), shortly after each australian population census. this article describes the estimator used by the abs to estimate the count of people in australia. key features of this estimator are that it is unbiased when there is systematic measurement error in census counting and when nonresponse to the pes is nonignorable." survival estimation of a cryptic antelope via photographic capture-recapture,capture-recapture; nyala; photographic identification; robust design; survival estimation; tragelaphus angasii,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,MARSHAL JP,"adult survival is a primary determinant of abundance and dynamics of large herbivore populations. for species that are inconspicuous, however, accurate survival estimation depends on accommodating low detection probability. for species with individually recognizable markings, photographic capture-recapture (cr) provides an approach to estimate population parameters while accounting for imperfect detection. i investigated the use of photographic cr for a cryptic large herbivore, the nyala, in a region of hluhluwe-imfolozi park, south africa. i conducted photographic sampling based on the closed robust design, with 5-6 daily sampling occasions nested within three week-long sampling periods, which delineated one dry and one wet season. detection differed between sexes: encounter probability of female adults depended on whether individuals fell into high-encounter (seasonal range: 0.61-0.71) or low-encounter (seasonal range: 0.29-0.40) groups, whereas male adults had a constant encounter probability of 0.39 per day. for both sexes, monthly survival probability was 0.93 and did not differ appreciably between seasons or sexes. given the role of survival in population dynamics, photographic cr has the potential to provide survival estimates for cryptic large herbivores that lack such information." immigration ensures population survival in the siberian flying squirrel,dispersal; gliding mammal; integrated population model; mark-recapture; population growth,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BROMMER JE;WISTBACKA R;SELONEN V,"linking dispersal to population growth remains a challenging task and is a major knowledge gap, for example, for conservation management. we studied relative roles of different demographic rates behind population growth in siberian flying squirrels in two nest-box breeding populations in western finland. adults and offspring were captured and individually identifiable. we constructed an integrated population model, which estimated all relevant annual demographic rates (birth, local [apparent] survival, and immigration) as well as population growth rates. one population (studied 2002-2014) fluctuated around a steady-state equilibrium, whereas the other (studied 1995-2014) showed a numerical decline. immigration was the demographic rate which showed clear correlations to annual population growth rates in both populations. population growth rate was density dependent in both populations. none of the demographic rates nor the population growth rate correlated across the two study populations, despite their proximity suggesting that factors regulating the dynamics are determined locally. we conclude that flying squirrels may persist in a network of uncoupled subpopulations, where movement between subpopulations is of critical importance. our study supports the view that dispersal has the key role in population survival of a small forest rodent." precipitation alters interactions in a grassland ecological community,arthropods; conditional outcomes; dipodomys ingens; dryland; ecological non-monotonicity; food web; path analysis; rain; san joaquin antelope squirrel,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,DEGUINES N;BRASHARES JS;PRUGH LR,"1. climate change is transforming precipitation regimes world-wide. changes in precipitation regimes are known to have powerful effects on plant productivity, but the consequences of these shifts for the dynamics of ecological communities are poorly understood. this knowledge gap hinders our ability to anticipate and mitigate the impacts of climate change on biodiversity. 2. precipitation may affect fauna through direct effects on physiology, behaviour or demography, through plant-mediated indirect effects, or by modifying interactions among species. in this paper, we examined the response of a semi-arid ecological community to a fivefold change in precipitation over 7 years. 3. we examined the effects of precipitation on the dynamics of a grassland ecosystem in central california from 2007 to 2013. we conducted vegetation surveys, pitfall trapping of invertebrates, visual surveys of lizards and capture-mark-recapture surveys of rodents on 30 plots each year. we used structural equation modelling to evaluate the direct, indirect and modifying effects of precipitation on plants, ants, beetles, orthopterans, kangaroo rats, ground squirrels and lizards. 4. we found pervasive effects of precipitation on the ecological community. although precipitation increased plant biomass, direct effects on fauna were often stronger than plantmediated effects. in addition, precipitation altered the sign or strength of consumer-resource and facilitative interactions among the faunal community such that negative or neutral interactions became positive or vice versa with increasing precipitation. 5. these findings indicate that precipitation influences ecological communities in multiple ways beyond its recognized effects on primary productivity. stochastic variation in precipitation may weaken the average strength of biotic interactions over time, thereby increasing ecosystem stability and resilience to climate change." -increasing winter maximal metabolic rate improves intrawinter survival in small birds,metabolic rate; bmr; msum; survival; winter acclimatization; fitness; black-capped chickadee,PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BIOCHEMICAL ZOOLOGY,PETIT M;CLAVIJO-BAQUET S;VEZINA F,"small resident bird species living at northern latitudes increase their metabolism in winter, and this is widely assumed to improve their chances of survival. however, the relationship between winter metabolic performance and survival has yet to be demonstrated. using capture-mark-recapture, we followed a population of free-living black-capped chickadees (poecile atricapillus) over 3 yr and evaluated their survival probability within and among winters. we also measured the size-independent body mass (m-s), hematocrit (hct), basal metabolic rate (bmr), and maximal thermogenic capacity (msum) and investigated how these parameters influenced survival within and among winters. results showed that survival probability was high and constant both within (0.92) and among (0.96) winters. they also showed that while m-s, hct, and bmr had no significant influence, survival was positively related to msumfollowing a sigmoid relationshipwithin but not among winter. birds expressing an msum below 1.26 w (i.e., similar to summer levels) had a <50% chance of survival, while birds with an msum above 1.35 w had at least a 90% chance of surviving through the winter. our data therefore suggest that black-capped chickadees that are either too slow or unable to adjust their phenotype from summer to winter have little chances of survival and thus that seasonal upregulation of metabolic performance is highly beneficial. this study is the first to document in an avian system the relationship between thermogenic capacity and winter survival, a proxy of fitness." -risk of active tuberculosis among index case of householders-a long-term assessment after the conventional contacts study,community nursing care; conventional contact study; public health; tuberculosis,PUBLIC HEALTH NURSING,PUMA DV;PEREZ-QUILEZ O;ROURE S;MARTINEZ-CUEVAS O;BOCANEGRA C;FEIJOO-CID M;VALERIO L,"objectivesthe aim of this study was to determine the incidence of active tuberculosis (tb) among household contacts of tb-index cases diagnosed during a 7-year period in a public primary care center located in a high-incidence area. design and samplea retrospective cohort study was performed. data collection was based on the capture-recapture method; the two main sources crossed information from tb-index and contact cases from the el fondo primary care center (santa coloma de gramenet, spain) and their reports to the national epidemiologic surveillance service. measuresvariables were divided into demographic and health data (result of the mantoux test, chest x-ray, presence of risk factors, and indication for chemoprophylaxis). resultscommunity nurses identified 103 household contacts that underwent the conventional contact study. overall, 60.19% were male; the mean age was 29.08years. only one case of secondary active tb was found, representing an incidence of 0.56% per tb-index case and year. conclusionthe incidence of new secondary tb among household contacts with tb-index cases was of a case. nevertheless, a long-term follow-up of these householders beyond the conventional contacts study should be considered in areas with higher incidences of tb or among specific high-risk populations." +increasing winter maximal metabolic rate improves intrawinter survival in small birds,metabolic rate; bmr; msum; survival; winter acclimatization; fitness; black-capped chickadee,PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BIOCHEMICAL ZOOLOGY,PETIT M;CLAVIJO BAQUET S;VEZINA F,"small resident bird species living at northern latitudes increase their metabolism in winter, and this is widely assumed to improve their chances of survival. however, the relationship between winter metabolic performance and survival has yet to be demonstrated. using capture-mark-recapture, we followed a population of free-living black-capped chickadees (poecile atricapillus) over 3 yr and evaluated their survival probability within and among winters. we also measured the size-independent body mass (m-s), hematocrit (hct), basal metabolic rate (bmr), and maximal thermogenic capacity (msum) and investigated how these parameters influenced survival within and among winters. results showed that survival probability was high and constant both within (0.92) and among (0.96) winters. they also showed that while m-s, hct, and bmr had no significant influence, survival was positively related to msumfollowing a sigmoid relationshipwithin but not among winter. birds expressing an msum below 1.26 w (i.e., similar to summer levels) had a <50% chance of survival, while birds with an msum above 1.35 w had at least a 90% chance of surviving through the winter. our data therefore suggest that black-capped chickadees that are either too slow or unable to adjust their phenotype from summer to winter have little chances of survival and thus that seasonal upregulation of metabolic performance is highly beneficial. this study is the first to document in an avian system the relationship between thermogenic capacity and winter survival, a proxy of fitness." +risk of active tuberculosis among index case of householders-a long-term assessment after the conventional contacts study,community nursing care; conventional contact study; public health; tuberculosis,PUBLIC HEALTH NURSING,PUMA DV;PEREZ QUILEZ O;ROURE S;MARTINEZ CUEVAS O;BOCANEGRA C;FEIJOO CID M;VALERIO L,"objectivesthe aim of this study was to determine the incidence of active tuberculosis (tb) among household contacts of tb-index cases diagnosed during a 7-year period in a public primary care center located in a high-incidence area. design and samplea retrospective cohort study was performed. data collection was based on the capture-recapture method; the two main sources crossed information from tb-index and contact cases from the el fondo primary care center (santa coloma de gramenet, spain) and their reports to the national epidemiologic surveillance service. measuresvariables were divided into demographic and health data (result of the mantoux test, chest x-ray, presence of risk factors, and indication for chemoprophylaxis). resultscommunity nurses identified 103 household contacts that underwent the conventional contact study. overall, 60.19% were male; the mean age was 29.08years. only one case of secondary active tb was found, representing an incidence of 0.56% per tb-index case and year. conclusionthe incidence of new secondary tb among household contacts with tb-index cases was of a case. nevertheless, a long-term follow-up of these householders beyond the conventional contacts study should be considered in areas with higher incidences of tb or among specific high-risk populations." estimated population size of two south american sea lion male haulouts from the northern coast of argentina,argentina; mark-resighting; noremark; otaria flavescens; pinnipeds; population estimates,MAMMALIA,GIARDINO G;BASTIDA J;MANDIOLA MA;BASTIDA R;RODRIGUEZ D,"knowledge of the real size of any wild population is an essential tool to take management and conservation measures and even more so when the population studied may have potential conflicts with humans. because of this, the objective of this study was to estimate the population size of two south american sea lion male haul-outs using mark-resighting techniques. the results showed that on average, the estimated total number of animals tripled the number of animals recorded by direct counting. these findings demonstrate that it is necessary to continue researching population estimate methods to apply when taking conservation measures in the future." using non-invasive mark-resight and sign occupancy surveys to monitor low-density brown bear populations across large landscapes,abundance; brown bear; den survey; landscape scale; mark-recapture; occupancy; photographic marks; population monitoring; rare species,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,SCHMIDT JH;RATTENBURY KL;ROBISON HL;GORN TS;SHULTS BS,"reliable assessments of low-density carnivore populations such as brown bears ursus arctos are often limited by a lack of sufficient information for strong inference at appropriate scales. standard approaches often rely on physical marking of individuals or the use of inherently field-intensive hair-snag or distance sampling techniques. although these tools are very useful, logistical and monetary costs often limit their successful application, particularly in large, remote areas. we developed a novel photographic mark-resight approach using physical characteristics and spatial locations of individual brown bears to temporarily mark individuals over a short revisit interval. we applied this approach along with site-occupancy techniques to evaluate a low-density brown bear population in northwestern alaska. based on the mark-resight approach, we estimated there were 420 [95% cri:274-650] independent and 713 [95% cri:474-1070] total brown bears in our 19,998 km(2) study area. when expressed as densities, these estimates were consistent with those of other low-density populations from the surrounding area. estimated den and bear site-occupancy rates were similar, 0.48 [95% cri:0.37-0.63] and 0.40 [95% cri;028-0.55], respectively. close congruence among occupancy and abundance estimates supported the robustness of our new mark-resight approach and provided additional metrics for population monitoring. together, these parallel metrics provide a general framework for monitoring low density populations of brown bears and other rare carnivores when physical marking or intensive survey techniques are impractical. published by elsevier ltd." incorporating temporal heterogeneity in environmental conditions into a somatic growth model,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,DZUL MC;YACKULIC CB;KORMAN J;YARD MD;MUEHLBAUER JD,"evaluating environmental effects on fish growth can be challenging because environmental conditions may vary at relatively fine temporal scales compared with sampling occasions. here we develop a bayesian state-space growth model to evaluate effects of monthly environmental data on growth of fish that are observed less frequently (e. g., from mark-recapture data where time between captures can range from months to years). weassess effects of temperature, turbidity, food availability, flow variability, and trout abundance on subadult humpback chub (gila cypha) growth in two rivers, the colorado river (cr) and the little colorado river (lcr), and we use out-of-sample prediction to rank competing models. environmental covariates explained a high proportion of the variation in growth in both rivers; however, the best growth models were river-specific and included either positive temperature and turbidity duration effects (cr) or positive temperature and food availability effects (lcr). our approach to analyzing environmental controls on growth should be applicable in other systems where environmental data vary over relatively short time scales compared with animal observations." @@ -1148,9 +1149,9 @@ estimating the prevalence of dementia using multiple linked administrative healt resetting predator baselines in coral reef ecosystems,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,BRADLEY D;CONKLIN E;PAPASTAMATIOU YP;MCCAULEY DJ;POLLOCK K;POLLOCK A;KENDALL BE;GAINES SD;CASELLE JE,"what did coral reef ecosystems look like before human impacts became pervasive? early efforts to reconstruct baselines resulted in the controversial suggestion that pristine coral reefs have inverted trophic pyramids, with disproportionally large top predator biomass. the validity of the coral reef inverted trophic pyramid has been questioned, but until now, was not resolved empirically. we use data from an eight-year tag-recapture program with spatially explicit, capture-recapture models to re-examine the population size and density of a key top predator at palmyra atoll, the same location that inspired the idea of inverted trophic biomass pyramids in coral reef ecosystems. given that animal movement is suspected to have significantly biased early biomass estimates of highly mobile top predators, we focused our reassessment on the most mobile and most abundant predator at palmyra, the grey reef shark (carcharhinus amblyrhynchos). we estimated a density of 21.3 (95% ci 17.8, 24.7) grey reef sharks/km(2), which is an order of magnitude lower than the estimates that suggested an inverted trophic pyramid. our results indicate that the trophic structure of an unexploited reef fish community is not inverted, and that even healthy top predator populations may be considerably smaller, and more precarious, than previously thought." no evidence for effects of infection with the amphibian chytrid fungus on populations of yellow-bellied toads,bombina variegata; batrachochytrium dendrobatidis; amphibian decline; population decline; microsatellites; chytridiomycosis,DISEASES OF AQUATIC ORGANISMS,WAGNER N;NEUBECK C;GUICKING D;FINKE L;WITTICH M;WEISING K;GESKE C;VEITH M,"the parasitic chytrid fungus batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (bd) can cause the lethal disease chytridiomycosis in amphibians and therefore may play a role in population declines. the yellow-bellied toad bombina variegata suffered strong declines throughout western and northwestern parts of its range and is therefore listed as highly endangered for germany and the federal state of hesse. whether chytridiomycosis may play a role in the observed local declines of this strictly protected anuran species has never been tested. we investigated 19 hessian yellowbellied toad populations for bd infection rates, conducted capture-mark-recapture studies in 4 of them over 2 to 3 yr, examined survival histories of recaptured infected individuals, and tested whether multi-locus heterozygosity of individuals as well as expected heterozygosity and different environmental variables of populations affect probabilities of bd infection. our results show high prevalence of bd infection in hessian yellow-bellied toad populations, but although significant decreases in 2 populations could be observed, no causative link to bd as the reason for this can be established. mass mortalities or obvious signs of disease in individuals were not observed. conversely, we show that growth of bd-infected populations is possible under favorable habitat conditions and that most infected individuals could be recaptured with improved body indices. neither genetic diversity nor environmental variables appeared to affect bd infection prob abilities. hence, genetically diverse amphibian specimens and populations may not automatically be less susceptible for bd infection." winter severity influences spotted seatrout mortality in a southeast us estuarine system,cynoscion nebulosus; telemetry; multistate; capture-recapture; survival; winterkill; cold tolerance; temperature-dependent mortality; mortality rate,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,ELLIS TA;BUCKEL JA;HIGHTOWER JE,"winterkill in spotted seatrout cynoscion nebulosus is associated with extreme cold conditions throughout much of the species' geographic range. however, rigorous study is needed to confirm longstanding but largely untested assumptions that acute cold stress drives overwinter loss. we provide the first direct field-based estimates of spotted seatrout survival relative to the severity of cold temperatures. spotted seatrout overwintering in north carolina, usa, estuaries were tagged with ultrasonic transmitters and monitored during 3 consecutive and variable winters from 2009 to 2012. fates of telemetered fish were inferred from daily movements and used in a multistate capture-recapture model to estimate instantaneous rates of natural mortality (m), fishing mortality, and emigration. natural death was inferred for 7 fish in 2009/2010 (n = 34 telemetered spotted seatrout at risk), 6 fish in 2010/2011 (n = 9 fish at risk), and 1 fish in 2011/2012 (n = 65 fish at risk), and when estimable, weekly m ranged from 0.001 to 0.187. daily estimates of natural mortality increased quickly with declining water temperatures (t),m=1/[1 + e(-(-0.714-0.756t))], and indicated that cold-stun deaths occurred when water temperatures were below similar to 7 degrees c. our results provide direct evidence that winterkill in spotted seatrout at its northern limits of distribution is related to the severity of low water temperatures and demonstrate that the simultaneous monitoring of telemetry-tagged animals and abiotic conditions is an effective approach to determine lethal environmental limits." -hard choices in assessing survival past dams - a comparison of single -and paired-release strategies,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,ZYDLEWSKI J;STICH D;SIGOURNEY D,"mark-recapture models are widely used to estimate survival of salmon smolts migrating past dams. paired releases have been used to improve estimate accuracy by removing components of mortality not attributable to the dam. this method is accompanied by reduced precision because (i) sample size is reduced relative to a single, large release; and (ii) variance calculations inflate error. we modeled an idealized system with a single dam to assess trade-offs between accuracy and precision and compared methods using root mean squared error (rmse). simulations were run under predefined conditions (dam mortality, background mortality, detection probability, and sample size) to determine scenarios when the paired release was preferable to a single release. we demonstrate that a paired-release design provides a theoretical advantage over a single-release design only at large sample sizes and high probabilities of detection. at release numbers typical of many survival studies, paired release can result in overestimation of dam survival. failures to meet model assumptions of a paired release may result in further overestimation of dam-related survival. under most conditions, a single-release strategy was preferable." +hard choices in assessing survival past dams - a comparison of single- and paired-release strategies,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,ZYDLEWSKI J;STICH D;SIGOURNEY D,"mark-recapture models are widely used to estimate survival of salmon smolts migrating past dams. paired releases have been used to improve estimate accuracy by removing components of mortality not attributable to the dam. this method is accompanied by reduced precision because (i) sample size is reduced relative to a single, large release; and (ii) variance calculations inflate error. we modeled an idealized system with a single dam to assess trade-offs between accuracy and precision and compared methods using root mean squared error (rmse). simulations were run under predefined conditions (dam mortality, background mortality, detection probability, and sample size) to determine scenarios when the paired release was preferable to a single release. we demonstrate that a paired-release design provides a theoretical advantage over a single-release design only at large sample sizes and high probabilities of detection. at release numbers typical of many survival studies, paired release can result in overestimation of dam survival. failures to meet model assumptions of a paired release may result in further overestimation of dam-related survival. under most conditions, a single-release strategy was preferable." genetic recapture identifies long-distance breeding dispersal in greater sage-grouse (centrocercus urophasianus),centrocercus urophasianus; greater sage-grouse; mark-recapture; microsatellite; molecular genetics; long-distance dispersal; philopatry,CONDOR,CROSS TB;NAUGLE DE;CARLSON JC;SCHWARTZ MK,"dispersal can strongly influence the demographic and evolutionary trajectory of populations. for many species, little is known about dispersal, despite its importance to conservation. the greater sage-grouse (centrocercus urophasianus) is a species of conservation concern that ranges across 11 western u.s. states and 2 canadian provinces. to investigate dispersal patterns among spring breeding congregations, we examined a 21-locus microsatellite dna dataset of 3,244 greater sage-grouse sampled from 763 leks throughout idaho, montana, north dakota, and south dakota, usa, across 7 yr. we recaptured similar to 2% of individuals, documenting 41 instances of breeding dispersal, with 7 dispersal events of >50 km, including 1 of 194 km. we identified 39 recaptures on the same lek up to 5 yr apart, which supports the long-held paradigm of philopatry in lekking species. we found no difference between the sexes in breeding dispersal distances or in the tendency to disperse vs. remain philopatric. we also documented movements within and among state-delineated priority areas of conservation importance, further supporting the need to identify movement corridors among these reserves. our results can be used to better inform the assumptions of count-based population models and the dispersal thresholds used to model population connectivity." -long-term population dynamics reveal that survival and recruitment of tropical boobies improve after a hurricane,NA,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,ANCONA S;DRUMMOND H;RODRIGUEZ C;ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ,"variability in population numbers is a central issue in evolutionary ecology and also in biodiversity conservation. however, for most seabirds this information is lacking and tropical populations are virtually unstudied. long-term studies are warranted because world's seabird populations exhibit an overall declining trend since 1950. using data spanning 23 yr, we investigated how adult survival, local recruitment, and their relative contributions to population growth () vary over time in the blue-footed booby sula nebouxii, a long-lived locally foraging seabird that breeds in tropical waters. in addition, we investigated whether booby demographic rates exhibit the same declining trend observed in other seabirds, whether these rates are impacted by hurricanes, and whether these potential impacts differ between sexes. our analysis of 4608 capture-recapture histories revealed that survival and recruitment were nearly equal between males and females, exhibited a declining trend over the last 23 yr, and in both sexes, these vital rates improved after a hurricane. the declining trend in recruitment was slightly more attenuated in males. these results add to the current evidence for an overall declining trend in world's seabird populations and extend its confirmation to the warm eastern tropical pacific. moreover, they provide the first evidence that hurricanes may favor natural populations. as a result of the declining trend and variation in survival and recruitment, exhibited a slight decline and substantial variation over the 23 yr. however, most values were equal to or higher than 1, and the long-term average indicates population increase. the ability of blue-footed boobies to maintain a positive population balance despite of negative trends in their vital rates might result from canalization of adult survival (the vital rate that contributes most to and shows lower variation compared to recruitment) against environmental variability." +long-term population dynamics reveal that survival and recruitment of tropical boobies improve after a hurricane,NA,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,ANCONA S;DRUMMOND H;RODRIGUEZ C;ZUNIGA VEGA JJ,"variability in population numbers is a central issue in evolutionary ecology and also in biodiversity conservation. however, for most seabirds this information is lacking and tropical populations are virtually unstudied. long-term studies are warranted because world's seabird populations exhibit an overall declining trend since 1950. using data spanning 23 yr, we investigated how adult survival, local recruitment, and their relative contributions to population growth () vary over time in the blue-footed booby sula nebouxii, a long-lived locally foraging seabird that breeds in tropical waters. in addition, we investigated whether booby demographic rates exhibit the same declining trend observed in other seabirds, whether these rates are impacted by hurricanes, and whether these potential impacts differ between sexes. our analysis of 4608 capture-recapture histories revealed that survival and recruitment were nearly equal between males and females, exhibited a declining trend over the last 23 yr, and in both sexes, these vital rates improved after a hurricane. the declining trend in recruitment was slightly more attenuated in males. these results add to the current evidence for an overall declining trend in world's seabird populations and extend its confirmation to the warm eastern tropical pacific. moreover, they provide the first evidence that hurricanes may favor natural populations. as a result of the declining trend and variation in survival and recruitment, exhibited a slight decline and substantial variation over the 23 yr. however, most values were equal to or higher than 1, and the long-term average indicates population increase. the ability of blue-footed boobies to maintain a positive population balance despite of negative trends in their vital rates might result from canalization of adult survival (the vital rate that contributes most to and shows lower variation compared to recruitment) against environmental variability." bait station preferences in two macrotermes species,bait size; disturbance; fungus-growing; isoptera; macrotermitinae; termite,JOURNAL OF PEST SCIENCE,IQBAL N;WIJEDASA LS;EVANS TA,"baiting is considered to be a relatively environmentally benign termite control method; however, all commercial baiting systems are designed for species in the rhinotermitidae and are used primarily in temperate countries. fungus-growing termites in the macrotermitidae can be important pests in tropical countries; they can be difficult to control using all available methods, and there are no baiting systems designed for them. we tested bait station size, an important component of bait station design, against two macrotermes species in singapore. macrotermes gilvus recruited to small stations (0.35 l) very poorly and medium stations (3.6 l) poorly (both similar in size to various commercial stations), but they recruited to large stations (11.5 l) well. macrotermes carbonarius followed a similar pattern but recruited to fewer stations overall. in the occupied stations, m. gilvus ate the bait wood, sometimes creating a fungus garden inside the stations, and brought little soil into the stations. in comparison, m. carbonarius ate no wood at all, but filled stations with soil. there was significantly less leaf litter around m. carbonarius mounds compared with m. gilvus mounds, although there were no obvious differences in habitat, which suggested that m. carbonarius eats leaf litter only and is not a pest species. our study shows that stations much larger than current commercial options may provide a useful means for controlling pest wood-eating, fungus-growing termites in tropical countries." evaluating genetic capture-recapture using a chimpanzee population of known size,capwire; genetic census; genotyping; microsatellites; pan troglodytes; population size estimators; spatially explicit,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GRANJON AC;ROWNEY C;VIGILANT L;LANGERGRABER KE,"genetic capture-recapture (cr) estimates of population size have potential for aiding the conservation and management of rare or elusive animals. to date, few studies have explored the performance of genetic cr estimates by implementing them in a population of known size. we evaluated the accuracy and precision of genetic cr estimates by genotyping fecal samples collected opportunistically over the territory of a well-studied group of approximately 190 previously identified and genotyped eastern chimpanzees (pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) in kibale national park, uganda. we compared the performance of genetic cr estimates based on 3-month and 3-year sampling periods to explore the impact of lengthened sample periods, which are expected to increase accuracy and precision of estimates but also increase the chances of violating population closure assumptions. we compared the effects of using spatial and non-spatial models and equal or heterogeneous detection probabilities upon estimates. over the 3-year period, we detected 54% of the group members and produced population size estimates with more accuracy and narrower confidence intervals than the 3-month sampling period. the population remained effectively closed over the 3 years and detection heterogeneity was linked to age but not sex. non-spatial methods estimated group size more accurately than spatially explicit methods, which had a stronger tendency to underestimate population size. this study suggests that genetic cr may produce accurate and precise population size estimates if substantial effort is allocated to sample collection and genotyping. (c) 2016 the wildlife society. we evaluated the performance of several genetic capture-recapture estimators of population size in a chimpanzee group whose size was independently known. precision and accuracy were superior when calculated on samples collected over 3 years versus 3 months, showing that the positive effect of increased sample size outweighed the potentially negative effect of violating population closure in this slow life-history species." population abundance estimation with heterogeneous encounter probabilities using numerical integration,abundance estimation; capture-mark-reencounter; huggins estimator; individual heterogeneity; m-h; numerical integration; program mark,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,WHITE GC;COOCH EG,"estimation of population abundance is a common problem in wildlife ecology and management. capture-mark-reencounter (cmr) methods using marked animals are a standard approach, particularly in recent history with the development of innovative methods of marking using camera traps or dna samples. however, estimates of abundance from multiple encounters of marked individuals are biased low when individual heterogeneity of encounter probabilities is not accounted for in the estimator. we evaluated the operating characteristics of the huggins logit-normal estimator through computer simulations, using gaussian-hermite quadrature to model individual encounter heterogeneity. we simulated individual encounter data following a factorial design with 2 levels of sampling occasions (t=5, 10), 3 levels of abundance (n=100, 500, 1,000), 4 levels of median detection probabilities (p=0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6) for each sampling occasion (on the probability scale), and 4 levels of individual heterogeneity (sigma(p)=0, 0.5, 1, 2; on the logit normal scale), resulting in a design space consisting of 96 simulation scenarios (2x3x4x4). for each scenario, we performed 1,000 simulations using the huggins estimators m-t, m-0, m-tre, and m-0re, where the re subscript corresponds to the random effects model. as expected, the m-t and m-0 estimators were biased when individual heterogeneity was present but unbiased for sigma(p)=0 data. the estimators for m-tre and m-0re were biased high for n=100 and median p0.2 but showed little bias elsewhere. the bias is attributed to the occasional sets of data that result in a low overall detection probability and a resulting highly skewed sampling distribution of this result is confirmed in that the median of the sampling distributions was only slightly biased high. the random effects estimators performed poorly for sigma(p)=0 data, mainly because a log link function forces the estimate of sigma(p)>0. however, the fletcher statistic provided useful evidence to evaluate sigma(p)>0, as did likelihood ratio tests of the null hypothesis sigma(p)=0. generally, confidence interval coverage of n appears close to the nominal 95% expected when the estimator is not biased. (c) 2017 the wildlife society. estimates of population abundance from multiple encounters of marked individuals are biased low when individual heterogeneity of encounter probabilities is not accounted for in the estimator. through computer simulations, we found that the huggins logit-normal estimator with gaussian-hermite quadrature to integrate out individual random effects eliminates major bias of the abundance estimates with an adequate number of sampling occasions and reasonable detection probabilities." @@ -1159,43 +1160,43 @@ genomic data detect corresponding signatures of population size change on an eco eu-protected slug geomalacus maculosus and sympatric lehmannia marginata in conifer plantations: what does mark-recapture method reveal about population densities?,NA,JOURNAL OF MOLLUSCAN STUDIES,REICH I;MC DONNELL R;MC INERNEY C;CALLANAN S;GORMALLY M,"geomalacus maculosus allman, 1843 is an eu-protected slug species which is only found in the west of ireland and northern iberia. there is little knowledge of its population sizes throughout its range and no long-term studies have been conducted to calculate estimates. localized populations of g. maculosus and the sympatric slug lehmannia marginata (muller, 1774) were monitored over one year using the mark-recapture approach at five different sites within a commercial conifer plantation in ireland. slugs were marked using visible-implant elastomers injected into the foot. up to 23.9 / m(2) (g. maculosus) and 5.6 / m(2) (l. marginata) specimens were observed during the first survey in august; however, these densities varied greatly in different areas of the plantation and throughout the year. population-size estimates were also calculated using the jolly-seber method. temperature was significantly correlated with capture success, with fewer captures during the colder months. this is the first long-term study that uses visible-implant elastomers as markers for slugs and we evaluate their use, provide guidelines for trapping intensity, discuss limitations of the mark-recapture method and advise on the optimal survey time and conditions." "assessment of the entering stock, migration dynamics and fish pass fidelity of european eel in the belgian meuse river",migration; fish pass; rfid detection; stock; yellow eels; meuse,RIVER RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS,MATONDO BN;BENITEZ JP;DIERCKX A;PHILIPPART JC;OVIDIO M,"migration dynamics of incoming eels in belgium via lixhe in the meuse river were investigated using two fish passes with different configurations-net traps and automatic detection stations-as tools to distinguish resident and migrating eels. from april to september 2013, 435 eels (p50 length, 403 mm; range, 196-836 mm) were caught (daily maxima catch, 90 eels per day), 90% between 13 june and 1 august (50 days) and p50 on 19 july. eels migrated mostly at 19-26 degrees c (p50, 24.4 degrees c), river discharge 65-314m(3) s(-1) (p50, 84m(3) s(-1)), during the dark at 00: 00-05: 00 h and during both the waxing and waning phases of moonlight. from 396 eels tagged and released 0.3 km downstream of the lixhe dam, 6.8% of them were recaptured, and 37.4% were detected. migration flux was estimated at 7184 eels (0.863 t) using the mark-recapture method and decreased to 1156 eels (0.139 t) using automatic transponder detection. most eels probably migrated through a sluice located downstream of lixhe to reach the upper meuse via the albert canal. eels moved almost independently to the configuration of the fish passes and their location, but most eels displayed fidelity to the fish pass where they were captured. migrant eels showed a wide range of size and life stages, with a higher proportion of eels (80%) belonging to the yellow eel stage. a lower proportion of eels (6%) had a larger size and presented an advanced continental silvering process corresponding to the migrating stage before their transatlantic migration. copyright (c) 2016 john wiley & sons, ltd." tag loss is a minor limiting factor in sea turtle tagging programs relying on distant tag returns: the case of mediterranean loggerhead sea turtles,capture-mark-recapture; tagging; caretta caretta; maximum likelihood estimation,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,CASALE P;FREGGI D;SALVEMINI P,"as in many other species, tagging has been routinely conducted for decades in over a hundred sea turtle capture-mark-recapture (cmr) programs worldwide. tag loss is a key limiting factor because it violates the main assumption in cmr models; however, very few estimates of tag loss exist, and we provide here a review. no published estimations of tag loss are available for the mediterranean, in spite of intensive tagging since the 1980s. this study aims to provide an estimation of tag loss in loggerhead turtles tagged in the mediterranean. we modeled 64 tag returns out of ca. 2200 loggerhead turtles tagged at mediterranean foraging grounds, with mark-recapture intervals up to 11.5 years, in order to estimate a daily tag loss probability of the most used tag applied to the most common turtle species in the region. five models were evaluated through maximum likelihood estimation. the model with the best fit described a tag loss initially high and then decreasing to a lower asymptote, which is probably due to some defective tag applications. the resulting tag loss (0.15 in the first year and 0.31 after 5 years) was comparable or even lower than those from other areas and/or species and predictions indicate that double tagging can make a turtle identifiable for a long period. hence, in our tagging program and probably in similar ones as well, tag loss appears to be the less important of the factors affecting tag returns, and efforts in other directions are more likely to improve cmr results." -road effects on demographic traits of small mammal populations,apodemus sylvaticus; capture-recapture; extended robust design models; population estimation; roadless area; road effects,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,GALANTINHO A;EUFRAZIO S;SILVA C;CARVALHO F;ALPIZAR-JARA R;MIRA A,"recent studies have highlighted the positive effects of road verges on the abundance of small mammals. however, most of these studies occurred in intensively grazed or cultivated areas, where verges were the last remnants of suitable habitats, which could mask the true effects of roads on population traits. we analysed the effects of roads on small mammal populations living in a well-preserved mediterranean forest. we used the wood mouse (apodemus sylvaticus) as a model of forest-dwelling small mammals that probably are among the species most affected by road clearings. our study compared populations in similar habitat areas with and without road influence. we assessed abundance, survival and temporary emigration using extended pollock's robust design capture-recapture models. moreover, we analysed population turnover, sex ratio, age structure and body condition. we found that wood mouse abundance and body condition were lower at the road bisected area, whereas the remaining population traits were similar. this suggests that the reduced habitat availability and quality due to the physical presence of the road and verge vegetation clearing are the main drivers of demographic differences in wood mouse populations between areas. nevertheless, our results also suggest that in high-quality habitats surrounding national roads, wood mouse populations present similar dynamics to others living in undisturbed areas, despite the decrease in abundance and body condition. overall, the often-reported increased small mammal abundance in road surroundings should not be generalized independently of habitat quality or to other population traits." +road effects on demographic traits of small mammal populations,apodemus sylvaticus; capture-recapture; extended robust design models; population estimation; roadless area; road effects,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,GALANTINHO A;EUFRAZIO S;SILVA C;CARVALHO F;ALPIZAR JARA R;MIRA A,"recent studies have highlighted the positive effects of road verges on the abundance of small mammals. however, most of these studies occurred in intensively grazed or cultivated areas, where verges were the last remnants of suitable habitats, which could mask the true effects of roads on population traits. we analysed the effects of roads on small mammal populations living in a well-preserved mediterranean forest. we used the wood mouse (apodemus sylvaticus) as a model of forest-dwelling small mammals that probably are among the species most affected by road clearings. our study compared populations in similar habitat areas with and without road influence. we assessed abundance, survival and temporary emigration using extended pollock's robust design capture-recapture models. moreover, we analysed population turnover, sex ratio, age structure and body condition. we found that wood mouse abundance and body condition were lower at the road bisected area, whereas the remaining population traits were similar. this suggests that the reduced habitat availability and quality due to the physical presence of the road and verge vegetation clearing are the main drivers of demographic differences in wood mouse populations between areas. nevertheless, our results also suggest that in high-quality habitats surrounding national roads, wood mouse populations present similar dynamics to others living in undisturbed areas, despite the decrease in abundance and body condition. overall, the often-reported increased small mammal abundance in road surroundings should not be generalized independently of habitat quality or to other population traits." long-term monitoring of a bengal tiger (panthera tigris tigris) population in a human-dominated landscape of central india,dispersing tigers; growth rate; population dynamics; survival rate,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,MAJUMDER A;QURESHI Q;SANKAR K;KUMAR A,"long-term monitoring of tiger population is essential in any human-dominated landscape as globally their population is showing a declining trend due to unrelenting stress or stochastic events. in view of that, bengal tiger population was monitored in pench tiger reserve (pench), madhya pradesh of central india between may 2006 and april 2013. the population, age-sex ratios, survival rate, growth rate, and recruitment pattern of adult (>= 36 month), subadult (>= 18 to 36 month), and cubs (<= 15 month) were studied using camera trap and radiotelemetry techniques. overall, tiger density +/- se/100 km(2) using maximum likelihood spatial explicit capture recapture method was 5.5 +/- 1.6 in first trapping period or year and 3.7 +/- 0.8 in last or seventh trapping year. the estimated survival rate of all tiger (n = 66) was 0.66 (+/- 0.04), whereas mean annual growth rate (+/- se) was 1.15 (+/- 0.11) i.e. 15%. the sex ratio (male/female) found to be female biased and more than 80% of overall recruitment was contributed by female tiger. the dispersal of subadults in the tiger population contributed gradual fluctuation in survival rate and annual growth rate, as resident adult tiger population remained almost stable over the study period. as the overall tigers are surviving in a small population size and operating at carrying capacity, the important corridors connecting with neighboring population of kanha tiger reserve and satpura tiger reserve may ensure constant emigration and immigration to reduce the chances of genetic drift or inbreeding in the pench tiger population." estimating abundance of striped hyenas (hyaena hyaena) in the negev desert of israel using camera traps and closed capture-recapture models,census; closed cr models; key state variables; threaten/endangered species; population size estimation; small population,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,TICHON J;ROTEM G;WARD P,"estimating key state variables (e.g., abundance/density) of threatened/endangered species is a difficult yet crucial task. these variables are essential for wildlife conservationists/managers to assess the current states and trends of target populations and make state-dependent management decisions. we estimated, using camera traps and two different methodologies, the abundance of the near-threatened striped hyena (hyaena hyaena) in the negev highlands, israel. both the traditional closed capture-recapture (closed-cr) and the census/near-census frameworks (both rely on closed cr models) were employed. for attaining a census/near census, we calculated a range of plausible capture/detection probabilities and their combinations with sampling durations that would result in detection of >= 95% of the target population. we then covered a subsection (circa 400 km(2)) of the negev highlands using 15 camera traps for 83 days. this targeted sampling provides a strong indication for attaining a census/near census for capture/detection probabilities as low as p = 0.05. the closed cr models (m-0 and m-b) yielded a model averaged estimates of abundance (n) over bar = 7 (se 1.94e-05, plci 7-7) and capture/detection probability (p) over bar = 0.09 (se 0.033, 95% ci 0.05-0.18). using the estimated (p) over bar, we calculated that during the sampling, we (ostensibly) captured the entire (99.9%) target population. additionally, we used spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) approach to estimate the density of the hyenas in a subsection of our study area where hyenas were spotted and got an estimate of d = 0.085 individuals/km(2) (se 0.0334, 95% ci 0.040-0.178) or 8.5 individuals/100 km(2). many studies estimate abundance/density of threatened/endangered species using closed cr models; however, for small populations of elusive animals, these models often yield less accurate estimates exactly where accuracy is needed the most. while it likely increases the costs and time, the census/near-census framework provides a more accurate solution for such cases." contrasting effects of tropical cyclones on the annual survival of a pelagic seabird in the indian ocean,adult survival; climate change; hurricane; juvenile survival; migration; mortality; petrel; pterodroma; typhoon,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,NICOLL MAC;NEVOUX M;JONES CG;RATCLIFFE N;RUHOMAUN K;TATAYAH V;NORRIS K,"tropical cyclones are renowned for their destructive nature and are an important feature of marine and coastal tropical ecosystems. over the last 40years, their intensity, frequency and tracks have changed, partly in response to ocean warming, and future predictions indicate that these trends are likely to continue with potential consequences for human populations and coastal ecosystems. however, our understanding of how tropical cyclones currently affect marine biodiversity, and pelagic species in particular, is limited. for seabirds, the impacts of cyclones are known to be detrimental at breeding colonies, but impacts on the annual survival of pelagic adults and juveniles remain largely unexplored and no study has simultaneously explored the direct impacts of cyclones on different life-history stages across the annual life cycle. we used a 20-year data set on tropical cyclones in the indian ocean, tracking data from 122 round island petrels and long-term capture-mark-recapture data to explore the impacts of tropical cyclones on the survival of adult and juvenile (first year) petrels during both the breeding and migration periods. the tracking data showed that juvenile and adult round island petrels utilize the three cyclone regions of the indian ocean and were potentially exposed to cyclones for a substantial part of their annual cycle. however, only juvenile petrel survival was affected by cyclone activity; negatively by a strong cyclone in the vicinity of the breeding colony and positively by increasing cyclone activity in the northern indian ocean where they spend the majority of their first year at sea. these contrasting effects raise the intriguing prospect that the projected changes in cyclones under current climate change scenarios may have positive as well as the more commonly perceived negative impacts on marine biodiversity." decline in territory size and fecundity as a response to carrying capacity in an endangered songbird,carrying capacity; cowbird parasitism; density-dependence; integrated population model; population regulation,OECOLOGIA,HARTMANN SA;OPPEL S;SEGELBACHER G;JUINA ME;SCHAEFER HM,"density-dependent processes are fundamental mechanisms for the regulation of populations. ecological theories differ in their predictions on whether increasing population density leads to individual adjustments of survival and reproductive output or to dominance and monopolization of resources. here, we use a natural experiment to examine which factors limit population growth in the only remaining population of the endangered pale-headed brush finch (atlapetes pallidiceps). for three distinct phases (a phase of population suppression, 2001-2002; expansion due to conservation management, 2003-2008; and equilibrium phase, 2009-2014), we estimated demographic parameters with an integrated population model using population size, the proportion of successfully breeding pairs and their productivity, territory size, and mark-recapture data of adult birds. a low proportion of successful breeders due to brood parasitism (0.42, 95% credible interval 0.26-0.59) limited population growth before 2003; subsequent culling of the brood parasite resulted in a two-fold increase of the proportion of successful breeders during the 'expansion phase'. when the population approached the carrying capacity of its habitat, territory size declined by more than 50% and fecundity declined from 1.9 (1.54-2.27) to 1.3 (1.12-1.53) chicks per breeding pair, but the proportion of successful breeders remained constant (expansion phase: 0.85; 0.76-0.93; equilibrium phase: 0.86; 0.79-0.92). this study demonstrates that limiting resources can lead to individual adjustments instead of despotic behavior, and the individual reduction of reproductive output at high population densities is consistent with the slow life-history of many tropical species." -"incidence of childhood-onset type 1 diabetes in biscay, spain, 1990-2013",epidemiology; incidence; incidence trend; spain; type 1 diabetes mellitus,PEDIATRIC DIABETES,FERNANDEZ-RAMOS C;ARANA-ARRI E;JIMENEZ-HUERTAS P;VELA A;RICA I,"objective: to identify the incidence rate (ir) and epidemiologic trends of childhood type 1 diabetes mellitus (t1dm) in children aged 0 to 14-yr-old from 1990 to 2013, in the north of spain (biscay). subjects and methods: a prospective-retrospective study was performed. capture-recapture method was used: primary cases were ascertained from hospital register and a secondary independent data source was obtained from diabetes associations and public health plan database. age and sex-standardized incidence rates were calculated using direct method, assuming an equal distribution in each age/sex group. in order to identify and analyse trends the period studied was divided into two (1990-2001 and 2002-2013) 11-year periods. the 95% confidence interval (ci) was estimated assuming the poisson distribution. results: a total of 399 new cases were identified throughout the study. mean age at diagnosis was 8.9 +/- 3.7 yr. completeness of ascertainment was 99.1%. mean annual age-standardized ir was 10.7 (95% ci: 9.6-11.7). the mean incidence for the 0-4, 5-9 and 10-14 age groups was 5.1, 14.6 and 13.2 per 100,000 children/yr, respectively. the incidence rate trend in the whole group was not statistically significant. in the 10-14 age group we found a yearly average increase (2.5% [ci 95% 0.4-4.6]; p < 0.05) and analysing by sex, this statistically significant incidence trend was observed only in boys. we did not find a seasonal onset pattern. conclusions: the ir did not increase in this population during the period studied unlike the results in other spanish regions and european countries." -somatic growth rates of immature green turtles chelonia mydas inhabiting the foraging ground akumal bay in the mexican caribbean sea,caribbean; demography; somatic growth; generalized additive model; green turtle; chelonia mydas,JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY,LABRADA-MARTAGON V;TENERIA FAM;HERRERA-PAVON R;NEGRETE-PHILIPPE A,"growth dynamics helps to elucidate demographic aspects, such as age at specific size and size at maturity or first reproduction, which are important for sea turtle management. the mexican caribbean sea is an important feeding ground for green turtles, but demographic data for the turtles are lacking. size-based growth rates of immature green turtles inhabiting a foraging ground at akumal bay (20 degrees 24'0 '' n and 87 degrees 19'16 '' w) were obtained by using a mixed longitudinal sampling design from historic mark-recapture data (2004-2014). curved carapace length (ccl) of immature turtles at first capture ranged from 27.8-81.0 cm and minimum size at recruitment was 27.8 cm ccl. recapture intervals ranged from 1 to 49 months, 72% of the recaptures (n = 172) occurred in less than a year and 90% before 1.5 years. a monotonic size-specific growth function displays the maximum growth rate (6.25 cm yr(-1)) at about 46-48 cm ccl before starts declining steadily at >60 cm ccl. mean size presented a non-linear relationship with growth rates and year of capture had a negative linear effect over growth; the lowest annual mean growth rates were registered during 2009 and 2012. based on gam predictions an immature sea turtle recruited to the feeding ground (28 cm ccl) would require between 13 and 14 years to reach the average nesting size, supporting field observations. a negative linear relationship between annual mean growth rate and the relative estimated sea turtle abundance (p = 0.001) suggests a density-dependent effect. the quantitative information presented will help understand life history patterns and provide a baseline to assess future dynamics of this green turtle population. (c) 2016 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -management of eucalyptus plantations influences small mammal density: evidence from southern europe,production forests; rodents; insectivores; portugal,FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,TEIXEIRA D;CARRILHO M;MEXIA T;KOBEL M;SANTOS MJ;SANTOS-REIS M;ROSALINO LM,"forestry plantations, and particularly those of exotic eucalyptus, are important man-made systems in europe, and especially in portugal, where these represent now the largest fraction of forested areas. eucalyptus plantations may have impacts on vertebrate communities in europe; however, these have been seldom assessed. although it is commonly understood that such impacts are contingent on type, shape size and spatial arrangement of landscape elements. thus, in this study we tested the effects of eucalyptus plantations and the surrounding native semi-natural ecosystems on small mammal density in central portugal. we used a spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) model to estimate density, and generalized linear (mixed) models (glm/glmm) to test the effects of habitat type and understory composition and structure on mammal density. our results showed no significant effect of eucalyptus plantations on density of small mammals, but the presence of a developed understory was positively related to density, likely because it provides food and refuge resources. at the species level, we only found a negative effect of eucalyptus plantations on wood mouse (apodemus sylvaticus) density, most likely because these forests do not provide its preferred food resources (e.g. acorns); this hypothesis was further supported by the positive effect of proximity to ecotone habitat that likely resulted in increased food provisioning. these results highlight that the impact of eucalyptus plantations on small mammals is mostly species-dependent and determined by management and the location of native habitat patches. (c) 2016 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +"incidence of childhood-onset type 1 diabetes in biscay, spain, 1990-2013",epidemiology; incidence; incidence trend; spain; type 1 diabetes mellitus,PEDIATRIC DIABETES,FERNANDEZ RAMOS C;ARANA ARRI E;JIMENEZ HUERTAS P;VELA A;RICA I,"objective: to identify the incidence rate (ir) and epidemiologic trends of childhood type 1 diabetes mellitus (t1dm) in children aged 0 to 14-yr-old from 1990 to 2013, in the north of spain (biscay). subjects and methods: a prospective-retrospective study was performed. capture-recapture method was used: primary cases were ascertained from hospital register and a secondary independent data source was obtained from diabetes associations and public health plan database. age and sex-standardized incidence rates were calculated using direct method, assuming an equal distribution in each age/sex group. in order to identify and analyse trends the period studied was divided into two (1990-2001 and 2002-2013) 11-year periods. the 95% confidence interval (ci) was estimated assuming the poisson distribution. results: a total of 399 new cases were identified throughout the study. mean age at diagnosis was 8.9 +/- 3.7 yr. completeness of ascertainment was 99.1%. mean annual age-standardized ir was 10.7 (95% ci: 9.6-11.7). the mean incidence for the 0-4, 5-9 and 10-14 age groups was 5.1, 14.6 and 13.2 per 100,000 children/yr, respectively. the incidence rate trend in the whole group was not statistically significant. in the 10-14 age group we found a yearly average increase (2.5% [ci 95% 0.4-4.6]; p < 0.05) and analysing by sex, this statistically significant incidence trend was observed only in boys. we did not find a seasonal onset pattern. conclusions: the ir did not increase in this population during the period studied unlike the results in other spanish regions and european countries." +somatic growth rates of immature green turtles chelonia mydas inhabiting the foraging ground akumal bay in the mexican caribbean sea,caribbean; demography; somatic growth; generalized additive model; green turtle; chelonia mydas,JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY,LABRADA MARTAGON V;TENERIA FAM;HERRERA PAVON R;NEGRETE PHILIPPE A,"growth dynamics helps to elucidate demographic aspects, such as age at specific size and size at maturity or first reproduction, which are important for sea turtle management. the mexican caribbean sea is an important feeding ground for green turtles, but demographic data for the turtles are lacking. size-based growth rates of immature green turtles inhabiting a foraging ground at akumal bay (20 degrees 24'0 '' n and 87 degrees 19'16 '' w) were obtained by using a mixed longitudinal sampling design from historic mark-recapture data (2004-2014). curved carapace length (ccl) of immature turtles at first capture ranged from 27.8-81.0 cm and minimum size at recruitment was 27.8 cm ccl. recapture intervals ranged from 1 to 49 months, 72% of the recaptures (n = 172) occurred in less than a year and 90% before 1.5 years. a monotonic size-specific growth function displays the maximum growth rate (6.25 cm yr(-1)) at about 46-48 cm ccl before starts declining steadily at >60 cm ccl. mean size presented a non-linear relationship with growth rates and year of capture had a negative linear effect over growth; the lowest annual mean growth rates were registered during 2009 and 2012. based on gam predictions an immature sea turtle recruited to the feeding ground (28 cm ccl) would require between 13 and 14 years to reach the average nesting size, supporting field observations. a negative linear relationship between annual mean growth rate and the relative estimated sea turtle abundance (p = 0.001) suggests a density-dependent effect. the quantitative information presented will help understand life history patterns and provide a baseline to assess future dynamics of this green turtle population. (c) 2016 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +management of eucalyptus plantations influences small mammal density: evidence from southern europe,production forests; rodents; insectivores; portugal,FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,TEIXEIRA D;CARRILHO M;MEXIA T;KOBEL M;SANTOS MJ;SANTOS REIS M;ROSALINO LM,"forestry plantations, and particularly those of exotic eucalyptus, are important man-made systems in europe, and especially in portugal, where these represent now the largest fraction of forested areas. eucalyptus plantations may have impacts on vertebrate communities in europe; however, these have been seldom assessed. although it is commonly understood that such impacts are contingent on type, shape size and spatial arrangement of landscape elements. thus, in this study we tested the effects of eucalyptus plantations and the surrounding native semi-natural ecosystems on small mammal density in central portugal. we used a spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) model to estimate density, and generalized linear (mixed) models (glm/glmm) to test the effects of habitat type and understory composition and structure on mammal density. our results showed no significant effect of eucalyptus plantations on density of small mammals, but the presence of a developed understory was positively related to density, likely because it provides food and refuge resources. at the species level, we only found a negative effect of eucalyptus plantations on wood mouse (apodemus sylvaticus) density, most likely because these forests do not provide its preferred food resources (e.g. acorns); this hypothesis was further supported by the positive effect of proximity to ecotone habitat that likely resulted in increased food provisioning. these results highlight that the impact of eucalyptus plantations on small mammals is mostly species-dependent and determined by management and the location of native habitat patches. (c) 2016 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." estimation of the population size by using the one-inflated positive poisson model,capture-recapture; count inflation; horvitz-thompson estimator; maximum likelihood; poisson model,JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY SERIES C-APPLIED STATISTICS,GODWIN RT;BOHNING D,"in population size estimation, many capture-recapture-type data exhibit a preponderance of 1'-counts. this excess of 1s can arise as subjects gain information from the initial capture that provides a desire and ability to avoid subsequent captures. existing population size estimators that purport to deal with heterogeneity can be much too large in the presence of 1-inflation, which is a specific form of heterogeneity. to deal with the phenomena of excess 1s, we propose the one-inflated positive poisson model for use as the truncated count distribution in horvitz-thompson estimation of the population size." -"parthenogenesis did not consistently evolve in insular populations of ischnura hastata (odonata, coenagrionidae)",asexual reproduction; damselfly; evolution of sex; geographical parthenogenesis; islands; protandry; zygoptera,ECOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY,LORENZO-CARBALLA MO;HASSALL C;ENCALADA AC;SANMARTIN-VILLAR I;TORRES-CAMBAS Y;CORDERO-RIVERA A,"1. the evolutionary advantages that have driven the evolution of sex are still very much debated, and a number of benefits of parthenogenesis over sexual reproduction have been proposed. in particular, parthenogenetic individuals are thought to exhibit higher probabilities of establishment following arrival in new, isolated habitats such as islands. 2. one notable example of parthenogenesis occurring in islands is the damselfly ischnura hastata, an american species that has colonised the azores archipelago, where the populations consist only of females. this is the only known example of parthenogenesis within the insect order odonata. 3. here, two island populations of i. hastata were studied, one in the galapagos and one in cuba, to test whether island colonisation is consistently associated with parthenogenesis in this species. field capture-mark-recapture studies and laboratory rearing of field-collected eggs were undertaken in both areas. 4. sex ratios in the field were found to be heavily female-biased among mature individuals; however, fertility rates of field-collected eggs were high, and the sex ratios in the laboratory did not differ from 1:1. data from laboratory rearing showed that shorter larval development times and shorter adult life spans in males result in protandry, which might explain the skewed sex ratios in the field. 5. these findings are consistent with sex differences in key demographic parameters which could predispose i. hastata to parthenogenesis. however, the azores population of i. hastata remains the only documented case of asexual reproduction in this insect group." +"parthenogenesis did not consistently evolve in insular populations of ischnura hastata (odonata, coenagrionidae)",asexual reproduction; damselfly; evolution of sex; geographical parthenogenesis; islands; protandry; zygoptera,ECOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY,LORENZO CARBALLA MO;HASSALL C;ENCALADA AC;SANMARTIN VILLAR I;TORRES CAMBAS Y;CORDERO RIVERA A,"1. the evolutionary advantages that have driven the evolution of sex are still very much debated, and a number of benefits of parthenogenesis over sexual reproduction have been proposed. in particular, parthenogenetic individuals are thought to exhibit higher probabilities of establishment following arrival in new, isolated habitats such as islands. 2. one notable example of parthenogenesis occurring in islands is the damselfly ischnura hastata, an american species that has colonised the azores archipelago, where the populations consist only of females. this is the only known example of parthenogenesis within the insect order odonata. 3. here, two island populations of i. hastata were studied, one in the galapagos and one in cuba, to test whether island colonisation is consistently associated with parthenogenesis in this species. field capture-mark-recapture studies and laboratory rearing of field-collected eggs were undertaken in both areas. 4. sex ratios in the field were found to be heavily female-biased among mature individuals; however, fertility rates of field-collected eggs were high, and the sex ratios in the laboratory did not differ from 1:1. data from laboratory rearing showed that shorter larval development times and shorter adult life spans in males result in protandry, which might explain the skewed sex ratios in the field. 5. these findings are consistent with sex differences in key demographic parameters which could predispose i. hastata to parthenogenesis. however, the azores population of i. hastata remains the only documented case of asexual reproduction in this insect group." using acoustic telemetry to assess patterns in the seasonal residency of the atlantic stingray dasyatis sabina,elasmobranch; batoid; dasyatid; habitat utilization; migration; temporal use,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,RAMSDEN S;COTTON CF;CURRAN MC,"the atlantic stingray dasyatis sabina is found along the atlantic and gulf coasts of the united states. it consumes commercially important shrimp and crabs, and its diet overlaps with recreationally valuable red drum sciaenops ocellatus and pompano trachinotus spp. despite the potential economic impact of this species, it is unclear whether the atlantic stingray is present year-round or only seasonally in coastal habitats. the objective of this study was to assess the seasonal residency patterns of atlantic stingrays in two creek systems in the savannah river estuary. forty stingrays were tracked using acoustic telemetry, and a seasonal residence index was calculated for each individual. atlantic stingrays were present year-round in the savannah river estuary, as 15 % (n = 6) of the tagged rays remained in the study areas throughout the year. this is the northernmost region where this species has been documented to be present all year. of the 85 % (n = 34) of the rays that migrated during winter, 38 % (n = 13) of those were detected within the estuary less than 20 km away. had trawls or mark-recapture been used instead, the few animals remaining in the creek systems and/or those that migrated may not have been collected. acoustic telemetry is a more accurate means of studying the residency of fishes than periodic sampling that requires capture, and researchers should consider incorporating this technology in future studies about fish-environment interactions. underestimating the presence of a species could result in miscalculation of its economic and ecological impact and, by extension, result in the implementation of ineffective or even detrimental management strategies." -dispersal differences of a pest and a protected cerambyx species (coleoptera: cerambycidae) in oak open woodlands: a mark-recapture comparative study,adult dispersal; air temperature; cerambyx; flight behaviour; oak decline; wind speed,ECOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY,TORRES-VILA LM;MENDIOLA-DIAZ FJ;SANCHEZ-GONZALEZ A,"1. cerambyx welensii (cw) and cerambyx cerdo (cc) are two large saproxylic beetles living on quercus trees in the western palearctic whose current pest and legal status differs markedly. cw is an emerging pest involved in oak decline while cc is an internationally protected species. 2. acquiring knowledge of the ecology, demography and behaviour of cw and cc in forests harbouring mixed populations is a demanding task to optimise their management or protection. here, we report the results of a mark-recapture study on the flight behaviour and dispersal potential of both species in holm oak open woodlands. 3. average flights, dispersal rates and diffusion models were remarkably similar in cw and cc, reflecting a low-dispersal tendency and sedentary behaviour. however, a subset of adults in both species exhibited a huge propensity to disperse and flew more than 1km. an aggregated distribution of dispersal distances suggested that a behavioural polymorphism might underlie the flight pattern. 4. adults moved preferentially in those spatial directions with neighbouring trees, while prevailing winds did not significantly affect dispersal patterns. the main interspecific differences were as follows: (i) cc performed longer crosswind flights than cw on windy days; (ii) cc tended to fly farther than cw at low temperatures; and (iii) adult feeding improved dispersal but only in small cw females. moon phase did not affect flight activity. 5. the results are discussed in an effort to interpret how these ecological and behavioural differences might shape the life history of both congeneric species when they live in sympatry in dehesa woodlands." +dispersal differences of a pest and a protected cerambyx species (coleoptera: cerambycidae) in oak open woodlands: a mark-recapture comparative study,adult dispersal; air temperature; cerambyx; flight behaviour; oak decline; wind speed,ECOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY,TORRES VILA LM;MENDIOLA DIAZ FJ;SANCHEZ GONZALEZ A,"1. cerambyx welensii (cw) and cerambyx cerdo (cc) are two large saproxylic beetles living on quercus trees in the western palearctic whose current pest and legal status differs markedly. cw is an emerging pest involved in oak decline while cc is an internationally protected species. 2. acquiring knowledge of the ecology, demography and behaviour of cw and cc in forests harbouring mixed populations is a demanding task to optimise their management or protection. here, we report the results of a mark-recapture study on the flight behaviour and dispersal potential of both species in holm oak open woodlands. 3. average flights, dispersal rates and diffusion models were remarkably similar in cw and cc, reflecting a low-dispersal tendency and sedentary behaviour. however, a subset of adults in both species exhibited a huge propensity to disperse and flew more than 1km. an aggregated distribution of dispersal distances suggested that a behavioural polymorphism might underlie the flight pattern. 4. adults moved preferentially in those spatial directions with neighbouring trees, while prevailing winds did not significantly affect dispersal patterns. the main interspecific differences were as follows: (i) cc performed longer crosswind flights than cw on windy days; (ii) cc tended to fly farther than cw at low temperatures; and (iii) adult feeding improved dispersal but only in small cw females. moon phase did not affect flight activity. 5. the results are discussed in an effort to interpret how these ecological and behavioural differences might shape the life history of both congeneric species when they live in sympatry in dehesa woodlands." evaluating camera traps as an alternative to live trapping for estimating the density of snowshoe hares (lepus americanus) and red squirrels (tamiasciurus hudsonicus),camera trapping; density estimation; lepus americanus; snowshoe hare; red squirrel; tamiasciurus hudsonicus,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,VILLETTE P;KREBS CJ;JUNG TS,"live trapping is one of the methods typically used to estimate population densities of small mammals, but this is labor-intensive and can be stressful to individuals. we assess the use of camera trap hit (detection) rates as a noninvasive alternative to live trapping for estimating population densities of snowshoe hares (lepus americanus (erxleben, 1777)) and red squirrels (tamiasciurus hudsonicus (erxleben, 1777))two common small (<= 1.5 kg) mammal species in the boreal forests of northern north america. we compared hit rates from camera trapping to live trapping mark-recapture density estimates and asked if the hit window-the length of time used to group consecutive videos together as single detections or ""hits""-has an effect on the correlation between hit rates and live trapping density estimates. the relationship between hit rate and population density was sensitive to hit window duration for red squirrels with r-2 values ranging from 0.41 to 0.68, and a 5-min hit window generated the highest value. r-2 values for snowshoe hares ranged from 0.70 to 0.90, and a 10-min hit window generated the highest value, but hares were live trapped and filmed only at very low densities. our results indicate that camera trapping is a robust means for estimating the density of red squirrels, but the appropriate hit window duration must be determined empirically if camera trapping data are to be used to monitor populations of this species. additional live trapping and filming of snowshoe hares is required to better assess camera trapping of this species." variation in worldwide incidence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: a meta-analysis,amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; epidemiology; incidence; ethnic groups,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY,MARIN B;BOUMEDIENE F;LOGROSCINO G;COURATIER P;BABRON MC;LEUTENEGGER AL;COPETTI M;PREUX PM;BEGHI E,"background: to assess the worldwide variation of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als) incidence, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of population-based data published to date. methods: we reviewed medline and embase up to june 2015 and included all population-based studies of newly diagnosed als cases, using multiple sources for case ascertainment. als crude and standardized incidence (on age and sex using the us 2010 population) were calculated. random effect meta-analysis and meta-regression were performed using the subcontinent as the main study level covariate. sources of heterogeneity related to the characteristics of the study population and the study methodology were investigated. results: among 3216 records, 44 studies were selected, covering 45 geographical areas in 11 sub-continents. a total of 13 146 als cases and 825 million person-years of follow-up (pyfu) were co-nsidered. the overall pooled worldwide crude als incidence was at 1.75 (1.55-1.96)/100 000 pyfu; 1.68 (1.50-1.85)/100 000 pyfu after standardization. heterogeneity was identified in als standardized incidence between north europe [1.89 (1.46-2.32)/100 000 pyfu] and east asia [0.83 (0.42-1.24)/100 000 pyfu, china and japan p = 0.001] or south asia [0.73 (0.58-0.89)/100 000/pyfu iran, p = 0.02]. conversely, homogeneous rates have been reported in populations from europe, north america and new zealand [pooled als standardized incidence of 1.81 (1.66-1.97)/100 000 pyfu for those areas]. conclusion: this review confirms a heterogeneous distribution worldwide of als, and sets the scene to sustain a collaborative study involving a wide international consortium to investigate the link between ancestry, environment and als incidence." -bias in ring-recovery studies: causes of mortality of little owls athene noctua and implications for population assessment,NA,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,"NAEF-DAENZER B;KORNER-NIEVERGELT F;FIEDLER W;GRUEBLER MU","recoveries of marked animals hold long-term, large-scale information on survival and causes of mortality, but are prone to bias towards dead recoveries and casualties in the range of presence of potential finders. thus, accounting for circumstance-related recovery probabilities is crucial in statistical approaches. for the little owl, a species of conservation concern in central europe, raw ring recoveries suggested a strong human-related impact on survival. we analysed the proportions of the main causes of death using a large sample of radio-tracked birds as a reference. we compared ring recoveries in southern germany collected 1950-2012 (n = 465 dead recoveries of 2007 recoveries of 30 623 ringed birds) with data from a radio-tracking study in the same region 2009-2012 (n = 177 dead recoveries of 377 tagged individuals). two assumptions of multi-state ring recovery modelling were unrealistic. first, not all dispatched rings remained available to potential finders. instead, 34% of tracked birds were displaced to sites where rings were irretrievable, resulting in biased estimates of recovery probability. second, the proportions of irretrievable rings were disproportional, with 48% in predated birds and 5% in human-induced mortality. consequently, the sample of rings from which recoveries were drawn differed from the sample of dispatched rings. accounting for these biases in a multi-state model, we estimated the frequencies of main causes of mortality to 45% for predation, 20% for casualties due to traffic and at buildings and 34% for all other causes. in radio-tracked birds, predation was even more dominant (76%). integrating mark-recapture data and telemetry observations allowed detecting and quantifying so far unknown recovery bias and resulted in improved estimates of key population parameters. the demography of little owls likely depends mainly on predator-prey relationships rather than on human-induced deaths." +bias in ring-recovery studies: causes of mortality of little owls athene noctua and implications for population assessment,NA,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,NAEF DAENZER B;KORNER NIEVERGELT F;FIEDLER W;GRUEBLER MU,"recoveries of marked animals hold long-term, large-scale information on survival and causes of mortality, but are prone to bias towards dead recoveries and casualties in the range of presence of potential finders. thus, accounting for circumstance-related recovery probabilities is crucial in statistical approaches. for the little owl, a species of conservation concern in central europe, raw ring recoveries suggested a strong human-related impact on survival. we analysed the proportions of the main causes of death using a large sample of radio-tracked birds as a reference. we compared ring recoveries in southern germany collected 1950-2012 (n = 465 dead recoveries of 2007 recoveries of 30 623 ringed birds) with data from a radio-tracking study in the same region 2009-2012 (n = 177 dead recoveries of 377 tagged individuals). two assumptions of multi-state ring recovery modelling were unrealistic. first, not all dispatched rings remained available to potential finders. instead, 34% of tracked birds were displaced to sites where rings were irretrievable, resulting in biased estimates of recovery probability. second, the proportions of irretrievable rings were disproportional, with 48% in predated birds and 5% in human-induced mortality. consequently, the sample of rings from which recoveries were drawn differed from the sample of dispatched rings. accounting for these biases in a multi-state model, we estimated the frequencies of main causes of mortality to 45% for predation, 20% for casualties due to traffic and at buildings and 34% for all other causes. in radio-tracked birds, predation was even more dominant (76%). integrating mark-recapture data and telemetry observations allowed detecting and quantifying so far unknown recovery bias and resulted in improved estimates of key population parameters. the demography of little owls likely depends mainly on predator-prey relationships rather than on human-induced deaths." population responses of a native bird species to rat control,abundance estimation; conservation monitoring; forest fragments; mark-recapture; predator control; private land; species recovery; state-space cormack-jolly-seber model,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,ARMSTRONG DP,"invasive-predator control can be beneficial to native species, but it is important to quantify those benefits to ensure they justify the costs. in a previous study (2005-2011), a modified before-after-control-impact (baci) design was used to estimate the effect of rat control in farmland forest fragments on vital rates of north island robins (petroica longipes), a new zealand native bird species often targeted in private restoration initiatives. based on the results, continuous rat control was implemented in 5 fragments predicted to have a high probability of subpopulation growth. here, i report subsequent abundance estimates; the number of robins in those fragments increased from 57 to 134, from 2011-2014, closely matching the prediction of 131 based on the previous vital rate estimates. in comparison, numbers declined or stayed relatively stable over this period in 8 non-controlled fragments, except for 1 fragment that was adjacent to 1 of the controlled fragments and therefore would have received juveniles dispersing from it. therefore, the results illustrate that where there is uncertainty about where to conduct control operations, short-term data on survival and reproduction can be used to predict longer-term effects, allowing predator-control efforts to be done strategically. (c) 2016 the wildlife society. controlling exotic black rats in forest fragments through monthly deployment of toxic cereal baits was highly effective for recovering subpopulations of north island robins, an endemic new zealand passerine. the observed increases in abundance over 3 years were consistent with previous predictions made from survival and reproduction data, indicating that predictions made from such data can be used to strategically adjust predator-control programs." multiple processes drive genetic structure of humpback whale (megaptera novaeangliae) populations across spatial scales,behaviour; humpback whale; international whaling commission; population genetics; southern hemisphere; wildlife management,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,KERSHAW F;CARVALHO I;LOO J;POMILLA C;BEST PB;FINDLAY KP;CERCHIO S;COLLINS T;ENGEL MH;MINTON G;ERSTS P;BARENDSE J;KOTZE PGH;RAZAFINDRAKOTO Y;NGOUESSONO S;MEYER M;THORNTON M;ROSENBAUM HC,"elucidating patterns of population structure for species with complex life histories, and disentangling the processes driving such patterns, remains a significant analytical challenge. humpback whale (megaptera novaeangliae) populations display complex genetic structures that have not been fully resolved at all spatial scales. we generated a data set of nuclear markers for 3575 samples spanning the seven breeding stocks and substocks found in the south atlantic and western and northern indian oceans. for the total sample, and males and females separately, we assessed genetic diversity, tested for genetic differentiation between putative populations and isolation by distance, estimated the number of genetic clusters without a priori population information and estimated rates of gene flow using maximum-likelihood and bayesian approaches. at the ocean basin scale, structure is governed by geographical distance (ibd p<0.05) and female fidelity to breeding areas, in line with current understanding of the drivers of broadscale population structure. consistent with previous studies, the arabian sea breeding stock was highly genetically differentiated (f-st 0.034-0.161; p<0.01 for all comparisons). however, the breeding stock boundary between west south africa and east africa was more porous than expected based on genetic differentiation, cluster and geneflow analyses. instances of male fidelity to breeding areas and relatively high rates of dispersal for females were also observed between the three substocks in the western indian ocean. the relationships between demographic units and current management boundaries may have ramifications for assessments of the status and continued protections of populations still in recovery from commercial whaling." "genetic rescue, the greater prairie chicken and the problem of conservation reliance in the anthropocene",assignment test; genetic mark-recapture; management unit; microsatellite dna; relatedness; tympanuchus cupido pinnatus,ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE,MUSSMANN SM;DOUGLAS MR;ANTHONYSAMY WJB;DAVIS MA;SIMPSON SA;LOUIS W;DOUGLAS ME,"a central question in conservation is how best to manage biodiversity, despite human domination of global processes (= anthropocene). common responses (i.e. translocations, genetic rescue) forestall potential extirpations, yet have an uncertain duration. a textbook example is the greater prairie chicken (grpc: tympanuchus cupido pinnatus), where translocations (1992-1998) seemingly rescued genetically depauperate illinois populations. we re-evaluated this situation after two decades by genotyping 21 microsatellite loci from 1831 shed feathers across six leks in two counties over 4 years (2010-2013). low migration rates (less than 1%) established each county as demographically independent, but with declining-population estimates (4 year average n = 79). leks were genetically similar and significantly bottlenecked, with low effective population sizes (average n-e = 13.1; 4 year n-e/n = 0.166). genetic structure was defined by 12 significantly different family groups, with relatedness r = 0.31 > half-sib r = 0.25. average heterozygosity, indicating short-term survival, did not differ among contemporary, pre-and post-translocated populations, whereas allelic diversity did. our results, the natural history of grpc (i.e. few leks, male dominance hierarchies) and its controlled immigration suggest demographic expansion rather than genetic rescue. legal protection under the endangered species act (esa) may enhance recovery, but could exacerbate political-economic concerns on how best to manage 'conservation-reliant' species, for which grpc is now an exemplar." "population ecology and distribution of pelophylax caralitanus (arikan, 1988), in the lakes district, southwestern anatolia, turkey (anura: ranidae)",amphibia: anura: ranidae: pelophylax caralitanus; ecology; population size; distribution; new locality record; lakes district; beysehir; central south anatolia; turkey,HERPETOZOA,BASKALE E;SOZBILEN D;POLAT F,"this study provides the external features of pelophylax caralitanus (arikan, 1988), sampled in five localities in turkey, estimates its population sizes and presents new distribution sites extending the known range. pelophylax caralitanus exhibit sexual size dimorphism, females become larger than males. in contrast, morphometric characters and coloration patterns do not differ significantly among sexes or localities/populations. the known distributional range of p. caralitanus was extended to the province of burdur, where two new populations were detected. the sizes of these populations, estimated using the capture-marking-recapture (cmr) method, were 5,046 individuals in lake golcuk, 1,198 individuals in the beysehir-kusluca habitat, and 1,211 individuals in a pond at derebucak. this species was found in natural lakes and ponds but also artificial irrigation channels, pools and ponds. all these habitats were covered with aquatic vegetation." estimating the size of the homeless adolescent population across seven cities in cambodia,homeless; adolescents; capture-recapture; cambodia,BMC MEDICAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY,STARK L;RUBENSTEIN BL;PAK K;TAING R;YU G;KOSAL S;ROBERTS L,"background: the government of cambodia has committed to supporting family care for vulnerable children, including homeless populations. collecting baseline data on the numbers and characteristics of homeless adolescents was prioritized to illuminate the scope of the issue, mobilize resources and direct the response. methods: administrative zones across seven cities were purposively selected to cover the main urban areas known to have homeless populations in cambodia. a complete enumeration of homeless individuals between the ages of 13 and 17 was attempted in the selected areas. in addition, a second independent count was conducted to enable a statistical estimation of completeness based on overlap across counts. this technique is known as capture-recapture. adolescents were also interviewed about their schooling, health and other circumstances. results: after adjustment by the capture-recapture corrective multipliers (range: 3.53 - 27.08), the study yielded an estimate of 2,697 13-17 year old homeless adolescents across all seven cities. the total number of homeless boys counted was significantly greater than homeless girls, especially in older ages. conclusions: to the authors' knowledge, this is the first time capture-recapture methods have been applied to a homeless estimation of this scale in a resource-limited setting. findings suggest the number of homeless adolescents in cambodia is much greater than one would expect if relying on single count data alone and that this population faces many hardships." tail regeneration after autotomy revives survival: a case from a long-term monitored lizard population under avian predation,costs of reproduction; defence behaviour; fidelity costs of regeneration; male-biased mortality; predation efficiency; sexual dichromatism,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,LIN JW;CHEN YR;WANG YH;HUNG KC;LIN SM,"caudal autotomy in lizards has intrigued scientists for more than 100 years. because of the relative lack of literature under natural conditions, the complicated association among field autotomy rate, real predation pressure, the long-term cost of tail loss, and the benefit of regeneration remains equivocal. in this study, we conducted a 7-year capture-mark-recapture (cmr) programme with a wild population of a sexually dichromatic lizard, takydromus viridipunctatus. we used autotomy indexes and a contemporary bird census mega-dataset of four predatory birds as predictors to examine the association between tail loss and predation pressure. we further estimated the survival cost of tail loss and alleviation by regeneration under natural conditions through cmr modelling. we found that large and small avian predators affect lizard survival through the following two routes: the larger-sized cattle egret causes direct mortality while the smaller shrikes and kestrels are the major causes of autotomy. following autotomy, the survival rate of tailless individuals over the next month was significantly lower than that of tailed individuals, especially males during the breeding season, which showed a decline of greater than 30%. this sex-related difference further demonstrated the importance of reproductive costs for males in this sexually dichromatic species. however, the risk of mortality returned to baseline after the tails were fully grown. this study indicates the benefit of tail regeneration under natural conditions, which increases our understanding of the cost-benefit dynamics of caudal autotomy and further explains the maintenance of this trait as an evolutionarily beneficial adaption to long-term predator-prey interactions." -estimating carnivore community structures,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,JIMENEZ J;NUNEZ-ARJONA JC;RUEDA C;GONZALEZ LM;GARCIA-DOMINGUEZ F;MUNOZ-IGUALADA J;LOPEZ-BAO JV,"obtaining reliable estimates of the structure of carnivore communities is of paramount importance because of their ecological roles, ecosystem services and impact on biodiversity conservation, but they are still scarce. this information is key for carnivore management: to build support for and acceptance of management decisions and policies it is crucial that those decisions are based on robust and high quality information. here, we combined camera and live-trapping surveys, as well as telemetry data, with spatially-explicit bayesian models to show the usefulness of an integrated multi-method and multi-model approach to monitor carnivore community structures. our methods account for imperfect detection and effectively deal with species with non-recognizable individuals. in our mediterranean study system, the terrestrial carnivore community was dominated by red foxes (0.410 individuals/km(2)); egyptian mongooses, feral cats and stone martens were similarly abundant (0.252, 0.249 and 0.240 individuals/km(2), respectively), whereas badgers and common genets were the least common (0.130 and 0.087 individuals/km(2), respectively). the precision of density estimates improved by incorporating multiple covariates, device operation, and accounting for the removal of individuals. the approach presented here has substantial implications for decision-making since it allows, for instance, the evaluation, in a standard and comparable way, of community responses to interventions." -the integration of mark re-encounter and tracking data to quantify migratory connectivity,integrated model; multi-state model; mark-recapture data; gps tracking; geolocation; data analysis; bayesian methods,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,KORNER-NIEVERGELT F;PREVOT C;HAHN S;JENNI L;LIECHTI F,"animals which spend subsequent seasons in different areas connect geographical regions. the connection between breeding and non-breeding grounds is defined as migratory connectivity. the quantification of such connectivity is important, because movements between different locations can have strong consequences for the moving animal as well as the encountered habitats or ecosystems. connectivity is usually investigated either on the basis of (few unsystematic) re-encounters of (often large numbers of) marked individuals or by observations of a few individuals tracked by remote sensing techniques, i.e. gps or geolocation. the combination of qualitatively different data sets can reduce the limitations of each type of data and thus improve the accuracy of the estimated connectivity parameters considerably. we formally combine individual tracking data and mark re-encounter data in a probabilistic model framework for quantifying connectivity. in a first example, we quantify migratory connectivity of a long-distance passerine migrant based on ring re-encounter and geolocator data. as a second example, we combine re-encounter data of ear-tagged wild boars with gps tracking data to estimate the spatial distribution of wild boars during the hunting and the non-hunting seasons. these two examples illustrate the use of the model in two different framework: 1) long-distance migration and, 2) seasonal (e.g. hunting induced) non-migratory movements. results from the integrated analyses provided more information than the informal comparison of the results from independent analyses on each data set separately. parameter estimates were more precise in the integrated analyses compared to the separate analyses and stronger conclusions could be drawn. the integration of mark re-encounter and tracking data reduces sampling bias and increases the value of both data sets but the weighting of each data set needs further investigation. (c) 2016 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +estimating carnivore community structures,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,JIMENEZ J;NUNEZ ARJONA JC;RUEDA C;GONZALEZ LM;GARCIA DOMINGUEZ F;MUNOZ IGUALADA J;LOPEZ BAO JV,"obtaining reliable estimates of the structure of carnivore communities is of paramount importance because of their ecological roles, ecosystem services and impact on biodiversity conservation, but they are still scarce. this information is key for carnivore management: to build support for and acceptance of management decisions and policies it is crucial that those decisions are based on robust and high quality information. here, we combined camera and live-trapping surveys, as well as telemetry data, with spatially-explicit bayesian models to show the usefulness of an integrated multi-method and multi-model approach to monitor carnivore community structures. our methods account for imperfect detection and effectively deal with species with non-recognizable individuals. in our mediterranean study system, the terrestrial carnivore community was dominated by red foxes (0.410 individuals/km(2)); egyptian mongooses, feral cats and stone martens were similarly abundant (0.252, 0.249 and 0.240 individuals/km(2), respectively), whereas badgers and common genets were the least common (0.130 and 0.087 individuals/km(2), respectively). the precision of density estimates improved by incorporating multiple covariates, device operation, and accounting for the removal of individuals. the approach presented here has substantial implications for decision-making since it allows, for instance, the evaluation, in a standard and comparable way, of community responses to interventions." +the integration of mark re-encounter and tracking data to quantify migratory connectivity,integrated model; multi-state model; mark-recapture data; gps tracking; geolocation; data analysis; bayesian methods,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,KORNER NIEVERGELT F;PREVOT C;HAHN S;JENNI L;LIECHTI F,"animals which spend subsequent seasons in different areas connect geographical regions. the connection between breeding and non-breeding grounds is defined as migratory connectivity. the quantification of such connectivity is important, because movements between different locations can have strong consequences for the moving animal as well as the encountered habitats or ecosystems. connectivity is usually investigated either on the basis of (few unsystematic) re-encounters of (often large numbers of) marked individuals or by observations of a few individuals tracked by remote sensing techniques, i.e. gps or geolocation. the combination of qualitatively different data sets can reduce the limitations of each type of data and thus improve the accuracy of the estimated connectivity parameters considerably. we formally combine individual tracking data and mark re-encounter data in a probabilistic model framework for quantifying connectivity. in a first example, we quantify migratory connectivity of a long-distance passerine migrant based on ring re-encounter and geolocator data. as a second example, we combine re-encounter data of ear-tagged wild boars with gps tracking data to estimate the spatial distribution of wild boars during the hunting and the non-hunting seasons. these two examples illustrate the use of the model in two different framework: 1) long-distance migration and, 2) seasonal (e.g. hunting induced) non-migratory movements. results from the integrated analyses provided more information than the informal comparison of the results from independent analyses on each data set separately. parameter estimates were more precise in the integrated analyses compared to the separate analyses and stronger conclusions could be drawn. the integration of mark re-encounter and tracking data reduces sampling bias and increases the value of both data sets but the weighting of each data set needs further investigation. (c) 2016 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." weakening of the subpolar gyre as a key driver of north atlantic seabird demography: a case study with brunnich's guillemots in svalbard,climate change; regime shift; sea-birds; adult survival; subpolar gyre index; winter north atlantic oscillation; sea surface temperature; uria lomvia; arctic,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,FLUHR J;STROM H;PRADEL R;DURIEZ O;BEAUGRAND G;DESCAMPS S,"the arctic is experiencing environmental changes at unprecedented rates. these changes are spreading throughout the entire food web, affecting apex predators such as seabirds. brunnich's guillemot uria lomvia populations in svalbard archipelago have significantly declined since the mid-1990s. for longlived species such as seabirds, population growth rate is highly sensitive to changes in adult survival rates, and slight changes in survival may have large consequences at the population level. adult survival rates, were estimated for brunnich's guillemots individually marked and monitored from 1986 to 2011 at bjornoya, svalbard. while survival appeared to be repeatedly high (mean +/- se; 95 +/- 1%) from 1986 to 1995-98 (transitional years, when svalbard guillemot colonies started to decline), it dropped by 9-12% over the period 1995-98 to 2011. this decline coincided with the occurrence of an abrupt ecosystem shift in the north atlantic ocean in the mid-1990s and the weakening of the atlantic subpolar gyre. variations in the subpolar gyre index (sgi) were significantly associated with inter-annual variation in guillemot annual survival, and a strong gyre (i.e. cold waters on guillemot wintering grounds) was associated with high adult survival. our results, combined with other studies, suggest that the sgi may be an important global proxy to assess oceanographic conditions and changes in marine ecosystems in the north atlan" "estimates of abundance and trend of chilean blue whales off isla de chiloe, chile",NA,PLOS ONE,VERNAZZANI BG;JACKSON JA;CABRERA E;CARLSON CA;BROWNELL RL,"since 1970, blue whales (balaenoptera musculus) have been seen feeding in the waters off southern chile during the summer and autumn (december to may). investigation of the genetic, acoustic and morphological characteristics of these blue whales shows that they are a distinct but unnamed subspecies, called the chilean blue whales. photo-identification surveys have been conducted in the waters off northwestern isla grande de chiloe, southern chile from 2004-2012 and isla chanaral, central chile in 2012. over this time, 1,070 blue whales were encountered yielding, after photo-quality control, 318 and 267 unique photographs of the left and right side of the flank respectively. using mark-recapture analysis of left and right side photographs collected from isla grande de chiloe (2004-2012), open population models estimate that similar to 570-760 whales are feeding seasonally in this region. popan superpopulation abundance estimates for the same feeding ground in 2012 are 762 (95% confidence intervals, ci = 638-933) and 570 (95% ci 475-705) for left and right side datasets respectively, very similar to results from closed population models. estimates of trend revealed strong variation in abundance, peaking in 2009 and [suggesting] fluctuating use in the survey area over time, likely related to the density of their prey. high inter-annual return rates suggest a degree of site-fidelity of individuals to isla grande de chiloe and that the number of whales using this feeding ground is relatively small." "determinants of vaccination coverage and consequences for rabies control in bali, indonesia",rabies; dogs; vaccination; questionnaire survey; mark-recapture survey; bali; indonesia,FRONTIERS IN VETERINARY SCIENCE,ARIEF RA;HAMPSON K;JATIKUSUMAH A;WIDYASTUTI MDW;SUNANDAR;BASRI C;PUTRA AAG;WILLYANTO I;ESTOEPANGESTIE ATS;MARDIANA IW;KESUMA IKGN;SUMANTRA IP;DOHERTY PF;SALMAN MD;GILBERT J;UNGER F,"maintaining high vaccination coverage is key to successful rabies control, but mass dog vaccination can be challenging and population turnover erodes coverage. declines in rabies incidence following successive island-wide vaccination campaigns in bali suggest that prospects for controlling and ultimately eliminating rabies are good. rabies, however, has continued to circulate at low levels. in the push to eliminate rabies from bali, high coverage needs to be maintained across all areas of the island. we carried out door-to-door (dtd) questionnaire surveys (n = 10,352 dog-owning households) and photographic mark-recapture surveys (536 line transects, 2,597 observations of free-roaming dogs) in 2011-2012 to estimate dog population sizes and assess rabies vaccination coverage and dog demographic characteristics in bali, indonesia. the median number of dogs per subvillage unit (banjar) was 43 (range 0-307) for owned dogs estimated from the dtd survey and 17 (range 0-83) for unconfined dogs (including both owned and unowned) from transects. vaccination coverage of owned dogs was significantly higher in adults (91.4%) compared to juveniles (<1 year, 43.9%), likely due to insufficient targeting of pups and from puppies born subsequent to vaccination campaigns. juveniles had a 10-70 times greater risk of not being vaccinated in urban, suburban, and rural areas [combined odds ratios (ors): 9.9-71.1, 95% cl: 8.6-96.0]. free-roaming owned dogs were also 2-3 times more likely to be not vaccinated compared to those confined (combined ors: 1.9-3.6, 95% cl: 1.4-5.4), with more dogs being confined in urban (71.2%) than in suburban (16.1%) and rural areas (8.0%). vaccination coverage estimates from transects were also much lower (30.9%) than household surveys (83.6%), possibly due to loss of collars used to identify the vaccination status of free-roaming dogs, but these unconfined dogs may also include dogs that were unowned or more difficult to vaccinate. overall, coverage levels were high in the owned dog population, but for future campaigns in bali to have the highest chance of eliminating rabies, concerted effort should be made to vaccinate free-roaming dogs particularly in suburban and rural areas, with advertising to ensure that owners vaccinate pups. long-lasting, cheap, and quick methods are needed to mark vaccinated animals and reassure communities of the reach of vaccination campaigns." estimating the total number of phosphoproteins and phosphorylation sites in eukaryotic proteomes,capture-recapture; curve-fitting; phosphoproteomics; total number of phosphoproteins; total number of phosphorylation sites; yeast; human; mouse; arabidopsis,GIGASCIENCE,VLASTARIDIS P;KYRIAKIDOU P;CHALIOTIS A;DE PEER YV;OLIVER SG;AMOUTZIAS GD,"background: phosphorylation is the most frequent post-translational modification made to proteins and may regulate protein activity as either a molecular digital switch or a rheostat. despite the cornucopia of high-throughput (htp) phosphoproteomic data in the last decade, it remains unclear how many proteins are phosphorylated and how many phosphorylation sites (p-sites) can exist in total within a eukaryotic proteome. we present the first reliable estimates of the total number of phosphoproteins and p-sites for four eukaryotes (human, mouse, arabidopsis, and yeast). results: in all, 187 htp phosphoproteomic datasets were filtered, compiled, and studied along with two low-throughput (ltp) compendia. estimates of the number of phosphoproteins and p-sites were inferred by two methods: capture-recapture, and fitting the saturation curve of cumulative redundant vs. cumulative non-redundant phosphoproteins/p-sites. estimates were also adjusted for different levels of noise within the individual datasets and other confounding factors. we estimate that in total, 13 000, 11 000, and 3000 phosphoproteins and 230 000, 156 000, and 40 000 p-sites exist in human, mouse, and yeast, respectively, whereas estimates for arabidopsis were not as reliable. conclusions: most of the phosphoproteins have been discovered for human, mouse, and yeast, while the dataset for arabidopsis is still far from complete. the datasets for p-sites are not as close to saturation as those for phosphoproteins. integration of the ltp data suggests that current htp phosphoproteomics appears to be capable of capturing 70% to 95% of total phosphoproteins, but only 40% to 60% of total p-sites." -retention of plastic-tipped dart tags in african tigerfish hydrocynus vittatus,capture-mark-recapture; freshwater; tagging; tag retention; namibia,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF AQUATIC SCIENCE,JACOBS FJ;WEYL OLF;LIBALA NS;O'BRIEN GC;DOWNS CT,"estimates of tag retention and tagging-related mortality are essential for mark-recapture experiments. mortality and tag loss were estimated from 15 tigerfish hydrocynus vittatus marked using hallmark model pdl plastic-tipped dart tags released into a 1 730 m(2) pond at kamutjonga inland fisheries institute, namibia, and inspected bi-monthly for the presence or absence of tags. no mortality was observed during the experiment. all marked fish had lost their tags after 10 months and 50% tag loss was estimated at 3.9 months. the high tag loss rate indicates that pdl plastic-tipped dart tags are not suitable for long-term studies on this species." +retention of plastic-tipped dart tags in african tigerfish hydrocynus vittatus,capture-mark-recapture; freshwater; tagging; tag retention; namibia,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF AQUATIC SCIENCE,JACOBS FJ;WEYL OLF;LIBALA NS;O BRIEN GC;DOWNS CT,"estimates of tag retention and tagging-related mortality are essential for mark-recapture experiments. mortality and tag loss were estimated from 15 tigerfish hydrocynus vittatus marked using hallmark model pdl plastic-tipped dart tags released into a 1 730 m(2) pond at kamutjonga inland fisheries institute, namibia, and inspected bi-monthly for the presence or absence of tags. no mortality was observed during the experiment. all marked fish had lost their tags after 10 months and 50% tag loss was estimated at 3.9 months. the high tag loss rate indicates that pdl plastic-tipped dart tags are not suitable for long-term studies on this species." resilience to agricultural habitat fragmentation in an arboreal marsupial,dispersal; home range; phytophthora dieback; population biology; trichosurus vulpecula,AUSTRALIAN MAMMALOGY,MOLLOY SW;DAVIS RA,"the impact of habitat fragmentation on arboreal mammals is poorly understood and potentially greater than for ground-dwelling mammals. we investigated the influence of landscape fragmentation on a generalist arboreal marsupial, the koomal (trichosurus vulpecula hypoleucus), a geographically isolated subspecies of the common brushtail possum endemic to south-western australia. since european settlement this taxon has undergone a significant reduction in range and population. we describe a year-long trapping study, incorporating radio-tracking, of a koomal population in a fragmented agricultural landscape to determine how agriculture and habitat fragmentation affect populations. in all, 61 free-ranging individuals were captured. mark-recapture modelling estimated the population of 28.8 per trapping event with a total population size of 69 individuals having been present in the test landscape during the course of the study. population demographics were comparable with populations found in relatively continuous landscapes. mean home-range size was 8.8 ha of remnant vegetation for males and 7.9 ha for females. home ranges usually incorporated several patches. utilisation of shrublands, wetlands, and areas infested with phytophthora dieback was not observed. individuals required access to a selection of suitable denning trees and distances between patches <100m did not appear to impair movement, with gaps <400m regularly crossed." invasive ants influence native lizard populations,invasive species; recruitment; sceloporus undulatus; solenopsis invicta; survival,ECOSPHERE,DARRACQ AK;SMITH LL;OI DH;CONNER LM;MCCLEERY RA,"the red imported fire ant (solenopsis invicta; hereafter rifa) is an invasive predator found on four continents, namely south america, north america, australia, and asia. red imported fire ants are implicated in the decline of native invertebrates and vertebrates throughout their invaded range. we used the eastern fence lizard (sceloporus undulatus) as a model species to understand the influence of rifas on native reptiles in the southeastern united states. our objective was to quantify the effects of rifas on fence lizard recruitment and survival. we experimentally stocked populations of fence lizards into eight enclosures with either ambient or reduced numbers of rifas from may 2012 to october 2013. fitting link-barker models, we found that the rifa treatment affected fence lizard recruitment (f), but not survival (f). recruitment was 1.6 times greater in the enclosures with reduced numbers of rifas than in those with ambient numbers. red imported fire ants likely affect reptiles with analogous life history strategies to those of fence lizards similarly. consequently, rifas may have undesirable consequences for the biodiversity of reptiles in the southeastern united states and on other continents with established rifa populations." model-based estimators of density and connectivity to inform conservation of spatially structured populations,abundance; conservation planning; density-weighted connectivity; landscape connectivity; landscape design; landscape resistance; potential connectivity; spatial capture-recapture; spatially structured populations,ECOSPHERE,MORIN DJ;FULLER AK;ROYLE JA;SUTHERLAND C,"conservation and management of spatially structured populations is challenging because solutions must consider where individuals are located, but also differential individual space use as a result of landscape heterogeneity. a recent extension of spatial capture-recapture (scr) models, the ecological distance model, uses spatial encounter histories of individuals (e.g., a record of where individuals are detected across space, often sequenced over multiple sampling occasions), to estimate the relationship between space use and characteristics of a landscape, allowing simultaneous estimation of both local densities of individuals across space and connectivity at the scale of individual movement. we developed two model-based estimators derived from the scr ecological distance model to quantify connectivity over a continuous surface: (1) potential connectivity-a metric of the connectivity of areas based on resistance to individual movement; and (2) density-weighted connectivity (dwc)-potential connectivity weighted by estimated density. estimates of potential connectivity and dwc can provide spatial representations of areas that are most important for the conservation of threatened species, or management of abundant populations (i.e., areas with high density and landscape connectivity), and thus generate predictions that have great potential to inform conservation and management actions. we used a simulation study with a stationary trap design across a range of landscape resistance scenarios to evaluate how well our model estimates resistance, potential connectivity, and dwc. correlation between true and estimated potential connectivity was high, and there was positive correlation and high spatial accuracy between estimated dwc and true dwc. we applied our approach to data collected from a population of black bears in new york, and found that forested areas represented low levels of resistance for black bears. we demonstrate that formal inference about measures of landscape connectivity can be achieved from standard methods of studying animal populations which yield individual encounter history data such as camera trapping. resulting biological parameters including resistance, potential connectivity, and dwc estimate the spatial distribution and connectivity of the population within a statistical framework, and we outline applications to many possible conservation and management problems." animal counting toolkit: a practical guide to small-boat surveys for estimating abundance of coastal marine mammals,abundance; boat; bycatch; capacity; conservation; dolphin,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,WILLIAMS R;ASHE E;GAUT K;GRYBA R;MOORE JE;REXSTAD E;SANDILANDS D;STEVENTON J;REEVES RR,"small cetaceans (dolphins and porpoises) face serious anthropogenic threats in coastal habitats. these include bycatch in fisheries; exposure to noise, plastic and chemical pollution; disturbance from boaters; and climate change. generating reliable abundance estimates is essential to assess sustainability of bycatch in fishing gear or any other form of anthropogenic removals and to design conservation and recovery plans for endangered species. cetacean abundance estimates are lacking from many coastal waters of many developing countries. lack of funding and training opportunities makes it difficult to fill in data gaps. even if international funding were found for surveys in developing countries, building local capacity would be necessary to sustain efforts over time to detect trends and monitor biodiversity loss. large-scale, shipboard surveys can cost tens of thousands of us dollars each day. we focus on methods to generate preliminary abundance estimates from low-cost, small-boat surveys that embrace a 'training-while-doing' approach to fill in data gaps while simultaneously building regional capacity for data collection. our toolkit offers practical guidance on simple design and field data collection protocols that work with small boats and small budgets, but expect analysis to involve collaboration with a quantitative ecologist or statistician. our audience includes independent scientists, government conservation agencies, ngos and indigenous coastal communities, with a primary focus on fisheries bycatch. we apply our animal counting toolkit to a small-boat survey in canada's pacific coastal waters to illustrate the key steps in collecting line transect survey data used to estimate and monitor marine mammal abundance." "survival, density, and abundance of common bottlenose dolphins in barataria bay (usa) following the deepwater horizon oil spill",robust design; photo-identification; tursiops truncatus; capture-recapture; spatial-capture model,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,MCDONALD TL;HORNSBY FE;SPEAKMAN TR;ZOLMAN ES;MULLIN KD;SINCLAIR C;ROSEL PE;THOMAS L;SCHWACKE LH,"to assess potential impacts of the deepwater horizon oil spill in april 2010, we conducted boat-based photo-identification surveys for common bottlenose dolphins tursiops truncatus in barataria bay, louisiana, usa (similar to 230 km(2), located 167 km wnw of the spill center). crews logged 838 h of survey effort along pre-defined routes on 10 occasions between late june 2010 and early may 2014. we applied a previously unpublished spatial version of the robust design capture-recapture model to estimate survival and density. this model used photo locations to estimate density in the absence of study area boundaries and to separate mortality from permanent emigration. to estimate abundance, we applied density estimates to saltwater (salinity > similar to 8 ppt) areas of the bay where telemetry data suggested that dolphins reside. annual dolphin survival varied between 0.80 and 0.85 (95% cis varied from 0.77 to 0.90) over 3 yr following the deepwater horizon spill. in 2 non-oiled bays (in florida and north carolina), historic survival averages approximately 0.95. from june to november 2010, abundance increased from 1300 (95% ci +/- similar to 130) to 3100 (95% ci +/- similar to 400), then declined and remained between similar to 1600 and similar to 2400 individuals until spring 2013. in fall 2013 and spring 2014, abundance increased again to approximately 3100 individuals. dolphin abundance prior to the spill was unknown, but we hypothesize that some dolphins moved out of the sampled area, probably northward into marshes, prior to initiation of our surveys in late june 2010, and later immigrated back into the sampled area." -ocelots thrive in a non-typical habitat of northwestern mexico,leopardus pardalis; ocelot survival; density; sonora; mexico; mark-recapture,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,GOMEZ-RAMIREZ MA;GUTIERREZ-GONZALEZ CE;LOPEZ-GONZALEZ CA,"ocelots leopardus pardalis are legally protected in mexico as an endangered species. the main threats throughout the species' range are habitat loss and fragmentation. the ocelot population that inhabits sonora, mexico, is at the northern limit of the species' distribution and knowledge about it is still scarce. we used remote camera data from 2010-2012 and spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models for density estimation, and the barker robust design mark-recapture model to estimate survival, abundance, and density of ocelots in an arid region in northeastern sonora. average apparent survival was 0.65 for females and 0.63 for males; abundance estimates (mean +/- se) ranged from 2.02 +/- 0.13 to 7.06 +/- 0.24 ocelots. average (+/- se) density was 0.63 +/- 0.06 females 100 km(-2) and 0.95 +/- 0.08 males 100 km(-2) using barker robust design, and 0.51 +/- 0.26 females 100 km(-2) and 0.77 +/- 0.25 males 100 km(-2) using the secr. our survival and density estimates are the lowest reported. however, due to the low human population density in our study area, we consider that our findings must be associated with natural processes rather than human-caused disturbance, without dismissing an additive factor by the latter. arid environmental features could have a negative influence on primary productivity and consequently on prey availability, limiting ocelot survival and density in this region. large tracts of unpopulated wildlands over a non-fragmented landscape favor ocelots in this area, and it is important to maintain current habitat conditions for this neotropical species to continue thriving in this region of north america." +ocelots thrive in a non-typical habitat of northwestern mexico,leopardus pardalis; ocelot survival; density; sonora; mexico; mark-recapture,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,GOMEZ RAMIREZ MA;GUTIERREZ GONZALEZ CE;LOPEZ GONZALEZ CA,"ocelots leopardus pardalis are legally protected in mexico as an endangered species. the main threats throughout the species' range are habitat loss and fragmentation. the ocelot population that inhabits sonora, mexico, is at the northern limit of the species' distribution and knowledge about it is still scarce. we used remote camera data from 2010-2012 and spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models for density estimation, and the barker robust design mark-recapture model to estimate survival, abundance, and density of ocelots in an arid region in northeastern sonora. average apparent survival was 0.65 for females and 0.63 for males; abundance estimates (mean +/- se) ranged from 2.02 +/- 0.13 to 7.06 +/- 0.24 ocelots. average (+/- se) density was 0.63 +/- 0.06 females 100 km(-2) and 0.95 +/- 0.08 males 100 km(-2) using barker robust design, and 0.51 +/- 0.26 females 100 km(-2) and 0.77 +/- 0.25 males 100 km(-2) using the secr. our survival and density estimates are the lowest reported. however, due to the low human population density in our study area, we consider that our findings must be associated with natural processes rather than human-caused disturbance, without dismissing an additive factor by the latter. arid environmental features could have a negative influence on primary productivity and consequently on prey availability, limiting ocelot survival and density in this region. large tracts of unpopulated wildlands over a non-fragmented landscape favor ocelots in this area, and it is important to maintain current habitat conditions for this neotropical species to continue thriving in this region of north america." twenty years' monitoring of a population of italian crested newts triturus carnifex: strong site fidelity and shifting population structure in response to restoration,alien species impacts; amphibian decline; belly pattern; capture-mark-recapture; carassius auratus; long term monitoring,ETHOLOGY ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION,MORI E;MENCHETTI M;CANTINI M;BRUNI G;SANTINI G;BERTOLINO S,"human-induced environmental alterations, e.g. the introduction of alien species and the application of management practices, together with climatic change, represent the main threat to worldwide amphibian conservation. long-term monitoring programmes are mandatory to monitor the status of amphibian populations in changing landscapes and climatic conditions. in this study, we showed the population dynamic of the italian crested newts triturus carnifex living in four artificial ponds in central italy over a 20-year period. adult newts were recognised through a capture-mark-recapture protocol, involving the analysis of belly patterns. the first best population model showed a constant newt survival among years and a complete recapture rate; the second supported model showed a sex-dependent survival, with slightly higher values for males with respect to females, and corroborated a complete recapture rate. a high philopatry occurred: we observed less than 10% of individuals dispersing from a birth site to other ponds. in 20 years of continuous monitoring, the population of italian crested newt increased. the removal of goldfish carassius auratus from one of the ponds in 2010 allowed adult newts to overwinter within the pond and to have two reproductive periods, with overwintering larvae after the second spawning." a comparison of four methods to estimate population size of alpine marmot (marmota marmota),abundance; capture-mark-recapture; distance sampling; double-observer; mark-resight; surveys,HYSTRIX-ITALIAN JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,CORLATTI L;NELLI L;BERTOLINI M;ZIBORDI F;PEDROTTI L,"obtaining reliable information on animal abundance in mountainous landscapes is challenging. highly heterogeneous habitats tend to reduce detection probabilities, and the three-dimensional, rugged nature of the terrain poses severe limits to the fulfilment of a number of assumptions underlying several statistical methods. in this study, we compared the performance of 4 methods to estimate population size of alpine marmot (marmota marmota), a highly social semifossorial rodent widely distributed on the european alps. between may and august 2015, in a study area within the stelvio national park (italy), we conducted 8 sessions of capture-mark-recapture, 6 sessions of mark-resight from vantage points, 8 sessions of line distance sampling along 4 transects, and 2 sessions using double-observer methods from vantage points. the minimum number of animals alive, obtained during the mark-resight surveys, was n=54 individuals. capture-mark-recapture models estimated a population size of n=56 individuals (95% ci=45-87); similar, but more precise estimates were obtained with the mark-resight approach (bowden's estimator: n=62, 95% ci=54-71; poisson log-normal estimator: n=62, 95% ci=55-69). line transect distance sampling and double-observer methods were severely biased low (line transect distance sampling: n=24 individuals, 95% ci=19-31; independent double-observer: n=24, 95% ci=22-35; dependent doubleobserver: n=15, 95% ci=15-20). our results suggest that the probabilistic approach based on marked individuals yielded fairly robust estimates of population size. the underestimates obtained using distance sampling and double-observer methods were likely due to the violation of some underlying assumptions. while the topography of the mountainous landscape makes it difficult to randomize the distribution of line transects, the burrowing behaviour of the species is likely to violate the assumption of perfect detection on the transect; in addition, the semifossorial habits of marmots lower their detection probabilities, thus hampering the performance of these methods." -"female color polymorphism of ischnura capreolus hagen, 1861 (odonata: coenagrionidae) with notes on behavior and ontogenetic color changes",damselfly; zygoptera; color change; morph; mark-recapture; dragonfly,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ODONATOLOGY,VILELA DS;RICIOLI LS;DEL-CLARO K;GUILLERMO-FERREIRA R,"polymorphism in coenagrionids is widely known, mainly for ischnura. here, we present the case of i. capreolus, a neotropical species of which, until now, little information concerning color polymorphism and ontogenetic color changes was known. we used a marking and recapture method to evidence ontogenetic coloration changes in females. we show that, in addition to the gynochrome morph, i. capreolus females also exhibit at least one additional morph: an androchrome color pattern. gynochrome females (97.1% of marked females) are green-yellow when young and change to a brownish pattern with age, within a week. androchrome females (2.9% of marked females) exhibit blue coloration, similarly to males. our study provides the first evidence of ontogenetic color change in i. capreolus. furthermore, field observations show that i. capreolus is similar to other ischnura species regarding sexual harassment behavior." +"female color polymorphism of ischnura capreolus hagen, 1861 (odonata: coenagrionidae) with notes on behavior and ontogenetic color changes",damselfly; zygoptera; color change; morph; mark-recapture; dragonfly,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ODONATOLOGY,VILELA DS;RICIOLI LS;DEL CLARO K;GUILLERMO FERREIRA R,"polymorphism in coenagrionids is widely known, mainly for ischnura. here, we present the case of i. capreolus, a neotropical species of which, until now, little information concerning color polymorphism and ontogenetic color changes was known. we used a marking and recapture method to evidence ontogenetic coloration changes in females. we show that, in addition to the gynochrome morph, i. capreolus females also exhibit at least one additional morph: an androchrome color pattern. gynochrome females (97.1% of marked females) are green-yellow when young and change to a brownish pattern with age, within a week. androchrome females (2.9% of marked females) exhibit blue coloration, similarly to males. our study provides the first evidence of ontogenetic color change in i. capreolus. furthermore, field observations show that i. capreolus is similar to other ischnura species regarding sexual harassment behavior." forbidden fruit: human settlement and abundant fruit create an ecological trap for an apex omnivore,apex species; attractive sink; bear; capture-recapture; compensatory immigration hypothesis; huckleberry; maladaptive habitat selection; mark-recapture; population growth; ursus arctos,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,LAMB CT;MOWAT G;MCLELLAN BN;NIELSEN SE;BOUTIN S,"1. habitat choice is an evolutionary product of animals experiencing increased fitness when preferentially occupying high-quality habitat. however, an ecological trap (et) can occur when an animal is presented with novel conditions and the animal's assessment of habitat quality is poorly matched to its resulting fitness. 2. we tested for an et for grizzly (brown) bears using demographic and movement data collected in an area with rich food resources and concentrated human settlement. 3. we derived measures of habitat attractiveness from occurrence models of bear food resources and estimated demographic parameters using dna mark-recapture information collected over 8 years (2006-2013). we then paired this information with grizzly bear mortality records to investigate kill and movement rates. 4. our results demonstrate that a valley high in both berry resources and human density was more attractive than surrounding areas, and bears occupying this region faced 17% lower apparent survival. despite lower fitness, we detected a net flow of bears into the et, which contributed to a study-wide population decline. 5. this work highlights the presence and pervasiveness of an et for an apex omnivore that lacks the evolutionary cues, under human-induced rapid ecological change, to assess trade-offs between food resources and human-caused mortality, which results in maladaptive habitat selection." multiple sclerosis epidemiology in europe,administrative data; epidemiology; europe; multiple sclerosis; registries,MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS: BENCH TO BEDSIDE: GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES ON A SILENT KILLER,BEZZINI D;BATTAGLIA MA,"multiple sclerosis is characterized by a non-homogeneous distribution around the world. some authors in past described a latitude gradient, with increasing risk from the equator to north and south poles, but this theory is still controversial. regarding europe, there are many articles in the literature concerning the epidemiology of this disease but, unfortunately, they are not always comparable due to different methodologies, they do not cover all countries in the continent, and most of them reported data of small areas and rarely at a national level. in 2012 there were 20 national registries that could help to describe the epidemiology of the disease and, in addition, there is an european register for multiple sclerosis that collect data from already existing national or regional ms registries and databases. another valid alternative to obtain epidemiological data, also at national level, in a routinely and cost-saving way is through administrative data that are of increasing interest in the last years." multinomial n-mixture models improve the applicability of electrofishing for developing population estimates of stream-dwelling smallmouth bass,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,MOLLENHAUER R;BREWER SK,"failure to account for variable detection across survey conditions constrains progressive streamecology and can lead to erroneous stream fish management and conservation decisions. in addition to variable detection's confounding long-term stream fish population trends, reliable abundance estimates across a wide range of survey conditions are fundamental to establishing species-environment relationships. despite major advancements in accounting for variable detection when surveying animal populations, these approaches remain largely ignored by stream fish scientists, and cpue remains the most common metric used by researchers and managers. one notable advancement for addressing the challenges of variable detection is the multinomial n-mixture model. multinomial n-mixture models use a flexible hierarchical framework to model the detection process across sites as a function of covariates; they also accommodate common fisheries survey methods, such as removal and capture-recapture. effective monitoring of stream-dwelling smallmouth bassmicropterus dolomieu populations has long been challenging; therefore, our objective was to examine the use of multinomial n-mixture models to improve the applicability of electrofishing for estimating absolute abundance. we sampled smallmouth bass populations by using tow-barge electrofishing across a range of environmental conditions in streams of the ozark highlands ecoregion. using an information-theoretic approach, we identified effort, water clarity, wetted channel width, and water depth as covariates that were related to variable smallmouth bass electrofishing detection. smallmouth bass abundance estimates derived from our top model consistently agreed with baseline estimates obtained via snorkel surveys. additionally, confidence intervals from the multinomial n-mixture models were consistently more precise than those of unbiased petersen capture-recapture estimates due to the dependency among data sets in the hierarchical framework. we demonstrate the application of this contemporary population estimation method to address a longstanding stream fish management issue. we also detail the advantages and trade-offs of hierarchical population estimation methods relative to cpue and estimation methods that model each site separately." @@ -1207,14 +1208,14 @@ thirty years of progeny from chao's inequality: estimating and comparing richnes comparison of methods for estimating amur tiger abundance,NA,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,RILEY M;SOUTYRINA S;MIQUELLE D;HAYWARD G;GOODRICH J;BUSKIRK S,"the amur tiger panthera tigris altaica is endangered throughout its range. estimating abundance to monitor population trends is needed to judge success of conservation efforts. however, low densities and elusive behavior make precise estimates difficult to achieve. managers must employ sampling methods that maximize precision while remaining feasible under constraints inherent to areas tigers inhabit. we applied camera trap, hair snare, dna collection, scent-matching dog, morphometric track identification and track survey methods and developed a rubric to evaluate their efficacy in estimating tiger abundance in russia. we conducted sampling over the course of one year in sikhote-alin biosphere zapovednik (sabz). we ranked candidate methods using logistical, statistical and cost criteria to evaluate their efficacy for monitoring tiger numbers. due to logistical and technical constraints, we relied on data from a parallel study to derive three statistical criteria for the dna collection method. camera traps, dna collection, and track surveys were the only methods with sufficient sample sizes to estimate abundance for each sampling session during which the method was tested. dna collection and camera traps were promising statistically, though poor-performing for logistics and cost. technical improvements in camera trap design since the time of this study may improve the method's statistical and cost performance compared to our evaluation. conversely, track surveys were most efficient logistically and financially, but poor statistically. method choice for any given monitoring situation should consider local conditions and the specific objectives of the monitoring program in light of all three criteria - statistical, logistical and cost. failure in any of these areas can lead to failure of a monitoring program." "population size and structure of the african softshell turtle, trionyx triunguis, in dalaman, southwestern turkey",brackish water; conservation; iucn red list; jolly-seber; mark-recapture,ZOOLOGY IN THE MIDDLE EAST,AKCINAR SC;TASKAVAK E,"we assessed the size of the population of the african softshell turtle, trionyx triunguis, in dalaman (mugla, turkey), which is considered to be the largest population of the species in the mediterranean, by using the jolly-seber mark-recapture method. a total of 415 individuals were caught during the summer months of 2009 to 2011, of which 148 were recaptures. from 267 marked individuals, 148 (55%) were male, 69 (26%) were female and 50 (19%) were juveniles and subadults of indeterminate sex. the male: female ratio was calculated to be 2.14:1. by using model a' of the jolly-seber mark-recapture method, which includes deaths but no immigration, the mean population size in kukurt and kucukdalyan (kargin) lakes, together with tersakan and taslicay creeks, were estimated to be 396 +/- 36. based on this estimation, the population density was calculated to be 14 turtles/ha. approximately 67.4 % of the estimated population was marked. the mean capture probability (p) and mean survival ratio (phi) were 0.094 +/- 0.009 and 0.957 +/- 0.076, respectively. our results showed that the species' population size is larger than previously estimated based on visual counts. the status ""vulnerable"" c2a of the iucn red data book categories seems therefore more appropriate for the mediterranean subpopulation of trionyx triunguis than ""endangered"" c2a." how many laysan teal anas laysanensis are on midway atoll? methods for monitoring abundance after reintroduction,NA,WILDFOWL,REYNOLDS MH;COURTOT KN;HATFIELD JS,"wildlife managers often request a simple approach to monitor the status of species of concern. in response to that need, we used eight years of monitoring data to estimate population size and test the validity of an index for monitoring accurately the abundance of reintroduced, endangered laysan teal anas laysanensis. the population was established at midway atoll in the hawaiian archipelago after 42 wild birds were translocated from laysan island during 2004-2005. we fitted 587 birds with unique markers during 2004-2015, recorded 21,309 sightings until march 2016, and conducted standardised survey counts during 2007-2015. a modified lincoln-petersen mark-resight estimator and ancova models were used to test the relationship between survey counts, seasonal detectability, and population abundance. differences were found between the breeding and non-breeding seasons in detection and how maximum counts recorded related to population estimates. the results showed strong, positive correlations between the seasonal maximum counts and population estimates. the ancova models supported the use of standardised bi-monthly counts of unmarked birds as a valid index to monitor trends among years within a season at midway atoll. the translocated population increased to 661 adult and juvenile birds (95% ci = 608-714) by 2010, then declined by 38% between 2010 and 2012 after the tohoku japan earthquake-generated tsunami inundated 41% of the atoll and triggered an avian botulism type c clostridium botulinum outbreak. following another severe botulism outbreak during 2015, the population experienced a 37% decline. data indicated that the midway atoll population, like the founding laysan island population, is susceptible to catastrophic population declines. consistent standardised monitoring using simple counts, in place of mark-recapture and resightings surveys, can be used to evaluate population status over the long-term. we estimate there were 314-435 laysan teal (95% ci for population estimate; point estimate = 375 individuals) at midway atoll in 2015; c.50% of the global population. in comparison, the most recent estimate for numbers on laysan island was of 339 individuals in 2012 ( 95% ci = 265-413). we suggest that this approach can be used to validate a survey index for any marked, reintroduced resident wildlife population." -spatial mark-resight models to estimate feral pig population density,camera traps; spatial mark-resight; smr; sus scrofa,HYSTRIX-ITALIAN JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,JIMENEZ J;HIGUERO R;CHARRE-MEDELLIN JF;ACEVEDO P,"population size is a highly important parameter for wildlife management and conservation. however, its estimation can be challenging when a portion of the population is undetectable. spatially explicit capture-recapture models are a precise approach to estimate wildlife population density while accounting for imperfect detection, but all animals must be individually identifiable. spatial mark-resight models (smr) allow the estimation of population sizes when only some individuals can be identified. this is the case in feral pigs (sus scrofa), where some individuals are recognizable by natural marks. we compared two smr approaches to estimate feral pig population density: smr for an unknown number of marked individuals (smr-um) and smr for a known number of marked individuals (smr-km). both approaches are applicable in species with some individuals recognisable by natural marks, such as feral pigs. the smr-km is similar to a process of capture-mark-recapture of fewer individuals, which can be used in species with non-recognisable individuals (e.g., wild boar, s. scrofa). first, we fitted a smr-um using the complete capture history (individuals/traps/days) for all recognisable individuals (n=33) and the latent capture history (trapsdays) for unmarked individuals throughout the entire sampling occasion (66 days). secondly, we fitted smr-km dividing the sampling occasions into two periods: the sighting period (25 days) to identify individuals (n=13), and the resighting period (41 days) in which we used the complete capture and latent capture histories of the marked and unmarked individuals, respectively. we estimated very similar densities with the two approaches for feral pigs in our study area: 13.27 (sd=3.07) (8.12-20.02 95% bci) and 12.87 (sd=2.21) (8.96-17.59 95% bci) pigs/km(2), for smr-um and smr-km, respectively. our results indicate that smr models are an effective tool to monitor feral pig populations, as well as similar non-individually identifiable species, by tagging a small sample of the population." -non-invasive genotyping and spatial mark-recapture methods to estimate european pine marten density in forested landscapes,non-invasive genotyping; elusive species; secr modelling; population density; forest fragmentation,HYSTRIX-ITALIAN JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,KUBASIEWICZ LM;QUINE CP;SUMMERS RW;COOPE R;COTTRELL JE;A'HARA SW;PARK KJ,"accurate wildlife population density estimates are important for conservation purposes, but can be difficult to obtain where species are elusive or rare. we use individual genotypes derived from hair samples and spatially explicit capture recapture (secr) models to estimate the population density of european pine marten (martes manes) and examine the effects of forest fragmentation on population size. we take the first steps towards linking the number of scats in an area to population density, which may eventually negate the need for expensive genetic analyses in the future. population density estimates ranged from 0.07 km(-2)(95% ci 0.03-0.16) to 0.38 km(-2)(95% ci 0.11-1.07), which were mid to low compared to other estimates from scotland. we found support for the previous finding that pine marten density in scotland increases with forest fragmentation up to a threshold level (20-35% forest cover), beyond which it decreases. we found a non-linear relationship between scat counts and population density, although this relationship may be biased by factors not included in the analysis and should be viewed with caution. following the recent re-inforcement of pine martens to wales, non-invasive genetic sampling for population estimation may provide an effective way of monitoring their progress." +spatial mark-resight models to estimate feral pig population density,camera traps; spatial mark-resight; smr; sus scrofa,HYSTRIX-ITALIAN JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,JIMENEZ J;HIGUERO R;CHARRE MEDELLIN JF;ACEVEDO P,"population size is a highly important parameter for wildlife management and conservation. however, its estimation can be challenging when a portion of the population is undetectable. spatially explicit capture-recapture models are a precise approach to estimate wildlife population density while accounting for imperfect detection, but all animals must be individually identifiable. spatial mark-resight models (smr) allow the estimation of population sizes when only some individuals can be identified. this is the case in feral pigs (sus scrofa), where some individuals are recognizable by natural marks. we compared two smr approaches to estimate feral pig population density: smr for an unknown number of marked individuals (smr-um) and smr for a known number of marked individuals (smr-km). both approaches are applicable in species with some individuals recognisable by natural marks, such as feral pigs. the smr-km is similar to a process of capture-mark-recapture of fewer individuals, which can be used in species with non-recognisable individuals (e.g., wild boar, s. scrofa). first, we fitted a smr-um using the complete capture history (individuals/traps/days) for all recognisable individuals (n=33) and the latent capture history (trapsdays) for unmarked individuals throughout the entire sampling occasion (66 days). secondly, we fitted smr-km dividing the sampling occasions into two periods: the sighting period (25 days) to identify individuals (n=13), and the resighting period (41 days) in which we used the complete capture and latent capture histories of the marked and unmarked individuals, respectively. we estimated very similar densities with the two approaches for feral pigs in our study area: 13.27 (sd=3.07) (8.12-20.02 95% bci) and 12.87 (sd=2.21) (8.96-17.59 95% bci) pigs/km(2), for smr-um and smr-km, respectively. our results indicate that smr models are an effective tool to monitor feral pig populations, as well as similar non-individually identifiable species, by tagging a small sample of the population." +non-invasive genotyping and spatial mark-recapture methods to estimate european pine marten density in forested landscapes,non-invasive genotyping; elusive species; secr modelling; population density; forest fragmentation,HYSTRIX-ITALIAN JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,KUBASIEWICZ LM;QUINE CP;SUMMERS RW;COOPE R;COTTRELL JE;A HARA SW;PARK KJ,"accurate wildlife population density estimates are important for conservation purposes, but can be difficult to obtain where species are elusive or rare. we use individual genotypes derived from hair samples and spatially explicit capture recapture (secr) models to estimate the population density of european pine marten (martes manes) and examine the effects of forest fragmentation on population size. we take the first steps towards linking the number of scats in an area to population density, which may eventually negate the need for expensive genetic analyses in the future. population density estimates ranged from 0.07 km(-2)(95% ci 0.03-0.16) to 0.38 km(-2)(95% ci 0.11-1.07), which were mid to low compared to other estimates from scotland. we found support for the previous finding that pine marten density in scotland increases with forest fragmentation up to a threshold level (20-35% forest cover), beyond which it decreases. we found a non-linear relationship between scat counts and population density, although this relationship may be biased by factors not included in the analysis and should be viewed with caution. following the recent re-inforcement of pine martens to wales, non-invasive genetic sampling for population estimation may provide an effective way of monitoring their progress." data quality in rare diseases registries,rare diseases registries; quality assurance plan; data quality indicators; public health registry; clinical research registry; validity,"RARE DISEASES EPIDEMIOLOGY: UPDATE AND OVERVIEW, 2ND EDITION",KODRA Y;DE LA PAZ MP;COI A;SANTORO M;BIANCHI F;AHMED F;RUBINSTEIN YR;WEINBACH J;TARUSCIO D,"in the field of rare diseases, registries are considered power tool to develop clinical research, to facilitate the planning of appropriate clinical trials, to improve patient care and healthcare planning. therefore high quality data of rare diseases registries is considered to be one of the most important element in the establishment and maintenance of a registry. data quality can be defined as the totality of features and characteristics of data set that bear on its ability to satisfy the needs that result from the intended use of the data. in the context of registries, the 'product' is data, and quality refers to data quality, meaning that the data coming into the registry have been validated, and ready for use for analysis and research. determining the quality of data is possible through data assessment against a number of dimensions: completeness, validity; coherence and comparability; accessibility; usefulness; timeliness; prevention of duplicate records. many others factors may influence the quality of a registry: development of standardized case report form and security/safety controls of informatics infrastructure. with the growing number of rare diseases registries being established, there is a need to develop a quality validation process to evaluate the quality of each registry. a clear description of the registry is the first step when assessing data quality or the registry evaluation system. here we report a template as a guide for helping registry owners to describe their registry." population ecology of a cryptic arboreal snake (hoplocephalus bitorquatus),capture-mark-recapture; cormack-jolly-seber; elapidae; population estimate; von bertalaffy growth modelling,AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,SHELTON MB;GOLDINGAY RL;PHILLIPS SS,"biologists have traditionally been reluctant to study arboreal snakes due to low rates of capture. overlooking such taxa can mislead interpretations of population trends for data-deficient species. we used regularly spaced transect searches and standard capture-mark-recapture techniques to describe population structure, growth rates, survival and capture probability in a population of the pale-headed snake (hoplocephalus bitorquatus) in southern queensland. we obtained data from 194 captures of 113 individual snakes between 2009 and 2015. using the cormack-jolly-seber method, we estimated apparent annual survival in subadult snakes at 0.23 +/- 0.01 (s.e.) and 0.81 +/- 0.08 for adults. capture probability was estimated at 0.16 +/- 0.14 per session in subadult snakes and 0.33 +/- 0.06 for adults. within the red gum forests of our study site, we estimate pale-headed snake density at similar to 13 +/- 7 ha(-1). using von bertalanffy growth modelling, we predict that snakes reach sexual maturity after about four years and may live for up to 20. our results suggest that the species is a 'k' strategist, characterised by slow maturation and low fecundity. these traits suggest that populations will recover slowly following decline, exacerbating the risk of local extinction." population density of the eastern pygmy-possum in a heath-woodland habitat,NA,AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,GOLDINGAY RL;KEOHAN J,"the eastern pygmy-possum (cercartetus nanus) has posed a challenge in attempts to describe its population density due to low rates of capture, preference for patchy habitats and periodic influxes of subadult individuals. we conducted a mark-recapture study of this species using a grid of nest boxes in a 9-ha patch of banksia heath-woodland. we captured 54 adults across the two years of our study. we estimated the density of adult pygmy-possums to be 1.5 4.2 ha(-1) from different population models. this is substantially lower than previous estimates in equivalent habitat because we focussed on adults and recognised that they were not confined to the area bounded by our grid. we captured 36 subadults over the two years but they could not be reliably modelled due to extremely low recapture rates, which reflect high rates of dispersal and also mortality. for this reason, only the number of adults should be used to characterise populations of this species. further study is required to investigate population dynamics over time and to describe the density of eastern pygmy-possums in other habitats." using the capture-recapture method to estimate the human immunodeficiency virus-positive population,capture-recapture method; hiv seropositivity; linear models; iran,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND HEALTH,POOROLAJAL J;MOHAMMADI Y;FARZINARA F,"objectives: the capture-recapture method was applied to estimate the number of human immunodeficiency virus (hiv)-positive individuals not registered with any data sources. methods: this cross-sectional study was conducted in lorestan province, in the west of iran, in 2016. three incomplete sources of hiv-positive individuals, with partially overlapping data, were used, including: (a) transfusion center, (b) volunteer counseling and testing centers (vctcs), and (c) prison. the 3-source capture-recapture method, using a log-linear model, was applied for data analysis. the akaike information criterion and the bayesian information criterion were used for model selection. results: of the 2,456 hiv-positive patients registered in these 3 data sources, 1,175 (47.8%) were identified in transfusion center, 867 (35.3%) in vctcs, and 414 (16.8%) in prison. after the exclusion of duplicate entries, 2,281 hiv-positive patients remained. based on the capture-recapture method, 14,868 (95% confidence interval, 9,923 to 23,427) hiv-positive individuals were not identified in any of the registries. therefore, the real number of hiv-positive individuals was estimated to be 17,149, and the overall completeness of the 3 registries was estimated to be around 13.3%. conclusions: based on capture-recapture estimates, a huge number of hiv-positive individuals are not registered with any of the provincial data sources. this is an urgent message for policymakers who plan and provide health care services for hiv-positive patients. although the capture-recapture method is a useful statistical approach for estimating unknown populations, due to the assumptions and limitations of the method, the population size may be overestimated as it seems possible in our results." -assessment of the long-tailed goral (naemorhedus caudatus: bovidae) population status in the sikhote-alin reserve using camera-traps,abundance; long-tailed goral; naemorhedus caudatus; photo-trap monitoring; photo-accounting; photo-traps; population density; sex-age population structure,"NATURE CONSERVATION RESEARCH",ZAUMYSLOVA OY;BONDARCHUK SN,"the long-tailed goral (naemorhedus caudatus) is a rare mountain ungulate animal species with a mosaic range. in the sikhote-alin reserve, the goral is located at the northern limit of its distribution. the main part of its population is concentrated in the coastal area, in the abrek natural landmark. in the early xx century, the goral occupied another small area along the coast - 20 km south of the abrek natural landmark. currently, the total area of species' habitats is only 7.1 km(2). the aim of this study was to assess the population size, population density and some demographic parameters of the goral population. also, we aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the photo-trap method which is a new approach to the study and monitoring of this rare species. accounting studies in the abrek natural landmark were carried out in october 2014 - january 2015 (1401 trap-days); also, at the same time we worked in the second area during three seasons (2014-2017, 1326 trap-days). estimation of the abundance and annual survival of the goral has been carried out using stochastic << capture - recapture >> models presented in the software mark. in the abrek natural landmark for an effective area of 4 km(2) (63% of this habitat's area), the average density of the goral population was 15.4 animals per km(2) (ci 95% = 14.6-18.2 individuals per km(2)), in the second area (0.7 km(2)) completely accounted - 21.0 individuals per km(2) (ci 95% = 20.1-28.6 individuals per km(2)). the total abundance of goral individuals in the reserve remains, apparently, at the level of the late 1980s. and currently it is about 110-140 individuals. according to our preliminary data, the total annual survival in the first year was 0.73 (ci 95% = 0.41-0.91), and by the end of the second year it was 0.72 (ci 95% = 0.31-0.93). female animals have prevailed in the population structure, and the sex ratio for adult animals was 1:1.5. the fertility rate was 0.61. in comparison with the data obtained in the late 1970s, currently the age and sex structure of the goral population has changed somewhat, and the rate of reproduction has decreased. the use of photo-traps significantly improves the quality of the goral population monitoring. however, photo-trap monitoring is a fairly expensive and time-consuming process. so it is advisable to apply this method in habitats which are most important for conservation of this rare species." -"estimating population parameters of longsnout seahorses, hippocampus reidi (teleostei: syngnathidae) through mark-recapture",capture probability; emigration probability; population ecology; robust design; survival rate,NEOTROPICAL ICHTHYOLOGY,SIQUEIRA AC;QUIMBAYO JP;CANTOR M;SILVEIRA RB;DAURA-JORGE FG,"estimating population parameters is essential for understanding the ecology of species, which ultimately helps to assess their conservation status. the seahorse hippocampus reidi is directly exposed to anthropogenic threats along the brazilian coast, but the species still figures as data deficient (dd) at iucn's red list. to provide better information on the ecology of this species, we studied how population parameters vary over time in a natural subtropical environment. by combing mark-recapture models for open and closed populations, we estimated abundance, survival rate, emigration probability, and capture probability. we marked 111 individuals, which showed a 1: 1 sex ratio, and an average size of 10.5 cm. the population showed high survival rate, low temporary emigration probability and variable capture probability and abundance. our models considering relevant biological criteria illuminate the relatively poorly known population ecology and life history of seahorses. it is our hope that this study inspires the use of mark-recapture methods in other populations of h. reidi in a collective effort to properly assess their conservation status." +assessment of the long-tailed goral (naemorhedus caudatus: bovidae) population status in the sikhote-alin reserve using camera-traps,abundance; long-tailed goral; naemorhedus caudatus; photo-trap monitoring; photo-accounting; photo-traps; population density; sex-age population structure,NATURE CONSERVATION RESEARCH,ZAUMYSLOVA OY;BONDARCHUK SN,"the long-tailed goral (naemorhedus caudatus) is a rare mountain ungulate animal species with a mosaic range. in the sikhote-alin reserve, the goral is located at the northern limit of its distribution. the main part of its population is concentrated in the coastal area, in the abrek natural landmark. in the early xx century, the goral occupied another small area along the coast - 20 km south of the abrek natural landmark. currently, the total area of species' habitats is only 7.1 km(2). the aim of this study was to assess the population size, population density and some demographic parameters of the goral population. also, we aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the photo-trap method which is a new approach to the study and monitoring of this rare species. accounting studies in the abrek natural landmark were carried out in october 2014 - january 2015 (1401 trap-days); also, at the same time we worked in the second area during three seasons (2014-2017, 1326 trap-days). estimation of the abundance and annual survival of the goral has been carried out using stochastic << capture - recapture >> models presented in the software mark. in the abrek natural landmark for an effective area of 4 km(2) (63% of this habitat's area), the average density of the goral population was 15.4 animals per km(2) (ci 95% = 14.6-18.2 individuals per km(2)), in the second area (0.7 km(2)) completely accounted - 21.0 individuals per km(2) (ci 95% = 20.1-28.6 individuals per km(2)). the total abundance of goral individuals in the reserve remains, apparently, at the level of the late 1980s. and currently it is about 110-140 individuals. according to our preliminary data, the total annual survival in the first year was 0.73 (ci 95% = 0.41-0.91), and by the end of the second year it was 0.72 (ci 95% = 0.31-0.93). female animals have prevailed in the population structure, and the sex ratio for adult animals was 1:1.5. the fertility rate was 0.61. in comparison with the data obtained in the late 1970s, currently the age and sex structure of the goral population has changed somewhat, and the rate of reproduction has decreased. the use of photo-traps significantly improves the quality of the goral population monitoring. however, photo-trap monitoring is a fairly expensive and time-consuming process. so it is advisable to apply this method in habitats which are most important for conservation of this rare species." +"estimating population parameters of longsnout seahorses, hippocampus reidi (teleostei: syngnathidae) through mark-recapture",capture probability; emigration probability; population ecology; robust design; survival rate,NEOTROPICAL ICHTHYOLOGY,SIQUEIRA AC;QUIMBAYO JP;CANTOR M;SILVEIRA RB;DAURA JORGE FG,"estimating population parameters is essential for understanding the ecology of species, which ultimately helps to assess their conservation status. the seahorse hippocampus reidi is directly exposed to anthropogenic threats along the brazilian coast, but the species still figures as data deficient (dd) at iucn's red list. to provide better information on the ecology of this species, we studied how population parameters vary over time in a natural subtropical environment. by combing mark-recapture models for open and closed populations, we estimated abundance, survival rate, emigration probability, and capture probability. we marked 111 individuals, which showed a 1: 1 sex ratio, and an average size of 10.5 cm. the population showed high survival rate, low temporary emigration probability and variable capture probability and abundance. our models considering relevant biological criteria illuminate the relatively poorly known population ecology and life history of seahorses. it is our hope that this study inspires the use of mark-recapture methods in other populations of h. reidi in a collective effort to properly assess their conservation status." "the stock assessment of crayfish (astacus leptodactylus eschscholtz, 1823) in the keban dam lake",mark-recapture; schnabel method; stock density; cpue,TURKISH JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,DEMIROL F;YUKSEL F;GUNDUZ F;BERI A;GULER M;YILDIRIM T;COBAN MZ,"in this study, estimating of catchable stock size, stock density and the amount of annual allowable catches of crayfish population in the keban dam lake was aimed. the schnabel method, one of the multiple marking methods, was used to estimate crayfish stock size. the caught crayfish were branded by an electric soldering iron. mean weight of crayfish that have the minimum allowable length (tl >= 10 cm) was detected as 41 g and catch per unit effort (cpue) was calculated to be 0.13 crayfish/fyke-net/day both 2012 and 2013. it was determined that the density of crayfish that have greater than (or equal to) total length of 10 cm was 0.91 individual per m(2) for 2012 and 1.07 individual per m(2) for 2013. accordingly, the biomass of crayfish that have minimum landing size (tl >= 10 cm) was estimated to be 80258 kg for 2012 and 74671 kg for 2013. the total amount of annual allowable catch in the keban dam lake was estimated at 26.7 tons. for individual regions it reached: 7.1 tons for agin, 6 tons for keban, 7.7 tons for cemisgezek and 5.9 tons for ova fishing regions." "age and growth of narrow-barred spanish mackerel scomberomorus commerson in the coastal waters of southern mozambique and kwazulu-natal, south africa",back-calculation; growth estimates; otolith ageing; recreational fishery; schnute model; scombridae; sex-specific growth; tag-recapture data,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,LEE B;MANN BQ,"the narrow-barred spanish mackerel scomberomorus commerson is one of the most important linefish species caught in kwazulu-natal and southern mozambique waters, forming the basis of important commercial, artisanal and recreational fisheries. a total of 439 s. commerson were sampled along the east coast of southern africa (kwazulu-natal, south africa, and southern mozambique) between april 2011 and march 2012. retrospective length-at-age data observed from whole otoliths were used to compare and describe sex-specific growth. growth rates obtained from otolith-derived data were compared with those estimated from 29 tag-recaptured fish. overall, ages ranged from 0.48 to 14.6 years for females and 0.4 to 13.57 years for males. otolith readings yielded an average percent error of 11.21%, lower than recorded in a previous study from the region. marginal zone analysis provided strong evidence that one translucent and one opaque growth zone were laid down annually. schnute growth-function parameters indicated significant differences in growth between sexes. females approached their mean asymptotic length at a faster rate, and grew to a greater mean length-at-age, relative to males. growth in both sexes was rapid, achieving 67.46 cm fl (females) and 65.4 cm fl (males) in their first year of life. growth rates obtained from tag-recaptured s. commerson indicated slower growth for smaller/younger fish up until 70 cm fl after which growth was very similar to that observed from otolith-derived data. the results of this study provide accurate, validated life-history parameters for king mackerel that are important for the assessment of stock status in the region." estimate of the prevalence of subjects with gambling-related problems requiring treatment: a study in northern italy,pathological gambling; prevalence; mental health; alcohol; substance abuse,ANNALI DELL ISTITUTO SUPERIORE DI SANITA,PAVARIN RM;ZENESINI C;FIORITTI A,"this study analyzes the data related to subjects who for the first time turned to a hospital or to a public treatment service dedicated to drug addicts or to a community mental health center for problems related to pathological gambling in the metropolitan area of bologna (northern italy) in the period 2000/2015. the aims were to describe characteristics and problems of pathological gamblers (pgs), and to estimate the prevalence of pgs using the capture-recapture method. four hundred and ninety-five residents were identified, with an estimate of 1570 pgs and a prevalence of 1.78 per 1000. we highlight a high number of new cases in the period after 2010. most patients are males, aged from 40 to 50 years, 12% were born abroad, one in three suffers from other mental disorders, 9% has alcohol dependence, 8% drug dependence. we should point out the low level of education and the high number of unemployed subjects." @@ -1226,30 +1227,30 @@ demographic parameters of the squirrel glider (petaurus norfolcensis) in an urba "accessing camera trap survey feasibility for estimating blastocerus dichotomus (cetartiodactyla, cervidae) demographic parameters",aerial survey; capture-recapture; distance sampling; population estimate; sex ratio,IHERINGIA SERIE ZOOLOGIA,PERES PHF;POLVERINI MS;OLIVEIRA ML;DUARTE JMB,"demographic information is the basis for evaluating and planning conservation strategies for an endangered species. however, in numerous situations there are methodological or financial limitations to obtain such information for some species. the marsh deer, an endangered neotropical cervid, is a challenging species to obtain biological information. to help achieve such aims, the study evaluated the applicability of camera traps to obtain demographic information on the marsh deer compared to the traditional aerial census method. fourteen camera traps were installed for three months on the capao da cruz floodplain, in state of sao paulo, and ten helicopter flyovers were made along a 13-kilometer trajectory to detect resident marsh deer. in addition to counting deer, the study aimed to identify the sex, age group and individual identification of the antlered males recorded. population estimates were performed using the capture-mark-recapture method with the camera trap data and by the distance sampling method for aerial observation data. the costs and field efforts expended for both methodologies were calculated and compared. twenty independent photographic records and 42 sightings were obtained and generated estimates of 0.98 and 1.06 ind/km(2), respectively. in contrast to the aerial census, camera traps allowed us to individually identify branch-antlered males, determine the sex ratio and detect fawns in the population. the cost of camera traps was 78% lower but required 20 times more field effort. our analysis indicates that camera traps present a superior cost-benefit ratio compared to aerial surveys, since they are more informative, cheaper and offer simpler logistics. their application extends the possibilities of studying a greater number of populations in a long-term monitoring." "ecology of the eastern kingsnake (lampropeltis getula) at rainey slough, florida: a vanished eden",body condition index; community ecology; extirpation; predator-prey relationships; road mortality; snakes; water hyacinth community,HERPETOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS,GODLEY JS;HALSTEAD BJ;MCDIARMID RW,"eastern kingsnakes (lampropeltis getula) are an important component and predator in herpetofaunal communities, but many eastern kingsnake populations have declined precipitously in the last few decades, particularly in the southeastern united states. here, we describe an intensive capture-mark-recapture study of l. getula conducted during 1974-1978 in a canal bank-water hyacinth (eichhornia crassipes) community at rainey slough in southern florida, where annual capture probabilities of adults ranged from 0.662-0.787. population size and structure, seasonal activity, movements, microhabitat use, behavior, thermal ecology, and predator-prey relationships are described. at this site kingsnakes were susceptible to capture mostly in winter and spring, were diurnal, used rodent (sigmodon hispidus) burrows on canal banks as nocturnal retreats, and emerged from burrows on 13-26% of the sampling days. overlap of burrow use by both sexes was extensive with no evidence of territoriality. kingsnakes readily entered the water hyacinths to bask, pursue mates, and forage. at rainey slough only snakes were detected in the diet of kingsnakes. concurrent sampling of potential snake prey in the hyacinths and on canal banks revealed 10 species that varied in use of the two sampled habitats and in body size. a range-wide analysis confirmed that in descending order snakes, reptile eggs, and lizards dominate the diet of l. getula in florida (94.8%) and remain important prey types elsewhere (80.2%). at rainey slough the density of six species of semiaquatic snakes in water hyacinths averaged 3534 individuals/ha with a mean annual biomass of 135.8 kg/ha, and kingsnake biomass was only 2.2-3.9% of prey snake biomass. we estimated that the kingsnake population consumed 36.82-63.58 kg/yr, or about 10.0-17.2% of the standing crop of snakes in the water hyacinth community. adult male l. getula lost on average 39.3% of their body mass associated with the spring reproductive season, whereas females lost only 3.4% in the same period. body condition indices for both sexes improved substantially thereafter. in follow-up surveys at rainey slough during 2006-2010 no kingsnakes were found. semiaquatic snake densities in the water hyacinths were 77.2% lower (807.4/ha) than in the 1970s and consisted of only three species. compared to the enigmatic declines and extirpation of l. getula populations elsewhere, at rainey slough the primary cause likely was unsustainable mortality from road reconstruction and paving in the winter-spring of 1979 and subsequent roadkill. other potentially causative agents of extirpation of l. getula in this system are discussed." subterranean systems provide a suitable overwintering habitat for salamandra salamandra,fire salamander; underground shelter; capture-mark-recapture method; population size; survival probability; recapture probability,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPELEOLOGY,BALOGOVA M;JELIC D;KYSELOVA M;UHRIN M,"the fire salamander (salamandra salamandra) has been repeatedly noted to occur in natural and artificial subterranean systems. despite the obvious connection of this species with underground shelters, their level of dependence and importance to the species is still not fully understood. in this study, we carried out long-term monitoring based on the capture-mark-recapture method in two wintering populations aggregated in extensive underground habitats. using the popan model we found the population size in a natural shelter to be more than twice that of an artificial underground shelter. survival and recapture probabilities calculated using the cormack-jolly-seber model were very constant over time, with higher survival values in males than in females and juveniles, though in terms of recapture probability, the opposite situation was recorded. in addition, survival probability obtained from cormack-jolly-seber model was higher than survival from popan model. the observed bigger population size and the lower recapture rate in the natural cave was probably a reflection of habitat complexity. our study showed that regular visits are needed to detect the true significance of underground shelters for fire salamanders. the presence of larvae was recorded in both wintering sites, especially in bodies of water near the entrance. on the basis of previous and our observations we incline to the view, that karst areas can induce not only laying in underground shelters but also group wintering in this species. our study highlights the strong connection of the life cycle of fire salamanders with underground shelters and their essential importance for the persistence of some populations during unfavourable conditions and breeding activity. in addition, the study introduces the popan and cormac-jolly-seber models for estimating of population size, survival and recapture probability in wintering populations of the species, which could provide important information for species conservation." -reproductive ecology of the glass frog espadarana prosoblepon (anura: centrolenidae) in an urban forest of the central andes of colombia,anurans; mating pattern; reproductive behaviour; geographic variation,JOURNAL OF NATURAL HISTORY,BASTO-RIASCOS MC;LOPEZ-CARO J;VARGAS-SALINAS F,"population and reproductive behaviour aspects of the glass frog espadarana prosoblepon are well known for populations from central america, but similar information is lacking for populations from south america. we recorded the reproductive ecology of a population of the glass frog e. prosoblepon in the city of armenia, central andes of colombia. with weekly surveys with mark-recapture between december 2013 and november 2015, we monitored activity patterns and evaluated if the probability of males mating is associated to their body size or to chorus tenure (i.e. the number of nights a same individual is calling for attracting a mate). in addition, upon observing an amplexus, we recorded the behaviour of the individuals until oviposition and noted characteristics of egg clutch. we recorded 47 males and 32 females, nine amplexus events, eight ovipositions, and 21 egg clutches (35.4 +/- 4.79 eggs per clutch, n = 29). activity of males and females and the number of egg clutches were positively correlated to rainfall. mating success of males was not associated to their body size, but it was positively associated to longer chorus tenure; clutches from large females had a higher number of eggs than clutches from small females. oviposition occurred on average 3.76 +/- 1.74 hours after we first observed the amplexus, occurring 93.1% of the time in fronds of selaginella geniculata at an average height of 1.58 +/- 0.44 m. after the oviposition, the male left the site, while the female remained between 30 and 45 min, partially covering the eggs. the reproductive behaviour of e. prosoblepon did not vary widely between a population in costa rica and our population in time to oviposition, and mating success of males associated to chorus tenure; however, in our study population we recorded a larger clutch size and the preference for s. geniculata fronds as oviposition substrate." +reproductive ecology of the glass frog espadarana prosoblepon (anura: centrolenidae) in an urban forest of the central andes of colombia,anurans; mating pattern; reproductive behaviour; geographic variation,JOURNAL OF NATURAL HISTORY,BASTO RIASCOS MC;LOPEZ CARO J;VARGAS SALINAS F,"population and reproductive behaviour aspects of the glass frog espadarana prosoblepon are well known for populations from central america, but similar information is lacking for populations from south america. we recorded the reproductive ecology of a population of the glass frog e. prosoblepon in the city of armenia, central andes of colombia. with weekly surveys with mark-recapture between december 2013 and november 2015, we monitored activity patterns and evaluated if the probability of males mating is associated to their body size or to chorus tenure (i.e. the number of nights a same individual is calling for attracting a mate). in addition, upon observing an amplexus, we recorded the behaviour of the individuals until oviposition and noted characteristics of egg clutch. we recorded 47 males and 32 females, nine amplexus events, eight ovipositions, and 21 egg clutches (35.4 +/- 4.79 eggs per clutch, n = 29). activity of males and females and the number of egg clutches were positively correlated to rainfall. mating success of males was not associated to their body size, but it was positively associated to longer chorus tenure; clutches from large females had a higher number of eggs than clutches from small females. oviposition occurred on average 3.76 +/- 1.74 hours after we first observed the amplexus, occurring 93.1% of the time in fronds of selaginella geniculata at an average height of 1.58 +/- 0.44 m. after the oviposition, the male left the site, while the female remained between 30 and 45 min, partially covering the eggs. the reproductive behaviour of e. prosoblepon did not vary widely between a population in costa rica and our population in time to oviposition, and mating success of males associated to chorus tenure; however, in our study population we recorded a larger clutch size and the preference for s. geniculata fronds as oviposition substrate." temperature- and size-dependent growth and movement of the north pacific giant octopus (enteroctopus dofleini) in the bering sea,enteroctopus dofleini; octopus; movement; growth; bering sea; mark/recapture,MARINE BIOLOGY RESEARCH,BREWER RS;NORCROSS BL;CHENOWETH E,"octopus growth and movement occurs during all life stages and have implications for survival, food web dynamics and reproduction. from 2009 to 2011, 1714 north pacific giant octopus (enteroctopus dofleini) were tagged and recaptured in the eastern bering sea with visible implant elastomers to better understand the ecology of this data-poor species. over this period, 246 of the tagged individuals were recaptured. in autumn, when temperatures were warmest, e. dofleini had higher growth rates and moved more than in the colder winter months. for both short-and long-term recaptures, small octopus grew faster than large octopus. movement of octopus over short-and long-term periods was low for very small and very large octopus and high for median-sized octopus, which is likely to be a function of maturity status and reproductive activities. approximately 80% of recaptures moved less than 2 km from the initial tagging location for time periods up to a year, suggesting long-term site fidelity. as temperature and size may be tightly linked to growth and movement rates for e. dofleini in the eastern bering sea, predicted climate warming will likely alter ecological processes for the species and impact their distribution." -epidemiology of multiple sclerosis in austria,epidemiology; multiple sclerosis; austria,NEUROEPIDEMIOLOGY,SALHOFER-POLANYI S;CETIN H;LEUTMEZER F;BAUMGARTNER A;BLECHINGER S;DAL-BIANCO A;ALTMANN P;BAJER-KORNEK B;ROMMER P;GUGER M;LEITNER-BOHN D;REICHARDT B;ALASTI F;TEMSCH W;STAMM T,"background: to assess the incidence rate and prevalence ratio of multiple sclerosis (ms) in austria. methods: hospital discharge diagnosis and ms-specific immunomodulatory treatment prescriptions from public health insurances, covering 98% of austrian citizens with health insurance were used to extrapolate incidence and prevalence numbers based on the capture-recapture method. results: a total of 1,392,629 medication prescriptions and 40,956 hospitalizations were extracted from 2 data sources, leading to a total of 13,205 patients. the incidence rate and prevalence ratio of ms in austria based on the capture-recapture method were 19.5/100,000 person-years (95% ci 14.3-24.7) and 158.9/100,000 (95% ci 141.2-175.9), respectively. female to male ratio was 1.6 for incidence and 2.2 for prevalence. conclusions: incidence rates and prevalence ratios of ms in our study are within the upper range of comparable studies across many european countries as well as the united states. (c) 2017 s. karger ag, basel" +epidemiology of multiple sclerosis in austria,epidemiology; multiple sclerosis; austria,NEUROEPIDEMIOLOGY,SALHOFER POLANYI S;CETIN H;LEUTMEZER F;BAUMGARTNER A;BLECHINGER S;DAL BIANCO A;ALTMANN P;BAJER KORNEK B;ROMMER P;GUGER M;LEITNER BOHN D;REICHARDT B;ALASTI F;TEMSCH W;STAMM T,"background: to assess the incidence rate and prevalence ratio of multiple sclerosis (ms) in austria. methods: hospital discharge diagnosis and ms-specific immunomodulatory treatment prescriptions from public health insurances, covering 98% of austrian citizens with health insurance were used to extrapolate incidence and prevalence numbers based on the capture-recapture method. results: a total of 1,392,629 medication prescriptions and 40,956 hospitalizations were extracted from 2 data sources, leading to a total of 13,205 patients. the incidence rate and prevalence ratio of ms in austria based on the capture-recapture method were 19.5/100,000 person-years (95% ci 14.3-24.7) and 158.9/100,000 (95% ci 141.2-175.9), respectively. female to male ratio was 1.6 for incidence and 2.2 for prevalence. conclusions: incidence rates and prevalence ratios of ms in our study are within the upper range of comparable studies across many european countries as well as the united states. (c) 2017 s. karger ag, basel" an assessment of the geographic closure assumption in mark-recapture abundance estimates of anadromous steelhead populations,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,WATHEN G;WEBER N;BENNETT S;BOUWES N;JORDAN CE,"closed population models are commonly used to estimate stream salmonid abundances using mark-recapture information collected during electrofishing surveys. to meet the model assumption of geographic closure, block nets are often used to prevent emigration and immigration of fish during the survey. increased sampling and tagging efforts in an open site may be an appealing trade-off given the time it takes to properly deploy block nets, but it also increases an abundance estimate's vulnerability to bias. we assessed the extent of geographic closure violation from emigration in open sites between mark and recapture passes utilizing pit antennas as virtual block nets. this allowed us to quantify emigration rates of juvenile steelhead oncorhynchus mykiss from 60 fish surveys across multiple seasons and watersheds. our goals were to determine how season and site length influence emigration, examine how the life history of an anadromous salmonid may induce bias on mark-recapture abundance estimates, and provide recommendations on minimizing the bias associated with violating the geographic closure assumption. average emigration rate was low across all surveys and watersheds (5.1%), with higher emigration rates correlating with larger fish, shorter site length, and the season in which the site was sampled. we concluded that the bias associated with violating the geographic closure assumption in an open site can be minimized by avoiding times of migration and by sampling sites up to 650 m long depending on fish density and capture efficiency. our findings provide useful information for planning mark-recapture studies that have multiple sampling objectives." population ecology of chaetophractus vellerosus: the first report for an armadillo in south america,argentina; capture probability; cmr; screaming hairy armadillo; survival rates,ZOOLOGIA,ABBA AM;BENITEZ VV;DOYLE SR,"the aim of this work was to obtain the first estimates of survival rates (s), capture probability (p) and life expectancy for armadillos in south america by analyzing capture-mark-recapture data obtained from a population of chaetophractus vellerosus (gray, 1865) located in magdalena, buenos aires, argentina. from june 2006 to june 2011, we conducted 16 field surveys that resulted in 365 capture events of 152 adult c. vellerosus. for the survival analysis we used a cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) modelling framework. interannual variation in s made an important contribution to overall variation in the survival rate of c. vellerosus. the average life expectancy for females and males after attaining sexual maturity was estimated at 1.70 and 1.65 years respectively. the period of lowest survival probability was associated with dry seasons that might have affected the availability of food. this study provides the first estimates of demographic parameters for xenarthrans in south america." seasonal survival estimation for a long-distance migratory bird and the influence of winter precipitation,annual survival; carryover effects; kirtland's warbler; non-breeding season; population growth,OECOLOGIA,ROCKWELL SM;WUNDERLE JM;SILLETT TS;BOCETTI CI;EWERT DN;CURRIE D;WHITE JD;MARRA PP,"conservation of migratory animals requires information about seasonal survival rates. identifying factors that limit populations, and the portions of the annual cycle in which they occur, are critical for recognizing and reducing potential threats. however, such data are lacking for virtually all migratory taxa. we investigated patterns and environmental correlates of annual, oversummer, overwinter, and migratory survival for adult male kirtland's warblers (setophaga kirtlandii), an endangered, long-distance migratory songbird. we used cormack-jolly-seber models to analyze two mark-recapture datasets: 2006-2011 on michigan breeding grounds, and 2003-2010 on bahamian wintering grounds. the mean annual survival probability was 0.58 +/- 0.12 se. monthly survival probabilities during the summer and winter stationary periods were relatively high (0.963 +/- 0.005 se and 0.977 +/- 0.002 se, respectively). monthly survival probability during migratory periods was substantially lower (0.879 +/- 0.05 se), accounting for similar to 44% of all annual mortality. march rainfall in the bahamas was the best-supported predictor of annual survival probability and was positively correlated with apparent annual survival in the subsequent year, suggesting that the effects of winter precipitation carried over to influence survival probability of individuals in later seasons. projection modeling revealed that a decrease in bahamas march rainfall >12.4% from its current mean could result in negative population growth in this species. collectively, our results suggest that increased drought during the non-breeding season, which is predicted to occur under multiple climate change scenarios, could have important consequences on the annual survival and population growth rate of kirtland's warbler and other neotropical-nearctic migratory bird species." assessment of key reproductive traits in the apennine brown bear population,apennine brown bear; capture recapture; demography; e-surge; inter-birth interval; multi-event modelling; reproductive rate; transition probability; ursus arctos inarsicanus; weaning,URSUS,TOSONI E;BOITANI L;GENTILE L;GERVASI V;LATINI R;CIUCCI P,"although knowledge of reproductive parameters is critical to project the probability of persistence of small and endangered populations, no such data are available for the relict apennine brown bear (ursus arctos marsicanus) population (central italy). from 2005 through 2014, we compiled re-sight data on marked adult female bears (3 <= n <= 10/yr, for 78 total bear-years) and unmarked, distinct family groups (a = 17) to estimate basic reproductive traits in apennine bears. we had a high rate of radiocollar failure, so we included in our sample marked, adult female bears with non-functioning radiocollars and used multi-event models in a capture recapture, robust-design framework to correct for their incomplete detection and potential classification error. we obtained annual detection probabilities of 0.77 and 0.82 for reproductive and non-reproductive female bears, respectively, and the classification error of their reproductive state was negligible (p = 0.003). mean litter size was 1.9 (+/- 0.7 sd) cubs, weaning occurred at approximately 1.4 years, and the interbirth interval was 3.7 years. based on our multi-event model, female bears had highest probability to reproduce 3-4 years after their last reproduction, and their average reproductive rate was 0.243 (95% ci = 0.072-0.594). average survival of adult female bears was 0.93 (95% ci = 0.83-0.97) whereas apparent cub survival was 0.49, based on the proportion of cubs seen before weaning the year following birth. our findings place reproductive parameters of the apennine bear population at the lower bound along the spectrum reported for other non-hunted brown bear populations. coupled with high levels of human-caused mortality, a relatively low reproductive performance may explain why apennine bears have not expanded their range beyond their historical minimum. more in-depth demographic investigations are urgently needed to corroborate our results and to assess the relative role of density-dependence versus inbreeding depression in affecting the dynamics of this imperiled bear population." use of spatial capture-recapture to estimate density of andean bears in northern ecuador,abundance; andean bear; camera-trap; density; ecuador; population; spatial capture-recapture; tremarctos ornatus,URSUS,MOLINA S;FULLER AK;MORIN DJ;ROYLE JA,"the andean bear (tremarctos ornatus) is the only extant species of bear in south america and is considered threatened across its range and endangered in ecuador. habitat loss and fragmentation is considered a critical threat to the species, and there is a lack of knowledge regarding its distribution and abundance. the species is thought to occur at low densities, making field studies designed to estimate abundance or density challenging. we conducted a pilot camera-trap study to estimate andean bear density in a recently identified population of andean bears northwest of quito, ecuador, during 2012. we compared 12 candidate spatial capture recapture models including covariates on encounter probability and density and estimated a density of 7.45 bears/100 km(2) within the region. in addition, we estimated that approximately 40 bears used a recently named andean bear corridor established by the secretary of environment, and we produced a density map for this area. use of a rub-post with vanilla scent attractant allowed us to capture numerous photographs for each event, improving our ability to identify individual bears by unique facial markings. this study provides the first empirically derived density estimate for andean bears in ecuador and should provide direction for future landscape-scale studies interested in conservation initiatives requiring spatially explicit estimates of density." -"population structure of the sicklefin lemon shark negaprion acutidens within the curieuse marine national park, seychelles",baseline data; carcharhinid; condition factor; growth rate; mangroves; marine protected area; mark-recapture; neonate; nursery area; population estimate,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,HODGKISS RD;GRANT A;MCCLELLAND JHR;QUATRE R;RADEMAKERS B;SANCHEZ C;MASON-PARKER C,"this study produced the first data on population parameters for sicklefin lemon shark negaprion acutidens at the granitic seychelles islands, adding to a limited catalogue of species information. juveniles at a site in the curieuse marine national park were tagged over two periods, in 2014-2015 and 2015-2016, with measurements of length (precaudal, fork and total) and weight, sex, and state of the umbilical opening recorded. recapture data were used to calculate growth rates and population size. mean annual growth rate was 5.40 cm y(-1). a mean size at birth of 62.5 cm tl is in line with previous assessments of the species. population-size estimates were similar for the two sampling periods (comprising 311 and 255 individuals) and higher than anticipated. movements to outside the lagoon were recorded for early ages, and this, combined with weight loss and a reduction in condition factor as displayed in several individuals, suggests that the study area alone could not support the large number of sharks pupped yearly." +"population structure of the sicklefin lemon shark negaprion acutidens within the curieuse marine national park, seychelles",baseline data; carcharhinid; condition factor; growth rate; mangroves; marine protected area; mark-recapture; neonate; nursery area; population estimate,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,HODGKISS RD;GRANT A;MCCLELLAND JHR;QUATRE R;RADEMAKERS B;SANCHEZ C;MASON PARKER C,"this study produced the first data on population parameters for sicklefin lemon shark negaprion acutidens at the granitic seychelles islands, adding to a limited catalogue of species information. juveniles at a site in the curieuse marine national park were tagged over two periods, in 2014-2015 and 2015-2016, with measurements of length (precaudal, fork and total) and weight, sex, and state of the umbilical opening recorded. recapture data were used to calculate growth rates and population size. mean annual growth rate was 5.40 cm y(-1). a mean size at birth of 62.5 cm tl is in line with previous assessments of the species. population-size estimates were similar for the two sampling periods (comprising 311 and 255 individuals) and higher than anticipated. movements to outside the lagoon were recorded for early ages, and this, combined with weight loss and a reduction in condition factor as displayed in several individuals, suggests that the study area alone could not support the large number of sharks pupped yearly." components of population growth for arctic foxes at a large arctic goose colony: the relative contributions of adult survival and recruitment,life history; population dynamics; recruitment; survival; vulpes lagopus,POLAR RESEARCH,SAMELIUS G;ALISAUSKAS RT,"the abundance and distribution of animals often vary dramatically among years in arctic environments. such variation, in turn, is closely related to changes in food abundance and its effect on vital rates such as survival and recruitment. however, the relative importance of survival and recruitment to changes in population growth and how this varies with fluctuations in food abundance and climatic variation is poorly understood for most animals. the objective of this study was to examine how the relative importance of adult survival and recruitment to population change by arctic foxes varies in relation to fluctuations in food abundance and climatic variation. specifically, we used capture-recapture models to estimate how apparent adult survival and recruitment of arctic foxes at a large arctic goose colony varied in response to small mammal abundance, the numbers of two species of nesting geese and climate variation indexed by the arctic oscillation. analyses of live capture data collected at karrak lake, nunavut, canada, from 2000 to 2015 showed that the population dynamics of arctic foxes was driven largely by the pulsed dynamics in recruitment of foxes, whereas apparent survival of adult foxes was constant during the study. recruitment fluctuated considerably among years and was correlated with fluctuations in small mammal abundance. greater importance of recruitment to the population dynamics of arctic foxes at our study site is characteristic of small and short-lived mammals." -guidelines for the monitoring of cerambyx cerdo,habitats directive; saproxylic beetles; coleoptera; cerambycidae; monitoring methods; forest biodiversity; baited trap,"NATURE CONSERVATION-BULGARIA",DE ZAN LR;BARDIANI M;ANTONINI G;CAMPANARO A;CHIARI S;MANCINI E;MAURA M;SABATELLI S;SOLANO E;ZAULI A;PEVERIERI GS;ROVERSI PF,"cerambyx cerdo is a longhorn beetle widely distributed in southern and central europe. this saproxylic beetle is generally associated with oak forests where there are mature or partially dead and sun-exposed trees. its populations are currently threatened by forest practices such as the removal of partially dead trees and the decline in the number of old oak trees situated in open or semi-open landscapes. thus, c. cerdo has been included in annexes ii and iv of the habitats directive. the present paper is part of a special issue on monitoring of saproxylic beetles which are protected in europe, based on the research carried out during the life-mipp project, with a revision of the current knowledge on systematics, ecology and conservation of c. cerdo. the main aim of the present paper is to test different monitoring methods in order to develop a quick and reproducible protocol for the conservation of this species. the methods tested were: artificial sap attracting the adults, baited traps, ves (visual encounter survey) and collecting remains of predation along transects. based on these results, a detailed monitoring method for c. cerdo using baited trap is proposed in this paper, together with a discussion on its constraints, spatial validity and possible interferences. in order to assess the conservation status of populations of c. cerdo in europe and to compare populations over time, a method for the calculation of a reference value, based on the monitoring method, is provided." -"structural, temporal and genetic properties of social groups in the short-lived migratory bat nyctalus leisleri",kinship; microsatellites; roost-switching; tree-cavities; behaviour; vespertilionidae,BEHAVIOUR,"NAD'O L;CHROMA R;KANUCH P","social groups of bats that operate under fission-fusion dynamics tend to establish and maintain non-random associations. we examined the social and genetic structure of the leisler's bat (nyctalus leisleri), a species that is typical of tree-dwelling and long-distance migratory species in europe. we used long-term co-occurrence data (capture-recapture sampling of roosting individuals) in combination with individual genetic relatedness (inferred from a set of microsatellite markers) to assess relationships between structural, temporal and genetic properties of roosting groups. our results showed that social structure in groups of roosting leisler's bat was not random. social clusters revealed by network analysis were almost identical to demographic cohorts, which indicates that leisler's bats are able to maintain social bonds only over a single season. after the period of active maternal care, roosting groups became smaller with a significantly higher level of genetic relatedness among adult females in contrast to the pregnancy and lactation stages. this provides some evidence that temporal social associations may be positively correlated with genetic relatedness. low recapture rates of bats across seasons in light of natal philopatry indicates a shorter life span of individuals likely due to high mortality during long distance migratory movements. this probably has the most significant effect on the social system of this species." +guidelines for the monitoring of cerambyx cerdo,habitats directive; saproxylic beetles; coleoptera; cerambycidae; monitoring methods; forest biodiversity; baited trap,NATURE CONSERVATION-BULGARIA,DE ZAN LR;BARDIANI M;ANTONINI G;CAMPANARO A;CHIARI S;MANCINI E;MAURA M;SABATELLI S;SOLANO E;ZAULI A;PEVERIERI GS;ROVERSI PF,"cerambyx cerdo is a longhorn beetle widely distributed in southern and central europe. this saproxylic beetle is generally associated with oak forests where there are mature or partially dead and sun-exposed trees. its populations are currently threatened by forest practices such as the removal of partially dead trees and the decline in the number of old oak trees situated in open or semi-open landscapes. thus, c. cerdo has been included in annexes ii and iv of the habitats directive. the present paper is part of a special issue on monitoring of saproxylic beetles which are protected in europe, based on the research carried out during the life-mipp project, with a revision of the current knowledge on systematics, ecology and conservation of c. cerdo. the main aim of the present paper is to test different monitoring methods in order to develop a quick and reproducible protocol for the conservation of this species. the methods tested were: artificial sap attracting the adults, baited traps, ves (visual encounter survey) and collecting remains of predation along transects. based on these results, a detailed monitoring method for c. cerdo using baited trap is proposed in this paper, together with a discussion on its constraints, spatial validity and possible interferences. in order to assess the conservation status of populations of c. cerdo in europe and to compare populations over time, a method for the calculation of a reference value, based on the monitoring method, is provided." +"structural, temporal and genetic properties of social groups in the short-lived migratory bat nyctalus leisleri",kinship; microsatellites; roost-switching; tree-cavities; behaviour; vespertilionidae,BEHAVIOUR,NAD O L;CHROMA R;KANUCH P,"social groups of bats that operate under fission-fusion dynamics tend to establish and maintain non-random associations. we examined the social and genetic structure of the leisler's bat (nyctalus leisleri), a species that is typical of tree-dwelling and long-distance migratory species in europe. we used long-term co-occurrence data (capture-recapture sampling of roosting individuals) in combination with individual genetic relatedness (inferred from a set of microsatellite markers) to assess relationships between structural, temporal and genetic properties of roosting groups. our results showed that social structure in groups of roosting leisler's bat was not random. social clusters revealed by network analysis were almost identical to demographic cohorts, which indicates that leisler's bats are able to maintain social bonds only over a single season. after the period of active maternal care, roosting groups became smaller with a significantly higher level of genetic relatedness among adult females in contrast to the pregnancy and lactation stages. this provides some evidence that temporal social associations may be positively correlated with genetic relatedness. low recapture rates of bats across seasons in light of natal philopatry indicates a shorter life span of individuals likely due to high mortality during long distance migratory movements. this probably has the most significant effect on the social system of this species." abundance and harvest proportion of river turtles in missouri,abundance estimation; apalone mutica; apalone spinifera; chelydra serpentina; commercial turtle harvest; harvest proportion; missouri,JOURNAL OF FRESHWATER ECOLOGY,SHAFFER SA;BRIGGLER JT;GITZEN RA;MILLSPAUGH JJ,"freshwater turtle populations are declining worldwide, yet managers have little information about the effects of commercial turtle harvests. in missouri, the snapping turtle (chelydra serpentina), smooth softshell (apalone mutica), and spiny softshell (apalone spinifera) are harvested commercially in the missouri river. in 2011 and 2012, we conducted mark-recapture of these species to estimate abundance on the missouri river and two unharvested tributaries, the osage and gasconade rivers. we conducted mock harvests, applying capture methods of the state's primary commercial harvester, to estimate plausible expected harvest proportions. snapping turtle abundance per 2 km was lower at harvested units ((x) over bar = 15; se = 7.1; unharvested: (x) over bar = 90; se = 40.3). smooth softshell abundance was greater at harvested units ((x) over bar = 59; se = 7.9; unharvested: (x) over bar = 14; se = 28.1), although the difference was not significant. mean unique spiny softshell captures were similar at harvested ((x) over bar = 18; se = 4.3) and unharvested ((x) over bar = 17; se = 9.7) units. expected harvest proportions averaged 23% across species (se = 5%; range = 6%-79%), exceeding sustainable rates reported for turtles. our results suggest that on a small scale, using these methods, harvesters can remove a substantial portion of river turtle populations." tributary use by imperiled flannelmouth and bluehead suckers in the upper colorado river basin,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,FRASER GS;WINKELMAN DL;BESTGEN KR;THOMPSON KG,"habitat alterations and establishment of nonnative fishes have reduced the distributions of flannelmouth sucker catostomus latipinnis and bluehead sucker c. discobolus to less than 50% of their historical ranges in the colorado river basin. tributaries are sometimes less altered than main-stem habitat in the basin and may be important to support various life history processes, but their role in the maintenance of flannelmouth sucker and bluehead sucker populations is poorly understood. using mark-recapture techniques, we show tributaries are important habitat for native suckers in the upper colorado river basin and report three main findings. first, both flannelmouth and bluehead suckers likely respond to a thermal cue that initiates spawning movement patterns. suckers moved into coal creek from the white river beginning in mid-may of 2012 and 2013 to spawn. the majority of sucker spawning movements occurred when water temperatures in white river exceeded 11-14 degrees c and those in coal creek were 2.5-4 degrees c warmer, while flows varied between years. second, based on pit tag detection arrays, 13-45% of suckers showed spawning site fidelity. sampling only with fyke nets would have resulted in the conclusion that site fidelity by native suckers was only 1-17%, because nets were less efficient at detecting marked fish. third, most suckers of both species emigrated from coal creek within 48 h after being captured while suckers that were detected only via arrays remained resident for 10-12 d. the posthandling flight response we observed was not anticipated and to our knowledge has not been previously reported for these species. remote pit tag antenna arrays allowed for a stronger inference regarding movement and tributary use by these species than what could be achieved using just fyke nets. tributaries are an important part of flannelmouth sucker and bluehead sucker life history and thus important to conservation strategies for these species." investigating brushtail possum (trichosurus vulpecula) home-range size determinants in a new zealand native forest,age; density; population structure; possum management; sex,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,RICHARDSON KS;ROUCO C;JEWELL C;FRENCH NP;BUDDLE BM;TOMPKINS DM,"context. the australian brushtail possums (trichosurus vulpecula) introduction to new zealand has exacted a heavy toll on native biodiversity and presented the country with its greatest wildlife reservoir host for bovine tuberculosis (tb). management efforts to control both possums and tb have been ongoing for decades, and the biology of possums has been studied extensively in australia and new zealand over the past 50 years; however, we still do not have a clear understanding of its home-range dynamics. aims. to investigate determinants of home range size by using a uniquely large dataset in the orongorongo valley, a highly monitored research area in new zealand and compare our findings with those of other studies. methods. possum density was estimated, for subpopulations on four 13-ha cage-trap grids, by the spatially explicit capture-mark-recapture analysis of trapping data from 10 consecutive months. home ranges were estimated from trap locations using a 100% minimum convex polygon (mcp) method for 348 individuals and analysed with respect to grid, age and sex. key results. mean (standard error) possum density, estimated as 4.87 (0.19), 6.92 (0.29), 4.08 (0.21) and 4.20 (0.19) ha(-1) for the four grids, was significantly negatively correlated with mean mcp home-range size. grid, age, and the interaction of age and sex were significantly related to home-range size. older possums had larger home ranges than did younger possums. when 'juvenile cohort' and 'adult cohort' data were analysed separately, to investigate the significant interaction, males in the 'adult cohort' had significantly larger home ranges than did females, with the grid effect still being apparent, whereas neither sex nor grid effects were significant for the 'juvenile cohort'. conclusions. our findings indicate that, in addition to density, age and sex are likely to be consistent determinants of possum home-range size, but their influences may be masked in some studies by the complexity of wild-population dynamics. implications. our findings have strong implications regarding both disease transmission among possums and possum management. the fact that adult males occupy larger home ranges and the understanding that possum home range increases as population density decreases are an indication that males may be the primary drivers of disease transmission in possum populations. the understanding that possum home range increases as population density decreases could be a direct reflection of the ability of tb to persist in the wild that counteracts current management procedures. if individuals, and particularly males, infected with tb can withstand control measures, their ensuing home-range expansion will result in possible bacteria spread in both the expanded area of habitation and new individuals becoming subjected to infection (both immigrant possums and other control survivors). therefore, managers should consider potential approaches for luring possum males in control operations." -"local abundance, apparent survival and site fidelity of bryde's whales in the hauraki gulf (new zealand) inferred from long-term photo-identification",mark-recapture; pollock robust design; popan; residency; balaenoptera; cetacean,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,TEZANOS-PINTO G;HUPMAN K;WISEMAN N;DWYER SL;BAKER CS;BROOKS L;OUTHWAITE B;LEA C;STOCKIN KA,"bryde's whales balaenoptera edeni in new zealand are classified as 'nationally critical' according to the new zealand threat classification system. in the hauraki gulf, bryde's whales occur year-round and are subject to ship-strike mortality events. photo-identification surveys were conducted to estimate local abundance, apparent survival and site fidelity during 2 periods from 2004 to 2006 (261 daily surveys) and from 2011 to 2013 (382 daily surveys). the photo-identification database contained a total of 364 sighting records of 72 bryde's whales. overall, 20 whales were sighted across the 2 survey periods, indicating long-term site fidelity. local abundance was estimated using the robust design (rd) and popan mark-recapture approaches for each period, including upward adjustment for the proportion of unmarked whales. rd seasonal abundance estimates varied from 17 to 43 whales between 2004 and 2006, and from 13 to 31 whales between 2011 and 2013. temporary emigration followed a random pattern (gamma' = gamma'') and was estimated at 0.557 between 2004 and 2006, and 0.610 between 2011 and 2013. popan seasonal abundance ranged from 38 to 74 whales for the 2004 to 2006 period and from 42 to 68 whales for 2011 to 2013. apparent survival was estimated across periods at 0.878 (95% ci = 0.811-0.923). from the 'super population' estimate of the 2011 to 2013 survey period ((n) over cap (super) = 135 whales, ci = 100-183), we calculated a potential biological removal (pbr) of 1 whale yr(-1). given the impact of ship strikes on this local unit, it is important to continue long-term photo-identification of bryde's whales. this technique provides valuable demographic information for a poorly known species." -population model of an endangered amphibian: implications for conservation management,capture-recapture; pollock's robust design; population modeling; alytes muletensis; balearic islands,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,PINYA S;TAVECCHIA G;PEREZ-MELLADO V,"amphibian populations are declining worldwide, but for many taxa, robust estimates of demographic parameters to assess population state or trends are scarce or absent. we provide robust estimates of adult apparent survival of the endemic mallorcan midwife toad alytes muletensis using individual capture-recapture data collected over 4 yr in a 60 m(2) cistern. moreover, we combined the vital rates into a stage-structured population model to estimate the ex pected long-term growth rate of the population. apparent survival estimates of males and females were similar (0.737 +/- 0.042 and 0.726 +/- 0.045, respectively) indicating that the egg-carrying behavior of males, typical of this species, does not reduce its survival probability. we found evidence of a low local survival of juveniles compared with adults, most likely due to permanent dispersal. adult population size estimation provided higher tadpole: adult ratios than previously reported for this endangered species, suggesting an overestimation of the previous adult population size. model projections suggested a stable population, since lambda, the expected asymptotic growth rate of the population, was close to 1.00." +"local abundance, apparent survival and site fidelity of bryde's whales in the hauraki gulf (new zealand) inferred from long-term photo-identification",mark-recapture; pollock robust design; popan; residency; balaenoptera; cetacean,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,TEZANOS PINTO G;HUPMAN K;WISEMAN N;DWYER SL;BAKER CS;BROOKS L;OUTHWAITE B;LEA C;STOCKIN KA,"bryde's whales balaenoptera edeni in new zealand are classified as 'nationally critical' according to the new zealand threat classification system. in the hauraki gulf, bryde's whales occur year-round and are subject to ship-strike mortality events. photo-identification surveys were conducted to estimate local abundance, apparent survival and site fidelity during 2 periods from 2004 to 2006 (261 daily surveys) and from 2011 to 2013 (382 daily surveys). the photo-identification database contained a total of 364 sighting records of 72 bryde's whales. overall, 20 whales were sighted across the 2 survey periods, indicating long-term site fidelity. local abundance was estimated using the robust design (rd) and popan mark-recapture approaches for each period, including upward adjustment for the proportion of unmarked whales. rd seasonal abundance estimates varied from 17 to 43 whales between 2004 and 2006, and from 13 to 31 whales between 2011 and 2013. temporary emigration followed a random pattern (gamma' = gamma'') and was estimated at 0.557 between 2004 and 2006, and 0.610 between 2011 and 2013. popan seasonal abundance ranged from 38 to 74 whales for the 2004 to 2006 period and from 42 to 68 whales for 2011 to 2013. apparent survival was estimated across periods at 0.878 (95% ci = 0.811-0.923). from the 'super population' estimate of the 2011 to 2013 survey period ((n) over cap (super) = 135 whales, ci = 100-183), we calculated a potential biological removal (pbr) of 1 whale yr(-1). given the impact of ship strikes on this local unit, it is important to continue long-term photo-identification of bryde's whales. this technique provides valuable demographic information for a poorly known species." +population model of an endangered amphibian: implications for conservation management,capture-recapture; pollock's robust design; population modeling; alytes muletensis; balearic islands,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,PINYA S;TAVECCHIA G;PEREZ MELLADO V,"amphibian populations are declining worldwide, but for many taxa, robust estimates of demographic parameters to assess population state or trends are scarce or absent. we provide robust estimates of adult apparent survival of the endemic mallorcan midwife toad alytes muletensis using individual capture-recapture data collected over 4 yr in a 60 m(2) cistern. moreover, we combined the vital rates into a stage-structured population model to estimate the ex pected long-term growth rate of the population. apparent survival estimates of males and females were similar (0.737 +/- 0.042 and 0.726 +/- 0.045, respectively) indicating that the egg-carrying behavior of males, typical of this species, does not reduce its survival probability. we found evidence of a low local survival of juveniles compared with adults, most likely due to permanent dispersal. adult population size estimation provided higher tadpole: adult ratios than previously reported for this endangered species, suggesting an overestimation of the previous adult population size. model projections suggested a stable population, since lambda, the expected asymptotic growth rate of the population, was close to 1.00." long-term mark-recapture monitoring of a colorado pikeminnow ptychocheilus lucius population: assessing recovery progress using demographic trends,riverine fish; endangered species; mark-recapture; monitoring; recovery; river regulation; ptychocheilus lucius; colorado river; colorado pikeminnow,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,OSMUNDSON DB;WHITE GC,"colorado pikeminnow ptychocheilus lucius, a large, endangered, piscivorous cypri-nid once abundant throughout warm-water reaches of north america's colorado river system, has been reduced to 2 wild populations inhabiting the colorado and green rivers. status and trends of these remaining populations were unknown when a recovery program was initiated in 1987. during 1991 to 2013, we used mark-recapture to monitor the smaller colorado river population. adult abundance was estimated and patterns of recruitment and dispersal assessed to determine if recovery actions produced a population response. in 1992, adults were rare ((n) over cap = 345; 95% ci = 216 to 583) in the 288 km study area, but recruitment of a strong 1986 year class began a positive trend, and adult estimates reached 674 (95% ci = 517 to 897) by 2008. a significant decline then ensued, and by 2013, an estimated 282 adults remained (95% ci = 204 to 407). annual adult survival was relatively high and stable. juvenile survival was variable, making catch rates of young-of-the-year unreliable predictors of later recruitment strength. an estimated average of 6.5 fish immigrated annually to the colorado river from the larger green river population, and movements appeared balanced in direction. though self-sustaining over the 23 yr study, low abundance and a recent rapid decline suggest long-term population persistence is tenuous. population increase is impeded by a high frequency of weak recruiting cohorts. results suggest 25 yr of recovery efforts have not sufficiently addressed ongoing threats affecting recruitment, including river regulation, non-native fish invasions, and other potential threats yet to be evaluated." error rates and variation between observers are reduced with the use of photographic matching software for capture-recapture studies,computer-aided pattern recognition; individual identification; mark-recapture; misidentification; natural markings; photo-identification; wild-id,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,CRUICKSHANK SS;SCHMIDT BR,"photographic capture-mark-recapture (cmr) permits individual recognition whilst avoiding many of the concerns involved with marking animals. however, the construction of capture histories from photographs is a time-consuming process. furthermore, matching accuracy is determined based on subjective judgements of the person carrying out the matching, which can lead to errors in the resulting datasets - particularly in long-term projects where multiple observers match images. we asked 63 volunteers to carry out two photographic-matching exercises using a database of known individuals of the yellow-bellied toad (bombina variegata). from these exercises, we quantified the matching accuracy of volunteers in terms of false-acceptance and false-rejection rates. not only were error rates greatly reduced with the use of photographic-matching software, but variation in error rates among volunteers was also lowered. furthermore, the use of matching software led to substantial increases in matching speeds and an 87% reduction in the false-rejection rate. as even small error rates have the potential to bias cmr analyses, these results suggest that computer software could substantially reduce errors in cmr datasets. the time-savings and reduction in variance among observers suggest that such methods could be particularly beneficial in long-term cmr projects where a large number of images may be matched by multiple observers." long-term migration patterns and bisexual philopatry in a benthic shark species,dispersal; ecology; elasmobranch; mark-recapture; site fidelity,MARINE AND FRESHWATER RESEARCH,BASS NC;MOURIER J;KNOTT NA;DAY J;GUTTRIDGE T;BROWN C,"knowledge of the broad-scale movement patterns of sharks is essential to developing effective management strategies. currently there is a large bias in studies focusing on species that are either large apex predators or found in tropical to subtropical regions. there is limited knowledge of the movements and migrations of benthic and temperate shark species. the present study used passive acoustic telemetry to investigate the movement patterns of a benthic shark species, the port jackson shark (heterodontus portusjacksoni). individuals were tagged with acoustic transmitters between 2012 and 2014 and their movements were monitored within jervis bay and along the east australian coastline for up to 4 years. male and female port jackson sharks demonstrated high levels of philopatry to both jervis bay and their tagging location across multiple years. although males and females did not differ in their arrival times, females departed from jervis bay later than males. approximately half the tagged individuals migrated in a southward direction, with individuals being detected at narooma, bass strait and cape barron island. this study provides conclusive evidence of bisexual philopatry in a benthic temperate shark species, confirming previous hypotheses, and presents the most detailed migration route for port jackson sharks to date." demographic evaluation of translocating the threatened northern quoll to two australian islands,NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,GRIFFITHS AD;RANKMORE B;BRENNAN K;WOINARSKI JCZ,"context translocation is widely used to help avoid extinction of species from threatening processes. a fundamental objective of translocation is to establish self-sustaining populations; estimating demographic parameters is critical to assessing success of these programs and can also be used to support future management actions. aims we estimated demographic parameters to evaluate the success of translocating the northern quoll dasyurus hallucatus to two islands (astell and pobassoo), in response to the threat posed by the introduced cane toad rhinella marina on the australian mainland. methods we used capture-mark-recapture methods to monitor both populations at regular intervals from initial release in 2003 until 2009 and a one-off survey in 2014. key results relative abundance (trap success) increased exponentially in the first 4 years, declined, and then stabilised in subsequent years. the population of female northern quolls on astell island peaked in 2006 with an estimate of 3640 (95% ci 3022-4257), and on pobassoo island the peak was 2007 with 617 (95% ci 531-703) females. in 2014 the population had decreased to 2193 (95% ci 1920-2467) on astell and 451 (95% ci 359-543) on pobassoo. apparent survival and body condition decreased significantly following the population peak, possibly related to density dependence. conclusion both populations of northern quolls reached their regulation phase after going through establishment and growth phases, which included exceeding carrying capacity. the pattern was similar between the populations. implications increased survival and recruitment at threat-free translocation sites contributes to successful establishment of self-sustaining populations." ungulate population monitoring in an open tundra landscape: distance sampling versus total counts,NA,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,LE MOULLEC M;PEDERSEN AO;YOCCOZ NG;AANES R;TUFTO J;HANSEN BB,"researchers and wildlife managers strive for low bias and high precision (i.e. high accuracy) when estimating animal population sizes. distance sampling is currently one of the most widely used monitoring methods. however, it relies on strict sampling designs and modeling assumptions that can be difficult to meet in the field. here, we use data from two sub-populations of non-migratory wild svalbard reindeer rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus inhabiting flat, open and isolated coastal tundra plains, to demonstrate some challenges related to the distance sampling methodology. to achieve this, we compared distance sampling line transect estimates with repeated total population counts and combined available software tools (r packages unmarked, distance and dsm) to fulfill the analytical requirements of small study sites in which large areas are surveyed relative to the study area size. based on low variation among repeated total counts (cv. 0.02 - 0.06) and the virtual absence of false negatives and positives of marked animals, the total counts could be used as reference population sizes. distance sampling estimates were not statistically different from the total count estimates. our relatively large sample size of 143 observations enabled precise distance sampling abundance estimates (cv. 0.16 - 0.26) compared with other studies in the wild. however, capturing the processes shaping population dynamics would likely require even higher sampling effort or other, more resource demanding monitoring tools, such as total counts or mark-recapture. in this type of ecosystem, distance sampling nevertheless represents a cost-effective tool suitable for 'population state' assessment and studies of large-scale spatial distribution patterns. our study stresses the importance of choosing the appropriate analytical tools and estimating the accuracy of the monitoring methods that are used to achieve specific scientific, management or conservation goals." -survival of pit-tagged lesser short-tailed bats (mystacina tuberculata) through an aerial 1080 pest control operation,mystacinidae; predator control; rats; sodium monofluoroacetate; transponders,NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,EDMONDS H;PRYDE M;O'DONNELL CFJ,"introduced mammalian predators, in particular rats (rattus spp.), are a major threat to new zealand bat populations. aerial application of the toxin sodium monofluoroacetate (1080) is currently the most cost-effective method of controlling rats across large spatial extents. lesser short-tailed bats (mystacina tuberculata) may be vulnerable to secondary poisoning from 1080 because they feed on invertebrate prey on the ground that may have consumed toxic bait. we monitored individually marked bats before, during, and after an aerial 1080 operation in the eglinton valley, fiordland, in december 2014 from a population that has been monitored since 2008. no symptoms of sub-lethal exposure in free ranging bats were detected and survivorship was high: 764 of the 771 marked bats (99.1%) recorded in the pre-monitoring period were still alive one week after toxin application and a record number of 1731 marked bats were recorded emerging from a single roost tree in january 2015. one bat pup was found dead under a roost tree and 1080 was detected in muscle tissue. any immediate impact of 1080 was assessed as minimal because the calculated annual survival rates were high (91.5%). we conclude that survival of the population was likely enhanced by the large scale 1080 operation." -"demographics and behaviour of heteragrion cooki, a forest damselfly endemic to ecuador (odonata)",shade; survival; population density; body size; copulation; dragonfly,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ODONATOLOGY,RIVAS-TORRES A;SANMARTIN-VILLAR I;GABELA-FLORES MV;CORDERO-RIVERA A,"damselflies adapted to forest habitats are expected to be negatively affected by the disturbance of riparian forests, due to the change in insolation when trees are cleared. in this paper, we compare survivorship and behaviour of two populations of heteragrion cooki by means of mark-recapture methods and focal observations of adults. we found similar densities of males (but not of females) in both streams, and similar recapture rates, higher for males (50%) than for females (20%). body size was also significantly different between populations, with smaller individuals in the shadiest stream. the analysis of daily survival rates indicated that in the shaded stream, males survived better than females, whereas in the sunnier stream survival was similar between sexes, but varied over time. furthermore, in the sunny stream, body size was negatively correlated with survival. males arrived earlier than females to the stream, with a maximum activity between 13 and 16 hours. they defended small patches of the stream, exhibiting high site fidelity and aggressive behaviour against conspecific males. copulation, which was very rarely seen in the stream, lasted about six minutes. pairs in tandem remained for an average of 45 minutes laying eggs on roots and lianas. we found that h. cooki was not drastically affected by the loss of riparian vegetation, maintaining similar densities of males in both streams, probably because small remnants of native forests were still found near to the stream." +survival of pit-tagged lesser short-tailed bats (mystacina tuberculata) through an aerial 1080 pest control operation,mystacinidae; predator control; rats; sodium monofluoroacetate; transponders,NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,EDMONDS H;PRYDE M;O DONNELL CFJ,"introduced mammalian predators, in particular rats (rattus spp.), are a major threat to new zealand bat populations. aerial application of the toxin sodium monofluoroacetate (1080) is currently the most cost-effective method of controlling rats across large spatial extents. lesser short-tailed bats (mystacina tuberculata) may be vulnerable to secondary poisoning from 1080 because they feed on invertebrate prey on the ground that may have consumed toxic bait. we monitored individually marked bats before, during, and after an aerial 1080 operation in the eglinton valley, fiordland, in december 2014 from a population that has been monitored since 2008. no symptoms of sub-lethal exposure in free ranging bats were detected and survivorship was high: 764 of the 771 marked bats (99.1%) recorded in the pre-monitoring period were still alive one week after toxin application and a record number of 1731 marked bats were recorded emerging from a single roost tree in january 2015. one bat pup was found dead under a roost tree and 1080 was detected in muscle tissue. any immediate impact of 1080 was assessed as minimal because the calculated annual survival rates were high (91.5%). we conclude that survival of the population was likely enhanced by the large scale 1080 operation." +"demographics and behaviour of heteragrion cooki, a forest damselfly endemic to ecuador (odonata)",shade; survival; population density; body size; copulation; dragonfly,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ODONATOLOGY,RIVAS TORRES A;SANMARTIN VILLAR I;GABELA FLORES MV;CORDERO RIVERA A,"damselflies adapted to forest habitats are expected to be negatively affected by the disturbance of riparian forests, due to the change in insolation when trees are cleared. in this paper, we compare survivorship and behaviour of two populations of heteragrion cooki by means of mark-recapture methods and focal observations of adults. we found similar densities of males (but not of females) in both streams, and similar recapture rates, higher for males (50%) than for females (20%). body size was also significantly different between populations, with smaller individuals in the shadiest stream. the analysis of daily survival rates indicated that in the shaded stream, males survived better than females, whereas in the sunnier stream survival was similar between sexes, but varied over time. furthermore, in the sunny stream, body size was negatively correlated with survival. males arrived earlier than females to the stream, with a maximum activity between 13 and 16 hours. they defended small patches of the stream, exhibiting high site fidelity and aggressive behaviour against conspecific males. copulation, which was very rarely seen in the stream, lasted about six minutes. pairs in tandem remained for an average of 45 minutes laying eggs on roots and lianas. we found that h. cooki was not drastically affected by the loss of riparian vegetation, maintaining similar densities of males in both streams, probably because small remnants of native forests were still found near to the stream." annual movements of acoustic-tagged white sturgeon in the lower reaches of the fraser river and its tributaries,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,ROBICHAUD D;ENGLISH KK;NELSON TC,"details of the spatial ecology of white sturgeon acipenser transmontanus in the lower fraser river, british columbia, are needed for habitat conservation, assessments of impacts from spatially delimited threats, and refinement of abundance estimation methods. the abundance of threatened lower fraser river white sturgeon is assessed annually using a bayesian, closed-population, mark-recapture model. if individuals make prolonged departures from the lower fraser river, either into marine waters or a tributary, the validity of the model's assumed closed population is questionable. there is also concern that fish might move far enough to be exposed to harvest in puget sound, washington. from 2008 to 2012, white sturgeon of various sizes were acoustically tagged in the pitt river (n = 58) and in the lower reaches of the fraser river (near douglas island, n = 52) to determine the timing, rate, and spatial extent of movements. movements were monitored using acoustic receivers at 17 locations in the lowermost 92 km of the main-stem fraser river, three in the first 21 km of the pitt river (a tributary to the lower fraser river), and nine in the coastal waters of british columbia and washington state. travel speeds showed a strong skew toward slower movements (74% were < 1 km/h) and did not differ significantly between upstream and downstream directions. on average, 33.2% of the sample was mobile (displacing similar to 13.4 km/month) and 66.8% was sedentary (displacing similar to 1.87 km/month). in general, white sturgeon were significantly more sedentary during winter months and more mobile during spring and fall. annual or seasonal migratory movements and patterns were observed for 73% of fish tracked. repeated use of specific locations within the lower pitt river during midwinter suggested white sturgeon have a high fidelity for specific overwintering sites. several of the tagged fish showed annual movements to the lowest reaches of the fraser river for 1-3 months between may and september, although there was no direct evidence that they left the fraser river and entered the strait of georgia. by contrast, there was strong evidence for extended and repeated movement into the lower pitt river. given that the lower pitt river is outside the mark-recapture assessment area, our results suggest either that the area's boundaries need expansion, or alternative models should be considered for abundance estimations of lower fraser river white sturgeon." "estimation of apparent survival probability of the harvestman paranemastoma sillii sillii (herman, 1871) from two caves",arachnid; capture-recapture; cave-dwelling species; daddy longlegs; opiliones; romania; troglophile; vital rate,ANIMAL BIOLOGY,PLAIASU R;OZGUL A;SCHMIDT BR;BANCILA RI,"reliable estimates of population parameters are lacking for most cave-dwelling species. this lack of knowledge may hinder the appropriate management of caves and populations of cave-dwelling species. using monthly capture-recapture data and cormack-jolly-seber models, we (i) estimated the apparent survival of individuals in two cave populations of the harvestman paranemastoma sillii sillii (herman, 1871) from the mehedinti mountains in south-western romania; (ii) investigated temporal variation in apparent survival; (iii) tested if surface weather conditions affect apparent survival of cave-dwelling harvestmen through their influence upon cave environmental conditions and (iv) tested for sex differences in apparent survival. our results show that the apparent monthly survival estimates were high for both studied cave populations and there was a significant sex effect on survival. males had lower survival than females, and the survival difference between caves was larger in males than in females. temporal (i.e., monthly) variation in apparent survival was low and the weather conditions at the surface had little influence on apparent survival as the environment inside the caves is well buffered against weather fluctuations outside the caves. our results indicate that caves stabilize survival of facultative cave-dwelling species and may serve as microrefugia for epigean species. we suggest that caves should be considered for conservation because they may serve as a refuge for some epigean species during harsh weather conditions." "spatial heterogeneity, variable rewards, tag loss, and tagging mortality affect the performance of mark-recapture designs to estimate exploitation: an example using red snapper in the northern gulf of mexico",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,SACKETT DK;CATALANO M,"accurate estimates of exploitation rate are essential to the management of exploited fisheries. tagging studies are often used to estimate exploitation rates, but the performance of these approaches depends strongly on study design characteristics and the magnitude of assumption violations. we simulated a suite of candidate study designs for 1-year high-reward and variable-reward tagging studies, exploring a range of sample sizes (number of tagged fish), exploitation rates, tagging mortality rates, tag loss rates, proportions of double-tagged fish, and spatial variation in fish density, tag releases, and fishing effort. we calculated the uncertainty, biases, and reward costs of these candidate study designs to determine the most cost-effective approach to accurately estimate exploitation rate for red snapper lutjanus campechanus in alabama waters of the gulf of mexico. we also investigated how incorrectly assuming a 100% reporting rate would affect these study results. our simulations demonstrated that using all high-reward tags provided more accurate and precise exploitation rate estimates than the variable-reward approach but only if 100% reporting could be safely assumed. further, distributing tags uniformly over the study area when the true spatial distribution of the population and fishing pressure varied over that area drastically biased exploitation rate estimates, suggesting that prior knowledge of the population's true spatial distribution over the study area is needed to ensure accurate estimates of exploitation rate. the most cost-effective study design involved tagging between 400 and 1,600 fish with high-reward tags, with 40% of the fish double-tagged, and the tags spatially distributed in the same proportion as the population. however, violation of the 100% reporting rate assumption resulted in a proportional downward bias in the estimated exploitation rate. simulation studies such as this are critical to ensure that cost-effective study designs produce accurate and precise estimates of exploitation rate, particularly for high-value species such as red snapper." @@ -1260,8 +1261,9 @@ uncertainty estimation in heterogeneous capture-recapture count data,conwway-max performance of confidence intervals for the population size in capture-recapture experiment under inverse sampling with replacement,bootstrap; capture-recapture; closed population; confidence interval; coverage probability; inverse sampling; jeffreys prior; likelihood ratio,JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL COMPUTATION AND SIMULATION,MOHAMMADI M,"lui [five confidence intervals of the closed population size in the capture-recapture problem under inverse sampling with replacement. biom j. 2004;46:474-480] considered five confidence intervals for the closed population size in a two-sample capture-recapture experiment under inverse sampling with replacement in the recapture phase. the results of his monte carlo study indicated that the exact confidence intervals and those based on chi(2)-approximation perform very well. in this paper, we consider three other methods of interval estimation including the bootstrap, likelihood ratio and jeffreys prior approaches. a monte carlo simulation is carried out to evaluate the performance of these intervals together with those based on existing methods in terms of the coverage probability, error rates and standardized average length. our results show that confidence intervals based on wald statistics, logarithmic transformation, and bootstrap methods are inappropriate, having coverage probabilities less than the desired nominal level. also, the exact confidence intervals and those based on chi(2)-approximation are not invariant with respect to the proportion of marked individuals in the capture phase, say p. when p is chosen to be small-to-moderate, the likelihood ratio method is preferred, since it gives confidence intervals with shorter length from among all methods that provide the coverage probability close to the desired nominal level. overall, the jeffreys method appears to be more robust than other competitors, providing intervals with nearest coverage probabilities to the desired nominal level and with balanced non-coverage rates." "mating behaviour, territoriality and natural history notes of phyllomedusa ayeaye lutz, 1966 (hylidae: phyllomedusinae) in south-eastern brazil",anura; behaviour; phyllomedusa ayeaye; reproduction; territoriality,JOURNAL OF NATURAL HISTORY,DE OLIVEIRA FFR,"the mating (male courtship, amplexus and oviposition) and male territorial behaviours of phyllomedusa ayeaye are described from a high-altitude site in the state of minas gerais, south-eastern brazil. information related to male breeding success and territoriality, as well as egg clutch parameters, is provided, together with qualitative information regarding tadpole phenology and juvenile recruitment. in addition, estimations of sexual dimorphism and numbers of marked individuals are available through capture-mark-recapture sampling. females bred with males within spatially clustered oviposition sites (broadleaf plants). in some cases, the amplectant couple actively searched for the oviposition site. males defended territories from other males, employing both acoustic and physical interactions. some males successfully maintained their calling sites over successive nights, and others seemed to switch among nearby sites during successive nights and tried to disrupt ongoing ovipositions. no significant relationship was found between physical attributes (snout vent length or body mass) of maleswith breeding success. also, no influence of the number of nights a male was active in chorus and its breeding success was detected. therefore, it is proposed that the mating system in p. ayeaye may be opportunistic. additional information related to reproduction (egg clutch parameters and breeding behaviours) is also discussed for other species of the phyllomedusa hypochondrialis group and compared with the results of the present study." movement patterns and survival estimates of blue cranes in the western cape,blue cranes; movement; ring loss; survival; western cape,OSTRICH,VAN VELDEN JL;ALTWEGG R;SHAW K;RYAN PG,"the western cape population of blue cranes anthropoides paradiseus is the species' largest and most stable population. how this population utilises the agricultural landscape of the western cape, how far individuals disperse and the connectivity between subpopulations is unknown. basic demographic parameters such as survival are also understudied. we explored movement patterns and survival using a long-term data set of 649 individually-marked birds. resightings suggest that movements in the western cape were localised, with an average displacement of 24.6km from their natal point. displacement varied with age but not season. despite regional differences in resighting effort, only 3.8% of individuals were observed in both the overberg and the swartland, suggesting high regional fidelity. however, there was significant movement within the overberg, so blue cranes appear to be resident to locally nomadic in the western cape. there was evidence that adults return to their natal site: 57% of adults were resighted in the area where they were ringed as chicks. the viability of blue cranes therefore depends on correct local management. mark-recapture survival estimates were 0.6 for juveniles, 0.87 for immatures, and 0.72 for adults, although adult survival was underestimated due to ring loss. future studies should use a different ringing technique." -"method of determining ages of hard clam meretrix lamarckii along the kashimanada coast, ibaraki, japan",NA,NIPPON SUISAN GAKKAISHI,HANZAWA H;MURAKAMI-SUGIHARA N;YAMAZAKI Y;SHIRAI K,"edible hard clam meretrix lamarckii is an important fishery resource along the kashimanada coast, ibaraki prefecture, japan. the aim of this study was to establish a method of determining age by verifying whether two types of growth patterns, growth lines seen in shell cross-section and ''rings'' visible on shell surface, are formed on an annual basis or not. to this end, we examined the shells obtained from a mark-recapture experiment that enabled us to specify growth periods after a release. shell cross-sections were prepared using a hand-held grinder equipped with a thin diamond grinding disc and polished. high-resolution pictures of the cross-section surface were taken using a commercial photo scanner. the number of growth lines in the cross-sections was consistent with the number of winters the shell fish had experienced after release, suggesting that the growth lines were formed in winter on an annual basis. on the other hand, the ''rings'' on the shell surface rarely matched the expected growth periods. this study shows that the number of growth lines recognized in the shell cross-section is a more reliable method of determining the age of the hard clam." +"method of determining ages of hard clam meretrix lamarckii along the kashimanada coast, ibaraki, japan",NA,NIPPON SUISAN GAKKAISHI,HANZAWA H;MURAKAMI SUGIHARA N;YAMAZAKI Y;SHIRAI K,"edible hard clam meretrix lamarckii is an important fishery resource along the kashimanada coast, ibaraki prefecture, japan. the aim of this study was to establish a method of determining age by verifying whether two types of growth patterns, growth lines seen in shell cross-section and ''rings'' visible on shell surface, are formed on an annual basis or not. to this end, we examined the shells obtained from a mark-recapture experiment that enabled us to specify growth periods after a release. shell cross-sections were prepared using a hand-held grinder equipped with a thin diamond grinding disc and polished. high-resolution pictures of the cross-section surface were taken using a commercial photo scanner. the number of growth lines in the cross-sections was consistent with the number of winters the shell fish had experienced after release, suggesting that the growth lines were formed in winter on an annual basis. on the other hand, the ''rings'' on the shell surface rarely matched the expected growth periods. this study shows that the number of growth lines recognized in the shell cross-section is a more reliable method of determining the age of the hard clam." association patterns and population dynamics of bottlenose dolphins in the strait of sicily (central mediterranean sea): implication for management,abundance; associations; fission-fusion society; population size; tursiops truncatus,POPULATION ECOLOGY,PAPALE E;CERAULO M;GIARDINO G;BUFFA G;FILICIOTTO F;GRAMMAUTA R;MACCARRONE V;MAZZOLA S;BUSCAINO G,"an understanding of the population dynamics and social organization of cetaceans is essential to manage the influence of anthropogenic activities. in this study, the population size, site fidelity and social interactions of bottlenose dolphins in the strait of sicily (italy) were investigated to provide recommendations for their conservation. mark-recapture analysis was based on the encounter histories of 103 marked dolphins from 2004 to 2015. the popan formulation of the jolly-seber model in mark software was used to estimate the size of the super-population. site fidelity and social organization were estimated for individuals re-sighted ae3 times. the estimated population size was 140 (se = 15.75; 95% ci = 106-164). dolphins had low site fidelity, and both adults and sub-adults move outside the study area. females with calves used the area longer than other individuals. based on our results, dolphins' home range likely extended beyond the study area. the mean value of the half-weight association index was low and the preferred association was by casual acquaintance. however, we found a distinct aggregation of post-parturition females during the final 2 years of the study. therefore, the pattern of association was apparently a response to an ecological requirement, which was the possibility to breed in high productivity waters. whether these individuals are part of a larger pelagic population is unknown; however, we can conclude that the management of only coastal waters is insufficient for the conservation of dolphins in the strait of sicily." +can the camera lie? a nonpermanent nick in a bottlenose dolphin (tursiops truncatus),NA,AQUATIC MAMMALS,QUICK NJ;CHENEY B;THOMPSON PM;HAMMOND PS,NA difficulties identifying australian sea lions (neophoca cinerea) in the wild using whisker spot patterns,pattern matching; photo-identification,AUSTRALIAN MAMMALOGY,OSTERRIEDER SK;PARNUM IM;KENT CPS;ROBINSON RW,"individual identification is a beneficial tool in behavioural and ecological research. in mark-recapture studies, for example, it can improve abundance, residency and site fidelity estimates. two non-invasive, photo-identification approaches, using whisker spot patterns, were tested to identify wild individual australian sea lions (neophoca cinerea). the chamfer distance transform algorithm has shown promising results when applied to captive individuals. an alternative matching method using row/column locations of whisker spots, previously applied to lions (panthera leo) was also tested. resighting wild n. cinerea in this study proved unfeasible with both methods. excessive variation between photographs of the same individual was found when applying the chamfer distance transform, and similarity between photograph-pairs appeared to decrease with increasing time between photographs. insufficient variation among n. cinerea row/column pattern was detected to successfully discriminate among individuals, averaging 39 mystacial spots (range 30-46, n = 20) in seven rows and 9-10 columns. additionally, different observers marking the same photographs introduced considerable variation. colour difference (red, green and blue colour levels) between the whisker spots and surrounding fur affected marking spot locations significantly, increasing uncertainty when contrast decreased. while other pattern-matching algorithms may improve performance, accurate identification of spot locations was the current limitation." bait preference for remote camera trap studies of the endangered northern quoll (dasyurus hallucatus),individual recognition; mark-recapture,AUSTRALIAN MAMMALOGY,AUSTIN C;TUFT K;RAMP D;CREMONA T;WEBB JK,"estimating population size is crucial for managing populations of threatened species. in the top end of northern australia, populations of northern quolls (dasyurus hallucatus), already affected by livestock grazing, inappropriate burning regimes and predation, have collapsed following the spread of the toxic cane toad (rhinella marina). cane toads are currently invading the kimberley, where they pose a threat to quoll populations. to manage these populations, we need reliable methods for detecting and estimating quoll abundance. we deployed camera traps with lures containing tuna, peanut butter or no bait and found that baited cameras performed better than the unbaited control. cameras with a tuna lure detected more individuals than cameras baited with peanut butter or no bait. cameras with a tuna lure yielded more photographs per quoll than those baited with peanut butter or no bait. we identified individual quolls from unique spot patterns and found multiple photographs improved the accuracy of identification. we also found that population estimates for the sample area derived from camera trapping were consistent with those from live trapping using mark-recapture techniques." demographic characteristics of australian humpback dolphins reveal important habitat toward the southwestern limit of their range,sousa sahulensis; abundance; survival; emigration; capture-recapture; site fidelity; residency,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,HUNT TN;BEJDER L;ALLEN SJ;RANKIN RW;HANF D;PARRA GJ,"the paucity of information on the recently described australian humpback dolphin sousa sahulensis has hindered assessment of its conservation status. here, we applied capturerecapture models to photo-identification data collected during boat-based surveys between 2013 and 2015 to estimate the abundance, site fidelity and residence patterns of australian humpback dolphins around the north west cape (nwc), western australia. using pollock's closed robust design, abundance estimates varied from 65 to 102 individuals, and popan open modelling yielded a super-population size of 129 individuals in the 130 km(2) study area. at approximately 1 humpback dolphin per km(2), this density is the highest recorded for this species. temporary emigration was markovian, suggesting seasonal movement in and out of the study area. hierarchical clustering showed that 63% of individuals identified exhibited high levels of site fidelity. analysis of lagged identification rates indicated dolphins use the study area regularly, following a movement model characterised by emigration and re-immigration. these density, site fidelity and residence patterns indicate that the nwc is an important habitat toward the southwestern limit of this species' range. much of the nwc study area lies within a marine protected area, offering a regulatory framework on which to base the management of human activities with the potential to impact this threatened species. our methods provide a methodo logical framework to be used in future environmental impact assessments, and our findings represent a baseline from which to develop long-term studies to gain a more complete understanding of australian humpback dolphin population dynamics." @@ -1273,10 +1275,10 @@ photographic identification method (pim) using natural body marks: a simple tool "elusive does not always equal rare: genetic assessment of a protected gila monster (heloderma suspectum) population in saguaro national park, arizona",effective population size; genetic baseline; helodermatidae; microsatellites; mitochondrial dna; panmixia; sonoran desert; structure,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,FARRAR VS;EDWARDS T;BONINE KE,"population genetic baselines for species perceived to be at-risk are crucial for monitoring population trends and making well-informed management decisions. we characterized the genetic status of a population of gila monsters (heloderma suspectum), a large venomous lizard native to deserts of the southwestern united states and northern mexico, by sampling 100 individuals in sonoran desert upland habitat at saguaro national park, arizona, usa. we used 18 microsatellite markers, along with 1195 bp of sequence data from the mitochondrial dna 12s locus, to examine genetic diversity, estimate effective population size, and assess demographic history. despite suburban development adjacent to the study area, we observed high genetic diversity with uninhibited gene flow within this protected population. we estimated effective population size (n-e) for the total sample area (80 km(2)) using the linkage disequilibrium method in neestimator to be 94 individuals (95% confidence interval: 80.7-111.2). in 2011, we used capture-recapture methods to estimate that 80 adult gila monsters (95% ci = 37-225) inhabited the area along the 14-km transect that we surveyed most frequently; probability of detecting resident gila monsters during surveys was <0.01, highlighting the challenges of studying the species. despite being considered an elusive and thus potentially rare species, these data reveal that in this protected environment the population appears healthy and robust. the results provide an important genetic baseline for future studies and monitoring, and exemplify the success of protective population measures in national parks and under arizona state laws." one-inflation and unobserved heterogeneity in population size estimation,capture-recapture; count inflation; horvitz-thompson; negative binomial; unobserved heterogeneity,BIOMETRICAL JOURNAL,GODWIN RT,"we present the one-inflated zero-truncated negative binomial (oiztnb) model, and propose its use as the truncated count distribution in horvitz-thompson estimation of an unknown population size. in the presence of unobserved heterogeneity, the zero-truncated negative binomial (ztnb) model is a natural choice over the positive poisson (pp) model; however, when one-inflation is present the ztnb model either suffers from a boundary problem, or provides extremely biased population size estimates. monte carlo evidence suggests that in the presence of one-inflation, the horvitz-thompson estimator under the ztnb model can converge in probability to infinity. the oiztnb model gives markedly different population size estimates compared to some existing truncated count distributions, when applied to several capture-recapture data that exhibit both one-inflation and unobserved heterogeneity." "estimating long-term trends in abundance and survival for nesting flatback turtles in kakadu national park, australia",endemic; capture-mark-recapture; world heritage area; recapture probability,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,GROOM RA;GRIFFITHS AD;CHALOUPKA M,"flatback turtles natator depressus are endemic to australia and papua new guinea's tropical oceans and, although the species has an extensive distribution around northern australia, there are few published long-term abundance trends of nesting populations. we conducted a longterm capture-mark-recapture program on nesting flatback turtles on field island in kakadu national park, a world heritage area that is jointly managed by aboriginal landowners and the australian government, from 2002 to 2013 for between 12 and 20 monitoring days per year. we used a cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) model that accounted for transience and recapture heterogeneity to estimate apparent survival and recapture probability, and estimated abundance using a horvitz-thompson type estimator. a total of 257 flatback turtles attempted nesting during that period, averaging 3.68 +/- 0.28 (mean +/- se) nesting attempts per night of monitoring. annual apparent survival of nesting flatback turtles was 0.97 (95% ci = 0.94 to 0.98) and increased relative to body size. recapture probability averaged 0.38 (95% ci = 0.34 to 0.42) and was influenced by inter-annual climatic variability. the size of the field island nesting flatback turtle population ranged from 97 (95% ci = 87 to 106) to 183 (95% ci = 165 to 200) and there was a non-significant trend over 12 yr of monitoring. understanding long-term population trends of nesting marine turtles is fundamental for management and recovery of these at-risk species." -"the inbreeding strategy of a solitary primate, microcebus murinus",heterozygosity; inbreeding avoidance; inbreeding risk; mate bias; microcebus murinus; sex-biased dispersal; survival,JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY,HUCHARD E;SCHLIEHE-DIECKS S;KAPPELER PM;KRAUS C,"inbreeding depression may be common in nature, reflecting either the failure of inbreeding avoidance strategies or inbreeding tolerance when avoidance is costly. the combined assessment of inbreeding risk, avoidance and depression is therefore fundamental to evaluate the inbreeding strategy of a population, that is how individuals respond to the risk of inbreeding. here, we use the demographic and genetic monitoring of 10 generations of wild grey mouse lemurs (microcebus murinus), small primates from madagascar with overlapping generations, to examine their inbreeding strategy. grey mouse lemurs have retained ancestral mammalian traits, including solitary lifestyle, polygynandry and male-biased dispersal, and may therefore offer a representative example of the inbreeding strategy of solitary mammals. the occurrence of close kin among candidate mates was frequent in young females (similar to 37%, most often the father) and uncommon in young males (similar to 6%) due to male-biased dispersal. however, close kin consistently represented a tiny fraction of candidate mates (<1%) across age and sex categories. mating biases favouring partners with intermediate relatedness were detectable in yearling females and adult males, possibly partly caused by avoidance of daughter-father matings. finally, inbreeding depression, assessed as the effect of heterozygosity on survival, was undetectable using a capture-mark-recapture study. overall, these results indicate that sex-biased dispersal is a primary inbreeding avoidance mechanism at the population level, and mating biases represent an additional strategy that may mitigate residual inbreeding costs at the individual level. combined, these mechanisms explain the rarity of inbreeding and the lack of detectable inbreeding depression in this large, genetically diverse population." +"the inbreeding strategy of a solitary primate, microcebus murinus",heterozygosity; inbreeding avoidance; inbreeding risk; mate bias; microcebus murinus; sex-biased dispersal; survival,JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY,HUCHARD E;SCHLIEHE DIECKS S;KAPPELER PM;KRAUS C,"inbreeding depression may be common in nature, reflecting either the failure of inbreeding avoidance strategies or inbreeding tolerance when avoidance is costly. the combined assessment of inbreeding risk, avoidance and depression is therefore fundamental to evaluate the inbreeding strategy of a population, that is how individuals respond to the risk of inbreeding. here, we use the demographic and genetic monitoring of 10 generations of wild grey mouse lemurs (microcebus murinus), small primates from madagascar with overlapping generations, to examine their inbreeding strategy. grey mouse lemurs have retained ancestral mammalian traits, including solitary lifestyle, polygynandry and male-biased dispersal, and may therefore offer a representative example of the inbreeding strategy of solitary mammals. the occurrence of close kin among candidate mates was frequent in young females (similar to 37%, most often the father) and uncommon in young males (similar to 6%) due to male-biased dispersal. however, close kin consistently represented a tiny fraction of candidate mates (<1%) across age and sex categories. mating biases favouring partners with intermediate relatedness were detectable in yearling females and adult males, possibly partly caused by avoidance of daughter-father matings. finally, inbreeding depression, assessed as the effect of heterozygosity on survival, was undetectable using a capture-mark-recapture study. overall, these results indicate that sex-biased dispersal is a primary inbreeding avoidance mechanism at the population level, and mating biases represent an additional strategy that may mitigate residual inbreeding costs at the individual level. combined, these mechanisms explain the rarity of inbreeding and the lack of detectable inbreeding depression in this large, genetically diverse population." using short-term surveys and mark-recapture to estimate diversity and population size of orchid bees in forest formations of the brazilian savanna,mark-recapture; jolly-seber model; euglossine bees; population estimate,JOURNAL OF NATURAL HISTORY,TOSTA THA;SILVEIRA GD;SCHIAVINI I;SOFIA SH;AUGUSTO SC,studies on the diversity and population dynamics of euglossine bees in forest formations of the brazilian savanna can be notably informative considering that most species are forest-dependent. the current study aimed to estimate the diversity and population size of euglossine bees using short-term surveys and the mark-recapture method. we also compared short-term surveys with monthly surveys over a 1-year period (long-term surveys) to assess the species diversity. the study occurred in seven forest formations of the brazilian savanna. we collected 14 species and marked 375 males but recaptured only 23 (6.1%). the population size of euglossa bees ranged from 111.1 +/- 34.4 to 1384.5 +/- 384.6 males. the diversity indices achieved through the short-term surveys were similar to or higher than those obtained from long-term studies. the low recapture rate of euglossine males seems to be the result of their long-distance dispersal capacity. we also proposed that short-term surveys be viewed as a favourable alternative to long-term studies on diversity estimation and that euglossine bees can occur in small populations in some forest formations studied. effects of temporary closure of a national park on leopard movement and behaviour in tropical asia,human disturbance; protected area management; spatial capture-recapture; activity patterns; mammalian carnivores; panthera pardus; thailand,MAMMALIAN BIOLOGY,NGOPRASERT D;LYNAM AJ;GALE GA,"across asia protected areas serve as refuges for carnivores inside human-dominated landscapes. however, the creation of hard edges around reserve boundaries where conflicts with humans arise and disturbance from human activities inside the reserves may affect carnivore behaviour and ecology. thailand's largest protected area, kaeng krachan national park (2915 km(2)) receives >100,000 visitors annually while maintaining an intact assemblage of prey species for large carnivores, making it a potentially important site for population recovery of leopards (panthera pardus), tigers (panthera tigris) and dholes (cuon alpinus). we assessed the abundance of leopards and their prey base, and their response to changes in levels of human activity after an unexpected flooding event that resulted in the park being closed to visitors for >6 months. using camera-traps, we identified 6 individual leopards and used spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) methods, incorporating humans and prey as covariates, to test for factors affecting the detection probability of leopards before and after the park closure. leopard density was unchanged between the two periods, however the movement and activity patterns were clearly different. in the absence of tourist activity, leopards tended to move more frequently, leopard detection rates increased by 70% and activity shifted towards being more diurnal. the consequences of these changes in behaviour may include improved health, reproduction and survival. a management strategy involving seasonal closure of parks may serve to alleviate pressure on leopards and other carnivores. we recommend using information on abundance of large carnivores and their prey species, and human disturbance as the key indicators for long-term monitoring and management of protected areas in southeast asia. (c) 2016 deutsche gesellschaft fur saugetierkunde. published by elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." -effectiveness of two tagging devices in the sea cucumber holothuria (halodeima) grisea,growth; passive integrated transponder tag; pit tag; survival; tracking individuals,MARINE AND FRESHWATER RESEARCH,RODRIGUEZ-BARRERAS R;LOPEZ-MORELL J;SABAT AM,"a reliable and harmless mark-recapture method provides valuable information for the management of commercial sea cucumber species. nevertheless, marking and tracking sea cucumbers is notoriously difficult and represents a serious challenge. in this study, we tested one external and one internal tag in the sea cucumber holothuria grisea. a passive integrated transponder (pit) tag was inserted into the coelomic cavity in one treatment, whereas a t-bar (external tag) was attached in the upper surface of the body wall in the other treatment; sea cucumbers were then followed for 17 weeks. the tagging procedure caused no evisceration in the experimental groups, nor was a significant difference in growth rate found between treatments. the retention of the pit tag was low, with 100% lost by week 9. retention of t-bars was higher, with 90% still attached by the end of the week 8, but retention decreased thereafter as t-bar absorption increased. no relationship was found between initial weight and the number of weeks pit tags (r = -0.173, p = 0.781) or t-bars (r = -0.220, p = 0.652) were retained. neither the t-bar nor the pit tags fulfilled the requirements of high retention required for long-term studies. however, we do recommend the use of t-bars for short-term studies for h. grisea under laboratory conditions or in a habitat with low substrate complexity." +effectiveness of two tagging devices in the sea cucumber holothuria (halodeima) grisea,growth; passive integrated transponder tag; pit tag; survival; tracking individuals,MARINE AND FRESHWATER RESEARCH,RODRIGUEZ BARRERAS R;LOPEZ MORELL J;SABAT AM,"a reliable and harmless mark-recapture method provides valuable information for the management of commercial sea cucumber species. nevertheless, marking and tracking sea cucumbers is notoriously difficult and represents a serious challenge. in this study, we tested one external and one internal tag in the sea cucumber holothuria grisea. a passive integrated transponder (pit) tag was inserted into the coelomic cavity in one treatment, whereas a t-bar (external tag) was attached in the upper surface of the body wall in the other treatment; sea cucumbers were then followed for 17 weeks. the tagging procedure caused no evisceration in the experimental groups, nor was a significant difference in growth rate found between treatments. the retention of the pit tag was low, with 100% lost by week 9. retention of t-bars was higher, with 90% still attached by the end of the week 8, but retention decreased thereafter as t-bar absorption increased. no relationship was found between initial weight and the number of weeks pit tags (r = -0.173, p = 0.781) or t-bars (r = -0.220, p = 0.652) were retained. neither the t-bar nor the pit tags fulfilled the requirements of high retention required for long-term studies. however, we do recommend the use of t-bars for short-term studies for h. grisea under laboratory conditions or in a habitat with low substrate complexity." isotopic structure of lake whitefish in lake huron: evidence for regional and local populations based on resource use,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,EBERTS RL;WISSEL B;SIMPSON GL;CRAWFORD SS;STOTT W;HANNER RH;MANZON RG;WILSON JY;BOREHAM DR;SOMERS CM,"lake whitefish coregonus clupeaformis is the most commercially valuable species in lake huron. the fishery for this species has historically been managed based on 25 management units (17 in canada, 8 in the usa). however, congruence between the contemporary population structure of lakewhitefish and management units is poorly understood. we used stable isotopes of carbon (delta c-13) and nitrogen (delta n-15), food web markers that reflect patterns in resource use (i.e., prey, location, habitat), to assess the population structure of spawning-phase lake whitefish collected from 32 sites (1,474 fish) across lake huron. we found large isotopic variation among fish from different sites (ranges: delta c-13 = 10.2 parts per thousand, delta n-15 = 5.5 parts per thousand) and variable niche size and levels of overlap (standard ellipse area = 1.0-4.3 parts per thousand(2)). lake huron contained spawning-phase fish from four major isotopic clusters largely defined by extensive variation in delta c-13, and the isotopic composition of fish sampled was spatially structured both within and between lake basins. based on cluster compositions, we identified six putative regional groups, some of which represented sites of high diversity (three to four clusters) and others with less (one to two clusters). analysis of isotopic values from lake whitefish collected from summer feeding locations and baseline prey items showed similar isotopic variation and established spatial linkage between spawning-phase and summer fish. our results show that summer feeding location contributes strongly to the isotopic structure we observed in spawning-phase fish. one of the regional groups we identified in northern georgian bay is highly distinct based on isotopic composition and possibly ecologically unique within lake huron. our findings are congruent with several previous studies using different markers (genetics, mark-recapture), and we conclude that current management units are generally too small and numerous to reflect the population structure of lake whitefish in lake huron." "western pearlshell mussel life history in merrill creek, oregon: reproductive timing, growth, and movement",western pearlshell mussels; margaritifera falcata; reproduction; growth; movement,NORTHWEST SCIENCE,ALLARD DJ;WHITESEL TA;LOHR SC;KOSKI ML,"most freshwater mussel species in north america are imperiled. life history traits of many species have been documented but information regarding western pearlshell mussels (margaritifera falcata gould) is scarce. our goal was to improve understanding of western pearlshell mussel reproduction, growth, and movement. the study area was a 250 m reach in merrill creek, oregon. we examined 1389 mussels for gravidity and examined water samples for glochidia during presumed spawning times over a 4-year period. we tagged 415 mussels for mark-recapture observations for growth and movement. no mussels showed signs of gravidity. however, four mussels near our study transects were observed releasing conglutinates. glochidia were present from april to mid-june. glochidia were not detected until maximum daily water temperature had reached 10.0 degrees c, and were no longer detected once minimum daily water temperature remained above 9.0 degrees c. there was a negative relation between growth rate and mussel size. growth rate was not significantly different than 0.0000 mm d(-1) for large mussels and 0.0011 mm d(-1) for small mussels. for movement, 60% (n = 15) of mussels were recaptured at the same transect as originally marked, 32% (n = 8) were recaptured 3.7-115.6 m downstream and 8% (n = 2) were recaptured 12.0 m upstream. this basic life history information is essential to consider when developing management plans associated with the conservation of western pearlshell mussels and their habitat. our results indicate they are slow-growing, slow-moving, long-lived, and thus likely slow to adapt to environmental change and respond to habitat perturbations." variable vital rates and the risk of population declines in adelie penguins from the antarctic peninsula region,climate change; commission for conservation of antarctic living marine resources; demography; long-term monitoring; penguin; pygoscelis; south shetland islands,ECOSPHERE,HINKE JT;TRIVELPIECE SG;TRIVELPIECE WZ,"predicting population responses in changing environments is an important task for ecologists. in polar regions, climate warming, loss of sea ice, and more frequent anomalous events suggest that further reductions in ice-dependent animal populations are likely. we assess the risk of near-term (30-year) depletion of an adelie penguin (pygoscelis adeliae) population with a stochastic matrix model parameterized with 30 yr (1982-2011) of data from the copacabana colony on king george island, antarctica. the model was fitted to nest census data by estimating correction factors for survival rates estimated from a multi-state mark-recapture model. we modeled future survival and fecundity scenarios during the projection period (2012-2041) based on a two-state markov chain that randomly assigned survival rates and reproductive success from their respective historical distributions to represent ""good"" and ""poor"" years. monte carlo simulation was used to estimate population trajectories across a range of progressively worse survival conditions. the results suggest that, given historical distributions of survival and reproductive success, a limited scope for recovery of the population is present, commensurate with recent stabilization in population size at the study site. however, our projections mainly suggest that the adelie penguin population will decline if the frequency of years with poor survival remains at, or increases above, its 30-year mean. the risk of local depletion within 30 yr, defined according to international union for conservation of nature categories for endangered and critically endangered species, was 33% for > 90% declines, but near 100% for 50% declines given status-quo conditions. as survival conditions worsen, the risk of substantive depletions rose rapidly. given expectations of further environmental and ecosystem changes in the northern antarctic peninsula region, continued declines in adelie penguin population size at the northern extent of their range should be expected." @@ -1285,7 +1287,7 @@ estimating homelessness in the netherlands using a capture-recapture approach,ho "density and population structure of the jaguar (panthera onca) in a protected area of los llanos, venezuela, from 1 year of camera trap monitoring",carnivore conservation; felid ecology; hato pinero; jaguar breeding; populationdensity estimate; spatial capture-recapture,MAMMAL RESEARCH,JEDRZEJEWSKI W;PUERTO MF;GOLDBERG JF;HEBBLEWHITE M;ABARCA M;GAMARRA G;CALDERON LE;ROMERO JF;VILORIA AL;CARRENO R;ROBINSON HS;LAMPO M;BOEDE EO;BIGANZOLI A;STACHOWICZ I;VELASQUEZ G;SCHMIDT K,"density is crucial for understanding large carnivore ecology and conservation, but estimating it has proven methodologically difficult. we conducted 1 year of camera trapping to estimate jaguar (panthera onca) density and population structure in the los llanos region of venezuela on the hato pinero ranch, where hunting is prohibited and livestock are excluded from half of ranch lands. we identified 42 different jaguars and determined their sex, age class, and reproductive status. we estimated adult jaguar densities with spatial capture-recapture models, using sex/reproductive state and session as covariates. models without temporal variation received more support than models that allowed variation between sessions. males, reproductive females, and nonreproductive females differed in their density, baseline detectability, and movement. the best estimate of total adult jaguar population density was 4.44 individuals/100 km(2). based on reproductive female density and mean number of offspring per female, we estimated cub density at 3.23 individuals/100 km(2) and an overall density of 7.67 jaguars/100 km(2). estimated jaguar population structure was 21% males, 11% nonreproductive females, 26% reproductive females, and 42% cubs. we conclude that extending the sampling period to 1 year increases the detectability of females and cubs and makes density estimates more robust as compared to the more common short studies. our results demonstrate that the venezuelan llanos represent important jaguar habitat, and further, they emphasize the importance of protected areas and hunting restrictions for carnivore conservation." "autecology of a new species of carnivorous marsupial, the endangered black-tailed dusky antechinus (antechinus arktos), compared to a sympatric congener, the brown antechinus (antechinus stuartii)",breeding biology; conservation; dasyuridae; mark-recapture; population dynamics,MAMMAL RESEARCH,GRAY EL;BAKER AM;FIRN J,"the carnivorous marsupial antechinus are one of the few mammal genera known to exhibit the phenomenon of semelparous reproduction, where all males die at the end of a frenetic annual mating period. the genus antechinus has recently been revised, seeing four new species named and one existing subspecies raised to species status. here, we present the first ecological assessment of one new species, the endangered black-tailed dusky antechinus (antechinus arktos), based on a 2-year mark-recapture study of two proximate sites within the cloud forest of springbrook national park, south-east queensland, australia. we also present comparative ecological data from a sympatric congener, antechinus stuartii. in total, 103 a. arktos (49 male; 54 female) and 2125 a. stuartii (1229 male; 896 female) captures were made over 16,630 trap nights at the two sites. the occurrence and synchrony of reproductive events observed in a. arktos closely parallel the semelparous reproductive strategy exhibited by all congeners studied to date. the a. arktos populations mate during mid-september, with birth of up to six young occurring during mid-october. the low abundance and fecundity, together with a limited and apparently retracting distribution, suggest a. arktos is under threat of climate-induced extinction in the coming decades." impact of different road types on small mammals in mt. kalamaili nature reserve,road type; avoidance; permeability; translocation; rhombomys opimus; allactaga sibirica,TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH PART D-TRANSPORT AND ENVIRONMENT,JI SN;JIANG ZG;LI LL;LI CW;ZHANG YJ;REN S;PING XG;CUI SP;CHU HJ,"understanding how roads affect connectivity of wildlife populations is one of the challenges in road ecology. road avoidance behavior in animals may fragment populations, whereas lacking of road avoidance behavior in animals presumably result in high mortality due to wildlife-vehicle collisions. small mammals are of great interest on account of their value as indicators of environmental impacts and their key role in ecosystems. applying mark-recapture method, we conducted trapping experiment and artificial translocation to assess how different types of roads affect the small mammals in mt. kalamaili nature reserve in northern xinjiang, china. the results show that of the two small mammal species that were most commonly trapped, the abundance of great gerbils (rhombomys opimus) increased near unpaved road and decreased at paved road sites, as opposed to mongolian five-toed jerboas (allactaga sibirica); road crossing events of great gerbils were primarily influenced by the paved road, rather than the unpaved road, in contrast to mongolian five-toed jerboas were unaffected by road types (no matter paved-or unpaved roads). therefore, our results indicated that great gerbils avoided paved road, while paved road had no influence on mongolian five-toed jerboas. the interspecific difference implied that microhabitat use preferences, life-history strategies and road substrate help to predict how species responses to barrier of different road types, but traffic volume may have little effect. however, since higher traffic levels were not coincided with the peak periods for activity of the nocturnal species, further investigations are needed to be continued. (c) 2016 published by elsevier ltd." -causes of mortality in depleted populations of atlantic cod estimated from multi-event modelling of mark-recapture and recovery data,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,FERNANDEZ-CHACON A;MOLAND E;ESPELAND SH;KLEIVEN AR;OLSEN EM,"knowledge on mortality causes is key for an effective management of animal populations and can help to restore depleted fish stocks. here we investigated the mortality dynamics of coastal atlantic cod (gadus morhua) in skagerrak, southern norway, by analyzing local mark-recapture and recovery data collected from 2005 to 2013 (n = 9360 fish, mean length = 41 cm, range = 16-93 cm). by applying multi-event models to the data, we could link field observations to multiple ""dead states"" and estimate the proportion of deaths associated with different fishing gears while controlling for unobserved mortality and detection errors. deaths due to hand lines and fixed gear types were dominant compared with other causes, especially in legal-sized cod (>= 40 cm). gear-specific mortality changed over time and between size classes, but annual survival remained low and stable (similar to 0.3). assuming fully additive mortality, we predicted annual survival of cod to be above 0.5 if only one or both of the dominant gear types were removed, providing insights on the relative impact of diverse harvesting practices on local population dynamics." +causes of mortality in depleted populations of atlantic cod estimated from multi-event modelling of mark-recapture and recovery data,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,FERNANDEZ CHACON A;MOLAND E;ESPELAND SH;KLEIVEN AR;OLSEN EM,"knowledge on mortality causes is key for an effective management of animal populations and can help to restore depleted fish stocks. here we investigated the mortality dynamics of coastal atlantic cod (gadus morhua) in skagerrak, southern norway, by analyzing local mark-recapture and recovery data collected from 2005 to 2013 (n = 9360 fish, mean length = 41 cm, range = 16-93 cm). by applying multi-event models to the data, we could link field observations to multiple ""dead states"" and estimate the proportion of deaths associated with different fishing gears while controlling for unobserved mortality and detection errors. deaths due to hand lines and fixed gear types were dominant compared with other causes, especially in legal-sized cod (>= 40 cm). gear-specific mortality changed over time and between size classes, but annual survival remained low and stable (similar to 0.3). assuming fully additive mortality, we predicted annual survival of cod to be above 0.5 if only one or both of the dominant gear types were removed, providing insights on the relative impact of diverse harvesting practices on local population dynamics." computer-aided photographic identification of rosalia alpina (coleoptera: cerambycidae) applied to a mark-recapture study,elytral spots; (isc)-s-3 software; natural marking; protected species; saproxylic insects,INSECT CONSERVATION AND DIVERSITY,DE GASPERIS SR;CARPANETO GM;NIGRO G;ANTONINI G;CHIARI S;CINI A;MANCINI E;MASON F;MOSCONI F;DE ZAN LR;ROVERSI PF;PEVERIERI GS;SOLANO E;CAMPANARO A,"1. assessing the conservation status of protected species needs quantitative population data, generally obtained using capture-mark-recapture methods (cmr). the exploitation of natural marking (e.g. individual morphological traits) offers an interesting alternative, based on image analyses, which may result in a less manipulation of protected species compared to the typical artificial marking method. 2. in our 2-year cmr study, we tested for the first time in the natural setting the feasibility and the application of the computer-aided photographic identification method of rosalia alpina using the individual elytral spots as the natural marking. the (isc)-s-3 software was used for the photographic analysis. 3. data were collected from populations of two national parks of central italy during july-august in 2014 and 2015. we developed a standard procedure in order to optimise the image acquisition in the field and to acquire clear and comparable images, facilitating the (isc)-s-3 screening process. 4. the results demonstrated that the computer-aided photographic identification of natural markings can be implemented in a cmr population study of r. alpina. our image processing approach showed that using only the elytral central spot contours made the tracing contour process less time-consuming obtaining reliable results. furthermore, (isc)-s-3 output scores were used to identify a threshold value for the identification of new individuals or recaptures, facilitating the final identification proposed by operators. 5. finally, we assessed the possibility of performing the methodology using a citizen science approach." behavioral connectivity among bighorn sheep suggests potential for disease spread,behavioral connectivity; bighorn sheep; disease; idaho; multi-state mark-recapture; ovis canadensis; salmon river; social groups,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,BORG NJ;MITCHELL MS;LUKACS PM;MACK CM;WAITS LP;KRAUSMAN PR,"connectivity is important for population persistence and can reduce the potential for inbreeding depression. connectivity between populations can also facilitate disease transmission; respiratory diseases are one of the most important factors affecting populations of bighorn sheep (ovis canadensis). the mechanisms of connectivity in populations of bighorn sheep likely have implications for spread of disease, but the behaviors leading to connectivity between bighorn sheep groups are not well understood. from 2007-2012, we radio-collared and monitored 56 bighorn sheep in the salmon river canyon in central idaho. we used cluster analysis to define social groups of bighorn sheep and then estimated connectivity between these groups using a multi-state mark-recapture model. social groups of bighorn sheep were spatially segregated and linearly distributed along the salmon river canyon. monthly probabilities of movement between adjacent male and female groups ranged from 0.08 (0.004 se) to 0.76 (+/- 0.068) for males and 0.05 (+/- 0.132) to 0.24 (+/- 0.034) for females. movements of males were extensive and probabilities of movement were considerably higher during the rut. probabilities of movement for females were typically smaller than those of males and did not change seasonally. whereas adjacent groups of bighorn sheep along the salmon river canyon were well connected, connectivity between groups north and south of the salmon river was limited. the novel application of a multi-state model to a population of bighorn sheep allowed us to estimate the probability of movement between adjacent social groups and approximate the level of connectivity across the population. our results suggest high movement rates of males during the rut are the most likely to result in transmission of pathogens among both male and female groups. potential for disease spread among female groups was smaller but non-trivial. land managers can plan grazing of domestic sheep for spring and summer months when males are relatively inactive. removal or quarantine of social groups may reduce probability of disease transmission in populations of bighorn sheep consisting of linearly distributed social groups. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." survival by genotype: patterns at mc1r are not black and white at the white sands ecotone,adaptation; capture-recapture; crypsis; ecotone; jags; natural selection,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,DES ROCHES S;SOLLMANN R;CALHOUN K;ROTHSTEIN AP;ROSENBLUM EB,"measuring links among genotype, phenotype and survival in the wild has long been a focus of studies of adaptation. we conducted a 4-year capture-recapture study to measure survival by genotype and phenotype in the southwestern fence lizard (sceloporus cowlesi) at the white sands ecotone (transition area between white sands and dark soil habitats). we report several unanticipated findings. first, in contrast with previous work showing that cryptic blanched coloration in s. cowlesi from the heart of the dunes is associated with mutations in the melanocortin-1 receptor gene (mc1r), ecotonal s. cowlesi showed minimal association between colour phenotype and mc1r genotype. second, the frequency of the derived mc1r allele in ecotonal s. cowlesi appeared to decrease over time. third, our capture-recapture data revealed a lower survival rate for s. cowlesi individuals with the derived mc1r allele. thus, our results suggest that selection at the ecotone may have favoured the wild-type allele in recent years. even in a system where a genotype-phenotype association appeared to be black and white, our study suggests that additional factors - including phenotypic plasticity, epistasis, pleiotropy and gene flow - may play important roles at the white sands ecotone. our study highlights the importance of linking molecular, genomic and organismal approaches for understanding adaptation in the wild. furthermore, our findings indicate that dynamics of natural selection can be particularly complex in transitional habitats like ecotones and emphasize the need for future research that examines the patterns of ongoing selection in other ecological 'grey' zones." @@ -1301,8 +1303,8 @@ geographical heterogeneity of multiple sclerosis prevalence in france,NA,PLOS ON "a robust design capture-recapture analysis of abundance, survival and temporary emigration of three odontocete species in the gulf of corinth, greece",NA,PLOS ONE,SANTOSTASI NL;BONIZZONI S;BEARZI G;EDDY L;GIMENEZ O,"while the mediterranean sea has been designated as a global biodiversity hotspot, assessments of cetacean population abundance are lacking for large portions of the region, particularly in the southern and eastern basins. the challenges and costs of obtaining the necessary data often result in absent or poor abundance information. we applied capturere-capture models to estimate abundance, survival and temporary emigration of odontocete populations within a 2,400 km(2) semi-enclosed mediterranean bay, the gulf of corinth. boat surveys were conducted in 2011-2015 to collect photo-identification data on striped dolphins stenella coeruleoalba, short-beaked common dolphins delphinus delphis (always found together with striped dolphins in mixed groups) and common bottlenose dolphins tursiops truncatus, totaling 1,873 h of tracking. after grading images for quality and marking distinctiveness, 23,995 high-quality photos were included in a striped and common dolphin catalog, and 2,472 in a bottlenose dolphin catalog. the proportions of striped and common dolphins were calculated from the photographic sample and used to scale capture-recapture estimates. best-fitting robust design capture-recapture models denoted no temporary emigration between years for striped and common dolphins, and random temporary emigration for bottlenose dolphins, suggesting different residency patterns in agreement with previous studies. average estimated abundance over the five years was 1,331 (95% ci 1,122-1,578) striped dolphins, 22 (16-32) common dolphins, 55 (36-84) ""intermediate"" animals (potential striped x common dolphin hybrids) and 38 (32-46) bottlenose dolphins. apparent survival was constant for striped, common and intermediate dolphins (0.94, 95% ci 0.92-0.96) and year-dependent for bottlenose dolphins (an average of 0.85, 95% ci 0.76-0.95). our work underlines the importance of long-term monitoring to contribute reliable baseline information that can help assess the conservation status of wildlife populations." "growth and longevity of the red rock crab cancer productus (randall, 1840)",life history; size frequency distribution; molt increment; molt frequency; mark recapture; recreational fishery; cancer producrus,JOURNAL OF SHELLFISH RESEARCH,YAMADA SB;GROTH SD,"although the native red rock crab cancer producrus is an important component of pacific northwest nearshore communities and recreational crab fisheries, little is known about its life history. growth in crustaceans is incremental and age classes overlap, making these investigations difficult. an array of techniques was used to estimate growth and longevity of c. productus in a marine preserve at the university of washington friday harbor laboratories. these included size-frequency distribution analysis of young crabs in their nursery habitat, growth inside cages, and mark recapture studies. the growth rate in c. productus varies greatly, with adult males exhibiting greater molt increments and molt frequencies than females. for crabs less than 80 mm in carapace width, males and females grow at the same rate: attaining 30-65 mm carapace width at age 1, and 60-95 mm at ago 2. maximum carapace widths of males and females were 171 and 150 mm, respectively, and maximum longevity is estimated to be at least 5 and probably more, much longer than previously estimated." "age ratio and survival of common rosefinch (carpodacus erythrinus, passeriformes, fringillidae) in a local population based on ringing data",apparent survival; age ratio; common rosefinch; carpodacus erythrinus,BIOLOGY BULLETIN,SHITIKOV DA;GAGIEVA VA;BOLSHAKOVA MM,"the ringing data on common rosefinch obtained during thirteen field seasons (2002-2014) at the national park ""russky sever"" (vologda region) are analyzed. birds were trapped in two sites 59 km apart. the age of the birds (yearlings or first breeders and adults) was determined according to the plumage color in every male captured with mist nets. the apparent survival rate of adult individuals was determined using two methods: according to the ratio of males' age and the cjs model (lebreton et al., 1992; bursky, 2011). a total of 713 captures of 657 individuals were analyzed. the ratios of ages in the males from the sites studied did not differ; yearlings amounted to 56% of all males. the rate of survival in the males based on the age ratios was estimated at 44 +/- 2%. the apparent survival rate obtained using the cjs model was significantly higher (61 +/- 6%). the survival rate of adult rosefinches in two sites did not differ and did not depend on sex. literature materials on the age ratio and survival of rosefinches in local populations are analyzed. there is a suggestion that the mismatch of the survival rates obtained by two methods and the high proportion of yearling males in the banding captures can be explained by the fact that the majority of individuals of that age category did not participate in nesting." -survival and site fidelity of urban blackbirds turdus merula -comparison of cormack-jolly-seber and barker models,dispersal; natal dispersal; temporal migration; philopatry; sedentariness,ACTA ORNITHOLOGICA,JANKOWIAK L;WYSOCKI D;GRENO J,"studies dealing with the individual survival of birds in open populations usually estimate survival according to capture-recapture models like the cormack-jolly-seber (cjs). in fact, these models estimate local apparent survival (p), which is a combination of the probabilities of true survival (s) and site-fidelity (f), i.e. death and emigration are confounded. these s and f parameters can be estimated by using 'robust' models (e.g. barker's model), which use additional resighting and dead reports data. we aim to compare the results (and associated biological implications) obtained by analysing juvenile and adult survival in a polish urban population of blackbirds turdus merula using both the cjs and barker models. our cjs models estimated high p values for both juvenile and adult birds (0.48 and 0.62, respectively). the lower scores for juveniles could be interpreted as low juvenile overwintering survival. by fitting barker models to the same dataset we determined that juvenile site fidelity was lower than that of adults (0.91 and 0.93, respectively), so natal dispersal was slightly greater than breeding dispersal. the high fidelity causes similarity between apparent survival and true survival parameters (s: 0.51 for juveniles, 0.64 for adults). the results are comparable with data from other urban populations. thus, using robust models certainly allows one to reduce the noise of movements confounding and/or masking survival probabilities, but one can also determine the individual or environmental variables affecting any of them separately." -estimating the size of the dutch breeding population of continental black-tailed godwits from 2007-2015 using resighting data from spring staging sites,population estimate; survival probability; mark-recapture; bayesian framework; trend,ARDEA,KENTIE R;SENNER NR;HOOIJMEIJER JCEW;MARQUEZ-FERRANDO R;FIGUEROLA J;MASERO JA;VERHOEVEN MA;PIERSMA T,"over the past 50 years, the population of continental black-tailed godwits limosa limosa limosa breeding of the east atlantic flyway has been in steep decline. this decline has previously been documented in trend analyses and six netherlands-wide count-based population estimates, the last of which was completed in 1999. we provide an updated population size estimate and describe inter-annual fluctuations in the population between 2007 and 2015. to generate these estimates, we integrated a mark-recapture survival analysis with estimates of the densities of colour-marked individuals at migratory staging sites with known proportions of continental and icelandic l. l. islandica black-tailed godwits within a bayesian framework. the use of these analytical techniques means that, in contrast with earlier efforts, our estimates are accompanied with confidence intervals, allowing us to estimate the population size with known precision. using additional information on the breeding destination of 43 godwits equipped with satellite transmitters at iberian staging areas, we found that 87% (75-95% 95% ci) of the nominate subspecies in the east atlantic flyway breed in the netherlands. we estimated that the number of breeding pairs in the netherlands has declined from 47,000 (38,000-56,000) pairs in 2007 to 33,000 (26,000-41,000) in 2015. despite a temporary increase in 2010 and 2011, the population declined by an average of 3.7% per year over the entire period from 2007-2015, and by 6.3% from 2011-2015. we conclude that investing in an intensive demographic programme at a regional scale, when combined with targeted resightings of marked individuals elsewhere, can yield population estimates at the flyway scale." +survival and site fidelity of urban blackbirds turdus merula - comparison of cormack-jolly-seber and barker models,dispersal; natal dispersal; temporal migration; philopatry; sedentariness,ACTA ORNITHOLOGICA,JANKOWIAK L;WYSOCKI D;GRENO J,"studies dealing with the individual survival of birds in open populations usually estimate survival according to capture-recapture models like the cormack-jolly-seber (cjs). in fact, these models estimate local apparent survival (p), which is a combination of the probabilities of true survival (s) and site-fidelity (f), i.e. death and emigration are confounded. these s and f parameters can be estimated by using 'robust' models (e.g. barker's model), which use additional resighting and dead reports data. we aim to compare the results (and associated biological implications) obtained by analysing juvenile and adult survival in a polish urban population of blackbirds turdus merula using both the cjs and barker models. our cjs models estimated high p values for both juvenile and adult birds (0.48 and 0.62, respectively). the lower scores for juveniles could be interpreted as low juvenile overwintering survival. by fitting barker models to the same dataset we determined that juvenile site fidelity was lower than that of adults (0.91 and 0.93, respectively), so natal dispersal was slightly greater than breeding dispersal. the high fidelity causes similarity between apparent survival and true survival parameters (s: 0.51 for juveniles, 0.64 for adults). the results are comparable with data from other urban populations. thus, using robust models certainly allows one to reduce the noise of movements confounding and/or masking survival probabilities, but one can also determine the individual or environmental variables affecting any of them separately." +estimating the size of the dutch breeding population of continental black-tailed godwits from 2007-2015 using resighting data from spring staging sites,population estimate; survival probability; mark-recapture; bayesian framework; trend,ARDEA,KENTIE R;SENNER NR;HOOIJMEIJER JCEW;MARQUEZ FERRANDO R;FIGUEROLA J;MASERO JA;VERHOEVEN MA;PIERSMA T,"over the past 50 years, the population of continental black-tailed godwits limosa limosa limosa breeding of the east atlantic flyway has been in steep decline. this decline has previously been documented in trend analyses and six netherlands-wide count-based population estimates, the last of which was completed in 1999. we provide an updated population size estimate and describe inter-annual fluctuations in the population between 2007 and 2015. to generate these estimates, we integrated a mark-recapture survival analysis with estimates of the densities of colour-marked individuals at migratory staging sites with known proportions of continental and icelandic l. l. islandica black-tailed godwits within a bayesian framework. the use of these analytical techniques means that, in contrast with earlier efforts, our estimates are accompanied with confidence intervals, allowing us to estimate the population size with known precision. using additional information on the breeding destination of 43 godwits equipped with satellite transmitters at iberian staging areas, we found that 87% (75-95% 95% ci) of the nominate subspecies in the east atlantic flyway breed in the netherlands. we estimated that the number of breeding pairs in the netherlands has declined from 47,000 (38,000-56,000) pairs in 2007 to 33,000 (26,000-41,000) in 2015. despite a temporary increase in 2010 and 2011, the population declined by an average of 3.7% per year over the entire period from 2007-2015, and by 6.3% from 2011-2015. we conclude that investing in an intensive demographic programme at a regional scale, when combined with targeted resightings of marked individuals elsewhere, can yield population estimates at the flyway scale." apparent constant adult survival of a sand martin riparia riparia population in relation to climatic variables,capture-mark-recapture; population dynamics; riparia riparia; sand martin; climate,ARDEA,MASOERO G;TAMIETTI A;BOANO G;CAPRIO E,"the sand martin riparia riparia is a trans-saharan migrant species, whose populations are declining throughout europe. we present the results of a multiple year study on a breeding population of sand martins along the river po in northern italy through ringing breeding birds at nesting colonies (2002-2014). there was a trend for the abundance of the studied population to fluctuate. recapture data were analysed to obtain apparent survival probabilities which differed between the sexes, but not between years. no apparent relationship was found between survival and three different meteo-climatic indices (north atlantic oscillation, sahel rainfall and lake chad rainfall). during the 1980s and 1990s, winter survival was positively correlated with rainfall in the winter quarters. although rainfall in the winter quarters has been more stable during the past 15 years, sand martin populations are still decreasing. our findings suggest that the relationship with rainfall no longer holds, and that current population declines may be unrelated to climate in the winter quarters." influence of pit tags on growth and survival of banded sculpin (cottus carolinae): implications for endangered grotto sculpin (cottus specus),NA,JOURNAL OF CAVE AND KARST STUDIES,FERNHOLZ J;PHELPS QE,"to make appropriate restoration decisions, fisheries scientists must be knowledgeable about life history, population dynamics, and ecological role of a species of interest. however, acquisition of such information is considerably more challenging for species with low abundance and that occupy difficult to sample habitats. one such species that inhabits areas that are difficult to sample is the recently listed endangered, cave-dwelling grotto sculpin, cottus specus. to understand more about the grotto sculpin's ecological function and quantify its population demographics, a mark-recapture study is warranted. however, the effects of pit tagging on grotto sculpin are unknown, so a passive integrated transponder (pit) tagging study was performed. banded sculpin, cottus carolinae, were used as a surrogate for grotto sculpin due to genetic and morphological similarities. banded sculpin were implanted with 8.3 x 1.4 mm and 12.0 x 2.15 mm pit tags to determine tag retention rates, growth, and mortality. our results suggest sculpin species of the genus cottus implanted with 8.3 3 1.4 mm tags exhibited higher growth, survival, and tag retention rates than those implanted with 12.0 x 2.15 mm tags. to this end, we recommend 8.3 x 1.4 mm pit tags as a feasible option for tagging adult sculpin (> 60 mm total length) with minimal impacts on growth and mortality." challenges of monitoring reintroduction outcomes: insights from the conservation breeding program of an endangered turtle in italy,body condition index; population viability analysis; post-release effect; restocking; uncertainty; value of information,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,CANESSA S;GENTA P;JESU R;LAMAGNI L;ONETO F;SALVIDIO S;OTTONELLO D,"captive breeding and reintroduction programs remain a powerful but divisive tool for management of threatened species, with a proven potential to avoid extinction, but low long-term success rates and high resource requirements. monitoring the results of reintroductions is critical to be able to assess short- and long-term success, adjusting management decisions as new information becomes available. in this study, we assessed the first 15 years of the captive breeding and restocking program for the european pond turtle emys orbicularis in liguria, northern italy. we estimated survival of released turtles by modelling mark-recapture monitoring data. we then used those estimates to update our prior expectations about long-term outcomes, and to adjust management decisions about the age of individuals to release. modelling results suggest released turtles had sufficiently high survival, matching prior expectations, such that local extinction has been averted in the short-term. survival was similar among carididate age classes for releases, suggesting the release of younger individuals can provide positive outcomes while reducing management costs. on the other hand, survival varied among sites, indicating the need for ongoing in-situ habitat management to ensure long-term persistence. moreover, the late onset of sexual maturity in the species means reproduction of released animals cannot yet be determined with certainty. captive breeding and reintroduction programs normally require long-term efforts; therefore, focused monitoring that is clearly linked to decision-making is necessary to continually refine and adjust management strategies. (c) 2016 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." @@ -1311,8 +1313,8 @@ annual survival of allegheny woodrats in a nonequilibrium metapopulation,alleghe "olim palus, where once upon a time the marsh: distribution, demography, ecology and threats of amphibians in the circeo national park (central italy)",alien species; capture-marking-recapture; effective population size; index of calling survey; land reclamation; species distribution models; swamps,ACTA HERPETOLOGICA,ROMANO A;NOVAGA R;COSTA A,"the circeo national park lies in a territory that was deeply shaped by human activity, and represents one of the few remaining patches of plain wetland habitat in central italy. in this study distribution and few demographic information of the amphibians in the park were provided. seven species and 25 bibliographic and 84 original breeding sites were recorded, and population size estimations were carried out for a population of these three species: pelophylax sinkl esculentus, bufo balearicus and rana dalmatina. for the studied populations of pool frog and green toad the operational sex ratio and the demographic effective population size was also estimated. for rana dalmatina, which is strictly associated to forest environment, a positive and significant correlation between the number of egg clutches and maximum depth of the swamps was found. the state plain forest is the most important habitat for amphibians' conservation in the park. the occurrence of dangerous alien species was investigated and they are evaluated as the major threat for amphibians in the park, especially the crayfish procambarus clarkii in the state plain forest. index of calling survey were performed for anurans and the medians did not differ among species. the potential distribution of amphibians in the park was evaluated by building a species distribution model. finally, the absence of three species reported in literature in the 60's of the last century (bombina pachypus, salamandrina perspicillata, rana italica) is also discussed." negative effects of density on space use of small mammals differ with the phase of the masting-induced population cycle,density dependence; home range; mast seeding; population cycles; space use; spatially explicit capture recapture,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BOGDZIEWICZ M;ZWOLAK R;REDOSH L;RYCHLIK L;CRONE EE,"home range size generally decreases with increasing population density, but testing how this relationship is influenced by other factors (e.g., food availability, kin structure) is a difficult task. we used spatially explicit capture-recapture models to examine how home range size varies with population density in the yellow-necked mouse (apodemus flavicollis). the relationship between population density and home range size was studied at two distinct phases of population fluctuations induced by beech (fagus sylvatica) masting: post-mast peak in abundance (first summer after mast, n = 2) and subsequent crash (second summer after mast, n = 2). we live-trapped mice from june to september to avoid the confounding effects of autumn seedfall on home range size. in accordance with general predictions, we found that home range size was negatively associated with population density. however, after controlling for the effect of density, home ranges of mice were larger in post-mast years than during the crash phase. this indicates a higher spatial overlap among neighbors in post-mast years. we suggest that the increased spatial overlap is caused by negative density-dependent dispersal that leads to high relatedness of individuals within population in the peak phase of the cycle." evaluating within-population variability in behavior and demography for the adaptive potential of a dispersal-limited species to climate change,adaptive capacity; behavioral plasticity; climate change; color morph; demography; plethodon cinereus,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MUNOZ DJ;HESED KM;GRANT EHC;MILLER DAW,"multiple pathways exist for species to respond to changing climates. however, responses of dispersal-limited species will be more strongly tied to ability to adapt within existing populations as rates of environmental change will likely exceed movement rates. here, we assess adaptive capacity in plethodon cinereus, a dispersal-limited woodland salamander. we quantify plasticity in behavior and variation in demography to observed variation in environmental variables over a 5-year period. we found strong evidence that temperature and rainfall influence p. cinereus surface presence, indicating changes in climate are likely to affect seasonal activity patterns. we also found that warmer summer temperatures reduced individual growth rates into the autumn, which is likely to have negative demographic consequences. reduced growth rates may delay reproductive maturity and lead to reductions in size-specific fecundity, potentially reducing population-level persistence. to better understand within-population variability in responses, we examined differences between two common color morphs. previous evidence suggests that the color polymorphism may be linked to physiological differences in heat and moisture tolerance. we found only moderate support for morph-specific differences for the relationship between individual growth and temperature. measuring environmental sensitivity to climatic variability is the first step in predicting species' responses to climate change. our results suggest phenological shifts and changes in growth rates are likely responses under scenarios where further warming occurs, and we discuss possible adaptive strategies for resulting selective pressures." -the strength of the association between heterozygosity and probability of interannual local recruitment increases with environmental harshness in blue tits,cyanistes caeruleus; functional and neutral markers; genotype-by-environment interaction; heterozygosity; hfc; selection differential,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,FERRER ES;GARCIA-NAVAS V;SANZ JJ;ORTEGO J,"the extent of inbreeding depression and the magnitude of heterozygosity-fitness correlations (hfc) have been suggested to depend on the environmental context in which they are assayed, but little evidence is available for wild populations. we combine extensive molecular and capture-mark-recapture data from a blue tit (cyanistes caeruleus) population to (1) analyze the relationship between heterozygosity and probability of interannual adult local recruitment and (2) test whether environmental stress imposed by physiologically suboptimal temperatures and rainfall influence the magnitude of hfc. to address these questions, we used two different arrays of microsatellite markers: 14 loci classified as neutral and 12 loci classified as putatively functional. we found significant relationships between heterozygosity and probability of interannual local recruitment that were most likely explained by variation in genomewide heterozygosity. the strength of the association between heterozygosity and probability of interannual local recruitment was positively associated with annual accumulated precipitation. annual mean heterozygosity increased over time, which may have resulted from an overall positive selection on heterozygosity over the course of the study period. finally, neutral and putatively functional loci showed similar trends, but the former had stronger effect sizes and seemed to better reflect genomewide heterozygosity. overall, our results show that hfc can be context dependent, emphasizing the need to consider the role of environmental heterogeneity as a key factor when exploring the consequences of individual genetic diversity on fitness in natural populations." -bayesian population size estimation using dirichlet process mixtures,capture-recapture; casualties in conflicts; dirichlet process mixtures; latent class models; model selection,BIOMETRICS,MANRIQUE-VALLIER D,"we introduce a new bayesian nonparametric method for estimating the size of a closed population from multiple-recapture data. our method, based on dirichlet process mixtures, can accommodate complex patterns of heterogeneity of capture, and can transparently modulate its complexity without a separate model selection step. additionally, it can handle the massively sparse contingency tables generated by large number of recaptures with moderate sample sizes. we develop an efficient and scalable mcmc algorithm for estimation. we apply our method to simulated data, and to two examples from the literature of estimation of casualties in armed conflicts." +the strength of the association between heterozygosity and probability of interannual local recruitment increases with environmental harshness in blue tits,cyanistes caeruleus; functional and neutral markers; genotype-by-environment interaction; heterozygosity; hfc; selection differential,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,FERRER ES;GARCIA NAVAS V;SANZ JJ;ORTEGO J,"the extent of inbreeding depression and the magnitude of heterozygosity-fitness correlations (hfc) have been suggested to depend on the environmental context in which they are assayed, but little evidence is available for wild populations. we combine extensive molecular and capture-mark-recapture data from a blue tit (cyanistes caeruleus) population to (1) analyze the relationship between heterozygosity and probability of interannual adult local recruitment and (2) test whether environmental stress imposed by physiologically suboptimal temperatures and rainfall influence the magnitude of hfc. to address these questions, we used two different arrays of microsatellite markers: 14 loci classified as neutral and 12 loci classified as putatively functional. we found significant relationships between heterozygosity and probability of interannual local recruitment that were most likely explained by variation in genomewide heterozygosity. the strength of the association between heterozygosity and probability of interannual local recruitment was positively associated with annual accumulated precipitation. annual mean heterozygosity increased over time, which may have resulted from an overall positive selection on heterozygosity over the course of the study period. finally, neutral and putatively functional loci showed similar trends, but the former had stronger effect sizes and seemed to better reflect genomewide heterozygosity. overall, our results show that hfc can be context dependent, emphasizing the need to consider the role of environmental heterogeneity as a key factor when exploring the consequences of individual genetic diversity on fitness in natural populations." +bayesian population size estimation using dirichlet process mixtures,capture-recapture; casualties in conflicts; dirichlet process mixtures; latent class models; model selection,BIOMETRICS,MANRIQUE VALLIER D,"we introduce a new bayesian nonparametric method for estimating the size of a closed population from multiple-recapture data. our method, based on dirichlet process mixtures, can accommodate complex patterns of heterogeneity of capture, and can transparently modulate its complexity without a separate model selection step. additionally, it can handle the massively sparse contingency tables generated by large number of recaptures with moderate sample sizes. we develop an efficient and scalable mcmc algorithm for estimation. we apply our method to simulated data, and to two examples from the literature of estimation of casualties in armed conflicts." estimation in closed capture-recapture models when covariates are missing at random,inverse probability weighting; missing at random; multiple imputation; population size estimation; regression calibration,BIOMETRICS,LEE SM;HWANG WH;TAPSOBA JD,"individual covariates are commonly used in capture-recapture models as they can provide important information for population size estimation. however, in practice, one or more covariates may be missing at random for some individuals, which can lead to unreliable inference if records with missing data are treated as missing completely at random. we show that, in general, such a naive complete-case analysis in closed capture-recapture models with some covariates missing at random underestimates the population size. we develop methods for estimating regression parameters and population size using regression calibration, inverse probability weighting, and multiple imputation without any distributional assumptions about the covariates. we show that the inverse probability weighting and multiple imputation approaches are asymptotically equivalent. we present a simulation study to investigate the effects of missing covariates and to evaluate the performance of the proposed methods. we also illustrate an analysis using data on the bird species yellow-bellied prinia collected in hong kong." survival estimates for reintroduced populations of the chiricahua leopard frog (lithobates chiricahuensis),NA,COPEIA,HOWELL PE;HOSSACK BR;MUTHS E;SIGAFUS BH;CHANDLER RB,"global amphibian declines have been attributed to a number of factors including disease, invasive species, habitat degradation, and climate change. reintroduction is one management action that is commonly used with the goal of recovering imperiled species. the success of reintroductions varies widely, and evaluating their efficacy requires estimates of population viability metrics, such as underlying vital rates and trends in abundance. although rarely quantified, assessing vital rates for recovering populations provides a more mechanistic understanding of population growth than numerical trends in population occupancy or abundance. we used three years of capture-mark-recapture data from three breeding ponds and a cormack-jolly-seber model to estimate annual apparent survival for reintroduced populations of the federally threatened chiricahua leopard frog (lithobates chiricahuensis) at the buenos aires national wildlife refuge (banwr), in the altar valley, arizona, usa. to place our results in context, we also compiled published survival estimates for other ranids. average apparent survival of chiricahua leopard frogs at banwr was 0.27 (95% ci [0.07, 0.74]) and average individual capture probability was 0.02 (95% ci [0, 0.05]). our apparent survival estimate for chiricahua leopard frogs is lower than for most other ranids and is not consistent with recent research that showed metapopulation viability in the altar valley is high. we suggest that low apparent survival may be indicative of high emigration rates. we recommend that future research should estimate emigration rates so that actual, rather than apparent, survival can be quantified to improve population viability assessments of threatened species following reintroduction efforts." determinate growth and reproductive lifespan in the american alligator (alligator mississippiensis): evidence from long-term recaptures,NA,COPEIA,WILKINSON PM;RAINWATER TR;WOODWARD AR;LEONE EH;CARTER C,"the perception that crocodilians exhibit indeterminate growth is common in the general reptilian literature. however, this assumption is frequently based on observations of immature and young adult animals and therefore lacks a complete understanding of adult growth patterns. long-term mark-recapture studies appear to be the most certain method of determining growth patterns of adult crocodilians. from 1979-2015, we conducted a mark-recapture study of an american alligator (alligator mississippiensis) population on the tom yawkey wildlife center (ywc) in coastal south carolina to examine long-term growth patterns and the influence of age on multiple reproductive parameters. we found no discernible linear growth in 19 of 31 adult female and 7 of 19 adult male alligators over periods of 5-33 years. the mean maximum reproductive lifespan for female alligators on the study site was 46 years, and females continued to reproduce for an extended period of time after reaching maximum size. the schnute growth model predicted that male alligators grew at a faster rate and attained a greater estimated mean terminal snout-vent length (svl) than females (males = 186.9, ci0.95 = 184.5, 189.3 cm; females = 135.9, ci0.95 = 134.1, 137.8 cm) at the hypothetical age 75. in addition, the model predicted that males exhibited a greater estimated mean size (svl = 182.0, ci0.95 = 179.6, 184.4 cm) and age (43 years) at which growth essentially ceased when compared to females (svl = 131.4, ci0.95 = 129.5, 133.2 cm; 31 years). however, actual growth records of individual alligators suggested that the growth model may have overestimated the age at which male alligator growth ceased. the estimated mean earliest age at sexual maturity was 11.6 years (ci0.95 = 10.5, 12.8) for males and 15.8 years (ci0.95 = 14.5, 17.1) for females. we also documented that alligators on the site commonly live to 50 and can possibly live to >70 years of age. this study provides evidence that both male and female american alligators in a population in coastal south carolina exhibit a pattern of determinate growth and adds to a growing list of studies suggesting crocodilians as a group exhibit this growth pattern rather than indeterminate growth. our findings are important for modeling population growth and determining sustainable harvest rates, particularly for alligators living near their northern distributional limit where growing seasons may be shorter and onset of sexual maturity later than in more southern portions of their range." @@ -1320,38 +1322,38 @@ determinate growth and reproductive lifespan in the american alligator (alligato the value of terrestrial ecotones as refuges for winter damselflies (odonata: lestidae),dragonflies; habitat selection; habitat loss; cryptic behavior; disturbance,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,HARABIS F,"habitat requirements of many species may vary significantly throughout the lifecycle. species are often forced to exchange their habitats to meet requirements of different life stages. due to the effect of human activities, however, there is a loss of habitat complexity and a consequent disappearance of species associated with multiple habitat types. this also applies to freshwater invertebrates occurring in temporary habitats. however, it appears that many species are able to meet their habitat requirements even in a human-altered landscape. the aim of this study was to analyze the habitat preferences of the damselfly sympecma fusca in an area significantly influenced by human interventions. according to the results of a capture-mark-recapture study and generalized additive models, i found that, during a pre-reproductive period (in the autumn), imagoes utilize predominantly insolated ecotones, which constitute only a small fraction of the available terrestrial habitat. during the reproductive period (in spring), however, imagoes completely change their priorities in favor of reproductive success. at this time, males use ecotones only in adverse weather conditions. ecotones allow the species to survive a long pre-reproductive period. however, suitable habitat conditions may be lost because of inappropriate interventions (e.g., mowing). these small-scale interventions often resemble natural disturbances and may not necessarily lead to the extinction of an entire population. imagoes are able to move on to different habitat patches, but only if they have alternative habitats. this outcome indicates that maintaining a high heterogeneity of keystone structures is crucial for maintaining high levels of biodiversity." a bayesian approach to graphical record linkage and deduplication,bayesian methods; blocking; clustering; entity resolution; hybrid markov chain monte carlo; linkage structure,JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN STATISTICAL ASSOCIATION,STEORTS RC;HALL R;FIENBERG SE,"we propose an unsupervised approach for linking records across arbitrarily many files, while simultaneously detecting duplicate records within files. our key innovation involves the representation of the pattern of links between records as a bipartite graph, in which records are directly linked to latent true individuals, and only indirectly linked to other records. this flexible representation of the linkage structure naturally allows us to estimate the attributes of the unique observable people in the population, calculate transitive linkage probabilities across records (and represent this visually), and propagate the uncertainty of record linkage into later analyses. our method makes it particularly easy to integrate record linkage with post processing procedures such as logistic regression, capture recapture, etc. our linkage structure lends itself to an efficient, linear-time, hybrid markov chain monte carlo algorithm, which overcomes many obstacles encountered by previously record linkage approaches, despite the high-dimensional parameter space. we illustrate our method using longitudinal data from the national long term care survey and with data from the italian survey on household and wealth, where we assess the accuracy of our method and show it to be better in terms of error rates and empirical scalability than other approaches in the literature. supplementary materials for this article are available online." accurate recapture identification for genetic mark-recapture studies with error-tolerant likelihood-based match calling and sample clustering,sample matching; genotyping error; inference; non-invasive; capture-recapture,ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE,SETHI SA;LINDEN D;WENBURG J;LEWIS C;LEMONS P;FULLER A;HARE MP,"error-tolerant likelihood-based match calling presents a promising technique to accurately identify recapture events in genetic mark-recapture studies by combining probabilities of latent genotypes and probabilities of observed genotypes, which may contain genotyping errors. combined with clustering algorithms to group samples into sets of recaptures based upon pairwise match calls, these tools can be used to reconstruct accurate capture histories for markrecapture modelling. here, we assess the performance of a recently introduced error-tolerant likelihood-based match-calling model and sample clustering algorithm for genetic mark-recapture studies. we assessed both biallelic (i.e. single nucleotide polymorphisms; snp) and multiallelic (i.e. microsatellite; msat) markers using a combination of simulation analyses and case study data on pacific walrus (odobenus rosmarus divergens) and fishers (pekania pennanti). a novel two-stage clustering approach is demonstrated for genetic mark-recapture applications. first, repeat captures within a sampling occasion are identified. subsequently, recaptures across sampling occasions are identified. the likelihood-based matching protocol performed well in simulation trials, demonstrating utility for use in a wide range of genetic mark-recapture studies. moderately sized snp (64+) and msat (10-15) panels produced accurate match calls for recaptures and accurate non-match calls for samples from closely related individuals in the face of low to moderate genotyping error. furthermore, matching performance remained stable or increased as the number of genetic markers increased, genotyping error notwithstanding." -"population ecology of heteromys pictus (rodentia: heteromyidae), in a tropical deciduous forest with human disturbance, in oaxaca coast, mexico.",capture-recapture; disturbance; liomys; populations; spiny pocket mouse,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,BRIONES-SALAS M;GONZALEZ G,"spiny pocket mice liomys and heteromys are forest-dwelling granivorous rodents distributed in seasonally dry forest or thorn scrub along the pacific lowlands or xeric regions in the mexican plateau. we analyzed the population dynamics of the spiny pocket mouse heteromys pictus, in the coast of oaxaca, mexico, in two sites of tropical deciduous forest with different degrees of disturbance: zpp = less disturbed site, and zmp = more disturbed site. two plots were established in each area with 66 trap stations; we used the capture-recapture method and trapping for 12 periods for one year. population density was estimated using the method of minimum number of individuals known alive (mnka). we captured 706 individuals, 290 for the zpp and 416 for the zmp. the population density ranged from 28 to 142 ind./ ha for both zones, but it was higher for the zmp (54 against 142 ind./ha). the population density for both areas increased during the rainy season and coincided with the increased recruitment of adults. reproductive activity occurred throughout the study period in both areas, but it was higher for the zmp. the sex ratio in the zpp was 1:1 while in the zmp was 1:0.75. in the zmp we found a higher population density and reproductive activity in females, compared to the zpp. these results suggest that h. pictus prefers the zmp, indicating that the species is not significantly affected by human disturbance in the studied location." +"population ecology of heteromys pictus (rodentia: heteromyidae), in a tropical deciduous forest with human disturbance, in oaxaca coast, mexico.",capture-recapture; disturbance; liomys; populations; spiny pocket mouse,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,BRIONES SALAS M;GONZALEZ G,"spiny pocket mice liomys and heteromys are forest-dwelling granivorous rodents distributed in seasonally dry forest or thorn scrub along the pacific lowlands or xeric regions in the mexican plateau. we analyzed the population dynamics of the spiny pocket mouse heteromys pictus, in the coast of oaxaca, mexico, in two sites of tropical deciduous forest with different degrees of disturbance: zpp = less disturbed site, and zmp = more disturbed site. two plots were established in each area with 66 trap stations; we used the capture-recapture method and trapping for 12 periods for one year. population density was estimated using the method of minimum number of individuals known alive (mnka). we captured 706 individuals, 290 for the zpp and 416 for the zmp. the population density ranged from 28 to 142 ind./ ha for both zones, but it was higher for the zmp (54 against 142 ind./ha). the population density for both areas increased during the rainy season and coincided with the increased recruitment of adults. reproductive activity occurred throughout the study period in both areas, but it was higher for the zmp. the sex ratio in the zpp was 1:1 while in the zmp was 1:0.75. in the zmp we found a higher population density and reproductive activity in females, compared to the zpp. these results suggest that h. pictus prefers the zmp, indicating that the species is not significantly affected by human disturbance in the studied location." timing moose pellet collections to increase genotyping success of fecal dna,alces; dna; fecal pellet; genetics; loci; molecular analysis,JOURNAL OF FISH AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,REA RV;JOHNSON CJ;MURRAY BW;HODDER DP;CROWLEY SM,"fecal pellets can serve as a noninvasive source of dna for identifying the distribution of individual animals when conducting population estimates. the quality of fecal dna, however, can be degraded by wet or warm environmental conditions. we tested the effect of time of pellet collection (mid-march-mid-june) and temperature on the success of genotyping microsatellite loci in moose alces alces by using dna extracted from moose fecal pellets collected from north central british columbia, canada. using the number of microsatellite loci genotyped as a measure of genotyping success clearly indicated that fecal pellets collected in march and april contained dna that yielded high-confidence genotypes, whereas those collected in may and june did not. pellets collected in march and april were more likely to be collected in cooler (often subzero) temperatures than those collected in may and june. pellets collected later in the year were also more likely to be exposed to rain and increased solar radiation, all of which are likely to contribute to degradation of fecal dna. our findings suggest that pellets collected in late winter in the northern hemisphere have sufficient dna to permit genotyping of moose." can estimates of genetic effective population size contribute to fisheries stock assessments?,absolute abundance; fishery-independent data; linkage disequilibrium; n-e; sustainable exploitation,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,OVENDEN JR;LEIGH GM;BLOWER DC;JONES AT;MOORE A;BUSTAMANTE C;BUCKWORTH RC;BENNETT MB;DUDGEON CL,"sustainable exploitation of fisheries populations is challenging to achieve when the size of the population prior to exploitation and the actual numbers removed over time and across fishing zones are not clearly known. quantitative fisheries' modeling is able to address this problem, but accurate and reliable model outcomes depend on high quality input data. much of this information is obtained through the operation of the fishery under consideration, but while this seems appropriate, biases may occur. for example, poorly quantified changes in fishing methods that increase catch rates can erroneously suggest that the overall population size is increasing. hence, the incorporation of estimates of abundance derived from independent data sources is preferable. we review and evaluate a fisheries-independent method of indexing population size; inferring adult abundance from estimates of the genetic effective size of a population (n-e). recent studies of elasmobranch species have shown correspondence between n-e and ecologically determined estimates of the population size (n). simulation studies have flagged the possibility that the range of n-e/n ratios across species may be more restricted than previously thought, and also show that declines in n-e track declines in the abundance of model fisheries species. these key developments bring this new technology closer to implementation in fisheries science, particularly for data-poor fisheries or species of conservation interest. (c) 2016 the fisheries society of the british isles" use of noninvasive genetics to assess nest and space use by white-tailed eagles,white-tailed eagle; haliaeetus albicilla; dna fingerprint; microsatellite; movement; noninvasive mark-recapture; space use,JOURNAL OF RAPTOR RESEARCH,BULUT Z;BRAGIN EA;DEWOODY JA;BRAHAM MA;KATZNER TE;DOYLE JM,"movement and space use are important components of animal interactions with the environment. however, for hard-to-monitor raptor species, there are substantial gaps in our understanding of these key determinants. we used noninvasive genetic tools to evaluate the details of space use over a 3-yr period by white-tailed eagles (haliaeetus albicilla) at the naurzum zapovednik in northern kazakhstan. we genotyped, at 10 microsatellite markers and one mitochondrial marker, 859 eagle feathers and assigned naturally shed feathers to individuals. we identified 124 white-tailed eagles, including both members of 510 pairs per year, and were able to monitor birds across years. distances between eagle nests and hunting perches were always greater than nearest neighbor distances, eagles never used the closest available hunting perch, and hunting perches were always shared with other eagles. when eagles switched nests between years, the nests they chose were almost always well outside the space that theory predicted they defended the prior year. our data are inconsistent with classical territorial and colonial models of resource use; they more closely resemble semi-colonial behavior. it is unlikely that standard methods of animal tracking (e.g., marking and telemetry), would have provided a similarly cost-effective mechanism to gain these insights into spatial and temporal aspects of eagle behavior. when combined with existing information on space use of other local species, these data suggest that partitioning of spatial resources among white-tailed eagles and other eagles at the zapovednik may be facilitated by the alternative strategies of space use they employ." testing wintering area identification efficiency with ndvi and survival index of marsh warblers acrocephalus palustris,bird; acrocephalus; long-distance migrant; migration; stop-over site; wintering; africa; survival,NORTH-WESTERN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,MIHOLCSA T;CSORGO T,"ecological conditions on wintering quarters strongly influence the survival of long-distance migrant species. these conditions can be well approximated using the normalized difference vegetation indices (ndvi) of the respective areas. with the classic capture-recapture method the african wintering quarters of small passerines is very hard to identify. the linkage between ndvi data and survival is an alternative possibility to study migratory connectivity. the calculation of survival rates needs a large quantity of capture-recapture data and presumes the use of complicate models. in this paper we have experimented with a simple survival index and study the wintering areas of a long-distance trans-saharan migrant passerine, marsh warblers (acrocephalus palustris). we have calculated the survival index for each year from the ratio of the total number of adult and juvenile birds ringed during the previous and the following autumn migration. we used spearman rank correlations between the time-series of survival indices and ndvi values for each 8x8 km square of the african continent. we illustrated our results (spearman r values) on the map of africa. we then compared our result with the accumulated knowledge about marsh warblers passage and wintering areas in africa. our resulted stopover sites and wintering areas have broadly overlapped with areas known from ringing-recapture data. as final conclusion we consider that this method proved to be successful for investigating wintering quarters and intra-continental migrations of different species. this method can be expanded on other species with unknown wintering areas." a novel application of multi-event modeling to estimate class segregation in a highly migratory oceanic vertebrate,capture probability; class segregation; mark-recapture; multi-event; robust design; sexual segregation; size segregation; temporary emigration; white shark,ECOLOGY,CHAPPLE TK;CHAMBERT T;KANIVE PE;JORGENSEN SJ;ROTELLA JJ;ANDERSON SD;CARLISLE AB;BLOCK BA,"spatial segregation of animals by class (i.e., maturity or sex) within a population due to differential rates of temporary emigration (te) from study sites can be an important life history feature to consider in population assessment and management. however, such rates are poorly known; new quantitative approaches to address these knowledge gaps are needed. we present a novel application of multi-event models that takes advantage of two sources of detections to differentiate temporary emigration from apparent absence to quantify class segregation within a study population of double-marked (photo-identified and tagged with coded acoustic transmitters) white sharks (carcharodon carcharias) in central california. we use this model to test if sex-specific patterns in te result in disparate apparent capture probabilities (p(o)) between male and female white sharks, which can affect the observed sex ratio. the best-supported model showed a contrasting pattern of pr(te) from coastal aggregation sites between sexes (for males pr[te]=0.015 [95% ci=0.00, 0.31] and pr[te]=0.57 [0.40, 0.72] for females), but not maturity classes. additionally, by accounting for pr(te) and imperfect detection, we were able to estimate class-specific values of true capture probability (p(*)) for tagged and untagged sharks. the best-supported model identified differences between maturity classes but no difference between sexes or tagging impacts (tagged mature sharks p(*)=0.55 (0.46-0.63) and sub-adult sharks p*=0.36 (0.25, 0.50); and untagged mature sharks p(*)=0.50 (0.39-0.61) and sub-adults p(*)=0.18 (0.10, 0.31). estimated sex-based differences in p(o) were linked to sex-specific differences in pr(te) but not in p(*); once the pr(te) is accounted for, the p(*) between sexes was not different. these results indicate that the observed sex ratio is not a consequence of unequal detectability and sex-specific values of pr(te) are important drivers of the observed male-dominated sex ratio. our modeling approach reveals complex class-specific patterns in pr(te) and p(*) in a mark-recapture data set, and highlights challenges for the population modeling and conservation of white sharks in central california. the model we develop here can be used to estimate rates of temporary emigration and class segregation when two detection methods are used." assessing reproductive isolation using a contact zone between parapatric lake-stream stickleback ecotypes,contact zone; ecological speciation; reproductive isolation; three-spined sticklebacks,JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY,HANSON D;MOORE JS;TAYLOR EB;BARRETT RDH;HENDRY AP,"ecological speciation occurs when populations evolve reproductive isolation as a result of divergent natural selection. this isolation can be influenced by many potential reproductive barriers, including selection against hybrids, selection against migrants and assortative mating. how and when these barriers act and interact in nature is understood for relatively few empirical systems. we used a mark-recapture experiment in a contact zone between lake and stream three-spined sticklebacks (gasterosteus aculeatus, linnaeus) to evaluate the occurrence of hybrids (allowing inferences about mating isolation), the interannual survival of hybrids (allowing inferences about selection against hybrids) and the shift in lake-like vs. stream-like characteristics (allowing inferences about selection against migrants). genetic and morphological data suggest the occurrence of hybrids and no selection against hybrids in general, a result contradictory to a number of other studies of sticklebacks. however, we did find selection against more lake-like individuals, suggesting a barrier to gene flow from the lake into the stream. combined with previous work on this system, our results suggest that multiple (most weakly and often asymmetric) barriers must be combining to yield substantial restrictions on gene flow. this work provides evidence of a reproductive barrier in lake-stream sticklebacks and highlights the value of assessing multiple reproductive barriers in natural contexts." -interactive effects of exogenous and endogenous factors on demographic rates of an african rodent,NA,OIKOS,"NATER CR;CANALE CI;VAN BENTHEM KJ;YUEN CH;SCHOEPF I;PILLAY N;OZGUL A;SCHRADIN C","exogenous and endogenous environmental factors can have simultaneous additive as well as interacting effects on life-history traits. ignoring such interactions can lead to a biased understanding of variability in demographic rates and consequently population dynamics. these interactions have been the focus of decades-long debates on the mechanisms underlying small mammal population fluctuations. they have often been studied indirectly through seasonal effects, but studies considering them directly and more mechanistically are rare. we investigated the joint effects of exogenous (temperature, food availability) and endogenous (population density) factors on the demographic rates of a group-living diurnal rodent, the african striped mouse rhabdomys pumilio using nine-year mark-recapture data from a population in the succulent karoo, south africa. in general, higher temperatures and lower food availability were associated with higher survival, whereas high population densities were either beneficial or detrimental to survival depending on interacting food availability. high reproductive rates were related to lower temperatures, higher food availability and lower population density, and interactions among environmental factors mediated the strength of these relationships. our study highlights the complex ways in which different environmental factors can interact to shape demographic rates and emphasizes the importance of explicitly including interacpulation dynamics.tions among exogenous and endogenous factors into studies of po" +interactive effects of exogenous and endogenous factors on demographic rates of an african rodent,NA,OIKOS,NATER CR;CANALE CI;VAN BENTHEM KJ;YUEN CH;SCHOEPF I;PILLAY N;OZGUL A;SCHRADIN C,"exogenous and endogenous environmental factors can have simultaneous additive as well as interacting effects on life-history traits. ignoring such interactions can lead to a biased understanding of variability in demographic rates and consequently population dynamics. these interactions have been the focus of decades-long debates on the mechanisms underlying small mammal population fluctuations. they have often been studied indirectly through seasonal effects, but studies considering them directly and more mechanistically are rare. we investigated the joint effects of exogenous (temperature, food availability) and endogenous (population density) factors on the demographic rates of a group-living diurnal rodent, the african striped mouse rhabdomys pumilio using nine-year mark-recapture data from a population in the succulent karoo, south africa. in general, higher temperatures and lower food availability were associated with higher survival, whereas high population densities were either beneficial or detrimental to survival depending on interacting food availability. high reproductive rates were related to lower temperatures, higher food availability and lower population density, and interactions among environmental factors mediated the strength of these relationships. our study highlights the complex ways in which different environmental factors can interact to shape demographic rates and emphasizes the importance of explicitly including interacpulation dynamics.tions among exogenous and endogenous factors into studies of po" benefits of prescribed flows for salmon smolt survival enhancement vary longitudinally in a highly managed river system,flow management; salmon; smolt; survival; mark-recapture; telemetry; fisheries,RIVER RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS,COURTER II;GARRISON TM;KOCK TJ;PERRY RW;CHILD DB;HUBBLE JD,"the influence of streamflow on survival of emigrating juvenile pacific salmonids oncorhynchus spp. (smolts) is a major concern for water managers throughout the northeast pacific rim. however, few studies have quantified flow effects on smolt survival, and available information does not indicate a consistent flow-survival relationship within the typical range of flows under management control. in the yakima basin, washington, the potential effects of streamflow alterations on smolt survival have been debated for over 20years. using a series of controlled flow releases from upper basin reservoirs and radiotelemetry, we quantified the relationship between flow and yearling chinook salmon smolt survival in the 208km reach between roza dam and the yakima river mouth. a multistate mark-recapture model accounted for weekly variation in flow conditions experienced by tagged fish in four discrete river segments. smolt survival was significantly associated with streamflow in the roza reach [river kilometre (rkm) 208-189] and marginally associated with streamflow in the sunnyside reach (rkm 169-77). however, smolt survival was not significantly associated with flow in the naches and prosser reaches (rkm 189-169 and rkm 77-3). this discrepancy indicates potential differences in underlying flow-related survival mechanisms, such as predation or passage impediments. our results clarify trade-offs between flow augmentation for fisheries enhancement and other beneficial uses, and our study design provides a framework for resolving uncertainties about streamflow effects on migratory fish survival in other river systems. copyright (c) 2016 john wiley & sons, ltd." bayesian analysis of jolly-seber type models,capture-recapture-resight data sets; integrated modelling; mixture models; reversible jump; semipalmated sandpipers; stopover data,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,MATECHOU E;NICHOLLS GK;MORGAN BJT;COLLAZO JA;LYONS JE,"we propose the use of finite mixtures of continuous distributions in modelling the process by which new individuals, that arrive in groups, become part of a wildlife population. we demonstrate this approach using a data set of migrating semipalmated sandpipers (calidris pussila) for which we extend existing stopover models to allow for individuals to have different behaviour in terms of their stopover duration at the site. we demonstrate the use of reversible jump mcmc methods to derive posterior distributions for the model parameters and the models, simultaneously. the algorithm moves between models with different numbers of arrival groups as well as between models with different numbers of behavioural groups. the approach is shown to provide new ecological insights about the stopover behaviour of semipalmated sandpipers but is generally applicable to any population in which animals arrive in groups and potentially exhibit heterogeneity in terms of one or more other processes." efficient markov chain monte carlo sampling for hierarchical hidden markov models,capture-recapture; effective sample size; hidden markov model; hierarchical model; mcmc; nimble; sampling efficiency,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,TUREK D;DE VALPINE P;PACIOREK CJ,"traditional markov chain monte carlo (mcmc) sampling of hidden markov models (hmms) involves latent states underlying an imperfect observation process, and generates posterior samples for top-level parameters concurrently with nuisance latent variables. when potentially many hmms are embedded within a hierarchical model, this can result in prohibitively long mcmc runtimes. we study combinations of existing methods, which are shown to vastly improve computational efficiency for these hierarchical models while maintaining the modeling flexibility provided by embedded hmms. the methods include discrete filtering of the hmm likelihood to remove latent states, reduced data representations, and a novel procedure for dynamic block sampling of posterior dimensions. the first two methods have been used in isolation in existing application-specific software, but are not generally available for incorporation in arbitrary model structures. using the nimble package for r, we develop and test combined computational approaches using three examples from ecological capture-recapture, although our methods are generally applicable to any embedded discrete hmms. these combinations provide several orders of magnitude improvement in mcmc sampling efficiency, defined as the rate of generating effectively independent posterior samples. in addition to being computationally significant for this class of hierarchical models, this result underscores the potential for vast improvements to mcmc sampling efficiency which can result from combinations of known algorithms." estimating abundance: a non parametric mark recapture approach for open and closed systems,abundance; capture-recapture; cluster sampling; heterogeneity; non-parametric; population estimation,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,REHMAN Z;TOMS CN;FINCH C,"we present a novel, non-parametric, frequentist approach for capture-recapture data based on a ratio estimator, which offers several advantages. first, as a non-parametric model, it does not require a known underlying distribution for parameters nor the associated assumptions, eliminating the need for post-hoc corrections or additional modeling to account for heterogeneity and other violated assumptions. second, the model explicitly deals with dependence of trials by considering trials to be dependent; therefore, cluster sampling is handled naturally and additional adjustments are not necessary. third, it accounts for ordering, utilizing the fact that a system with a small population will have a greater frequency of recaptures ""early"" in the survey work compared to an identical system with a larger population. we provide mathematical proof that our estimator attains asymptotic minimum variance under open systems. we apply the model to a data set of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) and compare results to those from classic closed models. we show that the model has an impressive rate of convergence and demonstrate that there's an inverse relationship between population size and the proportion of the population that need to be sampled, while achieving the same degree of accuracy for abundance estimates. the model is flexible and can apply to ecological situations as well as other situations that lend themselves to capture recapture sampling." non-invasive genetic population density estimation of mountain hares (lepus timidus) in the alps: systematic or opportunistic sampling?,conservation; density; genetic population monitoring; lagomorphs; pellets; sampling design; secr,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,REHNUS M;BOLLMANN K,"the development and evaluation of a reliable non-invasive genetic sampling (nigs) is a crucial step towards accurately and reliably estimating population size for the long-term monitoring of wildlife species. we used nigs data to obtain population density estimates of a mountain hare (lepus timidus) population in the swiss alps. we evaluated and compared the effectiveness of systematic and opportunistic nigs and their combination in spring 2014. extraction success rate of dna from faeces, hair and urine samples, their age-dependent variation as well as the completeness of microsatellite genotyping data were used as measures of effectiveness. we applied a spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) approach to estimate the minimum population size. we found that the extraction success of faecal samples decreased with the time since excretion and that urine and hair samples mostly yielded insufficient dna for the successful genotyping of individuals. mountain hare faeces up to 5 days old are most appropriate for nigs because the risk of unsuccessful dna extraction or genotyping errors/failure is considerably lower in these samples. systematic sampling revealed more genotypes than opportunistic sampling, but the latter resulted in higher numbers of recapture and thus, increased the spatial resolution of the data. depending on the sampling design, the population density estimates ranged from 3.2 to 3.6 mountain hares per 100 ha. this study informs ecologists and wildlife managers about suitable survey techniques for the monitoring of free-ranging lagomorph populations and addresses important principles for the development of accurate survey methods for other elusive wildlife species that inhabit difficult, mountainous terrain." climate-driven vital rates do not always mean climate-driven population,capture-recapture; global climatic indices; immigration; population growth rate; resilience; shearwater,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,TAVECCHIA G;TENAN S;PRADEL R;IGUAL JM;GENOVART M;ORO D,"current climatic changes have increased the need to forecast population responses to climate variability. a common approach to address this question is through models that project current population state using the functional relationship between demographic rates and climatic variables. we argue that this approach can lead to erroneous conclusions when interpopulation dispersal is not considered. we found that immigration can release the population from climate-driven trajectories even when local vital rates are climate dependent. we illustrated this using individual-based data on a trans-equatorial migratory seabird, the scopoli's shearwater calonectris diomedea, in which the variation of vital rates has been associated with large-scale climatic indices. we compared the population annual growth rate (i), estimated using local climate-driven parameters with (i), a population growth rate directly estimated from individual information and that accounts for immigration. while (i) varied as a function of climatic variables, reflecting the climate-dependent parameters, (i) did not, indicating that dispersal decouples the relationship between population growth and climate variables from that between climatic variables and vital rates. our results suggest caution when assessing demographic effects of climatic variability especially in open populations for very mobile organisms such as fish, marine mammals, bats, or birds. when a population model cannot be validated or it is not detailed enough, ignoring immigration might lead to misleading climate-driven projections." -female colour polymorphism and unique reproductive behaviour in polythore damselflies (zygoptera: polythoridae),jatun sacha biological reserve; odonata; wing colour polymorphism; copulation,NEOTROPICAL ENTOMOLOGY,SANMARTIN-VILLAR I;CORDERO-RIVERA A,"we studied polythore damselflies by mark-recapture techniques in the jatun sacha biological reserve (ecuador) for a period of 48 days in october-december 2014. three species were found: polythore mutata (maclachlan) was the commonest species (111 individuals marked), polythore derivata (maclachlan) was rare (24 individuals) and polythore concinna (maclachlan) occasional (four individuals). in p. mutata, we found two phenotypes amongst females, one of them with a white band on the wings, very similar in colouration to the conspecific male (androchrome), and the other with an amber band (gynochrome). the recapture of marked females indicates that both phenotypes are maintained since emergence to maturation and are not age-related (i.e. polymorphism). androchromes represent 40% of females observed. the colour of the wing band showed an age-dependent change in size with opposite trends between sexes, increasing in males and decreasing in females. males and females were observed to return to the same forest locations in different days. courtships and ovipositions involving androchrome females were not observed. no matings were observed in any morph. in contrast, we recorded two consecutive matings of one female p. derivata. we found that polythore males grasp the mesothorax of females during mating instead of the prothorax as in other zygoptera. we discuss the rarity of reproductive behaviour in this genus and how female morphs might be maintained." +female colour polymorphism and unique reproductive behaviour in polythore damselflies (zygoptera: polythoridae),jatun sacha biological reserve; odonata; wing colour polymorphism; copulation,NEOTROPICAL ENTOMOLOGY,SANMARTIN VILLAR I;CORDERO RIVERA A,"we studied polythore damselflies by mark-recapture techniques in the jatun sacha biological reserve (ecuador) for a period of 48 days in october-december 2014. three species were found: polythore mutata (maclachlan) was the commonest species (111 individuals marked), polythore derivata (maclachlan) was rare (24 individuals) and polythore concinna (maclachlan) occasional (four individuals). in p. mutata, we found two phenotypes amongst females, one of them with a white band on the wings, very similar in colouration to the conspecific male (androchrome), and the other with an amber band (gynochrome). the recapture of marked females indicates that both phenotypes are maintained since emergence to maturation and are not age-related (i.e. polymorphism). androchromes represent 40% of females observed. the colour of the wing band showed an age-dependent change in size with opposite trends between sexes, increasing in males and decreasing in females. males and females were observed to return to the same forest locations in different days. courtships and ovipositions involving androchrome females were not observed. no matings were observed in any morph. in contrast, we recorded two consecutive matings of one female p. derivata. we found that polythore males grasp the mesothorax of females during mating instead of the prothorax as in other zygoptera. we discuss the rarity of reproductive behaviour in this genus and how female morphs might be maintained." a quantitative analysis of the unit verification perspective on fault distributions in complex software systems: an operational replication,software fault distributions; unit verification; software metrics; empirical research; replication,SOFTWARE QUALITY JOURNAL,GRBAC TG;RUNESON P;HULJENIAC D,"unit verification, including software inspections and unit tests, is usually the first code verification phase in the software development process. however, principles of unit verification are weakly explored, mostly due to the lack of data, since unit verification data are rarely systematically collected and only a few studies have been published with such data from industry. therefore, we explore the theory of fault distributions, originating in the quantitative analysis by fenton and ohlsson, in the weakly explored context of unit verification in large-scale software development. we conduct a quantitative case study on a sequence of four development projects on consecutive releases of the same complex software product line system for telecommunication exchanges. we replicate the operationalization from earlier studies, analyzed hypotheses related to the pareto principle of fault distribution, persistence of faults, effects of module size, and quality in terms of fault densities, however, now from the perspective of unit verification. the patterns in unit verification results resemble those of later verification phases, e.g., regarding the pareto principle, and may thus be used for prediction and planning purposes. using unit verification results as predictors may improve the quality and efficiency of software verification." -evidence of reduced individual heterogeneity in adult survival of long-lived species,capture-recapture; comparative analyses; individual differences; life-history evolution; mixture models; random-effect models; vertebrates,EVOLUTION,PERON G;GAILLARD JM;BARBRAUD C;BONENFANT C;CHARMANTIER A;CHOQUET R;COULSON T;GROSBOIS V;LOISON A;MARZOLIN G;OWEN-SMITH N;PARDO D;PLARD F;PRADEL R;TOIGO C;GIMENEZ O,"the canalization hypothesis postulates that the rate at which trait variation generates variation in the average individual fitness in a population determines how buffered traits are against environmental and genetic factors. the ranking of a species on the slow-fast continuum - the covariation among life-history traits describing species-specific life cycles along a gradient going from a long life, slow maturity, and low annual reproductive output, to a short life, fast maturity, and high annual reproductive output - strongly correlates with the relative fitness impact of a given amount of variation in adult survival. under the canalization hypothesis, long-lived species are thus expected to display less individual heterogeneity in survival at the onset of adulthood, when reproductive values peak, than short-lived species. we tested this life-history prediction by analysing long-term time series of individual-based data in nine species of birds and mammals using capture-recapture models. we found that individual heterogeneity in survival was higher in species with short-generation time (< 3 years) than in species with long generation time (> 4 years). our findings provide the first piece of empirical evidence for the canalization hypothesis at the individual level from the wild." +evidence of reduced individual heterogeneity in adult survival of long-lived species,capture-recapture; comparative analyses; individual differences; life-history evolution; mixture models; random-effect models; vertebrates,EVOLUTION,PERON G;GAILLARD JM;BARBRAUD C;BONENFANT C;CHARMANTIER A;CHOQUET R;COULSON T;GROSBOIS V;LOISON A;MARZOLIN G;OWEN SMITH N;PARDO D;PLARD F;PRADEL R;TOIGO C;GIMENEZ O,"the canalization hypothesis postulates that the rate at which trait variation generates variation in the average individual fitness in a population determines how buffered traits are against environmental and genetic factors. the ranking of a species on the slow-fast continuum - the covariation among life-history traits describing species-specific life cycles along a gradient going from a long life, slow maturity, and low annual reproductive output, to a short life, fast maturity, and high annual reproductive output - strongly correlates with the relative fitness impact of a given amount of variation in adult survival. under the canalization hypothesis, long-lived species are thus expected to display less individual heterogeneity in survival at the onset of adulthood, when reproductive values peak, than short-lived species. we tested this life-history prediction by analysing long-term time series of individual-based data in nine species of birds and mammals using capture-recapture models. we found that individual heterogeneity in survival was higher in species with short-generation time (< 3 years) than in species with long generation time (> 4 years). our findings provide the first piece of empirical evidence for the canalization hypothesis at the individual level from the wild." assessing the detectability of road crossing effects in streams: mark-recapture sampling designs under complex fish movement behaviours,barrier permeability; connectivity; fish passage; habitat fragmentation; laplace dispersal kernel; optimal sampling design; power analysis; road ecology; salvelinus fontinalis; simulation,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,PEPINO M;RODRIGUEZ MA;MAGNAN P,"most reviews of stream fish connectivity have highlighted the urgent need for standardized methods to quantify the effects of barriers such as road crossings on fish movement and incorporate the complexity of fish behaviours. a question that has not been fully addressed yet in field assessments of fish stream connectivity is which conditions influence the detectability of road crossing effects. failure to detect existing road crossing effects can result from shortcomings in sampling design that lead to low statistical power. here, we propose general barrier dispersal models to allow for asymmetry in barrier permeability and changes in movement behaviours of fish confronting a barrier. despite the increased realism of these ecological assumptions, it remains to be determined whether asymmetric barriers and altered movement behaviours can be unambiguously detected using mark-recapture trials. we used simulations within a modelling framework that explicitly incorporates barrier and behavioural effects to assess the statistical power of various mark-recapture sampling designs under different combinations of design and ecological constraints. key insights from our simulations are that (i) the spatial extent of the study reach critically affects detectability of barrier effects; (ii) the number of recaptured individuals that cross a barrier has greater effect on detectability than the total number of recaptures on both sides of the barrier; and (iii) detectability of asymmetry in barrier permeability and of altered movement behaviours increases with both linear fish density and effect size.synthesis and applications. the proposed dispersal models, incorporating asymmetric barrier permeability and changes in movement behaviours of fish confronting a barrier, are of broad importance in the quantification of habitat connectivity in streams and rivers. our simulation approach provides precise guidelines for improving the sampling design by adjusting the spatial extent of the study reach based on a priori knowledge of ecological constraints. this study highlights the importance of evaluating the detectability of the effects of barriers such as road crossings and carefully planning the sampling design of mark-recapture studies before conducting costly field trials and provides quantitative tools to help achieve these goals. the proposed dispersal models, incorporating asymmetric barrier permeability and changes in movement behaviours of fish confronting a barrier, are of broad importance in the quantification of habitat connectivity in streams and rivers. our simulation approach provides precise guidelines for improving the sampling design by adjusting the spatial extent of the study reach based on a priori knowledge of ecological constraints. this study highlights the importance of evaluating the detectability of the effects of barriers such as road crossings and carefully planning the sampling design of mark-recapture studies before conducting costly field trials and provides quantitative tools to help achieve these goals. editor's choice" assessing polar bear (ursus maritimus) population structure in the hudson bay region using snps,management; polar bear; population structure; single-nucleotide polymorphisms; ursus maritimus,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,VIENGKONE M;DEROCHER AE;RICHARDSON ES;MALENFANT RM;MILLER JM;OBBARD ME;DYCK MG;LUNN NJ;SAHANATIEN V;DAVIS CS,"defining subpopulations using genetics has traditionally used data from microsatellite markers to investigate population structure; however, single-nucleotide polymorphisms (snps) have emerged as a tool for detection of fine-scale structure. in hudson bay, canada, three polar bear (ursus maritimus) subpopulations (foxe basin (fb), southern hudson bay (sh), and western hudson bay (wh)) have been delineated based on mark-recapture studies, radiotelemetry and satellite telemetry, return of marked animals in the subsistence harvest, and population genetics using microsatellites. we used snps to detect fine-scale population structure in polar bears from the hudson bay region and compared our results to the current designations using 414 individuals genotyped at 2,603 snps. analyses based on discriminant analysis of principal components (dapc) and structure support the presence of four genetic clusters: (i) western-including individuals sampled in wh, sh (excluding akimiski island in james bay), and southern fb (south of southampton island); (ii) northern-individuals sampled in northern fb (baffin island) and davis strait (ds) (labrador coast); (iii) southeast-individuals from sh (akimiski island in james bay); and (iv) northeast-individuals from ds (baffin island). population structure differed from microsatellite studies and current management designations demonstrating the value of using snps for fine-scale population delineation in polar bears." -is the incidence of type 1 diabetes in children and adolescents stabilising? the first 6 years of a national register,type 1 diabetes; children; epidemiology incidence; register; ireland,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PEDIATRICS,ROCHE EF;MCKENNA AM;RYDER KJ;BRENNAN AA;O'REGAN M;HOEY HMCV,"the irish childhood diabetes national register (icdnr) was established in 2008 to define accurately the incidence and monitor the epidemiology of type 1 diabetes (t1d) in the irish population. here, we report data from the first 6 years of the national register and compare with previous national data. prospective national incident data regarding t1d in those under 15 years resident in ireland were collected from 2008 to 2013 and national incidence rates (irs) calculated. ascertainment completeness was assessed using capture-recapture methodology. the period identified 1566 new cases of t1d, ascertainment reached 96.8 % in 2013. the standardised incidence rate was 27.5 in 2008 stabilising at 28.7 and 28.8 cases /100,000/year in 2012 and 2013. there was no evidence that the incidence changed significantly in the 6-year period either overall or for each age group and gender. there was evidence of a difference in the incidence of t1d across the age groups with the overall incidence highest in the 10-14 year age category. a strong seasonal association was demonstrated. conclusions: this study confirms ireland as a high-incidence country for type 1 diabetes whilst demonstrating that the previous marked increase in ir from 16.3 cases/100,000/year in 1997 has not continued. ongoing monitoring through the robust mechanism of the icdnr is required to clarify whether this is a fluctuation or if the incidence of t1d diabetes has stopped rising in our population. alternatively, this apparent stabilisation may reflect a shift to a later age at diagnosis" +is the incidence of type 1 diabetes in children and adolescents stabilising? the first 6 years of a national register,type 1 diabetes; children; epidemiology incidence; register; ireland,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PEDIATRICS,ROCHE EF;MCKENNA AM;RYDER KJ;BRENNAN AA;O REGAN M;HOEY HMCV,"the irish childhood diabetes national register (icdnr) was established in 2008 to define accurately the incidence and monitor the epidemiology of type 1 diabetes (t1d) in the irish population. here, we report data from the first 6 years of the national register and compare with previous national data. prospective national incident data regarding t1d in those under 15 years resident in ireland were collected from 2008 to 2013 and national incidence rates (irs) calculated. ascertainment completeness was assessed using capture-recapture methodology. the period identified 1566 new cases of t1d, ascertainment reached 96.8 % in 2013. the standardised incidence rate was 27.5 in 2008 stabilising at 28.7 and 28.8 cases /100,000/year in 2012 and 2013. there was no evidence that the incidence changed significantly in the 6-year period either overall or for each age group and gender. there was evidence of a difference in the incidence of t1d across the age groups with the overall incidence highest in the 10-14 year age category. a strong seasonal association was demonstrated. conclusions: this study confirms ireland as a high-incidence country for type 1 diabetes whilst demonstrating that the previous marked increase in ir from 16.3 cases/100,000/year in 1997 has not continued. ongoing monitoring through the robust mechanism of the icdnr is required to clarify whether this is a fluctuation or if the incidence of t1d diabetes has stopped rising in our population. alternatively, this apparent stabilisation may reflect a shift to a later age at diagnosis" "exploiting the innate behaviour of common carp, cyprinus carpio, to limit invasion and spawning in wetlands of the river murray, australia",behaviour; carassius auratus; chelidae; cyprinidae; lateral movements; mark-recapture,FISHERIES MANAGEMENT AND ECOLOGY,CONALLIN AJ;SMITH BB;THWAITES LA;WALKER KF;GILLANDERS BM,"common carp, cyprinus carpio l., a destructive invasive pest of the murray-darling basin, australia, move from rivers into wetlands to spawn, making them vulnerable to trapping, but traps may also capture and affect access for native species. this study trialled a trap designed to separate carp from native fish entering wetlands by exploiting their different jumping and pushing behaviours. trials were conducted at a flow-through wetland on the river murray, south australia, from june to october 2008. no carp approached the wetland inlet, but many (n = 3736) were sampled at the outlet, most by the trap (n = 2530), but there was some avoidance. ninety-two percent of trapped carp were successfully isolated by jumping or pushing. separation was most efficient (and avoidance least) when carp were ready to spawn (water temperature >16 degrees c). the outlet design substantially reduced wetland carp invasion, but more trials are needed to assess the pushing ability of native fish, to deter entry by turtles, and with alternatives for wetland inlets." lifetime reproduction in a northern metapopulation of timber rattlesnakes (crotalus horridus),age at maturity; fecundity; female body size; life history; reproductive cycles; viperidae,HERPETOLOGICA,BROWN WS,"lifetime reproduction is a fundamental demographic variable for all vertebrate species, but rarely has been examined in snakes. in the southeastern adirondack mountains of new york, i used a capture-recapture method over a 36-yr period to study the lifetime reproductive biology of crotalus horridus in a metapopulation of communal overwintering dens. these longitudinal data allowed analysis of the following parameters for many females throughout their reproductive lives: age and size at first reproduction, reproductive cycle length, duration and frequency of reproduction, body mass changes, and fecundity. within the metapopulation, first reproduction occurred at a mean age of 9.6 yr, mean length of reproductive cycles was 4.2 yr, mean reproductive life span was 9.6 yr, and average fecundity was 7.7 offspring per litter. nonviable offspring were observed in 20% of field litters. although several female snakes produced multiple broods (as many as seven litters over spans as long as 32 yr), most females reproduced only once-the mean number of lifetime reproductive events was 1.7 efforts per female. during their gravid year, most females lost 2-3% of their initial mass, but gains and losses as great as 15-20% indicate feeding during gestation. microgeographic differences were evident within the metapopulation and might be correlated with (1) resource levels that could influence growth rates, or (2) human encounters that could influence survival rates. conserving c. horridus in its northern range depends on recognizing the importance of a suite of reproductive constraints-late age of maturity, long reproductive cycles, and low number of lifetime efforts-that clearly influence the viability and persistence of local populations." quality assessment of the national cancer registry in iran: completeness and validity,cancer registry; iran; quality assessment; completeness; validity,IRANIAN JOURNAL OF CANCER PREVENTION,MOHAMMADI G;AKBARI ME;MEHRABI Y;MOTLAGH AG,"introduction: cancer registry is one of the important components of health information systems in developing countries. continuous monitoring of data quality can have a crucial role in controlling cancers. this study aimed to assess the quality of cancer registry data in terms of completeness of coverage and validity. methods: data were collected from three main sources, including pathology registry, hospital and national death registries in five provinces in iran during march 2008-march 2011. we used two source capture-recapture method for estimate of cancer registry coverage and measures of validity were percentage of death certificate only (dco%), histological verified cases (mv%); cancer incidence in childhood based on sex and age group, percentage of cancer in the elderly (80 years or above) and mortality-to-incidence ratio (m:i). we compared them to international standards. results: the overall completeness was estimated at 54.2% and 32.4% under reporting for stomach cancer in a period of three years (2008 - 2010). mv% and percentage of unknown primary site of the tumor were 68.7%, and5% respectively. the mortality-to-incidence ratio for men and women was 37.6% and 28.2%, and percentage of cancer in the elderly was 10.9% in 2010 year. the age-specific rate in girls and boys in age groups of 5 - 9 and 10 - 14 years was lower than minimum of the recommended international standards. conclusions: the results of this study showed data quality of cancer registry is relatively low in terms of the completeness and validity. cancer registries should pay great attention to the quality of their data. in addition to technical measures in data processing, continuous evaluation of their quality in order to achieve the set goals is essential." using spatial capture-recapture to elucidate population processes and space-use in herpetological studies,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,MUNOZ DJ;MILLER DAW;SUTHERLAND C;GRANT EHC,"the cryptic behavior and ecology of herpetofauna make estimating the impacts of environmental change on demography difficult; yet, the ability to measure demographic relationships is essential for elucidating mechanisms leading to the population declines reported for herpetofauna worldwide. recently developed spatial capture-recapture (scr) methods are well suited to standard herpetofauna monitoring approaches. individually identifying animals and their locations allows accurate estimates of population densities and survival. spatial capture-recapture methods also allow estimation of parameters describing space-use and movement, which generally are expensive or difficult to obtain using other methods. in this paper, we discuss the basic components of scr models, the available software for conducting analyses, and the experimental designs based on common herpetological survey methods. we then apply scr models to red-backed salamander (plethodon cinereus), to determine differences in density, survival, dispersal, and space-use between adult male and female salamanders. by highlighting the capabilities of scr, and its advantages compared to traditional methods, we hope to give herpetologists the resource they need to apply scr in their own systems." sex-specific spatial patterns in the threatened damselfly coenagrion ornatum: implications for the species' conservation and monitoring,dispersal; habitat quality assessment; natura 2000; odonate sampling; spatial ecology,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,TICHANEK F;TROPEK R,"the damselfly coenagrion ornatum is a threatened species, specialized for lowland headwater streams. as the species is declining and protected across europe, it represents a species of particular conservation interest. this work aims to provide the first evaluation of fine-scale spatial ecology in this species, especially to assess its general mobility and distribution of adults in relation to larval habitats, and to suggest implications for conservation and efficient monitoring of this species. adults were captured-recaptured along four distinct streams (5.2 km together) in the radovesicka spoil heap, czech republic. immature adults and breeding individuals were recorded simultaneously. larvae were sampled in 64 sections of 27 m, evenly distributed across the studied streams. in total, 1152 adult individuals were marked; from these, 240 individuals were recaptured at least once. larvae were detected in 21 sites with a total number of 61 individuals. the adults were highly sedentary, with a median lifetime dispersal of 11 m. only one male was reported to move between two distinct streams. model comparisons revealed that female and breeding pair abundances are a significantly more reliable indicator of larval abundance than male and total adult abundances, especially when used along with records of the immature adults. moreover, the weighted least square models showed that the female abundances are spatially more specific (i.e., less autocorrelated) than male abundances. these results imply that surveying the adult females, along with the breeding and immature adults, offers the best method for local habitat quality assessment for this natura 2000 species." -individual identification of wild giant pandas from camera trap photos -a systematic and hierarchical approach,camera traps; decoy; giant panda; visual identification; individual identification; image analysis; ailuropoda melanoleuca,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,ZHENG X;OWEN MA;NIE Y;HU Y;SWAISGOOD RR;YAN L;WEI F,"the scientific and conservation-management value of using camera traps is greatly enhanced if the identity of individual animals 'captured' can be assigned. identification of individuals is necessary to make unbiased estimates of population parameters, and can allow for the generation of more robust inferences from studies of spatial and behavioral ecology. here we tested the utility of an approach to individually identify wild giant pandas ailuropoda melanoleuca from camera trap images, by cataloguing and careful scrutiny of numerous traits. we developed our identification strategy first by analyzing images of known (captive) individuals (n = 7). we then deployed camera traps at 23 control sites and at seven camera trap arrays 'baited' with conspecific decoys, in foping nature reserve, china. from a sample of 12 871 photographs, and using the method we developed with known individuals, we were able to identify 11 individual giant pandas. we tested the repeatability of this approach using a double blind test with 12 naive volunteers, achieving a relatively high inter-observer agreement of 80%, which was increased to 93% when observers reported a high degree of confidence. we also found that image quality was significantly higher at decoy sites than at control sites. we suggest that this approach will be useful for future field projects, allowing researchers to address a broader array of questions and provide new insights into panda ecology and conservation." +individual identification of wild giant pandas from camera trap photos - a systematic and hierarchical approach,camera traps; decoy; giant panda; visual identification; individual identification; image analysis; ailuropoda melanoleuca,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,ZHENG X;OWEN MA;NIE Y;HU Y;SWAISGOOD RR;YAN L;WEI F,"the scientific and conservation-management value of using camera traps is greatly enhanced if the identity of individual animals 'captured' can be assigned. identification of individuals is necessary to make unbiased estimates of population parameters, and can allow for the generation of more robust inferences from studies of spatial and behavioral ecology. here we tested the utility of an approach to individually identify wild giant pandas ailuropoda melanoleuca from camera trap images, by cataloguing and careful scrutiny of numerous traits. we developed our identification strategy first by analyzing images of known (captive) individuals (n = 7). we then deployed camera traps at 23 control sites and at seven camera trap arrays 'baited' with conspecific decoys, in foping nature reserve, china. from a sample of 12 871 photographs, and using the method we developed with known individuals, we were able to identify 11 individual giant pandas. we tested the repeatability of this approach using a double blind test with 12 naive volunteers, achieving a relatively high inter-observer agreement of 80%, which was increased to 93% when observers reported a high degree of confidence. we also found that image quality was significantly higher at decoy sites than at control sites. we suggest that this approach will be useful for future field projects, allowing researchers to address a broader array of questions and provide new insights into panda ecology and conservation." camtrapr: an r package for efficient camera trap data management,biodiversity surveys; camera trapping; data management; detection history; monitoring; occupancy models; photo trapping; spatial capture-recapture models; wildlife studies,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,NIEDBALLA J;SOLLMANN R;COURTIOL A;WILTING A,"1. camera trapping is a widely applied method to study mammalian biodiversity and is still gaining popularity. it can quickly generate large amounts of data which need to be managed in an efficient and transparent way that links data acquisition with analytical tools. 2. we describe the free and open-source r package camtrapr, a new toolbox for flexible and efficient management of data generated in camera trap-based wildlife studies. the package implements a complete workflow for processing camera trapping data. it assists in image organization, species and individual identification, data extraction from images, tabulation and visualization of results and export of data for subsequent analyses. there is no limitation to the number of images stored in this data management system; the system is portable and compatible across operating systems. 3. the functions provide extensive automation to minimize data entry mistakes and, apart from species and individual identification, require minimal manual user input. species and individual identification are performed outside the r environment, either via tags assigned in dedicated image management software or by moving images into species directories. 4. input for occupancy and (spatial) capture-recapture analyses for density and abundance estimation, for example in the r packages unmarked or secr, is computed in a flexible and reproducible manner. in addition, survey summary reports can be generated, spatial distributions of records can be plotted and exported to gis software, and single-and two-species activity patterns can be visualized. 5. camtrapr allows for streamlined and flexible camera trap data management and should be most useful to researchers and practitioners who regularly handle large amounts of camera trapping data." spacing and parental behavior in the mongolian vole (microtus mongolicus),NA,RUSSIAN JOURNAL OF THERIOLOGY,DONTSOVA PS;SMORKATCHEVA AV;BAZHENOV YA,"the relationship between parental care patterns and mating system in voles has not been fully elucidated. whereas mating and parental strategies have been reported for many new world arvicolines, such information is lacking for most palearctic voles. nothing is known about the social organization of microtus mongolicus inhabiting mesic habitats of central asia. we investigated spacing of free-ranging m. mongolicus in zabaykalsky kray using mark-recapture method, and we assessed the parental care exhibited by mongolian voles in laboratory. home ranges (hr) and movement distances of overwintered males exceeded those of other categories of voles. hr overlapped within sexes and between sexes in linear habitat at high population density as well as in non-linear habitat at low density. the revealed pattern of spacing is consistent with promiscuous mating system. in laboratory, both the parent-litter separation tests and undisturbed observations of animals in large enclosures showed that most males displayed paternal behavior at the level comparable to that of socially monogamous species. our results demonstrate that monogamous mating system cannot be inferred from biparental care detected in captivity." "lake trout (salvelinus namaycush) suppression for bull trout (salvelinus confluentus) recovery in flathead lake, montana, north america",lake trout; bull trout; fishing; predation,HYDROBIOLOGIA,HANSEN MJ;HANSEN BS;BEAUCHAMP DA,"non-native lake trout salvelinus namaycush displaced native bull trout salvelinus confluentus in flathead lake, montana, usa, after 1984, when mysis diluviana became abundant following its introduction in upstream lakes in 1968-1976. we developed a simulation model to determine the fishing mortality rate on lake trout that would enable bull trout recovery. model simulations indicated that suppression of adult lake trout by 75% from current abundance would reduce predation on bull trout by 90%. current removals of lake trout through incentivized fishing contests has not been sufficient to suppress lake trout abundance estimated by mark-recapture or indexed by stratified-random gill netting. in contrast, size structure, body condition, mortality, and maturity are changing consistent with a density-dependent reduction in lake trout abundance. population modeling indicated total fishing effort would need to increase 3-fold to reduce adult lake trout population density by 75%. we conclude that increased fishing effort would suppress lake trout population density and predation on juvenile bull trout, and thereby enable higher abundance of adult bull trout in flathead lake and its tributaries." necessary elements of precautionary management: implications for the antarctic toothfish,dissostichus mawsoni; precautionary approach; reference point; ross sea; stock-recruitment relationship; uncertainty,FISH AND FISHERIES,ABRAMS PA;AINLEY DG;BLIGHT LK;DAYTON PK;EASTMAN JT;JACQUET JL,"we review the precautionary approach to fisheries management, propose a framework that will allow a systematic assessment of insufficient precaution and provide an illustration using an antarctic fishery. for a single-species fishery, our framework includes five attributes: (1) limit reference points that recognize gaps in our understanding of the dynamics of the species; (2) accurate measures of population size; (3) ability to detect population changes quickly enough to arrest unwanted declines; (4) adequate understanding of ecosystem dynamics to avoid adverse indirect effects; and (5) assessment of the first four elements by a sufficiently impartial group of scientists. we argue that one or more of these elements frequently fail to be present in the management of many fisheries. structural uncertainties, which characterize almost all fisheries models, call for higher limit points than those commonly used. a detailed look into the five elements and associated uncertainties is presented for the fishery on the antarctic toothfish in the ross sea (fao/ccamlr area 88.1, 88.2), for which management was recently described as highly precautionary'. in spite of having features that make the ross sea fishery ideal for the application of the precautionary approach, gaps in our knowledge and failure to acknowledge these gaps mean that current regulation falls short of being sufficiently precautionary. we propose some possible remedies." attempt to calculate the prevalence and features of chronic hepatitis c infection in tuscany using administrative data,hepatitis c; public health; fibrosis; antiviral treatment; epidemiology,WORLD JOURNAL OF GASTROENTEROLOGY,SILVESTRI C;BARTOLACCI S;PEPE P;MONNINI M;VOLLER F;CIPRIANI F;STASI C,"aim to evaluate this prevalence in tuscan populations that was known and unknown to the tuscan regional health service in 2015. methods tuscan health administrative data were used to evaluate hepatitis c virus (hcv) infected people known to the regional health service. residents in tuscany with a hcv exemption code (070.54) were identified. using the universal code attributed to each resident, these patients were matched with hospital admission codes identified by the international classification of diseases, ninth revision (icd-9), clinical modification, and with codes for dispensing drugs to patients by local and hospital pharmacies. individuals were considered only once. capture-recapture analysis was used to evaluate the hcv-infected population unknown to the regional health service. results in total, 14526 individuals were living on 31/12/2015 with an exemption code for hcv. in total, 9524 patients were treated with pegylated interferon + ribavirin and/or direct-acting antiviral drugs during the last 10 years, and 13879 total hospital admissions were noted in the last 15 years. after data linkage, the total number was 25918. after applying the capture-recapture analysis, the number of unknown hcv-infected people was 23497. therefore, the total number of chronic hcv-infected people was 38643, excluding those achieved sustained virological response to previous treatment. conclusion our results show a prevalence of hcv infected people of 1%. tuscan administrative data could be useful for calculating health care costs and health planning in the coming years." -absolute abundance of southern bluefin tuna estimated by close-kin mark-recapture,NA,"NATURE COMMUNICATIONS",BRAVINGTON MV;GREWE PM;DAVIES CR,"southern bluefin tuna is a highly valuable, severely depleted species, whose abundance and productivity have been difficult to assess with conventional fishery data. here we use large-scale genotyping to look for parent-offspring pairs among 14,000 tissue samples of juvenile and adult tuna collected from the fisheries, finding 45 pairs in total. using a modified mark-recapture framework where 'recaptures' are kin rather than individuals, we can estimate adult abundance and other demographic parameters such as survival, without needing to use contentious fishery catch or effort data. our abundance estimates are substantially higher and more precise than previously thought, indicating a somewhat less-depleted and more productive stock. more broadly, this technique of 'close-kin mark-recapture' has widespread utility in fisheries and wildlife conservation. it estimates a key parameter for management the absolute abundance of adults-while avoiding the expense of independent surveys or tag-release programmes, and the interpretational problems of fishery catch rates." +absolute abundance of southern bluefin tuna estimated by close-kin mark-recapture,NA,NATURE COMMUNICATIONS,BRAVINGTON MV;GREWE PM;DAVIES CR,"southern bluefin tuna is a highly valuable, severely depleted species, whose abundance and productivity have been difficult to assess with conventional fishery data. here we use large-scale genotyping to look for parent-offspring pairs among 14,000 tissue samples of juvenile and adult tuna collected from the fisheries, finding 45 pairs in total. using a modified mark-recapture framework where 'recaptures' are kin rather than individuals, we can estimate adult abundance and other demographic parameters such as survival, without needing to use contentious fishery catch or effort data. our abundance estimates are substantially higher and more precise than previously thought, indicating a somewhat less-depleted and more productive stock. more broadly, this technique of 'close-kin mark-recapture' has widespread utility in fisheries and wildlife conservation. it estimates a key parameter for management the absolute abundance of adults-while avoiding the expense of independent surveys or tag-release programmes, and the interpretational problems of fishery catch rates." environmental dna from residual saliva for efficient noninvasive genetic monitoring of brown bears (ursus arctos),NA,PLOS ONE,WHEAT RE;ALLEN JM;MILLER SDL;WILMERS CC;LEVI T,"noninvasive genetic sampling is an important tool in wildlife ecology and management, typically relying on hair snaring or scat sampling techniques, but hair snaring is labor and cost intensive, and scats yield relatively low quality dna. new approaches utilizing environmental dna (edna) may provide supplementary, cost-effective tools for noninvasive genetic sampling. we tested whether edna from residual saliva on partially-consumed pacific salmon (oncorhynchus spp.) carcasses might yield suitable dna quality for noninvasive monitoring of brown bears (ursus arctos). we compared the efficiency of monitoring brown bear populations using both fecal dna and salivary edna collected from partially-consumed salmon carcasses in southeast alaska. we swabbed a range of tissue types from 156 partially-consumed salmon carcasses from a midseason run of lakeshore-spawning sockeye (o. nerka) and a late season run of stream-spawning chum (o. keta) salmon in 2014. we also swabbed a total of 272 scats from the same locations. saliva swabs collected from the braincases of salmon had the best amplification rate, followed by swabs taken from individual bite holes. saliva collected from salmon carcasses identified unique individuals more quickly and required much less labor to locate than scat samples. salmon carcass swabbing is a promising method to aid in efficient and affordable monitoring of bear populations, and suggests that the swabbing of food remains or consumed baits from other animals may be an additional cost-effective and valuable tool in the study of the ecology and population biology of many elusive and/or wide-ranging species." "predators, prey and habitat structure: can key conservation areas and early signs of population collapse be detected in neotropical forests?",NA,PLOS ONE,DE THOISY B;FAYAD I;CLEMENT L;BARRIOZ S;POIRIER E;GOND V,"tropical forests with a low human population and absence of large-scale deforestation provide unique opportunities to study successful conservation strategies, which should be based on adequate monitoring tools. this study explored the conservation status of a large predator, the jaguar, considered an indicator of the maintenance of how well ecological processes are maintained. we implemented an original integrative approach, exploring successive ecosystem status proxies, from habitats and responses to threats of predators and their prey, to canopy structure and forest biomass. niche modeling allowed identification of more suitable habitats, significantly related to canopy height and forest biomass. capture/recapture methods showed that jaguar density was higher in habitats identified as more suitable by the niche model. surveys of ungulates, large rodents and birds also showed higher density where jaguars were more abundant. although jaguar density does not allow early detection of overall vertebrate community collapse, a decrease in the abundance of large terrestrial birds was noted as good first evidence of disturbance. the most promising tool comes from easily acquired lidar data and radar images: a decrease in canopy roughness was closely associated with the disturbance of forests and associated decreasing vertebrate biomass. this mixed approach, focusing on an apex predator, ecological modeling and remote-sensing information, not only helps detect early population declines in large mammals, but is also useful to discuss the relevance of large predators as indicators and the efficiency of conservation measures. it can also be easily extrapolated and adapted in a timely manner, since important open-source data are increasingly available and relevant for large-scale and real-time monitoring of biodiversity." "juvenile survival, recruitment, population size, and effects of avian pox virus in laysan albatross (phoebastria immutabilis) on oahu, hawaii, usa",avian pox virus; laysan albatross; juvenile survival; mark-recapture; recruitment age,CONDOR,VANDERWERF EA;YOUNG LC,"understanding population dynamics and determining conservation priorities in long-lived species with delayed breeding often is hampered by lack of information about younger age classes. obtaining accurate estimates of juvenile survival and recruitment can be difficult because young individuals are infrequently observed. we used markrecapture models to estimate age-specific survival, recruitment, population size, and encounter probability of laysan albatrosses (phoebastria immutabilis) using a 14-yr dataset from oahu, hawaii, usa. we also measured the long-term effect of avian pox virus (poxvirus avium) on the survival and recruitment of albatrosses infected as nestlings. survival of juvenile albatrosses during the first year after fledging was 0.757 +/- 0.042. we were able to estimate juvenile survival, the first such estimate in any long-lived seabird, because our high search effort revealed that some birds began visiting the natal colony at the age of 1 yr. the survival of prebreeders increased rapidly and reached a value in the second year (0.973 +/- 0.008) that was similar to the survival of breeding adults (0.973 +/- 0.017). the average age of first return to the natal colony was 4.24 +/- 0.11 yr. the average age at first breeding was 8.44 +/- 0.15 yr, with recruitment probability peaking at ages 9-10 yr and a single bird being recruited into the breeding population at the age of 4 yr. pox virus decreased survival in the first year by 4%-13% and decreased recruitment probability up to age 12 by 4%-26%, depending on the severity of infection. the total size of the laysan albatross population on oahu in 2015 was 555 birds, consisting of 270 active breeders, 231 prebreeders, and 54 birds that likely skipped breeding that year. the number of prebreeders constituted an average of 44% of the total population. these demographic estimates will be useful for population modeling exercises involving various threat and management scenarios, and for examining environmental factors that influence demography." @@ -1405,8 +1407,8 @@ banding data reveal bias in age-class sampling of songbirds during spring migrat "a method for evaluating density of roe deer, capreolus capreolus (linnaeus, 1758), in a forested area in bulgaria based on camera trapping and independent photo screening",population estimate; camera-trapping; roe deer; reliability; capture-mark-recapture; bulgaria,ACTA ZOOLOGICA BULGARICA,MORIMANDO F;FOCARDI S;ANDREEV R;CAPRIOTTI S;AHMED A;LOMBARDI S;GENOV P,"we performed an experimental survey of roe deer (capreolus capreolus) in the chepino game hunting station (southwestern bulgaria) in spring 2014 using a camera-trap network. we established a network with a density of one camera per 2 ha of forest. traps remained activated for five days in one sampling plot of 80 ha. camera traps triggered by animal movements were set to take successive pictures with ten second time lapses. camera trap records were examined by three independent groups of researchers and allowed for a very high rate of individual recognition (up to 82% of individuals pictured were classified by sex and age class). we identified a minimum of 29 roe deer individuals corresponding to a density of 36 individuals/km2, with a male/female ratio of 0.71, and a fawn/doe ratio of 1.33. this density was surprisingly high as compared to the known bulgarian standards, and indicated a good conservative management of the roe deer population in the chepino region. further, our estimates were confirmed by performing a capture-mark-recapture study of roe antlered bucks which were easy recognisable. we found a detection probability of 0.91 and a population density of 36.25 deer/km(2). therefore, camera networks could be used as a reliable monitoring method to estimate roe deer population density and to get a reliable population structure in areas where alternative monitoring methods are not possible or are too expensive. we recommend this method to be adopted by game reserves in bulgaria in order to improve knowledge about roe deer population demography and for improving the management of its populations." "increasing prevalence of multiple sclerosis in buenos aires, argentina",multiple sclerosis; prevalence; epidemiology; capture-recapture,MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS AND RELATED DISORDERS,CRISTIANO E;PATRUCCO L;MIGUEZ J;GIUNTA D;CORREALE J;FIOL M;YSRRAELIT MC;CACERES F;LIGUORI NF;SALADINO ML;GARCEA O;SILVA B;ALONSO R;CARRA A;CURBELO MC;MARTINEZ A;STEINBERG J;GIACHELLO S;MELCOM MO;ROJAS JI,"in 1996, the prevalence of multiple sclerosis (ms) for the metropolitan area of buenos aires using the capture-recapture method was estimated to be between 14 and 19.8 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. the aim of this study was to update the prevalence to 2014 following the same methodology. methods: gran buenos aires is the denomination that refers to the megalopolis comprised by the autonomous city of buenos aires and the surrounding conurbation of the province of buenos aires. the study was carried out taking december 2014 as the prevalence month. we used the capture-recapture method to estimate the prevalence of ms cross-matching registries from 6 ms centers from the metropolitan area of buenos aires. log-linear model poisson regression was used to estimate the number of affected ms patients not detected by any of the 6 sources considered. results: 1035 registries were obtained from the 6 lists from 910 different patients detected. the population of the area based on 2010 census was 12,806,866, the number of ms cases estimated amongst source interactions were 4901. the estimated prevalence was 38.2 per 100,000 inhabitants (95% ci 36.1-41.2). conclusion: the study is an update almost 20 years after the first one in the area showing a significant increase in the previous reported prevalence. our findings are in line with previous studies performed in other regions of the world. (c) 2016 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." intrinsic heterogeneity in detection probability and its effect on n-mixture models,abundance-estimation; behaviour; density dependence; detection probability; model testing; monitoring; negative binomial; poisson; population survey; zero-inflated poisson,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,VEECH JA;OTT JR;TROY JR,"estimating the abundance or density of animal populations is often a fundamental task in ecological research and species conservation. n-mixture models are widely used to estimate the detection probability of individual organisms that thusly leads to more accurate estimates of a species' true abundance. however, individuals likely vary in their probabilities of being detected. during a survey, heterogeneity (variation) in individual detection probability might arise due to conditions of the surveying process; this form of extrinsic heterogeneity can be accounted for by the use of appropriate covariates in the models. in contrast, intrinsic heterogeneity in the detection probabilities of individuals arises when intraspecific variation in behaviour results in individual organisms differing in their latent (inherent) probabilities of being detected. this form of heterogeneity is not tractable by the use of covariates and its possible effects on model performance have not been investigated to date. using simulated data, we evaluated the performance of poisson, negative binomial and zero-inflated poisson versions of n-mixture models under the conditions of intrinsic heterogeneity in individual detection probability. most versions of n-mixture models performed well in estimating abundance as indicated by relatively low root-mean-square-error values (rmse<1). error distributions indicated a lack of substantial bias and relatively high precision and accuracy when simulated detection probabilities of individuals were high (>05) and heterogeneity was random. otherwise, with structured heterogeneity (particularly positive density dependence) and low detection probabilities (<05), model performance was reduced (rmse>2). the poorest performing model was the zero-inflated poisson version of n-mixture model applied to data from low survey effort. our results suggest that n-mixture models are robust to intrinsic heterogeneity in individual detection probabilities except when the detection probabilities are low. when model-estimated detection probabilities are low (<05), model users should be aware that estimates of abundance could be erroneous if there was non-random intrinsic heterogeneity in individual detection probabilities during the surveys. remedying this situation might require redesigning the basic survey protocol such that it does not rely on behavioural traits (as cues to detection) that are intrinsically variable among individuals." -large numbers of marine mammals winter in the north water polynya,walrus; narwhal; beluga; bearded seal; north greenland; aerial survey,POLAR BIOLOGY,HEIDE-JORGENSEN MP;SINDING MHS;NIELSEN NH;ROSING-ASVID A;HANSEN RG,"the importance of the north water polynya in smith sound as an overwintering area for marine mammals has been questioned. one way to address the issue is to assess the abundance of selected marine mammals that are present during winter in the north water. visual aerial surveys involving double observer platforms were conducted over the eastern part of the north water polynya in april 2014. four species of marine mammals were included in strip-census estimation of abundance. perception bias was addressed using a double-platform survey protocol, a chapman mark-recapture estimator for whales, seals and walruses (odobenus rosmarus) on ice and a mark-recapture distance sampling estimation technique for walruses in water. availability bias was addressed by correcting abundance estimates by the percentage of time animals detected in water that were available for detection at the surface. the resulting estimates suggested that 2544 walruses (95 % ci 1513-4279), 6005 bearded seals (erignathus barbatus, 95 % ci 4070-8858), 2324 belugas (delphinapterus leucas, 95 % ci 968-5575) and 3059 narwhals (monodon monoceros, 95 % ci 1760-5316) wintered in the eastern part of the north water polynya in april 2014. the walrus estimate is larger than previous summer estimates, and it emphasizes the importance of the habitat along the greenland coast as a walrus wintering ground. the estimate of belugas is likely negatively biased due to the partial coverage of the potential habitat. the estimate of narwhals is large compared to the few previous observations of narwhals in winter in the north water, and it demonstrates that large numbers of narwhals winter there. the overall conclusion is that the north water is indeed an important wintering area for at least walruses, belugas, narwhals and bearded seals." -"densities and perceptions of jaguars in coastal nayarit, mexico",capture-recapture; density estimation; mangroves; mexico; nayarit; panthera onca; perceptions; spatially explicit,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,FIGEL JJ;RUIZ-GUTIERREZ F;BROWN DE,"conservation of large carnivores will require greater analyses of population parameters, habitat use, and distribution in multiuse landscapes as human populations increase and agriculture expands. we used bayesian spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models and completed 82 interviews in 24 localities over 4 field seasons from april 2009 to march 2013 to estimate densities and assess residents' perceptions of jaguars (panthera onca) in the san blas municipality within the southern marismas nacionales ecosystem in nayarit, mexico. camera traps accumulated 90 detections of 9 jaguars (2 m, 5 f, and 2 individuals of unknown sex) in a 194-km(2) area during 1,575 trap-nights from april to june 2010. we detected jaguars at 16 of the 27 camera-trap sites and calculated a density estimate of 2.04 (se=0.45) individuals/100 km(2) using the secr method. this is one of the first studies to use secr models for jaguar density estimation and 1 of only 2 studies throughout jaguar distribution to estimate population parameters of the species where human population densities reach >50 people/km(2). future studies in this unique landscape should focus on jaguar status in the northern stretches of the marismas nacionales and research the mechanisms that may allow this large carnivore to persist in altered landscapes among human population densities greater than previously believed to be tolerable by the species. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." +large numbers of marine mammals winter in the north water polynya,walrus; narwhal; beluga; bearded seal; north greenland; aerial survey,POLAR BIOLOGY,HEIDE JORGENSEN MP;SINDING MHS;NIELSEN NH;ROSING ASVID A;HANSEN RG,"the importance of the north water polynya in smith sound as an overwintering area for marine mammals has been questioned. one way to address the issue is to assess the abundance of selected marine mammals that are present during winter in the north water. visual aerial surveys involving double observer platforms were conducted over the eastern part of the north water polynya in april 2014. four species of marine mammals were included in strip-census estimation of abundance. perception bias was addressed using a double-platform survey protocol, a chapman mark-recapture estimator for whales, seals and walruses (odobenus rosmarus) on ice and a mark-recapture distance sampling estimation technique for walruses in water. availability bias was addressed by correcting abundance estimates by the percentage of time animals detected in water that were available for detection at the surface. the resulting estimates suggested that 2544 walruses (95 % ci 1513-4279), 6005 bearded seals (erignathus barbatus, 95 % ci 4070-8858), 2324 belugas (delphinapterus leucas, 95 % ci 968-5575) and 3059 narwhals (monodon monoceros, 95 % ci 1760-5316) wintered in the eastern part of the north water polynya in april 2014. the walrus estimate is larger than previous summer estimates, and it emphasizes the importance of the habitat along the greenland coast as a walrus wintering ground. the estimate of belugas is likely negatively biased due to the partial coverage of the potential habitat. the estimate of narwhals is large compared to the few previous observations of narwhals in winter in the north water, and it demonstrates that large numbers of narwhals winter there. the overall conclusion is that the north water is indeed an important wintering area for at least walruses, belugas, narwhals and bearded seals." +"densities and perceptions of jaguars in coastal nayarit, mexico",capture-recapture; density estimation; mangroves; mexico; nayarit; panthera onca; perceptions; spatially explicit,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,FIGEL JJ;RUIZ GUTIERREZ F;BROWN DE,"conservation of large carnivores will require greater analyses of population parameters, habitat use, and distribution in multiuse landscapes as human populations increase and agriculture expands. we used bayesian spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models and completed 82 interviews in 24 localities over 4 field seasons from april 2009 to march 2013 to estimate densities and assess residents' perceptions of jaguars (panthera onca) in the san blas municipality within the southern marismas nacionales ecosystem in nayarit, mexico. camera traps accumulated 90 detections of 9 jaguars (2 m, 5 f, and 2 individuals of unknown sex) in a 194-km(2) area during 1,575 trap-nights from april to june 2010. we detected jaguars at 16 of the 27 camera-trap sites and calculated a density estimate of 2.04 (se=0.45) individuals/100 km(2) using the secr method. this is one of the first studies to use secr models for jaguar density estimation and 1 of only 2 studies throughout jaguar distribution to estimate population parameters of the species where human population densities reach >50 people/km(2). future studies in this unique landscape should focus on jaguar status in the northern stretches of the marismas nacionales and research the mechanisms that may allow this large carnivore to persist in altered landscapes among human population densities greater than previously believed to be tolerable by the species. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." factors affecting trapping success of northern bobwhites in the rolling plains of texas,colinus virginianus; lunar phase; negative binomial; northern bobwhite; temperature; texas; trapping; weather,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,RUZICKA RE;ROLLINS D;LACOSTE LM;WESTER DB,"trapping of northern bobwhites (colinus virginianus) is commonly conducted for research purposes. we investigated the influence of weather, lunar phase, time of day, and season on bobwhite trapping success in the rolling plains ecoregion of texas, usa, from 2009 to 2011. we trapped bobwhites in autumn (oct-nov) and spring (feb-mar) using walk-in funnel traps baited with sorghum. we used a negative binomial regression to examine effects of temperature, humidity, wind speed, lunar phase, time of day, season, the number of traps set, and year on the number of bobwhites captured per trapping session. more bobwhites were trapped during the spring, in the evenings, and when temperatures were cooler. there was also some evidence for an influence of lunar phase on the number of bobwhites captured with greater counts during the new moon and third quarter. these variables may be important to consider for maximizing catch-per-unit-effort, when using trapping data to estimate relative abundance, or when conducting mark-recapture studies. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." record linkage for road traffic injuries in ireland using police hospital and injury claims data,road safety; accident records; data linkage,JOURNAL OF SAFETY RESEARCH,SHORT J;CAULFIELD B,"introduction: the study of non-fatal road traffic injuries is growing in importance. since there are rarely comprehensive injury datasets, it is necessary to combine different sources to obtain better estimates on the extent and nature of the problem. record linkage is one such technique. method: in this study, anonymized datasets from three separate sources of injury data in ireland: hospitals, police, and injury claims are linked using, probabilistic and deterministic linkage techniques. a method is proposed that creates a 'best' set of linked records for analysis, useful when clerical review of undecided cases is not feasible. results: the linkage of police and hospital datasets shows results that are similar to those found in other countries, with significant police understatement especially of cyclist and motorcyclist injuries. the addition of the third dataset identifies a large number of additional injuries and demonstrates the error of using only the two main sources for injury data. practical application: the study also underlines the risk in relying on the lincoln-petersen capture-recapture estimator to provide an estimate of the total population concerned. conclusion: the data show that road traffic injuries are significantly more numerous than either police or hospital sources indicate. it is also argued that no single measure can fully capture the range of impacts that a serious injury entails. (c) 2016 national safety council and elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." a flexible ratio regression approach for zero-truncated capture-recapture counts,capture-recapture; mixed binomial distributions; ratio regression estimator; zero-truncated model,BIOMETRICS,BOHNING D;ROCCHETTI I;ALFO M;HOLLING H,"capture-recapture methods are used to estimate the size of a population of interest which is only partially observed. in such studies, each member of the population carries a count of the number of times it has been identified during the observational period. in real-life applications, only positive counts are recorded, and we get a truncated at zero-observed distribution. we need to use the truncated count distribution to estimate the number of unobserved units. we consider ratios of neighboring count probabilities, estimated by ratios of observed frequencies, regardless of whether we have a zero-truncated or an untruncated distribution. rocchetti et al. (2011) have shown that, for densities in the katz family, these ratios can be modeled by a regression approach, and rocchetti et al. (2014) have specialized the approach to the beta-binomial distribution. once the regression model has been estimated, the unobserved frequency of zero counts can be simply derived. the guiding principle is that it is often easier to find an appropriate regression model than a proper model for the count distribution. however, a full analysis of the connection between the regression model and the associated count distribution has been missing. in this manuscript, we fill the gap and show that the regression model approach leads, under general conditions, to a valid count distribution; we also consider a wider class of regression models, based on fractional polynomials. the proposed approach is illustrated by analyzing various empirical applications, and by means of a simulation study." @@ -1418,7 +1420,7 @@ minor differentiation of foraging niche may have a major impact on the incidence modelling temporal and spatial variability in tag reporting-rates for newfoundland cod (gadus morhua),cod; mark-recapture; tag reporting-rate; tagging; tmb,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,KONRAD C;BRATTEY J;CADIGAN NG,"mark-recapture experiments can be used to estimate the exploitation rate of a fishery; however, the estimate is influenced by the tag reporting-rate by the fishers. we present two methods to estimate the reporting rates in high/low reward ($100 and $10 cad respectively) long-term cod tagging experiments. we fit two binomial logistic mixed-effect models, one with temporal auto-correlation in the reporting-rate year-effects and one with independent year-effects. we estimate reporting-rates separately for recreational and commercial fishers, and test for spatial variation using fixed-effects for spatial regions. due to the complexity of the fishery, our models account for factors such as recapture-fishery type, fish-size and time-at-liberty. our results indicate that the recreational fishers reporting-rate was constant at 0.51 across all regions and years. the commercial fishery showed more spatial and temporal variation, with the reporting-rates estimates lying between 0.67 and 0.87 for the independent year-effect model, and between 0.57 and 0.84 for the random walk model. furthermore, we assessed the model performance as well as the coverage probability of nominal 95 % confidence intervals using simulations. we found that the models performed adequately; however, the nominal 95 % confidence intervals tended to be too narrow." effectiveness of a nonlethal method to quantify gamete production in freshwater mussels,unionidae; reproduction; gamete production; histology; conservation,FRESHWATER SCIENCE,TSAKIRIS ET;RANDKLEV CR;CONWAY KW,"studies on the reproductive biology of freshwater mussels have contributed to conservation of this group, but methods to study early reproductive stages are either lethal (e.g., histological technique) or useful for only qualitative assessments (e.g., nonlethal syringe technique). using 2 common mussels (quadrula apiculata and quadrula verrucosa) and 2 rare mussels (quadrula petrina and quadrula houstonensis) distributed across 3 sites in the navasota river and san saba river, texas, we validated the effectiveness of the syringe technique to quantify gamete production by examining: 1) if estimates of gamete traits (sperm concentration, egg size, and egg concentration) obtained with the syringe technique were correlated to estimates of gamete traits (sperm density, egg size, and egg density) obtained with a histological technique; and 2) if survival, growth, and body condition of individual mussels sampled with the syringe technique were negatively affected in a 2-y mark recapture field experiment. pearson's correlation analysis of gamete production measured over the 1st year of the study indicated sperm concentration and density and egg sizes were correlated between the 2 techniques; however, egg concentration and density were correlated in only some cases. joint analysis of live and dead encounters from the mark recapture experiment indicated the syringe technique had little to no effect on survival probability of mussels, and mixed models of shell growth and fulton's k body condition index failed to detect sublethal effects of the syringe technique on mussels. the syringe technique is relatively accurate and noninvasive and can be used to study the reproductive biology of threatened and endangered mussels quantitatively. in addition, it can provide the large sample sizes often needed to study the reproductive ecology of mussels." frame correction modelling with applications to the german register-assisted census 2011,census; chapman estimator; dual system estimator; gspree; spree; chi-square spree,SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF STATISTICS,DOSTAL L;MUNNICH R;GABLER S;GANNINGER M,"frame corrections have been studied in census applications for a long time. one very promising method is dual system estimation, which is based on capture-recapture models. these methods have been applied recently in the usa, england, israel and switzerland. in order to gain information on subgroups of the population, structure preserving estimators can be applied [i.e. structure preserving estimation (spree) and generalized spree]. the present paper extends the spree approach with an alternative distance function, the chi-square. the new method has shown improved estimates in our application with very small domains. a comparative study based on a large-scale monte carlo simulation elaborates on advantages and disadvantages of the estimators in the context of the german register-assisted census 2011." -temperature effects on fish production across a natural thermal gradient,natural experiment; arctic; hengill; freshwater; salmo trutta fario; pit tag; mark-recapture; ecosystem services,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,O'GORMAN EJ;OLAFSSON OP;DEMARS BOL;FRIBERG N;GUDBERGSSON G;HANNESDOTTIR ER;JACKSON MC;JOHANSSON LS;MCLAUGHLIN OB;OLAFSSON JS;WOODWARD G;GISLASON GM,"global warming is widely predicted to reduce the biomass production of top predators, or even result in species loss. several exceptions to this expectation have been identified, however, and it is vital that we understand the underlying mechanisms if we are to improve our ability to predict future trends. here, we used a natural warming experiment in iceland and quantitative theoretical predictions to investigate the success of brown trout as top predators across a stream temperature gradient (4-25 degrees c). brown trout are at the northern limit of their geographic distribution in this system, with ambient stream temperatures below their optimum for maximal growth, and above it in the warmest streams. a five-month mark-recapture study revealed that population abundance, biomass, growth rate, and production of trout all increased with stream temperature. we identified two mechanisms that contributed to these responses: (1) trout became more selective in their diet as stream temperature increased, feeding higher in the food web and increasing in trophic position; and (2) trophic transfer through the food web was more efficient in the warmer streams. we found little evidence to support a third potential mechanism: that external subsidies would play a more important role in the diet of trout with increasing stream temperature. resource availability was also amplified through the trophic levels with warming, as predicted by metabolic theory in nutrient-replete systems. these results highlight circumstances in which top predators can thrive in warmer environments and contribute to our knowledge of warming impacts on natural communities and ecosystem functioning." +temperature effects on fish production across a natural thermal gradient,natural experiment; arctic; hengill; freshwater; salmo trutta fario; pit tag; mark-recapture; ecosystem services,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,O GORMAN EJ;OLAFSSON OP;DEMARS BOL;FRIBERG N;GUDBERGSSON G;HANNESDOTTIR ER;JACKSON MC;JOHANSSON LS;MCLAUGHLIN OB;OLAFSSON JS;WOODWARD G;GISLASON GM,"global warming is widely predicted to reduce the biomass production of top predators, or even result in species loss. several exceptions to this expectation have been identified, however, and it is vital that we understand the underlying mechanisms if we are to improve our ability to predict future trends. here, we used a natural warming experiment in iceland and quantitative theoretical predictions to investigate the success of brown trout as top predators across a stream temperature gradient (4-25 degrees c). brown trout are at the northern limit of their geographic distribution in this system, with ambient stream temperatures below their optimum for maximal growth, and above it in the warmest streams. a five-month mark-recapture study revealed that population abundance, biomass, growth rate, and production of trout all increased with stream temperature. we identified two mechanisms that contributed to these responses: (1) trout became more selective in their diet as stream temperature increased, feeding higher in the food web and increasing in trophic position; and (2) trophic transfer through the food web was more efficient in the warmer streams. we found little evidence to support a third potential mechanism: that external subsidies would play a more important role in the diet of trout with increasing stream temperature. resource availability was also amplified through the trophic levels with warming, as predicted by metabolic theory in nutrient-replete systems. these results highlight circumstances in which top predators can thrive in warmer environments and contribute to our knowledge of warming impacts on natural communities and ecosystem functioning." a long-term evaluation of biopsy darts and dna to estimate cougar density: an agency-citizen science collaboration,biopsy; citizen-science; cougar; density; dna; hound handler; microsatellite; puma concolor; spatially explicit,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,BEAUSOLEIL RA;CLARK JD;MALETZKE BT,"accurately estimating cougar (puma concolor) density is usually based on long-term research consisting of intensive capture and global positioning system collaring efforts and may cost hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. because wildlife agency budgets rarely accommodate this approach, most infer cougar density from published literature, rely on short-term studies, or use hunter harvest data as a surrogate in their jurisdictions; all of which may limit accuracy and increase risk of management actions. in an effort to develop a more cost-effective long-term strategy, we evaluated a research approach using citizen scientists with trained hounds to tree cougars and collect tissue samples with biopsy darts. we then used the dna to individually identify cougars and employed spatially explicit capture-recapture models to estimate cougar densities. overall, 240 tissue samples were collected in northeastern washington, usa, producing 166 genotypes (including recaptures and excluding dependent kittens) of 133 different cougars (8-25/yr) from 2003 to 2011. mark-recapture analyses revealed a mean density of 2.2 cougars/100km(2) (95% ci=1.1-4.3) and stable to decreasing population trends (=-0.048, 95% ci=-0.106-0.011) over the 9 years of study, with an average annual harvest rate of 14% (range=7-21%). the average annual cost per year for field sampling and genotyping was us$11,265 ($422.24/sample or $610.73/successfully genotyped sample). our results demonstrated that long-term biopsy sampling using citizen scientists can increase capture success and provide reliable cougar-density information at a reasonable cost. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." accounting for contamination and outliers in covariates for open population capture-recapture models,cormack-jolly-seber model; heterogeneity; horvitz-thompson estimator; measurement error; outliers; robust statistics,JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL PLANNING AND INFERENCE,STOKLOSA J;HWANG WH;YIP PSF;HUGGINS RM,"in many capture recapture experiments, covariates are collected on individuals and their inclusion in the study enhances the analysis. typical examples of individual covariates include: gender, body weight, age, whether an individual was radio tagged, location strata, etc. to estimate open population sizes, mcdonald and amstrup (2001) used the ratio of the number of captured individuals divided by the estimated capture probabilities obtained from fitting the well-known cormack-jolly-seber model (which permits modelling of both survival and capture probabilities as functions of individual and/or environmental covariates). however, this population estimator can result in bias or give unrealistically large values when contaminated covariates are used, e.g., when outliers or false recordings are present, or due to measurement error in covariates. in this short note a new robust open population size estimator is proposed to account for outliers via a lower bound approach. these estimators are used on real data in the context of social sciences and ecology where capture recapture experiments are commonly applied. the first case study concerns the population size of drug addicts in hong kong in 2004 collected by the central registry of drug abuse, and the second case study examines the population size estimation of the yellow-bellied prinia bird prinia flaviventris also collected in hong kong in the mai po bird sanctuary in 1991. a simple simulation study is conducted to examine bias, robustness and efficiency. (c) 2016 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." joint estimation of crown of thorns (acanthaster planci) densities on the great barrier reef,cots; bayesian analysis; monitoring; mark-recapture; data integration,PEERJ,MACNEIL MA;MELLIN C;PRATCHETT MS;HOEY J;ANTHONY KRN;CHEAL AJ;MILLER I;SWEATMAN H;COWAN ZL;TAYLOR S;MOON S;FONNESBECK CJ,"crown-of-thorns starfish (cots; acanthaster spp.) are an outbreaking pest among many indo-pacific coral reefs that cause substantial ecological and economic damage. despite ongoing cots research, there remain critical gaps in observing cots populations and accurately estimating their numbers, greatly limiting understanding of the causes and sources of cots outbreaks. here we address two of these gaps by (1) estimating the detectability of adult cots on typical underwater visual count (uvc) surveys using covariates and (2) inter-calibrating multiple data sources to estimate cots densities within the cairns sector of the great barrier reef (gbr). we find that, on average, cots detectability is high at 0.82 [0.77, 0.87] (median highest posterior density (hpd) and [95% uncertainty intervals]), with cots disc width having the greatest influence on detection. integrating this information with coincident surveys from alternative sampling programs, we estimate cots densities in the cairns sector of the gbr averaged 44 [41, 48] adults per hectare in 2014." @@ -1438,15 +1440,15 @@ demographic responses to weather fluctuations are context dependent in a long-li "human-wildlife conflict, benefit sharing and the survival of lions in pastoralist community-based conservancies",community conservation; conservation benefits; livestock; maasai mara; mark-recapture; pastoralism; pastoral settlements; protected areas; retaliation; sight-resight,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,BLACKBURN S;HOPCRAFT JGC;OGUTU JO;MATTHIOPOULOS J;FRANK L,"like many wildlife populations across africa, recent analyses indicate that african lions are declining rapidly outside of small fenced areas. community conservancies - privately protected areas that engage community members in conservation - may potentially maintain wildlife populations in unfenced pastoralist regions, but their effectiveness in conserving large carnivores has been largely unknown until now. we identify drivers of lion survival in community conservancies within the masai mara ecosystem, kenya, applying mark-recapture analyses to continuous sight-resight surveys. we use the number of livestock and human settlements as proxies for potential human-lion conflict whilst controlling for environmental variables and lion socioecology. average lion densities within the mara conservancies between 2008 and 2013 (1187 lions 100km(-2)) were 26 times higher than those previously reported in 2003. survival rates varied amongst prides and were highest for lions utilizing central regions of conservancies. the number of livestock settlements (bomas [corrals] and manyattas) that were not members of a conservancy, and that fell within a pride home-range, had a large negative effect onfemale survival and was the most influential external predictor in models. these non-conservancy settlements accounted for 372% of total observed variation in survival, whereas conservancy settlements, which benefit financially from wildlife through their membership, had no effect on lion survival. internal drivers of survival agreed with known ecology and social behaviour including age plus a negative effect of male takeovers on cub survival <6months. vegetation cover, prey availability and the density of grazing livestock within a pride's range did not explain patterns in lion survival.synthesis and applications. we show that lion densities have increased substantially within the mara conservancies over the last decade and suggest that the creation of community conservancies has benefitted their survival. this suggests that lions can survive outside of fenced areas within pastoral regions if communities gain benefits from wildlife. we highlight the importance of expanding existing conservancies beyond their current geographical and political scope and forming buffer zones if wildlife ranges outside them. we suggest that changing attitudes to predators should be a key goal of community-based conservancies. further work is recommended to identify what specific aspects of conservancy membership promote lion survival." "completeness of neisseria meningitidis reporting in new york city, 1989-2010",capture-recapture analysis; meningitis; meningococcal disease; septicaemia; surveillance,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,ARAKAKI L;NGAI S;WEISS D,"invasive meningococcal disease (imd) completeness of reporting has never been assessed in new york city (nyc). we conducted a capture-recapture study to assess completeness of reporting, comparing imd reports made to the nyc department of health and mental hygiene (dohmh) and records identified in the new york state hospital discharge database [statewide planning and research cooperative system (sparcs)] by icd-9 codes from 1989 to 2010. reporting completeness estimates were calculated for the entire study period, and stratified by year, age group, clinical syndrome, and reporting system. a chart review of hospital medical records from 2008 to 2010 was conducted to validate hospital coding and to adjust completeness estimates. overall, 2194 unique patients were identified from dohmh (n = 1300) and sparcs (n = 1525); 631 (29%) were present in both. completeness of imd reporting was 41% [95% confidence interval (ci) 40-43]. differences in completeness were found by age, clinical syndrome, and reporting system. the chart review found 33% of hospital records from 2008 to 2010 had no documentation of imd. removal of those records improved completeness of reporting to 51% (95% ci 49-53). our data showed a low concordance between what is reported to dohmh and what is coded by hospitals as imd. additional guidance to clinicians on imd reporting criteria may improve completeness of imd reporting." post-release effects on reintroduced populations of hihi,capture-mark-recapture; hihi; mark; new zealand; notiomystis cincta; post-release effects; reintroduction; survival,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PANFYLOVA J;BEMELMANS E;DEVINE C;FROST P;ARMSTRONG D,"modeling survival of reintroduced populations is critical for understanding population dynamics and therefore making appropriate management decisions. we analyzed survival data collected over the first 2 years after a reintroduction of hihi (notiomystis cincta), an endangered new zealand forest bird, to bushy park, a conservation reserve in new zealand enclosed by a predator-exclusion fence. we constructed a set of candidate models representing different hypotheses about the effects of age, sex, and post-release acclimation on survival, and used model averaging to obtain parameter estimates reflecting the relative support for the models. in combination with fecundity data, we constructed a stochastic population model incorporating uncertainty in parameter estimation, and used this to project population dynamics over the next 10 years. the survival analysis indicated that female survival was unusually low over a 6-month acclimation period; hence, this initial low survival was not reflected in the estimates of long-term survival obtained through model averaging. the resulting projections showed that although population growth was highly uncertain, there was a negligible probability of extinction over the next 10 years, therefore indicating that the existing management regime (i.e., supplementary feeding and nest box maintenance) should be continued. in contrast, if post-release effects had not been accounted for, the projections would have shown a high probability of decline under this management regime. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." -targeting season and age for optimizing control of invasive rabbits,bayesian mark-recapture; density dependence; invasive species control; management implementation schemes; oryctolagus; population viability analysis,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,WELLS K;CASSEY P;SINCLAIR RG;MUTZE GJ;PEACOCK DE;LACY RC;COOKE BD;O'HARA RB;BROOK BW;FORDHAM DA,"the effectiveness of invasive species control can be influenced by seasonal fluctuations in reproduction in response to environmental conditions. however, it is difficult to determine how demography and environmental conditions affect the efficacy of different control efforts from field trials alone. we incorporated an ontogenetic growth model into a hierarchical bayesian mark-recapture model to estimate age-structured seasonal survival rates for european rabbits (oryctolagus cuniculus) in australia, based on a >15-year data set. we integrated this demographic information into an individual-based simulation model, which reproduces seasonal birth-death processes, to test the effectiveness of pest-management schemes that differed in intensity, specificity to age groups, and seasonal timing. control measures that were simulated to affect only juveniles had a negligible effect on population size, whereas targeting subadults and adults led to considerable population declines when applied after the breeding season. management that affected rabbits of all age groups caused significant population reductions. however, even repeated control efforts that caused 95% mortality each year only resulted in predictions of local population extirpation after an average of 119 calendar weeks in the absence of immigration. our simulation study supports the use of pest rabbit control methods that account for demographic dynamics explicitly, and target those individuals with high reproductive potential. more broadly, we show that local and temporal population extirpation, or recovery, depends largely on the trade-off between control intensity and frequency for species with recurrent population oscillations. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." +targeting season and age for optimizing control of invasive rabbits,bayesian mark-recapture; density dependence; invasive species control; management implementation schemes; oryctolagus; population viability analysis,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,WELLS K;CASSEY P;SINCLAIR RG;MUTZE GJ;PEACOCK DE;LACY RC;COOKE BD;O HARA RB;BROOK BW;FORDHAM DA,"the effectiveness of invasive species control can be influenced by seasonal fluctuations in reproduction in response to environmental conditions. however, it is difficult to determine how demography and environmental conditions affect the efficacy of different control efforts from field trials alone. we incorporated an ontogenetic growth model into a hierarchical bayesian mark-recapture model to estimate age-structured seasonal survival rates for european rabbits (oryctolagus cuniculus) in australia, based on a >15-year data set. we integrated this demographic information into an individual-based simulation model, which reproduces seasonal birth-death processes, to test the effectiveness of pest-management schemes that differed in intensity, specificity to age groups, and seasonal timing. control measures that were simulated to affect only juveniles had a negligible effect on population size, whereas targeting subadults and adults led to considerable population declines when applied after the breeding season. management that affected rabbits of all age groups caused significant population reductions. however, even repeated control efforts that caused 95% mortality each year only resulted in predictions of local population extirpation after an average of 119 calendar weeks in the absence of immigration. our simulation study supports the use of pest rabbit control methods that account for demographic dynamics explicitly, and target those individuals with high reproductive potential. more broadly, we show that local and temporal population extirpation, or recovery, depends largely on the trade-off between control intensity and frequency for species with recurrent population oscillations. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." identification of robust microsatellite markers for wild pig fecal dna,degradation; feces; microsatellites; noninvasive; south carolina; sus scrofa; wild pigs,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,KIEREPKA EM;UNGER SD;KEITER DA;BEASLEY JC;RHODES OE;CUNNINGHAM FL;PIAGGIO AJ,"collection of fecal samples for use in a genetic capture-mark-recapture framework has become popular as a noninvasive method of monitoring wildlife populations. a major caveat to this process, however, is that fecal samples often yield low quality dna that is prone to genotyping errors, potentially leading to biases in population parameter estimation. therefore, considerable care is required to identify robust genetic markers, especially in hot or humid conditions that may accelerate dna degradation. we identified microsatellite loci in wild pig (sus scrofa) fecal samples that were robust and informative within warm, humid ecosystems. to examine how degradation affected genotyping success, we sampled pig feces across 5 days and calculated how the number of quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qpcr) cycles required to reach the fluorescent threshold (c-t) changed over time. we identified 17 microsatellite loci that had high polymorphism and amplification success and low genotyping error rates (0-0.050 per locus). in the degradation experiment, c-t increased over the 5 days, but in the absence of rain, the majority of samples produced accurate genotypes after 5 days (2,211/2,550 genotypes). based on the high amplification success and low error rates, even after 5 days of exposure to warm, humid conditions, these loci are useful for estimating population parameters in pig fecal samples. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." consequences of individual removal on persistence of a protected population of long-lived turtles,florida box turtle; disturbances; population response; persistence; long-term effects; individual removal; imperiled species; simulation,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,DODD CK;ROLLAND V;OLI MK,"box turtles terrapene carolina are long-lived vertebrates found in many habitats throughout eastern north america. because they routinely live >30-70 years, individuals and populations likely face periodic catastrophic effects from habitat alteration, such as hurricanes and other violent storms, flooding, and climatic perturbations such as cold or drought. we used a dataset based on a 16-year mark-recapture study of a florida box turtle population inhabiting an isolated island to model the effects of rare and chronic removal of individuals from the population. 'removing' individuals based on actual sampling records allowed us to compare the resulting effects on population structure and persistence with the known demographic characteristics of the population. for the increasing population, removal had no effect on population size over a projected 50-year time span. however, only the increasing population could sustain an annual loss of up to 56 individuals (3.8% of our initial model population) per year. beyond this level of annual removal, the population would eventually go extinct. both the stable and declining populations were projected to become extinct by year 50, regardless of removal intensity. irrespective of frequency, a pre-reproductive season loss leads to a smaller population than a post-reproductive season loss. these results have implications for understanding the effect of individual removal on population persistence of declining box turtle populations." "the short-term impact of abundant fruit upon deer mouse (peromyscus maniculatus), southern red-backed vole (myodes gapperi), and woodland jumping mouse (napaeozapus insignis) populations",food addition; fruit; small mammals; southern red-backed vole; myodes gapperi; woodland jumping mouse; napaeozapus insignis; deer mouse; peromyscus maniculatus,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,DRACUP EC;KEPPIE DM;FORBES GJ,"fruit has been identified as an important and potentially population-restricting food for southern red-backed voles (myodes gapperi (vigors, 1830)), deer mice (peromyscus maniculatus (wagner, 1845)), and woodland jumping mice (napaeozapus insignis (miller, 1891)). we added domestic dried strawberries (fragaria x ananassa (weston) duchesne ex rozier (pro sp.)) and european black currants (ribes nigrum l.), which have native analogues and are preferred foods of these rodents, to white spruce (picea glauca (moench) voss) plantations from may through august 2011 and 2012 to test fruit and fruit-based carbohydrate's short-term (1-2 years) impact on these rodent populations. we used mark-recapture to estimate density, percentages of population that were juvenile and breeding female, mean home-range size, and body mass during spring and summer of both years, and fecundity via placental scars from euthanized females in summer 2012. fruit enhancement had no apparent effect on our species' fecundity, proportion of breeding females or juveniles during spring and summer of either year, nor were there differences among these metrics in spring 2012 following 2011 fruit additions. overall, there were no impacts to the short-term adult population dynamics for any species during fruit addition. we are led to believe that short-term pulses of fruit and (or) fruit-based carbohydrate abundance do little to influence temperate forest small-mammal populations." habitat preference of german mantis religiosa populations (mantodea: mantidae) and implications for conservation,life history event; capture-mark-recapture; temperature; logistic regression; lille habitat preference index,ENVIRONMENTAL ENTOMOLOGY,LINN CA;GRIEBELER EM,"in germany, the thermophilic european mantid (mantis religiosa l.) is endangered. here, we study habitat requirements during its life, and discuss the applicability of the two conservation measures grazing and mowing to this insect species. at two study sites in south-western germany, which were each subject to one of these measures, we recorded structural and climatic conditions within different microhabitats. we also conducted capture-mark-recapture studies for adult m. religiosa, and mapped adult roosting, oothecae deposition, egg hatching, and imaginal molting in microhabitats over two vegetation periods. in order to assess microhabitat preference of m. religiosa during its life, and identify climatic conditions driving preferences, we applied the lille habitat preference index and conducted logistic regression analysis for life phases. our results suggest that temperature is important for egg and nymph development. for egg deposition, females preferred solid substrates with high heat-storing capacities, as those attenuate the negative influence of cold weather periods on egg development. being ambush predators, males and females preferred roosting sites with sufficient shelter and high prey abundance. contrary to our expectation, the conservation measures reduced adult population sizes, and presumably reproduction rates. we thus suggest that mowing during the adult phase should reduce vegetation height to a moderate level to keep prey abundance high. mowing with a clearing saw or grazing over a short period in small fenced areas should be preferred over prolonged grazing, as grazers collaterally stamp down the vegetation. grazers indirectly reduce prey availability by deteriorating prevailing microclimatic conditions." -gene flow from an adaptively divergent source causes rescue through genetic and demographic factors in two wild populations of trinidadian guppies,capture-mark-recapture; demographic rescue; fitness; gene flow; genetic rescue; hybridization; poecilia reticulata; population growth,EVOLUTIONARY APPLICATIONS,FITZPATRICK SW;GERBERICH JC;ANGELONI LM;BAILEY LL;BRODER ED;TORRES-DOWDALL J;HANDELSMAN CA;LOPEZ-SEPULCRE A;REZNICK DN;GHALAMBOR CK;FUNK WC,"genetic rescue, an increase in population growth owing to the infusion of new alleles, can aid the persistence of small populations. its use as a management tool is limited by a lack of empirical data geared toward predicting effects of gene flow on local adaptation and demography. experimental translocations provide an ideal opportunity to monitor the demographic consequences of gene flow. in this study we take advantage of two experimental introductions of trinidadian guppies to test the effects of gene flow on downstream native populations. we individually marked guppies from the native populations to monitor population dynamics for 3months before and 26months after gene flow. we genotyped all individuals caught during the first 17months at microsatellite loci to classify individuals by their genetic ancestry: native, immigrant, f-1 hybrid, f-2 hybrid, or backcross. our study documents a combination of demographic and genetic rescue over multiple generations under fully natural conditions. within both recipient populations, we found substantial and long-term increases in population size that could be attributed to high survival and recruitment caused by immigration and gene flow from the introduction sites. our results suggest that low levels of gene flow, even from a divergent ecotype, can provide a substantial demographic boost to small populations, which may allow them to withstand environmental stochasticity." -overwintering strategies of migratory birds: a novel approach for estimating seasonal movement patterns of residents and transients,migration; movement; multi-state model; neotropical; open robust design; probability of entry; site persistence; state uncertainty; survival,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,RUIZ-GUTIERREZ V;KENDALL WL;SARACCO JF;WHITE GC,"our understanding of movement patterns in wildlife populations has played an important role in current ecological knowledge and can inform landscape conservation decisions. direct measures of movement can be obtained using marked individuals, but this requires tracking individuals across a landscape or multiple sites. we demonstrate how movements can be estimated indirectly using single-site, capture-mark-recapture (cmr) data with a multi-state open robust design with state uncertainty model (msord-su). we treat residence and transience as two phenotypic states of overwintering migrants and use time- and state-dependent probabilities of site entry and persistence as indirect measures of movement. we applied the msord-su to data on eight species of overwintering neotropical birds collected in 14 countries between 2002 and 2011. in addition to entry and persistence probabilities, we estimated the proportions of residents at a study site and mean residence times. we identified overwintering movement patterns and residence times that contrasted with prior categorizations of territoriality. most species showed an evidence of residents entering sites at multiple time intervals, with transients tending to enter between peak resident movement times. persistence and the proportion of residents varied by latitude, but were not always positively correlated for a given species.synthesis and applications. our results suggest that migratory songbirds commonly move among habitats during the overwintering period. substantial proportions of populations appear to be comprised of transient individuals, and residents tend to persist at specific sites for relatively short periods of time. this information on persistence and movement patterns should be explored for specific habitats to guide landscape management on the wintering grounds, such as determining which habitats are conserved or restored as part of certification programmes of tropical agroforestry crops. we suggest that research and conservation efforts on neotropical migrant songbirds focus on identifying landscape configurations and regional habitat networks that support these diverse overwintering strategies to secure full life cycle conservation." +gene flow from an adaptively divergent source causes rescue through genetic and demographic factors in two wild populations of trinidadian guppies,capture-mark-recapture; demographic rescue; fitness; gene flow; genetic rescue; hybridization; poecilia reticulata; population growth,EVOLUTIONARY APPLICATIONS,FITZPATRICK SW;GERBERICH JC;ANGELONI LM;BAILEY LL;BRODER ED;TORRES DOWDALL J;HANDELSMAN CA;LOPEZ SEPULCRE A;REZNICK DN;GHALAMBOR CK;FUNK WC,"genetic rescue, an increase in population growth owing to the infusion of new alleles, can aid the persistence of small populations. its use as a management tool is limited by a lack of empirical data geared toward predicting effects of gene flow on local adaptation and demography. experimental translocations provide an ideal opportunity to monitor the demographic consequences of gene flow. in this study we take advantage of two experimental introductions of trinidadian guppies to test the effects of gene flow on downstream native populations. we individually marked guppies from the native populations to monitor population dynamics for 3months before and 26months after gene flow. we genotyped all individuals caught during the first 17months at microsatellite loci to classify individuals by their genetic ancestry: native, immigrant, f-1 hybrid, f-2 hybrid, or backcross. our study documents a combination of demographic and genetic rescue over multiple generations under fully natural conditions. within both recipient populations, we found substantial and long-term increases in population size that could be attributed to high survival and recruitment caused by immigration and gene flow from the introduction sites. our results suggest that low levels of gene flow, even from a divergent ecotype, can provide a substantial demographic boost to small populations, which may allow them to withstand environmental stochasticity." +overwintering strategies of migratory birds: a novel approach for estimating seasonal movement patterns of residents and transients,migration; movement; multi-state model; neotropical; open robust design; probability of entry; site persistence; state uncertainty; survival,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,RUIZ GUTIERREZ V;KENDALL WL;SARACCO JF;WHITE GC,"our understanding of movement patterns in wildlife populations has played an important role in current ecological knowledge and can inform landscape conservation decisions. direct measures of movement can be obtained using marked individuals, but this requires tracking individuals across a landscape or multiple sites. we demonstrate how movements can be estimated indirectly using single-site, capture-mark-recapture (cmr) data with a multi-state open robust design with state uncertainty model (msord-su). we treat residence and transience as two phenotypic states of overwintering migrants and use time- and state-dependent probabilities of site entry and persistence as indirect measures of movement. we applied the msord-su to data on eight species of overwintering neotropical birds collected in 14 countries between 2002 and 2011. in addition to entry and persistence probabilities, we estimated the proportions of residents at a study site and mean residence times. we identified overwintering movement patterns and residence times that contrasted with prior categorizations of territoriality. most species showed an evidence of residents entering sites at multiple time intervals, with transients tending to enter between peak resident movement times. persistence and the proportion of residents varied by latitude, but were not always positively correlated for a given species.synthesis and applications. our results suggest that migratory songbirds commonly move among habitats during the overwintering period. substantial proportions of populations appear to be comprised of transient individuals, and residents tend to persist at specific sites for relatively short periods of time. this information on persistence and movement patterns should be explored for specific habitats to guide landscape management on the wintering grounds, such as determining which habitats are conserved or restored as part of certification programmes of tropical agroforestry crops. we suggest that research and conservation efforts on neotropical migrant songbirds focus on identifying landscape configurations and regional habitat networks that support these diverse overwintering strategies to secure full life cycle conservation." demography of the critically endangered balearic shearwater: the impact of fisheries and time to extinction,bycatch; conservation; discards; environmental policies; extinction; marine predator; multievent capture-recapture; population models; survival,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,GENOVART M;ARCOS JM;ALVAREZ D;MCMINN M;MEIER R;WYNN RB;GUILFORD T;ORO D,"world-wide, many seabirds are affected by fisheries in opposing ways: as a source of mortality from bycatch, but also by providing discards as a predictable and abundant food resource. this applies to the balearic shearwater puffinus mauretanicus, the most endangered european seabird, whose time to extinction was estimated at only 40years a decade ago. since the previous assessment, new data and more sophisticated demographic modelling have become available, and new fishing policies from the european union (common fisheries policy, cfp) will apply, posing different scenarios for the viability of the species. thus, there is both an urgent need and an opportunity for a more reliable update of the conservation status of the species. demographic data were collected between 1985 and 2014 at one of the world's largest colonies. most demographic parameters were estimated using multievent capture-recapture modelling. some parameters, such as bycatch rate, immature individual survival and recruitment, were estimated for the first time. we incorporated estimates into stochastic population models to forecast time to extinction and assess the viability under different management scenarios, accounting for upcoming fishing policies. adult survival was much lower than expected (0809, se: 0013) and largely influenced by bycatch, which accounted for a minimum of 0455 (se: 0230) of total mortality. breeding success was positively correlated with discard availability. recruitment started at low rates in 3-year-old birds (0030, se: 00455), increasing in following age classes and was almost complete at 6years. under the present scenario, we predict a time to extinction of 61years (95% ci: 55-69).synthesis and applications. population projections suggest that the actual impact of fisheries on balearic shearwaters is unsustainable and the imminent discard ban under the new common fisheries policy may accelerate the declining trend. this study demonstrates that reducing the bycatch rates of fisheries is an unavoidable and urgent conservation measure for avoiding the extinction of the species. we also advise setting up demographic long-term studies, to allow researchers to diagnose, with reliability, the effectiveness of management actions. these actions will also benefit many other marine top-predator species affected by this anthropogenic impact." -capturing individual-level parameters of influenza a virus dynamics in wild ducks using multistate models,avian influenza; epidemiology; host-pathogen dynamics; individual-based monitoring; influenza a virus; multistate capture-recapture; outbreaks; sir model; waterfowl; zoonosis,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,AVRIL A;GROSBOIS V;LATORRE-MARGALEF N;GAIDET N;TOLF C;OLSEN B;WALDENSTROM J,"disease prevalence in wildlife is governed by epidemiological parameters (infection and recovery rates) and response to infection, both of which vary within and among individual hosts. studies quantifying these individual-scale parameters and documenting their source of variation in wild hosts are fundamental for predicting disease dynamics. such studies do not exist for the influenza a virus (iav), despite its strong impact on the global economy and public health. using capture-recaptures of 3500 individual mallards anas platyrhynchos during seven migration seasons at a stopover site in southern sweden, we provide the first empirical description of the individual-based mechanisms of iav dynamics in a wild reservoir host. for most years, prevalence and risk of iav infection peaked at a single time during the autumn migration season, but the timing, shape and intensity of the infection curve showed strong annual heterogeneity. in contrast, the seasonal pattern of recovery rate only varied in intensity across years. adults and juveniles displayed similar seasonal patterns of infection and recovery each year. however, compared to adults, juveniles experienced twice the risk of becoming infected, whereas recovery rates were similar across age categories. finally, we did not find evidence that infection influenced the timing of emigration.synthesis and applications. our study provides robust empirical estimates of epidemiological parameters for predicting influenza a virus (iav) dynamics. however, the strong annual variation in infection curves makes forecasting difficult. prevalence data can provide reliable surveillance indicators as long as they catch the variation in infection risk. however, individual-based monitoring of infection is required to verify this assumption in areas where surveillance occurs. in this context, monitoring of captive sentinel birds kept in close contact with wild birds is useful. the fact that infection does not impact the timing of migration underpins the potential for mallards to spread viruses rapidly over large geographical scales. hence, we strongly encourage iav surveillance with a multistate capture-recapture approach along the entire migratory flyway of mallards." +capturing individual-level parameters of influenza a virus dynamics in wild ducks using multistate models,avian influenza; epidemiology; host-pathogen dynamics; individual-based monitoring; influenza a virus; multistate capture-recapture; outbreaks; sir model; waterfowl; zoonosis,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,AVRIL A;GROSBOIS V;LATORRE MARGALEF N;GAIDET N;TOLF C;OLSEN B;WALDENSTROM J,"disease prevalence in wildlife is governed by epidemiological parameters (infection and recovery rates) and response to infection, both of which vary within and among individual hosts. studies quantifying these individual-scale parameters and documenting their source of variation in wild hosts are fundamental for predicting disease dynamics. such studies do not exist for the influenza a virus (iav), despite its strong impact on the global economy and public health. using capture-recaptures of 3500 individual mallards anas platyrhynchos during seven migration seasons at a stopover site in southern sweden, we provide the first empirical description of the individual-based mechanisms of iav dynamics in a wild reservoir host. for most years, prevalence and risk of iav infection peaked at a single time during the autumn migration season, but the timing, shape and intensity of the infection curve showed strong annual heterogeneity. in contrast, the seasonal pattern of recovery rate only varied in intensity across years. adults and juveniles displayed similar seasonal patterns of infection and recovery each year. however, compared to adults, juveniles experienced twice the risk of becoming infected, whereas recovery rates were similar across age categories. finally, we did not find evidence that infection influenced the timing of emigration.synthesis and applications. our study provides robust empirical estimates of epidemiological parameters for predicting influenza a virus (iav) dynamics. however, the strong annual variation in infection curves makes forecasting difficult. prevalence data can provide reliable surveillance indicators as long as they catch the variation in infection risk. however, individual-based monitoring of infection is required to verify this assumption in areas where surveillance occurs. in this context, monitoring of captive sentinel birds kept in close contact with wild birds is useful. the fact that infection does not impact the timing of migration underpins the potential for mallards to spread viruses rapidly over large geographical scales. hence, we strongly encourage iav surveillance with a multistate capture-recapture approach along the entire migratory flyway of mallards." "the endangered damselfly coenagrion ornatum in post-mining streams: population size, habitat requirements and restoration",drainage ditches; headwaters; insect conservation; odonata; restoration ecology; secondary habitats,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,TICHANEK F;TROPEK R,"the damselfly coenagrion ornatum represents a threatened species of lowland headwater streams. although the species is threatened in western and central europe, it is known at a system of post-mining drainage ditches in the radovesicka spoil heap (northwestern bohemia, czech republic). this study aimed to estimate its population size in this post-mining stream system, and to explore habitat preferences of both its larvae and adults with respect to various environmental factors. the adults were captured-recaptured along 5.2 km of the ditches in june 2012; larvae were sampled in 64 study sites (i.e., 27-meter-long sections of the same ditches) in april 2012. the adult population size was estimated via log-linear models with the robust design on 4544 individuals (1560 +/- 391 females and 2983 +/- 298 males). larvae were present in a third of the sections. glms revealed that both larvae and adults required emergent vegetation with a high proportion of eleocharis spp. plants. the adults preferred the slow-flowing and shallow streams with 2-meter-high banksides covered by intermediately tall vegetation (similar to 40 cm), whereas the larval abundance was supported by a high in-stream vegetation heterogeneity and a patchy cover of rocks on the streambeds. these results indicate that the post-mining streams could represent a valuable secondary habitat for the complete life cycle of this relatively large population of the endangered headwater specialist. therefore, we recommend consideration of the conservation potential of such ditches during post-mining sites restoration and their subsequent management." determination of the most suitable adhesive for tagging freshwater mussels and its use in an experimental study of filtration behaviour and biological rhythm,NA,JOURNAL OF MOLLUSCAN STUDIES,HARTMANN JT;BEGGEL S;AUERSWALD K;GEIST J,"attaching objects to bivalve shells is an increasing requirement for conservation projects, mark-recapture studies and behavioural analysis. we investigated the suitability of eight different glues to attach a metallic object to a mussel shell and confirmed the utility of the best glue in a filtration behaviour experiment using anodonta anatina. we used removal forces up to 1.35 kg cm(-2) 7 d after submerging in water and found an epoxy resin and a cyanoacrylate adhesive to perform best. not all epoxy resins or cyanoacrylate adhesives performed equally. the best performing cyanoacrylate adhesive was used to glue magnets and rubber-coated hall sensors to 26 mussels for a filtration-behaviour experiment. nine months after attachment, all magnets and rubber-coated hall sensors remained attached and withstood 1.35 kg cm(-2). the epoxy resin was not chosen, because it contained bisphenol a and required a more complex application procedure. mussel filtration behaviours were monitored for 96 h in the presence of algae. the results showed that the presence of algae stimulated the filtration rate of a. anatina in the first 24 h. over the experimental period, the mussels' mean filtration duration was 20 +/- 12 h, while the resting duration was 16 +/- 7 h. we identified a pronounced circadian rhythm, despite the long filtration duration and variation in behaviour patterns. however, at any one time some mussels were observed to be filtering. the mussels were more likely to open their shells and become active at around 20:00. thus the majority of mussels were active at midnight and a minority at noon. we interpret the strong response to increased algal concentration and the pronounced circadian rhythm as evidence that neither the glue nor the attached sensors disturbed the mussels even in a short-term experiment. hence, we recommend the selected cyanoacrylate adhesive for use in tagging projects and behavioural studies of freshwater mussels." landscape heterogeneity compensates for fuel reduction treatment effects on northern flying squirrel populations,glaucomys sabrinus; variable thinning; even thinning; prescribed burn; distribution; sierra nevada,FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,SOLLMANN R;WHITE AM;TARBILL GL;MANLEY PN;KNAPP EE,"in the dry forests of the western united states frequent fires historically maintained a diversity of habitats in multiple seral stages. over the past century, fire suppression and preferential harvest of large trees has led to a densification and homogenization of forests, making them more prone to larger and more severe wildfires. in response, fuel reduction treatments have become common practice in the management of dry western forests. however, the effect of fuel reduction treatments on late seral forest species, such as the northern flying squirrels, remains a management concern. we captured and marked northern flying squirrels within mixed conifer forest in the stanislaus-tuolumne experimental forest (california) on a continuous trapping grid (4400 traps) spanning a 120-ha study landscape in which 24 4-ha units were subject to different fuel reduction treatments (variable thin, even thin, and control, all with or without prescribed burning). the study spanned two pre-thinning and three post-thinning years. we divided the study landscape into three blocks (two with treatments, one control only). for each block we analyzed data with spatial capture-recapture models to estimate northern flying squirrel density, and tested whether canopy closure before and after thinning and percent area burned were important predictors of density. northern flying squirrel densities varied from 0.168 (se 0.086) to 0.808 (se 0.094) individuals/ha across blocks and years. densities varied by year, independent of treatments. percent area burned was not an important predictor of density. the effect of canopy closure was variable, but more consistently positive after thinning reduced overall canopy closure. when considered by treatment type, densities were highest in control and burn only units, and lowest in thinned units. whereas thinning had negative effects on northern flying squirrel density on the scale of a thinning treatment unit, our results suggest that these effects were largely absorbed by the heterogeneous landscape, as animals shifted their distribution into un-thinned areas without a decline in overall density. this highlights the need to incorporate the landscape context when evaluating the effects of forest management on wildlife. (c) 2016 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." @@ -1454,9 +1456,9 @@ landscape heterogeneity compensates for fuel reduction treatment effects on nort spatial variation in giraffe demography: a test of 2 paradigms,conservation biology; demography; ltre; population biology; population structure; prospective matrix analysis; retrospective matrix analysis; tropical ecology; ungulate demography; vital rates,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LEE DE;BOND ML;KISSUI BM;KIWANGO YA;BOLGER DT,"examination of spatial variation in demography among or within populations of the same species is a topic of growing interest in ecology. we examined whether spatial variation in demography of a tropical megaherbivore followed the "" temporal paradigm"" or the "" adult survival paradigm"" of ungulate population dynamics formulated from temperate-zone studies. we quantified spatial variation in demographic rates for giraffes (giraffa camelopardalis) at regional and continental scales. regionally, we used photographic capture-mark-recapture data from 860 adult females and 449 calves to estimate adult female survival, calf survival, and reproduction at 5 sites in the tarangire ecosystem of tanzania. we examined potential mechanisms for spatial variation in regional demographic rates. at the continental scale, we synthesized demographic estimates from published studies across the range of the species. we created matrix population models for all sites at both scales and used prospective and retrospective analyses to determine which vital rate was most important to variation in population growth rate. spatial variability of demographic parameters at the continental scale was in agreement with the temporal paradigm of low variability in adult survival and more highly variable reproduction and calf survival. in contrast, at the regional scale, adult female survival had higher spatial variation, in agreement with the adult survival paradigm. at both scales, variation in adult female survival made the greatest contribution to variation in local population growth rates. our work documented contrasting patterns of spatial variation in demographic rates of giraffes at 2 spatial scales, but at both scales, we found the same vital rate was most important. we also found anthropogenic impacts on adult females are the most likely mechanism of regional population trajectories." differences in movement pattern and detectability between males and females influence how common sampling methods estimate sex ratio,NA,PLOS ONE,RODRIGUES JFM;COELHO MTP,"sampling the biodiversity is an essential step for conservation, and understanding the efficiency of sampling methods allows us to estimate the quality of our biodiversity data. sex ratio is an important population characteristic, but until now, no study has evaluated how efficient are the sampling methods commonly used in biodiversity surveys in estimating the sex ratio of populations. we used a virtual ecologist approach to investigate whether active and passive capture methods are able to accurately sample a population's sex ratio and whether differences in movement pattern and detectability between males and females produce biased estimates of sex-ratios when using these methods. our simulation allowed the recognition of individuals, similar to mark-recapture studies. we found that differences in both movement patterns and detectability between males and females produce biased estimates of sex ratios. however, increasing the sampling effort or the number of sampling days improves the ability of passive or active capture methods to properly sample sex ratio. thus, prior knowledge regarding movement patterns and detectability for species is important information to guide field studies aiming to understand sex ratio related patterns." helper effects in the azure-winged magpie cyanopica cyana in relation to highly-clumped nesting pattern and high frequency of conspecific nest-raiding,NA,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,REN QM;LUO S;DU XJ;CHEN GL;SONG S;DU B,"in avian cooperative breeding systems, many benefits obtained by social pairs from the presence of helpers have been uncovered. however, until now, the factors that determine the type of assistance helpers provide and the responses of social pairs have not been well illustrated. we examined the contribution of helpers to cooperative groups and the relevant responses of dominant pairs in the azure-winged magpie cyanapica cyana which breeds on the tibetan plateau. we used the capture-mark-recapture method to identify helpers. results showed that helpers were mostly the yearling sons of dominant pairs. they mainly contributed to the cooperative group in three ways, courtship-feeding the incubation female, provisioning the brood, and defending the nest. for responses of dominant pairs, we unexpectedly found that clutch size was not influenced by the presence of helpers at the nest. however, cooperative groups had higher brood feeding rates than biparental nests and their feeding pattern also differed to that of the latter. consequently, nestlings in cooperative groups had larger fledging body mass than that in biparental nests. by examining reasons for nest failure, we revealed that conspecific nest-raiding contributed to more nest failure than any other natural predators. because of the contribution of helpers in defending against both predators and conspecific nest-raiders, cooperative groups had higher survival rate than biparental nests. thus, our findings suggest that in a highly-clumped nesting pattern, factors concerning the risk of nest predation, rather than that influencing food supply, play an important role in determining helper effects and responses of aided dominant pairs." -potamodromous migrations in the magdalena river basin: bimodal reproductive patterns in neotropical rivers,flow regime; freshwater migratory fish; la miel river; mark-recapture; migration routes; migration speed and distance,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,LOPEZ-CASAS S;JIMENEZ-SEGURA LF;AGOSTINHO AA;PEREZ CM,"magdalena river basin potamodromous fishes have two annual reproductive seasons: the subienda in the first half of the year and the mitaca in the second. both upstream migrations are c. 30-45 days long; after that, with the onset of the rainy season, fishes spawn and remain in the river (resident individuals) or start a downstream movement (the bajanza) to return to the magdalena floodplain lakes (nursery, shelter and feeding grounds). due to their particular gonad development the bocachico prochilodus magdalenae and probably the comelcn leporinus muyscorum are physiologically able to undertake two annual basin migrations. in the presence of dams or hydropower structures, fishes are able to find alternative migration routes. some species should be re-classified in their migratory behaviour. (c) 2016 the fisheries society of the british isles" -spatial heterogeneity of systemic sclerosis in france: high prevalence in the northeast region,NA,ARTHRITIS & RHEUMATOLOGY,MEYER A;CHIFFLOT H;CHATELUS E;KLEINMANN JF;RONDE-OUSTEAU C;KLEIN D;JEGU J;GENY B;HIRSHI S;CANUET M;BLAISON G;KIEFFER P;LIPSKER D;MARTIN T;SAULEAU E;VELTEN M;SIBILIA J,"objective. alsace is a region in eastern france with a population of similar to 2 million. all residents have high access to health care and an accredited referral center for ssc. seeking care outside of this region is difficult because of the peculiar geography. the aim of this study was to assess the prevalence and spatial variation of systemic sclerosis (ssc) in eastern france. methods. data for ssc patients were obtained from 3 sources (all general practitioners and community specialists, capillaroscopy centers, and all public and private hospital records) and were used to estimate the prevalence of ssc. surviving patients who resided in alsace on january 1, 2008 and fulfilled the american college of rheumatology and/or the leroy and medsger criteria were included in this study. the clinical characteristics of the patients were also assessed. potentially incomplete case ascertainment was corrected by capture-recapture analyses. geographic disparities were assessed by spatial cluster analysis and by comparing our results with those for other geographic areas in the world for which data derived using similar methodology were available. results. the review of 499 potential cases identified a total of 244 ssc patients. a trend toward a west-to-east gradient was observed but did not reach statistical significance. according to log-linear modeling, an estimated 83.87 additional cases were missed. thus, the ssc prevalence was 228.42 cases per million adult inhabitants of alsace (95% confidence interval 203.70-253.14); this prevalence was significantly higher than that in 2 other regions of france and comparable with the reported prevalence in detroit, michigan. conclusion. the stringent methodology used in the current study is very likely to provide an accurate estimation of the prevalence of ssc. design similarity with 3 other surveys extends the scope of the results by identifying geographic disparities that were previously indistinguishable due to methodologic differences." -rising incidence of childhood type 1 diabetes in montenegro,"type 1 diabetes, incidence; type 1 diabetes, children; montenegro",SRPSKI ARHIV ZA CELOKUPNO LEKARSTVO,SAMARDZIC M;POPOVIC N;TERZIC N;POPOVIC-SAMARDZIC M;NEDOVIC-VUKOVIC M,"introduction the incidence rate of childhood type 1 diabetes continues to rise across europe by an average of approximately 3-4% per annum. objective the aim of this study was to examine incidence and trends of type 1 diabetes in children aged 0-14 years in montenegro from 1997 to 2011. methods this was a prospective study. primary case ascertainment was from a diabetes register, and a secondary independent data source was from hospital notifications. case ascertainment was 100% complete using the capture-recapture method. standardized incidence rates were calculated and trends estimated using the poisson regression. results a total of 298 children (157 boys and 141 girls) were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes before 15 years of age during 1997-2011. the mean age-standardized incidence was 15.0/100,000 persons (95% ci: 12.3-17.6) during this period, increasing from 11.7/100,000 in 1997 to 18.8/100,000 in 2011. the age specific rates per 100,000 persons per year were 10.7, 17.2, and 18.2 at ages 0-4 years, 5-9 years, and 10-14 years, respectively. a significant linear trend in incidence (p = 0.002) has been observed over time, with an average annual increase of 4.2%. the increase in incidence was present in both genders, with the largest relative increase in the 0-4 years age group for boys (11.0%; p = 0.006). conclusion the incidence of type 1 diabetes in montenegro children continues to increase. we need further monitoring and additional research in order to explain the cause." +potamodromous migrations in the magdalena river basin: bimodal reproductive patterns in neotropical rivers,flow regime; freshwater migratory fish; la miel river; mark-recapture; migration routes; migration speed and distance,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,LOPEZ CASAS S;JIMENEZ SEGURA LF;AGOSTINHO AA;PEREZ CM,"magdalena river basin potamodromous fishes have two annual reproductive seasons: the subienda in the first half of the year and the mitaca in the second. both upstream migrations are c. 30-45 days long; after that, with the onset of the rainy season, fishes spawn and remain in the river (resident individuals) or start a downstream movement (the bajanza) to return to the magdalena floodplain lakes (nursery, shelter and feeding grounds). due to their particular gonad development the bocachico prochilodus magdalenae and probably the comelcn leporinus muyscorum are physiologically able to undertake two annual basin migrations. in the presence of dams or hydropower structures, fishes are able to find alternative migration routes. some species should be re-classified in their migratory behaviour. (c) 2016 the fisheries society of the british isles" +spatial heterogeneity of systemic sclerosis in france: high prevalence in the northeast region,NA,ARTHRITIS & RHEUMATOLOGY,MEYER A;CHIFFLOT H;CHATELUS E;KLEINMANN JF;RONDE OUSTEAU C;KLEIN D;JEGU J;GENY B;HIRSHI S;CANUET M;BLAISON G;KIEFFER P;LIPSKER D;MARTIN T;SAULEAU E;VELTEN M;SIBILIA J,"objective. alsace is a region in eastern france with a population of similar to 2 million. all residents have high access to health care and an accredited referral center for ssc. seeking care outside of this region is difficult because of the peculiar geography. the aim of this study was to assess the prevalence and spatial variation of systemic sclerosis (ssc) in eastern france. methods. data for ssc patients were obtained from 3 sources (all general practitioners and community specialists, capillaroscopy centers, and all public and private hospital records) and were used to estimate the prevalence of ssc. surviving patients who resided in alsace on january 1, 2008 and fulfilled the american college of rheumatology and/or the leroy and medsger criteria were included in this study. the clinical characteristics of the patients were also assessed. potentially incomplete case ascertainment was corrected by capture-recapture analyses. geographic disparities were assessed by spatial cluster analysis and by comparing our results with those for other geographic areas in the world for which data derived using similar methodology were available. results. the review of 499 potential cases identified a total of 244 ssc patients. a trend toward a west-to-east gradient was observed but did not reach statistical significance. according to log-linear modeling, an estimated 83.87 additional cases were missed. thus, the ssc prevalence was 228.42 cases per million adult inhabitants of alsace (95% confidence interval 203.70-253.14); this prevalence was significantly higher than that in 2 other regions of france and comparable with the reported prevalence in detroit, michigan. conclusion. the stringent methodology used in the current study is very likely to provide an accurate estimation of the prevalence of ssc. design similarity with 3 other surveys extends the scope of the results by identifying geographic disparities that were previously indistinguishable due to methodologic differences." +rising incidence of childhood type 1 diabetes in montenegro,"type 1 diabetes, incidence; type 1 diabetes, children; montenegro",SRPSKI ARHIV ZA CELOKUPNO LEKARSTVO,SAMARDZIC M;POPOVIC N;TERZIC N;POPOVIC SAMARDZIC M;NEDOVIC VUKOVIC M,"introduction the incidence rate of childhood type 1 diabetes continues to rise across europe by an average of approximately 3-4% per annum. objective the aim of this study was to examine incidence and trends of type 1 diabetes in children aged 0-14 years in montenegro from 1997 to 2011. methods this was a prospective study. primary case ascertainment was from a diabetes register, and a secondary independent data source was from hospital notifications. case ascertainment was 100% complete using the capture-recapture method. standardized incidence rates were calculated and trends estimated using the poisson regression. results a total of 298 children (157 boys and 141 girls) were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes before 15 years of age during 1997-2011. the mean age-standardized incidence was 15.0/100,000 persons (95% ci: 12.3-17.6) during this period, increasing from 11.7/100,000 in 1997 to 18.8/100,000 in 2011. the age specific rates per 100,000 persons per year were 10.7, 17.2, and 18.2 at ages 0-4 years, 5-9 years, and 10-14 years, respectively. a significant linear trend in incidence (p = 0.002) has been observed over time, with an average annual increase of 4.2%. the increase in incidence was present in both genders, with the largest relative increase in the 0-4 years age group for boys (11.0%; p = 0.006). conclusion the incidence of type 1 diabetes in montenegro children continues to increase. we need further monitoring and additional research in order to explain the cause." population size estimation with covariate values missing non-ignorable,capture-recapture; conditional likelihood; em algorithm; missing non-ignorable,ACTA MATHEMATICAE APPLICATAE SINICA-ENGLISH SERIES,LIU LP;GUO ZC;DUAN XG,"the main purpose of this paper is using capture-recapture data to estimate the population size when some covariate values are missing, possibly non-ignorable. conditional likelihood method is adopted, with a sub-model describing various missing mechanisms. the derived estimate is proved to be asymptotically normal, and simulation studies via a version of em algorithm show that it is approximately unbiased. the proposed method is applied to a real example, and the result is compared with previous ones." "changes in haul-out use by spotted seals (phoca largha) on rebun island, hokkado, japan, in response to controls on harmful animals",spotted seal; harmful-animal controls; haul-out use; photo-identification; rebun island; the sea of japan,RUSSIAN JOURNAL OF MARINE BIOLOGY,SHIBUYA M;KOBAYASHI M;SHITAMICHI Y;MIYAMOTO S;MURAKAMI K,"harmful animal controls on spotted seals on rebun island have been conducted each spring since 2010 due to an increase in the number of seals and damage to local fisheries. to evaluate the influences of controls on seals, we used the numbers of haul-out sites and hauled-out seals, and photo-identification to study differences in the usage patterns of haul-out sites by seals before and after controls. as a result, two major changes were confirmed. firstly, in spring after controls, the numbers of hauled-out seals at northern rebun (nr) greatly decreased, while at bensashi (ben) on the southern side of rebun they greatly increased, compared to spring prior to controls. secondly, the number of identified seals observed at both nr and ben (nr-ben) increased after controls, while most of the seals that changed to nr-ben after controls were observed only at nr (nr-nr) before controls. additionally, most of the seals using nr-ben were observed year-round. the controls had a direct influence on reducing the numbers of seals in the controls area mainly during the period of controls. however, many seals that avoided the controls area used other haul-out sites, and the numbers of year-round-seals on rebun increased after controls." a prison effect in a wild population: a scarcity of females induces homosexual behaviors in males,ecophysiology; reptiles; sex ratio; testosterone; tortoise,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY,BONNET X;GOLUBOVIC A;ARSOVSKI D;DORDEVIC S;BALLOUARD JM;STERIJOVSKI B;AJTIC R;BARBRAUD C;TOMOVIC L,"the high frequency of same-sex sexual behaviors (ssb) in free-ranging animals is an evolutionary puzzle because fitness benefits are often unclear in an evolutionary context. moreover, the physiological and genetic underpinnings of ssb remain unclear. we exploited an extraordinary natural experiment to examine the impact of environmental factors (local sex ratio [sr]) and testosterone (t) levels on ssb in a dense population of hermann's tortoises monitored for 7 years. under the combination of high density and extremely skewed sr (similar to 50 females, > 1000 males), males courted and mounted other males more frequently than females. they even exhibited extravagant sexual behaviors, attempting to copulate with dead conspecifics, empty shells, and stones. t levels remained within the species' normal range of variation. ssb was not observed in other populations where sr is not, or less skewed, and where density is lower. this study reports the first natural example of a ""prison effect,"" whereby a high population density combined with female deprivation triggered ssb as a mere outlet of sexual stimulation. more generally, it supports the hypothesis that ssb can be a nonadaptive consequence of unusual proximate factors rather than reflecting physiological disorders." @@ -1468,28 +1470,28 @@ dead or gone? bayesian inference on mortality for the dispersing sex,african lio taking the lead on climate change: modelling and monitoring the fate of an amazonian frog,altitude; amazonia; amphibian decline; climate change; conservation; french guiana; neotropics; pristimantis espedeus,ORYX,COURTOIS EA;MICHEL E;MARTINEZ Q;PINEAU K;DEWYNTER M;FICETOLA GF;FOUQUET A,"climate change is expected to have important impacts on biodiversity. however, cases showing explicit links between species decline and climate are scarce, mostly because of a lack of baseline data. tropical ectotherms with narrow altitudinal ranges are particularly sensitive to climate change; for example the frog pristimantis espedeus may be at risk, with only nine populations known to date in french guiana, all on isolated massifs. ecological niche modelling indicated that these populations could disappear by 2070. to facilitate testing of this prediction we conducted a study to design an efficient, cost-effective monitoring protocol, combining occupancy rate estimations using passive acoustic recorders, and abundance estimations using acoustic repeated counts and capture-mark-recapture. we found the passive recorders to be effective, with a detection probability of 0.8. two recording sessions were sufficient to estimate occupancy rates reliably. a minimum of.. surveyed sites were required to detect a decline of 15% in occupancy between two consecutive monitoring events. acoustic repeated counts and capture-mark-recapture yielded similar density estimates (1.6 and 1.8 calling males per 100 m(2), respectively). based on these results we present a protocol based on passive acoustic recording and abundance monitoring to monitor p. espedeus populations." an evaluation of streamflow augmentation as a short-term freshwater mussel conservation strategy,drought; mussels; capture-mark-recapture; incomplete detection; water augmentation,RIVER RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS,WISNIEWSKI JM;ABBOTT S;LANDIS AMG,"recurrent and prolonged droughts, coupled with increased water resource demand, threaten freshwater mussel populations through stream drying and water quality degradation. augmentation of stream discharge was proposed as a short-term strategy to maintain adequate streamflows and water quality in reaches with important freshwater mussel populations during exceptionally low flow periods. we investigated the effects of water augmentation on seven freshwater mussel species in a small creek between 2011 and 2014. using capture-mark-recapture methods, we monitored mussel populations in a control reach upstream of an augmentation outlet and two reaches immediately downstream of an augmentation outlet. water quality measurements during our study indicated that augmentation improved water temperature and dissolved oxygen conditions during low flow periods. for all mussel species, apparent survival was positively related to minimum streamflows and declined precipitously as streamflows decreased. however, mean apparent survival between sampling occasions was high among all species but did not differ among treatment units, suggesting that flow augmentation rates in this study were insufficient for abating the effects of basin-wide reductions in streamflow. temporary emigration differed among study reaches but did not support hypothesized relationships because it increased with stream stage and was highest in an augmented reach. this suggests that streamflows did not drop below thresholds, which invoked burrowing as a response to decreased streamflows. streamflow augmentation may be a viable short-term mussel conservation strategy in small streams but will likely require higher augmentation volume capacity than evaluated during our study. copyright (c) 2015 john wiley & sons, ltd." effects of current reproductive success and individual heterogeneity on survival and future reproductive success of female wood ducks,life history tradeoffs; capture-mark-recapture; apparent survival; reproductive success; female quality; aix sponsa,AUK,KENNAMER RA;HEPP GR;ALEXANDER BW,"estimates of vital rates and their sources of variation are necessary to understand the population dynamics of any organism. these data have been used to test predictions of life history theory as well as to guide decisions of wildlife managers and conservation biologists. life history theory predicts tradeoffs among life history traits, such that current reproductive effort will be negatively correlated with survival and/or future reproduction. many studies support this prediction, but others report positive covariation between fitness traits, and attribute positive correlations to differences in individual quality. in this study, we used 11 yr of capture-mark-recapture data of breeding female wood ducks (aix sponsa), along with their breeding histories, to examine sources of variation in annual survival rates and to assess the impact of current reproductive success on probabilities of survival and future reproductive success. cormack-jolly-seber models indicated that apparent survival of female wood ducks did not vary annually and was only weakly affected by age class and breeding habitat conditions, but that there was a strong positive relationship between survival and the number of successful nests (0, 1, or 2). next, we used a multistate analysis to examine the importance of female nest fate (successful or failed) on the probability of surviving and of nesting successfully the next year. early incubation body mass was used to assess the nutritional status and quality of females. females that nested successfully in year t were not less likely to nest successfully in year t + 1 than females that had nested unsuccessfully in year t. we also found strong positive covariation between nest success in year t and the probability of surviving. however, being in relatively good or poor condition had no effect on these relationships. our results are consistent with the idea that female quality is heterogeneous, but body mass was not a good proxy of quality. therefore, the existence of tradeoffs between female reproductive success and survival or future reproduction was less clear because of our inability to identify and control for differences in female quality." -effects of human land-use on africa's only forest-dependent fetid: the african golden cat caracal aurata,bushmeat; camera trap; density; gabon; logging; spatial capture-recapture,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,BAHAA-EL-DIN L;SOLLMANN R;HUNTER LTB;SLOTOW R;MACDONALD DW;HENSCHEL P,"africa's equatorial forests are threatened by widespread deforestation and bushmeat hunting, with both threats spreading into formerly remote areas due to rapid human population growth and large-scale expansions of commercial resource extraction such as logging and mining, as well as forest clearing for agriculture. many globally threatened species are endemic to these forests, but the potential effects of these threats are not well understood. using the case of the forest-dependent african golden cat, we assess the potential effects of disturbance including logging and hunting on population density. we applied spatially-explicit capture-recapture models to camera trap data to estimate density across a human land-use gradient at five sites in central gabon. we found density was highest at a pristine, undisturbed site (16.23 [+/- 5.84 se] individuals per 100 km(2)) and lowest at a village site with moderate levels of mostly subsistence bushmeat hunting (3.8[+/- 2.23 se] individuals per 100 km(2)). logging concessions can support important densities of the species (10.18 [+/- 3.54 se] and 12.84 [+/- 4.25 se] individuals per 100 km(2)), with the higher estimate of the two for the concession certified by the forest stewardship council (fsc) versus the non-certified concession. while protected intact forests are the main strongholds for golden cats, well-managed logging concessions may also play an important role in the conservation of golden cats and other threatened species. (c) 2016 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +effects of human land-use on africa's only forest-dependent fetid: the african golden cat caracal aurata,bushmeat; camera trap; density; gabon; logging; spatial capture-recapture,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,BAHAA EL DIN L;SOLLMANN R;HUNTER LTB;SLOTOW R;MACDONALD DW;HENSCHEL P,"africa's equatorial forests are threatened by widespread deforestation and bushmeat hunting, with both threats spreading into formerly remote areas due to rapid human population growth and large-scale expansions of commercial resource extraction such as logging and mining, as well as forest clearing for agriculture. many globally threatened species are endemic to these forests, but the potential effects of these threats are not well understood. using the case of the forest-dependent african golden cat, we assess the potential effects of disturbance including logging and hunting on population density. we applied spatially-explicit capture-recapture models to camera trap data to estimate density across a human land-use gradient at five sites in central gabon. we found density was highest at a pristine, undisturbed site (16.23 [+/- 5.84 se] individuals per 100 km(2)) and lowest at a village site with moderate levels of mostly subsistence bushmeat hunting (3.8[+/- 2.23 se] individuals per 100 km(2)). logging concessions can support important densities of the species (10.18 [+/- 3.54 se] and 12.84 [+/- 4.25 se] individuals per 100 km(2)), with the higher estimate of the two for the concession certified by the forest stewardship council (fsc) versus the non-certified concession. while protected intact forests are the main strongholds for golden cats, well-managed logging concessions may also play an important role in the conservation of golden cats and other threatened species. (c) 2016 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "measuring the effects of water-based recreation on the spatial ecology of eastern musk turtles (sternotherus odoratus) in a provincial park in ontario, canada",NA,COPEIA,LAVERTY JF;KOROL B;LITZGUS JD,"provincial and state parks are often considered to be areas that protect native flora and fauna, but parks are also used for human recreation. we assessed the impacts of human recreation on the spatial ecology and health of sternotherus odoratus in massasauga provincial park (mpp), ontario, canada over two field seasons. our study site is unique in that mpp has no roads and is accessible only by air or water, thus removing the well-known detrimental effects of roads on the resident turtle populations. using mark-recapture techniques and radio telemetry, we studied turtles in two replicated site categories: impacted and non-impacted. impacted sites were areas with human recreational activities (e.g., camping, boating), while non-impacted sites had no designated park use and had minimal use by park visitors. we predicted that turtles would avoid humans and thus have larger home range sizes and greater movements in impacted sites. we also predicted higher mortality and injury rates caused by subsidized predators (predators whose numbers increase in the presence of human garbage such as that found at campsites) and direct encounters with humans in impacted sites. turtles in impacted sites appeared to avoid campsites but did not have larger annual home ranges or daily movements than turtles in non-impacted sites. injury and mortality rates did not differ statistically between site categories; however, the data suggested higher occurrences of mortalities at impacted sites, a pattern that warrants additional investigation. our data imply that populations of s. odoratus in mpp are not severely impacted by relatively low-impact human recreation. future studies should focus on multiple turtle species in parks to get a clearer, more general, understanding of the impacts of human recreational activities on freshwater turtles." density-dependent home-range size revealed by spatially explicit capture-recapture,NA,ECOGRAPHY,EFFORD MG;DAWSON DK;JHALA YV;QURESHI Q,"the size of animal home ranges often varies inversely with population density among populations of a species. this fact has implications for population monitoring using spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models, in which both the scale of home-range movements sigma and population density d usually appear as parameters, and both may vary among populations. it will often be appropriate to model a structural relationship between population-specific values of these parameters, rather than to assume independence. we suggest re-parameterizing the secr model using k(p) = sigma(p) d-p, where k(p) relates to the degree of overlap between home ranges and the subscript p distinguishes populations. we observe that k(p) is often nearly constant for populations spanning a range of densities. this justifies fitting a model in which the separate k(p) are replaced by the single parameter k and sigma(p) is a density-dependent derived parameter. continuous density-dependent spatial variation in sigma may also be modelled, using a scaled non-euclidean distance between detectors and the locations of animals. we illustrate these methods with data from automatic photography of tigers panthera tigris across india, in which the variation is among populations, from mist-netting of ovenbirds seiurus aurocapilla in maryland, usa, in which the variation is within a single population over time, and from live-trapping of brushtail possums trichosurus vulpecula in new zealand, modelling spatial variation within one population. possible applications and limitations of the methods are discussed. a model in which k(p) is constant, while density varies, provides a parsimonious null model for secr. the parameter k of the null model is a concise summary of the empirical relationship between home-range size and density that is useful in comparative studies. we expect deviations from this model, particularly the dependence of k(p) on covariates, to be biologically interesting." -integrating population dynamics models and distance sampling data: a spatial hierarchical state-space approach,akaike information criterion; density dependence; distance sampling; fin whale (balaenoptera physalus); gaussian process; maximum likelihood estimation; model identifiability; nonlinear autoregressive model; ricker model; spatial modelling; state-space models,ECOLOGY,"NADEEM K;MOORE JE;ZHANG Y;CHIPMAN H","stochastic versions of gompertz, ricker, and various other dynamics models play a fundamental role in quantifying strength of density dependence and studying long-term dynamics of wildlife populations. these models are frequently estimated using time series of abundance estimates that are inevitably subject to observation error and missing data. this issue can be addressed with a state-space modeling framework that jointly estimates the observed data model and the underlying stochastic population dynamics (spd) model. in cases where abundance data are from multiple locations with a smaller spatial resolution (e.g., from mark-recapture and distance sampling studies), models are conventionally fitted to spatially pooled estimates of yearly abundances. here, we demonstrate that a spatial version of spd models can be directly estimated from short time series of spatially referenced distance sampling data in a unified hierarchical state-space modeling framework that also allows for spatial variance (covariance) in population growth. we also show that a full range of likelihood based inference, including estimability diagnostics and model-selection, is feasible in this class of models using a data cloning algorithm. we further show through simulation experiments that the hierarchical state--space framework introduced herein efficiently captures the underlying dynamical parameters and spatial abundance distribution. we apply our methodology by analyzing a time series of line-transect distance sampling data for fin whales (balaenoptera physalus) off the u.s. west coast. although there were only seven surveys conducted during the study time frame, 1991-2014, our analysis detected presence of strong density regulation and provided reliable estimates of fin whale densities. in summary, we show that the integrative framework developed herein allows ecologists to better infer key population characteristics such as presence of density regulation and spatial variability in a population's intrinsic growth potential." +integrating population dynamics models and distance sampling data: a spatial hierarchical state-space approach,akaike information criterion; density dependence; distance sampling; fin whale (balaenoptera physalus); gaussian process; maximum likelihood estimation; model identifiability; nonlinear autoregressive model; ricker model; spatial modelling; state-space models,ECOLOGY,NADEEM K;MOORE JE;ZHANG Y;CHIPMAN H,"stochastic versions of gompertz, ricker, and various other dynamics models play a fundamental role in quantifying strength of density dependence and studying long-term dynamics of wildlife populations. these models are frequently estimated using time series of abundance estimates that are inevitably subject to observation error and missing data. this issue can be addressed with a state-space modeling framework that jointly estimates the observed data model and the underlying stochastic population dynamics (spd) model. in cases where abundance data are from multiple locations with a smaller spatial resolution (e.g., from mark-recapture and distance sampling studies), models are conventionally fitted to spatially pooled estimates of yearly abundances. here, we demonstrate that a spatial version of spd models can be directly estimated from short time series of spatially referenced distance sampling data in a unified hierarchical state-space modeling framework that also allows for spatial variance (covariance) in population growth. we also show that a full range of likelihood based inference, including estimability diagnostics and model-selection, is feasible in this class of models using a data cloning algorithm. we further show through simulation experiments that the hierarchical state--space framework introduced herein efficiently captures the underlying dynamical parameters and spatial abundance distribution. we apply our methodology by analyzing a time series of line-transect distance sampling data for fin whales (balaenoptera physalus) off the u.s. west coast. although there were only seven surveys conducted during the study time frame, 1991-2014, our analysis detected presence of strong density regulation and provided reliable estimates of fin whale densities. in summary, we show that the integrative framework developed herein allows ecologists to better infer key population characteristics such as presence of density regulation and spatial variability in a population's intrinsic growth potential." variation in the age of first reproduction: different strategies or individual quality?,capture-mark-recapture; individual heterogeneity; life-history plasticity; reaction norm; trade-off; wandering albatross,ECOLOGY,FAY R;BARBRAUD C;DELORD K;WEIMERSKIRCH H,"although age at first reproduction is a key demographic parameter that is probably under high selective pressure, it is highly variable and the cause of this variability is not well understood. two non-exclusive hypotheses may explain such variability. it could be the expression of different individual strategies, i.e., different allocation strategies in fitness components, or the consequences of individual difference in intrinsic quality, i.e., some individuals always doing better than others in all fitness components. we tested these hypotheses in the wandering albatross investigating relationships between the age at first reproduction and subsequent adult demographic traits. using finite mixture capture recapture modeling, we demonstrate that the age at first reproduction is negatively related to both reproductive performances and adult survival, suggesting that individual quality was an important factor explaining variation in the age at first reproduction. our results suggest that age at first breeding is a good predictor of quality in this long-lived seabird species." a recipe for postfledging survival in great tits parus major: be large and be early (but not too much),breeding success; cormack-jolly-seber models; fledging condition; hyperthermia; long-term study,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,RODRIGUEZ S;VAN NOORDWIJK AJ;ALVAREZ E;BARBA E,"survival of juveniles during the postfledging period can be markedly low, which may have major consequences on avian population dynamics. knowing which factors operating during the nesting phase affect postfledging survival is crucial to understand avian breeding strategies. we aimed to obtain a robust set of predictors of postfledging local survival using the great tit (parus major) as a model species. we used mark-recapture models to analyze the effect of hatching date, temperatures experienced during the nestling period, fledging size and body mass on first-year postfledging survival probability of great tit juveniles. we used data from 5192 nestlings of first clutches ringed between 1993 and 2010. mean first-year postfledging survival probability was 15.2%, and it was lower for smaller individuals, as well as for those born in either very early or late broods. our results stress the importance of choosing an optimum hatching period, and raising large chicks to increase first-year local survival probability in the studied population." density-dependent reproduction causes winter crashes in a common vole population,cmr; density dependence; microtus arvalis; population cycles; recruitment; survival,POPULATION ECOLOGY,PINOT A;BARRAQUAND F;TEDESCO E;LECOUSTRE V;BRETAGNOLLE V;GAUFFRE B,"common voles in western france exhibit three-year population cycles with winter crashes after large outbreaks. during the winter of 2011-2012, we monitored survival, reproduction, recruitment and population growth rate of common voles at different densities (from low to outbreak densities) in natura to better understand density dependence of demographic parameters. between october and april, the number of animals decreased irrespective of initial density. however, the decline was more pronounced when october density was higher (loss of a parts per thousand 54 % of individuals at low density and 95 % at high density). using capture-mark-recapture models with pradel's temporal symmetry approach, we found a negative effect of density on recruitment and reproduction. in contrast, density had a slightly positive effect on survival indicating that mortality did not drive the steeper declines in animal numbers at high density. we discuss these results in a population cycle framework, and suggest that crashes after outbreaks could reflect negative effects of density dependence on reproduction rather than changes in mortality rates." survival of afro-palaearctic passerine migrants in western europe and the impacts of seasonal weather variables,capture mark-recapture; climate change; constant effort sites; demography; sahel rainfall; sylviidae,IBIS,JOHNSTON A;ROBINSON RA;GARGALLO G;JULLIARD R;VAN DER JEUGD H;BAILLIE SR,"populations of migratory songbirds in western europe show considerable variation in population trends between species and regions. the demographic and environmental causes of these large-scale patterns are poorly understood. using data from constant effort mist-netting studies, we investigated relationships between changes in abundance, adult survival and seasonal weather conditions among 35 western european populations of eight species of migratory warblers (sylviidae). we used cross-species and within-species comparisons to assess whether annual variation in survival was correlated with weather conditions during passage or winter. we estimated survival using cjs mark-recapture models accounting for variation in the proportion of transient individuals and recapture rates. species wintering in the humid bioclimatic zone of western africa had significantly higher annual survival probabilities than species wintering in the arid bioclimatic zone of africa (the sahel). rainfall in the sahel was positively correlated with survival in at least some populations of five species. we found substantially fewer significant relationships with indices of weather during the autumn and spring passage periods, which may be due to the use of broad-scale indices. annual population changes were correlated with adult survival in all of our study species, although species undergoing widespread declines showed the weakest relationships." "density and activity patterns of ocelot populations in yasuni national park, ecuador",abundance; amazonia; behavior; camera trap; capture-recapture; mesopredator,MAMMALIA,SALVADOR J;ESPINOSA S,"ocelots were historically hunted for their skins but habitat loss is now their most serious threat, causing rapid declines in populations throughout their range. ocelot abundance has been estimated for various locations across the neotropics, but we still lack this information from some countries, including ecuador. knowing whether ocelot abundance is increasing or decreasing is important to assess the conservation status of this species and the conditions of its habitats in the ecuadorian amazon and in the region. to determine whether ocelot abundance and its behavior are affected by human-related activities, camera-trap surveys were carried out in two localities of yasuni national park (ynp), one that has experienced hunting, oil extraction, and roads (maxus road) and one that is largely unaffected by these activities (lorocachi). during the survey, 35 and 36 individual ocelots were photographed in maxus road and lorocachi, respectively. population density estimates were similar for both localities, ranging from 0.31 (se +/- 6) to 0.85 (se +/- 17) ocelots/km(2) in maxus road and 0.35 (se +/- 6) to 0.93 (se +/- 18) ocelots/km(2) in lorocachi, when using the mmdm and the 1/2 mmdm to estimate the effective trapping area, respectively. ocelots were more active during the night than during the day in both study sites, probably reflecting the activity patterns of their prey. ocelot densities obtained in ynp are among the highest reported within the neotropics. yasuni's large tracts of suitable habitat can provide the resources necessary to support sufficiently large populations of ocelots and other species, and ensure their long-term survival." inter-annual and inter-individual variations in survival exhibit strong seasonality in a hibernating rodent,mark-recapture; tamias sibiricus; seasonal survival; hibernation; male-biased mortality,OECOLOGIA,LE COEUR C;CHANTEPIE S;PISANU B;CHAPUIS JL;ROBERT A,"most research on the demography of wild animal populations has focused on characterizing the variation in the mortality of organisms as a function of intrinsic and environmental characteristics. however, such variation in mortality is difficult to relate to functional life history components (e.g. reproduction, dispersal, hibernation) due to the difficulty in monitoring biological processes at a sufficiently fine timescale. in this study, we used a 10-year individual-based data set with an infra-annual timescale to investigate both intra- and inter-annual survival patterns according to intrinsic and environmental covariates in an introduced population of a small hibernating rodent, the siberian chipmunk. we compared three distinct periods related to particular life history events: spring reproduction, summer reproduction and hibernation. our results revealed strong interactions between intrinsic and temporal effects. first, survival of male chipmunks strongly decreases during the reproduction periods, while survival is high and equal between sexes during hibernation. second, the season of birth affects the survival of juveniles during their first hibernation, which does not have long-lasting consequences at the adult stage. third, at an inter-annual scale, we found that high food resource availability before hibernation and low chipmunk densities specifically favour subsequent winter survival. overall, our results confirm that the well-known patterns of yearly and inter-individual variation of mortality observed in animals are themselves strongly variable within a given year, suggesting that they are associated with various functional components of the animals' life history." -"pilot study of the completeness of notification of adult tuberculosis in athens, greece",tb; surveillance; under-reporting; record linkage; capture-recapture; greece,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TUBERCULOSIS AND LUNG DISEASE,IBARZ-PAVON AB;PAPAVENTSIS D;KALKOUNI R;METAXAS G;SPALA G;GEORGAKOPOULOU T;GERAKIS T;PEFANIS A;VOGIATZAKIS E,"setting: sotiria chest diseases hospital (scdh), a referral hospital in athens, greece, 2012. objective: to assess the completeness of the mandatory notification system for tuberculosis (tb) at the scdh, and compare the observed and estimated annual incidence rates. design: record linkage and the capture-recapture method were applied. data sources were the registers from the national mandatory notification register (hellenic centre for disease control and prevention [hcdcp]), the national reference laboratory for mycobacteria (nrlm) and scdh records. the log linear model with the lowest akaike information criterion was selected as the most valid statistical model. results: the observed and estimated tb underreporting rates at the national level were respectively 55% (95% ci 49-60) and 75% (95% ci 71-78). the observed completeness of the hcdcp, nrlm and scdh registers were respectively 45% (95 %ci 40-51), 66% (95%ci 61-71) and 36.5% (95%ci 31-42). the estimated tb incidence rate was 15 cases per 100 000 (range 13-19/100 000), compared to the 4.9/100 000 rate officially notified. conclusion: adult tb incidence has been largely underestimated, and the tb burden is likely to be much higher than officially notified in our setting. a thorough review of the notification system should be carried out. the implementation of a network-based notification system and retraining of all relevant personnel is advised." +"pilot study of the completeness of notification of adult tuberculosis in athens, greece",tb; surveillance; under-reporting; record linkage; capture-recapture; greece,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TUBERCULOSIS AND LUNG DISEASE,IBARZ PAVON AB;PAPAVENTSIS D;KALKOUNI R;METAXAS G;SPALA G;GEORGAKOPOULOU T;GERAKIS T;PEFANIS A;VOGIATZAKIS E,"setting: sotiria chest diseases hospital (scdh), a referral hospital in athens, greece, 2012. objective: to assess the completeness of the mandatory notification system for tuberculosis (tb) at the scdh, and compare the observed and estimated annual incidence rates. design: record linkage and the capture-recapture method were applied. data sources were the registers from the national mandatory notification register (hellenic centre for disease control and prevention [hcdcp]), the national reference laboratory for mycobacteria (nrlm) and scdh records. the log linear model with the lowest akaike information criterion was selected as the most valid statistical model. results: the observed and estimated tb underreporting rates at the national level were respectively 55% (95% ci 49-60) and 75% (95% ci 71-78). the observed completeness of the hcdcp, nrlm and scdh registers were respectively 45% (95 %ci 40-51), 66% (95%ci 61-71) and 36.5% (95%ci 31-42). the estimated tb incidence rate was 15 cases per 100 000 (range 13-19/100 000), compared to the 4.9/100 000 rate officially notified. conclusion: adult tb incidence has been largely underestimated, and the tb burden is likely to be much higher than officially notified in our setting. a thorough review of the notification system should be carried out. the implementation of a network-based notification system and retraining of all relevant personnel is advised." contrasting dispersal inference methods for the greater white-toothed shrew,female-biased dispersal; f-statistics; gene flow; genetic assignment; hierarchical structure; immigration; mark-recapture; parentage,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,DUSSEX N;BROQUET T;YEARSLEY JM,"a species' dispersal capability is difficult to quantify but important for a general understanding of a species' ecology and for applied conservation and management efforts. one approach is to use the information from individual genotypes to estimate recent dispersal rates. these genetic methods differ in the way they use the genotype data, their assumptions, and the information they give, but choosing one method over another is complicated by the lack of work that compares these methods on simulated or real data sets. we collected detailed, spatially resolved, individual data on the greater white-toothed shrew (crocidura russula) in western switzerland for which past studies have found an unusual female sex-biased dispersal. we analyzed the movement from 1 cohort of juvenile shrews with 7 published methods (i.e., mark-recapture, parentage analysis; genetic assignment; hierarchical f-statistics; and the programs bayesass, imig, and structure) and used a binomial test to make quantitative comparisons between the results of the methods. our study indicates that the methods are broadly consistent, but parentage analysis appears the most powerful method for analyzing fine-scale dispersal patterns. in a conservation context, where the evaluation of long-term translocation success is critical for species management, the species studied and spatial scale considered will dictate which is the best suited method to estimate dispersal. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." -demographic rates and population viability of black bears in louisiana,bayesian; capture-mark-recapture; demographics; hierarchical model; louisiana black bear; population viability analysis; threatened species; ursus americanus luteolus,WILDLIFE MONOGRAPHS,LAUFENBERG JS;CLARK JD;HOOKER MJ;LOWE CL;O'CONNELL-GOODE KC;TROXLER JC;DAVIDSON MM;CHAMBERLAIN MJ;CHANDLER RB,"the louisiana black bear (ursus americanus luteolus) was reduced to a few small, fragmented, and isolated subpopulations in the lower mississippi alluvial valley by the mid-twentieth century resulting from loss and fragmentation of habitat. in 1992, the united states fish and wildlife service (usfws) granted the louisiana black bear threatened status under the united states endangered species act of 1973. since that time, a recovery plan was developed, a reintroduced population was established, and habitat recovery has occurred. the recovery plan states that a minimum of 2 populations must be viable (i.e., persistence probabilities over 100 years >0.95), 1 in the tensas river basin and 1 in the atchafalaya river basin. consequently, our objectives were to 1) estimate demographic rates of louisiana black bear subpopulations, 2) develop data-driven stochastic population projection models, and 3) determine how different projection model assumptions affect population trajectories and predictions about long-term persistence. our overall goal was to assess long-term persistence of the bear subpopulations in louisiana, individually and as a whole. we collected data using varying combinations of non-invasive dna sampling, live capture, winter den visits, and radio monitoring from 2002 to 2012 in the 4 areas currently supporting breeding subpopulations in louisiana: tensas river basin (trb), upper atchafalaya river basin (uarb), lower atchafalaya river basin (larb), and a recently reintroduced population at the three rivers complex (trc). from 2002 to 2012, we radio monitored fates of 86 adult females within the trb and 43 in the trc. mean estimates of annual adult survival for the trb and trc were 0.997 and 0.990, respectively, when unknown fates were assumed alive and 0.970 and 0.926 when unknown fates were assumed dead. from 2003 to 2013, we observed 130 cub litters from 74 females in the trb, and 74 cub litters from 45 females in the trc. during the same period, we observed 43 yearling litters for 33 females in the trb and 21 yearling litters for 19 females in the trc. the estimated number of cubs and number of yearlings produced per breeding adult female was 0.47 and 0.20, respectively, in the trb and 0.32 and 0.18 in the trc. on the basis of matrix projection models, asymptotic growth rates ranged from 1.053 to 1.078 for the trb and from 1.005 to 1.062 for the trc, depending on how we treated unresolved fates of adult females. persistence probabilities estimated from stochastic population models based on telemetry data ranged from 0.997 to 0.998 for the trc subpopulation depending on model assumptions and were > 0.999 for the trb regardless of model assumptions. we extracted dna from hair collected at baited, barbed-wire enclosures in the trb, uarb, and larb to determine individual identities for capture-mark-recapture (cmr) analysis. we used those detection histories to estimate apparent survival (phi), per-capita recruitment (f), abundance (n), realized growth rate (lambda), and long-term viability, based on bayesian hierarchical modeling methods that allowed estimation of temporal process variance and parameter uncertainty. based on 23,312 hair samples, annual n for females in the trb ranged from 133 to 164 during 2006-2012, depending on year and how detection heterogeneity was modeled. geometric mean of lambda ranged from 0.996 to 1.002. in the uarb, we collected 11,643 hair samples from 2007 to 2012, from which estimates of n for females ranged from 23 to 43 during the study period, depending on detection heterogeneity model. the geometric mean of lambda ranged from 1.038 to 1.059. estimated n for females in larb ranged from 69 to 96, and annual lambda ranged from 0.80 to 1.11 based on 3,698 hair samples collected during 2010-2012, also depending on year and heterogeneity model. probabilities of persistence over 100 years for the trc and trb based on stochastic matrix projection models that used vital rate estimates from telemetry data were >0.95 for all scenarios. probability of persistence at the trb and the uarb based on projection models that used vital rate estimates from cmr analyses ranged from 0.928 to 0.954 and from 0.906 to 0.959, respectively, depending on model assumptions. data from the larb were insufficient for a viability assessment. thus, individual persistence probabilities for trb and uarb did not meet the strict definition of viability (i.e., >0.95) under some model assumptions. however, the joint probability of bears persisting either in the trb or uarb was >0.993 assuming individual population dynamics were independent and was >0.958 assuming dynamics were perfectly correlated. furthermore, including the trc increased the joint probability of bears persisting somewhere in the trb, uarb, or trc to > 0.999 based on the most pessimistic individual persistence estimates from those subpopulations. therefore, if the intent of specifying that 2 subpopulations should be viable was to ensure the persistence of louisiana black bears somewhere within its historical range, then the viability threshold was met. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." -consequences of natal philopatry for reproductive success and mate choice in an alpine rodent,chionomys nivalis; genetic relatedness; kinship; natal dispersal; snow vole; spatial genetic structure,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY,GARCIA-NAVAS V;BONNET T;WALDVOGEL D;CAMENISCH G;POSTMA E,"quantifying the interaction between dispersal, kinship, and genetic structure can provide insights into the factors that shape kin-structured mammal societies. here, we first employ a combination of 8 years of capture-mark-recapture and molecular data to characterize the spatial and genetic relationships among female snow voles (chionomys nivalis) in a population located in the swiss alps. subsequently, we examine the individual-level consequences of kin structure in terms of fitness and mating patterns. behavioral data, relatedness estimates, and spatial autocorrelation analyses indicate that females show strong philopatry, with spatially clustered females being characterized by high levels of genetic relatedness, leading to significant small-scale (< 30 m) spatial genetic structure (sgs). in line with selection favoring female philopatry, dispersing females had a lower fitness compared with philopatric individuals. however, we found a negative association between female reproductive success and the number of neighboring females. this suggests that female kin clustering does not constitute an adaptive strategy in this species, but rather that site tenacity is a by-product of the costs of dispersal. although dispersal is frequently invoked as a means to avoid inbreeding, our results provide no evidence for premating inbreeding avoidance, which is in line with previous studies on mammals. instead, in the majority of years, we observed that pairs were more-closely related than expected by chance. however, we found that both males and females with related partners had reduced reproductive success, suggesting the existence of inbreeding depression and/or postmating inbreeding avoidance mechanisms. on the whole, our results show how quantification of sgs within populations can provide insights into individual dispersal behavior and its fitness consequences, and into the ways in which social and genetic structure interacts to shape the evolution of free-living populations." +demographic rates and population viability of black bears in louisiana,bayesian; capture-mark-recapture; demographics; hierarchical model; louisiana black bear; population viability analysis; threatened species; ursus americanus luteolus,WILDLIFE MONOGRAPHS,LAUFENBERG JS;CLARK JD;HOOKER MJ;LOWE CL;O CONNELL GOODE KC;TROXLER JC;DAVIDSON MM;CHAMBERLAIN MJ;CHANDLER RB,"the louisiana black bear (ursus americanus luteolus) was reduced to a few small, fragmented, and isolated subpopulations in the lower mississippi alluvial valley by the mid-twentieth century resulting from loss and fragmentation of habitat. in 1992, the united states fish and wildlife service (usfws) granted the louisiana black bear threatened status under the united states endangered species act of 1973. since that time, a recovery plan was developed, a reintroduced population was established, and habitat recovery has occurred. the recovery plan states that a minimum of 2 populations must be viable (i.e., persistence probabilities over 100 years >0.95), 1 in the tensas river basin and 1 in the atchafalaya river basin. consequently, our objectives were to 1) estimate demographic rates of louisiana black bear subpopulations, 2) develop data-driven stochastic population projection models, and 3) determine how different projection model assumptions affect population trajectories and predictions about long-term persistence. our overall goal was to assess long-term persistence of the bear subpopulations in louisiana, individually and as a whole. we collected data using varying combinations of non-invasive dna sampling, live capture, winter den visits, and radio monitoring from 2002 to 2012 in the 4 areas currently supporting breeding subpopulations in louisiana: tensas river basin (trb), upper atchafalaya river basin (uarb), lower atchafalaya river basin (larb), and a recently reintroduced population at the three rivers complex (trc). from 2002 to 2012, we radio monitored fates of 86 adult females within the trb and 43 in the trc. mean estimates of annual adult survival for the trb and trc were 0.997 and 0.990, respectively, when unknown fates were assumed alive and 0.970 and 0.926 when unknown fates were assumed dead. from 2003 to 2013, we observed 130 cub litters from 74 females in the trb, and 74 cub litters from 45 females in the trc. during the same period, we observed 43 yearling litters for 33 females in the trb and 21 yearling litters for 19 females in the trc. the estimated number of cubs and number of yearlings produced per breeding adult female was 0.47 and 0.20, respectively, in the trb and 0.32 and 0.18 in the trc. on the basis of matrix projection models, asymptotic growth rates ranged from 1.053 to 1.078 for the trb and from 1.005 to 1.062 for the trc, depending on how we treated unresolved fates of adult females. persistence probabilities estimated from stochastic population models based on telemetry data ranged from 0.997 to 0.998 for the trc subpopulation depending on model assumptions and were > 0.999 for the trb regardless of model assumptions. we extracted dna from hair collected at baited, barbed-wire enclosures in the trb, uarb, and larb to determine individual identities for capture-mark-recapture (cmr) analysis. we used those detection histories to estimate apparent survival (phi), per-capita recruitment (f), abundance (n), realized growth rate (lambda), and long-term viability, based on bayesian hierarchical modeling methods that allowed estimation of temporal process variance and parameter uncertainty. based on 23,312 hair samples, annual n for females in the trb ranged from 133 to 164 during 2006-2012, depending on year and how detection heterogeneity was modeled. geometric mean of lambda ranged from 0.996 to 1.002. in the uarb, we collected 11,643 hair samples from 2007 to 2012, from which estimates of n for females ranged from 23 to 43 during the study period, depending on detection heterogeneity model. the geometric mean of lambda ranged from 1.038 to 1.059. estimated n for females in larb ranged from 69 to 96, and annual lambda ranged from 0.80 to 1.11 based on 3,698 hair samples collected during 2010-2012, also depending on year and heterogeneity model. probabilities of persistence over 100 years for the trc and trb based on stochastic matrix projection models that used vital rate estimates from telemetry data were >0.95 for all scenarios. probability of persistence at the trb and the uarb based on projection models that used vital rate estimates from cmr analyses ranged from 0.928 to 0.954 and from 0.906 to 0.959, respectively, depending on model assumptions. data from the larb were insufficient for a viability assessment. thus, individual persistence probabilities for trb and uarb did not meet the strict definition of viability (i.e., >0.95) under some model assumptions. however, the joint probability of bears persisting either in the trb or uarb was >0.993 assuming individual population dynamics were independent and was >0.958 assuming dynamics were perfectly correlated. furthermore, including the trc increased the joint probability of bears persisting somewhere in the trb, uarb, or trc to > 0.999 based on the most pessimistic individual persistence estimates from those subpopulations. therefore, if the intent of specifying that 2 subpopulations should be viable was to ensure the persistence of louisiana black bears somewhere within its historical range, then the viability threshold was met. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." +consequences of natal philopatry for reproductive success and mate choice in an alpine rodent,chionomys nivalis; genetic relatedness; kinship; natal dispersal; snow vole; spatial genetic structure,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY,GARCIA NAVAS V;BONNET T;WALDVOGEL D;CAMENISCH G;POSTMA E,"quantifying the interaction between dispersal, kinship, and genetic structure can provide insights into the factors that shape kin-structured mammal societies. here, we first employ a combination of 8 years of capture-mark-recapture and molecular data to characterize the spatial and genetic relationships among female snow voles (chionomys nivalis) in a population located in the swiss alps. subsequently, we examine the individual-level consequences of kin structure in terms of fitness and mating patterns. behavioral data, relatedness estimates, and spatial autocorrelation analyses indicate that females show strong philopatry, with spatially clustered females being characterized by high levels of genetic relatedness, leading to significant small-scale (< 30 m) spatial genetic structure (sgs). in line with selection favoring female philopatry, dispersing females had a lower fitness compared with philopatric individuals. however, we found a negative association between female reproductive success and the number of neighboring females. this suggests that female kin clustering does not constitute an adaptive strategy in this species, but rather that site tenacity is a by-product of the costs of dispersal. although dispersal is frequently invoked as a means to avoid inbreeding, our results provide no evidence for premating inbreeding avoidance, which is in line with previous studies on mammals. instead, in the majority of years, we observed that pairs were more-closely related than expected by chance. however, we found that both males and females with related partners had reduced reproductive success, suggesting the existence of inbreeding depression and/or postmating inbreeding avoidance mechanisms. on the whole, our results show how quantification of sgs within populations can provide insights into individual dispersal behavior and its fitness consequences, and into the ways in which social and genetic structure interacts to shape the evolution of free-living populations." demography of an apex predator at the edge of its range: impacts of changing sea ice on polar bears in hudson bay,abundance; bayesian; climate change; hudson bay; canada; multistate capture recapture; polar bear (ursus maritimus); population growth rate; reproduction; sea ice; survival; ursus maritimus,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,LUNN NJ;SERVANTY S;REGEHR EV;CONVERSE SJ;RICHARDSON E;STIRLING I,"changes in the abundance and distribution of wildlife populations are common consequences of historic and contemporary climate change. some arctic marine mammals, such as the polar bear (ursus maritimus), may be particularly vulnerable to such changes due to the loss of arctic sea ice. we evaluated the impacts of environmental variation on demographic rates for the western hudson bay (wh), polar bear subpopulation from 1984 to 2011 using live-recapture and dead-recovery data in a bayesian implementation of multistate capture-recapture models. we found that survival of female polar bears was related to the annual timing of sea ice break-up and formation. using estimated vital rates (e.g., survival and reproduction) in matrix projection models, we calculated the growth rate of the wh subpopulation and projected population responses under different environmental scenarios while accounting for parametric uncertainty, temporal variation, and demographic stochasticity. our analysis suggested a long-term decline in the number of bears from 1185 (95% bayesian credible interval [bci] = 993-1411) in 1987 to 806 (95% bci = 653-984) in 2011. in the last 10 yr of the study, the number of bears appeared stable due to temporary stability in sea ice conditions (mean population growth rate for the period 2001-2010 = 1.02, 95% bci = 0.98-1.06). looking forward, we estimated long-term growth rates for the wh subpopulation of similar to 1.02 (95% bci = 1.00-1.05) and 0.97 (95% bci = 0.92-1.01) under hypothetical high and low sea ice conditions, respectively. our findings support previous evidence for a demographic linkage between sea ice conditions and polar bear population dynamics. furthermore, we present a robust framework for sensitivity analysis with respect to continued climate change (e.g., to inform scenario planning) and for evaluating the combined effects of climate change and management actions on the status of wildlife populations." -antagonistic natural and sexual selection on wing shape in a scrambling damselfly,lestes sponsa; mark-recapture; mating success; survival,EVOLUTION,OUTOMURO D;SODERQUIST L;NILSSON-ORTMAN V;CORTAZAR-CHINARRO M;LUNDGREN C;JOHANSSON F,"wings are a key trait underlying the evolutionary success of birds, bats, and insects. for over a century, researchers have studied the form and function of wings to understand the determinants of flight performance. however, to understand the evolution of flight, we must comprehend not only how morphology affects performance, but also how morphology and performance affect fitness. natural and sexual selection can either reinforce or oppose each other, but their role in flight evolution remains poorly understood. here, we show that wing shape is under antagonistic selection with regard to sexual and natural selection in a scrambling damselfly. in a field setting, natural selection (survival) favored individuals with long and slender forewings and short and broad hindwings. in contrast, sexual selection (mating success) favored individuals with short and broad forewings and narrow-based hindwings. both types of selection favored individuals of intermediate size. these results suggest that individuals face a trade-off between flight energetics and maneuverability and demonstrate how natural and sexual selection can operate in similar directions for some wing traits, that is, wing size, but antagonistically for others, that is, wing shape. furthermore, they highlight the need to study flight evolution within the context of species' mating systems and mating behaviors." +antagonistic natural and sexual selection on wing shape in a scrambling damselfly,lestes sponsa; mark-recapture; mating success; survival,EVOLUTION,OUTOMURO D;SODERQUIST L;NILSSON ORTMAN V;CORTAZAR CHINARRO M;LUNDGREN C;JOHANSSON F,"wings are a key trait underlying the evolutionary success of birds, bats, and insects. for over a century, researchers have studied the form and function of wings to understand the determinants of flight performance. however, to understand the evolution of flight, we must comprehend not only how morphology affects performance, but also how morphology and performance affect fitness. natural and sexual selection can either reinforce or oppose each other, but their role in flight evolution remains poorly understood. here, we show that wing shape is under antagonistic selection with regard to sexual and natural selection in a scrambling damselfly. in a field setting, natural selection (survival) favored individuals with long and slender forewings and short and broad hindwings. in contrast, sexual selection (mating success) favored individuals with short and broad forewings and narrow-based hindwings. both types of selection favored individuals of intermediate size. these results suggest that individuals face a trade-off between flight energetics and maneuverability and demonstrate how natural and sexual selection can operate in similar directions for some wing traits, that is, wing size, but antagonistically for others, that is, wing shape. furthermore, they highlight the need to study flight evolution within the context of species' mating systems and mating behaviors." management decision making for fisher populations informed by occupancy modeling,camera trap; decision making; fisher; harvest; martes; occupancy; pekania pennanti; trapping,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,FULLER AK;LINDEN DW;ROYLE JA,"harvest data are often used by wildlife managers when setting harvest regulations for species because the data are regularly collected and do not require implementation of logistically and financially challenging studies to obtain the data. however, when harvest data are not available because an area had not previously supported a harvest season, alternative approaches are required to help inform management decision making. when distribution or density data are required across large areas, occupancy modeling is a useful approach, and under certain conditions, can be used as a surrogate for density. we collaborated with the new york state department of environmental conservation (nysdec) to conduct a camera trapping study across a 70,096-km(2) region of southern new york in areas that were currently open to fisher (pekania [martes] pennanti) harvest and those that had been closed to harvest for approximately 65 years. we used detection-nondetection data at 826 sites to model occupancy as a function of site-level landscape characteristics while accounting for sampling variation. fisher occupancy was influenced positively by the proportion of conifer and mixed-wood forest within a 15-km(2) grid cell and negatively associated with road density and the proportion of agriculture. model-averaged predictions indicated high occupancy probabilities (>0.90) when road densities were low (<1 km/km(2)) and coniferous and mixed forest proportions were high (>0.50). predicted occupancy ranged 0.41-0.67 in wildlife management units (wmus) currently open to trapping, which could be used to guide a minimum occupancy threshold for opening new areas to trapping seasons. there were 5 wmus that had been closed to trapping but had an average predicted occupancy of 0.52 (0.07 se), and above the threshold of 0.41. these areas are currently under consideration by nysdec for opening a conservative harvest season. we demonstrate the use of occupancy modeling as an aid to management decision making when harvest-related data are unavailable and when budgetary constraints do not allow for capture-recapture studies to directly estimate density. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." monitoring coyote population dynamics with fecal dna and spatial capture-recapture,ad hoc robust design; apparent survival; canis latrans; coyote; density dependence; density estimation; non-invasive genetic sampling; population dynamics; recruitment; spatial capture-recapture,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,MORIN DJ;KELLY MJ;WAITS LP,"estimating coyote (canis latrans) density and other demographic parameters is difficult, particularly for populations that exist at low density. this is the situation for recently established coyote populations in the eastern united states where populations may be below carrying capacity and growth unregulated. we used non-invasive fecal dna collected from 5 scat sampling sessions over 2.5 years to estimate population parameters (i.e., density, apparent survival, recruitment, and population growth) for coyotes at 2 different sites in the ridge and valley region of the central appalachians in virginia, usa. we identified individuals using microsatellite genotypes and estimated apparent survival for the local population at both sites across the 5 sessions in a single cormack-jolly-seber model. we estimated density for each site and session separately using single session spatial replicates of 0.5-km transect segments as traps in a spatial capture-recapturemodel. finally, we derived estimates of recruitment and population growth using an ad hoc robust design approach. we were able to estimate population parameters, even though coyote densities at both sites were low. generally, derived recruitment and apparent survival were inversely related across sites, however, precision in estimates was poor. thus, although there appeared to be some differences in demographic estimates for local coyote populations, uncertainty in parameters was too great to detect changes in demographic rates over short periods of time using ad hoc robust design. however, the non-invasive genetic sampling and spatial capture-recapture approach provides a useful methodology and framework for future research intended to estimate population dynamics for coyotes. this method will also be useful for other species that occur at low densities, over large spatial scales, and lack distinguishing marks for camera-trap surveys. finally, we believe this method will allow for detection of population trends over greater periods of time, and we consider alternate sampling strategies and modeling approaches that may improve the ability to estimate demographic rates of change for coyote populations using noninvasive genetics and spatial capture-recapture. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." "blue tales of a blue-tailed lizard: ecological correlates of tail autotomy in micrablepharus atticolus (squamata, gymnophthalmidae) in a neotropical savannah",tail autotomy; predation; defense; energetics; ontogeny; mortality; cerrado; neotropics,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,SOUSA HC;COSTA BM;MORAIS CJS;PANTOJA DL;DE QUEIROZ TA;VIEIRA CR;COLLI GR,"tail autotomy and regeneration are perhaps the most dramatic adaptations to enhance survival among lizards. in spite of much work on the subject, the ecological significance of tail autotomy rates in natural populations remains elusive, due to difficulties in controlling several confounding factors and the paucity of accurate demographic data. on the basis of a capture-recapture study, we investigate the ecological determinants of tail autotomy rates in micrablepharus atticolus, a blue-tailed lizard from the south american cerrado. we tested whether habitat (as a proxy of predation intensity), seasonality (as a proxy of intensity of social interactions), ontogeny and sex affected autotomy rates, and also whether autotomy rates affected body condition. we found that tail autotomy rates in m. atticolus are lower than in many other species with brightly colored tails, likely resulting from a small body size and fossorial habits. autotomy rates were lower than expected by chance in the plot with lower mortality rates, suggesting a more prominent role of predation intensity instead of predator efficiency, and increased with age, suggesting cumulative effects of predation attempts along the ontogeny or age-specific differences in predation intensity. we also found no intersexual differences or any effect of breeding activity on autotomy rates. our results indicate that energetic costs of tail autotomy are low, or that animals compensate tail loss with increased foraging rates. these characteristics of m. atticolus seem tightly associated with its small body size, fossorial lifestyle and very short life span, and suggest that the costs of tail regeneration should be low." the influence of environmental parameters on the performance and detection range of acoustic receivers,aatams - imos; acoustic telemetry; detection probability; detection range; sentinel tags,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HUVENEERS C;SIMPFENDORFER CA;KIM S;SEMMENS JM;HOBDAY AJ;PEDERSON H;STIEGLITZ T;VALLEE R;WEBBER D;HEUPEL MR;PEDDEMORS V;HARCOURT RG,"acoustic telemetry is being increasingly used to study the ecology of many aquatic organisms. this widespread use has been advanced by national and international tracking programs that coordinate deployment of passive acoustic telemetry networks on a regional and continental scale to detect tagged animals. while it is well-known that environmental conditions can affect the performance of acoustic receivers, these effects are rarely quantified despite the profound implications for tag detection and hence the ecological inferences. here, we deployed eight receivers at different depths within the water column and at different orientations (hydrophone up or down) and 12 tags 200-800m from the receivers for 234days to investigate how the tag detection range of acoustic receivers varied through time and under different meteorologic and oceanographic conditions. the study showed that receiver depth and orientation, and time since deployment had the largest effect on the detection range. thermocline gradient and depth, and wind speed were the environmental factors most affecting detection range, while wind direction, precipitation and atmospheric pressure had negligible or no effect. comparison of results to a proposed general acoustic theory model and previous studies showed that findings from specific habitat types cannot be generalised and applied across other habitats or environments. a good understanding of the acoustic coverage and temporal variations in relation to environmental conditions are crucial to accurate interpretation of results, and ensuing management recommendations. we recommend that each study include stationary reference tags to measure changes in detection probability with time, help refine detection range, and be used to improve confidence in the reporting and interpretation of the data." an integrated mark-recapture and genetic approach to estimate the population size of white sharks in south africa,carcharodon carcharias; effective population size; microsatellites; photographic identification; population abundance; shark conservation,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,ANDREOTTI S;RUTZEN M;VAN DER WALT S;VON DER HEYDEN S;HENRIQUES R;MEYER M;OOSTHUIZEN H;MATTHEE CA,"the loss of apex marine predators has been reported to have a cascade of detrimental effects on marine ecosystems; however, the general lack of empirical data can severely limit our understanding of the ecological interactions among marine species. in this study we propose an integrated approach using mark-recapture and genetic techniques to assess population estimates of white sharks carcharodon carcharias. between 2009 and 2011, 4389 dorsal fin photographic identifications were collected in gansbaai, south africa, from 426 white sharks and used in mark-recapture analyses. saturation of new sightings occurred once 400 individuals were catalogued and the open population model popan suggested ranges between 353 and 522 individuals (95% confidence) and a point estimate of n = 438. between 2010 and 2013, 302 biopsy samples were collected from 233 white sharks and used for a comparative genetic population estimate. analyses of 14 microsatellite markers revealed a contemporary effective population size (cne) of 333 individuals (95% ci = 247-487, p(crit) = 0.02). these values were at least 52% less than those estimated in previous mark-recapture studies. using this combination of techniques, we propose a n-e:n ratio of 0.76 for white sharks, which advances our ability to accurately make inferences on elasmobranch population numbers in general. given the low population numbers of white sharks along the south african coastline, we predict a negative effect on the ecological stability of the marine environment in this region." -forecasting ocean warming impacts on seabird demography: a case study on the european storm petrel,capture-mark-recapture; environmental stochasticity; hydrobates pelagicus; population growth rate; senescence,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,SOLDATINI C;ALBORES-BARAJAS YV;MASSA B;GIMENEZ O,"bottom-up climatic forcing has been shown to be influential for a variety of marine taxa, but evidence on seabird populations is scarce. seasonal variation in environmental conditions can have an indirect effect on subsequent reproduction, which, given the longevity and single-brooding of seabirds, may affect population dynamics. our study focuses on linking the effect of oceanographic conditions (from 1991 to 2013) to the fecundity and consequently population growth rate of the mediterranean subspecies of the european storm petrel hydrobates pelagicus melitensis. in this study, we examined 23 yr of >5400 capture-mark-recaptures (cmr) and modelled the probability of skipping reproduction as a function of oceanographic variables using cmr models. we demonstrate that a decrease in sea surface temperature in the pre-breeding period negatively influences skipping propensity, and therefore hypothesize that this behaviour would have significant influence on population abundance over time. for this reason, we analysed population growth as a function of skipping probability as affected by oceanographic conditions. we used stochastic demographic models to forecast the fate of the population, and evaluated contrasted environmental condition scenarios. as a result, we found that a decrease in frequency of cold winter events would probably reduce skipping propensity, with a positive effect on the population as a whole." +forecasting ocean warming impacts on seabird demography: a case study on the european storm petrel,capture-mark-recapture; environmental stochasticity; hydrobates pelagicus; population growth rate; senescence,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,SOLDATINI C;ALBORES BARAJAS YV;MASSA B;GIMENEZ O,"bottom-up climatic forcing has been shown to be influential for a variety of marine taxa, but evidence on seabird populations is scarce. seasonal variation in environmental conditions can have an indirect effect on subsequent reproduction, which, given the longevity and single-brooding of seabirds, may affect population dynamics. our study focuses on linking the effect of oceanographic conditions (from 1991 to 2013) to the fecundity and consequently population growth rate of the mediterranean subspecies of the european storm petrel hydrobates pelagicus melitensis. in this study, we examined 23 yr of >5400 capture-mark-recaptures (cmr) and modelled the probability of skipping reproduction as a function of oceanographic variables using cmr models. we demonstrate that a decrease in sea surface temperature in the pre-breeding period negatively influences skipping propensity, and therefore hypothesize that this behaviour would have significant influence on population abundance over time. for this reason, we analysed population growth as a function of skipping probability as affected by oceanographic conditions. we used stochastic demographic models to forecast the fate of the population, and evaluated contrasted environmental condition scenarios. as a result, we found that a decrease in frequency of cold winter events would probably reduce skipping propensity, with a positive effect on the population as a whole." hierarchical models for describing space-for-time variations in insect population size and sex-ratio along a primary succession,animal abundance; carabids; cold-adapted species; detection probability; removal sampling; sex-ratio,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,TENAN S;MAFFIOLETTI C;CACCIANIGA M;COMPOSTELLA C;SEPPI R;GOBBI M,"chronosequences of glacier retreat are useful for investigating primary successions over time periods that are longer than direct observation would permit. in this context, space-for-time substitution studies have been applied to assess the effects of climate change on invertebrate assemblages. however, population dynamics of insect species following retreating glaciers has been under-investigated until now due to difficulty in applying capture-recapture methods and correctly identifying species in the field. removal sampling methods are commonly used, but imperfect detectability is rarely accounted for in the analytical framework. in this paper we study the effects of environmental drivers of spatial, and indirectly temporal, variation in population size and sex-ratio of cold-adapted insects through a hierarchical framework for abundance. we show the importance of a metapopulation design, where samples are replicated in space and time, to model data from small and scattered populations, typically present in habitats with climate mediated selective pressure like those along glacier forelands. this scattered distribution can influence the observation or sampling process and thus species detectability. our results show that glacier retreat differently affects species-specific changes of population size and sex ratio along the chronosequence, even if the species are taxonomically related. small-sized populations occur on the glacier surface, near the glacier front, and in sites deglaciated for at least 100 yrs. on the contrary, larger populations occupy sites deglaciated for more than 20 yrs, but less than 100 yrs. this pattern is described by the concave relationship of abundance with both species richness of other arthropods (proxy of habitat complexity) and soil organic matter (proxy of soil maturity). sex-ratio showed opposite patterns in relation to time since deglaciation. hierarchical models that estimate abundance of spatially distinct subpopulations represent useful tools for accurately assessing changes in species abundance following climate change while accounting for possible bias associated with imperfect detectability, an issue which is often neglected in space-for-time substitution studies on invertebrates and, more generally, in studies involving pitfall trapping. (c) 2016 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." movement and growth of the coral reef holothuroids bohadschia argus and thelenota ananas,sea cucumber; displacement; behaviour; echinoderm; photographic identification; mark-recapture; marine invertebrate,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,PURCELL SW;PIDDOCKE TP;DALTON SJ;WANG YG,"tropical sea cucumbers are among the largest mobile invertebrates on coral reefs and are widely regarded as sedentary. mark-recapture methods provide empirical estimates of movement and growth but have often been unsuccessful with sea cucumbers. we applied a new photographic mark-recapture technique to measure rates of short-term displacement (over a few days), long-term displacement (over 2 yr) and growth of bohadschia argus and thelenota ananas on the great barrier reef, australia. recapture rates were 50-100% in the short-term study and 50-77% in the long-term study. in the short-term studies in 2010 and 2012, average movement rates ranged 2-8 m d(-1) for b. argus and 5-9 m d(-1) for t. ananas. long-term movement averaged 15-47 m over 2 yr, with some individuals displacing less than 5 m and several others moving more than 100 m. our study shows that some tropical sea cucumbers can be highly mobile, and many appear to display home ranging. growth rates were positive yet modest for smaller individuals, but many of the large individuals lost weight over the 2 yr study. classical growth models indicated that b. argus attain an average maximum size in 15-20 yr, and the empirical data on growth show that they can lose or gain weight thereafter. hence, longevity appears to be at least several decades. the 2 species are slow growing, and the negative growth in large individuals undermines previous estimates of growth and longevity based on size-frequency data." "precision, accuracy, and costs of survey methods for giraffe giraffa camelopardalis",aerial survey bias; capture-mark-recapture; correction factor; distance sampling; giraffe; giraffa camelopardalis; methods; population estimation; population monitoring,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LEE DE;BOND ML,"giraffes giraffa camelopardalis are megafaunal browsers and keystone species in african savanna ecosystems. range-wide population declines are suspected, but robust data are lacking. tanzania holds the largest population of giraffe of any range state, and aerial surveys constitute most of tanzania's giraffe population monitoring data, but their accuracy has not yet been assessed. an iucn status assessment for giraffe is currently underway, and calibrating aerial surveys with ground-based surveys can quantify accuracy of the aerial surveys to ensure more reliable estimates of populations nationwide. we estimated giraffe density and abundance in the tarangire ecosystem in northern tanzania using 2 ground survey methods, distance sampling and capture-mark-recapture, and compared our ground-based estimates with those from the most recent aerial survey in 4 sites. we found aerial survey estimates were biased low, while ground-based surveys were more precise and cost less. we computed correction factors to improve the accuracy of aerial surveys and suggested ways to further improve aerial survey methods." @@ -1498,8 +1500,8 @@ decades of field data reveal that turtles senesce in the wild,aging; lifespan; p "population size, growth and movements of anguilla australis in a small lake",foraging area; freshwater eels; mark-recapture; new zealand; pit tags; population estimates,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,JELLYMAN DJ;CROW SK,"to study growth rates, movements and estimate population size of shortfin eels anguilla australis in a small lake (2.5 ha) near christchurch, new zealand, 617 a. australis were tagged with pit tags. tag retention was high (95%) and over the seven recapture events spread over 2 years, 55% of tagged a. australis were recaptured. growth of recaptured a. australis averaged 13.1 mm year(-1) and declined slightly with increasing total length. distance moved from original capture site increased with increasing time at large. population estimates of a. australis >400 mm (susceptible to capture by fyke net) from recaptures of individuals averaged 1451 a. australis, with a biomass of 170 kg ha(-1). an average of 6.6% of the estimated total population matured as male silver a. australis each year. results from radio-tracking of four a. australis gave an average nightly foraging area of 2780 m(2), and there was no apparent preference for inshore movement (within 5-6m of the shoreline) or offshore movement. fyke-net efficiency (total catch relative to the estimated total population available to each net) measured over four consecutive nights fishing was 88%. the lack of precision of the shoreline triangulation system used, +/-10 m, meant that the positional data were considered too coarse to be used in a proposed novel population estimation technique based on determining population size within foraging areas. (c) 2016 the fisheries society of the british isles" dynamics of a low-density tiger population in southeast asia in the context of improved law enforcement,abundance estimation; camera traps; carnivores; overhunting; patrolling; population dynamics; spatial capture-recapture models,CONSERVATION BIOLOGY,DUANGCHANTRASIRI S;UMPONJAN M;SIMCHAROEN S;PATTANAVIBOOL A;CHAIWATTANA S;MANEERAT S;KUMAR NS;JATHANNA D;SRIVATHSA A;KARANTH KU,"recovering small populations of threatened species is an important global conservation strategy. monitoring the anticipated recovery, however, often relies on uncertain abundance indices rather than on rigorous demographic estimates. to counter the severe threat from poaching of wild tigers (panthera tigris), the government of thailand established an intensive patrolling system in 2005 to protect and recover its largest source population in huai kha khaeng wildlife sanctuary. concurrently, we assessed the dynamics of this tiger population over the next 8 years with rigorous photographic capture-recapture methods. from 2006 to 2012, we sampled across 624-1026 km(2) with 137-200 camera traps. cameras deployed for 21,359 trap days yielded photographic records of 90 distinct individuals. we used closed model bayesian spatial capture-recapture methods to estimate tiger abundances annually. abundance estimates were integrated with likelihood-based open model analyses to estimate rates of annual and overall rates of survival, recruitment, and changes in abundance. estimates of demographic parameters fluctuated widely: annual density ranged from 1.25 to 2.01 tigers/100 km(2), abundance from 35 to 58 tigers, survival from 79.6% to 95.5%, and annual recruitment from 0 to 25 tigers. the number of distinct individuals photographed demonstrates the value of photographic capture-recapture methods for assessments of population dynamics in rare and elusive species that are identifiable from natural markings. possibly because of poaching pressure, overall tiger densities at huai kha khaeng were 82-90% lower than in ecologically comparable sites in india. however, intensified patrolling after 2006 appeared to reduce poaching and was correlated with marginal improvement in tiger survival and recruitment. our results suggest that population recovery of low-density tiger populations may be slower than anticipated by current global strategies aimed at doubling the number of wild tigers in a decade." no short term effect of clinostomum complanatum (trematoda: digenea: clinostomatidae) on survival of triturus carnifex (amphibia: urodela: salamandridae),short term survival; triturus carnifex; clinostomum complanatum; host-pathogen interaction; capture-mark-recapture,ACTA HERPETOLOGICA,BRUNI G;ANGELINI C,"in this paper we evaluated the effects of the metacercariae of c. complanatum on body condition and survival probability of the italian crested newt. we studied two populations of t. carnifex, with one of the two infected by the trematode, in central italy, for a year. we found that: i) paedomorphic newts were more likely to be infected; ii) cysts were mostly located on the head and into the mouth; iii) the infection did not affect the body size of newts; iv) survival probabilities of infected and not infected newts from the same population did not differ, and it was similar to the survival of newts from the not-infected population. we conclude that, at least in the short term, the metacercariae of c. complanatum are not damaging for t. carnifex." -reproductive traits and number of matings in males and females of cerambyx welensii (coleoptera: cerambycidae) an emergent pest of oaks,oak decline; body size; reproductive output; longevity; daily fecundity; egg size; oviposition period; mating number; polyandry; polygyny,BULLETIN OF ENTOMOLOGICAL RESEARCH,TORRES-VILA LM;MENDIOLA-DIAZ FJ;CONEJO-RODRIGUEZ Y;SANCHEZ-GONZALEZ A,"the longhorn beetle cerambyx welensii is an emerging pest involved in oak decline episodes, whose damage is increasingly reported in dehesa open woodlands. knowledge of the reproductive biology of c. welensii is a crucial goal due to its new pest status. in this study, we assess the reproductive traits of both sexes in the laboratory (25 degrees c and 60% relative humidity). in females, body length was 44.9 +/- 0.9 mm(mean +/- se), fecundity 132 +/- 12 eggs, fertility 70 +/- 1 %, longevity 70 +/- 3 days, preoviposition period 2 +/- 0.2 days, oviposition period 44 +/- 3 days and postoviposition period 19 +/- 3 days. fecundity was positively correlated with female size, longevity and oviposition period. daily fecundity was 3.0 +/- 0.2 eggs/day and showed a fluctuating synovigenic pattern with a slight decreasing trend over time. egg length was 4.24 +/- 0.01 mmand egg volume 8.14 +/- 0.04 mm(3). egg size was correlated with female size but the relative size of eggs was larger in smaller females. incubation time was 13.9 +/- 0.1 days and hatching did not depend on egg size. neonate size was positively correlated with egg length. females were polyandrous (more than 20 lifetime matings) but multiple mating did not increase fecundity, fertility or longevity. in males, body length was 43.7 +/- 0.6 mm and longevity 52 +/- 3 days. unlike with females, longevity was positively correlated with male size. males were polygynous (up to 30 lifetime matings) but mating history did not affect male longevity. rather to the contrary, long-lived males mated more times because they had more mating chances. lastly, c. welensii reproductive traits were compared with those other cerambycidae species and discussed from an adaptive perspective. our data will be useful to improve management of c. welensii in order to prevent or mitigate its impact in dehesa woodlands and other oak forests." -"developing indices of relative abundance for monitoring cave and ground wet (orthoptera) in southern beech forest, new zealand",rhaphidophoridae; anostostomatidae; indicators; invertebrates; invasive species; nocturnal; tracking tunnels,NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,CARPENTER JK;MONKS JM;O'DONNELL CFJ,"we sampled populations of forest-floor dwelling cave and ground wet using footprint tracking tunnels and spotlight transect counts in southern beech forest, new zealand. samples were compared to estimates of wet density based on mark-recapture estimates from 25m(2) enclosures. both activity indices captured variability in cave wet in time and space, were strongly correlated with each other, and have the potential for monitoring cave wet activity levels. comparisons between indices and cave wet density estimates were equivocal, as recapture rates were too low to calculate high-resolution density estimates. we also found that cave wet counts had a curved relationship increasing with temperature, and a negative relationship with increasing shrub and woody debris cover. based on these preliminary results, tracking tunnels could be a viable method of monitoring cave wet as they appear more efficient than transect counts and are relatively inexpensive. however, further calibration trials are needed to determine if indices mirror robust population density estimates." +reproductive traits and number of matings in males and females of cerambyx welensii (coleoptera: cerambycidae) an emergent pest of oaks,oak decline; body size; reproductive output; longevity; daily fecundity; egg size; oviposition period; mating number; polyandry; polygyny,BULLETIN OF ENTOMOLOGICAL RESEARCH,TORRES VILA LM;MENDIOLA DIAZ FJ;CONEJO RODRIGUEZ Y;SANCHEZ GONZALEZ A,"the longhorn beetle cerambyx welensii is an emerging pest involved in oak decline episodes, whose damage is increasingly reported in dehesa open woodlands. knowledge of the reproductive biology of c. welensii is a crucial goal due to its new pest status. in this study, we assess the reproductive traits of both sexes in the laboratory (25 degrees c and 60% relative humidity). in females, body length was 44.9 +/- 0.9 mm(mean +/- se), fecundity 132 +/- 12 eggs, fertility 70 +/- 1 %, longevity 70 +/- 3 days, preoviposition period 2 +/- 0.2 days, oviposition period 44 +/- 3 days and postoviposition period 19 +/- 3 days. fecundity was positively correlated with female size, longevity and oviposition period. daily fecundity was 3.0 +/- 0.2 eggs/day and showed a fluctuating synovigenic pattern with a slight decreasing trend over time. egg length was 4.24 +/- 0.01 mmand egg volume 8.14 +/- 0.04 mm(3). egg size was correlated with female size but the relative size of eggs was larger in smaller females. incubation time was 13.9 +/- 0.1 days and hatching did not depend on egg size. neonate size was positively correlated with egg length. females were polyandrous (more than 20 lifetime matings) but multiple mating did not increase fecundity, fertility or longevity. in males, body length was 43.7 +/- 0.6 mm and longevity 52 +/- 3 days. unlike with females, longevity was positively correlated with male size. males were polygynous (up to 30 lifetime matings) but mating history did not affect male longevity. rather to the contrary, long-lived males mated more times because they had more mating chances. lastly, c. welensii reproductive traits were compared with those other cerambycidae species and discussed from an adaptive perspective. our data will be useful to improve management of c. welensii in order to prevent or mitigate its impact in dehesa woodlands and other oak forests." +"developing indices of relative abundance for monitoring cave and ground wet (orthoptera) in southern beech forest, new zealand",rhaphidophoridae; anostostomatidae; indicators; invertebrates; invasive species; nocturnal; tracking tunnels,NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,CARPENTER JK;MONKS JM;O DONNELL CFJ,"we sampled populations of forest-floor dwelling cave and ground wet using footprint tracking tunnels and spotlight transect counts in southern beech forest, new zealand. samples were compared to estimates of wet density based on mark-recapture estimates from 25m(2) enclosures. both activity indices captured variability in cave wet in time and space, were strongly correlated with each other, and have the potential for monitoring cave wet activity levels. comparisons between indices and cave wet density estimates were equivocal, as recapture rates were too low to calculate high-resolution density estimates. we also found that cave wet counts had a curved relationship increasing with temperature, and a negative relationship with increasing shrub and woody debris cover. based on these preliminary results, tracking tunnels could be a viable method of monitoring cave wet as they appear more efficient than transect counts and are relatively inexpensive. however, further calibration trials are needed to determine if indices mirror robust population density estimates." "population densities of two rare crayfishes, cambarus obeyensis and cambarus pristinus, on the cumberland plateau in tennessee",NA,SOUTHEASTERN NATURALIST,JOHANSEN JW;MATTINGLY HT;PADGETT MD,"cambarus obeyensis (obey crayfish) and cambarus pristinus (pristine crayfish) are species of conservation concern, but basic information needed by conservation managers is lacking. to provide a quantitative measure of abundance, we conducted a mark-recapture study at six 100-m reaches per species during may-august 2013. these sites were a subset that we selected from eighty-nine 100-m reaches surveyed during 2011-2013. we built regression models to predict crayfish abundance based on single-pass capture rates for the 12 mark-recapture sites and for all occupied sites identified during the 2011-2013 surveys. we also calculated site-level density and capture efficiency for each species. cambarus pristinus occurred at significantly lower densities across a larger range than c. obeyensis. capture efficiency for both species varied across sites, suggesting that monitoring programs should incorporate regular, quantitative estimates of density and capture efficiency. our results indicate that both species merit ongoing conservation attention and that c. pristinus may represent a higher conservation priority than previously recognized." age-specific survival of reintroduced swift fox in badlands national park and surrounding lands,apparent survival; capture-recapture; cormack-jolly-seber; program mark; swift fox; vulpes velox,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,SASMAL I;KLAVER RW;JENKS JA;SCHROEDER GM,"in 2003, a reintroduction program was initiated at badlands national park (bnp), south dakota, usa, with swift foxes (vulpes velox) translocated from colorado and wyoming, usa, as part of a restoration effort to recover declining swift fox populations throughout its historical range. estimates of age-specific survival are necessary to evaluate the potential for population growth of reintroduced populations. we used 7 years (2003-2009) of capture-recapture data of 243 pups, 29 yearlings, and 69 adult swift foxes at bnp and the surrounding area to construct cormack-jolly-seber model estimates of apparent survival within a capture-mark-recapture framework using program mark. the best model for estimating recapture probabilities included no differences among age classes, greater recapture probabilities during early years of the monitoring effort than later years, and variation among spring, winter, and summer. our top ranked survival model indicated pup survival differed from that of yearlings and adults and varied by month and year. the apparent annual survival probability of pups (0.47, se = 0.10) in our study area was greater than the apparent annual survival probability of yearlings and adults (0.27, se = 0.08). our results indicate low survival probabilities for a reintroduced population of swift foxes in the bnp and surrounding areas. management of reintroduced populations and future reintroductions of swift foxes should consider the effects of relative low annual survival on population demography. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." estimating key largo woodrat abundance using spatially explicit capture-recapture and trapping point transects,abundance; distance sampling; key largo woodrat; neotoma floridana smalli; small mammals; spatially explicit capture-recapture; trapping point transects,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,POTTS JM;BUCKLAND ST;THOMAS L;SAVAGE A,"the key largo woodrat (neotoma floridana smalli) is an endangered rodent with a restricted geographic range and small population size. establishing an efficient monitoring program of its abundance has been problematic; previous trapping designs have not worked well because the species is sparsely distributed. we compared key largo woodrat abundance estimates in key largo, florida, usa, obtained using trapping point transects (tpt) and spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) based on statistical properties, survey effort, practicality, and cost. both methods combine aspects of distance sampling with capture-recapture, but tpt relies on radiotracking individuals to estimate detectability and secr relies on repeat capture information to estimate densities of home ranges. abundance estimates using tpt in the spring of 2007 and 2008 were 333 woodrats (cv = 0.46) and 696 (cv = 0.43), respectively. abundance estimates using secr in the spring, summer, and winter of 2007 were 97 (cv = 0.31), 334 (cv = 0.26), and 433 (cv = 0.20) animals, respectively. trapping point transects used approximately 960 person-hours and 1,010 trap-nights/season. spatially explicit capture-recapture used approximately 500 person-hours and 6,468 trap-nights/season. significant time was saved in the secr survey by setting large numbers of traps close together, minimizing time walking between traps. trapping point transects were practical to implement in the field, and valuable auxiliary information on key largo woodrat behavior was obtained via radiocollaring. in this particular study, detectability of the woodrat using tpt was very low and consequently the secr method was more efficient. both methods require a substantial investment in survey effort to detect any change in abundance because of large uncertainty in estimates. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." @@ -1515,9 +1517,9 @@ demographic shifts related to mycoheterotrophy and their fitness impacts in two factors determining survival of european eels in two unexploited sub-populations,european eel; life-history characteristics; sex ratio; survival,FRESHWATER BIOLOGY,BOULENGER C;ACOU A;GIMENEZ O;CHARRIER F;TREMBLAY J;FEUNTEUN E,"estimating accurate age-specific survival probabilities and understanding the processes (density dependent or independent) that regulate this demographic parameter are fundamental to propose sustainable management options for the endangered european eel (anguilla anguilla). in the present study, we used extensive mark-recapture data sets (13 and 17years) on eel >150mm to estimate accurate natural survival probabilities of two eel sub-populations, from the oir and fremur rivers, western france, and then we analysed survival probabilities in relation to density-independent (temperature) and density-dependent factors to identify those causing survival variability. the fremur and oir rivers are two small (<100km(2)) river systems in close proximity (65km apart). the fremur river is a small river obstructed by dams with medium water quality, high eel recruitment and density (0.37eelm(-2)), and a male dominant population; whereas, in the oir river, low densities of eels were observed (0.04eelm(-2)) and the sex ratio was skewed towards females. furthermore, previous research suggested that the lotic habitats of the fremur river have reached carrying capacity, whereas habitats in the oir river are below habitat saturation. in the fremur river, there were significant spatial and temporal variations in the survival probabilities. however, survival probabilities observed in the oir river were stable over time and space. the results highlight that the differences in the characteristics of the two systems and the two sub-populations prompt different responses to regulatory processes. the contrasting pressures applied on these two sub-populations impact survival, which possibly lead to different life history strategies such as sex differentiation." age- and sex-specific variations in microhabitat and macrohabitat use in a territorial lizard,anolis sagrei; habitat use; intraspecific variation; demographic variation; habitat partitioning; behavior,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY,DELANEY DM;WARNER DA,"animals should select microhabitats with features that enhance fitness. however, the fitness benefits of different habitats may vary across ages and between sexes. by quantifying microhabitat choice in relation to age or sex, as well as the specific fitness consequences of habitat selection, we can better understand the factors that shape the way organisms distribute themselves across landscapes. studies of anolis lizards have provided critical insights into population and community structure, but most studies have focused on interspecific variation in habitat use, rather than intraspecific patterns. we quantified habitat use of anolis sagrei at two scales (microhabitat and macrohabitat) for males and females of two distinct age classes (juvenile vs adult). we show that age, sex, size, and macrohabitat have significant effects on how a. sagrei utilize available microhabitat and that age, sex, size, and season influence macrohabitat use. in addition, large individuals of both age classes had increased survival during the breeding season. however, body size did not influence overwinter survival, but lizards that used relatively low perches had increased overwinter survival. overall, this study demonstrates that the complex variation in habitat use by a. sagrei is explained by interactions among age, sex, size, season, and habitat scale. habitat choice behaviors can have important effects on fitness, yet optimal habitat may vary across ages and between sexes. in this paper, we quantified microhabitat and macrohabitat use of the brown anole lizard (anolis sagrei) and subsequently estimated selection on these behaviors via mark recapture. we show that the complex variation in habitat use by a. sagrei is explained by interactions among age, sex, size, season, and habitat scale. in addition, body size influenced survival of both age classes during the breeding season but not over winter. however, lizards that used relatively low perches had increased overwinter survival. these findings provide new insights into the factors that shape the way these organisms distribute themselves across landscapes and provide a rare assessment of selection on behavioral traits." photo-identification in amphibian studies: a test of (is)-s-3 pattern,triturus carnifex; computer vision; capture-mark-recapture; photo-identification; surf algorithm; non-parametric manova,ACTA HERPETOLOGICA,SANNOLO M;GATTI F;MANGIACOTTI M;SCALI S;SACCHI R,"photo-identification is used for individual recognition of several animal species. it gives the possibility to take photos of large species from a distance or to avoid invasive marking techniques in small animals. for amphibians, the use of non-invasive marking methods is even more relevant in the light of their global decline. here we use the photo-identification data from a population of triturus carnifex to validate the photo-identification software (is)-s-3 pattern. this recently developed utility has never been applied to amphibians. the software proved to be efficient and accurate for individual recognition for this species. contrarily to the previous releases of the (is)-s-3 family, (is)-s-3 pattern is particularly suitable for amphibians characterized by a complex individual pattern of large blotches or irregular spots, which are not readily identified by eye." -proximity to wind-power plants reduces the breeding success of the white-tailed eagle,wind-power plants; white-tailed eagle; breeding success; post-fledging survival; collision mortality; disturbance; renewable energy; turbines,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,BALOTARI-CHIEBAO F;BROMMER JE;NIINIMAKI T;LAAKSONEN T,"as a clean and renewable energy source, wind power is expected to play a major role in climate change mitigation. despite its benefits, the construction of large-scale wind farms in many parts of the world is a cause of concern for wildlife, including the often vulnerable raptor populations. here, we examined the influence of distance to wind-power plants on the white-tailed eagle haliaeetus albicilla in terms of (1) breeding success; (2) post-fledging survival; and (3) territory occupancy and turbine avoidance (via nest site changes). our results show that the probability of a pair breeding successfully is lower when the territory is located closer to turbines, potentially because of collision mortality (to which adults are particularly vulnerable). a capture-mark-recapture analysis showed no evidence for the effect of distance on post-fledging survival, suggesting that collision risk may not have been greater for juveniles that fledged closer to a power plant. the levels of disturbance experienced by birds in the study areas were not great enough to prevent breeding at closer distances to the turbines. our findings on breeding success underline the importance of building appropriately sited wind farms as a way to reduce or avoid undesirable effects on avian populations." +proximity to wind-power plants reduces the breeding success of the white-tailed eagle,wind-power plants; white-tailed eagle; breeding success; post-fledging survival; collision mortality; disturbance; renewable energy; turbines,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,BALOTARI CHIEBAO F;BROMMER JE;NIINIMAKI T;LAAKSONEN T,"as a clean and renewable energy source, wind power is expected to play a major role in climate change mitigation. despite its benefits, the construction of large-scale wind farms in many parts of the world is a cause of concern for wildlife, including the often vulnerable raptor populations. here, we examined the influence of distance to wind-power plants on the white-tailed eagle haliaeetus albicilla in terms of (1) breeding success; (2) post-fledging survival; and (3) territory occupancy and turbine avoidance (via nest site changes). our results show that the probability of a pair breeding successfully is lower when the territory is located closer to turbines, potentially because of collision mortality (to which adults are particularly vulnerable). a capture-mark-recapture analysis showed no evidence for the effect of distance on post-fledging survival, suggesting that collision risk may not have been greater for juveniles that fledged closer to a power plant. the levels of disturbance experienced by birds in the study areas were not great enough to prevent breeding at closer distances to the turbines. our findings on breeding success underline the importance of building appropriately sited wind farms as a way to reduce or avoid undesirable effects on avian populations." estimating population density and connectivity of american mink using spatial capture-recapture,abundance; american mink; animal movement; connectivity; density; non-invasive genetics; scat detection dog; spatial capture-recapture,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,FULLER AK;SUTHERLAND CS;ROYLE JA;HARE MP,"estimating the abundance or density of populations is fundamental to the conservation and management of species, and as landscapes become more fragmented, maintaining landscape connectivity has become one of the most important challenges for biodiversity conservation. yet these two issues have never been formally integrated together in a model that simultaneously models abundance while accounting for connectivity of a landscape. we demonstrate an application of using capture-recapture to develop a model of animal density using a least-cost path model for individual encounter probability that accounts for non-euclidean connectivity in a highly structured network. we utilized scat detection dogs (canis lupus familiaris) as a means of collecting non-invasive genetic samples of american mink (neovison vison) individuals and used spatial capture-recapture models (scr) to gain inferences about mink population density and connectivity. density of mink was not constant across the landscape, but rather increased with increasing distance from city, town, or village centers, and mink activity was associated with water. the scr model allowed us to estimate the density and spatial distribution of individuals across a 388 km(2) area. the model was used to investigate patterns of space usage and to evaluate covariate effects on encounter probabilities, including differences between sexes. this study provides an application of capture-recapture models based on ecological distance, allowing us to directly estimate landscape connectivity. this approach should be widely applicable to provide simultaneous direct estimates of density, space usage, and landscape connectivity for many species." -purse-seine vessels as platforms for monitoring the population status of dolphin species in the eastern tropical pacific ocean,dolphin abundance; line-transect; cpue; bycatch; generalized additive model,FISHERIES RESEARCH,LENNERT-CODY CE;MAUNDER MN;FIEDLER PC;MINAMI M;GERRODETTE T;RUSIN J;MINTE-VERA CV;SCOTT M;BUCKLAND ST,"in the eastern tropical pacific ocean, yellowfin tuna (thunnus albacares) are often found in association with spotted (stenella attenuata) and spinner (stenella longirostris) dolphins. purse-seine vessels use this co-occurrence to locate the tuna by searching for dolphins and associated birds. data collected by onboard observers since the late 1970s were used to develop indices of relative abundance for dolphins, based on line-transect methodology, when the primary method of detection of dolphin herds was with binoculars. however, trend estimation was subsequently discontinued in 2000 due to concerns about changes in reporting rates of dolphin herd detections with increased use of helicopter and radar search. at present, as a result of a hiatus in fishery-independent surveys since 2006, fisheries observer data are the only source of information with which to monitor the status of eastern tropical pacific ocean dolphin populations. in this paper, trend estimation with the onboard observer data is revisited using a sightings-per-unit-effort approach. despite different assumptions and model structure, the results indicate a lack of independence between the distribution of search effort and the search methods used, and the abundance of dolphin herds associated with tunas, on several spatial and temporal scales. this lack of independence poses a considerable challenge to the development of a reliable index of relative abundance for dolphins with these data. given these results, alternatives for dolphin abundance estimation are discussed. one alternative is the use of purse-seine vessels for line-transect surveys during fishery closure periods. another alternative is the use of purse-seine vessels during normal fishing operations as platforms for the collection of mark-recapture data (e.g., passive integrated transponder tags or genetics sampling). life-history data collection, as a supplement to the collection of other data types, is also discussed. further research and development is needed to assess whether these alternative methods will be useful. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +purse-seine vessels as platforms for monitoring the population status of dolphin species in the eastern tropical pacific ocean,dolphin abundance; line-transect; cpue; bycatch; generalized additive model,FISHERIES RESEARCH,LENNERT CODY CE;MAUNDER MN;FIEDLER PC;MINAMI M;GERRODETTE T;RUSIN J;MINTE VERA CV;SCOTT M;BUCKLAND ST,"in the eastern tropical pacific ocean, yellowfin tuna (thunnus albacares) are often found in association with spotted (stenella attenuata) and spinner (stenella longirostris) dolphins. purse-seine vessels use this co-occurrence to locate the tuna by searching for dolphins and associated birds. data collected by onboard observers since the late 1970s were used to develop indices of relative abundance for dolphins, based on line-transect methodology, when the primary method of detection of dolphin herds was with binoculars. however, trend estimation was subsequently discontinued in 2000 due to concerns about changes in reporting rates of dolphin herd detections with increased use of helicopter and radar search. at present, as a result of a hiatus in fishery-independent surveys since 2006, fisheries observer data are the only source of information with which to monitor the status of eastern tropical pacific ocean dolphin populations. in this paper, trend estimation with the onboard observer data is revisited using a sightings-per-unit-effort approach. despite different assumptions and model structure, the results indicate a lack of independence between the distribution of search effort and the search methods used, and the abundance of dolphin herds associated with tunas, on several spatial and temporal scales. this lack of independence poses a considerable challenge to the development of a reliable index of relative abundance for dolphins with these data. given these results, alternatives for dolphin abundance estimation are discussed. one alternative is the use of purse-seine vessels for line-transect surveys during fishery closure periods. another alternative is the use of purse-seine vessels during normal fishing operations as platforms for the collection of mark-recapture data (e.g., passive integrated transponder tags or genetics sampling). life-history data collection, as a supplement to the collection of other data types, is also discussed. further research and development is needed to assess whether these alternative methods will be useful. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." tb-hiv co-infection in the netherlands: estimating prevalence and under-reporting in national registration databases using a capture-recapture analysis,NA,JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY AND COMMUNITY HEALTH,VAN LETH F;EVENBLIJ K;WIT F;KIERS A;SPRENGER H;VERHAGEN M;HILLEBREGT M;KALISVAART N;SCHIMMEL H;VERBON A,"background knowledge of the hiv status in patients with tuberculosis (tb) and vice versa is crucial for proper individual patient management, while knowledge of the prevalence of co-infection guides preventive and therapeutic strategies. the aim of the study was to assess if national disease databases on tb and hiv are adequate sources to provide this information. methods a two way capture-recapture analysis to assess the completeness of the registers, and to obtain the prevalence of tb-hiv co-infection in the netherlands in the years 2002-2012. results hiv testing was performed in less than 50% of the patients with tb. of the 932 tb-hiv infected patients, just 293 (31.4%) were registered in both registers. under-reporting of tb-hiv co-infection ranged from 50% to 70% in the national tb register, and from 31% to 37% in the hiv database. prevalence of tb-hiv co-infection in the netherlands in 2012 was 7.1% (95% ci 6.0% to 8.3%), which was more than double of the prevalence estimated from the national tb database. conclusions tb-hiv co-infection is markedly under-reported in national disease databases. there is an urgent need for improved registration and preferably a routine data exchange between the two surveillance systems." an assessment of the natural marking patterns used for photo-identification of common minke whales and white-beaked dolphins in icelandic waters,natural mark; photo-identification; common minke whale; balaenoptera acutorostrata; white-beaked dolphin; lagenorhynchus albirostris; mark rate,JOURNAL OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM,BERTULLI CG;RASMUSSEN MH;ROSSO M,"natural marks occurring in cetaceans are used to measure population parameters, social structure and movements. however, the changeable nature of these marks can originate bias in these estimates. the aim of this work was to calculate abundance and prevalence of 28 mark types observed in common minke whales and white-beaked dolphins photographed in icelandic waters for 11 years (2002-2013) in order to identify reliable markings which could be suitable for capture-mark-recapture studies. in the common minke whale subsample the most prevalent occurring marks were cookie-cutter shark bite, notch and lamprey bite, and herpes-like lesions and blisters were the most abundant. white-beaked dolphins had notch, fin patches and fine scrape as the most prevalent, and black mark and fine scrape were the most abundant. loss and gain rates were also estimated resulting in eight mark types with no losses in common minke whales including fin outline and injury marks. in white-beaked dolphins there were 13 mark types with null loss rate among which there were notch, distinct notch and amputation. our findings confirm that fin and injury marks are among the most accurate features to use for capture-mark-recapture studies as noted for other cetacean species. we also suggest including cookie-cutter shark bites for common minke whales and fin patches for white-beaked dolphins due to their low loss rate. these two mark types were amongst the most prevalent in both species, so their addition will be pivotal in increasing the power of analysis conducted using photo-identification data obtaining more accurate population estimates." an analysis of dorsal edge markings in short-beaked common dolphins (delphinus delphis) from the bay of gibraltar and the moray firth,short-beaked common dolphin; mark-recapture; photo-identification; bay of gibraltar; moray firth; fisheries interactions; by-catch,JOURNAL OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM,BAMFORD CCG;ROBINSON KP,"in the present study, short-beaked common dolphins (delphinus delphis l.) from the bay of gibraltar (gib) and the moray firth (mf) were examined to document the relative frequency, distribution and shape of dorsal edge markings (dems) in the species and investigate potential causes for their occurrence. a dorsal fin layout system was used to map the relative positions and shapes of presenting dems along the anterior/posterior and upper/lower fin margin from 617 animals. a total of 1989 dems were extracted from the combined datasets, with individuals exhibiting between one and 11 nicks (median = 3). dems (in the form of tears, nicks, notches and indents) were primarily observed along the posterior trailing edges of fins, with the highest concentration being recorded in the upper region of the posterior fin (80.3%). approximately 80% of all dems were round or rectangular in shape. square (notched) and indented nick shapes were further recorded, but in significantly lower numbers. in contrast to all other nick shapes however, indented dems predominantly occurred along the anterior fin margin. both natural and anthropogenic sources were implicated as causes of dems in the dataset. interactions with fisheries were apparent in both gib and mf animals and evidently present a threat to both populations. indeed, the occurrence, prevalence and type of presenting dem and/or fin injuries (e.g. missing fins or disfigurements) in the species may provide a useful measure of the type and intensity of fisheries interactions affecting different populations." @@ -1528,18 +1530,18 @@ a noninvasive method to detect mexican wolves and estimate abundance,alleles; ar an efficient acoustic density estimation method with human detectors applied to gibbons in cambodia,NA,PLOS ONE,KIDNEY D;RAWSON BM;BORCHERS DL;STEVENSON BC;MARQUES TA;THOMAS L,"some animal species are hard to see but easy to hear. standard visual methods for estimating population density for such species are often ineffective or inefficient, but methods based on passive acoustics show more promise. we develop spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) methods for territorial vocalising species, in which humans act as an acoustic detector array. we use secr and estimated bearing data from a single-occasion acoustic survey of a gibbon population in northeastern cambodia to estimate the density of calling groups. the properties of the estimator are assessed using a simulation study, in which a variety of survey designs are also investigated. we then present a new form of the secr likelihood for multi-occasion data which accounts for the stochastic availability of animals. in the context of gibbon surveys this allows model-based estimation of the proportion of groups that produce territorial vocalisations on a given day, thereby enabling the density of groups, instead of the density of calling groups, to be estimated. we illustrate the performance of this new estimator by simulation. we show that it is possible to estimate density reliably from human acoustic detections of visually cryptic species using secr methods. for gibbon surveys we also show that incorporating observers' estimates of bearings to detected groups substantially improves estimator performance. using the new form of the secr likelihood we demonstrate that estimates of availability, in addition to population density and detection function parameters, can be obtained from multi-occasion data, and that the detection function parameters are not confounded with the availability parameter. this acoustic secr method provides a means of obtaining reliable density estimates for territorial vocalising species. it is also efficient in terms of data requirements since since it only requires routine survey data. we anticipate that the low-tech field requirements will make this method an attractive option in many situations where populations can be surveyed acoustically by humans." ocelot (leopardus pardalis) density in central amazonia,NA,PLOS ONE,DA ROCHA DG;SOLLMANN R;RAMALHO EE;ILHA R;TAN CKW,"ocelots (leopardus pardalis) are presumed to be the most abundant of the wild cats throughout their distribution range and to play an important role in the dynamics of sympatric small-felid populations. however, ocelot ecological information is limited, particularly for the amazon. we conducted three camera-trap surveys during three consecutive dry seasons to estimate ocelot density in amana reserve, central amazonia, brazil. we implemented a spatial capture-recapture (scr) model that shared detection parameters among surveys. a total effort of 7020 camera-trap days resulted in 93 independent ocelot records. the estimate of ocelot density in amana reserve (24.84 +/- se 6.27 ocelots per 100 km(2)) was lower than at other sites in the amazon and also lower than that expected from a correlation of density with latitude and rainfall. we also discuss the importance of using common parameters for survey scenarios with low recapture rates. this is the first density estimate for ocelots in the brazilian amazon, which is an important stronghold for the species." "availability and quality of size estimations of female sex workers, men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs and transgender women in low- and middle-income countries",NA,PLOS ONE,SABIN K;ZHAO JK;CALLEJA JMG;SHENG Y;GARCIA SA;REINISCH A;KOMATSU R,"objective to assess the availability and quality of population size estimations of female sex workers (fsw), men who have sex with men (msm), people who inject drug (pwid) and transgender women. methods size estimation data since 2010 were retrieved from global reporting databases, global fund grant application documents, and the peer-reviewed and grey literature. overall quality and availability were assessed against a defined set of criteria, including estimation methods, geographic coverage, and extrapolation approaches. estimates were compositely categorized into 'nationally adequate', 'nationally inadequate but locally adequate', 'documented but inadequate methods', 'undocumented or untimely' and 'no data.' findings of 140 countries assessed, 41 did not report any estimates since 2010. among 99 countries with at least one estimate, 38 were categorized as having nationally adequate estimates and 30 as having nationally inadequate but locally adequate estimates. multiplier, capture-recapture, census and enumeration, and programmatic mapping were the most commonly used methods. most countries relied on only one estimate for a given population while about half of all reports included national estimates. a variety of approaches were applied to extrapolate from sites-level numbers to national estimates in two-thirds of countries. conclusions size estimates for fsw, msm, pwid and transgender women are increasingly available but quality varies widely. the different approaches present challenges for data use in design, implementation and evaluation of programs for these populations in half of the countries assessed. guidance should be further developed to recommend: a) applying multiple estimation methods; b) estimating size for a minimum number of sites; and, c) documenting extrapolation approaches." -jaguar densities across human-dominated landscapes in colombia: the contribution of unprotected areas to long term conservation,NA,PLOS ONE,BORON V;TZANOPOULOS J;GALLO J;BARRAGAN J;JAIMES-RODRIGUEZ L;SCHALLER G;PAYAN E,"large carnivores such as jaguars (panthera onca) are species of conservation concern because they are suffering population declines and are keystone species in their ecosystems. their large area requirements imply that unprotected and ever-increasing agricultural regions can be important habitats as they allow connectivity and dispersal among core protected areas. yet information on jaguar densities across unprotected landscapes it is still scarce and crucially needed to assist management and range-wide conservation strategies. our study provides the first jaguar density estimates of colombia in agricultural regions which included cattle ranching, the main land use in the country, and oil palm cultivation, an increasing land use across the neotropics. we used camera trapping across two agricultural landscapes located in the magdalena river valley and in the colombian llanos (47-53 stations respectively; >2000 trap nights at both sites) and classic and spatially explicit capture-recapture models with the sex of individuals as a covariate. density estimates were 2.52 +/- 0.46-3.15 +/- 1.08 adults/100 km(2) in the magdalena valley, whereas 1.12 +/- 0.13-2.19 +/- 0.99 adults/100 km(2) in the colombian llanos, depending on analysis used. we suggest that jaguars are able to live across unprotected human-use areas and co-exist with agricultural landscapes including oil-palm plantations if natural areas and riparian habitats persist in the landscape and hunting of both jaguar and prey is limited. in the face of an expanding agriculture across the tropics we recommend land-use planning, adequate incentives, regulations, and good agricultural practices for range-wide jaguar connectivity and survival." +jaguar densities across human-dominated landscapes in colombia: the contribution of unprotected areas to long term conservation,NA,PLOS ONE,BORON V;TZANOPOULOS J;GALLO J;BARRAGAN J;JAIMES RODRIGUEZ L;SCHALLER G;PAYAN E,"large carnivores such as jaguars (panthera onca) are species of conservation concern because they are suffering population declines and are keystone species in their ecosystems. their large area requirements imply that unprotected and ever-increasing agricultural regions can be important habitats as they allow connectivity and dispersal among core protected areas. yet information on jaguar densities across unprotected landscapes it is still scarce and crucially needed to assist management and range-wide conservation strategies. our study provides the first jaguar density estimates of colombia in agricultural regions which included cattle ranching, the main land use in the country, and oil palm cultivation, an increasing land use across the neotropics. we used camera trapping across two agricultural landscapes located in the magdalena river valley and in the colombian llanos (47-53 stations respectively; >2000 trap nights at both sites) and classic and spatially explicit capture-recapture models with the sex of individuals as a covariate. density estimates were 2.52 +/- 0.46-3.15 +/- 1.08 adults/100 km(2) in the magdalena valley, whereas 1.12 +/- 0.13-2.19 +/- 0.99 adults/100 km(2) in the colombian llanos, depending on analysis used. we suggest that jaguars are able to live across unprotected human-use areas and co-exist with agricultural landscapes including oil-palm plantations if natural areas and riparian habitats persist in the landscape and hunting of both jaguar and prey is limited. in the face of an expanding agriculture across the tropics we recommend land-use planning, adequate incentives, regulations, and good agricultural practices for range-wide jaguar connectivity and survival." practical bias correction in aerial surveys of large mammals: validation of hybrid double-observer with sightability method against known abundance of feral horse (equus caballus) populations,NA,PLOS ONE,LUBOW BC;RANSOM JI,"reliably estimating wildlife abundance is fundamental to effective management. aerial surveys are one of the only spatially robust tools for estimating large mammal populations, but statistical sampling methods are required to address detection biases that affect accuracy and precision of the estimates. although various methods for correcting aerial survey bias are employed on large mammal species around the world, these have rarely been rigorously validated. several populations of feral horses (equus caballus) in the western united states have been intensively studied, resulting in identification of all unique individuals. this provided a rare opportunity to test aerial survey bias correction on populations of known abundance. we hypothesized that a hybrid method combining simultaneous double-observer and sightability bias correction techniques would accurately estimate abundance. we validated this integrated technique on populations of known size and also on a pair of surveys before and after a known number was removed. our analysis identified several covariates across the surveys that explained and corrected biases in the estimates. all six tests on known populations produced estimates with deviations from the known value ranging from -8.5% to +13.7% and <0.7 standard errors. precision varied widely, from 6.1% cv to 25.0% cv. in contrast, the pair of surveys conducted around a known management removal produced an estimated change in population between the surveys that was significantly larger than the known reduction. although the deviation between was only 9.1%, the precision estimate (cv = 1.6%) may have been artificially low. it was apparent that use of a helicopter in those surveys perturbed the horses, introducing detection error and heterogeneity in a manner that could not be corrected by our statistical models. our results validate the hybrid method, highlight its potentially broad applicability, identify some limitations, and provide insight and guidance for improving survey designs." -fluctuating survival selection explains variation in avian group size,cliff swallow; coloniality; group size; natural selection; social behavior,PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,BROWN CR;BROWN MB;ROCHE EA;O'BRIEN VA;PAGE CE,"most animal groups vary extensively in size. because individuals in certain sizes of groups often have higher apparent fitness than those in other groups, why wide group size variation persists in most populations remains unexplained. we used a 30-y mark-recapture study of colonially breeding cliff swallows (petrochelidon pyrrhonota) to show that the survival advantages of different colony sizes fluctuated among years. colony size was under both stabilizing and directional selection in different years, and reversals in the sign of directional selection regularly occurred. directional selection was predicted in part by drought conditions: birds in larger colonies tended to be favored in cooler and wetter years, and birds in smaller colonies in hotter and drier years. oscillating selection on colony size likely reflected annual differences in food availability and the consequent importance of information transfer, and/or the level of ectoparasitism, with the net benefit of sociality varying under these different conditions. averaged across years, there was no net directional change in selection on colony size. the wide range in cliff swallow group size is probably maintained by fluctuating survival selection and represents the first case, to our knowledge, in which fitness advantages of different group sizes regularly oscillate over time in a natural vertebrate population." +fluctuating survival selection explains variation in avian group size,cliff swallow; coloniality; group size; natural selection; social behavior,PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,BROWN CR;BROWN MB;ROCHE EA;O BRIEN VA;PAGE CE,"most animal groups vary extensively in size. because individuals in certain sizes of groups often have higher apparent fitness than those in other groups, why wide group size variation persists in most populations remains unexplained. we used a 30-y mark-recapture study of colonially breeding cliff swallows (petrochelidon pyrrhonota) to show that the survival advantages of different colony sizes fluctuated among years. colony size was under both stabilizing and directional selection in different years, and reversals in the sign of directional selection regularly occurred. directional selection was predicted in part by drought conditions: birds in larger colonies tended to be favored in cooler and wetter years, and birds in smaller colonies in hotter and drier years. oscillating selection on colony size likely reflected annual differences in food availability and the consequent importance of information transfer, and/or the level of ectoparasitism, with the net benefit of sociality varying under these different conditions. averaged across years, there was no net directional change in selection on colony size. the wide range in cliff swallow group size is probably maintained by fluctuating survival selection and represents the first case, to our knowledge, in which fitness advantages of different group sizes regularly oscillate over time in a natural vertebrate population." counting cats: spatially explicit population estimates of cheetah (acinonyx jubatus) using unstructured sampling data,NA,PLOS ONE,BROEKHUIS F;GOPALASWAMY AM,"many ecological theories and species conservation programmes rely on accurate estimates of population density. accurate density estimation, especially for species facing rapid declines, requires the application of rigorous field and analytical methods. however, obtaining accurate density estimates of carnivores can be challenging as carnivores naturally exist at relatively low densities and are often elusive and wide-ranging. in this study, we employ an unstructured spatial sampling field design along with a bayesian sex-specific spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) analysis, to provide the first rigorous population density estimates of cheetahs (acinonyx jubatus) in the maasai mara, kenya. we estimate adult cheetah density to be between 1.28 +/- 0.315 and 1.34 +/- 0.337 individuals/100km(2) across four candidate models specified in our analysis. our spatially explicit approach revealed 'hotspots' of cheetah density, highlighting that cheetah are distributed heterogeneously across the landscape. the secr models incorporated a movement range parameter which indicated that male cheetah moved four times as much as females, possibly because female movement was restricted by their reproductive status and/or the spatial distribution of prey. we show that secr can be used for spatially unstructured data to successfully characterise the spatial distribution of a low density species and also estimate population density when sample size is small. our sampling and modelling framework will help determine spatial and temporal variation in cheetah densities, providing a foundation for their conservation and management. based on our results we encourage other researchers to adopt a similar approach in estimating densities of individually recognisable species." using genetic inference to re-evaluate the minimum longevity of the lemon shark negaprion brevirostris,fishery management; genetic pedigree; life span; mark-recapture; natural mortality,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,BROOKS JL;GUTTRIDGE TL;FRANKS BR;GRUBBS RD;CHAPMAN DD;GRUBER SH;DIBATTISTA JD;FELDHEIM KA,a combination of mark-recapture and genetic sampling was used to extend the minimum longevity of an elasmobranch species and the life span estimate of the lemon shark negaprion brevirostris was increased conservatively from 20.2 to 37 years. this increase in longevity means higher vulnerability and a longer recovery time from exploitation. (c) 2016 the fisheries society of the british isles factors influencing detection of grizzly bears at genetic sampling sites,bait site; capture heterogeneity; capture-recapture; genotyping success; mark-recapture; non-invasive sampling; population estimation; rub object; rub tree; sampling design; study design; ursus arctos,URSUS,LAMB CT;WALSH DA;MOWAT G,"recent advances in genetic approaches have facilitated genetic marking in capture-recapture (cr) experiments. individuals can now be identified through non-invasive sampling and multi-locus genotyping instead of physical capture. in non-invasive studies where collection sites are used, detection depends on whether (1) an individual deposits a sample at the collection site, and (2) an individual can be genetically identified from the sample. here we evaluate factors influencing detection of grizzly bears (ursus arctos) at hair-sampling sites from 4 genetic cr projects (2006-2012) in british columbia, canada, and provide recommendations for maximizing detection in future studies. we found significant effects of trap type (bait site vs. rub object), sex, and season on the detection of grizzly bears. bait-site detection was approximately 5-fold greater than detection at rub objects; and bait sites generally detected the sexes equally, whereas rub-tree detection was strongly male-biased. at rub objects, males had a 7-fold greater detection during the breeding season compared with females. genotyping success increased with the number of hair follicles in the sample and decreased with the duration between trap checks. rainfall was correlated with trap duration and was also negatively related to genotyping success. samples with little genetic material (<2 guard hair, or <15 underfur) had low genotyping success and are best avoided, especially if samples with more follicles exist. rub objects are an efficient sampling method but we caution investigators that these traps, unless deployed in large numbers, imperfectly detect female bears. the combined effect of trap type, sex, and season on a bear visiting a site, paired with the effects of hair quality, quantity, and sampling duration or rainfall on genotyping success, produced a range of detection spanning 2 orders of magnitude, highlighting the imperative for investigators to consider these factors for cr projects." -an r package for analysing survival using continuous-time open capture-recapture models,estimation bias; frequentist inference; inhomogeneous poisson process; maximum likelihood estimation; survival analysis model,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,FOUCHET D;SANTIN-JANIN H;SAUVAGE F;YOCCOZ NG;PONTIER D,"1. capture-recapture software packages have proven to be very powerful tools for analysing factors affecting survival in wild populations. however, all such packages are limited to discrete-time protocols. appropriate survival analysis tools are still lacking for data acquired from continuous-time protocols. 2. we have developed a statistical method and propose an r package for analysing such data based on an extension of classical survival analysis models incorporating an inhomogeneous poisson process for modelling capture histories. first, data were simulated from a continuous-time protocol. these data were used to (i) compare survival estimation biases of discrete-and continuous-time approaches and (ii) investigate the performance and accuracy of our r package for four types of covariates: factors varying between individuals (like sex), in time (like climatic factors), both in time and between individuals (like physical condition) and age (as a categorical factor). secondly, the r package has been applied to a real data set for survival analysis of cats in the kerguelen archipelago (regrouping 682 cats over 20 years) as an illustrative example. 3. results of the simulated data analysis show that the method performs better than its discrete-time counterpart for analysing data acquired from continuous-time protocols. it provides unbiased parameter estimates for all parameters except those that vary both in time and between individuals - which is not surprising, since in our case, these factors were not updated in continuous time (i.e. only upon capture). when applied to the kerguelen cat data set, the results suggest that survival is lower in juveniles than in adults and subadults, varies between study sites and increases with physical condition, and this latter effect being more important in females than in males. sex, season, temporal linear trend in survival and the ndvi vegetation index were also tested but were not found to be significant. however, confidence intervals were too large (due to a low recapture rate) for excluding such effects. further analyses are still needed for rigorous covariate testing in this context. 4. in conclusion, continuous-time approaches - such as that presented in this paper - should be preferred when data acquired from continuous-time protocols is analysed." +an r package for analysing survival using continuous-time open capture-recapture models,estimation bias; frequentist inference; inhomogeneous poisson process; maximum likelihood estimation; survival analysis model,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,FOUCHET D;SANTIN JANIN H;SAUVAGE F;YOCCOZ NG;PONTIER D,"1. capture-recapture software packages have proven to be very powerful tools for analysing factors affecting survival in wild populations. however, all such packages are limited to discrete-time protocols. appropriate survival analysis tools are still lacking for data acquired from continuous-time protocols. 2. we have developed a statistical method and propose an r package for analysing such data based on an extension of classical survival analysis models incorporating an inhomogeneous poisson process for modelling capture histories. first, data were simulated from a continuous-time protocol. these data were used to (i) compare survival estimation biases of discrete-and continuous-time approaches and (ii) investigate the performance and accuracy of our r package for four types of covariates: factors varying between individuals (like sex), in time (like climatic factors), both in time and between individuals (like physical condition) and age (as a categorical factor). secondly, the r package has been applied to a real data set for survival analysis of cats in the kerguelen archipelago (regrouping 682 cats over 20 years) as an illustrative example. 3. results of the simulated data analysis show that the method performs better than its discrete-time counterpart for analysing data acquired from continuous-time protocols. it provides unbiased parameter estimates for all parameters except those that vary both in time and between individuals - which is not surprising, since in our case, these factors were not updated in continuous time (i.e. only upon capture). when applied to the kerguelen cat data set, the results suggest that survival is lower in juveniles than in adults and subadults, varies between study sites and increases with physical condition, and this latter effect being more important in females than in males. sex, season, temporal linear trend in survival and the ndvi vegetation index were also tested but were not found to be significant. however, confidence intervals were too large (due to a low recapture rate) for excluding such effects. further analyses are still needed for rigorous covariate testing in this context. 4. in conclusion, continuous-time approaches - such as that presented in this paper - should be preferred when data acquired from continuous-time protocols is analysed." the measurement of selection when detection is imperfect: how good are naive methods?,capture-mark-recapture; directional selection; mark; natural selection; selection gradients; simulation; stabilizing selection,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,WALLER J;SVENSSON EI,"1. the life spans of animals can be measured in natural populations by uniquely marking individuals and then releasing them into the field. selection on survival (a component of fitness) can subsequently be quantified by regressing the life spans of these marked individuals on their trait values. however, marked individuals are not always seen on every subsequent catching occasion, and for this reason, imperfect detection is considered a problem when estimating survival selection in natural populations. 2. capture-mark-recapture methods have been advocated as a powerful means to correct for imperfect detection. here, we use simulated and field data sets to evaluate the effect of assuming perfect detection ('naive methods'), when detection is really imperfect. we compared the performance of the naive methods with methods correcting for imperfect detection (mark-recapture methods, or mr). 3. although the effects of trait-dependent recapture probability are mitigated when recapture probability is high, mark-recapture methods still provide the safest choice when recapture probability might be trait-dependent. in our simulations, mark-recapture methods had a power advantage over naive methods, but all methods lost statistical power at low recapture probabilities. 4. the main advantage of mark-recapture methods over naive methods is the ability to control for hidden trait-dependent recapture probability, as it is often hard to tell a priori if trait dependence is an issue in a particular study. however, when trait-dependent recapture probability is weak, naive methods and mark-recapture methods perform similarly as long as recapture rates do not become too low, and the main problem of survival selection studies is still low statistical power. we provide a r package (easymark) alongside with this paper to facilitate future integration between mr methods and classical selection studies. easymark provides the opportunity to convert the regression coefficients from mr-approaches in to classical standardized selection gradients." do transmitters affect survival and body condition of american beavers castor canadensis?,NA,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,SMITH JB;WINDELS SK;WOLF T;KLAVER RW;BELANT JL,"one key assumption often inferred with using radio-equipped individuals is that the transmitter has no effect on the metric of interest. to evaluate this assumption, we used a known fate model to assess the effect of transmitter type (i.e. tail-mounted or peritoneal implant) on short-term (one year) survival and a joint live-dead recovery model and results from a mark-recapture study to compare long-term (eight years) survival and body condition of ear-tagged only american beavers castor canadensis to those equipped with radio transmitters in voyageurs national park, minnesota, usa. short-term (1-year) survival was not influenced by transmitter type (w(i) = 0.64). over the 8-year study period, annual survival was similar between transmitter-equipped beavers (tail-mounted and implant transmitters combined; 0.76; 95% ci = 0.45-0.91) versus ear-tagged only (0.78; 95% ci = 0.45-0.93). additionally, we found no difference in weight gain (t(9) = 0.25, p = 0.80) or tail area (t(11) = 1.25, p = 0.24) from spring to summer between the two groups. in contrast, winter weight loss (t(22) = -2.03, p = 0.05) and tail area decrease (t(30) = -3.04, p = 0.01) was greater for transmitterequipped (weight = -3.09 kg, se = 0.55; tail area = -33.71 cm(2), se = 4.80) than ear-tagged only (weight = -1.80 kg, se = 0.33; tail area = -12.38 cm(2), se = 5.13) beavers. our results generally support the continued use of transmitters on beavers for estimating demographic parameters, although we recommend additional assessments of transmitter effects under different environmental conditions." a granular view of a snow leopard population using camera traps in central china,snow leopard; camera trap; china; density; monitoring,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,ALEXANDER JS;ZHANG CC;SHI K;RIORDAN P,"successful conservation of the endangered snow leopard (panthera uncia) relies on the effectiveness of monitoring programmes. we present the results of a 19-month camera trap survey effort, conducted as part of a long-term study of the snow leopard population in qilianshan national nature reserve of gansu province, china. we assessed the minimum number of individual snow leopards and population density across different sampling periods using spatial capture-recapture methods. between 2013-2014, we deployed 34 camera traps across an area of 375 km(2), investing a total of 7133 trap-days effort. we identified a total number of 17-19 unique individuals from photographs (10-12 adults, five sub-adults and two cubs). the total number of individuals identified and estimated density varied across sampling periods, between 10-15 individuals and 1.46-329 snow leopards per 100 km(2) respectively. we demonstrate that snow leopard surveys of limited scale and conducted over short sampling periods only present partial views of a dynamic and transient system. we also underline the challenges in achieving a sufficient sample size of captures and recaptures to assess trends in snow leopard population size and/or density for policy and conservation decision-making. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." tarangire revisited: consequences of declining connectivity in a tropical ungulate population,bayesian estimation; corridor; habitat change; population dynamics; site fidelity; tarangire-manyara ecosystem,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MORRISON TA;LINK WA;NEWMARK WD;FOLEY CAH;BOLGER DT,"the hyper-abundance of migratory wildlife in many ecosystems depends on maintaining access to seasonally available resources. in eastern and southern africa, land-use change and a loss of connectivity have coincided with widespread declines in the abundance and geographic range of ungulate populations. using photographic capture-mark-recapture, we examine the historical pattern of loss of connectivity and its impact on population trends in a partially migratory wildebeest population in northern tanzania. to estimate abundance, we use a novel modeling approach that overcomes bias associated with photo misidentifications. our data indicate (1) diminished connectivity within and between seasonal areas as a result of human activities, (2) a reduction in the overall population size compared to historical numbers, with high variability over time, (3) the continued use of highly constrained movement corridors between the three main seasonal ranges, (4) higher recruitment in the non-migratory subpopulation (lake manyara national park) than in other areas of the ecosystem, and (5) an increase in the relative abundance of resident to migrant wildebeest. recent conservation efforts to protect seasonal habitat and to enforce anti-poaching policies outside protected areas have likely helped stabilize the population, at least temporarily, but we caution that several key vulnerabilities remain. (c) 2016 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -effects of nature-based tourism and environmental drivers on the demography of a small dolphin population,tourist exposure; environmental conditions; robust design demography; coastal dolphins; western indian ocean,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,PEREZ-JORGE S;GOMES I;HAYES K;CORTI G;LOUZAO M;GENOVART M;ORO D,"many marine top predators are experiencing significant declines due to anthropogenic impacts, and therefore reliable monitoring is essential to understand their population dynamics. we used pollock's robust design capture recapture modelling to assess the influence of oceanographic variables, artisanal fisheries and human disturbance on several demographic parameters (abundance, temporary emigration and survival) of the indo-pacific bottlenose dolphin (tursiops aduncus), using long-term data on marked individuals from east africa. photo identification data was collected over 551 boat-based surveys between 2006 and 2009, with 137 individuals identified. our best fitting model indicated that exposure to tourism (represented by the number of tourist boats) increased the probability of dolphins seasonally emigrating from the study area. the return rate of temporary emigrants was negatively linked to the seasonal sea surface temperature, probably associated with food availability. that model supported the existence of heterogeneity in annual local survival estimates, with transient dolphins showing a lower value than resident individuals (0.78 and 0.98, respectively). furthermore, abundance estimates showed a small population size ranging from 19 individuals (95% ci: 11-33) to a maximum of 104 dolphins (95% ci: 78-139). this small population, together with their high site fidelity and coastal distribution, might be particularly vulnerable to human disturbances. this study highlights the influence of environmental and anthropogenic factors on dolphin demography and population dynamics and the need to integrate these drivers to provide robust evidences for conservation stakeholders in an adaptive management framework. (c) 2016 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +effects of nature-based tourism and environmental drivers on the demography of a small dolphin population,tourist exposure; environmental conditions; robust design demography; coastal dolphins; western indian ocean,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,PEREZ JORGE S;GOMES I;HAYES K;CORTI G;LOUZAO M;GENOVART M;ORO D,"many marine top predators are experiencing significant declines due to anthropogenic impacts, and therefore reliable monitoring is essential to understand their population dynamics. we used pollock's robust design capture recapture modelling to assess the influence of oceanographic variables, artisanal fisheries and human disturbance on several demographic parameters (abundance, temporary emigration and survival) of the indo-pacific bottlenose dolphin (tursiops aduncus), using long-term data on marked individuals from east africa. photo identification data was collected over 551 boat-based surveys between 2006 and 2009, with 137 individuals identified. our best fitting model indicated that exposure to tourism (represented by the number of tourist boats) increased the probability of dolphins seasonally emigrating from the study area. the return rate of temporary emigrants was negatively linked to the seasonal sea surface temperature, probably associated with food availability. that model supported the existence of heterogeneity in annual local survival estimates, with transient dolphins showing a lower value than resident individuals (0.78 and 0.98, respectively). furthermore, abundance estimates showed a small population size ranging from 19 individuals (95% ci: 11-33) to a maximum of 104 dolphins (95% ci: 78-139). this small population, together with their high site fidelity and coastal distribution, might be particularly vulnerable to human disturbances. this study highlights the influence of environmental and anthropogenic factors on dolphin demography and population dynamics and the need to integrate these drivers to provide robust evidences for conservation stakeholders in an adaptive management framework. (c) 2016 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." no effect of blood sampling or phytohaemagglutinin injection on postfledging survival in a wild songbird,capture-mark-recapture; house wren; recruitment; troglodytes aedon,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BOWERS EK;SAKALUK SK;THOMPSON CF,"the injection of phytohaemagglutinin (pha) and sampling of blood are widely used in studies of wild vertebrates to assess components of immune and endocrine function and health state and to obtain genetic material. despite the pervasive use of these techniques in the life sciences, their potential effects on survival are rarely considered. for example, whether injection of the immunogen pha into body parts critical for locomotion (e.g., the prepatagium, or wing web, in birds) affects survival has not been tested. here, we test whether injection of pha into the wing web and blood sampling from nestling house wrens affects their subsequent recruitment and survival as breeding adults. capture-mark-recapture analysis on a large sample of young (n = 20,152 fledglings from 3959 broods) treated over 10 years revealed that neither pha injection nor blood sampling affected individual survival and detection probability. recruitment as a breeder varied among years, but this variation was not attributable to sampling effort, or the percent of all adults identified at the nest during a given year. variation in the percent of adults identified was primarily attributable to the effect of nest depredation on our ability to capture nesting pairs. our results indicating lack of an effect of blood sampling and immune stimulation on survival are encouraging, but we recommend further work to assess the potential negative effects of all commonly used techniques on the survival of study subjects in the wild, including the potential costs associated with mounting various immunological responses." estimating population size using single-nucleotide polymorphism-based pedigree data,brown bear; noninvasive sampling; pedigree reconstruction; population estimate; rarefaction; single-nucleotide polymorphism; snp,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SPITZER R;NORMAN AJ;SCHNEIDER M;SPONG G,"reliable population estimates are an important aspect of sustainable wildlife management and conservation but can be difficult to obtain for rare and elusive species. here, we test a new census method based on pedigree reconstruction recently developed by creel and rosenblatt (2013). using a panel of 96 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (snps), we genotyped fecal samples from two swedish brown bear populations for pedigree reconstruction. based on 433 genotypes from central sweden (cs) and 265 from northern sweden (ns), the population estimates (n = 630 for cs, n = 408 for ns) fell within the 95% ci of the official estimates. the precision and accuracy improved with increasing sampling intensity. like genetic capture-mark-recapture methods, this method can be applied to data from a single sampling session. pedigree reconstruction combined with noninvasive genetic sampling may thus augment population estimates, particularly for rare and elusive species for which sampling may be challenging." validation of back-calculated body lengths and timing of growth mark deposition in hawaiian green sea turtles,chelonia mydas; growth rate; line of arrested growth; mark-recapture; oxytetracycline; skeletochronology,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GOSHE LR;SNOVER ML;HOHN AA;BALAZS GH,"somatic growth rate data for wild sea turtles can provide insight into life-stage durations, time to maturation, and total lifespan. when appropriately validated, the technique of skeletochronology allows prior growth rates of sea turtles to be calculated with considerably less time and labor than required by mark-recapture studies. we applied skeletochronology to 10 dead, stranded green turtles chelonia mydas that had previously been measured, tagged, and injected with otc (oxytetracycline) during mark-recapture studies in hawaii for validating skeletochronological analysis. we tested the validity of back-calculating carapace lengths (cls) from diameters of lags (lines of arrested growth), which mark the outer boundaries of individual skeletal growth increments. this validation was achieved by comparing cls estimated from measurements of the lag proposed to have been deposited closest to the time of tagging to actual cls measured at the time of tagging. measureable otc-mark diameters in five turtles also allowed us to investigate the time of year when lags are deposited. we found no significant difference between cls measured at tagging and those estimated through skeletochronology, which supports calculation of somatic growth rates by taking the difference between cls estimated from successive lag diameters in humerus bones for this species. back-calculated cls associated with the otc mark and growth mark deposited closest to tagging indicated that annual lags are deposited in the spring. the results of this validation study increase confidence in utilization of skeletochronology to rapidly obtain accurate age and growth data for green turtles." @@ -1554,7 +1556,7 @@ a comparison of reproductive patterns and adult dispersal in sympatric introduce large-scale oceanographic fluctuations drive antarctic petrel survival and reproduction,NA,ECOGRAPHY,DESCAMPS S;TARROUX A;LORENTSEN SH;LOVE OP;VARPE O;YOCCOZ NG,"polar regions are experiencing environmental changes at unprecedented rates. these changes can spread throughout entire food webs from lower trophic levels to apex predators. as many top predators forage over large areas, these indirect effects may be associated with large-scale patterns of climate variability. using global climate indices that are known to impact the southern ocean ecosystem (the el nino southern oscillation and antarctic oscillation indices) we assessed their efficacy to predict variation in the demographic parameters of antarctic seabirds. first, we used a long-term dataset on adult survival (estimated from capture-mark-recapture data) and reproduction of antarctic petrel thalassoica antarctica, from the largest known breeding colony (svarthamaren, dronning maud land) and examined whether large-scale oceanographic fluctuations impact survival and reproduction. second, we conducted an exhaustive literature review to determine whether the effects of large-scale environmental variability on antarctic seabirds have a coherent fingerprint across the antarctic continent and nearby islands. we found that most of the variation in both reproductive success, timing of hatching, and survival of antarctic petrels can be accurately modeled using the two modes of large-scale climate variability in antarctica. the literature review, combined with the results from our field study, suggests that while the anticipated trends in the global patterns of climatic variability will generally have detrimental effects on populations of top predators in the southwest atlantic, these conclusions cannot be extrapolated to all seabird populations in antarctica without additional data." a newt does not change its spots: using pattern mapping for the identification of individuals in large populations of newt species,photo capture-mark-recapture; computer-assisted photo-identification; non-invasive individual identification; photo-id; wild-id,ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH,METTOURIS O;MEGREMIS G;GIOKAS S,"the correct identification of individuals is a requirement of capture-mark-recapture (cmr) methods, and it is commonly achieved by applying artificial marks or by mutilation of study-animals. an alternative, non-invasive method to identify individuals is to utilize the patterns of their natural body markings. however, the use of pattern mapping is not yet widespread, mainly because it is considered time consuming, particularly in large populations and/or long-term cmr studies. here we explore the use of pattern mapping for the identification of adult individuals in the alpine (ichthyosaura alpestris) and smooth (lissotriton vulgaris) newts (amphibia, salamandridae), using the freely available, open-source software wild-id. our photographic datasets comprised nearly 4000 captured animals' images, taken during a 3-year period. the spot patterns of individual newts of both species did not change through time, and were sufficiently varied to allow their individual identification, even in the larger datasets. the pattern-recognition algorithm of wild-id was highly successful in identifying individual newts in both species. our findings indicate that pattern mapping can be successfully employed for the identification of individuals in large populations of a broad range of animals that exhibit natural markings. the significance of pattern-mapping is accentuated in cmr studies that aim in obtaining long-term information on the demography and population dynamics of species of conservation interest, such as many amphibians facing population declines." movement and survival of an amphibian in relation to sediment and culvert design,barriers; culverts; dicamptodon; movement; sediment; spatial cormack-jolly-seber; stream amphibians,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HONEYCUTT RK;LOWE WH;HOSSACK BR,"habitat disturbance from stream culverts can affect aquatic organisms by increasing sedimentation or forming barriers to movement. land managers are replacing many culverts to reduce these negative effects, primarily for stream fishes. however, these management actions are likely to have broad implications for many organisms, including amphibians in small streams. to assess the effects of culverts on movement and survival of the idaho giant salamander (dicamptodon aterrimus), we used capture-mark-recapture surveys and measured sediment in streams with 2 culvert types (i.e., unimproved culverts, improved culverts) and in streams without culverts (i.e., reference streams). we predicted culverts would increase stream sediment levels, limit movement, and reduce survival of idaho giant salamanders. we also determined the effect of sediment levels on survival of salamanders because although sediment is often associated with distribution and abundance of stream amphibians, links with vital rates remain unclear. to estimate survival, we used a spatial cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) model that explicitly incorporated information on movement, eliminating bias in apparent survival estimated from traditional (i.e., non-spatial) cjs models caused by permanent emigration beyond the study area. to demonstrate the importance of using spatial data in studies of wildlife populations, we compared estimates from the spatial cjs to estimates of apparent survival from a traditional cjs model. although high levels of sediment reduced survival of salamanders, culvert type was unrelated to sediment levels or true survival of salamanders. across all streams, we documented only 15 movement events between study reaches. all movement events were downstream, and they occurred disproportionately in 1 stream, which precluded measuring the effect of culvert design on movement. although movement was low overall, the variance among streams was high enough to bias estimates of apparent survival compared to true survival. our results suggest that where sedimentation occurs from roads and culverts, survival of the idaho giant salamander could be reduced. though culverts clearly do not completely block downstream movements of idaho giant salamanders, the degree to which culvert improvements affect movements under roads in comparison to unimproved culverts remains unclear, especially for rare, but potentially important, upstream movements. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." -anaphylaxis after immunization of children and adolescents in germany,vaccines; anaphylaxis; children and adolescents; epidemiology; adverse events following immunization,PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASE JOURNAL,OBERLE D;PAVEL J;RIECK T;WEICHERT S;SCHROTEN H;KELLER-STANISLAWSKI B;TENENBAUM T,"background: anaphylaxis is a life-threatening event. the aim of this study was to estimate the annual frequency of anaphylaxis after immunization in individuals younger than 18 years in germany leading to hospitalization. methods: all suspected cases of postvaccination anaphylaxis involving individuals aged 0-17 years reported to the german surveillance unit for rare pediatric diseases (erhebungseinheit fur seltene padiatrische erkrankungen in deutschland) from june 2008 through may 2010, and all suspected cases of anaphylaxis as an adverse event following immunization in the same age group reported to the paul-ehrlich-institut during the observational period were classified according to the brighton collaboration case definition. only hospitalized cases of anaphylaxis fulfilling brighton collaboration case definition level 1-3 criteria were eligible. estimates for the annual frequency were calculated by using capture-recapture methods. results: a total of 22 reports were eligible. median age of the affected individuals (13 males, 9 females) was 7.0 years (range: 2 months to 17 years). anaphylaxis occurred most frequently after administration of as03 adjuvanted a/h1n1 pandemic influenza vaccine (n = 8). the annual frequency of anaphylaxis after vaccination (excluding pandemic influenza vaccine as well as monovalent measles and rubella vaccines) was estimated to be 6.8 (95% confidence interval: 6.1-10.9). the estimated incidence of anaphylaxis after administration of specific vaccines ranged from 0.4 to 127.6 cases per 1,000,000 doses administered. conclusions: this study confirms that anaphylaxis after immunization in children and adolescents is a rare event. as03 adjuvanted a/h1n1 pandemic influenza vaccine seems to be associated with a higher risk of anaphylaxis when compared with other vaccines." +anaphylaxis after immunization of children and adolescents in germany,vaccines; anaphylaxis; children and adolescents; epidemiology; adverse events following immunization,PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASE JOURNAL,OBERLE D;PAVEL J;RIECK T;WEICHERT S;SCHROTEN H;KELLER STANISLAWSKI B;TENENBAUM T,"background: anaphylaxis is a life-threatening event. the aim of this study was to estimate the annual frequency of anaphylaxis after immunization in individuals younger than 18 years in germany leading to hospitalization. methods: all suspected cases of postvaccination anaphylaxis involving individuals aged 0-17 years reported to the german surveillance unit for rare pediatric diseases (erhebungseinheit fur seltene padiatrische erkrankungen in deutschland) from june 2008 through may 2010, and all suspected cases of anaphylaxis as an adverse event following immunization in the same age group reported to the paul-ehrlich-institut during the observational period were classified according to the brighton collaboration case definition. only hospitalized cases of anaphylaxis fulfilling brighton collaboration case definition level 1-3 criteria were eligible. estimates for the annual frequency were calculated by using capture-recapture methods. results: a total of 22 reports were eligible. median age of the affected individuals (13 males, 9 females) was 7.0 years (range: 2 months to 17 years). anaphylaxis occurred most frequently after administration of as03 adjuvanted a/h1n1 pandemic influenza vaccine (n = 8). the annual frequency of anaphylaxis after vaccination (excluding pandemic influenza vaccine as well as monovalent measles and rubella vaccines) was estimated to be 6.8 (95% confidence interval: 6.1-10.9). the estimated incidence of anaphylaxis after administration of specific vaccines ranged from 0.4 to 127.6 cases per 1,000,000 doses administered. conclusions: this study confirms that anaphylaxis after immunization in children and adolescents is a rare event. as03 adjuvanted a/h1n1 pandemic influenza vaccine seems to be associated with a higher risk of anaphylaxis when compared with other vaccines." the value of migration information for conservation prioritization of sea turtles in the mediterranean,caretta caretta; connectivity; marxan; mediterranean sea; migratory species; sea turtles; systematic conservation planning; value of information,GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY,MAZOR T;BEGER M;MCGOWAN J;POSSINGHAM HP;KARK S,"aimconservation plans often struggle to account for connectivity in spatial prioritization approaches for the protection of migratory species. protection of such species is challenging because their movements may be uncertain and variable, span vast distances, cross international borders and traverse land and sea habitats. often we are faced with small samples of information from various sources and the collection of additional data can be costly and time-consuming. therefore it is important to evaluate what degree of spatial information provides sufficient results for directing management actions. here we develop and evaluate an approach that incorporates habitat and movement information to advance the conservation of migratory species. we test our approach using information on threatened loggerhead sea turtles (caretta caretta) in the mediterranean. locationthe mediterranean sea. methodswe use marxan, a spatially explicit decision support tool, to select priority conservation areas. four approaches with increasing amounts of information about the loggerhead sea turtle are compared, ranging from (1) the broad distribution, (2) multiple habitat types that represent foraging, nesting and inter-nesting habitats, (3) mark-recapture movement information to (4) telemetry-derived migration tracks. resultswe find that spatial priorities for sea turtle conservation are sensitive to the information used in the prioritization process. setting conservation targets for migration tracks altered the location of conservation priorities, indicating that conservation plans designed without such data would miss important sea turtle habitat. we discover that even a small number of tracks make a significant contribution to a spatial conservation plan if those tracks are substantially different. main conclusionsthis study presents a novel approach to improving spatial prioritization for conserving migratory species. we propose that future telemetry studies tailor their efforts towards conservation prioritization needs, meaning that spatially dispersed samples rather than just large numbers should be obtained. this work highlights the valuable information that telemetry research contributes to the conservation of migratory species." developing population models with data from marked individuals,population viability analysis; stage-structured demographic models; survival; fecundity; density-dependence; monitoring avian productivity and survivorship (maps),BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,RYU HY;SHOEMAKER KT;KNEIP E;PIDGEON AM;HEGLUND PJ;BATEMAN BL;THOGMARTIN WE;AKCAKAYA HR,"population viability analysis (pva) is a powerful tool for biodiversity assessments, but its use has been limited because of the requirements for fully specified population models such as demographic structure, density dependence, environmental stochasticity, and specification of uncertainties. developing a fully specified population model from commonly available data sources - notably, mark-recapture studies - remains complicated due to lack of practical methods for estimating fecundity, true survival (as opposed to apparent survival), natural temporal variability in both survival and fecundity, density-dependence in the demographic parameters, and uncertainty in model parameters. we present a general method that estimates all the key parameters required to specify a stochastic, matrix-based population model, constructed using a long-term mark-recapture dataset. unlike standard mark-recapture analyses, our approach provides estimates of true survival rates and fecundities, their respective natural temporal variabilities, and density-dependence functions, making it possible to construct a population model for long-term projection of population dynamics. furthermore, our method includes a formal quantification of parameter uncertainty for global (multivariate) sensitivity analysis. we apply this approach to 9 bird species and demonstrate the feasibility of using data from the monitoring avian productivity and survivorship (maps) program. bias-correction factors for raw estimates of survival and fecundity derived from mark recapture data (apparent survival and juvenile:adult ratio, respectively) were non-negligible, and corrected parameters were generally more biologically reasonable than their uncorrected counterparts. our method allows the development of fully specified stochastic population models using a single, widely available data source, substantially reducing the barriers that have until now limited the widespread application of pva. this method is expected to greatly enhance our understanding of the processes underlying population dynamics and our ability to analyze viability and project trends for species of conservation concern. (c) 2016 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." diversification histories for north american and eurasian carnivorans,capture-mark-recapture model; fossil data; pradel model,BIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY,FINARELLI JA;LIOW LH,"the evolutionary processes that formed present-day biological diversity can be inferred through modelling past rates of extinction and origination from observations in the fossil record. we analyzed observations of over 5800 records from north america and eurasia for 972 species in the mammalian order carnivora. using these records of carnivoran fossils, we estimated extinction, speciation and net diversification, while simultaneously estimating sampling probability, for the past 28myr. while global carnivoran diversification through the neogene showed a pattern of surprisingly stability, diversification dynamics differ considerably between north america and eurasia. this is particularly evident in the interval from 9 to 8mya, in which there is a pronounced peak of positive diversification in eurasia that is not observed in the north american record, and from 6 to 5mya, in which north america experienced high rates of positive diversification, while eurasia experienced significantly negative diversification. our results indicate that north american members of the dogs, bears and amphicyonids, as well as other basal members of the caniformia have lower rates of average net diversification than their counterparts in eurasia, due to lower rates of speciation. however, average rates net diversification and their components are not distinguishable among other subclades of carnivorans in the on the two continents. in fact, most carnivoran subclades do not have significantly different estimates of average net rates of diversification." @@ -1567,7 +1569,7 @@ close-kin mark-recapture,demography; genetics; kinship; mark-recapture; pseudo-l sharing data improves monitoring of trans-boundary populations: the case of wolverines in central scandinavia,NA,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,GERVASI V;BROSETH H;GIMENEZ O;NILSEN EB;ODDEN J;FLAGSTAD O;LINNELL JDC,"populations of wide-ranging species are likely to extend across multiple jurisdictions, including national and international borders. this requires that local institutions implement data sharing and a standardization of monitoring designs. however, a formal evaluation of the benefits of integrated monitoring systems had not, of yet, been performed. using the wolverines in central scandinavia as a study case, we assessed the benefits of data sharing for the monitoring of trans-boundary populations. we also assessed the performance of two demographic monitoring systems, one relying on a count of reproductive units, the other resulting from non-invasive genetic sampling and capture-recapture modeling. sharing data across the border between norway and sweden allowed a strong increase in the precision of population size, population growth rate and vital rates estimates. it also allowed revealing that the probability to emigrate from sweden to norway was significantly higher than in the opposite direction, a required condition for the existence of a source-sink dynamics. these findings would have been impossible without trans-boundary data sharing. while the den count monitoring provided an estimated population growth of 138% over the 12-year period, the dna-based estimate was only 72%. a positive trend likely occurred in the detectability of wolverine dens during the first years of the study, and the index was not able to separate the actual demographic trend from the trend in the system's ability to detect reproductions, thus providing positively biased estimates of population growth rate during the initial phase of the study. data sharing is a crucial need for the study of the processes occurring in trans-boundary populations. it should be enhanced wherever trans-boundary ecological processes occur. also, managers should be aware that count-based monitoring has a risk of overestimating population growth during the first years after its implementation." "horvitz-thompson whale abundance estimation adjusting for uncertain recapture, temporal availability variation, and intermittent effort",capture-recapture uncertainty; misidentification; whale abundance,ENVIRONMETRICS,GIVENS GH;EDMONDSON SL;GEORGE JC;SUYDAM R;CHARIF RA;RAHAMAN A;HAWTHORNE D;TUDOR B;DELONG RA;CLARK CW,"a horvitz-thompson-type estimator is introduced to estimate total abundance of the bering-chukchi-beaufort seas population of bowhead whales using combined visual and acoustic location data. the estimator divides sightings counts by three correction factors that are themselves estimated from various portions of the data. the first correction models how detection probabilities depend on covariates like offshore distance and visibility. the second correction adjusts for availability using the acoustic location data to estimate a time-varying smooth function of the probability that animals pass within visual range of the observation stations. the third correction accounts for whales passing during periods when one or both sighting stations were temporarily closed down. we derive an asymptotically unbiased estimator of abundance incorporating all these components and a corresponding variance estimate. correcting the count of 4011 observed whales yields a 2011 abundance estimate of 16,820 with a 95% confidence interval of (15,176, 18,643) and an estimated annual rate of population increase of 3.7% (2.9%, 4.6%). these results are indicative of very low conservation risk for this population under the current low levels of aboriginal hunting permitted by the international whaling commission. although few other capture-recapture surveys will confront exactly the same set of challenges addressed here, many studies face one or more issues that could be resolved by adapting portions of our approach or relevant underlying concepts thereof. moreover, the generic estimator we derive represents an improved way to handle random correction factors rather than assuming fixed values. copyright (c) 2016 john wiley & sons, ltd." use of death records to augment notifiable conditions reporting in washington state,death certificates; epidemiologic surveillance; public health surveillance,JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH MANAGEMENT AND PRACTICE,OLTEAN HN;DEBOLT CA;GOLDOFT MJ;LOFY KH,"context: health care providers are required to report newly diagnosed notifiable conditions including the case's vital status according to state regulations, but it is uncertain how many cases remain unreported. death certificates could potentially serve as a data source for detecting unreported deaths due to notifiable conditions. objective: we sought to evaluate the usefulness of electronic death records to augment notifiable conditions reporting in washington state. design: cross-sectional study. setting: all residents of washington state. participants: decedents from 2010-2012. main outcome measures: total number of fatal cases of acute infectious notifiable conditions in washington residents estimated by capture-recapture analysis, proportion of estimated fatal cases reported to washington's notifiable conditions database (public health issue management system [phims]), and the proportion of estimated fatal cases identified solely from the death records. information was obtained by searching multiple cause-of death fields on 2010-2012 death records for keywords for acute infectious notifiable conditions. results: capture-recapture analysis estimated 317 fatal cases of these conditions could be expected over the 3 years studied (95% ci: 276,358). public health issue management system alone identified 38% of total estimated cases; using phims and death record data increased identification to 71%. electronic filing of death records was very timely, with a median of 4 days to visibility. death record data were highly complete. conclusions: use of death records will augment the notifiable condition reporting system and potentially improve mortality estimates and disease control." -consecutive cohort effects driven by density-dependence and climate influence early-life survival in a long-lived bird,early-life conditions; survival; long-lived seabird; first-year; density dependence; winter,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,PAYO-PAYO A;GENOVART M;BERTOLERO A;PRADEL R;ORO D,"conditions during early life, including maternal cohort effects, can influence the future fitness of individuals. this may be particularly true for long-distance migrating birds, because, apart from conditions experienced by cohorts during rearing, conditions during early life in regions far from breeding grounds may also influence their population dynamics. very little is known about the fitness consequences of those conditions experienced by juveniles after independence, especially in wild populations and for long-lived birds. we used multi-event capture-recapture-recovery models and a unique 26-year dataset for the audouin's gull (larus audouinii) to assess for the first time whether survival was influenced by early conditions, both during the rearing period (i.e. a maternal cohort effect potentially affected by density dependence) and the first winter (i.e. a cohort effect driven by climate when birds disperse to wintering grounds). our results show that juvenile survival was highly sensitive to early-life conditions and that survival decreased with stronger density dependence and harsh climate. the two consecutive cohort effects were of similar magnitude and they may represent a selection filter. thus, early-life conditions had a strong impact on survival, and neglecting this complexity may hinder our understanding on how populations of long-lived animals fluctuate and respond to perturbations." +consecutive cohort effects driven by density-dependence and climate influence early-life survival in a long-lived bird,early-life conditions; survival; long-lived seabird; first-year; density dependence; winter,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,PAYO PAYO A;GENOVART M;BERTOLERO A;PRADEL R;ORO D,"conditions during early life, including maternal cohort effects, can influence the future fitness of individuals. this may be particularly true for long-distance migrating birds, because, apart from conditions experienced by cohorts during rearing, conditions during early life in regions far from breeding grounds may also influence their population dynamics. very little is known about the fitness consequences of those conditions experienced by juveniles after independence, especially in wild populations and for long-lived birds. we used multi-event capture-recapture-recovery models and a unique 26-year dataset for the audouin's gull (larus audouinii) to assess for the first time whether survival was influenced by early conditions, both during the rearing period (i.e. a maternal cohort effect potentially affected by density dependence) and the first winter (i.e. a cohort effect driven by climate when birds disperse to wintering grounds). our results show that juvenile survival was highly sensitive to early-life conditions and that survival decreased with stronger density dependence and harsh climate. the two consecutive cohort effects were of similar magnitude and they may represent a selection filter. thus, early-life conditions had a strong impact on survival, and neglecting this complexity may hinder our understanding on how populations of long-lived animals fluctuate and respond to perturbations." estimating the population size and genetic diversity of amur tigers in northeast china,NA,PLOS ONE,DOU HL;YANG HT;FENG LM;MOU P;WANG TM;GE JP,"over the past century, the endangered amur tiger (panthera tigris altaica) has experienced a severe contraction in demography and geographic range because of habitat loss, poaching, and prey depletion. in its historical home in northeast china, there appears to be a single tiger population that includes tigers in southwest primorye and northeast china; however, the current demographic status of this population is uncertain. information on the abundance, distribution and genetic diversity of this population for assessing the efficacy of conservation interventions are scarce. we used noninvasive genetic detection data from scats, capture-recapture models and an accumulation curve method to estimate the abundance of amur tigers in northeast china. we identified 11 individual tigers (6 females and 5 males) using 10 microsatellite loci in three nature reserves between april 2013 and may 2015. these tigers are confined primarily to a hunchun nature reserve along the border with russia, with an estimated population abundance of 9-11 tigers during the winter of 2014-2015. they showed a low level of genetic diversity. the mean number of alleles per locus was 2.60 and expected and observed heterozygosity were 0.42 and 0.49, respectively. we also documented long-distance dispersal (similar to 270 km) of a male amur tiger to huangnihe nature reserve from the border, suggesting that the expansion of neighboring russian populations may eventually help sustain chinese populations. however, the small and isolated population recorded by this study demonstrate that there is an urgent need for more intensive regional management to create a tiger-permeable landscape and increased genetic connectivity with other populations." dispersal variability and associated population-level consequences in tree-killing bark beetles,dispersal mortality; european spruce bark beetle; foraging; host selection; individual-based modelling; ips-model; movement ecology; pioneering; population plasticity; risk spreading,MOVEMENT ECOLOGY,KAUTZ M;IMRON MA;DWORSCHAK K;SCHOPF R,"background: dispersal is a key process in the response of insect populations to rapidly changing environmental conditions. variability among individuals, regarding the timing of dispersal initiation and travelled distance from source, is assumed to contribute to increased population success through risk spreading. however, experiments are often limited in studying complex dispersal interactions over space and time. by applying a local-scaled individual-based simulation model we studied dispersal and emerging infestation patterns in a host - bark beetle system (picea abies - ips typgraphus). more specifically, we (i) investigated the effect of individual variability in beetle physiology (flight capacity) and environmental heterogeneity (host susceptibility level) on population-level dispersal success, and (ii) elucidated patterns of spatial and/or temporal variability in individual dispersal success, host selectivity, and the resulting beetle density within colonized hosts in differently susceptible environments. results: individual variability in flight capacity of bark beetles causes predominantly positive effects on population-level dispersal success, yet these effects are strongly environment-dependent: variability is most beneficial in purely resistant habitats, while positive effects are less pronounced in purely susceptible habitats, and largely absent in habitats where host susceptibility is spatially scattered. despite success rates being highest in purely susceptible habitats, scattered host susceptibility appeared most suitable for dispersing bark beetle populations as it ensures population spread without drastically reducing success rates. at the individual level, dispersal success generally decreases with distance to source and is lowest in early flight cohorts, while host selectivity increased and colonization density decreased with increasing distance across all environments. conclusions: our modelling approach is demonstrated to be a powerful tool for studying movement ecology in bark beetles. dispersal variability largely contributes to risk spreading among individuals, and facilitates the response of populations to changing environmental conditions. higher mortality risk suffered by a small part of the dispersing population (long-distance dispersers, pioneers) is likely paid off by reduced deferred costs resulting in fitness benefits for subsequent generations. both, dispersal variability in space and time, and environmental heterogeneity are characterized as key features which require particular emphasis when investigating dispersal and infestation patterns in tree-killing bark beetles." paternal but not maternal age influences early-life performance of offspring in a long-lived seabird,ageing; capture-mark-recapture; diomedea exulans; juvenile survival; long-term effects,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,FAY R;BARBRAUD C;DELORD K;WEIMERSKIRCH H,"variability in demographic traits between individuals within populations has profound implications for both evolutionary processes and population dynamics. parental effects as a source of non-genetic inheritance are important processes to consider to understand the causes of individual variation. in iteroparous species, parental age is known to influence strongly reproductive success and offspring quality, but consequences on an offspring fitness component after independence are much less studied. based on 37 years longitudinal monitoring of a long-lived seabird, the wandering albatross, we investigate delayed effects of parental age on offspring fitness components. we provide evidence that parental age influences offspring performance beyond the age of independence. by distinguishing maternal and paternal age effects, we demonstrate that paternal age, but not maternal age, impacts negatively post-fledging offspring performance." @@ -1575,12 +1577,12 @@ novel insights into the dynamics of green turtle fibropapillomatosis,fibropapill scent lure effect on camera-trap based leopard density estimates,NA,PLOS ONE,BRACZKOWSKI AR;BALME GA;DICKMAN A;FATTEBERT J;JOHNSON P;DICKERSON T;MACDONALD DW;HUNTER L,"density estimates for large carnivores derived from camera surveys often have wide confidence intervals due to low detection rates. such estimates are of limited value to authorities, which require precise population estimates to inform conservation strategies. using lures can potentially increase detection, improving the precision of estimates. however, by altering the spatio-temporal patterning of individuals across the camera array, lures may violate closure, a fundamental assumption of capture-recapture. here, we test the effect of scent lures on the precision and veracity of density estimates derived from camera-trap surveys of a protected african leopard population. we undertook two surveys (a 'control' and 'treatment' survey) on phinda game reserve, south africa. survey design remained consistent except a scent lure was applied at camera-trap stations during the treatment survey. lures did not affect the maximum movement distances (p = 0.96) or temporal activity of female (p = 0.12) or male leopards (p = 0.79), and the assumption of geographic closure was met for both surveys (p >0.05). the numbers of photographic captures were also similar for control and treatment surveys (p = 0.90). accordingly, density estimates were comparable between surveys (although estimates derived using non-spatial methods (7.28-9.28 leopards/100km(2)) were considerably higher than estimates from spatially-explicit methods (3.40-3.65 leopards/100km(2)). the precision of estimates from the control and treatment surveys, were also comparable and this applied to both non-spatial and spatial methods of estimation. our findings suggest that at least in the context of leopard research in productive habitats, the use of lures is not warranted." "survival of large gulls breeding in eastern newfoundland, canada",great black-backed gull; herring gull; larus argentatus; larus marinus; newfoundland; survival,WATERBIRDS,ROBERTSON GJ;FIFE DT;MALLORY ML;CALVERT AM,"in response to human activity and ecosystem changes, large gulls in eastern north america have shown a variety of population trends over the last 100 years. seven years of capture-mark-recapture data were analyzed for herring (larus argentatus) and great black-backed (l. marinus) gulls breeding in eastern newfoundland, canada to estimate apparent survival and survival rates. estimated survival was 0.864 for great black-backed gulls and 0.837 for herring gulls. for both species, the survival rate calculated using live and dead encounters was higher than the apparent survival rate calculated from resighting data only and added almost an additional year of expected life. while these values are in the range of survival rates reported from other studies along the eastern coast of north america, the values for herring gulls were lower than survival rates reported elsewhere in north america and europe. the lower survival rates seen in eastern north american herring gulls may be attributable to characteristics of the migration and wintering habitat, including poorer habitat quality (i.e., highly developed and industrialized east coast) and possibly gull (laridae) control programs." labeling feral spruce budworm (lepidoptera: tortricidae) populations with rubidium,insect labeling; rubidium chloride; spruce budworm; systemic tree injection,ENVIRONMENTAL ENTOMOLOGY,MACKINNON W;EVELEIGH E;SILK P;FORBES G,"rubidium (rb) is a trace element that occurs naturally in low concentrations and is easily absorbed by plants, making it a useful tool for labeling insect defoliators, such as spruce budworm (choristoneura fumiferana clemens). balsam fir trees (abies balsamea (l.) miller) injected with either 8 or 16 g per tree of rubidium chloride (rbcl) showed quick uptake and distribution throughout the crown, with no negative effects on tree shoot growth or spruce budworm survival and development. adult spruce budworm that fed as larvae on trees injected with rbcl were clearly labeled, with significantly higher rb concentrations than the background levels found in adults that fed as larvae on control trees. rb concentrations in feral spruce budworm adults for both the 8 g (9 mu g/g) and 16 g (25 mu g/g) per tree treatments were at least five times lower than those in laboratory-reared adults on 1,000 mu g/g rbcl diet (125 mu g/g); survival, development, pupal weight, sex ratio, and mating status of spruce budworm were not adversely affected by rb treatment. egg masses laid by feral females that fed as larvae on rb-labeled trees were also labeled with rb. injecting trees with rbcl is a viable technique for labeling feral spruce budworm populations to help distinguish local populations from immigrants to better evaluate the success of early intervention strategies such as mating disruption." -adult population ecology and egg laying strategy in the 'cruciata' ecotype of the endangered butterfly maculinea alcon (lepidoptera: lycaenidae),host plant; mark-recapture; sex ratio; species conservation; survival; vegetation characteristics,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,OSVATH-FERENCZ M;CZEKES Z;MOLNAR G;MARKO B;VIZAUER TC;RAKOSY L;NOWICKI P,"population dynamics studies in insects mostly focus on a specific life stage of a species and seldom consider different stages. here, we studied the population demography of a protected maculinea alcon 'cruciata' population and the factors that could influence the distribution of eggs. the results of the mark-recapture survey showed a relatively short flight period between mid-june and mid-july with a clearly marked early peak period. unlike in many other butterflies, protandry was not strong. the total population of m. alcon 'cruciata' was estimated at 699 individuals. the survival rate, and consequently the average life span, was relatively low. eggs showed a highly aggregated pattern, and egg numbers were positively related to general shoot size, while the number of flower buds and the features of the surrounding vegetation did not display any effect on egg laying. based on our findings, the studied population appears viable, but specific management techniques could ensure optimal conditions for egg laying in this protected butterfly." +adult population ecology and egg laying strategy in the 'cruciata' ecotype of the endangered butterfly maculinea alcon (lepidoptera: lycaenidae),host plant; mark-recapture; sex ratio; species conservation; survival; vegetation characteristics,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,OSVATH FERENCZ M;CZEKES Z;MOLNAR G;MARKO B;VIZAUER TC;RAKOSY L;NOWICKI P,"population dynamics studies in insects mostly focus on a specific life stage of a species and seldom consider different stages. here, we studied the population demography of a protected maculinea alcon 'cruciata' population and the factors that could influence the distribution of eggs. the results of the mark-recapture survey showed a relatively short flight period between mid-june and mid-july with a clearly marked early peak period. unlike in many other butterflies, protandry was not strong. the total population of m. alcon 'cruciata' was estimated at 699 individuals. the survival rate, and consequently the average life span, was relatively low. eggs showed a highly aggregated pattern, and egg numbers were positively related to general shoot size, while the number of flower buds and the features of the surrounding vegetation did not display any effect on egg laying. based on our findings, the studied population appears viable, but specific management techniques could ensure optimal conditions for egg laying in this protected butterfly." estimating suicide rates in developing nations: a low-cost newspaper capture-recapture approach in cambodia,cambodia; capture-recapture; epidemiology; public health; southeast asia; suicide prevention; vital statistics,ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH,HARRIS KM;THANDRAYEN J;SAMPHOAS C;SE P;LEWCHALERMWONGSE B;RATANASHEVORN R;PERRY ML;BRITTS C,"this study tested a low-cost method for estimating suicide rates in developing nations that lack adequate statistics. data comprised reported suicides from cambodia's 2 largest newspapers. capture-recapture modeling estimated a suicide rate of 3.8/100000 (95% ci = 2.5-6.7) for 2012. that compares to world health organization estimates of 1.3 to 9.4/100000 and a cambodian government estimate of 3.5/100000. suicide rates of males were twice that of females, and rates of those <40 years were twice that of those 40 years. capture-recapture modeling with newspaper reports proved a reasonable method for estimating suicide rates for countries with inadequate official data. these methods are low-cost and can be applied to regions with at least 2 newspapers with overlapping reports. means to further improve this approach are discussed. these methods are applicable to both recent and historical data, which can benefit epidemiological work, and may also be applicable to homicides and other statistics." detection and apparent survival of pit-tagged stream fish in winter,brown trout; european sculpin; ice; sweden; tracking,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,WEBER C;SCHEUBER H;NILSSON C;ALFREDSEN KT,"environmental fluctuations exert strong control on behavior, survival, and fitness of stream biota. technical improvements increasingly allow for tracking the response of large numbers of individuals to environmental fluctuations, for instance, by remote detection of animals equipped with pit (passive integrated transponder) tags. pit tags were implanted into 393 juvenile and adult brown trout salmo trutta l. and european sculpin cottus gobio l. in a boreal stream subjected to considerable ice formation. with weekly trackings over 6 months, we quantified apparent survival and detection probability in relation to biological, environmental, and methodological factors. individuals with a higher physical condition in autumn showed a higher apparent survival; this pattern was consistent across all species and age classes. detection probability decreased with increasing thickness of the surface ice layer; this effect was most pronounced for juvenile trout and benthic-living sculpin, both tagged with smaller-sized tags. detection probability was reduced in structurally complex habitats. our study demonstrates that apparent survival and particularly detection probability may show pronounced spatiotemporal variation. in order to compare results from different sampling occasions and sites, a good knowledge of the study site and of the regulating factors is crucial." reinvasion dynamics of subterranean termites (isoptera: rhinotermitidae) following the elimination of all detectable colonies in a large area,formosan subterranean termite; eastern subterranean termite; termite bait; reinvasion; area-wide management,JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY,SU NY;GUIDRY E;MULLINS AJ;COTONNE C,"following the elimination of all detectable termite colonies in the 32-acre louis armstrong park in new orleans, la, in 2002-2003, termite activity was monitored by using 808 sentricon stations. between january 2004 and july 2005, termites were found in 8-11 stations. in august 2005, the park was flooded by hurricane katrina, but termites remained active. post-katrina termite activity levels of 16-21 stations were recorded throughout 2006, and in october 2007, the activity drastically increased to 43 stations. this rapid increase of termite activity continued into 2008, and a total of 94 stations harbored termite activities by july 2008. termite activity peaked at 109 stations in september 2008 and then leveled down to 64 stations in march 2009. termite activity in the park between 2004 and 2009 was described by a sigmoid model with a carrying capacity of 76 stations, and a sigmoid mid-point of 1,202 d. in april 2009, a total of 14 colonies of coptotermes formosanus shiraki and one colony of reticulitermes flavipes (kollar) were delineated by using microsatellite genotyping and mark-recapture protocol. of the 15 colonies, eight near the park border probably originated from existing colonies from outside, and seven c. formosanus colonies found inside the park were probably initiated by alate pairs. our results showed that, if surrounded by high population pressure of termites and no control measures are applied, an area cleared of termite populations by baits can be completely re-populated by termites from outside in 53 mo." "growth rate of speckled snapper lutjanus rivulatus (teleostei: lutjanidae) based on tag-recapture data from the isimangaliso wetland park, south africa",growth parameters; marine protected area; maximum likelihood; precautionary management; tagging,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,MANN BQ;LEE B;COWLEY PD,"the growth rate of speckled snapper lutjanus rivulatus was investigated using data from a long-term tag-recapture study conducted in the st lucia marine reserve within the isimangaliso wetland park, a world heritage site in northern kwazulu-natal, south africa. a total of 1 429 l. rivulatus were tagged and 453 (31.7%) individual fish were recaptured one or more times. growth rates were modelled from the tag-recapture data using a maximum-likelihood approach. it is shown that l. rivulatus is a slow-growing species with l = 918 mm fl, k = 0.06 and phi-prime (o, the growth index) = 2.69. the effects of deep-hooking and multiple captures were tested and this revealed that there was no significant impact on the growth of l. rivulatus. the growth index was lower than that recorded in many other similar congeneric species. slow growth, coupled with high levels of residency and site fidelity, suggest that this species is vulnerable to exploitation and that a precautionary approach towards future management is appropriate." -"prevalence and risk factors associated with hiv and tuberculosis in people who use drugs in abidjan, ivory coast",drug users; sex workers; men having sex with men; hiv; tuberculosis; hbv; hcv; syphilis; ivory coast; west africa; respondent driven sampling; capture recapture,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DRUG POLICY,BOUSCAILLOU J;EVANNO J;PROUTE M;INWOLEY A;KABRAN M;N'GUESSAN T;DJE-BI S;SIDIBE S;THIAM-NIANGOIN M;N'GUESSAN BR;BLANCHETIERE P;LUHMANN N,"background: the number of people who use drugs (pwud) has dramatically increased in west africa over the last 15 years, but targeted interventions are falling behind, notably because of the lack of awareness of the health needs of pwud. we aimed to assess prevalence and factors associated with hiv and other infections in pwud in abidjan, ivory coast, one of the countries most affected by hiv in western africa. methods: we used respondent-driven-sampling to obtain a representative sample of heroin or cocaine/crack users aged 18 years or more. socio-behavioral data were obtained by face-to-face questionnaires. blood samples were collected and tested for hiv. two sputa were obtained in tuberculosis (tb) symptomatic participants for acid-fast-bacilli (afb) smear testing. after a descriptive analysis, crude prevalence were calculated, then weighted to take account of the sampling method. factors associated with hiv and tb were studied using adjusted log-binomial regression. population size was estimated by capture-recapture. results: 450 pwud were recruited in may 2014. the mean age was 33.5 years; 10.9% were women. smoking was the main mode of consumption, ever injecting was reported by 12.7% of the participants (3.6% in the past month). sex work was reported by 15.8% of the pwud (13.7% of the men), and 10.2% of the men reported sexual relationships with other men (msm). we found a weighted prevalence of 9.5% for hiv. women were 3.4 times more likely to be infected than men. among men, being a sex worker (sw) (adjusted or 2.9 [95ci 1.06-7.981) or msm (adjusted or 11.5 [95ci 4.22-31.42]) were the main factors associated with hiv infection in adjusted analysis. injection was not associated with hiv. tb weighted prevalence was 1.8%, associated with poor living arrangements in adjusted analysis. we estimated that 3521; 95ci 3049-3993 pwud live in abidjan. conclusion: pwud in abidjan are at high risk of hiv due to sexual transmission, especially in women, sw and msm who also use drugs. interventions should be developed to improve hiv prevention and linkage to care in these specific populations. more generally, improving the health of pwud involves a broader reflection on the living environment and access to health care of slum residents in large african cities. (c) 2016 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +"prevalence and risk factors associated with hiv and tuberculosis in people who use drugs in abidjan, ivory coast",drug users; sex workers; men having sex with men; hiv; tuberculosis; hbv; hcv; syphilis; ivory coast; west africa; respondent driven sampling; capture recapture,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DRUG POLICY,BOUSCAILLOU J;EVANNO J;PROUTE M;INWOLEY A;KABRAN M;N GUESSAN T;DJE BI S;SIDIBE S;THIAM NIANGOIN M;N GUESSAN BR;BLANCHETIERE P;LUHMANN N,"background: the number of people who use drugs (pwud) has dramatically increased in west africa over the last 15 years, but targeted interventions are falling behind, notably because of the lack of awareness of the health needs of pwud. we aimed to assess prevalence and factors associated with hiv and other infections in pwud in abidjan, ivory coast, one of the countries most affected by hiv in western africa. methods: we used respondent-driven-sampling to obtain a representative sample of heroin or cocaine/crack users aged 18 years or more. socio-behavioral data were obtained by face-to-face questionnaires. blood samples were collected and tested for hiv. two sputa were obtained in tuberculosis (tb) symptomatic participants for acid-fast-bacilli (afb) smear testing. after a descriptive analysis, crude prevalence were calculated, then weighted to take account of the sampling method. factors associated with hiv and tb were studied using adjusted log-binomial regression. population size was estimated by capture-recapture. results: 450 pwud were recruited in may 2014. the mean age was 33.5 years; 10.9% were women. smoking was the main mode of consumption, ever injecting was reported by 12.7% of the participants (3.6% in the past month). sex work was reported by 15.8% of the pwud (13.7% of the men), and 10.2% of the men reported sexual relationships with other men (msm). we found a weighted prevalence of 9.5% for hiv. women were 3.4 times more likely to be infected than men. among men, being a sex worker (sw) (adjusted or 2.9 [95ci 1.06-7.981) or msm (adjusted or 11.5 [95ci 4.22-31.42]) were the main factors associated with hiv infection in adjusted analysis. injection was not associated with hiv. tb weighted prevalence was 1.8%, associated with poor living arrangements in adjusted analysis. we estimated that 3521; 95ci 3049-3993 pwud live in abidjan. conclusion: pwud in abidjan are at high risk of hiv due to sexual transmission, especially in women, sw and msm who also use drugs. interventions should be developed to improve hiv prevention and linkage to care in these specific populations. more generally, improving the health of pwud involves a broader reflection on the living environment and access to health care of slum residents in large african cities. (c) 2016 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." demographic dynamics of akodon azarae (cricetidae: sigmodontinae) in linear habitats of agricultural landscapes of central argentina,cmr; population growth rate; recruitment; survival; temporal variation,STUDIES ON NEOTROPICAL FAUNA AND ENVIRONMENT,GOMEZ MD;SERAFINI V;CODA J;PRIOTTO J,"linear habitats are capable of providing essential resources for small mammals within agroecosystems. we analyzed demographic parameters of akodon azarae in a linear habitat of central argentina. we used capture-mark-recapture models to determine temporal variations in survival, recruitment and population growth rate. the effects of temperature, rainfall and vegetation cover as well as of population abundances on the mentioned parameters were assessed in a 10-year study. survival and growth rate showed seasonal variation, which was greater than the interannual variability observed. temperature affected only recruitment. linear habitats would provide resources for long term survival and reproduction of a. azarae." seasonal movements of river dolphins (inia geoffrensis) in a protected amazonian floodplain,boto; inia geoffrensis; amazon river dolphin; piracatinga; mota; calophysus macropterus; mamiraua sustainable development reserve; mark-recapture modeling; habitat use; transition probability,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,MINTZER VJ;LORENZEN K;FRAZER TK;DA SILVA VMF;MARTIN AR,"deliberate killing for use as bait in a regional catfish (calophysus macropterus) fishery is the primary threat affecting the survival of the amazon river dolphin, or boto (inia geoffrensis). establishing and improving freshwater protected areas has been suggested as a possible course of action to protect the species. however, the ecology of the boto is poorly understood and more information is needed on the species' habitat use and movement patterns to ensure that spatial protection initiatives meet conservation needs. in this study, mark-recapture/resight data collected in and near the mamiraua sustainable development reserve, a varzea in the brazilian amazon, was used to examine transition probabilities of botos between various habitat types. our findings suggest that it is imperative that spatial protection initiatives focused on the boto take into account the importance of varzea habitat and bay systems for individuals in early life stages. moreover, because botos frequently occupy the main rivers, particularly during the low water period, protecting areas of the main river waters adjacent to varzeas could aid in the protection of hunted populations." immigration enhances fast growth of a newly established source population,apparent survival; colonization; leslie matrix; local survival; metapopulation; new colony; population dynamics,ECOLOGY,SANTORO S;GREEN AJ;FIGUEROLA J,"immigration and local recruitment play a central role in determining the growth rate of breeding populations. unraveling these processes in newly established populations is of great importance to increase our understanding of how species change their distributions in response to global change. we studied the largest colony of glossy ibis (plegadis falcinellus) in western europe (established in 1996 in donana, sw-spain) by using capture-recapture methods, count estimates, and projection matrix modeling to: (1) test the effect of resource availability and competition on local recruitment dynamics, (2) investigate the contribution of local recruitment vs. immigration on population growth, and (3) assess the role of this population in source/sink dynamics. we found different dynamics before and after the establishment of satellite colonies in donana in 2004. between 1996 and 2003, the population increased rapidly, fueled by immigrants (approximate to 58 breeding females/yr). between 2003 and 2007, however, both colony size increase and immigration were negligible. immigration played a major role in colony growth, but simultaneously this colony was a source population driving expansion of the species range as suggested by (1) absolute and relative estimates of the observed growth rate relative to that predicted by self-recruitment, and (2) numerous observations of donana-born individuals breeding elsewhere. local recruitment, which was particularly high for first-year individuals (probability >0.8 for the early study years), was not directly related to resource availability or previous-year breeding success. local recruitment decreased rapidly at a threshold population size, however, when other satellite colonies became established at donana. our study suggests that even when recruitment at an early age and high productivity are observed, immigration can still play a pivotal role in promoting the fast growth of new populations at the edge of a species range, at least until density-dependent effects arise. this process can be so fast that within a few years a new population can itself become a source population, further driving range expansion of the species." @@ -1591,8 +1593,8 @@ evaluating the functional importance of secretive species: a case study of aquat robust estimation of survival and contribution of captive-bred mallards anas platyrhynchos to a wild population in a large-scale release programme,anas platyrhynchos; hand-reared birds; hunting; reintroduction; restocking; survival,IBIS,CHAMPAGNON J;LEGAGNEUX P;SOUCHAY G;INCHAUSTI P;BRETAGNOLLE V;BOURGUEMESTRE F;VAN INGEN L;GUILLEMAIN M,"the survival of captive-bred individuals from release into the wild to their first breeding season is crucial to assess the success of reintroduction or translocation programmes, and to assess their potential impact of wild populations. however, assessing the survival of captive-bred individuals following their release is often complicated by immediate dispersal once in the wild. here, we apply lindberg's robust design model, a method that incorporates emigration from the study site, to obtain true estimates of survival of captive-bred mallards anas platyrhynchos, a common duck species released on a large scale in europe since the 1970s. overall survival rate from release in july until the onset of the next breeding season in april was low (0.18 +/- 0.07 se) and equivalent to half the first-year survival of local wild mallards. higher overall detectability and temporary emigration during the hunting period revealed movements in response to hunting pressure. such low survival of released mallards during their first year may help prevent large-scale genetic mixing with the wild population. nevertheless, by combining our results with regional waterfowl counts, we estimated that a minimum of 34% of the mallards in the region were of captive origin at the onset of the breeding season. although most released birds quickly die, restocking for hunting may be of sufficient magnitude to affect the wild population through genetic homogenization or loss of local adaptation. robust design protocols allow for the estimation of true survival estimates by controlling for permanent and temporary emigration and may require only a moderate increase in fieldwork effort." beyond climate envelope projections: roe deer survival and environmental change,capreolus capreolus; climate change; lynx lynx; ndvi; predation; roe deer; survival; vegetation,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,DAVIS ML;STEPHENS PA;KJELLANDER P,"research on climate change impacts has focused on projecting changes in the geographic ranges of species, with less emphasis on the vital rates giving rise to species distributions. managing ungulate populations under future climate change will require an understanding of how their vital rates are affected by direct climatic effects and the indirect climatic and non-climatic effects that are often overlooked by climate impact studies. we used generalized linear models and capture-mark-recapture models to assess the influence of a variety of direct climatic, indirect climatic, and non-climatic predictors on the survival of roe deer (capreolus capreolus) at 2 sites in sweden. the models indicated that although direct climatic effects (e.g., precipitation) explained some variation in survival, indirect climatic effects (e.g., an index of vegetation production), and non-climatic effects (hunting by lynx [lynx lynx] and humans) had greater explanatory power. climate change is likely to increase vegetation productivity in northern europe, and, coupled with the positive effects of vegetation productivity on roe deer survival, might lead to population increases in the future. survival was negatively affected by lynx presence where these predators occur and by human harvest in the site that lacked predators. in the future, managers might find that a combination of increased harvest and predation by recovering carnivore populations may be necessary to mitigate climate-induced increases in roe deer survival. considering vegetation availability and predation effects is likely to improve predictions of ungulate population responses to variation in climate and, therefore, inform management under future climate change. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." population dynamics of endangered blanding's turtles in a restored area,emydoidea blandingii; mark-recapture; nest depredation; prairie-oak barrens; restoration monitoring; wisconsin,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,REID BN;THIEL RP;PEERY MZ,"habitat protection and restoration are used to promote recovery in endangered reptile species, yet the long-term consequences of these efforts can be difficult to assess. measuring the effects of habitat restoration on turtles can be especially difficult because of long generation times and consequent time lags between restoration activities and population-level responses to these activities. we collected 24 years of mark-recapture, size structure, and nest survival data on a population of international union for conservation of nature (iucn)-endangered blanding's turtles (emydoidea blandingii) inhabiting a large restored wetland-upland complex in wisconsin, usa. we used these data to examine survival and recruitment in the population and the response of individual aggregations of nesting females to recent restoration of an extensive upland prairie-oak barrens nesting habitat. the population exhibited positive growth over the 24-year period (lambda = 1.03) based on temporal asymmetry mark-recapture models. population growth rates were greatest in a recently restored prairie-barrens nesting area because of relatively high recruitment of nesting females. females nesting in the recently restored prairie-barrens habitat were smaller and decreased in size over time compared to females using 2 older nesting areas, suggesting that recruitment was relatively high because of an influx of young breeding females. nest depredation probability decreased with increasing distance from forest edges, suggesting that the recent clearing of woody vegetation in recently restored habitat increased reproductive success. collectively, our results highlight the potential benefits of habitat restoration to turtles and identify upland habitats as a key to promoting population growth in turtles with complex habitat requirements. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." -"sample diversity adds value to non-invasive genetic assessment of a pine marten (martes martes) population in galloway forest, southwest scotland",pine marten; martes martes; non-invasive genetic sampling; population size; population density,MAMMAL RESEARCH,CROOSE E;BIRKS JDS;O'REILLY C;TURNER P;MARTIN J;MACLEOD ET,"the european pine marten (martes martes) is a species of considerable conservation interest in britain due to its rarity and status as a recovering native carnivore. in recent years, there has been increased application of non-invasive genetic sampling methods in population studies of martes species. we investigated the effect of sample source (hair and faeces) in the non-invasive assessment of the distribution, population size and density of pine martens in the fleet basin in galloway forest, southwest scotland. fifty-two hair samples and 114 scats were collected during september and october 2014. genetic analysis was used to identify the species, gender and individual genotype of samples. there was a significant difference in the genotyping success rate for hair samples (43 %) and scat samples (24 %). in total, 15 individual pine martens were identified; 7 males and 8 females. capture-recapture programme capwire produced a population size estimate of 18 individuals (95 % ci 15 to 25). of the 15 individuals sampled, 14 (93 %) were detected from scat sampling and 5 (33 %) were detected from hair sampling. the population density estimate for a post-breeding population was 0.13 to 0.15 pine martens per square kilometre which is towards the lower limit of densities reported for pine martens elsewhere in scotland. data from the study highlight that future non-invasive studies aiming to determine pine marten population size and density should incorporate the collection of both hair and scat samples in order to detect as many individuals within the population as possible." -populations on the limits: survival of svalbard rock ptarmigan,climatic variability; lagopus muta hyperborea; population dynamics; 'slow-fast-continuum'; survival analysis,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,UNANDER S;PEDERSEN AO;SOININEN EM;DESCAMPS S;HORNELL-WILLEBRAND M;FUGLEI E,"predictable variation in demographic patterns among populations inhabiting extreme environments can be used to direct common management actions. ptarmigan and other grouse are ecologically important herbivores in arctic and alpine areas, but survival estimates are lacking for many harvested populations. this hampers more detailed assessment of how this key determinant of population growth rate is related to environmental variability and whether there is predictable between-population variation. in this article, we estimated apparent survival by age and sex of the endemic high-arctic svalbard rock ptarmigan (lagopus muta hyperborea) using a 6-year mark-recapture dataset from the west coast of spitsbergen (1980-1986). second, we tested whether seasonal climatic variability explained temporal variation in adult survival rates. within the svalbard rock ptarmigan population, annual adult survival did not differ between the sexes, but varied among locations. temporal variation in adult survival was limited and could not be explained by climatic variability. a review of inter-population comparisons of vital rates (survival and reproduction) of rock ptarmigan populations suggested that the high-arctic, low-elevation svalbard rock ptarmigan populations resemble their low-arctic counterparts, and settles at the 'low survival-high reproduction' end of the 'slow-fast continuum'. the demographic traits of high-arctic ptarmigan contrast with the 'high survival-low reproduction' of rock ptarmigan populations at low latitudes and high elevations. our study demonstrated that spatial variation in survival rates exists both within and between svalbard rock ptarmigan populations. we suggest that further studies focus on ecological gradients underlying the spatial variation of life history and thus shape the population dynamics and long-term resilience." +"sample diversity adds value to non-invasive genetic assessment of a pine marten (martes martes) population in galloway forest, southwest scotland",pine marten; martes martes; non-invasive genetic sampling; population size; population density,MAMMAL RESEARCH,CROOSE E;BIRKS JDS;O REILLY C;TURNER P;MARTIN J;MACLEOD ET,"the european pine marten (martes martes) is a species of considerable conservation interest in britain due to its rarity and status as a recovering native carnivore. in recent years, there has been increased application of non-invasive genetic sampling methods in population studies of martes species. we investigated the effect of sample source (hair and faeces) in the non-invasive assessment of the distribution, population size and density of pine martens in the fleet basin in galloway forest, southwest scotland. fifty-two hair samples and 114 scats were collected during september and october 2014. genetic analysis was used to identify the species, gender and individual genotype of samples. there was a significant difference in the genotyping success rate for hair samples (43 %) and scat samples (24 %). in total, 15 individual pine martens were identified; 7 males and 8 females. capture-recapture programme capwire produced a population size estimate of 18 individuals (95 % ci 15 to 25). of the 15 individuals sampled, 14 (93 %) were detected from scat sampling and 5 (33 %) were detected from hair sampling. the population density estimate for a post-breeding population was 0.13 to 0.15 pine martens per square kilometre which is towards the lower limit of densities reported for pine martens elsewhere in scotland. data from the study highlight that future non-invasive studies aiming to determine pine marten population size and density should incorporate the collection of both hair and scat samples in order to detect as many individuals within the population as possible." +populations on the limits: survival of svalbard rock ptarmigan,climatic variability; lagopus muta hyperborea; population dynamics; 'slow-fast-continuum'; survival analysis,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,UNANDER S;PEDERSEN AO;SOININEN EM;DESCAMPS S;HORNELL WILLEBRAND M;FUGLEI E,"predictable variation in demographic patterns among populations inhabiting extreme environments can be used to direct common management actions. ptarmigan and other grouse are ecologically important herbivores in arctic and alpine areas, but survival estimates are lacking for many harvested populations. this hampers more detailed assessment of how this key determinant of population growth rate is related to environmental variability and whether there is predictable between-population variation. in this article, we estimated apparent survival by age and sex of the endemic high-arctic svalbard rock ptarmigan (lagopus muta hyperborea) using a 6-year mark-recapture dataset from the west coast of spitsbergen (1980-1986). second, we tested whether seasonal climatic variability explained temporal variation in adult survival rates. within the svalbard rock ptarmigan population, annual adult survival did not differ between the sexes, but varied among locations. temporal variation in adult survival was limited and could not be explained by climatic variability. a review of inter-population comparisons of vital rates (survival and reproduction) of rock ptarmigan populations suggested that the high-arctic, low-elevation svalbard rock ptarmigan populations resemble their low-arctic counterparts, and settles at the 'low survival-high reproduction' end of the 'slow-fast continuum'. the demographic traits of high-arctic ptarmigan contrast with the 'high survival-low reproduction' of rock ptarmigan populations at low latitudes and high elevations. our study demonstrated that spatial variation in survival rates exists both within and between svalbard rock ptarmigan populations. we suggest that further studies focus on ecological gradients underlying the spatial variation of life history and thus shape the population dynamics and long-term resilience." survival of sooty falcons (falco concolor) breeding in oman,state-specific survival; age-specific breeding probability; capture-mark-recapture analysis; falco concolor; sooty falcon demography; multi-state models; sultanate of oman,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,MCGRADY MJ;AL FAZARI WA;AL JAHDHAMI MH;HINES JE;OLI MK,"although the middle east supports a high level of avian biodiversity, the ecology of relatively few species that use the region has been studied in detail. despite its restricted breeding distribution in the middle east, and apparent unfavorable conservation status, little is known about the population ecology of the sooty falcon (falco concolor), one of only two falcon species that breeds in the boreal summer. we applied multi-state models to capture-mark-recapture data collected during 2007-2014 in the sultanate of oman to estimate, for the first time, the probabilities of capture, age-specific breeding probabilities, and state-specific apparent survival for sooty falcon. capture probability for breeding adults (+/- 1se) was 0.443 +/- a 0.088. annual apparent survival probability for pre-breeders and for breeding adults was 0.570 +/- a 0.048 and 0.656 +/- a 0.069, respectively. the probability that 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old falcons returned as breeders was 0.065 +/- a 0.036, 0.159 +/- a 0.069, and 0.339 +/- a 0.211, respectively. in 2013, we radio-tagged five fledgling falcons, and monitored their fates using satellite-based tracking. all initiated their first migration and survived for 48 days following radio-tagging, but four of the five birds died by 70 days post-tagging; only one survived > 100 days. our results suggest that only about 12 % of fledglings survive to the average age of first breeding (similar to 3.8 years), and that most of first-year mortality occurs during their first migration or soon after they reach their destination. low apparent survival of pre-breeders could result in low recruitment to the breeding population, and population declines. a comprehensive population-level assessment is urgently needed to accurately determine the status of sooty falcons, and to devise flyway-scale conservation plans." "status of the mountain ungulate prey of the endangered snow leopard panthera uncia in the tost local protected area, south gobi, mongolia",argali; central asia; double-observer survey; ibex; panthera uncia; snow leopard; ungulate prey,ORYX,TUMURSUKH L;SURYAWANSHI KR;MISHRA C;MCCARTHY TM;BOLDGIV B,"the availability of wild prey is a critical predictor of carnivore density. however, few conservation programmes have focused on the estimation andmonitoring of wild ungulate populations and their trends, especially in the remote mountains of central asia. we conducted double-observer surveys to estimate the populations of ibex capra sibirica and argali ovis ammon in the mountainous regions of tost local protected area, south gobi province, mongolia, which is being considered for designation as a nature reserve. we also conducted demographic surveys of the more abundant ibex to examine their sex-ratio and the survival of young during 2012-2013 the estimated ibex population remained stable in 2012 and 2013 and the estimated argali population increased from 108 in 2012 to 230 in 2013 the biomass of wild ungulates was c 6% that of livestock. mortality in young ibex appeared to increase after weaning, at the age of.. months. we estimated the population of wild ungulates was sufficient to support 14-18 adult snow leopards panthera uncia. the adult snow leopard population in our study area during 2012-2013, estimated independently using camera-trap-based mark-recapture methods, was 12-14. based on our results we identify the tost local protected area as an important habitat for the conservation of these ungulates and their predator, the endangered snow leopard, and recommend elevation of its status to a nature reserve." chytrid infection and post-release fitness in the reintroduction of an endangered alpine tree frog,amphibian decline; capture-mark-recapture; chytridiomycosis; chytrid fungus; conditional arnason-schwarz model; reintroduction; infection; fitness,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,BRANNELLY LA;HUNTER DA;SKERRATT LF;SCHEELE BC;LENGER D;MCFADDEN MS;HARLOW PS;BERGER L,"global amphibian decline and extinction has been associated with the spread of the pathogenic chytrid fungus (batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, bd). despite extensive research, there have been no examples of effective management abating the ongoing impact of this pathogen in the wild. the endangered alpine tree frog (litoria verreauxii alpina) has been extirpated from 80% of its former range because of bd. we directly tested whether source population or host site influenced the efficacy of a reintroduction of l. v. alpina. we captive reared and released 1241 individuals from three different populations, two with a history of bd exposure and one that was bd-naive, into two sites where they had historically occurred, and two sites where the species currently persists. between 6 and 9 months post-release, we recaptured 4.83% of the released animals, and observed breeding at all sites. both released and extant animals had similar susceptibility to infection; both groups increased in bd infection prevalence and infection intensity throughout the breeding season. we did not detect any effect on survival by site of release; however, population of origin had a relatively large impact (omega = 0.454), and animals from one bd-exposed population were recaptured significantly more than the animals from the other bd-exposed population and the bd-naive population. population exposure history to the disease of reintroduced amphibians may be used to increase post-release fitness and conservation success. selection for mechanisms of resistance should be further explored to help mitigate the impact of chytridiomycosis during reintroduction programmes." @@ -1605,23 +1607,23 @@ movement behavior and host location ability of corythucha ciliata,NA,PLOS ONE,WU "the effect of migration within the european union/european economic area on the distribution of tuberculosis, 2007 to 2013",NA,EUROSURVEILLANCE,HOLLO V;KOTILA SM;KODMON C;ZUCS P;VAN DER WERF MJ,"immigration from tuberculosis (tb) high-incidence countries is known to contribute notably to the tb burden in low-incidence countries. however, the effect of migration enabled by the free movement of persons within the european union (eu)/european economic area (eea) on tb notification has not been analysed. we analysed tb surveillance data from 29 eu/eea countries submitted for the years 2007-2013 to the european surveillance system. we used place of birth and nationality as proxy indicators for native, other eu/eea and non-eu/eea origin of the tb cases and analysed the characteristics of the subgroups by origin. from 2007-2013, a total of 527,467 tb cases were reported, of which 129,781 (24.6%) were of foreign origin including 12,566 (2.4%) originating from eu/eea countries other than the reporting country. the countries reporting most tb cases originating from other eu/eea countries were germany and italy, and the largest proportion of tb cases in individuals came from poland (n=1,562) and romania (n=6,285). at eu/eea level only a small proportion of foreign tb cases originated from other eu/eea countries, however, the uneven distribution of this presumed importation may pose a challenge to tb programmes in some countries." the first estimates of marbled cat pardofelis marmorata population density from bornean primary and selectively logged forest,NA,PLOS ONE,HEARN AJ;ROSS J;BERNARD H;ABU BAKAR S;HUNTER LTB;MACDONALD DW,"the marbled cat pardofelis marmorata is a poorly known wild cat that has a broad distribution across much of the indomalayan ecorealm. this felid is thought to exist at low population densities throughout its range, yet no estimates of its abundance exist, hampering assessment of its conservation status. to investigate the distribution and abundance of marbled cats we conducted intensive, felid-focused camera trap surveys of eight forest areas and two oil palm plantations in sabah, malaysian borneo. study sites were broadly representative of the range of habitat types and the gradient of anthropogenic disturbance and fragmentation present in contemporary sabah. we recorded marbled cats from all forest study areas apart from a small, relatively isolated forest patch, although photographic detection frequency varied greatly between areas. no marbled cats were recorded within the plantations, but a single individual was recorded walking along the forest/plantation boundary. we collected sufficient numbers of marbled cat photographic captures at three study areas to permit density estimation based on spatially explicit capture-recapture analyses. estimates of population density from the primary, lowland danum valley conservation area and primary upland, tawau hills park, were 19.57 (sd: 8.36) and 7.10 (sd: 1.90) individuals per 100 km(2), respectively, and the selectively logged, lowland tabin wildlife reserve yielded an estimated density of 10.45 (sd: 3.38) individuals per 100 km(2). the low detection frequencies recorded in our other survey sites and from published studies elsewhere in its range, and the absence of previous density estimates for this felid suggest that our density estimates may be from the higher end of their abundance spectrum. we provide recommendations for future marbled cat survey approaches." on the ecology and conservation of sericinus montelus (lepidoptera: papilionidae) - its threats in xiaolongshan forests area (china),NA,PLOS ONE,LI XS;LUO YQ;YANG HY;YANG QS;SETTELE J;SCHWEIGER O,"contents and methods here we present a detailed analysis of the life history, mobility and habitat requirements of the butterfly sericinus montelus on the basis of extensive field observations, experimental breeding, capture-mark-recapture (cmr) and transect surveys. life history we found that s. montelus has three generations per year and overwinters as pupae on shrub branches in xiaolongshan. the adults of first generation have a peak of emergence in late april. the second generation emerges at the end of june and the third in early to middle august. within the study region, larvae of s. montelus are monophagous on aristolochia contorta. adults fly slowly and lay eggs in clusters. key factors life tables show that natural enemies and human activities such as mowing, weeding and trampling during the egg and larval stages are key factors causing high mortality, killing up to 43% of eggs and 72% of larvae thereby limiting population growth and recovery. population ecology the populations of s. montelus in xiaolongshan have a rather patchy distribution. according to cmr data, adults fly a maximum distance of 700m within a lifespan of 6 days. the host plant a. contorta, grows along the low banks of fields, irrigation ditches and paths, and can be highly affected by agricultural activities, like mowing, weeding and herding, which impact larval survival. population maintenance for s. montelus should mainly focus on reducing agricultural threats to the host plant a. contorta and on increasing habitat connectivity." -global spatial ecology of three closely-related gadfly petrels,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,RAMOS R;RAMIREZ I;PAIVA VH;MILITAO T;BISCOITO M;MENEZES D;PHILLIPS RA;ZINO F;GONZALEZ-SOLIS J,"the conservation status and taxonomy of the three gadfly petrels that breed in macaronesia is still discussed partly due to the scarce information on their spatial ecology. using geolocator and capture-mark-recapture data, we examined phenology, natal philopatry and breeding-site fidelity, year-round distribution, habitat usage and at-sea activity of the three closely-related gadfly petrels that breed in macaronesia: zino's petrel pterodroma madeira, desertas petrel p. deserta and cape verde petrel p. feae. all p. feae remained around the breeding area during their non-breeding season, whereas p. madeira and p. deserta dispersed far from their colony, migrating either to the cape verde region, further south to equatorial waters in the central atlantic, or to the brazil current. the three taxa displayed a clear allochrony in timing of breeding. habitat modelling and at-sea activity patterns highlighted similar environmental preferences and foraging behaviours of the three taxa. finally, no chick or adult was recaptured away from its natal site and survival estimates were relatively high at all study sites, indicating strong philopatry and breeding-site fidelity for the three taxa. the combination of high philopatry, marked breeding asynchrony and substantial spatio-temporal segregation of their year-round distribution suggest very limited gene flow among the three taxa." +global spatial ecology of three closely-related gadfly petrels,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,RAMOS R;RAMIREZ I;PAIVA VH;MILITAO T;BISCOITO M;MENEZES D;PHILLIPS RA;ZINO F;GONZALEZ SOLIS J,"the conservation status and taxonomy of the three gadfly petrels that breed in macaronesia is still discussed partly due to the scarce information on their spatial ecology. using geolocator and capture-mark-recapture data, we examined phenology, natal philopatry and breeding-site fidelity, year-round distribution, habitat usage and at-sea activity of the three closely-related gadfly petrels that breed in macaronesia: zino's petrel pterodroma madeira, desertas petrel p. deserta and cape verde petrel p. feae. all p. feae remained around the breeding area during their non-breeding season, whereas p. madeira and p. deserta dispersed far from their colony, migrating either to the cape verde region, further south to equatorial waters in the central atlantic, or to the brazil current. the three taxa displayed a clear allochrony in timing of breeding. habitat modelling and at-sea activity patterns highlighted similar environmental preferences and foraging behaviours of the three taxa. finally, no chick or adult was recaptured away from its natal site and survival estimates were relatively high at all study sites, indicating strong philopatry and breeding-site fidelity for the three taxa. the combination of high philopatry, marked breeding asynchrony and substantial spatio-temporal segregation of their year-round distribution suggest very limited gene flow among the three taxa." should i stay or should i go? causes and dynamics of host desertion by a parasitic crab living on echinoids,symbiosis; mobile invertebrates; host; switching; mating systems; pea crab; echinoid,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,DE BRUYN C;DAVID B;MOTREUIL S;CAULIER G;JOSSART Q;RIGAUD T;DE RIDDER C,"in some long-living symbiotic species, movements between hosts are not limited to offspring since adult parasites can move from one individual host to another one. host-switching may be driven by different parameters such as (1) mating strategies of symbionts, (2) foraging for resources or (3) avoiding overcrowded or diseased/dead host. symbiotic marine crustaceans are suitable models to understand what underlies host-switching behavior. in this study, we investigated host desertion by the parasitic pea crab dissodactylus primitivus associated with the echinoid host meoma ventricosa. mark-recapture field experiments, during which crabs were almost always found on their host in heterosexual combinations, suggest that host desertion occurs less frequently when 2 crabs (compared to 3) share the same host. during laboratory experiments with high crab density, the proportion of crabs leaving an echinoid was low when the 2 genders of crabs were present on the host, compared to 1 gender only (males or females). this suggests that host desertion is mostly driven by intersex selection and the search for a mate and, to a lesser extent, by competition between crabs. however, both field and laboratory experiments showed evidence that when they switch host, most crabs remained for a while in the sediment underneath their host. we propose that this behavior, associated with the aggregative behavior of their hosts, would allow the crabs to solve the trade-off between staying on their hosts (therefore suffering overcrowding and sub-optimal mate search) and moving too far from the host (therefore suffering loss of food source and high predation risk)." the influence of mark-recapture sampling effort on estimates of rock lobster survival,NA,PLOS ONE,KORDJAZI Z;FRUSHER S;BUXTON C;GARDNER C;BIRD T,"five annual capture-mark-recapture surveys on jasus edwardsii were used to evaluate the effect of sample size and fishing effort on the precision of estimated survival probability. datasets of different numbers of individual lobsters (ranging from 200 to 1,000 lobsters) were created by random subsampling from each annual survey. this process of random subsampling was also used to create 12 datasets of different levels of effort based on three levels of the number of traps (15, 30 and 50 traps per day) and four levels of the number of sampling-days (2, 4, 6 and 7 days). the most parsimonious cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) model for estimating survival probability shifted from a constant model towards sex-dependent models with increasing sample size and effort. a sample of 500 lobsters or 50 traps used on four consecutive sampling-days was required for obtaining precise survival estimations for males and females, separately. reduced sampling effort of 30 traps over four sampling days was sufficient if a survival estimate for both sexes combined was sufficient for management of the fishery." "movement, demographics, and occupancy dynamics of a federally-threatened salamander: evaluating the adequacy of critical habitat",multi-strata capture-recapture; caudata; dynamic occupancy models; endangered species; eurycea tonkawae; plethodontidae,PEERJ,BENDIK NF;MCENTIRE KD;SISSEL BN,"critical habitat for many species is often limited to occupied localities. for rare and cryptic species, or those lacking sufficient data, occupied habitats may go unrecognized, potentially hindering species recovery. proposed critical habitat for the aquatic jollyville plateau salamander (eurycea tonkawae) and two sister species were delineated based on the assumption that surface habitat is restricted to springs and excludes intervening stream reaches. to test this assumption, we performed two studies to understand aspects of individual, population, and metapopulation ecology of e. tonkawae. first, we examined movement and population demographics using capture-recapture along a spring-influenced stream reach. we then extended our investigation of stream habitat use with a study of occupancy and habitat dynamics in multiple headwater streams. indications of extensive stream channel use based on capture-recapture results included frequent movements of >15 m, and high juvenile abundance downstream of the spring. initial occupancy of e. tonkawae was associated with shallow depths, maidenhair fern presence and low temperature variation (indicative of groundwater influence), although many occupied sites were far from known springs. additionally, previously dry sites were three times more likely to be colonized than wet sites. our results indicate extensive use of stream habitats, including intermittent ones, by e. tonkawae. these areas may be important for maintaining population connectivity or even as primary habitat patches. restricting critical habitat to occupied sites will result in a mismatch with actual habitat use, particularly when assumptions of habitat use are untested, thus limiting the potential for recovery." -"applying open population capture-recapture models to estimate the abundance of injection drug users in victoria, canada",injection drug user; open population; capture-recapture,JOURNAL OF SUBSTANCE USE,VAN DAM-BATES P;FYFE M;COWEN LLE,"background: injection drug users (idus) are considered a hidden, hard to reach population that is difficult to measure. multi-list recapture methods are commonly used to estimate idu population sizes but do not allow inference on population dynamics. in victoria, canada, closed population capture-recapture methods have been used to estimate the abundance of idus. in this study, we make use of a newer sample of a survey of idus to relax the closure assumption. methods: the i-track survey of idus was carried out in victoria on three occasions (2003, 2005 and 2009). data from the three samples were linked using unique subject identifiers. a jolly-seber model was used to estimate the number of idus. results: the results were very similar to a two-sample closed population analysis. however, when using open-population models, it is possible to get estimates for each time period of abundance and survival. the estimate of the number of the idus in greater victoria was relatively stable with fewer than 3000 individuals over the six-year study. discussion: improved estimates of population size and dynamics will assist in improving access to harm reduction services, which may reduce higher risk drug use practices." +"applying open population capture-recapture models to estimate the abundance of injection drug users in victoria, canada",injection drug user; open population; capture-recapture,JOURNAL OF SUBSTANCE USE,VAN DAM BATES P;FYFE M;COWEN LLE,"background: injection drug users (idus) are considered a hidden, hard to reach population that is difficult to measure. multi-list recapture methods are commonly used to estimate idu population sizes but do not allow inference on population dynamics. in victoria, canada, closed population capture-recapture methods have been used to estimate the abundance of idus. in this study, we make use of a newer sample of a survey of idus to relax the closure assumption. methods: the i-track survey of idus was carried out in victoria on three occasions (2003, 2005 and 2009). data from the three samples were linked using unique subject identifiers. a jolly-seber model was used to estimate the number of idus. results: the results were very similar to a two-sample closed population analysis. however, when using open-population models, it is possible to get estimates for each time period of abundance and survival. the estimate of the number of the idus in greater victoria was relatively stable with fewer than 3000 individuals over the six-year study. discussion: improved estimates of population size and dynamics will assist in improving access to harm reduction services, which may reduce higher risk drug use practices." "survival during the breeding season: nest stage, parental sex, and season advancement affect reed warbler survival",NA,PLOS ONE,WIERUCKA K;HALUPKA L;KLIMCZUK E;SZTWIERTNIA H,"avian annual survival has received much attention, yet little is known about seasonal patterns in survival, especially of migratory passerines. in order to evaluate survival rates and timing of mortality within the breeding season of adult reed warblers (acrocephalus scirpaceus), mark-recapture data were collected in southwest poland, between 2006 and 2012. a total of 612 individuals (304 females and 308 males) were monitored throughout the entire breeding season, and their capture-recapture histories were used to model survival rates. males showed higher survival during the breeding season (0.985, 95% ci: 0.941-0.996) than females (0.869, 95% ci: 0.727-0.937). survival rates of females declined with the progression of the breeding season (from may to august), while males showed constant survival during this period. we also found a clear pattern within the female (but not male) nesting cycle: survival was significantly lower during the laying, incubation, and nestling periods (0.934, 95% ci: 0.898-0.958), when birds spent much time on the nest, compared to the nest building and fledgling periods (1.000, 95% ci: 1.00-1.000), when we did not record any female mortality. these data (coupled with some direct evidence, like bird corpses or blood remains found next to/on the nest) may suggest that the main cause of adult mortality was on-nest predation. the calculated survival rates for both sexes during the breeding season were high compared to annual rates reported for this species, suggesting that a majority of mortality occurs at other times of the year, during migration or wintering. these results have implications for understanding survival variation within the reproductive period as well as general trends of avian mortality." "survival, growth, and movement of subadult humpback chub, gila cypha, in the little colorado river, arizona",vital rates; multistate; mark recapture; flood; density dependence; discharge,RIVER RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS,DZUL MC;YACKULIC CB;STONE DM;VAN HAVERBEKE DR,"ecologists estimate vital rates, such as growth and survival, to better understand population dynamics and identify sensitive life history parameters for species or populations of concern. here, we assess spatiotemporal variation in growth, movement, density, and survival of subadult humpback chub living in the little colorado river, grand canyon, az from 2001-2002 and 2009-2013. we divided the little colorado river into three reaches and used a multistate mark-recapture model to determine rates of movement and differences in survival and density between sites for different cohorts. additionally, site-specific and year-specific effects on growth were evaluated using a linear model. results indicate that summer growth was higher for upstream sites compared with downstream sites. in contrast, there was not a consistent spatial pattern across years in winter growth; however, river-wide winter growth was negatively related to the duration of floods from 1 october to 15 may. apparent survival was estimated to be lower at the most downstream site compared with the upstream sites; however, this could be because in part of increased emigration into the colorado river at downstream sites. furthermore, the 2010 cohort (i.e. fish that are age 1 in 2010) exhibited high apparent survival relative to other years. movement between reaches varied with year, and some years exhibited preferential upstream displacement. improving understanding of spatiotemporal effects on age 1 humpback chub survival can help inform current management efforts to translocate humpback chub into new locations and give us a better understanding of the factors that may limit this tributary's carrying capacity for humpback chub. published 2014. this article is a u.s. government work and is in the public domain in the usa." extending the latent multinomial model with complex error processes and dynamic markov bases,bayesian inference; markov basis; markov chain monte carlo; mark-recapture; misidentification; queen snake (regina septemvittata),ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,BONNER SJ;SCHOFIELD MR;NOREN P;PRICE SJ,"the latent multinomial model (lmm) of link et al. [biometrics 66 (2010) 178-185] provides a framework for modelling mark-recapture data with potential identification errors. key is a markov chain monte carlo (mcmc) scheme for sampling configurations of the latent counts of the true capture histories that could have generated the observed data. assuming a linear map between the observed and latent counts, the mcmc algorithm uses vectors from a basis of the kernel to move between configurations of the latent data. schofield and bonner [biometrics 71 (2015) 1070-1080] shows that this is sufficient for some models within the framework but that a larger set called a markov basis is required when errors are more complex. we address two further challenges: (1) that models with complex error mechanisms may not fit within the lmm framework and (2) that markov bases can be difficult to compute for studies of even moderate size. we extend the framework to model the capture/demographic and error processes separately and develop a new mcmc algorithm using dynamic markov bases. our work is motivated by a study of queen snakes (regina septemvittata) and we use simulation to compare estimates of survival rates when snakes are marked with pit tags which have perfect identification versus brands which are prone to error." capture-recapture abundance estimation using a semi-complete data likelihood approach,bugs; capture-recapture; closed populations; individual heterogeneity; jags; spatially explicit,ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,KING R;MCCLINTOCK BT;KIDNEY D;BORCHERS D,"capture-recapture data are often collected when abundance estimation is of interest. in this manuscript we focus on abundance estimation of closed populations. in the presence of unobserved individual heterogeneity, specified on a continuous scale for the capture probabilities, the likelihood is not generally available in closed form, but expressible only as an analytically intractable integral. model-fitting algorithms to estimate abundance most notably include a numerical approximation for the likelihood or use of a bayesian data augmentation technique considering the complete data likelihood. we consider a bayesian hybrid approach, defining a ""semi-complete"" data likelihood, composed of the product of a complete data likelihood component for individuals seen at least once within the study and a marginal data likelihood component for the individuals not seen within the study, approximated using numerical integration. this approach combines the advantages of the two different approaches, with the semi-complete likelihood component specified as a single integral (over the dimension of the individual heterogeneity component). in addition, the models can be fitted within bugs/jags (commonly used for the bayesian complete data likelihood approach) but with significantly improved computational efficiency compared to the commonly used superpopulation data augmentation approaches (between about 10 and 77 times more efficient in the two examples we consider). the semicomplete likelihood approach is flexible and applicable to a range of models, including spatially explicit capture-recapture models. the model-fitting approach is applied to two different data sets: the first relates to snowshoe hares where model m-h is applied and the second to gibbons where a spatially explicit capture-recapture model is applied." a comparison of survey techniques for medium- to large-sized mammals in forested wetlands,NA,SOUTHEASTERN NATURALIST,ROCKHILL AP;SOLLMAN R;POWELL RA;DEPERNO CS,"monitoring mammals is becoming increasingly important as state and federal agencies develop wildlife action plans addressing increased urbanization and climate-change impacts on plant and animal populations. we designed and implemented surveys applicable to forested wetlands to assess detection rates, estimate species richness, compare species distributions, and assess relative cost versus success among techniques. the survey techniques implemented included opportunistic observations, predator calling, spotlighting, scent stations, camera survey, and foothold trapping. opportunistic observations produced the highest species-richness estimate (14), and were the least expensive ($0) because they were conducted while implementing other survey techniques. trapping was the most expensive technique with a cost of $61 per animal detected but provided age structure and population estimates through mark-recapture analysis. camera survey was relatively expensive with a cost of $1865 for the entire study period but recorded the most detections (n = 673), which resulted in a low per detection cost ($3). opportunistic observations and camera surveys documented 2 species not detected by any other method. our results indicate that, although camera survey was a cost-effective way to detect mammals, richness and distribution estimates could be improved by incorporating a variety of monitoring techniques specific to forested wetlands." -"abundance and activity patterns of medium-sized felids (felidae, carnivora) in southeastern mexico",NA,SOUTHWESTERN NATURALIST,PEREZ-IRINEO G;SANTOS-MORENO A,"we compared abundance and activity patterns of medium-sized felids in the neotropics. we used 29 camera traps to record species in the region of los chimalapas, oaxaca, mexico, during 2011-2013. we estimated population size with the capture-recapture model (cormack-jolly-seber model). we assessed the differences in activity patterns between species through the mardia-watson-wheeler test. leopardus pardalis, leopardus wiedii, and puma yagouaroundi were recorded by cameras. the population size of l. wiedii was high in comparison with l. pardalis, which presented a medium abundance compared to other regions. puma yagouaroundi individuals were relatively rare, likely due to a difference in habitat selection. we provide evidence that in the southeastern region of mexico there is a significant l. wiedii population despite the presence of l. pardalis." +"abundance and activity patterns of medium-sized felids (felidae, carnivora) in southeastern mexico",NA,SOUTHWESTERN NATURALIST,PEREZ IRINEO G;SANTOS MORENO A,"we compared abundance and activity patterns of medium-sized felids in the neotropics. we used 29 camera traps to record species in the region of los chimalapas, oaxaca, mexico, during 2011-2013. we estimated population size with the capture-recapture model (cormack-jolly-seber model). we assessed the differences in activity patterns between species through the mardia-watson-wheeler test. leopardus pardalis, leopardus wiedii, and puma yagouaroundi were recorded by cameras. the population size of l. wiedii was high in comparison with l. pardalis, which presented a medium abundance compared to other regions. puma yagouaroundi individuals were relatively rare, likely due to a difference in habitat selection. we provide evidence that in the southeastern region of mexico there is a significant l. wiedii population despite the presence of l. pardalis." quantifying and correcting for scat removal in noninvasive carnivore scat surveys,NA,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,LONSINGER RC;GESE EM;KNIGHT RN;JOHNSON TR;WAITS LP,"scat surveys are commonly used to monitor wildlife populations. for carnivores, surveys are typically conducted along roads and trails. scats available for detection may not reflect scats deposited and variation in disappearance may bias results. previous research has investigated natural decay and deterioration, but scats deposited along roads or trails are likely influenced to a greater degree by anthropogenic disturbance in some systems. we used experimental plots to evaluate variation in scat removal for two model carnivores, coyote canis latrans and kit fox vulpes macrotis, along roads in the great basin desert, usa. using parametric survival regression, we predicted scat survival and developed persistence-rate correction factors, which were applied to results from relative abundance scat surveys conducted along 15 transects. kit fox scats disappeared more rapidly than coyote scats, with 3.3% and 10.6%, respectively, persisting through 42 days. at 14 days, 90.8-41.7% of scats had been removed across road types. survival models indicated species, road type, scat position and daily traffic were important predictors of scat persistence. applying persistence-rate correction factors to scat survey results altered the inferred relative abundances. across seasons, mean corrected: uncorrected relative abundance ratios ranged from 1.0-91.2 for coyotes and 1.3-139.3 for kit foxes, with higher mean ratios being influenced by high corrected relative abundances on roads with high traffic volumes. understanding scat removal rates and patterns can improve inferences from surveys. persistence-rate correction factors can be used to reduce bias in indices of abundance, but caution should be used when removal rates are high. knowledge of spatial variation in persistence can elucidate concerns of false-positives and false-negatives in occupancy and capture-recapture studies. considering the disparity in scat removal between species and among road types and positions, we recommend practitioners quantify and consider variation in removal when interpreting scat survey results." nonparametric estimation of the number of drug users in hong kong using repeated multiple lists,log-linear models; model selection; population size estimation; smoothing splines,AUSTRALIAN & NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF STATISTICS,HUGGINS RM;YIP PSF;STOKLOSA J,we update a previous approach to the estimation of the size of an open population when there are multiple lists at each time point. our motivation is 35years of longitudinal data on the detection of drug users by the central registry of drug abuse in hong kong. we develop a two-stage smoothing spline approach. this gives a flexible and easily implemented alternative to the previous method which was based on kernel smoothing. the new method retains the property of reducing the variability of the individual estimates at each time point. we evaluate the new method by means of a simulation study that includes an examination of the effects of variable selection. the new method is then applied to data collected by the central registry of drug abuse. the parameter estimates obtained are compared with the well known jolly-seber estimates based on single capture methods. relative role of population density and climatic factors in shaping the body growth rate of lilford's wall lizard (podarcis lilfordi),density-dependent growth; climate; capture-recapture; oscillatory growth; age classes; balearic islands; lilford's wall lizard; podarcis lilfordi,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,ROTGER A;IGUAL JM;SMITH JJ;TAVECCHIA G,"the body growth rate in small reptiles is modulated by per-capita food resources and recent evidences suggested that this constraint is the mechanism underlying differences between cohorts. per-capita food resources depend on population size and climatic factors, but their relative role in explaining the variations in growth rate is unclear. we used morphological data collected over 6 years to model the body growth of an insular lizard (lilford's wall lizard, podarcis lilfordi (gunther, 1874)). we used nonlinear equations to describe the appropriate length-at-age relationship. for each sex, seasonal growth was observed and the oscillatory von bertalanffy curve was fitted to the data. three age classes were recognized, and we investigated the relative role of density, spring rainfall, and temperature in explaining the variation of the growth rate in each sex-by-age class. results showed that the relative role of density and climatic factors varied according to the age considered. while population size and temperature had a negative effect on the growth rate of juveniles, rainfall had a positive influence on the growth of subadults. adult growth was near zero and constant over time. the different role of density-dependent and climatic factors in explaining age-dependent growth rate provides an important insight in understanding lizard population dynamics and life-history tactics." "growth, survival, longevity, and population size of the big mouth cave salamander (gyrinophilus palleucus necturoides) from the type locality in grundy county, tennessee, usa",NA,COPEIA,NIEMILLER ML;GLORIOSO BM;FENOLIO DB;REYNOLDS RG;TAYLOR SJ;MILLER BT,"salamander species that live entirely in subterranean habitats have evolved adaptations that allow them to cope with perpetual darkness and limited energy resources. we conducted a 26-month mark-recapture study to better understand the individual growth and demography of a population of the big mouth cave salamander (gyrinophilus palleucus necturoides). we employed a growth model to estimate growth rates, age at sexual maturity, and longevity, and an open population model to estimate population size, density, detectability, and survival rates. furthermore, we examined cover use and evidence of potential predation. individuals probably reach sexual maturity in 3-5 years and live at least nine years. survival rates were generally high (>75%) but declined during the study. more than 30% of captured salamanders had regenerating tails or tail damage, which presumably represent predation attempts by conspecifics or crayfishes. most salamanders (>90%) were found under cover (e.g., rocks, trash, decaying plant material). based on 11 surveys during the study, population size estimates ranged from 21 to 104 individuals in the ca. 710 m(2) study area. previous surveys indicated that this population experienced a significant decline from the early 1970s through the 1990s, perhaps related to silvicultural and agricultural practices. however, our data suggest that this population has either recovered or stabilized during the past 20 years. differences in relative abundance between early surveys and our survey could be associated with differences in survey methods or sampling conditions rather than an increase in population size. regardless, our study demonstrates that this population is larger than previously thought and is in no immediate risk of extirpation, though it does appear to exhibit higher rates of predation than expected for a species believed to be an apex predator of subterranean food webs." "age, sexual dimorphism, and growth rates in the black salamander, aneides flavipunctatus (plethodontidae)",NA,COPEIA,STAUB NL,"to understand how rates of growth interact to result in sexual dimorphism in the black salamander, aneides flavipunctatus, i conducted a mark-recapture study in mendocino county, california. five hundred captures (420 unique animals plus 80 recaptures over four occasions) were measured (body length, head width, head length) and released. adult males and females are not sexually dimorphic in body length, but are dimorphic in head width; males have wider heads compared to females. from 80 recaptures, growth rates were determined for body length and head size. as expected, juveniles grow faster relative to adults; growth rates decrease as body size increases. adult males and females have similar growth rates of body length. males and juveniles have greater head-width growth rates compared to adult females. head size dimorphism in a. flavipunctatus is a result of a higher head growth rate in males at sexual maturity relative to females. because body growth rates are not significantly different between adult males and females, adult salamanders of similar size are of similar age. the von bertalanffy growth model fit to the mark-recapture growth data conservatively predicts that salamanders of 79 mm snout-vent length are 18 years old. because of certain assumptions of the model, the oldest salamanders in the population are more likely to be up to 25-30 years old." -recent incidence of type 1 diabetes mellitus in montenegro: a shift toward younger age at disease onset,"diabetes mellitus, type 1; child; incidence; epidemiology; montenegro",ACTA CLINICA CROATICA,SAMARDZIC M;MARTINOVIC M;NEDOVIC-VUKOVIC M;POPOVIE-SAMARDZIC M,"in the last several decades, a great number of studies have pointed to a dramatic increase of type 1 diabetes mellitus (t1dm) incidence in the whole world, especially in younger age groups. therefore, the aim of the study was to assess changes in the age distribution at onset of t1dm in montenegro children aged <15 years during a 15-year period (1997-2011) and analyze the seasonal pattern. primary case ascertainment was from diabetes register, secondary and tertiary independent data sources were hospital case records and register of children receiving free test stripes in pharmacy. standardized incidence rates were calculated using the poisson regression. case ascertainment was 100% complete using the capture-recapture method. the mean age-standardized incidence was 18.6/100,000 (95% ci: 13.0-24.1) from 2007 to 2011 compared with 13.4/100,000 95% ci, 11.5-15.5) from 1997 to 2006. the incidence of t1dm increased predominantly in younger age groups. relative increase of incidence per 5-year period was largest in boys aged 0-4 and 5-9 years: 64.7% (95% ci: 20.6-10.7; p=0.004) and 52.8% (95% ci: 16.9-88.8; p=0.004), respectively. seasonality in monthly case counts of t1dm was apparent. the greatest number of cases were diagnosed during autumn and winter months. in conclusion, the onset of t1dm was found to occur at an ever younger age in montenegro children. our results indicated a seasonal pattern of the disease onset." +recent incidence of type 1 diabetes mellitus in montenegro: a shift toward younger age at disease onset,"diabetes mellitus, type 1; child; incidence; epidemiology; montenegro",ACTA CLINICA CROATICA,SAMARDZIC M;MARTINOVIC M;NEDOVIC VUKOVIC M;POPOVIE SAMARDZIC M,"in the last several decades, a great number of studies have pointed to a dramatic increase of type 1 diabetes mellitus (t1dm) incidence in the whole world, especially in younger age groups. therefore, the aim of the study was to assess changes in the age distribution at onset of t1dm in montenegro children aged <15 years during a 15-year period (1997-2011) and analyze the seasonal pattern. primary case ascertainment was from diabetes register, secondary and tertiary independent data sources were hospital case records and register of children receiving free test stripes in pharmacy. standardized incidence rates were calculated using the poisson regression. case ascertainment was 100% complete using the capture-recapture method. the mean age-standardized incidence was 18.6/100,000 (95% ci: 13.0-24.1) from 2007 to 2011 compared with 13.4/100,000 95% ci, 11.5-15.5) from 1997 to 2006. the incidence of t1dm increased predominantly in younger age groups. relative increase of incidence per 5-year period was largest in boys aged 0-4 and 5-9 years: 64.7% (95% ci: 20.6-10.7; p=0.004) and 52.8% (95% ci: 16.9-88.8; p=0.004), respectively. seasonality in monthly case counts of t1dm was apparent. the greatest number of cases were diagnosed during autumn and winter months. in conclusion, the onset of t1dm was found to occur at an ever younger age in montenegro children. our results indicated a seasonal pattern of the disease onset." accounting for lack of independence and partial overlap of observation zones in line-transect mark-recapture distance sampling,abundance estimation; cephalorhynchus hectori hectori; dependent sightings; hector's dolphins; line-transect survey; mark-recapture distance sampling; partial overlap,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,MACKENZIE DI;CLEMENT D,"line-transect mark-recapture distance sampling methods can be used to estimate abundance when at least two observers sight and record distances to detected groups of individuals within the survey area. however, a lack of independence between the observer's detections will cause biased abundance estimates. studies are also typically designed such that there is complete overlap of the regions searched by the two observers, but that may not always be possible. here we detail an intuitive approach for line-transect distance sampling applications based upon logistic regression to account for a potential lack of independence by using the detections of one observer as a covariate in the detection function of the second observer. partial overlap of the observer survey regions can be addressed by constraining detection probability to equal 0 for the respective observer outside of the overlap zone. we show via simulation that the method provides reliable estimates of abundance and is not affected by random unmodeled heterogeneity in detection probability. the method is illustrated by estimating abundance within the covered region of an aerial line-transect survey for new zealand's endemic hector's dolphin (cephalorhynchus hectori hectori) conducted in the austral summer of 2013, the motivating application for this work. supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear on-line." a population-size model for protein spot detection in proteomic studies,binomial mixture; capture-recapture; lower bounds; nonidentifiability,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,MAO CX;CHEN SN;YANG YT,"in proteomic studies, a population of proteins are often examined on a gel using a technique called two-dimensional gel eletrophoresis. the technique separates the protein population into individual protein spots on a two-dimensional gel by isoelectric charge and molecular weight. the resulting gel images are then processed by a software system for spot detection and subsequent analysis. the performance of a spot-detection program is evaluated by the total number of spots that are detected. a popular spot-detection program uses the ""master-slave"" approach, where all spots on ""slave images"" are subsets of the spots on the ""master image."" we argue that this approach potentially misses a large proportion of proteins and propose a model that quantifies the lack of performance. we provide nonparametric estimators for the protein population size and the expected number of proteins to be detected if a ""fusion-gel"" approach was used. using the data from a rat liver proteome study, we estimate that more than half of the protein population is missed by the master-slave approach." "age ratio and survival of common rosefinch (carpodacus erythrinus, passeriformes, fringillidae) in a local population based on ringing data",apparent survival; age ratio; common rosefinch; carpodacus erythrinus,ZOOLOGICHESKY ZHURNAL,SHITIKOV DA;GAGIEVA VA;BOLSHAKOVA MM,"the ringing data on common rosefinch obtained during thirteen field seasons (2002-2014) at the national park ""russkii sever"" (vologda region) are analyzed. birds were trapped in two sites 59 km apart. the age of the birds (yearlings or first breeders and adults) was determined according to the plumage color in every male captured with mist nets. the apparent survival rate of adult individuals was determined using two methods: according to the ratio of males' age and the cjs model (lebreton et al., 1992; bursky, 2011). a total of 713 captures of 657 individuals were analyzed. the ratios of ages in the males from the sites studied did not differ; yearlings amounted to 56% of all males. the rate of survival in the males based on the age ratios was estimated at 44 +/- 2%. the apparent survival rate obtained using the cjs model was significantly higher (61 +/- 6%). the survival rate of adult rosefinches in two sites did not differ and did not depend on sex. literature materials on the age ratio and survival of rosefinches in local populations are analyzed. there is a suggestion that the mismatch of the survival rates obtained by two methods and the high proportion of yearling males in the banding captures can be explained by the fact that the majority of individuals of that age category did not participate in nesting." @@ -1631,7 +1633,7 @@ selection is stronger in early-versus-late stages of divergence in a neotropical a general class of recapture models based on the conditional capture probabilities,aitchinson-silvey algorithm; capture history; equality constraints; heterogeneity; population size,BIOMETRICS,FARCOMENI A,"we propose an mhotb model for population size estimation in capture-recapture studies. the tb part is based on equality constraints for the conditional capture probabilities, leading to an extremely rich model class. observed and unobserved heterogeneity are dealt with by means of a logistic parameterization. in order to explore the model class, we introduce a penalized version of the likelihood. the conditional likelihood and penalized conditional likelihood are maximized by means of efficient em algorithms. simulations and two real data examples illustrate the approach." flexible behavioral capture-recapture modeling,behavioral response; markov models; mark-recapture; memory effect; memory-related summary statistics; population size,BIOMETRICS,FEGATELLI DA;TARDELLA L,"we develop alternative strategies for building and fitting parametric capture-recapture models for closed populations which can be used to address a better understanding of behavioral patterns. in the perspective of transition models, we first rely on a conditional probability parameterization. a large subset of standard capture-recapture models can be regarded as a suitable partitioning in equivalence classes of the full set of conditional probability parameters. we exploit a regression approach combined with the use of new suitable summaries of the conditioning binary partial capture histories as a device for enlarging the scope of behavioral models and also exploring the range of all possible partitions. we show how one can easily find unconditional mle of such models within a generalized linear model framework. we illustrate the potential of our approach with the analysis of some known datasets and a simulation study." population size and stopover duration estimation using mark-resight data and bayesian analysis of a superpopulation model,capture-recapture; data augmentation; jolly-seber; mark-resight; migration; state-space model,BIOMETRICS,LYONS JE;KENDALL WL;ROYLE JA;CONVERSE SJ;ANDRES BA;BUCHANAN JB,"we present a novel formulation of a mark-recapture-resight model that allows estimation of population size, stopover duration, and arrival and departure schedules at migration areas. estimation is based on encounter histories of uniquely marked individuals and relative counts of marked and unmarked animals. we use a bayesian analysis of a state-space formulation of the jolly-seber mark-recapture model, integrated with a binomial model for counts of unmarked animals, to derive estimates of population size and arrival and departure probabilities. we also provide a novel estimator for stopover duration that is derived from the latent state variable representing the interim between arrival and departure in the state-space model. we conduct a simulation study of field sampling protocols to understand the impact of superpopulation size, proportion marked, and number of animals sampled on bias and precision of estimates. simulation results indicate that relative bias of estimates of the proportion of the population with marks was low for all sampling scenarios and never exceeded 2%. our approach does not require enumeration of all unmarked animals detected or direct knowledge of the number of marked animals in the population at the time of the study. this provides flexibility and potential application in a variety of sampling situations (e.g., migratory birds, breeding seabirds, sea turtles, fish, pinnipeds, etc.). application of the methods is demonstrated with data from a study of migratory sandpipers." -field attraction of cerambyx welensii to fermentation odors and host monoterpenes,synthetic attractant; quercus; traps; 3-methyl-1-butanol; ethyl acetate; ethanol; cerambycidae,JOURNAL OF PEST SCIENCE,SANCHEZ-OSORIO I;LOPEZ-PANTOJA G;PARAMIO AM;LENCINA JL;GALLEGO D;DOMINGUEZ L,"cerambyx welensii kuster is one of the greatest threats to quercus suber l. and quercus ilex l. in spain. efficient control methods for this species are currently being tested, and the use of traps baited with food-related products for their monitoring and control has been proposed. cerambyx welensii adults prefer to colonize old or decayed trees, in which cortical exudates frequently release fermentation odors. fermentation-related compounds, such as ethanol, have been cited as attractants to various hardwood woodborers (as cerambyx cerdo l.), used either alone or sometimes in combination with other host odors. in this work, we conducted field experiments to ascertain whether chemical blends mimicking fermentation odors were attractive for c. welensii. to this end, we used three types of traps (multiple funnel, cross-vane and single-funnel) baited with six synthetic blends including one or more fermentation-related chemicals (ethanol, ethyl acetate, 3-methyl-1-butanol, acetaldehyde, 2-methyl-1-propanol and 2-methyl-1-butanol), various food-related products (beer, melon and red wine mixed with peach juice) and host monoterpenes (alpha-pinene, beta-pinene, limonene, alpha-phellandrene and camphene). at high release rates (5-11 g/day), various synthetic blends proved attractive irrespective of trap type. our results contribute to understand the impact of volatile organic compounds in host selection by woodborers infesting deciduous trees. the results hold promise for optimizing trapping strategies to control c. welensii within an integrated pest management framework." +field attraction of cerambyx welensii to fermentation odors and host monoterpenes,synthetic attractant; quercus; traps; 3-methyl-1-butanol; ethyl acetate; ethanol; cerambycidae,JOURNAL OF PEST SCIENCE,SANCHEZ OSORIO I;LOPEZ PANTOJA G;PARAMIO AM;LENCINA JL;GALLEGO D;DOMINGUEZ L,"cerambyx welensii kuster is one of the greatest threats to quercus suber l. and quercus ilex l. in spain. efficient control methods for this species are currently being tested, and the use of traps baited with food-related products for their monitoring and control has been proposed. cerambyx welensii adults prefer to colonize old or decayed trees, in which cortical exudates frequently release fermentation odors. fermentation-related compounds, such as ethanol, have been cited as attractants to various hardwood woodborers (as cerambyx cerdo l.), used either alone or sometimes in combination with other host odors. in this work, we conducted field experiments to ascertain whether chemical blends mimicking fermentation odors were attractive for c. welensii. to this end, we used three types of traps (multiple funnel, cross-vane and single-funnel) baited with six synthetic blends including one or more fermentation-related chemicals (ethanol, ethyl acetate, 3-methyl-1-butanol, acetaldehyde, 2-methyl-1-propanol and 2-methyl-1-butanol), various food-related products (beer, melon and red wine mixed with peach juice) and host monoterpenes (alpha-pinene, beta-pinene, limonene, alpha-phellandrene and camphene). at high release rates (5-11 g/day), various synthetic blends proved attractive irrespective of trap type. our results contribute to understand the impact of volatile organic compounds in host selection by woodborers infesting deciduous trees. the results hold promise for optimizing trapping strategies to control c. welensii within an integrated pest management framework." clinical and demographic factors and outcome of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in relation to population ancestral origin,amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; phenotype; epidemiology; ethnic groups; continental population groups,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY,MARIN B;LOGROSCINO G;BOUMEDIENE F;LABRUNIE A;COURATIER P;BABRON MC;LEUTENEGGER AL;PREUX PM;BEGHI E,"to review how the phenotype and outcome of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als) change with variations in population ancestral origin (pao). knowledge of how pao modifies als phenotype may provide important insight into the risk factors and pathogenic mechanisms of the disease. we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature concerning differences in phenotype and outcome of als that relate to pao. a review of 3111 records identified 78 population-based studies. the 40 that were included covered 40 geographical areas in 10 subcontinents. around 12,700 als cases were considered. the results highlight the phenotypic heterogeneity of als at time of onset [age, sex ratio (sr), bulbar onset], age at diagnosis, occurrence of comorbidities in the first year after diagnosis, and outcome (survival). subcontinent is a major explanatory factor for the variability of the als phenotype in population-based studies. some markers of als phenotype were homogeneously distributed in western countries (sr, mean age at onset/diagnosis) but their distributions in other subcontinents were remarkably different. other markers presented variations in european subcontinents (familial als, bulbar onset) and in other continents. as a consequence, als outcome strongly varied, with a median survival time from onset ranging from 24 months (northern europe) to 48 months (central asia). this review sets the scene for a collaborative study involving a wide international consortium to investigate, using a standard methodology, the link between ancestry, environment, and als phenotype." comparative demographics of a hawaiian forest bird community,NA,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,GUILLAUMET A;WOODWORTH BL;CAMP RJ;PAXTON EH,"estimates of demographic parameters such as survival and reproductive success are critical for guiding management efforts focused on species of conservation concern. unfortunately, reliable demographic parameters are difficult to obtain for any species, but especially for rare or endangered species. here we derived estimates of adult survival and recruitment in a community of hawaiian forest birds, including eight native species (of which three are endangered) and two introduced species at hakalau forest national wildlife refuge, hawai?i. integrated population models (ipm) were used to link mark-recapture data (1994-1999) with long-term population surveys (1987-2008). to our knowledge, this is the first time that ipm have been used to characterize demographic parameters of a whole avian community, and provides important insights into the life history strategies of the community. the demographic data were used to test two hypotheses: 1) arthropod specialists, such as the akiaplau hemignathus munroi, are slower' species characterized by a greater relative contribution of adult survival to population growth, i.e. lower fecundity and increased adult survival; and 2) a species' susceptibility to environmental change, as reflected by its conservation status, can be predicted by its life history traits. we found that all species were characterized by a similar population growth rate around one, independently of conservation status, origin (native vs non-native), feeding guild, or life history strategy (as measured by slowness'), which suggested that the community had reached an equilibrium. however, such stable dynamics were achieved differently across feeding guilds, as demonstrated by a significant increase of adult survival and a significant decrease of recruitment along a gradient of increased insectivory, in support of hypothesis 1. supporting our second hypothesis, we found that slower species were more vulnerable species at the global scale than faster ones. the possible causes and conservation implications of these patterns are discussed." a functional model for characterizing long-distance movement behaviour,argos; bayesian model; canada lynx; functional data analysis; movement modelling; splines; telemetry,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BUDERMAN FE;HOOTEN MB;IVAN JS;SHENK TM,"advancements in wildlife telemetry techniques have made it possible to collect large data sets of highly accurate animal locations at a fine temporal resolution. these data sets have prompted the development of a number of statistical methodologies for modelling animal movement. telemetry data sets are often collected for purposes other than fine-scale movement analysis. these data sets may differ substantially from those that are collected with technologies suitable for fine-scale movement modelling and may consist of locations that are irregular in time, are temporally coarse or have large measurement error. these data sets are time-consuming and costly to collect but may still provide valuable information about movement behaviour. we developed a bayesian movement model that accounts for error from multiple data sources as well as movement behaviour at different temporal scales. the bayesian framework allows us to calculate derived quantities that describe temporally varying movement behaviour, such as residence time, speed and persistence in direction. the model is flexible, easy to implement and computationally efficient. we apply this model to data from colorado canada lynx (lynx canadensis) and use derived quantities to identify changes in movement behaviour." @@ -1639,16 +1641,16 @@ tattoo pens as a low-cost approach to in-field permanent identification of mediu native faunal communities depend on habitat from non-native plants in novel but not in natural ecosystems,analogue; facilitative; invasive; rubus; small mammals; southern brown bandicoot,BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,PACKER JG;DELEAN S;KUEFFER C;PRIDER J;ABLEY K;FACELLI JM;CARTHEW SM,"invasive non-native plants are a major driver of native biodiversity loss, yet native biodiversity can sometimes benefit from non-native species. depending on habitat context, even the same non-native species can have positive and negative effects on biodiversity. blackberry (rubus fruticosus aggregate) is a useful model organism to better understand a non-native plant with conflicting impacts on biodiversity. we used a replicated capture-mark-recapture study across 11 consecutive seasons to examine the response of small mammal diversity and abundance to vegetation structure and density associated with non-native blackberry (r. anglocandicans) in native, hybrid and blackberry-dominated novel ecosystems in australia. across the three habitat types, increasing blackberry dominance had a positive influence on mammal diversity, while the strength and direction of this influence varied for abundance. at a microhabitat scale within hybrid and native habitat there were no significant differences in diversity, or the abundance of most species, between microhabitats where blackberry was absent versus dominant. in contrast, in novel ecosystems diversity and abundances were very low without blackberry, yet high (comparable to native ecosystems) within blackberry as it provided functionally-analogous vegetation structure and density to the lost native understory. our results indicate the ecological functions of non-native plant species vary depending on habitat and need to be considered for management. comparative studies such as ours that apply a standardized approach across a broad range of conditions at the landscape and habitat scale are crucial for guiding land managers on control options for non-native species (remove, reduce or retain and contain) that are context-sensitive and scale-dependent." life history of the freshwater mussel unio tumidiformis (bivalvia: unionidae) in a temporary mediterranean-type stream,climate change; drought; eutrophication; growth rate; iberian,INVERTEBRATE BIOLOGY,REIS J;ARAUJO R,"mediterranean-type streams are characterized by great seasonal and annual variation in flow. we studied the biology of the freshwater mussel unio tumidiformis in such a stream, the vascao river in southern portugal, during a period of great interannual variation in hydrology. we studied growth patterns of the mussels between 2002-2008, and the reproductive cycle between 2005-2006. life-history parameters were calculated and related to environmental variables and fish community patterns. mark-recapture growth data confirmed that observed annuli were formed annually and are therefore reliable for use in growth studies of u. tumidiformis. the von bertalanffy growth constant k and the asymptotic length l were negatively correlated. k varied between 0.20 and 0.58 and was positively correlated with factors related to eutrophication. the maximum observed age was 7years, and the maximum observed length was 52mm. there was no apparent sexual dimorphism, and sexual maturity was reached at the age of 2years. fecundity was low, between 1500-15000 glochidia per female, and positively correlated with body length. only one annual gametogenic cycle was identified, leading to a short-term reproductive period in spring (tachyticity). the reproductive cycle was similar in the two years sampled, between which hydrology and water quality differed greatly. the presence of glochidia was synchronized with the period when the proportion of fish hosts (genus squalius) was higher in the fish community. unio tumidiformis seems to be well adapted to the natural variability in flow in temporary mediterranean-type streams. modifications of the natural flow regime caused by climate change or increased water exploitation may lead to rapid declines in mussel populations." "survival and recruitment of the multimammate mouse, mastomys natalensis (smith 1834), in a rice agro-ecosystem",agriculture; pest management; population dynamics; rice cropping; rodent,MAMMALIA,MULUNGU LS;NGOWO V;MDANGI ME;KATAKWEBA AS;TESHA P;MROSSO FP;MCHOMVU M;MASSAWE AW;MONADJEM A;KILONZO B;BELMAIN SR,"we investigated the recruitment and survival of the multimammate mouse, mastomys natalensis, within irrigated rice and fallow field habitats at different time periods related to rice crop growth stages. capture-mark-recapture data were collected for m. natalensis each month from june 2010 to may 2012, and both recruitment and survival were estimated in relation to land use (irrigated rice or fallow field) within the agro-ecosystem. higher recruitment and survival were observed in rice fields than in fallow fields suggesting the relationship was compensatory when there was a higher quality food resource. in terms of management, farmers in the study area should implement management strategies in rice fields at both transplanting and maturity stages of crop growth in order to maintain recruitment and survival at low levels." -individual identification of the endangered wyoming toad anaxyrus baxteri and implications for monitoring species recovery,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,MORRISON TA;KEINATH D;ESTES-ZUMPF W;CRALL JP;STEWART CV,"monitoring the fates of individuals after release in the wild is essential for building effective species recovery programs. current conservation efforts for the endangered wyoming toad (anaxyrus baxteri) are limited by the size and number of toads that can be individually marked using invasive tagging techniques. we evaluated the use of natural patterns of wart-like glands on the dorsum of wyoming toads as a potential identification technique. we photographed 194 known-identity individuals (822 total images, representing 1,554 true matching-image pairs of the same individuals) from two captive-breeding facilities in 2011 and 2012. spot patterns provided stable markings from metamorphosis through adult life stages, and naive observers correctly matched 100% of a subset of photo pairs ""by eye.'' in contrast, computer-assisted identification performed relatively poorly: the two software platforms tested (wild-id and hotspotter) failed to match 47% and 64% of true matching-image pairs, respectively. the use of higher-quality cameras with faster automatic focusing speeds yielded the largest improvement in matching success of any variable tested when using identification software. simulated capture-recapture data demonstrated that using software to identify individuals would bias abundance estimates high by up to 920%." +individual identification of the endangered wyoming toad anaxyrus baxteri and implications for monitoring species recovery,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,MORRISON TA;KEINATH D;ESTES ZUMPF W;CRALL JP;STEWART CV,"monitoring the fates of individuals after release in the wild is essential for building effective species recovery programs. current conservation efforts for the endangered wyoming toad (anaxyrus baxteri) are limited by the size and number of toads that can be individually marked using invasive tagging techniques. we evaluated the use of natural patterns of wart-like glands on the dorsum of wyoming toads as a potential identification technique. we photographed 194 known-identity individuals (822 total images, representing 1,554 true matching-image pairs of the same individuals) from two captive-breeding facilities in 2011 and 2012. spot patterns provided stable markings from metamorphosis through adult life stages, and naive observers correctly matched 100% of a subset of photo pairs ""by eye.'' in contrast, computer-assisted identification performed relatively poorly: the two software platforms tested (wild-id and hotspotter) failed to match 47% and 64% of true matching-image pairs, respectively. the use of higher-quality cameras with faster automatic focusing speeds yielded the largest improvement in matching success of any variable tested when using identification software. simulated capture-recapture data demonstrated that using software to identify individuals would bias abundance estimates high by up to 920%." use of photo-identification and mark-recapture methodology to assess basking shark (cetorhinus maximus) populations,NA,PLOS ONE,GORE MA;FREY PH;ORMOND RF;ALLAN H;GILKES G,"following centuries of exploitation, basking sharks (cetorhinus maximus) are considered by iucn as endangered in the northeast atlantic, where they have now been substantially protected for over two decades. however, the present size of this population remains unknown. we investigated the use of photo-identification of individuals' dorsal fins, combined with mark-recapture methodology, to investigate the size of populations of basking shark within the west coast of scotland. from a total of 921 encounters photographed between 2004 and 2011, 710 sharks were found to be individually identifiable based on dorsal fin damage and natural features. of these, only 41 individuals were re-sighted, most commonly both within days of, and close to the site of, the initial encounter. a smaller number were re-sighted after longer periods of up to two years. a comparison of the distinguishing features of individuals on first recording and subsequent re-sighting showed that in almost all cases these features remained little changed, suggesting the low re-sighting rate was not due to a loss of distinguishing features. because of the low number of re-sighting we were not able to produce reliable estimates for the long-term regional population. however, for one 50 km diameter study area between the islands of mull, coll and tiree, we were able to generate closed-population estimates for 6-9 day periods in 2010 of 985 (95% ci = 494-1683), and in 2011 of 201 (95% ci = 143-340). for the same 2011 period an open-population model generated a similar estimate of 213 (95% ci = 111-317). otherwise the low rate and temporal patterning of re-sightings support the view that such local basking shark populations are temporary, dynamic groupings of individuals drawn from a much larger regional population than previously supposed. the study demonstrated the feasibility and limitations of photo-identification as a non-invasive technique for identifying individual basking sharks." -demographics and adult activity of hemiphlebia mirabilis: a short-lived species with a huge population size (odonata: hemiphlebiidae),adult behaviour; australia; damselfly; focal observations; mark-recapture; population size; survivorship,INSECT CONSERVATION AND DIVERSITY,CORDERO-RIVERA A,"1. rare species are expected to be more susceptible to extinction, particularly if rarity can be used to describe several characteristics for a particular species. hemiphlebia mirabilis, an endemic damselfly known from a few sites in the south of australia and tasmania, has been considered at risk of imminent global extinction, given its small population size, its localised distribution, and the fact that it is a 'living fossil', described as the oldest extant damselfly. 2. one population found in a protected wetland in victoria, was studied by behavioural observations of marked animals, during nov-dec 2013. results indicate that h. mirabilis is a short-lived species, with a mature lifespan of about 1 week in males and 4 days in females. 3. population size estimates and field observations indicate that this population is huge, likely over one million individuals per generation. adults show little mobility and fly for short distances, being inactive most of the time, particularly at temperatures below 17 degrees c or over 35 degrees c. 4. the low mobility and cryptic coloration, and the inaccessibility of its preferred habitat might explain why huge populations like the one studied here have remained unnoticed until recently. nevertheless, both sexes show frequent abdominal flicking displays, and fast rotations over the perching support, both behaviours apparently unique to this species, making them highly conspicuous to human observers. it is concluded that h. mirabilis should not be regarded as critically endangered." +demographics and adult activity of hemiphlebia mirabilis: a short-lived species with a huge population size (odonata: hemiphlebiidae),adult behaviour; australia; damselfly; focal observations; mark-recapture; population size; survivorship,INSECT CONSERVATION AND DIVERSITY,CORDERO RIVERA A,"1. rare species are expected to be more susceptible to extinction, particularly if rarity can be used to describe several characteristics for a particular species. hemiphlebia mirabilis, an endemic damselfly known from a few sites in the south of australia and tasmania, has been considered at risk of imminent global extinction, given its small population size, its localised distribution, and the fact that it is a 'living fossil', described as the oldest extant damselfly. 2. one population found in a protected wetland in victoria, was studied by behavioural observations of marked animals, during nov-dec 2013. results indicate that h. mirabilis is a short-lived species, with a mature lifespan of about 1 week in males and 4 days in females. 3. population size estimates and field observations indicate that this population is huge, likely over one million individuals per generation. adults show little mobility and fly for short distances, being inactive most of the time, particularly at temperatures below 17 degrees c or over 35 degrees c. 4. the low mobility and cryptic coloration, and the inaccessibility of its preferred habitat might explain why huge populations like the one studied here have remained unnoticed until recently. nevertheless, both sexes show frequent abdominal flicking displays, and fast rotations over the perching support, both behaviours apparently unique to this species, making them highly conspicuous to human observers. it is concluded that h. mirabilis should not be regarded as critically endangered." integrated population modelling reveals a perceived source to be a cryptic sink,capture-mark-recapture; demography; density dependence; dispersal; extinction risk; hierarchical model; long-distance migrant bird; metapopulation model,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,WEEGMAN MD;BEARHOP S;FOX AD;HILTON GM;WALSH AJ;MCDONALD JL;HODGSON DJ,"demographic links among fragmented populations are commonly studied as source-sink dynamics, whereby source populations exhibit net recruitment and net emigration, while sinks suffer net mortality but enjoy net immigration. it is commonly assumed that large, persistent aggregations of individuals must be sources, but this ignores the possibility that they are sinks instead, buoyed demographically by immigration. we tested this assumption using bayesian integrated population modelling of greenland white-fronted geese (anser albifrons flavirostris) at their largest wintering site (wexford, ireland), combining capture-mark-recapture, census and recruitment data collected from 1982 to 2010. management for this subspecies occurs largely on wintering areas; thus, study of source-sink dynamics of discrete regular wintering units provides unprecedented insights into population regulation and enables identification of likely processes influencing population dynamics at wexford and among 70 other greenland white-fronted goose wintering subpopulations. using results from integrated population modelling, we parameterized an age-structured population projection matrix to determine the contribution of movement rates (emigration and immigration), recruitment and mortality to the dynamics of the wexford subpopulation. survival estimates for juvenile and adult birds at wexford and adult birds elsewhere fluctuated over the 29-year study period, but were not identifiably different. however, per capita recruitment rates at wexford in later years (post-1995) were identifiably lower than in earlier years (pre-1995). the observed persistence of the wexford subpopulation was only possible with high rates of immigration, which exceeded emigration in each year. thus, despite its apparent stability, wexford has functioned as a sink over the entire study period. these results demonstrate that even large subpopulations can potentially be sinks, and that movement dynamics (e.g. immigration) among winters can dramatically obscure key processes driving subpopulation size. further, novel population models which integrate capture-mark-recapture, census and recruitment data are essential to correctly ascribing source-sink status and accurately informing development of site-safeguard networks." tick exposure and extreme climate events impact survival and threaten the persistence of a long-lived lizard,climate change; demographic modelling; host-parasite interaction; long-term monitoring; multiple stressors; multistate capture-mark-recapture; population viability analysis; reptile; species interaction,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,JONES AR;BULL CM;BROOK BW;WELLS K;POLLOCK KH;FORDHAM DA,"assessing the impacts of multiple, often synergistic, stressors on the population dynamics of long-lived species is becoming increasingly important due to recent and future global change.tiliqua rugosa (sleepy lizard) is a long-lived skink (>30years) that is adapted to survive in semi-arid environments with varying levels of parasite exposure and highly seasonal food availability. we used an exhaustive database of 30years of capture-mark-recapture records to quantify the impacts of both parasite exposure and environmental conditions on the lizard's survival rates and long-term population dynamics. lizard abundance was relatively stable throughout the study period; however, there were changing patterns in adult and juvenile apparent survival rates, driven by spatial and temporal variation in levels of tick exposure and temporal variation in environmental conditions. extreme weather events during the winter and spring seasons were identified as important environmental drivers of survival. climate models predict a dramatic increase in the frequency of extreme hot and dry winter and spring seasons in our south australian study region; from a contemporary probability of 017 up to 047-083 in 2080 depending on the emissions scenario. our stochastic population model projections showed that these future climatic conditions will induce a decline in the abundance of this long-lived reptile of up to 67% within 30years from 2080, under worst case scenario modelling. the results have broad implications for future work investigating the drivers of population dynamics and persistence. we highlight the importance of long-term data sets and accounting for synergistic impacts between multiple stressors. we show that predicted increases in the frequency of extreme climate events have the potential to considerably and negatively influence a long-lived species, which might previously have been assumed to be resilient to environmental perturbations." movements of diplodus sargus (sparidae) within a portuguese coastal marine protected area: are they really protected?,movements; residency patterns; mark-recapture; acoustic telemetry; diplodus sargus; portugal; pnsacv; mpa size adequacy,MARINE ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH,BELO AF;PEREIRA TJ;QUINTELLA BR;CASTRO N;COSTA JL;DE ALMEIDA PR,"mark-recapture tagging and acoustic telemetry were used to study the movements of diplodus sargus within the pessegueiro island no-take marine protected area (mpa), (portugal) and assess its size adequacy for this species' protection against fishing activities. therefore, 894 diplodus sargus were captured and marked with conventional plastic t-bar tags. at the same time, 19 d. sargus were tagged with acoustic transmitters and monitored by 20 automatic acoustic receivers inside the no-take mpa for 60 days. recapture rate of conventionally tagged specimens was 3.47%, most occurring during subsequent marking campaigns. one individual however was recaptured by recreational fishermen near faro (ca. 250 km from the tagging location) 6 months after release. furthermore, three specimens were recaptured in october 2013 near releasing site, one year after being tagged. regarding acoustic telemetry, 18 specimens were detected by the receivers during most of the study period. to analyse no-take mpa use, the study site was divided into five areas reflecting habitat characteristics, three of which were frequently used by the tagged fish: exterior, interior protected and interior exposed areas. information on no-take protected area use was also analysed according to diel and tidal patterns. preferred passageways and permanence areas were identified and high site fidelity was confirmed. the interaction between tide and time of day influenced space use patterns, with higher and more variable movements during daytime and neap tides. this no-take mpa proved to be an important refuge and feeding area for this species, encompassing most of the home ranges of tagged specimens. therefore, it is likely that this no-take mpa is of adequate size to protect d. sargus against fishing activities, thus contributing to its sustainable management in the region. (c) 2016 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." the responses of a critically endangered mycophagous marsupial (bettongia penicillata) to timber harvesting in a native eucalypt forest,logging; disturbance; ecologically sustainable forest management; mammal; hypogeous fungi; mycorrhizal fungi,FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,WAYNE AF;MAXWELL MA;WARD CG;VELLIOS CV;WILLIAMS MR;POLLOCK KH,"mycophagous bioturbators provide ecosystem services that can be important for the resilience and restoration of ecosystems. among the australian mammals, mycophagy is most prevalent within the potoroidae (bettongs and potoroos). however, proportionally more species of potoroidae are either recently extinct or currently threatened than any other mammalian family in australia, and they are among the least studied. the critically endangered woylie, or brush-tailed bettong (bettongia penicillata), is a mycophagous, ground dwelling 'ecosystem engineer' that was one of australia's most abundant and widely distributed potoroids prior to european settlement. after substantial range contraction, however, the remaining indigenous populations are now restricted to eucalypt forests in south-western australia. using an experimental approach, we investigated the population responses of the woylie to timber harvesting in these forests. nine treatments, including varying logging intensities and unharvested controls, were applied at 22 sites. the abundance of the woylie in the harvested areas, in unharvested stands between logged areas, and in extensive unharvested stands outside the harvest management area were compared using a replicated before-after-control-impact (baci) repeated measures design and capture mark -recapture modelling. a total of 5860 captures of 815 individuals were recorded during 35 trapping sessions over 16 years (one year preceding, two years during, and 13 years after disturbance). capture rate was a good index of abundance for this species and woylie abundance, survivorship and recruitment were not adversely affected by silvicultural practices in the jarrah (eucalyptus marginata) forest. on the contrary, the harvested areas may have afforded some localised protection when an unrelated, species wide decline began three years after harvesting disturbance ended; woylie numbers declined by up to 77% and 95% in harvested and unharvested areas, respectively. thus the nature and spatial extent of the timber harvesting regimes investigated in this study were not a major threatening process for this species. however, ongoing monitoring and evaluation are necessary to ensure that timber harvesting activities remain benign in the face of a changing climate, possible increased mortality from introduced predators, disease, and further declines in the abundance of this critically endangered marsupial. crown copyright (c) 2015 published by elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." problem drug use prevalence estimation revisited: heterogeneity in capture-recapture and the role of external evidence,hidden population; people who inject drugs (pwid); bayesian analysis; bias; bristol; uk,ADDICTION,JONES HE;WELTON NJ;ADES AE;PIERCE M;DAVIES W;COLEMAN B;MILLAR T;HICKMAN M,"background and aimscapture-recapture (crc) analysis is recommended for estimating the prevalence of problem drug use or people who inject drugs (pwid). we aim to demonstrate how naive application of crc can lead to highly misleading results, and to suggest how the problems might be overcome. methodswe present a case study of estimating the prevalence of pwid in bristol, uk, applying crc to lists in contact with three services. we assess: (i) sensitivity of results to different versions of the dominant (treatment) list: specifically, to inclusion of non-incident cases and of those who were referred directly from one of the other services; (ii) the impact of accounting for a novel covariate, housing instability; and (iii) consistency of crc estimates with drug-related mortality data. we then incorporate formally the drug-related mortality data and lower bounds for prevalence alongside the crc into a single coherent model. resultsfive of 11 models fitted the full data equally well but generated widely varying prevalence estimates, from 2740 [95% confidence interval (ci)=2670, 2840] to 6890 (95% ci=3740, 17680). results were highly sensitive to inclusion of non-incident cases, demonstrating the presence of considerable heterogeneity, and were sensitive to a lesser extent to inclusion of direct referrals. a reduced data set including only incident cases and excluding referrals could be fitted by simpler models, and led to much greater consistency in estimates. accounting for housing stability improved model fit considerably more than did the standard covariates of age and gender. external data provided validation of results and aided model selection, generating a final estimate of the number of pwid in bristol in 2011 of 2770 [95% credible interval (cr-i)=2570, 3110] or 0.9% (95% cr-i=0.9, 1.0%) of the population aged 15-64 years. conclusionssteps can be taken to reduce bias in capture-recapture analysis, including: careful consideration of data sources, reduction of lists to less heterogeneous subsamples, use of covariates and formal incorporation of external data." "cape ground squirrels as ecosystem engineers: modifying habitat for plants, small mammals and beetles in namib desert grasslands",burrows; desert ecosystems; ecosystem engineer; namibia; semi-fossorial rodents; xerus inauris,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,EWACHA MVA;KAAPEHI C;WATERMAN JM;ROTH JD,"burrowing and foraging of semi-fossorial rodents can affect species distribution and composition. ground squirrels dig large burrow systems for refuge from predators and temperature extremes. burrowing and foraging around burrows by squirrels may affect habitat and resource distributions for other organisms. we examined the impact of cape ground squirrels (xerus inauris) on vegetation, small mammals and beetles during winter and summer in grasslands on the edge of the namib desert. at each burrow system and paired control site without burrows, we estimated plant cover and height using quadrats (n=8 paired sites), small mammal abundance and species richness using mark-recapture techniques (n=8 paired sites) and beetle abundance and species richness using pitfall traps (n=6 paired sites, winter only). squirrel burrowing and foraging activities resulted in lower plant cover and height, higher small mammal abundance and lower beetle abundance and species richness. squirrels also reduced more plant cover in winter compared to summer, but had no effect on small mammal species richness. furthermore, plant cover and height were higher in summer, whereas small mammal abundance and species richness were higher in winter. our results suggest that cape ground squirrels are important ecosystem engineers that influence plant and animal communities in the namib desert grasslands." -movement patterns and shelter choice of spiny-cheek crayfish (orconectes limosus) in a large lake's littoral zone,colonization; invasive species; radio telemetry; range extension; ephemeral home range,AQUATIC INVASIONS,HIRSCH PE;BURKHARDT-HOLM P;TOPFER I;FISCHER P,"the study of individual movement patterns and habitat choice is a fundamental step to assess an invasive species' range extension and to inform possible management options. the spiny-cheek crayfish is an invasive species currently spreading in europe and also in lake constance. this is of concern because the greater lake constance area still holds refugial populations of native crayfish that might be endangered by the invader. in invasive crayfish, individual movement patterns and the availability of suitable shelters can predict an invasive population's spread. in a radio telemetry and mark-recapture study and in semi-natural outdoor experiments, we investigated movement patterns and shelter choice of spiny-cheek crayfish. in the field, radio-tagged and marked crayfish moved distances up to 1200 m within 4 and 13 days, respectively and mostly prevailed within the littoral zone at less than 3 m depth. tracked crayfish resided close to artificial structures such as boat harbours in the study area. in the outdoor experiments spiny-cheek crayfish used litter as daytime shelter but also chose natural stones and macrophytes. we provide the first large-lake telemetry data on crayfish movement and our results suggest that spiny-cheek crayfish will expand its range within the lake moving along the shoreline. artificial structures such as boat harbours and litter might facilitate this spread by providing suitable shelters. our results can help to inform the implementation of countermeasures against the spread of invasive crayfish populations." +movement patterns and shelter choice of spiny-cheek crayfish (orconectes limosus) in a large lake's littoral zone,colonization; invasive species; radio telemetry; range extension; ephemeral home range,AQUATIC INVASIONS,HIRSCH PE;BURKHARDT HOLM P;TOPFER I;FISCHER P,"the study of individual movement patterns and habitat choice is a fundamental step to assess an invasive species' range extension and to inform possible management options. the spiny-cheek crayfish is an invasive species currently spreading in europe and also in lake constance. this is of concern because the greater lake constance area still holds refugial populations of native crayfish that might be endangered by the invader. in invasive crayfish, individual movement patterns and the availability of suitable shelters can predict an invasive population's spread. in a radio telemetry and mark-recapture study and in semi-natural outdoor experiments, we investigated movement patterns and shelter choice of spiny-cheek crayfish. in the field, radio-tagged and marked crayfish moved distances up to 1200 m within 4 and 13 days, respectively and mostly prevailed within the littoral zone at less than 3 m depth. tracked crayfish resided close to artificial structures such as boat harbours in the study area. in the outdoor experiments spiny-cheek crayfish used litter as daytime shelter but also chose natural stones and macrophytes. we provide the first large-lake telemetry data on crayfish movement and our results suggest that spiny-cheek crayfish will expand its range within the lake moving along the shoreline. artificial structures such as boat harbours and litter might facilitate this spread by providing suitable shelters. our results can help to inform the implementation of countermeasures against the spread of invasive crayfish populations." staging duration and passage population size of sanderlings in the western dutch wadden sea,calidris alba; staging ecology; capture-recapture models; colour-ringing; staging duration; site fidelity; population estimation; wadden sea; primary moult; migration,ARDEA,LOONSTRA AHJ;PIERSMA T;RENEERKENS J,"the population of sanderlings calidris alba along the east atlantic flyway has grown considerably during the last decades. perhaps reflecting this augmented population size, increasing numbers of sanderling have been reported to stage in the wadden sea during spring and autumn migration. estimates of the numbers of sanderlings in the wadden sea have previously been based on a limited number of counts that were not corrected for the turnover of individuals. in this study, we accounted for turnover using estimates of the probability that individually colour-ringed sanderlings are still present two days after a sighting. in combination with daily counts during high tide, we estimated the total number of sanderlings that used the island griend and surrounding mudflats, in the western dutch wadden sea, during southward passage in 2013 and 2014. we also estimated minimal staging durations of sanderlings at griend. non moulting birds were significantly heavier upon capture, which suggests that they were refuelling for long non-stop migratory flights. winter sightings confirmed that the non-moulting sanderlings winter in sub-saharan africa and that the moulting sanderlings spent the winter in europe or northern africa. with an average minimal stay in the western dutch wadden sea of 9 days in 2013 and 12 in 2014, non-moulting sanderlings stayed for a much shorter time than moulting sanderlings, which stayed for 32 days in 2013 and 36 days in 2014. non-moulting individuals were less likely to be resighted between years. estimates of minimal staging duration are likely underestimates of the true staging duration, and we propose that moulting sanderlings probably complete their wing moult in the wadden sea. we estimated that the total number of sanderlings using the western dutch wadden sea before migration to european or african wintering areas were 27,546 (95% ci 22,739-41,449) in 2013 and 22,574 (95% ci 16,436-46,114) in 2014. this would amount to 11-14% of a total flyway population of 200,000 individuals, representing an amazing degree of concentration for what is regarded as a rather widely and thinly spread shorebird species." in-situ itraconazole treatment improves survival rate during an amphibian chytridiomycosis epidemic,in-situ treatment; amphibian declines; batrachochytrium dendrobatidis; chytridiomycosis; itraconazole; antifungal,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,HUDSON MA;YOUNG RP;LOPEZ J;MARTIN L;FENTON C;MCCREA R;GRIFFITHS RA;ADAMS SL;GRAY G;GARCIA G;CUNNINGHAM AA,"the emerging infectious disease, amphibian chytridiomycosis caused by the fungus batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (bd), threatens hundreds of amphibian species globally. in the absence of field-based mitigation methods, the amphibian conservation action plan advocates captive assurance programmes to prevent extinction from this infectious disease. unfortunately, with the cooperation of the entire global zoo community, the international union for the conservation of nature amphibian ark estimates only 50 species could be saved. clearly, if catastrophic losses are to be averted, alternative mitigation techniques need to be developed. there has been an absence of trialling laboratory proven interventions for chytridiomycosis in field settings, which must change in order to allow informed management decisions for highly threatened amphibian populations. we tested the in-situ treatment of individual mountain chicken frogs (leptodactylus fallax) using the antifungal drug, itraconazole. multi-state mark recapture analysis showed increased probability of survival and loss of bd infection for treated frogs compared to untreated animals. there was evidence of a prophylactic effect of treatment as, during the treatment period, infection probability was lower for treated animals than untreated animals. whilst long term, post-treatment increase in survival was not observed, a deterministic population model estimated antifungal treatment would extend time to extinction of the population from 49 to 124 weeks, an approximated 60% increase. in-situ treatment of individuals could, therefore, be a useful short-term measure to augment other conservation actions for amphibian species threatened by chytridiomycosis or to facilitate population survival during periods of high disease risk. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." wildlife in a politically divided world: insularism inflates estimates of brown bear abundance,jurisdiction; large carnivore management; natural resource policy; noninvasive genetic monitoring; spatially explicit capture-recapture; transboundary wildlife,CONSERVATION LETTERS,BISCHOF R;BROSETH H;GIMENEZ O,"political borders dictate how biological diversity is monitored and managed, yet wild animals often move freely between jurisdictions. we quantified bias in brown bear (ursus arctos) abundance estimates introduced when analytical methods ignore that the same individuals may be accounted for in more than one jurisdiction. a spatially explicit population model revealed that up to 49% of female bears detected in norway via microsatellite analysis of scat and hair samples have their center of activity in neighboring countries (finland, russia, and sweden). not accounting for detections of ""foreign residents"" resulted in abundance estimates that were inflated by as much as 119%. like management and conservation, monitoring of transboundary wildlife populations should take place at ecologically relevant scales to avoid biased abundance estimates and a false sense of control. when political realities isolate jurisdictions from their neighbors, spatially explicit analytical approaches can allow local or national programs a glimpse beyond their borders." @@ -1668,7 +1670,7 @@ spatial and temporal genetic variation among size classes of green turtles (chel "habitat characteristics and population size of iranocypris typhlops, the iran cave barb",iranocypris typhlops; habitat; iran cave barb; iran; cave environment,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,BAGHERI M;GOUDARZI F;ZALAGHI AH;SAVABIEASFAHANI M,"iranocypristyphlops (cyprinidae) is endemic to iran. a cave in lorestan province, located in western iran in the zagros mountains, is the type locality of this fish. recently the same species was reported in ilam province, but this observation has not been verified. to describe the microhabitat of iranocypris typhlops, we used standard laboratory methods to quantify chemical and physical conditions of the cave's aquatic environment. sampling was conducted three times, during december of 2009, mid may and mid july of 2010. we used a peterson and schnabel mark-recapture sampling during an 8-day period in 2010 and estimated the fish population of the cave between 300 to 600 individuals. our study can be used to direct conservation efforts to protect this rare and potentially threatened fish species." "the impact of severe drought on survival, fecundity, and population persistence in an endangered amphibian",amphibian; bombina variegata; drought; multievent capture-recapture models,ECOSPHERE,CAYUELA H;ARSOVSKI D;BONNAIRE E;DUGUET R;JOLY P;BESNARD A,"climate is globally changing. in europe, studies have highlighted an increasing trend in both the frequency and magnitude of droughts. abrupt changes in the frequency, location, or intensity of extreme heatwaves and droughts can have direct and severe effects on wild populations. amphibians are the planet's most threatened group of vertebrates, with over 40% of known species considered in decline. to date, researchers have mainly focused on the influence of repeated droughts on species occurrence and community composition; however, evidence of the direct impact of climatic factors on the demographic parameters of amphibians is currently not well documented. further investigation of this issue is therefore of critical importance in order to optimize local and global wildlife conservation policies in the context of a changing climate. this study used capture-recapture data to investigate the impact of severe drought on the survival and fecundity of a threatened amphibian, the yellow-bellied toad (bombina variegata, l.), as well as to predict how potential changes in the frequency of droughts might influence the population growth rate. by developing multievent capture-recapture models, we showed that severe drought has a negative impact on fecundity and postmetamorphic survival at different ontogenetic stages. then, using stochastic matrix population models, we predicted that changes in drought frequency negatively influence the population growth rate, which is a warning sign for population persistence. direct conservation actions are then proposed to mitigate the detrimental effects of drought on population dynamics." long-distance migration of prey synchronizes demographic rates of top predators across broad spatial scales,correlated population dynamics; killer whales; long-distance migration; moran effect; predator-prey; salmon; synchrony,ECOSPHERE,WARD EJ;DAHLHEIM ME;WAITE JM;EMMONS CK;MARSHALL KN;CHASCO BE;BALCOMB KC,"reproductively and geographically isolated populations of predators may be synchronized by a phenomenon known as the moran effect-specifically if they exhibit common responses to external processes, such as climate, density dependence (parasites, disease), or prey. prey has the ability to synchronize predators if geographically isolated predator populations target the same prey species, or if the migration and range of the prey species occurs over a large enough scale to be available to multiple predator populations. the objective of our study was to investigate evidence for correlations of demographic rates between geographically isolated populations of piscivorous killer whales in the northeast pacific; using long-term mark-recapture datasets collected over the last 30+ yrs, we constructed a hierarchical occupancy model, linking models of survival and fecundity in a single framework. we found strong support for synchronized demographic rates in southeast alaska and southern resident killer whales, which are geographically and reproductively isolated. despite their isolation, they experience extremely correlated dynamics-the correlation in fecundity rates between populations exceeds 0.9. the correlation in demographic rates across these populations of killer whales in different regions of the northeast pacific ocean suggests a common environmental driver. both killer whale populations are known to prey on chinook salmon, which have a long-distance coastal migration larger than the habitat range of killer whales. many of these chinook salmon are also of the same origin (southern stocks), suggesting that these populations not only consume the same prey species but the same prey populations." -"using capture-recapture methods to estimate the population of people who inject drugs in washington, dc",hiv; pwid; population estimation; capture-recapture,AIDS AND BEHAVIOR,RUIZ MS;O'ROURKE A;ALLEN ST,"no current estimates exist for the size of the population of people who inject drugs (pwid) in the district of columbia (dc). the who/unaids guidelines on estimating the size of populations most at risk to hiv was used as the methodological framework to estimate the dc pwid population. the capture phase recruited harm reduction agency clients; the recapture phase recruited community-based pwid. the 951 participants were predominantly black (83.9 %), male (69.8 %), and 40+ years of age (68.2 %). approximately 50.3 % reported injecting drugs in the past 30 days. we estimate approximately 8829 (95 % ci 4899 and 12,759) pwid in dc. when adjusted for possible missed sub-populations of pwid, the estimate increases to 12,000; thus, the original estimate of approximately 9000 should be viewed in the context of the 95 % confidence interval. these evidence-based estimations should be used to determine program delivery needs and resource allocation for pwid in washington, dc." +"using capture-recapture methods to estimate the population of people who inject drugs in washington, dc",hiv; pwid; population estimation; capture-recapture,AIDS AND BEHAVIOR,RUIZ MS;O ROURKE A;ALLEN ST,"no current estimates exist for the size of the population of people who inject drugs (pwid) in the district of columbia (dc). the who/unaids guidelines on estimating the size of populations most at risk to hiv was used as the methodological framework to estimate the dc pwid population. the capture phase recruited harm reduction agency clients; the recapture phase recruited community-based pwid. the 951 participants were predominantly black (83.9 %), male (69.8 %), and 40+ years of age (68.2 %). approximately 50.3 % reported injecting drugs in the past 30 days. we estimate approximately 8829 (95 % ci 4899 and 12,759) pwid in dc. when adjusted for possible missed sub-populations of pwid, the estimate increases to 12,000; thus, the original estimate of approximately 9000 should be viewed in the context of the 95 % confidence interval. these evidence-based estimations should be used to determine program delivery needs and resource allocation for pwid in washington, dc." photo-identification as a simple tool for studying invasive lionfish pterois volitans populations,capture-mark-recapture studies; citizen science; i3s pattern; photo-tagging,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,CHAVES LCT;HALL J;FEITOSA JLL;COTE IM,"photo-tagging, i.e. using a specific software to match colour patterns on photographs, was tested as a means to identify individual indo-pacific pterois volitans to assist with population and movement studies of this invasive species. the stripe pattern on the flank of adult p. volitans (n = 48) was the most individually distinctive of three body regions tested, leading to correct individual identification on 68 and 82% of tests with a single and two images of the reference individual, respectively. photo-tagging is inexpensive, logistically simple and can involve citizen scientists, making it a viable alternative to traditional tagging to provide information on p. volitans distribution, movement patterns and recolonization rates after removals." likelihood-based inference for population size in a capture-recapture experiment with varying probabilities from occasion to occasion,capture-recapture; conditional likelihood; jeffrey's integrated likelihood; population size; profile likelihood; simulation; uniform integrated likelihood,BRAZILIAN JOURNAL OF PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS,SALASAR LEB;LEITE JG;LOUZADA F,"the estimation of the size of a population is, in general, performed using capture recapture experiments. in this paper, we consider a closed population capture recapture model in which individuals are captured independently and with the same probability in each sampling occasion, but the probabilities may vary from occasion to occasion. the unknown number of individuals is the parameter of interest, while the capture probabilities are the nuisance ones. four likelihood functions free of nuisance parameters, namely the profile, conditional, uniform and jeffrey's integrated likelihood functions are derived and procedures for point and interval estimation are discussed. the estimation of population size is illustrated on a real dataset. the frequentist properties of the estimators are evaluated by means of a simulation study. the jeffrey's integrated likelihood achieved the best performance over all considered estimators for both point and interval estimation, particularly in situations with little information with small number of elements, small capture probabilities and small number of capture occasions." "photographic identification of individuals of a free-ranging, small terrestrial vertebrate",abundance; capture-recapture; lizard; natural markings; non-invasive,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,TREILIBS CE;PAVEY CR;HUTCHINSON MN;BULL CM,"recognition of individuals within an animal population is central to a range of estimates about population structure and dynamics. however, traditional methods of distinguishing individuals, by some form of physical marking, often rely on capture and handling which may affect aspects of normal behavior. photographic identification has been used as a less-invasive alternative, but limitations in both manual and computer-automated recognition of individuals are particularly problematic for smaller taxa (<500g). in this study, we explored the use of photographic identification for individuals of a free-ranging, small terrestrial reptile using (a) independent observers, and (b) automated matching with the interactive individual identification system ((is)-s-3 pattern) computer algorithm. we tested the technique on individuals of an australian skink in the egernia group, slater's skink liopholis slateri, whose natural history and varied scale markings make it a potentially suitable candidate for photo-identification. from photographic captures' of skink head profiles, we designed a multi-choice key based on alternate character states and tested the abilities of observers with or without experience in wildlife survey to identify individuals using categorized test photos. we also used the (is)-s-3 pattern algorithm to match the same set of test photos against a database of 30 individuals. experienced observers identified a significantly higher proportion of photos correctly (74%) than those with no experience (63%) while the (is)-s-3 software correctly matched 67% as the first ranked match and 83% of images in the top five ranks. this study is one of the first to investigate photo identification with a free-ranging small vertebrate. the method demonstrated here has the potential to be applied to the developing field of camera-traps for wildlife survey and thus a wide range of survey and monitoring applications." @@ -1683,18 +1685,18 @@ changes in seasonal climate outpace compensatory density-dependence in eastern b minimum area requirements for an at-risk butterfly based on movement and demography,baltimore checkerspot; butterfly conservation; demography; diffusion; euphydryas phaeton; mechanistic models; minimum area requirements; movement,CONSERVATION BIOLOGY,BROWN LM;CRONE EE,"determining the minimum area required to sustain populations has a long history in theoretical and conservation biology. correlative approaches are often used to estimate minimum area requirements (mars) based on relationships between area and the population size required for persistence or between species' traits and distribution patterns across landscapes. mechanistic approaches to estimating mar facilitate prediction across space and time but are few. we used a mechanistic mar model to determine the critical minimum patch size (cmp) for the baltimore checkerspot butterfly (euphydryas phaeton), a locally abundant species in decline along its southern range, and sister to several federally listed species. our cmp is based on principles of diffusion, where individuals in smaller patches encounter edges and leave with higher probability than those in larger patches, potentially before reproducing. we estimated a cmp for the baltimore checkerspot of 0.7-1.5 ha, in accordance with trait-based mar estimates. the diffusion rate on which we based this cmp was broadly similar when estimated at the landscape scale (comparing flight path vs. capture-mark-recapture data), and the estimated population growth rate was consistent with observed site trends. our mechanistic approach to estimating mar is appropriate for species whose movement follows a correlated random walk and may be useful where landscape-scale distributions are difficult to assess, but demographic and movement data are obtainable from a single site or the literature. just as simple estimates of lambda are often used to assess population viability, the principles of diffusion and cmp could provide a starting place for estimating mar for conservation." "kawasaki disease in germany a prospective, population-based study adjusted for underreporting",kawasaki disease; epidemiology; incidence; germany,PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASE JOURNAL,JAKOB A;WHELAN J;KORDECKI M;BERNER R;STILLER B;ARNOLD R;VON KRIES R;NEUMANN E;ROUBINIS N;ROBERT M;GROHMANN J;HOHN R;HUFNAGEL M,"background: national estimates of kawasaki disease (kd) incidence often do not include incomplete cases (diagnosed based on only laboratory or echocardiographic criteria), and/or they rely on retrospective case reports and data registries where underreporting is known to be a problem. methods: we conducted a prospective nationwide kd surveillance study in children younger than 5 years through the hospital-based german pediatric surveillance unit (esped). we accounted for underreporting through applying capture-recapture methodology in 2 federal states using hospital discharge records with kd international statistical classification of diseases and related health problems 10th revision code (ie, m30.3). kd diagnosis (complete and incomplete) was established according to the american heart association criteria, 2004. results: incidence of kd, corrected for underreporting, was 7.2 of 100,000 in children younger than 5 years in germany. underreporting to esped was estimated at 37%-44%. overall, 315 validated kd cases were reported. of the 64 (20%) incomplete cases, 58% (37/64) were detected through echocardiographic findings and 42% (27/64) through laboratory criteria alone. incomplete cases were younger than complete cases (1.2 vs. 2.0 years, p = 0.0001) and had more coronary aneurysms (43% vs. 11%, p = 0.0001). conclusions: a substantial number of incomplete kd cases were diagnosed based on the laboratory and echocardiographic criteria only. this was particularly the case in relation to infants younger than 1 yearan age group known to have an increased risk of developing coronary aneurysms. in addition, we found a high rate of underreporting to national pediatric surveillance units. we suggest that improved surveillance and development of better diagnostic tests remain a high priority." impact of the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine on the incidence of pneumococcal meningitis in children,conjugate vaccine; epidemiology; meningitis; streptococcus pneumoniae,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,CHAPOUTOT AG;DESSEIN R;GUILLUY O;LAGREE M;WALLET F;VARON E;MARTINOT A;DUBOS F,"the impact of the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (pcv13) on the incidence of pneumococcal meningitis (pm) in children is unknown. to determine this impact, a descriptive multicentre retrospective cohort study was conducted from 2008 to 2013 in northern france. all laboratory-confirmed pm in children aged <18 years in all hospitals of the area with paediatric units were included. two independent databases were used for exhaustive identification of cases: medical plus laboratory records at each hospital and discharge codes. the corrected incidence of pm was determined by a capture-recapture analysis using these two databases. sixty-two cases were found over the 6-year period. a decrease of the pm corrected incidence was observed in the global population (p = 0.07), significant only for children aged <2 years, from 11.9/100 000 in 2008 in 1.9/100 000 in 2013 [6.4 fold-decrease, 95% confidence interval (ci) 1.4-41, p = 0.01] between years 2008 and 2013. when comparing the pre- and post-pcv13 periods, this decrease was still statistically significant for children aged <2 years [7.32/100 000 (95% ci 4.39-10.25) to 2.78/100 000 (95% ci 0.96-4.60), p = 0.01]. only three (5%) cases of pm caused by vaccine serotypes could have been prevented. after the introduction of the pcv13 vaccine, a decrease in the incidence of pm cases in children in northern france was observed." -a procedure for calculating the thermal constants associated with the flight period of cerambyx welensii kuster and prinobius myardi mulsant from field observations,cerambyx welensii; degree-days; prinobius myardi; xylophagous,AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST ENTOMOLOGY,LOPEZ-PANTOJA G;NEVADO LD;SANCHEZ-OSORIO I,"1 field observations conducted in a dehesa in the southwest of the iberian peninsula over a period of 8 years (2002-2009) allowed the development and validation of two degree-day phenology models for predicting the flight period of cerambyx welensii kuster (1846) and prinobius myardi mulsant (1892). 2 the start dates and functional development temperatures for the two species were estimated using an iterative method. the start dates were found to be 1 april for c. welensii and 15 april for p. myardi. the minimum development temperature for both species was 12 degrees c. 3 the thermal constants associated with each flight percentage studied (1-99% at 10% intervals) were calculated from gompertz curves fitting the equation cpe = exp [-exp(3.97+ 0.009dd)] (r(2) = 0.955) for c. welensii and cpe= exp[-exp(6.50-0.008dd)] (r2 = 0.817) for p. myardi, where cpe is the cumulative percentage of emergence and dd is degree-days. 4 the validation procedure revealed that the proposed models predict cumulative flight percentages with errors of 2.5-4.3 days for c. welensii and 3.2-18.2 days for p. myardi 5 the simplicity of the proposed method for calculating thermal constants and the small errors with which they can be estimated allow the widespread use of the models for efficiently managing populations of the two xylophagous cerambycids under study. this can be incorporated into a useful and novel element in the fight against the deterioration of a valuable ecosystem within the european union." +a procedure for calculating the thermal constants associated with the flight period of cerambyx welensii kuster and prinobius myardi mulsant from field observations,cerambyx welensii; degree-days; prinobius myardi; xylophagous,AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST ENTOMOLOGY,LOPEZ PANTOJA G;NEVADO LD;SANCHEZ OSORIO I,"1 field observations conducted in a dehesa in the southwest of the iberian peninsula over a period of 8 years (2002-2009) allowed the development and validation of two degree-day phenology models for predicting the flight period of cerambyx welensii kuster (1846) and prinobius myardi mulsant (1892). 2 the start dates and functional development temperatures for the two species were estimated using an iterative method. the start dates were found to be 1 april for c. welensii and 15 april for p. myardi. the minimum development temperature for both species was 12 degrees c. 3 the thermal constants associated with each flight percentage studied (1-99% at 10% intervals) were calculated from gompertz curves fitting the equation cpe = exp [-exp(3.97+ 0.009dd)] (r(2) = 0.955) for c. welensii and cpe= exp[-exp(6.50-0.008dd)] (r2 = 0.817) for p. myardi, where cpe is the cumulative percentage of emergence and dd is degree-days. 4 the validation procedure revealed that the proposed models predict cumulative flight percentages with errors of 2.5-4.3 days for c. welensii and 3.2-18.2 days for p. myardi 5 the simplicity of the proposed method for calculating thermal constants and the small errors with which they can be estimated allow the widespread use of the models for efficiently managing populations of the two xylophagous cerambycids under study. this can be incorporated into a useful and novel element in the fight against the deterioration of a valuable ecosystem within the european union." effects of genetic drift in a small population of atlantic cod (gadus morhua kildinensis derjugin) landlocked in a meromictic lake: genetic variation and conservation measures,kildin cod; divergence; reproductive isolation; population effective size; microsatellite marker; mitochondrial dna,CONSERVATION GENETICS,ZHIVOTOVSKY LA;TETERINA AA;MUKHINA NV;STROGANOV AN;RUBTSOVA GA;AFANASIEV KI,"landlocked populations of normally salt-water, bottom-dwelling atlantic cod exist in a few circumpolar meromictic lakes. one such population, the kildin cod, inhabits mogilnoe lake (kildin island, the barents sea) that is listed among regional nature reserves. the lake has three main strata of water of about 5 m each: an upper level with nearly fresh water, a saline layer, and an anaerobic zone at the bottom. the fish lives in the saline stratum and appears in the fresh layer as well. available food is poor, the adults heavily prey on cod juveniles. the kildin cod has distinct morphological features, faster growth rate, earlier age of maturation, and shorter longevity that likely developed in response to the unusual lake environment. genetic and capture-mark-recapture data show that the kildin cod greatly differs from its marine counterparts: it has an effective population size of about one hundred and an average adult census size of about half a thousand, reproductively isolated from a parental marine population around 1800 years ago, lost a large portion of microsatellite and mitochondrial dna variation due to long-term genetic drift, but still maintains variation at allozyme loci. dna markers of the kildin cod do not carry novel mutations, but their multilocus genotypes seem to be unique to the lake population. the suggested conservation strategy includes: (1) the lake and its drainage area should be strongly protected from any detrimental human activities; (2) the transplantation of any genetic material into the cod population of mogilnoe lake should be strongly prohibited." -estimating recruitment and survival in partially monitored populations,calonectris diomedea; capture-recapture; demography; dispersal; experimental design; multi-event; partial monitoring; population modelling; scopoli's shearwater; vital rates,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,SANZ-AGUILAR A;IGUAL JM;ORO D;GENOVART M;TAVECCHIA G,"in evolutionary and ecological studies, demographic parameters are commonly derived from detailed information collected on a limited number of individuals or in a confined sector of the breeding area. this partial monitoring is expected to underestimate survival and recruitment processes because individuals marked in a monitored location may move to or recruit in an unobservable site. we formulate a multi-event capture-recapture model using e-surge software which incorporates additional information on breeding dispersal and the proportion of monitored sites to obtain unbiased estimates of survival and recruitment rates. using simulated data, we assessed the biases in recruitment, survival and population growth rate when monitoring 10-90% of the whole population in a short- and a long-lived species with low breeding dispersal. finally, we illustrate the approach using real data from a long-term monitoring program of a colony of scopoli's shearwaters calonectris diomedea. we found that demographic parameters estimated without considering the proportion of the area monitored were generally underestimated. these biases caused a substantial error in the estimated population growth rate, especially when a low proportion of breeding individuals were monitored. the proposed capture-recapture model successfully corrected for partial monitoring and provided robust demographic estimates. synthesis and applications. in many cases, animal breeding populations can only be monitored partially. consequently, recruitment and immature survival are underestimated, but the extent of these biases depends on the proportion of the area that remains undetected and the degree of breeding dispersal. we present a new method to obtain robust and unbiased measures of survival and recruitment processes from capture-recapture data. the method can be applied to any monitored population regardless of the type of nests (e.g. artificial or natural) or breeding system (e.g. colonial or territorial animals), and it only relies on an estimate of the proportion of the monitored area. the unbiased estimates obtained by this method can be used to improve the reliability of predictions of demographic population models for species' conservation and management." +estimating recruitment and survival in partially monitored populations,calonectris diomedea; capture-recapture; demography; dispersal; experimental design; multi-event; partial monitoring; population modelling; scopoli's shearwater; vital rates,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,SANZ AGUILAR A;IGUAL JM;ORO D;GENOVART M;TAVECCHIA G,"in evolutionary and ecological studies, demographic parameters are commonly derived from detailed information collected on a limited number of individuals or in a confined sector of the breeding area. this partial monitoring is expected to underestimate survival and recruitment processes because individuals marked in a monitored location may move to or recruit in an unobservable site. we formulate a multi-event capture-recapture model using e-surge software which incorporates additional information on breeding dispersal and the proportion of monitored sites to obtain unbiased estimates of survival and recruitment rates. using simulated data, we assessed the biases in recruitment, survival and population growth rate when monitoring 10-90% of the whole population in a short- and a long-lived species with low breeding dispersal. finally, we illustrate the approach using real data from a long-term monitoring program of a colony of scopoli's shearwaters calonectris diomedea. we found that demographic parameters estimated without considering the proportion of the area monitored were generally underestimated. these biases caused a substantial error in the estimated population growth rate, especially when a low proportion of breeding individuals were monitored. the proposed capture-recapture model successfully corrected for partial monitoring and provided robust demographic estimates. synthesis and applications. in many cases, animal breeding populations can only be monitored partially. consequently, recruitment and immature survival are underestimated, but the extent of these biases depends on the proportion of the area that remains undetected and the degree of breeding dispersal. we present a new method to obtain robust and unbiased measures of survival and recruitment processes from capture-recapture data. the method can be applied to any monitored population regardless of the type of nests (e.g. artificial or natural) or breeding system (e.g. colonial or territorial animals), and it only relies on an estimate of the proportion of the monitored area. the unbiased estimates obtained by this method can be used to improve the reliability of predictions of demographic population models for species' conservation and management." "the effects of habitat, climate, and barred owls on long-term demography of northern spotted owls",barred owl; fecundity; northern spotted owl; occupancy; population change; strix occidentalis caurina; strix varia; survival,CONDOR,DUGGER KM;FORSMAN ED;FRANKLIN AB;DAVIS RJ;WHITE GC;SCHWARZ CJ;BURNHAM KP;NICHOLS JD;HINES JE;YACKULIC CB;DOHERTY PF;BAILEY L;CLARK DA;ACKERS SH;ANDREWS LS;AUGUSTINE B;BISWELL BL;BLAKESLEY J;CARLSON PC;CLEMENT MJ;DILLER LV;GLENN EM;GREEN A;GREMEL SA;HERTER DR;HIGLEY JM;HOBSON J;HORN RB;HUYVAERT KP;MCCAFFERTY C;MCDONALD T;MCDONNELL K;OLSON GS;REID JA;ROCKWEIT J;RUIZ V;SAENZ J;SOVERN SG,"estimates of species' vital rates and an understanding of the factors affecting those parameters over time and space can provide crucial information for management and conservation. we used mark-recapture, reproductive output, and territory occupancy data collected during 1985-2013 to evaluate population processes of northern spotted owls (strix occidentalis caurina) in 11 study areas in washington, oregon, and northern california, usa. we estimated apparent survival, fecundity, recruitment, rate of population change, and local extinction and colonization rates, and investigated relationships between these parameters and the amount of suitable habitat, local and regional variation in meteorological conditions, and competition with barred owls (strix varia). data were analyzed for each area separately and in a meta-analysis of all areas combined, following a strict protocol for data collection, preparation, and analysis. we used mixed effects linear models for analyses of fecundity, cormack-jolly-seber open population models for analyses of apparent annual survival (phi), and a reparameterization of the jolly-seber capture-recapture model (i.e. reverse jolly-seber; rjs) to estimate annual rates of population change (lambda(rjs)) and recruitment. we also modeled territory occupancy dynamics of northern spotted owls and barred owls in each study area using 2-species occupancy models. estimated mean annual rates of population change (lambda) suggested that spotted owl populations declined from 1.2% to 8.4% per year depending on the study area. the weighted mean estimate of lambda for all study areas was 0.962 (+/- 0.019 se; 95% ci: 0.925-0.999), indicating an estimated range-wide decline of 3.8% per year from 1985 to 2013. variation in recruitment rates across the range of the spotted owl was best explained by an interaction between total winter precipitation and mean minimum winter temperature. thus, recruitment rates were highest when both total precipitation (29 cm) and minimum winter temperature (-9.5 degrees c) were lowest. barred owl presence was associated with increased local extinction rates of spotted owl pairs for all 11 study areas. habitat covariates were related to extinction rates for spotted owl pairs in 8 of 11 study areas, and a greater amount of suitable owl habitat was generally associated with decreased extinction rates. we observed negative effects of barred owl presence on colonization rates of spotted owl pairs in 5 of 11 study areas. the total amount of suitable spotted owl habitat was positively associated with colonization rates in 5 areas, and more habitat disturbance was associated with lower colonization rates in 2 areas. we observed strong declines in derived estimates of occupancy in all study areas. mean fecundity of females was highest for adults (0.309 +/- 0.027 se), intermediate for 2-yr-olds (0.179 +/- 0.040 se), and lowest for 1-yr-olds (0.065 +/- 0.022 se). the presence of barred owls and habitat covariates explained little of the temporal variation in fecundity in most study areas. climate covariates occurred in competitive fecundity models in 8 of 11 study areas, but support for these relationships was generally weak. the fecundity meta-analysis resulted in 6 competitive models, all of which included the additive effects of geographic region and annual time variation. the 2 top-ranked models also weakly supported the additive negative effects of the amount of suitable core area habitat, barred owl presence, and the amount of edge habitat on fecundity. we found strong support for a negative effect of barred owl presence on apparent survival of spotted owls in 10 of 11 study areas, but found few strong effects of habitat on survival at the study area scale. climate covariates occurred in top or competitive survival models for 10 of 11 study areas, and in most cases the relationships were as predicted; however, there was little consistency among areas regarding the relative importance of specific climate covariates. in contrast, meta-analysis results suggested that spotted owl survival was higher across all study areas when the pacific decadal oscillation (pdo) was in a warming phase and the southern oscillation index (soi) was negative, with a strongly negative soi indicative of el nino events. the best model that included the barred owl covariate (bo) was ranked 4th and also included the pdo covariate, but the bo effect was strongly negative. our results indicated that northern spotted owl populations were declining throughout the range of the subspecies and that annual rates of decline were accelerating in many areas. we observed strong evidence that barred owls negatively affected spotted owl populations, primarily by decreasing apparent survival and increasing local territory extinction rates. however, the amount of suitable owl habitat, local weather, and regional climatic patterns also were related to survival, occupancy (via colonization rate), recruitment, and, to a lesser extent, fecundity, although there was inconsistency in regard to which covariates were important for particular demographic parameters or across study areas. in the study areas where habitat was an important source of variation for spotted owl demographics, vital rates were generally positively associated with a greater amount of suitable owl habitat. however, barred owl densities may now be high enough across the range of the northern spotted owl that, despite the continued management and conservation of suitable owl habitat on federal lands, the long-term prognosis for the persistence of northern spotted owls may be in question without additional management intervention. based on our study, the removal of barred owls from the green diamond resources (gdr) study area had rapid, positive effects on northern spotted owl survival and the rate of population change, supporting the hypothesis that, along with habitat conservation and management, barred owl removal may be able to slow or reverse northern spotted owl population declines on at least a localized scale." "estimatin the esophagus cancer incidence rate in ardabil, iran:a capture-recapture method",capture-recapture; esophagus cancer; completeness; esophageal neoplasm,IRANIAN JOURNAL OF CANCER PREVENTION,KHODADOST M;YAVARI P;KHODADOST B;BABAEI M;SARVI F;KHATIBI SR;BARZEGARI S,"background: accurate cancer registry and awareness of cancer incidence rate is essential in order to define strategies for cancer prevention and control programs. capture-recapture methods have been recommended for reducing bias and increase the accuracy of cancer incidence estimation. objectives: this study aimed to estimate the esophagus cancer incidence by capture-recapture method based on ardabil population-based cancer registry data. patients and methods: total new cases of esophagus cancer reported by three sources of pathology reports, medical records, and death certificates to ardabil province cancer registry center in 2006 and 2008 were enrolled in the study. all duplicated cases between three sources were identified and removed using excel software. some characteristics such as name, surname, father's name, date of birth and icd codes related to their cancer type were used for data linkage and finding the common cases among three sources. the incidence rate per 100,000 was estimated based on capture-recapture method using the log-linear models. we used bic, g(2) and aic statistics to select the best-fit model. results: after removing duplicates, total 471 new cases of esophagus cancer were reported from three sources. the model with linkage between pathology reports, medical record sources and independence with the death certificates source was the best fitted model. the reported incidence rate for the years 2006 and 2008 was 18.77 and 18.51 per 100,000, respectively. in log-linear analysis, the estimated incidence rate for the years 2006 and 2008 was 49.71 and 53.87 per 100,000 populations, respectively. conclusions: based on the obtained results, it can be concluded that none of the sources of pathology reports, death certificates and medical records individually or collectively were fully covered the incidence cases of esophagus cancer and need to apply some changes in data abstracting and case finding." can camera trapping provide accurate estimates of small mammal (myodes rutilus and peromyscus maniculatus) density in the boreal forest?,camera trapping; density estimation; hit window; myodes rutilus; peromyscus maniculatus; yukon,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,VILLETTE P;KREBS CJ;JUNG TS;BOONSTRA R,"estimating population densities of small mammals (< 100g) has typically been carried out by intensive livetrapping, but this technique may be stressful to animals and the effort required is considerable. here, we used camera traps to detect small mammal presence and assessed if this provided a feasible alternative to livetrapping for density estimation. during 2010-2012, we used camera trapping in conjunction with mark-recapture livetrapping to estimate the density of northern red-backed voles (myodes rutilus) and deer mice (peromyscus maniculatus) in the boreal forest of yukon, canada. densities for these 2 species ranged from 0.29 to 9.21 animals/ha and 0 to 5.90 animals/ha, respectively, over the course of this investigation. we determined if hit window-the length of time used to group consecutive videos together as single detections or ""hits""-has an effect on the correlation between hit rate and population density. the relationship between hit rate and density was sensitive to hit window duration for myodes with r (2) values ranging from 0.45 to 0.59, with a 90-min hit window generating the highest value. this relationship was not sensitive to hit window duration for peromyscus, with r (2) values for the tested hit windows ranging from 0.81 to 0.84. our results indicate that camera trapping may be a robust method for estimating density of small rodents in the boreal forest when the appropriate hit window duration is selected and that camera traps may be a useful tool for the study of small mammals in boreal forest habitat." -an invasive-native mammalian species replacement process captured by camera trap survey random encounter models,density estimation; distance sampling; invasive species; lepus; camera traps; random encounter models,REMOTE SENSING IN ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION,CARAVAGGI A;ZACCARONI M;RIGA F;SCHAI-BRAUN SC;DICK JTA;MONTGOMERY WI;REID N,"camera traps are used to estimate densities or abundances using capture-recapture and, more recently, random encounter models (rems). we deploy rems to describe an invasive-native species replacement process, and to demonstrate their wider application beyond abundance estimation. the irish hare lepus timidus hibernicus is a high priority endemic of conservation concern. it is threatened by an expanding population of nonnative, european hares l. europaeus, an invasive species of global importance. camera traps were deployed in thirteen 1 km squares, wherein the ratio of invader to native densities were corroborated by night-driven line transect distance sampling throughout the study area of 1652 km(2). spatial patterns of invasive and native densities between the invader's core and peripheral ranges, and native allopatry, were comparable between methods. native densities in the peripheral range were comparable to those in native allopatry using rem, or marginally depressed using distance sampling. numbers of the invader were substantially higher than the native in the core range, irrespective of method, with a 5:1 invader-to-native ratio indicating species replacement. we also describe a post hoc optimization protocol for rem which will inform subsequent (re-)surveys, allowing survey effort (camera hours) to be reduced by up to 57% without compromising the width of confidence intervals associated with density estimates. this approach will form the basis of a more cost-effective means of surveillance and monitoring for both the endemic and invasive species. the european hare undoubtedly represents a significant threat to the endemic irish hare." +an invasive-native mammalian species replacement process captured by camera trap survey random encounter models,density estimation; distance sampling; invasive species; lepus; camera traps; random encounter models,REMOTE SENSING IN ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION,CARAVAGGI A;ZACCARONI M;RIGA F;SCHAI BRAUN SC;DICK JTA;MONTGOMERY WI;REID N,"camera traps are used to estimate densities or abundances using capture-recapture and, more recently, random encounter models (rems). we deploy rems to describe an invasive-native species replacement process, and to demonstrate their wider application beyond abundance estimation. the irish hare lepus timidus hibernicus is a high priority endemic of conservation concern. it is threatened by an expanding population of nonnative, european hares l. europaeus, an invasive species of global importance. camera traps were deployed in thirteen 1 km squares, wherein the ratio of invader to native densities were corroborated by night-driven line transect distance sampling throughout the study area of 1652 km(2). spatial patterns of invasive and native densities between the invader's core and peripheral ranges, and native allopatry, were comparable between methods. native densities in the peripheral range were comparable to those in native allopatry using rem, or marginally depressed using distance sampling. numbers of the invader were substantially higher than the native in the core range, irrespective of method, with a 5:1 invader-to-native ratio indicating species replacement. we also describe a post hoc optimization protocol for rem which will inform subsequent (re-)surveys, allowing survey effort (camera hours) to be reduced by up to 57% without compromising the width of confidence intervals associated with density estimates. this approach will form the basis of a more cost-effective means of surveillance and monitoring for both the endemic and invasive species. the european hare undoubtedly represents a significant threat to the endemic irish hare." restored agricultural wetlands in central iowa: habitat quality and amphibian response,lithobates pipiens; mark-recapture; fluctuating asymmetry; batrachochytrium dendrobatidis; hydroperiod; nitrate,WETLANDS,REEVES RA;PIERCE CL;SMALLING KL;KLAVER RW;VANDEVER MW;BATTAGLIN WA;MUTHS E,"amphibians are declining throughout the united states and worldwide due, partly, to habitat loss. conservation practices on the landscape restore wetlands to denitrify tile drainage effluent and restore ecosystem services. understanding how water quality, hydroperiod, predation, and disease affect amphibians in restored wetlands is central to maintaining healthy amphibian populations in the region. we examined the quality of amphibian habitat in restored wetlands relative to reference wetlands by comparing species richness, developmental stress, and adult leopard frog (lithobates pipiens) survival probabilities to a suite of environmental metrics. although measured habitat variables differed between restored and reference wetlands, differences appeared to have sub-lethal rather than lethal effects on resident amphibian populations. there were few differences in amphibian species richness and no difference in estimated survival probabilities between wetland types. restored wetlands had more nitrate and alkaline ph, longer hydroperiods, and were deeper, whereas reference wetlands had more amphibian chytrid fungus zoospores in water samples and resident amphibians exhibited increased developmental stress. restored and reference wetlands are both important components of the landscape in central iowa and maintaining a complex of fish-free wetlands with a variety of hydroperiods will likely contribute to the persistence of amphibians in this landscape." population dynamics of the swallowtail butterfly battus polystictus polystictus (butler) (lepidoptera: papilionidae) with notes on its natural history,aristolochia; ecological transition zone; mark-release-recapture; neotropical region,NEOTROPICAL ENTOMOLOGY,SCALCO VW;DE MORAIS ABB;ROMANOWSKI HP;MEGA NO,"battus polystictus (butler) is a butterfly from the neotropical region, occurring in the atlantic forest and pampa biomes. it is commonly found in forest fragments surrounded by meadow formations, subjected to marked seasonal changes. here, we report the population dynamics of b. polystictus at a high latitude environment and provide notes on its natural history. population parameters were estimated on a 12-month mark-recapture program and the seasonality of resources investigated by exhaustive mapping of host-plants and flowers. the number of butterflies per day was not stable during the year, ranging from zero (winter) to 22 (summer); the sex ratio was always male biased (3m:1f). the age structure was not constant, with an increase of older individuals toward summer. the population density was positively correlated with temperature, relative humidity, and day length. the residence time was lower for males, while the vagility was lower for females; the increment of resources at forest edges seems to increase the likelihood of occurrence of both sexes. the results shown here suggest that south brazilian populations of b. polystictus have high ecological demands for spring and summer conditions, avoiding winter in diapause." -higher hiv rna viral load in recent patients with symptomatic acute hiv infection in lyon university hospitals,NA,PLOS ONE,GIRERD-GENESSAY I;BARATIN D;FERRY T;CHIDIAC C;RONIN V;VANHEMS P,"introduction increased human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) virulence at infection has been suggested by a meta-analysis based on viral load and cd4 t lymphocytes (cd4) count during acute infection. this result was obtained after secondary analyses of large databases, facilitating the detection of differences. similar finding in cohorts of more modest sample size would indicate that the effect could be more substantial. methods change from initial cd4 count and hiv viral load after acute hiv infection by calendar year was explored in patients treated at lyon university hospitals. all patients admitted to our hospitals with acute hiv infection between 1996 and 2013 were included in our study. initial cd4 count and viral load before the start of anti-retroviral treatment were analyzed. trends over time were assessed in linear models. results initial cd4 count remained similar over time. however, in 2006-2013, initial viral load rose significantly (+1.12 log(10)/ml/year, p = 0.01). conclusion our data, obtained from a single hospital cohort, confirmed findings from a large meta-analysis, showed increased initial viremia at acute hiv infection since 2006 and suggesting potentially higher hiv virulence in recent years." -"group size, survival and surprisingly short lifespan in socially foraging bats",cox proportional hazard model; fitness; molossus molossus; multistate mark-recapture model; social foraging; sociality,BMC ECOLOGY,GAGER Y;GIMENEZ O;O'MARA MT;DECHMANN DKN,"background: the relationships between group size, survival, and longevity vary greatly among social species. depending on demographic and ecological circumstances, there are both positive and negative effects of group size variation on individual survival and longevity. for socially foraging species in particular there may be an optimal group size that predicts maximum individual survival that is directly related to the potential for information transfer, social coordination, and costs of conspecific interference. our aim was to investigate this central aspect of evolutionary ecology by focusing on a socially foraging bat, molossus molossus. this species optimizes foraging success by eavesdropping on the echolocation calls of group members to locate ephemeral food patches. we expected to find the highest survival and longest lifespans in small groups as a consequence of a trade-off between benefits of information transfer on ephemeral resources and costs of conspecific interference. results: in a mark-recapture study of 14 mixed-sex m. molossus social groups in gamboa, panama, spanning several years we found the expected relatively small and intermediate, but stable groups, with a mean size of 9.6 +/- 6.7 adults and juveniles. we estimated survival proxies using cox proportional hazard models and multistate-mark recapture models generated with recapture data as well as automated monitoring of roost entrances in a subset of the groups. median survival of females was very short with 1.8 years and a maximum estimated longevity of 5.6 years. contrary to our expectations, we found no relationship between variation in group size and survival, a result similar to few other studies. conclusions: strong selection towards small group size may result from psychoacoustic and cognitive constraints related to acoustic interference in social foraging and the complexity of coordinated flight. the short lifespans were unexpected and may result from life at the energetic edge due to a highly specialized diet. the absence of a relationship between group size and survival may reflect a similar but optimized survival within the selected range of group sizes. we expect the pattern of small group sizes will be consistent in future research on species dependent on social information transfer about ephemeral resources." -national hospital data for intussusception: data linkage and retrospective analysis to assess quality and use in vaccine safety surveillance,vaccine safety; intussusception; incidence trend; hospital data; surveillance,VACCINE,SAMAD L;CORTINA-BORJA M;SUTCLIFFE AG;MARVEN S;CAMERON JC;EL BASHIR H;LYNN R;TAYLOR B,"objectives: to assess the quality of national hospital episode statistics (hes) data for intussusception, and evaluate this routinely collected database for rotavirus vaccine safety surveillance by estimating pre-vaccination trends in intussusception hospitalisation. methods: data linkage was performed between hes and prospective intussusception data from the british paediatric surveillance unit (bpsu), followed by capture-recapture analysis to verify hes data quality. inclusion criteria were infants aged less than 12 months and admitted for intussusception to national health service (nhs) hospitals in england from march 2008 to march 2009. to estimate pre-vaccination incidence rates of intussusception, we performed a retrospective analysis of hes data. infants aged less than 12 months and admitted for intussusception to nhs hospitals in england between 1995 and 2009 were included. results: data linkage between 254 cases of intussusception identified in hes data and 190 cases reported via the bpsu resulted in 163 cases common to both data sources. of remaining 91 cases in hes, 37 had confirmed intussusception. hes data accuracy was 78.7% (200 confirmed/254 cases) and completeness for intussusception was 86% (163 matched/190 bpsu cases) compared to 81.5% (163 matched/200 hes cases) for bpsu. a total of 233 (95% ci: 227.4 to 238.8) intussusception cases were estimated for the infant population (2008 to 2009). for retrospective analysis, of 6462 intussusception admissions in hes data (1995 to 2009), 1594 (24.7%) were duplicate admissions. a declining trend in intussusception incidence was observed in the infant population, from 86/100,000 in 1997 to 34/100,000 in 2009 (60% reduction, p <0.001). cosinor modelling showed an excess of cases among infants in winter and spring (p < 0.001, n = 4957, 1995 to 2009). conclusion: national hospital data capture the majority of admissions for intussusception and should be considered for the post-implementation surveillance of rotavirus vaccine safety in england. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +higher hiv rna viral load in recent patients with symptomatic acute hiv infection in lyon university hospitals,NA,PLOS ONE,GIRERD GENESSAY I;BARATIN D;FERRY T;CHIDIAC C;RONIN V;VANHEMS P,"introduction increased human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) virulence at infection has been suggested by a meta-analysis based on viral load and cd4 t lymphocytes (cd4) count during acute infection. this result was obtained after secondary analyses of large databases, facilitating the detection of differences. similar finding in cohorts of more modest sample size would indicate that the effect could be more substantial. methods change from initial cd4 count and hiv viral load after acute hiv infection by calendar year was explored in patients treated at lyon university hospitals. all patients admitted to our hospitals with acute hiv infection between 1996 and 2013 were included in our study. initial cd4 count and viral load before the start of anti-retroviral treatment were analyzed. trends over time were assessed in linear models. results initial cd4 count remained similar over time. however, in 2006-2013, initial viral load rose significantly (+1.12 log(10)/ml/year, p = 0.01). conclusion our data, obtained from a single hospital cohort, confirmed findings from a large meta-analysis, showed increased initial viremia at acute hiv infection since 2006 and suggesting potentially higher hiv virulence in recent years." +"group size, survival and surprisingly short lifespan in socially foraging bats",cox proportional hazard model; fitness; molossus molossus; multistate mark-recapture model; social foraging; sociality,BMC ECOLOGY,GAGER Y;GIMENEZ O;O MARA MT;DECHMANN DKN,"background: the relationships between group size, survival, and longevity vary greatly among social species. depending on demographic and ecological circumstances, there are both positive and negative effects of group size variation on individual survival and longevity. for socially foraging species in particular there may be an optimal group size that predicts maximum individual survival that is directly related to the potential for information transfer, social coordination, and costs of conspecific interference. our aim was to investigate this central aspect of evolutionary ecology by focusing on a socially foraging bat, molossus molossus. this species optimizes foraging success by eavesdropping on the echolocation calls of group members to locate ephemeral food patches. we expected to find the highest survival and longest lifespans in small groups as a consequence of a trade-off between benefits of information transfer on ephemeral resources and costs of conspecific interference. results: in a mark-recapture study of 14 mixed-sex m. molossus social groups in gamboa, panama, spanning several years we found the expected relatively small and intermediate, but stable groups, with a mean size of 9.6 +/- 6.7 adults and juveniles. we estimated survival proxies using cox proportional hazard models and multistate-mark recapture models generated with recapture data as well as automated monitoring of roost entrances in a subset of the groups. median survival of females was very short with 1.8 years and a maximum estimated longevity of 5.6 years. contrary to our expectations, we found no relationship between variation in group size and survival, a result similar to few other studies. conclusions: strong selection towards small group size may result from psychoacoustic and cognitive constraints related to acoustic interference in social foraging and the complexity of coordinated flight. the short lifespans were unexpected and may result from life at the energetic edge due to a highly specialized diet. the absence of a relationship between group size and survival may reflect a similar but optimized survival within the selected range of group sizes. we expect the pattern of small group sizes will be consistent in future research on species dependent on social information transfer about ephemeral resources." +national hospital data for intussusception: data linkage and retrospective analysis to assess quality and use in vaccine safety surveillance,vaccine safety; intussusception; incidence trend; hospital data; surveillance,VACCINE,SAMAD L;CORTINA BORJA M;SUTCLIFFE AG;MARVEN S;CAMERON JC;EL BASHIR H;LYNN R;TAYLOR B,"objectives: to assess the quality of national hospital episode statistics (hes) data for intussusception, and evaluate this routinely collected database for rotavirus vaccine safety surveillance by estimating pre-vaccination trends in intussusception hospitalisation. methods: data linkage was performed between hes and prospective intussusception data from the british paediatric surveillance unit (bpsu), followed by capture-recapture analysis to verify hes data quality. inclusion criteria were infants aged less than 12 months and admitted for intussusception to national health service (nhs) hospitals in england from march 2008 to march 2009. to estimate pre-vaccination incidence rates of intussusception, we performed a retrospective analysis of hes data. infants aged less than 12 months and admitted for intussusception to nhs hospitals in england between 1995 and 2009 were included. results: data linkage between 254 cases of intussusception identified in hes data and 190 cases reported via the bpsu resulted in 163 cases common to both data sources. of remaining 91 cases in hes, 37 had confirmed intussusception. hes data accuracy was 78.7% (200 confirmed/254 cases) and completeness for intussusception was 86% (163 matched/190 bpsu cases) compared to 81.5% (163 matched/200 hes cases) for bpsu. a total of 233 (95% ci: 227.4 to 238.8) intussusception cases were estimated for the infant population (2008 to 2009). for retrospective analysis, of 6462 intussusception admissions in hes data (1995 to 2009), 1594 (24.7%) were duplicate admissions. a declining trend in intussusception incidence was observed in the infant population, from 86/100,000 in 1997 to 34/100,000 in 2009 (60% reduction, p <0.001). cosinor modelling showed an excess of cases among infants in winter and spring (p < 0.001, n = 4957, 1995 to 2009). conclusion: national hospital data capture the majority of admissions for intussusception and should be considered for the post-implementation surveillance of rotavirus vaccine safety in england. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "effects of photo and genotype-based misidentification error on estimates of survival, detection and state transition using multistate survival models",NA,PLOS ONE,WINIARSKI KJ;MCGARIGAL K,"we simulated multistate capture histories (chs) by varying state survival (phi), detection (p) and transition (psi), number of total capture occasions and releases per capture occasion and then modified these scenarios to mimic false rejection error (fre), a common misidentification error, resulting from the failure to match samples of the same individual. we then fit a multistate model and estimated accuracy, bias and precision of state-specific phi, p and psi to better understand the effects of fre on different simulation scenarios. as expected, phi, and p, decreased in accuracy with fre, with lower accuracy when chs were simulated under a shorter-term study and a lower number of releases per capture occasion (lower sample size). accuracy of. estimates were robust to fre except in those ch scenarios simulated using low sample size. the effect of fre on bias was not consistent among parameters and differed by ch scenario. as expected, phi was negatively biased with increased fre (except for the low. low p ch scenario simulated with a low sample size), but we found that the magnitude of bias differed by scenario (high p ch scenarios were more negatively biased). state transition was relatively unbiased, except for the low p ch scenarios simulated with a low sample size, which were positively biased with fre, and high p ch scenarios simulated with a low sample size. the effect of fre on precision was not consistent among parameters and differed by scenario and sample size. precision of phi decreased with fre and was lowest with the low phi low p ch scenarios. precision of p estimates also decreased with fre under all scenarios, except the low phi high p ch scenarios. however, precision of psi increased with fre, except for those ch scenarios simulated with a low sample size. our results demonstrate how fre leads to loss of accuracy in parameter estimates in a multistate model with the exception of. when estimated using an adequate sample size." first direct evidence for natal wintering ground fidelity and estimate of juvenile survival in the new zealand southern right whale eubalaena australis,NA,PLOS ONE,CARROLL EL;FEWSTER RM;CHILDERHOUSE SJ;PATENAUDE NJ;BOREN L;BAKER CS,"juvenile survival and recruitment can be more sensitive to environmental, ecological and anthropogenic factors than adult survival, influencing population-level processes like recruitment and growth rate in long-lived, iteroparous species such as southern right whales. conventionally, southern right whales are individually identified using callosity patterns, which do not stabilise until 6-12 months, by which time the whale has left its natal wintering grounds. here we use dna profiling of skin biopsy samples to identify individual southern right whales from year of birth and document their return to the species' primary wintering ground in new zealand waters, the subantarctic auckland islands. we find evidence of natal fidelity to the new zealand wintering ground by the recapture of 15 of 57 whales, first sampled in year of birth and available for subsequent recapture, during winter surveys to the auckland islands in 1995-1998 and 2006-2009. four individuals were recaptured at the ages of 9 to 11, including two females first sampled as calves in 1998 and subsequently resampled as cows with calves in 2007. using these capture-recapture records of known-age individuals, we estimate changes in survival with age using cormack-jolly-seber models. survival is modelled using discrete age classes and as a continuous function of age. using a bootstrap method to account for uncertainty in model selection and fitting, we provide the first direct estimate of juvenile survival for this population. our analyses indicate a high annual apparent survival for juveniles at between 0.87 (standard error (se) 0.17, to age 1) and 0.95 (se 0.05: ages 2-8). individual identification by dna profiling is an effective method for long-term demographic and genetic monitoring, particularly in animals that change identifiable features as they develop or experience tag loss over time." hiding in plain sight: a case for cryptic metapopulations in brook trout (salvelinus fontinalis),NA,PLOS ONE,KAZYAK DC;HILDERBRAND RH;KING TL;KELLER SR;CHHATRE VE,"a fundamental issue in the management and conservation of biodiversity is how to define a population. spatially contiguous fish occupying a stream network have often been considered to represent a single, homogenous population. however, they may also represent multiple discrete populations, a single population with genetic isolation-by-distance, or a metapopulation. we used microsatellite dna and a large-scale mark-recapture study to assess population structure in a spatially contiguous sample of brook trout (salvelinus fontinalis), a species of conservation concern. we found evidence for limited genetic exchange across small spatial scales and in the absence of barriers to physical movement. markrecapture and stationary passive integrated transponder antenna records demonstrated that fish from two tributaries very seldom moved into the opposite tributary, but movements between the tributaries and mainstem were more common. using bayesian genetic clustering, we identified two genetic groups that exhibited significantly different growth rates over three years of study, yet survival rates were very similar. our study highlights the importance of considering the possibility of multiple genetically distinct populations occurring within spatially contiguous habitats, and suggests the existence of a cryptic metapopulation: a spatially continuous distribution of organisms exhibiting metapopulation-like behaviors." @@ -1705,20 +1707,21 @@ first population assessment of the endemic insular psychedelic rock gecko (cnema estimating hawaiian monk seal range-wide abundance and associated uncertainty,neomonachus schauinslandi; abundance estimation; population trend; monte carlo,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,BAKER JD;HARTING AL;JOHANOS TC;LITTNAN CL,"the type and quantity of survey data, and consequently, applicable methods for estimating abundance, vary throughout the range of the endangered hawaiian monk seal neomonachus schauinslandi. here we present a new approach to combine disparate data and methods to estimate the range-wide abundance of this species, along with associated uncertainty. we quantified subpopulation abundance using total enumeration, closed population capture-recapture methods, empirically derived relationships between survey effort and proportion of the population detected, minimum tallies, or standardized land surveys corrected to account for seals in the water. we used a monte carlo approximation to generate a distribution of range-wide abundance, by summing randomly drawn values from distributions of site-specific abundance. data to estimate range-wide abundance were available for 2013, 2014, and 2015; our estimates were 1291, 1309, and 1324 individuals, respectively. although the point estimates increased over 2 yr, the confidence intervals for all estimates overlapped. we recognize that these estimates are subject to some varying degree of negative bias, which precludes drawing unequivocal conclusions regarding current population trends. however, after a prolonged history of population decline in this species, the lack of evidence for further decline during 2013 to 2015 is encouraging. additional years of consistent monitoring will enable reliable assessment of the trend in total hawaiian monk seal abundance." periodic growth and growth cessations in the federally endangered freshwater mussel cumberlandian combshell using a hierarchical bayesian approach,freshwater mussel; cumberlandian combshell; epioblasma brevidens; growth rate; asymptotic length; growth cessation; periodic growth; von bertalanffy growth model; bayesian hierarchical model,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,HUA D;JIAO Y;NEVES R;JONES J,"understanding and monitoring life history traits is often important in endangered species conservation. populations of the endangered mussel cumberlandian combshell epioblasma brevidens have continued to decline in the powell river, usa. understanding and modeling mussel growth is critical for effective reintroduction of this endangered species. in this study, 2 yr old e. brevidens that were produced in our laboratory were released to the powell river in 2009 to augment this declining population. a mark-recapture monitoring approach using passive integrated transponder (pit) tags was used to assess the survival and growth of the released mussels. hierarchical bayesian growth models incorporating individual growth variations, periodic growth and growth cessations, along with multiple release occasions were developed and compared to the classic von bertalanffy growth model. our results showed that the hierarchical model that incorporated individual growth variation gave the best estimates of model parameters, yielding the lowest deviance information criterion value. mussels exhibited different growth rates (k), including 0.015, 0.026, 0.110 and 0.050 (mo(-1)), corresponding to the duration of laboratory culture (ages 2, 3 and 4 yr old) and a growth cessation (gc) for 5.98 mo, respectively. the other parameters of asymptotic length (l-infinity) and age at zero length (t(0)) were 51.36 mm and -0.648 mo. the flexible structure of bayesian hierarchical models allowed us to examine growth characteristics of e. brevidens in a changing environment to better understand the details of its growth and lifespan, thus providing useful data for conservation management." "establishing reference demography for conservation: a case study of macrochelys temminckii in spring creek, georgia",alligator snapping turtles; conservation; demography; macrochelys temminckii; mark-recapture; population model; population structure; survival,HERPETOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS,FOLT B;JENSEN JB;TEARE A;ROSTAL D,"the conservation of large, long-lived turtle species can be a challenging issue because their life-history strategies make populations sensitive to changes in adult survivorship and populations may be difficult to sample. the alligator snapping turtle (macrochelys temminckii) is a large freshwater turtle species occurring in north america for which commercial harvest has severely reduced populations throughout the species range. given recent population declines and a general deficit of demographic knowledge for macrochelys, we conducted a mark-recapture study of m. temminckii from 1997-2013 in spring creek, georgia, usa. we made 166 captures of 75 individuals using baited hoop-net traps and skin-diving searches. the observed and estimated population structure described the adult sex ratio as even and adults as more abundant than juveniles. apparent survival was higher for adult males (0.98) and females (0.95) than for juveniles (0.86), and we estimated a population density of 13-14 turtles/stream kilometer. the survival estimates for adult m. temminckii are among the highest of all freshwater turtle species reported in the literature. we used the empirical demographic parameters described here and a literature review to build an updated population model for m. temminckii; the model estimated a finite rate of population increase consistent with a growing population (lambda = 1.036) at spring creek, and population viability analysis found the population growing over the next 50 yr in 100% of simulations. application of our model to published survival estimates from two impacted western populations indicated a declining population (lambda = 0.563) with a high risk of extirpation in oklahoma and a population with a slow rate of decline (lambda = 0.978) but approaching stability in arkansas. simulations identified combinations of survival values which generate viable populations and also characterized population structure resulting from viable scenarios. this is the first study to document a stable and viable population of macrochelys. we suggest that the population parameters described at spring creek are the best approximation of reference demographic conditions for macrochelys to date, and this study provides a general framework applicable for large, long-lived, endangered turtle species for which demographic data are unavailable." -"survival is predicted by territorial status but not wing pigmentation in males of a polythorid damselfly, euthore fasciata (odonata: zygoptera: polythoridae)",condition; survival; territorial behavior; wing pigmentation,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ODONATOLOGY,PALACINO-RODRIGUEZ F;MUNGUIA-STEYER R;MESA-BLANCO LV;CONTRERAS-SANCHEZ N;CORDOBA-AGUILARD A,"robust male condition must be favored and should be signaled to conspecifics via enhanced aggression and more highly expressed ornamental traits. one way that such robust condition, and thereby the expression of aggression and ornamental traits, can be assessed is via survival. in odonate adults, condition (in the form of lipid reserves, muscle mass and immune ability) has been correlated with the expression of: (a) territorial behavior (as opposed to nonterritorial, satellite behavior), and (b) larger wing pigmentation patterns. in the present work, we investigated these two patterns using adult males of euthore fasciata in a field study. males bear black and white pigmented wing patterns and express territorial and nonterritorial behaviors to secure matings. we predicted that, due to their better condition, territorial males should have higher survival and larger pigmented patterns than nonterritorial males, and that larger pigmented patterns would correlate positively with survival. we marked-recaptured males, measured their pigmented patterns and recorded their behavior. our results indicated that territorial males (n = 12) had a higher survival, but not larger pigmented areas, than nonterritorial males (n = 39), and that there was no significant relationship between wing pigmentation and survival. this result confirms that territorial males are in better condition than nonterritorial males. however, wing pigmentation does not seem to signal such condition to conspecifics although the reduced number of animals may have affected our analysis. tentatively, the assumed relationship pigmentation/condition cannot be generalized in odonates." +"survival is predicted by territorial status but not wing pigmentation in males of a polythorid damselfly, euthore fasciata (odonata: zygoptera: polythoridae)",condition; survival; territorial behavior; wing pigmentation,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ODONATOLOGY,PALACINO RODRIGUEZ F;MUNGUIA STEYER R;MESA BLANCO LV;CONTRERAS SANCHEZ N;CORDOBA AGUILARD A,"robust male condition must be favored and should be signaled to conspecifics via enhanced aggression and more highly expressed ornamental traits. one way that such robust condition, and thereby the expression of aggression and ornamental traits, can be assessed is via survival. in odonate adults, condition (in the form of lipid reserves, muscle mass and immune ability) has been correlated with the expression of: (a) territorial behavior (as opposed to nonterritorial, satellite behavior), and (b) larger wing pigmentation patterns. in the present work, we investigated these two patterns using adult males of euthore fasciata in a field study. males bear black and white pigmented wing patterns and express territorial and nonterritorial behaviors to secure matings. we predicted that, due to their better condition, territorial males should have higher survival and larger pigmented patterns than nonterritorial males, and that larger pigmented patterns would correlate positively with survival. we marked-recaptured males, measured their pigmented patterns and recorded their behavior. our results indicated that territorial males (n = 12) had a higher survival, but not larger pigmented areas, than nonterritorial males (n = 39), and that there was no significant relationship between wing pigmentation and survival. this result confirms that territorial males are in better condition than nonterritorial males. however, wing pigmentation does not seem to signal such condition to conspecifics although the reduced number of animals may have affected our analysis. tentatively, the assumed relationship pigmentation/condition cannot be generalized in odonates." "relationship between instar stages and carapace length of decapoda, brachyura, cheiragonidae the hair crab erimacrus isenbeckii in the coastal waters of hokkaido, japan",NA,NIPPON SUISAN GAKKAISHI,MIHARA E;MISAKA T;SASAKI J;TANAKA N;MIHARA Y;YASUNAGA T,"the growth characteristics of the hair crab erimacrus isenbeckii in the coastal waters of hokkaido, japan were clarified using an identification method based on external morphology, frequency analysis of carapace length (cl), a mark-recapture sampling protocol, sampling of molted individuals, and rearing experiment. specifically, the relationship between instar stages and cl was clarified using the former two methods, and to estimate actual growth, a growth formula was derived by applying the initial and post-exuvial cls of molted individuals that were obtained using the latter three methods to hiatt's method. there were not large differences between estimations of the cl of each instar by the cl frequency analysis and by the growth formula, so it was considered that both results were reasonable. since no significant differences were observed between the growth formula results obtained for males after the ninth instar at three sites off hokkaido, we propose that the growth formula for mature male hair crabs off hokkaido can be represented as ln+1= 1.035l(n) + 10.575." density of ocelots in a semiarid environment in northeastern brazil,arid environments; brazil; density; ocelot; secr,BIOTA NEOTROPICA,PENIDO G;ASTETE S;FURTADO MM;JACOMO ATD;SOLLMANN R;TORRES N;SILVEIRA L;MARINHO J,"ocelots play a key role in ecological communities as mesopredators affecting the lower trophic level and other mesopredators. they show great variability in ecological traits across their distribution, but knowledge of this species is missing in several regions where it occurs. here, we present the first study of ocelot in the brazilian semiarid of caatinga. arid habitats might keep carnivore population density low and therefore vulnerable to environmental shocks and to human-induced changes, at risk of local extinction. to assess their population status, we used camera traps between september 2009 and january 2010. we estimated the density of ocelots using a spatially explicit capture-recapture method (secr) to be 3.16 +/- 0.46 individuals per 100 km(2). this is a low-density estimate for ocelots, which might reflect the harsh conditions of the arid habitat. a longer population study of the ocelot can answer if this low population density is enough for a long-term persistence of this species in this and other arid environments." -"individual growth estimation of ucides occidentalis (brachyura, ocypodidae) in the gulf of guayaquil, ecuador by indirect methods and multi-model selection",NA,CRUSTACEANA,ZAMBRANO R;ARAGON-NORIEGA EA;GALINDO-CORTES G;JIMENEZ-BADILLO L;PERALTA M,"ucides occidentalis (ortmann, 1897) is a commercial crab in the ecuadorian continental coast, however, little knowledge is available about its biology. a very important aspect for stock assessment and fisheries management is the species' individual growth. in this paper u. occidentalis growth in males and females was determined by indirect methods and the multi-model approach. by kernel density estimators size frequency distributions were built, separating their gaussian components by the bhattacharya's method. using modal progression, the cohorts were identified, and one was selected to apply asymptotic, non-asymptotic, and schnute's versatile growth models. the best fit model was selected using the akaike and bayesian weights. case 1 of schnute was the winner model in both sexes, asymptotic in males with l-infinity = 93.62 mm cephalothorax width (cw), k = 0.57 year(-1) and t(0) = 0-.02 year(-1) but it was non-asymptotic for females with an inflexion point in 2.49 years that corresponded to 73.72 mm cw. the type of individual growth of this species varies between sexes, which may be linked to reproductive issues; however, we should consider the data source and their impact on the interpretations that we can draw about individual growth. therefore, for future studies, using other sources of information such as commercial catches or capture-recapture to validate the results presented, is recommended." +"individual growth estimation of ucides occidentalis (brachyura, ocypodidae) in the gulf of guayaquil, ecuador by indirect methods and multi-model selection",NA,CRUSTACEANA,ZAMBRANO R;ARAGON NORIEGA EA;GALINDO CORTES G;JIMENEZ BADILLO L;PERALTA M,"ucides occidentalis (ortmann, 1897) is a commercial crab in the ecuadorian continental coast, however, little knowledge is available about its biology. a very important aspect for stock assessment and fisheries management is the species' individual growth. in this paper u. occidentalis growth in males and females was determined by indirect methods and the multi-model approach. by kernel density estimators size frequency distributions were built, separating their gaussian components by the bhattacharya's method. using modal progression, the cohorts were identified, and one was selected to apply asymptotic, non-asymptotic, and schnute's versatile growth models. the best fit model was selected using the akaike and bayesian weights. case 1 of schnute was the winner model in both sexes, asymptotic in males with l-infinity = 93.62 mm cephalothorax width (cw), k = 0.57 year(-1) and t(0) = 0-.02 year(-1) but it was non-asymptotic for females with an inflexion point in 2.49 years that corresponded to 73.72 mm cw. the type of individual growth of this species varies between sexes, which may be linked to reproductive issues; however, we should consider the data source and their impact on the interpretations that we can draw about individual growth. therefore, for future studies, using other sources of information such as commercial catches or capture-recapture to validate the results presented, is recommended." abundance estimate for and habitat use by early juvenile atlantic sturgeon within the delaware river estuary,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,HALE EA;PARK IA;FISHER MT;WONG RA;STANGL MJ;CLARK JH,"the atlantic sturgeon acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus historically supported a significant commercial fishery along the eastern coast of north america. however, overfishing led to substantial population declines with contributions from other anthropogenic impacts, including vessel strikes and contaminants that continue to impede recovery. our work is the first to estimate the abundance of early juvenile (age 0-1), resident atlantic sturgeon in the delaware river estuary. using the schumacher and eschmeyer mark-recapture estimator for multiple censuses, we estimated 3,656 (95% ci = 1,935-33,041) individuals used the delaware river estuary as a nursery in 2014. we found no significant change in mean length during the course of our study (november-december), and lengths of age 0-1 atlantic sturgeon ranged from 220 to 515 mm tl. further, using a passive acoustic receiver array, we identified significant habitat areas where age-0-1 juveniles spend considerable amounts of time; this included the marcus hook area and some habitat use downriver and upriver of marcus hook at cherry island and the chester range. our results support the idea that a spawning population of atlantic sturgeon exists in the delaware river and that some level of early juvenile recruitment is continuing to persist despite current depressed population levels. understanding trends in abundance, habitat use, and other population metrics for natal river atlantic sturgeon will allow for better conservation and management of the species." -risks of dam construction for south american river dolphins: a case study of the tapajos river,cetacean abundance; distance sampling; inia geoffrensis; sotalia fluviatilis; extinction; iucn red list category; marine mammal; population modeling,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,PAVANATO HJ;MELO-SANTOS G;LIMA DS;PORTOCARRERO-AYA M;PASCHOALINI M;MOSQUERA F;TRUJILLO F;MENESES R;MARMONTEL M;MARETTI C,"river dolphins are strongly affected by the construction of hydroelectric dams. potential isolation in subpopulations above and below such dams and the resulting low genetic variability of these subpopulations can cause extinction at a local level. here we aimed to estimate density and population size of south american river dolphins (boto inia geoffrensis and tucuxi sotalia fluviatilis), map their distribution, and estimate potential biological removal (pbr) limits in order to evaluate the effects of population fragmentation between planned dams in the tapajos river, amazonian basin, brazil. boat-based surveys were conducted following a line transect sampling protocol covering different dolphin habitats in 2 stretches of the river divided by rapids. the mark-recapture distance sampling method was applied to account for animals missed on the trackline. after the estimation of population sizes by habitat, pbr was calculated. the farthest upriver sighting of tucuxis was close to the sao luiz do tapajos rapids, whereas the farthest upriver sighting of botos was upstream of the rapids, suggesting that botos move upstream through the rapids. estimated abundance of tucuxis (3372 ind., cv = 0.38) was twice as high as that estimated for botos (1815 ind., cv = 0.4). the pbr ranged from 11 to 18 ind. for boto and 21 to 34 for tucuxi. throughout this study, we identified low abundances of river dolphins compared to other amazon rivers. boto may not be sustainable at a population level, due primarily to population fragmentation which would result from the construction of the proposed dams. precautionary measures are urgently needed before construction of dams begins in the tapajos river." +risks of dam construction for south american river dolphins: a case study of the tapajos river,cetacean abundance; distance sampling; inia geoffrensis; sotalia fluviatilis; extinction; iucn red list category; marine mammal; population modeling,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,PAVANATO HJ;MELO SANTOS G;LIMA DS;PORTOCARRERO AYA M;PASCHOALINI M;MOSQUERA F;TRUJILLO F;MENESES R;MARMONTEL M;MARETTI C,"river dolphins are strongly affected by the construction of hydroelectric dams. potential isolation in subpopulations above and below such dams and the resulting low genetic variability of these subpopulations can cause extinction at a local level. here we aimed to estimate density and population size of south american river dolphins (boto inia geoffrensis and tucuxi sotalia fluviatilis), map their distribution, and estimate potential biological removal (pbr) limits in order to evaluate the effects of population fragmentation between planned dams in the tapajos river, amazonian basin, brazil. boat-based surveys were conducted following a line transect sampling protocol covering different dolphin habitats in 2 stretches of the river divided by rapids. the mark-recapture distance sampling method was applied to account for animals missed on the trackline. after the estimation of population sizes by habitat, pbr was calculated. the farthest upriver sighting of tucuxis was close to the sao luiz do tapajos rapids, whereas the farthest upriver sighting of botos was upstream of the rapids, suggesting that botos move upstream through the rapids. estimated abundance of tucuxis (3372 ind., cv = 0.38) was twice as high as that estimated for botos (1815 ind., cv = 0.4). the pbr ranged from 11 to 18 ind. for boto and 21 to 34 for tucuxi. throughout this study, we identified low abundances of river dolphins compared to other amazon rivers. boto may not be sustainable at a population level, due primarily to population fragmentation which would result from the construction of the proposed dams. precautionary measures are urgently needed before construction of dams begins in the tapajos river." linking genetic kinship and demographic analyses to characterize dispersal: methods and application to blanding's turtle,breeding dispersal; emydoidea blandingii; mark-recapture; natal dispersal; population simulation; spatial genetic autocorrelation,JOURNAL OF HEREDITY,REID BN;THIEL RP;PALSBOLL PJ;PEERY MZ,"characterizing how frequently, and at what life stages and spatial scales, dispersal occurs can be difficult, especially for species with cryptic juvenile periods and long reproductive life spans. using a combination of mark-recapture information, microsatellite genetic data, and demographic simulations, we characterize natal and breeding dispersal patterns in the long-lived, slow-maturing, and endangered blanding's turtle (emydoidea blandingii), focusing on nesting females. we captured and genotyped 310 individual blanding's turtles (including 220 nesting females) in a central wisconsin population from 2010 to 2013, with additional information on movements among 3 focal nesting areas within this population available from carapace-marking conducted from 2001 to 2009. mark-recapture analyses indicated that dispersal among the 3 focal nesting areas was infrequent (< 0.03 annual probability). dyads of females with inferred first-order relationships were more likely to be found within the same nesting area than split between areas, and the proportion of related dyads declined with increasing distance among nesting areas. the observed distribution of related dyads for nesting females was consistent with a probability of natal dispersal at first breeding between nearby nesting areas of approximately 0.1 based on demographic simulations. our simulation-based estimates of infrequent female dispersal were corroborated by significant spatial genetic autocorrelation among nesting females at scales of < 500 m. nevertheless, a lack of spatial genetic autocorrelation among non-nesting turtles (males and females) suggested extensive local connectivity, possibly mediated by male movements or long-distance movements made by females between terrestrial nesting areas and aquatic habitats. we show here that coupling genetic and demographic information with simulations of individual-based population models can be an effective approach for untangling the contributions of natal and breeding dispersal to spatial ecology." -density and activity patterns of pumas in hunted and non-hunted areas in central argentina,calden forest; camera surveys; hunting; mark-resight; population density; puma concolor,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,ZANON-MARTINEZ JI;KELLY MJ;MESA-CRUZ JB;SARASOLA JH;DEHART C;TRAVAINI A,"context. hunting has demographic effects on large and medium carnivores, causing population reductions and even extinctions worldwide. yet, there is little information on carnivore demographic parameters and spatial and temporal land-use patterns in areas experiencing sport hunting, thus hindering effective conservation plans for such areas. aims. we estimated densities and determined activity patterns of pumas (puma concolor) from camera-trapping surveys in a protected area and in a game reserve with sport hunting, in the calden forest of central argentina. methods. we used both non-spatial and spatial mark-resight techniques to estimate and compare puma densities and we used kernel-density estimation (kde) techniques to analyse and compare puma activity patterns between study sites. key results. puma densities estimated from spatial models were lower than densities estimated from non-spatial mark-resight techniques. however, estimated density of pumas in the protected area was always higher (range = 4.89-9.32 per 100 km(2)) than in the game reserve (range = 0.52-1.98 per 100 km(2)), regardless of the estimation technique used. trapping rates for large mammal prey were similar across sites. pumas exhibited more nocturnal behaviour and high activity peaks at 0600 hours and 1100 hours in the hunted game reserve, whereas puma activity was spread more evenly around the clock in the protected area. conclusions. the higher puma densities in the protected area reflect the potential for such areas to function as refugia in a human-dominated landscape. however, the game reserve had a lower puma density than the protected area despite high trap rates of large prey, indicating that these areas may function as attractive sinks. implications. our results could indicate that puma sport hunting in the calden forest should be managed at a metapopulation, regional level, and include both no-hunting areas (protected area, as potential sources) and hunting areas (game reserves, as potential sinks). considering that our study areas were small and that this was an unreplicated study, we urge more research to be conducted, so as to determine whether sport hunting is compatible with puma conservation in the region." +density and activity patterns of pumas in hunted and non-hunted areas in central argentina,calden forest; camera surveys; hunting; mark-resight; population density; puma concolor,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,ZANON MARTINEZ JI;KELLY MJ;MESA CRUZ JB;SARASOLA JH;DEHART C;TRAVAINI A,"context. hunting has demographic effects on large and medium carnivores, causing population reductions and even extinctions worldwide. yet, there is little information on carnivore demographic parameters and spatial and temporal land-use patterns in areas experiencing sport hunting, thus hindering effective conservation plans for such areas. aims. we estimated densities and determined activity patterns of pumas (puma concolor) from camera-trapping surveys in a protected area and in a game reserve with sport hunting, in the calden forest of central argentina. methods. we used both non-spatial and spatial mark-resight techniques to estimate and compare puma densities and we used kernel-density estimation (kde) techniques to analyse and compare puma activity patterns between study sites. key results. puma densities estimated from spatial models were lower than densities estimated from non-spatial mark-resight techniques. however, estimated density of pumas in the protected area was always higher (range = 4.89-9.32 per 100 km(2)) than in the game reserve (range = 0.52-1.98 per 100 km(2)), regardless of the estimation technique used. trapping rates for large mammal prey were similar across sites. pumas exhibited more nocturnal behaviour and high activity peaks at 0600 hours and 1100 hours in the hunted game reserve, whereas puma activity was spread more evenly around the clock in the protected area. conclusions. the higher puma densities in the protected area reflect the potential for such areas to function as refugia in a human-dominated landscape. however, the game reserve had a lower puma density than the protected area despite high trap rates of large prey, indicating that these areas may function as attractive sinks. implications. our results could indicate that puma sport hunting in the calden forest should be managed at a metapopulation, regional level, and include both no-hunting areas (protected area, as potential sources) and hunting areas (game reserves, as potential sinks). considering that our study areas were small and that this was an unreplicated study, we urge more research to be conducted, so as to determine whether sport hunting is compatible with puma conservation in the region." double-observer evaluation of pronghorn aerial line-transect surveys,antilocapra americana; detection bias; distance sampling; mark-recapture; population estimation,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,SMYSER TJ;GUENZEL RJ;JACQUES CN;GARTON EO,"context. distance sampling is used to estimate abundance for several taxa, including pronghorn (antilocapra americana). comparisons between population estimates derived from quadrat sampling and distance sampling suggest that distance sampling underestimates pronghorn density, likely owing to violations of the critical assumption of distance sampling that all pronghorn within the innermost distance band (a band; nearest to the aircraft) are detected. aims. we sought to rigorously test the assumption that all pronghorn clusters are detected within the innermost distance band by applying a double-observer approach to an established pronghorn aerial-survey protocol. additionally, we evaluated potential effects of cluster size, landscape composition and seat position (front seat versus rear) on the probability of detection. methods. we conducted aerial line-transect distance-sampling surveys using independent, paired observers and modelled the probability of detection with mark-recapture distance-sampling (mrds) analysis techniques that explicitly estimate the probability of detection for pronghorn clusters in the innermost distance band. we compared density estimates produced by themrdsanalysis with those produced by multiple-covariate distance sampling (mcds), a method that assumes complete detection for clusters on the transect line. key results. weidentified violations of the assumption that all clusters within the innermost distance band were detected, which would contribute to proportional biases in density estimates for analysis techniques that assume complete detection. the frequency of missed clusters was modest from the front-seat position, with 45 of the 47 (96%) clusters in the a band detected. in contrast, the frequency of missed clusters was more substantial for the rear position, from which 37 of 47 (79%) clusters in the a band were detected. further, our analysis showed that cluster size and landscape composition were important factors for pronghorn sightability. conclusions. when implementing standard survey methodologies, pronghorn aerial-line transect surveys underestimated population densities. a double-observer survey configuration allowed us to quantify and correct for the bias caused by the failure of observers to detect all pronghorn clusters within the innermost distance band. implications. population monitoring programs should incorporate double-observer validation trials to quantify the extent of bias owing to undetected clusters within the innermost distance band realised under typical survey conditions. wildlife managers can improve the precision of pronghorn aerial line-transect surveys by incorporating cluster size and measures of landscape composition and complexity into detection models without incurring additional survey costs." "population size of endemic rana tavasensis in its terra typica, turkey",tavas frog; population size; amphibian decline; survival rate; cakiroluk; tavas; denizli,TURKISH JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,CAPAR D;BASKALE E,"we applied capture-mark-recapture (cmr) methods to estimate the population size of the tavas frog rana tavasensis in its terra typica. for this purpose, we used pollock's robust design in program mark in the 2011-2015 breeding seasons in its terra typica. based on the selected model, equal catchability of each individual and absence of temporary migration were found to be the most likely biological hypotheses. population sizes were estimated as 398, 348, 275, and 117 individuals during the four study years, respectively. annual capture probabilities were estimated to average 0.07, and annual survival rates across years averaged 0.19. the year-specific estimations showed a remarkable decline in population size and survival rates. anthropogenic factors, such as off-road activities, recreational activities, and animal grazing, might have played a role in this decline. this trend provides us with useful knowledge for conservation and management activities." apparent adult survival of the critically endangered baltic dunlin calidris alpina schinzii during a period of strong population decline,NA,BIRD STUDY,PAKANEN VM;THORUP O,"capsule: apparent adult survival of the critically endangered baltic dunlin calidris alpina schinzii, showed evidence of a decline between 1990 and 2006 from 0.817 to 0.650.aims: in europe, declines in wet-grassland breeding waders have been attributed to changes in breeding habitat but long-term information on survival is rare. we examined whether adult survival of the baltic dunlin declined during a period of strong population decline.methods: we modelled apparent survival using cormack-jolly-seber models and long-term capture-recapture data collected from a danish population. we fitted models that constrained apparent adult survival with linear and quadratic trends, and compared them with constant and time dependent models to test whether survival declined during the study period.results: models including linear and quadratic trends were most supported. however, the trend variables explained only 24-35% of observed temporal variance suggesting that a large portion of variation in survival remained undescribed. model averaged estimates indicated a decline in adult survival from 0.817 to 0.650 between 1990 and 2006 with increased uncertainty towards the end.conclusion: our results suggest that gradual long-term changes in adult survival may have contributed to the decline of the baltic dunlin." silent death: the new brazilian forest code does not protect lizard assemblages in cerrado riparian forests,communities; empty forest; environmental law; forest buffer; gallery forest; habitat loss; reptile conservation; squamates,SOUTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,LEDO RMD;COLLI GR,"the new version of the brazilian forest code prescribes a 30 m forest buffer around small width streams (less than 10 m width) as areas of permanent preservation (apps), to ensure water supply, erosion control, and biodiversity conservation. we tested the effectiveness of the prescribed buffer in maintaining lizard assemblages in riparian forests associated with small width streams in the cerrado of central brazil. we used a capture-recapture study in three riparian forests: two in protected areas, and one deforested until the limit imposed by law. we captured lizards using pitfall traps with drift fences during a period of 12-14 months in each forest. we recorded 11 lizard species during the sampling period. the reduced riparian forest had lower abundance, richness, evenness, and phylogenetic diversity compared to the preserved habitats. this forest also lacked forest specialist species (e.g., enyalius bilineatus), bearing an assemblage composed exclusively by two generalist and synanthropic species (tropidurus torquatus and ameiva ameiva). our results indicate that the new brazilian forest code is inadequate to ensure the protection of lizard assemblages in cerrado riparian forests, and should take into account larger riparian buffers associated with small rivers, and also consider other factors such as the environmental quality around areas of permanent protection along riparian forests." "movement patterns in a uruguayan population of melanophryniscus montevidensis (philippi, 1902) (anura: bufonidae) using photo-identification for individual recognition",amphibia; mark-recapture; photographical record; uruguay,SOUTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,PEREIRA G;MANEYRO R,"the study of the patterns of movement is required to obtain knowledge of different aspects of the natural history of organisms, including foraging sites, shelter, breeding, capability of dispersion, and migration distance. this study analyzed the pattern of movements of a population of melanophryniscus montevidensis among five sites selected in barra de la laguna de rocha, uruguay. sixteen field trips were undertaken between september 2011 and february 2013. active searches were conducted in every site, and individuals were captured, sexed, measured, weighed, photographed, and released. photo-identification was used to identify captured (n = 1,594) and recaptured (n = 244) individuals. photographs were assessed using the software wild id. the greatest number of captures and recaptures coincided with the months of breeding activity for the species. there was a significant correlation between body size and distance covered (r-2 = 0.06; p = 0.003). among the recaptured individuals, 18.9% moved among sites. most of the individuals that moved either among or inside the same sites (71.8%) covered distances < 100 m. no association was found between the time of recapture and the distance covered (r-2 = 0.01; p = 0.12). additionally, some individuals were found at the same specific capture zones in subsequent field trips. the results demonstrate the high site fidelity of this species. such information is essential to estimate the effects of habitat fragmentation in wild populations, as individuals would not be able to change their habitats easily." -modelling survival and breeding dispersal to unobservable nest sites,blue penguin; breeding-site fidelity; capture-recapture; merging information; multi-event model; seabirds,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,TAVECCHIA G;SANZ-AGUILAR A;CANNELL B,"context demographic parameters in wildlife populations are typically estimated by monitoring a limited number of individuals in observable sites and assuming that these are representative of the whole population. if individuals permanently disperse to unobservable breeding sites, recruitment and immature survival are expected to be negatively biased and breeding-site fidelity cannot be investigated. aims to develop a method to obtain unbiased estimated of survival, recruitment and breeding dispersal when individuals can move to, or recruit in, unobservable sites. methods we used the flexibility of multi-event capture-recapture models to estimate dispersal and recruitment to unobservable sites, merging observations made at two sites within the same breeding locations. we illustrated the model with data on little penguin (eudyptula minor) breeding in artificial as well as in natural nests. natural nests are unknown or inaccessible and birds in these sites remain unobservable. encounters at beaches surrounding the colony suggested that marked animals can permanently move to unobservable nests. we built the multi-event model considering two possible states of the individuals (alive breeding in a nest box and alive in a natural nest) and three types of observations (encountered at a nest only, encountered at the beach only and encountered at both places). this model ensured that the breeding dispersal to unobservable places became estimable. key results results indicate that the estimated survival was 8% higher than when recaptures at artificial nests were analysed alone. also, fidelity to artificial nests was 12% lower than to natural nests. this might reflect the greater availability of natural sites or, alternatively, a heterogeneity between these two types of nest. conclusions we obtained an estimate of local survival of little penguins breeding at penguin island that incorporates the permanent migration to unobservable sites and found an asymmetric dispersion towards natural nests. implication our conclusions suggest a need for more careful treatment of data derived from artificial sites alone, as demographic parameters might be underestimated if animals prefer natural breeding sites or if they are in greater proportion compared with artificial ones. the analytical approach presented can be applied to many biological systems, when animals might move into inaccessible or unobservable breeding sites." +"using the two-source capture-recapture method to estimate the incidence and case ascertainment of congenital rubella syndrome in australia, 1993-2013",NA,WESTERN PACIFIC SURVEILLANCE AND RESPONSE,MARTIN N;DURRHEIM D;KHANDAKER G;BUTLER M;JONES C,NA +modelling survival and breeding dispersal to unobservable nest sites,blue penguin; breeding-site fidelity; capture-recapture; merging information; multi-event model; seabirds,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,TAVECCHIA G;SANZ AGUILAR A;CANNELL B,"context demographic parameters in wildlife populations are typically estimated by monitoring a limited number of individuals in observable sites and assuming that these are representative of the whole population. if individuals permanently disperse to unobservable breeding sites, recruitment and immature survival are expected to be negatively biased and breeding-site fidelity cannot be investigated. aims to develop a method to obtain unbiased estimated of survival, recruitment and breeding dispersal when individuals can move to, or recruit in, unobservable sites. methods we used the flexibility of multi-event capture-recapture models to estimate dispersal and recruitment to unobservable sites, merging observations made at two sites within the same breeding locations. we illustrated the model with data on little penguin (eudyptula minor) breeding in artificial as well as in natural nests. natural nests are unknown or inaccessible and birds in these sites remain unobservable. encounters at beaches surrounding the colony suggested that marked animals can permanently move to unobservable nests. we built the multi-event model considering two possible states of the individuals (alive breeding in a nest box and alive in a natural nest) and three types of observations (encountered at a nest only, encountered at the beach only and encountered at both places). this model ensured that the breeding dispersal to unobservable places became estimable. key results results indicate that the estimated survival was 8% higher than when recaptures at artificial nests were analysed alone. also, fidelity to artificial nests was 12% lower than to natural nests. this might reflect the greater availability of natural sites or, alternatively, a heterogeneity between these two types of nest. conclusions we obtained an estimate of local survival of little penguins breeding at penguin island that incorporates the permanent migration to unobservable sites and found an asymmetric dispersion towards natural nests. implication our conclusions suggest a need for more careful treatment of data derived from artificial sites alone, as demographic parameters might be underestimated if animals prefer natural breeding sites or if they are in greater proportion compared with artificial ones. the analytical approach presented can be applied to many biological systems, when animals might move into inaccessible or unobservable breeding sites." on the estimation of homogeneous population size from a complex dual-record system,directional knowledge on phi; empirical bayes; gibbs sampler; human population; missingdata; m-tb-drs model; stochastic em,JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL COMPUTATION AND SIMULATION,CHATTERJEE K;MUKHERJEE D,"a dual-record system (drs) (equivalently two sample capture-recapture experiments) model, with time and behavioural response variation, has attracted much attention specifically in the domain of official statistics and epidemiology, as the assumption of list independence often fails. the relevant model suffers from parameter identifiability problem, and suitable bayesian methodologies could be helpful. in this article, we formulate population size estimation in drs as a missing data problem and two empirical bayes approaches are proposed along with the discussion of an existing bayes treatment. some features and associated posterior convergence for these methods are mentioned. investigation through an extensive simulation study finds that our proposed approaches compare favourably with the existing bayes approach for this complex model depending upon the availability of directional nature of underlying behavioural response effect. a real-data example is given to illustrate these methods." positive predictive value and completeness of prenatally assigned international classification of disease-10 kidney anomaly diagnoses in the danish national patient registry,danish national patient registry; international classification of disease; validation study; prenatal diagnosis; astraia; kidney anomaly; danish fetal medicine database,CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY,RASMUSSEN M;OLSEN MS;SUNDE L;PEDERSEN L;PETERSEN OB,"objective: restricting studies of severe congenital malformations to live-born children may introduce substantial bias. in this study, we estimated the attendance to the second-trimester fetal malformation screening program. we also estimated the positive predictive value (ppv) of prenatally assigned international classification of disease-10 diagnoses recorded in the danish national patient registry (dnpr) and the completeness of case registration. we used kidney anomalies as an example. methods: we identified the proportion of all danish live-born children from january 1, 2007 to december 31, 2012, who were scanned during the second trimester using the dnpr and the civil registration system. details of all fetuses with specific kidney anomaly diagnoses according to the dnpr were retrieved. the ppv was estimated using the nationwide astraia database of pregnancy medical charts or traditional medical charts, as gold standard. the completeness was assessed using the total number of cases estimated by the capture-recapture method. results: of 372,263 live born infants, 97.3% were scanned during the second trimester. we identified 172 fetuses in the dnpr. of these, 149 had kidney anomalies according to astraia or medical chart review, corresponding to a ppv of 87% (95% ci: 81%-91%). the estimated completeness was 43% (95% ci: 38%-49%) for the dnpr and 75% (95% ci: 70%-79%) for astraia. conclusion: almost all live-born children were scanned during the second trimester in denmark. however, low completeness may hamper the use of the dnpr for studies of prenatally detected severe malformations, and use of the astraia database may preferably be considered." "a new tool in the toolbox for large-scale, high-throughput fisheries mark-recapture studies using genetic identification",biopsy; fishery-independent; genetic tag; mark-recapture,MARINE AND FRESHWATER RESEARCH,BRADFORD RW;HILL P;DAVIES C;GREWE P,"the lack of independently verifiable estimates of catches and fisheries independent estimates of abundance and fishing mortality are major sources of uncertainty in the management of many fisheries. dna profiling provides the potential to substantially improve the quality of data for assessments and act as an additional deterrent to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (iuu) fishing. barriers to the implementation of this technology include cost of sample collection and processing, forensic grade quality control, and the ability to apply undetectable tags. we present the results of a comparison of two current and one new (gene tag tool, gtt) sampling techniques, using the highly valued southern bluefin tuna as an example. we demonstrate that fish sampled with two techniques are highly unlikely to be recognised as tagged', whereas one technique was easily recognisable after 73 days. the gtt reduced handling before dna extraction, whereas both other techniques require additional labour, adding to cost and potential contamination of the evidentiary chain. evidence of cross-contamination in the whatman fta elute samples suggests they may not be as suitable for at-sea field applications. two of the three sampling techniques are capable of obtaining high quality tissue samples for stock assessment and chain of custody purposes in a cost-effective and unidentifiable manner." @@ -1730,33 +1733,33 @@ complex demographic responses of a common small mammal to a plant invasion,eragr space use by female agile antechinus: are teat number and home-range size linked?,food abundance; habitat composition; nest sites; radio-tracking,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,BECKMAN J;LILL A,"context the number of teats that a female agile antechinus (antechinus agilis) possesses effectively determines her initial litter size. in the otway ranges, south-eastern australia, numerous separate populations in which all females have either six or 10 teats occur fairly close together in similar, contiguous forest at comparable altitudes and latitudes. six-teat and 10-teat females have a similar mean mass, but the latter have a 1.7xgreater reproductive potential and so should have a greater nutritional requirement while raising young than do six-teat females. theoretically, they could meet this requirement by occupying larger and/or more exclusive home ranges during breeding than do six-teat females do (provided that their food-resource abundance is comparable), albeit at a greater energetic cost. aims the aim of the study was to determine whether 10-teat a. agilis females occupied larger and less overlapping home ranges than did six-teat females. to interpret the findings more meaningfully, it was necessary to compare food abundance and habitat characteristics in areas occupied by the two phenotypes. methods the investigation was conducted in six-teat and 10-teat a. agilis areas in cool temperate forest over 22 months. population density was determined by mark-recapture methods and arthropod prey biomass and abundance by pitfall trapping. vegetation structure and plant-taxa abundance and diversity were determined by standard plant-survey methods. female home-range estimates determined by radio-tracking were based on 95% minimal convex polygons (mcp) and kernel analysis. home-range overlap was based on 80% mcp range determinations and core areas were calculated from utilisation plots. key results female population density was 2.5xlower in exclusively 10-teat than in exclusively six-teat populations. radio-tracked 10-teat females' home ranges less commonly overlapped those of identified female neighbours and, on average, were 1.5xlarger than ranges of six-teat females. food abundance and composition was similar in six-teat and 10-teat areas, but ground cover was denser and more complex in the latter areas. conclusions food-resource availability was similar in the six-teat and 10-teat phenotype areas, so the larger, and probably more exclusive, home ranges of 10-teat females could reflect greater nutritional requirements resulting from having larger litters, and account for their lower population density. implications the a. agilis teat-number variation pattern in the otways may be a rare, visible example of ongoing incipient speciation. this makes it of great scientific and conservation value and it is important to document how the phenomenon operates." "quantifying recruitment compensation in florida largemouth bass, with implications for fisheries",NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,SHAW SL;ALLEN MS,"fish populations that undergo heavy exploitation and those for which the act of fishing can influence individual brood success are at risk of recruitment effects due to angling. the angling of brood-guarding male black bass micropterus spp. has been shown to decrease brood success, although there is no evidence that a loss of individual broods has population-level impacts. therefore, some level of recruitment compensation may influence juvenile bass survival. we sought to measure recruitment compensation and the form of the stock-recruit relationship for a brood-guarding species, the florida largemouth bass m. salmoides floridanus ( hereafter, florida bass). the study was conducted in four north-central florida lakes during 4 years ( 2010-2013). we quantified adult stock density by using mark-recapture electrofishing surveys. the estimated broods produced in each spawning season, the number of those broods that were successful, and the age-1 recruit density were quantified via snorkel surveys. we evaluated three models for describing the effects of stock density or successful brood density on recruitment: a proportional ( linear; i.e., no compensation) model, a ricker ( dome-shaped) model, and a beverton-holt ( asymptotic) model. recruit density was better indicated by the number of successful broods produced than by spawning stock density. model comparisons indicated that the density-dependent models had the most support, whereas there was no apparent support for the proportional or density-independent model. the ricker model had the most empirical support overall ( estimated parameters: a = 2.2, b = 0.009). our results indicate that the number of successful broods would have to fall below about 5 broods/ha to generate direct declines in observed average recruitment of florida bass." long-term sedentary behavior of coconut crabs in their northernmost range,robber crab; migration; capture-recapture; natural marks; individual identification,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PURE AND APPLIED ZOOLOGY,OKA S;MIYAMOTO K;MATSUZAKI S,"movement of the coconut crab birgus latro was investigated at the ocean expo park in okinawa island, japan, the northernmost range of this large, terrestrial crustacean. recapture data were obtained using photographic matching of carapace groove patterns to identify individuals. of the 485 crabs captured and photographed, 122 were recaptured and the distances they moved were recorded during an eight-year study period. monthly changes in the sex ratios of crab populations at shore and inland areas indicated that females and a few males moved to the shore area during the reproductive season. on average, 69% of males and females did not move more than 200 m from their release points regardless of the duration of the liberty period. long distance movements were not common. differences in size and sex did not correlate with the distance moved. these observations indicate that coconut crabs have a highly sedentary lifestyle and that they remain in their home ranges for many years while repeating their homing behavior. the data suggest that coastal forests, which provide a corridor for migration, are important for crab conservation." -"demographic and tumour prevalence data for juvenile green turtles at the coastal-marine protected area of cerro verde, uruguay",southwest atlantic; protected areas; site fidelity; size distribution; health condition,MARINE BIOLOGY RESEARCH,LOPEZ-MENDILAHARSU M;VELEZ-RUBIO GM;LEZAMA C;AISENBERG A;BAUZA A;BERRONDO L;CALVO V;CARACCIO N;ESTRADES A;HERNANDEZ M;LAPORTA M;MARTINEZ-SOUZA G;MORALES M;QUIRICI V;RIOS M;FALLABRINO A,"marine protected areas are increasingly considered in coastal areas as an instrument to preserve threatened fauna and fragile habitats from the detrimental effects of human activities. for this reason baseline data are of utmost importance for the evaluation of the outcomes of ongoing conservation efforts. along the uruguayan coast, the area of cerro verde (declared protected since 2011) represents the most important foraging and development area for green turtles (chelonia mydas). between 2002 and 2009, a long-term capture-mark-recapture programme for green turtles was developed to gather data on demography, ecology and status of the species in the area. turtles captured were juveniles ranging from 28.8 to 64.3 cm in length over the curve of the carapace (n = 514), and results indicated a size-based habitat segregation. tumour prevalence was 5.3% (n = 27) and was positively correlated with carapace length. the mean body condition index was 1.25 +/- 0.14 (n = 494). from the total number of tagged turtles 10.6% were recaptured during the study period. green turtles showed high site fidelity; 81% of the turtles were recaptured within the same season and 76% were recaptured in different seasons but were found at the original capture spot. mean annual growth rate was 1.6 +/- 0.9 cm year(-1). the catch per unit effort of 2008 differed from 2009, higher in 2009, but also significantly different between capture spots. the present study constitutes a baseline dataset for future monitoring of green turtles in the area and provides valuable information for wider analyses of population dynamics in the southwestern atlantic ocean." -colour morph does not predict brood size in the booted eagle,NA,ORNIS FENNICA,MARTINEZ JE;CALVO JF;JIMENEZ-FRANCO MV;ZUBEROGOITIA I;LOPEZ-LOPEZ P,"mechanisms regulating colour polymorphism remain largely unknown and detailed investigation is required to explore the biological consequences on population dynamics. this paper presents the first study of the possible connection between colour polymorphism and productivity in a booted eagle (aquila pennata) population breeding in southeastern spain. to that end we used 19 years of data of non-marked individuals. a total of 738 pale (91.6%) and 68 dark (8.4%) adult booted eagles were observed in our study area, including 57 territories. our results suggest that colour morph of both sexes remained stable in the population over the study period. although we found a higher number of offspring produced by parents exhibiting the dark morph than those of the pale morph, statistical differences were not significant. hence, our models showed that colour polymorphism was not a good predictor of booted eagles' productivity, although further research by capture-recapture analysis would be needed to explore the influence of colour variation on fitness components at individual level and its consequences at population level of long-lived species." +"demographic and tumour prevalence data for juvenile green turtles at the coastal-marine protected area of cerro verde, uruguay",southwest atlantic; protected areas; site fidelity; size distribution; health condition,MARINE BIOLOGY RESEARCH,LOPEZ MENDILAHARSU M;VELEZ RUBIO GM;LEZAMA C;AISENBERG A;BAUZA A;BERRONDO L;CALVO V;CARACCIO N;ESTRADES A;HERNANDEZ M;LAPORTA M;MARTINEZ SOUZA G;MORALES M;QUIRICI V;RIOS M;FALLABRINO A,"marine protected areas are increasingly considered in coastal areas as an instrument to preserve threatened fauna and fragile habitats from the detrimental effects of human activities. for this reason baseline data are of utmost importance for the evaluation of the outcomes of ongoing conservation efforts. along the uruguayan coast, the area of cerro verde (declared protected since 2011) represents the most important foraging and development area for green turtles (chelonia mydas). between 2002 and 2009, a long-term capture-mark-recapture programme for green turtles was developed to gather data on demography, ecology and status of the species in the area. turtles captured were juveniles ranging from 28.8 to 64.3 cm in length over the curve of the carapace (n = 514), and results indicated a size-based habitat segregation. tumour prevalence was 5.3% (n = 27) and was positively correlated with carapace length. the mean body condition index was 1.25 +/- 0.14 (n = 494). from the total number of tagged turtles 10.6% were recaptured during the study period. green turtles showed high site fidelity; 81% of the turtles were recaptured within the same season and 76% were recaptured in different seasons but were found at the original capture spot. mean annual growth rate was 1.6 +/- 0.9 cm year(-1). the catch per unit effort of 2008 differed from 2009, higher in 2009, but also significantly different between capture spots. the present study constitutes a baseline dataset for future monitoring of green turtles in the area and provides valuable information for wider analyses of population dynamics in the southwestern atlantic ocean." +colour morph does not predict brood size in the booted eagle,NA,ORNIS FENNICA,MARTINEZ JE;CALVO JF;JIMENEZ FRANCO MV;ZUBEROGOITIA I;LOPEZ LOPEZ P,"mechanisms regulating colour polymorphism remain largely unknown and detailed investigation is required to explore the biological consequences on population dynamics. this paper presents the first study of the possible connection between colour polymorphism and productivity in a booted eagle (aquila pennata) population breeding in southeastern spain. to that end we used 19 years of data of non-marked individuals. a total of 738 pale (91.6%) and 68 dark (8.4%) adult booted eagles were observed in our study area, including 57 territories. our results suggest that colour morph of both sexes remained stable in the population over the study period. although we found a higher number of offspring produced by parents exhibiting the dark morph than those of the pale morph, statistical differences were not significant. hence, our models showed that colour polymorphism was not a good predictor of booted eagles' productivity, although further research by capture-recapture analysis would be needed to explore the influence of colour variation on fitness components at individual level and its consequences at population level of long-lived species." using simulation to evaluate wildlife survey designs: polar bears and seals in the chukchi sea,aerial survey; animal abundance; ice-associated seal; polar bear; species distribution model; survey design,ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE,CONN PB;MORELAND EE;REGEHR EV;RICHMOND EL;CAMERON MF;BOVENG PL,"logistically demanding and expensive wildlife surveys should ideally yield defensible estimates. here, we show how simulation can be used to evaluate alternative survey designs for estimating wildlife abundance. specifically, we evaluate the potential of instrument-based aerial surveys (combining infrared imagery with high-resolution digital photography to detect and identify species) for estimating abundance of polar bears and seals in the chukchi sea. we investigate the consequences of different levels of survey effort, flight track allocation and model configuration on bias and precision of abundance estimators. for bearded seals (0.07 animals km(-2)) and ringed seals (1.29 animals km(-2)), we find that eight flights traversing approximate to 7840 km are sufficient to achieve target precision levels (coefficient of variation (cv) <20%) for a 2.94 x 10(5) km(-2) study area. for polar bears (provisionally, 0.003 animals km(-2)), 12 flights traversing approximate to 11 760 km resulted in cvs ranging from 28 to 35%. estimators were relatively unbiased with similar precision over different flight track allocation strategies and estimation models, although some combinations had superior performance. these findings suggest that instrument-based aerial surveys may provide a viable means for monitoring seal and polar bear populations on the surface of the sea ice over large arctic regions. more broadly, our simulation-based approach to evaluating survey designs can serve as a template for biologists designing their own surveys." small mammal communities in eastern redcedar forest,NA,AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST,REDDIN CJ;KREMENTZ DG,"eastern redcedar (juniperus virginiana) is a fire-intolerant tree species that has encroached into grassland ecosystems throughout central and eastern north america. many land managers are interested in removing eastern redcedar to restore native grasslands. we surveyed small mammals using mark-recapture methods in eastern redcedar forest, warm-season grassland, and oldfield habitats in the ozark region of northwest arkansas. we conducted over 3300 trap-nights and captured 176 individuals belonging to eight small mammal species, primarily peromyscus spp. and reithrodonotmys fulvescens. while species diversity did not vary among habitats, small mammal species composition in eastern redcedar forest differed from that of warm-season grassland and oldfield habitats. the small mammal community of eastern redcedar forest is as diverse as the warm-season grasslands and oldfields it succeeds but replaces grassland associated small mammal species with forest associated species." -"photo-identification as a technique for recognition of individual fish: a test with the freshwater armored catfish rineloricaria aequalicuspis reis & cardoso, 2001 (siluriformes: loricariidae)",individual identification; loricariid; marking; mark-recapture; tagging,NEOTROPICAL ICHTHYOLOGY,DALA-CORTE RB;MOSCHETTA JB;BECKER FG,"photo-identification allows individual recognition of animal species based on natural marks, being an alternative to other more stressful artificial tagging/marking techniques. an increasing number of studies with different animal groups has shown that photo-identification can successfully be used in several situations, but its feasibility to study freshwater fishes is yet to be explored. we demonstrate the potential use of photo-identification for intraspecific recognition of individuals in the stream-dwelling loricariid rineloricaria aequalicuspis. we tested photo-identification in laboratory and field conditions based on the interindividual variability in abdominal bony plates. our test yielded high correct matches in both laboratory (100%) and field conditions (> 97%), comparable to other reliable techniques and to studies that successfully used photo-identification in other animals. in field conditions, the number of correct matches did not differ statistically between computer-assisted and naked-eye identification. however, the average time expended to conclude computer-assisted photo evaluations was about half of the time expended to conclude naked-eye evaluations. this result may be exacerbated when using database with large number of images. our results indicate that photo-identification can be a feasible alternative technique to study freshwater fish species, allowing for a wider use of mark-recapture in ecological and behavioral studies." +"photo-identification as a technique for recognition of individual fish: a test with the freshwater armored catfish rineloricaria aequalicuspis reis & cardoso, 2001 (siluriformes: loricariidae)",individual identification; loricariid; marking; mark-recapture; tagging,NEOTROPICAL ICHTHYOLOGY,DALA CORTE RB;MOSCHETTA JB;BECKER FG,"photo-identification allows individual recognition of animal species based on natural marks, being an alternative to other more stressful artificial tagging/marking techniques. an increasing number of studies with different animal groups has shown that photo-identification can successfully be used in several situations, but its feasibility to study freshwater fishes is yet to be explored. we demonstrate the potential use of photo-identification for intraspecific recognition of individuals in the stream-dwelling loricariid rineloricaria aequalicuspis. we tested photo-identification in laboratory and field conditions based on the interindividual variability in abdominal bony plates. our test yielded high correct matches in both laboratory (100%) and field conditions (> 97%), comparable to other reliable techniques and to studies that successfully used photo-identification in other animals. in field conditions, the number of correct matches did not differ statistically between computer-assisted and naked-eye identification. however, the average time expended to conclude computer-assisted photo evaluations was about half of the time expended to conclude naked-eye evaluations. this result may be exacerbated when using database with large number of images. our results indicate that photo-identification can be a feasible alternative technique to study freshwater fish species, allowing for a wider use of mark-recapture in ecological and behavioral studies." "brown hyaena population explosion: rapid population growth in a small, fenced system",camera survey; density estimates; enclosed reserve; fences; hyaena brunnea,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,WELCH RJ;PARKER DM,"context. in the past 200 years, many carnivores have experienced a widespread decline in numbers and range reductions. conservation interventions include the use of small, fenced reserves that have potential restoration benefits for conservation. over the past 25 years, the eastern cape province of south africa has seen the establishment of many small (<= 440 km(2)) game reserves, and the reintroduction of the larger, indigenous wildlife that had been extirpated by the early 20th century, including brown hyaenas (hyaena brunnea). these game reserves have restored the environment to a more natural state but little information exists concerning the benefits and implications of introducing elusive animals that are seldom seen after reintroduction. fenced reserves have the potential to provide surplus animals that can be relocated for restoration purposes (where applicable) or serve as a buffer to the extinction of naturally occurring populations, but careful management is required to monitor populations appropriately, so as to avoid the costs of rapid population increase. aims. the reintroduction of brown hyaenas to the eastern cape has provided a case study to assess the role of small reserves and their potential to contribute to conservation, by determining the persistence and population growth of brown hyaenas in a small, enclosed reserve. methods. estimates of brown hyaena density were calculated using a capture-recapture approach from individually identifiable images captured during a 3-month camera trapping survey. key results. after a single decade, the brown hyaena population increased by at least 367%, from six individuals to a minimum of 28 individuals. these results suggest that this brown hyaena population has the highest density ever recorded for the species in southern africa. conclusions and implications. because brown hyaena populations were high relative to natural unfenced populations, high fences may provide two utilities for their conservation. fenced reserves may provide surplus animals to support reintroductions and provide protected populations to buffer the risk of species extinction." -assessment of techniques for marking galendromus occidentalis (nesbitt),phytoseiidae; mark-recapture; fluorescent mark; immunomarking,BIOCONTROL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY,SCHMIDT-JEFFRIS RA;BEERS EH,"the negative effects and duration of an immunomark (egg albumin) and fluorescent powder for marking phytoseiids were examined. neither mark caused significant mortality, run-off, or reduction in fecundity. the fluorescent powder mark was more durable, but neither mark has sufficient durability to be used in a long-term mark-recapture study." +assessment of techniques for marking galendromus occidentalis (nesbitt),phytoseiidae; mark-recapture; fluorescent mark; immunomarking,BIOCONTROL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY,SCHMIDT JEFFRIS RA;BEERS EH,"the negative effects and duration of an immunomark (egg albumin) and fluorescent powder for marking phytoseiids were examined. neither mark caused significant mortality, run-off, or reduction in fecundity. the fluorescent powder mark was more durable, but neither mark has sufficient durability to be used in a long-term mark-recapture study." estimating riverwide abundance of juvenile fish populations: how much sampling is enough?,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,KORMAN J;SCHICK J;MOSSOP B,"estimating riverwide abundance of juvenile fish populations is challenging because detection probability is typically low and juveniles can be patchily distributed over large areas. we used a hierarchical bayesian model to estimate the abundance of juvenile steelhead oncorhynchus mykiss in two rivers in british columbia over 3 years based on a multigear, two-phase sampling design. these estimates were used to drive a simulation model to evaluate how the precision of abundance estimates varied with the number of single-pass index and mark-recapture sites that were sampled, the proportion of shoreline sampled, and the mean and variation of detection probability and fish density across sites. the extent of variation in fish densities across index sites was the most important factor influencing the precision of river-wide abundance estimates, and increasing the number of index sites was the best approach to reduce variability in abundance estimates. river size, which controls the proportion of habitat sampled for a given level of sampling effort, had a moderate effect on precision, but only when the extent of site-to-site variation in fish density was high. factors affecting detection probability, such as the number of mark-recapture sites, the mean detection probability, or the extent of variation in detection probability across sites, had much less influence on precision of abundance estimates unless the proportion of river sampled was high. hierarchical bayesian models are no substitute for collecting informative data, but they improve our understanding of variance structure, which is critical for providing realistic estimates of uncertainty and designing informative and efficient sampling programs." developing recreational harvest regulations for an unexploited lake trout population,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,LENKER MA;WEIDEL BC;JENSEN OP;SOLOMON CT,"developing fishing regulations for previously unexploited populations presents numerous challenges, many of which stem from a scarcity of baseline information about abundance, population productivity, and expected angling pressure. we used simulation models to test the effect of six management strategies (catch and release; trophy, minimum, and maximum length limits; and protected and exploited slot length limits) on an unexploited population of lake trout salvelinus namaycush in follensby pond, a 393-ha lake located in new york state's adirondack park. we combined field and literature data and mark-recapture abundance estimates to parameterize an agestructured population model and used the model to assess the effects of each management strategy on abundance, catch per unit effort (cpue), and harvest over a range of angler effort (0-2,000 angler-days/year). lake trout density (3.5 fish/ha for fish >= age 13, the estimated age at maturity) was similar to densities observed in other unexploited systems, but growth rate was relatively slow. maximum harvest occurred at levels of effort <= 1,000 angler-days/year in all the scenarios considered. regulations that permitted harvest of large postmaturation fish, such as new york's standard lake trout minimum size limit or a trophy size limit, resulted in low harvest and high angler cpue. regulations that permitted harvest of small and sometimes immature fish, such as a protected slot or maximum size limit, allowed high harvest but resulted in low angler cpue and produced rapid declines in harvest with increases in effort beyond the effort consistent with maximum yield. management agencies can use these results to match regulations to management goals and to assess the risks of different management options for unexploited lake trout populations and other fish species with similar life history traits." overdispersion in the estimation of salmon escapements by mark-recapture surveys and its related factors,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,MIYAKOSHI Y;KITADA S,"the petersen method, a well-known mark-recapture method, is frequently used in the estimation of escapement of pacific salmon oncorhynchus spp. robust estimates and associated variances can be obtained when the underlying assumptions of this method are met. however, in field surveys, it is often difficult to meet these assumptions because wild animals are often not randomly distributed. when the sampling variance of the estimator exceeds its binomial variance (resulting in overdispersion), the petersen model underestimates variance. we assessed the occurrence of overdispersion in the mark-recapture data collected to estimate the escapements of masu salmon oncorhynchus masou in a river in northern japan in 1998 and 1999. the dispersion parameters estimated from 2-year data were 2.89 and 2.51 for males and 1.45 and 1.52 for females, indicating that overdispersion occurred in all cases. the magnitude of overdispersion for males exceeded that for females, probably related to differences in the postspawning behaviors of the sexes, as represented by the changes of the sex ratio of masu salmon recovered on the spawning grounds. in this paper, we propose a simple procedure to detect the occurrence of overdispersion in multiple-recovery mark-recapture data." status and habitat use of scaphirhynchus sturgeons in an important fluvial corridor: implications for river habitat enhancement,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,HINTZ WD;GLOVER DC;GARVEY JE;KILLGORE KJ;HERZOG DP;SPIER TW;COLOMBO RE;HRABIK RA,"in the central united states, recovery efforts for populations of the federally endangered pallid sturgeon scaphirhynchus albus have been ongoing since its listing in 1990. its congener, the shovelnose sturgeon s. platorynchus, has also recently been listed as threatened where it overlaps with pallid sturgeon. the status of both species in the mississippi river is unknown and so are habitat enhancement priorities that would benefit their recovery. using field data collected from 2002 through 2005, we (1) estimated the adult population size of both species using mark-recapture methods and (2) quantified habitat use of these sturgeons with multiple gears to elucidate habitat enhancement priorities in the middle mississippi river-an important fluvial corridor that connects the upper mississippi river and missouri river basins with the lower mississippi river basin. population size was estimated to be 1,516 (95% ci = 710-3,463) pallid sturgeon (five individuals per river kilometer [rkm]) and 82,336 (95% ci = 59,438-114,585) shovelnose sturgeon (266 individuals/rkm). our population estimate showed a low relative abundance of pallid sturgeon in this corridor. however, the population estimate suggests pallid sturgeon abundance has increased since its listing in 1990. shovelnose sturgeon were more abundant than pallid sturgeon, but whether the shovelnose sturgeon population is increasing, decreasing, or stable remains unknown. among 10 habitat types, both species were most frequent at the downstream ends of alluvial islands. pallid and shovelnose sturgeons were restricted to flow rates < 1.0 m/s, and their abundance was greatest in depths ranging from 4.5 to 14 m. we suggest alluvial island enhancement may facilitate sturgeon recovery in the middle mississippi river." -microhabitats and fragmentation effects on a ground beetle community (coleoptera: carabidae) in a mountainous beech forest landscape,ground beetles; microhabitats; habitat fragmentation; beech forest; mountain landscape,TURKISH JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,HRISTOVSKI S;CVETKOVSKA-GJORGIEVSKA A;MITEV T,"the aim of this investigation was to analyze the effects of microhabitats and forest fragmentation on the composition and species abundance of a ground beetle community from three different beech forest patches on mt. osogovo (macedonia), as well as to analyze the mobility (based on mark-recapture of individuals) and seasonal dynamics and sex ratio of the ground beetle community. the study site included three localities (a, b, c), one of them fragmented (a), with four microhabitats (open area, ecotone, forest stand, and forested corridor). ground beetles were collected using pitfall traps during four sampling months (june-september 2009) that were operational for three continuous days per month. species richness, abundance, diversity, homogeneity, and dominance were compared between the localities. dissimilarities in carabid assemblages between localities and microhabitats were analyzed with bray-curtis upgma cluster analysis. in total 1320 carabid individuals belonging to 19 species were captured. the carabid assemblage structure of the continuous forest locality was substantially different from the other two smaller forest patches, indicating that microhabitat structure affects ground beetle communities through changes of species composition and richness." +microhabitats and fragmentation effects on a ground beetle community (coleoptera: carabidae) in a mountainous beech forest landscape,ground beetles; microhabitats; habitat fragmentation; beech forest; mountain landscape,TURKISH JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,HRISTOVSKI S;CVETKOVSKA GJORGIEVSKA A;MITEV T,"the aim of this investigation was to analyze the effects of microhabitats and forest fragmentation on the composition and species abundance of a ground beetle community from three different beech forest patches on mt. osogovo (macedonia), as well as to analyze the mobility (based on mark-recapture of individuals) and seasonal dynamics and sex ratio of the ground beetle community. the study site included three localities (a, b, c), one of them fragmented (a), with four microhabitats (open area, ecotone, forest stand, and forested corridor). ground beetles were collected using pitfall traps during four sampling months (june-september 2009) that were operational for three continuous days per month. species richness, abundance, diversity, homogeneity, and dominance were compared between the localities. dissimilarities in carabid assemblages between localities and microhabitats were analyzed with bray-curtis upgma cluster analysis. in total 1320 carabid individuals belonging to 19 species were captured. the carabid assemblage structure of the continuous forest locality was substantially different from the other two smaller forest patches, indicating that microhabitat structure affects ground beetle communities through changes of species composition and richness." "prevalence of multiple sclerosis in the city of volta redonda - rio de janeiro, brazil using the capture-recapture method",prevalence; multiple sclerosis; capture-recapture; brazil,NEUROEPIDEMIOLOGY,CALMON AB;PEREIRA F;MARIN B;PREUX PM;ALVARENGA RP,"background: multiple sclerosis (ms) prevalence in latin america was estimated in some regions and it was found to range from 0.75 to 30/100,000. the reasons for variation in rates of prevalence around the world still are not clear, but there are environmental and genetic explanations to this phenomenon. this study aimed at estimating the ms prevalence in volta redonda, brazil. method: three sources of cases ascertainment were used and the method of capture-recapture was applied for assessing the corrected prevalence in the city of volta redonda in november 2012. the capture-recapture method uses data from incomplete lists and allows calculating the number of unregistered cases. data were analyzed using a log-linear model. results: a total of 40 ms cases was found by withdrawing overlaps of sources and it was estimated that a total number of 40 cases (95% ci 13.5-118.8) were not detected by the sources. the corrected prevalence of ms was, then, 30.7/100,000. conclusion: our study was the first in brazil to use the capture-recapture method to assess the prevalence of ms, demonstrating the highest prevalence rate so far. it is necessary to perform other similar studies and in other regions of the country using the same method for a better evaluation of the true prevalence of ms our country. (c) 2016 s. karger ag, basel" "estimates of escapement, exploitation rate, and number of downstream migrating european eels anguilla anguilla in ichkeul lake (northern tunisia)",escapement estimation; european eel; ichkeul lake; management plan; mark-recapture; seaward migration; tunisia,ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,DEROUICHE E;HABBECHI BH;KRAIEM MM;ELIE P,"the european eel (anguilla anguilla) stock has been declining for the last three decades and today, it is currently listed as endangered. the objective of this study was to quantify the escapement rate of silver eels to obtain an estimate of the future spawners migrating from the southern part of its distribution area in tunisia. a mark-recapture experiment was conducted in ichkeul lake (tunisia) between december 2013 and february 2014, covering the winter downstream run of eels. the size range of the downstream migrating eels was between 33 and 79 cm with 585.3 +/- 156.77 g mean weight. the number of migrating silver eels was estimated to 342 221 (297 956-386 486), corresponding to a biomass of 200.2 (174.3-226.1) t, with a density of 23.55 (20.51-26.6) kg ha(-1). the commercial fishing rate was estimated to be 18.8% (16.6-21.5%), which translates into an escapement rate of 81.2% (78.5-83.4%). the ratio current/pristine escapement was 0.69 for the entire migration period." -robust and defensible mark-recapture methodologies for salmonid escapement: modernizing the use of data and resources,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,VELEZ-ESPINO LA;IRVINE JR;WINTHER I;DUNLOP R;MULLINS G;SINGER K;TROUTON N,"estimates of population size, required for most ecological investigations, are often achieved by mark-recapture experiments, frequently by applying pooled or stratified petersen estimators. unfortunately, the closure assumption required by petersen estimators is frequently violated in the estimation of salmonid escapement, even though the consequences of this violation have been known for decades. we illustrate how biologists and analysts can and should make better use of statistical, mathematical, and computational advances in their analysis of mark-recapture data. modern, easily applied approaches address and minimize the effects of violations to the model assumptions on which abundance estimators are based. using examples from research estimating the numbers of chinook salmon oncorhynchus tshawytscha escaping fisheries to spawn, this study demonstrates and provides evidence in support of the use of a robust and defensible approach to salmonid escapement estimation based on the analysis of individual encounter histories. the main attributes of the approach include (1) testing for demographic closure, (2) allowing different hypotheses about the demographic attributes and capture history of the studied population to be expressed within a model selection framework, encompassing suites of open-or closed-population approaches, and (3) optimizing the use of information by embracing the opportunities that mark-recapture experiments generate to increase our knowledge of salmonid ecology and hence improve both future study designs and management decisions. this study also demonstrates that discrepancies (positive) in abundance estimates produced with the petersen estimator relative to those produced by the ""best models"" from robust estimators are inversely proportional to sampling rates." +robust and defensible mark-recapture methodologies for salmonid escapement: modernizing the use of data and resources,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,VELEZ ESPINO LA;IRVINE JR;WINTHER I;DUNLOP R;MULLINS G;SINGER K;TROUTON N,"estimates of population size, required for most ecological investigations, are often achieved by mark-recapture experiments, frequently by applying pooled or stratified petersen estimators. unfortunately, the closure assumption required by petersen estimators is frequently violated in the estimation of salmonid escapement, even though the consequences of this violation have been known for decades. we illustrate how biologists and analysts can and should make better use of statistical, mathematical, and computational advances in their analysis of mark-recapture data. modern, easily applied approaches address and minimize the effects of violations to the model assumptions on which abundance estimators are based. using examples from research estimating the numbers of chinook salmon oncorhynchus tshawytscha escaping fisheries to spawn, this study demonstrates and provides evidence in support of the use of a robust and defensible approach to salmonid escapement estimation based on the analysis of individual encounter histories. the main attributes of the approach include (1) testing for demographic closure, (2) allowing different hypotheses about the demographic attributes and capture history of the studied population to be expressed within a model selection framework, encompassing suites of open-or closed-population approaches, and (3) optimizing the use of information by embracing the opportunities that mark-recapture experiments generate to increase our knowledge of salmonid ecology and hence improve both future study designs and management decisions. this study also demonstrates that discrepancies (positive) in abundance estimates produced with the petersen estimator relative to those produced by the ""best models"" from robust estimators are inversely proportional to sampling rates." growth rates of black caiman (melanosuchus niger) in the rupununi region of guyana,alligatoridae; crocodilian; density-dependent; mark-recapture,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,TAYLOR P;LI F;HOLLAND A;MARTIN M;ROSENBLATT AE,"we conducted a study of black caiman (melanosuchus niger) growth rates using data from a long-term mark-recapture study carried out in the rupununi region of guyana between 2005 and 2015. in contrast to previous studies, growth rates of black caiman declined with increasing size and this decline occurred more rapidly for females. size-at-age models predicted that males and females reach asymptotic sizes of 178.2-189.0 cm svl and 140.1-143.4 cm svl, respectively. our results suggest that growth rates of black caiman in the rupununi region follow the same general patterns as for other crocodilians, and that disparities with previous black caiman studies may be largely related to density-dependent factors, among other possibilities. however, future studies that include large black caiman of known ages are needed to validate our findings." "abundance, ranging patterns, and social behavior of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in an estuarine terminus",abundance; bottlenose dolphins; tursiops truncatus; home range; social structure; communities; abundance estimates; estuary,AQUATIC MAMMALS,BRUSA JL;YOUNG RF;SWANSON T,"bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) exhibit intricate social and ranging behaviors, which can subdivide stock boundaries. this study examined the abundance, ranging patterns, and social structure of estuarine bottlenose dolphins within the north inlet-winyah bay (niwb) estuarine system in south carolina. this system supports a small group of dolphins that we hypothesize may have a unique social structure given the semi-isolated nature of the habitat at the northern terminus of an extensive series of interconnected estuaries. mark-recapture photo-identification surveys were conducted from spring of 2011 through winter of 2012. using the closed capture and open population models in the programs mark, capture, and release, the bottlenose dolphin abundance in the niwb system was estimated to be 117 individuals (95% ci 92 to 142) during the warm season (may through october) and 74 individuals (95% ci 48 to 100) during the cold season (december through february), with 11 dolphins sighted in both seasons. eighty-three percent of the sightings with known males were mixed-sex groups. dolphins associated nonrandomly with conspecifics, based on the analyses using the program socprog, and four social communities were identified within the niwb estuary. kernel density methods in arcmap were used to describe the distribution of each social community, revealing overlapping ranges but distinct core use areas for each. the membership and distribution of these communities was consistent with historical surveys in the niwb system since 1997. this population falls toward one end of the continuum of bottlenose dolphin communities, with a small resident population and distinct yet overlapping social communities, smaller than normal core use areas, and a general lack of sexual segregation among adults. it is possible that other species could exhibit similar patterns along the continuum of coastal and estuarine habitats, and this study could serve as a guide for future research in these systems." an indirect method for assessing the abundance of introduced pest myocastor coypus (rodentia) in agricultural landscapes,coypu; nutria; invasive species; introduction range; monitoring; volunteer; pest management; population estimates,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,BALESTRIERI A;ZENATO M;FONTANA E;VEZZA P;REMONTI L;CARONNI FE;SAINO N;PRIGIONI C,"pest management requires the development of robust monitoring tools. in italy, coypu myocastor coypus (nutria) have been controlled since the early 1990s, but the effectiveness of these measures has never been tested. with the aim of developing a reliable and volunteer-based method for the long-term monitoring of coypu abundance in agricultural landscapes, we calibrated an index based on surveys for coypu paths against density estimates obtained through a standardized mark-recapture technique. two trapping sessions were performed in winter for each of 12 1-km long stretches of irrigation canals and watercourses using 15 baited cage traps. trapping sessions lasted 7 days each, with a 10-day break between sessions. population size was assessed using three methods: peterson-lincoln's formula, capwire estimators and accumulation curves. active coypu paths and five habitat variables were recorded by walking on the edge of both banks. the variables were then related to population size (y) by means of multi-regressive models, testing for the predictive power of the selected models by leave-one-out cross-validation. multi-regressive models included only the number of coypu paths with the best performances achieved by the model based on peterson-lincoln formula, supporting path count as an effective method to assess the abundance of the coypu in agricultural landscapes. concurrently, to assess the field suitability of the indirect method, surveys for coypu paths were carried out on 122 randomly chosen 3-km long stretches of irrigation canals and watercourses in the central part of the river po valley (c. 15 000 km(2); n italy). the highest (>8/100 m) mean number of paths was recorded in the central part of the study area. according to the regression models, the overall number of coypu is predicted to range between 350 000 and 1 100 000, raising doubts about the effectiveness of current control measures." -"long-distance movement by a great fruit-eating bat, artibeus lituratus (olfers, 1818), in southeastern brazil (chiroptera, phyllostomidae): evidence for migration in neotropical bats?",mark-recapture; use of space; atlantic forest,BIOTA NEOTROPICA,ARNONE IS;TRAJANO E;PULCHERIO-LEITE A;PASSOS FD,"in brazil, bat migrations have been inferred based on seasonal variations in bat abundances observed for several species, probably as a result of variations in temperature and food availability. however, direct evidence of individual medium to long distance (> 10 km) movements, based on marked specimens, is restricted to large frugivorous bats, genus artibeus (phyllostomidae). we report the longest bat movement recorded in brazil, along 113 km in a straight line, difference in altitude of 738 m, from a mixed araucaria forest in curitiba, pr, to the atlantic forest, alto ribeira, sp, by a female artibeus lituratus (olfers, 1818), over a period of 14 months. this data is consistent with the occurrence of migratory movements in neotropical bats, such as the ecologically flexible artibeus spp., over relatively large areas, probably with short stopover foraging intervals. implications for the conservation of these bats are clear, as their home ranges may be much larger than their foraging areas, encompassing more than one biome and overcoming political borders." +"long-distance movement by a great fruit-eating bat, artibeus lituratus (olfers, 1818), in southeastern brazil (chiroptera, phyllostomidae): evidence for migration in neotropical bats?",mark-recapture; use of space; atlantic forest,BIOTA NEOTROPICA,ARNONE IS;TRAJANO E;PULCHERIO LEITE A;PASSOS FD,"in brazil, bat migrations have been inferred based on seasonal variations in bat abundances observed for several species, probably as a result of variations in temperature and food availability. however, direct evidence of individual medium to long distance (> 10 km) movements, based on marked specimens, is restricted to large frugivorous bats, genus artibeus (phyllostomidae). we report the longest bat movement recorded in brazil, along 113 km in a straight line, difference in altitude of 738 m, from a mixed araucaria forest in curitiba, pr, to the atlantic forest, alto ribeira, sp, by a female artibeus lituratus (olfers, 1818), over a period of 14 months. this data is consistent with the occurrence of migratory movements in neotropical bats, such as the ecologically flexible artibeus spp., over relatively large areas, probably with short stopover foraging intervals. implications for the conservation of these bats are clear, as their home ranges may be much larger than their foraging areas, encompassing more than one biome and overcoming political borders." spawning site fidelity of wild and hatchery lake trout (salvelinus namaycush) in northern lake huron,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,BINDER TR;RILEY SC;HOLBROOK CM;HANSEN MJ;BERGSTEDT RA;BRONTE CR;HE J;KRUEGER CC,"fidelity to high-quality spawning sites helps ensure that adults repeatedly spawn at sites that maximize reproductive success. fidelity is also an important behavioural characteristic to consider when hatchery-reared individuals are stocked for species restoration, because artificial rearing environments may interfere with cues that guide appropriate spawning site selection. acoustic telemetry was used in conjunction with cormack-jolly-seber capture-recapture models to compare degree of spawning site fidelity of wild and hatchery-reared lake trout (salvelinus namaycush) in northern lake huron. annual survival was estimated to be between 77% and 81% and did not differ among wild and hatchery males and females. site fidelity estimates were high in both wild and hatchery-reared lake trout (ranging from 0.78 to 0.94, depending on group and time filter), but were slightly lower in hatchery-reared fish than in wild fish. the ecological implication of the small difference in site fidelity between wild and hatchery-reared lake trout is unclear, but similarities in estimates suggest that many hatchery-reared fish use similar spawning sites to wild fish and that most return to those sites annually for spawning." "seasonal and spatial patterns of growth of rainbow trout in the colorado river in grand canyon, arizona",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,YARD MD;KORMAN J;WALTERS CJ;KENNEDY TA,"rainbow trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) have been purposely introduced in many regulated rivers, with inadvertent consequences on native fishes. we describe how trout growth rates and condition could be influencing trout population dynamics in a 130 km section of the colorado river below glen canyon dam based on a large-scale mark-recapture program where similar to 8000 rainbow trout were recaptured over a 3-year period (2012-2014). there were strong temporal and spatial variations in growth in both length and weight as predicted from von bertalanffy and bioenergetic models, respectively. there was more evidence for seasonal variation in the growth coefficient and annual variation in the asymptotic length. bioenergetic models showed more variability for growth in weight across seasons and years than across reaches. these patterns were consistent with strong seasonal variation in invertebrate drift and effects of turbidity on foraging efficiency. highest growth rates and relative condition occurred in downstream reaches with lower trout densities. results indicate that reduction in rainbow trout abundance in glen canyon will likely increase trout size in the tailwater fishery and may reduce downstream dispersal into grand canyon." -compensating for a bad start: compensatory growth across life stages in an organism with a complex life cycle,compensatory growth; complex life cycle; habitat shift; fitness; optimal body size and mass; emerald damselfly; lestes sponsa,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,HYEUN-JI L;JOHANSSON F,"organisms with a complex life cycle are characterized by a life-history shift through metamorphosis and include organisms such as insects and amphibians. they must optimize their use of resources and behaviour across different life stages to maximize their fitness. an interesting question with regard to such life-history shifts is whether growth in the juvenile stage can be compensated for in the adult stage. here we ask whether emerald damselflies (lestes sponsa (hansemann, 1823)) are able to compensate for depressed growth during the juvenile aquatic stage in their terrestrial adult stage. lestes sponsa emerge at a fixed adult body size, but feed during the adult stage and are thus able to gain mass as adults. we performed a mark-recapture study to answer whether individuals that emerge from metamorphosis with a low mass are able to compensate by subsequent mass gain during the adult stage. results showed that compensatory mass gain occurred in the adult stage such that small individuals gained more mass than large individuals. we also found that females gained more mass than males. however, individuals that emerged at a low mass still had lower mass as mature adults than individuals that emerged at a high mass, suggesting that compensation was not complete. this suggests that larval ecology and adult fitness are tightly linked and future research should focus more on elucidating the nature of this relationship." +compensating for a bad start: compensatory growth across life stages in an organism with a complex life cycle,compensatory growth; complex life cycle; habitat shift; fitness; optimal body size and mass; emerald damselfly; lestes sponsa,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,HYEUN JI L;JOHANSSON F,"organisms with a complex life cycle are characterized by a life-history shift through metamorphosis and include organisms such as insects and amphibians. they must optimize their use of resources and behaviour across different life stages to maximize their fitness. an interesting question with regard to such life-history shifts is whether growth in the juvenile stage can be compensated for in the adult stage. here we ask whether emerald damselflies (lestes sponsa (hansemann, 1823)) are able to compensate for depressed growth during the juvenile aquatic stage in their terrestrial adult stage. lestes sponsa emerge at a fixed adult body size, but feed during the adult stage and are thus able to gain mass as adults. we performed a mark-recapture study to answer whether individuals that emerge from metamorphosis with a low mass are able to compensate by subsequent mass gain during the adult stage. results showed that compensatory mass gain occurred in the adult stage such that small individuals gained more mass than large individuals. we also found that females gained more mass than males. however, individuals that emerged at a low mass still had lower mass as mature adults than individuals that emerged at a high mass, suggesting that compensation was not complete. this suggests that larval ecology and adult fitness are tightly linked and future research should focus more on elucidating the nature of this relationship." "annual variation in recruitment and age-specific survival of little penguins, eudyptula minor",mark-recapture; new zealand; oamaru,EMU-AUSTRAL ORNITHOLOGY,AGNEW P;LALAS C;WRIGHT J;DAWSON S,"identifying variation in survival probabilities is fundamental to understanding population dynamics. we quantified variation in survival of little penguins (eudyptula minor) at oamaru, new zealand, over 19 years from 1993-2011. specifically survival in relation to age and breeding status were investigated. we used a multi-state capture-mark-recapture model to examine survival and recapture probabilities of known age penguins flipper-banded as chicks, and breeding penguins of unknown age banded as adults. the survival probability of little penguins in their first year averaged 0.42 and was lower than all older ages. the mean annual survival probability of breeding adult penguins was 0.86. the observed proportion of fledglings that later recruited into the breeding population in the study colony mirrored first-year survival estimates from the model. survival was lower for pre-breeding penguins than for breeding penguins of the same age. we detected no significant effect of age on survival for breeding penguins. the comprehensive, long-term monitoring program in place at oamaru resulted in very high recapture rates of breeding penguins that generated accurate estimates of survival." how much sea turtle bycatch is too much? a stationary age distribution model for simulating population abundance and potential biological removal in the mediterranean,loggerhead turtle; caretta caretta; green turtle; chelonia mydas; demography; incidental capture,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,CASALE P;HEPPELL SS,"mediterranean populations of loggerhead caretta caretta and green sea turtles chelonia mydas are subject to several anthropogenic threats, with documented mortality from incidental capture in fishing gear. however, how such mortalities actually affect the populations is uncertain without an estimate of population size. we derived a theoretical demographic structure for each species in the mediterranean, assuming a stationary age distribution in a stable population with constant proportions of turtles in each life stage, using distributions of age-specific vital rates. we incorporated uncertainty into the main vital rate parameters to identify a likely order of magnitude of turtle abundance in different life stages. through this approach, we aim to (1) provide a rough estimate of all population stage classes, particularly the juvenile classes that are most subject to fisheries interactions, (2) provide an estimate of reproductive life span, (3) identify and review the key demographic parameters, and (4) identify the priority gaps in our information in need of further investigation. the range of population abundance estimates from the models constructed with uncertainty (95% ci) was 0.81-3.38 million loggerheads and 0.26-2.21 million green turtles, mediterranean-wide. when we calculated the potential biological removal for the segment of the population at risk of fisheries capture, our estimates were comparable to or lower than the estimated bycatch levels in fisheries. although the model assumes a stable population and provides only a rough estimate of abundance, these results suggest that the current bycatch level should be regarded as unsustainable for mediterranean turtle populations." habitat- and density-dependent demography of a colonial raptor in mediterranean agro-ecosystems,agricultural intensification; capture-recapture model; colony size; farmland birds; land-use; lesser kestrel,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,DI MAGGIO R;CAMPOBELLO D;TAVECCHIA G;SARA M,"agricultural intensification is considered the major cause of decline in farmland bird populations, especially in the mediterranean region. food shortage increased by the interaction between agricultural intensification and density-dependent mechanisms could influence the population dynamics of colonial birds. we used demographic data on lesser kestrels (falco naumanni), a key species of mediterranean pseudo-steppes, to understand the importance of land-use changes and density-dependent mechanisms in the light of its fluctuating conservation status in the western palearctic. our analysis indicated an important influence of land uses (artichokes, arable and grassland fields) and colony size on kestrel survival rates. the strong habitat effect revealed the unsuitability of intensive arable lands with respect to extensive grasslands for lesser kestrels. notably, artichokes, a winter intensive crop, proved to be a high-quality habitat as they were associated with survival values equal to those of grassland. this is likely due to prey availability and reveals that non-traditional crops may provide suitable habitats for lesser kestrels. information theeory gave strong support to the negative influence of colony size on fecundity, albeit a small one, for its positive effect on survival probability. the estimated population growth rate was negative for all three habitats, indicating a decline over time and urging conservation actions in all of the areas studied. this decline was much higher in colonies surrounded by arable fields. in sensitivity analyses, lambda-indicated that adult survival was the parameter with the greatest effect on population growth, followed by survival of fledglings and fecundity. our study showed how the costs and benefits of group living interact with agricultural intensification to drive species demography. in addition, we integrated significant information on one of the largest lesser kestrel populations to fine tune the most effective conservation strategy to prevent the collapse of the species in a relevant part of its range. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "searching for a breeding population of swinhoe's storm-petrel at selvagem grande, ne atlantic, with a molecular characterization of occurring birds and relationships within the hydrobatinae",oceanodroma monorhis; selvagem grande; long-distance dispersal; coi; control region; hydrobatinae,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,SILVA MC;MATIAS R;FERREIRA V;CATRY P;GRANADEIRO JP,"long-distance dispersal plays a critical role in population dynamics, particularly in species that occupy fragmented habitats, but it is seldom detected and investigated. the pelagic seabird swinhoe's storm-petrel, oceanodroma monorhis, breeds exclusively in the nw pacific. individuals have been regularly observed in the atlantic ocean since the 1980s, but breeding has never been confirmed. in this study, we searched for evidence of breeding of swinhoe's storm-petrels on selvagem grande island, ne atlantic, between 2007 and 2013. during this period, six individuals were captured, sexed and characterized molecularly for two mitochondrial loci, cytochrome oxydase i and the control region, to confirm species identity, survey genetic diversity and estimate evolutionary relationships within the hydrobatinae. these individuals were confirmed to be swinhoe's storm-petrels, and all except one are females. phylogenetic analyses suggest sister relationship with matsudaira's storm-petrel and dismiss misidentifications with other dark rump species. patterns of genetic variation suggest that dispersal occurred likely by more than a single female. despite the record of a pair duetting in a burrow, breeding could not be confirmed. swinhoe's storm-petrels are regularly occurring at selvagem grande, but capture/recapture patterns suggest that a possible breeding population is small and likely not self-sustaining. in seabirds, long-distance dispersal events may facilitate colonization of new habitats created in the context of predicted climate change impacts on the marine ecosystems." -no detectable effects of lightweight geolocators on a palaearctic-african long-distance migrant,body condition; capture-recapture model; corticosterone; migration; survival; hoopoe,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,VAN WIJK RE;SOUCHAY G;JENNI-EIERMANN S;BAUER S;SCHAUB M,"tracking devices are used in a broad range of species for a broad range of questions, but their potential effects on study species are debated. outcomes of earlier studies on effects are equivocal: some studies find negative effects on behaviour and life history traits, while others do not. contrasting results might be due to low sample sizes, temporal scale (no repetition of the study over multiple years) and a limited range of response variables considered. we investigated effects of geolocators on a range of response variables: body condition, physiological states, reproductive performance and, ultimately, annual apparent survival for a medium-sized palaearctic-african long-distance migrant, the eurasian hoopoe upupa epops, for the combined study period (2009-2014) and for individual years. we investigated response variables 1 year after deployment of the geolocator and found no differences in body condition, physiological states and several components of reproductive performance between individuals with and without geolocators when data were combined. also, apparent annual survival did not differ between geolocator and control birds. we did, however, find effects in some years possibly related to environmental stochasticity or chance events due to lower sample sizes. we argue that results of studies on the effects of tracking devices should be interpreted and generalized with great caution and suggest that future studies on the effects of tracking devices are conducted over multiple years. future studies should also apply capture-recapture models to estimate survival, rather than focus solely on return rates." +no detectable effects of lightweight geolocators on a palaearctic-african long-distance migrant,body condition; capture-recapture model; corticosterone; migration; survival; hoopoe,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,VAN WIJK RE;SOUCHAY G;JENNI EIERMANN S;BAUER S;SCHAUB M,"tracking devices are used in a broad range of species for a broad range of questions, but their potential effects on study species are debated. outcomes of earlier studies on effects are equivocal: some studies find negative effects on behaviour and life history traits, while others do not. contrasting results might be due to low sample sizes, temporal scale (no repetition of the study over multiple years) and a limited range of response variables considered. we investigated effects of geolocators on a range of response variables: body condition, physiological states, reproductive performance and, ultimately, annual apparent survival for a medium-sized palaearctic-african long-distance migrant, the eurasian hoopoe upupa epops, for the combined study period (2009-2014) and for individual years. we investigated response variables 1 year after deployment of the geolocator and found no differences in body condition, physiological states and several components of reproductive performance between individuals with and without geolocators when data were combined. also, apparent annual survival did not differ between geolocator and control birds. we did, however, find effects in some years possibly related to environmental stochasticity or chance events due to lower sample sizes. we argue that results of studies on the effects of tracking devices should be interpreted and generalized with great caution and suggest that future studies on the effects of tracking devices are conducted over multiple years. future studies should also apply capture-recapture models to estimate survival, rather than focus solely on return rates." maximum penalized likelihood estimation in semiparametric mark-recapture-recovery models,cormack-jolly-seber model; hidden markov model; m-array; nonparametric regression; p-splines,BIOMETRICAL JOURNAL,MICHELOT T;LANGROCK R;KNEIB T;KING R,"we discuss the semiparametric modeling of mark-recapture-recovery data where the temporal and/or individual variation of model parameters is explained via covariates. typically, in such analyses a fixed (or mixed) effects parametric model is specified for the relationship between the model parameters and the covariates of interest. in this paper, we discuss the modeling of the relationship via the use of penalized splines, to allow for considerably more flexible functional forms. corresponding models can be fitted via numerical maximum penalized likelihood estimation, employing cross-validation to choose the smoothing parameters in a data-driven way. our contribution builds on and extends the existing literature, providing a unified inferential framework for semiparametric mark-recapture-recovery models for open populations, where the interest typically lies in the estimation of survival probabilities. the approach is applied to two real datasets, corresponding to gray herons (ardea cinerea), where we model the survival probability as a function of environmental condition (a time-varying global covariate), and soay sheep (ovis aries), where we model the survival probability as a function of individual weight (a time-varying individual-specific covariate). the proposed semiparametric approach is compared to a standard parametric (logistic) regression and new interesting underlying dynamics are observed in both cases." a combined inverse method and multivariate approach for exploring population trends of florida manatees,aerial surveys; demography; leslie-matrix model; gulf of mexico; manatee; trichechus manatus latirostris,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,LITTLES CJ;PILYUGIN SS;FRAZER TK,"given the expense and time required to monitor marine mammal populations effectively, approaches that fully exploit the resulting data certainly are warranted. we employed a two-step modeling approach to estimate key demographic parameters, including immigration, from aerial surveys of manatees (trichechus manatus latirostris) in the northwest management unit of florida. abundances of adults and calves were predicted by multivariate adaptive regression spline (mars) models, after accounting for heterogeneous detection rates caused by variable environmental conditions. the resulting predictions were incorporated into a stage-structured, deterministic model that used an inverse method to estimate parameters with and without immigration. the model without immigration estimated mean survival probabilities of 0.966, 0.923, and 0.794 for adults, subadults and calves, respectively, with a per capita reproductive rate of 0.135. these parameter estimates yielded an overall mean population growth rate of approximately 1.037, which is comparable to rates from mark-recapture studies. when we added an immigration term that accounted for the greater slope in adult counts since 1999, as identified by the mars model, the estimated per capita reproductive rate was 0.122, with survival probabilities for adults, subadults and calves of 0.926, 0.920, and 0.833, respectively. these rates were coupled with an estimated mean winter immigration rate corresponding to roughly 5.2% of the adult and subadult population. in this latter scenario, the number of manatees in the core population of the northwest management unit was predicted to remain constant, with a population growth rate near one, and additional manatees counted during aerial surveys were deemed to be immigrants. while further studies could certainly expound on the potential effects of migrants on population indices, we present this first published immigration estimate for wintering manatees in northwest florida." aerial surveys suggest long-term stability in the seasonally ice-free foxe basin (nunavut) polar bear population,abundance estimation; aerial survey; arctic; distance sampling; double-observer; line transect; marine mammals,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,STAPLETON S;PEACOCK E;GARSHELIS D,"significant information gaps exist regarding the status of polar bears, especially with respect to the impacts of climate change, across large portions of the arctic. to obtain an updated abundance estimate for the foxe basin population, we conducted comprehensive aerial surveys during the 2009 and 2010 ice-free seasons, when bears are confined to land. we sampled with mark-recapture distance sampling protocols on inland and coastal transects and surveyed small islands and remnant ice floes. we observed 816 and 1,003 bears in 2009 and 2010, respectively. although detection functions differed substantially between years, estimates were consistent between analytical methods and years. averaging four estimates (two from each year) yielded 2,585 (2,096-3,189) bears, which is similar to an estimate from the 1990s. this result, along with robust cub production, suggests a stable and healthy population despite deteriorating sea ice conditions. collectively, this and other recent on-land surveys provide a framework for implementing aerial surveys elsewhere. although aerial surveys do not yield estimates of vital rates or population growth, they enable more rapid and frequent monitoring than mark-recapture. integrating them in long-term monitoring programs will require consideration of ancillary data to infer status and facilitate setting harvest levels." @@ -1765,8 +1768,8 @@ mark-recapture abundance estimate of tucuxi dolphins (sotalia fluviatilis) in a demystifying the sundarban tiger: novel application of conventional population estimation methods in a unique ecosystem,baited traps; capture-mark-recapture; carnivore carrying capacity; mangrove; prey density; spatially explicit tiger density,POPULATION ECOLOGY,ROY M;QURESHI Q;NAHA D;SANKAR K;GOPAL R;JHALA YV,"conserving large populations with unique adaptations is essential for minimizing extinction risks. sundarban mangroves (> 10,000 km(2)) are the only mangrove inhabited by tigers. baseline information about this tiger population is lacking due to its man-eating reputation and logistic difficulties of sampling. herein, we adapt photographic capture-mark-recapture (cmr) and distance sampling to estimate tiger and prey densities. we placed baited camera stations in a typical mangrove in 2010 and 2012. we used telemetry based tiger home-range radius (5.73 km, se 0.72 km) to estimate effective trapping area (eta). an effort of 407 and 1073 trap nights were exerted to photocapture 10 and 22 unique tigers in 2010 and 2012. we accounted for use of bait by modelling behaviour and heterogeneity effects in program mark and secr package in program r. using traditional cmr, tiger number was estimated at 11 (se 2) and density at 4.07 (se range 3.09-5.17) in 2010 while in 2012, tiger number was 24 (se 3) and density 4.63 (se range 3.92-5.40) tigers/100 km(2). with likelihood based spatially explicit cmr, tiger densities were estimated at 4.08 (se 1.51) in 2010 and 5.81 (se 1.24) tigers/100 km(2) in 2012. using distance sampling along water channels, we estimated chital density at 5.24/km(2), se 1.23 which could potentially support 4.68 tigers/100 km(2) [95 % ci (3.92, 5.57)]. our estimates suggest that sundarban tiger population is one of the largest in the world and therefore merits high conservation status." population ecology and seasonal demography of the endangered grotto sculpin (cottus specus),troglomorphic; sculpin; population ecology; cave; fish density,ECOLOGY OF FRESHWATER FISH,DAY J;GERKEN JE;ADAMS GL,"subterranean fishes are understudied worldwide and often at risk before their populations are discovered and described. the nature of karst systems limits the applicability of ecological paradigms and hinders our ability to identify and preserve endemic fauna. aquatic karst taxa in particular are subject to environmental threats that increase in severity over time. once a population or species is recognised as distinct, it is imperative we gain understanding of its biology to inform effective resource management and mitigate risk factors. the grotto sculpin (cottus specus) is endemic to perry county, missouri, u.s. caves and was formally described and listed as endangered under the u.s. endangered species act in 2013. we used mark-recapture methods to quantify population densities and estimate population sizes in two caves and two corresponding spring branches. size structure varied among habitats and seasons. spring branches were dominated by juveniles year-round with peak young-of-year (yoy) densities in may. adult densities in both macrohabitats decreased in winter, possibly due to recruitment or seasonal stress, and were lower at spring branches compared to caves and declined further during late winter which may be indicative of cave spawning. yoy were captured variably underground with peak densities in summer. the ecology of grotto sculpin appears to be more complex than has been reported previously for subterranean fishes. variable patterns of demography requiring multiple contiguous habitats are unique for cave species and support the recently substantiated suggestion that subterranean systems are not as simple or disconnected as once thought." pelvic fin removal modifies escape trajectory in a teleost fish,c-start; fast-start; fin clipping; kinematics; predator avoidance; startle response,FISHERIES SCIENCE,KAWABATA Y;YAMADA H;SATO T;KOBAYASHI M;OKUZAWA K;ASAMI K,"pelvic fin removal has been used in mark-recapture studies and non-lethal tissue samplings; however, there is limited knowledge on the effect of fin removal on the locomotor performance in fish. we investigated the effect of pelvic fin removal on the escape response in hatchery-reared black-spot tuskfish choerodon schoenleinii. the left pelvic fins of the tuskfish were removed, and the escape response of the modified fish was compared with control fish. the modified fish and the control fish showed c-starts that consisted of an initial bend (stage 1) and a return tail flip (stage 2). the stage 1 angle and the escape trajectory angle were greater in modified fish that turned to the side missing the pelvic fin, compared with unmodified control fish. in contrast, when the modified fish turned towards the side with the intact pelvic fin, the angles were similar to the control fish. since both pelvic fins were extended during the stage 1 turn, it is likely that they allowed maintenance of the turning angles that determine the escape trajectory. these results suggest that pelvic fin removal has potential to negatively affect predator evasion through the modification of the escape trajectory in fish." -large-scale use of fish traps for monitoring sea trout (salmo trutta) smolts and sea lice (lepeophtheirus salmonis) infestations: efficiency and reliability,fish populations; fish traps; monitoring; parasite; salmonids; tagging,MARINE BIOLOGY RESEARCH,ARECHAVALA-LOPEZ P;UGLEM I;BERG M;BJORN PA;FINSTAD B,"lice-infected sea trout populations were monitored using fish traps in the romsdalsfjord (norway). the reliability and efficiency of this capture technique, which allows estimation of lice infestation rates without killing the fish, was evaluated through a mark-recapture study. a total of 2447 sea trout smolts were captured, tagged and released over a three-year period. there was a considerable variation in capture rates (range: 0.4-17.7 fish per day) and sea lice numbers (number of lice per fish: 2.8-30.3; number of lice per gram body weight: 0.02-0.69) among localities, sampling times and years. recapture rates of tagged fish with traps, which were low (2% or 0.11 fish per day), showed that the risk for pseudoreplication was minor, in terms of counting lice on the same fish several times. most of the tagged sea trout (90%) were recaptured within the first two months after release, and no significant variations in lice numbers were found between tagging and recapture. the lack of differences in lice levels between tagging and recapture during the first week after tagging indicated that the method most likely would not significantly underestimate the lice infestations due to loss of lice during handling. therefore, our results confirm that the use of fish traps is a suitable method for estimation of lice numbers on wild salmonids." -mark-recapture versus length-frequency based methods: evaluation using a marine gastropod as a model,growth curve; length-frequency; marine invertebrate; population dynamic; tagging; tegula viridula,JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY,FONTOURA-DA-SILVA V;CARDOSO RS;CAETANO CHS,"this work aims to compare growth estimates calculated by two types of data, obtained directly (mark-recapture) and indirectly (modal progression analysis based on monthly length-frequency data of a population) using a tegula viridula marine snail population from flexeiras beach, itacuruca island, rio de janeiro as model. during the study period (may/2010-may/2012), 3789 snails were collected and measured; among these, 765 were tagged and 362 were recaptured, some more than once. the population parameters of the seasonalized von bertalanffy growth function estimated by the two methods presented differences in the first year (direct: l-infinity = 31.23 mm, k = 0.49 yr(-1), c = 0.20, wp = november; indirect: l-infinity = 30.60 mm, k = 0.65 yr(-1), c = 029, wp = may; arss: f-3.64 = 20.90, p < 0.05), which, were not significantly different in the second year (direct: l-infinity = 27.40 mm, k = 0.85 yr(-1), c = 030, wp = march; indirect: l-infinity = 27.29 mm, k = 1.00 yr(-1), c = 0.37, wp = march; arss: f-3.48 = 1.98, p > 0.05). the differences between the methods in the first year seem to be related to the sample size effect, especially regarding the direct method (first year: n = 142, second year: n = 773). validating this statement, when the data from both years were combined, the differences between the methods were softened (direct: l-infinity = 27.44 mm, k = 0.84 yr(-1), c = 0.30, wp = march; indirect: l-infinity = 28.84 mm, k = 0.83 yr(-1), c = 025, wp = march; arss: f-3,f-123 = 1.46, p > 0.05). mark-recapture analyses are usually considered to providing better growth estimates than indirect methods, and are also assumed to be less dependent on sample sizes. a new methodology is proposed, combining the two methods, using the length of recaptured individuals as cohorts and applying a modal progression analysis. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +large-scale use of fish traps for monitoring sea trout (salmo trutta) smolts and sea lice (lepeophtheirus salmonis) infestations: efficiency and reliability,fish populations; fish traps; monitoring; parasite; salmonids; tagging,MARINE BIOLOGY RESEARCH,ARECHAVALA LOPEZ P;UGLEM I;BERG M;BJORN PA;FINSTAD B,"lice-infected sea trout populations were monitored using fish traps in the romsdalsfjord (norway). the reliability and efficiency of this capture technique, which allows estimation of lice infestation rates without killing the fish, was evaluated through a mark-recapture study. a total of 2447 sea trout smolts were captured, tagged and released over a three-year period. there was a considerable variation in capture rates (range: 0.4-17.7 fish per day) and sea lice numbers (number of lice per fish: 2.8-30.3; number of lice per gram body weight: 0.02-0.69) among localities, sampling times and years. recapture rates of tagged fish with traps, which were low (2% or 0.11 fish per day), showed that the risk for pseudoreplication was minor, in terms of counting lice on the same fish several times. most of the tagged sea trout (90%) were recaptured within the first two months after release, and no significant variations in lice numbers were found between tagging and recapture. the lack of differences in lice levels between tagging and recapture during the first week after tagging indicated that the method most likely would not significantly underestimate the lice infestations due to loss of lice during handling. therefore, our results confirm that the use of fish traps is a suitable method for estimation of lice numbers on wild salmonids." +mark-recapture versus length-frequency based methods: evaluation using a marine gastropod as a model,growth curve; length-frequency; marine invertebrate; population dynamic; tagging; tegula viridula,JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY,FONTOURA DA SILVA V;CARDOSO RS;CAETANO CHS,"this work aims to compare growth estimates calculated by two types of data, obtained directly (mark-recapture) and indirectly (modal progression analysis based on monthly length-frequency data of a population) using a tegula viridula marine snail population from flexeiras beach, itacuruca island, rio de janeiro as model. during the study period (may/2010-may/2012), 3789 snails were collected and measured; among these, 765 were tagged and 362 were recaptured, some more than once. the population parameters of the seasonalized von bertalanffy growth function estimated by the two methods presented differences in the first year (direct: l-infinity = 31.23 mm, k = 0.49 yr(-1), c = 0.20, wp = november; indirect: l-infinity = 30.60 mm, k = 0.65 yr(-1), c = 029, wp = may; arss: f-3.64 = 20.90, p < 0.05), which, were not significantly different in the second year (direct: l-infinity = 27.40 mm, k = 0.85 yr(-1), c = 030, wp = march; indirect: l-infinity = 27.29 mm, k = 1.00 yr(-1), c = 0.37, wp = march; arss: f-3.48 = 1.98, p > 0.05). the differences between the methods in the first year seem to be related to the sample size effect, especially regarding the direct method (first year: n = 142, second year: n = 773). validating this statement, when the data from both years were combined, the differences between the methods were softened (direct: l-infinity = 27.44 mm, k = 0.84 yr(-1), c = 0.30, wp = march; indirect: l-infinity = 28.84 mm, k = 0.83 yr(-1), c = 025, wp = march; arss: f-3,f-123 = 1.46, p > 0.05). mark-recapture analyses are usually considered to providing better growth estimates than indirect methods, and are also assumed to be less dependent on sample sizes. a new methodology is proposed, combining the two methods, using the length of recaptured individuals as cohorts and applying a modal progression analysis. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." estimates of small indian mongoose densities: implications for rabies management,capture-mark-recapture; herpestes auropunctatus; minimum number known alive; mongoose; population density; puerto rico; rabies; spatially explicit capture-recapture,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,JOHNSON SR;BERENTSEN AR;ELLIS C;DAVIS A;VERCAUTEREN KC,"the small indian mongoose (herpestes auropunctatus) is an invasive species and rabies reservoir in puerto rico. in the continental united states, terrestrial wildlife rabies is primarily managed by the national rabies management program (nrmp) of the united states department of agriculture through oral rabies vaccination (orv); the distribution of the vaccine baits is influenced by the population density of the target species. the nrmp uses a density index for estimating raccoon (procyon lotor) population density to guide bait distribution. in puerto rico, a wildlife rabies vaccination program does not exist and vaccination of domestic animals is limited and not compulsory. to acquire information on density and other population dynamics, we compared a mongoose density index (mdi) adapted from the nrmp raccoon density index (rdi) to 3 other methods (2 types of capture-mark-recapture [capture and mark] and spatially explicit capture-recapture [secr]) for estimating density that incorporate modeling procedures on detection probabilities, and examined the spatial distribution of mongooses within our study plots. we used the rdi trapping protocol modified for mongooses to livetrap mongooses in el yunque national forest (el yunque) and cabo rojo national wildlife refuge (cabo rojo) in fall of 2011 and spring of 2012 resulting in 4 trapping sessions. the mdi estimates were consistently less than those from other methods for estimating mongoose densities. the mdi detected a greater mongoose density during the wet season (0.55mongooses/ha) than the dry season (0.34mongooses/ha) at cabo rojo, consistent with all 3 other density estimation methods. overall, the correlation coefficient between mdi and the other calculation methods was 0.68. when we examined known locations of mongooses and travel distances, we detected more mongooses in a smaller area within the study plot at cabo rojo than at el yunque. the mdi provided information on the spatial distribution of mongooses, which will be needed to implement an orv program to target mongooses in puerto rico. published 2015. this article is a u.s. government work and is in the public domain in the usa." factors influencing emigration of ross's and snow geese from an arctic breeding area,abundance; arctic; emigration; fidelity; light geese; nest success,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,WILSON S;ALISAUSKAS RT;KELLETT DK,"emigration is one of the most difficult demographic rates to estimate, yet understanding movement among populations has important consequences for wildlife conservation. we studied factors that affected emigration by adult ross's geese (chen rossii) and lesser snow geese (c. caerulescens caerulescens) during a demographic study from 1997 to 2013 of nesting geese at the karrak lake colony south of queen maud gulf in the central canadian arctic. rising abundance of both species in recent decades has led to concerns about their impacts on arctic ecosystems. we used burnham's model to estimate true survival and fidelity (i.e., the complement of emigration). mean estimates of fidelity were higher for ross's geese (male=0.91 +/- 0.02, female=0.95 +/- 0.01) than for snow geese (male=0.76 +/- 0.02, female=0.90 +/- 0.02). fidelity declined with prior nesting season abundance in both species with evidence that a reduction in population size led to greater fidelity in the following year. fidelity was positively influenced by mean nest success in the previous year with similar responses by both species. however, years of low nest success were more frequent for snow geese resulting in higher emigration. we expected that deeper snow before nesting would motivate greater emigration but found the opposite effect in both species, suggesting that individuals may be discouraged from dispersing in snow-covered landscapes. we also tested whether a large decline in the number of snow geese nesting at karrak lake in 2007-2008 was related to a mass emigration event but found no evidence for a change in fidelity in these years. moreover, survival of both species showed an increasing trend from 1997 to 2013 so the decline in nesting snow geese likely was an outcome of temporary non-breeding, rather than emigration or death. the destination of emigrants remains unknown, but we expect this movement has broader consequences for metapopulation dynamics of light geese across the central arctic. (c) 2015 her majesty the queen in right of canada published on behalf of the journal of wildlife management." evaluating sources of censoring and truncation in telemetry-based survival data,bias; detection probability; interval censoring; kaplan-meier; known fate; radio-telemetry; rangifer tarandus; survival,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,DECESARE NJ;HEBBLEWHITE M;LUKACS PM;HERVIEUX D,"bias in vital rate estimation may come from failing to meet a variety of assumptions during the stages of sampling, monitoring, and analysis, though most are not commonly addressed in published studies. here, we pay specific attention to various forms of censoring and truncation that present challenges for telemetry-based monitoring of survival. we use simulations to assess how uncertainty about times of death and imperfect detection probabilities affect kaplan-meier survival estimates. we then treat monitoring of threatened woodland caribou (rangifer tarandus caribou) in west-central alberta as a case study to test for potential effects of non-random right censoring and interval censoring on survival estimates. we report that monitoring frequency (e.g., daily vs. monthly) and associated uncertainty about the exact time of death do not inherently induce bias on kaplan-meier point estimates of survival nor affect estimates of variance. removing individuals from the at-risk pool during intervals for which they were not detected did induce a negative bias on resulting survival estimates when the probability of detection was independent of the animals' fates. we recommend using subsequent detections to impute animals' fates during missed intervals in such cases when all animals' fates are eventually known or permanently right censored and when missed detections are not related to changes in mortality risk. although some assumptions remain difficult to test and of continued concern, we find no evidence of biases in the methodology of alberta's woodland caribou monitoring program. our results lend credence to recent evidence of widespread declines in woodland caribou populations across the province. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." @@ -1776,7 +1779,7 @@ declining adult survival of new zealand bar-tailed godwits during 2005-2012 desp "in-water assessments of sea turtles at glover's reef atoll, belize",hawksbill turtle; green turtle; loggerhead turtle; distance sampling; mark-resight; glover's reef atoll; belize; caribbean,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,STRINDBERG S;COLEMAN RA;PEREZ VRB;CAMPBELL CL;MAJIL I;GIBSON J,"the decline of sea turtle populations in the caribbean has led to intensive recovery efforts. in belizean waters, hawksbill turtles are seemingly making a comeback. at glover's reef atoll particularly, juvenile hawksbill turtles are found in the fore-reef habitat. the population status and dynamics of this foraging aggregation were assessed to inform conservation management and to ascertain the national and regional importance of this site. during 12 sampling periods from 2007 to 2013, turtles of all species were counted, captured, and tagged. for hawksbill turtles, the capture-recapture histories were combined with the counts using a mark-resight analysis under a robust design. this provided estimates of abundance as well as survival and transition rates. from 2009 onward, distance sampling was also used to estimate density and abundance of hawksbill turtles and the less frequently encountered green and loggerhead turtles. distance sampling provided a more cost-effective estimation method for multiple species and another more precise source of abundance estimates for hawksbills. this is the first study known to use either mark-resight or distance sampling methods during snorkel surveys of sea turtles. it produced reasonably congruent abundance estimates of >1000 juvenile hawksbills and an order of magnitude less of green and loggerhead turtles. the mark-resight analysis estimated an apparent juvenile hawksbill survival probability of 0.975 (95% ci: 0.936-0.99), indicating that mortality factors are low. the atoll provides important developmental habitat for juvenile hawksbills, contributing to the recovery of the species on the national and regional scale." photo-id as a tool for studying and monitoring the endangered saimaa ringed seal,camera trapping; game cameras; climate change; phoca hispida saimensis; non-invasive; population monitoring; endangered species,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,KOIVUNIEMI M;AUTTILA M;NIEMI M;LEVANEN R;KUNNASRANTA M,"photo-identification (photo-id) with camera traps was examined as a non-invasive method for studying and monitoring the endangered saimaa ringed seal phoca hispida saimensis. an average of 51 game cameras were set up at shoreline haul-out sites in central lake saimaa during the moulting seasons in each of the years from 2010 to 2014. individuals were identified from their lifelong unique lateral fur patterns. a total of 220 000 digital images of seals were obtained from these game cameras and from digital cameras during this period, allowing 164 individuals to be identified, 43% of which were re-sighted in successive years. in the majority of game camera images, both sides of the seal were shown, and it was possible to determine the sex of the seal. the average distance between sightings of individual seals in different years was 1.6 km, suggesting that saimaa ringed seals exhibit a high degree of moulting site fidelity. in addition, the results support suggestions of natal site fidelity. we propose that photo-id sampling based on camera traps, and larger-scale photographic survey of the seals, should be implemented as a population monitoring tool of the saimaa ringed seal. further application of the photo-id technique may facilitate mark-recapture population and survival rate estimates for this threatened seal species and provide significant insights into its life history and social behaviour." "migration, growth patterns, and diet of pike (esox lucius) in a river reservoir and its inflowing river",river fragmentation; predation; habitat utilization; habitat modification; northern pike,FISHERIES RESEARCH,SANDLUND OT;MUSETH J;OISTAD S,"the pike population in the lopsjoen reservoir and the accessible 21 km section of the inflowing river rena was investigated from 2003 to 2013. telemetry and mark-recapture with floy tags demonstrated that most fish had an annual home range of less than 2 km, while some fish performed quite extensive migrations (up to 14.4 km). of fish radio-tagged in the reservoir, 57% were positioned in the river at least once. the population of pike >= 25 cm was estimated at 1002 fish, or 3.9 fish (3.17 kg) ha(-1). mean length at age was significantly larger for pike caught in the river than in the reservoir for almost all age groups. cpue during boat electro-fishing indicated significantly lower population densities and a lower proportion of juvenile fish in the river than in the reservoir. diet analysis revealed that almost all available prey fish species were taken by pike, and that there was a clear diet differentiation between pike size classes, and between fish from the river and reservoir habitats. small pike (<25 cm) in the reservoir had eaten mainly invertebrates, whereas smaller pike and alpine bullhead (cottus poecilopus) dominated in small pike from the river. nine prey fish species were identified in the stomachs of medium sized pike (25-50 cm) in the reservoir, with brook lamprey (lampetra planer and brown trout (salmo trutta) as dominant. medium sized pike in the river had taken mainly lamprey and alpine bullhead. larger pike (>50 cm) in the reservoir had taken brown trout as well as a number of other prey fish, while river pike of this size had taken burbot (lota iota), lamprey and brown trout. species like perch (perca fluviatilis), roach (rutilus rutilus) and in particular grayling (thymallus thymallus) were rarely found in pike stomachs. the construction of the reservoir in a fast-flowing river caused the establishment of a healthy pike population and additional predation pressure on the rheophilic salmonids in the system, both in the reservoir and in the inflowing river. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -the contrasting effects of short- and long-term habitat drainage on the population dynamics of freshwater turtles in a human-dominated landscape,european pond turtle; fish-farming pond management; multistate capture-recapture model; pond draining; transition rate,FRESHWATER BIOLOGY,OWEN-JONES Z;PRIOL P;THIENPONT S;CHEYLAN M;SAURET G;COIC C;BESNARD A,"1. most studies on the effect of drought on the biodiversity of freshwater systems have focussed on natural droughts. we sought to assess the effects of artificial drainage on the population dynamics of the european pond turtle (emys orbicularis). we investigated whether the probability of survival and emigration/immigration was affected by short-term drawdown (for a few months over winter) or long-term habitat drainage (a full year of drying out) in this long-lived species of low dispersal ability. 2. the study was replicated in two different areas using a capture-recapture monitoring programme over 5 years. in the two areas, we marked 1412 and 282 individuals, respectively. short-term drawdown had no impact on the vital rates of this species, while long-term drainage promoted greater mobility among the ponds in both areas. this increase in movement might reduce survival, due to road mortality, or result in turtles leaving the study area. 3. moreover, as the transition probability between ponds was higher when ponds were close together and directly connected, for instance by a ditch, the construction and maintenance of ditches might reduce the effects of drainage. to implement effective conservation plans, studies that aim to assess the effect of human disturbance should monitor population dynamics and vital rates to allow a more complete picture of the real impacts." +the contrasting effects of short- and long-term habitat drainage on the population dynamics of freshwater turtles in a human-dominated landscape,european pond turtle; fish-farming pond management; multistate capture-recapture model; pond draining; transition rate,FRESHWATER BIOLOGY,OWEN JONES Z;PRIOL P;THIENPONT S;CHEYLAN M;SAURET G;COIC C;BESNARD A,"1. most studies on the effect of drought on the biodiversity of freshwater systems have focussed on natural droughts. we sought to assess the effects of artificial drainage on the population dynamics of the european pond turtle (emys orbicularis). we investigated whether the probability of survival and emigration/immigration was affected by short-term drawdown (for a few months over winter) or long-term habitat drainage (a full year of drying out) in this long-lived species of low dispersal ability. 2. the study was replicated in two different areas using a capture-recapture monitoring programme over 5 years. in the two areas, we marked 1412 and 282 individuals, respectively. short-term drawdown had no impact on the vital rates of this species, while long-term drainage promoted greater mobility among the ponds in both areas. this increase in movement might reduce survival, due to road mortality, or result in turtles leaving the study area. 3. moreover, as the transition probability between ponds was higher when ponds were close together and directly connected, for instance by a ditch, the construction and maintenance of ditches might reduce the effects of drainage. to implement effective conservation plans, studies that aim to assess the effect of human disturbance should monitor population dynamics and vital rates to allow a more complete picture of the real impacts." "imperfect detection and the determination of environmental flows for fish: challenges, implications and solutions",detection probability; environmental flow; murray-darling basin; river regulation; water management,FRESHWATER BIOLOGY,GWINN DC;BEESLEY LS;CLOSE P;GAWNE B;DAVIES PM,"1. relationships between river flow characteristics and fish community/population dynamics (i.e. flow-ecology relationships) underpin methods to determine and monitor environmental water allocations. quantifying these relationships can be difficult, and consequently, most environmental flow strategies for fish conservation in australian rivers are based on general flow-ecology relationships as opposed to statistical predictions. 2. of those studies that have investigated relationships between flow and fish, most have not accounted for incomplete and variable detection of fish by the sampling methods, thus making the implicit assumption that sampling efficiency is invariant. this important assumption is rarely met, leading to inconsistent research findings and spurious results, and a reliance on generic flow-ecology principles for defining flow management strategies. 3. we illustrate how and when detection probability varies when sampling freshwater fish and the consequences to scientific inference about fish-flow relationships. methods for accounting for imperfect detection of fish are identified and tools to increase the efficiency of experimental designs while reducing sampling cost are discussed. these tools include methods for borrowing information among experimental components and simulation techniques to optimise sampling designs. 4. we argue that, due to the very nature of sampling designs to quantify flow-ecology relationships (e.g. sampling at different flow magnitudes/regimes), the challenge of imperfect detectability is particularly relevant to environmental flow science. we encourage the broader adoption of methods that account for imperfect detection to improve inference about fish-flow relationships and increase the successful application of environmental flows for managing fish communities." site-specific assessments of the abundance of three inshore dolphin species to inform conservation and management,baseline data; capture-recapture; abundance estimation; coastal delphinids; robust design; apparent survival; power analysis; trend detection,FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE,BROWN AM;BEIDER L;POLLOCK KH;ALLEN SJ,"assessing the abundance of wildlife populations is essential to their effective conservation and management. concerns have been raised over the vulnerability of tropical inshore dolphins in waters off northern australia to anthropogenic impacts on local populations, yet a lack of abundance data precludes assessment of their conservation status and the management of threats. using small vessels as cost-effective research platforms, photo-identification surveys and capture-recapture models were applied to provide the first quantitative abundance data for australian snubfin (orcaella heinsohni), australian humpback (sousa sahulensis), and indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins (tursiops aduncus) at five sites in the kimberley region of north-western australia. the abundance of each species was highly variable between different sites, likely reflecting species-specific habitat preferences. within the c. 130 km(2) study sites, the estimated abundance of most species was <= 60 individuals (excluding calves), and fewer than 20 humpback dolphins were identified at each site in any one 3-5 week sampling period. however, larger estimates of c. 130 snubfin and c. 160 bottlenose dolphins were obtained at two different sites. several local populations showed evidence of site fidelity, particularly snubfin dolphins. by implementing a standardized, multi-site approach, data on local populations were provided within a broader, regional context, and indicated that each species is patchily distributed in the region. this highlights the need for site-specific baseline data collection using appropriate survey techniques to quantitatively assess the potential impacts of threatening activities to local populations. these findings further illustrate the need to gain a greater understanding of known and potential threats to inshore dolphin populations, their relative impacts, and to mitigate where necessary. an ideal candidate site for a long-term study of snubfin dolphin population dynamics is identified, where trends in abundance and their influencing factors could be investigated. the methods employed herein provide an example of rigorous, site-specific population assessments of inshore dolphins that are broadly applicable to such studies elsewhere." a full-capture hierarchical bayesian model of pollock's closed robust design and application to dolphins,bottlenose dolphin; mark recapture; bayesian inference; hierarchical bayes; multimodel inference; individual heterogeneity; detection probability; abundance,FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE,RANKIN RW;NICHOLSON KE;ALLEN SJ;KRUTZEN M;BEJDER L;POLLOCK KH,"we present a hierarchical bayesian version of pollock's closed robust design for studying the survival, temporary migration, and abundance of marked animals. through simulations and analyses of a bottlenose dolphin photo-identification dataset, we compare several estimation frameworks, including maximum likelihood estimation (ml), model-averaging by aicc, as well as bayesian and hierarchical bayesian (hb) procedures. our results demonstrate a number of advantages of the bayesian framework over other popular methods. first, for simple fixed-effect models, we show the near-equivalence of bayesian and ml point-estimates and confidence/credibility intervals. second, we demonstrate how there is an inherent correlation among temporary migration and survival parameter estimates in the pcrd, and while this can lead to serious convergence issues and singularities among mles, we show that the bayesian estimates were more reliable. third, we demonstrate that a hierarchical bayesian model with carefully thought-out hyperpriors, can lead to similar parameter estimates and conclusions as multi-model inference by alcc model-averaging. this latter point is especially interesting for mark-recapture practitioners, for whom model-uncertainty and multi-model inference have become a major preoccupation. lastly, we extend the hierarchical bayesian pcrd to include full-capture histories (i.e., by modeling a recruitment process) and individual-level heterogeneity in detection probabilities, which can have important consequences for the range of phenomena studied by the pcrd, as well as lead to large differences in abundance estimates. for example, we estimate 8-24% more bottlenose dolphins in the western gulf of shark bay than previously estimated by ml and alcc-based model-averaging. other important extensions are discussed. our bayesian pcrd models are written in the bugs-like jags language for easy dissemination and customization by the community of capture-mark-recapture (cmr) practitioners." @@ -1785,7 +1788,7 @@ stocking is essential to meet the silver eel escapement target in a river system a hotspot for threatened mediterranean odonates in the seybouse river (northeast algeria): are iucn population sizes drastically underestimated?,odonata; calopteryx exul; coenagrion mercuriale; gomphus lucasii; distribution; endemic; population status; capture-mark-recapture,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ODONATOLOGY,KHELIFA R;ZEBSA R;AMARI H;MELLAL MK;MAHDJOUB H;KAHALERRAS A,"several odonate species are threatened in the mediterranean basin and some of them show alarming decreasing trends. the distribution and population estimations provided by the iucn are based on occasional field sampling or non-rigorous methodologies and could be erroneous and misleading. to obtain reliable estimations of the population size and distribution of three threatened species, calopteryx exul, coenagrion mercuriale, and gomphus lucasii, we first conducted capture-mark-recapture in a natural population during one flight season, and second we carried out intensive sampling of adults, larvae and exuviae in the seybouse watershed, northeast algeria. in addition, a revision of odonate occurrence and distribution in the watershed was done by pooling information collected over six years (2010-2015). our results show that population estimations of the three species are much higher than what the iucn presents; that is, 2208 individuals of c. exul (22.08% of the estimated global population), 1765 individuals of c. mercuriale, and 11,204 individuals of gomphus lucasii (about 4.5 times as large as the estimated global population). moreover, a total of 42 species were recorded in the study site, of which seven are new. the mean number of localities per species increased by a factor of 2.47, e.g. from six to 12 in c. exul, two to 12 in coenagrion mercuriale and five to 14 in gomphus lucasii. our results suggest that the seybouse watershed is one of the most important areas in north africa and the mediterranean basin for these three threatened species and requires particular attention and an urgent conservation plan to reduce anthropogenic effects and maintain populations." "causes and consequences of repeatability, flexibility and individual fine-tuning of migratory timing in pike",adaptive flexibility; fish; fitness; individual consistency; phenology; phenotypic plasticity; spawning migration; viability selection,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,TIBBLIN P;FORSMAN A;BORGER T;LARSSON P,"1. many organisms undertake migrations between foraging and breeding habitats and while it is assumed that reproductive timing affects fitness, little is known about the degree of individual consistency, and about the causes and consequences of individual variation in migratory timing in organisms other than birds. 2. here, we report on a 6-year mark-recapture study, including 2048 individuals, of breeding migration in anadromous pike (esox lucius), an iteroparous top-predatory fish that displays homing behaviour. by repeated sampling across years at a breeding site, we first quantify individual variation both within and between breeding events and then investigate phenotypic correlates and fitness consequences of arrival timing to the breeding site. 3. our data demonstrate that males arrive before females, that large males arrive later than small males, that the timing of breeding migration varies among years and that individuals are consistent in their timing across years relative to other individuals in the population. 4. furthermore, data on return rates indicate that arrival time is under stabilizing viability selection, and that individuals who are more flexible in their timing of arrival during the first reproductive years survive longer compared with less flexible individuals. finally, longitudinal data demonstrate that individuals consistently fine-tune their arrival timing across years, showing that the timing of arrival to breeding sites is influenced by experience. 5. these findings represent rare evidence of how between-and within-individual variations in migratory timing across breeding events are correlated with phenotypic and fitness traits in an ecologically important keystone species. our results emphasize the importance of considering variation in migratory timing both between and within individuals in studies investigating the fitness consequences of migratory behaviour and have implications for future management." "comparative efficacy of longworth, sherman, and ugglan live-traps for capturing small mammals in the nearctic boreal forest",longworth trap; myodes rutilus; peromyscus; sherman trap; small mammals; trap comparison; ugglan trap,MAMMAL RESEARCH,JUNG TS,"understanding the efficacy of various types of traps is important in the design of field studies. surprisingly, few studies have compared the relative efficacy of different types of commercially manufactured live-traps for capturing small mammals. i compared the performance of longworth, sherman, and ugglan small mammal live-traps in nearctic boreal forests. all three trap types were simultaneously set at 275 trapping stations, and animals were provided a choice of traps to enter. number, sex, and age class of captures as well as mortality and recapture rates were compared among trap types. captures were dominated (87 %) by red-backed voles (myodes rutilus). sherman traps captured significantly fewer animals than did either longworth or ugglan traps, but there was no difference in the sex or age class of individuals captured among trap types. percent of mortalities varied by trap type, with the highest percentage of mortalities occurring in sherman traps. red-backed voles captured in sherman traps had a significantly higher likelihood of not being recaptured again in a sherman trap. overall, this study found that longworth and ugglan traps performed similarly with respect to capturing red-backed voles and deer mice (peromyscus spp.) in boreal forest. sherman traps, however, were not as efficient. this difference may be particularly significant for studies relying on mark-recapture data. the relative efficacy of different trap types is likely species-and habitat-specific, and further studies in different environments are necessary. these data may assist researchers in making objective choices of which type of live-trap to employ in their research and in critically comparing results from studies using different trap types." -a complex approach to study the amur leopard using camera traps in protected areas in the southwest of primorsky krai (russian far east),amur leopard; camera trap; capture-recapture; panthera pardus orientalis; primorsky krai,"NATURE CONSERVATION RESEARCH",VITKALOVA AV;SHEVTSOVA EI,"the paper describes the methodology and preliminary results of a complex camera trap study of the amur leopard. the main studies were concentrated on protected areas: the land of the leopard national park with its buffer zone and the kedrovaya pad' biosphere reserve, a total area of 3600 km(2). the first results of the 2014-2015 survey period are presented. according to spatial capture-recapture analysis at least 57 adult amur leopards occupied the russian protected areas with the density of about 0.98 individuals/100 km(2). the sex ratio (male : female) was 1:1.2. five breeding females with 11 cubs were registered in 2014 and 9 females with 16 cubs in 2015. the basis was founded for long-term monitoring of and fundamental research on the amur leopard in the protected areas in primorsky krai." +a complex approach to study the amur leopard using camera traps in protected areas in the southwest of primorsky krai (russian far east),amur leopard; camera trap; capture-recapture; panthera pardus orientalis; primorsky krai,NATURE CONSERVATION RESEARCH,VITKALOVA AV;SHEVTSOVA EI,"the paper describes the methodology and preliminary results of a complex camera trap study of the amur leopard. the main studies were concentrated on protected areas: the land of the leopard national park with its buffer zone and the kedrovaya pad' biosphere reserve, a total area of 3600 km(2). the first results of the 2014-2015 survey period are presented. according to spatial capture-recapture analysis at least 57 adult amur leopards occupied the russian protected areas with the density of about 0.98 individuals/100 km(2). the sex ratio (male : female) was 1:1.2. five breeding females with 11 cubs were registered in 2014 and 9 females with 16 cubs in 2015. the basis was founded for long-term monitoring of and fundamental research on the amur leopard in the protected areas in primorsky krai." "prevalence of dystonia in antioquia, colombia",dystonia; prevalence; capture-recapture; log-lineal models; epidemiology; classification,NEUROEPIDEMIOLOGY,ATEHORTUA JMS;JARAMILLO SPI;BANOL AR;HENAO OB,"background: there are few published epidemiological studies concerning dystonia. its true prevalence has been difficult to establish. there is no data published in latin america on this matter. methods: in this study the prevalence of dystonias in the department of antioquia (colombia) was estimated using a capture-recapture methodology with log-linear modeling, including cases in 3 centers for neurological referrals that cover the department of antioquia from 2007 to 2012. results: the overall prevalence was 712 per 1,000,000 (95% ci 487-937). of the total of 874 patients, 79% had primary dystonias, and 75.5% had focal dystonias. the delay in diagnosis was longer for primary dystonias, with a median of 1 year. conclusion: we found a high prevalence of dystonias in antioquia. the frequency of the different types of dystonias, as well as the demographic characteristics of our patients, is similar to data from other populations of the world. (c) 2016 s. karger ag, basel" spatial capture-recapture models allowing markovian transience or dispersal,animal movement; density estimation; dispersal; spatial capture-recapture; spatially explicit capture-recapture; transience,POPULATION ECOLOGY,ROYLE JA;FULLER AK;SUTHERLAND C,"spatial capture-recapture (scr) models are a relatively recent development in quantitative ecology, and they are becoming widely used to model density in studies of animal populations using camera traps, dna sampling and other methods which produce spatially explicit individual encounter information. one of the core assumptions of scr models is that individuals possess home ranges that are spatially stationary during the sampling period. for many species, this assumption is unlikely to be met and, even for species that are typically territorial, individuals may disperse or exhibit transience at some life stages. in this paper we first conduct a simulation study to evaluate the robustness of estimators of density under ordinary scr models when dispersal or transience is present in the population. then, using both simulated and real data, we demonstrate that such models can easily be described in the bugs language providing a practical framework for their analysis, which allows us to evaluate movement dynamics of species using capture-recapture data. we find that while estimators of density are extremely robust, even to pathological levels of movement (e.g., complete transience), the estimator of the spatial scale parameter of the encounter probability model is confounded with the dispersal/transience scale parameter. thus, use of ordinary scr models to make inferences about density is feasible, but interpretation of scr model parameters in relation to movement should be avoided. instead, when movement dynamics are of interest, such dynamics should be parameterized explicitly in the model." comparison of visual survey and mark-recapture population estimates of a benthic fish in hawaii,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,HAIN EF;LAMPHERE BA;BLUM MJ;MCINTYRE PB;NELSON SAC;GILLIAM JF,"visual surveys are conducted to rapidly estimate population densities of stream fishes, often without calibration against more established or more widely used methods to determine precision and accuracy or to correct for potential biases. we compared population density estimates from a visual survey (vs) point quadrat method widely used in hawaii with estimates from ""in hand"" individual and batch mark-recapture (bmr) methods. visual survey sampling and individual mark-recapture (imr) sampling were conducted in three watersheds that represent gradients of land use and prevalence of nonnative poeciliid fishes on the island of hawaii. focusing on adult o'opu nakea awaous stamineus, vss were conducted prior to imr events to allow direct comparisons of results independent of location and time. density estimates of o'opu nakea from vs and imr samplings were strongly correlated, although vs estimates were generally higher and underrepresented exceptionally large fish. batch mark-recapture estimates of o'opu nakea densities were conducted for comparison with vss at 13 sites across the archipelago. estimates of vss were not significantly different from bmr estimates. estimates of vss also exhibited less variance than did bmr estimates across sites. general linear models showed that the relationship between vs and imr estimates varied significantly among watersheds but not seasons and that land use was associated with a greater mismatch between vs and bmr estimates of population density. these findings indicate that visual surveys using a point quadrat method are an efficient and accurate approach for estimating the abundance of small benthic fishes, such as o'opu nakea, in wadeable streams and that obtaining absolute densities or size distributions from vs methods would benefit from a calibration with imr not bmr estimates." @@ -1799,7 +1802,7 @@ new hope for the survival of the amur leopard in china,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,JIA dynamics of chytridiomycosis during the breeding season in an australian alpine amphibian,NA,PLOS ONE,BRANNELLY LA;HUNTER DA;LENGER D;SCHEELE BC;SKERRATT LF;BERGER L,"understanding disease dynamics during the breeding season of declining amphibian species will improve our understanding of how remnant populations persist with endemic infection, and will assist the development of management techniques to protect disease-threatened species from extinction. we monitored the endangered litoria verreauxii alpina (alpine treefrog) during the breeding season through capture-mark-recapture (cmr) studies in which we investigated the dynamics of chytridiomycosis in relation to population size in two populations. we found that infection prevalence and intensity increased throughout the breeding season in both populations, but infection prevalence and intensity was higher (3.49 and 2.02 times higher prevalence and intensity, respectively) at the site that had a 90-fold higher population density. this suggests that bd transmission is density-dependent. weekly survival probability was related to disease state, with heavily infected animals having the lowest survival. there was low recovery from infection, especially when animals were heavily infected with bd. sympatric amphibian species are likely to be reservoir hosts for the disease and can play an important role in the disease ecology of bd. although we found 0% prevalence in crayfish (cherax destructor), we found that a sympatric amphibian (crinia signifera) maintained 100% infection prevalence at a high intensity throughout the season. our results demonstrate the importance of including infection intensity into cmr disease analysis in order to fully understand the implications of disease on the amphibian community. we recommend a combined management approach to promote lower population densities and ensure consistent progeny survival. the most effective management strategy to safeguard the persistence of this susceptible species might be to increase habitat area while maintaining a similar sized suitable breeding zone and to increase water flow and area to reduce drought." "low immigration and high local recruitment in an isolated, coastal population of a declining grassland passerine, the northern wheatear oenanthe oenanthe",apparent survival; coastal grassland; demography; dispersal distance; habitat fragmentation; immigration; local extinction; local population dynamics; local recruitment,ACTA ORNITHOLOGICA,HENRY PY;OLLIVIER P,"the western european populations of northern wheatear oenanthe oenanthe have halved over the past two decades. in this context of increasingly fragmented populations, a key issue is to understand the role of immigration in the maintenance of remnant populations. we characterized the local survival, fecundity, recruitment and immigration rates of a small, geographically isolated, coastal french population during a period of population stability, while the regional population was rapidly decreasing (1991-1999). annual local adult and juvenile survival rates were estimated with capture-resighting data at, respectively, 0.463 +/- 0.052 (n = 157 adults) and 0.215 +/- 0.054 (n = 363 nestlings). only 2.1 immigrants joined the population per year (7.3% of all recruits). this annual immigration rate (0.039) is lower than all 14 available estimates for small to medium-sized birds. the local population growth rate depended equally on all demographic parameters, apart from a minor influence of the immigration rate. within-site breeding dispersal distances were low, and differed between sexes (78 49 m for males, 259 +/- 274 m for females). juvenile and adult survival rates appeared lower than for populations of wheatears settled in high quality habitats, but this deficiency was compensated by high fecundity and the 2 annual immigrants. the small population size (22-27 pairs), extremely low immigration, and strong dependence on local recruits suggest that this population was demographically isolated on a patch of moderate habitat quality, with no chance of rescue by immigration in case of stochastic event. indeed, this population went extinct in the 2000's, after a disturbance of unknown origin." "monitoring and marking techniques for the endangered comal springs riffle beetle, heterelmis comalensis bosse, tuff, and brown, 1988 (coleoptera: elmidae)",cotton cloth lures; mark-recapture; federally endangered invertebrates; aquatic endemics; stygoparnus comalensis; stygobromus pecki,COLEOPTERISTS BULLETIN,HUSTON DC;GIBSON JR;OSTRAND KG;NORRIS CW;DIAZ PH,"two monitoring methods for the endangered comal springs riffle beetle, heterelmis comalensis bosse, tuff, and brown, 1988, were evaluated. the first used cotton cloth ""lures"" lodged within the substrate in close proximity to spring openings. the second evaluated the feasibility of marking h. comalensis with paint. during our evaluation, biofilms grew upon the lures over time, and within two weeks h. comalensis were collected. numbers of h. comalensis (mean = 23, range = 4-53) collected from lures peaked at 10 weeks and then began to decline as the cotton cloth lures began to decompose. three other invertebrate species, the riffle beetle microcylloepus pusillus (leconte, 1852), the endangered comal springs dryopid beetle stygoparnus comalensis barr and spangler, 1992, and the endangered peck's cave amphipod, stygobromus pecki (holsinger, 1967), were also collected from the lures, suggesting that this technique may have broad applicability as a passive monitoring tool for interstitial aquatic endemics and other endangered species. all species, including h. comalensis, were readily quantified, and the technique allowed for specimens to be returned alive to their site of capture. marking h. comalensis elytra with paint was a feasible technique because marks were retained for up to three months; however, it may be more practical for laboratory experimentation rather than field use because it is time-consuming and labor intensive. recapture rates for marked individuals were low in situ, most likely due to unknown factors such as movement, dispersal, and the ratio of individuals marked compared to the population size. nevertheless, our evaluation suggests that these two techniques in combination may provide a valid means to monitor and evaluate population trends of h. comalensis without negatively affecting the species." -demographic responses of myomorph rodents to mast production in a beech -and birch-dominated northern hardwood forest,NA,NORTHEASTERN NATURALIST,CONROD CA;REITSMA L,"myomorph rodents play important roles in trophic systems and can have rapid population-level responses to food pulses, such as mast. the purpose of our study was to measure such responses and record potential interactions among the rodent species in a northern hardwood forest. we used mark-recapture methods to estimate abundances of 3 myomorphs commonly found in northern hardwood forests-peromyscus spp. (deer mice, hereafter, peromyscus), napaeozapus insignis (woodland jumping mouse), and myodes gapperi (red-backed vole)-over 2 years (2006 and 2007). seedfall was measured concurrently. the abundance of peromyscus and red-backed voles substantially increased in response to the 2006 mast, which was the highest in 7 years of continuously recorded data at hubbard brook experimental forest. adult-mean weights of all 3 species were higher during the spring following mast production than during the preceding spring. following these responses to the mast and during the subsequent lean summer of 2007, woodland jumping mice completely disappeared from the study area, mean peromyscus weight dropped to its lowest level during the study, and reproductive activity of peromyscus and red-backed voles substantially declined. woodland jumping mice likely dispersed from the area in response to interference competition from a substantially increased peromyscus population. these pulses in food, particularly the larger seeds of fagus grandifolia (american beech), and the consequent population responses corroborate the patterns found by others and may influence the food webs of these northern-hardwood forest communities beyond the trophic level of granivores." +demographic responses of myomorph rodents to mast production in a beech- and birch-dominated northern hardwood forest,NA,NORTHEASTERN NATURALIST,CONROD CA;REITSMA L,"myomorph rodents play important roles in trophic systems and can have rapid population-level responses to food pulses, such as mast. the purpose of our study was to measure such responses and record potential interactions among the rodent species in a northern hardwood forest. we used mark-recapture methods to estimate abundances of 3 myomorphs commonly found in northern hardwood forests-peromyscus spp. (deer mice, hereafter, peromyscus), napaeozapus insignis (woodland jumping mouse), and myodes gapperi (red-backed vole)-over 2 years (2006 and 2007). seedfall was measured concurrently. the abundance of peromyscus and red-backed voles substantially increased in response to the 2006 mast, which was the highest in 7 years of continuously recorded data at hubbard brook experimental forest. adult-mean weights of all 3 species were higher during the spring following mast production than during the preceding spring. following these responses to the mast and during the subsequent lean summer of 2007, woodland jumping mice completely disappeared from the study area, mean peromyscus weight dropped to its lowest level during the study, and reproductive activity of peromyscus and red-backed voles substantially declined. woodland jumping mice likely dispersed from the area in response to interference competition from a substantially increased peromyscus population. these pulses in food, particularly the larger seeds of fagus grandifolia (american beech), and the consequent population responses corroborate the patterns found by others and may influence the food webs of these northern-hardwood forest communities beyond the trophic level of granivores." detecting enigmatic declines of a once common salamander in the coastal plain of georgia,NA,SOUTHEASTERN NATURALIST,MAERZ JC;BARRETT RK;CECALA KK;DEVORE JL,"for amphibian species suspected of undergoing enigmatic declines, it is important to determine the effort required to confidently establish species absence. desmognathus auriculatus (southern dusky salamander) has purportedly gone from being quite common throughout the southeastern us coastal plain to now being enigmatically rare. we used repeated standardized surveys of 5 historically occupied streams and their adjacent riparian zones between 2007 and 2010 to estimate detection rate of southern dusky salamanders. we detected southern dusky salamanders at 3 of 5 historic sites. mean detection rate across streams known to be occupied at least once during the study was moderately low (mean +/- 1 se = 0.20 +/- 0.12 for a double-sampled 50-m survey), improved at 2 sites with increasing time since drought, and varied among streams. for comparison, we evaluated detection rates of several other stream salamanders and found those rates to range from 0.37 (+/- 0.07) for eurycea quadridigitata (dwarf salamander) to 0.08 (+/- 0.01) for siren intermedia (lesser siren). based on mark-recapture along a 200-m section of stream and the associated riparian habitat at the site where southern dusky salamanders were most often detected, we estimated 43 (+/- 15) and 97 (+/- 161) individuals to be present february-may 2009 and october 2009-may 2010, respectively. despite abundant adults, southern dusky salamanders were the only species that we failed to detect as larvae; however, we observed many newly metamorphosed southern dusky salamanders-usually under logs with saturated soil and often near entrances to crayfish burrows. our results generally support the characterizations of southern dusky salamanders as having become enigmatically uncommon. because landcover change in the study area has been minimal, we suspect habitat damage from sus scrofa (feral pig) may be responsible for the variation in southern dusky salamander presence and abundance among sites. because of the low detectability of southern dusky salamanders, future work to identify factors driving southern dusky salamander distribution and abundance will require intensive sampling at sites to provide robust estimates of occupancy or population size." climatic influences on survival of migratory african reed warblers acrocephalus baeticatus in south africa,breeding area; capture-mark-recapture; cormack-jolly-seber; environmental fluctuation; migration; normalized difference vegetation index; transience; wintering area,ARDEA,JANSEN DYM;WILSON AM;ALTWEGG R,"the focus of most research on the influence of recent climate change on birds has been on the northern hemisphere. climate change has been different in the southern hemisphere, prohibiting extrapolation from northern research findings and inference regarding future climate change to species living there. we investigated the correlation between climatic conditions and survival of a migratory population of african reed warblers acrocephlaus baeticatus in paarl, south africa. we used temperature and rainfall in its breeding area, and normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi) in its wintering area, central africa around the congo basin. we fitted capture-mark-recapture models for open populations to a 12-year ringing dataset (1998-2010). after accounting for transience this species exhibits high breeding site fidelity with a 'time-since marking' model we found a mean survival probability of 0.79 +/- 0.04 se. rainfall and ndvi did not influence survival in this dataset. mean temperature (aug-apr) had a positive effect on survival: an increase of 1.6 degrees c was associated with an increase of annual survival from 0.69 +/- 0.05 to 0.88 +/- 0.03. higher temperatures could have increased local survival by providing more food and breeding habitat, thereby increasing adult body condition and reducing foraging costs, predation and territorial conflicts. even though we would need data on abundance and reproduction to quantify the effects of climatic conditions on population growth, we found a clear effect of climatic variation on a key demographic parameter, adult survival." long-term density fluctuations and microhabitat use of sympatric apodemus flavicollis and myodes glareolus in central italy,interspecific competition; italy; long-term study; rodents; trapping,COMMUNITY ECOLOGY,AMORI G;CASTIGLIANI V;LOCASCIULLI O;LUISELLI L,"the role and importance of interspecific competition for rodent communities have been much debated issues, with some early authors suggesting that these are important, and several recent articles suggesting the contrary. in this paper, we studied, for 14 years at a mountainous locality in central italy, the coexistence dynamics of a two-species system (apodemus flavicollis, myodes glareolus) within a 1.44 ha trapping grid, by capture-mark-recapture. overall, we captured over 1000 rodents during the study period, with annual abundance ranging 2-7 individuals x ha(-1). however, the density of the two species varied substantially across years and between sectors of the study plot. thus, the distributions of the two species on the scale of the study grid were not related to one another. density of a given species did not affect the percentage of lactating females in either a. flavicollis or m. glareolus. individual traps differed in their rate of capture such that about 40% of traps were associated more with a particular species. considering the spatial distribution of traps, we determined that three areas were associated with high probability of capture for only one of the two study species, two of these areas being associated to a. flavicollis and one to m. glareolus. our analyses suggest that interspecific competition may be present at the local micro-scale, as explained by the fact that in the great majority of the cases in which a given trap was highly successful in capturing one species, it was also very unsuccessful in capturing the other species. however, manipulation experiments are needed to confirm that suggestion." @@ -1807,7 +1810,7 @@ exact optimal confidence intervals for hypergeometric parameters,capture-recaptu estimating diversity via frequency ratios,alpha diversity; biodiversity; capture-recapture; characterization of distributions; microbial ecology; species richness,BIOMETRICS,WILLIS A;BUNGE J,"we wish to estimate the total number of classes in a population based on sample counts, especially in the presence of high latent diversity. drawing on probability theory that characterizes distributions on the integers by ratios of consecutive probabilities, we construct a nonlinear regression model for the ratios of consecutive frequency counts. this allows us to predict the unobserved count and hence estimate the total diversity. we believe that this is the first approach to depart from the classical mixed poisson model in this problem. our method is geometrically intuitive and yields good fits to data with reasonable standard errors. it is especially well-suited to analyzing high diversity datasets derived from next-generation sequencing in microbial ecology. we demonstrate the method's performance in this context and via simulation, and we present a dataset for which our method outperforms all competitors." double-observer line transect surveys with markov-modulated poisson process models for animal availability,abundance estimation; availability bias; cox point process; mark-recapture; maximum likelihood,BIOMETRICS,BORCHERS DL;LANGROCK R,"we develop maximum likelihood methods for line transect surveys in which animals go undetected at distance zero, either because they are stochastically unavailable while within view or because they are missed when they are available. these incorporate a markov-modulated poisson process model for animal availability, allowing more clustered availability events than is possible with poisson availability models. they include a mark-recapture component arising from the independent-observer survey, leading to more accurate estimation of detection probability given availability. we develop models for situations in which (a) multiple detections of the same individual are possible and (b) some or all of the availability process parameters are estimated from the line transect survey itself, rather than from independent data. we investigate estimator performance by simulation, and compare the multiple-detection estimators with estimators that use only initial detections of individuals, and with a single-observer estimator. simultaneous estimation of detection function parameters and availability model parameters is shown to be feasible from the line transect survey alone with multiple detections and double-observer data but not with single-observer data. recording multiple detections of individuals improves estimator precision substantially when estimating the availability model parameters from survey data, and we recommend that these data be gathered. we apply the methods to estimate detection probability from a double-observer survey of north atlantic minke whales, and find that double-observer data greatly improve estimator precision here too." connecting the latent multinomial,capture-recapture; linear constraint; markov basis; markov chain monte carlo; misidentification,BIOMETRICS,SCHOFIELD MR;BONNER SJ,"link et al. (2010, biometrics 66, 178-185) define a general framework for analyzing capture-recapture data with potential misidentifications. in this framework, the observed vector of counts, y, is considered as a linear function of a vector of latent counts, x, such that y = ax, with x assumed to follow a multinomial distribution conditional on the model parameters, theta. bayesian methods are then applied by sampling from the joint posterior distribution of both x and theta. in particular, link et al. (2010) propose a metropolis-hastings algorithm to sample from the full conditional distribution of x, where new proposals are generated by sequentially adding elements from a basis of the null space (kernel) of a. we consider this algorithm and show that using elements from a simple basis for the kernel of a may not produce an irreducible markov chain. instead, we require a markov basis, as defined by diaconis and sturmfels (1998, the annals of statistics 26, 363-397). we illustrate the importance of markov bases with three capture-recapture examples. we prove that a specific lattice basis is a markov basis for a class of models including the original model considered by link et al. (2010) and confirm that the specific basis used in their example with two sampling occasions is a markov basis. the constructive nature of our proof provides an immediate method to obtain a markov basis for any model in this class." -effectiveness of mass trapping in the reduction of monochamus galloprovincialis olivier (col.: cerambycidae) populations,bursaphelenchus xylophilus; abundance; capture-mark-recapture; jolly-seber; pine wilt disease; pine wood nematode,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY,SANCHEZ-HUSILLOS E;ETXEBESTE I;PAJARES J,"monochamus galloprovincialis olivier beetles vector the causal agent of pine wilt disease (pwd), nematode bursaphelenchus xylophilus (steiner and buhrer) nickle, in europe. traps and attractants have been optimized for the capture of m. galloprovincialis, increasing the possibility of developing methods of lowering its population in pwd-affected areas with the aim of either eradicating the disease or containing the spread of it. to evaluate the effectiveness of such mass-trapping campaigns, two sets of experiments were carried out in 2010 and 2013. the release of 353 laboratory-reared beetles in the experimental area of 2010 facilitated the evaluation of capture-mark-recapture (cmr) procedures in the calculation of population abundance estimates using the popan formulation of the jolly-seber model, a prerequisite for the assessment of mass trapping. abundance estimates derived from best-fitting parameters fell within one standard error of the real figures, proving the method appropriate. in 2013, four trap densities were tested in six 36 ha plots. to evaluate the removed proportions, the local beetle population was estimated in a contiguous 260 ha study area. a superpopulation of 21 319 individuals could be calculated from the cmr data, corresponding to a rough density of 82 individuals per hectare. evaluated trapping densities removed 4.66%, 20.50%, 33.33% and 59.80% of m. galloprovincialis population at 0.02, 0.11, 0.25 and 0.44 traps/ha, respectively, thus the estimated 95% removal would occur at 0.82 traps/ha. these results suggest that substantial reduction of m. galloprovincialis abundances might be achieved via mass trapping and that this represents a very promising management method for the containment or eventual eradication of b. xylophilus at the areas affected by the pwd." +effectiveness of mass trapping in the reduction of monochamus galloprovincialis olivier (col.: cerambycidae) populations,bursaphelenchus xylophilus; abundance; capture-mark-recapture; jolly-seber; pine wilt disease; pine wood nematode,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY,SANCHEZ HUSILLOS E;ETXEBESTE I;PAJARES J,"monochamus galloprovincialis olivier beetles vector the causal agent of pine wilt disease (pwd), nematode bursaphelenchus xylophilus (steiner and buhrer) nickle, in europe. traps and attractants have been optimized for the capture of m. galloprovincialis, increasing the possibility of developing methods of lowering its population in pwd-affected areas with the aim of either eradicating the disease or containing the spread of it. to evaluate the effectiveness of such mass-trapping campaigns, two sets of experiments were carried out in 2010 and 2013. the release of 353 laboratory-reared beetles in the experimental area of 2010 facilitated the evaluation of capture-mark-recapture (cmr) procedures in the calculation of population abundance estimates using the popan formulation of the jolly-seber model, a prerequisite for the assessment of mass trapping. abundance estimates derived from best-fitting parameters fell within one standard error of the real figures, proving the method appropriate. in 2013, four trap densities were tested in six 36 ha plots. to evaluate the removed proportions, the local beetle population was estimated in a contiguous 260 ha study area. a superpopulation of 21 319 individuals could be calculated from the cmr data, corresponding to a rough density of 82 individuals per hectare. evaluated trapping densities removed 4.66%, 20.50%, 33.33% and 59.80% of m. galloprovincialis population at 0.02, 0.11, 0.25 and 0.44 traps/ha, respectively, thus the estimated 95% removal would occur at 0.82 traps/ha. these results suggest that substantial reduction of m. galloprovincialis abundances might be achieved via mass trapping and that this represents a very promising management method for the containment or eventual eradication of b. xylophilus at the areas affected by the pwd." the effects of body size and climate on post-weaning survival of elephant seals at heard island,age-specific survival; bayesian; length; mirounga leonina; southern annular mode; state-space model,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,MCMAHON CR;NEW LF;FAIRLEY EJ;HINDELL MA;BURTON HR,"the population size of southern elephant seals in the southern indian and pacific oceans decreased precipitously between the 1950s and 1990s. to investigate the reasons behind this, we studied the population of southern elephant seals at heard island between 1949 and 1954, using data collected by the early australian national antarctic research expeditions. seals were marked and measured (lengths) as weaned pups, and resighted at heard and marion islands and in the vestfold hills, antarctica in subsequent years. bayesian state-space mark-recapture models were used to determine post-weaning survival. yearling survival was consistently lower (phi y: 0.28-0.40) than sub-adult survival (phi s: 0.79-0.83). we found evidence for constant sub-adult survival and time-dependent resight probabilities. weaning length was an important determinate of yearling survival, with the probability of survival increasing with individual length. there was some suggestion that the southern annular mode influenced yearling survival but this evidence was not strong. nonetheless, our results provide further support showing that size at independence affects yearling survival. given the known sensitivity of southern elephant seal populations to survival early in life, it is possible that the decline in population size at heard island between the 1950s and 1990s like that at macquarie island was due to low yearling survival mediated through maternal ability to produce large pups and the dominant environmental conditions mothers experience during pregnancy." comparative study of movement patterns of mastomys natalensis in irrigated rice and fallow fields in eastern tanzania,fallow land; home range; land use; mastomys natalensis; movement; rice field,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,MULUNGU LS;BORREMANS B;NGOWO V;MDANGI ME;KATAKWEBA AS;TESHA P;MROSSO FP;MCHOMVU M;KILONZO BS,"a 2-year capture-mark-recapture study was conducted to estimate home ranges and weekly travel distance of mastomys natalensis (smith 1834) in an irrigated rice ecosystem and fallow fields. we found that adults have larger home ranges than subadults in fallow fields but not in rice fields, indicating that fallow fields are more suitable for breeding. travel distances were larger in rice fields, especially in the transplanting stage, during which rice fields are flooded and provide less food, causing movements into neighbouring fallow fields that then temporarily experience higher population density. a decrease in travel distance was observed in rice fields during the maturity stage, which can be explained by higher food availability and a more suitable, nonflooded situation. movement of m. natalensis in rice-fallow mosaic landscapes thus seems to be driven by food availability and flooding status of the rice fields, which can be attributed to land use practices." persistence of northern pacific rattlesnakes masks the impact of human disturbance on weight and body condition,human disturbance; landscape development; habitat alteration; body condition; anthropogenic landscape; snake; crotalus; species viability,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,LOMAS E;LARSEN KW;BISHOP CA,"species may remain present on developed landscapes over extended periods, suggesting viability, while in reality, populations may be indirectly affected in subtle and significant ways. we investigated indirect effects of human disturbance and habitat development on a population of the threatened northern pacific rattlesnake crotalus oreganus oreganus in british columbia, canada. we used mark-recapture (n = 623 males and non-gravid females, 2002-2011) and radio-telemetry (n = 100 males, n = 4 non-gravid females, 2004-2011) to examine weight, length, body condition, ecdysis and exposure risk in habitats of varying disturbance levels. snakes in the most disturbed areas (< 10 m to the nearest source of human activity or development) had lower weights and body condition, and they lost significantly more weight during the active season. mean body condition of all snakes was stable or even increasing up to 2008 whereafter declines occurred in all categories, but particularly so for animals using disturbed habitat. although there was some indication that ecdysis rates were affected by disturbance, we found no evidence that animals in disturbed habitat tended to be more exposed (i.e. distant from cover). our findings indicate that there are consequences of occupying disturbed habitats, even though outward changes in behaviour or declines in density on the landscape are not detected." @@ -1822,41 +1825,41 @@ recent decline of roach rutilus rutilus stock in a large river ecosystem in rela estimation of muscardinus avellanarius population density by live-trapping,common dormouse; population size; secr; effective trapping area,FOLIA ZOOLOGICA,SEVIANU E;STERMIN AN,"common dormouse (muscardinus avellanarius) density in transylvanian plain is investigated using live-traps. estimated population size is 39 individuals. results using non-spatial methods combined with ad hoc calculations of the effective trapping area overestimated common dormouse density, both when using the naive density estimation (27 ind./ha) and also when the ""edge-effect"" was accounted for by the addition of a boundary strip (16 ind./ha). compared with published results using the same methods, our results are yet significantly higher. spatially explicit capture-recapture approach yields lower density, of 13 ind/ha (maximum likelihood estimate), but still one of the highest densities reported for the species. interspecific competition for traps was negligible at our study site." using integrated population modelling in conservation monitoring: a case study in the common dormouse (muscardinus avellanarius),bayesian population modelling; ipm; population biology; population growth rate,FOLIA ZOOLOGICA,HARRIS WE;COMBE FJ;BIRD S,"integrated population modelling (ipms) is a computational method for estimating population and demographic parameters that can improve precision relative to traditional methods. here we compare the precision of ipm to traditional mark-recapture analysis to estimate population parameters in the common dormouse (muscardinus avellanarius). this species is relatively rare across its european range and field estimation of demographic parameters can be challenging, as several parts of the life history are difficult to observe in the field. we develop an ipm model incorporating dormouse nest counts and offspring counts, which is data often recorded as a standard part of dormouse nest box monitoring. we found a significant improvement in precision in the estimation of demographic parameters using ipm compared to standard mark-recapture estimation. we discuss our results in the context of common dormouse conservation monitoring." how often does a strictly arboreal mammal voluntarily cross roads? new insights into the behaviour of the hazel dormouse in roadside habitats,muscardinus avellanarius; road ecology; barrier effect; motorway,FOLIA ZOOLOGICA,KELM J;LANGE A;SCHULZ B;GOTTSCHE M;STEFFENS T;RECK H,"roads are a threat to biological diversity. especially the hazel dormouse (muscardinus avellanarius) can be badly influenced by fragmentation due to its strictly arboreal activity. in this study a northern german dormouse population living in roadside habitats and on road islands at crossroads was investigated to find out if road crossing is an exceptional behaviour or if it happens regularly. with capture-mark-recapture-method 30 crossings (mostly across a federal highway, three of them across a federal motorway) and via telemetry 27 crossings over federal highway and smaller streets were observed. our study gives evidence, that road crossing can be a relatively frequent behaviour, as 18 % of the mark-recaptured and 60 % of the radio marked animals crossed roads, but it remains unclear, under which circumstances road crossing takes place." -retrofitting of power lines effectively reduces mortality by electrocution in large birds: an example with the endangered bonelli's eagle,birds of prey; bonelli's eagle; mortality causes; multistate capture-recapture; population dynamics; electrocution mitigation; survival probability,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,CHEVALLIER C;HERNANDEZ-MATIAS A;REAL J;VINCENT-MARTIN N;RAVAYROL A;BESNARD A,"mortality caused by power lines is a conservation problem for many vulnerable bird species. many large species are especially threatened by electrocution as they frequently perch on pylons leading to electrocution that typically causes death. electrocution mitigation measures have been implemented to protect several species; however, a resulting decrease in mortality due to these measures has not previously been demonstrated at the population scale. in this study, we used data from a long-term capture-recapture programme (combining resightings of live birds and recovery of dead birds) carried out on the french population of the bonelli's eagle aquila fasciata from 1990 to 2009 to estimate the impact of the insulation of power lines on key demographic rates. we found that the survival probability of all age classes increased after the insulation of dangerous power lines, due to a decrease in mortality caused by electrocution. this decrease was partially compensated for by an increase in other causes of death. our findings show that insulation of power lines has a strong positive impact on juveniles and immature birds and a lesser impact on adults. the overall increase in survival due to power line insulation led to a sharp increase in predicted population growth rates (from 082 to 098), although our findings still suggest that the population is not self-sustaining. elasticity values indicate that adult survival is the key parameter in the population dynamics of this species, and since adult mortality caused by electrocution seemed close to zero, our ability to act on this parameter is limited. this study demonstrates that insulation of power lines is relevant for the conservation of large bird species at a population scale as it allows the survival rate of all age classes to increase and thus in turn has a strong positive impact on population growth rates.synthesis and applications. we demonstrated that mortality rates induced by electrocution are considerable and have major consequences for the population viability of birds. we also demonstrated that electrocution mitigation measures can lead to a sharp increase in survival through reducing mortality from electrocution leading to improved population viability. in the light of these results, there is an urgent need that conservationists contact power line stakeholders not only to urge them to generalize retrofitting actions but also, in planning new infrastructure development, to plan for less harmful power lines, since this will be far less costly than developing a posteriori mitigation actions. we demonstrated that mortality rates induced by electrocution are considerable and have major consequences for the population viability of birds. we also demonstrated that electrocution mitigation measures can lead to a sharp increase in survival through reducing mortality from electrocution leading to improved population viability. in the light of these results, there is an urgent need that conservationists contact power line stakeholders not only to urge them to generalize retrofitting actions but also, in planning new infrastructure development, to plan for less harmful power lines, since this will be far less costly than developing a posteriori mitigation actions." +retrofitting of power lines effectively reduces mortality by electrocution in large birds: an example with the endangered bonelli's eagle,birds of prey; bonelli's eagle; mortality causes; multistate capture-recapture; population dynamics; electrocution mitigation; survival probability,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,CHEVALLIER C;HERNANDEZ MATIAS A;REAL J;VINCENT MARTIN N;RAVAYROL A;BESNARD A,"mortality caused by power lines is a conservation problem for many vulnerable bird species. many large species are especially threatened by electrocution as they frequently perch on pylons leading to electrocution that typically causes death. electrocution mitigation measures have been implemented to protect several species; however, a resulting decrease in mortality due to these measures has not previously been demonstrated at the population scale. in this study, we used data from a long-term capture-recapture programme (combining resightings of live birds and recovery of dead birds) carried out on the french population of the bonelli's eagle aquila fasciata from 1990 to 2009 to estimate the impact of the insulation of power lines on key demographic rates. we found that the survival probability of all age classes increased after the insulation of dangerous power lines, due to a decrease in mortality caused by electrocution. this decrease was partially compensated for by an increase in other causes of death. our findings show that insulation of power lines has a strong positive impact on juveniles and immature birds and a lesser impact on adults. the overall increase in survival due to power line insulation led to a sharp increase in predicted population growth rates (from 082 to 098), although our findings still suggest that the population is not self-sustaining. elasticity values indicate that adult survival is the key parameter in the population dynamics of this species, and since adult mortality caused by electrocution seemed close to zero, our ability to act on this parameter is limited. this study demonstrates that insulation of power lines is relevant for the conservation of large bird species at a population scale as it allows the survival rate of all age classes to increase and thus in turn has a strong positive impact on population growth rates.synthesis and applications. we demonstrated that mortality rates induced by electrocution are considerable and have major consequences for the population viability of birds. we also demonstrated that electrocution mitigation measures can lead to a sharp increase in survival through reducing mortality from electrocution leading to improved population viability. in the light of these results, there is an urgent need that conservationists contact power line stakeholders not only to urge them to generalize retrofitting actions but also, in planning new infrastructure development, to plan for less harmful power lines, since this will be far less costly than developing a posteriori mitigation actions. we demonstrated that mortality rates induced by electrocution are considerable and have major consequences for the population viability of birds. we also demonstrated that electrocution mitigation measures can lead to a sharp increase in survival through reducing mortality from electrocution leading to improved population viability. in the light of these results, there is an urgent need that conservationists contact power line stakeholders not only to urge them to generalize retrofitting actions but also, in planning new infrastructure development, to plan for less harmful power lines, since this will be far less costly than developing a posteriori mitigation actions." conservation under uncertainty: optimal network protection strategies for worst-case disturbance events,conservation planning; disturbance; life expectancy; movement; network fortification -interdiction; optimization; spatial networks; spatial prioritization; survival,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,ACEVEDO MA;SEFAIR JA;SMITH JC;REICHERT B;FLETCHER RJ,"conservation goals are ideally set after a thorough understanding of potential threats; however, predicting future spatial patterns of threats, such as disturbance, remains challenging. here, we develop a novel extension of network fortification-interdiction models (nfim) that deals with uncertainty in future spatial patterns of disturbance by optimally selecting sites that will best mitigate a worst-case scenario for a given magnitude of disturbance. this approach uses information on between-patch movement probabilities and patch-specific survival, which can be estimated from mark-recapture data, to optimize life expectancy. optimization occurs in three interrelated stages: protection, followed by disturbance and then assessment. we applied the modelling approach to two mark-recapture data sets: roseate terns sterna dougallii in the north-eastern united states and the everglade snail kite rostrhamus sociabilis plumbeus in florida. we contrasted the results to a more conventional approach of protecting sites that maximize connectivity (by minimizing the distances among protected sites) and a bi-objective model that maximizes connectivity and the number of individuals under protection. protecting sites that best mitigate future worst-case disturbance scenarios consistently resulted in higher predicted life expectancies than protecting patches that minimize dispersal distance. predicted life expectancy was similar between nfim and the bi-objective model for the small roseate tern network, yet the nfim predicted higher life expectancy than any of the scenarios in the bi-objective model in the snail kite network.synthesis and applications. this application of interdiction models prescribed a combination of patches for protection that results in the least possible decrease in life expectancy. our analyses of the snail kite and roseate tern networks suggest that managing to protect these prescribed patches by the network fortification -interdiction models (i.e. protecting against the worst-case disturbance scenario) is more beneficial than managing patches that minimize dispersal distance or maximize the number of individuals under protection if the conservation goal is to ensure the long-term persistence of a species. this application of interdiction models prescribed a combination of patches for protection that results in the least possible decrease in life expectancy. our analyses of the snail kite and roseate tern networks suggest that managing to protect these prescribed patches by the network fortification -interdiction models (i.e. protecting against the worst-case disturbance scenario) is more beneficial than managing patches that minimize dispersal distance or maximize the number of individuals under protection if the conservation goal is to ensure the long-term persistence of a species." estimating growth from tagging data: an application to north-east atlantic tope shark galeorhinus galeus,age; growth; mark-recapture; method; von bertalanffy,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,DUREUIL M;WORM B,"this study addresses the inherent uncertainty when estimating growth from limited mark-recapture information. a selection procedure was developed utilizing 18 competing growth estimation methods. the optimal method for a given data set was identified by simulating the length at capture and recapture under different scenarios of measurement error and growth variability while considering the structure of observed data. this selection procedure was applied to mark-recapture data for 37 female and 16 male tope sharks galeorhinus galeus obtained from tagging studies in the north-east atlantic ocean. parameter estimates differed strongly among methods, showing the need for careful method selection. the selection approach suggested that best estimates for males and females were given by james' weighted least-squares approach with a fixed asymptote. given an average total length (l-t) at birth of 28 cm, the von bertalanffy growth function of north-east atlantic g. galeus would be l-t = 20085 - (20085 - 28)e(- 0076t) for females and l-t = 17730 - (17730 - 28)e(- 0081t) for males. the resulting age estimates were up to 11 years lower when compared with previous estimates derived from highly uncertain vertebrae readings. more generally, this procedure can help identify optimal estimation methods for a given data set and therefore aid in estimating more reliable growth parameters from mark-recapture information." "the distribution, habitat use, activity, and status of the spotted turtle (clemmys guttata) in georgia",reptilia; testudines; distribution; conservation status,CHELONIAN CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,STEVENSON DJ;JENSEN JB;SCHLIMM EA;MOORE M,"conservation of the imperiled spotted turtle (clemmys guttata) at the regional level (i.e., georgia, usa) will require knowledge of the species historic and contemporary distribution, activity patterns, and habitat preferences. to address these needs, we compiled 170 records of spotted turtles in georgia from 1892 to 2014, including 89 museum records, 80 records based on credible observations or photos, and 1 literature record. there are recent (1995-2014) records for 79 locations in 31 counties, with 29 of these occurring on 14 conservation lands. our results demonstrate that the spotted turtle ranges throughout much of the coastal plain of georgia including the flint river and withlacoochee river drainages of the gulf coastal plain. half of the records for which habitat could be classified (62 of 124 records, 50%) were associated with blackwater creek swamps or seepage slope swamps. remarkably, all but 4 georgia spotted turtle records with body size data (i.e., 150 of 154; 97%) were based on adult turtles. the majority of georgia records with the date included were from the late winter-spring (134 of 160 records, 84%, february-may). likewise, the majority of observations were turtles found on roads (94 of 170 records; 55%), the majority of which (63; 67%) were alive. for the spotted turtle in georgia, we recommend 1) continued protection and state-listing status, and 2) initiating long-term mark-recapture efforts to estimate population sizes and demographics and evaluate population trends." "growth, sexual maturity, and reproduction of a female midland painted turtle (chrysemys picta marginata) afflicted with kyphosis",algonquin provincial park; clutch size; egg size; fitness; life history; long-term data,CHELONIAN CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,MOLDOWAN PD;KEEVIL MG;KOPER N;BROOKS RJ;LITZGUS JD,"kyphosis, a congenital humpback condition of the spinal column, has been reported across a broad range of chelonian taxa. these reports are often of single observations and lack background information about the history of the animal(s) involved. a kyphotic female midland painted turtle (chrysemys picta marginata) reported herein is a member of a long-term mark-recapture study in algonquin park (ontario, canada), providing a unique opportunity to document life-history characters of a kyphotic turtle over 18 yrs and draw comparisons to other members of her cohort and population. despite her spinal deformity, the somatic growth, body size, age at sexual maturity, and reproduction of the kyphotic female have been similar to those of nonkyphotic females in our long-term study population, suggesting that the condition has not compromised her fitness." estimates of survival probability from two populations of giant gartersnakes in california's great central valley,NA,COPEIA,HANSEN EC;SCHERER RD;WHITE GC;DICKSON BG;FLEISHMAN E,"the loss and modification of freshwater ecosystems has led to high rates of imperilment for freshwater species. the giant gartersnake (thamnophis gigas) is among the species that have suffered declines in abundance and spatial distribution and is currently listed as a threatened species by the u.s. government and the state of california. conservation and management of populations of t. gigas are hampered by a lack of information on its demography. without estimates of demographic parameters, the status of the population is difficult to characterize, and identifying the parameters to target in management planning is problematic. we used capture-recapture data from two populations in the great central valley of california to estimate annual survival probability. we also evaluated hypothesized causes of variation in survival probability among individuals and among years. model-selection results for the population in the american basin indicated that females have a higher survival probability than males and that survival probability and the amount of precipitation between 15 april and 15 may in a year are negatively correlated. associations with other weather covariates were also supported, but the evidence was weaker. for the population in the natomas basin, the model-selection results indicated a positive association between survival probability and the body size of an individual (snout-to-vent length). there was also evidence that females have higher survival probabilities than males, but the support for this effect was weaker. this work fills gaps in our understanding of the demography of t. gigas by providing estimates of survival probability for males and age classes for which estimates were previously not available." -life history and demographic characteristics of the magdalena river turtle (podocnemis lewyana): implications for management,NA,COPEIA,PAEZ VP;BOCK BC;ESPINAL-GARCIA PA;RENDON-VALENCIA BH;ALZATE-ESTRADA D;CARTAGENA-OTALVARO VM;HEPPELL SS,"we conducted a four-year study of the life history parameters of the endangered freshwater turtle podocnemis lewyana (testudines: podocnemididae) in four channels connecting wetlands to the magdalena river in northern colombia. using capture-mark-recapture techniques, we documented body size growth rates, sex ratios, and size class distributions, and estimated survival rates for juveniles and adults. we also used body size/clutch size and body size/ track width correlations to estimate the body sizes of females that nested in beaches in the magdalena river near the study sites. the body size at first nesting (30 cm straight-line carapace length) was comparable to the estimate obtained by inspecting the reproductive tracts of 70 females using a sonograph. growth rate analyses showed adult males to be smaller than adult females with an estimated size at sexual maturity of 20 cm straight-line carapace length. females begin nesting at 5-6 years of age and may lay up to four clutches annually with a mean clutch size of 22 eggs. the overall sex ratio was 1 female:0.72 male, but this parameter varied among study sites, as did size class distributions, with juveniles more abundant in the two shallower channels and adults more abundant in the two deeper channels. survival estimates increased with increasing body sizes. we constructed a projection matrix using these estimates of the key life history parameters for this population and used an uncertainty analysis to create a distribution of possible asymptotic population growth rates (lambda), to estimate the vectors of stable age distribution and reproductive values, and conduct an elasticity analysis. results indicated that the population is declining 8.8% annually, probably as a result of illegal over-exploitation of adults that are harvested as by-catch by local fishermen, and especially of reproductive females that are captured while nesting. elasticity analyses indicated that the most effective way to help this population recover is to increase adult survival rates, since this transition alone accounted for 62% of the contribution of all vital rates to the population growth rate. traditional management methods that rely entirely on nest transfer and head-starting will likely be of limited impact." +life history and demographic characteristics of the magdalena river turtle (podocnemis lewyana): implications for management,NA,COPEIA,PAEZ VP;BOCK BC;ESPINAL GARCIA PA;RENDON VALENCIA BH;ALZATE ESTRADA D;CARTAGENA OTALVARO VM;HEPPELL SS,"we conducted a four-year study of the life history parameters of the endangered freshwater turtle podocnemis lewyana (testudines: podocnemididae) in four channels connecting wetlands to the magdalena river in northern colombia. using capture-mark-recapture techniques, we documented body size growth rates, sex ratios, and size class distributions, and estimated survival rates for juveniles and adults. we also used body size/clutch size and body size/ track width correlations to estimate the body sizes of females that nested in beaches in the magdalena river near the study sites. the body size at first nesting (30 cm straight-line carapace length) was comparable to the estimate obtained by inspecting the reproductive tracts of 70 females using a sonograph. growth rate analyses showed adult males to be smaller than adult females with an estimated size at sexual maturity of 20 cm straight-line carapace length. females begin nesting at 5-6 years of age and may lay up to four clutches annually with a mean clutch size of 22 eggs. the overall sex ratio was 1 female:0.72 male, but this parameter varied among study sites, as did size class distributions, with juveniles more abundant in the two shallower channels and adults more abundant in the two deeper channels. survival estimates increased with increasing body sizes. we constructed a projection matrix using these estimates of the key life history parameters for this population and used an uncertainty analysis to create a distribution of possible asymptotic population growth rates (lambda), to estimate the vectors of stable age distribution and reproductive values, and conduct an elasticity analysis. results indicated that the population is declining 8.8% annually, probably as a result of illegal over-exploitation of adults that are harvested as by-catch by local fishermen, and especially of reproductive females that are captured while nesting. elasticity analyses indicated that the most effective way to help this population recover is to increase adult survival rates, since this transition alone accounted for 62% of the contribution of all vital rates to the population growth rate. traditional management methods that rely entirely on nest transfer and head-starting will likely be of limited impact." "high connectivity observed in populations of ringed sawbacks, graptemys oculifera, in the pearl and bogue chitto rivers using six microsatellite loci",NA,COPEIA,GAILLARD DL;SELMAN W;JONES RL;KREISER BR;QUALLS CP;LANDRY K,"graptemys oculifera is endemic to the pearl river drainage system in louisiana and mississippi, and due to this limited range it is vulnerable to environmental changes. many impacts to this drainage system are due to anthropogenic activities, and alterations may negatively impact the connectivity among populations of g. oculifera. previous studies show populations below the ross barnett reservoir might be undergoing population declines, suggesting limited movement among populations. in addition to anthropogenic effects, the drainage geomorphology might also play a role in shaping population connectivity, as the sister species of g. oculifera, g. flavimaculata, contains two distinct populations (mainstem pascagoula and escatawpa river) and possible subpopulations within the pascagoula (upper leaf river, upper chickasawhay river, and lower sections of the pascagoula river). we used six polymorphic microsatellite loci to analyze the population genetics of g. oculifera at eight sites in the pearl river drainage. the structure program found support for one genetic group; however, our amova analysis detected small but significant genetic differentiation in our three-group analysis. both the migrate and isolation-by-distance analyses supported a stepping stone model of gene flow, not panmixia. we suggest management agencies should consider these genetic data when developing management plans. although we did not detect any influence of the reservoir on population connectivity, likely due to the long generation times of turtles, we suggest mark-recapture and/or radiotelemetry studies be performed on populations near the reservoir to determine if cross reservoir movements occur." effects of brush piles on small mammal abundance and survival in central pennsylvania,brush piles; eastern chipmunk; northern short-tailed shrew; pennsylvania; peromyscus; small mammals,JOURNAL OF FISH AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GOGUEN CB;FRITSKY RS;SAN JULIAN GJ,"brush piles have long been promoted as a means to enhance wildlife habitat, yet few studies have experimentally tested the perceived benefits of these structures for wildlife or evaluated the efficacy of different arrangements of these piles within landscapes. during summers 2005 and 2006, we used a mark-recapture study to compare small mammal abundance and survival in forested habitats provisioned with brush piles vs. similar habitats without, both at sites located adjacent to agricultural edges and within the interior of forests in central pennsylvania. northern short-tailed shrews blarina brevicauda, mice peromyscus, and eastern chipmunks tamias striatus were all frequently captured within brush piles at edge and interior sites. peromyscus were significantly more abundant at edge vs. interior sites. the presence of brush piles, however, seemed to have little effect on small mammal abundance or survival with the only potential effect being an increased overwinter survival rate experienced by peromyscus at brush pile sites. we hypothesize that although brush piles provide cover and foraging sites for small mammals, the large quantities of coarse woody debris that exist naturally in many forested systems may already adequately provide these habitat features, minimizing the effects of brush piles on small mammal population dynamics." maximizing mating opportunities: higher autumn swarming activity in male versus female myotis bats,chiroptera; hibernacula; life history strategy; movements; myotis; population dynamics; sex-specific; swarming,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,BURNS LE;BRODERS HG,"many animal taxa exhibit intersexual differences in sociality and resource selection that can result in variation in energy allocation budgets. asymmetry of reproductive energetics between sexes can lead to intersexual variation in behavior to maximize lifetime reproductive success. temperate bats show marked intersexual differences during summer when sexual segregation occurs. although some intersexual differences have been shown in activities during the autumn mating period, they have not been examined in the context of fitness consequences for each sex. we studied autumn swarming activity of little brown and northern myotis bats (myotis lucifugus and m. septentrionalis) in nova scotia, canada, to test predictions of the hypothesis that intersexual variation in swarming behaviors occurs to maximize fitness. we conducted capture-mark-recapture surveys at swarming sites to characterize the nature and extent of intersexual variation in swarming activities. relative to females, males occurred in disproportionally large numbers; had longer swarming seasons overlapping the female swarming season; and accounted for a disproportionately large number of recaptures at swarming sites suggesting that they had returned more frequently. no movements among swarming sites, which ranged in pairwise distance from 27.9 to 98.9 km, were detected for either species. activity at swarming sites was highest early in the season for both species. as predicted, males engaged more frequently in swarming activities than females which likely reflect males maximizing opportunities for mating. although their activities overlap during this period, differences suggest sex-specific activity budgets and it is likely that for each sex, individuals reconcile energetic constraints differently to maximize fitness." -strong spatial segregation between wildcats and domestic cats may explain low hybridization rates on the iberian peninsula,ecological barriers; fells silvestris; genetic introgression; interspecific hybridization; wildcat conservation,ZOOLOGY,GIL-SANCHEZ JM;JARAMILLO J;BAREA-AZCON JM,"the european wildcat (felis silvestris silvestris) is an endangered fend impacted by genetic introgression with the domestic cat (fells silvestris catus). the problem of hybridization has had different effects in different areas. in non-mediterranean regions pure forms of wildcats became almost extinct, while in mediterranean regions genetic introgression is a rare phenomenon. the study of the potential factors that prevent the gene flow in areas of lower hybridization may be key to wildcat conservation. we studied the population size and spatial segregation of wildcats and domestic cats in a typical mediterranean area of ancient sympatry, where no evidence of hybridization had been detected by genetic studies. camera trapping of wild-living cats and walking surveys of stray cats in villages were used for capture-recapture estimations of abundance and spatial segregation. results showed (i) a low density of wildcats and no apparent presence of putative hybrids; (ii) a very low abundance of feral cats in spite of the widespread and large population sources of domestic cats inhabiting villages; (iii) strong spatial segregation between wildcats and domestic/feral cats; and (iv) no relationship between the size of the potential population sources and the abundance of feral cats. hence, domestic cats were limited in their ability to become integrated into the local habitat of wildcats. ecological barriers (habitat preferences, food limitations, intra-specific and intra-guild competition, predation) may explain the severe divergences of hybridization impact observed at a biogeographic level. this has a direct effect on key conservation strategies for wildcats (i.e., control of domestic cats). (c) 2015 elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." -advancing terrestrial salamander population ecology: the central role of imperfect detection,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,O'DONNELL KM;SEMLITSCH RD,"terrestrial salamanders (plethodontidae) are increasingly cited as important surrogates for monitoring forest ecosystem health and biodiversity. to accurately assess the ecological role of salamanders, total abundance is more relevant than the population subset available for sampling. therefore, estimating detectability is important for generating unbiased population metrics, as abundance estimates average an order of magnitude greater than surface counts. the past two decades have seen a tremendous increase in analytical methods that account for imperfect detection. terrestrial salamanders have unique physiological requirements and surface activity patterns that contribute to their inherently low detection levels, and variable terminology makes it difficult to compare detectability parameter values across species, regions, methods, and studies. it is important to use consistent terminology and explicitly state what specific components of detectability are being reported in a study. availability is governed by the presence of individuals in the sampling area and the capacity of the search method to detect the targeted animals. conditional capture probability is affected by survey methodology, observer experience level, habitat complexity, and species crypsis. imperfect detection affects all population-related metrics, including abundance, occupancy, and species richness. akin to capture-mark-recapture methods, population analysis via hierarchical modeling is a recently developed approach that can account for imperfect detection. hierarchical models enable researchers to partition complex ecological systems into simpler component models and focus on the mechanisms underlying the observed data. with improved population analyses of terrestrial salamanders, monitoring and conservation efforts can become more precise and effective." +strong spatial segregation between wildcats and domestic cats may explain low hybridization rates on the iberian peninsula,ecological barriers; fells silvestris; genetic introgression; interspecific hybridization; wildcat conservation,ZOOLOGY,GIL SANCHEZ JM;JARAMILLO J;BAREA AZCON JM,"the european wildcat (felis silvestris silvestris) is an endangered fend impacted by genetic introgression with the domestic cat (fells silvestris catus). the problem of hybridization has had different effects in different areas. in non-mediterranean regions pure forms of wildcats became almost extinct, while in mediterranean regions genetic introgression is a rare phenomenon. the study of the potential factors that prevent the gene flow in areas of lower hybridization may be key to wildcat conservation. we studied the population size and spatial segregation of wildcats and domestic cats in a typical mediterranean area of ancient sympatry, where no evidence of hybridization had been detected by genetic studies. camera trapping of wild-living cats and walking surveys of stray cats in villages were used for capture-recapture estimations of abundance and spatial segregation. results showed (i) a low density of wildcats and no apparent presence of putative hybrids; (ii) a very low abundance of feral cats in spite of the widespread and large population sources of domestic cats inhabiting villages; (iii) strong spatial segregation between wildcats and domestic/feral cats; and (iv) no relationship between the size of the potential population sources and the abundance of feral cats. hence, domestic cats were limited in their ability to become integrated into the local habitat of wildcats. ecological barriers (habitat preferences, food limitations, intra-specific and intra-guild competition, predation) may explain the severe divergences of hybridization impact observed at a biogeographic level. this has a direct effect on key conservation strategies for wildcats (i.e., control of domestic cats). (c) 2015 elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." +advancing terrestrial salamander population ecology: the central role of imperfect detection,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,O DONNELL KM;SEMLITSCH RD,"terrestrial salamanders (plethodontidae) are increasingly cited as important surrogates for monitoring forest ecosystem health and biodiversity. to accurately assess the ecological role of salamanders, total abundance is more relevant than the population subset available for sampling. therefore, estimating detectability is important for generating unbiased population metrics, as abundance estimates average an order of magnitude greater than surface counts. the past two decades have seen a tremendous increase in analytical methods that account for imperfect detection. terrestrial salamanders have unique physiological requirements and surface activity patterns that contribute to their inherently low detection levels, and variable terminology makes it difficult to compare detectability parameter values across species, regions, methods, and studies. it is important to use consistent terminology and explicitly state what specific components of detectability are being reported in a study. availability is governed by the presence of individuals in the sampling area and the capacity of the search method to detect the targeted animals. conditional capture probability is affected by survey methodology, observer experience level, habitat complexity, and species crypsis. imperfect detection affects all population-related metrics, including abundance, occupancy, and species richness. akin to capture-mark-recapture methods, population analysis via hierarchical modeling is a recently developed approach that can account for imperfect detection. hierarchical models enable researchers to partition complex ecological systems into simpler component models and focus on the mechanisms underlying the observed data. with improved population analyses of terrestrial salamanders, monitoring and conservation efforts can become more precise and effective." estimating detectability and biological parameters of interest with the use of the r environment,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,MAZEROLLE MJ,"imperfect detectability in animal studies has been an acknowledged problem for several decades. a number of analytical approaches (e.g., capture-mark-recapture, distance sampling, occupancy analyses), have been developed to deal with the problem and estimate biological parameters of interest. these different analytical approaches can be implemented through various software programs, each with its own graphical user interface (gui), data input format, and graphing capabilities. although guis and mouse clicks might be convenient to conduct analyses, mouse clicks are difficult to replicate and archive in the long term. using programming environments such as the r open source project along with a text editor yields flexibility and leaves a paper trail after the analyses are conducted. such environments also provide statistical and graphical tools for further treatment following the analyses. in this article, i use r to conduct classical analyses to estimate demographic parameters in four case studies. the examples feature interacting with certain software such as mark, as well as using recent r packages designed to implement specific analyses in both a frequentist and a bayesian framework. the case studies present all the steps to conduct the analyses, including data importation, model selection, and multimodel inference, as well as the graphical presentation of results. such an integrative approach provides a flexible alternative to using guis, while keeping everything in the same environment and documenting precisely how an analysis was conducted. these are the basic ideas behind reproducible research." nesting pair density and abundance of ferruginous hawks (buteo regalis) and golden eagles (aquila chrysaetos) from aerial surveys in wyoming,ferruginous hawk; buteo regalis; golden eagle; aquila chrysaetos; distance sampling; double-observer sampling; grassland ecosystems; nesting density; sagebrush steppe; stratified random sampling; survey efficiency,JOURNAL OF RAPTOR RESEARCH,OLSON LE;OAKLEAF RJ;SQUIRES JR;WALLACE ZP;KENNEDY PL,"raptors that inhabit sagebrush steppe and grassland ecosystems in the western united states may be threatened by continued loss and modification of their habitat due to energy development, conversion to agriculture, and human encroachment. actions to protect these species are hampered by a lack of reliable data on such basic information as population size and density. we estimated density and abundance of nesting pairs of ferruginous hawks (buteo regalis) and golden eagles (aquila chrysaetos) in sagebrush steppe and grassland regions of wyoming, based on aerial line transect surveys of randomly selected townships. in 2010 and 2011, we surveyed 99 townships and located 62 occupied ferruginous hawk nests and 36 occupied golden eagle nests. we used distance sampling to estimate a nesting pair density of 94.7 km(2) per pair (95% ci: 69.9-139.8 km(2)) for ferruginous hawks, and 165.9 km(2) per pair (95% ci: 126.8-230.8 km(2)) for golden eagles. our estimates were similar to or lower than those from other studies in similar locations in previous years; thus, we recommend continued monitoring to determine trends in nesting pair density over time. additionally, we performed double-observer surveys on a subset of transects with a helicopter as the second observation aircraft. we estimated probability of detecting occupied nests from fixed-wing plane versus helicopter, as well as time and expense of each survey mode. although observers surveying from helicopters were 1.19 and 1.12 times more likely to detect ferruginous hawk and golden eagle occupied nests, respectively, the helicopter survey was 4.55 times costlier due to longer flight time and the higher hourly costs. thus, when systematically surveying large areas, we found cost and time of the helicopter surveys outweighed the increase in nest detection." a two-stage estimation for screening studies using two diagnostic tests with binary disease status verified in test positives only,dependence; diagnostic test accuracy; homogeneous association; screening studies,STATISTICAL METHODS IN MEDICAL RESEARCH,LI F;CHU HT;NIE L,"this article considers the statistical estimation and inference for screening studies in which two binary tests are used for screening with a binary disease status verified only for those subjects with at least one positive test result. the challenge encountered in these studies is the non-identifiability because the disease rate is not identifiable for subjects with negative results from both tests without additional assumptions. different homogeneous association models have been proposed in the literature to circumvent the non-identifiability problem, which were solved using numerical methods. we propose to formulate the problem as a constrained maximum likelihood estimation (mle) problem. the mle has a closed-form in general, which can be solved using a unified two-stage estimation approach. we demonstrate the application of the proposed method on a set of homogeneous association models. the homogeneous association assumptions are generally not testable as all models are saturated. therefore, we propose an association-ratio plot as a visualization tool for model comparisons. the methods are illustrated through three examples." effects of wetland water source on a population of the australian eastern long-necked turtle chelodina longicollis,water reuse; recycled water; irrigation runoff; farm dam pollution; turtle pollution response; effluent reuse,WATER AIR AND SOIL POLLUTION,RYAN MM;BURGIN S;WRIGHT I,"this study investigates the impacts on the australian native eastern long-necked turtle chelodina longicollis of wetland waters derived from (1) precipitation and groundwater flow and wetlands also supplemented with (2) irrigation runoff from agricultural lands, (3) tertiary-treated sewage effluent and (4) harvested stormwater. influences of water quality parameters on population attributes of the turtle population are considered. a total of 951 c. longicollis were captured in a mark-recapture study over 8 months. overall, a female sex ratio bias was observed, and a larger number of smaller turtles were found in wetlands not contaminated by recycled tertiary-treated effluent. dissolved oxygen, temperature, surface area and emergent vegetation had the greatest impact on turtle population structure. the lower the dissolved oxygen, the smaller the surface area of the wetland, and the higher the percentage of emergent vegetation, the greater the number of juveniles present. water quality parameters which would be detrimental to fish predators appear to provide a 'safe haven' for juvenile turtles at the most vulnerable life stage of turtles." potential for camera-traps and spatial mark-resight models to improve monitoring of the critically endangered west african lion (panthera leo),camera trap surveys; panthera leo; spatial capture-recapture; spatial mark-resight,BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,KANE MD;MORIN DJ;KELLY MJ,"west african lions are critically endangered throughout their range. recent monitoring efforts focused on determining where remaining populations persist and obtaining preliminary population estimates to assess status across the region. however, current monitoring methods do not result in estimates that can be easily compared across sites or over time. thus, there is a need to develop methods that allow for unbiased and precise comparable population parameter estimates for baseline and long-term monitoring. spatial mark-resight models offer the ability to estimate lion density for a site over a standardized unit of area making estimates comparable. in addition, bayesian inference is not constrained by asymptotic assumptions and allows for unbiased and precise estimates even with small sample sizes and low detection rates. we demonstrate the utility of bayesian inference of a spatial mark-resight model for west african lion populations using a single-season camera trap survey at a study site in niokolo-koba national park, senegal. we estimated a site specific density of 3.02 lions/100 km(2) (1.72-5.57/100 km(2)) based on trap-specific relocations of individuals with unique identifying natural marks, and counts of unmarked individuals at each trap. we conclude with a discussion of limitations of the current study and possible improvements on this method. we suggest immediate action including site specific monitoring within protected areas to conserve lions in this most northern part of their range. this monitoring approach can provide useful estimates over large areas providing an easily implemented and repeatable methodology for local and regional monitoring of critically endangered lion populations." -opportunistic sampling for joint population size and density estimation,population size and density estimation; opportunistic sampling; bluetooth sampling,IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MOBILE COMPUTING,"NAINI FM;DOUSSE O;THIRAN P;VETTERLI M","consider a set of probes, called ""agents"", who sample, based on opportunistic contacts, a population moving between a set of discrete locations. an example of such agents are bluetooth probes that sample the visible bluetooth devices in a population. based on the obtained measurements, we construct a parametric statistical model to jointly estimate the total population size (e.g., the number of visible bluetooth devices) and their spatial density. we evaluate the performance of our estimators by using bluetooth traces obtained during an open-air event and wi-fi traces obtained on a university campus." +opportunistic sampling for joint population size and density estimation,population size and density estimation; opportunistic sampling; bluetooth sampling,IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MOBILE COMPUTING,NAINI FM;DOUSSE O;THIRAN P;VETTERLI M,"consider a set of probes, called ""agents"", who sample, based on opportunistic contacts, a population moving between a set of discrete locations. an example of such agents are bluetooth probes that sample the visible bluetooth devices in a population. based on the obtained measurements, we construct a parametric statistical model to jointly estimate the total population size (e.g., the number of visible bluetooth devices) and their spatial density. we evaluate the performance of our estimators by using bluetooth traces obtained during an open-air event and wi-fi traces obtained on a university campus." effect of pre-fledging body condition on juvenile survival in yellow-legged gulls larus michahellis,cormack-jolly-seber models; mark software; northern iberia; population dynamics; sighting data; fledglings condition; seabirds; demography,ACTA ORNITHOLOGICA,ARIZAGA J;HERRERO A;ALDALUR A;CUADRADO JF;ORO D,"body condition of nestlings can influence their future survival. here, we used data obtained from a colour ringing program of yellow-legged gull larus michahellis in two colonies from northern iberia to quantify the relative importance of pre-fledging body size and mass on post-fledging juvenile survival. chicks were ringed with colour-rings at their colony in june/july when they were almost ready to fledge, and, thereafter, sighting data of these birds were collected over a period of one year and analysed with cormack-jolly-seber capture-recapture models. the yellow legged gull in the region is resident, so sighting data were mostly collected within an area dose to natal colonies, where the field effort was intensive. monthly survival from august onwards was higher than from ringing date to august (0.59 +/- 0.06 se), reaching model averaged values of 0.91 +/- 0.03 and 0.98 +/- 0.03 for the two colonies analysed. moreover, condition of chicks (measured as residual body mass and body size) before fledging had a positive effect on survival from ringing date to august, but not from august onwards, when survival was strongly affected by the colony of origin." a method test of the use of electric shock treatment to control invasive signal crayfish in streams,stream; biological control; new techniques; invertebrates; alien species,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,PEAY S;DUNN AM;KUNIN WE;MCKIMM R;HARROD C,"1. invasive crayfish exert adverse impacts on native biodiversity in europe. this field study investigated the scope for use of electric shock treatment to eradicate signal crayfish in a small headwater stream. 2. high intensity (96 kw, direct current 1600 v, 57.8 a, at 7hz) repeated shocks were delivered via electrode tapes to two sections of stream. both had 98 min as 2-min shocks. section 2 had additional 15-min shocks to a total of 308 min. 3. crayfishmortalitywas 86% and 97% in the two sections respectively, based on the number recovered when the channel was subsequently dewatered. the survivors found were in the banks. mark-recapture indicated that 72% of the total population was captured, hence the minimum mortality was 77% of the total population after the longer treatment. 4. all sizes of crayfish were affected, but small individuals (< 30mm carapace length) were more susceptible. 5. test cages showed increasing mortality with exposure. a fitted model showed 50% mortality with 17 min shock time, 75% mortality with 30 min (distance to electrode in the range 10-50 cm). 6. the treatment is a possible non-selective method of control for invasive crayfish in small watercourses, rather than an eradication method, because some crayfish survived in the stony banks. periodic treatment downstream of a physical barrier would potentially keep the crayfish density low and may therefore reduce the risk of the barrier being overcome by upstream invasion. options for further investigation to improve the method are discussed. copyright (c) 2014 john wiley & sons, ltd." -population control of an overabundant species achieved through consecutive anthropogenic perturbations,"adult survival; anthropogenic perturbation; dragonera island, spain; food availability; larus michahellis; pest; population size; predictable anthropogenic food subsidies; seabird; stable isotope analysis; yellow-legged gull",ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,PAYO-PAYO A;ORO D;IGUAL JM;JOVER L;SANPERA C;TAVECCHIA G,"the control of overabundant vertebrates is often problematic. much work has focused on population-level responses and overabundance due to anthropogenic subsidies. however, far less work has been directed at investigating responses following the removal of subsidies. we investigate the consequences of two consecutive perturbations, the closure of a landfill and an inadvertent poisoning event, on the trophic ecology (delta c-13, delta n-15, and delta s-34), survival, and population size of an overabundant generalist seabird species, the yellow-legged gull (larus michahellis). we expected that the landfill closure would cause a strong dietary shift and the inadvertent poisoning a decrease in gull population size. as a long-lived species, we also anticipated adult survival to be buffered against the decrease in food availability but not against the inadvertent poisoning event. stable isotope analysis confirmed the dietary shift towards marine resources after the disappearance of the landfill. although the survival model was inconclusive, it did suggest that the perturbations had a negative effect on survival, which was followed by a recovery back to average values. food limitation likely triggered dispersal to other populations, while poisoning may have increased mortality; these two processes were likely responsible for the large fall in population size that occurred after the two consecutive perturbations. life-history theory suggests that perturbations may encourage species to halt existing breeding investment in order to ensure future survival. however, under strong perturbation pulses the resilience threshold might be surpassed and changes in population density can arise. consecutive perturbations may effectively manage overabundant species." +population control of an overabundant species achieved through consecutive anthropogenic perturbations,"adult survival; anthropogenic perturbation; dragonera island, spain; food availability; larus michahellis; pest; population size; predictable anthropogenic food subsidies; seabird; stable isotope analysis; yellow-legged gull",ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,PAYO PAYO A;ORO D;IGUAL JM;JOVER L;SANPERA C;TAVECCHIA G,"the control of overabundant vertebrates is often problematic. much work has focused on population-level responses and overabundance due to anthropogenic subsidies. however, far less work has been directed at investigating responses following the removal of subsidies. we investigate the consequences of two consecutive perturbations, the closure of a landfill and an inadvertent poisoning event, on the trophic ecology (delta c-13, delta n-15, and delta s-34), survival, and population size of an overabundant generalist seabird species, the yellow-legged gull (larus michahellis). we expected that the landfill closure would cause a strong dietary shift and the inadvertent poisoning a decrease in gull population size. as a long-lived species, we also anticipated adult survival to be buffered against the decrease in food availability but not against the inadvertent poisoning event. stable isotope analysis confirmed the dietary shift towards marine resources after the disappearance of the landfill. although the survival model was inconclusive, it did suggest that the perturbations had a negative effect on survival, which was followed by a recovery back to average values. food limitation likely triggered dispersal to other populations, while poisoning may have increased mortality; these two processes were likely responsible for the large fall in population size that occurred after the two consecutive perturbations. life-history theory suggests that perturbations may encourage species to halt existing breeding investment in order to ensure future survival. however, under strong perturbation pulses the resilience threshold might be surpassed and changes in population density can arise. consecutive perturbations may effectively manage overabundant species." """random-flight' dispersal in tropical fruit-feeding butterflies? high mobility, long lifespans and no home ranges",brownian; butterfly; diffusion; lepidoptera; longevity; mark-recapture; monitoring; nymphalidae; random-walk; territorial,ECOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY,MARCHANT NC;PURWANTO A;HARSANTO FA;BOYD NS;HARRISON ME;HOULIHAN PR,"1. tropical fruit-feeding nymphalidae butterflies are widely used in research, monitoring, and conservation projects, but to date a key aspect of their behaviour-dispersal-remains poorly understood. they have anecdotally been described as relatively sedentary' based on movement vectors from mark-recapture studies, but this may be inaccurate because plot-based studies in small sampling areas often underrepresent long-distance movements. 2. based on data from a peat-swamp forest in borneo, it was found that these butterflies may be much more mobile than previously thought, as they frequently moved distances of 1-2km between sampling plots. median daily movements were approximately 200-250m, and over lifespans of one or more months these movements may sum to total life-time dispersals of several kilometres. 3. recapture rates for long-distance movements between sampling plots were between 28.2% and 41.6% of the re-encounter rates that would be predicted by a random-walk approximation/brownian motion (without accounting for survival rates), supporting the hypothesis that it is a suitable model of dispersal in this group, although further research is needed to confirm this. 4. there was no evidence that butterflies occupied permanent home ranges, and it is suggested that a permanent home range or territorial behaviour would be maladaptive in this group. pseudo-replication caused by trap-happy' behaviour was not found to be widespread, and some recommendations are provided regarding the treatment of recapture data in trap-based studies. 5. these findings substantially increase the spatial parameters for future research and conservation projects in this group and are also applicable to theoretical modelling studies. an abstract for this article in bahasa indonesia is included in the online supporting information file s1." climate and density influence annual survival and movement in a migratory songbird,american redstart; annual survival; breeding dispersal; density; el nino southern oscillation; multistate mark-recapture; normalized difference vegetation index; setophaga ruticilla,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MCKELLAR AE;REUDINK MW;MARRA PP;RATCLIFFE LM;WILSON S,"assessing the drivers of survival across the annual cycle is important for understanding when and how population limitation occurs in migratory animals. density-dependent population regulation can occur during breeding and non-breeding periods, and large-scale climate cycles can also affect survival throughout the annual cycle via their effects on local weather and vegetation productivity. most studies of survival use mark-recapture techniques to estimate apparent survival, but true survival rates remain obscured due to unknown rates of permanent emigration. this is especially problematic when assessing annual survival of migratory birds, whose movement between breeding attempts, or breeding dispersal, can be substantial. we used a multistate approach to examine drivers of annual survival and one component of breeding dispersal (habitat-specific movements) in a population of american redstarts (setophaga ruticilla) over 11 years in two adjacent habitat types. annual survival displayed a curvilinear relation to the southern oscillation index, with lower survival during la nina and el nino conditions. although redstart density had no impact on survival, habitat-specific density influenced local movements between habitat types, with redstarts being less likely to disperse from their previous year's breeding habitat as density within that habitat increased. this finding was strongest in males and may be explained by conspecific attraction influencing settlement decisions. survival was lowest in young males, but movement was highest in this group, indicating that apparent survival rates were likely biased low due to permanent emigration. our findings demonstrate the utility of examining breeding dispersal in mark-recapture studies and complement recent work using spatially explicit models of dispersal probability to obtain greater accuracy in survival estimates." b-graph sampling to estimate the size of a hidden population,network sampling; capture recapture; hidden populations,JOURNAL OF OFFICIAL STATISTICS,SPREEN M;BOGAERTS S,"link-tracing designs are often used to estimate the size of hidden populations by utilizing the relational links between their members. a major problem in studies of hidden populations is the lack of a convenient sampling frame. the most frequently applied design in studies of hidden populations is respondent-driven sampling in which no sampling frame is used. however, in some studies multiple but incomplete sampling frames are available. in this article, we introduce the b-graph design that can be used in such situations. in this design, all available incomplete sampling frames are joined and turned into one sampling frame, from which a random sample is drawn and selected respondents are asked to mention their contacts. by considering the population as a bipartite graph of a two-mode network (those from the sampling frame and those who are not on the frame), the number of respondents who are directly linked to the sampling frame members can be estimated using chao's and zelterman's estimators for sparse data. the b-graph sampling design is illustrated using the data of a social network study from utrecht, the netherlands." "if you are not counted, you don't count: estimating the number of african-american men who have sex with men in san francisco using a novel bayesian approach",population size estimation; african-american; men who have sex with men; hiv/aids; respondent-driven sampling,JOURNAL OF URBAN HEALTH-BULLETIN OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE,WESSON P;HANDCOCK MS;MCFARLAND W;RAYMOND HF,"african-american men who have sex with men (aa msm) have been disproportionately infected with and affected by hiv and other stis in san francisco and the usa. the true scope and scale of the hiv epidemic in this population has not been quantified, in part because the size of this population remains unknown. we used the successive sampling population size estimation (ss-pse) method, a new bayesian approach to population size estimation that incorporates network size data routinely collected in respondent-driven sampling (rds) studies, to estimate the number of aa msm in san francisco. this method was applied to data from a 2009 rds study of aa msm. an estimate from a separate study of local aa msm was used to model the prior distribution of the population size. two-hundred and fifty-six aa msm were included in the rds survey. the estimated population size was 4917 (95 % ci 1267-28,771), using a flat prior estimated 1882 (95 % ci 919-2463) as a lower acceptable bound, and a large prior estimated 6762 (95 % ci 1994-13,863) as an acceptable upper bound. point estimates from the ss-pse were consistent with estimates from multiplier methods using external data. the ss-pse method is easily integrated into rds studies and therefore provides a simple and appealing tool to rapidly produce estimates of the size of key populations otherwise difficult to reach and enumerate." age-specific survival and annual variation in survival of female chamois differ between populations,age-specific survival; capture-mark-recapture; environmental variability; rupicapra rupicapra; senescence,OECOLOGIA,BLEU J;HERFINDAL I;LOISON A;KWAK AMG;GAREL M;TOIGO C;REMPFLER T;FILLI F;SAETHER BE,"in many species, population dynamics are shaped by age-structured demographic parameters, such as survival, which can cause age-specific sensitivity to environmental conditions. accordingly, we can expect populations with different age-specific survival to be differently affected by environmental variation. however, this hypothesis is rarely tested at the intra-specific level. using capture-mark-recapture models, we quantified age-specific survival and the extent of annual variations in survival of females of alpine chamois in two sites. in one population, survival was very high (> 0.94; bauges, france) until the onset of senescence at approximately 7 years old, whereas the two other populations (swiss national park, snp) had a later onset (12 years old) and a lower rate of senescence. senescence patterns are therefore not fixed within species. annual variation in survival was higher in the bauges (sd = 0.26) compared to the snp populations (sd = 0.20). also, in each population, the age classes with the lowest survival also experienced the largest temporal variation, in accordance with inter-specific comparisons showing a greater impact of environmental variation on these age classes. the large difference between the populations in age-specific survival and variation suggests that environmental variation and climate change will affect these populations differently." infection dynamics in frog populations with different histories of decline caused by a deadly disease,coexistence; disease dynamics; fungus; host-pathogen interactions; infectious disease,OECOLOGIA,SAPSFORD SJ;VOORDOUW MJ;ALFORD RA;SCHWARZKOPF L,"pathogens can drive host population dynamics. chytridiomycosis is a fungal disease of amphibians that is caused by the fungus batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (bd). this pathogen has caused declines and extinctions in some host species whereas other host species coexist with bd without suffering declines. in the early 1990s, bd extirpated populations of the endangered common mistfrog, litoria rheocola, at high-elevation sites, while populations of the species persisted at low-elevation sites. today, populations have reappeared at many high-elevation sites where they presently co-exist with the fungus. we conducted a capture-mark-recapture (cmr) study of six populations of l. rheocola over 1 year, at high and low elevations. we used multistate cmr models to determine which factors (bd infection status, site type, and season) influenced rates of frog survival, recapture, infection, and recovery from infection. we observed bd-induced mortality of individual frogs, but did not find any significant effect of bd infection on the survival rate of l. rheocola at the population level. survival and recapture rates depended on site type and season. infection rate was highest in winter when temperatures were favourable for pathogen growth, and differed among site types. the recovery rate was high (75.7-85.8 %) across seasons, and did not differ among site types. the coexistence of l. rheocola with bd suggests that (1) frog populations are becoming resistant to the fungus, (2) bd may have evolved lower virulence, or (3) current environmental conditions may be inhibiting outbreaks of the fatal disease." -combining link-tracing sampling and cluster sampling to estimate the size of a hidden population in presence of heterogeneous link-probabilities,bootstrap; capture-recapture; chain referral sampling; maximum likelihood estimator; profile likelihood confidence interval; snowball sampling,SURVEY METHODOLOGY,FELIX-MEDINA MH;MONJARDIN PE;ACEVES-CASTRO AN,"felix-medina and thompson (2004) proposed a variant of link-tracing sampling to sample hidden and/or hard-to-detect human populations such as drug users and sex workers. in their variant, an initial sample of venues is selected and the people found in the sampled venues are asked to name other members of the population to be included in the sample. those authors derived maximum likelihood estimators of the population size under the assumption that the probability that a person is named by another in a sampled venue (link-probability) does not depend on the named person (homogeneity assumption). in this work we extend their research to the case of heterogeneous link-probabilities and derive unconditional and conditional maximum likelihood estimators of the population size. we also propose profile likelihood and bootstrap confidence intervals for the size of the population. the results of simulations studies carried out by us show that in presence of heterogeneous link-probabilities the proposed estimators perform reasonably well provided that relatively large sampling fractions, say larger than 0.5, be used, whereas the estimators derived under the homogeneity assumption perform badly. the outcomes also show that the proposed confidence intervals are not very robust to deviations from the assumed models." +combining link-tracing sampling and cluster sampling to estimate the size of a hidden population in presence of heterogeneous link-probabilities,bootstrap; capture-recapture; chain referral sampling; maximum likelihood estimator; profile likelihood confidence interval; snowball sampling,SURVEY METHODOLOGY,FELIX MEDINA MH;MONJARDIN PE;ACEVES CASTRO AN,"felix-medina and thompson (2004) proposed a variant of link-tracing sampling to sample hidden and/or hard-to-detect human populations such as drug users and sex workers. in their variant, an initial sample of venues is selected and the people found in the sampled venues are asked to name other members of the population to be included in the sample. those authors derived maximum likelihood estimators of the population size under the assumption that the probability that a person is named by another in a sampled venue (link-probability) does not depend on the named person (homogeneity assumption). in this work we extend their research to the case of heterogeneous link-probabilities and derive unconditional and conditional maximum likelihood estimators of the population size. we also propose profile likelihood and bootstrap confidence intervals for the size of the population. the results of simulations studies carried out by us show that in presence of heterogeneous link-probabilities the proposed estimators perform reasonably well provided that relatively large sampling fractions, say larger than 0.5, be used, whereas the estimators derived under the homogeneity assumption perform badly. the outcomes also show that the proposed confidence intervals are not very robust to deviations from the assumed models." do capture and survey methods influence whether marked animals are representative of unmarked animals?,abundance estimation; behavior; capture-related stress; detection; sightability model,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,FIEBERG JR;JENKINS K;MCCORQUODALE S;RICE CG;WHITE GC;WHITE K,"radiocollared animals are frequently used to estimate detection probabilities in aerial surveys. the aircraft used to conduct these surveys may also have been used to aid in the capture of these animals, and recently captured animals may react to hearing or seeing the aircraft, changing their behavior in a way that calls into question the representativeness of estimated detection probabilities. we conducted a literature review and found 30 studies that used radiocollared animals to build sightability detection models; in >= 15 of these studies, the same aircraft was used to capture and survey animals. although it is difficult to determine whether captured animals have different sighting probabilities than the rest of the target population, we used multiyear resighting data collected from moose (alces alces) in minnesota, elk (cervus elaphus) in washington, and mountain goats (oreamnos americanus) in washington and alaska, to evaluate whether detection probabilities increased or decreased as a function of time since original capture. we did not detect statistically significant within-individual time trends in detection probabilities, although we could not rule out the possibility of biologically significant results because confidence intervals on effect sizes were relatively wide. the lone exception to this rule was for the cohort of radiocollared moose in minnesota, which exhibited a slight decrease in detection probabilities over time. differences in detection probabilities for marked and unmarked animals may not be a significant problem for sightability models, provided that the source of the variability can be captured by model covariates (e.g., heterogeneity is tied to an individual's propensity to be in heavy cover). nonetheless, capture-related effects likely deserve greater consideration than currently afforded, and are critically important when applying simple mark-recapture abundance estimators (lincoln-petersen, mark-resight) that do not allow consideration of sighting covariates. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." the relationship between abundance and genetic effective population size in elasmobranchs: an example from the globally threatened zebra shark stegostoma fasciatum within its protected range,n-e/n-c; leopard shark; stegostoma fasciatum; linkage disequilibrium; microsatellites,CONSERVATION GENETICS,DUDGEON CL;OVENDEN JR,"genetic effective population size (n-e) estimators are useful as applied conservation tools. many elasmobranch (shark and ray) species are threatened at local and global scales, and tools to monitor these populations are greatly needed. this study investigates contemporary n-e and its relationship with census size (n-c) in a population of zebra sharks (stegostoma fasciatum). our n-e using the linkage disequilibrium method, 377 (95 % ci 274-584) was found to closely approximate the mark-recapture n-c for this population of mature sharks (458, 95 % ci 298-618), with an n-e/n-c ratio of 0.82 (se = 0.33). furthermore, we conducted a series of sensitivity analyses to examine how the numbers of samples and loci affect the precision and accuracy of the estimators. we demonstrate that for this species robust and precise estimates are obtainable with a minimum of 91 samples (approximately 20 % of the census population) and 10 microsatellite loci. these findings contribute important information to the greater body of n-e and n-e/n-c relationships in elasmobranchs and wildlife populations as well as provide important guidelines for implementing genetic monitoring in elasmobranch conservation efforts." the suitability of vie tags to assess stock enhancement success in juvenile european lobsters (homarus gammarus),vie tag; european lobster; stock enhancement; hatchery,AQUACULTURE RESEARCH,NEENAN STV;HODGSON DJ;TREGENZA T;BOOTHROYD D;ELLIS CD,"assessments of stock enhancement programmes for european lobsters (homarus gammarus) require mark-recapture analysis of stocked individuals. however, established tag technology is deemed unsuitable for extensive use by many current lobster hatcheries, particularly upon the early juvenile stages. we tested the suitability of fluorescent visible implant elastomer (vie) tags for use in 5-month-old juvenile lobsters. three treatment groups comprising 348 cultured lobsters in total were used to examine survival, growth and tag retention, and to assess mobility, shelter use and moulting behaviours. tagging had no significant effect on lobster survival, growth, mobility, shelter use or moult frequency. survival over 7weeks was 75% among lobsters tagged with two elastomers, 76% in those with one elastomer and 74% among untagged controls. mortality during moulting did not increase in tagged (6%) compared to untagged lobsters (9%). we found no evidence that vie tags cause any negative effects that would be expected to inhibit survival upon wild release, but tag loss had reached 12% in both tagged treatments after 7weeks and showed no sign of abating. our study suggests that vies effectiveness in discerning cultured lobsters long after wild release may be limited when used in smaller juveniles." stepwise function of natural growth for scylla serrata in east africa: a valuable tool for assessing growth of mud crabs in aquaculture,mud crab; moult increment; intermoult period; segmented growth; aquaculture,AQUACULTURE RESEARCH,MOKSNES PO;MIRERA DO;BJORKVIK E;HAMAD MI;MAHUDI HM;NYQVIST D;JIDDAWI N;TROELL M,"predicting growth is critical in aquaculture, but models of growth are largely missing for mud crab species. here, we present the first model of natural growth in juvenile and adult mud crabs scylla serrata from east africa using a stepwise growth function based on data on intermoult periods and growth at moult from field mark-recapture, pond and laboratory studies. the results showed a sigmoid growth pattern in carapace width and suggest that s.serrata in east africa will reach 300g and sexual maturity similar to 9.9months after settlement, and a commercial size of 500g after 12.4months. analyses of the literature identified several issues with the common praxis to compare standard growth measures between aquaculture studies with different initial size or growing periods. using the new growth function to estimate the proportional difference between modelled and obtained growth as an alternative method, we show that growth rates of s.serrata cultured in cage systems, which are dominant in east africa, was <40% of the estimated natural growth and growth obtained in pond systems. the analysis also indicated that growth rates of s.serrata in southeast asia was over 50% higher compared with similar culture systems in east africa, and that different species of mud crabs had large differences in growth rates. this study shows that growth in the present mud crab aquaculture systems in east africa is below their expected potential. further work is needed to identify the factors behind this observation." incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease in 5-15 year old children with and without comorbidities in germany after the introduction of pcv13: implications for vaccinating children with comorbidities,invasive pneumococcal disease; children with comorbidities; vaccination implication; pneumococcal conjugate vaccination; school-aged children; germany,VACCINE,WEINBERGER R;FALKENHORST G;BOGDAN C;VAN DER LINDEN M;IMOHL M;VON KRIES R,"objective: to describe the burden of suffering from ipd in children aged 5-15 years with and without comorbidities up to 5 years after the introduction of pcv13 in germany and to identify the potential benefit for pcv13 and ppv23 vaccination. methods: the surveillance of ipd for children <16 years was based on two independently reporting sources: active surveillance in pediatric hospitals and a laboratory-based sentinel surveillance system. case definition: ipd with cultural detection of pneumococci at a physiologically sterile site in children from 2010 to 2014 in germany. incidence was estimated by capture-recapture analysis with stratification by absence/presence of comorbidities. coverage of the observed serotypes by different vaccines was assessed. results: 142 (capture recapture-corrected: 437) cases were reported: 72.5% were healthy children and 27.5% had a comorbidity. the incidence of ipd related to children with comorbidities was 0.2 per 100,000. one third of these cases had serotypes not included in either vaccine. the remaining cases might benefit from pneumococcal vaccination but one third of all cases was not vaccinated. the additional potential benefit of ppv23 compared to pcv13 with respect to coverage was 10%. conclusion: the incidence of ipd in children with comorbidities in germany is low. pneumococcal vaccination uptake in children with comorbidities should be increased, although only about two-thirds of the cases might be preventable by presently available vaccines. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." the effect of novel research activities on long-term survival of temporarily captive steller sea lions (eumetopias jubatus),NA,PLOS ONE,SHUERT C;HORNING M;MELLISH JA,"two novel research approaches were developed to facilitate controlled access to, and long-term monitoring of, juvenile steller sea lions for periods longer than typically afforded by traditional fieldwork. the transient juvenile steller sea lion project at the alaska sealife center facilitated nutritional, physiological, and behavioral studies on the platform of temporary captivity. temporarily captive sea lions (tjs, n = 35) were studied, and were intraperitoneally implanted with life history transmitters (lhx tags) to determine causes of mortality post-release. our goal was to evaluate the potential for long-term impacts of temporary captivity and telemetry implants on the survival of study individuals. a simple open-population cormack-jolly-seber mark-recapture model was built in program mark, incorporating resightings of uniquely branded study individuals gathered by several contributing institutions. a priori models were developed to weigh the evidence of effects of experimental treatment on survival with covariates of sex, age, capture age, cohort, and age class. we compared survival of experimental treatment to a control group of n = 27 free-ranging animals (frs) that were sampled during capture events and immediately released. sex has previously been show to differentially affect juvenile survival in steller sea lions. therefore, sex was included in all models to account for unbalanced sex ratios within the experimental group. considerable support was identified for the effects of sex, accounting for over 71% of total weight for all a priori models with delta aicc < 5, and over 91% of model weight after removal of pretending variables. overall, most support was found for the most parsimonious model based on sex and excluding experimental treatment. models including experimental treatment were not supported after post-hoc considerations of model selection criteria. however, given the limited sample size, alternate models including effects of experimental treatments remain possible and effects may yet become apparent in larger sample sizes." -epidemiology of lobomycosis-like disease in bottlenose dolphins tursiops spp. from south america and southern africa,delphinidae; cutaneous diseases; southern hemisphere; lacazia loboi; paracoccidioides spp.,DISEASES OF AQUATIC ORGANISMS,VAN BRESSEM MF;SIMOES-LOPES PC;FELIX F;KISZKA JJ;DAURA-JORGE FG;AVILA IC;SECCHI ER;FLACH L;FRUET PF;DU TOIT K;OTT PH;ELWEN S;DI GIACOMO AB;WAGNER J;BANKS A;VAN WAEREBEEK K,"we report on the epidemiology of lobomycosis-like disease (lld), a cutaneous disorder evoking lobomycosis, in 658 common bottlenose dolphins tursiops truncatus from south america and 94 indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins t. aduncus from southern africa. photographs and stranding records of 387 inshore residents, 60 inshore non-residents and 305 specimens of undetermined origin (inshore and offshore) were examined for the presence of lld lesions from 2004 to 2015. seventeen residents, 3 non-residents and 1 inshore dolphin of unknown residence status were positive. lld lesions appeared as single or multiple, light grey to whitish nodules and plaques that may ulcerate and increase in size over time. among resident dolphins, prevalence varied significantly among 4 communities, being low in posorja (2.35%, n = 85), ecuador, and high in salinas, ecuador (16.7%, n = 18), and laguna, brazil (14.3%, n = 42). lld prevalence increased in 36 t. truncatus from laguna from 5.6% in 2007-2009 to 13.9% in 2013-2014, albeit not significantly. the disease has persisted for years in dolphins from mayotte, laguna, salinas, the sanquianga national park and bahia malaga (colombia) but vanished from the tramandai estuary and the mampituba river (brazil). the geographical range of lld has expanded in brazil, south africa and ecuador, in areas that have been regularly surveyed for 10 to 35 yr. two of the 21 lld-affected dolphins were found dead with extensive lesions in southern brazil, and 2 others disappeared, and presumably died, in ecuador. these observations stress the need for targeted epidemiological, histological and molecular studies of lld in dolphins, especially in the southern hemisphere." +epidemiology of lobomycosis-like disease in bottlenose dolphins tursiops spp. from south america and southern africa,delphinidae; cutaneous diseases; southern hemisphere; lacazia loboi; paracoccidioides spp.,DISEASES OF AQUATIC ORGANISMS,VAN BRESSEM MF;SIMOES LOPES PC;FELIX F;KISZKA JJ;DAURA JORGE FG;AVILA IC;SECCHI ER;FLACH L;FRUET PF;DU TOIT K;OTT PH;ELWEN S;DI GIACOMO AB;WAGNER J;BANKS A;VAN WAEREBEEK K,"we report on the epidemiology of lobomycosis-like disease (lld), a cutaneous disorder evoking lobomycosis, in 658 common bottlenose dolphins tursiops truncatus from south america and 94 indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins t. aduncus from southern africa. photographs and stranding records of 387 inshore residents, 60 inshore non-residents and 305 specimens of undetermined origin (inshore and offshore) were examined for the presence of lld lesions from 2004 to 2015. seventeen residents, 3 non-residents and 1 inshore dolphin of unknown residence status were positive. lld lesions appeared as single or multiple, light grey to whitish nodules and plaques that may ulcerate and increase in size over time. among resident dolphins, prevalence varied significantly among 4 communities, being low in posorja (2.35%, n = 85), ecuador, and high in salinas, ecuador (16.7%, n = 18), and laguna, brazil (14.3%, n = 42). lld prevalence increased in 36 t. truncatus from laguna from 5.6% in 2007-2009 to 13.9% in 2013-2014, albeit not significantly. the disease has persisted for years in dolphins from mayotte, laguna, salinas, the sanquianga national park and bahia malaga (colombia) but vanished from the tramandai estuary and the mampituba river (brazil). the geographical range of lld has expanded in brazil, south africa and ecuador, in areas that have been regularly surveyed for 10 to 35 yr. two of the 21 lld-affected dolphins were found dead with extensive lesions in southern brazil, and 2 others disappeared, and presumably died, in ecuador. these observations stress the need for targeted epidemiological, histological and molecular studies of lld in dolphins, especially in the southern hemisphere." factors affecting the identification of individual mountain bongo antelope,individual recognition; camera trap; observer error; markings; photographs; tragelaphus eurycerus isaaci,PEERJ,GIBBON GEM;BINDEMANN M;ROBERTS DL,"the recognition of individuals forms the basis of many endangered species monitoring protocols. this process typically relies on manual recognition techniques. this study aimed to calculate a measure of the error rates inherent within the manual technique and also sought to identify visual traits that aid identification, using the critically endangered mountain bongo, tragelaphus eurycerus isaaci, as a model system. identification accuracy was assessed with a matching task that required same/different decisions to side-by-side pairings of individual bongos. error rates were lowest when only the flanks of bongos were shown, suggesting that the inclusion of other visual traits confounded accuracy. accuracy was also higher for photographs of captive animals than camera-trap images, and in observers experienced in working with mountain bongos, than those unfamiliar with the sub-species. these results suggest that the removal of non-essential morphological traits from photographs of bongos, the use of high-quality images, and relevant expertise all help increase identification accuracy. finally, given the rise in automated identification and the use of citizen science, something our results would suggest is applicable within the context of the mountain bongo, this study provides a framework for assessing their accuracy in individual as well as species identification." life history and dynamics of a platypus (ornithorhynchus anatinus) population: four decades of mark-recapture surveys,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,BINO G;GRANT TR;KINGSFORD RT,"knowledge of the life-history and population dynamics of australia's iconic and evolutionarily distinct platypus (ornithorhynchus anatinus) remains poor. we marked-recaptured 812 unique platypuses (total 1,622 captures), over four decades (1973-2014) in the shoalhaven river, australia. strong sex-age differences were observed in life-history, including morphology and longevity. apparent survival of adult females (f = 0.76) were higher than adult males (f = 0.57), as in juveniles: females f = 0.27, males f = 0.13. females were highly likely to remain in the same pool (adult: p = 0.85, juvenile: p = 0.88), while residency rates were lower for males (adult: p = 0.74, juvenile: p = 0.46). we combined survival, movement and life-histories to develop population viability models and test the impact of a range of life-history parameters. while using estimated apparent survival produced unviable populations (mean population growth rate r = -0.23, extinction within 20 years), considering residency rates to adjust survival estimates, indicated more stable populations (r = 0.004, p = 0.04 of 100-year extinction). further sensitivity analyses highlighted adult female survival and overall success of dispersal as most affecting viability. findings provide robust life-history and viability estimates for a difficult study species. these could support developing large-scale population dynamics models required to underpin a much needed national risk assessment for the platypus, already declining in parts of its current distribution." examining temporal sample scale and model choice with spatial capture-recapture models in the common leopard panthera pardus,NA,PLOS ONE,GOLDBERG JF;TEMPA T;NORBU N;HEBBLEWHITE M;MILLS LS;WANGCHUK TR;LUKACS P,"many large carnivores occupy a wide geographic distribution, and face threats from habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching, prey depletion, and human wildlife-conflicts. conservation requires robust techniques for estimating population densities and trends, but the elusive nature and low densities of many large carnivores make them difficult to detect. spatial capture-recapture (scr) models provide a means for handling imperfect detectability, while linking population estimates to individual movement patterns to provide more accurate estimates than standard approaches. within this framework, we investigate the effect of different sample interval lengths on density estimates, using simulations and a common leopard (panthera pardus) model system. we apply bayesian scr methods to 89 simulated datasets and camera-trapping data from 22 leopards captured 82 times during winter 20102011 in royal manas national park, bhutan. we show that sample interval length from daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly periods did not appreciably affect median abundance or density, but did influence precision. we observed the largest gains in precision when moving from quarterly to shorter intervals. we therefore recommend daily sampling intervals for monitoring rare or elusive species where practicable, but note that monthly or quarterly sample periods can have similar informative value. we further develop a novel application of bayes factors to select models where multiple ecological factors are integrated into density estimation. our simulations demonstrate that these methods can help identify the ""true"" explanatory mechanisms underlying the data. using this method, we found strong evidence for sex-specific movement distributions in leopards, suggesting that sexual patterns of space-use influence density. this model estimated a density of 10.0 leopards/100 km(2) (95% credibility interval: 6.25-15.93), comparable to contemporary estimates in asia. these scr methods provide a guide to monitor and observe the effect of management interventions on leopards and other species of conservation interest." @@ -1864,14 +1867,14 @@ on the integrated maximum likelihood estimators for a closed population capture- "distribution and ecology of lesser pouched rat, beamys hindei, in tanzanian coastal forests",abundance; beamys hindei; coastal forests; recruitment; survival,INTEGRATIVE ZOOLOGY,SABUNI CA;SLUYDTS V;MULUNGU LS;MAGANGA SLS;MAKUNDI RH;LEIRS H,"the lesser pouched rat, beamys hindei, is a small rodent that is patchily distributed in the eastern arc mountains and coastal forests in east africa. the ecology of this species and its current distribution in coastal forests is not well known. therefore, we conducted a study in selected coastal forests to assess the current distribution of the species and to investigate the population ecology in terms of abundance fluctuations and demographic patterns. assessments of the species distribution were conducted in 5 forests through trapping with sherman live traps. data on ecology were obtained from monthly capture-mark-recapture studies conducted for 5 consecutive nights per month in two 1 ha grids set in zaraninge forest over a 2-year period. the results indicate the presence of b. hindei in 3 forests where it was not previously recorded. the population abundance estimates ranged from 1 to 40 animals per month, with high numbers recorded during rainy seasons. reproduction patterns and sex ratios did not differ between months. survival estimates were not influenced by season, and recruitment was low, with growth rate estimates of 1 animal per month. these estimates suggest a stable population of b. hindei in zaraninge forest. further studies are recommended to establish the home range, diet and burrowing behavior of the species in coastal forests in east africa." integrating resource selection into spatial capture-recapture models for large carnivores,bayesian; carnivore; mountain lion; non-invasive; population estimation; puma concolor; scr,ECOSPHERE,PROFFITT KM;GOLDBERG JF;HEBBLEWHITE M;RUSSELL R;JIMENEZ BS;ROBINSON HS;PILGRIM K;SCHWARTZ MK,"wildlife managers need reliable methods to estimate large carnivore densities and population trends; yet large carnivores are elusive, difficult to detect, and occur at low densities making traditional approaches intractable. recent advances in spatial capture-recapture (scr) models have provided new approaches for monitoring trends in wildlife abundance and these methods are particularly applicable to large carnivores. we applied scr models in a bayesian framework to estimate mountain lion densities in the bitterroot mountains of west central montana. we incorporate an existing resource selection function (rsf) as a density covariate to account for heterogeneity in habitat use across the study area and include data collected from harvested lions. we identify individuals through dna samples collected by (1) biopsy darting mountain lions detected in systematic surveys of the study area, (2) opportunistically collecting hair and scat samples, and (3) sampling all harvested mountain lions. we included 80 dna samples collected from 62 individuals in the analysis. including information on predicted habitat use as a covariate on the distribution of activity centers reduced the median estimated density by 44%, the standard deviation by 7%, and the width of 95% credible intervals by 10% as compared to standard scr models. within the two management units of interest, we estimated a median mountain lion density of 4.5 mountain lions/100 km 2 (95% ci = 2.9, 7.7) and 5.2 mountain lions/100 km(2) (95% ci = 3.4, 9.1). including harvested individuals (dead recovery) did not create a significant bias in the detection process by introducing individuals that could not be detected after removal. however, the dead recovery component of the model did have a substantial effect on results by increasing sample size. the ability to account for heterogeneity in habitat use provides a useful extension to scr models, and will enhance the ability of wildlife managers to reliably and economically estimate density of wildlife populations, particularly large carnivores." monitoring populations of a guild of ungulates: implications for the conservation of a relict mediterranean forest,hunting statistics; counts; nocturnal distance sampling; mediterranean ecosystem; monitoring methods; capture-mark-recapture; long-term study,RENDICONTI LINCEI-SCIENZE FISICHE E NATURALI,FOCARDI S;FRANZETTI B;RONCHI F;IMPERIO S;MONTANARO P;ARAGNO P;TOSO S,"we reviewed information on the population dynamics of ungulate populations in the preserve of castelporziano, italy. based upon hunting bags, long-term series of indices of abundance are available for fallow deer (dama dama), wild boar (sus scrofa majori), roe deer (capreolus capreolus italicus), red deer (cervus elaphus), and nilgai (boselaphus tragocamelus) for the period from 1878 to 1986. in the absence of large predators, but in presence of hunting, population regulation is basically determined by density dependence. however, our data also show that roe deer are competitively affected by fallow deer, while the dynamics of wild boar is relatively disconnected from those of cervids. the impacts of climate and habitat variations on the growth rates of ungulates appeared to have limited relevance in this ecosystem. standardised counts on green flush areas in spring, performed annually since 1988, show the presence of important interactions among the different species and the negative impact of fallow deer on roe deer. further, spring counts suggest that wild boar populations exhibit stable fluctuations within a 3-5-year period. nocturnal distance sampling estimates of fallow deer and wild boar populations, available since 2002, confirmed the broad picture obtained by spring counts, but also allowed us to estimate the actual population size and compute appropriate confidence intervals. the evaluation of the pros and cons of different monitoring methods is relevant to wildlife agencies to select the ones most suitable for offering a particular type of information and to underpin informed decisions on the best management practices to implement." -"assessment of tuberculosis surveillance by capture-recapture in the balearic islands, spain, 2005-2007",tuberculosis; epidemiology; completeness; surveillance; capture-recapture,ENFERMEDADES INFECCIOSAS Y MICROBIOLOGIA CLINICA,GIMENEZ-DURAN J;GALMES-TRUYOLS A;LUQUE-FERNANDEZ MA;BONILLA-VARGAS LA;BOSCH-ISABEL C;NICOLAU-RIUTORT A;DE MATEO-ONTANON S,"the tuberculosis surveillance system in the balearic islands was assessed from 2005 to 2007. applying the capture-recapture method the completeness of this system was evaluated to be 58.4%. when a new electronic recorded data was included in primary health care, up to 66.5% was obtained. this new source of data increased the detected cases of pulmonary tuberculosis from 572 to 681. as a result, the estimated annual incidence rate increases from 18.9 cases/10(5) to 22.6 cases/10(5) [95% ci 20.9-24.3], similar to figures issued by who. (c) 2014 elsevier espana, s.l.u. and sociedad espanola de enfermedades infecciosas y microbiologia clinica. all rights reserved." +"assessment of tuberculosis surveillance by capture-recapture in the balearic islands, spain, 2005-2007",tuberculosis; epidemiology; completeness; surveillance; capture-recapture,ENFERMEDADES INFECCIOSAS Y MICROBIOLOGIA CLINICA,GIMENEZ DURAN J;GALMES TRUYOLS A;LUQUE FERNANDEZ MA;BONILLA VARGAS LA;BOSCH ISABEL C;NICOLAU RIUTORT A;DE MATEO ONTANON S,"the tuberculosis surveillance system in the balearic islands was assessed from 2005 to 2007. applying the capture-recapture method the completeness of this system was evaluated to be 58.4%. when a new electronic recorded data was included in primary health care, up to 66.5% was obtained. this new source of data increased the detected cases of pulmonary tuberculosis from 572 to 681. as a result, the estimated annual incidence rate increases from 18.9 cases/10(5) to 22.6 cases/10(5) [95% ci 20.9-24.3], similar to figures issued by who. (c) 2014 elsevier espana, s.l.u. and sociedad espanola de enfermedades infecciosas y microbiologia clinica. all rights reserved." "comparing spatial capture-recapture modeling and nest count methods to estimate orangutan densities in the wehea forest, east kalimantan, indonesia",pongo pygmaeus morio; population density; camera trapping; spatial capture-recapture models; nest surveys,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,SPEHAR SN;LOKEN B;RAYADIN Y;ROYLE JA,"accurate information on the density and abundance of animal populations is essential for understanding species'. ecology and for conservation planning, but is difficult to obtain. the endangered orangutan (pongo spp.) is an example; due to its elusive behavior and low densities, researchers have relied on methods that convert nest counts to orangutan densities and require substantial effort for reliable results. camera trapping and spatial capture-recapture (scr) models could provide an alternative but have not been used for primates. we compared density estimates calculated using the two methods for orangutans in the wehea forest, east kalimantan, indonesia. camera trapping/scr modeling produced a density estimate of 0.16 +/- 0.09-0.29 indiv/km(2), and nest counts produced a density estimate of 1.05 +/- 0.18-6.01 indiv/km(2). the large confidence interval of the nest count estimate is probably due to high variance in nest encounter rates, indicating the need for larger sample size and the substantial effort required to produce reliable results using this method. the scr estimate produced a very low density estimate and had a narrower but still fairly wide confidence interval. this was likely due to unmodeled heterogeneity and small sample size, specifically a low number of individual captures and recaptures. we propose methodological fixes that could address these issues and improve precision. a comparison of the overall costs and benefits of the two methods suggests that camera trapping/scr modeling can potentially be a useful tool for assessing the densities of orangutans and other elusive primates, and warrant further investigation to determine broad applicability and methodological adjustments needed. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." spatial distribution drivers of amur leopard density in northeast china,amur leopard; camera trap; population size; spatially explicit capture-recapture model,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,QI JZ;SHI QH;WANG GM;LI ZL;SUN Q;HUA Y;JIANG GS,"the amur leopard (panthera pardus orientalis) is highly elusive, rare species, critically threatened with extinction worldwide. in this study, we conducted camera-trap surveys of an amur leopard population in jilin province, northeast china. we estimated population abundance and density distribution, and explored the effects of prey population densities and biomass of prey, habitat and anthropogenic factors on the spatial distribution of amur leopard density. our results suggested that amur leopard density was 0.62 individuals/100 km(2) and 16.58 individuals might live within the study area. the spatial distribution of amur leopard density exhibited different responses to the population densities of different prey species. we found that two ecological thresholds existed in maximum responses of amur leopard distribution to elevation and prey biomass. vegetation and anthropogenic factors also showed significant effects on leopard population distribution. in general, there was a combination of habitat factors including, not only prey assembly and biomass, but also vegetation, anthropogenic and geographical factors driving the spatial distribution of amur leopard population. these insights informed us that comprehensive adaptive landscape and prey conservation strategies should be conducted for saving this critically endangered predator. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." relative contribution of local demography and immigration in the recovery of a geographically-isolated population of the endangered egyptian vulture,bird population dynamics; evidence-based conservation; integrated population models; capture-mark-recapture; neophron percnopterus; supplementary feeding,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,LIEURY N;GALLARDO M;PONCHON C;BESNARD A;MILLON A,"in a context of increasing concern for biodiversity conservation but decreasing resources devoted to species management, measuring the impact of actions is critically needed so as to optimise conservation practices. long-term longitudinal data collected on marked individuals allow for an assessment of the demographic response of a population to conservation actions while accounting for potential confounding factors. this study focused on the recovery of a geographically-isolated population of the endangered egyptian vulture in south-eastern france, which experienced food shortages induced by major changes in habitat and sanitary legislation limiting the abandonment of dead animals in the field. the survival rates and population dynamics of the egyptian vulture were computed, following the implementation of supplementary feeding stations, while accounting for the potential variation in environmental conditions on wintering grounds, reproduction and immigration. an integrated population model (ipm) was used to combine capture-resighting data with recoveries of dead birds, breeding surveys and counts of territorial pairs over a 16-year period. results showed that the implementation of vulture restaurants improved the local survival rates and successfully stabilised the local demography of egyptian vultures; this despite a reduction in average fecundity due to compensatory density feedback. moreover, throughout the study period, about two thirds of the new recruits into the breeding population were immigrants, suggesting immigration constantly sustained the egyptian vulture population in south-eastern france. however, we did not detect any effect of vulture restaurants on the immigration rate, indicating that the improvement of local survival by vulture restaurants remained the main driver of the positive shift in the population dynamics. this study highlights the positive impact of vulture restaurants on egyptian vulture population restoration by compensating for natural food limitations. it also points out the methodological importance of estimating immigration for understanding population dynamics and that large-scale monitoring and internationally-concerted conservation should be promoted. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." apparent survival of north atlantic right whales after entanglement in fishing gear,by-catch; fisheries interactions; mark-recapture; endangered species; north america,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,ROBBINS J;KNOWLTON AR;LANDRY S,"the impacts of human activities on cryptic marine species can be difficult to assess. the north atlantic right whale is an endangered species numbering just over 500 individuals. entanglement in fishing gear is one documented source of injury and mortality, but population-level effects have been difficult to quantify. we used documented entanglements, long-term population studies and mark-recapture statistical techniques to evaluate the effect of these events on north atlantic right whale survival. estimates were based on 50 individuals observed carrying entangling gear between 1995 and 2008, and compared to 459 others that were never observed with gear during the same period. entangled adults had low initial apparent survival (0.749, 95% cl: 0.601-0.855), but those that survived the first year achieved a survival rate (0.952, 95% cl: 0.907-0.977) that was more comparable to unaffected adult females (0.961,95% ci: 0.941-0.974) and males (0.986,95% ci: 0.975-0.993). juveniles had a post-entanglement survival rate that was comparable to the initial survival of entangled adults (0.733, 95% cl: 0.532-0.869) and lower than un-impacted juveniles (0.978, 95% ci: 0.969-0.985). of three entanglement characteristics examined, health impacts were most predictive of subsequent survival, but the entanglement configuration and the resulting injuries also appeared to affect outcome. when the entanglement configuration was assessed as high risk, human intervention (disentanglement) improved the survival outcome. this is the first mark-recapture estimate of entanglement survival for any whale species. the results indicate the need for continued mitigation efforts for this species, as well as for a better understanding of entanglement impacts in other baleen whale populations. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." using local dispersal data to reduce bias in annual apparent survival and mate fidelity,apparent survival; breeding dispersal; demography; live-encounter data; site fidelity,CONDOR,TAYLOR CM;LANK DB;SANDERCOCK BK,"in mark-recapture studies conducted on fixed-area study sites, apparent (or ""local"") survival (phi) is the product of the probabilities of true survival (s) and site fidelity to the sampling area (f). if marked individuals permanently emigrate from the study site, apparent survival will be biased low relative to true survival. similarly, estimates of mate fidelity will be biased high because site fidelity is typically higher for individuals that reunite with their previous mates than among pairs that divorce. here, we develop a method for calculating site fidelity that takes plot boundaries into account, based on a dispersal model estimated from local movements within a fixed study site. we use dispersal estimates to adjust apparent survival and mate fidelity for the effects of short-distance movements out of a fixed area. we demonstrate our method with a retrospective analysis of a published study of 2 species of sandpipers breeding sympatrically at a field site in western alaska. estimates of survival probability increased by 0.01-0.03 for males and 0.07-0.08 for females in both species. the larger adjustments for females were expected based on their longer local dispersal movements. adjusted mate fidelity estimates were lower than the original estimates by 0.04-0.07. use of local movement data to estimate site fidelity cannot account for permanent emigration due to long-distance movements and, if such movements occur, our adjusted estimates of phi remain a function of true survival and site fidelity. nevertheless, our method can reduce bias in demographic parameters resulting from local dispersal movements, improving estimates of annual survival and mate fidelity for use in demographic models." estimating occupancy dynamics for large-scale monitoring networks: amphibian breeding occupancy across protected areas in the northeast united states,ambystoma maculatum; hierarchical models; luthobates sylvaticus; occupancy; population trend,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MILLER DAW;GRANT EHC,"regional monitoring strategies frequently employ a nested sampling design where a finite set of study areas from throughout a region are selected and intensive sampling occurs within a subset of sites within the individual study areas. this sampling protocol naturally lends itself to a hierarchical analysis to account for dependence among subsamples. implementing such an analysis using a classic likelihood framework is computationally challenging when accounting for detection errors in species occurrence models. bayesian methods offer an alternative approach for fitting models that readily allows for spatial structure to be incorporated. we demonstrate a general approach for estimating occupancy when data come from a nested sampling design. we analyzed data from a regional monitoring program of wood frogs (lithobates sylvaticus) and spotted salamanders (ambystoma maculatum) in vernal pools using static and dynamic occupancy models. we analyzed observations from 2004 to 2013 that were collected within 14 protected areas located throughout the northeast united states. we use the data set to estimate trends in occupancy at both the regional and individual protected area levels. we show that occupancy at the regional level was relatively stable for both species. however, substantial variation occurred among study areas, with some populations declining and some increasing for both species. in addition, when the hierarchical study design is not accounted for, one would conclude stronger support for latitudinal gradient in trends than when using our approach that accounts for the nested design. in contrast to the model that does not account for nesting, the nested model did not include an effect of latitude in the 95% credible interval. these results shed light on the range-level population status of these pond-breeding amphibians, and our approach provides a framework that can be used to examine drivers of local and regional occurrence dynamics." -"population and genetic outcomes 20years after reintroducing bobcats (lynx rufus) to cumberland island, georgia usa",fecal dna; felid; microsatellites; population genetics; population viability; reintroduction; scat; spatially explicit capture-recapture population estimation,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,DIEFENBACH D;HANSEN L;BOHLING J;MILLER-BUTTERWORTH C,"in 1988-1989, 32 bobcats lynx rufus were reintroduced to cumberland island (cuis), georgia, usa, from which they had previously been extirpated. they were monitored intensively for 3years immediately post-reintroduction, but no estimation of the size or genetic diversity of the population had been conducted in over 20years since reintroduction. we returned to cuis in 2012 to estimate abundance and effective population size of the present-day population, as well as to quantify genetic diversity and inbreeding. we amplified 12 nuclear microsatellite loci from dna isolated from scats to establish genetic profiles to identify individuals. we used spatially explicit capture-recapture population estimation to estimate abundance. from nine unique genetic profiles, we estimate a population size of 14.4 (se=3.052) bobcats, with an effective population size (n-e) of 5-8 breeding individuals. this is consistent with predictions of a population viability analysis conducted at the time of reintroduction, which estimated the population would average 12-13 bobcats after 10years. we identified several pairs of related bobcats (parent-offspring and full siblings), but similar to 75% of the pairwise comparisons were typical of unrelated individuals, and only one individual appeared inbred. despite the small population size and other indications that it has likely experienced a genetic bottleneck, levels of genetic diversity in the cuis bobcat population remain high compared to other mammalian carnivores. the reintroduction of bobcats to cuis provides an opportunity to study changes in genetic diversity in an insular population without risk to this common species. opportunities for natural immigration to the island are limited; therefore, continued monitoring and supplemental bobcat reintroductions could be used to evaluate the effect of different management strategies to maintain genetic diversity and population viability. the successful reintroduction and maintenance of a bobcat population on cuis illustrates the suitability of translocation as a management tool for re-establishing felid populations." +"population and genetic outcomes 20years after reintroducing bobcats (lynx rufus) to cumberland island, georgia usa",fecal dna; felid; microsatellites; population genetics; population viability; reintroduction; scat; spatially explicit capture-recapture population estimation,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,DIEFENBACH D;HANSEN L;BOHLING J;MILLER BUTTERWORTH C,"in 1988-1989, 32 bobcats lynx rufus were reintroduced to cumberland island (cuis), georgia, usa, from which they had previously been extirpated. they were monitored intensively for 3years immediately post-reintroduction, but no estimation of the size or genetic diversity of the population had been conducted in over 20years since reintroduction. we returned to cuis in 2012 to estimate abundance and effective population size of the present-day population, as well as to quantify genetic diversity and inbreeding. we amplified 12 nuclear microsatellite loci from dna isolated from scats to establish genetic profiles to identify individuals. we used spatially explicit capture-recapture population estimation to estimate abundance. from nine unique genetic profiles, we estimate a population size of 14.4 (se=3.052) bobcats, with an effective population size (n-e) of 5-8 breeding individuals. this is consistent with predictions of a population viability analysis conducted at the time of reintroduction, which estimated the population would average 12-13 bobcats after 10years. we identified several pairs of related bobcats (parent-offspring and full siblings), but similar to 75% of the pairwise comparisons were typical of unrelated individuals, and only one individual appeared inbred. despite the small population size and other indications that it has likely experienced a genetic bottleneck, levels of genetic diversity in the cuis bobcat population remain high compared to other mammalian carnivores. the reintroduction of bobcats to cuis provides an opportunity to study changes in genetic diversity in an insular population without risk to this common species. opportunities for natural immigration to the island are limited; therefore, continued monitoring and supplemental bobcat reintroductions could be used to evaluate the effect of different management strategies to maintain genetic diversity and population viability. the successful reintroduction and maintenance of a bobcat population on cuis illustrates the suitability of translocation as a management tool for re-establishing felid populations." "multimark: an r package for analysis of capture-recapture data consisting of multiple ""noninvasive"" marks",bayesian multimodel inference; capture-recapture; cormack-jolly-seber; latent multinomial; mark-recapture; markov chain monte carlo; multiple lists; population size,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MCCLINTOCK BT,"i describe an open-source r package, multimark, for estimation of survival and abundance from capture-mark-recapture data consisting of multiple noninvasive marks. noninvasive marks include natural pelt or skin patterns, scars, and genetic markers that enable individual identification in lieu of physical capture. multimark provides a means for combining and jointly analyzing encounter histories from multiple noninvasive sources that otherwise cannot be reliably matched (e.g., left- and right-sided photographs of bilaterally asymmetrical individuals). the package is currently capable of fitting open population cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) and closed population abundance models with up to two mark types using bayesian markov chain monte carlo (mcmc) methods. multimark can also be used for bayesian analyses of conventional capture-recapture data consisting of a single-mark type. some package features include (1) general model specification using formulas already familiar to most r users, (2) ability to include temporal, behavioral, age, cohort, and individual heterogeneity effects in detection and survival probabilities, (3) improved mcmc algorithm that is computationally faster and more efficient than previously proposed methods, (4) bayesian multimodel inference using reversible jump mcmc, and (5) data simulation capabilities for power analyses and assessing model performance. i demonstrate use of multimark using left- and right-sided encounter histories for bobcats (lynx rufus) collected from remote single-camera stations in southern california. in this example, there is evidence of a behavioral effect (i.e., trap happy response) that is otherwise indiscernible using conventional single-sided analyses. the package will be most useful to ecologists seeking stronger inferences by combining different sources of mark-recapture data that are difficult (or impossible) to reliably reconcile, particularly with the sparse datasets typical of rare or elusive species for which noninvasive sampling techniques are most commonly employed. addressing deficiencies in currently available software, multimark also provides a user-friendly interface for performing bayesian multimodel inference using capture-recapture data consisting of a single conventional mark or multiple noninvasive marks." a spatially explicit capture-recapture estimator for single-catch traps,density estimation; single-catch trap likelihood; spatially explicit capture-recapture; statistical methods,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,DISTILLER G;BORCHERS DL,"single-catch traps are frequently used in live-trapping studies of small mammals. thus far, a likelihood for single-catch traps has proven elusive and usually the likelihood for multicatch traps is used for spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) analyses of such data. previous work found the multicatch likelihood to provide a robust estimator of average density. we build on a recently developed continuous-time model for secr to derive a likelihood for single-catch traps. we use this to develop an estimator based on observed capture times and compare its performance by simulation to that of the multicatch estimator for various scenarios with nonconstant density surfaces. while the multicatch estimator is found to be a surprisingly robust estimator of average density, its performance deteriorates with high trap saturation and increasing density gradients. moreover, it is found to be a poor estimator of the height of the detection function. by contrast, the single-catch estimators of density, distribution, and detection function parameters are found to be unbiased or nearly unbiased in all scenarios considered. this gain comes at the cost of higher variance. if there is no interest in interpreting the detection function parameters themselves, and if density is expected to be fairly constant over the survey region, then the multicatch estimator performs well with single-catch traps. however if accurate estimation of the detection function is of interest, or if density is expected to vary substantially in space, then there is merit in using the single-catch estimator when trap saturation is above about 60%. the estimator's performance is improved if care is taken to place traps so as to span the range of variables that affect animal distribution. as a single-catch likelihood with unknown capture times remains intractable for now, researchers using single-catch traps should aim to incorporate timing devices with their traps." disruptive viability selection on a black plumage trait associated with dominance,badge of status; capture-recapture; fitness; fluctuating selection; individual variation; longitudinal study; melanin; mixed models; social selection,JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY,ACKER P;GREGOIRE A;RAT M;SPOTTISWOODE CN;VAN DIJK RE;PAQUET M;KADEN JC;PRADEL R;HATCHWELL BJ;COVAS R;DOUTRELANT C,"traits used in communication, such as colour signals, are expected to have positive consequences for reproductive success, but their associations with survival are little understood. previous studies have mainly investigated linear relationships between signals and survival, but both hump-shaped and u-shaped relationships can also be predicted, depending on the main costs involved in trait expression. furthermore, few studies have taken the plasticity of signals into account in viability selection analyses. the relationship between signal expression and survival is of particular interest in melanin-based traits, because their main costs are still debated. here, we first determined the main factors explaining variability in a melanin-based trait linked to dominance: the bib size of a colonial bird, the sociable weaver philetairus socius. we then used these analyses to obtain a measure representative of the individual mean expression of bib size. finally, we used capture-recapture models to study how survival varied in relation to bib size. variation in bib size was strongly affected by year and moderately affected by age, body condition and colony size. in addition, individuals bearing small and large bibs had higher survival than those with intermediate bibs, and this u-shaped relationship between survival and bib size appeared to be more pronounced in some years than others. these results constitute a rare example of disruptive viability selection, and point towards the potential importance of social costs incurred by the dominance signalling function of badges of status." @@ -1879,36 +1882,36 @@ disruptive viability selection on a black plumage trait associated with dominanc hide and seek: extended camera-trap session lengths and autumn provide best parameters for estimating lynx densities in mountainous areas,lynx lynx; spatially explicit capture-recapture model (secr); camera traps; forested areas; mountainous areas; density estimates,BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,WEINGARTH K;ZEPPENFELD T;HEIBL C;HEURICH M;BUFKA L;DANISZOVA K;MULLER J,"a tool commonly used in wildlife biology is density estimation via camera-trap monitoring coupled with capture-recapture analysis. reliable regional density estimations of animal populations are required as a basis for management decisions. however, these estimations are affected by the session design, such as the length of the monitoring session, season, and number of trap sites. this method is regularly used to monitor eurasian lynx (lynx lynx) which mostly occupy the forested mountain ranges in central europe. here we used intensive field sampling data of a major central european lynx population to investigate (1) the optimal monitoring session length considering the trade-off between population closure and number of recaptures for density estimates, (2) the optimal time window within the year considering the stability of density estimates, detection probability, recapture number, and reproduction, and (3) the number of trap sites and trap spacing required to achieve robust density estimates. using two closure tests, we found that 80 days are the minimum to ensure adequate data quality. a spatially explicit capture-recapture model revealed the best monitoring period to be late summer to early winter. based on our results, we recommend for similar management units of comparable size (similar to 300 km(2)) and similar recapture numbers to sample for at least 80 days in autumn with traps spaced about every 2.5-3 km. our results also indicated that stable density estimates could still be maintained when the sampling area is enlarged to 760 km(2) with trap spacing every 5-6 km if session lengths are increased." mark-recapture estimation of snag standing rates in northern arizona mixed-conifer and ponderosa pine forests,aspen; dead trees; douglas-fir; gambel oak; pinus ponderosa; snag dynamics; snag longevity; white fir,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GANEY JL;WHITE GC;JENNESS JS;VOJTA SC,"snags (standing dead trees) are important components of forests that provide resources for numerous species of wildlife and contribute to decay dynamics and other ecological processes. managers charged with managing populations of snags need information about standing rates of snags and factors influencing those rates, yet such data are limited for ponderosa pine (pinus ponderosa) and especially mixed-conifer forests in the southwestern united states. we monitored standing rates of snags in 1-ha plots in arizona mixed-conifer (n=53 plots) and ponderosa pine (n=60 plots) forests from 1997 through 2012. we used the burnham live-dead, mark-resight model in program mark and multimodel inference to estimate standing rates during 5-year intervals while accounting for imperfect detection. because snag standing rates may be influenced by plot characteristics, we used plots rather than snags as sampling units and conducted bootstrap analyses (500 iterations per model) to resample plots and estimate standing rates and associated parameters. we modeled standing rates in 3 discrete steps. first, we selected a parsimonious base model from a set of models including snag species, and then we evaluated models created by adding snag and plot covariates to the base model in steps 2 and 3, respectively. snag standing rates differed among snag species and 5-year sampling intervals. standing rates were positively related to snag diameter, negatively related to snag height, and were lower for snags with intact tops than for broken-topped snags. standing rates also were positively related to topographic roughness, elevation, tree density, and an index of northness, and negatively related to slope and relative topographic exposure. our results provide comparative data on standing rates of multiple species of snags based on a large and spatially extensive sample and rigorous analysis, and quantify the relative importance of several snag and plot characteristics on those rates. they indicate that modeling snag dynamics is complicated by both spatial and temporal variation in standing rates and identify areas where further work is needed to facilitate such modeling. published 2015. this article is a u.s. government work and is in the public domain in the usa." slow life history and rapid extreme flood: demographic mechanisms and their consequences on population viability in a threatened amphibian,amphibian; bombina variegata; flood; life history; multi-event capture-recapture model,FRESHWATER BIOLOGY,CAYUELA H;ARSOVSKI D;BOITAUD S;BONNAIRE E;BOUALIT L;MIAUD C;JOLY P;BESNARD A,"1.in the northern hemisphere, an increase in both the frequency and magnitude of violent flooding events has been reported due to climate change. according to life history theory, one might postulate that in slow' species: (i) environmental canalisation may act as a selective force that minimises to some extent adult survival variations caused by catastrophic flood and (ii) extreme flooding events would cause important variations in recruitment and young survival. hence, it may be hypothesised that (iii) the population growth rate of slow' species might be relatively insensitive to changes in the frequency of extreme climatic events if adult survival remains largely unaffected. 2.in this study, we investigated how extreme rainfall events resulting in severe flood impact population dynamics of a long-lived endangered amphibian, the yellow-bellied toad (bombina variegata: bombinatoridae). to address this issue, we used capture-recapture (cr) data collected on two populations (768 and 1154 individuals identified) in southern france and developed multi-event cr models. 3.our results indicated that extreme flooding did not cause any variation in sub-adult or adult survival, whereas recruitment and juvenile survival were negatively impacted. furthermore, our simulations indicated that the population growth rate was only marginally sensitive to potential changes in the frequency of extreme flooding in the future. 4.hence, we suggest that extreme flooding does not appear to be a proximal factor of extinction risk for this endangered amphibian species." -indirect effects of bioinvasions in yellowstone lake: the response of river otters to declines in native cutthroat trout,aquatic-terrestrial linkages; capture-recapture; introduced species; noninvasive sampling; population size; spawning,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,CRAIT JR;REGEHR EV;BEN-DAVID M,"nonnative species threaten ecosystems throughout the world including protected reserves. in yellowstone national park, river otters lontra canadensis depend on native cutthroat trout as prey. however, nonnative lake trout and whirling disease have significantly reduced the abundance of these native fish in the park's largest body of water, yellowstone lake. we studied the demographic and behavioral responses of otters to declining cutthroat trout on yellowstone lake and its tributaries. from 2002-2008, we monitored otter activity at latrine (scentmarking) sites, collected scat for prey identification, and used individual genotypes from scat and hair samples to evaluate survival and abundance with capture-recapture methods. otter activity at latrines decreased with declines in cutthroat trout, and the prevalence of these fish in otter scat declined from 73% to 53%. cutthroat trout numbers were the best predictor of temporal variation in apparent survival, and mean annual survival for otters was low (0.72). the density of otters in out study area (1 otter per 13.4 km of shoreline) was also low, and evidence of a recent genetic bottleneck suggests that otter abundance might have declined prior to our study. river otters in and around yellowstone lake appear to be responding to reductions in cutthroat trout via changes in distribution, diet, and possibly survival and abundance. our results provide a baseline estimate for monitoring the broader outcome of management efforts to conserve native cutthroat trout and emphasize the indirect ecosystem consequences of invasive species. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +indirect effects of bioinvasions in yellowstone lake: the response of river otters to declines in native cutthroat trout,aquatic-terrestrial linkages; capture-recapture; introduced species; noninvasive sampling; population size; spawning,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,CRAIT JR;REGEHR EV;BEN DAVID M,"nonnative species threaten ecosystems throughout the world including protected reserves. in yellowstone national park, river otters lontra canadensis depend on native cutthroat trout as prey. however, nonnative lake trout and whirling disease have significantly reduced the abundance of these native fish in the park's largest body of water, yellowstone lake. we studied the demographic and behavioral responses of otters to declining cutthroat trout on yellowstone lake and its tributaries. from 2002-2008, we monitored otter activity at latrine (scentmarking) sites, collected scat for prey identification, and used individual genotypes from scat and hair samples to evaluate survival and abundance with capture-recapture methods. otter activity at latrines decreased with declines in cutthroat trout, and the prevalence of these fish in otter scat declined from 73% to 53%. cutthroat trout numbers were the best predictor of temporal variation in apparent survival, and mean annual survival for otters was low (0.72). the density of otters in out study area (1 otter per 13.4 km of shoreline) was also low, and evidence of a recent genetic bottleneck suggests that otter abundance might have declined prior to our study. river otters in and around yellowstone lake appear to be responding to reductions in cutthroat trout via changes in distribution, diet, and possibly survival and abundance. our results provide a baseline estimate for monitoring the broader outcome of management efforts to conserve native cutthroat trout and emphasize the indirect ecosystem consequences of invasive species. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." compensatory immigration counteracts contrasting conservation strategies of wolverines (gulo gulo) within scandinavia,gulo gulo; harvest; multi-state models; non-invasive genetic sampling; survival; trans-boundary management; wolverine,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,GERVASI V;BROSETH H;NILSEN EB;ELLEGREN H;FLAGSTAD O;LINNELL JDC,"in wide ranging species, portions of the same population often fall within different administrative jurisdictions; where different regulations apply. the same species can be fully protected or heavily harvested on different sides of a border. this can generate a source-sink dynamic from the areas with lower to those with higher mortality, a process known as compensatory immigration. we tested this hypothesis on the wolverine (gulo o gulo) population of southern scandinavia, which is shared between two countries: sweden and norway. wolverines are fully protected in sweden, but subject to intensive population regulation in norway. using non-invasive genetic sampling and capture-recapture modeling, we analyzed the dynamics of wolverine survival and emigration patterns between 2002 and 2013. wolverines in norway experienced a lower survival than in sweden. migration across the national border was directed towards movements from sweden to norway. there was a functional relationship between harvest rate in norway and emigration rates across the national border, both at the individual and population level, thus confirming the compensatory immigration hypothesis. contrasting management regimes within the same population can generate undesired demographic and spatial dynamics, jeopardize conservation goals on the two sides of a border, and reduce the efficiency of management actions. this calls for the adoption of a coordinate population approach in large carnivore conservation and management. failing to do so can cause a waste of the already limited resources allocated for large carnivore conservation, and it might hinder effective conflict mitigation. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." evidence of population resistance to extreme low flows in a fluvial-dependent fish species,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,KATZ RA;FREEMAN MC,"extreme low streamflows are natural disturbances to aquatic populations. species in naturally intermittent streams display adaptations that enhance persistence during extreme events; however, the fate of populations in perennial streams during unprecedented low-flow periods is not well-understood. biota requiring swift-flowing habitats may be especially vulnerable to flow reductions. we estimated the abundance and local survival of a native fluvial-dependent fish species (etheostoma inscriptum) across 5 years encompassing historic low flows in a sixth-order southeastern usa perennial river. based on capture-mark-recapture data, the study shoal may have acted as a refuge during severe drought, with increased young-of-the-year (yoy) recruitment and occasionally high adult immigration. contrary to expectations, summer and autumn survival rates (30 days) were not strongly depressed during low-flow periods, despite 25%-80% reductions in monthly discharge. instead, yoy survival increased with lower minimum discharge and in response to small rain events that increased low-flow variability. age-1+ fish showed the opposite pattern, with survival decreasing in response to increasing low-flow variability. results from this population dynamics study of a small fish in a perennial river suggest that fluvial-dependent species can be resistant to extreme flow reductions through enhanced yoy recruitment and high survival." estimating the size of hidden populations using respondent-driven sampling data case examples from morocco,NA,EPIDEMIOLOGY,JOHNSTON LG;MCLAUGHLIN KR;EL RHILANI H;LATIFI A;TOUFIK A;BENNANI A;ALAMI K;ELOMARI B;HANDCOCK MS,"background: respondent-driven sampling is used worldwide to estimate the population prevalence of characteristics, such as hiv/aids and associated risk factors in hard-to-reach populations. estimating the total size of these populations is of great interest to national and international organizations; however, reliable measures of population size often do not exist. methods: successive sampling-population size estimation (ss-pse) along with network size imputation allows population size estimates to be made without relying on separate studies or additional data (as in network scale-up, multiplier, and capture-recapture methods), which may be biased. results: ten population size estimates were calculated for people who inject drugs, female sex workers, men who have sex with other men, and migrants from sub-saharan africa in six different cities in morocco. ss-pse estimates fell within or very close to the likely values provided by experts and the estimates from previous studies using other methods. conclusions: ss-pse is an effective method for estimating the size of hard-to-reach populations that leverages important information within respondent-driven sampling studies. the addition of a network size imputation method helps to smooth network sizes allowing for more accurate results. however, caution should be used particularly when there is reason to believe that clustered subgroups may exist within the population of interest or when the sample size is small in relation to the population." -road traffic injuries in northern laos: trends and risk factors of an underreported public health problem,traffic; road; injury; accident; laos; hospital survey; capture-recapture,TROPICAL MEDICINE & INTERNATIONAL HEALTH,SLESAK G;INTHALATH S;WILDER-SMITH A;BARENNES H,"objectivesroad traffic injuries (rti) have become a leading cause for admissions at luang namtha provincial hospital (lnph) in rapidly developing northern laos. objectives were to investigate trends, risk factors and better estimates of rti. methodsrepeated annual surveys were conducted with structured questionnaires among all rti patients at lnph from 2007 to 2011. hospital and police data were combined by capture-recapture method. resultsthe majority of 1074 patients were young [median 22years (1-88)], male (68%), motorcyclists (76%), drove without licence (85%) and without insurance (95%). most accidents occurred during evenings and lao new year. serious motorbike injuries were associated with young age (1-15years), male sex (or 2.2, 95% ci 1.1-4.6) and drivers (or 2.1, 95% ci 1.1-4.3); more serious head injuries with alcohol consumption (or 2.5, 95% ci 1.7-3.7), male sex (or 2.3, 95% ci 1.4-3.7) and no helmet use (or 2.0, 95% ci 1.2-3.4). no helmet use was associated with young age, time period, pillion passengers (or 2.7, 95% ci 1.6-4.7), alcohol (or 1.9, 95% ci 1.2-2.8) and no driver license (or 2.0; 95% ci 1.1-3.4). main reasons not to wear helmets were not possessing one, and being pillion passenger. capture-recapture analysis showed four times higher rti estimates than officially reported. mortality rate was 11.6/100.000 population (95% ci 5.1-18.1/100.000). conclusionsrti were substantially underestimated. combining hospital with police data can provide better estimates in resource-limited settings. preventive programmes and law enforcement have to target male drivers, alcohol, licensing and helmet use, especially among children and pillion passengers. increased efforts are needed during evening time and special festivals." -"density of river otters (lontra canadensis) in relation to energy development in the green river basin, wyoming",conductivity; contamination; disturbance; habitat quality; hydraulic fracturing; lontra canadensis; river otters; salmonids; sentinel species; surface water,SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT,GODWIN BL;ALBEKE SE;BERGMAN HL;WALTERS A;BEN-DAVID M,"exploration and extraction of oil and natural gas have increased in recent years and are expected to expand in the future. reduction in water quality from energy extraction may negatively affect water supply for agriculture and urban use within catchments as well as down river. we used non-invasive genetic techniques and capture-recapture modeling to estimate the abundance and density of north american river otters (lontra canadensis), a sentinel species of aquatic ecosystems, in southwestern wyoming. while densities in two of three river reaches were similar to those reported in other freshwater systems in the western us (1.45-2.39 km per otter), otters appeared to avoid areas near energy development. we found no strong difference in habitat variables, such as overstory cover, at the site or reach level. also, fish abundance was similar among the three river reaches. otter activity in our study area could have been affected by elevated levels of disturbance surrounding the industrial gas fields, and by potential surface water contamination as indicated by patterns in water conductivity. continued monitoring of surface water quality in southwestern wyoming with the aid of continuously recording devices and sentinel species is warranted. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +road traffic injuries in northern laos: trends and risk factors of an underreported public health problem,traffic; road; injury; accident; laos; hospital survey; capture-recapture,TROPICAL MEDICINE & INTERNATIONAL HEALTH,SLESAK G;INTHALATH S;WILDER SMITH A;BARENNES H,"objectivesroad traffic injuries (rti) have become a leading cause for admissions at luang namtha provincial hospital (lnph) in rapidly developing northern laos. objectives were to investigate trends, risk factors and better estimates of rti. methodsrepeated annual surveys were conducted with structured questionnaires among all rti patients at lnph from 2007 to 2011. hospital and police data were combined by capture-recapture method. resultsthe majority of 1074 patients were young [median 22years (1-88)], male (68%), motorcyclists (76%), drove without licence (85%) and without insurance (95%). most accidents occurred during evenings and lao new year. serious motorbike injuries were associated with young age (1-15years), male sex (or 2.2, 95% ci 1.1-4.6) and drivers (or 2.1, 95% ci 1.1-4.3); more serious head injuries with alcohol consumption (or 2.5, 95% ci 1.7-3.7), male sex (or 2.3, 95% ci 1.4-3.7) and no helmet use (or 2.0, 95% ci 1.2-3.4). no helmet use was associated with young age, time period, pillion passengers (or 2.7, 95% ci 1.6-4.7), alcohol (or 1.9, 95% ci 1.2-2.8) and no driver license (or 2.0; 95% ci 1.1-3.4). main reasons not to wear helmets were not possessing one, and being pillion passenger. capture-recapture analysis showed four times higher rti estimates than officially reported. mortality rate was 11.6/100.000 population (95% ci 5.1-18.1/100.000). conclusionsrti were substantially underestimated. combining hospital with police data can provide better estimates in resource-limited settings. preventive programmes and law enforcement have to target male drivers, alcohol, licensing and helmet use, especially among children and pillion passengers. increased efforts are needed during evening time and special festivals." +"density of river otters (lontra canadensis) in relation to energy development in the green river basin, wyoming",conductivity; contamination; disturbance; habitat quality; hydraulic fracturing; lontra canadensis; river otters; salmonids; sentinel species; surface water,SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT,GODWIN BL;ALBEKE SE;BERGMAN HL;WALTERS A;BEN DAVID M,"exploration and extraction of oil and natural gas have increased in recent years and are expected to expand in the future. reduction in water quality from energy extraction may negatively affect water supply for agriculture and urban use within catchments as well as down river. we used non-invasive genetic techniques and capture-recapture modeling to estimate the abundance and density of north american river otters (lontra canadensis), a sentinel species of aquatic ecosystems, in southwestern wyoming. while densities in two of three river reaches were similar to those reported in other freshwater systems in the western us (1.45-2.39 km per otter), otters appeared to avoid areas near energy development. we found no strong difference in habitat variables, such as overstory cover, at the site or reach level. also, fish abundance was similar among the three river reaches. otter activity in our study area could have been affected by elevated levels of disturbance surrounding the industrial gas fields, and by potential surface water contamination as indicated by patterns in water conductivity. continued monitoring of surface water quality in southwestern wyoming with the aid of continuously recording devices and sentinel species is warranted. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." bayesian modeling of prion disease dynamics in mule deer using population monitoring and capture-recapture data,NA,PLOS ONE,GEREMIA C;MILLER MW;HOETING JA;ANTOLIN MF;HOBBS NT,"epidemics of chronic wasting disease (cwd) of north american cervidae have potential to harm ecosystems and economies. we studied a migratory population of mule deer (odocoileus hemionus) affected by cwd for at least three decades using a bayesian framework to integrate matrix population and disease models with long-term monitoring data and detailed process-level studies. we hypothesized cwd prevalence would be stable or increase between two observation periods during the late 1990s and after 2010, with higher cwd prevalence making deer population decline more likely. the weight of evidence suggested a reduction in the cwd outbreak over time, perhaps in response to intervening harvest-mediated population reductions. disease effects on deer population growth under current conditions were subtle with a 72% chance that cwd depressed population growth. with cwd, we forecasted a growth rate near one and largely stable deer population. disease effects appear to be moderated by timing of infection, prolonged disease course, and locally variable infection. long-term outcomes will depend heavily on whether current conditions hold and high prevalence remains a localized phenomenon." multi-population analysis of puget sound steelhead survival and migration behavior,steelhead; survival; smolts; migration; telemetry,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,MOORE ME;BEREJIKIAN BA;GOETZ FA;BERGER AG;HODGSON SS;CONNOR EJ;QUINN TP,"until recently, research on mortality of anadromous fishes in the marine environment was largely limited to estimates of total mortality and association with group characteristics or the environment. advances in sonic transmitter technology now allow estimates of survival in discrete marine habitats, yielding important information on species of conservation concern. previous telemetry studies of steelhead oncorhynchus mykiss smolts in puget sound, washington, usa indicated that approx. 80% of fish entering marine waters did not survive to the pacific ocean. the present study re-examined data from previous research and incorporated data from additional puget sound populations (n = 7 wild and 6 hatchery populations) tagged during the same period (2006-2009) for a comprehensive analysis of steelhead early marine survival. we used mark-recapture models to examine the effects of several factors on smolt survival and to identify areas of puget sound where mortality rates were highest. wild smolts had higher survival probabilities in general than hatchery smolts, with exceptions, and wild smolts released in early april and late may had a higher probability of survival than those released in early and mid-may. steelhead smolts suffered greater instantaneous mortality rates in the central region of puget sound and from the north end of hood canal through admiralty inlet than in other monitored migration segments. early marine survival rates were low (16.0 and 11.4% for wild and hatchery populations, respectively) and consistent among wild populations, indicating a common rather than watershed-specific mortality source. with segment-specific survival information we can begin to identify locations associated with high rates of mortality, and identify the mechanisms responsible." the capture-recapture approach for population estimation in computer networks,populations; computer networks; capture-recapture; maximum-likelihood,COMPUTER NETWORKS,ACCETTURA N;NEGLIA G;GRIECO LA,"the estimation of a large population's size by means of sampling procedures is a key issue in many networking scenarios. their application domains span from rfid systems to peer-to-peer networks; from traffic analysis to wireless sensor networks; from multicast networks to wlans. the present contribution aims at illustrating and classifying in a coherent framework the main approaches proposed so far in the computer networks literature to deal with such a problem. in particular, starting from the methodologies proposed in ecological studies since the last century, this paper surveys their counterparts in the computer network domain, finding that many lessons can be gained from this insightful investigation. capture-recapture techniques are deeply analyzed to allow the reader to exactly understand their pros, cons, and applicability bounds. finally, some open issues that deserve further investigations and could be relevant to afford estimation problems in next generation internet are discussed for sake of completeness. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -"behavioural processes, ephemeral resources and spring population dynamics of an insular lizard, podarcis lilfordi (squamata: lacertidae)",population dynamics; podarcis lilfordi; capture-recapture; uneven sex ratio; balearic islands,ITALIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,PEREZ-MELLADO V;GARCIA-DIEZ T;HERNANDEZ-ESTEVEZ JA;TAVECCHIA G,"temporal changes in adult sex ratio of animal populations might be due to differences in movements, survival or detection probabilities. we used data from an intensive capture-mark-recapture study of 720 lizards at the islet of aire (balearic islands, spain) to investigate the demographic mechanisms underlying the spring uneven sex ratio. we simultaneously estimated survival (f), the proportion of transient animals (p) and the probability of recapture (p) of lizards at the study plot. we then estimated population size using open population models for individually based data and compared these with the observed values. results indicated that males had a higher probability of recapture than females, but this was not sufficient to generate the observed male-biased sex ratio. the proportion of transient males decreased at the end of spring in parallel with the end of the blooming period of the dead horse arum, helicodiceros muscivorus, a short-lasting food and thermoregulation resource for lizards during spring. changes in the proportion of transients suggested that sex-dependent movements, most likely linked to a monopolising behaviour of this plant resource, were responsible for the observed difference in the number of males and females. our results reveal how the interplay of behavioural and ecological factors explains short-term changes in population dynamics and shapes the movement patterns within the island." +"behavioural processes, ephemeral resources and spring population dynamics of an insular lizard, podarcis lilfordi (squamata: lacertidae)",population dynamics; podarcis lilfordi; capture-recapture; uneven sex ratio; balearic islands,ITALIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,PEREZ MELLADO V;GARCIA DIEZ T;HERNANDEZ ESTEVEZ JA;TAVECCHIA G,"temporal changes in adult sex ratio of animal populations might be due to differences in movements, survival or detection probabilities. we used data from an intensive capture-mark-recapture study of 720 lizards at the islet of aire (balearic islands, spain) to investigate the demographic mechanisms underlying the spring uneven sex ratio. we simultaneously estimated survival (f), the proportion of transient animals (p) and the probability of recapture (p) of lizards at the study plot. we then estimated population size using open population models for individually based data and compared these with the observed values. results indicated that males had a higher probability of recapture than females, but this was not sufficient to generate the observed male-biased sex ratio. the proportion of transient males decreased at the end of spring in parallel with the end of the blooming period of the dead horse arum, helicodiceros muscivorus, a short-lasting food and thermoregulation resource for lizards during spring. changes in the proportion of transients suggested that sex-dependent movements, most likely linked to a monopolising behaviour of this plant resource, were responsible for the observed difference in the number of males and females. our results reveal how the interplay of behavioural and ecological factors explains short-term changes in population dynamics and shapes the movement patterns within the island." "black-tailed and white-tailed jackrabbits in the american west: history, ecology, ecological significance, and survey methods",NA,WESTERN NORTH AMERICAN NATURALIST,SIMES MT;LONGSHORE KM;NUSSEAR KE;BEATTY GL;BROWN DE;ESQUE TC,"across the western united states, leporidae are the most important prey item in the diet of golden eagles (aquila chrysaetos). leporids inhabiting the western united states include black-tailed (lepus californicus) and white-tailed jackrabbits (lepus townsendii) and various species of cottontail rabbit (sylvilagus spp.). jackrabbits (lepus spp.) are particularly important components of the ecological and economic landscape of western north america because their abundance influences the reproductive success and population trends of predators such as coyotes (canis latrans), bobcats (lynx rufus), and a number of raptor species. here, we review literature pertaining to black-tailed and white-tailed jackrabbits comprising over 170 published journal articles, notes, technical reports, conference proceedings, academic theses and dissertations, and other sources dating from the late 19th century to the present. our goal is to present information to assist those in research and management, particularly with regard to protected raptor species (e.g., golden eagles), mammalian predators, and ecological monitoring. we classified literature sources as (1) general information on jackrabbit species, (2) black-tailed or (3) white-tailed jackrabbit ecology and natural history, or (4) survey methods. these categories, especially 2, 3, and 4, were further subdivided as appropriate. the review also produced several tables on population trends, food habits, densities within various habitats, and jackrabbit growth and development. black-tailed and white-tailed jackrabbits are ecologically similar in general behaviors, use of forms, parasites, and food habits, and they are prey to similar predators; but they differ in their preferred habitats. while the black-tailed jackrabbit inhabits agricultural land, deserts, and shrublands, the white-tailed jackrabbit is associated with prairies, alpine tundra, and sagebrush-steppe. frequently considered abundant, jackrabbit numbers in western north america fluctuate temporally and spatially. we also reviewed methods used to investigate jackrabbit populations, including spotlight line transects, flushing transects, drive counts, pellet plot counts, collections, roadside counts, mark-recapture studies, and radio-telemetry studies. our review of jackrabbit literature illustrates a number of deficiencies in our understanding of jackrabbits in general. as an example, a detailed quantitative description of habitat preferences is lacking, as is a thorough understanding of sympatric jackrabbit species interactions. even the existence of the oft-cited jackrabbit ""cycle"" is a matter of debate. survey methods generally do not address efficacy or accuracy in measuring jackrabbit density or abundance. in addition, there is a paucity of information about jackrabbits in the mojave desert, with no real understanding of home ranges, habitat preferences, and population dynamics or demographics in this region." effects of sex and age on heterothermy in goodman's mouse lemur (microcebus lehilahytsara),hibernation; microcebus lehilahytsara; mouse lemur; seasonality; sex differences; torpor; zoo zurich,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY,KARANEWSKY CJ;BAUERT MR;WRIGHT PC,"all habitats of madagascar go through a dry season from april to september each year, resulting in a period of fruit scarcity lasting up to 6 months and creating selection pressure for adaptation to fluctuations in resources. some cheirogaleid lemurs, including mouse lemurs (microcebus), use daily torpor and long-term hibernation during this period, saving energy through inactivity. capture-recapture studies in some mouse lemur populations have suggested a pattern of biased sex ratio throughout the winter as a result of females hibernating while most males remain active. we studied winter activity in a captive population of microcebus lehilahytsara, goodman's mouse lemur, in a large enclosure at zoo zurich, switzerland using capture-recapture methods to determine how this behavior varies with sex and age, and what this pattern suggests about the ultimate cause of torpor use in this clade. our results suggest that goodman's mouse lemurs use torpor to avoid seasonal food shortage, even though they experience less extreme seasonal variability of food availability than western dry forest mouse lemurs. male and female goodman's mouse lemurs are equally capable of winter torpor, and most remaining active individuals are young that have not sufficiently fattened. this suggests that the ""ideal"" winter behavior for both males and females is torpor, which ultimately avoids periods of seasonal food scarcity." determinants of capture-recapture success: an evaluation of trapping methods to estimate population and community parameters for atlantic forest small mammals,abundance; biodiversity survey; demography; richness; trapping protocol,ZOOLOGIA,BARROS CS;PUTTKER T;PINOTTI BT;PARDINI R,"efficiently obtaining high-quality data on animal populations and communities is paramount for ecological and conservation studies. in many instances these data come from live-trapping, the success of which depends on various factors, such as the interaction between the trap's mechanisms and the morphological or ecological characteristics of the animals, and weather conditions that can affect both trap efficiency and animal behavior. integrative approaches that address the simultaneous effects of these factors on capture-recapture success are rare. here we contribute to close this knowledge gap by focusing on a large capture-recapture dataset from three 2-ha grids monitored for approximately two years (totaling 55.000 traps-night) in the morro grande forest reserve, sao paulo, brazil. the dataset contains data on 3608 captures of 1273 individuals from 24 species of atlantic forest small mammals. we evaluated if mortality rates and the capture-recapture success of small mammals varied between two types of trap (sherman and pitfall), and if the capture success of each type varied with age and sex of individuals, and with weather conditions. our findings highlight that trap efficiency depends not only on the quantities considered (species, individuals or recaptures), but also on animal characteristics and weather conditions. large pitfall traps should be used whenever the focus is on biodiversity and community parameters, since they captured more individuals and species. studies focusing on demographic parameters require the combined use of pitfall and sherman traps. while pitfall traps captured a larger number of individuals and a higher proportion of juveniles, sherman traps provided higher recapture rates for most species." -breeding phenology and winter activity predict subsequent breeding success in a trans-global migratory seabird,phenology; migration; machine learning; adaptive boosting; multi-event capture-mark-recapture model,BIOLOGY LETTERS,SHOJI A;ARIS-BROSOU S;CULINA A;FAYET A;KIRK H;PADGET O;JUAREZ-MARTINEZ I;BOYLE D;NAKATA T;PERRINS CM;GUILFORD T,"inter-seasonal events are believed to connect and affect reproductive performance (rp) in animals. however, much remains unknown about such carry-over effects (coes), in particular how behaviour patterns during highly mobile life-history stages, such as migration, affect rp. to address this question, we measured at-sea behaviour in a long-lived migratory sea-bird, the manx shearwater (puffinus puffinus) and obtained data for individual migration cycles over 5 years, by tracking with geolocator/immersion loggers, along with 6 years of rp data. we found that individual breeding and non-breeding phenology correlated with subsequent rp, with birds hyperactive during winter more likely to fail to reproduce. furthermore, parental investment during one year influenced breeding success during the next, a coe reflecting the trade-off between current and future rp. our results suggest that different life-history stages interact to influence rp in the next breeding season, so that behaviour patterns during winter may be important determinants of variation in subsequent fitness among individuals." +breeding phenology and winter activity predict subsequent breeding success in a trans-global migratory seabird,phenology; migration; machine learning; adaptive boosting; multi-event capture-mark-recapture model,BIOLOGY LETTERS,SHOJI A;ARIS BROSOU S;CULINA A;FAYET A;KIRK H;PADGET O;JUAREZ MARTINEZ I;BOYLE D;NAKATA T;PERRINS CM;GUILFORD T,"inter-seasonal events are believed to connect and affect reproductive performance (rp) in animals. however, much remains unknown about such carry-over effects (coes), in particular how behaviour patterns during highly mobile life-history stages, such as migration, affect rp. to address this question, we measured at-sea behaviour in a long-lived migratory sea-bird, the manx shearwater (puffinus puffinus) and obtained data for individual migration cycles over 5 years, by tracking with geolocator/immersion loggers, along with 6 years of rp data. we found that individual breeding and non-breeding phenology correlated with subsequent rp, with birds hyperactive during winter more likely to fail to reproduce. furthermore, parental investment during one year influenced breeding success during the next, a coe reflecting the trade-off between current and future rp. our results suggest that different life-history stages interact to influence rp in the next breeding season, so that behaviour patterns during winter may be important determinants of variation in subsequent fitness among individuals." dispersal and survival of a polygynandrous passerine,arctic; breeding-site fidelity; calcarius pictus; mark-recapture; natal philopatry; smith's longspur,AUK,CRAIG HR;KENDALL S;WILD T;POWELL AN,"although sex biases in survival and dispersal are thought to be linked to avian mating systems, little is known about these demographic patterns in less common mating strategies such as polygynandry. we investigated breeding-site fidelity, natal philopatry, and apparent survival of the polygynandrous smith's longspur (calcarius pictus) over a 7-yr period at 2 areas in alaska's brooks range. we used capture-recapture histories of 243 color-banded adults and 431 juveniles to estimate annual survival and determined dispersal patterns from 34 adults that were found breeding within the study areas over multiple years. most adults (88%) returned to nest in the same breeding neighborhood as in previous years; mean dispersal distance was 300.9 +/- 74.2 m and did not differ between sexes. juveniles exhibited low natal philopatry; only 4% of banded hatch-year birds were resighted as adults during subsequent years. those that did return dispersed, on average, 1,674.4 +/- 465.8 m from their natal nests (n = 6). model-averaged survival estimates indicated that annual survival of adult females (50-58%) was only slightly lower than that of males (60-63%); juvenile survival was 41% but was paired with a low (13%) encounter probability. we attribute the lack of sex bias in adult dispersal to this species' polygynandrous mating strategy. within this system, there are multiple mates within a breeding neighborhood. we argue that natural selection may favor females that remain on the same, familiar breeding site, because they do not have to disperse to a new area to find a suitable mate. dispersal among breeding populations most likely occurs by juveniles returning as adults. our findings support hypotheses that suggest a relationship between dispersal and mating strategy and provide some of the first insight into the demographic patterns of a polygynandrous passerine." combining survey methods to estimate abundance and transience of migratory birds among tropical nonbreeding habitats,density; distance sampling; mark-recapture; migratory species; nonbreeding season; survey methods; territory mapping; transients,AUK,PEELE AM;MARRA PM;SILLETT TS;SHERRY TW,"estimating population abundance for territorial species is challenging because individuals often differ in behavior (e.g., transience, multiterritoriality), and thus in detectability. how well prevailing methods detect and quantify individuals using multiple strategies is rarely addressed. in our effort to efficiently quantify avian abundance and transience among diverse nonbreeding habitats, we combined 'unmarked' (distance sampling) with traditional 'marked' (territory mapping) survey methods using a migratory passerine, the american redstart (setophaga ruticilla), wintering in 3 habitats in jamaica from 2010 to 2012. we predicted that the 'unmarked' survey method would detect not only all known (marked) territorial individuals, but also individuals that were transient or nonterritorial in the same habitats. comparisons of abundance estimates generated by our best distance sampling (unmarked) model with territory mapping data identified high proportions of transient individuals (up to 50%) in 2 habitats, coastal dry scrub and mangrove, and virtually none in the third habitat, higher-elevation wet limestone forest. documenting so many nonterritorial individuals, disproportionately weighted toward females and yearlings, in some habitat-year combinations prompts questions of what conditions favor transience and what role these individuals play in population processes. our results illustrate how unmarked and marked survey methods can be used jointly to establish the number and identity of transients from neighboring areas. the unmarked survey method was sufficient for estimating population size among different habitats, but marked survey methods were necessary to identify and quantify transient individuals. combined, these methods provide a powerful tool for assessing the range and variation of space-use strategies deployed by nonbreeding individuals." -cohort-dependent sex ratio biases in the american crocodiles (crocodylus acutus) of the tempisque basin,NA,COPEIA,MURRAY CM;EASTER M;PADILLA S;GARRIGOS DB;STONE JA;BOLANOS-MONTERO J;SASA M;GUYER C,"a male-biased sex ratio of 3:1 has been reported for a population of american crocodiles (crocodylus acutus) in the tempisque river basin, guanacaste, costa rica. if confirmed, this would constitute one of the largest male-biased sex ratios reported for any population of a member of the genus crocodylus. here, we examine the aforementioned population of c. acutus and report on sex ratios of hatchling, juvenile, and adult age classes within a sample of 474 crocodiles captured in the tempisque basin between may 2012 and june 2014. hatch ling sex ratio is exceptionally male biased (3.5:1), an imbalance that is maintained in juveniles but is reduced in adults (1.5:1). mark-recapture data document that juvenile males disperse from the study site, potentially to avoid competition, a process that reduces male bias in the adult age class. an increased role of males in human-crocodile conflict may be a result of juvenile males dispersing to human-inhabited areas." +cohort-dependent sex ratio biases in the american crocodiles (crocodylus acutus) of the tempisque basin,NA,COPEIA,MURRAY CM;EASTER M;PADILLA S;GARRIGOS DB;STONE JA;BOLANOS MONTERO J;SASA M;GUYER C,"a male-biased sex ratio of 3:1 has been reported for a population of american crocodiles (crocodylus acutus) in the tempisque river basin, guanacaste, costa rica. if confirmed, this would constitute one of the largest male-biased sex ratios reported for any population of a member of the genus crocodylus. here, we examine the aforementioned population of c. acutus and report on sex ratios of hatchling, juvenile, and adult age classes within a sample of 474 crocodiles captured in the tempisque basin between may 2012 and june 2014. hatch ling sex ratio is exceptionally male biased (3.5:1), an imbalance that is maintained in juveniles but is reduced in adults (1.5:1). mark-recapture data document that juvenile males disperse from the study site, potentially to avoid competition, a process that reduces male bias in the adult age class. an increased role of males in human-crocodile conflict may be a result of juvenile males dispersing to human-inhabited areas." using life history trade-offs to understand core-transient structuring of a small mammal community,core; dispersal; life-history traits; movement; small mammal; source-sink; temporal persistence; trade-offs; transient,ECOSPHERE,SUPP SR;KOONS DN;ERNEST SKM,"an emerging conceptual framework suggests that communities are composed of two main groups of species through time: core species that are temporally persistent, and transient species that are temporally intermittent. core and transient species have been shown to differ in spatiotemporal turnover, diversity patterns, and importantly, survival strategies targeted at local versus regional habitat use. while the core-transient framework has typically been a site-specific designation for species, we suggest that if core and transient species have local versus regional survival strategies across sites, and consistently differ in population-level spatial structure and gene flow, they may also typically exhibit different life-history strategies. specifically, core species should display relatively low movement rates, low reproductive effort, high ecological specialization and high survival rates compared to transient species, which may display a wider range of traits given that transience may result from source-sink dynamics or from the ability to emigrate readily in a nomadic fashion. we present results from 21 years of capture-mark-recapture data in a diverse rodent community, evaluating the linkages between temporal persistence, local abundance, and trade-offs among life-history traits. core species at our site conservatively supported our hypotheses, differing in ecological specialization, survival and movement probabilities, and reproductive effort relative to transient species. transient species exhibited a wider range of characteristics, which likely stems from the multiple processes generating transience in local communities, such as source-sink dynamics at larger regional scales or nomadic life history strategies. we suggest that trait associations among core-transient species may be similar in other systems and warrants further study." apparent annual survival of staging ruffs during a period of population decline: insights from sex and site-use related differences,capture-mark-resight; e-surge; heterogeneity of detection; multievent models; philomachus pugnax; staging behaviour,POPULATION ECOLOGY,SCHMALTZ LE;JUILLET C;TINBERGEN JM;VERKUIL YI;HOOIJMEIJER JCEW;PIERSMA T,"the ruff philomachus pugnax, a lekking shorebird wintering in africa and breeding across northern eurasia, declined severely in its western range. based on a capture-mark-resighting programme (2004-2011) in the westernmost staging area in friesland (the netherlands), we investigated changes in apparent annual survival in relation to age and sex to explore potential causes of decline. we also related temporal variation in apparent survival to environmental factors. we used the capture-mark-recapture multievent statistical framework to overcome biases in survival estimates after testing for hidden heterogeneity of detection. this enabled the estimation of the probability to belong to high or low detectability classes. apparent survival varied between years but was not related to weather patterns along the flyway, or to flood levels in the sahel. over time, a decline in apparent survival is suggested. due to a short data series and flag loss in the last period this cannot be verified. nevertheless, the patterns in sex-specific detectability and survival lead to new biological insights. among highly detectable birds, supposedly most reliant on friesland, males survived better than females ( = 0.74, range 0.51-0.93; = 0.51, range 0.24-0.81). among low detectable birds, the pattern is reversed ( = 0.64, range 0.37-0.89; = 0.73, range 0.48-0.93). probably the staging population contains a mixture of sex-specific migration strategies. a loss of staging females could greatly affect the dynamics of the western ruff population. further unravelling of these population processes requires geographically extended demographic monitoring and the use of tracking devices." estimating demographic parameters using a combination of known-fate and open n-mixture models,canis lupus; detection probability; gates of the arctic national park; alaska; usa; integrated model; known-fate models; mark-resight data; n-mixture models; recruitment; survival; wolves,ECOLOGY,SCHMIDT JH;JOHNSON DS;LINDBERG MS;ADAMS LG,"accurate estimates of demographic parameters are required to infer appropriate ecological relationships and inform management actions. known-fate data from marked individuals are commonly used to estimate survival rates, whereas n-mixture models use count data from unmarked individuals to estimate multiple demographic parameters. however, a joint approach combining the strengths of both analytical tools has not been developed. here we develop an integrated model combining known-fate and open n-mixture models, allowing the estimation of detection probability, recruitment, and the joint estimation of survival. we demonstrate our approach through both simulations and an applied example using four years of known-fate and pack count data for wolves (canis lupus). simulation results indicated that the integrated model reliably recovered parameters with no evidence of bias, and survival estimates were more precise under the joint model. results from the applied example indicated that the marked sample of wolves was biased toward individuals with higher apparent survival rates than the unmarked pack mates, suggesting that joint estimates may be more representative of the overall population. our integrated model is a practical approach for reducing bias while increasing precision and the amount of information gained from mark-resight data sets. we provide implementations in both the bugs language and an r package." an overview of the tarpon genetic recapture study in florida - a citizen science success story,tarpon; genetics; mark-recapture; citizen science; megalops atlanticus,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,GUINDON K;NEIDIG C;TRINGALI M;GRAY S;KING T;GARDINAL C;KURTH B,"the tarpon genetic recapture study started in an effort to determine how often a tarpon is caught and released in florida's growing and lucrative fishery by using dna fingerprinting techniques as a tool to identify and track individual tarpon. previous research on central and southwest gulf of mexico fisheries showed that most tarpon can survive short-term catch-and-release fishing practices. however, fishing pressure is intense during peak season, and tarpon fishing varies in time and space throughout the state. in this study, a novel method of obtaining fish tissue replaced traditional fin clipping, and citizen-scientists were utilized to collect dna samples and record capture information from tarpon they caught. benefits of using citizen scientists included being able to sample fish statewide and collect data on a species that is difficult to catch in great number. from the pilot study in 2005 through the study's end in 2014, 24,572 samples were received from volunteer anglers throughout the coastal southeastern united states, and of those, 22,992 were collected from tarpon caught in florida waters. tarpon samples were returned from fish caught along the gulf and atlantic coasts and florida keys, but regionally the database was depauperate in samples from north florida. public outreach was a critical and integral component of study promotion and angler involvement. future work based on recapture data will provide information needed to estimate recapture rates, evaluate seasonal and regional movement patterns, determine site fidelity, establish connectivity of tarpon in florida waters and over the long-term could determine if juvenile tarpon sampled within florida nursery habitats supply the adult fishery." -effective use of trails for assessing terrestrial salamander abundance and detection: a case study at great smoky mountains national park,desmognathus; eurycea; n-mixture; plethodon; visual encounter surveys,"NATURAL AREAS JOURNAL",MILANOVICH JR;HOCKING DJ;PETERMAN WE;CRAWFORD JA,"the conservation and management of wildlife species is contingent on estimating distribution and abundance. sampling of wildlife requires repeated visits to accurately determine species occurrence and to quantify abundance across temporal and spatial scales. the use of trails to sample wildlife populations is increasing and offers opportunities to potentially sample more frequently, with increased ease of access, and less disturbance to habitats, which can be important in sensitive natural areas. we examined capture data of terrestrial salamanders within great smoky mountains national park to determine if detection and abundance estimates from trail and non-trail transects were significantly different. across two, 3-week periods during june and july 2012, we sampled 195 transects (70 along trails and 125 within non-trail habitat) on multiple occasions. we found that most microhabitat variables associated with salamander detection and abundance did not differ between trail and non-trail transects. further, our models indicate detection and abundance of terrestrial salamanders were not significantly different on trail and non-trail transects. these results suggest trails can be used to accurately estimate abundance of terrestrial salamanders and may reduce the need to sample for plethodontid salamanders in sensitive habitat." +effective use of trails for assessing terrestrial salamander abundance and detection: a case study at great smoky mountains national park,desmognathus; eurycea; n-mixture; plethodon; visual encounter surveys,NATURAL AREAS JOURNAL,MILANOVICH JR;HOCKING DJ;PETERMAN WE;CRAWFORD JA,"the conservation and management of wildlife species is contingent on estimating distribution and abundance. sampling of wildlife requires repeated visits to accurately determine species occurrence and to quantify abundance across temporal and spatial scales. the use of trails to sample wildlife populations is increasing and offers opportunities to potentially sample more frequently, with increased ease of access, and less disturbance to habitats, which can be important in sensitive natural areas. we examined capture data of terrestrial salamanders within great smoky mountains national park to determine if detection and abundance estimates from trail and non-trail transects were significantly different. across two, 3-week periods during june and july 2012, we sampled 195 transects (70 along trails and 125 within non-trail habitat) on multiple occasions. we found that most microhabitat variables associated with salamander detection and abundance did not differ between trail and non-trail transects. further, our models indicate detection and abundance of terrestrial salamanders were not significantly different on trail and non-trail transects. these results suggest trails can be used to accurately estimate abundance of terrestrial salamanders and may reduce the need to sample for plethodontid salamanders in sensitive habitat." trap-shyness subsidence is a threshold function of mark-recapture interval in brown mudfish neochanna apoda populations,catchability; climate; capture probability; temperature; trap awareness; trap dependence,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,WHITE RSA;MCHUGH PA;GLOVER CN;MCINTOSH AR,"the influence of capture interval on trap shyness, and temperature, rainfall and drought on capture probability (p) in 827 brown mudfish neochanna apoda was quantified using mark-recapture models. in particular, it was hypothesized that the loss of trapping memory in marked n. apoda would lead to a capture-interval threshold required to minimize trap shyness. neochanna apoda trap shyness approximated a threshold response to capture interval, declining rapidly with increasing capture intervals up to 165days, after which p remained constant. tests for detecting trap-dependent capture probability in cormack-jolly-seber models failed to detect trap shyness in n. apoda capture histories with capture intervals averaging 16days. this confirmed the applicability of the 16day capture-interval threshold for mark-recapture studies. instead, n. apoda p was positively influenced by water temperature and rainfall during capture. these results imply that a threshold capture interval is required to minimize the trade-off between the competing assumptions of population closure and p homogeneity between capture occasions in closed mark-recapture models. moreover, environmental factors that influence behaviour could potentially confound abundance indices, and consequently abundance trends should be interpreted with caution in the face of long-term climate change, such as with global warming." "age and repeated biopsy influence antemortem prpcwd testing in mule deer (odocoileus hemionus) in colorado, usa",bayesian; capture-mark-recapture; chronic wasting disease; mule deer; prion; test sensitivity,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE DISEASES,GEREMIA C;HOETING JA;WOLFE LL;GALLOWAY NL;ANTOLIN MF;SPRAKER TR;MILLER MW;HOBBS NT,"biopsy of rectal mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue provides a useful, but imperfect, live-animal test for chronic wasting disease (cwd) in mule deer (odocoileus hemionus). it is difficult and expensive to complete these tests on free-ranging animals, and wildlife health managers will benefit from methods that can accommodate test results of varying quality. to this end, we developed a hierarchical bayesian model to estimate the probability that an individual is infected based on test results. our model was estimated with the use of data on 210 adult female mule deer repeatedly tested during 2010214. the ability to identify infected individuals correctly declined with age and may have been influenced by repeated biopsy. fewer isolated lymphoid follicles (where prpcwd accumulates) were obtained in biopsies of older deer and the proportion of follicles showing prpcwd was reduced. a deer's genotype in the prion gene (prnp) also influenced detection. at least five follicles were needed in a biopsy to assure a 95% accurate test in prnp genotype 225ss deer." -incidence of narcolepsy in germany,narcolepsy; incidence; epidemiology; germany,SLEEP,OBERLE D;DRECHSEL-BAUERLE U;SCHMIDTMANN I;MAYER G;KELLER-STANISLAWSKI B,"study objectives: following the 2009 pandemic, reports of an association between an as03 adjuvanted h1n1 pandemic influenza vaccine and narcolepsy were published. besides determining background incidence rates for narcolepsy in germany this study aimed at investigating whether there was a change in incidence rates of narcolepsy between the pre-pandemic, pandemic, and the post-pandemic period on the population level. design: retrospective epidemiological study on the incidence of narcolepsy with additional capture-recapture analysis. setting: german sleep centers. patients or participants: eligible were patients with an initial diagnosis of narcolepsy (icd10 code g47.4) within the period from january 1, 2007 to december 31, 2011. interventions: none; observational study. measurements and results: a total of 342 sleep centers were invited to participate in the study. adequate and suitable data were provided by 233 sleep centers (68.1%). a total of 1,198 patients with an initial diagnosis of narcolepsy within the observed period were included, of whom 106 (8.8%) were children and adolescents under the age of 18 years and 1,092 (91.2%) were adults. in children and adolescents, the age-standardized adjusted incidence rate significantly increased from 0.14/ 100,000 person-years in the pre-pandemic period to 0.50/100,000 person-years in the post-pandemic period (incidence density ratio, idr 3.57; 95% ci 1.94-7.00). in adults, no significant change was detectable. this increase started in spring 2009. conclusions: for the years 2007-2011, valid estimates for the incidence of narcolepsy in germany were provided. in individuals under 18, the incidence rates continuously increased from spring 2009." +incidence of narcolepsy in germany,narcolepsy; incidence; epidemiology; germany,SLEEP,OBERLE D;DRECHSEL BAUERLE U;SCHMIDTMANN I;MAYER G;KELLER STANISLAWSKI B,"study objectives: following the 2009 pandemic, reports of an association between an as03 adjuvanted h1n1 pandemic influenza vaccine and narcolepsy were published. besides determining background incidence rates for narcolepsy in germany this study aimed at investigating whether there was a change in incidence rates of narcolepsy between the pre-pandemic, pandemic, and the post-pandemic period on the population level. design: retrospective epidemiological study on the incidence of narcolepsy with additional capture-recapture analysis. setting: german sleep centers. patients or participants: eligible were patients with an initial diagnosis of narcolepsy (icd10 code g47.4) within the period from january 1, 2007 to december 31, 2011. interventions: none; observational study. measurements and results: a total of 342 sleep centers were invited to participate in the study. adequate and suitable data were provided by 233 sleep centers (68.1%). a total of 1,198 patients with an initial diagnosis of narcolepsy within the observed period were included, of whom 106 (8.8%) were children and adolescents under the age of 18 years and 1,092 (91.2%) were adults. in children and adolescents, the age-standardized adjusted incidence rate significantly increased from 0.14/ 100,000 person-years in the pre-pandemic period to 0.50/100,000 person-years in the post-pandemic period (incidence density ratio, idr 3.57; 95% ci 1.94-7.00). in adults, no significant change was detectable. this increase started in spring 2009. conclusions: for the years 2007-2011, valid estimates for the incidence of narcolepsy in germany were provided. in individuals under 18, the incidence rates continuously increased from spring 2009." "evaluating environmental, demographic and genetic effects on population-level survival in an island endemic",NA,ECOGRAPHY,PURWANDANA D;ARIEFIANDY A;IMANSYAH MJ;CIOFI C;FORSYTH DM;GORMLEY AM;RUDIHARTO H;SENO A;FORDHAM DA;GILLESPIE G;JESSOP TS,"the population dynamics of island species are considered particularly sensitive to variation in environmental, demographic and/or genetic processes. however, few studies have attempted to evaluate the relative importance of these processes for key vital rates in island endemics. we integrated the results of long-term capture-mark-recapture analysis, prey surveys, habitat quality assessments and molecular analysis to determine the causes of variation in the survival rates of komodo dragons varanus komodoensis at 10 sites on four islands in komodo national park, indonesia. using open population capture-mark-recapture methods, we ranked competing models that considered environmental, ecological, genetic and demographic effects on site-specific komodo dragon survival rates. site-specific survival rates ranged from 0.49 (95% ci: 0.33-0.68) to 0.92 (0.79-0.97) in the 10 study sites. the three highest-ranked models (i.e. qaic(c) < 2) explained approximate to 70% of variation in komodo dragon survival rates and identified interactions between inbreeding coefficients, prey biomass density and habitat quality as important explanatory variables. there was evidence of additive effects from ecological and genetic (e.g. inbreeding) processes affecting komodo dragon survival rates. our results indicate that maintaining high ungulate prey biomass and habitat quality would enhance the persistence of komodo dragon populations. assisted gene flow may also increase the genetic and demographic viability of the smaller komodo dragon populations." estimation of the size of the female sex worker population in rwanda using three different methods,hiv; aids; sexually transmitted infection; women; female sex workers; population size estimation; capture-recapture; enumeration; multiplier; africa,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STD & AIDS,MUTAGOMA M;KAYITESI C;GWIZA A;RUTON H;KOLEROS A;GUPTA N;BALISANGA H;RIEDEL DJ;NSANZIMANA S,"hiv prevalence is disproportionately high among female sex workers compared to the general population. many african countries lack useful data on the size of female sex worker populations to inform national hiv programmes. a female sex worker size estimation exercise using three different venue-based methodologies was conducted among female sex workers in all provinces of rwanda in august 2010. the female sex worker national population size was estimated using capture-recapture and enumeration methods, and the multiplier method was used to estimate the size of the female sex worker population in kigali. a structured questionnaire was also used to supplement the data. the estimated number of female sex workers by the capture-recapture method was 3205 (95% confidence interval: 2998-3412). the female sex worker size was estimated at 3348 using the enumeration method. in kigali, the female sex worker size was estimated at 2253 (95% confidence interval: 1916-2524) using the multiplier method. nearly 80% of all female sex workers in rwanda were found to be based in the capital, kigali. this study provided a first-time estimate of the female sex worker population size in rwanda using capture-recapture, enumeration, and multiplier methods. the capture-recapture and enumeration methods provided similar estimates of female sex worker in rwanda. combination of such size estimation methods is feasible and productive in low-resource settings and should be considered vital to inform national hiv programmes." a multistate mark-recapture approach to estimating survival of pit-tagged salamanders following timber harvest,amphibian; capture-recapture; cormack-jolly-seber; logging; mark-recapture; multistate model; plethodon shermani,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,CONNETTE GM;SEMLITSCH RD,"survival is a critical component of individual fitness, population dynamics and the landscape ecology of organisms. survival in animal populations is frequently estimated from capture-mark-recapture studies, yet these estimates are biased low when the permanent emigration of individuals is confounded with mortality. this systematic bias can limit the value of demographic information available for conservation and management efforts. we developed a novel multistate mark-recapture model for survival estimation in fossorial organisms that incorporates auxiliary passive integrated transponder (pit-tag) detection data to account for the possibility of permanent emigration from our study area as well as the imperfect detection of individuals. our study provides a direct comparison of mortality, emigration and reduced ground surface activity as explanations for declines in terrestrial salamander counts which are commonly reported following timber harvest. reduced ground surface activity was not supported as a likely cause for reduced counts of plethodontid salamanders after timber harvest. instead, ground surface activity was predicted to be considerably higher after timber harvest, suggesting that surface counts would under-represent the extent of population losses relative to control areas. controlling for multiple causes for non-detection of salamanders, we found evidence that survival probability was reduced while permanent emigration rates may also be elevated in the initial months after timber harvest. however, a substantial majority of salamanders were known to survive the process of initial forest stand entry and timber removal.synthesis and applications. our analysis of passive integrated transponder (pit-tag) detection data with a novel multistate mark-recapture model indicated that mortality and emigration are both potential causes for short-term reductions in salamander abundance following timber harvest. we suggest that salamander mortality is likely tied to habitat or microclimate conditions in early successional timber cuts, rather than the physical process of timber removal. our analysis of passive integrated transponder (pit-tag) detection data with a novel multistate mark-recapture model indicated that mortality and emigration are both potential causes for short-term reductions in salamander abundance following timber harvest. we suggest that salamander mortality is likely tied to habitat or microclimate conditions in early successional timber cuts, rather than the physical process of timber removal." demographic superiority with increased logging in tropical understorey insectivorous birds,apparent survival; demography; dispersal; eastern himalaya; fecundity; reverse-time mark-recapture; selective logging; understorey insectivores,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,SRINIVASAN U;HINES JE;QUADER S,"selective logging is pervasive in the tropics and is among the most urgent threats to tropical biodiversity. the vast areas of logged tropical forest are often vulnerable to relogging, clear-felling, burning or conversion to plantations, despite evidence that logged forests retain a large proportion of tropical forest species at high abundances compared with alternate land uses. however, the demographic processes (e.g. survival, fecundity) that drive community or species properties (e.g. occurrence, density) in response to logging have never been examined. we used a novel capture-recapture-based sampling design to separate insitu reproduction from immigration-fuelled recruitment to investigate the demographic vital rates of six forest-dependent understorey insectivorous bird species along a logging continuum in the eastern himalaya global biodiversity hotspot. we expected a positive relationship between forest intactness and reproductive rates, and that intact patches would contribute excess' individuals to logged patches from natal dispersal. contrary to our expectations, we found: (i) a positive relationship between logging intensity and reproduction, and (ii) evidence of natal dispersal from more logged to less logged and intact forest patches. our results indicate that for certain forest-dependent species in particular contexts, selectively logged habitats can have surprising and hitherto unrecognized demographic value that might be superior even to primary forest.synthesis and applications. in most tropical settings, logged forests can not only support a greater subset of forest biodiversity than other forms of land use (for instance, agriculture), but can also play an important role in supporting populations of certain forest-dependent species. the ongoing conversion of large swathes of logged forest to non-forest habitat (such as oil palm plantation) because of their perceived lack of importance for biodiversity is a cause for serious concern for the conservation of tropical biodiversity. in most tropical settings, logged forests can not only support a greater subset of forest biodiversity than other forms of land use (for instance, agriculture), but can also play an important role in supporting populations of certain forest-dependent species. the ongoing conversion of large swathes of logged forest to non-forest habitat (such as oil palm plantation) because of their perceived lack of importance for biodiversity is a cause for serious concern for the conservation of tropical biodiversity." -"density of threatened ocelot leopardus pardalis in the sierra abra-tanchipa biosphere reserve, san luis potosi, mexico",abundance; activity; camera-trapping; density; leopardus pardalis; spatially explicit mark-recapture,ORYX,MARTINEZ-HERNANDEZ A;ROSAS-ROSAS OC;CLEMENTE-SANCHEZ F;TARANGO-ARAMBULA LA;PALACIO-NUNEZ J;BENDER LC;HERRERA-HARO JG,"there is little information on the population status of the ocelot leopardus pardalis in mexico. in the sierra abra-tanchipa biosphere reserve, in san luis potosi, ocelots are affected by habitat loss and fragmentation as a result of increased agricultural development. we used photographic identification in camera-trapping capture-recapture surveys to determine population abundance and density during the dry season and subsequent early and late humid seasons during april 2011-march 2012. we recorded 80 photographs of 15 individuals (10 males, one female, and four of undetermined sex) in 7,786 camera-days. abundance was estimated using a closed capture heterogeneity model, yielding an estimated population of 9 +/- se3 in the dry season and 21 +/- se8 and 15 +/- se5 during the subsequent early and late humid seasons, respectively. spatially explicit density estimates were 0.04 and 0.03-0.18 individuals per km(2) for the dry and humid seasons, respectively, and were similar (p>0.612) among seasons. peaks in ocelot activity occurred during 20.00-04.00. we conclude that the ocelots of the sierra abra-tanchipa reserve have a low population density and may face geographical and biological isolation as a result of habitat conversion. continued monitoring and improved understanding of the movements and habitat preferences of ocelots are necessary to ensure their continued persistence, and connectivity between this population and others in north-east mexico." +"density of threatened ocelot leopardus pardalis in the sierra abra-tanchipa biosphere reserve, san luis potosi, mexico",abundance; activity; camera-trapping; density; leopardus pardalis; spatially explicit mark-recapture,ORYX,MARTINEZ HERNANDEZ A;ROSAS ROSAS OC;CLEMENTE SANCHEZ F;TARANGO ARAMBULA LA;PALACIO NUNEZ J;BENDER LC;HERRERA HARO JG,"there is little information on the population status of the ocelot leopardus pardalis in mexico. in the sierra abra-tanchipa biosphere reserve, in san luis potosi, ocelots are affected by habitat loss and fragmentation as a result of increased agricultural development. we used photographic identification in camera-trapping capture-recapture surveys to determine population abundance and density during the dry season and subsequent early and late humid seasons during april 2011-march 2012. we recorded 80 photographs of 15 individuals (10 males, one female, and four of undetermined sex) in 7,786 camera-days. abundance was estimated using a closed capture heterogeneity model, yielding an estimated population of 9 +/- se3 in the dry season and 21 +/- se8 and 15 +/- se5 during the subsequent early and late humid seasons, respectively. spatially explicit density estimates were 0.04 and 0.03-0.18 individuals per km(2) for the dry and humid seasons, respectively, and were similar (p>0.612) among seasons. peaks in ocelot activity occurred during 20.00-04.00. we conclude that the ocelots of the sierra abra-tanchipa reserve have a low population density and may face geographical and biological isolation as a result of habitat conversion. continued monitoring and improved understanding of the movements and habitat preferences of ocelots are necessary to ensure their continued persistence, and connectivity between this population and others in north-east mexico." survival and movement of translocated houbara bustards in a mixed conservation area,captive breeding; capture-recapture modelling; reinforcement; hunting; mixed conservation area; e-surge; sanctuaries; translocations,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,HARDOUIN LA;HINGRAT Y;NEVOUX M;LACROIX F;ROBERT A,"for endangered species that are hunted, the establishment of mixed conservation areas including both hunting zones and sanctuaries to complement translocation actions (i.e. reinforcement) can improve both hunting yields and population sustainability. however, the effects of this type of management on the demography of the exploited species are not well understood. we used multi-event capture-recapture modelling in a population of captive-bred houbara bustards chlamydotis undulata translocated into a mixed conservation area in morocco. the specific management practice of our system (hunting regime varying in time and space) led to a quasi-experimental situation that allowed the differentiation of natural' from hunting-induced' mortality and movement between areas. the analysis uncovered strong asymmetries in both movement and survival that were not only due to direct hunting effects. firstly, movement probabilities were higher from the sanctuary to the hunting areas than vice versa, even in years without hunting. secondly, in addition to a direct effect of hunting on mortality in hunting areas, our results uncovered permanent differences in both areas (even outside the hunting period). overall, our results were consistent with predictions under a source-sink dynamic model but illustrated that mixed conservation areas should not merely be treated as homogeneous systems with spatially heterogeneous hunting pressure but rather as fully heterogeneous systems. the patterns observed may be related to (1) the choice and design of hunting and sanctuary areas by managers, which might not be neutral with respect to habitat quality, or (2) indirect consequences of hunting via an effect on local growth rate and density." conservation implications of ameliorating survival of little brown bats with white-nose syndrome,"barker model; geomyces destructans; hibernacula; little brown bat; mark-recapture; myotis lucifugus; population viability analysis; pseudogymnoascus destructans; vital rate sensitivity; white-nose syndrome, wns; wildlife disease",ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,MASLO B;VALENT M;GUMBS JF;FRICK WF,"management of wildlife populations impacted by novel threats is often challenged by a lack of data on temporal changes in demographic response. populations may suffer rapid declines from the introduction of new stressors, but how demography changes over time is critical to determining long-term outcomes for populations. white-nose syndrome (wns), an infectious disease of hibernating bats, has caused massive and rapid population declines in several hibernating species of bats in north america since the disease was first observed on the continent in 2006. estimating annual survival rates and demographic trends among remnant colonies of hibernating bats that experienced mass mortality from wns is needed to determine long-term population viability of species impacted by this disease. using mark-recapture data on infected little brown bats (myotis lucifugus), we estimated the first apparent annual survival rates for four years following wns detection at a site. we found strong support for an increasing trend in annual survival, which improved from 0.68 (95% ci = 0.44-0.85) to 0.75 (95% ci = 0.51-0.89) for males and 0.65 (95% ci = 0.44-0.81) to 0.70 (95% ci = 0.50-0.84) for females. these results suggest that stabilization at remnant colonies after mass mortality from wns may be due to improved survival and not from immigration from other areas. despite ameliorating survival, our stochastic matrix projection model predicts continued declines for little brown bat populations (lambda = 0.95), raising concern for the regional persistence of this species. we conducted a vital rate sensitivity analysis and determined that adult and juvenile survival, as opposed to fecundity, are the demographic parameters most important to target to maximize recovery potential of little brown bat populations in areas impacted by wns." environmental dna sampling is more sensitive than a traditional survey technique for detecting an aquatic invader,"amphibian; australia; bottle trap; detection probability; edna; invasive species; sampling effort; smooth newt, lissotriton vulgaris vulgaris; survey design",ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,SMART AS;TINGLEY R;WEEKS AR;VAN ROOYEN AR;MCCARTHY MA,"effective management of alien species requires detecting populations in the early stages of invasion. environmental dna (edna) sampling can detect aquatic species at relatively low densities, but few studies have directly compared detection probabilities of edna sampling with those of traditional sampling methods. we compare the ability of a traditional sampling technique (bottle trapping) and edna to detect a recently established invader, the smooth newt lissotriton vulgaris vulgaris, at seven field sites in melbourne, australia. over a four-month period, per-trap detection probabilities ranged from 0.01 to 0.26 among sites where l. v. vulgaris was detected, whereas per-sample edna estimates were much higher (0.29-1.0). detection probabilities of both methods varied temporally (across days and months), but temporal variation appeared to be uncorrelated between methods. only estimates of spatial variation were strongly correlated across the two sampling techniques. environmental variables (water depth, rainfall, ambient temperature) were not clearly correlated with detection probabilities estimated via trapping, whereas edna detection probabilities were negatively correlated with water depth, possibly reflecting higher edna concentrations at lower water levels. our findings demonstrate that edna sampling can be an order of magnitude more sensitive than traditional methods, and illustrate that traditional-and edna-based surveys can provide independent information on species distributions when occupancy surveys are conducted over short timescales." @@ -1916,12 +1919,12 @@ using fledged brood counts of hedgerow birds to assess the effect of summer agri defining populations and injecting parameters among people who inject drugs: implications for the assessment of hepatitis c treatment programs,people who inject drugs; hepatitis c virus; population estimation; modelling,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DRUG POLICY,LARNEY S;GREBELY J;HICKMAN M;DE ANGELIS D;DORE GJ;DEGENHARDT L,"there is considerable interest in determining the impact that increased uptake of treatment for hepatitis c virus (hcv) infection will have on the burden of hcv among people who inject drugs (pwid). an understanding of the size of the population of pwid, rates of injecting cessation and hcv prevalence and incidence within the pwid population is essential for such exercises. however, these parameters are often uncertain. in this paper we review methods for estimating the size of the population of pwid and related parameters, taking into account the uncertainty that exists around data on the natural history of injecting drug use; consider issues in the estimation of hcv prevalence among pwid; and consider the importance of opioid substitution therapy and prisons as settings for the prevention and treatment of hcv infection among pwid. these latter two points are illustrated through examples of ongoing work in england, scotland and australia. we conclude that an improved understanding of the size of pwid populations, including current and former pwid and parameters related to injecting drug use and settings where pwid may be reached, is necessary to inform hcv prevention and treatment strategies. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." ecological interactions on macroevolutionary time scales: clams and brachiopods are more than ships that pass in the night,capture-recapture; fossil; geochemical proxy; ornstein-uhlenbeck model; phanerozoic; red queen; sea level; stochastic differential equations (sdes); time series,ECOLOGY LETTERS,LIOW LH;REITAN T;HARNIK PG,"competition among organisms has ecological and evolutionary consequences. however, whether the consequences of competition are manifested and measureable on macroevolutionary time scales is equivocal. marine bivalves and brachiopods have overlapping niches such that competition for food and space may occur. moreover, there is a long-standing debate over whether bivalves outcompeted brachiopods evolutionarily, because brachiopod diversity declined through time while bivalve diversity increased. to answer this question, we estimate the origination and extinction dynamics of fossil marine bivalve and brachiopod genera from the ordovician through to the recent while simultaneously accounting for incomplete sampling. then, using stochastic differential equations, we assess statistical relationships among diversification and sampling dynamics of brachiopods and bivalves and five paleoenvironmental proxies. none of these potential environmental drivers had any detectable influence on brachiopod or bivalve diversification. in contrast, elevated bivalve extinction rates causally increased brachiopod origination rates, suggesting that bivalves have suppressed brachiopod evolution." avoiding verisimilitude when modelling ecological responses to climate change: the influence of weather conditions on trapping efficiency in european badgers (meles meles),body-condition index; capture probability; causality; population estimation; time-lagged weather,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,NOONAN MJ;RAHMAN MA;NEWMAN C;BUESCHING CD;MACDONALD DW,"the signal for climate change effects can be abstruse; consequently, interpretations of evidence must avoid verisimilitude, or else misattribution of causality could compromise policy decisions. examining climatic effects on wild animal population dynamics requires ability to trap, observe or photograph and to recapture study individuals consistently. in this regard, we use 19years of data (1994-2012), detailing the life histories on 1179 individual european badgers over 3288 (re-) trapping events, to test whether trapping efficiency was associated with season, weather variables (both contemporaneous and time lagged), body-condition index (bci) and trapping efficiency (te). pca factor loadings demonstrated that te was affected significantly by temperature and precipitation, as well as time lags in these variables. from multi-model inference, bci was the principal driver of te, where badgers in good condition were less likely to be trapped. our analyses exposed that this was enacted mechanistically via weather variables driving bci, affecting te. notably, the very conditions that militated for poor trapping success have been associated with actual survival and population abundance benefits in badgers. using these findings to parameterize simulations, projecting best-/worst-case scenario weather conditions and bci resulted in 8.6% +/- 4.9 sd difference in seasonal te, leading to a potential 55.0% population abundance under-estimation under the worst-case scenario; 38.6% over-estimation under the best case. interestingly, simulations revealed that while any single trapping session might prove misrepresentative of the true population abundance, due to weather effects, prolonging capture-mark-recapture studies under sub-optimal conditions decreased the accuracy of population estimates significantly. we also use these projection scenarios to explore how weather could impact government-led trapping of badgers in the uk, in relation to tb management. we conclude that population monitoring must be calibrated against the likelihood that weather conditions could be altering trap success directly, and therefore biasing model design." -blood and cloacal swab sampling for avian influenza monitoring has no effect on survival rates of free-ranging ducks,anatidae; avian influenza; capture-recapture; france; surveillance,IBIS,GUILLEMAIN M;CHAMPAGNON J;GOURLAY-LAROUR ML;CAVALLO F;BROCHET AL;HARS J;MASSEZ G;GEORGE T;PERROI PY;JESTIN V;CAIZERGUES A,"concerns about the spread of avian influenza viruses (aivs) have led to cloacal swab sampling of hundreds of thousands of birds worldwide as part of aiv surveillance schemes, but the effects of cloacal swabbing have not been adequately evaluated. we tested for differences between swabbed, swabbed and bled, and non-sampled wild ducks in terms of live re-encounter and dead recoveries for common pochard aythya ferina and tufted duck aythya fuligula, and also determined re-encounter and recovery rates for mallard anas platyrhynchos and common teal anas crecca. no effects of sampling methods were detected, except in teal. re-encounter rates were lower in sampled teal than in controls, with annual re-encounter probabilities being 25% and 35% lower in males and females, respectively. teal possibly left or avoided sampling sites, or sought sites where they were less detectable after sampling. in general, no deleterious effects were found, suggesting that cloacal swabbing and blood sampling are suitable methods for conducting aiv surveillance in ducks." +blood and cloacal swab sampling for avian influenza monitoring has no effect on survival rates of free-ranging ducks,anatidae; avian influenza; capture-recapture; france; surveillance,IBIS,GUILLEMAIN M;CHAMPAGNON J;GOURLAY LAROUR ML;CAVALLO F;BROCHET AL;HARS J;MASSEZ G;GEORGE T;PERROI PY;JESTIN V;CAIZERGUES A,"concerns about the spread of avian influenza viruses (aivs) have led to cloacal swab sampling of hundreds of thousands of birds worldwide as part of aiv surveillance schemes, but the effects of cloacal swabbing have not been adequately evaluated. we tested for differences between swabbed, swabbed and bled, and non-sampled wild ducks in terms of live re-encounter and dead recoveries for common pochard aythya ferina and tufted duck aythya fuligula, and also determined re-encounter and recovery rates for mallard anas platyrhynchos and common teal anas crecca. no effects of sampling methods were detected, except in teal. re-encounter rates were lower in sampled teal than in controls, with annual re-encounter probabilities being 25% and 35% lower in males and females, respectively. teal possibly left or avoided sampling sites, or sought sites where they were less detectable after sampling. in general, no deleterious effects were found, suggesting that cloacal swabbing and blood sampling are suitable methods for conducting aiv surveillance in ducks." a capture-recapture approach to estimation of refugee populations,NA,INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION,GOLD SJ;WIBERT WN;BONDARTSOVA V;BIROSCAK BJ;POST LA,"the debate over immigration continues to be one of the most politically charged policy issues in the united states (us). given the charged nature of this topic, it is vitally important to have reliable data on not only the number of us foreign nationals but also the characteristics of this extremely heterogeneous group - a population comprised not only of immigrants but also of refugees. there exist a small number of data sources for informing policy and practice at the national level. however, such data are often lacking for smaller geographical areas. this paper describes a recent effort to generate serviceable data on the immigrant and refugee population for a medium-sized metropolitan area in the us. the objectives of this research were twofold. our first goal was to provide local stakeholders with information to assist them with resettling and obtaining funding for immigrants and refugees. the second aim was to develop better techniques for tabulating diverse refugees and immigrants in a medium-sized community. by comparing and contrasting three data sources - that is, refugee services, public schools and a local health plan - we are able to generate estimates of the local refugee and immigrant population. during the period from 2005 to 2007, we estimate the total number of immigrants and refugees in the community to be somewhere between 10,938 and 13,282. although perhaps a bit on the high end due to methodological assumptions, these estimates seem plausible, based on previously cited figures for the region. while such estimates are valuable, a number of shortcomings related to the data prevent us from painting a more complete picture of these populations. we conclude this paper with a number of recommendations that will assist others in planning research designed to inform migration policy and practice in medium-sized metropolitan areas." exaggerated allometric structures in relation to demographic and ecological parameters in lucanus cervus (coleoptera: lucanidae),mandibles; morphological classes; stag beetle; body size; survival probability,JOURNAL OF MORPHOLOGY,ROMITI F;TINI M;DE ZAN LR;CHIARI S;ZAULI A;CARPANETO GM,"enlarged weapons and ornamental traits under sexual selection often show a positive allometric relationship with the overall body size. the present study explores the allometry of mandibles and their supporting structure, the head, in males of the european stag beetle, lucanus cervus. this species shows a remarkable dimorphism in mandible shape and size that are used by males in intraspecific combats. stag beetles were captured, measured, weighed, and released in the framework of a capture-mark-recapture study. the relationship of mandible length (ml) and head width in respect to the overall body size was described by a segmented regression model. a linear relationship was detected between ml and head width. the scaling relationships for both ml and head width identified the same switchpoint, highlighting the advantages of using combined results of weapons and their supporting structures in such analysis. these results led to a more consistent distinction of males in two morphologies: minor and major. the survival probability of individuals was dependent on the morphological class and was higher for minor males than for major. elytron length and body mass of the individuals did not show any significant variation during the season. differences in predatory pressure were detected between morphs by the collection and analysis of body fragments due to the predatory activity of corvids. morphological differences and shift in demographic and ecological parameters between the two classes suggested that selection continues to favor intrasexual dimorphism in this species throughout a trade-off mechanism between costs and benefits of carrying exaggerated traits. j. morphol. 276:1193-1204, 2015. (c) 2015 wiley periodicals, inc." territoriality in a snake,behaviour; residency; territory; elapidae; cryptophis nigrescens,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY,WEBB JK;SCOTT ML;WHITING MJ;SHINE R,"territorial behaviour, whereby dominant animals gain priority access to critical resources, is widespread in some animal lineages, but rare in others. theory suggests that territoriality will evolve only when animals can economically defend sites that contain critical resources (typically mates, sometimes food). in striking contrast to their close relatives the lizards, male defence of territories for access to mates has not been reported in snakes. in south-eastern australia, receptive female small-eyed snakes thermoregulate under ""hot rocks"", concentrating mating opportunities and thus, potentially allowing males to enhance their fitness by defending these rocks from rivals. we videotaped staged contests between resident and intruder males and analysed data on cohabitation patterns from a long-term (21 years) mark-recapture study. in staged contests, males actively defended hot rocks from intruder males; and thus, larger males actively displaced their smaller rivals. in the wild, larger males were found under rocks with more or larger females. these results suggest that the thermally driven concentration of female small-eyed snakes has rendered hot rocks economically defensible, and thus favoured the evolution of territoriality in a snake." estimating the abundance of the southern hudson bay polar bear subpopulation with aerial surveys,abundance estimation; aerial survey; line transect; mark-recapture distance sampling; polar bear; southern hudson bay; ursus maritimus,POLAR BIOLOGY,OBBARD ME;STAPLETON S;MIDDEL KR;THIBAULT I;BRODEUR V;JUTRAS C,"the southern hudson bay (sh) polar bear subpopulation occurs at the southern extent of the species' range. although capture-recapture studies indicate abundance was likely unchanged between 1986 and 2005, declines in body condition and survival occurred during the period, possibly foreshadowing a future decrease in abundance. to obtain a current estimate of abundance, we conducted a comprehensive line transect aerial survey of sh during 2011-2012. we stratified the study site by anticipated densities and flew coastal contour transects and systematically spaced inland transects in ontario and on akimiski island and large offshore islands in 2011. data were collected with double-observer and distance sampling protocols. we surveyed small islands in james bay and eastern hudson bay and flew a comprehensive transect along the qu,bec coastline in 2012. we observed 667 bears in ontario and on akimiski island and nearby islands in 2011, and we sighted 80 bears on offshore islands during 2012. mark-recapture distance sampling and sight-resight models yielded an estimate of 860 (se = 174) for the 2011 study area. our estimate of abundance for the entire sh subpopulation (943; se = 174) suggests that abundance is unlikely to have changed significantly since 1986. however, this result should be interpreted cautiously because of the methodological differences between historical studies (physical capture-recapture) and this survey. a conservative management approach is warranted given previous increases in duration of the ice-free season, which are predicted to continue in the future, and previously documented declines in body condition and vital rates." -pattern of non-breeding movements by stone-curlews burhinus oedicnemus breeding in northern italy,migration; geolocator; gps; ringing,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,GIUNCHI D;CACCAMO C;MORI A;FOX JW;RODRIGUEZ-GODOY F;BALDACCINI NE;POLLONARA E,"the identification of year-round geographical ranges and the quantification of the degree of migratory connectivity are fundamental to the successful conservation of migratory bird populations. the stone-curlew burhinus oedicnemus is a species of conservation concern in europe, but its ecology and behaviour are relatively poorly investigated. in particular, its migratory behaviour and the locations of the wintering ranges of most european populations are not known in detail because of a lack of specific studies and the scarcity of ringing recoveries. this study aimed to identify the wintering areas of a stone-curlew population breeding in the taro river regional park (parma, northern italy) by integrating the information obtained from ringing recoveries (n = 2), geolocators (n = 7), and gps data loggers (n = 2). furthermore, we compared two approaches to inferring the location of an assumed stationary bird using geolocator data. the different sources were quite coherent, indicating that tagged stone-curlews did not leave the mediterranean basin throughout the year and passed the winter in sardinia or in tunisia. the recorded wintering sites coincided with areas where breeding (and possibly resident) populations are reported, further emphasising the importance of these areas for the conservation of the species throughout the annual cycle. to our knowledge, our study represents the first thorough analysis performed to uncover the movements of a mediterranean population of stone-curlews. furthermore, it proves the great potential of the tracking devices used in this work to provide information on the migration and non-breeding sites of elusive species, for which the application of mark-recapture/re-sighting techniques is hindered by profound limitations." +pattern of non-breeding movements by stone-curlews burhinus oedicnemus breeding in northern italy,migration; geolocator; gps; ringing,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,GIUNCHI D;CACCAMO C;MORI A;FOX JW;RODRIGUEZ GODOY F;BALDACCINI NE;POLLONARA E,"the identification of year-round geographical ranges and the quantification of the degree of migratory connectivity are fundamental to the successful conservation of migratory bird populations. the stone-curlew burhinus oedicnemus is a species of conservation concern in europe, but its ecology and behaviour are relatively poorly investigated. in particular, its migratory behaviour and the locations of the wintering ranges of most european populations are not known in detail because of a lack of specific studies and the scarcity of ringing recoveries. this study aimed to identify the wintering areas of a stone-curlew population breeding in the taro river regional park (parma, northern italy) by integrating the information obtained from ringing recoveries (n = 2), geolocators (n = 7), and gps data loggers (n = 2). furthermore, we compared two approaches to inferring the location of an assumed stationary bird using geolocator data. the different sources were quite coherent, indicating that tagged stone-curlews did not leave the mediterranean basin throughout the year and passed the winter in sardinia or in tunisia. the recorded wintering sites coincided with areas where breeding (and possibly resident) populations are reported, further emphasising the importance of these areas for the conservation of the species throughout the annual cycle. to our knowledge, our study represents the first thorough analysis performed to uncover the movements of a mediterranean population of stone-curlews. furthermore, it proves the great potential of the tracking devices used in this work to provide information on the migration and non-breeding sites of elusive species, for which the application of mark-recapture/re-sighting techniques is hindered by profound limitations." "evidence for skipped spawning in a potamodromous cyprinid, humpback chub (gila cypha), with implications for demographic parameter estimates",humpback chub; skipped spawning; demographic parameter estimates; robust design; mark-recapture,FISHERIES RESEARCH,PEARSON KN;KENDALL WL;WINKELMAN DL;PERSONS WR,"our findings reveal evidence for skipped spawning in a potamodromous cyprinid, humpback chub (hbc; gila cypha). using closed robust design mark-recapture models, we found, on average, spawning hbc transition to the skipped spawning state (<(<(gamma)over bar>)over cap>"") with a probability of 0.45 (95% cri (i.e. credible interval): 0.10, 0.80) and skipped spawners remain in the skipped spawning state (<(<(gamma)over bar>)over cap>') with a probability of 0.60 (95% cri: 0.26, 0.83), yielding an average spawning cycle of every 2.12 years, conditional on survival. as a result, migratory skipped spawners are unavailable for detection during annual sampling events. if availability is unaccounted for, survival and detection probability estimates will be biased. therefore, we estimated annual adult survival probability (s), while accounting for skipped spawning, and found s remained reasonably stable throughout the study period, with an average of 0.75 ((95% cri: 0.66, 0.82), process variance sigma(2) = 0.005), while skipped spawning probability was highly dynamic (sigma(2) = 0.306). by improving understanding of hbc spawning strategies, conservation decisions can be based on less biased estimates of survival and a more informed population model structure. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." european plaice (pleuronectes platessa) and sole (solea solea) indirect age validation using otoliths from mark-recapture experiments from the north sea,age validation; mark-recapture; pleuronectes platessa; solea solea,FISHERIES RESEARCH,ETHERTON M,"validation of age-determination methodology and output for marine finfish species is an important device in ground-truthing assessment data and underpins confidence in stock assessments. cefas has routinely collected otoliths from fish returned from tagging mark-recapture programmes for many decades; european plaice (pleuronectes platessa) and sole (also known as common sole or dover sole) (solea solea) are two of the frequently targeted species in these programmes. this study used individual recaptures of both species where the fish size at the time of tagging was sufficiently small to be able to predict the age by length alone, and where the fish were at liberty for two years or more, yielding 72 plaice and 52 sole otoliths for study. four expert readers for each species, each provided only with the final fish length and month of recapture, independently read the otoliths. those readings were then compared with the predicted age of the fish at recapture. age determination from whole otoliths was found to be inaccurate for both species at all age groups, but sectioned otoliths delivered better precision and accuracy in sole. i conclude that using appropriate reading methods for each species is vital to ensure consistent results and that the sectioned and stained preparation technique produces the best results for sole. crown copyright (c) 2015 published by elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." improving in-water estimates of marine turtle abundance by adjusting aerial survey counts for perception and availability biases,abundance estimation; aerial surveys; availability bias; detection bias; detection probability; marine turtles; perception bias,JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY,FUENTES MMPB;BELL I;HAGIHARA R;HAMANN M;HAZEL J;HUTH A;SEMINOFF JA;SOBTZICK S;MARSH H,"aerial surveys are often used to estimate wildlife abundance. the probability of detecting an animal during a survey involves two processes: (1) availability bias when animals present in the search area are not available for detection and (2) perception bias, when some animals potentially visible to observers are missed. estimating these two sources of bias can lead to improved abundance estimates. however, to date, no marine turtle aerial survey has quantified both biases. to improve in-water marine turtle abundance estimates from aerial counts we estimated: (1) perception bias using independent tandem observers and mark recapture models, and (2) availability bias by quantifying the effect of turtle diving behaviour and environmental conditions on the detection probability of turtles. we compared unadjusted and adjusted abundance estimates to evaluate the effects of these detection biases in aerial surveys. adjusted data produced a substantially higher estimate of turtles than the unadjusted data. adjusting for availability bias increased the estimates 18.7 times; adjusting for perception bias resulted in a further 5% increase. these results emphasize the need to consider availability and perception corrections to obtain robust abundance estimates. this approach has application for aerial surveys for other marine wildlife including marine mammals and large sharks. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." @@ -1934,9 +1937,9 @@ bibliographic search with mark-and-recapture,bibliographic analysis; mark-and-re application of spatial and closed capture-recapture models on known population of the western derby eland (taurotragus derbianus derbianus) in senegal,NA,PLOS ONE,JUNEK T;VYMYSLICKA PJ;HOZDECKA K;HEJCMANOVA P,"camera trapping with capture-recapture analyses has provided estimates of the abundances of elusive species over the last two decades. closed capture-recapture models (cr) based on the recognition of individuals and incorporating natural heterogeneity in capture probabilities are considered robust tools; however, closure assumption is often questionable and the use of an m-h jackknife estimator may fail in estimations of real abundance when the heterogeneity is high and data is sparse. a novel, spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) approach based on the location-specific capture histories of individuals overcomes the limitations of closed models. we applied both methods on a closed population of 16 critically endangered western derby elands in the fenced 1,060-ha fathala reserve, senegal. we analyzed the data from 30 cameras operating during a 66-day sampling period deployed in two densities in grid and line arrays. we captured and identified all 16 individuals in 962 trap-days. abundances were estimated in the programs capture (models m-0, mh and mh chao) and r, package secr (basic null and finite mixture models), and compared with the true population size. we specified 66 days as a threshold in which secr provides an accurate estimate in all trapping designs within the 7-times divergent density from 0.004 to 0.028 camera trap/ha. both secr models showed uniform tendency to overestimate abundance when sampling lasted shorter with no major differences between their outputs. unlike the closed models, secr performed well in the line patterns, which indicates promising potential for linear sampling of properly defined habitats of non-territorial and identifiable herbivores in dense wooded savanna conditions. the cr models provided reliable estimates in the grid and we confirmed the advantage of mh chao estimator over mh jackknife when data appeared sparse. we also demonstrated the pooling of trapping occasions with an increase in the capture probabilities, avoiding violation of results." prey selection by three mesopredators that are thought to prey on eastern wild turkeys (meleagris gallopavo sylvestris) in the pineywoods of east texas,NA,SOUTHEASTERN NATURALIST,MELVILLE HIAS;CONWAY WC;MORRISON ML;COMER CE;HARDIN JB,"predation, especially during the nesting and poult-rearing seasons, may inhibit meleagris gallopavo (wild turkey) recruitment in east texas. numerous authors cite lynx rufus (bobcat), canis latrans (coyote), and procyon lotor (raccoon) as predators of wild turkey. consequently, we investigated prey selection of these 3 common mesopredators using scat analysis. we also investigated prey-population dynamics using capture-mark-recapture techniques for small mammals (rodentia), and spotlight surveys and track plate counts for sylvilagus floridanus (eastern cottontail). we found no evidence that mesopredators preyed upon wild turkeys. small mammals and lagomorphs were the primary components of mesopredator diets. small-mammal numbers varied seasonally; however, cottontail relative abundance did not. mesopredator diets were most diverse in summer. in summer, bobcats increased their use of small mammals, whereas coyotes and raccoons diversified their diets to include seasonal fruits. decline in small-mammal populations and increase in mesopredator dietary diversity coincided with wild turkey nesting and poul-trearing seasons, which potentially could result in an increased threat to wild turkeys during the nesting and poult-rearing season." non-invasive genotyping of sumatran elephants: implications for conservation,elephas maximus sumatranus; capture-recapture modeling; abundance estimation; sex ratio; age structure; bukit tigapuluh landscape,TROPICAL CONSERVATION SCIENCE,MOSSBRUCKER AM;APRIYANA I;FICKEL J;IMRON MA;PUDYATMOKO S;SUMARDI;SURYADI H,"reliable baseline information necessary for the monitoring and conservation of sumatran elephants is scarce. we here combine non-invasive molecular genetics methods and capture-recapture modeling to estimate elephant population size, distribution, sex ratio, and age structure for the bukit tigapuluh landscape in sumatra, indonesia. two separate subpopulations were found, for which we estimated a population size of 99 (95% ci = [86, 125], pccl = 38.59%) and 44 elephants (95% ci = [37, 56], pccl = 43.18%), respectively. low elephant densities are likely the result of patchy habitat usage and anthropogenically increased mortality, the latter assumption being supported by strong skews in both sex ratio and age structure as well as direct evidence of elephant killing. still, the bukit tigapuluh landscape currently holds the largest known population of elephants in central sumatra, representing one of the most important areas for their conservation in indonesia. conservation of both the elephant population and their habitat in this region should thus be of high priority. we identified several threats to the population, including (i) the risk of inbreeding and subsequent loss of genetic diversity, (ii) illegal elephant killing, and (iii) the lack of protected habitat. in order to overcome these challenges we suggest: (i) the implementation of a meta-population management program, (ii) monitoring and safeguarding elephants and improving law enforcement, and (iii) providing sufficient safe habitat to mitigate human-elephant-conflict (hec) and ensure elephant survival." -"home range of aspidoscelis cozwmela (squamata: teiidae): a parthenogenetic lizard microendemic to cozumel island, mexico",squamata; teiidae; aspidoscelis cozumela; parthenogenesis; home range,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,HERNANDEZ-GALLEGOS O;LOPEZ-MORENO AE;MENDEZ-SANCHEZ JF;RHEUBERT JL;MENDEZ-DE LA CRUZ FR,"home range is defined as the area within which an individual moves to acquire resources necessary to increase their fitness and may vary inter and intra-specifically with biotic and abiotic factors. this study details the home range of the parthenogenic lizard, aspidoscelis cozumela, an active forager microendemic to cozumel island, mexico, with high preference for open sand beaches. the home range of a. cozumela was compared with other species of aspidoscelis (gonochoric and parthenogenetic) and other lizards that occupy coastal habitats. furthermore, the biotic and abiotic factors that may influence home range were analyzed. this study was conducted in the beach located on the east side of the island (area of 4 000 m(2)) that is composed primarily of halophyte vegetation with high levels of sunlight. from 1999 to 2001, nine samples were taken which included the dry, rainy, ""nortes"", and breeding seasons. during each sampling, capture-mark-recapture techniques were conducted and the date, time of day, and snout-vent length (svl) were recorded to the nearest millimeter. individuals were located in the study area using a bi-coordinate reference using 10 x 10 m subdivisions of the habitat. home range and home range overlap were calculated using the convex polygon method in mcpaal and home range/svl correlation was tested using pearson's correlation. to calculate females home range, three or more recaptures were considered. a total of 20 home ranges that averaged 45.1 +/- 14.0 m(2) were obtained and no correlation between svl and home range size was detected (p = 0.9229, n = 20). however, removing individuals with outlier home ranges (females with home ranges > 100 m(2), n = 2) resulted in a positive correlation with svl (r = 0.61, p = 0.0072, n = 18). a 22.9 +/- 5.7% overlap in home range was also detected. the small home range of a. cozuinela represents the smallest home range within the aspidoscelis genus recorded to date (including both parthenogenetic and gonochoric species) and contrasts the theoretical predictions of broad home ranges for widely foraging species. thermoregulatory benefits and a high population density may explain the small home range of a. cozumela. although this species is highly adapted to the environmental conditions present on the open sand beaches, anthropogenic effects on these habitats by the development of tourism infrastructure may jeopardize their existence on cozumel island." +"home range of aspidoscelis cozwmela (squamata: teiidae): a parthenogenetic lizard microendemic to cozumel island, mexico",squamata; teiidae; aspidoscelis cozumela; parthenogenesis; home range,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,HERNANDEZ GALLEGOS O;LOPEZ MORENO AE;MENDEZ SANCHEZ JF;RHEUBERT JL;MENDEZ DE LA CRUZ FR,"home range is defined as the area within which an individual moves to acquire resources necessary to increase their fitness and may vary inter and intra-specifically with biotic and abiotic factors. this study details the home range of the parthenogenic lizard, aspidoscelis cozumela, an active forager microendemic to cozumel island, mexico, with high preference for open sand beaches. the home range of a. cozumela was compared with other species of aspidoscelis (gonochoric and parthenogenetic) and other lizards that occupy coastal habitats. furthermore, the biotic and abiotic factors that may influence home range were analyzed. this study was conducted in the beach located on the east side of the island (area of 4 000 m(2)) that is composed primarily of halophyte vegetation with high levels of sunlight. from 1999 to 2001, nine samples were taken which included the dry, rainy, ""nortes"", and breeding seasons. during each sampling, capture-mark-recapture techniques were conducted and the date, time of day, and snout-vent length (svl) were recorded to the nearest millimeter. individuals were located in the study area using a bi-coordinate reference using 10 x 10 m subdivisions of the habitat. home range and home range overlap were calculated using the convex polygon method in mcpaal and home range/svl correlation was tested using pearson's correlation. to calculate females home range, three or more recaptures were considered. a total of 20 home ranges that averaged 45.1 +/- 14.0 m(2) were obtained and no correlation between svl and home range size was detected (p = 0.9229, n = 20). however, removing individuals with outlier home ranges (females with home ranges > 100 m(2), n = 2) resulted in a positive correlation with svl (r = 0.61, p = 0.0072, n = 18). a 22.9 +/- 5.7% overlap in home range was also detected. the small home range of a. cozuinela represents the smallest home range within the aspidoscelis genus recorded to date (including both parthenogenetic and gonochoric species) and contrasts the theoretical predictions of broad home ranges for widely foraging species. thermoregulatory benefits and a high population density may explain the small home range of a. cozumela. although this species is highly adapted to the environmental conditions present on the open sand beaches, anthropogenic effects on these habitats by the development of tourism infrastructure may jeopardize their existence on cozumel island." large roads disrupt insect movement: a case study of the spodoptera littoralis (lepidoptera: noctuidae),sexual pheromone; mark-recapture; insect flight; habitat fragmentation; barrier; chemical communication,JOURNAL OF INSECT BEHAVIOR,KERET N;VALIMAKI P;MUTANEN M;SHANAS U,"roads are a growing mosaic in the landscape, splitting and reducing the area of natural habitats of organisms. to examine the effects of large roads on insect movements, the egyptian cotton leaf worm moth spodoptera littoralis was used as a model species in a mark-recapture experiment. the flight of male moths towards female sexual pheromone across a motorway and an open field was compared. road constructions may disrupt movements of individual insects as recapture probability was lower when moths had to cross a road to reach the bait compared with that in undisturbed natural habitat. the observed road effect may appear a very general response among insects as noctuids are generally highly mobile. we conclude that increasing fragmentation of natural habitats due to road networks may not only affect many insect populations worldwide, but also deteriorate ecosystem function and services as insects are important pollinators of natural and cultivated plants." -estimating trends in the prevalence of problematic cocaine use (1999-2008),accident and emergency service; hospital; cocaine; prevalence; epidemiology methods,GACETA SANITARIA,ESPELT A;DOMINGO-SALVANY A;SANCHEZ-NIUBO A;MARI-DELL'OLMO M;BRUGAL MT,"objective: to examine trends in the prevalence of problematic cocaine use in a large city and describe the problems encountered when estimating these trends using capture-recapture techniques based on secondary data methods: we used clinical data on accident and emergency department episodes at four university hospitals in barcelona (spain) between 1999 and 2008 (3 capture periods per year). users were categorized into two subgroups depending on concomitant heroin use (cocaine plus heroin, cocaine without heroin). results: the mean age of users was 34 years and 25% were women (2008). the mean number of episodes per user differed between drug subgroups and over time. the estimated total number of cocaine users increased from 6,028 (95% confidence interval [95%ci]: 4,086-9,327) in 1999 to 22,640 (95%ci: 14,001-37.500) in 2006, but decreased thereafter. the prevalence of problematic use of cocaine plus heroin was stable throughout the study.thus, trends in the prevalence of problematic cocaine use differed depending on concomitant heroin use. conclusion: our results are consistent with those provided by health surveys and treatment registries. they also highlight the pitfalls of applying the capture-recapture approach to secondary data, and the need for a better understanding of how information is collected and changes over time. (c) 2015 sespas. published by elsevier espana, s.l.u. all rights reserved." +estimating trends in the prevalence of problematic cocaine use (1999-2008),accident and emergency service; hospital; cocaine; prevalence; epidemiology methods,GACETA SANITARIA,ESPELT A;DOMINGO SALVANY A;SANCHEZ NIUBO A;MARI DELL OLMO M;BRUGAL MT,"objective: to examine trends in the prevalence of problematic cocaine use in a large city and describe the problems encountered when estimating these trends using capture-recapture techniques based on secondary data methods: we used clinical data on accident and emergency department episodes at four university hospitals in barcelona (spain) between 1999 and 2008 (3 capture periods per year). users were categorized into two subgroups depending on concomitant heroin use (cocaine plus heroin, cocaine without heroin). results: the mean age of users was 34 years and 25% were women (2008). the mean number of episodes per user differed between drug subgroups and over time. the estimated total number of cocaine users increased from 6,028 (95% confidence interval [95%ci]: 4,086-9,327) in 1999 to 22,640 (95%ci: 14,001-37.500) in 2006, but decreased thereafter. the prevalence of problematic use of cocaine plus heroin was stable throughout the study.thus, trends in the prevalence of problematic cocaine use differed depending on concomitant heroin use. conclusion: our results are consistent with those provided by health surveys and treatment registries. they also highlight the pitfalls of applying the capture-recapture approach to secondary data, and the need for a better understanding of how information is collected and changes over time. (c) 2015 sespas. published by elsevier espana, s.l.u. all rights reserved." when maladaptive gene flow does not increase selection,adaptation; fitness; gene flow; models/simulations; natural; selection,EVOLUTION,ROLSHAUSEN G;MUTTALIB S;KAEUFFER R;OKE KB;HANSON D;HENDRY AP,"populations receiving high maladaptive gene flow are expected to experience strong directional selection-because gene flow pulls mean phenotypes away from local fitness peaks. we tested this prediction by means of a large and replicated mark-recapture study of threespine stickleback (gasterosteus aculeatus) in two stream populations. one of the populations (outlet) experiences high gene flow from the lake population and its morphology is correspondingly poorly adapted. the other population (inlet) experiences very low gene flow from the lake population and its morphology is correspondingly well adapted. contrary to the above prediction, selection was not stronger in the outlet than in the inlet, a result that forced us to consider potential reasons for why maladaptive gene flow might not increase selection. of particular interest, we show by means of a simple population genetic model that maladaptive gene flow can-under reasonable conditions-decrease the strength of directional selection. this outcome occurs when immigrants decrease mean fitness in the resident population, which decreases the strength of selection against maladapted phenotypes. we argue that this previously unrecognized effect of gene flow deserves further attention in theoretical and empirical studies." scale dependence in occupancy models: implications for estimating bear den distribution and abundance,abundance monitoring; aerial survey; alaska; habitat maps; katmai national park and preserve; spatial grain; species distribution monitoring; ursus arctos,ECOSPHERE,WILSON TL;SCHMIDT JH,"monitoring programs are typically designed to identify long-term trends in animal abundance, however estimating abundance at a relevant scale can be logistically prohibitive. this is particularly true for species that occur at low densities or those with large home ranges. in such cases, occupancy surveys are often employed in place of more expensive abundance estimation techniques such as mark-recapture because precise estimation of occupancy probability generally requires fewer data. although choice of plot size is a critical design element of occupancy monitoring, relatively little effort has been expended to develop or test plot size recommendations. animal movement between surveys can complicate efforts to obtain an optimal plot size, but surveys of fixed objects, such as nests, dens, or burrows can provide insight about scale effects because the population exposed to sampling does not change during the duration of the survey. we used repeated aerial occupancy surveys to obtain estimates of brown bear (ursus arctos) den distribution and abundance in a portion of katmai national park and preserve in alaska. we then used these data to assess the importance of plot size selection and highlight the effects of spatial grain on the resulting inference and utility for monitoring. scale effects in estimates of mean den-based site occupancy, but not total den abundance demonstrated that careful selection of sample unit size is important if estimating occupancy probability is a primary monitoring objective. we expect occupancy surveys based on important structures such as nests or dens could have wide applicability for many species." "the average laboratory samples a population of 7,300 amazon mechanical turk workers",amazon mechanical turk; mturk; capture-recapture; population size,JUDGMENT AND DECISION MAKING,STEWART N;UNGEMACH C;HARRIS AJL;BARTELS DM;NEWELL BR;PAOLACCI G;CHANDLER J,"using capture-recapture analysis we estimate the effective size of the active amazon mechanical turk (mturk) population that a typical laboratory can access to be about 7,300 workers. we also estimate that the time taken for half of the workers to leave the mturk pool and be replaced is about 7 months. each laboratory has its own population pool which overlaps, often extensively, with the hundreds of other laboratories using mturk. our estimate is based on a sample of 114,460 completed sessions from 33,408 unique participants and 689 sessions across seven laboratories in the us, europe, and australia from january 2012 to march 2015." @@ -1951,48 +1954,48 @@ sensitivity of population size estimation for violating parametric assumptions i on modelling register coverage errors,list error and catch; log-linear model; pseudoconditional independence,JOURNAL OF OFFICIAL STATISTICS,ZHANG LC,register data that originate from administrative or other secondary sources are increasingly being used to generate statistical outputs directly. the coverage of the input datasets is an important issue in this respect. traditionally capture-recapture models have been used to deal with multiple list enumerations subjected to undercoverage errors. the aim of this article is to scope possible approaches to modelling capture-recapture data with additional overcoverage error. attention is primarily given to model interpretations and conditions under which a model may provide a plausible basis for estimation and uncertainty evaluation. the setting with two list enumerations is examined in depth as it is the most common in practice. models that can be extended to include more than two lists are identified. an additional independent coverage survey with only undercoverage error is always needed for estimation. potential application to census coverage-error adjustment is discussed. coverage evaluation on probabilistically linked data,linkage errors; capture-recapture method; petersen estimator; administrative data,JOURNAL OF OFFICIAL STATISTICS,DI CONSIGLIO L;TUOTO T,"the capture-recapture method is a well-known solution for evaluating the unknown size of a population. administrative data represent sources of independent counts of a population and can be jointly exploited for applying the capture-recapture method. of course, administrative sources are affected by over- or undercoverage when considered separately. the standard petersen approach is based on strong assumptions, including perfect record linkage between lists. in reality, record linkage results can be affected by errors. a simple method for achieving linkage error-unbiased population total estimates is proposed in ding and fienberg (1994). in this article, an extension of the ding and fienberg model by relaxing their conditions is proposed. the procedures are illustrated for estimating the total number of road casualties, on the basis of a probabilistic record linkage between two administrative data sources. moreover, a simulation study is developed, providing evidence that the adjusted estimator always performs better than the petersen estimator." population dynamics of a northern-adapted mammal: disentangling the influence of predation and climate change,bottom-up regulation; climate change; demographic analysis; erethizon dorsatum; fisher; juvenile survivorship; martes pennanti; north atlantic oscillation (nao); porcupine; predation; top-down regulation; trophic interaction,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,POKALLUS JW;PAULI JN,"community structure and interspecific interactions are particularly vulnerable to rapidly changing climatic regimes. recent changes in both climate and vertebrate community assemblages have created a unique opportunity to examine the impacts of two dynamic forces on population regulation. we examined the effects of warming winter conditions and the reestablishment of a previously extirpated predator, the fisher (martes pennanti), on regulatory mechanisms in a northern-adapted mammal, the porcupine (erethizon dorsatum), along their southern range boundary. using a long-term (17-year) capture-recapture data set, we (1) quantified the impacts of climate change and increased fisher predation on the survival of adult porcupines at their regional southern terminus, (2) assessed recruitment (via both adult fecundity and juvenile survival) of porcupines, and (3) modeled the relative importance of predation and winter conditions on the demography and population growth rate (lambda). severe winters and abundant predators interacted synergistically to reduce adult survivorship by as much as 44%, while expanding predator populations led to near reproductive failure among porcupines. increasing predatory pressure, disruptions in this community module, and more frequent extreme winter weather events led to predicted extirpation within 50 years, whereas in the absence of predators, the population was viable. our results provide a mechanistic understanding behind distributional shifts resulting from climate change and may be broadly relevant for predicting future distributional shifts in other northern-adapted mammalian species." -"estimation of chimpanzee community size and genetic diversity in kahuzi-biega national park, democratic republic of congo",chimpanzee; genetic mark-recapture; genetic diversity; community size; conservation,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY,BASABOSE AK;INOUE E;KAMUNGU S;MURHABALE B;AKOMO-OKOUE EF;YAMAGIWA J,"a small chimpanzee habitat in the montane forest of kahuzi-biega national park, democratic republic of congo, is connected with the lowland forest of this park through a corridor, which is affected by human encroachment. to assess the conservation status of the chimpanzee population in this small habitat, we estimated the size of the community and evaluated its genetic diversity by using 279 fecal samples collected in the montane forest of kahuzi. using autosomal microsatellite (or short tandem repeat, str) loci, we identified 32 individuals, comprising 19 females and 13 males. samples from 24 individuals were collected at least twice and a genetic mark-recapture analysis estimated that the community size was 36 (range: 32-42). data on nest site sharing confirmed that all the samples belonged to the same community. nest site sharing information may be useful in population studies of unhabituated chimpanzees. the genetic structure and diversity of the 32 genotyped individuals was assessed using y-chromosomal short tandem repeat (y-str) loci and mitochondrial d-loops. one dominant y-str haplotype was found, whereas there was no dominant haplotype in the mitochondrial region, reflecting a female-biased dispersal pattern, which is typical of chimpanzees. the genetic diversity for three markers in kahuzi chimpanzees was comparable to that in other eastern chimpanzee populations. a relatively high heterozygosity and negative inbreeding coefficient (fis) for str loci suggests that the study community belongs to an outbreeding chimpanzee population. these findings suggest that individuals of the study community may have reproductive contact with other chimpanzee individuals from neighboring communities in kahuzi-biega national park, at least in the recent past. (c) 2015 wiley periodicals, inc." +"estimation of chimpanzee community size and genetic diversity in kahuzi-biega national park, democratic republic of congo",chimpanzee; genetic mark-recapture; genetic diversity; community size; conservation,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY,BASABOSE AK;INOUE E;KAMUNGU S;MURHABALE B;AKOMO OKOUE EF;YAMAGIWA J,"a small chimpanzee habitat in the montane forest of kahuzi-biega national park, democratic republic of congo, is connected with the lowland forest of this park through a corridor, which is affected by human encroachment. to assess the conservation status of the chimpanzee population in this small habitat, we estimated the size of the community and evaluated its genetic diversity by using 279 fecal samples collected in the montane forest of kahuzi. using autosomal microsatellite (or short tandem repeat, str) loci, we identified 32 individuals, comprising 19 females and 13 males. samples from 24 individuals were collected at least twice and a genetic mark-recapture analysis estimated that the community size was 36 (range: 32-42). data on nest site sharing confirmed that all the samples belonged to the same community. nest site sharing information may be useful in population studies of unhabituated chimpanzees. the genetic structure and diversity of the 32 genotyped individuals was assessed using y-chromosomal short tandem repeat (y-str) loci and mitochondrial d-loops. one dominant y-str haplotype was found, whereas there was no dominant haplotype in the mitochondrial region, reflecting a female-biased dispersal pattern, which is typical of chimpanzees. the genetic diversity for three markers in kahuzi chimpanzees was comparable to that in other eastern chimpanzee populations. a relatively high heterozygosity and negative inbreeding coefficient (fis) for str loci suggests that the study community belongs to an outbreeding chimpanzee population. these findings suggest that individuals of the study community may have reproductive contact with other chimpanzee individuals from neighboring communities in kahuzi-biega national park, at least in the recent past. (c) 2015 wiley periodicals, inc." estimating immigration using a bayesian integrated population model: choice of parametrization and priors,bayesian model; immigration; integrated population model; prior sensitivity; source-sink dynamics,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,SCHAUB M;FLETCHER D,"bayesian integrated population modelling provides a natural tool for estimating immigration into a single study population when we have indices of population size, mark-recapture data and fecundity data. we consider the choice of both the parametrization of immigration and its prior. using a simulation study for a model that is typical of those used for short-live bird species, we assess the effect of specifying immigration in terms of the number of immigrants each year, as opposed to an immigration rate. we also assess the effect of the assumption of independence of the data sets, which is commonly required in such modelling. if immigration is occurring, our results suggest that parametrizing the model in terms of number of immigrants will provide a more precise estimate, compared to a parametrization involving an immigration rate, even if we wish to estimate the rate. if there is little or no immigration, use of a model parametrized in terms of an immigration rate can result in overestimation, whereas a model in which immigration is specified as a number offers the possibility to use priors that have a negative lower bound with the consequence that immigration is correctly estimated. use of such a model appears to be robust to the assumption of independence being wrong, our results for independent and dependent data sets being remarkably similar in terms of the distribution, across all simulations, of the posterior means and standard deviations." evidence of a large carnivore population recovery: counting bears in greece,greece; jolly-seber capture-mark-recapture model; non-invasive genetic sampling; population monitoring; power pole hair traps; ursus arctos,JOURNAL FOR NATURE CONSERVATION,KARAMANLIDIS AA;HERNANDO MDG;KRAMBOKOUKIS L;GIMENEZ O,"reliable population and density estimates are the cornerstone of effective conservation and management planning, as conservation priorities often arise in relation to population numbers. despite increased public interest and costly conservation programs limited information on brown bear (ursus arctos, linnaeus, 1758) abundance and density in greece exists. we carried out systematic non-invasive genetic sampling using hair traps on power poles, as part of a capture-mark-recapture study design in order to rigorously estimate abundance and density of the pindos bear population in greece. from 2007-2010 we identified 211 and estimated a mean of 182.3 individuals in four sampling areas; bear densities ranged from 10.0 to 54 bears/1000km(2). these results indicate an important population recovery of this large carnivore in greece in recent years; a conservative population estimate would place the population size in the entire country >450 individuals. considering the results of the study and the increased negative interactions between humans and bears recorded currently in greece, we suggest that systematic genetic monitoring using power poles should continue in order to collect the necessary information that will enable the definition of an effective action plan for the long-term conservation of this species. (c) 2015 elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." age-related effects of chronic hantavirus infection on female host fecundity,disease transmission; endemic pathogen; female fecundity; host-pathogen interaction; resource allocation,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,KALLIO ER;HELLE H;KOSKELA E;MAPPES T;VAPALAHTI O,"pathogens often cause detrimental effects to their hosts and, consequently, may influence host population dynamics that may, in turn, feed back to pathogen transmission dynamics. understanding fitness effects of pathogens upon animal host populations can help to predict the risks that zoonotic pathogens pose to humans. here we determine whether chronic infection by puumala hantavirus (puuv) affects important fitness-related traits, namely the probability of breeding, reproductive effort and mother and offspring condition, in the bank vole (myodes glareolus). using 9years empirical data in a puuv endemic area in central finland, we found differences between reproductive characteristics of puuv-infected and uninfected female bank voles. young infected females had a significantly higher, and old individuals lower, likelihood of reproducing than uninfected animals during the middle of the breeding season. the implication is that puuv infection may have long-term deleterious effects that are observed at old age, while in young individuals, the infection may enhance breeding probability by directing resources towards current breeding. moreover, puuv infection was related with the mother's body condition. infected mothers were in poorer condition than uninfected mothers in the early breeding season, but were in better condition than uninfected mothers during the middle of the breeding season. offspring body condition was positively associated with mother's body condition, which, in turn, was related to the puuv infection status of the mother. our findings indicate that chronic infection may affect the reproduction of female hosts, but the effect is dependent on the host age. the effect of chronic hantavirus infection was small and density-independent and hence unlikely to contribute to the cyclic population dynamics of the host. however, the effects on a female's reproductive output might affect the abundance of young susceptible individuals in the population and hence influence the transmission and persistence of the pathogen. although experimental and long-term capture-mark-recapture studies are required to further clarify the fitness effects of hantavirus infection and their consequences for pathogen dynamics, this study shows that the infection may have complex effects that are dependent on the age of the individual and the time of the breeding season." antagonistic effect of helpers on breeding male and female survival in a cooperatively breeding bird,cooperative breeding; family conflicts; investment; life-history strategies; sex-specific selection,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,PAQUET M;DOUTRELANT C;HATCHWELL BJ;SPOTTISWOODE CN;COVAS R,"cooperatively breeding species are typically long lived and hence, according to theory, are expected to maximize their lifetime reproductive success through maximizing survival. under these circumstances, the presence of helpers could be used to lighten the effort of current reproduction for parents to achieve higher survival. in addition, individuals of different sexes and ages may follow different strategies, but whether male and female breeders and individuals of different ages benefit differently from the presence of helpers has often been overlooked. moreover, only one study that investigated the relationship between parental survival and the presence of helpers used capture-mark-recapture analyses (cmr). these methods are important since they allow us to account for the non-detection of individuals that are alive in the population but not detected, and thus, the effects on survival and recapture probability to be disentangled. here, we used multi-event cmr methods to investigate whether the number of helpers was associated with an increase in survival probability for male and female breeders of different ages in the sociable weaver philetairus socius. in this species, both sexes reduce their feeding rate in the presence of helpers. we therefore predicted that the presence of helpers should increase the breeders' survival in both sexes, especially early in life when individuals potentially have more future breeding opportunities. in addition, sociable weaver females reduce their investment in eggs in the presence of helpers, so we predicted a stronger effect of helpers on female than male survival. as expected we found that females had a higher survival probability when breeding with more helpers. unexpectedly, however, male survival probability decreased with increasing number of helpers. this antagonistic effect diminished as the breeders grew older. these results illustrate the complexity of fitness costs and benefits underlying cooperative behaviours and how these may vary with the individuals' sex and age. they also highlight the need for further studies on the sex-specific effects of helpers on survival." seasonal demography of a cyclic lemming population in the canadian arctic,bylot island; fecundity; lemmus; population cycles; population limitation; probability of survival; snow cover; winter nests,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,FAUTEUX D;GAUTHIER G;BERTEAUX D,"the causes of cyclical fluctuations in animal populations remain a controversial topic in ecology. food limitation and predation are two leading hypotheses to explain small mammal population dynamics in northern environments. we documented the seasonal timing of the decline phases and demographic parameters (survival and reproduction) associated with population changes in lemmings, allowing us to evaluate some predictions from these two hypotheses. we studied the demography of brown lemmings (lemmus trimucronatus), a species showing 3- to 4-year population cycles in the canadian arctic, by combining capture-mark-recapture analysis of summer live-trapping with monitoring of winter nests over a 10-year period. we also examined the effects of some weather variables on survival. we found that population declines after a peak occurred between the summer and winter period and not during the winter. during the summer, population growth was driven by change in survival, but not in fecundity or proportion of juveniles, whereas in winter population growth was driven by changes in late summer and winter reproduction. we did not find evidence for direct density dependence on summer demographic parameters, though our analysis was constrained by the paucity of data during the low phase. body mass, however, was highest in peak years. weather effects were detected only in early summer when lemming survival was positively related to snow depth at the onset of melt but negatively related to rainfall. our results show that high mortality causes population declines of lemmings during summer and fall, which suggests that predation is sufficient to cause population crashes, whereas high winter fecundity is the primary factor leading to population irruptions. the positive association between snow depth and early summer survival may be due to the protective cover offered by snow against predators. it is still unclear why reproduction remains low during the low phase." -camera traps and mark-resight models: the value of ancillary data for evaluating assumptions,ancillary data; camera traps; detection bias; mark-resight; population estimation; procyon lotor; raccoon,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PARSONS AW;SIMONS TR;POLLOCK KH;STOSKOPF MK;STOCKING JJ;O'CONNELL AF,"unbiased estimators of abundance and density are fundamental to the study of animal ecology and critical for making sound management decisions. capture-recapture models are generally considered the most robust approach for estimating these parameters but rely on a number of assumptions that are often violated but rarely validated. mark-resight models, a form of capture-recapture, are well suited for use with noninvasive sampling methods and allow for a number of assumptions to be relaxed. we used ancillary data from continuous video and radio telemetry to evaluate the assumptions of mark-resight models for abundance estimation on a barrier island raccoon (procyon lotor) population using camera traps. our island study site was geographically closed, allowing us to estimate real survival and in situ recruitment in addition to population size. we found several sources of bias due to heterogeneity of capture probabilities in our study, including camera placement, animal movement, island physiography, and animal behavior. almost all sources of heterogeneity could be accounted for using the sophisticated mark-resight models developed by mcclintock et al. (2009b) and this model generated estimates similar to a spatially explicit mark-resight model previously developed for this population during our study. spatially explicit capture-recapture models have become an important tool in ecology and confer a number of advantages; however, non-spatial models that account for inherent individual heterogeneity may perform nearly as well, especially where immigration and emigration are limited. non-spatial models are computationally less demanding, do not make implicit assumptions related to the isotropy of home ranges, and can provide insights with respect to the biological traits of the local population. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." -recruiting age influences male and female survival and population persistence in a long-lived tropical seabird,age at first reproduction; capture-recapture; life history; long-lived vertebrate; matrix population models; population fitness; trade-off,EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY,ANCONA S;ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ;RODRIGUEZ C;CARMONA-ISUNZA MC;DRUMMOND H,"variation in the age at first reproduction may have important implications for growth and dynamics of populations, but these potential impacts remain virtually unexplored. by using 26 years of data from a marked colony of blue-footed boobies sula nebouxii (milne-edwards), we tested whether survival of early recruits is lower in comparison to late recruits, and investigate how different recruiting ages contribute to the persistence of the population. in addition, we simulated changes in the age at recruitment and estimated their impact on population fitness. our analyses of 1310 capture-recapture histories revealed that the younger males and females initiated reproduction within the first 6 years of life, the lower were their mean annual survival probabilities. survival did not differ between the sexes and the impact of recruiting age on survival was similar for males and females. each additional year that male and female boobies delayed the start of reproduction meant an increase of roughly 2 % in their annual survival rates. male and female recruits 2-5 years old contributed the same to the rate of population growth (lambda) regardless of their particular age, but the contribution to population growth started to decline from age 6 years. according to our simulations, delaying reproduction beyond 5 years in the case of females, and beyond 6 years in the case of males, would negatively affect this booby population. therefore, we suggest that there is selection against recruiting beyond 5-6 years old. this study adds to the nascent empirical literature on long-term fitness consequences of variation in the age at first reproduction in long-lived species, and provides insights into evolution of early and late reproduction and trade-offs from a demographic perspective." +camera traps and mark-resight models: the value of ancillary data for evaluating assumptions,ancillary data; camera traps; detection bias; mark-resight; population estimation; procyon lotor; raccoon,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PARSONS AW;SIMONS TR;POLLOCK KH;STOSKOPF MK;STOCKING JJ;O CONNELL AF,"unbiased estimators of abundance and density are fundamental to the study of animal ecology and critical for making sound management decisions. capture-recapture models are generally considered the most robust approach for estimating these parameters but rely on a number of assumptions that are often violated but rarely validated. mark-resight models, a form of capture-recapture, are well suited for use with noninvasive sampling methods and allow for a number of assumptions to be relaxed. we used ancillary data from continuous video and radio telemetry to evaluate the assumptions of mark-resight models for abundance estimation on a barrier island raccoon (procyon lotor) population using camera traps. our island study site was geographically closed, allowing us to estimate real survival and in situ recruitment in addition to population size. we found several sources of bias due to heterogeneity of capture probabilities in our study, including camera placement, animal movement, island physiography, and animal behavior. almost all sources of heterogeneity could be accounted for using the sophisticated mark-resight models developed by mcclintock et al. (2009b) and this model generated estimates similar to a spatially explicit mark-resight model previously developed for this population during our study. spatially explicit capture-recapture models have become an important tool in ecology and confer a number of advantages; however, non-spatial models that account for inherent individual heterogeneity may perform nearly as well, especially where immigration and emigration are limited. non-spatial models are computationally less demanding, do not make implicit assumptions related to the isotropy of home ranges, and can provide insights with respect to the biological traits of the local population. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." +recruiting age influences male and female survival and population persistence in a long-lived tropical seabird,age at first reproduction; capture-recapture; life history; long-lived vertebrate; matrix population models; population fitness; trade-off,EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY,ANCONA S;ZUNIGA VEGA JJ;RODRIGUEZ C;CARMONA ISUNZA MC;DRUMMOND H,"variation in the age at first reproduction may have important implications for growth and dynamics of populations, but these potential impacts remain virtually unexplored. by using 26 years of data from a marked colony of blue-footed boobies sula nebouxii (milne-edwards), we tested whether survival of early recruits is lower in comparison to late recruits, and investigate how different recruiting ages contribute to the persistence of the population. in addition, we simulated changes in the age at recruitment and estimated their impact on population fitness. our analyses of 1310 capture-recapture histories revealed that the younger males and females initiated reproduction within the first 6 years of life, the lower were their mean annual survival probabilities. survival did not differ between the sexes and the impact of recruiting age on survival was similar for males and females. each additional year that male and female boobies delayed the start of reproduction meant an increase of roughly 2 % in their annual survival rates. male and female recruits 2-5 years old contributed the same to the rate of population growth (lambda) regardless of their particular age, but the contribution to population growth started to decline from age 6 years. according to our simulations, delaying reproduction beyond 5 years in the case of females, and beyond 6 years in the case of males, would negatively affect this booby population. therefore, we suggest that there is selection against recruiting beyond 5-6 years old. this study adds to the nascent empirical literature on long-term fitness consequences of variation in the age at first reproduction in long-lived species, and provides insights into evolution of early and late reproduction and trade-offs from a demographic perspective." "unpredictable environments, opportunistic responses: reproduction and population turnover in two wild mouse lemur species (microcebus rufus and m-griseorufus) from eastern and western madagascar",brown mouse lemur; gray-brown mouse lemur; ranomafana; beza mahafaly; reproduction; population,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY,BLANCO MB;RASOAZANABARY E;GODFREY LR,"small-bodied, nocturnal mouse lemurs (microcebus) are widespread across diverse forest habitats in madagascar. they are strict seasonal breeders and can, depending on the habitat and species, undergo daily or prolonged torpor to minimize energy expenditure during periods of food and water scarcity. duration of reproduction, number of litters per season and timing of births vary across individuals and species. the ""polyestry-seasonality"" hypothesis proposes that the duration of reproduction and number of litters per year are positively correlated with rainfall but negatively correlated with longevity, whereas the ""hypervariability"" hypothesis suggests that the duration of reproduction is negatively correlated with the degree of predictability of food resources. we test these hypotheses in two mouse lemur species inhabiting contrasting habitats, the brown mouse lemurs, microcebus rufus, from ranomafana (a less seasonal and more climatically predictable habitat) and the gray-brown mouse lemurs, m. griseorufus, from beza mahafaly (a more seasonal and less climatically predictable environment). we use capture/mark/recapture techniques and records of female reproductive status. we found evidence of polyestry at both study sites but faster population turnover and longer duration of the reproductive season at beza mahafaly. the ""polyestry-seasonality"" hypothesis is not supported but the ""hypervariability"" hypothesis could not be rejected. we conclude that reproductive output cannot be tied to climatic factors in a simple manner. paradoxically, polyestry can be expressed in contrasting habitats: less seasonal forests where females can sustain multiple reproductive events, but also highly seasonal environments where females may not fatten sufficiently to sustain prolonged torpor but instead remain active throughout the year by relying on fallback resources. am. j. primatol. 77: 936-947, 2015. (c) 2015 wiley periodicals, inc." "cumulative experience, age-class, sex and season affect the behavioural responses of european badgers (meles meles) to handling and sedation",animal welfare; badger; behavioural response; injection; restraint; sedation,ANIMAL WELFARE,SUN Q;STEVENS C;NEWMAN C;BUESCHING CD;MACDONALD DW,"the restraint and sedation of wild animals has welfare implications, thus animal handling procedures should be well-informed and optimised to adhere to welfare standards. furthermore, it is important that handling procedures should not cause future trap avoidance. this is of particular pertinence to european badgers (meles meles), subject to extensive cage-trapping, relating to bovine tuberculosis epidemiology. we examined 4,288 capture/recapture events for 856 individual badgers, occurring between may 1999-september 2011, recording initial observed behaviour and reaction provoked by injection, on a scale ranging from still (0) to distressed/aggressive (3). eighty-seven percent of adults and 76% of cubs were still(0) when approached initially and 75% of adults and 62% of cubs remained still when injected. cubs exhibited significantly higher behavioural responses than adults, while female adults scored higher provoked scores than males. importantly, the initial behaviour of an individual dictated its provoked response. previous experience of capture was associated with lower subsequent behavioural response scores, while naive badgers were most prone to score highly. individuals first caught as cubs scored lower initial responses than those first caught as adults. lower initial responses occurred in spring and summer and higher responses were associated with lice infestation. behavioural criteria have potential to inform and optimise welfare in badger capture operations. this contributes to techniques allowing simple, non-invasive assessment of how wild animals in general respond to temporary restraint, where the psychological perception acts as the precursor to physiological stress." temporally fluctuating selection on a personality trait in a wild rodent population,boldness; capture-mark-recapture; fluctuating selection; personality evolution; tamias sibiricus; trappability,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY,LE COEUR C;THIBAULT M;PISANU B;THIBAULT S;CHAPUIS JL;BAUDRY E,"over the past decade, it has been recognized that in many animal species, individuals present consistent behavioral differences across time and/or contexts, thus defining personality traits. a general relationship seems to exist between personality and fitness in wild populations, which raises the question as to how variation in personality is maintained in the presence of selection. fluctuating selection associated with a heterogeneous environment could contribute to maintaining personality variation, but its presence in wild populations has rarely been tested. in this 6-year study, we investigated the relationship between individual personality differences and 1 component of fitness, annual reproductive success (ars), in a population of siberian chipmunk tamias sibiricus that experiences considerable annual variations in food availability. we estimated trappability-the propensity of chipmunks to enter traps-using capture-mark-recapture data, and we showed that it was repeatable over a 1-year interval. genetic data were used to estimate parentage and thus ars. assuming that trappability is an indicator of boldness, we found that bolder chipmunks had higher ars in years with low food availability, whereas lower ars in years with high food availability. temporally fluctuating selection therefore probably contributes to maintaining variation in boldness in the study population." -assessment of census (n) and effective population size (n-e ) reveals consistency of n-e single-sample estimators and a high n-e/n ratio in an urban and isolated population of fire salamanders,demography; genetic compensation; inbreeding; n; n-e,CONSERVATION GENETICS RESOURCES,ALVAREZ D;LOURENCO A;ORO D;VELO-ANTON G,"amphibians are the most threatened vertebrates on earth, and one of the main factors involved in their decline is the loss and fragmentation of their natural habitats. contemporary urban development is a major cause of habitat fragmentation, and populations trapped within urban environments offer a unique opportunity to study effects of fragmentation. here, we compared, for the first time in fire salamanders (salamandra salamandra), estimates of census (n) and effective population size (n (e) ) in a small urban population in the city of oviedo (spain). we performed a 4 year capture-mark-recapture study and used three single-sample n (e) estimators based on 58 individuals genotyped for 15 polymorphic microsatellite loci. our study showed a small ( salamanders; 95 % ci 100-142) but dense population (mean 0.45 individuals per m(2)), while single-sample estimators provided congruent n (e) estimates. a high n (e) /n population size ratio (range 0.50-0.84) obtained in this small and isolated population suggests the existence of mechanisms of genetic compensation (low reproductive variance and multiple paternity) in fire salamanders." +assessment of census (n) and effective population size (n-e ) reveals consistency of n-e single-sample estimators and a high n-e/n ratio in an urban and isolated population of fire salamanders,demography; genetic compensation; inbreeding; n; n-e,CONSERVATION GENETICS RESOURCES,ALVAREZ D;LOURENCO A;ORO D;VELO ANTON G,"amphibians are the most threatened vertebrates on earth, and one of the main factors involved in their decline is the loss and fragmentation of their natural habitats. contemporary urban development is a major cause of habitat fragmentation, and populations trapped within urban environments offer a unique opportunity to study effects of fragmentation. here, we compared, for the first time in fire salamanders (salamandra salamandra), estimates of census (n) and effective population size (n (e) ) in a small urban population in the city of oviedo (spain). we performed a 4 year capture-mark-recapture study and used three single-sample n (e) estimators based on 58 individuals genotyped for 15 polymorphic microsatellite loci. our study showed a small ( salamanders; 95 % ci 100-142) but dense population (mean 0.45 individuals per m(2)), while single-sample estimators provided congruent n (e) estimates. a high n (e) /n population size ratio (range 0.50-0.84) obtained in this small and isolated population suggests the existence of mechanisms of genetic compensation (low reproductive variance and multiple paternity) in fire salamanders." adaptation of lake-origin burbot stocked into a large river environment,burbot; lota lota; conservation; idaho fishes; fishery management; movement; growth; adaptation; survival,HYDROBIOLOGIA,HARDY RS;STEPHENSON SM;NEUFELD MD;YOUNG SP,"burbot lota lota maculosa numbers in kootenay lake and kootenai river of british columbia, idaho, and montana have diminished due to habitat changes from the construction of libby dam. recent implementation of a conservation strategy included aquaculture to supplement the population using a donor stock from a self-sustaining lake population within the watershed. evaluation of release strategies using telemetry and mark recapture through hoop netting suggests lake-origin burbot have adapted to the kootenai system and selected riverine over lacustrine habitat. previous telemetry work identified good survival and dispersal of released burbot, and vast dispersal distance and lacustrine use. however, our analysis of a broader telemetry dataset indicated that only 24% of age 1-4 burbot were detected in the lake. recapture hoop net data indicated that burbot residing in the river have growth and survival rates comparable to the historical population. spawning of hatchery origin fish was detected at historical riverine spawning locations. other than later spawn timing, our evaluations suggest lake-origin fish are mimicking movement and habitat use of the historical riverine population. this study, in combination with others, provides evidence that burbot progeny from lacustrine brood stock can successfully survive, grow, disperse, and spawn in a riverine environment." population density and climate shape early-life survival and recruitment in a long-lived pelagic seabird,capture-mark-recapture; diomedea exulans; juvenile vital rates; population dynamics; wandering albatross,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,FAY R;WEIMERSKIRCH H;DELORD K;BARBRAUD C,"our understanding of demographic processes is mainly based on analyses of traits from the adult component of populations. early-life demographic traits are poorly known mainly for methodological reasons. yet, survival of juvenile and immature individuals is critical for the recruitment into the population and thus for the whole population dynamic, especially for long-lived species. this bias currently restrains our ability to fully understand population dynamics of long-lived species and life-history theory. the goal of this study was to estimate the early-life demographic parameters of a long-lived species with a long immature period (9-10years), to test for sex and age effects on these parameters and to identify the environmental factors encountered during the period of immaturity that may influence survival and recruitment. using capture-mark-recapture multievent models allowing us to deal with uncertain and unobservable individual states, we analysed a long-term data set of wandering albatrosses to estimate both age- and sex-specific early-life survival and recruitment. we investigated environmental factors potentially driving these demographic traits using climatic and fisheries covariates and tested for density dependence. our study provides for the first time an estimate of annual survival during the first 2years at sea for an albatross species (08010014). both age and sex affected early-life survival and recruitment processes of this long-lived seabird species. early-life survival and recruitment were highly variable across years although the sensitivity of young birds to environmental variability decreased with age. early-life survival was negatively associated with sea surface temperature, and recruitment rate was positively related to both southern annular mode and sea surface temperature. we found strong evidence for density-dependent mortality of juveniles. population size explained 41% of the variation of this parameter over the study period. these results indicate that early-life survival and recruitment were strongly age and sex dependent in a dimorphic long-lived species. in addition, early-life demographic parameters were affected by natal environmental conditions and by environmental conditions faced during the period of immaturity. finally, our results constitute one of the first demonstrations of density dependence on juvenile survival in seabirds, with major consequences for our understanding of population dynamics in seabirds." evidence of a link between survival and pair fidelity across multiple tit populations,NA,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,CULINA A;LACHISH S;SHELDON BC,"although they have the potential to strongly influence individual fitness and the dynamics and productivity of populations, the survival consequences of pairing outcomes and the influence of current pairing outcomes on those in the future have rarely been addressed. previously, we have shown that pair fidelity increases both survival and future pair fidelity in a population of great tits parus major. the aim of this study was to explore the generality of our previous findings by evaluating the influence of current paring outcomes on survival and on future pairing outcomes in two different species and in different populations. we addressed our aims within a multievent capture-mark-recapture (mecmr) statistical framework, which accounts for differences in recapture rates and uncertainty in the assignment of pair status (i.e. whether an individual is breeding with the same partner or not). we applied the framework to breeding records of two great tit populations and one blue tit cyanistes caeruleus population. we detected survival benefits (i.e. increased survival) of pair fidelity in all three populations. these were similar in both great tit populations, but higher for male great tits than for male blue tits. we found that age-dependence in the rate of pair fidelity was shared between different populations and species, but did not detect any influence of current pair status on future pair status. our study highlights the importance of considering survival when studying the fitness benefits of pair fidelity. some of the differences in pair fidelity rates and survival benefits of pair fidelity are likely the result of long-term and short-term demographic and environmental factors in the population. we advocate the use of the mecmr framework used here for further exploration of these differences." -"leapfrog migration and habitat preferences of a small oceanic seabird, bulwer's petrel (bulweria bulwerii)",activity patterns; bulweria bulwerii; bulwer's petrel; capture-mark-recapture; geolocator data; habitat modelling; macaronesian seabirds; metapopulation studies; oceanic migrations,JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY,RAMOS R;SANZ V;MILITAO T;BRIED J;NEVES VC;BISCOITO M;PHILLIPS RA;ZINO F;GONZALEZ-SOLIS J,"aimour current understanding of migratory strategies and the reasons for their high variability along the phylogenetic tree remains relatively poor. most of the hypotheses relating to migration have been formulated for terrestrial taxa; classically, oceanic migrations were considered as merely dispersive because of the scarcity of observations in the open ocean. we describe for the first time, the migration strategy of a small seabird, the bulwer's petrel (bulweria bulwerii), and provide new insights into the ecology and evolution of long-distance marine migrations. locationsubtropical and tropical atlantic ocean. methodsusing cutting-edge geolocators, we examined the year-round distribution and at-sea activity patterns of adult bulwer's petrels sampled at five localities throughout the species' breeding range in the atlantic, within the azores, salvages, canary and cape verde archipelagos. we assessed the migratory connectivity of the species and its habitat use at population and metapopulation scales. resultsour results provide the first evidence of an oriented leapfrog migration in oceanic seabirds. ecological niche models based on breeding-season data effectively predicted that subtropical waters of the south atlantic would be the preferred habitat for the northern populations of bulwer's petrels during the non-breeding season. habitat modelling also highlighted similarities in distributions between the breeding and non-breeding periods for the southern populations. data on at-sea activity patterns suggested that birds from the northern and southern populations behave differently during the breeding season, as well as in the northern and southern non-breeding ranges during the non-breeding period. main conclusionsthese results indicate that specific habitat preferences, presumably related to differences in prey availability, explain the observed distributions and hence the pattern of leapfrog migration described for bulwer's petrel. our study demonstrates the utility of integrating diverse tracking data from multiple populations across international boundaries, and habitat modelling, for identifying important areas common to many marine species in the vast oceanic environments." +"leapfrog migration and habitat preferences of a small oceanic seabird, bulwer's petrel (bulweria bulwerii)",activity patterns; bulweria bulwerii; bulwer's petrel; capture-mark-recapture; geolocator data; habitat modelling; macaronesian seabirds; metapopulation studies; oceanic migrations,JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY,RAMOS R;SANZ V;MILITAO T;BRIED J;NEVES VC;BISCOITO M;PHILLIPS RA;ZINO F;GONZALEZ SOLIS J,"aimour current understanding of migratory strategies and the reasons for their high variability along the phylogenetic tree remains relatively poor. most of the hypotheses relating to migration have been formulated for terrestrial taxa; classically, oceanic migrations were considered as merely dispersive because of the scarcity of observations in the open ocean. we describe for the first time, the migration strategy of a small seabird, the bulwer's petrel (bulweria bulwerii), and provide new insights into the ecology and evolution of long-distance marine migrations. locationsubtropical and tropical atlantic ocean. methodsusing cutting-edge geolocators, we examined the year-round distribution and at-sea activity patterns of adult bulwer's petrels sampled at five localities throughout the species' breeding range in the atlantic, within the azores, salvages, canary and cape verde archipelagos. we assessed the migratory connectivity of the species and its habitat use at population and metapopulation scales. resultsour results provide the first evidence of an oriented leapfrog migration in oceanic seabirds. ecological niche models based on breeding-season data effectively predicted that subtropical waters of the south atlantic would be the preferred habitat for the northern populations of bulwer's petrels during the non-breeding season. habitat modelling also highlighted similarities in distributions between the breeding and non-breeding periods for the southern populations. data on at-sea activity patterns suggested that birds from the northern and southern populations behave differently during the breeding season, as well as in the northern and southern non-breeding ranges during the non-breeding period. main conclusionsthese results indicate that specific habitat preferences, presumably related to differences in prey availability, explain the observed distributions and hence the pattern of leapfrog migration described for bulwer's petrel. our study demonstrates the utility of integrating diverse tracking data from multiple populations across international boundaries, and habitat modelling, for identifying important areas common to many marine species in the vast oceanic environments." foraging behavior of three species of songbirds during stopover in southeastern morocco during spring migration,fuel deposition rate; north africa; peck rates; spring; warblers,JOURNAL OF FIELD ORNITHOLOGY,MAGGINI I;HAMA F;ROBSON D;IDRISSI HR;BAIRLEIN F;GARGALLO G,"investigators studying the stopover ecology of migrating birds typically use the capture-recapture method to examine important parameters such as fuel deposition rates (fdr) and stopover duration. however, such studies can be constrained by the number of recaptures. an alternative method is to calculate a regression of mass over time of day, but this method may not be reliable because patterns of mass change of individual birds through the day may not reflect that of the whole population. given the potential constraints of these methods, using them in combination with other methods, such as behavioral observations of foraging birds, may improve our understanding of the patterns of fuelling in birds at stopover sites. we observed the foraging behavior of three songbird species, including western bonelli's (phylloscopus bonelli), subalpine (sylvia cantillans), and willow (phylloscopus trochilus) warblers, from 15 march to 30 april 2011 at a small oasis at the northern border of the sahara desert in southeast morocco. given the location of our study site at the northern edge of the sahara desert, birds migrating north likely needed to replenish their energy reserves at this stage of their journey. we assessed foraging effort by determining the rate (number per unit time) at which birds pecked at substrates or made aerial forays after flying insects. peck rates were higher for western bonelli's warblers than for subalpine and willow warblers, suggesting either species-specific adaptations to feeding in arid environments or differences in the motivation to feed. in addition, western bonelli's warblers had fdrs that were negative or close to zero and, therefore, were apparently unable to refuel successfully (i.e., increase their fuel stores) despite greater effort, possibly indicating less efficiency in obtaining food (i.e., more unsuccessful pecks). the lower peck rates of subalpine and willow warblers suggest either that they were less efficient at finding prey or were simply foraging at lower rates. for all three species, peck rates were lower at higher wind speeds, suggesting that wind may alter prey availability and detectability, especially of flying insects. interactions among species-specific migration strategies, environmental conditions, and habitat quality ultimately define the success of migration. our results suggest that using observational data in combination with capture data may improve our understanding of these interactions at migration stopover sites." habitat selection of gray seals (halichoerus grypus) in a marine protected area in france,conservation; glm; gray seal; habitat preference; iroise sea; management; spatial planning; telemetry,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HUON M;JONES EL;MATTHIOPOULOS J;MCCONNELL B;CAURANT F;VINCENT C,"in france, the first marine national park was set up in 2007 in the iroise sea, western brittany, encompassing several special areas of conservation (sac). the park is resident to 1 of only 3 gray seal colonies in france. the at-sea habitat use of gray seals in the marine park is poorly understood and direct interactions with human activities are expected. we investigated habitat selection of gray seals within the marine park to provide spatial planning recommendations to local conservation management. we obtained data from 19 seals tracked between 2010 and 2013. we used generalized linear models to investigate their habitat selection using distance to haulout, distance to shore, bathymetry, tidal current, and sediment type as explanatory variables. the tracked individuals spent 67% of their time within the boundaries of the marine park. we investigated return trips to focus on habitat selection within the iroise sea. the deviance explained by the final model was 76%. distance to haulout explained 47% of the deviance (seals selected short distances), bathymetry explained 40% (with bimodal selection for waters shallower than 50 m or deeper than 150 m), distance to shore explained 6% (selected distances less than 40 km), current explained 5% (selected weak currents), and sediment explained 2% (selected rocky areas). habitat selection was concentrated in shallow waters located in the main archipelago of the marine park. the map of selected habitat will help identify potential conflicts of space use between seals and human activities such as fishing and leisure activities. this study has an important ecological and management value. it is the first of its kind in a marine park in france, and one of the few studies of gray seals at the periphery of their range. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." -"population estimates and conservation of felids (carnivora: felidae) in northern quintana roo, mexico",keystone species; priority areas for conservation; density; abundance; leopardus; panthera; puma,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,AVILA-NAJERE DM;CHAVEZ C;LAZCANO-BARRERO MA;PEREZ-ELIZALDE S;ALCANTARA-CARBAJAL JL,"wildlife density estimates provide an idea of the current state of populations, and in some cases, reflect the conservation status of ecosystems, essential aspects for effective management actions. in mexico, several regions have been identified as high priority areas for the conservation of species that have some level of risk, like the yucatan peninsula (yp), where the country has the largest population of jaguars. however, little is known about the current status of threatened and endangered felids, which coexist in the northeastern portion of the peninsula. our objective was to estimate the wild cats' density population over time at el eden ecological reserve (eeer) and its surrounding areas. camera trap surveys over four years (2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012) were conducted, and data were obtained with the use of capture-recapture models for closed populations (capture + mmdm or 1/2 mmdm), and the spatially explicit capture-recapture model (spacecap). the species studied were jaguar (panthera onca), puma (puma concolor), ocelot (leopardus pardalis), jaguarundi (puma yaguaroundi) and margay (leopardus wiedii). capture frequency was obtained for all five species and the density for three (individuals/100km(2)). the density estimated with the mean maximum distance moved (mmdm), capture, ranged from 1.2 to 2.6 for jaguars, from 1.7 to 4.3 for pumas and from 1.4 to 13.8 for ocelots. the density estimates in spacecap ranged from 0.7 to 3.6 for jaguars, from 1.8 to 5.2 for pumas and 2.1 to 5.1 for ocelots. spatially explicit capture recapture (secr) methods in spacecap were less likely to overestimate densities, making it a useful tool in the planning and decision making process for the conservation of these species. the northeastern portion of the yucatan peninsula maintains high populations of cats, the eeer and its surrounding areas are valuable sites for the conservation of this group of predators." +"population estimates and conservation of felids (carnivora: felidae) in northern quintana roo, mexico",keystone species; priority areas for conservation; density; abundance; leopardus; panthera; puma,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,AVILA NAJERE DM;CHAVEZ C;LAZCANO BARRERO MA;PEREZ ELIZALDE S;ALCANTARA CARBAJAL JL,"wildlife density estimates provide an idea of the current state of populations, and in some cases, reflect the conservation status of ecosystems, essential aspects for effective management actions. in mexico, several regions have been identified as high priority areas for the conservation of species that have some level of risk, like the yucatan peninsula (yp), where the country has the largest population of jaguars. however, little is known about the current status of threatened and endangered felids, which coexist in the northeastern portion of the peninsula. our objective was to estimate the wild cats' density population over time at el eden ecological reserve (eeer) and its surrounding areas. camera trap surveys over four years (2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012) were conducted, and data were obtained with the use of capture-recapture models for closed populations (capture + mmdm or 1/2 mmdm), and the spatially explicit capture-recapture model (spacecap). the species studied were jaguar (panthera onca), puma (puma concolor), ocelot (leopardus pardalis), jaguarundi (puma yaguaroundi) and margay (leopardus wiedii). capture frequency was obtained for all five species and the density for three (individuals/100km(2)). the density estimated with the mean maximum distance moved (mmdm), capture, ranged from 1.2 to 2.6 for jaguars, from 1.7 to 4.3 for pumas and from 1.4 to 13.8 for ocelots. the density estimates in spacecap ranged from 0.7 to 3.6 for jaguars, from 1.8 to 5.2 for pumas and 2.1 to 5.1 for ocelots. spatially explicit capture recapture (secr) methods in spacecap were less likely to overestimate densities, making it a useful tool in the planning and decision making process for the conservation of these species. the northeastern portion of the yucatan peninsula maintains high populations of cats, the eeer and its surrounding areas are valuable sites for the conservation of this group of predators." "density of leopards panthera pardus on protected and non-protected land in the waterberg biosphere, south africa",NA,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,SWANEPOEL LH;SOMERS MJ;DALERUM F,"data on the population size and trends of large carnivores remains the cornerstone of effective management and conservation programs. however, such data are rarely available for the majority of large carnivore species. furthermore, large carnivore research is often directed towards formally protected areas. there is therefore a need to improve our knowledge regarding the population ecology of large carnivores in non-protected areas. in this study we use camera trapping in conjunction with spatially explicit mark-recapture models to estimate leopard panthera pardus density across different land use types in the waterberg biosphere, south africa. estimated densities (mean. se) ranged from 6.59 (+/- 5.2/100 km(2)) on a matrix of commercial game and livestock farms to 5.35 (+/- 2.93/100 km(2)) and 4.56 (+/- 1.35/100 km(2)) on two protected areas (lapalala and welgevonden respectively). although density estimates had large confidence intervals we suggest that these results indicate similar densities across the three sites. these results support other studies suggesting that non-protected areas can harbour as dense leopard populations as protected areas, and can therefore not be neglected in the management of leopards." "using linked birth, notification, hospital and mortality data to examine false-positive meningococcal disease reporting and adjust disease incidence estimates for children in new south wales, australia",meningococcal disease; notifiable infectious diseases; notifications; paediatrics; surveillance,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,GIBSON A;JORM L;MCINTYRE P,"meningococcal disease is a rare, rapidly progressing condition which may be difficult to diagnose, disproportionally affects children, and has high morbidity and mortality. accurate incidence estimates are needed to monitor the effectiveness of vaccination and treatment. we used linked notification, hospital, mortality and birth data for all children of an australian state (2000-2007) to estimate the incidence of meningococcal disease. a total of 595 cases were notified, 684 cases had a hospital diagnosis, and 26 cases died from meningococcal disease. all deaths were notified, but only 68% (466/684) of hospitalized cases. of non-notified hospitalized cases with more than one clinical admission, most (90%, 103/114) did not have meningococcal disease recorded as their final diagnosis, consistent with initial 'false-positive' hospital meningococcal disease diagnosis. after adjusting for false-positive rates in hospital data, capture-recapture estimation suggested that up to four cases of meningococcal disease may not have been captured in either notification or hospital records. the estimated incidence of meningococcal disease in nsw-born and -resident children aged 0-14 years was 5.1-5.4 cases/100 000 child-years at risk, comparable to international estimates using similar methods, but lower than estimates based on hospital data." -evaluation of three tagging methods in the sea urchin diadema antillarum,diadema antillarum; pit-tag; sea urchin; demography; caribbean sea,JOURNAL OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM,RODRIGUEZ-BARRERAS R;SABAT AM,"multiple tagging devices have been developed for long-term studies and estimating demographic parameters in sea urchins. in this study, we evaluated the use of passive integrated transponders (pit-tag), and two types of nylon tags (t-bar and s-tag) in the sea urchin diadema antillarum by measuring retention rate and apparent survival. the pit-tags exhibited the highest retention, followed by t-bars, and lastly the s-tags. differences in recapture were detected among the three types of tags (h = 6.99, p = 0.030). an a posteriori pairwise comparison test found significant differences between pit-tags and each of the other two types (p < 0.05), whereas t-bar and s-tag did not exhibit significant differences between them (p > 0.05). the semi-captivity experiment exhibited similar results to the field experiment in terms of retention. this experiment also found higher mortality with t-bars. differences between previous studies conducted under controlled conditions and experiments carried out in the field reflect high variability and the necessity of testing tagging procedures under both settings. the s-tag induced high spine autotomy and low retention; whereas the t-bar demonstrated low retention and low survival. although the retention rate of pit-tags was significantly higher than the other two, retention rates were still too low for practical utility in long-term field experiments. in conclusion, the present study does not support the use of any of these tags for long-term studies in d. antillarum." +evaluation of three tagging methods in the sea urchin diadema antillarum,diadema antillarum; pit-tag; sea urchin; demography; caribbean sea,JOURNAL OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM,RODRIGUEZ BARRERAS R;SABAT AM,"multiple tagging devices have been developed for long-term studies and estimating demographic parameters in sea urchins. in this study, we evaluated the use of passive integrated transponders (pit-tag), and two types of nylon tags (t-bar and s-tag) in the sea urchin diadema antillarum by measuring retention rate and apparent survival. the pit-tags exhibited the highest retention, followed by t-bars, and lastly the s-tags. differences in recapture were detected among the three types of tags (h = 6.99, p = 0.030). an a posteriori pairwise comparison test found significant differences between pit-tags and each of the other two types (p < 0.05), whereas t-bar and s-tag did not exhibit significant differences between them (p > 0.05). the semi-captivity experiment exhibited similar results to the field experiment in terms of retention. this experiment also found higher mortality with t-bars. differences between previous studies conducted under controlled conditions and experiments carried out in the field reflect high variability and the necessity of testing tagging procedures under both settings. the s-tag induced high spine autotomy and low retention; whereas the t-bar demonstrated low retention and low survival. although the retention rate of pit-tags was significantly higher than the other two, retention rates were still too low for practical utility in long-term field experiments. in conclusion, the present study does not support the use of any of these tags for long-term studies in d. antillarum." aquaculture disturbance impacts the diet but not ecological linkages of a ubiquitous predatory fish,aquaculture effects; geoduck; structural complexity; stable isotope analysis; stomach content analysis; staghorn sculpin,ESTUARIES AND COASTS,MCPEEK KC;MCDONALD PS;VANBLARICOM GR,"aquaculture operations are a frequent and prominent cause of anthropogenic disturbance to marine and estuarine communities and may alter species composition and abundance. however, little is known about how such disturbances affect trophic linkages or ecosystem functions. in puget sound, washington, aquaculture of the pacific geoduck clam (panopea generosa) is increasing and involves placing nets and polyvinyl chloride (pvc) tubes in intertidal areas to protect juvenile geoducks from predators. initial studies of the structured phase of the farming cycle have documented limited impacts on the abundance of some species. to examine the effect of geoduck aquaculture on ecological linkages, the trophic relationships of a local ubiquitous consumer, pacific staghorn sculpin (leptocottus armatus), to its invertebrate prey were compared between geoduck aquaculture sites and nearby reference areas with no aquaculture. mark-recapture data indicated that sculpin exhibit local site fidelity to cultured and reference areas. the stomach contents of sculpin and stable isotope signatures of sculpin and their prey were examined to study the trophic ecology of cultured and reference areas. results showed that the structured phase of geoduck aquaculture initiated some changes to staghorn sculpin ecology, as reflected in sculpin diet through stomach content analysis. however, carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes revealed that the general food web function of sculpin remained unchanged. the source of carbon at the base of the food web and the trophic position of sculpin were not impacted by geoduck aquaculture. the study has important implications for geoduck aquaculture management and will inform regulatory decisions related to shellfish aquaculture policy." estimating natural mortality rates of juvenile white shrimp litopenaeus setiferus,essential fish habitat; nursery; salt marsh; growth rate; length-frequency data; mark-recapture data,ESTUARIES AND COASTS,MACE MM;ROZAS LP,"comparisons of natural mortality rates can be used to identify essential habitat and nursery areas for fishery species. we estimated and compared natural mortality rates of juvenile white shrimp litopenaeus setiferus using length-frequency and mark-recapture data and attempted to identify factors that may affect these mortality rates. daily instantaneous natural mortality rates (95 % confidence interval (ci)) obtained from length-frequency data by following individual cohorts were 0.043 (0.031-0.054) and 0.014 (0.0-0.039). combining all length-frequency data, converting to age-frequency data, and using two types of catch-curve analyses yielded estimates of 0.069 (0.042-0.095) and 0.060 (0.046-0.073). mark-recapture estimates obtained in a separate study from two ponds were 0.129 (0.054-0.203) and 0.014 (-0.048-0.076). these estimates are comparable to previously reported values for this species, but we are the first to report a measure of precision with our estimates. in the mark-recapture study, mortality rates appeared to be related to predator abundance in ponds and flooding patterns of the surrounding marsh. the only mortality rate significantly different from any of the other estimates was the lower of the two length-frequency estimates, but this result should be interpreted with caution because of the uncertainty in that estimate, relative imprecision of our estimates, and confounding factors between the methods we used to estimate mortality. despite this caveat, the results from our study can be used to improve population models for l. setiferus and our understanding of the role of marsh habitats as nursery areas." "movement estimation of octopus vulgaris cuvier, 1797 from mark recapture experiment",mediterranean sea; movement; octopus vulgaris; orientation; tagging,JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY,MEREU M;AGUS B;ADDIS P;CABIDDU S;CAU A;FOLLESA MC;CUCCU D,"the movements of octopus vulgaris were investigated by a mark-recapture study (1604 specimens tagged), carried out during a commercial octopus traps fishery, at a depth of 20-50 m, over a rocky substrate area of the sardinian sea (central western mediterranean sea). overall 87 specimens (56 males and 31 females) were recaptured after 4 and 63 days from the tagging. the difference between the depth at release and recapture varied up to 5.0 m but in 100% of males and in 80% of females the variation was less than 3.0 m. theoretical straight distances travelled by recaptures ranged from 9 to 5800 m in males and from 9 to 1700 mm females, regardless of the days of freedom. there was no correlation between distances and sex or body size and no marked orientation was found except for medium males that move preferentially in the south western direction. the movements of 0. vulgaris, generally linked to the availability of food, partners and/or shelters, in this study were limited within 1 km in most of the recaptures (84-86%). this high site fidelity, within the rocky area investigated, could represent useful information for management plans of this species like the creation of small no-take areas. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." face value: towards robust estimates of snow leopard densities,NA,PLOS ONE,ALEXANDER JS;GOPALASWAMY AM;SHI K;RIORDAN P,"when densities of large carnivores fall below certain thresholds, dramatic ecological effects can follow, leading to oversimplified ecosystems. understanding the population status of such species remains a major challenge as they occur in low densities and their ranges are wide. this paper describes the use of non-invasive data collection techniques combined with recent spatial capture-recapture methods to estimate the density of snow leopards panthera uncia. it also investigates the influence of environmental and human activity indicators on their spatial distribution. a total of 60 camera traps were systematically set up during a three-month period over a 480 km(2) study area in qilianshan national nature reserve, gansu province, china. we recorded 76 separate snow leopard captures over 2,906 trap-days, representing an average capture success of 2.62 captures/100 trap-days. we identified a total number of 20 unique individuals from photographs and estimated snow leopard density at 3.31 (se = 1.01) individuals per 100 km(2). results of our simulation exercise indicate that our estimates from the spatial capture recapture models were not optimal to respect to bias and precision (rmses for density parameters less or equal to 0.87). our results underline the critical challenge in achieving sufficient sample sizes of snow leopard captures and recaptures. possible performance improvements are discussed, principally by optimising effective camera capture and photographic data quality." a unimodal model for double observer distance sampling surveys,NA,PLOS ONE,BECKER EF;CHRIST AM,"distance sampling is a widely used method to estimate animal population size. most distance sampling models utilize a monotonically decreasing detection function such as a half-normal. recent advances in distance sampling modeling allow for the incorporation of covariates into the distance model, and the elimination of the assumption of perfect detection at some fixed distance (usually the transect line) with the use of double-observer models. the assumption of full observer independence in the double-observer model is problematic, but can be addressed by using the point independence assumption which assumes there is one distance, the apex of the detection function, where the 2 observers are assumed independent. aerially collected distance sampling data can have a unimodal shape and have been successfully modeled with a gamma detection function. covariates in gamma detection models cause the apex of detection to shift depending upon covariate levels, making this model incompatible with the point independence assumption when using double-observer data. this paper reports a unimodal detection model based on a two-piece normal distribution that allows covariates, has only one apex, and is consistent with the point independence assumption when double-observer data are utilized. an aerial line-transect survey of black bears in alaska illustrate how this method can be applied." genetic censusing identifies an unexpectedly sizeable population of an endangered large mammal in a fragmented forest landscape,habitat fragmentation; genetic census; ecological corridor; chimpanzee; population estimate; pan troglodytes; mark recapture,BMC ECOLOGY,MCCARTHY MS;LESTER JD;HOWE EJ;ARANDJELOVIC M;STANFORD CB;VIGILANT L,"background: as habitat degradation and fragmentation continue to impact wildlife populations around the world, it is critical to understand the behavioral flexibility of species in these environments. in uganda, the mostly unprotected forest fragment landscape between the budongo and bugoma forests is a potential corridor for chimpanzees, yet little is known about the status of chimpanzee populations in these fragments. results: from 2011 through 2013, we noninvasively collected 865 chimpanzee fecal samples across 633 km2 and successfully genotyped 662 (77%) at up to 14 microsatellite loci. these genotypes corresponded to 182 chimpanzees, with a mean of 3.5 captures per individual. we obtained population size estimates of 256 (95% confidence interval 246-321) and 319 (288-357) chimpanzees using capture-with-replacement and spatially explicit capture-recapture models, respectively. the spatial clustering of associated genotypes suggests the presence of at least nine communities containing a minimum of 8-33 individuals each. putative community distributions defined by the locations of associated genotypes correspond well with the distribution of 14 y-chromosome haplotypes. conclusions: these census figures are more than three times greater than a previous estimate based on an extrapolation from small-scale nest count surveys that tend to underestimate population size. the distribution of genotype clusters and y-chromosome haplotypes together indicate the presence of numerous male philopatric chimpanzee communities throughout the corridor habitat. our findings demonstrate that, despite extensive habitat loss and fragmentation, chimpanzees remain widely distributed and exhibit distinct community home ranges. our results further imply that elusive and rare species may adapt to degraded habitats more successfully than previously believed. their long-term persistence is unlikely, however, if protection is not afforded to them and habitat loss continues unabated." -selection analysis on the rapid evolution of a secondary sexual trait,rapid evolution; sexual selection; fitness; mark-recapture; common garden experiments,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,GORDON SP;REZNICK D;ARENDT JD;ROUGHTON A;HERNANDEZ MNO;BENTZEN P;LOPEZ-SEPULCRE A,"evolutionary analyses of population translocations (experimental or accidental) have been important in demonstrating speed of evolution because they subject organisms to abrupt environmental changes that create an episode of selection. however, the strength of selection in such studies is rarely measured, limiting our understanding of the evolutionary process. this contrasts with long-term, mark recapture studies of unmanipulated populations that measure selection directly, yet rarely reveal evolutionary change. here, we present a study of experimental evolution of male colour in trinidadian guppies where we tracked both evolutionary change and individual-based measures of selection. guppies were translocated from a predator-rich to a low-predation environment within the same stream system. we used a combination of common garden experiments and monthly sampling of individuals to measure the phenotypic and genetic divergence of male coloration between ancestral and derived fish. results show rapid evolutionary increases in orange coloration in both populations (1 year or three generations), replicating the results of previous studies. unlike previous studies, we linked this evolution to an individual-based analysis of selection. by quantifying individual reproductive success and survival, we show, for the first time, that males with more orange and black pigment have higher reproductive success, but males with more black pigment also have higher risk of mortality. the net effect of selection is thus an advantage of orange but not black coloration, as reflected in the evolutionary response. this highlights the importance of considering all components of fitness when understanding the evolution of sexually selected traits in the wild." +selection analysis on the rapid evolution of a secondary sexual trait,rapid evolution; sexual selection; fitness; mark-recapture; common garden experiments,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,GORDON SP;REZNICK D;ARENDT JD;ROUGHTON A;HERNANDEZ MNO;BENTZEN P;LOPEZ SEPULCRE A,"evolutionary analyses of population translocations (experimental or accidental) have been important in demonstrating speed of evolution because they subject organisms to abrupt environmental changes that create an episode of selection. however, the strength of selection in such studies is rarely measured, limiting our understanding of the evolutionary process. this contrasts with long-term, mark recapture studies of unmanipulated populations that measure selection directly, yet rarely reveal evolutionary change. here, we present a study of experimental evolution of male colour in trinidadian guppies where we tracked both evolutionary change and individual-based measures of selection. guppies were translocated from a predator-rich to a low-predation environment within the same stream system. we used a combination of common garden experiments and monthly sampling of individuals to measure the phenotypic and genetic divergence of male coloration between ancestral and derived fish. results show rapid evolutionary increases in orange coloration in both populations (1 year or three generations), replicating the results of previous studies. unlike previous studies, we linked this evolution to an individual-based analysis of selection. by quantifying individual reproductive success and survival, we show, for the first time, that males with more orange and black pigment have higher reproductive success, but males with more black pigment also have higher risk of mortality. the net effect of selection is thus an advantage of orange but not black coloration, as reflected in the evolutionary response. this highlights the importance of considering all components of fitness when understanding the evolution of sexually selected traits in the wild." "co-occurrence of three aristolochia-feeding papilionids (archon apollinus, zerynthia polyxena and zerynthia cerisy) in greek thrace",butterfly demography; dispersal; oviposition; lepidoptera; mediterranean region; phenology,JOURNAL OF NATURAL HISTORY,SLANCAROVA J;VRBA P;PLATEK M;ZAPLETAL M;SPITZER L;KONVICKA M,"comparative studies of co-occurring species using overlapping resources may help in understanding the mechanisms supporting biotic diversity in species-rich regions, such as the mediterranean region of europe. three papilionidae butterflies, archon apollinus, zerynthia cerisy and zerynthia polyxena, develop on aristolochia plants and co-occur in greek thrace. we used mark-recapture to describe adult demography and dispersal, and searched for eggs and larvae to assess host plants and microhabitat preferences. adult flight timing followed a sequence from earliest a.apollinus, through z.polyxena to late z.cerisy; this was more prominent in 2010 (warm early spring) than in 2011 (cold delayed spring). population densities were highest for a.apollinus and lowest for z.cerisy, whereas dispersal ability followed a reverse pattern. adults of all three species crossed distances >3km and used all habitat types present. four aristolochia host plants were used at the study locality: small aristolochiapallida, intermediate aristolochiarotunda and aristolochiahirta, and bulky, late-sprouting aristolochiaclematitis. both a.apollinus and z.polyxena used all four aristolochia species, the former preferring aristolochiarotunda and aristolochiahirta, the latter aristolochiarotunda and aristolochiapallida. zerynthia cerisy did not use the early-growing aristolochiapallida while frequently using the late-growing aristolochiaclematitis. further parameters affecting oviposition were biotope and canopy closure: early a.apollinus tolerated shady sites but late z.cerisy avoided them. the simultaneous use of several host plants differing in phenology and habitat requirements, combined with rather high dispersal ability, arguably buffers the butterflies' population dynamics against yearly variation in weather, while allowing efficient occupation of the diverse mediterranean landscapes. the regional habitat diversity, created during millennia of human activity, is currently threatened by land abandonment, which may diminish the resource base for the studied butterflies." factors affecting defensive strike behavior in brown treesnakes (boiga irregularis) provoked by humans,anti-predator behavior; defensive behavior; guam; snake trapping,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,SPENCER MM;LARDNER B;MAZUREK MJ;REED RN,"striking is a typical antipredator defense exhibited by many species of snakes. while trapping brown treesnakes (boiga irregularis) on guam, we observed that snakes most frequently struck at an approaching person at a site where snakes had been trapped, marked, and handled in the past. using a combination of between-sites and within-site comparisons, we assessed if the propensity to strike was correlated with capture histories (both recent and long-term), snake size, body condition (a proxy to nutritional stress), sex, or tail condition (broken or intact), while controlling for confounding variables. we confirmed that propensity to strike was higher at the site where we had been conducting capture-mark-recapture for several years. however, we were unable to demonstrate a correlation between striking tendencies and individual recent or long-term capture histories. the only morphological covariate that had an effect on strike propensity was sex, with females striking more often than males. after removing the site effect from our model, we found that snakes missing parts of their tails were more likely to strike than snakes with intact tails. we have yet to identify the factor(s) that cause the pronounced difference across sites in snake propensity to strike, and data from additional sites might help elucidate any geographical patterns." conservation implications of male-biased movements in sonoran mud turtles (kinosternon sonoriense) inhabiting intermittent aquatic habitats,apparent mortality; catchability; core area conservation; long-distance movements; seasonal migrations,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,STONE PA;LOCEY KJ;LAVERTY S;STANILA BD;STONE MEB,"defining core areas for conservation of semi-aquatic species requires data on habitat requirements and space use. many freshwater turtles use multiple bodies of water and intervening terrestrial habitat, and there are often sex differences within populations. we use 19 years of mark-recapture data from sonoran mud turtles (kinosternon sonoriense) to evaluate core area requirements and examine intersexual differences in movements. our study area was in the peloncillo mountains of southwestern new mexico, usa, a complex desert landscape characterized by variable hydroperiods. the primary study canyon included an intermittent impoundment and 3.75 km of canyon bed where ephemeral pools formed during wet periods. linear home ranges in the primary study canyon were over twice as long for males than females, and males were over five times more likely to undergo long-distance movements outside the primary study canyon. apparent mortality was nearly three times greater for males, indicating that many males were transients. catchability was low and did not differ between sexes. both sexes underwent seasonal migrations corresponding to water availability in canyon pools. core areas for conservation of sonoran mud turtles should include impoundments connected to extensive runs of canyon pools. a core area that included the primary study canyon would encompass the known movements of 88% of the adults we encountered. to encompass 100% of known movements, maintaining connectivity of aquatic habitats on a range-wide scale is needed. in particular, likely dispersal pathways along drainages and over low points along ridges should be included in core areas." "life history and demographic differences between cave and surface populations of the western slimy salamander, plethodon albagula (caudata: plethodontidae), in central texas",body size; demography; density; fort hood; growth; habitat; life span; subterranean; troglophile,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,TAYLOR SJ;KREJCA JK;NIEMILLER ML;DRESLIK MJ;PHILLIPS CA,"the western slimy salamander (plethodon albagula) in central texas is known from both surface and cave environments. threshold species, such as p. albagula, may be excellent candidates to study potential differences in life-history traits during the evolutionary transition from surface into subterranean habitats. we conducted a 29-mo mark-recapture study of a surface and a cave population in bell county, texas, usa, to determine whether these populations differed in body size, growth rate, age at sexual maturity, and life span. we employed a growth model to estimate growth rate, age at sexual maturity, and life span, and an open population model to estimate population size, density, catchability, and survival rates. salamanders were smaller on average and reached a smaller maximum size in the surface population compared to the cave population, which was skewed toward larger, older individuals. growth trajectories were similar between populations, but the cave population reached sexual maturity faster (0.9-1.4 y) than the surface population (1.5-2.2 y). survival rates were similar between populations. although population size estimates were 10 times higher for the surface compared to the cave population, densities were similar between sites suggesting that habitat availability alone could explain population size differences. plethodon albagula exhibits plasticity in growth, body size, and development, which may be adaptive and a function of extreme variation in surface environmental conditions. subterranean habitats may be important for the long-term persistence of local populations, which may persist for years in subterranean habitats." a global synthesis of survival estimates for microbats,chiroptera; demography; mark-recapture; mortality; population viability; state-space model,BIOLOGY LETTERS,LENTINI PE;BIRD TJ;GRIFFITHS SR;GODINHO LN;WINTLE BA,"accurate survival estimates are needed to construct robust population models, which are a powerful tool for understanding and predicting the fates of species under scenarios of environmental change. microbats make up 17% of the global mammalian fauna, yet the processes that drive differences in demographics between species are poorly understood. we collected survival estimates for 44 microbat species from the literature and constructed a model to determine the effects of reproductive, feeding and demographic traits on survival. our trait-based model indicated that bat species which produce more young per year exhibit lower apparent annual survival, as do males and juveniles compared with females and adults, respectively. using 8 years of monitoring data for two australian species, we demonstrate how knowledge about the effect of traits on survival can be incorporated into bayesian survival analyses. this approach can be applied to any group and is not restricted to bats or even mammals. the incorporation of informative priors based on traits can allow for more timely construction of population models to support management decisions and actions." -testing the influence of habitat structure and geographic distance on the genetic differentiation of mouse lemurs (microcebus) in madagascar,evolution; lemurs; madagascar; microendemism; primates; speciation,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY,SCHEEL BM;HENKE-VON DER MALSBURG J;GIERTZ P;RAKOTONDRANARY SJ;HAUSDORF B;GANZHORN JU,"the evolution of the high level of microendemism in madagascar's biota remains poorly understood. allopatric speciation or adaptations to local conditions along continuous gradients are two mechanisms that could have contributed to the extraordinary radiation of lemurs. here we tested whether mouse lemurs (microcebus griseorufus) occurring across three adjacent but distinct vegetation formations (ranging from dry forest to spiny bush) in southwestern madagascar showed signs of genetic differentiation that could be interpreted as incipient speciation and adaptation to different environmental conditions using analysis of molecular variance and distance-based redundancy analysis. in the context of a mark-recapture study, mouse lemurs were captured with sherman live traps set eight times for four nights per trapping session in standardized trapping grids in the three vegetation formations between october 2007 and february 2009. for genetic analyses, we used tissue samples from 41 female and 35 male m. griseorufus. genetic differentiation between demes as estimated by amplified fragment length polymorphism (aflp) data (as parental markers) and mitochondrial d-loop sequences (as maternally inherited markers) was more pronounced in philopatric females than in males, which are the dispersing sex in this species. in single-factor analyses, isolation-by-ecology had about the same statistical effect as isolation by distance, but isolation-by-ecology was no longer significant once isolation by distance was taken into account. despite some differentiation between local demes, structurama, a bayesian approach for inferring population structure from genetic data, assigned all individuals to a single population. thus, we did not find evidence for incipient ecological speciation as a result of adaptation to the three investigated habitat types on a small geographic scale based on the available samples." +testing the influence of habitat structure and geographic distance on the genetic differentiation of mouse lemurs (microcebus) in madagascar,evolution; lemurs; madagascar; microendemism; primates; speciation,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY,SCHEEL BM;HENKE VON DER MALSBURG J;GIERTZ P;RAKOTONDRANARY SJ;HAUSDORF B;GANZHORN JU,"the evolution of the high level of microendemism in madagascar's biota remains poorly understood. allopatric speciation or adaptations to local conditions along continuous gradients are two mechanisms that could have contributed to the extraordinary radiation of lemurs. here we tested whether mouse lemurs (microcebus griseorufus) occurring across three adjacent but distinct vegetation formations (ranging from dry forest to spiny bush) in southwestern madagascar showed signs of genetic differentiation that could be interpreted as incipient speciation and adaptation to different environmental conditions using analysis of molecular variance and distance-based redundancy analysis. in the context of a mark-recapture study, mouse lemurs were captured with sherman live traps set eight times for four nights per trapping session in standardized trapping grids in the three vegetation formations between october 2007 and february 2009. for genetic analyses, we used tissue samples from 41 female and 35 male m. griseorufus. genetic differentiation between demes as estimated by amplified fragment length polymorphism (aflp) data (as parental markers) and mitochondrial d-loop sequences (as maternally inherited markers) was more pronounced in philopatric females than in males, which are the dispersing sex in this species. in single-factor analyses, isolation-by-ecology had about the same statistical effect as isolation by distance, but isolation-by-ecology was no longer significant once isolation by distance was taken into account. despite some differentiation between local demes, structurama, a bayesian approach for inferring population structure from genetic data, assigned all individuals to a single population. thus, we did not find evidence for incipient ecological speciation as a result of adaptation to the three investigated habitat types on a small geographic scale based on the available samples." population ecology of a california endemic: speyeria adiaste clemencei,demography; viola purpurea; nymphalidae; mark-recapture,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,ZAMAN K;TENNEY C;RUSH CE;HILL RI,"effective management and recovery of threatened insect populations requires detailed ecological information. here we combine count and mark recapture (mr) data to shed light on an understudied declining endemic butterfly species in california's southern coast ranges, speyeria adiaste. little is known about the number, size, and dynamics of s. adiaste populations, leaving few data on which to base conservation decisions. our goal in this study was therefore to provide increased understanding of the population ecology of this species by studying a long-standing s. adiaste clemencei population. our 2-year mr estimates were highly correlated with pollard walk counts, and we observed declining population sizes from 2011 to 2014. adult movements were well-described by a negative exponential function, indicating low probability of dispersal > 5 km (probability < 1.8 x 10(-7) for both sexes). males had shorter lifespans than females. coupled with lack of diapause in this species, the short life span and limited dispersal observed here indicate that s. adiaste clemencei does not have a strong capacity for re-colonization. population declines in s. adiaste may lead to local extinctions, and together with low dispersal, may diminish connectivity among the apparently small and isolated remaining populations. further research into the role of adult and larval resources for determining adult abundance, coupled with continued long-term monitoring is necessary in order to understand population dynamics in this declining endemic species." "how much space is needed for spider conservation? home range and movement patterns of wolf spiders (aranea, lycosidae) at baltic sea beaches",arctosa cinerea; arctosa perita; baltic sea; home range; movement patterns; pardosa agricola; tourism,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,SEER FK;ELBALTI N;SCHRAUTZER J;IRMLER U,"beaches are often intensively used by tourists that compete with the area demands of specialised species. in order to estimate the area demand of beach spiders, home range, distribution and population dynamics of three species of lycosidae (arctosa cinerea, arctosa perita and pardosa agricola) were observed by mark-recapture experiments at two closed nature conservation beach areas at the baltic sea. results revealed that the home range size of a. cinerea varied between beaches. the size of minimal complex polygons of males at a narrow sandy beach was 143.18 +/- a 22.62 m(2) (females: 164.70 +/- a 13.48 m(2)) and was so significantly smaller than those found at a broader beach (males: 182.60 +/- a 13.46 m(2); females: 179.36 +/- a 47.89 m(2)) with about 12 % stone coverage. general distribution of all spiders showed an increased frequency on the upper beach area. estimates on the population size of the three species during summer revealed the highest population size in may and the least at the end of july. in addition, movement behaviour of a. cinerea was observed at a nature conservation area and at an accessible beach. direct observations of movement patterns indicated that disturbed spiders take more detours and focus their movements seaward where they will be confronted with non-suitable conditions. this study underlines the sensitivity of predatory arthropods of beach habitats to human disturbance. this is particularly critical for the upper beach area. based on these results, means of achieving viable arthropod populations through adjusted beach management are derived." estimating bighorn sheep (ovis canadensis) abundance using noninvasive sampling at a mineral lick within a national park wilderness area,NA,WESTERN NORTH AMERICAN NATURALIST,SCHOENECKER KA;WATRY MK;ELLISON LE;SCHWARTZ MK;LUIKART G,"conservation of species requires accurate population estimates. we used genetic markers from feces to determine bighorn sheep abundance for a herd that was hypothesized to be declining and in need of population status monitoring. we sampled from a small but accessible portion of the population's range where animals naturally congregate at a natural mineral lick to test whether we could accurately estimate population size by sampling from an area where animals concentrate. we used mark-recapture analysis to derive population estimates, and compared estimates from this smaller spatial sampling to estimates from sampling of the entire bighorn sheep range. we found that estimates were somewhat comparable; in 2009, the mineral lick sample and entire range sample differed by 20 individuals, and in 2010 they differed by only one individual. however, we captured 13 individuals in the entire range sample that were not captured at the mineral lick, and thus violated a model assumption that all individuals had an equal opportunity of being captured. this eliminated the possibility of inferring a total population estimate from just animals visiting the mineral lick, but because estimates were relatively similar, monitoring at the mineral lick can provide a useful index for management and conservation. we compared our results to a radio-collar study conducted in 2003-2004 and confirmed that the population remained stable since 2004. our population estimates were 78 (ci 62-114) in 2009 and 95 (ci 77-131) in 2010. between 7 and 11 sampling dates were needed to achieve a cv of 20% for population estimates, assuming a capture probability between 0.09 and 0.13. we relied on citizen science volunteers to maximize data collection and reduce costs; 71% of all fecal samples were collected by volunteers, compared to 29% collected by paid staff. we conclude that our technique provides a useful monitoring tool for managers. the technique could be tested and applied in similar populations where animals congregate with high fidelity at a mineral lick or other area." estimating population sizes of leopard cats in the western ghats using camera surveys,abundance estimation; camera surveys; india; prionailurus bengalensis; protected areas; secondary forests; small carnivores,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,SRIVATHSA A;PARAMESHWARAN R;SHARMA S;KARANTH KU,"the status of several small carnivores in asia remains poorly known because of the lack of rigorous population assessments. the leopard cat prionailurus bengalensis is one such species assumed to be common and widespread within the indian subcontinent. we conducted surveys using automated cameras to estimate densities and abundance of leopard cats in and around 4 protected reserves in the western ghats of india. a total effort of 16,736 camera-days across a 2,075-km(2) area resulted in 65 detections of 43 uniquely identified individuals. we estimated leopard cat densities using closed population spatial capture-recapture models under a bayesian framework. estimated density was highest in bhadra tiger reserve at 10.45 (+/- 3.03 sd)/100 km(2) followed by 4.48 (+/- 1.31 sd)/100 km(2) in biligiri rangaswamy temple (brt) tiger reserve. the surveys yielded sparse data from nagarahole and bandipur reserves. high local densities in bhadra and brt were clustered around secondary, disturbed or partially modified forests and human-use areas. our results provide information critical to the conservation of leopard cats, emphasizing the importance of maintaining habitat buffers and wildlife-permeable areas around protected reserves. insights from our study highlight the potential of the western ghats landscape to serve as a long-term conservation area for leopard cats. further, our study demonstrates the utility of spatially explicit capture-recapture methods for estimating populations of leopard cats, and may be applied to other threatened small carnivores that are uniquely identified from their morphological features." limited catching bias in a wild population of birds with near-complete census information,capture methods; house sparrow; island populations; methodology; ornithology; trappability,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SIMONS MJP;WINNEY I;NAKAGAWA S;BURKE T;SCHROEDER J,"animal research often relies on catching wild animals; however, individuals may have different trappability, and this can generate bias. we studied bias in mist netting, the main method for catching wild birds. the unusually high resighting rate in our study populationhouse sparrows (passer domesticus) on lundy island (england)allowed us to obtain accurate estimates of the population size. this unique situation enabled us to test for catching bias in mist netting using deviations from the expected poisson distribution. there was no evidence that a fraction of the birds in the population consistently remained uncaught. however, we detected a different bias: more birds than expected were captured only once within a year. this bias probably resulted from a mixture of fieldworkers sometimes ignoring rapid recaptures and birds becoming net shy after their first capture. we had sufficient statistical power with the available data to detect a substantial uncaught fraction. therefore, our data are probably unbiased toward catching specific individuals from our population. our analyses demonstrate that intensively monitored natural insular populations, in which population size can be estimated precisely, provide the potential to address important unanswered questions without concerns about a fraction of the population remaining uncaught. our approach can help researchers to test for catching bias in closely monitored wild populations for which reliable estimates of population size and dispersal are available." "using simulations of past and present elephant (loxodonta africana) population numbers in the okavango delta panhandle, botswana to improve future population estimates",elephant; wetlands; human-wildlife conflict; okavango delta; population estimates; simulation,WETLANDS ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,SONGHURST A;CHASE M;COULSON T,"an ability to reliably estimate population numbers, trends and densities of wildlife has a prominent role in conservation and management of wetlands. we use aerial surveys and simulation techniques to explore the results of past and present elephant population surveys in the okavango delta panhandle, botswana, and use these to propose a technique of simulation to improve counts in the future. population numbers and density estimates from past survey results show large fluctuations, which are unlikely to come from reproduction. reasons for such variations could be attributed to imprecision in survey techniques or may be because only part of the elephant range is being surveyed. simulated surveys of hypothetical elephant populations were used to explore the effect of different survey techniques, spatial distributions of animals and spatial scale on the precision of aerial survey population estimates and trends. our study reveals the usefulness of using simulations to test the reliability of survey data and plan more efficient surveys. we also find that while there may be some uncertainty in individual population estimates, there is more certainty in the recorded trends. these findings reinforce the need to address elephant management in the okavango and surrounding wetland systems and call for the urgent consideration of management strategies such as fence realignments to affect the objectives of the kavango zambezi transfrontier conservation area (kaza tfca) initiative, which will help relieve elephant population pressure." -an estimate of the incidence of influenza-like illness during the influenza pandemic of 2009,influenza-like syndrome; incidence; estimation; capture-recapture; influenza pandemic; influenza,ARCHIVOS DE BRONCONEUMOLOGIA,BELLIDO-BLASCO JB;PARDO-SERRANO F;BALLESTER-RODRIGUEZ I;ARNEDO-PENA A;TIRADO-BALAGUERB MD;ROMEU-GARCIA MA;SILVESTRE-SILVESTRE E;MESEGUER-FERRER N;HERRERO-CAROT C;CAYLA-BUQUERES JA,"introduction: the influenza pandemic of 2009 had a great social impact. many health resources were devoted to the care, prevention and surveillance of this disease. epidemiological surveillance is based on the reporting of cases of influenza-like illness (ili) and confirmed influenza cases. the objective was to estimate the true incidence of ili during the influenza pandemic of 2009. methods: the capture-recapture method was applied during the month of highest influenza incidence in castellon. two notification systems were used: (i) electronic reporting of notifiable diseases (nd), and (ii) laboratory-based (lab) data collection. estimates were made by stratifying by age group and week. independence coefficients were calculated for those strata. results: no dependence was found between stratification variables and the reporting system. a total of 7,181 nd cases and 524 lab cases were identified, of which 211 were recorded in both systems. the estimated total of cases was 17,785 in a single month. in the study period, almost 4% of people in the area suffered flu symptoms (cumulative incidence), with 1% being affected each day (daily prevalence). the sensitivity of the nd system was 40%, i.e., the percentage of patients seeking primary care. conclusions: to obtain an estimate of the actual incidence of influenza-like illness in the population during a pandemic period, the number of medical consultations should be multiplied by a factor of 2.5. this factor is lower than that estimated for periods without pandemic alert. (c) 2014 separ. published by elsevier espana, s.l.u. all rights reserved." +an estimate of the incidence of influenza-like illness during the influenza pandemic of 2009,influenza-like syndrome; incidence; estimation; capture-recapture; influenza pandemic; influenza,ARCHIVOS DE BRONCONEUMOLOGIA,BELLIDO BLASCO JB;PARDO SERRANO F;BALLESTER RODRIGUEZ I;ARNEDO PENA A;TIRADO BALAGUERB MD;ROMEU GARCIA MA;SILVESTRE SILVESTRE E;MESEGUER FERRER N;HERRERO CAROT C;CAYLA BUQUERES JA,"introduction: the influenza pandemic of 2009 had a great social impact. many health resources were devoted to the care, prevention and surveillance of this disease. epidemiological surveillance is based on the reporting of cases of influenza-like illness (ili) and confirmed influenza cases. the objective was to estimate the true incidence of ili during the influenza pandemic of 2009. methods: the capture-recapture method was applied during the month of highest influenza incidence in castellon. two notification systems were used: (i) electronic reporting of notifiable diseases (nd), and (ii) laboratory-based (lab) data collection. estimates were made by stratifying by age group and week. independence coefficients were calculated for those strata. results: no dependence was found between stratification variables and the reporting system. a total of 7,181 nd cases and 524 lab cases were identified, of which 211 were recorded in both systems. the estimated total of cases was 17,785 in a single month. in the study period, almost 4% of people in the area suffered flu symptoms (cumulative incidence), with 1% being affected each day (daily prevalence). the sensitivity of the nd system was 40%, i.e., the percentage of patients seeking primary care. conclusions: to obtain an estimate of the actual incidence of influenza-like illness in the population during a pandemic period, the number of medical consultations should be multiplied by a factor of 2.5. this factor is lower than that estimated for periods without pandemic alert. (c) 2014 separ. published by elsevier espana, s.l.u. all rights reserved." evidence of a link between demographic rates and species habitat suitability from post release movements in a reinforced bird population,NA,OIKOS,MONNET AC;HARDOUIN LA;ROBERT A;HINGRAT Y;JIGUET F,"despite the increasing use of species distribution models for predicting current or future animal distribution, only a few studies have linked the gradient of habitat suitability (hs) to demographic parameters. while such approaches can improve the reliability of models, they can help to better predict the response of species to changes in hs over space and time, as induced by ongoing global change. here, we tested whether the spatial variation in hs along the individual movement path is related to survival, using extensive tracking data collected from captive-bred individuals translocated to reinforce the wild populations of houbara bustard. we first modelled and mapped the hs from presence data of wild individuals using niche models in a consensus framework. we further analysed survival of released individuals using capture-recapture modelling and its links to hs, as the trend in suitability from the release sites along movements. we found that the survival of released individuals was related to changes in hs along their movements. for instance, individuals which moved to sites of lower hs than their release sites have lower survival probabilities than the others, independently of the hs of the release sites and daily movement rate. our results provide an empirical support of the relationship between hs and survival, a major fitness component." completeness assessment of the breton registry of congenital abnormalities: a checking tool based on hospital discharge data,hospital discharge database; registry; congenital abnormalities; record linkage; medical informatics application,REVUE D EPIDEMIOLOGIE ET DE SANTE PUBLIQUE,RIOU C;ROUGET F;SINTEFF JP;PLADYS P;CUGGIA M,"background. - exhaustiveness is required for registries. in the breton registry of congenital abnormalities, cases are recorded at the source. we use hospital discharge data in order to verify the completeness of the registry. in this paper, we present a computerized tool for completeness assessment applied to the breton registry. methods. - all the medical information departments were solicited once a year, asking for infant medical stays for newborns alive at one year old and for mother's stays if not. files were transmitted by secure messaging and data were processed on a secure server. an identity-matching algorithm was applied and a similarity score calculated. when the record was not linked automatically or manually, the medical record had to be consulted. the exhaustiveness rate was assessed using the capture recapture method and the proportion of cases matched manually was used to assess the identity matching algorithm. results. - the computerized tool bas been used in common practice since june 2012 by the registry investigators. the results presented concerned the years 2011 and 2012. there were 470 potential cases identified from the hospital discharge data in 2011 and 538 in 2012, 35 new cases were detected in 2011 (32 children born alive and 3 stillborn), and 33 in 2012 (children born alive). there were respectively 85 and 137 false-positive cases. the theorical exhaustiveness rate reached 91% for both years. the rate of exact matching amounted to 68%; 6% of the potential cases were linked manually. conclusion. - hospital discharge databases contribute to the quality of the registry even though reports are made at the source. the implemented tool facilitates the investigator's work. in the future, use of the national identifying number, when allowed, should facilitate linkage between registry data and hospital discharge data. (c) 2015 elsevier masson sas. all rights reserved." the limits of observation for understanding mass violence,counting casualties; missing data; transitional justice; convenience samples; human rights,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY,PRICE M;BALL P,"quantitative analyses have the potential to contribute to transitional justice mechanisms, via empirical evidence supporting the memory of victims, allocating proportional responsibility among perpetrators, determining legal responsibility, and supporting historical memory and clarity. however, most data available in transitional justice settings are incomplete. conducting quantitative analyses relying solely on what is observable and knowable leads to not only incomplete but oft en incorrect analytical results. this can harm rather than contribute to transitional justice mechanisms. this article outlines different types of data, the ways in which observable data, on their own, are insufficient for most quantitative analyses of interest, presents these limitations via a case study from syria, and introduces statistical methods to overcome these limitations." @@ -2000,39 +2003,39 @@ investigating the effects of forest structure on the small mammal community in f "applying a random encounter model to estimate lion density from camera traps in serengeti national park, tanzania",camera traps; density estimation; habitat; lion; panthera leo; random encounter model; rem; serengeti,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CUSACK JJ;SWANSON A;COULSON T;PACKER C;CARBONE C;DICKMAN AJ;KOSMALA M;LINTOTT C;ROWCLIFFE JM,"the random encounter model (rem) is a novel method for estimating animal density from camera trap data without the need for individual recognition. it has never been used to estimate the density of large carnivore species, despite these being the focus of most camera trap studies worldwide. in this context, we applied the rem to estimate the density of female lions (panthera leo) from camera traps implemented in serengeti national park, tanzania, comparing estimates to reference values derived from pride census data. more specifically, we attempted to account for bias resulting from non-random camera placement at lion resting sites under isolated trees by comparing estimates derived from night versus day photographs, between dry and wet seasons, and between habitats that differ in their amount of tree cover. overall, we recorded 169 and 163 independent photographic events of female lions from 7,608 and 12,137 camera trap days carried out in the dry season of 2010 and the wet season of 2011, respectively. although all rem models considered over-estimated female lion density, models that considered only night-time events resulted in estimates that were much less biased relative to those based on all photographic events. we conclude that restricting rem estimation to periods and habitats in which animal movement is more likely to be random with respect to cameras can help reduce bias in estimates of density for female serengeti lions. we highlight that accurate rem estimates will nonetheless be dependent on reliable measures of average speed of animal movement and camera detection zone dimensions. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." fine-scale refuges can buffer demographic and genetic processes against short-term climatic variation and disturbance: a 22-year case study of an arboreal marsupial,ecosystem greenspot; fire; heterogeneity; microrefuge; refugia; temporal genetic structure,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,BANKS SC;LORIN T;SHAW RE;MCBURNEY L;BLAIR D;BLYTON MDJ;SMITH AL;PIERSON JC;LINDENMAYER DB,"ecological disturbance and climate are key drivers of temporal dynamics in the demography and genetic diversity of natural populations. microscale refuges are known to buffer species' persistence against environmental change, but the effects of such refuges on demographic and genetic patterns in response to short-term environmental variation are poorly understood. we quantified demographic and genetic responses of mountain brushtail possums (trichosurus cunninghami) to rainfall variability (1992-2013) and to a major wildfire. we hypothesized that there would be underlying differences in demographic and genetic processes between an unburnt mesic refuge and a topographically exposed zone that was burnt in 2009. fire caused a 2-year decrease in survival in the burnt zone, but the population grew after the fire due to immigration, leading to increased expected heterozygosity. we documented a fire-related behavioural shift, where the rate of movement by individuals in the unburnt refuge to the burnt zone decreased after fire. irrespective of the fire, there were long-term differences in demographic and genetic parameters between the mesic/unburnt refuge and the nonmesic/burnt zone. survival was high and unaffected by rainfall in the refuge, but lower and rainfall-dependent in the nonmesic zone. net movement of individuals was directional, from the mesic refuge to the nonmesic zone, suggesting fine-scale source-sink dynamics. there were higher expected heterozygosity (h-e) and temporal genetic stability in the refuge, but lower h-e and marked temporal genetic structure in the exposed habitat, consistent with reduced generational overlap caused by elevated mortality and immigration. thus, fine-scale refuges can mediate the short-term demographic and genetic effects of climate and ecological disturbance." endangered florida panther population size determined from public reports of motor vehicle collision mortalities,abundance; capture-recapture; citizen science; dead recovery; human-wildlife ecology; imperfect detection; mark-resight; puma concolor coryi; risk of collision; telemetry,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,MCCLINTOCK BT;ONORATO DP;MARTIN J,"reliably estimating the abundance of rare or elusive animals is notoriously difficult. an archetypical example is the endangered florida panther, whose conservation status is intrinsically linked to population size, but for which reliable abundance information is lacking across its range. this is due not only to the inherent difficulty of sampling a rare and elusive species over a large geographic area, but also because of restricted scientific access to private land. human interactions with wildlife are a regular occurrence, and interactions with non-scientists constitute an important and underutilized source of information about species distribution and abundance. for example, motor vehicle collisions with florida panthers are recurrent on the vast network of roads within the public and private lands comprising its range in southern florida, usa. capitalizing on a tendency for the public to report collisions with species of concern to wildlife officials, we describe a novel methodology using public reports along with routine telemetry monitoring data to produce the first statistically defensible population estimates for the florida panther across its entire breeding range. in essence, our approach uses traffic volume and road density to estimate the probability of motor vehicle collision mortality from telemetered animals and models counts reported by the public accordingly. despite low motor vehicle collision mortality probabilities, our methodology achieved abundance estimates of reasonable precision (29% cv) that was similar to that of previous panther studies using conventional approaches on much smaller study areas. while recovery criteria require establishment of three distinct populations of 240 florida panthers, we found this single population may never have exceeded 150 individuals from 2000 to 2012.synthesis and applications. by extracting critical demographic information from underutilized aspects of human-wildlife ecology, our citizen-based approach can cost less than conventional alternatives and could conceivably be used for long-term population monitoring of other species over broad geographic areas, for example from reports of avian wind farm collisions, beached whales or marine mammal boat strikes. an additional benefit is that it can be applied to historical data sets of carcass recovery programmes, in our case permitting abundance estimation over a 13-year period. by extracting critical demographic information from underutilized aspects of human-wildlife ecology, our citizen-based approach can cost less than conventional alternatives and could conceivably be used for long-term population monitoring of other species over broad geographic areas, for example from reports of avian wind farm collisions, beached whales or marine mammal boat strikes. an additional benefit is that it can be applied to historical data sets of carcass recovery programmes, in our case permitting abundance estimation over a 13-year period." -spatial distribution patterns and movements of holothuria arguinensis in the ria formosa (portugal),sea cucumber ecology; home range; behavior; coastal lagoon; management,JOURNAL OF SEA RESEARCH,SIEGENTHALER A;CANOVAS F;GONZALEZ-WANGUEMERT M,"holothurian populations are under pressure worldwide because of increasing demand for beche-de-mer, mainly for asian consumption. importations to this area from new temperate fishing grounds provide economic opportunities but also raise concerns regarding future over-exploitation. studies on the habitat preferences and movements of sea cucumbers are important for the management of sea cucumber stocks and sizing of no-take zones, but information on the ecology and behavior of temperate sea cucumbers is scarce. this study describes the small-scale distribution and movement patterns of holothuria arguinensis in the intertidal zone of the ria formosa national park (portugal). mark/recapture studies were performed to record their movements over time on different habitats (sand and seagrass). h. arguinensis preferred seagrass habitats and did not show a size or life stage-related spatial segregation. its density was 563 ind. ha(-1) and mean movement speed was 10 m per day. movement speed did not differ between habitats and the direction of movement was offshore during the day and shoreward during the night. median home range size was 35 m(2) and overlap among home ranges was 84%. h. arguinensis' high abundance, close association with seagrass and easy catchability in the intertidal zone, indicate the importance of including intertidal lagoons in future studies on temperate sea cucumber ecology since those systems might require different management strategies than fully submerged habitats. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +spatial distribution patterns and movements of holothuria arguinensis in the ria formosa (portugal),sea cucumber ecology; home range; behavior; coastal lagoon; management,JOURNAL OF SEA RESEARCH,SIEGENTHALER A;CANOVAS F;GONZALEZ WANGUEMERT M,"holothurian populations are under pressure worldwide because of increasing demand for beche-de-mer, mainly for asian consumption. importations to this area from new temperate fishing grounds provide economic opportunities but also raise concerns regarding future over-exploitation. studies on the habitat preferences and movements of sea cucumbers are important for the management of sea cucumber stocks and sizing of no-take zones, but information on the ecology and behavior of temperate sea cucumbers is scarce. this study describes the small-scale distribution and movement patterns of holothuria arguinensis in the intertidal zone of the ria formosa national park (portugal). mark/recapture studies were performed to record their movements over time on different habitats (sand and seagrass). h. arguinensis preferred seagrass habitats and did not show a size or life stage-related spatial segregation. its density was 563 ind. ha(-1) and mean movement speed was 10 m per day. movement speed did not differ between habitats and the direction of movement was offshore during the day and shoreward during the night. median home range size was 35 m(2) and overlap among home ranges was 84%. h. arguinensis' high abundance, close association with seagrass and easy catchability in the intertidal zone, indicate the importance of including intertidal lagoons in future studies on temperate sea cucumber ecology since those systems might require different management strategies than fully submerged habitats. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." woodland mouse and vole response to increased structural diversity following midrotation commercial thinning in spruce plantations,commercial thinning; spruce plantation; myodes gapperi; napaeozapus insignis; peromyscus maniculatus,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FOREST RESEARCH,DRACUP EC;KEPPIE DM;FORBES GJ,"we assessed whether commercially thinning (ct) spruce (picea spp.) plantations (40% basal area removal) can cause structural changes in fine woody debris (fwd) and understory vegetation to improve habitat quality for small rodents in northwestern new brunswick, canada. wecreated three contrasting environments (fwd rich - understory vegetation rich, fwd poor - understory vegetation rich, and fwd poor - understory vegetation poor) by establishing ct with debris retention (merchantable trunk removal), ct with all debris removed (full tree removal), and non-ct (plantation without ct) in six midrotation white spruce (picea glauca (moench) voss) plantations. we live-trapped small mammals in each plantation during spring and summer of 2011 and 2012 and estimated animal density and survival with capture-recapture models. southern red-backed vole (myodes gapperi (vigors, 1830)) density was two to three times greater in ct with debris retention than in either non-ct or ct with debris removal, and their survival rate was twice that in ct with debris removal. woodland jumping mouse (napaeozapus insignis (miller, 1891)) density was two to five times greater in non-ct than in either ct treatment. deer mice (peromyscus maniculatus (wagner, 1845)) did not show any treatment effect. productivity and demographics were not affected by ct treatment for any species. we found evidence that midrotation spruce plantations are used differently by small mammal species based on stand condition and recommend that managers maintain plantations in ct and non-ct states." growth and maturity of spiny softshell turtles (apalone spinifera) in a small urban stream,body size; determinate growth; mark-recapture; trionychidae; von bertalanffy,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,PLUMMER MV;MILLS NE,"we studied the natural somatic growth of apalone spinifera using mark-recapture in a population inhabiting a small urban stream for 16 y. growth was rapid and variable in hatchlings and young juveniles, but as body size increased, growth slowed, more rapidly in males than in females. growth in the largest turtles was slow or immeasurable. von bertalanffy growth models indicated that males typically matured in their 4th or 5th year and females in their 12th or 13th year. the general growth pattern of a. spinifera was similar to that reported for many sexually dimorphic freshwater turtles, including a. mutica, the sister species of a. spinifera. individual growth rate in turtles has important implications for science-based conservation efforts because of its effect on maturation, reproductive output, survivorship, and population recruitment." -movement and population size of two dung beetle species in an andean agricultural landscape dominated by sun-grown coffee,scarabaeinae; colombian andes; mark-recapture; jolly-seber; population size,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,CULTID-MEDINA C;MARTINEZ-QUINTERO BG;ESCOBAR F;DE ULLOA PC,"understanding how species use and persist in agricultural areas is useful for planning conservation efforts at the landscape scale. information at the population level is scarce, even for organisms, such as dung beetles, that are traditionally used in biodiversity studies to evaluate the effects of anthropic disturbance. based on multiple mark-recapture events, the description of movement patterns and three population parameters (population size, survival and recruitment) were compared for two dung beetle species (dichotomius cf. alyattes and oxysternon conspicillatum) in a fragmented andean landscape dominated by sun-grown coffee crops. interspecific differences were detected in movement patterns and in the minimum distance moved across the landscape, with the latter associated with wing loading and species habitat preferences. d. cf. alyattes was captured in both the forest and in sun-grown coffee plots, but tended to limit its movement to patches of forest, while o. conspicillatum covered large distances in short periods of time across the sun-grown coffee crops (ca. 1.7 km/24 h). the population of each species increased during the months of greatest precipitation, prior to the recruitment of new beetles. given their great capacity for movement, habitat preference and their differential use of the landscape, the species studied can be used as models to evaluate the functional connectivity of andean landscapes under high anthropic demand. our results support the idea of the differential response of species to land-use changes, an aspect that should be considered for effective biodiversity conservation and ecosystem functioning in human-dominated landscapes." +movement and population size of two dung beetle species in an andean agricultural landscape dominated by sun-grown coffee,scarabaeinae; colombian andes; mark-recapture; jolly-seber; population size,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,CULTID MEDINA C;MARTINEZ QUINTERO BG;ESCOBAR F;DE ULLOA PC,"understanding how species use and persist in agricultural areas is useful for planning conservation efforts at the landscape scale. information at the population level is scarce, even for organisms, such as dung beetles, that are traditionally used in biodiversity studies to evaluate the effects of anthropic disturbance. based on multiple mark-recapture events, the description of movement patterns and three population parameters (population size, survival and recruitment) were compared for two dung beetle species (dichotomius cf. alyattes and oxysternon conspicillatum) in a fragmented andean landscape dominated by sun-grown coffee crops. interspecific differences were detected in movement patterns and in the minimum distance moved across the landscape, with the latter associated with wing loading and species habitat preferences. d. cf. alyattes was captured in both the forest and in sun-grown coffee plots, but tended to limit its movement to patches of forest, while o. conspicillatum covered large distances in short periods of time across the sun-grown coffee crops (ca. 1.7 km/24 h). the population of each species increased during the months of greatest precipitation, prior to the recruitment of new beetles. given their great capacity for movement, habitat preference and their differential use of the landscape, the species studied can be used as models to evaluate the functional connectivity of andean landscapes under high anthropic demand. our results support the idea of the differential response of species to land-use changes, an aspect that should be considered for effective biodiversity conservation and ecosystem functioning in human-dominated landscapes." population dynamics reveal conservation priorities of the threatened new zealand sea lion phocarctos hookeri,NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,MEYER S;ROBERTSON BC;CHILVERS BL;KRKOSEK M,"understanding the life history basis of the population dynamics of threatened species is crucial to their assessment and recovery. within the southern pacific ocean, the decline and range contraction of new zealand sea lions (nzsls) (phocarctos hookeri) are an exemplary case of a major fisheries and conservation controversy. despite the use of bycatch reduction measures, the main population of the nzsl has declined since 1998 and its vulnerability to threats is poorly understood. here we develop a population model for the declining population of the endangered nzsl at the auckland islands, new zealand (), parameterised by mark-recapture data of 2928 female nzsls spanning 15 years from 1998 to 2012, and provide the first comprehensive analysis of nzsl population dynamics and its relationship to life history. our model closely predicts the observed trend in population censuses of the main breeding population. we found that the population will continue to decline without effective intervention. furthermore, we found that the population growth rate is most responsive to changes in survival of adult female nzsls-the demographic group that is most threatened by fishery bycatch. nevertheless, inferences about the efficacy of nzsl bycatch reduction measures are still imprecise. combined, this could explain why the main population of nzsls continues to decline. our results emphasise that reliable data on bycatch reduction measures are needed, if they are to be shown to protect key demographic groups of marine mammals." power series mixtures and the ratio plot with applications to zero-truncated count distribution modelling,power series distribution; mixtures; negative-binomial; beta-binomial,METRON-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STATISTICS,BOHNING D,"the purpose of this note is to contribute some general points on how mixtures of power series distributions relate to their ratios of neighboring probabilities and how the associated graph, the ratio plot, can be used as diagnostic device as suggested in bohning (j comput graph stat 22:133-155, 2013). this work is continued here and extensively used to explore the aptness of the negative-binomial and beta-binomialmodel as capture-recapture zero-truncated count models. it is concluded that these models are less suitable for capturerecapture modelling as frequently readily assumed. this is mainly due to an inherent boundary problem that is elaborated here and illustrated at hand of some case studies." heterogeneous movement of insectivorous amazonian birds through primary and secondary forest: a case study using multistate models with radiotelemetry data,amazon; fidelity fragmentation; neotropical birds; secondary forest; multistate models; movement probability,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,POWELL LL;WOLFE JD;JOHNSON EI;HINES JE;NICHOLS JD;STOUFFER PC,"given rates of deforestation, disturbance, and secondary forest accumulation in tropical rainforests, there is a great need to quantify habitat use and movement among different habitats. this need is particularly pronounced for animals most sensitive to disturbance, such as insectivorous understory birds. here we use multistate capture-recapture models with radiotelemetry data to determine the successional stage at which within-day movement probabilities of amazonian birds in secondary forest are similar to those in primary forest. we radio-tracked three common understory insectivore species in primary and secondary forest at the biological dynamics of forest fragments project near manaus, brazil: two woodcreepers, glyphorynchus spirurus (n = 19) and xiphorhynchus pardalotus (n = 18), and the terrestrial antthrush formicarius colma (n = 19). forest age was a strong predictor of fidelity to a given habitat. all three species showed greater fidelity to primary forest than to 8-14-year-old secondary forest, indicating the latter's relatively poor quality. the two woodcreeper species used 12-18-year-old secondary forest in a manner comparable to continuous forest, but f. colma avoided moving even to 27-31-year-old secondary forest the oldest at our site. our results suggest that managers concerned with less sensitive species can assume that forest reserves connected by 12-18-year-old secondary forest corridors are effectively connected. on the other hand, >30 years are required after land abandonment before secondary forest serves as a primary forest-like conduit for movement by f. colma; more sensitive terrestrial insectivores may take longer still. published by elsevier ltd." a comparison of grizzly bear demographic parameters estimated from non-spatial and spatial open population capture-recapture models,NA,PLOS ONE,WHITTINGTON J;SAWAYA MA,"capture-recapture studies are frequently used to monitor the status and trends of wildlife populations. detection histories from individual animals are used to estimate probability of detection and abundance or density. the accuracy of abundance and density estimates depends on the ability to model factors affecting detection probability. non-spatial capture-recapture models have recently evolved into spatial capture-recapture models that directly include the effect of distances between an animal's home range centre and trap locations on detection probability. most studies comparing non-spatial and spatial capture-recapture biases focussed on single year models and no studies have compared the accuracy of demographic parameter estimates from open population models. we applied open population non-spatial and spatial capture-recapture models to three years of grizzly bear dna-based data from banff national park and simulated data sets. the two models produced similar estimates of grizzly bear apparent survival, per capita recruitment, and population growth rates but the spatial capture-recapture models had better fit. simulations showed that spatial capture-recapture models produced more accurate parameter estimates with better credible interval coverage than non-spatial capture-recapture models. non-spatial capture-recapture models produced negatively biased estimates of apparent survival and positively biased estimates of per capita recruitment. the spatial capture-recapture grizzly bear population growth rates and 95% highest posterior density averaged across the three years were 0.925 (0.786-1.071) for females, 0.844 (0.703-0.975) for males, and 0.882 (0.779-0.981) for females and males combined. the non-spatial capture-recapture population growth rates were 0.894 (0.758-1.024) for females, 0.825 (0.700-0.948) for males, and 0.863 (0.771-0.957) for both sexes. the combination of low densities, low reproductive rates, and predominantly negative population growth rates suggest that banff national park's population of grizzly bears requires continued conservation-oriented management actions." "food-borne diseases associated with frozen berries consumption: a historical perspective, european union, 1983 to 2013",NA,EUROSURVEILLANCE,TAVOSCHI L;SEVERI E;NISKANEN T;BOELAERT F;RIZZI V;LIEBANA E;DIAS JG;NICHOLS G;TAKKINEN J;COULOMBIER D,"epidemiological investigations of outbreaks of hepatitis a virus (hav) and norovirus (nov) infections in the european union/european economic area (eu/eea) in the last five years have highlighted frozen berries as a vehicle of infection. given the increasing berry consumption in the eu over the last decades, we undertook a review of the existing evidence to assess the potential scale of threat associated with this product. we searched the literature and four restricted-access online platforms for outbreak/contamination events associated with consumption of frozen berries. we performed an evaluation of the sources to identify areas for improvement. the review revealed 32 independent events (i.e. outbreak, food contamination) in the period 1983-2013, of which 26 were reported after 2004. the identified pathogens were nov, hav and shigella sonnei. nov was the most common and implicated in 27 events with over 15,000 cases reported. a capture-recapture analysis was performed including three overlapping sources for the period 2005-2013. the study estimated that the event-ascertainment was 62%. consumption of frozen berries is associated with increasing reports of nov and hav outbreaks and contamination events, particularly after 2003. a review of the risks associated with this product is required to inform future prevention strategies. better integration of the available communication platforms and databases should be sought at eu/eea level to improve monitoring, prevention and control of food-borne-related events." shifting effects of ocean conditions on survival and breeding probability of a long-lived seabird,NA,PLOS ONE,SCHMIDT AE;DYBALA KE;BOTSFORD LW;EADIE JM;BRADLEY RW;JAHNCKE J,"with a rapidly changing climate, there is an increasing need to predict how species will respond to changes in the physical environment. one approach is to use historic data to estimate the past influence of environmental variation on important demographic parameters and then use these relationships to project the abundance of a population or species under future climate scenarios. however, as novel climate conditions emerge, novel species responses may also appear. in some systems, environmental conditions beyond the range of those observed during the course of most long-term ecological studies are already evident. yet little attention has been given to how these novel conditions may be influencing previously established environment-species relationships. here, we model the relationships between ocean conditions and the demography of a long-lived seabird, brandt's cormorant (phalacrocorax penicillatusi), in central california and show that these relationships have changed in recent years. beginning in 2007/2008, the response of brandt's cormorant, an upper trophic level predator, to ocean conditions shifted, resulting in lower than predicted survival and breeding probability. survival was generally less variable than breeding probability and was initially best predicted by the basin-scale forcing of the el nino southern oscillation rather than local ocean conditions. the shifting response of brandt's cormorant to ocean conditions may be just a proximate indication of altered dynamics in the food web and that important forage fish are not responding to the physical ocean environment as expected. these changing relationships have important implications for our ability to project the effects of future climate change for species and communities." -propensity score weighting for addressing under-reporting in mortality surveillance: a proof-of-concept study using the nationally representative mortality data in china,mortality; surveillance; under-reporting; propensity scores,POPULATION HEALTH METRICS,GUO K;YIN P;WANG LJ;JI YB;LI QF;BISHAI D;LIU SW;LIU YN;ASTELL-BURT T;FENG XQ;YOU JL;LIU JM;ZHOU MG,"background: national mortality data are obtained routinely by the disease surveillance points system (dsps) in china and under-reporting is a big challenge in mortality surveillance. methods: we carried out an under-reporting field survey in all 161 dsp sites to collect death cases during 2009-2011, using a multi-stage stratified sampling. to identify under-reporting, death data were matched between field survey system and the routine online surveillance system by an automatic computer checking followed by a thorough manual verification. we used a propensity score (ps) weighting method based on a logistic regression to calculate the under-reporting rate in different groups classified by age, gender, urban/rural residency, geographic locations and other mortality related variables. for comparison purposes, we also calculated the under-reporting rate by using capture-mark-recapture (cmr) method. results: there were no significant differences between the field survey system and routine online surveillance system in terms of age group, causes of death, highest level of diagnosis and diagnostic basis. the overall under-reporting rate in the dsps was 12.9 % (95%ci 11.2 %, 14.6 %) based on ps. the under-reporting rate was higher in the west (18.8 %, 95% ci 16.5 %, 21.0 %) than the east (10.1 %, 95% ci 8.6 %, 11.3 %) and central regions (11.2 %, 95% ci 9.6 %, 12.7 %). among all age groups, the under-reporting rate was highest in the 0-5 year group (23.7 %, 95% ci 16.1 %, 35.5 %) and lowest in the 65 years and above group (12.4 %, 95% ci 10.9 %, 13.6 %). the under-reporting rates in each group by ps were similar to the results calculated by the cmr methods. conclusions: the mortality data from the dsp system in china needs to be adjusted. compared to the commonly used cmr method in the estimation of under-reporting rate, the results of propensity score weighting method are similar but more flexible when calculating the under-reporting rates in different groups. propensity score weighting is suitable to adjust dsp data and can be used to address under-reporting in mortality surveillance in china." +propensity score weighting for addressing under-reporting in mortality surveillance: a proof-of-concept study using the nationally representative mortality data in china,mortality; surveillance; under-reporting; propensity scores,POPULATION HEALTH METRICS,GUO K;YIN P;WANG LJ;JI YB;LI QF;BISHAI D;LIU SW;LIU YN;ASTELL BURT T;FENG XQ;YOU JL;LIU JM;ZHOU MG,"background: national mortality data are obtained routinely by the disease surveillance points system (dsps) in china and under-reporting is a big challenge in mortality surveillance. methods: we carried out an under-reporting field survey in all 161 dsp sites to collect death cases during 2009-2011, using a multi-stage stratified sampling. to identify under-reporting, death data were matched between field survey system and the routine online surveillance system by an automatic computer checking followed by a thorough manual verification. we used a propensity score (ps) weighting method based on a logistic regression to calculate the under-reporting rate in different groups classified by age, gender, urban/rural residency, geographic locations and other mortality related variables. for comparison purposes, we also calculated the under-reporting rate by using capture-mark-recapture (cmr) method. results: there were no significant differences between the field survey system and routine online surveillance system in terms of age group, causes of death, highest level of diagnosis and diagnostic basis. the overall under-reporting rate in the dsps was 12.9 % (95%ci 11.2 %, 14.6 %) based on ps. the under-reporting rate was higher in the west (18.8 %, 95% ci 16.5 %, 21.0 %) than the east (10.1 %, 95% ci 8.6 %, 11.3 %) and central regions (11.2 %, 95% ci 9.6 %, 12.7 %). among all age groups, the under-reporting rate was highest in the 0-5 year group (23.7 %, 95% ci 16.1 %, 35.5 %) and lowest in the 65 years and above group (12.4 %, 95% ci 10.9 %, 13.6 %). the under-reporting rates in each group by ps were similar to the results calculated by the cmr methods. conclusions: the mortality data from the dsp system in china needs to be adjusted. compared to the commonly used cmr method in the estimation of under-reporting rate, the results of propensity score weighting method are similar but more flexible when calculating the under-reporting rates in different groups. propensity score weighting is suitable to adjust dsp data and can be used to address under-reporting in mortality surveillance in china." mark-resight estimates of seasonal variation in harbor seal abundance and site fidelity,haul-out probability; individual-based; mark-recapture; phoca vitulina; photo-identification; population dynamics,POPULATION ECOLOGY,CORDES LS;THOMPSON PM,"monitoring trends in abundance of pinnipeds typically involves counting seals at terrestrial haul-out sites during the breeding season. counts of seals made at other times of the year are typically lower; however, it is often unknown whether this is because fewer animals are present or whether lower counts simply reflect a reduction in haul-out probability. here we illustrate how photo-identification data from an individual-based study of harbor seals (phoca vitulina) can be used to estimate seasonal variation in abundance and site fidelity. monthly data collected over a two-year period were analyzed using a mark-recapture mark-resight model accounting for individuals transitioning between observable and unobservable states. levels of site fidelity were high throughout the year and abundance estimates showed no seasonal pattern. this suggests that individual seals used haul-out sites to the same extent throughout the year, and that peaks in counts during the breeding season are a result of seasonal changes in haul-out probability. the results of this study have implications for understanding population sub-structuring, gene flow and disease spread." the first description of population density and habitat use of the mainland clouded leopard neofelis nebulosa within a logged-primary forest in south east asia,belum-temengor; camera-trap; density; habitat use; peninsular malaysia; spatially explicit capture-recapture,POPULATION ECOLOGY,MOHAMAD SW;RAYAN DM;CHRISTOPHER WCT;HAMIRUL M;MOHAMED A;LAU CF;SIWAN ES,"the mainland clouded leopard (neofelis nebulosa) is classified as vulnerable under the iucn red list, meaning that it faces a high risk of extinction in the wild. however, hardly any ecological research has been published on this species apart from several radiotelemetry studies in thailand and nepal, and one camera-trapping study in india. here we present findings on the clouded leopard from a camera-trapping study conducted in temengor forest reserve (a logged-over forest) and royal belum state park (a primary forest) within peninsular malaysia. using the spatially-explicit capture-recapture method, the density from temengor forest reserve and royal belum state park was estimated at 3.46 +/- a se 1.00 and 1.83 +/- a se 0.61, respectively. clouded leopard habitat use was found to be highly influenced by the availability of small and medium prey species and therefore intrinsically highlights the potential conservation importance of species such as pig-tailed macaques, porcupine, mouse deer and small carnivores. these findings provide the first estimates of density and habitat use of this species in a logged-primary forest from both peninsular malaysia and south east asia. our study provides important baseline information on clouded leopards and contributes to filling up the knowledge gap that exists in understanding the population ecology of this species, not only within peninsular malaysia, but also on a regional level." -tagging tadpoles: retention rates and impacts of visible implant elastomer (vie) tags from the larval to adult amphibian stages,litoria aurea; metamorphosis; tadpole; tag retention; vie tagging,HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL,BAINBRIDGE L;STOCKWELL M;VALDEZ J;KLOP-TOKER K;CLULOW S;CLULOW J;MAHONY M,"population demographics for amphibian larvae are rarely estimated due to marking technique limitations on small body size, morphological change (metamorphosis), and the associated habitat changes (aquatic to terrestrial environments). a technique that may meet some of these limitations is visible implant elastomer (vie) tagging. in this study, we report on the efficacy of vie tagging a tree frog (hylidae) at the tadpole stage for cohort identification across metamorphosis to the adult stage, in a field environment. during our preliminary captive trial, post-metamorphosis tag retention was 100% over three months, with no adverse effects observed on survival, growth or time to metamorphosis. during our field study tag retention in recaptured litoria aurea was 95% for tadpoles and 88% across metamorphosis. by 200 days post-tagging, retention declined to 75% in the adult stage and stabilised around 50% by 300 days. post metamorphosis the retention rate was less reliable and dependent upon sex and life-stage. females showed the highest retention rate (max. 62%, 760 days post tagging), followed by juveniles (max. 45%, 400 days post tagging) and males (max. 20%, 760 days post tagging). we conclude that vie tagging is a viable method for studying cohort larval movements and population demographics of amphibians up to a 50 day post-metamorphosis stage." +tagging tadpoles: retention rates and impacts of visible implant elastomer (vie) tags from the larval to adult amphibian stages,litoria aurea; metamorphosis; tadpole; tag retention; vie tagging,HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL,BAINBRIDGE L;STOCKWELL M;VALDEZ J;KLOP TOKER K;CLULOW S;CLULOW J;MAHONY M,"population demographics for amphibian larvae are rarely estimated due to marking technique limitations on small body size, morphological change (metamorphosis), and the associated habitat changes (aquatic to terrestrial environments). a technique that may meet some of these limitations is visible implant elastomer (vie) tagging. in this study, we report on the efficacy of vie tagging a tree frog (hylidae) at the tadpole stage for cohort identification across metamorphosis to the adult stage, in a field environment. during our preliminary captive trial, post-metamorphosis tag retention was 100% over three months, with no adverse effects observed on survival, growth or time to metamorphosis. during our field study tag retention in recaptured litoria aurea was 95% for tadpoles and 88% across metamorphosis. by 200 days post-tagging, retention declined to 75% in the adult stage and stabilised around 50% by 300 days. post metamorphosis the retention rate was less reliable and dependent upon sex and life-stage. females showed the highest retention rate (max. 62%, 760 days post tagging), followed by juveniles (max. 45%, 400 days post tagging) and males (max. 20%, 760 days post tagging). we conclude that vie tagging is a viable method for studying cohort larval movements and population demographics of amphibians up to a 50 day post-metamorphosis stage." population dynamics of grass snakes (natrix natrix) at a site restored for amphibian reintroduction,cormack-jolly-seber; monitoring; natrix natrix; population estimate,HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL,SEWELL D;BAKER JMR;GRIFFITHS RA,"grass snakes (natrix natrix)were monitored for nine years on a site in eastern england restored for an amphibian reintroduction. counts of snakes increased between 2004 and 2012 from 1.25 to 3.83 snakes per survey visit. grass snake counts were positively correlated with the number of common frog spawn clumps each year and peak counts of pool frogs. during surveys and incidental encounters 137 adult males, 161 adult females, 131 juveniles and 44 hatchlings were captured and individually photographically identified. captures of hatchlings were erratic and recapture rates were low, so they were excluded from the analysis. annualised capture data were analysed in the capture-recapture programme mark, using the cormack-jolly-seber model. the top ranked model gave an apparent annual survival rate of 0.66 (95% cl=0.543-0.755) and an individual detection rate of 0.17 (0.118-0.245). population estimates based on this model ranged from 53 (95% cl=37-76) to 576 (95% cl=400-831) over the nine years of study. grass snake population estimates were equivalent to densities of 4.8 to 52.4 individuals ha(-1). nevertheless, it is unlikely that these snakes were permanently resident within the study area, and annual survival may therefore be underestimated. a more plausible explanation for the large population estimates is that the snakes were temporarily resident within a patch of high quality habitat and moved through home ranges that included the study site." estimating survival of rock lobsters from long-term tagging programmes: how survey number and interval influence estimates,capture-mark-recapture (cmr); cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) model; lobster; survival probability,ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,KORDJAZI Z;FRUSHER S;BUXTON CD;GARDNER C,"a long-term tagging dataset on southern rock lobster (jasus edwardsii) conducted at the crayfish point scientific reserve near hobart, tasmania, australia, was used to determine how survey number and survey duration affected the precision of survival estimates of male and female lobsters to ensure sustainable exploitation of the population. tagging surveys were undertaken twice yearly during 2000-2003 with unequal time-intervals between surveys and then once a year with equal time-intervals during 2004-2012 during the january-february period. the most parsimonious cormack-jolly-seber model for estimating survival of lobsters was dependent on (i) timing of the tagging and recapture surveys, (ii) time between consecutive recapture surveys, and (iii) gender. the number of surveys required to provide a precise survival probability varied with gender and time between recapture surveys. for surveys where there was unequal time between recapture surveys, seven and five surveys were required for female and male lobsters, respectively, whereas only five surveys were required when annual surveys were undertaken. thus, lobster tagging projects using annual surveys should ideally extend to at least 5 years, which is beyond the 3-year project duration common in marine science." "sexual dimorphism, growth, and longevity of two toad species (anura, bufonidae) in a neotropical savanna",NA,COPEIA,ARANTES ID;VASCONCELLOS MM;BOAS TCV;VELUDO LBA;COLLI GR,"in most amphibians, females are the larger sex presumably due to selection for larger reproductive output. sexual selection may, however, produce larger males and also lead to the evolution of secondary sexual characteristics. the proximate causes of sexual dimorphism are related to differences in growth rates and longevity, but these data are scanty for most amphibian species and often depend on long-term demographic studies. here we use skeletochronology and mark recapture data obtained on a weekly basis over five years to investigate the sexual dimorphism in body size and shape, growth, and longevity of two toad species, rhine ha rubescens and r. schneideri, in the cerrado of central brazil. in adult individuals of both species, males have more robust forelimbs than females, but females attain larger asymptotic body sizes. in rhine ha rubescens, females have wider heads, whereas in r. schneideri, females bear larger parotoid glands and higher heads than males. females of r. rubescens grow faster and reach sexual maturity earlier than males (female: 105 days, male: 170 days); in contrast, males of r. schneideri grow faster and attain sexual maturity earlier than females (female: 450 days, male: 340 days). the estimated age of the oldest males and females, respectively, were three and 3.5 years for r. rubescens and five and four years for r. schneideri. males of r. rubescens were frequently captured a few months after reaching sexual maturity, between six months to one year of age, whereas in r. schneideri, males were frequently captured when sexual maturity was reached from one to 1.5 years of age. our data indicate that sexual dimorphism results from different growth trajectories before and after sexual maturity. differences between the two species in morphology, growth, and longevity likely reflect their separation into two morphologically and phylogenetically distinct sister clades." effectiveness of single-pass backpack electrofishing to estimate juvenile coho salmon abundance in alaskan headwater streams,sampling efficiency; validation methods; salmonids; headwater streams,FISHERIES SCIENCE,FOLEY K;ROSENBERGER A;MUETER F,"the use of techniques with low or inconsistent sampling efficiency may lead to erroneous estimates of abundance. although an increase in sampling intensity can improve sampling efficiency and precision, its cost can limit a study's spatial extent. a low-effort approach may be preferred for landscape-scale studies of fish distribution and abundance; however, this requires information on whether the low-effort sampling is vulnerable to habitat-mediated bias and imprecision of the estimator. to determine how habitat features affected sampling efficiency of juvenile coho salmon oncorhynchus kisutch in headwater streams of the little susitna drainage, alaska, we validated single-pass backpack electrofishing methods with closed population mark-recapture sampling. we found that habitat features, such as stream size and density of wood debris, had no measurable or consistent effect on sampling efficiency within the range of conditions present in these headwater systems, and single-pass catch explained 94.8 % of the observed variation in log-transformed mark-recapture estimates. this suggests that low-effort methods in headwater streams of the little susitna river can approximate actual fish numbers without accounting for habitat covariates that may influence sampling efficiency, and the advantage of sampling a greater spatial extent may sufficiently offset any concerns over low estimator precision." estimating alpine ibex capra ibex abundance from photographic sampling,camera trap; caprinae; capture-recapture; digiscoping; individual identification,MAMMAL REVIEW,SANDFORT R,"monitoring procedures for alpine ibex capra ibex are limited in habitats with reduced visibility and when physical capture and marking of the animals is not intended. photographic sampling, involving using camera-trap data and identifying ibex from natural markings, was adopted with capture-recapture models to estimate the abundance of ibex in austria. the software capture's model produced an average capture probability of 0.44 with an estimate of 34-51 ibex and a mean population size of 38 ibex. this first study showed the applicability of photographic capture-recapture techniques to estimate the abundance of ibex based on their natural markings." -girdling by the hispid cotton rat as a significant source of mortality in a loblolly pine (pinus taeda) successional forest,NA,AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST,"NADOLNY RM;ROSE RK","the hispid cotton rat (sigmodon hispidus) is a common field rodent in the southeastern united states, where volunteer loblolly pine trees (pinus taeda) rapidly invade open space and accelerate ecological succession from field to pine forest. while using capture-mark-recapture methods in studies of small mammal populations, we observed dead pine trees in late summer, all killed by girdling, prompting us to determine the extent of damage on a 1.26 ha grid in a 5 y old successional pine forest in southeastern virginia. we recorded damage to 65% of.15,000 trees, of which 2064 were killed by rodents. areas with a high density of trees 11-40 mm in diameter (3-5 y old) were most actively damaged during late winter and early spring, following autumnal population peaks of cotton rats. old field habitats undergoing succession to loblolly pine forest may briefly offer optimal habitat for cotton rats, and girdling by cotton rats may regulate the rate of succession depending on densities of trees and rodents." +girdling by the hispid cotton rat as a significant source of mortality in a loblolly pine (pinus taeda) successional forest,NA,AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST,NADOLNY RM;ROSE RK,"the hispid cotton rat (sigmodon hispidus) is a common field rodent in the southeastern united states, where volunteer loblolly pine trees (pinus taeda) rapidly invade open space and accelerate ecological succession from field to pine forest. while using capture-mark-recapture methods in studies of small mammal populations, we observed dead pine trees in late summer, all killed by girdling, prompting us to determine the extent of damage on a 1.26 ha grid in a 5 y old successional pine forest in southeastern virginia. we recorded damage to 65% of.15,000 trees, of which 2064 were killed by rodents. areas with a high density of trees 11-40 mm in diameter (3-5 y old) were most actively damaged during late winter and early spring, following autumnal population peaks of cotton rats. old field habitats undergoing succession to loblolly pine forest may briefly offer optimal habitat for cotton rats, and girdling by cotton rats may regulate the rate of succession depending on densities of trees and rodents." "population size and spatial ecology of blanding's turtle (emydoidea blandingii) in south march highlands, ottawa, ontario, canada",popan formulation; home range; radiotelemetry; urban development; population estimate; freshwater turtles,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,HASLER CT;ROBINSON K;STOW N;TAYLOR SR,"between 2010 and 2011, an arterial road was constructed within provincially significant wetlands in the south march highlands (smh) located in ottawa, ontario, canada. the wetlands and adjacent upland areas were determined to be sensitive habitat for blanding's turtles (emydoidea blandingii (holbrook, 1838)) during the approval and permitting process, and a population study was required as part of the road construction project. the study consisted of a 4-year mark-recapture program and a movement study of radio-tagged adult turtles. general findings included the identification of 27 adult males and 55 females and a population estimate of 93 adults (95% cl: 86-118). a 1:2.32 male to female sex bias was also found. mean home-range size was 19.06 ha and tagged turtles moved, on average, more per observation in 2013 (191.40 m compared with 89.75 and 123.04 m in 2011 and 2012, respectively). previously reported differences in movement patterns between males, females, and gravid females were not observed. the smh blanding's turtle population should be closely monitored because urban development continues in the area, which may further reduce the population size. understanding the biology of imperiled populations across species' ranges is necessary to promote conservation and adaptive wildlife management." connectivity and conditional models of access and abundance of species in stream networks,capture-mark-recapture; connectivity; culvert; fish movement; n-mixture model; occupancy modeling; passage restoration; stream road crossing; zero-inflated negative binomial,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,CHELGREN ND;DUNHAM JB,"barriers to passage of aquatic organisms at stream road crossings are a major cause of habitat fragmentation in stream networks. accordingly, large investments have been made to restore passage at these crossings, but often without estimation of population-level benefits. here, we describe a broad-scale approach to quantifying the effectiveness of passage restoration in terms interpretable at population levels, namely numbers of fish and length of stream gained through restoration, by sampling abundance in a study design that accounts for variable biogeographic species pools, variable stream and barrier configurations, and variable probabilities of capture and detectability for multiple species. we modified an existing zero-inflated negative-binomial model to estimate the probability of site access, abundance conditional on access, and capture probability of individual fish. therein, we modeled probability of access as a function of gradient, stream road-crossing type, and downstream access by fish simultaneously with a predictive model for abundance at sites accessible to fish. results indicated that replacement of barriers with new crossing designs intended to allow for greater movement was associated with dramatically higher probability of access for all fishes, including migratory pacific salmon, trout, sculpin, and lamprey. conversely, existing non-replaced crossings negatively impacted fish distributions. assuming no downstream constraints on access, we estimated the potential length of stream restored by the program ranged between 7.33 (lamprey) and 15.28 km (small coastal cutthroat and rainbow trout). these contributions represented a fraction of the total length available upstream (187 km) of replaced crossings. when limited ranges of species were considered, the estimated contributions of culvert replacement were reduced (1.65-km range for longnose dace to 12.31 km for small coastal cutthroat and rainbow trout). numbers of fish contributed ranged from less than 500 (longnose dace) to greater than 100000 (sculpin). although our framework can address the question of effectiveness in a broad array of stream and crossing configurations, much stronger inferences would be possible if future restoration efforts were designed to address the limitations we encountered in this study, particularly the lack of available information on crossings and species presence prior to restoration, and nonrandom selection of crossings to be replaced." parallel declines in survival of adult northern fulmars fulmarus glacialis at colonies in scotland and ireland,data integration; demography; large-scale processes; mark-recapture; seabird,IBIS,CORDES LS;HEDWORTH HE;CABOT D;CASSIDY M;THOMPSON PM,"assessing broad-scale changes in seabird populations across the north atlantic requires an integration of available datasets to understand the spatial extent of potential drivers and demographic change. here, we compared survival of northern fulmars fulmarus glacialis from a scottish and an irish colony from 1974 to 2009. despite lower recapture probabilities of monel-ringed irish birds compared with colour-ringed scottish birds, survival probability decreased at both colonies. the extent to which the decline in survival is related to density-dependent processes or other external drivers remains uncertain, but our results suggest that these changes in survival are possibly indicative of larger-scale processes and are not confined to local colony dynamics." rapid growth and genetic diversity retention in an isolated reintroduced black bear population in the central appalachians,appalachia; black bear; demographics; founder event; iteroparous; kentucky; population genetics; reintroduction; tennessee; ursus americanus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,MURPHY SM;COX JJ;CLARK JD;AUGUSTINE BC;HAST JT;GIBBS D;STRUNK M;DOBEY S,"animal reintroductions are important tools of wildlife management to restore species to their historical range, and they can also create unique opportunities to study population dynamics and genetics from founder events. we used non-invasive hair sampling in a systematic, closed-population capture-mark-recapture (cmr) study design at the big south fork (bsf) area in kentucky during 2010 and tennessee during 2012 to estimate the demographic and genetic characteristics of the black bear (ursus americanus) population that resulted from a reintroduced founding population of 18 bears in 1998. we estimated 38 (95% ci: 31-66) and 190 (95% ci: 170-219) bears on the kentucky and tennessee study areas, respectively. based on the tennessee abundance estimate alone, the mean annual growth rate was 18.3% (95% ci: 17.4-19.5%) from 1998 to 2012. we also compared the genetic characteristics of bears sampled during 2010-2012 to bears in the population during 2000-2002, 2-4 years following reintroduction, and to the source population. we found that the level of genetic diversity since reintroduction as indicated by expected heterozygosity (h-e) remained relatively constant (h-e(source,h- 2004)=0.763, h-e(bsf,h- 2000-2002)=0.729, h-e(bsf,h- 2010-2012)=0.712) and the effective number of breeders (n-b) remained low but had increased since reintroduction in the absence of sufficient immigration (n-b(bsf,n- 2000-2002)=12, n-b(bsf,n- 2010-2012)=35). this bear population appears to be genetically isolated, but contrary to our expectations, we did not find evidence of genetic diversity loss or other deleterious genetic effects typically observed from small founder groups. we attribute that to high initial genetic diversity in the founder group combined with overlapping generations and rapid population growth. although the population remains relatively small, the reintroduction using a small founder group appears to be demographically and genetically sustainable. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." -melanistic leopards reveal their spots: infrared camera traps provide a population density estimate of leopards in malaysia,camera trap; corridor; density estimate; leopard; logged forest; mark-recapture; panthera pardus; peninsular malaysia,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HEDGES L;LAM WY;CAMPOS-ARCEIZ A;RAYAN DM;LAURANCE WF;LATHAM CJ;SAABAN S;CLEMENTS GR,"to date, leopards (panthera pardus) in peninsular malaysia have been overlooked by large carnivore researchers. this is in part due to the country's unique population of individuals that are almost all melanistic, which makes it nearly impossible to identify individuals using camera traps for estimating leopard density. we discovered a novel modification to infrared flash camera traps, which forces the camera into night mode, that allows us to consistently and clearly see the spots of a melanistic leopard. the aim of this project was 1) to determine the feasibility of identifying melanistic leopards with confidence using infrared flash camera traps, and 2) to establish a density estimate for the leopard population in a wildlife corridor in malaysia using maximum likelihood and bayesian spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models. both secr approaches yielded a leopard density of approximately 3 individuals/100km(2). our estimates represent the first density estimate of leopards in malaysia and arguably, the world's first successful attempt to estimate the population size of a species with melanistic phenotypes. because we have demonstrated that melanistic leopards can be monitored with confidence using infrared cameras, future studies should employ our approach instead of relying on scars or body shape for identification. ultimately, our approach can facilitate more accurate assessments of leopard population trends, particularly in regions where melanistic phenotypes largely occur. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." +melanistic leopards reveal their spots: infrared camera traps provide a population density estimate of leopards in malaysia,camera trap; corridor; density estimate; leopard; logged forest; mark-recapture; panthera pardus; peninsular malaysia,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HEDGES L;LAM WY;CAMPOS ARCEIZ A;RAYAN DM;LAURANCE WF;LATHAM CJ;SAABAN S;CLEMENTS GR,"to date, leopards (panthera pardus) in peninsular malaysia have been overlooked by large carnivore researchers. this is in part due to the country's unique population of individuals that are almost all melanistic, which makes it nearly impossible to identify individuals using camera traps for estimating leopard density. we discovered a novel modification to infrared flash camera traps, which forces the camera into night mode, that allows us to consistently and clearly see the spots of a melanistic leopard. the aim of this project was 1) to determine the feasibility of identifying melanistic leopards with confidence using infrared flash camera traps, and 2) to establish a density estimate for the leopard population in a wildlife corridor in malaysia using maximum likelihood and bayesian spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models. both secr approaches yielded a leopard density of approximately 3 individuals/100km(2). our estimates represent the first density estimate of leopards in malaysia and arguably, the world's first successful attempt to estimate the population size of a species with melanistic phenotypes. because we have demonstrated that melanistic leopards can be monitored with confidence using infrared cameras, future studies should employ our approach instead of relying on scars or body shape for identification. ultimately, our approach can facilitate more accurate assessments of leopard population trends, particularly in regions where melanistic phenotypes largely occur. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." movement and early survival of age-0 brown trout,dispersal; emigration; pit; salmo trutta; survival,FRESHWATER BIOLOGY,VATLAND S;CAUDRON A,"complementary data on survival and movement are often missing for early life stages that are logistically challenging to track. previous studies observed significant declines in the density of age-0 brown trout between summer and autumn in tributaries of lake geneva, but the cause of these declines was unknown. we hypothesised that mortality, dispersal within tributaries, early emigration to the lake or a combination of these factors was driving these seasonal declines. to evaluate these hypotheses, we used a combination of electrofishing and pit-tag mark-recaptures from stationary and portable antennae to quantify summer-to-autumn variation in the abundance, dispersal and emigration of age-0 brown trout. mortality was the primary cause of the reduction in abundance between summer and autumn. a small proportion (mean=0.10) of age-0 trout emigrated to lake geneva between july and mid-october, while the movement of trout within the study streams was minimal. true survival estimates for this same time period were relatively low at all but one site (mean=0.63). the seasonal resolution of survival estimates, paired with environmental data, allowed us to develop additional hypotheses on what factors were affecting survival. understanding animal movement at early life stages can elucidate important aspects of population ecology while concomitantly improving the reliability of demographic data." where have all the tadpoles gone? individual genetic tracking of amphibian larvae until adulthood,amphibians; genetic identification; life cycle; mark-recapture; metamorphosis; microsatellites,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY RESOURCES,RINGLER E;MANGIONE R;RINGLER M,"reliably marking larvae and reidentifying them after metamorphosis is a challenge that has hampered studies on recruitment, dispersal, migration and survivorship of amphibians for a long time, as conventional tags are not reliably retained through metamorphosis. molecular methods allow unique genetic fingerprints to be established for individuals. although microsatellite markers have successfully been applied in mark-recapture studies on several animal species, they have never been previously used in amphibians to follow individuals across different life cycle stages. here, we evaluate microsatellites for genetic across-stages mark-recapture studies in amphibians and test the suitability of available software packages for genotype matching. we sampled tadpoles of the dendrobatid frog allobates femoralis, which we introduced on a river island in the nature reserve les nouragues' in french guiana. in two subsequent recapture sessions, we searched for surviving juveniles and adults, respectively. all individuals were genotyped at 14 highly variable microsatellite loci, which yielded unique genetic fingerprints for all individuals. we found large differences in the identification success of the programs tested. the pairwise-relatedness-based approach, conducted with the programs kingroup or ml-relate, performed best with our data set. matching ventral patterns of juveniles and adult individuals acted as a control for the reliability of the genetic identification. our results demonstrate that microsatellite markers are a highly powerful tool for studying amphibian populations on an individual basis. the ability to individually track amphibian tadpoles throughout metamorphosis until adulthood will be of substantial value for future studies on amphibian population ecology and evolution." balancing sample accumulation and dna degradation rates to optimize noninvasive genetic sampling of sympatric carnivores,canis latrans; dna degradation; genotyping error; noninvasive genetic sampling; scat deposition; vulpes macrotis,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY RESOURCES,LONSINGER RC;GESE EM;DEMPSEY SJ;KLUEVER BM;JOHNSON TR;WAITS LP,"noninvasive genetic sampling, or noninvasive dna sampling (nds), can be an effective monitoring approach for elusive, wide-ranging species at low densities. however, few studies have attempted to maximize sampling efficiency. we present a model for combining sample accumulation and dna degradation to identify the most efficient (i.e. minimal cost per successful sample) nds temporal design for capture-recapture analyses. we use scat accumulation and faecal dna degradation rates for two sympatric carnivores, kit fox (vulpes macrotis) and coyote (canis latrans) across two seasons (summer and winter) in utah, usa, to demonstrate implementation of this approach. we estimated scat accumulation rates by clearing and surveying transects for scats. we evaluated mitochondrial (mtdna) and nuclear (ndna) dna amplification success for faecal dna samples under natural field conditions for 20 fresh scats/species/season from <1-112days. mean accumulation rates were nearly three times greater for coyotes (0.076scats/km/day) than foxes (0.029scats/km/day) across seasons. across species and seasons, mtdna amplification success was 95% through day 21. fox ndna amplification success was 70% through day 21 across seasons. coyote ndna success was 70% through day 21 in winter, but declined to <50% by day 7 in summer. we identified a common temporal sampling frame of approximately 14days that allowed species to be monitored simultaneously, further reducing time, survey effort and costs. our results suggest that when conducting repeated surveys for capture-recapture analyses, overall cost-efficiency for nds may be improved with a temporal design that balances field and laboratory costs along with deposition and degradation rates." evaluating the interaction of faecal pellet deposition rates and dna degradation rates to optimize sampling design for dna-based mark-recapture analysis of sonoran pronghorn,antilocapra americana sonoriensis; dna degradation; noninvasive genetic sampling; scat deposition rate,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY RESOURCES,WOODRUFF SP;JOHNSON TR;WAITS LP,"knowledge of population demographics is important for species management but can be challenging in low-density, wide-ranging species. population monitoring of the endangered sonoran pronghorn (antilocapra americana sonoriensis) is critical for assessing the success of recovery efforts, and noninvasive dna sampling (nds) could be more cost-effective and less intrusive than traditional methods. we evaluated faecal pellet deposition rates and faecal dna degradation rates to maximize sampling efficiency for dna-based mark-recapture analyses. deposition data were collected at five watering holes using sampling intervals of 1-7days and averaged one pellet pile per pronghorn per day. to evaluate nuclear dna (ndna) degradation, 20 faecal samples were exposed to local environmental conditions and sampled at eight time points from one to 124days. average amplification success rates for six ndna microsatellite loci were 81% for samples on day one, 63% by day seven, 2% by day 14 and 0% by day 60. we evaluated the efficiency of different sampling intervals (1-10days) by estimating the number of successful samples, success rate of individual identification and laboratory costs per successful sample. cost per successful sample increased and success and efficiency declined as the sampling interval increased. results indicate nds of faecal pellets is a feasible method for individual identification, population estimation and demographic monitoring of sonoran pronghorn. we recommend collecting samples >7days old and estimate that a sampling interval of 4-7days in summer conditions (i.e. extreme heat and exposure to uv light) will achieve desired sample sizes for mark-recapture analysis while also maximizing efficiency." survival and local recruitment are driven by environmental carry-over effects from the wintering area in a migratory seabird,common tern; marine primary productivity; migration; naoi; soi; sterna hirundo,OECOLOGIA,SZOSTEK KL;BECKER PH,"we estimated annual apparent survival rates, as well as local recruitment rates in different age groups and for different breeding status in the common tern sterna hirundo using mark-recapture analysis on a long-term individual-based dataset from a breeding colony in germany. strong inter-annual variability in survival rates became apparent, especially in prospectors. local recruitment also varied strongly between years and age groups. to explain these fluctuations, we linked survival and recruitment estimates to several environmental covariates expected to be limiting during the wintering period and migration, including the global climate indices of north atlantic oscillation and southern oscillation, fish abundance indices, and marine primary productivity in the west african wintering area. contrary to expectations, global indices did not seem to be linked strongly to vital rates. results showed that primary productivity had the strongest effect on annual survival, especially in young and inexperienced individuals. primary productivity in the wintering area was also strongly associated with the probability of recruitment in the following breeding season, indicating that conditions during winter can have carry-over effects on the life cycle of individuals." integrating acoustic telemetry into mark-recapture models to improve the precision of apparent survival and abundance estimates,cjs; js; popan; broadnose sevengill sharks; capture-recapture; population estimation,OECOLOGIA,DUDGEON CL;POLLOCK KH;BRACCINI JM;SEMMENS JM;BARNETT A,"capture-mark-recapture models are useful tools for estimating demographic parameters but often result in low precision when recapture rates are low. low recapture rates are typical in many study systems including fishing-based studies. incorporating auxiliary data into the models can improve precision and in some cases enable parameter estimation. here, we present a novel application of acoustic telemetry for the estimation of apparent survival and abundance within capture-mark-recapture analysis using open population models. our case study is based on simultaneously collecting longline fishing and acoustic telemetry data for a large mobile apex predator, the broadnose sevengill shark (notorhynchus cepedianus), at a coastal site in tasmania, australia. cormack-jolly-seber models showed that longline data alone had very low recapture rates while acoustic telemetry data for the same time period resulted in at least tenfold higher recapture rates. the apparent survival estimates were similar for the two datasets but the acoustic telemetry data showed much greater precision and enabled apparent survival parameter estimation for one dataset, which was inestimable using fishing data alone. combined acoustic telemetry and longline data were incorporated into jolly-seber models using a monte carlo simulation approach. abundance estimates were comparable to those with longline data only; however, the inclusion of acoustic telemetry data increased precision in the estimates. we conclude that acoustic telemetry is a useful tool for incorporating in capture-mark-recapture studies in the marine environment. future studies should consider the application of acoustic telemetry within this framework when setting up the study design and sampling program." -"action on multiple fronts, illegal poisoning and wind farm planning, is required to reverse the decline of the egyptian vulture in southern spain",capture-recapture; neophron percnopterus; survival; fecundity; recruitment; pva,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,SANZ-AGUILAR A;SANCHEZ-ZAPATA JA;CARRETE M;BENITEZ JR;AVILA E;ARENAS R;DONAZAR JA,"large body-sized avian scavengers, including the egyptian vulture (neophron percnopterus), are globally threatened due to human-related mortality so guidelines quantifying the efficacy of different management approaches are urgently needed. we used 14 years of territory and individual-based data on a small and geographically isolated spanish population to estimate survival, recruitment and breeding success. we then forecasted their population viability under current vital rates and under management scenarios that mitigated the main sources of non-natural mortality at breeding grounds (fatalities from wind farms and illegal poisoning). mean breeding success was 0.68 (sd = 0.17) under current conditions. annual probabilities of survival were 0.72 (se = 0.06) for fledglings and 2 yr old non-breeders, 0.73 (se = 0.04) for non-breeders older than 2 yrs old and 0.93 (se = 0.04) for breeders. probabilities of recruitment were 0 for birds aged 1-4, 0.10 (se = 0.06) for birds aged 5 and 0.19 (se = 0.09) for older birds. population viability analyses estimated an annual decline of 3-4% of the breeding population under current conditions. our results indicate that only by combining different management actions in the breeding area, especially by removing the most important causes of human-related mortality (poisoning and collisions on wind farms), will the population grow and persist in the long term. reinforcement with captive breeding may also have positive effects but only in combination with the reduction in causes of non-natural mortality. these results, although obtained for a focal species, may be applicable to other endangered populations of long-lived avian scavengers inhabiting southern europe. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -the demography of atelopus decline: harlequin frog survival and abundance in central panama prior to and during a disease outbreak,batrachochytrium dendrobatidis; bayesian state space model; mark-recapture; panama; population ecology; streams,GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION,MCCAFFERY R;RICHARDS-ZAWACKI CL;LIPS KR,"harlequin frogs (bufonidae: atelopus) are a species-rich genus of neotropical toads that have experienced disproportionately severe population declines and extinctions caused by the amphibian chytrid fungus batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (bd). the genus atelopus is of high conservation concern, but relatively little is known about the population dynamics and life history of the majority of species. we examined the demography of one population of atelopus zeteki and two populations of a. varius in central panama using three to six years of mark-recapture data collected prior to and during an outbreak of bd. we estimated male survival probabilities prior to the arrival of bd and sex-specific population sizes for these three populations using state-space bayesian population models. prior to the arrival of bd, monthly apparent survival probabilities were higher for a. varius males than for a. zeteki males, and recaptures among years were low in both species. abundance of both species varied over time and declined rapidly after the arrival of bd. male densities were generally greater than female densities, though female densities were higher or equivalent to males after the arrival of bd. estimates of survival and abundance over time may be explained by differences in the use of stream habitat by the two sexes and three populations, both during and between breeding seasons. these estimates provide key baseline population information that can be used to inform reintroductions from captive assurance colonies and studies of extant atelopus populations as part of conservation and management programs. (c) 2015 the authors. published by elsevier b.v." +"action on multiple fronts, illegal poisoning and wind farm planning, is required to reverse the decline of the egyptian vulture in southern spain",capture-recapture; neophron percnopterus; survival; fecundity; recruitment; pva,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,SANZ AGUILAR A;SANCHEZ ZAPATA JA;CARRETE M;BENITEZ JR;AVILA E;ARENAS R;DONAZAR JA,"large body-sized avian scavengers, including the egyptian vulture (neophron percnopterus), are globally threatened due to human-related mortality so guidelines quantifying the efficacy of different management approaches are urgently needed. we used 14 years of territory and individual-based data on a small and geographically isolated spanish population to estimate survival, recruitment and breeding success. we then forecasted their population viability under current vital rates and under management scenarios that mitigated the main sources of non-natural mortality at breeding grounds (fatalities from wind farms and illegal poisoning). mean breeding success was 0.68 (sd = 0.17) under current conditions. annual probabilities of survival were 0.72 (se = 0.06) for fledglings and 2 yr old non-breeders, 0.73 (se = 0.04) for non-breeders older than 2 yrs old and 0.93 (se = 0.04) for breeders. probabilities of recruitment were 0 for birds aged 1-4, 0.10 (se = 0.06) for birds aged 5 and 0.19 (se = 0.09) for older birds. population viability analyses estimated an annual decline of 3-4% of the breeding population under current conditions. our results indicate that only by combining different management actions in the breeding area, especially by removing the most important causes of human-related mortality (poisoning and collisions on wind farms), will the population grow and persist in the long term. reinforcement with captive breeding may also have positive effects but only in combination with the reduction in causes of non-natural mortality. these results, although obtained for a focal species, may be applicable to other endangered populations of long-lived avian scavengers inhabiting southern europe. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +the demography of atelopus decline: harlequin frog survival and abundance in central panama prior to and during a disease outbreak,batrachochytrium dendrobatidis; bayesian state space model; mark-recapture; panama; population ecology; streams,GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION,MCCAFFERY R;RICHARDS ZAWACKI CL;LIPS KR,"harlequin frogs (bufonidae: atelopus) are a species-rich genus of neotropical toads that have experienced disproportionately severe population declines and extinctions caused by the amphibian chytrid fungus batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (bd). the genus atelopus is of high conservation concern, but relatively little is known about the population dynamics and life history of the majority of species. we examined the demography of one population of atelopus zeteki and two populations of a. varius in central panama using three to six years of mark-recapture data collected prior to and during an outbreak of bd. we estimated male survival probabilities prior to the arrival of bd and sex-specific population sizes for these three populations using state-space bayesian population models. prior to the arrival of bd, monthly apparent survival probabilities were higher for a. varius males than for a. zeteki males, and recaptures among years were low in both species. abundance of both species varied over time and declined rapidly after the arrival of bd. male densities were generally greater than female densities, though female densities were higher or equivalent to males after the arrival of bd. estimates of survival and abundance over time may be explained by differences in the use of stream habitat by the two sexes and three populations, both during and between breeding seasons. these estimates provide key baseline population information that can be used to inform reintroductions from captive assurance colonies and studies of extant atelopus populations as part of conservation and management programs. (c) 2015 the authors. published by elsevier b.v." "the czech surveillance system for invasive pneumococcal disease, 2008-2013: a follow-up assessment and sensitivity estimation",NA,PLOS ONE,STOCK NK;MALY M;SEBESTOVA H;ORLIKOVA H;KOZAKOVA J;KRIZOVA P,"background invasive pneumococcal disease (ipd) is caused by streptococcus pneumoniae and mostly presents as pneumonia, sepsis or meningitis. a notable portion of ipd cases is vaccine preventable and the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (pcv) was introduced into the routine childhood immunization programs in many countries during the last decades. objectives before pcv introduction in the czech republic in 2010, a national surveillance system for ipd was implemented in 2008 and further improved in 2011. in this study, we describe the new surveillance system for the first time and measure its sensitivity between 2010 and 2013 using the capture-recapture method. furthermore, we describe the recent epidemiological trend of ipd, taking sensitivity estimates into account. results and conclusions between 2010 and 2013 the estimated sensitivity of the overall ipd surveillance increased from 81% to 99%. the sensitivity of individual reporting sources increased from 72% to 87% for the laboratory system and from 31% to 89% for the epidemiological notification system. crucial for this improvement was the introduction of quarterly report reminders in 2011. due to positive source dependency, the presented sensitivity estimates are most probably overestimated and reflect the upper limit of reporting completeness. stratification showed variation in sensitivity of reporting particularly according to region. an effect of the pvc vaccination in the czech republic is visible in the incidence of ipd in target age groups (<5y). this influence was not evident in the total ipd incidence and may interfere with increasing sensitivity of reporting. in 2013, an increase in the ipd incidence was observed. this finding requires further observation and a detailed vaccine impact analysis is needed to assess the current immunization strategy." estimating population size for capercaillie (tetrao urogallus l.) with spatial capture-recapture models based on genotypes from one field sample,NA,PLOS ONE,MOLLET P;KERY M;GARDNER B;PASINELLI G;ROYLE JA,"we conducted a survey of an endangered and cryptic forest grouse, the capercaillie tetrao urogallus, based on droppings collected on two sampling occasions in eight forest fragments in central switzerland in early spring 2009. we used genetic analyses to sex and individually identify birds. we estimated sex-dependent detection probabilities and population size using a modern spatial capture-recapture (scr) model for the data from pooled surveys. a total of 127 capercaillie genotypes were identified (77 males, 46 females, and 4 of unknown sex). the scr model yielded atotal population size estimate (posterior mean) of 137.3 capercaillies (posterior sd 4.2, 95% cri 130-147). the observed sex ratio was skewed towards males (0.63). the posterior mean of the sex ratio under the scr model was 0.58 (posterior sd 0.02, 95% cri 0.54-0.61), suggesting a male-biased sex ratio in our study area. a subsampling simulation study indicated that a reduced sampling effort representing 75% of the actual detections would still yield practically acceptable estimates of total size and sex ratio in our population. hence, field work and financial effort could be reduced without compromising accuracy when the scr model is used to estimate key population parameters of cryptic species." "low coverage of central point vaccination against dog rabies in bamako, mali",dog rabies; mali; vaccination campaign; intervention effectiveness,PREVENTIVE VETERINARY MEDICINE,MUTHIANI Y;TRAORE A;MAUTI S;ZINSSTAG J;HATTENDORF J,"canine rabies remains an important public-health problem in africa. dog mass vaccination is the recommended method for rabies control and elimination. we report on the first small-scale mass dog vaccination campaign trial in bamako, mali. our objective was to estimate coverage of the vaccination campaign and to quantify determinants of intervention effectiveness. in september 2013, a central point vaccination campaign free of cost for dog owners was carried out in 17 posts on three consecutive days within bamako's commune 1. vaccination coverage and the proportion of ownerless dogs were estimated by combining mark-recapture household and transect surveys using bayesian modeling. the estimated vaccination coverage was 17.6% (95% credibility interval, ci: 14.4-22.1%) which is far below the world health organization (who) recommended vaccination coverage of 70%. the bayesian estimate for the owned dog population of commune 1 was 3459 dogs (95% ci: 2786-4131) and the proportion of ownerless dogs was about 8%. the low coverage observed is primarily attributed to low participation by dog owners. dog owners reported several reasons for not bringing their dogs to the vaccination posts. the most frequently reported reasons for non-attendance were lack of information (25%) and the inability to handle the dog (16%). for 37% of respondents, no clear reason was given for non-vaccination. despite low coverage, the vaccination campaign in bamako was relatively easy to implement, both in terms of logistics and organization. almost half of the participating dog owners brought their pets on the first day of the campaign. participatory stakeholder processes involving communities and local authorities are needed to identify effective communication channels and locally adapted vaccination strategies, which could include both central-point and door-to-door vaccination. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." @@ -2041,7 +2044,7 @@ the effect of toe-clipping on the survival of gecko and skink species,apparent s fire impacts recruitment more than survival of small-mammals in a tropical savanna,australia; antechinus bellus; apparent survival; capture-mark-recapture; dasyurus hallucatus; fire experiment; frequency; intensity; isoodon macrourus; melomys burtoni; recruitment; trichosurus vulpecula,ECOSPHERE,GRIFFITHS AD;BROOK BW,"the frequency and spatial patterning of fire for optimal biodiversity conservation is often poorly understood by managers, in part due to a lack of understanding of the mechanisms responsible for altering population dynamics of individual species. we investigated changes in the vital rates (survival and recruitment) of four small mammal species (three marsupials and one rodent) in a tropical savanna under four different experimental fire treatments applied at a landscape scale. apparent survival declined in all fire treatments for only one of four small mammal species (northern brown bandicoot isoodon macrourus). recruitment was reduced in three of four species in multiple fire treatments. the suppression of recruitment in the northern brown bandicoot and the brushtail possum trichosurus vulpecula populations was greatest immediately after the initial fire treatment was applied, compared to remaining treatment applications in successive years, possibly due to an elevated fire intensity as a result of higher initial fuel loads. the results suggest that higher intensity fire impacted recruitment more than survival for small mammals at this site. to assist fire managers to conserve small mammal populations in tropical savannas, we recommend fire regimes that optimise habitat resources for recruitment. this may be achieved by a reduction in fire frequency and managing fuel loads to prevent an increase in fire intensity." avian malaria in hawaiian forest birds: infection and population impacts across species and elevations,avian malaria; bayesian state-space models; culex quinquefasciatus; disease mortality; hawaii; hemignathus virens; himatione sanguinea; mosquitoes; plasmodium relictum; multistate model; vestiaria coccinea; wildlife disease,ECOSPHERE,SAMUEL MD;WOODWORTH BL;ATKINSON CT;HART PJ;LAPOINTE DA,"wildlife diseases can present significant threats to ecological systems and biological diversity, as well as domestic animal and human health. however, determining the dynamics of wildlife diseases and understanding the impact on host populations is a significant challenge. in hawai'i, there is ample circumstantial evidence that introduced avian malaria (plasmodium relictum) has played an important role in the decline and extinction of many native forest birds. however, few studies have attempted to estimate disease transmission and mortality, survival, and individual species impacts in this distinctive ecosystem. we combined multi-state capture-recapture (longitudinal) models with cumulative age-prevalence (cross-sectional) models to evaluate these patterns in apapane, hawai'i amakihi, and iiwi in low-, mid-, and high-elevation forests on the island of hawai'i based on four longitudinal studies of 3-7 years in length. we found species-specific patterns of malaria prevalence, transmission, and mortality rates that varied among elevations, likely in response to ecological factors that drive mosquito abundance. malaria infection was highest at low elevations, moderate at mid elevations, and limited in high-elevation forests. infection rates were highest for iiwi and apapane, likely contributing to the absence of these species in low-elevation forests. adult malaria fatality rates were highest for iiwi, intermediate for amakihi at mid and high elevations, and lower for apapane; low-elevation amakihi had the lowest malaria fatality, providing strong evidence of malaria tolerance in this low-elevation population. our study indicates that hatch-year birds may have greater malaria infection and/or fatality rates than adults. our study also found that mosquitoes prefer feeding on amakihi rather than apapane, but apapane are likely a more important reservoir for malaria transmission to mosquitoes. our approach, based on host abundance and infection rates, may be an effective alternative to mosquito blood meal analysis for determining vector-host contacts when mosquito densities are low and collection of blood-fed mosquitoes is impractical. our study supports the hypothesis that avian malaria has been a primary factor influencing the elevational distribution and abundance of these three species, and likely limits other native hawaiian species that are susceptible to malaria." visible implant elastomer as a viable marking technique for common mistfrogs (litoria rheocola),amphibian; long-term; movement; readability; tags,HERPETOLOGICA,SAPSFORD SJ;ALFORD RA;SCHWARZKOPF L,"mark-recapture studies are often used to quantify rates of recruitment and survival, growth rates and patterns, and individual movement, among other things. marking techniques must satisfy several criteria-marks should: (1) not affect the behavior or survival of individuals; (2) not cause undue pain or stress; (3) last as long as the study; and (4) be easily identifiable. visible implant elastomer (vie) tags can be used to mark vertebrates, including amphibians, but can move under the skin, potentially affecting readability and resulting estimates of dispersal and survival. we examined the effectiveness of vie as a marking technique for common mistfrogs (litoria rheocola) in the field over 1 yr. we determined the readability of marks over time, and evaluated effects of marking on measurements of frog movement. if marking affected mobility of the marked rear limb, we expected that subjects marked in both legs would be more strongly affected (thus, individuals should move less often), or should move shorter distances, than subjects marked in only one leg. we marked 1392 animals under the skin of the thighs in either the right, left, or both legs and recaptured 255 subjects at least once. we found that 84% of marks remained readable after 1 yr. movement parameters were very similar between frogs marked in one or two legs. we conclude that vie is a safe and effective marking technique for long-term amphibian studies, especially for stream-associated hylid frogs." -unintended consequences of management actions in salt pond restoration: cascading effects in trophic interactions,NA,PLOS ONE,TAKEKAWA JY;ACKERMAN JT;BRAND LA;GRAHAM TR;EAGLES-SMITH CA;HERZOG MP;TOPPING BR;SHELLENBARGER GG;KUWABARA JS;MRUZ E;PIOTTER SL;ATHEARN ND,"salt evaporation ponds have played an important role as habitat for migratory waterbirds across the world, however, efforts to restore and manage these habitats to maximize their conservation value has proven to be challenging. for example, salinity reduction has been a goal for restoring and managing former salt evaporation ponds to support waterbirds in the south bay salt pond restoration project in san francisco bay, california, usa. here, we describe a case study of unexpected consequences of a low-dissolved oxygen (do) event on trophic interactions in a salt pond system following management actions to reduce salinity concentrations. we document the ramifications of an anoxic event in water quality including salinity, do, and temperature, and in the response of the biota including prey fish biomass, numerical response by california gulls (larus californicus), and chick survival of forster's tern (sterna forsteri). management actions intended to protect receiving waters resulted in decreased do concentrations that collapsed to zero for >= 4 consecutive days, resulting in an extensive fish kill. do depletion likely resulted from an algal bloom that arose following transition of the pond system from high to low salinity as respiration and decomposition outpaced photosynthetic production. we measured a >= 6-fold increase in biomass of fish dropped on the levee by foraging avian predators compared with weeks prior to and following the low-do event. california gulls rapidly responded to the availability of aerobically-stressed and vulnerable fish and increased in abundance by two orders of magnitude. mark-recapture analysis of 254 forster's tern chicks indicated that their survival declined substantially following the increase in gull abundance. thus, management actions to reduce salinity concentrations resulted in cascading effects in trophic interactions that serves as a cautionary tale illustrating the importance of understanding the interaction of water quality and trophic structure when managing restoration of salt ponds." +unintended consequences of management actions in salt pond restoration: cascading effects in trophic interactions,NA,PLOS ONE,TAKEKAWA JY;ACKERMAN JT;BRAND LA;GRAHAM TR;EAGLES SMITH CA;HERZOG MP;TOPPING BR;SHELLENBARGER GG;KUWABARA JS;MRUZ E;PIOTTER SL;ATHEARN ND,"salt evaporation ponds have played an important role as habitat for migratory waterbirds across the world, however, efforts to restore and manage these habitats to maximize their conservation value has proven to be challenging. for example, salinity reduction has been a goal for restoring and managing former salt evaporation ponds to support waterbirds in the south bay salt pond restoration project in san francisco bay, california, usa. here, we describe a case study of unexpected consequences of a low-dissolved oxygen (do) event on trophic interactions in a salt pond system following management actions to reduce salinity concentrations. we document the ramifications of an anoxic event in water quality including salinity, do, and temperature, and in the response of the biota including prey fish biomass, numerical response by california gulls (larus californicus), and chick survival of forster's tern (sterna forsteri). management actions intended to protect receiving waters resulted in decreased do concentrations that collapsed to zero for >= 4 consecutive days, resulting in an extensive fish kill. do depletion likely resulted from an algal bloom that arose following transition of the pond system from high to low salinity as respiration and decomposition outpaced photosynthetic production. we measured a >= 6-fold increase in biomass of fish dropped on the levee by foraging avian predators compared with weeks prior to and following the low-do event. california gulls rapidly responded to the availability of aerobically-stressed and vulnerable fish and increased in abundance by two orders of magnitude. mark-recapture analysis of 254 forster's tern chicks indicated that their survival declined substantially following the increase in gull abundance. thus, management actions to reduce salinity concentrations resulted in cascading effects in trophic interactions that serves as a cautionary tale illustrating the importance of understanding the interaction of water quality and trophic structure when managing restoration of salt ponds." white-tailed deer fawn recruitment before and after experimental coyote removals in central georgia,canis latrans; coyote; fawn; fecal genotyping; odocoileus virginianus; predation; recruitment; trapping; white-tailed deer,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,GULSBY WD;KILLMASTER CH;BOWERS JW;KELLY JD;SACKS BN;STATHAM MJ;MILLER KV,"recent evidence from across the southeastern united states indicating high predation rates by coyotes (canis latrans) on white-tailed deer (odocoileus virginianus) fawns has led some managers to implement coyote control. although some evidence suggests coyote control can improve recruitment, success appears to be site dependent. therefore, we designed an experiment to assess feasibility of coyote control as a management action to increase recruitment on b.f. grant and cedar creek wildlife management areas (wma) in central georgia, usa. we estimated annual coyote abundance during 2010-2012 using a noninvasive mark-recapture design and fawn recruitment using infrared-triggered camera surveys. during march-june 2011 and march-april 2012, trappers removed coyotes from both sites. estimates of coyote abundance on b.f. grant wma after trapping were 81% (2011) and 24% (2012) lower than during preremoval. coyote abundance estimates were similar among years on cedar creek wma. fawn recruitment on b.f. grant wma averaged 0.65 fawns/adult female prior to removal and 1.01 fawns/adult female during the 2 years following the removals. fawn recruitment on cedar creek wma did not differ among years during the study, and was similar to that prior to coyote arrival. the differential coyote impacts and variable effectiveness of trapping we observed on nearby sites suggest coyote control may not achieve management objectives in some areas. furthermore, transient behavior and the potential for coyotes to adapt to control efforts likely reduce efficacy of this management action. however, we observed an increase in recruitment on b.f. grant wma during one year, and others have seen similar responses. therefore if lowered fawn recruitment is hindering achievement of management objectives, we recommend managers who opt to control coyotes continuously monitor recruitment to determine whether a response occurs. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." the estimation of grizzly bear density through hair-snagging techniques above the tree line,arctic; density; dna degradation; hair-snagging; mark-recapture; noninvasive; program mark; radiotelemetry; spatially explicit mark-recapture; ursus,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,DUMOND M;BOULANGER J;PAETKAU D,"assessing grizzly bears' (ursus arctos) abundance in the arctic has been challenging because of the large scale of their movements and the remoteness of field locations. we modified a post sampling method used for wolverines (gulo gulo) to allow collection of hair samples from grizzly bears in the canadian tundra. we deployed 1 post/cell in a sampling grid of 393 10x10-km cells sampled in 2008 and 2009 for two 14-day sessions in july-august of both years. we then compared density estimates from mark-recapture estimators that used telemetry data from previous years with spatially explicit mark-recapture models that used only genetic detections. over the 2 years of sampling, we detected 98 female and 81 male grizzly bears. we found that the dna degradation rate was related to collection interval and the number of days between rainfall events and sample collection. estimates of density were in the order of 5 bears/1,000km(2). the estimates from the 2 methods were statistically similar, but spatially explicit estimates were more precise than those using radiocollar data. our results provide the first demonstration of the viability of posts as hair-snagging stations to obtain dna from grizzly bears, and of spatially explicit mark-recapture methods to estimate population size and density for grizzly bears above the tree line. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." environmental factors determining growth of salamander larvae: a field study,spring; freshwater; cave; amphibians; salamandra; cannibalism,CURRENT ZOOLOGY,LIMONGI L;FICETOLA GF;ROMEO G;MANENTI R,"larval growth and survival of organisms are strongly influenced by abiotic and biotic factors, as demonstrated by experimental studies performed under controlled laboratory or semi-natural conditions. even if they have many advantages, experiments cannot cover the full complexity of natural conditions and field studies are needed for a better understanding of how environmental variation determines growth and development rate. fire salamander salamandra salamandra females give birth to larvae in a variety of habitats, both epigean and subterranean. in caves, salamander larvae successfully grow and metamorphose, but their growth is more than three times longer than in epigean streams and factors determining these differences require investigation. we performed a field study to understand the factors related to the growth of fire salamander larvae in different environmental conditions, evaluating the relationship between environmental features and larval growth and differences between caves and epigean spring habitats. both caves and epigean larvae successfully grew. capture-mark-recapture allowed to individually track individuals along their whole development, and measure their performance. growth rate was significantly affected by environmental variables: larvae grew faster in environments with abundant invertebrates and few conspecifics. taking into account the effect of environmental variables, larval growth was significantly lower in caves. food availability plays a different effect in the two environments. larval growth was positively related to the availability of invertebrates in epigean sites only. the development rate of hypogeous populations of salamanders is slower because of multiple parameters, but biotic factors play a much stronger role than the abiotic ones." @@ -2051,14 +2054,14 @@ long-term monitoring of green turtle nesting on tromelin island demonstrates sta "data quality at the bulgarian national cancer registry: an overview of comparability, completeness, validity and timeliness",cancer registry; data quality; neoplasms; comparability; completeness; validity; timeliness,CANCER EPIDEMIOLOGY,DIMITROVA N;PARKIN DM,"reporting of neoplasms in bulgaria has been compulsory since a directive from the ministry of health in 1951. the quality of cancer registry data has been estimated rather infrequently in past years. we aimed to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the quality of the data at the bulgarian national cancer registry (bncr). quantitative and semi-quantitative methods were applied for cancers diagnosed during the whole period 1993-2010, and also for cases diagnosed in 2006-2010. the methods used include historic data methods, mortality-to-incidence ratios (m: i), capture-recapture and death-certificate methods, proportions of morphologically verified cases (mv%), death-certificate-only cases (dco%), and cases with missing information (primary site unknown, psu%; stage unknown, su%). the bncr coding and classification systems follow international standards. the overall completeness was estimated at 92.6-94.7% for the period 2006-2010, with variations between cancer sites (86.798.5%). during the period 1993-2010, m: i decreased to 0.5 for males and 0.4 for females, mv increased to 87.4%, dco and su decreased to 4.8% and 18.8%, respectively, and psu remained at the same level of about 4% for both sexes together. sub-analysis revealed differences by site, sex and age groups. the comparison with other registries from the region showed similar incidence rates and directions of trends: m: i, mv% and dco% that were not significantly different. the underreporting in 2008 and 2009 due to timely publication was estimated at an overall 0.8% and 0.5%, respectively. the present review showed that the bncr yields internationally comparable data that are reasonably accurate, timely, and close to complete, especially in recent years. this is a prerequisite for the bncr to expand its role to more areas of cancer control. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." reproductive consequences of the timing of seasonal movements in a nonmigratory wild bird population,"arrival time; breeding success; capture-recapture-resight; great tit; parus major; reproductive outcome; super-population; synchronous arrival; wytham woods, uk",ECOLOGY,MATECHOU E;CHENG SC;KIDD LR;GARROWAY CJ,"animal movement patterns, whether related to dispersal, migration, or ranging behaviors, vary in time. individual movements reflect the outcomes of interactions between an individual's condition and a multitude of underlying ecological processes. theory predicts that when competition for breeding territories is high, individuals should arrive at breeding sites earlier than what would otherwise be optimal for breeding in the absence of competition. this is because priority at a site can confer significant competitive advantages leading to better breeding outcomes. empirical data from long-distance migrants support this theory. however, it has not been tested within the context of fine-scale movements in nonmigratory populations. we assessed the effect of arrival time at a breeding site on reproductive outcomes in an intensively monitored resident population of great tits (parus major). the population was monitored passively, via passive integrated transponder (pit) tag loggers, and actively, via catching, during breeding and nonbreeding seasons. we developed new capture-recapture-resight models that use both data types to model breeding outcome conditional on the unknown individual arrival times. in accordance with theory, individuals arrived at the woods synchronously in waves that were large at the beginning of the nonbreeding season and small toward the end, with very few arrivals in the intervening period. there was a strong effect of arrival time on the probability of breeding; the earlier an individual arrived, the more likely it was to successfully establish a nest that reached the incubation period. however, once nests were established, they had equal probabilities of failing early, regardless of arrival time. finally, there was moderate evidence of a negative effect of arrival time on the probability of successfully fledging nestlings. these empirical findings are consistent with theoretical models that suggest an important role for competition in shaping fine-scale seasonal movements. our capture-recapture-resight models are extensible and suitable for a variety of applications, particularly when the goal is to estimate the effects of unobservable arrival times on subsequent ecological outcomes." spatial variation in population density affects dispersal behavior in brush mice,density dependence; dispersal; peromyscus boylii; population density; spatially explicit capture-recapture models,ECOLOGY,WOJAN CM;KNAPP SM;MABRY KE,"population density can influence all three phases of natal dispersal: departure from the place of birth, searching the landscape, and selecting a new site in which to settle. the direction of the effect of density on dispersal should be affected by the relative costs and benefits of living in an area with high population density. animals may benefit from high population density due to mate availability and predator risk dilution, but may also face increased competition in high density areas. these conflicting mechanisms should influence the pattern of change in population density between pre- and post-dispersal locations: do dispersing individuals choose to move to areas of higher or lower population density than that at their natal site? we examined the influence of density on dispersal in brush mice (peromyscus boylii). we documented pre-and post-dispersal locations of individuals using both radio telemetry and live-trapping, and used a spatially explicit capture-recapture model to estimate density across the landscape. we also tested for a relationship between dispersal distance and local population density at the natal site. animals tended to settle in areas with higher population densities than where they were born. this pattern held when landscape-level changes in population density were incorporated: the magnitude of change in local population density between the pre-and post-dispersal locations of a given individual tended to be greater than would be explained by increasing population density across the landscape alone. further, dispersal distances were shorter when local natal population density was higher." -"social structure and abundance of coastal bottlenose dolphins, tursiops truncatus, in the normano-breton gulf, english channel",abundance; bottlenose dolphins tursiops truncatus; fission-fusion; mark-recapture; normano-breton gulf; photo-identification; social structure,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LOUIS M;GALLY F;BARBRAUD C;BEESAU J;TIXIER P;SIMON-BOUHET B;LE REST K;GUINET C,"a large, but poorly studied, bottlenose dolphin community, tursiops truncatus, inhabits coastal waters of normandy (normano-breton gulf, english channel, france). in this study, the social structure and abundance of this community were assessed using photo-identification techniques. like other bottlenose dolphin communities worldwide, this resident community has a fission-fusion social structure with fluid associations among individuals (half-weight index = 0.10). association patterns were highly variable as indicated by a high social differentiation (s = 0.95 +/- 0.03). the majority of associations were casual, lasting days to months. however, individuals exhibited also a smaller proportion of long-term relationships. a mean group size of 26 was large compared with other resident coastal communities, and variable, ranging from 1 to 100, which could be the results of ecological conditions, in particular resource predictability and availability. analyses also showed that the community was organized in 3 social clusters that were not completely isolated from each other. abundance was estimated at 420 dolphins (95% confidence interval: 331-521), making this coastal community one of the largest identified along european coastlines. because human activities in the gulf are expected to increase in the upcoming years, long-term demographic monitoring of this dolphin community will be critical for its management." -"island-island and island-mainland movements of the curacaoan long-nosed bat, leptonycteris curasoae",dutch caribbean; leptonycteris curasoae; long-distance movements; mark-recapture; migration; venezuela,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,SIMAL F;DE LANNOY C;GARCIA-SMITH L;DOEST O;DE FREITAS JA;FRANKEN F;ZAANDAM I;MARTINO A;GONZALEZ-CARCACIA JA;PENALOZA CL;BERTUOL P;SIMAL D;NASSAR JM,"of the 3 species comprising the genus leptonycteris miller, l. curasoae has been the least studied with respect to its long-distance flights and potential for seasonal migrations. we studied long-distance movements between islands and between islands and the mainland in the curacaoan long-nosed bat. we used mark-recapture with periodic sampling and marking of bats in aruba, curacao, bonaire, and 1 location (butare) in falcon state, on the venezuelan coastline. between october 2008 and april 2014, we captured a total of 7,518 individuals at 11 sites (aruba: n = 1,827, curacao: 778, bonaire: 4,128, and butare: 785). between 78.3% and 98.0% of the bats captured at each island and mainland were marked, and the overall percentage of recaptured animals across all sampling sites was 8.31% (n = 529). l. curasoae inhabits the 3 islands year-round. on each island, it roosts in several caves, which can be used alternatively by the same individuals. despite being a resident species, l. curasoae can perform long-distance oversea flights between islands and between islands and the south american mainland. a total of 11 long-distance flights were recorded (2 bonaire-aruba, 4 bonaire-curacao, 1 curacao-bonaire, 1 bonaire-venezuela, and 3 aruba-venezuela). we propose that populations of this species in aruba, curacao, bonaire, and falcon state, venezuela, exchange individuals, and part of the insular populations migrate seasonally southward as a response to cyclical changes in local resource availability and the yearly reproductive regime." +"social structure and abundance of coastal bottlenose dolphins, tursiops truncatus, in the normano-breton gulf, english channel",abundance; bottlenose dolphins tursiops truncatus; fission-fusion; mark-recapture; normano-breton gulf; photo-identification; social structure,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LOUIS M;GALLY F;BARBRAUD C;BEESAU J;TIXIER P;SIMON BOUHET B;LE REST K;GUINET C,"a large, but poorly studied, bottlenose dolphin community, tursiops truncatus, inhabits coastal waters of normandy (normano-breton gulf, english channel, france). in this study, the social structure and abundance of this community were assessed using photo-identification techniques. like other bottlenose dolphin communities worldwide, this resident community has a fission-fusion social structure with fluid associations among individuals (half-weight index = 0.10). association patterns were highly variable as indicated by a high social differentiation (s = 0.95 +/- 0.03). the majority of associations were casual, lasting days to months. however, individuals exhibited also a smaller proportion of long-term relationships. a mean group size of 26 was large compared with other resident coastal communities, and variable, ranging from 1 to 100, which could be the results of ecological conditions, in particular resource predictability and availability. analyses also showed that the community was organized in 3 social clusters that were not completely isolated from each other. abundance was estimated at 420 dolphins (95% confidence interval: 331-521), making this coastal community one of the largest identified along european coastlines. because human activities in the gulf are expected to increase in the upcoming years, long-term demographic monitoring of this dolphin community will be critical for its management." +"island-island and island-mainland movements of the curacaoan long-nosed bat, leptonycteris curasoae",dutch caribbean; leptonycteris curasoae; long-distance movements; mark-recapture; migration; venezuela,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,SIMAL F;DE LANNOY C;GARCIA SMITH L;DOEST O;DE FREITAS JA;FRANKEN F;ZAANDAM I;MARTINO A;GONZALEZ CARCACIA JA;PENALOZA CL;BERTUOL P;SIMAL D;NASSAR JM,"of the 3 species comprising the genus leptonycteris miller, l. curasoae has been the least studied with respect to its long-distance flights and potential for seasonal migrations. we studied long-distance movements between islands and between islands and the mainland in the curacaoan long-nosed bat. we used mark-recapture with periodic sampling and marking of bats in aruba, curacao, bonaire, and 1 location (butare) in falcon state, on the venezuelan coastline. between october 2008 and april 2014, we captured a total of 7,518 individuals at 11 sites (aruba: n = 1,827, curacao: 778, bonaire: 4,128, and butare: 785). between 78.3% and 98.0% of the bats captured at each island and mainland were marked, and the overall percentage of recaptured animals across all sampling sites was 8.31% (n = 529). l. curasoae inhabits the 3 islands year-round. on each island, it roosts in several caves, which can be used alternatively by the same individuals. despite being a resident species, l. curasoae can perform long-distance oversea flights between islands and between islands and the south american mainland. a total of 11 long-distance flights were recorded (2 bonaire-aruba, 4 bonaire-curacao, 1 curacao-bonaire, 1 bonaire-venezuela, and 3 aruba-venezuela). we propose that populations of this species in aruba, curacao, bonaire, and falcon state, venezuela, exchange individuals, and part of the insular populations migrate seasonally southward as a response to cyclical changes in local resource availability and the yearly reproductive regime." an integrated population model for a long-lived ungulate: more efficient data use with bayesian methods,NA,OIKOS,LEE AM;BJORKVOLL EM;HANSEN BB;ALBON SD;STIEN A;SAETHER BE;ENGEN S;VEIBERG V;LOE LE;GROTAN V,"we develop an integrated population model for svalbard reindeer rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus, and demonstrate how this type of model can be used to extract more information from the data and separate different sources of variability in population estimates. our model combines individual mark-recapture data with population counts and harvesting data within a bayesian model framework, and accounts for observation error, environmental and demographic stochasticity, and age structure. from this model we obtain annual estimates of age-specific population size, survival and fecundity. the model provides estimates of age structure at a finer scale than that found in the census data, and enables us to estimate survival for the period before calves are first caught and marked, i.e. before they enter the individual mark-recapture data. the modeling framework provides an improved approach to studying age-structured populations that are imperfectly censused and where the demography of only a sample of individuals is known. we use data from independent censuses of the same population to evaluate population estimates obtained from the model, and show that it is successful at correcting for different types of observation error. based on our model results, we suggest that allocating resources to the collection of supplementary mark-recapture data could improve the reliability of population projections more than making regular population censuses as exhaustive as possible. our work demonstrates how integrated bayesian population modeling can be used to increase the amount of information extracted from collections of data, identifying and disentangling sources of variation in individual performance and population size. this represents an important step towards increasing the predictive ability of population growth models for long-lived species experiencing changes in environmental conditions and harvesting regimes." movement through dams facilitates population connectivity in a large river,connectivity; population dynamics; large river; mississippi basin; missouri river,RIVER RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS,PRACHEIL BM;MESTL GE;PEGG MA,"even in heavily impounded river ecosystems, aquatic populations and communities retain limited connectivity via movement through dams. this connectivity has the potential to influence population dynamics but has been infrequently characterized. we used 1995-2008 paddlefish mark-recapture data to perform the following: (i) quantify rates of movement through dams and (ii) examine the influence of dam discharge on fish passing dams. we found that there are substantial one-way (upstream to downstream) population connections maintained via fish passing dams and that dam discharge is a key driver of downstream fish movement. results of our study suggest that population connections maintained by fish passing dams can play an important role in population dynamics depleting upstream populations and subsidizing downstream populations, particularly in years with high flow events. we suggest that the influence of hydrology on maintaining populations in fragmented ecosystems is an increasingly important consideration for conservation and management of aquatic ecosystems in the face of predicted hydrological changes from climate change. copyright (c) 2014 john wiley & sons, ltd." "in situ underwater tagging of aquatic organisms: a test using the cave-dwelling olm, proteus anguinus",NA,ANNALES ZOOLOGICI FENNICI,BALAZS G;LEWARNE B;HERCZEG G,"in situ ecological studies on obligate cave-dwelling aquatic animals are scarce at best. this is particularly true for capture-mark-recapture (cmr) studies that form the basis of understanding population structure and dynamics. here, we report on the in situ underwater application of the visible implant elastomer (vie) tagging system on the olm, proteus anguinus, an obligate cave-dwelling aquatic amphibian. we tagged seven adult individuals and monitored the population during 31 dive transects during four years. we found that vie tagging is applicable underwater. based on our recaptures, the tags were recognisable after four years and the recaptured three individuals exhibited extreme site-fidelity. our results indicate that cmr studies are feasible in underwater cave ecosystems without even temporarily removing individuals. in situ underwater tagging also holds great potential for studies of other aquatic ecosystems, where removing animals from water, their habitat or territory is problematic for ethical, logistic or scientific reasons." fire frequency matters more than fire size: testing the pyrodiversity-biodiversity paradigm for at-risk small mammals in an australian tropical savanna,extinction; fire intensity; fire management; population viability analysis; savanna; threatened species; simulation experiment,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,GRIFFITHS AD;GARNETT ST;BROOK BW,"patch-mosaic burning is a widely accepted practical approach to managing biodiversity, whereby spatial and temporal diversity of fire is manipulated to benefit biotic diversity. we use simulation experiments based on stochastic population viability analysis to evaluate the implications of contrasting patch-mosaic burning scenarios for the population dynamics and risk of decline of four species of small mammals in northern australia. our results, based on models developed from detailed mark-recapture data, suggest that fire frequency has more influence on small-mammal persistence than fire extent. risk of extinction increased for all four species when fire frequency exceeded once every five years. under current ambient fire regimes most australia tropical savannas burn more frequently and therefore seem to have unfavourable consequences for this faunal group and risk precipitating severe future declines. crown copyright (c) 2015 published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." designing an effective mark-recapture study of antarctic blue whales,acoustic tracking; antarctic blue whale; balaenoptera musculus intermedia; cetaceans; mark-recapture study; population simulation; survey design; visual observation,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,PEEL D;BRAVINGTON M;KELLY N;DOUBLE MC,"to properly conserve and manage wild populations, it is important to have information on abundance and population dynamics. in the case of rare and cryptic species, especially in remote locations, surveys can be difficult and expensive, and run the risk of not producing sample sizes large enough to produce precise estimates. therefore, it is crucial to conduct preliminary analysis to determine if the study will produce useable estimates. the focus of this paper is a proposed mark-recapture study of antarctic blue whales (balaenoptera musculus intermedia). antarctic blue whales were hunted to near extinction up until the mid-1960s, when commercial exploitation of this species ended. current abundance estimates are a decade old. furthermore, at present, there are no formal circumpolar-level cetacean surveys operating in antarctic waters and, specifically, there is no strategy to monitor the potential recovery of antarctic blue whales. hence the work in this paper was motivated by the need to inform decisions on strategies for future monitoring of antarctic blue whale population. the paper describes a model to predict the precision and bias of estimates from a proposed survey program. the analysis showed that mark-recapture is indeed a suitable method to provide a circumpolar abundance estimate of antarctic blue whales, with precision of the abundance, at the midpoint of the program, predicted to be between 0.2 and 0.3. however, this was only if passive acoustic tracking was utilized to increase the encounter rate. the analysis also provided guidance on general design for an antarctic blue whale program, showing that it requires a 12-year duration; although surveys do not necessarily need to be run every year if multiple vessels are available to clump effort. mark-recapture is based on a number of assumptions; it was evident from the analysis that ongoing analysis and monitoring of the data would be required to check such assumptions hold (e.g., test for heterogeneity), with the modeling adjusted as needed." -"neighbouring populations, opposite dynamics: influence of body size and environmental variation on the demography of stream-resident brown trout (salmo trutta)",size-structured populations; e-surge; habitat heterogeneity; temperature; trout,OECOLOGIA,FERNANDEZ-CHACON A;GENOVART M;ALVAREZ D;CANO JM;OJANGUREN AF;RODRIGUEZ-MUNOZ R;NICIEZA AG,"in organisms such as fish, where body size is considered an important state variable for the study of their population dynamics, size-specific growth and survival rates can be influenced by local variation in both biotic and abiotic factors, but few studies have evaluated the complex relationships between environmental variability and size-dependent processes. we analysed a 6-year capture-recapture dataset of brown trout (salmo trutta) collected at 3 neighbouring but heterogeneous mountain streams in northern spain with the aim of investigating the factors shaping the dynamics of local populations. the influence of body size and water temperature on survival and individual growth was assessed under a multi-state modelling framework, an extension of classical capture-recapture models that considers the state (i.e. body size) of the individual in each capture occasion and allows us to obtain state-specific demographic rates and link them to continuous environmental variables. individual survival and growth patterns varied over space and time, and evidence of size-dependent survival was found in all but the smallest stream. at this stream, the probability of reaching larger sizes was lower compared to the other wider and deeper streams. water temperature variables performed better in the modelling of the highest-altitude population, explaining over a 99 % of the variability in maturation transitions and survival of large fish. the relationships between body size, temperature and fitness components found in this study highlight the utility of multi-state approaches to investigate small-scale demographic processes in heterogeneous environments, and to provide reliable ecological knowledge for management purposes." +"neighbouring populations, opposite dynamics: influence of body size and environmental variation on the demography of stream-resident brown trout (salmo trutta)",size-structured populations; e-surge; habitat heterogeneity; temperature; trout,OECOLOGIA,FERNANDEZ CHACON A;GENOVART M;ALVAREZ D;CANO JM;OJANGUREN AF;RODRIGUEZ MUNOZ R;NICIEZA AG,"in organisms such as fish, where body size is considered an important state variable for the study of their population dynamics, size-specific growth and survival rates can be influenced by local variation in both biotic and abiotic factors, but few studies have evaluated the complex relationships between environmental variability and size-dependent processes. we analysed a 6-year capture-recapture dataset of brown trout (salmo trutta) collected at 3 neighbouring but heterogeneous mountain streams in northern spain with the aim of investigating the factors shaping the dynamics of local populations. the influence of body size and water temperature on survival and individual growth was assessed under a multi-state modelling framework, an extension of classical capture-recapture models that considers the state (i.e. body size) of the individual in each capture occasion and allows us to obtain state-specific demographic rates and link them to continuous environmental variables. individual survival and growth patterns varied over space and time, and evidence of size-dependent survival was found in all but the smallest stream. at this stream, the probability of reaching larger sizes was lower compared to the other wider and deeper streams. water temperature variables performed better in the modelling of the highest-altitude population, explaining over a 99 % of the variability in maturation transitions and survival of large fish. the relationships between body size, temperature and fitness components found in this study highlight the utility of multi-state approaches to investigate small-scale demographic processes in heterogeneous environments, and to provide reliable ecological knowledge for management purposes." "growth of the coconut crab, birgus latro, at its northernmost range estimated from mark-recapture using individual identification based on carapace grooving patterns",robber crab; northern limit; photo matching; recapture; grotag,ZOOLOGICAL SCIENCE,OKA S;MIYAMOTO K;MATSUZAKI S;SATO T,"although populations of the coconut crab, birgus latro, have declined in the tropical indo-pacific region, insufficient knowledge exists for the management of this species. we investigated the growth of the northernmost coconut crab population, located at ocean expo park, okinawa, southern japan, using a mark-recapture method based on the identification of individual carapace grooving patterns. of the 485 crabs photographed (264 males, 221 females; 14.3-68.8 mm thoracic length [thl]), 64 males and 62 females were recaptured (recapture rate 26%). the liberty period ranged from two to 2384 days. the annual data indicated that most crabs molted during winter, except for juveniles and crabs near the maximum size. using the grotag program, the asymptotic thl (l-infinity) was estimated as 80.72 and 49.89 mm for males and females, respectively. the brody growth coefficient (k) was 0.063 for both sexes. the growth curves from these parameters showed that males grew larger than females because of a difference in growth speed. longevity was estimated at approximately 50 years for both sexes. the growth data obtained in the present study, which are the most precise gathered for the coconut crab to date, can be compared with the results of studies performed in other regions." movement ecology of indo-pacific lionfish on caribbean coral reefs and its implications for invasion dynamics,lionfish; fish; mark-recapture; movement; dispersal; landscape,BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS,TAMBURELLO N;COTE IM,"the spread of marine invasive species at large geographic scales depends largely on current-driven larval dispersal. however, at smaller spatial scales, movements occurring after larval settlement can greatly influence the success of local control programs. we conducted the first dedicated tracking study of indo-pacific lionfish (pterois volitans and p. miles) on caribbean coral reefs. using a mark-resighting approach, we estimated the scale and frequency of movements of 79 tagged lionfish on patchy and continuous reefs to study factors influencing movement. many tagged lionfish moved relatively little, with similar to 60 % of fish resighted at least once and 10 % not moving from their initial tagging location. however, maximum movements (as far as 1.35 km in 15 days) far exceeded previous estimates. lionfish movement was density dependent, declined at larger body sizes, and depended on seascape structure. lionfish on continuous reefs moved faster and more often than those on patch reefs, and lionfish in patchy habitats moved farther when patches were closer together. invasions taking place over heterogeneous seascapes such as coral reefs are difficult to manage effectively with spatially uniform regional management plans, but understanding an invader's movement ecology can help to optimize the distribution of limited resources for invasive management." linking irreplaceable landforms in a self-organizing landscape to sensitivity of population vital rates for an ecological specialist,arid ecosystems; demography; dunes sagebrush lizard; elasticity; inland sand dunes; sceloporus arenicolus; demografia; dunas de arena tierra adentro; ecosistemas aridos; elasticidad; lagartija de artemisa de las dunas; sceloporus arenicolus,CONSERVATION BIOLOGY,RYBERG WA;HILL MT;PAINTER CW;FITZGERALD LA,"irreplaceable, self-organizing landforms and the endemic and ecologically specialized biodiversity they support are threatened globally by anthropogenic disturbances. although the outcome of disrupting landforms is somewhat understood, little information exists that documents population consequences of landform disturbance on endemic biodiversity. conservation strategies for species dependent upon landforms have been difficult to devise because they require understanding complex feedbacks that create and maintain landforms and the consequences of landform configuration on demography of species. we characterized and quantified links between landform configuration and demography of an ecological specialist, the dunes sagebrush lizard (sceloporus arenicolus), which occurs only in blowouts (i.e., wind-blown sandy depressions) of shinnery oak (quercus havardii) sand-dune landforms. we used matrix models to estimate vital rates from a multisite mark-recapture study of 6 populations occupying landforms with different spatial configurations. sensitivity and elasticity analyses demonstrated demographic rates among populations varied in sensitivity to different landform configurations. specifically, significant relationships between blowout shape complexity and vital rate elasticities suggested direct links between s. arenicolus demography and amount of edge in shinnery oak sand-dune landforms. these landforms are irreplaceable, based on permanent transition of disturbed areas to alternative grassland ecosystem states. additionally, complex feedbacks between wind, sand, and shinnery oak maintain this landform, indicating restoration through land management practices is unlikely. our findings that s. arenicolus population dynamics depended on landform configuration suggest that failure to consider processes of landform organization and their effects on species' population dynamics may lead to incorrect inferences about threats to endemic species and ineffective habitat management for threatened or endangered species. as such, successful conservation of these systems and the biodiversity they support must be informed by research linking process-oriented studies of self-organized landforms with studies of movement, behavior, and demography of species that dwell in them. conexion de formaciones terrestres irremplazables en un terreno auto-organizado con la sensibilidad de las tasas vitales de la poblacion de un especialista ecologico los accidentes geograficos auto-organizados e irremplazables y la biodiversidad endemica y ecologicamente especializada que estos mantienen estan amenazados globalmente por perturbaciones antropogenicas. aunque el resultado de perturbar los accidentes geograficos es conocido de cierta forma, existe poca informacion que documente las consecuencias poblacionales de la perturbacion de estos sobre la biodiversidad endemica. las estrategias de conservacion para especies que dependen de los accidentes geograficos han sido dificiles de concebir ya que requieren del entendimiento de las retroalimentaciones complejas las crean y mantienen y a las consecuencias de su configuracion sobre la demografia de las especies. caracterizamos y cuantificamos las conexiones entre la configuracion de las formaciones terrestres y la demografia de un especialista ecologico, la lagartija de artemisa de las dunas (sceloporus arenicolus), que solo ocurre en accidentes geograficos de dunas de arena con depresiones arenosas causadas por el viento y la presencia del roble quercus havardii. usamos modelos matriciales para estimar las tasas vitales a partir de un estudio multi-sitio y multi-marca de seis poblaciones que ocupaban accidentes geograficos con diferentes configuraciones espaciales. los analisis de sensibilidad y elasticidad demostraron que las tasas demograficas dentro de las poblaciones variaron en sensibilidad a las diferentes configuraciones de accidentes geograficos. en especifico, las relaciones significativas entre la complejidad de formas de las depresiones arenosas y la elasticidad de las tasas vitales sugieren una conexion directa entre la demografia de s. arenicolus y la cantidad de bordes en los accidentes geograficos de dunas arenosas y robles. estos accidentes geograficos son irremplazables, con base en la transicion permanente de areas perturbadas a estados alternativos de ecosistemas de pastizales. ademas, la retroalimentacion compleja entre el viento, la arena y los robles mantiene a este accidente geografico, lo que indica que la restauracion por medio del manejo de suelos no es probable. nuestro hallazgo de que las dinamicas poblacionales de s. arenicolus dependen de la configuracion de los accidentes geograficos sugiere que el fracaso en la consideracion de los procesos de organizacion de los accidentes geograficos y sus efectos sobre las dinamicas poblacionales de las especies puede llevar a suposiciones incorrectas sobre las amenazas para las especies endemicas y el manejo inefectivo de habitat para especies amenazadas o en peligro. por esto, la conservacion exitosa de estos sistemas y la biodiversidad que mantienen debe informarse con investigaciones que conecten estudios orientados a procesos sobre los accidentes geograficos auto-organizados con estudios de movimiento, comportamiento y demografia de especies que habiten en ellos. resumen" @@ -2070,9 +2073,9 @@ quantitative and qualitative assessment of the bovine abortion surveillance syst comparing capture-recapture methods for estimation of the size of small and medium-sized populations using empirical data on commercial turkey farms in canada,capture-recapture method; population size; method comparison; turkey farm,PREVENTIVE VETERINARY MEDICINE,EL ALLAKI F;CHRISTENSEN J;VALLIERES A,"the study objectives were (1) to conduct a systematic review of the performance of capture-recapture methods; (2) to use empirical data to estimate population size in a small-sized population (turkey breeder farms) and a medium-sized population (meat turkey farms) by applying two-source capture-recapture methods (the lincoln-petersen, the chapman, and chao's lower-bound estimators) and multi-source capture-recapture methods (the log-linear modeling and sample coverage approaches); and (3) to compare the performance of these methods in predicting the true population sizes (2007 data). our set-up was unique in that we knew the population sizes for turkey breeder farms (99) and meat turkey farms (592) in canada in 2007, which we applied as our true population sizes, and had surveillance data from the canadian notifiable avian influenza surveillance system (2008-2012). we defined each calendar year of sampling as a data source. we confirmed that the two-source capture-recapture methods were sensitive to the violation of the local independence assumption. the log-linear modeling and sample coverage approaches yielded estimates that were closer to the true population sizes than were the estimates provided by the two-source methods for both populations. the performance of both multi-source capture-recapture methods depended on the number of data sources analyzed and the size of the population. simulation studies are recommended to better understand the limits of each multi-source capture-recapture method. crown copyright (c) 2014 published by elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." amyotrophic lateral sclerosis surveillance in baltimore and philadelphia,amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; baltimore; epidemiology; incidence; motor neuron disease; philadelphia; surveillance,MUSCLE & NERVE,JORDAN H;RECHTMAN L;WAGNER L;KAYE WE,"introduction: limited epidemiological data on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als) exist in defined geographic areas in the united states. methods: neurologists submitted case reports for patients under their care between january 1, 2009, and december 31, 2011, who met the el escorial criteria. diagnosis was confirmed for a sample of cases by the consulting neurologist. death certificate data were used for supplemental case identification. results: the 248 reported cases were most likely to be 50-69 years old, men, white, and non-hispanic. the total crude average annual incidence rate was 1.46 per 100,000 person-years. conclusions: the reported demographic characteristics were consistent with previously published findings. the crude annual incidence was slightly lower than the expected rate of 1.6 but was within the range reported previously (0.7-2.5). these findings help quantify the burden of als in the united states. muscle nerve51: 815-821, 2015" characterizing avian survival along a rural-to-urban land use gradient,"avian demography; birds; citizen science; land use gradients; mark-recapture; neighborhood nestwatch; resource availability; survival; top-down vs. bottom-up processes; urbanization; washington, dc, usa",ECOLOGY,EVANS BS;RYDER TB;REITSMA R;HURLBERT AH;MARRA PP,"many avian species persist in human-dominated landscapes; however, little is known about the demographic consequences of urbanization in these populations. given that urban habitats introduce novel benefits (e.g., anthropogenic resources) and pressures (e.g., mortality risks), conflicting mechanisms have been hypothesized to drive the dynamics of urban bird populations. top-down processes such as predation predict reduced survivorship in suburban and urban habitats, whereas bottom-up processes, such as increased resource availability, predict peak survival in suburban habitats. in this study, we use mark-recapture data of seven focal species encountered between 2000 and 2012 to test hypotheses about the processes that regulate avian survival along an urbanization gradient in greater washington, d.c., usa. american robin, gray catbird, northern cardinal, and song sparrow exhibited peak survival at intermediate and upper portions of the rural-to-urban gradient; this pattern supports the hypothesis that bottom-up processes (e.g., resource availability) can drive patterns of avian survival in some species. in contrast, carolina chickadee showed no response and carolina and house wren showed a slightly negative response to urban land cover. these contrasting results underscore the need for comparative studies documenting the mechanisms that drive demography and how those factors differentially affect urban adapted and urban avoiding species." -multi-event capture-recapture analysis reveals individual foraging specialization in a generalist species,"anthropogenic food subsidies; capture-recapture modeling; ciconia ciconia; donana, southwestern spain; ecological processes; foraging behavior; multi-event analysis; niche specialization; refuse dumps; ricefields; white stork",ECOLOGY,SANZ-AGUILAR A;JOVANI R;MELIAN CJ;PRADEL R;TELLA JL,"populations of species typically considered trophic generalists may include specialized individuals consistently feeding on certain resources. optimal foraging theory states that individuals should feed on those resources most valuable to them. this, however, may vary according to individual differences in detecting or processing resources, different optimization criteria, and competitive abilities. white storks (ciconia ciconia) are trophic generalists at the population level. their european population recovery has been attributed to increased wintering in southern europe (rather than africa) where they feed upon new anthropogenic food subsidies: predictable dumps and less predictable and more difficult to detect, but abundant, invasive procambarus clarkii crayfishes in ricefields. we studied the foraging strategies of resident and wintering storks in southwestern spain in ricefields and dumps, predicting that more experience in the study area (residents vs. immigrants, old vs. young) would increase ricefield specialization. we developed the first multi-event capture-recapture model to evaluate behavioral consistency, analyzing 3042 observations of 1684 banded storks. there were more specialists among residents (72%) than immigrants (40%). all resident specialists foraged in ricefields, and ricefield use increased with individual age. in contrast, some immigrants specialized on either dumps (24%) or ricefields (16%), but the majority were generalists (60%). our results provide empirical evidence of high individual foraging consistency within a generalist species and a differential resource selection by individuals of different ages and origins, probably related to their previous experience in the foraging area. thus, future changes in food resource availability at either of the two anthropogenic subsidies (ricefields or dumps) may differentially impact individuals of different ages and origins making up the wintering population. the use of multi-event capture-recapture modeling has proven useful for studying interindividual variability in behavior." -completeness and timeliness: cancer registries could/should improve their performance,cancer registry; completeness; timeliness; flow methods,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CANCER,ZANETTI R;SCHMIDTMANN I;SACCHETTO L;BINDER-FOUCARD F;BORDONI A;COZA D;FERRETTI S;GALCERAN J;GAVIN A;LARRANAGA N;ROBINSON D;TRYGGVADOTTIR L;VAN EYCKEN E;ZADNIK V;COEBERGH JWW;ROSSO S,"cancer registries must provide complete and reliable incidence information with the shortest possible delay for use in studies such as comparability, clustering, cancer in the elderly and adequacy of cancer surveillance. methods of varying complexity are available to registries for monitoring completeness and timeliness. we wished to know which methods are currently in use among cancer registries, and to compare the results of our findings to those of a survey carried out in 2006. methods: in the framework of the eurocourse project, and to prepare cancer registries for participation in the era-net scheme, we launched a survey on the methods used to assess completeness, and also on the timeliness and methods of dissemination of results by registries. we sent the questionnaire to all general registries (gcrs) and specialised registries (scrs) active in europe and within the european network of cancer registries (encr). results: with a response rate of 66% among gcrs and 59% among scrs, we obtained data for analysis from 116 registries with a population coverage of similar to 280 million. the most common methods used were comparison of trends (79%) and mortality/incidence ratios (more than 60%). more complex methods were used less commonly: capture-recapture by 30%, flow method by 18% and death certificate notification (dcn) methods with the ajiki formula by 9%. the median latency for completion of ascertainment of incidence was 18 months. additional time required for dissemination was of the order of 3-6 months, depending on the method: print or electronic. one fifth (21%) did not publish results for their own registry but only as a contribution to larger national or international data repositories and publications; this introduced a further delay in the availability of data. conclusions: cancer registries should improve the practice of measuring their completeness regularly and should move from traditional to more quantitative methods. this could also have implications in the timeliness of data publication. (c) 2013 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -"among-population variation in monthly and annual survival of the baja california treefrog, pseudacris hypochondriaca curta, in desert oases of baja california sur, mexico",amphibian; demography; pseudacris hypochondriaca curta; survival; population,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,LUJA VH;RODRIGUEZ-ESTRELLA R;SCHAUB M;SCHMIDT BR,"survival is an important component of the demography of an animal. we estimated monthly and annual survival probabilities of three populations of the baja california treefrog (pseudacris hypochondriaca curta) inhabiting desert oases of baja california sur, mexico. we used data from a two-year mark recapture study to estimate survival. recapture probabilities varied widely among months and there was no clear temporal pattern underlying the fluctuations. annual survival was 27 and 29% for two populations and 1% for the third population. this implies that the populations, particularly the third one, can persist only if there is steady and high recruitment. with annual survival as low as 1-29%, a lack of recruitment could quickly cause local extinction. because immigration seems unlikely in these populations due to their isolation from other breeding populations, recruits must be produced locally. non-native fish, crayfish, and frogs that prey on tadpoles may therefore be a threat for the persistence of the populations." +multi-event capture-recapture analysis reveals individual foraging specialization in a generalist species,"anthropogenic food subsidies; capture-recapture modeling; ciconia ciconia; donana, southwestern spain; ecological processes; foraging behavior; multi-event analysis; niche specialization; refuse dumps; ricefields; white stork",ECOLOGY,SANZ AGUILAR A;JOVANI R;MELIAN CJ;PRADEL R;TELLA JL,"populations of species typically considered trophic generalists may include specialized individuals consistently feeding on certain resources. optimal foraging theory states that individuals should feed on those resources most valuable to them. this, however, may vary according to individual differences in detecting or processing resources, different optimization criteria, and competitive abilities. white storks (ciconia ciconia) are trophic generalists at the population level. their european population recovery has been attributed to increased wintering in southern europe (rather than africa) where they feed upon new anthropogenic food subsidies: predictable dumps and less predictable and more difficult to detect, but abundant, invasive procambarus clarkii crayfishes in ricefields. we studied the foraging strategies of resident and wintering storks in southwestern spain in ricefields and dumps, predicting that more experience in the study area (residents vs. immigrants, old vs. young) would increase ricefield specialization. we developed the first multi-event capture-recapture model to evaluate behavioral consistency, analyzing 3042 observations of 1684 banded storks. there were more specialists among residents (72%) than immigrants (40%). all resident specialists foraged in ricefields, and ricefield use increased with individual age. in contrast, some immigrants specialized on either dumps (24%) or ricefields (16%), but the majority were generalists (60%). our results provide empirical evidence of high individual foraging consistency within a generalist species and a differential resource selection by individuals of different ages and origins, probably related to their previous experience in the foraging area. thus, future changes in food resource availability at either of the two anthropogenic subsidies (ricefields or dumps) may differentially impact individuals of different ages and origins making up the wintering population. the use of multi-event capture-recapture modeling has proven useful for studying interindividual variability in behavior." +completeness and timeliness: cancer registries could/should improve their performance,cancer registry; completeness; timeliness; flow methods,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CANCER,ZANETTI R;SCHMIDTMANN I;SACCHETTO L;BINDER FOUCARD F;BORDONI A;COZA D;FERRETTI S;GALCERAN J;GAVIN A;LARRANAGA N;ROBINSON D;TRYGGVADOTTIR L;VAN EYCKEN E;ZADNIK V;COEBERGH JWW;ROSSO S,"cancer registries must provide complete and reliable incidence information with the shortest possible delay for use in studies such as comparability, clustering, cancer in the elderly and adequacy of cancer surveillance. methods of varying complexity are available to registries for monitoring completeness and timeliness. we wished to know which methods are currently in use among cancer registries, and to compare the results of our findings to those of a survey carried out in 2006. methods: in the framework of the eurocourse project, and to prepare cancer registries for participation in the era-net scheme, we launched a survey on the methods used to assess completeness, and also on the timeliness and methods of dissemination of results by registries. we sent the questionnaire to all general registries (gcrs) and specialised registries (scrs) active in europe and within the european network of cancer registries (encr). results: with a response rate of 66% among gcrs and 59% among scrs, we obtained data for analysis from 116 registries with a population coverage of similar to 280 million. the most common methods used were comparison of trends (79%) and mortality/incidence ratios (more than 60%). more complex methods were used less commonly: capture-recapture by 30%, flow method by 18% and death certificate notification (dcn) methods with the ajiki formula by 9%. the median latency for completion of ascertainment of incidence was 18 months. additional time required for dissemination was of the order of 3-6 months, depending on the method: print or electronic. one fifth (21%) did not publish results for their own registry but only as a contribution to larger national or international data repositories and publications; this introduced a further delay in the availability of data. conclusions: cancer registries should improve the practice of measuring their completeness regularly and should move from traditional to more quantitative methods. this could also have implications in the timeliness of data publication. (c) 2013 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +"among-population variation in monthly and annual survival of the baja california treefrog, pseudacris hypochondriaca curta, in desert oases of baja california sur, mexico",amphibian; demography; pseudacris hypochondriaca curta; survival; population,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,LUJA VH;RODRIGUEZ ESTRELLA R;SCHAUB M;SCHMIDT BR,"survival is an important component of the demography of an animal. we estimated monthly and annual survival probabilities of three populations of the baja california treefrog (pseudacris hypochondriaca curta) inhabiting desert oases of baja california sur, mexico. we used data from a two-year mark recapture study to estimate survival. recapture probabilities varied widely among months and there was no clear temporal pattern underlying the fluctuations. annual survival was 27 and 29% for two populations and 1% for the third population. this implies that the populations, particularly the third one, can persist only if there is steady and high recruitment. with annual survival as low as 1-29%, a lack of recruitment could quickly cause local extinction. because immigration seems unlikely in these populations due to their isolation from other breeding populations, recruits must be produced locally. non-native fish, crayfish, and frogs that prey on tadpoles may therefore be a threat for the persistence of the populations." "first evidence of potadromy and partial migration in black basses: shoal bass micropterus cataractae (actinopterygii, centrarchidae) in the upper flint river, usa",river; mark and recapture; spawning; connectivity,HYDROBIOLOGIA,SAMMONS SM,"potamodromy, migration for reproduction within freshwater systems, is widely practiced among fishes, but has rarely been reported for micropterus spp. recent evidence has shown that shoal bass (m. cataractae; williams & burgess, 1999) in the upper flint river, usa, undergo migrations during the spawning season to large shoal complexes; however, the magnitude and prevalence of these migrations are unknown. to test the hypothesis that these fish exhibit potadromy, 376 shoal bass were tagged with anchor tags over a four-year period. each spring, shoal bass migrated up to 200 km to reach spawning areas in the piedmont, and these migrations appeared to be more common in fish living in the coastal plain area of the river. fish from the piedmont area moved less, likely due to proximity of spawning habitat. results of this study have suggested that shoal bass are highly migratory in connected systems, traveling long distances to spawn in specific areas. thus, the scope of shoal bass management and conservation has broadened considerably. other micropterus species dwelling in lotic habitats may exhibit similar migratory patterns in their native and/or introduced ranges, and this possibility could be examined using mark-recapture techniques similar to those used in this study." life-long shedding of puumala hantavirus in wild bank voles (myodes glareolus),NA,JOURNAL OF GENERAL VIROLOGY,VOUTILAINEN L;SIRONEN T;TONTERI E;BACK AT;RAZZAUTI M;KARLSSON M;WAHLSTROM M;NIEMIMAA J;HENTTONEN H;LUNDKVIST A,"the knowledge of viral shedding patterns and viraemia in the reservoir host species is a key factor in assessing the human risk of zoonotic viruses. the shedding of hantaviruses (family bunyaviridae) by their host rodents has widely been studied experimentally, but rarely in natural settings. here we present the dynamics of puumala hantavirus (puuv) shedding and viraemia in naturally infected wild bank voles (myodes glareolus). in a monthly capture mark recapture study, we analysed 18 bank voles for the presence and relative quantity of puuv rna in the excreta and blood from 2 months before up to 8 months after seroconversion. the proportion of animals shedding puuv rna in saliva, urine and faeces peaked during the first month after seroconversion, but continued throughout the study period with only a slight decline. the quantity of shed puuv in reverse transcription quantitative pcr (rt-qpcr) positive excreta was constant overtime. in blood, puuv rna was present for up to 7 months but both the probability of viraemia and the virus load declined with time. our findings contradict the current view of a decline in virus shedding after the acute phase and a short viraemic period in hantavirus infection an assumption widely adopted in current epidemiological models. we suggest the life-long shedding as a means of hantaviruses to survive over host population bottlenecks, and to disperse in fragmented habitats where local host and/or virus populations face temporary extinctions. our results indicate that the kinetics of pathogens in wild hosts may differ considerably from those observed in laboratory settings." "abundance, biomass, and macrophyte consumption by rudd in buffalo harbor and the niagara river, and potential herbivory by grass carp",rudd; abundance; grass carp; macrophyte consumption,JOURNAL OF GREAT LAKES RESEARCH,KAPUSCINSKI KL;FARRELL JM;WILKINSON MA,"the invasive rudd and grass carp consume aquatic macrophytes, thereby altering important habitat, creating novel trophic pathways, and adversely affecting indigenous species. we estimated the abundance and biomass of rudd and their consumption of macrophytes in buffalo harbor (northeastern lake erie) and the upper niagara river during 2012-2013. we also estimated consumption of macrophytes by hypothetical populations of grass carp equal in biomass to rudd populations. using mark-recapture methods, we estimated that 2571 (95% cl: 2362-2821) rudd were present in buffalo harbor and 142,957 (95% cl: 135,127-151,751) were present in the upper niagara river. biomass of rudd was estimated at 1.89 mt (95% cl: 1.73-2.07) in buffalo harbor and 100.21 mt (95% cl: 94.72-10638) in the upper niagara river. using observed water temperatures and published consumption rates, we estimated that (1) rudd could have consumed 98 mt of macrophytes in buffalo harbor and 5210 mt in the upper niagara river, and (2) hypothetical populations of grass carp equal in biomass to rudd could consume 96 mt of macrophytes in buffalo harbor and 4941 mt in the upper niagara river. rudd abundance and biomass are substantial in these two waters, and consumption of aquatic macrophytes by rudd may threaten existing aquatic habitat and restoration projects. annual standardized surveys of fish and macrophyte assemblages would provide data necessary to monitor rudd populations, detect invasion and reproduction by grass carp, and assess habitat changes resulting from herbivory by these two invasive fishes. (c) 2015 international association for great lakes research. published by elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." @@ -2084,11 +2087,11 @@ non-invasive genetic mark-recapture as a means to study population sizes and mar random versus game trail-based camera trap placement strategy for monitoring terrestrial mammal communities,NA,PLOS ONE,CUSACK JJ;DICKMAN AJ;ROWCLIFFE JM;CARBONE C;MACDONALD DW;COULSON T,"camera trap surveys exclusively targeting features of the landscape that increase the probability of photographing one or several focal species are commonly used to draw inferences on the richness, composition and structure of entire mammal communities. however, these studies ignore expected biases in species detection arising from sampling only a limited set of potential habitat features. in this study, we test the influence of camera trap placement strategy on community-level inferences by carrying out two spatially and temporally concurrent surveys of medium to large terrestrial mammal species within tanzania's ruaha national park, employing either strictly game trail-based or strictly random camera placements. we compared the richness, composition and structure of the two observed communities, and evaluated what makes a species significantly more likely to be caught at trail placements. observed communities differed marginally in their richness and composition, although differences were more noticeable during the wet season and for low levels of sampling effort. lognormal models provided the best fit to rank abundance distributions describing the structure of all observed communities, regardless of survey type or season. despite this, carnivore species were more likely to be detected at trail placements relative to random ones during the dry season, as were larger bodied species during the wet season. our findings suggest that, given adequate sampling effort (> 1400 camera trap nights), placement strategy is unlikely to affect inferences made at the community level. however, surveys should consider more carefully their choice of placement strategy when targeting specific taxonomic or trophic groups." the vgam package for capture-recapture data using the conditional likelihood,closed population size estimation; conditional likelihood; mark-capture-recapture; vector generalized additive model; vgam,JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL SOFTWARE,YEE TW;STOKLOSA J;HUGGINS RM,"it is well known that using individual covariate information (such as body weight or gender) to model heterogeneity in capture-recapture (cr) experiments can greatly enhance inferences on the size of a closed population. since individual covariates are only observable for captured individuals, complex conditional likelihood methods are usually required and these do not constitute a standard generalized linear model (glm) family. modern statistical techniques such as generalized additive models (gams), which allow a relaxing of the linearity assumptions on the covariates, are readily available for many standard glm families. fortunately, a natural statistical framework for maximizing conditional likelihoods is available in the vector glm and vector gam classes of models. we present several new r functions (implemented within the vgam package) specifically developed to allow the incorporation of individual covariates in the analysis of closed population cr data using a glm/gam-like approach and the conditional likelihood. as a result, a wide variety of practical tools are now readily available in the vgam object oriented framework. we discuss and demonstrate their advantages, features and flexibility using the new vgam cr functions on several examples." timing and route of migration of mature female blue crabs in a tidal estuary,blue crab; fisheries management; mark-recapture; acoustic tracking; marine protected areas; migration corridors,BIOLOGY LETTERS,EGGLESTON DB;MILLSTEIN E;PLAIA G,"information on migration patterns is critical to using no-take migratory corridors and marine reserves to protect the spawning stock of commercially exploited species. both active and passive acoustic tracking methods quantified movement of commercially and ecologically important blue crabs in the white oak river estuary, nc, usa. we targeted post-mating female crabs migrating down-estuary to oceanic spawning grounds. crabs travelled approximately 14.1 km mainly in deeper channels and over 12-26 days from mating areas to spawning grounds. no crabs were detected migrating down-estuary in the autumn and only 30% were detected migrating down-estuary in spring. none of the crabs detected near spawning grounds were detected or recaptured back up-estuary, suggesting that they either (i) do not return to the estuary after a one to two week period in the spawning area or (ii) were captured by fishermen. the results from this study demonstrate that (1) acoustic transmitters coupled with passive acoustic receivers provided reliable and valuable data on migration patterns of mature female blue crabs and (2) mature female blue crabs are capable of migrating primarily within deep channels to spawning grounds shortly after insemination." -southeast alaska sperm whale avoidance project (seaswap): a successful collaboration among scientists and industry to study depredation in alaskan waters,behavioural ecology; collaboration; commercial fishing; depredation; gulf of alaska; longline; population estimate; sablefish; spatial analysis; sperm whales,ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,STRALEY J;O'CONNELL V;LIDDLE J;THODE A;WILD L;BEHNKEN L;FALVEY D;LUNSFORD C,"in alaskan waters, depredation on sablefish longline gear by sperm whales increases harvesting cost, negatively biases stock assessments, and presents a risk of entanglement for whales. the southeast alaska sperm whale avoidance project (seaswap), a collaborative effort involving industry, scientists, and managers, since 2003 has undertaken research to evaluate depredation with a goal of recommending measures to reduce interactions. prior to 2003, little was known about sperm whale distribution and behaviour in the gulf of alaska (goa). although fishers were reporting increasing interactions, the level of depredation varied with no apparent predictor of occurrence across vessels. between 2003 and 2007, fishers were provided with fishery logbooks and recorded information on whale behaviour, whale presence and absence, during the set, soak, and haul for 319 sets in the goa. data were evaluated for a vessel, area, and seasonal (month) effect in the presence and absence of sperm whales. using catch per unit effort (cpue) as a metric, in kg/100 hooks, results indicated that depredation depended on both the vessel and the area. more whales associated with vessels from april to august. sperm whales were also likely to be present when cpue was high, revealing that whales and fishers both knew the most productive fishing areas, but confounding the use of cpue as a metric for depredation. using a bayesian mark-recapture analysis and the sightings histories of photo-identified whales, an estimated n = 135 (95% ci 124, 153) sperm whales were associating with vessels in 2014. a spatial model was fitted to 319 longline sets and quantified a 3% loss in cpue, comparable to other global studies on sperm whale depredation. through all phases of seaswap, our understanding of depredation has gained significantly. this successful collaboration should be considered as a model to create partnerships and build collaborations between researchers and fisher people encountering marine mammal interactions with fishing gear." +southeast alaska sperm whale avoidance project (seaswap): a successful collaboration among scientists and industry to study depredation in alaskan waters,behavioural ecology; collaboration; commercial fishing; depredation; gulf of alaska; longline; population estimate; sablefish; spatial analysis; sperm whales,ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,STRALEY J;O CONNELL V;LIDDLE J;THODE A;WILD L;BEHNKEN L;FALVEY D;LUNSFORD C,"in alaskan waters, depredation on sablefish longline gear by sperm whales increases harvesting cost, negatively biases stock assessments, and presents a risk of entanglement for whales. the southeast alaska sperm whale avoidance project (seaswap), a collaborative effort involving industry, scientists, and managers, since 2003 has undertaken research to evaluate depredation with a goal of recommending measures to reduce interactions. prior to 2003, little was known about sperm whale distribution and behaviour in the gulf of alaska (goa). although fishers were reporting increasing interactions, the level of depredation varied with no apparent predictor of occurrence across vessels. between 2003 and 2007, fishers were provided with fishery logbooks and recorded information on whale behaviour, whale presence and absence, during the set, soak, and haul for 319 sets in the goa. data were evaluated for a vessel, area, and seasonal (month) effect in the presence and absence of sperm whales. using catch per unit effort (cpue) as a metric, in kg/100 hooks, results indicated that depredation depended on both the vessel and the area. more whales associated with vessels from april to august. sperm whales were also likely to be present when cpue was high, revealing that whales and fishers both knew the most productive fishing areas, but confounding the use of cpue as a metric for depredation. using a bayesian mark-recapture analysis and the sightings histories of photo-identified whales, an estimated n = 135 (95% ci 124, 153) sperm whales were associating with vessels in 2014. a spatial model was fitted to 319 longline sets and quantified a 3% loss in cpue, comparable to other global studies on sperm whale depredation. through all phases of seaswap, our understanding of depredation has gained significantly. this successful collaboration should be considered as a model to create partnerships and build collaborations between researchers and fisher people encountering marine mammal interactions with fishing gear." "striped hyena (hyaena hyaena) status and factors affecting its distribution in the gir national park and sanctuary, india",carnivore; distribution pattern; photographic capture-recapture; status survey,FOLIA ZOOLOGICA,ALAM MS;KHAN JA;PATHAK BJ,"the striped hyena (hyaena hyaena linnaeus, 1758) is a near threatened large carnivore having a wider distribution range than other hyenas. however, very little information is available about its status and ecology. in the present study, we assessed the current status and population density of striped hyenas in the semi-arid tropical forests of the gir national park and sanctuary, india. the density of striped hyenas was estimated through individual identification using a photographic capture-recapture framework. with an effort of 600 trap nights, 24 individual hyenas were identified with an average trapping effort of 17.6 per hyena photograph. the estimated density (individual/km(2) +/- se) for central zone was 0.04 +/- 0.01, for eastern zone 0.12 +/- 0.03, for national park 0.08 +/- 0.05, and for western zone 0.02 +/- 0.01, while the estimated mean density was 0.07 +/- 0.03. we discuss the results of this study in relation to the distribution of hyenas in the gir national park and sanctuary, which provides them a safe denning refugia and dietary requirements. striped hyenas are under continuous pressure of various threats that directly or indirectly affect its occurrence and abundance, and lack of reliable status of their populations makes it extremely difficult to develop and implement an effective conservation plan to arrest the inferred decline. very few studies have been conducted so far on this species and our findings may provide some useful information for its conservation in india and elsewhere." a generalised random encounter model for estimating animal density with remote sensor data,acoustic detection; camera traps; marine; population monitoring; simulations; terrestrial,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,LUCAS TCD;MOORCROFT EA;FREEMAN R;ROWCLIFFE JM;JONES KE,"wildlife monitoring technology is advancing rapidly and the use of remote sensors such as camera traps and acoustic detectors is becoming common in both the terrestrial and marine environments. current methods to estimate abundance or density require individual recognition of animals or knowing the distance of the animal from the sensor, which is often difficult. a method without these requirements, the random encounter model (rem), has been successfully applied to estimate animal densities from count data generated from camera traps. however, count data from acoustic detectors do not fit the assumptions of the rem due to the directionality of animal signals. we developed a generalised rem (grem), to estimate absolute animal density from count data from both camera traps and acoustic detectors. we derived the grem for different combinations of sensor detection widths and animal signal widths (a measure of directionality). we tested the accuracy and precision of this model using simulations of different combinations of sensor detection widths and animal signal widths, number of captures and models of animal movement. we find that the grem produces accurate estimates of absolute animal density for all combinations of sensor detection widths and animal signal widths. however, larger sensor detection and animal signal widths were found to be more precise. while the model is accurate for all capture efforts tested, the precision of the estimate increases with the number of captures. we found no effect of different animal movement models on the accuracy and precision of the grem. we conclude that the grem provides an effective method to estimate absolute animal densities from remote sensor count data over a range of sensor and animal signal widths. the grem is applicable for count data obtained in both marine and terrestrial environments, visually or acoustically (e.g. big cats, sharks, birds, echolocating bats and cetaceans). as sensors such as camera traps and acoustic detectors become more ubiquitous, the grem will be increasingly useful for monitoring unmarked animal populations across broad spatial, temporal and taxonomic scales." effects of predation on telemetry-based survival estimates: insights from a study on endangered atlantic salmon smolts,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,GIBSON AJF;HALFYARD EA;BRADFORD RG;STOKESBURY MJW;REDDEN AM,"telemetry is increasingly being used to estimate population-level survival rates. however, these estimates may be affected by the detectability of telemetry tags and are reliant on the assumption that telemetry data represent the movements of the tagged fish. predation on tagged fish has the potential to bias survival estimates, and unlike the issue of detectability, methods to correct for the resulting bias (termed ""predation bias"") are not yet developed. in an acoustic telemetry study on inner bay of fundy atlantic salmon (salmo salar) smolts during 2008 and 2011, unusual tag detection patterns were indicative that some data may have been representative of the movements of predators rather than smolts. to incorporate predation effects into the resulting survival estimates, a suite of 11 summary migration metrics were compared between atlantic salmon smolts and striped bass (morone saxatilis). cluster analyses revealed that 2.4% to 13.6% of tags implanted in smolts exhibited migration patterns more similar to striped bass than to other smolts, which was interpreted here as evidence of predation. reassigning the fate of these tags as ""depredated-died"" reduced estimated survival from 43.5% to 41.1% in 2008 and from 32.6% to 19.0% in 2011 relative to a traditional mark-recapture model, illustrating the effect of predation bias in this case study." -survival rate and breeding outputs in a high arctic seabird exposed to legacy persistent organic pollutants and mercury,heavy metals; kittiwake; population; pesticides; pcbs,ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION,GOUTTE A;BARBRAUD C;HERZKE D;BUSTAMANTE P;ANGELIER F;TARTU S;CLERNENT-CHASTEL C;MOE B;BECH C;GABRIELSEN GW;BUSTNES JO;CHASTEL O,"chronic exposure to pollutants may represent a threat for wildlife. we tested whether adult survival rate, breeding probability and breeding success the year of sampling and the following year were affected by blood levels of mercury or persistent organic pollutants in svalbard black-legged kittiwake rissa tridactyla, by using capture-mark-recapture models over a five-year period. survival rate was negatively linked to hcb levels in females, to chlordane mixture and oxychlordane; tended to decrease with increasing pcbs or dde levels, but was unrelated to mercury. breeding probability decreased with increasing mercury levels during the sampling year and with increasing chl or hcb levels during the following year, especially in males observed as breeders. surprisingly, the probability of raising two chicks increased with increasing hcb levels. although levels of these legacy pollutants are expected to decline, they represent a potential threat for adult survival rate and breeding probability, possibly affecting kittiwake population dynamics. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +survival rate and breeding outputs in a high arctic seabird exposed to legacy persistent organic pollutants and mercury,heavy metals; kittiwake; population; pesticides; pcbs,ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION,GOUTTE A;BARBRAUD C;HERZKE D;BUSTAMANTE P;ANGELIER F;TARTU S;CLERNENT CHASTEL C;MOE B;BECH C;GABRIELSEN GW;BUSTNES JO;CHASTEL O,"chronic exposure to pollutants may represent a threat for wildlife. we tested whether adult survival rate, breeding probability and breeding success the year of sampling and the following year were affected by blood levels of mercury or persistent organic pollutants in svalbard black-legged kittiwake rissa tridactyla, by using capture-mark-recapture models over a five-year period. survival rate was negatively linked to hcb levels in females, to chlordane mixture and oxychlordane; tended to decrease with increasing pcbs or dde levels, but was unrelated to mercury. breeding probability decreased with increasing mercury levels during the sampling year and with increasing chl or hcb levels during the following year, especially in males observed as breeders. surprisingly, the probability of raising two chicks increased with increasing hcb levels. although levels of these legacy pollutants are expected to decline, they represent a potential threat for adult survival rate and breeding probability, possibly affecting kittiwake population dynamics. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." seasonal weather patterns drive population vital rates and persistence in a stream fish,air temperature; climate change; count data; n-mixture models; precipitation; salmonids; stage-structured populations,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,KANNO Y;LETCHER BH;HITT NP;BOUGHTON DA;WOFFORD JEB;ZIPKIN EF,"climate change affects seasonal weather patterns, but little is known about the relative importance of seasonal weather patterns on animal population vital rates. even when such information exists, data are typically only available from intensive fieldwork (e.g., mark-recapture studies) at a limited spatial extent. here, we investigated effects of seasonal air temperature and precipitation (fall, winter, and spring) on survival and recruitment of brook trout (salvelinus fontinalis) at a broad spatial scale using a novel stage-structured population model. the data were a 15-year record of brook trout abundance from 72 sites distributed across a 170-km-long mountain range in shenandoah national park, virginia, usa. population vital rates responded differently to weather and site-specific conditions. specifically, young-of-year survival was most strongly affected by spring temperature, adult survival by elevation and per-capita recruitment by winter precipitation. low fall precipitation and high winter precipitation, the latter of which is predicted to increase under climate change for the study region, had the strongest negative effects on trout populations. simulations show that trout abundance could be greatly reduced under constant high winter precipitation, consistent with the expected effects of gravel-scouring flows on eggs and newly hatched individuals. however, high-elevation sites would be less vulnerable to local extinction because they supported higher adult survival. furthermore, the majority of brook trout populations are projected to persist if high winter precipitation occurs only intermittently (3 of 5years) due to density-dependent recruitment. variable drivers of vital rates should be commonly found in animal populations characterized by ontogenetic changes in habitat, and such stage-structured effects may increase population persistence to changing climate by not affecting all life stages simultaneously. yet, our results also demonstrate that weather patterns during seemingly less consequential seasons (e.g., winter precipitation) can have major impacts on animal population dynamics." absence of difference in survival between two distant breeding sites of greater snow geese,atlantic flyway; canadian arctic; chen caerulescens atlanticus; dead recovery; greater snow goose; live encounters; multi-event model; neckband retention; survival,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SOUCHAY G;GAUTHIER G;LEFEBVRE J;PRADEL R,"adaptive management of harvested waterfowl requires accurate estimations of demographic parameters. these must also be representative of the targeted population. in the greater snow goose, all demographic parameters so far have been estimated from long-term banding conducted at a single nesting colony in the arctic, bylot island, where 15% of the population breeds. we used data from a second banding program conducted on ellesmere island, 800km north of bylot island and near the northern limit of the breeding range, to compare adult survival between these 2 breeding sites over the period 2007-2011. this allowed us to determine the representativeness of demographic parameters estimated from the bylot colony. we used a multi-event capture-recapture model combining recaptures, resightings of neckbanded birds, and recoveries on a seasonal basis, which allowed us to test specifically for differences in survival during the migration periods. despite differences in migration distance (20% longer for ellesmere island) and environmental conditions, survival rate of birds from these 2 breeding sites were similar in all seasons. annual survival ranged from 0.72 to 0.79. this apparent absence of a cost of migration on survival may be explained by the canalization hypothesis: variance in adult survival of the greater snow goose, a long-lived species, caused by environmental factors may have been reduced because of selection pressure on this trait, which is closely linked to fitness. the absence of spatial variation in adult survival suggests that the extrapolation of survival parameters estimated from the bylot island colony to the entire population may be valid. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." who swarms with whom? group dynamics of myotis bats during autumn swarming,associations; chiroptera; coalitions; group dynamics; pairwise relatedness; sociality,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY,BURNS LE;BRODERS HG,"for many animal taxa, group-living is a strategy where the cohesion provided by groups confers fitness benefits to individuals. bats are highly gregarious with many species living in groups with complex social structures. during the summer, many temperate species are sexually segregated among roosts where females have been found to exhibit dynamic social structures and males remain understudied. we studied the group dynamics of little brown and northern myotis bats (myotis lucifugus and myotis septentrionalis) during autumn swarming, a period for which social interactions are largely unknown. using capture-mark-recapture surveys, we characterized the occurrence and frequency of age and sex groups occurring at swarms. within a night, young-of-the-year associated more often with other bats than did adult males and females. further, they associated more often with other young-of-the-year than adults. we found no evidence to support the maternal guidance hypothesis predicting that there would be associations between mother-offspring pairs. adult male and female bats associated less frequently with each other and were captured alone most often. when males were captured in groups, these groups were more likely to be composed of multiple males and in m. lucifugus, males had preferred male associates they grouped with over multiple nights. groups formed during the autumn swarming season may represent cohort groups of young bats learning of the location of sites and groups of males that are potentially cooperating to secure more mating opportunities." @@ -2105,22 +2108,22 @@ functional responses of retaliatory killing versus recreational sport hunting of winter residency and site association in the critically endangered north east atlantic spurdog squalus acanthias,archival tag; conservation; migration; spatial ecology; residency; marine protected areas; spiny dogfish; loch etive,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,THORBURN J;NEAT F;BAILEY DM;NOBLE LR;JONES CS,"identification and incorporation of residential behaviour into elasmobranch management plans has the potential to substantially increase their effectiveness by identifying sites where marine protected areas might be used to help conserve species with high migratory potential. there is evidence that the spurdog squalus acanthias displays site association in some parts of its global distribution, but this has currently not been shown within the north east atlantic where it is critically endangered. here we investigated the movements of electronically tagged spurdog within loch etive, a sea loch on the west coast of scotland. archival data storage tags (dsts) that recorded depth and temperature revealed that 2 mature female spurdog overwintered within the loch, restricting their movements to the upper basin, and remaining either in the loch or the local vicinity for the rest of the year. this finding was supported by evidence for limited movements from conventional mark-recapture data and from an acoustically tagged individual spurdog. some of the movements between the loch basins appear to be associated with breeding and parturition events. this high level of site association suggests that spatial protection of the loch would aid the conservation of different age and sex classes of spurdog." assessment of variation of nest survival for grassland birds due to method of nest discovery,NA,BIRD STUDY,CONKLING TJ;BELANT JL;DEVAULT TL;WANG GM;MARTIN JA,"capsule interpretation of nest survival estimates may be improved by incorporating the search method used to locate nests as a covariate. aims to compare annual survival estimates for dickcissel spiza americana nests and determine if incorporating search method (structured, opportunistic, or behavioural searches) improved model fit. methods dickcissel nests were located using structured, opportunistic, or behavioural searches over three years (2011-2013) in mississippi, usa. models were used to estimate daily survival rates (dsrs) and to analyse factors influencing nest survival. results dsrs for dickcissels were best explained by quadratic date, nest age, age found, and year, but incorporating search method improved model fit. daily survival was 1.51 times greater for nests located using opportunistic search methods relative to structured searches, but was not significantly different between structured and behavioural searches. conclusions survival estimates varied by search method, specifically between structured searches and opportunistically located nests. this might have arisen because heterogeneity in nest placement or parental behaviour may influence the sample of nests located with a given search method. researchers may be able to account for this potential source of bias by including search method as a model covariate when using standard survey designs or modelling approaches." biases associated with the use of a playback in stopover ecology studies of bluethroats luscinia svecica,NA,BIRD STUDY,ARIZAGA J;MUSSEAU R;LASO M;ESPARZA X;UNAMUNO E;AZKONA A;FONTANILLES P,"capsule the effects of playback use on number of captures, recaptures, fuel load, and age and sex ratios, and so potential bias in stopover studies in migrant bluethroats was investigated. playback promoted biases in the number of captures (although this was site-dependent) and fuel load. we strongly advise against the systematic use of playback to sample bluethroats at constant effort sites or other type of ringing station, especially if studying fuel loads." -experimental island invasion of house mice,bottleneck; carrying capacity; founder; incursion; logistic; mus musculus,POPULATION ECOLOGY,"NATHAN HW;CLOUT MN;MACKAY JWB;MURPHY EC;RUSSELL JC","the ability of invasive species to recurrently establish populations from small numbers of founders, while threatened species struggle at the same low population sizes, is a paradox in conservation biology. little is known about the mechanisms contributing to the post-arrival success of low density invasive populations as most invasive species research focuses on established, high density populations. experimental studies are powerful, but generally limited to laboratory or invertebrate experiments. here, we experimentally demonstrate that vertebrate mammal invasion from a very small (n = 2) number of founders follows relatively simple deterministic predictions. an intentional island invasion of introduced house mice (mus musculus linnaeus) from one founding pair closely tracked the density dependent logistic growth curve and reached the seasonal carrying capacity of a previously extant population in only 5 months. carrying capacity reflected both density dependent and independent processes. in contrast to the previously incumbent population, the invading population retained a marked genetic signal of its recent founder event, but the populations were otherwise demographically indistinguishable. stochastic events such as individual variability, supplemental immigration and ecological release, but not allee effects, played important roles during colonisation, but following establishment dynamics rapidly became deterministic, with little demographic impact of reduced genetic diversity. the small population paradigm appears to have little influence on the population dynamics of highly successful invasive species." +experimental island invasion of house mice,bottleneck; carrying capacity; founder; incursion; logistic; mus musculus,POPULATION ECOLOGY,NATHAN HW;CLOUT MN;MACKAY JWB;MURPHY EC;RUSSELL JC,"the ability of invasive species to recurrently establish populations from small numbers of founders, while threatened species struggle at the same low population sizes, is a paradox in conservation biology. little is known about the mechanisms contributing to the post-arrival success of low density invasive populations as most invasive species research focuses on established, high density populations. experimental studies are powerful, but generally limited to laboratory or invertebrate experiments. here, we experimentally demonstrate that vertebrate mammal invasion from a very small (n = 2) number of founders follows relatively simple deterministic predictions. an intentional island invasion of introduced house mice (mus musculus linnaeus) from one founding pair closely tracked the density dependent logistic growth curve and reached the seasonal carrying capacity of a previously extant population in only 5 months. carrying capacity reflected both density dependent and independent processes. in contrast to the previously incumbent population, the invading population retained a marked genetic signal of its recent founder event, but the populations were otherwise demographically indistinguishable. stochastic events such as individual variability, supplemental immigration and ecological release, but not allee effects, played important roles during colonisation, but following establishment dynamics rapidly became deterministic, with little demographic impact of reduced genetic diversity. the small population paradigm appears to have little influence on the population dynamics of highly successful invasive species." demography and mobility of three common understory butterfly species from tropical rain forest of papua new guinea,jolly-seber; lepidoptera; mark-release-recapture; melanesia; papilionoidea,POPULATION ECOLOGY,VLASANEK P;NOVOTNY V,"the mobility of butterflies determines their ability to find host plant species, and thus their potential host plant range, as well as their ability to maintain meta-populations in fragmented habitats. while butterfly movement has been extensively studied for temperate species, very little is known for tropical forest species. a mark-release-recapture study of the three most common butterfly species in the understory of a lowland primary rainforest in papua new guinea included 3,705, 394 and 317 marked individuals of danis danis, taenaris sp. and parthenos aspila respectively, with 1,031, 78 and 40 butterfly individuals recaptured at least once. over a period of 6 weeks there were almost 22,000 individuals belonging to these three species hatching within or entering our four study plots totaling 14.58 ha in area. the most abundant species, d. danis, with 20,000 individuals, showed highly variable population densities during the study. the residency time in the studied plots was highest for p. aspila (84 days), as individual butterflies stayed mostly in a single gap; we estimated that less than 1 % of individuals disperse 1 km or more. similar movement probability was found in d. danis whilst in taenaris sp., 10 % of the population disperses a parts per thousand yen1 km. movement distances of d. danis were more than sufficient to locate its host plant, derris elliptica, which occurred in 61 % of the 20 x 20 m subplots within a 50 ha plot. compared with temperate species, our three species have much longer life spans, but their movement patterns remain within the known mobility estimates of temperate species. the mobility of d. danis is close to the average for temperate lycaenidae, while taenaris sp. is more mobile and p. aspila less mobile than the mean for all temperate species." dispersal flights of the formosan subterranean termite (isoptera: rhinotermitidae),area-wide management; invasive species; ipm; modeling; nuptial flight,JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY,MULLINS AJ;MESSENGER MT;HOCHMAIR HH;TONINI F;SU NY;RIEGEL C,"the formosan subterranean termite, coptotermes formosanus shiraki, is a pest of major economic concern. this termite is particularly known for its tendency to establish populations in nonendemic areas via maritime vessels as well as human-aided transport of infested materials. the natural spread of this species after new introductions occurs in part by dispersal flights originating from mature colonies. dispersal flight activity is also the primary variable for the evaluation of area-wide management programs. few studies exist describing the dynamics and distribution of a typical dispersal flight for this species. the present study used data collected by mark-recapture of c. formosanus alates over 12 individual evenings of dispersal flights in the new orleans french quarter. in this study, we found that for one selected flight dispersal location, which was not affected by a high density of trap locations nearby, alates flew on average 621 m from their parent colony. a new record of a 1,300-m dispersal flight was recorded. spatial analysis showed that neither wind nor light affected the direction of flight, which may, however, be attributed to scarce light and wind measurements in the study region." melding kin structure and demography to elucidate source and sink habitats in fragmented landscapes,agricultural ecosystem; carnivore; demography; habitat fragmentation; kin structure; metapopulation; population dynamics; procyon lotor; raccoon; source sink; survival,ECOSPHERE,BEASLEY JC;DHARMARAJAN G;RHODES OE,"the source-sink model undoubtedly is one of the most established paradigms for associating variance in population dynamics with heterogeneity in habitat quality. however, despite extensive theoretical support by the scientific community, the majority of studies seeking empirical validation for this model have lacked sufficient data to distinguish source and sink habitats, particularly for large or secretive mammals. using relatively long-term mark-recapture and genetic data for a generalist mesopredator within a fragmented agricultural ecosystem, we show that use of a two-stage approach incorporating both genetic and demographic data can be a powerful tool for evaluating the population structure of organisms occupying complex ecological systems. we further demonstrate that a strong concordance exists between demographic attributes and underlying genetic expectations, suggesting evaluation of fine-scale genetic patterns alone may provide valuable insights into the population dynamics of species. these data have important implications for advancing our ability to quantify heterogeneity in population stability, particularly for large or imperiled species where sufficient demographic data cannot be obtained to parameterize traditional source-sink models." power laws for heavy-tailed distributions: modeling allele and haplotype diversity for the national marrow donor program,NA,PLOS COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY,SLATER N;LOUZOUN Y;GRAGERT L;MAIERS M;CHATTERJEE A;ALBRECHT M,"measures of allele and haplotype diversity, which are fundamental properties in population genetics, often follow heavy tailed distributions. these measures are of particular interest in the field of hematopoietic stem cell transplant (hsct). donor/recipient suitability for hsct is determined by human leukocyte antigen (hla) similarity. match predictions rely upon a precise description of hla diversity, yet classical estimates are inaccurate given the heavy-tailed nature of the distribution. this directly affects hsct matching and diversity measures in broader fields such as species richness. we, therefore, have developed a power-law based estimator to measure allele and haplotype diversity that accommodates heavy tails using the concepts of regular variation and occupancy distributions. application of our estimator to 6.59 million donors in the be the match registry revealed that haplotypes follow a heavy tail distribution across all ethnicities: for example, 44.65% of the european american haplotypes are represented by only 1 individual. indeed, our discovery rate of all u.s. european american haplotypes is estimated at 23.45% based upon sampling 3.97% of the population, leaving a large number of unobserved haplotypes. population coverage, however, is much higher at 99.4% given that 90% of european americans carry one of the 4.5% most frequent haplotypes. alleles were found to be less diverse suggesting the current registry represents most alleles in the population. thus, for hsct registries, haplotype discovery will remain high with continued recruitment to a very deep level of sampling, but population coverage will not. finally, we compared the convergence of our power-law versus classical diversity estimators such as capture recapture, chao, ace and jackknife methods. when fit to the haplotype data, our estimator displayed favorable properties in terms of convergence (with respect to sampling depth) and accuracy (with respect to diversity estimates). this suggests that power-law based estimators offer a valid alternative to classical diversity estimators and may have broad applicability in the field of population genetics." -abundance and demography of bottlenose dolphins inhabiting a subtropical estuary in the southwestern atlantic ocean,abundance; bottlenose dolphin; mark-recapture; power analysis; sex ratio; survival; tursiops truncatus,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,FRUET PF;DAURA-JORGE FG;MOLLER LM;GENOVES RC;SECCHI ER,"we conducted a mark-recapture (mr) analysis from 8 years (2005-2012) of photo-identification data collected systematically to investigate demographic parameters of a community of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) inhabiting the patos lagoon estuary and adjacent marine coast in southern brazil. under the most parsimonious model of pollock's robust design, which disregarded the effects of temporary emigration, the estimate of annual apparent survival was higher for adult females (0.97, 95% ci: 0.91-0.99) than for adult males (0.88, 95% ci: 0.75-0.94) and juveniles (0.83, 95% ci: 0.64-0.93), which may explain an observed bias in sex ratio (1 male:2 females) of known adult dolphins in this community. an increase in abundance of marked individuals was observed during the first 6 years of sampling when the number of new recruits surpassed mortality, followed by a remarkable decrease in the last 2 years when an inverse ratio of recruits/deaths occurred. yearly changes in abundance ((lambda) over cap (t)) varied from -0.1 to 0.07. total abundance estimates were highly precise (the highest coefficient of variation was 0.053) and did not exceed 88 individuals. abundance estimates were similar to a previous mr study conducted in the same area almost a decade earlier, suggesting a relative stable dolphin community over the last 14 years. the apparent stability in abundance, however, should be viewed with caution since this community would need a substantial mortality of at least 10% before a decline in abundance is detected with a desirable statistical power of 90%." +abundance and demography of bottlenose dolphins inhabiting a subtropical estuary in the southwestern atlantic ocean,abundance; bottlenose dolphin; mark-recapture; power analysis; sex ratio; survival; tursiops truncatus,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,FRUET PF;DAURA JORGE FG;MOLLER LM;GENOVES RC;SECCHI ER,"we conducted a mark-recapture (mr) analysis from 8 years (2005-2012) of photo-identification data collected systematically to investigate demographic parameters of a community of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) inhabiting the patos lagoon estuary and adjacent marine coast in southern brazil. under the most parsimonious model of pollock's robust design, which disregarded the effects of temporary emigration, the estimate of annual apparent survival was higher for adult females (0.97, 95% ci: 0.91-0.99) than for adult males (0.88, 95% ci: 0.75-0.94) and juveniles (0.83, 95% ci: 0.64-0.93), which may explain an observed bias in sex ratio (1 male:2 females) of known adult dolphins in this community. an increase in abundance of marked individuals was observed during the first 6 years of sampling when the number of new recruits surpassed mortality, followed by a remarkable decrease in the last 2 years when an inverse ratio of recruits/deaths occurred. yearly changes in abundance ((lambda) over cap (t)) varied from -0.1 to 0.07. total abundance estimates were highly precise (the highest coefficient of variation was 0.053) and did not exceed 88 individuals. abundance estimates were similar to a previous mr study conducted in the same area almost a decade earlier, suggesting a relative stable dolphin community over the last 14 years. the apparent stability in abundance, however, should be viewed with caution since this community would need a substantial mortality of at least 10% before a decline in abundance is detected with a desirable statistical power of 90%." integrating citizen-science data with movement models to estimate the size of a migratory golden eagle population,aquila chrysaetos canadensis; citizen-science; golden eagle; hawk-count data; mark-recapture; raptor migration,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,DENNHARDT AJ;DUERR AE;BRANDES D;KATZNER TE,"estimating population size is fundamental to conservation and management. population size is typically estimated using survey data, computer models, or both. some of the most extensive and often least expensive survey data are those collected by citizen-scientists. a challenge to citizen-scientists is that the vagility of many organisms can complicate data collection. as a result, animal-movement effects on data collection can adversely affect modeling of those data. thus, it would be helpful to develop methods that integrate citizen-science datasets with models that account for animal movement. we used hawk-count data collected by citizen-scientists to estimate the number of golden eagles (aquila chrysaetos canadensis) migrating through pennsylvania, usa. to do this, we designed a computer model to simulate migratory flights of eagles to estimate what proportion of the population is available (i.e., within visible range or close enough) to be counted at hawk-count sites in pennsylvania. we then conducted a multi-state mark-recapture analysis to estimate detection probability (i.e., the rate at which birds within visible range are observed) of migrating eagles. finally, we used availability rates and detection probabilities to adjust raw hawk-count data to produce estimates of population size. our models suggest that 24% (+/- 14; mean +/- se) of migrating golden eagles are available to be counted at hawk-count sites, and that 55% (+/- 1.6) of the available eagles are detected by hawk-count observers. we estimate that 5122 (+/- 1338) golden eagles migrate annually through pennsylvania. our analysis provides the first quantitative estimate of the size of the eastern golden eagle population, and we demonstrate the utility of one approach to use citizen-science data to address a pressing, conservation goal-population size estimation. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." detecting the elusive scottish wildcat felis silvestris silvestris using camera trapping,camera trapping; felis silvestris silvestris; monitoring; scotland; scottish wildcat; spatially explicit capture-recapture,ORYX,KILSHAW K;JOHNSON PJ;KITCHENER AC;MACDONALD DW,"population monitoring is important for conservation management but difficult to achieve for rare, cryptic species. reliable information about the critically endangered scottish wildcat felis silvestris silvestris is lacking because of difficulties in morphological and genetic identification, resulting from extensive hybridization with feral domestic cats felis catus. we carried out camera-trap surveys in the cairngorms national park, uk, to examine the feasibility of camera trapping, combined with a pelage identification method, to monitor scottish wildcats. camera trapping detected individually identifiable wildcats. of 13 individual wild-living cats, four scored as wildcats based on pelage characters and the rest were wildcat x domestic cat hybrids. spatially explicit capture-recapture density estimation methods generated a density of wild-living cats (wildcats and hybrids) of 68.17 +/- se 9.47 per 100 km(2). the impact of reducing trapping-grid size, camera-trap numbers and survey length on density estimates was investigated using spatially explicit capture-recapture models. our findings indicate camera trapping is more effective for monitoring wildcats than other methods currently used and capture success could be increased by using bait, placing camera stations <= 1.5 km apart, increasing the number of camera stations, and surveying for 60-70 days. this study shows that camera trapping is effective for confirming the presence of the wildcat in potential target areas for conservation management." -"mark-recapture of monochamus galloprovincialis with semiochemical-baited traps: population density, attraction distance, flight behaviour and mass trapping efficiency",NA,FORESTRY,TORRES-VILA LM;ZUGASTI C;DE-JUAN JM;OLIVA MJ;MONTERO C;MENDIOLA FJ;CONEJO Y;SANCHEZ A;FERNANDEZ F;PONCE F;ESPARRAGO G,"the pine sawyer monochamus galloprovincialis is considered the most efficient vector in europe of the pine wood nematode (pwn), the causal agent of the pine wilt disease. the detection of pwn in europe generated great concern by the eu which, in response, implemented strong quarantine and phytosanitary measures. among them, the improvement of monitoring and control of pine sawyer is imperative, for which better understanding of behavioural, ecological and operational factors affecting catchability is needed. in 2012-2013, we investigated with mark-recapture methods the population density, trap attraction distance, flight behaviour and mass trapping efficiency in m. galloprovincialis. population density ranged from 96 to 474 adults ha(-1). trap attraction distance averaged 50 m. lifetime adult dispersal was 107-122 mon average. alogarithmic diffusion model fitted to recapture data yielded a maximum dispersal of 464 m(95 per cent confidence limits: 121-2365 m). sawyer flights were significantly more frequent downslope in the plot. catch concentration (i.e. the ratio between the radius r of the effective trapping area s and the maximum dispersal distance r(m)) ranged from 0.32 to 0.41 depending on sex. mass trapping efficiency (i.e. the ratio of the total number of adults caught in the plot (excluding recaptures) over the estimated population size) was consistently low (0.08-0.36). we conclude from an applied perspective that available lures and traps are highly effective for monitoring, but their implementation in mass trapping requires substantial improving." +"mark-recapture of monochamus galloprovincialis with semiochemical-baited traps: population density, attraction distance, flight behaviour and mass trapping efficiency",NA,FORESTRY,TORRES VILA LM;ZUGASTI C;DE JUAN JM;OLIVA MJ;MONTERO C;MENDIOLA FJ;CONEJO Y;SANCHEZ A;FERNANDEZ F;PONCE F;ESPARRAGO G,"the pine sawyer monochamus galloprovincialis is considered the most efficient vector in europe of the pine wood nematode (pwn), the causal agent of the pine wilt disease. the detection of pwn in europe generated great concern by the eu which, in response, implemented strong quarantine and phytosanitary measures. among them, the improvement of monitoring and control of pine sawyer is imperative, for which better understanding of behavioural, ecological and operational factors affecting catchability is needed. in 2012-2013, we investigated with mark-recapture methods the population density, trap attraction distance, flight behaviour and mass trapping efficiency in m. galloprovincialis. population density ranged from 96 to 474 adults ha(-1). trap attraction distance averaged 50 m. lifetime adult dispersal was 107-122 mon average. alogarithmic diffusion model fitted to recapture data yielded a maximum dispersal of 464 m(95 per cent confidence limits: 121-2365 m). sawyer flights were significantly more frequent downslope in the plot. catch concentration (i.e. the ratio between the radius r of the effective trapping area s and the maximum dispersal distance r(m)) ranged from 0.32 to 0.41 depending on sex. mass trapping efficiency (i.e. the ratio of the total number of adults caught in the plot (excluding recaptures) over the estimated population size) was consistently low (0.08-0.36). we conclude from an applied perspective that available lures and traps are highly effective for monitoring, but their implementation in mass trapping requires substantial improving." bottom-up processes in a declining yellow-footed rock-wallaby (petrogale xanthopus celeris) population,boom and bust dynamics; grazing halo; reproductive output; survival rate,AUSTRAL ECOLOGY,SHARP A;MCCALLUM H,"populations of large herbivores are generally considered to be food limited, escaping the regulatory effects of predation through their large body size, migratory behaviour and/or the occurrence of alternate prey species. in the australian arid and semi-arid zones, the availability of forage biomass is considered to be the primary driver of fluctuations in kangaroo abundance. however, little is known about the population dynamics of the smaller sympatric macropods. we examined the demographic traits of a large colony of yellow-footed rock-wallabies (petrogale xanthopus celeris), following a 2-year period of above average rainfall. the population was located within a conservation reserve that was subject to a predator control program around its perimeter and on neighbouring properties. the low predator abundance provided an opportunity to gauge the strength of bottom-up population processes. during the two years of the study, the population declined in size by 53%, resulting from both the virtual absence of juvenile recruitment and the loss of adult wallabies. although reproductive output was high, low pouch young and juvenile survival rates resulted in few individuals progressing into the adult population. with minimal recruitment, the rate of population decline (r=0.77) matched the observed adult survival rate (phi=0.76). despite average rainfall conditions during the study, survival rates across all age-classes were equivalent to those reported for other rock-wallaby populations during periods of scarcity. the reduced survival rates were attributed to low levels of forage resources, particularly around the wallabies' refuge sites, suggesting the bottom-up regulation of the colony at high densities. the data suggest that the colony was at temporarily high abundance, following a rainfall driven pulse of recruitment. conservation management actions for this species should focus on increasing juvenile survival rates within declining populations, through the control of feral goats (capra hircus), rabbits (oryctolagus cuniculus) and red foxes (vulpes vulpes)." "watershed-scale effectiveness of floodplain habitat restoration for juvenile coho salmon in the chilliwack river, british columbia",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,OGSTON L;GIDORA S;FOY M;ROSENFELD J,"although billions of dollars have been spent restoring degraded watersheds worldwide, watershed-scale studies evaluating their effectiveness are rare. to mitigate damage from past logging activities, the floodplain of the upper chilliwack river watershed (similar to 600 km(2)) was extensively restored from 1996 to 2000 through off-channel habitat restoration. the contribution of restored habitat to watershed-scale production of wild coho (oncorhynchus kisutch) smolts was estimated through an extensive mark-recapture program in 2002. 27%-34% of the production of the estimated 247 200 out-migrating coho smolts could be attributed to the 157 000 m(2) of newly created habitat. area-based habitat models from the literature performed reasonably well in predicting smolt production from restored habitat, providing an acceptable first-order approach for evaluating production benefits of restoration. the costs of smolt production integrated over 30 years ranged from us$0.69-us$10.05 per smolt, falling within the range of hatchery production costs reported elsewhere (typical cost of similar to us$1.00 per smolt) at the most cost-effective restoration sites. this study demonstrates that large-scale habitat restoration can effectively enhance fish production at a watershed scale, at a cost that may be comparable to hatchery smolt production." predicting bobcat abundance at a landscape scale and evaluating occupancy as a density index in central wisconsin,bobcat; detection probability; distribution-density relationships; lynx rufus; population estimate; spatially explicit capture-recapture; trail cameras; wisconsin,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CLARE JDJ;ANDERSON EM;MACFARLAND DM,"the abundance of low-density species like carnivores is logistically difficult to directly estimate at a meaningful scale. predictive distribution models are often used as a surrogate for density estimation. but because density can continue to increase as occupancy asymptotes at 1, occupancy may have little value as an index, and home range expansion in marginal habitat may further confound the association. we sought to estimate bobcat population size at a landscape scale (14,286km(2)) in central wisconsin, which provided an opportunity to relate predicted occurrence to individual space use and population density. we sampled bobcats using motion-sensitive trail cameras at 9 arrays across central wisconsin. we estimated bobcat site-specific occupancy, and regressed these estimates as linear or asymptotic functions of site-specific density to determine the strength and shape of their association. we subsequently modeled both parameters relative to habitat covariates and repeated the regression process. a linear functional relationship between density and occupancy was most supported when detection parameters were held constant (w(i)=0.97, r-2=0.72) and when detection, occurrence, and density were modeled as a function of habitat covariates (w(i)=0.99, r-2=0.95). this suggests that repeated presence-absence data alone may be an efficient and reliable method for inferring spatial patterns in bobcat density or identifying habitat types with greater density potential in the northern parts of its range. bobcat occupancy and density were both positively associated with surrounding woody cover and wetland edge density. our most supported spatially explicit capture-recapture model estimated bobcat abundance as 362 adult individuals (95% ci 272-490) across the study area. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." competitive release modifies the impacts of hydrologic alteration for a partially migratory stream predator,density dependence; pollock's robust design; partial migration; aic; (c); anadromous; self-thinning,ECOLOGY OF FRESHWATER FISH,HARTSON RB;KENNEDY BP,"understanding ecological effects of altered stream flows is an essential objective. in a comparative field study of juvenile steelhead trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) that compared natural- and reduced-flow sites, we used mark-recapture modelling and information theory to quantify spatially and temporally explicit patterns of density, specific growth rate, survival and outmigration; and test predictions for biotic and abiotic drivers. densities were lower in water withdrawal treatments, resulting in lower intraspecific competition and, higher specific growth rate and survival. we observed yearly differences in density and intraspecific competition, with a negative relationship between density and specific growth rate over a wide range of densities, but reductions in survival only at the highest densities. moreover, individual variability within sites was important. at high density (sites and years), survival related negatively to body size. in contrast, when overall density was lower, specific growth rate was negatively related to body size. lastly, individuals were more likely to outmigrate when they had larger body size, lower survival or reared in habitats with reduced flows, and these patterns appeared mediated by the intensity of intraspecific competition. our results underscore the harsh bioenergetic conditions induced by higher temperatures and densities during summer baseflow (relative to other seasons), particularly for larger fish demanding more resources, and suggest a density-dependent mechanism for why this period is important for regulating salmonid populations. we found that a complex combination of natural (e.g., density) and anthropogenic (e.g., withdrawal) factors affected juvenile salmon populations and life history expression in the face of altered flows." native european eels as a potential biological control for invasive crayfish,diet; ontogeny; predation; red swamp crayfish; stable isotope,FRESHWATER BIOLOGY,MUSSEAU C;BOULENGER C;CRIVELLI AJ;LEBEL I;PASCAL M;BOULETREAU S;SANTOUL F,"invasive species may have strong negative impacts on ecosystems. invasive crayfish are well known to cause ecological imbalances in freshwater systems and have become targets in eradication programmes. the red swamp crayfish (procambarus clarkii) is vulnerable to predation by several fish species. the european eel (anguilla anguilla) appears to be a very good candidate given its benthic feeding activity and ability to recognise prey by odour. our study took place from 2009 to 2013 in a closed system in south-eastern france in which ponds were sampled twice a year by passive capture methods to evaluate trends in populations of potential prey. eel population dynamics were assessed by means of a multistate capture-recapture model, and diet assessment was performed using stable isotope analysis in october 2010 and october 2012. our results show that the invasive crayfish was the most important prey in the eel diet, and every size-class of crayfish was preyed upon by the predator. a high predator density, approaching carrying capacity for the european eel in this system, strongly affects p.clarkii populations, leading them to their collapse, but not eradication." when simple is better: comparing two sampling methods to estimate green turtles abundance at coastal feeding grounds,population abundance; sampling techniques; green turtles; photo-identification; strip-transect; red sea,JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY,MANCINI A;ELSADEK I;MADON B,"estimating population abundance of marine turtles on their feeding grounds is needed to implement effective conservation strategies, but is logistically challenging. in-water monitoring surveys on feeding grounds are costly, time-consuming, stressful to the animals (when capture is required), and typically requires complex analytical skills. here, we compare two sampling methods to estimate abundance of green turtles on one of their major feeding grounds in the egyptian red sea: a) snorkelling strip transect counts, a rarely used method on marine turtles; and b) capture-mark-recapture (cmr) using photo-identification. the main goals of this research were to: 1) identify the most cost-effective method to estimate in-water marine turtle abundance; and 2) provide the first abundance estimates for green turtles on their feeding grounds in the red sea. both methods produced an average monthly abundance of approximately 30 turtles, with no significant difference between the two methodologies. the strip-transect method presented major logistical advantages, including easy field implementation, simple equipment, and only basic analytical skills. furthermore, this method provided density estimates that can be used as index for population trends. however, limitations of this method included intensive field effort and potentially altered turtle behaviour due to the presence of the observers. by contrast, photo-identification and cmr models provided valuable information of population demography but required advanced analytical skills, did not provide a measure of density, and could prove challenging in areas where turtles are not acclimated to human presence. our results suggest that the ease data collection and associated analysis of the strip transect method should be considered when implementing a monitoring program of wildlife to be used for management and conservation purposes. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -photo-identification and the effects of tagging on the patagonian catfish hatcheria macraei,fulton's k; growth; individual identification; mark-recapture; survival; tag retention,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,BARRIGA JP;CHIARELLO-SOSA JM;JUNCOS R;BATTINI MA,"effects of subcutaneous visible implanted alphanumeric (via) microtags, pelvic fin excision, and individual photo-identification (pid) based on natural spot patterns were experimentally evaluated in the small stream benthic patagonian catfish hatcheria macraei. via tag retention was 90 % during the first 45 days, decreasing to 80 % at day 200, and 66 % at the end of the experiment, at day 254. fin regeneration was not evident during the experiment. survival, growth rate or condition factor (fulton's k) did not differ between tagged or pelvic fin clipped catfish and a control group. spot patterns varied greatly among individuals and remained constant throughout the experimental period, thereby making identification of individual pid possible in h. macraei. tagging was not effective in identifying individual fish due to mark loss or difficulty in reading via tag codes. the combination of pid with via tagging or fin clipping techniques in longterm experiments is advisable in order to facilitate individual recognition. the pid analysis described in this study is a low-cost method that could potentially be applied to any fish with a variable spot pattern." +photo-identification and the effects of tagging on the patagonian catfish hatcheria macraei,fulton's k; growth; individual identification; mark-recapture; survival; tag retention,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,BARRIGA JP;CHIARELLO SOSA JM;JUNCOS R;BATTINI MA,"effects of subcutaneous visible implanted alphanumeric (via) microtags, pelvic fin excision, and individual photo-identification (pid) based on natural spot patterns were experimentally evaluated in the small stream benthic patagonian catfish hatcheria macraei. via tag retention was 90 % during the first 45 days, decreasing to 80 % at day 200, and 66 % at the end of the experiment, at day 254. fin regeneration was not evident during the experiment. survival, growth rate or condition factor (fulton's k) did not differ between tagged or pelvic fin clipped catfish and a control group. spot patterns varied greatly among individuals and remained constant throughout the experimental period, thereby making identification of individual pid possible in h. macraei. tagging was not effective in identifying individual fish due to mark loss or difficulty in reading via tag codes. the combination of pid with via tagging or fin clipping techniques in longterm experiments is advisable in order to facilitate individual recognition. the pid analysis described in this study is a low-cost method that could potentially be applied to any fish with a variable spot pattern." quantification of motility of carabid beetles in farmland,carabid beetles; movement; dispersal; motility; meta-analysis pterostichus melanarius; mark-recapture; fokker-planck diffusion,BULLETIN OF ENTOMOLOGICAL RESEARCH,ALLEMA AB;VAN DER WERF W;GROOT JCJ;HEMERIK L;GORT G;ROSSING WAH;VAN LENTEREN JC,"quantification of the movement of insects at field and landscape levels helps us to understand their ecology and ecological functions. we conducted a meta-analysis on movement of carabid beetles (coleoptera: carabidae), to identify key factors affecting movement and population redistribution. we characterize the rate of redistribution using motility mu (l-2 t-1), which is a measure for diffusion of a population in space and time that is consistent with ecological diffusion theory and which can be used for upscaling short-term data to longer time frames. formulas are provided to calculate motility from literature data on movement distances. a field experiment was conducted to measure the redistribution of mass-released carabid, pterostichus melanarius in a crop field, and derive motility by fitting a fokker-planck diffusion model using inverse modelling. bias in estimates of motility from literature data is elucidated using the data from the field experiment as a case study. the meta-analysis showed that motility is 5.6 times as high in farmland as in woody habitat. species associated with forested habitats had greater motility than species associated with open field habitats, both in arable land and woody habitat. the meta-analysis did not identify consistent differences in motility at the species level, or between clusters of larger and smaller beetles. the results presented here provide a basis for calculating time-varying distribution patterns of carabids in farmland and woody habitat. the formulas for calculating motility can be used for other taxa." polar bear population dynamics in the southern beaufort sea during a period of sea ice decline,abundance; arctic; climate warming; cormack-jolly-seber; demographic modeling; horvitz-thompson; mark-recapture; sea ice; survival; ursus maritimus,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,BROMAGHIN JF;MCDONALD TL;STIRLING I;DEROCHER AE;RICHARDSON ES;REGEHR EV;DOUGLAS DC;DURNER GM;ATWOOD T;AMSTRUP SC,"in the southern beaufort sea of the united states and canada, prior investigations have linked declines in summer sea ice to reduced physical condition, growth, and survival of polar bears (ursus maritimus). combined with projections of population decline due to continued climate warming and the ensuing loss of sea ice habitat, those findings contributed to the 2008 decision to list the species as threatened under the u.s. endangered species act. here, we used mark-recapture models to investigate the population dynamics of polar bears in the southern beaufort sea from 2001 to 2010, years during which the spatial and temporal extent of summer sea ice generally declined. low survival from 2004 through 2006 led to a 25-50% decline in abundance. we hypothesize that low survival during this period resulted from (1) unfavorable ice conditions that limited access to prey during multiple seasons; and possibly, (2) low prey abundance. for reasons that are not clear, survival of adults and cubs began to improve in 2007 and abundance was comparatively stable from 2008 to 2010, with; similar to 900 bears in 2010 (90% ci 606-1212). however, survival of subadult bears declined throughout the entire period. reduced spatial and temporal availability of sea ice is expected to increasingly force population dynamics of polar bears as the climate continues to warm. however, in the short term, our findings suggest that factors other than sea ice can influence survival. a refined understanding of the ecological mechanisms underlying polar bear population dynamics is necessary to improve projections of their future status and facilitate development of management strategies." spatial capture-recapture model performance with known small-mammal densities,abundance; accuracy; bayesian inference; bias; coverage; estimation; evaluation; field test; likelihood; population; spatially explicit capture-recapture models,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,GERBER BD;PARMENTER RR,"abundance and density of wild animals are important ecological metrics. however, estimating either is fraught with challenges; spatial capture-recapture (scr) models are a relatively new class of models that attempt to ameliorate common challenges, providing a statistically coherent framework to estimate abundance and density. scr models are increasingly being used in ecological and conservation studies of mammals worldwide, but have received little testing with empirical field data. we use data collected via a web and grid sampling design to evaluate the basic scr model where small-mammal abundance (n) and density (d) are known (via exhaustive sampling). we fit the basic scr model with and without a behavioral effect to 11 small-mammal populations for each sampling design using a bayesian and likelihood scr modeling approach. we compare scr and ad hoc density estimators using frequentist performance measures. we found bayesian and likelihood scr estimates of density ((d) over cap) and abundance ((n) over cap) to be similar. we also found scr models to have moderately poor frequentist coverage of d and n (45-73%), high deviation from truth (i.e., accuracy; (d) over cap, 17-29%; (n) over cap, 16-29%), and consistent negative bias across inferential paradigms, sampling designs, and models. with the trapping grid data, the basic scr model generally performed more poorly than the best ad hoc estimator (behavior cr super-population estimate divided by the full mean maximum distance moved estimate of the effective trapping area), whereas with the trapping web data, the best-performing scr model (null) was comparable to the best distance model. relatively poor frequentist scr coverage resulted from higher precision (scr coefficients of variation [cvs], ad hoc cvs); however (d) over cap and d were fairly well correlated (r(2) range of 0.77-0.96). scr's negative relative bias (i.e., average underestimation of the true density) suggests additional heterogeneity in detection and/or that small mammals maintained asymmetric home ranges. we suggest caution in the use of the basic scr model when trapping animals in a sampling grid and more generally when small sample sizes necessitate the spatial scale parameter (sigma) apply to all individuals. when possible, researchers should consider variation in detection and incorporate individual biological and/or ecological variation at the trap level when modeling sigma." @@ -2131,7 +2134,7 @@ mark-recapture and mark-resight methods for estimating abundance with remote cam territory tenure increases with repertoire size in brownish-flanked bush warbler,NA,PLOS ONE,XIA CW;WEI CT;ZHANG YY,"song repertoire size is often cited as a classic example of a secondary sexual trait in birds. models of sexual selection and empirical tests of their predictions have often related secondary sexual traits to longevity. however, the relationship between repertoire size and longevity is unclear. using capture-mark-recapture studies in two populations of the brownish-flanked bush warbler cettia fortipes, we found that males with a repertoire size of three maintained territory tenure for a longer duration than did males with a repertoire size of two. these results provide evidence that even a minimal difference in repertoire size can serve as a potential signal of territory tenure capability." mixture models for distance sampling detection functions,NA,PLOS ONE,MILLER DL;THOMAS L,"we present a new class of models for the detection function in distance sampling surveys of wildlife populations, based on finite mixtures of simple parametric key functions such as the half-normal. the models share many of the features of the widely-used ""key function plus series adjustment"" (k+a) formulation: they are flexible, produce plausible shapes with a small number of parameters, allow incorporation of covariates in addition to distance and can be fitted using maximum likelihood. one important advantage over the k+a approach is that the mixtures are automatically monotonic non-increasing and non-negative, so constrained optimization is not required to ensure distance sampling assumptions are honoured. we compare the mixture formulation to the k+a approach using simulations to evaluate its applicability in a wide set of challenging situations. we also re-analyze four previously problematic real-world case studies. we find mixtures outperform k+a methods in many cases, particularly spiked line transect data (i.e., where detectability drops rapidly at small distances) and larger sample sizes. we recommend that current standard model selection methods for distance sampling detection functions are extended to include mixture models in the candidate set." demographics of the disappearing bottlenose dolphin in argentina: a common species on its way out?,NA,PLOS ONE,VERMEULEN E;BRAGER S,"populations of the once common bottlenose dolphin (tursiops truncatus) in argentina have precipitously declined throughout the country in the past decades. unfortunately, local declines of common species are easily overlooked when establishing priorities for conservation. in this study, demographics of what may well be the last remaining resident population in the country were assessed using mark-recapture analysis (pollock's robust design) of a photo-identification dataset collected during 2006-2011 in bahia san antonio (patagonia, argentina). total abundance, corrected for unmarked individuals, ranged from 40 (95% ci: 16.1-98.8) to 83 (95% ci = 45.8-151.8) individuals and showed a decrease over the years. adult survival rates varied between 0.97 (+/- 0.037 se) and 0.99 (+/- 0.010 se). average calving interval equalled 3.5 +/- 1.03 years, with 3.5 births/year in the entire population and a minimum annual birth rate of 4.2%. however, data suggest that calves may have been born and lost before being documented, underestimating birth rate, calf mortality, and possibly the number of reproductive females. either way, the recruitment rate of calves appears to be insufficient to support the size of the population. this population is relatively small and declining. considering the disappearance of populations north and south of the study area, an incessant decline will have severe consequences for the continuous existence of this species in argentina, indicating an urgent need for serious conservation efforts. this study provides insight into how the failure to recognize local population declines can threaten the national (and eventually the international) status of a common species like the bottlenose dolphin." -partitioning detectability components in populations subject to within-season temporary emigration using binomial mixture models,NA,PLOS ONE,O'DONNELL KM;THOMPSON FR;SEMLITSCH RD,"detectability of individual animals is highly variable and nearly always < 1; imperfect detection must be accounted for to reliably estimate population sizes and trends. hierarchical models can simultaneously estimate abundance and effective detection probability, but there are several different mechanisms that cause variation in detectability. neglecting temporary emigration can lead to biased population estimates because availability and conditional detection probability are confounded. in this study, we extend previous hierarchical binomial mixture models to account for multiple sources of variation in detectability. the state process of the hierarchical model describes ecological mechanisms that generate spatial and temporal patterns in abundance, while the observation model accounts for the imperfect nature of counting individuals due to temporary emigration and false absences. we illustrate our model's potential advantages, including the allowance of temporary emigration between sampling periods, with a case study of southern red-backed salamanders plethodon serratus. we fit our model and a standard binomial mixture model to counts of terrestrial salamanders surveyed at 40 sites during 3-5 surveys each spring and fall 2010-2012. our models generated similar parameter estimates to standard binomial mixture models. aspect was the best predictor of salamander abundance in our case study; abundance increased as aspect became more northeasterly. increased time-since-rainfall strongly decreased salamander surface activity (i.e. availability for sampling), while higher amounts of woody cover objects and rocks increased conditional detection probability (i.e. probability of capture, given an animal is exposed to sampling). by explicitly accounting for both components of detectability, we increased congruence between our statistical modeling and our ecological understanding of the system. we stress the importance of choosing survey locations and protocols that maximize species availability and conditional detection probability to increase population parameter estimate reliability." +partitioning detectability components in populations subject to within-season temporary emigration using binomial mixture models,NA,PLOS ONE,O DONNELL KM;THOMPSON FR;SEMLITSCH RD,"detectability of individual animals is highly variable and nearly always < 1; imperfect detection must be accounted for to reliably estimate population sizes and trends. hierarchical models can simultaneously estimate abundance and effective detection probability, but there are several different mechanisms that cause variation in detectability. neglecting temporary emigration can lead to biased population estimates because availability and conditional detection probability are confounded. in this study, we extend previous hierarchical binomial mixture models to account for multiple sources of variation in detectability. the state process of the hierarchical model describes ecological mechanisms that generate spatial and temporal patterns in abundance, while the observation model accounts for the imperfect nature of counting individuals due to temporary emigration and false absences. we illustrate our model's potential advantages, including the allowance of temporary emigration between sampling periods, with a case study of southern red-backed salamanders plethodon serratus. we fit our model and a standard binomial mixture model to counts of terrestrial salamanders surveyed at 40 sites during 3-5 surveys each spring and fall 2010-2012. our models generated similar parameter estimates to standard binomial mixture models. aspect was the best predictor of salamander abundance in our case study; abundance increased as aspect became more northeasterly. increased time-since-rainfall strongly decreased salamander surface activity (i.e. availability for sampling), while higher amounts of woody cover objects and rocks increased conditional detection probability (i.e. probability of capture, given an animal is exposed to sampling). by explicitly accounting for both components of detectability, we increased congruence between our statistical modeling and our ecological understanding of the system. we stress the importance of choosing survey locations and protocols that maximize species availability and conditional detection probability to increase population parameter estimate reliability." no news is good news: mark and recapture for event data when reporting probabilities are less than one,methodology; data; conflict; event history; africa,INTERNATIONAL INTERACTIONS,HENDRIX CS;SALEHYAN I,"we discuss a common, but often ignored, problem in event data: underreporting bias. when collecting data, it is often not the case that source materials capture all events of interest, leading to an undercount of the true number of events. to address this issue, we propose a common method first used to estimate the size of animal populations when a complete census is not feasible: mark and recapture. by taking multiple sources into consideration, one can estimate the rate of missing data across sources and come up with an estimate of the true number of events. to demonstrate the utility of the approach, we compare associated press and agence france press reports on conflict events, as contained in the social conflict in africa database. we show that these sources capture approximately 76% of all events in africa but that the nondetection rate declines dramatically when considering more significant events. we also show through regression analysis that deadly events, events of a larger magnitude, and events with government repression, among others, are significant predictors of overlapping reporting. ultimately, the approach can be used to correct for undercounting in event data and to assess the quality of sources used." "ecological, evolutionary and social constraints on reproductive effort: are hoary marmots really biennial breeders?",NA,PLOS ONE,PATIL VP;KARELS TJ;HIK DS,"biennial breeding is a rare life-history trait observed in animal species living in harsh, unproductive environments. this reproductive pattern is thought to occur in 10 of 14 species in the genus marmota, making marmots useful model organisms for studying its ecological and evolutionary implications. biennial breeding in marmots has been described as an obligate pattern which evolved as a mechanism to mitigate the energetic costs of reproduction (evolved constraint hypothesis). however, recent anecdotal evidence suggests that it is a facultative pattern controlled by annual variation in climate and food availability (environmental constraint hypothesis). finally, in social animals like marmots, biennial breeding could result from reproductive competition between females within social groups (social constraint hypothesis). we evaluated these three hypotheses using mark-recapture data from an 8-year study of hoary marmot (marmota caligata) population dynamics in the yukon. annual variation in breeding probability was modeled using multi-state markrecapture models, while other reproductive life-history traits were modeled with generalized linear mixed models. hoary marmots were neither obligate nor facultative biennial breeders, and breeding probability was insensitive to evolved, environmental, or social factors. however, newly mature females were significantly less likely to breed than older individuals. annual breeding did not result in increased mortality. female survival and, to a lesser extent, average fecundity were correlated with winter climate, as indexed by the pacific decadal oscillation. hoary marmots are less conservative breeders than previously believed, and the evidence for biennial breeding throughout marmota, and in other arctic/alpine/antarctic animals, should be re-examined. prediction of future population dynamics requires an accurate understanding of life history strategies, and of how life history traits allow animals to cope with changes in weather and other demographic influences." "impact of 10-and 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccines on incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease in children aged under 16 years in germany, 2009 to 2012",NA,EUROSURVEILLANCE,WEISS S;FALKENHORST G;VAN DER LINDEN M;IMOHL M;VON KRIES R,"we assessed the impact of 10-valent and 13-valent pneumococcal vaccines (pcv10 and pcv13), which were introduced in germany in 2009, on the incidence of meningitis and non-meningitis invasive pneumococcal disease (ipd) in children aged under 16 years in a population previously vaccinated with a sevenvalent vaccine (pcv7). surveillance of ipd (isolation of streptococcus pneumonia from a normally sterile body site) is based on data from two independent reporting sources: hospitals and laboratories. ipd incidence was estimated by capture-recapture analysis. incidence rate ratios (irrs) were calculated for 2009 and 2012, thus comparing pre-and post-pcv10 and pcv13 data. ipd incidence caused by serotypes included in pcv13 decreased in all age and diagnosis groups. a rise in non-vaccine serotype incidence was seen only in children aged under two years. the overall impact varied by age group and infection site: for meningitis ipd in children aged under 2, 2-4 and 5-15 years, incidence changed by 3% (95% ci: -31 to 52), -60% (95% ci: -81 to -17) and -9% (95% ci: -46 to 53), respectively. a more pronounced incidence reduction was observed for non-meningitis ipd: -30% (95% ci: -46 to -7), -39% (95% ci: -54 to -20) and -83% (95% ci: -89 to -73) in children aged under 2, 2-4 and 5-15 years, respectively. a higher tropism of the additional serotypes for non-meningitis ipd may be a potential explanation. the heterogeneous findings emphasise the need for rigorous surveillance." @@ -2163,10 +2166,10 @@ evaluation of tag mixing assumptions in western pacific ocean skipjack tuna stoc length-based brownie mark-recapture models: derivation and application to indian ocean skipjack tuna,length-based; mark-recapture; brownie model; skipjack tuna,FISHERIES RESEARCH,HILLARY RM;EVESON JP,"standard brownie mark-recapture models follow tagged cohorts of fish meaning an age-based setting is required, but there are many populations for which length-at-age cannot be characterised. this paper details the derivation of a length-based brownie mark-recapture model, with specific application to indian ocean skipjack tuna. instead of following cohorts (often tagged a number of times) the model follows the recapture history of animals tagged in a given length class and period. for indian ocean skipjack reporting rate uncertainty, related to mixing assumptions, is accounted for using two extreme options. various mortality model structures were explored and length-specific natural mortality and a separable model for fishing mortality were ultimately selected. absolute values of fishing and natural mortality depend strongly on the reporting rate assumptions, with total mortality being far more robust to assumptions about reporting rates. estimates of fishing mortality were highest between mid 2006 and mid 2008, reducing thereafter to levels estimated in late 2005/early 2006. (c) 2014 published by elsevier b.v." estimating the size of populations at high risk for hiv using respondent-driven sampling data,hard-to-reach population sampling; model-based survey sampling; network sampling; social networks; successive sampling,BIOMETRICS,HANDCOCK MS;GILE KJ;MAR CM,"the study of hard-to-reach populations presents significant challenges. typically, a sampling frame is not available, and population members are difficult to identify or recruit from broader sampling frames. this is especially true of populations at high risk for hiv/aids. respondent-driven sampling (rds) is often used in such settings with the primary goal of estimating the prevalence of infection. in such populations, the number of people at risk for infection and the number of people infected are of fundamental importance. this article presents a case-study of the estimation of the size of the hard-to-reach population based on data collected through rds. we study two populations of female sex workers and men-who-have-sex-with-men in el salvador. the approach is bayesian and we consider different forms of prior information, including using the unaids population size guidelines for this region. we show that the method is able to quantify the amount of information on population size available in rds samples. as separate validation, we compare our results to those estimated by extrapolating from a capture-recapture study of el salvadorian cities. the results of our case-study are largely comparable to those of the capture-recapture study when they differ from the unaids guidelines. our method is widely applicable to data from rds studies and we provide a software package to facilitate this." antiretroviral treatment coverage for men who have sex with men and female sex workers living with hiv in cameroon,men who have sex with men; female sex workers; hiv; treatment; size estimation,JAIDS-JOURNAL OF ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROMES,HOLLAND CE;PAPWORTH E;BILLONG SC;TAMOUFE U;LEBRETON M;KAMLA A;ELOUNDOU J;MANAGA F;YOMB Y;FOKAM P;GBAIS H;MFOCHIVE I;KETENDE S;BARAL S,"background: men who have sex with men (msm) and female sex workers (fsw) are more likely to be living with hiv and experience difficulty accessing hiv health services due to stigma and discrimination. antiretroviral treatment and sustained viral suppression among individuals living with hiv is the last step in the continuum of hiv care, which has been shown to improve health outcomes and decrease the risk of onward transmission of hiv. methods: to calculate the numerator and denominator for antiretroviral therapy (art) coverage estimates among msm and fsw living with hiv, the priority locations for aids control efforts methods were modified to include individual quantitative interviews, health service assessment and mapping, and size estimation in 7 cities in cameroon. msm and fsw were recruited using peer referral and venue-based sampling. the numerator was calculated from interviews with msm and fsw. population size estimation of msm and fsw was used to determine the denominator. results: antiretroviral coverage varied by site from 0% to 25% among hiv infected msm and fsw. art provision to the general population was reported at a significantly greater proportion of hiv health centers (56.5%) than art provision to msm and fsw populations (13.2%). conclusions: the majority of msm and fsw living with hiv and eligible for treatment in cameroon are not connected to art care. additionally, art provision for msm and fsw at hiv health centers is insufficient. characterizing effective strategies to reach optimal levels of engagement in the continuum of hiv care among msm and fsw is essential for an aids-free generation for cameroon." -"robust estimates of environmental effects on population vital rates: an integrated capture-recapture model of seasonal brook trout growth, survival and movement in a stream network",annual survival; bayesian modelling; capture-mark-recapture; integrated model; movement; sensitivity; stream fish; stream network; survival,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,LETCHER BH;SCHUELLER P;BASSAR RD;NISLOW KH;COOMBS JA;SAKREJDA K;MORRISSEY M;SIGOURNEY DB;WHITELEY AR;O'DONNELL MJ;DUBREUIL TL,"1. modelling the effects of environmental change on populations is a key challenge for ecologists, particularly as the pace of change increases. currently, modelling efforts are limited by difficulties in establishing robust relationships between environmental drivers and population responses. we developed an integrated capture-recapture state-space model to estimate the effects of two key environmental drivers (stream flow and temperature) on demographic rates (body growth, movement and survival) using a long-term (11years), high-resolution (individually tagged, sampled seasonally) data set of brook trout (salvelinus fontinalis) from four sites in a stream network. our integrated model provides an effective context within which to estimate environmental driver effects because it takes full advantage of data by estimating (latent) state values for missing observations, because it propagates uncertainty among model components and because it accounts for the major demographic rates and interactions that contribute to annual survival. we found that stream flow and temperature had strong effects on brook trout demography. some effects, such as reduction in survival associated with low stream flow and high temperature during the summer season, were consistent across sites and age classes, suggesting that they may serve as robust indicators of vulnerability to environmental change. other survival effects varied across ages, sites and seasons, indicating that flow and temperature may not be the primary drivers of survival in those cases. flow and temperature also affected body growth rates; these responses were consistent across sites but differed dramatically between age classes and seasons. finally, we found that tributary and mainstem sites responded differently to variation in flow and temperature. annual survival (combination of survival and body growth across seasons) was insensitive to body growth and was most sensitive to flow (positive) and temperature (negative) in the summer and fall. these observations, combined with our ability to estimate the occurrence, magnitude and direction of fish movement between these habitat types, indicated that heterogeneity in response may provide a mechanism providing potential resilience to environmental change. given that the challenges we faced in our study are likely to be common to many intensive data sets, the integrated modelling approach could be generally applicable and useful." +"robust estimates of environmental effects on population vital rates: an integrated capture-recapture model of seasonal brook trout growth, survival and movement in a stream network",annual survival; bayesian modelling; capture-mark-recapture; integrated model; movement; sensitivity; stream fish; stream network; survival,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,LETCHER BH;SCHUELLER P;BASSAR RD;NISLOW KH;COOMBS JA;SAKREJDA K;MORRISSEY M;SIGOURNEY DB;WHITELEY AR;O DONNELL MJ;DUBREUIL TL,"1. modelling the effects of environmental change on populations is a key challenge for ecologists, particularly as the pace of change increases. currently, modelling efforts are limited by difficulties in establishing robust relationships between environmental drivers and population responses. we developed an integrated capture-recapture state-space model to estimate the effects of two key environmental drivers (stream flow and temperature) on demographic rates (body growth, movement and survival) using a long-term (11years), high-resolution (individually tagged, sampled seasonally) data set of brook trout (salvelinus fontinalis) from four sites in a stream network. our integrated model provides an effective context within which to estimate environmental driver effects because it takes full advantage of data by estimating (latent) state values for missing observations, because it propagates uncertainty among model components and because it accounts for the major demographic rates and interactions that contribute to annual survival. we found that stream flow and temperature had strong effects on brook trout demography. some effects, such as reduction in survival associated with low stream flow and high temperature during the summer season, were consistent across sites and age classes, suggesting that they may serve as robust indicators of vulnerability to environmental change. other survival effects varied across ages, sites and seasons, indicating that flow and temperature may not be the primary drivers of survival in those cases. flow and temperature also affected body growth rates; these responses were consistent across sites but differed dramatically between age classes and seasons. finally, we found that tributary and mainstem sites responded differently to variation in flow and temperature. annual survival (combination of survival and body growth across seasons) was insensitive to body growth and was most sensitive to flow (positive) and temperature (negative) in the summer and fall. these observations, combined with our ability to estimate the occurrence, magnitude and direction of fish movement between these habitat types, indicated that heterogeneity in response may provide a mechanism providing potential resilience to environmental change. given that the challenges we faced in our study are likely to be common to many intensive data sets, the integrated modelling approach could be generally applicable and useful." using fecal dna and spatial capture-recapture to characterize a recent coyote colonization,NA,NORTHEASTERN NATURALIST,BOZARTH CA;GARDNER B;ROCKWOOD LL;MALDONADO JE,"the arrival of a novel predator in an ecosystem necessitates many wildlife-management decisions that should be based on sound demographic data. canis latrans (coyote) has experienced a dramatic range expansion across north america since the early 19th century, completing its colonization of the continental us in the mid-atlantic region over the past 20 years. their arrival in the suburbs of washington, dc, has generated much public attention, and demonstrated a need for demographic information about this species. to address the challenges of surveying an elusive animal, we used fecal dna to describe the population genetics and demographics of a newly colonized coyote population at marine corps base quantico (mcbq) in northern virginia. we collected 331 scats over a period of 2 years at mcbq, resulting in identification of 23 unique individual coyotes and 41 total coyote captures that were analyzed using spatial capture-recapture models. we found evidence of colonization by multiple genetic lineages and a low population density of 0.047 individuals/km(2). importantly, this study incorporates a new class of models on individual animals identified by genotype data derived from fecal dna and demonstrates the utility of these models in surveying elusive animals." "effects of growth rate, size, and light availability on tree survival across life stages: a demographic analysis accounting for missing values and small sample sizes",forest dynamics; mortality; saplings; trees; capture-mark-recapture; northern hardwoods; time-replicated study; observer error; survival analysis; wytham woods,BMC ECOLOGY,MOUSTAKAS A;EVANS MR,"background: plant survival is a key factor in forest dynamics and survival probabilities often vary across life stages. studies specifically aimed at assessing tree survival are unusual and so data initially designed for other purposes often need to be used; such data are more likely to contain errors than data collected for this specific purpose. results: we investigate the survival rates of ten tree species in a dataset designed to monitor growth rates. as some individuals were not included in the census at some time points we use capture-mark-recapture methods both to allow us to account for missing individuals, and to estimate relocation probabilities. growth rates, size, and light availability were included as covariates in the model predicting survival rates. the study demonstrates that tree mortality is best described as constant between years and size-dependent at early life stages and size independent at later life stages for most species of uk hardwood. we have demonstrated that even with a twenty-year dataset it is possible to discern variability both between individuals and between species. conclusions: our work illustrates the potential utility of the method applied here for calculating plant population dynamics parameters in time replicated datasets with small sample sizes and missing individuals without any loss of sample size, and including explanatory covariates." -"early impact of pcv7/pcv13 sequential introduction to the national pediatric immunization plan, on adult invasive pneumococcal disease: a nationwide surveillance study",adult invasive pneumococcal disease; pcv7; pcv13 impact; herd effect; nationwide active surveillance,VACCINE,REGEV-YOCHAY G;PARAN Y;BISHARA J;OREN I;CHOWERS M;TZIBA Y;ISTOMIN V;WEINBERGER M;MIRON D;TEMPER V;RAHAV G;DAGAN R,"background: pcv7 was introduced as a universal childhood vaccination in israel on july 2009 and was gradually replaced by pcv13 from november 2010. we report data on adult invasive pneumococcal disease (ipd), two years post pcv13 implementation. methods: an ongoing nationwide active surveillance (all 27 laboratories performing blood/csf cultures nationwide), initiated in 2009, providing all blood/csf streptococcus pneumoniae isolated from persons >= 18 years. capture-recapture method assured reporting of >95% cases. all isolates were serotyped in one central laboratory. medical history and outcomes were recorded in similar to 90%. results: of 1809 ipd episodes, s. pneumoniae was isolated from the blood in 95% and most cases had pneumonia. predisposing comorbidities were present in >70%. during the four study years, overall ipd incidence decreased from 9.2 to 7.2/100,000, incidence of pneumonia and particularly severe pneumonia cases decreased significantly from 6.6 to 4.7/100,000, (p = 0.029). vaccine type (vt7/vt13) serotypes decreased by 70%/57% within 4 years. this was accompanied by a 52% increase in non-vt13 strains. these changes were most apparent in winter. pcv impact was most pronounced in younger adults (39% decrease in overall ipd with only a non-significant increase in non-vt13 cases) while in those >65 years a non-significant decrease in overall ipd was observed with a 64% increase in non-vt13 cases. non-vt13 serotypes that increased significantly were 12f, 15a 10a and 6 c. a continuous reduction in isolates with penicillin mic> 0.06 mu g/ml was observed (26% to 11%, p < 0.001). conclusions: four years after pcv7 and 2.5 years after pcv13 universal implementation in children, incidence of adult ipd caused by vt7 and vt13 decreased in all ages, mainly in younger adults. despite increase in non-vt13 ipd, overall ipd decreased. additional follow-up is needed to determine the long-term impact of pcv13. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +"early impact of pcv7/pcv13 sequential introduction to the national pediatric immunization plan, on adult invasive pneumococcal disease: a nationwide surveillance study",adult invasive pneumococcal disease; pcv7; pcv13 impact; herd effect; nationwide active surveillance,VACCINE,REGEV YOCHAY G;PARAN Y;BISHARA J;OREN I;CHOWERS M;TZIBA Y;ISTOMIN V;WEINBERGER M;MIRON D;TEMPER V;RAHAV G;DAGAN R,"background: pcv7 was introduced as a universal childhood vaccination in israel on july 2009 and was gradually replaced by pcv13 from november 2010. we report data on adult invasive pneumococcal disease (ipd), two years post pcv13 implementation. methods: an ongoing nationwide active surveillance (all 27 laboratories performing blood/csf cultures nationwide), initiated in 2009, providing all blood/csf streptococcus pneumoniae isolated from persons >= 18 years. capture-recapture method assured reporting of >95% cases. all isolates were serotyped in one central laboratory. medical history and outcomes were recorded in similar to 90%. results: of 1809 ipd episodes, s. pneumoniae was isolated from the blood in 95% and most cases had pneumonia. predisposing comorbidities were present in >70%. during the four study years, overall ipd incidence decreased from 9.2 to 7.2/100,000, incidence of pneumonia and particularly severe pneumonia cases decreased significantly from 6.6 to 4.7/100,000, (p = 0.029). vaccine type (vt7/vt13) serotypes decreased by 70%/57% within 4 years. this was accompanied by a 52% increase in non-vt13 strains. these changes were most apparent in winter. pcv impact was most pronounced in younger adults (39% decrease in overall ipd with only a non-significant increase in non-vt13 cases) while in those >65 years a non-significant decrease in overall ipd was observed with a 64% increase in non-vt13 cases. non-vt13 serotypes that increased significantly were 12f, 15a 10a and 6 c. a continuous reduction in isolates with penicillin mic> 0.06 mu g/ml was observed (26% to 11%, p < 0.001). conclusions: four years after pcv7 and 2.5 years after pcv13 universal implementation in children, incidence of adult ipd caused by vt7 and vt13 decreased in all ages, mainly in younger adults. despite increase in non-vt13 ipd, overall ipd decreased. additional follow-up is needed to determine the long-term impact of pcv13. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." non-invasive genetic study and population monitoring of the brown bear (ursus arctos) (mammalia: ursidae) in kastoria region-greece,brown bear; population status; greece; non-invasive genetic sampling,JOURNAL OF NATURAL HISTORY,TSAPARIS D;KARAISKOU N;MERTZANIS Y;TRIANTAFYLLIDIS A,"the brown bear (ursus arctos) in greece is considered endangered but little is known about the genetic status and the exact size of local populations. non-invasive genetic sampling was used in this study to investigate the genetic diversity and genetic structure of the brown bear population in the kastoria region (northwest macedonia, greece) and to estimate its population size. estimation of demographic parameters was based on innovative, well-evaluated methods that can provide estimates from a single sampling session. dna was extracted from hairs, scat and blood samples and subsequent amplification of 10 microsatellite loci allowed the identification of a minimum number of 75 living bears in the study area while the mark-recapture-based analysis resulted in a point estimation of 219 individuals. relatively high diversity values, lack of heterozygosity deficiency as well as estimated effective population size, support the kastoria bear population having good conservation status." the lyme disease pathogen has no effect on the survival of its rodent reservoir host,NA,PLOS ONE,VOORDOUW MJ;LACHISH S;DOLAN MC,"zoonotic pathogens that cause devastating morbidity and mortality in humans may be relatively harmless in their natural reservoir hosts. the tick-borne bacterium borrelia burgdorferi causes lyme disease in humans but few studies have investigated whether this pathogen reduces the fitness of its reservoir hosts under natural conditions. we analyzed four years of capture-mark-recapture (cmr) data on a population of white-footed mice, peromyscus leucopus, to test whether b. burgdorferi and its tick vector affect the survival of this important reservoir host. we used a multi-state cmr approach to model mouse survival and mouse infection rates as a function of a variety of ecologically relevant explanatory factors. we found no effect of b. burgdorferi infection or tick burden on the survival of p. leucopus. our estimates of the probability of infection varied by an order of magnitude (0.051 to 0.535) and were consistent with our understanding of lyme disease in the northeastern united states. b. burgdorferi establishes a chronic avirulent infection in their rodent reservoir hosts because this pathogen depends on rodent mobility to achieve transmission to its sedentary tick vector. the estimates of b. burgdorferi infection risk will facilitate future theoretical studies on the epidemiology of lyme disease." home ranges and spatial segregation of cod gadus morhua spawning components,data storage tags; homing; straying; migration; population structure,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,SOLMUNDSSON J;JONSDOTTIR IG;BJORNSSON B;RAGNARSSON SA;TOMASSON GG;THORSTEINSSON V,"the study analyses the home ranges and spatial segregation of spawning components of icelandic cod gadus morhua based on: (1) conventional tag (ct) recaptures and (2) depth, temperature and tidal locations from electronic data storage tags (dsts). a total of 5987 ct recapture positions from tagging in geographically distinct spawning grounds from 1991 to 2008 were used in the home range analysis. despite long-distance feeding migrations conducted by individuals within all groups and feeding home ranges of 25 000 to 125 000 km(2), the study revealed a low spatial overlap among a number of spawning components throughout the year. a high fidelity to spawning grounds within most spawning components studied further indicates a strong spatial structure within the cod population. results from cts and home range analysis were supported by geographical tidal locations from dsts. on the other hand, data from 235 dsts indicate that foraging migrations to depths of 400 to 800 m are underrepresented by conventional mark-recapture methods. this study contributes to the growing knowledge of the within-population diversity and demographic structure of cod and further emphasizes the need for considering these factors in fishery management." @@ -2178,17 +2181,17 @@ a forest-grassland boundary enhances patch quality for a grassland-dwelling butt evaluation of various public health infectious diseases surveillance systems based on a generic protocol,evaluation; surveillance; public health,REVUE D EPIDEMIOLOGIE ET DE SANTE PUBLIQUE,HERIDA M;DESENCLOS JC,"background. - invs, the french institute of public health, coordinates and conducts several public health surveillance systems. in 2009, an evaluation protocol aiming at evaluating different surveillance systems was developed according to the international recommendations. methods. - between 2009 and 2013, four evaluations in the field of infectious diseases were performed by panels of independent public health experts using a generic protocol. results - conclusion. - this article presents the protocol, the mains results of each of the four evaluations and their impact on the institute's surveillance strategy. it also addresses the strengths and the limitations of this standardized approach. (c) 2014 elsevier masson sas. all rights reserved." "site fidelity, survival and conservation options for the threatened flapper skate (dipturus cf. intermedia)",dipturus cf; intermedia; acoustic telemetry; capture-mark-recapture; data storage tags; marine protected areas,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,NEAT F;PINTO C;BURRETT I;COWIE L;TRAVIS J;THORBURN J;GIBB F;WRIGHT PJ,"1. in order to evaluate if marine protected areas (mpas) can be expected to confer conservation benefits to large, mobile marine species it is important to assess their site fidelity and habitat ranging patterns. the flapper skate (dipterus cf. intermedia) is a large, threatened elasmobranch for which mpas are being considered on the west coast of scotland. to inform mpa establishment, a multiannual mark-recapture programme, a year-long static array acoustic study and an archival tagging study of flapper skate were undertaken. 2. capture-mark-recapture (cmr) modelling of 280 individuals indicated significant heterogeneity in the recapture rate suggesting the region contained a mixture of site-attached (resident) and vagrant (transient) individuals. the analysis estimated that 100-400 resident individuals were present in the study area. the number of transient individuals was estimated at around 25% of all those tagged. the average annual survival probability of resident individuals was estimated to be 0.64. 3. the acoustic study of 20 individuals demonstrated that over half were resident on a day-by-day basis for months at a time. three individuals were detected over the entire year. two individuals moved away immediately after tagging and over half moved out of the study area in the springtime. 4. three data storage tags revealed that resident individuals utilized most of the available depth habitat (6-205m) in the area and occasionally visited deeper areas outside the immediate study area. 5. the results indicate that the establishment of a mpa would confer conservation benefits to flapper skate in the area. management should consider all depths in the study area, areas beyond the study site, and alternative conservation measures such as technical gear measures for fisheries. this study has implications for the conservation and management of similar long-lived, mobile marine species. (c) 2014 crown copyright. aquatic conservation: marine and freshwater ecosystems (c) 2014 john wiley & sons, ltd." "the abundance of common bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in the former special marine reserve of the cres-losinj archipelago, croatia",common bottlenose dolphin; tursiops truncatus; abundance; population size; adriatic; conservation; ecology; protected area,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,PLESLIC G;GOSPIC NR;MACKELWORTH P;WIEMANN A;HOLCER D;FORTUNA C,"1. there is a resident common bottlenose dolphin population inhabiting the kvarneri area of the northern adriatic sea, croatia. the observed decline in population size between 1995 and 2003 led to the declaration of a part of the kvarneri as the cres-loinj special marine reserve (clsmr) in 2006. protection lasted 3 years, before lapsing. 2. a boat based photo-identification study was conducted between 2004 and 2011 with the aim to estimate the number of bottlenose dolphins inhabiting the clsmr area, investigate the factors influencing their habitat use and explore the possibility that this area is representative of the population for the whole kvarneri. 3. standard mark-recapture methods and the m-th estimator of chao for closed populations were applied. the lowest value was estimated in 2008 (n=112; 95% ci=94-150) and the highest in 2006 (n=310; 95% ci=265-392). the statistically significant inter-annual variability is likely to reflect natural and anthropogenic driven shifts in habitat use rather than real changes in population size. 4. the average monthly sighting rate was lower in the tourist season (jun-aug) than in the pre- and post tourist-season, suggesting that developed nautical tourism may influence shifts in habitat use. other potential causes are distribution of prey and fishing effort. 5. inclusion of data from the rest of the kvarneri for the years of 2005 and 2011 did not reveal a significant increase in estimated abundance (2005: z=-0.413, p=0.3398; 2011: z=-1.749, p=0.0401). this indicates that the clsmr area is representative of the whole kvarneri. 6. the number of bottlenose dolphins using the clsmr area seems to have increased compared with the previous study (1995-2003). this could be due to a shift in habitat use or an increase in population size. however, yearly variations indicate processes causing displacements within the dolphin population home range. conservation measures aiming at reducing the displacements are proposed. copyright (c) 2013 john wiley & sons, ltd." -seasonal movement patterns and long-range dispersal of asian citrus psyllid in florida citrus,citrus greening; mark-recapture; huanglongbing; immunomarking; elisa,JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY,LEWIS-ROSENBLUM H;MARTINI X;TIWARI S;STELINSKI LL,"the asian citrus psyllid, diaphorina citri kuwayama, is the vector of the bacterial pathogen, candidatus liberibacter asiaticus, which is the causal agent of huanglongbing (hlb) in the united states. both short-range and long-range dispersal of d. citri adults affect the spread of hlb; however, little is known about the long-range dispersal capabilities of d. citri in the field or the seasonality of flight behavior. in the present study, an in situ protein marking technique was used to determine the dispersal of d. citri by trapping marked adults under natural field conditions. d. citri movement from abandoned citrus groves to adjacent managed citrus groves was greatest during the spring and summer months and decreased significantly during the colder months (september-march). d. citri were able to traverse potential geographic barriers such as roads and fallow fields. in an experiment conducted to determine long-range dispersal capacity in the absence of severe weather events, d. citri were able to disperse at least 2 km within 12 d. wind direction was not correlated with the number of marked psyllids captured, indicating substantial flight capability by d. citri. finally, the number of marked psyllids captured increased with the density of emerging young leaves on surrounding trees. the results confirm that abandoned citrus groves in florida serve as reservoirs for d. citri, which can disperse across long distances despite geographical barriers." +seasonal movement patterns and long-range dispersal of asian citrus psyllid in florida citrus,citrus greening; mark-recapture; huanglongbing; immunomarking; elisa,JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY,LEWIS ROSENBLUM H;MARTINI X;TIWARI S;STELINSKI LL,"the asian citrus psyllid, diaphorina citri kuwayama, is the vector of the bacterial pathogen, candidatus liberibacter asiaticus, which is the causal agent of huanglongbing (hlb) in the united states. both short-range and long-range dispersal of d. citri adults affect the spread of hlb; however, little is known about the long-range dispersal capabilities of d. citri in the field or the seasonality of flight behavior. in the present study, an in situ protein marking technique was used to determine the dispersal of d. citri by trapping marked adults under natural field conditions. d. citri movement from abandoned citrus groves to adjacent managed citrus groves was greatest during the spring and summer months and decreased significantly during the colder months (september-march). d. citri were able to traverse potential geographic barriers such as roads and fallow fields. in an experiment conducted to determine long-range dispersal capacity in the absence of severe weather events, d. citri were able to disperse at least 2 km within 12 d. wind direction was not correlated with the number of marked psyllids captured, indicating substantial flight capability by d. citri. finally, the number of marked psyllids captured increased with the density of emerging young leaves on surrounding trees. the results confirm that abandoned citrus groves in florida serve as reservoirs for d. citri, which can disperse across long distances despite geographical barriers." q fever is underestimated in the united states: a comparison of fatal q fever cases from two national reporting systems,NA,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE,DAHLGREN FS;HABERLING DL;MCQUISTON JH,"two national surveillance systems capturing reports of fatal q fever were compared with obtained estimates of q fever underreporting in the united states using capture recapture methods. during 2000-2011, a total of 33 unique fatal q fever cases were reported through case report forms submitted to the centers for disease control and prevention and through u.s. death certificate data. a single case matched between both data sets, yielding an estimated 129 fatal cases (95% confidence interval [ci] = 62-1,250) during 2000-2011. fatal cases of q fever were underreported through case report forms by an estimated factor of 14 and through death certificates by an estimated factor of 5.2." integrated survival analysis using an event-time approach in a bayesian framework,charadrius montanus; continuous time; detection probability; event time; hazard rate; mountain plover; simulation; survival; unknown fate,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,WALSH DP;DREITZ VJ;HEISEY DM,"event-time or continuous-time statistical approaches have been applied throughout the biostatistical literature and have led to numerous scientific advances. however, these techniques have traditionally relied on knowing failure times. this has limited application of these analyses, particularly, within the ecological field where fates of marked animals may be unknown. to address these limitations, we developed an integrated approach within a bayesian framework to estimate hazard rates in the face of unknown fates. we combine failure/survival times from individuals whose fates are known and times of which are interval-censored with information from those whose fates are unknown, and model the process of detecting animals with unknown fates. this provides the foundation for our integrated model and permits necessary parameter estimation. we provide the bayesian model, its derivation, and use simulation techniques to investigate the properties and performance of our approach under several scenarios. lastly, we apply our estimation technique using a piece-wise constant hazard function to investigate the effects of year, age, chick size and sex, sex of the tending adult, and nesting habitat on mortality hazard rates of the endangered mountain plover (charadrius montanus) chicks. traditional models were inappropriate for this analysis because fates of some individual chicks were unknown due to failed radio transmitters. simulations revealed biases of posterior mean estimates were minimal ( 4.95%), and posterior distributions behaved as expected with rmse of the estimates decreasing as sample sizes, detection probability, and survival increased. we determined mortality hazard rates for plover chicks were highest at <5days old and were lower for chicks with larger birth weights and/or whose nest was within agricultural habitats. based on its performance, our approach greatly expands the range of problems for which event-time analyses can be used by eliminating the need for having completely known fate data." move it or lose it: movement and mortality of sablefish tagged in alaska,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,HANSELMAN DH;HEIFETZ J;ECHAVE KB;DRESSEL SC,"a basic step in understanding the dynamics of a fish population is to quantify movement and mortality rates. conventional mark-recapture experiments have provided the foundation for studies on animal movement, particularly for fish. previous studies have shown rapid mixing of sablefish (anoplopoma fimbria) among fishery regulatory areas, with the pattern of movement related to fish size. over 300 000 tag releases in alaska and over 27 000 tag recoveries from 1979 to 2009 were analyzed. we used a markov model to quantify annual movement probabilities among areas for three size groups of sablefish. the negative-binomial likelihood was used to model the tag-recovery data because of significant overdispersion. annual movement probabilities were high, ranging from 10% to 88% depending on area of occupancy at each time step and size group. overall, movement probabilities were very different between areas of occupancy and moderately different between size groups. estimated annual movement of small sablefish from the central gulf of alaska had the reverse pattern of a previous study, with 29% moving westward and 39% moving eastward. movement probabilities also varied annually, with decreasing movement until the late 1990s and increasing movement until 2009. year-specific magnitude in movement probability of large fish was highly negatively correlated with female spawning biomass estimates from the federal stock assessment. mean mortality estimates from time at liberty were similar to the federal stock assessment. incorporating these tag-recovery and movement data into a fully age-structured spatial stock assessment model will inform harvest apportionment strategies to conserve spawning biomass and maximize future yields." estimating cumulative exposure of wildlife to non-lethal disturbance using spatially explicit capture-recapture models,cumulative effects; encounter intensity; encounter probability; habitat use; marine mammal; minke whale; photo-id; spatial ecology; tourism impact,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CHRISTIANSEN F;BERTULLI CG;RASMUSSEN MH;LUSSEAU D,"impact assessments often focus on short-term behavioral responses of animals to human disturbance. however, the cumulative effects caused by repeated behavioral disruptions are of management concern because these effects have the potential to influence individuals' survival and reproduction. we need to estimate individual exposure rates to disturbance to determine cumulative effects. we present a new approach to estimate the spatial exposure of minke whales to whalewatching boats in faxafloi bay, iceland. we used recent advances in spatially explicit capture-recapture modeling to estimate the probability that whales would encounter a disturbance (i.e., whalewatching boat). we obtained spatially explicit individual encounter histories of individually identifiable animals using photo-identification. we divided the study area into 1-km(2) grid cells and considered each cell a spatially distinct sampling unit. we used capture history of individuals to model and estimate spatial encounter probabilities of individual minke whales across the study area, accounting for heterogeneity in sampling effort. we inferred the exposure of individual minke whales to whalewatching vessels throughout the feeding season by estimating individual whale encounters with vessels using the whale encounter probabilities and spatially explicit whalewatching intensity in the same area, obtained from recorded whalewatching vessel tracks. we then estimated the cumulative time whales spent with whalewatching boats to assess the biological significance of whalewatching disturbances. the estimated exposure levels to boats varied considerably between individuals because of both temporal and spatial variations in the activity centers of whales and the whalewatching intensity in the area. however, although some whales were repeatedly exposed to whalewatching boats throughout the feeding season, the estimated cumulative time they spent with boats was very low. although whalewatching boat interactions caused feeding disruptions for the whales, the estimated low cumulative exposure indicated that the whalewatching industry in its current state likely is not having any long-term negative effects on vital rates. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." -costs and benefits of late nesting in cliff swallows,cliff swallow; cost of reproduction; ectoparasites; fecundity; life history; petrochelidon pyrrhonota; reproductive phenology; survival; time of breeding,OECOLOGIA,BROWN CR;ROCHE EA;O'BRIEN VA,"many organisms of temperate latitudes exhibit declines in reproductive success as the breeding season advances. experiments can delay the onset of reproduction for early breeders to investigate the consequences of late nesting, but it is rarely possible to observe a distinct second round of nesting in species that normally nest only once. the colonial cliff swallow (petrochelidon pyrrhonota) is a migratory songbird that has a relatively short breeding season in the western great plains, usa, with birds rarely nesting late in the summer. previous work suggested that ectoparasitism is a primary reason why reproductive success in this species declines over the summer. at colony sites where nests were fumigated to remove ectoparasitic swallow bugs (oeciacus vicarius), cliff swallows frequently undertook a distinct round of late nesting after previously fledging young that year. mark-recapture revealed that late-nesting pairs at these colonies produced fewer offspring that survived to the next breeding season, and that survival of late-nesting adults was lower during the next year, relative to pairs nesting earlier in the season. these reproductive costs applied in the absence of ectoparasites and likely reflect other environmental costs of late nesting such as seasonal declines in food availability or a delayed start of fall migration. despite the costs, the estimated fitness for perennial early-and-late nesters in the absence of ectoparasites was equivalent to that of birds that nested only early in the season. the collective disadvantages of late nesting likely constrain most cliff swallows to raising a single brood in the middle latitudes of north america." -is allometry of sexual traits adaptive? a field test with territorial damselflies,field; fitness; insect; mating success; survival,BIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY,BELLO-BEDOY R;GONZALEZ-SANTOYO I;SERRANO-MENESES MA;VRECH D;RIVAS M;MUNGUIA-STEYER R;CORDOBA-AGUILAR A,"recent studies have linked static allometry of sexual traits to selective advantages, in terms of sexual selection. an underlying, yet untested, assumption is that the allometry of sexual traits confers higher mating success and/or survival. here, we investigated whether the allometry of two sexual traits is related to male mating success and survival in two species of damselflies: wing size in paraphlebia zoe and the red-pigmented wing spot in hetaerina americana. we used large field-based data sets of marked-recaptured animals, in which we recorded male mating success and survival. both sexual traits exhibited hyperallometric patterns; however, allometry was not linked to either mating success or survival. these results indicate that, at least during the period of sexual competition, allometry does not seem to be adaptive. although our results may only apply to our damselfly study subjects (which nevertheless would require further tests in different seasons and/or study sites), our findings should encourage researchers to evaluate at least whether the assumed adaptiveness of sexual trait allometry holds for their study animals.(c) 2015 the linnean society of london, biological journal of the linnean society, 2015, 114, 327-334." +costs and benefits of late nesting in cliff swallows,cliff swallow; cost of reproduction; ectoparasites; fecundity; life history; petrochelidon pyrrhonota; reproductive phenology; survival; time of breeding,OECOLOGIA,BROWN CR;ROCHE EA;O BRIEN VA,"many organisms of temperate latitudes exhibit declines in reproductive success as the breeding season advances. experiments can delay the onset of reproduction for early breeders to investigate the consequences of late nesting, but it is rarely possible to observe a distinct second round of nesting in species that normally nest only once. the colonial cliff swallow (petrochelidon pyrrhonota) is a migratory songbird that has a relatively short breeding season in the western great plains, usa, with birds rarely nesting late in the summer. previous work suggested that ectoparasitism is a primary reason why reproductive success in this species declines over the summer. at colony sites where nests were fumigated to remove ectoparasitic swallow bugs (oeciacus vicarius), cliff swallows frequently undertook a distinct round of late nesting after previously fledging young that year. mark-recapture revealed that late-nesting pairs at these colonies produced fewer offspring that survived to the next breeding season, and that survival of late-nesting adults was lower during the next year, relative to pairs nesting earlier in the season. these reproductive costs applied in the absence of ectoparasites and likely reflect other environmental costs of late nesting such as seasonal declines in food availability or a delayed start of fall migration. despite the costs, the estimated fitness for perennial early-and-late nesters in the absence of ectoparasites was equivalent to that of birds that nested only early in the season. the collective disadvantages of late nesting likely constrain most cliff swallows to raising a single brood in the middle latitudes of north america." +is allometry of sexual traits adaptive? a field test with territorial damselflies,field; fitness; insect; mating success; survival,BIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY,BELLO BEDOY R;GONZALEZ SANTOYO I;SERRANO MENESES MA;VRECH D;RIVAS M;MUNGUIA STEYER R;CORDOBA AGUILAR A,"recent studies have linked static allometry of sexual traits to selective advantages, in terms of sexual selection. an underlying, yet untested, assumption is that the allometry of sexual traits confers higher mating success and/or survival. here, we investigated whether the allometry of two sexual traits is related to male mating success and survival in two species of damselflies: wing size in paraphlebia zoe and the red-pigmented wing spot in hetaerina americana. we used large field-based data sets of marked-recaptured animals, in which we recorded male mating success and survival. both sexual traits exhibited hyperallometric patterns; however, allometry was not linked to either mating success or survival. these results indicate that, at least during the period of sexual competition, allometry does not seem to be adaptive. although our results may only apply to our damselfly study subjects (which nevertheless would require further tests in different seasons and/or study sites), our findings should encourage researchers to evaluate at least whether the assumed adaptiveness of sexual trait allometry holds for their study animals.(c) 2015 the linnean society of london, biological journal of the linnean society, 2015, 114, 327-334." mark - recapture investigation on octopus vulgaris specimens in an area of the central western mediterranean sea,octopus vulgaris; tagging; growth; growth curves; mediterranean sea,JOURNAL OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM,MEREU M;AGUS B;CANNAS R;CAU A;COLUCCIA E;CUCCU D,"t-bar anchor tags and petersen discs were used during a preliminary mark-recapture experiment in the wild on 268 octopus vulgaris. discs, despite causing some injuries, were characterized by a quicker healing (within 5 days) and a higher retention rate than t-bar tags (about 97% versus 22%, respectively), therefore they were considered the best technique for tagging the animals in the subsequent growth studies. from 2010 to 2013, a total of 1604 o. vulgaris (74.4% with a total weight <300 g) were tagged with discs and released in an area of the central western sardinian sea (western mediterranean sea). ninety-one specimens were recaptured after 4-63 days of freedom, 59 of which (31 males and 28 females) showed positive growth increments after a minimum time of 8 days at liberty. in general, a high individual variability (0.96-9.09 g day(1)) and higher mean daily growth rates in females (3.07-3.65 g day(1)) than in males (2.08-2.98 g day(1)) were recorded, but this difference was not statistically significant. using tag-recapture data, the first exponential growth curves for both sexes of octopus vulgaris of small-medium size from the mediterranean sea were obtained, and compared with those available in the literature for the species." community-acquired bone and joint infections in children: a 1-year prospective epidemiological study,NA,ARCHIVES OF DISEASE IN CHILDHOOD,MITHA A;BOUTRY N;NECTOUX E;PETYT C;LAGREE M;HAPPIETTE L;MARTINOT A;DUBOS F,"background the incidence of childhood bone and joint infections (bjis) is not well known, but is useful for identifying epidemiological differences and improving practice. objective to determine the incidence of bji in previously well children and describe their clinical, laboratory and radiological characteristics. design a multicentre, population-based, prospective study performed from july 2008 through june 2009. setting region of northern france with a population of 872 516 children <16 years old. patients all previously well children admitted in the region with septic arthritis, acute osteomyelitis or spondylodiscitis, diagnosed according to consensus criteria and after blinded radiological review. main outcome measures the corrected incidence of bji, determined with a capture-recapture method that used this prospective database and the discharge summary database. results 58 cases were identified (median age: 3.6 years, range: 1 month-15.8 years; male to female ratio: 1.6). the completeness of the prospective database was 90%. the corrected incidence of any bji was 7.1/100 000 children (95% ci 5.3 to 8.9). thirty patients had septic arthritis (52%, incidence: 3.7/100 000; 95% ci 2.4 to 4.9), 24 osteomyelitis (41%, incidence 3.0/100 000; 95% ci 1.8 to 4.1), 4 spondylodiscitis (7%) and 0 osteoarthritis. micro-organisms were identified from 15 patients (26%), with staphylococcus aureus the most frequent organism. radiological findings were characteristic of infection in 44% of bji. conclusions the corrected incidence of bji in northern france, according to consensus diagnostic criteria, was 7.1/100 000 children <16 years of age." "coexistence of the endangered, endemic chittenango ovate amber snail (novisuccinea chittenangoensis) and a non-native competitor",non-native species; competition; coexistence; succineid snails; endangered species; endemic species,BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS,CAMPBELL SP;FRAIR JL;GIBBS JP;RUNDELL RJ,"distinguishing between non-native species that coexist with native species and those that threaten their persistence is critical for conservation and management. we investigated this distinction for a non-native terrestrial snail (succinea sp.) (sp. b) that occurs with the closely-related chittenango ovate amber snail (novisuccinea chittenangoensis) (coas), an endangered species that is restricted to a single, known site. in 2008 and 2009, we performed ex situ competition experiments to examine the effects of density and body size of sp. b on growth and mortality of coas. we also conducted mark-recapture surveys from 2002 to 2009 to document trends of the in situ population of coas and to identify spatio-temporal factors that may mitigate any competitive interactions between coas and sp. b. we observed lower growth rates and higher mortality rates of coas at higher densities and larger sizes of sp. b, indicating that the species compete. nevertheless, population trends indicated that coas population size was fluctuating but not in decline, and the spatial distribution, phenology, and size structure of each species indicated that there were enough mitigating factors to allow coas to persist in the presence of sp. b. collectively, these results suggest that temporal niche partitioning resulting from a trade-off between growth and longevity of each species may enable their coexistence. our results also suggest that control of sp. b is unnecessary and, more generally, underscore the importance of conducting research aimed at understanding the effects of non-native species before instituting long-term, costly, and potentially unnecessary control measures." -pine marten (martes martes) abundance in an insular mountainous region using non-invasive techniques,martes martes; non-invasive; abundance; capture-mark-recapture; secr,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,O'MAHONY DT;TURNER P;O'REILLY C,"despite their often high conservation status and international obligations to undertake regular population surveillance, the status of pine marten (martes martes) in many countries remains poorly understood. we conducted a non-invasive survey to determine the abundance of pine marten in forested habitat located within a 360 km(2) mountainous region of northern ireland. we deployed 126 hair tubes between june and november during which 4 sampling sessions occurred, each lasting approximately 10 days. hair samples were collected and analysed using genetic techniques to confirm species identity, sex and provide individual identity profiles. genotyping success rates increased with the number of hairs in a sample and were significantly greater with sample sizes of a parts per thousand yen10 hairs (chi (2) = 15.1, df 1, p < 0.005). abundance estimates for the adult breeding population were 23 individuals (95 % ci 15-31). sex ratio data were 61 % male and 39 % female, suggesting that 14 males and 9 females were present in the breeding population. the total population abundance of pine marten, including breeding adults and annual juvenile recruitment, was estimated at 32 (95 % ci 31-35). mean pine marten density was 0.53 per km(2) of forest habitat and was within the range of densities found for the species in europe. a breeding population in the low 20's was considered small, and further research is needed on factors that may impact on the population including habitat management, connectivity and mortality. non-invasive surveys provided conservation relevant data within a relatively short temporal period." +pine marten (martes martes) abundance in an insular mountainous region using non-invasive techniques,martes martes; non-invasive; abundance; capture-mark-recapture; secr,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,O MAHONY DT;TURNER P;O REILLY C,"despite their often high conservation status and international obligations to undertake regular population surveillance, the status of pine marten (martes martes) in many countries remains poorly understood. we conducted a non-invasive survey to determine the abundance of pine marten in forested habitat located within a 360 km(2) mountainous region of northern ireland. we deployed 126 hair tubes between june and november during which 4 sampling sessions occurred, each lasting approximately 10 days. hair samples were collected and analysed using genetic techniques to confirm species identity, sex and provide individual identity profiles. genotyping success rates increased with the number of hairs in a sample and were significantly greater with sample sizes of a parts per thousand yen10 hairs (chi (2) = 15.1, df 1, p < 0.005). abundance estimates for the adult breeding population were 23 individuals (95 % ci 15-31). sex ratio data were 61 % male and 39 % female, suggesting that 14 males and 9 females were present in the breeding population. the total population abundance of pine marten, including breeding adults and annual juvenile recruitment, was estimated at 32 (95 % ci 31-35). mean pine marten density was 0.53 per km(2) of forest habitat and was within the range of densities found for the species in europe. a breeding population in the low 20's was considered small, and further research is needed on factors that may impact on the population including habitat management, connectivity and mortality. non-invasive surveys provided conservation relevant data within a relatively short temporal period." weighted likelihood recapture estimation of detection probabilities from an ice-based survey of bowhead whales,recapture uncertainty; mis-identification; independent observers; relevance weighting,ENVIRONMETRICS,GIVENS GH;EDMONDSON SL;GEORGE JC;TUDOR B;DELONG RA;SUYDAM R,"estimating visual detection probabilities of migrating western arctic bowhead whales from independent observers on two ice-based perches presents challenges that cannot be resolved using standard capture-recapture methods. distant visual sighting and resighting of intermittent whale surfacings is very unlike recapturing banded birds or tagged fish. we develop several bias correction strategies that are essential to confront difficulties introduced by sighting ambiguities, match uncertainty, group size inconsistencies, and the survey protocol. these are implemented using a weighted likelihood adaptation of a standard capture-recapture model. this model estimates the relationship between detection probabilities and covariates associated with the sighting. we present a complete analysis of the bowhead example and discuss how the data configuration, weighting, and estimation methods presented here highlight issues that are confronted in the analysis of many other complex capture-recapture datasets. copyright (c) 2014 john wiley & sons, ltd." "estimating spatial, temporal and individual variability in dolphin cumulative exposure to boat traffic using spatially explicit capture-recapture methods",bayesian modelling; capture-recapture; disturbance; dolphin; exposure rate; home range; marine traffic; tursiops truncatus,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,PIROTTA E;THOMPSON PM;CHENEY B;DONOVAN CR;LUSSEAU D,"appropriate management of the effects of human activities on animal populations requires quantification of the rate at which animals encounter stressors. such activities are heterogeneously distributed in space, as are the individual animals in a population. this will result in a heterogeneous exposure rate, which is also likely to vary over time. a spatially explicit analysis of individual exposure is therefore required. we applied bayesian spatially explicit capture-recapture models to photo-identification data to estimate the home range of well-marked individuals in a protected coastal population of bottlenose dolphins. model results were combined with the estimated distribution of boat traffic to quantify how exposure to this disturbance varied in time and space. variability in exposure between individuals was also investigated using a mixed-effects model. the cumulative individual exposure to boat traffic varied between summers, depending both on the overall area usage and the degree of individual movement around the activity centres. despite this variability, regions of higher risk could be identified. there were marked inter-individual differences in the predicted amount of time dolphins spent in the presence of boats, and individuals tended to be consistently over- or underexposed across summers. our study offers a framework to describe the temporal, spatial and individual variation in exposure to anthropogenic stressors when individuals can be repeatedly identified over time. it provides opportunities to map exposure risk and understand how this evolves in time at both individual and population levels. the outcome of such modelling can be used as a robust evidence base to support management decisions." female weddell seals show flexible strategies of colony attendance related to varying environmental conditions,animal movement; colony attendance; leptonychotes weddellii; life history; mark-recapture; ross sea; antarctica; sea-ice extent; seasonal migration; temporary emigration; unobservable state; weddell seal,ECOLOGY,CHAMBERT T;ROTELLA JJ;GARROTT RA,"many animal life cycles involve movements among different habitats to fulfill varying resource demands. there are inherent costs associated with such movements, and the decision to leave or stay at a given location ought to be motivated by the benefits associated with potential target habitats. because movement patterns, especially those associated with reproduction, can have important implications for the success (survival, reproduction) of individual animals, and therefore a population's dynamics, it is important to identify and understand their sources of variation (environmental and individual). here, using a mark-recapture, multistate modeling approach, we investigated a set of a priori hypotheses regarding sources and patterns of variation in breeding-colony attendance for weddell seal (leptonychotes weddellii) females on sabbatical from pup production. for such females, colony attendance might be motivated by predation avoidance and positive social interactions related to reproduction, but some costs, such as reduced foraging opportunities or aggressive interactions with conspecifics, might also exist. we expected these benefits and costs to vary with a female's condition and the environment. results revealed that the probability of being absent from colonies was higher (1) in years when the extent of local sea ice was larger, (2) for the youngest and oldest individuals, and (3) for females with less reproductive experience. we also found substantial levels of residual individual heterogeneity in these rates. based on our a priori predictions, we postulate that the decision to attend breeding colonies or not is directly influenced by an individual's physiological condition, as well as by the ice-covered distance to good foraging areas, availability of predator-free haul-out sites, and the level of negative interactions with conspecifics inside colonies. our results support the idea that in iteroparous species, and colonial animals in particular, seasonal and temporary movements from/to reproductive sites represent flexible behavioral strategies that can play an important role in coping with environmental variability." @@ -2196,7 +2199,7 @@ likelihood analysis of spatial capture-recapture models for stratified or class timing and environmental cues associated with triggering of reproductive activity in atlantic forest marsupials,didelphids; breeding season; neotropical marsupials; reproduction; survival rates,MAMMALIAN BIOLOGY,BARROS CS;PUTTKER T;PARDINI R,"seasonal reproduction during the time when food availability is high is a widespread strategy in marsupials, which maximizes offspring survival. in australian marsupials, reproduction is commonly synchronous among co-occurring species, the onset of reproduction being triggered by photoperiodic cues. in a subset of these species, partial semelparity with high mortality of males after reproduction is a common pattern. for neotropical marsupials, however, environmental triggers of reproduction have been poorly studied despite some evidence of a seasonal synchronous reproduction, and semelparity has been described in few species. using a capture-recapture dataset of co-occurring marsupials in the atlantic forest sampled for two years, we aim to investigate the timing and triggering of reproductive activity as well as the occurrence of semelparity in neotropical small marsupials. we evaluated which environmental cues (rainfall, photoperiod and temperature) best explain the age structure of the populations of gracilinanus microtarsus, marmosops incanus, marmosops paulensis, monodelphis americana, monodelphis scalops and monodelphis iheringi. for the most common species we also tested for the occurrence of semelparity by assessing if survival rate is affected by sex and mating period. our results indicate that reproduction onset seems to be synchronous among species and driven by photoperiod cues. in all species, reproduction is seasonal with juveniles being born and lactation occurring in the period of highest food availability, the warm-wet season. further, semelparity is likely to be the cause of a high population turnover in marmosops incanus, and probably also in co-occurring marsupials. (c) 2014 deutsche gesellschaft fur saugetierkunde. published by elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." modelling non-euclidean movement and landscape connectivity in highly structured ecological networks,abundance; animal movement; dendritic ecological network; density; ecological distance; functional connectivity; habitat network; stream distance; structural connectivity,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SUTHERLAND C;FULLER AK;ROYLE JA,"movement is influenced by landscape structure, configuration and geometry, but measuring distance as perceived by animals poses technical and logistical challenges. instead, movement is typically measured using euclidean distance, irrespective of location or landscape structure, or is based on arbitrary cost surfaces. a recently proposed extension of spatial capture-recapture (scr) models resolves this issue using spatial encounter histories of individuals to calculate least-cost paths (ecological distance: ecology, 94, 2013, 287) thereby relaxing the euclidean assumption. we evaluate the consequences of not accounting for movement heterogeneity when estimating abundance in highly structured landscapes, and demonstrate the value of this approach for estimating biologically realistic space-use patterns and landscape connectivity. we simulated scr data in a riparian habitat network, using the ecological distance model under a range of scenarios where space-use in and around the landscape was increasingly associated with water (i.e. increasingly less euclidean). to assess the influence of miscalculating distance on estimates of population size, we compared the results from the ecological and euclidean distance based models. we then demonstrate that the ecological distance model can be used to estimate home range geometry when space use is not symmetrical. finally, we provide a method for calculating landscape connectivity based on modelled species-landscape interactions generated from capture-recapture data. using ecological distance always produced unbiased estimates of abundance. explicitly modelling the strength of the species-landscape interaction provided a direct measure of landscape connectivity and better characterised true home range geometry. abundance under the euclidean distance model was increasingly (negatively) biased as space use was more strongly associated with water and, because home ranges are assumed to be symmetrical, produced poor characterisations of home range geometry and no information about landscape connectivity. the ecological distance scr model uses spatially indexed capture-recapture data to estimate how activity patterns are influenced by landscape structure. as well as reducing bias in estimates of abundance, this approach provides biologically realistic representations of home range geometry, and direct information about species-landscape interactions. the incorporation of both structural (landscape) and functional (movement) components of connectivity provides a direct measure of species-specific landscape connectivity." detection dog efficacy for collecting faecal samples from the critically endangered cross river gorilla (gorilla gorilla diehli) for genetic censusing,apes; primates; microsatellite; genotyping; canine; survey,ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE,ARANDJELOVIC M;BERGL RA;IKFUINGEI R;JAMESON C;PARKER M;VIGILANT L,"population estimates using genetic capture-recapture methods from non-invasively collected wildlife samples are more accurate and precise than those obtained from traditional methods when detection and resampling rates are high. recently, detection dogs have been increasingly used to find elusive species and their by-products. here we compared the effectiveness of dog-and human-directed searches for cross river gorilla (gorilla gorilla diehli) faeces at two sites. the critically endangered cross river gorilla inhabits a region of high biodiversity and endemism on the border between nigeria and cameroon. the rugged highland terrain and their cryptic behaviour make them difficult to study and a precise population size for the subspecies is still lacking. dog-directed surveys located more fresh faeces with less bias than human-directed survey teams. this produced a more reliable population estimate, although of modest precision given the small scale of this pilot study. unfortunately, the considerable costs associated with use of the united states-based detection dog teams make the use of these teams financially unfeasible for a larger, more comprehensive survey. to realize the full potential of dog-directed surveys and increase cost-effectiveness, we recommend basing dog-detection teams in the countries where they will operate and expanding the targets the dogs are trained to detect." -connecting coastal marshes using movements of resident and migratory fishes,"wetland management, owes; coastal wetlands, great lakes, wetland complex, northern pike; pumpkinseed",WETLANDS,MIDWOOD JD;CHOW-FRASER P,"in the laurentian great lakes, diurnal migration of fishes into and out of coastal wetlands is well documented, but movement among wetlands is more poorly understood despite important conservation implications. we assessed movements of typically resident species using mark-recapture. for seven species, only 9 (6.2 %) individuals were recaptured in a wetland different from where they were tagged. conversely, based on radio-tracking, typically migratory northern pike (esox lucius) moved among wetlands that were 1.4 km apart, although some moved as far as 3.9 km. results suggest that while the majority of fishes remain in a single wetland throughout the year, a large top predator requires multiple wetlands over comparatively larger areas. currently, coastal wetlands in ontario are evaluated for protection if greater than 2 ha, but smaller proximate marshes (within 750 m) can be grouped into complexes. our results demonstrate that while this distance likely protects fish habitat for most resident fishes, it fails to cover the observed movement patterns of northern pike. a modification to this grouping rule for coastal wetlands would delineate more ecologically appropriate complexes by incorporating movement among wetlands by top predators. delineating larger wetland complexes would protect critical fish habitat and populations in the great lakes." +connecting coastal marshes using movements of resident and migratory fishes,"wetland management, owes; coastal wetlands, great lakes, wetland complex, northern pike; pumpkinseed",WETLANDS,MIDWOOD JD;CHOW FRASER P,"in the laurentian great lakes, diurnal migration of fishes into and out of coastal wetlands is well documented, but movement among wetlands is more poorly understood despite important conservation implications. we assessed movements of typically resident species using mark-recapture. for seven species, only 9 (6.2 %) individuals were recaptured in a wetland different from where they were tagged. conversely, based on radio-tracking, typically migratory northern pike (esox lucius) moved among wetlands that were 1.4 km apart, although some moved as far as 3.9 km. results suggest that while the majority of fishes remain in a single wetland throughout the year, a large top predator requires multiple wetlands over comparatively larger areas. currently, coastal wetlands in ontario are evaluated for protection if greater than 2 ha, but smaller proximate marshes (within 750 m) can be grouped into complexes. our results demonstrate that while this distance likely protects fish habitat for most resident fishes, it fails to cover the observed movement patterns of northern pike. a modification to this grouping rule for coastal wetlands would delineate more ecologically appropriate complexes by incorporating movement among wetlands by top predators. delineating larger wetland complexes would protect critical fish habitat and populations in the great lakes." statistical methods for dealing with publication bias in meta-analysis,publication bias; meta-analysis; funnel plots,STATISTICS IN MEDICINE,JIN ZC;ZHOU XH;HE J,"publication bias is an inevitable problem in the systematic review and meta-analysis. it is also one of the main threats to the validity of meta-analysis. although several statistical methods have been developed to detect and adjust for the publication bias since the beginning of 1980s, some of them are not well known and are not being used properly in both the statistical and clinical literature. in this paper, we provided a critical and extensive discussion on the methods for dealing with publication bias, including statistical principles, implementation, and software, as well as the advantages and limitations of these methods. we illustrated a practical application of these methods in a meta-analysis of continuous support for women during childbirth. copyright (c) 2014 john wiley & sons, ltd." "legionnaires' disease: overview of the situation concerning notification in wallonia (belgium) in 2012, a retrospective descriptive study based on a capture-recapture method",legionnaires' disease; surveillance; belgium,ARCHIVES OF PUBLIC HEALTH,JACQUINET S;DENIS O;SOARES FV;SCHIRVEL C,"background: legionnaires' disease is a severe form of pneumonia, and although public health medical inspectors must be notified, it is often under-reported. the objectives of this study were to determine the completeness rate of notification of legionnaires' disease and to estimate the incidence of this disease in wallonia, the southern part of belgium, in 2012. method: this retrospective, transversal descriptive study was based on a capture-recapture method using two sources. an estimation of the total number of legionnaires' disease cases was calculated using chapman and seber's estimators for small numbers, thereby allowing us to estimate the real incidence of this disease in wallonia as well as the completeness rate of notification. results: the total number of estimated legionella cases for 2012 was 45 ( ic 95%: 41-48) and the completeness rate was 65% ( ic 95%: 61-70%). the estimated incidence of legionnaires' disease in wallonia was 1.27/100,000 inhabitants. conclusions: the notification rate of legionella must be improved in wallonia. doctors should be made aware of the importance of diagnosing and reporting legionnaires' disease." population structure of a native and an alien species of snail in an urban area of the atlantic rainforest,population structure; megalobulimus paranaguensis; achatina fulica; alien species,JOURNAL OF NATURAL HISTORY,MIRANDA MS;FONTENELLE JH;PECORA IL,"native megalobulimus paranaguensis was identified on brazil's ilha porchat promontory, an area that achatina fulica commonly populates. the population structures of these species were investigated for interactions. spatial distribution, niche overlap and mark-recapture analysis were conducted. the outer lip of m. paranaguensis and environmental variables were measured. one and two abundance peaks were observed for a. fulica and m. paranaguensis, respectively. survivorship was higher in a. fulica. distribution was aggregate for m. paranaguensis, whereas for a. fulica it varied from random to aggregate. both species aggregate as abundance increases. the lifespan of m. paranaguensis in this location is shorter than its lifespan in a nearby location. achatina fulica was affected by soil temperature and humidity; m. paranaguensis was influenced by humidity. niche overlap was random. the results show that m. paranaguensis can keep its natural activity and abundance in the presence of a. fulica, but environmental degradation impacts m. paranaguensis and should be evaluated." @@ -2212,9 +2215,9 @@ improved models for predicting walleye abundance and setting safe harvest quotas estimating sex specific apparent survival and dispersal of little ringed plovers (charadrius dubius),NA,ORNIS FENNICA,PAKANEN VM;LAMPILA S;ARPPE H;VALKAMA J,"sex differences in survival have consequences to population dynamics making information on sex specific survival important. in birds, females often have lower survival than males, and one of the main mechanisms is considered to be differential reproductive investment. we studied apparent adult survival and local recruitment of a small monogamous shorebird, the little ringed plover (charadrius dubius), with 18 years of capture-recapture data collected from a population breeding in southern finland. we expected no sex differences in adult survival because parental care is shared and double-broods and excessive relaying are rare in this northern population. because apparent survival is the product of true survival and site fidelity, we also estimated breeding and natal dispersal distances within the study area to examine bias in survival estimates caused by permanent emigration. we found higher apparent adult survival in males (0.660) than in females (0.609), but no sex differences in local recruitment (0.080). breeding dispersal distances were longer in females than in males mainly due to lower breeding site fidelity of females (0.620) than that of males (0.808). thus, the lower apparent survival of females likely resulted from permanent emigration. interestingly, the philopatric portion of the population (from local recruitment analysis) had higher apparent adult survival than what was found from the analysis of all adults. these apparent survival estimates that are less likely to be biased by permanent emigration showed no sex differences (males 0.734; females 0.721), supporting our conclusion of no sex difference in true adult survival." abundance and density estimation of the american black bear population in central georgia,abundance; american black bear; density; dna; secr; spatially explicit capture-recapture; ursus americanus,URSUS,HOOKER MJ;LAUFENBERG JS;ASHLEY AK;SYLVEST JT;CHAMBERLAIN MJ,"the central georgia population (cgp) is the least abundant and most geographically isolated american black bear (ursus americanus) population in georgia, usa. we used dna-based spatially explicit capture recapture techniques to estimate density and abundance of bears in the cgp. we sampled bear hair over 2 8-week periods during the summers of 2012 and 2013 and recorded capture histories of individual bears identified via microsatellite genotyping. population density for females was 0.123 bears/km(2) (se = 0.018) and 0.152 bears/km(2) (se = 0.024) in 2012 and 2013, respectively. male bear density was 0.109 bears/km(2) (se = 0.015) to 0.088 bears/km(2) (se = 0.013) during the same years. derived estimates of abundance of female bears was 125.4 (se = 18.3) in 2012 and 154.9 (se = 24.3) in 2013. male bear abundance was 111.3 (se = 15.2) and 89.8 (se = 12.9) for 2012 and 2013, respectively. based on these estimates and the isolated nature of the cgp, we recommend continued monitoring of demographic parameters and a conservative approach to determining annual harvest rates." "gobi bear abundance and inter-oases movements, gobi desert, mongolia",brown bear; dna; gobi bear; gobi desert; mark-recapture; microsatellite genotyping; mongolia; ursus arctos,URSUS,TUMENDEMBEREL O;PROCTOR M;REYNOLDS H;BOULANGER J;LUVSAMJAMBA A;TSERENBATAA T;BATMUNKH M;CRAIGHEAD D;YANJIN N;PAETKAU D,"brown bears (ursus arctos) inhabit much of the northern hemisphere, including portions of north america, europe, and asia. whereas northern populations generally are healthy, their distribution becomes fragmented and conservation status more tenuous in their southern range. many fragmented populations across southern asia are poorly understood, and abundance and distribution data are minimal. one such population contains the gobi bear, a brown bear surviving in the great gobi strictly protected area of southwestern mongolia. the number of bears in this area was assumed to be low, without data-based abundance estimates. whereas bears frequent 3 oases complexes, it was not known to what extent bears moved or bred among these complexes, which span approximately 300 km. as part of a larger science-based conservation effort, we conducted a dna-based mark recapture population survey in 2009 to estimate abundance, inter-oases movements of individual bears and geneflow, and genetic variability. we placed barb-wire hair-collection sites surrounding 13 supplemental feeders at most water sources within the 3 oases complexes: atas inges, shar khuls, and tsagaan bogd. during 5 sessions throughout spring and summer, we collected 600 bear hair samples and genotyped 205 samples at 12 variable microsatellite loci (from 24). we identified 21 individual bears (14 m and 7 f) 48 times and developed a mark recapture population estimate of 22 bears (95% ci = 21-29). estimates of mean detection probability were 0.27 (se = 0.09, ci = 0.13-0.49) and 0.51 (se = 0.063, ci = 0.39-0.64) for female and male bears, respectively. one female and 4 males were sampled at 2 oases complexes and 3 males were sampled at all 3 oases complexes. the genetic variability (heterozygosity) was low compared with other brown bear populations. we suggest this population is isolated from other bear populations and is likely critically endangered with fewer than 40 individuals." -"population trends and survival of nesting green sea turtles chelonia mydas on aves island, venezuela",chelonia mydas; survival; open robust design model; population trends,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,GARCIA-CRUZ MA;LAMPO M;PENALOZA CL;KENDALL WL;SOLE G;RODRIGUEZ-CLARK KM,"long-term demographic data are valuable for assessing the effect of anthropogenic impacts on endangered species and evaluating recovery programs. using a 2-state open robust design model, we analyzed mark-recapture data from green turtles chelonia mydas sighted be tween 1979 and 2009 on aves island, venezuela, a rookery heavily impacted by human activities before it was declared a wildlife refuge in 1972. based on the encounter histories of 7689 nesting females, we estimated the abundance, annual survival, and remigration intervals for this population. female survival varied from 0.14-0.91, with a mean of 0.79, which is low compared to survival of other populations from the caribbean (mean = 0.84) and australia (mean = 0.95), even though we partially corrected for tag loss, which is known to negatively bias survival estimates. this supports prior suggestions that caribbean populations in general, and the aves island population in particular, may be more strongly impacted than populations elsewhere. it is likely that nesters from this rookery are extracted while foraging in remote feeding grounds where hunting still occurs. despite its relatively low survival, the nesting population at aves island increased during the past 30 years from approx. 500 to > 1000 nesting females in 2009. thus, this population, like others in the caribbean and the atlantic, seems to be slowly recovering following protective management. although these findings support the importance of long-term conservation programs aimed at protecting nesting grounds, they also highlight the need to extend management actions to foraging grounds where human activities may still impact green turtle populations." +"population trends and survival of nesting green sea turtles chelonia mydas on aves island, venezuela",chelonia mydas; survival; open robust design model; population trends,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,GARCIA CRUZ MA;LAMPO M;PENALOZA CL;KENDALL WL;SOLE G;RODRIGUEZ CLARK KM,"long-term demographic data are valuable for assessing the effect of anthropogenic impacts on endangered species and evaluating recovery programs. using a 2-state open robust design model, we analyzed mark-recapture data from green turtles chelonia mydas sighted be tween 1979 and 2009 on aves island, venezuela, a rookery heavily impacted by human activities before it was declared a wildlife refuge in 1972. based on the encounter histories of 7689 nesting females, we estimated the abundance, annual survival, and remigration intervals for this population. female survival varied from 0.14-0.91, with a mean of 0.79, which is low compared to survival of other populations from the caribbean (mean = 0.84) and australia (mean = 0.95), even though we partially corrected for tag loss, which is known to negatively bias survival estimates. this supports prior suggestions that caribbean populations in general, and the aves island population in particular, may be more strongly impacted than populations elsewhere. it is likely that nesters from this rookery are extracted while foraging in remote feeding grounds where hunting still occurs. despite its relatively low survival, the nesting population at aves island increased during the past 30 years from approx. 500 to > 1000 nesting females in 2009. thus, this population, like others in the caribbean and the atlantic, seems to be slowly recovering following protective management. although these findings support the importance of long-term conservation programs aimed at protecting nesting grounds, they also highlight the need to extend management actions to foraging grounds where human activities may still impact green turtle populations." population size estimation from the data of marked and capture-recapture methods,population; marked methods; capture-recapture methods; mathematical methods,BIOLOGICAL BULLETIN OF BOGDAN CHMELNITSKIY MELITOPOL STATE PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY,MATSYURA AV,marked and capture-recapture methods are the main alternative to the methods of absolute count for determination of the populations size within the limits of biotope. principal advantage of these methods is the absence of dependence between the calculation error of population size and biotope area. the basic lack of the methods is the results' dependence on sample this article aims to fill the existent gaps in national ecological literature concerning the usage of these methods and to present the algorithms of determination of population size from the data of marked and capture-recapture methods. -the influence of individual fish characteristics on survival and detection: similarities across two salmonid species,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,HOSTETTER NJ;EVANS AF;LOGE FJ;O'CONNOR RR;CRAMER BM;FRYER D;COLLIS K,"trait-selective mortality is of considerable management and conservation interest, especially when trends are similar across multiple species of conservation concern. in the columbia river basin, thousands of juvenile pacific salmonids oncorhynchus spp. are collected each year and are tagged at juvenile bypass system (jbs) facilities located at hydroelectric dams, thus allowing the tracking of population-level performance metrics (e.g., juvenile survival and juvenile-to-adult survival). several studies have suggested that juvenile salmonid survival is both size dependent and condition dependent, but little is known about trait-selective collection at jbs facilities. trait-selective collection (e.g., length-based or condition-based selectivity) is particularly important, as inferences to population-level performance metrics may be biased if both the survival and collection processes are influenced by similar characteristics. we used a capture-mark-recapture study to investigate length-and condition-selective survival and detection probabilities for two salmonid species in the columbia river basin. in 2014, juvenile steelhead o. mykiss (n = 11,201) and yearling chinook salmon o. tshawytscha (n = 7,943) were pit-tagged, measured (fl), examined for external condition characteristics (descaling, body injuries, fin damage, or disease symptoms), and released into the lower granite dam jbs facility on the snake river to continue seaward migration. results indicated similar trends in both length-and condition-selective juvenile survival and detection probabilities. for both species, survival probability was higher for longer, nondegraded individuals (those without descaling, body injuries, or fin damage). trends in detection probability were also consistent across species: shorter, degraded individuals were more likely to be detected at downstream jbs facilities than longer, healthier individuals. these results suggest that similar characteristics (fl and external condition) affect survival and detection processes for pit-tagged steelhead and yearling chinook salmon and that jbs facilities may selectively collect smaller, degraded individuals with lower probabilities of survival. the consistency in trait-selective survival and detection results has important management implications for several species of conservation concern." +the influence of individual fish characteristics on survival and detection: similarities across two salmonid species,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,HOSTETTER NJ;EVANS AF;LOGE FJ;O CONNOR RR;CRAMER BM;FRYER D;COLLIS K,"trait-selective mortality is of considerable management and conservation interest, especially when trends are similar across multiple species of conservation concern. in the columbia river basin, thousands of juvenile pacific salmonids oncorhynchus spp. are collected each year and are tagged at juvenile bypass system (jbs) facilities located at hydroelectric dams, thus allowing the tracking of population-level performance metrics (e.g., juvenile survival and juvenile-to-adult survival). several studies have suggested that juvenile salmonid survival is both size dependent and condition dependent, but little is known about trait-selective collection at jbs facilities. trait-selective collection (e.g., length-based or condition-based selectivity) is particularly important, as inferences to population-level performance metrics may be biased if both the survival and collection processes are influenced by similar characteristics. we used a capture-mark-recapture study to investigate length-and condition-selective survival and detection probabilities for two salmonid species in the columbia river basin. in 2014, juvenile steelhead o. mykiss (n = 11,201) and yearling chinook salmon o. tshawytscha (n = 7,943) were pit-tagged, measured (fl), examined for external condition characteristics (descaling, body injuries, fin damage, or disease symptoms), and released into the lower granite dam jbs facility on the snake river to continue seaward migration. results indicated similar trends in both length-and condition-selective juvenile survival and detection probabilities. for both species, survival probability was higher for longer, nondegraded individuals (those without descaling, body injuries, or fin damage). trends in detection probability were also consistent across species: shorter, degraded individuals were more likely to be detected at downstream jbs facilities than longer, healthier individuals. these results suggest that similar characteristics (fl and external condition) affect survival and detection processes for pit-tagged steelhead and yearling chinook salmon and that jbs facilities may selectively collect smaller, degraded individuals with lower probabilities of survival. the consistency in trait-selective survival and detection results has important management implications for several species of conservation concern." retention and stress effects of visible implant tags when marking western silvery minnow and its application to other cyprinids (family cyprinidae),NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,NEUFELD K;BLAIR S;POESCH M,"visible implant tags are commonly used in fisheries research to mark individuals or batches of fish as part of movement and mark-recapture studies. to be effective, these tags generally need to have high retention rates and little impact on the behavior or physiology of themarked individuals. we tested the retention rates of both visible implant elastomer (vie) and visible implant alphanumeric (via) tags in 80-139-mm western silvery minnow hybognathus argyritis over a 104-d period. we also measured plasma cortisol and lactate to determine the impact of tagging on stress levels. we found that vie tags had 100% retention and did not cause a significant increase in plasma cortisol levels, though plasma lactate levels were elevated in vie treatment groups. overall, vie tags were found to be suitable for marking western silvery minnow and similar species. visible implant alphanumeric tags had 36% retention over 104 d and did not cause significant increases in plasma cortisol, though plasma lactate was elevated in the treatment group with bothvie and via tags. given the high retention rates and low stress effects, vie tags appear to be more beneficial for use with western silvery minnow and similar-sized cyprinids." the global status of freshwater fish age validation studies and a prioritization framework for further research,age and growth; age; periodicity; validation; freshwater fish,REVIEWS IN FISHERIES SCIENCE & AQUACULTURE,SPURGEON JJ;HAMEL MJ;POPE KL;PEGG MA,"age information derived from calcified structures is commonly used to estimate recruitment, growth, and mortality for fish populations. validation of daily or annual marks on age structures is often assumed, presumably due to a lack of general knowledge concerning the status of age validation studies. therefore, the current status of freshwater fish age validation studies was summarized to show where additional effort is needed, and increase the accessibility of validation studies to researchers. in total, 1351 original peer-reviewed articles were reviewed from freshwater systems that studied age in fish. periodicity and age validation studies were found for 88 freshwater species comprising 21 fish families. the number of age validation studies has increased over the last 30 years following previous calls for more research; however, few species have validated structures spanning all life stages. in addition, few fishes of conservation concern have validated ageing structures. a prioritization framework, using a combination of eight characteristics, is offered to direct future age validation studies and close the validation information gap. additional study, using the offered prioritization framework, and increased availability of published studies that incorporate uncertainty when presenting research results dealing with age information are needed." a prediction model to estimate completeness of electronic physician claims databases,NA,BMJ OPEN,LIX LM;YAO X;KEPHART G;QUAN HD;SMITH M;KUWORNU JP;MANOHARAN N;KOUOKAM W;SIKDAR K,"objectives: electronic physician claims databases are widely used for chronic disease research and surveillance, but quality of the data may vary with a number of physician characteristics, including payment method. the objectives were to develop a prediction model for the number of prevalent diabetes cases in fee-for-service (ffs) electronic physician claims databases and apply it to estimate cases among non-ffs (nffs) physicians, for whom claims data are often incomplete. design: a retrospective observational cohort design was adopted. setting: data from the canadian province of newfoundland and labrador were used to construct the prediction model and data from the province of manitoba were used to externally validate the model. participants: a cohort of diagnosed diabetes cases was ascertained from physician claims, insured resident registry and hospitalisation records. a cohort of ffs physicians who were responsible for the diagnosis was ascertained from physician claims and registry data. primary and secondary outcome measures: a generalised linear model with a. distribution was used to model the number of diabetes cases per ffs physician as a function of physician characteristics. the expected number of diabetes cases per nffs physician was estimated. results: the diabetes case cohort consisted of 31 714 individuals; the mean cases per ffs physician was 75.5 (median= 49.0). sex and years since specialty licensure were significantly associated (p< 0.05) with the number of cases per physician. applying the prediction model to nffs physician registry data resulted in an estimate of 18 546 cases; only 411 were observed in claims data. the model demonstrated face validity in an independent data set. conclusions: comparing observed and predicted disease cases is a useful and generalisable approach to assess the quality of electronic databases for population-based research and surveillance." @@ -2229,7 +2232,7 @@ assessing the design and power of capture-recapture studies to estimate demograp density and home range of feral cats in north-western australia,NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,MCGREGOR HW;LEGGE S;POTTS J;JONES ME;JOHNSON CN,"context. feral cats (felis catus) pose a significant threat to biodiversity in australia, and are implicated in current declines of small mammals in the savannas of northern australia. basic information on population density and ranging behaviour is essential to understand and manage threats from feral cats. aims. in this study, we provide robust estimates of density and home range of feral cats in the central kimberley region of north-western australia, and we test whether population density is affected by livestock grazing, small mammal abundance and other environmental factors. methods. densities were measured at six transects sampled between 2011 and 2013 using arrays of infrared cameras. cats were individually identified, and densities estimated using spatially explicit capture-recapture analysis. home range was measured from gps tracking of 32 cats. key results. densities were similar across all transects and deployments, with a mean of 0.18 cats km(-2) (range = 0.09-0.34 km(-2)). we found no evidence that population density was related to livestock grazing or abundance of small mammals. home ranges of males were, on average, 855 ha (+/- 156 ha (95% ci), n = 25), and those of females were half the size at 397 ha (+/- 275 ha (95% ci), n = 7). there was little overlap in ranges of cats of the same sex. conclusions. compared with elsewhere in australia outside of semiarid regions, feral cats occur at low density and have large home ranges in the central kimberley. however, other evidence shows that despite this low density, cats are contributing to declines of small mammal populations across northern australia. implications. it will be very difficult to reduce these already-sparse populations by direct control. instead, land-management practices that reduce the impacts of cats on prey should be investigated." population stability in the endangered fleay's barred frog (mixophyes fleayi) and a program for long-term monitoring,NA,AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,QUICK G;GOLDINGAY RL;PARKYN J;NEWELL DA,"in the wake of the global decline in amphibians there is a need for long-term population monitoring. previous research suggested that the endangered fleay's barred frog (mixophyes fleayi) had recovered after a severe decline. we aimed to determine whether this recovery has been sustained and to test an example of a monitoring program that could be employed at intervals of five or more years to assess long-term population stability. we conducted capture-mark-recapture five years after the last detailed census at brindle creek in border ranges national park, new south wales. frogs were captured along a 200m creek transect between september 2013 and february 2014. we used program mark to estimate demographic parameters of adult male frogs using two modelling approaches: robust design (rd) and the popan formulation of the jolly-seber model. abundance was estimated at 38.2 +/- 0.5 (s.e.) (rd) and 46.0 +/- 2.7 (popan). abundance in 2008 was estimated at 53.2 +/- 10.0 (popan) male frogs. estimates of apparent monthly survival over our five-month-long study were very high (rd: 1.0 +/- 0.0; popan: 1.0 +/- 0.02). recapture estimates were also high (rd: 0.40 +/- 0.07 to 0.72 +/- 0.05 per session; popan: 0.84 +/- 0.05 per month). these data suggest that the brindle creek population has remained relatively stable over a period of similar to 10 years." estimation of the impact of meningococcal serogroup c universal vaccination in italy and suggestions for the multicomponent serogroup b vaccine introduction,NA,JOURNAL OF IMMUNOLOGY RESEARCH,MARTINELLI D;FORTUNATO F;CAPPELLI MG;COZZA V;CHIRONNA M;PRATO R,"in italy, the meningococcal c conjugate vaccine (menc) has been offered inmost regions since 2009-2010. the incidence of invasive meningococcal disease (imd) was 0.25 confirmed cases per 100,000 in 2011, but this may be considerably underestimated due to underdetection and underreporting. this study estimates the impact of the menc universal vaccination (urv) in the puglia region by assessing the completeness of three registration sources (notifications, hospitalizations, and laboratory surveillance). capture-recapture analysis was performed on meningococcal meningitis collected within 2001-2013. the impact of urv among <= 18-year-olds was assessed by attributable benefit, preventable fraction, and prevented fraction. missed opportunities for vaccination were evaluated from surveillance of imd. the proportion of detected serogroups was applied to the number of imd in the postvaccination period to compute the cases still preventable. the sensitivity of the three sources was 36.7% (95% ci: 17.5%-57.9%) and registrations lost nearly 28 cases/year in the period. attributable benefit of urv was -0.5 cases per 100,000, preventable fraction 19.6%, and prevented fraction 31.3%. three adolescent cases missed the opportunity to be vaccinated. the multicomponent serogroup b meningococcal vaccine has the potential to further prevent at least three other cases/year. vaccination strategy against serogroup b together with existing programmes makes imd a 100% vaccine-preventable disease." -prevalence of spinal cord injury in iran: a 3-source capture-recapture study,spinal cord injury; epidemiology; prevalence; capture-recapture; iran,NEUROEPIDEMIOLOGY,JAZAYERI SB;ATAEEPOUR M;RABIEE H;MOTEVALIAN SA;SAADAT S;VACCARO AR;RAHIMI-MOVAGHAR V,"background: epidenniologic data of spinal cord injured (sci) patients are necessary for prevention policymaking and improvement of social and healthcare support to patients. this study was designed to estimate the prevalence of traumatic and non-traumatic sci in iran in a three-source capture recapture study. methods: three organizations, which provide supports to sci patients were identified. demographic data of patients in each organization was obtained. datasets were formed and matching data were found. matched data were incorporated into stata 12 for log linear analyses. results of sensitivity analyses were used to estimate total number of sci patients in iran. veterans of iraq-iran conflict were added as separate data source to final results. results: the prevalence of traumatic and non-traumatic sci patients is 296.87 (95% confidence intervals (ci): 292.04-302.48) per million in tehran and alborz provinces. the prevalence of sci in iran is an estimated 318.45 (95% ci: 312.98-324.54) per million. conclusion: the prevalence of sci in iran is among the lowest figures reported in the literature. the supporting organizations in iran do not have details about the cause, level and severity of sci patients. a national study to register sci patients' data is needed. (c) 2015 s. karger ag, basel" +prevalence of spinal cord injury in iran: a 3-source capture-recapture study,spinal cord injury; epidemiology; prevalence; capture-recapture; iran,NEUROEPIDEMIOLOGY,JAZAYERI SB;ATAEEPOUR M;RABIEE H;MOTEVALIAN SA;SAADAT S;VACCARO AR;RAHIMI MOVAGHAR V,"background: epidenniologic data of spinal cord injured (sci) patients are necessary for prevention policymaking and improvement of social and healthcare support to patients. this study was designed to estimate the prevalence of traumatic and non-traumatic sci in iran in a three-source capture recapture study. methods: three organizations, which provide supports to sci patients were identified. demographic data of patients in each organization was obtained. datasets were formed and matching data were found. matched data were incorporated into stata 12 for log linear analyses. results of sensitivity analyses were used to estimate total number of sci patients in iran. veterans of iraq-iran conflict were added as separate data source to final results. results: the prevalence of traumatic and non-traumatic sci patients is 296.87 (95% confidence intervals (ci): 292.04-302.48) per million in tehran and alborz provinces. the prevalence of sci in iran is an estimated 318.45 (95% ci: 312.98-324.54) per million. conclusion: the prevalence of sci in iran is among the lowest figures reported in the literature. the supporting organizations in iran do not have details about the cause, level and severity of sci patients. a national study to register sci patients' data is needed. (c) 2015 s. karger ag, basel" issues with the capture-recapture measure of vocabulary size,measurement; corpora; vocabulary; zipf's law,MENTAL LEXICON,NELSON R,"this short paper discusses shortcomings of the capture-recapture (cr) method of estimating vocabulary size (meara & olmos alcoy, 2010; williams, segalowitz & leclair, 2014). when sampling from a population generated by a power-law process (e.g., a zipf distribution), the probability that any given member is selected is dependent on its rank, such that higher frequency rank (i.e., 1st, 2nd, 3rd) members are much more likely to be selected than lower rank (i.e., 100th, 1000th) members. because of this, sampling is much more likely to select from the same limited group of words. the cr measure, however, assumes a uniform distribution, and so drastically underestimates the size of the vocabulary when applied to power-law data. work with simulated data shows ways that the degree of underestimation may be lessened. applying these methods to real data shows effects parallel to those in the simulations." "the epidemiology of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in new hampshire, usa, 2004-2007",amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; motor neuron disease; incidence,NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASES,CALLER TA;ANDREWS A;FIELD NC;HENEGAN PL;STOMMEL EW,"background/aims:trends in disease incidence and mortality can provide clues to disease etiology. previously, we described a town in new hampshire (n.h.), usa, with 25 times the expected incidence rate of annyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als). this study aimed to describe the incidence and mortality of als across the state to assess rates relative to other states and industrialized nations. method: a retrospective review of records from regional als centers, clinics and als organizations was conducted to obtain demographics and diagnostic details for patients diagnosed with als or primary lateral sclerosis in n.h. from january 2004 to december 2007. data on mortality from review of death certificates were obtained for a similar time frame. results: we identified 113 n.h. residents diagnosed with als in 2004-2007, yielding an age-standardized incidence rate ranging from 1.3 to 2.2 per 100,000 of the population per year. during the same period, the standardized mortality rate per 100,000 varied from 2.6 to 3.5. als was more common among men (ratio 1.6:1), who were more likely than women to have an earlier age at onset (59 +/- 14.2 vs. 65 +/- 11.8 years, p = 0.01). conclusion: while localized areas in n.h. with high als incidence rates have been reported previously, the overall incidence and mortality rates of als in n.h. are similar to those in other industrialized nations. (c) 2015 s. karger ag, basel" strong seasonality and clear choice of resting plant in a neotropical harvestman (arachnida: opiliones),microhabitat selection; phenology; stenochrone; mark-recapture; sclerosomatidae,JOURNAL OF ARACHNOLOGY,PAGOTI GF;WILLEMART RH,"preliminary observations suggested that the neotropical harvestman jussara sp. (sclerosomatidae, eupnoi) had a patchy distribution and a marked seasonality, comparable to species in the northern hemisphere. this would be an unusual pattern, since conditions of temperature and humidity are very different between tropical and temperate environments. using a mark-recapture method, we investigated the phenology, habitat use and individual movement of jussara sp. in a tropical rainforest in southern brazil. we found a very marked seasonality in the population of adults, with a positive correlation between temperature, humidity and number of adults found. adults were found only in the wet and warm months and significantly preferred the plant psycothria suterella (rubiaceae) as a resting substrate, spending the days motionless on its leaves, often in groups. the same individuals were found for a maximum of three months after their first capture, 30 m from their original site of capture. at night, the harvestmen would descend from the plants, forage and interact with conspecifics on the leaf litter. in this first long term behavioral study with a representative of the suborder eupnoi in brazil, we provide quantitative evidence that, despite the milder climate, neotropical harvestmen may show a seasonality similar to the seasonality shown by related species in temperate regions." @@ -2238,8 +2241,8 @@ an evaluation of the efficiency of minnow traps for estimating the abundance of estimating the riverine abundance of green sturgeon using a dual-frequency identification sonar,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,MORA EA;LINDLEY ST;ERICKSON DL;KLIMLEY AP,"to determine the total number of green sturgeon acipenser medirostris present in the rogue river, oregon, we compared plot sampling using a dual-frequency identification sonar (didson), a density-based estimation technique combining the number of individuals detected and the area sampled, to a concurrent mark-recapture estimate. using the didson-based method, we estimated the total abundance of green sturgeon to be 223 (95% confidence interval = 180-266). the mark-recapture method resulted in an estimate of 236 individuals (150-424). the noninvasive didson transect estimates resulted in tighter confidence intervals and required fewer technician hours to collect the data than did the mark- recapture method (37 h versus 232 h, respectively). precise estimates of the abundance and distribution of green sturgeon are important components to species recovery and management. thus, this new technique has the potential to greatly improve population monitoring and is an excellent tool to identify occupied habitats." summer-restricted migration of green turtles chelonia mydas to a temperate habitat of the northwest pacific ocean,NA,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,FUKUOKA T;NARAZAKI T;SATO K,"the foraging habitats of green turtles chelonia mydas range from tropical to temperate areas. previous studies have generally been biased toward tropical and sub-tropical areas; hence, available data do not accurately describe the species' foraging activity in temperate areas. to reveal seasonal patterns of habitat use in temperate areas, we conducted a by-catch survey, a mark-recapture study, and satellite tracking of green turtles along the sanriku coast, a temperate zone in the northwest pacific ocean. from july through november of 2005 to 2014, 78 green turtles were captured during a period of relatively high water temperatures (16 to 24 degrees c). straight carapace length (scl) ranged from 36.8 to 85.6 cm (average: 49.4 +/- 11.4 cm; n = 78), indicating that most of the turtles were juveniles. in the mark-recapture study, 14 of 72 tagged turtles were recaptured 5 to 426 d after release, 12 of which were recaptured south of the release point. based on satellite tracking data, 3 turtles travelled more than 500 km to reach southern habitats, where water temperature was warmer (13 to 25 degrees c) than along the sanriku coast (4 to 22 degrees c). our results revealed that the sanriku coast is a seasonally restricted habitat for juvenile green turtles, which migrate to southern habitats in winter, and that turtles in temperate areas migrated longer than those in tropical and sub-tropical areas. this is the first report of seasonal migration of juvenile green turtles to a temperate habitat in the northern pacific ocean." an endangered snake thrives in a highly urbanized environment,NA,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,REEDER NMM;BYRNES RM;STOELTING RE;SWAIM KE,"the endangered san francisco garter snake thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia occurs in only 2 counties on the densely populated san francisco peninsula, california, usa. due to its limited geographic range and destruction of populations by the rapid pace of urban development in the 1950s and 1960s, t. s. tetrataenia was the only snake included in the inaugural us endangered species act. several large areas preserved as public parks, utility lands, or private trusts support remnant populations that are the focus of recovery and conservation efforts. to assist in assessment of status and trend for this subspecies, we fit huggins' closed capture models in rmark to mark-recapture data collected in 2007 and 2013 to estimate population size of an isolated population on a small (72.8 ha) property surrounded by residential development and transportation infrastructure. our best supported models indicate a population of 1763 individuals (95% ci: 1302-2446) in 2007 and 1761 (95% ci: 1211-2639) in 2013. in addition, total captures of an important prey species increased 2 orders of magnitude from 829 in 2007 to 17 180 in 2013. these findings highlight the potential for well-managed but small habitat units ('the good'), to compliment vast natural areas ('the ideal') in recovery and conservation strategies for threatened and endangered species that can be supported by a small home range." -first record of beauveria bassiana (ascomycota: clavicipitaceae) infecting cerambyx welensii (coleoptera: cerambycidae) and pathogenicity tests using a new bioassay method,cerambyx welensii; beauveria bassiana; entomopathogenic fungi; pathogenicity; wood disk bioassay; oak decline,BIOCONTROL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY,MORALES-RODRIGUEZ C;SANCHEZ-GONZALEZ A;CONEJO-RODRIGUEZ Y;TORRES-VILA LM,the pathogenicity of beauveria bassiana on cerambyx welensii is first reported. three native fungal isolates from badajoz (spain) were bioassayed on neonates using cork oak disks and lc(50)s were 1.16-1.76 x 10(5) and 0.30-0.61 x 10(5) spores/ml on the 7th and 14th day post-inoculation. the fungus is potentially a biocontrol agent of c. welensii. -antennal response of prinobius myardi to synthetic tree volatiles,eag; electroantennography; wood borers; cerambycidae; quercus; plant volatiles; beta-pinene,SILVA FENNICA,SANCHEZ-OSORIO I;DOMINGUEZ L;LOPEZ-PANTOJA G;TAPIAS R,"prinobius myardi mulsant is a wood borer implicated in the decline of mediterranean oaks, especially quercus suber l. and quercus ilex l. plant volatiles play an important role in plant-insect interactions, and electroantennography (eag) is an effective tool for exploring the electrophysiological activity of host plant volatiles on insects. to improve our understanding of the olfactory sensitivity of p. myardi, we recorded eag responses to 20 tree volatiles, and analyzed the dosedependent response to five doses (10(-4):1 to 1: 1 v/v) of the three most eag-active compounds. antennae of p. myardi responded to 13 chemicals, mainly monoterpenes and green leaf volatiles, with the strongest eag responses being observed with beta-pinene, (+)-alpha-pinene and 1,8-cineole. dose-response profiles showed positive dose-dependent responses for all three compounds. our results suggest a broad sensitivity of p. myardi to common tree volatiles, particularly some hostrelated compounds and volatiles associated with wounded trees; the olfactory recognition of ratios of these compounds could play a role in host selection by p. myardi." +first record of beauveria bassiana (ascomycota: clavicipitaceae) infecting cerambyx welensii (coleoptera: cerambycidae) and pathogenicity tests using a new bioassay method,cerambyx welensii; beauveria bassiana; entomopathogenic fungi; pathogenicity; wood disk bioassay; oak decline,BIOCONTROL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY,MORALES RODRIGUEZ C;SANCHEZ GONZALEZ A;CONEJO RODRIGUEZ Y;TORRES VILA LM,the pathogenicity of beauveria bassiana on cerambyx welensii is first reported. three native fungal isolates from badajoz (spain) were bioassayed on neonates using cork oak disks and lc(50)s were 1.16-1.76 x 10(5) and 0.30-0.61 x 10(5) spores/ml on the 7th and 14th day post-inoculation. the fungus is potentially a biocontrol agent of c. welensii. +antennal response of prinobius myardi to synthetic tree volatiles,eag; electroantennography; wood borers; cerambycidae; quercus; plant volatiles; beta-pinene,SILVA FENNICA,SANCHEZ OSORIO I;DOMINGUEZ L;LOPEZ PANTOJA G;TAPIAS R,"prinobius myardi mulsant is a wood borer implicated in the decline of mediterranean oaks, especially quercus suber l. and quercus ilex l. plant volatiles play an important role in plant-insect interactions, and electroantennography (eag) is an effective tool for exploring the electrophysiological activity of host plant volatiles on insects. to improve our understanding of the olfactory sensitivity of p. myardi, we recorded eag responses to 20 tree volatiles, and analyzed the dosedependent response to five doses (10(-4):1 to 1: 1 v/v) of the three most eag-active compounds. antennae of p. myardi responded to 13 chemicals, mainly monoterpenes and green leaf volatiles, with the strongest eag responses being observed with beta-pinene, (+)-alpha-pinene and 1,8-cineole. dose-response profiles showed positive dose-dependent responses for all three compounds. our results suggest a broad sensitivity of p. myardi to common tree volatiles, particularly some hostrelated compounds and volatiles associated with wounded trees; the olfactory recognition of ratios of these compounds could play a role in host selection by p. myardi." "shortnose sturgeon and atlantic sturgeon in the kennebec river system, maine: a 1977-2001 retrospective of abundance and important habitat",NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,WIPPELHAUSER GS;SQUIERS TS,"little was known about the populations of shortnose sturgeon acipenser brevirostrum and atlantic sturgeon a. oxyrinchus in the kennebec, androscoggin, and sheepscot river estuaries (the kennebec system) in maine, prompting a series of field studies spanning the years 1977-2001. although the impetus for these studies varied, common objectives were to estimate population abundances and locate habitat important to the conservation of both species. during 16 years of gill-net sampling, we caught 3,372 shortnose sturgeon and 403 atlantic sturgeon. on the basis of two mark-recapture studies, the adult shortnose sturgeon population in the kennebec system was estimated to be 5,117 (95% confidence interval, 4,206-6,279) for the period 1977-1981 and 9,436 (7,542-11,888) for the period 1998-2000. gill-net sampling led to the identification of two spawning areas in the kennebec system. one was an approximately 0.7-km-long reach immediately downstream of brunswick dam in the androscoggin estuary, and the other was an approximately 26-km-long reach immediately downstream of edwards dam in the upper kennebec estuary. shortnose sturgeon were caught at both locations, while atlantic sturgeon were documented only in the upper kennebec estuary. acoustic telemetry was used to identify a wintering site in merrymeeting bay that was used by shortnose sturgeon." "life, death, and resurrection: accounting for state uncertainty in survival estimation from tagged grass carp",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,STICH DS;JIAO Y;MURPHY BR,"information about grass carp ctenopharyngodon idella survival would be useful for improving the management of fish used for aquatic weed control. reliable methods for estimating annual poststocking survival of grass carp from radiotelemetry data do not exist because the fish remain sedentary for prolonged periods between movements, giving the false impression of death, only to be observed alive (i.e., ""resurrected"") at a later date. we constructed a state-space, multistate mark-recapture survival model accounting for uncertainty in the live/dead states of tagged grass carp in a large (8,500 ha) reservoir, and we estimated monthly and annual survival. model results were compared with life history-based methods for estimating survival, and survival estimates that were corrected for state misclassification were compared with uncorrected estimates. corrected estimates of annual survival (mean = 0.23; 95% credible interval [cri] d 0.15-0.41) contained less bias than uncorrected estimates (0.12; 95% cri = 0.08-0.18). however, both corrected and uncorrected estimates were substantially lower than the survival expected based on life history theory (mean d 0.69; 95% confidence interval d 0.52-0.78), suggesting that mark-recapture survival estimates for grass carp might be negatively biased due to tag shedding, tag-related mortality, or both. our model effectively reduced bias in monthly and annual survival estimates due to state misclassification, illustrating the potential for application of existing mark-recapture frameworks to estimate grass carp survival with telemetry data, despite the behavioral idiosyncrasies of the species. furthermore, these methods may have application for studies of other animals that undergo periodic quiescence between movements, such as salmonids, ictalurids, and reef fishes. to account for bias resulting from tag loss, future mark-recapture studies of grass carp could incorporate tag shedding rates within the framework developed here." dynamics of endangered eastern cape breton atlantic salmon populations,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,GIBSON AJF;BOWLBY HD;LEVY AL,"the eastern cape breton (ecb) designable unit (du) of atlantic salmon salmo salar comprises populations in 46 or more rivers in the eastern portion of cape breton island, nova scotia, canada. in 2010, the committee on the status of endangered wildlife in canada classified the ecb du as endangered. in support of recovery planning processes, we developed an integrated, statistical, life history-based model for evaluating the dynamics of populations belonging to this du. using maximum likelihood, the model was fitted to recreational fishery catch and effort data, fish counts by divers, intermittent mark-recapture data, and sparse age composition data for two populations in the du. the model output included estimates of maximum lifetime reproductive rate ((alpha) over cap) and equilibrium population size-parameters that are important for determining extinction risk. the (alpha) over bar for the middle river population (2.82 spawners/spawner) was double that of the baddeck river population (1.39 spawners/spawner). these (alpha) over bar values would be considered low for atlantic salmon populations in general but are higher than those of populations in a neighboring endangered du to the south. slightly negative trends in recruitment deviates may indicate declining productivity in the two ecb populations; based on equilibrium analyses, neither population is expected to achieve the proposed recovery targets without an increase in productivity, survival, or both. atlantic salmon populations and habitat characteristics in ecb exhibit considerable diversity. therefore, the dynamics of the middle river and baddeck river populations are unlikely to be representative of all populations in the ecb du. based on recent trends in recreational fishery catches, these two populations are likely among the healthier populations within the du." @@ -2272,7 +2275,7 @@ how ebola impacts social dynamics in gorillas: a multistate modelling approach,c "multi-state mark-recapture model to estimate survival of a dispersed-nesting seabird, the kittlitz's murrelet",alaska; brachyramphus; demography; kittlitz's murrelet; mark-recapture; multi-state; seabird; survival,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,KISSLING ML;LUKACS PM;GENDE SM;LEWIS SB,"the kittlitz's murrelet (brachyramphus brevirostris) is a small, dispersed-nesting seabird that often occurs in glacially influenced marine waters of alaska and eastern russia during the breeding season. owing to its association with glacial habitats and apparent population declines in some parts of its range, the kittlitz's murrelet has been the subject of considerable conservation concern in recent years. we present the first-ever estimates of breeding season and annual survival of the kittlitz's murrelet. we estimated survival by capturing 914 murrelets and radiotagging 191 of them in icy bay, alaska, 2007-2012. we used a multi-state mark-recapture framework to estimate breeding season survival. daily survival probabilities were similar in the 3 spatial states (icy bay, gulf of alaska, nest; range=0.996-0.999), resulting in an overall 60-day breeding season survival probability of 0.89 (se=0.04). the only apparent source of fatality of kittlitz's murrelets during the breeding season was avian predators, specifically bald eagle (haliaeetus leucocephalus) and peregrine falcon (falco peregrinus). we estimated mean apparent annual survival across all years as 0.80 (se=0.33) with a recapture probability of 0.079 (se=0.032), resulting in a 305-day non-breeding season survival probability of 0.90 (se=0.37). we found that survival was lower than expected based on life-history theory and allometry, and that fatality risk was greater in the breeding season compared to other parts of the year. our results indicating low survival rates of kittlitz's murrelets are consistent with the observed decline of 10% per annum in the local population of this species in icy bay. published 2014. this article is a u.s. government work and is in the public domain in the usa." estimating sex-specific abundance in fawning areas of a high-density columbian black-tailed deer population using fecal dna,abundance; black-tailed deer; mark-recapture; microsatellite; noninvasive dna; sex ratio,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,LOUNSBERRY ZT;FORRESTER TD;OLEGARIO MT;BRAZEAL JL;WITTMER HU;SACKS BN,"the recent development of fecal-genetic capture-mark-recapture (cmr) methods has increased the feasibility of estimating abundance of forest-dwelling ungulates that are difficult to survey using visual methods. unless genetic markers differentiating sex are incorporated into such studies, however, genetic cmr approaches risk missing sex-specific differences in population trends. we developed a single-reaction genetic assay for sex and individual identification, including 10 microsatellites and an sry marker, and applied it in the context of a post-fawning cmr study of columbian black-tailed deer (odocoileus hemionus columbianus) in forested habitat of coastal california during 2011 and 2012. we measured sex-specific abundance and sex ratios in high-quality summer habitats encompassing 4 distinct fawning areas. we detected a significant interaction between sex and year, indicating different trends in the abundance of males and females. we also detected a significant decline in abundance of females between years (p=0.045), which agreed with independent telemetry-based estimates, and significant differences in female abundance among fawning areas (p=0.020) but no significant differences in the abundance of males for either variable (f-1-3,f-20 < 0.710, p>0.410). when sex was not considered in the analysis, we found no significant differences in abundance between the 2 years, suggesting that differing trends between the 2 sexes obscured the female-specific patterns. we estimated average local (i.e., on the high-quality summer ranges) density ((d) over cap) for females at 41.0 (+/- 5.9)deer/km(2) in 2011 and 29.1 (+/- 6.8)deer/km(2) in 2012, and local density of males at 15.7 (+/- 3.0)deer/km(2) across the 2 study years. accordingly, sex ratios differed between years (95% ci=3.0-4.2 f:m ratio in 2011, 2.0-2.3 f:m ratio in 2012). incorporating sex and individual markers into a single assay provided a cost-effective means of applying cmr estimation based on fecal dna to a high-density ungulate population in a forested ecosystem and emphasized the importance of explicitly modeling sex in abundance estimation. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." "survival and abundance of short-finned pilot whales in the archipelago of madeira, ne atlantic",globicephala macrorhynchus; heterogeneity; island-associated; mark-recapture; photo-identification; population models; population parameters; transience,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,ALVES F;DINIS A;NICOLAU C;RIBEIRO C;KAUFMANN M;FORTUNA C;FREITAS L,"estimates of population parameters for the short-finned pilot whale, globicephala macrorhynchus, are scarce in literature, contributing to an international union for conservation of nature (iucn) status of data deficient. in this study, photo-identification data collected over 7 yr from madeira were used to estimate for the first time survivorship, capture probability, and abundance in this species using mark-recapture methodology. the cormack-jolly-seber model estimated that the adult island-associated (i.e., resident and regular visitor) whales had a constant survival rate of 0.960 (95% ci: 0.853-0.990) and an annual capture probability varying between 0.372 (ci: 0.178-0.619) and 0.843 (ci: 0.619-0.947). a parameterization of the jolly-seber model estimated that 140 island-associated whales (ci: 131-151) used the area throughout the course of the study. based on a closed population model, the most precise (lower cv) annual estimate of the total number of pilot whales using the southern and eastern waters of madeira (similar to 900 km(2)) in a 3 mo period covering summer/autumn was 334 animals (ci: 260-437). no trend was observed. despite including biases, the approach used in this study provided plausible estimates of population parameters, which can contribute to the regional conservation strategies." -trends in bowhead whales in west greenland: aerial surveys vs. genetic capture-recapture analyses,hidden markov models; aerial surveys; capture-recapture; arctic; genetics; bowhead whale; balaena mysticetus; disko bay; abundance,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,REKDAL SL;HANSEN RG;BORCHERS D;BACHMANN L;LAIDRE KL;WIIG O;NIELSEN NH;FOSSETTE S;TERVO O;HEIDE-JORGENSEN MP,"we contrast two methods for estimating the trends of bowhead whales (balaena mysticetus) in west greenland: (1) double platform visual aerial survey, corrected for missed sightings and the time the whales are available at the surface; and (2) a genetic capture-recapture approach based on a 14-yr-long biopsy sampling program in disko bay. the aerial survey covered 39,000 km(2) and resulted in 58 sightings, yielding an abundance estimate of 744 whales (cv = 0.34, 95% ci: 357-1,461). the genetic method relied on determining sex, mitochondrial haplotypes and genotypes of nine microsatellite markers. based on samples from a total of 427 individuals, with 11 recaptures from previous years in 2013, this resulted in an estimate of 1,538 whales (cv = 0.24, 95% ci: 827-2,249). while the aerial survey is considered a snapshot of the local spring aggregation in disko bay, the genetic approach estimates the abundance of the source of this aggregation. as the whales in disko bay primarily are adult females that do not visit the bay annually, the genetic method would presumably yield higher estimates. the studies indicate that an increase in abundance observed between 1998 and 2006 has leveled off." +trends in bowhead whales in west greenland: aerial surveys vs. genetic capture-recapture analyses,hidden markov models; aerial surveys; capture-recapture; arctic; genetics; bowhead whale; balaena mysticetus; disko bay; abundance,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,REKDAL SL;HANSEN RG;BORCHERS D;BACHMANN L;LAIDRE KL;WIIG O;NIELSEN NH;FOSSETTE S;TERVO O;HEIDE JORGENSEN MP,"we contrast two methods for estimating the trends of bowhead whales (balaena mysticetus) in west greenland: (1) double platform visual aerial survey, corrected for missed sightings and the time the whales are available at the surface; and (2) a genetic capture-recapture approach based on a 14-yr-long biopsy sampling program in disko bay. the aerial survey covered 39,000 km(2) and resulted in 58 sightings, yielding an abundance estimate of 744 whales (cv = 0.34, 95% ci: 357-1,461). the genetic method relied on determining sex, mitochondrial haplotypes and genotypes of nine microsatellite markers. based on samples from a total of 427 individuals, with 11 recaptures from previous years in 2013, this resulted in an estimate of 1,538 whales (cv = 0.24, 95% ci: 827-2,249). while the aerial survey is considered a snapshot of the local spring aggregation in disko bay, the genetic approach estimates the abundance of the source of this aggregation. as the whales in disko bay primarily are adult females that do not visit the bay annually, the genetic method would presumably yield higher estimates. the studies indicate that an increase in abundance observed between 1998 and 2006 has leveled off." estimating rheumatic fever incidence in new zealand using multiple data sources,rheumatic fever; new zealand; population surveillance; statistical models,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,OLIVER J;PIERSE N;BAKER MG,"rheumatic fever (rf) is an important public health problem in new zealand (nz). there are three sources of rf surveillance data, all with major limitations that prevent nz generating accurate epidemiological information. we aimed to estimate the likely rf incidence using multiple surveillance data sources. national rf hospitalization and notification data were obtained, covering the periods 1988-2011 and 1997-2011, respectively. data were also obtained from four regional registers: wellington, waikato, hawke's bay and rotorua. coded patient identifiers were used to calculate the proportion of individuals who could be matched between datasets. capture-recapture analyses were used to calculate the likely number of true rf cases for the period 1997-2011. a range of scenarios were used to correct for likely dataset incompleteness. the estimated sensitivity of each data source was calculated. patients who were male, maori or pacific, aged 5-15 years and met the jones criteria, were most likely to be matched between national datasets. all registers appeared incomplete. an average of 113 new initial cases occurred annually. sensitivity was estimated at 80% for the hospitalization dataset and 60% for the notification dataset. there is a clear need to develop a high-quality rf surveillance system, such as a national register. such a system could link important data sources to provide effective, comprehensive national surveillance to support both strategy-focused and control-focused activities, helping reduce the incidence and impact of this disease. it is important to remind clinicians that rf cases do occur outside the well-characterized high-risk group." best bait for your buck: bait preference for camera trapping north australian mammals,attractant; hopping mouse; quoll; remote camera; vertical,AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,DIETE RL;MEEK PD;DIXON KM;DICKMAN CR;LEUNG LKP,"critical evaluations of bait attractiveness for camera trapping wildlife are scant even though use of the most attractive bait should improve detection of cryptic, threatened species. we aimed to determine the most attractive bait for camera trapping the northern hopping-mouse (notomys aquilo) and sympatric mammals. we also tested the effectiveness of overhead camera trap orientation in identifying individual northern quolls (dasyurus hallucatus) as this could be used to define a camera trap event for analysis purposes. using white-flash camera traps, the attractiveness of four baits (peanut butter with oats, corn, sesame oil and sunflower kernels) and a control were compared for n. aquilo, d. hallucatus, the northern brown bandicoot (isoodon macrourus) and the agile wallaby (notamacropus agilis). spot patterns of d. hallucatus were compared to determine the visitation rate of individuals. peanut butter-and sesame oil-based baits were significantly more attractive to d. hallucatus, while i. macrourus strongly preferred the peanut butter bait. bait type did not affect the mean number of events for n. aquilo or n. agilis. the consistently identifiable images of individual d. hallucatus were used to determine the optimal event delineator of 15 min. the improved techniques for camera trapping d. hallucatus should be valuable for future capture-recapture studies of this species. camera trapping is a viable replacement for the ineffective method of indexing the abundance of n. aquilo using indirect signs." "results of florida's amyotrophic lateral sclerosis surveillance project, 2009-2011",NA,BMJ OPEN,FREER C;HYLTON T;JORDAN HM;KAYE WE;SINGH S;HUANG YJ,"objective: studies to determine the incidence and prevalence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als) in defined geographic areas in the usa are needed. the florida department of health received funding from the federal agency for toxic substances and disease registry to implement a state-wide als surveillance project. the objectives of the project were to describe the demographic characteristics of als cases and to calculate the incidence and prevalence of als in florida. setting/participants: all neurologists were asked to submit case reports for persons with als diagnosed and/or under their care during 1 january 2009 through 31 december 2011. a medical record verification form and an electromyogram (emg) report were requested for a sample of cases and reviewed by an independent consulting neurologist to confirm als diagnosis. death data were used to aid with case report collection. primary and secondary outcome measures: demographics, relevant history and clinical characteristics, el escorial classifications, time from symptom onset to diagnosis, crude annual incidence rates and 2009 period prevalence are presented. results: the 1450 reported als cases were more likely to be older, male, white and non-hispanic. slightly more than 4% of cases were reported as also having dementia, and 4.8% were reported to have an immediate family member diagnosed with als. incidence rates ranged from 1.7 to 1.9 per 100 000 person-years during the project period and the 2009 period prevalence was 4.0 per 100 000 persons. conclusions: project findings are generally consistent with findings of population-based studies in europe, as well as geographically limited studies in the usa. our findings add to the growing body of epidemiological literature about als in the usa. future epidemiological studies in the usa should focus on identifying cases from minority groups and those that may have limited access to healthcare, and should consider conducting capture-recapture analysis to assess case ascertainment." @@ -2289,7 +2292,7 @@ modeling multi-scale resource selection for bear rubs in northwestern montana,be "gene flow across the n-atlantic and sex-biased dispersal inferred from mtdna sequence variation in saithe, pollachius virens",mtdna; coi; gene flow; sex-biased dispersal; demography,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,EIRIKSSON GM;ARNASON E,"genetic variation in saithe pollachius virens was examined using a 460 base pair fragment of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit i mitochondrial gene in 1163 individuals sampled in canada, iceland, faroe islands and norway. in all, 43 segregating sites were observed, almost all synonymous, defining 51 haplotypes. high frequency polymorphism was present at the analyzed fragment making it suitable for population genetic studies. the results showed limited trans atlantic genetic structure indicating high levels of gene flow. however, a spatial genetic structure was observed when considering the sexes separately. this may suggest sex-biased migration pattern. the data indicate that females may be more philopatric and males more migratory. such behaviour has rarely been described for marine fish and is worth further research. the observed genetic variation also indicates that saithe has undergone sudden population expansion, reflected in high number of singletons and a shallow genealogy." on the chao and zelterman estimators in a binomial mixture model,capture-recapture; population size,STATISTICAL METHODOLOGY,MAO CX;YANG N;ZHONG JH,"data from a surveillance system can be used to estimate the size of a disease population. for certain surveillance systems, a binomial mixture model arises as a natural choice. the chao estimator estimates a lower bound of the population size. the zelterman estimator estimates a parameter that is neither a lower bound nor an upper bound. by comparing the chao estimator and the zelterman estimator both theoretically and numerically, we conclude that the chao estimator is better. (c) 2014 elsevier b.v. all.rights reserved." movement behaviour of the carabid beetle pterostichus melanarius in crops and at a habitat interface explains patterns of population redistribution in the field,NA,PLOS ONE,ALLEMA B;VAN DER WERF W;VAN LENTEREN JC;HEMERIK L;ROSSING WAH,"animals may respond to habitat quality and habitat edges and these responses may affect their distribution between habitats. we studied the movement behaviour of a ground-dwelling generalist predator, the carabid beetle pterostichus melanarius (illiger). we performed a mark-recapture experiment in two adjacent habitats; a large plot with oilseed radish (raphanus sativus) and a plot with rye (secale cereale). we used model selection to identify a minimal model representing the mark-recapture data, and determine whether habitat-specific motility and boundary behaviour affected population redistribution. we determined movement characteristics of p. melanarius in laboratory arenas with the same plant species using video recording. both the field and arena results showed preference behaviour of p. melanarius at the habitat interface. in the field, significantly more beetles moved from rye to oilseed radish than from radish to rye. in the arena, habitat entry was more frequent into oilseed radish than into rye. in the field, movement was best described by a fokker-planck diffusion model that contained preference behaviour at the interface and did not account for habitat specific motility. likewise, motility calculated from movement data using the patlak model was not different between habitats in the arena studies. motility (m(2) d(-1)) calculated from behavioural data resulted in estimates that were similar to those determined in the field. thus individual behaviour explained population redistribution in the field qualitatively as well as quantitatively. the findings provide a basis for evaluating movement within and across habitats in complex agricultural landscapes with multiple habitats and habitat interfaces." -"incidence of multiple sclerosis in northern lisbon, portugal: 1998-2007",capture-recapture; epidemiology; methods; multiple sclerosis; public health,BMC NEUROLOGY,DE SA J;ALCALDE-CABERO E;ALMAZAN-ISLA J;GARCIA-LOPEZ F;DE PEDRO-CUESTA J,"background: there are few, recent, well assessed, multiple sclerosis (ms) incidence surveys on european populations. this study sought to measure ms incidence in a northern lisbon population and assess it using capture-recapture methods (crms). methods: among the population residing in the northern lisbon health area, registered ms diagnoses were obtained from general practitioners in three primary-care districts covering a population of 196,300, and a neurology unit at the main referral hospital. cases with onset during the periods 1978-1997 and 2008-2012 were excluded due to perceived poor access to image-supported neurological diagnosis and administrative changes in patient referral respectively. age-and sex-specific incidences for the period 1998-2007 were calculated using mcdonald diagnostic criteria, and crms were used to correct age-specific incidence rates. the corrected figures were also adjusted for age using the european standard population as reference. results: when applied to 62 ms patients with onset in the period 1998-2007, the rates per 100,000 population were as follows for both sexes: crude, 3.16; age-adjusted, 3.09 (95% ci 2.32 to 3.87); crm-adjusted, 4.53 (95% ci 3.13 to 5.94); and age-and crm-adjusted, 4.48 (3.54-5.41). in general, the rates were 3-fold higher among women than among men. negative source dependency and crm impact were highest at ages 35-44 years, where a 60% rise led to a peak incidence. conclusions: ms incidence in northern lisbon, portugal, is moderately lower than that yielded by surveys on european populations. crms, which in this instance suggest undercounts, are a potentially useful tool for case-finding assessment but their application may introduce bias." +"incidence of multiple sclerosis in northern lisbon, portugal: 1998-2007",capture-recapture; epidemiology; methods; multiple sclerosis; public health,BMC NEUROLOGY,DE SA J;ALCALDE CABERO E;ALMAZAN ISLA J;GARCIA LOPEZ F;DE PEDRO CUESTA J,"background: there are few, recent, well assessed, multiple sclerosis (ms) incidence surveys on european populations. this study sought to measure ms incidence in a northern lisbon population and assess it using capture-recapture methods (crms). methods: among the population residing in the northern lisbon health area, registered ms diagnoses were obtained from general practitioners in three primary-care districts covering a population of 196,300, and a neurology unit at the main referral hospital. cases with onset during the periods 1978-1997 and 2008-2012 were excluded due to perceived poor access to image-supported neurological diagnosis and administrative changes in patient referral respectively. age-and sex-specific incidences for the period 1998-2007 were calculated using mcdonald diagnostic criteria, and crms were used to correct age-specific incidence rates. the corrected figures were also adjusted for age using the european standard population as reference. results: when applied to 62 ms patients with onset in the period 1998-2007, the rates per 100,000 population were as follows for both sexes: crude, 3.16; age-adjusted, 3.09 (95% ci 2.32 to 3.87); crm-adjusted, 4.53 (95% ci 3.13 to 5.94); and age-and crm-adjusted, 4.48 (3.54-5.41). in general, the rates were 3-fold higher among women than among men. negative source dependency and crm impact were highest at ages 35-44 years, where a 60% rise led to a peak incidence. conclusions: ms incidence in northern lisbon, portugal, is moderately lower than that yielded by surveys on european populations. crms, which in this instance suggest undercounts, are a potentially useful tool for case-finding assessment but their application may introduce bias." acoustic telemetry reveals large-scale migration patterns of walleye in lake huron,NA,PLOS ONE,HAYDEN TA;HOLBROOK CM;FIELDER DG;VANDERGOOT CS;BERGSTEDT RA;DETTMERS JM;KRUEGER CC;COOKE SJ,"fish migration in large freshwater lacustrine systems such as the laurentian great lakes is not well understood. the walleye (sander vitreus) is an economically and ecologically important native fish species throughout the great lakes. in lake huron walleye has recently undergone a population expansion as a result of recovery of the primary stock, stemming from changing food web dynamics. during 2011 and 2012, we used acoustic telemetry to document the timing and spatial scale of walleye migration in lake huron and saginaw bay. spawning walleye (n=199) collected from a tributary of saginaw bay were implanted with acoustic tags and their migrations were documented using acoustic receivers (n=140) deployed throughout u.s. nearshore waters of lake huron. three migration pathways were described using multistate mark-recapture models. models were evaluated using the akaike information criterion. fish sex did not influence migratory behavior but did affect migration rate and walleye were detected on all acoustic receiver lines. most (95%) tagged fish migrated downstream from the riverine tagging and release location to saginaw bay, and 37% of these fish emigrated from saginaw bay into lake huron. remarkably, 8% of walleye that emigrated from saginaw bay were detected at the acoustic receiver line located farthest from the release location more than 350 km away. most (64%) walleye returned to the saginaw river in 2012, presumably for spawning. our findings reveal that fish from this stock use virtually the entirety of u.s. nearshore waters of lake huron." using infrared cameras and skunk lure to monitor swift fox (vulpes velox),NA,SOUTHWESTERN NATURALIST,STRATMAN MR;APKER JA,"state agencies and managers seek more efficient and cost-effective survey methods to monitor wildlife populations in an attempt to maintain biologically defensible results amid continued budgetary constraints. we employed a noninvasive approach using infrared cameras and a skunk-based lure on 52 grids to estimate detection and occupancy rates of swift foxes (vulpes velox) in eastern colorado. we used eight camera stations within 31-km(2) grids, monitored each grid for five consecutive nights, and collected 331 swift fox detections from august-october 2011. we documented 78 more swift fox detections on 25% more grids using remote cameras with skunk lure while deploying 60% fewer survey stations per grid than previous mark-recapture surveys. our estimates showed improvements in precision and accuracy for detecting swift foxes and estimating occupancy across eastern colorado. using infrared cameras and a skunk-based lure proved to be an efficient and effective technique for monitoring swift foxes on a landscape scale by reducing labor costs, survey time, and potential biases that may result from using cameras or other survey techniques." evaluating heterogeneity of sex-specific capture probability and precision in camera-trap population estimates of tigers,capture-recapture; density; india; male-female; panthers tigris; ranthambhore; spatially explicit; tiger,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,SINGH R;QURESHI Q;SANKAR K;KRAUSMAN PR;GOYAL SP,"population estimates of tigers (panthers tigris) are affected by movement patterns of the sexes. we evaluated sex-specific heterogeneity to estimate the tiger population at ranthambhore tiger reserve, western rajasthan, india. we also compared population attributes obtained using a likelihood-based spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) method with traditional approaches that use alternate information on animal space used to estimate an effective sampled area around the traps. we obtained 122 tiger photo-captures of 27 individuals (14 f and 13 m) from 165 camera-trapping sites in a 215-km(2) area over 3,300 trap-nights, for 20 sampling occasions in 2010. the capture probability of males was about 2 times greater than that of female tigers, but overall detection probability was high, with total population estimate of about 30.2 tigers (se = 3.7). male and female tiger density estimates/100 km(2) were 2.8 (se = 0.8) and 4.1 (se = 1.1), respectively, and overall density estimates of 6.1 (se = 1.2) individuals/100 km(2) were obtained using the secr method. non-spatial models using the full mean maximum distance moved(mmdm) to estimate an effective sampled area underestimated the density by 9% compared with the secr model as a baseline, and 1/2mmdm models overestimated the density by 25% as compared with results from the secr model. we conclude that to assess the reliability of abundance estimates, heterogeneity in sex-specific capture probabilities should be considered. we recommend using an secr model because these methods appear to be minimally biased for estimating an effective sampled area and can be applied consistently among studies of various taxa. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." @@ -2302,8 +2305,8 @@ foraging distance of melipona subnitida ducke (hymenoptera: apidae),artificial f "probit models for capture-recapture data subject to imperfect detection, individual heterogeneity and misidentification",data augmentation; individual heterogeneity; latent multinomial; mark recapture; missing data; population size; probit regression; record linkage,ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,MCCLINTOCK BT;BAILEY LL;DREHER BP;LINK WA,"as noninvasive sampling techniques for animal populations have become more popular, there has been increasing interest in the development of capture-recapture models that can accommodate both imperfect detection and misidentification of individuals (e.g., due to genotyping error). however, current methods do not allow for individual variation in parameters, such as detection or survival probability. here we develop misidentification models for capture-recapture data that can simultaneously account for temporal variation, behavioral effects and individual heterogeneity in parameters. to facilitate bayesian inference using our approach, we extend standard probit regression techniques to latent multinomial models where the dimension and zeros of the response cannot be observed. we also present a novel metropolis-hastings within gibbs algorithm for fitting these models using markov chain monte carlo. using closed population abundance models for illustration, we re-visit a dna capture-recapture population study of black bears in michigan, usa and find evidence of misidentification due to genotyping error, as well as temporal, behavioral and individual variation in detection probability. we also estimate a salamander population of known size from laboratory experiments evaluating the effectiveness of a marking technique commonly used for amphibians and fish. our model was able to reliably estimate the size of this population and provided evidence of individual heterogeneity in misidentification probability that is attributable to variable mark quality. our approach is more computationally demanding than previously proposed methods, but it provides the flexibility necessary for a much broader suite of models to be explored while properly accounting for uncertainty introduced by misidentification and imperfect detection. in the absence of misidentification, our probit formulation also provides a convenient and efficient gibbs sampler for bayesian analysis of traditional closed population capture-recapture data." "a metapopulation of the lizard anguis fragilis (squamata: anguidae) on a local scale in dorset, great britain, as indicated by spatial distribution and movement",dispersal; male bias; mark-recapture; slow-worm,PHYLLOMEDUSA,HALEY T,"a metapopulation is a group of spatially structured populations, consisting of distinct units (subpopulations) that are separated by space or barriers, and connected by dispersal movements. evidence derived from gaussian finite-mixture models and dispersal events suggests that slow-worms may exist in a metapopulation. the gaussian finite-mixture models showed that slow-worms are aggregated into individual subpopulations; the movement data revealed that males are more likely to migrate than females and that they have the ability to travel sufficiently far to bridge subpopulations. therefore, the evidence supports the metapopulation theory and that slow-worms exist in multiple small subpopulations instead of one large homogenous population." "impact of minimum catch size on the population viability of strombus gigas (mesogastropoda: strombidae) in quintana roo, mexico",fishery management; fishing sustainability; overfishing; population simulation; population viability; sexual maturity,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,PEEL JR;MANDUJANO MD,"the queen conch strombus gigas represents one of the most important fishery resources of the caribbean but heavy fishing pressure has led to the depletion of stocks throughout the region, causing the inclusion of this species into cites appendix ii and iucn's red-list. in mexico, the queen conch is managed through a minimum fishing size of 200mm shell length and a fishing quota which usually represents 50% of the adult biomass. the objectives of this study were to determine the intrinsic population growth rate of the queen conch population of xel-ha, quintana roo, mexico, and to assess the effects of a regulated fishing impact, simulating the extraction of 50% adult biomass on the population density. we used three different minimum size criteria to demonstrate the effects of minimum catch size on the population density and discuss biological implications. demographic data was obtained through capture-mark-recapture sampling, collecting all animals encountered during three hours, by three divers, at four different sampling sites of the xel-ha inlet. the conch population was sampled each month between 2005 and 2006, and bimonthly between 2006 and 2011, tagging a total of 8 292 animals. shell length and lip thickness were determined for each individual. the average shell length for conch with formed lip in xel-ha was 209.39 +/- 14.18mm and the median 210mm. half of the sampled conch with lip ranged between 200mm and 219mm shell length. assuming that the presence of the lip is an indicator for sexual maturity, it can be concluded that many animals may form their lip at greater shell lengths than 200mm and ought to be considered immature. estimation of relative adult abundance and densities varied greatly depending on the criteria employed for adult classification. when using a minimum fishing size of 200mm shell length, between 26.2% and up to 54.8% of the population qualified as adults, which represented a simulated fishing impact of almost one third of the population. when conch extraction was simulated using a classification criteria based on lip thickness, it had a much smaller impact on the population density. we concluded that the best management strategy for s. gigas is a minimum fishing size based on a lip thickness, since it has lower impact on the population density, and given that selective fishing pressure based on size may lead to the appearance of small adult individuals with reduced fecundity. furthermore, based on the reproductive biology and the results of the simulated fishing, we suggest a minimum lip thickness of >= 15mm, which ensures the protection of reproductive stages, reduces the risk of overfishing, leading to non-viable density reduction." -"density, distribution, and activity of the ocelot leopardus pardalis (carnivora: felidae) in southeast mexican rainforests",camera-trapping; capture-recapture; los chimalapas; cjs model,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,PEREZ-IRINEO G;SANTOS-MORENO A,"the ocelot leopardus pardalis is of particular significance in terrestrial communities due to its ecological role within the group of small-sized felids and as a mesopredator. however, despite the reduction of ocelot habitat in southeast mexico, there are still very few ecological studies. this research aimed to contribute with some ecological aspects of the species in this region. for this, 29 camera trap stations were established in a rain forest in los chimalapas (an area of 22km(2)) during a two years period (march 2011-june, 2013), in oaxaca state, southeast mexico. data allowed the estimation of the population density, activity pattern, sex ratio, residence time, and spatial distribution. population density was calculated using capture-recapture models for demographically open populations; besides, circular techniques were used to determine if nocturnal and diurnal activity varied significantly over the seasons, and multiple discriminant analysis was used to determine which of the selected environmental variables best explained ocelot abundance in the region. a total of 103 ocelot records were obtained, with a total sampling effort of 8 529 trap-days. density of 22-38individuals/100km(2) was estimated. ocelot population had a high proportion of transient individuals in the zone (55%), and the sex ratio was statistically equal to 1:1. ocelot activity was more frequent at night (1:00-6:00h), but it also exhibited diurnal activity throughout the study period. ocelot spatial distribution was positively affected by the proximity to the village as well as by the amount of prey. the ocelot population here appears to be stable, with a density similar to other regions in central and south america, which could be attributed to the diversity of prey species and a low degree of disturbance in los chimalapas." -"short-term population dynamics of three frog species in the northern andes, colombia",craugastoridae; dendrobatidae; mark-recapture; population dynamics; population growth rate; pradel model; survival probability,SOUTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,MOLINA-ZULUAGA C;RESTREPO A;FLECHAS SV;DAZA JM,"to assess the conservation status of endemic species we examined the population trends in three frog species with different life histories. we performed a mark-recapture field experiment in a protected area on the eastern flank of the cordillera central in the northern andes of colombia. we marked and followed 123 individuals of pristimantis jaguensis, 178 colostethus aff. fraterdanieli, and 83 dendrobates truncatus. the survival probability and the population growth rate of p. jaguensis varied as a function of capture occasion, while the recapture probability was constant. in the two dendrobatids, c. aff. fraterdanieli and d. truncatus, survival and recapture probabilities were constant over time and the population growth rate indicated the populations were stables during monitoring. long-term monitoring programs are recommended to establish with certainty the conservation status of each species. however, in the perspective of the current biodiversity crisis in which rapid management decisions must be made, it is necessary to draw on the available data even if its limited. although our demographic dataset is limited in time, we demonstrated how this information constitutes a starting point to understand the conservation status of these frog populations and to establish standard methods to continue long-term monitoring programs." +"density, distribution, and activity of the ocelot leopardus pardalis (carnivora: felidae) in southeast mexican rainforests",camera-trapping; capture-recapture; los chimalapas; cjs model,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,PEREZ IRINEO G;SANTOS MORENO A,"the ocelot leopardus pardalis is of particular significance in terrestrial communities due to its ecological role within the group of small-sized felids and as a mesopredator. however, despite the reduction of ocelot habitat in southeast mexico, there are still very few ecological studies. this research aimed to contribute with some ecological aspects of the species in this region. for this, 29 camera trap stations were established in a rain forest in los chimalapas (an area of 22km(2)) during a two years period (march 2011-june, 2013), in oaxaca state, southeast mexico. data allowed the estimation of the population density, activity pattern, sex ratio, residence time, and spatial distribution. population density was calculated using capture-recapture models for demographically open populations; besides, circular techniques were used to determine if nocturnal and diurnal activity varied significantly over the seasons, and multiple discriminant analysis was used to determine which of the selected environmental variables best explained ocelot abundance in the region. a total of 103 ocelot records were obtained, with a total sampling effort of 8 529 trap-days. density of 22-38individuals/100km(2) was estimated. ocelot population had a high proportion of transient individuals in the zone (55%), and the sex ratio was statistically equal to 1:1. ocelot activity was more frequent at night (1:00-6:00h), but it also exhibited diurnal activity throughout the study period. ocelot spatial distribution was positively affected by the proximity to the village as well as by the amount of prey. the ocelot population here appears to be stable, with a density similar to other regions in central and south america, which could be attributed to the diversity of prey species and a low degree of disturbance in los chimalapas." +"short-term population dynamics of three frog species in the northern andes, colombia",craugastoridae; dendrobatidae; mark-recapture; population dynamics; population growth rate; pradel model; survival probability,SOUTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,MOLINA ZULUAGA C;RESTREPO A;FLECHAS SV;DAZA JM,"to assess the conservation status of endemic species we examined the population trends in three frog species with different life histories. we performed a mark-recapture field experiment in a protected area on the eastern flank of the cordillera central in the northern andes of colombia. we marked and followed 123 individuals of pristimantis jaguensis, 178 colostethus aff. fraterdanieli, and 83 dendrobates truncatus. the survival probability and the population growth rate of p. jaguensis varied as a function of capture occasion, while the recapture probability was constant. in the two dendrobatids, c. aff. fraterdanieli and d. truncatus, survival and recapture probabilities were constant over time and the population growth rate indicated the populations were stables during monitoring. long-term monitoring programs are recommended to establish with certainty the conservation status of each species. however, in the perspective of the current biodiversity crisis in which rapid management decisions must be made, it is necessary to draw on the available data even if its limited. although our demographic dataset is limited in time, we demonstrated how this information constitutes a starting point to understand the conservation status of these frog populations and to establish standard methods to continue long-term monitoring programs." closed-population capture-recapture modeling of samples drawn one at a time,capture-recapture; continuous-time; genotyping error; noninvasive sampling,BIOMETRICS,BARKER RJ;SCHOFIELD MR;WRIGHT JA;FRANTZ AC;STEVENS C,"motivated by field sampling of dna fragments, we describe a general model for capture-recapture modeling of samples drawn one at a time in continuous-time. our model is based on poisson sampling where the sampling time may be unobserved. we show that previously described models correspond to partial likelihoods from our poisson model and their use may be justified through arguments concerning s- and bayes-ancillarity of discarded information. we demonstrate a further link to continuous-time capture-recapture models and explain observations that have been made about this class of models in terms of partial ancillarity. we illustrate application of our models using data from the european badger (meles meles) in which genotyping of dna fragments was subject to error." "maximum likelihood estimation for model m-t,m-alpha for capture-recapture data with misidentification",genetic capture-recapture; latent multinomial; mark recapture; misidentification; natural tags; photo-identification,BIOMETRICS,VALE RTR;FEWSTER RM;CARROLL EL;PATENAUDE NJ,"we investigate model mt, for abundance estimation in closed-population capture-recapture studies, where animals are identified from natural marks such as dna profiles or photographs of distinctive individual features. model mt, extends the classical model mt to accommodate errors in identification, by specifying that each sample identification is correct with probability and false with probability 1-. information about misidentification is gained from a surplus of capture histories with only one entry, which arise from false identifications. we derive an exact closed-form expression for the likelihood for model mt, and show that it can be computed efficiently, in contrast to previous studies which have held the likelihood to be computationally intractable. our fast computation enables us to conduct a thorough investigation of the statistical properties of the maximum likelihood estimates. we find that the indirect approach to error estimation places high demands on data richness, and good statistical properties in terms of precision and bias require high capture probabilities or many capture occasions. when these requirements are not met, abundance is estimated with very low precision and negative bias, and at the extreme better properties can be obtained by the naive approach of ignoring misidentification error. we recommend that model mt, be used with caution and other strategies for handling misidentification error be considered. we illustrate our study with genetic and photographic surveys of the new zealand population of southern right whale (eubalaena australis)." detecting declines of apex carnivores and evaluating their causes: an example with zambian lions,african lion; survival; population estimate; intensive monitoring; precision; mark-recapture,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,ROSENBLATT E;BECKER MS;CREEL S;DROGE E;MWEETWA T;SCHUETTE PA;WATSON F;MERKLE J;MWAPE H,"large carnivores are in rapid global decline, with a broad array of consequences for the ecosystems they inhabit. to efficiently detect and address these declines requires unbiased and precise demographic data. unfortunately, the characteristics that make large carnivores extinction-prone also pose serious challenges to obtaining these data. rapid survey methods exist, but provide only relative measures of abundance, cannot detect declines before they become large, and provide little or no information about the causes of decline. african lions (panthera leo) are declining throughout their range, making accurate monitoring of remaining populations urgent. we provide statistically rigorous estimates of population size, trends, survival rate and age-sex structure from zambia's south luangwa lion population from 2008 to 2012, just prior to cessation of hunting in 2013. mark-recapture models fit to data from intensive monitoring of 210 individual lions in 18 prides and 14 male coalitions indicated a declining population, low recruitment, low sub-adult and adult male survival, depletion of adult males, and a senescing adult female population. trophy hunting was the leading cause of death, with 46 males harvested. based on these data we recommend continuing the hunting ban at least to 2016 to allow recovery, with substantially reduced quotas, age-limits, and effective trophy monitoring mandated thereafter should hunting resume. similar data from intensive monitoring of key zambian lion populations is required to evaluate effects of the hunting ban and provide management guidance. effectively integrating intensive long-term monitoring and rapid survey methods should be a priority for future management and monitoring of carnivore species. (c) 2014 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." @@ -2318,13 +2321,13 @@ temporal and spatial variation in survivorship of diamondback terrapins (malacle do age-specific survival patterns of wild boar fit current evolutionary theories of senescence?,aging; capture-mark-recapture; fertility; life history; mortality; sus scrofa,EVOLUTION,GAMELON M;FOCARDI S;GAILLARD JM;GIMENEZ O;BONENFANT C;FRANZETTI B;CHOQUET R;RONCHI F;BAUBET E;LEMAITRE JF,"actuarial senescence is widespread in age-structured populations. in growing populations, the progressive decline of hamiltonian forces of selection with age leads to decreasing survival. as actuarial senescence is overcompensated by a high fertility, actuarial senescence should be more intense in species with high reproductive effort, a theoretical prediction that has not been yet explicitly tested across species. wild boar (sus scrofa) females have an unusual life-history strategy among large mammals by associating both early and high reproductive effort with potentially long lifespan. therefore, wild boar females should show stronger actuarial senescence than similar-sized related mammals. moreover, being polygynous and much larger than females, males should display higher senescence rates than females. using a long-term monitoring (18 years) of a wild boar population, we tested these predictions. we provided clear evidence of actuarial senescence in both sexes. wild boar females had earlier but not stronger actuarial senescence than similar-sized ungulates. both sexes displayed similar senescence rates. our study indicates that the timing of senescence, not the rate, is associated with the magnitude of fertility in ungulates. this demonstrates the importance of including the timing of senescence in addition to its rate to understand variation in senescence patterns in wild populations." "empirical evidence for factors affecting searcher efficiency and scavenging rates at a coastal, terrestrial wind-power facility",bat; bird; carcass trials; collision; scavenge rate; searcher efficiency; wind power,JOURNAL OF FISH AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PETERS KA;MIZRAHI DS;ALLEN MC,"the rapid expansion of wind power development in recent years has accentuated the need to develop standard guidelines for identifying, assessing, and monitoring potential impacts to birds and bats. although postconstruction mortality estimates generally take into account well-established sources of bias, including searcher efficiency and scavenging loss, methods for addressing these biases can be improved. currently used bias-adjustment methods differ across studies, do not explicitly account for factors that may affect initial bias estimates, and often use averaged or assumed levels of bias. we examined scavenging and detection trial data from a 3-y study at a small, terrestrial wind-farm in coastal new jersey. logistic regression models indicated that carcass size, substrate, and observer all affected carcass detection rates, with larger carcasses more likely to be detected than smaller carcasses, and those located on bare ground or grass more likely to be detected than those on gravel. known-fate mark-recapture models indicated that scavenging rates were highest within the first 3 d of placement, with some variation among seasons. we suggest that empirically based estimates of factors affecting observer detection and scavenging loss be generated for individual wind-farm mortality studies, because they likely vary across sites and could heavily bias resulting adjustment factors and mortality estimates." rapidly rising incidence of childhood type 1 diabetes in chinese population: epidemiology in shanghai during 1997-2011,chinese; childhood; type 1 diabetes; epidemiology; incidence; increase,ACTA DIABETOLOGICA,ZHAO ZH;SUN CJ;WANG CF;LI P;WANG W;YE J;GU XF;WANG XD;SHEN SX;ZHI DJ;LU Z;YE R;CHENG RQ;XI L;LI XJ;ZHENG ZQ;ZHANG MY;LUO FH,"the aim of this study was to investigate incidence trend of childhood type 1 diabetes in shanghai, a megalopolis in east china. we established a population-based retrospective registry for the disease in the city's registered population during 1997-2011 and collected 622 incident type 1 diabetes in children aged 0-14 years. standardized incidence rates and 95 % ci were estimated by applying the capture-recapture method and assuming poisson distribution. incidence trend was analyzed using the poisson regression model. the mean annual incidence of childhood type 1 diabetes was 3.1 per 100,000 person-years. we did not observe significant difference in incidence between boys and girls. the incidence is unstable and had a mean annual increase 14.2 % per year during the studied period. a faster annual increase was observed in boys, warmer seasons, and in the outer regions of the city. if present trends continue, the number of new type 1 diabetes cases will double from 2016 to 2020, and prevalent cases will sextuple by 2025. our results showed the incidence of childhood type 1 diabetes was rising rapidly in shanghai. more studies are needed to analyze incidence changes in other regions of china for appropriate allocation of healthcare resources." -"abundance, biomass production, nutrient content, and the possible role of terrestrial salamanders in missouri ozark forest ecosystems",amphibian; biomass; carbon; density; hierarchical models; plethodon serratus; southern redback salamander,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,SEMLITSCH RD;O'DONNELL KM;THOMPSON FR,"the transfer of energy and nutrients largely depends on the role of animals in the movement of biomass between trophic levels and ecosystems. despite the historical recognition that amphibians could play an important role in the movement of biomass and nutrients, very few studies have provided reliable estimates of abundance and density of amphibians to reveal their true importance. here, we provide robust estimates of abundance and density of a dominant species, the southern redback salamander (plethodon serratus grobman, 1944), in the oak forest ecosystem of the ozark highlands in missouri. we then use the abundance and density estimates to calculate biomass and nutrient content of salamanders at our study sites in the ozark forests. salamanders at the sinkin experimental forest comprise a large amount of protein, energy, and nutrients that greatly exceed estimates derived some 35 years ago in the hubbard brook experimental forest, new hampshire. our estimates (7 300-12 900 salamanders.ha(-1)) are 2-4 times greater than the values reported by burton and likens (1975a, ecology, 56: 1068-1080; 1975b, copeia, 1975: 541-546). furthermore, we show that density estimates of other small plethodontid species reported in the literature are nearly an order of magnitude greater than that reported by burton and likens. we believe this indicates that previous results have underestimated the importance of salamander biomass, nutrient, and energy flux, and their functional role in regulating invertebrates and carbon retention in forest ecosystems." +"abundance, biomass production, nutrient content, and the possible role of terrestrial salamanders in missouri ozark forest ecosystems",amphibian; biomass; carbon; density; hierarchical models; plethodon serratus; southern redback salamander,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,SEMLITSCH RD;O DONNELL KM;THOMPSON FR,"the transfer of energy and nutrients largely depends on the role of animals in the movement of biomass between trophic levels and ecosystems. despite the historical recognition that amphibians could play an important role in the movement of biomass and nutrients, very few studies have provided reliable estimates of abundance and density of amphibians to reveal their true importance. here, we provide robust estimates of abundance and density of a dominant species, the southern redback salamander (plethodon serratus grobman, 1944), in the oak forest ecosystem of the ozark highlands in missouri. we then use the abundance and density estimates to calculate biomass and nutrient content of salamanders at our study sites in the ozark forests. salamanders at the sinkin experimental forest comprise a large amount of protein, energy, and nutrients that greatly exceed estimates derived some 35 years ago in the hubbard brook experimental forest, new hampshire. our estimates (7 300-12 900 salamanders.ha(-1)) are 2-4 times greater than the values reported by burton and likens (1975a, ecology, 56: 1068-1080; 1975b, copeia, 1975: 541-546). furthermore, we show that density estimates of other small plethodontid species reported in the literature are nearly an order of magnitude greater than that reported by burton and likens. we believe this indicates that previous results have underestimated the importance of salamander biomass, nutrient, and energy flux, and their functional role in regulating invertebrates and carbon retention in forest ecosystems." "using mark-recapture data in an individual-based model to evaluate length-at-age differences between two snake river white sturgeon (acipenser transmontanus richardson, 1836) populations in idaho, usa",NA,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ICHTHYOLOGY,BATES P;CHANDLER J;LEPLA K;STEINHORST K,"despite showing similar abundance estimates, population surveys of wild white sturgeon (acipenser transmontanus richardson, 1836) in the bliss and hells canyon reaches of the snake river display very different stock structures. to better understand these differences, an individual based model was developed using empirical mark-recapture metrics from 343 white sturgeon recaptured in the bliss reach [at-large 1.0-19.9years], and 580 white sturgeon recaptured in the hells canyon reach [at-large 1.0-21.2years]. after calculating annual growth increments from these recaptures, individuals from each reach were assigned to size bins then randomly chosen from within each bin to grow' theoretical fish. this process was bootstrapped 1000 times, producing a mean length-at-age trajectory for each reach. from these data, mark-recapture samples were assigned estimated ages and fitted to a three-parameter logistic growth curve. results indicate a wide disparity in length-at-age of white sturgeon between reaches, with the bliss population displaying an intrinsic rate of increase [k=0.118] twice that of the hells canyon population [k=0.059]. this is due primarily to slow juvenile growth in the hells canyon population relative to juvenile growth in the bliss population. the much slower growth rate of juveniles in the hells canyon reach has consequences to population demographics, such as age at first maturity. although growth differences are large, both populations appear to be stable or increasing in abundance despite being regulated by very different mechanisms." "identification of a robust lake sturgeon (acipenser fulvescens rafinesque, 1917) population in goulais bay, lake superior",NA,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ICHTHYOLOGY,PRATT TC;GARDNER WM;PEARCE J;GREENWOOD S;CHONG SC,"lake sturgeon (acipenser fulvescens rafinesque, 1917) in lake superior are greatly depressed from their historic abundance, and few populations meet the rehabilitation goals identified by management agencies. a netting program targeting juvenile lake sturgeon (ages 3-15) was implemented from 2010 to 2012 in goulais bay, a shallow, productive bay in the south-eastern part of the lake, to determine abundance, distribution, population characteristics (size structure, condition, age structure, mortality and growth), and recruitment patterns. five-hundred and thirty-one individuals were captured over the 3-year study, resulting in a mark-recapture estimate of 4977 (95% cis 3295-7517) juveniles. catch rates in this study were higher than in any other location in lake superior, with sturgeon being broadly distributed around the bay. estimated annual survival rate ranged from 0.691 to 0.858, depending on the method used. the majority of fish captured were between 620 and 800mm in total length and were between 4 and 10years of age (range 1-29years). recruiting year-classes were apparent every year, with no apparent effects due to lampricide treatments (a suspected threat to age-0 lake sturgeon) in the goulais river. year-class strength was positively related to spring water levels. it is possible that this robust goulais bay population could help re-populate the south-eastern part of lake superior, which contains a number of large, productive embayment areas that formerly supported large lake sturgeon populations." "population size of pallid sturgeon, scaphirhynchus albus (forbes & richardson, 1905), in the lower missouri river near kansas city, missouri, usa",NA,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ICHTHYOLOGY,WINDERS KR;STEFFENSEN KD,"the objectives of this study were to investigate the population size of hatchery-reared and wild pallid sturgeon, scaphirhynchus albus (forbes & richardson, 1905), in a 43.3 river kilometer (rkm) reach of the missouri river downstream of kansas city, missouri, usa and compare these with previous published estimates. this reach has been shown to represent the abundance and distribution of the pallid sturgeon population throughout the lower missouri river, and was therefore chosen for this study in order to monitor progress towards recovering this federally endangered species. the robust-design approach was used within the program mark using mark-recapture data of fish sampled from 2011 to 2013. the annual population estimates of pallid sturgeon varied from 6.1 to 11.1 fish/rkm, of which known hatchery-origin pallid sturgeon (5.5 to 10.2 fish/rkm) were much more abundant than those of wild origin (0.6 to 0.9 fish/rkm). these population estimates are drastically fewer than those published for another reach of the lower missouri river and represent far less advancement (12-18%) towards meeting the five wild adult fish/rkm criteria for considering reclassification of pallid sturgeon." "survival of hatchery gulf sturgeon (acipenser oxyrinchus desotoi mitchill, 1815) in the suwannee river, florida: a 19-year evaluation",NA,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ICHTHYOLOGY,SULAK KJ;RANDALL MT;CLUGSTON JP,"an experimental release of 1192 hatchery-reared, individually pit tagged, 220days old (296-337mm tl) gulf sturgeon, acipenser oxyrinchus desotoi, was undertaken in 1992 in the suwannee river, florida. the original objectives of the 1992 release experiment were to: (1) evaluate survival rate of cultured gulf sturgeon in the wild vs survival rate of their wild 1992 cohort counterparts, (2) determine the differential effect of release site within the river upon long-term survival, and (3) evaluate comparative growth rates of recaptured hatchery vs captured wild 1992 cohort gulf sturgeon. the present investigation addressed those original objectives, plus an additional fourth objective: (4) evaluation of hatchery fish recapture rate change over the 19-year experiment. the primary objective was to determine efficacy of potential conservation aquaculture for this species in terms of long-term survival in the wild. follow-up 1993-2011 gill net sampling in freshwater reaches (rkm 4-237) and the estuarine river mouth (rkm -6 to 4) yielded recaptures representing 13.0% of the total released. mean annual hatchery fish mortality (including emigration) rate estimated for the 19-year period (1993-2011) was more than twice that for same cohort wild fish. mark-recapture survival probability (phi) for hatchery fish, 1993-2011, was substantially lower (0.733) than for their wild counterparts (0.888). mean annual hatchery fish recapture rate, as a percentage of all 1992 cohort fish recaptures, declined significantly after age-7, coinciding with age of onset of migration into the open gulf of mexico. hypothesized causal factors may be differentially lower fitness in the marine habitat or permanent outmigration due to natal river imprinting failure. hatchery fish recapture rates varied significantly for fish from the ten release sites, being highest near the river mouth, and lowest for the furthest upriver sites in the suwannee river and its santa fe river tributary. hatchery fish also displayed a significantly lower growth rate than their wild counterparts through age 3000days. cumulative hatchery fish mortality of 99.87% over 19years predicts <3 individuals would have survived through 2011. from the results of the 1992 release experiment, hatchery supplementation as a gulf sturgeon conservation measure does not appear to be an effective option." -a generalized estimating equations approach for capture-recapture closed population models,capture-recapture experiment; gee; heterogeneity; model selection; population size estimation; qic,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,AKANDA MAS;ALPIZAR-JARA R,"the estimation of population density animal population parameters, such as capture probability, population size, or population density, is an important issue in many ecological applications. capture-recapture data may be considered as repeated observations that are often correlated over time. if these correlations are not taken into account then parameter estimates may be biased, possibly producing misleading results. we propose a generalized estimating equations (gee) approach to account for correlation over time instead of assuming independence as in the traditional closed population capture-recapture studies. we also account for heterogeneity among observed individuals and over-dispersion, modelling capture probabilities as a function of covariates. the gee versions of all closed population capture-recapture models and their corresponding estimating equations are proposed. we evaluate the effect of accounting for correlation structures on capture-recapture model selection based on the quasi-likelihood information criterion (qic). an example is used for an illustrative application and for comparison to currently used methodology. a horvitz-thompson-like estimator is used to obtain estimates of population size based on conditional arguments. a simulation study is conducted to evaluate the performance of the gee approach in capture-recapture studies. the gee approach performs well for estimating population parameters, particularly when capture probabilities are high. the simulation results also reveal that estimated population size varies on the nature of the existing correlation among capture occasions." -use of administrative hospital database to identify adverse drug reactions in a pediatric university hospital,pediatrics; databases; adverse drug reaction reporting systems; pharmacovigilance,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY,DURRIEU G;BATZ A;ROUSSEAU V;BONDON-GUITTON E;PETIOT D;MONTASTRUC JL,"the aim of the study was to detect adverse drug reactions (adrs) in pediatric inpatients using the medical administrative database ""programme de m,dicalisation des systsmes d'information"" (pmsi) and to compare these cases adrs with those spontaneously reported to a regional pharmacovigilance (pv) centre. the study was conducted from january 2008 to december 2011 in the children university hospital of toulouse (midi-pyr,n,es, south-west france). from pmsi database, all discharge summaries including selected icd-10 codes (10th international classification of diseases) were analyzed. all adrs spontaneously reported by the children hospital of toulouse and registered in the french pv database (fpvdb) were included. the capture-recapture method was applied to estimate the incidence of adrs. during the study period, we identified 60 reports from the pmsi database and 200 from the fpvdb. the rate of ""serious"" adrs was higher in pmsi reports (74.6 % vs 38.9 %, p < 0.0001). the most frequent adrs reported were musculoskeletal (12.4 %) and central (11.3 %) adrs in pmsi database versus cutaneous (22.4 %) and general (17.5 %) adrs in fpvdb. the most frequently suspected drugs were antineoplastic drugs (31.1 %) in pmsi database versus anti-infectives (38.2 %) in fpvdb. the estimated number of adrs was 717 [95 % confidence interval (ci) 513, 921], and the incidence of adrs among admissions was 0.6 % (95 % ci 0.4, 0.8). use of pmsi database improves from around 30 % detection of adrs in children. in comparison with classical pharmacovigilance database, it also allows to detect different adrs and drugs, thus enhancing safe medicine use for pediatric patients." +a generalized estimating equations approach for capture-recapture closed population models,capture-recapture experiment; gee; heterogeneity; model selection; population size estimation; qic,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,AKANDA MAS;ALPIZAR JARA R,"the estimation of population density animal population parameters, such as capture probability, population size, or population density, is an important issue in many ecological applications. capture-recapture data may be considered as repeated observations that are often correlated over time. if these correlations are not taken into account then parameter estimates may be biased, possibly producing misleading results. we propose a generalized estimating equations (gee) approach to account for correlation over time instead of assuming independence as in the traditional closed population capture-recapture studies. we also account for heterogeneity among observed individuals and over-dispersion, modelling capture probabilities as a function of covariates. the gee versions of all closed population capture-recapture models and their corresponding estimating equations are proposed. we evaluate the effect of accounting for correlation structures on capture-recapture model selection based on the quasi-likelihood information criterion (qic). an example is used for an illustrative application and for comparison to currently used methodology. a horvitz-thompson-like estimator is used to obtain estimates of population size based on conditional arguments. a simulation study is conducted to evaluate the performance of the gee approach in capture-recapture studies. the gee approach performs well for estimating population parameters, particularly when capture probabilities are high. the simulation results also reveal that estimated population size varies on the nature of the existing correlation among capture occasions." +use of administrative hospital database to identify adverse drug reactions in a pediatric university hospital,pediatrics; databases; adverse drug reaction reporting systems; pharmacovigilance,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY,DURRIEU G;BATZ A;ROUSSEAU V;BONDON GUITTON E;PETIOT D;MONTASTRUC JL,"the aim of the study was to detect adverse drug reactions (adrs) in pediatric inpatients using the medical administrative database ""programme de m,dicalisation des systsmes d'information"" (pmsi) and to compare these cases adrs with those spontaneously reported to a regional pharmacovigilance (pv) centre. the study was conducted from january 2008 to december 2011 in the children university hospital of toulouse (midi-pyr,n,es, south-west france). from pmsi database, all discharge summaries including selected icd-10 codes (10th international classification of diseases) were analyzed. all adrs spontaneously reported by the children hospital of toulouse and registered in the french pv database (fpvdb) were included. the capture-recapture method was applied to estimate the incidence of adrs. during the study period, we identified 60 reports from the pmsi database and 200 from the fpvdb. the rate of ""serious"" adrs was higher in pmsi reports (74.6 % vs 38.9 %, p < 0.0001). the most frequent adrs reported were musculoskeletal (12.4 %) and central (11.3 %) adrs in pmsi database versus cutaneous (22.4 %) and general (17.5 %) adrs in fpvdb. the most frequently suspected drugs were antineoplastic drugs (31.1 %) in pmsi database versus anti-infectives (38.2 %) in fpvdb. the estimated number of adrs was 717 [95 % confidence interval (ci) 513, 921], and the incidence of adrs among admissions was 0.6 % (95 % ci 0.4, 0.8). use of pmsi database improves from around 30 % detection of adrs in children. in comparison with classical pharmacovigilance database, it also allows to detect different adrs and drugs, thus enhancing safe medicine use for pediatric patients." spawning distribution and abundance of a northern chinook salmon population,alaska; fish movement; fisheries management; mark-recapture; oncorhynchus tshawytscha; run timing,FISHERIES MANAGEMENT AND ECOLOGY,SETHI SA;TANNER T,"chinook salmon, oncorhynchus tshawytscha (walbaum), is an important biological and cultural resource in alaska, but knowledge about chinook salmon ecology is limited in many regions. from 2009 to 2012, spawning distribution and abundance of a northern chinook salmon population on the togiak river in south-west alaska were assessed. chinook salmon preferred deeper mainstem channel spawning habitat, with 12% (14 of 118 tags in 2009) to 21% (22 of 106 tags in 2012) of radio-tagged fish spawning in smaller order tributaries. tributary spawners tended to have earlier run timing than mainstem spawners. chinook salmon exhibited extended holding and backout (entering freshwater but returning to saltwater before completing anadromous migration) behaviours near the mouth of togiak river, potentially prolonging their exposure to fishery harvest. mark-recapture total annual run estimates (2010-2012) ranged from 11240 (2011) to 18299 (2012) fish. exploitation of chinook salmon ranged from 36% (2012) to 55% (2011) during the study period, with incidental fishery catches near the mouth of the river comprising the largest source of harvest." "age and growth in the australian freshwater mussel, westralunio carteri, with an evaluation of the fluorochrome calcein for validating the assumption of annulus formation",life history; growth rate; von bertalanffy; hyriidae; unionoida; unionida; australia,FRESHWATER SCIENCE,KLUNZINGER MW;BEATTY SJ;MORGAN DL;LYMBERY AJ;HAAG WR,"growth and longevity of freshwater mussels (unionida) are important for defining life-history strategies and assessing vulnerability to human impacts. we used mark-recapture and analysis of shell rings to investigate age and growth of the hyriid, westralunio carteri, at 5 sites in southwestern australia. we tested the utility of the in situ marker calcein for validating the assumption of annulus formation in adults. calcein was incorporated into the shells of all recovered individuals, but it provided an interpretable reference mark in only 4 of 16 individuals. these 4 individuals produced 1 shell ring subsequent to the mark, supporting the assumption of annulus production during the austral winter. maximum age ranged among populations from 36 to 52 y and maximum size ranged from 72.9 to 82.8 mm. mean age and length did not differ between sexes, and growth trajectories differed between sexes at only 1 site. estimates of growth measured by the von bertalanffy growth constant, k, ranged from 0.021 to 0.336 among sites. estimates from mark-recapture experiments were 20 to 52% lower than values from shell annuli at all sites except 1 where k from shell annuli was similar to 1/2 that estimated from mark-recapture. both methods showed a positive relationship between k and mean water temperature among sites, suggesting a role of riparian shading in regulating stream temperature, and hence, indirectly influencing mussel growth. mussel growth and mean n or p concentrations were not related among sites, but total n at the site with highest mussel growth was >2x higher than at any other site. westralunio carteri is a long-lived, slow-growing bivalve. maximum age, k, and probable age at maturity (4-6 y) are similar to other slow-growing freshwater bivalve groups. this suite of life-history traits is considered an adaptation for stable aquatic habitats. therefore, w. carteri can be expected to adapt poorly to human impacts, such as riparian clearing and water extraction, which increase the temporal variability of environmental conditions in streams." "adelie penguin (pygoscelis adeliae) survival rates and their relationship to environmental indices in the south shetland islands, antarctica",demography; life history; seabird; markrecapture,POLAR BIOLOGY,HINKE JT;TRIVELPIECE SG;TRIVELPIECE WZ,"seabird life history is typified by low fecundity, high adult survival rates, and relatively long lives. such traits act as buffers, enabling persistence of populations under variable environmental conditions. numerous studies, however, have suggested strong sensitivity of seabirds to environmental variability. in the antarctic peninsula region, for example, adelie penguin (pygoscelis adeliae) populations have declined during the last three decades, attributed largely to rapid changes in environmental conditions and food availability. we use 30 years of markrecapture data from known-age individuals in the south shetland islands and capture-mark-recapture models to estimate survival rates with respect to such environmental variation. we investigated specifically whether negative trends in survival rates were evident and whether indices of global, regional, and local environmental conditions considered important for adelie penguin survival explained the variability in survival rates. overall, negative trends in juvenile survival were evident, but adult survival rates exhibited high interannual variability. indices of sea ice extent had the strongest correlations with survival rates, particularly weddell sea ice extent during spring among adults (r = 0.62) and during winter for juveniles (r = 0.46). an analysis of deviance, however, suggested that single environmental covariates explained <30 % of the observed variation in the full mark-recapture models. despite positive effects of sea ice extent on survival rates of adelie penguins, limited explanatory power of several environmental conditions previously identified as important for adelie penguin survival underscores the difficulty of predicting future population responses in this region of rapid environmental change." @@ -2332,7 +2335,7 @@ spawning distribution and abundance of a northern chinook salmon population,alas using capture-mark-recapture models to assess the effect of age and weather on landing decisions of sedge warblers acrocephalus schoenobaenus during migration,cormack-jolly-seber models; northern iberia; rain; seniority; stopover; txingudi; wind,ARDEOLA,ANDUEZA M;BARBA E;ARIZAGA J,"bird migration is usually performed in several consecutive flights, interrupted by stopovers when birds rest or replenish their fuel loads. as a result, migrants must decide when and where to land. here, we studied the effects of meteorological conditions (wind and rain) and age (used here as a indicator of bird experience) on the probabilities of sedge warblers acrocephalus schoenobaenus landing at a stopover site in northern iberia. data were collected over three consecutive years at a ringing station during the autumn migration period. we used reverse-time capture-mark-recapture models to estimate seniority, gamma (i.e., the probability that an individual at time t was already present in the population at time t - 1), as an indicator of landing decisions, since 1-gamma represents the probability of recording new individuals (i.e. recent landings). we ran 14 models with the above mentioned variables, four of which were best supported by the data. in these, only rain showed a significant positive effect on., indicating that birds of any age class avoid flying during rainfall and prefer to interrupt their migration. these results are similar to those obtained from an analysis of day-to-day variation in first captures that was used to validate the usefulness of capture-mark-recapture models. they suggest that cmr models can serve to study bird landing decisions during migration in some specific cases." population dynamics of a colony of little egrets egretta garzetta at an estuary in northern spain,herons; iberia; population size; survival; urdaibai; waterbirds,ARDEOLA,GALARZA A;ARIZAGA J,"the population of little egrets egretta garzetta in spain is over 20,000 adult breeding birds, making it one of the largest in europe. apart from its population size and population trends, the parameters associated with the dynamics (e.g., survival) of the species in spain are virtually unknown. our aims were to develop models to assess (1) the colony growth rate, and (2) apparent survival rate of a colony of little egrets breeding in northern iberia. we used capture-recapture data of little egrets ringed as chicks within the colony, of normally < 30 adult breeding pairs, over a 14-year period starting in 1999. colony size was observed to be increasing in a linear tendency broken by specific catastrophic events: a very strong hailstorm in 2004 and a pair of peregrines falco peregrinus that killed several adults in 2005. by 2012, the colony had still not reached the size that it was before the decrease, so it can be concluded that sporadic catastrophic events can have a significant effect on colony size and subsequently population size, especially in small colonies. annual apparent survival (+/- se) was constant and differed between age classes (first-years: 0.15 +/- 0.05; adults: 0.78 +/- 0.06). our survival estimate was relatively high compared with other little egret populations, especially for adults. this result, however, may not necessarily apply to other colonies given our small sample size and the lack of data on other factors that also affect the dynamics of the study population." a spatial capture-recapture model for territorial species,bayesian analysis; density estimation; spatial point pattern data; strauss process,ENVIRONMETRICS,REICH BJ;GARDNER B,"advances in field techniques have lead to an increase in spatially referenced capture-recapture data to estimate a species' population size as well as other demographic parameters and patterns of space usage. statistical models for these data have assumed that the number of individuals in the population and their spatial locations follow a homogeneous poisson point process model, which implies that the individuals are uniformly and independently distributed over the spatial domain of interest. in many applications, there is reason to question independence, for example, when species display territorial behavior. in this paper, we propose a new statistical model, which allows for dependence between locations to account for avoidance or territorial behavior. we show via a simulation study that accounting for this can improve population size estimates. the method is illustrated using a case study of small mammal trapping data to estimate avoidance and population density of adult female field voles (microtus agrestis) in northern england. copyright (c) 2014 john wiley & sons, ltd." -long-term trends in the use of a protected area by small cetaceans in relation to changes in population status,abundance; bayesian; bottlenose dolphin; mark-recapture; photo-identification; special area of conservation,GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION,CHENEY B;CORKREY R;DURBAN JW;GRELLIER K;HAMMOND PS;ISLAS-VILLANUEVA V;JANIK VM;LUSSEAU SM;PARSONS KM;QUICK NJ;WILSON B;THOMPSON PM,"the requirement to monitor listed species in european designated sites is challenging for long-lived mobile species that only temporarily occupy protected areas. we use a 21 year time series of bottlenose dolphin photo-identification data to assess trends in abundance and conservation status within a special area of conservation ( sac) in scotland. mark-recapture methods were used to estimate annual abundance within the sac from 1990 to 2010. a bayesian mark-recapture model with a state-space approach was used to estimate overall population trends using data collected across the populations' range. despite inter-annual variability in the number of dolphins within the sac, there was a > 99% probability that the wider population was stable or increasing. results indicate that use of the sac by the wider population has declined. this is the first evidence of long-term trends in the use of an eu protected area by small cetaceans in relation to changes in overall population status. our results highlight the importance of adapting the survey protocols used in long-term photo-identification studies to maintain high capture probabilities and minimise sampling heterogeneity. crucially, these data demonstrate the value of collecting data from the wider population to assess the success of protected areas designated for mobile predators. (c) 2014 the authors. published by elsevier b.v." +long-term trends in the use of a protected area by small cetaceans in relation to changes in population status,abundance; bayesian; bottlenose dolphin; mark-recapture; photo-identification; special area of conservation,GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION,CHENEY B;CORKREY R;DURBAN JW;GRELLIER K;HAMMOND PS;ISLAS VILLANUEVA V;JANIK VM;LUSSEAU SM;PARSONS KM;QUICK NJ;WILSON B;THOMPSON PM,"the requirement to monitor listed species in european designated sites is challenging for long-lived mobile species that only temporarily occupy protected areas. we use a 21 year time series of bottlenose dolphin photo-identification data to assess trends in abundance and conservation status within a special area of conservation ( sac) in scotland. mark-recapture methods were used to estimate annual abundance within the sac from 1990 to 2010. a bayesian mark-recapture model with a state-space approach was used to estimate overall population trends using data collected across the populations' range. despite inter-annual variability in the number of dolphins within the sac, there was a > 99% probability that the wider population was stable or increasing. results indicate that use of the sac by the wider population has declined. this is the first evidence of long-term trends in the use of an eu protected area by small cetaceans in relation to changes in overall population status. our results highlight the importance of adapting the survey protocols used in long-term photo-identification studies to maintain high capture probabilities and minimise sampling heterogeneity. crucially, these data demonstrate the value of collecting data from the wider population to assess the success of protected areas designated for mobile predators. (c) 2014 the authors. published by elsevier b.v." "population status of nile crocodiles in ndumo game reserve, kwazulu-natal, south africa (1971-2012)",crocodilian; crocodylus niloticus; mozambique; population estimate; relative abundance,HERPETOLOGICA,CALVERLEY PM;DOWNS CT,"establishing and monitoring population trends is essential for implementing informed and timely management decisions and also for the conservation of threatened species. we examined changes in nile crocodile (crocodylus niloticus) population size and changes in the size-class distribution within the population using aerial and ground survey data from 1971-2009 in the ndumo game reserve (ngr), south africa. in addition, crocodiles were caught opportunistically for aging, sexing, and tagging. precision and accuracy of population estimates were affected by water level, season, and the use of different observers. future surveys should occur in austral winter and at low water levels. the ngr population increased from an absolute abundance of 348 (+/- 3.4; an estimate of precision based on 1 se) in the early 1970s to maximum absolute abundance of 992 (+/- 58.7) in 1994 as a result of a restocking program initiated in the late 1960s and early 1970s. the population structure is currently skewed towards subadults and adults and the current population is in decline. this is a result of low recruitment levels in ngr, which are unable to sustain the artificially high population size created by the restocking program. also contributing to this decline is the poaching of crocodiles and destruction of suitable and historical nest sites. sex ratios were skewed toward females in juveniles and subadults and toward males in adults, while the overall sex ratio in the population was even. the current ngr nile crocodile population is estimated at an absolute abundance of 846 (+/- 263). we predict that the ngr nile crocodile population will continue to decline in the future as part of the natural process, but the decline will be accelerated on account of poaching, uncontrolled harvesting, and destruction of nesting habitat." assessment of an immunomarking technique for the study of dispersal of culicoides biting midges,immunomarking; capture-mark-recapture; vector; dispersal; bluetongue virus; schmallenberg virus,INFECTION GENETICS AND EVOLUTION,SANDERS CJ;CARPENTER S,"capture-mark-recapture techniques are used to determine the dispersal and survival of arthropods, including vector groups such as culicoides. an assumption of these studies is that capture and the subsequent marking process does not impact of the survival and behaviour of the marked individual. the small size of culicoides means that a significant mortality and disruption of normal behaviour such as host-location can be caused by the process of collection. here we evaluate a technique, novel to the study of dispersal in vectors, to mark culicoides directly and indirectly without prior capture. the acquisition and subsequent detection of marker protein by culicoides exposed to a treated substrate was investigated in the laboratory. the technique was then assessed in a small-scale field trial where a defined section of resting habitat was sprayed with an egg white solution and culicoides caught within the vicinity were tested for the presence of egg protein. it was found that up to 100% of culicoides acquired the protein marker in the laboratory with no apparent impact on survival. in the field, pools of culicoides obsoletus collected next to the treated area were found to be positive for the protein, suggesting that the technique could be used in larger-scale studies. the definition of a behaviourally non-invasive technique for marking culicoides will greatly increase our understanding of the natural dispersal behaviour of culicoides and other vectors. (c) 2014 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." spatial distribution of vespa velutina individuals hunting at domestic honeybee hives: heterogeneity at a local scale,apis mellifera; capture-mark-recapture; learning; predation; vespidae; yellow-legged hornet,INSECT SCIENCE,MONCEAU K;BONNARD O;MOREAU J;THIERY D,"since its recent introduction into europe, the yellow-legged hornet, vespa velutina, has become a major predator of the domestic honeybee, apis mellifera, but little is known about its hunting behavior. we studied v. velutina hunting behavior by a capture-mark-recapture procedure in an experimental apiary. a total of 360 hornets were captured and tagged, and we determined: (i) the number of hornets visiting the apiary and the changes in time, (ii) the average number of individual visits per half-day and the time elapsed between consecutive recaptures, and (iii) the individual and global distribution of the hornets in the apiary. more than 50% of the marked hornets were recaptured at least once, this increased to 74% in considering the first marked individuals. we estimated 350 hornets visiting the patch daily with at least 1 visit per half-day. the number of marked hornets decreased over time while the number of unmarked ones increased, suggesting a turnover of individuals. the reduction of the delay between consecutive visits indicates that hornets became more efficient over time. most of the hornets (88%) were recaptured in front of different hives but, overall, the global distribution was aggregative. hornets were mainly recaptured in front of 1 hive which was neither the smallest nor the biggest colony, suggesting that the major cue used by hornets is not the amount of food. we hypothesize that the defensive behavior of the honeybee colony could explain our results which may be promising to further studies." @@ -2344,7 +2347,7 @@ spatially explicit integrated population models,count data; detection data; inte a computer model of insect traps in a landscape,NA,SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,MANOUKIS NC;HALL B;GEIB SM,"attractant-based trap networks are important elements of invasive insect detection, pest control, and basic research programs. we present a landscape-level, spatially explicit model of trap networks, focused on detection, that incorporates variable attractiveness of traps and a movement model for insect dispersion. we describe the model and validate its behavior using field trap data on networks targeting two species, ceratitis capitata and anoplophora glabripennis. our model will assist efforts to optimize trap networks by 1) introducing an accessible and realistic mathematical characterization of the operation of a single trap that lends itself easily to parametrization via field experiments and 2) allowing direct quantification and comparison of sensitivity between trap networks. results from the two case studies indicate that the relationship between number of traps and their spatial distribution and capture probability under the model is qualitatively dependent on the attractiveness of the traps, a result with important practical consequences." "satellite tagging and biopsy sampling of killer whales at subantarctic marion island: effectiveness, immediate reactions and long-term responses",NA,PLOS ONE,REISINGER RR;OOSTHUIZEN WC;PERON G;TOUSSAINT DC;ANDREWS RD;DE BRUYN PJN,"remote tissue biopsy sampling and satellite tagging are becoming widely used in large marine vertebrate studies because they allow the collection of a diverse suite of otherwise difficult-to-obtain data which are critical in understanding the ecology of these species and to their conservation and management. researchers must carefully consider their methods not only from an animal welfare perspective, but also to ensure the scientific rigour and validity of their results. we report methods for shore-based, remote biopsy sampling and satellite tagging of killer whales orcinus orca at subantarctic marion island. the performance of these methods is critically assessed using 1) the attachment duration of low-impact minimally percutaneous satellite tags; 2) the immediate behavioural reactions of animals to biopsy sampling and satellite tagging; 3) the effect of researcher experience on biopsy sampling and satellite tagging; and 4) the mid- (1 month) and long- (24 month) term behavioural consequences. to study mid- and long-term behavioural changes we used multievent capture-recapture models that accommodate imperfect detection and individual heterogeneity. we made 72 biopsy sampling attempts (resulting in 32 tissue samples) and 37 satellite tagging attempts (deploying 19 tags). biopsy sampling success rates were low (43%), but tagging rates were high with improved tag designs (86%). the improved tags remained attached for 26 +/- 14 days (mean +/- sd). individuals most often showed no reaction when attempts missed (66%) and a slight reaction-defined as a slight flinch, slight shake, short acceleration, or immediate dive-when hit (54%). severe immediate reactions were never observed. hit or miss and age-sex class were important predictors of the reaction, but the method (tag or biopsy) was unimportant. multievent trap-dependence modelling revealed considerable variation in individual sighting patterns; however, there were no significant mid-or long-term changes following biopsy sampling or tagging." dynamics of a temperate grassland reptile community in the mid-north of south australia,tiliqua adelaidensis; endangered communities; lizards; scincidae,TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA,PELGRIM K;FENNER AL;SCHOFIELD JA;BULL CM,"temperate native grasslands are listed as a critically endangered ecological community in south australia, yet very little is known about the associated faunal communities. this study aims to provide information on the temporal dynamics of a native grassland reptile community in the mid-north of south australia. during the study we made 335 reptile captures in pitfall traps, of 248 different individuals, from 13 species, representing five families. these data were used to investigate seasonal trends in trapping rate, age demographics and movement of individuals from marked recaptures. the results of the study provide baseline information on species assemblages that might be used in the recovery and management of the remaining fragments of temperate native grasslands and the endangered pygmy bluetongue lizard that relies on those fragments for its persistence." -the evolution of the prevalence of classical scrapie in sheep in great britain using surveillance data between 2005 and 2012,scrapie; back-calculation methods; prevalence estimation; maximum likelihood methods,PREVENTIVE VETERINARY MEDICINE,ARNOLD M;ORTIZ-PELAEZ A,"after the decline of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (bse) epidemic in great britain (gb), scrapie remains the most prevalent animal transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (tse) present in gb. a number of control measures have been implemented for classical scrapie, and since 2005 there has been a large reduction in the number of observed cases. the objective of this study is to estimate two measures of disease frequency using up to date surveillance data collected during and after the implementation of different control measures established since 2004, and breeding for resistance schemes that ran from 2001 until 2009. this would enable an assessment of the effectiveness of both the breeding for resistance programme and the compulsory eradication measures in reducing the prevalence of scrapie in gb. evaluation of the sensitivity of the rapid post-mortem test for scrapie indicated that it detected scrapie in the last 25% of the incubation period. a back-calculation model was developed to estimate the prevalence of infection at animal and flock-level. the results of the model indicated a mean drop of infection prevalence of 31% each year, leading to a 90% drop in infection prevalence between 2005, with an estimate of 5737 infected sheep in gb in 2012. the risks of classical scrapie infection in animals with genotypes of national scrapie plan types i-iv (all other genotypes), relative to type v (all genotypes containing v-136 r-154 q(171) and not a(136) r-154 r-171), were estimated to be: 0, 0.0008, 0.07, and 0.21 respectively. the model estimated a very low rate of reporting of clinical suspects and a large decline from 2007 of the probability of a sheep being reported as a clinical suspect. the model also estimated that the expected number of sheep holdings with classical scrapie in 2012 was 215 (95% confidence interval: 33-437), out of a total of approximately 72,000 sheep holdings in gb. model estimates indicate that the prevalence in 2012 has dropped to 10% of that in 2005, showing the effectiveness of the control measures. it also shows a bias in the destination of infected animals, with the majority of infected animals being detected in the fallen stock surveillance stream, and an extremely low proportion of animals detected as clinical suspects; this is very important in terms of the design of surveillance schemes for classical scrapie. crown copyright (c) 2014 published by elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +the evolution of the prevalence of classical scrapie in sheep in great britain using surveillance data between 2005 and 2012,scrapie; back-calculation methods; prevalence estimation; maximum likelihood methods,PREVENTIVE VETERINARY MEDICINE,ARNOLD M;ORTIZ PELAEZ A,"after the decline of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (bse) epidemic in great britain (gb), scrapie remains the most prevalent animal transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (tse) present in gb. a number of control measures have been implemented for classical scrapie, and since 2005 there has been a large reduction in the number of observed cases. the objective of this study is to estimate two measures of disease frequency using up to date surveillance data collected during and after the implementation of different control measures established since 2004, and breeding for resistance schemes that ran from 2001 until 2009. this would enable an assessment of the effectiveness of both the breeding for resistance programme and the compulsory eradication measures in reducing the prevalence of scrapie in gb. evaluation of the sensitivity of the rapid post-mortem test for scrapie indicated that it detected scrapie in the last 25% of the incubation period. a back-calculation model was developed to estimate the prevalence of infection at animal and flock-level. the results of the model indicated a mean drop of infection prevalence of 31% each year, leading to a 90% drop in infection prevalence between 2005, with an estimate of 5737 infected sheep in gb in 2012. the risks of classical scrapie infection in animals with genotypes of national scrapie plan types i-iv (all other genotypes), relative to type v (all genotypes containing v-136 r-154 q(171) and not a(136) r-154 r-171), were estimated to be: 0, 0.0008, 0.07, and 0.21 respectively. the model estimated a very low rate of reporting of clinical suspects and a large decline from 2007 of the probability of a sheep being reported as a clinical suspect. the model also estimated that the expected number of sheep holdings with classical scrapie in 2012 was 215 (95% confidence interval: 33-437), out of a total of approximately 72,000 sheep holdings in gb. model estimates indicate that the prevalence in 2012 has dropped to 10% of that in 2005, showing the effectiveness of the control measures. it also shows a bias in the destination of infected animals, with the majority of infected animals being detected in the fallen stock surveillance stream, and an extremely low proportion of animals detected as clinical suspects; this is very important in terms of the design of surveillance schemes for classical scrapie. crown copyright (c) 2014 published by elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." modelling multiple fishing gear efficiencies and abundance for aggregated populations using fishery or survey data,aggregated distribution; biomass; catchability; catch efficiency; detection; fishing gear; negative binomial,ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,ZHOU SJ;KLAER NL;DALEY RM;ZHU ZY;FULLER M;SMITH ADM,"fish and wildlife often exhibit an aggregated distribution pattern, whereas local abundance changes constantly due to movement. estimating population density or size and survey detectability (i.e. gear efficiency in a fishery) for such elusive species is technically challenging. we extend abundance and detectability (n-mixture) methods to deal with this difficult situation, particularly for application to fish populations where gear efficiency is almost never equal to one. the method involves a mixture of statistical models (negative binomial, poisson, and binomial functions) at two spatial scales: between-cell and within-cell. the innovation in this approach is to use more than one fishing gear with different efficiencies to simultaneously catch (sample) the same population in each cell at the same time-step. we carried out computer simulations on a range of scenarios and estimated the relevant parameters using a bayesian technique. we then applied the method to a demersal fish species, tiger flathead, to demonstrate its utility. simulation results indicated that the models can disentangle the confounding parameters in gear efficiency and abundance, and the accuracy generally increases as sample size increases. a joint negative binomial-poisson model using multiple gears gives the best fit to tiger flathead catch data, while a single gear yields unrealistic results. this cross-sampling method can evaluate gear efficiency cost effectively using existing fishery catch data or survey data. more importantly, it provides a means for estimating gear efficiency for gear types (e.g. gillnets, traps, hook and line, etc.) that are extremely difficult to study using field experiments." possible influence of salmon farming on long-term resident behaviour of wild saithe (pollachius virens l.),aquaculture; interaction; migration; saithe,ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,OTTERA H;SKILBREI OT,"the culture of atlantic salmon is one of the most developed aquaculture industries in the world. the production from smolt to market size usually takes place in sea cages in open waters, and these structures tend to attract wild fish, as they do for other farmed species. for salmon farming, saithe (pollachius virens) is one of the most-frequently observed species around sea cages. an important question is whether the large concentration of salmon farms in some areas might alter the natural behaviour and migration pattern of wild saithe. we tagged 62 wild saithe with acoustic tags and followed their movements for up to 2 years in an area in southwestern norway with many salmon farms. furthermore, nearly 2000 saithe were tagged with external t-bar tags to study migration beyond the study area. the recaptures of the t-bar tagged saithe from offshore areas suggest that the offshore migration routes of saithe are similar to published results from before salmon farming became significant in the area. however, a large proportion of the saithe population appears to remain in the release area and was observed at the salmon farms for much of the time. we conclude that the aquaculture industry is influencing the local saithe distribution. large-scale population effects are more difficult to prove, but it is possible that the dynamic relationship between the coastal and oceanic phases has been altered." accounting for behavioural response to capture when estimating population size from hair snare studies with missing data,behavioural response; closed population; dna; hair snare; mark-recapture; missing data,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,AUGUSTINE BC;TREDICK CA;BONNER SJ,"1 hair snares have become an established method for obtaining mark-recapture data for population size estimation of ursids and have recently been used to study other species including other carnivores, small mammals and ungulates. however, bias due to a behavioural response to capture in the presence of missing data has only recently been recognized and no statistical methodology exists to accommodate it. in a hair snare mark-recapture experiment, data can be missing if animals encounter a hair snare without leaving a hair sample, poor-quality samples are not genotyped, a fraction of all samples collected are genotyped due to cost considerations (subsampling) and/or not all genotyped hair samples provide an individual identification. these are all common features of hair snare mark-recapture experiments. here, we present methodology that accounts for a behavioural response to capture in the presence of missing data from (i) subsampling and (ii) failure of hair samples to produce an individual identification. four subprocesses are modelled-animal capture, hair deposition, researcher subsampling and dna amplification with key parameters estimated from functions of the number of hair samples left by individuals at traps. we assess the properties of this methodology (bias and interval coverage) via simulation and then apply this methodology to a previously published data set. our methodology removes bias and provides nominal interval coverage of population size for the simulation scenarios considered. in the example data set, we find that removing 75% of the hair samples leads to a 40% lower estimate of population size. our methodology corrects about half of this bias and we identify a second source of bias that has not previously been reported associated with differential trap visitation rates among individuals within trapping occasions. our methodology will allow researchers to reliably estimate the size of a closed population in the presence of a behavioural response to capture and missing data for a subset of missing data scenarios. it also provides a framework for understanding this generally unrecognized problem and for further extension to handle other missing data scenarios." @@ -2353,8 +2356,8 @@ accounting for behavioural response to capture when estimating population size f year-round effects of climate on demographic parameters of an arctic-nesting goose species,capture-mark-recapture; chen caerulescens atlantica; climate change; harvest; multistate model,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,VAN OUDENHOVE L;GAUTHIER G;LEBRETON JD,"understanding how climate change will affect animal population dynamics remains a major challenge, especially in long-distant migrants exposed to different climatic regimes throughout their annual cycle. we evaluated the effect of temperature throughout the annual cycle on demographic parameters (age-specific survival and recruitment, breeding propensity and fecundity) of the greater snow goose (chen caerulescens atlantica l.), an arctic-nesting species. as this is a hunted species, we used the theory of exploited populations to estimate hunting mortality separately from natural mortality in order to evaluate climatic effects only on the latter form of mortality. our analysis was based on a 22-year marking study (n=27150 females) and included live recaptures at the breeding colony and dead recoveries from hunters. we tested the effect of climatic covariates by applying a procedure that accounts for unexplained environmental variation in the demographic parameter to a multistate capture-mark-recapture recruitment model. breeding propensity, clutch size and hatching probability all increased with high temperatures on the breeding grounds. first-year survival to natural causes of mortality increased when temperature was high at the end of the summer, whereas adult survival was not affected by temperature. on the contrary, accession to reproduction decreased with warmer climatic conditions during the non-breeding season. survival was strongly negatively related to hunting mortality in adults, as expected, but not in first-year birds, which suggests the possibility of compensation between natural and hunting mortality in the latter group. we show that events occurring both at and away from the breeding ground can affect the demography of migratory birds, either directly or through carryover effects, and sometimes in opposite ways. this highlights the need to account for the whole life cycle of an animal when attempting to project the response of populations to future climatic changes." density-dependent intraspecific aggression regulates survival in northern yellowstone wolves (canis lupus),capture-recapture; density dependence; food availability; intraspecific competition; population regulation; top-predator; vital rate,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,CUBAYNES S;MACNULTY DR;STAHLER DR;QUIMBY KA;SMITH DW;COULSON T,"understanding the population dynamics of top-predators is essential to assess their impact on ecosystems and to guide their management. key to this understanding is identifying the mechanisms regulating vital rates. determining the influence of density on survival is necessary to understand the extent to which human-caused mortality is compensatory or additive. in wolves (canis lupus), empirical evidence for density-dependent survival is lacking. dispersal is considered the principal way in which wolves adjust their numbers to prey supply or compensate for human exploitation. however, studies to date have primarily focused on exploited wolf populations, in which density-dependent mechanisms are likely weak due to artificially low wolf densities. using 13years of data on 280 collared wolves in yellowstone national park, we assessed the effect of wolf density, prey abundance and population structure, as well as winter severity, on age-specific survival in two areas (prey-rich vs. prey-poor) of the national park. we further analysed cause-specific mortality and explored the factors driving intraspecific aggression in the prey-rich northern area of the park. overall, survival rates decreased during the study. in northern yellowstone, density dependence regulated adult survival through an increase in intraspecific aggression, independent of prey availability. in the interior of the park, adult survival was less variable and density-independent, despite reduced prey availability. there was no effect of prey population structure in northern yellowstone, or of winter severity in either area. survival was similar among yearlings and adults, but lower for adults older than 6years. our results indicate that density-dependent intraspecific aggression is a major driver of adult wolf survival in northern yellowstone, suggesting intrinsic density-dependent mechanisms have the potential to regulate wolf populations at high ungulate densities. when low prey availability or high removal rates maintain wolves at lower densities, limited inter-pack interactions may prevent density-dependent survival, consistent with our findings in the interior of the park." evaluation of artificial nest sites for long-term conservation of a burrow-nesting seabird,artificial nest boxes; australia; breeding performance; ecological traps; eudyptula minor; little penguins; mark-recapture; site fidelity,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SUTHERLAND DR;DANN P;JESSOP RE,"the persistence of many cavity-nesting animals is threatened by habitat modification and a shortage of suitable breeding sites. consequently, provision of alternative breeding sites is a frequently applied short- to medium-term conservation action. however, the effectiveness of provisioning for breeding success and persistence of breeding animals is rarely considered and could lead populations into an ecological trap. we evaluated the effectiveness of providing nest boxes for little penguins (eudyptula minor) compared with natural nests over 25 years. we assessed nest-box adoption and occupancy rates, compared breeding success (i.e., hatching and fledging success) and indices of productivity (i.e., observed brood size, total fledged chick mass, and the number of clutch initiations) with nest survival models and log-linear mixed effects models, and compared long-term residency patterns with link-barker mark-recapture models between artificial and natural nests. little penguins readily adopted nest boxes and breeding attempts were recorded in about 92% of nest boxes installed for 7 or more years. breeding productivity from 6,081 monitored clutches varied by year and was similar across nest types in most years, but in poor breeding seasons nest boxes performed better. survival rates to hatching and fledging averaged 7.6% and 8.6% greater in nest boxes, respectively. similarly, the average total observed mass of chicks produced per clutch was 11% heavier in nest boxes. annual site fidelity of 2,331 breeding penguins was similar in areas with nest boxes and areas with natural burrows, despite an average of 35% of natural burrows collapsing each year. nest-box provisioning for little penguins overcomes local nest-site limitation, improves breeding success, and can result in local population increases, so is not indicative of an ecological trap. however, a self-sustaining local population in the long term will require management strategies that address the underlying processes inhibiting population recovery and assist the transition from artificial nest sites back to natural nest sites. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." -rodent population and community responses to forest-based biofuel production,house mouse; intensive forestry; mus musculus; north carolina; peromyscus leucopus; pine plantation; pinus spp; small mammal; switchgrass; white-footed mouse,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HOMYACK JA;LUCIA-SIMMONS KE;MILLER DA;KALCOUNIS-RUEPPELL M,"intensively managed forests in the southeastern united states are a potential source of cellulosic bioenergy and, as conversion technologies improve and demand increases, a greater land area may be required to produce biofuel feedstocks. however, responses of wildlife to forest-based biofuel production are largely unknown. we examined the 4-year response of rodent populations and assemblages to a range of biofuel production regimes, including harvesting residual woody debris and intercropping switchgrass (panicum virgatum), in an intensively managed loblolly pine (pinus taeda) forest in eastern north carolina, usa. we investigated abundance, demography, and community response of rodents in a randomized and replicated field experiment using mark-recapture techniques during 2009-2012. whereas removal of downed woody biomass did not affect abundance, diversity, or demography of rodents, we detected species-specific effects of incorporating switchgrass. after switchgrass was well established, invasive house mice (mus musculus) were most abundant in plots with switchgrass. in contrast, white-footed mice (peromyscus leucopus) were commonly captured in plots without switchgrass and other rodents were not affected by biofuel treatments. across the study, natural succession exerted greater effects on rodent species and the rodent community than biofuel production regimes. as remaining logs and stumps decay and become limiting, downed wood may become more important to rodents. our results indicate that intercropping switchgrass and harvesting residual woody material had limited effects on rodents in the coastal plain of north carolina, usa within 4 years of stand establishment. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." -"estimated incidence of tuberculosis by capture-recapture in the balearic islands, 2010-2012",epidemiology; completeness; surveillance; capture-recapture,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TUBERCULOSIS AND LUNG DISEASE,GIMENEZ-DURAN J;GALMES-TRUYOLS A;GONZALEZ-CORTIJO T;BOSCH-ISABEL C;NICOLAU-RIUTORT A;DE MATEO-ONTANON S,"setting: the balearic islands, spain, 2010-2012. objective: to assess the completeness of tb surveillance, and to examine observed and estimated incidence rates (ir) compared with the period 2005-2007. design: the completeness of tb surveillance was assessed using the capture-recapture method. confidence intervals were calculated using log-linear models. data sources were records of mandatory notifiable diseases, active hospital surveillance and computerised primary health care history. results: surveillance completeness for respiratory tb (r-tb) was 99.5%; it was 100% for non-respiratory tb (nr-tb). the overall observed ir was 16.32 cases/100 000 for all types of tb, 3.4 for nr-tb and 12.9 for r-tb. the estimated ir of tb all forms was 16.35/100 000 (95%ci 16.26-16.53), for nr-tb it was 3.4/100 000 (95%ci not calculated) and for r-tb it was 13.0/100 000 (95%ci 12.85-13.12). surveillance completeness for r-tb during the period 2005-2007 was 65.2%; the observed ir was 22.6/100 000 and the estimated ir 31.3/10 000 (95%ci 25.0-37.7). conclusion: the similarity of observed and estimated ir during the period 2010-2012 indicates the validity of the surveillance and the use of improved systems such as electronic medical records in recent years." +rodent population and community responses to forest-based biofuel production,house mouse; intensive forestry; mus musculus; north carolina; peromyscus leucopus; pine plantation; pinus spp; small mammal; switchgrass; white-footed mouse,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HOMYACK JA;LUCIA SIMMONS KE;MILLER DA;KALCOUNIS RUEPPELL M,"intensively managed forests in the southeastern united states are a potential source of cellulosic bioenergy and, as conversion technologies improve and demand increases, a greater land area may be required to produce biofuel feedstocks. however, responses of wildlife to forest-based biofuel production are largely unknown. we examined the 4-year response of rodent populations and assemblages to a range of biofuel production regimes, including harvesting residual woody debris and intercropping switchgrass (panicum virgatum), in an intensively managed loblolly pine (pinus taeda) forest in eastern north carolina, usa. we investigated abundance, demography, and community response of rodents in a randomized and replicated field experiment using mark-recapture techniques during 2009-2012. whereas removal of downed woody biomass did not affect abundance, diversity, or demography of rodents, we detected species-specific effects of incorporating switchgrass. after switchgrass was well established, invasive house mice (mus musculus) were most abundant in plots with switchgrass. in contrast, white-footed mice (peromyscus leucopus) were commonly captured in plots without switchgrass and other rodents were not affected by biofuel treatments. across the study, natural succession exerted greater effects on rodent species and the rodent community than biofuel production regimes. as remaining logs and stumps decay and become limiting, downed wood may become more important to rodents. our results indicate that intercropping switchgrass and harvesting residual woody material had limited effects on rodents in the coastal plain of north carolina, usa within 4 years of stand establishment. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." +"estimated incidence of tuberculosis by capture-recapture in the balearic islands, 2010-2012",epidemiology; completeness; surveillance; capture-recapture,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TUBERCULOSIS AND LUNG DISEASE,GIMENEZ DURAN J;GALMES TRUYOLS A;GONZALEZ CORTIJO T;BOSCH ISABEL C;NICOLAU RIUTORT A;DE MATEO ONTANON S,"setting: the balearic islands, spain, 2010-2012. objective: to assess the completeness of tb surveillance, and to examine observed and estimated incidence rates (ir) compared with the period 2005-2007. design: the completeness of tb surveillance was assessed using the capture-recapture method. confidence intervals were calculated using log-linear models. data sources were records of mandatory notifiable diseases, active hospital surveillance and computerised primary health care history. results: surveillance completeness for respiratory tb (r-tb) was 99.5%; it was 100% for non-respiratory tb (nr-tb). the overall observed ir was 16.32 cases/100 000 for all types of tb, 3.4 for nr-tb and 12.9 for r-tb. the estimated ir of tb all forms was 16.35/100 000 (95%ci 16.26-16.53), for nr-tb it was 3.4/100 000 (95%ci not calculated) and for r-tb it was 13.0/100 000 (95%ci 12.85-13.12). surveillance completeness for r-tb during the period 2005-2007 was 65.2%; the observed ir was 22.6/100 000 and the estimated ir 31.3/10 000 (95%ci 25.0-37.7). conclusion: the similarity of observed and estimated ir during the period 2010-2012 indicates the validity of the surveillance and the use of improved systems such as electronic medical records in recent years." riparian disturbance restricts in-stream movement of salamanders,behaviour; connectivity; dispersal; fragmentation; phototaxis,FRESHWATER BIOLOGY,CECALA KK;LOWE WH;MAERZ JC,"1. long-term population persistence or population rescue require dispersal from other source populations. barriers to movement can effectively fragment and isolate populations, reducing persistence and recolonisation. for stream organisms that depend heavily on movement within dendritic networks, research is needed to identify and estimate the effects of such barriers on connectivity. 2. we used capture-mark-recapture of displaced larval and adult salamanders to estimate return rates across gaps (length 13-85 m) in the riparian canopy and thus to assess the fragmentation of salamander populations within otherwise fully forested catchments. 3. relative to salamanders in fully forested reaches, displaced salamanders were 86% less likely to return to their capture location when required to cross gaps in the canopy as short as 13 m, and the likelihood of return declined with increasing gap length. the effects of gaps on return rates were consistent among life stages and for up-and downstream movement. 4. our study suggests that riparian disturbance can reduce permeability to salamanders, even in the absence of additional land-use change. because anthropogenic features, such as roads and powerlines, frequently cross small streams, the accumulation of apparently small land-cover changes has the potential to reduce continuous populations to small fragments with limited connectivity." using mark-recapture distance sampling methods on line transect surveys,mark-recapture; distance sampling; line transects; double-observer survey; program distance,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BURT ML;BORCHERS DL;JENKINS KJ;MARQUES TA,"1.mark-recapture distance sampling (mrds) methods are widely used for density and abundance estimation when the conventional ds assumption of certain detection at distance zero fails, as they allow detection at distance zero to be estimated and incorporated into the overall probability of detection to better estimate density and abundance. however, incorporating mr data in ds models raises survey and analysis issues not present in conventional ds. conversely, incorporating ds assumptions in mr models raises issues not present in conventional mr. as a result, being familiar with either conventional ds methods or conventional mr methods does not on its own put practitioners in good a position to apply mrds methods appropriately. this study explains the sometimes subtly different varieties of mrds survey methods and the associated concepts underlying mrds models. this is done as far as possible without giving mathematical details - in the hope that this will make the key concepts underlying the methods accessible to a wider audience than if we were to present the concepts via equations. we illustrate use of the two main types of mrds model by using data collected on two different types of survey: a survey of ungulate faecal pellets where two observers searched independently of each other; and a cetacean survey that used a search protocol that could accommodate responsive movement, with only one observer searching independently and the other being aware of all detections.synthesis and applications. mark-recapture ds is a widely used method for estimating animal density and abundance when detection of animals at distance zero is not certain. two observer configurations and three statistical models are described, and it is important to choose the most appropriate model for the observer configuration and target species in question. by way of making the methods more accessible to practicing ecologists, we describe the key ideas underlying mrds methods, the sometimes subtle differences between them, and we illustrate these by applying different kinds of mrds method to surveys of two different target species using different survey configurations." drug-related anaphylactic shocks: under-reporting and pmsi,anaphylactic shocks; under-reporting; diagnosis related group; pharmacovigilance,THERAPIE,ASFARI H;BOUSQUET C;PAVIOT BT;BELLET F;MOUNIER G;MARSILLE F;BEYENS MN;GUY C,"aim. to evaluate the value of research in the case-mix database to identify cases of drug-related anaphylactic or anaphylactoid shock. methods. hospital stays of patients discharged from the university hospital of saint-etienne between july 1st 2009 and june 30th 2012. five codes from the international classification of diseases were selected: t88.6, t88.2, j39.3, t80.5 and t78.2. results. among 89 cases identified by the programme for medicalization of information system (programme de medicalisation des systemes d'information, pmsi), 40 were selected (45%). of these, 16 cases were spontaneously reported by physicians. the unspecific code ""anaphylactic shock unspecified (t78.2)"" was coded for 57.5% of cases. conclusion. the study confirms the interest of the pmsi as a tool for health monitoring, in addition to spontaneous reporting. nevertheless, coding with insufficient precision about the causal role of the drug, requires a return to the medical record and so an important time consuming process." @@ -2364,15 +2367,15 @@ high female mortality resulting in herd collapse in free-ranging domesticated re extending the lincoln-petersen estimator for multiple identifications in one source,lincoln-petersen estimator; em algorithm; trinomially truncated estimator; robust estimation,STATISTICS IN MEDICINE,KOSE T;ORMAN M;IKIZ F;BAKSH MF;GALLAGHER J;BOHNING D,"the lincoln-petersen estimator is one of the most popular estimators used in capture-recapture studies. it was developed for a sampling situation in which two sources independently identify members of a target population. for each of the two sources, it is determined if a unit of the target population is identified or not. this leads to a 2 x 2 table with frequencies f(11), f(10), f(01), f(00) indicating the number of units identified by both sources, by the first but not the second source, by the second but not the first source and not identified by any of the two sources, respectively. however, f(00) is unobserved so that the 2 x 2 table is incomplete and the lincoln-petersen estimator provides an estimate for f(00). in this paper, we consider a generalization of this situation for which one source provides not only a binary identification outcome but also a count outcome of how many times a unit has been identified. using a truncated poisson count model, truncating multiple identifications larger than two, we propose a maximum likelihood estimator of the poisson parameter and, ultimately, of the population size. this estimator shows benefits, in comparison with lincoln-petersen's, in terms of bias and efficiency. it is possible to test the homogeneity assumption that is not testable in the lincoln-petersen framework. the approach is applied to surveillance data on syphilis from izmir, turkey. copyright (c) 2014 john wiley & sons, ltd." "teeth, sex, and testosterone: aging in the world's smallest primate",NA,PLOS ONE,ZOHDY S;GERBER BD;TECOT S;BLANCO MB;WINCHESTER JM;WRIGHT PC;JERNVALL J,"mouse lemurs (microcebus spp.) are an exciting new primate model for understanding human aging and disease. in captivity, microcebus murinus develops human-like ailments of old age after five years (e.g., neurodegeneration analogous to alzheimer's disease) but can live beyond 12 years. it is believed that wild microcebus follow a similar pattern of senescence observed in captive animals, but that predation limits their lifespan to four years, thus preventing observance of these diseases in the wild. testing whether this assumption is true is informative about both microcebus natural history and environmental influences on senescence, leading to interpretation of findings for models of human aging. additionally, the study of microcebus longevity provides an opportunity to better understand mechanisms of sex-biased longevity. longevity is often shorter in males of species with high male-male competition, such as microcebus, but mouse lemurs are sexually monomorphic, suggesting similar lifespans. we collected individual-based observations of wild brown mouse lemurs (microcebus rufus) from 2003-2010 to investigate sex-differences in survival and longevity. fecal testosterone was measured as a potential mechanism of sex-based differences in survival. we used a combination of high-resolution tooth wear techniques, mark-recapture, and hormone enzyme immunoassays. we found no dental or physical signs of senescence in m. rufus as old as eight years (n = 189, ages 1-8, mean = 2.59 +/- 1.63 se), three years older than captive, senescent congeners (m. murinus). unlike other polygynandrous vertebrates, we found no sex difference in age-dependent survival, nor sex or age differences in testosterone levels. while elevated male testosterone levels have been implicated in shorter lifespans in several species, this is one of the first studies to show equivalent testosterone levels accompanying equivalent lifespans. future research on captive aged individuals can determine if senescence is partially a condition of their captive environment, and studies controlling for various environmental factors will further our understanding of senescence." trap array configuration influences estimates and precision of black bear density and abundance,NA,PLOS ONE,WILTON CM;PUCKETT EE;BERINGER J;GARDNER B;EGGERT LS;BELANT JL,"spatial capture-recapture (scr) models have advanced our ability to estimate population density for wide ranging animals by explicitly incorporating individual movement. though these models are more robust to various spatial sampling designs, few studies have empirically tested different large-scale trap configurations using scr models. we investigated how extent of trap coverage and trap spacing affects precision and accuracy of scr parameters, implementing models using the r package secr. we tested two trapping scenarios, one spatially extensive and one intensive, using black bear (ursus americanus) dna data from hair snare arrays in south-central missouri, usa. we also examined the influence that adding a second, lower barbed-wire strand to snares had on quantity and spatial distribution of detections. we simulated trapping data to test bias in density estimates of each configuration under a range of density and detection parameter values. field data showed that using multiple arrays with intensive snare coverage produced more detections of more individuals than extensive coverage. consequently, density and detection parameters were more precise for the intensive design. density was estimated as 1.7 bears per 100 km(2) and was 5.5 times greater than that under extensive sampling. abundance was 279 (95% ci = 193-406) bears in the 16,812 km(2) study area. excluding detections from the lower strand resulted in the loss of 35 detections, 14 unique bears, and the largest recorded movement between snares. all simulations showed low bias for density under both configurations. results demonstrated that in low density populations with non-uniform distribution of population density, optimizing the tradeoff among snare spacing, coverage, and sample size is of critical importance to estimating parameters with high precision and accuracy. with limited resources, allocating available traps to multiple arrays with intensive trap spacing increased the amount of information needed to inform parameters with high precision." -can establishment success be determined through demographic parameters? a case study on five introduced bird species,NA,PLOS ONE,SANZ-AGUILAR A;ANADON JD;EDELAAR P;CARRETE M;TELLA JL,"the dominant criterion to determine when an introduced species is established relies on the maintenance of a self-sustaining population in the area of introduction, i.e. on the viability of the population from a demographic perspective. there is however a paucity of demographic studies on introduced species, and establishment success is thus generally determined by expert opinion without undertaking population viability analyses (pvas). by means of an intensive five year capture-recapture monitoring program (involving >12,000 marked individuals) we studied the demography of five introduced passerine bird species in southern spain which are established and have undergone a fast expansion over the last decades. we obtained useful estimates of demographic parameters (survival and reproduction) for one colonial species (ploceus melanocephalus), confirming the long-term viability of its local population through pvas. however, extremely low recapture rates prevented the estimation of survival parameters and population growth rates for widely distributed species with low local densities (estrilda troglodytes and amandava amandava) but also for highly abundant yet non-colonial species (estrilda astrild and euplectes afer). therefore, determining the establishment success of introduced passerine species by demographic criteria alone may often be troublesome even when devoting much effort to field-work. alternative quantitative methodologies such as the analysis of spatio-temporal species distributions complemented with expert opinion deserve thus their role in the assessment of establishment success of introduced species when estimates of demographic parameters are difficult to obtain, as is generally the case for non-colonial, highly mobile passerines." +can establishment success be determined through demographic parameters? a case study on five introduced bird species,NA,PLOS ONE,SANZ AGUILAR A;ANADON JD;EDELAAR P;CARRETE M;TELLA JL,"the dominant criterion to determine when an introduced species is established relies on the maintenance of a self-sustaining population in the area of introduction, i.e. on the viability of the population from a demographic perspective. there is however a paucity of demographic studies on introduced species, and establishment success is thus generally determined by expert opinion without undertaking population viability analyses (pvas). by means of an intensive five year capture-recapture monitoring program (involving >12,000 marked individuals) we studied the demography of five introduced passerine bird species in southern spain which are established and have undergone a fast expansion over the last decades. we obtained useful estimates of demographic parameters (survival and reproduction) for one colonial species (ploceus melanocephalus), confirming the long-term viability of its local population through pvas. however, extremely low recapture rates prevented the estimation of survival parameters and population growth rates for widely distributed species with low local densities (estrilda troglodytes and amandava amandava) but also for highly abundant yet non-colonial species (estrilda astrild and euplectes afer). therefore, determining the establishment success of introduced passerine species by demographic criteria alone may often be troublesome even when devoting much effort to field-work. alternative quantitative methodologies such as the analysis of spatio-temporal species distributions complemented with expert opinion deserve thus their role in the assessment of establishment success of introduced species when estimates of demographic parameters are difficult to obtain, as is generally the case for non-colonial, highly mobile passerines." using integrated population models to improve conservation monitoring: california spotted owls as a case study,california spotted owl; integrated population model; markov chain monte carlo; population analysis; population decline,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,TEMPEL DJ;PEERY MZ;GUTIERREZ RJ,"integrated population models (ipms) constitute a relatively new approach for estimating population trends and demographic parameters that makes use of multiple, independent data sources (e.g., count and mark-recapture data) within a unified statistical framework. in principle, ipms offer several advantages over more conventional modeling approaches that rely on a single source of data, including greater precision in parameter estimates and the ability to estimate demographic parameters for which no explicit data are available. however, to date, the ipm literature has focused primarily on model development and evaluation, and few ""real-world"" applications have demonstrated that ipms can strengthen inferences about population dynamics in a species of conservation concern. here, we combined 23 years of count, occupancy, reproductive, and mark-recapture data into an ipm framework to estimate population trends and demographic rates in a population of california spotted owls (strix occidentalis occidentalis). using this framework, we observed a significant population decline, as evidenced by the geometric mean of the finite annual rate of population change ( <(<(lambda)over bar>(t) )over cap> = 0.969, 95% cri 0.957-0.980) and the resulting realized population change (proportion of the initial population present in 2012; (delta) over cap (2012) = 0.501, 95% cri 0.383-0.641). the estimated decline was considerably greater than the approximately 30% decline estimated using conventional mark-recapture and occupancy approaches (tempel and gutierrez, 2013). the ipm likely yielded a greater decline because it allowed for the inclusion of three years of data from the beginning of the study that were omitted from previous analyses to meet the assumptions of mark-recapture models. the ipm may also have yielded a greater estimate of decline than occupancy models owing to an increase in the number of territories occupied by single owls over the study period. all demographic parameters (adult and juvenile apparent survival, reproductive rate, immigration rate) were positively correlated with (lambda) over cap (t), but immigration was fairly high ((immt) over cap = 0.097, 95% cri 0.055-0.140) and contributed most to temporal variation in (lambda) over cap (t), suggesting that changes in owl abundance were influenced by processes occurring outside of our study area. more broadly, our results indicated that the ipm framework has the potential to strengthen inference in population monitoring and demographic studies, particularly for those involving long-lived species whose abundance may be slowly declining. in our case, the conservation implications from the results of the ipm suggested a decline in the population of owls that was steeper than previously thought. (c) 2014 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." "the osprey reintroduction in central italy: dispersal, survival and first breeding data",NA,BIRD STUDY,MONTI F;DOMINICI JM;CHOQUET R;DURIEZ O;SAMMURI G;SFORZI A,"capsule sex-biased dispersal and an age-dependent effect in survival rate accounted for the pattern of first settlement and reproduction in a newly reintroduced osprey population. aims we estimate the survival of translocated individuals, describe juvenile movements and evaluate the success of first breeding events to document the re-establishment of an osprey breeding population. methods between 2006 and 2010, 32 fledgling ospreys were reintroduced via hacking techniques in maremma regional park, italy. we evaluated the effects of age on survival through multistate capture-mark-recapture analyses. movements were investigated by radiotracking and using records of resightings. results survival was high for juveniles after the release (0.87), markedly decreased during the first winter (0.26), and improved again in subsequent years (annual apparent survival of 0.69 for immatures and 0.93 for adults). mean distance covered in initial dispersal was greater for females (246.2 km) than for males (38.7 km). conclusion our results provided information on dispersal and survival rate of reintroduced ospreys in a mediterranean area. despite low apparent survival in the first year, the high survival rates found in immatures and adults suggested favourable conditions for this new population. the study of demographic parameters is important for calibrating management actions aimed at the establishment of a self-sustaining osprey population." estimation of the population size of canadian commercial poultry farms by log-linear capture-recapture analysis,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF VETERINARY RESEARCH-REVUE CANADIENNE DE RECHERCHE VETERINAIRE,EL ALLAKI F;CHRISTENSEN J;VALLIERES A;PARE J,"the objective of this study was to estimate the population size of canadian poultry farms in 3 subpopulations (british columbia, ontario, and other) by poultry category. we used data for 2008 to 2011 from the canadian notifiable avian influenza (nai) surveillance system (cannaiss). log-linear capture-recapture models were applied to estimate the number of commercial chicken and turkey farms. the estimated size of farm populations was validated by comparing sizes to data provided by the canadian poultry industry in 2007, which were assumed to be complete and exhaustive. our results showed that the log-linear modelling approach was an appropriate tool to estimate the population size of canadian commercial chicken and turkey farms. the 2007 farm population size for each poultry category was included in the 95% confidence intervals of the farm population size estimates. log-linear capture-recapture modelling might be useful for estimating the number of farms using surveillance data when no comprehensive registry exists." capture-recapture of white-tailed deer using dna from fecal pellet groups,NA,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,GOODE MJ;BEAVER JT;MULLER LI;CLARK JD;VAN MANEN FT;HARPER CA;BASINGER PS,"traditional methods for estimating white-tailed deer population size and density are affected by behavioral biases, poor detection in densely forested areas, and invalid techniques for estimating effective trapping area. we evaluated a noninvasive method of capture-recapture for white-tailed deer odocoileus virginianus density estimation using dna extracted from fecal pellets as an individual marker and for gender determination, coupled with a spatial detection function to estimate density (spatially explicit capture-recapture, secr). we collected pellet groups from 11 to 22 january 2010 at randomly selected sites within a 1-km(2) area located on arnold air force base in coffee and franklin counties, tennessee. we searched 703 10-m radius plots and collected 352 pellet-group samples from 197 plots over five two-day sampling intervals. using only the freshest pellets we recorded 140 captures of 33 different animals (15m: 18f). male and female densities were 1.9 (se = 0.8) and 3.8 (se = 1.3) deer km(-2), or a total density of 5.8 deer km(-2) (14.9 deer mile(-2)). population size was 20.8 (se = 7.6) over a 360-ha area, and sex ratio was 1.0 m: 2.0 f (se = 0.71). we found dna sampling from pellet groups improved deer abundance, density and sex ratio estimates in contiguous landscapes which could be used to track responses to harvest or other management actions." -human visual identification of individual andean bears tremarctos ornatus,NA,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,VAN HORN RC;ZUG B;LACOMBE C;VELEZ-LIENDO X;PAISLEY S,"it is often challenging to use invasive methods of individual animal identification for population estimation, demographic analyses, and other ecological and behavioral analyses focused on individual-level processes. recent improvements in camera traps make it possible to collect many photographic samples yet most investigators either leap from photographic sampling to assignment of individual identity without considering identifi cation errors, or else to avoid those errors they develop computerized methods that produce accurate data with the unintended cost of excluding participation by local citizens. to assess human ability to visually identify andean bears tremarctos ornatus from their pelage markings we used surveys and experimental testing of 381 observers viewing photographs of 70 andean bears of known identity. neither observer experience nor confidence predicted their initial success rate at identifying individuals. however, after gaining experience observers were able to achieve an average success at identifying adult bears of 73.2%, and brief simple training further improved the ability of observers such that 24.8% of them achieved 100% success. interestingly, observers who were initially more likely to falsely identify two photos of the same bear as two different bears than vice versa were likely to continue making errors and their bias became stronger, not weaker. such biases would lead to inaccurate population estimates, invalid assessments of the bears involved in conflict situations, and underestimates of bear movements. we thus illustrate that in some systems accurate data on individual identity can be generated without the use of computerized algorithms, allowing for community engagement and citizen science. in addition, we show that when using observers to collect data on animal identity it is important to consider not only the overall frequency of observer error, but also observer biases and error types, which are rarely reported in field studies." -estimating the population size of the endangered cantabrian brown bear through genetic sampling,NA,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,PEREZ T;NAVES J;VAZQUEZ JF;FERNANDEZ-GIL A;SEIJAS J;ALBORNOZ J;REVILLA E;DELIBES M;DOMINGUEZ A,"the cantabrian brown bear ursus arctos population can be seen as a paradigm in conservation biology due to its endangerment status and genetic uniqueness. therefore, the need to obtain basic demographic data to inform management actions for conservation is imperative. despite this, empirical data on the size and trends of the cantabrian bear population are scarce. here we present the first estimates of population size (n-c) and effective population size (n-e) of the whole cantabrian brown bear population. we genotyped 270 non-invasive samples collected during 2006 throughout the entire range of the population and subsequently identified 130 individuals. different model estimators of n-c based on capture - mark recapture (cmr) procedures were compared. th e average for the best three models (mh chao, mh darroch and capwire tirm) yielded a total estimate of n-c = 223 individuals (ci 95% = 183 - 278) and n-e = 50 (ci 95% = 36 -75) providing an n-e/n-c ratio of 0.22. estimates for the two subpopulations commonly recognized in the cantabrian range were n-c = 203 (ci 95% = 168 -260) and n-e = 47 (ci 95% = 36 -70) for the western subpopulation and n-c = 19 (ci 95% = 12 - 40) and n-e = 9 (ci 95% = 8 - 12) for the eastern subpopulation. these data suggest that the cantabrian brown bear population has increased recently, mainly in the western subpopulation, after a long period of decline and isolation which lead to the split of the population at the beginning of the 20th century. population sizes in the early 1990s were thought to be only 60 individuals for the western subpopulation and 14 individuals in the eastern one. the efforts to improve conservation policies made since then have probably contributed, to some extent, to the population increase during the last couple of decades." +human visual identification of individual andean bears tremarctos ornatus,NA,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,VAN HORN RC;ZUG B;LACOMBE C;VELEZ LIENDO X;PAISLEY S,"it is often challenging to use invasive methods of individual animal identification for population estimation, demographic analyses, and other ecological and behavioral analyses focused on individual-level processes. recent improvements in camera traps make it possible to collect many photographic samples yet most investigators either leap from photographic sampling to assignment of individual identity without considering identifi cation errors, or else to avoid those errors they develop computerized methods that produce accurate data with the unintended cost of excluding participation by local citizens. to assess human ability to visually identify andean bears tremarctos ornatus from their pelage markings we used surveys and experimental testing of 381 observers viewing photographs of 70 andean bears of known identity. neither observer experience nor confidence predicted their initial success rate at identifying individuals. however, after gaining experience observers were able to achieve an average success at identifying adult bears of 73.2%, and brief simple training further improved the ability of observers such that 24.8% of them achieved 100% success. interestingly, observers who were initially more likely to falsely identify two photos of the same bear as two different bears than vice versa were likely to continue making errors and their bias became stronger, not weaker. such biases would lead to inaccurate population estimates, invalid assessments of the bears involved in conflict situations, and underestimates of bear movements. we thus illustrate that in some systems accurate data on individual identity can be generated without the use of computerized algorithms, allowing for community engagement and citizen science. in addition, we show that when using observers to collect data on animal identity it is important to consider not only the overall frequency of observer error, but also observer biases and error types, which are rarely reported in field studies." +estimating the population size of the endangered cantabrian brown bear through genetic sampling,NA,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,PEREZ T;NAVES J;VAZQUEZ JF;FERNANDEZ GIL A;SEIJAS J;ALBORNOZ J;REVILLA E;DELIBES M;DOMINGUEZ A,"the cantabrian brown bear ursus arctos population can be seen as a paradigm in conservation biology due to its endangerment status and genetic uniqueness. therefore, the need to obtain basic demographic data to inform management actions for conservation is imperative. despite this, empirical data on the size and trends of the cantabrian bear population are scarce. here we present the first estimates of population size (n-c) and effective population size (n-e) of the whole cantabrian brown bear population. we genotyped 270 non-invasive samples collected during 2006 throughout the entire range of the population and subsequently identified 130 individuals. different model estimators of n-c based on capture - mark recapture (cmr) procedures were compared. th e average for the best three models (mh chao, mh darroch and capwire tirm) yielded a total estimate of n-c = 223 individuals (ci 95% = 183 - 278) and n-e = 50 (ci 95% = 36 -75) providing an n-e/n-c ratio of 0.22. estimates for the two subpopulations commonly recognized in the cantabrian range were n-c = 203 (ci 95% = 168 -260) and n-e = 47 (ci 95% = 36 -70) for the western subpopulation and n-c = 19 (ci 95% = 12 - 40) and n-e = 9 (ci 95% = 8 - 12) for the eastern subpopulation. these data suggest that the cantabrian brown bear population has increased recently, mainly in the western subpopulation, after a long period of decline and isolation which lead to the split of the population at the beginning of the 20th century. population sizes in the early 1990s were thought to be only 60 individuals for the western subpopulation and 14 individuals in the eastern one. the efforts to improve conservation policies made since then have probably contributed, to some extent, to the population increase during the last couple of decades." bringing clarity to the clouded leopard neofelis diardi: first density estimates from sumatra,forest degradation; indonesia; kerinci seblat; neofelis diardi; population closure; spatial capture-recapture; sunda clouded leopard,ORYX,SOLLMANN R;LINKIE M;HAIDIR IA;MACDONALD DW,"we use data from camera-trap surveys for tigers panthera tigris in combination with spatial capture-recapture models to provide the first density estimates for the sunda clouded leopard neofelis diardi on sumatra. surveys took place during 2004-2007 in the kerinci landscape. densities were 0.385-1.278 per 100 km(2). we found no statistically significant differences in density among four study sites or between primary and mixed forest. because the data sets are too small to account for differences in detection parameters between sexes, density is probably underestimated. estimates are comparable to previous estimates of 1-2 per 100 km(2) from the lowlands of central sabah, on borneo. data limitations suggest that camera-trap surveys for sunda clouded leopards require traps spaced more closely, to increase the chance of recaptures at different traps. nevertheless, these first density estimates for clouded leopards on sumatra provide a benchmark for measuring future conservation impact on an island that is undergoing rapid forest loss." -effects of a flooding event on a threatened black bear population in louisiana,black bear; ursus americanus luteolus; flood; louisiana; multistate model; population viability,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,O'CONNELL-GOODE KC;LOWE CL;CLARK JD,"the louisiana black bear, ursus americanus luteolus, is listed as threatened under the endangered species act as a result of habitat loss and human-related mortality. information on population-level responses of large mammals to flooding events is scarce, and we had a unique opportunity to evaluate the viability of the upper atchafalaya river basin (uarb) black bear population before and after a significant flooding event. we began collecting black bear hair samples in 2007 for a dna mark-recapture study to estimate abundance (n) and apparent survival (phi). in 2011, the morganza spillway was opened to divert floodwaters from the mississippi river through the uarb, inundating >50% of our study area, potentially impacting recovery of this important bear population. to evaluate the effects of this flooding event on bear population dynamics, we used a robust design multistate model to estimate changes in transition rates from the flooded area to non-flooded area (psi(f -> nf)) before (2007-2010), during (2010-2011) and after (2011-2012) the flood. average n across all years of study was 63.2 (se = 5.2), excluding the year of the flooding event. estimates of psi(f -> nf) increased from 0.014 (se = 0.010; meaning that 1.4% of the bears moved from the flooded area to non-flooded areas) before flooding to 0.113 (se = 0.045) during the flood year, and then decreased to 0.028 (se = 0.035) after the flood. although we demonstrated a flood effect on transition rates as hypothesized, the effect was small (88.7% of the bears remained in the flooded area during flooding) and phi was unchanged, suggesting that the 2011 flooding event had minimal impact on survival and site fidelity." +effects of a flooding event on a threatened black bear population in louisiana,black bear; ursus americanus luteolus; flood; louisiana; multistate model; population viability,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,O CONNELL GOODE KC;LOWE CL;CLARK JD,"the louisiana black bear, ursus americanus luteolus, is listed as threatened under the endangered species act as a result of habitat loss and human-related mortality. information on population-level responses of large mammals to flooding events is scarce, and we had a unique opportunity to evaluate the viability of the upper atchafalaya river basin (uarb) black bear population before and after a significant flooding event. we began collecting black bear hair samples in 2007 for a dna mark-recapture study to estimate abundance (n) and apparent survival (phi). in 2011, the morganza spillway was opened to divert floodwaters from the mississippi river through the uarb, inundating >50% of our study area, potentially impacting recovery of this important bear population. to evaluate the effects of this flooding event on bear population dynamics, we used a robust design multistate model to estimate changes in transition rates from the flooded area to non-flooded area (psi(f -> nf)) before (2007-2010), during (2010-2011) and after (2011-2012) the flood. average n across all years of study was 63.2 (se = 5.2), excluding the year of the flooding event. estimates of psi(f -> nf) increased from 0.014 (se = 0.010; meaning that 1.4% of the bears moved from the flooded area to non-flooded areas) before flooding to 0.113 (se = 0.045) during the flood year, and then decreased to 0.028 (se = 0.035) after the flood. although we demonstrated a flood effect on transition rates as hypothesized, the effect was small (88.7% of the bears remained in the flooded area during flooding) and phi was unchanged, suggesting that the 2011 flooding event had minimal impact on survival and site fidelity." solitary individuals in populations of the group-living lizard ouroborus cataphractus: voluntary or forced?,cordylidae; mark-recapture; crevicefidelity; sexual differences; seasonal differences; competitive; exclusion,AFRICAN ZOOLOGY,MOUTON PLN;GLOVER JL;FLEMMING AF,"we compared crevice fidelity among solitary and group-living individuals in a population of the group-living lizard ouroborus cataphractus. we also compared the incidence of solitary individuals between the sexes and different seasons. we surveyed suitable rocky areas at two sites in the graafwater district, south africa, and all o. cataphractus individuals found, whether in groups or solitary, were marked and released back into their crevices. the areas were resurveyed after one month, three months and four months to compare crevice fidelity of solitary and group-living individuals. we found that solitary individuals were significantly less loyal to their rock shelters than individuals living in groups, and that solitary females appeared to be less loyal than solitary males. we found no significant difference in the frequency of solitary adult males in and outside of the mating season. solitary adult males were significantly smaller in mean body size than group-living adult males, but did not have more scars or other deformities than the latter. we found no significant difference in the frequencies of solitary individuals during the wet and the dry seasons, or in the frequencies of solitary adult males versus solitary adult females recorded during any of the surveys. the significantly lower crevice fidelity displayed by solitary than group-living individuals supports the notion that being in a group must be the optimal situation for individuals of this relatively slow-moving cordylid. our finding that solitary adult males were significantly smaller in mean body size than group-living adult males also suggests that the exclusion of less competitive males from groups may in part be responsible for the occurrence of solitary males." "variations in moult, morphology, movement and survival rates of the sombre greenbul andropadus importunus within southern africa",biometric; life history; longevity; mark-recapture,OSTRICH,BONNEVIE BT,"ringing data from the south african bird ringing unit, safring, were analysed to explore variations and trends in population parameters of the sombre greenbul andropadus importunus in southern africa. adult and juvenile body mass increased southwards, whereas the relative sizes of wings and bills decreased southwards. recapture and recovery data indicated that adults have very high site fidelity and suggested that juvenile dispersal is limited. the annual survival rate of adults was on average more than twice that of juveniles and there was little regional variation within either age group. the onset of primary wing moult became progressively later northwards, but the duration of moult did not vary significantly with latitude. juveniles started their first normally descendent wing moult sequence about one month after adults." effective use of multiple error-prone covariate measurements in capture-recapture models,capture-recapture; complete sufficient statistic; generalized method of moments; measurement error; semiparametrics; surrogacy,STATISTICA SINICA,XU K;MA YY,"we study capture-recapture models in a closed population when multiple error-prone measurements of a covariate are available. due to the identity between the number of captures and the number of measurements, no suitable complete and sufficient statistic exists, and the existing method no longer applies. the familiar strategy of generalized method of moments fails to resolve this issue satisfactorily, and complexity lies in the loss of the surrogacy assumption commonly assumed in measurement error problems. our approach to this problem through a semiparametric treatment overcomes these difficulties. the superior performance of the new method is demonstrated through numerical experiments in simulated and data examples." @@ -2387,19 +2390,19 @@ demographic variation in the uk serotine bat: filling gaps in knowledge for mana experimental evaluation shows limited influence of pine plantations on the connectivity of highly fragmented bird populations,australia; birds; dispersal; functional connectivity; matrix; pine and conifer plantations; population synchrony,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,MORTELLITI A;WESTGATE MJ;LINDENMAYER DB,"1. conversion of natural and agricultural areas to conifer plantations is an important element of global change. despite their widespread distribution and global importance, it is still unclear whether conifer plantations hinder or enhance movement by biota. 2. population connectivity is difficult to quantify without detailed studies such as those using capture-mark-recapture methods. a novel solution is to quantify the synchrony in abundance between populations over time. using this approach, more connected populations are expected to display synchrony, whereas disconnected populations are expected to fluctuate asynchronously. here, we compared the relative effects of spatial proximity and matrix type on the population synchrony of a suite of forest-dependent birds in a long-term, fully controlled, and replicated landscape-scale experiment in south-eastern australia. 3. our experiment consisted of comparing bird populations inhabiting remnant eucalypt patches surrounded by radiata pine pinus radiata plantations (50 patches) with bird populations inhabiting remnant eucalypt patches where the surrounding landscapes are grazing fields (55 patches). our data set encompassed 10 years and included 52 bird species characterized by different life history traits. after controlling for the effects of rainfall and patch characteristics on population dynamics, we found that spatial proximity, not matrix type, was the main driver of population synchrony for 16 species. the effect of the pine plantation matrix was negative (it reduced synchrony). however, the magnitude of its effect was particularly low (being significant only in four species). 4. synthesis and applications. our results show that pine plantations do not increase connectivity. in fact, they have little effect, with the exception of a few species, for which they may constitute a barrier. the implications of our findings for landscape management are that the conversion of agricultural areas to plantation forestry does not promote substantial movement of individuals (to the extent that would synchronize populations). therefore, plantation expansion should not be promoted on the belief that it increases connectivity relative to an agricultural matrix." habitat-specific effectiveness of feral cat control for the conservation of an endemic ground-nesting bird species,camera trapping; invasive species; meso-predator release effect; predator control; shorebird; spatially explicit mark-recapture; wader,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,OPPEL S;BURNS F;VICKERY J;GEORGE K;ELLICK G;LEO D;HILLMAN JC,"1. invasive non-native species are one of the greatest drivers of the loss of biodiversity world-wide. consequently, removing or controlling invasive predators should generally benefit vulnerable native species. however, especially on islands, where most mammalian predators are introduced, these predators may also prey on other invasive mammals. removing only apex predators may lead to increases of meso-predators that may in turn increase predation pressure on native wildlife. 2. we examined the benefits of a feral cat felis catus control programme on nest survival of a critically endangered ground-nesting bird, the st helena plover charadrius sanctaehelenae in two habitat types, harbouring c. 30% of the global population of this species. we monitored nest success and the activity of introduced mammals (cats, rabbits oryctolagus cuniculus, rats rattus rattus and rattus norvegicus, and mice mus musculus) over 2 years, before and after controlling feral cats. 3. live trapping removed 56 feral cats from our study areas. in the semi-desert, rabbit and mouse activity increased, but rat activity remained low after feral cat control. in pastures, rat and mouse activity increased after feral cat control, while rabbit activity remained constant. 4. nest survival of plovers increased more than threefold in the semi-desert, but increased only marginally in pastures. this difference may be due to an increase in rat activity and potentially rat predation following cat control in pastures, whereas no increase in rat activity was observed in the semi-desert. 5. synthesis and applications. our study shows habitat-specific consequences of feral cat control on ground-nesting bird productivity after 1 year, probably mediated by differences in the availability of alternative prey. the results highlight the importance of experimental trials and a thorough understanding of the interactions between multiple invasive species before predator-control operations are implemented over larger scales. on islands with multiple invasive species, there may not be a simple generic approach to predator management (other than removing all invasive species simultaneously)." "effects of mycoplasmal upper-respiratory-tract disease on movement and thermoregulatory behavior of gopher tortoises (gopherus polyphemus) in georgia, usa",behavior; gopher tortoise; myco plasma; telemetry; thermoregulation,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE DISEASES,MCGUIRE JL;SMITH LL;GUYER C;YABSLEY MJ,"from 2011-12, we studied a gopher tortoise (gopherus polyphemus) population with a historically high prevalence of antibodies to myco plasma agassizii to assess long-term effects of upper-respiratory-tract disease (urtd) on tortoise behavior. we radiotracked 30 adult tortoises (16 males, 14 females) from a long-term study site with the use of mark recapture methods to determine site fidelity and to compare home-range size to that of a study in 1997. an additional 10 tortoises (six males, four females) with severe clinical signs of urtd from elsewhere in the study area were radiotracked and compared to tortoises that were asymptomatic or had only mild clinical signs. we also monitored thermoregulatory behavior of tortoises with the use of data loggers affixed to the carapace. there was no significant difference in home-range size between the asymptomatic tortoises and those with mild symptoms. home ranges of tortoises with severe urtd were significantly larger than asymptomatic or mildly affected tortoises. tortoises with severe clinical signs moved long distances over short periods, contradicting a hypothesis that chronically infected tortoises are less likely to emigrate. prevalence of m. agassizii antibodies was similar among the three groups (98% overall), but prevalence of antibodies to a second pathogen associated with urtd, myco plasma testudineum, was lower in the asymptomatic (n=14, 7%) and mild-symptoms (n=7, 14%) groups than the severe-symptoms group (n=8, 50%). variation in the average carapacial temperatures of tortoises with severe urtd was significantly different from carapacial temperatures of mild and asymptomatic tortoises, suggesting differences in thermoregulatory behavior of severely ill tortoises. our 15-yr recapture data suggest that, despite high prevalence of m. agassizii, population density has not decreased over time. however, emigration, especially of tortoises with severe clinical disease, may play an important role in dispersal and persistence of pathogens." -population-based epidemiology of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als) in an ageing europe - the french register of als in limousin (fralim register),amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; epidemiology; france; incidence; population register,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY,MARIN B;HAMIDOU B;COURATIER P;NICOL M;DELZOR A;RAYMONDEAU M;DRUET-CABANAC M;LAUTRETTE G;BOUMEDIENE F;PREUX PM,"background and purposethe main objective of establishing the french register of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als) in the limousin region (fralim), was to assess the incidence of als, in this ageing region of europe, over a 12-year period (2000-2011). methodspatients were included if they lived in limousin at the time of diagnosis of als according to el escorial revised criteria and were identified by at least one of the following sources: (i) the french national body coordinating als referral centres; (ii) public and private hospitals in the region; (iii) health insurance data related to long-term diseases. resultsthe fralim register identified 279 incident cases (2000-2011). the crude and european population standardized incidences of als were as high as 3.19/100000 person-years of follow-up (95% ci 2.81-3.56) and 2.58/100000 person-years of follow-up (95% ci 2.27-2.89) respectively. median age at onset was 70.8years (interquartile range 63.1-77.1). the standardized sex incidence ratio (male/female) was 1.3 overall, but 1.1 under the age of 65years, 1.7 between 65 and 75years and 1.9 above 75years. the exhaustiveness of the register has been estimated at 98.4% (95% ci 95.6-99.4) by capture-recapture analysis. conclusionit was possible for the first time in france to monitor accurately the incidence of als over a long time period. it appears to be in the upper range of data reported in western countries. patterns displayed here might anticipate the epidemiology of als in ageing western countries." +population-based epidemiology of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als) in an ageing europe - the french register of als in limousin (fralim register),amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; epidemiology; france; incidence; population register,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY,MARIN B;HAMIDOU B;COURATIER P;NICOL M;DELZOR A;RAYMONDEAU M;DRUET CABANAC M;LAUTRETTE G;BOUMEDIENE F;PREUX PM,"background and purposethe main objective of establishing the french register of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als) in the limousin region (fralim), was to assess the incidence of als, in this ageing region of europe, over a 12-year period (2000-2011). methodspatients were included if they lived in limousin at the time of diagnosis of als according to el escorial revised criteria and were identified by at least one of the following sources: (i) the french national body coordinating als referral centres; (ii) public and private hospitals in the region; (iii) health insurance data related to long-term diseases. resultsthe fralim register identified 279 incident cases (2000-2011). the crude and european population standardized incidences of als were as high as 3.19/100000 person-years of follow-up (95% ci 2.81-3.56) and 2.58/100000 person-years of follow-up (95% ci 2.27-2.89) respectively. median age at onset was 70.8years (interquartile range 63.1-77.1). the standardized sex incidence ratio (male/female) was 1.3 overall, but 1.1 under the age of 65years, 1.7 between 65 and 75years and 1.9 above 75years. the exhaustiveness of the register has been estimated at 98.4% (95% ci 95.6-99.4) by capture-recapture analysis. conclusionit was possible for the first time in france to monitor accurately the incidence of als over a long time period. it appears to be in the upper range of data reported in western countries. patterns displayed here might anticipate the epidemiology of als in ageing western countries." "an evaluation of multiple-pass seining to monitor blackstripe topminnow fundulus notatus (rafinesque, 1820) in the sydenham river (ontario, canada)",NA,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ICHTHYOLOGY,REID SM;HOGG S,"multiple-pass (i.e. removal) sampling and mark-recapture experiments were undertaken in the sydenham river (ontario, canada) to assess the effectiveness of seining to detect and estimate the local abundance of blackstripe topminnow, fundulus notatus (rafinesque, 1820) as well as to compare catch characteristics from closed and open (with and without block nets) sample units. probability of species detection using three-pass seining was estimated to be 0.58 in closed units, and 0.51 in open units. to be 95% confident of occupancy status, a minimum of five repeat surveys is required. a decline in catch occurred in only half of the sample units, population size estimates were often imprecise, and attempts to generate mark-recapture population estimates were unsuccessful. mean capture probabilities were 0.48 in closed units and 0.65 in open units, when depletion occurred. for blackstripe topminnow and other fishes encountered, there were no significant differences between closed and open units in the frequency of depletion or capture probability. compared to single-pass surveys, monitoring programs that employ three seine hauls are more likely to detect the presence of the blackstripe topminnow and any decline in local abundance." spatial patterns of breeding success of grizzly bears derived from hierarchical multistate models,breeding success; climate change; occupancy estimation; spatial distribution; ursus arctos,CONSERVATION BIOLOGY,FISHER JT;WHEATLEY M;MACKENZIE D,"conservation programs often manage populations indirectly through the landscapes in which they live. empirically, linking reproductive success with landscape structure and anthropogenic change is a first step in understanding and managing the spatial mechanisms that affect reproduction, but this link is not sufficiently informed by data. hierarchical multistate occupancy models can forge these links by estimating spatial patterns of reproductive success across landscapes. to illustrate, we surveyed the occurrence of grizzly bears (ursus arctos) in the canadian rocky mountains alberta, canada. we deployed camera traps for 6 weeks at 54 surveys sites in different types of land cover. we used hierarchical multistate occupancy models to estimate probability of detection, grizzly bear occupancy, and probability of reproductive success at each site. grizzly bear occupancy varied among cover types and was greater in herbaceous alpine ecotones than in low-elevation wetlands or mid-elevation conifer forests. the conditional probability of reproductive success given grizzly bear occupancy was 30% (se = 0.14). grizzly bears with cubs had a higher probability of detection than grizzly bears without cubs, but sites were correctly classified as being occupied by breeding females 49% of the time based on raw data and thus would have been underestimated by half. repeated surveys and multistate modeling reduced the probability of misclassifying sites occupied by breeders as unoccupied to <2%. the probability of breeding grizzly bear occupancy varied across the landscape. those patches with highest probabilities of breeding occupancyherbaceous alpine ecotoneswere small and highly dispersed and are projected to shrink as treelines advance due to climate warming. understanding spatial correlates in breeding distribution is a key requirement for species conservation in the face of climate change and can help identify priorities for landscape management and protection." capture-recapture estimates of the undercount of workplace injuries and illnesses: sensitivity analysis,occupational injury and illness reporting; capture-recapture analysis; injury surveillance; sensitivity analysis,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE,BODEN LI,"backgroundin recent years, capture-recapture methods have been applied to state survey of occupational injuries and illnesses (soii) and workers' compensation data, but uncertainties arise because of population differences between the two sources, likely source dependence, and concerns about the accuracy of case linkage. methodswe linked soii and workers' compensation records for california and used capture-recapture methods to estimate the proportion of injuries and illnesses involving at least 4 days away from work captured by each source. we then did a sensitivity analysis. resultsassuming source independence, estimates of the proportion of injuries and illnesses involving at least 4 days away from work captured by the soii varied from 42.4% to 49.0%, while workers' compensation estimates were between 76.9% and 77.6%. re-estimating soii capture rates assuming source dependence (or=3) reduced capture estimates substantially. conclusionsestimated capture rates remained low after changing several of the underlying assumptions. positive source dependence had the greatest impact. am. j. ind. med. 57:1090-1099, 2014. (c) 2013 wiley periodicals, inc." impact of differential injury reporting on the estimation of the total number of work-related amputations,capture-recapture analysis; surveillance; misclassification; injury reporting; workers compensation,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE,TAK S;GRATTAN K;BODEN L;OZONOFF A;DAVIS L,"backgrounda capture-recapture analysis was performed to estimate the total number of work-related amputations. we examined the impact of misclassification due to differential injury reporting on the estimate of total number of work-related amputations. methodsbureau of labor statistics' survey of occupational injuries and illnesses (soii) samples and workers' compensation records (wc) were used to estimate the total number of work-related amputations. some of the amputation cases in one data source matched with injuries other than amputations in the other data source. we performed sensitivity analyses reassigning such cases as matched amputations. resultsdepending on how we treated the cases matched with other injuries, the total number of work-related amputations ranged from 276 to 442 cases, yielding dramatically different capture rates (35-87%). conclusiondue to differential classification, estimates of work-related amputations would be biased. our findings highlight the importance of accurately reporting and classifying work-related injuries and illnesses. am. j. ind. med. 57:1144-1148, 2014. (c) 2014 wiley periodicals, inc." noninvasive genetic sampling allows estimation of capercaillie numbers and population structure in the bohemian forest,tetrao urogallus; citizen science; capture-recapture; wildlife management,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,ROSNER S;BRANDL R;SEGELBACHER G;LORENC T;MULLER J,"wildlife conservation and management of endangered species requires reliable information on the size and structure of populations. one of the flagship species in european wildlife conservation is the forest-dwelling capercaillie (tetrao urogallus), where several populations are endangered. in the bohemian forest, e.g., the population severely declined 30 years ago with only 100 birds remaining in 1985. subsequently, breeding and release programs were conducted to supplement the local population. the current distribution and population size, however, remained unknown. with recent habitat changes and increasing recreational activities, a reliable population estimate to inform conservation plans was needed. a team of scientists and volunteers collected fresh capercaillie droppings covering an area of about 120,000 ha. we genotyped ten microsatellite loci to estimate the current population size and to determine the population's spatial and genetic structure. population size and density estimators revealed a population size of approximately 500 individuals, which is thus one of the two largest relict populations in the low mountain ranges of temperate europe. the population clustering revealed gene flow across the entire study area. several genotypes were documented with multiple recaptures at spatial distances between 10 and 30 km additionally corroborating gene flow across the entire landscape of the study area. males were more closely related than females on small spatial scales up to 3 km, indicating lower dispersal rates in males. we conclude that the population currently appears to have a viable size and shows unrestricted gene flow across state borders and management units of the entire bohemian forest. however, long-term viability of this population requires a transboundary strategy to sustainably protect and monitor this isolated capercaillie population in central europe." effects of neckbands on body condition of migratory geese,ringing; abdominal profile; capture-mark-recapture; neck collars; pink-footed goose; anser brachyrhynchus,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,CLAUSEN KK;MADSEN J,"ringing and marking are widely used techniques in avian ecology to assist studies of migration, survival and behaviour, and often used to estimate population sizes. only rarely, however, have the effects of these markings on bird viability been thoroughly tested. using an abdominal profile index of marked geese and body mass of recaptured birds previously marked, this study investigated the effect of neckbands on body condition of pink-footed geese anser brachyrhynchus at different temporal scales, and evaluated to what extent capture, handling and banding affected these birds on short, medium and longer terms. our results indicated that body condition of geese were negatively affected in the days immediately succeeding capture, but that only a minor effect persisted on a seasonal scale. we found no support for a long-term effect of neckbands on the body mass of individual birds, indicating that the capture and handling event might be the main contributory cause to the transitory decline in body condition. pink-footed geese thus seemed to habituate almost completely to the presence of neckbands, and the effects on long-term body condition can be expected to be minor. however, neckbands might still influence important life-history traits such as reproduction and survival by means of, e.g., altering social interactions, increasing predation or interfering with mate acquisition." -"patterns of spatio-temporal variation in the survival rates of a viviparous lizard: the interacting effects of sex, reproductive trade-offs, aridity, and human-induced disturbance",differential survival; life-history evolution; local selective pressures; reproductive costs; sceloporus grammicus,POPULATION ECOLOGY,PEREZ-MENDOZA HA;ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ;MARTORELL C;ZURITA-GUTIERREZ YH;SOLANO-ZAVALETA I;HERNANDEZ-ROSAS AL;MOLINA-MOCTEZUMA A,"examination of the spatial and temporal variation in survival rates provides insight on how the action of natural selection varies among populations of single species. in this study, we used mark-recapture data from seven populations of the viviparous lizard sceloporus grammicus in central mexico and a multi-model inference framework to examine interpopulation variation in the survival of adult males and females. we aimed to analyze the potential effects of aridity, human-induced disturbance, and reproductive costs on the survival rates of these lizards. for females in particular, we also searched for a negative relationship between litter size (adjusted for female size) and female survival. our results demonstrate seasonal changes in survival for males and females. in three out of our seven study sites female survival decreased during the birthing season. in contrast, male survival did not appear to decrease during the mating season. we found an interaction between site-specific aridity and reproductive season affecting female survival. a decrease in female survival during the birthing season was observed in relatively arid sites. in one of these arid sites we found a negative effect of size-adjusted litter size on female survival: females producing more offspring than those expected for their size were more likely to die. this result represents evidence of a physiological trade-off for gravid females occurring in at least one of the studied populations. interpopulation variation in the degree of human-induced disturbance could not explain the observed patterns of spatial variation in survival rates. our results demonstrate wide variation in sex-specific survival patterns of this viviparous lizard and provide evidence that negative associations between reproduction and survival are highly dependent on the local environmental conditions." +"patterns of spatio-temporal variation in the survival rates of a viviparous lizard: the interacting effects of sex, reproductive trade-offs, aridity, and human-induced disturbance",differential survival; life-history evolution; local selective pressures; reproductive costs; sceloporus grammicus,POPULATION ECOLOGY,PEREZ MENDOZA HA;ZUNIGA VEGA JJ;MARTORELL C;ZURITA GUTIERREZ YH;SOLANO ZAVALETA I;HERNANDEZ ROSAS AL;MOLINA MOCTEZUMA A,"examination of the spatial and temporal variation in survival rates provides insight on how the action of natural selection varies among populations of single species. in this study, we used mark-recapture data from seven populations of the viviparous lizard sceloporus grammicus in central mexico and a multi-model inference framework to examine interpopulation variation in the survival of adult males and females. we aimed to analyze the potential effects of aridity, human-induced disturbance, and reproductive costs on the survival rates of these lizards. for females in particular, we also searched for a negative relationship between litter size (adjusted for female size) and female survival. our results demonstrate seasonal changes in survival for males and females. in three out of our seven study sites female survival decreased during the birthing season. in contrast, male survival did not appear to decrease during the mating season. we found an interaction between site-specific aridity and reproductive season affecting female survival. a decrease in female survival during the birthing season was observed in relatively arid sites. in one of these arid sites we found a negative effect of size-adjusted litter size on female survival: females producing more offspring than those expected for their size were more likely to die. this result represents evidence of a physiological trade-off for gravid females occurring in at least one of the studied populations. interpopulation variation in the degree of human-induced disturbance could not explain the observed patterns of spatial variation in survival rates. our results demonstrate wide variation in sex-specific survival patterns of this viviparous lizard and provide evidence that negative associations between reproduction and survival are highly dependent on the local environmental conditions." "population density of striped hyenas in relation to habitat in a semi-arid landscape, western india",abundance; camera trap; livestock; population estimation; ranthambhore; scavenging,ACTA THERIOLOGICA,SINGH R;QURESHI Q;SANKAR K;KRAUSMAN PR;GOYAL SP;NICHOLSON KL,"we used camera trapping in conjunction with a spatial explicit capture-recapture model to estimate striped hyena (hyaena hyaena) density and occupancy models to investigate factors affecting striped hyena detection probabilities in ranthambhore tiger reserve (rtr), rajasthan, india. a sampling effort of 4,450 trap days/nights over 75 days yield 68 photo captures of 21 unique striped hyenas (based on individual markings and visual identification); the estimated striped hyena density was 5.49 +/- 1.27 individuals/100 km(2). results of our occupancy model suggested that a rugged terrain is an important factor that influences striped hyena detection probability. correlation with striped hyena detection with human settlement provides evidence of social tolerance of striped hyena towards humans, and more occurrence of resources allowed coexistence of hyena in a human-dominated landscape. this elasticity (inhabited areas close to humans) demonstrated by striped hyenas is an exception among carnivore communities living in this semi-arid habitat." "habitat and food utilization of the siberian chipmunk, tamias sibiricus, in korea",ecology; natural history; korea; siberian chipmunk; tamias sibiricus,ACTA THERIOLOGICA,JO YS;SEOMUN H;BACCUS JT,"compared to european countries where the siberian chipmunk (tamias sibiricus) is an invasive species, there is a paucity of information on the ecology and natural history of korean populations. t. sibiricus is a native species with large populations in korea. we conducted field research during january to december 2012 in a forest habitat located in hongcheon-gun, gangwon-do (37a degrees 45' 50aeuro(3) n, 127a degrees 50' 52aeuro(3) e) in central korea. we used both radio-tracking and capture-recapture techniques to determine home range size and nocturnal shelters. we also excavated and measured burrows and analyzed food items from caches. the mean 95 % of kernel home range size for males was 16,586 m(2) (100 % of mcp = 14,129 m(2)) and 4,432 m(2) (100 % of mcp = 4,512 m(2)) for females. burrow systems typically had a nest, latrine, and food caches with tunnels. nocturnal shelters were uncommon and co-habiting for summer sleeping and winter torpor were also rare. the primary food items in caches were chestnuts (77.0 %), mongolian oak acorns (12.1 %), and bird's-foot trefoil (2.1 %). the information on the ecology and natural history of the korean subspecies of siberian chipmunks reported in this research shows significant differences from the ecological information for the subspecies in hokkaido japan." lek fidelity and movement among leks by male greater sage-grouse centrocercus urophasianus: a capture-mark-recapture approach,dispersal; heterogeneity in encounter probabilities; lek dynamics; lek stability,IBIS,GIBSON D;BLOMBERG EJ;ATAMIAN MT;SEDINGER JS,"males in lek mating systems tend to exhibit high fidelity to breeding leks despite substantial evidence of skewed mating success among males. although movements between leks are often reported to be rare, such movements provide a mechanism for an individual to improve lifetime fitness in response to heterogeneity in reproductive conditions. additionally, estimates of apparent movements among leks are potentially biased due to unaccounted variation in detection probability across time and space. we monitored breeding male greater sage-grouse centrocercus urophasianus on 13 leks in eastern nevada over a 10-year period, and estimated movement rates among leks using capture-mark-recapture methods. we expected that male movement rates among leks would be low, despite predictions of low breeding success for most males, and that detection rates would be highly variable among leks and years. we used a robust design multistate analysis in program mark to estimate probability of movements among leks, while accounting for imperfect detection of males. male sage-grouse were extremely faithful to their leks; the annual probability of a male moving away from its original lek of capture was approximately 3% (se=0.01). detection probabilities varied substantially among leks (range=0.21-0.95), and among years (range=0.30-0.76), but remained relatively constant within years at each lek. these results suggest that male sage-grouse dispersal is either rare, or consists primarily of dispersal of sub-adults from their natal areas prior to the breeding season. the study highlights the benefits of robust design multistate models over standard live-encounter' analyses, as they not only permit estimation of additional parameters, such as movement rates, but also allow for more precise parameter estimates that are less sensitive to heterogeneity in detection rates. additionally, as these data were collected using capture-mark-recapture methods, our approach to estimating movement rates would be beneficial in systems where radiotagging is detrimental to the study organism." prediction of mean adult survival rates of southern african birds from demographic and ecological covariates,mark-recapture; mark-recovery; phylogenetically adjusted regression,IBIS,COLLINGHAM YC;HUNTLEY B;ALTWEGG R;BARNARD P;BEVERIDGE OS;GREGORY RD;MASON LR;OSCHADLEUS HD;SIMMONS RE;WILLIS SG;GREEN RE,"estimates of annual survival rates of birds are valuable in a wide range of studies of population ecology and conservation. these include modelling studies to assess the impacts of climatic change or anthropogenic mortality for many species for which no reliable direct estimates of survival are available. we evaluate the performance of regression models in predicting adult survival rates of birds from values of demographic and ecological covariates available from textbooks and databases. we estimated adult survival for 67 species using dead recoveries of birds ringed in southern africa and fitted regression models using five covariates: mean clutch size, mean body mass, mean age at first breeding, diet and migratory tendency. models including these explanatory variables performed well in predicting adult survival in this set of species, both when phylogenetic relatedness of the species was taken into account using phylogenetic generalized least squares (51% of variation in logit survival explained) and when it was not (48%). two independent validation tests also indicated good predictive power, as indicated by high correlations of observed with expected values in a leave-one-out cross validation test performed using data from the 67 species (35% of variation in logit survival explained), and when annual survival rates from independent mark-recapture studies of 38 southern african species were predicted from covariates and the regression using dead recoveries (48%). clutch size and body mass were the most influential covariates, both with and without the inclusion of phylogenetic effects, and a regression model including only these two variables performed well in both of the validation tests (39 and 48% of variation in logit survival explained). our regression models, including the version with only clutch size and body mass, are likely to perform well in predicting adult survival rate for southern african species for which direct survival estimates are not available." -growth variability of brook charr (salvelinus fontinalis) in coastal maine,brook charr; brook trout; individual growth; growth variation; pit tags,ECOLOGY OF FRESHWATER FISH,KAZYAK D;LETCHER BH;ZYDLEWSKI J;O'DONNELL MJ,"brook charr inhabit a wide variety of habitats and exhibit considerable growth variation within and among populations. we used biannual mark-recapture electrofishing surveys and pit tags at two streams in coastal maine to examine spatial and temporal variability in brook charr growth. we documented considerable stream-to-stream and year-to-year variation in the growth of coastal brook charr. based on 2892 recaptures between 2006 and 2010, we developed a suite of linear mixed models to examine variation in individual growth rates at stanley brook as a function of environmental variables. we distilled physical habitat data from surveys in 2010 into principle components for entry into the growth model. growth was related primarily to an interaction between season and body length, mean water temperature, and instream location. growth rates were highest in the summer, and smaller individuals grew more rapidly than larger conspecifics in the same stream. individuals using habitats closer to the head of tide grew faster than those in upstream locations. physical habitat variation was not an important control of individual growth variation within stanley brook. we suggest local variability in growth rates should be considered when developing management strategies for coastal populations." +growth variability of brook charr (salvelinus fontinalis) in coastal maine,brook charr; brook trout; individual growth; growth variation; pit tags,ECOLOGY OF FRESHWATER FISH,KAZYAK D;LETCHER BH;ZYDLEWSKI J;O DONNELL MJ,"brook charr inhabit a wide variety of habitats and exhibit considerable growth variation within and among populations. we used biannual mark-recapture electrofishing surveys and pit tags at two streams in coastal maine to examine spatial and temporal variability in brook charr growth. we documented considerable stream-to-stream and year-to-year variation in the growth of coastal brook charr. based on 2892 recaptures between 2006 and 2010, we developed a suite of linear mixed models to examine variation in individual growth rates at stanley brook as a function of environmental variables. we distilled physical habitat data from surveys in 2010 into principle components for entry into the growth model. growth was related primarily to an interaction between season and body length, mean water temperature, and instream location. growth rates were highest in the summer, and smaller individuals grew more rapidly than larger conspecifics in the same stream. individuals using habitats closer to the head of tide grew faster than those in upstream locations. physical habitat variation was not an important control of individual growth variation within stanley brook. we suggest local variability in growth rates should be considered when developing management strategies for coastal populations." movement rules for juvenile steelhead: dynamic linking of movement behaviour to habitat and density,behavioural modelling; individual-based modelling; fish movement; steelhead,ECOLOGY OF FRESHWATER FISH,HAYES DB;THOMPSON BE,"we incorporated explanatory factors including stream habitat type and fish density into individual-based models with dynamic connections among adjacent habitat units to infer dispersal behaviour of juvenile steelhead oncorhynchus mykiss in a great lakes watershed. we used mark-recapture data and an inverse modelling approach to estimate daily probability of steelhead moving out of a habitat unit, p(move), according to four competing models. the models used included (i) a null model where all fish had equal movement probability; (ii) a habitat-dependent model where p(move) depended on the habitat type; (iii) a density-dependent model of p(move); and (iv) a model where p(move) depended on both density and habitat type. the habitat-dependent model provided the most parsimonious fit to the observed data according to akaike's information criteria (aicc). in the null model, p(move) averaged 0.70, whereas p(move) averaged 0.75 in pools, 0.68 in riffles and 0.73 in runs in the habitat-dependent model." to breed or not: a novel approach to estimate breeding propensity and potential trade-offs in an arctic-nesting species,breeding propensity; chen caerulescens atlantica; cost of reproduction; greater snow goose; heterogeneity; multi-event models; reproduction; reproduction strategy; survival; temporary emigration,ECOLOGY,SOUCHAY G;GAUTHIER G;PRADEL R,"breeding propensity, i.e., the probability that a mature female attempts to breed in a given year, is a critical demographic parameter in long-lived species. life-history theory predicts that this trait should be affected by reproductive trade-offs so that the probability of future reproduction should depend on the current reproductive investment. however, breeding propensity is one of the most difficult parameters to estimate because nonbreeders are often absent from the breeding area, thereby requiring the inclusion of unobservable states in the analysis. we developed a new methodological approach by integrating a robust design sampling scheme within the multi-event capture-recapture framework. our new model accounted for uncertainty in state assignation while allowing for departure of individuals between secondary sampling occasions. we applied this model to a long-term data set of female greater snow geese (chen caerulescens atlantica) to estimate breeding propensity and to investigate potential reproductive costs. we combined resightings during the nesting stage and recapture at the end of the breeding season to estimate breeding propensity and nesting success, and added recoveries to improve survival probability estimates. we found that both breeding propensity and nesting success depended upon breeding status in the previous year, though not survival. successful breeders had a lower breeding propensity than failed breeders in the following year, but a higher nesting success. individuals absent from the breeding colony had a low breeding propensity, but a high nesting success the following year. our results suggest a cost of reproduction on breeding propensity in the next year, but once females decide to breed, nesting success is likely driven by individual quality. an added benefit of our model is that, unlike previous models with unobservable states, all parameters were identifiable when survival and breeding probabilities were fully state dependent. our new multi-event framework is a flexible tool that can be applied to a large range of species to estimate breeding propensity and to investigate reproductive trade-offs." age-specific survival and movement among major african penguin spheniscus demersus colonies,colony fidelity; dispersal; mark-recapture; multistate; population dynamics; recruitment; spheniscus demersus,IBIS,SHERLEY RB;ABADI F;LUDYNIA K;BARHAM BJ;CLARK AE;ALTWEGG R,"reliable estimates of survival and dispersal are crucial to understanding population dynamics, but for seabirds, in which some individuals spend years away from land, mortality and emigration are often confounded. multistate mark-recapture methods reduce bias by incorporating movement into the process of estimating survival. we used a multistate model to provide unbiased age-specific survival and movement probabilities for the endangered african penguin spheniscus demersus based on 5281 nestlings and 31049 adults flipper-banded and resighted in the western cape, south africa, between 1994 and 2012. adult survival was initially high (0.74) but declined after 2003-2004 coincident with a reduction in the availability of sardine sardinops sagax and anchovy engraulis encrasicolus on the west coast of south africa. juvenile survival was poorly estimated, but was lower and more variable than adult survival. fidelity to the locality of origin varied over time, but was high in adults at robben and dassen islands (0.88) and above 0.55 for juvenile and immature penguins at all localities. movement occurred predominantly during 1994-2003 and was indicative of immigration to robben and dassen islands. our results confirm that a prolonged period of adult mortality contributed to the observed decline in the african penguin population and suggest a need for approaches operating over large spatial scales to ensure food security for marine top predators." @@ -2411,7 +2414,7 @@ habitat effects on population connectivity in a coastal seascape,migration; popu population-based incidence and prevalence of facioscapulohumeral dystrophy,NA,NEUROLOGY,DEENEN JCW;ARNTS H;VAN DER MAAREL SM;PADBERG GW;VERSCHUUREN JJGM;BAKKER E;WEINREICH SS;VERBEEK ALM;VAN ENGELEN BGM,"objective:to determine the incidence and prevalence of facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (fshd) in the netherlands.methods:using 3-source capture-recapture methodology, we estimated the total yearly number of newly found symptomatic individuals with fshd, including those not registered in any of the 3 sources. to this end, symptomatic individuals with fshd were available from 3 large population-based registries in the netherlands if diagnosed within a 10-year period (january 1, 2001 to december 31, 2010). multiplication of the incidence and disease duration delivered the prevalence estimate.results:on average, 52 people are newly diagnosed with fshd every year. this results in an incidence rate of 0.3/100,000 person-years in the netherlands. the prevalence rate was 12/100,000, equivalent to 2,000 affected individuals.conclusions:we present population-based incidence and prevalence estimates regarding symptomatic individuals with fshd, including an estimation of the number of symptomatic individuals not present in any of the 3 used registries. this study shows that the total number of symptomatic persons with fshd in the population may well be underestimated and a considerable number of affected individuals remain undiagnosed. this suggests that fshd is one of the most prevalent neuromuscular disorders." is it time for a new global classification of multiple sclerosis?,epidemiology worldwide; multiple sclerosis; incidence; prevalence,JOURNAL OF THE NEUROLOGICAL SCIENCES,MELCON MO;CORREALE J;MELCON CM,"background:the geographic distribution of multiple sclerosis (ms) is classically divided into three zones based on frequency that were established by kurtzke in the early 1970s. in recent years, an increasing number of epidemiological studies have shown significantly higher ms prevalence and incidence rates. objective: the aim of this study was to review and update the geographic distribution of ms using incidence, prevalence and disease duration from the latest epidemiology surveys. methods: we conducted a systematic review of articles on ms epidemiology published between january i, 1990 and december 31, 2012. results: ms studies were grouped by continent: the americas, europe, asia, australia/new zealand, and africa. a total of 101 studies were identified according to the inclusion criteria, and 58 reported incidence estimates. globally, the median estimated incidence of ms was 5.2 (range: 0.5-20.6) per 100,000 p-yrs, the median estimated prevalence of ms was 112.0 (with a range of 5.2-335) per 100,000 p-yrs, and the average disease duration was 20.2 years (range: 7.6-36.2). conclusion: in the past few decades, the global prevalence and incidence patterns of ms have changed dramatically. regardless of the reason of increasing prevalence and incidence rate, we suggest the need for a novel classification system based on global ms disease burden. adopting such a system would improve economic efficiency and prioritization in health policy planning for ms. (c) 2014 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." "estimation of dispersal ability responding to environmental conditions: larval dispersal of the flightless firefly, luciola parvula (coleoptera: lampyridae)",bait trap; diffusion equation; dispersal distance; dispersal modes; home range; locomotory activity; mark-recapture method; moisture condition,ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH,KAKEHASHI K;KURANISHI RB;KAMATA N,"we provided an extensional method for diffusion equation models so far presented to cover cases where diffusion coefficients temporally change. we applied this method to data sampled from mark recapture surveys to estimate the natural mean dispersal distance and diffusion coefficients of terrestrial firefly larvae, luciola parvula kiesenwetter (coleoptera: lampyridae: luciolinae). the surveys were conducted twice (december 2009 and march-april 2010) on a cryptomeria plantation where 100 traps were placed in a lattice pattern at 30 cm intervals (10 x 10). marked larvae were released at the center of the lattice, and the number of recaptures was recorded. larval dispersal became remarkably active on the first night with rainfall as well as on the following day. the estimated natural mean dispersal distances (+/- se) were 100.7 (+/- 18.4) cm (december) and 245.4 (+/- 700.0) cm (march-april). the diffusion coefficients just after rainfall were estimated to increase by 14.2 (+/- 6.1) times (december) and 106.0 (+/- 55.9) times (march-april) (+/- se). larvae were expected to disperse no further from where their eggs were laid. most of their dispersing activity took place just after rainfall. our extensional method was able to effectively illustrate that larval dispersal was affected by rainfall. this method can be usefully applied to any other species that disperses according to environmental conditions." -conservation challenges of a sink: the viability of an isolated population of the snowy plover,NA,BIRD CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL,EBERHART-PHILLIPS LJ;COLWELL MA,"source-sink dynamics are easily overlooked when formulating recovery objectives for threatened species. this could lead to unrealistic criteria imposed on sink populations, which in turn might restrict an entire metapopulation from being delisted. therefore, an understanding of the viability of subpopulations within the context of a metapopulation is needed to develop appropriate recovery objectives. consequently, we used 11 years of mark-recapture, productivity, and movement data to analyse the viability of a small, geographically isolated population of the snowy plover charadrius nivosus, a shorebird listed as threatened under the u.s. endangered species act. simulations confirmed that the focal population in northern california is a sink that relies upon immigrants from neighbouring populations. furthermore, these source populations will increase within the next 50 years and are likely to achieve the delisting requirements. however, the northern california population is unlikely to reach the delisting criteria given the current vital rate estimations. management scenarios demonstrated that lethal predator removal and reducing human disturbance facilitate population recovery and may partially alleviate the reliance upon immigration. however, the use of nest exclosures reduced population growth because they are known to compromise adult survival. these results highlight the importance of maintaining viable source populations and re-evaluating the recovery objectives of metapopulations with active sinks." +conservation challenges of a sink: the viability of an isolated population of the snowy plover,NA,BIRD CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL,EBERHART PHILLIPS LJ;COLWELL MA,"source-sink dynamics are easily overlooked when formulating recovery objectives for threatened species. this could lead to unrealistic criteria imposed on sink populations, which in turn might restrict an entire metapopulation from being delisted. therefore, an understanding of the viability of subpopulations within the context of a metapopulation is needed to develop appropriate recovery objectives. consequently, we used 11 years of mark-recapture, productivity, and movement data to analyse the viability of a small, geographically isolated population of the snowy plover charadrius nivosus, a shorebird listed as threatened under the u.s. endangered species act. simulations confirmed that the focal population in northern california is a sink that relies upon immigrants from neighbouring populations. furthermore, these source populations will increase within the next 50 years and are likely to achieve the delisting requirements. however, the northern california population is unlikely to reach the delisting criteria given the current vital rate estimations. management scenarios demonstrated that lethal predator removal and reducing human disturbance facilitate population recovery and may partially alleviate the reliance upon immigration. however, the use of nest exclosures reduced population growth because they are known to compromise adult survival. these results highlight the importance of maintaining viable source populations and re-evaluating the recovery objectives of metapopulations with active sinks." model-based prediction in ecological surveys including those with incomplete detection,aerial surveys; glms; mark-recapture; model-based sampling,AUSTRALIAN & NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF STATISTICS,MELVILLE GJ;WELSH AH,this paper explores and develops model-based predictors for surveys of plants and wildlife including those with incomplete detection. the methodology allows for estimating a detection function to account for objects which were not detected at the time of the survey. the model-based theory utilises generalized linear models (glms) and is either new or adapted from other areas of sampling. a simulation study is used to validate the estimators and comparisons are made with an integrated likelihood approach. an aerial survey of kangaroos in western new south wales is used to illustrate the theory. the area within 50m of the aircraft is treated as a strip transect and mark-recapture methods are used to estimate the detection function. changes in population size and survival in atelopus spumarius (anura: bufonidae) are not correlated with chytrid prevalence,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,TARVIN RD;PENA P;RON SR,"approximately one-third of amphibian species are experiencing population declines. among the most affected groups are the harlequin frogs (bufonidae: atelopus), nearly all of which are threatened with extinction. we monitored one of the last known ecuadorian populations of atelopus spurnarius (pebas stubfoot toad) with a mark-recapture survey between february 2009 and december 2010. we aimed to determine the effect of the fungal pathogen batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (bd), previously recorded at the site, on population size and survival. we also analyzed the effect of selective logging which occurred along the transect in april 2010. we tested every individual captured or recaptured for bd presence using end-point pcr. all 679 bd swabs (from 356 individuals) were negative, suggesting that bd did not influence population size and survival. population size increased during the first 9 months of the study (august 2009-april 2010), from an estimated 47 to 92 individuals, but then decreased by november 2010 to an estimated 48 individuals. probability of survival was 0.13 lower in months following selective logging compared to previous months; emigration decreased by 0.37 after the logging event. pairs in amplexus were found between april and december, suggesting a long, if not year-round, reproductive period. although most atelopus spp. declines have been attributed to bd, we present a case in which bd has been detected in the area yet changes in population size cannot be attributed to chytridiomycosis. analyses of survival and male body condition index suggest that the decline at the end of the study was the result of habitat destruction." "survival, demography, and growth of gopher tortoises (gopherus polyphemus) from three study sites with different management histories",demography; gopher tortoise; gopherus polyphemus; growth; habitat management; population recovery; survivorship,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,TUBERVILLE TD;TODD BD;HERMANN SM;MICHENER WK;GUYER C,"recovery or sustainable management of wildlife populations often entails management of habitat on which they depend. in this regard, turtles pose unique conservation challenges because of their life histories. the combination of late maturity, low survival when young, and dependence on high adult survival suggests they may be slow to respond demographically to conventional habitat management. thus, long-term studies are necessary to understand population dynamics and recovery potential in these species. we used 5-11 years of mark-recapture data from 3 populations to evaluate survivorship, demography, and somatic growth of gopher tortoises (gopherus polyphemus). green grove and wade tract (southwest ga) are ecological reserves with a history of land management compatible with tortoises. in contrast, conecuh national forest (south-central al) is a closed-canopy pine plantation with prior intensive site preparation but where management intervention improved habitat for tortoises during the study. apparent survival was high for mature tortoises (87-98%) compared to immature tortoises (70-82%). adults comprised 57-79% of individuals captured, with green grove and wade tract populations dominated by larger individuals but conecuh having a more uniform size distribution. the largest adults captured at conecuh (297mm maximum carapace length [cl]) were smaller than the largest adults from green grove (337mm cl) or wade tract (341mm cl), although characteristic growth constants from von bertalanffy models were similar among sites. we suggest these results indicate a recovering population at conecuh, where habitat conditions for gopher tortoises have improved despite a legacy of intense predation by humans and reduced habitat quality at the inception of this national forest. further, we recommend using a combination of short-term and long-term monitoring metrics to assess population recovery in such long-lived species. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." @@ -2440,7 +2443,7 @@ summer movements of the gulf killifish (fundulus grandis) in a northern gulf of diagnostic goodness-of-fit tests for joint recapture and recovery models,contingency tables; great cormorants; multi-site models; parameter redundancy; permanent emigration; transience; trap-effects,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,MCCREA RS;MORGAN BJT;PRADEL R,"diagnostic goodness-of-fit tests for capture-recapture models are routinely used prior to model fitting and analysis. however, when data include a mixture of live recaptures and dead recoveries, it is frequently standard practice for the information from recoveries not to be used, so that tests are applied to the recapture data alone. we present new diagnostic tests for joint recapture-recovery data, which make full use of all of the data, and evaluate their power through simulation. the importance of including all available data is clearly shown. we see in addition that current procedures may fail to identify the correct model. the work is generalised to the case of multi-site joint recapture-recovery data and is illustrated on a data set of great cormorants. this article has supplementary material online." "on the natural history of an introduced population of guppies (poecilia reticulata peters, 1859) in germany",NA,BIOINVASIONS RECORDS,JOURDAN J;MIESEN FW;ZIMMER C;GASCH K;HERDER F;SCHLEUCHER E;PLATH M;BIERBACH D,"artificially heated water bodies represent unusual habitats in temperate regions and form a refuge for exceptional fish communities. the gillbach, a tributary of the river erft in germany, receives thermally polluted cooling water from a power plant. here, we present data on the composition of the fish community in the gillbach and found a high abundance of invasive species from all over the world, mostly introduced by releases from home aquaria. we found a species composition that is dominated by invasive species containing the same species as 15 years ago. we focused on guppies (poecilia reticulata) and determined population size using the mark-recapture method. furthermore, we investigated the lower thermal tolerance limit (c-tmin) to determine if gillbach guppies have already adapted to colder conditions compared to ornamental and venezuelan wild type fish. we caught guppies of all sizes, and densities of 3.6 adult guppies per square meter were comparable to densities found in their natural distribution area, pointing toward a self-sustaining population in the gillbach. the c-tmin varied between populations and was significantly lower in ornamental and gillbach guppies compared to guppies from venezuela. despite differences in c-tmin and their well-known potential to adapt to new environments, guppies originally stem from the tropics, and a further spread will likely be restricted by low winter temperatures. thus, p. reticulata in the gillbach might not represent a threat for local fauna in central europe, but provide a unique semi-natural experiment for various questions related to local adaptation of invasive species, as well as ecological interactions with indigenous species." "flathead catfish population estimate and assessment of population characteristics, diamond valley lake, california",california; demography; diamond valley lake; flathead catfish; piscivory; population estimate; pylodictis olivaris,CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME,GRANFORS Q,"flathead catfish (pylodictis olivaris) were inadvertently introduced to diamond valley lake, riverside co., california, where their population has become well-established. the species is highly piscivorous, extremely opportunistic, and is the least gape-limited of north american piscivores. flathead catfish can exhibit extreme predatory pressure on existing fish populations in waters where they are introduced. multiple mark recapture methods were used to estimate the flathead catfish population in diamond valley lake. population characteristics including proportional stock distribution (psd), relative stock distribution (rsd) and relative weight (wr) were evaluated. anchor tag retention was also evaluated. understanding the status and characteristics of the flathead catfish populations will aid fisheries management decisions for the reservoir." -"life history and seasonal occurrence of the spotted eagle ray, aetobatus narinari, in the eastern gulf of mexico",elasmobranch; batoid; age and growth; sexual maturity; tagging; mark-recapture; aerial survey,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,BASSOS-HULL K;WILKINSON KA;HULL PT;DOUGHERTY DA;OMORI KL;AILLOUD LE;MORRIS JJ;HUETER RE,"the spotted eagle ray, aetobatus narinari, is listed on the iucn red list of threatened species as near threatened with a decreasing population trend, but many aspects of this ray's biology and population status are unknown. aerial and on-water surveys were conducted in the eastern gulf of mexico off southwest florida 2008-2013, to document seasonal occurrence and life history characteristics of this species. aerial surveys documented spotted eagle rays mostly in spring, summer, and autumn months with larger aggregations observed near inlet passes. boat-based surveys documented rays on 152 out of 176 survey days, mostly as solitary individuals but sometimes in aggregations of up to 60. more rays were observed when water temperatures were 23-31 a(0)c. a total of 393 rays (231 males, 161 females, 1 unrecorded sex) were captured, measured, sampled, tagged, and released. sizes ranged 41.4-203.0 cm disc width (dw) and weight 1.1-105.5 kg. male size at 50 % maturity was 127 cm dw. five percent (19) of tagged rays were recaptured after 5-1,293 days at liberty and recaptured rays exhibited faster growth than previously estimated from vertebral readings. based on observations of rays relative to survey effort, numbers of observed rays declined after 2009 for reasons not yet understood. this observation, together with concerns about sustainability of fisheries targeting these rays in nearby mexico and cuba, underscore the need for investigations into stock structure, population trends, growth, and critical habitat of spotted eagle rays throughout the gulf of mexico, caribbean sea, and elsewhere in their range." +"life history and seasonal occurrence of the spotted eagle ray, aetobatus narinari, in the eastern gulf of mexico",elasmobranch; batoid; age and growth; sexual maturity; tagging; mark-recapture; aerial survey,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,BASSOS HULL K;WILKINSON KA;HULL PT;DOUGHERTY DA;OMORI KL;AILLOUD LE;MORRIS JJ;HUETER RE,"the spotted eagle ray, aetobatus narinari, is listed on the iucn red list of threatened species as near threatened with a decreasing population trend, but many aspects of this ray's biology and population status are unknown. aerial and on-water surveys were conducted in the eastern gulf of mexico off southwest florida 2008-2013, to document seasonal occurrence and life history characteristics of this species. aerial surveys documented spotted eagle rays mostly in spring, summer, and autumn months with larger aggregations observed near inlet passes. boat-based surveys documented rays on 152 out of 176 survey days, mostly as solitary individuals but sometimes in aggregations of up to 60. more rays were observed when water temperatures were 23-31 a(0)c. a total of 393 rays (231 males, 161 females, 1 unrecorded sex) were captured, measured, sampled, tagged, and released. sizes ranged 41.4-203.0 cm disc width (dw) and weight 1.1-105.5 kg. male size at 50 % maturity was 127 cm dw. five percent (19) of tagged rays were recaptured after 5-1,293 days at liberty and recaptured rays exhibited faster growth than previously estimated from vertebral readings. based on observations of rays relative to survey effort, numbers of observed rays declined after 2009 for reasons not yet understood. this observation, together with concerns about sustainability of fisheries targeting these rays in nearby mexico and cuba, underscore the need for investigations into stock structure, population trends, growth, and critical habitat of spotted eagle rays throughout the gulf of mexico, caribbean sea, and elsewhere in their range." spatio-temporal distribution patterns of three stream-dwelling freshwater mussel species: towards a strategy for representative surveys,burrowing behaviour; mark analysis; monitoring; movement behaviour; population survey; unionidae,HYDROBIOLOGIA,ZIERITZ A;GEIST J;GUM B,"conservation efforts for freshwater mussels (unionoida) require a priori assessments of their populations' status quo. unfortunately, collection of representative census and other data for most european species is currently hampered by an insufficient understanding of inter- and intra-specific variation in distribution patterns. we assessed distribution and movement in three unio crassus populations and one sympatric population of anodonta anatina and unio pictorum, respectively. we surveyed vertical movement across four sediment depths, and horizontal movement by mark-recapture technique in 3-month intervals. for all the populations, movement and the proportion inhabiting surface layers increased considerably from winter to spring/summer. spatial aggregation levels remained stable for some populations, while others became increasingly randomly distributed during the study. one u. crassus population exhibited elevated mortality and displayed movement rates exceeding twice those of conspecific populations. the visible proportion of u. crassus populations differed by up to 69% between sites. current monitoring guidelines in europe often insufficiently account for the extensive inter- and intra-specific differences in spatio-temporal distribution patterns observed. we suggest developing internationally standardised protocols that specify sampling season and methodology. in particular, u. crassus surveys should be restricted to summer months, and hand-sampling is crucial for some populations." manipulation of host-resource dynamics impacts transmission of trophic parasites,food supplementation; food web; foraging behaviour; infectious disease; parasite transmission dynamics; trophic transmission; trophically transmitted parasite,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR PARASITOLOGY,LUONG LT;GREAR DA;HUDSON PJ,"many complex life cycle parasites rely on predator-prey interactions for transmission, whereby definitive hosts become infected via the consumption of an infected intermediate host. as such, these trophic parasites are embedded in the larger community food web. we postulated that exposure to infection and, hence, parasite transmission are inherently linked to host foraging ecology, and that perturbation of the host-resource dynamic will impact parasite transmission dynamics. we employed a field manipulation experiment in which natural populations of the eastern chipmunk (tamias striatus) were provisioned with a readily available food resource in clumped or uniform spatial distributions. using replicated longitudinal capture-mark-recapture techniques, replicated supplemented and unsupplemented control sites were monitored before and after treatment for changes in infection levels with three gastro-intestinal helminth parasites. we predicted that definitive hosts subject to food supplementation would experience lower rates of exposure to infective intermediate hosts, presumably because they shifted their diet away from the intermediate host towards the more readily available resource (sunflower seeds). as predicted, prevalence of infection by the trophically transmitted parasite decreased in response to supplemental food treatment, but no such change in infection prevalence was detected for the two directly transmitted parasites in the system. the fact that food supplementation only had an impact on the transmission of the trophically transmitted parasite, and not the directly transmitted parasites, supports our hypothesis that host foraging ecology directly affects exposure to parasites that rely on the ingestion of intermediate hosts for transmission. we concluded that the relative availability of different food resources has important consequences for the transmission of parasites and, more specifically, parasites that are embedded in the food web. the broader implications of these findings for food web dynamics and disease ecology are discussed. (c) 2014 australian society for parasitology inc. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." immigrants are attracted by local pre-breeders and recruits in a seabird colony,bayesian modelling; common tern; conspecific attraction; dispersal; local recruitment; mate availability; public information; sterna hirundo,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,SZOSTEK KL;SCHAUB M;BECKER PH,"1. immigration is a major demographic factor shaping population dynamics. however, due to methodological difficulties, the extent of immigration and factors affecting immigration are insufficiently studied. this is also true for seabird colonies. 2. we estimated annual immigration based on a long-term study of a colony of common terns sterna hirundo marked with transponders, using a bayesian integrated population model that links colony size and productivity with individual life histories. 3. strong annual fluctuations in the number of immigrants were found. to identify whether colony-specific covariates influenced immigration, we related the number of immigrants to various proxy variables for breeding site quality, specifically colony size, productivity, number of local subadults and local recruits. numbers of local recruits and local subadults showed strong positive correlations with number of immigrants. 4. we found that variation in immigration rate had strongly contributed to variation in colony growth rate, more so than variation in local recruitment or adult survival. 5. collectively, results suggest that immigration strongly affects colony growth rate, that the driving force behind immigration is natal dispersal and that immigrants were attracted by local recruits." @@ -2454,20 +2457,20 @@ using sightability-adjusted brood-pair ratios to estimate waterfowl productivity long-term mark-and-recapture study of a freshwater mussel reveals patterns of habitat use and an association between survival and river discharge,endangered species; long-term data; popenaias popeii; population dynamics; total population size,FRESHWATER BIOLOGY,INOUE K;LEVINE TD;LANG BK;BERG DJ,"1. climate change and human population growth threaten the supply of fresh water for human use and freshwater biodiversity. long-term studies are necessary to identify the effects of such temporal trends on biological and ecological phenomena; however, the collection of long-term data can be costly and time-consuming. 2. we investigated the effect of hydrological variation over time on population dynamics in a perennial river of the northern chihuahuan desert, using an imperilled freshwater mussel (popenaias popeii) as a model. we conducted a 15-year mark-and-recapture study, and distance sampling, to estimate demographic parameters while accounting for habitat heterogeneity and changes in river discharge. 3. recapture probability varied between microhabitats, and survival was positively correlated with river discharge. survival and the finite rate of population growth were relatively stable over time. over 60% of individuals were found at relatively high density in riffle habitats, which compose c. 16% of the total study area. 4. mean monthly temperature in the region increased over the past 100 years, and mean monthly discharge of the black river declined over the past 65 years. with no significant trends in total monthly precipitation, declines in discharge suggest that reduction of stream flow is likely due to lowering of the water table and decreased groundwater recharge. 5. significant changes in climate and hydrological regimes, and increases in anthropogenic threats (increased water demand, degraded water quality) in the region, may induce significant declines in population size of this imperilled mussel. we demonstrated the importance of considering habitat heterogeneity and hydrological cycles over time to examine population dynamics. survival of benthic invertebrates in desert streams is sensitive to hydrological cycles, which are expected to be altered via climate change and extensive water use. species recovery plans need to incorporate knowledge of spatial distributions when designing strategies for habitat assessment and making conservation decisions." time-location sampling with capture-recapture to assess specialised recreational fisheries,angler; hard-to-reach; innovative; mark-recapture; sport fishing; survey,FISHERIES RESEARCH,ZISCHKE MT;GRIFFITHS SP,"specialisation in recreational fisheries has led to increasing diversification and segmentation of fishers into small 'hard-to-reach' populations that are inherently difficult and costly to sample using traditional methods. in this paper, we quantitatively assess, and expand upon, time-location sampling (tls) for a specialised recreational sport fishery off eastern australia using stratified random sampling of fishing tackle stores as aggregation points for fishers. multiple tls survey events facilitated the use of capture-recapture models to provide a minimum population size estimate of 3185 (se 1338) fishers in the study region in 2010. adopting a questionnaire with a long recall period (e.g. 12 months) may introduce biases in estimates of effort and catch from tls. therefore, these biases were corrected for using a 'benchmark' on-site survey, providing minimum estimates of effort and catch of 172,438 (se 8440) angler hours and 4.7-31.4 (se 2.6-6.8) t for six pelagic species, respectively, in the study region during 2010. tls with capture-recapture is an efficient method for sampling hard-to-reach specialised fishers and may yield annual estimates of population size, effort and catch. further research is needed to refine methods and develop systematic protocols that may be applied to a wide range of hard-to-reach populations, including recreational, artisanal and illegal fisheries. (c) 2014 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." origin and genetic diversity of leatherbacks (dermochelys coriacea) at argentine foraging grounds,conservation; dermochelys coriacea; distribution; endangered species; feeding grounds; migrations,JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY,PROSDOCIMI L;DUTTON PH;ALBAREDA D;REMIS MI,"to conduct conservation of migratory species, such as marine turtles, is important to understand the population structure throughout the entire distribution of the species. we study the genetic composition of the leatherback turtles, dermochelys coriacea foraging in waters off argentina by analyzing 763 bp sequences of the mtdna control region in order to determine the nesting origin of these animals. a total of 40 samples were collected from adult leatherbacks (mean 143.5; 180-123 cm curved carapace length) captured (10%) in fisheries or encountered as strandings (90%). based on analysis of mtdna sequences we detected 4 haplotypes, the most common (n = 26) being dc1.1, and the other two rarer dc1.3 (n = 4), dc13.1 (n = 2), and dc1a (n = 1). the genetic diversity was evaluated through the haplotype (0,3712 +/- 0, 1000) and nucleotide diversities (0, 000521 +/- 0, 000553). bayesian mixed stock analysis (msa) showed that the buenos aires foraging leatherbacks come primarily from the west african rookeries (ghana and gabon, mean estimate = 69% and 14% respectively). msa results are consistent with those from mark-recapture studies, since four leatherbacks captured in argentinean waters were adult females that were originally tagged on the nesting beaches in gabon, west africa. our findings demonstrate the connection between nesting and foraging areas in the south atlantic and illustrate the importance of the malvinas ecoregion to the survival of migratory marine vertebrates, such as leatherbacks. (c) 2014 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -"follow up of natural infection with trypanosoma cruzi in two mammals species, nasua narica and procyon lotor (carnivora: procyonidae): evidence of infection control?",trypanosoma cruzi; reservoir; procyon lotor; nasua narica; infection control; mexico,PARASITES & VECTORS,MARTINEZ-HERNANDEZ F;RENDON-FRANCO E;GAMA-CAMPILLO LM;VILLANUEVA-GARCIA C;ROMERO-VALDOVINOS M;MARAVILLA P;ALEJANDRE-AGUILAR R;RIVAS N;CORDOBA-AGUILAR A;MUNOZ-GARCIA CI;VILLALOBOS G,"background: a large variety of mammals act as natural reservoirs of trypanosoma cruzi (the causal agent of chagas disease) across the american continent. related issues are infection and parasite burden in these reservoirs, and whether they are able to control t. cruzi infections. these parameters can indicate the real role of mammals as t. cruzi reservoirs and transmitters. here, two species of mammals, white-nosed coati (nasua narica) and raccoon (procyon lotor), were examined for to determine: a) t. cruzi presence, and; b) their ability to control t. cruzi infection. methods: multiple capture-recaptures of both species were carried out in semi-wild conditions in villahermosa, tabasco, mexico, for 5 years. two samplings per year (summer and winter) took place. prevalence and pattern of t. cruzi infection were determined by pcr from both mammals' blood samples. results: raccoon samples had a higher relative infection values (26.6%) compared to those of white-nosed coati (9.05%), being this difference significant in summer 2012 (p < 0.00001), summer (p = 0.03) and winter 2013 (p = 0.02). capture and recapture data indicated three infection dynamics: 1) negative-positive-negative infection; 2) positive-negative-positive infection; and 3) positive at all sampling times. conclusions: these results indicate that both coati and raccoons may be able to control t. cruzi infection. thus, the role as efficient reservoirs could be questioned (at least for those times when mammals are able to tolerate the infection). however, while infected, they may also be able to approach human dwellings and play a role important in linking sylvatic and domestic cycles." +"follow up of natural infection with trypanosoma cruzi in two mammals species, nasua narica and procyon lotor (carnivora: procyonidae): evidence of infection control?",trypanosoma cruzi; reservoir; procyon lotor; nasua narica; infection control; mexico,PARASITES & VECTORS,MARTINEZ HERNANDEZ F;RENDON FRANCO E;GAMA CAMPILLO LM;VILLANUEVA GARCIA C;ROMERO VALDOVINOS M;MARAVILLA P;ALEJANDRE AGUILAR R;RIVAS N;CORDOBA AGUILAR A;MUNOZ GARCIA CI;VILLALOBOS G,"background: a large variety of mammals act as natural reservoirs of trypanosoma cruzi (the causal agent of chagas disease) across the american continent. related issues are infection and parasite burden in these reservoirs, and whether they are able to control t. cruzi infections. these parameters can indicate the real role of mammals as t. cruzi reservoirs and transmitters. here, two species of mammals, white-nosed coati (nasua narica) and raccoon (procyon lotor), were examined for to determine: a) t. cruzi presence, and; b) their ability to control t. cruzi infection. methods: multiple capture-recaptures of both species were carried out in semi-wild conditions in villahermosa, tabasco, mexico, for 5 years. two samplings per year (summer and winter) took place. prevalence and pattern of t. cruzi infection were determined by pcr from both mammals' blood samples. results: raccoon samples had a higher relative infection values (26.6%) compared to those of white-nosed coati (9.05%), being this difference significant in summer 2012 (p < 0.00001), summer (p = 0.03) and winter 2013 (p = 0.02). capture and recapture data indicated three infection dynamics: 1) negative-positive-negative infection; 2) positive-negative-positive infection; and 3) positive at all sampling times. conclusions: these results indicate that both coati and raccoons may be able to control t. cruzi infection. thus, the role as efficient reservoirs could be questioned (at least for those times when mammals are able to tolerate the infection). however, while infected, they may also be able to approach human dwellings and play a role important in linking sylvatic and domestic cycles." growth hormone treatment for childhood short stature and risk of stroke in early adulthood,NA,NEUROLOGY,POIDVIN A;TOUZE E;ECOSSE E;LANDIER F;BEJOT Y;GIROUD M;ROTHWELL PM;CAREL JC;COSTE J,"objectives: we investigated the incidence of stroke and stroke subtypes in a population-based cohort of patients in france treated with growth hormone (gh) for short stature in childhood. methods: adult morbidity data were obtained in 2008-2010 for 6,874 children with idiopathic isolated gh deficiency or short stature who started gh treatment between 1985 and 1996. cerebrovascular events were validated using medical reports and imaging data and classified according to standard definitions of subarachnoid hemorrhage, intracerebral hemorrhage, and ischemic stroke. case ascertainment completeness was estimated with capture-recapture methods. the incidence of stroke and of stroke subtypes was calculated and compared with population values extracted from registries in dijon and oxford, between 2000 and 2012. results: using both dijon and oxford population-based registries as references, there was a significantly higher risk of stroke among patients treated with gh in childhood. the excess risk of stroke was mainly attributable to a very substantially and significantly higher risk of hemorrhagic stroke (standardized incidence ratio from 3.5 to 7.0 according to the registry rates considered, and accounting or not accounting for missed cases), and particularly subarachnoid hemorrhage (standardized incidence ratio from 5.7 to 9.3). conclusions: we report a strong relationship between hemorrhagic stroke and gh treatment in childhood for isolated growth hormone deficiency or childhood short stature. patients treated with gh worldwide should be advised about this association and further studies should evaluate the potentially causal role of gh treatment in these findings." tiger density in a tropical lowland forest in the eastern himalayan mountains,camera-trap; northeast india; panthera tigris; secr; semi-evergreen,SPRINGERPLUS,SINGH R;CHAUHAN DS;MISHRA S;KRAUSMAN PR;GOYAL SP,"tropical evergreen forests in northeast india are a biological hot spot for conservation of flora and fauna. little is known, however, about tiger abundance, which is a flagship species for tropical evergreen forests. our objective was to document the capture rate and population density of tigers based on spatial explicit capture-recapture (secr) approaches using camera trap data in an intensive study area (isa) of 158 km(2) in pakke tiger reserve (ptr) during march to may 2006. the reserve lies in the foothills of the eastern himalayan mountains, northeast india. we monitored 38 camera traps in isa for 70 days and documented 10 photo-captures of tigers (5 left and 5 right flanks) with an average trap success rate of 1.3 captures/100 trap days. the overall capture probability was 0.05. the tiger density estimated using a secr model was 0.97 +/- 0.23 individuals/100 km(2). this is the first systematic sampling study in tropical semi evergreen forests of india, and information on capture rate and population density of tigers provides baseline data from which to determining changes in the future to assist conservation." -"an epidemiological analysis of acute flaccid paralysis and its surveillance system in iraq, 1997-2011",NA,BMC INFECTIOUS DISEASES,JASEM JA;MAROF K;NAWAR A;KHALAF Y;AL-HAMDANI F;ALI S;KALIL AC;ISLAM KMM,"background: acute flaccid paralysis surveillance (afp) is an essential strategy of the who's polio eradication initiative. this is the first study conducted to estimate the incidence, etiology, distribution, and surveillance performance of afp in iraq. methods: surveillance data about the afp cases under the age of 15 years reported from iraq during january 1997 to december 2011 were depended in the current study. results: a total of 4974 cases of afp were reported from iraq during the study period, with an annual incidence of 2.5/100,000 population. guillain-barr syndrome represented more than half of the reported cases (n = 2611, 52.5%), followed by traumatic neuritis (n = 715, 14.4%), and other cns infections (n = 292, 5.9%). poliomyelitis accounted for 166 (3.3%) of cases, the last reported case being in january 2000. surveillance performance showed that all, but two, indicators were below the required who recommended levels. conclusions: afp surveillance remains the gold standard method for poliomyelitis detection. it witnessed dramatic changes over the last two decades. this has raised people's and clinicians' awareness to the importance of promptness in notifying suspected cases and timely transportation of stool specimens to the national poliovirus laboratory in baghdad, or alternatively having more than one laboratory for poliovirus detection in the country, all of which are very useful measures to increase the surveillance performance in the country." +"an epidemiological analysis of acute flaccid paralysis and its surveillance system in iraq, 1997-2011",NA,BMC INFECTIOUS DISEASES,JASEM JA;MAROF K;NAWAR A;KHALAF Y;AL HAMDANI F;ALI S;KALIL AC;ISLAM KMM,"background: acute flaccid paralysis surveillance (afp) is an essential strategy of the who's polio eradication initiative. this is the first study conducted to estimate the incidence, etiology, distribution, and surveillance performance of afp in iraq. methods: surveillance data about the afp cases under the age of 15 years reported from iraq during january 1997 to december 2011 were depended in the current study. results: a total of 4974 cases of afp were reported from iraq during the study period, with an annual incidence of 2.5/100,000 population. guillain-barr syndrome represented more than half of the reported cases (n = 2611, 52.5%), followed by traumatic neuritis (n = 715, 14.4%), and other cns infections (n = 292, 5.9%). poliomyelitis accounted for 166 (3.3%) of cases, the last reported case being in january 2000. surveillance performance showed that all, but two, indicators were below the required who recommended levels. conclusions: afp surveillance remains the gold standard method for poliomyelitis detection. it witnessed dramatic changes over the last two decades. this has raised people's and clinicians' awareness to the importance of promptness in notifying suspected cases and timely transportation of stool specimens to the national poliovirus laboratory in baghdad, or alternatively having more than one laboratory for poliovirus detection in the country, all of which are very useful measures to increase the surveillance performance in the country." "population size, hiv, and behavior among msm in luanda, angola: challenges and findings in the first ever hiv and syphilis biological and behavioral survey",hiv; syphilis; sexual behavior; homosexuality; male; sampling studies,JAIDS-JOURNAL OF ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROMES,KENDALL C;KERR LRFS;MOTA RMS;CAVALCANTE S;MACENA RHM;CHEN S;GAFFGA N;MONTEROSSO E;BASTOS FI;SERRANO D,"objectives: to conduct the first population size estimation and biological and behavioral surveillance survey among men who have sex with men (msm) in angola. design: population size estimation with multiplier method and a cross-sectional study using respondent-driven sampling. setting: luanda province, angola. study was conducted in a large hospital. participants: seven hundred ninety-two self-identified msm accepted a unique object for population size estimation. three hundred fifty-one msm were recruited with respondent-driven sampling for biological and behavioral surveillance survey. methods: interviews and testing for hiv and syphilis were conducted on-site. analysis used respondent-driven sampling analysis tool and stata 11.0. univariate, bivariate, and multi-variate analyses examined factors associated with hiv and unprotected sex. six imputation strategies were used for missing data for those refusing to test for hiv. main outcome: a population size of 6236 msm was estimated. twenty-seven of 351 individuals were tested positive. adjusted hiv prevalence was 3.7% (8.7% crude). with imputation, hiv seroprevalence was estimated between 3.8% [95% confidence interval (ci): 1.6 to 6.5] and 10.5% (95% ci: 5.6 to 15.3). being older than 25 (odds ratio = 10.8, 95% ci: 3.5 to 32.8) and having suffered episodes of homophobia (odds ratio = 12.7, 95% ci: 3.2 to 49.6) significantly increased the chance of hiv seropositivity. conclusions: risk behaviors are widely reported, but hiv seroprevalence is lower than expected. the difference between crude and adjusted values was mostly due to treatment of missing values in respondent-driven sampling analysis tool. solutions are proposed in this article. although concerns were raised about feasibility and adverse outcomes for msm, the study was successfully and rapidly completed with no adverse effects." a viable population of the european red squirrel in an urban park,NA,PLOS ONE,REZOUKI C;DOZIERES A;LE COEUR C;THIBAULT S;PISANU B;CHAPUIS JL;BAUDRY E,"whether urban parks can maintain viable and self-sustaining populations over the long term is questionable. in highly urbanized landscapes, urban parks could play a role in biodiversity conservation by providing habitat and resources to native species. however, populations inhabiting urban parks are usually small and isolated, leading to increased demographic stochasticity and genetic drift, with expected negative consequences on their viability. here, we investigated a european red squirrel population located in an urban park close to paris, france (parc de sceaux; 184 ha) to assess its viability. using mitochondrial d-loop sequences and 13 microsatellite loci, we showed that the population presented high levels of genetic variation and no evidence of inbreeding. the size of the population was estimated at 100-120 individuals based on the comparison of two census techniques, distance sampling and capture-mark-recapture. the estimated heterozygosity level and population size were integrated in a population viability analysis to project the likelihood of the population's persistence over time. results indicate that the red squirrel population of this urban park can be viable on the long term (i.e. 20 years) for a range of realistic demographic parameters (juvenile survival at least >40%) and immigration rates (at least one immigration event every two years). this study highlights that urban parks can be potential suitable refuges for the red squirrel, a locally threatened species across western european countries, provided that ecological corridors are maintained." exploring heterozygosity-survival correlations in a wild songbird population: contrasting effects between juvenile and adult stages,NA,PLOS ONE,CANAL D;SERRANO D;POTTI J,"the relationship between genetic diversity and fitness, a major issue in evolutionary and conservation biology, is expected to be stronger in traits affected by many loci and those directly influencing fitness. here we explore the influence of heterozygosity measured at 15 neutral markers on individual survival, one of the most important parameters determining individual fitness. we followed individual survival up to recruitment and during subsequent adult life of 863 fledgling pied flycatchers born in two consecutive breeding seasons. mark-recapture analyses showed that individual heterozygosity did not influence juvenile or adult survival. in contrast, the genetic relatedness of parents was negatively associated with the offspring's survival during the adult life, but this effect was not apparent in the juvenile (from fledgling to recruitment) stage. stochastic factors experienced during the first year of life in this long-distance migratory species may have swamped a relationship between heterozygosity and survival up to recruitment." species distribution models of an endangered rodent offer conflicting measures of habitat quality at multiple scales,dipodomys ingens; giant kangaroo rat; habitat suitability; mark-recapture; maxent; survival,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,BEAN WT;PRUGH LR;STAFFORD R;BUTTERFIELD HS;WESTPHAL M;BRASHARES JS,"1. the high cost of directly measuring habitat quality has led ecologists to test alternate methods for estimating and predicting this critically important ecological variable. in particular, it is frequently assumed but rarely tested that models of habitat suitability ('species distribution models', sdms) may provide useful indices of habitat quality, either from an individual animal or manager's perspective. critically, sdms are increasingly used to estimate species' ranges, with an implicit assumption that areas of high suitability will result in higher probability of persistence. this assumption underlies efforts to use sdms to design protected areas, assess the status of cryptic species or manage responses to climate change. recent tests of this relationship have provided mixed results, suggesting sdms may predict abundance but not other measures of high-quality habitat (e. g. survival, persistence). 2. in this study, we created a suite of sdms for the endangered giant kangaroo rat dipodomys ingens at three distinct scales using the machine-learning method maxent. we compared these models with three measures of habitat quality: survival, abundance and body condition. 3. species distribution models were not correlated with survival, while models at all scales were positively correlated with abundance. finer-scale models were more closely correlated with abundance than the largest scale. body condition was not correlated with habitat suitability at any scale. the inability of models to predict survival may be due to a lack of information in environmental covariates; unmeasured community processes or stochastic events; or the inadequacy of using models that predict species presence to also predict demography. 4. synthesis and applications. species distribution models (sdms), especially fine scale ones, may be useful for longer-term management goals, such as identifying high-quality habitat for protection. however, short-term management decisions should be based only on models that use covariates appropriate for the necessary temporal and spatial scales. assumptions about the relationship between habitat suitability and habitat quality must be made explicit. even then, care should be taken in inferring multiple types of habitat quality from sdms." social network size estimation and determinants in tehran province residents,network scale up; population size; acquaintance; social network size; hidden population,IRANIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH,SHATI M;HAGHDOOST A;MAJDZADEH R;MOHAMMAD K;MORTAZAVI S,"background: network scale-up is an indirect method for estimating the size of hidden, hard-to-count or high risk populations. social network size estimation is the first step in this method. the present study was conducted with the purpose of estimating the social network size of the tehran province residents and its determinants. methods: maximum likelihood estimation was applied to estimate people's network sizes by using populations of known sizes and the scale-up method. respondents were selected from tehran province through convenience sampling in 2012. out of thirteen selected subpopulations with known size, ten had minimum accuracy which used in our analysis. results: of the 1029 respondents in this study, 46.7% were male. the social network size of tehran province residents was estimated to be 259.1 (ci95%: 242.2, 276) based on the ten known populations remained in this study. this size was 291.8 in men and 230.4 in women. younger people (18-25 years old) had larger network sizes compared to the other age groups (p<0.001). conclusion: our estimation for social network size of tehran inhabitants was smaller than that previously estimated size for the whole country (c=380). in addition, we found that the social network of subpopulations was different. this difference means that we need local estimations for sub-populations to improve the accuracy of population size estimation using network scale up method." mark-recapture of agriotes obscurus and agriotes lineatus with dense arrays of pheromone traps in an undisturbed grassland population reservoir,click beetles; mark-release-recapture; mass trapping; pheromones; wireworms,AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST ENTOMOLOGY,VERNON RS;VAN HERK WG;BLACKSHAW RP;SHIMIZU Y;CLODIUS M,"1 the present study was conducted using mark-released populations of male agriotes obscurus (ao) and agriotes lineatus (al) adults to simulate the spatial and temporal capture rates of wild beetle populations in dense arrays of pheromone traps in a confined, nonfarmed habitat. 2 two parallel rows of traps, spaced 3m apart along corridors of grassy dyke, recaptured 85.6% of ao and 77.8% of al with arrays of their respective pheromone traps, mostly within the first week of release. in arrays of mixed ao and al traps, recapture rates were 77.8% and 83.3%, respectively. 3 in arrays with only ao traps, 31.2% of al males released within the arrays mistakenly entered the ao traps, which declined to only 2.2% when released in arrays with both ao and al traps. in arrays with only al traps, only 0.7% of released ao were mistakenly taken in the al traps, and only 0.3% mistakenly entered al traps in mixed ao and al trap arrays. 4 between 34.4-38.9% of ao and 21.1-25.6% of al released in areas immediately adjacent to the trapping arrays were caught, mostly in the outermost traps. 5 the implications of these results for determining the efficacy of mass trapping as a click beetle management approach are discussed." -demographic heterogeneity among individuals can explain the discrepancy between capture-mark-recapture and waterfowl count results,anas crecca; green-winged teal; demographic heterogeneity; population growth rate; survival rate,CONDOR,GUILLEMAIN M;PRADEL R;DEVINEAU O;SIMON G;GAUTHIER-CLERC M,"demographic heterogeneity has long been considered within wildlife populations, but only the modern development of capture-mark-recapture methods allows this to be easily tested and quantified. it is now possible to rapidly assess whether the modeling of heterogeneous populations, in which categories of individuals differ in survival rate, performs better than traditional approaches, in which all individuals are considered equivalent within a sex and age class. using long-term banding data for 4,703 adult female green-winged teal (anas crecca) from the camargue, southern france, we show that a heterogeneous model outperformed a homogeneous model. individuals from the high survival category had a similar to 60% annual survival rate, whereas birds in the second category had a survival rate reduced by a factor of 0.76-0.80, depending on the model (i.e. <50%). we could not demonstrate that individuals within the high survival category were larger or heavier. the link between survival rate and potential differences in individual morphometrics or individual behavioral strategies thus remains to be established. previous studies in which a green-winged teal population was modeled as homogeneous suggested it should decline (population growth rate <1), which we also found when using demographic parameters obtained from a homogeneous model. this finding contradicts waterfowl surveys that show a long-term population increase in this flyway. modeling the population as heterogeneous led to growth rates of 1.03-1.05 (a 3-5% annual increase), numbers consistent with the growth rate inferred from duck counts and that also partly explain how species such as green-winged teal can increase in numbers despite large hunting harvest, sustaining harvest to some extent." +demographic heterogeneity among individuals can explain the discrepancy between capture-mark-recapture and waterfowl count results,anas crecca; green-winged teal; demographic heterogeneity; population growth rate; survival rate,CONDOR,GUILLEMAIN M;PRADEL R;DEVINEAU O;SIMON G;GAUTHIER CLERC M,"demographic heterogeneity has long been considered within wildlife populations, but only the modern development of capture-mark-recapture methods allows this to be easily tested and quantified. it is now possible to rapidly assess whether the modeling of heterogeneous populations, in which categories of individuals differ in survival rate, performs better than traditional approaches, in which all individuals are considered equivalent within a sex and age class. using long-term banding data for 4,703 adult female green-winged teal (anas crecca) from the camargue, southern france, we show that a heterogeneous model outperformed a homogeneous model. individuals from the high survival category had a similar to 60% annual survival rate, whereas birds in the second category had a survival rate reduced by a factor of 0.76-0.80, depending on the model (i.e. <50%). we could not demonstrate that individuals within the high survival category were larger or heavier. the link between survival rate and potential differences in individual morphometrics or individual behavioral strategies thus remains to be established. previous studies in which a green-winged teal population was modeled as homogeneous suggested it should decline (population growth rate <1), which we also found when using demographic parameters obtained from a homogeneous model. this finding contradicts waterfowl surveys that show a long-term population increase in this flyway. modeling the population as heterogeneous led to growth rates of 1.03-1.05 (a 3-5% annual increase), numbers consistent with the growth rate inferred from duck counts and that also partly explain how species such as green-winged teal can increase in numbers despite large hunting harvest, sustaining harvest to some extent." apparent survival of adult burrowing owls that breed in canada is influenced by weather during migration and on their wintering grounds,apparent survival; athene cunicularia; breeding grounds; migration; prey abundance; program mark; storms; wintering grounds,CONDOR,WELLICOME TI;FISHER RJ;POULIN RG;TODD LD;BAYNE EM;FLOCKHART DTT;SCHMUTZ JK;DE SMET K;JAMES PC,"understanding factors that influence the survival of endangered migratory species is critical for making informed management decisions, yet this understanding relies on long-term recapture datasets for species that are, by definition, rare. using 3 geographically widespread (saskatchewan, alberta, and manitoba, canada) and long-term (615 yr) mark-recapture datasets, we quantified spatial and temporal variation in apparent annual survival and recapture probabilities of burrowing owl (athene cunicularia), an endangered species that breeds in canada. we then examined how large-scale weather patterns during migration (storms) and on the wintering and breeding grounds (precipitation), in addition to prey irruptions on the breeding grounds, influenced apparent survival of burrowing owls. female burrowing owls had lower apparent survival than males in all 3 study areas. storms during fall migration and above-average precipitation on the wintering grounds were associated with reduced apparent survival of burrowing owls in the longest-running study area, saskatchewan; in alberta and manitoba, there were few correlations between apparent survival of burrowing owls and weather or prey irruptions. increases in stochastic events such as storms during migration or precipitation on the wintering grounds could have adverse consequences on the already small burrowing owl population in canada. local management actions that focus solely on improving adult apparent survival within canada are likely insufficient for mitigating susceptibility of adults to inclement weather or other factors outside the breeding season, underscoring the need for management of this species across multiple jurisdictions within north america." inferring maximum lifespan from maximum recorded longevity in the wild carries substantial risk of estimation bias,NA,ECOGRAPHY,BAYLIS SM;DE LISLE M;HAUBER ME,"when comparing lifespan (longevity) between species, it is common practice to take the maximum recorded longevity value within each species as a proxy of maximum lifespan. whether maximum recorded longevity is a reliable proxy of species' maximum longevity remains unclear. some researchers correct for previously documented life history correlates of maximum recorded longevity before analysing new predictors of lifespan across species in the context of their current, specific hypotheses. at present there is no certainty that all relevant statistical, phenotypic, or ecological biases are accounted for by such corrective measures. here, we employ monte carlo simulation to investigate the effect of differences in recapture numbers, recapture types (the point in life at which individuals are initially captured or recaptured), and actuarial population decay structure of simulated species on their maximum recorded longevities. we show that maximum recorded longevities differ in response to all three of these variables, as well as all of their two- and three-way interactions. we then investigate empirical avian band-recapture data for evidence of biases caused by recapture number and recapture type, predicted by the monte carlo analysis, and confirm the predicted biases as major sources of variance. finally, we investigate the relationship between recapture type, recapture number, and a selection of ecological and life-history variables previously documented to correlate with maximum recorded longevity, and find significant correlations between the biasing variables and those published correlates. our results call into question the validity of using maximum recorded longevity as a proxy for different species' maximum longevities in comparative studies investigating the evolution of lifespan." -replicated origin of female-biased adult sex ratio in introduced populations of the trinidadian guppy (poecilia reticulata),life span; mark-recapture; population structure; sex-biased mortality; sex-biased recruitment; sex-ratio,EVOLUTION,ARENDT JD;REZNICK DN;LOPEZ-SEPULCRE A,"there are many theoretical and empirical studies explaining variation in offspring sex ratio but relatively few that explain variation in adult sex ratio. adult sex ratios are important because biased sex ratios can be a driver of sexual selection and will reduce effective population size, affecting population persistence and shapes how populations respond to natural selection. previous work on guppies (poecilia reticulata) gives mixed results, usually showing a female-biased adult sex ratio. however, a detailed analysis showed that this bias varied dramatically throughout a year and with no consistent sex bias. we used a mark-recapture approach to examine the origin and consistency of female-biased sex ratio in four replicated introductions. we show that female-biased sex ratio arises predictably and is a consequence of higher male mortality and longer female life spans with little effect of offspring sex ratio. inconsistencies with previous studies are likely due to sampling methods and sampling design, which should be less of an issue with mark-recapture techniques. together with other long-term mark-recapture studies, our study suggests that bias in offspring sex ratio rarely contributes to adult sex ratio in vertebrates. rather, sex differences in adult survival rates and longevity determine vertebrate adult sex ratio." +replicated origin of female-biased adult sex ratio in introduced populations of the trinidadian guppy (poecilia reticulata),life span; mark-recapture; population structure; sex-biased mortality; sex-biased recruitment; sex-ratio,EVOLUTION,ARENDT JD;REZNICK DN;LOPEZ SEPULCRE A,"there are many theoretical and empirical studies explaining variation in offspring sex ratio but relatively few that explain variation in adult sex ratio. adult sex ratios are important because biased sex ratios can be a driver of sexual selection and will reduce effective population size, affecting population persistence and shapes how populations respond to natural selection. previous work on guppies (poecilia reticulata) gives mixed results, usually showing a female-biased adult sex ratio. however, a detailed analysis showed that this bias varied dramatically throughout a year and with no consistent sex bias. we used a mark-recapture approach to examine the origin and consistency of female-biased sex ratio in four replicated introductions. we show that female-biased sex ratio arises predictably and is a consequence of higher male mortality and longer female life spans with little effect of offspring sex ratio. inconsistencies with previous studies are likely due to sampling methods and sampling design, which should be less of an issue with mark-recapture techniques. together with other long-term mark-recapture studies, our study suggests that bias in offspring sex ratio rarely contributes to adult sex ratio in vertebrates. rather, sex differences in adult survival rates and longevity determine vertebrate adult sex ratio." assortative mating and the maintenance of population structure in a natural hybrid zone,introgression; mate choice; reproductive isolation; xiphophorus; poeciliidae,AMERICAN NATURALIST,CULUMBER ZW;OCHOA OM;ROSENTHAL GG,"understanding the factors that give rise to natural hybrid zones and govern their dynamics and structure is important to predicting the evolutionary consequences of hybridization. here we use a combination of multigenerational population genetic data, mating patterns from a natural population, behavioral assays, and mark recapture data within clinal hybrid zones of the genus xiphophorus to test the role of assortative mating in maintaining population structure and the potential for ongoing genetic exchange between heterospecifics. our data demonstrate that population structure is temporally robust and driven largely by assortative mating stemming from precopulatory isolation between pure species. furthermore, mark-recapture data revealed that rates of migration within the same stream reach are far below the level needed to support population structure. in contrast to many empirical studies of natural hybrid zones, there appeared to be no hybrid male dysfunction or discrimination against hybrid males by pure parental females, and hybrid females mated and associated with pure species and hybrid males at random. despite strong isolation between pure parentals, hybrids therefore can act as a conduit for genetic exchange between heterospecifics, which has been shown to increase the tempo of evolutionary change. additionally, our findings highlight the complexity of natural hybrid zone dynamics, demonstrating that sexual and ecological selection together can give rise to patterns that do not fit classical models of hybrid zone evolution." "high throughput sequencing enables discovery of microsatellites from the puff-throated bulbul (alophoixus pallidus) and assessment of genetic diversity in khao yai national park, thailand",alophoixus pallidus; genetic diversity; mirosatellites; next-generation sequencing; southeast asia,BIOCHEMICAL SYSTEMATICS AND ECOLOGY,PAGE RB;SANKAMETHAWEE W;PIERCE AJ;STERLING KA;REED DH;NOONAN BP;SAVINI T;GALE GA,"bulbuls (family pycnonotidae) are a diverse family of songbirds that carry out a number of ecologically important functions associated with seed dispersal. since, 2003, a puffthroated bulbul (alophoixus pallidus) population in the mo-singto long-term biodiversity research plot in khao yai national park, thailand has served as a model system for examining how bulbul behavior, movement, and demographics affect southeast asian forests. in this study, we used 454 pyrosequencing to discover microsatellites from a. pallidus that will enable the long-term mark-recapture work conducted at mo-singto to be complemented by molecular ecology and population genetic studies. in addition, we conducted fragment analysis to examine the level of genetic diversity exhibited by the mosingto population. in total, we identified 103 dna fragments containing microsatellite repeats and 66 fragments with sufficient flanking sequences to allow for primer design. upon screening 26 loci via pcr-based genotyping assays, we identified nine polymorphic loci and used eight of these to examine genetic diversity in the mo-singto population. the results of these analyses suggest that the mo-singto population is moderately diverse (mean number of effective alleles across eight lad = 3.36, standard deviation = 1.78), is more-or-less in hardy weinberg equilibrium, and has not recently been subject to severe population reduction. (c) 2014 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "increased nesting, good survival and variable site fidelity for leatherback turtles in florida, usa",dermochelys coriacea; survival; abundance; florida; nesting range; clutch frequency; site fidelity; population size,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,STEWART KR;MARTIN KJ;JOHNSON C;DESJARDIN N;ECKERT SA;CROWDER LB,"despite facing serious threats of extinction in the eastern pacific, the leatherback turtle (dermochelys coriacea) appears to be thriving in the atlantic basin based on increasing nest counts at several rookeries. in particular, florida's nest numbers have been increasing by 10.2% per year since standardized counts began in 1979. the us recovery plan for leatherbacks calls for vital rates and population parameters to be determined for the three leatherback rookeries under us jurisdiction: st. croix (usvi), puerto rico, and the east coast of florida. based on mark-recapture data gathered over eleven years, we determined important population parameters for nesting female leatherbacks at juno beach, one of the most densely nested beaches in florida. average annual survival was 88.9%. the average female nesting population size for juno beach is estimated at 100 +/- 41 individuals each season; statewide we expect the estimate to be higher. the average remigration interval was 2.7 +/- 1.0 years. in addition, we report observed clutch frequency (2.1 +/- 1.4 clutches/year), estimated clutch frequency (4.4 +/- 1.1 nests/year), and observed internesting period (10.2 +/- 1.3 days between nests). the probability of observing an individual female at least once during the season was 73.0%, likely due to variable site fidelity, even though sea turtles do exhibit natal homing. using opportunistic observations at additional beaches, we found that 72 females observed nesting within the juno beach study area were also observed nesting outside the study area. thirty-three individuals laid clutches both inside and outside the survey area within a single season; these nests were separated by as much as 463.5 km. although the population in florida is relatively small compared to other rookeries throughout the western atlantic, it is increasing at such a rapid pace that it has the potential to become more important regionally, thereby contributing to the abundance of leatherbacks in the atlantic. (c) 2014 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." @@ -2480,13 +2483,13 @@ population size estimation of an asian elephant population in eastern cambodia t are nest-detection probability methods relevant for estimating turtle dove breeding populations? a case study in moroccan agroecosystems,abundance estimation; nest searching; complete count; capture-recapture; n-mixture model; streptopelia turtur,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,HANANE S;BESNARD A,"knowing the population size of game is a basic prerequisite to determining adequate hunting management and conservation strategies and setting up appropriate hunting quotas. this study compared three methods complete count, capture-recapture and n-mixture modelling to estimate a turtle dove streptopelia turtur breeding population using nest counts. we randomly sampled 143 fruit farms (60 orange orchards and 83 olive orchards) situated in an irrigated area in morocco at the peak of breeding activity. we calculated the probability of detecting active turtle dove nests using information from two observers who independently searched the same sample plots. we found that (a) the capture-recapture method provided more precise results of nest abundance than n-mixture modelling, and that (b) the probability of nest detection was noticeably different between the two study orchards-higher in the orange orchards than in the olive orchards. although these two methods are easy to implement and cost-effective for estimating population abundance on a large spatial scale, our results demonstrate that the resulting estimates are prone to bias depending on the tree height of the plantations. of the three methods for estimating turtle dove abundance, complete counts were preferable for assessing population size. using the complete counts, the density of turtle dove nests was found to be 2.96 nests/ha in the orange orchards and 0.93 nests/ha in the olive orchards. a density extrapolation to the entire surface area of the tadla region indicated a minimum breeding population size of 58,969 pairs (95 % confidence interval: 48,550-69,353)." severe and differential underestimation of self-reported smoking prevalence in chinese adolescents,tobacco smoking; self-reporting; under-reporting; adolescents; capture-recapture,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL MEDICINE,MA J;ZHU JF;LI N;HE YP;CAI Y;QIAO J;REDMON P;WANG ZQ,"evaluating the progress of tobacco control across the world heavily relies on smoking prevalence estimates. those estimates are often based on surveys of self-reported cigarette smoking status. the accuracy varies among populations with different social and cultural backgrounds. the objective of this study was to estimate the prevalence of smoking and assess the accuracy of self-report smoking status in chinese adolescents. this population-based cross-sectional survey included 10,934 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years from 17 schools in shanghai, china. data on adolescents' smoking status were collected from adolescents' self-reporting and from parents' questionnaires, separately. based on the data of two sources, the total number of smokers among the study participants was estimated using a capture-recapture method. among 5,452 girls and 5,482 boys, the prevalence estimates of self-reported smoking were 13.6 % (748) and 5.2 % (284) for boys and girls, respectively. parents only identified smaller proportions of smoking adolescents: 2.9 % (160) boys and 0.6 % (30) girls. using the capture-recapture method, we estimated the prevalence of smoking as 18.3 % (95 % ci 16.4, 20.3) for boys and 14.2 % (95 % ci 7.6, 20.8) for girls. reliance on self-reporting to identify smokers among chinese adolescents significantly underestimates the number of smokers, particularly among chinese girls. self-reported smokers only represent less than half of actual smokers in girls. our findings are important for monitoring smoking trends and evaluating tobacco control interventions among chinese adolescents." estimating landscape resistance to dispersal,animal movement; connectivity; cost distance; corridor; dispersal; least cost path; movement; landscape permeability,LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY,GRAVES T;CHANDLER RB;ROYLE JA;BEIER P;KENDALL KC,"dispersal is an inherently spatial process that can be affected by habitat conditions in sites encountered by dispersers. understanding landscape resistance to dispersal is important in connectivity studies and reserve design, but most existing methods use resistance functions with cost parameters that are subjectively chosen by the investigator. we develop an analytic approach allowing for direct estimation of resistance parameters that folds least cost path methods typically used in simulation approaches into a formal statistical model of dispersal distributions. the core of our model is a frequency distribution of dispersal distances expressed as least cost distance rather than euclidean distance, and which includes terms for feature-specific costs to dispersal and sex (or other traits) of the disperser. the model requires only origin and settlement locations for multiple individuals, such as might be obtained from mark-recapture studies or parentage analyses, and maps of the relevant habitat features. to evaluate whether the model can estimate parameters correctly, we fit our model to data from simulated dispersers in three kinds of landscapes (in which resistance of environmental variables was categorical, continuous with a patchy configuration, or continuous in a trend pattern). we found maximum likelihood estimators of resistance and individual trait parameters to be approximately unbiased with moderate sample sizes. we applied the model to a small grizzly bear dataset to demonstrate how this approach could be used when the primary interest is in the prediction of costs and found that estimates were consistent with expectations based on bear ecology. our method has important practical applications for testing hypotheses about dispersal ecology and can be used to inform connectivity planning efforts, via the resistance estimates and confidence intervals, which can be used to create a data-driven resistance surface." -"an unfished area enhances a spiny lobster, panulirus argus, fishery: implications for management and conservation within a biosphere reserve in the mexican caribbean",community based conservation; coral reef; fisheries; population dynamics,FISHERIES MANAGEMENT AND ECOLOGY,LEY-COOPER K;DE LESTANG S;PHILLIPS BF;LOZANO-ALVAREZ E,"the caribbean spiny lobster, panulirus argus, latreille, is the main source of income for the communities in the sian ka'an biosphere reserve mexico. the fishery has recently been certified as sustainable by the marine stewardship council provided that further stock assessment is carried out. a total of 379 lobsters were tagged in an unfished area offshore from the bahia del espiritu santo fishing grounds to assess whether lobsters remained within these areas and were thus fully protected. the lobsters recaptured in the shallow area (5.3%) were sufficient to develop a multistate mark recapture model, which takes into account fishing and natural mortality, tag reporting rate and tag loss. this estimated that between 15 and 20% of all adult lobsters dwelling in the unfished area moved into the fishery and were subjected to exploitation. this study suggests that the offshore unfished area provides protection to the majority of the stock in this area while adding to and maintaining fishing yields within the inshore commercial fishery." +"an unfished area enhances a spiny lobster, panulirus argus, fishery: implications for management and conservation within a biosphere reserve in the mexican caribbean",community based conservation; coral reef; fisheries; population dynamics,FISHERIES MANAGEMENT AND ECOLOGY,LEY COOPER K;DE LESTANG S;PHILLIPS BF;LOZANO ALVAREZ E,"the caribbean spiny lobster, panulirus argus, latreille, is the main source of income for the communities in the sian ka'an biosphere reserve mexico. the fishery has recently been certified as sustainable by the marine stewardship council provided that further stock assessment is carried out. a total of 379 lobsters were tagged in an unfished area offshore from the bahia del espiritu santo fishing grounds to assess whether lobsters remained within these areas and were thus fully protected. the lobsters recaptured in the shallow area (5.3%) were sufficient to develop a multistate mark recapture model, which takes into account fishing and natural mortality, tag reporting rate and tag loss. this estimated that between 15 and 20% of all adult lobsters dwelling in the unfished area moved into the fishery and were subjected to exploitation. this study suggests that the offshore unfished area provides protection to the majority of the stock in this area while adding to and maintaining fishing yields within the inshore commercial fishery." "rapid response of a long-lived species to improved water and grazing management: the case of the european pond turtle (emys orbicularis) in the camargue, france",capture-mark-recapture; density-dependence; hydrologic management; pastoral management; population size,JOURNAL FOR NATURE CONSERVATION,FICHEUX S;OLIVIER A;FAY R;CRIVELLI A;BESNARD A;BECHET A,"among human activities, the effect of habitat management by grazing on population viability is ambiguous. indeed, beneficial effects of grazing are expected by maintaining open meadows, but overgrazing is supposed to increase mortality by trampling. grazing has been shown to negatively impact the survival of european pond turtle (emys orbicularis) in the camargue. consequently, a new management plan was defined. we investigated the consequences of this management using capture-recapture methods to estimate variations of population sizes in this managed site and a control site over a 17 years period. results show an increase of the number of adults and juveniles on the managed site after the management change. our results suggest that improved water management with flooding in autumn provided better hibernation conditions, and that reduced grazing intensity in autumn/winter likely decreased the risk of trampling. population size significantly increased in less than 4 years following the management change, probably by the relaxation of density-dependence. it is an original result for a long lived-species supposed to have an important time of resilience to perturbations. (c) 2014 elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." to bait or not to bait: a comparison of camera-trapping methods for estimating leopard panthera pardus density,spatially explicit capture-recapture; felids; trophy hunting; harvest; demographics; population trend,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,DU PREEZ BD;LOVERIDGE AJ;MACDONALD DW,"leopards have the largest natural distribution of felids, but have lost a third of their historical range, and their current cites status is 'near threatened'. leopards are a highly sought after trophy species in africa, although their populations are not monitored in most areas. zimbabwe sets the highest leopard quota in africa, but actual offtake does not reflect this, and the number of successful hunts has steadily declined in recent years. accurate data on leopard populations is urgently needed, particularly where they are harvested. camera-trapping is a powerful tool for non-invasively researching populations of rare and elusive felids, allowing accurate calculation of population density, and monitoring trends. however, unbaited camera-trapping is plagued by low capture rates, affecting the accuracy of the resultant density calculations. in addition, dependent cubs are underrepresented in the data, precluding an accurate description of demographic structure. we compared baited and unbaited camera-trapping methods and resultant data quality from two survey areas within our study site. baited camera-trapping significantly increased leopard capture rates, as well as recording dependent cubs, which the unbaited method failed to detect. in addition, the baited method was more cost effective. using baits to increase capture rates of leopards is more efficient than the unbaited method, and has the potential to accurately survey unmonitored populations; including where their density is too low to determine accurately via other means. these data are required for management of leopard populations, especially where harvested, and may be applied to improve monitoring efforts of other big cat species. (c) 2014 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." relatedness and other finescale population genetic analyses in the threatened eastern box turtle (terrapene c. carolina) suggest unexpectedly high vagility with important conservation implications,dispersal; gene flow; metapopulations; population structure; transients,CONSERVATION GENETICS,KIMBLE SJA;RHODES OE;WILLIAMS RN,"genetic analyses of populations are essential to the conservation of threatened and cryptic taxa such as chelonians. turtles and tortoises are among the most imperiled vertebrate taxa worldwide, yet many of the natural history traits remain unknown leaving management decisions ill- or improperly informed. the eastern box turtle terrapene c. carolina is no exception, with many gaps in our knowledge about traits such as juvenile dispersal and patterns of relatedness across the landscape, especially as it is a species not particularly tied to water and vulnerable to human disturbance. in addition, all long-term studies of this species have documented demographic population declines, even in protected habitats. in this study we explore finescale population structuring, gene flow, dispersal, and relatedness at four sites across the species range. these sites vary in habitat fragmentation and surrounding habitat quality. many radiotelemtery and mark-recapture studies suggest that terrapene spp. have a sedentary natural history, with small and temporally conserved home ranges and little propensity for dispersal. based on these data we predicted that populations would be highly structured at fine geographic scales, closely related individuals (1st- and 2nd-degree relatives) would coexist in close proximity, and individuals exhibiting transient behavior would be true transients. all sites had low levels of population structuring, mean pairwise relatedness values were statistically zero, over 90 % of pairs of individuals were unrelated, 4.4-8.7 % were half-siblings, and fewer than 1.0 % were full siblings or parent-offspring pairs. these patterns were consistent across all four sites, regardless of habitat fragmentation. furthermore, while some related pairs were found within a few meters of each other, others ranged up to 33 km apart. we found that one of two individuals with transient behavior was indeed a true genetic transient. these findings suggest that box turtles may be much more vagile than current management practices recognize. as most turtle species are strongly affected by anthropogenic disturbance, many may require much larger contiguous blocks of intact habitat for species persistence as the box turtle likely does. management plans may therefore need to be updated to allow for safe and effective long-distance dispersal at the appropriate spatial scales in order to maintain genetic health of these species." estimating dispersal among numerous sites using capture-recapture data,capture-recapture; dispersal; memory model; multi-event model; multisite model; site fidelity; southern quebec; canada; tachycineta bicolor; tree swallow,ECOLOGY,LAGRANGE P;PRADEL R;BELISLE M;GIMENEZ O,"dispersal affects processes as diverse as habitat selection, population growth, and gene flow. inference about dispersal and its variation is thus crucial for assessing population and evolutionary dynamics. two approaches are generally used to estimate dispersal in free-ranging animals. first, multisite capture recapture models estimate movement rates among sites while accounting for survival and detection probabilities. this approach, however, is limited in the number of sites that can be considered. second, diffusion models estimate movements within discrete habitat using a diffusion coefficient, resulting in a continuous processing of space. however, this approach has been rarely used because of its mathematical and implementation complexity. here, we develop a multi-event capture recapture approach that circumvents the issue of too many sites while being relatively simple to be implemented in existing software. moreover, this new approach allows the quantifying of memory effects, whereby the decision of dispersing or not on a given year impacts the survival or dispersal likelihood of the following year. we illustrate our approach using a long-term data set on the breeding ecology of a declining passerine in southern quebec, canada, the tree swallow (tachycineta bicolor)." combating adult invasive american bullfrog lithobates catesbeianus,alien invasive species; population control; mark-recapture; rana catesbeiana; shallow water bodies,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,LOUETTE G;DEVISSCHER S;ADRIAENS T,"american bullfrog lithobates catesbeianus is considered as one of the world's worst alien invasive species. currently, the species is present over almost all continents and is suspected to cause substantial ecological damage. knowledge about its population density, as well as catchability of the species with commonly used sampling gear, is very useful when considering the development of sound population control programs. using the multiple mark-recapture method, we investigated the density, sex ratio, and mobility of an adult bullfrog population inhabiting several neighbouring small shallow ponds at the peak of reproduction (mid june-mid july). we estimated the density at 4.3 adults/100 m shore length and the sex ratio (males/females) to 1.64. on average, males and females moved 25 and 83 m, respectively. catchability of adults, using one double fyke net for 24 h, was rather constant and equalled 0.7 % of the population size. at first sight, this capture technique seems not to generate large-scale adult removal. however, as a companion study revealed that double fyke nets are highly effective for capturing tadpoles, control or even eradication of isolated populations may be enhanced when this proportion of the adult segment is equally removed." -spatial and temporal variation in population dynamics of andean frogs: effects of forest disturbance and evidence for declines,amphibian decline; biodiversity; capture-mark-recapture analysis; pristimantis; neotropics,GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION,COLE EM;BUSTAMANTE MR;ALMEIDA-REINOSO D;FUNK WC,"biodiversity loss is a global phenomenon that can result in the collapse of food webs and critical ecosystem services. amphibian population decline over the last century is a notable case of species loss because amphibians survived the last four major extinction events in global history, their current rate of extinction is unprecedented, and their rate of extinction is greater than that for most other taxonomic groups. despite the severity of this conservation problem and its relevance to the study of global biodiversity loss, major knowledge gaps remain for many of the most threatened species and regions in the world. rigorous estimates of population parameters are lacking for many amphibian species in the neotropics. the goal of our study was to determine how the demography of seven species of the genus pristimantis varied over time and space in two cloud forests in the ecuadorian andes. we completed a long term capture-mark-recapture study to estimate abundance, survival, and population growth rates in two cloud forests in the ecuadorian andes; from 2002 to 2009 at yanayacu in the eastern cordillera and from 2002 to 2003 at cashca totoras in the western cordillera. our results showed seasonal and annual variation in population parameters by species and sex. p. bicantus experienced significant reductions in abundance over the course of our study. abundance, apparent survival, and population growth rates were lower in disturbed than in primary or mature secondary forest. the results of our study raise concerns for the population status of understudied amphibian groups and provide insights into the population dynamics of neotropical amphibians. (c) 2014 the authors. published by elsevier b.v." +spatial and temporal variation in population dynamics of andean frogs: effects of forest disturbance and evidence for declines,amphibian decline; biodiversity; capture-mark-recapture analysis; pristimantis; neotropics,GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION,COLE EM;BUSTAMANTE MR;ALMEIDA REINOSO D;FUNK WC,"biodiversity loss is a global phenomenon that can result in the collapse of food webs and critical ecosystem services. amphibian population decline over the last century is a notable case of species loss because amphibians survived the last four major extinction events in global history, their current rate of extinction is unprecedented, and their rate of extinction is greater than that for most other taxonomic groups. despite the severity of this conservation problem and its relevance to the study of global biodiversity loss, major knowledge gaps remain for many of the most threatened species and regions in the world. rigorous estimates of population parameters are lacking for many amphibian species in the neotropics. the goal of our study was to determine how the demography of seven species of the genus pristimantis varied over time and space in two cloud forests in the ecuadorian andes. we completed a long term capture-mark-recapture study to estimate abundance, survival, and population growth rates in two cloud forests in the ecuadorian andes; from 2002 to 2009 at yanayacu in the eastern cordillera and from 2002 to 2003 at cashca totoras in the western cordillera. our results showed seasonal and annual variation in population parameters by species and sex. p. bicantus experienced significant reductions in abundance over the course of our study. abundance, apparent survival, and population growth rates were lower in disturbed than in primary or mature secondary forest. the results of our study raise concerns for the population status of understudied amphibian groups and provide insights into the population dynamics of neotropical amphibians. (c) 2014 the authors. published by elsevier b.v." "wildcat population density on the etna volcano, italy: a comparison of density estimation methods",camera-trapping; felis silvestris; genetic sampling; population density estimation; secr; rem; wildcat,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,ANILE S;RAGNI B;RANDI E;MATTUCCI F;ROVERO F,"the european wildcat is an elusive felid that is declining across its range. sicily hosts a distinctive insular wildcat population, the conservation of which requires much better ecological knowledge than is currently available, particularly population density. we simultaneously used two noninvasive methods (camera-trapping and scat-collection) to estimate the population density of wildcats on the etna volcano. we conducted genetic analyses to identify individuals and to detect potential hybridization with the domestic cat. we analyzed individual capture-histories from camera-trapping and scat-collection using the spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) model. furthermore, we applied the random encounter model (rem), which does not require individual identification, to the camera-trapping data. we identified 14 wildcats from 70 photographic detections (6.48 detections/100 trap-days) obtained from 1080 camera-trapping days over 4 months, and we estimated to have identified all the individuals living in the study area (10.9 km(-2)). on the contrary, we identified 10 wildcats from 14 out of 39 scats collected from 391 km of transects walked. the estimated densities (individuals km(-2) +/- se) were 0.32 +/- 0.1 (secr camera-trapping), 1.36 +/- 0.73 (secr scat-collection) and 0.39 +/- 0.03 (rem). the population density estimates obtained from secr camera-trapping and rem overlapped, although we recommend care when applying the latter. the secr scat-collection gave the highest population density (and less precise) estimates because of the low number of capture and recaptures; however, the population size estimated with this method matched the number of individuals photographed. the population density of the wildcat in etna falls in the medium-high range of those reported in literature, highlighting the role of this ecosystem for the long-term conservation of the wildcat in sicily. camera-trapping is confirmed as a useful tool to assess the wildcat population density and, in this case, was complemented by the genetic analysis that confirmed individual identity." the first density estimation of an isolated eurasian lynx population in southwest asia,NA,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,AVGAN B;ZIMMERMANN F;GUNTERT M;ARIKAN F;BREITENMOSER U,"during november 2010 - february 2011, we used camera traps to estimate the population density of eurasian lynx lynx lynx in ciglikara nature reserve, turkey, an isolated population in southwest asia. lynx density was calculated through spatial capture-recapture models. in a sampling effort of 1093 camera trap days, we identified 15 independent individuals and estimated a density of 4.20 independent lynx per 100 km(2), an unreported high density for this species. camera trap results also indicated that the lynx is likely to be preying on brown hare lepus europaeus, which accounted for 63% of the non-target species pictured. as lagomorph populations tend to fluctuate, the high lynx density recorded in ciglikara may be temporary and may decline with prey fluctuation. therefore we recommend to survey other protected areas in southwestern turkey where lynx is known or assumed to exist, and continuously monitor the lynx populations with reliable methods in order to understand the populations structure and dynamics, define sensible measures and management plans to conserve this important species." "dynamics of a central anatolian population of emys orbicularis (linnaeus, 1758) (testudines: emydidae)",NA,HERPETOZOA,BAYRAKCI Y;AYAZ D,"using mark-recapture techniques, this study conducted from 2010 to 2012 aims to estimate size, density, survival rate, and capture probability in the yagmapinar (karapin ar, konya, turkey) population of emys orbicularis (linnaeus, 1758). in addition, sex ratio and some morphometrical characters of the individuals, as well as ecological features of the habitat were determined. during the project, 226 turtles were marked, and 58 of these were recaptured 75 times in total. of the marked turtles, 98 (43.36 %) were males, 109 (48.23 %) females, and 19 (8.41 %) juveniles. the sex ratio of the population was balanced (male : female = 1: 1.11). the population size was estimated as 726 +/- 127 (477 - 976), and the population density was calculated as 242 +/- 42 (158-325) individuals/ha, accordingly. total biomass was calculated as 82 +/- 14 (54 - 111) kg/ha. according to the jolly-seber formula, the survival rate was estimated to be 0.94 +/- 0.02 (0.89 - 0.96) in adults and 0.79 +/- 0.06 (0.64 - 0.89) in juveniles. the capture probabilities did not show differences between the groups and were estimated as 0.17 (0.09-0.28) on average. the mean carapace length was 115.7 +/- 7.2 mm in males, 135.1 +/- 8.5 mm in females, and 91.6 +/- 7.2 mm in juveniles. sexual dimorphism was identified in terms of body size. females were significantly larger than males (t-test, t = 17.726, df = 204, p < 0.001). the yagmapinar population is threatened mainly by habitat loss due to climate and immediate anthropogenic detrimental effects." @@ -2500,7 +2503,7 @@ polar bears from space: assessing satellite imagery as a tool to track arctic wi "population size, movement, and reproduction of the georgetown salamander, eurycea naufragia",conservation; eurycea naufragia; georgetown salamander; movement; population size; reproduction; salamander,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,PIERCE BA;MCENTIRE KD;WALL AE,"salamanders are important components of many headwater stream and spring habitats and may be important indicators of ecosystem health. at least 15 recognized species of endemic salamanders of the genus eurycea occur on the edwards plateau of central texas, usa. the georgetown salamander (eurycea naufragia) is a neotenic, spring-and cave-dwelling species found only in the san gabriel river watershed of williamson county, texas, an area undergoing rapid urbanization. in spite of conservation concern, little research has been conducted on the species and information critical for conservation planning is unavailable. in this study, we used visual implant elastomers and mark-recapture methods to provide the first population estimates for the species, revealing small populations at two springs. based on 24 months of recapture surveys, we found limited movement of e. naufragia within individual springs. over a period of three years, we checked salamanders for the presence of eggs and observed seasonal reproduction with bimodal peaks in winter and early spring. measurements of gravid individuals suggest female reproductive maturity occurs around 26 to 28 mm head-trunk length. this information about the life history of e. naufragia can enhance conservation planning and management of the species." "potential impacts of a high severity wildfire on abundance, movement, and diversity of herpetofauna in the lost pines ecoregion of texas",abundance; amphibian; detection; forest; movement; reptile,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,BROWN DJ;DUARTE A;MALI I;JONES MC;FORSTNER MRJ,"in september and october 2011, a high severity wildfire burned 39% of the 34,400 ha lost pines ecoregion in bastrop county, texas, usa. we assessed potential impacts of the wildfire on abundance, movement, and diversity of herpetofauna using drift fence array trap data collected prior to and after the wildfire, and anuran call survey data collected after the fire, on the 1,948 ha griffith league ranch. based on n-mixture model analyses, abundance and movement of six-lined race runners (cnemidophorus [aspidoscelis] sexlineatus) and southern prairie lizards (sceloporus consobrinus) were not significantly different before versus shortly after the wildfire. a capture-recapture analysis indicated that movement rates were higher in the wildfire zone for hurter's spadefoot toads (scaphiopus hurterii) the following spring. based on the trap data, herpetofaunal species composition was not significantly different shortly after the fire or subsequently, during the following spring. however, the anuran call survey data indicated that anuran species richness was higher in the wildfire zone. overall, we did not find reduced abundance or diversity of herpetofauna after the fire, a positive result for conservation in this ecoregion. in addition, our study indicated that investigations focused on fire impacts to ground-dwelling wildlife should consider detection probability when drawing inferences concerning abundances, particularly when differences in ground structure are apparent. few other studies have examined the effects of intense fires on herpetofauna and our study indicates that herpetofaunal communities can emerge from intense fires without detrimental changes." population dynamics of thrushes and seasonal resource partition,NA,ZHURNAL OBSHCHEI BIOLOGII,BOURSKI OV;DEMIDOVA EY;MORKOVIN AA,"we studied seasonal population dynamics in birds using four thrush species from the yenisei middle taiga region as an example. long-term data on bird route censuses, capture-mark-recapture, and nest observations were incorporated in the analysis. particularly, methodological problems that complicate a direct comparison between assessed numbers at different phases of the annual cycle are considered. the integrated analysis of the results allowed comparing changes in numbers, energy expenditure, age structure, migrating status, and density distribution of selected populations during the snowless period and relating them to seasonal changes in food resource abundance. thrush population numbers within the breeding range, and their energy consumption in the yenisei middle taiga proportionately reflect the seasonal change in abundance of food resources. the compliance between resource intake and carrying capacity of the environment is attained by: timing of arrival and departure regarding to the species' range of tolerance; change in numbers as a result of reproduction and mortality; change in numbers due to habitat changes and long-distance movements; increasing energetic expenditures during reproduction and molt; timing, intensity and replication of nesting attempts; timing of molt and proportion of molting individuals in a population; individual variations of the annual cycle. reproductive growth of local bird populations is not fast enough to catch up with seasonal growth of ecosystems productivity. superabundance of invertebrates at the peak of the season offers a temporal niche which, on the one hand, is suitable for species capable of diet switching, while, on the other hand, may be used by specialized consumers, namely tropical migrants for whom, at high resource level, a shortened breeding period suffices." -influence of climate on annual survival of barn swallows (hirundo rustica) breeding in north america,aerial insectivore; barn swallow; el nino southern oscillation; hirundo rustica; long-distance migration; mark-recapture data; north atlantic oscillation; survivorship,AUK,GARCIA-PEREZ B;HOBSON KA;ALBRECHTS G;CADMAN MD;SALVADORIS A,"population dynamics of migratory birds are influenced by both local weather and larger-scale patterns in climate that can operate at various stages of their annual cycle. we investigated correlations between (1) annual climatic indices and weather during the breeding season and (2) the annual survival of barn swallows (hirundo rustica) breeding at 2 sites in north america. mark recapture data collected during a 10-yr period for each of the 2 colonies in eastern and western north america were analyzed to model annual survival probabilities. annual survival rates of barn swallows breeding in seattle, washington, usa, were higher in years preceded by el nino southern oscillation (enso) winters and higher in years with more positive north atlantic oscillation (nao) values. enso was expected to primarily influence wintering conditions through rainfall amount, and nao was expected to influence climate on the breeding grounds; thus, climatic conditions on both breeding and wintering grounds likely affected the survival of these seattle-breeding birds. by contrast, annual survival of swallows breeding in southern ontario, canada, remained constant over time and were not affected by any of the climatic parameters studied, which suggests that nao did not have a strong effect on climatic conditions there and/or that these birds winter in regions where enso is not strongly correlated with local weather conditions. alternatively, there may be less geographic variation in wintering-ground locations for barn swallows breeding in seattle, resulting in stronger enso effects on survival for the seattle population. our results demonstrate how correlations between climate patterns on wintering grounds and annual survival can provide information on migratory connectivity at continental scales and underline the importance of local weather conditions throughout the annual cycle on survivorship and population dynamics of aerial insectivorous birds." +influence of climate on annual survival of barn swallows (hirundo rustica) breeding in north america,aerial insectivore; barn swallow; el nino southern oscillation; hirundo rustica; long-distance migration; mark-recapture data; north atlantic oscillation; survivorship,AUK,GARCIA PEREZ B;HOBSON KA;ALBRECHTS G;CADMAN MD;SALVADORIS A,"population dynamics of migratory birds are influenced by both local weather and larger-scale patterns in climate that can operate at various stages of their annual cycle. we investigated correlations between (1) annual climatic indices and weather during the breeding season and (2) the annual survival of barn swallows (hirundo rustica) breeding at 2 sites in north america. mark recapture data collected during a 10-yr period for each of the 2 colonies in eastern and western north america were analyzed to model annual survival probabilities. annual survival rates of barn swallows breeding in seattle, washington, usa, were higher in years preceded by el nino southern oscillation (enso) winters and higher in years with more positive north atlantic oscillation (nao) values. enso was expected to primarily influence wintering conditions through rainfall amount, and nao was expected to influence climate on the breeding grounds; thus, climatic conditions on both breeding and wintering grounds likely affected the survival of these seattle-breeding birds. by contrast, annual survival of swallows breeding in southern ontario, canada, remained constant over time and were not affected by any of the climatic parameters studied, which suggests that nao did not have a strong effect on climatic conditions there and/or that these birds winter in regions where enso is not strongly correlated with local weather conditions. alternatively, there may be less geographic variation in wintering-ground locations for barn swallows breeding in seattle, resulting in stronger enso effects on survival for the seattle population. our results demonstrate how correlations between climate patterns on wintering grounds and annual survival can provide information on migratory connectivity at continental scales and underline the importance of local weather conditions throughout the annual cycle on survivorship and population dynamics of aerial insectivorous birds." "postnatal development in the big-footed bat, myotis macrodactylus: wing morphology, echolocation calls, and flight",echolocation calls; flight behavior; growth curves; myotis macrodactylus; wing morphology,ACTA THERIOLOGICA,WANG L;LIN AQ;XIAO YH;JIANG TL;FENG J,"we studied the postnatal development of wing morphology and echolocation calls during flight in a free-ranging population of the big-footed bat, myotis macrodactylus, using the mark-recapture methodology. young bats were reluctant to move until 7 days of age and started fluttering at a mean age of 10 days. the wingspan and wing area of pups followed a linear pattern of growth until 22 days of age, by which time the young bats exhibited flapping flight, with mean growth rates of 0.62 mm/day and 3.15 mm(2)/day, for wingspan and area, respectively, after which growth rates decreased. pups achieved sustained flight at 40 days of age. of the three nonlinear growth models (logistic, gompertz, and von bertalanffy), the logistic equation provided the best fit to the empirical curves for wingspan and wing area. neonates emitted long echolocation calls with multiple harmonics. the duration of calls decreased significantly between flutter (19 days) and flight (22 days) stages. the peak and start frequency of calls increased significantly over the 3-week period of development, but the terminal frequency did not change significantly over the development period." "notes on sexual size dimorphism, sex ratio and movements of adult ground weta hemiandrus maculifrons (walker) (orthoptera: anostostomatidae)",abundance; invertebrate tracking; mark-recapture; new zealand; queen bee tags,NEW ZEALAND ENTOMOLOGIST,CHAPPELL EM;WEBB DS;TONKIN JD,"the ground weta (hemiandrus maculifrons) is an apparently abundant species with a new zealand-wide distribution. despite this, there is a paucity of ecological and biological information concerning this species. we aimed to gain new information about movement patterns, capture rates and body size differences by tagging individuals and conducting nightly surveys of a single h. maculifrons population in the otanewainuku forest, bay of plenty, new zealand. over a 26-night period between march and april 2012, we tagged 53 females and 78 males with queen bee tags and small reflector strips and recorded the location of animals that were subsequently re-sighted. adult females were significantly larger than males, but capture and re-sight rates suggested males were the more abundant sex during the study period. female weta moved further over consecutive nights than males (average distance moved, 1.57 m vs. 1.01 m, respectively); however, the tagging method, time of year and study area may have resulted in underestimates. these results indicate areas for further research into aspects of sexual selection, such as potentially biased sex ratios, sexual size dimorphism and mate competition, within h. maculifrons." grass invasion increases top-down pressure on an amphibian via structurally mediated effects on an intraguild predator,anaxyrus americanus; ecosystem engineer; food web; habitat complexity; indirect effects; intraguild predation; invasive; microstegium vimineum; trophic cascade; wolf spider,ECOLOGY,DEVORE JL;MAERZ JC,"plants serve as both basal resources and ecosystem engineers, so plant invasion may exert trophic influences on consumers both via bottom-up processes and by altering the environmental context in which trophic interactions occur. to determine how these mechanisms affect a native predator we used a mark recapture study in eight pairs of 58-m(2) field enclosures to measure the influence of japanese stilt grass invasion on 3200 recently metamorphosed american toads. toad survivorship was lower in invaded habitats despite abiotic effects that favor amphibians. prey densities were also lower in invaded habitats, but growth was unaffected. frequent spider predation events in invaded habitats led us to use factorial field cage manipulations of stilt grass and lycosid spiders to determine if invasion increases predation rates. spiders persisted at higher densities in the presence of stilt grass, and toad survival was lowest in cages with both grass and spiders. invasion alone did not significantly reduce toad survival. our results demonstrate that despite prey reductions and abiotic effects, it is increased spider persistence that reduces toad survival in invaded habitats. invasion therefore affects resident forest floor consumers by modifying trophic interactions between native species, causing structurally mediated reductions in intraguild predation rates among spiders, with cascading implications for toad survival." @@ -2515,23 +2518,23 @@ reply to efford on 'integrating resource selection information with spatial capt estimating population size in the presence of temporary migration using a joint analysis of telemetry and capture-recapture data,bayesian methods; modelling; population ecology; sampling; statistics,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BIRD T;LYON J;NICOL S;MCCARTHY M;BARKER R,"1. temporary migration - where individuals can leave and re-enter a sampled population - is a feature of many capture-mark-recapture (cmr) studies of mobile populations which, if unaccounted for, can lead to biased estimates of population capture probabilities and consequently biased estimates of population abundance. 2. we present a method for incorporating radiotelemetry data within a cmr study to eliminate bias due to temporary migration using a bayesian state-space model. 3. our results indicate that using a relatively small number of telemetry tags, it is possible to greatly reduce bias in estimates of capture probabilities using telemetry data to model transition probabilities in and out of the sampling area. in a capture-recapture data set for trout cod in the murray river, australia, accounting for temporary migration led to overall higher estimates of capture probabilities than models assuming permanent or zero migration. also, individual heterogeneity in detectability can be managed through explicit modelling. we show how accounting for temporary migration when estimating capture probabilities can be used to estimate the abundance and size distribution of a population as though it were closed. 4. our model provides a basis for more complex models that might integrate telemetry data into other cmr scenarios, thus allowing for greater precision in estimates of vital rates that might otherwise be biased by temporary migration. our results highlight the importance of accounting for migration in survey design and parameter estimation, and the potential scope for supplementing large-scale cmr data sets with a subset of auxiliary data that provide information on processes that are hidden to primary sampling processes." "continuous-time spatially explicit capture-recapture models, with an application to a jaguar camera-trap survey",animal movement; data aggregation; density estimation; statistical methods; sufficiency,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BORCHERS D;DISTILLER G;FOSTER R;HARMSEN B;MILAZZO L,"1. many capture-recapture surveys of wildlife populations operate in continuous time, but detections are typically aggregated into occasions for analysis, even when exact detection times are available. this discards information and introduces subjectivity, in the form of decisions about occasion definition. 2. we develop a spatiotemporal poisson process model for spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) surveys that operate continuously and record exact detection times. we show that, except in some special cases (including the case in which detection probability does not change within occasion), temporally aggregated data do not provide sufficient statistics for density and related parameters, and that when detection probability is constant over time, our continuous-time (ct) model is equivalent to an existing model based on detection frequencies. we use the model to estimate jaguar density from a camera-trap survey and conduct a simulation study to investigate the properties of a ct estimator and discrete-occasion estimators with various levels of temporal aggregation. this includes investigation of the effect on the estimators of spatiotemporal correlation induced by animal movement. 3. the ct estimator is found to be unbiased and more precise than discrete-occasion estimators based on binary capture data (rather than detection frequencies) when there is no spatiotemporal correlation. it is also found to be only slightly biased when there is correlation induced by animal movement, and to be more robust to inadequate detector spacing, while discrete-occasion estimators with binary data can be sensitive to occasion length, particularly in the presence of inadequate detector spacing. 4. our model includes as a special case a discrete-occasion estimator based on detection frequencies, and at the same time lays a foundation for the development of more sophisticated ct models and estimators. it allows modelling within-occasion changes in detectability, readily accommodates variation in detector effort, removes subjectivity associated with user-defined occasions and fully utilizes ct data. we identify a need for developing ct methods that incorporate spatiotemporal dependence in detections and see potential for ct models being combined with telemetry-based animal movement models to provide a richer inference framework." "demography of a reintroduced population: moving toward management models for an endangered species, the whooping crane","conservation; demographic estimates; grus americana; management modeling; mcmc; multi-state models; population viability analysis, reintroduction; state-space models",ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,SERVANTY S;CONVERSE SJ;BAILEY LL,"the reintroduction of threatened and endangered species is now a common method for reestablishing populations. typically, a fundamental objective of reintroduction is to establish a self-sustaining population. estimation of demographic parameters in reintroduced populations is critical, as these estimates serve multiple purposes. first, they support evaluation of progress toward the fundamental objective via construction of population viability analyses (pvas) to predict metrics such as probability of persistence. second, pvas can be expanded to support evaluation of management actions, via management modeling. third, the estimates themselves can support evaluation of the demographic performance of the reintroduced population (e. g., via comparison with wild populations). for each of these purposes, thorough treatment of uncertainties in the estimates is critical. recently developed statistical methods (namely, hierarchical bayesian implementations of state-space models) allow for effective integration of different types of uncertainty in estimation. we undertook a demographic estimation effort for a reintroduced population of endangered whooping cranes with the purpose of ultimately developing a bayesian pva for determining progress toward establishing a self-sustaining population, and for evaluating potential management actions via a bayesian pva-based management model. we evaluated individual and temporal variation in demographic parameters based upon a multi-state, mark-recapture model. we found that survival was relatively high across time and varied little by sex. there was some indication that survival varied by release method. survival was similar to that observed in the wild population. although overall reproduction in this reintroduced population is poor, birds formed social pairs when relatively young, and once a bird was in a social pair, it had a nearly 50% chance of nesting the following breeding season. also, once a bird had nested, it had a high probability of nesting again. these results are encouraging, considering that survival and reproduction have been major challenges in past reintroductions of this species. the demographic estimates developed will support construction of a management model designed to facilitate exploration of management actions of interest, and will provide critical guidance in future planning for this reintroduction. an approach similar to what we describe could be usefully applied to many reintroduced populations." -"impact of human disturbance, density, and environmental conditions on the survival probabilities of pipistrelle bat (pipistrellus pipistrellus)",capture-recapture; chiroptera; demography; density dependence; human perturbation,POPULATION ECOLOGY,LOPEZ-ROIG M;SERRA-COBO J,"natural and anthropogenic disturbances can strongly impact population dynamics of species and are often responsible for zoonotic emerging infectious diseases. however, long-term studies on the demographic consequences of human disturbances are unusual. we used 6 years (1995-2000) of mark-recapture data to investigate how climatic conditions, human disturbance and density affect sex- and age-specific apparent survival probabilities of the pipistrelle bat (pipistrellus pipistrellus, schreber 1774) in a maternity colony. our study demonstrated that density played an important role in population dynamics of pipistrelle bat and that its effect differed with respect to age and sex. notably, human disturbance caused a strong decline of adult female survival, suggesting that perturbations have important consequences in bat-colony dynamics. juvenile female survival was negatively influenced by density, being considerably lower in high densities. in contrast, juvenile and adult males were apparently not affected as they had constant survival probabilities. although climatic factors can markedly affect population dynamics of temperate insectivorous bats, in this study, the weather conditions did not influence the survival rates of pipistrelle bats. we provide the first report that demonstrates the density-dependent effect on bat survival. that is especially relevant to better understanding of the bat-population dynamics and to evaluate the consequences of human disturbance and their potential changes in the maternity colony structure." +"impact of human disturbance, density, and environmental conditions on the survival probabilities of pipistrelle bat (pipistrellus pipistrellus)",capture-recapture; chiroptera; demography; density dependence; human perturbation,POPULATION ECOLOGY,LOPEZ ROIG M;SERRA COBO J,"natural and anthropogenic disturbances can strongly impact population dynamics of species and are often responsible for zoonotic emerging infectious diseases. however, long-term studies on the demographic consequences of human disturbances are unusual. we used 6 years (1995-2000) of mark-recapture data to investigate how climatic conditions, human disturbance and density affect sex- and age-specific apparent survival probabilities of the pipistrelle bat (pipistrellus pipistrellus, schreber 1774) in a maternity colony. our study demonstrated that density played an important role in population dynamics of pipistrelle bat and that its effect differed with respect to age and sex. notably, human disturbance caused a strong decline of adult female survival, suggesting that perturbations have important consequences in bat-colony dynamics. juvenile female survival was negatively influenced by density, being considerably lower in high densities. in contrast, juvenile and adult males were apparently not affected as they had constant survival probabilities. although climatic factors can markedly affect population dynamics of temperate insectivorous bats, in this study, the weather conditions did not influence the survival rates of pipistrelle bats. we provide the first report that demonstrates the density-dependent effect on bat survival. that is especially relevant to better understanding of the bat-population dynamics and to evaluate the consequences of human disturbance and their potential changes in the maternity colony structure." "the montana deer and elk hunting population: the importance of cohort group, license price, and population demographics on hunter retention, recruitment, and population change",baby boomers; deer; elk; hunter recruitment; hunter retention; license price; license purchase probability; mark-recapture; montana; pradel model,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SCHORR RA;LUKACS PM;GUDE JA,"big-game hunting is a valuable resource for outdoor recreation opportunities, an economic driver for state and local economies, and the primary mechanism for funding game and non-game wildlife management. however, hunting license sales are declining, leading many state wildlife management agencies to re-evaluate funding and management structures. understanding the mechanisms behind such declines, and diagnosing the persistence of such trends is necessary to anticipate license fund fluctuations. to examine hunter recruitment and retention rates, we analyzed a data set of >490,000 deer and elk license records from 2002 to 2011 from the montana fish, wildlife and parks' automated licensing system. we used a temporal symmetry model in a mark-recapture framework to estimate hunter retention, recruitment rates, and population change, and then used population change estimates to forecast future hunter populations. we used covariates of gender, age, residency, and license price to improve model parsimony. millennial generation hunters increased during the 11-year analysis, and this was driven by high recruitment rates of young hunters, especially women, but recruitment decreased dramatically as youth aged. because baby boomers constitute such a large proportion of the hunting population, decreases in recruitment and retention in this cohort drove declines in the montana hunter population. increasing license price decreased the probability of recruiting and retaining hunters. the hunter population was stable until 2006, but has been declining since that time with nearly a 50% decline in hunter recruitment from 2002 to 2011. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." -estimates of density and sustainable harvest of the lowland tapir tapirus terrestris in the amazon of french guiana using a bayesian spatially explicit capture-recapture model,amazonian moist forest; bayesian analysis; camera traps; hunting; nouragues nature reserve; south america; spatially explicit capture-recapture model,ORYX,TOBLER MW;HIBERT F;DEBEIR L;RICHARD-HANSEN C,"the amazonian moist forest, which covers most of french guiana, is one of the core habitats for the lowland tapir tapirus terrestris. tapirs are hunted in french guiana, although a law introduced in 2011 restricts hunting to one animal per person per hunting trip. we carried out camera-trap surveys in the nouragues nature reserve for 4 years, with the goal of estimating tapir densities in undisturbed conditions and determining sustainable harvest levels for tapirs in french guiana. we analysed our data with a bayesian spatially explicit capture-recapture model, with parameter sharing across surveys to improve estimates, and used the model to calculate derived parameters such as maximum sustainable harvest levels. density estimates for all four surveys were similar and the model indicated a difference in encounter rates for the two camera models used but no difference in encounter rates or home range sizes for males and females or between years. based on the calculated density of 0.32 tapir km(-2) we estimated sustainable harvest levels at 0.009 tapir km(-2). comparing this value to hunting surveys from 11 sites between 1999 and 2006, we found that hunting levels were unsustainable in at least seven villages. we conclude that even the new restrictive hunting law will not prevent overhunting of tapirs in certain areas and thus stronger regulations are needed. however, because of the remoteness of tapir habitat in many parts of french guiana tapirs are not immediately threatened in the country as a whole." -the incidence of diabetes among 0-34 year olds in sweden: new data and better methods,epidemiology; incidence; spring harvest theory; type 1 diabetes,DIABETOLOGIA,RAWSHANI A;LANDIN-OLSSON M;SVENSSON AM;NYSTROM L;ARNQVIST HJ;BOLINDER J;GUDBJORNSDOTTIR S,"aims/hypothesis we reassessed the validity of previously reported incidence rates for type 1 diabetes in 0-34 year olds in sweden. we estimated new incidence rates through three nationwide registers. methods we used capture-recapture methods to assess ascertainment in the diabetes incidence study in sweden (diss) and estimated incidence rates in the 20-34 year age group for 2007-2009. we examined whether incidence rates in patients aged 34 and younger could be estimated through the prescribed drug register (pdr) via a proxy for diagnosis of type 1 diabetes; men with at least one and women with at least three prescriptions for insulin were included if they had not been given oral glucose-lowering drugs. we scrutinised the proxy by comparing incidence rates in patients aged 14 and younger with the swedish childhood diabetes register (scdr), which has 95-99% ascertainment, and by assessing diabetes type among 18-34 year olds in the national diabetes register (ndr). results incidence rates were two to three times higher than previously reported. the absolute number of cases (2007-2009, age 20-34) was 435 in the diss, 923 in the ndr, 1,217 in the pdr, 1,431 in all three and 1,617 per the capture-recapture method. ascertainment in the diss was similar to 29% for 2007-2009. the proxy diagnosis in the pdr was highly reliable, while the capture-recapture method presumably generated an overestimate. conclusions/interpretation the incidence of type 1 diabetes in patients aged 34 and younger was two to three times higher than previously reported. the pdr can be used to reliably assess incidence rates in this age group." +estimates of density and sustainable harvest of the lowland tapir tapirus terrestris in the amazon of french guiana using a bayesian spatially explicit capture-recapture model,amazonian moist forest; bayesian analysis; camera traps; hunting; nouragues nature reserve; south america; spatially explicit capture-recapture model,ORYX,TOBLER MW;HIBERT F;DEBEIR L;RICHARD HANSEN C,"the amazonian moist forest, which covers most of french guiana, is one of the core habitats for the lowland tapir tapirus terrestris. tapirs are hunted in french guiana, although a law introduced in 2011 restricts hunting to one animal per person per hunting trip. we carried out camera-trap surveys in the nouragues nature reserve for 4 years, with the goal of estimating tapir densities in undisturbed conditions and determining sustainable harvest levels for tapirs in french guiana. we analysed our data with a bayesian spatially explicit capture-recapture model, with parameter sharing across surveys to improve estimates, and used the model to calculate derived parameters such as maximum sustainable harvest levels. density estimates for all four surveys were similar and the model indicated a difference in encounter rates for the two camera models used but no difference in encounter rates or home range sizes for males and females or between years. based on the calculated density of 0.32 tapir km(-2) we estimated sustainable harvest levels at 0.009 tapir km(-2). comparing this value to hunting surveys from 11 sites between 1999 and 2006, we found that hunting levels were unsustainable in at least seven villages. we conclude that even the new restrictive hunting law will not prevent overhunting of tapirs in certain areas and thus stronger regulations are needed. however, because of the remoteness of tapir habitat in many parts of french guiana tapirs are not immediately threatened in the country as a whole." +the incidence of diabetes among 0-34 year olds in sweden: new data and better methods,epidemiology; incidence; spring harvest theory; type 1 diabetes,DIABETOLOGIA,RAWSHANI A;LANDIN OLSSON M;SVENSSON AM;NYSTROM L;ARNQVIST HJ;BOLINDER J;GUDBJORNSDOTTIR S,"aims/hypothesis we reassessed the validity of previously reported incidence rates for type 1 diabetes in 0-34 year olds in sweden. we estimated new incidence rates through three nationwide registers. methods we used capture-recapture methods to assess ascertainment in the diabetes incidence study in sweden (diss) and estimated incidence rates in the 20-34 year age group for 2007-2009. we examined whether incidence rates in patients aged 34 and younger could be estimated through the prescribed drug register (pdr) via a proxy for diagnosis of type 1 diabetes; men with at least one and women with at least three prescriptions for insulin were included if they had not been given oral glucose-lowering drugs. we scrutinised the proxy by comparing incidence rates in patients aged 14 and younger with the swedish childhood diabetes register (scdr), which has 95-99% ascertainment, and by assessing diabetes type among 18-34 year olds in the national diabetes register (ndr). results incidence rates were two to three times higher than previously reported. the absolute number of cases (2007-2009, age 20-34) was 435 in the diss, 923 in the ndr, 1,217 in the pdr, 1,431 in all three and 1,617 per the capture-recapture method. ascertainment in the diss was similar to 29% for 2007-2009. the proxy diagnosis in the pdr was highly reliable, while the capture-recapture method presumably generated an overestimate. conclusions/interpretation the incidence of type 1 diabetes in patients aged 34 and younger was two to three times higher than previously reported. the pdr can be used to reliably assess incidence rates in this age group." decrease in the incidence of culture-positive meningitis and cerebral tuberculomas in france from 1990 to 2007,capture-recapture analysis; meningitis; mycobacterium tuberculosis; trend; tuberculomas; tuberculous meningitis,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,BUI TV;MEYSSONNIER V;BOELLE PY;CHE D;ANTOINE D;JARLIER V;ROBERT J,"we evaluated the incidence rate of culture-positive central nervous system tuberculosis (cns tb) in france in 2007 and its time trend between 1990 and 2007. we used a capture-recapture analysis by using data recorded in 2007 by the mandatory notification system and the national network of the national reference centre (nrc). the 2007 sensitivity of the nrc was 79.4%. the previous sensitivity for 2000 (75.6%) and that for 2007 yielded a pooled estimate of 77.4% (95% confidence interval 64.8-88.0), which was used to extrapolate the number of culture-positive cns tb cases from those reported in four surveys (1990, 1995, 2000, 2007). the extrapolated number of culture-positive cns tb cases fell from 90 to 35 between 1990 and 2007, and the extrapolated incidence rates fell from 1.6 to 0.55 cases/million (p<0.001). this favourable trend should be closely monitored following the change of the bcg vaccination policy in 2007." age-dependent breeding dispersal and adult survival within a metapopulation of common terns sterna hirundo,actuarial senescence; buzzards bay; capture-mark-recapture; immigration; movement rates; predation; program mark; program u-care,IBIS,BRETON AR;NISBET ICT;MOSTELLO CS;HATCH JJ,"dispersal is increasingly recognized as a process of fundamental importance in population dynamics and other aspects of biology. concurrently, interest in age-dependent effects on survival, including actuarial senescence, has increased, especially in studies of long-lived seabirds. nevertheless, datasets necessary for studying dispersal and age-dependent effects are few, as these require simultaneous data collection at two or more sites over many years. we conducted a 22-year capture-mark-recapture study of common terns sterna hirundo at three breeding colonies 10-26km apart in buzzards bay, massachusetts, usa. all birds in the study were of known age (range 2-28years, median 7years, n=3290) and 77% were of known sex. estimates of adult recapture, survival and breeding dispersal rates were obtained for all age-classes from 2 to 20years. the model that acquired 100% of the qaicc (akaike's information criterion adjusted for small sample size and overdispersion) weight in our analysis included age-specificity in all parameters but no relationship with sex. our study may be the first to demonstrate age-specificity in recapture, survival and breeding dispersal rates simultaneously, using a single model. annual rates of breeding dispersal ranged from <0.01 to 0.27, with a population-weighted mean of 0.065; they decreased with increasing distance between colony sites and, unexpectedly, increased with age. breeding dispersal did not increase consistently after years with predation on adults or after an attempt to displace birds from an oiled site. survival rates did not vary among sites or years. annual adult survival increased from 0.80 in 2-year-old birds to a maximum of approximately 0.88 around age 8years and then declined to 0.76 at age 20years, yielding strong evidence for actuarial senescence. the peak annual survival rate of 0.88 is at the low end of other estimates for common tern and in the lower part of the range recorded for other terns, but total numbers in the three colonies increased seven-fold during the study. this was part of a slower increase in the regional population, with net immigration into the study colonies. our results demonstrate the biological significance of breeding dispersal in local population dynamics and age-related effects on survival and dispersal from a metapopulation of a long-lived seabird." experimentally decoupling reproductive investment from energy storage to test the functional basis of a life-history trade-off,anolis; cost of reproduction; energy allocation; estradiol; fat body; lizard; mark-recapture; natural selection; phenotypic manipulation; survival,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,COX RM;LOVERN MB;CALSBEEK R,"the ubiquitous life-history trade-off between reproduction and survival has long been hypothesized to reflect underlying energy-allocation trade-offs between reproductive investment and processes related to self-maintenance. although recent work has questioned whether energy-allocation models provide sufficient explanations for the survival cost of reproduction, direct tests of this hypothesis are rare, especially in wild populations. this hypothesis was tested in a wild population of brown anole lizards (anolis sagrei) using a two-step experiment. first, stepwise variation in reproductive investment was created using unilateral and bilateral ovariectomy (ovx) along with intact (sham) control. next, this manipulation was decoupled from its downstream effects on energy storage by surgically ablating the abdominal fat stores from half of the females in each reproductive treatment. as predicted, unilateral ovx (intermediate reproductive investment) induced levels of growth, body condition, fat storage and breeding-season survival that were intermediate between the high levels of bilateral ovx (no reproductive investment) and the low levels of sham (full reproductive investment). ablation of abdominal fat bodies had a strong and persistent effect on energy stores, but it did not influence post-breeding survival in any of the three reproductive treatments. this suggests that the energetic savings of reduced reproductive investment do not directly enhance post-breeding survival, with the caveat that only one aspect of energy storage was manipulated and ovx itself had no overall effect on post-breeding survival. this study supports the emerging view that simple energy-allocation models may often be insufficient as explanations for the life-history trade-off between reproduction and survival." -large-scale movements in european badgers: has the tail of the movement kernel been underestimated?,btb; btb vaccination; culling; dispersal kernel; landscape scale; mark-recapture; meles meles; sex-biased dispersal; wildlife management,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,BYRNE AW;QUINN JL;O'KEEFFE JJ;GREEN S;SLEEMAN DP;MARTIN SW;DAVENPORT J,"characterizing patterns of animal movementis a major aimin population ecology, and yet doing so at an appropriate spatial scale remains a major challenge. estimating the frequency and distances of movements is of particular importance when species are implicated in the transmission of zoonotic diseases. european badgers (meles meles) areclassically viewed as exhibiting limited dispersal, and yet their movements bring them into conflict with farmers due to their potential to spread bovine tuberculosis in parts of their range.considerable uncertainty surrounds themovement potential of badgers, and this may be related tothe spatial scale of previous empirical studies.we conducted a large-scale mark-recapture study (755km2; 2008-2012; 1935 capture events; 963 badgers) to investigate movement patterns in badgers, and undertook a comparative meta-analysis using published data from 15 european populations. the dispersal movement (>1km) kernel followed an inverse power-law function, with a substantial tail' indicating the occurrence of rare long-distance dispersal attempts during the study period. the mean recorded distance from this distribution was 2 center dot 6km, the 95 percentile was 7 center dot 3km and the longest recorded was 22 center dot 1km. dispersal frequency distributions were significantly different between genders; males dispersed more frequently than females, but females made proportionally more long-distance dispersal attempts than males. we used a subsampling approach to demonstrate that the appropriate minimum spatial scale to characterize badger movements in our study population was 80km2, substantially larger than many previous badger studies. furthermore, the meta-analysis indicated a significant association between maximum movement distance and study area size, while controlling for population density. maximum long-distance movements were often only recorded by chance beyond the boundaries of study areas. these findings suggest that the tail of the badger movement distribution is currently underestimated. the implications of this for understanding the spatial ecology of badger populations and for the design of disease intervention strategies are potentially significant." +large-scale movements in european badgers: has the tail of the movement kernel been underestimated?,btb; btb vaccination; culling; dispersal kernel; landscape scale; mark-recapture; meles meles; sex-biased dispersal; wildlife management,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,BYRNE AW;QUINN JL;O KEEFFE JJ;GREEN S;SLEEMAN DP;MARTIN SW;DAVENPORT J,"characterizing patterns of animal movementis a major aimin population ecology, and yet doing so at an appropriate spatial scale remains a major challenge. estimating the frequency and distances of movements is of particular importance when species are implicated in the transmission of zoonotic diseases. european badgers (meles meles) areclassically viewed as exhibiting limited dispersal, and yet their movements bring them into conflict with farmers due to their potential to spread bovine tuberculosis in parts of their range.considerable uncertainty surrounds themovement potential of badgers, and this may be related tothe spatial scale of previous empirical studies.we conducted a large-scale mark-recapture study (755km2; 2008-2012; 1935 capture events; 963 badgers) to investigate movement patterns in badgers, and undertook a comparative meta-analysis using published data from 15 european populations. the dispersal movement (>1km) kernel followed an inverse power-law function, with a substantial tail' indicating the occurrence of rare long-distance dispersal attempts during the study period. the mean recorded distance from this distribution was 2 center dot 6km, the 95 percentile was 7 center dot 3km and the longest recorded was 22 center dot 1km. dispersal frequency distributions were significantly different between genders; males dispersed more frequently than females, but females made proportionally more long-distance dispersal attempts than males. we used a subsampling approach to demonstrate that the appropriate minimum spatial scale to characterize badger movements in our study population was 80km2, substantially larger than many previous badger studies. furthermore, the meta-analysis indicated a significant association between maximum movement distance and study area size, while controlling for population density. maximum long-distance movements were often only recorded by chance beyond the boundaries of study areas. these findings suggest that the tail of the badger movement distribution is currently underestimated. the implications of this for understanding the spatial ecology of badger populations and for the design of disease intervention strategies are potentially significant." reducing bias in survival under nonrandom temporary emigration,bias reduction; florida manatees; incidental observations; markovian emigration; mark-recapture; program mark simulations; recoveries; resightings; robust design; telemetry; survival estimation; trichechus manatus latirostris,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,PENALOZA CL;KENDALL WL;LANGTIMM CA,"despite intensive monitoring, temporary emigration from the sampling area can induce bias severe enough for managers to discard survival parameter estimates toward the terminus of the times series (terminal bias). under random temporary emigration, unbiased parameters can be estimated with cjs models. however, unmodeled markovian temporary emigration causes bias in parameter estimates, and an unobservable state is required to model this type of emigration. the robust design is most flexible when modeling temporary emigration, and partial solutions to mitigate bias have been identified; nonetheless, there are conditions were terminal bias prevails. long-lived species with high adult survival and highly variable nonrandom temporary emigration present terminal bias in survival estimates, despite being modeled with the robust design and suggested constraints. because this bias is due to uncertainty about the fate of individuals that are undetected toward the end of the time series, solutions should involve using additional information on survival status or location of these individuals at that time. using simulation, we evaluated the performance of models that jointly analyze robust design data and an additional source of ancillary data (predictive covariate on temporary emigration, telemetry, dead recovery, or auxiliary resightings) in reducing terminal bias in survival estimates. the auxiliary resighting and predictive covariate models reduced terminal bias the most. additional telemetry data were effective at reducing terminal bias only when individuals were tracked for a minimum of two years. high adult survival of long-lived species made the joint model with recovery data ineffective at reducing terminal bias because of small-sample bias. the naive constraint model (last and penultimate temporary emigration parameters made equal), was the least efficient, although still able to reduce terminal bias when compared to an unconstrained model. joint analysis of several sources of data improved parameter estimates and reduced terminal bias. efforts to incorporate or acquire such data should be considered by researchers and wildlife managers, especially in the years leading up to status assessments of species of interest. simulation modeling is a very cost-effective method to explore the potential impacts of using different sources of data to produce high-quality demographic data to inform management." designing screening protocols for amphibian disease that account for imperfect and variable capture rates of individuals,batrachochytrium dendrobatidis; bayesian statistics; binomial model; bombina variegata pachypus; chytridiomycosis; detectability; jolly-seber model; liguria; mark-recapture; monitoring; predictive models; surveillance,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,CANESSA S;MARTEL A;PASMANS F,"the amphibian chytrid fungus, batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, is one of the main factors in global amphibian decline. accurate knowledge of its presence and prevalence in an area is needed to trigger conservation actions. however, imperfect capture rates determine the number of individuals caught and tested during field surveys, and contribute to the uncertainty surrounding estimates of prevalence. screening programs should be planned with the objective of minimizing such uncertainty. we show how this can be achieved by using predictive models that incorporate information about population size and capture rates. using as a case study an existing screening program for three populations of the yellow-bellied toad (bombina variegata pachypus) in northern italy, we sought to quantify the effect of seasonal variation in individual capture rates on the uncertainty surrounding estimates of chytrid prevalence. we obtained estimates of population size and capture rates from mark-recapture data, and found wide seasonal variation in the individual recapture rates. we then incorporated this information in a binomial model to predict the estimates of prevalence that would be obtained by sampling at different times in the season, assuming no infected individuals were found. sampling during the period of maximum capture probability was predicted to decrease upper 95% credible intervals by a maximum of 36%, compared with least suitable periods, with greater gains when using uninformative priors. we evaluated model predictions by comparing them with the results of screening surveys in 2012. the observed results closely matched the predicted figures for all populations, suggesting that this method can be reliably used to maximize the sampling size of surveillance programs, thus improving their efficiency." -selection based on the size of the black tie of the great tit may be reversed in urban habitats,divergent selection; parus major; plumage coloration; survival; trap response; urban adaptation,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SENAR JC;CONROY MJ;QUESADA J;MATEOS-GONZALEZ F,"a standard approach to model how selection shapes phenotypic traits is the analysis of capture-recapture data relating trait variation to survival. divergent selection, however, has never been analyzed by the capture-recapture approach. most reported examples of differences between urban and nonurban animals reflect behavioral plasticity rather than divergent selection. the aim of this paper was to use a capture-recapture approach to test the hypothesis that divergent selection can also drive local adaptation in urban habitats. we focused on the size of the black breast stripe (i.e., tie width) of the great tit (parus major), a sexual ornament used in mate choice. urban great tits display smaller tie sizes than forest birds. because tie size is mostly genetically determined, it could potentially respond to selection. we analyzed capture/recapture data of male great tits in barcelona city (n = 171) and in a nearby (7 km) forest (n = 324) from 1992 to 2008 using mark. when modelling recapture rate, we found it to be strongly influenced by tie width, so that both for urban and forest habitats, birds with smaller ties were more trap-shy and more cautious than their larger tied counterparts. when modelling survival, we found that survival prospects in forest great tits increased the larger their tie width (i.e., directional positive selection), but the reverse was found for urban birds, with individuals displaying smaller ties showing higher survival (i.e., directional negative selection). as melanin-based tie size seems to be related to personality, and both are heritable, results may be explained by cautious personalities being favored in urban environments. more importantly, our results show that divergent selection can be an important mechanism in local adaptation to urban habitats and that capture-recapture is a powerful tool to test it." +selection based on the size of the black tie of the great tit may be reversed in urban habitats,divergent selection; parus major; plumage coloration; survival; trap response; urban adaptation,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SENAR JC;CONROY MJ;QUESADA J;MATEOS GONZALEZ F,"a standard approach to model how selection shapes phenotypic traits is the analysis of capture-recapture data relating trait variation to survival. divergent selection, however, has never been analyzed by the capture-recapture approach. most reported examples of differences between urban and nonurban animals reflect behavioral plasticity rather than divergent selection. the aim of this paper was to use a capture-recapture approach to test the hypothesis that divergent selection can also drive local adaptation in urban habitats. we focused on the size of the black breast stripe (i.e., tie width) of the great tit (parus major), a sexual ornament used in mate choice. urban great tits display smaller tie sizes than forest birds. because tie size is mostly genetically determined, it could potentially respond to selection. we analyzed capture/recapture data of male great tits in barcelona city (n = 171) and in a nearby (7 km) forest (n = 324) from 1992 to 2008 using mark. when modelling recapture rate, we found it to be strongly influenced by tie width, so that both for urban and forest habitats, birds with smaller ties were more trap-shy and more cautious than their larger tied counterparts. when modelling survival, we found that survival prospects in forest great tits increased the larger their tie width (i.e., directional positive selection), but the reverse was found for urban birds, with individuals displaying smaller ties showing higher survival (i.e., directional negative selection). as melanin-based tie size seems to be related to personality, and both are heritable, results may be explained by cautious personalities being favored in urban environments. more importantly, our results show that divergent selection can be an important mechanism in local adaptation to urban habitats and that capture-recapture is a powerful tool to test it." high juvenile annual survival probabilities in southern rockhopper penguins eudyptes chrysocome are independent of individual fledging traits,capture-mark-recapture; fledging; mark; return rate,IBIS,DEHNHARD N;POISBLEAU M;DEMONGIN L;LUDYNIA K;QUILLFELDT P,"juvenile survival is an important demographic parameter. southern rockhopper penguins eudyptes chrysocome have undergone a dramatic population decline in the past century across their distribution, but the demographic processes are poorly understood. to estimate juvenile annual survival probabilities, rockhopper penguin chicks from two cohorts on new island, falkland islands, were marked with transponders and recorded in subsequent years using an automated gateway. we first estimated annual survival and detection probabilities using a cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) model, and found that both probabilities were extremely high (81% in the first and 98% in the second, third and fourth years of life), even in comparison with adult birds. because detection probability after 3years was effectively 1, and our sample size (n=114) was too small to explore the effects of individual traits on survival in a cjs model, we assessed whether sex, cohort, body mass and laying sequence affected whether juveniles returned to the colony during their first 3years of life using a simple generalized linear model that assumed perfect detection. juveniles from the first cohort and males showed a higher return probability than juveniles from the second cohort and females. there was no clear effect of fledging body mass on return rate, probably related to the favourable environmental conditions during the study period. the laying sequence did not markedly affect the return probability of chicks, indicating that, once fledged, first-laid a-chicks have the same probability to return as second-laid b-chicks despite a much larger initial maternal investment in b-eggs in this species. this study demonstrates extraordinarily high juvenile survival probabilities and will help to understand the recent changes in the population dynamics of the falkland islands southern rockhopper penguins." -hierarchical modelling of population growth rate from individual capture-recapture data,bayesian analysis; balearic shearwater; gibbs variable selection; mark-recapture; population dynamics; rate of population change; scopoli's shearwater; storm petrel; survival; temporal symmetry model,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,TENAN S;PRADEL R;TAVECCHIA G;IGUAL JM;SANZ-AGUILAR A;GENOVART M;ORO D,"1. estimating rates of population change is essential to achieving theoretical and applied goals in population ecology, and the pradel (1996, biometrics, 52: 703.) temporal symmetry method permits direct estimation and modelling of the growth rate of open populations, using capture-recapture data frommarked animals. 2. we present a bayesian formulation of the pradel approach that permits a hierarchical modelling of the biological and sampling processes. two parametrizations for the temporal symmetry likelihood are presented and implemented into a general purpose software in bugs language. 3. we first consider a set of simulated scenarios to evaluate performance of a bayesian variable selection approach to test the temporal linear trend on survival and seniority probability, population growth rate and detectability. we then provide an example application on individual detection information of three species of burrowing nesting seabirds, whose populations cannot be directly counted. for each species, we assess the strength of evidence for temporal random variation and the temporal linear trend on survival probability, population growth rate and detectability. 4. the bayesian formulation provides more flexibility, by easily allowing the extension of the original fixed time effects structure to random time effects, an option that is still impractical in a frequentist framework." +hierarchical modelling of population growth rate from individual capture-recapture data,bayesian analysis; balearic shearwater; gibbs variable selection; mark-recapture; population dynamics; rate of population change; scopoli's shearwater; storm petrel; survival; temporal symmetry model,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,TENAN S;PRADEL R;TAVECCHIA G;IGUAL JM;SANZ AGUILAR A;GENOVART M;ORO D,"1. estimating rates of population change is essential to achieving theoretical and applied goals in population ecology, and the pradel (1996, biometrics, 52: 703.) temporal symmetry method permits direct estimation and modelling of the growth rate of open populations, using capture-recapture data frommarked animals. 2. we present a bayesian formulation of the pradel approach that permits a hierarchical modelling of the biological and sampling processes. two parametrizations for the temporal symmetry likelihood are presented and implemented into a general purpose software in bugs language. 3. we first consider a set of simulated scenarios to evaluate performance of a bayesian variable selection approach to test the temporal linear trend on survival and seniority probability, population growth rate and detectability. we then provide an example application on individual detection information of three species of burrowing nesting seabirds, whose populations cannot be directly counted. for each species, we assess the strength of evidence for temporal random variation and the temporal linear trend on survival probability, population growth rate and detectability. 4. the bayesian formulation provides more flexibility, by easily allowing the extension of the original fixed time effects structure to random time effects, an option that is still impractical in a frequentist framework." estimating the abundance of rare and elusive carnivores from photographic-sampling data when the population size is very small,camera traps; capture-recapture; heterogeneous detection; small population,POPULATION ECOLOGY,GERBER BD;IVAN JS;BURNHAM KP,"conservation and management agencies require accurate and precise estimates of abundance when considering the status of a species and the need for directed actions. due to the proliferation of remote sampling cameras, there has been an increase in capture-recapture studies that estimate the abundance of rare and/or elusive species using closed capture-recapture estimators (c-r). however, data from these studies often do not meet necessary statistical assumptions. common attributes of these data are (1) infrequent detections, (2) a small number of individuals detected, (3) long survey durations, and (4) variability in detection among individuals. we believe there is a need for guidance when analyzing this type of sparse data. we highlight statistical limitations of closed c-r estimators when data are sparse and suggest an alternative approach over the conventional use of the jackknife estimator. our approach aims to maximize the probability individuals are detected at least once over the entire sampling period, thus making the modeling of variability in the detection process irrelevant, estimating abundance accurately and precisely. we use simulations to demonstrate when using the unconditional-likelihood m (0) (constant detection probability) closed c-r estimator with profile-likelihood confidence intervals provides reliable results even when detection varies by individual. if each individual in the population is detected on average of at least 2.5 times, abundance estimates are accurate and precise. when studies sample the same species at multiple areas or at the same area over time, we suggest sharing detection information across datasets to increase precision when estimating abundance. the approach suggested here should be useful for monitoring small populations of species that are difficult to detect." use of glacier river-fed estuary channels by juvenile coho salmon: transitional or rearing habitats?,coho salmon; glacial estuaries; early marine rearing; smolting habitats,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,NEHER TDH;ROSENBERGER AE;ZIMMERMAN CE;WALKER CM;BAIRD SJ,"estuaries are among the most productive ecosystems in the world and provide important rearing environments for a variety of fish species. though generally considered important transitional habitats for smolting salmon, little is known about the role that estuaries serve for rearing and the environmental conditions important for salmon. we illustrate how juvenile coho salmon oncorhynchus kisutch use a glacial river-fed estuary based on examination of spatial and seasonal variability in patterns of abundance, fish size, age structure, condition, and local habitat use. fish abundance was greater in deeper channels with cooler and less variable temperatures, and these habitats were consistently occupied throughout the season. variability in channel depth and water temperature was negatively associated with fish abundance. fish size was negatively related to site distance from the upper extent of the tidal influence, while fish condition did not relate to channel location within the estuary ecotone. our work demonstrates the potential this glacially-fed estuary serves as both transitional and rearing habitat for juvenile coho salmon during smolt emigration to the ocean, and patterns of fish distribution within the estuary correspond to environmental conditions." estimating tag reporting rates for tropical tuna fleets of the indian ocean,reporting rate; indian ocean; tropical tuna; bayesian; tagging; mark-recapture,FISHERIES RESEARCH,CARRUTHERS T;FONTENEAU A;HALLIER JP,"estimates of tag reporting rates are necessary in order to estimate tag-recovery rates and interpret tagging data in terms of movement rates, exploitation rates and abundance. we describe a bayesian framework for the estimation of reporting rates for multiple fleets using coincidental tagging and catch data dis-aggregated by fish size, species, location and time. the method was applied to the data of the indian ocean tuna tagging programme (2006-2011) and tag seeding experiment of the indian ocean tuna commission (2004-2009). reporting rates were estimated for 13 indian ocean tuna fleets. these estimates varied widely from 94% for the european union purse seine fleet to less than 1% for fishing operations of non-longline/non-purse seine fleets in the eastern indian ocean. generally, reporting rates were high compared with estimates for tuna fisheries in other oceans. (c) 2014 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -demographic status and genetic tagging of endangered capercaillie in nw spain,NA,PLOS ONE,MORAN-LUIS M;FAMELI A;BLANCO-FONTAO B;FERNANDEZ-GIL A;RODRIGUEZ-MUNOZ R;QUEVEDO M;MIROL P;BANUELOS MJ,"counting rare and elusive animals and evaluating their demographic status, are fundamental yet challenging aspects of population ecology and conservation biology. we set out to estimate population size (n-c), genetic effective population size (n-e (gen)), sex ratio, and movements based on genetic tagging for the threatened cantabrian capercaillie. we used 9 microsatellite loci to genotype 134 droppings collected at 34 display areas during the breeding season. using genetic capture-mark-recapture, we estimated 93 individuals (n-c, 95% ci: 70-116) in an area of about 500 km(2), with sex ratio biased towards males (1: 1.6). estimated n-e gen (35.5) was 38% of n-c, notably higher than the published average in wild populations. this capercaillie population is small and well within concern in terms of population viability. by genetic tagging, we detected mostly short movements; just a few males were recaptured between contiguous display areas. non-invasive surveys of endangered populations have a great potential, yet adequate sample size and location are key to obtain reliable information on conservation status." +demographic status and genetic tagging of endangered capercaillie in nw spain,NA,PLOS ONE,MORAN LUIS M;FAMELI A;BLANCO FONTAO B;FERNANDEZ GIL A;RODRIGUEZ MUNOZ R;QUEVEDO M;MIROL P;BANUELOS MJ,"counting rare and elusive animals and evaluating their demographic status, are fundamental yet challenging aspects of population ecology and conservation biology. we set out to estimate population size (n-c), genetic effective population size (n-e (gen)), sex ratio, and movements based on genetic tagging for the threatened cantabrian capercaillie. we used 9 microsatellite loci to genotype 134 droppings collected at 34 display areas during the breeding season. using genetic capture-mark-recapture, we estimated 93 individuals (n-c, 95% ci: 70-116) in an area of about 500 km(2), with sex ratio biased towards males (1: 1.6). estimated n-e gen (35.5) was 38% of n-c, notably higher than the published average in wild populations. this capercaillie population is small and well within concern in terms of population viability. by genetic tagging, we detected mostly short movements; just a few males were recaptured between contiguous display areas. non-invasive surveys of endangered populations have a great potential, yet adequate sample size and location are key to obtain reliable information on conservation status." "survival, recruitment, and population growth rate of an important mesopredator: the northern raccoon",NA,PLOS ONE,TROYER EM;DEVITT SEC;SUNQUIST ME;GOSWAMI VR;OLI MK,"populations of mesopredators (mid-sized mammalian carnivores) are expanding in size and range amid declining apex predator populations and ever-growing human presence, leading to significant ecological impacts. despite their obvious importance, population dynamics have scarcely been studied for most mesopredator species. information on basic population parameters and processes under a range of conditions is necessary for managing these species. here we investigate survival, recruitment, and population growth rate of a widely distributed and abundant mesopredator, the northern raccoon (procyon lotor), using pradel's temporal symmetry models and >6 years of monthly capture-mark-recapture data collected in a protected area. monthly apparent survival probability was higher for females (0.949, 95% ci = 0.936-0.960) than for males (0.908, 95% ci = 0.893-0.920), while monthly recruitment rate was higher for males (0.091, 95% ci = 0.078-0.106) than for females (0.054, 95% ci = 0.042-0.067). finally, monthly realized population growth rate was 1.000 (95% ci = 0.996-1.004), indicating that our study population has reached a stable equilibrium in this relatively undisturbed habitat. there was little evidence for substantial temporal variation in population growth rate or its components. our study is one of the first to quantify survival, recruitment, and realized population growth rate of raccoons using long-term data and rigorous statistical models." reliability of different mark-recapture methods for population size estimation tested against reference population sizes constructed from field data,NA,PLOS ONE,GRIMM A;GRUBER B;HENLE K,"reliable estimates of population size are fundamental in many ecological studies and biodiversity conservation. selecting appropriate methods to estimate abundance is often very difficult, especially if data are scarce. most studies concerning the reliability of different estimators used simulation data based on assumptions about capture variability that do not necessarily reflect conditions in natural populations. here, we used data from an intensively studied closed population of the arboreal gecko gehyra variegata to construct reference population sizes for assessing twelve different population size estimators in terms of bias, precision, accuracy, and their 95%-confidence intervals. two of the reference populations reflect natural biological entities, whereas the other reference populations reflect artificial subsets of the population. since individual heterogeneity was assumed, we tested modifications of the lincoln-petersen estimator, a set of models in programs mark and care-2, and a truncated geometric distribution. ranking of methods was similar across criteria. models accounting for individual heterogeneity performed best in all assessment criteria. for populations from heterogeneous habitats without obvious covariates explaining individual heterogeneity, we recommend using the moment estimator or the interpolated jackknife estimator (both implemented in capture/mark). if data for capture frequencies are substantial, we recommend the sample coverage or the estimating equation (both models implemented in care-2). depending on the distribution of catchabilities, our proposed multiple lincoln-petersen and a truncated geometric distribution obtained comparably good results. the former usually resulted in a minimum population size and the latter can be recommended when there is a long tail of low capture probabilities. models with covariates and mixture models performed poorly. our approach identified suitable methods and extended options to evaluate the performance of mark-recapture population size estimators under field conditions, which is essential for selecting an appropriate method and obtaining reliable results in ecology and conservation biology, and thus for sound management." guidelines for msat and snp panels that lead to high-quality data for genetic mark-recapture studies,genetic mark-recapture; microsatellite; single nucleotide polymorphism; genotyping error; probability of identity,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,SETHI SA;COOK GM;LEMONS P;WENBURG J,"molecular markers with inadequate power to discriminate among individuals can lead to false recaptures (shadows), and inaccurate genotyping can lead to missed recaptures (ghosts), potentially biasing genetic mark-recapture estimates. we used simulations to examine the impact of microsatellite (msat) and single nucleotide polymorphism (snp) marker-set size, allelic frequency, multitubes approaches, and sample matching protocols on shadow and ghost events in genetic mark-recapture studies, presenting guidance on the specifications for msat and snp marker panels, and sample matching protocols necessary to produce high-quality data. shadow events are controllable by increasing the number of markers or by selecting markers with high discriminatory power; reasonably sized marker sets (e. g., >= 9 msats or >= 32 snps) of moderate allelic diversity lead to low probabilities of shadow errors. ghost events are more challenging to control and low allelic dropout or false-allele error rates produced high rates of erroneous mismatches in mark-recapture sampling. fortunately, error-tolerant matching protocols, which use information from positively matching loci between comparisons of samples, and multitubes protocols to achieve consensus genotypes are effective at eliminating ghost events. we present a case study on pacific walrus, odobenus rosmarus divergens (illiger, 1815), using simulation results to inform genetic marker choices." @@ -2539,19 +2542,19 @@ conting: an r package for bayesian analysis of complete and incomplete contingen estimating sample size for landscape-scale mark-recapture studies of north american migratory tree bats,capture probability; burnham joint model; lasiurines; mark-recapture; migration; recovery probability; survival,ACTA CHIROPTEROLOGICA,SCHORR RA;ELLISON LE;LUKACS PM,"concern for migratory tree-roosting bats in north america has grown because of possible population declines from wind energy development. this concern has driven interest in estimating population-level changes. mark-recapture methodology is one possible analytical framework for assessing bat population changes, but sample size requirements to produce reliable estimates have not been estimated. to illustrate the sample sizes necessary for a mark-recapture-based monitoring program we conducted power analyses using a statistical model that allows reencounters of live and dead marked individuals. we ran 1,000 simulations for each of five broad sample size categories in a burnham joint model, and then compared the proportion of simulations in which 95% confidence intervals overlapped between and among years for a 4-year study. additionally, we conducted sensitivity analyses of sample size to various capture probabilities and recovery probabilities. more than 50,000 individuals per year would need to be captured and released to accurately determine 10% and 15% declines in annual survival. to detect more dramatic declines of 33% or 50% survival over four years, then sample sizes of 25,000 or 10,000 per year, respectively, would be sufficient. sensitivity analyses reveal that increasing recovery of dead marked individuals may be more valuable than increasing capture probability of marked individuals. because of the extraordinary effort that would be required, we advise caution should such a mark-recapture effort be initiated because of the difficulty in attaining reliable estimates. we make recommendations for what techniques show the most promise for mark-recapture studies of bats because some techniques violate the assumptions of mark-recapture methodology when used to mark bats." ecology of aquatic warblers acrocephalus paludicola in a fall stopover area on the atlantic coast of france,stopover duration; diet; habitats; fuel deposition rate; post-breeding migration; radio tracking,ACTA ORNITHOLOGICA,MUSSEAU R;HERRMANN V;BENARD S;KERBIRIOU C;HERAULT T;JIGUET F,"the aquatic warbler acrocephalus paludicola is the only endangered songbird in continental europe. this trans-saharan migratory bird significantly transits along the french atlantic coastline during post-breeding migration and the right bank of the gironde estuary has been identified as an important stopover site. we studied the spatial occupancy strategies of stationing individuals during august of three successive years (2010-2012). we characterized habitat use by radio-tracking individuals revealing relatively small foraging ranges (6.6 +/- 2.6 ha on average) with only 1 ha actually exploited (core area), and a relatively high habitat fragmentation rate. capture-mark-recapture analyses assessed the average stopover duration of individuals and body-mass variations during their stopover. the estimated average stopover duration was 6.46 +/- 0.46 days (95% confidence interval: 4.4-9.6). lean birds tended to forage significantly more than stout birds: on average, they gain 2.81 +/- 0.89% of their initial mass each day whereas stout birds only gain 0.12 +/- 0.56%. analyses of droppings characterized the local diet. we noticed that aquatic warbler preferentially used partially-flooded or flooded habitats with heterogeneous and rather low vegetation, such as bulrush beds or bulrush beds mixed with reed beds. orthoptera, araneae and hymenoptera represented the largest contributions to the consumed biomass (64.7%, 13.4% and 8.9% respectively). the importance of the fuel deposition rate of lean birds reflects the importance of the estuary as a stopover site for the species. it means that the available resources allow birds to replenish and continue their migration route. however, the sustainability of the site's functionality is questioned because of the evolution of habitats (erosion, rise in water levels and changes in food web)." a conop9 composite taxon range chart for ordovician conodonts from baltoscandia: a framework for biostratigraphic correlation and maximum-likelihood biodiversity analyses,ordovician; baltoscandia; conodonts; diversity trends; extinction; conop9 correlation technique,GFF,GOLDMAN D;BERGSTROM SM;SHEETS HD;PANTLE C,"the middle and upper ordovician rocks of baltoscandia have been divided into spatially distinct, composite litho-and biofacies units called confacies belts. the precise regional correlation of outcrops and boreholes, which is necessary for biodiversity analyses, has always been problematic due to the pronounced biogeographical differentiation of macrofossils and horizontal lithofacies changes. we used a computer-assisted numerical sequencing program (conop9) to construct a correlation model and composite range chart from the stratigraphic range data of 159 conodont species in 24 boreholes and outcrops in baltoscandia. we converted the composite section into a timescale in which to calculate the biodiversity, extinction, origination and fossil sampling probabilities through the ordovician period. rates of extinction and origination were calculated using both simple approaches which do not incorporate estimates of sampling probability, and also more complex maximum-likelihood approaches based on capture-mark-recapture (cmr) models. our data show that overall biodiversity increases steadily from the base of the paltodus deltifer zone to the uppermost baltoniodus norrlandicus zone and then maintains an uneven diversity plateau until the earliest sandbian. diversity then declines dramatically throughout the remainder of the ordovician. cmr analyses suggest that extinction rates remain constant throughout most of the ordovician indicating that the dramatic late middle and late ordovician decline in conodont diversity in baltoscandia is attributable to depressed origination." -getting a handle on the general practice workforce in ireland,primary care; workforce,IRISH JOURNAL OF MEDICAL SCIENCE,TELJEUR C;TYRRELL E;KELLY A;O'DOWD T;THOMAS S,"background general practice makes a critical contribution to healthcare in ireland. however, there is a weak understanding of the general practice workforce in ireland. aims the aim of this study is to estimate the number of general practitioners (gps) and practice nurses in ireland. methods a variety of data sources was used to corroborate counts of general practitioners and practice nurses. capture-recapture methods were used to estimate the hidden population of gps not identified by the databases included. results there are 2,954 general practitioners in ireland, equivalent to 64.4 per 100,000 population. there are 1,700 practice nurses nationally, equivalent to 37.1 per 100,000 persons. there is substantial regional variation in the number of general practitioners and practice nurses per 100,000. to some extent, deficits in one discipline may be counterbalanced by a surplus in the other. conclusions in the absence of a centralised register, it is not possible to track the number of gps or practice nurses working in ireland at present. this is despite the fact that there are twice as many general practice visits per annum compared to hospital visits." +getting a handle on the general practice workforce in ireland,primary care; workforce,IRISH JOURNAL OF MEDICAL SCIENCE,TELJEUR C;TYRRELL E;KELLY A;O DOWD T;THOMAS S,"background general practice makes a critical contribution to healthcare in ireland. however, there is a weak understanding of the general practice workforce in ireland. aims the aim of this study is to estimate the number of general practitioners (gps) and practice nurses in ireland. methods a variety of data sources was used to corroborate counts of general practitioners and practice nurses. capture-recapture methods were used to estimate the hidden population of gps not identified by the databases included. results there are 2,954 general practitioners in ireland, equivalent to 64.4 per 100,000 population. there are 1,700 practice nurses nationally, equivalent to 37.1 per 100,000 persons. there is substantial regional variation in the number of general practitioners and practice nurses per 100,000. to some extent, deficits in one discipline may be counterbalanced by a surplus in the other. conclusions in the absence of a centralised register, it is not possible to track the number of gps or practice nurses working in ireland at present. this is despite the fact that there are twice as many general practice visits per annum compared to hospital visits." persisting in a windy habitat: population ecology and behavioral adaptations of two endemic grasshopper species in the cape region (south africa),dispersal; habitat connectivity; habitat utilization; orthoptera; restionid fynbos; wetland conservation,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,MATENAAR D;BRODER L;BAZELET CS;HOCHKIRCH A,"global biodiversity hotspots are rich in endemic insect species, many of which are threatened by the ongoing anthropogenic pressures on their habitats. the cape region (south africa) is one of these biodiversity hotspots, maintaining a high number of endemics. however, the ecology of most insect species in this region remains poorly understood. the two orthoptera species betiscoides meridionalis and betiscoides parva are endemic to the cape region and specialized on restio vegetation. they are threatened by increasing wildfire frequencies and invasions of non-native plant species. however, this information has been inferred from habitat changes, whereas no ecological study on these species has been conducted since they have been described. in order to facilitate conservation management, information on the ecology of these species is urgently required. the aim of our study was (1) to obtain data on the population ecology (particularly population sizes and mobility), and (2) to study the behavior of both species in response to environmental factors. for this purpose a mark-recapture-study and an observational behavior study were conducted. both species had small population sizes and a low mobility with males moving greater distances than females. wind had a strong influence on the behavior of betiscoides, particularly on the small males of b. parva. future studies might thus focus on the question whether wind-exposure is a critical factor for habitat choice of this species. we strongly recommend enhancing the connectivity of restio habitats and restoring these habitats to prevent extinction of specialized insect species." behavioral response of bats to passive integrated transponder tag reader arrays placed at cave entrances,bats; indiana bat; behavior; passive integrated transponder (pit) tags,JOURNAL OF FISH AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,BRITZKE ER;GUMBERT MW;HOHMANN MG,"an increasingly popular mark-recapture method to study the ecology of bats is the use of passive integrated transponder (pit) tags. deployment of pit reader arrays at entrances to caves and mines can yield insight into bat behavior during swarming, winter activity, and emergence. this application has the potential to address questions about bat activity at cave and mine entrances in response to white-nose syndrome or bat seasonal movements; however, no studies have examined the response of bats to these arrays. we describe bat response to placement of pit tag reader arrays using camcorders and supplemental infrared illuminators at three cave entrances near bloomington, indiana, during spring 2006. a random subset of 5-min periods was viewed and bat behavior was classified. circling represented >70% of all behavior noted for two caves but only represented approximately 30% of behavior at the third cave. proportions of observed activity that resulted in contacts or landings were consistently low across the three caves ((x) over bar = 1.34%; range 0.5-3.0%), with most contacts causing bats to simply change course and fly away. based on our observations, positioning reader pit tag reader arrays at cave entrances to passively recapture pit tags does not limit bat movements. however, video monitoring during initial sampling efforts of future projects should be conducted to verify appropriate placement and configuration of pit tag reader arrays. this research provides data illustrating the lack of significant impact in using pit tag reader arrays at cave entrances, thereby opening up the potential use of this technology to address issues of bats ecology that cannot be obtained with other marking techniques." using imputation and mixture model approaches to integrate multi-state capture-recapture models with assignment information,capture-recapture; dispersal; genetic assignment tests; imputation approach; kangaroo rat; mixture model; multi-state; population assignment procedure; robust-design; semiparametric; superpopulation,BIOMETRICS,WEN Z;POLLOCK KH;NICHOLS JD;WASER PM;CAO WH,"in this article, we first extend the superpopulation capture-recapture model to multiple states (locations or populations) for two age groups., wen et al., (2011; 2013) developed a new approach combining capture-recapture data with population assignment information to estimate the relative contributions of in situ births and immigrants to the growth of a single study population. here, we first generalize wen et al., (2011; 2013) approach to a system composed of multiple study populations (multi-state) with two age groups, where an imputation approach is employed to account for the uncertainty inherent in the population assignment information. then we develop a different, individual-level mixture model approach to integrate the individual-level population assignment information with the capture-recapture data. our simulation and real data analyses show that the fusion of population assignment information with capture-recapture data allows us to estimate the origination-specific recruitment of new animals to the system and the dispersal process between populations within the system. compared to a standard capture-recapture model, our new models improve the estimation of demographic parameters, including survival probability, origination-specific entry probability, and especially the probability of movement between populations, yielding higher accuracy and precision." does your species have memory? analyzing capture-recapture data with memory models,diagnostic goodness-of-fit tests; e-surge; identifiability; parameter redundancy; score tests; u-care,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,COLE DJ;MORGAN BJT;MCCREA RS;PRADEL R;GIMENEZ O;CHOQUET R,"we examine memory models for multisite capture-recapture data. this is an important topic, as animals may exhibit behavior that is more complex than simple first-order markov movement between sites, when it is necessary to devise and fit appropriate models to data. we consider the arnason-schwarz model for multisite capture-recapture data, which incorporates just first-order markov movement, and also two alternative models that allow for memory, the brownie model and the pradel model. we use simulation to compare two alternative tests which may be undertaken to determine whether models for multisite capture-recapture data need to incorporate memory. increasing the complexity of models runs the risk of introducing parameters that cannot be estimated, irrespective of how much data are collected, a feature which is known as parameter redundancy. rouan et al. (jabes, 2009, pp 338-355) suggest a constraint that may be applied to overcome parameter redundancy when it is present in multisite memory models. for this case, we apply symbolic methods to derive a simpler constraint, which allows more parameters to be estimated, and give general results not limited to a particular configuration. we also consider the effect sparse data can have on parameter redundancy and recommend minimum sample sizes. memory models for multisite capture-recapture data can be highly complex and difficult to fit to data. we emphasize the importance of a structured approach to modeling such data, by considering a priori which parameters can be estimated, which constraints are needed in order for estimation to take place, and how much data need to be collected. we also give guidance on the amount of data needed to use two alternative families of tests for whether models for multisite capture-recapture data need to incorporate memory." using dynamic n-mixture models to test cavity limitation on northern flying squirrel demographic parameters using experimental nest box supplementation,abundance; apparent survival; baci design; dail-madsen open n-mixture model; glaucomys sabrinus; habitat selection; manipulative experiment; recruitment; snags; tree cavities,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,PRIOL P;MAZEROLLE MJ;IMBEAU L;DRAPEAU P;TRUDEAU C;RAMIERE J,"dynamic n-mixture models have been recently developed to estimate demographic parameters of unmarked individuals while accounting for imperfect detection. we propose an application of the dail and madsen (: biometrics, 67, 577-587) dynamic n-mixture model in a manipulative experiment using a before-after control-impact design (baci). specifically, we tested the hypothesis of cavity limitation of a cavity specialist species, the northern flying squirrel, using nest box supplementation on half of 56 trapping sites. our main purpose was to evaluate the impact of an increase in cavity availability on flying squirrel population dynamics in deciduous stands in northwestern quebec with the dynamic n-mixture model. we compared abundance estimates from this recent approach with those from classic capture-mark-recapture models and generalized linear models. we compared apparent survival estimates with those from cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) models. average recruitment rate was 6 individuals per site after 4years. nevertheless, we found no effect of cavity supplementation on apparent survival and recruitment rates of flying squirrels. contrary to our expectations, initial abundance was not affected by conifer basal area (food availability) and was negatively affected by snag basal area (cavity availability). northern flying squirrel population dynamics are not influenced by cavity availability at our deciduous sites. consequently, we suggest that this species should not be considered an indicator of old forest attributes in our study area, especially in view of apparent wide population fluctuations across years. abundance estimates from n-mixture models were similar to those from capture-mark-recapture models, although the latter had greater precision. generalized linear mixed models produced lower abundance estimates, but revealed the same relationship between abundance and snag basal area. apparent survival estimates from n-mixture models were higher and less precise than those from cjs models. however, n-mixture models can be particularly useful to evaluate management effects on animal populations, especially for species that are difficult to detect in situations where individuals cannot be uniquely identified. they also allow investigating the effects of covariates at the site level, when low recapture rates would require restricting classic cmr analyses to a subset of sites with the most captures." heterozygosity-fitness correlations in a wild mammal population: accounting for parental and environmental effects,capture-mark-recapture survival analysis; european badger; heterozygosity-fitness correlations; inbreeding depression; meles meles; paternal effects,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ANNAVI G;NEWMAN C;BUESCHING CD;MACDONALD DW;BURKE T;DUGDALE HL,"hfcs (heterozygosity-fitness correlations) measure the direct relationship between an individual's genetic diversity and fitness. the effects of parental heterozygosity and the environment on hfcs are currently under-researched. we investigated these in a high-density u. k. population of european badgers (meles meles), using a multimodel capture-mark-recapture framework and 35 microsatellite loci. we detected interannual variation in first-year, but not adult, survival probability. adult females had higher annual survival probabilities than adult males. cubs with more heterozygous fathers had higher first-year survival, but only in wetter summers; there was no relationship with individual or maternal heterozygosity. moist soil conditions enhance badger food supply (earthworms), improving survival. in dryer years, higher indiscriminate mortality rates appear to mask differential heterozygosity-related survival effects. this paternal interaction was significant in the most supported model; however, the model-averaged estimate had a relative importance of 0.50 and overlapped zero slightly. first-year survival probabilities were not correlated with the inbreeding coefficient (f); however, small sample sizes limited the power to detect inbreeding depression. correlations between individual heterozygosity and inbreeding were weak, in line with published meta-analyses showing that hfcs tend to be weak. we found support for general rather than local heterozygosity effects on first-year survival probability, and g2 indicated that our markers had power to detect inbreeding. we emphasize the importance of assessing how environmental stressors can influence the magnitude and direction of hfcs and of considering how parental genetic diversity can affect fitness-related traits, which could play an important role in the evolution of mate choice." -haldane's rule revisited: do hybrid females have a shorter lifespan? survival of hybrids in a recent contact zone between two large gull species,capture-recapture; haldane's rule; hybrid fitness; hybridization; larus cachinnans; large white-headed gulls; larus argentatus; longevity,JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY,NEUBAUER G;NOWICKI P;ZAGALSKA-NEUBAUER M,"haldane's rule predicts that particularly high fitness reduction should affect the heterogametic sex of interspecific hybrids. despite the fact that hybridization is widespread in birds, survival of hybrid individuals is rarely addressed in studies of avian hybrid zones, possibly because of methodological constraints. here, having applied capture-mark-recapture models to an extensive, 19-year-long data set on individually marked birds, we estimate annual survival rates of hybrid individuals in the hybrid zone between herring (larus argentatus) and caspian (larus cachinnans) gulls. in both parental species, males have a slightly higher survival rate than females (model-weighted mean +/- se: herring gull males 0.88 +/- 0.01, females 0.87 +/- 0.01, caspian gull males 0.88 +/- 0.01, females 0.87 +/- 0.01). hybrid males do not survive for a shorter time than nonhybrid ones (0.88 +/- 0.01), whereas hybrid females have the lowest survival rate among all groups of individuals (0.83 +/- 0.03). this translates to a shorter adult (reproductive) lifespan (on average by 1.7-1.8years, i.e. ca 25%) compared with nonhybrid females. we conclude that, in line with haldane's rule, the lower survival rate of female hybrids may contribute to selection against hybrids in this hybrid zone." +haldane's rule revisited: do hybrid females have a shorter lifespan? survival of hybrids in a recent contact zone between two large gull species,capture-recapture; haldane's rule; hybrid fitness; hybridization; larus cachinnans; large white-headed gulls; larus argentatus; longevity,JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY,NEUBAUER G;NOWICKI P;ZAGALSKA NEUBAUER M,"haldane's rule predicts that particularly high fitness reduction should affect the heterogametic sex of interspecific hybrids. despite the fact that hybridization is widespread in birds, survival of hybrid individuals is rarely addressed in studies of avian hybrid zones, possibly because of methodological constraints. here, having applied capture-mark-recapture models to an extensive, 19-year-long data set on individually marked birds, we estimate annual survival rates of hybrid individuals in the hybrid zone between herring (larus argentatus) and caspian (larus cachinnans) gulls. in both parental species, males have a slightly higher survival rate than females (model-weighted mean +/- se: herring gull males 0.88 +/- 0.01, females 0.87 +/- 0.01, caspian gull males 0.88 +/- 0.01, females 0.87 +/- 0.01). hybrid males do not survive for a shorter time than nonhybrid ones (0.88 +/- 0.01), whereas hybrid females have the lowest survival rate among all groups of individuals (0.83 +/- 0.03). this translates to a shorter adult (reproductive) lifespan (on average by 1.7-1.8years, i.e. ca 25%) compared with nonhybrid females. we conclude that, in line with haldane's rule, the lower survival rate of female hybrids may contribute to selection against hybrids in this hybrid zone." fitting occupancy models with e-surge: hidden markov modelling of presence-absence data,capture-recapture; detectability; detection-non-detection; e-surge; hidden markov models; presence-absence; species occurrence,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GIMENEZ O;BLANC L;BESNARD A;PRADEL R;DOHERTY PF;MARBOUTIN E;CHOQUET R,"occupancy - the proportion of area occupied by a species - is a key notion for addressing important questions in ecology, biogeography and conservation biology. occupancy models allow estimating and inferring about species occurrence while accounting for false absences (or imperfect species detection). occupancy models can be formulated as hidden markov models (hmm) in which the state process captures the markovian dynamic of the actual but latent states, while the observation process consists of observations that are made from these underlying states. we show how occupancy models can be implemented in program e-surge, which was initially developed to analyse capture-recapture data in the hmm framework. replacing individuals by sites provides the user with access to several features of e-surge that are not available altogether or just not available in standard occupancy software: i) flexible model specification through a user-friendly syntax without having to write custom code, ii) decomposition of the observation and state processes in several steps to provide flexible parameterisation, iii) up-to-date diagnostics of model identifiability, and iv) advanced numerical algorithms to produce fast and reliable results (including site random effects). to illustrate e-surge features, we provide implementation and analysis details for several occupancy models. we also provide simulated and real-world examples as well as further specifications and information in a companion wiki platform http://occupancyinesurge.wikidot.com/." observations of growth and postspawning survival of lumpfish cyclopterus lumpus from mark-recapture studies,north-east atlantic; tag loss; tagging; vbgf,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,KASPER JM;BERTELSEN B;OLAFSSON HG;HOLST JC;STURLAUGSSON J;JONSSON SP,"growth and postspawning survival of lumpfish cyclopterus lumpus are described by mark-recapture experiments using juveniles in offshore areas in the north-east atlantic ocean and spawning adults in coastal norway and iceland. a female fish tagged as a juvenile and recaptured as an adult matured in a period of 18 months, providing the first observation on development in a wild c. lumpus. the von bertalanffy growth function, fitted to data from recaptured fish, was used to estimate k and l and recaptured fish spawning after a year at liberty indicated a postspawning survival of c. 10% in iceland. (c) 2014 the fisheries society of the british isles" acoustic capture-recapture method for towed acoustic surveys of echolocating porpoises,NA,JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA,KIMURA S;AKAMATSU T;DONG LJ;WANG KX;WANG D;SHIBATA Y;ARAI N,"passive acoustic monitoring for cetaceans mainly employ fixed-location methods or point transect samplings; an acoustic survey from a moving platform to conduct line transects is less common. in this study, acoustic capture-recapture by combining a double-observer method with line transect sampling was performed to observe yangtze finless porpoises. two acoustic devices were towed with the distance between them varying 0.5 to 89.5 m. the conditional probabilities that both devices would detect the porpoises within the same time window were calculated. in a 1-s time window, it became smaller as the distance between the devices increased, approaching zero when the distance between them was more than 50 m. it was considered that the devices with less than 50m distance detected the same signals from the same animals, which means the identical detection. when the distance between them is too great, the recapture rate is reduced and the incidence of false matching may increase. thus, a separation distance of around 50m between two devices in acoustic capture-recapture of yangtze finless porpoises was recommended. note that the performance of the double detections can change depending on the particular device used and on animal behaviors such as vocalizing interval, ship avoidance. (c) 2014 acoustical society of america." marine survival difference between wild and hatchery-reared steelhead trout determined during early downstream migration,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,MELNYCHUK MC;KORMAN J;HAUSCH S;WELCH DW;MCCUBBING DJF;WALTERS CJ,"we observed large survival differences between wild and hatchery-reared steelhead trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) during the juvenile downstream migration immediately after release, which persisted through adult life. following a railway spill of sodium hydroxide into the cheakamus river, british columbia, a short-term conservation hatchery rearing program was implemented for steelhead. we used acoustic telemetry and mark-recapture models to estimate survival of wild and (or) hatchery-reared steelhead during 4 years of the smolt migration, with both groups released in 2008. after adjusting for estimated freshwater residualization, 7%-13% of wild smolts and 30%-40% of hatchery smolts died in the first 3 km of the migration. estimated survival from release to ocean entry was 71%-84% for wild fish and 26%-40% for hatchery fish and to exit from the strait of georgia system was 22%-33% for wild fish and 3.5%-6.7% for hatchery fish. a calculated 2.3-fold survival difference established during the downstream migration was similar to that after the return of adult spawners, as return rates were 8.0% for wild fish and 4.1% for hatchery fish. contrary to current understanding, a large proportion of salmon mortality in the smolt-to-adult period, commonly termed ""marine mortality"", may actually occur prior to ocean entry." -efficiency of electrofishing in turbid lowland rivers: implications for measuring temporal change in fish populations,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,LYON JP;BIRD T;NICOL S;KEARNS J;O'MAHONY J;TODD CR;COWX IG;BRADSHAW CJA,"to quantify how electrofishing capture probability varies over time and across physiochemical and disturbance gradients in a turbid lowland river, we tagged between 68 and 95 fish.year(-1) with radio transmitters and up to 424 fish.year(-1) with external and passive integrated transponder (pit) tags. we surveyed the site noninvasively using radiotelemetry to determine which of the radio-tagged fish were present (effectively closing the radio-tagged population to emigration) and then electrofished to estimate the proportion of available fish that were captured based on both this and standard mark-recapture methods. we replicated the electrofishing surveys three times over a minimum of 12 days each year, for 7 years. electrofishing capture probability varied between 0.020 and 0.310 over the 7 years and between four different large-bodied species (murray cod (maccullochella peelii), trout cod (maccullochella macquariensis), golden perch (macquaria ambigua ambigua), and silver perch (bidyanus bidyanus)). river turbidity associated with increased river discharge negatively influenced capture probability. increasing fish length increased detection of fish up to 500 mm for murray cod, after which capture probability decreased. variation in capture probability in large lowland rivers results in additional uncertainty when estimating population size or relative abundance. research and monitoring programs using fish as an indicator should incorporate strategies to lessen potential error that might result from changes in capture probabilities." +efficiency of electrofishing in turbid lowland rivers: implications for measuring temporal change in fish populations,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,LYON JP;BIRD T;NICOL S;KEARNS J;O MAHONY J;TODD CR;COWX IG;BRADSHAW CJA,"to quantify how electrofishing capture probability varies over time and across physiochemical and disturbance gradients in a turbid lowland river, we tagged between 68 and 95 fish.year(-1) with radio transmitters and up to 424 fish.year(-1) with external and passive integrated transponder (pit) tags. we surveyed the site noninvasively using radiotelemetry to determine which of the radio-tagged fish were present (effectively closing the radio-tagged population to emigration) and then electrofished to estimate the proportion of available fish that were captured based on both this and standard mark-recapture methods. we replicated the electrofishing surveys three times over a minimum of 12 days each year, for 7 years. electrofishing capture probability varied between 0.020 and 0.310 over the 7 years and between four different large-bodied species (murray cod (maccullochella peelii), trout cod (maccullochella macquariensis), golden perch (macquaria ambigua ambigua), and silver perch (bidyanus bidyanus)). river turbidity associated with increased river discharge negatively influenced capture probability. increasing fish length increased detection of fish up to 500 mm for murray cod, after which capture probability decreased. variation in capture probability in large lowland rivers results in additional uncertainty when estimating population size or relative abundance. research and monitoring programs using fish as an indicator should incorporate strategies to lessen potential error that might result from changes in capture probabilities." wetland characteristics influence disease risk for a threatened amphibian,batrachochytrium dendrobatidis; chytrid fungus; disease; litoria raniformis; management; mark recapture; risk factors; survival,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,HEARD GW;SCROGGIE MP;CLEMANN N;RAMSEY DSL,"identifying determinants of the probability and intensity of infections is important for understanding the epidemiology of wildlife diseases, and for managing their impact on threatened species. chytridiomycosis, caused by the fungal pathogen batrachochytrim dendrobatidis, has decimated populations of some amphibians. however, recent studies have identified important environmental constraints on the disease, related to the pathogen's physiological tolerances. in this study, we identified several intrinsic and extrinsic determinants of the probability and intensity of chytrid infections for the threatened growling grass frog (litoria raniformis) in southeastern australia, and used mark-recapture to estimate the effect of chytrid infections on the probability of survival of these frogs. water temperature and salinity had negative effects on both the probability and intensity of chytrid infections. we coupled models of the infection process with a model of the effect of chytrid infections on the probability of survival to assess variation in the impact of chytridiomycosis between wetlands with differing temperature and salinity profiles. our results suggest that warm, saline wetlands may be refuges from chytridiomycosis for l. raniformis, and should be priorities for protection. our results also suggest that management actions that increase water temperature (e.g., reducing canopy shading) and salinity (e.g., complementing inflows with groundwater) could be trialed to reduce. the impacts of chytridiomycosis on this species. this and other recent studies highlight the value of research on environmental risk factors for chytridiomycosis." dynamics of clonal diversity in natural infections of the malaria parasite plasmodium mexicanum in its free-ranging lizard host,plasmodium; clonal proportions; plasmodium mexicanum; mixed-genotype infections,PARASITOLOGY RESEARCH,HICKS ND;SCHALL JJ,"within mixed-genotype infections of malaria parasites (plasmodium), the number of genetic clones present is associated with variation in important life history traits of the infection, including virulence. although the number of clones present is important, how the proportion of those clones varies over time is poorly known. clonal proportions of the lizard malaria parasite, plasmodium mexicanum, were assessed in naturally infected free-ranging lizards followed in a mark-recapture program over as long as two warm seasons, the typical life span of the lizard. clonal proportions were determined by amplifying two microsatellite markers, a method previously verified for accuracy. most blood samples had been stored for over a decade, so a verification test determined that these samples had not degraded. although the environment experienced by the parasite (its host) varies over the seasons and transmission occurs over the entire warm season, 68 % of infections were stable over time, harboring a single clone (37 % of infections) or multiple clones changing only 1-12 % maximum comparing any two samples (31 % of infections). the maximum change seen in any infection (comparing any two sample periods) was only 30 %. a new clone entered three infections (only once successfully), and a clone was lost in only three infections. these results mirror those seen for a previous study of experimentally induced infections that showed little change in relative proportions over time. the results of this study, the first look at how clonal proportions vary over time for any malaria parasite of a nonhuman vertebrate host for natural infections, were surprising because experimental studies show clones of p. mexicanum appear to interact, yet relative proportions of clones typically remain constant over time." growth of timber rattlesnakes (crotalus horridus) in an agriculturally fragmented and a contiguously forested habitat,viperidae; life history; rattle morphology; geographic variation,HERPETOLOGICA,WITTENBERG RD;BEAUPRE SJ,"habitat loss and fragmentation threaten timber rattlesnake (crotalus horridus) populations in contiguous, mature forests of eastern north america, yet information regarding the life history of c. horridus in fragmented habitats is sparse. in this study, we used mark-recapture data on body size and rattle morphology to compare the size at birth and per ecdysis growth rates of c. horridus from a fragmented habitat in west-central missouri (mo) with those from a closed-canopy forest in northwest arkansas (ar). the mo population is typically exposed to a shorter frost-free period than the ar population, so individuals may have less time to acquire prey. at birth, snakes in the mo population were significantly shorter than those from ar, but mo snakes increased in length more rapidly than ar snakes through their first eight ecdyses. sexual size dimorphism was apparent in the mo population when males and females diverged in size between the fifth and sixth ecdyses, whereas growth trajectories of ar males and females remained indistinguishable through the first eight ecdyses. crotalus horridus in the agriculturally fragmented habitat may have grown faster than their forest-dwelling counterparts because fields and edges provide prey with stable food sources, unlike the boom and bust production typical of acorn mast crops. although previous studies have demonstrated that c. horridus growth rates vary along latitudinal and elevational gradients due to climatic constraints on foraging, our study suggests that prey abundance may be just as important in shaping variation in life history both within and among populations." @@ -2568,7 +2571,7 @@ personality drives physiological adjustments and is not related to survival,beha a simulation study of acoustic-assisted tracking of whales for mark-recapture surveys,NA,PLOS ONE,PEEL D;MILLER BS;KELLY N;DAWSON S;SLOOTEN E;DOUBLE MC,"collecting enough data to obtain reasonable abundance estimates of whales is often difficult, particularly when studying rare species. passive acoustics can be used to detect whale sounds and are increasingly used to estimate whale abundance. much of the existing effort centres on the use of acoustics to estimate abundance directly, e. g. analysing detections in a distance sampling framework. here, we focus on acoustics as a tool incorporated within mark-recapture surveys. in this context, acoustic tools are used to detect and track whales, which are then photographed or biopsied to provide data for mark-recapture analyses. the purpose of incorporating acoustics is to increase the encounter rate beyond using visual searching only. while this general approach is not new, its utility is rarely quantified. this paper predicts the ""acoustically-assisted'' encounter rate using a discrete-time individual-based simulation of whales and survey vessel. we validate the simulation framework using existing data from studies of sperm whales. we then use the framework to predict potential encounter rates in a study of antarctic blue whales. we also investigate the effects of a number of the key parameters on encounter rate. mean encounter rates from the simulation of sperm whales matched well with empirical data. variance of encounter rate, however, was underestimated. the simulation of antarctic blue whales found that passive acoustics should provide a 1.7-3.0 fold increase in encounter rate over visual-only methods. encounter rate was most sensitive to acoustic detection range, followed by vocalisation rate. during survey planning and design, some indication of the relationship between expected sample size and effort is paramount; this simulation framework can be used to predict encounter rates and establish this relationship. for a case in point, the simulation framework indicates unequivocally that real-time acoustic tracking should be considered for quantifying the abundance of antarctic blue whales via mark-recapture methods." the number of scholarly documents on the public web,NA,PLOS ONE,KHABSA M;GILES CL,"the number of scholarly documents available on the web is estimated using capture/recapture methods by studying the coverage of two major academic search engines: google scholar and microsoft academic search. our estimates show that at least 114 million english-language scholarly documents are accessible on the web, of which google scholar has nearly 100 million. of these, we estimate that at least 27 million (24%) are freely available since they do not require a subscription or payment of any kind. in addition, at a finer scale, we also estimate the number of scholarly documents on the web for fifteen fields: agricultural science, arts and humanities, biology, chemistry, computer science, economics and business, engineering, environmental sciences, geosciences, material science, mathematics, medicine, physics, social sciences, and multidisciplinary, as defined by microsoft academic search. in addition, we show that among these fields the percentage of documents defined as freely available varies significantly, i.e., from 12 to 50%." the effects of birth weight and maternal care on survival of juvenile steller sea lions (eumetopias jubatus),NA,PLOS ONE,MANISCALCO JM,"steller sea lions were listed as endangered following a collapse of the western distinct population beginning in the late 1970s. low juvenile survival has been implicated as a factor in the decline. i conducted a multistate mark-recapture analysis to estimate juvenile survival in an area of the western population where sea lions are showing signs of recovery. survival for males and females was 80% between 3 weeks and 1 year of age. approximately 20% of juveniles continued to be nursed by their mothers between ages 1 and 2 and 10% between ages 2 and 3. survival for juveniles that suckled beyond 1 year was 88.2% and 89.9% to ages 2 and 3, respectively. in contrast, survival for individuals weaned by age 1 was 40.6% for males and 64.2% for females between ages 1 and 2. birth mass positively influenced survival for juveniles weaned at age 1 but had little effect on individuals continuing to suckle. cumulative survival to age 4 was double that estimated during the population decline in this region. evidence suggests that western steller sea lions utilize a somewhat different maternal strategy than those in the eastern distinct population. western adult females generally invest more in their pups during the first year but wean offspring by age 1 more often. this results in better survival to age 1, but greater mortality between ages 1 and 3 compared to the eastern population. different maternal strategies may reflect density dependent pressures of populations at opposite levels of abundance." -movement patterns in a partial migrant: a multi-event capture-recapture approach,NA,PLOS ONE,GOURLAY-LAROUR ML;PRADEL R;GUILLEMAIN M;GUITTON JS;L'HOSTIS M;SANTIN-JANIN H;CAIZERGUES A,"partial migration is a pervasive albeit poorly studied phenomenon by which some individuals of a population migrate while others are residents. it has tremendous consequences on seasonal variations of population size/structure and therefore management. using a multi-event capture-mark-recapture/recovery (cmr) approach, we assessed seasonal site occupancy, survival and site fidelity of a partially migratory diving duck, the common pochard (aythya ferina), in an area potentially including both local breeders and winter visitors. the modelling exercise indeed discriminated two different categories of individuals. first, locally breeding females which had a probability of being present in our study area during winter of 0.41. females of this category were found to be more faithful to their breeding site than males (breeding site fidelity probabilities of 1 and 0.11, respectively). the second category of birds were winter visitors, which included adults of both sexes, whose probability of being present in the study area during the breeding season was nil, and young of both sexes with a 0.11 probability of being present in the area during the breeding season. all wintering individuals, among which there was virtually no locally breeding male, displayed a high fidelity to our study area from one winter to the next (0.41-0.43). estimated annual survival rates differed according to age (adults 0.69, young 0.56). for both age classes mortality was higher during late winter/early spring than during summer/early winter. our study is among the first to show how and under which conditions the multi-event approach can be employed for investigating complex movement patterns encountered in partial migrants, providing a convenient tool for overcoming state uncertainty. it also shows why studying patterns of probability of individual presence/movements in partial migrants is a key towards understanding seasonal variations in numbers." +movement patterns in a partial migrant: a multi-event capture-recapture approach,NA,PLOS ONE,GOURLAY LAROUR ML;PRADEL R;GUILLEMAIN M;GUITTON JS;L HOSTIS M;SANTIN JANIN H;CAIZERGUES A,"partial migration is a pervasive albeit poorly studied phenomenon by which some individuals of a population migrate while others are residents. it has tremendous consequences on seasonal variations of population size/structure and therefore management. using a multi-event capture-mark-recapture/recovery (cmr) approach, we assessed seasonal site occupancy, survival and site fidelity of a partially migratory diving duck, the common pochard (aythya ferina), in an area potentially including both local breeders and winter visitors. the modelling exercise indeed discriminated two different categories of individuals. first, locally breeding females which had a probability of being present in our study area during winter of 0.41. females of this category were found to be more faithful to their breeding site than males (breeding site fidelity probabilities of 1 and 0.11, respectively). the second category of birds were winter visitors, which included adults of both sexes, whose probability of being present in the study area during the breeding season was nil, and young of both sexes with a 0.11 probability of being present in the area during the breeding season. all wintering individuals, among which there was virtually no locally breeding male, displayed a high fidelity to our study area from one winter to the next (0.41-0.43). estimated annual survival rates differed according to age (adults 0.69, young 0.56). for both age classes mortality was higher during late winter/early spring than during summer/early winter. our study is among the first to show how and under which conditions the multi-event approach can be employed for investigating complex movement patterns encountered in partial migrants, providing a convenient tool for overcoming state uncertainty. it also shows why studying patterns of probability of individual presence/movements in partial migrants is a key towards understanding seasonal variations in numbers." dementia prevalence and incidence among the indigenous and non-indigenous populations of the northern territory,NA,MEDICAL JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIA,LI SQ;GUTHRIDGE SL;ARATCHIGE PE;LOWE MP;WANG ZQ;ZHAO YJ;KRAUSE V,"objective: to estimate the prevalence and incidence of dementia in northern territory indigenous and non-indigenous populations. design, setting and participants: four data sources were used to identify clients with a diagnosis of dementia, from 1 january 2008 to 31 december 2011. the data sources included hospital admissions, aged care services, primary care and death registration. a capture recapture method was used to estimate prevalence and incidence, including both diagnosed and unknown cases. main outcome measures: prevalence and incidence of dementia among the nt indigenous and non-indigenous populations. results: in 2011, the estimated prevalence in the nt indigenous population aged 45 years and over was 3.7 per 100, and 1.1 per 100 in the corresponding nt non-indigenous population. the age-adjusted prevalence for the nt indigenous population was 6.5 per 100, compared with the nt non-indigenous prevalence of 2.6 per 100, which was similar to the national rate. the prevalence rate ratios of nt indigenous to nt non-indigenous men and women, respectively, were: 6.5 and 5.5 for the 45-64-years age group, 4.0 and 4.1 for those aged 65-74 years and 2.1 and 1.9 for those aged 75 years and over. the age-adjusted incidence among the nt indigenous population aged 45 years and over (27.3 per 1000 person-years) was higher than that among the nt non-indigenous population (10.7 per 1000 person-years). conclusion: the nt indigenous population has a much higher prevalence and incidence of dementia and younger onset of disease compared with their non-indigenous counterparts. the results highlight the urgent need for interventions to moderate the emerging impact of dementia in the australian indigenous population." "incidence of type 1 diabetes in navarre, 2009-2012",type i diabetes; incidence; age groups,ANALES DEL SISTEMA SANITARIO DE NAVARRA,FORGA L;GONI MJ;IBANEZ B;CAMBRA K;MOZAS D;CHUECA M,"background. a north-south gradient for the incidence of type 1 diabetes (dm1) has been described in europe, with higher incidence in the northern countries. the aim of this study is to describe the incidence data for dm1 in navarre from 2009-2012, regardless of age at diagnosis, including geographical distribution and age and sex characteristics. patients and methods. prospective study, based on one primary and three secondary sources. completeness of records was assessed, using the capture-recapture method, at 98.42%. incidence was compared between different gender and age groups by estimating the incidence ratio using poisson regression methods. to compare the incidence between the different geographical areas, adjustments were made to the values obtained by the indirect standardization method. results. a total of 216 cases were detected (incidence: 8.4/100,000 population/year; 95 % ci: 7.3-9.5). incidence was higher in children than in adults, although the number of new cases was highest in those aged over 15. the age group with the highest incidence was 10 to 14 years; however, the highest percentage of patients fell in the 15 to 29-year-old group. incidence was higher in men than in women. the incidence rates in the three southern regions tended to be higher than the mean for navarre. conclusions. navarre has a very high incidence of dm1 in children and adults aged 15 to 29. dm1 is more common in men and shows some geographic variability." the ins & outs of developing a field-based science project: learning by lassoing lizards,ecology; fieldwork; lizards; reptiles; herpetology,AMERICAN BIOLOGY TEACHER,MATTHEWS CE;HUFFLING LD;BENAVIDES A,"we describe a field-based lizard project we did with high school students as a part of our summer herpetological research experiences. we describe data collection on lizards captured, identified, and marked as a part of our mark-recapture study. we also describe other lizard projects that are ongoing in the united states and provide resources for teachers to help them start their own field-based science projects. our work with lizards focuses on fieldwork but also includes classroom components with captive-bred and wild-captured animals. information on organizations that focus on lizards is provided, including several citizen science opportunities." @@ -2590,32 +2593,32 @@ stopover duration of mallards during autumn in the illinois river valley,anas pl validation of scale-reading estimates of age and growth in a brown trout salmo trutta population,ageing; growth back-calculation; mark-recapture; fish,BIOLOGIA,ZAVORKA L;SLAVIK O;HORKY P,"in this study, we validated a scale-reading method estimating age and growth in brown trout salmo trutta in wild, landlocked, stream-dwelling populations from mountain headwaters in the elbe catchment area of the czech republic. the values estimated from scale reading were compared with measured values, collected using a mark-recapture program over eight consecutive years. the age-corrected absolute percentage error was 10.71%, primarily because the ages of the oldest individuals according to scale reading were underestimated, and the ages of juvenile individuals were slightly overestimated. the back-calculated length was slightly underestimated (the mean error was -4.60 mm), but it was not significantly different from the real measured length. this study suggests that in cold mountain headwaters, scale reading is a sufficiently accurate method for age and growth estimation in juvenile brown trout; however, the results for adult individuals must be taken with caution." estimating migratory connectivity of birds when re- encounter probabilities are heterogeneous,bird banding laboratory; migratory connectivity; multistate model; nearctic-neotropical migrant; re-encounter probability,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,COHEN EB;HOSTETLER JA;ROYLE JA;MARRA PP,"understanding the biology and conducting effective conservation of migratory species requires an understanding of migratory connectivity - the geographic linkages of populations between stages of the annual cycle. unfortunately, for most species, we are lacking such information. the north american bird banding laboratory (bbl) houses an extensive database of marking, recaptures and recoveries, and such data could provide migratory connectivity information for many species. to date, however, few species have been analyzed for migratory connectivity largely because heterogeneous re-encounter probabilities make interpretation problematic. we accounted for regional variation in re-encounter probabilities by borrowing information across species and by using effort covariates on recapture and recovery probabilities in a multistate capture-recapture and recovery model. the effort covariates were derived from recaptures and recoveries of species within the same regions. we estimated the migratory connectivity for three tern species breeding in north america and over-wintering in the tropics, common (sterna hirundo), roseate (sterna dougallii), and caspian terns (hydroprogne caspia). for western breeding terns, model-derived estimates of migratory connectivity differed considerably from those derived directly from the proportions of re-encounters. conversely, for eastern breeding terns, estimates were merely refined by the inclusion of re-encounter probabilities. in general, eastern breeding terns were strongly connected to eastern south america, and western breeding terns were strongly linked to the more western parts of the nonbreeding range under both models. through simulation, we found this approach is likely useful for many species in the bbl database, although precision improved with higher re-encounter probabilities and stronger migratory connectivity. we describe an approach to deal with the inherent biases in bbl banding and re-encounter data to demonstrate that this large dataset is a valuable source of information about the migratory connectivity of the birds of north america." prevalence of epilepsy in rural kansas,epilepsy; prevalence; rural; capture-recapture,EPILEPSY RESEARCH,ABLAH E;HESDORFFER DC;LIU Y;PASCHAL AM;HAWLEY S;THURMAN D;HAUSER WA,"purpose: to determine the prevalence of active epilepsy in two southeastern rural kansas counties. methods: medical records were abstracted from the emergency rooms, out- and inpatient services and clinics of 9 hospitals, from 10 doctors' offices, and 1 nursing home in and surrounding the two counties. letters were mailed from hospitals and doctors' offices to invite their potentially eligible patients to participate in an interview. medical record information and the interview, when available, were used for the final determination of active epilepsy, seizure type, etiology, syndrome, age, and gender in consensus conferences. prevalence of epilepsy was calculated, and capture-recapture methodology, which estimates prevalence based on what is known about the population, was employed to assess active epilepsy in the two counties. results: this study identified 404 individuals with active prevalent epilepsy who visited at least one of the 20 facilities during the observation period. the overall prevalence of active epilepsy was 7.2 per 1000. the seizure type for 71.3% of prevalent cases was unknown; among the 76 cases with known and classifiable seizure type, 55.3% had focal with secondary generalized seizures. among the 222 cases with classifiable etiology, 53.1% were idiopathic/cryptogenic. about 75% (n=301) were captured at only one center, 72% (n=75) of the remaining 103 patients were captured at two centers, and 28 patients were identified at three or more centers. the capture-recapture assessment yielded an estimation of 982 prevalent patients. the overall estimated prevalence of epilepsy in the two kansas counties using capture-recapture was 17 per 1000. conclusions: the crude prevalence of epilepsy, using medical record survey methods, was similar to, but on the high end, of other total population prevalence studies in the united states. the capture-recapture assessment suggested that epilepsy prevalence might be considerably higher than the crude prevalence. (c) 2014 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -relationship between death and infections among patients hospitalized in internal medicine departments: a prevalence and validation study,bacterial infections and mycoses; infectious disease medicine; cause of death/vital statistics; epidemiology,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INFECTION CONTROL,BOISEN AB;DALAGER-PEDERSEN M;SOGAARD M;MORTENSEN R;THOMSEN RW,"background: we assessed the burden of infection-related death at internal medicine departments in denmark and the validity of 2 population-based registries for diagnoses of infection. methods: we reviewed medical records of all inpatients who died at a large university hospital during 2008 with an infection diagnosis in the cause of death registry (cdr) or hospital discharge registry (hdr). we computed the positive predictive value of infection diagnoses and completeness of each registry with 95% confidence intervals (cis) and the prevalence of infection-related deaths by capture-recapture analysis. results: among 458 deaths, 193 patients (42.1%) had an infection diagnosis of which 40.0% (183 out of 458) were verified. the positive predictive value of an infection diagnosis was 96.0% (95% ci, 92.0%-98.3%) in the cdr and 95.3% (ci, 90.9%-97.9%) in the hdr. completeness of the cdr was 79.2% (ci, 72.9%-84.6%) and completeness of the hdr was 77.0% (ci, 70.6%-82.7%). by captureerecapture analysis we estimated that 43.2% of all deaths (198 out of 458) were related to infection. conclusions: the large proportion of deaths in internal medicine departments that are related to infection emphasizes the need for optimized infection prevention and treatment strategies. cdr and hdr are valid sources for identifying infection and may supplement each other for increased completeness of infection-related death in epidemiologic research. copyright (c) 2014 by the association for professionals in infection control and epidemiology, inc. published by elsevier inc. all rights reserved." +relationship between death and infections among patients hospitalized in internal medicine departments: a prevalence and validation study,bacterial infections and mycoses; infectious disease medicine; cause of death/vital statistics; epidemiology,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INFECTION CONTROL,BOISEN AB;DALAGER PEDERSEN M;SOGAARD M;MORTENSEN R;THOMSEN RW,"background: we assessed the burden of infection-related death at internal medicine departments in denmark and the validity of 2 population-based registries for diagnoses of infection. methods: we reviewed medical records of all inpatients who died at a large university hospital during 2008 with an infection diagnosis in the cause of death registry (cdr) or hospital discharge registry (hdr). we computed the positive predictive value of infection diagnoses and completeness of each registry with 95% confidence intervals (cis) and the prevalence of infection-related deaths by capture-recapture analysis. results: among 458 deaths, 193 patients (42.1%) had an infection diagnosis of which 40.0% (183 out of 458) were verified. the positive predictive value of an infection diagnosis was 96.0% (95% ci, 92.0%-98.3%) in the cdr and 95.3% (ci, 90.9%-97.9%) in the hdr. completeness of the cdr was 79.2% (ci, 72.9%-84.6%) and completeness of the hdr was 77.0% (ci, 70.6%-82.7%). by captureerecapture analysis we estimated that 43.2% of all deaths (198 out of 458) were related to infection. conclusions: the large proportion of deaths in internal medicine departments that are related to infection emphasizes the need for optimized infection prevention and treatment strategies. cdr and hdr are valid sources for identifying infection and may supplement each other for increased completeness of infection-related death in epidemiologic research. copyright (c) 2014 by the association for professionals in infection control and epidemiology, inc. published by elsevier inc. all rights reserved." performance of species richness estimators across assemblage types and survey parameters,community ecology; simulation; nonparametric estimator; selection framework; biodiversity; sample coverage,GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY,REESE GC;WILSON KR;FLATHER CH,"aim a raw count of the species encountered across surveys usually underestimates species richness. statistical estimators are often less biased. nonparametric estimators of species richness are widely considered the least biased, but no particular estimator has consistently performed best. this is partly a function of estimators responding differently to assemblage-level factors and survey design parameters. our objective was to evaluate the performance of raw counts and nonparametric estimators of species richness across various assemblages and with different survey designs. location we used both simulated and published field data. methods we evaluated the bias, precision and accuracy of raw counts and 13 nonparametric estimators using simulations that systematically varied assemblage characteristics (number of species, species abundance distribution, total number of individuals, spatial configuration of individuals and species detection probability), sampling effort and survey design. results informed the development of an estimator selection framework that we evaluated with field data. results when averaged across assemblages, most nonparametric estimators were less negatively biased than a raw count. estimators based on the similarity of repeated subsets of surveys were most accurate and their accumulation curves appeared to reach asymptotes fastest. number of species, species abundance distribution and effort had the largest effects on performance, ultimately by affecting the proportion of the species pool contained in a sample. our estimator selection framework showed promising results when applied to field data. main conclusions a raw count of the number of species in an area is far from the best estimate of true species richness. nonparametric estimators are less biased. newer largely unused, estimators perform better than more well known and longer established counterparts under certain conditions. given that there is generally a trade-off between bias and precision, we believe that estimator variance, which is often not reported when presenting species richness estimates, should always be included." -male wing shape differs between condition-dependent alternative reproductive tactics in territorial damselflies,calopteryx; geometric morphometrics; mark-recapture; wing size; wing spot size,ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR,OUTOMURO D;RODRIGUEZ-MARTINEZ S;KARLSSON A;JOHANSSON F,"territorial contests between males without weaponry are based on costly displays and can result in condition-dependent alternative reproductive tactics that maximize male fitness. physiological and morphological traits such as fat content, body size or the expression of secondary sexual traits have been shown to contribute to male territory-holding potential. when territorial contests are based on flight displays, wing morphology is expected to contribute to the territory-holding potential of a male through its effects on flight performance. we explored whether wing shape contributed to the territory-holding potential of males of three species of calopteryx damselflies. males of these species show two distinct, condition-dependent behavioural tactics: territorial and nonterritorial. previous studies have shown that territorial males have higher fitness than nonterritorial males. we used mark-recapture to determine male tactics within the populations and compared wing shape, size and wing coloured spot size (a secondary sexual trait) between tactics. territorial males of all three species had shorter and slightly broader hindwings than nonterritorial males. in two species, forewings of territorial males were longer and broader than forewings of nonterritorial males. wing size and wing spot size did not differ between tactics. we suggest that the wing shape of territorial males might confer better flight manoeuvrability, which would be advantageous for territorial contests. therefore, wing shape is likely to be an important trait contributing to territory-holding potential in condition-dependent alternative reproductive tactics based on flight displays. (c) 2014 the association for the study of animal behaviour. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +male wing shape differs between condition-dependent alternative reproductive tactics in territorial damselflies,calopteryx; geometric morphometrics; mark-recapture; wing size; wing spot size,ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR,OUTOMURO D;RODRIGUEZ MARTINEZ S;KARLSSON A;JOHANSSON F,"territorial contests between males without weaponry are based on costly displays and can result in condition-dependent alternative reproductive tactics that maximize male fitness. physiological and morphological traits such as fat content, body size or the expression of secondary sexual traits have been shown to contribute to male territory-holding potential. when territorial contests are based on flight displays, wing morphology is expected to contribute to the territory-holding potential of a male through its effects on flight performance. we explored whether wing shape contributed to the territory-holding potential of males of three species of calopteryx damselflies. males of these species show two distinct, condition-dependent behavioural tactics: territorial and nonterritorial. previous studies have shown that territorial males have higher fitness than nonterritorial males. we used mark-recapture to determine male tactics within the populations and compared wing shape, size and wing coloured spot size (a secondary sexual trait) between tactics. territorial males of all three species had shorter and slightly broader hindwings than nonterritorial males. in two species, forewings of territorial males were longer and broader than forewings of nonterritorial males. wing size and wing spot size did not differ between tactics. we suggest that the wing shape of territorial males might confer better flight manoeuvrability, which would be advantageous for territorial contests. therefore, wing shape is likely to be an important trait contributing to territory-holding potential in condition-dependent alternative reproductive tactics based on flight displays. (c) 2014 the association for the study of animal behaviour. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." probabilistic maturation reaction norms assessed from mark- recaptures of wild fish in their natural habitat,age and size at maturation; growth; life-history evolution; phenotypic plasticity; salmo trutta; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,OLSEN EM;SERBEZOV D;VOLLESTAD LA,"reaction norms are a valuable tool in evolutionary biology. lately, the probabilistic maturation reaction norm approach, describing probabilities of maturing at combinations of age and body size, has been much applied for testing whether phenotypic changes in exploited populations of fish are mainly plastic or involving an evolutionary component. however, due to typical field data limitations, with imperfect knowledge about individual life histories, this demographic method still needs to be assessed. using 13years of direct mark-recapture observations on individual growth and maturation in an intensively sampled population of brown trout (salmo trutta), we show that the probabilistic maturation reaction norm approach may perform well even if the assumption of equal survival of juvenile and maturing fish does not hold. earlier studies have pointed out that growth effects may confound the interpretation of shifts in maturation reaction norms, because this method in its basic form deals with body size rather than growth. in our case, however, we found that juvenile body size, rather than annual growth, was more strongly associated with maturation. viewed against earlier studies, our results also underscore the challenges of generalizing life-history patterns among species and populations." incomplete contingency tables with censored cells with application to estimating the number of people who inject drugs in scotland,incomplete contingency table; log-linear models; censoring; population size; people who inject drugs,STATISTICS IN MEDICINE,OVERSTALL AM;KING R;BIRD SM;HUTCHINSON SJ;HAY G,"estimating the size of hidden or difficult to reach populations is often of interest for economic, sociological or public health reasons. in order to estimate such populations, administrative data lists are often collated to form multi-list cross-counts and displayed in the form of an incomplete contingency table. log-linear models are typically fitted to such data to obtain an estimate of the total population size by estimating the number of individuals not observed by any of the data-sources. this approach has been taken to estimate the current number of people who inject drugs (pwid) in scotland, with the hepatitis c virus diagnosis database used as one of the data-sources to identify pwid. however, the hepatitis c virus diagnosis data-source does not distinguish between current and former pwid, which, if ignored, will lead to overestimation of the total population size of current pwid. we extend the standard model-fitting approach to allow for a data-source, which contains a mixture of target and non-target individuals (i.e. in this case, current and former pwid). we apply the proposed approach to data for pwid in scotland in 2003, 2006 and 2009 and compare with the results from standard log-linear models. (c) 2013 the authors. statistics in medicine published by john wiley & sons, ltd." estimating the size of hidden populations from register data,prevalence; hidden population; capture-recapture; truncated poisson; opiates; heroin; mortality,BMC MEDICAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY,LEDBERG A;WENNBERG P,"background: prevalence estimates of drug use, or of its consequences, are considered important in many contexts and may have substantial influence over public policy. however, it is rarely possible to simply count the relevant individuals, in particular when the defining characteristics might be illegal, as in the drug use case. consequently methods are needed to estimate the size of such partly 'hidden' populations, and many such methods have been developed and used within epidemiology including studies of alcohol and drug use. here we introduce a method appropriate for estimating the size of human populations given a single source of data, for example entries in a health-care registry. methods: the setup is the following: during a fixed time-period, e. g. a year, individuals belonging to the target population have a non-zero probability of being ""registered"". each individual might be registered multiple times and the time-points of the registrations are recorded. assuming that the population is closed and that the probability of being registered at least once is constant, we derive a family of maximum likelihood (ml) estimators of total population size. we study the ml estimator using monte carlo simulations and delimit the range of cases where it is useful. in particular we investigate the effect of making the population heterogeneous with respect to probability of being registered. results: the new estimator is asymptotically unbiased and we show that high precision estimates can be obtained for samples covering as little as 25% of the total population size. however, if the total population size is small (say in the order of 500) a larger fraction needs to be sampled to achieve reliable estimates. further we show that the estimator give reliable estimates even when individuals differ in the probability of being registered. we also compare the ml estimator to an estimator known as chao's estimator and show that the latter can have a substantial bias when applied to epidemiological data. conclusions: the population size estimator suggested herein complements existing methods and is less sensitive to certain types of dependencies typical in epidemiological data." -"population dynamics of the critically endangered golden lancehead pitviper, bothrops insularis: stability or decline?",NA,PLOS ONE,GUIMARAES M;MUNGUIA-STEYER R;DOHERTY PF;MARTINS M;SAWAYA RJ,"little is known about vital rates of snakes generally because of the difficulty in collecting data. here we used a robust design mark-recapture model to estimate survival, behavioral effects on capture probability, temporary emigration, abundance and test the hypothesis of population decline in the golden lancehead pitviper, bothrops insularis, an endemic and critically endangered species from southeastern brazil. we collected data at irregular intervals over ten occasions from 2002 to 2010. survival was slightly higher in the wet season than in the dry season. temporal emigration was high, indicating the importance of accounting for this parameter both in the sampling design and modeling. no behavioral effects were detected on capture probability. we detected an average annual population decrease (lambda = 0.93, ci = 0.47- 1.38) during the study period, but estimates included high uncertainty, and caution in interpretation is needed. we discuss the potential effects of the illegal removal of individuals and the implications of the vital rates obtained for the future persistence and conservation of this endemic, endangered species." +"population dynamics of the critically endangered golden lancehead pitviper, bothrops insularis: stability or decline?",NA,PLOS ONE,GUIMARAES M;MUNGUIA STEYER R;DOHERTY PF;MARTINS M;SAWAYA RJ,"little is known about vital rates of snakes generally because of the difficulty in collecting data. here we used a robust design mark-recapture model to estimate survival, behavioral effects on capture probability, temporary emigration, abundance and test the hypothesis of population decline in the golden lancehead pitviper, bothrops insularis, an endemic and critically endangered species from southeastern brazil. we collected data at irregular intervals over ten occasions from 2002 to 2010. survival was slightly higher in the wet season than in the dry season. temporal emigration was high, indicating the importance of accounting for this parameter both in the sampling design and modeling. no behavioral effects were detected on capture probability. we detected an average annual population decrease (lambda = 0.93, ci = 0.47- 1.38) during the study period, but estimates included high uncertainty, and caution in interpretation is needed. we discuss the potential effects of the illegal removal of individuals and the implications of the vital rates obtained for the future persistence and conservation of this endemic, endangered species." "tracking natal dispersal in a coastal population of a migratory songbird using feather stable isotope (delta h-2, delta s-34) tracers",NA,PLOS ONE,HACHE S;HOBSON KA;BAYNE EM;VAN WILGENBURG SL;VILLARD MA,"adult birds tend to show high fidelity to their breeding territory or disperse over relatively short distances. gene flow among avian populations is thus expected to occur primarily through natal dispersal. although natal dispersal is a critical demographic process reflecting the area over which population dynamics take place, low recapture rates of birds breeding for the first time have limited our ability to reliably estimate dispersal rates and distances. stable isotope approaches can elucidate origins of unmarked birds and so we generated year-and age-specific delta h-2 and delta s-34 feather isoscapes (ca. 180 000 km(2)) of coastal-breeding ovenbirds (seiurus aurocapilla) and used bivariate probability density functions to assign the likely natal areas of 35 males recruited as first-year breeders into a population located in northwestern new brunswick, canada. most individuals (80-94% depending on the magnitude of an age correction factor used; i.e. 28-33 out of 35) were classified as residents (i.e. fledged within our study area) and estimated minimum dispersal distances of immigrants were between 40 and 240 km. even when considering maximum dispersal distances, the likely origin of most first-year breeders was<200 km from our study area. our method identified recruitment into our population from large geographic areas with relatively few samples whereas previous mark-recapture based methods have required orders of magnitude more individuals to describe dispersal at such geographic scales. natal dispersal movements revealed here suggest the spatial scale over which many population processes are taking place and we suggest that conservation plans aiming to maintain populations of ovenbirds and ecologically-similar species should consider management units within 100 or at most 200 km of target breeding populations." "comparing capture-recapture, mark-resight, and spatial mark-resight models for estimating puma densities via camera traps",camera trapping; capture-recapture; density; neotropics; puma concolor; spatial mark-resight,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,RICH LN;KELLY MJ;SOLLMANN R;NOSS AJ;MAFFEI L;ARISPE RL;PAVIOLO A;DE ANGELO CD;DI BLANCO YE;DI BITETTI MS,"camera-trapping surveys, in combination with traditional capture recapture or spatially explicit capture recapture techniques, have become popular for estimating the density of individually identifiable carnivores. when only a portion of the population is uniquely identifiable, traditional and spatial mark-resight models provide a viable alternative. we reanalyzed a data set that used photographic capture recapture methods to estimate the densities of pumas (puma concolor) across 3 study sites in belize, argentina, and bolivia using newer, more-advanced modeling including spatial and nonspatial mark-resight techniques. additionally, we assessed how photo identification influenced density estimates by comparing estimates based on capture histories constructed by 3 independent investigators. we estimated the abundances of pumas using mark-resight models in program mark and then estimated densities ad hoc. we also estimated densities directly using spatial mark-resight models implemented in a bayesian framework. puma densities did not vary substantially among observers but estimates generated from the 3 statistical techniques did differ. density estimates (pumas/100 km(2)) from spatial mark resight models were lower (0.22-7.92) and had increased precision compared to those from nonspatial capture recapture (0.50-19.35) and mark-resight techniques (0.54-14.70). our study is the 1st to estimate the density of a population of carnivores, where only a subset of the individuals are naturally marked, using camera-trapping surveys in combination with spatial mark-resight models. the development of spatial mark-resight and spatially explicit capture-recapture techniques creates the potential for using a single camera-trapping array to estimate the density of multiple, sympatric carnivores, including both partially marked and uniquely marked species." "density dependence or climatic variation? factors influencing survival, recruitment, and population growth rate of virginia opossums",didelphis virginiana; mesopredator release; population dynamics; pradel's capture-mark-recapture model; recruitment; survival,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,TROYER EM;DEVITT SEC;SUNQUIST ME;GOSWAMI VR;OLI MK,"mesopredators play an increasingly important role in ecosystems where apex predators have been eliminated, but population ecology of these midsized mammalian carnivores remains poorly understood. we applied pradel's temporal symmetry models to > 6 years of monthly capture mark recapture data and investigated factors influencing apparent survival, recruitment, and realized population growth rate of the virginia opossum (didelphis virginiana), an important mesopredator with unique life-history characteristics. apparent survival did not vary temporally; monthly survival probabilities were 0.86 +/- 0.01 (se) for females and 0.76 +/- 0.02 for males. recruitment rate varied monthly, with the highest recruitment in december (0.32 +/- 0.12 for females and 0.57 +/- 0.22 for males). realized population growth rate varied monthly and was also highest in december (1.30 +/- 0.17). both recruitment and population growth rate were positively influenced by the monthly coefficient of variation of precipitation. there was no evidence of density-dependent influences on opossum population dynamics, nor was there evidence of competition from the raccoon (procyon lotor), a sympatric and abundant mesopredator. our study is the 1st to simultaneously report survival, recruitment, and population growth rate of virginia opossums and to investigate factors influencing these rates. in doing so, we provide important insights into the population dynamics of an increasingly influential mesopredator." identification of pummelo cultivars by using a panel of 25 selected snps and 12 dna segments,NA,PLOS ONE,WU B;ZHONG GY;YUE JQ;YANG RT;LI C;LI YJ;ZHONG Y;WANG X;JIANG B;ZENG JW;ZHANG L;YAN ST;BEI XJ;ZHOU DG,"pummelo cultivars are usually difficult to identify morphologically, especially when fruits are unavailable. the problem was addressed in this study with the use of two methods: high resolution melting analysis of snps and sequencing of dna segments. in the first method, a set of 25 snps with high polymorphic information content were selected from snps predicted by analyzing ests and sequenced dna segments. high resolution melting analysis was then used to genotype 260 accessions including 55 from myanmar, and 178 different genotypes were thus identified. a total of 99 cultivars were assigned to 86 different genotypes since the known somatic mutants were identical to their original genotypes at the analyzed snp loci. the myanmar samples were genotypically different from each other and from all other samples, indicating they were derived from sexual propagation. statistical analysis showed that the set of snps was powerful enough for identifying at least 1000 pummelo genotypes, though the discrimination power varied in different pummelo groups and populations. in the second method, 12 genomic dna segments of 24 representative pummelo accessions were sequenced. analysis of the sequences revealed the existence of a high haplotype polymorphism in pummelo, and statistical analysis showed that the segments could be used as genetic barcodes that should be informative enough to allow reliable identification of 1200 pummelo cultivars. the high level of haplotype diversity and an apparent population structure shown by dna segments and by snp genotypes, respectively, were discussed in relation to the origin and domestication of the pummelo species." -climate driven life histories: the case of the mediterranean storm petrel,NA,PLOS ONE,SOLDATINI C;ALBORES-BARAJAS YV;MASSA B;GIMENEZ O,"seabirds are affected by changes in the marine ecosystem. the influence of climatic factors on marine food webs can be reflected in long-term seabird population changes. we modelled the survival and recruitment of the mediterranean storm petrel (hydrobates pelagicus melitensis) using a 21-year mark-recapture dataset involving almost 5000 birds. we demonstrated a strong influence of prebreeding climatic conditions on recruitment age and of rainfall and breeding period conditions on juvenile survival. the results suggest that the juvenile survival rate of the mediterranean subspecies may not be negatively affected by the predicted features of climate change, i.e., warmer summers and lower rainfall. based on considerations of winter conditions in different parts of the mediterranean, we were able to draw inferences about the wintering areas of the species for the first time." +climate driven life histories: the case of the mediterranean storm petrel,NA,PLOS ONE,SOLDATINI C;ALBORES BARAJAS YV;MASSA B;GIMENEZ O,"seabirds are affected by changes in the marine ecosystem. the influence of climatic factors on marine food webs can be reflected in long-term seabird population changes. we modelled the survival and recruitment of the mediterranean storm petrel (hydrobates pelagicus melitensis) using a 21-year mark-recapture dataset involving almost 5000 birds. we demonstrated a strong influence of prebreeding climatic conditions on recruitment age and of rainfall and breeding period conditions on juvenile survival. the results suggest that the juvenile survival rate of the mediterranean subspecies may not be negatively affected by the predicted features of climate change, i.e., warmer summers and lower rainfall. based on considerations of winter conditions in different parts of the mediterranean, we were able to draw inferences about the wintering areas of the species for the first time." incidence and geographical variation of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als) in southern germany - completeness of the als registry swabia,NA,PLOS ONE,UENAL H;ROSENBOHM A;KUFELDT J;WEYDT P;GODER K;LUDOLPH A;ROTHENBACHER D;NAGEL G,"objective of this paper was to investigate the incidence, potential geographical clusters and the completeness of the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als) registry in southern germany (swabia). age-standardized incidence rates (asr) and ratios (sir) as well as 95% confidence intervals (ci) were estimated at county level. capture-recapture (care) procedures were applied taking data source dependency into account to estimate the quality of case ascertainment in the als registry swabia. we identified 438 als cases (53% men, 47% women) in the target population of about 8.4 mio inhabitants. the gender ratio (men:women) was 1.1:1. the mean age at onset of als was 63.8 (sd = 11.9) years for men and 66.0 (12.2) for women. the age distribution peaked in the age group 70-74 years. the asr of als was 2.5 per 100,000 person years (py; 95% ci:2.3-2.7). the mean sir was 1.1 per 100,000 py (95% ci:1.0-1.2). high sir suggesting geographical clusters were observed in two counties (goppingen and bodenseekreis), but the variation was not statistically significant (p-values = 0.2 and 0.5). the percentage of care estimated missing cases was 18.9% in the registry yielding an asr of 3.1 per 100,000 py. the high coverage of the care estimated completeness of the als registry swabia indicates excellent quality for future projects. regional variations have to be investigated further." sex ratio bias and extinction risk in an isolated population of tuatara (sphenodon punctatus),NA,PLOS ONE,GRAYSON KL;MITCHELL NJ;MONKS JM;KEALL SN;WILSON JN;NELSON NJ,"understanding the mechanisms underlying population declines is critical for preventing the extinction of endangered populations. positive feedbacks can hasten the process of collapse and create an 'extinction vortex,' particularly in small, isolated populations. we provide a case study of a male-biased sex ratio creating the conditions for extinction in a natural population of tuatara (sphenodon punctatus) on north brother island in the cook strait of new zealand. we combine data from long term mark-recapture surveys, updated model estimates of hatchling sex ratio, and population viability modeling to measure the impacts of sex ratio skew. results from the mark-recapture surveys show an increasing decline in the percentage of females in the adult tuatara population. our monitoring reveals compounding impacts on female fitness through reductions in female body condition, fecundity, and survival as the male-bias in the population has increased. additionally, we find that current nest temperatures are likely to result in more male than female hatchlings, owing to the pattern of temperature-dependent sex determination in tuatara where males hatch at warmer temperatures. anthropogenic climate change worsens the situation for this isolated population, as projected temperature increases for new zealand are expected to further skew the hatchling sex ratio towards males. population viability models predict that without management intervention or an evolutionary response, the population will ultimately become entirely comprised of males and functionally extinct. our study demonstrates that sex ratio bias can be an underappreciated threat to population viability, particularly in populations of long-lived organisms that appear numerically stable." -multi-event capture-recapture modeling of host-pathogen dynamics among european rabbit populations exposed to myxoma and rabbit hemorrhagic disease viruses: common and heterogeneous patterns,NA,VETERINARY RESEARCH,SANTORO S;PACIOS I;MORENO S;BERTO-MORAN A;ROUCO C,"host-pathogen epidemiological processes are often unclear due both to their complexity and over-simplistic approaches used to quantify them. we applied a multi-event capture-recapture procedure on two years of data from three rabbit populations to test hypotheses about the effects on survival of, and the dynamics of host immunity to, both myxoma virus and rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus (mv and rhdv). although the populations shared the same climatic and management conditions, mv and rhdv dynamics varied greatly among them; mv and rhdv seroprevalences were positively related to density in one population, but rhdv seroprevalence was negatively related to density in another. in addition, (i) juvenile survival was most often negatively related to seropositivity, (ii) rhdv seropositives never had considerably higher survival, and (iii) seroconversion to seropositivity was more likely than the reverse. we suggest seropositivity affects survival depending on trade-offs among antibody protection, immunosuppression and virus lethality. negative effects of seropositivity might be greater on juveniles due to their immature immune system. also, while rhdv directly affects survival through the hemorrhagic syndrome, mv lack of direct lethal effects means that interactions influencing survival are likely to be more complex. multi-event modeling allowed us to quantify patterns of host-pathogen dynamics otherwise difficult to discern. such an approach offers a promising tool to shed light on causative mechanisms." +multi-event capture-recapture modeling of host-pathogen dynamics among european rabbit populations exposed to myxoma and rabbit hemorrhagic disease viruses: common and heterogeneous patterns,NA,VETERINARY RESEARCH,SANTORO S;PACIOS I;MORENO S;BERTO MORAN A;ROUCO C,"host-pathogen epidemiological processes are often unclear due both to their complexity and over-simplistic approaches used to quantify them. we applied a multi-event capture-recapture procedure on two years of data from three rabbit populations to test hypotheses about the effects on survival of, and the dynamics of host immunity to, both myxoma virus and rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus (mv and rhdv). although the populations shared the same climatic and management conditions, mv and rhdv dynamics varied greatly among them; mv and rhdv seroprevalences were positively related to density in one population, but rhdv seroprevalence was negatively related to density in another. in addition, (i) juvenile survival was most often negatively related to seropositivity, (ii) rhdv seropositives never had considerably higher survival, and (iii) seroconversion to seropositivity was more likely than the reverse. we suggest seropositivity affects survival depending on trade-offs among antibody protection, immunosuppression and virus lethality. negative effects of seropositivity might be greater on juveniles due to their immature immune system. also, while rhdv directly affects survival through the hemorrhagic syndrome, mv lack of direct lethal effects means that interactions influencing survival are likely to be more complex. multi-event modeling allowed us to quantify patterns of host-pathogen dynamics otherwise difficult to discern. such an approach offers a promising tool to shed light on causative mechanisms." computer-aided pattern recognition of large reptiles as a noninvasive application to identify individuals,photo identification; animal welfare; perentie,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ANIMAL WELFARE SCIENCE,MORO D;MACAULAY I,"for large species, the capture and handling of individuals in capture-mark-recapture studies introduces nonhuman animal welfare issues associated with handling, physical marking, and possible wounding due to tag loss. the use of photographic identification for these species offers an alternative and less invasive marking technique. this study investigated the opportunity offered by photo identification to individually mark individuals of a large reptile, the perentie (varanus giganteus), in australia and therefore avoid the stress of physically capturing and handling. photographs submitted by a remotely located community were first validated to confirm whether perenties could be individually identified from their spots electronically using a computer program. computer-aided selection of unique patterns was found to be appropriate for the identification of individuals and confirmed 38 individuals during the sampling period. the value of this approach is 2-fold: there is a benefit to animal welfare in that handling an animal is not required to capture him or her, thus reducing capture-related stress; and confirmation that photo identification of distinctive patterns of the perentie is valid and offers a useful option to identify individuals of this large species." variations in time and space of an andean wild population of t-infestans at a microgeographic scale,wild triatoma infestans; bolivia; capture-mark-recapture; temporal variation; displacement,PARASITES & VECTORS,BREMOND P;SALAS R;WALECKX E;BUITRAGO R;ALIAGA C;BARNABE C;DEPICKERE S;DANGLES O;BRENIERE SF,"background: wild populations of triatoma infestans are now believed to be the source of reinfestation of dwellings in some andean areas and could impede the full achievement of vector control campaigns in this region. given the poor knowledge of these populations in natural conditions, their basic biology traits, such as monthly demographic variations and movements of individuals, were explored. methods: a previously identified wild population of t. infestans in a field adjacent to a group of isolated houses in an andean valley (department of la paz, bolivia) was explored using regular capture assays over 13 months in 50 sites selected at the beginning of the study. the capture-mark-recapture method was applied monthly using mouse-baited adhesive traps for captures and fingernail polish of different colors for the marking. results: the monthly capture assays did not show significant differences between rainy and dry seasons, showing evidence for a certain stability of the wild t. infestans population with only the nymph population tending to decline during the middle of the rainy season when rain is more intensive. throughout the study, the monthly average number of bugs was 51.1 +/- 25.3 per assay, 91.1% were nymphs, and they were found at 30 of the 50 sites (60%). the number of times a site was positive varied from one to 13. site infestation was associated with the underground position of the traps, and rocks around and in the surroundings of the traps. the recaptures after marking were successful (138 recaptures over the study). the marking made it possible to detect for 14.5% of the recaptures significant movements of adults (up to 168 m) and nymphs (up to 34 m). some bugs (nymphs and females) were recaptured after 5 months. for adults, recaptures (46 in total) mostly occurred between september and march. females were recaptured twice as frequently as males. conclusion: the andean wild populations of t. infestans showed a strong spatial and temporal stability during the year-long study. dispersal may occur mainly during the rainy season. the capture-mark-recapture method was successful and the longevity of the bugs and the distances covered by nymphs and adults were recorded." "winter feeding, growth and condition of brown trout salmo trutta in a groundwater-dominated stream",winter diet; growth; condition; stable isotopes; brown trout,JOURNAL OF FRESHWATER ECOLOGY,FRENCH WE;VONDRACEK B;FERRINGTON LC;FINLAY JC;DIETERMAN DJ,"winter can be a stressful period for stream-dwelling salmonid populations, often resulting in reduced growth and survival. stream water temperatures have been identified as a primary mechanism driving reductions in fitness during winter. however, groundwater inputs can moderate water temperature and may reduce winter severity. additionally, seasonal reductions in prey availability may contribute to decreased growth and survival, although few studies have examined food webs supporting salmonids under winter conditions. this study employed diet, stable isotope, and mark-recapture techniques to examine winter (november through march) feeding, growth, and condition of brown trout salmo trutta in a groundwater-dominated stream (badger creek, minnesota, usa). growth was greater for fish 150mm (mean = 4.1mg g(-1) day(-1)) than for those 151-276mm (mean = 1.0mg g(-1) day(-1)) during the winter season. overall condition from early winter to late winter did not vary for fish 150mm (mean relative weight (wr) = 89.5) and increased for those 151-276mm (mean wr = 85.8 early and 89.4 late). although composition varied both temporally and by individual, brown trout diets were dominated by aquatic invertebrates, primarily amphipods, dipterans, and trichopterans. stable isotope analysis supported the observations of the dominant prey taxa in stomach contents and indicated the winter food web was supported by a combination of allochthonous inputs and aquatic macrophytes. brown trout in badger creek likely benefited from the thermal regime and increased prey abundance present in this groundwater-dominated stream during winter." use of posterior predictive checks as an inferential tool for investigating individual heterogeneity in animal population vital rates,bayesian inference; dynamic heterogeneity; fixed heterogeneity; individual variation; leptonychotes weddellii; model checking; posterior predictive checking; state-space models,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CHAMBERT T;ROTELLA JJ;HIGGS MD,"the investigation of individual heterogeneity in vital rates has recently received growing attention among population ecologists. individual heterogeneity in wild animal populations has been accounted for and quantified by including individually varying effects in models for mark-recapture data, but the real need for underlying individual effects to account for observed levels of individual variation has recently been questioned by the work of tuljapurkar et al. (ecology letters, 12, 93, 2009) on dynamic heterogeneity. model-selection approaches based on information criteria or bayes factors have been used to address this question. here, we suggest that, in addition to model-selection, model-checking methods can provide additional important insights to tackle this issue, as they allow one to evaluate a model's misfit in terms of ecologically meaningful measures. specifically, we propose the use of posterior predictive checks to explicitly assess discrepancies between a model and the data, and we explain how to incorporate model checking into the inferential process used to assess the practical implications of ignoring individual heterogeneity. posterior predictive checking is a straightforward and flexible approach for performing model checks in a bayesian framework that is based on comparisons of observed data to model-generated replications of the data, where parameter uncertainty is incorporated through use of the posterior distribution. if discrepancy measures are chosen carefully and are relevant to the scientific context, posterior predictive checks can provide important information allowing for more efficient model refinement. we illustrate this approach using analyses of vital rates with long-term mark-recapture data for weddell seals and emphasize its utility for identifying shortfalls or successes of a model at representing a biological process or pattern of interest." -"decline of a hermann's tortoise (testudo hcrmanni hcrmanni gmelin, 1789) population in forest. combined effects of several anthropogenic factors",NA,REVUE D ECOLOGIE-LA TERRE ET LA VIE,COUTURIER T;TILLION-LACAZALE L;BESNARD A;ASTRUC G;CHEYLAN M,"this study investigates the evolution of a population of hermann's tortoises, located on the edge of the massif des maurcs, over a period of 30 years through capture recapture monitoring. it shows a considerable decline of 73% in the number of adult tortoises between the early 1980s and 1999; then from 1999, the population stabilized at around 100 adult tortoises. the fall in numbers during the first period seems to be linked to several factors. the 22% increase in forest cover between 1983 and 1995 increased the concentrations of eggs laid in some open areas, making it easier for the species' natural predators to find them. mechanized clearance of undergrowth carried out in 1989 and 1994 has undoubtedly reduced the size of the population. the presence of dogs has posed an additional threat (97% of the adult tortoises have bite marks and 7% are missing limbs). in addition, the impact of dog bites on the tortoises' shells has, over time, removed individual markings, thereby distorting survival estimates. the stabilization of numbers over the last decade seems to be due to the discontinuation of certain practices (notably mechanized undergrowth clearance). however, the demographic structure (with almost no juveniles) could soon lead to another decrease in population. this situation seems to be specific to this particular population and cannot be applied generally to all the populations in provence." +"decline of a hermann's tortoise (testudo hcrmanni hcrmanni gmelin, 1789) population in forest. combined effects of several anthropogenic factors",NA,REVUE D ECOLOGIE-LA TERRE ET LA VIE,COUTURIER T;TILLION LACAZALE L;BESNARD A;ASTRUC G;CHEYLAN M,"this study investigates the evolution of a population of hermann's tortoises, located on the edge of the massif des maurcs, over a period of 30 years through capture recapture monitoring. it shows a considerable decline of 73% in the number of adult tortoises between the early 1980s and 1999; then from 1999, the population stabilized at around 100 adult tortoises. the fall in numbers during the first period seems to be linked to several factors. the 22% increase in forest cover between 1983 and 1995 increased the concentrations of eggs laid in some open areas, making it easier for the species' natural predators to find them. mechanized clearance of undergrowth carried out in 1989 and 1994 has undoubtedly reduced the size of the population. the presence of dogs has posed an additional threat (97% of the adult tortoises have bite marks and 7% are missing limbs). in addition, the impact of dog bites on the tortoises' shells has, over time, removed individual markings, thereby distorting survival estimates. the stabilization of numbers over the last decade seems to be due to the discontinuation of certain practices (notably mechanized undergrowth clearance). however, the demographic structure (with almost no juveniles) could soon lead to another decrease in population. this situation seems to be specific to this particular population and cannot be applied generally to all the populations in provence." "estimating puma puma concolor population size in a human-disturbed landscape in brazil, using dna mark-recapture data",abundance; faecal dna; jolly-seber model; mark; microsatellite; noninvasive analysis,ORYX,MIOTTO RA;CERVINI M;KAJIN M;BEGOTTI RA;GALETTI PM,"the genetics and ecology of pumas are well documented in north america but there is a lack of studies in south america, especially in brazil. by means of a noninvasive method, faecal dna analysis, we estimated puma abundance in two protected areas embedded in a human-disturbed landscape in the north-east of sao paulo state, in south-east brazil. in 8 months of mark-recapture faeces sampling, 15 individual pumas were identified using seven microsatellite loci. the estimated abundance of pumas with the jolly-seber open population model was 23.81 +/- se 6.22. this is the first estimate of the abundance of pumas in a human-dominated landscape in sao paulo state, the most populous, developed and industrialized state of brazil. the absence of high-quality habitats in the northeast of the state, the absence of direct competitors and the high availability of prey in protected areas are probably contributing to the high number of pumas concentrated in a relatively small area (c. 260 km(2)). our results will contribute to the long-term monitoring of this puma population and, combined with other ecological, behavioural and genetic data, will help guide conservation action to maintain a viable population of the puma in this region." age-specific in situ recruitment of female king eiders estimated with mark-recapture,age of first nesting; arctic; breeding ecology; karrak lake; king eider; population biology; population modeling; recruitment; somateria spectabilis,AUK,ALISAUSKAS RT;KELLETT DK,"in addition to estimating survival probability of adult birds, estimating recruitment of new individuals into avian breeding populations is fundamental to understanding rates of population change. notions about mean recruitment age can lead to erroneous conclusions about population projections if the probability of capture is ignored. we calculated the mean recruitment age of king eiders (somateria spectabilis) using two methods: (1) a naive estimate based strictly on observed age at first recapture of marked ducklings as nesting females; and (2) reversed capture histories, which incorporate probability of capture into estimates. from 1996 to 2009, we marked 2,390 king eider ducklings, 53 of which were recaptured from 2007 to 2010 as females nesting at karrak lake, nunavut, in canada's central arctic region. the naive approach estimated mean (+/- 95% cl) recruitment age as 4.58 +/- 0.42 yr, whereas reversed capture histories estimated mean recruitment age as 4.08 +/- 0.34 yr. we illustrate the influence of recruitment age (range: 3-9 yr) on the predicted annual rate of population change. we fit numerous ecological covariates to test for cohort effects, phenology of vernal thaw, absolute and relative nesting phenology of mothers, maternal body size, density dependence, and relative clutch size on age-specific recruitment probability. there was good support for a negative effect of relative initiation date of nests that produced ducklings, and equivocal support for an additive negative influence of vernal thaw at the age that ducklings were recruited as breeders. we discuss the implications of variation in female recruitment age for king eider population biology and fitness. more broadly, we reiterate previous advice (e.g., pradel et al. 1997, schwarz and arnason 2000), against calculation of mean recruitment age from age at first capture, regardless of study species, particularly when detection probability of recruits is low." "mark recapture estimates of dispersal ability and observations on the territorial behaviour of the rare hoverfly, hammerschmidtia ferruginea (diptera, syrphidae)",saproxylic; populus tremula; mate seeking; distribution,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,ROTHERAY EL;BUSSIERE LF;MOORE P;BERGSTROM L;GOULSON D,"in order to effectively manage habitat for fragmented populations, we need to know details of resource utilisation, and the capacity of species to colonise unoccupied habitat patches. dispersal is vital in maintaining viable populations in increasingly fragmented environments by allowing re-colonisation of areas in which populations have gone extinct. in the uk, the endangered aspen hoverfly hammerschmidtia ferruginea (fall,n 1817) (diptera, syrphidae) depends on a limited and transient breeding habitat: decaying aspen wood populus tremula l. (salicaceae). conservation management for h. ferruginea involves encouraging aspen expansion across scotland, and ensuring retention, maintenance and continuity of dead wood where h. ferruginea has been recorded and in areas that may link populations. in order to do this effectively we need to know how far h. ferruginea can disperse. by taking advantage of the tendency of adults to group on decaying aspen logs, we estimated dispersal ability through mark recapture techniques. in the first year, 1,066 flies were marked as they emerged from aspen logs and 78 were re-sighted at artificially-placed decaying aspen logs up to 4 km from the release site. in the second year, of 1,157 individually marked flies, 112 were re-sighted and one was observed 5 km from the release site. territorial behaviour was recorded at all (19) decaying aspen log locations. in total, 72 males were recorded defending territories, which overlapped with 68 % of recorded female oviposition sites. among males only, wing length was positively associated with dispersal. while these results show h. ferruginea is capable of locating decaying logs up to 5 km away, most dispersing individuals (68 %) were recorded at 1 km, which should be taken into account in developing management protocols. if enough dead wood is available it should be distributed within a radius of 1-2 km, and where possible, as stepping-stones linking up aspen woodlands. we discuss the implications of our findings for the natural history of this species, and make recommendations for its conservation management." population dynamics of reintroduced gunnison's prairie dogs in the southern portion of their range,burrowing mammals; conservation; cynomys gunnisoni; grassland; reintroduction; restoration; survival; translocations,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,DAVIDSON AD;FRIGGENS MT;SHOEMAKER KT;HAYES CL;ERZ J;DURAN R,"burrowing, herbivorous mammals play important roles as ecosystem engineers and keystone species of grassland ecosystems around the world, but populations of many species have declined dramatically because of myriad threats from human activities. prairie dogs (cynomys spp.) play important roles in shaping the central grasslands of north america, and have declined by about 98% across their range, with consequent losses in associated species and grassland habitat. this has prompted much interest in restoring their populations to protected areas. managers lack a clear understanding of the long-term success of reintroductions, however, and how success may vary across different species of prairie dogs and their widespread geographic ranges. we reintroduced over 1,000 gunnison's prairie dogs (c. gunnisoni) to a semiarid grassland ecosystem in the southern portion of their range in central new mexico, usa, and used standard capture-recapture methods to study their population dynamics over a period of 8 years. mean adult survival was 27% over the course of the study, with precipitation identified as the primary driver of survival. estimated survival was below 12% during severe drought periods and during the first few years following initial reintroduction, the latter likely because of high predation. consequently, multiple releases of animals were required to prevent extirpation, and the long-term sustainability of this population remains questionable. over the 8 years of our study, our site experienced 4 severe droughts during spring, the key period for prairie dog mating, pregnancy, and lactation. production of offspring at the site was low, likely because of the dry and variable conditions that occurred. we show that prairie dog restoration in semi-arid grassland environments that are typical of the lower elevations and southern extent of their range may not succeed in producing viable colonies, and that dedicated management for multiple years is needed to counteract periods of slow or negative population growth. our findings underscore the importance of maintaining and expanding existing colonies wherever possible in these more arid regions, and suggest that reintroductions should be treated as a secondary management strategy. our work also reveals the high vulnerability of prairie dog population extinction due to drought, which has important implications for gunnison's prairie dog conservation under a warming and drying climate. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." -coping with heterogeneity to detect species on a large scale: n-mixture modeling applied to red-legged partridge abundance,alectoris rufa; detectability; france; game species; monitoring; n-mixture; occupancy; playback,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,JAKOB C;PONCE-BOUTIN F;BESNARD A,"the reliability of long-term population estimates is crucial for conservation and management purposes. most game species population monitoring programs assume that count indices are proportionally related to abundance. however, this assumption is untenable when detection varies spatially and temporally. we assessed whether n-mixture models, which allow detection modeling using spatially and temporally repeated count data, were relevant for monitoring the population of red-legged partridge (alectoris rufa). unbiased estimates are needed for calculating hunting quotas for this game species. we used the simple aural playback point-countmethod and a dataset of 121 point-transects (n = 16,288 counts) collected from 1992 to 2010. covariates such as date, hour, wind, rain, and vegetation density influenced detection probability. estimated abundance ranged from 0 to 15 males per point and exhibited variable coefficients of variation depending on sites (range: 0.14-1.31, mean: 0.44). we found a positive and linear relationship between the abundance estimated by the n-mixture model and the densities provided by 2 other counting methods, square sampling and kilometric abundance index, but not with blank beat. we established a maximum detection radius for the playback surveys, which enabled conversion of abundance at the points into density. the n-mixture modeling approach is more cost-effective for game species monitoring than capture-recapture methods or square sampling, and more reliable than indices of relative abundances. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." -strengthening population inference in herpetofaunal studies by addressing detection probability,amphibians; detectability; mark-recapture; population dynamics; reptiles; survival probability,SOUTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,GUIMARAES M;DOHERTY PF;MUNGUIA-STEYER R,"in conservation biology and population dynamic studies, accounting for the effect of imperfect detection of animals in the wild is crucial for correct inference of demographic parameters. however, articles published in south american herpetological journals still report estimates without considering how detection can influence estimates of vital rates, assuming that detection probability is perfect (i.e., 100%) and constant. using data from a population of the torrent frog, hylodes asper, we calculate return rates and compare them with survival probability estimates adjusted for detection probability to highlight the discrepancies between the two metrics. then, using power analysis, we also explore how survival is underestimated, considering different scenarios and sampling efforts, given low detectability. finally, we provide information on the optimal number of surveys to achieve a reasonable precision, assuming a fixed number of individuals initially captured for a series of parameter values. ignoring potential bias of uncorrected estimates may lead to weak inference and erroneous decisions for management and conservation. we recommend that researchers consider detection probability in their studies to improve the accuracy of population estimates." +coping with heterogeneity to detect species on a large scale: n-mixture modeling applied to red-legged partridge abundance,alectoris rufa; detectability; france; game species; monitoring; n-mixture; occupancy; playback,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,JAKOB C;PONCE BOUTIN F;BESNARD A,"the reliability of long-term population estimates is crucial for conservation and management purposes. most game species population monitoring programs assume that count indices are proportionally related to abundance. however, this assumption is untenable when detection varies spatially and temporally. we assessed whether n-mixture models, which allow detection modeling using spatially and temporally repeated count data, were relevant for monitoring the population of red-legged partridge (alectoris rufa). unbiased estimates are needed for calculating hunting quotas for this game species. we used the simple aural playback point-countmethod and a dataset of 121 point-transects (n = 16,288 counts) collected from 1992 to 2010. covariates such as date, hour, wind, rain, and vegetation density influenced detection probability. estimated abundance ranged from 0 to 15 males per point and exhibited variable coefficients of variation depending on sites (range: 0.14-1.31, mean: 0.44). we found a positive and linear relationship between the abundance estimated by the n-mixture model and the densities provided by 2 other counting methods, square sampling and kilometric abundance index, but not with blank beat. we established a maximum detection radius for the playback surveys, which enabled conversion of abundance at the points into density. the n-mixture modeling approach is more cost-effective for game species monitoring than capture-recapture methods or square sampling, and more reliable than indices of relative abundances. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." +strengthening population inference in herpetofaunal studies by addressing detection probability,amphibians; detectability; mark-recapture; population dynamics; reptiles; survival probability,SOUTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,GUIMARAES M;DOHERTY PF;MUNGUIA STEYER R,"in conservation biology and population dynamic studies, accounting for the effect of imperfect detection of animals in the wild is crucial for correct inference of demographic parameters. however, articles published in south american herpetological journals still report estimates without considering how detection can influence estimates of vital rates, assuming that detection probability is perfect (i.e., 100%) and constant. using data from a population of the torrent frog, hylodes asper, we calculate return rates and compare them with survival probability estimates adjusted for detection probability to highlight the discrepancies between the two metrics. then, using power analysis, we also explore how survival is underestimated, considering different scenarios and sampling efforts, given low detectability. finally, we provide information on the optimal number of surveys to achieve a reasonable precision, assuming a fixed number of individuals initially captured for a series of parameter values. ignoring potential bias of uncorrected estimates may lead to weak inference and erroneous decisions for management and conservation. we recommend that researchers consider detection probability in their studies to improve the accuracy of population estimates." a population estimate of chimpanzees (pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) in the ugalla region using standard and spatially explicit genetic capture-recapture methods,population estimate; chimpanzees; genetic capture-recapture; spatially explicit capture-recapture; population density; conservation,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY,MOORE DL;VIGILANT L,"population parameters such as size, density, and distribution of a species across a landscape are important metrics that inform conservation science and are key to management strategies. in this study, we used genetic capture-recapture methods to estimate the population size and density of the little-studied chimpanzees in the ugalla region of western tanzania. from 237 fecal samples collected non-invasively over a 10-month period, we identified a minimum of 113 individuals. based on the two-innate rate method (tirm) modeled in the software capwire, we obtained a maximum-likelihood estimate of 322 (ci 227-373) individuals over the 624km(2) area surveyed. using a spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) method, we estimated a population density of 0.25 (ci 0.16-0.38) individuals/km(2). observations of nests and search effort data revealed areas of more intense usage. the findings of this study are an important step in the characterization of the ugalla chimpanzees, and substantially improve our understanding of the number of chimpanzees that occupy this savanna-woodland region at the easternmost extent of the geographic range of this endangered subspecies. am. j. primatol. 76:335-346, 2014. (c) 2013 wiley periodicals, inc." six-year demographic study reveals threat of stochastic extinction for remnant populations of a threatened amphibian,mark-recapture; conservation; growth; variability; litoria aurea; anuran,AUSTRAL ECOLOGY,PICKETT EJ;STOCKWELL MP;BOWER DS;POLLARD CJ;GARNHAM JI;CLULOW J;MAHONY MJ,"sustained demographic studies are essential for early detection of species decline in time for effective management response. a paucity of such background data hindered the potential for successful conservation during the global amphibian decline and remains problematic today. the current study analysed 6 years of mark-recapture data to determine the vital demographic rates in three habitat precincts of the threatened frog, litoria aurea (hylidae) and to understand the underlying causes of variability in population size. variability in population size of l. aurea was similar to many pond-breeding species; however this level of fluctuation is rare among threatened amphibians. highly variable populations are at greater risk of local extinction and the low level of connectivity between l. aurea populations means they are at a greater risk of further decline due to stochastic extinction events and incapacity to recolonize distant habitat. we recommend that management of this species should encourage recolonization through creation of habitat corridors and reintroduction of l. aurea to areas where stochastic extinction events are suspected." linking resource availability and habitat structure to stream organisms: an experimental and observational assessment,"anadromous; body size; bottom-up; chironomidae (diptera); fish; growth; oncorhynchus kisutch walbaum; physical habitat structure; resource subsidies; restoration; scale; streams; washington, usa",ECOSPHERE,KIFFNEY PM;BUHLE ER;NAMAN SM;PESS GR;KLETT RS,"an experiment and a mark-recapture field study of juvenile coho salmon (oncorhynchus kisutch) were conducted to identify controls of key energy flow chains in river food webs. in the small-scale experiment, we investigated the individual and interactive effects of physical habitat structure (phs) as small wood and resource availability (tissue of adult chinook salmon, o. tshawytscha) on nutrients, algae, invertebrates, and fish predators including juvenile coho. in the field, we quantified the effects of natural variation in prey availability (invertebrate drift biomass), phs (wood), and local fish density on summer growth of juvenile coho across multiple stream reaches. adding salmon tissue to experimental channels resulted in strong bottom-up effects on select invertebrates including increased population biomass of chironomids and baetids, the numerically dominant invertebrates, and faster growth of juvenile coho. we link the enhanced growth of coho to chironomid productivity: for instance, adult chironomid flux was 4.3x higher and coho consumption of these animals 3x higher in salmon-subsidized channels. phs in experimental channels was associated with reduced algal biomass, potentially in response to increased invertebrate consumption, and invertebrate flux or export. the field study revealed coho growth was negatively related to phs and total fish density and positively related to diptera drift biomass; however, the effects of fish density and drift biomass on coho growth were relatively weak. the field study also indicated that prey resource availability and coho growth were associated with differences in canopy cover, with prey biomass and coho growth 2-4x higher in reaches receiving more sunlight. as in the experiment, coho in natural stream reaches predominantly fed on adult chironomids and other diptera, indicating that these taxa and life-stages are a key link between the benthic food web and mobile vertebrate predators. our study showed that bottom-up processes initiated by salmon subsidies and possibly light flux determined key trophic interactions in the cedar river food web. moreover, we speculate that phs may modify some of these interactions indirectly through its effects on the movement of organisms through the environment." @@ -2629,7 +2632,7 @@ zero-inflated models for identifying disease risk factors when case detection is does seasonality drive spatial patterns in demography? variation in survival in african reed warblers acrocephalus baeticatus across southern africa does not reflect global patterns,avian life history; capture-mark-recapture; jags; multistate state-space; seasonality; spatial variation,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,JANSEN DYM;ABADI F;HAREBOTTLE D;ALTWEGG R,"among birds, northern temperate species generally have larger clutches, shorter development periods and lower adult survival than similarly-sized southern and tropical species. even though this global pattern is well accepted, the driving mechanism is still not fully understood. the main theories are founded on the differing environmental seasonality of these zones (higher seasonality in the north). these patterns arise in cross-species comparisons, but we hypothesized that the same patterns should arise among populations within a species if different types of seasonality select for different life histories. few studies have examined this. we estimated survival of an azonal habitat specialist, the african reed warbler, across the environmentally diverse african subcontinent, and related survival to latitude and to the seasonality of the different environments of their breeding habitats. data (1998-2010) collected through a public ringing scheme were analyzed with hierarchical capture-mark-recapture models to determine resident adult survival and its spatial variance across sixteen vegetation units spread across four biomes. the models were defined as state-space multi-state models to account for transience and implemented in a bayesian framework. we did not find a latitudinal trend in survival or a clear link between seasonality and survival. spatial variation in survival was substantial across the sixteen sites (spatial standard deviation of the logit mean survival: 0.70, 95% credible interval (cri): 0.33-1.27). mean site survival ranged from 0.49 (95% cri: 0.18-0.80) to 0.83 (95% cri: 0.62-0.97) with an overall mean of 0.67 (95% cri: 0.47-0.85). a hierarchical modeling approach enabled us to estimate spatial variation in survival of the african reed warbler across the african subcontinent from sparse data. although we could not confirm the global pattern of higher survival in less seasonal environments, our findings from a poorly studied region contribute to the study of life-history strategies." testing the consistency of wildlife data types before combining them: the case of camera traps and telemetry,camera trap; capture rate; data consistency; detection probability; fisher; home range; pekania pennanti; sierra nevada; telemetry; wildlife monitoring,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,POPESCU VD;DE VALPINE P;SWEITZER RA,"wildlife data gathered by different monitoring techniques are often combined to estimate animal density. however, methods to check whether different types of data provide consistent information (i.e., can information from one data type be used to predict responses in the other?) before combining them are lacking. we used generalized linear models and generalized linear mixed-effects models to relate camera trap probabilities for marked animals to independent space use from telemetry relocations using 2years of data for fishers (pekania pennanti) as a case study. we evaluated (1) camera trap efficacy by estimating how camera detection probabilities are related to nearby telemetry relocations and (2) whether home range utilization density estimated from telemetry data adequately predicts camera detection probabilities, which would indicate consistency of the two data types. the number of telemetry relocations within 250 and 500m from camera traps predicted detection probability well. for the same number of relocations, females were more likely to be detected during the first year. during the second year, all fishers were more likely to be detected during the fall/winter season. models predicting camera detection probability and photo counts solely from telemetry utilization density had the best or nearly best akaike information criterion (aic), suggesting that telemetry and camera traps provide consistent information on space use. given the same utilization density, males were more likely to be photo-captured due to larger home ranges and higher movement rates. although methods that combine data types (spatially explicit capture-recapture) make simple assumptions about home range shapes, it is reasonable to conclude that in our case, camera trap data do reflect space use in a manner consistent with telemetry data. however, differences between the 2years of data suggest that camera efficacy is not fully consistent across ecological conditions and make the case for integrating other sources of space-use data." "a quantitative life history of endangered humpback chub that spawn in the little colorado river: variation in movement, growth, and survival",dams; fitness trade-offs; grand canyon; hydrology; multistate; partial migration; size-dependent; skip spawning; tributary,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,YACKULIC CB;YARD MD;KORMAN J;VAN HAVERBEKE DR,"while the ecology and evolution of partial migratory systems (defined broadly to include skip spawning) have been well studied, we are only beginning to understand how partial migratory populations are responding to ongoing environmental change. environmental change can lead to differences in the fitness of residents and migrants, which could eventually lead to changes in the frequency of the strategies in the overall population. here, we address questions concerning the life history of the endangered gila cypha (humpback chub) in the regulated colorado river and the unregulated tributary and primary spawning area, the little colorado river. we develop eight multistate models for the population based on three movement hypotheses, in which states are defined in terms of fish size classes and river locations. we fit these models to mark-recapture data collected in 2009-2012. we compare survival and growth estimates between the colorado river and little colorado river and calculate abundances for all size classes. the best model supports the hypotheses that larger adults spawn more frequently than smaller adults, that there are residents in the spawning grounds, and that juveniles move out of the little colorado river in large numbers during the monsoon season (july-september). monthly survival rates for g.cypha in the colorado river are higher than in the little colorado river in all size classes; however, growth is slower. while the hypothetical life histories of life-long residents in the little colorado river and partial migrants spending most of its time in the colorado river are very different, they lead to roughly similar fitness expectations when we used expected number of spawns as a proxy. however, more research is needed because our study period covers a period of years when conditions in the colorado river for g.cypha are likely to have been better than has been typical over the last few decades." -estimation of capture probabilities using generalized estimating equations and mixed effects approaches,closed population; generalized linear models; generalized linear mixed models; heterogeneity; population size estimation,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,AKANDA MAS;ALPIZAR-JARA R,"modeling individual heterogeneity in capture probabilities has been one of the most challenging tasks in capture-recapture studies. heterogeneity in capture probabilities can be modeled as a function of individual covariates, but correlation structure among capture occasions should be taking into account. a proposed generalized estimating equations (gee) and generalized linear mixed modeling (glmm) approaches can be used to estimate capture probabilities and population size for capture-recapture closed population models. an example is used for an illustrative application and for comparison with currently used methodology. a simulation study is also conducted to show the performance of the estimation procedures. our simulation results show that the proposed quasi-likelihood based on gee approach provides lower se than partial likelihood based on either generalized linear models (glm) or glmm approaches for estimating population size in a closed capture-recapture experiment. estimator performance is good if a large proportion of individuals are captured. for cases where only a small proportion of individuals are captured, the estimates become unstable, but the gee approach outperforms the other methods." +estimation of capture probabilities using generalized estimating equations and mixed effects approaches,closed population; generalized linear models; generalized linear mixed models; heterogeneity; population size estimation,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,AKANDA MAS;ALPIZAR JARA R,"modeling individual heterogeneity in capture probabilities has been one of the most challenging tasks in capture-recapture studies. heterogeneity in capture probabilities can be modeled as a function of individual covariates, but correlation structure among capture occasions should be taking into account. a proposed generalized estimating equations (gee) and generalized linear mixed modeling (glmm) approaches can be used to estimate capture probabilities and population size for capture-recapture closed population models. an example is used for an illustrative application and for comparison with currently used methodology. a simulation study is also conducted to show the performance of the estimation procedures. our simulation results show that the proposed quasi-likelihood based on gee approach provides lower se than partial likelihood based on either generalized linear models (glm) or glmm approaches for estimating population size in a closed capture-recapture experiment. estimator performance is good if a large proportion of individuals are captured. for cases where only a small proportion of individuals are captured, the estimates become unstable, but the gee approach outperforms the other methods." "abundance of harbour porpoises (phocoena phocoena) in the western baltic, belt seas and kattegat",NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,VIQUERAT S;HERR H;GILLES A;PESCHKO V;SIEBERT U;SVEEGAARD S;TEILMANN J,"in july 2012, a ship-board double-platform line-transect survey was conducted to assess harbour porpoise (phocoena phocoena) abundance in the kattegat, belt seas and the western baltic. a total of 826 km of track lines were surveyed between the 2nd and 21st of july 2012, and 169 observations were made by the primary observers, comprising a total of 230 porpoises. fifty-seven observations were identified as duplicate sightings observed by both tracker and primary observers and were used to correct for availability and perception bias of the primary detections. using mark-recapture distance sampling analysis, we produced a model using the half-normal key function, including sightability as the only covariate to estimate the density and abundance of harbour porpoise within the 51,511 km(2) survey area. estimated detection probability on the transect line, known as g(0), was at 0.571 (+/- 0.074; cv = 0.130). using a point independence model of the detection function, the abundance of harbour porpoises within the survey area was estimated at 40,475 animals (95 % ci 25,614-65,041, cv = 0.235) with an associated density of 0.786 animals km(-2) (95 % ci 0.498-1.242, cv = 0.235) and an average group size of 1.488 animals. these results reflect densities obtained during the scans surveys in 1994 and 2005, indicating no significant population trend in the area. however, it should be noted that the survey area covers more than one population and that results are therefore not necessarily reflecting local population trends. until proper population borders are obtained, the abundance estimate provides baseline data for future monitoring and is an important input to the assessment of the conservation status of harbour porpoises in the area." survival and remigration probabilities for loggerhead turtles (caretta caretta) nesting in the eastern gulf of mexico,NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,PHILLIPS KF;MANSFIELD KL;DIE DJ;ADDISON DS,"few long-term mark-recapture tagging datasets exist to estimate population parameters for loggerhead sea turtle (caretta caretta) recovery units. using a two-state open robust design model, we analyzed a 20-year (1990-2009) mark-recapture dataset from the keewaydin island loggerhead nesting assemblage off the southwest coast of florida (usa) in the eastern gulf of mexico. for this analysis, 2,292 turtle encounters were evaluated, representing 841 individual nesting turtles. survival was estimated at 0.73 (95 % ci 0.69-0.76). this estimate is comparable with survival estimates elsewhere in the peninsular florida subpopulation and is among the lowest estimates for the northwest atlantic loggerhead population. we documented no changes in remigration rates or clutch frequency over time. these are the first survival and remigration probabilities estimated for a loggerhead nesting assemblage in the eastern gulf of mexico." "reproductive seasonality of a recently designated bottlenose dolphin stock near charleston, south carolina, usa",bottlenose dolphin; tursiops truncatus; photo-id; reproduction; seasonality; strandings,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,MCFEE WE;SPEAKMAN TR;BALTHIS L;ADAMS JD;ZOLMAN ES,"reproductive seasonality of common bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) can be affected by numerous ecological and behavioral factors. in 2009, stock boundaries were revised to recognize a charleston estuarine system stock (cess) of bottlenose dolphins in charleston, south carolina. the cess is a well-studied population with long-term data collected from photo-identification and stranding studies. from 2004 to 2008, a systematic mark-recapture photo-identification study was conducted in the charleston estuary to estimate population size of the cess. sightings data from this photo-identification study coupled with strandings data (1993-2008) were analyzed to determine the reproductive seasonality of this local population. both neonate sightings and strandings depicted a primary season of reproduction in the spring into early summer with a small peak in neonate sightings in early autumn, and were significantly different from circular uniform and von mises distributions (strandings: p<0.01, v=2.8644; sightings: p<0.01, v=3.2302). this study increases the knowledge of seasonal reproductive patterns of estuarine stocks of bottlenose dolphin stocks in the southeastern united states. the results will also help wildlife managers detect unusual neonate mortality events, and provide information about critical habitat relevant for evaluating and mitigating coastal development projects." @@ -2639,7 +2642,7 @@ a capture-recapture model of amphidromous fish dispersal,caribbean; migration; p using mark-recapture information to validate and assess age and growth of long-lived fish species,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,HAMEL MJ;KOCH JD;STEFFENSEN KD;PEGG MA;HAMMEN JJ;RUGG ML,"long-lived species from marine and freshwater environments have experienced declines linked to anthropogenic effects such as overexploitation, dam construction, and habitat modification. an understanding of the age structure and the associated dynamics determined from these data for long-lived species is critical for both perseverance of at-risk species and maintenance of exploited species. we used pallid sturgeon (scaphirhynchus albus) to evaluate the efficacy of mark-recapture data from known-age, hatchery-reared fish (ages 1 to 7) to corroborate age and growth estimates obtained from sectioned pectoral fin rays. accuracy of age estimates from known-age fish was 13%, whereas 72% of estimates were within 2 years of the true age. annual growth was significantly different between estimated growth (back-calculated) and actual observations of tagged pallid sturgeon. age for pallid sturgeon of any given size was estimated with parameters derived from mark-recapture data, and the predicted length-at-age relation was similar to observations from known individuals. in instances where age determination for all ages of interest cannot be verified, mark-recapture appears to be a viable solution for examining growth and has shown promise as a tool for estimating ages in long-lived species with calcified structures that are difficult to read." "are habitat loss, predation risk and climate related to the drastic decline in a siberian flying squirrel population? a 15-year study",alternative prey hypothesis; landscape change; mark-recapture analysis; population regulation,POPULATION ECOLOGY,KOSKIMAKI J;HUITU O;KOTIAHO JS;LAMPILA S;MAKELA A;SULKAVA R;MONKKONEN M,"to devise effective conservation actions, it is important to know which factors are associated with the population parameters of a declining population. using mark-recapture methods, we estimated the annual population size, growth rate and survival probability of an ear-tagged flying squirrel population over a 15-year period in a 4,500 ha study area in western finland. the species is considered vulnerable, but detailed knowledge concerning population sizes or trends is lacking. the population parameters and changes therein were regressed against habitat availability, an indicator of predation pressure, and mean winter temperature (an indicator of climate change), to reveal potential reasons for trends in the population. the best-fit models suggested the annual growth rate to be below one, and on average it was 0.93 (+/- 0.06; se) across the 15-year period. the survival probability was about 0.22 (+/- 0.03) for juveniles and 0.50 (+/- 0.03) for adults. the population size of adult flying squirrels decreased from 65 (+/- 11) individuals in 1995 to 29 (+/- 6) individuals in 2009. the number of flying squirrels was associated with the amount of available habitat, but the decline in population size was more rapid than the loss of habitat area. if the current decreasing trend in habitat availability continues, the population might become extinct by the year 2020. to halt the population decline, it is necessary to refrain from clear-cutting mature spruce stands until new suitable habitats develop from the maturation of younger forests." estimating the consequences of multiple threats and management strategies for semi- aquatic turtles,diamondback terrapin; malaclemys terrapin; matrix model; nest predation; population growth rate; road mortality; roads,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,CRAWFORD BA;MAERZ JC;NIBBELINK NP;BUHLMANN KA;NORTON TM,"1. roads are pervasive fixtures on most landscapes but are typically among many factors contributing to wildlife population declines. addressing road mortality as part of larger conservation efforts is challenging because it can be difficult to measure per capita mortality from roads and other concurrent threats. 2. we used 4 years of mark-recapture-recovery data for diamondback terrapins malaclemys terrapin on a causeway in georgia, usa, to directly estimate threats of adult road mortality and nest predation, contrast the consequences to population growth using stage-based matrix models and make management recommendations to stabilize the population. 3. mean estimated annual adult road mortality was 11.1% (range = 4.4-16.4%). estimated annual nest predation was 61.9%. we estimated that the population was declining (lambda < 0.98) in all scenarios where both threats were included. variation in adult survival was the most influential (highest elasticity) contributor to population growth relative to other demographic rates; however, lambda would remain below 1 with any nest predation rate exceeding our estimate even if actions to mitigate road mortality were 100% effective. 4. synthesis and applications. our study provides some of the first direct estimates of vehicle mortality rates and shows that mortality can remain sufficiently high among years to cause population declines. we also demonstrate that management actions focused on singular threats are inadequate for recovering populations. we conclude that integrated road and predator management is necessary to conserve turtle populations, and we suggest alternative strategies to compensate for some vehicle mortality and nest depredation." -exploring the consequences of reducing survey effort for detecting individual and temporal variability in survival,data thinning; hidden parameters; individual covariates; integrated population model; juvenile survival; long-term monitoring; mark-recapture-recovery; productivity; survey design; uria aalge,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,LAHOZ-MONFORT JJ;HARRIS MP;MORGAN BJT;FREEMAN SN;WANLESS S,"1. long-term monitoring programmes often involve substantial input of skilled staff time. in mark-recapture studies, considerable effort is usually devoted to both marking and recapturing/resighting individuals. given increasing budgetary constraints, it is essential to streamline field protocols to minimize data redundancy while still achieving targets such as detecting trends or ecological effects. 2. we evaluated different levels of field effort investment in marking and resighting individuals by resampling existing mark-recapture-recovery data to construct plausible scenarios of changes in field protocols. we demonstrate the method with 26years data from a common guillemot uria aalge monitoring programme at a major north sea colony. we also assess the impact of stopping the ringing of chicks on our ability to study population demography using integrated population models (ipm) fitted to data including information on breeding adults. different data sets were removed artificially to explore the ability to compensate for missing data. 3. current ringing effort at this colony appears adequate but resighting effort could be halved while still maintaining the capacity to monitor first-year survival and detect the effect of hatch date on survival prospects. 4. the ipm appears robust for estimating survival, productivity or abundance of the breeding population, but has limited capacity to recover year-specific first-year survival when chick data are omitted. if productivity were not monitored, the inclusion of chick data would be essential to estimate it, albeit imprecisely. 5. synthesis and applications. post-study evaluation can help streamline existing long-term environmental monitoring programmes. to our knowledge, this study is the first use of data thinning of existing mark-recapture-recovery data to identify potential field effort reductions. we also highlight how alternative monitoring scenarios can be evaluated with integrated population models when data are collected on different aspects of demography and abundance. when effort reduction is necessary, both approaches provide decision-support tools for adjusting field protocols to collect demographic data. the framework has broad applicability to other taxa and demographic parameters, provided suitable long-term data are available, and we discuss its use in different contexts. post-study evaluation can help streamline existing long-term environmental monitoring programmes. to our knowledge, this study is the first use of data thinning of existing mark-recapture-recovery data to identify potential field effort reductions. we also highlight how alternative monitoring scenarios can be evaluated with integrated population models when data are collected on different aspects of demography and abundance. when effort reduction is necessary, both approaches provide decision-support tools for adjusting field protocols to collect demographic data. the framework has broad applicability to other taxa and demographic parameters, provided suitable long-term data are available, and we discuss its use in different contexts." +exploring the consequences of reducing survey effort for detecting individual and temporal variability in survival,data thinning; hidden parameters; individual covariates; integrated population model; juvenile survival; long-term monitoring; mark-recapture-recovery; productivity; survey design; uria aalge,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,LAHOZ MONFORT JJ;HARRIS MP;MORGAN BJT;FREEMAN SN;WANLESS S,"1. long-term monitoring programmes often involve substantial input of skilled staff time. in mark-recapture studies, considerable effort is usually devoted to both marking and recapturing/resighting individuals. given increasing budgetary constraints, it is essential to streamline field protocols to minimize data redundancy while still achieving targets such as detecting trends or ecological effects. 2. we evaluated different levels of field effort investment in marking and resighting individuals by resampling existing mark-recapture-recovery data to construct plausible scenarios of changes in field protocols. we demonstrate the method with 26years data from a common guillemot uria aalge monitoring programme at a major north sea colony. we also assess the impact of stopping the ringing of chicks on our ability to study population demography using integrated population models (ipm) fitted to data including information on breeding adults. different data sets were removed artificially to explore the ability to compensate for missing data. 3. current ringing effort at this colony appears adequate but resighting effort could be halved while still maintaining the capacity to monitor first-year survival and detect the effect of hatch date on survival prospects. 4. the ipm appears robust for estimating survival, productivity or abundance of the breeding population, but has limited capacity to recover year-specific first-year survival when chick data are omitted. if productivity were not monitored, the inclusion of chick data would be essential to estimate it, albeit imprecisely. 5. synthesis and applications. post-study evaluation can help streamline existing long-term environmental monitoring programmes. to our knowledge, this study is the first use of data thinning of existing mark-recapture-recovery data to identify potential field effort reductions. we also highlight how alternative monitoring scenarios can be evaluated with integrated population models when data are collected on different aspects of demography and abundance. when effort reduction is necessary, both approaches provide decision-support tools for adjusting field protocols to collect demographic data. the framework has broad applicability to other taxa and demographic parameters, provided suitable long-term data are available, and we discuss its use in different contexts. post-study evaluation can help streamline existing long-term environmental monitoring programmes. to our knowledge, this study is the first use of data thinning of existing mark-recapture-recovery data to identify potential field effort reductions. we also highlight how alternative monitoring scenarios can be evaluated with integrated population models when data are collected on different aspects of demography and abundance. when effort reduction is necessary, both approaches provide decision-support tools for adjusting field protocols to collect demographic data. the framework has broad applicability to other taxa and demographic parameters, provided suitable long-term data are available, and we discuss its use in different contexts." "silver eel (anguilla anguilla) population dynamics and production in the river shannon, ireland",silver eel production; anguilla; seasonality; downstream migration; didson; population model,ECOLOGY OF FRESHWATER FISH,MACNAMARA R;MCCARTHY TK,"the european eel (anguilla anguilla) is in decline throughout its distribution and accurate regional information, particularly on the silver eel life-stage, is an essential component of stock recovery plans. therefore, silver eel population dynamics and production were investigated on the irish river shannon. size frequency analysis during the annual seaward migration showed that between 2008 and 2011, seasonal trends in both sex ratio and female size occurred. catch analysis and mark-recapture experiments were undertaken during the same period to determine silver eel production. due to extreme discharge in 2009, no catch data was available for 17 nights, and a novel protocol was developed using a dual frequency identification sonar (didson) to quantify silver eel migration. in 2008, silver eel production was estimated at 57.3t (1.35kg center dot ha(-1)), but an additional 18.3t of potential migrants were estimated to have been removed by the summer yellow eel fishery. in 2009, following closure of the yellow eel fishery, silver eel production increased to 68.6t (1.62kg center dot ha(-1)), before declining to 62.7t (1.47kg center dot ha(-1)) in 2010 and 61.6t (1.45kg center dot ha(-1)) in 2011. modelling, based on long-term stocking data (1959-2011) and retrospectively estimated silver eel production (1992-2007) suggests that despite commercial fishery closure on the river, the decline in river shannon silver eel production will continue for at least the coming decade." capture recapture estimation of the prevalence of mild intellectual disability and substance use disorder,prevalence estimation; substance use disorder; intellectual disability; capture recapture method,RESEARCH IN DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES,VANDERNAGEL JEL;KIEWIK M;POSTEL MG;VAN DIJK M;DIDDEN R;BUITELAAR JK;DE JONG CAJ,"persons with mild to borderline intellectual disability (mid) have been identified as a group at risk for substance use disorder (sud). however, prevalence estimates of co-occurring sud and mid rely largely on single source studies performed in selected samples. to obtain more reliable population estimates of sud and mid, this study combines data from an intellectual disability facility (idf), and an addiction treatment centre (atc) in a semi-rural area in the netherlands. capture-recapture analysis was used to estimate the hidden population (i.e., the population not identified in the original samples). further analyses were performed for age and gender stratified data. staff members reported on 88 patients with sud and mid in the idf (4.0% of the idf sample) and 114 in the atc (5.2% of the atc sample), with 12 patients in both groups. only strata for males over 30 years provided reliable population estimates. based on 97 patients in these strata, the hidden population was estimated at 215. hence the estimated total population of males over 30 years old with mid and sud was 312 (95% ci 143-481), approximately 0.16% (0.05-0.25%) of the total population of this age and gender group. this illustrates that while patients with co-occurring sud and mid often receive professional help from only one service provider, single source data underestimate its prevalence, and thus underestimate treatment and service needs. therefore, population prevalence estimations of co-occurring sud and mid should be based on combined multiple source data. (c) 2014 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." objective bayesian analysis for a capture-recapture model,capture-recapture; objective prior; frequentist property,ANNALS OF THE INSTITUTE OF STATISTICAL MATHEMATICS,XU C;SUN DC;HE C,"in this paper, we study a special capture-recapture model, the model, using objective bayesian methods. the challenge is to find a justified objective prior for an unknown population size . we develop an asymptotic objective prior for the discrete parameter and the jeffreys' prior for the capture probabilities . simulation studies are conducted and the results show that the reference prior has advantages over ad-hoc non-informative priors. in the end, two real data examples are presented." @@ -2658,9 +2661,9 @@ environmental drivers of an urban hadeda ibis population,capture-mark-recapture; "growth parameters and density variation of a queen conch, strombus gigas (neotaenioglossa: strombidae), population from xel-ha park, a marine protected area",conch; growth; population parameters; marine protected area; caribbean; mpa,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,CARDENAS EB;ARANDA DA,"the queen conch, strombus gigas, is a gastropod of commercial importance in the caribbean. population studies are based on size frequency analysis, using either length or weight parameters for the whole live organism. this contribution used mark-recapture data to estimate the von bertalanffy equation parameters and population number variation within a non harvest population from a protected area, to clarify the biometric parameters that better suit for the whole population, or for the juvenile and adult fractions. conchs from xel-ha park were monthly sampled from november 2001 to august 2005. every conch found was measured and marked with a numbered tag that identified month and locality; and monthly abundance was estimated with jolly's method. length, lip thickness and weight increments were used to estimate the von bertalanffy growth equation parameters with appeldoorn's subroutine of fisat program. the population number varied through the study, with a minimum of 49 in april 2003 and maximum of 9 848 during june 2005. conchs make only temporary use of xel-ha cove. shell length gave the best fit for the juvenile fraction: l infinity=251, k=0.3, c=0.8 wp=0.3; and lip thickness for adults: l infinity=47.78, k=0.17, c=0.1, wp=0.86, while, the whole population was better represented by weight: l infinity=3850, k=0.36, c=0.8, wp=0.3. a maximum age of 19 years was estimated from the population. natural mortality was 0.49/year for juveniles and 0.29/year for adults. there were two pulses of recruitment: fall-winter and summer. it is concluded that population studies from length frequency data, should be analyzed independently in two groups, shell for the juvenile fraction and lip thickness for the adult fraction, or if it is not possible to analyze the population fractions separately, weight should be used to avoid miss calculation of the age structure." demographic status of komodo dragons populations in komodo national park,island populations; abundance; survival; population growth; endemics; reptile; indonesia,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,PURWANDANA D;ARIEFIANDY A;IMANSYAH MJ;RUDIHARTO H;SENO A;CIOFI C;FORDHAM DA;JESSOP TS,"the komodo dragon (varanus komodoensis) is the world's largest lizard and endemic to five islands in eastern indonesia. the current management of this species is limited by a paucity of demographic information needed to determine key threats to population persistence. here we conducted a large scale trapping study to estimate demographic parameters including population growth rates, survival and abundance for four komodo dragon island populations in komodo national park. a combined capture mark recapture framework was used to estimate demographic parameters from 925 marked individuals monitored between 2003 and 2012. island specific estimates of population growth, survival and abundance, were estimated using open population capture-recapture analyses. large island populations are characterised by near or stable population growth (i.e. lambda similar to 1), whilst one small island population (gili motang) appeared to be in decline (lambda = 0.68 +/- 0.09). population differences were evident in apparent survival, with estimates being higher for populations on the two large islands compared to the two small islands. we extrapolated island specific population abundance estimates (considerate of species habitat use) to produce a total population abundance estimate of 2448 (95% ci: 2067-2922) komodo dragons in komodo national park. our results suggest that park managers must consider island specific population dynamics for managing and recovering current populations. moreover understanding what demographic, environmental or genetic processes act independently, or in combination, to cause variation in current population dynamics is the next key step necessary to better conserve this iconic species. (c) 2014 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." invasive rat space use on tropical islands: implications for bait broadcast,rattus rattus; spatially explicit capture-recapture; spool and line; home range; overlap; microhabitat use; eradication,BASIC AND APPLIED ECOLOGY,RINGLER D;RUSSELL J;JAEGER A;PINET P;BASTIEN M;LE CORRE M,"invasive rats on oceanic islands impact a large number of native species. control programmes, and in many cases complete eradication, are used to alleviate these impacts. basic data on rodent biology facilitate the design of control or eradication programmes, and is particularly required for programmes on tropical islands where such data are missing. here we test for interactive effects of habitat and season that may all black rat (rattus rattus)space use dynamics and inform rodent management on two tropical islands. five years of summer and winter trapping data were analysed using spatially explicit capture recapture to calculate rat space-use and overlap, coupled with spool and line experiments ground-truthing microhabitat use. variation in individual rat space use is primarily driven by sex and bottom-up trophic effects of seasonal rainfall on food resources, but is altered by island-specific contexts. in the absence of other introduced mammals, rats tend to have stable range overlap throughout the year but home range sizes fluctuate seasonally with rat density. the presence of other introduced mammals causes predictable greater seasonal fluctuations in rat space-use, putatively a behavioural adjustment to feral cats (felis catus) diet-switching to rats from seasonal influxes of their alternative seabird prey. we identify winter as the recommended treatment period on both islands and discuss bait broadcast strategies." -swimming against the tide: resilience of a riverine turtle to recurrent extreme environmental events,turtles; population alteration; climate change; floods; chrysemys picta,BIOLOGY LETTERS,JERGENSON AM;MILLER DAW;NEUMAN-LEE LA;WARNER DA;JANZEN FJ,"extreme environmental events (eees) are likely to exert deleterious effects on populations. from 1996 to 2012 we studied the nesting dynamics of a riverine population of painted turtles (chrysemys picta) that experienced seven years with significantly definable spring floods. we used capture-mark-recapture methods to estimate the relationships between more than 5m and more than 6m flood events and population parameters. contrary to expectations, flooding was not associated with annual differences in survival, recruitment or annual population growth rates of the adult female segment of the population. these findings suggest that female c. picta exhibit resiliency to key eee, which are expected to increase in frequency under climate change." +swimming against the tide: resilience of a riverine turtle to recurrent extreme environmental events,turtles; population alteration; climate change; floods; chrysemys picta,BIOLOGY LETTERS,JERGENSON AM;MILLER DAW;NEUMAN LEE LA;WARNER DA;JANZEN FJ,"extreme environmental events (eees) are likely to exert deleterious effects on populations. from 1996 to 2012 we studied the nesting dynamics of a riverine population of painted turtles (chrysemys picta) that experienced seven years with significantly definable spring floods. we used capture-mark-recapture methods to estimate the relationships between more than 5m and more than 6m flood events and population parameters. contrary to expectations, flooding was not associated with annual differences in survival, recruitment or annual population growth rates of the adult female segment of the population. these findings suggest that female c. picta exhibit resiliency to key eee, which are expected to increase in frequency under climate change." population demographics of the florida bog frog (lithobates okaloosae),NA,SOUTHEASTERN NATURALIST,NETO JGD;GORMAN TA;BISHOP DC;HAAS CA,"conservation of a target species is often hindered by the absence of basic demographic information. lithobates [rana] okaloosae (florida bog frog) was discovered in 1982 and occupies only three counties in northwest florida, with its geographic range occurring almost exclusively on eglin air force base. this limited distribution has led to the listing of the florida bog frog as a species of special concern in florida. we used a mark-recapture approach to 1) estimate population sizes and densities of male florida bog frogs at four sites; 2) estimate recapture rates of males among sites, within years, and between years; 3) examine the relationship between male body condition and residency time in breeding sites; and 4) examine the variation in male body condition across sites. florida bog frog population sizes and densities differed among sites, but not across years. recapture rates were high within a breeding season but low between years, suggesting that males have high site fidelity and survival rates during the breeding season, but that annual mortality or dispersal rates are high. lastly, body condition of males did not differ across sites or affect residency time during the breeding season. understanding basic demographics of this species will aid future conservation efforts and management decisions." -fluctuations in the population size of the highly endemic aegla perobae (decapoda: anomura: aeglidae) caused by a disturbance event,catastrophic event; mark-recapture technique; population size; recruitment impairment,JOURNAL OF CRUSTACEAN BIOLOGY,BUENO SLS;TAKANO BF;COHEN FPA;MORAES JCB;CHIQUETTO-MACHADO PI;VIEIRA LCM;SHIMIZU RM,"during a two-year field study (july 2008-june 2010), we observed a sharp decrease in the number of the freshwater decapods, aegla perobae, sampled monthly at the type locality. a series of population size estimates by means of the schumacher and eschmeyer mark-recapture method confirmed the decreasing trend of population size. density dropped rapidly from 9.05 ind./m(2) in april 2009 to a situation in which a reliable population size estimate was no longer possible due to the difficulty in retrieving marked individuals by february 2010. results from additional estimations in 2011 and 2012 indicated that a slow and steady recovery phase of the population size has initiated. we present the hypothesis that the observed decrease in population size is due to an extraordinarily high precipitation episode during the 2007 reproductive period, which likely suppressed recruitment of the cohort produced in that year, with impact on the size-class structure and reproductive output of the population in the years that followed." +fluctuations in the population size of the highly endemic aegla perobae (decapoda: anomura: aeglidae) caused by a disturbance event,catastrophic event; mark-recapture technique; population size; recruitment impairment,JOURNAL OF CRUSTACEAN BIOLOGY,BUENO SLS;TAKANO BF;COHEN FPA;MORAES JCB;CHIQUETTO MACHADO PI;VIEIRA LCM;SHIMIZU RM,"during a two-year field study (july 2008-june 2010), we observed a sharp decrease in the number of the freshwater decapods, aegla perobae, sampled monthly at the type locality. a series of population size estimates by means of the schumacher and eschmeyer mark-recapture method confirmed the decreasing trend of population size. density dropped rapidly from 9.05 ind./m(2) in april 2009 to a situation in which a reliable population size estimate was no longer possible due to the difficulty in retrieving marked individuals by february 2010. results from additional estimations in 2011 and 2012 indicated that a slow and steady recovery phase of the population size has initiated. we present the hypothesis that the observed decrease in population size is due to an extraordinarily high precipitation episode during the 2007 reproductive period, which likely suppressed recruitment of the cohort produced in that year, with impact on the size-class structure and reproductive output of the population in the years that followed." what are the strengths and limitations of direct and indirect assessment of dispersal? insights from a long-term field study in a group-living bird species,natal dispersal; neighbourhood size; philopatry; biased dispersal; genetic population structure,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY,GRIESSER M;HALVARSSON P;SAHLMAN T;EKMAN J,"molecular methods of assessing dispersal have become increasingly powerful and have superseded direct methods of studying dispersal. although now less popular, direct methods of studying dispersal remain important tools for understanding the evolution of dispersal. here, we use data from siberian jays perisoreus infaustus, a group-living bird species, to compare natal dispersal distances and rates using visual mark-recapture, radio-tracking and microsatellite data. siberian jays have bimodal natal dispersal timing; socially dominant offspring remain with their parents for up to 5 years (delayed dispersers), while they force their subordinate brood mates to leave the parental territory at independence (early dispersers). early dispersers moved about 9,000 m (visual mark-recapture, radio-tracking) before settling in a group as a non-breeder. in contrast, delayed dispersers moved about 1,250 m (visual mark-recapture only) and mainly moved to a breeding opening. dispersal distances were greater in managed habitat compared to natural habitat for both early and delayed dispersers. molecular estimates based on 23 microsatellite loci and geographical locations supported distance estimates from the direct methods. our study shows that molecular methods are at least 22 times cheaper than direct methods and match estimates of dispersal distance from direct methods. however, molecular estimates do not give insight into the behavioural mechanisms behind dispersal decisions. thus, to understand the evolution of dispersal, it is important to combine direct and indirect methods, which will give insights into the behavioural processes affecting dispersal decisions, allowing proximate dispersal decisions to be linked to the ultimate consequences thereof." effect of predation threat on repeatability of individual crab behavior revealed by mark-recapture,anti-predator; behavioral syndrome; body size; crassostrea virginica; phenotypic plasticity; personality,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY,TOSCANO BJ;GATTO J;GRIFFEN BD,"the persistence of behavioral types in situ and the drivers of persistence are central to predicting the ecological effects of intraspecific behavioral variation. we surveyed individual refuge use of mud crabs (panopeus herbstii), a behavior related to the strength of a trait-mediated trophic cascade in oyster reefs, in the absence and presence of toadfish (opsanus tau) predation threat. we then released these crabs into the field and using mark-recapture, measured the repeatability of this behavior in the absence and presence of threat, and how behavioral change was affected by time in the field (a month on average, up to 81 days), crab size, and sex. because crabs exhibited some evidence of a circatidal rhythm in refuge use, we also tested how tidal height during observation influenced behavioral change. predation threat increased refuge use, and small crabs used the refuge more than large crabs, particularly under threat. in recaptured crabs, refuge use was more repeatable under threat. neither time in the field, crab size, crab sex, nor tidal height had any effect on behavioral change. our results support the non-mutually exclusive hypotheses that (1) prey organisms in the presence, rather than absence, of predation threat should exhibit less behavioral variability because the fear of dying (a severe fitness consequence) should take precedence over less immediately important influences on behavior (e. g., hunger) and that (2) individual behaviors tied to fixed traits (e.g., the body size dependence of refuge use under threat in this study), rather than variable traits, should be more repeatable over time." dispersal of larvae of margaritifera laevis by its host fish,bivalve; freshwater mussels; host-parasite interaction; glochidia; metapopulation; salmon,FRESHWATER SCIENCE,TERUI A;MIYAZAKI Y;YOSHIOKA A;KADOYA T;JOPP F;WASHITANI I,"local aggregations of unionoids (mussel beds) represent subpopulations constituting a riverine meta-population and are presumed to be linked by dispersal of parasitic mussel larvae (glochidia) on host fishes. we examined movement patterns of masu salmon (oncorhynchus masou masou), the obligate host fish for the freshwater pearl mussel margaritifera laevis, during the mussel's parasitic period to determine the dispersal potential of glochidia via host fish in the shubuto river system, hokkaido, japan. we conducted a mark-recapture study in a 650-m river section to describe the distance and directionality of host fish movement, and we used fyke net sampling to quantify the number of host fish moving from mainstem rivers to tributaries. most individuals of masu salmon captured in the study were infected with glochidia of m. laevis. the displacement distance of infected fishes ranged from 37.5 m downstream to 512.5 m upstream (mean = 36.5 m upstream from marking location). the dispersal kernel based on a diffusion-advection model represented a leptokurtic distribution with a fat-tailed upstream bias, but most recaptured fish remained near the initial capture location. movement of fish from mainstem rivers to tributaries was strongly affected by differences in water temperature among tributaries. most individuals moved to cooler tributaries, but tributaries did not support populations of m. laevis. these results suggest that glochidial dispersal via host fish is important for local recruitment and upstream dispersal, but dispersal to tributaries may be a source of mortality for m. laevis." @@ -2669,10 +2672,10 @@ limited-information modeling of loggerhead turtle population size,bayesian metho epidemiology of primary sjogren's syndrome in a french multiracial/multiethnic area,NA,ARTHRITIS CARE & RESEARCH,MALDINI C;SEROR R;FAIN O;DHOTE R;AMOURA Z;DE BANDT M;DELASSUS JL;FALGARONE G;GUILLEVIN L;LE GUERN V;LHOTE F;MEYER O;RAMANOELINA J;SACRE K;UZUNHAN Y;LEROUX JL;MARIETTE X;MAHR A,"objectiveto describe the epidemiology of primary sjogren's syndrome (ss) in a multiracial/multiethnic population. methodsa cross-sectional study with 5 case-retrieval sources identified adults with primary ss living in the greater paris area (population 1,172,482 adults) in 2007. diagnoses were verified by the american-european consensus group (aecg) criteria and study-specific enlarged criteria based on the presence of 3 of 4 aecg items among subjective oral or ocular dryness, anti-ssa/ssb positivity, and positive minor salivary gland biopsy results. prevalence estimates were standardized to those for the world population and a 5-source capture-recapture analysis (cra) was used. racial/ethnic differences in primary ss features were evaluated. resultsin all, 133 subjects met the aecg criteria and 203 met the enlarged criteria. the 2007 prevalence of primary ss was 1.02 cases per 10,000 adults (95% confidence interval [95% ci] 0.85-1.22) for the aecg criteria and 1.52 cases per 10,000 adults (95% ci 1.30-1.76) for the enlarged criteria. the cra indicated completeness of case findings of approximate to 90%. compared to subjects with european backgrounds, those with non-european backgrounds had 2.1-2.3 times higher primary ss prevalence and were younger (p < 0.0001) and were more likely to have polyclonal hypergammaglobulinemia (p < 0.0001) and anti-ssa/ssb antibodies (p = 0.0005 and p < 0.0001 for the aecg and enlarged criteria, respectively). conclusionthe figure of 1.02-1.52 cases per 10,000 adults we found and estimates from the few other population-based census surveys support that the prevalence of diagnosed primary ss is between 1 and 9 cases per 10,000 people (0.01-0.9%) in the general population. non-european race/ethnicity may be associated with increased primary ss risk and a distinct disease profile." a robust design capture-recapture model with multiple age classes augmented with population assignment data,capture-recapture; genetic assignment procedures; kangaroo rat; robust design; single site; superpopulation; two age groups,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,WEN Z;NICHOLS JD;POLLOCK KH;WASER PM,"the relative contribution of in situ reproduction versus immigration to the recruitment process is important to ecologists. here we consider a robust design superpopulation capture-recapture model for a population with two age classes augmented with population assignment data. we first use age information to estimate the entry probabilities of new animals originating via in situ reproduction and immigration separately for all except the first period. then we combine age and population assignment information with the capture-recapture model, which enables us to estimate the entry probability of in situ births and the entry probability of immigrants separately for all sampling periods. further, this augmentation of age specific capture-recapture data with population assignment data greatly improves the estimators' precision. we apply our new model to a capture-recapture data set with genetic information for banner-tailed kangaroo rats in southern arizona. we find that many more individuals are born in situ than are immigrants for all time periods. young animals have lower survival probabilities than adults born in situ. adult animals born in situ have higher survival probabilities than adults that were immigrants." effects of exploitation on an overabundant species: the lesser snow goose predicament,harvest; additive mortality; chen caerulescens caerulescens; compensatory mortality; native invasive species; cause-specific mortality; capture-mark-recapture; population control,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,KOONS DN;ROCKWELL RF;AUBRY LM,"invasive and overabundant species are an increasing threat to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning world-wide. as such, large amounts of money are spent each year on attempts to control them. these efforts can, however, be thwarted if exploitation is compensated demographically or if populations simply become too numerous for management to elicit an effective and rapid functional response. we examined the influence of these mechanisms on cause-specific mortality in lesser snow geese using multistate capture-reencounter methods. the abundance and destructive foraging behaviours of snow geese have created a trophic cascade that reduces (sub-) arctic plant, insect and avian biodiversity, bestowing them the status of 'overabundant'. historically, juvenile snow geese suffered from density-related degradation of their saltmarsh brood-rearing habitat. this allowed harvest mortality to be partially compensated by non-harvest mortality (process correlation between mortality sources: rho=-0 center dot 47; 90% bci: -0 center dot 72 to -0 center dot 04). snow goose family groups eventually responded to their own degradation of habitat by dispersing to non-degraded areas. this relaxed the pressure of density dependence on juvenile birds, but without this mechanism for compensation, harvest began to have an additive effect on overall mortality (rho=0 center dot 60; 90% bci: -0 center dot 06 to 0 center dot 81). in adults, harvest had an additive effect on overall mortality throughout the 42-year study (rho=0 center dot 24; 90% bci: -0 center dot 59 to 0 center dot 67). with the aim of controlling overabundant snow geese, the conservation order amendment to the international migratory bird treaty was implemented in february of 1999 to allow for harvest regulations that had not been allowed since the early 1900s (e.g. a spring harvest season, high or unlimited bag limits and use of electronic calls and unplugged shotguns). although harvest mortality momentarily increased following these actions, the increasing abundance of snow geese has since induced a state of satiation in harvest that has driven harvest rates below the long-term average. more aggressive actions will thus be needed to halt the growth and spread of the devastating trophic cascade that snow geese have triggered. our approach to investigating the impacts of population control efforts on cause-specific mortality will help guide more effective management of invasive and overabundant species world-wide." -assessing sex-related chick provisioning in greater flamingo phoenicopterus roseus parents using capture-recapture models,waterbirds; multistate capture-recapture models; stable isotopes; sexual size dimorphism; sexual segregation; parental care; foraging ecology,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,RENDON MA;GARRIDO A;RENDON-MARTOS M;RAMIREZ JM;AMAT JA,"in sexually dimorphic species, the parental effort of the smaller sex may be reduced due to competitive exclusion in the feeding areas by the larger sex or physiological constraints. however, to determine gender effects on provisioning patterns, other intrinsic and extrinsic factors affecting parental effort should be accounted for. greater flamingos (phoenicopterus roseus) exhibit sexual size dimorphism. in fuente de piedra colony, the lake dries out almost completely during the breeding season and both parents commute between breeding and foraging sites >130km away during the chick-rearing period. applying multistate capture-recapture models to daily observations of marked parents, we determined the effects of sex, and their interactions with other intrinsic and extrinsic factors, on the probability of chick desertion and sojourn in the colony and feeding areas. moreover, using stable isotopes in the secretions that parents produce to feed their chicks, we evaluated sex-specific use of wetlands. the probability of chick attendance (complementary to chick desertion) was >0 center dot 98. chick desertion was independent of parental sex, but decreased with parental age. females stayed in the feeding areas for shorter periods [mean: 7 center dot 5 (95% ci: 6 center dot 0-9 center dot 4) days] than males [9 center dot 2 (7 center dot 3-11 center dot 8) days]. isotopic signatures of secretions did not show sex differences in delta c-13, but males' secretions were enriched in delta n-15, suggesting they fed on prey of higher trophic levels than females. both parents spent approximately 1day in the colony, but females prolonged their mean stay when the lake dried out. females also allocated more time to foraging in the flooded areas remaining in the colony, likely because they were energetically more stressed than males. the results indicate that sex-specific provisioning behaviour in greater flamingo is related to differential effects of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. males seem forage less efficiently than females, whereas females' body condition seems to be lower after feeding the chick. our methodology may be extended to species that feed on distant food sources and that do not visit their offspring daily, to elucidate patterns of chick-provisioning behaviour." +assessing sex-related chick provisioning in greater flamingo phoenicopterus roseus parents using capture-recapture models,waterbirds; multistate capture-recapture models; stable isotopes; sexual size dimorphism; sexual segregation; parental care; foraging ecology,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,RENDON MA;GARRIDO A;RENDON MARTOS M;RAMIREZ JM;AMAT JA,"in sexually dimorphic species, the parental effort of the smaller sex may be reduced due to competitive exclusion in the feeding areas by the larger sex or physiological constraints. however, to determine gender effects on provisioning patterns, other intrinsic and extrinsic factors affecting parental effort should be accounted for. greater flamingos (phoenicopterus roseus) exhibit sexual size dimorphism. in fuente de piedra colony, the lake dries out almost completely during the breeding season and both parents commute between breeding and foraging sites >130km away during the chick-rearing period. applying multistate capture-recapture models to daily observations of marked parents, we determined the effects of sex, and their interactions with other intrinsic and extrinsic factors, on the probability of chick desertion and sojourn in the colony and feeding areas. moreover, using stable isotopes in the secretions that parents produce to feed their chicks, we evaluated sex-specific use of wetlands. the probability of chick attendance (complementary to chick desertion) was >0 center dot 98. chick desertion was independent of parental sex, but decreased with parental age. females stayed in the feeding areas for shorter periods [mean: 7 center dot 5 (95% ci: 6 center dot 0-9 center dot 4) days] than males [9 center dot 2 (7 center dot 3-11 center dot 8) days]. isotopic signatures of secretions did not show sex differences in delta c-13, but males' secretions were enriched in delta n-15, suggesting they fed on prey of higher trophic levels than females. both parents spent approximately 1day in the colony, but females prolonged their mean stay when the lake dried out. females also allocated more time to foraging in the flooded areas remaining in the colony, likely because they were energetically more stressed than males. the results indicate that sex-specific provisioning behaviour in greater flamingo is related to differential effects of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. males seem forage less efficiently than females, whereas females' body condition seems to be lower after feeding the chick. our methodology may be extended to species that feed on distant food sources and that do not visit their offspring daily, to elucidate patterns of chick-provisioning behaviour." using bayesian growth models to reconstruct small-mammal populations during low-trapping periods,bayesian analysis; small mammals; growth curves; population density,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,UNNSTEINSDOTTIR ER;HERSTEINSSON P;JONASSON JP;MCADAM BJ,"small-mammal populations that fluctuate in size often undergo periods of low trappability, which could be an important factor contributing to low-density estimates based on trapping efforts. age cohort analysis is commonly used to estimate population parameters of animals that are harvested. the method is based on known age at death that can be used for bayesian hierarchical growth models. it is interesting to see if similar methods, hitherto conducted on long-living species, can be used on live-trapping data on short-lived and fast-growing small mammals. using data from live-trapping surveys of apodemus sylvaticus in iceland, we adjusted growth curves to individual body weights to predict their birth dates. the estimated birth dates were used to estimate population density and recruitment. these were then compared with other data sources. we found out that density estimates, based on numerical methods [modified nodal analysis (mna)], underestimated population density during the period of low trappability and that recruitment occurred up to 100 days earlier than was observed by capture-mark-recapture (cmr) analysis and mna. this study suggests that cohort analysis can be conducted on short-lived small mammals during periods when estimates based on cmr or numerical analysis fail because of low sample sizes. furthermore, it is possible to use body weight of live-trapped individuals to estimate age. this is important in terms of ethics and conservation as such methods can be conducted without harming or killing the animals. we believe that live-trapping data obtained during a peak period in population density can be a useful aid when describing population parameters of previous months when low trappability prevents direct measurements." estimating crop pollinator population using mark-recapture method,brazilian savanna; carpenter bee; jolly-seber method; passiflora edulis f. flavicarpa; xylocopa,APIDOLOGIE,YAMAMOTO M;JUNQUEIRA CN;BARBOSA AAA;AUGUSTO SC;OLIVEIRA PE,"xylocopa species are large solitary bees, which are effective pollinators of yellow passion fruit, a self-incompatible crop dependent on pollination for fruit production and economic viability. we tested the mark-recapture method to estimate these bees' population size in a passion fruit commercial orchard in central brazil. we collected data during 3 years and population was estimated as 118, 339, and 1,032 individuals. population size and abundance of xylocopa bees were higher in the last studied year. these bees maintained 32.5 % of natural fruit set, above economic viability levels, and higher than other commercial orchards, although population size showed no direct correlation with natural fruit set. improvement of nesting site may explain population increase, reinforcing the importance of management. our results showed that the mark-recapture technique can provide reliable estimates of xylocopa bees population size and, thus, be useful in monitoring population trends." -a test of the fast-slow continuum model of life-history variation in the lizard sceloporus grammicus,age at maturity; body growth; life-history evolution; litter size; size at maturity; stage-specific mortality,EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY RESEARCH,PEREZ-MENDOZA HA;ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ,"background: the fast-slow continuum hypothesis (promislow and harvey, 1990) suggests that mortality rates are a strong selective factor that shapes inter-and intraspecific variation in life-history traits. at the fast end of the continuum, we expect higher mortality rates, faster growth rates, small size and/or early age at maturity, short lifespan, and large litters with smaller offspring. at the slow end, we expect the opposite. question: is intraspecific (spatial) variation in life-history traits associated with spatial differences in mortality rates, as the fast-slow continuum hypothesis suggests? organism: the viviparous lizard sceloporus grammicus (sauria: phrynosomatidae). study system: eight different populations of s. grammicus in central mexico (latitudinal range: 19 degrees 11'n to 20 degrees 47'n). methods: we used likelihood methods to calculate mortality rates from mark-recapture data. we also measured rates of body growth, size and age at maturity, litter size, offspring size, and offspring body condition from marked animals, preserved specimens, and females kept in captivity. we used a multi-model inference framework to examine inter-population variation in life-history traits and their potential association with mortality. each model represented a different hypothesis about variation in life-history traits, and the relative fit of each was determined using aicc (adjusted akaike information criterion). conclusions: life-history traits differed widely among populations, but litter size was the only trait that varied with site-specific mortality rates. larger litters were associated with higher mortality, consistent with the fast-slow continuum hypothesis. other life-history traits showed no clear evidence of influence of mortality rates." +a test of the fast-slow continuum model of life-history variation in the lizard sceloporus grammicus,age at maturity; body growth; life-history evolution; litter size; size at maturity; stage-specific mortality,EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY RESEARCH,PEREZ MENDOZA HA;ZUNIGA VEGA JJ,"background: the fast-slow continuum hypothesis (promislow and harvey, 1990) suggests that mortality rates are a strong selective factor that shapes inter-and intraspecific variation in life-history traits. at the fast end of the continuum, we expect higher mortality rates, faster growth rates, small size and/or early age at maturity, short lifespan, and large litters with smaller offspring. at the slow end, we expect the opposite. question: is intraspecific (spatial) variation in life-history traits associated with spatial differences in mortality rates, as the fast-slow continuum hypothesis suggests? organism: the viviparous lizard sceloporus grammicus (sauria: phrynosomatidae). study system: eight different populations of s. grammicus in central mexico (latitudinal range: 19 degrees 11'n to 20 degrees 47'n). methods: we used likelihood methods to calculate mortality rates from mark-recapture data. we also measured rates of body growth, size and age at maturity, litter size, offspring size, and offspring body condition from marked animals, preserved specimens, and females kept in captivity. we used a multi-model inference framework to examine inter-population variation in life-history traits and their potential association with mortality. each model represented a different hypothesis about variation in life-history traits, and the relative fit of each was determined using aicc (adjusted akaike information criterion). conclusions: life-history traits differed widely among populations, but litter size was the only trait that varied with site-specific mortality rates. larger litters were associated with higher mortality, consistent with the fast-slow continuum hypothesis. other life-history traits showed no clear evidence of influence of mortality rates." the comparative ecology of a killifish (rivulus hartii) across aquatic communities differing in predation intensity,density; growth rate; guppy; indirect effects; killifish; life history; mark-recapture; mortality; poecilia reticulata; rivulus hartii,EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY RESEARCH,FURNESS AI;REZNICK DN,"background: life-history theory predicts that populations experiencing different patterns of age-or size-specific mortality will evolve divergent life histories. higher mortality can also cause indirect effects by reducing population density and increasing resources for survivors. how life histories evolve can ultimately be shaped by the interactions between the direct impact of predators on mortality, their indirect effects on resource availability, and the age specificity of these combined effects. prior research on the killifish, rivulus hartii, suggests differences among aquatic communities in both predation risk and resource availability but has failed to characterize the age specificity of these effects. study organism and site: we studied rivulus hartii in ramdeen stream, a second-order tributary of the arima river, on the south slope of the northern range mountains in trinidad. we used four sites near each other: in the two rivulus-only sites, killifish were found alone; in the rivulus/guppy site, guppies (a potential predator of juvenile rivulus) also occurred; and in the high-predation site, rivulus occurred with predators. hypotheses: (1) if guppies shape the evolution of rivulus life histories by increasing juvenile mortality rates and indirectly increasing food availability to the survivors, then juvenile mortality and growth rates should be higher when guppies are present than when they are absent. (2) if larger predators shape rivulus life histories by selectively preying on adult rivulus, then the added mortality associated with predators should be greater in the larger size classes. methods: we performed mark-recapture studies on juvenile and adult rivulus in the field (>12 mm total length), which allowed us to estimate size-specific mortality, growth rate, and density. results: rivulus experienced the highest mortality in the high predation site, but predation was not selectively focused on adults. furthermore, the higher mortality was coupled with reduced population density and increased adult growth rates. in rivulus/guppy and rivulus-only sites, all size classes had the same survival rate. laboratory study confirmed that adult guppies can prey upon hatchling rivulus (<7 mm) and are restricted to preying on this size class. lastly, juvenile rivulus from rivulus/guppy localities had higher growth rates than those from rivulus-only localities, as predicted, but such an effect disappeared in the adult stage." movements of dolphinfish (coryphaena hippurus) along the u.s. east coast as determined through mark and recapture data,dolphinfish; movements; migrations; connectivity; us east coast; mark-recapture,FISHERIES RESEARCH,MERTEN W;APPELDOORN R;HAMMOND D,"conventional mark and recapture (n = 306 recaptures) and satellite monitoring data (n = 6 transmitters) were used to examine small and large scale dispersal and movement patterns of dolphinfish (coryphaena hippurus) along the u.s. east coast. movement rates were dependent upon region, latitude, and distance from shore released. movements from florida to the south-atlantic bight (sab) (44.67 +/- 39.53 km/d) and florida to northeastern north carolina (mab) (44.62 +/- 15.31 km/d) had the highest observed rates, while movements within the sab were the slowest (11.80 +/- 27.94 km/d). regional movement headings varied with latitude, with dolphinfish released from florida keys to central florida displaying the most directional variability, with 3.5% conducting southerly movements. the majority of the southerly movements occurred during fall. the maximum straightline dispersal rate was 238.25 km/d and the greatest displacement distance was 1915 km observed in 51 days between the florida keys and long island, new york. understanding the movements of dolphinfish along the u.s. east coast is the first step toward better predicting seasonal and annual stock abundances by state and elucidating state-to-state stock connectivity. on a larger scale, identifying movement patterns along the east coast is a pre-requisite to describing the spatial and temporal movement patterns to other regions such as the bahamas and caribbean sea. (c) 2013 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." seasonal and annual survival of the salamander salamandra salamandra salamandra,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,SCHMIDT BR;ITIN E;SCHAUB M,"survival is an important component of population growth rate. we use data from a 9-yr mark-recapture study to estimate annual and monthly survival probabilities of adult salamanders (salamandra salamandra). monthly survival probability. was 0.98-0.99 and did not differ between summer and winter. annual survival probability was 0.86. these estimates are similar to estimates for other salamander species. while other studies on salamandra salamandra concluded that this species shows high movement rates, our results suggest very low movement rates." @@ -2689,36 +2692,38 @@ parameter redundancy in capture-recapture-recovery models,capture-recapture mode a generalised likelihood framework for partially observed capture-recapture-recovery models,capture-recapture-recovery data; closed form likelihood; multi-state; partially observed states; sufficient statistics,STATISTICAL METHODOLOGY,KING R;MCCREA RS,we provide a closed form likelihood expression for multi-state capture-recapture-recovery data when the state of an individual may be only partially observed. the corresponding sufficient statistics are presented in addition to a matrix formulation which facilitates an efficient calculation of the likelihood. this likelihood framework provides a consistent and unified framework with many standard models applied to capture-recapture-recovery data as special cases. (c) 2013 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved. measuring underreporting and under-ascertainment in infectious disease datasets: a comparison of methods,underestimation; underreporting; under-ascertainment; surveillance; infectious diseases,BMC PUBLIC HEALTH,GIBBONS CL;MANGEN MJJ;PLASS D;HAVELAAR AH;BROOKE RJ;KRAMARZ P;PETERSON KL;STUURMAN AL;CASSINI A;FEVRE EM;KRETZSCHMAR MEE,"background: efficient and reliable surveillance and notification systems are vital for monitoring public health and disease outbreaks. however, most surveillance and notification systems are affected by a degree of underestimation (ue) and therefore uncertainty surrounds the 'true' incidence of disease affecting morbidity and mortality rates. surveillance systems fail to capture cases at two distinct levels of the surveillance pyramid: from the community since not all cases seek healthcare (under-ascertainment), and at the healthcare-level, representing a failure to adequately report symptomatic cases that have sought medical advice (underreporting). there are several methods to estimate the extent of under-ascertainment and underreporting. methods: within the context of the ecdc-funded burden of communicable diseases in europe (bcode)-project, an extensive literature review was conducted to identify studies that estimate ascertainment or reporting rates for salmonellosis and campylobacteriosis in european union member states (ms) plus european free trade area (efta) countries iceland, norway and switzerland and four other oecd countries (usa, canada, australia and japan). multiplication factors (mfs), a measure of the magnitude of underestimation, were taken directly from the literature or derived (where the proportion of underestimated, under-ascertained, or underreported cases was known) and compared for the two pathogens. results: mfs varied between and within diseases and countries, representing a need to carefully select the most appropriate mfs and methods for calculating them. the most appropriate mfs are often disease-,country-, age-, and sex-specific. conclusions: when routine data are used to make decisions on resource allocation or to estimate epidemiological parameters in populations, it becomes important to understand when, where and to what extent these data represent the true picture of disease, and in some instances (such as priority setting) it is necessary to adjust for underestimation. mfs can be used to adjust notification and surveillance data to provide more realistic estimates of incidence." importance of accounting for phylogenetic dependence in multi-species mark-recapture studies,bayesian hierarchical model; comparative demography; mark-recapture; phylogeny; procellariiformes; survival probability,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,ABADI F;BARBRAUD C;BESSON D;BRIED J;CROCHET PA;DELORD K;FORCADA J;GROSBOIS V;PHILLIPS RA;SAGAR P;THOMPSON P;WAUGH S;WEIMERSKIRCH H;WOOD AG;GIMENEZ O,"species in comparative demography studies often have a common phylogenetic or evolutionary ancestry and hence, they cannot fully be treated as independent samples in the statistical analysis. although the serious implication of ignoring phylogeny has long been recognized, no attempt has been made so far to account for the lack of statistical independence due to phylogeny in multi-species mark-recapture comparative demography studies. in this paper, we propose a bayesian hierarchical model that explicitly accounts for phylogenetic dependence among species, and to correct for imperfect detection, which is a common phenomenon in free-ranging species. we illustrate the method using individual mark-recapture data collected from 16 seabird species of the order procellariiformes. data on body mass and phylogeny of these species are compiled from literature. we investigate the relationship between adult survival and body mass with and without accounting for phylogeny. if we ignore phylogeny, we obtain a positive survival-body mass relationship. however, this relationship is no longer statistically significant once phylogenetic dependence is taken into account, implying that survival may actually depend on an unmeasured variable that is correlated with body mass due to a shared dependence on phylogeny. the proposed model allows the integration of multi-species mark-recapture data and phylogenetic information, and it is therefore a valuable tool in ecological and evolutionary biology. (c) 2013 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -initial effects of the national pcv7 childhood immunization program on adult invasive pneumococcal disease in israel,NA,PLOS ONE,REGEV-YOCHAY G;RAHAV G;RIESENBERG K;WIENER-WELL Y;STRAHILEVITZ J;STEIN M;GLIKMAN D;WEBER G;POTASMAN I;DAGAN R,"background: pcv7 was introduced as universal childhood vaccination in israel in july 2009 and pcv13 in november 2010. here we report data on adult invasive pneumococcal disease (ipd), two years post pcv7 implementation and before an expected effect of pcv13. methods: an ongoing nationwide active-surveillance (all 27 laboratories performing blood cultures in israel), providing all blood & csf s. pneumoniae isolates from persons >18 y was initiated in july 2009. capture-recapture method assured reporting of >95% cases. all isolates were serotyped in one central laboratory. ipd outcome and medical history were recorded in 90%. second year post pcv implementation is compared to the first year. results: during july 2009 to june 2011, 970 ipd cases were reported (annual incidence [/100,000] of 9.17 and 10.16 in the two consecutive years, respectively). respective case fatality rates (cfrs) were 20% and 19.1%. incidence of ipd and cfr increased with age and number of comorbidities. incidence rate was significantly greater during the second winter, 7.79/100,000 vs. 6.14/100,000 in first winter, p = 0.004, with a non-significant decrease during summer months (3.02 to 2.48/100,000). the proportion of ipd cases due to pcv7-serotypes decreased from 27.5% to 13.1% (first to second year) (p<0.001). yet, non-pcv13-strains increased from 32.7% to 40.2% (p = 0.017). the increase in non-pcv13-strains was highly significant in immunocompromised patients and to a lesser degree in non-immunocompromised at risk or in older patients (>64 y). among younger/healthier patients serotype 5 was the major increasing serotype. penicillin and ceftriaxone resistance decreased significantly in the second year. conclusions: while overall annual incidence of ipd did not change, the indirect effect of pcv7 vaccination was evident by the significant decrease in pcv7 serotypes across all age groups. increase in non-vt13 strains was significant in immunocompromised patients. a longer follow-up is required to appreciate the full effect of infant vaccination on annual ipd." +initial effects of the national pcv7 childhood immunization program on adult invasive pneumococcal disease in israel,NA,PLOS ONE,REGEV YOCHAY G;RAHAV G;RIESENBERG K;WIENER WELL Y;STRAHILEVITZ J;STEIN M;GLIKMAN D;WEBER G;POTASMAN I;DAGAN R,"background: pcv7 was introduced as universal childhood vaccination in israel in july 2009 and pcv13 in november 2010. here we report data on adult invasive pneumococcal disease (ipd), two years post pcv7 implementation and before an expected effect of pcv13. methods: an ongoing nationwide active-surveillance (all 27 laboratories performing blood cultures in israel), providing all blood & csf s. pneumoniae isolates from persons >18 y was initiated in july 2009. capture-recapture method assured reporting of >95% cases. all isolates were serotyped in one central laboratory. ipd outcome and medical history were recorded in 90%. second year post pcv implementation is compared to the first year. results: during july 2009 to june 2011, 970 ipd cases were reported (annual incidence [/100,000] of 9.17 and 10.16 in the two consecutive years, respectively). respective case fatality rates (cfrs) were 20% and 19.1%. incidence of ipd and cfr increased with age and number of comorbidities. incidence rate was significantly greater during the second winter, 7.79/100,000 vs. 6.14/100,000 in first winter, p = 0.004, with a non-significant decrease during summer months (3.02 to 2.48/100,000). the proportion of ipd cases due to pcv7-serotypes decreased from 27.5% to 13.1% (first to second year) (p<0.001). yet, non-pcv13-strains increased from 32.7% to 40.2% (p = 0.017). the increase in non-pcv13-strains was highly significant in immunocompromised patients and to a lesser degree in non-immunocompromised at risk or in older patients (>64 y). among younger/healthier patients serotype 5 was the major increasing serotype. penicillin and ceftriaxone resistance decreased significantly in the second year. conclusions: while overall annual incidence of ipd did not change, the indirect effect of pcv7 vaccination was evident by the significant decrease in pcv7 serotypes across all age groups. increase in non-vt13 strains was significant in immunocompromised patients. a longer follow-up is required to appreciate the full effect of infant vaccination on annual ipd." trap configuration and spacing influences parameter estimates in spatial capture-recapture models,NA,PLOS ONE,SUN CC;FULLER AK;ROYLE JA,"an increasing number of studies employ spatial capture-recapture models to estimate population size, but there has been limited research on how different spatial sampling designs and trap configurations influence parameter estimators. spatial capture-recapture models provide an advantage over non-spatial models by explicitly accounting for heterogeneous detection probabilities among individuals that arise due to the spatial organization of individuals relative to sampling devices. we simulated black bear (ursus americanus) populations and spatial capture-recapture data to evaluate the influence of trap configuration and trap spacing on estimates of population size and a spatial scale parameter, sigma, that relates to home range size. we varied detection probability and home range size, and considered three trap configurations common to large-mammal mark-recapture studies: regular spacing, clustered, and a temporal sequence of different cluster configurations (i.e., trap relocation). we explored trap spacing and number of traps per cluster by varying the number of traps. the clustered arrangement performed well when detection rates were low, and provides for easier field implementation than the sequential trap arrangement. however, performance differences between trap configurations diminished as home range size increased. our simulations suggest it is important to consider trap spacing relative to home range sizes, with traps ideally spaced no more than twice the spatial scale parameter. while spatial capture-recapture models can accommodate different sampling designs and still estimate parameters with accuracy and precision, our simulations demonstrate that aspects of sampling design, namely trap configuration and spacing, must consider study area size, ranges of individual movement, and home range sizes in the study population." fine-scale genetic structure and cryptic associations reveal evidence of kin-based sociality in the african forest elephant,NA,PLOS ONE,SCHUTTLER SG;PHILBRICK JA;JEFFERY KJ;EGGERT LS,"spatial patterns of relatedness within animal populations are important in the evolution of mating and social systems, and have the potential to reveal information on species that are difficult to observe in the wild. this study examines the fine-scale genetic structure and connectivity of groups within african forest elephants, loxodonta cyclotis, which are often difficult to observe due to forest habitat. we tested the hypothesis that genetic similarity will decline with increasing geographic distance, as we expect kin to be in closer proximity, using spatial autocorrelation analyses and tau k-r tests. associations between individuals were investigated through a non-invasive genetic capture-recapture approach using network models, and were predicted to be more extensive than the small groups found in observational studies, similar to fission-fusion sociality found in african savanna (loxodonta africana) and asian (elephas maximus) species. dung samples were collected in lope national park, gabon in 2008 and 2010 and genotyped at 10 microsatellite loci, genetically sexed, and sequenced at the mitochondrial dna control region. we conducted analyses on samples collected at three different temporal scales: a day, within six-day sampling sessions, and within each year. spatial autocorrelation and tau k-r tests revealed genetic structure, but results were weak and inconsistent between sampling sessions. positive spatial autocorrelation was found in distance classes of 0-5 km, and was strongest for the single day session. despite weak genetic structure, individuals within groups were significantly more related to each other than to individuals between groups. social networks revealed some components to have large, extensive groups of up to 22 individuals, and most groups were composed of individuals of the same matriline. although fine-scale population genetic structure was weak, forest elephants are typically found in groups consisting of kin and based on matrilines, with some individuals having more associates than observed from group sizes alone." -use of a highly sensitive immunomarking system to characterize face fly (diptera: muscidae) dispersal from cow pats,musca autumnalis; insect dispersal; mark-recapture,ENVIRONMENTAL ENTOMOLOGY,PECK GW;FERGUSON HJ;JONES VP;O'NEAL SD;WALSH DB,"we tested an immunomarking system that used egg white as marker and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay as a detection assay to characterize face fly (musca autumnalis degeer) dispersal from cow pats in a pastured beef cattle operation. in microcage assays, adult flies acquired marker after contact with cow pats that were treated with marker and field aged up to 11 d. in arena assays on sprayed full-size cow pats, 77% of eclosed face flies acquired the marker. in a field- marking study, four applications of egg white marker were applied on freshly deposited cow pats over a summer at two peripheral paddocks to a main grazing pasture of approximate to 50 head of beef cattle. of the 663 face flies captured, 108 were positive for the egg white marker (16.3%). of the marked flies, approximate to twofold more male than female flies were captured. sex-specific dispersal distances were roughly equal up to 450 m, with 11% of female flies dispersing >450 m. dispersal capability of face flies is discussed in relation to efficacy of rotational grazing and other ipm strategies." +use of a highly sensitive immunomarking system to characterize face fly (diptera: muscidae) dispersal from cow pats,musca autumnalis; insect dispersal; mark-recapture,ENVIRONMENTAL ENTOMOLOGY,PECK GW;FERGUSON HJ;JONES VP;O NEAL SD;WALSH DB,"we tested an immunomarking system that used egg white as marker and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay as a detection assay to characterize face fly (musca autumnalis degeer) dispersal from cow pats in a pastured beef cattle operation. in microcage assays, adult flies acquired marker after contact with cow pats that were treated with marker and field aged up to 11 d. in arena assays on sprayed full-size cow pats, 77% of eclosed face flies acquired the marker. in a field- marking study, four applications of egg white marker were applied on freshly deposited cow pats over a summer at two peripheral paddocks to a main grazing pasture of approximate to 50 head of beef cattle. of the 663 face flies captured, 108 were positive for the egg white marker (16.3%). of the marked flies, approximate to twofold more male than female flies were captured. sex-specific dispersal distances were roughly equal up to 450 m, with 11% of female flies dispersing >450 m. dispersal capability of face flies is discussed in relation to efficacy of rotational grazing and other ipm strategies." "the incidence and prevalence of systemic lupus erythematosus, 2002-2004",NA,ARTHRITIS & RHEUMATOLOGY,LIM SS;BAYAKLY AR;HELMICK CG;GORDON C;EASLEY KA;DRENKARD C,"objective. the georgia lupus registry is a population-based registry designed to improve our ability to estimate the incidence and prevalence of systemic lupus erythematosus (sle) in a large population. methods. potential cases of sle were identified from multiple sources during the years 2002 through 2004. cases were defined according to the american college of rheumatology (acr) criteria for sle or a combined definition. age-standardized rates were determined and stratified by race and sex. with capture-recapture analyses, we estimated the underascertainment of cases. results. using the acr case definition, the overall crude and age-adjusted incidence rate was 5.6 per 100,000, with capture-recapture and combined definition rates being slightly higher. the age-adjusted incidence rate in women was >5 times higher than that for men (9.2 versus 1.8). black women had an incidence rate nearly 3 times higher than that in white women, with a significantly higher rate in the group ages 30-59 years. the overall crude and age-adjusted prevalence rates were 74.4 and 73 per 100,000, respectively. the age-adjusted prevalence rate in women was nearly 9 times higher than that for men (127.6 versus 14.7). black women had very high rates (196.2). a striking difference was seen in the proportion of prevalent cases with end-stage renal disease, with 7-fold greater involvement among black patients. conclusion. with the more complete case-finding methods we used, the incidence and prevalence rates of sle are among the highest reported in the us. the results continue to underscore striking sex, age, and racial disparities between black patients and white patients with sle." population-based incidence and prevalence of systemic lupus erythematosus the michigan lupus epidemiology and surveillance program,NA,ARTHRITIS & RHEUMATOLOGY,SOMERS EC;MARDER W;CAGNOLI P;LEWIS EE;DEGUIRE P;GORDON C;HELMICK CG;WANG L;WING JJ;DHAR JP;LEISEN J;SHALTIS D;MCCUNE WJ,"objective. to estimate the incidence and prevalence of systemic lupus erythematosus (sle) in a sociodemographically diverse southeastern michigan source population of 2.4 million people. methods. sle cases fulfilling the american college of rheumatology classification criteria (primary case definition) or meeting rheumatologist-judged sle criteria (secondary definition) and residing in wayne or washtenaw counties during 2002-2004 were included. case finding was performed from 6 source types, including hospitals and private specialists. age-standardized rates were computed, and capture-recapture was performed to estimate underascertainment of cases. results. the overall age-adjusted incidence and prevalence (acr definition) per 100,000 persons were 5.5 (95% confidence interval [95% ci] 5.0-6.1) and 72.8 (95% ci 70.8-74.8). among females, the incidence was 9.3 per 100,000 persons and the prevalence was 128.7 per 100,000 persons. only 7 cases were estimated to have been missed by capture-recapture, adjustment for which did not materially affect the rates. sle prevalence was 2.3-fold higher in black persons than in white persons, and 10-fold higher in females than in males. among incident cases, the mean +/- sd age at diagnosis was 39.3 +/- 16.6 years. black sle patients had a higher proportion of renal disease and end-stage renal disease (esrd) (40.5% and 15.3%, respectively) as compared to white sle patients (18.8% and 4.5%, respectively). black patients with renal disease were diagnosed as having sle at younger age than white patients with renal disease (mean +/- sd 34.4 +/- 14.9 years versus 41.9 +/- 21.3 years; p = 0.05). conclusion. sle prevalence was higher than has been described in most other population-based studies and reached 1 in 537 among black female persons. there were substantial racial disparities in the burden of sle, with black patients experiencing earlier age at diagnosis, >2-fold increases in sle incidence and prevalence, and increased proportions of renal disease and progression to esrd as compared to white patients." revisiting western hudson bay: using aerial surveys to update polar bear abundance in a sentinel population,abundance estimation; aerial survey; distance sampling; hudson bay; marine mammal; mark-recapture,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,STAPLETON S;ATKINSON S;HEDMAN D;GARSHELIS D,"capture-based studies of the western hudson bay (wh) polar bear population in canada have reported declines in abundance, survival, and body condition, but these findings are inconsistent with the perceptions of local people. to address this uncertainty about current status, we conducted a comprehensive aerial survey of this population during august, 2011, when the region was ice-free and bears were on shore. we flew a combination of overland transects oriented perpendicular to the coastline, coastal transects parallel to shore, and transects across small islands. we used distance sampling and sight-resight protocols to estimate abundance. bears were concentrated along the coast in central and southern manitoba and ontario portions of the population, although sightings >10 km inland were not uncommon in central manitoba. we analyzed 2 combinations of data and derived an abundance estimate of 1030 bears (95% ci: similar to 754-1406). this figure is similar to a 2004 mark-recapture estimate but higher than projections indicating declining abundance since then. our results suggest that mark-recapture estimates may have been negatively biased due to limited spatial sampling. we observed large numbers of bears summering in southeastern wh, an area not regularly sampled by mark-recapture. consequently, previous mark-recapture estimates are not directly comparable to our aerial survey of the entire population. whereas our results do not necessarily contradict the reported declines in this population, we believe that improvements are needed in monitoring, and methodological limitations and inconsistencies must be resolved to accurately assess status and the impacts of climate change. (c) 2014 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "monitoring presence, abundance and survival probability of the stag beetle, lucanus cervus, using visual and odour-based capture methods: implications for conservation",capture-mark-recapture; dead wood; italy; lucanidae; population size estimates; saproxylic,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,CHIARI S;ZAULI A;AUDISIO P;CAMPANARO A;DONZELLI PF;ROMITI F;SVENSSON GP;TINI M;CARPANETO GM,"a capture-mark-recapture study on the threatened saproxylic beetle lucanus cervus was carried out in a chestnut (castanea sativa) woodland located in northern italy, using visual encounter surveys (ves) as well as aerial flight interception traps and pitfall traps (pt), both of which were baited with different odour lures. in total, 111 males and 25 females were captured, and ves was by far the most efficient method, accounting for 93 % of first captures, and 95 % of all captures. stag beetles were not significantly attracted to any tested odour, and many pt were damaged by wild boars (sus scrofa). flying males were the most frequent adults observed during the season. the use of a net is necessary to capture the stag beetles, in order to evaluate the population parameters and to assess the local status of threat for the species. capture data revealed that body size (i.e. body weight and elytron length) influences the survival probability of stag beetles, showing a lower survival probability for larger males. felt-tip pen marking on the ventral sclerites of head and pronotum is a reliable and long lasting method for marking beetles, as proved by the use of an independent marking procedure with a small drill. assessing the presence and threat status of l. cervus across europe is urgently needed, and with no efficient odour-based strategy available, collection of adult beetles, dead or alive, by ves is the most reliable way to monitor this emblematic species." increased flexibility for modeling telemetry and nest-survival data using the multistate framework,black duck; known fate; lynx; mallard; mark-recapture; multistate; nest survival; survival; telemetry,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,DEVINEAU O;KENDALL WL;DOHERTY PF;SHENK TM;WHITE GC;LUKACS PM;BURNHAM KP,"although telemetry is one of the most common tools used in the study of wildlife, advances in the analysis of telemetry data have lagged compared to progress in the development of telemetry devices. we demonstrate how standard known-fate telemetry and related nest-survival data analysis models are special cases of the more general multistate framework. we present a short theoretical development, and 2 case examples regarding the american black duck and the mallard. we also present a more complex lynx data analysis. although not necessary in all situations, the multistate framework provides additional flexibility to analyze telemetry data, which may help analysts and biologists better deal with the vagaries of real-world data collection. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." factors influencing survival of canada geese breeding in southern quebec,age; body condition; branta canadensis maxima; harvest distribution; hatching date; quebec; survival; temperate-nesting canada goose,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PILOTTE C;REED ET;RODRIGUE J;GIROUX JF,"temperate nesting canada geese are considered a nuisance in many regions of eastern north america. in southern quebec, a breeding population became established 20 years ago and has grown steadily since that time. because of the long-lived nature of geese, understanding the factors that influence annual survival is critical to the management of these populations. our objectives were to describe the spatiotemporal distribution of the harvest of canada geese that breed in southern quebec, determine how year, sex, and age affect survival rates, and to evaluate the effects of hatch date and body condition near fledging on juvenile survival. we conducted mixed live recapture and dead recovery capture-mark-recapture analyses using data from birds banded as pre-fledged juveniles between 2003 and 2009 (n=3,972). recoveries were distributed near the breeding area and along the east coast of the united states. juveniles were mainly recovered in quebec and yearlings in the united states. harvest during the special early hunting season in quebec represented only 9% of the total harvest. annual survival rates were similar for both males and females, but varied among years for each age class. survival averaged 0.82 (95% ci 0.76-0.87) for juveniles, 0.76 (0.69-0.82) for yearlings, and 0.82 (0.75-0.87) for adults. we observed a negative relationship between hatch date and juvenile survival but did not find significant effects of body condition and age at banding on survival. in addition to a short migration, a possible explanation for the high survival of juveniles includes the use by family groups predominantly of areas that are not open to hunting. the use of rural habitats where susceptibility to hunting is high, combined with the behavior of molt migration could explain the lower survival rates of yearlings than juveniles. we argue that high survival rates for all age classes contribute significantly to the growth of this population. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." -epidemiology and clinical features of childhood chronic hepatitis b infection diagnosed in england,chronic hepatitis b; children; transmission; prevalence; epidemiology,PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASE JOURNAL,LADHANI SN;FLOOD JS;AMIRTHALINGAM G;MIELI-VERGANI G;BANSAL S;DAVISON S;NAIK S;RIORDAN A;SHINGADIA D;TUDOR-WILLIAMS G;SIRA J;KELLY DA;RAMSAY ME,"background: this study aimed to estimate the prevalence of childhood chronic hepatitis b (chb) infection diagnosed in england using capture-recapture analysis of 2 independent data sources and to describe the clinical and epidemiological characteristics, management, complications and outcome of children with chb. methods: pediatric specialists were contacted to report all chb cases in children aged <16 years and complete a standardized questionnaire. capture-recapture analysis of cases diagnosed during 2001-2009 using 2 independent data sources was performed to estimate the prevalence of childhood chb. results: capture-recapture analysis estimated 448 diagnosed chb cases (prevalence, 4.6/100,000) in england, of whom only 44% had been referred for specialist follow up. clinical information for 325 cases under specialist care revealed that half the cases (n = 164, 50%) had been born overseas, mainly sub-saharan africa and eastern europe, whereas half the uk-born children were either pakistani (25%) or chinese (25%). most children (n = 216, 66%) were asymptomatic, with only 60 (18.5%) ever receiving any antiviral therapy, although 2 developed cirrhosis in childhood and 1 hepatocellular carcinoma. horizontal transmission among uk-born children was identified in only 3 children born since 2001, when universal antenatal hepatitis b virus screening was introduced. most children born to antenatally diagnosed hepatitis b virus-positive mothers (49/51, 96%) had received at least 1 hepatitis b vaccine dose after birth. conclusions: in england, the prevalence of diagnosed childhood chb is low, although the potential number of undiagnosed cases is difficult to estimate. further efforts are required to strengthen the current antenatal screening program and newly diagnosed cases should be referred for specialist follow up." +inferences about population dynamics from count data using multistate models: a comparison to capture-recapture approaches,NA,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ZIPKIN EF;SILLETT TS;GRANT EHC;CHANDLER RB;ROYLE JA,NA +what shall i do now? state-dependent variations of life-history traits with aging in wandering albatrosses,NA,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,PARDO D;BARBRAUD C;WEIMERSKIRCH H,NA +epidemiology and clinical features of childhood chronic hepatitis b infection diagnosed in england,chronic hepatitis b; children; transmission; prevalence; epidemiology,PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASE JOURNAL,LADHANI SN;FLOOD JS;AMIRTHALINGAM G;MIELI VERGANI G;BANSAL S;DAVISON S;NAIK S;RIORDAN A;SHINGADIA D;TUDOR WILLIAMS G;SIRA J;KELLY DA;RAMSAY ME,"background: this study aimed to estimate the prevalence of childhood chronic hepatitis b (chb) infection diagnosed in england using capture-recapture analysis of 2 independent data sources and to describe the clinical and epidemiological characteristics, management, complications and outcome of children with chb. methods: pediatric specialists were contacted to report all chb cases in children aged <16 years and complete a standardized questionnaire. capture-recapture analysis of cases diagnosed during 2001-2009 using 2 independent data sources was performed to estimate the prevalence of childhood chb. results: capture-recapture analysis estimated 448 diagnosed chb cases (prevalence, 4.6/100,000) in england, of whom only 44% had been referred for specialist follow up. clinical information for 325 cases under specialist care revealed that half the cases (n = 164, 50%) had been born overseas, mainly sub-saharan africa and eastern europe, whereas half the uk-born children were either pakistani (25%) or chinese (25%). most children (n = 216, 66%) were asymptomatic, with only 60 (18.5%) ever receiving any antiviral therapy, although 2 developed cirrhosis in childhood and 1 hepatocellular carcinoma. horizontal transmission among uk-born children was identified in only 3 children born since 2001, when universal antenatal hepatitis b virus screening was introduced. most children born to antenatally diagnosed hepatitis b virus-positive mothers (49/51, 96%) had received at least 1 hepatitis b vaccine dose after birth. conclusions: in england, the prevalence of diagnosed childhood chb is low, although the potential number of undiagnosed cases is difficult to estimate. further efforts are required to strengthen the current antenatal screening program and newly diagnosed cases should be referred for specialist follow up." "climate, social factors and research disturbance influence population dynamics in a declining sociable weaver metapopulation",allee effect; capture-mark-recapture; colonial bird; environmental stochasticity; metapopulation model,OECOLOGIA,ALTWEGG R;DOUTRELANT C;ANDERSON MD;SPOTTISWOODE CN;COVAS R,"population trends are determined by gains through reproduction and immigration, and losses through mortality and emigration. these demographic quantities and resulting population dynamics are affected by different external and internal drivers. we examined how these demographic quantities were affected by weather, research-induced disturbance, local density, colony site and year in a metapopulation of 17 sociable weaver (philetairus socius) colonies over 17 years of study (4 years for reproduction). most colonies declined, but at different rates. the four demographic quantities were related to different drivers. survival strongly varied among years and colonies and was positively related to rainfall and negatively related to extreme temperature (together explaining 30 % of variation) and disturbance (measured as number of captures conducted at a colony; 7 %). there was a trend for a positive relationship between reproduction and rainfall (50 %). movement was mainly related to local density: individuals were more likely to emigrate from small to large colonies and from colonies that were either well below or above their long-term mean. they were more likely to immigrate into colonies that were nearby, and below their mean size. we then quantified the effects of these relationships on metapopulation dynamics using a multi-site matrix projection model. rainfall was potentially a strong driver of metapopulation dynamics. in addition, field-work disturbance might have contributed to the decline of this metapopulation but could not explain its full magnitude. hence, through a combination of analytical methods we were able to obtain information on the main drivers affecting dynamics in a declining metapopulation." -parallelism isn't perfect: could disease and flooding drive a life-history anomaly in trinidadian guppies?,parallel evolution; multistate mark-recapture; life-history evolution; poecilia reticulata,AMERICAN NATURALIST,FITZPATRICK SW;TORRES-DOWDALL J;REZNICK DN;GHALAMBOR CK;FUNK WC,"nonparallel evolution, where independent populations occupy similar environments but show phenotypic differences, can uncover previously ignored selective factors. we investigated a nonparallelism in the life-history strategy of a trinidadian guppy population, a system famous for parallel adaptation to differences in predation risk. we tested the hypothesis that high mortality drives an observed fast life-history pattern (i.e., earlier maturation and more frequent reproductive events) that is atypical for a low-predation environment. using mark-recapture techniques, we compared neighboring low-predation populations, finding significantly higher mortality rates in the population with atypical life-history traits. mortality was elevated during the wet season, when flooding was common. moreover, individuals from the anomalous population were more likely to transition from healthy to infected disease states. our results stand out against previous patterns observed in this system, indicating that higher mortality caused by disease and flooding may have selected for a faster life history. thus, we highlight that even in systems famous for parallel adaptation, variation in selective pressures can result in nonparallel phenotypic evolution." +parallelism isn't perfect: could disease and flooding drive a life-history anomaly in trinidadian guppies?,parallel evolution; multistate mark-recapture; life-history evolution; poecilia reticulata,AMERICAN NATURALIST,FITZPATRICK SW;TORRES DOWDALL J;REZNICK DN;GHALAMBOR CK;FUNK WC,"nonparallel evolution, where independent populations occupy similar environments but show phenotypic differences, can uncover previously ignored selective factors. we investigated a nonparallelism in the life-history strategy of a trinidadian guppy population, a system famous for parallel adaptation to differences in predation risk. we tested the hypothesis that high mortality drives an observed fast life-history pattern (i.e., earlier maturation and more frequent reproductive events) that is atypical for a low-predation environment. using mark-recapture techniques, we compared neighboring low-predation populations, finding significantly higher mortality rates in the population with atypical life-history traits. mortality was elevated during the wet season, when flooding was common. moreover, individuals from the anomalous population were more likely to transition from healthy to infected disease states. our results stand out against previous patterns observed in this system, indicating that higher mortality caused by disease and flooding may have selected for a faster life history. thus, we highlight that even in systems famous for parallel adaptation, variation in selective pressures can result in nonparallel phenotypic evolution." "measuring terrestrial movement behavior using passive integrated transponder (pit) tags: effects of tag size on detection, movement, survival, and growth",ambystoma annulatum; detection depth; mark-recapture; pit telemetry; subterranean tracking,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY,OUSTERHOUT BH;SEMLITSCH RD,"movement behaviors have broad ecological and evolutionary implications, affecting individual fitness, metapopulation dynamics, the distribution and abundance of species, as well as gene flow and thus adaptation and speciation. however, movement behaviors such as dispersal, station keeping, and ranging are poorly understood in many taxa due to the incompatibility of traditional tracking methods with long-term observations. this is particularly true for small-bodied life history stages and species. while the introduction of smaller passive integrated transponder (pit) tags and the development of pit telemetry have removed some barriers, the trade-offs between different tag sizes are unknown. through a series of experiments, we tested for effects of pit tag size on detection, movement, tag retention, growth, and survival of a juvenile amphibian. we found no effect of pit tag size on initial movement distance, survival, or growth; and all individuals retained their tag for the course of the experiment. detection and recapture rates, however, were increased with pit tag size. the orientation of the tag relative to the vertical axis of the antenna also affected the size of the detection field, which was 15.78-43.90 % smaller when the antenna was moved perpendicular rather than parallel to the long axis of the tag. we conclude that pit telemetry is a suitable technique for marking previously untraceable species or life history stages and may offer insight into the behaviors of these individuals. investigations using multiple pit tag sizes should include this in statistical analyses to account for tag size biased detection differences." "connectivity between flyway populations of waterbirds: assessment of rates of exchange, their causes and consequences",cold weather movement; demography; e-surge; genetic connectivity; multi-state model; pink-footed geese; population delineation,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,MADSEN J;TJORNLOV RS;FREDERIKSEN M;MITCHELL C;SIGFUSSON AT,"1. conservation and management of migratory waterbirds use flyway populations as the basic unit, and knowledge of the delineation, rate of exchange and gene flow between populations is fundamental. however, for the majority of global flyway populations, information is too fragmentary to address connectivity between populations and, hence, insufficient to inform management. 2. we investigated the demographic connectivity between the eastern (breeding in svalbard and wintering in denmark, the netherlands and belgium) and western (breeding in greenland or iceland and wintering in britain) flyway populations of pink-footed geese anser brachyrhynchus based on resightings of marked geese from both populations. previous genetic analyses suggested a modest gene flow between the two populations. 3. capture-recapture analysis conservatively estimated that mean annual movement probabilities were low (eastern to western population: 0.071%, 95% ci = 0.033-0.15%; western to eastern: 0.076%, 95% ci=0.031-0.18%). movement probability from eastern to western flyway populations increased in years with high snow cover in the southernmost winter range in belgium. life histories of exchanged individuals from eastern to western (32 different individuals during 1988-2010) revealed that the majority entered britain via belgium and the netherlands during winter; some returned to the eastern population via belgium and/or the netherlands, others moved northwards in britain during the spring and appear to have migrated directly from britain (western population) to norway (eastern population). none of the birds from the eastern population emigrated permanently, but some individuals turned up in britain in consecutive years. out of nine individuals switching from western to eastern flyway populations, three returned to britain; the others were not subsequently resighted. an alternative winter strategy and spring flyway over britain to norway is suggested, used by hundreds to thousands of eastern birds, particularly following severe winters. thus, the two populations currently appear to be demographically closed; low genetic connectivity probably reflects dispersal over longer time. 4. synthesis and applications. current initiatives to internationally manage the eastern population of pink-footed geese do not need to consider net immigration in predictive harvest models. for waterbirds in general, a targeted approach to evaluate connectivity, using classic marking studies in combination with molecular methods and focussed sampling on breeding grounds, is recommended to better underpin management decisions at population levels." natural selection and glucocorticoid physiology,glucocorticoids; natural selection; physiological trait; trade-offs; white-crowned sparrow,JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY,PATTERSON SH;HAHN TP;CORNELIUS JM;BREUNER CW,"glucocorticoid hormones are considered potent modulators of trade-offs between reproduction and survival. as such, selection should affect glucocorticoid physiology, although relatively little is known about how selection may act on glucocorticoid profiles. in general, the evolution of physiology is less studied and less well understood than morphological or life history traits. here, we used a long-term data set from a population of mountain white-crowned sparrows to estimate natural selection on glucocorticoid profiles. our study suggests that survival selection favours higher hormone concentrations for multiple components of glucocorticoid physiology (both baseline and stress-induced glucocorticoid levels). fecundity selection varies depending on the component of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal physiology; greater reproductive output was associated with higher baseline glucocorticoid levels, but lower stress-induced glucocorticoid levels. additionally, the selection gradient was greater for glucocorticoids than for a morphological trait (wing length). these results support the hypothesis that stress-induced glucocorticoids increase survival over reproduction within a wild population (the cort-trade-off hypothesis). taken together, these results add to our knowledge of how selection operates on physiological traits and also provide an evolutionary and ecological perspective on several key open issues in the field of glucocorticoid physiology." contrasting past and current numbers of bears visiting yellowstone cutthroat trout streams,black bear; capture-mark-recapture; cutthroat trout; grizzly bear; jolly-seber; pradel-recruitment; robust design,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,TEISBERG JE;HAROLDSON MA;SCHWARTZ CC;GUNTHER KA;FORTIN JK;ROBBINS CT,"spawning cutthroat trout (oncorhynchus clarkii bouvieri) were historically abundant within tributary streams of yellowstone lake within yellowstone national park and were a highly digestible source of energy and protein for yellowstone's grizzly bears (ursus arctos) and black bears (u. americanus). the cutthroat trout population has subsequently declined since the introduction of non-native lake trout (salvelinus namaycush), and in response to effects of drought and whirling disease (myxobolus cerebralis). the trout population, duration of spawning runs, and indices of bear use of spawning streams had declined in some regions of the lake by 1997-2000. we initiated a 3-year study in 2007 to assess whether numbers of spawning fish, black bears, and grizzly bears within and alongside stream corridors had changed since 1997-2000. we estimated numbers of grizzly bears and black bears by first compiling encounter histories of individual bears visiting 48 hair-snag sites along 35 historically fished streams. we analyzed dna encounter histories with pradel-recruitment and jolly-seber (popan) capture-mark-recapture models. when compared to 1997-2000, the current number of spawning cutthroat trout per stream and the number of streams with cutthroat trout has decreased. we estimated that 48 (95% ci=42-56) male and 23 (95% ci=21-27) female grizzly bears visited the historically fished tributary streams during our study. in any 1-year, 46 to 59 independent grizzly bears (8-10% of estimated greater yellowstone ecosystem population) visited these streams. when compared with estimates from the 1997 to 2000 study and adjusted for equal effort, the number of grizzly bears using the stream corridors decreased by 63%. additionally, the number of black bears decreased between 64% and 84%. we also document an increased proportion of bears of both species visiting front-country (i.e., near human development) streams. with the recovery of cutthroat trout, we suggest bears that still reside within the lake basin will readily use this high-quality food resource. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." -altered microhabitat use and movement of littorinid gastropods: the effects of parasites,NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,O'DWYER K;KAMIYA T;POULIN R,"the distribution of organisms at small spatial scales and their use of microhabitats are important determinants of species-level interactions. in many ubiquitous rocky shore invertebrates, use of intertidal microhabitats has previously been studied with relation to thermal and desiccation stress, ontogenetic changes and predation. here, the effects of parasitism on the microhabitat use and movement of two new zealand littorinid hosts, austrolittorina antipodum and a. cincta, were investigated by examining the effect of infection by a philophthalmid trematode parasite. alterations in microhabitat use and movement of infected versus uninfected individuals were found during both field mark-recapture and laboratory experiments, carried out from august 2012 to march 2013 in otago harbour, new zealand (45.83a degrees s, 170.64a degrees e). specifically, a trend towards increased use of rock surface habitats and a reduction in the distance moved by infected snails was observed. in addition, decreased downward movement was observed for some infected individuals. this alteration in individual distribution is likely to increase the availability of infected individuals to predators, hence aiding the successful transmission of the trematode parasite. these results highlight the importance of including parasitism as a biotic factor in studies of gastropod movement and spatial distribution." +altered microhabitat use and movement of littorinid gastropods: the effects of parasites,NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,O DWYER K;KAMIYA T;POULIN R,"the distribution of organisms at small spatial scales and their use of microhabitats are important determinants of species-level interactions. in many ubiquitous rocky shore invertebrates, use of intertidal microhabitats has previously been studied with relation to thermal and desiccation stress, ontogenetic changes and predation. here, the effects of parasitism on the microhabitat use and movement of two new zealand littorinid hosts, austrolittorina antipodum and a. cincta, were investigated by examining the effect of infection by a philophthalmid trematode parasite. alterations in microhabitat use and movement of infected versus uninfected individuals were found during both field mark-recapture and laboratory experiments, carried out from august 2012 to march 2013 in otago harbour, new zealand (45.83a degrees s, 170.64a degrees e). specifically, a trend towards increased use of rock surface habitats and a reduction in the distance moved by infected snails was observed. in addition, decreased downward movement was observed for some infected individuals. this alteration in individual distribution is likely to increase the availability of infected individuals to predators, hence aiding the successful transmission of the trematode parasite. these results highlight the importance of including parasitism as a biotic factor in studies of gastropod movement and spatial distribution." when genes move farther than offspring: gene flow by male gamete dispersal in the highly philopatric bat species thyroptera tricolor,disc-winged bat; extra-group mating; gamete dispersal; gene flow; neighbourhood area; philopatry,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,BUCHALSKI MR;CHAVERRI G;VONHOF MJ,"for species characterized by philopatry of both sexes, mate selection represents an important behaviour for inbreeding avoidance, yet the implications for gene flow are rarely quantified. here, we present evidence of male gamete-mediated gene flow resulting from extra-group mating in spix's disc-winged bat, thyroptera tricolor, a species which demonstrates all-offspring philopatry. we used microsatellite and capture-recapture data to characterize social group structure and the distribution of mated pairs at two sites in southwestern costa rica over four breeding seasons. relatedness and genetic spatial autocorrelation analyses indicated strong kinship within groups and over short distances (<50m), resulting from matrilineal group structure and small roosting home ranges (similar to 0.2ha). despite high relatedness among-group members, observed inbreeding coefficients were low (f-is=0.010 and 0.037). parentage analysis indicated mothers and offspring belonged to the same social group, while fathers belonged to different groups, separated by large distances (similar to 500m) when compared to roosting home ranges. simulated random mating indicated mate choice was not based on intermediate levels of relatedness, and mated pairs were less related than adults within social groups on average. isolation-by-distance (ibd) models of genetic neighbourhood area based on father-offspring distances provided direct estimates of mean gamete dispersal distances (<(r)over cap>) > 10 roosting home range equivalents. indirect estimates based on genetic distance provided even larger estimates of (r) over cap, indicating direct estimates were biased low. these results suggest extra-group mating reduces the incidence of inbreeding in t.tricolor, and male gamete dispersal facilitates gene flow in lieu of natal dispersal of young." relative survival of gags mycteroperca microlepis released within a recreational hook-and-line fishery: application of the cox regression model to control for heterogeneity in a large-scale mark-recapture study,gag mycteroperca microlepis; proportional hazards model; discard mortality; mark-recapture; recreational fishery,FISHERIES RESEARCH,SAULS B,"from june 2009 through december 2012 fishery observers were placed on charter and headboat vessels operating in the gulf of mexico to directly observe reef fishes as they were caught by recreational anglers fishing with hook-and-line gear. the objective of this study was to relate injuries and impairments measured directly from gags mycteroperca microlepis caught and released within the recreational fishery to subsequent mark-recapture rates. due to the large spatial and temporal scales of the study design, it could not be assumed that encounter probabilities were equal for all individual tagged fish in the population. also, changes in fishing effort following the deepwater horizon oil spill during 2010 in the gulf of mexico and drastically reduced recreational harvest seasons for gag during 2011 and 2012 were unanticipated during the design of this study. therefore, it was necessary to control for potential covariates on encounter and recapture rates for gags tagged in different regions, different years, and different times of year. this analysis demonstrates the utility of the cox regression proportional hazards model in comparing relative survival among gags released in various conditions while controlling for potential covariates on both the occurrence and timing of recapture events. a total of 3954 gags were observed in this study, and the majority (77.26%) were released in good condition (condition category 1), defined as fish that immediately submerged without assistance from venting and had not suffered internal injuries from embedded hooks or visible damage to the gills. however, compared to gags caught in shallower depths, a greater proportion of gags caught and released from depths deeper than 30 m were in fair or poor condition. relative survival was significantly reduced (alpha <0.05) for gags released in fair and poor condition after controlling for variable mark-recapture rates among regions and across months and years when tagged fish were initially captured and released. gags released within the recreational fishery in fair and poor condition were only 66.4% (95% c.i. 46.9-94.0%) and 50.6% (26.2-97.8%) as likely to be recaptured, respectively, as gags released in good condition. overall discard mortality was calculated for gags released in all condition categories at 10 m depth intervals. there was a significant linear increase in estimated mortality from less than 15% (range of uncertainty, 0.1-25.2%) in shallow depths to 30 m, to 35.6% (5.6-55.7%) at depths greater than 70 m (p < 0.001, r-2 = 0.917) (c) 2013 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." evaluating the relationship between mean catch per unit effort and abundance for littoral cyprinids in small boreal shield lakes,fathead minnow; pearl dace; minnow trap; trap net; experimental lakes area; mark-recapture,FISHERIES RESEARCH,GUZZO MM;RENNIE MD;BLANCHFIELD PJ,"catch per unit effort (cpue) is commonly used as a relative measure of littoral fish abundance; however, few studies have examined this relationship for boreal shield lakes. we used non-linear regression to generate relationships between mark-recapture abundance estimates and mean cpue derived from 7 years of standardized fishing using baited minnow traps for two common cyprinid species; pearl dace (margariscus margarita) and fathead minnows (pimephales promelas), in littoral areas of two small boreal lakes. we produced significant, positive cpue-abundance relationships for pearl dace and fathead minnows. pearl dace were less variable in daily cpue during the course of the study, suggesting they may require less sampling effort than fathead minnows to precisely estimate their population size. density estimates derived from our estimates of abundance were consistent with those from similar boreal shield lakes, providing confidence in our method to estimate abundance. finally, we developed relationships to estimate population size from long-term monitoring data collected on these same cyprinid species using two types of small mesh trap nets. non-linear relationships were developed between mean trap net cpue and abundance estimates derived from minnow traps for fathead minnows, but not pearl dace. these relationships should permit population estimates from mean cpue data collected using similar capture methods in similar lakes. (c) 2013 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." a regression estimator for mixed binomial capture-recapture data,beta-binomial; weighted regression; zero-truncation,JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL PLANNING AND INFERENCE,ROCCHETTI I;ALFO M;BOHNING D,"mixed binomial models are frequently used to provide estimates for the unknown size of a partially observed population when capture-recapture data are available through a known, finite, number of identification (sampling) sources. in this context, inherently major problems may be the lack of identifiability of the mixing distribution (link, 2003) and boundary problems in ml estimation for mixed binomial models (such as the beta-binomial or finite mixture of binomials), see e.g. dorazio and royle (2003, 2005). to solve these problems, we introduce a novel regression estimator based on observed ratios of successive capture frequencies. both simulations and real data examples show that the proposed estimator frequently leads to under-estimate the true population size, but with a smaller bias and a lower variability when compared to other well-known estimators. (c) 2013 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." effects of red-backed salamanders on ecosystem functions,NA,PLOS ONE,HOCKING DJ;BABBITT KJ,"ecosystems provide a vast array of services for human societies, but understanding how various organisms contribute to the functions that maintain these services remains an important ecological challenge. predators can affect ecosystem functions through a combination of top-down trophic cascades and bottom-up effects on nutrient dynamics. as the most abundant vertebrate predator in many eastern us forests, woodland salamanders (plethodon spp.) likely affect ecosystems functions. we examined the effects of red-backed salamanders (plethodon cinereus) on a variety of forest ecosystem functions using a combined approach of large-scale salamander removals (314-m(2) plots) and small-scale enclosures (2 m(2)) where we explicitly manipulated salamander density (0, 0.5, 1, 2, 4 m(-2)). in these experiments, we measured the rates of litter and wood decomposition, potential nitrogen mineralization and nitrification rates, acorn germination, and foliar insect damage on red oak seedlings. across both experimental venues, we found no significant effect of red-backed salamanders on any of the ecosystem functions. we also found no effect of salamanders on intraguild predator abundance (carabid beetles, centipedes, spiders). our study adds to the already conflicting evidence on effects of red-backed salamander and other amphibians on terrestrial ecosystem functions. it appears likely that the impact of terrestrial amphibians on ecosystem functions is context dependent. future research would benefit from explicitly examining terrestrial amphibian effects on ecosystem functions under a variety of environmental conditions and in different forest types." abundance and survival rates of the hawai'i island associated spinner dolphin (stenella longirostris) stock,NA,PLOS ONE,TYNE JA;POLLOCK KH;JOHNSTON DW;BEJDER L,"reliable population estimates are critical to implement effective management strategies. the hawai'i island spinner dolphin (stenella longirostris) is a genetically distinct stock that displays a rigid daily behavioural pattern, foraging offshore at night and resting in sheltered bays during the day. consequently, they are exposed to frequent human interactions and disturbance. we estimated population parameters of this spinner dolphin stock using a systematic sampling design and capture-recapture models. from september 2010 to august 2011, boat-based photo-identification surveys were undertaken monthly over 132 days (>1,150 hours of effort; >100,000 dorsal fin images) in the four main resting bays along the kona coast, hawai'i island. all images were graded according to photographic quality and distinctiveness. over 32,000 images were included in the analyses, from which 607 distinctive individuals were catalogued and 214 were highly distinctive. two independent estimates of the proportion of highly distinctive individuals in the population were not significantly different (p = 0.68). individual heterogeneity and time variation in capture probabilities were strongly indicated for these data; therefore capture-recapture models allowing for these variations were used. the estimated annual apparent survival rate (product of true survival and permanent emigration) was 0.97 se +/- 0.05. open and closed capture-recapture models for the highly distinctive individuals photographed at least once each month produced similar abundance estimates. an estimate of 221 +/- 4.3 se highly distinctive spinner dolphins, resulted in a total abundance of 631 +/- 60.1 se, (95% ci 524-761) spinner dolphins in the hawai'i island stock, which is lower than previous estimates. when this abundance estimate is considered alongside the rigid daily behavioural pattern, genetic distinctiveness, and the ease of human access to spinner dolphins in their preferred resting habitats, this hawai'i island stock is likely more vulnerable to negative impacts from human disturbance than previously believed." -evaluating the status of and african wild dogs lycaon pictus and cheetahs acinonyx jubatus through tourist-based photographic surveys in the kruger national park,NA,PLOS ONE,MARNEWICK K;FERREIRA SM;GRANGE S;WATERMEYER J;MAPUTLA N;DAVIES-MOSTERT HT,"the kruger national park is a stronghold for african wild dog lycaon pictus and cheetah acinonyx jubatus conservation in south africa. tourist photographic surveys have been used to evaluate the minimum number of wild dogs and cheetahs alive over the last two decades. photographic-based capture-recapture techniques for open populations were used on data collected during a survey done in 2008/9. models were run for the park as a whole and per region (northern, central, southern). a total of 412 (329-495; se 41.95) cheetahs and 151 (144-157; se 3.21) wild dogs occur in the kruger national park. cheetah capture probabilities were affected by time (number of entries) and sex, whereas wild dog capture probabilities were affected by the region of the park. when plotting the number of new individuals identified against the number of entries received, the addition of new wild dogs to the survey reached an asymptote at 210 entries, but cheetahs did not reach an asymptote. the cheetah population of kruger appears to be acceptable, while the wild dog population size and density are of concern. the effectiveness of tourist-based surveys for estimating population sizes through capture-recapture analyses is shown." +evaluating the status of and african wild dogs lycaon pictus and cheetahs acinonyx jubatus through tourist-based photographic surveys in the kruger national park,NA,PLOS ONE,MARNEWICK K;FERREIRA SM;GRANGE S;WATERMEYER J;MAPUTLA N;DAVIES MOSTERT HT,"the kruger national park is a stronghold for african wild dog lycaon pictus and cheetah acinonyx jubatus conservation in south africa. tourist photographic surveys have been used to evaluate the minimum number of wild dogs and cheetahs alive over the last two decades. photographic-based capture-recapture techniques for open populations were used on data collected during a survey done in 2008/9. models were run for the park as a whole and per region (northern, central, southern). a total of 412 (329-495; se 41.95) cheetahs and 151 (144-157; se 3.21) wild dogs occur in the kruger national park. cheetah capture probabilities were affected by time (number of entries) and sex, whereas wild dog capture probabilities were affected by the region of the park. when plotting the number of new individuals identified against the number of entries received, the addition of new wild dogs to the survey reached an asymptote at 210 entries, but cheetahs did not reach an asymptote. the cheetah population of kruger appears to be acceptable, while the wild dog population size and density are of concern. the effectiveness of tourist-based surveys for estimating population sizes through capture-recapture analyses is shown." the proximate causes of sexual size dimorphism in phrynocephalus przewalskii,NA,PLOS ONE,ZHAO W;LIU NF,"sexual size dimorphism (ssd) is a common phenomenon and is a central topic in evolutionary biology. recently, the importance of pursuing an ontogenetic perspective of ssd has been emphasized, to elucidate the proximate physiological mechanisms leading to its evolution. however, such research has seldom focused on the critical periods when males and females diverge. using mark-recapture data, we investigated the development of ssd, sex-specific survivorship, and growth rates in phrynocephalus przewalskii (agamidae). we demonstrated that both male and female lizards are reproductively mature at age 10-11 months (including 5 months hibernation). male-biased ssd in snout-vent length (svl) was only found in adults and was fully expressed at age 11 months (june of the first full season of activity), just after sexual maturation. however, male-biased ssd in tail length (tl), hind-limb length (ll), and head width (hw) were fully expressed at age 9-10 months, just before sexual maturation. analysis of age-specific linear growth rates identified sexually dimorphic growth during the fifth growth month (age 10-11 months) as the proximate cause of ssd in svl. the males experienced higher mortality than females in the first 2 years and only survived better than females after ssd was well developed. this suggests that the critical period of divergence in the sizes of male and female p. przewalskii occurs between 10 and 11 months of age (may to june during the first full season of activity), and that the sexual difference in growth during this period is the proximate cause. however, the sexual difference in survivorship cannot explain the male-biased ssd in svl. our results indicate that performance-related characteristics, such as tl, hw, and ll diverged earlier than svl. the physiological mechanisms underlying the different growth patterns of males and females may reflect different energy allocations associated with their different reproductive statuses." seasonal survival probabilities suggest low migration mortality in migrating bats,NA,PLOS ONE,GIAVI S;MORETTI M;BONTADINA F;ZAMBELLI N;SCHAUB M,"migration is adaptive if survival benefits are larger than costs of residency. many aspects of bat migration ecology such as migratory costs, stopover site use and fidelity are largely unknown. since many migrating bats are endangered, such information is urgently needed to promote conservation. we selected the migrating leisler's bat (nyctalus leisleri) as model species and collected capture-recapture data in southern switzerland year round during 6 years. we estimated seasonal survival and site fidelity with cormack-jolly-seber models that accounted for the presence of transients fitted with bayesian methods and assessed differences between sexes and seasons. activity peaked in autumn and spring, whereas very few individuals were caught during summer. we hypothesize that the study site is a migratory stopover site used during fall and spring migration for most individuals, but there is also evidence for wintering. additionally, we found strong clues for mating during fall. summer survival that included two major migratory journeys was identical to winter survival in males and slightly higher in females, suggesting that the migratory journeys did not bear significant costs in terms of survival. transience probability was in both seasons higher in males than in females. our results suggest that, similarly to birds, leisler's bat also use stopover sites during migration with high site fidelity. in contrast to most birds, the stopover site was also used for mating and migratory costs in terms of survival seemed to be low. transients' analyses highlighted strong individual variation in site use which makes particularly challenging the study and modelling of their populations as well as their conservation." -growth and maximum size of tiger sharks (galeocerdo cuvier) in hawaii,NA,PLOS ONE,MEYER CG;O'MALLEY JM;PAPASTAMATIOU YP;DALE JJ;HUTCHINSON MR;ANDERSON JM;ROYER MA;HOLLAND KN,"tiger sharks (galecerdo cuvier) are apex predators characterized by their broad diet, large size and rapid growth. tiger shark maximum size is typically between 380 & 450 cm total length (tl), with a few individuals reaching 550 cm tl, but the maximum size of tiger sharks in hawaii waters remains uncertain. a previous study suggested tiger sharks grow rather slowly in hawaii compared to other regions, but this may have been an artifact of the method used to estimate growth (unvalidated vertebral ring counts) compounded by small sample size and narrow size range. since 1993, the university of hawaii has conducted a research program aimed at elucidating tiger shark biology, and to date 420 tiger sharks have been tagged and 50 recaptured. all recaptures were from hawaii except a single shark recaptured off isla jacques cousteau (24 degrees 13'17 '' n 109 degrees 52'14 '' w), in the southern gulf of california (minimum distance between tag and recapture sites = approximately 5,000 km), after 366 days at liberty (dal). we used these empirical mark-recapture data to estimate growth rates and maximum size for tiger sharks in hawaii. we found that tiger sharks in hawaii grow twice as fast as previously thought, on average reaching 340 cm tl by age 5, and attaining a maximum size of 403 cm tl. our model indicates the fastest growing individuals attain 400 cm tl by age 5, and the largest reach a maximum size of 444 cm tl. the largest shark captured during our study was 464 cm tl but individuals >450 cm tl were extremely rare (0.005% of sharks captured). we conclude that tiger shark growth rates and maximum sizes in hawaii are generally consistent with those in other regions, and hypothesize that a broad diet may help them to achieve this rapid growth by maximizing prey consumption rates." -prevalence of inherited ichthyosis in france: a study using capture-recapture method,inherited ichthyosis; epidemiology; prevalence; capture-recapture method; genodermatosis,ORPHANET JOURNAL OF RARE DISEASES,DREYFUS I;CHOUQUET C;EZZEDINE K;HENNER S;CHIAVERINI C;MAZA A;PASCAL S;RODRIGUEZ L;VABRES P;MARTIN L;MALLET S;BARBAROT S;DUPUIS J;MAZEREEUW-HAUTIER J,"background: inherited ichthyoses represent a group of rare skin disorders characterized by scaling, hyperkeratosis and inconstant erythema, involving most of the tegument. epidemiology remains poorly described. this study aims to evaluate the prevalence of inherited ichthyosis (excluding very mild forms) and its different clinical forms in france. methods: capture - recapture method was used for this study. according to statistical requirements, 3 different lists (reference/competence centres, french association of patients with ichthyosis and internet network) were used to record such patients. the study was conducted in 5 areas during a closed period. results: the prevalence was estimated at 13.3 per million people (/m) (ci95%, [10.9 - 17.6]). with regard to autosomal recessive congenital ichthyosis, the prevalence was estimated at 7/m (ci 95% [5.7 - 9.2]), with a prevalence of lamellar ichthyosis and congenital ichthyosiform erythroderma of 4.5/m (ci 95% [3.7 - 5.9]) and 1.9/m (ci 95% [1.6 - 2.6]), respectively. prevalence of keratinopathic forms was estimated at 1.1/m (ci 95% [0.9 - 1.5]). prevalence of syndromic forms (all clinical forms together) was estimated at 1.9/m (ci 95% [1.6 - 2.6]). conclusions: our results constitute a crucial basis to properly size the necessary health measures that are required to improve patient care and design further clinical studies." -identifying individual wild eastern grey wolves (canis lupus lycaon) using fundamental frequency and amplitude of howls,individuality; vocal recognition; wild wolf; howl; amplitude; canis lupus lycaon,BIOACOUSTICS-THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ANIMAL SOUND AND ITS RECORDING,ROOT-GUTTERIDGE H;BENCSIK M;CHEBLI M;GENTLE LK;TERRELL-NIELD C;BOURIT A;YARNELL RW,"the use of amplitudes to identify individuals has historically been ignored by bioacoustic researchers due to problems of attenuation. however, recent studies have shown that amplitudes encode identity in a variety of mammal species. previously, individuality has been demonstrated in both fundamental frequency (f-0) and amplitude changes of captive eastern wolf (canis lupus lycaon) howls with 100% accuracy where attenuation of amplitude due to distance was controlled in a captive environment. in this study, we aim to determine whether both fundamental frequency and amplitude data collected from vocalizations of wild wolves recorded over unknown distances, in variable conditions and with different recording equipment, can still encode identity. we used a bespoke code, developed in matlab, to extract simple scalar variables from 67 high-quality solo howls from 10 wild individuals and 112 chorus howls from another 109 individuals, including lower quality howls with wind or water noise. principal component analysis (pca) was carried out on the fundamental frequency and normalized amplitude of harmonic 1, yielding histogram-derived pca values on which discriminant function analysis was applied. an accuracy of 100% was achieved when assigning solo howls to individuals, and for the chorus howls a best accuracy of 97.4% was achieved. we suggest that individual recognition using our new extraction and analysis methods involving fundamental frequency and amplitudes together can identify wild wolves with high accuracy, and that this method should be applied to surveys of individuals in capture-mark-recapture and presence-absence studies of canid species." +growth and maximum size of tiger sharks (galeocerdo cuvier) in hawaii,NA,PLOS ONE,MEYER CG;O MALLEY JM;PAPASTAMATIOU YP;DALE JJ;HUTCHINSON MR;ANDERSON JM;ROYER MA;HOLLAND KN,"tiger sharks (galecerdo cuvier) are apex predators characterized by their broad diet, large size and rapid growth. tiger shark maximum size is typically between 380 & 450 cm total length (tl), with a few individuals reaching 550 cm tl, but the maximum size of tiger sharks in hawaii waters remains uncertain. a previous study suggested tiger sharks grow rather slowly in hawaii compared to other regions, but this may have been an artifact of the method used to estimate growth (unvalidated vertebral ring counts) compounded by small sample size and narrow size range. since 1993, the university of hawaii has conducted a research program aimed at elucidating tiger shark biology, and to date 420 tiger sharks have been tagged and 50 recaptured. all recaptures were from hawaii except a single shark recaptured off isla jacques cousteau (24 degrees 13'17 '' n 109 degrees 52'14 '' w), in the southern gulf of california (minimum distance between tag and recapture sites = approximately 5,000 km), after 366 days at liberty (dal). we used these empirical mark-recapture data to estimate growth rates and maximum size for tiger sharks in hawaii. we found that tiger sharks in hawaii grow twice as fast as previously thought, on average reaching 340 cm tl by age 5, and attaining a maximum size of 403 cm tl. our model indicates the fastest growing individuals attain 400 cm tl by age 5, and the largest reach a maximum size of 444 cm tl. the largest shark captured during our study was 464 cm tl but individuals >450 cm tl were extremely rare (0.005% of sharks captured). we conclude that tiger shark growth rates and maximum sizes in hawaii are generally consistent with those in other regions, and hypothesize that a broad diet may help them to achieve this rapid growth by maximizing prey consumption rates." +prevalence of inherited ichthyosis in france: a study using capture-recapture method,inherited ichthyosis; epidemiology; prevalence; capture-recapture method; genodermatosis,ORPHANET JOURNAL OF RARE DISEASES,DREYFUS I;CHOUQUET C;EZZEDINE K;HENNER S;CHIAVERINI C;MAZA A;PASCAL S;RODRIGUEZ L;VABRES P;MARTIN L;MALLET S;BARBAROT S;DUPUIS J;MAZEREEUW HAUTIER J,"background: inherited ichthyoses represent a group of rare skin disorders characterized by scaling, hyperkeratosis and inconstant erythema, involving most of the tegument. epidemiology remains poorly described. this study aims to evaluate the prevalence of inherited ichthyosis (excluding very mild forms) and its different clinical forms in france. methods: capture - recapture method was used for this study. according to statistical requirements, 3 different lists (reference/competence centres, french association of patients with ichthyosis and internet network) were used to record such patients. the study was conducted in 5 areas during a closed period. results: the prevalence was estimated at 13.3 per million people (/m) (ci95%, [10.9 - 17.6]). with regard to autosomal recessive congenital ichthyosis, the prevalence was estimated at 7/m (ci 95% [5.7 - 9.2]), with a prevalence of lamellar ichthyosis and congenital ichthyosiform erythroderma of 4.5/m (ci 95% [3.7 - 5.9]) and 1.9/m (ci 95% [1.6 - 2.6]), respectively. prevalence of keratinopathic forms was estimated at 1.1/m (ci 95% [0.9 - 1.5]). prevalence of syndromic forms (all clinical forms together) was estimated at 1.9/m (ci 95% [1.6 - 2.6]). conclusions: our results constitute a crucial basis to properly size the necessary health measures that are required to improve patient care and design further clinical studies." +identifying individual wild eastern grey wolves (canis lupus lycaon) using fundamental frequency and amplitude of howls,individuality; vocal recognition; wild wolf; howl; amplitude; canis lupus lycaon,BIOACOUSTICS-THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ANIMAL SOUND AND ITS RECORDING,ROOT GUTTERIDGE H;BENCSIK M;CHEBLI M;GENTLE LK;TERRELL NIELD C;BOURIT A;YARNELL RW,"the use of amplitudes to identify individuals has historically been ignored by bioacoustic researchers due to problems of attenuation. however, recent studies have shown that amplitudes encode identity in a variety of mammal species. previously, individuality has been demonstrated in both fundamental frequency (f-0) and amplitude changes of captive eastern wolf (canis lupus lycaon) howls with 100% accuracy where attenuation of amplitude due to distance was controlled in a captive environment. in this study, we aim to determine whether both fundamental frequency and amplitude data collected from vocalizations of wild wolves recorded over unknown distances, in variable conditions and with different recording equipment, can still encode identity. we used a bespoke code, developed in matlab, to extract simple scalar variables from 67 high-quality solo howls from 10 wild individuals and 112 chorus howls from another 109 individuals, including lower quality howls with wind or water noise. principal component analysis (pca) was carried out on the fundamental frequency and normalized amplitude of harmonic 1, yielding histogram-derived pca values on which discriminant function analysis was applied. an accuracy of 100% was achieved when assigning solo howls to individuals, and for the chorus howls a best accuracy of 97.4% was achieved. we suggest that individual recognition using our new extraction and analysis methods involving fundamental frequency and amplitudes together can identify wild wolves with high accuracy, and that this method should be applied to surveys of individuals in capture-mark-recapture and presence-absence studies of canid species." "fin whale survival and abundance in the gulf of st. lawrence, canada",NA,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,RAMP C;DELARUE J;BERUBE M;HAMMOND PS;SEARS R,"the fin whale balaenoptera physalus, the second largest species in the animal kingdom to have lived on earth, was heavily targeted during the industrial whaling era. north atlantic whaling for this species ended in 1987 and it is unclear if the populations are recovering. the stock structure in the north atlantic is still under debate, but several lines of evidence suggest that fin whales in the gulf of st. lawrence may form a discrete stock with limited exchange with the rest of the north atlantic. we applied mark-recapture models to 21 yr of photo-identification data from the jacques-cartier passage to estimate the abundance and, for the first time, a survival rate based on live re-sightings for this stock of fin whales. using the cormack-jolly-seber model, we estimated a unisex non-calf apparent survival rate of 0.955 (95% ci: 0.936 to 0.969) for the period 1990 to 2010, declining in the last 4 yr of the study. the reduced survivorship was likely caused by a lower site fidelity combined with a higher mortality. the popan model yielded a super-population estimate of 328 individuals (95% ci: 306 to 350) for the period 2004 to 2010, and confirmed the negative trend in apparent survival and annual abundance, indicating that the population has not increased since the last large-scale surveys from 1974 and 1997." recent increases in survival of western steller sea lions in alaska and implications for recovery,NA,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,FRITZ LW;TOWELL R;GELATT TS;JOHNSON DS;LOUGHLIN TR,"survival rates of endangered western stock steller sea lions eumetopias jubatus east of samalga pass (similar to 170 degrees w) have rebounded to nearly the same levels estimated for the 1970s prior to their decline in abundance. we estimated survival of sea lions hot-branded as pups (n = 1449) in 2000-2005 using cormack-jolly-seber mark-recapture models and sighting data collected through 2011. survivorship to age 7 yr was greater for females (range: 0.352-0.386) than males (0.228-0.275), but was similar for each sex across the study area. survival was lowest in the first year and increased through age 4+ yr for both sexes in the eastern gulf of alaska (144-150 degrees w). however, to the west, first-year survivorship was greater or equal to that of year 2, and the difference was generally greater for males than females. regional differences in the pattern of early survival could reflect spatial variability in early life history (e. g. duration of maternal care, growth rate) or habitat characteristics (e. g. prey availability, rates of predation). population models indicate that natality of the increasing population east of samalga pass in 2000-2012 may not be significantly different from rates estimated for the 1970s prior to the decline in overall western abundance. given current information, western steller sea lions may satisfy the stock-wide demographic down-listing (to threatened status) criterion by 2015. however, due to continued abundance declines west of samalga pass, where no survival data are currently available, it is less certain that the western stock's regional down-listing criteria will be achieved." critically low abundance and limits to human-related mortality for the maui's dolphin,NA,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,HAMNER RM;WADE P;OREMUS M;STANLEY M;BROWN P;CONSTANTINE R;BAKER CS,"the new zealand endemic maui's dolphin cephalorhynchus hectori maui is characterized by several life history traits thought to be important predictors of extinction risk in marine mammals, including a slow rate of reproduction, small geographic range, small group size, and coastal distribution. we continued the genetic monitoring of the remnant population of maui's dolphins using dna profiles to identify 39 individuals from 73 skin biopsy samples collected during dedicated boat surveys in the austral summers of 2010 and 2011. using a 2-sample, closed-population model with the genotype recapture records, we estimated the current abundance to be n = 55 individuals approximately age 1+ (95% confidence limits = 48, 69; coefficient of variation = 0.15). the endangered species potential biological removal that would permit the recovery of the maui's dolphin was calculated to be 1 dolphin every 10 to 23 yr. despite this, the maui's dolphin is not necessarily doomed to extinction. it appears to be maintaining an equal sex ratio and connectivity within its remnant range and has the potential for rescue by interbreeding with hector's dolphin c. h. hectori migrants." @@ -2731,7 +2736,7 @@ camera trapping ocelots: an evaluation of felid attractants,attractants; camera "reproduction of endangered big-headed turtle, platysternon megacephalum (reptilia: testudines: platysternidae)",asian turtle crisis; incubation; oviposition; turtle conservation,ACTA HERPETOLOGICA,SUNG YH;HAU BCH;KARRAKER NE,"the big-headed turtle (platysternon megacephalum) is heavily harvested to support tremendous demands from food and pet markets, and thus its ecology remains poorly understood. the presence of self-sustaining populations in hong kong (22 degrees 09'-22 degrees 37'n, 113 degrees 50'-114 degrees 30'e) provides important opportunities to advance our understanding of this species. we employed mark-recapture surveying, radio-tracking of two gravid females, and directed streamside searches to document the reproductive ecology of the species between september 2009 and june 2011 in hong kong. we found seven gravid females between 20-27 june 2010 and 2011, and which subsequently oviposited on average three eggs (range 2-8), with mean length and width of 36 mm and 21 mm, in early july. there was positive correlation between the size of females and clutch sizes. we found one clutch in leaf litter 1.6 m away from the stream, which hatched between 14 to 18 october. the incubation period was estimated to be between 103 and 110 days. the results of this study provide important information to formulate conservation plan for this endangered species." a stock assessment model of antarctic toothfish (dissostichus mawsoni) in the ross sea region incorporating multi-year mark-recapture data,NA,CCAMLR SCIENCE,MORMEDE S;DUNN A;HANCHET SM,"an exploratory longline fishery for antarctic toothfish (dissostichus mawsoni) has been carried out in the ross sea region since the late 1990s. no fishery-independent methods of monitoring stock abundance were plausible, and hence a multi-year mark-recapture tagging program was initiated by new zealand fishing vessels in 2001, and tagging has been an ongoing requirement for all vessels fishing in the fishery since 2004. although tagging experiments are commonly used for assessing fish stocks, most rely on estimates of abundance from a single release and subsequent recapture events. an integrated bayesian stock assessment model was developed for antarctic toothfish in the ross sea region that incorporates multi-year release of tagged fish and subsequent multi-year data of recapture of tagged fish in conjunction with fishery catch-at-age data. this is the first published stock assessment of toothfish in the ross sea region. it demonstrates the value of multi-year mark-recapture programs to estimate fish stocks even where no fishery-independent estimates of adult biomass are available. monte-carlo markov chain (mcmc) estimates of initial (equilibrium) spawning stock abundance (b-0) were 68 790 tonnes (95% credible intervals 59 540-78 470), and current (b-2013) biomass was estimated as 74.8% b-0 (95% cis 71-78). sensitivity analyses carried out showed the data selection provided a precautionary estimate of biomass, and that these estimates were insensitive to selectivity assumptions regarding cryptic biomass of older fish. results also suggested that a sub-adult survey series that started in 2012 will provide a useful signal indicative of recruitment fluctuations as the time series develops, a signal which is not present in the fishery-dependent data." edge effects on morphometrics and body mass in two sympatric species of mouse lemurs in madagascar,abundance; biogeography; body mass; edge effects; microcebus; lemur; madagascar,FOLIA PRIMATOLOGICA,BURKE RJ;LEHMAN SM,"edge effects are an inevitable and important consequence of forest loss and fragmentation. these effects include changes in species biology and biogeography. here we examine variations in body mass and morphometrics for 2 sympatric species of mouse lemurs (microcebus murinus and m. ravelobensis) between edge and interior habitats in the dry deciduous forest at ankarafantsika national park. between may and august 2012, we conducted mark-recapture experiments on mouse lemurs trapped along edge and interior forest transects within continuous forest adjacent to a large savannah. of the 34 m. murinus captured during our study, 82% (n = 28) were trapped in interior habitats. conversely, 72% (n = 47) of m. ravelobensis were captured in edge habitats. we found that mean body mass of m. murinus and m. ravelobensis did not differ between edge and interior habitats. however, female m. ravelobensis weighed significantly more in edge habitats (56.09 +/- 1.74 g) than in interior habitats (48.14 +/- 4.44 g). our study provides some of the first evidence of sex differences in edge responses for a primate species. (c) 2015 s. karger ag, basel" -home-range size of chestnut-backed antbird (myrmeciza exsul) in fragmented landscapes in southwestern costa rica,chestnut-backed antbird; myrmeciza exsul; agroecosystem; fragmented landscapes; home range; insectivory,ORNITOLOGIA NEOTROPICAL,LOSADA-PRADO S;FINEGAN B;DECLERCK F;CASANOVES F;DUNNING J,"understory insectivorous birds are sensitive to fragmentation due to their limited dispersal abilities. this limited dispersal makes these species an important group for conserving the landscape connectivity. through telemetry methods, banding individuals, capture-recapture techniques, and visual observations, we evaluated chestnut-backed antbird individuals (myrmeciza exsul, a common non-migratory understory insectivorous and forest specialist with low mobility), to determine the home-range size in two fragmented landscapes in southwestern costa rica. additionally, we recorded vegetation data in each one detected home area. we found significant differences (t = -3.52, p = 0.002) between landscapes regarding home-range sizes (1.02-2.76 ha at los cusingos landscape [lcl, n = 19] and 0.77-1.80 at boruca landscape [bol, n = 19]). additionally, average core areas were estimated between 0.14 and 1.08 ha at lcl and between 0.05 and 0.52 ha at bol. we concluded that chesnut-backed antbird home-range size was influenced by vegetation variables such as basal area and tree density, whereas core area was affected by landscape type." +home-range size of chestnut-backed antbird (myrmeciza exsul) in fragmented landscapes in southwestern costa rica,chestnut-backed antbird; myrmeciza exsul; agroecosystem; fragmented landscapes; home range; insectivory,ORNITOLOGIA NEOTROPICAL,LOSADA PRADO S;FINEGAN B;DECLERCK F;CASANOVES F;DUNNING J,"understory insectivorous birds are sensitive to fragmentation due to their limited dispersal abilities. this limited dispersal makes these species an important group for conserving the landscape connectivity. through telemetry methods, banding individuals, capture-recapture techniques, and visual observations, we evaluated chestnut-backed antbird individuals (myrmeciza exsul, a common non-migratory understory insectivorous and forest specialist with low mobility), to determine the home-range size in two fragmented landscapes in southwestern costa rica. additionally, we recorded vegetation data in each one detected home area. we found significant differences (t = -3.52, p = 0.002) between landscapes regarding home-range sizes (1.02-2.76 ha at los cusingos landscape [lcl, n = 19] and 0.77-1.80 at boruca landscape [bol, n = 19]). additionally, average core areas were estimated between 0.14 and 1.08 ha at lcl and between 0.05 and 0.52 ha at bol. we concluded that chesnut-backed antbird home-range size was influenced by vegetation variables such as basal area and tree density, whereas core area was affected by landscape type." "invasive house (rattus rattus) and brown rats (rattus norvegicus) threaten the viability of red-billed tropicbird (phaethon aethereus) in abrolhos national park, brazil",seabird; conservation; eradication; rattus; population viability,TROPICAL CONSERVATION SCIENCE,SARMENTO R;BRITO D;LADLE RJ;LEAL GD;EFE MA,"destruction of nests and predation by introduced species are among the main factors responsible for seabird declines. the red-billed tropicbird (phaethon aethereus) is a tropical, colonially nesting seabird whose distribution in brazil is restricted to a small, isolated breeding colony located within abrolhos national park. this represents the southernmost population of the species in the western atlantic, and is among the most southerly in its global distribution. despite its isolation, the population on abrolhos is threatened by egg predation by two invasive rat species: the house rat (rattus rattus) and brown rat (rattus norvegicus). in this study we conduct a population viability analysis of p. aethereus in abrolhos to estimate the potential long term impacts of the rats. our results indicate that egg and chick predation by rats has the potential to quickly drive the abrolhos tropicbird population into serious decline. reducing this threat may require the urgent implementation of a rat control program." "comparison of noninvasive genetics and camera trapping for estimating population density of ocelots (leopardus pardalis) on barro colorado island, panama",elusive species conservation; ocelot; spatially-explicit capture-recapture,TROPICAL CONSERVATION SCIENCE,RODGERS TW;GIACALONE J;HESKE EJ;JANECKA JE;PHILLIPS CA;SCHOOLEY RL,"estimates of population density are essential for the effective conservation and management of any threatened species. accurately estimating density of elusive carnivores can be a challenge, however. one approach to this challenge is integration of dna collected noninvasively from feces with capture-recapture modeling. to date, the bias and precision of this technique have seldom been evaluated in the field. we compared density estimates of ocelots (leopardus pardalis) derived from fecal noninvasive genetic techniques to density estimates from camera trapping in the same population, during the same study period. density estimates from the two techniques were comparable, especially when using spatially explicit capture-recapture models. population density estimated using the program density was 1.74/km(2) (se = 0.584) from noninvasive genetics and 1.59/km(2) (se = 0.464) from camera trapping. these estimates also represent the highest reported ocelot population density within the species range." comparing bayesian and frequentist methods of fisheries models: hierarchical catch curves,jags; hierarchical model; simulated data; yellow perch,JOURNAL OF GREAT LAKES RESEARCH,DOLL JC;LAUER TE,"bayesian inference is an emerging statistical paradigm and is becoming an increasingly used alternative to frequentist inference. unfortunately, little is known about the efficacy of bayesian inference and how it relates to the historical methodology of evaluating fisheries related models. mortality information is routinely used in fisheries management to describe fish population abundance over time and has been historically estimated using catch curves and frequentist inference (i.e., maximum likelihood estimation). the objective of this study was to compare frequentist and bayesian inference approaches to estimate instantaneous mortality (z) from a hierarchical catch curve model. the data used in the comparison were from a long term monitoring program of yellow perch percaflavescens from southern lake michigan in addition to a simulated dataset where parameter estimates were compared to known values. point estimates of z were similar among both methods. similarly, bayesian inference 95% credible intervals were concordant with frequentist 95% confidence intervals. however, the root mean squared error of frequentist inference increased at a higher rate than bayesian inference with increasing variability in the simulated dataset our study builds on the literature that seeks to compare results between these two paradigms to assist managers to make the best decision possible when deciding what statistical paradigm to employ. (c) 2014 international association for great lakes research. published by elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." @@ -2740,12 +2745,12 @@ species differences and geographic variation in the communal roosting behavior o robust assessment of population trends in marine mammals applied to new caledonian humpback whales,megaptera novaeangliae; capture-recapture; transients; multi-site; population growth rate; pradel model; population trend,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,ORGERET F;GARRIGUE C;GIMENEZ O;PRADEL R,"estimating population trends for long-lived, migratory animals is challenging but essential for managing populations. here we propose using a simple but potentially robust method, the direct estimation of population growth rate (pgr) from capture-recapture data. we considered an endangered population of humpback whales megaptera novaeangliae breeding and calving annually in the southern lagoon of new caledonia. studied since 1996, this population is known to exhibit a strong signal of transience, i.e. the presence of individuals that pass through the sampling area once, inducing detection heterogeneity. another difficulty is that a more recently discovered second breeding and calving habitat (offshore seamounts to the south) has been surveyed with less intensity. current direct pgr estimation models cannot deal with spatial sampling heterogeneity. in order to assess the reliability of the proposed method-in general and for our population in particular-we evaluated its robustness using simulations: first, when there are transient individuals; then, when the study area is split into 2 unequally sampled parts. we found no bias in pgr in the presence of transients. the bias with 2 unequally sampled parts depends on the amount and direction of exchanges, but appears negligible in our case study. the constant yearly pgr of the new caledonian humpback whale population at the level of the 2 habitats was estimated at 1.15 (95% ci 1.11-1.20), suggesting outside recruitment. whenever capture-recapture is feasible, we recommend the pradel approach to estimate the pgr, validated with appropriate simulations, in order to assess population welfare." population ecology of the eastern pygmy-possum (cercartetus nanus) in a montane woodland in southern new south wales,barren grounds nature reserve,AUSTRALIAN MAMMALOGY,HARRIS JM;GOLDINGAY RL;BROOKS LO,"the population dynamics of nectar-feeding non-flying mammals are poorly documented. we investigated aspects of the population ecology of the eastern pygmy-possum (cercartetus nanus) in southern new south wales. we captured 65 individuals over a 4-year period during 5045 trap-nights and 1179 nest-box checks. the body mass of adult males (mean +/- s.e. = 24.6 +/- 1.0 g) was marginally not significantly different (p = 0.08) from that of non-parous adult females (28.2 +/- 1.9 g). females gave birth to a single litter each year of 3-4 young during february-may. no juveniles were detected in spring of any year. mark-recapture modelling suggested that survival probability was constant over time (0.78) while recapture probability (0.04-0.81) varied with season and trap effort. the local population (estimated at similar to 20-25 individuals) underwent a regular seasonal variation in abundance, with a decline in spring coinciding with the cessation of flowering by banksia. a population trough in spring has been observed elsewhere. this appears to represent some local migration from the study area, suggesting a strategy of high mobility to track floral resources. conservation of this species will depend on a more detailed understanding of how flowering drives population dynamics." "evaluating the accuracy and precision of multiple abundance estimators using state-space models: a case study for a threatened population of chinook salmon in johnson creek, idaho",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,CHASCO BE;WARD EJ;HESSE JA;RABE C;KINZER R;VOGEL JL;ORME R,"over the last century, chinook salmon oncorhynchus tshawytscha populations in the pacific northwest have experienced dramatic declines, leading to many of them being listed as threatened under the endangered species act. the abundance of these threatened populations relative to the thresholds for delisting remains the primary metric for assessing recovery, yet determining the true population abundances from multiple survey types with unknown levels of accuracy and precision remains difficult. the abundance of the spring-summer chinook salmon population in johnson creek, idaho, has been measured using a mark-recapture survey and three different redd count surveys (rcss) that vary temporally and spatially. using a state-space model, we determined the accuracy and precision of each survey type by decoupling the observation error of the survey from the process error describing the annual variability in the true population abundance. we then extended the results of the model to determine the risk of managers' incorrectly delisting the population (a type i error) or incorrectly keeping it listed (a type ii error). finally, we show that salmon managers with data-limited populations (primarily those with only single-pass index rcss) might use the results of our risk analysis to determine whether expanding survey efforts to minimize management risks is appropriate when they are confronted with dwindling financial resources. for example, we determined that although both the multiple-pass extended rcs (cv = 0.06) and mark-recapture surveys (cv = 0.14) provide unbiased estimates of salmon abundance in johnson creek, the mark-recapture study can have annual costs that are 30-100 times greater. managers may determine that directing research funds toward acquiring information unique to weir-based mark-recapture surveys (i.e., migration timing, good genetics samples, etc.) may not be justified for all populations." -demography of common toads after local extirpation of co-occurring midwife toads,alytes obstetricans; bufo bufo; capture-recapture; chytridiomycosis; guadarrama national park; spain,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,BOSCH J;FERNANDEZ-BEASKOETXEA S;SCHERER RD;AMBURGEY SM;MUTHS E,"estimating demographic parameters like survival or recruitment provides insight into the state and trajectory of populations, but understanding the contexts influencing those parameters, including both biotic and abiotic factors, is particularly important for management and conservation. at a high elevation national park in central spain, common toads (bufo bufo) are apparently taking advantage of the near-extirpation of the midwife toad (alytes obstetricans), as colonization into new breeding ponds is evident. within this scenario, we expected demographic parameters of common toad populations to be affected favorably by the putative release from competition. however, we found the population growth rate was negative in 4 of 5 years at the long-standing population; survival probability at the long-standing population and newly-colonised breeding ponds was lower than reported for other toads living at high elevations and the probability of recruitment was inadequate to compensate for the survival rate in maintaining a positive trajectory for either of the breeding ponds. we assessed weather covariates and disease for their contribution to the context thatmay be limiting the common toad's successful use of the niche vacated by the midwife toad." +demography of common toads after local extirpation of co-occurring midwife toads,alytes obstetricans; bufo bufo; capture-recapture; chytridiomycosis; guadarrama national park; spain,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,BOSCH J;FERNANDEZ BEASKOETXEA S;SCHERER RD;AMBURGEY SM;MUTHS E,"estimating demographic parameters like survival or recruitment provides insight into the state and trajectory of populations, but understanding the contexts influencing those parameters, including both biotic and abiotic factors, is particularly important for management and conservation. at a high elevation national park in central spain, common toads (bufo bufo) are apparently taking advantage of the near-extirpation of the midwife toad (alytes obstetricans), as colonization into new breeding ponds is evident. within this scenario, we expected demographic parameters of common toad populations to be affected favorably by the putative release from competition. however, we found the population growth rate was negative in 4 of 5 years at the long-standing population; survival probability at the long-standing population and newly-colonised breeding ponds was lower than reported for other toads living at high elevations and the probability of recruitment was inadequate to compensate for the survival rate in maintaining a positive trajectory for either of the breeding ponds. we assessed weather covariates and disease for their contribution to the context thatmay be limiting the common toad's successful use of the niche vacated by the midwife toad." abundance of the indo-pacific bottlenose dolphin tursiops aduncus off south-west mauritius,dolphin watching; photo-identification; population estimate; residency,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,WEBSTER I;COCKCROFT VG;CADINOUCHE A,"the abundance of indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins tursiops aduncus off the south-west coast of mauritius was estimated using capture-mark-recapture modelling. over the past two decades this population has been subjected to ongoing anthropogenic disturbance in the form of extensive coastal development. furthermore, daily dolphin tourism, which started in 1998, has rapidly increased in intensity. identification photographs were collected between april 2008 and june 2010 from dolphins occurring along a 30 km length of coast where a dolphin tourism industry is concentrated. a total of 137 groups were encountered over 229 survey days. over 5 000 photographs were taken, from which 35 individuals were considered to be sufficiently distinctively marked to use in mark-recapture analyses. the majority (85.7%) were seen more than once and resighting frequencies indicated a resident population. three newborn calves were recorded during the study. open population models produced abundance estimates of <100 individuals in the population. these results will be used to make recommendations for the conservation and management of this small, resident population, which is a valuable economic resource for the island but is currently under threat from high levels of human activity." "habitat use and movement patterns of the endangered land snail thersites mitchellae (cox, 1864) (camaenidae)",camaenidae; thersites; land snail; radio-telemetry,MALACOLOGIA,PARKYN J;BROOKS L;NEWELL D,"thersites mitchellae (cox, 1864) (camaenidae) is a regionally endemic australian land snail that is critically endangered under the commonwealth environment protection and biodiversity conservation act 1999 (epbc act). we studied its habitat use and movement patterns. knowledge of habitat use is relevant to the conservation of the species, and knowledge of movements is relevant to the interpretation of the results of capture-recapture studies and occupancy-based habitat models. we provide quantitative data of nightly distances travelled, the probability of moving on a night, retreat site selection, overnight substrate use and activity. a total of 636 location positions for 11 snails was recorded on 12 nights over an 18-day period. nocturnal movements measured at approximately 2-hour intervals showed that the mean nightly movement was 457.8 cm. the maximum nightly movement by an individual was 1,575 cm, and the maximum nightly displacement was 1,270 cm. over the study period, the maximum movement from capture was 74.45 m, and the maximum displacement was 31.80 m. the results show that the probability of moving on a night, and the nightly distance moved once active both increase with increasing humidity up to a maximum and then decline. whilst individuals did not return to the same retreat site location with any reliability, there is evidence of active and frequent selection of particular retreat site types within selected habitats. snails most frequently selected sedge retreat in rainforest (66.7%) and in paperbark wetland (59.3%), and despite the scarcity of sedge in palm forest, it was the most frequented retreat site group overall (42.5%). snails selected palm frond retreats most frequently in the palm forest (66.7%), and coarse woody debris (cwd) was selected in all habitats (17.9%) and most frequently in the palm forest (27.8%). statistical analysis revealed significant variation among individuals in their relative use of retreat site types, and significant association between the selection of retreat site types and the initial habitat in which the individuals were located." "use of the safe index to evaluate the status of a summer aggregation of atlantic sturgeon in minas basin, canada, and the implication of the index for the usa endangered species designation of atlantic and shortnose sturgeons",population sizes; risk status; safe index; sturgeons,REVIEWS IN FISHERIES SCIENCE & AQUACULTURE,STOKESBURY KDE;STOKESBURY MJW;BALAZIK MT;DADSWELL MJ,"sturgeon species worldwide have undergone population declines due to habitat alteration and overexploitation and many are listed by the international union for conservation of nature (iucn) and national agencies. atlantic and shortnose sturgeon on the east coast of north america are listed as ""endangered"" or ""threatened"" over most of their ranges. it has been proposed, however, that iucn risk categories are ambiguous and do not consider the threat status of a species in relation to a minimum viable population level. here, we examine the species ability to forestall extinction (safe) index, which is a heuristic measure of a species relative distance from extinction, and other available information on atlantic and shortnose sturgeon with regard to the risk status of the two species. to move beyond a 'tipping point' designation of threatened, the safe index requires a species abundance of 5000 adults (safe index d 0.0). dna and mark-recapture data for atlantic sturgeon in minas basin, canada indicates a usa/canada mixed stock of similar to 10,000 fish aggregate there in summer. the safe index for this population is 0.28 indicating abundance is within the ""vulnerable"" threshold range for the index although it includes but a small portion of the atlantic sturgeon in the western atlantic. estimates for the east coast of north america suggest the atlantic sturgeon population could consist of similar to 177,000 sub adults and adults for a safe index of 1.55. additionally, the present spawning range of atlantic sturgeon in north america is similar to 99% of the historically known range and the number of stocks is near the historic level (33+) which means the species does not meet iucn criteria for listing. similarly, shortnose sturgeon has an atlantic coast population of similar to 96,800 adults (safe index of 1.29) and a species range and number of stocks (26+) that has not changed substantially from the historical situation. since the abundance of atlantic and shortnose sturgeon are well above the safe threshold for ""threatened"" and they lack other accepted criteria for endangered or threatened designation, we conclude that the risk status of both species should be reconsidered." comparison of camera traps and kill traps for detecting mammalian predators: a field trial,invasive predators; feral cat; hedgehog; stoat; invasive species management; monitoring; camera trap; new zealand,NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,GLEN AS;WARBURTON B;CRUZ J;COLEMAN M,"currently there are few robust techniques being used in new zealand to assess the results of pest control targeting predatory mammals such as stoats (mustela erminea), feral cats (felis catus) and hedgehogs (erinaceus europaeus), with most operations using capture rates from kill traps as a measure of success. we conducted field trials of camera traps to detect these species at two sites-macraes flat and tasman valley-where intensive predator trapping is conducted by the new zealand department of conservation. we compared camera traps with kill traps in terms of capture rate per 100 trap nights. camera traps detected all three target species, as well as various non-target animals. capture rates of cats and hedgehogs were higher with cameras than with kill traps. comparisons for stoats were inconclusive due to a low number of detections. we suggest that camera traps are suitable for monitoring relative abundance of cats and hedgehogs, and recommend further testing in areas of higher stoat abundance." -prey density in non-breeding areas affects adult survival of black-legged kittiwakes rissa tridactyla,black-legged kittiwake; pteropods; capelin; capture-mark-recapture analyses; non-breeding distribution,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,REIERTSEN TK;ERIKSTAD KE;ANKER-NILSSEN T;BARRETT RT;BOULINIER T;FREDERIKSEN M;GONZALEZ-SOLIS J;GREMILLET D;JOHNS D;MOE B;PONCHON A;SKERN-MAURITZEN M;SANDVIK H;YOCCOZ NG,"in migratory birds, environmental conditions in both breeding and non-breeding areas may affect adult survival rates and hence be significant drivers of demographic processes. in seabirds, poor knowledge of their true distribution outside the breeding season, however, has severely limited such studies. this study explored how annual adult survival rates of black-legged kittiwakes rissa tridactyla on hornoya in the southern barents sea were related to temporal variation in prey densities and climatic parameters in their breeding and non-breeding areas. we used information on the kittiwakes' spatiotemporal distribution in the non-breeding season gained from year-round light-based tracking devices (geolocators) and satellite transmitters, and kittiwake annual adult survival rates gained from a multistate capture-mark-recapture analysis of a 22 yr time series of colour-ringed kittiwakes. in the post-breeding period, kittiwakes concentrated in an area east of svalbard, in the winter they stayed in the grand banks/labrador sea area, and in the pre-breeding period they returned to the barents sea. we identified 2 possible prey categories of importance for the survival of kittiwakes in these areas (sea butterflies thecosomata in the grand banks/labrador sea area in winter and capelin mallotus villosus in the barents sea in the pre-breeding season) that together explained 52% of the variation in adult survival rates. our results may have important implications for the conservation of kittiwakes, which are declining globally, because other populations use the same areas. since they are under the influence of major anthropogenic activities including fisheries, international shipping and the offshore oil and gas industry, both areas should be targeted for future management plans." +prey density in non-breeding areas affects adult survival of black-legged kittiwakes rissa tridactyla,black-legged kittiwake; pteropods; capelin; capture-mark-recapture analyses; non-breeding distribution,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,REIERTSEN TK;ERIKSTAD KE;ANKER NILSSEN T;BARRETT RT;BOULINIER T;FREDERIKSEN M;GONZALEZ SOLIS J;GREMILLET D;JOHNS D;MOE B;PONCHON A;SKERN MAURITZEN M;SANDVIK H;YOCCOZ NG,"in migratory birds, environmental conditions in both breeding and non-breeding areas may affect adult survival rates and hence be significant drivers of demographic processes. in seabirds, poor knowledge of their true distribution outside the breeding season, however, has severely limited such studies. this study explored how annual adult survival rates of black-legged kittiwakes rissa tridactyla on hornoya in the southern barents sea were related to temporal variation in prey densities and climatic parameters in their breeding and non-breeding areas. we used information on the kittiwakes' spatiotemporal distribution in the non-breeding season gained from year-round light-based tracking devices (geolocators) and satellite transmitters, and kittiwake annual adult survival rates gained from a multistate capture-mark-recapture analysis of a 22 yr time series of colour-ringed kittiwakes. in the post-breeding period, kittiwakes concentrated in an area east of svalbard, in the winter they stayed in the grand banks/labrador sea area, and in the pre-breeding period they returned to the barents sea. we identified 2 possible prey categories of importance for the survival of kittiwakes in these areas (sea butterflies thecosomata in the grand banks/labrador sea area in winter and capelin mallotus villosus in the barents sea in the pre-breeding season) that together explained 52% of the variation in adult survival rates. our results may have important implications for the conservation of kittiwakes, which are declining globally, because other populations use the same areas. since they are under the influence of major anthropogenic activities including fisheries, international shipping and the offshore oil and gas industry, both areas should be targeted for future management plans." a spatially explicit approach for estimating space use and density of common genets,camera-trapping; capture-recapture; genet; program mark; secr package; spatial models,ANIMAL BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,SARMENTO P;CRUZ J;EIRA C;FONSECA C,"many species that occur at low densities are not accurately estimated using capture recapture methods as such techniques assume that populations are well defined in space. to solve this bias, spatially explicit capture recapture (secr) models have recently been developed. these models incorporate movement and can identify areas where it is more likely for individuals to concentrate their activity. in this study, we used data from camera trap surveys of common genets (genetta genetta) in serra da malcata (portugal), designed to compare abundance estimates produced by secr models with traditional closed capture models. using the secr models, we observed spatial heterogeneity in genet distribution and density estimates were approximately two times lower than those obtained from the closed population models. the non spatial model estimates were constrained to sampling grid size and likely underestimated movements, thereby overestimating density. future research should consider the incorporation of cost weighed models that can include explicit hypothesis on how environmental variables influence the distance metric." "processes influencing the population dynamics and conservation of african penguins on dyer island, south africa",ecosystem approach to fisheries (eaf); food availability; multistate capture-mark-recapture model; pressures; seabird conservation,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,LUDYNIA K;WALLER LJ;SHERLEY RB;ABADI F;GALADA Y;GELDENHUYS D;CRAWFORD RJM;SHANNON LJ;JARRE A,"dyer island, south africa, supported the largest african penguin spheniscus demersus colony in 1979 (22 655 breeding pairs), but population dynamics of the species have not followed the trends of adjacent colonies in years of high fish abundance or shifts in prey distribution. less than 1 500 pairs were breeding on dyer island in 2013. available knowledge on demographic parameters was collated and ecological processes were quantified. juvenile and adult survival probabilities estimated for birds ringed on dyer island between 2005 and 2011 were 0.247 (se 0.06) and 0.545 (se 0.05) respectively. juveniles had a high probability (0.918; se 0.077) of moving away from dyer island. predation by seals and kelp gulls, as well as oiling, are currently important top-down pressures on penguins on dyer island. numbers of birds breeding on the island were negatively correlated with purse-seine catches 20 nautical miles around it. however, it seems that once the colony size is <3 500 breeding pairs, the importance of fishing pressure diminishes, suggesting that once a colony has been reduced to a relatively small size, its growth is limited by pressures other than fishing. from the review of available knowledge presented here, we recommend a number of management options that should be tested in a suitable model." buying and selling crack: transactions at the retail level and the role of user-sellers,crack; heroin; retail drug market; quantity; drug dealing; typology,JOURNAL OF DRUG ISSUES,PEREZ AO;BENSCHOP A;KORF DJ,"to assess key characteristics of the retail crack market and the role of users as buyers and sellers, data from a survey inside and outside institutional setting among 1,039 crack users in the three largest dutch cities were analyzed to explore their role in the crack market as buyers and sellers. of the total number of users, 42.3% bought crack in public places, 39.6% through home delivery, and 13.9% at dealer's addresses. near one-third reported participating in selling drugs, defining themselves as ""go-betweens"" (21.4%) or ""dealers"" (9.2%). user-sellers and nonselling users did not differ with regard to gender and ethnicity. cluster analysis resulted in three distinct types of user-sellers (freelancers, assistants, and amateurs), each characterized by time spent selling drugs, type of drugs sold, and earnings. amateurs seem quite similar to what scholars have labeled ""social dealers"" in recreational drugs markets. this study suggests the need for a more differentiated law enforcement policy toward drug-selling users." @@ -2760,9 +2765,9 @@ use of locomotor performance capacities reflects the risk level associated with effects of a morbillivirus epizootic on long- finned pilot whales globicephala melas in spanish mediterranean waters,long-finned pilot whale; survival rate; cormack-jolly-seber; morbillivirus; mediterranean sea; photo identification,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,WIERUCKA K;VERBORGH P;MEADE R;COLMANT L;GAUFFIER P;ESTEBAN R;DE STEPHANIS R;CANADAS A,"long-finned pilot whales globicephala melas are a commonly encountered species in the mediterranean sea. in 2006-2007, an outbreak of the dolphin morbillivirus in the western mediterranean resulted in increased mortality of this species. the aim of this study was to determine whether survival rates differed between clusters of spanish mediterranean pilot whales, and how the epizootic in fluenced these survival rates. photo-identification surveys were conducted between 1992 and 2009. association indices were used to define clusters of individuals that associate with each other more frequently than with others. based on a cormack-jolly-seber survival rate model, apparent survival rate estimates varied from 0.821 to 0.995 over 11 clusters for the 1992-2009 period. when the effect of the morbillivirus outbreak was modeled, 3 clusters with distinctly lower survival rates from previous models presented lower estimates after the outbreak (survival rate dropped from 0.919 [95% ci: 0.854-0.956] to 0.547 [95% ci: 0.185-0.866]), suggesting a negative influence of the epizootic or other unknown additive factors on certain clusters. this information is critical for the conservation of long-finned pilot whales, since they are listed as 'data deficient' in the mediterranean sea by the iucn and as 'vulnerable' in the spanish national catalogue of endangered species." better off in the wild? evaluating a captive breeding and release program for the recovery of an endangered rodent,key largo woodrat; captive breeding; release; matrix population model; population viability analysis; probability of extinction and quasi-extinction,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MCCLEERY R;HOSTETLER JA;OLI MK,"the critical question for the success of all captive breeding and release programs (cbrps) is the same: will the benefit of augmenting or reestablishing a population with captive animals outweigh the loss of taking individuals from the wild? yet, few studies have simultaneously evaluated the impact of removal of animals for captive breeding on the source population and the potential contribution of the released animals to the augmented populations. we used the endangered key largo woodrat (neotoma floridana smalli, klwr) as a model system to simultaneously examine the effect of animal removal, captive breeding, and reintroduction on the dynamics and persistence of a wild population. we used mark-recapture and telemetry data, as well as zoo records from a recent cbrp for the endangered klwr to parameterize a matrix population model and to simulate the response of the klwr population to alternative captive breeding and release strategies. our results suggest that a cbrp as practiced previously would not contribute to klwr recovery; instead, removal of wild klwr for captive breeding could harm the population. captive breeding programs will not contribute to the recovery of klwr unless survival of released animals and breeding success of captive individuals are improved. our study provides a framework for simultaneous consideration of animal removal from the wild, breeding success in captivity and survival of released animals for a comprehensive evaluation of captive breeding programs. (c) 2013 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." climatic variation and tortoise survival: has a desert species met its match?,survivorship; climate change; sonoran desert; predation; physiological stress; geographic range loss,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,LOVICH JE;YACKULIC CB;FREILICH J;AGHA M;AUSTIN M;MEYER KP;ARUNDEL TR;HANSEN J;VAMSTAD MS;ROOT SA,"while demographic changes in short-lived species may be observed relatively quickly in response to climate changes, measuring population responses of long-lived species requires long-term studies that are not always available. we analyzed data from a population of threatened agassiz's desert tortoises (gopherus agassizii) at a 2.59 km(2) study plot in the sonoran desert ecosystem of joshua tree national park, california, usa from 1978 to 2012 to examine variation in apparent survival and demography in this long-lived species. transect-based, mark-recapture surveys were conducted in 10 of those years to locate living and dead tortoises. previous modeling suggested that this area would become unsuitable as tortoise habitat under a warming and drying climate scenario. estimated adult population size declined greatly from 1996 to 2012. the population appeared to have high apparent survival from 1978 to 1996 but apparent survival decreased from 1997 to 2002, concurrent with persistent drought. the best model relating apparent survivorship of tortoises >= 18 cm over time was based on a three year moving average of estimated winter precipitation. the postures and positions of a majority of dead tortoises found in 2012 were consistent with death by dehydration and starvation. some live and many dead tortoises found in 2012 showed signs of predation or scavenging by mammalian carnivores. coyote (canis latrans) scats and other evidence from the site confirmed their role as tortoise predators and scavengers. predation rates may be exacerbated by drought if carnivores switch from preferred mammalian prey to tortoises during dry years. climate modeling suggests that the region will be subjected to even longer duration droughts in the future and that the plot may become unsuitable for continued tortoise survival. our results showing wide fluctuations in apparent survival and decreasing tortoise density over time may be early signals of that possible outcome. published by elsevier ltd." -high completeness of the brest stroke registry evidenced by analysis of sources and capture-recapture method,stroke registry; epidemiology; capture-recapture method,NEUROEPIDEMIOLOGY,TIMSIT S;NOWAK E;ROUHART F;GOAS P;MERRIEN FM;TIREL-BADET A;VIAKHIREVA-DOVGANYUK I;ZAGNOLI F;TANGUY-LAINE K;BLANCHARD C;LEBLANC A;OGER E,"background: population-based stroke registries are necessary to evaluate the precise burden of stroke. the methodology used in the brest stroke registry and an estimation of its completeness are described. methods: 'hot pursuit' as well as 'cold pursuit' were used, and five sources of identification were included: emergency wards, brain imaging, practitioners, death certificates and hospital-based electronic research. ascertainment for each case was certified by a neurologist. inclusion criteria were: (1) age >15 years; (2) a stroke defined by who criteria or all neurological deficits lasting at least 1 h. completeness was estimated using capture-recapture method. results: for 2008, 2009 and 2010, 851, 898, 823 patients were collected, respectively. the number of sources of identification per patient was as follows: one source: 30.8, 24.1 and 18.7%; two sources: 54.5, 42.9 and 31.0%; three sources: 13.4, 30.1 and 46%; four sources: 1.3, 3.0 and 3.8%. capture-recapture analysis showed data completeness over 90%. standardized cumulative first-ever stroke incidence using a world standard population was 87 in 2008, 87 in 2009 and 84 in 2010. conclusions: case ascertainment by a neurologist, numerous sources, as well as 'hot' and 'cold' pursuit can provide a reliably large data set suitable for further epidemiological studies. (c) 2014 s. karger ag, basel" +high completeness of the brest stroke registry evidenced by analysis of sources and capture-recapture method,stroke registry; epidemiology; capture-recapture method,NEUROEPIDEMIOLOGY,TIMSIT S;NOWAK E;ROUHART F;GOAS P;MERRIEN FM;TIREL BADET A;VIAKHIREVA DOVGANYUK I;ZAGNOLI F;TANGUY LAINE K;BLANCHARD C;LEBLANC A;OGER E,"background: population-based stroke registries are necessary to evaluate the precise burden of stroke. the methodology used in the brest stroke registry and an estimation of its completeness are described. methods: 'hot pursuit' as well as 'cold pursuit' were used, and five sources of identification were included: emergency wards, brain imaging, practitioners, death certificates and hospital-based electronic research. ascertainment for each case was certified by a neurologist. inclusion criteria were: (1) age >15 years; (2) a stroke defined by who criteria or all neurological deficits lasting at least 1 h. completeness was estimated using capture-recapture method. results: for 2008, 2009 and 2010, 851, 898, 823 patients were collected, respectively. the number of sources of identification per patient was as follows: one source: 30.8, 24.1 and 18.7%; two sources: 54.5, 42.9 and 31.0%; three sources: 13.4, 30.1 and 46%; four sources: 1.3, 3.0 and 3.8%. capture-recapture analysis showed data completeness over 90%. standardized cumulative first-ever stroke incidence using a world standard population was 87 in 2008, 87 in 2009 and 84 in 2010. conclusions: case ascertainment by a neurologist, numerous sources, as well as 'hot' and 'cold' pursuit can provide a reliably large data set suitable for further epidemiological studies. (c) 2014 s. karger ag, basel" statistical ecology,heterogeneity; integrated data; markov model; observation process; system process,"ANNUAL REVIEW OF STATISTICS AND ITS APPLICATION, VOL 1",KING R,"statistical ecology deals with the development of new methodologies for analyzing ecological data. advanced statistical models and techniques are often needed to provide robust analyses of the available data. the statistical models that are developed can often be separated into two distinct processes: a system process that describes the underlying biological system and an observation process that describes the data collection process. the system process is often a function of the demographic parameters of interest, such as survival probabilities, transition rates between states, and/or abundance, whereas the model parameters associated with the observation process are conditional on the underlying state of the system. this review focuses on a number of common forms of ecological data and discusses their associated models and model-fitting approaches, including the incorporation of heterogeneity within the given biological system and the integration of different data sources." -estimating movement and survival rates of a small saltwater fish using autonomous antenna receiver arrays and passive integrated transponder tags,pit tags; mummichogs; salt marsh; cormack jolly seber,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,RUDERSHAUSEN PJ;BUCKEL JA;DUBREUIL T;O'DONNELL MJ;HIGHTOWER JE;POLAND SJ;LETCHER BH,"we evaluated the performance of small (12.5 mm long) passive integrated transponder (pit) tags and custom detection antennas for obtaining fine-scale movement and demographic data of mummichog fundulus heteroclitus in a salt marsh creek. apparent survival and detection probability were estimated using a cormack jolly seber (cjs) model fitted to detection data collected by an array of 3 vertical antennas from november 2010 to march 2011 and by a single horizontal antenna from april to august 2011. movement of mummichogs was monitored during the period when the array of vertical antennas was used. antenna performance was examined in situ using tags placed in wooden dowels (drones) and in live mummichogs. of the 44 tagged fish, 42 were resighted over the 9 mo monitoring period. the in situ detection probabilities of the drone and live mummichogs were high (similar to 80-100%) when the ambient water depth was less than similar to 0.8 m. upstream and downstream movement of mummichogs was related to hourly water depth and direction of tidal current in a way that maximized time periods over which mummichogs utilized the intertidal vegetated marsh. apparent survival was lower during periods of colder water temperatures in december 2010 and early january 2011 (median estimate of daily apparent survival = 0.979) than during other periods of the study (median estimate of daily apparent survival = 0.992). during late fall and winter, temperature had a positive effect on the cjs detection probability of a tagged mummichog, likely due to greater fish activity over warmer periods. during the spring and summer, this pattern reversed possibly due to mummichogs having reduced activity during the hottest periods. this study demonstrates the utility of pit tags and continuously operating autonomous detection systems for tracking fish at fine temporal scales, and improving estimates of demographic parameters in salt marsh creeks that are difficult or impractical to sample with active fishing gear." +estimating movement and survival rates of a small saltwater fish using autonomous antenna receiver arrays and passive integrated transponder tags,pit tags; mummichogs; salt marsh; cormack jolly seber,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,RUDERSHAUSEN PJ;BUCKEL JA;DUBREUIL T;O DONNELL MJ;HIGHTOWER JE;POLAND SJ;LETCHER BH,"we evaluated the performance of small (12.5 mm long) passive integrated transponder (pit) tags and custom detection antennas for obtaining fine-scale movement and demographic data of mummichog fundulus heteroclitus in a salt marsh creek. apparent survival and detection probability were estimated using a cormack jolly seber (cjs) model fitted to detection data collected by an array of 3 vertical antennas from november 2010 to march 2011 and by a single horizontal antenna from april to august 2011. movement of mummichogs was monitored during the period when the array of vertical antennas was used. antenna performance was examined in situ using tags placed in wooden dowels (drones) and in live mummichogs. of the 44 tagged fish, 42 were resighted over the 9 mo monitoring period. the in situ detection probabilities of the drone and live mummichogs were high (similar to 80-100%) when the ambient water depth was less than similar to 0.8 m. upstream and downstream movement of mummichogs was related to hourly water depth and direction of tidal current in a way that maximized time periods over which mummichogs utilized the intertidal vegetated marsh. apparent survival was lower during periods of colder water temperatures in december 2010 and early january 2011 (median estimate of daily apparent survival = 0.979) than during other periods of the study (median estimate of daily apparent survival = 0.992). during late fall and winter, temperature had a positive effect on the cjs detection probability of a tagged mummichog, likely due to greater fish activity over warmer periods. during the spring and summer, this pattern reversed possibly due to mummichogs having reduced activity during the hottest periods. this study demonstrates the utility of pit tags and continuously operating autonomous detection systems for tracking fish at fine temporal scales, and improving estimates of demographic parameters in salt marsh creeks that are difficult or impractical to sample with active fishing gear." using social structure to improve mortality estimates: an example with sperm whales,likelihood; management; mark-recapture; physeter macrocephalus; population parameters; social organization; status; stock assessment; survival,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,WHITEHEAD H;GERO S,"estimates of mortality are fundamental to studies of population ecology and assessments of conservation status. mortality is frequently estimated using individual identifications by means of mark-recapture methods. these estimates become biased with heterogeneity in identification and especially if patterns of heterogeneity change with time. if animals are social, then survival may be inferred from the identifications of social partners. we produce a likelihood model for estimating mortality using such social data. we show using simulation that this method can produce less biased and more precise estimates of mortality than standard methods when individuals are almost always identified with associates, and when there are time-varying patterns of heterogeneity in identifiability. the method seems little affected by some change in social affiliations or by growth or decline in population size. ses and confidence intervals of mortality estimates can be estimated using likelihood methods. we apply the method to data from a population of sperm whales (physeter macrocephalus) in the eastern caribbean, obtaining estimates that are more precise and probably less biased than those from other methods. the method should be useful in improving mortality estimates for social species." hierarchical spatial capture-recapture models: modelling population density in stratified populations,bayesian analysis; data augmentation; density estimation; small-mammal trapping; spatial capture-recapture,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ROYLE JA;CONVERSE SJ,"capture-recapture studies are often conducted on populations that are stratified by space, time or other factors. in this paper, we develop a bayesian spatial capture-recapture (scr) modelling framework for stratified populations - when sampling occurs within multiple distinct spatial and temporal strata. we describe a hierarchical model that integrates distinct models for both the spatial encounter history data from capture-recapture sampling, and also for modelling variation in density among strata. we use an implementation of data augmentation to parameterize the model in terms of a latent categorical stratum or group membership variable, which provides a convenient implementation in popular bugs software packages. we provide an example application to an experimental study involving small-mammal sampling on multiple trapping grids over multiple years, where the main interest is in modelling a treatment effect on population density among the trapping grids. many capture-recapture studies involve some aspect of spatial or temporal replication that requires some attention to modelling variation among groups or strata. we propose a hierarchical model that allows explicit modelling of group or strata effects. because the model is formulated for individual encounter histories and is easily implemented in the bugs language and other free software, it also provides a general framework for modelling individual effects, such as are present in scr models." modeling structured population dynamics using data from unmarked individuals,desmognathus fuscus; detection probability; n-mixture model; northern dusky salamander; stage-structured models; state-space models,ECOLOGY,ZIPKIN EF;THORSON JT;SEE K;LYNCH HJ;GRANT EHC;KANNO Y;CHANDLER RB;LETCHER BH;ROYLE JA,"the study of population dynamics requires unbiased, precise estimates of abundance and vital rates that account for the demographic structure inherent in all wildlife and plant populations. traditionally, these estimates have only been available through approaches that rely on intensive mark-recapture data. we extended recently developed n-mixture models to demonstrate how demographic parameters and abundance can be estimated for structured populations using only stage-structured count data. our modeling framework can be used to make reliable inferences on abundance as well as recruitment, immigration, stage-specific survival, and detection rates during sampling. we present a range of simulations to illustrate the data requirements, including the number of years and locations necessary for accurate and precise parameter estimates. we apply our modeling framework to a population of northern dusky salamanders (desmognathus fuscus) in the mid-atlantic region (usa) and find that the population is unexpectedly declining. our approach represents a valuable advance in the estimation of population dynamics using multistate data from unmarked individuals and should additionally be useful in the development of integrated models that combine data from intensive (e.g., mark-recapture) and extensive (e.g., counts) data sources." @@ -2778,12 +2783,12 @@ genetic-based estimates of adult chinook salmon spawner abundance from carcass s localized spatial and temporal variation in reproductive effort of florida bass,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,SHAW SL;ALLEN MS,"few studies have explored annual reproductive effort of fish populations, yet factors such as skipped spawning could influence recruitment processes. we estimated the number of broods produced annually as an index of reproductive effort for florida bass micropterus floridanus across four lakes in north-central florida. snorkel surveys were used to estimate reproductive effort in the lakes from 2010 to 2012. mark-recapture methods were used to estimate the abundance of florida bass in each lake during each year. all four lakes contained high-density florida bass populations that showed evidence of relatively slow growth. average relative weight in all populations was low, ranging from 65.4 to 68.8 for adults (25.0cm tl). annual reproductive effort (estimated number of broods) varied among lakes and across years. we found evidence for multiple spawning events per adult and for skipped spawning. devils hole lake produced the highest number of broods in all 3years, ranging from 1.62 broods/spawner in 2012 to 3.72 broods/spawner in 2011 (median = 3.24 broods/spawner in 2010). all other populations exhibited skipped spawning, with the proportion of nonreproductive adults varying across years. picnic lake fish had the lowest number of broods overall (only 0.02 broods/spawner in 2011 and 0.01 broods/spawner in 2012). the other two lakes showed variable levels of spawning effort. spawner abundance in these populations was not related to the estimated annual number of broods, contrary to the general assumption made for many population models. variability in annual reproductive effort may be more common than anticipated, potentially clouding the relationship between spawner abundance and recruitment. estimation of annual reproductive effort may provide insight into density-dependent population regulation and recruitment processes. received february 14, 2013; accepted july 22, 2013" spatially varying population demographics and fishery characteristics of lake erie walleyes inferred from a long-term tag recovery study,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,VANDERGOOT CS;BRENDEN TO,"although the lake erie population of walleyes sander vitreus exhibits complex spatial structuring, the extent to which population demographics also vary spatially is unknown. using a spatial tag recovery model, we estimated region- and age-specific mortalities and regional movement probabilities by using recoveries from a jaw tagging study initiated in 1990. the best-performing model based on a comparison of quasi-likelihood akaike's information criterion values had age-group-specific movement probabilities, age- and region-specific natural mortalities, and age-group- and region-specific annual fishing mortalities. commercial fishing mortality varied considerably during the study, while recreational fishing mortality was more static. natural mortality of age-5 and older walleyes was lower than that of younger fish in all regions, with values ranging from 0.30 to 0.40 for age-4 and younger fish and from 0.13 to 0.27 for age-5 and older fish. in lake erie's western basin, natural mortality of age-4 fish was lower than that of age-3 fish. sensitivity analyses indicated that some natural mortality estimates were sensitive to (1) prior probability distributions assigned to mortality components and (2) assumed movement probabilities in regions where no tagging was conducted. the decline in natural mortality with age in lake erie's western basin matches what has been found for other populations, suggesting that such patterns are perhaps common in exploited walleye populations. movement probabilities in the western basin were greater than those in the combined central and eastern basins. the mortality rates and movement probabilities estimated in this study should assist in the parameterization and scaling of a spatially explicit lake erie walleye assessment model, the development of which has been recommended for the lake's quota management system. our study is one of the first to apply a spatial tag recovery model to a freshwater fish population for estimating mortality components. we encourage wider use of this method to improve the understanding of how mortality components and movements vary regionally within freshwater systems. received march 26, 2013; accepted august 19, 2013" a spatial capture-recapture model to estimate fish survival and location from linear continuous monitoring arrays,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,RAABE JK;GARDNER B;HIGHTOWER JE,"we developed a spatial capture-recapture model to evaluate survival and activity centres (i.e., mean locations) of tagged individuals detected along a linear array. our spatially explicit version of the cormack-jolly-seber model, analyzed using a bayesian framework, correlates movement between periods and can incorporate environmental or other covariates. we demonstrate the model using 2010 data for anadromous american shad (alosa sapidissima) tagged with passive integrated transponders (pit) at a weir near the mouth of a north carolina river and passively monitored with an upstream array of pit antennas. the river channel constrained migrations, resulting in linear, one-dimensional encounter histories that included both weir captures and antenna detections. individual activity centres in a given time period were a function of the individual's previous estimated location and the river conditions (i.e., gage height). model results indicate high within-river spawning mortality (mean weekly survival = 0.80) and more extensive movements during elevated river conditions. this model is applicable for any linear array (e. g., rivers, shorelines, and corridors), opening new opportunities to study demographic parameters, movement or migration, and habitat use." -morphological differentiation among populations of rhinella marina (amphibia: anura) in western mexico,geometric morphometrics; mark-recapture; survival; predation; body shape,EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY,VEGA-TREJO R;ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ;LANGERHANS RB,"conspecific populations inhabiting different environments may exhibit morphological differences, potentially reflecting differential local adaptation. in anuran amphibians, morphology of the pelvis and hindlimbs may often experience strong selection due to effects on locomotion. in this study, we used the cane toad rhinella marina to test the hypothesis that populations experiencing a higher abundance of predators should suffer higher mortality rates and exhibit morphological traits associated with enhanced locomotor performance (narrower pelvis and head, longer pelvis and hindlimbs, shorter presacral vertebral column). we investigated inter-population variation in survival rate, abundance of predators, and body shape across five populations in rivers in western mexico. we conducted (1) mark-recapture experiments to calculate survival rates, (2) linear transects with point counts to estimate abundance of predatory spiders, snakes, and birds, and (3) geometric morphometric analyses to investigate body shape variation. we found significant differences among populations in survival rates, abundance of predators, and body shape. however, these three variables were not necessarily inter-related. increased predator abundance did not result in decreased survival rates, suggesting other causes of mortality affect these populations. while some morphological differences supported our predictions (trend for longer pelvis, shorter presacral vertebral column, and narrower head in sites with increased abundance of spiders and snakes), other aspects of morphology did not. we discuss alternative explanations for the lack of clear associations between predation, survival, and morphology." +morphological differentiation among populations of rhinella marina (amphibia: anura) in western mexico,geometric morphometrics; mark-recapture; survival; predation; body shape,EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY,VEGA TREJO R;ZUNIGA VEGA JJ;LANGERHANS RB,"conspecific populations inhabiting different environments may exhibit morphological differences, potentially reflecting differential local adaptation. in anuran amphibians, morphology of the pelvis and hindlimbs may often experience strong selection due to effects on locomotion. in this study, we used the cane toad rhinella marina to test the hypothesis that populations experiencing a higher abundance of predators should suffer higher mortality rates and exhibit morphological traits associated with enhanced locomotor performance (narrower pelvis and head, longer pelvis and hindlimbs, shorter presacral vertebral column). we investigated inter-population variation in survival rate, abundance of predators, and body shape across five populations in rivers in western mexico. we conducted (1) mark-recapture experiments to calculate survival rates, (2) linear transects with point counts to estimate abundance of predatory spiders, snakes, and birds, and (3) geometric morphometric analyses to investigate body shape variation. we found significant differences among populations in survival rates, abundance of predators, and body shape. however, these three variables were not necessarily inter-related. increased predator abundance did not result in decreased survival rates, suggesting other causes of mortality affect these populations. while some morphological differences supported our predictions (trend for longer pelvis, shorter presacral vertebral column, and narrower head in sites with increased abundance of spiders and snakes), other aspects of morphology did not. we discuss alternative explanations for the lack of clear associations between predation, survival, and morphology." estimating prevalence of injecting drug users and associated heroin-related death rates in england by using regional data and incorporating prior information,drug-related deaths; injecting drug users; log-linear models; model averaging; population size; prior information,JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY SERIES A-STATISTICS IN SOCIETY,KING R;BIRD SM;OVERSTALL AM;HAY G;HUTCHINSON SJ,"injecting drug users (idus) have a direct social and economic effect yet can typically be regarded as a hidden population within a community. we estimate the size of the idu population across the nine different government office regions of england in 2005-2006 by using capture-recapture methods with age (ranging from 15 to 64 years) and gender as covariate information. we consider a bayesian model averaging approach using log-linear models, where we can include explicit prior information within the analysis in relation to the total idu population (elicited from the number of drug-related deaths and injectors' drug-related death rates). estimation at the regional level allows for regional heterogeneity with these regional estimates aggregated to obtain a posterior mean estimate for the number of england's idus of 195840 with 95% credible interval (181700, 210480). there is significant variation in the estimated regional prevalence of current idus per million of population aged 15-64 years, and in injecting drug-related death rates across the gender x age cross-classifications. the propensity of an idu to be seen by at least one source also exhibits strong regional variability with london having the lowest propensity of being observed (posterior mean probability 0.21) and the south west the highest propensity (posterior mean 0.46)." no evidence for size-assortative mating in the wild despite mutual mate choice in sex-role-reversed pipefishes,assortative mating; body size; mark-recapture; mate choice; sexual selection; syngnathidae,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MOBLEY KB;ABOU CHAKRA M;JONES AG,"size-assortative mating is a nonrandom association of body size between members of mating pairs and is expected to be common in species with mutual preferences for body size. in this study, we investigated whether there is direct evidence for size-assortative mating in two species of pipefishes, syngnathus floridae and s.typhle, that share the characteristics of male pregnancy, sex-role reversal, and a polygynandrous mating system. we take advantage of microsatellite-based genetic-capture techniques to match wild-caught females with female genotypes reconstructed from broods of pregnant males and use these data to explore patterns of size-assortative mating in these species. we also develop a simulation model to explore how positive, negative, and antagonistic preferences of each sex for body size affect size-assortative mating. contrary to expectations, we were unable to find any evidence of size-assortative mating in either species at different geographic locations or at different sampling times. furthermore, two traits that potentially confer a fitness advantage in terms of reproductive success, female mating order and number of eggs transferred per female, do not affect pairing patterns in the wild. results from model simulations demonstrate that strong mating preferences are unlikely to explain the observed patterns of mating in the studied populations. our study shows that individual mating preferences, as ascertained by laboratory-based mating trials, can be decoupled from realized patterns of mating in the wild, and therefore, field studies are also necessary to determine actual patterns of mate choice in nature. we conclude that this disconnect between preferences and assortative mating is likely due to ecological constraints and multiple mating that may limit mate choice in natural populations." population dynamics of double-crested cormorants in two interior breeding areas,aquaculture; demographics; great lakes region; lefkovitch matrix models; mark-recapture models; migration; phalacrocorax auritus; population dynamics; survival estimation,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CHASTANT JE;KING DT;WESELOH DVC;MOORE DJ,"because of rapid population expansion, conflicts between double-crested cormorants (phalacrocorax auritus) and humans have increased, particularly at aquaculture facilities in the lower mississippi river valley (lmrv), united states. although key demographic information on the interior population is sparse, management decisions for population reduction are already in place across their breeding range. new evidence suggests the appalachian mountains may act as a migration divide for interior cormorants, causing some birds to migrate between lmrv and the western great lakes, whereas others migrate between florida and the eastern great lakes. most of the banded cormorants recovered near lmrv aquaculture facilities were banded as nestlings at colonies from the central great lakes west to the northern great plains. we selected 2 geographically distinct interior cormorant breeding areas: west of the great lakes in lake of the woods (low) and eastern lake ontario (elo), located on either side of the migration divide in the province of ontario, canada, to study population dynamics. we used age-specific classes for our mark-recapture analysis (program mark) on data collected from 9,498 color-banded cormorants during the breeding seasons of 2000-2008. adult survival was the same for both areas (low=0.84 +/- 0.09 se, elo=0.83 +/- 0.05 se). finite rates of population growth () were also similar (low=1.01, elo=0.97) and sensitivity analyses indicated that adult survival was the most influential vital rate contributing to for both breeding areas. however, young-of-the-year survival estimates were distinctly less in elo (0.19 +/- 0.02 se) than in low (0.45 +/- 0.10 se) and sensitivity analysis revealed that young-of-the-year survival played a key role in elo population growth. moreover, elo breeding area fidelity (f) was much greater (0.94 +/- 0.05 se) than the f estimates for all age classes in low (between 0.68 +/- 0.19 se and 0.80 +/- 0.13 se). considering these regional demographic differences, we recommend that future management efforts be based on migratory flyways within the interior population. (c) 2013 the wildlife society" "demography of mexican spotted owls in the sacramento mountains, new mexico",demography; fecundity; mexican spotted owl; population trend; population viability; pradel model; recruitment; reparameterized jolly-seber model; survival; vital rates,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GANEY JL;WHITE GC;WARD JP;KYLE SC;APPRILL DL;RAWLINSON TA;JONNES RS,"information on population dynamics is key to gauging the status of threatened or endangered species. we monitored demography of a population of threatened mexican spotted owls (strix occidentalis lucida) in the sacramento mountains, new mexico from 2003 to 2011. we estimated reproductive output for territorial pairs of owls; used mark-recapture methodology and pradel's reparameterized jolly-seber models to estimate annual apparent survival rates, recapture rates, recruitment rates, and annual rate of population change ((rjs)) for 2005-2009; and used estimates of (rjs) to assess short-term population viability. reproductive output was highly variable for 2004-2011, whereas annual apparent survival and recapture rates were less variable among years. annual rates of population change exceeded 1.0 for both sexes from 2005 to 2009, and empirical observations of numbers of territorial owls supported the model-based trend estimate. abundance of territorial owls was strongly related to reproduction within the study area, suggesting that population change was driven largely by internal processes. population viability analyses suggested that population growth was likely to continue in the short term if current conditions persist. the positive growth rates observed in our study populations are encouraging, and may indicate that current recommendations for recovering this owl are succeeding. however, our estimates of (rjs) covered a very short time period, given both the potential lifespan of mexican spotted owls and the extent of temporal variability in weather typical of the southwestern united states. longer studies of owl demography than we present will be required to understand long-term population trends, and such studies should extend across the range of the subspecies. published 2013. this article is a u.s. government work and is in the public domain in the usa." -"childhood arterial ischaemic stroke incidence, presenting features, and risk factors: a prospective population-based study",NA,LANCET NEUROLOGY,MALLICK AA;GANESAN V;KIRKHAM FJ;FALLON P;HEDDERLY T;MCSHANE T;PARKER AP;WASSMER E;WRAIGE E;AMIN S;EDWARDS HB;TILLING K;O'CALLAGHAN FJ,"background arterial ischaemic stroke is an important cause of acquired brain injury in children. few prospective population-based studies of childhood arterial ischaemic stroke have been undertaken. we aimed to investigate the epidemiology and clinical features of childhood arterial ischaemic stroke in a population-based cohort. methods children aged 29 days to less than 16 years with radiologically confirmed arterial ischaemic stroke occurring over a 1-year period (july 1, 2008, to june 30, 2009) residing in southern england (population denominator 5.99 million children) were eligible for inclusion. cases were identified using several sources (paediatric neurologists and trainees, the british paediatric neurology surveillance unit, paediatricians, radiologists, physiotherapists, neurosurgeons, parents, and the paediatric intensive care audit network). cases were confirmed by personal examination of cases and case notes. details of presenting features, risk factors, and investigations for risk factors were recorded by analysis of case notes. capture recapture analysis was used to estimate completeness of ascertainment. findings we identified 96 cases of arterial ischaemic stroke. the crude incidence of childhood arterial ischaemic stroke was 1.60 per 100 000 per year (95% ci 1.30-1.96). capture recapture analysis suggested that case ascertainment was 89% (95% ci 77-97) complete. the incidence of arterial ischaemic stroke was highest in children aged under 1 year (4.14 per 100 000 per year, 95% ci 2.36-6.72). there was no difference in the risk of arterial ischaemic stroke between sexes (crude incidence 1.60 per 100 000 per year [95% ci 1.18-2.12] for boys and 1.61 per 100 000 per year [1.18-2.14] for girls). asian (relative risk 2.14, 95% ci 1.11-3.85; p=0.017) and black (2.28, 1.00-4.60; p=0.034) children were at higher risk of arterial ischaemic stroke than were white children. 82 (85%) children had focal features (most commonly hemiparesis) at presentation. seizures were more common in younger children (<= 1 year) and headache was more common in older children (> 5 years; p < 00001). at least one risk factor for childhood arterial ischaemic stroke was identified in 80 (83%) cases. interpretation age and racial group, but not sex, affected the risk of arterial ischaemic stroke in children. investigation of such differences might provide causative insights." +"childhood arterial ischaemic stroke incidence, presenting features, and risk factors: a prospective population-based study",NA,LANCET NEUROLOGY,MALLICK AA;GANESAN V;KIRKHAM FJ;FALLON P;HEDDERLY T;MCSHANE T;PARKER AP;WASSMER E;WRAIGE E;AMIN S;EDWARDS HB;TILLING K;O CALLAGHAN FJ,"background arterial ischaemic stroke is an important cause of acquired brain injury in children. few prospective population-based studies of childhood arterial ischaemic stroke have been undertaken. we aimed to investigate the epidemiology and clinical features of childhood arterial ischaemic stroke in a population-based cohort. methods children aged 29 days to less than 16 years with radiologically confirmed arterial ischaemic stroke occurring over a 1-year period (july 1, 2008, to june 30, 2009) residing in southern england (population denominator 5.99 million children) were eligible for inclusion. cases were identified using several sources (paediatric neurologists and trainees, the british paediatric neurology surveillance unit, paediatricians, radiologists, physiotherapists, neurosurgeons, parents, and the paediatric intensive care audit network). cases were confirmed by personal examination of cases and case notes. details of presenting features, risk factors, and investigations for risk factors were recorded by analysis of case notes. capture recapture analysis was used to estimate completeness of ascertainment. findings we identified 96 cases of arterial ischaemic stroke. the crude incidence of childhood arterial ischaemic stroke was 1.60 per 100 000 per year (95% ci 1.30-1.96). capture recapture analysis suggested that case ascertainment was 89% (95% ci 77-97) complete. the incidence of arterial ischaemic stroke was highest in children aged under 1 year (4.14 per 100 000 per year, 95% ci 2.36-6.72). there was no difference in the risk of arterial ischaemic stroke between sexes (crude incidence 1.60 per 100 000 per year [95% ci 1.18-2.12] for boys and 1.61 per 100 000 per year [1.18-2.14] for girls). asian (relative risk 2.14, 95% ci 1.11-3.85; p=0.017) and black (2.28, 1.00-4.60; p=0.034) children were at higher risk of arterial ischaemic stroke than were white children. 82 (85%) children had focal features (most commonly hemiparesis) at presentation. seizures were more common in younger children (<= 1 year) and headache was more common in older children (> 5 years; p < 00001). at least one risk factor for childhood arterial ischaemic stroke was identified in 80 (83%) cases. interpretation age and racial group, but not sex, affected the risk of arterial ischaemic stroke in children. investigation of such differences might provide causative insights." downstream migration dynamics of female and male silver eels (anguilla anguilla l.) in the regulated german lowland warnow river,anguilla anguilla; downstream migration dynamics; european eel management plan; silver eel escapement; regulated lowland river system; baltic sea,ECOLOGY OF FRESHWATER FISH,RECKORDT M;UBL C;WAGNER C;FRANKOWSKI J;DOROW M,"in the light of the european wide efforts to increase the spawning biomass of the european eel, a reliable measurement of the escapement of mature silver eel is necessary to prove the effectiveness of the conservation management measures. the seaward migration of mature eel is commonly viewed as a seasonal phenomenon with concentrated migration peaks occurring in spring and autumn. to verify the assumed seasonal silver eel migration events for regulated lowland rivers, a stow-net system was installed in the warnow river located in north-eastern germany. between 2008 and 2011, the stow-net system was operated from march to december each year. the eel harvest was documented on a weekly base including the documentation of weight and length, the silvering stage and the tissue sampling for the molecular identification of the eel species. during the 4year monitoring period, a continuous downstream migration of female and male silver eels was observed. additionally, single migration peaks were recorded in each year occurring between april and december. moreover, female and male silver eels showed varying downstream migration dynamics. based on a chi-squared automatic interaction detection (chaid) tree analysis, it was shown that during periods of a daily minimum air temperature over 10.4 degrees c, increased discharge levels and increased wind speeds, higher weekly migration rates of silver eels were likely. furthermore, the results indicated that both sexes differed in their responses to migration triggering environmental factors. the presented results might be helpful to design more efficient eel conservation management strategies in regulated lowland rivers." "spawner escapement of european eel (anguilla anguilla) from the river erne, ireland",anguilla anguilla; silver eel; hydropower dams; trap and transport; spawner escapement,ECOLOGY OF FRESHWATER FISH,MCCARTHY TK;NOWAK D;GRENNAN J;BATEMAN A;CONNEELY B;MACNAMARA R,"knowledge of silver eel production and escapement is essential for conservation of the european eel (anguilla anguilla) stock. silver eel trap and transport, being undertaken (2009-2012) to mitigate for negative impacts of hydropower on eels in some irish rivers, was therefore monitored in the river erne (catchment area 4375km(2)). eel population analyses at an experimental fishing weir involved mark-recapture experiments and sonar (didson) surveys. silver eel mortality rates at two hydropower stations were assessed by acoustic telemetry. the combined results of these studies enabled estimation of silver eel production and escapement for two migration seasons. for the 2010 season, production and escapement estimates were 42.5t (1.62kgha(-1)) and 38.8t (1.48kgha(-1)), respectively. for the 2011 season, production and escapement estimates were 44.6t (1.70kgha(-1)) and 41.8t (1.59kgha(-1)), respectively. closure of all commercial eel fisheries and initiation of silver eel conservation fishing in 2009 resulted in 9.36, 19.33 and 25.25t of silver eels being transported downstream of the hydropower dams in 2009, 2010 and 2011, respectively. the protocols developed in this study can be used to test models being used for eel population management in ireland." keeping out of trouble: female crack cocaine dealers in england,crack cocaine; 'doing gender'; drug dealing; england; women,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY,FLEETWOOD J,"this paper offers a rare insight into women's experiences dealing crack cocaine. drawing on interviews with eight women, this research finds that, although the retail-level crack trade is male dominated, it is not simply a man's world. this paper examines the strategies that successful female dealers employed, demonstrating that women reflexively took their gender into account to made cognizant choices about what, when and how to deal. dealing strategies were a response not solely to the gendered nature of the drug market but also to women's gendered social positions, relationships and identities. performing respectable femininity was a key strategy for keeping dealing hidden and keeping out of trouble. this paper is underpinned by the concept of 'doing gender'." @@ -2799,9 +2804,9 @@ happily together forever: temporal variation in spatial patterns and complete la completeness of the dog registry and estimation of the dog population size in a densely populated area of rome,dog registry; owned dog population,PREVENTIVE VETERINARY MEDICINE,CAMINITI A;SALA M;PANETTA V;BATTISTI S;MEOLI R;ROMBOLA P;SPALLUCCI V;ELENI C;SCARAMOZZINO P,"in most european countries, registration and identification of dogs is compulsory. in italy, the national dog registry is composed of regional dog registries. although dog registries have been established for many years, the issue related to completeness of data has not been addressed so far. the objective of this study was twofold: first to assess the completeness of data of the dog registry through telephone interview of a sample of dog owners drawn from the dog registry, then to estimate the total owned dog population in 4 boroughs of rome. for the second objective, a capture-recapture method was applied using data from the dog registry and data from a face-to-face questionnaire submitted to people waiting in the sitting room of 5 points of access for booking and payment of primary and specialist care. different scenarios are proposed to verify the assumptions of the estimation procedure and potential biases are discussed. the completeness of data of the dog registry was 88.9% (95% ci: 85.8-91.9%) and the owned-dog population was estimated at 26,244 dogs (95% ci: 24,110-28,383). the dog registry is an important source of information especially when it is properly updated and completeness of data is known.(c) 2013 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." variation in platypus (ornithorhynchus anatinus) life-history attributes and population trajectories in urban streams,fast-slow continuum; mna population index; monotreme; platypus conservation requirements; urban stormwater drainage,AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,SERENA M;WILLIAMS GA;WEEKS AR;GRIFFITHS J,"an understanding of animal population dynamics relies on identifying life-history attributes associated with population growth and determining how these are affected by environmental variables. we analysed platypus population processes over a 10-year period through mark-recapture studies conducted in three spatially independent stream systems located in the suburbs of melbourne, australia. the three populations were collectively characterised by a slightly male-biased adult sex ratio (1.15 : 1) and relatively low reproductive success (<0.5 juvenile captured annually per adult female). an estimated 16% of core residents disappeared annually and 18% of marked juveniles were recaptured as adults. however, some demographic parameters (reproductive success, frequency of non-core adult captures) varied significantly among populations. estimates of annual core population size in the three systems varied asynchronously, with different trajectories in population size potentially reflecting habitat differences (amount of urban development, reliability of surface flow) as well as variation in spatial isolation and catchment history (implementation of stream rehabilitation programs, occurrence of severe floods). across all three populations, significant variability in annual reproductive success was explained by linear relationships with the amount of rainfall recorded in the five months before breeding (positive) and after juveniles emerge from nesting burrows (negative)." population trends in a substantial colony of little penguins: three independent measures over three decades,burrowing seabirds; eudyptula minor; colony size; long-term study; mark-recapture modelling; population growth rate; recruitment,BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,SUTHERLAND DR;DANN P,"estimating long-term population trends is vital for the conservation and management of species, yet few trends exist and fewer still are verified with independent measures. we compared three independent measures of change in population size over 27 years (1984-2011) for a significant little penguin eudyptula minor colony in south-eastern australia: (1) a series of 13 colony-wide surveys conducted in eight separate years, (2) mean nightly counts of penguins returning to breeding sites (365 counts x 27 years) and (3) population growth rates from a demographic model based on survival and recruitment rates measured at three sites each year. colony-wide surveys of burrows were used as a benchmark of change in population size in the 8 years they were conducted as they were a robust measure of population size corrected for intra-annual variation in burrow occupancy using mark-recapture modelling at six reference sites. however, the demographic model matched the trend from colony-wide surveys with greater resolution in years and with less effort. beach counts were unreliable for monitoring trends for the entire population due to its singular and peripheral location in the colony. trends indicate a doubling of the population from 1984 to 2011 despite a marked population contraction linked to a mass mortality of a key prey species. the colony appears secure but remains subject to changes in the marine and terrestrial environments in the longer term." -validation and use of hair cortisol as a measure of chronic stress in eastern chipmunks (tamias striatus),acth challenge; faecal cortisol; logging,CONSERVATION PHYSIOLOGY,MASTROMONACO GF;GUNN K;MCCURDY-ADAMS H;EDWARDS DB;SCHULTE-HOSTEDDE AI,"stress levels of individuals are documented using glucocorticoid concentrations (including cortisol) in blood, saliva, urine or faeces, which provide information about stress hormones during a short period of time (minutes to days). in mammals, use of hair cortisol analysis allows for the assessment of prolonged stress over weeks and months and provides information on chronic stress levels without bias associated with handling. here, we validate hair cortisol analysis in wild rodents using exogenous adrenocorticotrophic hormone (acth challenge) and apply the technique to evaluate stress in eastern chipmunks inhabiting logged and natural sites. chipmunks were subjected to a mark-recapture study and injected weekly with acth (synacthen depot) or saline, with hair being collected at the conclusion of the challenge. subsequently, faecal and hair samples were collected from chipmunks occupying logged and natural sites to assess the utility of hair cortisol in comparison with faecal cortisol metabolites. following extraction, cortisol concentrations were quantified in hair and faecal extracts by enzyme immunoassay. hair cortisol concentrations were significantly elevated in samples from acth-injected chipmunks compared with saline-injected control animals (five times higher). chipmunks inhabiting logged sites had increased faecal cortisol metabolite concentrations compared with those in natural sites, but no differences were observed in hair cortisol concentrations. faecal cortisol metabolite levels were positively correlated with hair cortisol levels in chipmunks. hair cortisol levels reflect changes in circulating cortisol levels and can be used to evaluate the adrenal stress response, and thus stress, in natural populations. nonetheless, because of the differences in the temporal scale of stress that hair and faeces represent, we caution the use of hair cortisol for detecting differences in physiological stress when comparing individuals within populations and suggest that it is best suited to examining population-level differences." +validation and use of hair cortisol as a measure of chronic stress in eastern chipmunks (tamias striatus),acth challenge; faecal cortisol; logging,CONSERVATION PHYSIOLOGY,MASTROMONACO GF;GUNN K;MCCURDY ADAMS H;EDWARDS DB;SCHULTE HOSTEDDE AI,"stress levels of individuals are documented using glucocorticoid concentrations (including cortisol) in blood, saliva, urine or faeces, which provide information about stress hormones during a short period of time (minutes to days). in mammals, use of hair cortisol analysis allows for the assessment of prolonged stress over weeks and months and provides information on chronic stress levels without bias associated with handling. here, we validate hair cortisol analysis in wild rodents using exogenous adrenocorticotrophic hormone (acth challenge) and apply the technique to evaluate stress in eastern chipmunks inhabiting logged and natural sites. chipmunks were subjected to a mark-recapture study and injected weekly with acth (synacthen depot) or saline, with hair being collected at the conclusion of the challenge. subsequently, faecal and hair samples were collected from chipmunks occupying logged and natural sites to assess the utility of hair cortisol in comparison with faecal cortisol metabolites. following extraction, cortisol concentrations were quantified in hair and faecal extracts by enzyme immunoassay. hair cortisol concentrations were significantly elevated in samples from acth-injected chipmunks compared with saline-injected control animals (five times higher). chipmunks inhabiting logged sites had increased faecal cortisol metabolite concentrations compared with those in natural sites, but no differences were observed in hair cortisol concentrations. faecal cortisol metabolite levels were positively correlated with hair cortisol levels in chipmunks. hair cortisol levels reflect changes in circulating cortisol levels and can be used to evaluate the adrenal stress response, and thus stress, in natural populations. nonetheless, because of the differences in the temporal scale of stress that hair and faeces represent, we caution the use of hair cortisol for detecting differences in physiological stress when comparing individuals within populations and suggest that it is best suited to examining population-level differences." incidence of type 1 diabetes in norway among children aged 0-14 years between 1989 and 2012: has the incidence stopped rising? results from the norwegian childhood diabetes registry,incidence of type 1 diabetes; norwegian childhood diabetes registry; norwegian prescription database; population-based registries; prescription database; type 1 diabetes,DIABETOLOGIA,SKRIVARHAUG T;STENE LC;DRIVVOLL AK;STROM H;JONER G,"aims/hypothesis our study aimed to describe the incidence of type 1 diabetes in children below 15 years of age in norway during the period 1989-2012 and to assess the regional variation during 2004-2012. we further set out to estimate the completeness of ascertainment in the norwegian childhood diabetes registry (ncdr). methods incident cases of type 1 diabetes were registered in the ncdr and incidence rates were modelled using poisson regression. ascertainment for 2005-2008 was estimated using capture-recapture methodology by using data from the norwegian prescription database (norpd), a nationwide register established in 2004, which included insulin prescribed and dispensed at pharmacies to individual patients. population data were obtained from statistics norway. results observed incidence rates for 1989-2012 suggested three distinct time segments: in 1989-1996, the average incidence rate was 22.6 per 100,000 person-years (95% ci 21.4, 23.7); in 1996-2004, the average incidence rate was 28.4 per 100,000 person-years (95% ci 27.3, 29.6); and from 2004 to 2012, the average incidence rate per 100,000 person-years was 32.7 (95% ci 31.5, 34.0). after adjustment for age and sex, the estimated change per year was 1.8% for 19891996 (95% ci -0.07, 3.6; p =0.059), 3.4% for 1996-2004 (95% ci 2.2, 4.7; p < 0.0001) and 0.3% for 2004-2012 (95% ci -0.9, 1.6; p =0.64). the highest incidence was in the age group 10-14 years for both sexes. a significant regional variation in incidence was observed (p < 0.001). completeness of ascertainment in the ncdr was estimated to be 91%. conclusions/interpretation the previously observed increase in incidence of type 1 diabetes has levelled off and remained essentially constant at 32.7 per 100,000 person-years during 2004-2012. there is a significant variation in type 1 diabetes incidence within norway." -a comparison of methods for estimating common vole (microtus arvalis) abundance in agricultural habitats,indirect abundance index; trapping; spain; alfalfa; clipping; dropping,ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS,JARENO D;VINUELA J;LUQUE-LARENA JJ;ARROYO L;ARROYO B;MOUGEOT F,"rodent outbreaks cause significant crop damages in agricultural areas worldwide, but routinely monitoring large areas at low cost remains a challenge. the common vole microtus arvalis has recently colonized the agricultural plains of the northern iberian plateau, an area where it has started to produce population outbreaks with important impacts in agriculture, the environment and human health. vole monitoring has become of prime importance to implement preventive management measures to control populations. in order to find a simple and reliable vole monitoring method to be applied in large areas, we compared abundance estimates derived from three methods: capture-mark-recapture (cmr), single capture events (sce) and presence/absence of vole activity signs (vas) during three seasons and on the main agricultural habitats in the study area. we show that an activity index based on the presence of fresh droppings and/or clippings had a similar performance to sce in a large sample of plots (n = 222) across habitats and seasons. data obtained with both methods (sce, vas) were also well correlated with those obtained with cmr, despite a limited sample size (n = 23 cmr plots). we suggest that the vas method, which is a cheaper and easier alternative to trapping methods, provides a promising tool for scientists and managers to implement large scale monitoring of common vole in agricultural areas. (c) 2013 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +a comparison of methods for estimating common vole (microtus arvalis) abundance in agricultural habitats,indirect abundance index; trapping; spain; alfalfa; clipping; dropping,ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS,JARENO D;VINUELA J;LUQUE LARENA JJ;ARROYO L;ARROYO B;MOUGEOT F,"rodent outbreaks cause significant crop damages in agricultural areas worldwide, but routinely monitoring large areas at low cost remains a challenge. the common vole microtus arvalis has recently colonized the agricultural plains of the northern iberian plateau, an area where it has started to produce population outbreaks with important impacts in agriculture, the environment and human health. vole monitoring has become of prime importance to implement preventive management measures to control populations. in order to find a simple and reliable vole monitoring method to be applied in large areas, we compared abundance estimates derived from three methods: capture-mark-recapture (cmr), single capture events (sce) and presence/absence of vole activity signs (vas) during three seasons and on the main agricultural habitats in the study area. we show that an activity index based on the presence of fresh droppings and/or clippings had a similar performance to sce in a large sample of plots (n = 222) across habitats and seasons. data obtained with both methods (sce, vas) were also well correlated with those obtained with cmr, despite a limited sample size (n = 23 cmr plots). we suggest that the vas method, which is a cheaper and easier alternative to trapping methods, provides a promising tool for scientists and managers to implement large scale monitoring of common vole in agricultural areas. (c) 2013 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." lincoln estimates of mallard (anas platyrhynchos) abundance in north america,band recovery; closed-population mark-recapture; harvest; population estimation,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ALISAUSKAS RT;ARNOLD TW;LEAFLOOR JO;OTIS DL;SEDINGER JS,"estimates of range-wide abundance, harvest, and harvest rate are fundamental for sound inferences about the role of exploitation in the dynamics of free-ranging wildlife populations, but reliability of existing survey methods for abundance estimation is rarely assessed using alternative approaches. north american mallard populations have been surveyed each spring since 1955 using internationally coordinated aerial surveys, but population size can also be estimated with lincoln's method using banding and harvest data. we estimated late summer population size of adult and juvenile male and female mallards in western, midcontinent, and eastern north america using lincoln's method of dividing (i) total estimated harvest, (h) over cap, by estimated harvest rate, (h) over cap, calculated as (ii) direct band recovery rate, (f) over cap, divided by the (iii) band reporting rate, (p) over cap. our goal was to compare estimates based on lincoln's method with traditional estimates based on aerial surveys. lincoln estimates of adult males and females alive in the period june-september were 4.0 (range: 2.5-5.9), 1.8 (range: 0.6-3.0), and 1.8 (range: 1.3-2.7) times larger than respective aerial survey estimates for the western, midcontinent, and eastern mallard populations, and the two population estimates were only modestly correlated with each other (western: r=0.70, 1993-2011; midcontinent: r=0.54, 1961-2011; eastern: r=0.50, 1993-2011). higher lincoln estimates are predictable given that the geographic scope of inference from lincoln estimates is the entire population range, whereas sampling frames for aerial surveys are incomplete. although each estimation method has a number of important potential biases, our review suggests that underestimation of total population size by aerial surveys is the most likely explanation. in addition to providing measures of total abundance, lincoln's method provides estimates of fecundity and population sex ratio and could be used in integrated population models to provide greater insights about population dynamics and management of north american mallards and most other harvested species." survival and growth of european eels stocked as glass- and farm-sourced eels in five lakes in the first years after stocking,anguilla anguilla; glass eel; mark-recapture experiment; stock assessment; marking; stocking,ECOLOGY OF FRESHWATER FISH,SIMON J;DORNER H,"european eels anguilla anguilla stocked as wild-sourced glass eels showed a better overall performance of growth and survival compared with farm-sourced eels after stocking in five isolated lakes within a 7-year study period. eels stocked as farm eels lost their initial size advantage over eels stocked as glass eels within 3-5years after stocking. population sizes estimated for consecutive stocking batches indicated that 8-17% of eels stocked as farm eels survived 3-6years after stocking compared with 5-45% of eels stocked as glass eels. this study coupled with results of previous studies suggests that stocking of farm eels may have no advantage in growth and survival compared with stocking of glass eels if stocking occurs at an optimal time in spring. in addition, the use of relatively expensive farm eels may provide no general advantage over stocking of glass eels. however, if glass eels are only available for stocking purposes very early in the year, lower survival rates than obtained in the present study can be assumed and stocking with relatively more expensive farm eels could possibly be a better option." estimating hidden population size using respondent-driven sampling data,hard-to-reach population sampling; network sampling; social networks; successive sampling; model-based survey sampling,ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF STATISTICS,HANDCOCK MS;GILO KJ;MAR CM,"respondent-driven sampling (rds) is n approach to sampling design and inference in hard-to-reach human populations. it is often used in situations where the target population is rare and/or stigmatized in the larger population, so that it is prohibitively expensive to contact them through the available frames. common examples include injecting drug users, men who have sex with men, and female sex workers. most analysis of rds data has focused on estimating aggregate characteristics, such as disease prevalence. however, rds is often conducted in settings where the population size is unknown and of great independent interest. this paper presents an approach to estimating the size of a target population based on data collected through rds. the proposed approach uses a successive sampling approximation to rds to leverage information in the ordered sequence of observed personal network sizes. the inference uses the bayesian framework, allowing for the incorporation of prior knowledge. a flexible class of priors for the population size is used that aids elicitation. an extensive simulation study provides insight into the performance of the method for estimating population size under a broad range of conditions. a further study shows the approach also improves estimation of aggregate characteristics. finally, the method demonstrates sensible results when used to estimate the size of known networked populations from the national longitudinal study of adolescent health, and when used to estimate the size of a hard-to-reach population at high risk for hiv." @@ -2831,12 +2836,12 @@ estimating leopard cat prionailurus bengalensis densities using photographic cap "study on the population structure of the paradoxical frog, pseudis bolbodactyla (amphibia: anura: hylidae), using natural markings for individual identification",amphibian; capture-recapture; cerrado; photograph; estimate,ZOOLOGIA,RAMALHO WP;JORGE RF;BAIOCCHI LB;PENA AP;PIRES RAP,"the goal of this study was to assess the population structure of pseudis bolbodactyla lutz, 1925 using natural markings to identify individuals. recruitment, survival, and population size estimations were obtained using the jollyseber stochastic method. a total of 166 individuals were captured, and the striped, spotted, and dotted patterns that make their recognition possible were recorded. of the specimens captured, 27 were recaptured, including some at pre and post-metamorphic stages. the estimate maximum population size was 52. the indices of survival and recruitment varied among samplings. sexual dimorphism in size and in the operational sex ratio were detected. despite the limited scope of our characterization of the p. bolbodactyla population, our data might be useful in the interpretation and elaboration of new hypotheses about ecological processes acting on anuran populations." breeding return times and abundance in capture-recapture models,abundance; breeding return times; capture-recapture analysis; lake sturgeon; temporary emigration; unobserved state,BIOMETRICS,PLEDGER S;BAKER E;SCRIBNER K,"for many long-lived animal species, individuals do not breed every year, and are often not accessible during non-breeding periods. individuals exhibit site fidelity if they return to the same breeding colony or spawning ground when they breed. if capture and recapture is only possible at the breeding site, temporary emigration models are used to allow for only a subset of the animals being present in any given year. most temporary emigration models require the use of the robust sampling design, and their focus is usually on probabilities of annual survival and of transition between breeding and non-breeding states. we use lake sturgeon (acipenser fulvescens) data from a closed population where only a simple (one sample per year) sampling scheme is possible, and we also wish to estimate abundance as well as sex-specific survival and breeding return time probabilities. by adding return time parameters to the schwarz-arnason version of the jolly-seber model, we have developed a new likelihood-based model which yields plausible estimates of abundance, survival, transition and return time parameters. an important new finding from investigation of the model is the overestimation of abundance if a jolly-seber model is used when markovian temporary emigration is present." modeling individual specific fish length from capture-recapture data using the von bertalanffy growth curve,capture-recapture; hierarchical modeling; mcmc; model checking; von bertalanffy,BIOMETRICS,SCHOFIELD MR;BARKER RJ;TAYLOR P,"we use bayesian methods to explore fitting the von bertalanffy length model to tag-recapture data. we consider two popular parameterizations of the von bertalanffy model. the first models the data relative to age at first capture; the second models in terms of length at first capture. using data from a rainbow trout oncorhynchus mykiss study we explore the relationship between the assumptions and resulting inference using posterior predictive checking, cross validation and a simulation study. we find that untestable hierarchical assumptions placed on the nuisance parameters in each model can influence the resulting inference about parameters of interest. researchers should carefully consider these assumptions when modeling growth from tag-recapture data." -a comparison of marginal and conditional models for capture-recapture data with application to human rights violations data,capture-recapture; human rights; marginal models; multiple systems estimation,BIOMETRICS,MITCHELL S;OZONOFF A;ZASLAVSKY AM;HEDT-GAUTHIER B;LUM K;COULL BA,"human rights data presents challenges for capture-recapture methodology. lists of violent acts provided by many different groups create large, sparse tables of data for which saturated models are difficult to fit and for which simple models may be misspecified. we analyze data on killings and disappearances in casanare, colombia during years 1998 to 2007. our estimates differ whether we choose to model marginal reporting probabilities and odds ratios, versus modeling the full reporting pattern in a conditional (log-linear) model. with 2629 observed killings, a marginal model we consider estimates over 9000 killings, while conditional models we consider estimate 6000-7000 killings. the latter agree with previous estimates, also from a conditional model. we see a twofold difference between the high sample coverage estimate of over 10,000 killings and low sample coverage lower bound estimate of 5200 killings. we use a simulation study to compare marginal and conditional models with at most two-way interactions and sample coverage estimators. the simulation results together with model selection criteria lead us to believe the previous estimates of total killings in casanare may have been biased downward, suggesting that the violence was worse than previously thought. model specification is an important consideration when interpreting population estimates from capture recapture analysis and the casanare data is a protypical example of how that manifests." -a generalization of chao's estimator for covariate information,bias reduction; chao's estimator; closed capture-recapture; covariate modelling,BIOMETRICS,BOHNING D;VIDAL-DIEZ A;LERDSUWANSRI R;VIWATWONGKASEM C;ARNOLD M,"this note generalizes chao's estimator of population size for closed capture-recapture studies if covariates are available. chao's estimator was developed under unobserved heterogeneity in which case it represents a lower bound of the population size. if observed heterogeneity is available in form of covariates we show how this information can be used to reduce the bias of chao's estimator. the key element in this development is the understanding and placement of chao's estimator in a truncated poisson likelihood. it is shown that a truncated poisson likelihood (with log-link) with all counts truncated besides ones and twos is equivalent to a binomial likelihood (with logit-link). this enables the development of a generalized chao estimator as the estimated, expected value of the frequency of zero counts under a truncated (all counts truncated except ones and twos) poisson regression model. if the regression model accounts for the heterogeneity entirely, the generalized chao estimator is asymptotically unbiased. a simulation study illustrates the potential in gain of bias reduction. comparisons of the generalized chao estimator with the homogeneous zero-truncated poisson regression approach are supplied as well. the method is applied to a surveillance study on the completeness of farm submissions in great britain." +a comparison of marginal and conditional models for capture-recapture data with application to human rights violations data,capture-recapture; human rights; marginal models; multiple systems estimation,BIOMETRICS,MITCHELL S;OZONOFF A;ZASLAVSKY AM;HEDT GAUTHIER B;LUM K;COULL BA,"human rights data presents challenges for capture-recapture methodology. lists of violent acts provided by many different groups create large, sparse tables of data for which saturated models are difficult to fit and for which simple models may be misspecified. we analyze data on killings and disappearances in casanare, colombia during years 1998 to 2007. our estimates differ whether we choose to model marginal reporting probabilities and odds ratios, versus modeling the full reporting pattern in a conditional (log-linear) model. with 2629 observed killings, a marginal model we consider estimates over 9000 killings, while conditional models we consider estimate 6000-7000 killings. the latter agree with previous estimates, also from a conditional model. we see a twofold difference between the high sample coverage estimate of over 10,000 killings and low sample coverage lower bound estimate of 5200 killings. we use a simulation study to compare marginal and conditional models with at most two-way interactions and sample coverage estimators. the simulation results together with model selection criteria lead us to believe the previous estimates of total killings in casanare may have been biased downward, suggesting that the violence was worse than previously thought. model specification is an important consideration when interpreting population estimates from capture recapture analysis and the casanare data is a protypical example of how that manifests." +a generalization of chao's estimator for covariate information,bias reduction; chao's estimator; closed capture-recapture; covariate modelling,BIOMETRICS,BOHNING D;VIDAL DIEZ A;LERDSUWANSRI R;VIWATWONGKASEM C;ARNOLD M,"this note generalizes chao's estimator of population size for closed capture-recapture studies if covariates are available. chao's estimator was developed under unobserved heterogeneity in which case it represents a lower bound of the population size. if observed heterogeneity is available in form of covariates we show how this information can be used to reduce the bias of chao's estimator. the key element in this development is the understanding and placement of chao's estimator in a truncated poisson likelihood. it is shown that a truncated poisson likelihood (with log-link) with all counts truncated besides ones and twos is equivalent to a binomial likelihood (with logit-link). this enables the development of a generalized chao estimator as the estimated, expected value of the frequency of zero counts under a truncated (all counts truncated except ones and twos) poisson regression model. if the regression model accounts for the heterogeneity entirely, the generalized chao estimator is asymptotically unbiased. a simulation study illustrates the potential in gain of bias reduction. comparisons of the generalized chao estimator with the homogeneous zero-truncated poisson regression approach are supplied as well. the method is applied to a surveillance study on the completeness of farm submissions in great britain." markov models for community dynamics allowing for observation error,bayesian inference; community dynamics; markov model; multistate dynamic occupancy model; sampling error; sessile organisms; state-space model; transition probability,ECOLOGY,FUKAYA K;ROYLE JA,"markov models are dynamic models that characterize transitions among discrete ecological states with transition probability matrices. such models are widely used to infer community dynamics of sessile organisms because transition probabilities (the elements of transition probability matrices) can be estimated with time series data from grid sampling, where species occupancy states are assessed at multiple fixed points in a quadrat or transect. these estimates, however, are known to be biased when resampling error exists. in this study, we used the perspective of multistate dynamic occupancy models to develop a new markov model that is structured hierarchically such that transitions among occupancy states and observation processes are considered explicitly at each fixed point. we show that, by adopting a hierarchical bayesian approach, our model provides estimates for transition probabilities that are robust to sampling error. we also show that error rate may be estimated without additional data obtained from rapid repeated sampling. considerations for the analysis for the application to real data set and potential extensions of the proposed model are discussed." integrating batch marks and radio tags to estimate the size of a closed population with a movement model,batch-marking; capture-recapture; movement,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SCHWARZ CJ;COPE S;FRATTON G,"movement models require individually identifiable marks to estimate the movement rates among strata. but they are relatively expensive to apply and monitor. batch marks can be readily applied, but individual animal movements cannot be identified. we describe a method to estimate population size in a stratified population when movement takes place among strata and animals are marked with a combination of batch and individually identifiable tags. a hierarchical model with bayesian inference is developed that pools information across segments on the detection efficiency based on radio-tagged fish and also uses the movement of the radio-tagged fish to impute the movement of the batch-marked fish to provide estimates of the population size on a segment and river level. the batch marks provide important information to help estimate the movement rates, but contribute little to the overall estimate of the population size. in this case, the approximate equal catchability among strata in either sample obviates the need for stratification." growth rates of paleosuchus palpebrosus at the southern limit of its range,age; body size; brazil; dwarf caiman; sexual maturity,HERPETOLOGICA,CAMPOS Z;MAGNUSSON WE;MARQUES V,"we estimated growth rates of dwarf caiman (paleosuchus palpebrosus) with capture-recapture data from 40 individuals collected over 6 yr in streams surrounding the brazilian pantanal, near the southern limit of the species' distribution. repeated recaptures of eight animals indicate that within-individual variation is much greater than between-individual variation, possibly reflecting climatic influences. growth rates of juveniles increased linearly until individuals were about 28 cm snout-vent length (svl), and then growth rates decreased gradually after attaining that size. the rate of decrease, however, differed between males and females. data for 30 juveniles with known age were used to validate the growth curve based on the growth rate-on-size analysis. the length of the smallest female recorded nesting (svl - 60 cm) allowed us to estimate the age at first reproduction to be about 8 yr for females. our data do not support our initial hypothesis that p. palpebrosus would have slow growth rates and relatively old age at first reproduction, as has been suggested for paleosuchus trigonatus." -demographic importance of the life-cycle components in sceloporus grammicus,elasticity analysis; fast-slow continuum; life-history evolution; mark-recapture experiment; projection matrices,HERPETOLOGICA,PEREZ-MENDOZA HA;ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ;ZURITA-GUTIERREZ YH;FORNONI J;SOLANO-ZAVALETA I;HERNANDEZ-ROSAS AL;MOLINA-MOCTEZUMA A,"survival, growth, and fecundity are considered as the three main components of the life cycle of any living organism. the relative contribution of these three components to average fitness may vary drastically among populations of single species. examining this interpopulation variation and understanding its causes can provide insight on the particular selection pressures that drive phenotypic divergence among populations. we conducted a demographic study of eight distinct populations of the viviparous lizard sceloporus grammicus in central mexico. we estimated variation among populations in stage-specific survival, growth, and fecundity. using these data we constructed site-specific population projection matrices to estimate population growth rates, which we interpreted as measures of the average fitness of each population. elasticity analysis was used to calculate the relative contribution of the three life-cycle components to population growth rates. the three life-cycle components had relatively high elasticity values, which meant that survival, growth, and fecundity contributed similarly to fitness. however, some variation was found among populations. we searched for potential associations between the observed interpopulation variation in these measures of relative importance for average fitness and interpopulation variation in temperature, rainfall, population density, microhabitat availability, degree of human-induced disturbance, and overall mortality. none of these environmental factors or their interactions could explain the observed interpopulation variation in the relative importance of the life-cycle components. our results provide insight about how these viviparous lizards allocate resources to survival, growth, and fecundity in different environments." +demographic importance of the life-cycle components in sceloporus grammicus,elasticity analysis; fast-slow continuum; life-history evolution; mark-recapture experiment; projection matrices,HERPETOLOGICA,PEREZ MENDOZA HA;ZUNIGA VEGA JJ;ZURITA GUTIERREZ YH;FORNONI J;SOLANO ZAVALETA I;HERNANDEZ ROSAS AL;MOLINA MOCTEZUMA A,"survival, growth, and fecundity are considered as the three main components of the life cycle of any living organism. the relative contribution of these three components to average fitness may vary drastically among populations of single species. examining this interpopulation variation and understanding its causes can provide insight on the particular selection pressures that drive phenotypic divergence among populations. we conducted a demographic study of eight distinct populations of the viviparous lizard sceloporus grammicus in central mexico. we estimated variation among populations in stage-specific survival, growth, and fecundity. using these data we constructed site-specific population projection matrices to estimate population growth rates, which we interpreted as measures of the average fitness of each population. elasticity analysis was used to calculate the relative contribution of the three life-cycle components to population growth rates. the three life-cycle components had relatively high elasticity values, which meant that survival, growth, and fecundity contributed similarly to fitness. however, some variation was found among populations. we searched for potential associations between the observed interpopulation variation in these measures of relative importance for average fitness and interpopulation variation in temperature, rainfall, population density, microhabitat availability, degree of human-induced disturbance, and overall mortality. none of these environmental factors or their interactions could explain the observed interpopulation variation in the relative importance of the life-cycle components. our results provide insight about how these viviparous lizards allocate resources to survival, growth, and fecundity in different environments." correcting length-frequency distributions for imperfect detection,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,BRETON AR;HAWKINS JA;WINKELMAN DL,"sampling gear selects for specific sizes of fish, which may bias length-frequency distributions that are commonly used to assess population size structure, recruitment patterns, growth, and survival. to properly correct for sampling biases caused by gear and other sources, length-frequency distributions need to be corrected for imperfect detection. we describe a method for adjusting length-frequency distributions when capture and recapture probabilities are a function of fish length, temporal variation, and capture history. the method is applied to a study involving the removal of smallmouth bass micropterus dolomieu by boat electrofishing from a 38.6-km reach on the yampa river, colorado. smallmouth bass longer than 100mm were marked and released alive from 2005 to 2010 on one or more electrofishing passes and removed on all other passes from the population. using the huggins mark-recapture model, we detected a significant effect of fish total length, previous capture history (behavior), year, pass, yearxbehavior, and yearxpass on capture and recapture probabilities. we demonstrate how to partition the huggins estimate of abundance into length frequencies to correct for these effects. uncorrected length frequencies of fish removed from little yampa canyon were negatively biased in every year by as much as 88% relative to mark-recapture estimates for the smallest length-class in our analysis (100-110mm). bias declined but remained high even for adult length-classes (200mm). the pattern of bias across length-classes was variable across years. the percentage of unadjusted counts that were below the lower 95% confidence interval from our adjusted length-frequency estimates were 95, 89, 84, 78, 81, and 92% from 2005 to 2010, respectively. length-frequency distributions are widely used in fisheries science and management. our simple method for correcting length-frequency estimates for imperfect detection could be widely applied when mark-recapture data are available." females better face senescence in the wandering albatross,breeding success; breeding probability; capture-mark-recapture; diomedea exulans; seabird; senescence; sexual dimorphism; survival,OECOLOGIA,PARDO D;BARBRAUD C;WEIMERSKIRCH H,"sex differences in lifespan and aging are widespread among animals. since investment in current reproduction can have consequences on other life-history traits, the sex with the highest cost of breeding is expected to suffer from an earlier and/or stronger senescence. this has been demonstrated in polygynous species that are highly dimorphic. however in monogamous species where parental investment is similar between sexes, sex-specific differences in aging patterns of life-history traits are expected to be attenuated. here, we examined sex and age influences on demographic traits in a very long-lived and sexually dimorphic monogamous species, the wandering albatross (diomedea exulans). we modelled within the same model framework sex-dependent variations in aging for an array of five life-history traits: adult survival, probability of returning to the breeding colony, probability of breeding and two measures of breeding success (hatching and fledging). we show that life-history traits presented contrasted aging patterns according to sex whereas traits were all similar at young ages. both sexes exhibited actuarial and reproductive senescence, but, as the decrease in breeding success remained similar for males and females, the survival and breeding probabilities of males were significantly more affected than females. we discuss our results in the light of the costs associated to reproduction, age-related pairing and a biased operational sex-ratio in the population leading to a pool of non-breeders of potentially lower quality and therefore more subject to death or breeding abstention. for a monogamous species with similar parental roles, the patterns observed were surprising and when placed in a gradient of observed age/sex-related variations in life-history traits, wandering albatrosses were intermediate between highly dimorphic polygynous and most monogamous species." assessment of the fishing impact on the silver eel stock in the baltic using survival analysis,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,DEKKER W;SJOBERG NB,"restoration of the depleted stock of the european eel (anguilla anguilla (l.)) requires anthropogenic impacts to be quantified, reduced, and controlled. in this article, we assess the impact of the silver eel fishery on the baltic coast in sweden, applying survival analysis to 60 years of mark-recapture experiments, involving 8000 recaptures out of 18 000 releases. the hazard of being recaptured (overall 46%) varies along the coast and declined substantially over the decades. but, most notably, the hazard for the individual diminishes strongly after the first kilometres en route. this individualized hazard disqualifies the more traditional mark-recapture methodology, which assumes random recaptures. we advocate the general use of survival analysis for conventional mark-recapture data. the result of our analysis indicates that the impact of the fishery just prior the 2009 fishing restrictions was in the order of 10%-in itself well within sustainability limits, though only but one of the factors contributing to the mortality in the baltic sea." @@ -2845,12 +2850,12 @@ demographic evidence of illegal harvesting of an endangered asian turtle,big-hea improving species occupancy estimation when sampling violates the closure assumption,NA,ECOGRAPHY,OTTO CRV;BAILEY LL;ROLOFF GJ,"site occupancy models that account for imperfect detection of species are increasingly utilized in ecological research and wildlife monitoring. occupancy models require replicate surveys to estimate detection probability over a time period where the occupancy status at sampled sites is assumed closed. unlike mark-recapture models, few studies have examined how violations of closure can bias occupancy estimates. our study design allowed us to differentiate among two processes that violate the closure assumption during a sampling season: 1) repeated destructive sampling events that result in either short- or long-term site avoidance by the target species and 2) sampling occurring over a time period during which non-random movements of the target species result in variable occupancy status. we used dynamic occupancy models to quantify the potential bias in occupancy estimation associated with these processes for a terrestrial salamander system. our results provide strong evidence of a systematic decrease in salamander occupancy within a field season. chronic disturbance due to repeated searches of natural cover objects accelerated natural declines in species occurrence on the forest surface as summer progressed. we also observed a strong but temporary disturbance effect on salamander detection probability associated with repeated sampling within a 24-h. period. we generalized our findings by conducting a simulation to evaluate how violations of closure can bias occupancy estimates when local extinction occurs within a sampling season. our simulation study revealed general sensitivity of estimates from single-season occupancy models to violations of closure, with the strength and direction of bias varying between scenarios. bias was minimal when extinction proba bility or the number of sample occasions was relatively low. our research highlights the importance of addressing closure in occupancy studies and we provide multiple solutions, using both design- and model-based frameworks, for minimizing bias associated with non-random changes in occupancy and repeated sampling disturbances." "guillain-barre syndrome surveillance during national influenza vaccination campaign, new york, usa, 2009",NA,EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES,GIAMBRONE GP;ZANSKY SM;EIDSON M;DUNCAN PG;MCNUTT LA;BIRKHEAD GS,"the new york state department of health (nysdoh) collected information about hospitalized patients with guillain-barre syndrome (gbs) during october 2009 may 2010, statewide (excluding new york city), to examine a possible relationship with influenza a(h1n1)pdm09 vaccination. nysdoh established a clinical network of neurologists and 150 hospital neurology units. hospital discharge data from the statewide planning and research cooperative system (sparcs) were used to evaluate completeness of reporting from the clinical network. a total of 140 confirmed or probable gbs cases were identified: 81(58%) from both systems, 10 (7%) from clinical network only, and 49 (35%) from sparcs-only. capture recapture methods estimated that 6 cases might have been missed by both systems. clinical network median reporting time was 12 days versus 131 days for sparcs. in public health emergencies in new york state, a clinical network may provide timely data, but in our study such data were less complete than traditional hospital discharge data." inferring dispersal dynamics from local population demographic modelling: the case of the slender-billed gull in france,larus genei; capture-recapture; survival; recruitment; mediterranean sea; dispersion; population growth rate,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,DOXA A;BESNARD A;BECHET A;PIN C;LEBRETON JD;SADOUL N,"although it is today accepted that population viability analyses are needed at a meta-population level for most species, usually only single populations are monitored in the context of management and conservation programmes. this paper outlines a fairly general and easy-to-implement approach based on counts and capture-recapture data that allow the dynamics of single populations to be assessed even when they are highly connected to other populations. this approach was motivated by a study of the french population of the slender-billed gull larus genei, which experienced a sharp population increase in the 1980s and 1990s, suggesting that the species was not at risk of extinction. however, several recently raised concerns indicate that the observed population increase is unlikely to have been achieved uniquely by an intrinsic growth rate. we estimated local adult survival probability at 0.81 (0.79-0.83), which is considerably lower than that of other gull species of comparable size. moreover, local fecundity observed in slender-billed gulls [0.66 (0.47-0.85)] is lower than that observed in similar species. massive reproduction failures and the low demographic parameters observed could be caused by chick exposure to aerial and terrestrial predation, leading to permanent emigration. unrealistically high demographic parameter values would be needed to generate the observed local population increase. the results of our study indicate that connections with other neighbouring populations are responsible for the local population dynamics, and that about 10% of the individuals may be immigrants into this local population annually. however, our results suggest that the population of the slender-billed gull may be stable at the west mediterranean scale. the high annual fluctuations of population size observed at a larger scale also highlight the necessity for coordinated international action to protect a maximum of potential breeding sites in order to protect the species." -winter ecology of house mice and the prospects for their eradication from steeple jason (falkland islands),mus musculus; subantarctic island; density; spatially-explicit capture-recapture; body-size; distribution,POLAR BIOLOGY,REXER-HUBER K;PARKER GC;REEVES M;STANWORTH AJ;CUTHBERT RJ,"invasive house mice mus musculus are known to impact on seabird, invertebrate and plant communities on temperate and subantarctic islands, particularly where they are the sole rodent species. steeple jason, in the falkland islands, is an island which supports globally important seabird populations as well as introduced mice. to evaluate the prospects for mouse eradication, we investigated mouse ecology and undertook bait uptake trials on steeple jason in late winter. mice were present in all habitats but were most abundant in tussac poa flabellata where they occurred at 20-35 mice ha(-1). from 58 mature perforate females, 16 % were pregnant, with litters of 4-8 pups. the first lactating female was caught at the end of august, suggesting that breeding had recently begun. bait trials replicating an aerial eradication were undertaken on two trapping grids of 7.7 and 6.8 ha, with non-toxic pellets containing the biomarker pyranine spread at 7.5-7.7 kg ha(-1). all 447 mice captured after baiting had consumed bait. the relatively low winter density, distribution and biology of house mice on steeple jason are similar to those observed before other successful mice eradications, and the study indicated 100 % bait acceptance. before an eradication attempt, we suggest investigating whether breeding ceases completely earlier in the winter and urge careful consideration of non-target species." -"age validation of juvenile notothenia rossii at potter cove, south shetland islands, using mark-recapture data",antarctic coastal fish; scales-otoliths; notothenioidei,POLAR BIOLOGY,MOREIRA E;BARRERA-ORO E;LA MESA M,"among all validation methods of age determination in fish, release of known age and marked specimens gives the most reliable information. we carried out a tag-recapture experiment on notothenia rossii at potter cove, to validate, for first time for this species using this method, the principle of annual deposition of an annulus in scales and otoliths. of 132 juvenile specimens (tl = 22.1-38.1 cm) tagged and released in successive years from 2004 to 2010, 7 were recaptured at the same site after periods of 1-13 months. in scales of five specimens recovered after 10-13 months, one extra annulus was laid down, exhibiting an additional winter zone of closely spaced sclerites. consistently, the same analysis in two individuals marked and recaptured during the same summer, after 1-3 months at liberty, did not show the deposition of an additional annulus. all the fish tagged or recaptured during the experiment period (december to march) showed in their scales an edge zone of widely spaced sclerites, in agreement with the known pattern of growth in summer. likewise, an analysis in selected specimens showed good consistency between the numbers of sclerites deposited in scales and the time of fish release. the comparative analysis between scales taken at recapture and otoliths of the same individual allowed a simultaneous counting of the annuli with complete correspondence. the growth in length of fish ranged from 0.5 to 6.1 cm, depending on the time of release." -"mark-recapture of cerambyx welensii in dehesa woodlands: dispersal behaviour, population density, and mass trapping efficiency with low trap densities",coleoptera; cerambycidae; holm oak; ml secr models; open woodland; oak decline; pest control; longhorn beetle; fagaceae,ENTOMOLOGIA EXPERIMENTALIS ET APPLICATA,TORRES-VILA LM;SANCHEZ-GONZALEZ A;MERINO-MARTINEZ J;PONCE-ESCUDERO F;CONEJO-RODRIGUEZ Y;MARTIN-VERTEDOR D;FERRERO-GARCIA JJ,"the longhorn beetle, cerambyx welensii kuster (coleoptera: cerambycidae), is an emerging pest involved in oak decline episodes in dehesa open woodlands. larvae are xylophagous and cause considerable physiological, mechanical, and structural damages to trees. chemical and biological control are currently unsatisfactory. recent research has shown that mass trapping with a high density of baited traps (40 trapsha(-1)) could be useful to manage c.welensii populations, although such a trap density was too high to be cost-effective. in this 2-year study (2010-2011) we investigated with mark-recapture methods in a large plot (1) the flight dispersal behaviour, (2) the adult population density, and (3) the efficiency of mass trapping at two low trap densities (one or four trapsha(-1)). results indicated that many adults were sedentary (60%) but flying adults displayed a strong propensity to move, both sexes dispersing on average more than 200m and one male and one female flying at least 540 and 349m, respectively. recapture rates were high (0.26-0.35) and population density was estimated to be 6-22 adultsha(-1) with maximum likelihood models. trapping efficiency ranged 48-61% with no significant effect of trap density or year. we conclude that results were not satisfactory enough to recommend mass trapping with low trap densities as control method for c.welensii and that more research is still required on the technical, ecological, and behavioural factors affecting control efficiency." +winter ecology of house mice and the prospects for their eradication from steeple jason (falkland islands),mus musculus; subantarctic island; density; spatially-explicit capture-recapture; body-size; distribution,POLAR BIOLOGY,REXER HUBER K;PARKER GC;REEVES M;STANWORTH AJ;CUTHBERT RJ,"invasive house mice mus musculus are known to impact on seabird, invertebrate and plant communities on temperate and subantarctic islands, particularly where they are the sole rodent species. steeple jason, in the falkland islands, is an island which supports globally important seabird populations as well as introduced mice. to evaluate the prospects for mouse eradication, we investigated mouse ecology and undertook bait uptake trials on steeple jason in late winter. mice were present in all habitats but were most abundant in tussac poa flabellata where they occurred at 20-35 mice ha(-1). from 58 mature perforate females, 16 % were pregnant, with litters of 4-8 pups. the first lactating female was caught at the end of august, suggesting that breeding had recently begun. bait trials replicating an aerial eradication were undertaken on two trapping grids of 7.7 and 6.8 ha, with non-toxic pellets containing the biomarker pyranine spread at 7.5-7.7 kg ha(-1). all 447 mice captured after baiting had consumed bait. the relatively low winter density, distribution and biology of house mice on steeple jason are similar to those observed before other successful mice eradications, and the study indicated 100 % bait acceptance. before an eradication attempt, we suggest investigating whether breeding ceases completely earlier in the winter and urge careful consideration of non-target species." +"age validation of juvenile notothenia rossii at potter cove, south shetland islands, using mark-recapture data",antarctic coastal fish; scales-otoliths; notothenioidei,POLAR BIOLOGY,MOREIRA E;BARRERA ORO E;LA MESA M,"among all validation methods of age determination in fish, release of known age and marked specimens gives the most reliable information. we carried out a tag-recapture experiment on notothenia rossii at potter cove, to validate, for first time for this species using this method, the principle of annual deposition of an annulus in scales and otoliths. of 132 juvenile specimens (tl = 22.1-38.1 cm) tagged and released in successive years from 2004 to 2010, 7 were recaptured at the same site after periods of 1-13 months. in scales of five specimens recovered after 10-13 months, one extra annulus was laid down, exhibiting an additional winter zone of closely spaced sclerites. consistently, the same analysis in two individuals marked and recaptured during the same summer, after 1-3 months at liberty, did not show the deposition of an additional annulus. all the fish tagged or recaptured during the experiment period (december to march) showed in their scales an edge zone of widely spaced sclerites, in agreement with the known pattern of growth in summer. likewise, an analysis in selected specimens showed good consistency between the numbers of sclerites deposited in scales and the time of fish release. the comparative analysis between scales taken at recapture and otoliths of the same individual allowed a simultaneous counting of the annuli with complete correspondence. the growth in length of fish ranged from 0.5 to 6.1 cm, depending on the time of release." +"mark-recapture of cerambyx welensii in dehesa woodlands: dispersal behaviour, population density, and mass trapping efficiency with low trap densities",coleoptera; cerambycidae; holm oak; ml secr models; open woodland; oak decline; pest control; longhorn beetle; fagaceae,ENTOMOLOGIA EXPERIMENTALIS ET APPLICATA,TORRES VILA LM;SANCHEZ GONZALEZ A;MERINO MARTINEZ J;PONCE ESCUDERO F;CONEJO RODRIGUEZ Y;MARTIN VERTEDOR D;FERRERO GARCIA JJ,"the longhorn beetle, cerambyx welensii kuster (coleoptera: cerambycidae), is an emerging pest involved in oak decline episodes in dehesa open woodlands. larvae are xylophagous and cause considerable physiological, mechanical, and structural damages to trees. chemical and biological control are currently unsatisfactory. recent research has shown that mass trapping with a high density of baited traps (40 trapsha(-1)) could be useful to manage c.welensii populations, although such a trap density was too high to be cost-effective. in this 2-year study (2010-2011) we investigated with mark-recapture methods in a large plot (1) the flight dispersal behaviour, (2) the adult population density, and (3) the efficiency of mass trapping at two low trap densities (one or four trapsha(-1)). results indicated that many adults were sedentary (60%) but flying adults displayed a strong propensity to move, both sexes dispersing on average more than 200m and one male and one female flying at least 540 and 349m, respectively. recapture rates were high (0.26-0.35) and population density was estimated to be 6-22 adultsha(-1) with maximum likelihood models. trapping efficiency ranged 48-61% with no significant effect of trap density or year. we conclude that results were not satisfactory enough to recommend mass trapping with low trap densities as control method for c.welensii and that more research is still required on the technical, ecological, and behavioural factors affecting control efficiency." insights into the latent multinomial model through mark-resight data on female grizzly bears with cubs-of-the-year,bayesian; discrete uniform; greater yellowstone ecosystem (gye); mark-recapture; population size,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,HIGGS MD;LINK WA;WHITE GC;HAROLDSON MA;BJORNLIE DD,"mark-resight designs for estimation of population abundance are common and attractive to researchers. however, inference from such designs is very limited when faced with sparse data, either from a low number of marked animals, a low probability of detection, or both. in the greater yellowstone ecosystem, yearly mark-resight data are collected for female grizzly bears with cubs-of-the-year (fcoy), and inference suffers from both limitations. to overcome difficulties due to sparseness, we assume homogeneity in sighting probabilities over 16 years of bi-annual aerial surveys. we model counts of marked and unmarked animals as multinomial random variables, using the capture frequencies of marked animals for inference about the latent multinomial frequencies for unmarked animals. we discuss undesirable behavior of the commonly used discrete uniform prior distribution on the population size parameter and provide openbugs code for fitting such models. the application provides valuable insights into subtleties of implementing bayesian inference for latent multinomial models. we tie the discussion to our application, though the insights are broadly useful for applications of the latent multinomial model." -rapid assessment of rat eradication after aerial baiting,detection; invasive rodents; island restoration; modelling; pest management; rattus rattus; surveillance; tropical islands,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,SAMANIEGO-HERRERA A;ANDERSON DP;PARKES JP;AGUIRRE-MUNOZ A,"eradication of introduced rodents on islands is increasingly implemented as a conservation tool. aerial baiting, currently the main eradication technique, provides no information on whether eradication has been achieved. success is usually evaluated after a standard period of 2years with no sign of rodents. we describe a novel approach to assess the success of eradication efforts based on a project to eradicate ship rats rattus rattus from isabel island (82ha), mexico. we used detection and home-range parameters obtained from a capture-recapture study completed prior to aerial baiting to build a spatial-survey model that predicts probability of eradication after the treatment. the spatial-survey model estimated a >99% probability of success after two surveys with no rats detected. this approach can be used to make eradication projects more cost-effective. survivors, if any, could be located and dispatched by localized control methods. this avoids repeat aerial baiting of the whole island if failure becomes apparent. this model is a useful tool for (a) assessing the probability of eradication within weeks, rather than years of an operation, and (b) predicting the required survey effort to achieve a probability of success consistent with the costs and risks of falsely declaring eradication success. synthesis and applications: rapid assessment of success after rodent eradication efforts on islands results in financial savings by potentially reducing the duration of the projects. improvements in biosecurity guidelines might also accrue as delays in detecting rats after an operation may confound their identification as offspring of survivors or re-invaders. advanced techniques and predictive modelling will increase confidence among partners and donors and allow more efficient achievement of regional programmes." -accounting for matching uncertainty in two stage capture-recapture experiments using photographic measurements of natural marks,closed population; monodon monoceros; multivariate normal record linkage; photo-identification; population size estimation,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,TANCREDI A;AUGER-METHE M;MARCOUX M;LISEO B,"we propose a bayesian hierarchical modeling approach for estimating the size of a closed population from data obtained by identifying individuals through photographs of natural markings. we assume that noisy measurements of a set of distinctive features are available for each individual present in a photographic catalogue. to estimate the population size from two catalogues obtained during two different sampling occasions, we embed the standard two-stage capture-recapture model for closed population into a multivariate normal data matching model that identifies the common individuals across the catalogues. in addition to estimating the population size while accounting for the matching process uncertainty, this hierarchical modelling approach allows to identify the common individuals by using the information provided by the capture-recapture model. this way, our model also represents a novel and reliable tool able to reduce the amount of effort researchers have to expend in matching individuals. we illustrate and motivate the proposed approach via a real data set of photo-identification of narwhals. moreover, we compare our method with a set of possible alternative approaches by using both the empirical data set and a simulation study." +rapid assessment of rat eradication after aerial baiting,detection; invasive rodents; island restoration; modelling; pest management; rattus rattus; surveillance; tropical islands,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,SAMANIEGO HERRERA A;ANDERSON DP;PARKES JP;AGUIRRE MUNOZ A,"eradication of introduced rodents on islands is increasingly implemented as a conservation tool. aerial baiting, currently the main eradication technique, provides no information on whether eradication has been achieved. success is usually evaluated after a standard period of 2years with no sign of rodents. we describe a novel approach to assess the success of eradication efforts based on a project to eradicate ship rats rattus rattus from isabel island (82ha), mexico. we used detection and home-range parameters obtained from a capture-recapture study completed prior to aerial baiting to build a spatial-survey model that predicts probability of eradication after the treatment. the spatial-survey model estimated a >99% probability of success after two surveys with no rats detected. this approach can be used to make eradication projects more cost-effective. survivors, if any, could be located and dispatched by localized control methods. this avoids repeat aerial baiting of the whole island if failure becomes apparent. this model is a useful tool for (a) assessing the probability of eradication within weeks, rather than years of an operation, and (b) predicting the required survey effort to achieve a probability of success consistent with the costs and risks of falsely declaring eradication success. synthesis and applications: rapid assessment of success after rodent eradication efforts on islands results in financial savings by potentially reducing the duration of the projects. improvements in biosecurity guidelines might also accrue as delays in detecting rats after an operation may confound their identification as offspring of survivors or re-invaders. advanced techniques and predictive modelling will increase confidence among partners and donors and allow more efficient achievement of regional programmes." +accounting for matching uncertainty in two stage capture-recapture experiments using photographic measurements of natural marks,closed population; monodon monoceros; multivariate normal record linkage; photo-identification; population size estimation,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,TANCREDI A;AUGER METHE M;MARCOUX M;LISEO B,"we propose a bayesian hierarchical modeling approach for estimating the size of a closed population from data obtained by identifying individuals through photographs of natural markings. we assume that noisy measurements of a set of distinctive features are available for each individual present in a photographic catalogue. to estimate the population size from two catalogues obtained during two different sampling occasions, we embed the standard two-stage capture-recapture model for closed population into a multivariate normal data matching model that identifies the common individuals across the catalogues. in addition to estimating the population size while accounting for the matching process uncertainty, this hierarchical modelling approach allows to identify the common individuals by using the information provided by the capture-recapture model. this way, our model also represents a novel and reliable tool able to reduce the amount of effort researchers have to expend in matching individuals. we illustrate and motivate the proposed approach via a real data set of photo-identification of narwhals. moreover, we compare our method with a set of possible alternative approaches by using both the empirical data set and a simulation study." center-periphery gradients of chick survival in the colonies of whiskered terns chlidonias hybrida may be explained by the variation in the maternal effects of egg size,capture-recapture; chick survival; coloniality; egg size; nest spacing; edge effect; whiskered tern; chlidonias hybrida,ACTA ORNITHOLOGICA,MINIAS P;JANISZEWSKI T;LESNER B,"central parts of avian colonies provide better safety against predators and, thus, are likely to be occupied by pairs of high quality. therefore, spatial variation in the quality of breeders and predation rate within colonies should be directly reflected by the gradients of breeding success and chick survival. we have investigated relationships between nest location characteristics and survival of whiskered tern chlidonias hybrida chicks in the colony at jeziorsko reservoir, central poland. we found that pairs nesting in the central, densely occupied areas of subcolonies had higher chick survival rates in comparison to edge pairs. there was also strong support for the positive effect of egg size and the negative effect of hatching date on the chick survival. since pairs breeding in the central parts of subcolonies laid eggs of greater size and initiated laying earlier, we suggest that within-colony patterns of chick survival could be primarily attributed to the spatial variation in parental quality rather than to the higher predation pressure in the peripheral zones of the colony. there was also a moderate support for age variation in the survival rates of chicks, which ranged from 0.72 +/- 0.06 to 0.91 +/- 0.07 in different 5-day intervals of pre-fledging period. the survival of chicks over the entire pre-fledging period was estimated at 0.29-0.33, depending on the model." apparent survival rate in a bluethroat luscinia svecica azuricollis population in spain,NA,ARDEOLA,ARIZAGA J;GARCIA J,survival estimation is fundamental to understanding population dynamics and has great value from a conservation standpoint. we calculated the apparent survival rate and its variation between age classes and years for a bluethroat luscinia svecica azuricollis breeding population in spain. cormack-jolly-seber models were used on capture-recapture data obtained during the breeding season from 1998 to 2005. bluethroats first captured as adults exhibited higher apparent annual survival (0.52) than those first captured as first-year birds (0.31). we discuss these results within a larger geographic context and compare them with other similar species. network transmission inference: host behavior and parasite life cycle make social networks meaningful in disease ecology,contact networks; eastern chipmunk; foraging behavior; helminth gastrointestinal parasites; macroparasite; transmission dynamics; tamias striatus; trophic transmission,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,GREAR DA;LUONG LT;HUDSON PJ,"the process of disease transmission is determined by the interaction of host susceptibility and exposure to parasite infectious stages. host behavior is an important determinant of the likelihood of exposure to infectious stages but is difficult to measure and often assumed to be homogenous in models of disease spread. we evaluated the importance of precisely defining host contact when using networks that estimate exposure and predict infection prevalence in a replicated, empirical system. in particular, we hypothesized that infection patterns would be predicted only by a contact network that is defined according to host behavior and parasite life cycle. two competing host contact criteria were used to construct networks defined by parasite life cycle and social contacts. first, parasite-defined contacts were based on shared space with a time delay corresponding to the environmental development time of nematode parasites with a direct fecal-oral life cycle. second, social contacts were defined by shared space in the same time period. to quantify the competing networks of exposure and infection, we sampled natural populations of the eastern chipmunk (tamias striatus) and infection of their gastrointestinal helminth community using replicated longitudinal capture-mark-recapture techniques. we predicted that (1) infection with parasites with direct fecal-oral life cycles would be explained by the time delay contact network, but not the social contact network; (2) infection with parasites with trophic life cycles (via a mobile intermediate host; thus, spatially decoupling transmission from host contact) would not be explained by either contact network. the prevalence of fecal-oral life cycle nematode parasites was strongly correlated to the number and strength of network connections from the parasite-defined network (including the time delay), while the prevalence of trophic life cycle parasites was not correlated with any network metrics. we concluded that incorporating the parasite life cycle, relative to the way that exposure is measured, is key to inferring transmission and can be empirically quantified using network techniques. in addition, appropriately defining and measuring contacts according the life history of the parasite and relevant behaviors of the host is a crucial step in applying network analyses to empirical systems." @@ -2863,10 +2868,10 @@ camera trapping for the study and conservation of tropical carnivores,camera tra "batrachochytrium dendrobatidis in germany: distribution, prevalences, and prediction of high risk areas",batrachochytrium dendrobatidis; chytridiomycosis; germany; distribution; prevalence; amphibian fencing,DISEASES OF AQUATIC ORGANISMS,OHST T;GRASER Y;PLOTNER J,"in germany, the pathogenic fungus batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (bd) was detected in 11 indigenous frog species, 4 newt species, and 1 salamander species in 64 out of the 181 locations (35%) investigated. among the 3450 samples collected between 2003 and 2011, 284 (8.2%) were positive for bd infections. the highest prevalences were observed in alytes obstetricans (17.8% of individuals, 20% of populations), followed by ichthyosaura alpestris (14.7%, 22.2%), bombina variegata (13.9%, 38.5%), and water frogs comprising 2 species, pelophylax lessonae and p. ridibundus, and their hybrid form p. esculentus (13.5%, 29.0%). bd is widespread; areas of higher prevalence were detected in eastern, southeastern, western, and southwestern germany. our data indicate that drift fencing of amphibians is not a risk factor for the anthropogenic spread of bd. although chytridiomycosis outbreaks have never been observed in germany, it cannot be excluded that bd infections affect the dynamics of local amphibian populations. among the questions still to be answered is whether juveniles are more susceptible to bd infections than adults. further work, especially long-term observations including capture-mark-recapture studies, is required to clarify the impact bd has on amphibians in germany and central europe." evidence for an association between post-fledging dispersal and microsatellite multilocus heterozygosity in a large population of greater flamingos,NA,PLOS ONE,GILLINGHAM MAF;CEZILLY F;WATTIER R;BECHET A,"dispersal can be divided into three stages: departure, transience and settlement. despite the fact that theoretical studies have emphasized the importance of heterozygosity on dispersal strategies, empirical evidence of its effect on different stages of dispersal is lacking. here, using multi-event capture-mark-recapture models, we show a negative association between microsatellite multilocus heterozygosity (mlh; 10 loci; n = 1023) and post-fledging dispersal propensity for greater flamingos, phoenicopterus roseus, born in southern france. we propose that the negative effects of inbreeding depression affects competitive ability and therefore more homozygous individuals are more likely to disperse because they are less able to compete within the highly saturated natal site. finally, a model with the effect of mlh on propensity of post-fledgling dispersers to disperse to the long-distance sites of africa was equivalent to the null model, suggesting that mlh had low to no effect on dispersal distance. variations in individual genetic quality thus result in context-dependent heterogeneity in dispersal strategies at each stage of dispersal. our results have important implications on fitness since sites visited early in life are known to influence site selection later on in life and future survival." "hepatitis b prevalence in denmark - an estimate based on nationwide registers and a national screening programme, as on 31 december 2007",NA,EUROSURVEILLANCE,HANSEN N;HAY G;COWAN S;JEPSEN P;KRARUP HB;OBEL N;WEIS N;CHRISTENSEN PB,"the prevalence of chronic hepatitis b virus (hbv) infection in denmark is not clear. the primary aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of chronic hbv infection in denmark. the capture-recapture method was used to estimate the total population diagnosed with chronic hbv infection in denmark using four nationwide registers. the population with undiagnosed chronic hbv infection was estimated by incorporating data from a two-year nationwide hbsag screening programme in pregnant women. we identified 4,466 individuals with chronic hbv infection in the four registers until the end of 2007, and the capture-recapture estimate of the total population diagnosed with chronic hepatitis b was 7,112 (95% confidence interval (ci): 6,953-10,747). only 17% of the identified patients attended recommended clinical care according to national guidelines. including undiagnosed patients, the current population alive with hbv infection was 10,668 (95% ci: 10,224-16,164), corresponding to a prevalence of 0.24% (95% ci: 0.23-0.37%) in the danish population older than 15 years. the estimated prevalence of chronic hbv infection among adults in denmark was lower than reported from other northern european countries. only half of the infected population had been diagnosed, and a minority attended specialised clinical care." -innate immunity correlates with host fitness in wild boar (sus scrofa) exposed to classical swine fever,NA,PLOS ONE,ROSSI S;DOUCELIN A;LE POTIER MF;ERAUD C;GILOT-FROMONT E,"constitutive humoral immunity (chi) is thought to be a first-line of protection against pathogens invading vertebrate hosts. however, clear evidence that chi correlates with host fitness in natural conditions is still lacking. this study explores the relationship between chi, measured using a haemagglutination-haemolysis assay (hahl), and resistance to classical swine fever virus (csfv) among wild boar piglets. the individual dynamics of hahl during piglet growth was analysed, using 423 serum samples from 92 piglets repeatedly captured in the absence of csfv (in 2006) within two areas showing contrasting food availability. natural antibody levels increased with age, but, in the youngest piglets antibody levels were higher in individuals from areas with the highest food availability. complement activity depended on natural antibody levels and piglets' body condition. in the presence of csfv (i.e., in 2005 within one area), serum samples from piglets that were repeatedly captured were used to assess whether piglet hahl levels affected csfv status at a later capture. the correlation between chi and resistance to csfv was tested using 79 hahl measures from 23 piglets captured during a csfv outbreak. both natural antibodies and complement activity levels measured at a given time correlated negatively to the subsequent probability of becoming viremic. finally, capture-mark-recapture models showed that piglets with medium/high average complement activity, independently of their age, were significantly less at risk of becoming viremic and more likely to develop a specific immune response than piglets with low complement activity. additionally, piglets with high average complement activity showed the highest survival prospects. this study provides evidence linking chi to individual fitness within a natural mammal population. the results also highlight the potential of hahl assays to explore the dynamics and co-evolution between wildlife mammal hosts and blood-borne parasites interacting with the chi." +innate immunity correlates with host fitness in wild boar (sus scrofa) exposed to classical swine fever,NA,PLOS ONE,ROSSI S;DOUCELIN A;LE POTIER MF;ERAUD C;GILOT FROMONT E,"constitutive humoral immunity (chi) is thought to be a first-line of protection against pathogens invading vertebrate hosts. however, clear evidence that chi correlates with host fitness in natural conditions is still lacking. this study explores the relationship between chi, measured using a haemagglutination-haemolysis assay (hahl), and resistance to classical swine fever virus (csfv) among wild boar piglets. the individual dynamics of hahl during piglet growth was analysed, using 423 serum samples from 92 piglets repeatedly captured in the absence of csfv (in 2006) within two areas showing contrasting food availability. natural antibody levels increased with age, but, in the youngest piglets antibody levels were higher in individuals from areas with the highest food availability. complement activity depended on natural antibody levels and piglets' body condition. in the presence of csfv (i.e., in 2005 within one area), serum samples from piglets that were repeatedly captured were used to assess whether piglet hahl levels affected csfv status at a later capture. the correlation between chi and resistance to csfv was tested using 79 hahl measures from 23 piglets captured during a csfv outbreak. both natural antibodies and complement activity levels measured at a given time correlated negatively to the subsequent probability of becoming viremic. finally, capture-mark-recapture models showed that piglets with medium/high average complement activity, independently of their age, were significantly less at risk of becoming viremic and more likely to develop a specific immune response than piglets with low complement activity. additionally, piglets with high average complement activity showed the highest survival prospects. this study provides evidence linking chi to individual fitness within a natural mammal population. the results also highlight the potential of hahl assays to explore the dynamics and co-evolution between wildlife mammal hosts and blood-borne parasites interacting with the chi." trophic niche divergence reduces survival in an omnivorous rodent,apodemus semotus; trophic niche; stabilizing selection; stable isotopes,EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY RESEARCH,SHANER PJL;WU SH;KE LH;KAO SJ,"hypothesis: individuals that diverge from their population's mean trophic niche suffer reduced survival. organism: the taiwan field mouse, apodemus semotus, a common, small, omnivorous rodent. field site: pinus-alnus-quercus forest in central taiwan (121 degrees 18'e, 24 degrees 21'n). methods: we used capture-recapture data to measure the survival of individual apodemus semotus. we measured individual trophic niches using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope values obtained from samples of the rodents' hair. we used stepwise logistic regression to evaluate whether an individual's survival depended on the divergence of its trophic niche from the population mean. we controlled for the potentially confounding effects of resource abundance with dry weights of seeds and arthropods collected in seed traps and pitfall traps. conclusions: the probability of survival declined with increasing niche divergence from the population mean. stabilizing selection in this population of apodemus semotus is thus acting to conserve niche width and location." methods for population size estimation of problem drug users using a single registration,estimation; single registration capture recapture; problem drug users,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DRUG POLICY,VAN DER HEIJDEN PGM;CRUTS G;CRUYFF M,"background: the number of problem drug users is used as a key indicator to monitor the drug situation in the european union. an alternative approach to estimate the number of problem drug users is given by 'the one-source capture-recapture analysis' that uses a single registration. methods: two variants of the one-source capture-recapture analysis were applied to a single registration: the truncated poisson regression model (tpr) and the zelterman regression model. these models were applied to data about clinical drug-related hospital admissions derived from the dutch hospital registration (lmr). the tpr accounts for heterogeneity in capture probabilities by allowing for covariates and the zelterman regression model relies on the problem drug users that were seen only once or twice in the hospital; the latter model is known to be robust against unobserved heterogeneity. results: the tpr model was found to have a bad fit due to unobserved heterogeneity. the zelterman regression model estimated the population size at 10,415 problem drug users (95% ci is 8400-12,429). this figure is an estimate of the number of problem drug users who are at risk of a clinical hospital admission due to the medical consequences of their drug use. the model can also provide estimates of different subgroups of problematic drug users. conclusion: the method presented here offers a promising alternative for estimating the number of problem drug users, including different subgroups of drug users. in addition, observed and unobserved heterogeneity can be accounted for in these estimates. (c) 2013 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -"capture-recapture method for estimating annual incidence of imported dengue, france, 2007-2010",NA,EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES,LA RUCHE G;DEJOUR-SALAMANCA D;BERNILLON P;LEPARC-GOFFART I;LEDRANS M;ARMENGAUD A;DEBRUYNE M;DENOYEL GA;BRICHLER S;NINOVE L;DESPRES P;GASTELLU-ETCHEGORRY M,"imported dengue cases pose the public health risk for local circulation in european areas, especially southeast france, where the aedes mosquito is established. using a capture-recapture method with chao's estimator, we estimated the annual incidence of dengue fever and the completeness of existing mandatory notification and laboratory network surveillance systems. during 2007-2010, >8,300 cases with laboratory evidence of recent dengue infection were diagnosed. of these cases, 4,500 occurred in 2010, coinciding with intense epidemics in the french west indies. over this 4-year period, 327 cases occurred in southeast france during the vector activity period. of these, 234 cases occurred in 2010, most of them potentially viremic. completeness of the mandatory notification and laboratory network systems were approximate to 10% and 40%, respectively, but higher in southeast areas during may-november (32% and 69%, respectively). dengue surveillance systems in france provide complementary information that is essential to the implementation of control measures." +"capture-recapture method for estimating annual incidence of imported dengue, france, 2007-2010",NA,EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES,LA RUCHE G;DEJOUR SALAMANCA D;BERNILLON P;LEPARC GOFFART I;LEDRANS M;ARMENGAUD A;DEBRUYNE M;DENOYEL GA;BRICHLER S;NINOVE L;DESPRES P;GASTELLU ETCHEGORRY M,"imported dengue cases pose the public health risk for local circulation in european areas, especially southeast france, where the aedes mosquito is established. using a capture-recapture method with chao's estimator, we estimated the annual incidence of dengue fever and the completeness of existing mandatory notification and laboratory network surveillance systems. during 2007-2010, >8,300 cases with laboratory evidence of recent dengue infection were diagnosed. of these cases, 4,500 occurred in 2010, coinciding with intense epidemics in the french west indies. over this 4-year period, 327 cases occurred in southeast france during the vector activity period. of these, 234 cases occurred in 2010, most of them potentially viremic. completeness of the mandatory notification and laboratory network systems were approximate to 10% and 40%, respectively, but higher in southeast areas during may-november (32% and 69%, respectively). dengue surveillance systems in france provide complementary information that is essential to the implementation of control measures." mark-recapture study of gnathium minimum (say) (coleoptera: meloidae) reveals limited dispersal among helianthus occidentalis patches,gnathium minimum; meloidae; mark-release-recapture; movement,ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS,MARSCHALEK DA;YOUNG DK,"mark-release-recapture provides a technique to estimate population sizes, dispersal, survival, and demographic data. this technique was employed with the small blister beetle, gnathium minimum, at spring green prairie state natural area from 24 july to 16 august 2008. of 104 marked adults, 54 were recaptured; a maximum of 34 were observed during a single survey and a maximum daily jolly-seber population size estimate of 59 individuals was calculated. most individuals remained within 12 m of their original capture location, suggesting they remained within the same patch of helianthus occidentalis flowers or an adjacent patch. the furthest movement observed was 601 m." "similarity in temporal variation in sex-biased dispersal over short and long distances in the dark-eyed junco, junco hyemalis",assignment indices; junco hyemalis; mark-recapture; philopatry; sex-biased dispersal; spatial genetic structure,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,LIEBGOLD EB;GERLACH NM;KETTERSON ED,"patterns of sex-biased dispersal (sbd) are typically consistent within taxa, for example female-biased in birds and male-biased in mammals, leading to theories about the evolutionary pressures that lead to sbd. however, generalizations about the evolution of sex biases tend to overlook that dispersal is mediated by ecological factors that vary over time. we examined potential temporal variation in between- and within-population dispersal over an 11-year period in a bird, the dark-eyed junco (junco hyemalis). we measured between-population dispersal patterns using genetic assignment indices and found yearly variation in which sex was more likely to have immigrated. when we measured within-population spatial genetic structure and mark-recapture dispersal distances, we typically found yearly sbd patterns that mirrored between-population dispersal, indicating common eco-evolutionary causes despite expected differences due to the scale of dispersal. however, in years without detectable between-population sex biases, we found genetic similarity between nearby males within our population. this suggests that, in certain circumstances, ecological pressures may act on within-population dispersal without affecting dispersal between populations. alternatively, current analytical tools may be better able to detect within-population sbd. future work will investigate potential causes of the observed temporal variation in dispersal patterns and whether they have greater effects on within-population dispersal." combining camera-trapping and noninvasive genetic data in a spatial capture-recapture framework improves density estimates for the jaguar,brazil; caatinga; carnivores; estimator performance; panthera onca; population estimation; scat survey,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,SOLLMANN R;TORRES NM;FURTADO MM;JACOMO ATD;PALOMARES F;ROQUES S;SILVEIRA L,"abundance and density are key pieces of information for questions related to ecology and conservation. these quantities, however, are difficult to obtain for rare and elusive species, where even intensive sampling effort can yield sparse data. here, we combine data from camera-trapping and noninvasive genetic sampling (scat surveys) of a jaguar population in the caatinga of northeastern brazil, where the species is threatened and little studied. we analyze data of both survey types separately and jointly in the framework of spatial capture recapture. density estimates were 1.45 (+/- 0.46) for the camera-trap data alone, 2.03 (+/- 0.77) for the genetic data alone, and 1.57 (+/- 0.43) and 2.45 (+/- 0.70) for the two methods, respectively, in the joint analysis. density and other parameters were estimated more precisely in the joint model. particularly the differences in movement between males and females were estimated much more precisely when combining both data sources, especially compared to the genetic data set alone. when compared to a previous non-spatial capture recapture approach, present density estimates were more precise, demonstrating the superior statistical performance of spatial over non-spatial capture recapture models. the ability to combine different surveys into a single analysis with shared parameter allows for more precise population estimates, while at the same time enabling researchers to employ complementary survey techniques in the study of little known species. (c) 2013 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." @@ -2875,14 +2880,14 @@ applications of multiple systems estimation in human rights research,capture-rec the demography of yellow wagtails motacilla flava on abandoned fields in northern european russia,NA,BIRD STUDY,SHITIKOV DA;DUBKOVA EV;MAKAROVA TV,"capsule apparent survival rates of yellow wagtails breeding in abandoned fields in russia are determined by previous breeding success.aims to examine apparent survival and its link to previous breeding success in yellow wagtails breeding in abandoned fields in the vologda region, northern european russia.methods we ringed and measured apparent survival of yellow wagtails at two abandoned agricultural sites over eight years (2005-2012). we modelled the impact of age, nest stage, and time of season on daily nest survival rates.results predation was the main cause of nest failure. nest daily survival rate was highest at the beginning of the breeding season. overall nest survival probability was 0.400.02. adult apparent survival after successful breeding was 0.42 +/- 0.06 and after unsuccessful breeding this was 0.13 +/- 0.06.conclusion reproductive success can be regarded as the crucial demographic parameter of the local yellow wagtail population in northern european russia. apparent survival after successful breeding is significantly higher than after unsuccessful breeding, because unsuccessful breeders probably move to new breeding sites the following year. high adult survival may be particularly important to yellow wagtail population dynamics in the study region, because second breeding attempts are apparently unusual." known unknowns in an imperfect world: incorporating uncertainty in recruitment estimates using multi-event capture-recapture models,breeding state assignment; multistate capture-recapture models; primiparity; southern elephant seals; state uncertainty; vital rates,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,DESPREZ M;MCMAHON CR;HINDELL MA;HARCOURT R;GIMENEZ O,"studying the demography of wild animals remains challenging as several of the critical parts of their life history may be difficult to observe in the field. in particular, determining with certainty when an individual breeds for the first time is not always obvious. this can be problematic because uncertainty about the transition from a prebreeder to a breeder state - recruitment - leads to uncertainty in vital rate estimates and in turn in population projection models. to avoid this issue, the common practice is to discard imperfect data from the analyses. however, this practice can generate a bias in vital rate estimates if uncertainty is related to a specific component of the population and reduces the sample size of the dataset and consequently the statistical power to detect effects of biological interest. here, we compared the demographic parameters assessed from a standard multistate capture-recapture approach to the estimates obtained from the newly developed multi-event framework that specifically accounts for uncertainty in state assessment. using a comprehensive longitudinal dataset on southern elephant seals, we demonstrated that the multi-event model enabled us to use all the data collected (6639 capture-recapture histories vs. 4179 with the multistate model) by accounting for uncertainty in breeding states, thereby increasing the precision and accuracy of the demographic parameter estimates. the multi-event model allowed us to incorporate imperfect data into demographic analyses. the gain in precision obtained has important implications in the conservation and management of species because limiting uncertainty around vital rates will permit predicting population viability with greater accuracy." a multievent approach to estimating pair fidelity and heterogeneity in state transitions,great tit; heterogeneous recapture rates; multievent mark-recapture modeling; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CULINA A;LACHISH S;PRADEL R;CHOQUET R;SHELDON BC,"fidelity rates of pair-bonded individuals are of considerable interest to behavioral and population biologists as they can influence population structure, mating rates, population productivity, and gene flow. estimates of fidelity rates calculated from direct observations of pairs in consecutive breeding seasons may be biased because (i) individuals that are not seen are assumed to be dead, (ii) variation in the detectability of individuals is ignored, and (iii) pair status must be known with certainty. this can lead to a high proportion of observations being ignored. this approach also restricts the way variation in fidelity rates for different types of individuals, or the covariation between fidelity and other vital rates (e.g., survival) can be analyzed. in this study, we develop a probabilistic multievent capture-mark-recapture (mecmr) modeling framework for estimating pair fidelity rates that accounts for imperfect detection rates and capture heterogeneity, explicitly incorporates uncertainty in the assessment of pair status, and allows estimates of state-dependent survival and fidelity rates to be obtained simultaneously. we demonstrate the utility of our approach for investigating patterns of fidelity in pair-bonded individuals, by applying it to 30years of breeding data from a wild population of great tits parus major linnaeus. results of model selection supported state-dependent recapture, survival, and fidelity rates. recapture rates were higher for individuals breeding with their previous partner than for those breeding with a different partner. faithful birds that were breeding with the same partner as in the previous breeding season (i.e., at t-1) experienced substantially higher survival rates (between t and t+1) and were also more likely to remain faithful to their current partner (i.e., to remain in the faithful state at t+1). first year breeders were more likely to change partner than older birds. these findings imply that traditional estimates, which do not account for state-dependent parameters, may be both inaccurate and biased, and hence, inferences based on them may conceal important biological effects. this was demonstrated in the analysis of simulated capture histories, which showed that our mecmr model was able to estimate state-dependant survival and pair fidelity rates in the face of varying state-dependant recapture rates robustly, and more accurately, than the traditional method. in addition, this new modeling approach provides a statistically rigorous framework for testing hypothesis about the causes and consequences of fidelity to a partner for natural populations. the novel modeling approach described here can readily be applied, either in its current form or via extension, to other populations and other types of dyadic interactions (e.g., between nonpaired individuals, such as parent-offspring relationships, or between individuals and locations, such as nest-site fidelity)." -eumelanin-based colouration reflects local survival of juvenile feral pigeons in an urban pigeon house,NA,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,RECAPET C;DAUPHIN L;JACQUIN L;GASPARINI J;PREVOT-JULLIARD AC,"urbanisation introduces deep changes in habitats, eventually creating new urban ecosystems where ecological functions are driven by human activities. the higher frequency of some phenotypes in urban vs rural/wild areas has led to the assumption that directional selection in urban habitats occurs, which may thereby favour some behavioural and physiological traits in urban animal populations compared to rural ones. however, empirical evidence of directional selection on phenotypic traits in urban areas remains scarce. in this study we tested whether eumelanin-based colouration could be linked to survival in two urban populations of the feral pigeon columba livia. a number of studies in different cities pointed out a higher frequency of darker individuals in more urbanised areas compared to rural ones. to investigate whether directional selection through survival on this highly heritable trait could explain such patterns, we conducted mark-recapture studies on two populations of feral pigeons in highly urbanized areas. we predicted that darker coloured individuals would exhibit higher survival and/or philopatry (integrated into local survival') than paler coloured ones. no difference in local survival was found between adults of different colouration intensities. however, on one site, we found that darker juveniles had a higher local survival probability than light ones. juvenile local survival on that site was also negatively correlated with the number of chicks born. this suggests the existence of colour- and/or density-dependent selection processes acting on juvenile feral pigeons in urban environments, acting through differential mortality and/or dispersal." +eumelanin-based colouration reflects local survival of juvenile feral pigeons in an urban pigeon house,NA,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,RECAPET C;DAUPHIN L;JACQUIN L;GASPARINI J;PREVOT JULLIARD AC,"urbanisation introduces deep changes in habitats, eventually creating new urban ecosystems where ecological functions are driven by human activities. the higher frequency of some phenotypes in urban vs rural/wild areas has led to the assumption that directional selection in urban habitats occurs, which may thereby favour some behavioural and physiological traits in urban animal populations compared to rural ones. however, empirical evidence of directional selection on phenotypic traits in urban areas remains scarce. in this study we tested whether eumelanin-based colouration could be linked to survival in two urban populations of the feral pigeon columba livia. a number of studies in different cities pointed out a higher frequency of darker individuals in more urbanised areas compared to rural ones. to investigate whether directional selection through survival on this highly heritable trait could explain such patterns, we conducted mark-recapture studies on two populations of feral pigeons in highly urbanized areas. we predicted that darker coloured individuals would exhibit higher survival and/or philopatry (integrated into local survival') than paler coloured ones. no difference in local survival was found between adults of different colouration intensities. however, on one site, we found that darker juveniles had a higher local survival probability than light ones. juvenile local survival on that site was also negatively correlated with the number of chicks born. this suggests the existence of colour- and/or density-dependent selection processes acting on juvenile feral pigeons in urban environments, acting through differential mortality and/or dispersal." accommodating species identification errors in transect surveys,abundance estimation; animal density; complete data; distance sampling; latent state model; partial state observation; quadrat sampling; species misclassification; species misidentification,ECOLOGY,CONN PB;MCCLINTOCK BT;CAMERON MF;JOHNSON DS;MORELAND EE;BOVENG PL,"ecologists often use transect surveys to estimate the density and abundance of animal populations. errors in species classification are often evident in such surveys, yet few statistical methods exist to properly account for them. in this paper, we examine biases that result from species misidentification when ignored, and we develop statistical models to provide unbiased estimates of density in the face of such errors. our approach treats true species identity as a latent variable and requires auxiliary information on the misclassification process (such as informative priors, experiments using known species, or a double-observer protocol). we illustrate our approach with simulated census data and with double-observer survey data for ice-associated seals in the bering sea. for the seal analysis, we integrated misclassification into a model-based framework for distance-sampling data. the simulated data analysis demonstrated reliable estimation of animal density when there are experimental data to inform misclassification rates; double-observer protocols provided robust inference when there were unknown species observations but no outright misclassification, or when misclassification probabilities were symmetric and a symmetry constraint was imposed during estimation. under our modeling framework, we obtained reasonable apparent densities of seal species even under considerable imprecision in species identification. we obtained more reliable inferences when modeling variation in density among transects. we argue that ecologists should often use spatially explicit models to account for differences in species distributions when trying to account for species misidentification. our results support using double-observer sampling protocols that guard against species misclassification (i.e., by recording uncertain observations as unknown)." -"spatial trends in abundance of long-finned pilot whales, white-beaked dolphins and harbour porpoises in west greenland",NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,HANSEN RG;HEIDE-JORGENSEN MP,"data from an aerial line transect survey conducted off west greenland during august-september 2007 were used to estimate the abundance of long-finned pilot whales (globicephala melas), white-beaked dolphins (lagenorhynchus albirostris) and harbour porpoises (phocoena phocoena). the abundance of each species was estimated using mark-recapture distance sampling techniques to correct for perception bias, and correction factors for time spent at the surface were applied. the fully corrected abundance estimates were 8,133 long-finned pilot whales, 11,984 white-beaked dolphins and 33,271 harbour porpoises. based on density surface modelling methods, a count model with a generalised additive model formulation was used to relate abundance to spatial variables. response curves indicated that the preferred habitats were deep offshore areas in midwest greenland for pilot whales, deep water over steep seabed slopes in south greenland for white-beaked dolphins and relatively shallow inshore waters in midwest-south greenland for harbour porpoises. the abundance estimates and spatial trends for the three species are the first obtained from greenland." +"spatial trends in abundance of long-finned pilot whales, white-beaked dolphins and harbour porpoises in west greenland",NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,HANSEN RG;HEIDE JORGENSEN MP,"data from an aerial line transect survey conducted off west greenland during august-september 2007 were used to estimate the abundance of long-finned pilot whales (globicephala melas), white-beaked dolphins (lagenorhynchus albirostris) and harbour porpoises (phocoena phocoena). the abundance of each species was estimated using mark-recapture distance sampling techniques to correct for perception bias, and correction factors for time spent at the surface were applied. the fully corrected abundance estimates were 8,133 long-finned pilot whales, 11,984 white-beaked dolphins and 33,271 harbour porpoises. based on density surface modelling methods, a count model with a generalised additive model formulation was used to relate abundance to spatial variables. response curves indicated that the preferred habitats were deep offshore areas in midwest greenland for pilot whales, deep water over steep seabed slopes in south greenland for white-beaked dolphins and relatively shallow inshore waters in midwest-south greenland for harbour porpoises. the abundance estimates and spatial trends for the three species are the first obtained from greenland." evaluating river otter demography using noninvasive genetic methods,abundance estimate; citizen science; humboldt bay; lontra canadensis; mark-recapture; noninvasive sampling; river otter,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,BRZESKI KE;GUNTHER MS;BLACK JM,"the decline in river otter (lontra canadensis) populations during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries throughout north america has led to protective status and strict harvest regulations. despite sustained interest in protecting river otters, relatively few contemporary studies have evaluated the current status of populations, especially in california. an effective way to estimate river otter population sizes and facilitate monitoring is with noninvasive genetic methods. our objective was to establish baseline demographic information for an understudied river otter population in northern california by estimating river otter abundance using noninvasive genetic sampling, supplemented with data obtained from an observation-based citizen science project focusing on river otters. we extracted dna from scat and genotyped samples at 6 microsatellite loci. we used program mark to build mark-recapture models to estimate river otter abundance and pooled visual observations from a citizen science project maintained in humboldt county, california to supplement population estimates with information regarding pups and group size. between 41 and 44 river otters were in the study area based on noninvasive genetic samples, and group sizes ranged 1-7 or 2-12 based on observational and genetic data, respectively. the humboldt bay region had a high density of river otters (0.93otters/km) as compared to other coastal systems; resource attributes of humboldt bay could contribute to this difference. results reported herein demonstrate methods appropriate for establishing baseline river otter demographics. (c) 2013 the wildlife society." combined use of mark-recapture and genetic analyses reveals response of a black bear population to changes in food productivity,black bear; genetic structure; idaho; mark-recapture; noninvasive sampling; population genetics; wahlund effect,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,MCCALL BS;MITCHELL MS;SCHWARTZ MK;HAYDEN J;CUSHMAN SA;ZAGER P;KASWORM WF,"we used mark-recapture analysis to investigate the dynamics of a black bear (ursus americanus) population in northern idaho where food availability varies seasonally and annually. we conducted noninvasive genetic sampling (ngs) during 2003-2006 in the purcell mountains of idaho to collect black bear dna samples for individual identification of bears. we used a combination of both mark-recapture and genetic analyses to evaluate whether variation in vital rates and genetic substructure was a function of changing food productivity in the study area. we found a heterozygote deficiency and detected genetic substructure within a single year, suggesting we sampled multiple subpopulations (a wahlund effect). our mark-recapture analyses suggested this pattern was in response to interannual variation in summer berry abundance. this project demonstrated the potential pitfalls of interpreting mark-recapture data over short time periods without ancillary data that can be used to evaluate mechanisms of population change. we found ngs provided information not only for traditional mark-recapture analysis but also complimentary insights into demography gained through genetic analyses. combining mark-recapture estimates with analyses of population genetics provides a more complete understanding of population dynamics than either method alone, thus improving ecological inferences and effective management. published 2013. this article is a u.s. government work and is in the public domain in the usa." annual male lek attendance influences count-based population indices of greater sage-grouse,annual lek attendance; capture-mark-recapture; centrocercus urophasianus; detection probability; index; lek counts; population growth; temporary emigration,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,BLOMBERG EJ;SEDINGER JS;NONNE DV;ATAMIAN MT,"populations of greater sage-grouse (centrocercus urophasianus) are monitored using counts of males displaying on breeding leks (lek counts). when count-based indices are used to assess population growth (), an implicit assumption is that detection is constant through time and space. if detection depends on breeding behavior, annual variation in the proportion of individuals that attend a breeding site may lead to a violation of this assumption. we used 8 years of banding data from male sage-grouse in eastern nevada and capture-mark-recapture analyses to evaluate how temporary absence of males from lek sites during a given year may influence estimates of population trends derived from lek counts. we estimated the proportion of variance in annual lek count trends that corresponded with an independent estimate of , versus variance associated with temporary absence. the probability a male sage-grouse attended 1 of our study leks at least once in a given year ranged from a low of 0.56 (+/- 0.22 se) to a high of 0.87 (+/- 0.11 se). variance in annual lek count trends was associated with both realized (semipartial r-2=0.57), and sampling error associated with temporary absence (semipartial r-2=0.40). we found discrepancies between lek count and realized in 3 out of 7 intervals, whereas estimates of for the entire study interval were extremely similar between count-based and capture-mark-recapture methods (=0.90 +/- 0.05 se and =0.91 +/- 0.05 se, respectively). temporary absence was influenced by male density during the previous year and associated with exotic grasslands surrounding leks, although some uncertainty was associated with this latter effect. lek counts are well suited for estimating across multi-year intervals, whereas annual estimates of should be viewed cautiously if variation in annual lek attendance is not directly incorporated. (c) 2013 the wildlife society." short-term responses of small mammals to timber harvest in the united states central hardwood forest region,clearcut; detection probability; eastern chipmunk; n-mixture model; pine vole; shelterwood; short-tailed shrew; white-footed mouse,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,KELLNER KF;URBAN NA;SWIHART RK,"identifying the effect of timber harvest on plant and animal communities is important for managers seeking to conserve ecosystem function. timber harvest affects many forest species, including small mammals, a key component of forest food webs. we studied short-term responses of several common small-mammal species to clearcutting and shelterwood harvest in hardwood forests of southern indiana. we trapped small mammals at 32 forest stands for 2 years before harvest. each stand then received a timber harvest treatment: either the creation of a 0.4-, 2-, or 4-ha clearcut opening, shelterwood harvest, or no harvest. following harvest, we trapped small mammals for 3 additional years. we estimated abundance from capture data and compared estimates before and after harvests using an n-mixture model fit in a bayesian framework. small mammals in our study differed in their responses to timber harvest. eastern chipmunks (tamias striatus) increased in all clearcut opening sizes, whereas white-footed mice (peromyscus leucopus) and short-tailed shrews (blarina brevicauda) were less abundant in larger clearcuts. the first stage (midstory removal) of a 3-stage shelterwood harvest had no impact on the small-mammal community. mast production influenced small-mammal populations independent of silvicultural treatments. in the years immediately following harvest, managers can expect populations of common small-mammal species to increase or remain unchanged in small clearcut openings, but some species decline in larger openings that reduce the edge to interior ratio of habitat created. the phased shelterwood harvest system in which habitat is altered over a longer period may be ideal for maintaining existing small-mammal populations. (c) 2013 the wildlife society." -effect of juvenile hormone on senescence in males with terminal investment,capture-mark-recapture; evolution of ageing; insects; juvenile hormone; senescence,JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY,GONZALEZ-TOKMAN D;GONZALEZ-SANTOYO I;MUNGUIA-STEYER R;CORDOBA-AGUILAR A,"senescence, a decline in survival and reproductive prospects with age, is controlled by hormones. in insects, juvenile hormone (jh) is involved in senescence with captive individuals, but its effect under natural conditions is unknown. we have addressed this gap by increasing jh levels in young and old wild males of the damselfly hetaerina americana. we assessed survival in males that were treated with a jh analogue (methoprene), which is known to promote sexual activity, and an immune challenge, which is known to promote terminal investment in reproduction in the studied species. we replicated the same procedure in captivity (to control for environmental variation), where males were deprived of any activity or food. we expected old males to show the lowest survival after being treated with jh and immune-challenged, because the effect of terminal investment on senescence would be exacerbated by jh. however, this should be the case for wild animals, but not for captive animals, as the effects of jh and immune challenge should lead to an increase in high energetic-demanding activities only occurring in the wild. old animals died sooner compared with young animals in both the wild and captivity, confirming that males are subject to senescence. in wild but not captive animals, jh decreased survival in young males and increased it in old males, confirming that jh is sensitive to the environment when shaping animal senescence. immune challenge had no effect on survival, suggesting no effect of terminal investment on senescence. additionally, contrary to the expected effects of terminal investment, with an immune challenge, recapture rates increased in young males and decreased in old males. our results show that male senescence in the wild is mediated by jh and that terminal investment does not cause senescence. one explanation is that animals undergoing senescence and terminal investment modify their feeding behaviour to compensate for their physiological state." +effect of juvenile hormone on senescence in males with terminal investment,capture-mark-recapture; evolution of ageing; insects; juvenile hormone; senescence,JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY,GONZALEZ TOKMAN D;GONZALEZ SANTOYO I;MUNGUIA STEYER R;CORDOBA AGUILAR A,"senescence, a decline in survival and reproductive prospects with age, is controlled by hormones. in insects, juvenile hormone (jh) is involved in senescence with captive individuals, but its effect under natural conditions is unknown. we have addressed this gap by increasing jh levels in young and old wild males of the damselfly hetaerina americana. we assessed survival in males that were treated with a jh analogue (methoprene), which is known to promote sexual activity, and an immune challenge, which is known to promote terminal investment in reproduction in the studied species. we replicated the same procedure in captivity (to control for environmental variation), where males were deprived of any activity or food. we expected old males to show the lowest survival after being treated with jh and immune-challenged, because the effect of terminal investment on senescence would be exacerbated by jh. however, this should be the case for wild animals, but not for captive animals, as the effects of jh and immune challenge should lead to an increase in high energetic-demanding activities only occurring in the wild. old animals died sooner compared with young animals in both the wild and captivity, confirming that males are subject to senescence. in wild but not captive animals, jh decreased survival in young males and increased it in old males, confirming that jh is sensitive to the environment when shaping animal senescence. immune challenge had no effect on survival, suggesting no effect of terminal investment on senescence. additionally, contrary to the expected effects of terminal investment, with an immune challenge, recapture rates increased in young males and decreased in old males. our results show that male senescence in the wild is mediated by jh and that terminal investment does not cause senescence. one explanation is that animals undergoing senescence and terminal investment modify their feeding behaviour to compensate for their physiological state." contrasting patterns of survival and dispersal in multiple habitats reveal an ecological trap in a food-caching bird,gray jays; highways; multistate capture-recapture; perisoreus canadensis; seasonality,OECOLOGIA,NORRIS DR;FLOCKHART DTT;STRICKLAND D,"a comprehensive understanding of how natural and anthropogenic variation in habitat influences populations requires long-term information on how such variation affects survival and dispersal throughout the annual cycle. gray jays perisoreus canadensis are widespread boreal resident passerines that use cached food to survive over the winter and to begin breeding during the late winter. using multistate capture-recapture analysis, we examined apparent survival and dispersal in relation to habitat quality in a gray jay population over 34 years (1977-2010). prior evidence suggests that natural variation in habitat quality is driven by the proportion of conifers on territories because of their superior ability to preserve cached food. although neither adults (> 1 year) nor juveniles (< 1 year) had higher survival rates on high-conifer territories, both age classes were less likely to leave high-conifer territories and, when they did move, were more likely to disperse to high-conifer territories. in contrast, survival rates were lower on territories that were adjacent to a major highway compared to territories that did not border the highway but there was no evidence for directional dispersal towards or away from highway territories. our results support the notion that natural variation in habitat quality is driven by the proportion of coniferous trees on territories and provide the first evidence that high-mortality highway habitats can act as an equal-preference ecological trap for birds. reproductive success, as shown in a previous study, but not survival, is sensitive to natural variation in habitat quality, suggesting that gray jays, despite living in harsh winter conditions, likely favor the allocation of limited resources towards self-maintenance over reproduction." movement patterns of small benthic fish in lowland headwater streams,benthic fish; catchment area; conspecific attraction; movement; stream,FRESHWATER BIOLOGY,MITSUO Y;OHIRA M;TSUNODA H;YUMA M,"understanding the mechanism governing the movements of stream-dwelling fish is a fundamental issue associated with a diverse range of ecological processes. we examined the movement pattern of a small benthic species, lefua echigonia, using a mark-recapture technique in small headwater streams. our main objectives were as follows: (i) to assess the movement range and direction of l.echigonia; (ii) to examine how biotic and abiotic factors affect emigration and immigration patterns and (iii) to assess movement patterns at the stream scale. stationary fish accounted for the greatest proportion of recaptured adult l.echigonia. seventy-five per cent of recaptured individuals moved <100m in 12months after release, and the maximum movement distance was 500m upstream. moreover, adult l.echigonia showed significant upstream bias in movements. according to the results of the generalised linear mixed model glmm analysis, movement of adult l.echigonia was associated mainly with the density of conspecifics, rather than with habitat quality and body size. adult l.echigonia were mainly stationary in relatively high-density sections, and emigration tended to increase with decreasing density. moreover, mobile individuals were prone to move into relatively high-density sections. the proportion of mobile fish showed a strong positive correlation with catchment area at the stream scale. this result indicates that stream discharge can influence the mobility of adult l.echigonia. during baseflow, the water was static in a number of stream sections, which suggests that the influence of catchment area on mobility may be more a function of freshets than normal water flow." persistent organic pollution in a high-arctic top predator: sex-dependent thresholds in adult survival,pollution; organochlorines; larus hyperboreus; survival models; bjornoya,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,ERIKSTAD KE;SANDVIK H;REIERTSEN TK;BUSTNES JO;STROM H,"in long-lived species, any negative effect of pollution on adult survival may pose serious hazards to breeding populations. in this study, we measured concentrations of various organochlorines (ocs) (polychlorinated biphenyl and oc pesticides) in the blood of a large number of adult glaucous gulls (larus hyperboreus) breeding on bjornoya (bear island) in the norwegian arctic, and modelled their local survival using capture-recapture analysis. survival was negatively associated with concentrations of ocs in the blood. the effect of ocs was nonlinear and evident only among birds with the highest concentrations (the uppermost deciles of contamination). the threshold for depressed survival differed between the sexes, with females being more sensitive to contamination. for birds with lower oc concentration, survival was very high, i.e. at the upper range of survival rates reported from glaucous and other large gull species in other, presumably less contaminated populations. we propose two non-exclusive explanations. first, at some threshold of oc concentration, parents (especially males) may abandon reproduction to maximize their own survival. second, high contamination of oc may eliminate the most sensitive individuals from the population (especially among females), inducing a strong selection towards high-quality and less sensitive phenotypes." @@ -2899,34 +2904,34 @@ impacts of anchor tag loss on walleye management in the winnebago system,NA,NORT detecting noncompliance in the summer flounder recreational fishery using a mark-recapture growth model,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,HENDERSON MJ;FABRIZIO MC,"we used a mark-recapture growth model to investigate recreational angler compliance with minimum length regulations in a popular chesapeake bay fishery. angler noncompliance can severely degrade the ability of fishery managers to avoid overexploitation and to achieve objectives of rebuilding plans. to discern noncompliance in the recreational fishery for summer flounder paralichthys dentatus, we fitted a growth model to 3,474 recapture records from a tagging study conducted by volunteer anglers in virginia from 2000 to 2011. most of the tagged fish were small (i.e., sublegal size), and the average time at liberty was 86 d. based on the growth model, summer flounder growth patterns changed at 34.7cm, possibly representing the length at which the majority of fish reach maturity. the mean size of harvested fish increased in response to increases in the minimum size limit, although harvest of sublegal fish continued. throughout the 12years of the study, 33-79% of the tagged fish that were recaptured and harvested were predicted to be sublegal based on the growth model. the percentage of sublegal fish that were harvested increased dramatically when large (5cm) increases in minimum size limits were implemented. we conclude that virginia recreational anglers responded to management regulations by adjusting the minimum size of harvested fish but that some anglers continued to harvest sublegal fish. received april 9, 2013; accepted june 18, 2013" responses of social and solitary bees to pulsed floral resources,pulsed resources; sociality; astragalus scaphoides; density-dependent pollen limitation; bombus; anthophora,AMERICAN NATURALIST,CRONE EE,"pulsed food resources lead to mismatches between distribution of consumers and resources in space and time. many studies have investigated how pollinators and floral resources covary in space, but few have looked at their covariance among years. i studied responses of two bee taxa, bombus (a social genus) and anthophora (a solitary genus), to variation in flowering by astragalus scaphoides, a perennial herb that flowers in alternate years. first, i quantified the rate at which individual plants were visited by bees. anthophora showed evidence of a demographic response to resource pulsesthat is, more individuals were seen in the year after a high-flowering yearwhereas bombus did not. second, i quantified pollinator behavior by following individual bees and recording the proportion of visits to a. scaphoides within single foraging bouts. the proportion of visits to a. scaphoides by both taxa increased with a. scaphoides''s flowering density. higher specialization in high-flowering years likely makes both taxa better pollinators in high-flowering years. if these taxa differ in effectiveness as pollinators, then these responses translate into variation in pollination services in space and time, specifically, more activity by bombus in high-flowering years and more by anthophora in years following high-flowering years. they also emphasize that pollinator activity depends in part on pastas well as currentfloral resources." individual heterogeneity in black brant survival and recruitment with implications for harvest dynamics,adaptive management; frailty; growth rate; harvest; waterfowl,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,LINDBERG MS;SEDINGER JS;LEBRETON JD,"we examined individual heterogeneity in survival and recruitment of female pacific black brant (branta bernicla nigricans) using frailty models adapted to a capture-mark-recapture context. our main objectives were (1) to quantify levels of heterogeneity and examine factors affecting heterogeneity, and (2) model the effects of individual heterogeneity on harvest dynamics through matrix models. we used 24years of data on brant marked and recaptured at the tutakoke river colony, ak. multievent models were fit as hidden markov chain using program e-surge with an adequate overdispersion coefficient. annual survival of individuals marked as goslings was heterogeneous among individuals and year specific with about 0.23 difference in survival between high (0.73)- and low (0.50)-quality individuals at average survival probability. adult survival (0.85 +/- 0.004) was homogeneous and higher than survival of both groups of juveniles. the annual recruitment probability was heterogeneous for brant >1-year-old; 0.56 (+/- 0.21) and 0.31 (+/- 0.03) for high- and low-quality individuals, respectively. assuming equal clutch sizes for high- and low-quality individuals and that 80% of offspring were in the same quality class as the breeding female resulted in reproductive values about twice as high for high-quality individuals than low-quality individual for a given class of individuals producing differential contributions to population growth among groups. differences in reproductive values greatly increased when we assumed high-quality individuals had larger clutch sizes. when we assumed that 50% of offspring were in the same quality class as their mothers and clutches were equal, differences in reproductive values between quality classes were greatly reduced or eliminated (breeders [brs]). we considered several harvest scenarios using the assumption that 80% of offspring were in the same quality class as their mothers. the amount of compensation for harvest mortality declined as the proportion of high-quality individuals in the harvest increased, as differences in clutch sizes between groups decreased and as the proportion of brs in the harvest increased. synthesis and applications. harvest at the same proportional level of the overall population can result in variable responses in population growth rate when heterogeneity is present in a population. was <1.0 under every scenario when harvest rates were >10%, and heterogeneity caused as much as +2% difference in growth rates at the highest levels of proportional harvest for low-quality individuals and the greatest differences in qualities between classes of individuals, a critical difference for a population with near 1.0 such as the brant. we observed less response in overall survival in the presence of heterogeneity because we did not observe heterogeneity in the annual survival of brs. this analysis provides a comprehensive view of overall compensation at the population level and also constitutes the first example of a survival-recruitment model with heterogeneity. individual heterogeneity should be more explicitly considered in harvest management of vertebrates." -network modularity reveals critical scales for connectivity in ecology and evolution,NA,"NATURE COMMUNICATIONS",FLETCHER RJ;REVELL A;REICHERT BE;KITCHENS WM;DIXON JD;AUSTIN JD,"for nearly a century, biologists have emphasized the profound importance of spatial scale for ecology, evolution and conservation. nonetheless, objectively identifying critical scales has proven incredibly challenging. here we extend new techniques from physics and social sciences that estimate modularity on networks to identify critical scales for movement and gene flow in animals. using four species that vary widely in dispersal ability and include both mark-recapture and population genetic data, we identify significant modularity in three species, two of which cannot be explained by geographic distance alone. importantly, the inclusion of modularity in connectivity and population viability assessments alters conclusions regarding patch importance to connectivity and suggests higher metapopulation viability than when ignoring this hidden spatial scale. we argue that network modularity reveals critical meso-scales that are probably common in populations, providing a powerful means of identifying fundamental scales for biology and for conservation strategies aimed at recovering imperilled species." +network modularity reveals critical scales for connectivity in ecology and evolution,NA,NATURE COMMUNICATIONS,FLETCHER RJ;REVELL A;REICHERT BE;KITCHENS WM;DIXON JD;AUSTIN JD,"for nearly a century, biologists have emphasized the profound importance of spatial scale for ecology, evolution and conservation. nonetheless, objectively identifying critical scales has proven incredibly challenging. here we extend new techniques from physics and social sciences that estimate modularity on networks to identify critical scales for movement and gene flow in animals. using four species that vary widely in dispersal ability and include both mark-recapture and population genetic data, we identify significant modularity in three species, two of which cannot be explained by geographic distance alone. importantly, the inclusion of modularity in connectivity and population viability assessments alters conclusions regarding patch importance to connectivity and suggests higher metapopulation viability than when ignoring this hidden spatial scale. we argue that network modularity reveals critical meso-scales that are probably common in populations, providing a powerful means of identifying fundamental scales for biology and for conservation strategies aimed at recovering imperilled species." estimating transitions between states using measurements with imperfect detection: application to serological data,black-legged kittiwake; borrelia burdgorferi; continuous measurement; eco-epidemiology; hidden markov model; immunological assay; mixture; rissa tridactyla; stable-isotope ratio,ECOLOGY,CHOQUET R;CARRIE C;CHAMBERT T;BOULINIER T,"classifying the states of an individual and quantifying transitions between states are crucial while modeling animal behavior, movement, and physiologic status. when these states are hidden or imperfectly known, it is particularly convenient to relate them to appropriate quantitative measurements taken on the individual. this task is, however, challenging when quantitative measurements are not available at each sampling occasion. for capture-recapture data, various ways of incorporating such non-discrete information have been used, but they are either ad hoc and/or use a fraction of the available information by relying on a priori thresholds to assign individual states. here we propose assigning discrete states based on a continuous measurement, and then modeled survival and transition probabilities based on these assignments. the main advantage of this new approach is that a more informative use of the non-discrete information is done. as an illustrative working example, we applied this approach to eco-epidemiological data collected across a series of years in which individuals of a long-lived seabird, the black-legged kittiwake (rissa tridactyla), could either be visually detected or physically recaptured and blood sampled for subsequent immunological analyses. we discuss how this approach opens many perspectives in eco-epidemiology, but also more broadly, in population ecology." a cautionary note on the discrete uniform prior for the binomial n,abundance; bayesian analysis; binomial; data augmentation; n estimation; priors,ECOLOGY,LINK WA,"analysis of wildlife data frequently involves estimation of population size n based on binomial counts. bayesian analysts often use a constant prior for n, the choice motivated by a desire to avoid an informative prior, and to let the data speak for themselves. for instance, data augmentation methods for model m-h posit a super-population of size m >> n with individual detection probabilities z(i)p(i), with p(i) sampled from a parametric family of interest, and z(i) an indicator of membership in the target population; thus, n = sigma(i)z(i). treating z(i) as independent bernoulli trials with success rate and assigning a uniform prior to is equivalent to assigning a discrete uniform prior for n on {0,1,2, ... , m}; by setting m large enough, analysts approximate the improper constant prior on the positive integers. in this paper, i demonstrate some paradoxical and plainly unacceptable features of the constant prior. these defects are not shared by the scale prior, which has been recommended for its good performance as measured by frequentist criteria. i show how the scale prior can be approximated in program openbugs, including data augmentation applications for individual covariates." seasonal variation in density dependence in age-specific survival of a long-distance migrant,barker model; density dependence; eurasian spoonbill; mark-recapture; migration; platalea leucorodia; population limitation; population regulation; random effects; seasonal survival,ECOLOGY,LOK T;OVERDIJK O;TINBERGEN JM;PIERSMA T,"density dependence in vital rates is key to population regulation. rather than being constant, the strength of density dependence may vary throughout the year, but empirical evidence is limited. based on 22 years of data of color-banded birds from a recovering population of eurasian spoonbills platalea leucorodia leucorodia, we show, for the first time, seasonal variation in density dependence in survival of a long-distance migrating bird. combining resightings and dead recoveries at breeding, stopover, and nonbreeding areas enabled us to (1) separate true survival from permanent emigration from the breeding area, and (2) estimate survival in three seasons: summer, early winter (including autumn migration), and late winter (including spring migration). accompanying the rapid population growth, juvenile annual survival initially increased, manifested in early winter, but thereafter, at high population sizes, it strongly decreased through a combination of decreasing survival in all seasons. annual survival of subadult (second- and third-year) and adult birds decreased more gradually with increasing population size, with density dependence occurring in early winter for subadults and late winter for adults. thus, the shape and strength of density dependence in survival varied with age and season. understanding the seasonal timing of density dependence, especially with reference to underlying mechanisms, is important for the design of effective conservation strategies." -"decline in local abundance of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in the bay of islands, new zealand",mark-recapture; abundance estimates; robust design; photo-identification; population decline; survival; mark; popan; marine mammals; tursiops truncatus; bottlenose dolphin,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,TEZANOS-PINTO G;CONSTANTINE R;BROOKS L;JACKSON JA;MOURAO F;WELLS S;BAKER CS,"regional populations of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) around new zealand are genetically isolated from each other and the species was recently classified as nationally endangered based on relatively small population sizes and reports of high calf mortality. here, we estimate the abundance and trends in one of these regional populations, the bay of islands, using a photo-identification database collected from 1997 to 1999 and from 2003 to 2006, containing a total of 3,841 records of 317 individual dolphins. estimates of abundance obtained with the robust design fluctuated widely but showed a significant decline in the number of dolphins present in the bay over time (7.5% annual rate of decline). temporary emigration was random and fluctuated considerably ( = 0.18, se = 0.07 to = 0.84, se = 0.06). apparent survival was estimated at 0.928 (ci = 0.911-0.942). seasonal estimates (26 seasons) obtained in popan also showed a significant decline in abundance (5.8% annual rate of decline). despite the decline observed in local abundance, dolphins continue to be found regularly in the bay of islands, suggesting that fewer dolphins use the bay on regular basis. consequently, it seems that a change in habitat use, mortality and possibly low recruitment could underlie the apparent local decline." +"decline in local abundance of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in the bay of islands, new zealand",mark-recapture; abundance estimates; robust design; photo-identification; population decline; survival; mark; popan; marine mammals; tursiops truncatus; bottlenose dolphin,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,TEZANOS PINTO G;CONSTANTINE R;BROOKS L;JACKSON JA;MOURAO F;WELLS S;BAKER CS,"regional populations of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) around new zealand are genetically isolated from each other and the species was recently classified as nationally endangered based on relatively small population sizes and reports of high calf mortality. here, we estimate the abundance and trends in one of these regional populations, the bay of islands, using a photo-identification database collected from 1997 to 1999 and from 2003 to 2006, containing a total of 3,841 records of 317 individual dolphins. estimates of abundance obtained with the robust design fluctuated widely but showed a significant decline in the number of dolphins present in the bay over time (7.5% annual rate of decline). temporary emigration was random and fluctuated considerably ( = 0.18, se = 0.07 to = 0.84, se = 0.06). apparent survival was estimated at 0.928 (ci = 0.911-0.942). seasonal estimates (26 seasons) obtained in popan also showed a significant decline in abundance (5.8% annual rate of decline). despite the decline observed in local abundance, dolphins continue to be found regularly in the bay of islands, suggesting that fewer dolphins use the bay on regular basis. consequently, it seems that a change in habitat use, mortality and possibly low recruitment could underlie the apparent local decline." "relation between occupancy and abundance for a territorial species, the california spotted owl",dynamic occupancy model; population dynamics; sierra nevada; strix occidentalis occidentalis; temporal-symmetry model,CONSERVATION BIOLOGY,TEMPEL DJ;GUTIERREZ RJ,"land and resource managers often use detection-nondetection surveys to monitor the populations of species that may be affected by factors such as habitat alteration, climate change, and biological invasions. relative to mark-recapture studies, using detection-nondetection surveys is more cost-effective, and recent advances in statistical analyses allow the incorporation of detection probability, covariates, and multiple seasons. we examined the efficacy of using detection-nondetection data (relative to mark-recapture data) for monitoring population trends of a territorial species, the california spotted owl (strix occidentalis occidentalis). we estimated and compared the finite annual rates of population change (lambda(t)) and the resulting realized population change (delta(t)) from both occupancy and mark-recapture data collected over 18 years (1993-2010). we used multiseason, robust-design occupancy models to estimate that territory occupancy declined during our study (delta(t) = 0.702, 95% ci 0.552-0.852) due to increasing territory extinction rates ((epsilon) over cap 1993 = 0.019 [se 0.012]; (epsilon) over cap (2009) = 0.134 [se 0.043]) and decreasing colonization rates ((gamma) over cap (1993) = 0.323 [se 0.124]; (gamma) over cap (2009) = 0.242 [se 0.058]). we used pradel's temporal-symmetry model for mark-recapture data to estimate that the population trajectory closely matched the trends in territory occupancy (delta(t) = 0.725, 95% ci 0.445-1.004). individual survival was constant during our study ((f) over cap (1993) = 0.816 [se 0.020]; (phi) over cap (2009) = 0.815 [se 0.019]), whereas recruitment declined slightly ((f) over cap (1993) = 0.195 [se 0.032]; (f) over cap (2009) = 0.160 [se 0.023]). thus, we concluded that detection-nondetection data can provide reliable inferences on population trends, especially when funds preclude more intensive mark-recapture studies." addressing depletion failure and estimating gear efficiency using back-calculation of capture probabilities,program mark; capture probability; removal method; depletion failure; gear selection,FISHERIES RESEARCH,FETHERMAN ER;LEPAK JM,"removal abundance (n) estimation methods are commonly used in fisheries but if capture probability (p) is not accurately estimated accurate estimates of n cannot be obtained. further, if adequate depletions are not achieved during removal, this must be addressed to improve data collection and estimation procedures. here, two disparate research projects are used as case studies to illustrate: (1) a method in program mark for back-calculating p estimated by the removal method following depletion failure; and (2) a program mark modeling approach used to estimate efficiency of gear deployed in removal studies. in the first case study, a depletion failure occurred in white sucker catostomus commersonii populations sampled concurrently with rainbow trout oncorhynchus mykiss populations using a weighted seine. back-calculation of closed capture-recapture estimates of p was used to account for depletion failure and obtain per-pass estimates of p for both species. the second case study describes a pilot experiment to determine the efficacy of two removal gears deployed to estimate n of fathead minnows pimephales promelas in cattle troughs. back-calculation of p was used to select the appropriate gear to complete removal estimates in future studies. results indicate that using program mark to back-calculate estimates of p allows researchers to detect problems associated with capture that may have resulted in depletion failure. further, the method allows for comparisons of gear efficiency prior to full-scale experimentation. (c) 2013 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -environmental correlates of annual survival differ between two ecologically similar and congeneric owls,capture-mark-recapture; climate change; mixed models; population density; random effects; strix; tawny owl; ural owl; vole cycle,IBIS,PAVON-JORDAN D;KARELL P;AHOLA K;KOLUNEN H;PIETIAINEN H;KARSTINEN T;BROMMER JE,"understanding how survival is affected by the environment is essential to gain insight into population dynamics and the evolution of life-history traits as well as to identify environmental selection pressures. however, we still have little understanding of the relative effect of different environmental factors and their interactions on demographic traits and population dynamics. here we used two long-term, individual-based datasets on tawny owl strix aluco (1981-2010) and ural owl s.uralensis (1986-2010) to undertake capture-mark-recapture analysis of annual survival of adult females in response to three biologically meaningful environmental variables and their two-way interactions. despite the similar ecology of these two species, their survival was associated with different and uncorrelated environmental drivers. the main correlate of tawny owl survival was an inverse association with snow depth (winter severity). for ural owl, high food (vole) abundance improved survival during years with deep snow, but was less important during years with little snow. in addition, ural owl survival was strongly density-dependent, whereas tawny owl survival was not. our findings advise caution in extrapolating demographic inferences from one species to another, even when they are very closely related and ecologically similar. analyses including only one or few potential environmental drivers of a species' survival may lead to incomplete conclusions because survival may be affected by several factors and their interactions." +environmental correlates of annual survival differ between two ecologically similar and congeneric owls,capture-mark-recapture; climate change; mixed models; population density; random effects; strix; tawny owl; ural owl; vole cycle,IBIS,PAVON JORDAN D;KARELL P;AHOLA K;KOLUNEN H;PIETIAINEN H;KARSTINEN T;BROMMER JE,"understanding how survival is affected by the environment is essential to gain insight into population dynamics and the evolution of life-history traits as well as to identify environmental selection pressures. however, we still have little understanding of the relative effect of different environmental factors and their interactions on demographic traits and population dynamics. here we used two long-term, individual-based datasets on tawny owl strix aluco (1981-2010) and ural owl s.uralensis (1986-2010) to undertake capture-mark-recapture analysis of annual survival of adult females in response to three biologically meaningful environmental variables and their two-way interactions. despite the similar ecology of these two species, their survival was associated with different and uncorrelated environmental drivers. the main correlate of tawny owl survival was an inverse association with snow depth (winter severity). for ural owl, high food (vole) abundance improved survival during years with deep snow, but was less important during years with little snow. in addition, ural owl survival was strongly density-dependent, whereas tawny owl survival was not. our findings advise caution in extrapolating demographic inferences from one species to another, even when they are very closely related and ecologically similar. analyses including only one or few potential environmental drivers of a species' survival may lead to incomplete conclusions because survival may be affected by several factors and their interactions." combining data from 43 standardized surveys to estimate densities of female american black bears by spatially explicit capture-recapture,carnivore; density estimation; individual heterogeneity; noninvasive sampling; ontario; ursus americanus,POPULATION ECOLOGY,HOWE EJ;OBBARD ME;KYLE CJ,"spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models are gaining popularity for estimating densities of mammalian carnivores. they use spatially explicit encounter histories of individual animals to estimate a detection probability function described by two parameters: magnitude (g (0)), and spatial scale (sigma). carnivores exhibit heterogeneous detection probabilities and home range sizes, and exist at low densities, so g (0) and sigma likely vary, but field surveys often yield inadequate data to detect and model the variation. we sampled american black bears (ursus americanus) on 43 study areas in on, canada, 2006-2009. we detected 713 animals 1810 times; however, study area-specific samples were sometimes small (6-34 individuals detected 13-93 times). we compared aic (c) values from secr models fit to the complete data set to evaluate support for various forms of variation in g (0) and sigma, and to identify a parsimonious model for aggregating data among study areas to estimate detection parameters more precisely. models that aggregated data within broad habitat classes and years were supported over those with study area-specific g (0) and sigma (delta aic (c) a parts per thousand yen 30), and precision was enhanced. several other forms of variation in g (0) and sigma, including individual heterogeneity, were also supported and affected density estimates. if study design cannot eliminate detection heterogeneity, it should ensure that samples are sufficient to detect and model it. where this is not feasible, combing sparse data across multiple surveys could allow for improved inference." "correlation between heavy metals and turtle abundance in ponds near the paducah gaseous diffusion plant, kentucky, usa",NA,ARCHIVES OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINATION AND TOXICOLOGY,YU SY;HALBROOK RS;SPARLING DW,"reptiles are declining globally, and environmental contamination has been suggested as a contributing factor; however, few studies have investigated the relationship between contamination and reptile populations. we performed a mark-recapture study at ponds near the paducah gaseous diffusion plant (pgdp), kentucky, to determine if heavy metals had an impact on turtle populations. we measured concentrations of cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, and mercury in red-eared slider turtle (trachemys scripta elegans) tissues and pond sediment and determined the correlation between metal concentrations and red-eared slider density. metal concentrations measured in the current study were low, and turtle density was not significantly correlated with metal concentrations in tissues or sediment. however, we observed a trend of decreasing turtle density in ponds that had greater metal concentrations. sex ratio and proportion of juveniles were significantly different among ponds, but it is unclear if these differences are related to contamination associated with the pgdp." conserving europe's most endangered butterfly: the macedonian grayling (pseudochazara cingovskii),lepidoptera; conservation; endemism; red list; iucn,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,VEROVNIK R;MICEVSKI B;MAES D;WYNHOFF I;VAN SWAAY C;WARREN M,"the macedonian grayling is listed as critically endangered in the recent iucn red list of european butterflies because of its extreme rarity and habitat loss due to quarrying. this categorisation was, however, based on rather limited knowledge on its actual distribution, population size and habitat requirements. in 2012, we conducted field surveys to acquire more information. we found the species at six new sites extending its known range of suitable habitat to just under 10 km(2). the daily population size was estimated using capture-mark-recapture method in the most densely populated part of the pletvar pass site at more than 650 individuals. adults proved to be extremely sedentary, not moving far even within the continuous habitat on the same slope. oviposition was observed on dry plant material and in a rock crevice close to the potential larval host plant festuca sp. quarrying is confirmed to be the main threat to the habitat of the macedonian grayling with five out of seven populated sites containing active marble quarries. due to the enlargement of the known area of occupancy, its threat status would now be estimated at endangered. despite the restricted knowledge about its distribution and trends in the population size, the iucn criteria proved to be applicable to determine the threat status of a rare and localized butterfly such as pseudochazara cingovskii. its original assessment of being called the most threatened butterfly in europe resulted in immediate research project and subsequent actions that will undoubtedly help to conserve it in the future." -non-lethal method of dna sampling in euglossine bees supported by mark-recapture experiments and microsatellite genotyping,tissue sampling; antennae; orchid bees; euglossa cordata; eulaema nigrita,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,OI CA;LOPEZ-URIBE MM;CERVINI M;DEL LAMA MA,"non-lethal sampling methods are of great interest for conservation genetic studies to prevent the death of individuals in populations that are threatened or in decline. with this aim, we tested a non-lethal method of partial antennae removal for dna sampling in two euglossine bee species: euglossa cordata and eulaema nigrita. we validated the survival of the individuals through mark-recapture experiments during 16 months. the quality and quantity of the tissue for dna analysis was verified through amplification and genotyping of nine and eleven microsatellite loci, respectively. our results from the mark-recapture experiments showed equal recapture rates of individuals with intact and removed antennae (e. cordata chi(2) = 2.492, df = 1, p = 0.114; e. nigrita chi(2) = 1.683, df = 1, p = 0.194). microsatellite loci were successfully genotyped in 97.1 and 97.6 % of the e. cordata and e. nigrita individuals, respectively. our results validate the feasibility of using antennae tissue for dna genetic analysis without compromising the survival of individual bees." +non-lethal method of dna sampling in euglossine bees supported by mark-recapture experiments and microsatellite genotyping,tissue sampling; antennae; orchid bees; euglossa cordata; eulaema nigrita,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,OI CA;LOPEZ URIBE MM;CERVINI M;DEL LAMA MA,"non-lethal sampling methods are of great interest for conservation genetic studies to prevent the death of individuals in populations that are threatened or in decline. with this aim, we tested a non-lethal method of partial antennae removal for dna sampling in two euglossine bee species: euglossa cordata and eulaema nigrita. we validated the survival of the individuals through mark-recapture experiments during 16 months. the quality and quantity of the tissue for dna analysis was verified through amplification and genotyping of nine and eleven microsatellite loci, respectively. our results from the mark-recapture experiments showed equal recapture rates of individuals with intact and removed antennae (e. cordata chi(2) = 2.492, df = 1, p = 0.114; e. nigrita chi(2) = 1.683, df = 1, p = 0.194). microsatellite loci were successfully genotyped in 97.1 and 97.6 % of the e. cordata and e. nigrita individuals, respectively. our results validate the feasibility of using antennae tissue for dna genetic analysis without compromising the survival of individual bees." should i stay or should i go? the influence of handling by researchers on den use in an arboreal nocturnal rodent,NA,ETHOLOGY,KUKALOVA M;GAZARKOVA A;ADAMIK P,"understanding how animals respond to disturbance by investigators is essential for a fair assessment of the presence of bias in routinely used research protocols. it is also an essential prerequisite for anyone interested in animal welfare and ethically sound research. here, we utilize an automatic logging system to monitor nest box use by pit-tagged edible dormice, glis glis, after standard handling procedures applied during a regular nest-box monitoring programme. the edible dormouse is an arboreal nocturnal rodent that relies on tree hollows as daytime den sites. we assessed the effect of disturbance on dormice in two ways: whether it affected the decision of an individual to stay in the same den site for a subsequent day and whether it affected the timing of the individual's nocturnal emergence from the den site. we found handling had a strong negative effect on short-term den use. in addition, females and sexually active individuals were more likely to spend the following day in the nest box. individuals that had left the den site after our handling returned to them after an average of 4d. handling did not have a significant effect on the period of absence, but reproductively active animals returned on average after 3d, while reproductively quiescent animals returned after more than 5d. manipulation did not have a significant effect on the initiation of nocturnal activity. our study suggests that disturbance by investigators may modify certain aspects of animal behaviour, but this effect is likely to be short term and does not appear to impair the efficacy of routinely practiced capture-mark-recapture field protocols." mortality within the annual cycle: seasonal survival patterns in afro-siberian red knots calidris canutus canutus,annual survival; banc d'arguin; long-distance migration; mark-recapture models; mauritania; shorebird; wader,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,LEYRER J;LOK T;BRUGGE M;SPAANS B;SANDERCOCK BK;PIERSMA T,"estimates of seasonal mortality for long-distance migrant birds are extremely challenging to collect and consequently reports are scarce. determining when and where mortality occurs within the annual cycle is important for an understanding of population dynamics and the evolutionary drivers of long-distance migration. we collected data on seasonal survival in a mark-recapture study of colour-marked red knots calidris canutus canutus in their main wintering area at tropical banc d'arguin, mauritania, west africa. our study population breeds 9,000 km to the northeast on taymyr peninsula, central northern siberia. our results show that annual apparent survival decreased from 0.87 +/- a 0.01 (se) in 2002-2005 to 0.78 +/- a 0.02 in 2006-2009. during the 3-year time-window between 2006 and 2009, additional resightings just before migration and after return to the wintering grounds allowed us to partition the year into two periods: the non-breeding period on the banc d'arguin, and the migration and breeding period away from it. we estimated that, on the banc d'arguin, the 2-month apparent survival rate was 0.94 +/- a 0.01, whereas 2-month survival approached unity during the rest of year. hence, most mortality occurred on the tropical wintering grounds. we review the possible physiological and ecological stressors involved and discuss the generality of these results." chytridiomycosis and seasonal mortality of tropical stream-associated frogs 15 years after introduction of batrachochytrium dendrobatidis,amphibian declines; batrachochytrium dendrobatidis; endemic; mark-recapture; population growth; recruitment; survival; batrachochytrium dendrobatidis; crecimiento poblacional; declinaciones de anfibios; endemico; marcaje-recaptura; reclutamiento; supervivencia,CONSERVATION BIOLOGY,PHILLOTT AD;GROGAN LF;CASHINS SD;MCDONALD KR;BERGER L;SKERRATT LF,"assessing the effects of diseases on wildlife populations can be difficult in the absence of observed mortalities, but it is crucial for threat assessment and conservation. we performed an intensive capture-mark-recapture study across seasons and years to investigate the effect of chytridiomycosis on demographics in 2 populations of the threatened common mist frog (litoria rheocola) in the lowland wet tropics of queensland, australia. infection prevalence was the best predictor for apparent survival probability in adult males and varied widely with season (0-65%). infection prevalence was highest in winter months when monthly survival probabilities were low (approximately 70%). populations at both sites exhibited very low annual survival probabilities (12-15%) but high recruitment (71-91%), which resulted in population growth rates that fluctuated seasonally. our results suggest that even in the absence of observed mortalities and continued declines, and despite host-pathogen co-existence for multiple host generations over almost 2 decades, chytridiomycosis continues to have substantial seasonally fluctuating population-level effects on amphibian survival, which necessitates increased recruitment for population persistence. similarly infected populations may thus be under continued threat from chytridiomycosis which may render them vulnerable to other threatening processes, particularly those affecting recruitment success. quitridiomicosis y mortalidad estacional de ranas asociadas a arroyos tropicales quince anos despues de la introduccion de batrachochytrium dendrobatidisvsp resumen la evaluacion de los efectos de enfermedades sobre poblaciones de vida silvestre puede ser dificil en la ausencia de mortalidades observadas, pero es crucial para la evaluacion de amenazas y la conservacion. realizamos un estudio intensivo de captura-marcaje-recaptura a lo largo de estaciones y anos para investigar el efecto de la quitridiomicosis sobre la demografia de 2 poblaciones de la rana amenazada, litoria rheocola, en el tropico humedo de tierras bajas en queensland, australia. la prevalencia de infeccion fue el mejor predictor de la probabilidad de supervivencia aparente en machos adultos y vario ampliamente con la estacion (0-65%). la prevalencia de infeccion fue mayor en los meses de invierno cuando las probabilidades de supervivencia fueron bajas (aproximadamente 70%). las poblaciones en ambos sitios exhibieron probabilidades de supervivencia anual muy bajas (12-15%) pero el reclutamiento fue alto (71-91%), lo que resulto en tasas de crecimiento poblacional que fluctuaron estacionalmente. nuestros resultados sugieren que aun en la ausencia de mortalidades observadas y declinaciones continuas, y no obstante la coexistencia huesped-patogeno durante multiples generaciones de huespedes a lo largo de casi 2 decadas, la quitridiomicosis continua teniendo efectos sustanciales, fluctuantes estacionalmente, sobre la supervivencia a nivel poblacional de anfibios que requieren de mayor reclutamiento para la persistencia de poblaciones. por lo tanto, poblaciones infectadas similarmente pueden estar bajo amenaza continua por la quitridiomicosis, lo que las puede hacer vulnerables a otros procesos amenazantes, particularmente los que afectan el exito del reclutamiento." -"when to stay, when to disperse and where to go: survival and dispersal patterns in a spatially structured seabird population",NA,ECOGRAPHY,FERNANDEZ-CHACON A;GENOVART M;PRADEL R;TAVECCHIA G;BERTOLERO A;PICCARDO J;FORERO MG;AFAN I;MUNTANER J;ORO D,"dispersal is a key process for the population dynamics of spatially structured populations (at local and metapopulation levels), so the understanding of the mechanisms underlying the movement of individuals in space and time is important for evolutionary and ecological studies. here we analyzed, for the first time, a long-term (1992-2009) multi-site capture- recapture database collected at four local populations of a long-lived seabird, the audouin's gull larus audouinii, covering 90% of its total world population. those local populations show different ecological and demographic features that allow us to assess the influence of several key factors involved in breeding dispersal patterns at large spatio-temporal scales. a recently developed analytical tool in mark-recapture modelling, the multi-event approach, allowed us to obtain separate departure and settlement probabilities and test different biological hypotheses for each step of the dispersal process. our results revealed that site fidelity was the most common strategy among breeders, and dispersal was only high from the site with the lowest population size and habitat quality. however, departures from the two largest local populations increased over the study period in response to severe ecological perturbations. dispersers chose different settlement patches depending on their site of origin, with settlement choices determined by the population size of the destination colony rather than by the local reproductive performance, foraging area (a proxy of food availability) or distance to the destination site. our results indicate that a breeding site is not abandoned by breeders unless a series of cumulative perturbations occur; once dispersing, settlement is directed towards densely populated sites, with dispersers using population size to rapidly assess the quality of the breeding patch." +"when to stay, when to disperse and where to go: survival and dispersal patterns in a spatially structured seabird population",NA,ECOGRAPHY,FERNANDEZ CHACON A;GENOVART M;PRADEL R;TAVECCHIA G;BERTOLERO A;PICCARDO J;FORERO MG;AFAN I;MUNTANER J;ORO D,"dispersal is a key process for the population dynamics of spatially structured populations (at local and metapopulation levels), so the understanding of the mechanisms underlying the movement of individuals in space and time is important for evolutionary and ecological studies. here we analyzed, for the first time, a long-term (1992-2009) multi-site capture- recapture database collected at four local populations of a long-lived seabird, the audouin's gull larus audouinii, covering 90% of its total world population. those local populations show different ecological and demographic features that allow us to assess the influence of several key factors involved in breeding dispersal patterns at large spatio-temporal scales. a recently developed analytical tool in mark-recapture modelling, the multi-event approach, allowed us to obtain separate departure and settlement probabilities and test different biological hypotheses for each step of the dispersal process. our results revealed that site fidelity was the most common strategy among breeders, and dispersal was only high from the site with the lowest population size and habitat quality. however, departures from the two largest local populations increased over the study period in response to severe ecological perturbations. dispersers chose different settlement patches depending on their site of origin, with settlement choices determined by the population size of the destination colony rather than by the local reproductive performance, foraging area (a proxy of food availability) or distance to the destination site. our results indicate that a breeding site is not abandoned by breeders unless a series of cumulative perturbations occur; once dispersing, settlement is directed towards densely populated sites, with dispersers using population size to rapidly assess the quality of the breeding patch." accounting for female reproductive cycles in a superpopulation capture-recapture framework,abundance; auckland islands; calving interval; capture-recapture models; eubalaena australis; heterogeneity; new zealand; popan model; southern right whale; superpopulation,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,CARROLL EL;CHILDERHOUSE SJ;FEWSTER RM;PATENAUDE NJ;STEEL D;DUNSHEA G;BOREN L;BAKER CS,"superpopulation capture-recapture models are useful for estimating the abundance of long-lived, migratory species because they are able to account for the fluid nature of annual residency at migratory destinations. here we extend the superpopulation popan model to explicitly account for heterogeneity in capture probability linked to reproductive cycles (popan-). this extension has potential application to a range of species that have temporally variable life stages (e.g., non-annual breeders such as albatrosses and baleen whales) and results in a significant reduction in bias over the standard popan model. we demonstrate the utility of this model in simultaneously estimating abundance and annual population growth rate () in the new zealand (nz) southern right whale (eubalaena australis) from 1995 to 2009. dna profiles were constructed for the individual identification of more than 700 whales, sampled during two sets of winter expeditions in 1995-1998 and 2006-2009. due to differences in recapture rates between sexes, only sex-specific models were considered. the popan- models, which explicitly account for a decrease in capture probability in non-calving years, fit the female data set significantly better than do standard superpopulation models (aic > 25). the best popan- model (aic) gave a superpopulation estimate of 1162 females for 1995-2009 (95% cl 921, 1467) and an estimated annual increase of 5% (95% cl -2%, 13%). the best model (aic) gave a superpopulation estimate of 1007 males (95% cl 794, 1276) and an estimated annual increase of 7% (95% cl 5%, 9%) for 1995-2009. combined, the total superpopulation estimate for 1995-2009 was 2169 whales (95% cl 1836, 2563). simulations suggest that failure to account for the effect of reproductive status on the capture probability would result in a substantial positive bias (+19%) in female abundance estimates." band reporting rates of waterfowl: does individual heterogeneity bias estimated survival rates?,band recoveries; bias; heterogeneous recovery rates; individual random effects; logit normal; ring recoveries; seber model; waterfowl survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,WHITE GC;CORDES LS;ARNOLD TW,"in capture-recapture studies, the estimation accuracy of demographic parameters is essential to the efficacy of management of hunted animal populations. dead recovery models based upon the reporting of rings or bands are often used for estimating survival of waterfowl and other harvested species. however, distance from the ringing site or condition of the bird may introduce substantial individual heterogeneity in the conditional band reporting rates (r), which could cause bias in estimated survival rates (s) or suggest nonexistent individual heterogeneity in s. to explore these hypotheses, we ran two sets of simulations (n=1000) in mark using seber's dead recovery model, allowing time variation on both s and r. this included a series of heterogeneity models, allowing substantial variation on logit(r), and control models with no heterogeneity. we conducted simulations using two different values of s: s=0.60, which would be typical of dabbling ducks such as mallards (anas platyrhynchos), and s=0.80, which would be more typical of sea ducks or geese. we chose a mean reporting rate on the logit scale of -1.9459 with sd=1.5 for the heterogeneity models (producing a back-transformed mean of 0.196 with sd=0.196, median=0.125) and a constant reporting rate for the control models of 0.196. within these sets of simulations, estimation models where sigma(s)=0 and sigma(s)>0 (sigma(s) is sd of individual survival rates on the logit scale) were incorporated to investigate whether real heterogeneity in r would induce apparent individual heterogeneity in s. models where sigma(s)=0 were selected approximately 91% of the time over models where sigma(s)>0. simulation results showed < 0.05% relative bias in estimating survival rates except for models estimating sigma(s)>0 when true s=0.8, where relative bias was a modest 0.5%. these results indicate that considerable variation in reporting rates does not cause major bias in estimated survival rates of waterfowl, further highlighting the robust nature of dead recovery models that are being used for the management of harvested species." diets of sympatric red wolves and coyotes in northeastern north carolina,dietary overlap; dna genotyping; canis latrans; canis rufus; coyote; food habits; red wolf; scat,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,MCVEY JM;COBB DT;POWELL RA;STOSKOPF MK;BOBLING JH;WAITS LP;MOORMAN CE,"the recent co-occurrence of red wolves (canis rufus) and coyotes (canis latrans) in eastern north carolina provides a unique opportunity to study prey partitioning by sympatric canids. we collected scats from this region and examined them for prey contents. we used fecal dna analysis to identify which taxa deposited each scat and multinomial modeling designed for mark-recapture data to investigate diets of sympatric red wolves and coyotes. diets of red wolves and coyotes did not differ, but the proportion of small rodents in the composite scats of both canids was greater in the spring than in the summer. white-tailed deer (odocoileus virginianus), rabbits (sylvilagus spp.), and small rodents were the most common diet items in canid scats. the similarity of diet between red wolves and coyotes suggests that these 2 species may be affecting prey populations similarly." estimating individual animal movement from observation networks,acoustic telemetry; detection probability; ornstein-uhlenbeck process; state-space model,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,PEDERSEN MW;WENG KC,"observation network data comprise animal presences detected by observer stations at fixed spatial locations. statistical analysis of these data is complicated by spatial bias in sampling and temporal variability in detection conditions. advanced methods for analysis of these data are required but are currently underdeveloped. we propose a state-space model (ssm) for observation network data to estimate detailed movements of individual animals. the underlying movement model is an ornstein-uhlenbeck (ou) process, which is stationary, and therefore has an inherent mechanism that models home range behaviour. an integral part of the approach is the detection function, which models the probability of logging animal presences. the detection function is also used to provide absence information when animals are undetected. since the ability to detect an animal often depends on time-varying external factors such as environmental conditions, we use covariate information about detection efficiency as control variables. via simulation, we found that movement estimation error scales log-linearly with network sparsity. this result can be used to indicate the number of stations necessary to achieve a desired upper bound on estimation error. furthermore, we found that the ssm outperforms existing techniques in terms of estimating detailed movements and that estimates are robust towards mis-specification of the detection function. we also tested the importance of accounting for time-varying detection conditions and found that the probability of making wrong conclusions decreases substantially when covariate information is exploited. the model is used to estimate movements and home range of a humphead wrasse (cheilinus undulatus) at palmyra atoll in the central pacific ocean. here, detection conditions have a strong diel component, which is controlled for using detection efficiency information from a reference device. the presented approach enhances the toolbox for analysis of observation network data as collected by acoustic telemetry or potentially other aspiring methods such as camera trapping and mobile phone tagging. by explicitly modelling movement and observation processes, the model integrates all sources of uncertainty and provides a sound statistical basis for making well-informed management decisions from imperfect information." "urban population genetics of slum-dwelling rats (rattus norvegicus) in salvador, brazil",population genetics; rattus norvegicus; rodent control; urban ecology,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,KAJDACSI B;COSTA F;HYSENI C;PORTER F;BROWN J;RODRIGUES G;FARIAS H;REIS MG;CHILDS JE;KO AI;CACCONE A,"throughout the developing world, urban centres with sprawling slum settlements are rapidly expanding and invading previously forested ecosystems. slum communities are characterized by untended refuse, open sewers and overgrown vegetation, which promote rodent infestation. norway rats (rattus norvegicus) are reservoirs for epidemic transmission of many zoonotic pathogens of public health importance. understanding the population ecology of r.norvegicus is essential to formulate effective rodent control strategies, as this knowledge aids estimation of the temporal stability and spatial connectivity of populations. we screened for genetic variation, characterized the population genetic structure and evaluated the extent and patterns of gene flow in the urban landscape using 17 microsatellite loci in 146 rats from nine sites in the city of salvador, brazil. these sites were divided between three neighbourhoods within the city spaced an average of 2.7km apart. surprisingly, we detected very little relatedness among animals trapped at the same site and found high levels of genetic diversity, as well as structuring across small geographical distances. most f-st comparisons among sites were statistically significant, including sites <400m apart. bayesian analyses grouped the samples in three genetic clusters, each associated with distinct sampling sites from different neighbourhoods or valleys within neighbourhoods. these data indicate the existence of complex genetic structure in r.norvegicus in salvador, linked to the heterogeneous urban landscape. future rodent control measures need to take into account the spatial and temporal linkage of rat populations in salvador, as revealed by genetic data, to develop informed eradication strategies." evidence for plasticity in the frequency of skipped breeding opportunities in common toads,bufo bufo; capture-recapture; life history; temperate zone; temporary emigration,POPULATION ECOLOGY,MUTHS E;SCHERER RD;BOSCH J,"breeding is limited by energetic or environmental constraints and long-lived species sometimes skip breeding opportunities. environmental conditions may vary considerably across the geographic and elevational range of a species and species that can respond through variation in life history strategies are likely to maintain populations at the extremes of their ranges. the decision to skip breeding enables animals to adjust life history to circumstances, and plasticity in behavior allows implementation of adjustments. elevational patterns suggest that breeding may be limited physiologically at high elevations (e.g., greater probability of skipped breeding; resources and environmental conditions more variable) in contrast to low elevations (probability of skipping breeding lower; resources and environmental conditions more predictable). we estimated the probabilities of survival and skipped breeding in a high-elevation population of common toads and compared estimates to existing data for common toads at low elevations, and to another toad species inhabiting a similar high elevation environment. female common toads at high elevations tend to have high probabilities of skipping breeding and survival relative to data for common toads at low elevations, and appear to use a similar strategy of skipping breeding in response to similar environmental constraints as other toads at high elevations. we provide evidence of variability in this aspect of life history for common toads. understanding variation in life history within widely distributed species is critical. knowing that certain life history strategies are employed on a continuum informs conservation efforts, especially as impacts of climate change are likely to be different depending on elevation." -the thermoregulatory strategy of two sympatric colubrid snakes affects their demography,climate; ectothermy; growth; snakes; survival; thermoregulation,POPULATION ECOLOGY,LELIEVRE H;RIVALAN P;DELMAS V;BALLOUARD JM;BONNET X;BLOUIN-DEMERS G;LOURDAIS O,"population dynamics of terrestrial vertebrates are affected by climatic fluctuations, notably in ectotherms. an understanding of the interaction between physiology and demographic processes is necessary to predict the impacts of climate change. reptiles are particularly sensitive to temperature, but only a few studies have explored the relationship between thermoregulatory strategy and demography in these animals. using 12 years of mark-recapture data on two sympatric colubrid snakes (hierophis viridiflavus and zamenis longissimus), we tested whether demographic parameters are influenced by contrasted thermoregulatory strategies. the thermophilic and conspicuous species (h. viridiflavus) grew faster than the thermoconforming and secretive species (z. longissimus), and this difference was most pronounced in open habitats, suggesting that the metabolic benefits associated with high thermal preferences depend on environmental factors at small spatial scales. survival varied annually in both species, but was not lower in h. viridiflavus despite a higher degree of exposure. in z. longissimus, survival was negatively affected by low temperatures during the active season, possibly underlying an exposure trade-off." +the thermoregulatory strategy of two sympatric colubrid snakes affects their demography,climate; ectothermy; growth; snakes; survival; thermoregulation,POPULATION ECOLOGY,LELIEVRE H;RIVALAN P;DELMAS V;BALLOUARD JM;BONNET X;BLOUIN DEMERS G;LOURDAIS O,"population dynamics of terrestrial vertebrates are affected by climatic fluctuations, notably in ectotherms. an understanding of the interaction between physiology and demographic processes is necessary to predict the impacts of climate change. reptiles are particularly sensitive to temperature, but only a few studies have explored the relationship between thermoregulatory strategy and demography in these animals. using 12 years of mark-recapture data on two sympatric colubrid snakes (hierophis viridiflavus and zamenis longissimus), we tested whether demographic parameters are influenced by contrasted thermoregulatory strategies. the thermophilic and conspicuous species (h. viridiflavus) grew faster than the thermoconforming and secretive species (z. longissimus), and this difference was most pronounced in open habitats, suggesting that the metabolic benefits associated with high thermal preferences depend on environmental factors at small spatial scales. survival varied annually in both species, but was not lower in h. viridiflavus despite a higher degree of exposure. in z. longissimus, survival was negatively affected by low temperatures during the active season, possibly underlying an exposure trade-off." abundance and survival of pacific humpback whales in a proposed critical habitat area,NA,PLOS ONE,ASHE E;WRAY J;PICARD CR;WILLIAMS R,"humpback whales (megaptera novaeangliae) were hunted commercially in canada's pacific region until 1966. depleted to an estimated 1,400 individuals throughout the north pacific, humpback whales are listed as threatened under canada's species at risk act (sara) and endangered under the us endangered species act. we conducted an 8-year photo-identification study to monitor humpback whale usage of a coastal fjord system in british columbia (bc), canada that was recently proposed as candidate critical habitat for the species under sara. this participatory research program built collaborations among first nations, environmental non-governmental organizations and academics. the study site, including the territorial waters of gitga'at first nation, is an important summertime feeding destination for migratory humpback whales, but is small relative to the population's range. we estimated abundance and survivorship using mark-recapture methods using photographs of naturally marked individuals. abundance of humpback whales in the region was large, relative to the site's size, and generally increased throughout the study period. the resulting estimate of adult survivorship (0.979, 95% ci: 0.914, 0.995) is at the high end of previously reported estimates. a high rate of resights provides new evidence for inter-annual site fidelity to these local waters. habitat characteristics of our study area are considered ecologically significant and unique, and this should be considered as regulatory agencies consider proposals for high-volume crude oil and liquefied natural gas tanker traffic through the area. monitoring population recovery of a highly mobile, migratory species is daunting for low-cost, community-led science. focusing on a small, important subset of the animals' range can make this challenge more tractable. given low statistical power and high variability, our community is considering simpler ecological indicators of population health, such as the number of individuals harmed or killed each year by human activities, including ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear." "skin lesions in european hibernating bats associated with geomyces destructans, the etiologic agent of white-nose syndrome",NA,PLOS ONE,WIBBELT G;PUECHMAILLE SJ;OHLENDORF B;MUHLDORFER K;BOSCH T;GORFOL T;PASSIOR K;KURTH A;LACREMANS D;FORGET F,"white-nose syndrome (wns) has claimed the lives of millions of hibernating insectivorous bats in north america. its etiologic agent, the psychrophilic fungus geomyces destructans, causes skin lesions that are the hallmark of the disease. the fungal infection is characterized by a white powdery growth on muzzle, ears and wing membranes. while wns may threaten some species of north american bats with regional extinction, infection in hibernating bats in europe seems not to be associated with significant mortality. we performed histopathological investigations on biopsy samples of 11 hibernating european bats, originating from 4 different countries, colonized by g. destructans. one additional bat was euthanized to allow thorough examination of multiple strips of its wing membranes. molecular analyses of touch imprints, swabs and skin samples confirmed that fungal structures were g. destructans. additionally, archived field notes on hibernacula monitoring data in the harz mountains, germany, over an 11-year period (2000-2011) revealed multiple capture-recapture events of 8 banded bats repeatedly displaying characteristic fungal colonization. skin lesions of g. destructans-affected hibernating european bats are intriguingly similar to the epidermal lesions described in north american bats. nevertheless, deep invasion of fungal hyphae into the dermal connective tissue with resulting ulceration like in north american bats was not observed in the biopsy samples of european bats; all lesions found were restricted to the layers of the epidermis and its adnexae. two bats had mild epidermal cupping erosions as described for north american bats. the possible mechanisms for any difference in outcomes of g. destructans infection in european and north american bats still need to be elucidated." "first evidence of migration by loggerhead sea turtles, caretta caretta, from the eastern mediterranean to north america",sea turtles; caretta caretta; migration; homing; capture-mark-recapture; mediterranean,VIE ET MILIEU-LIFE AND ENVIRONMENT,CASALE P;FREGGI D;DOURDEVILLE KM;PRESCOTT R,"loggerhead sea turtles (caretta caretta) frequent very distant areas during their life stages, and information about migratory routes and geographical range is key for planning their conservation. here we report on the first direct evidence of a loggerhead turtle migrating from the eastern mediterranean to the north american coast. a juvenile of 57.1 cm curved carapace length was tagged and released from lampedusa island, italy, in 2008 and found dead on the massachusetts coast in 2012. its size and first location fit with the current knowledge about atlantic loggerheads entering the mediterranean and this finding supports the hypothesis of homing behavior as the explanation for the low genetic flow estimated between the atlantic and mediterranean populations." comparison of four bootstrap-based interval estimators of species occupancy and detection probabilities,bootstrap interval estimators; coverage; capture-recapture; likelihood; occupancy models,AUSTRALIAN & NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF STATISTICS,KARAVARSAMIS N;ROBINSON AP;HEPWORTH G;HAMILTON AJ;HEARD GW,"site occupancy, as estimated by the probability of presence, is used for monitoring species populations. however, the detection of species at individual sites is often subject to errors. in order to accurately estimate occupancy we must simultaneously account for imperfect detectability by estimating the probability of detection. the problem with estimating occupancy arises from not knowing whether a nondetection occurred at an occupied site due to imperfect detectability (sampling zeros), or the nondetection resulting from an unoccupied site (fixed zeros). we evaluated the performance of the basic, normal approximation, studentised and percentile methods for approximating confidence limits for occupancy and detection of species. using coverage and average interval width, we demonstrated that the studentised estimator was generally superior to the others, except when a small sample of sites are selected. under this circumstance and when calculating limits for detection, no estimator produced reliable results. the experimental factors we considered include: (i) number of sites; (ii) number of survey occasions; (iii) probabilities of presence (occupancy) and detection; and (iv) overdispersion in the capture matrix. similar conclusions were reached both for the simulated studies and a case study. overall, estimation near the boundaries of the probability of occupancy and detectability was difficult." -a multimodal detection model of dolphins to estimate abundance validated by field experiments,NA,JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA,AKAMATSU T;URA T;SUGIMATSU H;BAHL R;BEHERA S;PANDA S;KHAN M;KAR SK;KAR CS;KIMURA S;SASAKI-YAMAMOTO Y,"abundance estimation of marine mammals requires matching of detection of an animal or a group of animal by two independent means. a multimodal detection model using visual and acoustic cues (surfacing and phonation) that enables abundance estimation of dolphins is proposed. the method does not require a specific time window to match the cues of both means for applying mark-recapture method. the proposed model was evaluated using data obtained in field observations of ganges river dolphins and irrawaddy dolphins, as examples of dispersed and condensed distributions of animals, respectively. the acoustic detection probability was approximately 80%, 20% higher than that of visual detection for both species, regardless of the distribution of the animals in present study sites. the abundance estimates of ganges river dolphins and irrawaddy dolphins fairly agreed with the numbers reported in previous monitoring studies. the single animal detection probability was smaller than that of larger cluster size, as predicted by the model and confirmed by field data. however, dense groups of irrawaddy dolphins showed difference in cluster sizes observed by visual and acoustic methods. lower detection probability of single clusters of this species seemed to be caused by the clumped distribution of this species. (c)2013 acoustical society of america." +a multimodal detection model of dolphins to estimate abundance validated by field experiments,NA,JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA,AKAMATSU T;URA T;SUGIMATSU H;BAHL R;BEHERA S;PANDA S;KHAN M;KAR SK;KAR CS;KIMURA S;SASAKI YAMAMOTO Y,"abundance estimation of marine mammals requires matching of detection of an animal or a group of animal by two independent means. a multimodal detection model using visual and acoustic cues (surfacing and phonation) that enables abundance estimation of dolphins is proposed. the method does not require a specific time window to match the cues of both means for applying mark-recapture method. the proposed model was evaluated using data obtained in field observations of ganges river dolphins and irrawaddy dolphins, as examples of dispersed and condensed distributions of animals, respectively. the acoustic detection probability was approximately 80%, 20% higher than that of visual detection for both species, regardless of the distribution of the animals in present study sites. the abundance estimates of ganges river dolphins and irrawaddy dolphins fairly agreed with the numbers reported in previous monitoring studies. the single animal detection probability was smaller than that of larger cluster size, as predicted by the model and confirmed by field data. however, dense groups of irrawaddy dolphins showed difference in cluster sizes observed by visual and acoustic methods. lower detection probability of single clusters of this species seemed to be caused by the clumped distribution of this species. (c)2013 acoustical society of america." on population size estimators in the poisson mixture model,capture-recapture; lower bounds; lower confidence limits,BIOMETRICS,MAO CX;YANG N;ZHONG JH,"estimating population sizes via capture-recapture experiments has enormous applications. the poisson mixture model can be adopted for those applications with a single list in which individuals appear one or more times. we compare several nonparametric estimators, including the chao estimator, the zelterman estimator, two jackknife estimators and the bootstrap estimator. the target parameter of the chao estimator is a lower bound of the population size. those of the other four estimators are not lower bounds, and they may produce lower confidence limits for the population size with poor coverage probabilities. a simulation study is reported and two examples are investigated." "mark-recapture with multiple, non-invasive marks",latent multinomial model; mark-recapture; multiple marks; non-invasive marks; photo-identification; whale sharks,BIOMETRICS,BONNER S;HOLMBERG J,"non-invasive marks, including pigmentation patterns, acquired scars, and genetic markers, are often used to identify individuals in mark-recapture experiments. if animals in a population can be identified from multiple, non-invasive marks then some individuals may be counted twice in the observed data. analyzing the observed histories without accounting for these errors will provide incorrect inference about the population dynamics. previous approaches to this problem include modeling data from only one mark and combining estimators obtained from each mark separately assuming that they are independent. motivated by the analysis of data from the ecocean online whale shark (rhincodon typus) catalog, we describe a bayesian method to analyze data from multiple, non-invasive marks that is based on the latent-multinomial model of link et al. (2010, biometrics 66, 178-185). further to this, we describe a simplification of the markov chain monte carlo algorithm of link et al. (2010, biometrics 66, 178-185) that leads to more efficient computation. we present results from the analysis of the ecocean whale shark data and from simulation studies comparing our method with the previous approaches." maximum likelihood estimation of mark-recapture-recovery models in the presence of continuous covariates,arnason-schwarz model; hidden markov model; markov chain; missing values; soay sheep; state-space model,ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,LANGROCK R;KING R,"we consider mark-recapture-recovery (mrr) data of animals where the model parameters are a function of individual time-varying continuous co-variates. for such covariates, the covariate value is unobserved if the corresponding individual is unobserved, in which case the survival probability cannot be evaluated. for continuous-valued covariates, the corresponding likelihood can only be expressed in the form of an integral that is analytically intractable and, to date, no maximum likelihood approach that uses all the information in the data has been developed. assuming a first-order markov process for the covariate values, we accomplish this task by formulating the mrr setting in a state-space framework and considering an approximate likelihood approach which essentially discretizes the range of covariate values, reducing the integral to a summation. the likelihood can then be efficiently calculated and maximized using standard techniques for hidden markov models. we initially assess the approach using simulated data before applying to real data relating to soay sheep, specifying the survival probability as a function of body mass. models that have previously been suggested for the corresponding covariate process are typically of the form of diffusive random walks. we consider an alternative nondiffusive ar(1)-type model which appears to provide a significantly better fit to the soay sheep data." @@ -2936,11 +2941,11 @@ home range and movement patterns of the otton frog: integration of year-round ra can a tiger change its spots? a test of the stability of spot patterns for identification of individual tiger salamanders (ambystoma tigrinum),ambystoma tigrinum; mark-recapture; pattern identification; tiger salamander,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,WAYE HL,"there is increasing interest in the use of unique spot patterns as a way to ""mark"" individual amphibians as an alternative to invasive techniques for studies of free-ranging populations. however, studies testing the efficacy of the pattern recognition technique have largely drawn their conclusions from the ability to recognize recaptured individuals that were identified solely by spot pattern. individuals whose color pattern changed significantly would therefore not be identified upon recapture. for this study, tiger salamanders (ambystoma tigrinum) were captured in west-central minnesota and maintained in captivity for one year, and their dorsal and ventral surfaces photographed approximately every six weeks. the stability of the spot patterns and their utility as individual identifiers were examined through comparison tests that required the matching of photographs taken 12 months apart. each of the 23 volunteers who took the test was given a sample photograph and asked to choose the corresponding photograph from four others or to choose ""no match"". on average, volunteers were able to correctly match the photographs only 67% of the time. four of the salamanders (36%) could be identified by all volunteers, whereas another 36% were matched at a rate that was no better than guessing. two of these salamanders changed dramatically in appearance, from the spotted a. tigrinum pattern to the blotched a. mavortium melanostictum pattern. the high frequency of misidentifications and the dramatic changes in coloration have implications not only for studies that involve identification of recaptured individuals, but potentially for efforts to classify the different subspecies of tiger salamanders." short-term welfare implications of capture-mark-recapture trapping of medium-sized mammals: the brushtail possum (trichosurus vulpecula) as a case study,activity patterns; animal welfare; mark recapture; possum; trichosurus vulpecula; weight loss,ANIMAL WELFARE,COWAN P;FORRESTER G;WARBURTON B,"capture-mark-recapture (cmr) repeated at intervals is a commonly used method of population estimation of mammals. most guidelines for the use of wild mammals recommend adequate measures to ensure a captured animal has food and water available, as needed, until it is released. small mammals are often highlighted as needing special care, but recommendations are either less clear or absent for medium- and large-sized mammals. we therefore examined the short-term welfare implications of cmr trapping of medium-sized mammals, using the marsupial, brushtail possum (trichosurus vulpecula) as a case study. possums were caught in cage traps baited with circa 30 g of food and set for three consecutive days at monthly intervals. timing devices on the traps measured when traps were sprung. possums were confined in traps for, on average, 89% of each night they were trapped, plus a further 2-6 h between sunrise and the actual time of release from the traps. they lost 3-8% of their bodyweight on average, depending on the number of captures in a trapping session. a recently developed framework for humaneness assessment, based on five welfare domains, gave an overall welfare impact of mild-moderate for cage trapping of possums. the short-term solutions to these welfare impacts would be, at a minimum, to provide trapped possums with adequate additional food and water, and minimise their time spent in the traps. guidelines for the use of wild animals in research and management could also be more prescriptive regarding the provision of food and water in studies of medium-sized mammals that involve repeated capture." "trapping efficiency, demography, and density of an introduced population of northern watersnakes, nerodia sipedon, in california",NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,ROSE JP;MIANO OJ;TODD BD,"northern watersnakes, nerodia sipedon, have been introduced into california's central valley and pose an important new challenge for the management of biodiversity in the state's already greatly distressed freshwater ecosystems. nonnative watersnakes will likely compete with federally threatened giant gartersnakes, thamnophis gigas, and prey on native amphibians and fish, including young salmonids, many of which are imperiled. we used three types of aquatic funnel traps and three different methods to estimate the abundance and density of n. sipedon in a small wetland in roseville, california. capture rates did not differ significantly among the three trap types but snakes captured in large box funnel traps were nearly 300 mm longer on average than those captured in minnow traps. our estimates of the abundance of n. sipedon in our 2-ha trapping area were similar for the mark recapture model, leslie depletion curve, and the actual number of snakes removed over 57 days (112.4-119 individuals; approximately 56.2 snakes/ha). extrapolating to the entire 6.2-ha aquatic area, the population likely numbered approximately 348 individuals. several females were gravid, demonstrating successful reproduction by this species outside its native range. we caught more small n. sipedon compared with studies in its native range. this may be due to a sampling bias in our trapping methods but more likely reflects a population growing rapidly from a few initial founders with relatively fewer large adults. we recommend immediate action to prevent the spread and broader establishment of n. sipedon across the central valley of california." -mortality rates in two populations of the viviparous fish poeciliopsis baenschi (teleostei: poeciliidae),capture-mark-recapture; demography; differential mortality; poeciliidae; survival estimates,REVISTA MEXICANA DE BIODIVERSIDAD,MOLINA-MOCTEZUMA A;ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ;ESPINOSA-PEREZ H,"mortality is one of the most important demographic features. measures of size- or sex-specific mortality can help to explain local selective pressures and can also be used to construct demographic models that estimate population trends. this study estimated mortality rates for 2 populations of a viviparous freshwater fish, endemic to western mexico (poeciliopsis baenschi). we found that mortality was size- and sex-dependent and different between both populations. we compared our findings with mortality rates previously estimated for other populations of this species." +mortality rates in two populations of the viviparous fish poeciliopsis baenschi (teleostei: poeciliidae),capture-mark-recapture; demography; differential mortality; poeciliidae; survival estimates,REVISTA MEXICANA DE BIODIVERSIDAD,MOLINA MOCTEZUMA A;ZUNIGA VEGA JJ;ESPINOSA PEREZ H,"mortality is one of the most important demographic features. measures of size- or sex-specific mortality can help to explain local selective pressures and can also be used to construct demographic models that estimate population trends. this study estimated mortality rates for 2 populations of a viviparous freshwater fish, endemic to western mexico (poeciliopsis baenschi). we found that mortality was size- and sex-dependent and different between both populations. we compared our findings with mortality rates previously estimated for other populations of this species." "use of multi-state models to explore relationships between changes in body condition, habitat and survival of grizzly bears ursus arctos horribilis",body condition; grizzly bears; habitat; health; live-capture effects; mark-recapture; multi-state models; program mark; sample dropout; survival analysis; ursus arctos horribilis,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,BOULANGER J;CATTET M;NIELSEN SE;STENHOUSE G;CRANSTON J,"one of the principal goals of wildlife research and management is to understand and predict relationships between habitat quality, health of individuals and their ability to survive. infrequent sampling, non-random loss of individuals due to mortality and variation in capture susceptibility create potential biases with conventional analysis methods. to account for such sampling biases, we used a multi-state analytical approach to assess relationships between habitat, health and survival of grizzly bears ursus arctos horribilis over a 10-year period along the east slopes of the canadian rockies in alberta, canada. we defined bear health states by body condition estimated from the relationship between weight and body length. we used a sequential model building process to first account for potential sampling biases, and then explored changes in body condition relative to habitat use and survival. bears that used regenerating forest habitats (mostly due to forest harvesting) containing a diversity of age classes were more likely to see gains in their body condition, whereas bears that used older forests were more likely to see reductions in body condition. survival rate was reduced most by road densities which in turn were positively correlated with regenerating forest habitat. human activities which promote young regenerating forests, such as forest harvesting, therefore promotes improved health (increased body condition) in bears, but are offset by reductions in survival rates. multi-state analyses represents a robust analytical tool when dealing with complex relationships and sampling biases that arise from dynamic environments." comparison of two life history strategies after impoundment of a historically anadromous stock of columbia river redband trout,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,HOLECEK DE;SCARNECCHIA DL,"in this study we collected information on abundance, age structure, migration, and exploitation to characterize the population demographics and reproductive characteristics of a historically anadromous columbia river redband trout oncorhynchus mykiss gairdneri population now isolated in a southwestern idaho reservoir and limited to resident and adfluvial life histories. we estimated there were 3,905 adfluvial individuals in mann creek reservoir in october 2008 based on a mark-recapture population estimate. the adfluvial population sex ratio of 2.78 females per male captured at a weir, peak spawn timing near the peak of the hydrograph (late april), age at spawning (4-6years), and growth patterns (slow growth in the stream followed by rapid growth in the reservoir) were all characteristic of an anadromous population. resident fish abundance was not estimated, but the fish were characterized by relatively slow growth, earlier sexual maturity, and a reverse sex ratio (0.23 females per male) compared with the adfluvial fish. the two life histories (resident and adfluvial) and their differential use by the sexes are consistent with life history theory, which suggests female salmonids maximize fitness by increasing body size and fecundity while males attempt to maximize survival at the expense of growth. the migratory fish in this drainage that could have historically exercised an anadromous life history appear to be exercising the next-best option, an adfluvial life history, which has relatively similar costs and benefits to the anadromous form as distinct from the stream-resident form. future studies should evaluate other similar native populations isolated in reservoir systems because these populations could play a role in recovery of endangered steelhead (anadromous rainbow trout) populations in the western usa. received december 4, 2012; accepted april 18, 2013" safety riding program and motorcycle-related injuries in thailand,safety riding; motorcycle; injuries; thailand,ACCIDENT ANALYSIS AND PREVENTION,WORATANARAT P;INGSATHIT A;CHATCHAIPAN P;SURIYAWONGPAISAL P,"a retrospective cohort study was conducted in thailand from 2007 to 2009 to evaluate the efficacy of a safety riding program in preventing motorcycle-related injuries. a training group of motorcyclists were certified by the asia-pacific honda safety riding program in either 30-h instruction (teaching skills, riding demonstration) or 15-h license (knowledge, skills, and hazard perception) courses. the control group consisted of untrained motorcyclists matched on an approximately 1:1 ratio with the training group by region and date of licensure. in total, there were 3250 subjects in the training group and 2963 in the control group. demographic data and factors associated with motorcycle-related injuries were collected. motorcycle-related injuries were identified using the road injuries victims protection for injuries claims and inpatient diagnosis-related group datasets from the national health security office. the capture-recapture technique was used to estimate the prevalence of injuries. multivariate analysis was used to identify factors related to motorcycle-related injuries. the prevalence of motorcycle-related injuries was estimated to be 586 out of 6213 riders (9.4%) with a 95% confidence interval (ci): 460-790. the license course and the instruction course were significantly associated with a 30% and 29% reduction of motorcycle-related injuries, respectively (relative risk 0.70, 95% ci: 0.53-0.92 and 0.71, 95% cl: 0.42-1.18, respectively). other factors associated with the injuries were male gender and young age. safety riding training was effective in reducing injuries. these training programs differ from those in other developed countries but display comparable effects. hazard perception skills might be a key for success. this strategy should be expanded to a national scale. (c) 2013 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -optimizing the size of the area surveyed for monitoring a eurasian lynx (lynx lynx) population in the swiss alps by means of photographic capture-recapture,area surveyed; density estimation; lynx lynx; photographic capture-recapture; swiss alps,INTEGRATIVE ZOOLOGY,ZIMMERMANN F;BREITENMOSER-WURSTEN C;MOLINARI-JOBIN A;BREITENMOSER U,"we studied the influence of surveyed area size on density estimates by means of camera-trapping in a low-density felid population (1-2 individuals/100 km(2)). we applied non-spatial capture-recapture (cr) and spatial cr (scr) models for eurasian lynx during winter 2005/2006 in the northwestern swiss alps by sampling an area divided into 5 nested plots ranging from 65 to 760 km(2). cr model density estimates (95% ci) for models m-0 and m-h decreased from 2.61 (1.55-3.68) and 3.6 (1.62-5.57) independent lynx/100 km(2), respectively, in the smallest to 1.20 (1.04-1.35) and 1.26 (0.89-1.63) independent lynx/100 km(2), respectively, in the largest area surveyed. scr model density estimates also decreased with increasing sampling area but not significantly. high individual range overlaps in relatively small areas (the edge effect) is the most plausible reason for this positive bias in the cr models. our results confirm that scr models are much more robust to changes in trap array size than cr models, thus avoiding overestimation of density in smaller areas. however, when a study is concerned with monitoring population changes, large spatial efforts (area surveyed 760 km(2)) are required to obtain reliable and precise density estimates with these population densities and recapture rates." +optimizing the size of the area surveyed for monitoring a eurasian lynx (lynx lynx) population in the swiss alps by means of photographic capture-recapture,area surveyed; density estimation; lynx lynx; photographic capture-recapture; swiss alps,INTEGRATIVE ZOOLOGY,ZIMMERMANN F;BREITENMOSER WURSTEN C;MOLINARI JOBIN A;BREITENMOSER U,"we studied the influence of surveyed area size on density estimates by means of camera-trapping in a low-density felid population (1-2 individuals/100 km(2)). we applied non-spatial capture-recapture (cr) and spatial cr (scr) models for eurasian lynx during winter 2005/2006 in the northwestern swiss alps by sampling an area divided into 5 nested plots ranging from 65 to 760 km(2). cr model density estimates (95% ci) for models m-0 and m-h decreased from 2.61 (1.55-3.68) and 3.6 (1.62-5.57) independent lynx/100 km(2), respectively, in the smallest to 1.20 (1.04-1.35) and 1.26 (0.89-1.63) independent lynx/100 km(2), respectively, in the largest area surveyed. scr model density estimates also decreased with increasing sampling area but not significantly. high individual range overlaps in relatively small areas (the edge effect) is the most plausible reason for this positive bias in the cr models. our results confirm that scr models are much more robust to changes in trap array size than cr models, thus avoiding overestimation of density in smaller areas. however, when a study is concerned with monitoring population changes, large spatial efforts (area surveyed 760 km(2)) are required to obtain reliable and precise density estimates with these population densities and recapture rates." population density of the blanford's fox vulpes cana in jordan,blanford's fox; jabal masuda; jordan; population density; vulpes cana; arcgis,VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY,EID E;BOULAD N;AL SHARE T;ABED O;HAGEER Y,"a survey of the blanford's fox was established in jabal masuda (southern jordan), to increase the knowledge of its density. live-trapping method was used and capture mark-recapture technique was applied. we captured a total of 27 specimens including nine re-captured specimens. density was determined using two methods: the bondrup-nielsen formula which identified 8.5 individuals per km(2), and the arcgis tools which showed values, between 0.177 to 9 individuals per km(2). this paper is the first to give measured information on the blanford's fox density in jordan. as well, it showed that arcgis 9.3 spatial analyst extension is an effective tool in establishing information on density in large spatial areas. the information provided could serve as a base for future monitoring of the blanford's fox's range of occurrence." demographic comparison of golden-winged warbler (vermivora chrysoptera) populations in northern and southern extremes of their breeding range,annual adult survival; daily nest survival; geographic variation; life history; neotropical migratory songbird; warbler,WILSON JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,BULLUCK L;BUEHLER D;VALLENDER R;ROBERTSON RJ,"conservation strategies for declining species often are based on limited knowledge about how fecundity and survival may change across a species' range, and what factors may be limiting for a given population. incomplete understanding of how a species' demography varies across a range of conditions may lead to inappropriate management decisions. our objective was to compare demographic data from northern and southern extremes of the breeding range of golden-winged warblers (vermivora clnysoptera). specifically, we compared minimum estimates of annual adult survival, daily nest survival, fecundity, and population growth (lambda) for tennessee and ontario breeding populations. tennessee nest survival decreased throughout the nesting season and as daily minimum temperature increased, but the constant survival model was equally supported (model averaged daily survival rate, dsr = 0.972 [0.01 se]). ontario nest survival also decreased throughout the nesting season, but not as a function of temperature (model averaged dsr = 0.956 [0.02 se]). despite larger clutch sizes and number of young fledged per successful nest in ontario, fecundity estimates were greater for the tennessee population. males had greater annual survival than females in both tennessee and ontario populations (tennessee male = 0.616 [0.11 se], tennessee female = 0.427 [0.12 se], ontario male = 0.618 [0.08 se], and ontario female = 0.477 [0.14 se]). minimum lambda estimates suggest that both populations were declining (2, = 0.7468 and 0.7935 for tennessee and ontario, respectively). however, as with many mark-recapture studies of birds, we are unable to separate mortality from dispersal which likely biases these survival estimates. further, annual survival is affected by events in the wintering and migratory periods and until these are known, we will be limited in our ability to effectively manage this and other declining neotropical migratory songbirds." capture-mark-recapture to estimate the number of missed articles for systematic reviews in surgery,systematic review; surgery; wounds and injuries; quality of care; regression analysis; statistical modeling,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SURGERY,STELFOX HT;FOSTER G;NIVEN D;KIRKPATRICK AW;GOLDSMITH CH,"background: systematic reviews are an important knowledge synthesis tool, but with new literature available each day, reviewers must balance identifying all relevant literature against timely synthesis. methods: this study tested capture-mark-recapture (cmr), an ecology-based technique, to estimate the total number of articles in the literature identified in a systematic review of adult trauma care quality indicators. results: the systematic review included 40 articles identified from online searches and citation references. the cmr model suggested that 3 (95% confidence interval [ci]: 0 to 6) articles were missed and the database search provided 93% (one-sided 95% ci: >= 83%) of known articles for inclusion in the systematic review. the search order used for identifying the articles was optimal among the 24 that could have been used. conclusions: the cmr technique can be used in systematic reviews in surgery to estimate the closeness to capturing the total body of literature for a specific topic. (c) 2013 elsevier inc. all rights reserved." @@ -2951,13 +2956,13 @@ extensive sampling of polar bears (ursus maritimus) in the northwest passage (ca semiparametric inference for open populations using the jolly-seber model: a penalized spline approach,generalized cross-validation; jolly-seber model; open population; p-splines; 93e14; 57r10; 92d25,JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL COMPUTATION AND SIMULATION,HUGGINS R;STOKLOSA J,"when there are frequent capture occasions, both semiparametric and nonparametric estimators for the size of an open population have been proposed using kernel smoothing methods. while kernel smoothing methods are mathematically tractable, fitting them to data is computationally intensive. here, we use smoothing splines in the form of p-splines to provide an alternate less computationally intensive method of fitting these models to capture-recapture data from open populations with frequent capture occasions. we fit the model to capture data collected over 64 occasions and model the population size as a function of time, seasonal effects and an environmental covariate. a small simulation study is also conducted to examine the performance of the estimators and their standard errors." realized population change for long-term monitoring: california spotted owl case study,bayesian mcmc approach; california; california spotted owl; hierarchical model monitoring; pradel's temporal symmetry model; random effects estimator; rate of population change; realized population change; strix occidentalis occidentalis,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CONNER MM;KEANE JJ;GALLAGHER CV;JEHLE G;MUNTON TE;SHAKLEE PA;GERRARD RA,"the annual rate of population change ((t)) is a good metric for evaluating population performance because it summarizes survival and recruitment rates and can be used for open populations. another measure of population performance, realized population change ((t)) is an encompassing metric of population trend over a period of time; it is the ratio of population size at an end time period relative to the initial population size. our first goal was to compare mean and (t) as summaries of population change over time. our second goal was to evaluate different methods for estimating these parameters; specifically we wished to compare the value of estimates from fixed effects models, random effects estimates from mixed effects models, and bayesian markov chain monte carlo (mcmc) methods. our final goal was to evaluate the use of the posterior distribution of (t) as a means for estimating the probability of population decline retrospectively. to meet these goals, we used california spotted owl (strix occidentalis occidentalis) data collected on 3 study areas from 1990 to 2011 as a case study. the estimated mcmc median s for 2 of the study areas were 0.986 and 0.993, indicating declining populations, whereas median was 1.014 for the third study area, indicating an increasing population. for 2 of the study areas, estimated mcmc median (t)s over the 18-year monitoring period were 0.78 and 0.89, suggesting 21% and 11% declines in population size, whereas the third study area was 1.22 suggesting a 22% increase. results from (t) analyses highlight that small differences in mean from 1.0 (stationary) can result in large differences in population size over a longer time period; these temporal effects are better depicted by (t). fixed effects, random effects, and mcmc estimates of mean and median and of (t) were similar (9% relative difference). the estimate of temporal process variance was larger for mcmc than the random effects estimates. results from a bayesian approach using mcmc simulations indicated that the probabilities of a 15% decline over 18 years were 0.69, 0.40, and 0.04 for the 3 study areas, whereas the probabilities the populations were stationary or increasing were 0.07, 0.22, and 0.82. for retrospective analyses of monitored populations, using bayesian mcmc methods to generate a posterior distribution of (t) is a valuable conservation and management tool for robustly estimating probabilities of specified declines of interest. (c) 2013 the wildlife society." use of capture-recapture models with mark-resight data to estimate abundance of aleutian cackling geese,abundance; aleutian cackling goose; branta hutchinsii leucopareia; capture-recapture; capture-resight; jolly-seber; lincoln-petersen; mark-recapture; mark-resight; pollock's robust design; popan,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SANDERS TA;TROST RE,"the aleutian cackling goose (branta hutchinsii leucopareia) was listed as endangered in 1967, downgraded to threatened in 1990, and removed from protection under the endangered species act in 2001. accurate determination of population status continues to be a priority for management agencies because of the population's past listing as endangered, the species status as a game bird, and because population expansion has resulted in increased crop damage complaints. we compared estimates of marked aleutian goose abundance from available mark-resight data during 1996-2012 using capture-recapture jolly-seber (popan formulation) and robust design (closed capture) models. we derived an estimate of aleutian goose abundance by expanding an estimate of marked-bird abundance by the ratio of total to marked geese. robust design models provided strong evidence of even-flow and markovian temporary emigration from observable to unobservable states between annual sampling periods, and popan estimates were biased as a result of this movement. the observable population increased in abundance from 790 in 1975 to 134,703 (se=10,866, 95% ci=113,405-156,002) geese in 2012. however, total (observable and unobservable) population size was 216,564 geese based on an estimated probability (0.622) of being available for observation. annual survival probability was 0.80 (se=0.05). current data collection allows estimation of annual observable abundance with a coefficient of variation of 8%. robust design offers a means of estimating abundance of partially marked wildlife populations in the presence or absence of temporary emigration, which can result from partial study area access and is likely a common situation for many populations. mark-resight is a cost-effective approach (compared to capture-recapture studies and aerial surveys) that can be applied to successfully estimate demographic parameters of other populations. (c) 2013 the wildlife society." -assessing the effectiveness of a hunting moratorium on target and non-target species,hunting moratorium; common coot; crested coot; southern europe; management effectiveness; waterfowl; survival probability,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MARTINEZ-ABRAIN A;VIEDMA C;GOMEZ JA;BARTOLOME MA;JIMENEZ J;GENOVART M;TENAN S,"information on the effectiveness of wildlife management actions is scarce, despite the great relevance of this type of information for maximizing conservation goals while minimizing resource expenditure. here we assess the management effectiveness of a four-year hunting moratorium, addressed to protecting a declining waterbird game species: common coot fulica atra. we also studied the indirect benefits that this management action could have had on a non-target endangered species (crested coot fulica cristata), currently being reintroduced in the study region (comunidad valenciana, eastern spain). we found that wintering common coots interrupted their marked negative trend coinciding with the hunting moratorium, and before-after-control-impact modelling confirmed this fact. however breeding common coots continued their negative trend in numbers. we also found that crested coots increased their wintering numbers during the hunting moratorium years but not during breeding. we detected a strong and time variant cost of release on survival probability of crested coots, but annual survival probability was found to be constant and low for experienced birds, with no clear effects of the hunting moratorium on survival probability. we conclude that the moratorium had some positive effect on both species, but we suggest that lack of enforcement during a traditional hunting practice at the end of each hunting season, most likely precluded the moratorium having a long-lasting effect on the breeding numbers and probably on survival, of both species. hence, when fully-enforced hunting moratoria are difficult to implement, we recommend the creation of hunting preserves of high habitat quality to attract coots during the winter, allowing its subsequent reproduction during the breeding season. (c) 2013 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +assessing the effectiveness of a hunting moratorium on target and non-target species,hunting moratorium; common coot; crested coot; southern europe; management effectiveness; waterfowl; survival probability,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MARTINEZ ABRAIN A;VIEDMA C;GOMEZ JA;BARTOLOME MA;JIMENEZ J;GENOVART M;TENAN S,"information on the effectiveness of wildlife management actions is scarce, despite the great relevance of this type of information for maximizing conservation goals while minimizing resource expenditure. here we assess the management effectiveness of a four-year hunting moratorium, addressed to protecting a declining waterbird game species: common coot fulica atra. we also studied the indirect benefits that this management action could have had on a non-target endangered species (crested coot fulica cristata), currently being reintroduced in the study region (comunidad valenciana, eastern spain). we found that wintering common coots interrupted their marked negative trend coinciding with the hunting moratorium, and before-after-control-impact modelling confirmed this fact. however breeding common coots continued their negative trend in numbers. we also found that crested coots increased their wintering numbers during the hunting moratorium years but not during breeding. we detected a strong and time variant cost of release on survival probability of crested coots, but annual survival probability was found to be constant and low for experienced birds, with no clear effects of the hunting moratorium on survival probability. we conclude that the moratorium had some positive effect on both species, but we suggest that lack of enforcement during a traditional hunting practice at the end of each hunting season, most likely precluded the moratorium having a long-lasting effect on the breeding numbers and probably on survival, of both species. hence, when fully-enforced hunting moratoria are difficult to implement, we recommend the creation of hunting preserves of high habitat quality to attract coots during the winter, allowing its subsequent reproduction during the breeding season. (c) 2013 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." damselflies use different movement strategies for short- and long-distance dispersal,coenagrion mercuriale; conservation; dispersal; dispersal types; gene flow; landscape genetics; mark-recapture; odonata,INSECT CONSERVATION AND DIVERSITY,KELLER D;HOLDEREGGER R,"1. dispersal is an important process for any organism, but especially for endangered species in fragmented landscapes. to enhance the dispersal of a certain species, connectivity measures are implemented, which require knowledge on the species' dispersal behaviour and habitat. it is often assumed, that the preferred reproductive habitat of a species is also used as the main dispersal habitat. although this assumption has often been confirmed, there are also cases where it has been disproved. 2. with a combination of a mark-resight study and genetic analysis conducted in a fragmented agricultural landscape in switzerland, the dispersal habitats of the threatened damselfly coenagrion mercuriale were analysed for different distance classes. in addition, maximum dispersal distances were estimated. 3. the mark-resight study detected movement over short distances (<= 500 m) mainly within the reproductive habitat of c. mercuriale (i.e. streams). 4. in contrast, the genetic study detected both short-and long-distance dispersal. short-distance dispersal occurred along streams, and discontinuity of streams hindered dispersal. long-distance dispersal was suggested to happen along more or less straight lines and crossing agricultural land. genetic analysis also showed that populations were well connected and that few individuals dispersed over larger distances (<= 4500 m). 5. our study showed that connected reproductive habitat enhanced short-distance dispersal in c. mercuriale. although short-distance dispersal occurred frequently, long-distance dispersal was rare, but important to connect more isolated populations. therefore, it would be relevant to differentiate between these two dispersal types when planning connectivity measures." "are declines of an endangered mammal predation-driven, and can a captive-breeding and release program aid their recovery?",key largo woodrat; capture-mark-recapture analysis; predation; pradel's model; survival; recruitment; release; captive breeding,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,MCCLEERY R;OLI MK;HOSTETLER JA;KARMACHARYA B;GREENE D;WINCHESTER C;GORE J;SNECKENBERGER S;CASTLEBERRY SB;MENGAK MT,"declines of imperiled small mammals are often attributed to predation without investigating the relative influence of survival and reproductive parameters on population growth. accordingly, declines in the endangered key largo woodrat neotoma floridana smalli (klwr) population have been attributed to predation by feral cats felis catus, burmese pythons python molurus bivittatus and raccoons procyon lotor. we estimated survival, recruitment and realized population growth rates from four capture-mark-recapture studies to determine if the pattern of demographic variation was consistent with predation as the primary cause of klwr declines. additionally, we evaluated the klwr captive-breeding and release program by comparing survival of captive-born and released klwrs to wild-born klwrs. the realized population growth rate of wild-born klwrs had a strong pattern of covariation with recruitment; covariation between the realized population growth rate and apparent survival was negligible. consistent with demographic theory, our results suggest that klwr population dynamics were driven primarily by variation in recruitment, and that periodic reductions in recruitment led to population declines. we found that the survival curve and the first month (s-1) and first 3-month (s1-3) survival estimates for the wild-born klwrs [s-1 = 0.929 (0.890-0.968); s1-3 = 0.942 (0.919-0.965)] were considerably higher ((2) = 33.9, 1 d.f., p < 0.001) than released klwrs [s-1 = 0.521 (0.442-0.600); s1-3 = 0.561 (0.493-0.629)]. low survival rates from predation limited the success of the captive-breeding and release program. this study illustrates the importance of pre-release conditioning of captive-bred animals and the importance of considering reproductive parameters in conjunction with survival estimates to understand the drivers of population decline." apparent survival estimation from continuous mark-recapture/resighting data,barker joint data; cormack-jolly-seber; model structure adequacy; telemetry,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BARBOUR AB;PONCIANO JM;LORENZEN K,"1. the recent expansion of continuous-resighting telemetry methods (e.g. acoustic receivers, pit tag antennae) has created a class of ecological data not well suited for traditional mark-recapture statistics. estimating survival when continuous recapture data is available ensues a practical problem, because classical capture-recapture models were derived under a discrete sampling scheme that assumes sampling events are instantaneous with respect to the interval between events. 2. to investigate the use of continuous data in survival analysis, we conducted a model structure adequacy simulation that tested the cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) and barker joint data survival estimation models, which mainly differ through the barker's inclusion of secondary period information. we simulated a population in which survival and detection occurred as a near continuous (daily) process and collapsed detection information into monthly sampling bins for survival estimation. 3. while both models performed well when survival was time-independent, the cjs was substantially biased for low survival values and time-dependent conditions. additionally, unlike the cjs, the barker model consistently performed well over multiple sample sizes (number of marked individuals). however, the high number of parameters in the barker model led to convergence difficulties, resulting in a need for an alternative optimization method (simulated annealing). 4. we recommend the use of the barker model when using continuous data for survival analysis, because it outperformed the cjs over a biologically reasonable range of potential parameter values. however, the practical difficulty of implementing the barker model combined with its shortcomings during two simulations leaves room for the specification of novel statistical methods tailored specifically for continuous mark-resighting data." marked: an r package for maximum likelihood and markov chain monte carlo analysis of capture-recapture data,automatic differentiation model builder; capture-recapture; cormack-jolly-seber; jolly-seber; mark-recapture; markov chain monte carlo; population analysis,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,LAAKE JL;JOHNSON DS;CONN PB,"1. we describe an open-source r package, marked, for analysis of mark-recapture data to estimate survival and animal abundance. 2. currently, marked is capable of fitting cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) and jolly-seber models with maximum likelihood estimation (mle) and cjs models with bayesian markov chain monte carlo methods. the cjs models can be fitted with mle using optimization code in r or with automatic differentiation model builder. the latter allows incorporation of random effects. 3. some package features include: (i) individual-specific time intervals between sampling occasions, (ii) generation of optimization starting values from generalized linear model approximations and (iii) prediction of demographic parameters associated with unique combinations of individual and time-specific covariates. 4. we demonstrate marked with a commonly analysed european dipper (cinclus cinclus) data set. 5. the package will be most useful to ecologists with large mark-recapture data sets and many individual covariates." program simassem: software for simulating species assemblages and estimating species richness,biodiversity; community ecology; landscape ecology; relative abundance distribution; simulation; spatial aggregation,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,REESE GC;WILSON KR;FLATHER CH,"1. species richness, the number of species in a defined area, is the most frequently used biodiversity measure. despite its intuitive appeal and conceptual simplicity, species richness is often difficult to quantify, even in well-surveyed areas, because of sampling limitations such as survey effort and species detection probability. nonparametric estimators have generally performed better than other options, but no particular estimator has consistently performed best across variation in assemblage and survey parameters. 2. in order to evaluate estimator performances, we developed the program simassem. simassem can: (i) simulate assemblages and surveys with user-specified parameters, (ii) process existing species encounter history files, (iii) generate species richness estimates not available in other programs and (iv) format encounter history data for several other programs. 3. simassem can help elucidate relationships between assemblage and survey parameters and the performance of species richness estimators, thereby increasing our understanding of estimator sensitivity, improving estimator development and defining the bounds for appropriate application." -spatial and temporal variation in survival of a rare reptile: a 22-year study of sonoran desert tortoises,capture-recapture; climate change; demography; drought; gopherus morafkai,OECOLOGIA,ZYLSTRA ER;STEIDL RJ;JONES CA;AVERILL-MURRAY RC,"although many species may be vulnerable to changes in climate, forecasting species-level responses can be challenging given the array of physiological, behavioral, and demographic attributes that might be affected. one strategy to improve forecasts is to evaluate how species responded to climatic variation in the past. we used 22 years of capture-recapture data for sonoran desert tortoises (gopherus morafkai) collected from 15 locations across their geographic range in arizona to evaluate how environmental factors affected spatial and temporal variation in survival. although rates of annual survival were generally high ( = 0.92), survival of adults decreased with drought severity, especially in portions of their range that were most arid and nearest to cities. in three locations where large numbers of carcasses from marked tortoises were recovered, survival of adults was markedly lower during periods of severe drought ( = 0.77-0.81) compared to all other periods ( = 0.93-0.98). assuming continued levels of dependency of humans on fossil fuels, survival of adult tortoises is predicted to decrease by an average of 3 % during 2035-2060 relative to survival during 1987-2008 in 14 of the 15 populations we studied. this decrease could reduce persistence of tortoise populations, especially in arid portions of their range. temporal and spatial variation in drought conditions are important determinants of survival in adult desert tortoises." +spatial and temporal variation in survival of a rare reptile: a 22-year study of sonoran desert tortoises,capture-recapture; climate change; demography; drought; gopherus morafkai,OECOLOGIA,ZYLSTRA ER;STEIDL RJ;JONES CA;AVERILL MURRAY RC,"although many species may be vulnerable to changes in climate, forecasting species-level responses can be challenging given the array of physiological, behavioral, and demographic attributes that might be affected. one strategy to improve forecasts is to evaluate how species responded to climatic variation in the past. we used 22 years of capture-recapture data for sonoran desert tortoises (gopherus morafkai) collected from 15 locations across their geographic range in arizona to evaluate how environmental factors affected spatial and temporal variation in survival. although rates of annual survival were generally high ( = 0.92), survival of adults decreased with drought severity, especially in portions of their range that were most arid and nearest to cities. in three locations where large numbers of carcasses from marked tortoises were recovered, survival of adults was markedly lower during periods of severe drought ( = 0.77-0.81) compared to all other periods ( = 0.93-0.98). assuming continued levels of dependency of humans on fossil fuels, survival of adult tortoises is predicted to decrease by an average of 3 % during 2035-2060 relative to survival during 1987-2008 in 14 of the 15 populations we studied. this decrease could reduce persistence of tortoise populations, especially in arid portions of their range. temporal and spatial variation in drought conditions are important determinants of survival in adult desert tortoises." winter weather versus group thermoregulation: what determines survival in hibernating mammals?,climate change; cooperative breeding; hoary marmot; mark-recapture; pacific decadal; oscillation; snowpack; survival; social structure,OECOLOGIA,PATIL VP;MORRISON SF;KARELS TJ;HIK DS,"for socially hibernating mammals, the effectiveness of huddling as a means of energy conservation should increase with group size. however, group size has only been linked to increased survival in a few hibernating species, and the relative importance of social structure versus winter conditions during hibernation remains uncertain. we studied the influence of winter weather conditions, social group composition, age-structure, and other environmental factors and individual attributes on the overwinter survival of hoary marmots (marmota caligata) in the yukon territory, canada. juvenile hoary marmot survival was negatively correlated with the mean winter (november to may) pacific decadal oscillation (pdo) index. survival in older age-classes was negatively correlated with pdo lagged by 1 year. social group size and structure were weakly correlated with survival in comparison to pdo. the relationship between winter pdo and survival was most likely due to the importance of snowpack as insulation during hibernation. the apparent response of hoary marmots to changing winter conditions contrasted sharply with those of other marmot species and other mammalian alpine herbivores. in conclusion, the severity of winter weather may constrain the effectiveness of group thermoregulation in socially hibernating mammals." temporal variation of juvenile survival in a long-lived species: the role of parasites and body condition,elasticity; mortality; cestodes; body mass; geese,OECOLOGIA,SOUCHAY G;GAUTHIER G;PRADEL R,"studies of population dynamics of long-lived species have generally focused on adult survival because population growth should be most sensitive to this parameter. however, actual variations in population size can often be driven by other demographic parameters, such as juvenile survival, when they show high temporal variability. we used capture-recapture data from a long-term study of a hunted, migratory species, the greater snow goose (chen caerulescens atlantica), to assess temporal variability in first-year survival and the relative importance of natural and hunting mortality. we also conducted a parasite-removal experiment to determine the effect of internal parasites and body condition on temporal variation in juvenile survival. we found that juvenile survival showed a higher temporal variability than adult survival and that natural mortality was more important than hunting mortality, unlike in adults. parasite removal increased first-year survival and reduced its annual variability in females only. body condition at fledging was also positively correlated with first-year survival in treated females. with reduced parasite load, females, which are thought to invest more in their immune system than males according to bateman's principle, could probably reallocate more energy to growth than males, leading to a higher survival. treated birds also had a higher survival than control ones during their second year, suggesting a developmental effect that manifested later in life. our study shows that natural factors such as internal parasites may be a major source of variation in juvenile survival of a long-lived, migratory bird, which has implications for its population dynamics." mating system and intrapatch mobility delay inbreeding in fragmented populations of a gecko,habitat fragmentation; inbreeding avoidance; oedura reticulata; parentage; territoriality; western australian wheatbelt,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY,LANGE R;GRUBER B;HENLE K;SARRE SD;HOEHN M,"habitat fragmentation can cause high levels of inbreeding within populations by creating small isolated populations and therefore can affect population survival. while most genetic studies of fragmented systems focus on the impact of habitat fragmentation on interpatch patterns or processes, here we focus on inbreeding (avoidance) processes within patches. we used both genetic and mark-recapture data to study within-patch processes in fragmented and continuous populations of the gecko oedura reticulata in the western australian wheatbelt. our results revealed that o. reticulata in fragments and continuous populations alike share a promiscuous mating system (involving both polygyny and polyandry) and exhibit no detectable difference in mean levels of relatedness. however, we also found that proportions of full-and half-sib matings were higher in the habitat fragments, subadults disperse further, and all demographic classes move further and more frequently. we contend that the net result of this combination of promiscuity and greater movement is that small isolated populations have been able to retain mean levels of relatedness similar to those in nearby continuous habitat despite fragmentation and close to complete isolation over generations. it is likely that these behavioral changes have ameliorated some of the genetic effects caused by habitat fragmentation, potentially delaying reductions in the fitness effects expected from fragmentation into small populations." @@ -2994,26 +2999,26 @@ growth of the antarctic octocoral primnoella scotiae and predation by the anemon assessing demographic and epidemiologic parameters of rural dog populations in india during mass vaccination campaigns,dog; mass vaccination; rabies; canine distemper; canine parvovirus; canine adenovirus,PREVENTIVE VETERINARY MEDICINE,BELSARE AV;GOMPPER ME,"mass vaccination of dogs is a mainstay for efforts to control rabies and other viral pathogens. the success of such programs is a function of the ability to vaccinate sufficient proportions of animals to develop herd immunity. however, fully assessing success in reaching target vaccination-levels and in understanding the outcome of mass vaccination efforts is hindered if insufficient information is available on the demographics of dog populations and the prevalence of the targeted pathogens. while such information can sometimes be gained from questionnaire surveys, greater precision requires direct assessment of the dog populations. here we show how such information can be gained from surveys of dogs conducted in association with mass-vaccination programs. we conducted surveys of dogs in six villages in rural maharashtra, india, between february and july 2011 as part of an effort to reduce the risk of human rabies and virus transmission from dogs to wildlife. mass vaccination efforts were conducted in each village, and paired with blood sample collection and photographic mark-recapture approaches to gain epidemiologic and demographic data. this data in turn facilitated estimates of dog abundance, population density and structure, vaccination coverage, and seroprevalence of antibodies against canine adenovirus (cav), canine parvovirus (cpv), and canine distemper virus (cdv). the median dog population size for the six villages was 134 (range 90-188), the median dog population density was 719 dogs per km(2) (range 526-969), and the median human:dog ratio for these six villages was 34 (range 30-47). the median household:dog ratio for the six villages was 6 (range 5-8). following vaccination efforts, the median vaccination coverage achieved was 34% (range 24-42%). the dog populations consisted mostly of adult dogs (67-86%) and the median sex ratio for the study area was male biased (1.55 males per female; range 0.9-2.5). the seroprevalence of antibodies against cav, cpv and cdv was 68,88 and 73%, respectively. mass vaccination campaigns provide an opportunity to obtain vital epidemiological and demographic data, and develop a clearer understanding of the threats and impacts of diseases and disease control measures. (c) 2013 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." prescribed burning in southern europe: developing fire management in a dynamic landscape,NA,FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT,FERNANDES PM;DAVIES GM;ASCOLI D;FERNANDEZ C;MOREIRA F;RIGOLOT E;STOOF CR;VEGA JA;MOLINA D,"mediterranean landscapes are in a state of flux due to the impacts of changing land-use patterns and climate. fuel-weather interactions determine that large, severe wildfires are increasingly common. prescribed burning in southern europe is therefore justified by the need to manage fire-prone vegetation types and maintain cultural landscapes that provide a range of ecosystem services. prescribed fire has neutral or positive effects on soils and biodiversity, in contrast to wildfires, which can be extremely damaging. however, the limited extent of current applications are unlikely to reduce wildfire hazard or carbon emissions. adoption of prescribed burning in the mediterranean region has been slow, uneven, and inconsistent, and its development is constrained by cultural and socioeconomic factors as well as by specific factors related to demography, land use, and landscape structure. sustainable fire management requires expansion of managers' ability to use prescribed burning, a varied response to unplanned fires, and modified regulation of burning associated with traditional agricultural land uses." estimation of bird and bat mortality at wind-power farms with superpopulation models,bioeconomic models; carcass search; eastern red bat; golden eagle; hoary bat; optimal sampling design; superpopulation; wildlife fatalities; wind power; wind turbines,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,PERON G;HINES JE;NICHOLS JD;KENDALL WL;PETERS KA;MIZRAHI DS,"1. collision of birds and bats with turbines in utility-scale wind farms is an increasing cause of concern. 2. carcass counts conducted to quantify the take' of protected species need to be corrected for carcass persistence probability (removal by scavengers and decay) and detection probability (searcher efficiency). these probabilities may vary with time since death, because of intrinsic changes in carcass properties with age and of heterogeneity (preferential removal of easy-to-detect carcasses). 3. in this article, we describe the use of superpopulation capture-recapture models to perform the required corrections to the raw count data. we review how to make such models age specific and how to combine trial experiments with carcass searches in order to accommodate the fact that carcasses are stationary (which affects the detection process). 4. we derive information about optimal sampling design (proportion of the turbines to sample, number of sampling occasions, interval between sampling occasions) and use simulations to illustrate the expected precision of mortality estimates. we analyse data from a small wind farm in new jersey, in which we find the estimated number of fatalities to be twice the number of carcasses found. 5. synthesis and applications. our approach to estimation of wind farm mortality based on data from carcass surveys is flexible and can accommodate a range of different sampling designs and biological hypotheses. resulting mortality estimates can be used (1) to quantify the required amount of compensation actions, (2) to inform mortality projections for proposed wind development sites and (3) to inform decisions about management of existing wind farms." -using multiple data sources provides density estimates for endangered florida panther,camera-trapping; mark-resight; population estimation; puma concolor coryi; spatial capture-recapture; telemetry; unmarked populations,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,SOLLMANN R;GARDNER B;CHANDLER RB;SHINDLE DB;ONORATO DP;ROYLE JA;O'CONNELL AF,"1. to assess recovery of endangered species, reliable information on the size and density of the target population is required. in practice, however, this information has proved hard to acquire, especially for large carnivores that exist at low densities, are cryptic and range widely. many large carnivore species such as the endangered florida panther puma concolor coryi lack clear visual features for individual identification; thus, using standard approaches for estimating population size, such as camera-trapping and capture-recapture modelling, has so far not been possible. 2. we developed a spatial capture-recapture model that requires only a portion of the individuals in the population to be identifiable, using data from two 9-month camera-trapping surveys conducted within the core range of panthers in southwestern florida. identity of three radio-collared individuals was known, and we incorporated their telemetry location data into the model to improve parameter estimates. 3. the resulting density estimates of 151 (+/- 081) and 146 (+/- 076) florida panthers per 100km(2) for each year are the first estimates for this endangered subspecies and are consistent with estimates for other puma subspecies. 4. a simulation study showed that estimates of density may exhibit some positive bias but coverage of the true values by 95% credible intervals was nominal. 5. synthesis and applications. this approach provides a framework for monitoring the florida panther - and other species without conspicuous markings - while fully accounting for imperfect detection and varying sampling effort, issues of fundamental importance in the monitoring of wildlife populations." +using multiple data sources provides density estimates for endangered florida panther,camera-trapping; mark-resight; population estimation; puma concolor coryi; spatial capture-recapture; telemetry; unmarked populations,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,SOLLMANN R;GARDNER B;CHANDLER RB;SHINDLE DB;ONORATO DP;ROYLE JA;O CONNELL AF,"1. to assess recovery of endangered species, reliable information on the size and density of the target population is required. in practice, however, this information has proved hard to acquire, especially for large carnivores that exist at low densities, are cryptic and range widely. many large carnivore species such as the endangered florida panther puma concolor coryi lack clear visual features for individual identification; thus, using standard approaches for estimating population size, such as camera-trapping and capture-recapture modelling, has so far not been possible. 2. we developed a spatial capture-recapture model that requires only a portion of the individuals in the population to be identifiable, using data from two 9-month camera-trapping surveys conducted within the core range of panthers in southwestern florida. identity of three radio-collared individuals was known, and we incorporated their telemetry location data into the model to improve parameter estimates. 3. the resulting density estimates of 151 (+/- 081) and 146 (+/- 076) florida panthers per 100km(2) for each year are the first estimates for this endangered subspecies and are consistent with estimates for other puma subspecies. 4. a simulation study showed that estimates of density may exhibit some positive bias but coverage of the true values by 95% credible intervals was nominal. 5. synthesis and applications. this approach provides a framework for monitoring the florida panther - and other species without conspicuous markings - while fully accounting for imperfect detection and varying sampling effort, issues of fundamental importance in the monitoring of wildlife populations." are urban green spaces suitable for woodland carabids? first insights from a short-term experiment,urban ecology; capture-mark-recapture; woodland carabids; abax parallelepipedus; survival probability; urban green space,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,VERGNES A;CHANTEPIE S;ROBERT A;CLERGEAU P,"one consequence of the spatial expansion of cities is the multiplication of highly fragmented and diverse green spaces immediately surrounded by urban areas. whereas the global expansion of urban areas is a growing concern for the viability of woodland arthropods, the suitability of green spaces as refuges to arthropods needs to be clarified. in order to assess and compare the survival rates of the woodland carabid abax parallelepipedus in four types of green urban sites (remnant forest patch, urban park, woody corridor and set of gardens), we conducted a capture-mark-recapture experiment based on 483 individuals collected in a forest located in a natural landscape (considered as the control site) and released into the various green spaces. results indicated strong heterogeneity in survival probability between green spaces. survival rates were slightly higher in the control site than in the remnant forest patch, the urban park and the corridor, which appear suitable for the survival of the species. however, it was substantially lower in the gardens. the analysis further revealed that these differences in survival are largely explained by the differences of within -site habitat fragmentation. by indicating that urban green spaces may contribute unequally to woodland carabids survival, our study highlights that the modification of local environmental conditions alone (increase of temperature, increase of soil pollution and change in food availability) could not explain the negative effect of urbanization. this study argues for the development of corridors in cities in order to favour the colonisation of green spaces by woodland carabids." spotting the right spot: computer-aided individual identification of the threatened cerambycid beetle rosalia alpina,forest; habitats directive; mark-recapture; monitoring; photoidentification; population,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,CACI G;BISCACCIANTI AB;CISTRONE L;BOSSO L;GARONNA AP;RUSSO D,"individual identification of animals is of paramount importance to analyze population size, dispersal, habitat preferences or behaviour. especially for sensitive, threatened species, it is advisable to develop non-invasive recognition methods avoiding direct handling and tagging of the study subjects to be applied to procedures such as marking-recapture. here we present an application of the (is)-s-3 software for the individual recognition of the rosalia longicorn rosalia alpina based on the contour digitization of the spots present on the beetle's elytra. classification performances to individual level tested on an overall sample of 290 images (one per subject) were 94.8 (both elytra), 94.5 (right elytron) and 95.2 % (left elytron). since (is)-s-3 leaves the final decision to the operator, such high classification performances may be refined further in the final step leading to a fully reliable identification. we found that the identification performance was statistically supported and that the influence of two main error sources (contour tracing and angle under which the images were taken) was negligible. our approach minimizes the subjectivity of a qualitative manual comparison of images and greatly reduces the time taken to visually retrieve the image of an individual especially for large photo libraries. it may be successfully used in surveys covering large areas and involving many untrained operators such as volunteers or park rangers. we propose that (is)-s-3 can be applied to other insect species presenting characteristic spot patterns. to our best knowledge, this is the first study using computer-aided identification of a terrestrial arthropod." -frequency of new marble-colored morph in wild population of austropotamobius torrentium (decapoda: astacidae),stone crayfish; coloration; mark-recapture; estimated population,BIOLOGIA,PATOKA J;RIMALOVA-KADLECOVA K;BILY M;KOSCO J,"in contrast with the usual coloration of stone crayfish (austropotamobius torrentium), we newly discovered a rare marble morph in a brook in the czech republic (central europe). during mark-recapture sessions, we captured by hand 1,103 individuals over the 3 years 2008-2010 from which only 5 were marble-colored. this color morph's frequency of occurrence was thus less than 1% within the estimated subadult and adult stone crayfish population. although many biological papers and determination keys regarding crayfish are based upon analysis of exoskeletal coloration, recent studies have asserted that this characteristic provides unreliable guidance when determining species inasmuch as it easily results in errors because many crayfish species exhibit an extensive variety of color morphs." +frequency of new marble-colored morph in wild population of austropotamobius torrentium (decapoda: astacidae),stone crayfish; coloration; mark-recapture; estimated population,BIOLOGIA,PATOKA J;RIMALOVA KADLECOVA K;BILY M;KOSCO J,"in contrast with the usual coloration of stone crayfish (austropotamobius torrentium), we newly discovered a rare marble morph in a brook in the czech republic (central europe). during mark-recapture sessions, we captured by hand 1,103 individuals over the 3 years 2008-2010 from which only 5 were marble-colored. this color morph's frequency of occurrence was thus less than 1% within the estimated subadult and adult stone crayfish population. although many biological papers and determination keys regarding crayfish are based upon analysis of exoskeletal coloration, recent studies have asserted that this characteristic provides unreliable guidance when determining species inasmuch as it easily results in errors because many crayfish species exhibit an extensive variety of color morphs." "bayesian implementation of a time stratified lincoln-petersen estimator for salmon abundance in the upper matanuska river, alaska, usa",pacific salmon; bayesian modeling; mark-recapture; time stratified; winbugs,FISHERIES RESEARCH,SETHI SA;TANNER TL,"time stratified lincoln-petersen mark-recapture models can generate estimates of salmon abundance that are robust to capture heterogeneity. bayesian implementation of these estimators provides a flexible framework to formulate different model structures, including random effects structures and models with functional relationships between parameters and covariates, and can successfully generate estimates in the face of sparse data. in this article, we used a bayesian time stratified lincoln-petersen model to provide first ever abundance estimates of chum, oncorhynchus keta, coho, o. kisutch, and sockeye salmon, o. nerka, in the upper matanuska river, alaska, usa, using tagging data from 2009. for each species, we formulated a suite of twelve model structures and used deviance information criterion based multimodel inference and model averaging to estimate salmon abundance. model averaged point estimates for upper river 2009 chum, coho, and sockeye salmon were 54,720, 11,430, and 13,750, fish respectively, supporting a growing body of ecological research which demonstrates that glacial river systems can sustain significant pacific salmon runs. results identified time varying probability of capture for chum and coho salmon, and population estimates were 17% and 8% higher, respectively, than estimates from a simple pooled lincoln-petersen model which has been demonstrated to be biased low in the face of capture heterogeneity. capture heterogeneity was not found for sockeye salmon, and the model averaged time stratified and pooled lincoln-petersen estimates agreed closely. time stratified models can potentially produce more accurate estimates, however, the additional model complexity results in less precise abundance estimates compared to the simple pooled lincoln-petersen estimator. published by elsevier b.v." -"larger body size at metamorphosis enhances survival, growth and performance of young cane toads (rhinella marina)",NA,PLOS ONE,CABRERA-GUZMAN E;CROSSLAND MR;BROWN GP;SHINE R,"body size at metamorphosis is a key trait in species (such as many anurans) with biphasic life-histories. experimental studies have shown that metamorph size is highly plastic, depending upon larval density and environmental conditions (e.g. temperature, food supply, water quality, chemical cues from conspecifics, predators and competitors). to test the hypothesis that this developmental plasticity is adaptive, or to determine if inducing plasticity can be used to control an invasive species, we need to know whether or not a metamorphosing anuran's body size influences its subsequent viability. for logistical reasons, there are few data on this topic under field conditions. we studied cane toads (rhinella marina) within their invasive australian range. metamorph body size is highly plastic in this species, and our laboratory studies showed that larger metamorphs had better locomotor performance (both on land and in the water), and were more adept at catching and consuming prey. in mark-recapture trials in outdoor enclosures, larger body size enhanced metamorph survival and growth rate under some seasonal conditions. larger metamorphs maintained their size advantage over smaller siblings for at least a month. our data support the critical but rarely-tested assumption that all else being equal, larger body size at metamorphosis is likely to enhance an individual's long term viability. thus, manipulations to reduce body size at metamorphosis in cane toads may help to reduce the ecological impact of this invasive species." -beyond lifetime reproductive success: the posthumous reproductive dynamics of male trinidadian guppies,bet-hedging; male life-histories; posthumous fertilizations; state-space models; elasticity and sensitivity,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,LOPEZ-SEPULCRE A;GORDON SP;PATERSON IG;BENTZEN P;REZNICK DN,"in semelparous populations, dormant germ banks (e.g. seeds) have been proposed as important in maintaining genotypes that are adaptive at different times in fluctuating environments. such hidden storage of genetic diversity need not be exclusive to dormant banks. genotype diversity may be preserved in many iteroparous animals through sperm-storage mechanisms in females. this allows males to reproduce posthumously and increase the effective sizes of seemingly female-biased populations. although long-term sperm storage has been demonstrated in many organisms, the understanding of its importance in the wild is very poor. we here show the prevalence of male posthumous reproduction in wild trinidadian guppies, through the combination of mark-recapture and pedigree analyses of a multigenerational individual-based dataset. a significant proportion of the reproductive population consisted of dead males, who could conceive up to 10 months after death (the maximum allowed by the length of the dataset), which is more than twice the estimated generation time. demographic analysis shows that the fecundity of dead males can play an important role in population growth and selection." +"larger body size at metamorphosis enhances survival, growth and performance of young cane toads (rhinella marina)",NA,PLOS ONE,CABRERA GUZMAN E;CROSSLAND MR;BROWN GP;SHINE R,"body size at metamorphosis is a key trait in species (such as many anurans) with biphasic life-histories. experimental studies have shown that metamorph size is highly plastic, depending upon larval density and environmental conditions (e.g. temperature, food supply, water quality, chemical cues from conspecifics, predators and competitors). to test the hypothesis that this developmental plasticity is adaptive, or to determine if inducing plasticity can be used to control an invasive species, we need to know whether or not a metamorphosing anuran's body size influences its subsequent viability. for logistical reasons, there are few data on this topic under field conditions. we studied cane toads (rhinella marina) within their invasive australian range. metamorph body size is highly plastic in this species, and our laboratory studies showed that larger metamorphs had better locomotor performance (both on land and in the water), and were more adept at catching and consuming prey. in mark-recapture trials in outdoor enclosures, larger body size enhanced metamorph survival and growth rate under some seasonal conditions. larger metamorphs maintained their size advantage over smaller siblings for at least a month. our data support the critical but rarely-tested assumption that all else being equal, larger body size at metamorphosis is likely to enhance an individual's long term viability. thus, manipulations to reduce body size at metamorphosis in cane toads may help to reduce the ecological impact of this invasive species." +beyond lifetime reproductive success: the posthumous reproductive dynamics of male trinidadian guppies,bet-hedging; male life-histories; posthumous fertilizations; state-space models; elasticity and sensitivity,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,LOPEZ SEPULCRE A;GORDON SP;PATERSON IG;BENTZEN P;REZNICK DN,"in semelparous populations, dormant germ banks (e.g. seeds) have been proposed as important in maintaining genotypes that are adaptive at different times in fluctuating environments. such hidden storage of genetic diversity need not be exclusive to dormant banks. genotype diversity may be preserved in many iteroparous animals through sperm-storage mechanisms in females. this allows males to reproduce posthumously and increase the effective sizes of seemingly female-biased populations. although long-term sperm storage has been demonstrated in many organisms, the understanding of its importance in the wild is very poor. we here show the prevalence of male posthumous reproduction in wild trinidadian guppies, through the combination of mark-recapture and pedigree analyses of a multigenerational individual-based dataset. a significant proportion of the reproductive population consisted of dead males, who could conceive up to 10 months after death (the maximum allowed by the length of the dataset), which is more than twice the estimated generation time. demographic analysis shows that the fecundity of dead males can play an important role in population growth and selection." epidemiology of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (sspe) in germany from 2003 to 2009: a risk estimation,NA,PLOS ONE,SCHONBERGER K;LUDWIG MS;WILDNER M;WEISSBRICH B,"subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (sspe) is a fatal long-term complication of measles infection. we performed an estimation of the total number of sspe cases in germany for the period 2003 to 2009 and calculated the risk of sspe after an acute measles infection. sspe cases were collected from the surveillance unit for rare paediatric diseases in germany and the institute of virology and immunobiology at the university of wurzburg. the total number of sspe cases was estimated by capture-recapture analysis. for the period 2003 to 2009, 31 children with sspe who were treated at german hospitals were identified. the capture-recapture estimate was 39 cases (95% confidence interval: 29.2-48.0). the risk of developing sspe for children contracting measles infection below 5 years of age was calculated as 1:1700 to 1:3300. this risk is in the same order of magnitude as the risk of a fatal acute measles infection." -population dynamics and range expansion in nine-banded armadillos,NA,PLOS ONE,LOUGHRY WJ;PEREZ-HEYDRICH C;MCDONOUGH CM;OLI MK,"understanding why certain species can successfully colonize new areas while others do not is a central question in ecology. the nine-banded armadillo (dasypus novemcinctus) is a conspicuous example of a successful invader, having colonized much of the southern united states in the last 200 years. we used 15 years (1992-2006) of capture-mark-recapture data from a population of armadillos in northern florida in order to estimate, and examine relationships among, various demographic parameters that may have contributed to this ongoing range expansion. modeling across a range of values for gamma, the probability of juveniles surviving in the population until first capture, we found that population growth rates varied from 0.80 for gamma = 0.1, to 1.03 for gamma = 1.0. growth rates approached 1.0 only when gamma >= 0.80, a situation that might not occur commonly because of the high rate of disappearance of juveniles. net reproductive rate increased linearly with gamma, but life expectancy (estimated at 3 years) was independent of gamma. we also found that growth rates were lower during a 3-year period of hardwood removal that removed preferred habitat than in the years preceding or following. life-table response experiment (ltre) analysis indicated the decrease in growth rate during logging was primarily due to changes in survival rates of adults. likewise, elasticity analyses of both deterministic and stochastic population growth rates revealed that survival parameters were more influential on population growth than were those related to reproduction. collectively, our results are consistent with recent theories regarding biological invasions which posit that populations no longer at the leading edge of range expansion do not exhibit strong positive growth rates, and that high reproductive output is less critical in predicting the likelihood of successful invasion than are life-history strategies that emphasize allocation of resources to future, as opposed to current, reproduction." +population dynamics and range expansion in nine-banded armadillos,NA,PLOS ONE,LOUGHRY WJ;PEREZ HEYDRICH C;MCDONOUGH CM;OLI MK,"understanding why certain species can successfully colonize new areas while others do not is a central question in ecology. the nine-banded armadillo (dasypus novemcinctus) is a conspicuous example of a successful invader, having colonized much of the southern united states in the last 200 years. we used 15 years (1992-2006) of capture-mark-recapture data from a population of armadillos in northern florida in order to estimate, and examine relationships among, various demographic parameters that may have contributed to this ongoing range expansion. modeling across a range of values for gamma, the probability of juveniles surviving in the population until first capture, we found that population growth rates varied from 0.80 for gamma = 0.1, to 1.03 for gamma = 1.0. growth rates approached 1.0 only when gamma >= 0.80, a situation that might not occur commonly because of the high rate of disappearance of juveniles. net reproductive rate increased linearly with gamma, but life expectancy (estimated at 3 years) was independent of gamma. we also found that growth rates were lower during a 3-year period of hardwood removal that removed preferred habitat than in the years preceding or following. life-table response experiment (ltre) analysis indicated the decrease in growth rate during logging was primarily due to changes in survival rates of adults. likewise, elasticity analyses of both deterministic and stochastic population growth rates revealed that survival parameters were more influential on population growth than were those related to reproduction. collectively, our results are consistent with recent theories regarding biological invasions which posit that populations no longer at the leading edge of range expansion do not exhibit strong positive growth rates, and that high reproductive output is less critical in predicting the likelihood of successful invasion than are life-history strategies that emphasize allocation of resources to future, as opposed to current, reproduction." varyingeffort incapture-recapture studies,asynchronous sampling; binomial distribution; data pooling; dna; grizzly bear; hazard; spatially explicit capture-recapture; secr; ursus arctos,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,EFFORD MG;BORCHERS DL;MOWAT G,"1. the standard spatial capture-recapture design for sampling animal populations uses a fixed array of detectors, each operated for the same time. however, methods are needed to deal with the unbalanced data that may result from unevenness of effort due to logistical constraints, partial equipment failure or pooling of data for analysis. 2. we describe adjustments for varying effort for three types of data each with a different probability distribution for the number of observations per individual per detector per sampling occasion. a linear adjustment to the expected count is appropriate for poisson-distributed counts (e.g. faeces per searched quadrat). a linear adjustment on the hazard scale is appropriate for binary (bernoulli-distributed) observations at either traps or binary proximity detectors (e.g. automatic cameras). data pooled from varying numbers of binary detectors have a binomial distribution; adjustment is achieved by varying the size parameter of the binomial. 3. we compared a hazard-based adjustment to a more conventional covariate approach in simulations of one temporal and one spatial scenario for varying effort. the hazard-based approach was the more parsimonious and appeared more resistant to bias and confounding. 4. we analysed a dataset comprising dna identifications of female grizzly bears ursus arctos sampled asynchronously with hair snares in british columbia in 2007. adjustment for variation in sampling interval had negligible effect on density estimates, but unmasked an apparent decline in detection probability over the season. duration-dependent decay in sample quality is an alternative explanation for the decline that could be included in future models. 5. allowing for known variation in effort ensures that estimates of detection probability relate to a consistent unit of effort and improves the fit of detection models. failure to account for varying effort may result in confounding between effort and density variation in time or space. adjustment for effort allows rigorous analysis of unbalanced data with little extra cost in terms of precision or processing time. we suggest it should become routine in capture-recapture analyses. the methods have been made available in the r package secr." estimating age-specific survival when age is unknown: open population capture-recapture models with age structure and heterogeneity,brushtail possums; finite mixtures; senescence,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MATECHOU E;PLEDGER S;EFFORD M;MORGAN BJT;THOMSON DL,"1. when studying senescence in wildlife populations, we are often limited by the sparseness of the available information on the ages of the individuals under study. additionally, heterogeneity between individuals can be substantial. ignoring this heterogeneity can lead to biased estimates of the population parameters of interest and can mask senescence. 2. this article demonstrates the use of a recently developed capture-recapture model for extracting age-dependent estimates of survival probabilities for individuals of unknown age and extends the model by allowing for heterogeneity in survival and capture probabilities using finite mixtures. 3.using simulation, we show that the estimates of age-dependent survival probabilities when age is unknown can be biased when heterogeneity in capture probabilities is not modelled, in contrast to the case of time-dependent survival probabilities when the estimates are robust to similar violations of model assumptions. 4. the methods are demonstrated using a long-term data set of female brushtail possums (trichosurus vulpecula kerr) for which age-specific models for survival probabilities indicating senescence are strongly favoured. we found no evidence of heterogeneity in survival but strong evidence of heterogeneity in capture probabilities. 5. these models have a wide range of applications for estimating age dependence in survival when the age is unknown as they can be applied to any capture-recapture data set, as long as it is collected over a period which is longer, and preferably considerably so, than the life span of the species studied." response of six-lined racerunner (aspidoscelis sexlineata) to habitat restoration in fire-suppressed longleaf pine (pinus palustris) sandhills,before-after-control-impact; longleaf pine; mark-recapture; pinus palustris; prescribed fire; reptile; squamate,RESTORATION ECOLOGY,STEEN DA;SMITH LL;MORRIS G;CONNER LM;LITT AR;POKSWINSKI S;GUYER C,"six-lined racerunner (aspidoscelis sexlineata) is an indicator species of frequently burned longleaf pine (pinus palustris) forests. to evaluate how the species responded to forest restoration, we conducted a mark-recapture study in formerly fire-suppressed longleaf pine forests exposed to prescribed fire or fire surrogates (i.e. mechanical or herbicide-facilitated hardwood removal) as well as in fire-suppressed control sites and reference sites, which represented the historic condition. after initial treatment, all sites were exposed to over a decade of prescribed burning with an average return interval of approximately 2 years. we used population-level response of a. sexlineata as an indicator of the effectiveness of the different treatments in restoring habitat. specifically, we compared mean numbers of marked adults and juveniles at treatment sites to that of reference sites. after 4 years, restoration objectives were met at sites treated with burning alone and at sites treated with mechanical removal of hardwoods followed by fire. after over 10 years of prescribed burning, restoration objectives were met at all treatments. we conclude that prescribed burning alone was sufficient to restore fire-suppressed longleaf pine sandhills for a. sexlineata populations." use of the pmsi for the detection of adverse drug reactions.,adverse effects; icd10; pharmacovigilance,THERAPIE,OSMONT MN;CUGGIA M;POLARD E;RIOU C;BALUSSON F;OGER E,"aim. to evaluate the performance of a query on international classification of diseases 10th version (icd10) codes in the database of the programme for the medicalisation of information systems (programme de medicalisation des systemes d'information, pmsi) to identify serious adverse drug reactions (adr). methods. the query concerned hospital stays of patients discharged from the french university hospital of rennes in 2009. all the hospitalization summaries including a selected icd10 code were analysed to validate adr. results. out of 383 cases, 142 cases were validated (37.1%). performance of some icd10 codes was particularly interesting, above 40% (t88.6, l27.0, j70.4, g62.0 and n14.1) and 79.5% of the adr were detected by these five codes. during the study period, 98 adr of the same type were spontaneously reported by physicians, 22 of which were common with the icd10 query. conclusions. the use of pmsi can be a tool for signal detection of serious adr, in addition to spontaneous reporting." feasibility of road traffic injury surveillance integrating police and health insurance data sets in the dominican republic,data analysis; accidents; traffic; wounds and injuries; safety; insurance; health; dominican republic,REVISTA PANAMERICANA DE SALUD PUBLICA-PAN AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH,PUELLO A;BHATTI J;SALMI LR,"objective. to assess the feasibility of semiautomated linking of road traffic injury (rti) cases in different data sets in low-and middle-income countries. methods. the study population consisted of rti cases in the dominican republic in 2010 and were identified in police and health insurance data sets. after duplicates were removed and fatality reporting was corrected by using forensic data, police and health insurance rti records were linked if they had the same province, collision date, and gender of rti cases and similar age within five years. a multinomial logistic regression model assessed the likelihood of being in only one of the data sets. results. one of five records was a duplicate, including 21.1% of 6 396 police and 16.2% of 6 178 insurance records. health insurance data recorded 43 of 417 deaths as only injured. capture-recapture estimated that both data sets recorded one of five rti cases. characteristics associated with increased likelihood (p < 0.05) of being only in the police data set were female gender [ adjusted odds ratio (or) = 2.5], age >= 16 years (or = 1.7), collision in the regions of cibao northeast (or = 4.1) and valdesia (or = 6.4), day of occurrence from tuesday to saturday (ors from 1.5 to 2.9), month of occurrence from october to december (ors from 1.6 to 4.5), and occupant of four-wheeled vehicles (or = 5.4) or trucks (or = 5.3). conclusions. consistent semiautomated linking procedures were feasible to ascertain the rti burden in the dominican republic and could be improved by standardized coding of police and health insurance rti reporting." adult and pre-breeding survival estimates of the whiskered tern chlidonias hybrida breeding in southern poland,whiskered tern; chlidonias hybrida; capture-mark-recapture modelling; apparent survival; age at first breeding; fidelity; bird trapping,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,LEDWON M;NEUBAUER G;BETLEJA J,"we present the first-ever survival estimates of the whiskered tern chlidonias hybrida, based on the analysis of capture-recapture data (403 adults and 1,484 chicks ringed) collected between 1993 and 2011 in an increasing breeding population in southern poland. data were modelled using multistate models with an unobservable state, accounting for the period during which young terns remain at their winter quarters. model-averaged pre-breeding and breeding survival were estimated to be 0.54 [standard error (se) 0.28] and 0.80 (se = 0.05), respectively. all models were in agreement that the relative proportion of breeders was nearly zero in the second calendar year, increasing to reach values close to 0.8 in the fifth calendar year, which confirms the observation of a much delayed maturation of the whiskered tern. our data indicate that most whiskered tern start to breed about 1 year earlier than members of genera sterna and onychoprion. however, the precision of the estimates for the parameter describing the transition probability from the unobservable pre-breeding to the observable breeding state was extremely poor; therefore, these estimates should be treated as tentative until more data are collected. the three best-supported models indicated significant annual variation in recapture probability. the results also suggested that forced exchange of breeding colonies is frequent in the study area; consequently, a large proportion of birds ringed as chicks are breeding in colonies other than their respective natal colony. this exchange is best explained not by the trapping and ringing activity but by human management of the environment, such as water level changes in dam reservoirs and carp cyprinus carpio farming at fish ponds, both of which result in breeding habitats becoming unstable and periodically unavailable, possibly forcing birds to change breeding sites." -visual implant elastomer (vie) tags are an unreliable method of identification in adult anurans,capture-mark-recapture; individual identification; lithobates pipiens; nectophrynoides asperginis; vie tagging,HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL,BRANNELLY LA;CHATFIELD MWH;RICHARDS-ZAWACKI CL,"there has long been debate over alternatives to toe-clipping as an individual marking method in anurans. alternative methods include visible implant elastomer (vie) tags and passive integrated transponder (pit) tags. vie tags are low cost, easy to insert and have been used successfully in reptiles, fish and salamanders without tag loss or movement. in this study, we tested whether two species of vie-tagged anurans (captive kihansi spray toads, nectophrynoides asperginis, and leopard frogs lithobates pipiens) experienced tag movement or loss that could lead to errors in individual identification. vie tag movement occurred in 50% of the tags implanted which caused 70.6% of individuals to be potentially misidentified. these results demonstrate that the use of vie tags to individually mark anurans can be highly unreliable. we therefore recommend either verifying the reliability of vie tags through species- and life stage-specific pilot studies, or choosing another method of marking." +visual implant elastomer (vie) tags are an unreliable method of identification in adult anurans,capture-mark-recapture; individual identification; lithobates pipiens; nectophrynoides asperginis; vie tagging,HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL,BRANNELLY LA;CHATFIELD MWH;RICHARDS ZAWACKI CL,"there has long been debate over alternatives to toe-clipping as an individual marking method in anurans. alternative methods include visible implant elastomer (vie) tags and passive integrated transponder (pit) tags. vie tags are low cost, easy to insert and have been used successfully in reptiles, fish and salamanders without tag loss or movement. in this study, we tested whether two species of vie-tagged anurans (captive kihansi spray toads, nectophrynoides asperginis, and leopard frogs lithobates pipiens) experienced tag movement or loss that could lead to errors in individual identification. vie tag movement occurred in 50% of the tags implanted which caused 70.6% of individuals to be potentially misidentified. these results demonstrate that the use of vie tags to individually mark anurans can be highly unreliable. we therefore recommend either verifying the reliability of vie tags through species- and life stage-specific pilot studies, or choosing another method of marking." sampling stochasticity leads to overestimation of extinction risk in population viability analysis,pva; stochastic demography; stochastic exponential growth; mark-recapture; diffusion approximation; bias estimation; sampling variance; extinction risk,CONSERVATION LETTERS,HERRICK GI;FOX GA,"which method should be used for estimating extinction risk? we present four separate estimates of extinction risk for the threatened pine lily (lilium catesbaei walter), based on two methods of estimating abundance (direct abundance counts and jolly-seber abundance estimates) and two methods of estimating extinction risk (direct simulation of the stochastic exponential growth (seg) model, and the diffusion approximation). we compare the accuracy of these four combinations with a simulated data set where simulated-true population abundance and extinction risk is known. the jolly-seber method of abundance estimation in combination with direct estimation of extinction risk is the least biased combination of the four methods tested. we conclude that jolly-seber (or other mark-recapture) estimates should be used in combination with direct simulation of the seg, when sampling error is expected. for the pine lily, we conclude that risk of extinction is low in the population studied." -"a decline in the prevalence of injecting drug users in estonia, 2005-2009",injection drug user; idu; prevalence; eastern europe; hiv,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DRUG POLICY,UUSKULA A;RAJALEID K;TALU A;ABEL-OLLO K;DES JARLAIS DC,"aims: here we report a study aimed at estimating trends in the prevalence of injection drug use between 2005 and 2009 in estonia. background: descriptions of behavioural epidemics have received little attention compared with infectious disease epidemics in eastern europe. methods: the number of injection drug users (idus) aged 15-44 each year between 2005 and 2009 was estimated using capture-recapture methodology based on 4 data sources (2 treatment data bases: drug use and non-fatal overdose treatment; criminal justice (drug related offences) and mortality (injection drug use related deaths) data). poisson log-linear regression models were applied to the matched data, with interactions between data sources fitted to replicate the dependencies between the data sources. linear regression was used to estimate average change over time. results: there were 24305, 12,292, 238, 545 records and 8100, 1655, 155, 545 individual idus identified in the four capture sources (police, drug treatment, overdose, and death registry, accordingly) over the period 2005-2009. the estimated prevalence of idus among the population aged 15-44 declined from 2.7% (1.8-7.9%) in 2005 to 2.0% (1.4-5.0%) in 2008, and 0.9% (0.7-1.7%) in 2009. regression analysis indicated an average reduction of about 1600 injectors per year. conclusion: while the capture-recapture method has known limitations, the results are consistent with other data from estonia. identifying the drivers of change in the prevalence of injection drug use warrants further research. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +"a decline in the prevalence of injecting drug users in estonia, 2005-2009",injection drug user; idu; prevalence; eastern europe; hiv,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DRUG POLICY,UUSKULA A;RAJALEID K;TALU A;ABEL OLLO K;DES JARLAIS DC,"aims: here we report a study aimed at estimating trends in the prevalence of injection drug use between 2005 and 2009 in estonia. background: descriptions of behavioural epidemics have received little attention compared with infectious disease epidemics in eastern europe. methods: the number of injection drug users (idus) aged 15-44 each year between 2005 and 2009 was estimated using capture-recapture methodology based on 4 data sources (2 treatment data bases: drug use and non-fatal overdose treatment; criminal justice (drug related offences) and mortality (injection drug use related deaths) data). poisson log-linear regression models were applied to the matched data, with interactions between data sources fitted to replicate the dependencies between the data sources. linear regression was used to estimate average change over time. results: there were 24305, 12,292, 238, 545 records and 8100, 1655, 155, 545 individual idus identified in the four capture sources (police, drug treatment, overdose, and death registry, accordingly) over the period 2005-2009. the estimated prevalence of idus among the population aged 15-44 declined from 2.7% (1.8-7.9%) in 2005 to 2.0% (1.4-5.0%) in 2008, and 0.9% (0.7-1.7%) in 2009. regression analysis indicated an average reduction of about 1600 injectors per year. conclusion: while the capture-recapture method has known limitations, the results are consistent with other data from estonia. identifying the drivers of change in the prevalence of injection drug use warrants further research. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." movement of tribolium castaneum within a flour mill,red flour beetle; flour mill; mark-recapture; dispersal; heat treatment,JOURNAL OF STORED PRODUCTS RESEARCH,SEMEAO AA;CAMPBELL JF;WHITWORTH RJ;SLODERBECK PE,"the colonization of food processing plants by stored-product pests and their distribution within a facility depend, in part, on their dispersal ability. in this case study, we relied on self-mark recapture to evaluate the ability of tribolium castaneum, the red flour beetle, to move among floors within a flour mill and the effects of a heat treatment on insect activity. marking stations with pheromone and fluorescent powder were placed on each of five floors in the mill, and two techniques were used to recover marked individuals (trapping and direct collection of individuals from the floor). considering both recovery techniques, t. castaneum was able to move among floors, but the majority of individuals remained on the same floor where they were marked (86%). most individuals captured on a different floor were captured on a floor below the one they were marked (70%) and adjacent to it (87%). there was a spike in the number of beetles captured during heat treatment, but not an increase in movement of marked beetles between floors. these results suggest that the rate of heating was sufficient to prevent beetles time to move to cooler floors to escape heat. t. castaneum movement among floors needs to be taken into account when identifying sources of infestation and targeting pest management. published by elsevier ltd." -"monitoring an endangered savannah ungulate, grevy's zebra equus grevyi: choosing a method for estimating population densities",abundance estimation; camera traps; capture-recapture; density estimation; distance sampling; equus grevyi; kenya; ungulate,ORYX,ZERO VH;SUNDARESAN SR;O'BRIEN TG;KINNAIRD MF,"methods that accurately estimate animal abundance or density are crucial for wildlife management. although numerous techniques are available, there have been few comparisons of the precision and cost-effectiveness of different approaches. we assess the precision and cost of three methods for estimating densities of the endangered grevy's zebra equus grevyi. we compare distance sampling and photographic capture-recapture, and a new technique, the random encounter model (rem) that uses camera-trap encounter rates to estimate density. all three methods provide comparable density estimates for grevy's zebra and are preferable to the common practice of raw counts. photographic capture-recapture is the most precise and line-transect distance sampling the least precise. line transects and photographic capture-recapture surveys are cost-effective in the first year and rem is most cost-effective in the long-term. the methods used here for grevy's zebra may be applied to other rangeland ungulates. we suggest that for single species monitoring programmes in which individuals can be identified, photographic capture-recapture surveys may be the preferred method for estimating wildlife abundances. when encounter rates are low, distance sampling lacks the precision of the other methods but its cost advantage may make it appropriate for long-term or multi-species monitoring programmes. the rem is an efficient and precise method of estimating densities but has high initial equipment costs. we believe rem has the potential to work well for many species but it requires independent estimates of animal movements and group size." +"monitoring an endangered savannah ungulate, grevy's zebra equus grevyi: choosing a method for estimating population densities",abundance estimation; camera traps; capture-recapture; density estimation; distance sampling; equus grevyi; kenya; ungulate,ORYX,ZERO VH;SUNDARESAN SR;O BRIEN TG;KINNAIRD MF,"methods that accurately estimate animal abundance or density are crucial for wildlife management. although numerous techniques are available, there have been few comparisons of the precision and cost-effectiveness of different approaches. we assess the precision and cost of three methods for estimating densities of the endangered grevy's zebra equus grevyi. we compare distance sampling and photographic capture-recapture, and a new technique, the random encounter model (rem) that uses camera-trap encounter rates to estimate density. all three methods provide comparable density estimates for grevy's zebra and are preferable to the common practice of raw counts. photographic capture-recapture is the most precise and line-transect distance sampling the least precise. line transects and photographic capture-recapture surveys are cost-effective in the first year and rem is most cost-effective in the long-term. the methods used here for grevy's zebra may be applied to other rangeland ungulates. we suggest that for single species monitoring programmes in which individuals can be identified, photographic capture-recapture surveys may be the preferred method for estimating wildlife abundances. when encounter rates are low, distance sampling lacks the precision of the other methods but its cost advantage may make it appropriate for long-term or multi-species monitoring programmes. the rem is an efficient and precise method of estimating densities but has high initial equipment costs. we believe rem has the potential to work well for many species but it requires independent estimates of animal movements and group size." the importance of farmland for the conservation of the brown hyaena parahyaena brunnea,botswana; brown hyaena; camera trap; carnivore; farmland; parahyaena brunnea; spoor survey,ORYX,KENT VT;HILL RA,"the conservation of wide-ranging, territorial carnivores presents many challenges, not least the inadequacy of many protected areas in providing sufficient space to allow such species to maintain viable populations. as a result populations occurring outside protected areas may be of considerable importance for the conservation of some species, although the significance of these areas is poorly understood. brown hyaenas parahyaena brunnea are categorized as near threatened on the iucn red list and recent research suggests the species may be particularly vulnerable to habitat loss and the conversion of land to agriculture. here we report on the population density and abundance of brown hyaenas in an area of commercial farmland in western botswana. mean brown hyaena density estimated from camera-trap surveys was 2.3 per 100 km(2) and from spoor surveys 2.88 per 100 km(2), which are comparable to estimates reported for protected areas. estimated densities were higher on farms used for livestock production than on those used for game farming, suggesting that the species can tolerate land-use change where reliable alternative food resources exist. our results indicate that populations of brown hyaenas in non-protected areas comprise a significant proportion of the global population and that such areas may be of critical importance for their conservation." population size and structure of the nile crocodile crocodylus niloticus in the lower zambezi valley,conservation; crocodylus niloticus; management; matrix model; nile crocodile; spotlight survey; zambezi valley,ORYX,WALLACE KM;LESLIE AJ;COULSON T;WALLACE AS,"concern has been raised about the lack of population data for the nile crocodile crocodylus niloticus in the lower/middle zambezi valley. this area is important for conservation as well as being a source of crocodile eggs and adults for the ranching industry. two spotlight surveys, in 2006 and 2009, were used to estimate population size, structure and trends. a stage-structured matrix model was parameterized from existing literature and the expected predictions were compared to those observed. the survey data suggests a population increase since 2006. crocodile density was greatest (3.1 km(-1)) in the areas of increased wildlife and habitat protection and lowest (1.4 km(-1)) in areas of increased human presence. the predicted population stage structure differed to that observed, suggestive of a population not at equilibrium. data on offtakes of crocodile eggs and adults would be useful for examining why this is the case. continued monitoring of the wild population is necessary, to evaluate the trend of an increasing crocodile population, and additional demographic data for modelling purposes would be desirable." individual heterogeneity in reproductive rates and cost of reproduction in a long-lived vertebrate,bayesian statistics; individual variation; life-history theory; marine mammals; population dynamics; posterior predictive checks,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CHAMBERT T;ROTELLA JJ;HIGGS MD;GARROTT RA,"individual variation in reproductive success is a key feature of evolution, but also has important implications for predicting population responses to variable environments. although such individual variation in reproductive outcomes has been reported in numerous studies, most analyses to date have not considered whether these realized differences were due to latent individual heterogeneity in reproduction or merely random chance causing different outcomes among like individuals. furthermore, latent heterogeneity in fitness components might be expressed differently in contrasted environmental conditions, an issue that has only rarely been investigated. here, we assessed (i) the potential existence of latent individual heterogeneity and (ii) the nature of its expression (fixed vs. variable) in a population of female weddell seals (leptonychotes weddellii), using a hierarchical modeling approach on a 30-year mark-recapture data set consisting of 954 individual encounter histories. we found strong support for the existence of latent individual heterogeneity in the population, with robust individuals expected to produce twice as many pups as ""frail"" individuals. moreover, the expression of individual heterogeneity appeared consistent, with only mild evidence that it might be amplified when environmental conditions are severe. finally, the explicit modeling of individual heterogeneity allowed us to detect a substantial cost of reproduction that was not evidenced when the heterogeneity was ignored." @@ -3021,7 +3026,7 @@ using mark-recapture to provide population census data for use in red listing of long-term exclosure of large terrestrial vertebrates: implications of defaunation for seedling demographics in the amazon rainforest,defaunation; exclosure; herbivory; non-trophic interactions; peccaries; seedling demography; survival,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,BECK H;SNODGRASS JW;THEBPANYA P,"""empty forests"" in which humans have driven large vertebrate species to extinction lack myriad direct and indirect species interactions. this may alter key ecosystem processes, including trophic cascades, disturbance regimes, and nutrient cycling. past research concerning the effects of tropical forest defaunation mainly compared sites with an intact fauna with sites having degraded faunal communities. however, experimental studies on seedling demographics at individual sites, with the same abiotic and biotic conditions, over a long period of time are still scarce. in this research we conducted a 7-year experiment within a completely intact and pristine forest in manu national park, peru to elucidate the effects of defaunation on tree seedling demographics and densities. we constructed semipermeable exclosures that prevented access of large terrestrial vertebrates, but allowed free passage of small- and medium-sized species. new tree seedlings taller than 5 cm were tagged and followed. jolly-seber mark-recapture models were used to estimate density, survival, and recruitment of seedlings. seedling density in the exclosures continued to increase significantly after the first year of the study. only during the first 2 years was seedling survival higher in the exclosures. the numbers of new recruits were consistently higher in exclosures when compared to open control plots throughout the study. in accord with increased density, survival, and recruitment in exclosure plots, we also observed increased understory vegetation cover. our results suggest that defaunation can have long-term effects on seedling demographics and density, which could ultimately influence the composition and diversity of the canopy tree community. (c) 2013 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." influence of data quality and quantity from a multiyear tagging program on an integrated fish stock assessment,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,ZIEGLER PE,"using a modeling framework for toothfish (dissostichus spp.) population dynamics, fishing, and data collection, this study investigated how the bias and precision of biomass estimates from an integrated tag-based assessment are influenced by various aspects of a multiyear tagging program, particularly the effects of the size of tagged fish compared with the size of fish in the catch (tag size-overlap), numbers of tagged fish, duration of the tagging program, using catch-at-length or catch-at-age data as auxiliary data, and stock depletion levels. biomass estimates generally improved with more and better-quality tagging data. the results showed that even when tag releases were distributed over a relatively large number of size classes, low recapture numbers collected in short tagging programs with a 100% tag size-overlap were sufficient for robust and unbiased assessments. particularly in the early stages of the tagging program, a high tag size-overlap was imperative to maximize the likelihood of a robust assessment. biomass estimates were largely unaffected by the stock depletion level; however, using catch-at-age compared with catch-at-length improved recruitment estimates and resulted in more conservative biomass estimates." integrated modeling of bilateral photo-identification data in mark-recapture analyses,abundance; latent multinomial; mark-resight; noninvasive capture-recapture; photo-identification; remote camera trapping,ECOLOGY,MCCLINTOCK BT;CONN PB;ALONSO RS;CROOKS KR,"when natural marks provide sufficient resolution to identify individual animals, noninvasive sampling using cameras has a number of distinct advantages relative to traditional mark-recapture methods. however, analyses from photo-identification records often pose additional challenges. for example, it is often unclear how to link left- and right-side photos to the same individual, and previous studies have primarily used data from just one side for statistical inference. here we describe how a recently developed statistical method can be adapted for integrated mark-recapture analyses using bilateral photo-identification records. the approach works by assuming that the true encounter history for each animal is a latent (unobserved) realization from a multinomial distribution. based on the type of photo encounter (e.g., right, left, or both sides), the recorded (observed) encounter histories can only arise from certain combinations of these latent histories. in this manner, the approach properly accounts for uncertainty about the true number of distinct animals observed in the study. using a markov chain monte carlo sampling procedure, we conduct a small simulation study to show that this approach has reasonable properties and outperforms other methods. we further illustrate our approach by estimating population size from bobcat photo-identification records. although motivated by bilateral photo-identification records, we note that the proposed methodology can be used to combine and jointly analyze other types of mark-recapture data (e.g., photo and dna records)." -no evidence for differential survival or predation between sympatric color morphs of an aposematic poison frog,color polymorphism; polytypism; aposematism; bocas del toro; dendrobates pumilio; predation; survival,EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY,RICHARDS-ZAWACKI CL;YEAGER J;BART HPS,"because variation in warning signals slows down the predator education process, aposematic theory predicts that animal warning signals should be monomorphic. yet, warning color polytypisms are not uncommon in aposematic species. in cases where warning signal variants are separated geographically, adaptation to local predators could explain this variation. however, this cannot explain the persistence of sympatric polymorphisms in aposematic taxa. the strawberry poison frog (oophaga pumilio) exhibits both allopatric and sympatric warning color variation in and around the bocas del toro archipelago of panama. one explanation that has been proposed for the rapid diversification of o. pumilio coloration in this archipelago is low predation; if island populations have few predators, stabilizing selection would be relaxed opening the door for diversification via selection or genetic drift. using a combination of mark-recapture and clay model studies, we tested for differences in survival and predation among sympatric red and yellow color morphs of o. pumilio from bastimentos island. we found no evidence for differential survival or predation in this population, despite the fact that one morph (red) is more common and widely distributed than the other (yellow). even in an area of the island where the yellow morph is not found, predator attack rates were similar among morphs. visual modeling suggests that yellow and red morphs are distinguishable and conspicuous against a variety of backgrounds and by viewers with different visual systems. our results suggest that general avoidance by predators of red and yellow, both of which are typical warning colors used throughout the animal kingdom, may be contributing to the apparent stability of this polymorphism." +no evidence for differential survival or predation between sympatric color morphs of an aposematic poison frog,color polymorphism; polytypism; aposematism; bocas del toro; dendrobates pumilio; predation; survival,EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY,RICHARDS ZAWACKI CL;YEAGER J;BART HPS,"because variation in warning signals slows down the predator education process, aposematic theory predicts that animal warning signals should be monomorphic. yet, warning color polytypisms are not uncommon in aposematic species. in cases where warning signal variants are separated geographically, adaptation to local predators could explain this variation. however, this cannot explain the persistence of sympatric polymorphisms in aposematic taxa. the strawberry poison frog (oophaga pumilio) exhibits both allopatric and sympatric warning color variation in and around the bocas del toro archipelago of panama. one explanation that has been proposed for the rapid diversification of o. pumilio coloration in this archipelago is low predation; if island populations have few predators, stabilizing selection would be relaxed opening the door for diversification via selection or genetic drift. using a combination of mark-recapture and clay model studies, we tested for differences in survival and predation among sympatric red and yellow color morphs of o. pumilio from bastimentos island. we found no evidence for differential survival or predation in this population, despite the fact that one morph (red) is more common and widely distributed than the other (yellow). even in an area of the island where the yellow morph is not found, predator attack rates were similar among morphs. visual modeling suggests that yellow and red morphs are distinguishable and conspicuous against a variety of backgrounds and by viewers with different visual systems. our results suggest that general avoidance by predators of red and yellow, both of which are typical warning colors used throughout the animal kingdom, may be contributing to the apparent stability of this polymorphism." migration of saithe (pollachius virens) in the northeast atlantic,migration; northeast atlantic; pollachius virens; saithe; tagging,ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,HOMRUM EI;HANSEN B;JONSSON SP;MICHALSEN K;BURGOS J;RIGHTON D;STEINGRUND P;JAKOBSEN T;MOURITSEN R;HATUN H;ARMANNSSON H;JOENSEN JS,"saithe (pollachius virens) stocks in the northeast atlantic intermingle as a result of migration among stock areas. the extent of migration has been poorly quantified. here, we estimate measures of the migration based on existing tagging data from icelandic, faroese and continental (scotland, north sea and norway) waters. saithe tagged in icelandic waters were seldom caught outside icelandic waters (<1% of tag returns), whereas 42% of adult saithe tagged in faroese waters were recaptured outside faroese waters. of adult saithe tagged in norwegian waters 6.6% were recaptured outside continental waters. in broad terms, there was a net migration of saithe towards icelandic waters. the distance between tagging and recapture increased with increasing size and age, with saithe tagged in norwegian waters moving the longest distances. the results demonstrate significant, but variable, migration rates of adult saithe in the northeast atlantic. more detailed studies are needed to clarify the mechanisms behind the migration and what causes the differences among the areas." lifetime fitness and age-related female ornament signalling: evidence for survival and fecundity selection in the pied flycatcher,age-related expression; fecundity; ficedula hypoleuca; lifetime reproductive success; multistate models; sexual conflict; sexual selection,JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY,POTTI J;CANAL D;SERRANO D,"ornaments displayed by females have often been denied evolutionary interest due to their frequently reduced expression relative to males, habitually attributed to a genetic correlation between the sexes. we estimated annual and lifetime reproductive success of female pied flycatchers (ficedula hypoleuca) and applied capture-mark-recapture models to analyse annual survival rates in relation to the patterns of expression (absence/presence) of an ornament displayed by all males and a fraction of females. overall, the likelihood of expressing the ornament increased nonlinearly with female age and was due to within-individual variation, not to the selective appearance or disappearance of ornament-related expression of phenotypes in the population. accordingly, expressing the forehead patch in a given year did not influence survival probability. however, those females expressing the ornament at early ages (1-2years old) enjoyed survival advantages throughout lifetime. although ornamented females had higher lifetime fecundity and fledging success, their yearly reproductive performance, in terms of fledging productivity, decreased as they aged so that, late in life, ornamented females reared fewer offspring than nonexpressing females of the same age. in addition, both strategies (expressing vs. not expressing the trait) returned similar fitness payoffs in terms of recruited offspring. our results support the hypothesis that fecundity and survival selection are involved in the displaying of this male' ornament by females." investigating the potential use of aerial line transect surveys for estimating polar bear abundance in sea ice habitats: a case study for the chukchi sea,chukchi sea; distance sampling; line transect; polar bear; ursus maritimus; population size; resource selection; sea ice; stratification,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,NIELSON RM;EVANS TJ;STAHL MB,"the expense of traditional capture-recapture methods, interest in less invasive survey methods, and the circumpolar decline of polar bear (ursus maritimus) habitat require evaluation of alternative methods for monitoring polar bear populations. aerial line transect distance sampling (ds) surveys are thought to be a promising monitoring tool. however, low densities and few observations during a survey can result in low precision, and logistical constraints such as heavy ice and fuel and safety limitations may restrict survey coverage. we used simulations to investigate the accuracy and precision of, ds for estimating polar bear abundance in sea ice habitats, using the chukchi sea subpopulation as an example. simulation parameters were informed from a recent pilot survey. predictions from a resource selection model were used for stratification, and we compared two ratio estimators to account for areas that cannot be sampled. the ratio estimator using predictions of resource selection by polar bears allowed for extrapolation beyond sampled areas and provided results with low bias and cvs ranging from 21% to 36% when abundance was >1,000. these techniques could be applied to other ds surveys to allocate effort and potentially extrapolate estimates to include portions of the landscape that are logistically impossible to survey." @@ -3030,7 +3035,7 @@ genetic restoration in the eastern collared lizard under prescribed woodland bur the value of remnant trees in pastures for a neotropical poison frog,amphibian; keystone structures; land use; oophaga pumilio; pasture; remnant trees,JOURNAL OF TROPICAL ECOLOGY,ROBINSON D;WARMSLEY A;NOWAKOWSKI AJ;REIDER KE;DONNELLY MA,"conversion of natural habitats to anthropogenic land uses is a primary cause of amphibian declines in species-rich tropical regions. however, agricultural lands are frequently used by a subset of forest-associated species, and the habitat value of a given land use is likely modified by the presence and characteristics of remnant trees. here we used mark-recapture methods to examine abundances and movement probability of the poison frog, oophaga pumilio, at individual trees in forest-fragment edges and adjacent pastures in north-eastern costa rica. one hundred and forty-seven trees were surveyed at three replicate sites that each included a forest fragment and adjacent pasture. trees were sampled at distances of <= 30 m into forest and <= 150 m into pastures for oophaga pumilio, and local environmental characteristics were measured at each tree. we also measured indices of physical condition (size and endurance) of frogs captured in forest edges and in nearby pastures. analyses of 167 marked individuals showed no difference in per-tree abundances or sex ratios between pasture and forest edges. we found significant interactions between habitat type and leaf-litter cover, tree dbh and number of logs, indicating greater influence of local variables on abundances in pastures. movement among trees was infrequent and not predicted by sex, size, habitat type or environmental variables. while results of endurance tests did not differ for individuals from the two habitats, frogs captured in pastures were, on average, larger than frogs captured in forest edges. these data indicate that remnant trees are important habitat features for o. pumilio in pastures and corroborate research in other systems that suggests that large relictual trees should be retained to maximize the potential for altered landscapes to provide habitat for native species." anthropogenic roost switching and rabies virus dynamics in house-roosting big brown bats,lyssavirus; chiroptera; eptesicus; anthropogenic; radiotelemetry; urban disease dynamics,VECTOR-BORNE AND ZOONOTIC DISEASES,STREICKER DG;FRANKA R;JACKSON FR;RUPPRECHT CE,"big brown bats (eptesicus fuscus) are the most commonly encountered rabid bat in north america and represent an important source of wildlife rabies epizootics. urban and suburban colonies of e. fuscus are often evicted from their roosts in houses, with poorly understood consequences for bat dispersal, population dynamics, and rabies virus transmission. we combined radiotelemetry and mark-recapture of e. fuscus with enhanced surveillance to understand the frequency of rabies virus exposure in house-roosting bats and to assess the potential for behavioral responses of eviction to exacerbate viral transmission. serology demonstrated the circulation of rabies virus in nearly all sites, with an overall seroprevalence of 12%, but no bats were excreting rabies virus at the time of capture. bats that were excluded from roosts relocated to houses < 1 km from the original roost. however, behavioral responses to eviction differed, with bats switching repeatedly among new roosts in 1 site, but fusing with a neighboring colony in another. these findings confirm the circulation of rabies virus in e. fuscus that live in close contact with humans and companion animals, suggest mechanisms through which anthropogenic disturbance of bats might influence pathogen transmission, and highlight simple strategies to balance conservation and public health priorities." effects of sampling conditions on dna-based estimates of american black bear abundance,american black bear; capture heterogeneity; capture-mark-recapture; dna sampling; great smoky mountains national park; model averaging; population abundance; simulations; ursus americanus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,LAUFENBERG JS;VAN MANEN FT;CLARK JD,"dna-based capture-mark-recapture techniques are commonly used to estimate american black bear (ursus americanus) population abundance (n). although the technique is well established, many questions remain regarding study design. in particular, relationships among n, capture probability of heterogeneity mixtures a and b (pa and pb, respectively, or (p) over bar, collectively), the proportion of each mixture (pi), number of capture occasions (k), and probability of obtaining reliable estimates of n are not fully understood. we investigated these relationships using 1) an empirical dataset of dna samples for which true n was unknown and 2) simulated datasets with known properties that represented a broader array of sampling conditions. for the empirical data analysis, we used the full closed population with heterogeneity data type in program mark to estimate n for a black bear population in great smoky mountains national park, tennessee. we systematically reduced the number of those samples used in the analysis to evaluate the effect that changes in capture probabilities may have on parameter estimates. model-averaged n for females and males were 161 (95% ci=114-272) and 100 (95% ci=74-167), respectively (pooled n=261, 95% ci=192-419), and the average weekly (p) over bar was 0.09 for females and 0.12 for males. when we reduced the number of samples of the empirical data, support for heterogeneity models decreased. for the simulation analysis, we generated capture data with individual heterogeneity covering a range of sampling conditions commonly encountered in dna-based capture-mark-recapture studies and examined the relationships between those conditions and accuracy (i.e., probability of obtaining an estimated n that is within 20% of true n), coverage (i.e., probability that 95% confidence interval includes true n), and precision (i.e., probability of obtaining a coefficient of variation 20%) of estimates using logistic regression. the capture probability for the larger of 2 mixture proportions of the population (i.e., pa or pb, depending on the value of ) was most important for predicting accuracy and precision, whereas capture probabilities of both mixture proportions (pa and pb) were important to explain variation in coverage. based on sampling conditions similar to parameter estimates from the empirical dataset (pa=0.30, pb=0.05, n=250, =0.15, and k=10), predicted accuracy and precision were low (60% and 53%, respectively), whereas coverage was high (94%). increasing pb, the capture probability for the predominate but most difficult to capture proportion of the population, was most effective to improve accuracy under those conditions. however, manipulation of other parameters may be more effective under different conditions. in general, the probabilities of obtaining accurate and precise estimates were best when p0.2. our regression models can be used by managers to evaluate specific sampling scenarios and guide development of sampling frameworks or to assess reliability of dna-based capture-mark-recapture studies. (c) 2013 the wildlife society." -"demographic features, distribution, and habitat selection of the gray mouse opossum (tlacuatzin canescens) in colima, mexico",didelphidae; didelphinae; hyperniche; logistic regression; nonparametric multiplicative regression; population density,ACTA THERIOLOGICA,KENNEDY ML;SCHNELL GD;ROMERO-ALMARAZ MD;MALAKOUTI BS;SANCHEZ-HERNANDEZ C;BEST TL;WOOTEN MC,"in western mexico, gray mouse opossums tlacuatzin canescens typically are not only in tropical deciduous and semideciduous woodlands but also in croplands and orchards. we conducted mark-recapture studies in january 2003-2007 and 2010 in coastal, northern, and central colima, mexico. each year, five grids, established in areas of thick vegetation within a mosaic of habitats, had 100 stations (10 x 10), each with two sherman traps, one on the ground and another elevated 1-2 m. on 24 of 30 grids, 82 individuals were captured 126 times (85.7 % in elevated traps). sex ratio did not deviate from 1:1; there was no sexual dimorphism in mass (average for males, 28.21 g; average for females, 25.64 g); 46.3 % of animals were adults, 27.3 % of adult females were reproductively active, and 77.5 % of males had scrotal testes. distance from centroid of trap locations averaged 15.24 m, with mean minimum distance moved between captures being 33.19 m. densities usually were low (0.67-8.03/ha), with the species widespread in habitats studied. we assessed 14 environmental characteristics for each station using anova, logistic regression, and nonparametric multiplicative regression (npmr) to characterize habitat selection. t. canescens was more likely found where percent grass was about 30 % and litter over 50 %, with height of canopy less than 10 m and about 40 % closed. npmr, being able to recognize hump-shaped response curves where intermediate variable values are preferred, identified two variables (percent grass and percent canopy closed) not detected by other techniques as important in characterizing habitat selection of t. canescens." +"demographic features, distribution, and habitat selection of the gray mouse opossum (tlacuatzin canescens) in colima, mexico",didelphidae; didelphinae; hyperniche; logistic regression; nonparametric multiplicative regression; population density,ACTA THERIOLOGICA,KENNEDY ML;SCHNELL GD;ROMERO ALMARAZ MD;MALAKOUTI BS;SANCHEZ HERNANDEZ C;BEST TL;WOOTEN MC,"in western mexico, gray mouse opossums tlacuatzin canescens typically are not only in tropical deciduous and semideciduous woodlands but also in croplands and orchards. we conducted mark-recapture studies in january 2003-2007 and 2010 in coastal, northern, and central colima, mexico. each year, five grids, established in areas of thick vegetation within a mosaic of habitats, had 100 stations (10 x 10), each with two sherman traps, one on the ground and another elevated 1-2 m. on 24 of 30 grids, 82 individuals were captured 126 times (85.7 % in elevated traps). sex ratio did not deviate from 1:1; there was no sexual dimorphism in mass (average for males, 28.21 g; average for females, 25.64 g); 46.3 % of animals were adults, 27.3 % of adult females were reproductively active, and 77.5 % of males had scrotal testes. distance from centroid of trap locations averaged 15.24 m, with mean minimum distance moved between captures being 33.19 m. densities usually were low (0.67-8.03/ha), with the species widespread in habitats studied. we assessed 14 environmental characteristics for each station using anova, logistic regression, and nonparametric multiplicative regression (npmr) to characterize habitat selection. t. canescens was more likely found where percent grass was about 30 % and litter over 50 %, with height of canopy less than 10 m and about 40 % closed. npmr, being able to recognize hump-shaped response curves where intermediate variable values are preferred, identified two variables (percent grass and percent canopy closed) not detected by other techniques as important in characterizing habitat selection of t. canescens." temporal genetic structure and relatedness in the tufted duck aythya fuligula suggests limited kin association in winter,kinship; long-distance migration; temporal structure; waterbirds,IBIS,LIU Y;KELLER I;HECKEL G,"conspecific aggregation of waterfowl in winter is a common example of animal flocking behaviour, yet patterns of relatedness and temporal substructure in such social groups remain poorly understood even in common species. a previous study based on mark-recapture data showed that tufted ducks aythya fuligula caught on the same day were re-caught together in subsequent winters more often than expected by chance, suggesting stable assortments of socially familiar' individuals between wintering periods. the genetic relationships within these social groups were not clear. based on 191 individuals genotyped at 10 microsatellite markers, we investigated the temporal genetic structure and patterns of relatedness among wintering tufted ducks at lake sempach, switzerland, in two consecutive winters. we found no evidence of genetic differentiation between temporal groups within or between winters. the average levels of relatedness in temporal groups were low and not higher than expected in random assortments of individuals. however, mantel tests performed for each sex separately revealed significant negative correlations between the pairwise relatedness coefficients and the number of days between the capture dates of pairs of wintering tufted duck in males and females. this pattern suggests the presence of a small number of co-migrating same-sex sibling pairs in wintering flocks of tufted ducks. our findings provide one of the first genetic analyses of a common duck species outside the breeding season and contribute to the understanding of social interactions in long-distance migratory birds." top-down and bottom-up influences on demographic rates of antarctic fur seals arctocephalus gazella,antarctic oscillation; cormack jolly seber; detection probability; el nino southern oscillation; pinniped; shetland islands; southern annular mode; tag loss,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,SCHWARZ LK;GOEBEL ME;COSTA DP;KILPATRICK AM,"two major drivers in population dynamics are bottom-up processes, such as environmental factors that affect foraging success, and the top-down impacts of predation. many populations of marine mammal and seabird species appear to be declining in response to reductions in prey associated with the bottom-up effects of climate change. however, predation, which usually occurs at sea and is difficult to observe, may also play a key role. we analysed drivers of population dynamics of antarctic fur seals arctocephalus gazella at cape shirreff from 1997 to 2009, including a predator that targets pre-weaned pups and bottom-up environmental effects in an ecosystem particularly sensitive to small changes in temperature. we use bayesian mark-recapture analysis to demonstrate that although large-scale environmental variability affects annual adult survival and reproduction, first year survival appears to be driving the current decline in this population (as defined by a decline in the annual number of pups born). although the number of pups increased during the first third of the study, first year survival and recruitment of those pups in later years was very low. such low survival may be driven by leopard seal hydrurga leptonyx predation, particularly prior to weaning. our results suggest that without leopard seal predation, this population would most likely increase in size, despite the observed bottom-up effects of climate changes on adult vital rates. more broadly, our results show how age-targeted predation could be a major factor in population decline of k-selected colonial breeders." anthropogenic subsidies mitigate environmental variability for insular rodents,anthropogenic resources; mediterranean islands; population dynamics; rattus rattus; trophic subsidies,OECOLOGIA,RUFFINO L;RUSSELL J;VIDAL E,"the exogenous input of nutrients and energy into island systems fuels a large array of consumers and drives bottom-up trophic cascades in island communities. the input of anthropogenic resources has increased on islands and particularly supplemented non-native consumers with extra resources. we test the hypothesis that the anthropogenic establishments of super-abundant gulls and invasive iceplants carpobrotus spp. have both altered the dynamics of an introduced black rat rattus rattus population. on bagaud island, two habitats have been substantially modified by the anthropogenic subsidies of gulls and iceplants, in contrast to the native mediterranean scrubland with no anthropogenic inputs. rats were trapped in all three habitats over two contrasting years of rainfall patterns to investigate: (1) the effect of anthropogenic subsidies on rat density, age-ratio and growth rates, and (2) the role of rainfall variability in modulating the effects of subsidies between years. we found that the growth rates of rats dwelling in the non-subsidized habitat varied with environmental fluctuation, whereas rats dwelling in the gull colony maintained high growth rates during both dry and rainy years. the presence of anthropogenic subsidies apparently mitigated environmental stress. age ratio and rat density varied significantly and predictably among years, seasons, and habitats. while rat densities always peaked higher in the gull colony, especially after rat breeding in spring, higher captures of immature rats were recorded during the second year in all habitats, associated with higher rainfall. the potential for non-native rats to benefit from anthropogenic resources has important implications for the management of similar species on islands." @@ -3055,7 +3060,7 @@ gauging the threat: the first population estimate for white sharks in south afri combining the capture-recapture method and simple linear regression analysis of the malicious domains estimation,capture-recapture method (crm); fast-flux service network (ffsn); population estimation,APPLIED MATHEMATICS & INFORMATION SCIENCES,KOO TM;CHANG HC,"fast-flux service networks (ffsns) are currently the greatest threat encountered in the computer networking field. this technique hides attackers behind a network of proxy servers (agents), thereby avoiding detection by security personnel. ffsn benefits criminal parties because it protects their web sites and extends web site life span. ffsn is becoming more dangerous, and estimating the size of ffsn-agents is becoming increasingly difficult. additionally, because flux-agents may represent bot nodes, we can estimate the scale of ffsns to determine the extent of threats. this study primarily estimates the population size of ffsns. the flux-agent population size was estimated using the joint hypergeometric maximum likelihood estimator (jhe) of capture-recapture methods (crms). the results showed that the jhe and crm estimated the population size more rapidly compared to general survey approaches." "novel, non-invasive method for distinguishing the individuals of the fire salamander (salamandra salamandra) in capture-mark-recapture studies",salamandra salamandra; individual recognition; non-invasive; natural markings,ACTA HERPETOLOGICA,SUKALO G;DORDEVIC S;GOLUB D;DMITROVIC D;TOMOVIC L,"recently we started implementing a highly efficient, non-invasive method of direct individual marking (i.e., typifying) in a population study of the fire salamander, salamandra salamandra. our technique is based on the unique alphanumeric code for every individual, generated upon the numbers of openings of repellent/toxic skin glands in the yellow areas of the selected regions of the body. this code was proved reliable in the sample of 159 individuals from two separate populations and enabled easy and quick recognition of recaptured animals. the proposed method is inexpensive, easily applicable in the field, involves minimum stress for the animals and does not affect their behaviour and the possibility of repeated captures of ""marked"" (i.e., coded) individuals. it is particularly suitable for dense populations." "trends in annual survival of steller's eiders molting at izembek lagoon on the alaska peninsula, 1993-2006",alaska; mark-recapture; polysticta stelleri; pradel; steller's eider; survival,ARCTIC,FROST CJ;HOLLMEN TE;REYNOLDS JH,"izembek lagoon, located on the alaska peninsula, is an important molting area for the pacific population of steller's eiders (polysticta stelleri) and was the site of consistent banding effort during 1993-2006. we used pradel mark-recapture models to estimate annual survival and population growth rates for adult steller's eiders molting at izembek lagoon. we designed 32 models that included effects of sex and year on survival, recapture rate, and seniority, as well as potential trends in survival and seniority. the top model incorporated a two-phase trend (1993-98, 1999-2003) in survival and seniority for each sex and fully sex- and year-specific recapture rates. average annual adult survival was estimated at 0.86 (se = 0.030) for females and 0.87 (se = 0.018) for males. average annual population growth rates since 1998 were estimated to be approximately 1.0 for both sexes. a brief warming event in the pacific decadal oscillation (1997-98) coincided with the lowest estimates of annual survival, while a subsequent return to cooler conditions in the bering sea coincided with the highest estimates and an increasing trend in annual survival." -foraging movements of eurasian griffon vultures (gyps fulvus): implications for supplementary feeding management,capture-mark-recapture; bovine spongiform encephalopathy; home range; foraging displacements; vulture restaurant; spatial ecology,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,ZUBEROGOITIA I;GONZALEZ-OREJA JA;MARTINEZ JE;ZABALA J;GOMEZ I;LOPEZ-LOPEZ P,"the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy provoked restrictive european sanitary legislation that forced farmers to remove livestock carcasses from the wild. this had serious repercussions for the scavenger raptor guild. against this background, we developed a study to analyse the foraging movements of eurasian griffon vultures (gyps fulvus) in northern spain. we ringed 241 griffon vultures with alphanumeric plastic rings in biscay between 2000 and 2011 and set experimental feeding stations in 24 sites over an area of 10,614 km(2); recording re-sightings of the ringed vultures between 2005 and 2012. using these re-sighting records, we tested whether birds randomly moved long distances whilst searching for food, or if vulture re-sightings were restricted to a few feeding sites within a limited area. we summarised 329 field-work days, with an average of 2.06 ringed vultures re-sighted per day, accounting for 1,017 re-sightings. adult vultures were detected in three separate foraging nuclei within the study area. movements out of the main foraging nuclei were statistically less frequent than would be expected if adult vultures accessed all resources at a similar rate. once established at breeding areas, subadult vultures behaved in the same way as adults. our results suggest that vultures' home ranges are largely restricted to zones close to breeding areas. this has important consequences from a conservation point of view, suggesting that management decisions should take into consideration spatial scale effects." +foraging movements of eurasian griffon vultures (gyps fulvus): implications for supplementary feeding management,capture-mark-recapture; bovine spongiform encephalopathy; home range; foraging displacements; vulture restaurant; spatial ecology,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,ZUBEROGOITIA I;GONZALEZ OREJA JA;MARTINEZ JE;ZABALA J;GOMEZ I;LOPEZ LOPEZ P,"the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy provoked restrictive european sanitary legislation that forced farmers to remove livestock carcasses from the wild. this had serious repercussions for the scavenger raptor guild. against this background, we developed a study to analyse the foraging movements of eurasian griffon vultures (gyps fulvus) in northern spain. we ringed 241 griffon vultures with alphanumeric plastic rings in biscay between 2000 and 2011 and set experimental feeding stations in 24 sites over an area of 10,614 km(2); recording re-sightings of the ringed vultures between 2005 and 2012. using these re-sighting records, we tested whether birds randomly moved long distances whilst searching for food, or if vulture re-sightings were restricted to a few feeding sites within a limited area. we summarised 329 field-work days, with an average of 2.06 ringed vultures re-sighted per day, accounting for 1,017 re-sightings. adult vultures were detected in three separate foraging nuclei within the study area. movements out of the main foraging nuclei were statistically less frequent than would be expected if adult vultures accessed all resources at a similar rate. once established at breeding areas, subadult vultures behaved in the same way as adults. our results suggest that vultures' home ranges are largely restricted to zones close to breeding areas. this has important consequences from a conservation point of view, suggesting that management decisions should take into consideration spatial scale effects." immigration and recruitment in an urban white-winged dove breeding colony,capture-recapture; jolly-seber; recruitment; white-winged dove,JOURNAL OF FISH AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,COLLIER BA;KREMER SR;MASON CD;STONE J;CALHOUN KW;PETERSON MJ,"dove population management necessitates estimates of vital rates for use in mechanistic models used to evaluate and predict population responses to environmental variation and/or alternative harvest scenarios. estimating recruitment (number of juveniles per adult) is complicated because a compendium of factors drives production in doves. white-winged doves zenaida asiatica exhibit a fairly unique breeding strategy wherein they commonly return to the same breeding area and reproduce in large breeding aggregations (i.e., colonies). we used an open-population capture-recapture model to estimate annual immigration and in situ recruitment of white-winged doves breeding in an urban colony during 2009 and 2010. we captured 5,101 unique white-winged doves in 2009 (2,894 after hatch year, 2,207 hatch year) and 3,502 unique white-winged doves in 2010 (3,106 after hatch year, 486 hatch year). immigration of adults into the breeding colony peaked during late april and early may, with in situ recruitment occurring during a 6-wk period from 19 june to 30 july. our results predicted that >90% of all hatch-year individuals had entered the local population by 1 august. the jolly-seber model used allows white-winged dove recruitment values to be estimated directly (rather than as a conglomerate of multiple parameters), separates immigration from in situ recruitment within a season, and can be useful for monitoring recruitment and evaluating alternative recruitment indices for future use in harvest management-planning actions." long-term monitoring of an endangered desert fish and factors influencing population dynamics,humpback chub; gila cypha; mark-recapture; little colorado river; grand canyon; desert rivers and streams,JOURNAL OF FISH AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,VAN HAVERBEKE DR;STONE DM;COGGINS LG;PILLOW MJ,"the lower perennial corridor of the little colorado river in grand canyon, arizona, is numerically dominated by endemic desert fishes and therefore significant for conservation of these species. from 2000 to 2012, the u. s. fish and wildlife service conducted monitoring of native fishes in the little colorado river near its confluence with the colorado river. the primary focus of these efforts was to estimate the spring and fall abundance of native fishes, especially the federally endangered humpback chub gila cypha. because humpback chub in grand canyon are influenced by operations of glen canyon dam, our efforts provide managers of the glen canyon dam adaptive management program with abundance estimates and trends of humpback chub in the little colorado river, the most important tributary in grand canyon for spawning and production of this species. from 2001 to 2006, the spring abundance estimates of humpback chub >= 150 and >= 200 mm remained relatively low (<= 3,419 and <= 2,002 fish, respectively), thereafter significantly increasing to highs of 8,083 and 6,250, respectively, by spring 2010. also from 2000 to 2006, the fall abundance estimates of humpback chub were substantially below those abundances estimated after 2006. in addition, flannelmouth sucker catostomus latipinnis and bluehead sucker catostomus discobolus showed post-2006 increases in relative abundance, suggesting a systemwide event occurred that was beneficial to native fishes. most of the increases of humpback chub occurred during the spring season in the reaches of the little colorado river between 5 and 13.57 km upstream from the confluence. successful production of age 0 year classes of humpback chub may be partially driven by hydrograph dynamics of the little colorado river, whereas water temperatures and predation pressures in the mainstem colorado river likely influence survivorship of native fishes into subadult and adult life stages." "the influence of mammalian predator exclusion, food supplementation, and prescribed fire on survival of glaucomys volans",arboreal small mammal; capture-mark-recapture (cmr); capture probability; demography; glaucomys volans; mammalian predator exclusion; prescribed fire; supplemental food; survival rate,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,KARMACHARYA B;HOSTETLER JA;CONNER LM;MORRIS G;OLI MK,"little is known about demographic parameters of the southern flying squirrel (glaucomys volans) or the factors influencing those parameters. we conducted capture-mark-recapture studies from january 2005 to september 2009, and from may to november 2010 to provide rigorous estimates of survival rates for the southern flying squirrel in a longleaf pine ecosystem. we also examined the effect of experimental food supplementation, prescribed fire, and mammalian predator exclusion on survival rates. monthly apparent survival rates estimated from the 2 studies were 0.85 +/- 0.01 se and 0.81 +/- 0.04, respectively. prescribed fire positively influenced survival; survival increased for a period up to 9 months after burns. evidence that food supplementation and mammalian predator exclusion substantially affected survival rates was weak. these results suggest that the southern flying squirrel population in our study site during the study period was not food-limited, and that mortality due to mammalian predators is insubstantial. however, we do not know if any reduction in mortality due to mammalian predator exclusion could have been compensated for by an increase in mortality due to predation by raptors and snakes." @@ -3079,7 +3084,7 @@ the role of extrinsic and intrinsic factors on the departure decisions of a long the matrix affects trackway corridor suitability for an arenicolous specialist beetle,connectivity; ecological network; dispersal; harpalus rufipalpis; carabidae,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,BERTONCELJ I;DOLMAN PM,"in conserving regional insect diversity dispersal corridors are advocated to counteract fragmentation and for resilience to climate change. however, influences of corridor design and management on their function are poorly understood. effects of contrasting matrix structure on the suitability and function of trackways as corridors for dispersal of an arenicolous carabid beetle, harpalus rufipalpis (sturm), was studied within a plantation landscape using mark-release-recapture. a total of 1,120 marked h. rufipalpis were released into four trackways: two ""open"" trackways surrounded by pine plantations aged 13-16 years and two ""shaded"" trackways surrounded by plantations aged 26-37 years. dispersal was monitored by a grid of pitfall transects placed across trackways at intervals of four meters, extending 44 m north and south of the release point. numbers of resident and marked recaptured h. rufipalpis, their average daily movement rates and numbers of recaptures in the north and south direction were compared between open and shaded trackways using 238 recaptures. the surrounding matrix affected trackway suitability with greater abundance of resident beetles found in open trackways; however h. rufipalpis was also naturally present in shaded trackways. h. rufipalpis were more active in low quality shaded corridors as inferred from the greater number of recaptures and from greater daily movement rates. corridor edge permeability differed between trackway types, with more individuals leaving the corridor to enter the matrix in the less suitable shaded trackways. thus matrix type affected the potential habitat suitability and conduit function of trackway corridors." polymorphisms at the innate immune receptor tlr2 are associated with borrelia infection in a wild rodent population,wildlife disease; host-parasite interactions; borrelia; innate immune defence; toll-like receptors; disease resistance,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,TSCHIRREN B;ANDERSSON M;SCHERMAN K;WESTERDAHL H;MITTL PRE;RABERG L,"the discovery of the key role of toll-like receptors (tlrs) in initiating innate immune responses and modulating adaptive immunity has revolutionized our understanding of vertebrate defence against pathogens. yet, despite their central role in pathogen recognition and defence initiation, there is little information on how variation in tlrs influences disease susceptibility in natural populations. here, we assessed the extent of naturally occurring polymorphisms at tlr2 in wild bank voles (myodes glareolus) and tested for associations between tlr2 variants and infection with borrelia afzelii, a common tick-transmitted pathogen in rodents and one of the causative agents of human lyme disease. bank voles in our population had 15 different tlr2 haplotypes (10 different haplotypes at the amino acid level), which grouped in three well-separated clusters. in a large-scale capture-mark-recapture study, we show that voles carrying tlr2 haplotypes of one particular cluster (tlr2(c2)) were almost three times less likely to be borrelia infected than animals carrying other haplotypes. moreover, neutrality tests suggested that tlr2 has been under positive selection. this is, to our knowledge, the first demonstration of an association between tlr polymorphism and parasitism in wildlife, and a striking example that genetic variation at innate immune receptors can have a large impact on host resistance." assessing the mandatory bovine abortion notification system in france using unilist capture-recapture approach,NA,PLOS ONE,BRONNER A;HENAUX V;VERGNE T;VINARD JL;MORIGNAT E;HENDRIKX P;CALAVAS D;GAY E,"the mandatory bovine abortion notification system in france aims to detect as soon as possible any resurgence of bovine brucellosis. however, under-reporting seems to be a major limitation of this system. we used a unilist capture-recapture approach to assess the sensitivity, i.e. the proportion of farmers who reported at least one abortion among those who detected such events, and representativeness of the system during 2006-2011. we implemented a zero-inflated poisson model to estimate the proportion of farmers who detected at least one abortion, and among them, the proportion of farmers not reporting. we also applied a hurdle model to evaluate the effect of factors influencing the notification process. we found that the overall surveillance sensitivity was about 34%, and was higher in beef than dairy cattle farms. the observed increase in the proportion of notifying farmers from 2007 to 2009 resulted from an increase in the surveillance sensitivity in 2007/2008 and an increase in the proportion of farmers who detected at least one abortion in 2008/2009. these patterns suggest a raise in farmers' awareness in 2007/2008 when the bluetongue virus (btv) was detected in france, followed by an increase in the number of abortions in 2008/2009 as btv spread across the country. our study indicated a lack of sensitivity of the mandatory bovine abortion notification system, raising concerns about the ability to detect brucellosis outbreaks early. with the increasing need to survey the zoonotic rift valley fever and q fever diseases that may also cause bovine abortions, our approach is of primary interest for animal health stakeholders to develop information programs to increase abortion notifications. our framework combining hurdle and zip models may also be applied to estimate the completeness of other clinical surveillance systems." -stopover optimization in a long-distance migrant: the role of fuel load and nocturnal take-off time in alaskan northern wheatears (oenanthe oenanthe),arctic; capture-recapture; cormack-jolly-seber model; departure probability; departure time; migration speed; northern wheatear; optimization; songbird; stopover ecology,FRONTIERS IN ZOOLOGY,SCHMALJOHANN H;KORNER-NIEVERGELT F;NAEF-DAENZER B;NAGEL R;MAGGINI I;BULTE M;BAIRLEIN F,"introduction: in long-distance migrants, a considerably higher proportion of time and energy is allocated to stopovers rather than to flights. stopover duration and departure decisions affect consequently subsequent flight stages and overall speed of migration. in arctic nocturnal songbird migrants the trade-off between a relatively long migration distance and short nights available for travelling may impose a significant time pressure on migrants. therefore, we hypothesize that alaskan northern wheatears (oenanthe oenanthe) use a time-minimizing migration strategy to reach their african wintering area 15,000 km away. results: we estimated the factors influencing the birds' daily departure probability from an arctic stopover before crossing the bering strait by using a cormack-jolly-seber model. to identify in which direction and when migration was resumed departing birds were radio-tracked. here we show that alaskan northern wheatears did not behave as strict time minimizers, because their departure fuel load was unrelated to fuel deposition rate. all birds departed with more fuel load than necessary for the sea crossing. departure probability increased with stopover duration, evening fuel load and decreasing temperature. birds took-off towards southwest and hence, followed in general the constant magnetic and geographic course but not the alternative great circle route. nocturnal departure times were concentrated immediately after sunset. conclusion: although birds did not behave like time-minimizers in respect of the optimal migration strategies their surplus of fuel load clearly contradicted an energy saving strategy in terms of the minimization of overall energy cost of transport. the observed low variation in nocturnal take-off time in relation to local night length compared to similar studies in the temperate zone revealed that migrants have an innate ability to respond to changes in the external cue of night length. likely, birds maximized their potential nightly flight range by taking off early in the night which in turn maximizes their overall migration speed. hence, nocturnal departure time may be a crucial parameter shaping the speed of migration indicating the significance of its integration in future migration models." +stopover optimization in a long-distance migrant: the role of fuel load and nocturnal take-off time in alaskan northern wheatears (oenanthe oenanthe),arctic; capture-recapture; cormack-jolly-seber model; departure probability; departure time; migration speed; northern wheatear; optimization; songbird; stopover ecology,FRONTIERS IN ZOOLOGY,SCHMALJOHANN H;KORNER NIEVERGELT F;NAEF DAENZER B;NAGEL R;MAGGINI I;BULTE M;BAIRLEIN F,"introduction: in long-distance migrants, a considerably higher proportion of time and energy is allocated to stopovers rather than to flights. stopover duration and departure decisions affect consequently subsequent flight stages and overall speed of migration. in arctic nocturnal songbird migrants the trade-off between a relatively long migration distance and short nights available for travelling may impose a significant time pressure on migrants. therefore, we hypothesize that alaskan northern wheatears (oenanthe oenanthe) use a time-minimizing migration strategy to reach their african wintering area 15,000 km away. results: we estimated the factors influencing the birds' daily departure probability from an arctic stopover before crossing the bering strait by using a cormack-jolly-seber model. to identify in which direction and when migration was resumed departing birds were radio-tracked. here we show that alaskan northern wheatears did not behave as strict time minimizers, because their departure fuel load was unrelated to fuel deposition rate. all birds departed with more fuel load than necessary for the sea crossing. departure probability increased with stopover duration, evening fuel load and decreasing temperature. birds took-off towards southwest and hence, followed in general the constant magnetic and geographic course but not the alternative great circle route. nocturnal departure times were concentrated immediately after sunset. conclusion: although birds did not behave like time-minimizers in respect of the optimal migration strategies their surplus of fuel load clearly contradicted an energy saving strategy in terms of the minimization of overall energy cost of transport. the observed low variation in nocturnal take-off time in relation to local night length compared to similar studies in the temperate zone revealed that migrants have an innate ability to respond to changes in the external cue of night length. likely, birds maximized their potential nightly flight range by taking off early in the night which in turn maximizes their overall migration speed. hence, nocturnal departure time may be a crucial parameter shaping the speed of migration indicating the significance of its integration in future migration models." "estimating the number of hiv-positive pregnant women in sergipe, brazil, using capture-recapture",hiv; acquired immune deficiency syndrome; vertical transmission of infectious disease; information systems capture-recapture,AIDS CARE-PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIO-MEDICAL ASPECTS OF AIDS/HIV,DE LEMOS LMD;DUARTE GS;MARTINS NGR;DA SILVA FJCP;ILOZUE C;GURGEL RQ,"the objective of the study was to estimate the population of hiv-seropositive pregnant women in the state of sergipe between 2000 and 2010, using the capture-recapture method (crc). three databases were used as independent lists: the brazilian case registry database (sinan), laboratory test control system (siscel) and medical data records of the std/hiv/aids service of sergipe (cemar). for analysis, a log-linear regression model was used to ascertain the total population size. we identified 729 hiv-seropositive pregnant women from the three lists. among them, only 317 (43.5%) were included in sinan, 646 (88.6%) were included in siscel and 274 (37.6%) appeared in the cemar database. using crc, we estimated that there were in total 1110 hiv-seropositive pregnant women; therefore, 381 (34.3%) women were not captured by any of the three systems. the crc method is a potentially useful and important tool in the evaluation of official reporting systems in brazil." comparison of vaers fetal-loss reports during three consecutive influenza seasons: was there a synergistic fetal toxicity associated with the two-vaccine 2009/2010 season?,human toxicology; immunization; influenza vaccine; spontaneous abortion; stillbirth; thimerosal,HUMAN & EXPERIMENTAL TOXICOLOGY,GOLDMAN GS,"the aim of this study was to compare the number of inactivated-influenza vaccine-related spontaneous abortion and stillbirth (sb) reports in the vaccine adverse event reporting system (vaers) database during three consecutive flu seasons beginning 2008/2009 and assess the relative fetal death reports associated with the two-vaccine 2009/2010 season. the vaers database was searched for reports of fetal demise following administration of the influenza vaccine/vaccines to pregnant women. utilization of an independent surveillance survey and vaers, two-source capture-recapture analysis estimated the reporting completeness in the 2009/2010 flu season. capture-recapture demonstrated that the vaers database captured about 13.2% of the total 1321 (95% confidence interval (ci): 815-2795) estimated reports, yielding an ascertainment-corrected rate of 590 fetal-loss reports per million pregnant women vaccinated (or 1 per 1695). the unadjusted fetal-loss report rates for the three consecutive influenza seasons beginning 2008/2009 were 6.8 (95% ci: 0.1-13.1), 77.8 (95% ci: 66.3-89.4), and 12.6 (95% ci: 7.2-18.0) cases per million pregnant women vaccinated, respectively. the observed reporting bias was too low to explain the magnitude increase in fetal-demise reporting rates in the vaers database relative to the reported annual trends. thus, a synergistic fetal toxicity likely resulted from the administration of both the pandemic (a-h1n1) and seasonal influenza vaccines during the 2009/2010 season." movement between crops and weeds: temporal refuges for aphidophagous insects in central chile,alfalfa; coccinellids; refuges; rubidium; thistle,CIENCIA E INVESTIGACION AGRARIA,VILLEGAS CM;VERDUGO JA;GREZ AA;TAPIA J;LAVANDERO B,"crop edges have significant effects on populations of natural enemies, acting as source or sink habitats during the growing season. previous observations have shown that coccinellid species are associated with thistle (sylibum marianum (l.) gaertn), a common exotic weed in the central valley of chile. to determine whether thistles growing at crop edges act as a putative refuge for natural enemies, the seasonal relative abundance of aphidophagous coccinellids was estimated at 0, 10 and 25 m from the edges of three alfalfa fields. mark-recapture studies were carried out using the trace element rubidium (rb) to determine whether coccinellids moved between the edges and the alfalfa. the most common aphidophagous coccinellid species were hippodamia convergens (63%), h. variegata (11%), rhyzobius lophantae (4%) and adalia angulifera (4%). in mid-november, the abundance of coccinellids at the edge of (0 m from the edge) the alfalfa plot increased compared to that at the center of the field (25 m from the edge), coinciding with a reduction in the population of aphids at all sampling points. of the coccinellids captured at the thistle edge, 68% were marked with rubidium, suggesting movement of coccinellids from the alfalfa plot to the thistle growing at its edges. after the thistles were removed, coccinellids returned to the crop, as shown by the presence of marked coccinellids within the alfalfa fields at all three sampling distances. the results of this study suggest that thistles can act as a refuge for coccinellids when aphids are not available in the alfalfa fields." @@ -3090,10 +3095,10 @@ woodland and grassland mosaic from a butterfly perspective: habitat use by erebi responses of a small-mammal community to habitat management through controlled burning in a protected mediterranean area,apodemus sylvaticus; crocidura russula; donana national park; ecotone generation; eliomys quercinus; iberian peninsula; mus spretus; scrub management,ACTA OECOLOGICA-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,MORENO S;ROUCO C,"fire is widely used as a management tool to achieve conservation goals. however, the consequences of such management on non-target species are frequently neglected and unknown. this study examines the effects of traditional management practices of scrubland clearance by controlled burning to improve menaced carnivores on non-target species: rodent and insectivores in donana national park (sw of iberian peninsula). we used capture-recapture methods to examine changes in abundance in areas that were burnt one and three years ago, compared with unburnt areas. results showed that burnt areas had higher species abundances, but mainly on the ecotonal boundaries. species abundances showed dramatic seasonal differences with high abundances in autumn and winter, and very low abundance in summer. our study revealed that scrubland management by controlled fires increases the abundance of small mammal species, mainly mus spretus and apodemus sylvaticus. we found only four small mammal species between the different treatments. however, some species that were formerly abundant in donana, such as elyomis quercinus, were found only in burnt areas. our results suggest that controlled burning is not contributing to the current loss of biotic diversity in this community. (c) 2013 elsevier masson sas. all rights reserved." age-specific survival of tundra swans on the lower alaska peninsula,alaska peninsula; apparent survival; cygnus columbianus; emigration; neck collar; tag loss; tundra swan,CONDOR,MEIXELL BW;LINDBERG MS;CONN PB;DAU CP;SARVIS JE;SOWL KM,"the population of tundra swans (cygnus columbianus columbianus) breeding on the lower alaska peninsula represents the southern extremity of the species' range is uniquely nonmigratory. we used data on recaptures, resightings, and recoveries of neck-collared tundra swans on the lower alaska peninsula to estimate collar loss, annual apparent survival, and other demographic parameters for the years 1978-1989. annual collar loss was greater for adult males fitted with either the thinner collar type (0.34) or the thicker collar type (0.15) than for other age/sex classes (thinner 0 10, thicker: 0.04). the apparent mean probability of survival of adults (0.61) was higher than that of immatures (0.41) and for both age classes varied considerably by year (adult range: 0.44-0.95, immature range: 0.25-0.90). to assess effects of permanent emigration by age and breeding class, we analyzed post hoc the encounter histories of swans known to breed in our study area. the apparent mean survival of known breeders (0.65) was generally higher than that of the entire marked sample but still varied considerably by year (range 0.26-1.00) and indicated that permanent emigration of breeding swans was likely. we suggest that reductions in apparent survival probability were influenced primarily by high and variable rates of permanent emigration and that immigration by swans from elsewhere may be important in sustaining a breeding population at and near izembek national wildlife refuge." growth of rainbow trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) in warm-temperate lakes: implications for environmental change,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,BLAIR JM;OSTROVSKY I;HICKS BJ;PITKETHLEY RJ;SCHOLES P,"to predict potential effects of climate and anthropogenic impacts on fish growth, we compared growth rates of rainbow trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) in nine closely located warm-temperate lakes of contrasting morphometry, stratification and mixing regime, and trophic state. analyses of long-term mark-recapture data showed that in deep oligotrophic and mesotrophic lakes, trout growth rates increased with increasing indices of lake productivity. in contrast, in shallow eutrophic lakes, where fish habitat volume is constrained by temperature and dissolved oxygen, trout growth rates declined with increasing productivity. growth rates were higher in lakes with greater volumes of favourable habitat (i.e., dissolved oxygen > 6.0 mg.l-1 and temperature < 21 degrees c) and lower in lakes with increased turbidity, chlorophyll a, and nitrogen concentrations. our findings suggest that increases in lake productivity and temperatures as a result of global climatic change are likely to be more detrimental to salmonid habitat quality in shallower, productive lakes, while salmonids will better endure such changes in deeper, oligotrophic lakes. fishery managers can use this information to aid future stocking decisions for salmonid fisheries in warm-temperate climates." -estimating demographic parameters from capturerecapture data with dependence among individuals within clusters,capturerecapture; dispersal; heterogeneity; within-group variance; mixed models; pairs; siblings,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CHOQUET R;SANZ-AGUILAR A;DOLIGEZ B;NOGUE E;PRADEL R;GUSTAFSSON L;GIMENEZ O,"two-level data, in which level-1 units or individuals are nested within level-2 units or clusters, are very common in natural populations. however, very few multilevel analyses are conducted for data with imperfect detection of individuals. multilevel analyses are important to quantify the variability at each level of the data. in this study, we present two-level analyses for estimating demographic parameters from data with imperfect detection of individuals and with a source of individual variability that is nested within a source of cluster variability. this method allows separating and quantifying the phenotypic plasticity or facultative behavioural responses from the evolutionary responses. we illustrate our approach using data from studies of a long-lived perennially monogamous seabird, the cory's shearwater (calonectris diomedea) and a patchy population of collared flycatchers (ficedula albicollis). we demonstrate the existence of dependence in recapture probability between paired individuals in the cory's shearwater. in addition, we show that family structure has no influence on parentoffspring resemblance in collared flycatchers dispersal. the new method is implemented in program e-surge which is freely available from the internet." +estimating demographic parameters from capturerecapture data with dependence among individuals within clusters,capturerecapture; dispersal; heterogeneity; within-group variance; mixed models; pairs; siblings,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CHOQUET R;SANZ AGUILAR A;DOLIGEZ B;NOGUE E;PRADEL R;GUSTAFSSON L;GIMENEZ O,"two-level data, in which level-1 units or individuals are nested within level-2 units or clusters, are very common in natural populations. however, very few multilevel analyses are conducted for data with imperfect detection of individuals. multilevel analyses are important to quantify the variability at each level of the data. in this study, we present two-level analyses for estimating demographic parameters from data with imperfect detection of individuals and with a source of individual variability that is nested within a source of cluster variability. this method allows separating and quantifying the phenotypic plasticity or facultative behavioural responses from the evolutionary responses. we illustrate our approach using data from studies of a long-lived perennially monogamous seabird, the cory's shearwater (calonectris diomedea) and a patchy population of collared flycatchers (ficedula albicollis). we demonstrate the existence of dependence in recapture probability between paired individuals in the cory's shearwater. in addition, we show that family structure has no influence on parentoffspring resemblance in collared flycatchers dispersal. the new method is implemented in program e-surge which is freely available from the internet." completeness and accuracy of crash outcome data in a cohort of cyclists: a validation study,bicycling; wounds and injuries; validation studies; capture recapture; medical record linkage; self-report,BMC PUBLIC HEALTH,TIN ST;WOODWARD A;AMERATUNGA S,"background: bicycling, despite its health and other benefits, raises safety concerns for many people. however, reliable information on bicycle crash injury is scarce as current statistics rely on a single official database of limited quality. this paper evaluated the completeness and accuracy of crash data collected from multiple sources in a prospective cohort study involving cyclists. methods: the study recruited 2438 adult cyclists from new zealand's largest mass cycling event in november 2006 and another 190 in 2008, and obtained data regarding bicycle crashes that were attended by medical personnel or the police and occurred between the date of recruitment and 30 june 2011, through linkage to insurance claims, hospital discharges, mortality records and police reports. the quality of the linked data was assessed by capture-recapture methods and by comparison with self-reported injury data collected in a follow-up survey. results: of the 2590 cyclists who were resident in new zealand at recruitment, 855 experienced 1336 crashes, of which 755 occurred on public roads and 120 involved a collision with a motor vehicle, during a median follow-up of 4.6 years. log-linear models estimated that the linked data were 73.7% (95% ci: 68.0%-78.7%) complete with negligible differences between on- and off-road crashes. the data were 83.3% (95% ci: 78.9%-87.6%) complete for collisions. agreement with the self-reported data was moderate (kappa: 0.55) and varied by personal factors, cycling exposure and confidence in recalling crash events. if self-reports were considered as the gold standard, the linked data had 63.1% sensitivity and 93.5% specificity for all crashes and 40.0% sensitivity and 99.9% specificity for collisions. conclusions: routinely collected databases substantially underestimate the frequency of bicycle crashes. self-reported crash data are also incomplete and inconsistent. it is necessary to improve the quality of individual data sources as well as record linkage techniques so that all available data sources can be used reliably." using pedigree reconstruction to estimate population size: genotypes are more than individually unique marks,census; lion; mark-recapture; pedigree reconstruction; population estimate; population size,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CREEL S;ROSENBLATT E,"estimates of population size are critical for conservation and management, but accurate estimates are difficult to obtain for many species. noninvasive genetic methods are increasingly used to estimate population size, particularly in elusive species such as large carnivores, which are difficult to count by most other methods. in most such studies, genotypes are treated simply as unique individual identifiers. here, we develop a new estimator of population size based on pedigree reconstruction. the estimator accounts for individuals that were directly sampled, individuals that were not sampled but whose genotype could be inferred by pedigree reconstruction, and individuals that were not detected by either of these methods. monte carlo simulations show that the population estimate is unbiased and precise if sampling is of sufficient intensity and duration. simulations also identified sampling conditions that can cause the method to overestimate or underestimate true population size; we present and discuss methods to correct these potential biases. the method detected 221% more individuals than were directly sampled across a broad range of simulated sampling schemes. genotypes are more than unique identifiers, and the information about relationships in a set of genotypes can improve estimates of population size." -a nationwide surveillance of invasive pneumococcal disease in adults in israel before an expected effect of pcv7,invasive pneumococcal disease; nationwide surveillance; pre-vaccination; adults; risk factors; mortality; serotypes,VACCINE,REGEV-YOCHAY G;RAHAV G;STRAHILEVITZ J;BISHARA J;KATZIR M;CHOWERS M;FINKELSTEIN R;CHAZAN B;ZIMHONY O;DAGAN R,"pneumococcal infections in adults vary in severity and incidence is affected by childhood vaccination policy. here, we try to define the host determinants and the interaction with specific serotypes that result in invasive pneumococcal disease (ipd) before an expected effect of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines. a nationwide active surveillance was initiated on july 2009, at the time of national implementation of pcv7 in israel. the surveillance included all 27 laboratories and medical centers performing blood cultures in israel, providing all blood and csf pneumococcal isolates from persons >= 18y. capture-recapture method assured that >95% of all cases were reported. ipd outcome and medical history were recorded and isolates were serotyped. four hundred and sixty ipd cases were reported (annual incidence [/100,000] of 9.25). incidence increased with age, from 2.6 among 18-34y to 66.8 among >= 85y. the most common diagnosis was pneumonia (72.4%), followed by bacteremia with no apparent focus (20.2%). case fatality rate increased with age and number of comorbidities (34.5% for >= 75y or those with >= 3 comorbidities vs. 9.2-11.2% among <65y or those with no comorbidities; p = 0.015). variables independently associated with mortality were: age >= 75, chronic renal failure, malignancy, neurosurgery, alcohol abuse, multi-lobar pneumonia and sepsis with no apparent focus. the predominant serotypes in patients 18-49y were 1, 5, 8, 7f and 9v (constituting 56.3% in this age-group vs. 11.9% in >= 75y; p < 0.01). the predominant serotypes among patients >= 75y were 3, 19a, 23f and 14 (40.3% of this age-group vs. 12.9% of 18-49y; p < 0.01). overall, pcv7 and pcv13 covered 25.6% and 63.7% of isolates, respectively, and 30.9% and 67.9% of isolates in mortality cases respectively. this nationwide active surveillance provides the baseline incidence, mortality rates and risk group distributions of ipd in adults before expected pcv effect. (c) 2013 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +a nationwide surveillance of invasive pneumococcal disease in adults in israel before an expected effect of pcv7,invasive pneumococcal disease; nationwide surveillance; pre-vaccination; adults; risk factors; mortality; serotypes,VACCINE,REGEV YOCHAY G;RAHAV G;STRAHILEVITZ J;BISHARA J;KATZIR M;CHOWERS M;FINKELSTEIN R;CHAZAN B;ZIMHONY O;DAGAN R,"pneumococcal infections in adults vary in severity and incidence is affected by childhood vaccination policy. here, we try to define the host determinants and the interaction with specific serotypes that result in invasive pneumococcal disease (ipd) before an expected effect of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines. a nationwide active surveillance was initiated on july 2009, at the time of national implementation of pcv7 in israel. the surveillance included all 27 laboratories and medical centers performing blood cultures in israel, providing all blood and csf pneumococcal isolates from persons >= 18y. capture-recapture method assured that >95% of all cases were reported. ipd outcome and medical history were recorded and isolates were serotyped. four hundred and sixty ipd cases were reported (annual incidence [/100,000] of 9.25). incidence increased with age, from 2.6 among 18-34y to 66.8 among >= 85y. the most common diagnosis was pneumonia (72.4%), followed by bacteremia with no apparent focus (20.2%). case fatality rate increased with age and number of comorbidities (34.5% for >= 75y or those with >= 3 comorbidities vs. 9.2-11.2% among <65y or those with no comorbidities; p = 0.015). variables independently associated with mortality were: age >= 75, chronic renal failure, malignancy, neurosurgery, alcohol abuse, multi-lobar pneumonia and sepsis with no apparent focus. the predominant serotypes in patients 18-49y were 1, 5, 8, 7f and 9v (constituting 56.3% in this age-group vs. 11.9% in >= 75y; p < 0.01). the predominant serotypes among patients >= 75y were 3, 19a, 23f and 14 (40.3% of this age-group vs. 12.9% of 18-49y; p < 0.01). overall, pcv7 and pcv13 covered 25.6% and 63.7% of isolates, respectively, and 30.9% and 67.9% of isolates in mortality cases respectively. this nationwide active surveillance provides the baseline incidence, mortality rates and risk group distributions of ipd in adults before expected pcv effect. (c) 2013 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." variability in temporary emigration rates of individually marked female weddell seals prior to first reproduction,capture-mark-recapture; colonial breeding; condition-dependent; leptonychotes weddellii; open robust design; recruitment; social learning; trade-offs; unobservable states,OECOLOGIA,STAUFFER GE;ROTELLA JJ;GARROTT RA,"in many species, temporary emigration (te) is a phenomenon, often indicative of life-history characteristics such as dormancy, skipped reproduction, or partial migration, whereby certain individuals in a population are temporarily unobservable at a particular site. te may be a flexible condition-dependent strategy that allows individuals to mitigate effects of adverse conditions. consequently, te rates ought to be highly variable, but sources of variations are poorly understood for most species. we used data from known-aged female weddell seals (leptonychotes weddellii) tagged in erebus bay, antarctica, to investigate sources of variation in te rates prior to reproduction and to evaluate possible implications for age-specific probability of first reproduction. te rates were near 1 the year after birth, decreased to an average of 0.15 ( = 0.01) by age 8, and were similar thereafter. te rates varied substantially from year-to-year and were lower for seals that attended reproductive colonies the previous year than for seals that did not attend (e.g., = 0.22). recruitment rates were marginally greater for seals that did attend than for seals that did not attend colonies the previous year. for weddell seals specifically, our results suggest that (1) motivation to attend colonies varied temporally, (2) as seals grew older they had increased motivation to attend even before reproductive maturity, and (3) seals appear to follow various attendance strategies. more broadly, our results support the idea of te as a variable, condition-dependent strategy, and highlight the utility of te models for providing population and life-history insights for diverse taxa." age-related reproductive variation in a wild marine mammal population,southern elephant seals; mirounga leonina; photogrammetry; age-specific reproduction; pup survival; life history theory,POLAR BIOLOGY,POSTMA M;BESTER MN;DE BRUYN PJN,"life history theory predicts a change in reproduction success with age as energy resources are limited and must be allocated effectively to maximize reproduction and survival. in this study, we use three reproductive performance measures, maternal expenditure, offspring weaning mass, and first-year survival, to investigate the role that maternal age plays in successful reproduction. long-term uninterrupted life history data available for marion island's southern elephant seals and mass change estimates from photogrammetry data allow for assessment of age-related reproduction performance and trade-offs. known-aged adult females were photographed for photogrammetric mass estimation (n = 29) and their pups weighed at weaning during the 2009 breeding season. maternal age and proportional mass loss positively influenced pup weaning mass. in turn, first-year pup return rates (as a proxy for survival) were assessed through the intensive mark-recapture program. pup survival increased with female age and weaning mass. pups of young females aged 3-6 years have a lower first-year survival probability compared with pups of older and larger females." participation in medicine by graduates of medical schools in the united kingdom up to 25 years post graduation: national cohort surveys,NA,ACADEMIC MEDICINE,GOLDACRE MJ;LAMBERT TW,"purpose to determine-as a guide to assess outcomes of medical education, and for medical workforce planning-whether the great majority of graduates from uk medical schools eventually practice medicine. method the authors estimated the level of participation in medicine, in selected years after graduation, of nine cohorts (graduating between 1974 and 2002, inclusive) of graduates from medical schools in the united kingdom. their estimation is based on survey-garnered data combined with national employment data, and it uses the statistical method of capture-recapture analysis. this method provides both a lower likely limit and an upper likely limit of the percentage of doctors practicing in medicine. the lower and upper limits depend, essentially, on a range of assumptions about nonresponders. results the authors estimate that at least 90% of graduates from uk medical schools work in medicine for many years after graduation. women are only slightly less likely than men to follow a medical career. to illustrate, of the doctors who lived in the united kingdom before medical school, at 10 years after graduation, between 95.6% and 98.8% of men were in medicine, as were between 91.9% and 93.3% of women. uk medical graduates from homes outside the united kingdom were less likely to work in the national health service and more likely to pursue a career outside the united kingdom, but were not appreciably less likely than graduates from uk homes to work in medicine. conclusions uk-trained doctors rarely give up a medical career within 25 years of graduation." @@ -3101,14 +3106,14 @@ fluctuating viability selection on morphology of cliff swallows is driven by cli bear historical ranges revisited: documenting the increase of a once-extirpated population in nevada,black bear; extirpated population; historical records; nevada; population estimation; ursus americanus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,LACKEY CW;BECKMANN JP;SEDINGER J,"black bears (ursus americanus) were once abundant in nevada and distributed throughout the state, yet recognition of the species' historical occurrence in the state is uncommon and has therefore been ignored in published distribution maps for north america. the lack of representation on distribution maps is likely due to the lack of any scientific data or research on bears in nevada until 1987. historical records dating back to the 1840s compiled by nevada department of wildlife (ndow) biologist robert mcquivey indicate presence of black bears throughout the state in the 1800s through about 1930. the paucity of historical references after 1931 suggest extirpation of black bears from nevada's interior mountain ranges by this time. we report on historical records of black bears in the state of nevada and the results of a current population estimate of black bears derived from a sample of marked bears (n=420) captured 707 times between 1997 and 2008. using pradel and cormackjollyseber models in program mark, we estimated overall population size, finite rate of growth (=1.16), quarterly and annual survival rates for males and females, seasonal capture probabilities, and recruitment rates. our results indicate an overall population size of 262 +/- 31 adult black bears in western nevada. these results suggest that the once abundant, then extirpated population of black bears in nevada is increasing at an annual average rate of 16%. although the current distribution is limited to the western part of the state, our findings suggest possible expansion of the population into historical habitat within the interior and eastern portions of the state that have been absent of bears for >80 years. finally, based on historical records, we present suggested revised historical distribution maps for black bears that include the great basin ranges in nevada. (c) 2013 the wildlife society." body length shrinkage in an endangered amphibian is associated with drought,body length; shrinkage; growth; drought; eurycea tonkawae,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,BENDIK NF;GLUESENKAMP AG,"shrinkage in body length, followed by growth, has rarely been documented in vertebrates and has been associated with stressful energetic and environmental conditions. here, we document reversible shrinkage in an amphibian for the first time. jollyville plateau salamanders eurycea tonkawae are neotenic (attain maturity while retaining an aquatic larval form) and inhabit springs and caves of a dissected aquifer in travis county, tx, usa. we conducted mark-recapture surveys on a spring-dwelling population before and after an exceptional drought in 2008. use of unique marks and digital photographs of individuals provided precise information on salamander growth rates during and after a period in which salamanders retreated to underground refugia to avoid desiccation during the drought. tail width decreased significantly during the drought indicating a reduction in energy stores, a consequence of stressful environmental conditions. unexpectedly, body length shrinkage also occurred during the drought and was followed by positive growth when spring flow resumed. body length shrinkage could be an adaptation to coping with long periods of low food availability although its long-term effects are unknown. given the influence of body size on many ecological and physiological characteristics of organisms, plasticity in body size may have important consequences that go undetected by researchers if shrinkage is ignored." towards a general formalization of encounter rates in ecology,encounter rates; animal movement; encounter kernel; characteristic scales; correlated velocity movement; mean field perturbation,THEORETICAL ECOLOGY,GURARIE E;OVASKAINEN O,"although encounters between organisms are fundamental to many ecological processes, a general theory of encounters that accounts for random movements and probabilistic events has yet to be proposed. we present a framework for examining probabilistic encounters between arbitrarily moving searchers and immobile targets in continuous space and time. we define and contrast first encounter rates and mean encounter rates, which are generally not equal and depend on several properties of the process, including movement behaviors, the spatial scales of the encounter kernel, spatial distribution and birth-death dynamics of targets, and whether the encounters are destructive. based on these considerations, we propose a taxonomy of encounter processes and discuss their functional relationships. analytical approximations in several special cases are derived, leading to inference about general patterns. we identify, for example, cases (nondestructive, mean encounters) in which encounter rates are completely independent of movement velocity or tortuosity, and we quantify the dependence for cases (e.g., hard, first encounters and destructive encounters in a dynamic landscape) where there is a relationship. the analytical results lead to general qualitative conclusions, while the mathematical formalization and taxonomic organization provides a framework for studying and contrasting a broad range of encounter processes in ecology." -forager abundance and its relationship with colony activity level in three species of south american pogonomyrmex harvester ants,forager abundance; mark-recapture; colony size; pogonomyrmex; south america; foraging activity,INSECTES SOCIAUX,NOBUA-BEHRMANN BE;DE CASENAVE JL;MILESI FA;PAVAN B,"the proportion of foragers in ant colonies is a fairly constant species-specific characteristic that could be determined by intrinsic or extrinsic factors. if intrinsic factors are relevant, species with similar life history characteristics (e.g., colony size and foraging strategies) would be expected to have a similar proportion of foragers in their colonies. within the genus pogonomyrmex, north american species can vary largely in their colony size, whereas only species with small colonies are known in south america. we studied the characteristics of the foraging subcaste in three sympatric south american species of pogonomyrmex harvester ants, and compared it with the available information on other species of the same genus. we used two mark-recapture methods and colony excavations to estimate the number and proportion of foragers in the colonies of p. mendozanus, p. inermis, and p. rastratus, and to test the relationship between forager external activity levels and abundance per colony. forager abundance in the three studied species was lower than in most north american species. the percentage of foragers in their colonies ranged 7-15 %, more similar to north american species with large colonies than to those with small colony size. foraging activity was positively correlated with forager abundance in all three species, implying that colony allocation to number of foragers allows for higher food acquisition. further comparative studies involving a wider range of traits in south and north american species would allow to unveil the role of environmental factors in shaping each species' particular traits." +forager abundance and its relationship with colony activity level in three species of south american pogonomyrmex harvester ants,forager abundance; mark-recapture; colony size; pogonomyrmex; south america; foraging activity,INSECTES SOCIAUX,NOBUA BEHRMANN BE;DE CASENAVE JL;MILESI FA;PAVAN B,"the proportion of foragers in ant colonies is a fairly constant species-specific characteristic that could be determined by intrinsic or extrinsic factors. if intrinsic factors are relevant, species with similar life history characteristics (e.g., colony size and foraging strategies) would be expected to have a similar proportion of foragers in their colonies. within the genus pogonomyrmex, north american species can vary largely in their colony size, whereas only species with small colonies are known in south america. we studied the characteristics of the foraging subcaste in three sympatric south american species of pogonomyrmex harvester ants, and compared it with the available information on other species of the same genus. we used two mark-recapture methods and colony excavations to estimate the number and proportion of foragers in the colonies of p. mendozanus, p. inermis, and p. rastratus, and to test the relationship between forager external activity levels and abundance per colony. forager abundance in the three studied species was lower than in most north american species. the percentage of foragers in their colonies ranged 7-15 %, more similar to north american species with large colonies than to those with small colony size. foraging activity was positively correlated with forager abundance in all three species, implying that colony allocation to number of foragers allows for higher food acquisition. further comparative studies involving a wider range of traits in south and north american species would allow to unveil the role of environmental factors in shaping each species' particular traits." capture-recapture estimation based upon the geometric distribution allowing for heterogeneity,capture-recapture; chao's estimator; censored estimator; censored likelihood; estimation under model misspecification; truncated likelihood,METRIKA,NIWITPONG SA;BOHNING D;VAN DER HEIJDEN PGM;HOLLING H,"capture-recapture methods aim to estimate the size of an elusive target population. each member of the target population carries a count of identifications by some identifying mechanism-the number of times it has been identified during the observational period. only positive counts are observed and inference needs to be based on the observed count distribution. a widely used assumption for the count distribution is a poisson mixture. if the mixing distribution can be described by an exponential density, the geometric distribution arises as the marginal. this note discusses population size estimation on the basis of the zero-truncated geometric (a geometric again itself). in addition, population heterogeneity is considered for the geometric. chao's estimator is developed for the mixture of geometric distributions and provides a lower bound estimator which is valid under arbitrary mixing on the parameter of the geometric. however, chao's estimator is also known for its relatively large variance (if compared to the maximum likelihood estimator). another estimator based on a censored geometric likelihood is suggested which uses the entire sample information but is less affected by model misspecifications. simulation studies illustrate that the proposed censored estimator comprises a good compromise between the maximum likelihood estimator and chao's estimator, e.g. between efficiency and bias." influence of predation risk on recruitment and litter intervals in common voles (microtus arvalis),adaptation; ferret; frequency; gestation; pregnancy; reproduction; stress,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,JOCHYM M;HALLE S,"research on mammals and birds has shown that predation may have indirect effects on prey reproduction. some of the indirect effects may give prey an adaptive advantage. females of several vole species respond to the presence of predators from the genus mustela l., 1758 with suppressed breeding; this response increases females' chances of survival. however, breeding suppression is observed only in a certain part of the female population; it is unclear whether predation risk affects the remaining females. we investigated this in a capture-mark-recapture experiment on reproductive effort of female common voles (microtus arvalis (pallas, 1778)) facing simulated presence of mustelid predators. we measured two parameters: the number of recruits per litter and the litter interval. compared with control populations, the number of recruits per litter was not affected, but the litter interval was longer in females facing mustelid risk of predation. this indicates that predation risk affects females in a more complex way than originally proposed: it induces breeding suppression in some, but also influences litter frequency in others. our result suggests that predatory stress deregulates the estrous cycle. decreased frequency of litters can be a viable antipredatory adaptation in iteroparous organisms." revisiting the effect of capture heterogeneity on survival estimates in capture-mark-recapture studies: does it matter?,NA,PLOS ONE,ABADI F;BOTHA A;ALTWEGG R,"recently developed capture-mark-recapture methods allow us to account for capture heterogeneity among individuals in the form of discrete mixtures and continuous individual random effects. in this article, we used simulations and two case studies to evaluate the effectiveness of continuously distributed individual random effects at removing potential bias due to capture heterogeneity, and to evaluate in what situation the added complexity of these models is justified. simulations and case studies showed that ignoring individual capture heterogeneity generally led to a small negative bias in survival estimates and that individual random effects effectively removed this bias. as expected, accounting for capture heterogeneity also led to slightly less precise survival estimates. our case studies also showed that accounting for capture heterogeneity increased in importance towards the end of study. though ignoring capture heterogeneity led to a small bias in survival estimates, such bias may greatly impact management decisions. we advocate reducing potential heterogeneity at the sampling design stage. where this is insufficient, we recommend modelling individual capture heterogeneity in situations such as when a large proportion of the individuals has a low detection probability (e.g. in the presence of floaters) and situations where the most recent survival estimates are of great interest (e.g. in applied conservation)." an experimental displacement and over 50 years of tag-recoveries show that monarch butterflies are not true navigators,mark-recapture; clock-and-compass orientation; numerical model; analytical expectation model; longitudinal displacement,PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,MOURITSEN H;DERBYSHIRE R;STALLEICKEN J;MOURITSEN OO;FROST BJ;NORRIS DR,"monarch butterflies (danaus plexippus) breeding in eastern north america are famous for their annual fall migration to their overwintering grounds in mexico. however, the mechanisms they use to successfully reach these sites remain poorly understood. here, we test whether monarchs are true navigators who can determine their location relative to their final destination using both a ""compass"" and a ""map"". using flight simulators, we recorded the orientation of wild-caught monarchs in southwestern ontario and found that individuals generally flew in a southwest direction toward the wintering grounds. when displaced 2,500 km to the west, the same individuals continued to fly in a general southwest direction, suggesting that monarchs use a simple vector-navigation strategy (i.e., use a specific compass bearing without compensating for displacement). using over 5 decades of field data, we also show that the directional concentration and the angular sd of recoveries from tagged monarchs largely conformed to two mathematical models describing the directional distribution of migrants expected under a vector-navigation strategy. a third analysis of tagged recoveries shows that the increasing directionality of migration from north to south is largely because of the presence of geographic barriers that guide individuals toward overwintering sites. our work suggests that monarchs breeding in eastern north america likely combine simple orientation mechanisms with geographic features that funnel them toward mexican overwintering sites, a remarkable achievement considering that these butterflies weigh less than a gram and travel thousands of kilometers to a site they have never seen." flexible continuous-time modelling for heterogeneous animal movement,animal movement; continuous time; diffusion process; spatial heterogeneity,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,HARRIS KJ;BLACKWELL PG,"we describe a flexible class of continuous-time models for animal movement, allowing movement behaviour to depend on location in terms of a discrete set of regions and also on an underlying behavioural state. we demonstrate the ability of these models to represent complex behaviour and spatial heterogeneity, as found in real movement studies, while retaining tractability and the conceptual advantages of a continuous-time formulation. we discuss the relationship between the models defined here and a range of important applications, both when movement behaviour is the main focus and when it is essentially a nuisance process, for example in spatially explicit capture-recapture. (c) 2013 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." accounting for imperfect detection is critical for inferring marine turtle nesting population trends,NA,PLOS ONE,PFALLER JB;BJORNDAL KA;CHALOUPKA M;WILLIAMS KL;FRICK MG;BOLTEN AB,"assessments of population trends based on time-series counts of individuals are complicated by imperfect detection, which can lead to serious misinterpretations of data. population trends of threatened marine turtles worldwide are usually based on counts of nests or nesting females. we analyze 39 years of nest-count, female-count, and capture-mark-recapture (cmr) data for nesting loggerhead turtles (caretta caretta) on wassaw island, georgia, usa. annual counts of nests and females, not corrected for imperfect detection, yield significant, positive trends in abundance. however, multistate open robust design modeling of cmr data that accounts for changes in imperfect detection reveals that the annual abundance of nesting females has remained essentially constant over the 39-year period. the dichotomy could result from improvements in surveys or increased within-season nest-site fidelity in females, either of which would increase detection probability. for the first time in a marine turtle population, we compare results of population trend analyses that do and do not account for imperfect detection and demonstrate the potential for erroneous conclusions. past assessments of marine turtle population trends based exclusively on count data should be interpreted with caution and re-evaluated when possible. these concerns apply equally to population assessments of all species with imperfect detection." -"accounting for age uncertainty in growth modeling, the case study of yellowfin tuna (thunnus albacares) of the indian ocean",NA,PLOS ONE,DORTEL E;MASSIOT-GRANIER F;RIVOT E;MILLION J;HALLIER JP;MORIZE E;MUNARON JM;BOUSQUET N;CHASSOT E,"age estimates, typically determined by counting periodic growth increments in calcified structures of vertebrates, are the basis of population dynamics models used for managing exploited or threatened species. in fisheries research, the use of otolith growth rings as an indicator of fish age has increased considerably in recent decades. however, otolith readings include various sources of uncertainty. current ageing methods, which converts an average count of rings into age, only provide periodic age estimates in which the range of uncertainty is fully ignored. in this study, we describe a hierarchical model for estimating individual ages from repeated otolith readings. the model was developed within a bayesian framework to explicitly represent the sources of uncertainty associated with age estimation, to allow for individual variations and to include knowledge on parameters from expertise. the performance of the proposed model was examined through simulations, and then it was coupled to a two-stanza somatic growth model to evaluate the impact of the age estimation method on the age composition of commercial fisheries catches. we illustrate our approach using the saggital otoliths of yellowfin tuna of the indian ocean collected through large-scale mark-recapture experiments. the simulation performance suggested that the ageing error model was able to estimate the ageing biases and provide accurate age estimates, regardless of the age of the fish. coupled with the growth model, this approach appeared suitable for modeling the growth of indian ocean yellowfin and is consistent with findings of previous studies. the simulations showed that the choice of the ageing method can strongly affect growth estimates with subsequent implications for age-structured data used as inputs for population models. finally, our modeling approach revealed particularly useful to reflect uncertainty around age estimates into the process of growth estimation and it can be applied to any study relying on age estimation." +"accounting for age uncertainty in growth modeling, the case study of yellowfin tuna (thunnus albacares) of the indian ocean",NA,PLOS ONE,DORTEL E;MASSIOT GRANIER F;RIVOT E;MILLION J;HALLIER JP;MORIZE E;MUNARON JM;BOUSQUET N;CHASSOT E,"age estimates, typically determined by counting periodic growth increments in calcified structures of vertebrates, are the basis of population dynamics models used for managing exploited or threatened species. in fisheries research, the use of otolith growth rings as an indicator of fish age has increased considerably in recent decades. however, otolith readings include various sources of uncertainty. current ageing methods, which converts an average count of rings into age, only provide periodic age estimates in which the range of uncertainty is fully ignored. in this study, we describe a hierarchical model for estimating individual ages from repeated otolith readings. the model was developed within a bayesian framework to explicitly represent the sources of uncertainty associated with age estimation, to allow for individual variations and to include knowledge on parameters from expertise. the performance of the proposed model was examined through simulations, and then it was coupled to a two-stanza somatic growth model to evaluate the impact of the age estimation method on the age composition of commercial fisheries catches. we illustrate our approach using the saggital otoliths of yellowfin tuna of the indian ocean collected through large-scale mark-recapture experiments. the simulation performance suggested that the ageing error model was able to estimate the ageing biases and provide accurate age estimates, regardless of the age of the fish. coupled with the growth model, this approach appeared suitable for modeling the growth of indian ocean yellowfin and is consistent with findings of previous studies. the simulations showed that the choice of the ageing method can strongly affect growth estimates with subsequent implications for age-structured data used as inputs for population models. finally, our modeling approach revealed particularly useful to reflect uncertainty around age estimates into the process of growth estimation and it can be applied to any study relying on age estimation." magnitude and variation of prehistoric bird extinctions in the pacific,endemism; human impact; island biogeography; zooarchaeology; avifauna,PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,DUNCAN RP;BOYER AG;BLACKBURN TM,"the largest extinction event in the holocene occurred on pacific islands, where late quaternary fossils reveal the loss of thousands of bird populations following human colonization of the region. however, gaps in the fossil record mean that considerable uncertainty surrounds the magnitude and pattern of these extinctions. we use a bayesian mark-recapture approach to model gaps in the fossil record and to quantify losses of nonpasserine landbirds on 41 pacific islands. two-thirds of the populations on these islands went extinct in the period between first human arrival and european contact, with extinction rates linked to island and species characteristics that increased susceptibility to hunting and habitat destruction. we calculate that human colonization of remote pacific islands caused the global extinction of close to 1,000 species of nonpasserine landbird alone; nonpasserine seabird and passerine extinctions will add to this total." fisheries bycatch as an inadvertent human-induced evolutionary mechanism,NA,PLOS ONE,BARBRAUD C;TUCK GN;THOMSON R;DELORD K;WEIMERSKIRCH H,"selective harvesting of animals by humans can affect the sustainability and genetics of their wild populations. bycatch - the accidental catch of non-target species - spans the spectrum of marine fauna and constitutes a harvesting pressure. individual differences in attraction to fishing vessels and consequent susceptibility to bycatch exist, but few studies integrate this individual heterogeneity with demography. here, we tested for the evidence and consequences of individual heterogeneity on the demography of the wandering albatross, a seabird heavily affected by fisheries bycatch. we found strong evidence for heterogeneity in survival with one group of individuals having a 5.2% lower annual survival probability than another group, and a decrease in the proportion of those individuals with the lowest survival in the population coinciding with a 7.5 fold increase in fishing effort in the foraging areas. potential causes for the heterogeneity in survival are discussed and we suggest that bycatch removed a large proportion of individuals attracted by fishing vessels and had significant phenotypic and population consequences." multiple weather factors affect apparent survival of european passerine birds,NA,PLOS ONE,SALEWSKI V;HOCHACHKA WM;FIEDLER W,"weather affects the demography of animals and thus climate change will cause local changes in demographic rates. in birds numerous studies have correlated demographic factors with weather but few of those examined variation in the impacts of weather in different seasons and, in the case of migrants, in different regions. using capture-recapture models we correlated weather with apparent survival of seven passerine bird species with different migration strategies to assess the importance of selected facets of weather throughout the year on apparent survival. contrary to our expectations weather experienced during the breeding season did not affect apparent survival of the target species. however, measures for winter severity were associated with apparent survival of a resident species, two short-distance/partial migrants and a long-distance migrant. apparent survival of two short distance migrants as well as two long-distance migrants was further correlated with conditions experienced during the non-breeding season in spain. conditions in africa had statistically significant but relatively minor effects on the apparent survival of the two long-distance migrants but also of a presumably short-distance migrant and a short-distance/partial migrant. in general several weather effects independently explained similar amounts of variation in apparent survival for the majority of species and single factors explained only relatively low amounts of temporal variation of apparent survival. although the directions of the effects on apparent survival mostly met our expectations and there are clear predictions for effects of future climate we caution against simple extrapolations of present conditions to predict future population dynamics. not only did weather explains limited amounts of variation in apparent survival, but future demographics will likely be affected by changing interspecific interactions, opposing effects of weather in different seasons, and the potential for phenotypic and microevolutionary adaptations." @@ -3118,10 +3123,10 @@ rules of attraction: the role of bait in small mammal sampling at high altitude threatened predator on the equator: multi-point abundance estimates of the tiger panthera tigris in central sumatra,camera trapping; density; human disturbance; indonesia; panthera tigris sumatrae; pea tland; riau; tiger,ORYX,SUNARTO;KELLY MJ;KLENZENDORF S;VAUGHAN MR;ZULFAHMI;HUTAJULU MB;PARAKKASI K,"information on spatial and temporal variation in abundance is crucial for effective management of wildlife. yet abundance estimates for the critically endangered sumatran tiger panthera tigris sumatrae are lacking from riau, the province historically believed to hold the largest percentage of this subspecies. recently, this area has had one of the highest global rates of deforestation. using camera traps we investigated tiger abundance across peatland, flat lowland, and hilly lowland forest types in the province, and over time, in the newly established tesso nib national park, central sumatra. we estimated densities using spatially explicit capture-recapture, calculated with density, and traditional capture-recapture models, calculated with capture. with spatially explicit capture-recapture the lowest tiger density (0.34 +/- se 0.24 per 100 km(2)) was estimated in the hilly lowland forest of rimbang baling and the highest (0.87 +/- se 0.33 per 100 km(2)) in the flat lowland forest of the park. repeated surveys in the park documented densities of 0.63 +/- se 0.28 in 2005 to 0.87 +/- se 0.33 per 100 km(2) in 2008. compared to traditional capture-recapture the spatially explicit capture-recapture approach resulted in estimates 50% lower. estimates of tiger density from this study were lower than most previous estimates in other parts of sumatra. high levels of human activity in the area appear to limit tigers. the results of this study, which covered areas and habitat types not previously surveyed, are important for overall population estimates across the island, provide insight into the response of carnivores to habitat loss, and are relevant to the interventions needed to save the tiger." conflicting management policies for the arabian wolf canis lupus arabs in the negev desert: is this justified?,carnivore removal; israel; middle east; non-invasive sampling; population size; population subdivision; scatology,ORYX,COHEN O;BAROCAS A;GEFFEN E,"conservation plans may conflict when both predator and prey in the same ecological system are threatened species. in this study we present a problematic case of conflicting conservation policies involving the arabian wolf canis lupus arabs and two species of gazelles (gazella gazella acaciae and gazella dorcas), all of which are threatened in israel. by studying genetic subdivision using faecal dna we evaluated the policy of treating the arabian wolves in the negev desert as two separate populations. we analysed 95 wolf faecal samples from 12 feeding sites c. 20 km apart. network analysis and bayesian clustering were used for separating populations. mark recapture design, rarefaction and an urn model were applied to estimate wolf population size. we found that wolves in the central and southern negev cannot be genetically separated, and their density is similar in both regions. our results provide a better baseline for a unified management of wolves in the negev. we call for the consideration of other factors influencing gazelle population size before adopting drastic measures such as wolf removal." a comparison of abundance estimators for small mammal populations,atlantic rainforest; capture-mark-recapture; didelphimorphia; mna; rodentia,ZOOLOGIA,LE PACHECO M;KAJIN M;GENTILE R;ZANGRANDI PL;VIEIRA MV;CERQUEIRA R,"a major difficulty in the application of probabilistic models to estimations of mammal abundance is obtaining a data set that meets all of the assumptions of the model. in this paper, we evaluated the concordance correlation among three population size estimators, the minimum number alive (mna), jackknife and the model suggested by the selection algorithm in capture (the best-fit model), using long-term data on three brazilian small mammal species obtained from three different studies. the concordance correlation coefficients between the abundance estimates indicated that the probabilistic and enumeration estimators were highly correlated, giving concordant population estimates, except for one species in one of the studies. the results indicate the adequacy of using enumeration estimates as indexes for population size when scarce data do not allow for the use of probabilistic methods. differences observed in the behavior of enumeration and probabilistic methods among species and studies can be related to the exclusive sampling design of each area, species-specific movement characteristics and whether a significant portion of the population could be sampled." -use of mixture models to characterize site quality in philopatric animals: a case study with bonelli's eagle,multi-event models; survival heterogeneity; optimizing conservation; long-term monitoring; site fidelity; raptor; recruitment; turnover rate,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,CHEVALLIER C;CROCHET PA;VINCENT-MARTIN N;RAVAYROL A;BESNARD A,"the french population of the bonelli's eagle aquila fasciata has suffered a sharp decline over the last decades, resulting in the implementation of several conservation actions since 1990. in parallel, a capturerecapture (cr) program has been conducted to monitor the population. field practitioners suspected that certain breeding sites were responsible for most of the adult deaths and were interested in confirming this hypothesis in order to focus their actions on these particular sites. our study sought to determine whether there was indeed a quantifiable difference in the quality of the eagle's breeding sites. since bonelli's eagles are highly faithful to their breeding site, we tested whether the turnover of breeding individuals observed at different sites resulted from a mixture of two different turnover rates. we also used the recent multi-event cr modeling approach to test whether or not we could detect adult survival heterogeneity in the population. our study revealed that there was a difference in breeding-site quality a decade ago, before large efforts were made to insulate high-voltage power lines, but failed to detect a difference in breeding-site quality more recently. no survival heterogeneity was detected. these counterintuitive results could be due to a lack of statistical power or because the conservation actions performed over the last 20 years cloud the issue. when no a priori information is available on habitat quality differences, we advocate for the use of a mixture modeling approach since it is consistent and fairly general." +use of mixture models to characterize site quality in philopatric animals: a case study with bonelli's eagle,multi-event models; survival heterogeneity; optimizing conservation; long-term monitoring; site fidelity; raptor; recruitment; turnover rate,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,CHEVALLIER C;CROCHET PA;VINCENT MARTIN N;RAVAYROL A;BESNARD A,"the french population of the bonelli's eagle aquila fasciata has suffered a sharp decline over the last decades, resulting in the implementation of several conservation actions since 1990. in parallel, a capturerecapture (cr) program has been conducted to monitor the population. field practitioners suspected that certain breeding sites were responsible for most of the adult deaths and were interested in confirming this hypothesis in order to focus their actions on these particular sites. our study sought to determine whether there was indeed a quantifiable difference in the quality of the eagle's breeding sites. since bonelli's eagles are highly faithful to their breeding site, we tested whether the turnover of breeding individuals observed at different sites resulted from a mixture of two different turnover rates. we also used the recent multi-event cr modeling approach to test whether or not we could detect adult survival heterogeneity in the population. our study revealed that there was a difference in breeding-site quality a decade ago, before large efforts were made to insulate high-voltage power lines, but failed to detect a difference in breeding-site quality more recently. no survival heterogeneity was detected. these counterintuitive results could be due to a lack of statistical power or because the conservation actions performed over the last 20 years cloud the issue. when no a priori information is available on habitat quality differences, we advocate for the use of a mixture modeling approach since it is consistent and fairly general." low abundance and probable decline of the critically endangered maui's dolphin estimated by genotype capture-recapture,endemic subspecies; open-population model; bycatch mortality; genetic monitoring; biopsy sample,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,BAKER CS;HAMNER RM;COOKE J;HEIMEIER D;VANT M;STEEL D;CONSTANTINE R,"the new zealand endemic maui's dolphin (cephalorhynchus hectori maui) is considered critically endangered' by the international union for the conservation of nature as a result of decline due, in part, to fisheries-related mortalities. to estimate the abundance and trends of this subspecies, we used open-population capturerecapture models based on microsatellite genotyping of living and beachcast (dead) dolphins sampled between january 2001 and november 2007. a total of 82 genetic samples were available: 70 biopsy samples collected from living maui's dolphins and 12 necropsy samples collected from beachcast or floating carcasses, of which five showed evidence of fisheries entanglement. microsatellite genotyping of up to 14 loci identified 54 individuals; 42 sampled alive on one or more occasions, one sampled alive, then found beachcast 2 years later, and 11 sampled only as carcasses, including two neonates. the sex ratio of the sample did not differ significantly from unity (25 males: 29 females). using a popan model for live capture records, the abundance of the super population available during the multiyear study was estimated to be n=87 [95% (confidence limits) cl, 59158]. using a pradel-like model modified to include both live capture and beachcast records, the abundance of the population was estimated to be n=69 (95% cl, 38125) for the midpoint of the study in 2003. the results of both models suggested that the population was likely to be declining across the study period, although this trend could not be confirmed with 95% confidence. as the genotypes provide permanent marks of individual identity, continued genetic monitoring could provide improved confidence in the abundance and trends of this subspecies." -population ecology of the nine-banded armadillo in florida,apparent survival; armadillo; capture probability; costs of reproduction; dasypus noveminctus; logging; mark-recapture analysis,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LOUGHRY WJ;PEREZ-HEYDRICH C;MCDONOUGH CM;OLI MK,"we used 15 years (1992-2006) of capture-mark-recapture (cmr) data obtained from a population of nine-banded armadillos (dasypus novemcinctus) located at the tall timbers research station near tallahassee, florida and multistate cmr models to estimate and model capture probabilities, annual apparent survival, and transition probabilities between reproductive and nonreproductive states (for adult females only). using an information theoretic approach, we then examined various influences on these parameters. across all years, capture probability, p, was higher for adults than for yearlings, and higher for males than for females. there was also substantial yearly variation. conditional on survival, the annual transition probability, psi, for reproductive adult females to remain reproductive was 0.853 +/- 0.044; the estimate for nonreproductive adult females to become reproductive was 0.388 +/- 0.060. annual apparent survival, s, was lowest for juveniles (s = 0.541 +/- 0.118) and highest for reproductive adult females (s = 0.753 +/- 0.034). contrary to expectation, these data provided no evidence for a cost of reproduction among adult females. finally, annual apparent survival was lower for all animals during an extensive hardwood removal that occurred from 1998 to 2000 than in either preceding or subsequent years." -seasonal abundance and adult survival of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in a community that cooperatively forages with fishermen in southern brazil,population parameters; mark-recapture models; abundance; survival rates; temporary emigration; tursiops truncatus; robust design,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,DAURA-JORGE FG;INGRAM SN;SIMOES-LOPES PC,"a subgroup of a population of tursiops truncatus in southern brazil is known for a cooperative behavior with artisanal fishermen whereby the dolphins shoal fish towards net-casting fishermen. combining photo-identification data collected between september 2007 and 2009 with mark-recapture and pollock's robust design models, we assessed abundance within seasons and survival and temporary emigration rates of dolphins between seasons. we also reanalyzed a previous data set collected during 19891991, and cormack-jolly-seber models were applied to estimate survival rates for each of the study periods. the abundance of marked cooperative dolphins varied between seasons from 18 (ci: 1724) to 21 (ci: 2024). the total abundance varied from 59 in the winter of 2008 (ci: 4972) to 50 in the autumn of 2009 (ci: 4062). the annual adult survival was estimated to be 0.917 (ci: 0.8760.961), close to that estimated from data collected in the 1990s (0.941; ci: 0.8880.998). the emigration probability was low (0.031; ci: 0.0110.084) and different capture probabilities between the cooperative and noncooperative dolphins indicated a degree of behavioral segregation. the precision of our estimates is likely to provide sufficient power to detect population change, but we recommend a precautionary management approach to protect this vulnerable dolphin community and its unique cooperative feeding tradition." +population ecology of the nine-banded armadillo in florida,apparent survival; armadillo; capture probability; costs of reproduction; dasypus noveminctus; logging; mark-recapture analysis,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LOUGHRY WJ;PEREZ HEYDRICH C;MCDONOUGH CM;OLI MK,"we used 15 years (1992-2006) of capture-mark-recapture (cmr) data obtained from a population of nine-banded armadillos (dasypus novemcinctus) located at the tall timbers research station near tallahassee, florida and multistate cmr models to estimate and model capture probabilities, annual apparent survival, and transition probabilities between reproductive and nonreproductive states (for adult females only). using an information theoretic approach, we then examined various influences on these parameters. across all years, capture probability, p, was higher for adults than for yearlings, and higher for males than for females. there was also substantial yearly variation. conditional on survival, the annual transition probability, psi, for reproductive adult females to remain reproductive was 0.853 +/- 0.044; the estimate for nonreproductive adult females to become reproductive was 0.388 +/- 0.060. annual apparent survival, s, was lowest for juveniles (s = 0.541 +/- 0.118) and highest for reproductive adult females (s = 0.753 +/- 0.034). contrary to expectation, these data provided no evidence for a cost of reproduction among adult females. finally, annual apparent survival was lower for all animals during an extensive hardwood removal that occurred from 1998 to 2000 than in either preceding or subsequent years." +seasonal abundance and adult survival of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in a community that cooperatively forages with fishermen in southern brazil,population parameters; mark-recapture models; abundance; survival rates; temporary emigration; tursiops truncatus; robust design,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,DAURA JORGE FG;INGRAM SN;SIMOES LOPES PC,"a subgroup of a population of tursiops truncatus in southern brazil is known for a cooperative behavior with artisanal fishermen whereby the dolphins shoal fish towards net-casting fishermen. combining photo-identification data collected between september 2007 and 2009 with mark-recapture and pollock's robust design models, we assessed abundance within seasons and survival and temporary emigration rates of dolphins between seasons. we also reanalyzed a previous data set collected during 19891991, and cormack-jolly-seber models were applied to estimate survival rates for each of the study periods. the abundance of marked cooperative dolphins varied between seasons from 18 (ci: 1724) to 21 (ci: 2024). the total abundance varied from 59 in the winter of 2008 (ci: 4972) to 50 in the autumn of 2009 (ci: 4062). the annual adult survival was estimated to be 0.917 (ci: 0.8760.961), close to that estimated from data collected in the 1990s (0.941; ci: 0.8880.998). the emigration probability was low (0.031; ci: 0.0110.084) and different capture probabilities between the cooperative and noncooperative dolphins indicated a degree of behavioral segregation. the precision of our estimates is likely to provide sufficient power to detect population change, but we recommend a precautionary management approach to protect this vulnerable dolphin community and its unique cooperative feeding tradition." the hidden population: some methodological issues about estimation of problematic drug use,problematic drug use; estimating prevalence; hidden population; case finding; capture-recapture and truncated poisson,NORDIC STUDIES ON ALCOHOL AND DRUGS,DAHLBERG M;ANDERBERG M,"aim - this article analyses and discusses the estimation of serious or problematic drug use through an empirical example based on a local swedish study in gothenburg. methods and data - this was a case-finding study with questionnaires directed at organisations which have contact with the target group. the material was supplemented with information from the two documentation systems dok and asi. a total of 2,148 reports were collected. health care data of 1,096 individuals was also collected for analysis with the truncated poisson method. analyses with capture-recapture or truncated poisson were conducted to calculate the size of the hidden population. results - the statistical analyses resulted in variable numbers for the hidden population, and the total prevalence of serious drug abuse in gothenburg is estimated to be between 2,200 and 4,400 people. conclusion - the study shows that estimation of the presence and prevalence of problematic drug abuse involves many methodological difficulties and challenges. the significant variation of the size of the hidden population presented in the study raises doubts about the reliability and validity of the different methods. the methods are clearly sensitive to the importance of fulfilling the different basic assumptions." pacific halibut on the move: a renewed understanding of adult migration from a coastwide tagging study,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,WEBSTER RA;CLARK WG;LEAMAN BM;FORSBERG JE,"results of a coastwide tagging study show that ontogenetic migration of pacific halibut (hippoglossus stenolepis) continues for larger fish, whereas in recent years the assumption had been that only smaller, younger fish migrated. in 2003-2004, a total of 67 000 pacific halibut tagged with passive integrated transponder tags were released by the international pacific halibut commission (iphc) from oregon to the bering sea. portside scanning recovered over 3000 of these tags. models were fitted that allowed commercial fishing mortality to be a function of fish length, year, and iphc regulatory area, while migration probability was a function of area and length. estimates from the models support the view that exploitation rates were much higher in eastern than western areas prior to the reduction of quotas following new results from a coastwide stock assessment in 2007. we explore possible explanations for differences between tagging and iphc stock assessment results and note that this research provides confirmation of historical inferences regarding patterns of halibut migration based on conventional tagging." migration tendency delays distributional response to differential survival prospects along a flyway,climate change; density dependence; habitat change; long-distance migration; multievent mark-recapture modeling; winter site choice,AMERICAN NATURALIST,LOK T;OVERDIJK O;PIERSMA T,"when populations grow or decline, habitat selection may change due to local density-dependent processes, such as site dependence and interference. in seasonally migrating animals, nonbreeding distributions may be determined through these mechanisms of density dependence, which we examine here at a hemispheric scale for a long-distance migrating bird. using summer and winter resightings of 2,095 eurasian spoonbills platalea leucorodia leucorodia that were ringed in the netherlands during 16 years of fast population growth, we show that neither site dependence nor interference fully explains their patterns of survival and winter distribution. within their three main wintering areas, annual survival decreased with an increase in population size. while survival was consistently higher in the two european wintering areas (france, iberia), most spoonbills migrated onward to winter in west africa. the number of birds wintering in europe increased, but not enough to maximize annual survival. we conclude that a constraint of tradition (their ""migration tendency"") inhibits birds from changing their migratory habits. we pose that this phenomenon may similarly constrain other migratory populations from rapidly responding to large-scale climate- and/or human-driven habitat changes at their wintering grounds." @@ -3131,39 +3136,39 @@ validation of annulus formation in otoliths of largemouth bass micropterus salmo "road traffic fatalities in arkhangelsk, russia in 2005-2010: reliability of police and healthcare data",traffic accidents; mortality; reliability; police data; healthcare data; russia,ACCIDENT ANALYSIS AND PREVENTION,KUDRYAVTSEV AV;KLESHCHINOV N;ERMOLINA M;LUND J;GRJIBOVSKI AM;NILSSEN O;YTTERSTAD B,"purpose: to estimate and compare reliability of traffic mortality data of the police and the healthcare sector in arkhangelsk, russia. methods: the study matched traffic mortality data of the police and the regional healthcare statistics centre for the period from 2005 to 2010. individual investigations of unmatched cases were performed, and the underlying causes of the non-matches were established. the obtained distribution of non-matches by causes served as basis for estimating the true numbers of traffic fatalities in the two sources, in appliance with corresponding fatality definitions and registration rules. a data accuracy index (dai) was calculated for each source by using an adapted version of the formula for calculating accuracy of a diagnostic test. this was used as a measure for data reliability. time trends in annual dais were estimated for each source by chi(2)-test for linear trend. results: during the 6-year period, the police and the healthcare statistics centre registered 217 and 237 traffic fatalities in arkhangelsk, respectively. matching of data from the two sources resulted in 162 matched, cases, 55 unmatched cases in the police data, and 75 unmatched cases in the healthcare data. more than a half (56%) of the non-matches were attributed to incompatibility of the definitions in the two data registration systems; 39% were attributed to failures in the healthcare data. other non-matches were due to scarce identifying information (2%) or were not classifiable (2%). none of the non-matches were clearly attributable to failures in the police data. the 6-year dai was 98% for the police data and 80% for the healthcare data. the dai for the police data was stable over 2005-2010 (ranging from 96% to 100%). the dai for the healthcare data increased from 66% in 2005 to 98% in 2010 (p-trend < 0.001). conclusion: the findings suggest that traffic mortality data of the police were more reliable, compared to the healthcare data. however, reliability of the healthcare data was improving during the study period. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." using auxiliary telemetry information to estimate animal density from capture-recapture data,density; geographic closure; mark-recapture; telemetry,ECOLOGY,IVAN JS;WHITE GC;SHENK TM,"estimation of animal density is fundamental to ecology, and ecologists often pursue density estimates using grids of detectors (e.g., cameras, live traps, hair snags) to sample animals at a study site. however, under such a framework, reliable estimates can be difficult to obtain because animals move on and off of the site during the sampling session (i.e., the site is not closed geographically). generally, practitioners address lack of geographic closure by inflating the area sampled by the detectors based on the mean distance individuals moved between trapping events or invoking hierarchical models in which animal density is assumed to be a spatial point process, and detection is modeled as a declining function of distance to a detector. we provide an alternative in which lack of geographic closure is sampled directly using telemetry, and this auxiliary information is used to compute estimates of density based on a modified huggins closed-capture estimator. contrary to other approaches, this method is free from assumptions regarding the distribution and movement of animals on the landscape, the stationarity of their home ranges, and biases induced by abnormal movements in response to baited detectors. the estimator is freely available in program mark." using simulation to compare methods for estimating density from capture-recapture data,closure; density; geographic closure; mean maximum distance moved; simulation; spatially explicit capture-recapture; telemetry; trapping grid,ECOLOGY,IVAN JS;WHITE GC;SHENK TM,"estimation of animal density is fundamental to wildlife research and management, but estimation via mark-recapture is often complicated by lack of geographic closure of study sites. contemporary methods for estimating density using mark-recapture data include (1) approximating the effective area sampled by an array of detectors based on the mean maximum distance moved (mmdm) by animals during the sampling session, (2) spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) methods that formulate the problem hierarchically with a process model for animal density and an observation model in which detection probability declines with distance from a detector, and (3) a telemetry estimator (telem) that uses auxiliary telemetry information to estimate the proportion of animals on the study site. we used simulation to compare relative performance (percent error) of these methods under all combinations of three levels of detection probability (0.2, 0.4, 0.6), three levels of occasions (5, 7, 10), and three levels of abundance (10, 20, 40 animals). we also tested each estimator using five different models for animal home ranges. telem performed best across most combinations of capture probabilities, sampling occasions, true densities, and home range configurations, and performance was unaffected by home range shape. secr outperformed mmdm estimators in nearly all comparisons and may be preferable to telem at low capture probabilities, but performance varied with home range configuration. mmdm estimators exhibited substantial positive bias for most simulations, but performance improved for elongated or infinite home ranges." -estimating the tuberculosis burden in resource-limited countries: a capture-recapture study in yemen,tuberculosis; surveillance; record linkage; capture-recapture analysis; resource-limited,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TUBERCULOSIS AND LUNG DISEASE,BASSILI A;AL-HAMMADI A;AL-ABSI A;GLAZIOU P;SEITA A;ABUBAKAR I;BIERRENBACH AL;VAN HEST NA,"background: the lack of applicable population-based methods to measure tuberculosis (tb) incidence rates directly at country level emphasises the global need to generate robust tb surveillance data to ascertain trends in disease burden and to assess the performance of tb control programmes in the context of the united nations millenium development goals and world health organization targets for tb control. objective: to estimate the incidence of tb cases (all forms) and sputum smear-positive disease, and the level of under-reporting of tb in yemen in 2010. methods: record-linkage and three-source capture-recapture analysis of data collected through active prospective longitudinal surveillance within the public and private non-national tuberculosis programme sector in twelve yemeni governorates, selected by stratified cluster random sampling. results: for all tb cases, the estimated ratio of notified to incident cases and completeness of case ascertainment after record linkage, i.e., the ratio of detected to incident cases, was respectively 71% (95%ci 64-80) and 75% (95%ci 68-85). for sputum smear-positive tb cases, these ratios were respectively 67% (95%ci 58-75) and 76% (95%ci 66-84). conclusion: we estimate that there were 13 082 (95%ci 11 610-14 513) tb cases in yemen in 2010. under-reporting of tb in yemen is estimated at 29% (95%ci 20-36)." +estimating the tuberculosis burden in resource-limited countries: a capture-recapture study in yemen,tuberculosis; surveillance; record linkage; capture-recapture analysis; resource-limited,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TUBERCULOSIS AND LUNG DISEASE,BASSILI A;AL HAMMADI A;AL ABSI A;GLAZIOU P;SEITA A;ABUBAKAR I;BIERRENBACH AL;VAN HEST NA,"background: the lack of applicable population-based methods to measure tuberculosis (tb) incidence rates directly at country level emphasises the global need to generate robust tb surveillance data to ascertain trends in disease burden and to assess the performance of tb control programmes in the context of the united nations millenium development goals and world health organization targets for tb control. objective: to estimate the incidence of tb cases (all forms) and sputum smear-positive disease, and the level of under-reporting of tb in yemen in 2010. methods: record-linkage and three-source capture-recapture analysis of data collected through active prospective longitudinal surveillance within the public and private non-national tuberculosis programme sector in twelve yemeni governorates, selected by stratified cluster random sampling. results: for all tb cases, the estimated ratio of notified to incident cases and completeness of case ascertainment after record linkage, i.e., the ratio of detected to incident cases, was respectively 71% (95%ci 64-80) and 75% (95%ci 68-85). for sputum smear-positive tb cases, these ratios were respectively 67% (95%ci 58-75) and 76% (95%ci 66-84). conclusion: we estimate that there were 13 082 (95%ci 11 610-14 513) tb cases in yemen in 2010. under-reporting of tb in yemen is estimated at 29% (95%ci 20-36)." estimating tuberculosis burden and reporting in resource-limited countries: a capture-recapture study in iraq,tuberculosis; surveillance; record linkage; capture-recapture analysis; resource-limited,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TUBERCULOSIS AND LUNG DISEASE,HUSEYNOVA S;HASHIM DS;TBENA MR;HARRIS R;BASSILI A;ABUBAKAR I;GLAZIOU P;FLOYD K;VAN HEST NA,"background: the global target for tuberculosis (tb) control set by the millennium development goals is a decrease in tb incidence by 2015. direct measurement of country-level tb incidence using population-based methods is impractical, emphasising the need for well-performing surveillance systems and, where these are not available, accurate quantification of incidence and under-reporting of tb. objective: to estimate tb incidence and tb under-reporting in iraq in 2011. methods: prospective longitudinal surveillance was established among all eligible public and private non-national tb programme (ntp) providers in a random sample of eight of the 18 iraqi governorates from may to july 2011. record linkage with the ntp and three-source capture-recapture analysis of data were then conducted using log-linear modelling. results: a total of 1985 tb cases were identified after record linkage. the ntp registered 1677 patients (observed completeness 84%). the estimated total number of tb cases was 2460 (95%ci 2381-2553), with identified tb cases representing 81% (95%ci 69-89) after adjusting for sampling design. the estimated ratio of notified to incident cases was 69% (95%ci 58-76). conclusions: we estimate 14 500 tb cases in iraq in 2011, of which 31% (95%ci 24-42) were unreported. tb surveillance needs to be strengthened to reduce under-reporting." effects of chemical immobilization on the movement rates of free-ranging polar bears,anesthesia; canadian arctic; capture effects; polar bears; remote drug delivery; satellite telemetry; telazol; tiletamine; ursus maritimus; zolazepam,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,THIEMANN GW;DEROCHER AE;CHERRY SG;LUNN NJ;PEACOCK E;SAHANATIEN V,"the capture and handling of free-ranging animals is an important tool for wildlife research, conservation, and management. however, live capture may expose individual animals to risk of injury, impairment, or mortality. the polar bear (ursus maritimus) is a species of conservation concern throughout its range and physical mark-recapture techniques have formed the basis of polar bear research and harvest management for decades. we examined movement patterns of polar bears postcapture to measure their recovery from chemical immobilization and determine whether captured bears experienced prolonged effects that would affect individual fitness. adult female (n = 61) and juvenile (n = 13) polar bears in 3 canadian subpopulations were captured during the course of other studies using a combination of tiletamine hydrochloride and zolazepam hydrochloride delivered via remote injection from a helicopter. bears were fitted with satellite-linked global positioning system collars and we used 3 individual-based metrics to assess their recovery from immobilization: time to move 50 m; time to move 100 m; and time to reach a baseline movement rate threshold (km/day) derived from each individual's movements in a fully recovered state (i.e., 30-60 days postcapture). there were no differences in recovery rate metrics across years, age classes, or between females with cubs of different ages. when compared across subpopulations, only the time to move 50 m differed, being shortest in the southern beaufort sea. bears captured on land during the ice-free period in western hudson bay and foxe basin were more variable in their response to capture than were those handled on the sea ice of the beaufort sea, but in all 3 areas, bears showed gradual increases in movement rates. movement rates indicative of recovery were often reached 48 h after capture and 51 (69%) of 74 bears appeared to be fully recovered in <= 3 days. consistent with preliminary work on chemical immobilization of polar bears, there was no relationship between drug dose and rate of recovery. our results indicated that polar bears captured in different locations, seasons, and life-history stages recovered predictably from chemical immobilization in a time frame that is unlikely to affect individual fitness." "population ecology of polar bears in davis strait, canada and greenland",arctic; harp seal; harvest; density effects; mark-recapture; polar bear; population demography; sea ice; ursus maritimus; wildlife management,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PEACOCK E;TAYLOR MK;LAAKE J;STIRLING I,"until recently, the sea ice habitat of polar bears was understood to be variable, but environmental variability was considered to be cyclic or random, rather than progressive. harvested populations were believed to be at levels where density effects were considered not significant. however, because we now understand that polar bear demography can also be influenced by progressive change in the environment, and some populations have increased to greater densities than historically lower numbers, a broader suite of factors should be considered in demographic studies and management. we analyzed 35 years of capture and harvest data from the polar bear (ursus maritimus) subpopulation in davis strait, including data from a new study (20052007), to quantify its current demography. we estimated the population size in 2007 to be 2,158 +/- 180 (se), a likely increase from the 1970s. we detected variation in survival, reproductive rates, and age-structure of polar bears from geographic sub-regions. survival and reproduction of bears in southern davis strait was greater than in the north and tied to a concurrent dramatic increase in breeding harp seals (pagophilus groenlandicus) in labrador. the most supported survival models contained geographic and temporal variables. harp seal abundance was significantly related to polar bear survival. our estimates of declining harvest recovery rate, and increasing total survival, suggest that the rate of harvest declined over time. low recruitment rates, average adult survival rates, and high population density, in an environment of high prey density, but deteriorating and variable ice conditions, currently characterize the davis strait polar bears. low reproductive rates may reflect negative effects of greater densities or worsening ice conditions. (c) 2013 the wildlife society." -individual turnover in common pochards wintering in western france,anatidae; aythya ferina; ducks; emigration; multistate cmr modeling; population volume,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GOURLAY-LAROUR ML;PRADEL R;GUILLEMAIN M;SANTIN-JANIN H;L'HOSTIS M;CAIZERGUES A,"studying movements and population turnover is a prerequisite of management and conservation policies. understanding the relative importance of known wintering sites requires estimating total number of birds using a wintering site with robust statistical methods because counts alone do not account for turnover. to study movements of common pochards (aythya ferina) during winter (oct to mar) in western france, we used a combination of band-recoveries and capturerecapture data. we constructed a multi-state model to estimate monthly local survival and probability of movements between the banding site and other wintering sites, accounting for individual sex and age. we observed significant movements between sites and high population turnover even during winter. we did not detect any effect of age or sex on movement probabilities, except at the beginning of the winter when first-year individuals had a lower emigration probability. this result suggests that these inexperienced birds did not explore the wintering area like adults, at least early in the season. combining our estimates (survival and emigration) and winter counts data, we computed the number of individuals using our study area throughout winter. this total was twice the maximum number of individuals counted in winter. unexpectedly, low estimates for apparent survival suggest that permanent emigration occurred; although, recaptures and resightings revealed some birds traveled long distances from the capture site. we hypothesize that this permanent emigration was due to birds moving to areas where observation and hunting pressures were reduced compared to those in the french territory. if this hypothesis is true, high turnover rate would prevail not only at the scale of the wetland but also at the scale of the country. (c) the wildlife society, 2013" +individual turnover in common pochards wintering in western france,anatidae; aythya ferina; ducks; emigration; multistate cmr modeling; population volume,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GOURLAY LAROUR ML;PRADEL R;GUILLEMAIN M;SANTIN JANIN H;L HOSTIS M;CAIZERGUES A,"studying movements and population turnover is a prerequisite of management and conservation policies. understanding the relative importance of known wintering sites requires estimating total number of birds using a wintering site with robust statistical methods because counts alone do not account for turnover. to study movements of common pochards (aythya ferina) during winter (oct to mar) in western france, we used a combination of band-recoveries and capturerecapture data. we constructed a multi-state model to estimate monthly local survival and probability of movements between the banding site and other wintering sites, accounting for individual sex and age. we observed significant movements between sites and high population turnover even during winter. we did not detect any effect of age or sex on movement probabilities, except at the beginning of the winter when first-year individuals had a lower emigration probability. this result suggests that these inexperienced birds did not explore the wintering area like adults, at least early in the season. combining our estimates (survival and emigration) and winter counts data, we computed the number of individuals using our study area throughout winter. this total was twice the maximum number of individuals counted in winter. unexpectedly, low estimates for apparent survival suggest that permanent emigration occurred; although, recaptures and resightings revealed some birds traveled long distances from the capture site. we hypothesize that this permanent emigration was due to birds moving to areas where observation and hunting pressures were reduced compared to those in the french territory. if this hypothesis is true, high turnover rate would prevail not only at the scale of the wetland but also at the scale of the country. (c) the wildlife society, 2013" incorporating the service multiplier method in respondent-driven sampling surveys to estimate the size of hidden and hard-to-reach populations: case studies from around the world,NA,SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES,JOHNSTON LG;PRYBYLSKI D;RAYMOND HF;MIRZAZADEH A;MANOPAIBOON C;MCFARLAND W,"background: estimating the sizes of populations at highest risk for hiv is essential for developing and monitoring effective hiv prevention and treatment programs. we provide several country examples of how service multiplier methods have been used in respondent-driven sampling surveys and provide guidance on how to maximize this method's use. methods: population size estimates were conducted in 4 countries (mauritius- intravenous drug users [idu] and female sex workers [fsw]; papua new guinea-fsw and men who have sex with men [msm]; thailand-idu; united states-idu) using adjusted proportions of population members reporting attending a service, project or study listed in a respondent-driven sampling survey, and the estimated total number of population members who visited one of the listed services, projects, or studies collected from the providers. results: the median population size estimates were 8866 for idu and 667 for fsw in mauritius. median point estimates for fsw were 4190 in port moresby and 8712 in goroka, papua new guinea, and 2,126 for msm in port moresby and 4200 for idu in bangkok, thailand. median estimates for idu were 1050 in chiang mai, thailand, and 15,789 in 2005 and 15,554 in 2009 in san francisco. conclusion: our estimates for almost all groups in each country fall within the range of other regional and national estimates, indicating that the service multiplier method, assuming all assumptions are met, can produce informative estimates. we suggest using multiple multipliers whenever possible, garnering program data from the widest possible range of services, projects, and studies. a median of several estimates is likely more robust to potential biases than a single estimate." when celibacy matters: incorporating non-breeders improves demographic parameter estimates,NA,PLOS ONE,PARDO D;WEIMERSKIRCH H;BARBRAUD C,"in long-lived species only a fraction of a population breeds at a given time. non-breeders can represent more than half of adult individuals, calling in doubt the relevance of estimating demographic parameters from the sole breeders. here we demonstrate the importance of considering observable non-breeders to estimate reliable demographic traits: survival, return, breeding, hatching and fledging probabilities. we study the long-lived quasi-biennial breeding wandering albatross (diomedea exulans). in this species, the breeding cycle lasts almost a year and birds that succeed a given year tend to skip the next breeding occasion while birds that fail tend to breed again the following year. most non-breeders remain unobservable at sea, but still a substantial number of observable non-breeders (onb) was identified on breeding sites. using multi-state capture-mark-recapture analyses, we used several measures to compare the performance of demographic estimates between models incorporating or ignoring onb: bias (difference in mean), precision (difference is standard deviation) and accuracy (both differences in mean and standard deviation). our results highlight that ignoring onb leads to bias and loss of accuracy on breeding probability and survival estimates. these effects are even stronger when studied in an age-dependent framework. biases on breeding probabilities and survival increased with age leading to overestimation of survival at old age and thus actuarial senescence and underestimation of reproductive senescence. we believe our study sheds new light on the difficulties of estimating demographic parameters in species/taxa where a significant part of the population does not breed every year. taking into account onb appeared important to improve demographic parameter estimates, models of population dynamics and evolutionary conclusions regarding senescence within and across taxa." -"computer-assisted photo identification outperforms visible implant elastomers in an endangered salamander, eurycea tonkawae",NA,PLOS ONE,BENDIK NF;MORRISON TA;GLUESENKAMP AG;SANDERS MS;O'DONNELL LJ,"despite recognition that nearly one-third of the 6300 amphibian species are threatened with extinction, our understanding of the general ecology and population status of many amphibians is relatively poor. a widely-used method for monitoring amphibians involves injecting captured individuals with unique combinations of colored visible implant elastomer (vie). we compared vie identification to a less-invasive method - computer-assisted photographic identification (photoid) - in endangered jollyville plateau salamanders (eurycea tonkawae), a species with a known range limited to eight stream drainages in central texas. we based photoid on the unique pigmentation patterns on the dorsal head region of 1215 individual salamanders using identification software wild-id. we compared the performance of photoid methods to vies using both 'high-quality' and 'low-quality' images, which were taken using two different camera types and technologies. for high-quality images, the photoid method had a false rejection rate of 0.76% compared to 1.90% for vies. using a comparable dataset of lower-quality images, the false rejection rate was much higher (15.9%). photo matching scores were negatively correlated with time between captures, suggesting that evolving natural marks could increase misidentification rates in longer term capture-recapture studies. our study demonstrates the utility of large-scale capture-recapture using photo identification methods for eurycea and other species with stable natural marks that can be reliably photographed." +"computer-assisted photo identification outperforms visible implant elastomers in an endangered salamander, eurycea tonkawae",NA,PLOS ONE,BENDIK NF;MORRISON TA;GLUESENKAMP AG;SANDERS MS;O DONNELL LJ,"despite recognition that nearly one-third of the 6300 amphibian species are threatened with extinction, our understanding of the general ecology and population status of many amphibians is relatively poor. a widely-used method for monitoring amphibians involves injecting captured individuals with unique combinations of colored visible implant elastomer (vie). we compared vie identification to a less-invasive method - computer-assisted photographic identification (photoid) - in endangered jollyville plateau salamanders (eurycea tonkawae), a species with a known range limited to eight stream drainages in central texas. we based photoid on the unique pigmentation patterns on the dorsal head region of 1215 individual salamanders using identification software wild-id. we compared the performance of photoid methods to vies using both 'high-quality' and 'low-quality' images, which were taken using two different camera types and technologies. for high-quality images, the photoid method had a false rejection rate of 0.76% compared to 1.90% for vies. using a comparable dataset of lower-quality images, the false rejection rate was much higher (15.9%). photo matching scores were negatively correlated with time between captures, suggesting that evolving natural marks could increase misidentification rates in longer term capture-recapture studies. our study demonstrates the utility of large-scale capture-recapture using photo identification methods for eurycea and other species with stable natural marks that can be reliably photographed." effects of culling on mesopredator population dynamics,NA,PLOS ONE,BEASLEY JC;OLSON ZH;BEATTY WS;DHARMARAJAN G;RHODES OE,"anthropogenic changes in land use and the extirpation of apex predators have facilitated explosive growth of mesopredator populations. consequently, many species have been subjected to extensive control throughout portions of their range due to their integral role as generalist predators and reservoirs of zoonotic disease. yet, few studies have monitored the effects of landscape composition or configuration on the demographic or behavioral response of mesopredators to population manipulation. during 2007 we removed 382 raccoons (procyon lotor) from 30 forest patches throughout a fragmented agricultural ecosystem to test hypotheses regarding the effects of habitat isolation on population recovery and role of range expansion and dispersal in patch colonization of mesopredators in heterogeneous landscapes. patches were allowed to recolonize naturally and demographic restructuring of patches was monitored from 2008-2010 using mark-recapture. an additional 25 control patches were monitored as a baseline measure of demography. after 3 years only 40% of experimental patches had returned to pre-removal densities. this stagnant recovery was driven by low colonization rates of females, resulting in little to no within-patch recruitment. colonizing raccoons were predominantly young males, suggesting that dispersal, rather than range expansion, was the primary mechanism driving population recovery. contrary to our prediction, neither landscape connectivity nor measured local habitat attributes influenced colonization rates, likely due to the high dispersal capability of raccoons and limited role of range expansion in patch colonization. although culling is commonly used to control local populations of many mesopredators, we demonstrate that such practices create severe disruptions in population demography that may be counterproductive to disease management in fragmented landscapes due to an influx of dispersing males into depopulated areas. however, given the slow repopulation rates observed in our study, localized depopulation may be effective at reducing negative ecological impacts of mesopredators in fragmented landscapes at limited spatial and temporal scales." population recovery following decline in an endangered stream-breeding frog (mixophyes fleayi) from subtropical australia,NA,PLOS ONE,NEWELL DA;GOLDINGAY RL;BROOKS LO,"amphibians have undergone dramatic declines and extinctions worldwide. prominent among these have been the stream-breeding frogs in the rainforests of eastern australia. the amphibian chytrid fungus batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (bd) has been postulated as the primary cause of these declines. we conducted a capture-mark-recapture study over a 7-year period on the endangered fleay's barred frog (mixophyes fleayi) at two independent streams (30 km apart) in order to assess the stability of these populations. this species had undergone a severe decline across its narrow geographic range. mark-recapture modelling showed that the number of individuals increased 3-10 fold along stream transects over this period. frog detection probabilities were frequently above 50% but declined as the populations increased. adult survival was important to overall population persistence in light of low recruitment events, suggesting that longevity may be a key factor in this recovery. one male and female were present in the capture record for >6 years. this study provides an unambiguous example of population recovery in the presence of bd." -are women with major depression in pregnancy identifiable in population health data?,population-based; data linkage; pharmacovigilance; case ascertainment; depression; pregnancy; antidepressant,BMC PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH,COLVIN L;SLACK-SMITH L;STANLEY FJ;BOWER C,"background: although record linkage of routinely collected health datasets is a valuable research resource, most datasets are established for administrative purposes and not for health outcomes research. in order for meaningful results to be extrapolated to specific populations, the limitations of the data and linkage methodology need to be investigated and clarified. it is the objective of this study to investigate the differences in ascertainment which may arise between a hospital admission dataset and a dispensing claims dataset, using major depression in pregnancy as an example. the safe use of antidepressants in pregnancy is an ongoing issue for clinicians with around 10% of pregnant women suffer from depression. as the birth admission will be the first admission to hospital during their pregnancy for most women, their use of antidepressants, or their depressive condition, may not be revealed to the attending hospital clinicians. this may result in adverse outcomes for the mother and infant. methods: population-based de-identified data were provided from the western australian data linkage system linking the administrative health records of women with a delivery to related records from the midwives' notification system, the hospital morbidity data system and the national pharmaceutical benefits scheme dataset. the women with depression during their pregnancy were ascertained in two ways: women with dispensing records relating to dispensed antidepressant medicines with an who atc code to the 3rd level, pharmacological subgroup, 'n06a antidepressants'; and, women with any hospital admission during pregnancy, including the birth admission, if a comorbidity was recorded relating to depression. results: from 2002 to 2005, there were 96698 births in wa. at least one antidepressant was dispensed to 4485 (4.6%) pregnant women. there were 3010 (3.1%) women with a comorbidity related to depression recorded on their delivery admission, or other admission to hospital during pregnancy. there were a total of 7495 pregnancies identified by either set of records. using data linkage, we determined that these records represented 6596 individual pregnancies. only 899 pregnancies were found in both groups (13.6% of all cases). 80% of women dispensed an antidepressant did not have depression recorded as a comorbidity on their hospital records. a simple capture-recapture calculation suggests the prevalence of depression in this population of pregnant women to be around 16%. conclusion: no single data source is likely to provide a complete health profile for an individual. for women with depression in pregnancy and dispensed antidepressants, the hospital admission data do not adequately capture all cases." +are women with major depression in pregnancy identifiable in population health data?,population-based; data linkage; pharmacovigilance; case ascertainment; depression; pregnancy; antidepressant,BMC PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH,COLVIN L;SLACK SMITH L;STANLEY FJ;BOWER C,"background: although record linkage of routinely collected health datasets is a valuable research resource, most datasets are established for administrative purposes and not for health outcomes research. in order for meaningful results to be extrapolated to specific populations, the limitations of the data and linkage methodology need to be investigated and clarified. it is the objective of this study to investigate the differences in ascertainment which may arise between a hospital admission dataset and a dispensing claims dataset, using major depression in pregnancy as an example. the safe use of antidepressants in pregnancy is an ongoing issue for clinicians with around 10% of pregnant women suffer from depression. as the birth admission will be the first admission to hospital during their pregnancy for most women, their use of antidepressants, or their depressive condition, may not be revealed to the attending hospital clinicians. this may result in adverse outcomes for the mother and infant. methods: population-based de-identified data were provided from the western australian data linkage system linking the administrative health records of women with a delivery to related records from the midwives' notification system, the hospital morbidity data system and the national pharmaceutical benefits scheme dataset. the women with depression during their pregnancy were ascertained in two ways: women with dispensing records relating to dispensed antidepressant medicines with an who atc code to the 3rd level, pharmacological subgroup, 'n06a antidepressants'; and, women with any hospital admission during pregnancy, including the birth admission, if a comorbidity was recorded relating to depression. results: from 2002 to 2005, there were 96698 births in wa. at least one antidepressant was dispensed to 4485 (4.6%) pregnant women. there were 3010 (3.1%) women with a comorbidity related to depression recorded on their delivery admission, or other admission to hospital during pregnancy. there were a total of 7495 pregnancies identified by either set of records. using data linkage, we determined that these records represented 6596 individual pregnancies. only 899 pregnancies were found in both groups (13.6% of all cases). 80% of women dispensed an antidepressant did not have depression recorded as a comorbidity on their hospital records. a simple capture-recapture calculation suggests the prevalence of depression in this population of pregnant women to be around 16%. conclusion: no single data source is likely to provide a complete health profile for an individual. for women with depression in pregnancy and dispensed antidepressants, the hospital admission data do not adequately capture all cases." mate-searching behaviour of common and rare wasps and the implications for pollen movement of the sexually deceptive orchids they pollinate,NA,PLOS ONE,MENZ MHM;PHILLIPS RD;DIXON KW;PEAKALL R;DIDHAM RK,"pollinator behaviour directly affects patterns of pollen movement and outcrossing rates in plants. in orchids pollinated by sexual deception of insects, patterns of pollen movement are primarily determined by the mate-searching behaviour of the deceived males. here, using a capture-mark-recapture study (cmr) and dietary analysis, we compare mate-searching behaviour in relation to local abundance of two pollinator species and explore the implications for pollen movement in sexually deceptive drakaea (orchidaceae). drakaea are pollinated solely by the sexual deception of male thynnine wasps. the rare drakaea elastica and widespread d. livida occur sympatrically and are pollinated by the rare but locally common zaspilothynnus gilesi, and the widespread and abundant z. nigripes, respectively. local abundance was significantly different with z. nigripes twice as abundant as z. gilesi. for the 653 marked wasps, there was no significant difference in median movement distance between z. gilesi and z. nigripes. however, the maximum movement distance was twice as high for z. gilesi (556 m) compared with z. nigripes (267 m). this is up to three times greater than previously reported for thynnines in cmr studies. recapture rates were six times higher in z. gilesi (57%) compared to z. nigripes (9%). pollen loads and wasp longevity were similar, suggesting that this difference in recapture rate arises due to differences in the number of males moving at a scale >500 m rather than through diet or mortality. differences in the frequency of longer movements may arise due to variation in the spatial distribution of the wingless females. we predict that pollen movement will largely be restricted to within populations of drakaea (<500 m), with few movements between populations (>500 m)." lobster and cod benefit from small-scale northern marine protected areas: inference from an empirical before - after control-impact study,before - after control-impact; marine reserves; baseline information; mark - recapture; gadus morhua; homarus gammarus,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,MOLAND E;OLSEN EM;KNUTSEN H;GARRIGOU P;ESPELAND SH;KLEIVEN AR;ANDRE C;KNUTSEN JA,"marine protected areas (mpas) are increasingly implemented as tools to conserve and manage fisheries and target species. because there are opportunity costs to conservation, there is a need for science-based assessment of mpas. here, we present one of the northernmost documentations of mpa effects to date, demonstrated by a replicated before-after control-impact (baci) approach. in 2006, mpas were implemented along the norwegian skagerrak coast offering complete protection to shellfish and partial protection to fish. by 2010, european lobster (homarus gammarus) catch-per-unit-effort (cpue) had increased by 245 per cent in mpas, whereas cpue in control areas had increased by 87 per cent. mean size of lobsters increased by 13 per cent in mpas, whereas increase in control areas was negligible. furthermore, mpa-responses and population development in control areas varied significantly among regions. this illustrates the importance of a replicated baci design for reaching robust conclusions and management decisions. partial protection of atlantic cod (gadus morhua) was followed by an increase in population density and body size compared with control areas. by 2010, mpa cod were on average 5 cm longer than in any of the control areas. mpas can be useful management tools in rebuilding and conserving portions of depleted lobster populations in northern temperate waters, and even for a mobile temperate fish species such as the atlantic cod." big cats in our backyards: persistence of large carnivores in a human dominated landscape in india,NA,PLOS ONE,ATHREYA V;ODDEN M;LINNELL JDC;KRISHNASWAMY J;KARANTH U,"protected areas are extremely important for the long term viability of biodiversity in a densely populated country like india where land is a scarce resource. however, protected areas cover only 5% of the land area in india and in the case of large carnivores that range widely, human use landscapes will function as important habitats required for gene flow to occur between protected areas. in this study, we used photographic capture recapture analysis to assess the density of large carnivores in a human-dominated agricultural landscape with density >300 people/km(2) in western maharashtra, india. we found evidence of a wide suite of wild carnivores inhabiting a cropland landscape devoid of wilderness and wild herbivore prey. furthermore, the large carnivores; leopard (panthera pardus) and striped hyaena (hyaena hyaena) occurred at relatively high density of 4.8 +/- 1.2 (sd) adults/100 km(2) and 5.03 +/- 1.3 (sd) adults/100 km(2) respectively. this situation has never been reported before where 10 large carnivores/100 km(2) are sharing space with dense human populations in a completely modified landscape. human attacks by leopards were rare despite a potentially volatile situation considering that the leopard has been involved in serious conflict, including human deaths in adjoining areas. the results of our work push the frontiers of our understanding of the adaptability of both, humans and wildlife to each other's presence. the results also highlight the urgent need to shift from a pa centric to a landscape level conservation approach, where issues are more complex, and the potential for conflict is also very high. it also highlights the need for a serious rethink of conservation policy, law and practice where the current management focus is restricted to wildlife inside protected areas." recapture heterogeneity in cliff swallows: increased exposure to mist nets leads to net avoidance,NA,PLOS ONE,ROCHE EA;BROWN CR;BROWN MB;LEAR KM,"ecologists often use mark-recapture to estimate demographic variables such as abundance, growth rate, or survival for samples of wild animal populations. a common assumption underlying mark-recapture is that all animals have an equal probability of detection, and failure to meet or correct for this assumption-as when certain members of the population are either easier or more difficult to capture than other animals-can lead to biased and inaccurate demographic estimates. we built within-year and among-years cormack-jolly-seber recaptures-only models to identify causes of capture heterogeneity for a population of colonially nesting cliff swallows (petrochelidon pyrrhonota) caught using mist-netting as a part of a 20-year mark-recapture study in southwestern nebraska, u. s. a. daily detection of cliff swallows caught in stationary mist nets at their colony sites declined as the birds got older and as the frequency of netting at a site within a season increased. experienced birds' avoidance of the net could be countered by sudden disturbances that startled them into a net, such as when we dropped a net over the side of a bridge or flushed nesting cliff swallows into a stationary net positioned at a colony entrance. our results support the widely held, but seldom tested, belief that birds learn to avoid stationary mist nets over time, but also show that modifications of traditional field methods can reduce this source of recapture heterogeneity." -"survivorship, growth, and detection of a knob-scaled lizard in queretaro, mexico",NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,MOLINA-ZULUAGA C;DOHERTY PF;ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ;ZAMORA-ABREGO JG,"a deep understanding of the processes affecting the population dynamics of living organisms requires fine-scale analyses of basic demographic parameters such as stage-specific survival and growth rates. in this study we estimated survival, detection, and transition rates (growth) for different stages of the life cycle of a knob-scaled lizard of the genus xenosaurus. we also examined potential sources of variation for these parameters by means of a multiple-model inference framework. our capture mark recapture data revealed that survival rates were homogeneous among stage classes but markedly different between the rainy and dry seasons. contrary to our expectation, survival probability was higher during dry months. detection probability varied considerably among stage classes and through time. consistent with theoretical predictions, the rate at which lizards moved from a particular stage class to the following (transition rates) varied among stage classes, with the fastest rates observed in yearlings and the slowest in adults. also consistent with our predictions, we found a tendency toward faster transition rates during rainy months. we discuss the potential causes and implications of the patterns of variation observed in these key demographic parameters." +"survivorship, growth, and detection of a knob-scaled lizard in queretaro, mexico",NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,MOLINA ZULUAGA C;DOHERTY PF;ZUNIGA VEGA JJ;ZAMORA ABREGO JG,"a deep understanding of the processes affecting the population dynamics of living organisms requires fine-scale analyses of basic demographic parameters such as stage-specific survival and growth rates. in this study we estimated survival, detection, and transition rates (growth) for different stages of the life cycle of a knob-scaled lizard of the genus xenosaurus. we also examined potential sources of variation for these parameters by means of a multiple-model inference framework. our capture mark recapture data revealed that survival rates were homogeneous among stage classes but markedly different between the rainy and dry seasons. contrary to our expectation, survival probability was higher during dry months. detection probability varied considerably among stage classes and through time. consistent with theoretical predictions, the rate at which lizards moved from a particular stage class to the following (transition rates) varied among stage classes, with the fastest rates observed in yearlings and the slowest in adults. also consistent with our predictions, we found a tendency toward faster transition rates during rainy months. we discuss the potential causes and implications of the patterns of variation observed in these key demographic parameters." survival and abundance in males of the glass frog espadarana (centrolene) prosoblepon in central panama,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,MCCAFFERY R;LIPS K,"while many amphibian species around the world are experiencing catastrophic declines, we have little understanding of the population dynamics of the majority of species. estimating demographic parameters can help us understand the spatial and temporal dynamics of healthy populations, assess how populations may be impacted by threats, and interpret the recovery of diminished populations. capture mark recapture (cmr) techniques represent a powerful approach for estimating such vital rates, but they have been used rarely in studies of tropical amphibians. we use 5 yr of mark recapture data (2000-2004) to estimate survival probabilities and abundances of the stream-breeding frog species espadarana (centrolene) prosoblepon prior to the arrival of batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, the amphibian chytrid fungus. we estimated these parameters for male e. prosoblepon on four streams (cascada, guabal, loop, and silenciosa) in parque nacional omar torrfjos in central panama. across all streams and years, mean annual survival probability was 0.46 (0.41-0.52, 95% ci). abundance varied among streams, with larger population sizes on loop (78 +/- 12 se) and cascada (64 +/- 4) and smaller population sizes on guabal (28 +/- 3) and silenciosa (30 +/- 2), but showed little difference among years. streams with different abundances had similar survival rates, and we suggest that availability of overhanging vegetation used for oviposition and male territories-limits population size. these are the first survival and abundance estimates that exist for this species. they provide a critical baseline for comparison to other healthy populations and for evaluating recovery in sites infected with the amphibian chytrid fungus." measurement error in shovelnose sturgeon: evidence from field observation and controlled experiment data,measurement error; fork length; fish management; mark-recapture; scaphirhynchus platorynchus; shovelnose sturgeon,JOURNAL OF FRESHWATER ECOLOGY,PHELPS QE;HERZOG DP;SOLOMON LE;CRITES JW;OSTENDORF DE;RIDINGS JW;HRABIK RA,"length measurements of fishes are commonly used by fishery scientists because of their ease of collection and the profound insight into fish populations that they provide. specifically, obtaining accurate fish lengths is imperative for obtaining accurate population demographics. thus, reproducibility and consistency of measuring an individual fish over time can greatly influence population level metrics and ultimately management decisions. to investigate this, we recorded fork lengths of 526 shovelnose sturgeon scaphirhynchus platorynchus captured, measured, and marked in the field and recaptured within six years. secondarily, we evaluated 37 shovelnose sturgeon measured in a controlled laboratory setting. we found that in both our field and laboratory evaluation that experienced biologists (between 5 and 20 years experience as fishery biologists) inaccurately measured (greater than 15mm reduction in length) shovelnose sturgeon in approximately 5% of all cases. of the approximately 5% erroneous measurements, substantial negative growth (greater than 100mm reduction in length) occurred in some situations. this suggests that errors in recorded fish lengths exist and because of this, we believe multiple steps should be taken to minimize measurement error. individual fishery biologists performing measurements should strive to ensure every fish is measured properly (i.e., fish laid completely flat on measuring board) and is recorded accurately. to this end, fishery biologists must accept that measurement error occurs and perform periodic quality assurance/quality control measures to account for these inaccuracies." "accuracy, precision, and cost-effectiveness of conventional dung density and fecal dna based survey methods to estimate asian elephant (elephas maximus) population size and structure",abundance estimates; capture-mark-recapture; elusive species; microsatellites; molecular scatology; population monitoring,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,HEDGES S;JOHNSON A;AHLERING M;TYSON M;EGGERT LS,"non-invasive dna-based capture-mark-recapture (cmr) methods have been developed to estimate population size and other parameters and have the advantage that samples can be collected without the need to see or disturb the animals. there are, however, few comparisons of dna-based cmr estimates of animal population size with estimates from non-genetic methods. we compared the results of a dung-density based survey of an asian elephant (elephas maximus) population with a simultaneous fecal dna-based cmr survey of the same population. we found 545 dung-piles along 116 line transects, converted dung-pile density to elephant density using rates of defecation and dung disappearance, and derived a population estimate of 141 (95% ci = [95, 208]) elephants. we collected 267 fecal samples during three cmr sampling sessions: 215 (81%) yielded sufficient genotypic information for analysis and gave an estimated population size of 132 (95% ci = [120,149]) elephants, closely matching the estimate produced by the dung-density method but with greater precision. the dna-based method also provided information on population structure. we conclude that dna-based cmr methods provide more precise abundance estimates, and more data about population structure and dynamics, than dung density-based methods. fecal dna-based cmr methods also require less time in the field and can be used when dung density methods are impracticable. finally, fecal dna based cmr methods are now cheaper than dung density based methods when line transect survey costs are approximately equal to cmr survey costs and dung decay rate monitoring costs are greater than laboratory costs (which will usually be the case). (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." estimating jaguar densities with camera traps: problems with current designs and recommendations for future studies,spatially explicit capture recapture model (secr); panthera onca; density estimation; mean maximum distance moved (mmdm); simulation; camera traps,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,TOBLER MW;POWELL GVN,"camera traps have become the main method for estimating jaguar (panthera onca) densities. over 74 studies have been carried out throughout the species range following standard design recommendations. we reviewed the study designs used by these studies and the results obtained. using simulated data we evaluated the performance of different statistical methods for estimating density from camera trap data including the closed-population capture-recapture models m-o and m-h with a buffer of 1/2 and the full mean maximum distance moved (mmdm) and spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models under different study designs and scenarios. we found that for the studies reviewed density estimates were negatively correlated with camera polygon size and mmdm estimates were positively correlated. the simulations showed that for camera polygons that were smaller than approximately one home range density estimates for all methods had a positive bias. for large polygons the mh mmdm and secr model produced the most accurate results and elongated polygons can improve estimates with the secr model. when encounter rates and home range sizes varied by sex, estimates had a negative bias for models that did not include sex as a covariate. based on the simulations we concluded that the majority of jaguar camera trap studies did not meet the requirements necessary to produce unbiased density estimates and likely overestimated true densities. we make clear recommendations for future study designs with respect to camera layout, number of cameras, study length, and camera placement. our findings directly apply to camera trap studies of other large carnivores. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -high jaguar densities and large population sizes in the core habitat of the southwestern amazon,bayesian analysis; camera trapping; madre de dios; panthera onca; peru; spatially explicit capture-recapture model,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,TOBLER MW;CARRILLO-PERCASTEGUI SE;ZUNIGA HARTLEY A;POWELL GVN,"over 80% of the currently occupied range of the jaguar (panthera onca) lies in the amazon. however, few density estimates exist for this habitat. between 2005 and 2010 we carried out six camera trap surveys at three different sites in the department of madre de dios in the peruvian amazon. we analyzed our data using a bayesian spatially explicit capture recapture model (secr) with sex covariates to account for differences in home range size and detection probabilities of male and female jaguars. as several of our camera grids where too small for reliable density estimates, we used estimates for the sigma parameter from the largest camera grid to correct for the bias. density estimates for our surveys were similar with an average density of 4.4 +/- 0.7 jaguar 100 km(-2). both home range size and encounter rates varied significantly between sexes with males having a larger home range and higher encounter rate than females. our estimated sex ratio was 1:1.5 compared to an observed ratio of 1.9:1. not accounting for sex would have resulted in an underestimation of the true density. the densities found in this study are among the highest documented and show that the amazon is indeed a core habitat for the jaguar. we estimate that three jaguar conservation units in our study region (areas defined by experts as having a high conservation priority) could harbor as many as 6000 jaguars (cl: 4278-8142). (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +high jaguar densities and large population sizes in the core habitat of the southwestern amazon,bayesian analysis; camera trapping; madre de dios; panthera onca; peru; spatially explicit capture-recapture model,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,TOBLER MW;CARRILLO PERCASTEGUI SE;ZUNIGA HARTLEY A;POWELL GVN,"over 80% of the currently occupied range of the jaguar (panthera onca) lies in the amazon. however, few density estimates exist for this habitat. between 2005 and 2010 we carried out six camera trap surveys at three different sites in the department of madre de dios in the peruvian amazon. we analyzed our data using a bayesian spatially explicit capture recapture model (secr) with sex covariates to account for differences in home range size and detection probabilities of male and female jaguars. as several of our camera grids where too small for reliable density estimates, we used estimates for the sigma parameter from the largest camera grid to correct for the bias. density estimates for our surveys were similar with an average density of 4.4 +/- 0.7 jaguar 100 km(-2). both home range size and encounter rates varied significantly between sexes with males having a larger home range and higher encounter rate than females. our estimated sex ratio was 1:1.5 compared to an observed ratio of 1.9:1. not accounting for sex would have resulted in an underestimation of the true density. the densities found in this study are among the highest documented and show that the amazon is indeed a core habitat for the jaguar. we estimate that three jaguar conservation units in our study region (areas defined by experts as having a high conservation priority) could harbor as many as 6000 jaguars (cl: 4278-8142). (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." integrated analysis of capture-recapture-resighting data and counts of unmarked birds at stop-over sites,combined likelihoods; integrated population modeling; mark-recapture-resight model; mark-resight analysis; semipalmated sandpipers; stop-over duration,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,MATECHOU E;MORGAN BJT;PLEDGER S;COLLAZO JA;LYONS JE,"the models presented in this paper are motivated by a stop-over study of semipalmated sandpipers, calidris pusilla. two sets of data were collected at the stop-over site: a capture-recapture-resighting data set and a vector of counts of unmarked birds. the two data sets are analyzed simultaneously by combining a new model for the capturere-capture-resighting data set with a binomial likelihood for the counts. the aim of the analysis is to estimate the total number of birds that used the site and the average duration of stop-over. the combined analysis is shown to be highly efficient, even when just 1 % of birds are recaptured, and is recommended for similar investigations. this article has supplementary material online." -detecting between-individual differences in hind-foot length in populations of wild mammals,accuracy; repeatability; yellow-bellied marmot; mountain goat; bighorn sheep,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,MARTIN JGA;FESTA-BIANCHET M;COTE SD;BLUMSTEIN DT,"hind-foot length is a widely used index of skeletal size in population ecology. the accuracy of hind-foot measurements, however, has not been estimated. we quantified measurement error in adult hind-foot length in yellow-bellied marmots (marmota flaviventris (audubon and bachman, 1841)), mountain goats (oreamnos americanus (de blainville, 1816)), and bighorn sheep (ovis canadensis shaw, 1804) from long-term capture-recapture studies. fitting a linear mixed effect model for each species separately, we found that hind-foot length was significantly repeatable in the three species, but repeatability was low, ranging from 0.30 to 0.47. measurement error explained 53%-66% of the variance in foot length. differences of 6, 13, and 27 mm would be indistinguishable from measurement error for marmots, goats, and sheep, respectively. at least 4-6 measures per individual were needed to detect variation in foot length between individuals of a population using a mixed effect model. researchers should strive to limit measurement errors because inaccurate measures may obscure important biological patterns." +detecting between-individual differences in hind-foot length in populations of wild mammals,accuracy; repeatability; yellow-bellied marmot; mountain goat; bighorn sheep,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,MARTIN JGA;FESTA BIANCHET M;COTE SD;BLUMSTEIN DT,"hind-foot length is a widely used index of skeletal size in population ecology. the accuracy of hind-foot measurements, however, has not been estimated. we quantified measurement error in adult hind-foot length in yellow-bellied marmots (marmota flaviventris (audubon and bachman, 1841)), mountain goats (oreamnos americanus (de blainville, 1816)), and bighorn sheep (ovis canadensis shaw, 1804) from long-term capture-recapture studies. fitting a linear mixed effect model for each species separately, we found that hind-foot length was significantly repeatable in the three species, but repeatability was low, ranging from 0.30 to 0.47. measurement error explained 53%-66% of the variance in foot length. differences of 6, 13, and 27 mm would be indistinguishable from measurement error for marmots, goats, and sheep, respectively. at least 4-6 measures per individual were needed to detect variation in foot length between individuals of a population using a mixed effect model. researchers should strive to limit measurement errors because inaccurate measures may obscure important biological patterns." use of the ratio plot in capture-recapture estimation,chao and robust and generalized chao estimator; closed population; generalized turing estimator; ord plot; poisson-gamma model; ratio plot; robust turing estimator; structured heterogeneity; turing estimator,JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL AND GRAPHICAL STATISTICS,BOHNING D;BAKSH MF;LERDSUWANSRI R;GALLAGHER J,"statistical graphics are a fundamental, yet often overlooked, set of components in the repertoire of data analytic tools. graphs are quick and efficient, yet simple instruments for preliminary exploration of a dataset to understand its structure and to provide insight into influential aspects of inference such as departures from assumptions and latent patterns. in this article, we present and assess a graphical device for choosing a method for estimating population size in capture recapture studies of closed populations. the basic concept is derived from a homogeneous poisson distribution where the ratios of neighboring poisson probabilities multiplied by the value of the larger neighbor count are constant. this property extends to the zero-truncated poisson distribution, which is of fundamental importance in capture recapture studies. in practice, however, this distributional property is often violated. the graphical device developed here, the ratio plot, can be used for assessing specific departures from a poisson distribution. for example, simple contaminations of an otherwise homogeneous poisson model can be easily detected and a robust estimator for the population size can be suggested. several robust estimators are developed and a simulation study is provided to give some guidance on which one should be used in practice. more systematic departures can also easily be detected using the ratio plot. in this article, the focus is on gamma-mixtures of the poisson distribution that leads to a linear pattern (called structured heterogeneity) in the ratio plot. more generally, the article shows that the ratio plot is monotone for arbitrary mixtures of power series densities. this article has online supplementary materials." a comparison of models using removal effort to estimate animal abundance,catcheffort; abundance estimation; removal sampling; bayesian analysis; hierarchical models; validation set; goodness of fit,JOURNAL OF APPLIED STATISTICS,ST CLAIR K;DUNTON E;GIUDICE J,"this paper compares methods for modeling the probability of removal when variable amounts of removal effort are present. a hierarchical modeling framework can produce estimates of animal abundance and detection from replicated removal counts taken at different locations in a region of interest. a common method of specifying variation in detection probabilities across locations or replicates is with a logistic model that incorporates relevant detection covariates. as an alternative to this logistic model, we propose using a catcheffort (ce) model to account for heterogeneity in detection when a measure of removal effort is available for each removal count. this method models the probability of detection as a nonlinear function of removal effort and a removal probability parameter that can vary spatially. simulation results demonstrate that the ce model can effectively estimate abundance and removal probabilities when average removal rates are large but both the ce and logistic models tend to produce biased estimates as average removal rates decrease. we also found that the ce model fits better than logistic models when estimating wild turkey abundance using harvest and hunter counts collected by the minnesota department of natural resources during the spring turkey hunting season." the long-term consequences of egg predation,mark-recapture; predation costs; renesting; reproductive costs; survival analysis,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY,HANSSEN SA;ERIKSTAD KE,"disrupted breeding, caused by predation of eggs or young, may have long-term fitness consequences as costs related to initiating a new breeding attempt may reduce future reproduction and survival (the ""cost of reproduction"" hypothesis). alternatively, these apparent costs may stem from animals avoiding breeding in areas where they have experienced previous predation (the ""predator avoidance"" hypothesis). we studied effects of nest predation in female common eiders somateria mollissima by removing all eggs from newly initiated clutches; renesting attempts and future breeding of these females were thereafter registered and compared with controls where eggs were not removed. these groups were also compared with depredated birds not renesting to explore the possibility that apparent costs of renesting may in fact be predator avoidance. fifty percent of the experimentally depredated females started a replacement clutch, always at a new nest site within the colony. in both the experimentally and naturally depredated groups, both the females that renested and the females not renesting showed a reduced recapture rate and lower number of future breeding attempts when compared with control females that successfully hatched their clutch, while apparent survival was not significantly affected by their reproductive allocation. thus, losing offspring during a breeding attempt seems to lead to adaptive avoidance of the breeding site, which in turn may reduce future fitness if alternative breeding sites are not available." a farmer participatory research approach to assess the effectiveness of field sanitation and regular trapping on banana weevil populations,tanzania; musa; integrated pest control; cosmopolites sordidus; traps; pseudostems; corms; farmer participation; cultivation; weeding,FRUITS,RANNESTAD OT;MAERERE AP;TORP T;SAETHRE MG,"introduction. small-scale banana producers in tanzania are facing constraints caused by the destructive activities of the banana weevil (cosmopolites sordidus germar). many currently used methods of addressing the problem are ineffective or too expensive for local farmers to implement. materials and methods. a combination of two integrated pest management (ipm) tools (regular trapping in combination with field sanitation) was tested at two farmer-managed sites (bujela and kyimo) and one researcher-managed site (sua-morogoro). treated areas were surrounded by untreated control areas where no trapping and limited sanitation was done. changes in population densities were estimated by the mark-recapture procedure and the lincoln index. results and discussion. after eight months, weevil populations in the cleaned and trapped areas had been reduced by 33% (bujela), 33% (kyimo) and 74% (sua). the change in population sizes in the control areas differed greatly, possibly due to discrepancies in field management between farmers' and researchers' practice. trap types, areas and sites affected the number of weevils captured. disc-on-stump (dos) traps captured more weevils than corm disc (cd) and pseudostem (ps) traps. weevils responded more strongly to traps in the clean area at sua compared with the other two sites, probably because the more rigid sanitation practices at sua meant that volatiles from the traps were less likely to be masked by volatiles from surrounding residues. conclusion. regular trapping with field sanitation can greatly reduce populations of banana weevils, but strict adherence to method execution is required in order to gain favourable results." -a spatial mark-resight model augmented with telemetry data,abundance; bayesian statistics; camera trapping; density; mark-resight; metropolis-within-gibbs sampler; population estimation; procyon lotor; raccoons; spatial capture-recapture; telemetry,ECOLOGY,SOLLMANN R;GARDNER B;PARSONS AW;STOCKING JJ;MCCLINTOCK BT;SIMONS TR;POLLOCK KH;O'CONNELL AF,"abundance and population density are fundamental pieces of information for population ecology and species conservation, but they are difficult to estimate for rare and elusive species. mark-resight models are popular for estimating population abundance because they are less invasive and expensive than traditional mark-recapture. however, density estimation using mark-resight is difficult because the area sampled must be explicitly defined, historically using ad hoc approaches. we developed a spatial mark-resight model for estimating population density that combines spatial resighting data and telemetry data. incorporating telemetry data allows us to inform model parameters related to movement and individual location. our model also allows <100% individual identification of marked individuals. we implemented the model in a bayesian framework, using a custom-made metropolis-within-gibbs markov chain monte carlo algorithm. as an example, we applied this model to a mark-resight study of raccoons (procyon lotor) on south core banks, a barrier island in cape lookout national seashore, north carolina, usa. we estimated a population of 186.71 +/- 14.81 individuals, which translated to a density of 8.29 +/- 0.66 individuals/km(2) (mean +/- sd). the model presented here will have widespread utility in future applications, especially for species that are not naturally marked." +a spatial mark-resight model augmented with telemetry data,abundance; bayesian statistics; camera trapping; density; mark-resight; metropolis-within-gibbs sampler; population estimation; procyon lotor; raccoons; spatial capture-recapture; telemetry,ECOLOGY,SOLLMANN R;GARDNER B;PARSONS AW;STOCKING JJ;MCCLINTOCK BT;SIMONS TR;POLLOCK KH;O CONNELL AF,"abundance and population density are fundamental pieces of information for population ecology and species conservation, but they are difficult to estimate for rare and elusive species. mark-resight models are popular for estimating population abundance because they are less invasive and expensive than traditional mark-recapture. however, density estimation using mark-resight is difficult because the area sampled must be explicitly defined, historically using ad hoc approaches. we developed a spatial mark-resight model for estimating population density that combines spatial resighting data and telemetry data. incorporating telemetry data allows us to inform model parameters related to movement and individual location. our model also allows <100% individual identification of marked individuals. we implemented the model in a bayesian framework, using a custom-made metropolis-within-gibbs markov chain monte carlo algorithm. as an example, we applied this model to a mark-resight study of raccoons (procyon lotor) on south core banks, a barrier island in cape lookout national seashore, north carolina, usa. we estimated a population of 186.71 +/- 14.81 individuals, which translated to a density of 8.29 +/- 0.66 individuals/km(2) (mean +/- sd). the model presented here will have widespread utility in future applications, especially for species that are not naturally marked." simultaneous estimation of occupancy and detection probabilities: an illustration using cincinnatian brachiopods,NA,PALEOBIOLOGY,LIOW LH,"preservation in the fossil record is never perfect in the sense that we cannot sample all individuals of a given population in time and space. incomplete detection (i.e., preservation and modern-day sampling of fossils) often affects estimates of other paleobiological parameters of interest, such as occupancy and turnover. here, i simultaneously model the occupancy and detection probability of taxa, teasing apart the zeros in data that reflect true absences and those that imply non-detection of taxa that were actually present in the space and time of interest. occupancy modeling, an approach first developed in population ecology, can easily incorporate covariates of interest, such as sampling effort and habitat variables. i use a data set of brachiopod taxa from the paleozoic to illustrate the utility of this approach for paleontological questions. i demonstrate a range of models, including those that allow colonization between time intervals and those that incorporate facies as site covariates. i also suggest how future data collection can be improved so that process- and sampling-oriented approaches such as occupancy modeling can be applied with ease to paleobiological settings to answer important paleoecological and evolutionary questions." local movements and wetland connectivity at a migratory stopover of semipalmated sandpipers (calidris pusilla) in the southeastern united states,calidris pusilla; coastal wetlands; migration; movement probability; multi-state models; residency probability; semipalmated sandpiper; south carolina; wetland connectivity,WATERBIRDS,OBERNUEFEMANN KP;COLLAZO JA;LYONS JE,"semipalmated sandpipers (calidris pusilla) use coastal wetlands in the southeastern united states during spring migration, some engaging in short-distance movements and brief refueling stops. knowledge about the scale and factors that influence these movements could guide conservation planning, but often this information is not available. the influence of inter-wetland distance, prey biomass, amount of foraging habitat at depths of 0-4 cm, and density of migrating semipalmated sandpipers on their movement and stopover residency was investigated at the tom yawkey wildlife center in south carolina in spring 2007. tom yawkey wildlife center contains three clusters of coastal wetlands separated by 2.6, 2.8 and 4.1 km. probability of moving among wetland clusters and stopover residency were estimated using multi-state mark-recapture models and encounter histories from 502 marked semipalmated sandpipers. sixty-four percent of semipalmated sandpipers remained within 2 km of site-of-capture for the duration of the study. movement probabilities were negatively influenced by inter-cluster distance and semipalmated sandpiper density. probability of moving between clusters 2.6-2.8 km apart was higher than clusters separated by 4.1 km. semipalmated sandpipers were more likely to depart the study area and resume migration after feeding in wetland clusters with abundant prey and accessible habitat. the interaction between prey and accessible habitat led to instances where semipalmated sandpipers were more likely to remain in wetlands with low prey levels, but high accessible habitat, or low accessible habitat, but high prey levels. local movements among alternative foraging locations were facilitated when wetlands were < 2.8 km apart, highlighting the benefits of integrated management at small scales. received 29 july 2011, accepted 4 december 2012." catchability model selection for estimating the composition of fishes and invertebrates within dynamic aquatic ecosystems,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,LAURETTA MV;CAMP EV;PINE WE;FRAZER TK,"we evaluated alternative catchability models for estimating the composition of fishes and decapods in two coastal rivers sampled via capture-recapture boat electrofishing, seine removal sampling, and throw trap removal sampling. information criteria were used to select between linear and nonlinear catchability models and assess heterogeneity in catchability coefficients across populations, sampling reaches, and sampling events. the selected electrofishing catchability model assumed linearity between catch per unit effort and population density, with heterogeneity in catchability coefficients among taxa and between rivers. linear models were selected for seine and throw trap samples, with heterogeneity in catchability coefficients among taxa, sampling reaches, and sampling events. we emphasize the importance of estimating population density, rather than abundance exclusively, when accurate community composition estimates are needed. the analytical techniques employed have broad-scale application in quantifying key components of ecosystems by integrating information from multiple sampling gears targeting different taxa or trophic guilds and in accounting for variable sampling intensity and catchability heterogeneity in the estimation of community composition." "correlates of estuarine survival of atlantic salmon postsmolts from the southern upland, nova scotia, canada",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,HALFYARD EA;GIBSON AJF;STOKESBURY MJW;RUZZANTE DE;WHORISKEY FG,"acoustic telemetry is a useful tool to monitor the estuarine survival and behaviour of atlantic salmon postsmolts. most frequently, survival is reported as the static fraction of tagged postsmolts detected, and while the timing or location of mortality may be reported, covariates of survival or the relationship between migratory behaviour and survival are less often described. in this study, we used acoustic telemetry to follow atlantic salmon smolts migrating to sea from four rivers in nova scotia, canada. further, we tested the relationship between migratory behaviour and survival and used mark-recapture models to examine the role of body length and tag-to-body mass as survival covariates. survival was most heavily impacted in estuarine habitats closest to head-of-tide. survival was affected by body length at three of four sites. the shape and spatial variability of the body length - survival relationship provided insight on mortality vectors, highlighting the potential roles of predation and osmotic stress. survival was not influenced by repeated landward-seaward migratory movements; however, there was a significant correlation between residency and survival." -population dynamics of the andean lizard anolis heterodermus: fast-slow demographic strategies in fragmented scrubland landscapes,capture-recapture; fast-slow continuum; habitat loss and fragmentation; habitat structure; landscape configuration,BIOTROPICA,MORENO-ARIAS RA;URBINA-CARDONA JN,"habitat fragmentation and loss affect population stability and demographic processes, increasing the extinction risk of species. we studied anolis heterodermus populations inhabiting large and small andean scrubland patches in three fragmented landscapes in the sabana de bogota (colombia) to determine the effect of habitat fragmentation and loss on population dynamics. we used the capture-mark-recapture method and multistate models to estimate vital rates for each population. we estimated growth population rate and the most important processes that affect by elasticity analysis of vital rates. we tested the effects of habitat fragmentation and loss on vital rates of lizard populations. all six isolated populations showed a positive or an equilibrium growth rate (=1), and the most important demographic process affecting was the growth to first reproduction. populations from landscapes with less scrubland natural cover showed higher stasis of young adults. populations in highly fragmented landscapes showed highest juvenile survival and growth population rates. independent of the landscape's habitat configuration and connectivity, populations from larger scrubland patches showed low adult survivorship, but high transition rates. populations varied from a slow strategy with low growth and delayed maturation in smaller patches to a fast strategy with high growth and early maturation in large patches. this variation was congruent with the fast-slow continuum hypothesis and has serious implications for andean lizard conservation and management strategies. we suggest that more stable lizard populations will be maintained if different management strategies are adopted according to patch area and habitat structure. resumen la perdida y fragmentacion del habitat afectan la estabilidad de las poblaciones y los procesos demograficos aumentando el riesgo de extincion. estudiamos poblaciones de anolis heterodermus que habitan fragmentos de matorral andino grandes y pequenos en tres paisajes de la sabana de bogota (colombia), con el objeto de analizar los efectos de la perdida y fragmentacion en la dinamica poblacional. estimamos las tasas vitales usando metodos de marcaje y recaptura y modelos multiestado. por medio de analisis de elasticidades estimamos la tasa intrinseca de crecimiento poblacional y los procesos mas importantes para .probamos los efectos de la perdida y fragmentacion del habitat sobre las tasas vitales de las poblaciones de lagartijas. las seis poblaciones aisladas presentaron una tasa de crecimiento poblacional positiva (1) y el proceso demografico que mas contribuyo a fue el crecimiento a la primera reproduccion. encontramos que en las poblaciones de paisajes con menos cantidad de habitat, la permanencia de los adultos fue mas alta. las poblaciones provenientes de paisajes mas fragmentados exhibieron tasas se supervivencia de juveniles y de crecimiento poblacional mas altas. independientemente de la configuracion y conectividad del habitat en el paisaje, las poblaciones de los fragmentos mas grandes presentaron tasas de supervivencia de adultos mas bajas pero tasas de transicion mas altas. detectamos una variacion de la estrategia demografica en las poblaciones desde una estrategia lenta con bajo crecimiento y madurez tardia en los fragmentos mas pequenos hasta una rapida con alto crecimiento y madurez temprana en los fragmentos grandes. la variacion observada se ajusto a la hipotesis del continuo rapido-lento presentando serias implicaciones para las acciones de conservacion de lagartijas andinas. sugerimos que las poblaciones mas estables se pueden mantener bajo diferentes estrategias de manejo teniendo en cuenta el tamano y la estructura del habitat." +population dynamics of the andean lizard anolis heterodermus: fast-slow demographic strategies in fragmented scrubland landscapes,capture-recapture; fast-slow continuum; habitat loss and fragmentation; habitat structure; landscape configuration,BIOTROPICA,MORENO ARIAS RA;URBINA CARDONA JN,"habitat fragmentation and loss affect population stability and demographic processes, increasing the extinction risk of species. we studied anolis heterodermus populations inhabiting large and small andean scrubland patches in three fragmented landscapes in the sabana de bogota (colombia) to determine the effect of habitat fragmentation and loss on population dynamics. we used the capture-mark-recapture method and multistate models to estimate vital rates for each population. we estimated growth population rate and the most important processes that affect by elasticity analysis of vital rates. we tested the effects of habitat fragmentation and loss on vital rates of lizard populations. all six isolated populations showed a positive or an equilibrium growth rate (=1), and the most important demographic process affecting was the growth to first reproduction. populations from landscapes with less scrubland natural cover showed higher stasis of young adults. populations in highly fragmented landscapes showed highest juvenile survival and growth population rates. independent of the landscape's habitat configuration and connectivity, populations from larger scrubland patches showed low adult survivorship, but high transition rates. populations varied from a slow strategy with low growth and delayed maturation in smaller patches to a fast strategy with high growth and early maturation in large patches. this variation was congruent with the fast-slow continuum hypothesis and has serious implications for andean lizard conservation and management strategies. we suggest that more stable lizard populations will be maintained if different management strategies are adopted according to patch area and habitat structure. resumen la perdida y fragmentacion del habitat afectan la estabilidad de las poblaciones y los procesos demograficos aumentando el riesgo de extincion. estudiamos poblaciones de anolis heterodermus que habitan fragmentos de matorral andino grandes y pequenos en tres paisajes de la sabana de bogota (colombia), con el objeto de analizar los efectos de la perdida y fragmentacion en la dinamica poblacional. estimamos las tasas vitales usando metodos de marcaje y recaptura y modelos multiestado. por medio de analisis de elasticidades estimamos la tasa intrinseca de crecimiento poblacional y los procesos mas importantes para .probamos los efectos de la perdida y fragmentacion del habitat sobre las tasas vitales de las poblaciones de lagartijas. las seis poblaciones aisladas presentaron una tasa de crecimiento poblacional positiva (1) y el proceso demografico que mas contribuyo a fue el crecimiento a la primera reproduccion. encontramos que en las poblaciones de paisajes con menos cantidad de habitat, la permanencia de los adultos fue mas alta. las poblaciones provenientes de paisajes mas fragmentados exhibieron tasas se supervivencia de juveniles y de crecimiento poblacional mas altas. independientemente de la configuracion y conectividad del habitat en el paisaje, las poblaciones de los fragmentos mas grandes presentaron tasas de supervivencia de adultos mas bajas pero tasas de transicion mas altas. detectamos una variacion de la estrategia demografica en las poblaciones desde una estrategia lenta con bajo crecimiento y madurez tardia en los fragmentos mas pequenos hasta una rapida con alto crecimiento y madurez temprana en los fragmentos grandes. la variacion observada se ajusto a la hipotesis del continuo rapido-lento presentando serias implicaciones para las acciones de conservacion de lagartijas andinas. sugerimos que las poblaciones mas estables se pueden mantener bajo diferentes estrategias de manejo teniendo en cuenta el tamano y la estructura del habitat." direct evidence of the impact of longline fishery on mortality in the black-footed albatross phoebastria nigripes,NA,BIRD CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL,LEBRETON JD;VERAN S,"the incidental bycatch of seabirds in longline fisheries is one of the most striking examples of diffuse and incidental impact of human activities on vertebrate species. while there are various types of evidence of a strong impact of longline fisheries on seabirds, in particular albatrosses, the incidental bycatch mortality has never been directly linked to estimates of bycatch derived from on-board surveys. we develop a capture-recapture analysis which relates the annual probability of survival in the black-footed albatross to the estimated absolute bycatch. by converting the absolute bycatch into an estimate relative to population size and using the theory of exploited populations, we show that survival probability decreases linearly with bycatch, and that the bycatch is underestimated by at least 50%, confirming suspicions based on reviews of the bycatch survey procedures, and raising further concerns about the impact of longline fisheries on seabirds." ice-dependent winter survival of juvenile atlantic salmon,apparent survival; energy content; ice cover; salmo salar; size-dependent mortality,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HEDGER RD;NAESJE TF;FISKE P;UGEDAL O;FINSTAD AG;THORSTAD EB,"changes in snow and ice conditions are some of the most distinctive impacts of global warming in cold temperate and arctic regions, altering the environment during a critical period for survival for most animals. laboratories studies have suggested that reduced ice cover may reduce the survival of stream dwelling fishes in northern environments. this, however, has not been empirically investigated in natural populations in large rivers. here, we examine how the winter survival of juvenile atlantic salmon in a large natural river, the river alta (norway, 70 degrees n), is affected by the presence or absence of surface ice. apparent survival rates for size classes corresponding to parr and presmolts were estimated using capture-mark-recapture and cormack-jolly-seber models for an ice-covered and an ice-free site. apparent survival (phi) in the ice-covered site was greater than in the ice-free site, but did not depend on size class (0.64 for both parr and presmolt). in contrast, apparent survival in the ice-free site was lower for larger individuals (0.33) than smaller individuals (0.45). the over-winter decline in storage energy was greater for the ice-free site than the ice-covered site, suggesting that environmental conditions in the ice-free site caused a strong depletion in energy reserves likely affecting survival. our findings highlight the importance of surface ice for the winter survival of juvenile fish, thus, underpinning that climate change, by reducing ice cover, may have a negative effect on the survival of fish adapted to ice-covered habitats during winter." long-distance dispersal and habitat use of the butterfly byasa impediens in a fragmented subtropical forest,capture-mark-recapture; fragmentation; habitat loss; long-distance dispersal; management,INSECT CONSERVATION AND DIVERSITY,LI XS;ZHANG YL;SETTELE J;FRANZEN M;SCHWEIGER O,". 1.central and southeast asia currently faces rapid loss and degradation of tropical and subtropical forests with potentially severe effects on its biodiversity. 2.we analysed population characteristics and dispersal of the butterfly byasa impediens in eleven patches of a fragmented subtropical forest in western china. 3.in an area covering 30km2, we found an unexpected high dispersal capacity of more than 5km, and estimated a mean dispersal distance of 1km according to the negative exponential function. however, the inverse power function gave a better fit and predicted a reasonably large fraction of long-distance displacements: 4% of all movements were estimated to exceed 5km. 4.in spite of the high level of fragmentation and small sizes of some patches, we did not observe extinction or (re)colonisation events. matching dispersal ability with the spatial grain of the resource patches in the landscape is seen as a major cause. in addition, persistence, emigration and immigration of individuals were exclusively affected by the amount of larval host plants, nectar plants and forest cover. 5.our study indicates the importance of long-distance dispersal and shows that species with large dispersal abilities and a somewhat broader dietary niche, such as b. impediens, can sustain in fragmented areas if patch quality is sufficient. 6.we suggest that conservation action may not only focus on particularly endangered species but also on relatively common, but often endemic, insect species. this is of particular concern given the global dominance of insects and their importance for ecosystem services, especially in an area of constantly increasing demands of agricultural products." @@ -3183,23 +3188,23 @@ life history constraints contribute to the vulnerability of a declining north am characteristics of a historically harvested alligator snapping turtle (macrochelys temminckii) population,NA,COPEIA,HOWEY CAF;DINKELACKER SA,"following perturbations like commercial harvests, turtles are susceptible to population declines because of life history characteristics such as long generation times, low recruitment rates, delayed maturity, and slow growth rates. prior to gaining state-wide protection in 1993, the alligator snapping turtle (macrochelys temminckii) was commercially harvested in arkansas. we conducted a mark-recapture study from 2005-2007 on a population of m. temminckii known to have been harvested in the east fork cadron creek, a slow-moving stream in central arkansas and part of the mississippi river drainage. captured turtles were marked, measured, weighed, and sexed. we compared observed characteristics to what would be expected if this population did not exhibit any evidence of past commercial harvest. we caught few large adults and approximately one adult for every juvenile. the adult sex ratio was highly female biased (6 f:1 m). population density (18 turtles/km stream reach) was slightly lower than expected. the apparent survivorship for males (0.96), females (0.88), and juveniles (0.80) appear to be as expected for a large freshwater turtle. whereas high survivorship rates may ameliorate the effects of historical commercial harvest, slow growth rates, low reproductive success, and long generation times have assured these effects to be long lasting and still present within our study population. we also suggest that there are factors impeding recovery of this population, such as life history characteristics and incidental catch by fisherman." indeterminate growth in long-lived freshwater turtles as a component of individual fitness,indeterminate growth; turtles; life-history evolution,EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY,CONGDON JD;GIBBONS JW;BROOKS RJ;ROLLINSON N;TSALIAGOS RN,"although evidence that reptiles exhibit indeterminate growth remains equivocal and based on inadequate data, the assumption that they do is still widely accepted as a general trait of reptiles. we examined patterns of variation in adult growth using long-term mark-recapture data on 13 populations of 9 species representing 3 families of freshwater turtles located in south carolina, michigan, and arizona in the usa and in ontario, canada. across 13 study populations, growth rates of all adults and only those that grew averaged 1.5 and 1.9 mm/yr respectively. sources of variation in growth rates included species, population, sex, age, and latitude. most adults of both sexes with recapture intervals greater than 10 years grew, but across all populations an average of 19 % of individuals did not grow (some with recapture intervals up to 30 years). for known-age adults of three species, the highest growth rates occurred during the 10 years following sexual maturity, and the proportions of non-growing individuals increased with age. growth rates of adults were on average 92 % lower than those of juveniles. based on linear relationships of clutch size and body size of females at average juvenile and adult growth rates it would take 0.7 (0.2-1.2) years and 8.6 (min-max = 2.3-18.5) years, respectively, to grow enough to increase clutch size by one egg. the majority of within population variation in adult body size in 3 species appeared to be a combination of differences in ages at maturity and juvenile and early adult growth, rather than indeterminate growth. the results from our study populations indicate that increases in body size (and associated reproductive output) that results from indeterminate growth are not substantial enough to represent a major factor in the evolution of life histories in general or the evolution of longevity and aging specifically." sex- and size-specific migration patterns and habitat preferences of invasive signal crayfish (pacifastacus leniusculus dana),crawfish; capture-mark-recapture; freshwater; alien species; population ecology,LIMNOLOGICA,WUTZ S;GEIST J,"in freshwater ecosystems, the invasion of alien crayfishes is considered a major threat to native populations. in particular, signal crayfish (pacifastacus leniusculus) are increasingly replacing native stone and noble crayfish populations in europe. in this study, population characteristics, habitat preference, as well as sex- and size-specific migration patterns of signal crayfish were analyzed within a model study section in the river moosach (danube drainage), germany. a total of 1162 crayfish at a minimum population density of 0.4 specimens per m(2) and a sex ratio of 1.18 males to 1 female were found. habitat preference was size-specific, with smaller specimens preferring shallow, gravel-dominated sites, and large animals preferring deep, saprobel-dominated sites. migration behavior was strongly influenced by the sex and size of the crayfish, with large males showing the greatest migration distances of up to 300 m within 7 days. the correlation between the migration distance and the time period between capture and recapture was generally low but strongest for small female crayfish. the results of this study suggest that local population characteristics, particularly the density, size-distribution and sex ratios, can strongly influence the dispersal ability of invasive crayfish. (c) 2012 elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." -"demographic features and habitat preferences of osgoodomys banderanus (osgood's deermouse) in colima, mexico",NA,SOUTHWESTERN NATURALIST,POINDEXTER CJ;SCHNELL GD;SANCHEZ-HERNANDEZ C;ROMERO-ALMARAZ MD;KENNEDY ML;BEST TL;WOOTEN MC;WAITS JL,"osgoodomys banderanus (osgood's deermouse) was studied in january 2006 and 2007 in north-central colima, mexico. during 8 nights each year, five mark-recapture grids were established with elevated and ground traps. for 16,000 trap-nights, 123 individuals were captured 385 times (comprising 9.4% of captures on grids); one-third of captures were in elevated traps. the ratio of males to females was 1.51:1 (significantly different from 1:1). no sexual dimorphism in mass was detected, 84.4% were adults, and 41.5% of adult females were pregnant or lactating. average distance between successive captures was 19.62 m, and average distance from a central point of capture was 12.74 m. osgoodomys banderanus was captured on 6 of 10 grids (densities 0.76-30.55 individuals/ha). probability of capture or recapture was influenced by trapping night, with probabilities peaking on nights 6 and 7. habitat preferences were based on 14 environmental variables taken at each trapping station. logistic regression indicated o. banderanus preferred higher canopies, closer trees, more rocks, and less grass; a model developed with nonparametric multiplicative regression consisted of the first three of these variables. osgoodomys banderanus exhibited strong preferences for rocky areas with less dense ground cover, a more open understory, and a tall canopy." +"demographic features and habitat preferences of osgoodomys banderanus (osgood's deermouse) in colima, mexico",NA,SOUTHWESTERN NATURALIST,POINDEXTER CJ;SCHNELL GD;SANCHEZ HERNANDEZ C;ROMERO ALMARAZ MD;KENNEDY ML;BEST TL;WOOTEN MC;WAITS JL,"osgoodomys banderanus (osgood's deermouse) was studied in january 2006 and 2007 in north-central colima, mexico. during 8 nights each year, five mark-recapture grids were established with elevated and ground traps. for 16,000 trap-nights, 123 individuals were captured 385 times (comprising 9.4% of captures on grids); one-third of captures were in elevated traps. the ratio of males to females was 1.51:1 (significantly different from 1:1). no sexual dimorphism in mass was detected, 84.4% were adults, and 41.5% of adult females were pregnant or lactating. average distance between successive captures was 19.62 m, and average distance from a central point of capture was 12.74 m. osgoodomys banderanus was captured on 6 of 10 grids (densities 0.76-30.55 individuals/ha). probability of capture or recapture was influenced by trapping night, with probabilities peaking on nights 6 and 7. habitat preferences were based on 14 environmental variables taken at each trapping station. logistic regression indicated o. banderanus preferred higher canopies, closer trees, more rocks, and less grass; a model developed with nonparametric multiplicative regression consisted of the first three of these variables. osgoodomys banderanus exhibited strong preferences for rocky areas with less dense ground cover, a more open understory, and a tall canopy." population metrics and use of saltcedar (tamarix) habitats by common side-blotched lizards (uta stansburiana),NA,SOUTHWESTERN NATURALIST,NIELSEN DP;BATEMAN HL,"during 2009 and 2010, we observed common side-blotched lizards (uta stansburiana) in two types of vegetation along the virgin river in nevada and arizona: monotypic stands of nonnative saltcedars (tamarix) and mixed stands of cottonwoods (populus fremontii), willows (salix gooddingii), mesquites (prosopis), and saltcedar trees. using mark-recapture techniques, parameters were recorded from 233 individual lizards. we detected no significant difference in parameters between monotypic stands of nonnative saltcedars and mixed vegetation. however, lizards selected habitats having a more open vegetative structure and parameters were correlated negatively with canopy cover. greatest canopy cover occurred in sites having > 65% stem counts for saltcedar trees. our results suggest that common side-blotched lizards use habitats with similar structural characteristics in both mixed and nonnative vegetation, and that they avoid sites with dense canopy cover as in the densest stands of saltcedars." the number of deaths among infants under one year of age in england with pertussis: results of a capture/recapture analysis for the period 2001 to 2011,NA,EUROSURVEILLANCE,VAN HOEK AJ;CAMPBELL H;AMIRTHALINGAM G;ANDREWS N;MILLER E,"pertussis activity in england in 2012 was at its highest level for more than 12 years, leading to an increased number of deaths, especially among infants who were too young to be vaccinated. to support decision making on the introduction of maternal immunisation as an outbreak response measure to prevent these early deaths, we analysed reported deaths amongst infants of less than one year of age during the period from 2001 to 2011 with a capture/recapture analysis. we used log linear regression to allow for interactions. reported deaths were obtained from the hospital episode statistics for england, death registered by the office of national statistics and the enhanced surveillance of laboratory-confirmed pertussis conducted by the health protection agency. there were a total of 48 deaths recorded; of these 41 had a disease onset before being fully protected by vaccination. around half of these deaths (23) were recorded in all three datasets and 10 in only one. due to the high coverage of the datasets the estimated number of deaths missed was small with 1.6 (95% confidence interval (ci): 0.5-4.5) deaths. the total average incidence was 0.721 (95% ci: 0.705-0.763) per 100,000 maternities. we concluded that under ascertainment of deaths from diagnosed pertussis cases is small." -"evidence of regression of fibropapillomas in juvenile green turtles chelonia mydas caught in niteroi, southeast brazil",sea turtle; disease; reptiles; tumor; photo-identification; conservation; pollution,DISEASES OF AQUATIC ORGANISMS,GUIMARAES SM;GITIRANA HM;WANDERLEY AV;MONTEIRO-NETO C;LOBO-HAJDU G,"fibropapillomatosis is a disease characterized by cutaneous tumors affecting all marine turtle species, but mostly chelonia mydas. the disease was first reported in 1938, and since then, the number of sightings has been increasing over the years. this disease can cause many complications in the affected animal and can lead to death, and is thus included in the many threats to marine turtle populations. it is still not known for certain what causes this disease, although many studies indicate a herpesvirus as the main etiologic agent. the incidence of fibropapillomatosis is rarely reported in adults, leading to speculations that there may be a cure for the disease or that the animals die before reaching adulthood. in this paper, 2 cases of fibropapillomatosis regression are reported from juvenile c. mydas caught between july 2008 and july 2010 in the coastal zone of itaipu, niteroi, rio de janeiro, brazil. these individuals were identified photographically upon recapture. one individual had a total regression (disappearance) of external papilloma within 164 d between first capture and recapture, and the other individual had a partial regression (decrease in size) observed within 13 to 188 d of recapture. the mechanism that triggers the regression is still unknown but is likely to be an immune system response or removal of the tumor promoter. there are few reported cases of regression in the world, and constant monitoring through mark-recapture is necessary to assess whether the marine turtles affected by this disease have real chances of survival." +"evidence of regression of fibropapillomas in juvenile green turtles chelonia mydas caught in niteroi, southeast brazil",sea turtle; disease; reptiles; tumor; photo-identification; conservation; pollution,DISEASES OF AQUATIC ORGANISMS,GUIMARAES SM;GITIRANA HM;WANDERLEY AV;MONTEIRO NETO C;LOBO HAJDU G,"fibropapillomatosis is a disease characterized by cutaneous tumors affecting all marine turtle species, but mostly chelonia mydas. the disease was first reported in 1938, and since then, the number of sightings has been increasing over the years. this disease can cause many complications in the affected animal and can lead to death, and is thus included in the many threats to marine turtle populations. it is still not known for certain what causes this disease, although many studies indicate a herpesvirus as the main etiologic agent. the incidence of fibropapillomatosis is rarely reported in adults, leading to speculations that there may be a cure for the disease or that the animals die before reaching adulthood. in this paper, 2 cases of fibropapillomatosis regression are reported from juvenile c. mydas caught between july 2008 and july 2010 in the coastal zone of itaipu, niteroi, rio de janeiro, brazil. these individuals were identified photographically upon recapture. one individual had a total regression (disappearance) of external papilloma within 164 d between first capture and recapture, and the other individual had a partial regression (decrease in size) observed within 13 to 188 d of recapture. the mechanism that triggers the regression is still unknown but is likely to be an immune system response or removal of the tumor promoter. there are few reported cases of regression in the world, and constant monitoring through mark-recapture is necessary to assess whether the marine turtles affected by this disease have real chances of survival." "sex-specific correlations of individual heterozygosity, parasite load, and scalation asymmetry in a sexually dichromatic lizard",NA,PLOS ONE,SHANER PJL;CHEN YR;LIN JW;KOLBE JJ;LIN SM,"heterozygosity-fitness correlations (hfcs) provide insights into the genetic bases of individual fitness variation in natural populations. however, despite decades of study, the biological significance of hfcs is still under debate. in this study, we investigated hfcs in a large population of the sexually dimorphic lizard takydromus viridipunctatus (lacertidae). because of the high prevalence of parasitism from trombiculid mites in this lizard, we expect individual fitness (i.e., survival) to decrease with increasing parasite load. furthermore, because morphological asymmetry is likely to influence individuals' mobility (i.e., limb asymmetry) and male biting ability during copulation (i.e., head asymmetry) in this species, we also hypothesize that individual fitness should decrease with increasing morphological asymmetry. although we did not formally test the relationship between morphological asymmetry and fitness in this lizard, we demonstrated that survival decreased with increasing parasite load using a capture-mark-recapture data set. we used a separate sample of 140 lizards to test the correlations between individual heterozygosity (i.e., standardized mean d(2) and hl based on 10 microsatellite loci) and the two fitness traits (i.e., parasite load and morphological asymmetry). we also evaluated and excluded the possibility that single-locus effects produced spurious hfcs. our results suggest male-only, negative correlations between individual heterozygosity and parasite load and between individual heterozygosity and asymmetry, suggesting sex-specific, positive hfcs. male t. viridipunctatus with higher heterozygosity tend to have lower parasite loads (i.e., higher survival) and lower asymmetry, providing a rare example of hfc in reptiles." "assessing quality of existing data sources on road traffic injuries (rtis) and their utility in informing injury prevention in the western cape province, south africa",road traffic injuries (rtis); data quality; capturerecapture; underreporting; completeness,TRAFFIC INJURY PREVENTION,CHOKOTHO LC;MATZOPOULOS R;MYERS JE,"objectives: this study assessed whether the quality of the available road traffic injury (rti) data was sufficient for determining the burden of rtis in the western cape province and for implementing and monitoring road safety interventions. methodology: underreporting was assessed by comparing data reported by the south african police services (saps) in 2008 with data from 18 provincial mortuaries. completeness of the driver death subset of all rtis was assessed using the capturerecapture method. results: the mortuary and police data sets comprised 1696 and 860 fatalities respectively for the year 2008. the corresponding provincial road traffic mortality rates were as follows: 32.2 deaths/100,000 population per year (95% confidence interval [ci]: 30.733.8) and 16.3 deaths/100,000 population per year (95% ci: 15.317.5). the police data set contained 820,960 crashes, involving 196,889 persons, indicating substantial duplication of crash events. there were varying proportions of missing data for demographic and other identifying variables, with age missing in nearly half of the cases in the police data set. the estimated total number of driver deaths/year was 588.6 (95% ci: 544.4632.8), yielding estimated completeness of the mortuary and police data sets of 57.6 and 46.4 percent separately and 77.3 percent combined. conclusion: this study found extensive data quality problems, including missing data, duplication, and significant underreporting of traffic injury deaths in the police data. not all assumptions underlying the use of capturerecapture method were met in this study; hence, the estimates provided by this analysis should be interpreted with caution. there is a need to address the problems highlighted by this study in order to improve data utility for informing road safety policies. supplemental materials are available for this article. go to the publisher's online edition of traffic injury prevention to view the supplemental file." "population demography of an endangered lizard, the blue mountains water skink",australia; montane species; reptile; skeletochronology,BMC ECOLOGY,DUBEY S;SINSCH U;DEHLING MJ;CHEVALLEY M;SHINE R,"background: information on the age structure within populations of an endangered species can facilitate effective management. the blue mountains water skink (eulamprus leuraensis) is a viviparous scincid lizard that is restricted to < 40 isolated montane swamps in south-eastern australia. we used skeletochronology of phalanges (corroborated by mark-recapture data) to estimate ages of 222 individuals from 13 populations. results: these lizards grow rapidly, from neonatal size (30 mm snout-vent length) to adult size (about 70 mm svl) within two to three years. fecundity is low (mean 2.9 offspring per litter) and is affected by maternal body length and age. offspring quality may decline with maternal age, based upon captive-born neonates (older females gave birth to slower offspring). in contrast to its broadly sympatric (and abundant) congener e. tympanum, e. leuraensis is short-lived (maximum 6 years, vs 15 years for e. tympanum). litter size and offspring size are similar in the two species, but female e. leuraensis reproduce annually whereas many e. tympanum produce litters biennially. thus, a low survival rate (rather than delayed maturation or low annual fecundity) is the key reason why e. leuraensis is endangered. our 13 populations exhibited similar growth rates and population age structures despite substantial variation in elevation, geographic location and swamp size. however, larger populations (based on a genetic estimate of effective population size) contained older lizards, and thus a wider variance in ages. conclusion: our study suggests that low adult survival rates, as well as specialisation on a rare and fragmented habitat type (montane swamps) contribute to the endangered status of the blue mountains water skink." photographic capture-recapture sampling for assessing populations of the indian gliding lizard draco dussumieri,NA,PLOS ONE,SREEKAR R;PURUSHOTHAM CB;SAINI K;RAO SN;PELLETIER S;CHAPLOD S,"the usage of invasive tagging methods to assess lizard populations has often been criticised, due to the potential negative effects of marking, which possibly cause increased mortality or altered behaviour. the development of safe, less invasive techniques is essential for improved ecological study and conservation of lizard populations. in this study, we describe a photographic capture-recapture (cr) technique for estimating draco dussumieri (agamidae) populations. we used photographs of the ventral surface of the patagium to identify individuals. to establish that the naturally occurring blotches remained constant through time, we compared capture and recapture photographs of 45 pen-marked individuals after a 30 day interval. no changes in blotches were observed and individual lizards could be identified with 100% accuracy. the population density of d. dussumieri in a two hectare areca-nut plantation was estimated using the cr technique with ten sampling occasions over a ten day period. the resulting recapture histories for 24 individuals were analysed using population models in the program capture. all models indicated that nearly all individuals were captured. the estimated probability for capturing d. dussumieri on at least one occasion was 0.92 and the estimated population density was 13 +/- 1.65 lizards/ha. our results demonstrate the potential for applying cr to population studies in gliding lizards (draco spp.) and other species with distinctive markings." estimating stop over duration in the presence of trap-effects,capture-mark-recapture; hidden nonhomogeneous markov chain; hidden hybrid markov/semi-markov chain; immediate trap-effects,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,CHOQUET R;GUEDON Y;BESNARD A;GUILLEMAIN M;PRADEL R,"detection probability of individuals is increasingly taken into account during field monitoring schemes and in demographic models. conversely, it is often taken for granted that trappability of animals will remain fairly constant and broadly similar between individuals present in a given area. however, animals may change their behaviour after being trapped. in this paper, we introduce a new hidden markovian model to estimate stop over duration in the presence of trap-effects. this model combines nonhomogeneous markovian states with semi-markovian states in the non-observable state process, and simple distributions with first-order markov chains as observation models. this model generalizes previously proposed models and enables the joint modeling of the time of residence and the trap effect. two cases are considered, depending on whether or not emigration is time-dependent since arrival. we illustrate the latter with teal anas crecca wintering in camargue, southern france and we demonstrate the importance of handling trap-effects. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -juvenile survival in a neotropical migratory songbird is lower than expected,NA,PLOS ONE,MCKIM-LOUDER MI;HOOVER JP;BENSON TJ;SCHELSKY WM,"attempts to estimate and identify factors influencing first-year survival in passerines, survival between fledging and the first reproductive attempt (i.e. juvenile survival), have largely been confounded by natal dispersal, particularly in long-distance migratory passerines. we studied prothonotary warblers (protonotaria citrea) breeding in nest boxes to estimate first-year survival while accounting for biases related to dispersal that are common in mark-recapture studies. the natal dispersal distribution (median = 1420 m; n = 429) and a distance-dependent recruitment rate, which controls for effects of study site configuration, both indicated a pattern of short-distance natal dispersal. this pattern was consistent with results of a systematic survey for birds returning outside the nest box study sites (up to 30 km in all directions) within a majority (81%) of total available bottomland forest habitat, further suggesting that permanent emigration outside of the study system was rare. we used multistate mark-recapture modeling to estimate first-year survival and incorporated factors thought to influence survival while accounting for the potential confounding effects of dispersal on recapture probabilities for warblers that fledged during 2004-2009 (n = 6093). overall, the average first-year survival for warblers reared without cowbird nestmates was 0.11 (95% ci = 0.09-0.13), decreased with fledging date (0.22 early to 0.03 late) and averaged 40% lower for warblers reared with a brood parasite nestmate. first-year survival was less than half of the rate thought to represent population replacement in migratory passerines (similar to 0.30). this very low rate suggests that surviving the first year of life for many neotropical migratory species is even more difficult than previously thought, forcing us to rethink estimates used in population models." +juvenile survival in a neotropical migratory songbird is lower than expected,NA,PLOS ONE,MCKIM LOUDER MI;HOOVER JP;BENSON TJ;SCHELSKY WM,"attempts to estimate and identify factors influencing first-year survival in passerines, survival between fledging and the first reproductive attempt (i.e. juvenile survival), have largely been confounded by natal dispersal, particularly in long-distance migratory passerines. we studied prothonotary warblers (protonotaria citrea) breeding in nest boxes to estimate first-year survival while accounting for biases related to dispersal that are common in mark-recapture studies. the natal dispersal distribution (median = 1420 m; n = 429) and a distance-dependent recruitment rate, which controls for effects of study site configuration, both indicated a pattern of short-distance natal dispersal. this pattern was consistent with results of a systematic survey for birds returning outside the nest box study sites (up to 30 km in all directions) within a majority (81%) of total available bottomland forest habitat, further suggesting that permanent emigration outside of the study system was rare. we used multistate mark-recapture modeling to estimate first-year survival and incorporated factors thought to influence survival while accounting for the potential confounding effects of dispersal on recapture probabilities for warblers that fledged during 2004-2009 (n = 6093). overall, the average first-year survival for warblers reared without cowbird nestmates was 0.11 (95% ci = 0.09-0.13), decreased with fledging date (0.22 early to 0.03 late) and averaged 40% lower for warblers reared with a brood parasite nestmate. first-year survival was less than half of the rate thought to represent population replacement in migratory passerines (similar to 0.30). this very low rate suggests that surviving the first year of life for many neotropical migratory species is even more difficult than previously thought, forcing us to rethink estimates used in population models." "long-term decline of the western pacific leatherback, dermochelys coriacea: a globally important sea turtle population","bird's head peninsula, papua barat, indonesia; conservation; decline; dermochelys coriacea; leatherback sea turtle; nesting trend; western pacific",ECOSPHERE,TAPILATU RF;DUTTON PH;TIWARI M;WIBBELS T;FERDINANDUS HV;IWANGGIN WG;NUGROHO BH,"the leatherbacks nesting at bird's head peninsula, papua barat, indonesia, account for 75% of the total leatherback nesting in the western pacific and represent the last sizeable nesting population in the entire pacific. sporadic nest counts at jamursba medi beach at bird's head have indicated a declining trend from the 1980s through 2004, although a relatively high amount of nesting has recently been documented at wermon beach, located 30 km east of jamursba medi. we used expanded year-round nesting surveys from 2005 to 2011 at these two primary nesting beaches to obtain more robust estimates of the nesting population size and to evaluate long-term nesting trends. we found a 29% decline in nesting at jamursba medi and a 52% decline at wermon from 2005 through 2011. we found that the estimated annual number of nests at jamursba medi has declined 78.3% over the past 27 years (5.5% annual rate of decline) from 14,522 in 1984 to 1,596 in 2011. nesting at wermon has been monitored since 2002 and has declined 62.8% (11.6% annual rate of decline) from 2,994 nests in 2002 to 1,096 in 2011. collectively, our findings indicate a continual and significant long term nesting decline of 5.9% per year at these primary western pacific beaches since 1984. mark-recapture with pit tags, initiated in 2003, resulted in the tagging of 1,371 individual nesting females as of march 2012. observed clutch frequencies ranged from 3-10 per season with a mean of 5.5 +/- 1.6 and, based on nest counts, provide an estimate of approximately 489 females nesting in 2011. the persistent and long term decline we report for the bird's head leatherback population follows other dramatic declines and extinctions of leatherback populations throughout the pacific over the last 30 years. these findings highlight the urgent need for continued and enhanced conservation and management efforts to prevent the collapse of what might be the last remaining stronghold for leatherbacks in the pacific." effect of illegal harvest on apparent survival of amazon river dolphins (inia geoffrensis),barker model; boto; calophysus macropterus; mark-recapture; bait; poaching,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MINTZER VJ;MARTIN AR;DA SILVA VMF;BARBOUR AB;LORENZEN K;FRAZER TK,"the amazon river dolphin (inia geoffrensis), or boto, is illegally harvested for use as bait in fisheries for the catfish calophysus macropterus. to determine the effect of this harvest, we estimated apparent survival for a boto population in the central brazilian amazon where direct harvest is known to have occurred since 2000. for our analysis, we used capture and recapture/resighting data of 528 marked botos over a 17-year period (1994-2011). time-dependent models estimated that apparent survival after the first reports of harvest (phi = 0.899; se = 0.007) was significantly lower than in years prior to harvest (phi = 0.968; se = 0.009). the decline in apparent survival suggests that current harvest rates exceed conservation limits and may be unsustainable. this issue requires the attention of natural resource managers from all countries of the amazon basin, as the harvest is widespread and decline in survival could be mirrored in numerous locales. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." small mammal responses to intensively established pine plantations in coastal plain mississippi,chemical; forest management; herbicide; mechanical; site preparation,SOUTHERN JOURNAL OF APPLIED FORESTRY,HANBERRY BB;EDWARDS SL;DEMARAIS S;JONES J,"in the southeastern united states, there is a wide range of pine plantation establishment practices, varying by chemical or mechanical site preparation before planting and chemical herbaceous controls after planting. to investigate small mammal responses to a gradient of pine plantation establishment practices, we monitored small mammals for 5 years in pine plantations established with chemical, mechanical, or chemical and mechanical site preparation, followed by chemical herbaceous control after planting, in the lower coastal plain of mississippi. we captured small mammals at four study sites during february 2002-2006 in each of five different establishment practices. we caught 2,476 individuals of five common species (blarina carolinensis, neotoma floridana, peromyscus spp., reithrodontomys fulvescens, and sigmodon hispidus). there were no differences by species or overall abundance among treatments that used a range of stand establishment practices in the lower coastal plain. however, excluding peromyscus spp., total small mammal abundance was greater in the lesser intensity establishment practices. although increasing plantation establishment intensity in the southeastern coastal plain may not be detrimental to common species that are abundant in young plantations, further research is necessary to support our results. future research should identify differences in demographics among establishment practices through mark-recapture studies, which can address mechanisms of population dynamics." spatial capture-recapture models for jointly estimating population density and landscape connectivity,animal movement; ecological distance; landscape connectivity; least-cost path; resistance surface; spatial capture-recapture,ECOLOGY,ROYLE JA;CHANDLER RB;GAZENSKI KD;GRAVES TA,"population size and landscape connectivity are key determinants of population viability, yet no methods exist for simultaneously estimating density and connectivity parameters. recently developed spatial capture-recapture (scr) models provide a framework for estimating density of animal populations but thus far have not been used to study connectivity. rather, all applications of scr models have used encounter probability models based on the euclidean distance between traps and animal activity centers, which implies that home ranges are stationary, symmetric, and unaffected by landscape structure. in this paper we devise encounter probability models based on ""ecological distance,"" i.e., the least-cost path between traps and activity centers, which is a function of both euclidean distance and animal movement behavior in resistant landscapes. we integrate least-cost path models into a likelihood-based estimation scheme for spatial capture-recapture models in order to estimate population density and parameters of the least-cost encounter probability model. therefore, it is possible to make explicit inferences about animal density, distribution, and landscape connectivity as it relates to animal movement from standard capture-recapture data. furthermore, a simulation study demonstrated that ignoring landscape connectivity can result in negatively biased density estimators under the naive scr model." ski-pistes are ecological barriers to forest small mammals,alps; micromammals; dispersal barrier; habitat loss; habitat fragmentation; translocation experiment,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,NEGRO M;NOVARA C;BERTOLINO S;ROLANDO A,"from the beginning of the last century, the expansion of the ski industry has significantly altered alpine environments. the aim of this research was to study the impacts of forest ski-pistes on small mammals by assessing (1) whether ski-pistes were used or avoided and (2) whether they acted as ecological barriers to local movements. two ski-developed valleys of the western italian alps were considered. most of the fieldwork occurred in the sessera valley (piedmont); a minor part was carried out in the ayas valley (aosta valley). in the main study site, three capture-mark-recapture studies on core species were carried out to assess habitat use (one study) and the capability of crossing ski-pistes (two studies: spontaneous crossing and individual translocation). two radiotracking surveys of the most vagile species, the fat dormouse, were carried out to locate home ranges and resting sites in relation to ski-pistes. in the habitat use experiment, virtually all individuals (245 out of 249) were captured outside the ski-piste. in the spontaneous crossing test, recaptures of marked individuals showed that they moved on one side of the ski-piste only and never crossed it. however, in translocation experiments, 18.6 % of translocated individuals were able to cross the ski-piste and come back to the original forest patch. fat dormice maintained home ranges on one side of the ski-piste and they never crossed it. resting sites were mostly underground, between rocks, in boulders and in rocky crevices, never in the ski-piste. our study clearly suggests that forest ski-pistes represent habitat loss and are ecological, semipermeable barriers to small mammals. to mitigate habitat loss and make movements between forest patches easier, a possible management intervention could be maintaining a partial shrub cover or adding woody debris, both relatively easy methods for ski areas to implement in order to maintain small mammal communities." "experimental test of two marking methods on survival, growth, mark retention and readability on young-of-year pinfish (lagodon rhomboides)",fluorescent tag; food ration; freeze brand; mark-recapture; seagrass; tank experiment,JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY,MATECHIK CV;MICKLE A;STALLINGS CD,"ecological studies often require marking individuals or cohorts. however, different marks may have inherent advantages and disadvantages which should be considered before designing studies that use them. visible implant elastomer (vie) tags and liquid-nitrogen cold brands are two techniques commonly used with fishes, but their effects on growth and survival, and their retention rates and mark readability have not been explicitly tested on pinfish (lagodon rhomboides), an ideal model organism due to its high abundance and tractability. we used a controlled mesocosm experiment to test for mark-induced differences in survival and growth rates, and growth-induced differences in mark retention and readability, between vie-tagged and cold-branded juvenile pinfish. neither vie tags nor brands affected survival or growth in pinfish. furthermore, growth did not affect retention or readability of either type of mark. however, retention rates were higher in cold-branded individuals while readability was better for vie-tagged fish. thus, both methods appear to satisfy the criterion of not affecting basic biological processes, an important assumption in all studies that use marking techniques, while also differing in other regards. we discuss some of the competing advantages and disadvantages of each that investigators must consider before the onset of a marking program. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -estimate of the real incidence of tuberculosis in the leon health area: application of the capture-recapture method to compare two information sources,tuberculosis; incidence; under-diagnosed,ENFERMEDADES INFECCIOSAS Y MICROBIOLOGIA CLINICA,MUNIZ-GONZALEZ F;GUERRA-LASO J;GARCIA-GARCIA S;LOPEZ-VELOSO M;RAPOSO-GARCIA S;CARRACEDO-FALAGAN N;RIVAS-LOPEZ P;RIVERO-LEZCANO O,"introduction: the actual incidence of tuberculosis is probably higher than that previously published in national and international records. under-reporting is estimated to fluctuate between 7% and 27%, according to studies. objective: to estimate the incidence rate of tuberculosis in the area of leon for 2008 and 2009 using the capture-recapture method in order to compare two sources of information: prescribed tuberculostatic drugs (combination of rifampicin-isoniazid) and the regional epidemiological surveillance system register (sive). method: retrospective descriptive study in an area of 351,086 inhabitants of tuberculosis cases using as sources: (i), information on prescribed tuberculostatic drugs, and (ii), the sive register. we calculated incidence rates for each source by the capture-recapture method. we analyzed epidemiological and demographic data, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up. results: the incidence based on the sive data for 2008 was 18.80/100,000 inhabitants and according to the pharmacy register, the rate was 26.77. the estimated value for 2009 based on the sive data was 18.23/100,000 inhabitants, and according to the pharmacy register, it was 22.50. after applying the capture-recapture method, the annual incidence for 2008 was 44.14/100,000 (95% ci; 37.88-50.41) and for 2009, it was 34.17/100,000 (95% ci; 30.19-38.17). in the study of all these years we have found that the number of cases were higher in the pharmacy register than the sive one. conclusions: the sive data on the incidence of tuberculosis in our study area underestimates the actual incidence rate. the source of information that involves case record of tuberculosis in the community is under-used. the capture-recapture method is a good alternative to measure the incidence of tuberculosis, and to check the surveillance systems. (c) 2012 elsevier espana, s.l. all rights reserved." +estimate of the real incidence of tuberculosis in the leon health area: application of the capture-recapture method to compare two information sources,tuberculosis; incidence; under-diagnosed,ENFERMEDADES INFECCIOSAS Y MICROBIOLOGIA CLINICA,MUNIZ GONZALEZ F;GUERRA LASO J;GARCIA GARCIA S;LOPEZ VELOSO M;RAPOSO GARCIA S;CARRACEDO FALAGAN N;RIVAS LOPEZ P;RIVERO LEZCANO O,"introduction: the actual incidence of tuberculosis is probably higher than that previously published in national and international records. under-reporting is estimated to fluctuate between 7% and 27%, according to studies. objective: to estimate the incidence rate of tuberculosis in the area of leon for 2008 and 2009 using the capture-recapture method in order to compare two sources of information: prescribed tuberculostatic drugs (combination of rifampicin-isoniazid) and the regional epidemiological surveillance system register (sive). method: retrospective descriptive study in an area of 351,086 inhabitants of tuberculosis cases using as sources: (i), information on prescribed tuberculostatic drugs, and (ii), the sive register. we calculated incidence rates for each source by the capture-recapture method. we analyzed epidemiological and demographic data, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up. results: the incidence based on the sive data for 2008 was 18.80/100,000 inhabitants and according to the pharmacy register, the rate was 26.77. the estimated value for 2009 based on the sive data was 18.23/100,000 inhabitants, and according to the pharmacy register, it was 22.50. after applying the capture-recapture method, the annual incidence for 2008 was 44.14/100,000 (95% ci; 37.88-50.41) and for 2009, it was 34.17/100,000 (95% ci; 30.19-38.17). in the study of all these years we have found that the number of cases were higher in the pharmacy register than the sive one. conclusions: the sive data on the incidence of tuberculosis in our study area underestimates the actual incidence rate. the source of information that involves case record of tuberculosis in the community is under-used. the capture-recapture method is a good alternative to measure the incidence of tuberculosis, and to check the surveillance systems. (c) 2012 elsevier espana, s.l. all rights reserved." density estimations of the eurasian lynx (lynx lynx) in the swiss alps,camera-trapping; density; half mean maximum distance moved (1/2 mmdm); lynx lynx; mean maximum distance moved (mmdm); spatial capture-recapture (scr); switzerland; telemetry,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,PESENTI E;ZIMMERMANN F,"use of photographic capture recapture analyses to estimate abundance of species with distinctive natural marks has become an important tool for monitoring rare or cryptic species, or both. two different methods are available to estimate density: nonspatial capture recapture models where the trap polygon is buffered with the half or full mean maximum distance moved by animals captured at more than 1 trap (1/2 mmdm or mmdm, respectively); or spatial capture recapture (scr) models that explicitly incorporate movement into the model. we used data from radiotracked eurasian lynx (lynx lynx) in the northwestern swiss alps (nwsa) during a low (1.0 lynx/100 km(2)) and a high (1.9-2.1 lynx/100 km(2)) lynx population density to test if lynx space use was density dependent. second, we compared lynx density estimates resulting from these 2 different methods using camera-trapping data collected during winters 2007-2008 and 2009-2010 in the nwsa. our results indicated lynx space use was negatively correlated with density. lynx density estimates in all habitats using mmdm (0.86 and 0.97 lynx/100 km(2) in winters 2007-2008 and 2009-2010, respectively) were significantly lower than scr model estimates, whereas there was no significant difference between scr model (1.47 and 1.38) and 1/2 mmdm (1.37 and 1.51) density estimates. in the nwsa, which currently harbors the most abundant lynx population in switzerland, 1/2 mmdm and scr models provided more realistic lynx density estimates compared to the mmdm, which lies in the lower range of densities. overall, the scr model is preferable because it considers animal movements explicitly and is not biased by an informal estimation of the effective sampling area." life-history strategies of north american elk: trade-offs associated with reproduction and survival,cervus elaphus; fitness; life-history strategy; multistate mark-recapture technique; recruitment; reproductive costs; resource allocation; risk-sensitivity; transition probability; ungulates,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,MORANO S;STEWART KM;SEDINGER JS;NICOLAI CA;VAVRA M,"the principle of energy allocation states that individuals should attempt to maximize fitness by allocating resources optimally among growth, maintenance, and reproduction. such allocation may result in trade-offs between survival and reproduction, or between current and future reproduction. we used a marked population of north american elk (cervus elaphus) to determine how energetic costs of reproduction in the current year affect survival and reproduction in the subsequent year. using a multistate mark recapture model we examined the influence of individual and environmental variation on trade-offs between these 2 life-history traits. we observed no difference in survival probabilities between pregnant and nonpregnant individuals or as a function of recruiting an offspring. nonetheless, there was a negative effect of recruiting an offspring in the current year on becoming pregnant the following year. increased body condition, and higher precipitation, contributed to greater probabilities of becoming pregnant in a particular year regardless of reproductive state and previous recruitment. costs associated with reproduction led to a reduced probability of future reproduction rather than a reduction in survival. these findings are consistent with risk-sensitive reproductive allocation, where adult survival is maintained through variation in reproductive effort resulting in high and stable adult survival and more-variable reproduction." mark-resight and sightability modeling of a western washington elk population,aerial survey; cervus elaphus; elk; mark-resight; population estimation; sightability; washington,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,MCCORQUODALE SM;KNAPP SM;DAVISON MA;BOHANNON JS;DANILSON CD;MADSEN WC,"the north cascades (nooksack) elk (cervus elaphus) population declined during the 1980s, prompting a closure to state and tribal hunting in 1997 and an effort to restore the herd to former abundance. in 2005, we began a study to assess the size of the elk population, judge the effectiveness of restoration efforts, and develop a practical monitoring strategy. we concurrently evaluated 2 monitoring approaches: sightability correction modeling and mark-resight modeling. we collected data during februaryapril helicopter surveys and fit logistic regression models to predict the sightability of elk groups based on group and environmental variables. we used an information-theoretic criterion to compare 9 models of varying complexity; the best model predicted sightability of elk groups based on 1) transformed (log2) group size, 2) forest canopy cover (%), and 3) a categorical activity variable (active vs. bedded). the sightability model indicated relatively steady and modest herd growth during 20062011, but estimates were less than minimum-known-alive counts. we also used the logit-normal mixed effects (lnme) mark-resight model to generate estimates of total elk population size and the sizes of the adult female and branch-antlered male subpopulations. we explored 15 lnme models to predict total population size and 12 models to predict subpopulations. our results indicated individual heterogeneity in resighting probabilities and variation in resighting probabilities across sexes and some years. model-averaged estimates of total population size increased from 639 (95% ci?=?570706) in spring 2006 to 1,248 (95% ci?=?1,0941,401) in 2011. we estimated the adult female subpopulation increased from 381 (95% ci?=?338424) in spring 2006 to 573 (95% ci?=?507639) by 2011. the branch-antlered male subpopulation estimates increased from 87 (95% ci?=?54119) to 180 (95% ci?=?118241) from spring 2006 to spring 2011. the lnme model estimates were greater than sightability model estimates and minimum-known-alive counts. we concluded that mark-resight performed better and was a viable approach for monitoring this small elk population and possibly others with similar characteristics (i.e., small population and landscape scales), but this approach requires periodic marking of elk; we estimated mark-resight costs would be about 40% greater than sightability model application costs. the utility of sightability-correction modeling was limited by a high proportion of groups with low detectability on our densely forested landscape. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." @@ -3212,7 +3217,7 @@ survival and movement patterns of central california coast native steelhead trou control of invasive american bullfrog lithobates catesbeianus in small shallow water bodies,catchability; catch-depletion; double fyke nets; management; mark-recapture; rana catesbeiana,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,LOUETTE G;DEVISSCHER S;ADRIAENS T,"setting up cost-efficient control programs for alien invasive species requires the development of adequate removal methods in combination with insights in population size and dynamics. american bullfrog lithobates catesbeianus is an alien invasive species, which is suspected to cause substantial ecological damage around the globe. however, control of bullfrog populations is difficult, as no conclusive management measures have yet been determined. we investigated how double fyke nets could contribute to bullfrog management by assessing the tadpole population size in 10 permanent small shallow water bodies. two population size estimate methods were applied, being the catch-depletion and mark-recapture method. catchability of bullfrog tadpoles proved to be very consistent over ponds and methods, with one catch per unit of effort (one double fyke net for 24 h) retaining on average 6 % of the tadpole population. population density varied considerably among ponds, ranging from 950 to 120,804 larger tadpole individuals/ha. using these insights in developing a cost-efficient eradication program for the species, we projected the number of catch efforts needed to reduce tadpole numbers to a threshold that more than likely affects final bullfrog population size. predictions indicated that for the specified thresholds the use of eight double fyke nets at a time is most cost-efficient in high abundance populations, while using five double fyke nets seems most suitable in low abundance populations. what the exact threshold number of remaining tadpole individuals should be is uncertain, but forecasts demonstrate that only half of the budget would be needed when aiming at a drop to fewer than 100 remaining tadpoles than when a decrease to fewer than 10 remaining tadpoles is pursued. given the fairly limited cost of bullfrog management with double fyke nets, however, it may be worthwhile to fully reduce the tadpole population." "density and habitat use of the leopard cat (prionailurus bengalensis) in three commercial forest reserves in sabah, malaysian borneo",camera-trapping; felidae; logging concession; southeast asia; spatial capture-recapture models,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,MOHAMED A;SOLLMANN R;BERNARD H;AMBU LN;LAGAN P;MANNAN S;HOFER H;WILTING A,"the small (2- to 7-kg) leopard cat (prionailurus bengalensis) is the most common cat species in asia. although it occurs in a wide range of habitats and seems to adapt well to anthropogenic habitat changes, surprisingly little is known about this species in the wild. all studies have focused on protected areas, although a large proportion of southeast asian forests are timber concessions. during this study, we used large camera-trapping data sets (783 records of 124 individuals) from 3 commercially used forests to investigate consequences of different logging regimes on density and habitat associations of the leopard cat. we applied spatial capture recapture models accounting for the location of camera-traps (on or off road) to obtain estimates of leopard cat density. density was higher in the 2 more disturbed forest reserves ((x) over bar = 12.4 individuals/100 km(2) +/- 1.6 se and 16.5 +/- 2 individuals/100 km(2)) than in the sustainably managed forest (9.6 +/- 1.7 individuals/100 km(2)). encounter rates with off-road traps were only 3.6-9.1% of those for on-road traps. occupancy models, which accounted for spatial autocorrelation between sampling sites by using a conditional autoregressive model, revealed that canopy closure and ratio of climax to pioneer trees had a significantly negative impact on leopard cat occurrence. our results confirm that the leopard cat is doing well in modified landscapes and even seems to benefit from the opening of forests. with such flexibility the leopard cat is an exception among tropical rain-forest carnivores." population connectivity: recent advances and new perspectives,dispersal; spatial ecology; review; tracking; population genetics; modeling; conservation; management,LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY,KOOL JT;MOILANEN A;TREML EA,"connectivity is a vital component of metapopulation and landscape ecology, influencing fundamental processes such as population dynamics, evolution, and community responses to climate change. here, we review ongoing developments in connectivity science, providing perspectives on recent advances in identifying, quantifying, modelling and analysing connectivity, and highlight new applications for conservation. we also address ongoing challenges for connectivity research, explore opportunities for addressing them and highlight potential linkages with other fields of research. continued development of connectivity science will provide insights into key aspects of ecology and the evolution of species, and will also contribute significantly towards achieving more effective conservation outcomes." -towards good practice guidance in using camera-traps in ecology: influence of sampling design on validity of ecological inferences,arctic; subarctic ecosystem; detectability; error rate; occupancy; precision; sampling strategy; scavengers; species occurrence,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HAMEL S;KILLENGREEN ST;HENDEN JA;EIDE NE;ROED-ERIKSEN L;IMS RA;YOCCOZ NG,"the development of camera-traps has provided an opportunity to study ecological relationships and population dynamics of species that are rare, difficult to observe or capture. their use has seen a major increase recently, particularly with the recent progress in methods adapted to species for which individuals cannot be identified. we took advantage of extensive camera-trap data sets from large spatiotemporal-scale studies of a diverse assemblage of avian and mammalian scavengers in subarctic/arctic tundra to determine sampling designs that minimize detection errors (false-negative) and to evaluate the influence of sampling design on estimation of site occupancy. results showed that raw error rates in daily presence varied between 5 and 30% among species when using time-triggered cameras with a 5-min interval. using movement-triggered cameras resulted in larger raw error rates, between 30 and 70%, as well as a lower number of daily presences detected. increasing the time interval from 5 to 20min greatly increased the raw error rate in daily presence, but it had negligible impacts on estimates and precision of occupancy and detection probability. occupancy estimates were mostly influenced by variation in the number of days included during the sampling period. for most species, a threshold of between 20 and 30 problem-free days (i.e. without camera-related technical problems) was required to stabilize occupancy and detection probability, as well as to maximize their precision. based on the results, we discuss guidelines for establishing sampling designs according to the different ecological questions researchers might want to answer. to our knowledge, our study is the first to directly test the influence of sampling design in camera-trap studies, providing guidelines that are likely to be directly applicable to a large range of species and ecosystems." +towards good practice guidance in using camera-traps in ecology: influence of sampling design on validity of ecological inferences,arctic; subarctic ecosystem; detectability; error rate; occupancy; precision; sampling strategy; scavengers; species occurrence,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HAMEL S;KILLENGREEN ST;HENDEN JA;EIDE NE;ROED ERIKSEN L;IMS RA;YOCCOZ NG,"the development of camera-traps has provided an opportunity to study ecological relationships and population dynamics of species that are rare, difficult to observe or capture. their use has seen a major increase recently, particularly with the recent progress in methods adapted to species for which individuals cannot be identified. we took advantage of extensive camera-trap data sets from large spatiotemporal-scale studies of a diverse assemblage of avian and mammalian scavengers in subarctic/arctic tundra to determine sampling designs that minimize detection errors (false-negative) and to evaluate the influence of sampling design on estimation of site occupancy. results showed that raw error rates in daily presence varied between 5 and 30% among species when using time-triggered cameras with a 5-min interval. using movement-triggered cameras resulted in larger raw error rates, between 30 and 70%, as well as a lower number of daily presences detected. increasing the time interval from 5 to 20min greatly increased the raw error rate in daily presence, but it had negligible impacts on estimates and precision of occupancy and detection probability. occupancy estimates were mostly influenced by variation in the number of days included during the sampling period. for most species, a threshold of between 20 and 30 problem-free days (i.e. without camera-related technical problems) was required to stabilize occupancy and detection probability, as well as to maximize their precision. based on the results, we discuss guidelines for establishing sampling designs according to the different ecological questions researchers might want to answer. to our knowledge, our study is the first to directly test the influence of sampling design in camera-trap studies, providing guidelines that are likely to be directly applicable to a large range of species and ecosystems." evaluation of data quality at the gambia national cancer registry,cancer registry; quality control; validity; completeness; africa,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CANCER,SHIMAKAWA Y;BAH E;WILD CP;HALL AJ,"the gambia national cancer registry (gncr) is one of the few nationwide population-based cancer registries in sub-saharan africa. most registries in sub-saharan africa are limited to cities; therefore, the gncr is important in providing estimates of cancer incidence in rural africa. our study assesses the quality of its data. the methods proposed by bray and parkin, and parkin and bray (eur j cancer 2009;45:74764) were applied to the registry data from 1990 to 2009 to assess comparability, validity and completeness. the system used for classification and coding of neoplasms followed international standards. the percentage of cases morphologically verified was 18.1% for men and 33.1% for women, and that of death certificate only cases was 6.6 and 3.6%, respectively. incidence rates in rural regions were lower than in the urban part of the country, except amongst young male adults. comparison with other west african registries showed that the incidences of liver and uterine cervical cancer were comparable, but those of prostate and breast in the gambia were relatively low. the overall completeness was estimated at 50.3% using the capturerecapture method. the gncr applies international standard practices to data collection and handling, providing valuable data on cancer incidence in sub-saharan africa. however, the data are incomplete in the rural and elderly populations probably because of health care access and use." survival of reared atlantic salmon (salmo salar) smolts during downstream migration and its timing: a case study in the pirita river,NA,BOREAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH,KESLER M;VETEMAA M;SAKS L;SAAT T,"kesler, m., vetemaa, m., saks, l. & saat, t. 2013: survival of reared atlantic salmon (salmo salar) smolts during downstream migration and its timing: a case study in the pirita river. boreal env. res. 18:53-60. downstream migration of 1- and 2-year-old reared atlantic salmon (salmo salar) smolts in the pirita river was studied using a mark recapture method. age affected the migration duration. majority of the 2-year-old fish reached the sea within a week after release, but younger, 1-year-old fish, descended later and reached the sea a few weeks after stocking. a few 1-year-old fish remained in the river for an additional year and migrated one year later, simultaneously with wild smolts. on average, 2-year-old smolts had higher survival (44%) than 1-year-old smolts (18.8%). hence, the efficiency of stocking programs most probably depends not only on the number of stocked fish, but also on their age, timing of smoltification and on environmental conditions." "interpreting dispersal patterns of reproductive female hierophis viridiflavus (lacepede, 1789), around a communal nesting site (squamata: serpentes: colubridae)",reptilia: squamata: serpentes: colubridae; hierophis viridiflavus; communal nesting; movement behavior; central italy,HERPETOZOA,RUGIERO L;CAPULA M;VIGNOLI L;LUISELLI L,"using data acquired over 17 years, dispersal patterns around a communal nesting site (cns) of adult females of the oviparous colubrid snake hierophis viridiflavus (lacepede, 1789), were investigated. the authors analyzed capture-mark-recapture data in terms of the distances at which adult females were found from their cns i.e., oviposition place. the data revealed the following: (1) some reproductive females seem to be able to switch between the options of ovipositing at the cns or elsewhere. (2) females who oviposited at the cns in a given year were by trend observed at short distances from this oviposition site in the year before the effective nesting. (3) females of poor body condition after oviposition engaged in longer displacements from the communal nesting site, possibly to increase foraging efficiency and rebuild lost body reserves prior to entering brumation." @@ -3231,21 +3236,21 @@ polar bear use of a persistent food subsidy: insights from non-invasive genetic growth rates of black caiman (melanosuchus niger) and spectacled caiman (caiman crocodilus) from two different amazonian flooded habitats,alligatoridae; crocodylia; demography; mark-recapture,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,DA SILVEIRA R;CAMPOS Z;THORBJARNARSON J;MAGNUSSON WE,"rates of growth and survival in wild populations are affected by the physical environment, biotic interactions, and density-dependent processes, such as growth and fecundity. however, the relative importance of these factors in long-lived reptiles is poorly understood. we analyzed growth rates of melanosuchus niger and caiman crocodilus coexisting in two areas of the brazilian amazon with very different environmental characteristics. growth rates of caiman crocodilus at the two sites were similar, but m. niger grew more slowly in the area with higher productivity and higher density of caimans. growth rates of the same species from other sites and of the temperate-zone alligator mississippiensis indicate large differences among sites, but little evidence that these differences are primarily due to differences in productivity or temperature. demographic models used to estimate sustained yields from caiman harvests should take into account the likely importance of density-dependent growth." iris photo-identification: a new methodology for the individual recognition of tarentola geckos,capture-mark-recapture; (is)-s-3; individual-identification; tarentola boettgeri bischoffi,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,ROCHA R;CARRILHO T;REBELO R,"gekkonid field studies are hampered by the difficulty to individually recognize individuals. in this study we assess the feasibility of using their variegated iris pattern to photo-identify tarentola boettgeri bischoffi, a threatened macaronesian endemic. using a library of 924 photos taken over a 9-month period we also evaluate the use of the pattern matching software interactive individual identification system ( (is)-s-3) to match photos of known specimens. individuals were clearly recognized by their iris pattern with no misidentifications, and using i3s lead to a correct identification of 95% of the recaptures in a shorter time than the same process when conducted visually by an observer. the method's feasibility was improved by increasing the number of images of each animal in the library and hindered by photos that deviate from a horizontal angle." sex differences in residency of adult spotted seatrout in a louisiana estuary,NA,MARINE AND COASTAL FISHERIES,CALLIHAN JL;COWAN JH;HARBISON MD,"spotted seatrout cynoscion nebulosus is the most highly sought after recreational species along the u.s. gulf coast. however, movement information for this economically and ecologically important species is currently limited to data from mark-recapture studies. we used remote acoustic telemetry, a high-resolution, fisheries-independent technique, to examine the residency of adult spotted seatrout (n = 172) in a louisiana estuary, calcasieu lake (approximate to 300km(2)). an estuarine-wide array of 60 receivers was deployed for a 2.5-year period (may 2007-october 2009) to detect and quantify how long fish were present in the estuary and determine the proportion of fish that emigrated from the system. we then determined how these metrics (detection period and emigration) were related to fish size, sex, and season of release. emigration was highly seasonal and occurred exclusively during late spring and summer when water temperatures exceeded 24 degrees c. surprisingly, male spotted seatrout, regardless of their size, were more likely than females to permanently emigrate from the estuary (i.e., not return within the 1-year battery life of transmitters) as evidenced by their shorter mean detection periods (males = 134 d, females = 177 d) and higher incidence of emigration (29-42% of males, but only 14-16% of females emigrated). assessment and management strategies for this species may be improved by explicitly considering this behavioral difference between sexes. namely, conducting stock assessments at a finer spatial scale (i.e., estuarine-specific versus state-wide) appears warranted given the high estuarine fidelity of females (approximate to 85%), which exacerbates their potential for localized depletions due to anthropogenic stressors (e.g., fishing pressure, habitat alteration, or pollution)." -estimation of esophageal cancer incidence in tehran by log-linear method using population-based cancer registry data,incidence estimation; log-linear; esophageal cancer; cancer registration; akaike statistics,ASIAN PACIFIC JOURNAL OF CANCER PREVENTION,MOSAVI-JARRAHI A;AHMADI-JOUIBARI T;NAJAFI F;MEHRABI Y;AGHAEI A,"background: having knowledge or estimation of cancer incidence is necessary for planning and implementation of any cancer prevention and control programs. population-based registries provide valuable information to achieve these objectives but require extra techniques to estimate the incidence rate. the present study aimed to estimate the esophageal cancer incidence using a log-linear method based on tehran population-based cancer registry data. materials and methods: new cases of esophageal cancer reported by three sources of pathology reports, medical records, and death certificates to tehran metropolitan area cancer registry center during 2002-2006 were entered into the study and the incidence rate was estimated based on log-linear models. we used akaike statistics to select the best-fit model. results: during 2002-2006, 1,458 new cases of esophageal cancer were reported by the mentioned sources to the population-based cancer registry. based on the reported cases, cancer incidence was 4.5 per 100,000 population and this was estimated to be 10.5 per 100,000 by the log-linear method. conclusions: based on the obtained results, it can be concluded that an estimated incidence for 2004 of 8.3 per 100,000 population could be a good benchmark for the incidence of esophageal cancer in the population of tehran metropolis." +estimation of esophageal cancer incidence in tehran by log-linear method using population-based cancer registry data,incidence estimation; log-linear; esophageal cancer; cancer registration; akaike statistics,ASIAN PACIFIC JOURNAL OF CANCER PREVENTION,MOSAVI JARRAHI A;AHMADI JOUIBARI T;NAJAFI F;MEHRABI Y;AGHAEI A,"background: having knowledge or estimation of cancer incidence is necessary for planning and implementation of any cancer prevention and control programs. population-based registries provide valuable information to achieve these objectives but require extra techniques to estimate the incidence rate. the present study aimed to estimate the esophageal cancer incidence using a log-linear method based on tehran population-based cancer registry data. materials and methods: new cases of esophageal cancer reported by three sources of pathology reports, medical records, and death certificates to tehran metropolitan area cancer registry center during 2002-2006 were entered into the study and the incidence rate was estimated based on log-linear models. we used akaike statistics to select the best-fit model. results: during 2002-2006, 1,458 new cases of esophageal cancer were reported by the mentioned sources to the population-based cancer registry. based on the reported cases, cancer incidence was 4.5 per 100,000 population and this was estimated to be 10.5 per 100,000 by the log-linear method. conclusions: based on the obtained results, it can be concluded that an estimated incidence for 2004 of 8.3 per 100,000 population could be a good benchmark for the incidence of esophageal cancer in the population of tehran metropolis." nocturnal distance sampling of a mediterranean population of fallow deer is consistent with population projections,capture-mark-recapture; dama dama; mediterranean environment; stochastic demographic projections; thermal imagery,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,FOCARDI S;FRANZETTI B;RONCHI F,"context precise and accurate methods are essential to assess wildlife populations for sound management. we surveyed a managed population of fallow deer (dama dama) in a mediterranean environment in italy, where this non-native ungulate has a negative impact on biodiversity. aims we compare nocturnal distance-sampling (deer are detected by thermal imagery at night) population estimates with demographic projections of the same population. methods we estimated natural survival in fawns (0.86), yearlings (0.83), adult males (0.70) and adult females (0.90) using capture-mark-recapture. by integrating survival estimates with population structure, reproductive traits and harvest data, we performed demographic projections. we performed nocturnal distance sampling on foot by using a thermal imagery once a year (in autumn) from 2001 to 2005. we walked 75-77km (71 transects) per each survey. key results we showed that our survey design met distance-sampling assumptions. distance sampling and demographic projections yielded similar and precise (12.6%500 resident snakes per hectare). reproductive and mortality rates are elevated, suggesting a high population turnover. these traits evoke a tropical rather than a temperate-climate ophidian demographic system. the population is highly polymorphic, three colour morphs (dotted, grey, and black) are observed in both sexes and each morph is represented by large numbers of individuals. this polymorphism pattern was not previously documented in snakes. data obtained for other life history traits (e.g. body size, size at maturity, clutch size, diet, predation) markedly diverged in comparison to available information. overall, our results reinforce the notion that the strong inter-population variability (often mediated by phenotypic plasticity) of snakes should be taken into account over large geographic scales; otherwise attempts to derive general patterns may well be strongly biased. (c) 2012 elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." +unexpected life history traits in a very dense population of dice snakes,juveniles; macedonia; mark recapture study; mortality; natural history; colour polymorphism; population density; predation; reproduction; sexual dimorphism; snake,ZOOLOGISCHER ANZEIGER,AJTIC R;TOMOVIC L;STERIJOVSKI B;CRNOBRNJA ISAILOVIC J;DJORDJEVIC S;DJURAKIC M;GOLUBOVIC A;SIMOVIC A;ARSOVSKI D;ANDJELKOVIC M;KRSTIC M;SUKALO G;GVOZDENOVIC S;AIDAM A;MICHEL CL;BALLOUARD JM;BONNET X,"a population of dice snakes (natrix tessellate) monitored since 2008 in a small island (18 ha, 850 m a.s.l., fyr of macedonia) revealed unforeseen patterns for snakes living in temperate climates. more than 5000 individuals have been marked and the density is one of the highest ever recorded (>500 resident snakes per hectare). reproductive and mortality rates are elevated, suggesting a high population turnover. these traits evoke a tropical rather than a temperate-climate ophidian demographic system. the population is highly polymorphic, three colour morphs (dotted, grey, and black) are observed in both sexes and each morph is represented by large numbers of individuals. this polymorphism pattern was not previously documented in snakes. data obtained for other life history traits (e.g. body size, size at maturity, clutch size, diet, predation) markedly diverged in comparison to available information. overall, our results reinforce the notion that the strong inter-population variability (often mediated by phenotypic plasticity) of snakes should be taken into account over large geographic scales; otherwise attempts to derive general patterns may well be strongly biased. (c) 2012 elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." screening by telephone in the alzheimer's disease anti-inflammatory prevention trial,alzheimer's disease; dementia; geriatric assessment; memory disorders; mild cognitive impairment; neuropsychology; prodromal period; telephone,JOURNAL OF ALZHEIMERS DISEASE,RECKESS GZ;BRANDT J;LUIS CA;ZANDI P;MARTIN B;BREITNER JCS,"compared with in-person assessment methods, telephone screening for dementia and other cognitive syndromes may improve efficiency of large population studies or prevention trials. we used data from the alzheimer's disease anti-inflammatory prevention trial to compare performance of a four-test telephone assessment battery (tab) that included the telephone interview for cognitive status (tics) to that of a traditional in-person cognitive assessment battery. among 1,548 elderly participants with valid telephone and in-person screening results obtained within 90 days of each other, 225 persons were referred for a full cognitive diagnostic evaluation that was completed within six months of screening. drawing on results from this panel of 225 individuals, we used the capture-recapture method to estimate population numbers of cognitively impaired participants. the latter estimates enabled us to compare the performance characteristics of the two screening batteries at specified cut-offs for detection of dementia and milder forms of impairment. although our results provide relatively imprecise estimates of the performance characteristics of the two batteries, a comparison of their relative performance suggests that, at selected cut-off points, the tab produces results broadly comparable to in-person screening and may be slightly more sensitive in detecting mild impairment. tab performance characteristics also appeared slightly better than those of the tics alone. given its benefits in time and cost when screening for cognitive disorders, telephone screening should be considered for large samples." "techniques for optimising long-term, large-scale capture-mark-resighting raptor studies: climb hard, band fast",bird banding; lifetime reproductive success; study design; vid bands,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,HURLEY VG;WHITE JG;COOKE R,"context. efficiency of large-scale capture-mark-recapture (cmr) studies can be improved by developing accurate methods for predicting the window of opportunity in which banding can occur. aims. this research aimed to investigate potential efficiency improvements in a long-term cmr raptor study. the research focussed on: (1) developing selection processes for adopting cmr protocols; (2) testing methods for increasing the number of nestlings successfully banded; and (3) assessing the efficacy of visual identification (vid) bands for collecting re-sight data. methods. ten selection criteria were developed into a robust cmr-technique selection process and used to assess marking techniques commonly applied to birds. optimising banding effort by predicting banding dates using two different techniques a priori and a posteriori were tested against a traditional approach to the timing of banding. the cost (in time) to collect resight data at an active nest site was also measured. key results. the cmr selection criteria and parameters provided a transparent selection process and scored metal vid bands the highest for the study design. this provided individual recognition of marked birds up to the expected life-span of 14 years. both techniques for predicting banding dates improved the proportion of whole clutches banded by 40%. the average time to identify both peregrine falcon adults of a breeding pair wearing vid bands was 30 min. conclusions. the two methods described here for predicting preferred banding dates are of particular value as efficient approaches to banding large numbers of nestlings are key to the success of cmr studies. all of the methods developed in this research can be applied to cmr studies of almost any bird species with a predictable seasonal breeding system. implications. optimisation and cost effectiveness of cmr studies for seasonal breeding birds can be significantly improved by accurately predicting the window of opportunity in which banding of nestlings can be carried out, and also utilising vid colour bands for rapid collection of recapture data." adaptive sampling strategies for non-intrusive pod-based surrogates,adaptive sampling; high-fidelity simulations; non-intrusive reduced-order model; proper orthogonal decomposition; surrogate-based optimization; sampling methods; simulation,ENGINEERING COMPUTATIONS,GUENOT M;LEPOT I;SAINVITU C;GOBLET J;COELHO RF,"purpose - the purpose of this paper is to propose a novel contribution to adaptive sampling strategies for non-intrusive reduced order models based on proper orthogonal decomposition (pod). these strategies aim at reducing the cost of optimization by improving the efficiency and accuracy of pod data-fitting surrogate models to be used in an online surrogate-assisted optimization framework for industrial design. design/methodology/approach - the effect of the strategies on the model accuracy is investigated considering the snapshot scaling, the design of experiment size and the truncation level of the pod basis and compared to a state-of-the-art radial basis function network surrogate model on objectives and constraints. the selected test case is a mach number and angle of attack domain exploration of the well-known rae2822 airfoil. preliminary airfoil shape optimization results are also shown. findings - the numerical results demonstrate the potential of the capture/recapture schemes proposed for adequately filling the parametric space and maximizing the surrogates relevance at minimum computational cost. originality/value - the proposed approaches help in building pod-based surrogate models more efficiently." @@ -3255,7 +3260,7 @@ use of bayesian population viability analysis to assess multiple management deci traceability issues in the trade of marine ornamental species,traceability methods; marking methods; certification; sustainability; supply chain,REVIEWS IN FISHERIES SCIENCE,COHEN FPA;VALENTI WC;CALADO R,"in the last decade, the trade of marine ornamental species has experienced a significant expansion worldwide; however, this industry still relies on a large number of unsustainable practices (e. g., cyanide fishing, overexploitation of target species) and needs to shift its operations urgently to avoid collapsing. under this scenario, traceability and certification emerge as important management tools that may help this industry to shift toward sustainability. this industry relies on the trade of thousands of small-sized species that are traded live on a unitary basis with high market value. these features, along with a fragmented and complex supply chain, make the traceability of marine ornamental species a challenging task. this study presents the most commonly used methods to trace aquatic organisms and discusses their suitability to trace marine ornamental species. the use of bacterial fingerprints appears to be the most promising method to successfully trace marine ornamentals, but it is most likely that a combination of two or more traceability methods need to be implemented to cover all the unique features displayed by the live trade of marine ornamental species." "behavioural patterns of a tiger shark (galeocerdo cuvier) feeding aggregation at a blue whale carcass in prony bay, new caledonia",tiger shark; galeocerdo cuvier; scavenging behaviour; intra-specific dominance; feeding frenzy; biting; photo-identification; finbase((c)),MARINE AND FRESHWATER BEHAVIOUR AND PHYSIOLOGY,CLUA E;CHAUVET C;READ T;WERRY JM;LEE SY,"tiger sharks, galeocerdo cuvier, are large top-level predators usually solitary as adults. observation of their scavenging activity on the carcass of a dead whale offered a rare opportunity for better understanding the pattern of intra-specific behaviour within the aggregations of these large predators. in january 2002, the stranding, subsequent death and consumption of a 17.4m total length (tl) blue whale, balaenoptera musculus, was observed and filmed in prony bay, southern new caledonia. after three weeks of confinement in the bay, the cetacean was killed by adult bullsharks carcharhinus leucas. the first adult tiger shark was subsequently observed around the carcass after 36h. the fat slicks from the carcass attracted further tiger sharks which arrived after an additional 24h. the use of photo-identification on video footage collected during four observation sessions over an eight-day period identified 46 individual tiger sharks (primarily adult females between 3.3 and 4m tl) participating in the feeding aggregation. only four animals were identified in two seperate observation sessions (over two consecutive days), suggesting a short-term residency pattern of several hours (<36h) around the carcass. as the arrival time of tiger sharks to the carcass differed, most arrivals of a new participant were followed by a frenzied period of intense intra-specific interaction. different biting and agonistic behaviours were demonstrated by the tiger sharks on the carcass, including three new behaviours previously undescribed for this species. size and level of aggressiveness appeared to be the determining factors of dominance amongst tiger sharks. these observations and analysis demonstrate that systematic study of feeding aggregations supported by photo-identification could contribute to knowledge of large shark ecology when coupled with capture-recapture, genetic fingerprinting and tagging techniques." "injecting drug users in scotland, 2006: listing, number, demography, and opiate-related death-rates",bayesian; capture-recapture; injectors; opiate-related deaths; sex; age,ADDICTION RESEARCH & THEORY,KING R;BIRD SM;OVERSTALL A;HAY G;HUTCHINSON SJ,"using bayesian capture-recapture analysis, we estimated the number of current injecting drug users (idus) in scotland in 2006 from the cross-counts of 5670 idus listed on four data-sources: social enquiry reports (901 idus listed), hospital records (953), drug treatment agencies (3504), and recent hepatitis c virus (hcv) diagnoses (827 listed as idu-risk). further, we accessed exact numbers of opiate-related drugs-related deaths (drds) in 2006 and 2007 to improve estimation of scotland's drd rates per 100 current idus. using all four data-sources, and model-averaging of standard hierarchical log-linear models to allow for pairwise interactions between data-sources and/or demographic classifications, scotland had an estimated 31700 idus in 2006 (95% credible interval: 24900-38700); but 25000 idus (95% ci: 20700-35000) by excluding recent hcv diagnoses whose idu-risk can refer to past injecting. only in the younger age-group (15-34 years) were scotland's opiate-related drd rates significantly lower for females than males. older males' opiate-related drd rate was 1.9 (1.24-2.40) per 100 current idus without or 1.3 (0.94-1.64) with inclusion of recent hcv diagnoses. if, indeed, scotland had only 25000 current idus in 2006, with only 8200 of them aged 35+years, the opiate-related drd rate is higher among this older age group than has been appreciated hitherto. there is counter-balancing good news for the public health: the hitherto sharp increase in older current idus had stalled by 2006." -what is the 'real' admission rate of acute pancreatitis in a regional australian population?,NA,AUSTRALIAN HEALTH REVIEW,TURNER RC;D'ONISE K;WANG Y,"objective. capture-recapture analysis was used to more accurately quantify the admission rate for acute pancreatitis in a regional hospital setting, in comparison to the usual method of case ascertainment. reasons for differences in capture for the various methods were also sought. methods. admissions for acute pancreatitis were enumerated over a 40-month period using three data sources: hospital classification of admission diagnoses, prospective case identification, and receipt of diagnosis-specific pathology specimens. capture-recapture analysis was applied with log-linear modelling to account for likely dependency between data sources. covariates were noted to explain capture probability by the various data sources and for eventual stratification in the analysis process. results. for the census period, there were 304 admissions after merging of data sources, giving a crude admission rate of 7.6 per month. crude ascertainment rates for discharge records and prospective identification were 44% and 52% respectively. following log-linear modelling, total admissions more than doubled to 644 (adjusted admission rate 16.1 per month). of the covariates considered, admissions of less than three days' duration and those occurring in december and january were significantly associated with increased capture by the hospital discharge records data source. conclusions. in this clinical setting, admissions for acute pancreatitis are grossly underestimated by the standard case ascertainment method. the reasons for this are not clear. hospital discharge records are nevertheless more effective than prospective case ascertainment for certain cases, such as brief admissions and those in holiday periods." +what is the 'real' admission rate of acute pancreatitis in a regional australian population?,NA,AUSTRALIAN HEALTH REVIEW,TURNER RC;D ONISE K;WANG Y,"objective. capture-recapture analysis was used to more accurately quantify the admission rate for acute pancreatitis in a regional hospital setting, in comparison to the usual method of case ascertainment. reasons for differences in capture for the various methods were also sought. methods. admissions for acute pancreatitis were enumerated over a 40-month period using three data sources: hospital classification of admission diagnoses, prospective case identification, and receipt of diagnosis-specific pathology specimens. capture-recapture analysis was applied with log-linear modelling to account for likely dependency between data sources. covariates were noted to explain capture probability by the various data sources and for eventual stratification in the analysis process. results. for the census period, there were 304 admissions after merging of data sources, giving a crude admission rate of 7.6 per month. crude ascertainment rates for discharge records and prospective identification were 44% and 52% respectively. following log-linear modelling, total admissions more than doubled to 644 (adjusted admission rate 16.1 per month). of the covariates considered, admissions of less than three days' duration and those occurring in december and january were significantly associated with increased capture by the hospital discharge records data source. conclusions. in this clinical setting, admissions for acute pancreatitis are grossly underestimated by the standard case ascertainment method. the reasons for this are not clear. hospital discharge records are nevertheless more effective than prospective case ascertainment for certain cases, such as brief admissions and those in holiday periods." the mark-recapture method applied to population estimates of a freshwater crab on an alluvial plain,parana river; petersen; schnabel; schumacher-eschmeyer; trichodactylidae,MARINE AND FRESHWATER RESEARCH,CARVALHO DD;COLLINS PA;DE BONIS CJ,"mark-recapture methods are a useful population estimation tool, although with many assumptions that cannot always be satisfied for all types of organisms and environments. in the present study, three mark-recapture methods (petersen, schnabel and schumacher-eschmeyer) were applied in a preliminary trial to estimate the population size of the crab trichodactylus borellianus and to gain information that would support the use of the methods in the field. the accuracy of these estimates was verified by analysing the percentage of bias, the width of the confidence intervals, and by a chi-square test. the assumptions of equal catchability and closed population were verified, along with assumptions related to the efficiency of marking. the adjusted methodology was applied in a short-term study of a pond on the parana floodplain. the results showed that the assumptions were satisfied for both the experimental and field studies. the schnabel was the most accurate method evaluated in both studies. although the schumacher-eschmeyer method also provided accurate results in the field study, it needed large samples to give reliable estimates. the applicability of these methods depends on the stage of the hydrological cycle. the choice of a short-term research design will ensure that the assumption of a closed population is valid for research of this type on an alluvial plain." survival estimates for the australian sea lion: negative correlation of sea surface temperature with cohort survival to weaning,mark-recapture; neophoca cinerea; otariid; threatened species,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,MCINTOSH RR;ARTHUR AD;DENNIS T;BERRIS M;GOLDSWORTHY SD;SHAUGHNESSY PD;TEIXEIRA CEP,"the australian sea lion (neophoca cinerea) population at seal bay conservation park, south australia, is estimated to be declining at a rate of 1.14% per breeding season. to better understand the potential causes of this decline, survival rates were examined to 14 yr of age for eight cohorts marked as pups (aged 0.17 yr) between 1991 and 2002. apparent yearly survival rates (phi) varied by cohort for pups from marking to weaning at 1.5 yr (phi = 0.30-0.67). postweaning juvenile survival (1.5-3 yr) was 0.89 and survival from 3 to 14 yr was constant (phi female: male = 0.96: 0.89). phi of pup cohorts was negatively correlated to local sea surface temperature where the sea lions forage (sst) and was especially low for cohort 7 in 2000 (0.30). it is possible that periods of unusually warm oceanographic conditions may be limiting primary production and inhibiting maternal provisioning to pups. pup survival to weaning is relatively low compared to other otariid species, is likely to limit recruitment, and may be contributing to the decline in pup abundance observed in the colony." identifying signature whistles from recordings of groups of unrestrained bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus),methods; signature whistle; communication; tursiops truncatus; bioacoustics; mark-recapture,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,JANIK VM;KING SL;SAYIGH LS;WELLS RS,"bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) have individually distinctive signature whistles. each individual dolphin develops its own unique frequency modulation pattern and uses it to broadcast its identity. however, underwater sound localization is challenging, and researchers have had difficulties identifying signature whistles. the traditional method to identify them involved isolating individuals. in this context, the signature whistle is the most commonly produced whistle type of an animal. however, most studies on wild dolphins cannot isolate animals. we present a novel method, signature identification (sigid), that can identify signature whistles in recordings of groups of dolphins recorded via a single hydrophone. we found that signature whistles tend to be delivered in bouts with whistles of the same type occurring within 1-10 s of each other. nonsignature whistles occur with longer or shorter interwhistle intervals, and this distinction can be used to identify signature whistles in a recording. we tested this method on recordings from wild and captive bottlenose dolphins and show thresholds needed to identify signature whistles reliably. sigid will facilitate the study of signature whistle use in the wild, signature whistle diversity between different populations, and potentially allow signature whistles to be used in mark-recapture studies." @@ -3274,7 +3279,7 @@ temporal patterns in growth and survival of the round goby neogobius melanostomu a general model of detectability using species traits,false absence; impact assessment; priors; surveillance; survey effort; trait-based model,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GARRARD GE;MCCARTHY MA;WILLIAMS NSG;BEKESSY SA;WINTLE BA,"imperfect detectability is a critical source of variation that limits ecological progress and frustrates effective conservation management. available modelling methods provide valuable detectability estimates, but these are typically species-specific. we present a novel application of time-to-detection modelling in which detectability of multiple species is a function of plant traits and observer characteristics. the model is demonstrated for plants in a temperate grassland community in south-eastern australia. we demonstrate that detectability can be estimated using observer experience, species population size and likelihood of flowering. the inclusion of flower colour and species distinctiveness improves the capacity of the model to predict detection rates for new species. we demonstrate the application of the general model to plants in a temperate grassland community, but this modelling method may be extended to other communities or taxa for which time-to-detection models are appropriate. detectability is influenced by traits of the species and the observer. general models can be used to derive detectability estimates where repeat survey data, point counts or mark-recapture data are not available. as these data are almost always absent for species of conservation concern, general models such as ours will be useful for informing minimum survey requirements for monitoring and impact assessment, without the delays and costs associated with data collection." implementing the trinomial mark-recapture-recovery model in program mark,mark-recapture-recovery; missing data; program mark; rmark; time varying individual covariates; trinomial model,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BONNER SJ,"time-varying individual covariates present a challenge in modelling data from markrecapturerecovery (mrr) experiments of wild animals. many values of the covariate will be unknown because they can be observed only when an individual is captured, and the missing values cannot be ignored. catchpole et al. [journal of the royal statistical society: series b (statistical methodology), 70, 445460, 2008] presents one solution to this problem by constructing a conditional likelihood depending only on the observed covariate information the so-called trinomial model. this paper describes the link between the trinomial model and the markrecapturerecovery model of burnham (marked individuals in the study of bird population, 199213, 1993) and shows how the trinomial model can be implemented in the software package program mark. this provides the user with access to all of the features of program mark including the facilities for model building and model selection without having to write custom code. i provide details on the analysis of a simulated data set and discuss an r package developed to help users format their data and to implement the model through the existing rmark package." estimating the prevalence of crack dependence using capture-recapture with institutional and field data: a three-city study in the netherlands,capture-recapture; crack dependence; prevalence; gender; respondent-driven sampling; mark-recapture; problem drug users,SUBSTANCE USE & MISUSE,PEREZ AO;CRUYFF MJLF;BENSCHOP A;KOFF DJ,"the aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of crack dependence in the three largest dutch cities (amsterdam, rotterdam, the hague), stratified by gender and age. three-sample capture-recapture, using data (collected between 2009 and 2011) from low threshold substitution treatment (n = 1,764), user rooms (n = 546), and a respondent-driven sample (n = 549), and applying log-linear modeling (covariates: gender, age, and city), provided a prevalence rate of 0.51% (95% ci: 0.46%-0.60%) for the population aged 15-64 years, with similar estimates for the three cities. females (23.0% of total estimate) and younger crack users (12.8% aged <35 years) might be under-represented in drug user treatment services." -contrasting effects of climatic variability on the demography of a trans-equatorial migratory seabird,breeding success; capture-recapture; cory's shearwater; migratory seabird; multi-event modelling; nest dispersal; reproductive skipping; survival; transient,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,GENOVART M;SANZ-AGUILAR A;FERNANDEZ-CHACON A;IGUAL JM;PRADEL R;FORERO MG;ORO D,"large-scale seasonal climatic indices, such as the north atlantic oscillation (nao) index or the southern oscillation index (soi), account for major variations in weather and climate around the world and may influence population dynamics in many organisms. however, assessing the extent of climate impacts on species and their life-history traits requires reliable quantitative statistical approaches. we used a new analytical tool in markrecapture, the multi-event modelling, to simultaneously assess the influence of climatic variation on multiple demographic parameters (i.e. adult survival, transient probability, reproductive skipping and nest dispersal) at two mediterranean colonies of the cory's shearwater calonectris diomedea, a trans-equatorial migratory long-lived seabird. we also analysed the impact of climate in the breeding success at the two colonies. we found a clear temporal variation of survival for cory's shearwaters, strongly associated to the large-scale soi especially in one of the colonies (up to 66% of variance explained). atlantic hurricane season is modulated by the soi and coincides with shearwater migration to their wintering areas, directly affecting survival probabilities. however, the soi was a better predictor of survival probabilities than the frequency of hurricanes; thus, we cannot discard an indirect additive effect of soi via food availability. accordingly, the proportion of transients was also correlated with soi values, indicating higher costs of first reproduction (resulting in either mortality or permanent dispersal) when bad environmental conditions occurred during winter before reproduction. breeding success was also affected by climatic factors, the nao explaining c. 41% of variance, probably as a result of its effect in the timing of peak abundance of squid and small pelagics, the main prey for shearwaters. no climatic effect was found either on reproductive skipping or on nest dispersal. contrarily to what we expect for a long-lived organism, large-scale climatic indexes had a more pronounced effect on survival and transient probabilities than on less sensitive fitness parameters such reproductive skipping or nest dispersal probabilities. the potential increase in hurricane frequency because of global warming may interact with other global change agents (such as incidental bycatch and predation by alien species) nowadays impacting shearwaters, affecting future viability of populations." +contrasting effects of climatic variability on the demography of a trans-equatorial migratory seabird,breeding success; capture-recapture; cory's shearwater; migratory seabird; multi-event modelling; nest dispersal; reproductive skipping; survival; transient,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,GENOVART M;SANZ AGUILAR A;FERNANDEZ CHACON A;IGUAL JM;PRADEL R;FORERO MG;ORO D,"large-scale seasonal climatic indices, such as the north atlantic oscillation (nao) index or the southern oscillation index (soi), account for major variations in weather and climate around the world and may influence population dynamics in many organisms. however, assessing the extent of climate impacts on species and their life-history traits requires reliable quantitative statistical approaches. we used a new analytical tool in markrecapture, the multi-event modelling, to simultaneously assess the influence of climatic variation on multiple demographic parameters (i.e. adult survival, transient probability, reproductive skipping and nest dispersal) at two mediterranean colonies of the cory's shearwater calonectris diomedea, a trans-equatorial migratory long-lived seabird. we also analysed the impact of climate in the breeding success at the two colonies. we found a clear temporal variation of survival for cory's shearwaters, strongly associated to the large-scale soi especially in one of the colonies (up to 66% of variance explained). atlantic hurricane season is modulated by the soi and coincides with shearwater migration to their wintering areas, directly affecting survival probabilities. however, the soi was a better predictor of survival probabilities than the frequency of hurricanes; thus, we cannot discard an indirect additive effect of soi via food availability. accordingly, the proportion of transients was also correlated with soi values, indicating higher costs of first reproduction (resulting in either mortality or permanent dispersal) when bad environmental conditions occurred during winter before reproduction. breeding success was also affected by climatic factors, the nao explaining c. 41% of variance, probably as a result of its effect in the timing of peak abundance of squid and small pelagics, the main prey for shearwaters. no climatic effect was found either on reproductive skipping or on nest dispersal. contrarily to what we expect for a long-lived organism, large-scale climatic indexes had a more pronounced effect on survival and transient probabilities than on less sensitive fitness parameters such reproductive skipping or nest dispersal probabilities. the potential increase in hurricane frequency because of global warming may interact with other global change agents (such as incidental bycatch and predation by alien species) nowadays impacting shearwaters, affecting future viability of populations." vertical and horizontal movements of fuller's rose weevil (coleoptera: curculionidae) in australian citrus groves,asynonychus cervinus; dispersal; mark-recapture; navel orange,ENTOMOLOGICAL SCIENCE,MO JH;STEVENS MM,"fuller's rose weevil (frw; asynonychus cervinus (boheman)) is a pest of quarantine concern in many asian markets for australian citrus. we investigated vertical (tree climbing) and horizontal movements (inter-tree movements) of frw adults in a citrus orchard during 20092011 with mark-recapture experiments. trunk traps were used to intercept tree-climbing adults. the results showed that the majority of the adults released on the foliage stayed in the canopy, however considerable numbers did drop and some dropped multiple times. the rate of drops appeared to be fixed, independent of how many times the weevils had dropped before. inter-tree movements of adults in the canopy occurred mainly within rows, probably because of touching foliage between within-row neighboring trees. movement directions on the ground were more random, when reliance on touching foliage was not necessary. according to fitted dispersal equations, the average dispersal distance was 38 m for weevils released on foliage and 127 m for those released on the ground. trunk banding with chemicals is an important control tactic for frw, and based on our results, chemicals should be applied at a high enough rate (or in a wide enough band) to ensure the weevils are killed by a single crossing. for maximum reductions of frw populations in citrus, control actions should be applied not only to infested blocks but also to neighboring blocks in the orchard." movement patterns of solitary bees in a threatened fragmented habitat,solitary bees; habitat fragmentation; movement patterns; foraging behavior; site fidelity,APIDOLOGIE,DORCHIN A;FILIN I;IZHAKI I;DAFNI A,"fragmentation and loss of natural habitats are major threats to many bee species. large, long-distance flying bees are predicted to be more efficient in utilizing resources and at the same time may function as important pollinators in a fragmented landscape. using mark-recapture experiments, this study evaluates the movement of bees belonging to the ""large, long-tongue"" guild in a threatened, fragmented habitat. bee movement between the sampling plots was limited, despite high recapture proportions within the plots. a maximum likelihood model has estimated a high degree (60 % of all marked bees) of site fidelity to the source plots and a mean traveling distance of 357 m for the bees that left the plots. additional observations on the bees' foraging behavior suggest that some anthophorine bee species can be important pollinators in the studied habitat. we suggest that the bees' site fidelity and flower constancy are the main causes for their observed conservative movement pattern." short-term but not long-term patch avoidance in an orchid-pollinating solitary wasp,capture-mark-recapture; learning; mate search; pollination; sexual deception; spatially explicit capture-recapture; thynnine,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY,WHITEHEAD MR;PEAKALL R,"the success of exploitative attraction of insect pollinators to rewardless flowers may depend on a constrained capacity for learning. in the case of sexually deceptive orchids, the extent to which pollinators can avoid dishonest signals through learning or adaptation is poorly known. we used field experiments with synthetic pheromone baits in concert with novel miniaturized marking techniques to investigate patterns of behavior and movement in neozeleboria cryptoides, the wasp pollinator of the sexually deceptive orchid chiloglottis trapeziformis. in trials of 4- and 60-min duration, visitation rates to synthetic sex pheromone declined rapidly after the first minute and remained low, suggesting short-term avoidance. using spatially explicit capture-recapture models, we then assessed if wasps maintained this avoidance for more than 24 h. among our 4 competing behavioral models, the best supported model was one which showed an increase in detection probability at a location for wasps that had previously been caught at that location. therefore, we found no evidence for long-term patch avoidance. if spatial learning underpins the short-term avoidance we observed, then this information appears not to be retained beyond 24h. the typical patterns of n. cryptoides movement (range = 0-161 m, median = 14.8) coupled with short-term patch avoidance likely promote outcrossing in the clonal, self-compatible orchid it pollinates." @@ -3284,58 +3289,58 @@ spotlight surveys for white-tailed deer: monitoring panacea or exercise in futil site fidelity of svalbard polar bears revealed by mark-recapture positions,ursus maritimus; philopatry; displacement; age and sex effects; arctic; movement,POLAR BIOLOGY,LONE K;AARS J;IMS RA,"quantifying the degree of site fidelity in polar bears' (ursus maritimus) use of denning and mating areas in spring is of considerable interest for both basic and applied purposes. we analyzed 276 spring-to-spring movements (displacements) of 178 polar bears obtained from mark-recapture in the period 1987-2010 in svalbard, norway. male and female subadults and adults showed site fidelity (only subadult females non-significantly) when their movements were compared to a scenario of random movements between all capture locations. the median observed displacement was 47.6 km (bootstrapped 95 % ci: 38.6-57.8 km), significantly smaller than the median potential displacement for random movements of 206.3 km (bootstrapped 95 % ci: 187.3-219.6 km). subadult females tended to have the longest displacements, followed by adult males and adult females. however, large individual variation both in displacement distances and recapture frequency tended to blur age and sex differences. analysis restricted to one movement for each bear showed that the difference between adult males and adult females was small and non-significant. this indicates that findings based on telemetry, which is almost always restricted to females, may be relatively representative of the whole adult barents sea population in the spring season." mating failure of female parnassius smintheus butterflies: a component but not a demographic allee effect,density-dependence; metapopulation; population regulation; spatial population dynamics; lepidoptera; papilionidae,ENTOMOLOGIA EXPERIMENTALIS ET APPLICATA,MATTER SF;ROLAND J,"female mating success affects the ecology, evolution, and conservation of species. from a population dynamic perspective, female mating failure occurring due to low population density potentially translates into negative population growth, resulting in population extinction. despite the implications, there have been surprisingly few comprehensive studies of both the causes and the population level effects of female mating failure for insects. herein, we examined the mating success of female parnassius smintheus doubleday (lepidoptera: papilionidae) butterflies and its effects on population growth. using mark-recapture data amassed from 17 interconnected populations over 12 years, we assessed whether yearly female mating success varied with local population density, and whether population growth varied with mating success. we found that there was increased female mating failure at low population density a component allee effect. however, this effect did not result in a demographic allee effect. we found that population growth was greatest at lowest densities and that there was no relationship between female mating success and population growth. these results along with a growing number of studies indicate that demographic allee effects are much less common than component effects, and they may be relatively uncommon for insects in nature." "climate change, phenology, and habitat degradation: drivers of gosling body condition and juvenile survival in lesser snow geese",arctic oscillation index; burnham model; capture-mark-recapture; chen caerulescens caerulescens; growing days; phenological mismatch; survival,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,AUBRY LM;ROCKWELL RF;COOCH EG;BROOK RW;MULDER CPH;KOONS DN,"nesting migratory geese are among the dominant herbivores in (sub) arctic environments, which have undergone unprecedented increases in temperatures and plant growing days over the last three decades. within these regions, the hudson bay lowlands are home to an overabundant breeding population of lesser snow geese that has dramatically damaged the ecosystem, with cascading effects at multiple trophic levels. in some areas the overabundance of geese has led to a drastic reduction in available forage. in addition, warming of this region has widened the gap between goose migration timing and plant green-up, and this mismatch between goose and plant phenologies could in turn affect gosling development. the dual effects of climate change and habitat quality on gosling body condition and juvenile survival are not known, but are critical for predicting population growth and related degradation of (sub) arctic ecosystems. to address these issues, we used information on female goslings marked and measured between 1978 and 2005 (4125 individuals). goslings that developed within and near the traditional center of the breeding colony experienced the effects of long-term habitat degradation: body condition and juvenile survival declined over time. in newly colonized areas, however, we observed the opposite pattern (increase in body condition and juvenile survival). in addition, warmer than average winters and summers resulted in lower gosling body condition and first-year survival. too few plant growing days in the spring relative to hatch led to similar results. our assessment indicates that geese are recovering from habitat degradation by moving to newly colonized locales. however, a warmer climate could negatively affect snow goose populations in the long-run, but it will depend on which seasons warm the fastest. these antagonistic mechanisms will require further study to help predict snow goose population dynamics and manage the trophic cascade they induce." -land-use impact on the growth and survival of seedlings and saplings in west african savannas,benin; diameter growth; land-cover type; multistate capture-recapture models; permanent plots; population dynamics; woody plants,JOURNAL OF VEGETATION SCIENCE,JURISCH K;HAHN K;WITTIG R;BERNHARDT-ROMERMANN M,"question in frequently disturbed habitats such as savannas, survival of seedlings and saplings depends on the species-specific ability to persist for a long time and to re-sprout following disturbances that are damaging to individuals. this physiological ability increases with increasing stem diameter, as re-sprouting requires sufficient nutrient reserves. are survival and growth of seedlings and saplings of woody savanna species related to habitat conditions and land-cover type? location semi-arid savannas representing different site conditions and land-use practices in north benin, west africa. methods for individuals of 18 common woody species <1-m tall, basal diameter and height were repeatedly measured in five censuses from 2008 to 2010 in the land-cover types non-arable sites, fallows and protected areas. we used multistate capturerecapture models to estimate survival and transition probabilities between diameter classes. results we detected six groups of species with similar survival and transition probabilities. for one of these groups we found no correlation to land use, whereas the other groups comprise species with distinct preferences for different land-cover types. most species developed better in the communal area compared to the protected area. for five species (one shrub and four trees), we detected an extremely low transition probability for the latter land-cover type. conclusion for some species groups, differences in plant performance were explained by a human-caused opening of the canopy that is beneficial for germination of seeds and enhances survival of juveniles by reducing the competition for light, water and nutrients. other species showed their best demographic performance in the communal area on non-arable sites with unfavourable environmental conditions and resulting small-scale heterogeneity (mosaic of bare ground and areas with low herbaceous cover), whereas five species are likely to decline in the protected area." +land-use impact on the growth and survival of seedlings and saplings in west african savannas,benin; diameter growth; land-cover type; multistate capture-recapture models; permanent plots; population dynamics; woody plants,JOURNAL OF VEGETATION SCIENCE,JURISCH K;HAHN K;WITTIG R;BERNHARDT ROMERMANN M,"question in frequently disturbed habitats such as savannas, survival of seedlings and saplings depends on the species-specific ability to persist for a long time and to re-sprout following disturbances that are damaging to individuals. this physiological ability increases with increasing stem diameter, as re-sprouting requires sufficient nutrient reserves. are survival and growth of seedlings and saplings of woody savanna species related to habitat conditions and land-cover type? location semi-arid savannas representing different site conditions and land-use practices in north benin, west africa. methods for individuals of 18 common woody species <1-m tall, basal diameter and height were repeatedly measured in five censuses from 2008 to 2010 in the land-cover types non-arable sites, fallows and protected areas. we used multistate capturerecapture models to estimate survival and transition probabilities between diameter classes. results we detected six groups of species with similar survival and transition probabilities. for one of these groups we found no correlation to land use, whereas the other groups comprise species with distinct preferences for different land-cover types. most species developed better in the communal area compared to the protected area. for five species (one shrub and four trees), we detected an extremely low transition probability for the latter land-cover type. conclusion for some species groups, differences in plant performance were explained by a human-caused opening of the canopy that is beneficial for germination of seeds and enhances survival of juveniles by reducing the competition for light, water and nutrients. other species showed their best demographic performance in the communal area on non-arable sites with unfavourable environmental conditions and resulting small-scale heterogeneity (mosaic of bare ground and areas with low herbaceous cover), whereas five species are likely to decline in the protected area." capwire: a r package for estimating population census size from non-invasive genetic sampling,mark-recapture; non-invasive genetic sampling; population size; wildlife management,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY RESOURCES,PENNELL MW;STANSBURY CR;WAITS LP;MILLER CR,"non-invasive genetic sampling is an increasingly popular approach for investigating the demographics of natural populations. this has also become a useful tool for managers and conservation biologists, especially for those species for which traditional markrecapture studies are not practical. however, the consequence of collecting dna indirectly is that an individual may be sampled multiple times per sampling session. this requires alternative statistical approaches to those used in traditional markrecapture studies. here we present the r package capwire, an implementation of the population size estimators of miller etal. (molecular ecology 2005; 14: 1991), which were designed to deal specifically with this type of sampling. the aim of this project is to enable users across platforms to easily manipulate their data and interact with existing r packages. we have also provided functions to simulate data under a variety of scenarios to allow for rigorous testing of the robustness of the method and to facilitate further development of this approach." -estimation of cancer cases using capture-recapture method in northwest iran,capture-recapture method; coverage rate; sensitivity rate; cancer registry; incidence rate,ASIAN PACIFIC JOURNAL OF CANCER PREVENTION,GHOJAZADEH M;MOHAMMADI M;AZAMI-AGHDASH S;SADIGHI A;PIRI R;NAGHAVI-BEHZAD M,"background: under-ascertainment and over-ascertainment are common phenomena in surveillance and registry systems of health-related events. capture-recapture is one of the methods which is applied to determine the sensitivity of surveillance or registry systems to recognize cancer cases. this study aimed to estimate the number of cancers using data available both in the cancer registry center of northwestern iran and in the population-based cancer registry center of iran. material and methods: the studied population consisted of all cancerous cases in the northwest of iran from 2008 to 2010. all data were extracted from two resources and entered into microsoft excel software. after removing common and repeat cases the data were statistically analyzed using a capture-recapture studies' specific software ""care 1.4"". estimations were calculated by chapman and petersen methods with the approximate confidence interval of 95%. results: from 2008 to 2010, the number of all cancer cases was estimated to be 21,652 (ci 95%: 19,863-22,101). sensitivity rate of all cancer cases was 83.9% and that of population-based cancer registry center of iran was 52%. it was 93.1% considering both resources. conclusion: using two resources and the capture-recapture method rather than a single resource may be a more reliable method to estimate the number of cancer cases." +estimation of cancer cases using capture-recapture method in northwest iran,capture-recapture method; coverage rate; sensitivity rate; cancer registry; incidence rate,ASIAN PACIFIC JOURNAL OF CANCER PREVENTION,GHOJAZADEH M;MOHAMMADI M;AZAMI AGHDASH S;SADIGHI A;PIRI R;NAGHAVI BEHZAD M,"background: under-ascertainment and over-ascertainment are common phenomena in surveillance and registry systems of health-related events. capture-recapture is one of the methods which is applied to determine the sensitivity of surveillance or registry systems to recognize cancer cases. this study aimed to estimate the number of cancers using data available both in the cancer registry center of northwestern iran and in the population-based cancer registry center of iran. material and methods: the studied population consisted of all cancerous cases in the northwest of iran from 2008 to 2010. all data were extracted from two resources and entered into microsoft excel software. after removing common and repeat cases the data were statistically analyzed using a capture-recapture studies' specific software ""care 1.4"". estimations were calculated by chapman and petersen methods with the approximate confidence interval of 95%. results: from 2008 to 2010, the number of all cancer cases was estimated to be 21,652 (ci 95%: 19,863-22,101). sensitivity rate of all cancer cases was 83.9% and that of population-based cancer registry center of iran was 52%. it was 93.1% considering both resources. conclusion: using two resources and the capture-recapture method rather than a single resource may be a more reliable method to estimate the number of cancer cases." achieving no net loss in habitat offset of a threatened frog required high offset ratio and intensive monitoring,habitat offset; mitigation; restoration; uncertainty; amphibian; no net loss; multiplier,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,PICKETT EJ;STOCKWELL MP;BOWER DS;GARNHAM JI;POLLARD CJ;CLULOW J;MAHONY MJ,"the use of habitat offset to mitigate the impact of development on threatened species is becoming increasingly popular. despite a plethora of theoretical work on the requirements of habitat offset to achieve no net loss, there are very few examples of successful habitat offset programs and monitoring regimes to detect success. we present a case study of a population of the threatened green and golden bell frog (litoria aurea) which was impacted by urban development through the removal of nine ponds. development was concurrent with habitat offset and construction of a large number of ponds which resulted in a 19-fold increase in available pond area. through the use of mark recapture surveys, the population size was determined pre- and post-development. despite the creation of ponds in the immediate vicinity of the development there was a decrease in the pond area and a measured decline in the population located within the area where the development occurred. however, the overall pond construction program also involved the addition of considerable habitat away from the immediate vicinity of the development which resulted in a 19-fold increase in pond area and an approximate 1.2-3.5-fold increase in population size. no net loss in population size to 95% confidence was achieved only when including all pond construction. this study demonstrated that to achieve no net loss for a habitat offset program can require extensive levels of habitat creation with intensive monitoring to detect it. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "first estimates of population ecology and threats to sunda clouded leopards neofelis diardi in a peat-swamp forest, indonesia",NA,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,CHEYNE SM;STARK DJ;LIMIN SH;MACDONALD DW,"the sunda clouded leopard neofelis diardi is borneo's largest predator. a study of the species' population ecology in 50 km(2) (effective sample area 145 km(2)) of the sabangau forest, central kalimantan, indonesia, spanned may 2008 to january 2012. a total of 54 camera traps at 27 stations yielded 35 129 functional trap nights resulting in 90 photos of 6 clouded leopards: 5 males and 1 female. using capture-recapture analysis in 3 mo blocks, we extrapolated to an estimated density range of 0.72 to 4.41 ind. per 100 km(2) across all models and all data sets. direct hunting pressure on the cats and indirect threats through possible depletion of the prey base by humans were assessed though interview and questionnaire surveys of 68 villagers in 9 villages around the edge of the 5600 km(2) sabangau forest. of the respondents, 40% hunted deer and bearded pigs, although no respondent listed hunting as their main source of income or food. the low detection rates of clouded leopards suggests that a minimum area of 100 km(2) per site, and multiple sites, should be studied to elucidate the impact of habitat disturbance and fragmentation on clouded leopard populations." success of captive-rearing for a threatened shorebird,NA,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,NEUMAN KK;STENZEL LE;WARRINER JC;PAGE GW;ERBES JL;EYSTER CR;MILLER E;HENKEL LA,"captive-breeding and -rearing programs have been widely used for the conservation and recovery of imperiled species, and the success of such programs should be rigorously evaluated. in this study, we assessed the success of captive-rearing for a threatened shorebird, the snowy plover charadrius nivosus, by comparing the survival and reproductive success of captive-reared and wild-reared individuals on the central california coast from 2001 to 2010. we used mark-recapture analysis, implemented in the program mark, to estimate apparent annual survival (phi) and encounter occasion detection probability (p) from capture and sighting data of marked plovers. we compared 3 measures of reproductive success (hatch rate, fledge rate and juveniles fledged per year) using stratified randomization tests based on individual breeding histories where captive-and wild-reared plovers were matched for age, sex and year. captive-and wild-reared snowy plovers had similar apparent survival and reproductive rates and paired with mates of similar age in their first breeding year. the only exception was that captive males after their first breeding year had lower fledging rates than males from the overall population, but this did not affect the annual productivity rate. we conclude that releasing captive-reared individuals is a valuable part of ongoing efforts to restore the snowy plover population in california, and is also useful in cases where plover nests may need to be salvaged to protect them from oil contamination or other catastrophic events." -population analysis of endangered northern bottlenose whales on the scotian shelf seven years after the establishment of a marine protected area,NA,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,O'BRIEN K;WHITEHEAD H,"marine protected areas (mpas) are being established worldwide to protect vulnerable marine species and habitats, in the face of accelerating rates of species extinctions. biophysical indicators such as focal species abundance are often employed to assess the effectiveness of mpas at meeting conservation objectives. we examined the dynamics of an endangered beaked whale population 7 yr after the gully mpa was established in 2004 off nova scotia, canada. northern bottlenose whales forage in deep water such as the gully submarine canyon. several mpa restrictions were implemented on the gully ecosystem beginning in 2004 to reduce anthropogenic impacts including ship traffic, underwater noise and entanglements. this study represents the first intensive northern bottlenose whale population assessment since the gully became a mpa. using photo-identification data collected in 2010 and 2011, we applied mark-recapture techniques to estimate the current population size of northern bottlenose whales on the scotian shelf as 143 animals (95% ci: 129 to 156 animals). we also used open population models to examine population trends, and investigated changes in the sex ratio since 1988. our results suggest the population size and sex ratio have been stable since before mpa legislation was implemented, illustrating the resilience of this population and suggesting that the mpa objective of preventing population decline is being met. continued monitoring of mpa efficacy is necessary; there is still the potential for future events, whether stochastic or related to climate change, to affect small populations such as the gully northern bottlenose whales and put the success of mpas to further test." +population analysis of endangered northern bottlenose whales on the scotian shelf seven years after the establishment of a marine protected area,NA,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,O BRIEN K;WHITEHEAD H,"marine protected areas (mpas) are being established worldwide to protect vulnerable marine species and habitats, in the face of accelerating rates of species extinctions. biophysical indicators such as focal species abundance are often employed to assess the effectiveness of mpas at meeting conservation objectives. we examined the dynamics of an endangered beaked whale population 7 yr after the gully mpa was established in 2004 off nova scotia, canada. northern bottlenose whales forage in deep water such as the gully submarine canyon. several mpa restrictions were implemented on the gully ecosystem beginning in 2004 to reduce anthropogenic impacts including ship traffic, underwater noise and entanglements. this study represents the first intensive northern bottlenose whale population assessment since the gully became a mpa. using photo-identification data collected in 2010 and 2011, we applied mark-recapture techniques to estimate the current population size of northern bottlenose whales on the scotian shelf as 143 animals (95% ci: 129 to 156 animals). we also used open population models to examine population trends, and investigated changes in the sex ratio since 1988. our results suggest the population size and sex ratio have been stable since before mpa legislation was implemented, illustrating the resilience of this population and suggesting that the mpa objective of preventing population decline is being met. continued monitoring of mpa efficacy is necessary; there is still the potential for future events, whether stochastic or related to climate change, to affect small populations such as the gully northern bottlenose whales and put the success of mpas to further test." using community-based monitoring to estimate demographic parameters for a remote nesting population of the critically endangered leatherback turtle,NA,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,PILCHER N;CHALOUPKA M,"leatherback turtles are exposed to many anthropogenic hazards in the pacific, but too little is known about their demography to reliably estimate abundance and develop hazard mitigation strategies. most populations nest in remote locations, and leatherbacks do not generally breed annually, which results in biased demographic parameter estimates using traditional capture-mark-recapture (cmr) analysis. we estimated survival and breeding probabilities for a remote nesting population using a long-term community-based cmr study coupled with a multistate open robust design (msord) statistical modelling approach. this approach accounts for skipped breeding behaviour and the staggered seasonal arrival and departure of the nesters. the study comprised cmr histories for 178 nesting leatherbacks tagged at lababia beach on the huon coast of papua new guinea over a 3 mo seasonal sampling period for 10 austral summer nesting seasons (2000-2009). the best-fit msord model comprised constant adult survival (accounting for transients), constant conditional breeding and time-dependent arrival, departure and detection probabilities. the annual survival probability was constant over the 10 yr at ca. 0.85, which is lower than estimated for other leatherback populations but likely reflects a lower probability of nest beach fidelity that has been inferred previously using satellite telemetry. the annual breeding probability for female leatherbacks that skipped the previous nesting season was 0.41. the probability of breeding in consecutive seasons was 0.06, indicative of a skipped breeding behaviour. these first estimates of annual survival and breeding probabilities for a pacific leatherback stock provide a basis for developing an understanding of regional population dynamics and assessing risk of exposure to anthropogenic hazards such as coastal development and fisheries." are the 'resident' dolphins of doubtful sound becoming less resident?,NA,ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH,HENDERSON SD;DAWSON SM;RAYMENT W;CURREY RJC,"patterns of habitat use by wide-ranging animals may change in response to perturbations within their environment. in 2009, a group of 15 bottlenose dolphins, known to be part of the population in doubtful sound, new zealand, were seen in another nearby fiord. this population has been closely monitored since 1990, and this was the first time that a group from doubtful sound was seen elsewhere. since this first occurrence there have been at least 6 other occasions on which 'resident' dolphins were missing for at least 3 d, to later reappear in the fiord. during these absences, the other members of the population were routinely sighted. we use capture-recapture modelling based on photo-id data to demonstrate a dramatic difference in capture probability between 2005 to 2009 and 2010 to 2011. given the extremely high capture probability in the first period, and the fact that field effort has significantly increased from 2009 through to 2011, it is unlikely that these groups were within the fiord and simply missed. these findings suggest the possibility that the habitat use of this population has changed to include relatively frequent excursions beyond the fiord complex." -which adverse events are related to health care during hospitalization in elderly inpatients?,adverse event; inpatients; hospitalization; pharmacovigilance; internal medicine,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MEDICAL SCIENCES,DUPOUY J;MOULIS G;TUBERY M;ECOIFFIER M;SOMMET A;POUTRAIN JC;ARLET P;LAPEYRE-MESTRE M,"background: adverse events result in longer hospital stays and increase costs and mortality. we aimed to assess incidence of adverse events occurring during hospitalization in a post-emergency unit and to describe their characteristics. methods: all adverse events occurring in patients during their hospitalization in a post-emergency unit in a french university hospital (20 beds) were systematically and consecutively recorded from september 2009 to february 2011. patients with adverse events were compared to up to three control patients, matched for date of admission +/- age in the same unit. results: we identified 56 patients with 64 adverse events, giving an incidence of 3.0/100 patients admitted/year. fifty-one adverse events were drug-related. patients had a median age of 82.5 years with a male/female ratio of 1/1.4. they presented a median charlson score of 1 and the median number of medications was 6. the drugs most frequently involved in drug-related events were nervous system drugs (47%) and anti-infectives (22%). in multivariate analysis, a charlson score >= 2 was associated with the occurrence of adverse events (or 0.4; 95% ci [0.21 - 0.80]). conclusions: systematic recording showed that adverse events were not rare in a post-emergency unit. patients with comorbid conditions were less likely to present an adverse event, possibly because of greater precautions taken by the medical team." +which adverse events are related to health care during hospitalization in elderly inpatients?,adverse event; inpatients; hospitalization; pharmacovigilance; internal medicine,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MEDICAL SCIENCES,DUPOUY J;MOULIS G;TUBERY M;ECOIFFIER M;SOMMET A;POUTRAIN JC;ARLET P;LAPEYRE MESTRE M,"background: adverse events result in longer hospital stays and increase costs and mortality. we aimed to assess incidence of adverse events occurring during hospitalization in a post-emergency unit and to describe their characteristics. methods: all adverse events occurring in patients during their hospitalization in a post-emergency unit in a french university hospital (20 beds) were systematically and consecutively recorded from september 2009 to february 2011. patients with adverse events were compared to up to three control patients, matched for date of admission +/- age in the same unit. results: we identified 56 patients with 64 adverse events, giving an incidence of 3.0/100 patients admitted/year. fifty-one adverse events were drug-related. patients had a median age of 82.5 years with a male/female ratio of 1/1.4. they presented a median charlson score of 1 and the median number of medications was 6. the drugs most frequently involved in drug-related events were nervous system drugs (47%) and anti-infectives (22%). in multivariate analysis, a charlson score >= 2 was associated with the occurrence of adverse events (or 0.4; 95% ci [0.21 - 0.80]). conclusions: systematic recording showed that adverse events were not rare in a post-emergency unit. patients with comorbid conditions were less likely to present an adverse event, possibly because of greater precautions taken by the medical team." imperfect detection is the rule rather than the exception in plant distribution studies,bayesian analysis; biodiversity monitoring; detection probability; hierarchical model; occupancy; plant population and community dynamics; plant traits; switzerland,JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,CHEN GK;KERY M;PLATTNER M;MA KP;GARDNER B,"1. imperfect detection can seriously bias conventional estimators of species distributions and species richness. plant traits, survey-specific conditions and site-specific characteristics may influence plant detection probability. however, the generality of the problems induced by imperfect detection in plants and the magnitude of this challenge for plant distribution studies are currently unknown. 2. we address this question based on data from the swiss biodiversity monitoring, in which vascular plants are surveyed twice in the same year along a 2.5-km transect in 451 1-km(2) quadrats. overall, 1700 species were recorded. we chose a random sample of 100 species from the 1700 species to determine general detection levels. to examine the relationship of covariates on detection, we chose a stratified random sample of 100 species from 886 species that were detected in at least 18 locations, with 25 each from four life-forms (lf): grass, forb, shrub and tree. using a bayesian multispecies site-occupancy model, we estimated occurrence and detection probability of these species and their relation to covariates. 3. based on the random sample of 100 species, detection probability during the first survey ranged 0.03-0.99 (median 0.74) and during the second survey, 0.03-0.99 (median 0.82). based on the stratified random sample of 100 species, detection probability during the first survey ranged 0.02-0.99 (median 0.87) and during the second survey, 0.01-1 (median 0.89). detection probability differed slightly among the four lfs. in 60 species, survey season or elevation had significant effects on detection. we illustrated detection probability maps for switzerland based on the modelled relationships with environmental covariates. 4. synthesis. our findings suggest that even in a standardized monitoring program, imperfect detection of plants may be common. with the absence of a correction for detection errors, maps in plant distribution studies will be confounded with spatial patterns in detection probability. we presume that these problems will be much more widespread in the data sets that are used for conventional plant species distribution modelling. imperfect detection should be estimated, even in distribution studies of plants and other sessile organisms, to better control detection errors that may compromise the results of species distribution studies." the impact of vagrants on apparent survival estimation in a population of common crossbills (loxia curvirostra),conifers; iberia; population dynamics; pyrenees; vagrancy,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,ALONSO D;ARIZAGA J,"the impact of nomadism on animal population dynamics (e.g. survival) is poorly understood. this factor is not inconsequential because our current view on animal survival rates could suffer from biases if it is ignored. the degree of nomadism in common crossbills (loxia curvirostra) is reported to differ population-specifically, and thus they constitute a good model for the study of survival in nomadic species. southern europe hosts resident birds, probably also local vagrant birds and non-local, vagrant, northern european crossbills. the impact of vagrants on the estimation of apparent survival rates has never been determined in areas where crossbills have been reported as resident. we hypothesise that transients (birds for which survival from year t to year t + 1 is zero) will be detectable if a majority of vagrants remain at a particular site for just a few months. alternatively, if vagrants remain for longer, transients will be absent by definition, so apparent survival estimation will be lower than would be if transients did not exist. as wing length in vagrants is commonly longer than in residents, we can expect a negative effect of wing length on survival, as long-winged (vagrant) crossbills emigrate from the area after a few years, thus demonstrating lower apparent survival rates than resident, local birds on a local scale. alternatively, if vagrants have a negligible impact on the estimation of local apparent survival rates (i.e. if residents clearly outnumber vagrants), we should not detect transients nor find any effect of wing length on survival. to test this hypothesis, we used data collected over a period of 16 years at a site located in a scots pine (pinus sylvestris) forest in northern iberia. capture recapture data were analysed with cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) models. although transients were not detected, the cjs models showed that survival was negatively affected by wing length. our results support the hypothesis that vagrants occurred in the area for more than 1 year before subsequently disappearing, and that their presence has a strong impact on local survival estimation. accordingly, if the presence of vagrants is not considered, this can lead to the underestimation of local survival rates of resident crossbill populations." mhc-linked survival and lifetime reproductive success in a wild population of great tits,great tit (parus major); lifetime reproductive success; mark-recapture models; major histocompatibility complex (mhc); mhc supertype; survival,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,SEPIL I;LACHISH S;SHELDON BC,"major histocompatibility complex (mhc) genes are frequently used as a model for adaptive genetic diversity. although associations between mhc and disease resistance are frequently documented, little is known about the fitness consequences of mhc variation in wild populations. further, most work to date has involved testing associations between mhc genotypes and fitness components. however, the functional diversity of the mhc, and hence the mechanism by which selection on mhc acts, depends on how genotypes map to the functional properties of mhc molecules. here, we test three hypotheses that relate mhc diversity to fitness: (i) the maximal diversity hypothesis, (ii) the optimal diversity hypothesis and (iii) effect of specific mhc types. we combine markrecapture methods with analysis of long-term breeding data to investigate the effects of mhc class i functional diversity (mhc supertypes) on individual fitness in a wild great tit (parus major) population. we found that the presence of three different mhc supertypes was associated with three different components of individual fitness: survival, annual recruitment and lifetime reproductive success (lrs). great tits possessing mhc supertype 3 experienced higher survival rates than those that did not, whereas individuals with mhc supertype 6 experienced higher lrs and were more likely to recruit offspring each year. conversely, great tits that possessed mhc supertype 5 had reduced lrs. we found no evidence for a selective advantage of mhc diversity, in terms of either maximal or optimal supertype diversity. our results support the suggestion that specific mhc types are an important determinant of individual fitness." -"ecology of catarina virus (family arenaviridae) in southern texas, 2001-2004",arenavirus; arenaviridae; catarina virus; neotoma micropus; southern plains woodrat; tacaribe serocomplex,VECTOR-BORNE AND ZOONOTIC DISEASES,MILAZZO ML;AMMAN BR;CAJIMAT MNB;MENDEZ-HARCLERODE FM;SUCHECKI JR;HANSON JD;HAYNIE ML;DNATE' BAXTER B;MILAZZO C;CARROLL SA;CARROLL DS;RUTHVEN DC;BRADLEY RD;FULHORST CF,a total of 3941 rodents were captured during a 46-month prospective (mark-recapture) study on the ecology of catarina virus in southern texas. antibody reactive against catarina virus was found in 73 (11.9%) of 611 southern plains woodrats (neotoma micropus) and none of 3330 other rodents; strains of catarina virus were isolated from 6 antibody-negative and 9 antibody-positive southern plains woodrats; and the infections in at least 3 southern plains woodrats were chronic. these results affirm the notion that the southern plains woodrat is the principal host of catarina virus and suggest that catarina virus infection is highly specific to n. micropus. +"ecology of catarina virus (family arenaviridae) in southern texas, 2001-2004",arenavirus; arenaviridae; catarina virus; neotoma micropus; southern plains woodrat; tacaribe serocomplex,VECTOR-BORNE AND ZOONOTIC DISEASES,MILAZZO ML;AMMAN BR;CAJIMAT MNB;MENDEZ HARCLERODE FM;SUCHECKI JR;HANSON JD;HAYNIE ML;DNATE BAXTER B;MILAZZO C;CARROLL SA;CARROLL DS;RUTHVEN DC;BRADLEY RD;FULHORST CF,a total of 3941 rodents were captured during a 46-month prospective (mark-recapture) study on the ecology of catarina virus in southern texas. antibody reactive against catarina virus was found in 73 (11.9%) of 611 southern plains woodrats (neotoma micropus) and none of 3330 other rodents; strains of catarina virus were isolated from 6 antibody-negative and 9 antibody-positive southern plains woodrats; and the infections in at least 3 southern plains woodrats were chronic. these results affirm the notion that the southern plains woodrat is the principal host of catarina virus and suggest that catarina virus infection is highly specific to n. micropus. modeling delay to diagnosis for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: under reporting and incidence estimates,delay to diagnosis; horvitz-thompson; incidence estimate; rare diseases; reverse hazard,BMC NEUROLOGY,ROCCHETTI I;TARUSCIO D;PIERANNUNZIO D,"background: this paper provides a strategy to obtain a reliable estimate of the incidence rate for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis based on data from the national registry of rare diseases (nrrd). in fact, unobserved cases may be due to the fact that ""a long time"" may intercour between the suspect of having the disease (onset) and the date the disease is diagnosed. potential factors that may influence the probability of experiencing the event (diagnosis) conditionally on the onset (suspected) are investigated. since we are treating rare diseases, the role of social and economic factors is not that obvious; latent as well as observed factors may influence the delay to diagnosis. methods: we use a semiparametric estimator based on the distribution of delay to diagnosis to account for potential underreporting. in particular, we propose to adopt an horvitz-thompson based estimator to correct the incidence figure that can be derived for the period 2007-2009 from the nrrd, italy. results: the incidence estimates obtained by adopting the proposed approach are about 1 case per 100000 inhabitants and despite they let recovering a good part of underreporting, they are still far from als incidence international ranges between 1.5 and 2.5. however, by looking only at northern italy, the incidence estimates we can derive are coherent with those known internationally. conclusions: these results confirm the existence of substantial differences in reporting accuracy, and point out where the system of data collection must be improved. in particular, when reliable individual characteristics will be available, they could be employed to refine the proposed estimator." detection and plant monitoring programs: lessons from an intensive survey of asclepias meadii with five observers,NA,PLOS ONE,ALEXANDER HM;REED AW;KETTLE WD;SLADE NA;ROELS SAB;COLLINS CD;SALISBURY V,"monitoring programs, where numbers of individuals are followed through time, are central to conservation. although incomplete detection is expected with wildlife surveys, this topic is rarely considered with plants. however, if plants are missed in surveys, raw count data can lead to biased estimates of population abundance and vital rates. to illustrate, we had five independent observers survey patches of the rare plant asclepias meadii at two prairie sites. we analyzed data with two mark-recapture approaches. using the program capture, the estimated number of patches equaled the detected number for a burned site, but exceeded detected numbers by 28% for an unburned site. analyses of detected patches using huggins models revealed important effects of observer, patch state (flowering/nonflowering), and patch size (number of stems) on probabilities of detection. although some results were expected (i.e. greater detection of flowering than nonflowering patches), the importance of our approach is the ability to quantify the magnitude of detection problems. we also evaluated the degree to which increased observer numbers improved detection: smaller groups (3-4 observers) generally found 90 - 99% of the patches found by all five people, but pairs of observers or single observers had high error and detection depended on which individuals were involved. we conclude that an intensive study at the start of a long-term monitoring study provides essential information about probabilities of detection and what factors cause plants to be missed. this information can guide development of monitoring programs. citation: alexander hm, reed aw, kettle wd, slade na, bodbyl roels sa, et al. (2012) detection and plant monitoring programs: lessons from an intensive survey of asclepias meadii with five observers. plos one 7(12): e52762. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0052762" empirical and simulation evaluations of an abundance estimator using unmarked individuals of cryptic forest-dwelling taxa,abundance; amphibian populations; detection probability; forest management; monitoring; n-mixture models,FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,MCINTYRE AP;JONES JE;LUND EM;WATERSTRAT FT;GIOVANINI JN;DUKE SD;HAYES MP;QUINN T;KROLL AJ,"conservation and management programs use populations of sentinel taxa, such as stream-associated amphibians, as indicator species due to their perceived sensitivity to environmental change. estimating population size with traditional tools such as mark-recapture estimators may be impractical for forest-dwelling stream-associated amphibians, many of which are cryptic and have low detection probabilities. in addition, sampling techniques can alter habitat conditions, particularly with repeat sampling, and compromise inferences about management impacts. we used simulated and empirical data and n-mixture models to estimate detection probabilities and abundances for two amphibian genera, giant dicamptodon and torrent rhyacotriton salamanders, sampled with a less-invasive approach than other methods. we surveyed forested headwater streams located in western washington, usa, for salamanders 7 july-27 august 2008. we assessed model sensitivity to changes in animal abundance (5 and 15) and detection probability (0.05-0.5), as well as study design alternatives including number of sample plots (50-150) and number of sampling visits (2-4). we also evaluated the effects of stream temperature and stream order on detection probability using data collected from forested streams in washington, usa. precision of detection probability estimates improved as the number of plots and sampling occasions increased. variability of estimated population sizes decreased with higher detection probability, although species abundance had little effect on precision of detection probability estimates. detection probability estimated from empirical data ranged from 0.07 to 0.65 for giant salamanders and 0.06-0.67 for torrent salamanders. giant salamander detection probability was positively associated with stream temperature regardless of stream order, and was higher in second- and third-order streams than first-order streams. detection probability for torrent salamanders varied with stream temperature, order, and the interaction of those covariates, with detection increasing with temperature for second- and third-order streams but showing a flat or decreasing trend for first-order streams. n-mixture models, paired with careful consideration of study design alternatives, can produce robust estimates of abundance and obviate the traditional reliance on indices of relative abundance for many rare and sensitive taxa. use of a less invasive technique for sampling stream-associated amphibians resulted in sufficient animal captures for suitable model performance. our simulation results can inform study design and direct efficient allocation of field effort. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." breeding experience might be a major determinant of breeding probability in long-lived species: the case of the greater flamingo,NA,PLOS ONE,PRADEL R;CHOQUET R;BECHET A,"the probability of breeding is known to increase with age early in life in many long-lived species. this increase may be due to experience accumulated through past breeding attempts. recent methodological advances allowing accounting for unobserved breeding episodes, we analyzed the encounter histories of 14716 greater flamingos over 25 years to get a detailed picture of the interactions of age and experience. survival did not improve with experience, seemingly ruling out the selection hypothesis. breeding probability varied within three levels of experience : no breeding experience, 1 experience, 2+ experiences. we fitted models with and without among-individual differences in breeding probabilities by including or not an additive individual random effect. including the individual random effect improved the model fit less than including experience but the best model retained both. however, because modeling individual heterogeneity by means of an additive static individual random effect is currently criticized and may not be appropriate, we discuss the results with and without random effect. without random effect, breeding probability of inexperienced birds was always > 3 times lower than that of same age experienced birds, and breeding probability increased more with one additional experience than with one additional year of age. with random effects, the advantage of experience was unequivocal only after age 9 while in young having > 1 experience was penalizing. another pattern, that breeding probability of birds with < 2 experiences dropped after some age (8 without random effect; up to 11 with it), may point to differences in the timing of reproductive senescence or to the existence of a sensitive period for acquiring behavioral skills. overall, the role of experience appears strong in this long-lived species. we argue that overlooking the role of experience may hamper detection of trade-offs and assessment of individual heterogeneity. however, manipulative experiments are desirable to confirm our finding. citation: pradel r, choquet r, bechet a (2012) breeding experience might be a major determinant of breeding probability in long-lived species: the case of the greater flamingo. plos one 7(12): e51016. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0051016" -identification of hidden key hepatitis c populations: an evaluation of screening practices using mixed epidemiological methods,NA,PLOS ONE,VERMEIREN APA;DUKERS-MUIJRERS NHTM;VAN LOO IHM;STALS F;VAN DAM DW;AMBERGEN T;HOEBE CJPA,"background: hepatitis c virus (hcv) is a major cause of liver diseases worldwide. due to its asymptomatic nature, screening is necessary for identification. because screening of the total population is not cost effective, it is important to identify which risk factors for positivity characterize the key populations in which targeting of screening yields the highest numbers of hcv positives, and assess which of these key populations have remained hidden to current care. methods: laboratory registry data (2002-2008) were retrieved for all hcv tests (23,800) in the south of the netherlands (adult population 500,000). screening trends were tested using poisson regression and chi-square tests. risk factors for hcv positivity were assessed using a logistic regression. the hidden hcv-positive population was estimated by a capture-recapture approach. results: the number of tests increased over time (2,388 to 4,149, p<.01). nevertheless, the positivity rate among those screened decreased between 2002 and 2008 (6.3% to 2.1%, p<.01). the population prevalence was estimated to be 0.49% (95%ci 0.41-0.59). of all hcv-positive patients, 66% were hidden to current screening practices. risk factors associated with positivity were low socio-economic status, male sex, and age between 36-55. in future screening 48% (95%ci 37-63) of total patients and 47% (95%ci 32-70) of hidden patients can be identified by targeting 9% (men with low socio-economic status, between 36-55 years old) of the total population. conclusions: although the current hcv screening policy increasingly addresses high-risk populations, it only reaches one third of positive patients. this study shows that combining easily identifiable demographic risk factors can be used to identify key populations as a likely target for effective hcv screening. we recommend strengthening screening among middle-aged man, living in low socio-economic neighborhoods." +identification of hidden key hepatitis c populations: an evaluation of screening practices using mixed epidemiological methods,NA,PLOS ONE,VERMEIREN APA;DUKERS MUIJRERS NHTM;VAN LOO IHM;STALS F;VAN DAM DW;AMBERGEN T;HOEBE CJPA,"background: hepatitis c virus (hcv) is a major cause of liver diseases worldwide. due to its asymptomatic nature, screening is necessary for identification. because screening of the total population is not cost effective, it is important to identify which risk factors for positivity characterize the key populations in which targeting of screening yields the highest numbers of hcv positives, and assess which of these key populations have remained hidden to current care. methods: laboratory registry data (2002-2008) were retrieved for all hcv tests (23,800) in the south of the netherlands (adult population 500,000). screening trends were tested using poisson regression and chi-square tests. risk factors for hcv positivity were assessed using a logistic regression. the hidden hcv-positive population was estimated by a capture-recapture approach. results: the number of tests increased over time (2,388 to 4,149, p<.01). nevertheless, the positivity rate among those screened decreased between 2002 and 2008 (6.3% to 2.1%, p<.01). the population prevalence was estimated to be 0.49% (95%ci 0.41-0.59). of all hcv-positive patients, 66% were hidden to current screening practices. risk factors associated with positivity were low socio-economic status, male sex, and age between 36-55. in future screening 48% (95%ci 37-63) of total patients and 47% (95%ci 32-70) of hidden patients can be identified by targeting 9% (men with low socio-economic status, between 36-55 years old) of the total population. conclusions: although the current hcv screening policy increasingly addresses high-risk populations, it only reaches one third of positive patients. this study shows that combining easily identifiable demographic risk factors can be used to identify key populations as a likely target for effective hcv screening. we recommend strengthening screening among middle-aged man, living in low socio-economic neighborhoods." cost of autotomy drives ontogenetic switching of anti-predator mechanisms under developmental constraints in a land snail,anti-predator adaptation; capture-mark-recapture; fitness trade-off; life-history evolution; predator-prey interaction; regeneration,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,HOSO M,"autotomy of body parts offers various prey animals immediate benefits of survival in compensation for considerable costs. i found that a land snail satsuma caliginosa of populations coexisting with a snail-eating snake pareas iwasakii survived the snake predation by autotomizing its foot, whereas those out of the snake range rarely survived. regeneration of a lost foot completed in a few weeks but imposed a delay of shell growth. imprints of autotomy were found in greater than 10 per cent of s. caliginosa in the snake range but in only less than 1 per cent out of it, simultaneously demonstrating intense predation by the snakes and high efficiency of autotomy for surviving snake predation in the wild. however, in experiments, mature s. caliginosa performed autotomy less frequently. instead of the costly autotomy, they can use defensive denticles on the inside of their shell apertures. owing to the constraints from the additive growth of shells, most pulmonate snails can produce these denticles only when they have fully grown up. thus, this developmental constraint limits the availability of the modified aperture, resulting in ontogenetic switching of the alternative defences. this study illustrates how costs of adaptation operate in the evolution of life-history strategies under developmental constraints" -population estimation and trappability of the european badger (meles meles): implications for tuberculosis management,NA,PLOS ONE,BYRNE AW;O'KEEFFE J;GREEN S;SLEEMAN DP;CORNER LAL;GORMLEY E;MURPHY D;MARTIN SW;DAVENPORT J,"estimates of population size and trappability inform vaccine efficacy modelling and are required for adaptive management during prolonged wildlife vaccination campaigns. we present an analysis of mark-recapture data from a badger vaccine (bacille calmette-guerin) study in ireland. this study is the largest scale (755 km 2) mark-recapture study ever undertaken with this species. the study area was divided into three approximately equal-sized zones, each with similar survey and capture effort. a mean badger population size of 671 (sd: 76) was estimated using a closed-subpopulation model (cspm) based on data from capturing sessions of the entire area and was consistent with a separate multiplicative model. minimum number alive estimates calculated from the same data were on average 49-51% smaller than the cspm estimates, but these are considered severely negatively biased when trappability is low. population densities derived from the cspm estimates were 0.82-1.06 badgers km 22, and broadly consistent with previous reports for an adjacent area. mean trappability was estimated to be 34-35% per session across the population. by the fifth capture session, 79% of the adult badgers caught had been marked previously. multivariable modelling suggested significant differences in badger trappability depending on zone, season and age-class. there were more putatively trap-wary badgers identified in the population than trap-happy badgers, but wariness was not related to individual's sex, zone or season of capture. live-trapping efficacy can vary significantly amongst sites, seasons, age, or personality, hence monitoring of trappability is recommended as part of an adaptive management regime during large-scale wildlife vaccination programs to counter biases and to improve efficiencies. citation: byrne aw, o'keeffe j, green s, sleeman dp, corner lal, et al. (2012) population estimation and trappability of the european badger (meles meles): implications for tuberculosis management. plos one 7(12): e50807. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0050807" +population estimation and trappability of the european badger (meles meles): implications for tuberculosis management,NA,PLOS ONE,BYRNE AW;O KEEFFE J;GREEN S;SLEEMAN DP;CORNER LAL;GORMLEY E;MURPHY D;MARTIN SW;DAVENPORT J,"estimates of population size and trappability inform vaccine efficacy modelling and are required for adaptive management during prolonged wildlife vaccination campaigns. we present an analysis of mark-recapture data from a badger vaccine (bacille calmette-guerin) study in ireland. this study is the largest scale (755 km 2) mark-recapture study ever undertaken with this species. the study area was divided into three approximately equal-sized zones, each with similar survey and capture effort. a mean badger population size of 671 (sd: 76) was estimated using a closed-subpopulation model (cspm) based on data from capturing sessions of the entire area and was consistent with a separate multiplicative model. minimum number alive estimates calculated from the same data were on average 49-51% smaller than the cspm estimates, but these are considered severely negatively biased when trappability is low. population densities derived from the cspm estimates were 0.82-1.06 badgers km 22, and broadly consistent with previous reports for an adjacent area. mean trappability was estimated to be 34-35% per session across the population. by the fifth capture session, 79% of the adult badgers caught had been marked previously. multivariable modelling suggested significant differences in badger trappability depending on zone, season and age-class. there were more putatively trap-wary badgers identified in the population than trap-happy badgers, but wariness was not related to individual's sex, zone or season of capture. live-trapping efficacy can vary significantly amongst sites, seasons, age, or personality, hence monitoring of trappability is recommended as part of an adaptive management regime during large-scale wildlife vaccination programs to counter biases and to improve efficiencies. citation: byrne aw, o'keeffe j, green s, sleeman dp, corner lal, et al. (2012) population estimation and trappability of the european badger (meles meles): implications for tuberculosis management. plos one 7(12): e50807. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0050807" "domestic dog demographic structure and dynamics relevant to rabies control planning in urban areas in africa: the case of iringa, tanzania",NA,BMC VETERINARY RESEARCH,GSELL AS;KNOBEL DL;KAZWALA RR;VOUNATSOU P;ZINSSTAG J,"background: mass vaccinations of domestic dogs have been shown to effectively control canine rabies and hence human exposure to rabies. knowledge of dog population demography is essential for planning effective rabies vaccination programmes; however, such information is still rare for african domestic dog populations, particularly so in urban areas. this study describes the demographic structure and population dynamics of a domestic dog population in an urban sub-saharan african setting. in july to november 2005, we conducted a full household-level census and a cross-sectional dog demography survey in four urban wards of iringa municipality, tanzania. the achievable vaccination coverage was assessed by a two-stage vaccination campaign, and the proportion of feral dogs was estimated by a mark-recapture transect study. results: the estimated size of the domestic dog population in iringa was six times larger than official town records assumed, however, the proportion of feral dogs was estimated to account for less than 1% of the whole population. an average of 13% of all households owned dogs which equalled a dog: human ratio of 1: 14, or 0.31 dogs per household or 334 dogs km(-2). dog female: male ratio was 1: 1.4. the average age of the population was 2.2 years, 52% of all individuals were less than one year old. but mortality within the first year was high (72%). females became fertile at the age of 10 months and reportedly remained fertile up to the age of 11 years. the average number of litters whelped per fertile female per year was 0.6 with an average of 5.5 pups born per litter. the population growth was estimated at 10% y(-1). conclusions: such high birth and death rates result in a rapid replacement of anti-rabies immunised individuals with susceptible ones. this loss in herd immunity needs to be taken into account in the design of rabies control programmes. the very small proportion of truly feral dogs in the population implies that vaccination campaigns aimed at the owned dog population are sufficient to control rabies in urban iringa, and the same may be valid in other, comparable urban settings." "seasonal, spatial, and postharvest variability in the survival of repeatedly discarded saucer scallops in shark bay, western australia",fishery interaction; saucer scallop; amusium balloti; mark-recapture; program mark; cjs model,JOURNAL OF SHELLFISH RESEARCH,CHANDRAPAVAN A;KANGAS MI;SPORER EC,"saucer scallops, amusium balloti, are targeted by shark bay prawn and scallop trawl fisheries where regulatory discarding can occur during summer and winter months that may adversely impact the recruitment of this resource. survival of repeatedly discarded saucer scallops was thus estimated for the shark bay trawl fisheries using short-term tag recapture experiments under various fishing and environmental conditions. estimates of apparent survival of discarded scallops was significantly higher during the postspawning winter period (>90%) than during the prespawning summer period (20-90%), but no differences in survival between fishing grounds or between postcapture treatment groups (air exposed vs. those kept in a holding tank) were observed. this suggests that thermal stress from large differences in seasonal temperatures was more critical to scallop survival than differences in scallop reproductive condition. thus past (pre-2004) management regulations that imposed regulatory discarding during the warmer summer months would have incurred high discard mortalities. under current management measures, however, regulatory discarding is predominantly during winter months, when scallops exhibit higher resilience to trawl-induced stress. the results support the current management strategy of fishing during the warmer prespawning summer months when the amount of discards is less. regulatory discarding during the winter spawning period may generate a higher discard rate but the associated discard mortality is at its minimum." the utility of harvest recoveries of marked individuals to assess polar bear (ursus maritimus) survival,baffin bay; polar bear; ursus maritimus; climate warming; community-based monitoring; harvest; mark-recapture; survival rates,ARCTIC,PEACOCK E;LAAKE J;LAIDRE KL;BORN EW;ATKINSON SN,"management of polar bear (ursus maritimus) populations requires the periodic assessment of life history metrics such as survival rate. this information is frequently obtained during short-term capture and marking efforts (e.g., over the course of three years) that result in hundreds of marked bears remaining in the population after active marking is finished. using 10 additional years of harvest recovery subsequent to a period of active marking, we provide updated estimates of annual survival for polar bears in the baffin bay population of greenland and canada. our analysis suggests a decline in survival of polar bears since the period of active marking that ended in 1997; some-of the decline in survival can likely be attributed to a decline in springtime ice concentration over the continental shelf of baffin island. the variance around the survival estimates is comparatively high because of the declining number of marks available; therefore, results must be interpreted with caution. the variance of the estimates of survival increased most substantially in the sixth year post-marking. when survival estimates calculated with recovery-only and recapture-recovery data sets from the period of active marking were compared, survival rates were indistinguishable. however, for the period when fewer marks were available, survival estimates were lower using the recovery-only data set, which indicates that part of the decline we detected for 2003-09 may be due to using only harvest recovery data. nevertheless, the decline in the estimates of survival is consistent with population projections derived from harvest numbers and earlier vital rates, as well as with an observed decline in the extent of sea ice habitat." density and size class distribution of yellow-bellied sliders (trachemys scripta scripta) inhabiting two barrier island wetlands,barrier islands; demographics; freshwater turtles; predation pressure; population density,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,DEGREGORIO BA;GROSSE AM;GIBBONS JW,"an abundance of physical barriers and physiological challenges often prevent reptile and amphibian species from arriving at, and subsequently colonizing, barrier islands. despite the high diversity of herpetofauna in the southeastern united states, only a small subset of those species persist on the myriad of barrier islands present just offshore. the yellow-bellied slider (trachemys scripta scripta) is a versatile habitat generalist that can often be found in freshwater wetlands on barrier islands. we used a mark-recapture approach to study the population size and demographics of two populations of yellow-bellied sliders on two barrier islands. the estimated turtle density of 2,200/ha on bald head island, north carolina, usa is the highest yet reported in the literature and is much higher than that of capers island, south carolina, usa (387/ha). furthermore, turtles of both sexes captured on bald head constituted a wide range of size classes; whereas, those on capers island were mostly female (3f:1m) and were significantly larger (plastron length). selective predation between size classes or sexes can be an important driver of turtle population dynamics and behavior and we suggest that the abundance of large american alligators (alligator mississippiensis), an important turtle predator, present on capers island is likely responsible for the absence of small size classes of yellow-bellied sliders from this wetland." -"growth and age of juvenile american crocodiles (crocodylus acutus) in la ventanilla estuary, oaxaca, mexico",age estimate; american crocodile; crocodylus acutus; growth rates; mark-recapture; mexico; oaxaca,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,GARCIA-GRAJALES J;BUENROSTRO-SILVA A;CHARRUAU P,"we analyzed growth rates of wild american crocodiles (crocodylus acutus) of the oaxacan coast from 2000-2009. we also estimated the age of crocodiles at the study site based on their total length (tl), using growth rates and the von bertalanffy model. growth rates for tl and body weight were 0.056 +/- 0.049 cm/day (n=45) and 1.092 +/- 0.47 g/day (n=16), respectively. individuals with the highest growth rates in length did not necessarily have the highest growth rates in weight. for the von bertalanffy model, we used growth rate data for 23 individuals with mean tl from 700 to 1352 mm between capture and recapture. thus, the model pertained only to young individuals. based on model estimates, american crocodiles from the coast of oaxaca are larger than crocodiles of the same age from two other sites in mexico (banco chinchorro and puerto vallarta). although results of this study seem to agree with patterns found in other regions for this species, it is necessary to evaluate the factors influencing growth of c. acutus inhabiting oaxaca's coast, especially salinity, environmental temperature variations, and precipitation." +"growth and age of juvenile american crocodiles (crocodylus acutus) in la ventanilla estuary, oaxaca, mexico",age estimate; american crocodile; crocodylus acutus; growth rates; mark-recapture; mexico; oaxaca,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,GARCIA GRAJALES J;BUENROSTRO SILVA A;CHARRUAU P,"we analyzed growth rates of wild american crocodiles (crocodylus acutus) of the oaxacan coast from 2000-2009. we also estimated the age of crocodiles at the study site based on their total length (tl), using growth rates and the von bertalanffy model. growth rates for tl and body weight were 0.056 +/- 0.049 cm/day (n=45) and 1.092 +/- 0.47 g/day (n=16), respectively. individuals with the highest growth rates in length did not necessarily have the highest growth rates in weight. for the von bertalanffy model, we used growth rate data for 23 individuals with mean tl from 700 to 1352 mm between capture and recapture. thus, the model pertained only to young individuals. based on model estimates, american crocodiles from the coast of oaxaca are larger than crocodiles of the same age from two other sites in mexico (banco chinchorro and puerto vallarta). although results of this study seem to agree with patterns found in other regions for this species, it is necessary to evaluate the factors influencing growth of c. acutus inhabiting oaxaca's coast, especially salinity, environmental temperature variations, and precipitation." reproductive ecology and human-caused mortality in the japanese mamushi snake (gloydius blomhoffii) on the northernmost main island of japan,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,SASAKI K;FOX SF;DUVALL D,"japanese mamushi (gloydius blomhoffii) has long been exploited for its medicinal value. we studied this snake's reproductive ecology on hokkaido and assessed its vulnerability. we marked 299 individuals from 1999-2002 and kept 29 pregnant females in captivity until parturition. pregnant females aggregated at gestation sites during summer and fall until just before parturition. behavior suggestive of mating seasons was evident mostly in august and september. as expected, there was an apparent sex difference in body size in adults but not in neonates: females were larger than males. consistent with previous reports, both neonates and adults were larger in hokkaido than in southern japan. the smallest pregnant female measured 44.8 cm in svl, which was larger than values reported from southern regions. offspring sex ratio was statistically equal: 88 males to 105 females. litter size averaged 6.6 offspring. longer females tended to produce larger litters and longer neonates. the proportion of pregnant to non-pregnant females, coupled with mark recapture data, suggested that mamushi females skip one or more years between reproductive bouts. relative litter mass (rcm) was large (83% on average), and postpartum body condition was lower, especially so in females with larger rcm. direct human-caused mortality was highest for pregnant females (70.2%), followed by nonpregnant females and then males. high adult mortality, particularly of pregnant females, raises a concern about population persistence, because mamushi exhibit a slow life history. the tendency of pregnant females to aggregate at predictable locations further makes mamushi populations vulnerable to human killing and exploitation." a historical estimate of apparent survival of american oystercatcher (haematopus palliatus) in virginia,american oystercatcher; apparent survival; haematopus palliatus; mark-recapture; shorebirds; virginia,WATERBIRDS,NOL E;MURPHY SP;CADMAN MD,"using mark-recapture models, apparent survival was estimated from older banding and re-sighting data (1978-1983) of american oystercatchers (haematopus palliatus) nesting on beaches and in salt marshes of coastal virginia, usa. oystercatchers nesting in salt marshes exhibited higher apparent survival (0.94 +/- 0.03) than birds nesting on beaches (0.81 +/- 0.06), a difference due to variation in mortality, permanent emigration, or both. nesting on exposed barrier beaches may subject adults and young to higher risk of predation. these early estimates of adult survival for a species that is heavily monitored along the atlantic and gulf coasts can be used to (1) develop demographic models to determine population stability, (2) compare with estimates of adult survival from populations that have reached carrying capacity, and (3) compare with estimates of survival from other oystercatcher populations and species. received 24 february 2012, accepted 17 july 2012." combining a bayesian nonparametric method with a hierarchical framework to estimate individual and temporal variation in growth,atlantic salmon; bayesian state space model; growth model; mark-recapture; random effects; gaussian process,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,SIGOURNEY DB;MUNCH SB;LETCHER BH,"growth modeling has long played an important role in ecology, conservation and management of many species. however, adopting a statistical framework that includes both temporal and individual variability in the growth dynamics has proven challenging. in this paper, we use a bayesian state space framework (bssf) to estimate parameters of a discrete time model from a mark-recapture data set of age-1 juvenile atlantic salmon. we use a gaussian process (gp) based approach to model variation in seasonal growth potential. in addition, we use auxiliary information on the food environment as prior knowledge of seasonal fluctuations in growth. parameters for the gp prior and measurement error variances were fixed to speed convergence. posterior estimates of model parameters were relatively insensitive to these choices. our model captures the seasonal growth dynamics of juvenile atlantic salmon as evidenced by close agreement between observed and predicted lengths (r(2) = 0.98). in addition, the relatively narrow confidence intervals indicated significant learning in the parameters of interest. finally, our model approach was able to accurately recover missing data points. although this model was applied to a mark-recapture dataset of atlantic salmon, the generality of the approach should make it applicable to a wide variety of size trajectory datasets, and thus, provides a useful tool to estimate individual and temporal variability in growth from datasets with repeated measurements. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." extreme weather and experience influence reproduction in an endangered bird,climate change; cost of reproduction; drought; florida snail kite; mark-recapture; multistate models; population viability; robust design; rostrhamus sociabilis plumbeus; state uncertainty,ECOLOGY,REICHERT BE;CATTAU CE;FLETCHER RJ;KENDALL WL;KITCHENS WM,"extreme weather events, such as droughts and heat waves, are expected to become more severe and more frequent in the coming years, and understanding their impacts on demographic rates is of increasing interest to both evolutionary ecologists and conservation practitioners. an individual's breeding probability can be a sensitive indicator of the decision to initiate reproductive behavior under varying environmental conditions, has strong fitness consequences, and can be considered the first step in a life history trade-off between allocating resources for breeding activities or self-survival. using a 14-year time series spanning large variation in climatic conditions and the entirety of a population's breeding range, we estimated the effects of extreme weather conditions (drought) on the state-specific probabilities of breeding and survival of an endangered bird, the florida snail kite (rostrhamus sociabilis plumbeus). our analysis accounted for uncertainty in breeding status assignment, a common source of uncertainty that is often ignored when states are based on field observations. breeding probabilities in adult kites (> 1 year of age) decreased during droughts, whereas the probability of breeding in young kites (1 year of age) tended to increase. individuals attempting to breed showed no evidence of reduced future survival. although population viability analyses of this species and other species often implicitly assume that all adults will attempt to breed, we find that breeding probabilities were significantly < 1 for all 13 estimable years considered. our results suggest that experience is an important factor determining whether or not individuals attempt to breed during harsh environmental conditions and that reproductive effort may be constrained by an individual's quality and/or despotic behavior among individuals attempting to breed." -identification of abuse and dependence cases through a hospital database,substance-related disorders; medical records systems; computerized; patient admission; buprenorphine; benzodiazepines; marijuana abuse; pharmacoepidemiology,PHARMACOEPIDEMIOLOGY AND DRUG SAFETY,DAVELUY A;MIREMONT-SALAME G;KOSTRZEWA A;COURET A;LACOIN L;LECOMTE C;MOORE N;GILLERON V;HARAMBURU F,"computerized hospital databases are used for clinical and economic research. in france, the hospital administrative database, programme de medicalisation des systemes d'information (pmsi), could be an interesting means for identifying cases of abuse and dependence in hospitals. purpose to assess the capability of pmsi to identify cases of abuse and dependence (medicines or illicit drugs; tobacco and alcohol not included). methods cross-sectional study, from october 1 to december 31, 2008, in teaching hospitals of bordeaux. all hospitalizations with an icd-10 code related to possible abuse or dependence were selected. cases were validated by a committee composed of three pharmacologists using discharge summaries. results among the 34?816 patients registered in the pmsi during the study period, a total of 227 patients were pre-selected as potential cases; 21 patients, hospitalized for abuse or dependence, or complications of which, were included in the analysis. mean age was 35?years. substances implicated were buprenorphine (n?=?8), benzodiazepines (n?=?7), cannabis (n?=?6), cocaine (n?=?4), heroin (n?=?3), amphetamine, ecstasy, morphine, codeine, and tramadol (n?=?1, respectively); there was polydrug use in six cases. conclusions the pmsi database can be useful to identify certain cases of abuse and dependence. this pilot study has been conducted at a local level; as the pmsi is available in all hospital settings in france, further analysis could be done at the regional and national levels. such data could be a valuable indicator to analyze trends and assess the medical consequences of substance abuse. copyright (c) 2012 john wiley & sons, ltd." +identification of abuse and dependence cases through a hospital database,substance-related disorders; medical records systems; computerized; patient admission; buprenorphine; benzodiazepines; marijuana abuse; pharmacoepidemiology,PHARMACOEPIDEMIOLOGY AND DRUG SAFETY,DAVELUY A;MIREMONT SALAME G;KOSTRZEWA A;COURET A;LACOIN L;LECOMTE C;MOORE N;GILLERON V;HARAMBURU F,"computerized hospital databases are used for clinical and economic research. in france, the hospital administrative database, programme de medicalisation des systemes d'information (pmsi), could be an interesting means for identifying cases of abuse and dependence in hospitals. purpose to assess the capability of pmsi to identify cases of abuse and dependence (medicines or illicit drugs; tobacco and alcohol not included). methods cross-sectional study, from october 1 to december 31, 2008, in teaching hospitals of bordeaux. all hospitalizations with an icd-10 code related to possible abuse or dependence were selected. cases were validated by a committee composed of three pharmacologists using discharge summaries. results among the 34?816 patients registered in the pmsi during the study period, a total of 227 patients were pre-selected as potential cases; 21 patients, hospitalized for abuse or dependence, or complications of which, were included in the analysis. mean age was 35?years. substances implicated were buprenorphine (n?=?8), benzodiazepines (n?=?7), cannabis (n?=?6), cocaine (n?=?4), heroin (n?=?3), amphetamine, ecstasy, morphine, codeine, and tramadol (n?=?1, respectively); there was polydrug use in six cases. conclusions the pmsi database can be useful to identify certain cases of abuse and dependence. this pilot study has been conducted at a local level; as the pmsi is available in all hospital settings in france, further analysis could be done at the regional and national levels. such data could be a valuable indicator to analyze trends and assess the medical consequences of substance abuse. copyright (c) 2012 john wiley & sons, ltd." estimating tropical forest ungulate densities from sign surveys using abundance models of occupancy,detection probability; occupancy modelling; ungulate monitoring; ecological models; hierarchical models; indices of abundance; non-invasive surveys; tiger prey; tracks and dung surveys; animal home range; sign surveys,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,GOPALASWAMY AM;KARANTH KU;KUMAR NS;MACDONALD DW,"large ungulates critically influence forest structure and functioning besides being seriously threatened by anthropogenic pressures. for assessing their populations, surveys of ungulate sign encounters are widely used because of their practicality. however, these yield unreliable results because of their failure to address the problem of imperfect detection. here, we present an innovative application to address this key weakness in traditional ungulate sign surveys. we describe the ecological process of ungulate sign deposition as well as the observation process of sign detection in our modelling. we simulate 183 ecological and sampling-related parameter values to first evaluate model performance. simulation results demonstrate that we can achieve good estimates of animal density when the radius of the animal daily movement range is accounted for during survey design. we design and conduct a field survey of ungulate signs to estimate ungulate densities using both occupancy and distance sampling approaches. for five species of ungulates, the densities estimated from our sign survey (number of ungulate clusters?km-2) were 1.46(0.68) chital axis axis, 1.42(0.67) sambar rusa unicolor, 1.01(0.44) gaur bos gaurus, 0.74(0.39) wild pig sus scrofa and 1.42(1.59) muntjac muntiacus muntjak, and were similar to those generated from line transect sampling 2.16(0.76) chital, 2.47(0.56) sambar, 0.94(0.3) gaur, 1.09(0.37) wild pig and 4.03(0.83) muntjac), except for muntjac. the potential utility of this approach extends beyond sign surveys of forest ungulates to a wider range of animal monitoring contexts, including those based on scent-station surveys and camera trap surveys of elusive mammals." estimating the population density of the asian tapir (tapirus indicus) in a selectively logged forest in peninsular malaysia,abundance; camera trap; large mammals; maximum likelihood based framework; southeast asia; spatially explicit capture recapture (secr),INTEGRATIVE ZOOLOGY,RAYAN DM;MOHAMAD SW;DORWARD L;AZIZ SA;CLEMENTS GR;WONG CTC;TRAEHOLT C;MAGINTAN D,"the endangered asian tapir (tapirus indicus) is threatened by large-scale habitat loss, forest fragmentation and increased hunting pressure. conservation planning for this species, however, is hampered by a severe paucity of information on its ecology and population status. we present the first asian tapir population density estimate from a camera trapping study targeting tigers in a selectively logged forest within peninsular malaysia using a spatially explicit capturerecapture maximum likelihood based framework. with a trap effort of 2496 nights, 17 individuals were identified corresponding to a density (standard error) estimate of 9.49 (2.55) adult tapirs/100 km2. although our results include several caveats, we believe that our density estimate still serves as an important baseline to facilitate the monitoring of tapir population trends in peninsular malaysia. our study also highlights the potential of extracting vital ecological and population information for other cryptic individually identifiable animals from tiger-centric studies, especially with the use of a spatially explicit capturerecapture maximum likelihood based framework." -baird's tapir density in high elevation forests of the talamanca region of costa rica,camera trap; capture; central america; populations; tapir,INTEGRATIVE ZOOLOGY,GONZALEZ-MAYA JF;SCHIPPER J;POLIDORO B;HOEPKER A;ZARRATE--CHARRY D;BELANT JL,"baird's tapir (tapirus bairdii) is currently endangered throughout its neotropical range with an expected population decline >50% in the next 30 years. we present the first density estimation of baird's tapir for the talamanca mountains of costa rica, and one of the first for the country. ten stations with paired cameras were established in valle del silencio within parque internacional la amistad (pila). seventy-seven tapir pictures of 15 individuals comprising 25 capturerecapture events were analyzed using mark-recapture techniques. the 100% minimum convex polygon of the sampled area was 5.7 km2 and the effective sampled area using half mean maximum distances moved by tapirs was 7.16 km2. we estimated a tapir density of 2.93 individuals/km2 which represents the highest density reported for this species. intermountain valleys can represent unique and important habitats for large mammal species. however, the extent of isolation of this population, potentially constrained by steep slopes of the cordillera, remains unknown. further genetic and movement studies are required to understand meta-population dynamics and connectivity between lowland and highland areas for baird's tapir conservation in costa rica." +baird's tapir density in high elevation forests of the talamanca region of costa rica,camera trap; capture; central america; populations; tapir,INTEGRATIVE ZOOLOGY,GONZALEZ MAYA JF;SCHIPPER J;POLIDORO B;HOEPKER A;ZARRATE CHARRY D;BELANT JL,"baird's tapir (tapirus bairdii) is currently endangered throughout its neotropical range with an expected population decline >50% in the next 30 years. we present the first density estimation of baird's tapir for the talamanca mountains of costa rica, and one of the first for the country. ten stations with paired cameras were established in valle del silencio within parque internacional la amistad (pila). seventy-seven tapir pictures of 15 individuals comprising 25 capturerecapture events were analyzed using mark-recapture techniques. the 100% minimum convex polygon of the sampled area was 5.7 km2 and the effective sampled area using half mean maximum distances moved by tapirs was 7.16 km2. we estimated a tapir density of 2.93 individuals/km2 which represents the highest density reported for this species. intermountain valleys can represent unique and important habitats for large mammal species. however, the extent of isolation of this population, potentially constrained by steep slopes of the cordillera, remains unknown. further genetic and movement studies are required to understand meta-population dynamics and connectivity between lowland and highland areas for baird's tapir conservation in costa rica." do researchers impact their study populations? assessing the effect of field procedures in a long term population monitoring of sea kraits,corticosterone; ethics; laticauda; long-term survey; methods; sea snakes; survival analysis,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,FAUVEL T;BRISCHOUX F;BRIAND MJ;BONNET X,"long term population monitoring is essential to ecological studies; however, field procedures may disturb individuals. assessing this topic is important in worldwide declining taxa such as reptiles. previous studies focussed on animal welfare issues and examined short-term effects (e.g. increase of stress hormones due to handling). long-term effects with possible consequences at the population level remain poorly investigated. in the present study, we evaluated the effects of widely used field procedures (e.g. handling, marking, forced regurgitation) both on short-term (hormonal stress response) and on long-term (changes in body condition, survival) scales in two intensively monitored populations of sea kraits (laticauda spp.) in new caledonia. focusing on the most intensively monitored sites, from 2002 to 2012, we gathered approximately 11 200 captures/recaptures on 4500 individuals. each snake was individually marked (scale clipping + branding) and subjected to various measurements (e.g. body size, head morphology, palpation). in addition, a subsample of more than 500 snakes was forced to regurgitate their prey for dietary analyses. handling caused a significant stress hormonal response, however we found no detrimental long-term effect on body condition. forced regurgitation did not cause any significant effect on both body condition one year later and survival. these results suggest that the strong short-term stress provoked by field procedures did not translate into negative effects on the population. although similar analyses are required to test the validity of our conclusions in other species, our results suggest distinguishing welfare and population issues to evaluate the potential impact of population surveys." -relative importance of reproductive life-history paths in one population of the lizard sceloporus grammicus,demographic elasticities; life cycle; loop analysis; mexico; population projection matrices; viviparous lizards,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ;MOLINA-ZULUAGA C;HERNANDEZ-GALLEGOS O;MANRIQUEZ-MORAN NL;RODRIGUEZ-ROMERO F;VILLAGRAN-SANTA CRUZ M;MENDEZ-DE LA CRUZ FR,"life cycles of living organisms are composed of distinct sub-cycles that represent alternative life-history paths with differential impact on fitness. we identified three reproductive life-history paths (referred here as loops) in the life cycle of one population of the viviparous lizard sceloporus grammicus. we evaluated the relative importance of each one of these reproductive paths for the population fitness of these lizards during a 5-year period. the first path corresponded to early reproduction and included survival to maturity and early fecundity. the second path was late reproduction loop and included survival to larger adult sizes with the corresponding fecundity rate. the third was composed of those individuals skipping the small adult stage within a single year, reaching larger sizes early in life with their corresponding larger litters (fast growth loop). to examine the potential effects of environmental factors on the relative contribution of these alternative life-history paths to fitness, we estimated stage-specific survival and growth as functions of annual temperature and rainfall. using these estimates of vital rates we constructed annual population projection matrices. then, using demographic elasticities and loop analysis, we calculated the relative contribution of each of the three reproductive paths to the population growth rates. our results showed that the early reproduction loop is the path with the greatest relative contribution to the population growth rate in most years. however, increases in environmental temperature resulted in higher population growth rates and in greater contribution of the fast growth path to the overall fitness of these lizards." +relative importance of reproductive life-history paths in one population of the lizard sceloporus grammicus,demographic elasticities; life cycle; loop analysis; mexico; population projection matrices; viviparous lizards,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,ZUNIGA VEGA JJ;MOLINA ZULUAGA C;HERNANDEZ GALLEGOS O;MANRIQUEZ MORAN NL;RODRIGUEZ ROMERO F;VILLAGRAN SANTA CRUZ M;MENDEZ DE LA CRUZ FR,"life cycles of living organisms are composed of distinct sub-cycles that represent alternative life-history paths with differential impact on fitness. we identified three reproductive life-history paths (referred here as loops) in the life cycle of one population of the viviparous lizard sceloporus grammicus. we evaluated the relative importance of each one of these reproductive paths for the population fitness of these lizards during a 5-year period. the first path corresponded to early reproduction and included survival to maturity and early fecundity. the second path was late reproduction loop and included survival to larger adult sizes with the corresponding fecundity rate. the third was composed of those individuals skipping the small adult stage within a single year, reaching larger sizes early in life with their corresponding larger litters (fast growth loop). to examine the potential effects of environmental factors on the relative contribution of these alternative life-history paths to fitness, we estimated stage-specific survival and growth as functions of annual temperature and rainfall. using these estimates of vital rates we constructed annual population projection matrices. then, using demographic elasticities and loop analysis, we calculated the relative contribution of each of the three reproductive paths to the population growth rates. our results showed that the early reproduction loop is the path with the greatest relative contribution to the population growth rate in most years. however, increases in environmental temperature resulted in higher population growth rates and in greater contribution of the fast growth path to the overall fitness of these lizards." estimating demographic parameters using hidden process dynamic models,capture-recapture; hidden markov models; multievent models; multistate models; state-space models; state uncertainty,THEORETICAL POPULATION BIOLOGY,GIMENEZ O;LEBRETON JD;GAILLARD JM;CHOQUET R;PRADEL R,"structured population models are widely used in plant and animal demographic studies to assess population dynamics. in matrix population models, populations are described with discrete classes of individuals (age, life history stage or size). to calibrate these models, longitudinal data are collected at the individual level to estimate demographic parameters. however, several sources of uncertainty can complicate parameter estimation, such as imperfect detection of individuals inherent to monitoring in the wild and uncertainty in assigning a state to an individual. here, we show how recent statistical models can help overcome these issues. we focus on hidden process models that run two time series in parallel, one capturing the dynamics of the true states and the other consisting of observations arising from these underlying possibly unknown states. in a first case study, we illustrate hidden markov models with an example of how to accommodate state uncertainty using frequentist theory and maximum likelihood estimation. in a second case study, we illustrate state-space models with an example of how to estimate lifetime reproductive success despite imperfect detection, using a bayesian framework and markov chain monte carlo simulation. hidden process models are a promising tool as they allow population biologists to cope with process variation while simultaneously accounting for observation error. (c) 2012 elsevier inc. all rights reserved." -highway verges as habitat providers for small mammals in agrosilvopastoral environments,mediterranean; iberia peninsula; montado woodlands; road ecology; capture-mark-recapture; apodemus sylvaticus; mus spretus; crocidura russula,BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,ASCENSAO F;CLEVENGER AP;GRILO C;FILIPE J;SANTOS-REIS M,"the mediterranean basin has an important conservation value given its high biodiversity and high number of endemic species, which have co-existed with human traditional practices for centuries. however, northern areas as the iberian peninsula have experienced intensification in livestock production in recent past, with consequent reduction in habitat quality. in this study we assessed the importance of fenced highway verges as habitat for small mammals in mediterranean agrosilvopastoral landscapes. more specifically, we compared small mammal abundance between highway verges and the adjacent two main land uses (""montado"" and open areas); compared the vegetative structure among these land uses; and addressed how vegetation structure influences species occupancy. thirty-six sites were sampled in agrosilvopastoral system areas in southern portugal (sampling effort 8,840 trap-nights). a total of 351 individuals from target species were captured: 157 wood mice (apodemus sylvaticus), 95 western mediterranean mice (mus spretus) and 99 greater white-toothed shrews (crocidura russula). capture-mark-recapture analyses were performed to estimate population size. our data suggests that fenced highway verges promote better vegetative structure conditions which in turn favor a higher animal abundance therein. we suggest the adoption of management practices to increase the height and cover of herbaceous and shrub layers in road verges, together with creating grazing controlled areas in highway vicinity, particularly in ""montado"" patches, linked by vegetated linear features. this would increase habitat and refuge for a large numbers of species, including small mammals, and thus benefiting the trophic chain and the whole agrosilvopastoral system." +highway verges as habitat providers for small mammals in agrosilvopastoral environments,mediterranean; iberia peninsula; montado woodlands; road ecology; capture-mark-recapture; apodemus sylvaticus; mus spretus; crocidura russula,BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,ASCENSAO F;CLEVENGER AP;GRILO C;FILIPE J;SANTOS REIS M,"the mediterranean basin has an important conservation value given its high biodiversity and high number of endemic species, which have co-existed with human traditional practices for centuries. however, northern areas as the iberian peninsula have experienced intensification in livestock production in recent past, with consequent reduction in habitat quality. in this study we assessed the importance of fenced highway verges as habitat for small mammals in mediterranean agrosilvopastoral landscapes. more specifically, we compared small mammal abundance between highway verges and the adjacent two main land uses (""montado"" and open areas); compared the vegetative structure among these land uses; and addressed how vegetation structure influences species occupancy. thirty-six sites were sampled in agrosilvopastoral system areas in southern portugal (sampling effort 8,840 trap-nights). a total of 351 individuals from target species were captured: 157 wood mice (apodemus sylvaticus), 95 western mediterranean mice (mus spretus) and 99 greater white-toothed shrews (crocidura russula). capture-mark-recapture analyses were performed to estimate population size. our data suggests that fenced highway verges promote better vegetative structure conditions which in turn favor a higher animal abundance therein. we suggest the adoption of management practices to increase the height and cover of herbaceous and shrub layers in road verges, together with creating grazing controlled areas in highway vicinity, particularly in ""montado"" patches, linked by vegetated linear features. this would increase habitat and refuge for a large numbers of species, including small mammals, and thus benefiting the trophic chain and the whole agrosilvopastoral system." carry-over effects of spring hunt and climate on recruitment to the natal colony in a migratory species,arctic; capture-mark-recapture; harvest; multistate model; population management; snow geese,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,JUILLET C;CHOQUET R;GAUTHIER G;LEFEBVRE J;PRADEL R,"in long-lived species, temporal variation in recruitment, defined as the entry of new individuals into the breeding population, can have a large effect on population growth rate. while hunting, as a management tool, is generally expected to control population size via increased mortality, it may also act by affecting recruitment. although the impact of hunting on survival is well studied, less attention has been paid to the non-lethal impacts of hunting on recruitment. to control the population size of the greater snow goose chen caerulescens atlantica, an overabundant arctic-nesting species, a spring hunting season was implemented from 1999 onwards in addition to the traditional autumn and winter hunting seasons. we investigated the potential carry-over effect of spring hunting on recruitment of females to their natal colony on bylot island, nunavut, canada from 1992 to 2005 while accounting for other potential confounding factors, primarily climatic effects. we applied a multistate capture-mark-recapture recruitment model to a dataset of known-age individuals (n = 12 100), combining live recaptures at the breeding colony with dead recoveries from hunters. annual variation in recruitment probability was best explained by spring hunt and a synthetic variable combining the climatic conditions experienced during migration (extreme values of the north atlantic oscillation index) with conditions upon arrival at the breeding grounds (snow cover). this model accounted for 58% of the temporal variation in recruitment, while the harvest rate or the climatic index taken alone accounted for 38% each. in the year with the highest spring hunting pressure (adult harvest rate 6%), recruitment was reduced by up to 50% compared to years with no hunt and similar average climatic conditions. synthesis and applications. we conclude that there was a negative impact of the spring hunt not only on survival but also on recruitment in greater snow geese. these non-lethal effects of hunting must be considered in management decisions aimed at controlling overabundant populations where recruitment is an important driver of population growth, as occurs in geese. our study is also relevant to other situations such as in threatened species still exposed to hunting, as consideration of non-lethal effects of hunting may be critical for their conservation." european rabbit survival and recruitment are linked to epidemiological and environmental conditions in their exotic range,capture-mark-recapture; climate change; invasive species; myxoma virus; myxomatosis; pest management; rabbit haemorrhagic disease; rhd,AUSTRAL ECOLOGY,FORDHAM DA;SINCLAIR RG;PEACOCK DE;MUTZE GJ;KOVALISKI J;CASSEY P;CAPUCCI L;BROOK BW,"the european rabbit, oryctolagus cuniculus, is threatened within its native range, yet it is a highly successful colonizing pest species across its worldwide introduced range, causing large economic losses and widespread environmental degradation. to date, there has been no long-term empirical evidence documenting the relative roles of climatic, epidemiological and biological factors in limiting life-history determinants of rabbit range and abundance. using 12 years of capturemarkrecapture data from their exotic range in australia, we constructed candidate cormackjollyseber models to test the influence of environmental, competition and disease conditions on rabbit survival and recruitment. our results show that: (i) population-level disease infection rate has the largest overall impact on rabbit survival, explaining 80% of variance in survival rates; (ii) environmental as well as epidemiological conditions constrain rabbit survival, especially for younger animals; (iii) temporal variation in rabbit kitten recruitment patterns are best described by a combination of climate, competition and disease settings (accounting for 68% of variance), while temperature alone has a strong negative influence on kitten recruitment; and (iv) recruitment responds positively to rabbit haemorrhagic disease, but negatively to myxomatosis the former, probably being mediated through a disease driven effect on intraspecific competition for food. a strengthened understanding of climate change impacts on rabbit range and abundance can be achieved by accounting explicitly for potential synergisms between disease dynamics and climate. in this analysis, we provide the first step towards such an attempt for this important mammal species. integrated approaches of this kind are essential for future forecasts of rabbit range and abundance, offsetting the conservation threat faced by o. cuniculus in its native range, and achieving effective management in exotic habitats." estimating stray dog populations with the regression method versus beck's method: a comparison,animal welfare; capture-recapture; heterogeneous capture probabilities; photographic survey; population size; stray dogs,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,FEI SY;CHIANG JT;FEI CY;CHOU CH;TUNG MC,"statistical procedures for wildlife population estimation have been greatly improved since the last decade. for estimation of stray dog population size, however, the simple methods recommended by the 1990 who/wspa guidelines seem to remain the popular favorites among researchers. although the methods are very easy to use, their usefulness relies heavily on certain assumptions that are generally unrealistic. using simulation studies, we conclude that beck's method, one of the estimators recommended by the guidelines, performs fairly well and can be safely used to get a quick population estimate, as long as the underlying assumptions are not severely violated." habitat complexity impacts persistence and species interactions in an intertidal whelk,NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,GOSNELL JS;DIPRIMA JB;GAINES SD,"although experiments have shown that habitat structure may influence the distribution of species and species interactions, these effects are still not commonly integrated into studies of community dynamics. since habitat structure often varies within and among communities, this may limit our understanding of how various factors influence communities. here, we examined how mussel bed complexity (the presence and thickness of mussel layers) influenced the persistence of whelks (nucella emarginata) and interactions with a top predator (ochre sea stars, pisaster ochraceus) and prey (mussels, mytilus californianus). results from a mark-recapture experiment indicate that whelk recapture rates are higher in more complex habitats, and laboratory experiments demonstrate that habitat complexity affects whelk feeding, growth, and nonconsumptive interactions with a keystone predator. habitat complexity therefore has direct effects on species and also may lead to trade-offs among feeding, refuge, and other factors, potentially influencing the distribution of whelks and the effects of both whelks and sea stars on intertidal communities. these results demonstrate that habitat structure may play an important role in intertidal communities and other habitats and should be further considered in the experimental design of future studies of community dynamics." evaluating the efficacy of non-invasive genetic methods and estimating wolf survival during a ten-year period,capture-recapture; isle royale; microsatellite dna; non-invasive; survival; wolves,CONSERVATION GENETICS,MARUCCO F;VUCETICH LM;PETERSON RO;ADAMS JR;VUCETICH JA,"genetic capture-recapture (cr) analysis is a highly promising tool to estimate population parameters and monitor populations through time. however, its level of accuracy has rarely been assessed and comparisons with traditional estimates in controlled settings have rarely been performed. we used cr analysis with long-term fecal genotyping data and applied open-population models to estimate survival rates and assess trend in abundance of wolves in isle royale over 10 years, while simultaneously estimating those parameters with traditional aerial-based techniques that are believed to be reasonably accurate. comparison of the techniques indicated that there is a good correspondence of estimates only when the effort in genetic sampling is high, which guarantees a high recapture probability. juvenile wolves had higher annual cr survival rates than adult wolves; kill rates most affected wolf survival in this natural ecosystem, and higher annual kill rates were correlated with higher annual adult survival. adult survival (but not juvenile survival) was an important predictor of population growth rate. hence, we show that kill rates indirectly affected population growth rate and directly affected adult survival rate. these reliable estimates of survival have unique value because the isle royale wolf population is not exposed to any human-caused mortality. therefore, knowing long-term patterns of annual survival and its relationship to population growth rate for a not hunted wolf population represents a critical baseline for wolf conservation throughout its worldwide distribution." long-term demographic consequences of habitat fragmentation to a tropical understory bird community,apparent survival; biodiversity hotspot; deforestation; eastern arc; fragmentation; mark-recapture; population growth rate; recruitment; seniority; tanzania; tropical; understory bird,ECOLOGY,KORFANTA NM;NEWMARK WD;KAUFFMAN MJ,"tropical deforestation continues to cause population declines and local extinctions in centers of avian diversity and endemism. although local species extinctions stem from reductions in demographic rates, little is known about how habitat fragmentation influences survival of tropical bird populations or the relative importance of survival and fecundity in ultimately shaping communities. we analyzed 22 years of mark-recapture data to assess how fragmentation influenced apparent survival, recruitment, and realized population growth rate within 22 forest understory bird species in the usambara mountains, tanzania. this represents the first such effort, in either tropical or temperate systems, to characterize the effect of deforestation on avian survival across such a broad suite of species. long-term demographic analysis of this suite of species experiencing the same fragmented environment revealed considerable variability in species' responses to fragmentation, in addition to general patterns that emerged from comparison among species. across the understory bird community as a whole, we found significantly lower apparent survival and realized population growth rate in small fragments relative to large, demonstrating fragmentation effects to demographic rates long after habitat loss. demographic rates were depressed across five feeding guilds, suggesting that fragmentation sensitivity was not limited to insectivores. seniority analyses, together with a positive effect of fragmentation on recruitment, indicated that depressed apparent survival was the primary driver of population declines and observed extinctions. we also found a landscape effect, with lower vital rates in one mountain range relative to another, suggesting that fragmentation effects may add to other large-scale drivers of population decline. overall, realized population growth rate (lambda) estimates were < 1 for most species, suggesting that future population persistence, even within large forest fragments, is uncertain in this biodiversity hotspot." -endemic lagos bat virus infection in eidolon helvum,capture-mark-recapture; lyssavirus; multi-state model; rabies; straw-coloured fruit bat; time-series data,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,HAYMAN DTS;FOOKS AR;ROWCLIFFE JM;MCCREA R;RESTIF O;BAKER KS;HORTON DL;SUU-IRE R;CUNNINGHAM AA;WOOD JLN,"phylogenetic analyses suggest lyssaviruses, including rabies virus, originated from bats. however, the role of bats in the maintenance, transmission and evolution of lyssaviruses is poorly understood. a number of genetically diverse lyssaviruses are present in africa, including lagos bat virus (lbv). a high seroprevalence of antibodies against lbv was detected in eidolon helvum bats. longitudinal seroprevalence and age-specific seroprevalence data were analysed and capture-mark-recapture (cmr) analysis used to follow 98 bats over 18 months. these data demonstrate endemic infection, with evidence of horizontal transmission, and force of infection was estimated for differing age categories. the cmr analysis found survival probabilities of seronegative and seropositive bats were not significantly different. the lack of increased mortality in seropositive animals suggests infection is not causing disease after extended incubation. these key findings point towards acute transmission of bat lyssaviruses in adapted bat hosts that occurs at a far higher rate than the occurrence of disease." +endemic lagos bat virus infection in eidolon helvum,capture-mark-recapture; lyssavirus; multi-state model; rabies; straw-coloured fruit bat; time-series data,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,HAYMAN DTS;FOOKS AR;ROWCLIFFE JM;MCCREA R;RESTIF O;BAKER KS;HORTON DL;SUU IRE R;CUNNINGHAM AA;WOOD JLN,"phylogenetic analyses suggest lyssaviruses, including rabies virus, originated from bats. however, the role of bats in the maintenance, transmission and evolution of lyssaviruses is poorly understood. a number of genetically diverse lyssaviruses are present in africa, including lagos bat virus (lbv). a high seroprevalence of antibodies against lbv was detected in eidolon helvum bats. longitudinal seroprevalence and age-specific seroprevalence data were analysed and capture-mark-recapture (cmr) analysis used to follow 98 bats over 18 months. these data demonstrate endemic infection, with evidence of horizontal transmission, and force of infection was estimated for differing age categories. the cmr analysis found survival probabilities of seronegative and seropositive bats were not significantly different. the lack of increased mortality in seropositive animals suggests infection is not causing disease after extended incubation. these key findings point towards acute transmission of bat lyssaviruses in adapted bat hosts that occurs at a far higher rate than the occurrence of disease." temporal patterns of reproductive activity and site attachment of the brilliant-thighed frog allobates femoralis from central amazonia,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,KAEFER IL;MONTANARIN A;DA COSTA RS;LIMA AP,"field observations and mark recapture sampling carried out in the reserva ducke in central amazonia provided information on the occurrence of reproductive events of the brilliant-thighed frog, allobates femoralis, in the context of seasonal rainfall. in addition, we report on the daily pattern of calling activity and the use of space by marked individuals. rainfall was a strong determinant of the calling and breeding activities at a seasonal scale. the phenology of a. femoralis was affected by interannual differences in both the length and severity of the dry season. this species showed a consistent diel pattern throughout the year, with calling activity peaking between 1500 and 1600 h. at the seasonal scale, calling activity was higher during the wet months and was correlated positively with monthly rainfall. although recruitment is concentrated in the late wet season, our observations of juveniles in the smallest size classes throughout the year indicated that reproduction occurs sporadically even during the dry season, probably stimulated by isolated episodes of rainfall. territories varied greatly in size, ranging from 4.8 to 175.7 m(2). females did not establish or defend territories. individuals of both sexes showed regional interseasonal attachment, and males maintained territories for up to 255 days." "demography of the heike firefly luciola lateralis (coleoptera: lampyridae), a representative species of japan's traditional agricultural landscape",mark-recapture; population size; rice paddy field; satoyama; aquatic insects; japan,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,KOJI S;NAKAMURA A;NAKAMURA K,"populations of the heike firefly, luciola lateralis, a representative species of japan's traditional agricultural landscape (known as satoyama), have recently experienced rapid declines in many areas of japan. owing to the popularity of this firefly, many local communities have increased conservation efforts through the restoration of aquatic habitat complexes in satoyama. to provide fundamental parameters to predict population dynamics of the firefly, we conducted a mark-recapture study in restored paddy fields, and we estimated adult population parameters such as population size, survival, recruitment, sex ratio, and body size. we found that capture probability generally decreased as the season advanced, probably because of seasonal changes in detectability and/or firefly behavior. the daily survival rate of adults decreased over the season and may be related to a seasonal decline in adult body size. adult population exhibited a highly male-biased sex ratio. firefly abundance in the restored paddy fields doubled during the 4-year study period. our analysis showed that adult detectability, recruitment, and survival rate are seasonally variable and could affect population size estimates obtained by a simple flash census. the mark-recapture technique can provide precise estimates of adult l. lateralis population characteristics and, thus, is a valuable method for predicting firefly populations and assessing the success of the restoration program." incorporating individual variability into mark-recapture models,hidden markov model; individual heterogeneity; marine reserve; mark-recapture; multi-state; north atlantic humpback whales,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,FORD JH;BRAVINGTON MV;ROBBINS J,"understanding individual variation is a key challenge in ecology. inherent individual differences in movement and behaviour pose fundamental problems in the analysis of markrecapture data as unmodelled individual differences can bias estimates of population size and survival rates. multi-state markrecapture models have been the focus of much recent research but have yet to explicitly incorporate individual variability. we use a multi-state markrecapture model with individual-level random effects, built in admb-re, a software tool that automatically provides an accurate analytical approximation of the likelihood which is otherwise intractable. we tested the model using simulation studies and applied the model to data from north atlantic humpback whales in the stellwagen bank national marine sanctuary where heterogeneity is apparent in both sighting probability and site preference. simulation studies demonstrated accurate estimation of true parameter values with random effects models but bias sometimes resulted from fitting simpler models. in application to data from the north atlantic humpback whales, we were able to estimate both annual variation in the local population and three measures of individual-level variation. results indicate considerable heterogeneity within this population in both sighting probability and site preference. ignoring random effects led to bias in estimates of proportion of time within a marine reserve." program spacecap: software for estimating animal density using spatially explicit capture-recapture models,abundance estimation; camera traps; carnivore conservation; carnivore monitoring; density estimation; faecal dna sampling; hair snares; mark-recapture; marked animals; spatial models,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GOPALASWAMY AM;ROYLE JA;HINES JE;SINGH P;JATHANNA D;KUMAR NS;KARANTH KU,"the advent of spatially explicit capturerecapture models is changing the way ecologists analyse capturerecapture data. however, the advantages offered by these new models are not fully exploited because they can be difficult to implement. to address this need, we developed a user-friendly software package, created within the r programming environment, called spacecap. this package implements bayesian spatially explicit hierarchical models to analyse spatial capturerecapture data. given that a large number of field biologists prefer software with graphical user interfaces for analysing their data, spacecap is particularly useful as a tool to increase the adoption of bayesian spatially explicit capturerecapture methods in practice." on the spatial scale of dispersal in coral reef fishes,isolation by distance; larval dispersal; marine; mesoamerican barrier reef; population genetics; spatial genetics,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,PUEBLA O;BERMINGHAM E;MCMILLAN WO,"marine biologists have gone through a paradigm shift, from the assumption that marine populations are largely open owing to extensive larval dispersal to the realization that marine dispersal is more restricted than previously thought. yet, population genetic studies often reveal low levels of genetic structure across large geographic areas. on the other side, more direct approaches such as mark-recapture provide evidence of localized dispersal. to what extent can direct and indirect studies of marine dispersal be reconciled? one approach consists in applying genetic methods that have been validated with direct estimates of dispersal. here, we use such an approachgenetic isolation by distance between individuals in continuous populationsto estimate the spatial scale of dispersal in five species of coral reef fish presenting low levels of genetic structure across the caribbean. individuals were sampled continuously along a 220-km transect following the mesoamerican barrier reef, population densities were estimated from surveys covering 17 200 m(2) of reef, and samples were genotyped at a total of 58 microsatellite loci. a small but positive isolation-by-distance slope was observed in the five species, providing mean parent-offspring dispersal estimates ranging between 7 and 42 km (ci 1113 km) and suggesting that there might be a correlation between minimum/maximum pelagic larval duration and dispersal in coral reef fishes. coalescent-based simulations indicate that these results are robust to a variety of dispersal distributions and sampling designs. we conclude that low levels of genetic structure across large geographic areas are not necessarily indicative of extensive dispersal at ecological timescales." assessing avian predation on juvenile salmonids using passive integrated transponder tag recoveries and mark-recapture methods,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,FRECHETTE D;OSTERBACK AMK;HAYES SA;BOND MH;MOORE JW;SHAFFER SA;HARVEY JT,"many populations of coho salmon oncorhynchus kisutch and steelhead o. mykiss are listed under the u.s. endangered species act. until recently, the role of avian predation in limiting recovery of coho salmon and steelhead in central california coastal watersheds has been overlooked. we used recoveries of passive integrated transponder (pit) tags from ano nuevo island (ani), a breeding site for several species of piscivorous seabirds, to estimate predation rates on juvenile salmonids and identify susceptible life stages and species responsible for predation. a total of 34,485 pit tags were deployed in coho salmon and steelhead in six watersheds in san mateo and santa cruz counties. tags were deposited on ani by predators after ingestion of tagged fish. because tags were not removed from the island and were detected on multiple sampling occasions, we were able to use markrecapture models to generate a corrected minimum predation estimate. we used popan, a variation of the jollyseber model, to generate an estimate of gross population abundance, which accounted for tags deposited on the island but not detected during surveys. detections of 196 tags from surveys conducted between autumn 2006 and spring 2009 were incorporated into the model, producing a gross population estimate of 242 tags (se = 9.8). addition of tags detected between autumn 2009 and 2010 to the abundance estimate from popan produced a new minimum estimate of 362 tags on ani. western gulls larus occidentalis probably were the primary predator depositing tags on ani. minimum predation estimates ranged from 0.1% (soquel creek) to 4.6% (waddell creek) of outmigrating coho salmon and steelhead smolts. predation was potentially greater given still unquantified deposition of tags off-colony and destruction of tags during digestive processes of predators. finally, avian predators targeted estuary-reared fish, which contributed disproportionately to adult populations, further impacting imperiled salmon populations. received august 4, 2011; accepted august 27, 2012" -"movement patterns of stream-dwelling fishes from mata atlantica, southeast brazil",migration; home-range; life history; characins; siluroidei; brazil,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,MAZZONI R;IGLESIAS-RIOS R,"the identification of mechanisms of spatial-temporal variation, obtained from the quantification of natural populations, is a central topic of ecological research. despite its importance to life-history theory, as well as to conservation and management of natural populations, no studies concerning movement patterns and home range of small stream-dwelling fishes from brazilian rain forests are known. in the present study we aimed to describe the longitudinal pattern of long distance movement as well as local patterns of short movement (daily home-range) of fishes from a mata atlantica stream from southeast brazil. we gathered information about movement dynamic in order to discuss the relationship between swimming ability, fish morphology and home range. long distance movement data were obtained in a mark-recapture experiment held in the field between june and september - 2008, on five sites along the ubatiba stream. for this study, we had one day to mark fishes, on june-19, and 14 events for recapture. considering the ten species that inhabit the study area, our study showed that four species: astyanax janeiroensis, astyanax hastatus, parotocinclus maculicauda and pimelodella lateristriga, moved at least 6 000m in 60 days. the other six species did not present long distance movements, as they were recaptured in the same site 90 days after being marked. for short distance study, movement data were obtained in one mark-recapture experiment held in a 100m long site subdivided into five 20m stretches where fishes were marked with different elastomer colours. we marked 583 specimens that after recapture showed two groups of different movement patterns. the first group was called ""long movement group"" and the second one was called ""short movement group"". the long movement group showed, on average, 89.8% of moving fishes and 10.2% of non moving fishes, against 21.3% and 78.7%, respectively, for the short movement group. it was concluded that fish movement could explain the previously mentioned community stability, and that it is correlated to specific morphological attributes. rev. biol. trop. 60 (4): 1837-1846. epub 2012 december 01." +"movement patterns of stream-dwelling fishes from mata atlantica, southeast brazil",migration; home-range; life history; characins; siluroidei; brazil,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,MAZZONI R;IGLESIAS RIOS R,"the identification of mechanisms of spatial-temporal variation, obtained from the quantification of natural populations, is a central topic of ecological research. despite its importance to life-history theory, as well as to conservation and management of natural populations, no studies concerning movement patterns and home range of small stream-dwelling fishes from brazilian rain forests are known. in the present study we aimed to describe the longitudinal pattern of long distance movement as well as local patterns of short movement (daily home-range) of fishes from a mata atlantica stream from southeast brazil. we gathered information about movement dynamic in order to discuss the relationship between swimming ability, fish morphology and home range. long distance movement data were obtained in a mark-recapture experiment held in the field between june and september - 2008, on five sites along the ubatiba stream. for this study, we had one day to mark fishes, on june-19, and 14 events for recapture. considering the ten species that inhabit the study area, our study showed that four species: astyanax janeiroensis, astyanax hastatus, parotocinclus maculicauda and pimelodella lateristriga, moved at least 6 000m in 60 days. the other six species did not present long distance movements, as they were recaptured in the same site 90 days after being marked. for short distance study, movement data were obtained in one mark-recapture experiment held in a 100m long site subdivided into five 20m stretches where fishes were marked with different elastomer colours. we marked 583 specimens that after recapture showed two groups of different movement patterns. the first group was called ""long movement group"" and the second one was called ""short movement group"". the long movement group showed, on average, 89.8% of moving fishes and 10.2% of non moving fishes, against 21.3% and 78.7%, respectively, for the short movement group. it was concluded that fish movement could explain the previously mentioned community stability, and that it is correlated to specific morphological attributes. rev. biol. trop. 60 (4): 1837-1846. epub 2012 december 01." "development of a reliable method for determining sex for a primitive rodent, the point arena mountain beaver (aplodontia rufa nigra)",aplodontia rufa nigra; sex determination; mountain beaver; non-invasive genetic sampling; zfx; zfy,CONSERVATION GENETICS RESOURCES,PILGRIM KL;ZIELINSKI WJ;SCHLEXER FV;SCHWARTZ MK,"the mountain beaver (aplodontia rufa) is a primitive species of rodent, often considered a living fossil. the point arena mountain beaver (aplodontia rufa nigra) is an endangered subspecies that occurs in a very restricted range in northern california. efforts to recover this taxon have been limited by the lack of knowledge on their demography, particularly sex and age-specific vital rates. recent studies have employed non-invasive genetic sampling to conduct capture-mark-recaptures to estimate abundance, survival and recruitment. here we report on the development of a method using restriction fragment length polymorphisms to determine sex from tissues, bone and non-invasively collected hair samples for the point arena mountain beaver." individual and population-level impacts of an emerging poxvirus disease in a wild population of great tits,NA,PLOS ONE,LACHISH S;BONSALL MB;LAWSON B;CUNNINGHAM AA;SHELDON BC,"emerging infectious diseases of wildlife can have severe effects on host populations and constitute a pressing problem for biodiversity conservation. paridae pox is an unusually severe form of avipoxvirus infection that has recently been identified as an emerging infectious disease particularly affecting an abundant songbird, the great tit (parus major), in great britain. in this study, we study the invasion and establishment of paridae pox in a long-term monitored population of wild great tits to (i) quantify the impact of this novel pathogen on host fitness and (ii) determine the potential threat it poses to population persistence. we show that paridae pox significantly reduces the reproductive output of great tits by reducing the ability of parents to fledge young successfully and rear those young to independence. our results also suggested that pathogen transmission from diseased parents to their offspring was possible, and that disease entails severe mortality costs for affected chicks. application of multistate mark-recapture modelling showed that paridae pox causes significant reductions to host survival, with particularly large effects observed for juvenile survival. using an age-structured population model, we demonstrate that paridae pox has the potential to reduce population growth rate, primarily through negative impacts on host survival rates. however, at currently observed prevalence, significant disease-induced population decline seems unlikely, although pox prevalence may be underestimated if capture probability of diseased individuals is low. despite this, because pox-affected model populations exhibited lower average growth rates, this emerging infectious disease has the potential to reduce the resilience of populations to other environmental factors that reduce population size." evaluation of tuberculosis underreporting in greece through comparison with anti-tuberculosis drug consumption,NA,PLOS ONE,LYTRAS T;SPALA G;BONOVAS S;PANAGIOTOPOULOS T,"surveillance is an integral part of tuberculosis (tb) control. greece has a low tb notification rate, but there are doubts about underreporting. examining anti-tb drug consumption is a way to validate the results of surveillance and estimate tb burden in the country. we used surveillance data from 2004 to 2008 to calculate the average prescribed treatment duration with the first-line anti-tb drugs isoniazid, rifampicin, ethambutol and pyrazinamide. we then obtained the best available data on consumption of these drugs, and calculated the number of treated cases to which these quantities correspond. we thus estimated underreporting at around 80% (77-81%), and annual tb incidence at about 30 cases per 100,000 population, five times over the notification rate. underreporting was found to be constant over the study period, while incidence followed a decreasing trend. in addition we estimated that one person receives chemoprophylaxis for latent tuberculosis infection (ltbi) for every three tb cases. these results indicate the need for a comprehensive plan to improve tb surveillance and tb contact tracing in greece, especially in light of the economic crisis affecting the country since 2009." @@ -3343,24 +3348,24 @@ stress-induced tradeoffs in a free-living lizard across a variable landscape: co informing a decision framework for when nice should recommend the use of health technologies only in the context of an appropriately designed programme of evidence development,NA,HEALTH TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT,CLAXTON K;PALMER S;LONGWORTH L;BOJKE L;GRIFFIN S;MCKENNA C;SOARES M;SPACKMAN E;YOUN J,"background: the general issue of balancing the value of evidence about the performance of a technology and the value of access to a technology can be seen as central to a number of policy questions. establishing the key principles of what assessments are needed, as well as how they should be made, will enable them to be addressed in an explicit and transparent manner. objectives: the aims of this research are to (1) establish the key principles of what assessments are needed to inform an 'only in research' (oir) or 'approval with research' (awr) recommendation, (2) evaluate previous national institute for health and clinical evidence (nice) guidance in which oir or awr recommendations were made or considered and (3) evaluate a range of alternative options to establish criteria, additional information and/or analysis that could be made available to inform the assessments needed. data sources: all nice draft and final guidance up to january 2010 was considered in the review of nice technology appraisal guidance. four case studies were used to evaluate the range of options of what information and analysis could be made available to inform the assessment required. these were based on a reanalysis of existing health technology appraisals for nice or the health technology assessment programme. review methods: a critical review of policies, practice and literature was undertaken using traditional systematic searching based on initial search terms informed by key publications. an iterative approach was adopted using 'pearl growing' evaluated through capture-recapture methods. in addition, grey literature, policy documents and other sources, such as special interest groups and the expertise of the advisory group for the project, were used to contribute to this process. results: a series of recommendations, or options, for nice to consider were developed with the involvement of key stakeholders. these establish the key principles and associated criteria that might guide oir and awr recommendations and identify what, if any, additional information or analysis might be included in the technology appraisal process, including how such recommendations might be more likely to be implemented through publically funded and sponsored research. to meet these aims the research is broadly structured as follows. a critical review of policy, practice and literature in this area informs the development of a coherent conceptual framework to establish the key principles and the sequence of assessment and judgements required. this sequence of assessment and judgement is represented as an algorithm, which can also be summarised as a simple set of explicit criteria or a 7-point checklist of assessments. a review of previous nice guidance in which oir or awr recommendations were either made or considered was undertaken to examine the extent to which the key principles are evident. the application of the checklist of assessment to a series of four case studies informs considerations of whether or not such assessments can be made based on existing information and analysis in current nice appraisal and in what circumstances could additional information and/or analysis be useful. finally, some of the implications that this more explicit assessment of oir and awr might have for policy (e.g. nice guidance and drug pricing), the process of appraisal (e.g. greater involvement of research commissioners) and methods of appraisal (e.g. should additional information, evidence and analysis be required) are drawn together. at each stage this research has been informed by a diverse and international advisory group and the feedback from participants at two workshops involving a wide range of key stakeholders, which included members of nice and its advisory committees (including lay members and other nice programmes), patient advocates, manufacturers, and research and nhs commissioners, as well as relevant academics. limitations: further research is required to establish how these considerations could be integrated within a practical value-based pricing scheme. in addition, irrecoverable opportunity costs are commonly associated with many health technologies that offer future benefits following treatment. the significance of these types of irrecoverable costs is not widely recognised and further research to demonstrate their potential impact more generally is needed. conclusions: the categories of guidance available to nice have a wider application than is reflected in the review of previous guidance. importantly, determining which category of guidance will be appropriate depends only partly on an assessment of expected cost-effectiveness. as well as awr for technologies expected to be cost-effective and oir for those not expected to be cost-effective, there are other important circumstances when oir should be considered. in particular, for technologies expected to be cost-effective, oir rather than approve may be appropriate when research is not possible with approval and oir or even reject, rather than awr or approve, may be appropriate even if research is possible with approval when there are significant irrecoverable costs. funding: the national institute for health research health technology assessment programme." "catching efficiency of toothed dredges for ark shell scapharca broughtonii in sendai bay, northeastern japan",NA,NIPPON SUISAN GAKKAISHI,TANABE T;WATANABE K;SUZUKI N;ONO T,"the catching efficiency of toothed dredges estimated in the 1960-70s is still used for stock assessments of ark shell scapharca broughtonii, although the fishing power of ark shell dredge fishery has improved during the last four decades with the modification of fishing gear and vessels. this study presents the catching efficiency of the toothed dredges currently used for ark shell fishery in sendai bay, based on the results of mark-recapture experiments. an experimental area was located at a depth of 23 m in the central part of the fishing ground. the experimental area where the marked ark shells were released extended 20 m in length from north to south in the area. after marked shells had been released along the area, they were recaptured the next day by towing ark shell dredges across the area from west to east. the catching efficiency was estimated to be 0.54 from the catchability coefficient estimated by the delury method and the ratio of the experimental area to the dredge-swept area, and was higher than those obtained in previous studies. this result suggests that it is necessary to reconsider the underestimated efficiency for the stock assessment and fisheries management of ark shell. to investigate ark shell resources, the obtained result should be substituted for the previous catching efficiency of ark shell dredges." recapture probability underwater: predicting the detection of the threatened noble pen shell in seagrass meadows,NA,LIMNOLOGY AND OCEANOGRAPHY-METHODS,HENDRIKS IE;DEUDERO S;TAVECCHIA G,"capture-recapture methods to estimate population size and its uncertainty rely on the important assumption that recapture probability does not change across individuals or within groups of individuals. this assumption is rarely met in natural populations and assessing the variance components associated with the recapture probability of marked individuals would help to design surveys. we illustrate a two-session capture-recapture survey of the threatened pen shell around the archipelago of majorca, spain. we were interested in investigating difference across teams of divers, sites, and individuals in the recapture probability of marked bivalves. we found that the probability of recapture was positively associated with shell width while differences across teams and sites were small. our results indicate that inferences based on counts or on an average value of shell detection probability are underestimating total population size and in particular are skewed toward large size individuals leading to an erroneous measure of recruitment. in our case using an average value of detection probability, the number of young pen shells would be underestimated of c. 19%. estimates of population size by capture-recapture methods should be derived taking into account size-dependent variability in recapture probabilities." -population abundance and sex ratio of the viviparous freshwater fish poeciliopsis baenschi (poeciliidae) throughout its range in western mexico,NA,WESTERN NORTH AMERICAN NATURALIST,ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ;HERNANDEZ-ROSAS AL;MOLINA-MOCTEZUMA A;PEREZ-MENDOZA HA;RODRIGUEZ-REYES FR;BRAVO-ESPINOSA YM;ESPINOSA-PEREZ H,"we estimated population abundance and sex ratio for a freshwater live-bearing fish species (poeciliopsis boenschi) that inhabits fluvial systems in western mexico. we conducted mark-recapture experiments in 6 distinct populations. we used both our catch data as well as estimates of capture probability to calculate the number of individuals per unit water volume for adult males, adult females, and juveniles. overall, abundance varied among sites from 23.8 individuals . m(-3) to 363.2 individuals . m(-3). in most of our study sites, the estimated sex ratio was markedly biased toward females (up to 11 females per male). we discuss the potential causes and implications of the observed demographic features." +population abundance and sex ratio of the viviparous freshwater fish poeciliopsis baenschi (poeciliidae) throughout its range in western mexico,NA,WESTERN NORTH AMERICAN NATURALIST,ZUNIGA VEGA JJ;HERNANDEZ ROSAS AL;MOLINA MOCTEZUMA A;PEREZ MENDOZA HA;RODRIGUEZ REYES FR;BRAVO ESPINOSA YM;ESPINOSA PEREZ H,"we estimated population abundance and sex ratio for a freshwater live-bearing fish species (poeciliopsis boenschi) that inhabits fluvial systems in western mexico. we conducted mark-recapture experiments in 6 distinct populations. we used both our catch data as well as estimates of capture probability to calculate the number of individuals per unit water volume for adult males, adult females, and juveniles. overall, abundance varied among sites from 23.8 individuals . m(-3) to 363.2 individuals . m(-3). in most of our study sites, the estimated sex ratio was markedly biased toward females (up to 11 females per male). we discuss the potential causes and implications of the observed demographic features." bayesian estimation of humpback whale (megaptera novaeangliae) population abundance and movement patterns in southeastern alaska,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,HENDRIX AN;STRALEY J;GABRIELE CM;GENDE SM,"we used a mechanistic movement model within a bayesian framework to estimate survival, abundance, and rate of increase for a population of humpback whales (megaptera novaeangliae) subject to a long-term photographic capture-recapture effort in southeastern alaska, usa (seak). multiple competing models were fitted that differed in movement, recapture rates, and observation error using deviance information criterion. the median annual survival probability in the selected model was 0.996 (95% central probability interval (cri): 0.984, 0.999), which is among the highest reported for this species. movement among areas was temporally dynamic, although whales exhibited high area fidelity (probability of returning to same area of >= 0.75) throughout the study. median abundance was 1585 whales in 2008 (95% cri: 1455, 1644). incorporating an abundance estimate of 393 (95% confidence interval: 331, 455) whales from 1986, the median rate of increase was 5.1% (95% cri: 4.4%, 5.9%). although applied here to cetaceans in seak, the framework provides a flexible approach for estimating mortality and movement in populations that move among sampling areas." variation in capture height and trap persistence among three costa rican understorey butterfly species,abundance; cithaerias pireta; dulcedo polita; haeterini; mark-recapture; nymphalidae; pierella helvina; population biology; tropical rain forest,JOURNAL OF TROPICAL ECOLOGY,ALEXANDER LG;DEVRIES PJ,"tropical forest insects are vertically stratified between the canopy and understorey. using 60 traps set at two heights above the forest floor (30 at 15 cm and 30 at 1 m) we compared abundances in capture height, persistence in traps, and sex of three co-occurring understorey butterflies (cithaerias pireta, dulcedo polita and pierella helvina) in costa rica. we captured, marked and released 283 individual butterflies (65 c. pireta, 79 d. polita, 139 p. helvina) and showed all three species were captured more often in low traps, and p. helvina was captured only in low traps. the probability of remaining in traps for 24 h did not differ significantly for d. polita and p. helvina, but was significantly lower for c. pireta. the odds of trapping either sex did not differ significantly for p. helvina and c. pireta, but they were significantly lower for d. polita males. we experimentally demonstrate that these co-occurring species fly and feed just above the forest floor, but differ with respect to their persistence in traps and attraction to traps by sex. our study implies that closely related species can exhibit behavioural differences that may influence population abundance estimates in multi-species studies." "population ecology of breeding pacific common eiders on the yukon-kuskokwim delta, alaska",alaska; nest survival; pacific common eider; population model; process variation; productivity; somateria mollissima v-nigrum; yukon-kuskokwim delta,WILDLIFE MONOGRAPHS,WILSON HM;FLINT PL;POWELL AN;GRAND JB;MORAN CL,"populations of pacific common eiders (somateria mollissima v-nigrum) on the yukon-kuskokwim delta (ykd) in western alaska declined by 50-90% from 1957 to 1992 and then stabilized at reduced numbers from the early 1990s to the present. we investigated the underlying processes affecting their population dynamics by collection and analysis of demographic data from pacific common eiders at 3 sites on the ykd (1991-2004) for 29 site-years. we examined variation in components of reproduction, tested hypotheses about the influence of specific ecological factors on life-history variables, and investigated their relative contributions to local population dynamics. reproductive output was low and variable, both within and among individuals, whereas apparent survival of adult females was high and relatively invariant (0.89 +/- 0.005). all reproductive parameters varied across study sites and years. clutch initiation dates ranged from 4 may to 28 june, with peak (modal) initiation occurring on 26 may. females at an island study site consistently initiated clutches 3-5 days earlier in each year than those on 2 mainland sites. population variance in nest initiation date was negatively related to the peak, suggesting increased synchrony in years of delayed initiation. on average, total clutch size (laid) ranged from 4.8 to 6.6 eggs, and declined with date of nest initiation. after accounting for partial predation and non-viability of eggs, average clutch size at hatch ranged from 2.0 to 5.8 eggs. within seasons, daily survival probability (dsp) of nests was lowest during egg-laying and late-initiation dates. estimated nest survival varied considerably across sites and years (mean 0.55, range: 0.06-0.92), but process variance in nest survival was relatively low (0.02, ci: 0.01-0.05), indicating that most variance was likely attributed to sampling error. we found evidence that observer effects may have reduced overall nest survival by 0.0-0.36 across site-years. study sites with lower sample sizes and more frequent visitations appeared to experience greater observer effects. in general, pacific common eiders exhibited high spatio-temporal variance in reproductive components. larger clutch sizes and high nest survival at early initiation dates suggested directional selection favoring early nesting. however, stochastic environmental effects may have precluded response to this apparent selection pressure. our results suggest that females breeding early in the season have the greatest reproductive value, as these birds lay the largest clutches and have the highest probability of successfully hatching. we developed stochastic, stage-based, matrix population models that incorporated observed spatio-temporal (process) variance and co-variation in vital rates, and projected the stable stage distribution (w) and population growth rate (lambda). we used perturbation analyses to examine the relative influence of changes in vital rates on lambda and variance decomposition to assess the proportion of variation in lambda explained by process variation in each vital rate. in addition to matrix-based lambda, we estimated lambda using capture-recapture approaches, and log-linear regression. we found the stable age distribution for pacific common eiders was weighted heavily towards experienced adult females (>= 4 yr of age), and all calculations of l indicated that the ykd population was stable to slightly increasing (lambda(matrix) 1.02, ci: 1.00-1.04); lambda(reverse-capture-recapture) 1.05, ci: 0.99-1. 11; lambda(log-linear) 1.04, ci: 0.98-1.10). perturbation analyses suggested the population would respond most dramatically to changes in adult female survival (relative influence of adult survival was 1.5 times that of fecundity), whereas retrospective variation in lambda was primarily explained by fecundity parameters (60%), particularly duckling survival (42%). among components of fecundity, sensitivities were highest for duckling survival, suggesting this vital rate may be a current restriction to further population growth. increasing adult survival would have the largest positive effects on population growth, but practical ways to influence this vital rate are currently limited. given that eider laying dates and nest fates may be closely tied to those of sympatrically nesting species, we hypothesize that management actions facilitating early nesting and targeting other species (e. g., increasing overall potential for predator-swamping) may have positive, concurrent effects on nesting common eiders. if enhancing population growth is the objective and assuming the population is not currently at carrying capacity, we recommend an adaptive management approach. this approach would begin with focused efforts towards increasing reproductive output, with particular emphasis on strategies to increase both fecundity and nest survival, such as predator control on breeding grounds, followed by evaluation of population response. however, we conducted our modeling efforts under assumptions of density independence, whereas density-dependent mechanisms may have played an important role in the historic decline and subsequent stabilization of our population at a new, lower equilibrium. in an adaptive-management context, our results can be used to test additional (density-related) models; our predicted response would be compared with actual population response to prescribed management manipulations. failure of the population to positively respond to increases in vital rates and negative correlations among vital rates would serve as evidence of density-dependent regulation. rejection of the density-independent model would support management actions focused on habitat improvement. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." factors affecting male and female reproductive success in a chipmunk (tamias sibiricus) with a scramble competition mating system,sexual selection; scramble competition mating system; annual reproductive success; siberian chipmunk; tamias sibiricus,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY,MARMET J;PISANU B;CHAPUIS JL;JACOB G;BAUDRY E,"while sexual selection in mammals with female defense systems has historically received considerable attention, much less is known about the factors affecting reproductive success in mammalian species with scramble competition mating systems. using mark-recapture techniques and dna microsatellite loci to assign parentage, we examined the mating system and factors affecting the variation of the annual reproductive success in an introduced population of the siberian chipmunk, tamias sibiricus, a small, monomorphic, solitary squirrel. our analyses showed that breeding females were spatially dispersed, setting the stage for a scramble competition mating system. male reproductive success was positively associated with the size of the home range. the strength of sexual selection on this behavioral trait was very strong, equaling previous estimates for morphological traits in female defense mating systems. these findings suggest that a behavioral trait, space use, strongly influences the annual reproductive success in males, which is consistent with expectations in a scramble competition mating system. in both sexes, reproductive success was influenced by habitat, with twice as many juveniles produced in semi-open than in closed habitat, possibly due to differences in food availability between the two habitats." "integrated modeling of communities: parasitism, competition, and demographic synchrony in sympatric ducks",breeding success; canvasback aythya vaselineria; capture-mark-recapture; competition; density regulation; functional redundancy; neutral theory; niche theory; parasitism; redhead aythya americana; survival; waterfowl breeding population and habitat survey,ECOLOGY,PERON G;KOONS DN,"functionally similar species often co-occur within an ecosystem, and they can compete for or facilitate each other's access to resources. the coupled dynamics of such species play an important role in shaping biodiversity and an ecosystem's resilience to perturbations. here we study two congeneric north american ducks: redhead aythya americana and canvasback a. vaselineria. both are largely sympatric during the breeding season, and in addition to competition, facultative parasitic egg-laying can lead to interspecific density dependence. using multi-population integrated models, we combined capture-recovery data, population surveys, and age ratio data in order to simultaneously estimate the mechanistic drivers of fecundity, survival, and population dynamics for both species. canvasback numbers positively affected redhead fecundity, whereas redhead numbers negatively affected canvasback fecundity, as expected due to parasitism. this interaction was modulated by wetland habitat availability in a way that matched the observation that redhead hens parasitize canvasback nests under all conditions but exhibit typical nesting behavior more frequently during years with numerous ponds. once these effects of density and habitat were statistically controlled for, we found high levels of interspecific synchrony in both fecundity and survival (respectively, 75% and 49% of remaining variation). thus, both neutral and non-neutral mechanisms affected the dynamics of these functionally similar species. in this and other systems, our method can be used to test hypotheses about species coexistence and to gain insights into the demographic drivers of community dynamics." cormack-jolly-seber model with environmental covariates: a p-spline approach,capture-recapture; cross-validation; little penguins eudyptula minor; open population; p-splines,BIOMETRICAL JOURNAL,STOKLOSA J;HUGGINS RM,"in capturerecapture models, survival and capture probabilities can be modelled as functions of time-varying covariates, such as temperature or rainfall. the cormackjollyseber (cjs) model allows for flexible modelling of these covariates; however, the functional relationship may not be linear. we extend the cjs model by semi-parametrically modelling capture and survival probabilities using a frequentist approach via p-splines techniques. we investigate the performance of the estimators by conducting simulation studies. we also apply and compare these models with known semi-parametric bayesian approaches on simulated and real data sets." -to leave or not to leave: survival trade-offs between different migratory strategies in the greater flamingo,arrival-time hypothesis; capture-recapture; environmental conditions; phoenicopterus ruber; wintering,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,SANZ-AGUILAR A;BECHET A;GERMAIN C;JOHNSON AR;PRADEL R,"1. the balance between costs and benefits of migration under different environmental, density-dependent and individual conditions may promote a broad range of migratory behaviours. we studied the factors influencing first-year migration and subsequent fidelity or dispersal among wintering areas, and the survival costs of different wintering behaviours in the greater flamingo (phoenicopterus roseus). 2. we analysed by multievent capturerecapture modelling among-site dispersal/fidelity and site-dependent survival probabilities from 22 671 flamingos ringed in the camargue (france) between 1977 and 2010 and resighted subsequently in their wintering grounds classified as france, iberian peninsula, italy and north africa. 3. we found that first- and second-year birds either resident or wintering at medium distances from their birth place, survived better than those wintering further afield. however, under severe winter conditions (extremely cold winter 19841985), individuals with the sedentary strategy suffered the highest levels of mortality. from the third winter onwards, the pattern of survival reversed: the long-distance wintering individuals (i.e. north africa) survived better. 4. the proportion of first-year birds migrating for wintering was highly variable among cohorts and increased with favourable environmental conditions (wet years). after the first winter, birds showed high fidelity (>90%) to their previous wintering area and wintered preferably near their natal colony when they became adults (>2 years). 5. survival estimates suggest that long-distance migration was costly for young and inexperienced individuals. nonetheless, for adults, the most southern wintering areas seem to offer the most favourable local conditions for overwinter survival. 6. the higher availability of intermediate stopover sites during wet years may facilitate first-year migration. then, once they have some wintering experience, flamingos appear to favour the known wintering grounds. as they grow older, dispersing towards the vicinity of the natal colony may provide higher breeding prospects for individuals wintering closer to this high-quality and saturated breeding ground, as predicted by the arrival-time hypothesis." -fecal genotyping reveals demographic variation in river otters inhabiting a contaminated environment,british columbia; capture-mark-recapture; contaminants; fecal genotyping; lontra canadensis; non-invasive monitoring; population genetics; river otter,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GUERTIN DA;BEN-DAVID M;HARESTAD AS;ELLIOTT JE,"the deposition and accumulation of persistent contaminants into coastal systems can have lingering negative consequences for wildlife populations and their habitats. using multi-locus genotyping of non-invasively collected feces, we assessed the effects of such pollution on reproduction, survival, genetic variability, and abundance of river otters (lontra canadensis) along a gradient of urbanindustrial development on southern vancouver island, british columbia, canada. genetic analyses indicated a pattern consistent with small-scale structuring, with individuals partitioned into 2 local subpopulationsthose identified in the contaminated harbors of southern vancouver island and points west (colwood/harbors), and those inhabiting uncontaminated habitat east of the harbors (oak bay). genetic and demographic analyses for the 2 clusters provide strong support for the conclusion that, despite contamination concerns, colwood/harbors river otters exhibited acceptable levels of survival and successfully reproduced (i.e., high levels of relatedness, high self-recruitment, and high emigration). however, our data indicate that the colwood/harbors area constitutes lower quality habitat supporting lower densities of otters, especially during winter, and excess individuals produced in that region emigrate to other areas. immigration into colwood/harbors, however, seems limited, possibly because of behavioral aversion of non-habituated otters to anthropogenic disturbance associated with the harbors and limited optimal otter habitat. our findings suggest that the effects of chronic contaminant exposure at the population level may be inadvertently mitigated through the behavioral decisions of individuals to avoid poor quality habitats. we conclude that populations of river otters can persist in and around locally contaminated sites if relatively less disturbed and contaminated habitats remain in the vicinity of the affected areas. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." +to leave or not to leave: survival trade-offs between different migratory strategies in the greater flamingo,arrival-time hypothesis; capture-recapture; environmental conditions; phoenicopterus ruber; wintering,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,SANZ AGUILAR A;BECHET A;GERMAIN C;JOHNSON AR;PRADEL R,"1. the balance between costs and benefits of migration under different environmental, density-dependent and individual conditions may promote a broad range of migratory behaviours. we studied the factors influencing first-year migration and subsequent fidelity or dispersal among wintering areas, and the survival costs of different wintering behaviours in the greater flamingo (phoenicopterus roseus). 2. we analysed by multievent capturerecapture modelling among-site dispersal/fidelity and site-dependent survival probabilities from 22 671 flamingos ringed in the camargue (france) between 1977 and 2010 and resighted subsequently in their wintering grounds classified as france, iberian peninsula, italy and north africa. 3. we found that first- and second-year birds either resident or wintering at medium distances from their birth place, survived better than those wintering further afield. however, under severe winter conditions (extremely cold winter 19841985), individuals with the sedentary strategy suffered the highest levels of mortality. from the third winter onwards, the pattern of survival reversed: the long-distance wintering individuals (i.e. north africa) survived better. 4. the proportion of first-year birds migrating for wintering was highly variable among cohorts and increased with favourable environmental conditions (wet years). after the first winter, birds showed high fidelity (>90%) to their previous wintering area and wintered preferably near their natal colony when they became adults (>2 years). 5. survival estimates suggest that long-distance migration was costly for young and inexperienced individuals. nonetheless, for adults, the most southern wintering areas seem to offer the most favourable local conditions for overwinter survival. 6. the higher availability of intermediate stopover sites during wet years may facilitate first-year migration. then, once they have some wintering experience, flamingos appear to favour the known wintering grounds. as they grow older, dispersing towards the vicinity of the natal colony may provide higher breeding prospects for individuals wintering closer to this high-quality and saturated breeding ground, as predicted by the arrival-time hypothesis." +fecal genotyping reveals demographic variation in river otters inhabiting a contaminated environment,british columbia; capture-mark-recapture; contaminants; fecal genotyping; lontra canadensis; non-invasive monitoring; population genetics; river otter,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GUERTIN DA;BEN DAVID M;HARESTAD AS;ELLIOTT JE,"the deposition and accumulation of persistent contaminants into coastal systems can have lingering negative consequences for wildlife populations and their habitats. using multi-locus genotyping of non-invasively collected feces, we assessed the effects of such pollution on reproduction, survival, genetic variability, and abundance of river otters (lontra canadensis) along a gradient of urbanindustrial development on southern vancouver island, british columbia, canada. genetic analyses indicated a pattern consistent with small-scale structuring, with individuals partitioned into 2 local subpopulationsthose identified in the contaminated harbors of southern vancouver island and points west (colwood/harbors), and those inhabiting uncontaminated habitat east of the harbors (oak bay). genetic and demographic analyses for the 2 clusters provide strong support for the conclusion that, despite contamination concerns, colwood/harbors river otters exhibited acceptable levels of survival and successfully reproduced (i.e., high levels of relatedness, high self-recruitment, and high emigration). however, our data indicate that the colwood/harbors area constitutes lower quality habitat supporting lower densities of otters, especially during winter, and excess individuals produced in that region emigrate to other areas. immigration into colwood/harbors, however, seems limited, possibly because of behavioral aversion of non-habituated otters to anthropogenic disturbance associated with the harbors and limited optimal otter habitat. our findings suggest that the effects of chronic contaminant exposure at the population level may be inadvertently mitigated through the behavioral decisions of individuals to avoid poor quality habitats. we conclude that populations of river otters can persist in and around locally contaminated sites if relatively less disturbed and contaminated habitats remain in the vicinity of the affected areas. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." are chest marks unique to asiatic black bear individuals?,ursus thibetanus; image analysis; individual identification; natural marking; noninvasive; persistence; uniqueness; universality,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,HIGASHIDE D;MIURA S;MIGUCHI H,"estimating population size based on a capture-recapture model requires identification of individual animals. we evaluated the reliability of the chest mark to noninvasively identify individual asiatic black bears ursus thibetanus. using image analysis, we collated the chest marks of bears from the photographs taken while the bears were in captivity (ani mataginosato bear park) to examine the universality, uniqueness and persistence of the marks. of the 62 bears, 95% had a distinct chest mark by which they could be reliably identified, and the probability of mistakenly identifying two different bears as identical was calculated to be 0.00075. the shape of the mark was found to change slightly from year to year, but this did not hamper individual identification. thus, individual identification of the bears was highly reliable. a high percentage of correct answers was obtained in a blind test to visually identify individuals based on their chest mark. considering that it is both an inexpensive and an easy-to-use technique, chest mark comparison is suitable for individual identification in order to estimate the abundance of the black bear population." "risk for travel-associated legionnaires' disease, europe, 2009",NA,EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES,BEAUTE J;ZUCS P;DE JONG B,"legionnaires' disease is underreported in europe; notification rates differ substantially among countries. approximately 20% of reported cases are travel-associated. to assess the risk for travel-associated legionnaires' disease (tald) associated with travel patterns in european countries, we retrieved tald surveillance data for 2009 from the european surveillance system, and tourism denominator data from the statistical office of the european union. risk (number cases reported/number nights spent) was calculated by travel country. in 2009, the network reported 607 cases among european travelers, possibly associated with 825 accommodation sites in european union countries. the overall risk associated with travel abroad was 0.3 cases/million nights. we observed an increasing trend in risk from northwestern to southeastern europe; greece had the highest risk (1.7). our findings underscore the need for countries with high tald risks to improve prevention and control of legionellosis; and for countries with high tald risks, but low notification rates of legionnaires' disease to improve diagnostics and reporting." estimating abundance of mountain lions from unstructured spatial sampling,bayesian analysis; cougars; genetic sampling; montana; puma concolor; snow tracking; spatial capture-recapture; spatial models,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,RUSSELL RE;ROYLE JA;DESIMONE R;SCHWARTZ MK;EDWARDS VL;PILGRIM KP;MCKELVEY KS,"mountain lions (puma concolor) are often difficult to monitor because of their low capture probabilities, extensive movements, and large territories. methods for estimating the abundance of this species are needed to assess population status, determine harvest levels, evaluate the impacts of management actions on populations, and derive conservation and management strategies. traditional markrecapture methods do not explicitly account for differences in individual capture probabilities due to the spatial distribution of individuals in relation to survey effort (or trap locations). however, recent advances in the analysis of capturerecapture data have produced methods estimating abundance and density of animals from spatially explicit capturerecapture data that account for heterogeneity in capture probabilities due to the spatial organization of individuals and traps. we adapt recently developed spatial capturerecapture models to estimate density and abundance of mountain lions in western montana. volunteers and state agency personnel collected mountain lion dna samples in portions of the blackfoot drainage (7,908?km2) in west-central montana using 2 methods: snow back-tracking mountain lion tracks to collect hair samples and biopsy darting treed mountain lions to obtain tissue samples. overall, we recorded 72 individual capture events, including captures both with and without tissue sample collection and hair samples resulting in the identification of 50 individual mountain lions (30 females, 19 males, and 1 unknown sex individual). we estimated lion densities from 8 models containing effects of distance, sex, and survey effort on detection probability. our population density estimates ranged from a minimum of 3.7 mountain lions/100?km2 (95% ci 2.35.7) under the distance only model (including only an effect of distance on detection probability) to 6.7 (95% ci 3.111.0) under the full model (including effects of distance, sex, survey effort, and distance?x?sex on detection probability). these numbers translate to a total estimate of 293 mountain lions (95% ci 182451) to 529 (95% ci 245870) within the blackfoot drainage. results from the distance model are similar to previous estimates of 3.6 mountain lions/100?km2 for the study area; however, results from all other models indicated greater numbers of mountain lions. our results indicate that unstructured spatial sampling combined with spatial capturerecapture analysis can be an effective method for estimating large carnivore densities. published 2012. this article is a u.s. government work and is in the public domain in the usa." -"abundance, size and population structure of whitetip reef sharks, triaenodon obesus (carcharhiniformes: carcharhinidae), in bahia chatham, parque nacional isla del coco, costa rica.",parque nacional isla del coco; triaenodon obesus; bahia chatham; shark tagging; underwater visual counts; cocos island; sharks; costa rica,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,ZANELLA I;LOPEZ-GARRO A;GOLFIN-DUARTE G;SAENZ JC,"approximately 12 species of shark inhabit at coco island national park (pnic); some are migratory, such as the hammerhead shark (sphyrna lewini) and whale shark (rincodon typus), and others are resident, like the whitetip shark (triaenodon obesus). the whitetip shark is a species related to coral reefs, it inhabits coastal environments and is nocturnal and, it is very common in tropical waters, but there are few studies worldwide. in fact, only short researches have been done about their behavior at pnic. therefore, this study aimed to give data about the abundance, size and population structure of the whitetip shark at chatham bay in coco island national park, providing baseline information for monitoring its population which is also very vulnerable to climate change. in order to accomplish this aim, a mark-recapture method was used, as well as underwater visual counts to determine their relative abundance and visual recaptures at chatham bay. the most effective hours for tagging were between 18: 00 and 22: 00 (sunset), when the whitetip sharks were more active probably related to foraging behavior. in addition, the depth was a relevant factor for tagging, sharks were caught in shallow water (10.9 +/- 1.9m). this species prefers to feed in shallow water and this behavior is probably related to the distribution and occurrence of rock and coral reefs in chatham bay. based on the results, whitetip shark do not have a defined spatial ontogenic segregation, since in the same sites both juveniles and adults were found. the study confirmed that whitetip shark use specific residence sites: during the tagging trips, different individuals were recaptured; and during the underwater counts, at least 32.76% of tagged sharks were observed. the average length of the tagged sharks was 101.8 +/- 12.1cm (130.0cm maximum and 71.0cm minimum). the relative abundance of the whitetip shark in chatham bay observed was estimated on 49.5 +/- 10.4 sharks/ hour. furthermore, using the recapture data obtained during the night tagging expeditions, a population of 408 (ic = 181-1050) sharks was estimated." +"abundance, size and population structure of whitetip reef sharks, triaenodon obesus (carcharhiniformes: carcharhinidae), in bahia chatham, parque nacional isla del coco, costa rica.",parque nacional isla del coco; triaenodon obesus; bahia chatham; shark tagging; underwater visual counts; cocos island; sharks; costa rica,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,ZANELLA I;LOPEZ GARRO A;GOLFIN DUARTE G;SAENZ JC,"approximately 12 species of shark inhabit at coco island national park (pnic); some are migratory, such as the hammerhead shark (sphyrna lewini) and whale shark (rincodon typus), and others are resident, like the whitetip shark (triaenodon obesus). the whitetip shark is a species related to coral reefs, it inhabits coastal environments and is nocturnal and, it is very common in tropical waters, but there are few studies worldwide. in fact, only short researches have been done about their behavior at pnic. therefore, this study aimed to give data about the abundance, size and population structure of the whitetip shark at chatham bay in coco island national park, providing baseline information for monitoring its population which is also very vulnerable to climate change. in order to accomplish this aim, a mark-recapture method was used, as well as underwater visual counts to determine their relative abundance and visual recaptures at chatham bay. the most effective hours for tagging were between 18: 00 and 22: 00 (sunset), when the whitetip sharks were more active probably related to foraging behavior. in addition, the depth was a relevant factor for tagging, sharks were caught in shallow water (10.9 +/- 1.9m). this species prefers to feed in shallow water and this behavior is probably related to the distribution and occurrence of rock and coral reefs in chatham bay. based on the results, whitetip shark do not have a defined spatial ontogenic segregation, since in the same sites both juveniles and adults were found. the study confirmed that whitetip shark use specific residence sites: during the tagging trips, different individuals were recaptured; and during the underwater counts, at least 32.76% of tagged sharks were observed. the average length of the tagged sharks was 101.8 +/- 12.1cm (130.0cm maximum and 71.0cm minimum). the relative abundance of the whitetip shark in chatham bay observed was estimated on 49.5 +/- 10.4 sharks/ hour. furthermore, using the recapture data obtained during the night tagging expeditions, a population of 408 (ic = 181-1050) sharks was estimated." statistical distribution of age readings of known-age sablefish (anoplopoma fimbria),known-age fish; age reading errors; geometric distribution; misclassification matrix; sablefish; stock assessment,FISHERIES RESEARCH,HANSELMAN DH;CLARK WG;HEIFETZ J;ANDERL DM,"a mark-recapture experiment provided a collection of 172 known-age sablefish from alaska waters. otoliths from each fish were read by three readers. the readings have a positive bias among young fish and a negative bias among older fish. among otoliths of the same age, some tended to give consistently high or low annulus counts, so that the variance of age readings at each true age was about half due to variance among otoliths and half due to variance among replicate readings of individual otoliths. the statistical distribution of age reading errors is well described by an asymmetrical two-sided geometric distribution with age-varying parameters. for comparison, the error distribution was estimated with naive methods that do not use the known ages and that assume the readings are unbiased. these estimated distributions do not match the actual error distributions very well, but they do a surprisingly good job of predicting the distribution of age readings from a stock assessment model's internal estimate of a true age composition. they also produce estimates of recruitment and biomass close to those obtained with the actual error distributions when used in the present sablefish stock assessment. published by elsevier b.v." basin characteristics and temperature improve abundance estimates from standard index netting of rainbow trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) in small lakes,index netting; bayesian analysis; gillnets; uncertainty,FISHERIES RESEARCH,WARD HGM;ASKEY PJ;POST JR;VARKEY DA;MCALLISTER MK,"fisheries management often requires efficient methods for assessing populations across a variety of sampling units. we develop a model to assess the status of rainbow trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) in lakes using a fixed length of multimesh gillnets. we use mark-recapture data to examine how gillnet capture efficiency varies with lake-basin characteristics. once we accounted for variation in lake-size (net-effort density), we found that capture efficiency was best explained by surface water temperature at the time of gillnetting and lake-basin characteristics (proportion of littoral area). we use bayesian techniques to fit our model to the data and explore how uncertainty in the estimated parameters leads to uncertainty in population estimates. our analysis suggests that lake size, temperature and the proportion of littoral area can be used to predict population size using this index netting method. in addition to providing density estimates, our results help to better understand how fish ecology and behavior influences gillnet catches. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." "recognition of individual knobby sea stars protoreaster nodosus (l., 1758) using aboral surface characteristics",asteroidea; intra-specific variation; mark-recapture; natural marks; oreasteridae; photographic identification,JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY,CHIM CK;TAN KS,"a photo-identification method was developed to recognise individual protoreaster nodosus, a large sea star widely distributed in the indo-pacific region. digital photographs of the aboral surface of p. nodosus individuals were obtained from intertidal populations in singapore between 2002 and 2010. each photograph was given a numerical code based on the colouration of arm tips, the condition of the arms and the number of tubercles, comprising a total of 17 independent characters, or 27 for developing individuals. photographs with similar codes were grouped together using a computer and then matched by eye to confirm if they were from the same individual. natural characteristics not included in the code, such as the arrangement of tubercles and pigmentation pattern, were also used in the recognition process. the natural markings selected were discrete characters that are easily quantified. based on the variations observed in 4842 photographs of 1817 individuals over 9 years, the coding system has the potential of identifying up to 424x10(21) individuals. the extensive range of natural marks used in the code also ensures that individuals can be re-identified even when some natural marks have become modified due to injury or growth. the code generally remained stable for 2-3 years for each individual, and lasted up to 9 years in some individuals. the reliability of the photo-identification method was verified by blind studies using temporary tags. this photo-identification method allows the implementation of long-term mark-recapture studies on sea stars, which are currently lacking due to the difficulties in tagging or marking sea stars in the field. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." transmission ecology of sin nombre hantavirus in naturally infected north american deermouse populations in outdoor enclosures,NA,PLOS ONE,BAGAMIAN KH;TOWNER JS;KUENZI AJ;DOUGLASS RJ;ROLLIN PE;WALLER LA;MILLS JN,"sin nombre hantavirus (snv), hosted by the north american deermouse (peromyscus maniculatus), causes hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (hps) in north america. most transmission studies in the host were conducted under artificial conditions, or extrapolated information from mark-recapture data. previous studies using experimentally infected deermice were unable to demonstrate snv transmission. we explored snv transmission in outdoor enclosures using naturally infected deermice. deermice acquiring snv in enclosures had detectable viral rna in blood throughout the acute phase of infection and acquired significantly more new wounds (indicating aggressive encounters) than uninfected deermice. naturally-infected wild deermice had a highly variable antibody response to infection, and levels of viral rna sustained in blood varied as much as 100-fold, even in individuals infected with identical strains of virus. deermice that infected other susceptible individuals tended to have a higher viral rna load than those that did not infect other deermice. our study is a first step in exploring the transmission ecology of snv infection in deermice and provides new knowledge about the factors contributing to the increase of the prevalence of a zoonotic pathogen in its reservoir host and to changes in the risk of hps to human populations. the techniques pioneered in this study have implications for a wide range of zoonotic disease studies." -rapid reduction in invasive pneumococcal disease after introduction of pcv7 into the national immunization plan in israel,streptococcus pneumoniae; invasive pneumococcal disease; pcv -pneumococcal conjugate vaccine; dynamics; children; surveillance,VACCINE,BEN-SHIMOL S;GREENBERG D;GIVON-LAVI N;ELIAS N;GLIKMAN D;RUBINSTEIN U;DAGAN R,"background: the 7-valent conjugated vaccine (pcv7) was introduced into the israeli national immunization program (nip) in july 2009 (2, 4, 12 months schedule; 2 dose catch-up in second year of life). nationwide active prospective surveillance on invasive pneumococcal disease (1pd) has been conducted in children since 1989. in the current study, ipd epidemiology in children <5 years during the 20 years before and 18 months after pcv7 nip initiation, is reported. methods: all 27 centers performing blood/cerebrospinal fluid (csf) cultures in children reported monthly ipd cases. capture-recapture approach was used for completeness. results: during 1989-2010, 6022 ipd cases were reported in children <5 years; pcv7 serotypes (7vst) caused similar to 50% of all episodes. in 2009 and 2010, 7vst ipd incidences <5 years of age (per 100,000) were 15.9 and 5.4, respectively (a 43% and 81% decrease, respectively) compared to 2003-2007 (mean incidence 27.8). serotype 6a dynamics resembled those of 7vst. the respective overall ipd incidence decreases were 23% and 42%. the incidence dynamics of serotypes 1, 3, 5, 7f and 19a ipd were characterized by considerable fluctuations over the study period without any upwards or downwards trend in any of the age groups. the overall incidence of serotypes not included in the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (pcv13) did not vary significantly during the study period. by the end of 2010,72% of the remaining ipd was caused by pneumococcal serotypes included in pcv13. conclusions: an active prospective long-term surveillance, showed a rapid and sharp decline in ipd in children <5 years following initiation of nip with pcv7. no serotype replacement has been observed so far. the transition from pcv7 to pcv13 initiated in october 2010 may lead to a further substantial decrease in ipd. follow-up is needed to better determine the long-term pcv effects. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +rapid reduction in invasive pneumococcal disease after introduction of pcv7 into the national immunization plan in israel,streptococcus pneumoniae; invasive pneumococcal disease; pcv - pneumococcal conjugate vaccine; dynamics; children; surveillance,VACCINE,BEN SHIMOL S;GREENBERG D;GIVON LAVI N;ELIAS N;GLIKMAN D;RUBINSTEIN U;DAGAN R,"background: the 7-valent conjugated vaccine (pcv7) was introduced into the israeli national immunization program (nip) in july 2009 (2, 4, 12 months schedule; 2 dose catch-up in second year of life). nationwide active prospective surveillance on invasive pneumococcal disease (1pd) has been conducted in children since 1989. in the current study, ipd epidemiology in children <5 years during the 20 years before and 18 months after pcv7 nip initiation, is reported. methods: all 27 centers performing blood/cerebrospinal fluid (csf) cultures in children reported monthly ipd cases. capture-recapture approach was used for completeness. results: during 1989-2010, 6022 ipd cases were reported in children <5 years; pcv7 serotypes (7vst) caused similar to 50% of all episodes. in 2009 and 2010, 7vst ipd incidences <5 years of age (per 100,000) were 15.9 and 5.4, respectively (a 43% and 81% decrease, respectively) compared to 2003-2007 (mean incidence 27.8). serotype 6a dynamics resembled those of 7vst. the respective overall ipd incidence decreases were 23% and 42%. the incidence dynamics of serotypes 1, 3, 5, 7f and 19a ipd were characterized by considerable fluctuations over the study period without any upwards or downwards trend in any of the age groups. the overall incidence of serotypes not included in the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (pcv13) did not vary significantly during the study period. by the end of 2010,72% of the remaining ipd was caused by pneumococcal serotypes included in pcv13. conclusions: an active prospective long-term surveillance, showed a rapid and sharp decline in ipd in children <5 years following initiation of nip with pcv7. no serotype replacement has been observed so far. the transition from pcv7 to pcv13 initiated in october 2010 may lead to a further substantial decrease in ipd. follow-up is needed to better determine the long-term pcv effects. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "paternal care decreases foraging activity and body condition, but does not impose survival costs to caring males in a neotropical arachnid",NA,PLOS ONE,REQUENA GS;BUZATTO BA;MARTINS EG;MACHADO G,"exclusive paternal care is the rarest form of parental investment in nature and theory predicts that the maintenance of this behavior depends on the balance between costs and benefits to males. our goal was to assess costs of paternal care in the harvestman iporangaia pustulosa, for which the benefits of this behavior in terms of egg survival have already been demonstrated. we evaluated energetic costs and mortality risks associated to paternal egg-guarding in the field. we quantified foraging activity of males and estimated how their body condition is influenced by the duration of the caring period. additionally, we conducted a one-year capture-mark-recapture study and estimated apparent survival probabilities of caring and non-caring males to assess potential survival costs of paternal care. our results indicate that caring males forage less frequently than non-caring individuals (males and females) and that their body condition deteriorates over the course of the caring period. thus, males willing to guard eggs may provide to females a fitness-enhancing gift of cost-free care of their offspring. caring males, however, did not show lower survival probabilities when compared to both non-caring males and females. reduction in mortality risks as a result of remaining stationary, combined with the benefits of improving egg survival, may have played an important and previously unsuspected role favoring the evolution of paternal care. moreover, males exhibiting paternal care could also provide an honest signal of their quality as offspring defenders, and thus female preference for caring males could be responsible for maintaining the trait." "can brief marking campaigns provide reliable dispersal estimates? a nickerl's fritillary (melitaea aurelia, lepidoptera: nymphalidae) case study",NA,ENTOMOLOGICA FENNICA,NOVOTNY D;KONVICKA M;FRIC Z,"functions expressing dispersal probability decays with increasing distance are widely used in studies of animal movements. the inverse power function (ipf) exhibits the property of self-similarity, and hence should perform robustly against variation in marking efforts, allowing comparisons across studies. we investigated this function property using dispersal data of nickerl's fritillary (melitaea aurelia), a little studied checkerspot butterfly which is currently expanding in central europe. during mark-recapture in south moravia, czech republic, a single researcher worked for the entire flight period in 2005, while in 2006 five researchers worked for just 5 days. slopes of the fitted functions did not differ between the two seasons, illustrating the robustness of the function and suggesting the possibility to obtain reliable dispersal estimates even from brief marking campaigns. for both years, it was predicted that approximately one individual per one thousand would cross 10 km distance, the maximum distance separating the most isolated colonies in the region." "home-range and space use by didelphis albiventris (lund 1840) (marsupialia, didelphidae) in mutum island, parana river, brazil",atlantic forest; capture-recapture; minimum convex polygon; vertical habitat use; white-eared-opossum,BIOTA NEOTROPICA,SANCHES VQA;GOMES MMD;PASSOS FD;GRACIOLLI G;RIBASI ACD,"home-range is the area used by an animal in its daily activities. home-range studies provide data on species mating systems and territorial behavior. our main goal was to estimate the didelphis albiventris (lund 1840) home-range in mutum island, parana river, brazil. the study was carried out in 2008 from march to october on a 19.20 ha grid. the island is part of the parana river islands and floodlands federal environmental protection area, with vegetation composed by alluvial semideciduous seasonal forest in a region of subtropical wet climate. the sampling effort was 3,360 traps-night resulting in 152 didelphis albiventris (lund 1840) captures. forty-one didelphis albiventris (lund 1840) individuals were captured in 42 capture stations, composed by a trap placed on the floor and another in understory (2 m high). the animals were mostly terrestrial, independently of age or sex. four females and five males, which were recaptured at least five times, were used to calculate home-range using the minimum convex polygon method. the mean home-range estimate was 2.33 +/- 2.32 ha, similar to previous estimates provided by other methods, suggesting that our capture grid area, that was larger than usually applied for mark-capture studies for this species, have not underestimated the home-ranges. evidences of the relation between individual home-range area and body mass were observed. home-range overlaps occurred between males, females and males with females; the average overlap was 33.74%, which may be related to a promiscuous mating system, and suggests female territoriality." @@ -3370,31 +3375,31 @@ estimating the burden of mucormycosis infections in france (2005-2007) through a systems and strategies for identifying and enumerating children outside of family care,capture recapture; family care; household; respondent driven; street children; time-location,CHILD ABUSE & NEGLECT,PULLUM T;CAPPA C;ORLANDO J;DANK M;GUNN S;MENDENHALL M;RIORDAN K,"methodologies to identify and enumerate children outside of family care vary as do the vulnerability categories of the children themselves. children outside of family care is a broad term encompassing children absent of permanent family care, e.g., institutionalized children, children on/of the street, child-headed households, separated or unaccompanied children, trafficked children, children working in exploitive labor situations, etc. this paper reviews the various methodologies applied to identify and enumerate these often hidden and/or mobile populations. methodologies that identify and enumerate children outside of family strive to meet two objectives: (1) to estimate the number and characteristics of a specific vulnerability category and (2) to determine eligibility to receive services. the paper reviews eight methodologies; six are categorized as survey sample methods (time-location sampling, capture recapture sampling, respondent driven sampling, the neighborhood method, household surveys, and establishment surveys) while two were labeled as data management systems (child labor management system, and databases of institutions). each review includes a concise description of the methodology, its strengths and limitations, the most appropriate population it is suited to identify and/or enumerate, and any necessary conditions. conclusions from these reviews advocate for tailoring a methodology (or a combination of methodologies) to the specific circumstances under which it is meant to identify or enumerate children outside of family care. in addition, further research and validation studies are needed to identify the conditions under which the strategies described here can be used and to develop appropriate protocols for utilization (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." demographic effects of live shearing on a guanaco population,conservation; lama guanicoe; population trend; reproduction; survival rate; sustainable use,SMALL RUMINANT RESEARCH,REY A;NOVARO AJ;SAHORES M;GUICHON ML,"live shearing of wild guanacos (lama guanicoe) is promoted as an alternative to livestock production and a conservation tool in the argentinean patagonia. however, biological sustainability of guanaco shearing has not been evaluated. we studied movements, population trends, survival, and yearling recruitment of guanacos, comparing sections with and without roundups on a patagonian sheep ranch. a total of 2900 guanaco captures occurred in 10 roundups from 2003 to 2007. we estimated guanaco density and yearling/adult ratios with line transect surveys. we evaluated if guanacos left the section with roundups through direct observation of tagged guanacos and radiotelemetry. we estimated survival rate of shorn guanacos using 1334 capture-recapture histories. guanaco population trends in sections with and without roundups were stable throughout a normal-rainfall period and declined during the drought that followed. roundups were followed by temporary declines in density estimates probably associated with altered guanaco behavior. tagged guanacos were rarely observed outside the section with roundups and none of the radiocollared guanacos permanently left the section. we estimated a constant annual survival rate for shorn guanacos (82% se=0.01) that was independent of sex and age. yearling proportions declined in the section with roundups 2-3 months after summer roundups. our results suggest that, under conditions similar to those of our study (i.e. following animal welfare practices in a ranch with moderate livestock densities and sections without livestock), live shearing would not imperil wild guanacos if roundups were conducted in spring and during normal-rainfall periods. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." stable associations within flocks of greater snow geese (chen caerulescens atlantica): do they exist beyond family bonds?,breeding site fidelity; capture-recapture; chen caerulescens atlantica; greater snow goose; group living; migration; stable associations,AUK,DESNOYERS M;GAUTHIER G;LEFEBVRE J,"understanding the nature of social groups may help explain the genetic structure of populations. recently, a fine-scale genetic structure was found in the greater snow goose (chen caerulescens atlantica) among adults captured in different brood-rearing sites. such a structure requires assortative pairing among birds coming from the same brood-rearing site, a process that could be enhanced if individuals maintain stable associations over time. we verified whether stable groups persisted throughout the annual cycle of this migratory species. we used an 18-year data set of females marked on brood-rearing sites in the arctic (n = 16,060) and recaptured on those sites or resighted on the breeding, staging, or wintering grounds in subsequent years. we used a probabilistic method to compare the number of associations observed with the number expected by chance alone. our results provide no evidence that stable groups persist in flocks during migration or in winter among adult females. however, females marked at the same brood-rearing site had a greater probability of being found nesting together or of being recaptured together on the brood-rearing area in subsequent years than expected by chance. we suggest that the latter associations are more likely due to the fidelity of females to their nesting and brood-rearing site than a consequence of the formation of stable aggregations among individuals. our results do not support the hypothesis that formation of stable groups is a mechanism that promotes assortative pairing by allowing individuals from the same brood-rearing area to remain together during the non-breeding season in greater snow geese. received 10 february 2012, accepted 27 june 2012." -mark-recapture analysis of the critically endangered eastern taiwan strait population of indo-pacific humpback dolphins (sousa chinensis): implications for conservation,NA,BULLETIN OF MARINE SCIENCE,WANG JY;YANG SC;FRUET PF;DAURA-JORGE FG;SECCHI ER,"accurate and precise estimates of abundance and survival rates are important for assessing the conservation status of cetacean populations. mark-recapture analysis of photo-identification data of the critically endangered eastern taiwan strait (ets) population of indo-pacific humpback dolphin, sousa chinensis (osbeck, 1765), was conducted on data collected between 2007 and 2010 to refine a preliminary, and the only available, abundance estimate for this isolated population (n = 99; cv = 51.6%), as well as to provide survival rates. about 14,000 good quality photographs (about 2100-6300 yr(-1)) were used to estimate both parameters for marked animals under pollock's robust design model. the total population size (n-t) was determined by correcting for the proportion of the population possessing long-lasting marks ((theta) over cap). the annual point estimates were lower, varying from 54 to 74, and had much better precision (cv varied from 496 to 1396) than previous estimates, suggesting that mark-recapture is a suitable method for estimating abundance of this population. these estimates also further supported the precarious state of the ets population under another criterion of the iucn red list of threatened species. as expected for long-lived mammals, annual apparent survival rate was high at 0.985 (95% ci = 0.832-0.998). continuing to monitor the ets population of humpback dolphins with such high precision and accuracy will allow examination of the population's trends over time and to better understand its future persistence." +mark-recapture analysis of the critically endangered eastern taiwan strait population of indo-pacific humpback dolphins (sousa chinensis): implications for conservation,NA,BULLETIN OF MARINE SCIENCE,WANG JY;YANG SC;FRUET PF;DAURA JORGE FG;SECCHI ER,"accurate and precise estimates of abundance and survival rates are important for assessing the conservation status of cetacean populations. mark-recapture analysis of photo-identification data of the critically endangered eastern taiwan strait (ets) population of indo-pacific humpback dolphin, sousa chinensis (osbeck, 1765), was conducted on data collected between 2007 and 2010 to refine a preliminary, and the only available, abundance estimate for this isolated population (n = 99; cv = 51.6%), as well as to provide survival rates. about 14,000 good quality photographs (about 2100-6300 yr(-1)) were used to estimate both parameters for marked animals under pollock's robust design model. the total population size (n-t) was determined by correcting for the proportion of the population possessing long-lasting marks ((theta) over cap). the annual point estimates were lower, varying from 54 to 74, and had much better precision (cv varied from 496 to 1396) than previous estimates, suggesting that mark-recapture is a suitable method for estimating abundance of this population. these estimates also further supported the precarious state of the ets population under another criterion of the iucn red list of threatened species. as expected for long-lived mammals, annual apparent survival rate was high at 0.985 (95% ci = 0.832-0.998). continuing to monitor the ets population of humpback dolphins with such high precision and accuracy will allow examination of the population's trends over time and to better understand its future persistence." "sex- and age-specific survival of harbor seals (phoca vitulina) from tugidak island, alaska",harbor seal; mark-recapture; natural markings; phoca vitulina; photograph identification; survival,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,HASTINGS KK;SMALL RJ;PENDLETON GW,"we estimated sex- and age-specific apparent survival of harbor seals (phoca vitulina richardii) born at tugidak island, alaska, from 2000 to 2007 using mark recapture models and photographs of ventral pelage markings to identify individuals. estimates of annual apparent survival (1 - (mortality + emigration)) of females were from 0.05 to 0.10 higher than those of males and were 0.820 for weaning (similar to 1 month) to 1 year, 0.865 for 1-3 years, and 0.929 at 3-7 years. annual survival of males was 0.717, 0.782, and 0.879 for the same ages. highest mortality occurred preweaning, with cumulative mortality to 4 weeks of age of 0.259, indicating this is the most vulnerable period for tugidak harbor seals. estimates of survival, not biased by misidentification, required that an individual had at least 2 good-quality, matching photographs in the photograph library. the number of photographs available for matching improved resighting probabilities from 0.43 for seals with 2 photographs to 0.69 for seals with 8 photographs, but this heterogeneity did not affect survival estimates. survival estimates based on photograph-identification data were nearly identical to those based on resightings of flipper-tagged seals using mark recapture models with a preliminary double-tag loss estimate of 2.5% per year. photograph identification of natural pelage markings provides a viable method for estimating vital rates of harbor seals even at large haul-outs (>1,000 animals) and may be useful for populations of conservation concern that require low disturbance of animals or where capturing sufficient numbers of seals for artificial marking is not feasible." mortality measures from sample-based surveillance: evidence of the epidemiological transition in viet nam,NA,BULLETIN OF THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION,HOA NP;RAO C;HOY DG;HINH ND;NGUYEN TKC;NGO DA,"objective to report methods and results from a national sample mortality surveillance programme implemented in viet nam in 2009. methods a national sample of 192 communes located in 16 provinces and covering a population of approximately 2.6 million was selected using multi-stage cluster sampling. deaths for 2009 were identified from several local data sources. record reconciliation and capture-recapture methods were used to compile data and assess completeness of the records. life tables were computed using reported and adjusted age-specific death rates. each death was followed up by verbal autopsy to ascertain the probable cause(s) of death. underlying causes were certified and coded according to international guidelines. findings a total of 9921 deaths were identified in the sample population. completeness of death records was estimated to be 81%. adjusted life expectancies at birth were 70.4 and 78.7 years for males and females, respectively. stroke was the leading cause of death in both sexes. other prominent causes were road traffic accidents, cancers and hiv infection in males, and cardiovascular conditions, pneumonia and diabetes in females. conclusion viet nam is undergoing the epidemiological transition. although data are relatively complete, they could be further improved through strengthened local collaboration. medical certification for deaths in hospitals, and shorter recall periods for verbal autopsy interviews would improve cause of death ascertainment." swimways: protecting paddlefish through movement-centered management,NA,FISHERIES,PRACHEIL BM;PEGG MA;POWELL LA;MESTL GE,"attempts to mitigate lack of formal interjurisdictional paddlefish management have been made in the united states through the mississippi river interstate cooperative resource association (micra). we used 1988-2009 data from the micra paddlefish (polyodon spathula) stock assessment database-a database containing mark-recapture and biometric information on more than 30,000 individually marked wild paddlefish and more than 2 million hatchery-origin paddlefish-to estimate survival and movement across large and potentially biologically relevant spatial scales. paddlefish frequently moved between political jurisdictions with differing conservation strategies and harvest regulations and showed differences in survival parameter estimates throughout their range. we argue that the degree of interjursidictional movements, spatially variant survival rates, and conservation concerns associated with paddlefish necessitate more cohesive interjurisdictional management. based on criteria used to establish flyways for migratory bird management, we offer swimways as a potential spatial configuration for biologically relevant management units." "age-specific recruitment and natality of california sea lions at san miguel island, california",birth rate; population dynamics; reproductive rate; fecundity; reproduction; recruitment; survival; mark-recapture; pinniped; sea lion; el nino,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,MELIN SR;LAAKE JL;DELONG RL;SINIFF DB,"we conducted a 15 yr mark-resight study of branded california sea lions (zalophus californianus) at san miguel island, california, to estimate age-specific recruitment and natality of the population. we used the schwarz and stobo model to estimate sighting, survival, recruitment, timing of births, abundance, and age-specific natality from sighting histories of 1,276 parous females. the advantage of this approach was that the reproductive status of females did not have to be known for all females of reproductive age. probability of recruitment into the reproductive population began at age 3 or 4, peaked between ages 5 and 7, and slowly declined. age-specific natality was similar for ages 416 but declined after age 17, suggesting that reproductive senescence occurs in older females. the average annual natality for parous females 416 yr of age was 0.77 (se = 0.03); natality declined to 0.56 (se = 0.10) for parous females 1721 yr of age. natality for both age classes was reduced during el nino conditions by 24% and 34%, respectively. in addition to reducing natality, el nino events may result in a delay of recruitment if females experience el nino conditions before they turn 4 yr of age." higher than expected growth rate of the endangered west african giraffe giraffa camelopardalis peralta: a successful human-wildlife cohabitation,capture-mark-recapture; demography; giraffe; giraffa camelopardalis peralta; growth rate; population dynamics; survival,ORYX,SURAUD JP;FENNESSY J;BONNAUD E;ISSA AM;FRITZ H;GAILLARD JM,"the west african giraffe is a genetically unique population represented only by the subspecies giraffa camelopardalis peralta, categorized as endangered on the iucn red list. these giraffes live outside protected areas, without natural predators and share their habitat with local people and their livestock. this study provides demographic data on this poorly studied megaherbivore and documents its recovery. we analysed the results of photo-identification censuses from 1996 to 1999 (count data) and from 2005 to 2008 (count and demographic data). from 1996 to 1999 the annual growth rate was c. 19% because of an unbalanced population structure after a period of severe poaching. from 2005 to 2008 an annual growth rate of c. 12-13% was estimated from both count data and demographic parameters. this value fits with the maximum growth rate calculated for a browser species based on the allometric relationship linking growth rate and body mass. during the period 2005-2008 adult and subadult females had a constant survival rate of 0.94 and a constant recapture rate of 0.97. annual calf survival rate was 1. observed sex ratio at birth was 0.57 and mean reproductive success was 0.257. generation time was estimated to be 9.66 years. this spectacular population growth was mostly attributed to the absence of predators and the ongoing monitoring to limit illegal hunting." -support for the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis in the wild: hormonal manipulation decreases survival in sick damselflies,infection; insect; juvenile hormone analog; mark-recapture; odonata; survival; sexual selection; trade-off,EVOLUTION,GONZALEZ-TOKMAN DM;MUNGUIA-STEYER R;GONZALEZ-SANTOYO I;BAENA-DIAZ FS;CORDOBA-AGUILAR A,"the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis (ichh) states that hormones enhance sexual trait expression but impair immunity. previous tests of the ichh have been hampered by experimental design problems. here, we report on an experimental test of the ichh that includes manipulations of both hormones and infections in males of the territorial damselfly, hetaerina americana, with accurate survival measurements. we conducted a fully factorial experiment subjecting each individual to one of three topical treatments: methoprene (a juvenile hormone analog), acetone, or control, and one of three injection treatments: bacteria, pbs, or control. we measured survival of manipulated males in both the wild and in captivity. as predicted, survival was most heavily impaired in methoprene-bacteria males than in the other groups in the wild, and no survival differences emerged in captive animals. this result confirms that survival is one cost an animal pays for increased hormonal levels. this corroborates theoretical predictions of the ichh." +support for the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis in the wild: hormonal manipulation decreases survival in sick damselflies,infection; insect; juvenile hormone analog; mark-recapture; odonata; survival; sexual selection; trade-off,EVOLUTION,GONZALEZ TOKMAN DM;MUNGUIA STEYER R;GONZALEZ SANTOYO I;BAENA DIAZ FS;CORDOBA AGUILAR A,"the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis (ichh) states that hormones enhance sexual trait expression but impair immunity. previous tests of the ichh have been hampered by experimental design problems. here, we report on an experimental test of the ichh that includes manipulations of both hormones and infections in males of the territorial damselfly, hetaerina americana, with accurate survival measurements. we conducted a fully factorial experiment subjecting each individual to one of three topical treatments: methoprene (a juvenile hormone analog), acetone, or control, and one of three injection treatments: bacteria, pbs, or control. we measured survival of manipulated males in both the wild and in captivity. as predicted, survival was most heavily impaired in methoprene-bacteria males than in the other groups in the wild, and no survival differences emerged in captive animals. this result confirms that survival is one cost an animal pays for increased hormonal levels. this corroborates theoretical predictions of the ichh." constant breeding and low survival rates in the subtropical striped frog in southern brazil,anura; day length; population ecology; capture-recapture; survivorship,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,HIERT C;ROPER JJ;MOURA MO,"survival and consequent implications for population dynamics in the subtropical striped frog hypsiboas leptolineatus was studied for 1 year in the southern brazilian state of parana. by means of capture-marking-recapture, we estimated survival and capture probabilities in an open population. a total of 583 captures of 374 individuals, comprising 96% male (n = 353) and 4% females (n = 21), resulted in daily survival estimates ranging from 0.808 to 0.998 day-1. the number of individuals captured per capture session varied from 8 to 37 (mean = 21) and was correlated with night length, after a two session lag time (r = 0.78). males were found vocalizing throughout the year, while females were less common and gravid females were only found in november, march and june. recapture probability was relatively constant at 25% for males, 24% for females and, overall, 29% of males were recaptured at least once. young individuals were encountered in all months but one and, being extremely small, were impossible to quantify. thus, the striped frog is active and breeding year-round as indicated by the constant singing of adult males, the few gravid females found at different times and the frequent encounters of young frogs at all times of year. while survival and captures varied throughout the year, the only seasonality was in the number of captures that increased during longer nights. nonetheless, recapture probability was constant. these dynamics contrast strongly with most anuran species and especially subtropical and temperate species in other places. this first detailed study of population parameters of a subtropical species with its unusual dynamics may suggest that once studied, other species of anurans may also have surprising population dynamics." potential unmet need for gout diagnosis and treatment: capture-recapture analysis of a national administrative dataset,gout; epidemiology; database; public health; capture-recapture,RHEUMATOLOGY,JACKSON G;WRIGHT C;THORNLEY S;TAYLOR WJ;TE KARU L;GOW PJ;ARROLL B;GRIBBEN B;DALBETH N;WINNARD D,"objective: to estimate the degree of undercount of people diagnosed with gout in administrative datasets using capture-recapture methods. methods: hospitalization and drug dispensing claims (allopurinol or colchicine) data for all aotearoa new zealand were used to estimate the prevalence of gout in 2009 (n = 4 295 296). as a comparison, we calculated gout prevalence using a large primary care dataset using general practitioner diagnosis and prescribing records (n = 555 313). for each of these datasets, we estimated the undercount through capture-recapture analysis using a poisson regression model. a two-list model was used, which included covariates such as age, gender, ethnic groups and new zealand deprivation quintiles. results: the crude prevalence of diagnosed gout in the aotearoa new zealand population aged epsilon 20 years was 3.75%. the covariate-adjusted capture-recapture estimate of those not recorded but likely to have gout was 0.92%, giving an overall estimated prevalence of 4.67% (95% ci 4.49, 4.90%) for the population aged epsilon 20 years. this amounts to 80% of people with gout being identified by the algorithm for the aotearoa new zealand data-that is being recorded in either lists of dispensing of allopurinol or colchicine or hospital discharge. after capture-recapture, gout prevalence for all males aged epsilon 20 years was 7.3% and in older (epsilon 65 years) m (a) over bar ori and pacific men was > 30%. conclusion: capture-recapture analysis of administrative datasets provides a readily available method for estimating an aspect of unmet need in the population-in this instance potentially 20% of those with gout not being identified and treated specifically for this condition." -rigorous gharial population estimation in the chambal: implications for conservation and management of a globally threatened crocodilian,abundance estimation; chambal river; closed-population models; detection; gavialis gangeticus; individual identification; noninvasive; photographic capture-recapture; program mark,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,"NAIR T;THORBJARNARSON JB;AUST P;KRISHNASWAMY J","india's chambal river hosts the largest population of the critically endangered gharial. boat-based daylight surveys to date only provide indices of relative abundance, without measures of survey bias or error. no attempt to quantify detection probabilities in these surveys has yet been made, and thus, absolute density estimates of this population remain unknown. we surveyed 75 km of the river chambal and photographed individual gharials for capturerecapture analysis. the total sampling effort yielded 400 captures. population closure was supported (z = -1.48, p = 0.069), and closed-population models were used to estimate abundances. models were selected using the akaike information criterion (aic) index of model fit. the best model estimated 231 +/- 32 adult, 83 +/- 23 subadult and 89 +/- 19 juvenile gharials (mean +/- se), respectively, while the model-averaged estimate was 220 +/- 28 adult, 76 +/- 16 subadults and 93 +/- 16 juvenile gharials, respectively. the best model estimated absolute densities of 3.08 +/- 0.43, 1.11 +/- 0.3 and 1.19 +/- 0.25 adult, subadult and juvenile gharials km-1, respectively, while the model-averaged estimate was 2.93 +/- 0.37, 1.01 +/- 0.21 and 1.24 +/- 0.21 adult, subadult and juvenile gharials km-1, respectively, compared with relative densities of 0.94, 0.45 and 0.30 adult, subadult and juvenile gharials km-1, respectively, from boat-based daylight surveys. on the basis of our best model, we suggest a detection probability based correction factor of 3.27, 2.47 and 3.97 to boat-based daylight survey estimates of adult, subadult and juvenile gharials, respectively. synthesis and applications. used within the framework of capturerecapture analysis, photoidentification provides a reliable and noninvasive method of estimating population size and structure in crocodilians. we also opine that without determining the current status of gharials, highly intensive strategies, such as the egg-collection and rear-and-release programmes being implemented currently, initiated on the basis of underestimates of population sizes, are unwarranted and divert valuable conservation resources away from field-based protection measures, which are essential in the face of threats like hydrologic diversions, sand mining, fishing and bankside cultivation." +rigorous gharial population estimation in the chambal: implications for conservation and management of a globally threatened crocodilian,abundance estimation; chambal river; closed-population models; detection; gavialis gangeticus; individual identification; noninvasive; photographic capture-recapture; program mark,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,NAIR T;THORBJARNARSON JB;AUST P;KRISHNASWAMY J,"india's chambal river hosts the largest population of the critically endangered gharial. boat-based daylight surveys to date only provide indices of relative abundance, without measures of survey bias or error. no attempt to quantify detection probabilities in these surveys has yet been made, and thus, absolute density estimates of this population remain unknown. we surveyed 75 km of the river chambal and photographed individual gharials for capturerecapture analysis. the total sampling effort yielded 400 captures. population closure was supported (z = -1.48, p = 0.069), and closed-population models were used to estimate abundances. models were selected using the akaike information criterion (aic) index of model fit. the best model estimated 231 +/- 32 adult, 83 +/- 23 subadult and 89 +/- 19 juvenile gharials (mean +/- se), respectively, while the model-averaged estimate was 220 +/- 28 adult, 76 +/- 16 subadults and 93 +/- 16 juvenile gharials, respectively. the best model estimated absolute densities of 3.08 +/- 0.43, 1.11 +/- 0.3 and 1.19 +/- 0.25 adult, subadult and juvenile gharials km-1, respectively, while the model-averaged estimate was 2.93 +/- 0.37, 1.01 +/- 0.21 and 1.24 +/- 0.21 adult, subadult and juvenile gharials km-1, respectively, compared with relative densities of 0.94, 0.45 and 0.30 adult, subadult and juvenile gharials km-1, respectively, from boat-based daylight surveys. on the basis of our best model, we suggest a detection probability based correction factor of 3.27, 2.47 and 3.97 to boat-based daylight survey estimates of adult, subadult and juvenile gharials, respectively. synthesis and applications. used within the framework of capturerecapture analysis, photoidentification provides a reliable and noninvasive method of estimating population size and structure in crocodilians. we also opine that without determining the current status of gharials, highly intensive strategies, such as the egg-collection and rear-and-release programmes being implemented currently, initiated on the basis of underestimates of population sizes, are unwarranted and divert valuable conservation resources away from field-based protection measures, which are essential in the face of threats like hydrologic diversions, sand mining, fishing and bankside cultivation." digging through model complexity: using hierarchical models to uncover evolutionary processes in the wild,atlantic salmon; bayesian modelling; evolutionary processes; hierarchical modelling,JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY,BUORO M;PREVOST E;GIMENEZ O,"the growing interest for studying questions in the wild requires acknowledging that eco-evolutionary processes are complex, hierarchically structured and often partially observed or with measurement error. these issues have long been ignored in evolutionary biology, which might have led to flawed inference when addressing evolutionary questions. hierarchical modelling (hm) has been proposed as a generic statistical framework to deal with complexity in ecological data and account for uncertainty. however, to date, hm has seldom been used to investigate evolutionary mechanisms possibly underlying observed patterns. here, we contend the hm approach offers a relevant approach for the study of eco-evolutionary processes in the wild by confronting formal theories to empirical data through proper statistical inference. studying eco-evolutionary processes requires considering the complete and often complex life histories of organisms. we show how this can be achieved by combining sequentially all life-history components and all available sources of information through hm. we demonstrate how eco-evolutionary processes may be poorly inferred or even missed without using the full potential of hm. as a case study, we use the atlantic salmon and data on wild marked juveniles. we assess a reaction norm for migration and two potential trade-offs for survival. overall, hm has a great potential to address evolutionary questions and investigate important processes that could not previously be assessed in laboratory or short time-scale studies." horizon annealing: a collection-based approach to automated sequencing of the fossil record,NA,LETHAIA,SHEETS HD;MITCHELL CE;IZARD ZT;WILLIS JM;MELCHIN MJ;HOLMDEN C,"sheets, h.d., mitchell, c.e., izard, z.t., willis, j.m., melchin, m.j. & holmden, c. 2012: horizon annealing: a collection-based approach to automated sequencing of the fossil record. lethaia, vol. 45, pp. 532547. a number of different approaches to quantitative biochronology have been proposed and used to construct high-resolution time-scales for a range of uses. we present a new approach, horizon annealing, which uses simulated annealing to optimize the sequencing of collection horizons. temporal sequences of events produced by this method are compared with those produced by graphic correlation, conop and rasc for a series of previously studied exemplar data sets. horizon annealing produces results similar to other methods, but it does have properties (the ordination of collections and the avoidance of some local minima) that make it useful for high-resolution studies, particularly those based on capture-mark-recapture methods requiring detailed presenceabsence data for individual collections and taxa. ? chronostratigraphy, graphic correlation, graptolite, rate of evolution, conop9." "assessment of genotyping accuracy in a non-invasive dna-based population survey of asiatic black bears (ursus thibetanus): lessons from a large-scale pilot study in iwate prefecture, northern japan",allelic dropout; error rate; false alleles; hair trap; microsatellite,POPULATION ECOLOGY,UNO R;KONDO M;YUASA T;YAMAUCHI K;TSURUGA H;TAMATE HB;YONEDA M,"non-invasive dna genotyping using hair samples has become a common method in population surveys of asiatic black bears (ursus thibetanus) in japan; however, the accuracy of the genotyping data has rarely been discussed in empirical studies. therefore, we conducted a large-scale pilot study to examine genotyping accuracy and sought an efficient way of error-checking hair-trapping data. we collected 2,067 hair samples, successfully determined the genotypes of 1,245 samples, and identified 295 individuals. the genotyping data were further divided into 3 subsets of data according to the number of hairs used for dna extraction in each sample (1-4, 5-9, and a parts per thousand yen10 hairs), and the error rates of allelic dropout and false alleles were estimated for each subset using a maximum likelihood method. the genotyping error rates in the samples with a parts per thousand yen10 hairs were found to be lower than those in the samples with 1-4 and 5-9 hairs. the presence of erroneous genotypes among the identified individuals was further checked using a post hoc goodness-of-fit test that determined the match between the expected and observed frequencies of individual homozygotes at 0-6 loci. the results indicated the presence of erroneous genotypes, possibly as a result of allelic dropout, in the samples. therefore, for improved accuracy, it is recommended that samples containing a parts per thousand yen10 hairs should be used for genotyping and a post hoc goodness-of-fit test should be performed to exclude erroneous genotypes before proceeding with downstream analysis such as capture-mark-recapture estimation." -"tag loss in the lobster palinurus elephas (fabricius, 1787) and implications for population assessment with capture-mark-recapture methods",capture-mark-recapture; double tagging; tag loss; return rate bias; palinurus elephas,FISHERIES RESEARCH,GONZALEZ-VICENTE L;DIAZ D;MALLOL S;GONI R,"assessments of animal populations by mark-recapture methods rest on the assumption that all marked animals are recognizable, yet a variety of processes, such as molting in crustaceans, can lead to tag shedding. in this paper we estimate the shedding rate of t-bar anchor tags in the european spiny lobster palinurus elephas from double tagging experiments conducted in the wild. during four annual consecutive surveys (1999-2002) lobsters were caught, double-tagged and released. the evolution of the subsequent double- and single-tag recaptures was traced during the following ten years (2000-2009). the estimated instantaneous rate of tag loss was 6.8%year(-1) in males and 5.0%year(-1) in females tagged during intermolt. these tag-shedding rates are low compared to most published values for similar species. data also suggested that there is poorer tag retention when tagging immature individuals or during premolt. we simulate and discuss the impact of undetected recaptures on the return rate and the implications for population assessment in the particular case of p. elephas. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +"tag loss in the lobster palinurus elephas (fabricius, 1787) and implications for population assessment with capture-mark-recapture methods",capture-mark-recapture; double tagging; tag loss; return rate bias; palinurus elephas,FISHERIES RESEARCH,GONZALEZ VICENTE L;DIAZ D;MALLOL S;GONI R,"assessments of animal populations by mark-recapture methods rest on the assumption that all marked animals are recognizable, yet a variety of processes, such as molting in crustaceans, can lead to tag shedding. in this paper we estimate the shedding rate of t-bar anchor tags in the european spiny lobster palinurus elephas from double tagging experiments conducted in the wild. during four annual consecutive surveys (1999-2002) lobsters were caught, double-tagged and released. the evolution of the subsequent double- and single-tag recaptures was traced during the following ten years (2000-2009). the estimated instantaneous rate of tag loss was 6.8%year(-1) in males and 5.0%year(-1) in females tagged during intermolt. these tag-shedding rates are low compared to most published values for similar species. data also suggested that there is poorer tag retention when tagging immature individuals or during premolt. we simulate and discuss the impact of undetected recaptures on the return rate and the implications for population assessment in the particular case of p. elephas. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." population-specific escapement of columbia river fall chinook salmon: tradeoffs among estimation techniques,aggregated; mark-recapture; multinomial; pit; radiotelemetry; stratified,FISHERIES RESEARCH,HYUN SY;KEEFER ML;FRYER JK;JEPSON MA;SHARMA R;CAUDILL CC;WHITEAKER JM;NAUGHTON GP,"in the multi-stock columbia river system, managers estimate fall chinook salmon, oncorhynchus tshawytscha (walbaum), escapements using various combinations of spawning ground surveys, harvest data and fish counts at dams and hatcheries. our objectives were to improve upon the traditional methods, and to evaluate trade-offs among methods. using data from radio-tagged (n=4421) and pit-tagged (n=1950) adult salmon over eight years, we applied a mark-recapture method to estimate population-specific escapements, both aggregating data within year and stratifying them by week mark-recapture estimates differed between estimation techniques and from estimates generated using traditional methods. stratifying data by week measured escapement estimate uncertainty more reasonably than aggregating data within year. radiotelemetry provided better spatial resolution among populations for tributary spawners whereas pit tags provided low-cost, easily replicated estimates using an existing detection system. mark-recapture techniques had several advantages over current practices: quantifying uncertainty, transparent methods and reduced sensitivity to survey biases. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." "movements, behaviour and survival of adult cook strait giant weta (deinacrida rugosa; anostostomatidae: orthoptera) immediately after translocation as revealed by radiotracking",orthoptera; translocation; conservation; radiotelemetry; monitoring; new zealand,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,WATTS C;EMPSON R;THORNBURROW D;ROHAN M,"giant weta (orthoptera: anostostomatidae) are large flightless new zealand insects vulnerable to predation from introduced mammals. some species have been transferred to islands or mammal-free mainland sanctuaries to establish additional populations. radiotelemetry was used to investigate behaviour, movements and survival of adult cook strait giant weta (deinacrida rugosa) immediately after translocation into karori sanctuary, new zealand, to describe their initial movements, and to assess the importance of this establishment phase in relation to the long-term viability of the population. the average distance moved between consecutive daytime refuges for translocated male d. rugosa within karori sanctuary was significantly further than for resident weta on matiu-somes island. in contrast, translocated female weta moved significantly smaller distances between consecutive daytime refuges within karori sanctuary than those on matiu-somes island. translocated d. rugosa travelled significantly further between consecutive daytime refuges between 19 and 45 days after release than during the first 19 days and more than 45 days of radiotracking. deinacrida rugosa survived well following translocation and there was only limited evidence of predation despite an increased abundance of indigenous avian and reptilian predators being present, and the presence of low numbers of mice. the establishment potential of this population was not adversely affected by movements and survival of the weta immediately after translocation. it still remains to be seen if a self-sustaining population of d. rugosa develops in karori sanctuary but the indications are that the species is present because progeny of the translocated weta are regularly seen within karori sanctuary. radiotelemetry provided valuable insights into the behaviour of adult d. rugosa and it could be appropriate for monitoring other large bodied invertebrates." -intraspecific variation in mortality rates of the livebearing fish poeciliopsis baenschi,demography; capture-mark-recapture; poeciliidae; sexual size dimorphism; survival,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ;RODRIGUEZ-REYES FR;OLIVERA-TLAHUEL C;MACEDA-CRUZ RJ;MOLINA-ZULUAGA CM;JOHNSON JB,"identifying differences in mortality rates in wild fish populations can provide insight into ecological and evolutionary variation within species, including differences between sexes. in this study, we examined natural mortality patterns among four populations of a viviparous freshwater fish (poeciliopsis baenschi) from western mexico that shows sexual size dimorphism. our purpose was to test for differences in mortality rates among populations and to determine if these differences are sex- or size-dependent. we fit mark-recapture data to several competing models to test for differences in mortality rates among collection localities and between sexes, as well as to evaluate a potential relationship between size and mortality. the best-fitting model included an interaction between size and source population without a sex effect, indicating a strong relationship between size and mortality that differed among populations. in three populations, adult individuals of medium sizes experienced increased mortality rates compared to smaller or larger adults. in one of these three populations, this pattern was more pronounced with medium-sized individuals suffering strikingly higher mortality. in the remaining population, we found the opposite pattern: adult individuals of medium sizes experienced lower mortality rates compared to smaller or larger adults. in all cases, these effects were independent of sex. we consider explanations for this pattern based on ecological factors, such as differences in predation intensity, and discuss our results in the context of intraspecific phenotypic divergence. our findings demonstrate the value of comparing mortality rates among populations within a fish species." +intraspecific variation in mortality rates of the livebearing fish poeciliopsis baenschi,demography; capture-mark-recapture; poeciliidae; sexual size dimorphism; survival,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,ZUNIGA VEGA JJ;RODRIGUEZ REYES FR;OLIVERA TLAHUEL C;MACEDA CRUZ RJ;MOLINA ZULUAGA CM;JOHNSON JB,"identifying differences in mortality rates in wild fish populations can provide insight into ecological and evolutionary variation within species, including differences between sexes. in this study, we examined natural mortality patterns among four populations of a viviparous freshwater fish (poeciliopsis baenschi) from western mexico that shows sexual size dimorphism. our purpose was to test for differences in mortality rates among populations and to determine if these differences are sex- or size-dependent. we fit mark-recapture data to several competing models to test for differences in mortality rates among collection localities and between sexes, as well as to evaluate a potential relationship between size and mortality. the best-fitting model included an interaction between size and source population without a sex effect, indicating a strong relationship between size and mortality that differed among populations. in three populations, adult individuals of medium sizes experienced increased mortality rates compared to smaller or larger adults. in one of these three populations, this pattern was more pronounced with medium-sized individuals suffering strikingly higher mortality. in the remaining population, we found the opposite pattern: adult individuals of medium sizes experienced lower mortality rates compared to smaller or larger adults. in all cases, these effects were independent of sex. we consider explanations for this pattern based on ecological factors, such as differences in predation intensity, and discuss our results in the context of intraspecific phenotypic divergence. our findings demonstrate the value of comparing mortality rates among populations within a fish species." towards a measure of functional connectivity: local synchrony matches small scale movements in a woodland edge butterfly,landscape permeability; dispersal corridors; habitat matrix; population synchrony; aphantopus hyperantus,LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY,POWNEY GD;BROADERS LK;OLIVER TH,"this study investigates the sensitivity of local synchrony to movement patterns of the ringlet butterfly (aphantopus hyperantus). we examine whether population synchrony, describing the correlated fluctuations of conspecific populations, may prove an effective surrogate measure for monitoring functional connectivity in this species without the requirement of exhaustive sampling. we compared the effect on population synchrony of two different distance measures, direct (euclidean) distance and distance via woodland rides and edges, and also of habitat matrix composition. population synchrony of a. hyperantus was calculated as the pairwise correlation between population time-series using 20 years of data from uk butterfly monitoring scheme transects. local population synchrony was better explained by distance via woodland edges than direct distance, especially for woodland-dominated transects. these results are consistent with mark-recapture data previously collected on the ringlet butterfly. the results indicate a sensitivity of population synchrony to butterfly local dispersal behaviour, particularly, to the use of habitat corridors and other functional dispersal routes. population synchrony is considered to have potential as a surrogate measure of functional connectivity. with development, this method could become a valuable conservation tool for identifying important landscape features which promote species' connectivity." -comparison of density estimation methods for mammal populations with camera traps in the kaa-iya del gran chaco landscape,leopardus; panthera; puma; spacecap; spatial capture recapture (scr); tapirus,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,NOSS AJ;GARDNER B;MAFFEI L;CUELLAR E;MONTANO R;ROMERO-MUNOZ A;SOLLMAN R;O'CONNELL AF,"sampling animal populations with camera traps has become increasingly popular over the past two decades, particularly for species that are cryptic, elusive, exist at low densities or range over large areas. the results have been widely used to estimate population size and density. we analyzed data from 13 camera trap surveys conducted at five sites across the kaa-iya landscape, bolivian chaco, for jaguar, puma, ocelot and lowland tapir. we compared two spatially explicit capturerecapture (scr) software packages: secr, a likelihood-based approach, and spacecap, a bayesian approach, both of which are implemented within the r environment and can be used to estimate animal density from photographic records of individual animals that simultaneously employ spatial information about the capture location relative to the sample location. as a non-spatial analysis, we used the program capture 2 to estimate abundance from the capturerecapture records of individuals identified through camera trap photos combined with an ad hoc estimation of the effective survey area to estimate density. scr methods estimated jaguar population densities from 0.31 to 1.82 individuals per 100?km2 across the kaa-iya sites; puma from 0.36 to 7.99; ocelot from 1.67 to 51.7; and tapir from 7.38 to 42.9. density estimates using either secr or spacecap were generally lower than the estimates generated using the non-spatial method for all surveys and species; and density estimates using spacecap were generally lower than that using secr. we recommend using either secr or spacecap because the spatially explicit methods are not biased by an informal estimation of an effective survey area. although spacecap and secr are less sensitive than non-spatial methods to the size of the grid used for sampling, we recommend grid sizes several times larger than the average home range (known or estimated) of the target species." -nest boxes: a successful management tool for the conservation of an endangered seabird,mediterranean storm petrel; hydrobates pelagicus; survival; breeding success; predation,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,LIBOIS E;GIMENEZ O;ORO D;MINGUEZ E;PRADEL R;SANZ-AGUILAR A,"nowadays seabirds are among the most threatened animal taxa. due to introduction by humans of mammalian predators on large islands, mediterranean storm petrels are now confined to islets and considered locally vulnerable, especially threatened by predatory overabundant gulls. in this study, we evaluate the effectiveness of nest boxes installation as a management measure for their conservation at benidorm island (spain). we compare demographic parameters of individuals breeding in natural nests and nest boxes using capture-recapture and generalized linear mixed models. our results show higher survival rates and breeding success probabilities for birds breeding in artificial nests than in natural sites, probably as a consequence of protection against gulls. following the installation and successful occupation of nest boxes, breeding numbers of storm petrels greatly increased. although conservation measures have proved highly effective we recommend the maintenance of the monitoring and evidence-based management of the storm petrel breeding population. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -the effect of attractant lures in camera trapping: a case study of population estimates for the iberian lynx (lynx pardinus),lynx pardinus; iberian lynx; camera trapping; capture-recapture; population estimates; attractant lure,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,GARROTE G;GIL-SANCHEZ JM;MCCAIN EB;DE LILLO S;TELLERIA JL;SIMON MA,"capture-recapture analysis of camera trap data is a conventional method to estimate the abundance of free-ranging wild felids. due to notorious low detection rates of felids, it is important to increase the detection probability during sampling. in this study, we report the effectiveness of attractants as a tool for improving the efficiency of camera trap sampling in abundance estimation of iberian lynx. we developed a grid system of camera stations in which stations with and without attractant lures were spatially alternated across known iberian lynx habitat. of the ten individuals identified, five were detected at stations with no attractant (blind sets), and nine, at the lured stations. thirty-eight percent of blind set station's independent captures and 10 % of lured station's independent captures resulted in photographs unsuitable for correct individual identification. the total capture probability at lured stations was higher than that obtained at blind set stations. the estimates obtained with blind set cameras underestimated the number of lynxes compared to lured cameras. in our study, it appears that the use of lures increased the efficiency of trail camera captures and, therefore, the accuracy of capture-recapture analysis. the observed failure to detect known individuals at blind set camera stations may violate capture-recapture assumptions and bias abundance estimates." +comparison of density estimation methods for mammal populations with camera traps in the kaa-iya del gran chaco landscape,leopardus; panthera; puma; spacecap; spatial capture recapture (scr); tapirus,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,NOSS AJ;GARDNER B;MAFFEI L;CUELLAR E;MONTANO R;ROMERO MUNOZ A;SOLLMAN R;O CONNELL AF,"sampling animal populations with camera traps has become increasingly popular over the past two decades, particularly for species that are cryptic, elusive, exist at low densities or range over large areas. the results have been widely used to estimate population size and density. we analyzed data from 13 camera trap surveys conducted at five sites across the kaa-iya landscape, bolivian chaco, for jaguar, puma, ocelot and lowland tapir. we compared two spatially explicit capturerecapture (scr) software packages: secr, a likelihood-based approach, and spacecap, a bayesian approach, both of which are implemented within the r environment and can be used to estimate animal density from photographic records of individual animals that simultaneously employ spatial information about the capture location relative to the sample location. as a non-spatial analysis, we used the program capture 2 to estimate abundance from the capturerecapture records of individuals identified through camera trap photos combined with an ad hoc estimation of the effective survey area to estimate density. scr methods estimated jaguar population densities from 0.31 to 1.82 individuals per 100?km2 across the kaa-iya sites; puma from 0.36 to 7.99; ocelot from 1.67 to 51.7; and tapir from 7.38 to 42.9. density estimates using either secr or spacecap were generally lower than the estimates generated using the non-spatial method for all surveys and species; and density estimates using spacecap were generally lower than that using secr. we recommend using either secr or spacecap because the spatially explicit methods are not biased by an informal estimation of an effective survey area. although spacecap and secr are less sensitive than non-spatial methods to the size of the grid used for sampling, we recommend grid sizes several times larger than the average home range (known or estimated) of the target species." +nest boxes: a successful management tool for the conservation of an endangered seabird,mediterranean storm petrel; hydrobates pelagicus; survival; breeding success; predation,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,LIBOIS E;GIMENEZ O;ORO D;MINGUEZ E;PRADEL R;SANZ AGUILAR A,"nowadays seabirds are among the most threatened animal taxa. due to introduction by humans of mammalian predators on large islands, mediterranean storm petrels are now confined to islets and considered locally vulnerable, especially threatened by predatory overabundant gulls. in this study, we evaluate the effectiveness of nest boxes installation as a management measure for their conservation at benidorm island (spain). we compare demographic parameters of individuals breeding in natural nests and nest boxes using capture-recapture and generalized linear mixed models. our results show higher survival rates and breeding success probabilities for birds breeding in artificial nests than in natural sites, probably as a consequence of protection against gulls. following the installation and successful occupation of nest boxes, breeding numbers of storm petrels greatly increased. although conservation measures have proved highly effective we recommend the maintenance of the monitoring and evidence-based management of the storm petrel breeding population. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +the effect of attractant lures in camera trapping: a case study of population estimates for the iberian lynx (lynx pardinus),lynx pardinus; iberian lynx; camera trapping; capture-recapture; population estimates; attractant lure,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,GARROTE G;GIL SANCHEZ JM;MCCAIN EB;DE LILLO S;TELLERIA JL;SIMON MA,"capture-recapture analysis of camera trap data is a conventional method to estimate the abundance of free-ranging wild felids. due to notorious low detection rates of felids, it is important to increase the detection probability during sampling. in this study, we report the effectiveness of attractants as a tool for improving the efficiency of camera trap sampling in abundance estimation of iberian lynx. we developed a grid system of camera stations in which stations with and without attractant lures were spatially alternated across known iberian lynx habitat. of the ten individuals identified, five were detected at stations with no attractant (blind sets), and nine, at the lured stations. thirty-eight percent of blind set station's independent captures and 10 % of lured station's independent captures resulted in photographs unsuitable for correct individual identification. the total capture probability at lured stations was higher than that obtained at blind set stations. the estimates obtained with blind set cameras underestimated the number of lynxes compared to lured cameras. in our study, it appears that the use of lures increased the efficiency of trail camera captures and, therefore, the accuracy of capture-recapture analysis. the observed failure to detect known individuals at blind set camera stations may violate capture-recapture assumptions and bias abundance estimates." "laying date, body mass and tick infestation of nestling tropical roseate terns sterna dougallii predict fledging success, first-year survival and age at first return to the natal colony",chick growth; ectoparasite; first-year survival; multistate model; sterna dougallii,IBIS,MONTICELLI D;RAMOS JA,"both intrinsic and extrinsic factors recorded at individual nests can predict offspring fitness and survival but few studies have examined these effects in the tropics. we recorded nestling survival, post-fledging survival and age at first return of roseate terns breeding at aride island, seychelles, over a 12-year period (1998-2009). nest data recorded at the egg, nestling and fledging stages were collected during six breeding seasons (1998, 2001-2005) and a capture-mark-recapture dataset of six cohorts of fledglings was obtained from 2001-2009. logistic regression models were used to assess the predictive effect of reproductive variables on fledging success, while multistate capture-mark-recapture models were used to estimate post-fledging survival and return-recruitment probabilities to the natal site. nestling survival probability increased with earliness of laying and was negatively affected by tick infestation during the growth period (0-23 days). fledging probability was also positively related to chick body condition, whereas other pre-fledging reproductive parameters such as clutch size and egg size were not influential. a multistate modelling of age-specific survival and return-recruitment (transition) rates found that first-year survival differed between cohorts and was also negatively affected by tick infestation. annual survival stabilized from age 2 onwards at 0.83 +/- 0.02. transition rates were positively related to body condition at fledging, with heavier individuals returning for the first time to the natal colony at a younger age compared with lighter individuals. these results highlight the importance of local conditions encountered by tropical seabirds during the breeding season in shaping demographic parameters." high-speed railways are not barriers to pyronia tithonus butterfly movements,lepidoptera; dispersal; mark-recapture; homing behaviour; grassland,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,VANDEVELDE JC;PENONE C;JULLIARD R,"linear infrastructures such as railways and roads can be barriers to the movements of individuals and, hence, may have strong impacts on populations. we tested the barrier effect of a high-speed railway for pyronia tithonus, a butterfly species showing homing behaviour when displaced. we captured, marked and displaced 152 individuals in two different locations. one-third of the butterflies were released at a capture plot, one-third on the other side of the railway (in a similar habitat) and one-third on the same side but 100 m away from the capture plot. we obtained recapture rates of 40 and 23 % per location. many (31 %) butterflies crossed the railway, showing homing behaviour. thus, contrary to wide, busy roads, high-speed railways do not seem to be barriers for these butterflies. we suggest that in an intensive agrarian landscape, railway verges can play a substitution habitat role for grassland butterflies." using a temporal symmetry model to assess population change and recruitment in the preble's meadow jumping mouse (zapus hudsonius preblei),apparent survival; lambda; population change; pradel model; preble's meadow jumping mouse; recruitment; zapus hudsonius preblei,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,SCHORR RA,"the preble's meadow jumping mouse (zapus hudsonius preblei [pmjm]) is a rare rodent of southeastern wyoming and central colorado that has been the center of debates regarding subspecies' genetic identity and the application of the endangered species act. i analyzed a 7-year pmjm mark recapture data set using a temporal symmetry model (pradel model) to estimate apparent survival (phi), recruitment (f), population change (lambda), and vital rate influence on lambda. deer mouse (peromyscus maniculatus) captures depressed phi, suggesting that competition for resources may decrease pmjm survival. vole-mediated habitat changes or voles' affinity for quality riparian habitats may explain why pmjm phi and f increased with meadow vole (microtus pennsylvanicus) captures. based on early-summer and late-summer sampling from 2000 to 2006, lambda. estimates were 0.87 +/- 0.06 se and 0.87 +/- 0.11 se, respectively, and f had a greater influence on lambda than did phi. this pmjm population is losing connectivity to eastern, northern, and southern tributaries from habitat degradation and storm-water and municipal runoff erosion. the loss of the adjoining habitat and the pmjms that were supported by this habitat prevents new recruitment via immigration. because of the importance of recruitment to pmjm population stability, tributaries and the riparian habitat along these tributaries are vital to pmjm conservation. scale-appropriate habitat sampling, assessments of reproductive success, and detailed demographic studies to estimate vital demographic parameters will help identify how particular habitat components impact fecundity and immigration." -demography of straw-colored fruit bats in ghana,capture-recapture; eidolon helvum; multistate model; population dynamics; survival; tooth cementum,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,HAYMAN DTS;MCCREA R;RESTIF O;SUU-IRE R;FOOKS AR;WOOD JLN;CUNNINGHAM AA;ROWCLIFFE JM,"eidolon helvum is widely distributed across sub-saharan africa where it forms large, dense colonies. the species is migratory and satellite telemetry studies have demonstrated that individuals can migrate over 2,500 km. it is a common source of bush meat in west africa and evidence of infection with potentially zoonotic viruses has been found in west african colonies. the species, therefore, is of interest to both ecologists and those interested in public health. despite this, demographic parameters of the species are unknown. we focused our study primarily on it colony of up to 1,000,000 bats that roost in trees in accra, ghana to obtain estimates of birth rate and survival probability. aging of bats by examination of tooth cementum annuli allowed use of life tables to indicate an annual survival probability for juveniles of 0.43 (95% confidence interval [ci] 0.16-0.77) and for adults of 0.83 (95% ci 0.73-0.93). additionally, an annual adult survival probability of 0.63 (95% ci 0.27-0.88) was estimated by following 98 radiocollared bats over a year; capture recapture data were analyzed using multistate models to address the confounding factor of emigration. true survival probabilities may be in between the 2 estimates, because permanent emigration may lead to underestimation in the capture recapture study, and population decline may lead to overestimation in the life table analysis. birth rates (0.96 young per female per year, 95% ci 0.92-0.98) and colony size changes were also estimated. estimation of these key parameters will allow future analyses of both infection dynamics within, and harvest sustainability of, e. helvum populations." +demography of straw-colored fruit bats in ghana,capture-recapture; eidolon helvum; multistate model; population dynamics; survival; tooth cementum,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,HAYMAN DTS;MCCREA R;RESTIF O;SUU IRE R;FOOKS AR;WOOD JLN;CUNNINGHAM AA;ROWCLIFFE JM,"eidolon helvum is widely distributed across sub-saharan africa where it forms large, dense colonies. the species is migratory and satellite telemetry studies have demonstrated that individuals can migrate over 2,500 km. it is a common source of bush meat in west africa and evidence of infection with potentially zoonotic viruses has been found in west african colonies. the species, therefore, is of interest to both ecologists and those interested in public health. despite this, demographic parameters of the species are unknown. we focused our study primarily on it colony of up to 1,000,000 bats that roost in trees in accra, ghana to obtain estimates of birth rate and survival probability. aging of bats by examination of tooth cementum annuli allowed use of life tables to indicate an annual survival probability for juveniles of 0.43 (95% confidence interval [ci] 0.16-0.77) and for adults of 0.83 (95% ci 0.73-0.93). additionally, an annual adult survival probability of 0.63 (95% ci 0.27-0.88) was estimated by following 98 radiocollared bats over a year; capture recapture data were analyzed using multistate models to address the confounding factor of emigration. true survival probabilities may be in between the 2 estimates, because permanent emigration may lead to underestimation in the capture recapture study, and population decline may lead to overestimation in the life table analysis. birth rates (0.96 young per female per year, 95% ci 0.92-0.98) and colony size changes were also estimated. estimation of these key parameters will allow future analyses of both infection dynamics within, and harvest sustainability of, e. helvum populations." how many maternal deaths are there in portugal?,maternal mortality; capture-recapture; mortality estimation,JOURNAL OF MATERNAL-FETAL & NEONATAL MEDICINE,GOMES MC;VENTURA MT;NUNES RS,"introduction: maternal mortality is a public health issue, internationally considered an indicator of women's status in society, indirectly translating access to health facilities. however, it is difficult to measure and is usually underestimated by official records. methods: maternal deaths missed by the official statistics in portugal between 2001 and 2006 were estimated by multiple-recapture methods using three different data sources. an upper limit to the number of deaths was derived from the application of the mortality function of women in reproductive age to the estimated annual number of pregnancies. results: maternal mortality decreased from 40 to less than 10 deaths per 100 000 live births between 1978 and 1986. between 2001 and 2006, it varied from 2.5 to 19 and was underestimated by 9%-26%. nevertheless, within the same age range, the risk of a pregnant women to die was four times less than a women in the general population. conclusion: like in other developed countries, official statistics in portugal have systematically underestimated maternal deaths. these deaths are a rare event, but the consistent increase in the average age at pregnancy may exacerbate the main causes of death, raising concerns for the future and prompting the need for emergency facilities nearby maternities." a computer-assisted system for photographic mark-recapture analysis,giraffa camelopardalis; giraffe; noninvasive methods; photographic mark-recapture; scale invariant feature transform; survival; tanzania; tarangire,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BOLGER DT;MORRISON TA;VANCE B;LEE D;FARID H,"1. photographic markrecapture is a cost-effective, non-invasive way to study populations. however, to efficiently apply photographic markrecapture to large populations, computer software is needed for image manipulation and pattern matching. 2. we created an open-source application for the storage, pattern extraction and pattern matching of digital images for the purposes of markrecapture analysis. the resulting software package is a stand-alone, multiplatform application implemented in java. our program employs the scale invariant feature transform (sift) operator that extracts distinctive features invariant to image scale and rotation. 3. we applied this system to a population of masai giraffe (giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi) in the tarangire ecosystem in northern tanzania. over 1200 images were acquired in the field during three primary sampling periods between september 2008 and december 2009. the pattern information in these images was extracted and matched resulting in capture histories for over 600 unique individuals. 4. estimated error rates of the matching system were low based on a subset of test images that were independently matched by eye. 5. encounter histories were subsequently analysed with open population models to estimate apparent survival rates and population size. 6. this new open-access tool allowed photographic markrecapture to be applied successfully to this relatively large population." "sex-specific estimates of dispersal show female philopatry and male dispersal in a promiscuous amphibian, the alpine salamander (salamandra atra)",amphibian; mark-recapture; mating system; microsatellite; population structure; sex-biased dispersal,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,HELFER V;BROQUET T;FUMAGALLI L,"amphibians display wide variations in life-history traits and life cycles that should prove useful to explore the evolution of sex-biased dispersal, but quantitative data on sex-specific dispersal patterns are scarce. here, we focused on salamandra atra, an endemic alpine species showing peculiar life-history traits. strictly terrestrial and viviparous, the species has a promiscuous mating system, and females reproduce only every 3 to 4 years. in the present study, we provide quantitative estimates of asymmetries in male vs. female dispersal using both field-based (markrecapture) and genetic approaches (detection of sex-biased dispersal and estimates of migration rates based on the contrast in genetic structure across sexes and age classes). our results revealed a high level of gene flow among populations, which stems exclusively from male dispersal. we hypothesize that philopatric females benefit from being familiar with their natal area for the acquisition and defence of an appropriate shelter, while male dispersal has been secondarily favoured by inbreeding avoidance. together with other studies on amphibians, our results indicate that a species' mating system alone is a poor predictor of sex-linked differences in dispersal, in particular for promiscuous species. further studies should focus more directly on the proximate forces that favour or limit dispersal to refine our understanding of the evolution of sex-biased dispersal in animals." @@ -3414,23 +3419,24 @@ use of wildlife detector dogs to study eastern box turtle (terrapene carolina ca capture-recapture abundance estimate of guiana dolphins in southeastern brazil,abundance estimate; capture-recapture; sepetiba bay; sotalia guianensis; photo-identification,CIENCIAS MARINAS,NERY MF;SIMAO SM,"the objective of this study was to estimate the abundance of sotalia guianensis in sepetiba bay, southeastern brazil, based on photographic identification of animals. estimates of population size were obtained using capture-recapture models for a closed population. photo-identification data were analyzed using a model-fitting approach in the computer programs capture and mark, and the schnabel and schumacher-eschmeyer estimators were used to calculate the abundance of individuals with natural marks. these estimates were corrected to include unmarked individuals using data of the proportion of identifiable individuals in this population. during the surveys conducted between april 2006 and april 2007, a total of 9990 photographs of dolphins were taken and, of these, 2567 images were of sufficient quality for analysis; 382 dolphins were identified and catalogued from distinctive nicks and notches on their dorsal fins and, among them; 153 dolphins were photographed on more than one occasion. the resulting abundance estimates, corrected to account for the proportion (0.47) of unmarked dolphins in the population, showed an overlap among estimators ranging from 1004 to 1099 individuals. this is the largest estimated abundance for a population of s. guianensis reported to date using the capture-recapture technique." spatial dynamics and growth of two native species of catostomids: are movements restricted?,NA,SOUTHWESTERN NATURALIST,BOOTH MT;SHIPLEY AJ,"we investigated movement and growth of two common suckers, catostomus clarki and catostomus insignis, in three streams that represent the broad environmental tolerances of these species. there was limited evidence of restricted movement in c. clarki, with many individuals moving 600 m and 50-90% of recaptured individuals detected outside the original location of capture. catostomus insignis was more sedentary than c. clarki with only 25% recaptured outside of the original location of capture. movement patterns of the two species also varied among streams, with c. clarki moving further in sonoita creek than bonita creek or west fork black river, arizona. sonoita creek experienced a series of floods and while movements after flooding were predominately downstream, rates of recapture were similar to those during pre-flood sampling. rates of growth and body condition also varied among streams." "homes for hermits: temporal, spatial and structural dynamics as transportable homes are incorporated into a population",animal homes and shelter; resource limitation; sociality; mark-recapture; spatial ecology; architectural remodeling; hermit crabs; gastropod shells,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,LAIDRE ME,"understanding the process by which limiting resources are incorporated into populations is a major goal of ecology. while many studies have examined this dynamic process using essential resources like homes, few of these studies have involved homes that can be transported by their occupants. this study introduced over a thousand transportable homes into a population of terrestrial hermit crabs coenobita compressus, animals that carry their homes with them wherever they travel. these new homes were tracked between years to test key predictions about the temporal dynamics the homes would generate, and the spatial and structural changes the homes would undergo as they were used by the population. when moving into new homes, crabs dropped off their old homes directly at the exchange site, and the number of such traded-in homes peaked rapidly in time. traded-in homes were under half the diameter of new homes, a difference apparently magnified by social formations involving vacancy chains. after crabs moved into new homes, they carried the homes away from the exchange site. the following year, these homes were displaced a distance four orders of magnitude times their diameter, thus penetrating extensively through the population. between years, crabs also remodeled the internal architecture of the homes, creating homes that were more spacious and less of a burden to carry. these results suggest that transportable homes generate novel ecological dynamics along temporal, spatial and structural dimensions, which are a direct consequence of their transportability." -population structure in dry and rainy seasons in erythrodiplax umbrata (linnaeus) (odonata: libellulidae),NA,ODONATOLOGICA,PALACINO-RODRIGUEZ F;CONTRERAS-SANCHEZ NA;CORDOBA-AGUILAR A,"mark-recapture studies in adult odon. have revealed that rainy periods have a negative impact on population size, recapture rate, survival probability and life expectancy. one reason for this is that rainy periods are usually associated with low temperatures which indirectly and directly affect individual condition. however, given that most studies have been carried out in temperate environments it remains to be seen whether such phenomenon occurs in other places, i.e. tropical environments. here, this question is approached by marking-recapturing the tropical e. umbrata, in a field site in central colombia. two seasons of opposite rainfall patterns were compared: a rainy and a dry season. after checking for no marking effects, no difference was found in population size and recapture rate. however, animals from the dry season had a higher survival and life expectancy compared to animals from the rainy season. these apparently conflicting results, suggest differential effects of seasonality. a population compensation may be occurring in the rainy season (with more animals emerging at this time compared to the dry season) despite the negative effects on survival. thus, the principle that rainy periods have a negative impact in tropical odon. ssp. seems supported." +population structure in dry and rainy seasons in erythrodiplax umbrata (linnaeus) (odonata: libellulidae),NA,ODONATOLOGICA,PALACINO RODRIGUEZ F;CONTRERAS SANCHEZ NA;CORDOBA AGUILAR A,"mark-recapture studies in adult odon. have revealed that rainy periods have a negative impact on population size, recapture rate, survival probability and life expectancy. one reason for this is that rainy periods are usually associated with low temperatures which indirectly and directly affect individual condition. however, given that most studies have been carried out in temperate environments it remains to be seen whether such phenomenon occurs in other places, i.e. tropical environments. here, this question is approached by marking-recapturing the tropical e. umbrata, in a field site in central colombia. two seasons of opposite rainfall patterns were compared: a rainy and a dry season. after checking for no marking effects, no difference was found in population size and recapture rate. however, animals from the dry season had a higher survival and life expectancy compared to animals from the rainy season. these apparently conflicting results, suggest differential effects of seasonality. a population compensation may be occurring in the rainy season (with more animals emerging at this time compared to the dry season) despite the negative effects on survival. thus, the principle that rainy periods have a negative impact in tropical odon. ssp. seems supported." using a capture-recapture approach for modelling the detectability and distribution of houbara bustard in southern tunisia,NA,BIRD CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL,CHAMMEM M;SELMI S;KHORCHANI T;NOUIRA S,"modelling the distribution of species of conservation concern is an important issue in population ecology. classically, logistic regression analyses are conducted to estimate species' distributions from detection/non-detection data in a sample of sites and to test for the significance of several environmental variables in predicting the probability of occurrence. these modelling approaches assume that species detection probability is constant and equals one in all sampled sites, which is critical, notably in the case of rare, shy and cryptic species. the capture-recapture-like approach developed by mackenzie et al. (2002, 2003) provides a reliable tool that accounts for imperfect detection when estimating species occurrence, as well as for assessing the relevance of site features as predictors of species occurrence probability. the aim of this study was to explore the possibility of using this approach in the context of houbara bustard chlamydotis undulata in southern tunisia. our results show once more the low detectability of this emblematic species and stress the need to take this factor into account when estimating houbara spatial distribution. the distribution of houbara in southern tunisia is more likely to be shaped by human-related than by habitat factors. in particular, houbara occurrence was positively associated with site remoteness and camel numbers. houbara seemed to avoid areas with high human presence and shared the most remote and agriculture-free zones with free-ranging camels." resistance and resilience of a stream salamander to supraseasonal drought,amphibians; capture-mark-recapture; desmognathus fuscus; northern dusky salamander; occupancy; survivorship; temporary emigration,HERPETOLOGICA,PRICE SJ;BROWNE RA;DORCAS ME,"drought represents a significant stressor to aquatic animals. however, empirical data regarding the response of many aquatic animals, particularly amphibians, to drought are limited. the southeastern united states experienced a supraseasonal drought in 2007-2008, which provided an opportunity to examine the resistance and resilience of salamanders to drought. in this study, we used 5 yr of presence absence data at 17 first-order streams and 61 mo of mark recapture data at one stream to examine the effects of drought on occupancy and vital rates of the salamander desmognathus fuscus (northern dusky salamander). we tested three hypotheses regarding the effects of drought: larvae would decrease in occupancy during drought conditions, but adult occupancy would remain stable; adult temporary emigration rates would be greatest during supraseasonal drought conditions; and adult survivorship would be equal or nearly equal during nondrought conditions and drought conditions due to higher rates of temporary emigration. we found that adult salamander occupancy remained stable through the 5 yr of sampling; however, larval salamander occupancy decreased by an average of 30% during the supraseasonal drought. we found that adult temporary emigration probabilities were twice as high during supraseasonal drought conditions than during nondrought or typical drought conditions. monthly survival of adults was relatively high during nondrought (s = 0.89 +/- 0.02), typical drought (s = 0.97 +/- 0.02), and severe drought conditions (s = 0.90 +/- 0.01.). our findings suggest that high survivorship of adult d. fuscus likely buffers the negative effects of drought on larvae and high rates of temporary emigration allow adult salamanders to be resilient to supraseasonal drought conditions." "age and growth and maturity of southern africa's largest cyprinid fish, the largemouth yellowfish labeobarbus kimberleyensis",edge analysis; impoundment; life history; otolith; validation,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,ELLENDER BR;WEYL OLF;WINKER H,"the aim of this study was to use specimens of the largemouth yellowfish labeobarbus kimberleyensis, southern africa's largest cyprinid [iucn red-listed as near threatened (nt)], obtained from gillnet by-catch to describe aspects of its biology in order to assist future conservation and management decisions. ninety three l. kimberleyensis were collected between march 2007 and may 2008 from lake gariep, south africa. labeobarbus kimberleyensis was present in 38% of all gillnet catches, but in low numbers (2% of the catch) and it contributed 8% to the catch by mass. age was estimated using astericus otoliths. growth increment formation on these otoliths was validated as annual using edge analysis and the mark-recapture of chemically tagged captive fish. resultant analysis showed that the species is slow growing and the oldest aged fish was a 17 year, 690 mm fork length (lf) male. the smallest ripe female fish measured 394 mm lf and was 7+ years old and the smallest mature male was 337 mm lf and 5+ years old. slow growth and late maturity make this species vulnerable to exploitation emphasizing the need for continued high conservation priority." -latitudinal and seasonal effects on growth of the australian eastern king prawn (melicertus plebejus),NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,LLOYD-JONES LR;WANG YG;COURTNEY AJ;PROSSER AJ;MONTGOMERY SS,"the growth of the australian eastern king prawn (melicertus plebejus) is understood in greater detail by quantifying the latitudinal effect. the latitudinal effect is the change in the species' growth rate during migration. mark-recapture data (n = 1635, latitude 22.21 degrees s-34.00 degrees s) presents northerly movement of the eastern king prawn, with new south wales prawns showing substantial average movement of 140 km (standard deviation: 176 km) north. a generalized von bertalanffy growth model framework is used to incorporate the latitudinal effect together with the canonical seasonal effect. applying this method to eastern king prawn mark-recapture data guarantees consistent estimates for the latitudinal and seasonal effects. for m. plebejus, it was found that growth rate peaks on 25 and 29 january for males and females, respectively; is at a minimum on 27 and 31 july, respectively; and that the shape parameter, k (per year), changes by -0.0236 and -0.0556 every 1 degree of latitude south increase for males and females, respectively." +latitudinal and seasonal effects on growth of the australian eastern king prawn (melicertus plebejus),NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,LLOYD JONES LR;WANG YG;COURTNEY AJ;PROSSER AJ;MONTGOMERY SS,"the growth of the australian eastern king prawn (melicertus plebejus) is understood in greater detail by quantifying the latitudinal effect. the latitudinal effect is the change in the species' growth rate during migration. mark-recapture data (n = 1635, latitude 22.21 degrees s-34.00 degrees s) presents northerly movement of the eastern king prawn, with new south wales prawns showing substantial average movement of 140 km (standard deviation: 176 km) north. a generalized von bertalanffy growth model framework is used to incorporate the latitudinal effect together with the canonical seasonal effect. applying this method to eastern king prawn mark-recapture data guarantees consistent estimates for the latitudinal and seasonal effects. for m. plebejus, it was found that growth rate peaks on 25 and 29 january for males and females, respectively; is at a minimum on 27 and 31 july, respectively; and that the shape parameter, k (per year), changes by -0.0236 and -0.0556 every 1 degree of latitude south increase for males and females, respectively." using complementary approaches to estimate survival of juvenile and adult eastern kingbirds,apparent survival; demographic balancing; juvenile survival; life history; mark-recapture; resighting probability; tyrannus tyrannus,JOURNAL OF FIELD ORNITHOLOGY,REDMOND LJ;MURPHY MT,"survival rates of young birds during the period between nest departure and their first breeding season is an important but difficult statistic to measure because of low natal site fidelity, especially for long-distance migrants. from 2002 to 2008, we conducted a capture-mark-resight study of eastern kingbirds (tyrannus tyrannus), a nearctic-neotropical migrant, at malheur national wildlife refuge, oregon, to estimate juvenile (sj) and adult (sa) survival. the return rate of juvenile kingbirds was high (0.224) and not significantly different from program mark's estimate of sj (0.291). on average, and for both sexes, program mark's estimate of sa for birds banded as nestlings (0.64) was similar to that for birds first banded as adults (0.65). enumeration methods and mark yielded similar estimates of sa, especially for males banded as adults. we attribute the similarity of resighting rate of birds banded as nestlings to sj and the similarity of sa estimated using program mark and by enumeration methods to the high site fidelity of most juvenile and adult kingbirds at our ecologically isolated study site. an independent estimate of sj calculated using local estimates of population growth and average annual production of young per year suggested that true sj and sa were probably slightly higher than program mark's estimates because of undocumented permanent emigration, especially of birds first banded as adults. demographic balancing suggests that true sa and sj were roughly 0.70 and 0.30, respectively. in general, our multiple estimates of sj were similar. however, program mark estimates of sj tended to be lower than those produced by demographic balancing. because of the difficulty in differentiating permanent emigration and mortality, and the affect it has on empirical estimates of survival, we urge researchers to use multiple methods of survival estimation, when possible, to validate the precision of their estimates." radio-transmitters do not affect seasonal mass change or annual survival of wintering bicknell's thrushes,catharus; dominican republic; hispaniola; migratory songbird; neotropical; radio telemetry,JOURNAL OF FIELD ORNITHOLOGY,TOWNSEND JM;RIMMER CC;MCFARLAND KP,"studies of the effects of transmitters on passerines have provided mixed results, but many have revealed no negative impacts. most such studies have been conducted during the breeding season and, as a result, little is known about the possible effects of transmitters on wintering birds. we examined the effects of transmitters on bicknell's thrushes (catharus bicknelli) wintering in the dominican republic. we used long-term mark-recapture data to compare birds with radio-transmitters (n= 5 years, 64 individuals) to birds banded, but not radio-tagged (n= 10 years, 164 individuals). for a subset of birds in each category, we measured the change in mass between early-winter and late-winter and, for all birds, we calculated return rates and modeled annual survival by sex and age classes. return rates of radio-tagged (16%) and banded-only individuals (17%) did not differ, and survival models including the effect of transmitter attachment were poorly supported. we also found no sex or age-specific effects of transmitter attachment. radio-tagged and banded-only birds did not differ either in the proportion of birds gaining mass during the winter or amount of mass gained. our results indicate that attaching light-weight transmitters (<5% of body mass) to wintering bicknell's thrushes did not adversely affect either body condition or annual survival." modelling the abundance of grey seals (halichoerus grypus) along the norwegian coast,age at primiparity; bayesian population model; grey seals; growth rates,ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,OIGARD TA;FRIE AK;NILSSEN KT;HAMMILL MO,"an age-structured population dynamics model of the norwegian grey seal (halichoerus grypus) population has been developed. the model is of a bayesian character in the sense that priors for various parameters were used. model runs indicated an increase in the abundance of the total norwegian grey seal population during the last 30 years, suggesting a total of 8740 (95% confidence interval: 7320-10 170) animals in 2011. a total catch of 707 (95% confidence interval: 532-882) grey seals would maintain the population size at the 2011 level. model runs suggest that current catch levels will likely result in a reduction in the population size in sor-trondelag and nord-trondelag counties, and an increase in the population size in rogaland, nordland, troms, and finnmark counties. the model runs assumed that 80% of the seals taken in rogaland came from the uk and that 50 and 55% of the catches in troms and finnmark, respectively, were immigrants from russia." demographic response to perturbations: the role of compensatory density dependence in a north american duck under variable harvest regulations and changing habitat,additivity; capture-mark-recapture; capture-recovery; compensation; disturbance; integrated population models; leslie matrix; sensitivity; waterfowl breeding population and habitat survey,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,PERON G;NICOLAI CA;KOONS DN,"1. most wild animal populations are subjected to many perturbations, including environmental forcing and anthropogenic mortality. how population size varies in response to these perturbations largely depends on life-history strategy and density regulation. 2. using the mid-continent population of redhead aythya americana (a north american diving duck), we investigated the population response to two major perturbations, changes in breeding habitat availability (number of ponds in the study landscape) and changes in harvest regulations directed at managing mortality patterns (bag limit). we used three types of data collected at the continental scale (capturerecovery, population surveys and age- and sex ratios in the harvest) and combined them into integrated population models to assess the interaction between density dependence and the effect of perturbations. 3. we observed a two-way interaction between the effects on fecundity of pond number and population density. hatch-year female survival was also density dependent. matrix modelling showed that population booms could occur after especially wet years. however, the effect of moderate variation in pond number was generally offset by density dependence the following year. 4. mortality patterns were insensitive to changes in harvest regulations and, in males at least, insensitive to density dependence as well. we discuss potential mechanisms for compensation of hunting mortality as well as possible confounding factors. 5. our results illustrate the interplay of density dependence and environmental variation both shaping population dynamics in a harvested species, which could be generalized to help guide the dual management of habitat and harvest regulations." exploiting uncertain ecological fieldwork data with multi-event capture-recapture modelling: an example with bird sex assignment,fieldwork; multi-event capture-recapture; sex assignment; survival probability; uncertainty,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,GENOVART M;PRADEL R;ORO D,"1. sex plays a crucial role in evolutionary life histories. however, the inclusion of sex in demographic analysis may be a challenge in fieldwork, particularly in monomorphic species. although behavioural data may help us to sex individuals in the field, this kind of data is unlikely to be error free and is usually discarded. 2. here we propose a multi-event capturerecapture model that enables us to exploit uncertain field observations regarding the sex of individuals based on behavioural or morphological criteria. the multi-event capturerecapture model allows us to account for sex uncertainty not restricting our ability to estimate the parameters of interest. in this case, by adding the confirmed sex of just a few individuals, we greatly improve the efficiency of the optimization algorithm. 3. using such an approach, we analysed sex differences in demographic parameters (e.g. survival, transience and sex ratio) in a population of audouins gulls using observations from long-term fieldwork monitoring (19882007). we also assessed the probability of ascertaining sex over time and the probability of error for each field-sexing criterion. 4. we detected no strong effect of sex on either survival or transience probabilities, and both sexes showed a decreasing trend in survival over time and transience probability after recruitment increased with age and over time. the probability of ascertaining sex over time depended on observers experience. strikingly, courtship feeding (but not copulation) emerged as the most reliable clue for sexing individuals, which would suggest that audouins gulls engage in same-sex sexual behaviour such as same-sex mounting. 5. the present modelling emerged as a reliable method for estimating demographic parameters and state transition parameters in ecological studies in which field observations of sex or other individual states are assigned erroneously and uncertainly. this approach could also be useful for applied ecologists for assessing the reliability of their criteria for assigning sex or other individual covariates in the field, thereby permitting them to optimizing their field ecological protocols." frog population viability under present and future climate conditions: a bayesian state-space approach,capture-recapture analysis; climate change; ecological forecasting; population viability analysis; rana luteiventris; snow-water equivalence,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,MCCAFFERY R;SOLONEN A;CRONE E,"1. world-wide extinctions of amphibians are at the forefront of the biodiversity crisis, with climate change figuring prominently as a potential driver of continued amphibian decline. as in other taxa, changes in both the mean and variability of climate conditions may affect amphibian populations in complex, unpredictable ways. in western north america, climate models predict a reduced duration and extent of mountain snowpack and increased variability in precipitation, which may have consequences for amphibians inhabiting montane ecosystems. 2. we used bayesian capturerecapture methods to estimate survival and transition probabilities in a high-elevation population of the columbia spotted frog (rana luteiventris) over 10 years and related these rates to interannual variation in peak snowpack. then, we forecasted frog population growth and viability under a range of scenarios with varying levels of change in mean and variance in snowpack. 3. over a range of future scenarios, changes in mean snowpack had a greater effect on viability than changes in the variance of snowpack, with forecasts largely predicting an increase in population viability. population models based on snowpack during our study period predicted a declining population. 4. although mean conditions were more important for viability than variance, for a given mean snowpack depth, increases in variability could change a population from increasing to decreasing. therefore, the influence of changing climate variability on populations should be accounted for in predictive models. the bayesian modelling framework allows for the explicit characterization of uncertainty in parameter estimates and ecological forecasts, and thus provides a natural approach for examining relative contributions of mean and variability in climatic variables to population dynamics. 5. longevity and heterogeneous habitat may contribute to the potential for this amphibian species to be resilient to increased climatic variation, and shorter-lived species inhabiting homogeneous ecosystems may be more susceptible to increased variability in climate conditions." +capture-recapture methods and party activism in britain,NA,JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY HISTORY,COHEN G;MATES L;FLINN A,NA a collaborative approach for estimating terrestrial wildlife abundance,asiatic wild ass; distance sampling; equus; gazelle; gobi; khulan; mongolia; point count; population estimation,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,RANSOM JI;KACZENSKY P;LUBOW BC;GANBAATAR O;ALTANSUKH N,"accurately estimating abundance of wildlife is critical for establishing effective conservation and management strategies. aerial methodologies for estimating abundance are common in developed countries, but they are often impractical for remote areas of developing countries where many of the world's endangered and threatened fauna exist. the alternative terrestrial methodologies can be constrained by limitations on access, technology, and human resources, and have rarely been comprehensively conducted for large terrestrial mammals at landscape scales. we attempted to overcome these problems by incorporating local peoples into a simultaneous point count of asiatic wild ass (equus hemionus) and goitered gazelle (gazella subgutturosa) across the great gobi b strictly protected area, mongolia. paired observers collected abundance and covariate metrics at 50 observation points and we estimated population sizes using distance sampling theory, but also assessed individual observer error to examine potential bias introduced by the large number of minimally trained observers. we estimated 5671 (95% ci = 3611-8907) wild asses and 5909 (95% ci = 3762-9279) gazelle inhabited the 11,027 km(2) study area at the time of our survey and found that the methodology developed was robust at absorbing the logistical challenges and wide range of observer abilities. this initiative serves as a functional model for estimating terrestrial wildlife abundance while integrating local people into scientific and conservation projects. this, in turn, creates vested interest in conservation by the people who are most influential in, and most affected by, the outcomes. published by elsevier ltd." "small-scale dispersal and population structure in stream-living brown trout (salmo trutta) inferred by mark-recapture, pedigree reconstruction, and population genetics",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,VOLLESTAD LA;SERBEZOV D;BASS A;BERNATCHEZ L;OLSEN EM;TAUGBOL A,"many animals move among habitats, and even small-scale dispersal of individuals between habitat patches may have strong implications for population dynamics and structure. here, we use long-term mark-recapture data combined with extensive genotyping and parentage assignment to investigate the importance of small-scale location change of resident brown trout (salmo trutta) in a small stream (1500 m). during the first summer, juvenile fish dispersed downstream (mean displacement 200 m), with smaller juveniles dispersing longer distances. downstream movement was also predominant during the first winter, but older fish moved little. this limited dispersal resulted in a significant isolation-by-distance structure for ages 1 and 2, but not for older age groups or for the mature fish. individual pairwise relatedness coefficients decreased with waterway distance for mature fish during the 2002 and 2003 spawning seasons, but only weakly. overall, between-site genetic differentiation was stronger for the younger age classes, and the signal decayed with age, indicating that the genetic structure observed in the stream is mainly driven by spatial aggregation of close relatives." effects of climate change on an emperor penguin population: analysis of coupled demographic and climate models,ipcc; sea ice; seabirds; stochastic climate forecast; stochastic matrix population model; uncertainties,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,JENOUVRIER S;HOLLAND M;STROEVE J;BARBRAUD C;WEIMERSKIRCH H;SERREZE M;CASWELL H,"sea ice conditions in the antarctic affect the life cycle of the emperor penguin (aptenodytes forsteri). we present a population projection for the emperor penguin population of terre adelie, antarctica, by linking demographic models (stage-structured, seasonal, nonlinear, two-sex matrix population models) to sea ice forecasts from an ensemble of ipcc climate models. based on maximum likelihood capture-mark-recapture analysis, we find that seasonal sea ice concentration anomalies (sica) affect adult survival and breeding success. demographic models show that both deterministic and stochastic population growth rates are maximized at intermediate values of annual sica, because neither the complete absence of sea ice, nor heavy and persistent sea ice, would provide satisfactory conditions for the emperor penguin. we show that under some conditions the stochastic growth rate is positively affected by the variance in sica. we identify an ensemble of five general circulation climate models whose output closely matches the historical record of sea ice concentration in terre adelie. the output of this ensemble is used to produce stochastic forecasts of sica, which in turn drive the population model. uncertainty is included by incorporating multiple climate models and by a parametric bootstrap procedure that includes parameter uncertainty due to both model selection and estimation error. the median of these simulations predicts a decline of the terre adelie emperor penguin population of 81% by the year 2100. we find a 43% chance of an even greater decline, of 90% or more. the uncertainty in population projections reflects large differences among climate models in their forecasts of future sea ice conditions. one such model predicts population increases over much of the century, but overall, the ensemble of models predicts that population declines are far more likely than population increases. we conclude that climate change is a significant risk for the emperor penguin. our analytical approach, in which demographic models are linked to ipcc climate models, is powerful and generally applicable to other species and systems." exposure of black-legged kittiwakes to lyme disease spirochetes: dynamics of the immune status of adult hosts and effects on their survival,antibody persistence; immuno-ecology; lyme disease bacteria; misclassification; rissa tridactyla; seroconversion dynamics; state uncertainty,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,CHAMBERT T;STASZEWSKI V;LOBATO E;CHOQUET R;CARRIE C;MCCOY KD;TVERAA T;BOULINIER T,"1. despite a growing interest in wildlife disease ecology, there is a surprising lack of knowledge about the exposure dynamics of individual animals to naturally circulating infectious agents and the impact of such agents on host life-history traits. 2. the exploration of these questions requires detailed longitudinal data on individual animals that can be captured multiple times during their life but also requires being able to account for several sources of uncertainty, notably the partial observation or recapture of individuals at each sampling occasion. 3. we use a multi-year dataset to (i) assess the potential effect of exposure to the tick-borne agent of lyme disease, borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (bbsl), on adult apparent survival for one of its natural long-lived hosts, the black-legged kittiwake (rissa tridactyla), and (ii) investigate the temporal dynamics of individual immunological status in kittiwakes to infer the rate of new exposure and the persistence of the immune response. using a multi-event modelling approach, potential uncertainties arising from partial observations were explicitly taken into account. 4. the potential impact of bbsl on kittiwake survival was also evaluated via an experimental approach: the apparent survival of a group of breeding birds treated with an antibiotic was compared with that of a control group. 5. no impact of exposure to bbsl was detected on adult survival in kittiwakes, in either observational or experimental data. 6. an annual seroconversion rate (from negative to positive) of 1.5% was estimated, but once an individual became seropositive, it remained so with a probability of 1, suggesting that detectable levels of anti-bbsl antibodies persist for multiple years. 7. these results, in combination with knowledge on patterns of exposure to the tick vector of bbsl, provide important information for understanding the spatio-temporal nature of the interaction between this host and several of its parasites. furthermore, our analyses highlight the utility of capturemarkrecapture approaches handling state uncertainty for disease ecology studies." "estimating the prevalence and incidence of multiple sclerosis in the lorraine region, france, by the capture-recapture method",multiple sclerosis; prevalence; incidence; capture-recapture; epidemiology; registry,MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS JOURNAL,EL ADSSI H;DEBOUVERIE M;GUILLEMIN F,"objective: the objective of this study was to assess the prevalence and incidence of multiple sclerosis (ms) in the lorraine region, in france. methods: data from three sources - regional health insurance system, medical records departments and the lorraine registry of ms - and a capture-recapture method with log-linear models were used to estimate the prevalence and incidence of ms. results: we identified 7193 records of reported ms corresponding to 4299 unique suspected cases of ms existing on 31 december 2008, in lorraine. on the basis of the 4001 validated cases, the observed crude prevalence of ms was 170.9 cases per 100,000 inhabitants (95% confidence interval [ci]: 165.7; 176.3), and the observed annual crude incidence of ms was 4.4 cases per 100,000 inhabitants (95% ci: 3.6; 5.4). with the capture-recapture method, the estimated prevalence of ms was 4405.7 (95% ci: 4261.5; 4629.7), so an estimated 405 cases were not identified by the three sources. the estimated prevalence was 188.2 cases per 100,000 inhabitants (95% ci: 182.7; 193.8), and the estimated annual incidence was 8.5 cases per 100,000 inhabitants (95% ci: 7.3; 9.7). conclusions: the capture-recapture method allowed us to estimate an additional 10.1% of unobserved prevalent cases and to anticipate 47.5% of unobserved incident cases." -population structure of polythore gigantea (odonata: polythoridae) in lotic systems with different conservation states in antioquia-colombia,polythore gigantea; odonata; mark-recapture; population size; sex ratio; life expectancy,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,ALTAMIRANDA-S M;ORTEGA-M O,"population structure of polythore gigantea (odonata: polythoridae) in lotic systems with different conservation states in antioquia-colombia. the knowledge about population structure and dynamics of some neotropical species, especially those living in lotic systems is still barely studied. this study had the aim to assess if the conservation status of some lotic systems, is related to some demographic variables of p gigantea, so this may be used as a model for ecological monitoring. for this, we evaluated the population structure of p gigantea three times per month (almost one sampling event every eight days) in four streams of the state of antioquia, colombia, from march-june 2009. the specimens were collected using entomological nets along a transect of 200m in the littoral zone of each stream. the insects were marked on the wings and the population size was estimated with the mark-recapture method. our results showed that the largest population size was recorded for the stream ""la catedral"" with aprox 299 individuals, followed by the stream ""la doctora"" with 218 individuals. nevertheless, no significant differences in population size among the evaluated streams were found; and no statistical relationships were found between vegetation variables and the population size of p gigantea. however, taking into account the limited dispersal capacity of p gigantea, its survival in the studied streams was considered to be at risk, due to the continuous modification of large riparian forest areas, which cause the increase of forest patches, with different levels of interconnection, and hinder long-term permanence of populations. rev. biol. trop. 60(3): 1205-1216. epub 2012 september 01." +population structure of polythore gigantea (odonata: polythoridae) in lotic systems with different conservation states in antioquia-colombia,polythore gigantea; odonata; mark-recapture; population size; sex ratio; life expectancy,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,ALTAMIRANDA S M;ORTEGA M O,"population structure of polythore gigantea (odonata: polythoridae) in lotic systems with different conservation states in antioquia-colombia. the knowledge about population structure and dynamics of some neotropical species, especially those living in lotic systems is still barely studied. this study had the aim to assess if the conservation status of some lotic systems, is related to some demographic variables of p gigantea, so this may be used as a model for ecological monitoring. for this, we evaluated the population structure of p gigantea three times per month (almost one sampling event every eight days) in four streams of the state of antioquia, colombia, from march-june 2009. the specimens were collected using entomological nets along a transect of 200m in the littoral zone of each stream. the insects were marked on the wings and the population size was estimated with the mark-recapture method. our results showed that the largest population size was recorded for the stream ""la catedral"" with aprox 299 individuals, followed by the stream ""la doctora"" with 218 individuals. nevertheless, no significant differences in population size among the evaluated streams were found; and no statistical relationships were found between vegetation variables and the population size of p gigantea. however, taking into account the limited dispersal capacity of p gigantea, its survival in the studied streams was considered to be at risk, due to the continuous modification of large riparian forest areas, which cause the increase of forest patches, with different levels of interconnection, and hinder long-term permanence of populations. rev. biol. trop. 60(3): 1205-1216. epub 2012 september 01." nonparametric estimation of the number of components of a superposition of renewal processes,asymptotic normality; bias; kaplan-meier estimator; profile likelihood; software reliability,JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL PLANNING AND INFERENCE,DEWANJI A;KUNDU S;NAYAK TK,"suppose all events occurring in an unknown number (nu) of lid renewal processes, with a common renewal distribution f, are observed for a fixed time tau, where both nu and f are unknown. the individual processes are not known a priori, but for each event, the process that generated it is identified. for example, in software reliability application, the errors (or bugs) in a piece of software are not known a priori, but whenever the software fails, the error causing the failure is identified. we present a nonparametric method for estimating nu and investigate its properties. our results show that the proposed estimator performs well in terms of bias and asymptotic normality, while the mle of nu derived assuming that the common renewal distribution is exponential may be seriously biased if that assumption does not hold. (c) 2012 published by elsevier b.v." four years of universal pneumococcal conjugate infant vaccination in germany: impact on incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease and serotype distribution in children,invasive pneumococcal disease; pneumococcal meningitis; non-meningitis ipd; pneumococcal conjugate vaccination; epidemiology; serotype replacement; germany,VACCINE,VAN DER LINDEN M;WEISS S;FALKENHORST G;SIEDLER A;IMOHL M;VON KRIES R,"introduction: vaccination with pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (pcv) for all children <2 years was recommended in germany in july 2006. initially pcv7 was exclusively used; pcv10 became available from april 2009 and pcv7 was replaced by pcv13 in december 2009. objective: to compare the incidence and serotype distribution of invasive pneumococcal disease (ipd) for pneumococcal meningitis and non-meningitis ipd in children from 2007 to 2010 with reference to the pre-vaccination period from 1997 to 2001. methods: nationwide surveillance of ipd for children <16 years in germany was based on two independent reporting sources: active surveillance in paediatric hospitals and passive web-based surveillance through microbiological laboratories. serotyping was performed using the neufeld quellung reaction. case definition: isolation of streptococcus pneumoniae from a normally sterile body site. ipd incidence was estimated by capture-recapture analysis. rate ratios comparing post- to pre-vaccination incidence were calculated as well as pcv7 and non-pcv7 serotype specific incidences. results: while pcv7 incidence decreased by 88% (95%ci: 83 to 91) in children <16 years both in pneumococcal meningitis and non-meningitis ipd, an increase in non-pcv7 serotypes was observed which was more pronounced in non-meningitis cases (168%; 95%ci: 140-257) than in pneumoccocal meningitis (65%; 95%ci: 23-123). the changes in incidence after four years were: <16 years: -35% (95%ci: -49 to -19), <2 years: -46% (95%ci: -61 to -27) for pneumococcal meningitis and +11% (95%ci: -4 to +29) and -26% (95%ci: -41 to -7) for non-meningitis ipd respectively. conclusion: infant pcv7 vaccination in germany prompted a decrease in the incidence of pneumococcal meningitis similar to that observed in england/wales. in non-meningitis ipd the decrease was smaller and confined to the age group <2 years with no change or an increase in incidence in other age groups pointing to potential ascertainment bias due to increased blood-culturing. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." mortality trends in tonga: an assessment based on a synthesis of local data,mortality; cause of death; noncommunicable diseases; medical record review; death certification; tonga; pacific islands,POPULATION HEALTH METRICS,HUFANGA S;CARTER KL;RAO C;LOPEZ AD;TAYLOR R,"background: accurate measures of mortality level by age group, gender, and region are critical for health planning and evaluation. these are especially required for a country like tonga, which has limited resources and works extensively with international donors. mortality levels in tonga were examined through an assessment of available published information and data available from the four routine death reporting systems currently in operation. methods: available published data on infant mortality rate (imr) and life expectancy (le) in tonga were sought through direct contact with the government of tonga and relevant international and regional organizations. data sources were assessed for reliability and plausibility of estimates on the basis of method of estimation, original source of data, and data consistency. unreliable sources were censored from further analysis and remaining data analysed for trends. mortality data for 2001 to 2009 were obtained from both the health information system (based on medical certificates of death) and the civil registry. data from 2005 to 2009 were also obtained from the reproductive health system of the ministry of health (moh) (based on community nursing reports), and for 2005-2008, data were also obtained from the prime minister's office. records were reconciled to create a single list of unique deaths and imr and life tables calculated. completeness of the reconciled data was examined using the brass growth-balance method and capture-recapture analysis using two and three sources. results: published imr estimates varied significantly through to the late 1990s when most estimates converge to a narrower range between 10 and 20 deaths per 1,000 live births. findings from reconciled data were consistent with this range, and did not demonstrate any significant trend over 2001 to 2009. published estimates of le from 2000 onwards varied from 65 to 75 years for males and 68 to 74 years for females, with most clustered around 70 to 71 for males and 72 to 73 for females. reconciled empirical data for 2005 to 2009 produce an estimate of le of 65.2 years (95% confidence interval [ci]: 64.6 - 65.8) for males and 69.6 years (95% ci: 69.0 - 70.2) for females, which are several years lower than published moh and census estimates. adult mortality (15 to 59 years) is estimated at 26.7% for males and 19.8% for females. analysis of reporting completeness suggests that even reconciled data are under enumerated, and these estimates place the plausible range of le between 60.4 to 64.2 years for males and 65.4 to 69.0 years for females, with adult mortality at 28.6% to 36.3% and 20.9% to 27.7%, respectively. conclusions: the level of le at a relatively low imr and high adult mortality suggests that non-communicable diseases are having a profound limiting effect on health status in tonga. there has been a sustained history of incomplete and erroneous mortality estimates for tonga. the findings highlight the critical need to reconcile existing data sources and integrate reporting systems more fully to ensure all deaths in tonga are captured and the importance of local empirical data in monitoring trends in mortality." @@ -3443,19 +3449,19 @@ golden mice (ochrotomys nuttalli) co-occurrence with peromyscus and the abundant "survival, fidelity, and recovery rates of white-winged doves in texas",banding; harvest; multi-state capture recapture; site fidelity; survival; recovery rates; texas; white-winged dove; zenaida asiatica,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,COLLIER BA;KREMER SR;MASON CD;PETERSON MJ;CALHOUN KW,"management of migratory birds at the national level has historically relied on regulatory boundaries for definition of harvest restrictions and estimation of demographic parameters. most species of migratory game birds are not expanding their ranges, so migratory corridors are approximately fixed. white-winged doves (zenaida asiatica), however, have undergone significant variation in population structure with marked range expansion occurring in texas, and range contraction in arizona, during the last 30 years. because >85% of white-winged dove harvest in the united states (approx. 1.3 million annually) now occurs in texas, information on vital rates of expanding white-winged dove populations is necessary for informed management. we used band recovery and markrecapture data to investigate variation in survival and harvest across 3 geographic strata for white-winged doves banded in the pre-hunting season in texas during 20072010. we banded 60,742 white-winged doves, recovered 2,458 bands via harvest reporting, and recaptured 455 known-age birds between 2007 and 2010. the best supporting model found some evidence for geographic differences in survival rates among strata (ac) in both hatch-year (juvenile; a?=?0.205 [se?=?0.0476], b?=?0.213 [se?=?0.0278], c?=?0.364 [se?=?0.0254]) and after-hatch year (adult; a?=?0.483 [se?=?0.0775], b?=?0.465 [se?=?0.0366], c?=?0.538 [se?=?0.251]) birds. white-winged doves had a low probability of moving among strata (0.009) or being recaptured (0.002) across all strata. harvest recovery rates were concordant with estimates for other dove species, but were variable across geographic strata. based on our results, harvest management strategies for white-winged doves in texas and elsewhere should consider differences in population vital rates among geographic strata. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." comparative survival and recovery of ross's and lesser snow geese from canada's central arctic,arctic; chen caerulescens caerulescens; chen rossii; lesser snow goose; nest initiation date; queen maud gulf; ross's goose; survival; weather,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,TRAYLOR JJ;ALISAUSKAS RT;SLATTERY SM;DRAKE KL,"large increases in several populations of north american arctic geese have resulted in ecosystem-level effects from associated herbivory. consequently, some breeding populations have shown density dependence in recruitment through declines in food availability. differences in population trajectories of lesser snow geese (chen caerulescens caerulescens; hereafter snow geese) and ross's geese (c. rossii) breeding in mixed-species colonies south of queen maud gulf (qmg), in canada's central arctic, suggest that density dependence may be limiting snow goose populations. specifically, long-term declines in age ratios (immature:adult) of harvested snow geese may have resulted from declines in juvenile survival. thus, we focused on juvenile (first-year) survival of snow and ross's geese in relation to timing of reproduction (annual mean nest initiation date) and late summer weather. we banded ross's and snow geese from 1991 to 2008 in the qmg migratory bird sanctuary. we used age-structured mark-recapture models to estimate annual survival rates for adults and juveniles from recoveries of dead birds. consistent with life history differences, juvenile snow geese survived at rates higher than juvenile ross's geese. juvenile survival of both species also was lower in late seasons, but was unrelated to arctic weather measured during a 17-day period after banding. we found no evidence of density dependence (i.e., a decline in juvenile survival over time) in either species. we also found no interspecific differences in age-specific hunting vulnerability, though juveniles were more vulnerable than adults in both species, as expected. thus, interspecific differences in survival were unrelated to harvest. lower survival of juvenile ross's geese may result from natural migration mortality related to smaller body size (e.g., greater susceptibility to inclement weather or predation) compared to juvenile snow geese. despite lower first-year survival, recruitment by ross's geese may still be greater than that by snow geese because of earlier sexual maturity, greater breeding propensity, and higher nest success by ross's geese. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." estimating size and trend of the north interlake woodland caribou population using fecal-dna and capture-recapture models,abundance estimate; capture-recapture; fecal genotyping; genotyping error; non-invasive genetic sampling; rangifer tarandus caribou; species at risk; trend analysis; woodland caribou,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HETTINGA PN;ARNASON AN;MANSEAU M;CROSS D;WHALEY K;WILSON PJ,"a critical step in recovery efforts for endangered and threatened species is the monitoring of population demographic parameters. as part of these efforts, we evaluated the use of fecal-dna based capturerecapture methods to estimate population sizes and population rate of change for the north interlake woodland caribou herd (rangifer tarandus caribou), manitoba, canada. this herd is part of the boreal population of woodland caribou, listed as threatened under the federal species at risk act (2003) and the provincial manitoba endangered species act (2006). between 2004 and 2009 (9 surveys), we collected 1,080 fecal samples and identified 180 unique genotypes (102 females and 78 males). we used a robust design survey plan with 2 surveys in most years and analysed the data with program mark to estimate encounter rates (p), apparent survival rates (phi), rates of population change (lambda), and population sizes (n). we estimated these demographic parameters for males and females and for 2 genetic clusters within the north interlake. the population size estimates were larger for the lower than the upper north interlake area and the proportion of males was lower in the lower (33%) than the upper north interlake (49%). population rate of change for the entire north interlake area (20052009) using the robust design pradel model was significantly <1.0 (??=?0.90, 95% ci: 0.820.99) and varied between sex and area with the highest being for males in lower north interlake (??=?0.98, 95% ci: 0.831.13) and the lowest being for females in upper north interlake (??=?0.83, 95% ci: 0.690.97). the additivity of lambda between sex and area is supported on the log scale and translates into males having a lambda that is 0.09 greater than females and independent of sex, lower north interlake having a ? that is 0.06 greater than upper north interlake. population estimates paralleled these declining trends, which correspond to trends observed in other fragmented populations of woodland caribou along the southern part of their range. the results of this study clearly demonstrate the applicability and success of non-invasive genetic sampling in monitoring populations of woodland caribou. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." -implications of goat eradication on the survivorship of the galapagos hawk,eradication program; floaters; galapagos islands; herbivores; introduced species; survivorship; tropical raptor,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,RIVERA-PARRA JL;LEVENSTEIN KM;BEDNARZ JC;VARGAS FH;CARRION V;PARKER PG,"non-native mammals cause ecological disasters in island ecosystems and their eradication is usually considered beneficial to native biodiversity. goats (capra hircus) were introduced to santiago island, galapagos, ecuador, in the early 1800s, and their numbers increased to about 100,000 by 1970. a goat eradication campaign initiated in 2002 was successful, eliminating the last individuals in 2006. to evaluate the effects of goat eradication, between 1998 and 2010 we studied the galapagos hawk (buteo galapagoensis) population on santiago island before, during, and after eradication. we used a 12-year data set in a capturemarkrecapture analysis to estimate the apparent survivorship of territorial adults in 33 breeding territories, and a 5-year data set to estimate the population sizes of the floater (non-territorial) fraction of the population. juvenile floaters showed a drastic decline starting in 2006 and continuing in 2007, 2008, and 2010, which we attribute to the completion of goat eradication in 2006, and subsequent habitat changes. we found a significant decline in adult survivorship after the goat eradication program. additionally, group size positively affected adult survivorship in this cooperatively polyandrous raptor, presumably reflecting the benefit of shared defense and offspring provisioning during harsher conditions. the changes in the hawk population after goat eradication are an example of unforeseen consequences of a restoration program, and we hypothesize that these changes are adjustments towards a new equilibrium under the current ecosystem characteristics and capacity. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." +implications of goat eradication on the survivorship of the galapagos hawk,eradication program; floaters; galapagos islands; herbivores; introduced species; survivorship; tropical raptor,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,RIVERA PARRA JL;LEVENSTEIN KM;BEDNARZ JC;VARGAS FH;CARRION V;PARKER PG,"non-native mammals cause ecological disasters in island ecosystems and their eradication is usually considered beneficial to native biodiversity. goats (capra hircus) were introduced to santiago island, galapagos, ecuador, in the early 1800s, and their numbers increased to about 100,000 by 1970. a goat eradication campaign initiated in 2002 was successful, eliminating the last individuals in 2006. to evaluate the effects of goat eradication, between 1998 and 2010 we studied the galapagos hawk (buteo galapagoensis) population on santiago island before, during, and after eradication. we used a 12-year data set in a capturemarkrecapture analysis to estimate the apparent survivorship of territorial adults in 33 breeding territories, and a 5-year data set to estimate the population sizes of the floater (non-territorial) fraction of the population. juvenile floaters showed a drastic decline starting in 2006 and continuing in 2007, 2008, and 2010, which we attribute to the completion of goat eradication in 2006, and subsequent habitat changes. we found a significant decline in adult survivorship after the goat eradication program. additionally, group size positively affected adult survivorship in this cooperatively polyandrous raptor, presumably reflecting the benefit of shared defense and offspring provisioning during harsher conditions. the changes in the hawk population after goat eradication are an example of unforeseen consequences of a restoration program, and we hypothesize that these changes are adjustments towards a new equilibrium under the current ecosystem characteristics and capacity. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." a comparison of methods for estimating raccoon abundance: implications for disease vaccination programs,density; mammal; mesopredator; procyon lotor; rabies; raccoon; resource selection function; vaccine,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,BEASLEY JC;BEATTY WS;ATWOOD TC;JOHNSON SR;RHODES OE,"accurate estimates of demographic parameters are critical to the management of wildlife populations, including management programs focused on controlling the spread of zoonotic diseases. rabies managers in the united states department of agriculture (usda) have applied a simple raccoon (procyon lotor) abundance index (rai) based on cumulative catch of unique raccoons per unit area to determine vaccine-bait distribution densities. this approach was designed to allow for both the collection of biological samples and to index raccoon abundance to determine bait densities for oral rabies programs. however, post-baiting surveillance data indicate that, on average, only 30% of raccoons sampled have vaccine induced rabies antibody titers, suggesting that bait densities may not be well calibrated to raccoon densities. we trapped raccoons using both capture-mark-recapture (cmr) and the standard rai to evaluate the accuracy of the current index-based methodology for estimating raccoon density. we then developed a resource selection function from spatial data collected from radio-collared raccoons to standardize trap placement within the existing rai protocol, and evaluated the performance of this modified rai approach relative to cmr for estimating raccoon population size. both abundance and density estimates derived using the rai consistently underestimated raccoon population sizes compared with cmr methods. similarly, although the use of resource selection models to inform trap placement appeared to improve the accuracy of the rai, the effectiveness of this method was inconsistent because of an inability to account for variance in detection probabilities. despite the logistical advantages of using indices to estimate population parameters to determine vaccine bait distribution densities, our results suggest that adjustments may be necessary to more accurately quantify raccoon abundance, which should improve the effectiveness of rabies management in the united states. in particular, estimates of detection probabilities are needed to more precisely quantify abundance estimates and ensure appropriate vaccine coverage rates. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." "estimation of population-size changes and hiv prevalence among female sex workers from 2006 to 2009 in kaiyuan, yunnan, china",population; hiv; fsws; capture-recapture,BIOMEDICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES,JIE WJ;QIAN Y;YING FP;KATHLEEN HR;WEI DG;NING W,"objective this study is to estimate the population size and prevalence of hiv and herpes simplex virus type 2 (hsv-2) infections among female sex workers (fsws) in kaiyuan, yunnan province, china. methods eight cross-sectional studies were conducted among fsws in kaiyuan from 2006 to 2009. based on the data from two study time points each year, the total numbers of fsws and hiv positive fsws were estimated by using the capture-recapture technique (cr). results estimated sizes of fsws in kaiyuan were 1 629, 1 672, 1 186, and 1 014 in the respective years from 2006 to 2009. although the crude prevalence rates of hiv and hsv-2 varied over time, the adjusted prevalence among this population was relatively stable at 10%-12% and the adjusted hsv-2 prevalence ranged from 67% to 72%. conclusion the reason for the slight decrease of the size of the fsw population is unknown. the adjusted prevalence rates of hiv and hsv-2 among them were stable over the course of this study." "evaluation of passive integrated transponders for abalone: tag placement, retention, and effect on survival",pinto abalone; haliotis kamtschatkana kamtschatkana; passive integrated transponders; tag,JOURNAL OF SHELLFISH RESEARCH,HALE JR;BOUMA JV;VADOPALAS B;FRIEDMAN CS,"since 1969, abalone populations have declined globally more than 50%, with many species now recognized as threatened, endangered, or species of concern. as monitoring progresses and restoration efforts evolve to include population supplementation, a reliable and robust method of tagging individual abalone is needed. current abalone tagging methods are unsatisfactory, particularly for long-term studies as a result of tag loss, shell erosion, and encrustation. observing tag numbers of cryptically positioned abalone can be difficult. to obviate these issues, we evaluated passive integrated transponders (pits) as tags for pinto abalone (haliotis kamtschatkana kamtschatkana). we applied 9-mm pits with cyanoacrylate glue to the dorsal exterior of the shell and to the ventral anterior of the shell, and by injection into the foot muscle of small adults (trial i), and applied pits to the ventral anterior of the shell of juveniles (trial 2). we subsequently tracked growth, survival, and tag retention over 15 mo in trial i and 6 mo in trial 2 in captivity. among small adults (trial 1), differences in relative growth rate and survival were not significant. pit retention by adhesion to the ventral anterior and dorsal exterior was significantly greater than injection into the foot in trial i. between controls and tagged animals in trial 2, differences in survival were not significant. there was no significant difference in ventral anterior tag retention between trial 1 and trial 2. gluing pits on the ventral anterior of the shell is a promising method because abalone quickly formed nacre over the tags, incorporating them into the shell, which does not appear to affect tag detection by the pit reader. trials are underway to characterize pit retention in natural habitats, to determine tag longevity, and to use pits to track adults reintroduced to aggregations." estimating abundance of cryptic but trappable animals using trapping point transects: a case study for key largo woodrats,abundance estimation; capture-recapture; distance sampling; key largo; neotoma floridana smalli; rodents; small mammals; woodrat,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,POTTS JM;BUCKLAND ST;THOMAS L;SAVAGE A,"1. obtaining robust abundance or density estimates is problematic for many rare or cryptic species. we combine elements of capturerecapture and distance sampling, to develop a method called trapping point transects (tpt), and we applied this method to estimate the abundance of the endangered key largo woodrat (neotoma floridana smalli). 2. trapping point transects requires two separate surveys to be held concurrently in space and time. in the main survey, the encounter rate (number of animals caught per trap per session) is measured. in the trial survey, animals whose locations are known prior to opening traps are used to estimate the detection function g(r) (the probability of capturing an animal given it is distance r from a trap when it is set), so the effective trapping area in the main survey can be estimated. it is assumed animals in the trial survey are a representative sample of all animals in the population. individual heterogeneity in trappability is accommodated using random effects in g(r). 3. performance of two tpt estimators was assessed by simulation. generally, when underlying capture probabilities were high [g(0) = 0.8] and between-individual variation was small, modest survey effort (360 trap nights in the trial survey) generated little bias in estimated abundance (c. 5%). uncertainty and relative bias in population estimates increased with decreasing capture probabilities and increasing between-individual variation. survey effort required to obtain unbiased estimates was also investigated. 4. given the challenges of working with cryptic, sparse or nocturnal species, we tested the validity of this method to estimate the abundance of the key largo woodrats between 2008 and 2011. 5. trapping point transects was found to be an effective monitoring method yielding annual estimates of the extant wild population of 693, 248, 78 and 256 animals, with cvs of 0.45, 0.55, 0.82 and 0.43, respectively. the tpt method could be adapted to a range of species that are otherwise very difficult to monitor." -estimating adult sex ratios from bird mist netting data,adult sex ratio; bayesian analysis; capture probability; detectability; mark-recapture,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,AMRHEIN V;SCAAR B;BAUMANN M;MINERY N;BINNERT JP;KORNER-NIEVERGELT F,"1. it is increasingly acknowledged that skewed adult sex ratios (asrs) may play an important role in ecology, evolution and conservation of animals. 2. in birds, published estimates on asrs mostly rely on mist netting data. however, previous studies suggested that mist nets or other trap types provide biased estimates on sex ratios, with males being more susceptible to capture than females. 3. we used data from a constant effort site ringing scheme to show how sex ratios that are corrected for sex- and year-specific capture probabilities can be directly estimated by applying capturerecapture analysis, for example, in a bayesian framework. 4. when capture data were pooled from the 19 years of study, we found that in the blackbird (turdus merula) and the blackcap (sylvia atricapilla), the observed proportions of males were 57% and 55%, respectively. however, when the observed annual proportions of males were corrected for the sex-specific capture probabilities, the proportions of males did not clearly differ from 50% in most study years, and thus, the apparent male-bias in the asrs almost completely disappeared. 5. we propose that published estimates on asrs in birds should be re-evaluated if based solely on observed sex ratios from mist netting studies. 6. we further propose that data from national bird ringing schemes and in particular from constant effort site ringing programs can provide valuable information on asrs, if analysed using capturerecapture models. we discuss important assumptions of those models; for example, movements that may differ between sexes should be taken into account, as well as the occurrence of transient individuals that do not hold breeding territories within a study site." +estimating adult sex ratios from bird mist netting data,adult sex ratio; bayesian analysis; capture probability; detectability; mark-recapture,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,AMRHEIN V;SCAAR B;BAUMANN M;MINERY N;BINNERT JP;KORNER NIEVERGELT F,"1. it is increasingly acknowledged that skewed adult sex ratios (asrs) may play an important role in ecology, evolution and conservation of animals. 2. in birds, published estimates on asrs mostly rely on mist netting data. however, previous studies suggested that mist nets or other trap types provide biased estimates on sex ratios, with males being more susceptible to capture than females. 3. we used data from a constant effort site ringing scheme to show how sex ratios that are corrected for sex- and year-specific capture probabilities can be directly estimated by applying capturerecapture analysis, for example, in a bayesian framework. 4. when capture data were pooled from the 19 years of study, we found that in the blackbird (turdus merula) and the blackcap (sylvia atricapilla), the observed proportions of males were 57% and 55%, respectively. however, when the observed annual proportions of males were corrected for the sex-specific capture probabilities, the proportions of males did not clearly differ from 50% in most study years, and thus, the apparent male-bias in the asrs almost completely disappeared. 5. we propose that published estimates on asrs in birds should be re-evaluated if based solely on observed sex ratios from mist netting studies. 6. we further propose that data from national bird ringing schemes and in particular from constant effort site ringing programs can provide valuable information on asrs, if analysed using capturerecapture models. we discuss important assumptions of those models; for example, movements that may differ between sexes should be taken into account, as well as the occurrence of transient individuals that do not hold breeding territories within a study site." unmarked individuals in mark-recapture studies: comparisons of marked and unmarked southern elephant seals at marion island,dispersal; distribution; mark-resight; mirounga leonina; unmarked,AUSTRAL ECOLOGY,OOSTHUIZEN WC;DE BRUYN PJN;BESTER MN,"the presence of unmarked individuals is common in markrecapture study populations; however, their origin and significance in terms of population dynamics remain poorly understood. at marion island, southern indian ocean, where virtually all southern elephant seal mirounga leonina pups born annually (19832008) were marked in a long-term markresight study, large numbers of unmarked seals occur. unmarked seals originate either from marker (tag) loss or from immigration. we aimed to identify patterns in the occurrence of marked and unmarked individuals that will allude to the possible origin and significance of the untagged component of the population, predicting that tag loss will add untagged seals to mainly adult age categories whereas migrating untagged individuals will be mostly juveniles. we fitted a generalized linear model using the factors month, year and age-class to explain the relative abundance of untagged seals (tag ratio) from 1997 to 2009. site usage of untagged seals relative to tagged seals was assessed using a binomial test. untagged seals, predominantly juveniles, were present in the highest proportions relative to tagged seals during the winter haulout (tagged seals/total seals less than 0.3) and the lowest proportion (approximately 0.5) during the female breeding haulout, increasing in relative abundance from 1997 to 2009. untagged seals were distributed evenly across suitable haulout sites while tagged seals displayed high local site fidelity and occurred in greater numbers at or near large breeding beaches. untagged seals are considered to be mostly migrant seals that disperse from other islands within the southern indian ocean and haul out at marion island during non-breeding haulouts in particular. some of these seals immigrate to the breeding population, which can be a key component of the local population dynamics. we emphasize the need for markrecapture studies to evaluate the role of the unmarked component of a population, thereby inducing a more confident estimation of demographic parameters from the marked sample." effects of oceanic salinity on body condition in sea snakes,NA,INTEGRATIVE AND COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY,BRISCHOUX F;ROLLAND V;BONNET X;CAILLAUD M;SHINE R,"since the transition from terrestrial to marine environments poses strong osmoregulatory and energetic challenges, temporal and spatial fluctuations in oceanic salinity might influence salt and water balance (and hence, body condition) in marine tetrapods. we assessed the effects of salinity on three species of sea snakes studied by mark-recapture in coral-reef habitats in the neo-caledonian lagoon. these three species include one fully aquatic hydrophiine (emydocephalus annulatus), one primarily aquatic laticaudine (laticauda laticaudata), and one frequently terrestrial laticaudine (laticauda saintgironsi). we explored how oceanic salinity affected the snakes' body condition across various temporal and spatial scales relevant to each species' ecology, using linear mixed models and multimodel inference. mean annual salinity exerted a consistent and negative effect on the body condition of all three snake species. the most terrestrial taxon (l. saintgironsi) was sensitive to salinity over a short temporal scale, corresponding to the duration of a typical marine foraging trip for this species. in contrast, links between oceanic salinity and body condition in the fully aquatic e. annulatus and the highly aquatic l. laticaudata were strongest at a long-term (annual) scale. the sophisticated salt-excreting systems of sea snakes allow them to exploit marine environments, but do not completely overcome the osmoregulatory challenges posed by oceanic conditions. future studies could usefully explore such effects in other secondarily marine taxa such as seabirds, turtles, and marine mammals." monitoring the conforming fraction of high-quality processes using a control chart p under a small sample size and an alternative estimator,estimator for parameter of conformance fraction; mean square error; control charts p; average run length,STATISTICAL PAPERS,HO LL;QUININO RD;SUYAMA E;LOURENCO RP,"in this paper, we propose to change the traditional monitored statistic in a control chart p, by changing the sampling proportion to a new statistics denoted as . we aim to minimize problems in designing the control chart p for high quality processes when only a small sample size is available. the idea of the new statistics is simple, as it involves taking two independent samples of a bernoulli population. from each sample, the sampling proportion is calculated, and the new statistic to monitor is the weighted mean of the sampling proportion of each sample employed to weight the overall sampling proportion. we note that the control chart p that employs the new statistic provides more in-control values of average run length closer to the usual fixed value of 370 than the traditional statistic, that is, the sampling proportion. numerical examples illustrate the new proposal." -prevalence of autosomal recessive congenital ichthyosis: a population-based study using the capture-recapture method in spain,epidemiology; health services accessibility; ichthyosis; prevalence,JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF DERMATOLOGY,HERNANDEZ-MARTIN A;GARCIA-DOVAL I;ARANEGUI B;DE UNAMUNO P;RODRIGUEZ-PAZOS L;GONZALEZ-ENSENAT MA;VICENTE A;MARTIN-SANTIAGO A;GARCIA-BRAVO B;FEITO M;BASELGA E;CIRIA S;DE LUCAS R;GINARTE M;GONZALEZ-SARMIENTO R;TORRELO A,"background: previous reports on the prevalence of autosomal recessive congenital ichthyosis (arci) were based on single source data, such as lists of members in a patient association. these sources are likely to be incomplete. objectives: we sought to describe the prevalence of arci. methods: we obtained data from 3 incomplete sources (dermatology departments, a genetic testing laboratory, and the spanish ichthyosis association) and combined them using the capture-recapture method. results: we identified 144 living patients with arci. of these, 62.5% had classic lamellar ichthyosis and 30.6% had congenital ichthyosiform erythroderma. the age distribution included fewer elderly patients than expected. the prevalence of arci in patients younger than 10 years, the best estimate as less subject to bias, was 16.2 cases per million inhabitants (95% confidence interval 13.3-23.0). according to the capture-recapture model, 71% of the patients were not being followed up in reference units, 92% did not have a genetic diagnosis, and 78% were not members of the ichthyosis association. limitations: the prevalence of arci in spain and findings related to the spanish health care system might not be generalizable to other countries. conclusions: the prevalence of arci is higher than previously reported. many patients are not being followed up in reference units, do not have a genetic diagnosis, and are not members of a patient association, indicating roomfor improvement in their care. data suggesting a reduced number of older patients might imply a shorter life expectancy and this requires further study. (j am acad dermatol 2012;67:240-4.)" +prevalence of autosomal recessive congenital ichthyosis: a population-based study using the capture-recapture method in spain,epidemiology; health services accessibility; ichthyosis; prevalence,JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF DERMATOLOGY,HERNANDEZ MARTIN A;GARCIA DOVAL I;ARANEGUI B;DE UNAMUNO P;RODRIGUEZ PAZOS L;GONZALEZ ENSENAT MA;VICENTE A;MARTIN SANTIAGO A;GARCIA BRAVO B;FEITO M;BASELGA E;CIRIA S;DE LUCAS R;GINARTE M;GONZALEZ SARMIENTO R;TORRELO A,"background: previous reports on the prevalence of autosomal recessive congenital ichthyosis (arci) were based on single source data, such as lists of members in a patient association. these sources are likely to be incomplete. objectives: we sought to describe the prevalence of arci. methods: we obtained data from 3 incomplete sources (dermatology departments, a genetic testing laboratory, and the spanish ichthyosis association) and combined them using the capture-recapture method. results: we identified 144 living patients with arci. of these, 62.5% had classic lamellar ichthyosis and 30.6% had congenital ichthyosiform erythroderma. the age distribution included fewer elderly patients than expected. the prevalence of arci in patients younger than 10 years, the best estimate as less subject to bias, was 16.2 cases per million inhabitants (95% confidence interval 13.3-23.0). according to the capture-recapture model, 71% of the patients were not being followed up in reference units, 92% did not have a genetic diagnosis, and 78% were not members of the ichthyosis association. limitations: the prevalence of arci in spain and findings related to the spanish health care system might not be generalizable to other countries. conclusions: the prevalence of arci is higher than previously reported. many patients are not being followed up in reference units, do not have a genetic diagnosis, and are not members of a patient association, indicating roomfor improvement in their care. data suggesting a reduced number of older patients might imply a shorter life expectancy and this requires further study. (j am acad dermatol 2012;67:240-4.)" habitat fragmentation effects on annual survival of the federally protected eastern indigo snake,detectability; encounter probability; survival; multistate model; endangered species,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,BREININGER DR;MAZEROLLE MJ;BOLT MR;LEGARE ML;DRESE JH;HINES JE,"the eastern indigo snake (drymarchon couperi) is a federally listed species, most recently threatened by habitat loss and habitat degradation. in an effort to estimate snake survival, a total of 103 individuals (59 males, 44 females) were followed using radio-tracking from january 1998 to march 2004 in three landscape types that had increasing levels of habitat fragmentation: (1) conservation cores; (2) conservation areas along highways; (3) suburbs. because of a large number of radio-tracking locations underground for which the state of snakes (i.e. alive or dead) could not be assessed, we employed a multistate approach to model snake apparent survival and encounter probability of live and dead snakes. we predicted that male snakes in suburbs would have the lowest annual survival. we found a transmitter implantation effect on snake encounter probability, as snakes implanted on a given occasion had a lower encounter probability on the next visit compared with snakes not implanted on the previous occasion. our results indicated that adult eastern indigo snakes have relatively high survival in conservation core areas, but greatly reduced survival in conservation areas along highways and in suburbs. these findings indicate that habitat fragmentation is likely to be the critical factor for species persistence." mating at summer sites: indications from parentage analysis and roosting behaviour of daubenton's bats (myotis daubentonii),capture-recapture analysis; microsatellite; paternity; site fidelity; vespertilionidae,CONSERVATION GENETICS,ENCARNACAO JA,"this study reports on evidence for successful mating of myotis daubentonii at summer sites established by paternity analysis and behavioural observations. parentage in individuals with high site fidelity was verified. associations of parents in the same roosts before september and repeated fatherhood of a single resident male support the hypothesis of regular mating activities at summer sites. based on the assumption that successful mating of many european bat species occurs at summer sites after the young are fledged, anthropogenic habitat changes should steer clear of the seasonal activity period to prevent a reduced reproduction rate of local bat populations." -trends in childhood type 1 diabetes incidence in europe during 1989-2008: evidence of non-uniformity over time in rates of increase,epidemiology; incidence; temporal change; trends; type 1 diabetes,DIABETOLOGIA,PATTERSON CC;GYURUS E;ROSENBAUER J;CINEK O;NEU A;SCHOBER E;PARSLOW RC;JONER G;SVENSSON J;CASTELL C;BINGLEY PJ;SCHOENLE E;JAROSZ-CHOBOT P;URBONAITE B;ROTHE U;KRZISNIK C;IONESCU-TIRGOVISTE C;WEETS I;KOCOVA M;STIPANCIC G;SAMARDZIC M;DE BEAUFORT CE;GREEN A;DAHLQUIST GG;SOLTESZ G,"the aim of the study was to describe 20-year incidence trends for childhood type 1 diabetes in 23 eurodiab centres and compare rates of increase in the first (1989-1998) and second (1999-2008) halves of the period. all registers operate in geographically defined regions and are based on a clinical diagnosis. completeness of registration is assessed by capture-recapture methodology. twenty-three centres in 19 countries registered 49,969 new cases of type 1 diabetes in individuals diagnosed before their 15th birthday during the period studied. ascertainment exceeded 90% in most registers. during the 20-year period, all but one register showed statistically significant changes in incidence, with rates universally increasing. when estimated separately for the first and second halves of the period, the median rates of increase were similar: 3.4% per annum and 3.3% per annum, respectively. however, rates of increase differed significantly between the first half and the second half for nine of the 21 registers with adequate coverage of both periods; five registers showed significantly higher rates of increase in the first half, and four significantly higher rates in the second half. the incidence rate of childhood type 1 diabetes continues to rise across europe by an average of approximately 3-4% per annum, but the increase is not necessarily uniform, showing periods of less rapid and more rapid increase in incidence in some registers. this pattern of change suggests that important risk exposures differ over time in different european countries. further time trend analysis and comparison of the patterns in defined regions is warranted." +trends in childhood type 1 diabetes incidence in europe during 1989-2008: evidence of non-uniformity over time in rates of increase,epidemiology; incidence; temporal change; trends; type 1 diabetes,DIABETOLOGIA,PATTERSON CC;GYURUS E;ROSENBAUER J;CINEK O;NEU A;SCHOBER E;PARSLOW RC;JONER G;SVENSSON J;CASTELL C;BINGLEY PJ;SCHOENLE E;JAROSZ CHOBOT P;URBONAITE B;ROTHE U;KRZISNIK C;IONESCU TIRGOVISTE C;WEETS I;KOCOVA M;STIPANCIC G;SAMARDZIC M;DE BEAUFORT CE;GREEN A;DAHLQUIST GG;SOLTESZ G,"the aim of the study was to describe 20-year incidence trends for childhood type 1 diabetes in 23 eurodiab centres and compare rates of increase in the first (1989-1998) and second (1999-2008) halves of the period. all registers operate in geographically defined regions and are based on a clinical diagnosis. completeness of registration is assessed by capture-recapture methodology. twenty-three centres in 19 countries registered 49,969 new cases of type 1 diabetes in individuals diagnosed before their 15th birthday during the period studied. ascertainment exceeded 90% in most registers. during the 20-year period, all but one register showed statistically significant changes in incidence, with rates universally increasing. when estimated separately for the first and second halves of the period, the median rates of increase were similar: 3.4% per annum and 3.3% per annum, respectively. however, rates of increase differed significantly between the first half and the second half for nine of the 21 registers with adequate coverage of both periods; five registers showed significantly higher rates of increase in the first half, and four significantly higher rates in the second half. the incidence rate of childhood type 1 diabetes continues to rise across europe by an average of approximately 3-4% per annum, but the increase is not necessarily uniform, showing periods of less rapid and more rapid increase in incidence in some registers. this pattern of change suggests that important risk exposures differ over time in different european countries. further time trend analysis and comparison of the patterns in defined regions is warranted." the interaction between reproductive cost and individual quality is mediated by oceanic conditions in a long-lived bird,endangered species; environmental stochasticity; individual quality; long-lived species; monteiro's storm-petrel; oceanodroma monteiroi; praia islet; azores; reproductive cost; survival analysis,ECOLOGY,ROBERT A;PAIVA VH;BOLTON M;JIGUET F;BRIED J,"environmental variability, costs of reproduction, and heterogeneity in individual quality are three important sources of the temporal and interindividual variations in vital rates of wild populations. based on an 18-year monitoring of an endangered, recently described, long-lived seabird, monteiro's storm-petrel (oceanodroma monteiroi), we designed multistate survival models to separate the effects of the reproductive cost (breeders vs. nonbreeders) and individual quality (successful vs. unsuccessful breeders) in relation to temporally variable demographic and oceanographic properties. the analysis revealed a gradient of individual quality from nonbreeders, to unsuccessful breeders, to successful breeders. the survival rates of unsuccessful breeders (0.90 +/- 0.023, mean +/- se) tended to decrease in years of high average breeding success and were more sensitive to oceanographic variation than those of both (high-quality) successful breeders (0.97 +/- 0.015) and (low-quality) nonbreeders (0.83 +/- 0.028). overall, our results indicate that reproductive costs act on individuals of intermediate quality and are mediated by environmental harshness." "stable isotopic assessment of site fidelity of mummichogs, fundulus heteroclitus, exposed to multiple anthropogenic inputs",fundulus heteroclitus; stable isotopes; mark-recapture; pulp mill; wastewater treatment; miramichi,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,SKINNER MA;COURTENAY SC;PARKER WR;CURRY RA,"the goals of the study were: (1) to evaluate stable isotopic analysis (sia) in determining the site fidelity of mummichogs, fundulus heteroclitus, along a smaller spatial scale (similar to 10 km) in homogenous habitat type relative to previous sia studies; and (2) to cross-validate sia results with mark-recapture results from a study conducted concurrently at the same sites in the upper miramichi river estuary (mre), new brunswick, canada influenced by two pulp mills and three municipal wastewater facilities. mummichogs sampled at 9 sites along the upper mre (n = 198) had overall mean (+/- sd) ratios of -21.03 +/- 1.45 aeuro degrees delta c-13 and 11.37 +/- 1.02 aeuro degrees delta n-15. mean delta c-13 and delta n-15 ratios were significantly different among sites with mean delta c-13 increasing in a downstream direction and distinct delta n-15 group signatures along the northern and southern shores. multivariate analyses detected seven distinct groups out of nine sites sampled and these differences appear to be related to wastewater treatment influences, thus demonstrating the utility of sia as a method to determine the site-specificity of organisms on a relatively small spatial scale within homogenous habitat within an estuary. these results, in addition to the scarcity of statistical outliers (3 %) during examination of isotopic ratios within sites support the results of a previous mark-recapture study that demonstrated very few mummichogs (3.4 %) in the upper mre move more than 200 m." estimation of northern pike population sizes via mark-recapture monitoring,catch-and-release; esox lucius; natural mortality; petersen estimate; recreational fishing; stock assessment,FISHERIES MANAGEMENT AND ECOLOGY,KUPARINEN A;ALHO JS;OLIN M;LEHTONEN H,"estimates of population size are needed in populations targeted by recreational fisheries, to determine their conservational status and to formulate fishing regulations. markrecapture monitoring is a promising tool for this because of the increased popularity of catch-and-release angling. northern pike, esox lucius l., population sizes were estimated in four lakes based on experimental markrecapture fishing using a hierarchical bayesian model that also estimated natural mortality. the approach was compared with output from traditional petersens population size estimates. despite intensive fishing with multiple gears, the population size estimates suggested that a substantial proportion of individuals remained unobserved by fishing. petersens estimates depended on the assumed rate of natural mortality, and no mortality rate scenario matched with the bayesian estimates. consequently, the number of individuals caught by recreational anglers is a poor proxy of population size for which estimations should be carried out using a modelling approach that also estimates natural mortality." @@ -3472,8 +3478,8 @@ hypoglycemia in non-diabetic in-patients: clinical or criminal?,NA,PLOS ONE,NIRA improving the accuracy of population size estimates for burrow-nesting seabirds,australia; eudyptula minor; little penguin; mark-recapture; nest-site occupancy,IBIS,SUTHERLAND DR;DANN P,"seabird numbers can change rapidly as a result of environmental processes, both natural and anthropogenic. informed management and conservation of seabirds requires accurate and precise monitoring of population size. however, for burrow-nesting species this is rarely achieved due to spatial and temporal heterogeneity in burrow occupancy. here, we describe a novel method for deriving more accurate population size estimates that employs mark-recapture methods to correct for unknown variation in nest occupancy throughout a breeding season. we apply it to estimate breeding numbers of a colonial, burrowing seabird, the little penguin eudyptula minor, on the summerland peninsula, phillip island, australia. estimates of active burrow numbers during the september 2008 to february 2009 breeding season were adjusted to numbers of breeding birds based on burrow occupation and modelled population demographics at six, fortnightly monitored reference sites. the population was estimated to be 26 100 (95% ci: 21 100-31 100) and 28 400 (23 800-33 000) breeding penguins in two temporally separated surveys within one breeding season. we demonstrate using simulation that the method is robust to variation in burrow occupancy throughout the breeding season, providing consistent and more accurate estimates of population size. the advantage of using the corrected method is that confidence intervals will include the true population size. confidence limits widened as burrow occupancy declined, reflecting the increased uncertainty as larger adjustments for low burrow occupancy were required. in contrast, the uncorrected method that uses burrow occupancy alone as a measure of breeding numbers was inconsistent and significantly underestimated population size across much of the breeding season. although requiring considerably more survey effort, the corrected approach provides a more accurate means for monitoring population changes in colonially breeding animals while collecting demographic data that can help diagnose the drivers of population change." the effect of changes in habitat conditions on the movement of juvenile snail kites rostrhamus sociabilis,endangered species; habitat degradation; mark-recapture; maximum likelihood estimation; radiotelemetry,IBIS,BOWLING AC;MARTIN J;KITCHENS WM,"the degradation of habitats due to human activities is a major topic of interest for the conservation and management of wild populations. there is growing evidence that the florida everglades ecosystem continues to suffer from habitat degradation. after a period of recovery in the 1990s, the snail kite rostrhamus sociabilis population suffered a substantial decline in 2001 and has not recovered since. habitat degradation has been suggested as one of the primary reasons for this lack of recovery. as a consequence of the continued degradation of the everglades, we hypothesized that this would have led to increased movement of juvenile kites over time, as a consequence of the need to find more favourable habitat. we used multistate mark-recapture models to compare between-site movement probabilities of juvenile snail kites in the 1990s (1992-95; which corresponds to the period before the decline) and 2000s (2003-06; after the decline). our analyses were based on an extensive radiotelemetry study (266 birds tracked monthly over the entire state of florida for a total period of 6 years) and considered factors such as sex and age of marked individuals. there was evidence of increased movement of juvenile snail kites during the post-decline period from most of the wetland regions used historically by kites. higher movement rates may contribute to an increase in the probability of mortality of young individuals and could contribute to the observed declines." identifying mangrove areas for fisheries enhancement; population assessment in a patchy habitat,scylla olivacea; mark-recapture; population estimates; growth; survival; mortality; restocking; mangroves; ecosystem services; seafdec; aqd,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,LEBATA MJH;WALTON ME;BINAS JB;PRIMAVERA JH;LE VAY L,"small-scale fisheries are an important element of the ecosystem goods and services that mangrove habitats provide, especially to poorer coastal communities that rely most on natural resources, and have similar values to payments for ecosystem services (pes) under carbon-trading schemes. in advance of fishery-enhancement trials for the mud crab scylla olivacea, a markrecapture study was conducted to estimate population size and turnover in 50?ha of isolated mangrove on panay island, philippines. a total of 811 crabs were released in six sessions with an overall recapture rate of 41.5?+/-?3.6%. population size ranged from 6071637 individuals. there was a high degree of site-fidelity, with 45.5% of recaptures in the same sampling areas as releases. total mortality was 0.79?month-1, with fishing mortality accounting for 95% of overall mortality. von bertalanffy and gompertz growth models yielded estimates for l8 (carapace width) of 117.3?+/-?14.7 and 110.6?+/-?2.1?mm and for k of 2.16?+/-?0.74 and 3.25?+/-?0.81, respectively. crab densities of 1233 individuals ha-1 in the study area were lower than in other mangrove systems owing to intermittent recruitment, while growth rates indicated no limitation in terms of food supply. the study demonstrates that in specific mangrove habitats that are below carrying capacity, there is potential for fisheries enhancement to sustain or increase direct economic benefits from mangrove ecosystems and hence promote community engagement in broader conservation and pes initiatives. copyright (c) 2012 john wiley & sons, ltd." -survival of resident neotropical birds: considerations for sampling and analysis based on 20 years of bird-banding efforts in mexico,barker model; mark-recapture statistics; mist netting; population modeling; tropical birds,AUK,RUIZ-GUTIERREZ V;DOHERTY PF;SANTANA E;MARTINEZ SC;SCHONDUBE J;MUNGUIA HV;INIGO-ELIAS E,"long-term bird-banding programs provide knowledge of the demographic rates of avian populations, but we currently lack information on demographic rates of most bird populations in species-rich tropical ecosystems. banding in tropical regions is typically conducted with protracted or irregular sampling occasions that make the choice of the proper capture mark recapture (cmr) model difficult. here, we address common challenges related to collecting and analyzing data to estimate survival rates of resident neotropical birds using 20 years of banding efforts in mexico as a case study. we applied cormack-jolly-seber and barker models to estimate apparent survival and recapture probabilities of species with sufficient data for survival analyses. we were able to analyze 6 resident species of 136 total species; apparent survival probabilities ranged from 0.30 to 0.77, and recapture probabilities from 0.11 to 0.52. for monitoring programs with existing data collected at continuous, uneven, or irregular intervals, we recommend the application of the barker model over other models because it was more efficient in the use of available banding data and less often violated cmr assumptions. we recommend that monitoring programs last >10 years and provide additional protocol suggestions for primary and secondary sampling occasions, as well as the number of nets, potential net configurations, and the extent of the spatial scale. these baseline recommendations are likely to foster an increase in our knowledge of avian survival rates in tropical ecosystems, which is imperative for managing tropical bird populations under changing environmental conditions. received 3 august 2011, accepted 17 april 2012." -is laying a large egg expensive? female-biased cost of first reproduction in a petrel,breeding biology; egg size; european storm-petrel; first reproduction; hydrobates pelagicus; mark-recapture statistics; reproductive effort; survival,AUK,SANZ-AGUILAR A;MINGUEZ E;ORO D,"differential reproductive investment between sexes can lead to asymmetric costs of reproduction in birds. long-lived procellariiform seabirds are single-egg layers with little sexual dimorphism and similar parental investment in incubation and chick rearing. however, sex-specific tasks exist at the beginning of the breeding season, including egg production by females (no courtship feeding by males in this group of species) and nest and mate guarding by males. costs of reproduction could be evident during critical periods such as the first breeding attempt, because of inexperience in reproductive tasks or a higher proportion of low-quality individuals in young age classes, or both. little is known about sex-specific costs of reproduction in monomorphic species, in which we expect costs to be similar. we investigated the effects of first reproduction on the subsequent survival of male and female european storm-petrels (hydrobates pelagicus) and found that female survival (0.72; 95% confidence interval [ci]: 0.60-0.82) was lower than that of males (0.85; 95% ci: 0.76-0.89) after first reproduction. however, these differences were not observed in subsequent breeding attempts by experienced females (0.89; 95% ci: 0.86-0.91) and males (0.88; 95% ci: 0.86-0.91), probably because of an experience-related improvement in foraging efficiency, reproductive tasks, or predator avoidance. the effort invested by inexperienced females in the production of a large egg (<= 25% of adult body mass) may explain our observed differences in survival. received 25 january 2012, accepted 14 may 2012." +survival of resident neotropical birds: considerations for sampling and analysis based on 20 years of bird-banding efforts in mexico,barker model; mark-recapture statistics; mist netting; population modeling; tropical birds,AUK,RUIZ GUTIERREZ V;DOHERTY PF;SANTANA E;MARTINEZ SC;SCHONDUBE J;MUNGUIA HV;INIGO ELIAS E,"long-term bird-banding programs provide knowledge of the demographic rates of avian populations, but we currently lack information on demographic rates of most bird populations in species-rich tropical ecosystems. banding in tropical regions is typically conducted with protracted or irregular sampling occasions that make the choice of the proper capture mark recapture (cmr) model difficult. here, we address common challenges related to collecting and analyzing data to estimate survival rates of resident neotropical birds using 20 years of banding efforts in mexico as a case study. we applied cormack-jolly-seber and barker models to estimate apparent survival and recapture probabilities of species with sufficient data for survival analyses. we were able to analyze 6 resident species of 136 total species; apparent survival probabilities ranged from 0.30 to 0.77, and recapture probabilities from 0.11 to 0.52. for monitoring programs with existing data collected at continuous, uneven, or irregular intervals, we recommend the application of the barker model over other models because it was more efficient in the use of available banding data and less often violated cmr assumptions. we recommend that monitoring programs last >10 years and provide additional protocol suggestions for primary and secondary sampling occasions, as well as the number of nets, potential net configurations, and the extent of the spatial scale. these baseline recommendations are likely to foster an increase in our knowledge of avian survival rates in tropical ecosystems, which is imperative for managing tropical bird populations under changing environmental conditions. received 3 august 2011, accepted 17 april 2012." +is laying a large egg expensive? female-biased cost of first reproduction in a petrel,breeding biology; egg size; european storm-petrel; first reproduction; hydrobates pelagicus; mark-recapture statistics; reproductive effort; survival,AUK,SANZ AGUILAR A;MINGUEZ E;ORO D,"differential reproductive investment between sexes can lead to asymmetric costs of reproduction in birds. long-lived procellariiform seabirds are single-egg layers with little sexual dimorphism and similar parental investment in incubation and chick rearing. however, sex-specific tasks exist at the beginning of the breeding season, including egg production by females (no courtship feeding by males in this group of species) and nest and mate guarding by males. costs of reproduction could be evident during critical periods such as the first breeding attempt, because of inexperience in reproductive tasks or a higher proportion of low-quality individuals in young age classes, or both. little is known about sex-specific costs of reproduction in monomorphic species, in which we expect costs to be similar. we investigated the effects of first reproduction on the subsequent survival of male and female european storm-petrels (hydrobates pelagicus) and found that female survival (0.72; 95% confidence interval [ci]: 0.60-0.82) was lower than that of males (0.85; 95% ci: 0.76-0.89) after first reproduction. however, these differences were not observed in subsequent breeding attempts by experienced females (0.89; 95% ci: 0.86-0.91) and males (0.88; 95% ci: 0.86-0.91), probably because of an experience-related improvement in foraging efficiency, reproductive tasks, or predator avoidance. the effort invested by inexperienced females in the production of a large egg (<= 25% of adult body mass) may explain our observed differences in survival. received 25 january 2012, accepted 14 may 2012." survival estimates for two hawaiian honeycreepers,NA,PACIFIC SCIENCE,VETTER JP;SWINNERTON KJ;VANDERWERF EA;GARVIN JC;MOUNCE HL;BRENISER HE;LEONARD DL;FRETZ JS,"most hawaiian forest birds are endangered by habitat loss and degradation, predation by introduced mammals, and introduced diseases, but species recovery planning has been hampered by lack of demographic information, such as annual survival rates. to address this knowledge gap, we analyzed mark-recapture data using the program mark to estimate apparent survival in the endangered maui parrotbill (pseudonestor xanthophrys) and maui 'alauahio (paroreomyza montana). annual survival estimates were high in adult maui parrotbills (0.84 +/- 0.04) and maui 'alauahio (0.78 +/- 0.15). survival was lower in hatch-year parrotbills (0.76 +/- 0.09) and hatch-year 'alauahio (0.64 +/- 0.13), and survival of 'alauahio also varied among years (0.51 +/- 0.18 to 0.95 +/- 0.06 in adults). these results provide important baseline data for two little-known species of honeycreepers and, together with ongoing nest success and productivity studies, will enable assessment of population trends and inform management decisions. mark-recapture methods are a useful tool for monitoring populations of rare and cryptic species that are difficult to monitor using traditional survey methods." "density of the vulnerable sunda clouded leopard neofelis diardi in two commercial forest reserves in sabah, malaysian borneo",camera trapping; density estimation; felid; forest stewardship council; south-east asia; spatial capture-recapture; sustainable forest management,ORYX,WILTING A;MOHAMED A;AMBU LN;LAGAN P;MANNAN S;HOFER H;SOLLMANN R,"recently the sunda clouded leopard neofelis diardi was recognized as a separate species distinct from the clouded leopard neofelis nebulosa of mainland asia. both species are categorized as vulnerable on the iucn red list. little is known about the newly identified species and, in particular, information from forests outside protected areas is scarce. here we present one of the first density estimates calculated with spatial capture-recapture models using camera-trap data. in two commercial forest reserves in sabah (both certified for their sustainable management practices) the density of the sunda clouded leopard was estimated to be c. 1 per 100 km(2) (0.84 +/- se 0.42 and 1.04 +/- se 0.58). the presence of the sunda clouded leopard in such forests is encouraging for its conservation but additional studies from other areas, including protected forests, are needed to compare and evaluate these densities." "density of the vulnerable sunda clouded leopard neofelis diardi in a protected area in sabah, malaysian borneo",apex predator; borneo; camera trapping; carnivora; maliau basin; mark-recapture; neofelis; sabah; spatially explicit capture-recapture,ORYX,BRODIE J;GIORDANO AJ,"population density is an important parameter for monitoring and guiding conservation of small or threatened wildlife populations. yet, despite the vulnerable status of both species of clouded leopard neofelis spp., and their disappearing tropical forest habitat, information on their population density is lacking from across their broad geographic ranges. here we estimated population density of the sunda clouded leopard n. diardi in the maliau basin conservation area in sabah, malaysian borneo, one of the first such estimates for either species of clouded leopard. with 25 camera-trap stations, each operated for at least 81 trap-nights, we obtained 59 detections of four individual sunda clouded leopards in undisturbed primary rainforest but only a single detection in logged forest, despite similar sampling effort. using spatially-explicit mark-recapture models, we estimated a density of 1.9 individuals per 100 km(2) (95% confidence interval 0.7-5.4) for primary forest and 0.8 per 100 km(2) (0.2-2.6) for the entire study area (including logged forest). these results will contribute to a better understanding of clouded leopard status and serve as a reference for future assessments of the species." @@ -3490,34 +3496,34 @@ a capture-recapture analysis in a challenging environment: assessing the epidemi "estimating brownian motion dispersal rate, longevity and population density from spatially explicit mark-recapture data on tropical butterflies",brownian motion; dispersal; effective trapping area; mark-recapture; survival; tropical butterflies,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,TUFTO J;LANDE R;RINGSBY TH;ENGEN S;SAETHER BE;WALLA TR;DEVRIES PJ,"1. we develop a bayesian method for analysing markrecapture data in continuous habitat using a model in which individuals movement paths are brownian motions, life spans are exponentially distributed and capture events occur at given instants in time if individuals are within a certain attractive distance of the traps. 2. the joint posterior distribution of the dispersal rate, longevity, trap attraction distances and a number of latent variables representing the unobserved movement paths and time of death of all individuals is computed using gibbs sampling. 3. an estimate of absolute local population density is obtained simply by dividing the poisson counts of individuals captured at given points in time by the estimated total attraction area of all traps. our approach for estimating population density in continuous habitat avoids the need to define an arbitrary effective trapping area that characterized previous markrecapture methods in continuous habitat. 4. we applied our method to estimate spatial demography parameters in nine species of neotropical butterflies. path analysis of interspecific variation in demographic parameters and mean wing length revealed a simple network of strong causation. larger wing length increases dispersal rate, which in turn increases trap attraction distance. however, higher dispersal rate also decreases longevity, thus explaining the surprising observation of a negative correlation between wing length and longevity." standardizing the double-observer survey method for estimating mountain ungulate prey of the endangered snow leopard,capra ibex; bharal; pseudois nayaur; ovis; central asia,OECOLOGIA,SURYAWANSHI KR;BHATNAGAR YV;MISHRA C,"mountain ungulates around the world have been threatened by illegal hunting, habitat modification, increased livestock grazing, disease and development. mountain ungulates play an important functional role in grasslands as primary consumers and as prey for wild carnivores, and monitoring of their populations is important for conservation purposes. however, most of the several currently available methods of estimating wild ungulate abundance are either difficult to implement or too expensive for mountainous terrain. a rigorous method of sampling ungulate abundance in mountainous areas that can allow for some measure of sampling error is therefore much needed. to this end, we used a combination of field data and computer simulations to test the critical assumptions associated with double-observer technique based on capture-recapture theory. the technique was modified and adapted to estimate the populations of bharal (pseudois nayaur) and ibex (capra sibirica) at five different sites. conducting the two double-observer surveys simultaneously led to underestimation of the population by 15%. we therefore recommend separating the surveys in space or time. the overall detection probability for the two observers was 0.74 and 0.79. our surveys estimated mountain ungulate populations (+/- 95% confidence interval) of 735 (+/- 44), 580 (+/- 46), 509 (+/- 53), 184 (+/- 40) and 30 (+/- 14) individuals at the five sites, respectively. a detection probability of 0.75 was found to be sufficient to detect a change of 20% in populations of > 420 individuals. based on these results, we believe that this method is sufficiently precise for scientific and conservation purposes and therefore recommend the use of the double-observer approach (with the two surveys separated in time or space) for the estimation and monitoring of mountain ungulate populations." "peramivir use for treatment of hospitalized patients with influenza a(h1n1)pdm09 under emergency use authorization, october 2009-june 2010",NA,CLINICAL INFECTIOUS DISEASES,YU Y;GARG S;YU PA;KIM HJ;PATEL A;MERLIN T;REDD S;UYEKI TM,"background. in response to the influenza a(h1n1)pdm09 (ph1n1) pandemic, peramivir, an investigational intravenous neuraminidase inhibitor, was made available for treatment of hospitalized patients with ph1n1 in the united states under an emergency use authorization (eua). the centers for disease control and prevention (cdc) implemented a program to manage peramivir distribution to requesting clinicians under eua. we describe results of the cdc's peramivir program and 3 related surveys. methods. we analyzed data on peramivir requests made by clinicians to the cdc through an electronic request system. three surveys were administered to enhance clinician compliance with adverse event reporting, to conduct product accountability, and to collect data on peramivir-treated patients. descriptive analyses were performed, and 2-source capture-recapture analysis based on the 3 surveys was used to estimate the number of patients who received peramivir through the eua. results. from 23 october 2009 to 23 june 2010, cdc received 1371 clinician requests for peramivir and delivered 2129 five-day adult treatment course equivalents of peramivir to 563 hospitals. based on survey responses, at least 1274 patients (median age, 43 years; range, 0-92 years; 49% male) received >= 1 doses of peramivir (median duration, 6 days). capture-recapture analysis yielded estimates for the potential total number of peramivir recipients ranging from 1185 (95% confidence interval [ci], 1076-1293) to 1490 (95% ci, 1321-1659). conclusions. approximately 1274 hospitalized patients received peramivir through eua program during the ph1n1 pandemic. further analyses are needed to assess the clinical effectiveness of peramivir treatment of hospitalized patients with ph1n1." -migratory connectivity derived from sparse ring reencounter data with unknown numbers of ringed birds,cormack-jolly-seber model; flyway use; multinomial mark-reencounter model; non-breeding distribution; reencounter probability; ring reencounter data; luscinia megarhynchos,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,KORNER-NIEVERGELT F;LIECHTI F;HAHN S,"the large databases on ring reencounters, e.g. euring database, contain extant information on the spatial distribution and potentially, on migratory connectivity of birds. however, reencounter data are normally sparse due to low reencounter probability. further, to extract unbiased information about the spatial distribution of birds, spatial variation in reencounter probability has to be corrected for. to do so, knowledge of the total numbers of ringed birds is crucial but often not available. we present a general, combined statistical model to estimate population specific migration patterns based on the european reencounter data for which the number of ringed birds is unknown. our approach combines a cormack-jolly-seber model with a multinomial model. we present, for the first time, estimates and credible intervals of the spatial distribution of different populations of a migrant bird during the non-breeding period based on imperfect ringing data. here, we used the common nightingale (luscinia megarhynchos) as a representative long-distance migrant. the model allowed estimation of which proportions of the different breeding populations use a western, central or eastern flyway. sensitivity analysis based on simulated data showed that most of these estimates were robust against violation of the most important model assumptions, i.e. homogeneity in recapture probability, homogeneity in breeding area return probability, and in reencounter probability within the flyways. we provide a general technique to account for spatial variation in reencounter probability when analysing migratory connectivity based on ring reencounter data with unknown numbers of ringed individuals. it is applicable for almost all migrating species with reencounter data." +migratory connectivity derived from sparse ring reencounter data with unknown numbers of ringed birds,cormack-jolly-seber model; flyway use; multinomial mark-reencounter model; non-breeding distribution; reencounter probability; ring reencounter data; luscinia megarhynchos,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,KORNER NIEVERGELT F;LIECHTI F;HAHN S,"the large databases on ring reencounters, e.g. euring database, contain extant information on the spatial distribution and potentially, on migratory connectivity of birds. however, reencounter data are normally sparse due to low reencounter probability. further, to extract unbiased information about the spatial distribution of birds, spatial variation in reencounter probability has to be corrected for. to do so, knowledge of the total numbers of ringed birds is crucial but often not available. we present a general, combined statistical model to estimate population specific migration patterns based on the european reencounter data for which the number of ringed birds is unknown. our approach combines a cormack-jolly-seber model with a multinomial model. we present, for the first time, estimates and credible intervals of the spatial distribution of different populations of a migrant bird during the non-breeding period based on imperfect ringing data. here, we used the common nightingale (luscinia megarhynchos) as a representative long-distance migrant. the model allowed estimation of which proportions of the different breeding populations use a western, central or eastern flyway. sensitivity analysis based on simulated data showed that most of these estimates were robust against violation of the most important model assumptions, i.e. homogeneity in recapture probability, homogeneity in breeding area return probability, and in reencounter probability within the flyways. we provide a general technique to account for spatial variation in reencounter probability when analysing migratory connectivity based on ring reencounter data with unknown numbers of ringed individuals. it is applicable for almost all migrating species with reencounter data." annual survival and breeding dispersal of a seabird adapted to a stable environment: implications for conservation,breeding dispersal; fidelity; survival; conservation; sternula balaenarum; damara tern,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,BRABY J;BRABY SJ;BRABY RJ;ALTWEGG R,"understanding the spatial dynamics of populations is essential for conservation of species at the landscape level. species that have adapted to stable environments may not move from their breeding areas even if these have become sub-optimal due to anthropogenic disturbances. instead, they may breed unsuccessfully or choose not to breed at all. damara terns sternula balaenarum feed off the highly productive benguela upwelling system. they breed on the coastal desert mainland of namibia where development and off-road driving is threatening breeding areas. we report annual survival and breeding dispersal probabilities of 214 breeding adult damara terns through capture-mark-recapture at two colonies for 9 years (2001-2009) in central namibia. using multi-state models in program mark, model selection based on aicc favoured a model that suggests local annual survival of damara terns for the dataset was 0.88 (95% ci, 0.73-0.96) and the annual dispersal probability was 0.06 (0.03-0.12). high survival and low dispersal probabilities are consistent with other seabirds adapted to stable environments. these estimates contribute to the first baseline demographic information for the damara tern. low dispersal probabilities indicate that current protection of breeding sites is an important management approach for protecting the species." "high survivorship of an annually decreasing aggregation of hawksbill turtles, eretmochelys imbricata, found foraging in the northern great barrier reef",great barrier reef; marine turtle; mark-recapture; modelling; population structure,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,BELL I;SCHWARZKOPF L;MANICOM C,"an 8-year study of the foraging abundance of an eretmochelys imbricata aggregation, found on 13 reefs (howick group) within the northern section of the great barrier reef marine park was undertaken. a cormackjollyseber method within program mark was used to: (1) compare survival and recapture probabilities among age and sex classes of turtles; and (2) estimate survival and recapture rates for male and female adults and sub-adults from 665 capturemarkrecapture profiles of e. imbricata. mean annual population density estimates were consistently greater for adult female e. imbricata (n?=?333.7; sd?=?135.6; r?=?221581) than for adult males (n?=?32.4; sd?=?33.4; r?=?898), with both adult males and females displaying high survivorship rates (71.1%; 92.2%, respectively). this was also apparent in immature age-classes, with male and female turtles showing similarly high survivorship likelihoods (78.0%; 93.0%, respectively). both sexes exhibited a similar overall trend with a peak population density being displayed in the first two years of the study, followed by a general decline in the female stock and stable male population. these are the only reliable long-term abundance time-series data for a population that includes all age-classes of e. imbricata in the western pacific and provide good baseline data for the detection of possible climate change induced trends. copyright (c) 2012 john wiley & sons, ltd." diversity in migratory patterns among neotropical fishes in a highly regulated river basin,fish passage; mark-recapture; migratory movement; parana river,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,MAKRAKIS MC;MIRANDA LE;MAKRAKIS S;FONTES HM;MORLIS WG;DIAS JHP;GARCIA JO,"migratory behaviour of selected fish species is described in the parana river, brazilargentinaparaguay, to search for patterns relevant to tropical regulated river systems. in a 10 year markrecapture study, spanning a 1425 km section of the river, 32 867 fishes composed of 18 species were released and 1083 fishes were recaptured. the fishes recaptured were at liberty an average 166 days (maximum 1548 days) and travelled an average 35 km (range 0625 km). cluster analysis applied to variables descriptive of movement behaviour identified four general movement patterns. cluster 1 included species that moved long distances (mean 164 km) upstream (54%) and downstream (40%) the mainstem river and showed high incidence (27%) of passage through dams; cluster 2 also exhibited high rate of movement along the mainstem (49% upstream, 13% downstream), but moved small distances (mean 10 km); cluster 3 included the most fishes moving laterally into tributaries (45%) or not moving at all (25%), but little downstream movement (8%); fishes in cluster 4 exhibited little upstream movement (13%) and farthest downstream movements (mean 41 km). whereas species could be numerically clustered with statistical models, a species ordination showed ample spread, suggesting that species exhibit diverse movement patterns that cannot be easily classified into just a few classes. the cluster and ordination procedures also showed that adults and juveniles of the same species exhibit similar movement patterns. conventional concepts about neotropical migratory fishes portray them as travelling long distances upstream. the present results broaden these concepts suggesting that migratory movements are more diverse, could be long, short or at times absent, upriver, downriver or lateral, and the diversity of movements can vary within and among species. the intense lateral migrations exhibited by a diversity of species, especially to and from large tributaries (above reservoirs) and reservoir tributaries, illustrate the importance of these habitats for the fish species life cycle. considering that the parana river is highly impounded, special attention should be given to the few remaining low-impact habitats as they continue to be targets of hydropower development that will probably intensify the effects on migratory fish stocks." -use of multiple sources and capture-recapture method to estimate the frequency of hospitalizations related to drug abuse,drug abuse; capture-recapture; hospital database; pmsi; hospitalization; pharmacoepidemiology,PHARMACOEPIDEMIOLOGY AND DRUG SAFETY,JOUANJUS E;POURCEL L;SAIVIN S;MOLINIER L;LAPEYRE-MESTRE M,"purpose addictive behaviours are often associated with hidden characteristics that are difficult to detect by usual approaches. this study aimed to estimate the incidence of serious drug-related complications by using the capturerecapture method in defined geographical area. methods hospitalizations with mention of disorders related to drug of abuse were considered serious drug-related complications. we searched these cases in and crossed three sources of data: spontaneous reports of drug of abuserelated disorders called nots (notification spontanee) collected by the regional addictovigilance centre, computerised hospital database programme de medicalisation des systemes d'information (pmsi) and toxicological analyses (ta) carried out for hospitalized patients. results in 2007 and 2008, 1509 distinct cases were captured. after data modelling, the estimated number of psychoactive drugrelated hospitalizations was 4744 (95%ci?=?40605429). most frequent products were opioids (34%), cannabis (19%) and cocaine (13%). multiple drugs were observed in 26% of cases. the incidence of serious drug-related complications in the area covered should be estimated at 5.7 (95%ci?=?5.55.9) per thousand 15- to 64-year-old inhabitants. the exhaustiveness of sources were 0.4% (95%ci?=?0.20.6) for nots, 11.6% (95%ci?=?10.712.5) for ta and 22.6% (95%ci?=?21.423.8) for pmsi. conclusions the real number of cases far exceeds that of cases that can be identified through simple counts. in particular, it confirms the underreporting and even quantifies its magnitude. these results confirm that drug users are frequently hospitalised and require heavy medical management. moreover, these results show the real although limited advantage of hospitalization database in detecting drug associated disorders in epidemiological studies. copyright (c) 2012 john wiley & sons, ltd." +use of multiple sources and capture-recapture method to estimate the frequency of hospitalizations related to drug abuse,drug abuse; capture-recapture; hospital database; pmsi; hospitalization; pharmacoepidemiology,PHARMACOEPIDEMIOLOGY AND DRUG SAFETY,JOUANJUS E;POURCEL L;SAIVIN S;MOLINIER L;LAPEYRE MESTRE M,"purpose addictive behaviours are often associated with hidden characteristics that are difficult to detect by usual approaches. this study aimed to estimate the incidence of serious drug-related complications by using the capturerecapture method in defined geographical area. methods hospitalizations with mention of disorders related to drug of abuse were considered serious drug-related complications. we searched these cases in and crossed three sources of data: spontaneous reports of drug of abuserelated disorders called nots (notification spontanee) collected by the regional addictovigilance centre, computerised hospital database programme de medicalisation des systemes d'information (pmsi) and toxicological analyses (ta) carried out for hospitalized patients. results in 2007 and 2008, 1509 distinct cases were captured. after data modelling, the estimated number of psychoactive drugrelated hospitalizations was 4744 (95%ci?=?40605429). most frequent products were opioids (34%), cannabis (19%) and cocaine (13%). multiple drugs were observed in 26% of cases. the incidence of serious drug-related complications in the area covered should be estimated at 5.7 (95%ci?=?5.55.9) per thousand 15- to 64-year-old inhabitants. the exhaustiveness of sources were 0.4% (95%ci?=?0.20.6) for nots, 11.6% (95%ci?=?10.712.5) for ta and 22.6% (95%ci?=?21.423.8) for pmsi. conclusions the real number of cases far exceeds that of cases that can be identified through simple counts. in particular, it confirms the underreporting and even quantifies its magnitude. these results confirm that drug users are frequently hospitalised and require heavy medical management. moreover, these results show the real although limited advantage of hospitalization database in detecting drug associated disorders in epidemiological studies. copyright (c) 2012 john wiley & sons, ltd." a comparison of two surveillance strategies for selected birth defects in florida,NA,PUBLIC HEALTH REPORTS,SALEMI JL;TANNER JP;KENNEDY S;BLOCK S;BAILEY M;CORREIA JA;WATKINS SM;KIRBY RS,"objective. we linked data from two independent birth defects surveillance systems with different case-finding methods in an overlapping geographic area to assess florida's suveillance of birth defects (e.g., neural tube defects, orofacial clefts, gastroschisis/omphalocele, and chromosomal defects), focusing on sensitivity and completeness of ascertainment measures. methods. live-born infants identified from each system born during 2003 2006 in a nine-county catchment area with specific birth defects were linked to birth certificates. using the enhanced surveillance system as a gold standard, we calculated the sensitivity of the florida birth defects registry (fbdr) for identifying infants. next, we used capture-recapture models to estimate the completeness of case ascertainment and the prevalence of each birth defect in the catchment area. we used multivariable logistic regression models with backward elimination to estimate adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals for factors significantly associated with the fbdr's failure to capture infants ultimately identified by enhanced surveillance. results. the fbdr's sensitivity was 89.3%, and the overall completeness of ascertainment was estimated as 86.6%. defect-specific sensitivity and completeness of ascertainment varied significantly by defect. the combined defect-specific sensitivity for all malformations under study was 86.6%; completeness of ascertainment ranged from 45.6% for anencephaly to 88.6% for down syndrome, 87.9% for spina bifida without anencephaly, and 87.0% for orofacial clefts. conclusions. for the defects under study, the fbdr captured nearly nine of every 10 infants born with selected birth defects. however, the fbdr's ability to identify specific defects was both more limited and defect dependent with widely varying defect-specific sensitivities." re-examining extreme longevity of the cave crayfish orconectes australis using new mark-recapture data: a lesson on the limitations of iterative size-at-age models,crayfish; growth rate; life history; longevity; time-to-maturity,FRESHWATER BIOLOGY,VENARSKY MP;HURYN AD;BENSTEAD JP,"1. centenarian species, defined as those taxa with life spans that frequently exceed 100 years, have long been of interest to ecologists because they represent an extreme end point in a continuum of life history strategies. one frequently reported example of a freshwater centenarian is the obligate cave crayfish orconectes australis, with a maximum longevity reported to exceed 176 years. as a consequence of its reported longevity, o center dot australis has been used as a textbook example of life history adaptation to the organic-carbon limitation that characterises many cave-stream food webs. 2. despite being widely reported, uncertainties surround the original estimates of longevity for o center dot australis, which were based on a single study dating from the mid-1970s. in the present study, we re-evaluated the growth rate, time-to-maturity, female age-at-first-reproduction and longevity of o center dot australis using a markrecapture study of more than 5 years based upon more than 3800 free-ranging individuals from three isolated cave streams in the south-eastern united states. 3. the results of our study indicate that accurate estimates of the longevity of o center dot australis are =22 years, with only a small proportion of individuals (<5%) exceeding this age. our estimates for female time-to-maturity (45 years) and age-at-first-reproduction (56 years) are also substantially lower than earlier estimates. 4. these new data indicate that the age thresholds for life history events of o center dot australis are comparable to other estimates for a modest assemblage of cave and surface species of crayfish for which credible age estimate exists, suggesting that a cave environment per se is not required for the evolution of extreme longevity in crayfish." -assessing mass trapping efficiency and population density of cerambyx welensii kuster by mark-recapture in dehesa open woodlands,cerambyx welensii; dehesa open woodlands; oak decline; mass trapping efficiency; mark-recapture; population density,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF FOREST RESEARCH,TORRES-VILA LM;SANCHEZ-GONZALEZ A;PONCE-ESCUDERO F;MARTIN-VERTEDOR D;FERRERO-GARCIA JJ,"a severe oak decline is taking place across the mediterranean region since the 1980s. among the climatic and biological factors involved in this complex syndrome, the longhorn is currently considered a major element. furthermore, larval damage to young or healthy trees is being increasingly important and thereby also the need to manage this emerging pest species. this paper deals with quantifying the adult populations in the field in order to evaluate the potential performance of mass trapping as control method against . we used a mark-recapture protocol using feeding traps, which was complemented with some nocturnal observations and additional laboratory studies. research was conducted in the cornalvo natural park (southwestern spain) during two consecutive years (2008-2009). data were analysed with classic closed population (cp) methods and maximum likelihood spatially explicit capture-recapture (ml secr) detection models. the results strongly supported the potential success of mass trapping as control method for , including a high trapping efficiency (70-81%), relatively low adult population density for a pest species (316 and 265 adults/ha in 2008 and 2009), movement pattern of flying adults and highly aggregated distribution of adults in trees with traps. we also found experimental evidence that most adults come to the traps close to emergence as showed body appearance longevity estimates and female reproductive age at trapping time. we discuss the practical achievement of mass trapping as control method integrating behavioural and ecological perspectives and, though a large-scale field validation is still lacking, we conclude that mass trapping may be a potential tool to manage populations in open woodlands." -fish catchability and comparison of four electrofishing crews in mediterranean streams,capture probability; fish abundance; sampling effort; program mark; water framework directive,FISHERIES RESEARCH,BENEJAM L;ALCARAZ C;BENITO J;CAIOLA N;CASALS F;MACEDA-VEIGA A;DE SOSTOA A;GARCIA-BERTHOU E,"the knowledge of capture efficiency and side effects of electrofishing is essential for research and monitoring of stream fish populations. differences amongst electrofishing crews have hardly been investigated and are particularly important given the on-going implementation of the water framework directive and wide-ranging exchange of data worldwide. we aimed to assess fish catchability in mediterranean streams and to compare four electrofishing crews (with minor differences in gears used) and their short-term effects on fish populations. in eight different sites, we compared two adjacent stations, one sampled with conventional single-pass catch-effort data and the other closed with block nets and with four-pass removal estimates. we used a williams' cross-over design to estimate the independent effects of repeated sampling in four consecutive days, site and crew and also to assess a potential carry-over effect. we modelled capture probability and estimated population size using program mark and an information-theoretic framework. our results show that electrofishing was generally efficient in these reaches, with 50-100% of the species and of 40-60% of the individuals captured in a single pass. the cpue was significantly higher at sites blocked with nets than at open sites, but observed richness was not significantly different. capture probability was generally not constant along removal passes and increased with fish size. observed fish richness and species composition did not depend on electrofishing crew and fishing day and there was no significant carryover effect. there were, however, significant differences in single-pass cpue estimates amongst electrofishing crews, after accounting for other sources of variation. there was also a significant carry-over effect, surprisingly with increasing fish captured after fishing by specific crews. overall, our results suggest that although capture probability depends heavily on a number of factors (such as species, size, and sampling site) and needs careful consideration, the effect of electrofishing crew is negligible for assessment of species richness and composition but considerable for fish abundance. (c) 2011 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -"population size and structure of the large-nosed wood turtle (rhinoclemmys nasuta, testudines: geoemydidae) in an insular environment of the colombian pacific region",neotropical turtles; population size; population density; morphometrics; sexual dimorphism; rhinoclemmys; larged-nosed wood turtle; colombia,CALDASIA,GIRALDO A;GARCES-RESTREPO MF;CARR JL;LOAIZA J,"rhinoclemmys nasuta (boulenger 1902) is an endemic turtle listed in the colombian red book of reptiles as an endangered species. this is a mid-sized aquatic turtle that inhabits rivers and creeks in the tumbes-choco region, from the esmeraldas river basin (ecuador) to the middle region of the atrato river basin (choco, colombia). to date, the limited knowledge of the natural history and ecology of this species has impeded an appropriate assessment of its conservation status. herein, we analyzed the population size and structure of r. nasuta from an insular locality in the colombian pacific region (isla palma, bahia malaga, valle del cauca). the studied population was dominated by adult individuals, with a female: male: juvenile ratio of 1.00: 0.71: 0.85. females were significantly larger than males (female: 179.87 +/- 3.27 mm; male : 151.83 +/- 2.41 mm) with a sexual dimorphism index of 1.18. the population size estimate based on capture-recapture records was 990 individuals (ci90%: 941 to 1044 ind) with a mean density of 2444 +/- 122 turtles per ha. despite the strong sexual dimorphism detected, the relationship between carapace length and weight indicates isometric growth (b=3.04), with a similar growth tendency in both females and males. this is the first study on the ecology of a continental turtle species from the pacific region of colombia. this information on r. nasuta will be useful in the conservation initiatives for the turtles of colombia" +assessing mass trapping efficiency and population density of cerambyx welensii kuster by mark-recapture in dehesa open woodlands,cerambyx welensii; dehesa open woodlands; oak decline; mass trapping efficiency; mark-recapture; population density,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF FOREST RESEARCH,TORRES VILA LM;SANCHEZ GONZALEZ A;PONCE ESCUDERO F;MARTIN VERTEDOR D;FERRERO GARCIA JJ,"a severe oak decline is taking place across the mediterranean region since the 1980s. among the climatic and biological factors involved in this complex syndrome, the longhorn is currently considered a major element. furthermore, larval damage to young or healthy trees is being increasingly important and thereby also the need to manage this emerging pest species. this paper deals with quantifying the adult populations in the field in order to evaluate the potential performance of mass trapping as control method against . we used a mark-recapture protocol using feeding traps, which was complemented with some nocturnal observations and additional laboratory studies. research was conducted in the cornalvo natural park (southwestern spain) during two consecutive years (2008-2009). data were analysed with classic closed population (cp) methods and maximum likelihood spatially explicit capture-recapture (ml secr) detection models. the results strongly supported the potential success of mass trapping as control method for , including a high trapping efficiency (70-81%), relatively low adult population density for a pest species (316 and 265 adults/ha in 2008 and 2009), movement pattern of flying adults and highly aggregated distribution of adults in trees with traps. we also found experimental evidence that most adults come to the traps close to emergence as showed body appearance longevity estimates and female reproductive age at trapping time. we discuss the practical achievement of mass trapping as control method integrating behavioural and ecological perspectives and, though a large-scale field validation is still lacking, we conclude that mass trapping may be a potential tool to manage populations in open woodlands." +fish catchability and comparison of four electrofishing crews in mediterranean streams,capture probability; fish abundance; sampling effort; program mark; water framework directive,FISHERIES RESEARCH,BENEJAM L;ALCARAZ C;BENITO J;CAIOLA N;CASALS F;MACEDA VEIGA A;DE SOSTOA A;GARCIA BERTHOU E,"the knowledge of capture efficiency and side effects of electrofishing is essential for research and monitoring of stream fish populations. differences amongst electrofishing crews have hardly been investigated and are particularly important given the on-going implementation of the water framework directive and wide-ranging exchange of data worldwide. we aimed to assess fish catchability in mediterranean streams and to compare four electrofishing crews (with minor differences in gears used) and their short-term effects on fish populations. in eight different sites, we compared two adjacent stations, one sampled with conventional single-pass catch-effort data and the other closed with block nets and with four-pass removal estimates. we used a williams' cross-over design to estimate the independent effects of repeated sampling in four consecutive days, site and crew and also to assess a potential carry-over effect. we modelled capture probability and estimated population size using program mark and an information-theoretic framework. our results show that electrofishing was generally efficient in these reaches, with 50-100% of the species and of 40-60% of the individuals captured in a single pass. the cpue was significantly higher at sites blocked with nets than at open sites, but observed richness was not significantly different. capture probability was generally not constant along removal passes and increased with fish size. observed fish richness and species composition did not depend on electrofishing crew and fishing day and there was no significant carryover effect. there were, however, significant differences in single-pass cpue estimates amongst electrofishing crews, after accounting for other sources of variation. there was also a significant carry-over effect, surprisingly with increasing fish captured after fishing by specific crews. overall, our results suggest that although capture probability depends heavily on a number of factors (such as species, size, and sampling site) and needs careful consideration, the effect of electrofishing crew is negligible for assessment of species richness and composition but considerable for fish abundance. (c) 2011 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +"population size and structure of the large-nosed wood turtle (rhinoclemmys nasuta, testudines: geoemydidae) in an insular environment of the colombian pacific region",neotropical turtles; population size; population density; morphometrics; sexual dimorphism; rhinoclemmys; larged-nosed wood turtle; colombia,CALDASIA,GIRALDO A;GARCES RESTREPO MF;CARR JL;LOAIZA J,"rhinoclemmys nasuta (boulenger 1902) is an endemic turtle listed in the colombian red book of reptiles as an endangered species. this is a mid-sized aquatic turtle that inhabits rivers and creeks in the tumbes-choco region, from the esmeraldas river basin (ecuador) to the middle region of the atrato river basin (choco, colombia). to date, the limited knowledge of the natural history and ecology of this species has impeded an appropriate assessment of its conservation status. herein, we analyzed the population size and structure of r. nasuta from an insular locality in the colombian pacific region (isla palma, bahia malaga, valle del cauca). the studied population was dominated by adult individuals, with a female: male: juvenile ratio of 1.00: 0.71: 0.85. females were significantly larger than males (female: 179.87 +/- 3.27 mm; male : 151.83 +/- 2.41 mm) with a sexual dimorphism index of 1.18. the population size estimate based on capture-recapture records was 990 individuals (ci90%: 941 to 1044 ind) with a mean density of 2444 +/- 122 turtles per ha. despite the strong sexual dimorphism detected, the relationship between carapace length and weight indicates isometric growth (b=3.04), with a similar growth tendency in both females and males. this is the first study on the ecology of a continental turtle species from the pacific region of colombia. this information on r. nasuta will be useful in the conservation initiatives for the turtles of colombia" "first density estimation of two sympatric small cats, leopardus colocolo and leopardus geoffroyi, in a shrubland area of central argentina",NA,ANNALES ZOOLOGICI FENNICI,CARUSO N;MANFREDI C;VIDAL EML;CASANAVEO EB;LUCHERINIO M,"geoffroy's and pampas cats are small felids with large distribution ranges in south america. a camera trap survey was conducted in the espinal of central argentina to estimate abundance based on capture-recapture data. for density estimations we used both non-spatial methods and spatially explicit capture-recapture models (secr). for geoffroy's cat we also obtained density estimates from 8 radio-tracked individuals. based on the data on 10 geoffroy's cats and 7 pampas cats, non-spatial methods produced density ranges of 16.21-21.94 indiv./100 km(2) and 11.34-17.58 indiv./100 km(2), respectively. the density estimated using secr models was 45 animals/100 km(2) for geoffroy's cat, whereas we were unable to produce a reliable estimate for the pampas cat. the secr estimate for geoffroy's cat is more similar to that obtained from telemetry data (58.82 cats/100 km(2)). in agreement with the hypothesis of its greater adaptability, geoffroy's cat was more abundant than the pampas cat." the effects of flooding on the spatial ecology of spotted turtles (clemmys guttata) in a partially mined peatland,NA,COPEIA,YAGI KT;LITZGUS JD,"many studies have focused on the effects of anthropogenic habitat alterations on animals, but little attention has been given to the effects of natural changes in habitat. the purpose of our study was to examine the effects of flooding caused by beaver (castor canadensis) dams on the spatial ecology of the federally endangered spotted turtle (clemmys guttata), in a bog in ontario that was historically drained for peat extraction. we hypothesized that home range sizes and daily distances traveled would be greater after flooding and that habitat selection would change because turtles would exploit the increase in aquatic habitats post-flooding. using 12 years of mark-recapture data, radio telemetry, and us software, we compared movements and habitat selection before and after flooding. distances traveled and home range sizes were larger post-flood compared to pre-flood conditions, indicating that turtles were opportunistically exploring the new aquatic habitat. during pre-flooding, turtles primarily selected the drainage ditches created to facilitate peat extraction; these were the only aquatic habitat available. after flooding, there was a strong preference for newly flooded areas and drainage ditches, showing that turtles exploited the increase in available aquatic habitat. our findings indicate that natural habitat alteration resulting from beaver dam flooding may be beneficial for spotted turtles, although observations also suggest that nesting habitat may be limited due to the flooding, and further research is needed to determine the effect of the flooding on recruitment into the population." evaluation of underreporting tuberculosis in central italy by means of record linkage,tb -notifications,BMC PUBLIC HEALTH,MELOSINI L;VETRANO U;DENTE FL;CRISTOFANO M;GIRALDI M;GABBRIELLI L;NOVELLI F;AQUILINI F;RINDI L;MENICHETTI F;FREER G;PAGGIARO PL,"background: tuberculosis (tb) surveillance systems have some pitfalls outside of a national tuberculosis program and lack of efficient surveillance hampers accurate epidemiological quantification of tb burden. in the present study we assessed the quality of surveillance at the university hospital in pisa (uhp), italy, and tb incidence rates over a ten year period (1999-2008). methods: assessment of underreporting was done by record-linkage from two sources: databases of tb diagnoses performed in the uhp and the italian infectious disease surveillance (iids) system. two different databases were examined: a) tb diagnoses reported in the hospital discharge records (hdr) from three units of uhp (respiratory pathophysiology, pulmonology and infectious diseases units) (tb database a); b) tb diagnoses reported in hdr of all units of uhp plus tb positive cases obtained by the laboratory register (lr) of uhp (tb database b). for the tb database a, the accuracy of tb diagnosis in hdr was assessed by direct examination of the clinical record forms of the cases. for the tb database b, clinical and population data were described, as well as the trend of incidence and underreporting over 10 yrs. results: in the first study 293 patients were found: 80 patients (27%) with a confirmed tb diagnosis were underreported, 39 of them were microbiologically confirmed. underreporting was related to age (reported vs non reported, mean age: 49.27 +/- 20 vs 55 +/- 19, p < 0.005), diagnosis (smear positive vs negative cases 18.7 vs 81.2%, p = 0.001), microbiological confirmation (49% vs 51%, p < 0.05), x-ray findings (cavitary vs non-cavitary cases: 12.5 vs 87.5%, p = 0.001) but not to nationality. in the second study, 666 patients were found. mean underreporting rate was 69.4% and decreased over time (68% in 1999, 48% in 2008). newly diagnosed tb cases were also found to decrease in number whereas immigration rate increased. underreporting was related to nationality (immigrants vs italians: 18% vs 68%, p < 0.001), diagnosis (microbiological confirmation: 25% vs 75%, p < 0.01), kind of hospital regimen (hospitalized patients vs day hospital: 70% vs 16%, p < 0.001), and position of tb code in the hdr (tb code in first position vs in the following position: 39,5% vs 45% p < 0.001). conclusions: tb is underreported in pisa, particularly in older patients and those without microbiological confirmation. the tb code in first position of hdr seems fairly accurate in confirming tb diagnosis." estimating the prevalence of illicit opioid use in new york city using multiple data sources,substance use; substance abuse; prevalence; opioids; heroin; epidemiology,BMC PUBLIC HEALTH,MCNEELY J;GOUREVITCH MN;PAONE D;SHAH S;WRIGHT S;HELLER D,"background: despite concerns about its health and social consequences, little is known about the prevalence of illicit opioid use in new york city. individuals who misuse heroin and prescription opioids are known to bear a disproportionate burden of morbidity and mortality. service providers and public health authorities are challenged to provide appropriate interventions in the absence of basic knowledge about the size and characteristics of this population. while illicit drug users are underrepresented in population-based surveys, they may be identified in multiple administrative data sources. methods: we analyzed large datasets tracking hospital inpatient and emergency room admissions as well as drug treatment and detoxification services utilization. these were applied in combination with findings from a large general population survey and administrative records tracking prescriptions, drug overdose deaths, and correctional health services, to estimate the prevalence of heroin and non-medical prescription opioid use among new york city residents in 2006. these data were further applied to a descriptive analysis of opioid users entering drug treatment and hospital-based medical care. results: these data sources identified 126,681 cases of opioid use among new york city residents in 2006. after applying adjustment scenarios to account for potential overlap between data sources, we estimated over 92,000 individual opioid users. by contrast, just 21,600 opioid users initiated drug treatment in 2006. opioid users represented 4% of all individuals hospitalized, and over 44,000 hospitalizations during the calendar year. conclusions: our findings suggest that innovative approaches are needed to provide adequate services to this sizeable population of opioid users. given the observed high rates of hospital services utilization, greater integration of drug services into medical settings could be one component of an effective approach to expanding both the scope and reach of health interventions for this population." understanding theoretically the impact of reporting of disease cases in epidemiology,multiple reporting; diagnosis; adjustment,JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY,RAO ASRS,"in conducting preliminary analysis during an epidemic, data on reported disease cases offer key information in guiding the direction to the in-depth analysis. models for growth and transmission dynamics are heavily dependent on preliminary analysis results. when a particular disease case is reported more than once or alternatively is never reported or detected in the population, then in such a situation, there is a possibility of existence of multiple reporting or under reporting in the population. in this work, a theoretical approach for studying reporting error in epidemiology is explored. the upper bound for the error that arises due to multiple reporting is higher than that which arises due to under reporting. numerical examples are provided to support the arguments. this paper mainly treats reporting error as deterministic and one can explore a stochastic model for the same. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." population size of the endangered bearded vulture gypaetus barbatus in aragon (spain): an approximation to the pyrenean population,population estimation; bearded vulture; mark-resighting; population changes,ARDEOLA-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,DE SEGURA AG;MARTINEZ JM;ALCANTARA M,"the population size of the pyrenean population of the bearded vulture gypaetus barbatus, the most important viable wild population in europe, remains poorly known, despite its status as endangered in europe. in this study, the abundance of immature vultures and adults (both territorial and floaters) was estimated in the aragon region, the core area of the pyrenean population, to provide an indicator of the total pyrenean population. using artificial feeding stations specifically designed for bearded vultures as survey points, 25 censuses were conducted during march 2010 in which 873 sightings (106 of individually marked birds and 767 of unmarked birds) were recorded. by applying the mark-recapture method, the total population of bearded vultures in the study area during the winter period was estimated to be 328 individuals (95% ci: 279-391 individuals). separate estimates by age groups suggested a population of 129 immature individuals (95% ci: 107-160) and 227 adults (95% ci: 173-311). the adult floating population was estimated at 49 individuals and the adult non-breeding fraction was 93 individuals. compared to previous censuses, the results suggest that although the reproductive fraction is increasing, the total population still has some problems: the immature fraction is not increasing, as predicted in previous studies, and a high proportion of adults are not contributing effectively to the breeding process. conservation measures should focus on these two issues to increase the viability of the pyrenean population." -sensitivity analysis of residency and site fidelity estimations to variations in sampling effort and individual catchability,population dynamics; occurrence; permanence; periodicity; simulations; dolphins,REVISTA MEXICANA DE BIODIVERSIDAD,MORTEO E;ROCHA-OLIVARES A;MORTEO R,"mark-recapture techniques are fundamental for assessing marine mammal population dynamics and individual temporal patterns. since biases imposed by field conditions are generally unknown, we simulated variations in sampling effort (m) and maximum individual catchability (r(max)) to analyze their effects on residency levels measured through the number of recaptures (occurrence, 0), duration of stay (permanence, p), and average recurrence (periodicity, i) relative to a reference level of exhaustive daily sampling frequency. the number or recorded individuals (d-r) was also used to determine the performance of the simulations. results for standardized ((s)) parameters showed that occurrences (o-s) were proportional to in and were not influenced by r(max) individual permanence (p-s) and individual periodicity (i-s) were 8-49% and 3-11.74 times lower than expected, respectively, depending on in and r(max). also, o-s, p-s, and i-s were not influenced by study duration, thus inter-study comparisons are feasible if in and r(max) are similar. d-r was 68-92% (r(max) = 0.01) and 1-8% (r(max) = 1.0) lower than expected depending on m. longer studies were more accurate but greater effort did not significantly increase d-r estimates. the use of bimonthly sampling frequencies (m= 0.07) was barely accurate and predictions for incomplete datasets were poor. survey field data were also analyzed from 14 published studies on 4 dolphin species and compared to daily sampling frequencies; resulting values for o-s, p-s, and d-r were 62.4-93.3%, 11.6-66.4%, and 2.4-33.8% lower than expected, respectively; also i-s was 2.3-7.3 times lower than expected. the model produced d-r values that were similar to population estimates from empirical data, and bias was smaller than 15% in 87.5% of the cases, thus simulation accuracy was deemed acceptable." +sensitivity analysis of residency and site fidelity estimations to variations in sampling effort and individual catchability,population dynamics; occurrence; permanence; periodicity; simulations; dolphins,REVISTA MEXICANA DE BIODIVERSIDAD,MORTEO E;ROCHA OLIVARES A;MORTEO R,"mark-recapture techniques are fundamental for assessing marine mammal population dynamics and individual temporal patterns. since biases imposed by field conditions are generally unknown, we simulated variations in sampling effort (m) and maximum individual catchability (r(max)) to analyze their effects on residency levels measured through the number of recaptures (occurrence, 0), duration of stay (permanence, p), and average recurrence (periodicity, i) relative to a reference level of exhaustive daily sampling frequency. the number or recorded individuals (d-r) was also used to determine the performance of the simulations. results for standardized ((s)) parameters showed that occurrences (o-s) were proportional to in and were not influenced by r(max) individual permanence (p-s) and individual periodicity (i-s) were 8-49% and 3-11.74 times lower than expected, respectively, depending on in and r(max). also, o-s, p-s, and i-s were not influenced by study duration, thus inter-study comparisons are feasible if in and r(max) are similar. d-r was 68-92% (r(max) = 0.01) and 1-8% (r(max) = 1.0) lower than expected depending on m. longer studies were more accurate but greater effort did not significantly increase d-r estimates. the use of bimonthly sampling frequencies (m= 0.07) was barely accurate and predictions for incomplete datasets were poor. survey field data were also analyzed from 14 published studies on 4 dolphin species and compared to daily sampling frequencies; resulting values for o-s, p-s, and d-r were 62.4-93.3%, 11.6-66.4%, and 2.4-33.8% lower than expected, respectively; also i-s was 2.3-7.3 times lower than expected. the model produced d-r values that were similar to population estimates from empirical data, and bias was smaller than 15% in 87.5% of the cases, thus simulation accuracy was deemed acceptable." "the effects of disturbance events on abundance and sex ratios of a terrestrial turtle, terrapene bauri",reptilia; testudines; emydidae; florida box turtle; terrapene bauri; disturbance; longevity; abundance; florida; usa,CHELONIAN CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,DODD CK;HYSLOP NL;OLI MK,"disturbances can affect the structure of ecological communities, and their impacts may have consequences for individual species' population dynamics and long-term persistence. even without catastrophic mortality, survivorship could be reduced following a disturbance, thus leading to population decline. we used a 16-year mark recapture dataset to determine the effects of catastrophic storms and the cutting of nonindigenous vegetation on the survivorship and abundance of a population of long-lived terrestrial turtles (terrapene bauri). our results indicate that these habitat disturbances had little long-term effect on abundance. indeed, the population continued to grow despite severe changes to its habitat, although recapture probabilities decreased through time. tertiary (adult) sex ratios became more highly skewed temporarily but eventually approached their predisturbance levels. in long-lived box turtles, short-term disturbances may alter growth rates and dispersal tendencies, but they appear to have little long-term effect on abundance as long as initial mortality is not severe and food resources remain available." long-term population dynamics of gopher tortoises (gopherus polyphemus) in a pine plantation in northern florida,reptilia; testudines; testudinidae; gopher tortoise; gopherus polyphemus; population dynamics; demography; recapture rate; pine plantation; silviculture,CHELONIAN CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,BERISH JED;KILTIE RA;THOMAS TM,"a study was conducted in 2009 to gather information on long-term gopher tortoise (gopherus polyphemus) population dynamics, burrow distribution, and habitat use at plum creek/lochloosa, a pine (pinus elliottii; pinus palustris) plantation in northern florida. mark recapture surveys were conducted on this study site during the 1980s, and a follow-up survey was done in 1992. the ca. 66-ha study area is a mosaic of moderately well-drained and poorly drained soils, and it has had a history of clear-cutting and replanting. recent management activities included a tree thinning in 2008 and a controlled burn in winter 2009. we located gopher tortoise burrows during late april and early may 2009, and captured tortoises in pitfall or wire traps during may july. fifty-two tortoises were captured on the study site and 4 others in an adjacent pine plantation across a paved rural road. seventeen of the tortoises (33%) had been previously marked, including a male marked as a mature adult in 1982. most (88%) marked individuals were found in the same approximate location (within 200 m) as during earlier surveys, despite the silviculture-related habitat changes over time. only 8% of all marked (n = 211) tortoises were recaptured in 2009. recapture rates were 4% for tortoises marked when immature, 10% for adult males, and 21% for adult females. drill marks held up relatively well in adult tortoises but were difficult to discern in some tortoises marked as juveniles. size and sex class distributions of tortoises captured in 2009 were different from those observed during 1981-1987 and 1992, primarily because fewer juveniles were captured in 2009. this follow-up survey indicated that viable gopher tortoise populations can persist on sites undergoing intensive silviculture, and it further substantiated tortoise use of windrow berms, ecotones, and relatively well-drained soils." estimating wild boar sus scrofa population size using faecal dna and capture-recapture modelling,bayesian estimate; genotyping; individual identification; population density; sample size; sus scrofa; transects; wild boar; wildlife management,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,EBERT C;KNAUER F;SPIELBERGER B;THIELE B;HOHMANN U,"increasing populations of wild boar and feral domestic pigs sus scrofa have evoked growing concern due to their potential as disease reservoir and as an origin of agricultural damages. reliable population estimates are needed for effective management measures of this species. as an alternative to traditional methods, non-invasive genetic population estimation approaches based on hair or faeces sampling have yielded promising results for several species in terms of feasibility and precision. we developed and applied a non-invasive population estimation approach based on wild boar faeces in a study area situated in the palatinate forest, southwestern germany. we collected 515 faeces samples along transects in january 2008. we carried out genotyping using six microsatellite markers to discriminate between individuals. during the trial, we identified 149 individual wild boar. using multimodel inference and model averaging, we obtained relatively consistent estimates. population densities calculated using the estimated population sizes ranged from 4.5 (2.9-7.8) to 5.0 (4.0-7.0) wild boar/km(2). in the future, to further improve the precision of population estimates based on wild boar faeces, the detection probability should be increased. however, even when comparing a conservative population estimate to the hunting bag, our results show that the present hunting regime in our study area is not effective in regulating the wild boar population. the method which we present here offers a tool to calibrate hunting or other management measures for wild boar." -"neighbuor relationships and spacing behaviour of mound-building mouse, mus spicilegus (mammalia: rodentia) in summer",mus spicilegus; dear enemy effect; dyadic encounters; agonistic interactions; mating systems; home ranges,ACTA ZOOLOGICA BULGARICA,SIMEONOVSKA-NIKOLOVA DM,"the neighbour relationships of territorial male and female m. spicilegus were examined in summer in the field in order to clarify their role in spatial behaviouur of individuals in this period. the field research was held in an agricultural field in northern bulgaria. the capture-mark-recapture method was used. neighbour relationships between territorial mound-building mice in the habitat were studied in intraspecific male-male and female-female dyadic encounters. each mouse was tested with at least two others, but captured at a different distance. several indices of spacing behaviouur such as recapture rate, distance of recaptures, spatial associations and home ranges were analysed as well. results indicated that females had higher recapture rate and higher frequency of recaptures than males, but males had longer distance of recaptures. males responded significantly less aggressively to their immediate neighbours than to more distant ones. in contrast with males, females tended to be more aggressive to their immediate neighbours than to more distant ones, and their home ranges were separated. the reasons for the displayed behaviouur of male and female m. spicilegus are discussed." +"neighbuor relationships and spacing behaviour of mound-building mouse, mus spicilegus (mammalia: rodentia) in summer",mus spicilegus; dear enemy effect; dyadic encounters; agonistic interactions; mating systems; home ranges,ACTA ZOOLOGICA BULGARICA,SIMEONOVSKA NIKOLOVA DM,"the neighbour relationships of territorial male and female m. spicilegus were examined in summer in the field in order to clarify their role in spatial behaviouur of individuals in this period. the field research was held in an agricultural field in northern bulgaria. the capture-mark-recapture method was used. neighbour relationships between territorial mound-building mice in the habitat were studied in intraspecific male-male and female-female dyadic encounters. each mouse was tested with at least two others, but captured at a different distance. several indices of spacing behaviouur such as recapture rate, distance of recaptures, spatial associations and home ranges were analysed as well. results indicated that females had higher recapture rate and higher frequency of recaptures than males, but males had longer distance of recaptures. males responded significantly less aggressively to their immediate neighbours than to more distant ones. in contrast with males, females tended to be more aggressive to their immediate neighbours than to more distant ones, and their home ranges were separated. the reasons for the displayed behaviouur of male and female m. spicilegus are discussed." "direct and indirect effects of grazing by introduced mammals on a native, arboreal gecko (naultinus gemmeus)",NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,KNOX CD;CREE A;SEDDON PJ,"we examined relationships between livestock grazing and the activity of introduced rodents and population density of jewelled geckos, naultinus gemmeus (diplodactylidae) on the otago peninsula, south island, new zealand. we expected livestock grazing to prevent the proliferation of rank grass (which is often associated with high rodent densities) and thereby reduce the frequency of predation by rodents on jewelled geckos. thus, we predicted activity of rodents to be lower, and density of jewelled geckos higher, at sites grazed by livestock. we tested this for two habitats: coprosma spp. shrubland and regenerating kanuka (kunzea ericoides) forest. we quantified density of jewelled geckos using visual searches, photography and mark recapture (popan formulation). we used tracking tunnel surveys to estimate the activity of introduced rodents. the activity of rodents (rattles spp. and mus musculus) was significantly higher at ungrazed compared to grazed sites in both habitats. density of jewelled geckos in coprosma was over four times higher at grazed sites and decreased with increasing rodent activity; however, in kanuka, we found a contrasting result with density being significantly higher at the ungrazed sites. we infer that in ungrazed coprosma, rank grasses support high rodent densities and, consequently, high predation of jewelled geckos. thus, grazing by introduced livestock may promote the survival of jewelled geckos and the persistence of high density populations in coprosma shrubland. in contrast, grazing in regenerating kanuka may impact on jewelled geckos negatively, possibly by removing thermal refugia." spatial distribution and habitat utilization of the zebra-tailed lizard (callisaurus draconoides),NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,FROST CL;BERGMANN PJ,"spatial distribution patterns of animals are shaped by their ecology and can give insights into their habitat use and behavioral interactions. most methods used to study spatial distribution, including quadrat sampling, and nearest-neighbor distance analyses have been used primarily with sessile organisms. we used nearest-neighbor distances to look at the spatial distribution of the zebra-tailed lizard (callisaurus draconoides) in the rillito wash in tucson, arizona, and to determine whether these distances gave meaningful results when used with a mobile lizard. we hypothesized that spatial distributions would be random for both sexes but would differ between juveniles and adults because of differences in dominance between these groups. we recorded individuals' locations using a gps and collected data on sex, age group, substrate, distance to nearest vegetation, and percent vegetation cover at each individual's location. males and females were distributed randomly, whereas juveniles were distributed regularly. juveniles were closer to one another than to adults, and females were closer to one another than they were to males, or than males were to one another. juveniles inhabited areas with less vegetation cover than adults, which may represent marginal habitats. all individuals were distributed in a clustered manner. a lack of difference in spatial distribution between males and females may be a result of abundant resources and subordinate, nonreproducing males. the study occurred at the end of the breeding season, which may also have contributed to the lack of difference. we show that nearest-neighbor distance methods can give meaningful results when used with mobile organisms and can complement ecological studies, including more focused mark recapture approaches." unusually high body mass in virginia meadow voles,body growth; life span; mass; meadow vole; microtus pennsylvanicus; virginia,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LONGTIN SB;ROSE RK,"we used monthly capture-mark-recapture information to determine growth rates and life spans for 2 populations of meadow voles studied for 28 and 29 months in eastern virginia in order to learn whether the exceptionally large body masses of some voles were due to rapid growth, long lives, or both. on 1 study grid, 64 males (19%) and 43 nonpregnant females (11%) were >= 70 g, with the largest male being 89 g. mostly positive growth rates (averaging 1.1-3.9 g/month) were recorded, even in autumn and winter months, times when meadow voles are losing mass in northern populations, where most studies of body growth have been conducted. periods of low mean body mass were associated with low population density more than high body mass was associated with high population density. patterns of body mass dynamics were related more to season than to density in our populations. we concluded that the large body masses we observed in some voles were due more to long field lives than to unusually high rates of body growth." simple estimation and test procedures in capture-mark-recapture mixed models,capture-mark-recapture; environmental covariates; glmm; mixed models; population dynamics; random effects,BIOMETRICS,LEBRETON JD;CHOQUET R;GIMENEZ O,"the need to consider in capture-recapture models random effects besides fixed effects such as those of environmental covariates has been widely recognized over the last years. however, formal approaches require involved likelihood integrations, and conceptual and technical difficulties have slowed down the spread of capturerecapture mixed models among biologists. in this article, we evaluate simple procedures to test for the effect of an environmental covariate on parameters such as time-varying survival probabilities in presence of a random effect corresponding to unexplained environmental variation. we show that the usual likelihood ratio test between fixed models is strongly biased, and tends to detect too often a covariate effect. permutation and analysis of deviance tests are shown to behave properly and are recommended. permutation tests are implemented in the latest version of program e-surge. our approach also applies to generalized linear mixed models." "population density and survival estimates of the african viperid, bitis schneideri",bitis schneideri; mark-recapture; namaqua dwarf adder; succulent karoo,HERPETOLOGICA,MARITZ B;ALEXANDER GJ,"although estimates of survival and population density are available for several snake populations, most of these are for populations in northern temperate environments. here we present the results of a 3-yr mark-recapture study for an african species, the namaqua dwarf adder (bias schneideri). we estimated survival, recapture probability, and population density by marking 279 adders (121 males, 108 females, 50 juveniles) on two study sites along the namaqualand coast of south africa. we recaptured 54 individuals (27 males, 23 females, 4 juveniles), yielding absolute recapture rates of 20.4% and 17.9% at each site respectively. the adult sex ratio of our sample did not differ significantly from equality. we fitted eight models that included both individual-dependent and time-dependent covariates to our recapture data, and compared models using akaike information criterion corrected for small samples. the best models included snout-vent length and search effort covariates. mean (+/- sd) estimated monthly apparent survival was low (0.86 +/- 0.11 and 0.86 +/- 0.12), as were mean recapture likelihoods (0.06 +/- 0.04 and 0.06 +/- 0.01). population density estimates were similar for the two sites (7.52 +/- 3.62 ha(-1) and 8.31 +/- 7.38 ha(-1)). juvenile snakes exhibited higher survival than adult females, which, in turn, had higher survival than adult males. juveniles had a lower recapture probability than adult males or females. the likelihood of an individual leaving the study area was 6.8% and 9.4% per month for the larger and smaller sites, respectively. on the basis of our measures of apparent survival and emigration, we estimate annual survival rates of 39% and 56% for the two sites respectively. population characteristics of b. schneideri differ substantially from those of other viperids, highlighting the need for additional population studies of african snakes." ishikawa cause and effect diagrams using capture recapture techniques,capture-recapture analysis; ce diagram construction methodology; ishikawa ce diagrams,QUALITY TECHNOLOGY AND QUANTITATIVE MANAGEMENT,BILSEL RU;LIN DKJ,"when a problem occurs in a system, its causes should be identified for the problem to be fixed. ishikawa cause and effect (ce) diagrams are popular tools to investigate and identify numerous different causes of a problem. a ce diagram can be used as a guideline to allocate resources and make necessary investments to fix the problem. although important decisions are based on ce diagrams, there is a scarcity of analytical methodology that supports the construction of these diagrams. we propose a methodology based on capture-recapture analysis to analytically estimate the causes of a problem and build ce diagrams. an estimate of the number of causes can be used to determine whether the ce study should be terminated or additional iterations are required. it is shown that integration of capture-recapture analysis concepts into ce diagrams enables the users to evaluate the progress of ce sessions." -a multi-event model to study stage-dependent dispersal in radio-collared hares: when hunting promotes costly transience,capture-recapture; dispersal costs; lepus europaeus; predation risk; telemetry,ECOLOGY,AVRIL A;LETTY J;PRADEL R;LEONARD Y;SANTIN-JANIN H;PONTIER D,"behavioral ecologists have often assumed that dispersal is costly mainly because of unfamiliarity with traversed habitats during dispersal and energy costs of the movement per se; thus, dispersers that have successfully settled should experience survival rates comparable to those of philopatric individuals. in this paper, we tested that hypothesis using 152 radio-collared european hares in a harvested population. we developed a multi-event capture-recapture model, combining telemetry data and recoveries and separately modeling the foray probability, the settlement probability, and the permanent dispersal probability. the parameterization introduced here raises the possibility of separately testing effects on survival and dispersal probabilities at each stage of dispersal (departure, transience, and settlement). in accordance with our expectations, we reveal that dispersers incur higher mortality risks during transience and the early settlement period than philopatric individuals or settled dispersers. we also found that dispersers suffer from higher risks of being shot. those results illustrate that unfamiliarity with the habitat during transience makes dispersal costly and that settled dispersers may enjoy survival rates comparable to those of philopatric individuals. surprisingly, we also found that individuals have a higher probability of foraying during the hunting season. we suggest that hunting and related disturbances increase dispersal costs both by increasing mortality risk during transience and (perhaps) by increasing movement rates. we emphasize the need to take human pressures into account as factors that may drive the demographics of movements in populations." +a multi-event model to study stage-dependent dispersal in radio-collared hares: when hunting promotes costly transience,capture-recapture; dispersal costs; lepus europaeus; predation risk; telemetry,ECOLOGY,AVRIL A;LETTY J;PRADEL R;LEONARD Y;SANTIN JANIN H;PONTIER D,"behavioral ecologists have often assumed that dispersal is costly mainly because of unfamiliarity with traversed habitats during dispersal and energy costs of the movement per se; thus, dispersers that have successfully settled should experience survival rates comparable to those of philopatric individuals. in this paper, we tested that hypothesis using 152 radio-collared european hares in a harvested population. we developed a multi-event capture-recapture model, combining telemetry data and recoveries and separately modeling the foray probability, the settlement probability, and the permanent dispersal probability. the parameterization introduced here raises the possibility of separately testing effects on survival and dispersal probabilities at each stage of dispersal (departure, transience, and settlement). in accordance with our expectations, we reveal that dispersers incur higher mortality risks during transience and the early settlement period than philopatric individuals or settled dispersers. we also found that dispersers suffer from higher risks of being shot. those results illustrate that unfamiliarity with the habitat during transience makes dispersal costly and that settled dispersers may enjoy survival rates comparable to those of philopatric individuals. surprisingly, we also found that individuals have a higher probability of foraying during the hunting season. we suggest that hunting and related disturbances increase dispersal costs both by increasing mortality risk during transience and (perhaps) by increasing movement rates. we emphasize the need to take human pressures into account as factors that may drive the demographics of movements in populations." basta: an r package for bayesian estimation of age-specific survival from incomplete mark-recapture/recovery data with covariates,bayesian inference; capture-recapture; capture-recovery; free software; long-term individual-based data sets; r project; survival analysis,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,COLCHERO F;JONES OR;REBKE M,"1. understanding age-specific survival in wild animal populations is crucial to the study of population dynamics and is therefore an essential component of several fields including evolution, management and conservation. 2. we present bayesian survival trajectory analysis (basta), a free open-source software package for estimating age-specific survival from capturerecapture/recovery data under a bayesian framework. 3. the method copes with low recapture probabilities, unknown ages (e.g. because of left-truncation) and unknown ages at death (e.g. because of right-censoring). it estimates survival and detection parameters as well as the unknown birth and death times (i.e. latent states) while allowing users to test a range of survival models. in addition, the effect of continuous or categorical covariates can be evaluated. 4. this tool facilitates the analysis of age patterns of survival in long-term animal studies and will enable researchers to robustly infer the effect of covariates, even with large amounts of missing data." assessing individual heterogeneity using model selection criteria: how many mixture components in capture-recapture models?,capture-recapture; classification; individual heterogeneity; information criteria; mixture models; simulation experiment,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CUBAYNES S;LAVERGNE C;MARBOUTIN E;GIMENEZ O,"1. capturerecapture mixture models are important tools in evolution and ecology to estimate demographic parameters and abundance while accounting for individual heterogeneity. a key step is to select the correct number of mixture components i) to provide unbiased estimates that can be used as reliable proxies of fitness or ingredients in management strategies and ii) classify individuals into biologically meaningful classes. however, there is no consensus method in the statistical literature for selecting the number of components. 2. in ecology, most studies rely on the akaike information criterion (aic) and the bayesian information criterion (bic) that has recently gained attention in ecology. the integrated completed likelihood criterion (icl; ieee transactions on pattern analysis and machine intelligence, 2000, 22, 719) was specifically developed to favour well-separated components, but its use has never been investigated in ecology. 3. we compared the performance of aic, bic and icl for selecting the number of components with regard to a) bias and accuracy of survival and detection estimates and b) success in selecting the true number of components using extensive simulations and data on wolf (canis lupus) that were used for management through survival and abundance estimation. 4. bias in survival and detection estimates was <0.02 for both aic and bic, and more than 0.09 for icl, while mean square error was <0.05 for all criteria. as expected, bias increased as heterogeneity increased. success rates of aic and bic in selecting the true number of components were better than icl (68% for aic, 58% for bic, and 16% for icl). as the degree of heterogeneity increased, aic (and bic in a lesser extent) overestimated the number of components, while icl often underestimated this number. for the wolf study, the 2-class model was selected by bic and icl, while aic could not decide between the 2- and 3-class models. 5. we recommend using aic or bic when the aim is to estimate parameters. regarding classification, we suggest taking the classification quality into account by using icl in conjunction with bic, pending further work to adapt its penalty term for capturerecapture data." estimation of native fish density in lowland streams by repeated electric fishing during the day and following night,electric fishing; native fish; multiple-pass; nocturnal behaviour; negative binomial,NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF MARINE AND FRESHWATER RESEARCH,GRAYNOTH E;BONNETT M;JELLYMAN D,"single reaches in three lowland streams in canterbury, new zealand, were enclosed with stop-nets and fish removed by repeated electric fishing passes through the day and following night during base flow conditions in late summer. the proportion of fish caught in each pass varied between species and increased with fish size. electric fishing efficiency declined in the second and third daytime passes, to 0.73 and 0.79 of the first pass respectively, but increased in the first and second night-time passes to 1.87 and 2.02. population estimates, based on the first two or three daytime passes, accounted for only 62% and 82% of the population estimated using all five day and night passes. a high percentage of small benthic species remained hidden within the substrate during the day but emerged at night and became more vulnerable to electric fishing. single or multiple daytime passes can be used to estimate the approximate density of most native fish species and size classes in small lowland streams and rivers provided calculations take into account fish hidden within the substrate and marginal vegetation." @@ -3543,7 +3549,7 @@ losing a staging area: eastward redistribution of afro-eurasian ruffs is associa "population estimation and site fidelity of the land crab cardisoma guanhumi (decapoda: brachyura: gecarcinidae) on vieques island, puerto rico",cardisoma; land crab; mark recapture; passive integrated transponder; puerto rico; vieques,JOURNAL OF CRUSTACEAN BIOLOGY,FORSEE RA;ALBRECHT M,"overharvesting of the land crab cardisoma guanhumi (latreille, 1828) has occurred in some locations including puerto rico. we placed passive integrated transponder (pit) tags in this crab, c. guanhumi, to estimate a population on the southern coast of vieques island, puerto rico. we were able to recapture marked animals approximately 1 year after tagging. we estimated the population of c. guanhumi on the southern central coast vieques to be approximately 29 000 individuals. the recapture locations of individuals averaged 136 m (se +/- 55.1) from their point of initial capture. this is remarkable because these crabs are reported to move annually inland up to several kilometers for mating. either some c. guanhumi do not move during mating season, or they return to the same location they left. the carapace size of captured c. guanhumi suggests hunting was not greatly pressuring populations at the time of this study. these findings may help natural resource managers implement a conservation plan that will allow sustainable harvest of this population." "evaluation of coded microwire tag retention in juvenile american lobster, homarus americanus",american lobster; coded microwire tags; fisheries management; homarus americanus; mark-recapture; nephropidae; tag loss and retention,JOURNAL OF CRUSTACEAN BIOLOGY,MCMAHAN MD;COWAN DF;SHERWOOD GD;GRABOWSKI JH;CHEN Y,"the reliability of population dynamics and stock assessment models hinges on accurate life-history information. mark-recapture studies represent a commonly used technique to investigate crustacean growth, mortality, and migrations. we evaluated tagging by coded microwire tags for the american lobster, homarus americanus h. milne edwards, 1837, in a controlled study to determine tag retention and any influence on growth increment, intermolt duration, or survival. microwire tags were injected into the propodus of the second right walking leg and two size classes (12-19.6 and 19.7-30 mm carapace length [cl]) were tested by two individual taggers. overall tag retention was 96%. tag retention after first ecdysis was 95% for the 12-19.6 mm cl, and 92.5% for the 19.7-30 mm cl size class. there was no significant difference in tag retention between taggers, growth between tagged and untagged lobsters, or intermolt duration between tagged and untagged lobsters (p > 0.05 for all tests). tag-induced mortality did not occur. these results support the further use of coded microwire tags to explore life-history variables for juvenile lobsters in the wild." one or two cameras per station? monitoring jaguars and other mammals in the amazon,camera-trapping; closed mark-recapture models; population density; panthera onca; relative abundance,ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH,NEGROES N;SOLLMANN R;FONSECA C;JACOMO ATA;REVILLA E;SILVEIRA L,"camera trapping has become a popular technique to monitor carnivore populations due to its usefulness in estimating abundance. nevertheless, there are a number of problems associated with study design which are motivating researchers to search for a compromise that ensures improvement of precision while being cost-effective. we have used data from a capture-recapture study in a forested area in central brazil to evaluate the effectiveness of using one versus two cameras per trapping station for determining jaguar () density and capture rates of several other mammals. the capture rate for the jaguar and other species recorded with only one camera was lower than that with two cameras. the number of jaguars identified using photos from one camera ranged between six and seven animals, but reached ten individuals when two-camera sets were used where pictures of both flanks could be positively individualized. these differences, combined with different estimates of effective sampled area size, resulted in jaguar densities estimates ranging from 2.18 to 5.40 and 3.99 individuals/100 km(2) when one and two cameras were used per station, respectively (using the half-mmdm and heterogeneity model). based on our results, we recommend the use of two cameras per station for jaguar density monitoring to ensure reasonable levels of reliability and accuracy of estimates despite a small sample size." -high turnover rates in remnant populations of the harlequin frog atelopus cruciger (bufonidae): low risk of extinction?,abundance; atelopus; chytridiomycosis; density; disease prevalence; mark-recapture; recruitment; survival; venezuela,BIOTROPICA,LAMPO M;CELSA SJ;RODRIGUEZ-CONTRERAS A;ROJAS-RUNJAIC F;GARCIA CZ,"atelopus is among the most threatened of all amphibian genera. most species of harlequin frogs disappeared more than two decades ago and only a few still exist. from ten critically endangered atelopus species endemic to venezuela, atelopus cruciger is the only one that can be located at present. to assess the status of remnant populations of a. cruciger and to provide the demographic data for designing in situ management programs, we estimated: (1) the population size; (2) the apparent survival; and (3) the recruitment rates of one remnant population using mark-recapture data. the adult population size varied (69117), and this variation was not related to that of abundance indices based on visual counts at the river margins. thus, caution is recommended when using visual counts as an index of abundance in atelopus, because capture rates differ significantly among months and between seasons. despite the observed variations, this population appears to be stable. previous reports suggest that species of atelopus are long-lived. for populations of long-lived species to remain approximately constant, recruitment must be low. our mark-recapture study, however, showed that adults tend to remain in the population for approximately 15 mo, but an average of 165 new frogs are recruited every year. although immigration and emigration are possibilities, the site fidelity and the absence of nearby streams suggests that movement in and out of the study area is less important than births and deaths. under the proposed hypothesis of a short life expectancy/high recruitment, the risk of extinction must be lower than previously thought." +high turnover rates in remnant populations of the harlequin frog atelopus cruciger (bufonidae): low risk of extinction?,abundance; atelopus; chytridiomycosis; density; disease prevalence; mark-recapture; recruitment; survival; venezuela,BIOTROPICA,LAMPO M;CELSA SJ;RODRIGUEZ CONTRERAS A;ROJAS RUNJAIC F;GARCIA CZ,"atelopus is among the most threatened of all amphibian genera. most species of harlequin frogs disappeared more than two decades ago and only a few still exist. from ten critically endangered atelopus species endemic to venezuela, atelopus cruciger is the only one that can be located at present. to assess the status of remnant populations of a. cruciger and to provide the demographic data for designing in situ management programs, we estimated: (1) the population size; (2) the apparent survival; and (3) the recruitment rates of one remnant population using mark-recapture data. the adult population size varied (69117), and this variation was not related to that of abundance indices based on visual counts at the river margins. thus, caution is recommended when using visual counts as an index of abundance in atelopus, because capture rates differ significantly among months and between seasons. despite the observed variations, this population appears to be stable. previous reports suggest that species of atelopus are long-lived. for populations of long-lived species to remain approximately constant, recruitment must be low. our mark-recapture study, however, showed that adults tend to remain in the population for approximately 15 mo, but an average of 165 new frogs are recruited every year. although immigration and emigration are possibilities, the site fidelity and the absence of nearby streams suggests that movement in and out of the study area is less important than births and deaths. under the proposed hypothesis of a short life expectancy/high recruitment, the risk of extinction must be lower than previously thought." longleaf pine management practices and their impact on small mammal populations,capture-mark-recapture (cmr) methods; longleaf pine management; herbicide application; herbicide-fire combination; prescribed fire; survival rate,FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,KARMACHARYA B;HOSTETLER JA;CONNER LM;MORRIS G;OLI MK,"rapid decline and degradation of longleaf pine ecosystems in the southeastern united states are conservation concerns. prescribed fire is the primary management activity in this fire-dependent ecosystem, but prescribed fire is under increasing scrutiny, primarily due to air quality issues. there are concerns that prescribed fire may be removed, or replaced by herbicide, as a forest management tool without adequate understanding of the ecological consequences associated with such a change in management. we conducted a capture-mark-recapture study from april 1999 to april 2002 to examine experimentally the effect of prescribed fire, herbicide application and herbicide-prescribed fire combination on apparent survival rates of cotton mouse (peromyscus gossypinus) and cotton rat (sigmodon hispidus) populations. there was no evidence that herbicide application affected survival of cotton mice. evidence to support effects of prescribed fire and herbicide-fire combination on survival of cotton mice was weak, although apparent monthly survival generally increased after these treatments. there was strong evidence that prescribed fire and herbicide-fire treatments affected survival of cotton rats, but the evidence for the effect of herbicide alone on survival was weak; survival rates declined in response to all three treatments but most strongly in response to the prescribed fire treatment. fire alone had a stronger effect than an herbicide-fire treatment in both species. without clear understanding of their ecological impacts, alternatives to prescribed fire should be employed with caution. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." behavior as biomarker? laboratory versus field movement in round goby (neogobius melanostomus) from highly contaminated habitats,locomotion; activity level; lake ontario; mark-recapture; behavioral ecotoxicology,ECOTOXICOLOGY,MARENTETTE JR;TONG S;WANG G;SOPINKA NM;TAVES MD;KOOPS MA;BALSHINE S,"changes in animal movement (frequency or speed of locomotion) following exposure to a toxicant are frequently considered a biomarker of contaminant exposure and are some of the most widely reported behavioral results in toxicological literature. however, the ecological consequences of such behavioral changes, such as effects on toxicant transfer in foodwebs, are far less well understood, complicated in part by the short-term nature of laboratory experiments and the lack of complementary field studies where the nature of toxicant exposure is more complex. here we examine whether naturally exposed individuals of the round goby, a benthic, site-loyal fish, move in a manner similar to conspecifics from less contaminated habitats. in the laboratory, round goby from a relatively cleaner site showed greater activity and exploration than goby from two highly contaminated sites. male fish were more active than females but the site effects were similar in both sexes. in contrast to laboratory findings, a field mark-recapture study of 881 round goby showed that fish from the cleaner site did not move greater distances or exhibit shorter residence times within the site than round goby from highly contaminated sites. our results indicate that while behavioral changes in the laboratory may be one of several useful diagnostics of toxicant exposure of wild-exposed animals, they do not necessarily translate readily into measurable differences in a natural context. thus, the potential fitness consequences of toxicant exposure based on behavioral changes need to be assessed carefully." colony spatial structure in polydomous ants: complimentary approaches reveal different patterns,colony spatial structure; cornfield ant; immunomarking; lasius neoniger; protein marking; trophallaxis,INSECTES SOCIAUX,BUCZKOWSKI G,"eusocial insects often live in colonies comprised of an extensive network of interconnected nests and estimating colony spatial structure and colony boundaries may be difficult, especially in cryptic, subterranean species. a combination of aggression assays and protein marking was used to estimate nest spatial distribution in field populations of the highly polydomous cornfield ant, lasius neoniger. the estimates were first obtained via 1-on-1 aggression tests for workers collected from different nests within the research plots. the aggression tests were followed by mark-recapture field studies which utilized rabbit igg protein. the ants were allowed to self-mark by feeding on sucrose solution spiked with the igg protein. colony spatial structure was detected by sampling ants from different nests and analyzing them for the presence of the marker using an elisa test. estimates based on aggression tests were substantially higher relative to those based on protein marking. the average colony size based on aggression tests was 2.0 +/- a 0.2 m(2) and was significantly higher than the 1.1 +/- a 0.4 m(2) estimate based on protein marking. the estimate based on protein marking was even lower, 0.2 +/- a 0.1 m(2), when a fluon-coated ring restricted ant feeding to the focal nest and prevented ants from other nests from feeding on the protein-marked sucrose. no significant correlation was detected between internest aggression and internest distance. likewise, no correlation was detected between distance from the focal nest and the percentage of workers testing positive for the protein marker. the results show that both approaches have their own limitations, but their simultaneous use allows for a more accurate assessment of colony spatial structure. the advantages and limitations of each technique are discussed." @@ -3566,16 +3572,16 @@ terns in trouble: demographic consequences of low breeding success and recruitme assessing the effect of satellite transmitters on the demography of the wandering albatross diomedea exulans,adult survival; breeding success; capture-recapture; multistate; satellite transmitters; wandering albatross,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,BARBRAUD C;WEIMERSKIRCH H,"satellite transmitters and other tracking devices are valuable tools for furthering our understanding of bird movements, and their use has been steadily increasing. since the necessary handling of birds to deploy transmitters can have deleterious consequences and the transmitter itself can add substantial mass, particularly to small species, or bring discomfort to the individual birds to which they are attached, it is important to quantify the effect such devices on both the behavior and the fitness of equipped animals. very few studies have focused on the demographic effects of equipping birds with a satellite transmitter, with the vast majority of such studies focusing on short-term behavioral effects. we have assessed the demographic effects of attaching a satellite transmitter to the back of adult breeding wandering albatross individuals using long-term demographic data (20 years) and recent developments in capture-recapture methodology. we found no evidence of any negative effects of the attached devices on the probability of survival, breeding, or breeding successfully in the current or following season in either males or females. we conclude that the current satellite transmitters and smaller devices used by researchers are valuable conservation and research tools that do not adversely affect the demographic traits of large albatrosses. similar tests should be carried out on smaller species, which are more likely to be affected." demography and population ecology of the hadeda ibis (bostrychia hagedash) at its expanding range edge in south africa,capture-mark-resighting; hadeda ibis; matrix population model; range expansion; reproduction; survival,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,DUCKWORTH GD;ALTWEGG R;HAREBOTTLE DM,"a mechanistic understanding of species' geographic range dynamics requires an understanding of the dynamics of populations at the eke of that range. several ibis species are currently expanding their ranges, and the hadeda ibis (bostrychia hagedash) has increased its southern african range more than 2.5 fold over the past century. we studied the demography of a hadeda population near the expanding range edge. estimating survival on a quarterly time interval we found that it was lowest over the first 3 months of life, and then slightly higher over the rest of the 1st year (annual survival: 0.27, se = 0.04). after the first year, survival was constant (0.75, se = 0.09). breeding success increased from 1.5 to 3 fledglings per year with increasing experience of the breeding pair. a matrix population model showed that the growth rate of this population was most sensitive to changes in adult survival and least sensitive to variation in reproduction. hadedas in our study population thus showed characteristics of long-lived birds but were also able to achieve a high reproductive output in good conditions. together with their ability to take advantage of a human modified landscape, this may explain the remarkable success of this species in expanding its range." yellow-eyed penguin (megadyptes antipodes) as a case study to assess the reliability of nest counts,double nest counts; lincoln-petersen estimator; mark-recapture; nest searches; new zealand; population monitoring,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,HEGG D;GIROIR T;ELLENBERG U;SEDDON PJ,"population monitoring of seabirds plays an important role in conservation since it provides the information required to evaluate conservation programmes of endangered species, to guide harvest management and to monitor indicators of marine ecosystem health. annual nest counts are often used for the long-term monitoring of breeding seabird populations. while such counts provide a direct and cost-effective survey method, single nest counts will almost always yield an underestimate of the true number of nests and provide no means of expressing uncertainty. in this study, we used double counts and the lincoln-petersen estimator to assess the reliability of nest counts for the yellow-eyed penguin (megadyptes antipodes) in the south island of new zealand. we estimated the detection rate of single nest counts at 88%, and we calculated that double counts are sufficiently precise to detect changes in the size of the breeding population as small as 3.3% between years. we failed to detect observer bias or any effects of search effort or habitat on the detection rate, the only significant factor being the steepness of the terrain. given the high detection rate and the susceptibility of yellow-eyed penguins to human disturbance, we conclude that the established protocol for single nest counts is adequate for the regular monitoring of the population. we suggest that double counts could be conducted once every 5 years to obtain precise estimates for the purpose of long-term population monitoring. we also highlight the importance of repeating similar studies for a variety of species and habitats." -flooding affects dispersal decisions in piping plovers (charadrius melodus) in prairie canada,charadrius melodus; dispersal; flood; piping plover; shorebird; survival,AUK,ROCHE EA;GRATTO-TREVOR CL;GOOSSEN JP;WHITE CL,"flooding can cause widespread nest failure and chick mortality in sandbar- and beach-nesting waterbirds, particularly when human activity has either altered natural hydrology or limited available nesting habitat. such widespread reproductive failure could increase breeding-season dispersal, leading to the abandonment of established nesting sites. we examined how annual movement (psi) varied by sex, reproductive success, and flooding in three piping plover (charadrius melodus) breeding areas in saskatchewan during 2002-2009, using a multistate capture-mark-recapture model in program mark (n = 782). on average, female piping plovers were twice as likely as males to disperse and both sexes were more likely to disperse following years of poor versus moderate reproductive success (minimum to maximum values: psi(no-fledglings), 0.0054-0.0998 vs. psi(two-fledglings), 0.0017-0.0607). in addition, breeding piping plovers exhibited higher dispersal following flood years, even in years of moderate reproductive success (minimum to maximum values: psi(males-flood), 0.0025-0.0653 vs. psi(males-noflood), 0.0019-0.0399; and psi(females-flood), 0.0092-0.1089 vs. psi(females-no flood), 0.0070-0.0666). consecutive floods could force piping plovers to nest at artificially high densities in new habitats that may be ill-suited to reproductive success. given the benefits of site familiarity to reproductive success and survival, we recommend that conservation planning consider dispersal of breeding adults, in addition to nests and chicks, when water levels are managed at nesting locations used by piping plovers. received 11 september 2011, accepted 15 january 2012." +flooding affects dispersal decisions in piping plovers (charadrius melodus) in prairie canada,charadrius melodus; dispersal; flood; piping plover; shorebird; survival,AUK,ROCHE EA;GRATTO TREVOR CL;GOOSSEN JP;WHITE CL,"flooding can cause widespread nest failure and chick mortality in sandbar- and beach-nesting waterbirds, particularly when human activity has either altered natural hydrology or limited available nesting habitat. such widespread reproductive failure could increase breeding-season dispersal, leading to the abandonment of established nesting sites. we examined how annual movement (psi) varied by sex, reproductive success, and flooding in three piping plover (charadrius melodus) breeding areas in saskatchewan during 2002-2009, using a multistate capture-mark-recapture model in program mark (n = 782). on average, female piping plovers were twice as likely as males to disperse and both sexes were more likely to disperse following years of poor versus moderate reproductive success (minimum to maximum values: psi(no-fledglings), 0.0054-0.0998 vs. psi(two-fledglings), 0.0017-0.0607). in addition, breeding piping plovers exhibited higher dispersal following flood years, even in years of moderate reproductive success (minimum to maximum values: psi(males-flood), 0.0025-0.0653 vs. psi(males-noflood), 0.0019-0.0399; and psi(females-flood), 0.0092-0.1089 vs. psi(females-no flood), 0.0070-0.0666). consecutive floods could force piping plovers to nest at artificially high densities in new habitats that may be ill-suited to reproductive success. given the benefits of site familiarity to reproductive success and survival, we recommend that conservation planning consider dispersal of breeding adults, in addition to nests and chicks, when water levels are managed at nesting locations used by piping plovers. received 11 september 2011, accepted 15 january 2012." estimating parameters of hidden markov models based on marked individuals: use of robust design data,capture-recapture; closed robust design; hidden markov models; manatees; misclassification; mixtures; multi-event; multistate model; stage structure; state uncertainty; trichechus manatus latirostrus,ECOLOGY,KENDALL WL;WHITE GC;HINES JE;LANGTIMM CA;YOSHIZAKI J,"development and use of multistate mark-recapture models, which provide estimates of parameters of markov processes in the face of imperfect detection, have become common over the last 20 years. recently, estimating parameters of hidden markov models, where the state of an individual can be uncertain even when it is detected, has received attention. previous work has shown that ignoring state uncertainty biases estimates of survival and state transition probabilities, thereby reducing the power to detect effects. efforts to adjust for state uncertainty have included special cases and a general framework for a single sample per period of interest. we provide a flexible framework for adjusting for state uncertainty in multistate models, while utilizing multiple sampling occasions per period of interest to increase precision and remove parameter redundancy. these models also produce direct estimates of state structure for each primary period, even for the case where there is just one sampling occasion. we apply our model to expected-value data, and to data from a study of florida manatees, to provide examples of the improvement in precision due to secondary capture occasions. we have also implemented these models in program mark. this general framework could also be used by practitioners to consider constrained models of particular interest, or to model the relationship between within-primary-period parameters (e. g., state structure) and between-primary-period parameters (e.g., state transition probabilities)." -densities of the vulnerable marsh deer blastocerus dichotomus in bolivia's northern savannahs,abundance; aerial survey; amazon; blastocerus dichotomus; bolivia; density; marsh deer,ORYX,RIOS-UZEDA B;MOURAO G,"aerial surveys have been used successfully to estimate vertebrate populations in open habitats. the marsh deer blastocerus dichotomus, categorized as vulnerable on the iucn red list, lives in such habitats and is suitable for aerial counting because it is conspicuous. this species, the largest south american deer, is native to argentina, boliva, brazil, paraguay and peru but no reliable information has previously been available on its populations in bolivia. from may to august 2007 we conducted aerial transects to survey marsh deer in three large areas of savannah. we used a modified mark-recapture method to improve the accuracy of the counts and estimated density and abundance. the corrected, estimated density of the marsh deer was 0.24 km(-2) in the northern la paz department, 0.12 km(-2) in mamore and 0.15 km(-2) in itenez. these densities are similar to the mean density of the species on other south american savannahs. this is the first large-scale survey of the marsh deer in bolivia and the first to provide information about the density of the species in the amazon. we recommend the creation of protected areas in these savannahs, and wildlife and domestic health programmes to conserve the marsh deer of this region." +densities of the vulnerable marsh deer blastocerus dichotomus in bolivia's northern savannahs,abundance; aerial survey; amazon; blastocerus dichotomus; bolivia; density; marsh deer,ORYX,RIOS UZEDA B;MOURAO G,"aerial surveys have been used successfully to estimate vertebrate populations in open habitats. the marsh deer blastocerus dichotomus, categorized as vulnerable on the iucn red list, lives in such habitats and is suitable for aerial counting because it is conspicuous. this species, the largest south american deer, is native to argentina, boliva, brazil, paraguay and peru but no reliable information has previously been available on its populations in bolivia. from may to august 2007 we conducted aerial transects to survey marsh deer in three large areas of savannah. we used a modified mark-recapture method to improve the accuracy of the counts and estimated density and abundance. the corrected, estimated density of the marsh deer was 0.24 km(-2) in the northern la paz department, 0.12 km(-2) in mamore and 0.15 km(-2) in itenez. these densities are similar to the mean density of the species on other south american savannahs. this is the first large-scale survey of the marsh deer in bolivia and the first to provide information about the density of the species in the amazon. we recommend the creation of protected areas in these savannahs, and wildlife and domestic health programmes to conserve the marsh deer of this region." host quality and spatial patterning in infections of the eastern mudsnail (ilyanassa obsoleta) by two trematodes (himasthla quissetensis and zoogonus rubellus),NA,JOURNAL OF PARASITOLOGY,ROSSITER W;SUKHDEO MVK,"several studies have suggested that the fitness of a parasite can be directly impacted by the quality of its host. in such cases, selective pressures could act to funnel parasites towards the highest-quality hosts in a population. the results of this study demonstrate that snail host quality is strongly correlated with spatial patterning in trematode infections and that habitat type is the underlying driver for both of these variables. two trematodes (himasthla quissetensis and zoogonus rubellus) with very different life cycles assume the same spatial infection pattern in populations of the first intermediate host (ilyanassa obsoleta) in coastal marsh habitats. infected snails are disproportionately recovered from intertidal panne habitats, which offer more hospitable environs for snails than do adjacent habitats (intertidal creeks, coastal flats, and subtidal creeks), in terms of protection from turbulence and wave action, as well as the availability of food stuffs. snails in intertidal panne habitats are of higher quality when assessed in terms of average size-specific mass, growth rate, and fecundity. in mark-recapture experiments, snails frequently dispersed into intertidal pannes but were never observed leaving them. in addition, field experiments demonstrate that snails confined to intertidal panne habitats are disproportionately infected by both trematode species, relative to conspecifics confined to adjacent habitats. laboratory experiments show that infected snails suffer significant energetic losses and consume more than uninfected conspecifics, suggesting that infected snails in intertidal pannes may survive better than in adjacent habitats. we speculate that 1 possible mechanism for the observed patterns is that the life cycles of both trematode species allows them to contact the highest-quality snails in this marsh ecosystem." a hybrid symbolic-numerical method for determining model structure,derivative matrix; jacobian matrix; model rank; parameter redundancy; real-analytic function,MATHEMATICAL BIOSCIENCES,CHOQUET R;COLE DJ,"in this article, we present a method for determining whether a model is at least locally identifiable and in the case of non-identifiable models whether any of the parameters are individually at least locally identifiable. this method combines symbolic and numeric methods to create an algorithm that is extremely accurate compared to other numeric methods and computationally inexpensive. a series of generic computational steps are developed to create a method that is ideal for practitioners to use. the algorithm is compared to symbolic methods for two capture-recapture models and a compartment model. (c) 2012 elsevier inc. all rights reserved." classical metapopulation theory as a useful paradigm for the conservation of an endangered amphibian,amphibian; metapopulation; occupancy; extinction; colonisation; connectivity,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,HEARD GW;SCROGGIE MP;MALONE BS,"classical metapopulation theory (cmt) has proven an attractive paradigm for ecologists concerned with the conservation of aquatic-breeding amphibians, given its apparent fit with the population dynamics of these animals, and the opportunities the concept provides to assess alternate management options. nevertheless, several authors have cautioned against uncritical application of this paradigm. we assessed the application of cmt to the conservation of the endangered growling grass frog (litoria raniformis) in the urbanising landscapes of melbourne, victoria, australia. support for five predictions developed from the basic tenets of cmt was assessed using a multi-year occupancy and mark-recapture data-set. there was congruence between all five predictions and data. wetland occupancy was strongly influenced by the proximity of neighbouring populations ('connectivity'), but the estimated rate of dispersal between wetlands was low. wetland occupancy was also temporally dynamic, with only a weak effect of connectivity on the probability of extinction, but a strong positive influence of connectivity on the probability of colonisation. our work confirms that cmt provides a useful model of the dynamics of l. raniformis in urbanising landscapes, and justifies the application of the paradigm to conservation planning for this species. we argue that cmt may prove relevant to numerous aquatic-breeding amphibians, and encourage assessment of the application of cmt to the conservation of these animals. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." contrasting abundance and residency patterns of two sympatric populations of transient killer whales (orcinus orca) in the northern gulf of alaska,NA,FISHERY BULLETIN,MATKIN CO;DURBAN JW;SAULITIS EL;ANDREWS RD;STRALEY JM;MATKIN DR;ELLIS GM,"two sympatric populations of ""transient"" (mammal-eating) killer whales were photo-identified over 27 years (1984-2010) in prince william sound and kenai fjords, coastal waters of the northern gulf of alaska (goa). a total of 88 individuals were identified during 203 encounters with ""at1"" transients (22 individuals) and 91 encounters with ""goa"" transients (66 individuals). the median number of individuals identified annually was similar for both populations (at1=7; goa=8), but mark-recapture estimates showed the at1 whales to have much higher fidelity to the study area, whereas the goa whales had a higher exchange of individuals. apparent survival estimates were generally high for both populations, but there was a significant reduction in the survival of at1 transients after the exxon valdez oil spill in 1989, with an abrupt decline in estimated abundance from a high of 22 in 1989 to a low of seven whales at the end of 2010. there was no detectable decline in goa population abundance or survival over the same period, but abundance ranged from just 6 to 18 whales annually. resighting data from adjacent coastal waters and movement tracks from satellite tags further indicated that the goa whales are part of a larger population with a more extensive range, whereas at1 whales are resident to the study area." -"patterns in composition, abundance and scarring of whale sharks rhincodon typus near holbox island, mexico",mark-recapture models; photo-identification; population structure; tagging; tourist impact,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,RAMIREZ-MACIAS D;MEEKAN M;DE LA PARRA-VENEGAS R;REMOLINA-SUAREZ F;TRIGO-MENDOZA M;VAZQUEZ-JUAREZ R,"photo-identification and conventional tagging were used to estimate population size and structure of the whale shark rhincodon typus near holbox island, mexico. from 2005 to 2008, photographs of spot patterns behind the last gill slit and in a lateral view on the left side of each animal were used to identify individuals. additionally, 578 r. typus were tagged using conventional marker tags. of these and the 350 r. typus that were identified from 1184 photographs, 65% were male; 27%, female and 8%, indeterminate sex. photographed r. typus ranged in size from 2.5 to 9.5 m total length. size was bimodal with a large peak at 6 m and a smaller peak at 7 m. photo-identification showed that there was considerable loss of marker tags. few of these remained on the animals for more than a year, so that interannual re-sights using tagging could not be used in population modelling. forty six interannual re-sightings were found in the photographic library; the interval between these re-sightings was typically 1 year. it was estimated that the r. typus aggregation near holbox island ranged from 521 to 809 individuals, based on markrecapture models. from 13 to 33% of r. typus photographed had scars that were attributable to boat strikes. this study provides a baseline for assessing the status of r. typus near holbox island. this information is useful to understand drivers of local population size and distribution and potential concerns about increasing effects of tourism on r. typus in this area and for designing better management programmes for r. typus conservation." +"patterns in composition, abundance and scarring of whale sharks rhincodon typus near holbox island, mexico",mark-recapture models; photo-identification; population structure; tagging; tourist impact,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,RAMIREZ MACIAS D;MEEKAN M;DE LA PARRA VENEGAS R;REMOLINA SUAREZ F;TRIGO MENDOZA M;VAZQUEZ JUAREZ R,"photo-identification and conventional tagging were used to estimate population size and structure of the whale shark rhincodon typus near holbox island, mexico. from 2005 to 2008, photographs of spot patterns behind the last gill slit and in a lateral view on the left side of each animal were used to identify individuals. additionally, 578 r. typus were tagged using conventional marker tags. of these and the 350 r. typus that were identified from 1184 photographs, 65% were male; 27%, female and 8%, indeterminate sex. photographed r. typus ranged in size from 2.5 to 9.5 m total length. size was bimodal with a large peak at 6 m and a smaller peak at 7 m. photo-identification showed that there was considerable loss of marker tags. few of these remained on the animals for more than a year, so that interannual re-sights using tagging could not be used in population modelling. forty six interannual re-sightings were found in the photographic library; the interval between these re-sightings was typically 1 year. it was estimated that the r. typus aggregation near holbox island ranged from 521 to 809 individuals, based on markrecapture models. from 13 to 33% of r. typus photographed had scars that were attributable to boat strikes. this study provides a baseline for assessing the status of r. typus near holbox island. this information is useful to understand drivers of local population size and distribution and potential concerns about increasing effects of tourism on r. typus in this area and for designing better management programmes for r. typus conservation." first evidence that marine protected areas can work for marine mammals,bayesian; capture-recapture; demographic; dolphin; gillnet; marine protected area; matrix model; survival,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,GORMLEY AM;SLOOTEN E;DAWSON S;BARKER RJ;RAYMENT W;DU FRESNE S;BRAGER S,"1. marine protected areas (mpas) have been advocated for the protection of threatened marine mammals, but there is no empirical evidence that they are effective. in 1988, the banks peninsula marine mammal sanctuary was established to reduce gillnet mortalities of hectors dolphin cephalorhynchus hectori, an endangered dolphin species endemic to new zealand. this study assesses the effectiveness of the mpa in improving the survival rate of hectors dolphin at banks peninsula. 2. over 21 years, we undertook photo-identification surveys of hector's dolphins along standardized transects from small outboard-powered boats. from 1986 to 2006, we photographically captured 462 reliably marked individuals. we estimated mean annual survival during the pre-sanctuary and post-sanctuary periods by applying a bayesian random effects capture-recapture model to the data. population growth was estimated from population simulations using a stage-structured matrix model. 3. we estimate a 90% probability that survival has improved between the pre-sanctuary and postsanctuary periods, with estimates of mean survival probability increasing by 5 4% (from 0 863 to 0 917). this improvement in survival corresponds to a 6% increase in mean annual population growth (from0 939 to 0 995). 4. synthesis and applications. our study demonstrates improvement in a demographic parameter of an endangered marine mammal species following conservation action. our results provide evidence that area-based protection measures can be effective for marine mammals. we note that estimating demographic parameters in marine mammals requires many years of data to achieve sufficient precision to detect biologically meaningful change. mpas should be established with a commitment to long-term monitoring." -exploring causal pathways in demographic parameter variation: path analysis of mark-recapture data,atlantic puffin; bayesian inference; causal modelling; cormack-jolly-seber model; environmental covariates; survival estimation; winbugs,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GIMENEZ O;ANKER-NILSSEN T;GROSBOIS V,"1. inference about demographic parameters of animal and plant natural populations is important to evaluate the consequences of global changes on populations. investigating the factors driving their variation over space and time allows evaluating the relative importance of biotic and abiotic variables in shaping the dynamics of a population. although numerous studies have identified the factors possibly affecting population dynamics, they have barely formally determined the routes by which these different factors are related to demographic parameters. 2. we focus on mark-recapture (mr) models that provide unbiased estimators of demographic parameters, while explicitly coping with imperfect detection inherent to wild populations. mrmodels allow estimating the effect of covariates on demographic parameters and testing their significance in a regression-like framework. however, these models can only detect correlations and do not inform on causal pathways (e. g. direct vs. indirect effects) in the relationships between demographic parameters and the factors possibly explaining their variability. 3. we develop an integrated model to perform path analysis (pa) of mr data, to examine causal relationships among several (including demographic) variables. this approach is implemented in a bayesian framework usingmarkov chain monte carlo. 4. to motivate our developments, we analyse 17 years of mark-recapture data from atlantic puffins (fratercula arctica), to investigate the mechanisms through which environmental conditions have an impact on puffins' adult survival. using our pa-based mr modelling approach, we found that local climatic conditions had an indirect and lagged impact on puffin survival through their influence on local abundance of herring. besides, we found no evidence for any lagged effect through an alternative unknown pathway (e. g. abundance of another resource). 5. our method allows elucidating pathways through which environmental, trophic or densitydependent factors influence demographic parameters, while accounting for detectability < 1. this is a critical step to understand the interactions of a species with its environment and to predict the impacts of global change on its viability." +exploring causal pathways in demographic parameter variation: path analysis of mark-recapture data,atlantic puffin; bayesian inference; causal modelling; cormack-jolly-seber model; environmental covariates; survival estimation; winbugs,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GIMENEZ O;ANKER NILSSEN T;GROSBOIS V,"1. inference about demographic parameters of animal and plant natural populations is important to evaluate the consequences of global changes on populations. investigating the factors driving their variation over space and time allows evaluating the relative importance of biotic and abiotic variables in shaping the dynamics of a population. although numerous studies have identified the factors possibly affecting population dynamics, they have barely formally determined the routes by which these different factors are related to demographic parameters. 2. we focus on mark-recapture (mr) models that provide unbiased estimators of demographic parameters, while explicitly coping with imperfect detection inherent to wild populations. mrmodels allow estimating the effect of covariates on demographic parameters and testing their significance in a regression-like framework. however, these models can only detect correlations and do not inform on causal pathways (e. g. direct vs. indirect effects) in the relationships between demographic parameters and the factors possibly explaining their variability. 3. we develop an integrated model to perform path analysis (pa) of mr data, to examine causal relationships among several (including demographic) variables. this approach is implemented in a bayesian framework usingmarkov chain monte carlo. 4. to motivate our developments, we analyse 17 years of mark-recapture data from atlantic puffins (fratercula arctica), to investigate the mechanisms through which environmental conditions have an impact on puffins' adult survival. using our pa-based mr modelling approach, we found that local climatic conditions had an indirect and lagged impact on puffin survival through their influence on local abundance of herring. besides, we found no evidence for any lagged effect through an alternative unknown pathway (e. g. abundance of another resource). 5. our method allows elucidating pathways through which environmental, trophic or densitydependent factors influence demographic parameters, while accounting for detectability < 1. this is a critical step to understand the interactions of a species with its environment and to predict the impacts of global change on its viability." "historical population structure of white sturgeon in the upper columbia river detected with combined analysis of capture, telemetry and genetics",NA,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ICHTHYOLOGY,NELSON RJ;MCADAM DSO,"a combined analysis of capture/recapture, sonic tracking, and genetics was carried out to examine population structure of white sturgeon of the kootenay and upper columbia rivers. analysis of capture/recapture and sonic telemetry data identified spatial patterns in habitat use, with individuals showing a preference for one of four high-use zones. mitochondrial dna analysis of groups of fish defined by zonal preference and age suggests there is genetic population structure across this region, even between groups frequenting different zones in the contiguous river system. this population structure likely has its origin in patterns of habitat use established prior to the impacts of human development when white sturgeon in the region existed as assemblage of semi-reproductively isolated populations. identification of this historical population structure reveals unrecognized complexity regarding the spatial extent of historic habitat use and breeding structure of white sturgeon in the region, which must be considered in further research and recovery efforts." "deer and elk hunter recruitment, retention, and participation trends in montana",deer; elk; hunters; hunter participation; hunter recruitment; hunter retention; license purchase probability; mark-recapture; montana,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GUDE JA;CUNNINGHAM JA;HERBERT JT;BAUMEISTER T,"big game hunting is the most popular type of hunting in the united states, and deer and elk hunting are the most popular type of hunting in montana. similar to other states, deer and elk hunting also generates most of the revenue spent on wildlife conservation by the state of montana. although nationwide trends indicate a concerning decline in hunter participation, the trends in license sales and hunter participation within most states have not received as much attention. we investigated trends in resident deer and elk license sales in montana using existing licensing databases. we then estimated hunter recruitment, hunter participation, and license purchasing probabilities using hunter education and licensing databases. we employed a multi-state markrecapture model and 248,819 records of deer and elk license purchasing habits for individual montana residents during 20022007. we used matrix population models to examine the relative influence of these parameters on trends in license sales and hunter participation. resident deer and elk license sales increased 4% in montana during 20022007. we found that males had greater recruitment rates, retention rates, and license purchasing probabilities than females, and that young adults had lesser license purchasing probabilities than other age classes. based on analyses of matrix population models, trends in license sales in montana are most influenced by middle-aged and baby boomer male license purchase probabilities. trends in hunter participation are positively influenced by recruitment and retention in all male age classes, with the smallest predicted effects arising from recruitment of young adult males. our results suggest that a focus on older age class males with programs designed to increase hunter recruitment, retention, and license purchase probabilities may have similar or larger effects on trends in license sales and hunter participation in montana than programs directed at youth. our analyses also provide a framework by which trends in hunter recruitment, retention, and license purchasing habits can be objectively quantified in order to inform and evaluate hunter recruitment, retention, and license purchase habit programs. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." trends in volume migration chronology in spring staging pacific black brant,brant; branta bernicla nigricans; british columbia; capture-mark-recapture; length of stay; migration; spring staging; volume estimates,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SMITH BD;HAGMEIER KR;BOYD WS;DAWE NK;MARTIN TD;MONTY GL,"we used a robust dataset of count and mark-resighting data for pacific black brant from 19892004, and a novel mark-recapture model capable of analyzing such data, to calculate the annual variability and timing of brant as they migrated through the parksvillequalicum beach area, a traditional spring staging site in coastal british columbia, canada. our analysis indicated that the date of departure from this site to northern breeding sites advanced between 10 and 20 days over this period because of a combination of earlier arrival and shorter residence times. given this change in migration behavior, and the potential implications for population dynamics, we recommend that targeted research on brant wintering, migration, and reproductive strategies should be examined within a greater pacific-wide context. in this way, the consequences of proximate factors (e.g., disturbance, food, and climate) can be understood in terms of individual fitness and population dynamics. finally, at the local level, conservation actions are needed to ensure the long term sustainability of parksvillequalicum beach as an important spring staging site for pacific black brant. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." @@ -3598,7 +3604,7 @@ estimating animal abundance in ground beef batches assayed with molecular marker "site fidelity and movement patterns of invasive lionfish, pterois spp., in a florida estuary",fish; growth; home range; invasive species; movement; tagging,JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY,JUD ZR;LAYMAN CA,"understanding how individuals within a population of invasive organisms disperse during various life history stages has obvious implications for long term population dynamics in the invaded range. with the rapid expansion of the invasive indo-pacific lionfish (pterois volitans and pterois miles) in the western atlantic and caribbean, it has become increasingly important to understand how individuals move following initial recruitment, as this may have critical implications for population control and management we conducted a 10-month mark-recapture study in the lower loxahatchee river estuary (florida, usa) to identify movement patterns and site fidelity in juvenile and young adult lionfish. we tagged 55 lionfish, ranging in size from 45 to 185 mm standard length (66-256 mm total length). eighty percent of the tagged fish were recaptured at least one time during the course of the study. lionfish in this system exhibited extremely high site fidelity over extended periods of time and across multiple size classes. maximum range occupied by individuals along the shoreline of the estuary was small (mean = 28 m, asymmetrical 95% ci: 10 to 51 m), and did not vary with lionfish size. the majority of lionfish recaptures (74%) occurred at or near (0-10 m) the previous capture site, even after weeks or months at liberty. in systems where lionfish exhibit extremely high site fidelity and small maximum ranges, localized population control may be feasible, since lionfish removed from a given habitat would be replaced largely through larval recruitment rather than migration of older individuals. however, since lionfish grow extremely rapidly (averaging 0.46 mm/day, but reaching as high as 0.78 mm/day in one individual), localized control efforts would need to be carried out frequently in order to maintain a younger, smaller population. localized control may be less effective if lionfish exhibit greater movement and lower site fidelity in other invaded systems. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." the reporting completeness of a passive safety surveillance system for pandemic (h1n1) 2009 vaccines: a capture-recapture analysis,pandemic influenza vaccine; vaccine safety; postmarketing surveillance; spontaneous reporting; taiwan,VACCINE,HUANG WT;HUANG WI;HUANG YW;HSU CW;CHUANG JH,"adverse events following pandemic (h1n1) 2009 vaccines (""2009 h1n1 vaccines"") in taiwan were passively reported to the national adverse drug reaction reporting system. to evaluate the completeness of spontaneous reporting, cases of death, guillain-barre syndrome (gbs), convulsion, bell's palsy, and idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (itp) after 2009 h1n1 vaccination that occurred between november 1, 2009 and august 31, 2010 were selected from the national adverse drug reaction reporting system (nadrrs) database and an additionally constructed nationwide large-linked database (lldb), and matched on a unique personal identifier, date of vaccination (within +/- 7 days), and date of diagnosis (within +/- 7 days). overall, matches occurred between the two data sources included 21 for death, 5 for gbs, 19 for convulsion, 22 for bell's palsy, and 5 for itp. the chapman capture-recapture estimated spontaneous reporting completeness within 0-42 days of vaccination was 4% for death, 71% for gbs, 3% for convulsion, 9% for bell's palsy, and 15% for itp. for the interval >= 43 days after vaccination, reporting completeness was 0.1% for death, 14% for gbs, 0.1% for convulsion, <0.1% for bell's palsy, and 0% for itp. the estimated-to-expected ratio for bell's palsy in the interval 0-42 days after vaccination was 1.48 (95% ci 1.11-1.98). reporting completeness was higher for gbs than other adverse events after 2009 h1n1 vaccination. linking the nadrrs to existing data sources in a capture-recapture analysis can be considered as an alternative to enhance taiwan's postlicensure safety assessment of other routine vaccines. nevertheless, the possibility of an increased risk for bell's palsy detected by capture-recapture analyses needs further evaluation by controlled studies. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." truncated levy walks are expected beyond the scale of data collection when correlated random walks embody observed movement patterns,correlated random walks; levy walks; maximum entropy; non-oriented animal movement patterns; landscape and behavioural heterogeneity,JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY INTERFACE,REYNOLDS AM,"translating observations taken at small spatio-temporal scales into expected patterns at greater scales is a major challenge in spatial ecology because there is typically insufficient relevant information. here, it is shown that truncated levy walks are the most conservative, maximally non-committal description of movement patterns beyond the scale of data collection when correlated random walks characterize observed movements and when there is partial information about landscape and behavioural heterogeneity. this provides a new conceptual basis for levy walks that is divorced from optimal searching theory and free from the difficulties with discerning their presence in empirical data." -modeling trap-awareness and related phenomena in capture-recapture studies,NA,PLOS ONE,PRADEL R;SANZ-AGUILAR A,"trap-awareness and related phenomena whereby successive capture events are not independent is a feature of the majority of capture-recapture studies. this phenomenon was up to now difficult to incorporate in open population models and most authors have chosen to neglect it although this may have damaging consequences. focusing on the situation where animals exhibit a trap response at the occasion immediately following one where they have been trapped but revert to their original naive state if they are missed once, we show that trap-dependence is more naturally viewed as a state transition and is amenable to the current models of capture-recapture. this approach has the potential to accommodate lasting or progressively waning trap effects." +modeling trap-awareness and related phenomena in capture-recapture studies,NA,PLOS ONE,PRADEL R;SANZ AGUILAR A,"trap-awareness and related phenomena whereby successive capture events are not independent is a feature of the majority of capture-recapture studies. this phenomenon was up to now difficult to incorporate in open population models and most authors have chosen to neglect it although this may have damaging consequences. focusing on the situation where animals exhibit a trap response at the occasion immediately following one where they have been trapped but revert to their original naive state if they are missed once, we show that trap-dependence is more naturally viewed as a state transition and is amenable to the current models of capture-recapture. this approach has the potential to accommodate lasting or progressively waning trap effects." "fidelity to nesting sites and orientation of trachemys dorbigni (dumeril & bibron, 1835) (testudines: emydidae) female in southern brazil",fidelity; movements; nesting site; orientation; emydidae,TROPICAL ZOOLOGY,BAGER A;KRAUSE L;DE FREITAS TRO,"orientation and fidelity to nesting areas were analyzed in a population of orbigny's slider turtle, trachemys dorbigni (dumeril & bibron, 1835), in southern brazil. monitoring was carried out over a 5-year period using the mark-recapture technique for females moving overland during the nesting season. the positions of 90 females were analyzed. we also tested the capacity to return to the nesting site after the female was translocated to another point. the overall mean distance between two consecutive captures for females that had not been translocated to the release point was 545.0 m, whereas for females that were translocated the mean distance was 523.8 m. translocated females showed a high capacity to return to the nesting site, but 2 years were necessary." modelling the effect of fishing on southern buller's albatross using a 60-year dataset,seabird-fishery interactions; seabird population modelling; southern buller's albatross; thalassarche bulleri bulleri; new zealand,NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,FRANCIS RIC;SAGAR PM,"many albatross populations are declining and a major cause is believed to be incidental mortality from fishing. we investigated the effect of fishing on southern buller's albatross thalassarche bulleri bulleri, using a new approach to seabird population modelling that allows estimation of demographic parameters from multiple data types. three types of data were used: a 60-year set of mark recapture observations, four censuses of the breeding population, and estimates of fishing effort and bycatch. the fisheries risk to the viability of this population over the last 60 years appears to have been small, since the adult population is estimated to have increased about fivefold over that time. there is some cause for concern in recent changes (population growth has slowed, and perhaps reversed, and adult survival rates are falling). the most common age at first breeding was 12 years, and about 80% of adults breed each year. annual survival was estimated to be 0.91 for juveniles, and varied between this value and 1 for adults. though this population is not in immediate danger from fishing, there is a need for continued monitoring to see whether the recent fall in survival rates persists and causes a decline in abundance. our analysis showed that when, as is common, mark-recapture data do not provide good estimates of all demographic rates, the assessment of seabird population trends can be improved by the use of other types of data, particularly abundance." motorways and bird traffic casualties: carcasses surveys and scavenging bias,bird mortality; carcass persistence; survey biases; scavengers activity; motorways,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,GUINARD E;JULLIARD R;BARBRAUD C,"most survey methods developed to estimate abundance of killed animals on motorways may be biased due to the unequal detectability of carcasses, their persistence time on the lanes, and scavengers activities. unbiased surveys are needed to evaluate the relationships between bird casualties (mortality), motorways characteristics, and the neighbouring avifauna. the present study conducted on four motorways in france, aimed to evaluate factors affecting persistence and encounter probabilities and variations in scavenging activity to obtain unbiased estimates of bird traffic casualties. each motorway was surveyed once per season during multiple years and we used capture-recapture methods to estimate detection and carcass persistence rates. results showed that surveys by car were as efficient as surveys by foot in detecting carcasses on the pavement, but less efficient for carcasses on verges. passeriformes represented the most numerous casualties, and the barn owl (tyto alba) was the most frequently killed species. encounter probabilities were constant and high (0.957 +/- 0.007). average daily persistence probability was 0.976 +/- 0.003. persistence probabilities were higher for large and old carcasses, during summer, and differed between seasons, but were relatively similar between years. scavenging activities, estimated using experimental carcasses disposed on the safe lanes of motorways, varied between years, seasons, and differed between diurnal and nocturnal periods. a peak in scavenging activity occurred during diurnal periods in spring. results suggest that surveys must take into account carcass characteristics and seasonal variability to obtain unbiased estimates of road killed birds on motorways, as well as variation in scavenging rates. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." @@ -3609,7 +3615,7 @@ capture-recapture sampling and indirect sampling,petersen estimator; generalised variation in songbird migratory behavior offers clues about adaptability to environmental change,climate; departure; mark-recapture; passerine; stopover,OECOLOGIA,CALVERT AM;MACKENZIE SA;FLEMMING JM;TAYLOR PD;WALDE SJ,"for seasonally migrating birds, aspects of migratory behavior, such as the use of temperate versus tropical wintering areas, may influence their ability to respond to environmental change. here, we infer potential flexibility in songbird migration from variation in two alternative stopover behaviors. hierarchical bayesian mark-recapture modeling was used to quantify stopover decisions over 19 years for four temperate and four tropical migratory species at a stopover site in southern canada. short-distance temperate migrants exhibited higher variability in behavior and greater responses to local weather than longer-distance tropical migrants, as measured by transience (the proportion of birds stopping < 24 h, i.e. seeking brief sanctuary or subsequently relocating) and departure (re-initiation of migration by birds that stopped over for > 24 h). in contrast to many previous works on climate-migration associations, annual variation in stopover behavior did not show strong links to broad-scale climatic fluctuations for either temperate or tropical migrants, nor was there any indication of directional changes in stopover behavior over the past two decades. in addition to suggesting that migratory songbirds-particularly tropical-wintering species-may face increasing threats with future climatic variability, our study highlights the potential importance of flexibility in en-route behavior for resilience to environmental change." "growth of the purple dye murex, bolinus brandaris (gastropoda: muricidae), marked and released in a semi-intensive fish culture earthen pond",purple dye murex; bolinus brandaris; gastropoda; muricidae; mark-recapture; growth rate,SCIENTIA MARINA,VASCONCELOS P;PEREIRA AM;CONSTANTINO R;BARROSO CM;GASPAR MB,"the present study reports the growth rate of the purple dye murex, bolinus brandaris (gastropoda: muricidae), estimated from mark-recapture experiments. a total of 1067 specimens (shell length = 43.4+/-8.1 mm, range = 14.6-78.4 mm) were marked with dymo (r) tape tags and released in a semi-intensive fish culture earthen pond. after a period at liberty ranging from almost two months to around two years, 288 individuals were recaptured (shell length = 67.4+/-6.2 mm, range = 45.3-88.6 mm), which corresponded to a recapture rate of 27.0%. at recapture, only one specimen had lost the tag (tag loss rate <0.1%) and all remaining tags were intact and legible. mean monthly growth rates were 0.9+/-1.0 mm in shell length, 0.4+/-0.5 mm in shell width and 0.7+/-0.7 g in total weight. growth rates showed high inter-individual variability and an evident decreasing trend with specimen size. comparison of growth rates with similar information available for other muricids confirmed that b. brandaris is a relatively slow-growing species. this provides valuable information for both fisheries management and for assessing the potential of b. brandaris as a candidate species for molluscan aquaculture." "estimating demographics of the nile crocodile (crocodylus niloticus laurenti) in the panhandle region of the okavango delta, botswana",nile crocodile; okavango delta; population ecology,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,BOURQUIN SL;LESLIE AJ,"the population status of the nile crocodile (crocodylus niloticus laurenti) in the panhandle region of the okavango delta, botswana, was assessed using markrecapture and spotlight survey techniques following a decline because of commercial utilization. a total of 1717 individuals, ranging from 136 to 2780 mm in snout vent length, were captured over a 4-year period. eighty-one per cent of young juveniles encountered were successfully captured, representing 59.3% of total captures and 75% of recaptures. a bayesian technique was used to estimate the number of young juveniles, and these estimates were then extrapolated for the other size classes. survival and recapture analyses highlighted individual size-dependent increases in wariness and survival. the total annual population was estimated to be 2570 +/- 151.06 individuals, with an adult population of 649.2 individuals, including 364 females. we suggest that the harvest of breeding animals for commercial purposes should be halted until population recovery in this region is established." -"multiple sclerosis prevalence in malaga, southern spain estimated by the capture-recapture method",capture-recapture method; epidemiology; multiple sclerosis; prevalence; spain,MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS JOURNAL,FERNANDEZ O;FERNANDEZ V;GUERRERO M;LEON A;LOPEZ-MADRONA JC;ALONSO A;BUSTAMANTE R;TAMAYO JA;ROMERO F;BRAVO M;LUQUE G;GARCIA L;SANCHIS G;ROMAN CS;ROMERO M;PAPAIS-ALVARENGA M;DE RAMON E,"background: although not definitively proven, there is commonly accepted to be a latitudinal gradient in the distribution of multiple sclerosis (ms), which is more frequent in temperate zones. the european mediterranean countries are situated in a zone of median frequency, although ever increasing figures have been noted in the last decades. objective: the objective of this study was to assess the current prevalence rate of ms in the province of malaga, southern spain. methods: the capture-recapture method (crm) uses independent sources of data and permits the number of non-registered cases of a given disease to be estimated, and by doing so, to avoid ascertainment bias. results: use of this method showed the estimated prevalence rate of ms in the province of malaga, southern spain, to be 125/10(5) (95% confidence interval: 102/10(5)-169/10(5)), higher than the figures published previously. conclusions: although we recognize that these data need to be confirmed in further studies and in other areas of the country using a similar method, we believe this study is the first to find such high figure of prevalence, being very similar to the figures reported in recent years in other southern european countries." +"multiple sclerosis prevalence in malaga, southern spain estimated by the capture-recapture method",capture-recapture method; epidemiology; multiple sclerosis; prevalence; spain,MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS JOURNAL,FERNANDEZ O;FERNANDEZ V;GUERRERO M;LEON A;LOPEZ MADRONA JC;ALONSO A;BUSTAMANTE R;TAMAYO JA;ROMERO F;BRAVO M;LUQUE G;GARCIA L;SANCHIS G;ROMAN CS;ROMERO M;PAPAIS ALVARENGA M;DE RAMON E,"background: although not definitively proven, there is commonly accepted to be a latitudinal gradient in the distribution of multiple sclerosis (ms), which is more frequent in temperate zones. the european mediterranean countries are situated in a zone of median frequency, although ever increasing figures have been noted in the last decades. objective: the objective of this study was to assess the current prevalence rate of ms in the province of malaga, southern spain. methods: the capture-recapture method (crm) uses independent sources of data and permits the number of non-registered cases of a given disease to be estimated, and by doing so, to avoid ascertainment bias. results: use of this method showed the estimated prevalence rate of ms in the province of malaga, southern spain, to be 125/10(5) (95% confidence interval: 102/10(5)-169/10(5)), higher than the figures published previously. conclusions: although we recognize that these data need to be confirmed in further studies and in other areas of the country using a similar method, we believe this study is the first to find such high figure of prevalence, being very similar to the figures reported in recent years in other southern european countries." fitting a structured juvenile-adult model for green tree frogs to population estimates from capture-mark-recapture field data,capture-mark-recapture method; juvenile-adult model; age and size structure; parameter estimation; finite difference approximation; least-squares approach,BULLETIN OF MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY,ACKLEH AS;CARTER J;DENG K;HUANG QH;PAL N;YANG X,"we derive point and interval estimates for an urban population of green tree frogs (hyla cinerea) from capture-mark-recapture field data obtained during the years 2006-2009. we present an infinite-dimensional least-squares approach which compares a mathematical population model to the statistical population estimates obtained from the field data. the model is composed of nonlinear first-order hyperbolic equations describing the dynamics of the amphibian population where individuals are divided into juveniles (tadpoles) and adults (frogs). to solve the least-squares problem, an explicit finite difference approximation is developed. convergence results for the computed parameters are presented. parameter estimates for the vital rates of juveniles and adults are obtained, and standard deviations for these estimates are computed. numerical results for the model sensitivity with respect to these parameters are given. finally, the above-mentioned parameter estimates are used to illustrate the long-time behavior of the population under investigation." population dynamics and reproduction of wild longsnout seahorse hippocampus reidi,american longsnout seahorse; reproduction; growth; mark-recapture; syngnathidae; first maturity; life span and survival,JOURNAL OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM,MAI ACG;VELASCO G,"life-history characteristics such as growth, mortality, and size at sexual maturity of the seahorse hippocampus reidi were investigated in situ in north-eastern brazil from august 2006 to july 2007. the von bertalanffy growth constant k was estimated at 1.195 year(-1) and l-infinity was set as 20 cm according to taylor's relationship, using a l-max of 19 cm. the smallest male with a brood pouch and the smallest male with a fully mature pouch measured 9 and 9.5 cm (height), respectively, while the smallest mature female measured 8.8 cm. appropriate reproductive individuals were recorded throughout the study, with peaks from may to november. the size of first effective reproduction (carrying embryos) was 12.4 cm for males, a value higher than previously reported. estimated instantaneous rate of natural mortality ranged from 1.43 to 1.58 year(-1). the estimated life span for the species was 30 months." "marked, biased, filter (mbf): use of digital x-radiography and mark-recapture to partition seed lots based on sampled individual seed quality attributes","conifer seed; seed grading; seed separation; seed quality; forest nursery; mark-recapture; finite mixture models; sampling theory; x-ray; marked seed; marked, biased, filter",NEW FORESTS,KEEFE RF;DAVIS AS,"we report results of preliminary evaluations of marked, biased, filter (mbf), a method for both estimating and improving the effectiveness of separating conifer seeds. mbf integrates elements of x-radiographic seed quality assessment and mark-recapture methods from wildlife population sampling. given a sample drawn from a population, individual seeds with attributes targeted for separation are labelled with a mark which biases the subsequent removal probability of other, non-marked seeds in the lot during grading and processing, after returning the sample to the population. bias in the marking filter, in the form of extra mass or density added to seeds, minimizes the likelihood that uncertainty due to sampling error in the prior estimate will result in empty seeds remaining in the population during processing. in two experiments, a ponderosa pine seed lot was partitioned into empty and filled fractions with an air column separator. powder dye talc was used for marking in the first trial, with low bias (< 1%) and a small sample size (n = 150) with dry (2% moisture content) and soaked (26% moisture content) seed lots. a second trial conducted with two coats of spray paint used for marking and a larger sample size (n = 400) resulted in removal of 100% of non-filled seeds in the population. a simulation was conducted to evaluate sample statistics upon which to base the value of threshold bias, tau, below which seeds in an x-rayed sample should be marked to achieve consistent separation. estimating the marking threshold based on quantiles of filled seeds most consistently resulted in removal of the non-filled fraction. mbf is a useful method for statistically linking one or more individual seed quality attributes extracted from x-ray image analysis with population-level processing of seed lots." @@ -3647,23 +3653,23 @@ spatial modeling of survival and residency and application to the monitoring avi an improved procedure to estimate wolf abundance using non-invasive genetic sampling and capture-recapture mixture models,canis lupus; capture-recapture analyses; individual detection heterogeneity; multilocus genotypes; non-invasive genetics; population size estimation,CONSERVATION GENETICS,CANIGLIA R;FABBRI E;CUBAYNES S;GIMENEZ O;LEBRETON JD;RANDI E,"non-invasive genetic sampling (ngs) is increasingly used to estimate the abundance of rare or elusive species such as the wolf (canis lupus), which cannot be directly counted in forested mountain habitats. wolf individual and familial home ranges are wide, potentially connected by long-range dispersers, and their populations are intrinsically open. appropriate demographic estimators are needed, because the assumptions of homogeneous detection probability and demographic closeness are violated. we compiled the capture-recapture record of 418 individual wolf genotypes identified from ca. 4,900 non-invasive samples, collected in the northern italian apennines from january 2002 to june 2009. we analysed this dataset using novel capture-recapture multi-event models for open populations that explicitly account for individual detection heterogeneity (idh). overall, the detection probability of the weakly detectable individuals, probably pups, juveniles and migrants (p = 0.08), was ca. six times lower than that of the highly detectable wolves (p = 0.44), probably adults and dominants. the apparent annual survival rate of weakly detectable individuals was lower (phi = 0.66) than those of highly detectable wolves (phi = 0.75). the population mean annual finite rate of increase was lambda = 1.05 +/- 0.11, and the mean annual size ranged from n = 117 wolves in 2003 to n = 233 wolves in 2007. this procedure, combining large-scale ngs and multievent idh demographic models, provides the first estimates of abundance, multi-annual trend and survival rates for an open large wolf population in the apennines. these results contribute to deepen our understanding of wolf population ecology and dynamics, and provide new information to implement sound long-term conservation plans." demographic aspects of the island syndrome in two afrotropical mastomys rodent species,abundance; density; seniority; small mammals; survival; west africa,ACTA OECOLOGICA-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,CRESPIN L;DUPLANTIER JM;GRANJON L,"the island syndrome is the name given to the particularities of the behavioural, morphological and demographical characteristics of island populations. as concerns demography, the island syndrome model states that densities and survival are greater in island than in mainland populations. most previous studies aimed at confirming this prediction for small mammals have addressed species from the north temperate zone. here, we tested the demographic expectations of the island syndrome using data gathered over two years for island and mainland populations of two african rodent species, mastomys erytholeucus and mastomys huberti, at two different sites in senegal. capture-mark-recapture methods allowing for variation in catchability of the individuals were used to yield estimates of both abundance (or density) and probability of survival and seniority (which is a demographic parameter inversely related to recruitment). as predicted from the island syndrome, survival and densities were indeed higher in island populations for the two study sites; however, only for the population with stronger island syndrome was the difference in survival biologically important. estimates of the probability of seniority were similar for island and mainland populations at the two sites. our findings provide support for the demographic expectations of the model of island syndrome in an afrotropical context and thus confirm the general applicability of this syndrome while revealing differences according to particular insular situations. (c) 2012 published by elsevier masson sas." testing hypotheses in evolutionary ecology with imperfect detection: capture-recapture structural equation modeling,capture-recapture models; evolutionary ecology; individual heterogeneity; life history trade-offs; selection gradient analyses; state-space models; structural equation models,ECOLOGY,CUBAYNES S;DOUTRELANT C;GREGOIRE A;PERRET P;FAIVRE B;GIMENEZ O,"studying evolutionary mechanisms in natural populations often requires testing multifactorial scenarios of causality involving direct and indirect relationships among individual and environmental variables. it is also essential to account for the imperfect detection of individuals to provide unbiased demographic parameter estimates. to cope with these issues, we developed a new approach combining structural equation models with capture-recapture models (cr-sem) that allows the investigation of competing hypotheses about individual and environmental variability observed in demographic parameters. we employ markov chain monte carlo sampling in a bayesian framework to (1) estimate model parameters, (2) implement a model selection procedure to evaluate competing hypotheses about causal mechanisms, and (3) assess the fit of models to data using posterior predictive checks. we illustrate the value of our approach using two case studies on wild bird populations. we first show that cr-sem can be useful to quantify the action of selection on a set of phenotypic traits with an analysis of selection gradients on morphological traits in common blackbirds (turdus merula). in a second case study on blue tits (cyanistes caeruleus), we illustrate the use of cr-sem to study evolutionary trade-offs in the wild, while accounting for varying environmental conditions." -the oak browsing index correlates linearly with roe deer density: a new indicator for deer management?,browsing; capreolus capreolus; capture-mark-recapture; forestry; monitoring; natural regeneration; oak regeneration; quercus petraea; quercus robur,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,CHEVRIER T;SAID S;WIDMER O;HAMARD JP;SAINT-ANDRIEUX C;GAILLARD JM,"increasing populations of large herbivores during the last decades have had a major impact on vegetation. while several studies have looked for quantifying this impact in terms of plant biomass, plant survival or financial costs, the potential benefit of using the response of the vegetation to changes in browsing pressure by large herbivores to monitor their populations has been poorly investigated. as getting accurate estimates of density in populations of large herbivores is problematic, the use of indicators measuring the intensity of browsing might offer reliable alternative to managers. from the intensive monitoring of a roe deer population subject to an experimental manipulation of density, we looked for assessing the response of oak to changes of roe deer population size. using a simple browsing index calculated from field data over 10 years, we found that this oak browsing index linearly increased with increasing population size of roe deer. this suggests that such an oak browsing index might be a reliable ""indicator of ecological change"" for monitoring roe deer populations in oak forests with natural regeneration." +the oak browsing index correlates linearly with roe deer density: a new indicator for deer management?,browsing; capreolus capreolus; capture-mark-recapture; forestry; monitoring; natural regeneration; oak regeneration; quercus petraea; quercus robur,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,CHEVRIER T;SAID S;WIDMER O;HAMARD JP;SAINT ANDRIEUX C;GAILLARD JM,"increasing populations of large herbivores during the last decades have had a major impact on vegetation. while several studies have looked for quantifying this impact in terms of plant biomass, plant survival or financial costs, the potential benefit of using the response of the vegetation to changes in browsing pressure by large herbivores to monitor their populations has been poorly investigated. as getting accurate estimates of density in populations of large herbivores is problematic, the use of indicators measuring the intensity of browsing might offer reliable alternative to managers. from the intensive monitoring of a roe deer population subject to an experimental manipulation of density, we looked for assessing the response of oak to changes of roe deer population size. using a simple browsing index calculated from field data over 10 years, we found that this oak browsing index linearly increased with increasing population size of roe deer. this suggests that such an oak browsing index might be a reliable ""indicator of ecological change"" for monitoring roe deer populations in oak forests with natural regeneration." epidemiological study of type 1 diabetes in children under 15 years-old in castilla-la mancha (spain),incidence; prevalence; type 1 diabetes mellitus; castilla-la mancha; children,ANALES DE PEDIATRIA,MUINA PG;HERRERA MJB;ATANCE EP;DONADO JJA;SANCHEZ G;FERRER LS,"introduction: we studied the incidence and prevalence of type 1 diabetes in children under 15 years-old in castilla-la mancha. patients and methods: incidence: all new cases in a 12 months period (2007-2008) were included. to calculate the completeness of ascertainment we used the capture-recapture method. the result is expressed in cases/100,000 inhabitants under 15 years old/year. prevalence: all children under 15 years diagnosed with diabetes on 31st of may of 2008 were registered. results are expressed as cases/1000 inhabitants under 15 years old. results: the incidence in the castilla-la mancha was 27.6/100,000/year, but there was a wide variability among the different provinces: ciudad real (34.15), albacete (28.19), toledo (26.57), guadalajara (20.3) and cuenca (17.6). the prevalence was 1.44/1000 children under 15 years old and 0.21/1000 for the whole population. by provinces: ciudad real (1.67), albacete (1.64), toledo (1.42), cuenca (1.02) and guadalajara (1.01). by sex and age, we found a higher incidence (13/7) and prevalence (22/7) in males under 5 years old. the age group with highest incidence was the 4-9 year-olds, and the highest prevalence was in the 10-14 years group. conclusions: both, incidence and prevalence of type 1 diabetes in children under 15 years old in castilla-la mancha are high, with a wide range among the different provinces. there is a preponderance in males under 5 years old. the highest prevalence is that of the 10-14 years age group. the highest incidence was in the 5-10 year age group. (c) 2010 asociacion espanola de pediatria. published by elsevier espana, s.l. all rights reserved." growth response of largemouth bass (micropterus salmoides) to catch-and-release angling: a 27-year mark-recapture study,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,CLINE TJ;WEIDEL BC;KITCHELL JF;HODGSON JR,"catch-and-release angling is gaining popularity worldwide and plays an increasingly important role in both fisheries management and conservation. mortality from catch-and-release angling is well documented across species, but the sublethal effects have not been evaluated in a natural setting. laboratory studies have yielded mixed results regarding catch-and-release impacts on fish growth. these studies do not adequately capture the scales of stress and variability of a natural system. we used a 27-year mark-recapture study of 1050 individually tagged largemouth bass (micropterus salmoides) to determine the effects of catch-and-release angling on the growth in a natural setting. individual bass were angled one to six times per season. recapture intervals ranged from 1 to 98 days. largemouth bass exhibited a post-release period (similar to 6 days) of weight loss. following this weight loss, we observed a subsequent period of compensatory growth facilitating recovery to normal weight. we found that catch-and-release angling had little impact on the overall seasonal growth patterns of largemouth bass and therefore should have limited adverse effects on growth-dependent ecological functions." "population dynamics and asynchrony at fine spatial scales: a case history of sockeye salmon (oncorhynchus nerka) population structure in alaska, usa",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,QUINN TP;RICH HB;GOSSE D;SCHTICKZELLE N,"pacific salmon (oncorhynchus spp.) exemplify the ways in which populations are structured by homing and the abiotic factors affecting their dynamics in discrete breeding and rearing habitats. what is the finest spatial scale of their population structure, and where do clusters of spatially proximate breeding groups lie along the continuum from isolated populations - metapopulation - patchy panmictic population? to investigate these questions, we monitored sockeye salmon, oncorhynchus nerka, spawning in a complex of habitats similar to 1 km apart, joining to form a single stream flowing into iliamna lake, alaska, usa. annual surveys revealed levels of asynchrony in productivity that were comparable with values reported for sockeye salmon spawning in separate streams flowing into lakes elsewhere in bristol bay. a mark-recapture study revealed very little movement of spawning adults among habitats. the ponds occupied at highest density varied among years, and salmon consistently arrived and spawned later in one pond than the others. these results are consistent with the hypothesis that the salmon structured as a small-scale metapopulation rather than a single panmictic population." are lemming winter nest counts a good index of population density?,brown lemming; collared lemming; dicrostonyx groenlandicus; lemmus trimucronatus; microtus oeconomus; population index; tundra vole,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,KREBS CJ;BILODEAU F;REID D;GAUTHIER G;KENNEY AJ;GILBERT S;DUCHESNE D;WILSON DJ,"lemmings construct nests of grass and moss under the snow during winter, and counting these nests in spring is 1 method of obtaining an index of winter density and habitat use. we counted winter nests after snow melt on fixed grids on 5 areas scattered across the canadian arctic and compared these nest counts to population density estimated by mark recapture on the same areas in spring and during the previous autumn. collared lemmings were a common species in most areas, some sites had an abundance of brown lemmings, and only 2 sites had tundra voles. winter nest counts were correlated with lemming densities estimated in the following spring (r(s)=0.80, p<0.001), but less well correlated with densities the previous autumn (r(s)=0.55, p<0.001). winter nest counts can be used to predict spring lemming densities with a log-log regression that explains 64% of the observed variation. winter nest counts are best treated as an approximate index and should not be used when precise, quantitative lemming density estimates are required. nest counts also can be used to provide general information about habitat-use in winter, predation rates by weasels, and the extent of winter breeding." -"population abundance, natural history, and habitat use by the arboreal marsupial dromiciops gliroides in rural chiloe island, chile",capture-recapture; communal nesting; countryside; old-growth forest; population density; selectively logged forest; temperate rain forest,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,CELIS-DIEZ JL;HETZ J;MARIN-VIAL PA;FUSTER G;NECOCHEA P;VASQUEZ RA;JAKSIC FM;ARMESTO JJ,"populations of the endemic and threatened marsupial dromiciops gliroides were studied in logged and unlogged forest patches and shrublands in a rural area of northern chiloe island (42 degrees s), chile. we expected to find differences in abundance, with higher densities in unlogged, old-growth remnant forests. individuals were livetrapped over 4 years (2005-2009) at the peak of their breeding (november) and nonbreeding (february) seasons. we estimated population densities using capture mark recapture procedures. home range, diet (through fecal content), and health status (ectoparasite loads) were assessed for captured individuals. we estimated the length of the breeding season by the levels of reproductive hormones, whereas winter torpor was documented using artificial nest boxes. population densities varied seasonally in accordance with breeding, with higher densities recorded during summer, and were similar in old-growth and in logged forests, but were considerable higher in forests than in shrublands. d. gliroides reproduced well in both unlogged and logged forests. social torpor was documented for the 1st time and was fairly frequent (64%), especially among juveniles. home ranges were 2 times larger for males than for females. we confirmed the omnivorous diet of d. gliroides, with predominant consumption of arthropods, and a higher consumption of fleshy fruits during summer. habitat and animal age had significant effects on ectoparasite prevalence, with higher incidences among juveniles in logged forests. we conclude that d. gliroides is not a rare species in remnant forests in the rural landscape of chiloe island. this result is crucial for the assessment of its conservation status and offers clues for designing better conservation strategies for this living fossil in anthropogenic landscapes." +"population abundance, natural history, and habitat use by the arboreal marsupial dromiciops gliroides in rural chiloe island, chile",capture-recapture; communal nesting; countryside; old-growth forest; population density; selectively logged forest; temperate rain forest,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,CELIS DIEZ JL;HETZ J;MARIN VIAL PA;FUSTER G;NECOCHEA P;VASQUEZ RA;JAKSIC FM;ARMESTO JJ,"populations of the endemic and threatened marsupial dromiciops gliroides were studied in logged and unlogged forest patches and shrublands in a rural area of northern chiloe island (42 degrees s), chile. we expected to find differences in abundance, with higher densities in unlogged, old-growth remnant forests. individuals were livetrapped over 4 years (2005-2009) at the peak of their breeding (november) and nonbreeding (february) seasons. we estimated population densities using capture mark recapture procedures. home range, diet (through fecal content), and health status (ectoparasite loads) were assessed for captured individuals. we estimated the length of the breeding season by the levels of reproductive hormones, whereas winter torpor was documented using artificial nest boxes. population densities varied seasonally in accordance with breeding, with higher densities recorded during summer, and were similar in old-growth and in logged forests, but were considerable higher in forests than in shrublands. d. gliroides reproduced well in both unlogged and logged forests. social torpor was documented for the 1st time and was fairly frequent (64%), especially among juveniles. home ranges were 2 times larger for males than for females. we confirmed the omnivorous diet of d. gliroides, with predominant consumption of arthropods, and a higher consumption of fleshy fruits during summer. habitat and animal age had significant effects on ectoparasite prevalence, with higher incidences among juveniles in logged forests. we conclude that d. gliroides is not a rare species in remnant forests in the rural landscape of chiloe island. this result is crucial for the assessment of its conservation status and offers clues for designing better conservation strategies for this living fossil in anthropogenic landscapes." effects of habitat disturbance on a peromyscus leucopus (rodentia: cricetidae) population in western pennsylvania,demography; density; disturbance; peromyscus leucopus; stability; suboptimal habitat; white-footed mouse,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LINZEY AV;REED AW;SLADE NA;KESNER MH,"many species of wild mammals occur in habitats that have been disturbed by fragmentation or degraded in quality. previous researchers have hypothesized that demographic characteristics of populations may shift with changes in environmental conditions, with self-regulatory ability increasing with environmental suitability. we studied responses of white-footed mice (peromyscus leucopus) to habitat disturbance. given that optimal habitat for this species is deciduous woodland, we predicted that populations in habitats disturbed by cutting woody vegetation would be lower and more variable in density than in undisturbed habitat, density and stability of populations in disturbed habitat would increase over time, survival would be higher in undisturbed than in disturbed habitat, and populations in undisturbed habitat would show a greater degree of self-regulation. this 6-year study in western pennsylvania involved 3 replicated study sites (each 3.8 ha), with woody vegetation removed on half of each site prior to beginning the study. density in disturbed treatment averaged 65% of density in undisturbed habitat. there were no differences between treatments in survival or in population growth rates over time. population trends over time were similar between treatments, populations in disturbed habitat did not become more stable with time, and density did not converge with that of undisturbed habitat. although populations in the undisturbed habitat were clearly self-regulating, those in disturbed habitats were not. despite expectations that demographic performance will align with environmental suitability, it may be difficult to ascribe a particular demography to a habitat generalist such as p. leucopus." microgeographic socio-genetic structure of an african cooperative breeding passerine revealed: integrating behavioural and genetic data,dispersal strategies; extra-pair paternity; karoo scrub-robin; mark-recapture; microsatellites; relatedness,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,RIBEIRO AM;LLOYD P;FELDHEIM KA;BOWIE RCK,"dispersal can be motivated by multiple factors including sociality. dispersal behaviour affects population genetic structure that in turn reinforces social organization. we combined observational information with individual-based genetic data in the karoo scrub-robin, a facultative cooperatively breeding bird, to understand how social bonds within familial groups affect mating patterns, cause sex asymmetry in dispersal behaviour and ultimately influence the evolution of dispersal. our results revealed that males and females do not have symmetrical roles in structuring the population. males are extremely philopatric and tend to delay dispersal until they gain a breeding position within a radius of two territories around the natal site. by contrast, females dispersed over larger distances, as soon as they reach independence. this resulted in male neighbourhoods characterized by high genetic relatedness. the long-distance dispersal strategy of females ensured that karoo scrub-robins do not pair with relatives thereby compensating for male philopatry caused by cooperation. the observed female-biased strategy seems to be the most prominent mechanism to reduce the risk of inbreeding that characterizes social breeding system. this study demonstrates that tying together ecological data, such as breeding status, determining social relationships with genetic data, such as kinship, provides valuable insights into the proximate causes of dispersal, which are central to any evolutionary interpretation." sufficient statistic likelihood construction for age- and time-dependent multi-state joint recapture and recovery data,age dependence; capture-recapture models; sufficient statistics; time dependence,STATISTICS & PROBABILITY LETTERS,MCCREA RS,"two closed-form likelihoods for multi-state joint recapture and recovery data were proposed in king and brooks (2003); the first incorporated dependence on time and cohort whilst the second included dependence on age and cohort. however, when multi-state joint recapture and recovery data are modelled, it is likely that dependence on age and time will both be potentially of interest and therefore the most useful model formulation will incorporate both of these parameter structures. within this article the likelihood function required for such a model is derived in terms of a set of sufficient statistics. (c) 2011 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." population dynamics of stable flies stomoxys calcitrans (diptera: muscidae) at an organic dairy farm in denmark based on mark-recapture with destructive sub-sampling,fluorescent marking; bailey's triple catch; forecasting; longevity; cattle,ENVIRONMENTAL ENTOMOLOGY,SKOVGARD H;NACHMAN G,"a population of stable flies, stomoxys calcitrans (l.), was studied on a danish cattle farm in two successive years. flies were captured monthly by sweep nettings and marked with fluorescent dust. absolute population size, dilution rate, loss rate, and adult longevity were estimated by means of a modified version of bailey's triple catch method. in both years, the abundance of flies peaked in july. using a statistical model, we were able to explain 86.6% of the variation in the per capita growth rate r as a function of current temperature, precipitation, and population size. omitting precipitation from the model, it still explained 69.3%. the model predicts that stable flies have a temperature optimum at 21.8 degrees c, and that no development will take place when temperatures inside the stable are below 10.2 degrees c or above 33.5 degrees c. at the optimal temperature the intrinsic rate of natural increase is 0.070 d(-1). the per capita dilution rate increased with temperature and decreased with population size, whereas no effect of these factors on the per capita loss rate could be shown. mean adult survival time was estimated to 6.3 d with 95% cl ranging from 4.3 to 11.1 d. the study points at the possibility of developing predictive models as tools for achieving better, and more environmentally sound, control of stable flies." -a simulation study of how simple mark-recapture methods can be combined with destructive subsampling to facilitate surveys of flying insects,bailey's triple-catch; jolly-seber's stochastic method; loss rate; monte-carlo simulation; population estimates,ENVIRONMENTAL ENTOMOLOGY,"NACHMAN G;SKOVGARD H","mark-recapture techniques are used for studies of animal populations. with only three sampling occasions, both bailey's triple-catch (btc) and jolly-seber's (j-s) stochastic method can be applied. as marking and handling of fragile organisms may harm them, and thereby affect their chances of being recaptured, handling should be minimized. this can be achieved by taking a subsample before the main sample at the second sampling occasion. individuals in the main sample are marked and released, whereas those in the subsample are only used for identifying recaptures. monte-carlo simulation was used to compare the subsampling method with the ordinary mark-recapture methods. model-generated populations were sampled with and without subsampling to provide estimates of population size, loss, and dilution rates. the estimated parameters were compared with their true values to identify biases associated with the sampling methods, using 81 different combinations of population size, dilution rate, loss rate, and sampling effort. each combination was replicated 1,000 times. in no cases did subsampling perform more poorly than the ordinary methods. j-s was slightly more accurate than btc to estimate the population size, but only when sampling effort was high. the relative biases associated with estimates of dilution and loss rates were substantial, but declined with increasing population size and sampling effort. confidence limits for the population parameters generally were reliable and tended to be conservative. we therefore conclude that ordinary mark-recapture methods can be supplemented with subsampling without sacrificing accuracy. subsampling is especially advantageous in cases where marks are difficult to observe under field conditions." +a simulation study of how simple mark-recapture methods can be combined with destructive subsampling to facilitate surveys of flying insects,bailey's triple-catch; jolly-seber's stochastic method; loss rate; monte-carlo simulation; population estimates,ENVIRONMENTAL ENTOMOLOGY,NACHMAN G;SKOVGARD H,"mark-recapture techniques are used for studies of animal populations. with only three sampling occasions, both bailey's triple-catch (btc) and jolly-seber's (j-s) stochastic method can be applied. as marking and handling of fragile organisms may harm them, and thereby affect their chances of being recaptured, handling should be minimized. this can be achieved by taking a subsample before the main sample at the second sampling occasion. individuals in the main sample are marked and released, whereas those in the subsample are only used for identifying recaptures. monte-carlo simulation was used to compare the subsampling method with the ordinary mark-recapture methods. model-generated populations were sampled with and without subsampling to provide estimates of population size, loss, and dilution rates. the estimated parameters were compared with their true values to identify biases associated with the sampling methods, using 81 different combinations of population size, dilution rate, loss rate, and sampling effort. each combination was replicated 1,000 times. in no cases did subsampling perform more poorly than the ordinary methods. j-s was slightly more accurate than btc to estimate the population size, but only when sampling effort was high. the relative biases associated with estimates of dilution and loss rates were substantial, but declined with increasing population size and sampling effort. confidence limits for the population parameters generally were reliable and tended to be conservative. we therefore conclude that ordinary mark-recapture methods can be supplemented with subsampling without sacrificing accuracy. subsampling is especially advantageous in cases where marks are difficult to observe under field conditions." assessing coverage of protein interaction data using capture-recapture models,capture-recapture; networks; error rates; protein interactions; sampling,BULLETIN OF MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY,KELLY WP;STUMPF MPH,"protein interaction networks comprise thousands of individual binary links between distinct proteins. whilst these data have attracted considerable attention and been the focus of many different studies, the networks, their structure, function, and how they change over time are still not fully known. more importantly, there is still considerable uncertainty regarding their size, and the quality of the available data continues to be questioned. here, we employ statistical models of the experimental sampling process, in particular capture-recapture methods, in order to assess the false discovery rate and size of protein interaction networks. we uses these methods to gauge the ability of different experimental systems to find the true binary interactome. our model allows us to obtain estimates for the size and false-discovery rate from simple considerations regarding the number of repeatedly interactions, and provides suggestions as to how we can exploit this information in order to reduce the effects of noise in such data. in particular our approach does not require a reference dataset. we estimate that approximately more than half of the true physical interactome has now been sampled in yeast." -effects of wind farms and food scarcity on a large scavenging bird species following an epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy,bovine spongiform encephalopathy; gyps fulvus; mortality; population model; rescue effect; scavenging birds; wind farms,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,MARTINEZ-ABRAIN A;TAVECCHIA G;REGAN HM;JIMENEZ J;SURROCA M;ORO D,"1. wind farms are emerging as a major cause of mortality of large scavenging bird species, which may be catastrophic when they operate in concert with other threats. as a study model, we examine the impact of wind turbines on the population dynamics of a soaring bird species, when acting in conjunction with a sudden decrease in food availability following the european bovine spongiform encephalopathy (bse) epidemic. 2. in spain, vultures have been provided with supplementary food at traditional vulture restaurants for centuries. in 2006/2007, these feeding stations were closed as part of disease control measures. at the same time, wind farms were deployed within the vulture foraging range. we used capture-recapture data and direct observation to monitor the impacts of these changes on the vulture population. 3. the number of breeding pairs decreased by c. 24%, adult survival by 30% and fecundity by 35%. however, the population recovered as soon as the perturbations ceased, the vulture restaurants were reopened, and the most problematic wind turbines were closed. population recovery was faster than predicted by a retrospective stochastic population model. 4. our analyses indicate that fecundity and survival were influenced predominantly by wind turbines. food scarcity promoted a shift in foraging behaviour that drove vultures to fly into the path of wind turbines as they sought out new food sources in a landfill site. elasticity and sensitivity analyses of the population model showed that mortality of adult birds had a much greater effect on population declines than mortality of immature birds, whereas reduction in fecundity had negligible effects. 5. the most likely explanation for the rapid recovery of the vulture population is that the observed decline in breeding pairs was not solely because of increased mortality. the decline probably included dispersal away from the area and a greater incidence of skipped breeding during the perturbation years. subsequent immigration from large nearby populations was probably a factor in population recovery. 6. synthesis and applications. where specific wind turbines are causing substantial mortality, their closure is an effective management response. for vulture populations dependent on supplemental feeding stations, the feeding sites should be relocated away from the most problematic wind turbines, or other anthropogenic sources of mortality, to prevent negative impacts. we recommend the establishment of scattered, low-value food sources to replicate historical conditions and to avoid the problems associated with high concentrations of individuals in one place." +effects of wind farms and food scarcity on a large scavenging bird species following an epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy,bovine spongiform encephalopathy; gyps fulvus; mortality; population model; rescue effect; scavenging birds; wind farms,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,MARTINEZ ABRAIN A;TAVECCHIA G;REGAN HM;JIMENEZ J;SURROCA M;ORO D,"1. wind farms are emerging as a major cause of mortality of large scavenging bird species, which may be catastrophic when they operate in concert with other threats. as a study model, we examine the impact of wind turbines on the population dynamics of a soaring bird species, when acting in conjunction with a sudden decrease in food availability following the european bovine spongiform encephalopathy (bse) epidemic. 2. in spain, vultures have been provided with supplementary food at traditional vulture restaurants for centuries. in 2006/2007, these feeding stations were closed as part of disease control measures. at the same time, wind farms were deployed within the vulture foraging range. we used capture-recapture data and direct observation to monitor the impacts of these changes on the vulture population. 3. the number of breeding pairs decreased by c. 24%, adult survival by 30% and fecundity by 35%. however, the population recovered as soon as the perturbations ceased, the vulture restaurants were reopened, and the most problematic wind turbines were closed. population recovery was faster than predicted by a retrospective stochastic population model. 4. our analyses indicate that fecundity and survival were influenced predominantly by wind turbines. food scarcity promoted a shift in foraging behaviour that drove vultures to fly into the path of wind turbines as they sought out new food sources in a landfill site. elasticity and sensitivity analyses of the population model showed that mortality of adult birds had a much greater effect on population declines than mortality of immature birds, whereas reduction in fecundity had negligible effects. 5. the most likely explanation for the rapid recovery of the vulture population is that the observed decline in breeding pairs was not solely because of increased mortality. the decline probably included dispersal away from the area and a greater incidence of skipped breeding during the perturbation years. subsequent immigration from large nearby populations was probably a factor in population recovery. 6. synthesis and applications. where specific wind turbines are causing substantial mortality, their closure is an effective management response. for vulture populations dependent on supplemental feeding stations, the feeding sites should be relocated away from the most problematic wind turbines, or other anthropogenic sources of mortality, to prevent negative impacts. we recommend the establishment of scattered, low-value food sources to replicate historical conditions and to avoid the problems associated with high concentrations of individuals in one place." modelling mortality causes in longitudinal data in the presence of tag loss: application to raptor poisoning and electrocution,capture-recapture; electrocution; multi-event; poisoning; radiotracking; red kite,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,TAVECCHIA G;ADROVER J;NAVARRO AM;PRADEL R,"1. a first step for the effective management of vulnerable populations is to identify population threats and measure their relative impact on population fluctuations. the relative importance of proximate causes of mortality can be calculated from longitudinal data using capturemarkrecapture models. if marks are lost or cease to function, survival is underestimated. 2. we provide an analytical framework based on conditional probabilities to obtain a robust estimate of the contribution of multiple sources of mortality while accounting for tag loss and imperfect detection. 3. we applied this approach to radiotracking and wing tags-resighting data of red kites milvus milvus to estimate the impact of illegal poisoning and the mortality by electrocution on power lines in the island of mallorca (spain). 4. illegal poisoning was responsible for 53% of the total mortality and electrocution on power lines for 12%. results indicated that poisoning-related mortality was higher in immature birds, probably due to their more wide-ranging prospective behaviour. 5. assuming the two human-related mortalities are additive, the survival probability of kites would increase by 17% (from 0.76 to 0.91) if both threats were removed. 6. synthesis and applications. we present a new approach to estimate the contribution of different sources of mortality accounting for tag loss, state uncertainty and detection failures in wildlife populations. our results will allow the demographic consequences of human-related mortality in threatened populations to be refined. the approach is suitable for the study of multiplicative latent processes in a vast range of applied conservation studies such as, for example, wildlife epidemiology." "validation of mark-recapture population estimates for invasive common carp, cyprinus carpio, in lake crescent, tasmania",NA,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ICHTHYOLOGY,DONKERS P;PATIL JG;WISNIEWSKI C;DIGGLE JE,"a mark-recapture study based on the petersen method was implemented in 1998 to estimate the abundance of the invasive common carp, cyprinus carpio l., in lake crescent, tasmania. multiple gear types were employed to minimise capture bias, with multiple capture and recapture events providing an opportunity to compute and compare petersen and schnabel estimates. a single petersen estimate on recapture data and two schnabel estimates one each on mark (forward-schnabel estimate) and recapture (reverse-schnabel estimate) data were conducted. an independent long-term double tag study facilitated estimation of the annual natural mortality. subsequent fish-down of the population suggests that, in all likelihood, the carp have been eradicated from the lake, providing an unprecedented opportunity to verify the forward population estimates carried out in 1998. results suggest that all three estimates were close to the true population size, with the reverse-schnabel estimate being the most accurate and within 1% of the true population in this relatively large lake (similar to 2365 ha). greater accuracy of the reverse-schnabel approach can be attributed to either minimised fish behavioural (i.e. gear susceptibility or avoidance) or computational bias associated with the forward-schnabel and petersen approaches, respectively. while the original estimates served as a guide in eradication of carp from the lake, the ultimate validation provides a reliable framework for abundance estimation of this invasive fish in relatively large water bodies elsewhere." detection probability in aerial surveys of feral horses,abundance; bias; equus caballus; observation error; population estimation; simultaneous double-count; visibility; wild horse,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,RANSOM JI,"observation bias pervades data collected during aerial surveys of large animals, and although some sources can be mitigated with informed planning, others must be addressed using valid sampling techniques that carefully model detection probability. nonetheless, aerial surveys are frequently employed to count large mammals without applying such methods to account for heterogeneity in visibility of animal groups on the landscape. this often leaves managers and interest groups at odds over decisions that are not adequately informed. i analyzed detection of feral horse (equus caballus) groups by dual independent observers from 24 fixed-wing and 16 helicopter flights using mixed-effect logistic regression models to investigate potential sources of observation bias. i accounted for observer skill, population location, and aircraft type in the model structure and analyzed the effects of group size, sun effect (position related to observer), vegetation type, topography, cloud cover, percent snow cover, and observer fatigue on detection of horse groups. the most important model-averaged effects for both fixed-wing and helicopter surveys included group size (fixed-wing: odds ratio?=?0.891, 95% ci?=?0.8500.935; helicopter: odds ratio?=?0.640, 95% ci?=?0.5870.698) and sun effect (fixed-wing: odds ratio?=?0.632, 95% ci?=?0.3501.141; helicopter: odds ratio?=?0.194, 95% ci?=?0.0800.470). observer fatigue was also an important effect in the best model for helicopter surveys, with detection probability declining after 3?hr of survey time (odds ratio?=?0.278, 95% ci?=?0.1440.537). biases arising from sun effect and observer fatigue can be mitigated by pre-flight survey design. other sources of bias, such as those arising from group size, topography, and vegetation can only be addressed by employing valid sampling techniques such as double sampling, markresight (batch-marked animals), markrecapture (uniquely marked and identifiable animals), sightability bias correction models, and line transect distance sampling; however, some of these techniques may still only partially correct for negative observation biases. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." -comparing survival among species with imperfect detection using multilevel analysis of markurecapture data: a case study on bats,NA,ECOGRAPHY,PAPADATOU E;PRADEL R;SCHAUB M;DOLCH D;GEIGER H;IBANEZ C;KERTH G;POPA-LISSEANU A;SCHORCHT W;TEUBNER J;GIMENEZ O,"for comparative demography studies, 2 prerequisites are usually needed: 1) using typical parameter values for species, 2) correctly accounting for the uncertainty in the species specific estimates. however, although within-species variability may be essential, it is typically not considered in analytical procedures, resulting in parameter estimates that may not be representative of the species. further, data are analysed in 2 steps, first separately for each species, then estimates are compared among species. accounting for the uncertainty in the species specific estimates is then difficult. here we propose the application of multilevel bayesian models on markrecapture (mr) data for comparative studies on survival probabilities that solves these problems. our models account for within-species variability in space and time in the form of random effects. models reflecting different biological predictions related to the species ecology and life-history traits may further be contrasted. to illustrate our approach, we used long-term data from 5 temperate tree-roosting bat species and compared their survival probabilities. results suggest that species foraging in open space, high reproductive output and short longevity records have lower survival than species foraging at short distances, with low reproductive output and high longevity records. multilevel models provided relatively precise estimates, away from the edges of the parameter space, even for species with low encounter rates and short study duration. this is particularly valuable for less studied taxa such as bats for which available data are often more sparse. our approach can be easily extended to include additional groups or levels of interest and effects at the individual level (e.g. sex or age). different hypotheses regarding differences or similarities in parameters among species can be tested through the application of different models. overall, it offers a flexible tool to ecologists, and population and evolutionary biologists for comparative studies, explicitly accounting for multilevel structures often encountered in mr data." +comparing survival among species with imperfect detection using multilevel analysis of markurecapture data: a case study on bats,NA,ECOGRAPHY,PAPADATOU E;PRADEL R;SCHAUB M;DOLCH D;GEIGER H;IBANEZ C;KERTH G;POPA LISSEANU A;SCHORCHT W;TEUBNER J;GIMENEZ O,"for comparative demography studies, 2 prerequisites are usually needed: 1) using typical parameter values for species, 2) correctly accounting for the uncertainty in the species specific estimates. however, although within-species variability may be essential, it is typically not considered in analytical procedures, resulting in parameter estimates that may not be representative of the species. further, data are analysed in 2 steps, first separately for each species, then estimates are compared among species. accounting for the uncertainty in the species specific estimates is then difficult. here we propose the application of multilevel bayesian models on markrecapture (mr) data for comparative studies on survival probabilities that solves these problems. our models account for within-species variability in space and time in the form of random effects. models reflecting different biological predictions related to the species ecology and life-history traits may further be contrasted. to illustrate our approach, we used long-term data from 5 temperate tree-roosting bat species and compared their survival probabilities. results suggest that species foraging in open space, high reproductive output and short longevity records have lower survival than species foraging at short distances, with low reproductive output and high longevity records. multilevel models provided relatively precise estimates, away from the edges of the parameter space, even for species with low encounter rates and short study duration. this is particularly valuable for less studied taxa such as bats for which available data are often more sparse. our approach can be easily extended to include additional groups or levels of interest and effects at the individual level (e.g. sex or age). different hypotheses regarding differences or similarities in parameters among species can be tested through the application of different models. overall, it offers a flexible tool to ecologists, and population and evolutionary biologists for comparative studies, explicitly accounting for multilevel structures often encountered in mr data." "estimating demographic parameters for a critically endangered marine species with frequent reproductive omission: hawksbill turtles nesting at varanus island, western australia",NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,PRINCE RIT;CHALOUPKA M,"the hawksbill marine turtle (eretmochelys imbricata) is listed on the iucn red list as critically endangered but little is known about its demography to support robust diagnosis of population trends. moreover, adult female hawksbills do not nest each year due to environmentally mediated physiological constraints and this skipped breeding behaviour presents a major challenge in data collection and for estimating demographic parameters from such data sets. we estimated demographic parameters such as survival and breeding probabilities for a major indo-pacific nesting hawksbill population using a capture-mark-recapture (cmr) study and a multistate open robust design statistical modelling approach, which accounts for breeding omission and the staggered arrival and departure of nesters during each season. our study used cmr histories for 413 nesting hawksbills tagged on varanus island (western australia) over a 4-month sampling period each year for 20 austral summer nesting seasons between 1987 and 2007. the estimated annual survival probability for these nesting hawksbills was constant over the 20 years at ca. 0.947 (95% ci: 0.91-0.97), which is encouragingly high for a population associated with industry. the estimated annual conditional nesting (breeding) probability for female hawksbills that had skipped the previous nesting season was time-specific ranging from 0.07 to 0.29 (mean = 0.18, cv = 41.3%), which presumably reflects the interaction between turtle physiology and in-water habitat quality. the mean conditional probability of breeding again having skipped 2 prior consecutive nesting seasons was ca. 0.83 (95% ci: 0.73-0.89), indicating a high frequency of breeding season omission. the annual nesting probability for females that had nested the previous season was 0, reflecting known obligate skipped breeding (reproductive omission) that is characteristic of hawksbill populations in response to high energy demands of vitellogenesis and breeding migration. these are the first estimates of annual survival and state-dependent breeding probabilities for any indo-pacific hawksbill stock that provide a basis for developing a better understanding of regional population dynamics for this critically endangered species." study design and mark-recapture estimates of dispersal: a case study with the endangered damselfly coenagrion mercuriale,damselfly; dispersal; dragonfly; mark-release-recapture; movement; study design,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,HASSALL C;THOMPSON DJ,"accurate data on dispersal ability are vital to the understanding of how species are affected by fragmented landscapes. however, three factors may limit the ability of field studies to detect a representative sample of dispersal events: (1) the number of individuals monitored, (2) the area over which the study is conducted and (3) the time over which the study is conducted. using sub-sampling of mark-release-recapture data from a study on the endangered damselfly coenagrion mercuriale (charpentier), we show that maximum dispersal distance is strongly related to the number of recaptured individuals in the mark-release-recapture study and the length of time over which the study is conducted. median dispersal distance is only related significantly to the length of the study. spatial extent is not associated with either dispersal measure in our analysis. previously consideration has been given to the spatial scale of dispersal experiments but we demonstrated conclusively that temporal scale and the number of marked individuals also have the potential to affect the measurement of dispersal. based on quadratic relationships between the maximum dispersal distance, recapture number and length of study, we conclude that a previous study was of sufficient scale to characterise the dispersal kernel of c. mercuriale. our method of analysis could be used to ensure that the results of mark-release-recapture studies are independent of levels of spatial and temporal investment. improved confidence in dispersal estimates will enable better management decisions to be made for endangered species." human altered ecosystems: suitable habitats as well as ecological traps for dragonflies (odonata): the matter of scale,odonata; ecological traps; metapopulation dynamics; leucorrhinia pectoralis; habitat quality; secondary habitats,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,HARABIS F;DOLNY A,"habitat loss and degradation can be considered as major threats to freshwater invertebrates. these often irreversible processes lead to reduction of habitat patch quality and cause local extinctions of dragonflies, notably of habitat specialists. however, the biodiversity of specific secondary habitats is very high. here, we present findings from a 10-year study that intensively monitored odonate fauna in the upper silesian industrial coal region having many secondary habitats characterized by very frequent disturbances due to soil instability. we evaluated qualitative changes in the dragonfly assemblages on 10 patches using a modified dragonfly biotic index. data analysis was supplemented by a model examining population dynamics of the threatened dragonfly leucorrhinia pectoralis, using the capture-mark-recapture method, as an effective indicator of habitat quality. we show that dynamics of environmental conditions in secondary habitats are reflected in population dynamics of dragonfly populations and assemblages. as frequency of l. pectoralis population extinctions within the patch is considerable and independent of size and spatial isolation of single habitats, these can be regarded as ecological traps. nevertheless, the metapopulation dynamics may be a key adaptation of dragonflies to frequent freshwater habitat disturbances. we suggest that local extinctions are effectively balanced with (re-)colonization of newly emerging freshwater habitats. these findings have implications for potential conservation management of specific human-made habitats, because secondary habitats with a great diversity of succession stages arising directly as a consequence of environmental instability may be considered as partial alternatives to natural habitats in cultural landscapes." @@ -3681,7 +3687,7 @@ twenty-one years of prospective incidence of childhood type 1 diabetes in hungar a robust p-spline approach to closed population capture-recapture models with time dependence and heterogeneity,capture-recapture; losed population; horvitz-thompson estimator; p-splines; robust statistics; semiparametric,COMPUTATIONAL STATISTICS & DATA ANALYSIS,STOKLOSA J;HUGGINS RM,"we extend the conditional likelihood approach to the analysis of capture-recapture experiments for closed populations by nonparametrically modeling the relationship between capture probabilities and individual covariates using p-splines. the model allows nonparametric functions of multivariate continuous covariates as well as categorical covariates and time effects, greatly enhancing the techniques available to an analyst. to implement this approach in practice, we found it necessary to develop a robust modification of the horvitz-thompson estimator. the method is illustrated on several data sets and a small simulation study is conducted. (c) 2011 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." improvement of maternal aboriginality in nsw birth data,birth; aboriginality; data; australia,BMC MEDICAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY,XU FL;SULLIVAN EA;MADDEN RC;BLACK D;PULVER LRJ,"background: the indigenous population of australia was estimated as 2.5% and under-reported. the aim of this study is to improve statistical ascertainment of aboriginal women giving birth in new south wales. methods: this study was based on linked birth data from the midwives data collection (mdc) and the registry of births deaths and marriages (rbdm) of new south wales (nsw). data linkage was performed by the centre for health record linkage (cherel) for births in nsw for the period january 2001 to december 2005. the accuracy of maternal aboriginal status in the mdc and rbdm was assessed by consistency, sensitivity and specificity. a new statistical variable, asv, or aboriginal statistical variable, was constructed based on indigenous identification in both datasets. the asv was assessed by comparing numbers and percentages of births to aboriginal mothers with the estimates by capture-recapture analysis. results: maternal aboriginal status was under-ascertained in both the mdc and rbdm. the asv significantly increased ascertainment of aboriginal women giving birth and decreased the number of missing cases. the proportion of births to aboriginal mothers in the non-registered birth group was significantly higher than in the registered group. conclusions: linking birth data collections is a feasible method to improve the statistical ascertainment of aboriginal women giving birth in nsw. this has ramifications for the ascertainment of babies of aboriginal mothers and the targeting of appropriate services in pregnancy and early childhood." "sex-specific effect of pool desiccation on the movement of alpine newts, mesotriton alpestris (laurenti, 1768), among breeding sites (caudata: salamandridae)",amphibia: caudata: salamandridae; mesotriton alpestris; alpine newt; amphibians; rut; site fidelity; temporary pond; desiccation; migration; reproduction; between-pool movements; mark-and-recapture method; ecology; behavior; czech republic,HERPETOZOA,KOPECKY O;VOJAR J;DENOEL M,"in unpredictable habitats, it is advantageous to amphibians to reduce the risk of weather-induced offspring mortality by utilization of several reproductive patches. in european deciduous forest landscapes, ruts caused by vehicular traffic, typically comprising small vernal or ephemeral pools with variable hydroperiod, are at times used as breeding habitats by some species of amphibians. previous research shows that in such systems newts move between ruts within a single reproductive season. the aim was to characterize such movements by means of a capture-mark-recapture study of the alpine newt mesotriton alpestris (laurenti, 1768), during two years differing in water availability, and to detect possible sex-specific differences. movement between ruts differed between years according to sex. in the year with higher pool drying frequency, more females changed ruts than in the year when stable conditions prevailed. among the adults that moved between ruts, however, the mean number of aquatic patches visited was higher in males. these results show that the sexes can react differently to environmental correlates and that alpine newts are well adapted to utilize networks of temporary pools." -a triple-isotope approach to predict the breeding origins of european bats,NA,PLOS ONE,POPA-LISSEANU AG;SORGEL K;LUCKNER A;WASSENAAR LI;IBANEZ C;KRAMER-SCHADT S;CIECHANOWSKI M;GORFOL T;NIERMANN I;BEUNEUX G;MYSLAJEK RW;JUSTE J;FONDERFLICK J;KELM DH;VOIGT CC,"despite a commitment by the european union to protect its migratory bat populations, conservation efforts are hindered by a poor understanding of bat migratory strategies and connectivity between breeding and wintering grounds. traditional methods like mark-recapture are ineffective to study broad-scale bat migratory patterns. stable hydrogen isotopes (delta d) have been proven useful in establishing spatial migratory connectivity of animal populations. before applying this tool, the method was calibrated using bat samples of known origin. here we established the potential of delta d as a robust geographical tracer of breeding origins of european bats by measuring delta d in hair of five sedentary bat species from 45 locations throughout europe. the delta d of bat hair strongly correlated with well-established spatial isotopic patterns in mean annual precipitation in europe, and therefore was highly correlated with latitude. we calculated a linear mixed-effects model, with species as random effect, linking delta d of bat hair to precipitation delta d of the areas of hair growth. this model can be used to predict breeding origins of european migrating bats. we used delta c-13 and delta n-15 to discriminate among potential origins of bats, and found that these isotopes can be used as variables to further refine origin predictions. a triple-isotope approach could thereby pinpoint populations or subpopulations that have distinct origins. our results further corroborated stable isotope analysis as a powerful method to delineate animal migrations in europe." +a triple-isotope approach to predict the breeding origins of european bats,NA,PLOS ONE,POPA LISSEANU AG;SORGEL K;LUCKNER A;WASSENAAR LI;IBANEZ C;KRAMER SCHADT S;CIECHANOWSKI M;GORFOL T;NIERMANN I;BEUNEUX G;MYSLAJEK RW;JUSTE J;FONDERFLICK J;KELM DH;VOIGT CC,"despite a commitment by the european union to protect its migratory bat populations, conservation efforts are hindered by a poor understanding of bat migratory strategies and connectivity between breeding and wintering grounds. traditional methods like mark-recapture are ineffective to study broad-scale bat migratory patterns. stable hydrogen isotopes (delta d) have been proven useful in establishing spatial migratory connectivity of animal populations. before applying this tool, the method was calibrated using bat samples of known origin. here we established the potential of delta d as a robust geographical tracer of breeding origins of european bats by measuring delta d in hair of five sedentary bat species from 45 locations throughout europe. the delta d of bat hair strongly correlated with well-established spatial isotopic patterns in mean annual precipitation in europe, and therefore was highly correlated with latitude. we calculated a linear mixed-effects model, with species as random effect, linking delta d of bat hair to precipitation delta d of the areas of hair growth. this model can be used to predict breeding origins of european migrating bats. we used delta c-13 and delta n-15 to discriminate among potential origins of bats, and found that these isotopes can be used as variables to further refine origin predictions. a triple-isotope approach could thereby pinpoint populations or subpopulations that have distinct origins. our results further corroborated stable isotope analysis as a powerful method to delineate animal migrations in europe." identifiability and inferential issues in capture-recapture experiments with heterogeneous detection probabilities,binomial mixture; capture-recapture; identifiability; conditional likelihood; complete likelihood; unconditional likelihood,ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF STATISTICS,FARCOMENI A;TARDELLA L,we focus on a capture-recapture model in which capture probabilities arise from an unspecified distribution f. we show that model parameters are identifiable based on the unconditional likelihood. this is not true with the conditional likelihood. we also clarify that consistency and asymptotic equivalence of maximum likelihood estimators based on conditional and unconditional likelihood do not hold. we show that estimates of the undetected fraction of population based on the unconditional likelihood converge to the so-called estimable sharpest lower bound and we derive a new a symptotic equivalence result. we finally provide theoretical and simulation arguments in favor of the use of the unconditional likelihood rather than the conditional likelihood especially when one is willing to infer on the sharpest lower bound. a dual frame survey to assess time- and space-related changes of the colonizing wolf population in france,canis lupus; monitoring design; molecular tracking; sign survey; mark-recapture model; population trend; conservation status; management issues,HYSTRIX-ITALIAN JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,DUCHAMP C;BOYER J;BRIAUDET PE;LEONARD Y;MORIS P;BATAILLE A;DAHIER T;DELACOUR G;MILLISHER G;MIQUEL C;POILLOT C;MARBOUTIN E,"the wolf recovery in france dates back to 1992, following the natural range expansion of the remaining italian population since the late 1960's. facing a high level of interactions between wolves and sheep breeding, decision makers had to quickly balance the need for managing livestock depredations with the conservation of wolves as a protected species. the french authorities therefore required a reliable assessment of changes in the species range and population numbers, as well as a reliable monitoring of depredations on livestock, all being key variables to be further included within the governmental decision making process. because of their elusive behaviour, high mobility, and territoriality, applying a standard random sampling design to the monitoring of a wolf population would lead to almost no chance of collecting any signs of presence. in order to increase detectability, we use a dual frame survey based on two spatial scales (""population range"" and ""reproductive unit"") investigated sequentially thanks to a network of specifically-trained wolf experts distributed over 80000 km(2) to collect the data. first, an extensive sign survey at a large scale provides so-called cross-sectional data (pool of signs from unknown individuals for a given year), thereby allowing the detection of new wolf occurrences, new pack formations, and the documentation of geographical trends. secondly, an intensive sign survey within each detected wolf territory, based on standard snow tracking and wolf howling playback sessions, provides some yearly updatable proxies of the demographic pattern. the combination with a non invasive molecular tracking provides longitudinal data to develop mark-recapture models and estimate vital rates, population size and growth rate, while accounting for detection probabilities. the latter are used in turn to control for proxies' reliability and to implement demographic models with local population parameters. finally, wolf activity patterns in connection with predator-prey dynamics is investigated through a pilot study carried out with both wolves and four ungulate preys radio-collared. a particular attention is paid to checking the reliability of presence sign data, as well as improving the cost-efficiency ratio of the monitoring. finally, these results are also used by the government as one of the components in the decision making process related to the management of coexistence with wolves." "decline of the levantine frog, pelophylax bedriagae camerano, 1882, in the western aegean region of turkey: changes in population size and implications for conservation (amphibia: ranidae)",amphibian decline; population size; survival rate; habitat loss; conservation,ZOOLOGY IN THE MIDDLE EAST,BASKALE E;KAYA U,"we estimated the annual population size, survival rates and capture probabilities for two populations of the levantine frog, pelophylax bedriagae, using a capture-mark-recapture (cmr) non-invasive digital photographic identification technique in karagol lake and soganhar harimi pond in the western aegean region of turkey, and used pollock's methodology to assess population parameters. time specific capture probability, time specific survival rate and no temporary emigration were found to be the best appropriate models for our data. population sizes were estimated as 245 adults in 2006, 301 in 2007, 67 in 2008 and 54 in 2009. annual capture probabilities were estimated on average as 0.161, and annual survival rates across years were on average 0.301. soganhar harimi pond was destroyed for recreational purposes after the first year of our study. to determine the size of the population, which was depleted during the construction of the recreational facilities, we used a closed population model, and concluded that in total 54 adults disappeared. in addition, we determined the possible negative factors that affect the population size and survival rates of the levantine frog including habitat destruction and the introduction of siluris glanis and astacus leptodactylus into the freshwater body." @@ -3692,7 +3698,7 @@ density estimation of asian bears using photographic capture-recapture sampling non-invasive genetic sampling of brown bears and asiatic black bears in the russian far east: a pilot study,asiatic black bear; bear rubs; brown bear; dna; hair trap; huggins closed models; non-invasive genetic sampling; population estimates; russian far east; secr; spatially-explicit capture-recapture; ursus arctos; ursus thibetanus,URSUS,LATHAM E;STETZ JB;SERYODKIN I;MIGUELLE D;GIBEAU ML,"non-invasive genetic sampling (ngs) methods have been instrumental in providing robust population abundance and density estimates of bears. we conducted a small pilot study to (1) evaluate 2 ngs methods of hair traps and bear rubs in the russian far east (rfe) on sympatric populations of asiatic black bears (ursus thibetanus) and brown bears (ursus arctos), and (2) to identify potential dna marker sets for future study. genetic analysis required 6 microsatellite markers to definitively identify individuals plus a gender marker, and closed population models estimated 142 asiatic black bears and 18 brown bears. spatially-explicit mark-recapture (secr) density estimates for brown bears were 3 bears/100 km(2). inflated asiatic black bear estimates resulted from a lack of recaptures, although using combined detection data from the 2 ngs methods was found to improve precision for abundance estimates. capture probabilities were higher for brown bears than for asiatic black bears, but overall recapture probabilities were low for both species. the frequency of rubbing declined from june to august, possibly due to bears leaving the study area, and asiatic black bears were detected less frequently on rubs than brown bears, suggesting that species-specific ecology must be incorporated into future study designs. we recommend that future applications of ngs in the rfe improve capture probabilities by sampling earlier in the season to mitigate geographic closure violation for abundance estimates and to increase the number of detections for robust spatially explicit capture-recapture analyses. our results demonstrate that ngs methods have strong potential for monitoring of bear populations in the rfe." first estimation of eurasian lynx (lynx lynx) abundance and density using digital cameras and capture-recapture techniques in a german national park,lynx lynx; camera trap; capture-recapture; abundance; half mmdm; actual mmdm; density,ANIMAL BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,WEINGARTH K;HEIBL C;KNAUER F;ZIMMERMANN F;BUFKA L;HEURICH M,"first estimation of eurasian lynx (lynx lynx) abundance and density using digital cameras and capture recapture techniques in a german national park.- eurasian lynx are individually identifiable by their unique coat markings, making them ideal candidates for capture recapture (cmr) surveys. we evaluated the use of digital photography to estimate eurasian lynx population abundance and density within the bavarian forest national park. from november 2008 to january 2009 we placed 24 camera trap sites, each with two cameras facing each other (on well used walking tracks). the units were placed based on a systematic grid of 2.7 km. we captured five independent and three juvenile lynx and calculated abundance estimates using program mark. we also compared density estimates based on the mmdm method (mean maximum distance moved) from telemetry data (1/2mmdm(gps)) and from camera trapping data (1/2mmdm(cam)). we estimated that in an effectively sampled area of 664 km(2) the eurasian lynx density was 0.9 individuals/100 km(2) with 1/2mmdm(cam). the eurasian lynx density calculated with 1/2mmdm(gps) was 0.4 individuals/100 km(2) in an effectively sampled area of 1,381 km(2). our results suggest that long term photographic cmr sampling on a large scale may be a useful tool to monitor population trends of eurasian lynx in accordance with the fauna-flora-habitat directive of the european union." non-invasive genetic approaches for estimation of ungulate population size: a study on roe deer (capreolus capreolus) based on faeces,abundance; ungulates; faecal pellets; capreolus capreolus; capture-mark-recapture; dna,ANIMAL BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,EBERT C;SANDRINI J;SPIELBERGER B;THIELE B;HOHMANN U,"non-invasive genetic approaches for estimation of ungulate population size: a study on roe deer (capreolus capreolus) based on faeces.-estimating population size is particularly difficult for animal species living in concealing habitats with dense vegetation. this is the case for roe deer as for many other ungulates. our objective was to develop a non-invasive genetic capture-mark-recapture approach based on roe deer faeces collected along transects. in a pilot study, we collected 1,790 roe deer faeces during five sampling days in a forested study area in south western germany. we extracted dna from 410 of these samples and carried out microsatellite analysis using seven dinucleotide markers. the analyses resulted in 328 useable consensus genotypes which were assigned to 174 individuals. the population size estimated using a bayesian approach was 94 (82-111) male and 136 (121-156) female roe deer. our study shows that non-invasive genetic methods are a valuable management tool for roe deer." -"estimating population size of the red swamp crayfish (procambarus clarkii) in fish-ponds (brenne, central france)",procambarus clarkii; fish-ponds; mark-recapture; population size estimation,KNOWLEDGE AND MANAGEMENT OF AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS,COIGNET A;PINET F;SOUTY-GROSSET C,"the red swamp crayfish, procambarus clarkii, was discovered in 2007 in the ""parc naturel regional (pnr) de la brenne"" (france). ten colonized sites have been identified in the park to date, including two new sites discovered in 2011. the present study aims at establishing a protocol suitable for estimating the population size of p. clarkii by the use of a capture-mark-recapture (cmr) technique in a chain of five connected fish-ponds. results show different cohorts of individuals among seasons and fish-ponds. however, trapping effort was not efficient enough to obtain an accurate estimate of the population size of this species in a fish-pond larger than 2-3 ha. on the other hand, the adopted protocol appeared useful to assess, in smaller fish-ponds, the effect of intensive trapping and other control methods on p. clarkii populations." +"estimating population size of the red swamp crayfish (procambarus clarkii) in fish-ponds (brenne, central france)",procambarus clarkii; fish-ponds; mark-recapture; population size estimation,KNOWLEDGE AND MANAGEMENT OF AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS,COIGNET A;PINET F;SOUTY GROSSET C,"the red swamp crayfish, procambarus clarkii, was discovered in 2007 in the ""parc naturel regional (pnr) de la brenne"" (france). ten colonized sites have been identified in the park to date, including two new sites discovered in 2011. the present study aims at establishing a protocol suitable for estimating the population size of p. clarkii by the use of a capture-mark-recapture (cmr) technique in a chain of five connected fish-ponds. results show different cohorts of individuals among seasons and fish-ponds. however, trapping effort was not efficient enough to obtain an accurate estimate of the population size of this species in a fish-pond larger than 2-3 ha. on the other hand, the adopted protocol appeared useful to assess, in smaller fish-ponds, the effect of intensive trapping and other control methods on p. clarkii populations." "estimating population size of saddle-billed storks ephippiorhynchus senegalensis in southern kruger national park, south africa",identification; modified mark-recapture; photographic survey; population estimate; saddle-billed storks,OSTRICH,VAN DEN HOVEN M;REILLY B,"counting saddle-billed storks in a study area the size of the kruger national park, at 2.2 million ha, is difficult because the birds are long-lived, sparse in the landscape and have large home ranges. aerial surveys conducted to date provide an estimate with no measure of data dispersion, thence precision. the aim of this study was to estimate the population size within associated confidence limits using a modified mark-recapture field method. the vehicle survey, conducted shortly after rainfall in the area, did not produce results with known precision under these conditions. a repeat of this census in spring, after the peak breeding season and when surface water is confined to the larger rivers and dams, should yield different results. a photographic census technique yielded sufficient information to construct a population registration database. individual identification profiles indicate that there are at least 40 adult saddle-billed storks in the southern part of the kruger national park. this is considered the minimum number of known-to-be-alive individuals in this area. in this paper, the cormack-jolly-seber mark-recapture model was used to return an estimate of the population size for each capture occasion." natal site fidelity by breeding female southern elephant seals in relation to their history of participation in the winter haulout,animal movement; dispersal; mirounga leonina; subantarctic,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,HOFMEYR GJG;KIRKMAN SP;PISTORIUS PA;BESTER MN,"of the four types of terrestrial haulout periods undertaken by southern elephant seals mirounga leonina, only the purpose of the winter haulout is unknown. returning to a haulout site from distant pelagic foraging grounds bears significant costs in terms of increased energy expenditure, reduced foraging time and increased exposure to predation; therefore, each haulout must serve a purpose. we examined the hypothesis that the winter haulout serves to maintain familiarity with the natal site, thereby increasing site fidelity. to this end, we analysed a long-term mark-recapture dataset for female southern elephant seals at marion island, southern ocean. results indicate that, whereas greater natal site fidelity as primiparous females was associated with recorded presence ashore at the study site during the winter haulout as immatures, this was not the case for multiparous females. furthermore, recorded presence ashore during both the moult haulouts as immatures, and all haulouts as immatures, irrespective of haulout type, was also associated with increased site fidelity. this suggests that any haulout at the natal island as an immature seal, whether for the moult or winter haulout, assists in maintaining site fidelity. therefore, while the winter haulout facilitates greater natal site fidelity, whether this is the sole reason for this terrestrial period remains uncertain." "abundance, survival and temporary emigration of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops sp.) off useless loop in the western gulf of shark bay, western australia",capture-recapture; demographic parameters; photo-identification; pollock's closed robust design,MARINE AND FRESHWATER RESEARCH,NICHOLSON K;BEJDER L;ALLEN SJ;KRUTZEN M;POLLOCK KH,"capture-recapture models were used to provide estimates of abundance, apparent survival and temporary emigration of indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins (tursiops sp.) in a 226-km(2) study area off useless loop in the western gulf of shark bay, western australia. photo-identification data were collected during boat-based surveys in austral autumn to early spring (april-september) from 2007 to 2011. abundance estimates varied from 115 (s.e. 5.2, 95% ci 105-126) individuals in 2008 to 208 (s.e. 17.3, 95% ci 177-245) individuals in 2010. the variability in abundance estimates is likely to be a reflection of how individuals used the study area, rather than fluctuations in true population size. the best fitting capture-recapture model suggested a random temporary emigration pattern and, when coupled with relatively high temporary emigration rates (0.33 (s.e. 0.07) -0.66 (s.e. 0.05)) indicated that the study area did not cover the entire ranges of the photo-identified dolphins. apparent survival rate is a product of true survival and permanent emigration and was estimated annually at 0.95 (s.e. 0.02). since permanent emigration from the study area is unlikely, true survival was estimated to be close to 0.95. this study provides a robust baseline for future comparisons of dolphin demographics, which may be of importance should climate change or increasing anthropogenic activity affect this population." @@ -3706,7 +3712,7 @@ detection and stratification approaches for aerial surveys of deer in prairie-pa "postnatal growth and age estimation in marshall's horseshoe bat, rhinolophus marshalli",rhinolophus marshalli; postnatal growth; age estimation; nonlinear growth models,ACTA CHIROPTEROLOGICA,JIN LR;BO L;SUN KP;LIU Y;HO JP;FENG J,"based on mark-recapture data, we studied the postnatal growth of marshall's horseshoe bat (rhinolophus marshalli) in hekou county, yunnan province, china. our results detected no significant differences both in body mass and in forearm length between males and females at birth. on average, young bats were not agile fliers until 31 days of age. body mass and forearm length of pups followed a linear pattern of growth until day 13, with mean growth rates of 0.17 g/day and 1.22 mm/day, respectively, and thereafter growth rates decreased. length of the total epiphyseal gap of the fourth metacarpal-phalangeal joint showed a linear increase up to 10 days followed by a linear decrease until day 40 with a mean rate of 0.09 mm/day. together, two equations permitted estimation of the age of r. marshalli pups between 1 and 40 days of age. of the three nonlinear growth models (logistic, gompertz, and von bertalanffy), the logistic equation provided the best fit to the empirical curves for body mass and forearm length." counting with combined splitting and capture-recapture methods,capture-recapture; counting; gibbs sampler; splitting,STOCHASTIC MODELS,DUPUIS P;KAYNAR B;RIDDER A;RUBINSTEIN R;VAISMAN R,"we apply the splitting method to three well-known counting problems, namely 3-sat, random graphs with prescribed degrees, and binary contingency tables. we present an enhanced version of the splitting method based on the capture-recapture technique, and show by experiments the superiority of this technique for sat problems in terms of variance of the associated estimators, and speed of the algorithms." factors affecting adult survival and inter-colony movement at the three south african colonies of cape gannet,cape gannets; multistate capture-recapture models; fisheries management; ecological indicator; seabirds; survival,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,DISTILLER G;ALTWEGG R;CRAWFORD RJM;KLAGES NTW;BARHAM B,"marine systems are under pressure from both climate change and exploitation. while many of these ecosystems are inherently variable and hard to monitor, seabirds can be used as ecological indicators that provide early warning signals of deeper environmental change. the agulhas-benguela marine ecosystem around southern africa has exhibited long-term changes in sea surface temperature, and the distribution of pelagic fish in this system has shifted. the cape gannet morus capensis is a seabird endemic as a breeding species to the agulhas-benguela ecosystem. cape gannets breed at just 6 locations and are listed by the iucn as vulnerable. knowledge of the survival and movements of a species is important for understanding of factors influencing its conservation. a random effects multistate capture-recapture model was used to estimate the annual survival probabilities and movement between colonies for adult birds at the 3 south african colonies of the species. the effects on survival of environmental and fisheries-related covariates were explored. survival over the 20 yr period did not exhibit any long-term trend at the 2 southern colonies (malgas and bird islands) but decreased at lambert's bay between 1996 and 2007. at all 3 colonies, adult birds showed a high degree of site fidelity. it may be that for cape gannets, the primary effects of climate and fishing are on recruitment rather than on survival. the continued use of sub-optimal conditions by the west coast colonies has been referred to as an 'ecological trap' and necessitates the introduction of spatial considerations into fisheries management." -population resilience of the mediterranean monk seal monachus monachus at cabo blanco peninsula,small population; capture-recapture; catastrophic event; demography; photo-identifications; marine mammals,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,MARTINEZ-JAUREGUI M;TAVECCHIA G;CEDENILLA MA;COULSON T;DE LARRINOA PF;MUNOZ M;GONZALEZ LM,"environmental and demographic stochasticity alone can push small populations to extinction. however, some small populations can persist for a long time at a low density, maintaining potential for rapid growth. we investigated the demographic mechanisms underlying the response of the population of the mediterranean monk seal monachus monachus on the cabo blanco peninsula (mauritania/morocco). the population was dramatically reduced after a demographic crash in 1997, which was initially thought to have pushed the population toward extinction. census data, individual-based data on presence-absence and breeding state data were obtained by direct observation, by photo-identification and through the analysis of video images at the only known breeding sites for the species. we found that the monk seal population at cabo blanco is recovering, with means of 31 (24.8, 36.8) sub-adults, 46 (42.3, 49.7) adult females and 39 (29.1, 48.4) adult males using the 2 breeding sites in 2007. the population structure is similar to proportions prior to the mass mortality event. annual survival probabilities for sub-adults, adult females and adult males were 0.81 (0.676 to 0.904), 0.99 (0.926 to 0.998) and 0.87 (0.81 to 0.94), respectively. at present, juvenile survival is unknown, but the high survival of females and the high breeding potential are likely to be responsible for the population recovery." +population resilience of the mediterranean monk seal monachus monachus at cabo blanco peninsula,small population; capture-recapture; catastrophic event; demography; photo-identifications; marine mammals,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,MARTINEZ JAUREGUI M;TAVECCHIA G;CEDENILLA MA;COULSON T;DE LARRINOA PF;MUNOZ M;GONZALEZ LM,"environmental and demographic stochasticity alone can push small populations to extinction. however, some small populations can persist for a long time at a low density, maintaining potential for rapid growth. we investigated the demographic mechanisms underlying the response of the population of the mediterranean monk seal monachus monachus on the cabo blanco peninsula (mauritania/morocco). the population was dramatically reduced after a demographic crash in 1997, which was initially thought to have pushed the population toward extinction. census data, individual-based data on presence-absence and breeding state data were obtained by direct observation, by photo-identification and through the analysis of video images at the only known breeding sites for the species. we found that the monk seal population at cabo blanco is recovering, with means of 31 (24.8, 36.8) sub-adults, 46 (42.3, 49.7) adult females and 39 (29.1, 48.4) adult males using the 2 breeding sites in 2007. the population structure is similar to proportions prior to the mass mortality event. annual survival probabilities for sub-adults, adult females and adult males were 0.81 (0.676 to 0.904), 0.99 (0.926 to 0.998) and 0.87 (0.81 to 0.94), respectively. at present, juvenile survival is unknown, but the high survival of females and the high breeding potential are likely to be responsible for the population recovery." "a three-year mark-recapture study in a remnant population of crocodylus acutus cuvier in portete bay (guajira, colombia)",capture-recapture; crocodile; environmental variables; mangrove,GAYANA,ESPINOSA MI;BERTIN A;GOMEZ J;MEJIA F;GUERRA M;BAEZ L;GOUIN N;PATINO E,"the american crocodile, crocodylus acutus, has experienced important population declines worldwide due to human persecution, overexploitation and habitat loss. c. acutus remains critically endangered in some countries such as colombia where the lack of detailed surveys on its ecology and distribution constitutes a major barrier to the development of effective conservation strategies. we conducted a three-year capture-recapture study to investigate the demographic status of c. acutus and to identify environmental variables likely to influence its distribution in portete bay (colombia). we estimated the crocodile population to be relatively small (<140 animals), to include very few adults, and to demonstrate a very strong deficit in females in the juvenile class. both mean air temperature and relative humidity were positively correlated with the number of sightings. in contrast, mean water salinity was found to decrease the probability of observing a crocodile, presumably due to juvenile preference for low salinity areas. our findings suggest that the population of c. acutus in portete bay is at risk and may require human intervention to assure its persistence." identifying work-related motor vehicle crashes in multiple databases,work-related injury; motor vehicle crash; capture-recapture; probabilistic linkage,TRAFFIC INJURY PREVENTION,THOMAS AM;THYGERSON SM;MERRILL RM;COOK LJ,"objective: to compare and estimate the magnitude of work-related motor vehicle crashes in utah using 2 probabilistically linked statewide databases. methods: data from 2006 and 2007 motor vehicle crash and hospital databases were joined through probabilistic linkage. summary statistics and capture-recapture were used to describe occupants injured in work-related motor vehicle crashes and estimate the size of this population. results: there were 1597 occupants in the motor vehicle crash database and 1673 patients in the hospital database identified as being in a work-related motor vehicle crash. we identified 1443 occupants with at least one record from either the motor vehicle crash or hospital database indicating work-relatedness that linked to any record in the opposing database. we found that 38.7 percent of occupants injured in work-related motor vehicle crashes identified in the motor vehicle crash database did not have a primary payer code of workers' compensation in the hospital database and 40.0 percent of patients injured in work-related motor vehicle crashes identified in the hospital database did not meet our definition of a work-related motor vehicle crash in the motor vehicle crash database. depending on how occupants injured in work-related motor crashes are identified, we estimate the population to be between 1852 and 8492 in utah for the years 2006 and 2007. conclusions: research on single databases may lead to biased interpretations of work-related motor vehicle crashes. combining 2 population based databases may still result in an underestimate of the magnitude of work-related motor vehicle crashes. improved coding of work-related incidents is needed in current databases." ontogeny in marine tagging and tracking science: technologies and data gaps,tagging; tracking; biologging; ontogeny; juvenile; top predator,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,HAZEN EL;MAXWELL SM;BAILEY H;BOGRAD SJ;HAMANN M;GASPAR P;GODLEY BJ;SHILLINGER GL,"the field of marine tagging and tracking has grown rapidly in recent years as tag sizes have decreased and the diversity of sensors has increased. tag data provide a unique view on individual movement patterns, at different scales than shipboard surveys, and have been used to discover new habitat areas, characterize oceanographic features, and delineate stock structures, among other purposes. due to the necessity for small tag-to-body size ratio, tags have largely been deployed on adult animals, resulting in a relative paucity of data on earlier life history stages. in this study, we reviewed tagging efforts on multiple life history stages for seabirds, marine mammals, marine turtles, and fish and enumerated studies focusing on each guild that targeted larvae, juveniles or hatchlings. we found that turtles and fish had higher proportion of studies focusing on juveniles (>20%) than seabirds and marine mammals (<10%). on both juveniles and adults, tags were used in a targeted manner with passive and transmitting tags as the main tools for population demography and connectivity studies, while gps and archival tags were used more frequently for habitat analyses and foraging ecology. these findings identify the need to focus on novel approaches in tagging multiple life history stages both to study marine predator ecology and to effectively manage marine populations." @@ -3714,22 +3720,22 @@ effects of solar ultraviolet radiation exposure on early ocean survival and fry- tag retention of t-bar anchor tags and passive integrated transponder tags in shovelnose sturgeon,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,HAMEL MJ;HAMMEN JJ;PEGG MA,"capture-recapture methods are commonly used to estimate population parameters when the necessary assumptions are met. one of the broadest assumptions of capture-recapture models is that tags are not lost. therefore, one must understand tag retention to be able to adjust estimates if tag loss occurs. our objectives were to (1) determine retention rates of t-bar anchor tags and passive integrated transponder (pit) tags injected into the dorsal musculature of shovelnose sturgeon scaphirhynchus platorynchus and (2) determine whether using an alternative pit-tagging location (the operculum) and a new tagging procedure (cyanoacrylate [i.e., superglue] to seal the tag insertion point) provided higher retention. the t-bar tags had a retention rate of 100%; pit tag retention, however, was more variable. injection of pit tags along the dorsal fin resulted in a retention rate of 73%, and tag loss was observed throughout the 98-d experiment. the application of cyanoacrylate did not appear to deter pit tag loss; retention rates before and after cyanoacrylate was applied were 73% and 77%, respectively. further, we observed a similar trend of continual pit tag loss throughout the experiment. the operculum location resulted in a 92% pit tag retention rate and showed no trend in cumulative loss through time. the high retention rate of pit tags placed in the operculum suggests that this location is a reliable alternative to inserting pit tags along the dorsal fin of adult scaphirhynchus species. in addition, the excellent retention of t-bar tags makes them a viable option for use in scaphirhynchus studies." effect of sex and age on temporal variation in the frequency and direction of platypus (omithorhynchus anatinus) captures in fyke nets,foraging directionality; mark-recapture; population abundance; seasonal variation; sex ratio; temporal bias,AUSTRALIAN MAMMALOGY,SERENA M;WILLIAMS GA,"fyke netting is currently the method mainly used to describe the demographic attributes of platypus (ornithorhynchus anatinus) populations occupying relatively shallow, flowing water bodies. based on fieldwork carried out in victoria from 1995 to 2010, fyke netting surveys conducted in the month when the highest frequency of nightly captures was recorded (july) resulted in nearly three times as many adults and subadults entering nets as compared with those scheduled in the months when the fewest nightly captures were recorded (april and may). significant sex-specific variation was apparent in relation to monthly capture frequencies: males were captured most often in august (the start of the breeding season), whereas females were captured most often in january (the peak period of lactation). the frequency of platypus captures also varied significantly when considered on a nocturnal time scale, with 63% of adult and subadult captures and 73% of juvenile captures being recorded in the first half of the night. both juveniles (<11 months) and older animals also showed a significant tendency to travel upstream in the first half of the night. these potential sources of bias in datasets need to be considered when analysing and comparing the results of platypus fyke netting studies." culture of plains topminnow in a pond constructed for species conservation,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF AQUACULTURE,SCHUMANN DA;PASBRIG CA;KOUPAL KD;HOBACK WW,"the plains topminnow fundulus sciadicus appears to be experiencing reductions in geographic range and local abundance, which has led to regional protection throughout its native range. conservation of this species may require introductions to reestablish populations at known historic locations. therefore, a pond was constructed during september 2007 to house a refuge population of plains topminnow in nebraska. a total of 123 plains topminnow were stocked into the pond in two stocking events during 2008. plains topminnow populations were sampled throughout 2008 and mark-recapture population estimates were conducted after reproductive events during 2009 and 2010 resulting in estimates of 9,844 +/- 1,698 (mean +/- sd) and 3,974 +/- 452 plains topminnow, respectively. mean fish weight was used as an estimate of pond biomass, which was 28.4 kg/ha in 2009 and 44.9 kg/ha in 2010. reproduction was first observed in 2008 and in each following year, and a strong year-class was produced in 2009, which suggested there were factors that limited reproduction in the other 2 years. extensive culture may be an effective way to rear plains topminnow and related species. however, more research is needed to determine factors that affect year-class strength and production." -capture-recapture as a potentially useful procedure for assessing prevalence of multiple sclerosis: methodologic exercise using portuguese data,capture-recapture methods; epidemiology; multiple sclerosis prevalence; public health,NEUROEPIDEMIOLOGY,DE SA J;ALCALDE-CABERO E;ALMAZAN-ISLA J;SEMPERE A;DE PEDRO-CUESTA J,"background: capture-recapture methods (crms) are well established in epidemiologic surveillance and considered useful for the task of correcting for case-finding limitations in multiple sclerosis (ms) prevalence surveys. to date, however, crms have been exclusively applied to crude prevalence figures. this study therefore sought to explore an age-specific application of this method to an urban portuguese population of 229,342. methods: we used a crm to correct for the age-specific prevalence of ms obtained from two data sources, i.e. general practitioners in three primary-care districts and a neurology unit at the referral hospital. the corrected figures were adjusted for age using the european standard population as reference. results: when applied to 95 ms patients, the crm impact was highest at ages 50-59 years, with a 110% increase in cases where the corrected prevalence was highest, i.e. 181.8 (95% ci 75.7-287.9) per 100,000, and lowest, nil, at ages >= 70 years, with an unchanged corrected prevalence of 13.8. the crude prevalence of 41.4 per 100,000 increased by 36% to 56.20 per 100,000 when it was crm- and age-adjusted. source independence was poor. conclusions: crms can be differentially applied to ms counts. valid comparisons may require simultaneous adjustment for age and other variables, such as diagnostic delay and diagnostic criteria. crm applications to crude figures and dependent sources should be approached with caution. copyright (c) 2012 s. karger ag, basel" +capture-recapture as a potentially useful procedure for assessing prevalence of multiple sclerosis: methodologic exercise using portuguese data,capture-recapture methods; epidemiology; multiple sclerosis prevalence; public health,NEUROEPIDEMIOLOGY,DE SA J;ALCALDE CABERO E;ALMAZAN ISLA J;SEMPERE A;DE PEDRO CUESTA J,"background: capture-recapture methods (crms) are well established in epidemiologic surveillance and considered useful for the task of correcting for case-finding limitations in multiple sclerosis (ms) prevalence surveys. to date, however, crms have been exclusively applied to crude prevalence figures. this study therefore sought to explore an age-specific application of this method to an urban portuguese population of 229,342. methods: we used a crm to correct for the age-specific prevalence of ms obtained from two data sources, i.e. general practitioners in three primary-care districts and a neurology unit at the referral hospital. the corrected figures were adjusted for age using the european standard population as reference. results: when applied to 95 ms patients, the crm impact was highest at ages 50-59 years, with a 110% increase in cases where the corrected prevalence was highest, i.e. 181.8 (95% ci 75.7-287.9) per 100,000, and lowest, nil, at ages >= 70 years, with an unchanged corrected prevalence of 13.8. the crude prevalence of 41.4 per 100,000 increased by 36% to 56.20 per 100,000 when it was crm- and age-adjusted. source independence was poor. conclusions: crms can be differentially applied to ms counts. valid comparisons may require simultaneous adjustment for age and other variables, such as diagnostic delay and diagnostic criteria. crm applications to crude figures and dependent sources should be approached with caution. copyright (c) 2012 s. karger ag, basel" genetic markers reveal high pit tag retention rates in giant salamanders (cryptobranchus alleganiensis),genetic tagging; hellbender; mark-release-recapture; microsatellite loci,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,UNGER SD;BURGMEIER NG;WILLIAMS RN,"estimation of population size using mark-recapture (mrr) methods are based on the fundamental assumption that individuals retain their marks throughout the course of study. passive integrated transponder (pit) tags are useful as a cost effective, reliable marking method in many amphibian and reptile species. few studies however, use secondary methods to evaluate tag retention rates. failure to do so can lead to biased population estimates, erroneous conclusions, and thus poor management decisions. surprisingly, estimates of pit tag retention are currently lacking for the majority of amphibian species, many of which are experiencing population declines. herein, we use genetic tagging to assess the retention of pit tags of the eastern hellbender (cryptobranchus alleganiensis alleganiensis). we captured and tagged 78 individuals across 35 sites. recapture rate was 24% and genetic tagging revealed 100% tag retention across all recaptured individuals." temporal sampling frame selection in dna-based capture-mark-recapture investigations,american black bear; capture-mark-recapture; genetic sampling; hair; population estimation; temporal sampling frame; ursus americanus,URSUS,WEGAN MT;CURTIS PD;RAINBOLT RE;GARDNER B,"capture-mark-recapture (cmr) population parameter estimation utilizing dna analysis from remotely-collected hair samples to identify individuals and generate encounter histories has become the standard methodology for estimating abundance of american black (ursus americanus) and grizzly bear (u arctos) populations. however, few published studies have examined the time frame for efficiently collecting high-quality hair samples. our objectives were to examine several measures of hair trapping success and sample quality, such as dna amplification rates and the mean number of black bear hair samples collected per trap visit, from hair-snare samples collected in 2 non-overlapping, multi-interval sampling frames conducted during 2005 and 2006 at fort drum military installation in northern new york. through our data analyses and a review of 12 other bear cmr studies using remote hair sampling, we emphasize that temporal sampling frame is a crucial consideration in study design. to avoid biased population estimates and to use financial, personnel, and temporal resources effectively, hair sampling should be conducted during late spring and early summer." a robust-design analysis to estimate american black bear population parameters in utah,american black bear; apparent survival; dna profiling; emigration; huggins capture-mark-recapture; microsatellites; population estimate; pradel model; robust design; ursus americanus; utah,URSUS,PEDERSON JC;BUNNELL KD;CONNER MM;MCLAUGHLIN CR,"we evaluated the efficiency of an extension of a single season capture-mark-recapture (cmr) population estimation method, a closed-capture robust-design model, to monitor trends in population size, apparent survival, and temporary emigration rates over a 5-year period for a low-density population of american black bears (ursus americanus) in north central utah, usa. we also used robust-design pradel models to estimate finite rate of population change and recruitment. we identified individual bears through genetic analysis of tissue samples collected non-invasively at scent-lured sampling sites. although the population was relatively small ((n) over cap = 15-22), the huggins robust-design model provided precise estimates of abundance (cv = 8-14%) and female apparent survival (cv = 9%). apparent survival for females (phi = 0.80, se = 0.07) was 2.2x higher than for males (phi = 0.36, se = 0.12; p = 0.003). in contrast, temporary emigration was 40.8x higher for males (gamma '' = 0.58, se = 0.24) than for females (gamma '' = 0.004, se = 0.06; p = 0.024). data were insufficient to estimate probability of staying for either sex. from the pradel model, finite rate of population change was similar for males and females (lambda = 1.05, se = 0.12 for females; lambda = 1.11, se = 0.16 for males), but recruitment was 3.0x higher for males (f = 0.75, se = 0.17) than for females (f = 0.25, se = 0.10; p = 0.013). population size appeared to be stable or slightly increasing over the 5-year period. this noninvasive cmr study provided relatively efficient, precise estimates of a low-density black bear population on a small study site. we recommend using robust-design closed-capture models if samples are taken over multiple years; in addition to population size, apparent survival, movement, recruitment, and finite population change can be estimated, providing timely insights into population trends and the mechanisms driving them." -"abundance estimate of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in the lower river shannon candidate special area of conservation, ireland",bottlenose dolphin; special area of conservation; photo-identification; abundance; mark-recapture,AQUATIC MAMMALS,BERROW S;O'BRIEN J;GROTH L;FOLEY A;VOIGT K,"an abundance assessment of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in the lower river shannon candidate special area of conservation (csac) was undertaken between july and october 2010 using photo-identification. european union member states are obliged to designate sacs for bottlenose dolphins to protect important habitats. the lower river shannon is the only csac in ireland for this species. a cumulative total of 273 bottlenose dolphins were photographed during the 12 transects, and from these a total of 116 individual animals were identified. they were categorized as follows: 71 with severity grade 1 marks, 21 with severity grade 2 marks, and 24 with severity grade 3 marks. there were 50 dolphins with permanent marks (severity grade 1) recorded on both sides of the dorsal fin, 64 on the left hand side only, and 57 on the right hand side only. there was an overlap, with some dolphins occurring in more than one category. estimates of abundance were calculated using left side, right side, and both side identifications. the proportion of dolphins with re-identifiable marks (severity grade 1 only) ranged from 0.60 to 0.63. the estimated abundance of marked individuals was elevated depending on the estimated proportion of marked individuals in the population to give a final estimate of 107 +/- 12, cv = 0.12 (95% ci = 83 to 131). previous abundance estimates for bottlenose dolphins in the lower river shannon csac ranged from 114 in 2008 to 140 in 2006; the present estimate was within this range and also within the 95% confidence intervals for all surveys carried out to date. this suggests that, within the power of the survey technique, the population of bottlenose dolphins in the lower river shannon csac is relatively stable." +"abundance estimate of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in the lower river shannon candidate special area of conservation, ireland",bottlenose dolphin; special area of conservation; photo-identification; abundance; mark-recapture,AQUATIC MAMMALS,BERROW S;O BRIEN J;GROTH L;FOLEY A;VOIGT K,"an abundance assessment of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in the lower river shannon candidate special area of conservation (csac) was undertaken between july and october 2010 using photo-identification. european union member states are obliged to designate sacs for bottlenose dolphins to protect important habitats. the lower river shannon is the only csac in ireland for this species. a cumulative total of 273 bottlenose dolphins were photographed during the 12 transects, and from these a total of 116 individual animals were identified. they were categorized as follows: 71 with severity grade 1 marks, 21 with severity grade 2 marks, and 24 with severity grade 3 marks. there were 50 dolphins with permanent marks (severity grade 1) recorded on both sides of the dorsal fin, 64 on the left hand side only, and 57 on the right hand side only. there was an overlap, with some dolphins occurring in more than one category. estimates of abundance were calculated using left side, right side, and both side identifications. the proportion of dolphins with re-identifiable marks (severity grade 1 only) ranged from 0.60 to 0.63. the estimated abundance of marked individuals was elevated depending on the estimated proportion of marked individuals in the population to give a final estimate of 107 +/- 12, cv = 0.12 (95% ci = 83 to 131). previous abundance estimates for bottlenose dolphins in the lower river shannon csac ranged from 114 in 2008 to 140 in 2006; the present estimate was within this range and also within the 95% confidence intervals for all surveys carried out to date. this suggests that, within the power of the survey technique, the population of bottlenose dolphins in the lower river shannon csac is relatively stable." spatial distribution of small mammal populations in drava floodplain forest,floodplain forest; small mammals; capture-mark-recapture; spatial association,SUMARSKI LIST,HORVATH GF;SCHAFFER D;POGANY A;TOTH D,"in the present study we examined the spatial distribution of the small mammals of a floodplain forest by river drava based on a three-year live trapping (capture-mark-recapture). we registered the presence of 5 shrew and 5 rodent species between 2001 and 2003. of them apodemus agrarius, a. flavicollis, myodes glareolus and sorex araneus were generally typical in the region. in our examination striped field mouse was the most frequently recorded species. the habitat use of the apodemus species was equal, however the habitat use of bank vole was the opposite, preferring the area between the river and the dirt road. this indicates the spatial segregation of the bank vole and the two mouse species. striped field mice travelled greater distances than bank voles did. yellow-necked mouse individuals covered significantly greater movement distances than striped field mice. as suggested by our study, the dirt road as a dividing line of the trapped forests had no barrier effect on the movements of individuals of the three rodent populations." "modeling delay in diagnosis of nf: under reporting, incidence and prevalence estimates",neurofibromatosis; incidence rate; delay in diagnosis; retro-hazard; horvitz-thompson; prevalence rate; capture-recapture,JOURNAL OF APPLIED STATISTICS,ROCCHETTI I;TARUSCIO D;ALFO M,"in this paper, we analyze data from the italian national register of rare diseases (nrrd) focusing, in particular, on the geo-temporal distribution of patients affected by neurofibromatosis type 1 (nf1, icd9cm code 237.71). the aim is at deriving a corrected measure of incidence for the period 2007-2009 using a single source, and to provide nf1 prevalence estimates for the period 2001-2006 through the use of capture-recapture methods over two sources. in the first case, a reverse hazard estimator for the delay in diagnosis of nf1 is used to estimate the probability that a generic unit belonging to the population of interest has been registered by the archive of reference. for the second purpose, two-source capture-recapture methods have been used to estimate the number of nf1 prevalent units in italy for the period 2001-2006, matching information provided by the nrrd and the national register of hospital discharge, scheda di dimissione ospedaliera (in the following sdo), archives." seasonal ocean temperature and the survival of first-year little penguins eudyptula minor in south-eastern australia,eudyptula minor; little penguin; mark-recapture; first-year survival; sea-surface temperature; temperature gradient; climate change; phillip island; south-eastern australia,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,SIDHU LA;DANN P;CHAMBERS L;CATCHPOLE EA,"ocean temperature has been shown to be related to various demographic parameters in several seabird species, but ultimately its influence on breeding success and survival are paramount. the timing and success of breeding of little penguins eudyptula minor in south-eastern australia have been shown to correlate with local sea-surface temperatures (sst) and the east-west sea-temperature gradient across bass strait several months earlier. however, the causal links between ocean temperature and these demographic variables are not readily apparent due to their lagged nature. using 41 yr of data on little penguins in south-eastern australia, we carried out a mark-recapture analysis to examine if the changing sst and sea-temperature gradient (east-west difference between 2 locations in bass strait) are associated with survival probability in the first year of life. first-year survival is correlated with (1) an east-west sea-temperature gradient in bass strait in the winter after fledging, with an increased temperature gradient associated with decreased survival and (2) the mean sst in the autumn after fledging, with warmer seas associated with increased survival. sst alone does not provide the best model for explaining first-year survival. projections suggest that sst in south-eastern australia and sea-temperature gradient in bass strait will both increase due to global warming. the net effect of an increased sea-temperature gradient in winter (which has a negative influence) and increased sst in autumn (which has a positive influence) on first-year survival is uncertain, given the current lack of knowledge concerning the relationship between the sea-temperature gradient and sst in bass strait." community-level response to different human disturbances and land use of small mammals in two marshland habitat patches in hungary,human disturbance; small mammas; community; capture-mark-recapture; marshland; hungary,ARCHIVES OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,HORVATH GF;HORVATH B;SALI N;HERCZEG R,"marshlands are important ecosystems that provide valuable habitats for wildlife communities. we investigated the small mammal community-level response to different human disturbances and land use in the kis-balaton landscape protection area, which is an endangered marshland ecosystem of hungary. land use, conservation management and other human disturbances (burning, mowing) together with unfavorable weather conditions have caused the degradation of the original homogeneous sedgy marshland on both sampled areas. we measured the species turnover between the different periods separated by the habitat changes. our results suggest that populations of the habitat-specialist species of marshland areas (e.g. endangered hungarian subspecies of root vole) are sensitive to the negative effects of environment and human disturbances. the combined effect of human disturbances and the stochastic processes of the environment can cause the disappearance and substitution of character species stabilizing the communities, which in turn leads to the modification of species composition and structure of small mammal assemblages." leaving on migration: estimating departure dates of barn swallows hirundo rustica from summer roosts using a capture-mark-recapture approach,NA,BIRD STUDY,NEUBAUER G;ZIELINSKI P;WOJCIECHOWSKI Z;BUSZKIEWICZ E;SIEKIERA J;SIEKIERA A,"capsule capture-mark-recapture data can be used to predict departure dates of barn swallows hirundo rustica from summer roosts. aims to investigate how long barn swallows remain at their breeding grounds before migration by estimating departure dates. methods a capture-mark-recapture approach was applied to an extensive data set (65 303 ringed and 710 recaptured birds) from two summer roosts. multiple-day constancy models were used to estimate apparent survival, which was subsequently translated to residence time. results the longest intervals between ringing and recapturing were between 66 and 67 days; estimated mean minimum durations were between 16.3 and 18.5 days. apparent survival was high over most of the summer, indicating that there is little emigration during this period and was followed by a sharp departure-related decline in late august and september. expected residence time, derived from apparent survival estimates, declined linearly from about 80 days in early july to less than 10 days in september. estimated departure dates were highly consistent between years and occurred in late september. conclusions barn swallows stay much longer at post-breeding roost sites than is necessary to build up their fat reserves for migration. we suggest that the birds are likely to derive a number of benefits from such a prolonged stay that are not directly related to preparation for migration; for example, minimizing predation risk by foraging in familiar areas, and gathering information on the quality of future breeding sites." -"movement patterns of the native fish fauna of the san pedro river (valdivia river basin, chile)",native fish; movement; mark-recapture; pit-tags; chile,GAYANA,PIEDRA P;HABIT E;OYANEDEL A;COLIN N;SOLIS-LUFI K;GONZALEZ J;JARA A;ORTIZ N;CIFUENTES R,"the chilean native fish are characterized for having small sizes (< 30 cm). due to this, they are generally described with a low swimming capacity and movement; nevertheless, there is no empirical study to show it. in this study we describe the movement patterns of six native species in the san pedro river (aplochiton taeniatus, galaxias maculatus, galaxias platei, diplomystes camposensis, basilichthys australis y percilia gillissi) by using marking-recapture techniques with elastomeric inks and pit tags. our results suggest that most of the species show passive movements, crossing distances up to about 40 km in the flow direction. movements between river banks were also frequent, even in zones of high turbulence of the river. active movements upstream were note clear, but the analysis of the results altogether with information of the genetic structure, abundances and distribution of the species in the watershed, allows us to conclude that the movement patterns of all species studied are relevant for the maintenance of their metapopulation dynamics." +"movement patterns of the native fish fauna of the san pedro river (valdivia river basin, chile)",native fish; movement; mark-recapture; pit-tags; chile,GAYANA,PIEDRA P;HABIT E;OYANEDEL A;COLIN N;SOLIS LUFI K;GONZALEZ J;JARA A;ORTIZ N;CIFUENTES R,"the chilean native fish are characterized for having small sizes (< 30 cm). due to this, they are generally described with a low swimming capacity and movement; nevertheless, there is no empirical study to show it. in this study we describe the movement patterns of six native species in the san pedro river (aplochiton taeniatus, galaxias maculatus, galaxias platei, diplomystes camposensis, basilichthys australis y percilia gillissi) by using marking-recapture techniques with elastomeric inks and pit tags. our results suggest that most of the species show passive movements, crossing distances up to about 40 km in the flow direction. movements between river banks were also frequent, even in zones of high turbulence of the river. active movements upstream were note clear, but the analysis of the results altogether with information of the genetic structure, abundances and distribution of the species in the watershed, allows us to conclude that the movement patterns of all species studied are relevant for the maintenance of their metapopulation dynamics." estimates of sex ratio require the incorporation of unequal catchability between sexes,anuran; conservation; frog; litoria aurea; mark-recapture; population ecology,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,PICKETT EJ;STOCKWELL MP;POLLARD CJ;GARNHAM JI;CLULOW J;MAHONY MJ,"context. estimates of the sex ratio of a population are a common summary statistic used for ecological studies and conservation planning. however, methods to determine the sex ratio often ignore capture probability, which can lead to a perceived bias in the sex ratio when the sexes are detected at different rates. aims. to illustrate the bias from conventional count-based analysis methods for determining sex ratio by comparison with analytical methods that include capture probability. methods. closed-population mark-recapture analysis was used to determine the population size of each sex within a population of green and golden bell frogs (litoria aurea). this was then compared with the traditional count-based methods of estimating sex ratio to determine the effect of incorporating capture probability on the sex ratio estimate. key results. more males than females were detected during surveys, producing a male-biased sex ratio when there was no incorporation of capture probability. mark-recapture results indicated a similar population size between the two sexes, suggesting that the sex ratio is closer to even. conclusions. methods to estimate sex ratio that incorporate capture probability can significantly reduce the bias obtained from count data. implications. we suggest that population studies must incorporate capture probability to determine the sex ratio of a population." population size of hatchery-reared and wild pallid sturgeon in the lower missouri river,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,STEFFENSEN KD;POWELL LA;PEGG MA,"the population size of pallid sturgeon scaphirhynchus albus is currently unknown throughout much of the missouri river. listed as federally endangered in 1990, the pallid sturgeon remains one of the rarest fishes in the missouri and mississippi river basins, and little to no natural recruitment occurs. artificial population supplementation via a hatchery propagation program was initiated, necessitating the collection of sexually mature pallid sturgeon. therefore, the nebraska game and parks commission maintained an intensive broodstock collection and mark-recapture effort from 2008 to 2010 to capture reproductively ready adults for the propagation program. coordinated crews fished baited trotlines from the confluence of the platte and missouri rivers at river kilometer (rkm) 957.6 to a point about 80.5 rkm downstream. a total of 438 pallid sturgeon were captured, which amounts to a 7.8% recapture rate. the objectives of the study were to (1) use these data to estimate the annual population sizes of wild-origin and hatchery-reared pallid sturgeon within the above-mentioned 80.5-rkm reach of the lower missouri river and (2) compare current population levels with the pallid sturgeon recovery team's population objective. we used the mark-recapture data in a robust-design analysis to derive population estimates and annual survival, capture, and temporary emigration rates. the annual population estimate for wild pallid sturgeon varied from 5.4 to 8.9 fish/rkm, whereas the estimate for known hatchery-reared fish varied from 28.6 to 32.3 fish/rkm. the robust-design approach to our analysis resulted in useful estimates of population size and other variables important to quantifying species recovery and management targets; the approach may be suitable for other fisheries management data sets." "demography, fishery yield and potential management strategies of painted spiny lobster (panulirus versicolor) at northwest island, great barrier reef, australia",coral reefs; fishery management; mortality; population dynamics; yield per recruit,MARINE AND FRESHWATER RESEARCH,FRISCH AJ;HOBBS JPA,"quantification of demographic parameters is important for understanding how populations interact with their environment and for developing sustainable harvest strategies. our aims were to quantify demographic parameters and yield of painted spiny lobster (panulirus versicolor) at northwest island, great barrier reef and review fishery management regulations in view of the findings. using catch-curve analysis and an intensive mark-recapture program, the local lobster population was found to be sparsely distributed (similar to 1.3 ha(-1)), with low rates of natural mortality (0.25-0.28 year(-1)) and immigration (0.05 ha(-1) year(-1)). under current management regulations (no minimum size limit; msl), yield-per-recruit peaked at 0.38 kg when fishing mortality was 0.4 year(-1). implementation of a 100-mm (carapace length) msl is recommended because it provides the best compromise between yield and stock size and has minimal impact on existing fishing practices. revocation of the prohibition on possessing egg-bearing females is also recommended because it would reduce wastage of lobsters that are inadvertently killed by spear-fishers and because there appears to be little chance of localised recruitment overfishing. this study provides the first estimate of mortality rate for p. versicolor and highlights the importance of this parameter for understanding demographic processes and optimising management regulations." abundance of humpback whales in oceania using photo-identification and microsatellite genotyping,megaptera novaeangliae; south pacific; capture-recapture; genotyping; endangered species,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,CONSTANTINE R;JACKSON JA;STEEL D;BAKER CS;BROOKS L;BURNS D;CLAPHAM P;HAUSER N;MADON B;MATTILA D;OREMUS M;POOLE M;ROBBINS J;THOMPSON K;GARRIGUE C,"estimating the abundance of long-lived, migratory animals is challenging but essential for managing populations. we provide the first abundance estimates of endangered humpback whales megaptera novaeangliae from their breeding grounds in oceania, south pacific. using fluke photo-identification (1999-2004, n = 660 individuals) and microsatellite genotypes (1999-2005, n = 840 individuals), we estimated abundance with open capture-recapture statistical models. total oceania abundance and trends were estimated from 4 primary and 5 secondary sampling sites across the region. sex-specific genotype data enabled us to account for the difference in capturability of males and females, by doubling male-specific estimates of abundance derived from genotypes. abundance estimates were congruent between primary-and secondary-region data sets, suggesting that the primary regions are representative of all oceania. the best estimate of total abundance was 4329 whales (3345-5313) in 2005, from a sex-specific popan super-population model, which includes resident whales and those migrating through the surveyed areas. a doubled-male popan abundance estimate from 2003 (n = 2941, 95% ci = 1648-4234) was considered the most plausible for the 4 primary survey areas and was similar to the 2003 doubled-male estimate derived from pradel capture probabilities (n = 2952, 95% ci = 2043-4325). our results confirm that oceania is the least abundant humpback whale breeding population in the southern hemisphere. pradel models showed no significant trend in abundance, which contradicts the recovery seen in most other populations throughout the world. thus we suggest that the whales in this area warrant continued study and management attention." -"population size of the jumbo squid dosidicus gigas in the central gulf of california, mexico, based on mark-recapture data",binomial distribution; likelihood estimator; mark-recapture; population size; dosidicus gigas,AQUATIC BIOLOGY,MORALES-BOJORQUEZ E;HERNANDEZ-HERRERA A;NEVAREZ-MARTINEZ MO;DIAZ-URIBE JG,"the use of mark-recapture data can be an alternative to other methods for estimating abundance of the jumbo squid dosidicus gigas and can be used when catch-per-unit-effort data applied to depletion models or estimates from survey research are not available. two mark-recapture events were analyzed in the central gulf of california, mexico, during october 2001 and april 2002 to assess the status of jumbo squid. results from october 2001 yielded a population size of 20.2 million squid with a 95% ci of 16 to 26.5 million squid (p < 0.05). in april the population size was estimated at 132.6 million squid with a 95% ci of 85.5 to 222 million squid (p < 0.05). the results for october and april show 2 different periods of abundance. estimates of tag return rates were higher in april (5.5%) than in october (1.7%), and recruitment is the most plausible explanation. in the gulf of california, recruitment of jumbo squid commonly occurs during april and may." +"population size of the jumbo squid dosidicus gigas in the central gulf of california, mexico, based on mark-recapture data",binomial distribution; likelihood estimator; mark-recapture; population size; dosidicus gigas,AQUATIC BIOLOGY,MORALES BOJORQUEZ E;HERNANDEZ HERRERA A;NEVAREZ MARTINEZ MO;DIAZ URIBE JG,"the use of mark-recapture data can be an alternative to other methods for estimating abundance of the jumbo squid dosidicus gigas and can be used when catch-per-unit-effort data applied to depletion models or estimates from survey research are not available. two mark-recapture events were analyzed in the central gulf of california, mexico, during october 2001 and april 2002 to assess the status of jumbo squid. results from october 2001 yielded a population size of 20.2 million squid with a 95% ci of 16 to 26.5 million squid (p < 0.05). in april the population size was estimated at 132.6 million squid with a 95% ci of 85.5 to 222 million squid (p < 0.05). the results for october and april show 2 different periods of abundance. estimates of tag return rates were higher in april (5.5%) than in october (1.7%), and recruitment is the most plausible explanation. in the gulf of california, recruitment of jumbo squid commonly occurs during april and may." "an improved mark-recapture method using passive integrated transponder (pit) tags in birgus latro (linnaeus, 1767) (decapoda, anomura)",NA,CRUSTACEANA,DREW MM;HARTNOLL RG;HANSSON BS,"the effectiveness of passive integrated transponders (pit tags) was investigated in the robber or coconut crab, birgus latro. a pilot study was conducted in chumbe island, zanzibar, and a definitive study on christmas island, indian ocean. no mortality or adverse behaviour was recorded as a result of pit tagging. on christmas island 1150 crabs were tagged in 2009 and 2010. in the period to april 2011, 169 crabs were recaptured, some up to four times. of these, 67 had moulted before recapture. approximately equal numbers of each sex were marked, and recaptured. tag loss was estimated at similar to 5%. alternative sampling protocols using grid and transect searches were tested. they produced different results in terms of sampling efficiency and sex ratio: sampling protocol must be considered when interpreting data. pit tagging in birgus is a promising method for long term population studies. it promises low tag loss and good recapture rates in comparison with previous studies." "uncovering the secret lives of sewer rats (rattus norvegicus): movements, distribution and population dynamics revealed by a capture-mark-recapture study",NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,HEIBERG AC;SLUYDTS V;LEIRS H,"context. in many parts of the world, brown rats have colonised sewer systems and the rat populations in sewers are often thought to be a source of problems with rats on the surface. the management of sewer rat populations is usually performed with little, if any, knowledge of the dynamics and behaviour of these populations. aims. the study aimed to uncover the population dynamics, movements and distribution of rats in populations living in sewers. methods. we studied rats in a capture-mark-recapture study in two adjacent but separate sewer systems in suburban copenhagen, denmark, covering a surface area of 30 ha. multiple-capture live traps were placed in manholes in public sewers; animals were marked individually and data were collected every fourth week for a period of almost 3 years. key results. in total, 332 individual rats were trapped. approximately one-third were only caught once, half of these were juveniles. the median time an individual was present in the sewers was 4 months with maxima up to 22 months. abundance ranged from 2 to 44 animals per sewer system and the dynamics showed no regular fluctuations. rats were distributed throughout the study area, regardless of sewer dimensions. juvenile rats were captured more in the smaller and drier sewer sections. activity areas of rats of both sexes overlapped partially, and observations of bite wounds were rare, suggesting a high degree of tolerance. the average maximal distance covered by rats was similar to 200m for both sexes. day-to-day movements took place over shorter distances. there were no movements of rats between sewer systems and no sewer rats were observed to be active on the surface. the rat populations seemed to be substructured in smaller groups. conclusions. sewer rat populations vary irregularly in abundance. pipe dimensions are not important for the presence of rats but breeding seems concentrated in smaller and drier pipes. most individuals are resident and live in small groups that are active in a limited area only, but still there is a fair group of dispersing rats. implications. sewer rat management should be spread out spatially in a sewer system since most rats move over short areas only. recolonisation by dispersing rats must be taken into account if sewer systems are connected. it is likely that targeting smaller and drier pipes will affect reproductive success." "computer-aided identification of coelacanths, latimeria chalumnae, using scale patterns",isimangaliso wetland park; endangered species; photographic identification,MARINE BIOLOGY RESEARCH,THORNYCROFT RE;BOOTH AJ,"despite coelacanths, latimeria chalumnae, being listed as either endangered by cites or critically endangered by the iucn, their population size within south africa is unknown and still needs to be estimated. their conservation status unfortunately excludes the use of conventional tagging to mark individual animals for a possible mark-recapture experiment. this study shows that because coelacanths have a unique spot patterning it is possible to quickly and accurately identify specific individuals photographically using computer-aided identification software. without any manual intervention by an operator, the software accurately identified between 56 and 92% of the individuals. indentification success increased to 100% if the operator could also manually select from other potential matching photographs. it was also shown that fish exhibiting a yaw angle not exceeding 60 degrees could be accurately identified in photographs, although the percentage of fish correctly identified without operator-intervention decreased rapidly with increasing yaw angle. computer-aided identification should therefore facilitate future coelacanth research as it is both efficient and accurate while also reducing potential stress on the animals observed." @@ -3746,18 +3752,18 @@ somatic growth rates of hawksbill turtles eretmochelys imbricata in a northern g linking noninvasive genetic sampling and traditional monitoring to aid management of a trans-border carnivore population,artificial boundaries; brown bear; harvest data; microsatellite analysis; scandinavia; telemetry; ursus arctos; utilization distribution,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,BISCHOF R;SWENSON JE,"noninvasive genetic sampling has been embraced by wildlife managers and ecologists, especially those charged with monitoring rare and elusive species over large areas. challenges arise when desired population measures are not directly attainable from genetic. data and when monitoring targets trans-border populations. norwegian management authorities count individual brown bears (ursus arctos) using noninvasive genetic sampling but express management goals in the annual number of bear reproductions (females that produce cubs), a measure that is not directly available from genetic data. we combine noninvasive genetic sampling data with information obtained from a long-term intensive monitoring study in neighboring sweden to estimate the number of annual reproductions by females detected within norway. most female brown bears in norway occur near the border with neighboring countries (sweden, finland, and russia) and their potential reproduction can therefore only partially be credited to norway. our model includes a simulation-based method that corrects census data to account for this. we estimated that 4.3 and 5.7 reproductions can be credited to females detected with noninvasive genetic sampling in norway in 2008 and 2009, respectively. these numbers fall substantially short of the national target (15 annual reproductions). ignoring the potential for home ranges to extend beyond norway's borders leads to an increase in the estimate of the number of reproductions by similar to 30%. our study shows that combining noninvasive genetic sampling with information obtained from traditional intensive/invasive monitoring can help answer contemporary management questions in the currency desired by managers and policy makers. furthermore, combining methodologies and thereby accounting for space use increases the accuracy of the information-on which decisions are based. it is important that the information derived from multiple approaches is applicable to the same focal population and that predictions are cross-validated. when monitoring and management are constrained to administrative units, census data should be adjusted by discounting portions of individual space utilization that extend beyond the focal jurisdiction. our simulation-based approach for making such an adjustment may be useful in other situations where management, authorities target portions of transborder populations." optimising bait-station delivery of population-control agents to brushtail possums: field test of spatial model predictions,bovine tuberculosis; fertility vaccine; leghold trapping; marsupial; population monitoring; rtci; wildlife management,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,MONKS A;TOMPKINS DM,"context. low-volume control agents based on new biotechnologies are likely to be point-delivered to wildlife populations using devices such as bait stations. however, data and theory to underpin the development of strategies for such a use of bait stations are lacking. aims. in a large-scale replicated field trial of brushtail possum (trichosurus vulpecula) populations, we estimated the levels of coverage achieved with bait-station grids at three densities (0.2, 0.6 and 1.0 ha(-1)), with and without pre-feeding, to test the predictions of an existing model of bait-station delivery based on relationships derived from leghold trapping. methods. we first marked possums using conventional capture-mark-recapture techniques, and then estimated population coverage by recovering animals poisoned by encapsulated cyanide delivered by the bait stations. key results. the two key model predictions, that 90% population coverage could be achieved at 0.6 bait stations per hectare and that pre-feeding was not required to achieve this level, were not upheld by the field trials. instead, there was a poor fit between model predictions and observed levels of population coverage. an investigation of key model assumptions demonstrated issues with both model structure and parameterisation. conclusions. neither previously documented relationships for possum interactions with leghold traps, nor correlations between possum interaction rates with such devices and bait stations, are generically applicable across all populations. implications. while the existing model of bait-station delivery to possums fits the data for some field operations and trials, it is not applicable to all populations. incorporating habitat and seasonal effects on possum home-range behaviour could potentially improve model prediction. our results also have implications for the accuracy of index-based methods of possum population monitoring that use leghold traps, such as the residual trap catch index." "overcoming hermit-crab interference during rodent-baiting operations: a case study from henderson island, south pacific",coenobitidae; conservation; eradication; islands; rats; rattus exulans,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,CUTHBERT RJ;BROOKE MD;TORR N,"context. rat (rattus spp.) eradication operations in the tropics are often put at risk by the presence of land crabs, in particular hermit crabs (coenobitidae), which consume toxic bait and thereby render it unavailable to rats. aims. we estimated hermit-crab densities in areas of high abundance, assessed crab bait consumption rates and determined the required baiting application rate to ensure that 100% of pacific rats (rattus exulans) consumed bait in areas with high crab densities on henderson island, south pacific. methods. crab densities and rat densities were estimated through distance sampling of crabs and mark-recapture of rats. non-toxic rhodamine-dyed cereal bait pellets were spread by hand at varying densities within four study plots and rats were captured 12 days later and examined for the presence of rhodamine biomarker dye. key results. crab densities (primarily coenobita perlatus) varied between beaches from 130 crabs ha(-1) to 1370 crabs ha(-1), with rats occurring at respective densities of 28 and 7 rats ha-1 on these beaches. estimated bait consumption rate of c. perlatus was 3.8 g crab(-1) day(-1). in total, 100% of rats were positive for rhodamine-dyed bait, despite the high densities of crabs present. conclusions. the results support the prospects for a successful rat eradication on henderson island, although careful consideration must be given to the potential impact of an eradication on non-target species. the estimated bait consumption rate by c. perlatus found in the present study may allow other eradication operations to make initial calculations of the required baiting densities to overcome interference from this species." -the role of body size versus growth on the decision to migrate: a case study with salmo trutta,bayesian model; capture-mark-recapture; migration; passive integrated transponders (pit),"NATURWISSENSCHAFTEN",ACOLAS ML;LABONNE J;BAGLINIERE JL;ROUSSEL JM,"in a population exhibiting partial migration (i.e. migration and residency tactics occur in the same population), the mechanisms underlying the tactical choice are still unclear. empirical studies have highlighted a variety of factors that could influence the coexistence of resident and migratory individuals, with growth and body size considered to be key factors in the decision to migrate. most studies suffer from at least one of the two following caveats: (1) survival and capture probabilities are not taken into account in the data analysis, and (2) body size is often used as a proxy for individual growth. we performed a capture-mark-recapture experiment to study partial migration among juvenile brown trout salmo trutta at the end of their first year, when a portion of the population emigrate from the natal stream while others choose residency tactic. bayesian multistate capture-recapture models accounting for survival and recaptures probabilities were used to investigate the relative role of body size and individual growth on survival and migration probabilities. our results show that, despite an apparent effect of both size and growth on migration, growth is the better integrative parameter and acts directly on migration probability whereas body size acts more strongly on survival. consequently, we recommend caution if size is used as a proxy for growth when studying the factors that drive partial migration in juvenile salmonid species." -species-specific effects of marine reserves: mortality and growth differ within and among heavily exploited and rarely exploited limpets,helcion concolor; cellana capensis; scutellastra longicosta; scutellastra granularis; growth rate; mortality rate,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,"NAKIN MDV;BOOTH AJ;MCQUAID CD","the effects of marine reserves on the growth and mortality rates of 2 commonly exploited (helcion concolor and scutellastra longicosta) and 2 rarely exploited (cellana capensis and scutellastra granularis) limpets were investigated at 2 reserve and 2 non-reserve sites in south africa. two hypotheses were tested: (1) growth of commonly exploited species would be reduced in reserves due to higher densities and stronger intraspecific competition, with no effect for rarely exploited species; (2) commonly exploited species would show higher mortality rates outside than inside reserves, with no effect for rarely exploited species. both the exploited h. concolor and c. capensis (sometimes mistaken for h. concolor by harvesters) exhibited faster growth at non-reserve sites where their densities were generally lower. no effect of reserve status was detected for the growth rates of s. granularis (rarely exploited) or s. longicosta (commonly exploited). s. longicosta showed no reserve effect on growth because it is territorial, and density has no effect on territory size. reserve effects were only observed for the survival probability of s. longicosta, the most commonly exploited species, and the probability of capture (but not survival) of the 2 rarely exploited species. the results indicate that the effects of reserves on growth and mortality are species-specific and are difficult to generalize even within the categories of commonly and rarely exploited limpets." -assessing population parameters and trends of guiana dolphins (sotalia guianensis): an eight-year mark-recapture study,population dynamics; mark-recapture models; temporary emigration; survival; abundance; population trends; robust design; sotalia guianensis; abrolhos bank,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,CANTOR M;WEDEKIN LL;DAURA-JORGE FG;ROSSI-SANTOS MR;SIMOES-LOPES PC,"this study represents the first attempt to study the population dynamics of guiana dolphins (sotalia guianensis), by evaluating a set of demographic parameters. the population of the caravelas river estuary, eastern brazil, was systematically monitored through a long-term mark-recapture experiment (2002-2009). abundance estimates revealed a small population (57-124 dolphins), comprised of resident dolphins and individuals that temporarily leave or pass through the study area. temporary emigration from the estuary to adjacencies (gamma''= 0.33 +/- 0.07 se) and return rate (1 -gamma' = 0.67) were moderate and constant, indicating that some dolphins use larger areas. survival rate (phi= 0.88 +/- 0.07 se) and abundance were constant throughout the study period. power analysis showed that the current monitoring effort has high probability of detecting abrupt population declines (1 - beta= 0.9). although the monitoring is not yet sensitive to subtle population trends, sufficient time to identify them is feasible (additional 3 yr). despite such apparent stability, this population, as many others, inhabits waters exposed to multiple human-related threats. open and closed population modeling applied to photo-identification data provide a robust baseline for estimating several demographic parameters and can be applied to other populations to allow further comparisons. such synergistic efforts will allow a reliable definition of conservation status of this species." +the role of body size versus growth on the decision to migrate: a case study with salmo trutta,bayesian model; capture-mark-recapture; migration; passive integrated transponders (pit),NATURWISSENSCHAFTEN,ACOLAS ML;LABONNE J;BAGLINIERE JL;ROUSSEL JM,"in a population exhibiting partial migration (i.e. migration and residency tactics occur in the same population), the mechanisms underlying the tactical choice are still unclear. empirical studies have highlighted a variety of factors that could influence the coexistence of resident and migratory individuals, with growth and body size considered to be key factors in the decision to migrate. most studies suffer from at least one of the two following caveats: (1) survival and capture probabilities are not taken into account in the data analysis, and (2) body size is often used as a proxy for individual growth. we performed a capture-mark-recapture experiment to study partial migration among juvenile brown trout salmo trutta at the end of their first year, when a portion of the population emigrate from the natal stream while others choose residency tactic. bayesian multistate capture-recapture models accounting for survival and recaptures probabilities were used to investigate the relative role of body size and individual growth on survival and migration probabilities. our results show that, despite an apparent effect of both size and growth on migration, growth is the better integrative parameter and acts directly on migration probability whereas body size acts more strongly on survival. consequently, we recommend caution if size is used as a proxy for growth when studying the factors that drive partial migration in juvenile salmonid species." +species-specific effects of marine reserves: mortality and growth differ within and among heavily exploited and rarely exploited limpets,helcion concolor; cellana capensis; scutellastra longicosta; scutellastra granularis; growth rate; mortality rate,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,NAKIN MDV;BOOTH AJ;MCQUAID CD,"the effects of marine reserves on the growth and mortality rates of 2 commonly exploited (helcion concolor and scutellastra longicosta) and 2 rarely exploited (cellana capensis and scutellastra granularis) limpets were investigated at 2 reserve and 2 non-reserve sites in south africa. two hypotheses were tested: (1) growth of commonly exploited species would be reduced in reserves due to higher densities and stronger intraspecific competition, with no effect for rarely exploited species; (2) commonly exploited species would show higher mortality rates outside than inside reserves, with no effect for rarely exploited species. both the exploited h. concolor and c. capensis (sometimes mistaken for h. concolor by harvesters) exhibited faster growth at non-reserve sites where their densities were generally lower. no effect of reserve status was detected for the growth rates of s. granularis (rarely exploited) or s. longicosta (commonly exploited). s. longicosta showed no reserve effect on growth because it is territorial, and density has no effect on territory size. reserve effects were only observed for the survival probability of s. longicosta, the most commonly exploited species, and the probability of capture (but not survival) of the 2 rarely exploited species. the results indicate that the effects of reserves on growth and mortality are species-specific and are difficult to generalize even within the categories of commonly and rarely exploited limpets." +assessing population parameters and trends of guiana dolphins (sotalia guianensis): an eight-year mark-recapture study,population dynamics; mark-recapture models; temporary emigration; survival; abundance; population trends; robust design; sotalia guianensis; abrolhos bank,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,CANTOR M;WEDEKIN LL;DAURA JORGE FG;ROSSI SANTOS MR;SIMOES LOPES PC,"this study represents the first attempt to study the population dynamics of guiana dolphins (sotalia guianensis), by evaluating a set of demographic parameters. the population of the caravelas river estuary, eastern brazil, was systematically monitored through a long-term mark-recapture experiment (2002-2009). abundance estimates revealed a small population (57-124 dolphins), comprised of resident dolphins and individuals that temporarily leave or pass through the study area. temporary emigration from the estuary to adjacencies (gamma''= 0.33 +/- 0.07 se) and return rate (1 -gamma' = 0.67) were moderate and constant, indicating that some dolphins use larger areas. survival rate (phi= 0.88 +/- 0.07 se) and abundance were constant throughout the study period. power analysis showed that the current monitoring effort has high probability of detecting abrupt population declines (1 - beta= 0.9). although the monitoring is not yet sensitive to subtle population trends, sufficient time to identify them is feasible (additional 3 yr). despite such apparent stability, this population, as many others, inhabits waters exposed to multiple human-related threats. open and closed population modeling applied to photo-identification data provide a robust baseline for estimating several demographic parameters and can be applied to other populations to allow further comparisons. such synergistic efforts will allow a reliable definition of conservation status of this species." demography of takahe (porphyrio hochstetteri) in fiordland: environmental factors and management affect survival and breeding success,captive rearing; mark-recapture; nest manipulation; new zealand; predator control,NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,HEGG D;GREAVES G;MAXWELL JM;MACKENZIE DI;JAMIESON IG,"the last remaining natural population of the critically endangered takahe (porphyrio hochstetteri) is confined to the murchison mountains in fiordland, new zealand. this mainland population contains about half of the c. 300 remaining takahe and benefits from one of the costliest recovery programmes in the country. management activities include deer culling, stoat trapping, nest manipulation (e.g. removal of infertile eggs) and captive rearing of chicks. to determine what effect this intensive management has had on the recovery of the fiordland takahe population, we modelled 25 years of survival and breeding success data as a function of environmental factors (e.g. precipitation, temperature, beech seedfall, tussock flowering) and specific management activities (egg manipulation, captive rearing, stoat control). annual adult survival, estimated at 78% (credibility interval (ci) = 75-81%), is significantly increased to 85% (76-92% ci) in presence of stoat trapping, but is still low relative to introduced takahe populations on offshore islands and other large new zealand bird species in predator-free environments. this suggests that the harsh environment of fiordland may be suboptimal habitat in terms of survival for takahe. on the other hand, reproductive output in fiordland is similar to that for introduced island populations, and is improved even further by management. number of chicks per pair fledged with nest manipulation and captive rearing is estimated at 0.66 compared with 0.43 in the absence of nest management. the difference is explained mainly by low fledging success in the wild, especially for double clutches, which justifies the practice of removing one of two viable eggs and transferring it to a captive-rearing facility. the results of this study indicate that current management activities such as stoat trapping and captive rearing have a strong positive effect on population growth of the murchison mountains takahe population." bayesian inference on age-specific survival for censored and truncated data,age-specific survival; bayesian inference; capture-recapture; recovery data; maximum likelihood,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,COLCHERO F;CLARK JS,"1. traditional estimation of age-specific survival and mortality rates in vertebrates is limited to individuals with known age. although this subject has been studied extensively using effective capturerecapture and capturerecovery models, inference remains challenging because of large numbers of incomplete records (i.e. unknown age of many individuals) and because of the inadequate duration of the studies. 2. here, we present a hierarchical model for capture-recapture/recovery (crr) data sets with large proportions of unknown times of birth and death. the model uses a bayesian framework to draw inference on population-level age-specific demographic rates using parametric survival functions and applies this information to reconstruct times of birth and death for individuals with unknown age. 3. we simulated a set of crr data sets with varying study span and proportions of individuals with known age, and varying recapture and recovery probabilities. we used these data sets to compare our method to a traditional crr model, which requires knowledge of individual ages. subsequently, we applied our method to a subset of a long-term crr data set on soay sheep. 4. our results show that this method performs better than the common crr model when sample sizes are low. still, our model is sensitive to the choice of priors with low recapture probability and short studies. in such cases, priors that overestimate survival perform better than those that underestimate it. also, the model was able to estimate accurately ages at death for soay sheep, with an average error of 0.94 years and to identify differences in mortality rate between sexes. 5. although many of the problems in the estimation of age-specific survival can be reduced through more efficient sampling schemes, most ecological data sets are still sparse and with a large proportion of missing records. thus, improved sampling needs still to be combined with statistical models capable of overcoming the unavoidable limitations of any fieldwork. we show that our approach provides reliable estimates of parameters and unknown times of birth and death even with the most incomplete data sets while being flexible enough to accommodate multiple recapture probabilities and covariates." evaluating the demographic buffering hypothesis with vital rates estimated for weddell seals from 30 years of mark-recapture data,demography; environmental canalization; leptonychotes weddellii; marine mammal; pinniped; population dynamics,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,ROTELLA JJ;LINK WA;CHAMBERT T;STAUFFER GE;GARROTT RA,"1. life-history theory predicts that those vital rates that make larger contributions to population growth rate ought to be more strongly buffered against environmental variability than are those that are less important. despite the importance of the theory for predicting demographic responses to changes in the environment, it is not yet known how pervasive demographic buffering is in animal populations because the validity of most existing studies has been called into question because of methodological deficiencies. 2. we tested for demographic buffering in the southern-most breeding mammal population in the world using data collected from 5558 known-age female weddell seals over 30 years. we first estimated all vital rates simultaneously with mark-recapture analysis and then estimated process variance and covariance in those rates using a hierarchical bayesian approach. we next calculated the population growth rate's sensitivity to changes in each of the vital rates and tested for evidence of demographic buffering by comparing properly scaled values of sensitivity and process variance in vital rates. 3. we found evidence of positive process covariance between vital rates, which indicates that all vital rates are affected in the same direction by changes in annual environment. despite the positive correlations, we found strong evidence that demographic buffering occurred through reductions in variation in the vital rates to which population growth rate was most sensitive. process variation in vital rates was inversely related to sensitivity measures such that variation was greatest in breeding probabilities, intermediate for survival rates of young animals and lowest for survival rates of older animals. 4. our work contributes to a small but growing set of studies that have used rigorous methods on long-term, detailed data to investigate demographic responses to environmental variation. the information from these studies improves our understanding of life-history evolution in stochastic environments and provides useful information for predicting population responses to future environmental change. our results for an antarctic apex predator also provide useful baselines from a marine ecosystem when its top-and middle-trophic levels were not substantially impacted by human activity." -individual genetic tagging for teleosts: an empirical validation and a guideline for ecologists,leuciscus leuciscus; mark-recapture; microsatellite; passive integrated transponder,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,ANDREOU D;VACQUIE-GARCIA J;CUCHEROUSSET J;BLANCHET S;GOZLAN RE;LOOT G,"the efficiency of individual genetic tagging was determined by using passive integrated transponders (pit) as a comparative conventional tagging method. fifty-five common dace leuciscus leuciscus were captured in the wild, pit tagged and fin clipped (for dna analysis). thirty fish were recaptured on three occasions and tissue samples were collected. using 18 microsatellite loci, 7994% of the recaptures were correctly assigned. experience with scoring l. leuciscus microsatellites led to more individuals correctly assigned. allowing matches that differed by one or two alleles resulted in 100% of all recaptures successfully assigned irrespective of the observer. reducing the set of loci to five to six loci appropriately selected did not affect the assignment rate, demonstrating that costs can be subsequently reduced. despite their potential benefits, the application of genetic tags for teleosts has been limited. here, it was demonstrated that genetic tagging could be applied, and a clear guideline (flowchart) is provided on how this method can be developed for teleosts and other organisms, with subsequent practical applications to ecology, evolutionary biology and conservation management." +individual genetic tagging for teleosts: an empirical validation and a guideline for ecologists,leuciscus leuciscus; mark-recapture; microsatellite; passive integrated transponder,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,ANDREOU D;VACQUIE GARCIA J;CUCHEROUSSET J;BLANCHET S;GOZLAN RE;LOOT G,"the efficiency of individual genetic tagging was determined by using passive integrated transponders (pit) as a comparative conventional tagging method. fifty-five common dace leuciscus leuciscus were captured in the wild, pit tagged and fin clipped (for dna analysis). thirty fish were recaptured on three occasions and tissue samples were collected. using 18 microsatellite loci, 7994% of the recaptures were correctly assigned. experience with scoring l. leuciscus microsatellites led to more individuals correctly assigned. allowing matches that differed by one or two alleles resulted in 100% of all recaptures successfully assigned irrespective of the observer. reducing the set of loci to five to six loci appropriately selected did not affect the assignment rate, demonstrating that costs can be subsequently reduced. despite their potential benefits, the application of genetic tags for teleosts has been limited. here, it was demonstrated that genetic tagging could be applied, and a clear guideline (flowchart) is provided on how this method can be developed for teleosts and other organisms, with subsequent practical applications to ecology, evolutionary biology and conservation management." impact of puumala virus infection on maturation and survival in bank voles: a capture-mark-recapture analysis,capture-mark-recapture; disease ecology; hantavirus; myodes glareolus; parasite-host interaction; puumala virus; survival analysis,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE DISEASES,TERSAGO K;CRESPIN L;VERHAGEN R;LEIRS H,"many zoonotic diseases are caused by rodent-borne viruses. major fluctuations in the transmission of these viruses have been related to large changes in reservoir host population numbers due to external factors. however, the impact of the pathogen itself on the demography of its reservoir host is often overlooked. we investigated the impact of puumala virus (puuv) on survival and reproductive maturation probability of its reservoir host, the bank vole (myodes glareolus). three years (2004-06) of data from nine independent sites in southern belgium were collected and analyzed with a capture-mark-recapture (cmr) method that includes statistical correction for the variation in capture probability of voles. a multistate model based on four states of reproductive activity and puuv immunoglobulin g (igg) antibody status was used to estimate survival and probability of transition from one reproductive or infection state to another. although survival estimates for reproductively active voles were similar between infected and noninfected individuals, puuv infection in reproductively inactive voles decreased mean monthly survival by 14%. puuv infection was associated with a threefold increase in the probability of reproductive maturation in bank voles. moreover, the probability of puuv igg seroconversion was three times higher for reproductively active voles compared to reproductively inactive voles. our model indicates that puuv infection may alter bank vole population dynamics by affecting both survival and maturation in its host. additional studies, using cmr methodology with shorter time intervals between trapping sessions and possibly a longer duration, are needed to confirm these findings." evaluating the potential biases in carnivore capture-recapture studies associated with the use of lure and varying density estimation techniques using photographic-sampling data of the malagasy civet,baiting; buffer; luring; mmdm; population; spatially-explicit,POPULATION ECOLOGY,GERBER BD;KARPANTY SM;KELLY MJ,"estimating density of elusive carnivores with capture-recapture analyses is increasingly common. however, providing unbiased and precise estimates is still a challenge due to uncertainties arising from the use of (1) bait or lure to attract animals to the detection device and (2) ad hoc boundary-strip methods to compensate for edge effects in area estimation. we used photographic-sampling data of the malagasy civet fossa fossana collected with and without lure to assess the effects of lure and to compare the use of four density estimators which varied in methods of area estimation. the use of lure did not affect permanent immigration or emigration, abundance and density estimation, maximum movement distances, or temporal activity patterns of malagasy civets, but did provide more precise population estimates by increasing the number of recaptures. the spatially-explicit capture-recapture (secr) model density estimates +/- se were the least precise as they incorporate spatial variation, but consistent with each other (maximum likelihood-secr = 1.38 +/- a 0.18, bayesian-secr = 1.24 +/- a 0.17 civets/km(2)), whereas estimates relying on boundary-strip methods to estimate effective trapping area did not incorporate spatial variation, varied greatly and were generally larger than secr model estimates. estimating carnivore density with ad hoc boundary-strip methods can lead to overestimation and/or increased uncertainty as they do not incorporate spatial variation. this may lead to inaction or poor management decisions which may jeopardize at-risk populations. in contrast, secr models free researchers from making subjective decisions associated with boundary-strip methods and they estimate density directly, providing more comparable and valuable population estimates." "survival and population growth of a long-lived threatened snake species, drymarchon couperi (eastern indigo snake)",aic; capture-mark-recapture (cmr) models; elasticity analysis; multistate cmr models; sensitivity analysis; stage-based matrix population model,POPULATION ECOLOGY,HYSLOP NL;STEVENSON DJ;MACEY JN;CARLILE LD;JENKINS CL;HOSTETLER JA;OLI MK,"demographic data provide a basis for understanding the life history and ecology of species, factors which are vital for informing conservation efforts; however, little is known regarding the population ecology of most snake species, including the threatened eastern indigo snake (drymarchon couperi). we used 11 years (1999-2009) of capture-mark-recapture (cmr) and 2.5 years (2003-2005) of radiotelemetry data from southeastern georgia, usa, in a cmr modeling framework to estimate apparent survival, capture and transition probabilities, and evaluate factors influencing these parameters. the model-averaged estimate of overall apparent annual survival probability was 0.700 (+/- 0.030 se) and is comparable to that obtained from known fate analysis (radiotelemetry) at the same site. body size positively influenced survival, regardless of sex. capture probability differed seasonally by sex, suggesting lower capture probability for females in fall and males in winter. there was no evidence for effect of precipitation or site-specific differences in survival. model averaged estimate of annual adult survival estimated using multistate cmr models was 0.738 +/- a 0.030 and 0.515 +/- a 0.189 for subadults. we estimated population growth rate (lambda) and elasticity (proportional sensitivity) of lambda to vital rates using a stage-structured matrix population model. population growth rate ranged from 0.96 to 1.03 depending on the value of the probability of transitioning from subadult to adult stage. the lambda was proportionally most sensitive to changes in adult survival rate, followed by subadult survival. our results suggest that protecting adult snakes and their habitats would result in the highest likelihood of long-term population stability and growth." effect of search method and age class on mark-recapture parameter estimation in a population of red-backed salamanders,abundance; encounter probability; plethodon cinereus; program mark; recruitment,POPULATION ECOLOGY,BUDERMAN FE;LIEBGOLD EB,"mark-recapture methods are generally considered to more accurately reflect population trends than count data, which is especially important for indicator species. terrestrial salamanders are often used as indicators of forest ecosystem health and may be monitored through diurnal cover object searches or nocturnal activity searches. our goal was to determine whether search method affected encounter probabilities, whether these probabilities differed between age classes, and whether the inclusion of search method in mark-recapture models affected abundance estimates. we used program mark to analyze 3 years of red-backed salamander (plethodon cinereus) mark-recapture data using pollock's robust design taken from a 144 m(2) plot. initial encounter probabilities during night searches were consistently greater than during diurnal cover object searches. as a result, inclusion of search method in models sometimes affected abundance estimates. there was no difference between adult and juvenile encounter probabilities nor were abundance estimates affected by inclusion of age class, but there was yearly variation in the juvenile abundance estimates. for these reasons, we recommend that sampling of terrestrial salamanders include nocturnal activity searches and be conducted over multiple years. monitoring programs of other species should take into account whether the selected search method(s) may be more likely to sample different subsets of the population of interest and how this may restrict their inferences." -"population biology and natural history of parides burchellanus (papilionidae: papilioninae: troidini), an endangered brazilian butterfly",aristolochia; cerrado savanna; conservation; neotropical; riparian forest,ANNALS OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA,BEIRAO MV;CAMPOS-NETO FC;PIMENTA IA;FREITAS AVL,"the present paper describes the population parameters, the behavior, and the geographic range of parides burchellanus (westwood, 1872), an endangered papilionid butterfly from brazil. population biology was described based on a 13-mo mark-recapture program in a site of riparian forest in minas gerais, southeastern brazil. the range of the population size was 10-30 individuals (with a maximum near 100 individuals). sex ratio was male biased, with males dominating in all months. the age structure was not stable, with an increase in intermediate and old individuals before the population break in the dry season. the residence time was 23.2 +/- 18.4 d for males and 16.4 +/- 12.5 to females, with a maximum of 73 d recorded for males and 64 d for females. males can travel distances of up to 950 m and females up to 650 m. when searching for p. burchellanus populations in 63 sites with suitable habitats, only seven actually had resident populations. a combination of high habitat specificity for larvae and adults could explain the rarity of this butterfly. the available data could be used in conservation programs for p. burchellanus, which should include protection of the habitats of all known colonies so far." +"population biology and natural history of parides burchellanus (papilionidae: papilioninae: troidini), an endangered brazilian butterfly",aristolochia; cerrado savanna; conservation; neotropical; riparian forest,ANNALS OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA,BEIRAO MV;CAMPOS NETO FC;PIMENTA IA;FREITAS AVL,"the present paper describes the population parameters, the behavior, and the geographic range of parides burchellanus (westwood, 1872), an endangered papilionid butterfly from brazil. population biology was described based on a 13-mo mark-recapture program in a site of riparian forest in minas gerais, southeastern brazil. the range of the population size was 10-30 individuals (with a maximum near 100 individuals). sex ratio was male biased, with males dominating in all months. the age structure was not stable, with an increase in intermediate and old individuals before the population break in the dry season. the residence time was 23.2 +/- 18.4 d for males and 16.4 +/- 12.5 to females, with a maximum of 73 d recorded for males and 64 d for females. males can travel distances of up to 950 m and females up to 650 m. when searching for p. burchellanus populations in 63 sites with suitable habitats, only seven actually had resident populations. a combination of high habitat specificity for larvae and adults could explain the rarity of this butterfly. the available data could be used in conservation programs for p. burchellanus, which should include protection of the habitats of all known colonies so far." elevated surface temperature depresses survival of banner-tailed kangaroo rats: will climate change cook a desert icon?,biogeography; capture-recapture; heteromyidae; information theory; physiological limits; range shift,OECOLOGIA,MOSES MR;FREY JK;ROEMER GW,"modest increases in global temperature have been implicated in causing population extirpations and range shifts in taxa inhabiting colder environs and in ectotherms whose thermoregulation is more closely tied to environmental conditions. many arid-adapted endotherms already experience conditions at their physiological limits, so it is conceivable that they could be similarly affected by warming temperatures. we explored how climatic variables might influence the apparent survival of the banner-tailed kangaroo rat (dipodomys spectabilis), a rodent endemic to the chihuahuan desert of north america and renowned for its behavioral and physiological adaptations to arid environments. relative variable weight, strength of variable relationships, and other criteria indicated that summer, diurnal land surface temperature (sd_lst) was the primary environmental driver of apparent survival in these arid-adapted rodents. higher temperatures had a negative effect on apparent survival, which ranged from 0.15 (se = 0.04) for subadults to 0.50 (se = 0.07) for adults. elevated sd_lst may negatively influence survival through multiple pathways, including increased water loss and energy expenditure that could lead to chronic stress and/or hyperthermia that could cause direct mortality. land surface temperatures are predicted to increase by as much 6.5a degrees c by 2099, reducing apparent survival of adults to similar to 0.15 in some regions of the species' range, possibly causing a shift in their distribution. the relationship between sd_lst and survival suggests a mechanism whereby physiological tolerances are exceeded resulting in a reduction to individual fitness that may ultimately cause a shift in the species' range over time." "the forms and fitness cost of senescence: age-specific recapture, survival, reproduction, and reproductive value in a wild bird population",age-specific reproduction and survival; reproductive value; senescence; life history; parus major; mark-recapture models,AMERICAN NATURALIST,BOUWHUIS S;CHOQUET R;SHELDON BC;VERHULST S,"longitudinal studies of senescence accumulate rapidly from natural populations. however, it is largely unknown whether different fitness components senesce in parallel, how reproductive and survival senescence contribute to declines in reproductive value, and how large the fitness cost of senescence is (the difference between the observed reproductive value and the hypothetical reproductive value, if senescence would not occur). we analyzed age-specific survival in great tits parus major and combined our results with analyses of reproductive senescence to address these issues. recapture probability of breeding females declined with age, suggesting age-specific increases in skipped or failed breeding and highlighting an important bias that studies of senescence in wild populations should incorporate. survival probability also declined with age and in parallel with recruit production. reproductive value decreased 87% between age 1 and age 9 but at a fitness cost of only 4%; the proportion of the contribution of reproductive senescence versus survival senescence to this cost was 0.7. for 11 other species, we estimated fitness costs of senescence of 6%-63% (average: birds, 9%; mammals, 42%), with relative contributions of reproductive senescence of 0.0-0.7 (average: birds, 0.4; mammals, 0.3). we suggest that understanding when and why reproductive and survival senescence differ will help in the identification of proximate mechanisms underlying variation in rates of senescence and its evolution." cerebral palsy registers and high-quality data: an evaluation of completeness of the 4child register using capture-recapture techniques,ascertainment; capture-recapture; cerebral palsy; impairment,CHILD CARE HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT,SURMAN G;DA SILVA AAM;KURINCZUK JJ,"background as the survival of very preterm and low-birthweight infants increases, so does the importance of monitoring the birth prevalence of childhood impairments; disease registers provide a means to do so for these rare conditions. high levels of ascertainment for disease research registers have become increasingly difficult to achieve in the face of additional challenges posed by consent and confidentiality issues. 4child four counties database of cerebral palsy, vision loss and hearing loss in children has been collecting data and monitoring these three major childhood impairments since 1984. methods this study used capture-recapture and related techniques to identify areas which are particularly affected by low ascertainment, to estimate the magnitude of missing cases on the 4child register and to provide birth prevalence estimates of cerebral palsy which allow for these missing cases. results estimates suggest that while overall around 27% of cerebral palsy cases were not reported to 4child, ascertainment for severely motor-impaired children (93% complete) and those born in two of the four counties was good (oxfordshire: 90%, northamptonshire: 94%). after allowing for missing cases, adjusted estimates of cerebral palsy birth prevalence for 1984-1993 were 3.0 per 1000 live births versus 2.5 per 1000 live births in 1994-2003. conclusions capture-recapture techniques can identify areas of poor ascertainment and add to information around the provision of cerebral palsy birth prevalence estimates. despite variation in ascertainment over time, capture-recapture estimates supported a decline in cerebral palsy birth prevalence between the earlier and later study periods in the four english counties of the geographical area covered by 4child." @@ -3765,13 +3771,13 @@ dispersal of culex mosquitoes (diptera: culicidae) from a wastewater treatment f adjusting age at first breeding of albatrosses and petrels for emigration and study duration,bayesian state-space models; capture-recapture; local recruitment; seabirds; procellariiformes; potential biological removal,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,DILLINGHAM PW;ELLIOTT GP;WALKER KJ;FLETCHER D,"the age at first breeding is an important demographic parameter in determining maximum growth rate, population size and generation time and is a key parameter in calculating the potential biological removal of birds. albatrosses and petrels do not begin breeding for many years, with some first breeding in their teens. this means that even long-term studies of birds banded as chicks may not last long enough to observe the entire process of recruitment to breeding. estimates based only on observed data (the naive estimate) may be biased by imperfect observation, emigration, and study duration. instead, modelling approaches should be used to estimate the mean age at first breeding, but these must be used carefully. here, we show the large negative bias that may be caused by limited study duration and emigration when the naive estimate is used. capture-mark-recapture methods combined with additional assumptions about emigration can alleviate the bias, provided that an appropriate model is used. using these methods, we analysed data collected between 1991 and 2006 on 1,246 gibson's albatrosses (diomedea gibsoni) banded as chicks (mostly banded from 1995 onwards) and 1,258 birds banded as adults. while 402 birds banded as chicks were observed returning to the study area, only 42 were observed breeding. with limited data, model-based approaches must be used, and assumptions about recruitment to breeding play an additional role in the estimate of the age at first breeding. in particular, the function chosen for recruitment to breeding for older age classes cannot be compared to data. three recruitment functions are compared to show the large sensitivity of the estimated mean age at first breeding to the assumed functional form." short-term response of dicamptodon tenebrosus larvae to timber management in southwestern oregon,dicamptodon tenebrosus; forest management; mark-recapture; oregon; pacific giant salamander; stream amphibians,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,LEUTHOLD N;ADAMS MJ;HAYES JP,"in the pacific northwest, previous studies have found a negative effect of timber management on the abundance of stream amphibians, but results have been variable and region specific. these studies have generally used survey methods that did not account for differences in capture probability and focused on stands that were harvested under older management practices. we examined the influences of contemporary forest practices on larval dicamptodon tenebrosus as part of the hinkle creek paired watershed study. we used a markrecapture analysis to estimate d. tenebrosus density at 100 1-m sites spread throughout the basin and used extended linear models that accounted for correlation resulting from the repeated surveys at sites across years. density was associated with substrate, but we found no evidence of an effect of harvest. while holding other factors constant, the model-averaged estimates indicated; 1) each 10% increase in small cobble or larger substrate increased median density of d. tenebrosus 1.05 times, 2) each 100-ha increase in the upstream area drained decreased median density of d. tenebrosus 0.96 times, and 3) increasing the fish density in the 40 m around a site by 0.01 increased median salamander density 1.01 times. although this study took place in a single basin, it suggests that timber management in similar third-order basins of the southwestern oregon cascade foothills is unlikely to have short-term effects of d. tenebrosus larvae. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." "leopard density in post-conflict landscape, cambodia: evidence from spatially explicit capture-recapture",cambodia; camera-trap; capture-recapture; density estimation; leopard; population recovery,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GRAY TNE;PRUM S,"effective conservation of large carnivores requires reliable estimates of population density, often obtained through capturerecapture analysis, in order to prioritize investments and assess conservation intervention effectiveness. recent statistical advances and development of user-friendly software for spatially explicit capturerecapture (secr) circumvent the difficulties in estimating effective survey area, and hence density, from capturerecapture data. we conducted a camera-trapping study on leopards (panthera pardus) in mondulkiri protected forest, cambodia. we compared density estimates using secr with those obtained from conventional approaches in which the effective survey area is estimated using a boundary strip width based on observed animal movements. density estimates from chao heterogeneity models (3.8 +/- se 1.9 individuals/100 km2) and pledger heterogeneity models and models accounting for gender-specific capture and recapture rates (model-averaged density 3.9 +/- se 2.9 individuals/100 km2) were similar to those from secr in program density (3.6 +/- se 1.0/100 km2) but higher than estimates from jack-knife heterogeneity models (2.9 +/- se 0.9individuals/100 km2). capture probabilities differed between male and female leopards probably resulting from differences in the use of human-made trails between sexes. given that there are a number of biologically plausible reasons to expect gender-specific variation in capture probabilities of large carnivores, we recommend exploratory analysis of data using models in which gender can be included as a covariate affecting capture probabilities particularly given the demographic importance of breeding females for population recovery of threatened carnivores. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." -man-made mediterranean temporary ponds as a tool for amphibian conservation,mediterranean temporary ponds; wetland creation; conservation; amphibians; bufo calamita,ANNALES DE LIMNOLOGIE-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LIMNOLOGY,RUHI A;SEBASTIAN OS;FEO C;FRANCH M;GASCON S;RICHTER-BOIX A;BOIX D;LLORENTE G,"mediterranean temporary ponds (mtps) are crucial breeding sites for local amphibians; a faunal group in decline in the mediterranean mainly due to wetland destruction. although the disappearance of lentic habitats in other regions of the world has been ameliorated by the creation and restoration of wetlands, these tactics remain untested in mediterranean wetlands. to evaluate the amphibian colonization dynamics of artificial mtps in the north-eastern iberian peninsula, we monitored two artificial mtps (one in a high-diversity area and the other in a low-diversity area) over 2 years. we selected reference wetlands at each area, and amphibian communities of man-made mtps were compared to those of reference wetlands. we found that, beginning in the first year; artificial mtps were a valuable habitat for regional amphibian fauna. posteriorly, we focused on the reproductive success of the natterjack toad, bufo calamita. using a drift fence equipped with pit-fall traps, we measured the abundance of both reproductive adults entering the pond and post-metamorphic individuals exiting the pond. using mark-recapture methods, we analyzed the time and energy costs associated with reproduction in the artificial mtps. we observed a highly variable colonization dynamics between sites, between hydroperiods, and within hydroperiods, and these dynamics often depended on meteorological factors. our results suggest that even at a short timescale, native amphibian species such as b. calamita can benefit from wetland creation in the mediterranean region." +man-made mediterranean temporary ponds as a tool for amphibian conservation,mediterranean temporary ponds; wetland creation; conservation; amphibians; bufo calamita,ANNALES DE LIMNOLOGIE-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LIMNOLOGY,RUHI A;SEBASTIAN OS;FEO C;FRANCH M;GASCON S;RICHTER BOIX A;BOIX D;LLORENTE G,"mediterranean temporary ponds (mtps) are crucial breeding sites for local amphibians; a faunal group in decline in the mediterranean mainly due to wetland destruction. although the disappearance of lentic habitats in other regions of the world has been ameliorated by the creation and restoration of wetlands, these tactics remain untested in mediterranean wetlands. to evaluate the amphibian colonization dynamics of artificial mtps in the north-eastern iberian peninsula, we monitored two artificial mtps (one in a high-diversity area and the other in a low-diversity area) over 2 years. we selected reference wetlands at each area, and amphibian communities of man-made mtps were compared to those of reference wetlands. we found that, beginning in the first year; artificial mtps were a valuable habitat for regional amphibian fauna. posteriorly, we focused on the reproductive success of the natterjack toad, bufo calamita. using a drift fence equipped with pit-fall traps, we measured the abundance of both reproductive adults entering the pond and post-metamorphic individuals exiting the pond. using mark-recapture methods, we analyzed the time and energy costs associated with reproduction in the artificial mtps. we observed a highly variable colonization dynamics between sites, between hydroperiods, and within hydroperiods, and these dynamics often depended on meteorological factors. our results suggest that even at a short timescale, native amphibian species such as b. calamita can benefit from wetland creation in the mediterranean region." "slow, but steady: dispersal of freshwater molluscs",biological invasion; dispersal; global change; mollusca; species distribution modelling (sdm); vector,AQUATIC SCIENCES,KAPPES H;HAASE P,"molluscs are the proverbial examples of slow movement. in this review, dispersal distances and speed were assessed from literature data. active upstream movement can occur both individually and in groups; and depends on traits such as size, sex and reproductive status, and on external factors such as flow velocity, temperature, sediment structure, and food availability. the potential for active dispersal follows the sequence pulmonata a parts per thousand yen prosobranchia > bivalvia, although data for pulmonata originated from short-term experiments that likely overestimated dispersal capabilities. active upstream movement may be 0.3 to 1.0 km per year for most snails and is probably well below 0.1 km per year for bivalves. natural passive upstream dispersal increases the range 10-fold (snails) to 100-fold (bivalves), and anthropogenic vectors can increase upstream dispersal more than 100-fold (snails) to 1000-fold (bivalves). three km seems to be the maximal within-stream distance at which many species display regular population mixing, and at which re-colonisation or successful restoration can be expected within 3-10 years. lateral dispersal between unconnected water bodies is passive and mostly known from observational reports, but potential distances depend on vectors, climate and geomorphology. in general, active dispersal seems insufficient to furnish a compensatory mechanism, e.g., for the rate of projected climate change. we provide an overview on dispersal strategies in the light of applied issues. more rigorous field surveys and an integration of different approaches (such as mark-recapture, genetic) to quantify distances and probabilities of lateral dispersal are needed to predict species distributions across space and time." foraging activity by the southern brown bandicoot (isoodon obesulus) as a mechanism for soil turnover,biopedturbation; ecosystem engineering; soil movement,AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,VALENTINE LE;ANDERSON H;HARDY GES;FLEMING PA,"mammals that forage for food by biopedturbation can alter the biotic and abiotic characteristics of their habitat, influencing ecosystem structure and function. bandicoots, bilbies, bettongs and potoroos are the primary digging marsupials in australia, although most of these species have declined throughout their range. this study used a snapshot approach to estimate the soil turnover capacity of the southern brown bandicoot (isoodon obesulus, shaw 1797), a persisting digging australian marsupial, at yalgorup national park, western australia. the number of southern brown bandicoots was estimated using mark-recapture techniques. to provide an index of digging activity per animal, we quantified the number of new foraging pits and bandicoot nose pokes across 18 plots within the same area. the amount of soil displaced and physical structure of foraging pits were examined from moulds of 47 fresh foraging pits. we estimated that an individual southern brown bandicoot could create similar to 45 foraging pits per day, displacing similar to 10.74 kg of soil, which extrapolates to similar to 3.9 tonnes of soil each year. the digging activities of the southern brown bandicoots are likely to be a critical component of soil ecosystem processes." climate change is linked to long-term decline in a stream salamander,amphibian decline; climate change; demography; headwater stream; metamorphosis; salamander,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,LOWE WH,"amphibian declines have been documented worldwide and several have been linked to climate change, but the long-term data needed to detect declines are largely restricted to pond-breeding species. this limits our knowledge of population trends in other major groups of amphibians, including stream salamanders, which have their greatest diversity in north america. i hypothesized that increasing air temperature and precipitation in northeastern north america caused abundance of the stream salamander gyrinophilus porphyriticus in a new hampshire population to decline between 1999 and 2010. i found a significant decline in abundance of g. porphyriticus adults over this 12-year period, and no trend in larval abundance. adult abundance was negatively related to annual precipitation, which is predicted to increase further in the northeast due to climate change. analysis of a 6-year capture-mark-recapture data set for the same population showed no temporal variation in larval and adult detectability, validating the abundance data, and no variation in larval and adult survival. however, survival during metamorphosis from the larval to adult stage declined dramatically. these results suggest that increasing precipitation is causing a decline in adult recruitment, which, if it persists, will lead to local extinction. a likely mechanism for the decline in adult recruitment is mortality of metamorphosing individuals during spring and fall floods, which have increased in volume and frequency with the increase in precipitation. more broadly, this study presents strong evidence that the amphibian decline crisis extends to north america's stream salamanders, and shows the critical need to collect population data on these species. (c) 2011 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." the splitting method for decision making,combinatorial optimization; counting; cross-entropy; decision making; gibbs sampler; rare-event; splitting,COMMUNICATIONS IN STATISTICS-SIMULATION AND COMPUTATION,RUBINSTEIN R;DOLGIN A;VAISMAN R,"we show how a simple modification of the splitting method based on gibbs sampler can be efficiently used for decision making in the sense that one can efficiently decide whether or not a given set of integer program constraints has at least one feasible solution. we also show how to incorporate the classic capture-recapture method into the splitting algorithm in order to obtain a low variance estimator for the counting quantity representing, say the number of feasible solutions on the set of the constraints of an integer program. we finally present numerical with with both, the decision making and the capture-recapture estimators and show their superiority as compared to the conventional one, while solving quite general decision making and counting ones, like the satisfiability problems." genetic estimates of population structure and dispersal in a benthic stream fish,cottus bairdi; mottled sculpin; population connectivity; isolation-by-distance; mark-recapture,ECOLOGY OF FRESHWATER FISH,LAMPHERE BA;BLUM MJ,"comparing genetic and demographic estimates of dispersal in freshwater fish can improve understanding of movement distributions and population connectivity. here we examined genetic variation among mottled sculpin (cottus bairdi) in the nantahala river (north carolina, usa) to compare genetic estimates of dispersal with estimates derived from markrecapture studies of individual movement. microsatellite-based analysis of gene flow revealed evidence of strong isolation by distance among locations spanning only 5.6 km and limited dispersal among clusters of sites separated by swift cascades. estimates of between-cluster contemporary dispersal rates derived from bayesian assignment tests ranged from 1% to 6%, with most movement occurring among adjacent clusters in a downstream direction. evidence of a long-term net immigration asymmetry and decreasing genetic diversity from downstream to upstream locations indicates that historical patterns of stream colonisation contrast with contemporary dispersal patterns. our findings are largely consistent with predictions from individual movement patterns but suggest that long moves (>500 m) are more frequent, and maximum dispersal distances are greater than what has been reported from markrecapture studies. the discrepancy may reflect spatial limitations of markrecapture methods or temporal variation in dispersal in individuals and populations." -measuring the population burden of fatal and nonfatal injury,disability evaluation; health status; quality of life; wounds and injuries,EPIDEMIOLOGIC REVIEWS,POLINDER S;HAAGSMA JA;LYONS RA;GABBE BJ;AMERATUNGA S;CRYER C;DERRETT S;HARRISON JE;SEGUI-GOMEZ M;VAN BEECK EF,"the value of measuring the population burden of fatal and nonfatal injury is well established. population health metrics are important for assessing health status and health-related quality of life after injury and for integrating mortality, disability, and quality-of-life consequences. a frequently used population health metric is the disability-adjusted life-year. this metric was launched in 1996 in the original global burden of disease and injury study and has been widely adopted by countries and health development agencies alike to identify the relative magnitude of different health problems. apart from its obvious advantages and wide adherence, a number of challenges are encountered when the disability-adjusted life-year is applied to injuries. validation of disability-adjusted life-year estimates for injury has been largely absent. this paper provides an overview of methods and existing knowledge regarding the population burden of injury measurement. the review of studies that measured burden of injury shows that estimates of the population burden remain uncertain because of a weak epidemiologic foundation; limited information on incidence, outcomes, and duration of disability; and a range of methodological problems, including definition and selection of incident and fatal cases, choices in selection of assessment instruments and timings of use for nonfatal injury outcomes, and the underlying concepts of valuation of disability. recommendations are given for methodological refinements to improve the validity and comparability of future burden of injury studies." +measuring the population burden of fatal and nonfatal injury,disability evaluation; health status; quality of life; wounds and injuries,EPIDEMIOLOGIC REVIEWS,POLINDER S;HAAGSMA JA;LYONS RA;GABBE BJ;AMERATUNGA S;CRYER C;DERRETT S;HARRISON JE;SEGUI GOMEZ M;VAN BEECK EF,"the value of measuring the population burden of fatal and nonfatal injury is well established. population health metrics are important for assessing health status and health-related quality of life after injury and for integrating mortality, disability, and quality-of-life consequences. a frequently used population health metric is the disability-adjusted life-year. this metric was launched in 1996 in the original global burden of disease and injury study and has been widely adopted by countries and health development agencies alike to identify the relative magnitude of different health problems. apart from its obvious advantages and wide adherence, a number of challenges are encountered when the disability-adjusted life-year is applied to injuries. validation of disability-adjusted life-year estimates for injury has been largely absent. this paper provides an overview of methods and existing knowledge regarding the population burden of injury measurement. the review of studies that measured burden of injury shows that estimates of the population burden remain uncertain because of a weak epidemiologic foundation; limited information on incidence, outcomes, and duration of disability; and a range of methodological problems, including definition and selection of incident and fatal cases, choices in selection of assessment instruments and timings of use for nonfatal injury outcomes, and the underlying concepts of valuation of disability. recommendations are given for methodological refinements to improve the validity and comparability of future burden of injury studies." can natural selection maintain long-distance dispersal? insight from a stream salamander system,dispersal; fitness; morphology; phenotype; selection; spatial dynamics,EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY,LOWE WH;MCPEEK MA,"dispersal distributions are often characterized by many individuals that stay close to their origin and large variation in the distances moved by those that leave. this variation in dispersal distance can strongly influence demographic, ecological, and evolutionary processes. however, a lack of data on the fitness and phenotype of individual dispersers has impeded research on the role of natural selection in maintaining variation in dispersal distance. six years of spatially explicit capture-mark-recapture data showed that survival increased with dispersal distance in the stream salamander gyrinophilus porphyriticus. to understand the evolutionary implications of this fitness response, we tested whether variation in dispersal distance has a phenotypic basis. we used photographs of marked individuals to measure head, trunk, and leg morphology. we then tested whether dispersal distances over the six-year study period were predicted by these traits. dispersal distance was significantly related to leg morphology: individuals with relatively long forelimbs and short hindlimbs dispersed the farthest. these results support the hypothesis that positive fitness consequences maintain phenotypes enabling long-distance dispersal. more broadly, they suggest that natural selection can promote variation in dispersal distance and associated phenotypes, offering an alternative to the view that dispersal distance is driven by stochastic or landscape-specific mechanisms." non-human predator interactions with wild great apes in africa and the use of camera traps to study their dynamics,predation; gorilla; chimpanzee; leopard; antipredator behaviour; camera traps; species co-occurrence,FOLIA PRIMATOLOGICA,KLAILOVA M;CASANOVA C;HENSCHEL P;LEE P;ROVERO F;TODD A,"the slow life histories of great apes (hereafter 'apes') combined with a growing inventory of predation incidents suggest that apes may be strongly affected by direct predation, as well as by predation risk. predation risk may shape and increase behavioural flexibility by forcing individuals to adapt their behaviour to predator patterns. forest leopards are an apex predator of primates in african rain forests and may represent a significant risk to ape populations. more field data are needed to further elucidate the behavioural modifications of apes in response to predation. we present research methods that combine the use of remote camera traps, capture-mark-recapture statistics and occupancy modelling to study predator-african ape relationships and potential antipredator behaviour through spatial variation in species co-occurrence patterns. copyright (c) 2013 s. karger ag, basel" growth patterns of dusky pygmy rattlesnakes (sistrurus miliarius barbouri) from central florida,age; growth; mark-recapture; pygmy rattlesnake; reptilia; sistrurus miliarius; viperidae,HERPETOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS,MAY PG;FARRELL TM,"we studied growth in snout-vent length (svl) and body mass of dusky pygmy rattlesnakes (sistrurus miliarius barbouri) in volusia county, florida, with the use of mark-recapture techniques. between february 1992 and december 2000, we pit-tagged (passive integrated transponder) 665 individuals of approximately 1 yr of age or greater that were subsequently recaptured at least once. because snakes can be definitively aged at 1 yr, this resulted in a large sample of snakes of known age that were followed for up to 7 yr. seventy-five of these individuals pit tagged at 1 yr were identified from photographs of neonates born in captivity, allowing us to relate adult growth to neonate traits. our data suggest that pygmy rattlesnakes in central florida exhibit highly variable patterns of growth that are related to a mild climate that allows feeding and growth throughout the year, and to a fluctuating prey base that results in irregular growth patterns often unlike those predicted by typical growth equations such as the von bertalanffy model. snakes in our populations were surface-active throughout the year, and snakes with detectable prey in the gut were found in all months. growth is most rapid in the first year, but growth rates did not differ markedly from other viperids occurring in more temperate areas. in their first year, pygmy rattlesnakes in florida increased their mass over birth on average more than fourfold, and increased svl 1.8-fold. growth in both mass and svl continued throughout life, with no clear indication of an asymptote in size. multiple regressions of svl and body mass against age showed a slight but significant effect of sex on both svl and mass, though these differences were not apparent until snakes were approximately 4 yr. males and females showed no difference in svl growth rates or patterns of change in growth rate with age, but females grew faster in body mass than males. body-mass growth rates did not decline with age in either sex. rates of increase in svl in the first year of life differed significantly among years, though these differences were not correlated with estimates of prey (frog) abundance. however, neither body size at birth or first-year growth rates was significantly related to size at 1 yr of age or with growth rates later in life. inspection of individual growth records and characterization of records into categories defined here showed great variability in patterns of growth, with episodic growth occurring in most individuals, including larger adults. a year-round activity season may decouple feeding and growth in these snakes from the temporal constraints imposed on more northern snakes, resulting in greater variability in individual growth trajectories. prolonged feeding opportunities may allow snakes with below-average feeding conditions in their first year to compensate for slower initial growth by opportunistic feeding and rapid bouts of growth at any time later in life." @@ -3803,13 +3809,13 @@ site fidelity in the sichuan torrent frog (amolops mantzorum) in a montane regio census (nc) and genetically effective (ne) population size in a lake-resident population of brown trout salmo trutta,abundance; conservation genetics; fishery management; genetic monitoring; mark-recapture,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,CHARLIER J;PALME A;LAIKRE L;ANDERSSON J;RYMAN N,"census (n-c) and effective population size (n-e) were estimated for a lake-resident population of brown trout salmo trutta as 576 and 63, respectively. the point estimate of the ratio of effective to census population size (n-e:n-c) for this population is 0.11 with a range of 0.06-0.26, suggesting that n-e:n-c ratio for lake-resident populations agree more w(i)th estimates for fishes with anadromous life histories than the small ratios observed in many marine fishes. (c) 2011 the authors journal of fish biology (c) 2011 the fisheries society of the british isles" "seasonal fluctuations in population size and habitat segregation of kittlitz's plover charadrius pecuarius at barberspan bird sanctuary, north west province, south africa",NA,OSTRICH,LIPSHUTZ S;REMISIEWICZ M;UNDERHILL LG;AVNI J,"seasonal fluctuations in population size reflect breeding patterns and movements of birds, but distinguishing residents from itinerant birds is difficult with partially migratory species such as kittlitz's plover. we determined changes in the size of kittlitz's plover populations in two microhabitats (goose point and sandy beach) at barberspan bird sanctuary, north west province, south africa, where we ringed waders between february 2008 and may 2010. using a bayesian model, we estimated the population of this species at these two sites from capture-recapture data gathered in eight 3- to 12-day collection periods. the estimated adult population at goose point peaked at 161 in october 2009, but decreased to about 40 in march 2009 and march 2010. the immature population peaked at 119 in january-february 2010. this, along with observations of nests and chicks, suggests that residents bred at goose point from september to march. the estimated number of adults at sandy beach increased from 48 in march 2010 to 380 in april 2010. adults captured there in april 2010 formed feeding flocks and were heavier than the resident birds at goose point. these results suggest that barberspan bird sanctuary supports resident and itinerant populations that are partially segregated in different microhabitats." properties of census dual system population size estimators,capture-recapture; discrete covariate; erroneous enumeration; kernel smoothing; model bias; population size estimation,INTERNATIONAL STATISTICAL REVIEW,CHEN SX;TANG CY,"we study parametric and non-parametric approaches for assessing the accuracy and coverage of a population census based on dual system surveys. the two parametric approaches being considered are post-stratification and logistic regression, which have been or will be implemented for the us census dual system surveys. we show that the parametric model-based approaches are generally biased unless the model is correctly specified. we then study a local post-stratification approach based on a non-parametric kernel estimate of the census enumeration functions. we illustrate that the non-parametric approach avoids the risk of model mis-specification and is consistent under relatively weak conditions. the performances of these estimators are evaluated numerically via simulation studies and an empirical analysis based on the 2000 us census post-enumeration survey data." -"population ecology of small rodents and marsupials in a semi-deciduous tropical forest of the southeast pantanal, brazil",gracilinanus agilis; oecomys mamorae; population dynamics; seasonality; small mammal; thrichomys pachyurus,ZOOLOGIA,DE ANDREAZZI CS;RADEMAKER V;GENTILE R;HERRERA HM;JANSEN AM;D'ANDREA PS,"the pantanal is a south american biome characterized by extensive plains and stark environmental seasonality. several habitats are subject to annual flooding, forcing small mammal species to aggregate in dry forest patches, which most likely influences their population dynamics and life history strategies. in order to investigate the seasonal influence on the life history traits of these small mammals, we conducted a 2-year mark-recapture study in the southeastern region of the brazilian pantanal (nhecolandia) and analyzed the population dynamics of the most abundant small mammal species with the jackknife estimator. a trapping effort of 21,560 trap-nights resulted in 615 individuals in 1,171 captures (success = 5.43%). three species of rodents - oecomys mamorae (thomas, 1906), thrichomys pachyurus (wagner, 1845), and clyomys laticeps (thomas, 1841) - and three species of marsupials - gracilinanus agilis (burmeister, 1854), thylamys macrurus (olfers, 1818), and monodelphis domestica (wagner, 1842) - were obtained. the most abundant species was o. mamorae, followed by g. agilis and t. pachyurus. oecomys mamorae was more abundant in the wet season and presented an opportunistic reproductive strategy. gracilianus agilis displayed increased population sizes in the dry season and synchronized, seasonal reproduction during the rainy season. thrichomys pachyurus had a small population size, delayed response to variations in environmental conditions and higher reproductive rates in the dry season. all species revealed different life history strategies (seasonal, opportunistic or delayed response to environmental variations), coinciding with periods of higher resource availability in order to maximize survival." +"population ecology of small rodents and marsupials in a semi-deciduous tropical forest of the southeast pantanal, brazil",gracilinanus agilis; oecomys mamorae; population dynamics; seasonality; small mammal; thrichomys pachyurus,ZOOLOGIA,DE ANDREAZZI CS;RADEMAKER V;GENTILE R;HERRERA HM;JANSEN AM;D ANDREA PS,"the pantanal is a south american biome characterized by extensive plains and stark environmental seasonality. several habitats are subject to annual flooding, forcing small mammal species to aggregate in dry forest patches, which most likely influences their population dynamics and life history strategies. in order to investigate the seasonal influence on the life history traits of these small mammals, we conducted a 2-year mark-recapture study in the southeastern region of the brazilian pantanal (nhecolandia) and analyzed the population dynamics of the most abundant small mammal species with the jackknife estimator. a trapping effort of 21,560 trap-nights resulted in 615 individuals in 1,171 captures (success = 5.43%). three species of rodents - oecomys mamorae (thomas, 1906), thrichomys pachyurus (wagner, 1845), and clyomys laticeps (thomas, 1841) - and three species of marsupials - gracilinanus agilis (burmeister, 1854), thylamys macrurus (olfers, 1818), and monodelphis domestica (wagner, 1842) - were obtained. the most abundant species was o. mamorae, followed by g. agilis and t. pachyurus. oecomys mamorae was more abundant in the wet season and presented an opportunistic reproductive strategy. gracilianus agilis displayed increased population sizes in the dry season and synchronized, seasonal reproduction during the rainy season. thrichomys pachyurus had a small population size, delayed response to variations in environmental conditions and higher reproductive rates in the dry season. all species revealed different life history strategies (seasonal, opportunistic or delayed response to environmental variations), coinciding with periods of higher resource availability in order to maximize survival." impacts of a wildfire on the mortality rate and small-scale movements of a hermann's tortoise testudo hermanni hermanni population in southeastern france,capture-recapture; chelonian; detection probabilities; displacement; fire impact; long-lived species; multistate modelling; survival,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,COUTURIER T;CHEYLAN M;GUERETTE E;BESNARD A,"because they have high longevity and a weak dispersal capacity, chelonians are known to be highly impacted by fire. we investigated the immediate demographic consequences of a wildfire occurring in 2009 on a population of hermann's tortoises testudo hermanni in the plaine des maures in southeastern france using the multistate capture recapture method. over two years (2009 and 2010), 108 adult individuals were marked. survival probability was higher in the unburned (0.99) than in the burned area (0.43). the inter-annual transition probability from the burned to the unburned area was high (0.72). these results show that fire affects survival by immediately killing individuals and by inducing small-scale movements from burned to unburned areas." linking landscape characteristics to local grizzly bear abundance using multiple detection methods in a hierarchical model,bayesian; glacier national park; montana; density; detection probability; habitat use; spatial mark-recapture; ursus arctos,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,GRAVES TA;KENDALL KC;ROYLE JA;STETZ JB;MACLEOD AC,few studies link habitat to grizzly bear ursus arctos abundance and these have not accounted for the variation in detection or spatial autocorrelation. we collected and genotyped bear hair in and around glacier national park in northwestern montana during the summer of 2000. we developed a hierarchical markov chain monte carlo model that extends the existing occupancy and count models by accounting for (1) spatially explicit variables that we hypothesized might influence abundance; (2) separate sub-models of detection probability for two distinct sampling methods (hair traps and rub trees) targeting different segments of the population; (3) covariates to explain variation in each sub-model of detection; (4) a conditional autoregressive term to account for spatial autocorrelation; (5) weights to identify most important variables. road density and per cent mesic habitat best explained variation in female grizzly bear abundance; spatial autocorrelation was not supported. more female bears were predicted in places with lower road density and with more mesic habitat. detection rates of females increased with rub tree sampling effort. road density best explained variation in male grizzly bear abundance and spatial autocorrelation was supported. more male bears were predicted in areas of low road density. detection rates of males increased with rub tree and hair trap sampling effort and decreased over the sampling period. we provide a new method to (1) incorporate multiple detection methods into hierarchical models of abundance; (2) determine whether spatial autocorrelation should be included in final models. our results suggest that the influence of landscape variables is consistent between habitat selection and abundance in this system. smoothing population size estimates for time-stratified mark-recapture experiments using bayesian p-splines,atlantic salmon; bayesian inference; hierarchical model; mark-recapture; openbugs; penalized spline; stratified petersen,BIOMETRICS,BONNER SJ;SCHWARZ CJ,"petersen-type markrecapture experiments are often used to estimate the number of fish or other animals in a population moving along a set migration route. a first sample of individuals is captured at one location, marked, and returned to the population. a second sample is then captured farther along the route, and inferences are derived from the numbers of marked and unmarked fish found in this second sample. data from such experiments are often stratified by time (day or week) to allow for possible changes in the capture probabilities, and previous methods of analysis fail to take advantage of the temporal relationships in the stratified data. we present a bayesian, semiparametric method that explicitly models the expected number of fish in each stratum as a smooth function of time. results from the analysis of historical data from the migration of young atlantic salmon (salmo salar) along the conne river, newfoundland, and from a simulation study indicate that the new method provides more precise estimates of the population size and more accurate estimates of uncertainty than the currently available methods." heterogeneous capture-recapture models with covariates: a partial likelihood approach for closed populations,closed population; generalized additive models; generalized linear mixed models; simulation-extrapolation,BIOMETRICS,STOKLOSA J;HWANG WH;WU SH;HUGGINS R,"in practice, when analyzing data from a capturerecapture experiment it is tempting to apply modern advanced statistical methods to the observed capture histories. however, unless the analysis takes into account that the data have only been collected from individuals who have been captured at least once, the results may be biased. without the development of new software packages, methods such as generalized additive models, generalized linear mixed models, and simulationextrapolation cannot be readily implemented. in contrast, the partial likelihood approach allows the analysis of a capturerecapture experiment to be conducted using commonly available software. here we examine the efficiency of this approach and apply it to several data sets." "investigating the completeness of a histopathological cancer registry: estimation by capture-recapture analysis in a french geographical unit alpes-maritimes, 2008",histopathology; database; completeness; capture recapture; breast cancer; colorectal cancer,CANCER EPIDEMIOLOGY,BAILLY L;GIUSIANO B;BARJOAN EM;MICHIELS JF;AMBROSETTI D;LACOMBE S;GRANON C;VIOT A;DUNAIS B;DAURES JP;PRADIER C,"introduction: cancer population studies require reliable and complete baseline data, which should theoretically be available by collecting histopathology records. the completeness of such a collection was evaluated using capture-recapture analysis based on three data sources concerning breast and colorectal cancers over an identical period and within the same geographical area. method: the total number of breast and colon cancer cases was estimated using capture-recapture analysis based on the number of cases which were common or not between sources recording screened, diagnosed and treated cancers in the french alpes maritimes district. result: the estimated total number of new cases of breast cancer diagnosed among alpes maritimes residents women aged 50-75 was 791 (95% ci: 784-797) in 2008. of these 791 cases, 729 were identified through histopathology records, thus amounting to 92.2% completeness (95% ci: 91.5-93.0%). the total estimated number of new cases of colorectal cancer diagnosed among alpes maritimes residents aged 50-75 was 527 (95% ci: 517-536). of these 527 cases, 481 were identified through histopathology records, thus amounting to 91.3% completeness (95% ci: 89.7-93.0%). conclusion: the estimated completeness of cancer records collected from histopathology laboratories was higher than 90% for new cases of breast and colorectal cancer within the age range concerned by the screening programme. a verified and validated histopathology data collection may be useful for cancer population studies. (c) 2011 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -"abundance, home range, and movement patterns of the endemic species dahl's toad-headed turtle (mesoclemmys dahli) in cesar, colombia",reptilia; testudines; chelidae; turtle; home range; colombia; endemic; mesoclemmys dahli; movements; ecology; habitat; conservation,CHELONIAN CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,FORERO-MEDINA G;CARDENAS-AREVALO G;CASTANO-MORA OV,"population monitoring and evaluation of spatial requirements of species are key actions for the conservation of wild populations, especially for endemic and threatened species. we estimated the abundance of the endemic species mesoclemmys dahli in 2 streams in cesar, colombia, from february 2008 to february 2009, by using aquatic sampling. we monitored fluctuations in abundance through the year and used mark recapture sampling and the jolly seber model to estimate population size and density. home ranges and movement patterns were studied by using very high frequency (vhf) radio telemetry. we calculated home ranges for the year and for the wet and dry season independently. estimated population size for the 2 streams varied during the year from 16 (95% cl, 7-30) to 175 (95% ci, 32-298) turtles. densities ranged from 16 turtles/ha in april to approximately 170 turtles/ha in june, which is lower than other populations of m. dahli in colombia as well as other south american chelids. individuals captured during the wet season had a significantly higher mean body mass than those captured during the dry season, which suggests that larger animals may leave the streams during the dry months or that animals may lose weight during this period. home ranges for 1 year varied from 1.6 to 30.8 ha when using the minimum convex polygon method and from 9.2 to 22.5 ha when using the fixed kernel density estimator. there were no significant differences in the mean movements during the dry and wet seasons. however, the greatest movements were documented either during the transition from wet to dry months or during the dry months. conservation of m. dahli will require protection of the few streams where it occurs, as well as the associated riparian vegetation and surrounding areas used by the species." +"abundance, home range, and movement patterns of the endemic species dahl's toad-headed turtle (mesoclemmys dahli) in cesar, colombia",reptilia; testudines; chelidae; turtle; home range; colombia; endemic; mesoclemmys dahli; movements; ecology; habitat; conservation,CHELONIAN CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,FORERO MEDINA G;CARDENAS AREVALO G;CASTANO MORA OV,"population monitoring and evaluation of spatial requirements of species are key actions for the conservation of wild populations, especially for endemic and threatened species. we estimated the abundance of the endemic species mesoclemmys dahli in 2 streams in cesar, colombia, from february 2008 to february 2009, by using aquatic sampling. we monitored fluctuations in abundance through the year and used mark recapture sampling and the jolly seber model to estimate population size and density. home ranges and movement patterns were studied by using very high frequency (vhf) radio telemetry. we calculated home ranges for the year and for the wet and dry season independently. estimated population size for the 2 streams varied during the year from 16 (95% cl, 7-30) to 175 (95% ci, 32-298) turtles. densities ranged from 16 turtles/ha in april to approximately 170 turtles/ha in june, which is lower than other populations of m. dahli in colombia as well as other south american chelids. individuals captured during the wet season had a significantly higher mean body mass than those captured during the dry season, which suggests that larger animals may leave the streams during the dry months or that animals may lose weight during this period. home ranges for 1 year varied from 1.6 to 30.8 ha when using the minimum convex polygon method and from 9.2 to 22.5 ha when using the fixed kernel density estimator. there were no significant differences in the mean movements during the dry and wet seasons. however, the greatest movements were documented either during the transition from wet to dry months or during the dry months. conservation of m. dahli will require protection of the few streams where it occurs, as well as the associated riparian vegetation and surrounding areas used by the species." estimation of population density by spatially explicit capture-recapture analysis of data from area searches,area search; bayesian analysis; data augmentation; flat-tailed horned lizard; maximum likelihood; polygons; population density; spatially explicit capture-recapture; transects,ECOLOGY,EFFORD MG,"the recent development of capture-recapture methods for estimating animal population density has focused on passive detection using devices such as traps or automatic cameras. some species lend themselves more to active searching: a polygonal plot may be searched repeatedly and the locations of detected individuals recorded, or a plot may be searched just once and multiple cues (feces or other sign) identified as belonging to particular individuals. this report presents new likelihood-based spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) methods for such data. the methods are shown to be at least as robust in simulations as an equivalent bayesian analysis, and to have negligible bias and near-nominal confidence interval coverage with parameter values from a lizard data set. it is recommended on the basis of simulation that plots for secr should be at least as large as the home range of the target species. the r package ""secr"" may be used to fit the models. the likelihood-based implementation extends the spatially explicit analyses available for search data to include binary data (animal detected or not detected on each occasion) or count data (multiple detections per occasion) from multiple irregular polygons, with or without dependence among polygons. it is also shown how the method may be adapted for detections along a linear transect." "the influences of wolf predation, habitat loss, and human activity on caribou and moose in the alberta oil sands",NA,FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT,WASSER SK;KEIM JL;TAPER ML;LELE SR,"woodland caribou (rangifer tarandus caribou) and moose (alces alces) populations in the alberta oil sands region of western canada are influenced by wolf (canis lupus) predation, habitat degradation and loss, and anthropogenic activities. trained domestic dogs were used to locate scat from caribou, moose, and wolves during winter surges in petroleum development. evidence obtained from collected scat was then used to estimate resource selection, measure physiological stress, and provide individual genetic identification for precise mark recapture abundance estimates of caribou, moose, and wolves. strong impacts of human activity were indicated by changes in resource selection and in stress and nutrition hormone levels as human-use measures were added to base resource selection models (including ecological variables, provincial highways, and pre-existing linear features with no human activity) for caribou. wolf predation and resource selection so heavily targeted deer (odocoileus virginiana or o hemionus) that wolves appeared drawn away from prime caribou habitat. none of the three examined species showed a significant population change over 4 years. however, caribou population estimates were more than double those of previous approximations for this area. our findings suggest that modifying landscape-level human-use patterns may be more effective at managing this ecosystem than intentional removal of wolves." "estimation of live birth underreporting with a capture-recapture method, sergipe, northeastern brazil",live birth; birth certificates; underregistration; registries; records as topic; vital statistics,REVISTA DE SAUDE PUBLICA,SCHMID B;DA SILVA NN,"objective: estimate the number of live births and, therefore, underreporting of live births. methods: the databases of the live birth information system and the civil registry of the brazilian institute of geography and statistics, from the second and third trimesters of 2006 in sergipe state (northeastern brazil) were paired by deterministic linkage based on the number of the live birth declaration. the geographic disaggregation utilized was mother's microregion of residence. huggins closed population models were used to estimate the capture probabilities for each database and the total live births during the period, within each geographic subdivision. mark (r) software was used for the estimates. results: underregistration during the period studied was 19.3%. application of the capture-recapture method to estimate underregistration of live births is possible, including for geographic disaggregations smaller than a state. the deterministic linkage was impaired in four microregions, due to non-inclusion of the live birth declaration number in the database of the brazilian institute of geography and statistics. maternal age, a heterogeneity characteristic in the population of live births, affected the probability of capture by the civil registry. conclusions: capture-recapture was a viable method to estimate the underregistration of live births." @@ -3825,14 +3831,14 @@ using the judas technique to locate and remove wintertime aggregations of invasi "effects of prescribed fire, supplemental feeding, and mammalian predator exclusion on hispid cotton rat populations",demography; longleaf pine; multistate capture-mark-recapture models; population-level response to fire; sigmodon hispidus,OECOLOGIA,MORRIS G;HOSTETLER JA;CONNER LM;OLI MK,"predation and food resources can strongly affect small mammal population dynamics directly by altering vital rates or indirectly by influencing behaviors. fire may also strongly influence population dynamics of species inhabiting fire-adapted habitats because fire can alter food and cover availability. we used capture-mark-recapture and radio-telemetry studies to experimentally examine how supplemental feeding, mammalian predator exclusion, and prescribed fire affected survival, abundance, and reproduction of hispid cotton rats (sigmodon hispidus) in southwestern georgia, usa. prescribed fire reduced survival, abundance, and rates of transitions to reproductive states. food supplementation increased survival, transitions to reproductive states, and abundance, but was not sufficient to prevent post-fire declines in any of these parameters. mammalian predator exclusion did not strongly affect any of the considered parameters. our results show that fire strongly influenced cotton rat populations in our study site, primarily by reducing cover and increasing predation risk from non-mammalian predators." heritable choice of colony size in cliff swallows: does experience trump genetics in older birds?,cliff swallow; coloniality; colony choice; habitat selection; heritability of social behaviour; petrochelidon pyrrhonota,ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR,ROCHE EA;BROWN CR;BROWN MB,"the variation in breeding colony size seen in populations of most colonial birds may reflect heritable choices made by individuals that are phenotypically specialized for particular social environments. although a few studies have reported evidence for genetically based choice of group sizes in birds, we know relatively little about the extent to which animals potentially rely on experience versus innate preferences in deciding how many conspecifics to settle with at different times of their lives. we conducted a cross-fostering experiment in 1997-1998 on cliff swallows, petrochelidon pyrrhonota, in southwestern nebraska, u.s.a., in which some individuals were reared in colonies that differed in size from those in which they were born. breeding colony sizes chosen by this cohort of birds were monitored by mark-recapture throughout their lives. a multistate mark-recapture analysis revealed that birds in their first breeding year chose colony sizes similar to those of their birth, regardless of their rearing environment, confirming a previous analysis. beyond the first breeding year, however, cliff swallows' choice of colony size was less dependent on the size of the colony in which they were born. birds born in small colonies and reared in large colonies showed evidence of a delayed rearing effect, with these birds overwhelmingly choosing large colonies in later years. heritabilities suggested strong genetic effects on colony choice in the first year but not in later years. cliff swallows' genetically based colony size preferences their first year could be a way to ensure matching of their phenotype to an appropriate social environment as yearlings. in later years, familiarity with particular colony sites and available information on site quality may override innate group size preferences when birds choose colonies. (c) 2011 the association for the study of animal behaviour. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." laboratory and field evidence of sex-biased movement in the invasive round goby,home range; dispersal; boldness; activity; exploration; invasive species; sex differences; mark-recapture; neogobius melanostomus,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY,MARENTETTE JR;WANG G;TONG S;SOPINKA NM;TAVES MD;KOOPS MA;BALSHINE S,"activity levels are modulated by trade-offs between reducing predation risk and the need to move in order to find food or mates. because these trade-offs affect males and females differently, many species show sex-specific movement, dispersal patterns, and spatial navigation capacities, with the sex that gains the most from territory ownership often dispersing less. unlike mammals and birds, sex differences in movement among fishes remain poorly studied, and the connections between tests of movement propensity in the laboratory and in the field are rarely made. here, we examine the differences in movement between male and female round goby (neogobius melanostomus) in both laboratory and field settings. this fish species is invasive in north america and currently undergoing further range expansions. in the laboratory, round goby males were more active and explored a novel environment more readily than did females. a large-scale mark-recapture study in lake ontario over two years revealed that males moved more than females between years, but there were no within-year sex differences. thus, round goby display male-biased movement patterns, providing a comparison point to dispersal patterns in other taxa. understanding sex-specific movement of round goby in the field will also help predict dispersal and population dynamics, both in areas where round goby have already become established and where they are continuing to invade." -density estimation of sympatric carnivores using spatially explicit capture-recapture methods and standard trapping grid,aardwolf; crocuta crocuta; density 4.4; hyena hyena; leopard; maximum-likelihood density estimation; panthera pardus; proteles cristata; spotted hyena; striped hyena,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,O'BRIEN TG;KINNAIRD MF,"population density is an important state variable in ecology and monitoring of wildlife populations. in the study of large carnivores, traditional density estimation methods have relied on camera trapping to collect capture-recapture data using sampling designs suited to a single target species and ad hoc methods to calculate the effective trapping area. we describe an application of spatially explicit capture-recapture analysis to estimate density for four sympatric carnivore species using a standard spatial sampling grid, camera trap sampling, and maximum-likelihood estimation methods. we used camera traps deployed in four adjacent, sequential camera arrays to construct capture histories for leopard, aardwolf, spotted hyena, and striped hyena in an african savanna/scrub ecosystem. we considered two methods of constructing trapping histories: (1) a simultaneous layout in which all cameras are deployed and active for 21 trapping intervals of 24 h each; and (2) an incomplete layout in which cameras are considered deployed for 84 sampling intervals, but with only a fraction of traps active for a given sampling interval. we estimated density and confidence or profile likelihood intervals for each species using a mean maximum distance moved method and maximum-likelihood estimation procedures with model averaging. maximum-likelihood densities ranged from 4.93/100 km(2) for spotted hyena to 12.03/100 km(2) for leopard. estimates did not differ between simultaneous and incomplete trap layouts. our approach demonstrates the utility and cost effectiveness of using maximum-likelihood density estimation methods in studies of sympatric species that are individually recognizable." +density estimation of sympatric carnivores using spatially explicit capture-recapture methods and standard trapping grid,aardwolf; crocuta crocuta; density 4.4; hyena hyena; leopard; maximum-likelihood density estimation; panthera pardus; proteles cristata; spotted hyena; striped hyena,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,O BRIEN TG;KINNAIRD MF,"population density is an important state variable in ecology and monitoring of wildlife populations. in the study of large carnivores, traditional density estimation methods have relied on camera trapping to collect capture-recapture data using sampling designs suited to a single target species and ad hoc methods to calculate the effective trapping area. we describe an application of spatially explicit capture-recapture analysis to estimate density for four sympatric carnivore species using a standard spatial sampling grid, camera trap sampling, and maximum-likelihood estimation methods. we used camera traps deployed in four adjacent, sequential camera arrays to construct capture histories for leopard, aardwolf, spotted hyena, and striped hyena in an african savanna/scrub ecosystem. we considered two methods of constructing trapping histories: (1) a simultaneous layout in which all cameras are deployed and active for 21 trapping intervals of 24 h each; and (2) an incomplete layout in which cameras are considered deployed for 84 sampling intervals, but with only a fraction of traps active for a given sampling interval. we estimated density and confidence or profile likelihood intervals for each species using a mean maximum distance moved method and maximum-likelihood estimation procedures with model averaging. maximum-likelihood densities ranged from 4.93/100 km(2) for spotted hyena to 12.03/100 km(2) for leopard. estimates did not differ between simultaneous and incomplete trap layouts. our approach demonstrates the utility and cost effectiveness of using maximum-likelihood density estimation methods in studies of sympatric species that are individually recognizable." effect of sex and bright coloration on survival and predator-induced wing damage in an aposematic lantern fly with startle display,aposematism; hindwing coloration; mark recapture; startle display; survival,ECOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY,KANG CK;LEE SI;JABLONSKI PG,"1. aposematic coloration in prey promotes its survival by conspicuously advertising unpalatability to predators. although classical examples of aposematic signals involve constant presentation of a signal at a distance, some animals suddenly display warning colours only when they are attacked. 2. characteristics of body parts suddenly displayed, such as conspicuous coloration or eyespot pattern, may increase the survival of the prey by startling the predator, and/or by signalling unpalatability to the predators at the moment of attack. 3. the adaptive value of such colour patterns suddenly displayed by unpalatable prey has not been studied. we experimentally blackened the red patch in the conspicuous red-white-black hindwing pattern displayed by an unpalatable insect lycorma delicatula white (hemiptera: fulgoridae) in response to predator's attack. 4. there was no evidence that the presence of the red patch increased prey survival over several weeks. we hypothesise that predators generalised from the red-white-black patches on the hindwings of unpalatable l. delicatula to any similar wing display as a signal of unpalatability. because a higher proportion of males than females stay put at their resting sites, displaying their wings in response to repeated attacks by predators, wing damage was more frequent in males than in females. 5. to our knowledge, this is the first experimental test of an adaptive role of aposematic signals presented by unpalatable prey during sudden displays triggered by direct predatory attack." boosting qualifies capture-recapture methods for estimating the comprehensiveness of literature searches for systematic reviews,capture-recapture; componentwise boosting; literature search; meta-analysis; model selection; systematic review,JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY,RUCKER G;REISER V;MOTSCHALL E;BINDER H;MEERPOHL JJ;ANTES G;SCHUMACHER M,"objective: capture recapture methods were proposed to evaluate the comprehensiveness of systematic literature searches. we investigate the statistical feasibility of capture-recapture techniques with model selection for estimating the number of missing references in literature searches using two systematic reviews in gastroenterology and hematology. study design and setting: first, we compared manually selected poisson regression models that differ with respect to included interactions. secondly, we performed selection via componentwise boosting, which provides automatic variable selection. the proposed boosting technique is a regularized, stepwise procedure allowing to distinguish between mandatory and optional variables. results from all models were compared based on akaike's information criterion and the bayesian information criterion. results: for the first example, the best manually selected model suggested a number of 82 missing articles (95% ci: 52-128), whereas the boosting technique provided 127(95% ci: 86-186) missing articles. for the second example, 140(95% ci: 116-168) missing articles were estimated for the manually selected and 188 (95% ci: 159-223) for the automatically selected model. conclusion: capture-recapture analysis requires the selection of an appropriate model. because of problems of variable selection and overfitting, manual model selection yielded large estimates, varying markedly, with broad confidence intervals. by contrast, boosting was robust against overfitting and automatically created an appropriate model for inference. (c) 2011 elsevier inc. all rights reserved." estimating abundance of the endangered houston toad on a primary recovery site,abundance; bufo houstonensis; endangered species; popan; program mark,JOURNAL OF FISH AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,DUARTE A;BROWN DJ;FORSTNER MRJ,"the griffith league ranch is one of the primary recovery sites for the endangered houston toad bufo (anaxyrus) houstonensis. new recovery initiatives have recently been implemented to increase houston toad abundance; however, no robust estimate of population size has been conducted in the last decade of study, nor from this recovery site. to assist with inferences regarding efficacy of current and future management actions, we estimated adult houston toad abundance on the griffith league ranch. houston toads were sampled at breeding ponds during the 2010 breeding season using a mark-recapture methodology. we analyzed the data using a modified jolly-seber open population model in program mark. models were built whereby the probability of capture remained constant, the apparent survival varied with time or was constant, and the probability of entry varied with time. model averaging was used to account for uncertainty and the derived adult male houston toad abundance ranged from 201 to 307 individuals. using a previously determined griffith league ranch houston toad functional sex ratio of 5: 1, we estimated the abundance of the total adult houston toad population on this primary recovery site to be from 241 to 368 individuals. this study is the first to report a robust abundance estimate of a houston toad population and provides a foundation for further research to quantify the impact of current and future management actions." an adaptive decision framework for the conservation of a threatened plant,adaptive management; asclepias meadii; mead's milkweed; population dynamics; population viability; threatened and endangered species; uncertainty,JOURNAL OF FISH AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,MOORE CT;FONNESBECK CJ;SHEA K;LAH KJ;MCKENZIE PM;BALL LC;RUNGE MC;ALEXANDER HM,"mead's milkweed asclepias meadii, a long-lived perennial herb of tallgrass prairie and glade communities of the central united states, is a species designated as threatened under the u. s. endangered species act. challenges to its successful management include the facts that much about its life history is unknown, its age at reproductive maturity is very advanced, certain life stages are practically unobservable, its productivity is responsive to unpredictable environmental events, and most of the known populations occur on private lands unprotected by any legal conservation instrument. one critical source of biological uncertainty is the degree to which fire promotes growth and reproductive response in the plant. to aid in its management, we developed a prototype population-level state-dependent decision-making framework that explicitly accounts for this uncertainty and for uncertainties related to stochastic environmental effects and vital rates. to parameterize the decision model, we used estimates found in the literature, and we analyzed data from a long-term monitoring program where fates of individual plants were observed through time. we demonstrate that different optimal courses of action are followed according to how one believes that fire influences reproductive response, and we show that the action taken for certain population states is informative for resolving uncertainty about competing beliefs regarding the effect of fire. we advocate the use of a model-predictive approach for the management of rare populations, particularly when management uncertainty is profound. over time, an adaptive management approach should reduce uncertainty and improve management performance as predictions of management outcome generated under competing models are continually informed and updated by monitoring data." "toe clipping of amphibians and reptiles: science, ethics, and the law",NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,PERRY G;WALLACE MC;PERRY D;CURZER H;MUHLBERGER P,"public concern for the humane treatment of animals in research has led to specific guidelines for appropriate treatment of study organisms. field research poses special challenges that institutional animal care and use committees find difficult to address based on existing guidelines. toe clipping is a common but contentious example whose use has been called barbaric and whose efficacy has been questioned. we provide a brief review of the ethical bases for such positions, the legal framework they have engendered, and the scientific evidence regarding the impacts of the practice. leading philosophical views vary but tend to focus on the suffering or distress of individual animals, primarily vertebrates. the law has adopted this individual-centered view. biologists, in contrast, tend to more wholistic views that focus on populations and ecosystems. scientific studies of the impacts of toe clipping, most of them relatively recent, have become increasingly sophisticated statistically. most show little impact of toe clipping on study animals, the exception being the likelihood of recapture of toe-clipped individuals in some frogs. if unaccounted for, effects of methodology can bias scientific findings. the few studies focusing on physiological indicators of distress show no increase resulting from toe-clipping. thus, toe clipping of reptiles and amphibians meets legal and ethical expectations and should remain acceptable where it meets study needs. biologists have long been concerned about the possible ethical implications of their methods. philosophical inquiry has been beneficial in improving our understanding of these methods, but the need of biologists for better philosophical elaboration of ecological ethics has only partially been addressed." population genetic structure and natal philopatry in the widespread north american bat myotis lucifugus,dispersal; philopatry; roost ecology; white-nose syndrome,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,DIXON MD,"molecular genetics tools have been used recently to investigate aspects of bat biology, including the degree of male- and female-driven gene flow among populations. however, none of this work has focused on the little brown bat (myotis lucifugus), one of the most common bats in north america. previous work using mark-recapture suggests that like many mammals, including other temperate vespertilionid bats, gene flow in this species is largely driven by males, whereas females return to the roosts in which they were born to rear pups. to determine if this species displays a pattern of population genetic structure that is consistent with this hypothesis i sampled 182 female m. lucifugus at 12 maternity colonies throughout minnesota. using a portion of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome b and 10 polymorphic nuclear microsatellites, i found significant structure among colonies, and population differentiation was slightly higher for the mitochondrial locus. this supports the hypothesis that female m. lucifugus display some degree of natal philopatry, but the inferred female dispersal rate was high. the pattern of structure was complex and demonstrates that unequal gene flow among maternity colonies is occurring and that the co-occurrence of breeding populations within maternity colonies and/or inbreeding could be confounding estimates of population genetic structure among these colonies. the patterns of population genetic structure and natal philopatry imply that both seasonal migration and dispersal by females should be considered as possible factors in the spread of emerging infectious diseases such as white-nose syndrome." -fish pass assessment in the rivers of catalonia (ne iberian peninsula). a case study of weirs associated with hydropower plants and gauging stations,fish migration; fishways; river connectivity; hydromorphological assessment; icf index,LIMNETICA,ORDEIX M;POU-ROVIRA Q;SELLARES N;BARDINA M;CASAMITJANA A;SOLA C;MUNNE A,"fish pass assessment in the rivers of catalonia (ne iberian peninsula). a case study of weirs associated with hydropower plants and gauging stations this study evaluated the effectiveness of fish passes in catalan rivers (ne iberian peninsula). the aim was to test current functionality to enhance these structures for the purpose of optimising their management. we analysed river connectivity and fish pass facilities to generate information to improve the design, construction, management and assessment of solutions related to fish passage in catalan rivers according to international best practices. in 2006, a preliminary evaluation of the locations and effectiveness of fish pass facilities in catalonia was conducted through direct inspection of 78 fishways. most of them were retro-fitted solutions using broad-spectrum technical structures, mainly pool fishway or pool pass facilities. an analysis of the effectiveness of 7 of the new fish passes (4, 2 and 1 passes in the ter, ebro and tordera rivers, respectively) was performed between 2006 and 2009. the fish passes were located in weirs associated with hydropower plants and gauging stations. our preliminary assessment of fish connectivity was based on a field visit and collection of information to populate a database of existing obstacles and associated fishways and calculation of the new version of the icf index (river connectivity index) for all of them. several methodologies were used to check the effectiveness of a selection of fish pass solutions, most of which were based on passage rates directly or indirectly estimated for each species. direct estimation techniques involved the installation of fish traps upstream of the facility at the exit of the fish pass and visual counts. indirect estimation techniques compared the fish population structure on each side of the obstacle in river sections with equivalent hydrology and habitat characteristics using electric fishing or trapping systems, group mark-recapture methods and individual mark-recapture methods (pit tags). the results showed that (i) existing solutions to improve fish migration in catalonia are insufficient (only present at approximately 8% of obstacles), and where they do exist, the fish passes are usually inadequate or poorly maintained. (2) fish passes are generally inadequate or insufficient for the total native fish fauna from each water body. additionally, with few exceptions, fish passage rates are too low, and in most cases, only fish with a high capacity to overcome obstacles or the largest individuals succeed in migrating. (3) fish pass effectiveness agrees with the results of the new version of the icf index." +fish pass assessment in the rivers of catalonia (ne iberian peninsula). a case study of weirs associated with hydropower plants and gauging stations,fish migration; fishways; river connectivity; hydromorphological assessment; icf index,LIMNETICA,ORDEIX M;POU ROVIRA Q;SELLARES N;BARDINA M;CASAMITJANA A;SOLA C;MUNNE A,"fish pass assessment in the rivers of catalonia (ne iberian peninsula). a case study of weirs associated with hydropower plants and gauging stations this study evaluated the effectiveness of fish passes in catalan rivers (ne iberian peninsula). the aim was to test current functionality to enhance these structures for the purpose of optimising their management. we analysed river connectivity and fish pass facilities to generate information to improve the design, construction, management and assessment of solutions related to fish passage in catalan rivers according to international best practices. in 2006, a preliminary evaluation of the locations and effectiveness of fish pass facilities in catalonia was conducted through direct inspection of 78 fishways. most of them were retro-fitted solutions using broad-spectrum technical structures, mainly pool fishway or pool pass facilities. an analysis of the effectiveness of 7 of the new fish passes (4, 2 and 1 passes in the ter, ebro and tordera rivers, respectively) was performed between 2006 and 2009. the fish passes were located in weirs associated with hydropower plants and gauging stations. our preliminary assessment of fish connectivity was based on a field visit and collection of information to populate a database of existing obstacles and associated fishways and calculation of the new version of the icf index (river connectivity index) for all of them. several methodologies were used to check the effectiveness of a selection of fish pass solutions, most of which were based on passage rates directly or indirectly estimated for each species. direct estimation techniques involved the installation of fish traps upstream of the facility at the exit of the fish pass and visual counts. indirect estimation techniques compared the fish population structure on each side of the obstacle in river sections with equivalent hydrology and habitat characteristics using electric fishing or trapping systems, group mark-recapture methods and individual mark-recapture methods (pit tags). the results showed that (i) existing solutions to improve fish migration in catalonia are insufficient (only present at approximately 8% of obstacles), and where they do exist, the fish passes are usually inadequate or poorly maintained. (2) fish passes are generally inadequate or insufficient for the total native fish fauna from each water body. additionally, with few exceptions, fish passage rates are too low, and in most cases, only fish with a high capacity to overcome obstacles or the largest individuals succeed in migrating. (3) fish pass effectiveness agrees with the results of the new version of the icf index." the spatial scale of competition from recruits on an older cohort in atlantic salmon,age structure; density dependence; exploitative; interactive; inter-cohort competition,OECOLOGIA,EINUM S;NISLOW KH;MCKELVEY S;ARMSTRONG JD,"competitive effects of younger cohorts on older ones are frequently assumed to be negligible in species where older, larger individuals dominate in pairwise behavioural interactions. here, we provide field estimates of such competition by recruits on an older age class in atlantic salmon (salmo salar), a species where observational studies have documented strong body size advantages which should favour older individuals in direct interactions. by creating realistic levels of spatial variation in the density of underyearling (yoy) recruits over a 1-km stretch of a stream, and obtaining accurate measurements of individual growth rates of overyearlings (parr) from capture-mark-recapture data on a fine spatial scale, we demonstrate that high yoy density can substantially decrease parr growth. models integrating multiple spatial scales indicated that parr were influenced by yoy density within 16 m. the preferred model suggested parr daily mass increase to be reduced by 39% when increasing yoy density from 0.0 to 1.0 m(-2), which is well within the range of naturally occurring densities. reduced juvenile growth rates will in general be expected to reduce juvenile survival (via increased length of exposure to freshwater mortality) and increase generation times (via increased age at seaward migrations). thus, increased recruitment can significantly affect the performance of older cohorts, with important implications for population dynamics. our results highlight that, even for the wide range of organisms that rely on defendable resources, the direction of competition among age classes cannot be assumed a priori or be inferred from behavioural observations alone." variability in movement dynamics of topminnow (fundulus notatus and f. olivaceus) populations,movement; plasticity; fundulus; habitat complexity,ECOLOGY OF FRESHWATER FISH,ALLDREDGE P;GUTIERREZ M;DUVERNELL D;SCHAEFER J;BRUNKOW P;MATAMOROS W,"movement and dispersal patterns are key biological processes across a range of organisational levels. the fundulus notatus species complex includes several species with similar ecological niches that exhibit broadly overlapping ranges. we conducted a mark-recapture study on two of the most widely distributed members of this species complex to improve our understanding of their movement and habitat use. a population of f. notatus was studied between june and august of 2008 and 2009 in cahokia creek, a small tributary of the mississippi river in illinois, along with a parallel study of fundulus olivaceus between may and july of 2009 in big creek, a tributary of the pascagoula river in mississippi. fish were recaptured approximately weekly, and habitat variables were measured. estimated daily movement rates varied significantly both between locations and between years. fundulus olivaceus in big creek moved < 1 m per day, while f. notatus in cahokia creek in 2009 moved nearly 23 m per day. the distribution of movements was strongly leptokurtic in all three data sets. differences in movement rates were attributed to significant differences in population size and habitat characteristics. our data did not support the hypothesis that populations consist of distinct mobile and resident components. instead, individual fish went through periods of little or no movement followed by extensive movement (consistent with the home range shift model of fish movement). we discuss the implications these results have for contact zone dynamics between these two species." social network models predict movement and connectivity in ecological landscapes,dispersal; graph theory; habitat fragmentation; latent space models; landscape ecology,PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,FLETCHER RJ;ACEVEDO MA;REICHERT BE;PIAS KE;KITCHENS WM,"network analysis is on the rise across scientific disciplines because of its ability to reveal complex, and often emergent, patterns and dynamics. nonetheless, a growing concern in network analysis is the use of limited data for constructing networks. this concern is strikingly relevant to ecology and conservation biology, where network analysis is used to infer connectivity across landscapes. in this context, movement among patches is the crucial parameter for interpreting connectivity but because of the difficulty of collecting reliable movement data, most network analysis proceeds with only indirect information on movement across landscapes rather than using observed movement to construct networks. statistical models developed for social networks provide promising alternatives for landscape network construction because they can leverage limited movement information to predict linkages. using two mark-recapture datasets on individual movement and connectivity across landscapes, we test whether commonly used network constructions for interpreting connectivity can predict actual linkages and network structure, and we contrast these approaches to social network models. we find that currently applied network constructions for assessing connectivity consistently, and substantially, overpredict actual connectivity, resulting in considerable overestimation of metapopulation lifetime. furthermore, social network models provide accurate predictions of network structure, and can do so with remarkably limited data on movement. social network models offer a flexible and powerful way for not only understanding the factors influencing connectivity but also for providing more reliable estimates of connectivity and metapopulation persistence in the face of limited data." @@ -3856,18 +3862,18 @@ the island syndrome and population dynamics of introduced rats,body-size; demogr bayesian state-space modeling of metapopulation dynamics in the glanville fritillary butterfly,bayesian estimation; cross-validation; diffusion; dispersal; habitat quality; individual-based model (ibm); markov chain monte carlo (mcmc); mark-recapture; melitaea cinxia; random effects; state-space model (ssm); stochastic patch occupancy model (spom),ECOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS,HARRISON PJ;HANSKI I;OVASKAINEN O,"the complexity of mathematical models of ecological dynamics varies greatly, and it is often difficult to judge what would be the optimal level of complexity in a particular case. here we compare the parameter estimates, model fits, and predictive abilities of two models of metapopulation dynamics: a detailed individual-based model (ibm) and a population-based stochastic patch occupancy model (spom) derived from the ibm. the two models were fitted to a 17-year time series of data for the glanville fritillary butterfly (melitaea cinxia) inhabiting a network of 72 small meadows. the data consisted of biannual counts of larval groups (ibm) and the annual presence or absence of local populations (spom). the models were fitted using a bayesian state-space approach with a hierarchical random effect structure to account for observational, demographic, and environmental stochasticities. the detection probability of larval groups (ibm) and the probability of false zeros of local populations (spom) in the observation models were simultaneously estimated from the time-series data and independent control data. prior distributions for dispersal parameters were obtained from a separate analysis of mark-recapture data. both models fitted the data about equally, but the results were more precise for the ibm than for the spom. the two models yielded similar estimates for a random effect parameter describing habitat quality in each patch, which were correlated with independent empirical measures of habitat quality. the modeling results showed that variation in habitat quality influenced patch occupancy more through the effects on movement behavior at patch edges than on carrying capacity, whereas the latter influenced the mean population size in occupied patches. the ibm and the spom explained 63% and 45%, respectively, of the observed variation in the fraction of occupied habitat area among 75 independent patch networks not used in parameter estimation. we conclude that, while carefully constructed, detailed models can have better predictive ability than simple models, this advantage comes with the cost of greatly increased data requirements and computational challenges. our results illustrate how complex models can be helpful in facilitating the construction of effective simpler models." anticipation and tracking of pulsed resources drive population dynamics in eastern chipmunks,american beech; anticipatory reproduction; capture-mark-recapture; eastern chipmunk; fagus grandifolia; life-history trade-offs; masting; reproduction skipping; resource tracking; resource-consumer interactions; tamias striatus,ECOLOGY,BERGERON P;REALE D;HUMPHRIES MM;GARANT D,"pulsed systems are characterized by boom and bust cycles of resource production that are expected to cascade through multiple trophic levels. many of the consumers within pulsed resource systems have specific adaptations to cope with these cycles that may serve to either amplify or dampen their community-wide consequences. we monitored a seed predator, the eastern chipmunk (tamias striatus), in an american beech (fagus grandifolia) dominated forest, and used capture-mark-recapture analyses to estimate chipmunk vital rates and relate them to interannual variation in beech seed production. the summer activity and reproduction of adults anticipated autumn beech production, with high activity and intense reproduction occurring in summers prior to beech masts. chipmunks also reproduced every spring following a beech mast. however, adult survival was independent of beech production. in contrast, juvenile survival was lower in years of mast failure than in years of mast production, but their activity was consistently high and independent of beech production. population growth was strongly affected by the number of juveniles and therefore by beech seed production, which explains nearly 70% of variation in population growth. our results suggest that a combination of resource-dependent reproduction and variable activity levels associated with anticipation and response to resource pulses allows consumers to buffer potential deleterious effects of low food abundance on their survival." high hunting pressure selects for earlier birth date: wild boar as a case study,birth timing; elastogram; exploited populations; population dynamics; selection gradient analyses; sus scrofa scrofa,EVOLUTION,GAMELON M;BESNARD A;GAILLARD JM;SERVANTY S;BAUBET E;BRANDT S;GIMENEZ O,"exploitation by humans affects the size and structure of populations. this has evolutionary and demographic consequences that have typically being studied independent of one another. we here applied a framework recently developed applying quantitative tools from population ecology and selection gradient analysis to quantify the selection on a quantitative trait-birth date-through its association with multiple fitness components. from the long-term monitoring (22 years) of a wild boar (sus scrofa scrofa) population subject to markedly increasing hunting pressure, we found that birth dates have advanced by up to 12 days throughout the study period. during the period of low hunting pressure, there was no detectable selection. however, during the period of high hunting pressure, the selection gradient linking breeding probability in the first year of life to birth date was negative, supporting current life-history theory predicting selection for early births to reproduce within the first year of life with increasing adult mortality." -urinary corticosterone responses to capture and toe-clipping in the cane toad (rhinella marina) indicate that toe-clipping is a stressor for amphibians,corticosterone; stress; testosterone; toe-clipping; amphibian; ethics; rhinella marina,GENERAL AND COMPARATIVE ENDOCRINOLOGY,"NARAYAN EJ;MOLINIA FC;KINDERMANN C;COCKREM JF;HERO JM","toe-clipping, the removal of one or more toes, is a common method used to individually mark free-living animals. whilst this method is widely used in studies of amphibians, the appropriateness of the method, and its potential detrimental effects have been the subject of debate. here, we provide for the first time, evidence that toe-clipping is a stressor in a wild amphibian. we measured urinary corticosterone responses of male cane toads (rhinella marina) to capture and handling only, and to toe-clipping under field conditions. urinary testosterone concentrations and white blood cell proportions were also measured. urinary corticosterone metabolite concentrations increased 6 h after capture and handling only and remained high for 24 h; corticosterone returned to baseline levels after 48 h and remained low at 72 h post capture and handling. corticosterone concentrations in toads subjected to toe-clipping increased at 6 h to significantly higher concentrations than after capture and handling only, then decreased more slowly than after capture and handling, and were still elevated (approximately double basal level) 72 h after toe-clipping. testosterone did not change significantly after capture and handling only, whereas after toe-clipping testosterone decreased at 6 h and remained low at 72 h. there were weak short-term effects of toe-clipping compared with capture and handling only on white blood cell proportions. we have clearly shown that toe-clipping is a distinctly stronger stressor than capture and handling alone. this indicates that there is an ethical cost of toe-clipping, and this should be considered when planning studies of amphibians. (c) 2011 elsevier inc. all rights reserved." +urinary corticosterone responses to capture and toe-clipping in the cane toad (rhinella marina) indicate that toe-clipping is a stressor for amphibians,corticosterone; stress; testosterone; toe-clipping; amphibian; ethics; rhinella marina,GENERAL AND COMPARATIVE ENDOCRINOLOGY,NARAYAN EJ;MOLINIA FC;KINDERMANN C;COCKREM JF;HERO JM,"toe-clipping, the removal of one or more toes, is a common method used to individually mark free-living animals. whilst this method is widely used in studies of amphibians, the appropriateness of the method, and its potential detrimental effects have been the subject of debate. here, we provide for the first time, evidence that toe-clipping is a stressor in a wild amphibian. we measured urinary corticosterone responses of male cane toads (rhinella marina) to capture and handling only, and to toe-clipping under field conditions. urinary testosterone concentrations and white blood cell proportions were also measured. urinary corticosterone metabolite concentrations increased 6 h after capture and handling only and remained high for 24 h; corticosterone returned to baseline levels after 48 h and remained low at 72 h post capture and handling. corticosterone concentrations in toads subjected to toe-clipping increased at 6 h to significantly higher concentrations than after capture and handling only, then decreased more slowly than after capture and handling, and were still elevated (approximately double basal level) 72 h after toe-clipping. testosterone did not change significantly after capture and handling only, whereas after toe-clipping testosterone decreased at 6 h and remained low at 72 h. there were weak short-term effects of toe-clipping compared with capture and handling only on white blood cell proportions. we have clearly shown that toe-clipping is a distinctly stronger stressor than capture and handling alone. this indicates that there is an ethical cost of toe-clipping, and this should be considered when planning studies of amphibians. (c) 2011 elsevier inc. all rights reserved." fitness effects of endemic malaria infections in a wild bird population: the importance of ecological structure,avian malaria; plasmodium; blue tits (cyanistes caeruleus); host-parasite interactions; life-history trade-offs; multistate mark-recapture models,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,LACHISH S;KNOWLES SCL;ALVES R;WOOD MJ;SHELDON BC,"1. parasites can have important effects on host populations influencing either fecundity or mortality, but understanding the magnitude of these effects in endemic host-parasite systems is challenging and requires an understanding of ecological processes affecting both host and parasite. 2. avian blood parasites (haemoproteus and plasmodium) have been much studied, but the effects of these parasites on hosts in areas where they are endemic remains poorly known. 3. we used a multistate modelling framework to explore the effects of chronic infection with plasmodium on survival and recapture probability in a large data set of breeding blue tits, involving 3424 individuals and 3118 infection diagnoses over nine years. 4. we reveal strong associations between chronic malaria infection and both recapture and survival, effects that are dependent on the clade of parasite, on host traits and on the local risk of infection. 5. infection with plasmodium relictum was associated with reduced recapture probability and increased survival, compared to p. circumflexum, suggesting that these parasites have differing virulence and cause different types of selection on this host. 6. our results suggest a large potential survival cost of acute infections revealed by modelling host survival as a function of the local risk of infection. 7. our analyses suggest not only that endemic avian malaria may have multiple fitness effects on their hosts and that these effects are species dependent, but also that adding ecological structure (in this case parasite species and spatial variation in disease occurrence) to analyses of host-parasite interactions is an important step in understanding the ecology and evolution of these systems." likelihood-based genetic mark-recapture estimates when genotype samples are incomplete and contain typing errors,shaza; missing loci; genetic tagging; type i errors; type ii errors; genotype errors,THEORETICAL POPULATION BIOLOGY,MACBETH GM;BRODERICK D;OVENDEN JR;BUCKWORTH RC,"genotypes produced from samples collected non-invasively in harsh field conditions often lack the full complement of data from the selected microsatellite loci. the application to genetic mark-recapture methodology in wildlife species can therefore be prone to misidentifications leading to both 'true non-recaptures' being falsely accepted as recaptures (type i errors) and 'true recaptures' being undetected (type ii errors). here we present a new likelihood method that allows every pairwise genotype comparison to be evaluated independently. we apply this method to determine the total number of recaptures by estimating and optimising the balance between type i errors and type ii errors. we show through simulation that the standard error of recapture estimates can be minimised through our algorithms. interestingly, the precision of our recapture estimates actually improved when we included individuals with missing genotypes, as this increased the number of pairwise comparisons potentially uncovering more recaptures. simulations suggest that the method is tolerant to per locus error rates of up to 5% per locus and can theoretically work in datasets with as little as 60% of loci genotyped. our methods can be implemented in datasets where standard mismatch analyses fail to distinguish recaptures. finally, we show that by assigning a low type i error rate to our matching algorithms we can generate a dataset of individuals of known capture histories that is suitable for the downstream analysis with traditional mark-recapture methods. crown copyright (c) 2011 published by elsevier inc. all rights reserved." underreporting of maritime accidents to vessel accident databases,maritime accidents; capture-recapture; underreporting; accident statistics,ACCIDENT ANALYSIS AND PREVENTION,HASSEL M;ASBJORNSLETT BE;HOLE LP,"underreporting of maritime accidents is a problem not only for authorities trying to improve maritime safety through legislation, but also to risk management companies and other entities using maritime casualty statistics in risk and accident analysis. this study collected and compared casualty data from 01.01.2005 to 31.12.2009, from ihs fairplay and the maritime authorities from a set of nations. the data was compared to find common records, and estimation of the true number of occurred accidents was performed using conditional probability given positive dependency between data sources, several variations of the capture-recapture method, calculation of best case scenario assuming perfect reporting, and scaling up a subset of casualty information from a marine insurance statistics database. the estimated upper limit reporting performance for the selected flag states ranged from 14% to 74%, while the corresponding estimated coverage of ihs fairplay ranges from 4% to 62%. on average the study results document that the number of unreported accidents makes up roughly 50% of all occurred accidents. even in a best case scenario, only a few flag states come close to perfect reporting (94%). the considerable scope of underreporting uncovered in the study, indicates that users of statistical vessel accident data should assume a certain degree of underreporting, and adjust their analyses accordingly. whether to use correction factors, a safety margin, or rely on expert judgment, should be decided on a case by case basis. (c) 2011 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "now you see him, now you don't: experience, not age, is related to reproduction in kittiwakes",rissa tridactyla; capture-recapture; breeding probability; experience; age; seabirds,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,DESPREZ M;PRADEL R;CAM E;MONNAT JY;GIMENEZ O,"in long-lived species, individuals can skip reproduction. the proportion of breeders affects population growth rate and viability, there is a need to investigate the factors influencing intermittent breeding. the theory predicts that if lack of experience is an important constraint, breeding probabilities should increase with experience for individuals of the same age, whereas under the so-called restraint hypothesis, breeding probabilities should increase with age regardless of experience. however, because the probability of detecting individuals in the wild is generally less than 1, it is difficult to know exactly the number of previous breeding episodes (breeding experience). to cope with this issue, we developed a hidden process model to incorporate experience as a latent state possibly influencing the probability of breeding. using a 22-year mark-recapture dataset involving 9970 individuals, we analysed simultaneously experience and age effects on breeding probabilities in the kittiwake (rissa tridactyla). we did not detect an influence of age on adult breeding probabilities. we found that inexperienced birds breed less frequently than experienced birds. our approach enables us to highlight the key role of experience on adults breeding probabilities and can be used for a wide range of organisms for which detection is less than 1." -misleading population estimates: biases and consistency of visual surveys and matrix modelling in the endangered bearded vulture,NA,PLOS ONE,MARGALIDA A;ORO D;CORTES-AVIZANDA A;HEREDIA R;DONAZAR JA,"conservation strategies for long-lived vertebrates require accurate estimates of parameters relative to the populations' size, numbers of non-breeding individuals (the ""cryptic"" fraction of the population) and the age structure. frequently, visual survey techniques are used to make these estimates but the accuracy of these approaches is questionable, mainly because of the existence of numerous potential biases. here we compare data on population trends and age structure in a bearded vulture (gypaetus barbatus) population from visual surveys performed at supplementary feeding stations with data derived from population matrix-modelling approximations. our results suggest that visual surveys overestimate the number of immature (<2 years old) birds, whereas subadults (3-5 y.o.) and adults (>6 y.o.) were underestimated in comparison with the predictions of a population model using a stable-age distribution. in addition, we found that visual surveys did not provide conclusive information on true variations in the size of the focal population. our results suggest that although long-term studies (i.e. population matrix modelling based on capture-recapture procedures) are a more time-consuming method, they provide more reliable and robust estimates of population parameters needed in designing and applying conservation strategies. the findings shown here are likely transferable to the management and conservation of other long-lived vertebrate populations that share similar life-history traits and ecological requirements." +misleading population estimates: biases and consistency of visual surveys and matrix modelling in the endangered bearded vulture,NA,PLOS ONE,MARGALIDA A;ORO D;CORTES AVIZANDA A;HEREDIA R;DONAZAR JA,"conservation strategies for long-lived vertebrates require accurate estimates of parameters relative to the populations' size, numbers of non-breeding individuals (the ""cryptic"" fraction of the population) and the age structure. frequently, visual survey techniques are used to make these estimates but the accuracy of these approaches is questionable, mainly because of the existence of numerous potential biases. here we compare data on population trends and age structure in a bearded vulture (gypaetus barbatus) population from visual surveys performed at supplementary feeding stations with data derived from population matrix-modelling approximations. our results suggest that visual surveys overestimate the number of immature (<2 years old) birds, whereas subadults (3-5 y.o.) and adults (>6 y.o.) were underestimated in comparison with the predictions of a population model using a stable-age distribution. in addition, we found that visual surveys did not provide conclusive information on true variations in the size of the focal population. our results suggest that although long-term studies (i.e. population matrix modelling based on capture-recapture procedures) are a more time-consuming method, they provide more reliable and robust estimates of population parameters needed in designing and applying conservation strategies. the findings shown here are likely transferable to the management and conservation of other long-lived vertebrate populations that share similar life-history traits and ecological requirements." "the implement of plastic oval tags for mark-recapture in juvenile japanese flounder (paralichthys olivaceus) on the northeast coast of shandong province, china",paralichthys olivaceus; plastic oval tag; mark-recapture; movement; growth,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF BIOTECHNOLOGY,LV HJ;ZHANG XM;ZHANG PD;LI WT;MIAO ZQ,"as part of the stock enhancement research project of shandong province, china, plastic oval tags (pots) were used to mark juvenile japanese flounder for release, paralichthys olivaceus (70 to 133 mm total length, tl), in 2009 and 2010. optimal tag placement locations, retention, tagging rates, and mortality were initially evaluated. mark-recapture experiments were carried out in the coastal waters of weihai city to study their migratory movements: 21,202 individuals in july 2009 at beihai and 18,350 individuals in july 2010 at lidao. the number of recaptured individuals were 434 (2.05% recapture rate) in 2009 and 620 (3.38% recapture rate) in 2010. a radiative movement from the release site was observed in the 2009 experiment; however, the tagging experiment showed a predominantly northward dispersal of tagged flounder from the release site in 2010. the mean movement speed of the released fish was calculated as 0.46 km day(-1) in 2009 and 1.05 km day(-1) in 2010. furthermore, in 2009, the average tl and wet mass increments were 36.3 +/- 8.4 mm month(-1) and 27.13 +/- 16.09 g month(-1), respectively 1 to 6 months after releasing; however, the increments were 14.7 +/- 8.8 mm month(-1) and 5.65 +/- 4.17 g month(-1), respectively in 2010." breeding chorus indices are weakly related to estimated abundance of boreal chorus frogs,NA,COPEIA,CORN PS;MUTHS E;KISSEL AM;SCHERER RD,"call surveys used to monitor breeding choruses of anuran amphibians generate index values that are frequently used to represent the number of male frogs present, but few studies have quantified this relationship. we compared abundance of male boreal chorus frogs (pseudacris maculata), estimated using capture recapture methods in two populations in colorado, to call index values derived from automated recordings. single index values, such as might result from large monitoring efforts, were unrelated to population size. a synthetic call saturation index (csi), the daily proportion of the maximum possible sum of index values derived from multiple recordings, was greater in larger populations, but the relationship was not highly predictive." "survival and population size of the frog heleioporus albopunctatus in a highly modified, agricultural landscape",NA,COPEIA,DAVIS RA;ROBERTS JD,"agricultural areas are characterized by the replacement of native vegetation with plant crops or forage species. these create radically modified habitats for anurans, but in some areas frogs persist despite these changes. we undertook a three-year mark-recapture study of five breeding populations of the burrowing frog heleioporus albopunctatus in the west australian wheatbelt to quantify the variance in demographic parameters of a frog species in a highly modified, agricultural landscape. recapture rates of frogs marked by toe-clipping were low and ranged from 0.05 to 0.45. markrecapture models estimated adult survival as ranging from 0.34 to 1. survival was constant across years for four of five populations. one site exhibited both sex-biased and temporal variation in survival. sex ratios and estimated population sizes fluctuated greatly between years. available data on demography suggest h. albopunctatus is persisting in modified habitats." "reinfestation of streblidae ectoparasites (diptera) in carollia perspicillata (linnaeus, 1758) (chiroptera)",host-parasite interaction; mark-recapture; strebla guajiro; trichobius joblingi,REVISTA BRASILEIRA DE PARASITOLOGIA VETERINARIA,LOURENCO EC;ESBERARD CEL,"the mark-recapture method allows analysis on the variation in the abundance of bat ectoparasites at consecutive captures. the objectives of this study were to compare the pattern of streblidae parasitism between capture and recapture of c. perspicillata; ascertain whether the abundance of streblidae varied with time after removal of ectoparasites at capture and analyze whether the intensity of parasitism remained the same in each individual at capture and recapture. using bats netted in the state of rio de janeiro, 42 individuals of c. perspicillata parasitized by two streblidae species, trichobius joblingi wenzel, 1966 and strebla guajiro (garcia & casal, 1965), were selected. the pattern of parasitism observed at capture was similar at recapture. no relationship was observed between the capture-recapture time interval and the abundance of ectoparasites. there was no relationship between the abundances of ectoparasites at capture and recapture of each individual." spatial and temporal population dynamics of rodents in three geographically different regions in africa: implication for ecologically-based rodent management,tanzania; swaziland; namibia; recruitment; survival; capture-mark-recapture; pest management; mastomys; aethomys; arvicanthis; gerbilliscus; acomys; lemniscomys; rattus; graphiurus; mus; saccostomus; steatomys,AFRICAN ZOOLOGY,MASSAWE AW;MULUNGU LS;MAKUNDI RH;DLAMINI N;EISEB SJ;KIRSTEN F;MAHLABA T;MALEBANE P;VON MALTITZ E;MONADJEM A;TAYLOR P;TUTJAVI V;BELMAIN SR,"as part of a three-year study to develop ecologically-based rodent management (ebrm) in southern africa, a capture-mark-recapture study was carried out in tanzania, namibia and swaziland to establish the demographic patterns and population dynamics of rodents. two study grids were established in each country. in tanzania, ten species of rodents and one shrew (crocidura sp.) were identified in the study area. the rodent species consisted of mastomys natalensis, aethomys chrysophilus, arvicanthis neumanni, gerbilliscus vicina, acomys spinosissimus, lemniscomys griselda, lemniscomys zebra, rattus rattus, graphiurus sp. and mus minutoides. mastomys natalensis was dominant and contributed more than 70% of the captures. in namibia, five species were captured, namely mastomys natalensis, gerbilliscus leucogaster, saccostomus campestris, mus minutoides and steatomys pratensis. mastomys natalensis contributed about 50% of the captures. in swaziland, only m. natalensis was captured in the study grids. there was a clear pattern in the population dynamics, with breeding confined to the wet seasons in the three countries. mastomys natalensis was the dominant pest species, for which ebrm should focus on. the highest population density of m. natalensis occurred during and after the rains, which coincided with the most susceptible phenological stage of crops. the breeding seasonality and density fluctuations observed in the three countries conform with observations made elsewhere in africa, which support the hypothesis that rainfall events promote primary productivity on which murid rodents depend. development of ebrm in these countries will be determined by the local conditions and how they influence the demographic processes of the rodent populations. ebrm should make use of the available ecological knowledge of the local rodent pest species and the focus should be on (ecological) management practices applicable at the community level including community based intensive trapping, field hygiene, removing cover and sources of food for rodents." -demography of two populations of the mexican mud turtle (kinosternon integrum) in central mexico,capture-mark-recapture; elasticity analysis; freshwater turtles; maximum likelihood estimation; population dynamics; population projection matrices,HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL,MACIP-RIOS R;BRAUER-ROBLEDA P;ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ;CASAS-ANDREU G,"basic demographic information for turtles in tropical and sub-tropical regions is still scarce. as a consequence, prospective management and conservation plans for these long-lived vertebrates lack the necessary quantitative background for successful implementation. in this study, we used capture mark recapture techniques in two populations of the mexican mud turtle (kinosternon integrum) located at different elevations in central mexico. we estimated stage-specific survival, growth, and fecundity rates and constructed a population projection matrix for each population. in the low-elevation population, the finite rate of population growth (lambda) was not significantly different from unity, indicating demographic stability. in the high-elevation population, lambda was significantly lower than unity, indicating population decline. survival of adults was the vital rate that contributed most to population persistence in both populations. we discuss our results in the context of demographic patterns of turtle species, emphasizing the differences between the two populations studied and potential conservation implications." +demography of two populations of the mexican mud turtle (kinosternon integrum) in central mexico,capture-mark-recapture; elasticity analysis; freshwater turtles; maximum likelihood estimation; population dynamics; population projection matrices,HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL,MACIP RIOS R;BRAUER ROBLEDA P;ZUNIGA VEGA JJ;CASAS ANDREU G,"basic demographic information for turtles in tropical and sub-tropical regions is still scarce. as a consequence, prospective management and conservation plans for these long-lived vertebrates lack the necessary quantitative background for successful implementation. in this study, we used capture mark recapture techniques in two populations of the mexican mud turtle (kinosternon integrum) located at different elevations in central mexico. we estimated stage-specific survival, growth, and fecundity rates and constructed a population projection matrix for each population. in the low-elevation population, the finite rate of population growth (lambda) was not significantly different from unity, indicating demographic stability. in the high-elevation population, lambda was significantly lower than unity, indicating population decline. survival of adults was the vital rate that contributed most to population persistence in both populations. we discuss our results in the context of demographic patterns of turtle species, emphasizing the differences between the two populations studied and potential conservation implications." distribution and conservation status of the desert rain frog breviceps macrops,conservation; threats; distribution; namaqualand; mining; frog,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,CHANNING A;WAHLBERG K,"the desert rain frog, breviceps macrops, is found along the greater namaqualand coast, an area of acute conservation concern. we reconstruct the distribution of this species from museum specimens to the north and quantitative surveys in the south. in addition, a small (0.6 ha) study site near mcdougall's bay was searched on eight visits, each between two and seven nights long, between october 2002 and september 2007. the unique dorsal patterns of frogs were used as 'marks'. recaptured animals moved between 0 and 380 m (mean +/- sd = 29 +/- 73 m, n = 26). the highest counts in september 2006 of 66 adults and 39 juveniles show the population at a density of 110 adults ha(-1). voucher specimens held in museum collections were examined, and demonstrate the northernmost locality in luderitz, namibia, with all 11 localities in white sandy habitat where coastal fog exceeds 100 days per year. the most southerly record from active searches was just south of kleinzee in south africa. a new threat to this species is housing development in prime coastal sand dunes." "density of tiger and leopard in a tropical deciduous forest of mudumalai tiger reserve, southern india, as estimated using photographic capture-recapture sampling",large felids; camera traps; spatially explicit capture-recapture models; mudumalai tiger reserve,ACTA THERIOLOGICA,KALLE R;RAMESH T;QURESHI Q;SANKAR K,"density of tiger panthera tigris and leopard panthera pardus was estimated using photographic capture-recapture sampling in a tropical deciduous forest of mudumalai tiger reserve, southern india, from november 2008 to february 2009. a total of 2,000 camera trap nights for 100 days yielded 19 tigers and 29 leopards within an intensive sampling area of 107 km(2). population size of tiger from closed population estimator model m-b zippin was 19 tigers (se=+/- 0.9) and for leopards m-h jackknife estimated 53 (se=+/- 11) individuals. spatially explicit maximum likelihood and bayesian model estimates were 8.31(se=+/- 2.73) and 8.9 (se=+/- 2.56) per 100 km(2) for tigers and 13.17 (se=+/- 3.15) and 13.01 (se=+/- 2.31) per 100 km(2) for leopards, respectively. tiger density for mmdm models ranged from 6.07 (se=+/- 1.74) to 9.72 (se=+/- 2.94) per 100 km(2) and leopard density ranged from 13.41 (se=+/- 2.67) to 28.91 (se=+/- 7.22) per 100 km(2). spatially explicit models were more appropriate as they handle information at capture locations in a more specific manner than some generalizations assumed in the classical approach. results revealed high density of tiger and leopard in mudumalai which is unusual for other high density tiger areas. the tiger population in mudumalai is a part of the largest population at present in india and a source for the surrounding reserved forest." estimating survival and life-stage transitions in the laysan albatross (phoebastria immutabilis) using multistate mark-recapture models,breeding frequency; encounter probability; laysan albatross; mark-recapture models; phoebastria immutabilis; recruitment; survival,AUK,VANDERWERF EA;YOUNG LC,"accurate estimates of demographic rates are fundamental to understanding population dynamics and can provide insights into the ecology and conservation of a species. we used multistate mark recapture models to estimate apparent annual survival, encounter probability, and life-stage transitions in laysan albatrosses (phoebastria immutabilis) at kaena point, hawaii, from 2003 to 2010. four-state models of prebreeders, breeders, failed breeders, and skipped breeders overestimated survival by 1-3% and underestimated skipped breeding by 5-6%, but five-state models that included a state for unobserved skipped breeders performed better. survival did not vary among years and was highest in prebreeders (mean +/- se = 0.996 +/- 0.010) and lower in successful breeders (0.932 +/- 0.023) than in failed breeders (0.963 +/- 0.018), suggesting a cost to reproduction. survival was similar in males and females among prebreeders, breeders, and failed breeders, but survival of males was lower among skipped breeders. encounter probability was related to monitoring effort; more frequent visits and use of field-readable auxiliary bands and remote cameras resulted in higher encounter rates. with sufficient effort, all skipped breeders were observed at the colony even though they did not breed. recruitment averaged 24% in females and 21% in males and varied among years. breeding frequency averaged 0.807 +/- 0.028 and varied among years. successful breeders were more likely than failed breeders to skip the next breeding season. estimates of all demographic rates except recruitment were similar to estimates for laysan albatrosses from midway in the 1960s despite differences in methodology. this information can help measure population dynamics, breeding population sizes, population trends, and efficacy of conservation actions. received 19 december 2010, accepted 16 june 2011." @@ -3875,32 +3881,33 @@ estimating survival in photographic capture-recapture studies: overcoming miside estimating age from recapture data: integrating incremental growth measures with ancillary data to infer age-at-length,african dwarf crocodile; age-at-length; bayesian analysis; gamma process; growth model; hierarchical models; mark-recapture; mcmc; markov chain monte carlo; model selection; osteolaemus tetraspis; posterior predictive distribution; random effects,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,EATON MJ;LINK WA,"estimating the age of individuals in wild populations can be of fundamental importance for answering ecological questions, modeling population demographics, and managing exploited or threatened species. significant effort has been devoted to determining age through the use of growth annuli, secondary physical characteristics related to age, and growth models. many species, however, either do not exhibit physical characteristics useful for independent age validation or are too rare to justify sacrificing a large number of individuals to establish the relationship between size and age. length-at-age models are well represented in the fisheries and other wildlife management literature. many of these models overlook variation in growth rates of individuals and consider growth parameters as population parameters. more recent models have taken advantage of hierarchical structuring of parameters and bayesian inference methods to allow for variation among individuals as functions of environmental covariates or individual-specific random effects. here, we describe hierarchical models in which growth curves vary as individual-specific stochastic processes, and we show how these models can be fit using capture-recapture data for animals of unknown age along with data for animals of known age. we combine these independent data sources in a bayesian analysis, distinguishing natural variation (among and within individuals) from measurement error. we illustrate using data for african dwarf crocodiles, comparing von bertalanffy and logistic growth models. the analysis provides the means of predicting crocodile age, given a single measurement of head length. the von bertalanffy was much better supported than the logistic growth model and predicted that dwarf crocodiles grow from 19.4 cm total length at birth to 32.9 cm in the first year and 45.3 cm by the end of their second year. based on the minimum size of females observed with hatchlings, reproductive maturity was estimated to be at nine years. these size benchmarks are believed to represent thresholds for important demographic parameters; improved estimates of age, therefore, will increase the precision of population projection models. the modeling approach that we present can be applied to other species and offers significant advantages when multiple sources of data are available and traditional aging techniques are not practical." intraspecific cache pilferage by larder-hoarding red squirrels (tamiasciurus hudsonicus),food cache; kleptoparasitism; larder-hoarding; midden; pilfering; red squirrels; stealing,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,DONALD JL;BOUTIN S,"although cases of pilfering food are reported commonly in the mammal literature, the factors affecting pilfering rates among individuals and between populations within the same species remain relatively unknown. we measured individual pilfering rates in 2 populations of highly territorial larder-hoarding red squirrels (tamiasciurus hudsonicus) in kluane, yukon, canada. one population received artificial food supplementation (where all individuals had ad libitum food) and had a 2-fold higher density than the control population. we knew the age, relatedness, and spatial relationship of all individuals in each population, and we had a measure of the food resources (cones) cached by each individual and their fates through the study. results from experimental removal of territory owners suggested that younger squirrels with smaller food caches were more likely to pilfer when provided the opportunity. however, using a mark-recapture study of marked spruce cones under natural conditions, we found that few individuals (14%) pilfered, and stolen cones represented only 0.3% of total cones that were larder-hoarded. pilfering occurs at a much lower rate in kluane than reported for red squirrels in other regions and is less than rates reported for scatter-hoarding species." determining a correction factor for aerial surveys of harbor seals in california,harbor seal; phoca vitulina richardii; correction factor; surveys; movements,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,HARVEY JT;GOLEY D,"counts of pinnipeds provide a minimal estimate of population size because some unknown proportion of individuals is in the water during surveys. we determined a correction factor (cf) for pacific harbor seals (phoca vitulina richardii) by estimating the proportion ashore of 180 seals tagged with flipper-mounted radio tags throughout california. the mean proportions of tagged individuals ashore during four complete surveys in 2004 were not different between central and northern california (f = 1.85, p = 0.18) or between sexes (f = 0.57, p = 0.45), but a lesser proportion of weaners was ashore than subadults or adults (f = 7.97, p = 0.001), especially in northern california. the cf calculated for the statewide census of harbor seals was 1.65, using transmitters operating during the survey (n = 114). using a mark-recapture estimator for tag survival (phi) and the four telemetry surveys the mean cf for central and northern california was 1.54 +/- 0.38 (95% ci). a cf for southern california of 2.86 was based on a single survey. using the mean cf of 1.54 and a statewide count in 2009 we estimated 30,196 (95% ci = 22,745-37,647) harbor seals in california." +"abundance estimates of irrawaddy dolphins in chilika lagoon, india, using photo-identification based mark-recapture methods",NA,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,SUTARIA D;MARSH H,NA matrix habitat and plant damage influence colonization of purple loosestrife patches by specialist leaf-beetles,colonization; matrix habitat; biocontrol; galerucella; lythrum salicaria,ENVIRONMENTAL ENTOMOLOGY,DAVALOS A;BLOSSEY B,"the characteristics of the matrix, that is, the unsuitable habitat connecting host-plant patches may facilitate or limit herbivore movement thus affecting their population dynamics. we evaluated the effect of matrix habitat, distance between patches, and plant damage on movement of two leaf-beetles (galerucella calmariensis linnaeus and g. pusilla duft) introduced to north america as biocontrol agents of the invasive purple loosestrife (lythrum salicaria linnaeus). mark-recapture/resight experiments indicated (1) that leaf-beetles are more likely to colonize purple loosestrife patches surrounded by meadow than forest; (2) that previously attacked purple loosestrife plants are more likely to be colonized by galerucella spp. than unattacked plants, especially in the forest habitat; and (3) that leaf beetle colonization of purple loosestrife decreased with distance from release point. low colonization rates of purple loosestrife patches embedded in forests suggest either insufficient detection or active avoidance of such habitats. biological control programs intend to manage dispersal of specialized insect herbivores for the purpose of sufficient and sustained control of their host plants. such management needs to be informed by knowledge of interactions of habitat structure, plant damage, and dispersal capabilities of herbivores to facilitate release programs and control at the local and regional level." bayesian state-space model of fin whale abundance trends from a 1991-2008 time series of line-transect surveys in the california current,balaenoptera physalus; cetacean density; distance sampling; hierarchical modelling; multi-model inference,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,MOORE JE;BARLOW J,"1. estimating temporal trends in animal abundance is central to ecology and conservation, but obtaining useful trend estimates is challenging when animal detection rates vary across surveys (e.g. because of differences in observers or conditions). methods exist for obtaining abundance estimates using capture-recapture and distance sampling protocols, but only recently have some of these been extended to allow direct estimation of abundance trends when detection rates vary. extensions to distance sampling for > 2 surveys have not yet been demonstrated. 2. we demonstrate a bayesian approach for estimating abundance and population trends, using a time series of line-transect data for endangered fin whales balaenoptera physalus off the west coast of the united states. we use a hierarchical model to partition state and observation processes. population density is modelled as a function of covariates and random process terms, while observed counts are modelled as an overdispersed poisson process with rates estimated as a function of population density and detection probability, which is modelled using distance sampling theory. we used deviance information criteria to make multi-model inference about abundance and trend estimates. 3. bayesian posterior distributions for trend parameters provide strong evidence of increasing fin whale abundance in the california current study area from 1991 to 2008, while individual abundance estimates during survey years were considerably more precise than previously reported estimates using the same data. assuming no change in underlying population dynamics, we predict continued increases in fin whale numbers over the next decade. our abundance projections account for both sampling error in parameter estimates and process variance in annual abundance about the mean trend. 4. synthesis and applications. bayesian hierarchical modelling offers numerous benefits for analysing animal abundance trends. in our case, these included its implicit handling of sampling covariance, flexibility to accommodate random effects and covariates, ability to compare trend models of different functional forms and ability to partition sampling and process error to make predictions. ultimately, by placing distance sampling within a more general hierarchical framework, we obtained more precise abundance estimates and an inference about fin whale trends that would have otherwise been difficult." "demographic response to environmental variation in breeding, stopover and non-breeding areas in a migratory passerine",carry-over effect; demography; migration; ndvi; lanius collurio,OECOLOGIA,SCHAUB M;JAKOBER H;STAUBER W,"demographic rates of migratory species passing through several areas during their annual cycle may be affected by environmental conditions at each of these areas. recent studies provide evidence that their impact is not necessarily immediate, but can be delayed. we studied survival, reproductive success and arrival date at the breeding grounds of red-backed shrikes lanius collurio, a trans-saharan migrant, in relation to weather and vegetation on the breeding grounds, the stopover sites during migration and in the wintering areas. these environmental factors are used as proxy of the shrike's food supply. we analysed detailed demographic data of some 4,600 individuals from 25 years with multistate capture-recapture and mixed models. survival probabilities of juveniles and breeders of both sexes varied in parallel across time, suggesting that all cohorts were sensitive to similar causes of mortality. reproductive performance increased with temperature and decreased with rainfall on the breeding area. moreover, it increased with vegetation cover in the sahelian stopover area used on autumn migration suggesting a carry-over effect. arrival date was negatively affected by spring temperatures in the breeding area. hence, demographic rates were affected by environmental factors on the breeding grounds, but also outside and elsewhere. this suggests that the shrike's population dynamics are driven by environmental factors operating at various scales of space and time. however, only a small amount of the temporal variation in demographic rates is explained by the environmental factors considered, suggesting that additional factors, such as those operating during migration, might be important." the paradox of spoonbill migration: most birds travel to where survival rates are lowest,age-differential migration; behavioural plasticity; eurasian spoonbill; exploratory behaviour; intraspecific competition; movement; optimal migration; platalea leucorodia leucorodia; winter philopatry,ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR,LOK T;OVERDIJK O;TINBERGEN JM;PIERSMA T,"migrant birds face a choice where to spend the winter. presumably there is a trade-off between migration distance (costs) and the quality of the wintering site (benefits). wintering site fidelity is often high and increases with age. hypotheses to explain such a pattern assume that wintering site choice maximizes fitness. we compared wintering site choice and age-dependent site fidelity in eurasian spoonbills, platalea leucorodia leucorodia, for the period 1992-2010. during their first southward migration, most spoonbills migrated to the southernmost wintering region (mauritania and senegal). other birds were likely to move there from their first to their second winter, whereas hardly any birds moved to a more northerly wintering area. for the rest of their life, spoonbills remained highly site faithful. this resulted in most birds wintering in mauritania and senegal with smaller numbers in france and iberia. we judged suitability of sites on the basis of annual survival probabilities in these three wintering areas. surprisingly, survival was lowest in mauritania and senegal. none of the existing fitness maximization hypotheses explain this pattern and we discuss potential alternatives. wintering site choice could still be optimal for individual birds if birds wintering in mauritania and senegal are competitively inferior to the european winterers or more susceptible to severe winter weather. alternatively, wintering site choice of spoonbills is suboptimal and, assuming that spoonbills can assess differences in suitability, limited flexibility may prevent them from switching to more suitable sites. (c) 2011 the association for the study of animal behaviour. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." escape migration decisions in eurasian woodcocks: insights from survival analyses using large-scale recovery data,allostasis; capture-mark-recapture; capture-recovery; climate change; optimal migration; recoveries,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY,PERON G;FERRAND Y;GOSSMANN F;BASTAT C;GUENEZAN M;GIMENEZ O,"during unpredictable adverse conditions, endotherms can engage in emergency behaviors (movement, torpor, hyperphagia) to maintain energy balance and reduce mortality hazards. bird ""escape migration"" is one of the most visible of these behaviors. in this study, we focus on a eurasian woodcock scolopax rusticola population. seasonal migrations bring this population from its breeding grounds in eastern and northern europe to its wintering grounds in france. a varying number of these birds are also regularly reported from spain, supposedly during additional escape movements that occur in winter. using models that account for the imperfect detection rate of individuals and a large (>44,000 individuals) dataset combining information from the wintering and breeding ranges, we show that severe winters significantly reduced survival probability, but that migration to spain increased only during the most intense cold spell that occurred over the 20-year study period. this suggests that the decision to resume migration during the winter is submitted to a threshold mechanism, which we discuss in the light of current models of migratory behavior." "an experimental study of fledging success in american coots (fulica americana): effects of brood size, food availability, and hatching asynchrony",american coot; asynchronous hatching; brood provisioning; brood reduction; clutch size; food supplementation; fulica americana; individual optimization; mark-recapture,AUK,ARNOLD TW,"brood size and hatching patterns in birds are widely believed to represent adaptations to food availability during the brood-rearing period. experimental manipulations of brood size and hatching patterns have been widely employed to determine whether parents can raise larger or more synchronous broods, but concurrent manipulations of food abundance to test the supposed causal mechanism have been rare. i studied survival to fledging of 1,060 american coot (fulica americana) chicks from 99 broods for which brood size, hatching asynchrony, and food availability had been experimentally manipulated via inter-nest transfers of newly hatched young and provisioning of supplemental food. survival of color-marked young was measured until 45 days posthatch using cormack-jolly-seber mark-resighting models. survival of offspring from unsupplemented broods declined linearly with experimental increases in brood size, and this decline was large enough to ameliorate any benefits to parents from larger broods. however, offspring survival was unaffected by experimental alterations of brood size in american coots that received supplemental food, and supplemented pairs would have benefited from raising larger broods. parents that produced larger clutches were more successful at raising large broods, consistent with the individual-optimization hypothesis. by contrast, observed hatching patterns were not optimal at promoting offspring survival, with both experimental increases and reductions in asynchrony leading to higher fledging rates. american coot parents appeared to be adept at regulating food allocation among offspring with or without hatching asynchrony, which suggests that hatching patterns are most likely an artifact of selection for early onset of incubation. received 5 march 2011, accepted 8 july 2011." -evaluating the importance of demographic connectivity in a marine metapopulation,demography; elasticity; larval dispersal; life-stage-simulation analysis; metapopulation; mytilus californianus; mytilus galloprovincialis; population connectivity,ECOLOGY,CARSON HS;COOK GS;LOPEZ-DUARTE PC;LEVIN LA,"recently researchers have gone to great lengths to measure marine metapopulation connectivity via tagging, genetic, and trace-elemental fingerprinting studies. these empirical estimates of larval dispersal are key to assessing the significance of metapopulation connectivity within a demographic context, but the life-history data required to do this are rarely available. to evaluate the demographic consequences of connectivity we constructed seasonal, size-structured metapopulation matrix models for two species of mytilid mussel in san diego county, california, usa. the self-recruitment and larval exchange terms were produced from a time series of realized connectivities derived from trace-elemental fingerprinting of larval shells during spring and fall from 2003 to 2008. both species exhibited a strong seasonal pattern of southward movement of recruits in spring and northward movement in fall. growth and mortality terms were estimated using mark recapture data from representative sites for each species and subpopulation, and literature estimates of juvenile mortality. fecundity terms were estimated using county-wide settlement data from 2006-2008; these data reveal peak reproduction and recruitment in fall for mytilus californianus, and spring for m. galloprovincialis. elasticity and life-stage simulation analyses were employed to identify the season- and subpopulation-specific vital rates and connectivity terms to which the metapopulation growth rate (lambda) was most sensitive. for both species, metapopulation growth was most sensitive to proportional changes in adult fecundity, survival and growth of juvenile stages, and population connectivity, in order of importance, but relatively insensitive to adult growth or survival. the metapopulation concept was deemed appropriate for both mytilus species as exchange between the subpopulations was necessary for subpopulation persistence. however, highest metapopulation growth occurred in years when a greater proportion of recruits was retained within the predominant source subpopulation. despite differences in habitat and planktonic duration, both species exhibited similar overall metapopulation dynamics with respect to key life stages and processes. however, different peak reproductive periods in an environment of seasonal current reversals led to different regional (subpopulation) contributions to metapopulation maintenance; this result emphasizes the importance of connectivity analysis for spatial, management of coastal resources." +evaluating the importance of demographic connectivity in a marine metapopulation,demography; elasticity; larval dispersal; life-stage-simulation analysis; metapopulation; mytilus californianus; mytilus galloprovincialis; population connectivity,ECOLOGY,CARSON HS;COOK GS;LOPEZ DUARTE PC;LEVIN LA,"recently researchers have gone to great lengths to measure marine metapopulation connectivity via tagging, genetic, and trace-elemental fingerprinting studies. these empirical estimates of larval dispersal are key to assessing the significance of metapopulation connectivity within a demographic context, but the life-history data required to do this are rarely available. to evaluate the demographic consequences of connectivity we constructed seasonal, size-structured metapopulation matrix models for two species of mytilid mussel in san diego county, california, usa. the self-recruitment and larval exchange terms were produced from a time series of realized connectivities derived from trace-elemental fingerprinting of larval shells during spring and fall from 2003 to 2008. both species exhibited a strong seasonal pattern of southward movement of recruits in spring and northward movement in fall. growth and mortality terms were estimated using mark recapture data from representative sites for each species and subpopulation, and literature estimates of juvenile mortality. fecundity terms were estimated using county-wide settlement data from 2006-2008; these data reveal peak reproduction and recruitment in fall for mytilus californianus, and spring for m. galloprovincialis. elasticity and life-stage simulation analyses were employed to identify the season- and subpopulation-specific vital rates and connectivity terms to which the metapopulation growth rate (lambda) was most sensitive. for both species, metapopulation growth was most sensitive to proportional changes in adult fecundity, survival and growth of juvenile stages, and population connectivity, in order of importance, but relatively insensitive to adult growth or survival. the metapopulation concept was deemed appropriate for both mytilus species as exchange between the subpopulations was necessary for subpopulation persistence. however, highest metapopulation growth occurred in years when a greater proportion of recruits was retained within the predominant source subpopulation. despite differences in habitat and planktonic duration, both species exhibited similar overall metapopulation dynamics with respect to key life stages and processes. however, different peak reproductive periods in an environment of seasonal current reversals led to different regional (subpopulation) contributions to metapopulation maintenance; this result emphasizes the importance of connectivity analysis for spatial, management of coastal resources." "genetic connectivity among populations of an endangered snake species from southeastern australia (hoplocephalus bungaroides, elapidae)",australia; conservation genetics; parentage analyses; reptile; elapidae; microsatellite loci,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,DUBEY S;SUMNER J;PIKE DA;KEOGH JS;WEBB JK;SHINE R,"for endangered species that persist as apparently isolated populations within a previously more extensive range, the degree of genetic exchange between those populations is critical to conservation and management. a lack of gene flow can exacerbate impacts of threatening processes and delay or prevent colonization of sites after local extirpation. the broad-headed snake, hoplocephalus bungaroides, is a small venomous species restricted to a handful of disjunct reserves near sydney, australia. mark-recapture studies have indicated low vagility for this ambush predator, suggesting that gene flow also may be low. however, our analyses of 11 microsatellite loci from 163 snakes collected in morton national park, from six sites within a 10-km diameter, suggest relatively high rates of gene flow among sites. most populations exchange genes with each other, with one large population serving as a source area and smaller populations apparently acting as sinks. about half of the juvenile snakes, for which we could reliably infer parentage, were collected from populations other than those in which we collected their putative parents. as expected from the snakes' reliance on rocky outcrops during cooler months of the year, most gene flow appears to be along sandstone plateaux rather than across the densely forested valleys that separate plateaux. the unexpectedly high rates of gene flow on a landscape scale are encouraging for future conservation of this endangered taxon. for example, wildlife managers could conserve broad-headed snakes by restoring habitats near extant source populations in areas predicted to be least affected by future climate change." cohort effects and spatial variation in age-specific survival of steller sea lions from southeastern alaska,age-specific survival; body mass; cohort effect; eumetopias jubatus; life-history; marine mammal; natal rookery; otariid; population dynamics; sex differences; southeastern alaska; steller sea lion,ECOSPHERE,HASTINGS KK;JEMISON LA;GELATT TS;LAAKE JL;PENDLETON GW;KING JC;TRITES AW;PITCHER KW,"information concerning mechanistic processes underlying changes in vital rates and ultimately population growth rate is required to monitor impacts of environmental change on wildlife. we estimated age-specific survival and examined factors influencing survival for a threatened population of steller sea lions (eumetopias jubatus) in southeastern alaska. we used mark-recapture models and data from 1,995 individuals marked at approximately one month of age at four of five rookeries in southeastern alaska, and resighted from oregon to the bering sea. average annual survival probability for females was 0.64 for pups and 0.77 for yearlings, and increased from 0.91 to 0.96 from age 3-7 yrs. annual survival probability of males averaged 0.60 for pups and 0.88 by 7 yrs, resulting in probability of survival to age 7, 33% lower for males compared to females. pups from northern southeastern alaska (including an area of low summer population size but rapid growth) were twice as likely to survive to age 7 compared to pups from southern rookeries (including a large, historical, stable rookery). effects of early conditions on future fitness were observed as (1) environmental conditions in the birth year equally affected first-and second-year survival, and (2) effects of body mass at approximately one month of age were still apparent at 7 yrs. survival from 0-2 yrs varied among five cohorts by a maximum absolute difference of 0.12. we observed survival costs for long-distance dispersal for males, particularly as juveniles. however, survival was higher for non-pups that dispersed to northern southeastern alaska, suggesting that moving to an area with greater productivity, greater safety, or lower population size may alleviate a poor start and provide a mechanism for spatial structure for sea lion populations." density estimation for small mammals from livetrapping grids: rodents in northern canada,density 4; density estimation; dicrostonyx groenlandicus; lemmus sibiricus; microtus; myodes rutilus; peromyscus maniculatus; yukon,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,KREBS CJ;BOONSTRA R;GILBERT S;REID D;KENNEY AJ;HOFER EJ,"management agencies and quantitative ecologists need robust estimates of population density. the best way of converting population estimates of livetrapped small mammals to population density is not clear. we estimated population density on livetrapping grids with 4 estimators applied to 3 species of boreal forest and 3 species of tundra rodents to test for relative differences in density estimators. we used 2 spatial estimators proposed by efford (2009) and 2 traditional boundary-strip estimators designed for grid livetrapping. we analyzed mark-recapture data from 104 trapping sessions from the boreal forest at kluane, yukon (n = 4,818 individuals), and 56 trapping sessions from tundra areas of herschel island and komakuk beach in northern yukon (n = 1,327 individuals). for boreal forest rodents on average both boundary-strip methods produced density estimates larger than efford's maximum-likelihood (ml) estimator by as much as 50% at all population densities up to 25 animals/ha. for tundra rodents both boundary-strip methods produced density estimates smaller than efford's ml at low density (<1.5/ha) and larger than efford's ml density by 36-63% at high density (25/ha). efford's inverse prediction estimator produced larger density estimates than the ml estimator by 4% for the boreal forest and 32% for the tundra rodents. relationships were high between all the estimators, such that trends in density could be inferred from all methods. determining the bias in population density estimators in small mammals will require data from populations spatially closed and completely enumerated. for our small mammals efford's ml estimator typically provided density estimates smaller than those produced by conventional boundary-strip estimators." "effect of fuel load, date, rain and wind on departure decisions of a migratory passerine",blackcap (sylvia atricapilla); cormack-jolly-seber models; departure decisions; fuel load; meteorology,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,ARIZAGA J;BELDA EJ;BARBA E,"meteorological conditions, fuel load and date in the season can affect the departure decisions among migratory birds. however, it is poorly understood to what extent the departure decisions are more influenced by some parameters in relation to others, and how they interact with each other. we explored here how fuel load, date, rain and wind (measured on the ground and at high altitude, codified as a tailwind component) influenced the departure decisions of migratory blackcaps (sylvia atricapilla) from a stopover site. we used mark recapture data of 947 blackcaps collected during the autumn migration period 2005 at a stopover site in northern iberia, estimating the emigration likelihood with cormack-jolly-seber models, in which we tested for the effect of these four study variables. best models fitting data showed an additive and positive effect of tailwind and fuel load on the emigration likelihood." -humpback whale abundance in the north pacific estimated by photographic capture-recapture with bias correction from simulation studies,humpback whale; megaptera novaeangliae; north pacific; abundance; photo-identification; capture-recapture; bias; simulation model,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,BARLOW J;CALAMBOKIDIS J;FALCONE EA;BAKER CS;BURDIN AM;CLAPHAM PJ;FORD JKB;GABRIELE CM;LEDUC R;MATTILA DK;QUINN TJ;ROJAS-BRACHO L;STRALEY JM;TAYLOR BL;URBAN J;WADE P;WELLER D;WITTEVEEN BH;YAMAGUCHI M,"we estimated the abundance of humpback whales in the north pacific by capture-recapture methods using over 18,000 fluke identification photographs collected in 2004-2006. our best estimate of abundance was 21,808 (cv = 0.04). we estimated the biases in this value using a simulation model. births and deaths, which violate the assumption of a closed population, resulted in a bias of +5.2%, exclusion of calves in samples resulted in a bias of -10.5%, failure to achieve random geographic sampling resulted in a bias of -0.4%, and missed matches resulted in a bias of +9.3%. known sex-biased sampling favoring males in breeding areas did not add significant bias if both sexes are proportionately sampled in the feeding areas. our best estimate of abundance was 21,063 after accounting for a net bias of +3.5%. this estimate is likely to be lower than the true abundance due to two additional sources of bias: individual heterogeneity in the probability of being sampled (unquantified) and the likely existence of an unknown and unsampled breeding area (-8.7%). results confirm that the overall humpback whale population in the north pacific has continued to increase and is now greater than some prior estimates of prewhaling abundance." +humpback whale abundance in the north pacific estimated by photographic capture-recapture with bias correction from simulation studies,humpback whale; megaptera novaeangliae; north pacific; abundance; photo-identification; capture-recapture; bias; simulation model,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,BARLOW J;CALAMBOKIDIS J;FALCONE EA;BAKER CS;BURDIN AM;CLAPHAM PJ;FORD JKB;GABRIELE CM;LEDUC R;MATTILA DK;QUINN TJ;ROJAS BRACHO L;STRALEY JM;TAYLOR BL;URBAN J;WADE P;WELLER D;WITTEVEEN BH;YAMAGUCHI M,"we estimated the abundance of humpback whales in the north pacific by capture-recapture methods using over 18,000 fluke identification photographs collected in 2004-2006. our best estimate of abundance was 21,808 (cv = 0.04). we estimated the biases in this value using a simulation model. births and deaths, which violate the assumption of a closed population, resulted in a bias of +5.2%, exclusion of calves in samples resulted in a bias of -10.5%, failure to achieve random geographic sampling resulted in a bias of -0.4%, and missed matches resulted in a bias of +9.3%. known sex-biased sampling favoring males in breeding areas did not add significant bias if both sexes are proportionately sampled in the feeding areas. our best estimate of abundance was 21,063 after accounting for a net bias of +3.5%. this estimate is likely to be lower than the true abundance due to two additional sources of bias: individual heterogeneity in the probability of being sampled (unquantified) and the likely existence of an unknown and unsampled breeding area (-8.7%). results confirm that the overall humpback whale population in the north pacific has continued to increase and is now greater than some prior estimates of prewhaling abundance." "jaguars panthera onca in the greater lacandona ecosystem, chiapas, mexico: population estimates and future prospects",camera trap; chiapas; density; greater lacandona ecosystem; jaguar; mayan forest; mexico; panthera onca,ORYX,DE LA TORRE JA;MEDELLIN RA,"jaguar panthera onca populations have declined severely in mexico because of habitat loss and poaching of the species and its natural prey. one of the most important, but poorly known, populations of the jaguar remaining in mexico resides in the greater lacandona ecosystem in chiapas. our objective was to determine the density of jaguars in southern montes azules biosphere reserve and to estimate population size inside the natural protected areas of this ecosystem. jaguar densities were estimated during the dry and rainy seasons of 2007 and the dry season of 2008 using camera-trapping combined with closed capture-recapture models. the lowest density estimate was recorded during the 2007 dry season (1.7 +/- se 0.7 per 100 km(2)) and the highest during the 2008 rainy season (4.6 +/- se 1.6 per too km(2)). estimating the extent of potential jaguar habitat in the natural protected areas and extrapolating density estimates to these reserves indicates that they could support 62-168 jaguars. this result highlights the potential importance of this ecosystem for the conservation of the jaguar in the mayan forest and mexico. the implementation of measures to secure the long-term conservation of this population and jaguar population connectivity in the mayan forest is urgently required." "evidence of a declining nile crocodile (crocodylus niloticus) population at lake sibaya, south africa",nile crocodile; lake sibaya; population survey; population decline; conservation management,SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,COMBRINK X;KORRUBEL JL;KYLE R;TAYLOR R;ROSS P,"formerly widespread throughout the waterbodies of eastern south africa, viable nile crocodile (crocodylus niloticus) populations are now restricted to three disjunct protected areas in kwazulu-natal (kzn), mpumalanga and limpopo. growing evidence suggests that protected populations are declining, including the breeding c. niloticus population at lake sibaya in kzn. aerial surveys were conducted at lake sibaya from 2003-2004 and 2007-2009, spotlight counts in 2003 and intensive nesting surveys in 2003 and 2004. seven adults were counted during the 2009 aerial survey; an 89% decrease from the 1985 count (62 adults) and a decline of 95-98% of the estimated 1970 adult population. likewise, in 1970 30 nests were recorded, compared to three nests in 2003 and no recorded nests in 2004. the non-hatchling population in 2003 was estimated at 48 individuals and decreased to an estimated eight in 2009. the neighbouring community perceives crocodiles as a threat to their lives and livestock, and increasing human pressures on c. niloticus in the area will probably ensure that the population will not recover naturally. unless crocodiles are perceived as a useful or somehow beneficial natural resource by the surrounding community, the species faces possible extirpation from lake sibaya in the future." combining measures of dispersal to identify conservation strategies in fragmented landscapes,atrytonopsis; connectivity; crystal skipper; habitat fragmentation; mark-recapture; population genetics; stepping stones,CONSERVATION BIOLOGY,LEIDNER AK;HADDAD NM,"understanding the way in which habitat fragmentation disrupts animal dispersal is key to identifying effective and efficient conservation strategies. to differentiate the potential effectiveness of 2 frequently used strategies for increasing the connectivity of populations in fragmented landscapes-corridors and stepping stones-we combined 3 complimentary methods: behavioral studies at habitat edges, mark-recapture, and genetic analyses. each of these methods addresses different steps in the dispersal process that a single intensive study could not address. we applied the 3 methods to the case study of atrytonopsis new species 1, a rare butterfly endemic to a partially urbanized stretch of barrier islands in north carolina (u. s. a.). results of behavioral analyses showed the butterfly flew into urban and forested areas, but not over open beach; mark-recapture showed that the butterfly dispersed successfully through short stretches of urban areas (<500 m); and genetic studies showed that longer stretches of forest (>5 km) were a dispersal barrier, but shorter stretches of urban areas (<= 5 km) were not. although results from all 3 methods indicated natural features in the landscape, not urbanization, were barriers to dispersal, when we combined the results we could determine where barriers might arise: forests restricted dispersal for the butterfly only when there were long stretches with no habitat. therefore, urban areas have the potential to become a dispersal barrier if their extent increases, a finding that may have gone unnoticed if we had used a single approach. protection of stepping stones should be sufficient to maintain connectivity for atrytonopsis new species 1 at current levels of urbanization. our research highlights how the use of complementary approaches for studying animal dispersal in fragmented landscapes can help identify conservation strategies." unexpected consequences of control: competitive vs. predator release in a four-species assemblage of invasive mammals,competition; food webs; mark recapture; bayesian analysis; pest control; predation; trophic cascades,ECOLOGY LETTERS,RUSCOE WA;RAMSEY DSL;PECH RP;SWEETAPPLE PJ;YOCKNEY I;BARRON MC;PERRY M;NUGENT G;CARRAN R;WARNE R;BRAUSCH C;DUNCAN RP,"invasive species are frequently the target of eradication or control programmes to mitigate their impacts. however, manipulating single species in isolation can lead to unexpected consequences for other species, with outcomes such as mesopredator release demonstrated both theoretically and empirically in vertebrate assemblages with at least two trophic levels. less is known about the consequences of species removal in more complex assemblages where a greater number of interacting invaders increases the potential for selective species removal to result in unexpected changes in community structure. using a replicated before-after control-impact field experiment with a four-species assemblage of invasive mammals we show that species interactions in the community are dominated by competition rather than predation. there was no measurable response of two mesopredators (rats and mice) following control of the top predator (stoats), but there was competitive release of rats following removal of a herbivore (possums), and competitive release of mice following removal of rats." among-colony synchrony in the survival of common guillemots uria aalge reflects shared wintering areas,common guillemot; long-term studies; mark-recapture-recovery data; markov chain monte carlo; program mark; spatiotemporal variability; uria aalge,IBIS,REYNOLDS TJ;HARRIS MP;KING R;SWANN RL;JARDINE DC;FREDERIKSEN M;WANLESS S,"spatiotemporal variation in survival may be an important driver of multi-population dynamics in many wild animal species, yet few scientific studies have addressed this issue, primarily due to a lack of sufficiently comprehensive and detailed datasets. synchrony in survival rates among different, often distant, subpopulations appears to be common, caused by spatially correlated environmental conditions or by movement of animals from different sites such that their ranges overlap. many seabird populations are effectively isolated during the breeding season because colonies are widely separated, but over the winter, birds disperse widely and there may be much mixing between different populations. the non-breeding season is also the period of main mortality for seabirds. using mark-recapture and ring-recovery data, we tested for spatial, temporal and age-related correlations in survival of common guillemots uria aalge among three widely separated scottish colonies that have varying overlap in their overwintering distributions. survival was highly correlated over time for colonies/age-classes sharing wintering areas and, except in 2004, was essentially uncorrelated for those with separate wintering areas. these results strongly suggest that one or more aspects of the winter environment are responsible for spatiotemporal variation in survival of british guillemots, and provide insight into the factors driving large-scale population dynamics of the species." -"effects of age, territoriality and breeding on survival of bonelli's eagle aquila fasciata",birds of prey; hieraaetus fasciatus; life history; raptors; vital rate estimation,IBIS,HERNANDEZ-MATIAS A;REAL J;PRADEL R;RAVAYROL A;VINCENT-MARTIN N,"survival typically contributes most to population trends in long-lived birds and its accurate estimation is therefore vital for population management and conservation. we evaluated the effects of age, territoriality and reproduction on survival in bonelli's eagle aquila fasciata through multistate capture-mark-recapture analyses on a long-term dataset. monitoring was carried out in southeast france (1990-2008) and involved the surveying of territorial eagles, the marking of fledged chicks, and the recording of resightings and recoveries of marked non-territorial and territorial birds. survival improved with age, but territoriality was not retained in the best model; yearly survival was estimated at 0.479 for fledglings (to 1 year of age), 0.570 for 1- and 2-year-olds, and 0.870 for 3-year-old and older individuals. the second best model supported a further increase in survival from 3-year-olds (0.821) to older individuals (0.880). in the third best supported model, territoriality enhanced survival, but only in 2-year-olds (0.632 vs. 0.562 for non-territorial). we found no correlation between the previous breeding stage and future survival, consistent with the long lifespan of the study species. nevertheless, 4-year-old and older successful breeders were more likely to breed the following year than failed adult breeders (0.869 vs. 0.582), suggesting that the cost of reproduction is small in comparison with the variation in quality among individuals or their territories." -"sex ratio, survival, and recapture rate in a cuban population of the damselfly hypolestes trinitatis (odonata: megapodagrionidae)",sex ratio; survival rate; recapture rate; odonata; hypolestes,ACTA ETHOLOGICA,TORRES-CAMBAS Y;FONSECA-RODRIGUEZ R,"male-biased sex ratios in adult odonate populations have been the subject of vigorous discussion between the students of this order of insects. the debate has centered on whether the observed male bias in many populations is real, perhaps due to unequal survival rates, or whether it is an artifact caused by differences in recapture probabilities. a mark-recapture study to assess the relative contribution of survivorship and recapture rates on male-biased sex ratio was performed in a cuban population of the damselfly hypolestes trinitatis. maximum likelihood theory and akaike information criterion were used for parameter estimation and model selection, respectively. females in the sample were outnumbered two to one by males. estimated recapture and survival rates were 0.188 (females) and 0.638 (males), and 0.933 (females) and 0.944 (males), respectively. recapture rates only partially explained the bias since the population sex ratio estimated after correcting for differences in this parameter was male biased (1.5). the observed higher survival probabilities in males could have generated the male-biased population sex ratio. therefore, we concluded that the observed male-biased population sex ratio in h. trinitatis is real." -spatial heterogeneity in the effects of climate change on the population dynamics of a mediterranean tortoise,climate projections; demography; extinction risk; population matrices; precipitation; survival; testudo hermanni,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,FERNANDEZ-CHACON A;BERTOLERO A;AMENGUAL A;TAVECCHIA G;HOMAR V;ORO D,"climatic shifts may increase the extinction risk of populations, especially when they are already suffering from other anthropogenic impacts. our ability to predict the consequences of climate change on endangered species is limited by our scarce knowledge of the effects of climate variability on the population dynamics of most organisms and by the uncertainty of climate projections, which depend strongly on the region of the earth being considered. in this study, we analysed a long-term monitoring programme (1988-2009) of hermann's tortoise (testudo hermanni) aimed at evaluating the consequences of the drastic changes in temperature and precipitation patterns predicted for the mediterranean region on the demography of a long-lived species with low dispersal capability and already suffering a large number of threats. capture-recapture modelling of a population in the ebro delta (ne spain) allowed us to assess the effect of climate variability on the survival of tortoises. winter rainfall was found to be the major driver of juvenile and immature survival, whereas that of adults remained high and constant across the study. furthermore, local climate series obtained ad hoc from regional climate simulations, for this and 10 additional mediterranean locations where tortoises occurred, provided us with reliable future climate forecasts, which were used to simulate the fate of these populations under three precipitation scenarios (mean, wet and dry) using stochastic population modelling. we show that a shift to a more arid climate would have negative consequences for population persistence, enhancing juvenile mortality and increasing quasiextinction risk because of a decrease in recruitment. these processes varied depending on the population and the climate scenario we considered, but our results suggest that unless other human-induced causes of mortality are suppressed (e. g. poaching, fire, habitat fragmentation), climate variability will increase extinction risk within most of the species' current range." +"effects of age, territoriality and breeding on survival of bonelli's eagle aquila fasciata",birds of prey; hieraaetus fasciatus; life history; raptors; vital rate estimation,IBIS,HERNANDEZ MATIAS A;REAL J;PRADEL R;RAVAYROL A;VINCENT MARTIN N,"survival typically contributes most to population trends in long-lived birds and its accurate estimation is therefore vital for population management and conservation. we evaluated the effects of age, territoriality and reproduction on survival in bonelli's eagle aquila fasciata through multistate capture-mark-recapture analyses on a long-term dataset. monitoring was carried out in southeast france (1990-2008) and involved the surveying of territorial eagles, the marking of fledged chicks, and the recording of resightings and recoveries of marked non-territorial and territorial birds. survival improved with age, but territoriality was not retained in the best model; yearly survival was estimated at 0.479 for fledglings (to 1 year of age), 0.570 for 1- and 2-year-olds, and 0.870 for 3-year-old and older individuals. the second best model supported a further increase in survival from 3-year-olds (0.821) to older individuals (0.880). in the third best supported model, territoriality enhanced survival, but only in 2-year-olds (0.632 vs. 0.562 for non-territorial). we found no correlation between the previous breeding stage and future survival, consistent with the long lifespan of the study species. nevertheless, 4-year-old and older successful breeders were more likely to breed the following year than failed adult breeders (0.869 vs. 0.582), suggesting that the cost of reproduction is small in comparison with the variation in quality among individuals or their territories." +"sex ratio, survival, and recapture rate in a cuban population of the damselfly hypolestes trinitatis (odonata: megapodagrionidae)",sex ratio; survival rate; recapture rate; odonata; hypolestes,ACTA ETHOLOGICA,TORRES CAMBAS Y;FONSECA RODRIGUEZ R,"male-biased sex ratios in adult odonate populations have been the subject of vigorous discussion between the students of this order of insects. the debate has centered on whether the observed male bias in many populations is real, perhaps due to unequal survival rates, or whether it is an artifact caused by differences in recapture probabilities. a mark-recapture study to assess the relative contribution of survivorship and recapture rates on male-biased sex ratio was performed in a cuban population of the damselfly hypolestes trinitatis. maximum likelihood theory and akaike information criterion were used for parameter estimation and model selection, respectively. females in the sample were outnumbered two to one by males. estimated recapture and survival rates were 0.188 (females) and 0.638 (males), and 0.933 (females) and 0.944 (males), respectively. recapture rates only partially explained the bias since the population sex ratio estimated after correcting for differences in this parameter was male biased (1.5). the observed higher survival probabilities in males could have generated the male-biased population sex ratio. therefore, we concluded that the observed male-biased population sex ratio in h. trinitatis is real." +spatial heterogeneity in the effects of climate change on the population dynamics of a mediterranean tortoise,climate projections; demography; extinction risk; population matrices; precipitation; survival; testudo hermanni,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,FERNANDEZ CHACON A;BERTOLERO A;AMENGUAL A;TAVECCHIA G;HOMAR V;ORO D,"climatic shifts may increase the extinction risk of populations, especially when they are already suffering from other anthropogenic impacts. our ability to predict the consequences of climate change on endangered species is limited by our scarce knowledge of the effects of climate variability on the population dynamics of most organisms and by the uncertainty of climate projections, which depend strongly on the region of the earth being considered. in this study, we analysed a long-term monitoring programme (1988-2009) of hermann's tortoise (testudo hermanni) aimed at evaluating the consequences of the drastic changes in temperature and precipitation patterns predicted for the mediterranean region on the demography of a long-lived species with low dispersal capability and already suffering a large number of threats. capture-recapture modelling of a population in the ebro delta (ne spain) allowed us to assess the effect of climate variability on the survival of tortoises. winter rainfall was found to be the major driver of juvenile and immature survival, whereas that of adults remained high and constant across the study. furthermore, local climate series obtained ad hoc from regional climate simulations, for this and 10 additional mediterranean locations where tortoises occurred, provided us with reliable future climate forecasts, which were used to simulate the fate of these populations under three precipitation scenarios (mean, wet and dry) using stochastic population modelling. we show that a shift to a more arid climate would have negative consequences for population persistence, enhancing juvenile mortality and increasing quasiextinction risk because of a decrease in recruitment. these processes varied depending on the population and the climate scenario we considered, but our results suggest that unless other human-induced causes of mortality are suppressed (e. g. poaching, fire, habitat fragmentation), climate variability will increase extinction risk within most of the species' current range." population based epidemiology of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis using capture-recapture methodology,NA,JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY NEUROSURGERY AND PSYCHIATRY,HUISMAN MHB;DE JONG SW;VAN DOORMAAL PTC;WEINREICH SS;SCHELHAAS HJ;VAN DER KOOI AJ;DE VISSER M;VELDINK JH;VAN DEN BERG LH,"background variation in the incidence rate in epidemiological studies on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als) may be due to a small population size and under ascertainment of patients. the previously reported incidence decline in the elderly and a decrease in the male: female ratio in postmenopausal age groups have yet to be confirmed. methods als epidemiology in a large population based register in the netherlands was studied between 1 january 2006 and 31 december 2009, and applied capture-recapture methodology in separate age and gender groups to adjust for the number of unobserved patients. results 1217 incident patients were observed, and a capture-recapture incidence of 2.77 per 100 000 person-years (95% ci 2.63 to 2.91). prevalence on 31 december 2008 was 10.32 per 100 000 individuals (95% ci 9.78 to 10.86). the incident cohort had a higher median age at onset (63.0 vs 58.1 years) and more bulbar onset patients (30.0% vs 19.1%) compared with the prevalent cohort. incidence and prevalence peaked in the 70-74 year age group followed by a rapid decline in older age. the male: female ratio in the premenopausal age group (1.91, 95% ci 1.32 to 2.79) was not significantly higher than that in the postmenopausal age group (1.50, 95% ci 1.34 to 1.67). conclusion the marked difference in patient characteristics between incident and prevalent cohorts underscores the importance of including incident patients when studying susceptibility or disease modifying factors in als. the incidence decline in the elderly may suggest that als is not merely the result of ageing. absence of a significant postmenopausal drop in the male: female ratio suggests that the protective role of female sex hormones in als is limited." low individual-level dietary plasticity in an island-invasive generalist forager,alien invasive rodents; capture-mark-recapture; dietary shift; invasion success; resource use,POPULATION ECOLOGY,RUFFINO L;RUSSELL JC;PISANU B;CAUT S;VIDAL E,"the ability of invasive mammals to adjust their diet in response to new or variable resources is often proposed to explain their invasion success on islands with differing environmental conditions, especially islands with strong spatiotemporal changes in the nature and abundance of their resources. in this study, we investigated how habitat heterogeneity and seasonal fluctuation in resource quality affect dietary breadth and plasticity in an island-invasive rodent, the black rat rattus rattus, on a small mediterranean island. we tested for dietary plasticity of rats at both the individual and population levels by using traditional dietary and stable isotope analyses at successively increasing time scales, coupled with a long-term study of individual rats in three habitats of close proximity. dietary and movement analyses both indicated that r. rattus is able to exploit a wide range of resources and habitats. however, dietary plasticity and habitat breadth were far narrower at the individual level. results revealed that rats exclusively used resources found in their local habitat, and very few individuals moved among adjacent habitats in pursuit of higher-quality resources, despite those resources being abundant in their immediate environment. this counterintuitive finding suggests that intraspecific interactions must restrict rat mobility. our results suggest that even on small islands, accessibility of patchy and high-quality resources to individuals from the entire population is not systematic. this result has important implications when quantifying invasive rodent impacts on patchily distributed species, especially when studies use indirect methods such as dietary analyses as a substitute for direct observations of predatory behavior." new insights on the management of wildlife diseases using multi-state recapture models: the case of classical swine fever in wild boar,NA,PLOS ONE,ROSSI S;TOIGO C;HARS J;POL F;HAMANN JL;DEPNER K;LE POTIER MF,"background: the understanding of host-parasite systems in wildlife is of increasing interest in relation to the risk of emerging diseases in livestock and humans. in this respect, many efforts have been dedicated to controlling classical swine fever (csf) in the european wild boar. but csf eradication has not always been achieved even though vaccination has been implemented at a large-scale. piglets have been assumed to be the main cause of csf persistence in the wild since they appeared to be more often infected and less often immune than older animals. however, this assumption emerged from laboratory trials or cross-sectional surveys based on the hunting bags. methodology/principal findings: in the present paper we conducted a capture-mark-recapture study in free-ranging wild boar piglets that experienced both csf infection and vaccination under natural conditions. we used multi-state capture recapture models to estimate the immunization and infection rates, and their variations according to the periods with or without vaccination. according to the model prediction, 80% of the infected piglets did not survive more than two weeks, while the other 20% quickly recovered. the probability of becoming immune did not increase significantly during the summer vaccination sessions, and the proportion of immune piglets was not higher after the autumn vaccination. conclusions/significance: given the high lethality of csf in piglets highlighted in our study, we consider unlikely that piglets could maintain the chain of csf virus transmission. our study also revealed the low efficacy of vaccination in piglets in summer and autumn, possibly due to the low palatability of baits to that age class, but also to the competition between baits and alternative food sources. based on this new information, we discuss the prospects for the improvement of csf control and the interest of the capture-recapture approach for improving the understanding of wildlife diseases." "estimating the population size of astacus leptodactylus (decapoda: astacidae) by mark-recapture technique in egirdir lake, turkey",astacus leptodactylus; density; egirdir lake; mark-recapture; narrow clawed crayfish; petersen methods; population size; turkey,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF BIOTECHNOLOGY,BOLAT Y;MAZLUM Y;DEMIRCI A;KOCA HU,"the mark-recapture technique for closed populations was employed to estimate the population size and density of astacus leptodactylus during august and september, 2005 by using minnow traps of 34 mm mesh size in egirdir lake. a total of 600 minnow traps were set randomly along the shoreline at approximately 3, 5 and 7 m depth. the nets were set in the late afternoon to each study depths, and were hauled the next day or after two days. the research was performed two times each month. in august, 1956 adult crayfish and in september, 2756 adult crayfish were marked by cauterization of the carapace. the recapture rates were found to be 3.5% in august and 2.3% in september, respectively. a total of 200 crayfish were randomly selected, 74 females and 126 males. the sex ratio was 1:1.7. moreover, length and weight data gotten from 200 untagged crayfish showed that females and males differed significantly in their weight, but no significant difference was evident in the carapace length. from the mark-recapture experiment, it was estimated that catchable population size ranged between 32590 and 73503 individuals (with carapace length above 45 mm). estimated density ranged between 0.54 and 1.2 individuals per m(2). recapture rates did not differ statistically among occasions. despite the moderate and fluctuated growth in the crayfish population, catchable population should be estimated for each region in the lake by using the estimation methods." testing the effectiveness of capture mark recapture population estimation techniques using a computer simulation with known population size,capture-mark-recapture; population; simulation; small mammal,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,REES SG;GOODENOUGH AE;HART AG;STAFFORD R,"estimation of small mammal population sizes is important for monitoring ecosystem condition and for conservation. here, we test the accuracy of standard methods of population size estimation using capture-mark-recapture (cmr) on a simulated population of agents. the use of a computer simulation allows complete control of population sizes and behaviors, thereby avoiding assumptions that may be violated in real populations. we find that the recommended protocol for cmr sampling, using uniformly distributed traps, consistently overestimates population sizes by as much as 100% when studies are conducted over only two trapping periods. more than 20 trapping periods are required before this method, or that of placing traps randomly, gives an accurate estimation of population size (i.e., within a 95% confidence limit of the actual value). non-random sampling, by placing traps on runways used by small mammals, produces the most accurate, and least variable, estimates of population. however, we show that around 10 trapping periods are still required to produce an accurate population estimate using this method. given that most real populations do not comply with the 'ideal' assumptions made by cmr, we suggest that population estimates based on cmr may be fundamentally flawed, and recommend that protocols for cmr population estimation methods may need revising. (c) 2011 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -prisoners in their habitat? generalist dispersal by habitat specialists: a case study in southern water vole (arvicola sapidus),NA,PLOS ONE,CENTENO-CUADROS A;ROMAN J;DELIBES M;GODOY JA,"habitat specialists inhabiting scarce and scattered habitat patches pose interesting questions related to dispersal such as how specialized terrestrial mammals do to colonize distant patches crossing hostile matrices. we assess dispersal patterns of the southern water vole (arvicola sapidus), a habitat specialist whose habitat patches are distributed through less than 2% of the study area (overall 600 km(2)) and whose populations form a dynamic metapopulational network. we predict that individuals will require a high ability to move through the inhospitable matrix in order to avoid genetic and demographic isolations. genotypes (n = 142) for 10 microsatellites and sequences of the whole mitochondrial control region (n = 47) from seven localities revealed a weak but significant genetic structure partially explained by geographic distance. none of the landscape models had a significant effect on genetic structure over that of the euclidean distance alone and no evidence for efficient barriers to dispersal was found. contemporary gene flow was not severely limited for a. sapidus as shown by high migration rates estimates (>10%) between non-neighbouring areas. sex-biased dispersal tests did not support differences in dispersal rates, as shown by similar average axial parent-offspring distances, in close agreement with capture-mark-recapture estimates. as predicted, our results do not support any preferences of the species for specific landscape attributes on their dispersal pathways. here, we combine field and molecular data to illustrate how a habitat specialist mammal might disperse like a habitat generalist, acquiring specific long-distance dispersal strategies as an adaptation to patchy, naturally fragmented, heterogeneous and unstable habitats." +prisoners in their habitat? generalist dispersal by habitat specialists: a case study in southern water vole (arvicola sapidus),NA,PLOS ONE,CENTENO CUADROS A;ROMAN J;DELIBES M;GODOY JA,"habitat specialists inhabiting scarce and scattered habitat patches pose interesting questions related to dispersal such as how specialized terrestrial mammals do to colonize distant patches crossing hostile matrices. we assess dispersal patterns of the southern water vole (arvicola sapidus), a habitat specialist whose habitat patches are distributed through less than 2% of the study area (overall 600 km(2)) and whose populations form a dynamic metapopulational network. we predict that individuals will require a high ability to move through the inhospitable matrix in order to avoid genetic and demographic isolations. genotypes (n = 142) for 10 microsatellites and sequences of the whole mitochondrial control region (n = 47) from seven localities revealed a weak but significant genetic structure partially explained by geographic distance. none of the landscape models had a significant effect on genetic structure over that of the euclidean distance alone and no evidence for efficient barriers to dispersal was found. contemporary gene flow was not severely limited for a. sapidus as shown by high migration rates estimates (>10%) between non-neighbouring areas. sex-biased dispersal tests did not support differences in dispersal rates, as shown by similar average axial parent-offspring distances, in close agreement with capture-mark-recapture estimates. as predicted, our results do not support any preferences of the species for specific landscape attributes on their dispersal pathways. here, we combine field and molecular data to illustrate how a habitat specialist mammal might disperse like a habitat generalist, acquiring specific long-distance dispersal strategies as an adaptation to patchy, naturally fragmented, heterogeneous and unstable habitats." immature survival and age at first breeding of damara terns: conservation from a non-breeding perspective,immature survival; age at first breeding; seabirds; damara tern; post-fledging dependence,ARDEA,BRABY J;BRABY SJ;BRABY RJ;ALTWEGG R,"braby j., braby s.j., braby r.j. & altwegg r. immature survival and age at first breeding of damara terns: conservation from a non-breeding perspective. ardea 99:185-190. protecting breeding sites should not be the only conservation measure for seabirds that exhibit delayed maturity and spend extended periods of time in their non-breeding areas. we investigated age at first breeding and immature survival of damara terns sterna balaenarum which breed in southern africa and migrate c. 4000 km to their non-breeding grounds in west africa. using multi-state capture-mark-recapture models adult annual survival was estimated to be 0.87 (95% confidence interval: 0.73-0.94). mean annual immature survival of damara terns from nest stage to breeding was estimated to be 0.59 (95% confidence interval: 0.48-0.68). immature survival contained an element of pre-fledging mortality since most individuals were ringed before fledging. furthermore, our estimate could be biased low due to permanent emigration from the study area. the age at first breeding was three years (probability of 0.27), and all terns were breeding at four years. this is comparable to other plunge-diving migratory terns which have extended periods of post-fledging dependence. in the light of this we suggest that consideration be given regarding the protection of the species in its non-breeding countries in addition to the protection of current breeding sites." relevance of life-history parameter estimation to conservation listing: case of the sharp-tailed snake (contia tenuis),NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,GOVINDARAJULU P;ISAAC LA;ENGELSTOFT C;OVASKA K,"optimizing conservation efforts requires distinguishing between rare and potentially endangered species (few extant individuals, functionally rare) and species that are difficult to find (operationally rare). certain suites of life-history parameters such as slow growth, late maturity, low fecundity, and long interbreeding intervals are thought to be associated with functional rarity and with intrinsic vulnerability to population declines. we estimated life-history parameters by using capture-recapture data of one such elusive species, the sharp-tailed snake (contia tennis), from 1997 to 2005 in northern portions of its range in british columbia, canada. body size ranged from 84 mm (smallest juvenile) to 323 mm (largest female). mean snout-vent lengths were 212 +/- 14 mm (mean +/- sd) for adult males and 251 +/- 28 mm for females. they were slow growing (adult growth rate, 4.3 +/- 3.8 mm/yr), had extended time-to-sexual maturity (5-6 yr), and had small clutch size (3.6 +/- 1.1 eggs). estimated adult survival was 0.71 (95% confidence interval [ci] = 0.59-0.81). estimated population growth rate for one population over the 8-yr study period was 0.89 (95% ci = 0.79-1.1). compared with populations farther south and other similarly sized colubrid snakes, sharp-tailed snakes at our study site exhibited many ""slow"" life-history traits that could increase their vulnerability to population declines. our analysis validated sharp-tailed snakes as a species of conservation concern in british columbia with traits that could lead to functional rarity and highlighted research into mortality, migration, and recruitment patterns as key needs for conservation planning." including mark-recapture data into a spatial age-structured model: walleye pollock (theragra chakogramma) in the eastern bering sea,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,HULSON PJF;MILLER SE;IANELLI JN;QUINN TJ,"integrated assessment models used to evaluate fish stocks are becoming increasingly complex, with some capable of incorporating spatial considerations. such a model has been developed to estimate movement of walleye pollock (theragra chalcogramma) between the northwestern and southeastern eastern bering sea. in this study, we investigate the feasibility of estimating movement using spatially disaggregated data supplemented by tagging data. monte carlo simulation was used to test accuracy and variability of parameter estimation in model scenarios with and without tagging information. total biomass estimates for models with and without tagging data were unbiased, but uncertainty was smaller when tagging data were available. uncertainty was also reduced in regional biomass and movement parameters when including tagging data. our findings indicate that tagging information would be important to provide reliable spatially explicit fisheries management advice for eastern bering sea pollock." @@ -3910,14 +3917,14 @@ relationship of external fish condition to pathogen prevalence and out-migration camera trapping estimates of density and survival of fishers martes pennanti,camera trapping; density estimation; fisher; mark-resight; martes pennanti; mesocarnivore; sierra nevada; survival rate estimation,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,JORDAN MJ;BARRETT RH;PURCELL KL,"developing efficient monitoring strategies for species of conservation concern is critical to ensuring their persistence. we have developed a method using camera traps to estimate density and survival in mesocarnivores and tested it on a population of fishers martes pennanti in an area of approximately 300 km(2) of the southern sierra nevada mountains in california. fishers in this region are isolated from other populations by a gap of approximately 400 km, and the status of individual populations in the southern sierra nevada is poorly understood, making management decisions difficult. we caught fishers in live traps, marked them with ear tags, and resighted them with camera traps. we measured latency to first detection and detection rate to compare our results to previous camera trapping studies of fishers. we used the robust design poisson log-normal mixed-effects mark-resight model to obtain annual estimates of density and apparent survival. our values for latency to first detection and detection rate were slightly lower than those obtained by previous studies. fishers in this isolated region occur at lower densities than at other locations across their range with only approximately 6-11 animals/100 km(2). their average annual, adult survival rate (0.94) was comparable to that found in other studies, though this parameter had very low precision. we experienced relatively high levels of tag loss in our study, suggesting our estimates of abundance are biased upward. we provide recommendations for improving the precision and accuracy of results obtained from this type of study. our results demonstrate a novel application of mark-resight methods to estimate density and survival for mesocarnivores. these estimates provide timely information to managers about fishers at the local population level in the southern sierra nevada mountains." the strong and the hungry: bias in capture methods for mountain hares lepus timidus,body condition; cage trap; capture-recapture; lepus timidus; long net; mountain hare,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,BISI F;NEWEY S;NODARI M;WAUTERS LA;HARRISON A;THIRGOOD S;MARTINOLI A,"estimating density, age and sex structure of wild populations is a key objective in wildlife management. live trapping is frequently used to collect data on populations of small and medium-sized mammals. ideally, sampling mammal populations by live capturing of individuals provides a random and representative sample of the target population. trapping data may, however, be biased. we used live-capture data from mountain hares lepus timidus in scotland to assess sampling bias between two different capture methods. we captured hares using baited cage traps and long nets on five study areas in the scottish highlands. after controlling for the effects of body size, individuals caught in traps were lighter than individuals caught using long nets, suggesting that the body condition of hares differed between the capture methods. this tendency may reflect an increased risk-taking of individuals in poorer body condition and less aversion to entering traps in order to benefit from eating bait. overall, we caught more adult hares than juveniles and more female hares than males. our results show that estimates of density and population structure of mountain hares using live-capture data could be affected by the capture method used. we suggest that live-capture studies employ more than one capture method and test for heterogeneity in capture probability to minimise potential bias and achieve reliable estimates of population parameters." bayesian estimation of population size via linkage of multivariate normal data sets,capture-recapture model; closed population; gibbs sampling; measurement error; record linkage,JOURNAL OF OFFICIAL STATISTICS,LISEO B;TANCREDI A,"we propose a bayesian approach for matching noisy multivariate continuous vectors observed on different occasions but originating from the same closed population. the proposed methodology can be profitably adopted in record linkage and in capture-recapture problems where the size of a finite population is the main object of interest and the number of ""recaptured"" individuals is unknown. a gibbs sampling scheme is used to simulate from the posterior distribution of the model parameters. the performance of the proposed approach is evaluated with simulated data sets." -computer-assisted photo-identification of narwhals,arctic; individual identification; monodon monoceros; narwhal; non-invasive methods; photo-identification; software,ARCTIC,AUGER-METHE M;MARCOUX M;WHITEHEAD H,"although the narwhal (monodon monoceros) is economically and culturally important to northern residents, sound management of this species is impaired by large gaps in knowledge. research on this species has been limited partly by the cost of the methods used, and partly because some of these methods are invasive and therefore condemned by inuit communities. photo-identification, a non-invasive, inexpensive, and easy-to-use method recently developed for narwhals, uses photographs of natural marks to identify individuals. its main drawback is the extended time required to process photographs. we developed a computer program to accelerate the identification process and thus mitigate the main drawback of photo-identification. this program uses the locations of notches on the dorsal ridge to compare a new image to each individual in a catalogue and lists those individuals in decreasing order of similarity. we tested consistency in user assignment of dorsal ridge features and the accuracy of the program by comparing sets of known individuals. while assignment errors were common, the program ranked the true match within the first 10% of the catalogue 78% of the time. the program accelerates the matching process by 1.2 to 4.1 times for catalogues ranging in size from 40 to 500 individuals, and the degree of acceleration increases with the size of the catalogue. this program could also be applied to the beluga whale (delphinapterus leucas), another important northern species." +computer-assisted photo-identification of narwhals,arctic; individual identification; monodon monoceros; narwhal; non-invasive methods; photo-identification; software,ARCTIC,AUGER METHE M;MARCOUX M;WHITEHEAD H,"although the narwhal (monodon monoceros) is economically and culturally important to northern residents, sound management of this species is impaired by large gaps in knowledge. research on this species has been limited partly by the cost of the methods used, and partly because some of these methods are invasive and therefore condemned by inuit communities. photo-identification, a non-invasive, inexpensive, and easy-to-use method recently developed for narwhals, uses photographs of natural marks to identify individuals. its main drawback is the extended time required to process photographs. we developed a computer program to accelerate the identification process and thus mitigate the main drawback of photo-identification. this program uses the locations of notches on the dorsal ridge to compare a new image to each individual in a catalogue and lists those individuals in decreasing order of similarity. we tested consistency in user assignment of dorsal ridge features and the accuracy of the program by comparing sets of known individuals. while assignment errors were common, the program ranked the true match within the first 10% of the catalogue 78% of the time. the program accelerates the matching process by 1.2 to 4.1 times for catalogues ranging in size from 40 to 500 individuals, and the degree of acceleration increases with the size of the catalogue. this program could also be applied to the beluga whale (delphinapterus leucas), another important northern species." augmenting superpopulation capture-recapture models with population assignment data,assignment procedures; capture-recapture; genetic assignment test; immigration; kangaroo rat; resampling approach; robust design; superpopulation,BIOMETRICS,WEN Z;POLLOCK K;NICHOLS J;WASER P,"ecologists applying capture-recapture models to animal populations sometimes have access to additional information about individuals' populations of origin (e. g., information about genetics, stable isotopes, etc.). tests that assign an individual's genotype to its most likely source population are increasingly used. here we show how to augment a superpopulation capture-recapture model with such information. we consider a single superpopulation model without age structure, and split each entry probability into separate components due to births in situ and immigration. we show that it is possible to estimate these two probabilities separately. we first consider the case of perfect information about population of origin, where we can distinguish individuals born in situ from immigrants with certainty. then we consider the more realistic case of imperfect information, where we use genetic or other information to assign probabilities to each individual's origin as in situ or outside the population. we use a resampling approach to impute the true population of origin from imperfect assignment information. the integration of data on population of origin with capture-recapture data allows us to determine the contributions of immigration and in situ reproduction to the growth of the population, an issue of importance to ecologists. we illustrate our new models with capture-recapture and genetic assignment data from a population of banner-tailed kangaroo rats dipodomys spectabilis in arizona." "short communication: estimating abundance, survival and age structure of the alberes cattle using recapture techniques",endangered population; capture-recapture; survival; population size; alberes breed,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ANIMAL SCIENCE,FINA M;CASELLAS J;PIEDRAFITA J,"fina, m., casellas, j. and piedrafita, j. 2011. short communication: estimating abundance, survival and age structure of the alberes cattle using recapture techniques. can. j. anim. sci. 91: 343-347. the alberes breed is an endangered bovine breed with an unknown population size. in this study, we estimated a total of 447.9 (435.5 to 456.6) individuals using capture-recapture methods. overall survival and recapture estimates were 0.85 +/- 0.01 and 0.94 +/- 0.01, respectively, leading to an average longevity of 5.64 yr and with the highest death rate concentrated in the first 3 yr of life (38.94%). for breeding cows, the average length of the productive life was 8.35 yr. the current population of this local breed is too small to prevent future losses of genetic variability, and a conservation program is essential to ensure the long-term viability of the breed." point-based mark-recapture distance sampling,avian surveys; detection bias; distance sampling; double-observer methods; golden-cheeked warbler; mark-recapture; point independence; unmodeled heterogeneity,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,LAAKE JL;COLLIER BA;MORRISON ML;WILKINS RN,"avian surveys using point sampling for abundance estimation have either focused on distance sampling or more commonly mark-recapture to correct for detection bias. combining mark-recapture and distance sampling (mrds) has become an effective tool for line transects, but it has been largely ignored in point sampling literature. we describe mrds and show that the previously published methods for point sampling are special cases. using simulated data and golden-cheeked warbler (dendroica chrysoparia) survey data from texas, we demonstrate large differences in abundance estimates resulting from different independence assumptions. data and code are provided in supplementary materials." factors affecting detection probability of burrowing owls in southwest agroecosystem environments,agroecosystem; activity center; athene cunicularia; availability for detection; burrowing owl; detection probability; monitoring; population estimation; survey methods,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,MANNING JA,"estimating range-wide population trends of western burrowing owls (athene cunicularia) requires standardized survey protocols that correct for detection bias in environments that support large owl populations. high concentrations of owls exist in irrigated agroecosystems within the southwest united states, yet little is known about the factors that affect detection bias during owl surveys in these systems. i used closed-population capture-recapture models to evaluate 4 factors that could affect the probability of a surveyor detecting an owl activity center (i.e., nest burrow) during visual surveys where owls are the focal object and analyzed the relationship (linear or curvilinear) between specific factors and detection probability. i recorded 1,199 detections of owls from 132 capture-recapture surveys within 12 sites of the imperial valley agroecosystem in california, usa between 16 april and 20 may 2006. i also conducted 96 time budget surveys throughout the day and used mixed linear models to evaluate the effect of each factor on probability of an owl activity center being available for detection (i.e., >= 1 owls above ground) during surveys. model selection results indicated that detection probability was influenced by ambient air temperature interacting with wind speed. detection probability followed a curvilinear relationship that resembled bell-shaped curve along a temperature gradient, with the maximum detection probability shifting as a function of wind speed. at low temperatures, detection probability declined with increased wind speed, but this relationship was reversed at high temperatures, producing a 3-dimensional pattern in detection probability characterized by a saddle-shaped hyperbolic paraboloid response surface. the probability of an activity center being available for detection declined curvilinearly with increased temperature and explained 51% of the variation in detection probability. given the broad range of detection probabilities, correcting visual survey counts for detection bias is necessary for comparing population estimates among regions and through time. survey designs intended to estimate abundance of owls in southwest agroecosystems should incorporate methods to estimate and correct for variation in detection probability that include measurements of ambient temperature and wind speed for use as covariates. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." the behavioural ecology and population dynamics of a cryptic ground-dwelling mammal in an urban australian landscape,habitat fragmentation; isoodon macrourus; northern brown bandicoot; urban ecology; urbanization,AUSTRAL ECOLOGY,FITZGIBBON SI;WILSON RS;GOLDIZEN AW,"urbanization results in widespread habitat loss and fragmentation and generally has a negative impact upon native wildlife, in particular ground-dwelling mammals. the northern brown bandicoot (isoodon macrourus; marsupialia: peramelidae) is one of relatively few native australian ground-dwelling mammals that is able to survive within urbanized landscapes. as a consequence of extensive clearing and urban development within the city of brisbane, bandicoots are now restricted to the mostly small (<10 ha) bushland fragments scattered across the city landscape. our study examined the behavioural ecology of northern brown bandicoots within habitat fragments located on a major creek-line, using mark-recapture population monitoring and radio telemetry. bandicoots at monitored sites were found to occur at high densities (typically one individual ha(-1)), although one-third of the populations were transient. radio tracking revealed that bandicoots had relatively small home ranges (mean 1.5 +/- 0.2 ha) comprised largely of bushland/grassland with dense, often weed-infested ground cover. bandicoots sheltered by day in these densely covered areas and also spent most time foraging there at night, although they occasionally ventured small distances to forage in adjacent maintained parklands and residential lawns. we suggest that introduced tall grasses and other weeds contribute to high habitat quality within riparian habitat fragments and facilitate the persistence of high density populations, comprised of individuals with small home ranges. the generalized dietary and habitat requirements of northern brown bandicoots, as well as a high reproductive output, undoubtedly facilitate the survival of the species in urban habitat fragments. further research is required on other native mammal species in urbanized landscapes to gain a greater understanding of how best to conserve wildlife in these heavily modified environments." -forest corridors facilitate movement of tropical forest birds after experimental translocations in a fragmented neotropical landscape in mexico,bird movement; connectivity; dispersal; forest fragmentation; mexico; palenque national park; tropical forest,JOURNAL OF TROPICAL ECOLOGY,IBARRA-MACIAS A;ROBINSON WD;GAINES MS,"we evaluated effects of corridors between forest fragments surrounded by pastures in tropical mexico. we used experimental translocations and capture-recapture data to measure the proportion of birds returning and time to return after translocation between connected and unconnected patches (five replicates for each treatment). depending on each species' degree of forest dependence (forest-restricted and forest-unrestricted species), we assigned birds to two groups to evaluate influence of species characteristics on effects of corridors on movement. birds translocated between connected patches (n = 75) were seven times more likely to be recaptured in their original capture site when compared with birds translocated between unconnected patches (n = 109). effects differed among the two species groups. in the presence of corridors, 46% of forest-unrestricted birds returned to the capture site while only 5% returned between unconnected patches. forest-restricted birds showed similar results, but were only twice as likely to return to a connected capture site. birds translocated between unconnected patches took longer to return than birds translocated between connected patches. the strong positive effect of corridors on movement, even for forest-unrestricted species, suggests that forested corridors facilitate bird movement and help maintain connectivity even in this highly fragmented landscape." -estimating jaguar population density using camera-traps: a comparison with radio-telemetry estimates,panthera onca; camera-trapping; capture-recapture; effective sampled area; tropical dry forest; mexico,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,NUNEZ-PEREZ R,"reliable data on jaguar population densities are needed to propose appropriate conservation and management strategies, and camera trapping may be effective for estimating the population density of secretive large cats. i determined the population density of jaguars in the chamela-cuixmala biosphere reserve along the coast of jalisco, mexico, through camera trapping and capture-recapture analysis during the dry season of march to june 2008. i applied the half mean maximum distance moved (1/2mmdm) to calculate the radius of the effectively sampled area, and compared this with estimates of the effectively sampled area based on existing data on mean home range of jaguars at the study site. i found that both methods of calculating the effectively sampled area produced similar population density estimates. the widely used 1/2mmdm based on camera-trapping data produced a population density of 5.3 jaguars/100km(2), while calculation of the effectively sampled area based on mean home range produced a population density of 5 jaguars/100km(2). despite the small size of the 131-km(2) chamela-cuixmala biosphere reserve, jaguar population density was relatively high, suggesting that small, well-protected reserves can be important refuges for jaguars." +forest corridors facilitate movement of tropical forest birds after experimental translocations in a fragmented neotropical landscape in mexico,bird movement; connectivity; dispersal; forest fragmentation; mexico; palenque national park; tropical forest,JOURNAL OF TROPICAL ECOLOGY,IBARRA MACIAS A;ROBINSON WD;GAINES MS,"we evaluated effects of corridors between forest fragments surrounded by pastures in tropical mexico. we used experimental translocations and capture-recapture data to measure the proportion of birds returning and time to return after translocation between connected and unconnected patches (five replicates for each treatment). depending on each species' degree of forest dependence (forest-restricted and forest-unrestricted species), we assigned birds to two groups to evaluate influence of species characteristics on effects of corridors on movement. birds translocated between connected patches (n = 75) were seven times more likely to be recaptured in their original capture site when compared with birds translocated between unconnected patches (n = 109). effects differed among the two species groups. in the presence of corridors, 46% of forest-unrestricted birds returned to the capture site while only 5% returned between unconnected patches. forest-restricted birds showed similar results, but were only twice as likely to return to a connected capture site. birds translocated between unconnected patches took longer to return than birds translocated between connected patches. the strong positive effect of corridors on movement, even for forest-unrestricted species, suggests that forested corridors facilitate bird movement and help maintain connectivity even in this highly fragmented landscape." +estimating jaguar population density using camera-traps: a comparison with radio-telemetry estimates,panthera onca; camera-trapping; capture-recapture; effective sampled area; tropical dry forest; mexico,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,NUNEZ PEREZ R,"reliable data on jaguar population densities are needed to propose appropriate conservation and management strategies, and camera trapping may be effective for estimating the population density of secretive large cats. i determined the population density of jaguars in the chamela-cuixmala biosphere reserve along the coast of jalisco, mexico, through camera trapping and capture-recapture analysis during the dry season of march to june 2008. i applied the half mean maximum distance moved (1/2mmdm) to calculate the radius of the effectively sampled area, and compared this with estimates of the effectively sampled area based on existing data on mean home range of jaguars at the study site. i found that both methods of calculating the effectively sampled area produced similar population density estimates. the widely used 1/2mmdm based on camera-trapping data produced a population density of 5.3 jaguars/100km(2), while calculation of the effectively sampled area based on mean home range produced a population density of 5 jaguars/100km(2). despite the small size of the 131-km(2) chamela-cuixmala biosphere reserve, jaguar population density was relatively high, suggesting that small, well-protected reserves can be important refuges for jaguars." short- and long-term impacts of a major flood event on crayfish (orconectes obscurus) in a forested stream,disturbance; crayfish; flooding; body size; resistance; resilience; habitat-specific; current velocity,FUNDAMENTAL AND APPLIED LIMNOLOGY,CLARK JM;KERSHNER MW,"due to their large, blunt bodies, crayfish are particularly vulnerable to dislodgment at high flows associated with flood events. however, little is known about their resistance/resilience to intense spates. in this study, we examined short-and long-term size-dependent recovery by a lotic crayfish (orconectes obscurus) population following a high discharge flood event associated with hurricane katrina (2005). short-term population recovery was assessed using mark-recapture sampling in a riffle-shallow pool-riffle sequence. crayfish were marked with visible implant elastomer tags the morning of the rainstorm and recapture attempts occurred 2, 8, 10, and 16 days post-flood. the crayfish population in riffles returned to pre-flood densities within 10-16 days, however, the shallow pool population did not. recovery was size-dependent with small crayfish returning to pre-flood densities within 16 days, while large crayfish did not recover during this time interval. although crayfish showed short-term effects, this flood event had limited impact on crayfish densities on a longer time scale (assessed using seasonal density estimates collected on a reach scale). for example, summer 2005 (similar to 2 months pre-flood) and summer 2006 (9 months post-flood) densities were not statistically different from each other for either small or large crayfish. small crayfish resilience/resistance may result from movement into areas of lower hydraulic stress to avoid high current velocities, whereas large crayfish may require a complete growing season for recovery. resistance to flooding by small crayfish may be the key component to long-term population persistence of crayfish populations in flood-prone streams." validity of soccer injury data from the national collegiate athletic association's injury surveillance system,capture-recapture analysis; injury epidemiology; time loss; collegiate athletes,JOURNAL OF ATHLETIC TRAINING,KUCERA KL;MARSHALL SW;BELL DR;DISTEFANO MJ;GOERGER CP;OYAMA S,"context: few validation studies of sport injury-surveillance systems are available. objective: to determine the validity of a web-based system for surveillance of collegiate sport injuries, the injury surveillance system (iss) of the national collegiate athletic association's (ncaa). design: validation study comparing ncaa iss data from 2 fall collegiate sports (men's and women's soccer) with other types of clinical records maintained by certified athletic trainers. setting: a purposive sample of 15 ncaa colleges and universities that provided ncaa iss data on both men's and women's soccer for at least 2 years during 2005-2007, stratified by playing division. patients or other participants: a total of 737 men's and women's soccer athletes and 37 athletic trainers at these 15 institutions. main outcome measure(s): the proportion of injuries captured by the ncaa iss (capture rate) was estimated by comparing ncaa iss data with the other clinical records on the same athletes maintained by the athletic trainers. we reviewed all athletic injury events resulting from participation in ncaa collegiate sports that resulted in 1 day or more of restricted activity in games or practices and necessitated medical care. a capture-recapture analysis estimated the proportion of injury events captured by the ncaa iss. agreement for key data fields was also measured. results: we analyzed 664 injury events. the ncaa iss captured 88.3% (95% confidence interval = 85.9%, 90.8%) of all time-lost medical-attention injury events. the proportion of injury events captured by the ncaa iss was higher in division i (93.8%) and division ii (89.6%) than in division iii (82.3%) schools. agreement between the ncaa iss data and the non-ncaa iss data was good for the majority of data fields but low for date of full return and days lost from sport participation. conclusions: the overall capture rate of the ncaa iss was very good (88%) in men's and women's soccer for this period." suburbs: dangers or drought refugia for freshwater turtle populations?,australia; chelodina longicollis; ecological trap; estivation; herpetofauna; population demographics; population sink; reptile; road mortality; urbanization,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,ROE JH;REES M;GEORGES A,"urbanization is one of the most rapidly expanding forms of habitat alteration worldwide. wildlife differs in their responses to urbanization depending upon species and site-specific factors. we used capture-mark-recapture to examine the abundance, population demographics, growth, and movements of the eastern long-necked turtle (chelodina longicollis) in australia over 1 year in a suburban environment and an adjacent nature reserve during drought. contrary to expectations, sex ratios, injury incidence, and frequency of juvenile size classes did not differ between turtles in the suburbs and the nature reserve. moreover, turtles in the suburbs were nearly 3 times more abundant, grew 5 times faster, and had populations comprised of more adults in the larger size classes than nature reserve populations. these findings, together with net movements from the nature reserves into the suburbs, suggest that suburban water bodies were the higher quality habitat, effectively buffering turtles from temporal fluctuations in environmental conditions during drought. however, reserve managers and urban planners need to recognize that suburban water bodies have the potential to attract turtles from nearby reserves during drought, and that even low levels of persistent mortality during these travels across reserve boundaries may have consequences for populations of long-lived vertebrates. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." @@ -3925,7 +3932,7 @@ river otter population size estimation using noninvasive latrine surveys,fecal d estimating the number of serious road injuries in the netherlands,road safety; road injuries; record linkage; underreporting; the netherlands,ANNALS OF EPIDEMIOLOGY,REURINGS MCB;STIPDONK HL,"purpose: this paper describes a new estimation method of the number of road injuries in the netherlands. methods: the bases or this method are the hospital inpatient registry and the police crash record database. both databases contain errors and omissions. the police database in particular suffers from serious underreporting, and is also inaccurate in indicating injury severity. the hospital database is inaccurate in indicating that a patient was involved in a road crash. nonetheless, in principle it contains till serious road injuries. after linking both databases an estimating method, inspired by capture-recapture, wits used to estimate the number of road injuries. the differences in registration for transport mode, injury severity, and region of crash have been taken into account. results: this leads to an estimation of the number of serious road injuries in the netherlands in 1993-2008. conclusions: we found that 85% of the road injuries are recognizable as such in the hospital registry. the registration rate of the police registry is different for road injuries in crashes involving motorized vehicles (58% in 2008) and for road injuries in crashes not involving motorized vehicles (4% in 2008). ann epidemiol 2011;21:648-65.3. (c) 2011 elsevier inc. all rights reserved." is the yelkouan shearwater puffinus yelkouan threatened by low adult survival probabilities?,fishery by-catch; population model; seabird; introduced predator; multi-state model; mediterranean; shooting,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,OPPEL S;RAINE AF;BORG JJ;RAINE H;BONNAUD E;BOURGEOIS K;BRETON AR,"many seabird species are experiencing population declines, with key factors being high adult mortality caused by fishery by-catch and predation by introduced predators on nesting islands. in the mediterranean, both of these pressures are intensive and widespread. we studied the adult survival of an endemic mediterranean seabird, the yelkouan shearwater (puffinus yelkouan), between 1969-1994 and 2007-2010 in malta and between 2004-2010 in france using mark-recapture methods. mean annual survival probabilities for breeding adults were below 0.9 for all colonies and periods. between 1969-1994, annual survival for adults of unknown breeding status was on average 0.74 (95% confidence interval: 0.69-0.80) in malta, possibly as a result of various human disturbances (including illegal shooting), light pollution and fisheries by-catch. over the period 2004-2010, we found strong support for variation in adult survival probabilities between breeders and non-breeders, and islands with and without introduced predators in france. survival probabilities for non-breeders (0.95, 0.81-1.0) appeared to be higher than for breeders (0.82, 0.70-0.94), but were imprecise partly due to low recapture probabilities. in malta, we found evidence for heterogeneity in survival probabilities between two unknown groups (probably breeders and non-breeders), and seasonal variation in survival probability. birds were more likely to survive the period including the peak breeding season than an equally long period during which they roam widely at sea. although annual adult survival probability was still low (0.85, 0.58-1.0), colony protection measures appear to have reduced mortality at nesting cliffs. a population model indicated that colonies in france and malta would currently require continuous immigration of 5-12 pairs per year to maintain stable populations. our estimates of adult survival probabilities over the past four decades are consistent with overall population declines. threats to yelkouan shearwaters require immediate management actions to avoid ongoing population declines in the western mediterranean. (c) 2011 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "re-use of shallow sediment patches by pacific sand lance (ammodytes hexapterus) in barkley sound, british columbia, canada",ammodytes hexapterus; distribution; habitat re-use; occurrence; pacific sand lance; site fidelity; temporal variability,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,HAYNES TB;ROBINSON CLK,"we determined whether, during the summers of 2002-2004, young-of-the-year (yoy) pacific sand lance (ammodytes hexapterus) re-used patches of sediment in intertidal and shallow subtidal regions of barkley sound, british columbia, canada. we examined re-use weekly at a single sediment patch in 2003 and 2004 via mark-recapture methods, monthly by re-sampling 15 patches in 2002 and interannually by re-sampling 36 patches in all 3 years (2002-2004). the mark-recapture results showed that, within each summer, batch marked yoy sand lance re-used the same patch up to 8 weeks later. the re-sampling of 15 patches over 4 months in 2002 showed that yoy sand lance consistently occupied patches within a season. we found the greatest variability in sediment patch re-use at the interannual time scale with major fluctuations in occurrence and abundance during 2002-2004. the interannual variability in patch re-use is most likely linked to abundance rather than the local or regional environmental characteristics that we examined." -"life history strategy in herbaceous perennials: inferring demographic patterns from the aboveground dynamics of a primarily subterranean, myco-heterotrophic orchid",NA,OIKOS,SHEFFERSON RP;MCCORMICK MK;WHIGHAM DF;O'NEILL JP,"myco-heterotrophs are non-photosynthetic plants that parasitize mycorrhizal fungi for their nutritional requirements, especially carbon. because green plants sprout both to photosynthesize and to reproduce, the lack of photosynthesis in myco-heterotrophs suggests that these plants need only to sprout to reproduce. further, they may be long-lived, with fitness favoring high, stable survival over frequent reproduction and leading to size-biased reproduction. we hypothesized that sprouting would be rare and would always lead to flowering in a ten-year monitoring study of a myco-heterotrophic plant, the autumn coral root corallorhiza odontorhiza. we also postulated that these plants would exhibit strong size-based flowering patterns. we tested these hypotheses by parameterizing a variety of mark-recapture models of survival, fecundity, and demographic transitions among two life history stages: flowering and non-sprouting (vegetatively dormant). we further developed and tested novel models estimating the influence of reproduction on demographic transitions one, two, and three years after flowering. our results suggested that this population is typically subterranean, with only a small proportion of living plants actually sprouting in any given year. plants typically flowered and fruited when they sprouted (flowering frequency > 0.99), supporting our first hypothesis that sprouting occurs only in concert with reproduction. we also found that reproduction was associated with long-term reproductive demographic impacts-plants that flowered more in the past three years were more likely to continue doing so than those that flowered only once. our use of 'memory' mark-recapture models, in which transitions across years are allowed to vary with demographic events occurring across several previous years, proved a powerful means of testing for their long-term impacts of reproductive events." +"life history strategy in herbaceous perennials: inferring demographic patterns from the aboveground dynamics of a primarily subterranean, myco-heterotrophic orchid",NA,OIKOS,SHEFFERSON RP;MCCORMICK MK;WHIGHAM DF;O NEILL JP,"myco-heterotrophs are non-photosynthetic plants that parasitize mycorrhizal fungi for their nutritional requirements, especially carbon. because green plants sprout both to photosynthesize and to reproduce, the lack of photosynthesis in myco-heterotrophs suggests that these plants need only to sprout to reproduce. further, they may be long-lived, with fitness favoring high, stable survival over frequent reproduction and leading to size-biased reproduction. we hypothesized that sprouting would be rare and would always lead to flowering in a ten-year monitoring study of a myco-heterotrophic plant, the autumn coral root corallorhiza odontorhiza. we also postulated that these plants would exhibit strong size-based flowering patterns. we tested these hypotheses by parameterizing a variety of mark-recapture models of survival, fecundity, and demographic transitions among two life history stages: flowering and non-sprouting (vegetatively dormant). we further developed and tested novel models estimating the influence of reproduction on demographic transitions one, two, and three years after flowering. our results suggested that this population is typically subterranean, with only a small proportion of living plants actually sprouting in any given year. plants typically flowered and fruited when they sprouted (flowering frequency > 0.99), supporting our first hypothesis that sprouting occurs only in concert with reproduction. we also found that reproduction was associated with long-term reproductive demographic impacts-plants that flowered more in the past three years were more likely to continue doing so than those that flowered only once. our use of 'memory' mark-recapture models, in which transitions across years are allowed to vary with demographic events occurring across several previous years, proved a powerful means of testing for their long-term impacts of reproductive events." size and genetic composition of the colonizing propagules in a butterfly metapopulation,NA,OIKOS,AUSTIN A;OVASKAINEN O;HANSKI I,"the amount and spatial distribution of genetic variation that is maintained in a metapopulation depends critically on the colonization process. here, we use molecular markers to determine the number and genetic relatedness of individuals establishing new local populations in a large metapopulation of the glanville fritillary butterfly melitaea cinxia. the empirical results are compared with the predictions of a dispersal model based on a diffusion approximation of correlated random walk, which serves as a base-line hypothesis about the rate and pattern of colonization. the results show that half of the new local populations consisted of a single larval group of full sibs and hence necessarily of the off spring of a single female. if the colonization involved two or more larval groups, these were usually oviposited by two different females that were unrelated to each other. the pattern of colonizations is thus intermediate between the propagule pool and the migrant pool models. these results elucidate the generation of genetic stochasticity, which may influence the dynamics of small populations. the dispersal model predicted well the pattern of habitat occupancy and the pattern of colonizations in relation to landscape structure, though which particular habitat patches became colonized was influenced also by measures of habitat quality not included in the model." "a first estimate of white shark, carcharodon carcharias, abundance off central california",white shark; bayesian; mark-recapture; photo-identification; population estimate,BIOLOGY LETTERS,CHAPPLE TK;JORGENSEN SJ;ANDERSON SD;KANIVE PE;KLIMLEY AP;BOTSFORD LW;BLOCK BA,"the decline of sharks in the global oceans underscores the need for careful assessment and monitoring of remaining populations. the northeastern pacific is the home range for a genetically distinct clade of white sharks (carcharodon carcharias). little is known about the conservation status of this demographically isolated population, concentrated seasonally at two discrete aggregation sites: central california (cca) and guadalupe island, mexico. we used photo-identification of dorsal fins in a sequential bayesian mark-recapture algorithm to estimate white shark abundance off cca. we collected 321 photographs identifying 130 unique individuals, and estimated the abundance off cca to be 219 mature and sub-adult individuals ((130, 275) 95% credible intervals), substantially smaller than populations of other large marine predators. our methods can be readily expanded to estimate shark population abundance at other locations, and over time, to monitor the status, population trends and protection needs of these globally distributed predators." movements and survival of black-footed ferrets associated with an experimental translocation in south dakota,behavior; captive breeding; compensatory mortality; density dependence; dispersal; endangered species; mustela nigripes; reintroduction,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,BIGGINS DE;GODBEY JL;HORTON BM;LIVIERI TM,"black-footed ferrets (mustela nigripes) apparently were extirpated from all native habitats by 1987, and their repatriation requires a combination of captive breeding, reintroductions, and translocations among sites. improvements in survival rates of released ferrets have resulted from experience in quasi-natural environments during their rearing. reestablishment of a self-sustaining wild population by 1999 provided the 1st opportunity to initiate new populations by translocating wild-born individuals. using radiotelemetry, we compared behaviors and survival of 18 translocated wild-born ferrets and 18 pen-experienced captive-born ferrets after their release into a prairie dog colony not occupied previously by ferrets. translocated wild-born ferrets moved significantly less and had significantly higher short-term survival rates than their captive-born counterparts. using mark recapture methods, we also assessed potential impacts to the established donor population of removing 37% of its estimated annual production of kits. annual survival rates for 30 ferret kits remaining at the donor subcomplex were higher than rates for 54 ferret kits at the control subcomplex (unmanipulated) for males (+82%) and females (+32%). minimum survival of translocated kits did not differ significantly from survival of those at the control subcomplex. direct translocation of young, wild-born ferrets from site to site appears to be an efficient method to establish new populations." @@ -3940,7 +3947,7 @@ nesting density is an important factor affecting chick growth and survival in th long-term population dynamics of a managed burrowing owl colony,airport; athene cunicularia; burrowing owl; california; demography; life table response experiment; mark recapture; population dynamics; survival,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,BARCLAY JH;KORFANTA NM;KAUFFMAN MJ,"we analyzed the population dynamics of a burrowing owl (athene cunicularia) colony at mineta san jose international airport in san jose, california, usa from 1990-2007. this colony was managed by using artificial burrows to reduce the occurrence of nesting owls along runways and within major airport improvement projects during the study period. we estimated annual reproduction in natural and artificial burrows and age-specific survival rates with mark-recapture techniques, and we estimated the relative contribution of these vital rates to population dynamics using a life table response experiment. the breeding colony showed 2 distinct periods of change: high population growth from 7 nesting pairs in 1991 to 40 pairs in 2002 and population decline to 17 pairs in 2007. reproduction was highly variable: annual nesting success (pairs that raised >= 1 young) averaged 79% and ranged from 36% to 100%, whereas fecundity averaged 3.36 juveniles/pair and ranged from 1.43 juveniles/pair to 4.54 juveniles/pair. we estimated annual adult survival at 0.710 during the period of colony increase from 1996 to 2001 and 0.465 during decline from 2002 to 2007, but there was no change in annual survival of juveniles between the 2 time periods. long-term population growth rate (lambda) estimated from average vital rates was lambda(a) 1.072 with lambda(i) 1.288 during colony increase and lambda(d) = 0.921 (delta lambda = 0.368) during decline. a life table response experiment showed that change in adult survival rate during increasing and declining phases explained more than twice the variation in growth rate than other vital rates. our findings suggest that management and conservation of declining burrowing owl populations should address factors that influence adult survival. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." correlates of survival in swainson's hawks breeding in northern california,buteo swainsoni; reproduction; survival; swainson's hawk; trade-off,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,BRIGGS CW;WOODBRIDGE B;COLLOPY MW,"we used a 30-year study of breeding swainson's hawks (buteo swainsoni) in northern california to examine correlates of adult apparent survival using multistate models in program mark. specifically, we examined age-related patterns in adult apparent survival and how adult survival was correlated with average annual nest productivity, annual reproductive output, western juniper (juniperus occidentalis) density around nest sites, distance to agriculture, and amount of agriculture within a territory. annual estimates of adult survival varied from 0.85 to 0.9 (se = 0.02). there were no indications of senescence or other patterns of age-related changes in adult apparent survival. adult survival was inversely correlated with average reproductive output, with individuals producing >2 offspring having decreased survival, reflecting a possible trade-off between reproduction and survival. conversely, reproduction in any year was positively correlated with survival, providing evidence of individual quality influencing adult survival. the distance an individual had to travel to agriculture, where most individuals forage, was negatively related to survival. primary productivity within the average swainson's hawk territory was positively correlated with adult survival. our results indicate that individuals may have higher survival and fitness in areas with high proportions of irrigated agriculture that provides high prey densities, particularly alfalfa. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." "effects of predator treatments, individual traits, and environment on moose survival in alaska",additive; alces alces; canis lupus; condition; indices; limitation; predation; survival; ursus americanus; ursus arctos,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,KEECH MA;LINDBERG MS;BOERTJE RD;VALKENBURG P;TARAS BD;BOUDREAU TA;BECKMEN KB,"we studied moose (alces alces) survival, physical condition, and abundance in a 3-predator system in western interior alaska, usa, during 2001-2007. our objective was to quantify the effects of predator treatments on moose population dynamics by investigating changes in survival while evaluating the contribution of potentially confounding covariates. in may 2003 and 2004, we reduced black bear (ursus americanus) and brown bear (u. arctos) numbers by translocating bears >= 240 km from the study area. aircraft-assisted take reduced wolf (canis lupus) numbers markedly in the study area during 2004-2007. we estimated black bears were reduced by approximately 96% by june 2004 and recovered to within 27% of untreated numbers by may 2007. brown bears were reduced approximately 50% by june 2004. late-winter wolf numbers were reduced by 75% by 2005 and likely remained at these levels through 2007. in addition to predator treatments, moose hunting closures during 2004-2007 reduced harvests of male moose by 60% in the study area. predator treatments resulted in increased calf survival rates during summer (primarily from reduced black bear predation) and autumn (primarily from reduced wolf predation). predator treatments had little influence on survival of moose calves during winter; instead, calf survival was influenced by snow depth and possibly temperature. increased survival of moose calves during summer and autumn combined with relatively constant winter survival in most years led to a corresponding increase in annual survival of calves following predator treatments. nonpredation mortalities of calves increased following predator treatments; however, this increase provided little compensation to the decrease in predation mortalities resulting from treatments. thus, predator-induced calf mortality was primarily additive. summer survival of moose calves was positively related to calf mass (beta > 0.07, se = 0.073) during treated years and lower (beta = -0.82, se = 0.247) for twins than singletons during all years. following predator treatments, survival of yearling moose increased 8.7% for females and 21.4% for males during summer and 2.2% for females and 15.6% for males during autumn. annual survival of adult (>= 2 yr old) female moose also increased in treated years and was negatively (beta = -0.21, se = 0.078) related to age. moose density increased 45%, from 0.38 moose/km(2) in 2001 to 0.55 moose/km(2) in 2007, which resulted from annual increases in overall survival of moose, not increases in reproductive rates. indices of nutritional status remained constant throughout our study despite increased moose density. this information can be used by wildlife managers and policymakers to better understand the outcomes of predator treatments in alaska and similar environments. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." -"salt marsh harvest mouse demography and habitat use in the suisun marsh, california",density; diked; microhabitat; persistence; reithrodontomys raviventris halicoetes; reproduction; salt marsh harvest mouse; suisun marsh; tidal; wetlands,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SUSTAITA D;QUICKERT PF;PATTERSON L;BARTHMAN-THOMPSON L;ESTRELLA S,"we undertook a 2-year (2002-2004) mark-recapture study to investigate demographic performance and habitat use of salt marsh harvest mice (reithrodontomys raviventris halicoetes) in the suisun marsh. we examined the effects of different wetland types and microhabitats on 3 demographic variables: density, reproductive potential, and persistence. our results indicate that microhabitats dominated by mixed vegetation or pickleweed (salicornia spp.) supported similar salt marsh harvest mouse densities, reproductive potential, and persistence throughout much of the year, whereas few salt marsh harvest mice inhabited upland grass-dominated microhabitats. we found that densities were higher in diked wetlands, whereas post-winter persistence was higher in tidal wetlands, and reproductive potential did not differ statistically between wetland types. our results emphasize the importance of mixed vegetation for providing adequate salt marsh harvest mouse habitat and suggest that, despite their physiognomic and hydrological differences, both diked and tidal wetlands support salt marsh harvest mouse populations by promoting different demographic attributes. we recommend that habitat management, restoration, and enhancement efforts include areas containing mixed vegetation in addition to pickleweed in both diked and tidal wetlands. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." +"salt marsh harvest mouse demography and habitat use in the suisun marsh, california",density; diked; microhabitat; persistence; reithrodontomys raviventris halicoetes; reproduction; salt marsh harvest mouse; suisun marsh; tidal; wetlands,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SUSTAITA D;QUICKERT PF;PATTERSON L;BARTHMAN THOMPSON L;ESTRELLA S,"we undertook a 2-year (2002-2004) mark-recapture study to investigate demographic performance and habitat use of salt marsh harvest mice (reithrodontomys raviventris halicoetes) in the suisun marsh. we examined the effects of different wetland types and microhabitats on 3 demographic variables: density, reproductive potential, and persistence. our results indicate that microhabitats dominated by mixed vegetation or pickleweed (salicornia spp.) supported similar salt marsh harvest mouse densities, reproductive potential, and persistence throughout much of the year, whereas few salt marsh harvest mice inhabited upland grass-dominated microhabitats. we found that densities were higher in diked wetlands, whereas post-winter persistence was higher in tidal wetlands, and reproductive potential did not differ statistically between wetland types. our results emphasize the importance of mixed vegetation for providing adequate salt marsh harvest mouse habitat and suggest that, despite their physiognomic and hydrological differences, both diked and tidal wetlands support salt marsh harvest mouse populations by promoting different demographic attributes. we recommend that habitat management, restoration, and enhancement efforts include areas containing mixed vegetation in addition to pickleweed in both diked and tidal wetlands. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." mark-recapture using tetracycline and genetics reveal record-high bear density,abundance estimation; alexander archipelago; black bear; components of variance; mark-recapture; microsatellites; southeast alaska; tetracycline biomarker; ursus americanus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PEACOCK E;TITUS K;GARSHELIS DL;PEACOCK MM;KUC M,"we used tetracycline biomarking, augmented with genetic methods to estimate the size of an american black bear (ursus americanus) population on an island in southeast alaska. we marked 132 and 189 bears that consumed remote, tetracycline-laced baits in 2 different years, respectively, and observed 39 marks in 692 bone samples subsequently collected from hunters. we genetically analyzed hair samples from bait sites to determine the sex of marked bears, facilitating derivation of sex-specific population estimates. we obtained harvest samples from beyond the study area to correct for emigration. we estimated a density of 155 independent bears/100 km(2), which is equivalent to the highest recorded for this species. this high density appears to be maintained by abundant, accessible natural food. our population estimate (approx. 1,000 bears) could be used as a baseline and to set hunting quotas. the refined biomarking method for abundance estimation is a useful alternative where physical captures or dna-based estimates are precluded by cost or logistics. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." estimating mountain goat abundance using dna from fecal pellets,abundance; british columbia; dna; fecal pellets; mark-recapture; mountain goats; oreamnos americanus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,POOLE KG;REYNOLDS DM;MOWAT G;PAETKAU D,"non-invasive collection of tissue samples to obtain dna for microsatellite genotyping required to estimate population size has been used for many wildlife species but rarely for ungulates. we estimated mountain goat (oreamnos americanus) population size on a mountain complex in southwestern british columbia by identification of individuals using dna obtained from fecal pellet and hair samples collected during 3 sampling sessions. we identified 55 individuals from 170 samples that were successfully genotyped, and estimated a population of 77 mountain goats (se = 7.4). mean capture probability was 0.38 (se = 0.037) per session. our technique provides one of the first statistically rigorous estimates of abundance of an ungulate species using dna derived primarily from fecal pellets. our technique enables managers to obtain minimum counts or population estimates of ungulates in areas of low sightability that can be used for conservation and management. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." nonparametric spatial regression of survival probability: visualization of population sinks in eurasian woodcock,bayesian state-space modeling; bivariate radial spline; capture-mark-recapture; capturerecovery; eurasian woodcock; generalized additive models (gam); hunting management; leslie matrix; population growth rate; scolopax rusticola; smooth function; sustainability of wildlife exploitation,ECOLOGY,PERON G;FERRAND Y;GOSSMANN F;BASTAT C;GUENEZAN M;GIMENEZ O,"both evolutionary ecologists and wildlife managers make inference based on how fitness and demography vary in space. spatial variation in survival can be difficult to assess in the wild because (1) multisite study designs are not well suited to populations that are continuously distributed across a large area and (2) available statistical models accounting for detectability less than 1.0 do not easily cope with geographical coordinates. here we use penalized splines within a bayesian state-space modeling framework to estimate and visualize survival probability in two dimensions. the approach is flexible in that no parametric form for the relationship between survival and coordinates need be specified a priori. to illustrate our method, we study a game species, the eurasian woodcock scolopax rusticola, based on band recovery data (5000 individuals) collected over a >50 000-km(2) area in west-central france with contrasted habitats and hunting pressures. we find that spatial variation in survival probability matches an index of hunting pressure and creates a mosaic of population sources and sinks. such analyses could provide guidance concerning the spatial management of hunting intensity or could be used to identify pathways of spatial variation in fitness, for example, to study adaptation to changing landscape and climate." @@ -3950,7 +3957,7 @@ completeness of reporting and case ascertainment for neonatal tetanus in rural p capture-recapture to estimate completeness of tuberculosis surveillance in two communities in south africa,tuberculosis; case registration; initial defaulters; record linking; capture-recapture,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TUBERCULOSIS AND LUNG DISEASE,DUNBAR R;VAN HEST R;LAWRENCE K;VERVER S;ENARSON DA;LOMBARD C;BEYERS N;BARNES JM,"background: reliable surveillance is essential for any tuberculosis (tb) control programme; however, under-registration of tb cases due to under-notification of patients on treatment or failure to initiate treatment has been well-documented internationally. objective: to determine the contribution of capture-recapture methods in estimating the completeness of bacteriologically confirmed pulmonary tb registration in two high-incident communities in south africa. methods: record linkage between the tb treatment register and two laboratory sputum tb result registers and three-source log-linear capture-recapture analysis. results: the number of bacteriologically confirmed pulmonary tb cases in the tb treatment register was 243, with an additional 63 cases identified in the two laboratory databases, resulting in 306 tb cases. the observed completeness of the tb treatment register was 79%. the log-linear model estimated 326 (95%ci 314-355) tb cases, resulting in an estimated completeness of registration of 75% (95%ci 68-77). conclusion: capture-recapture can be useful in evaluating the completeness of tb control surveillance and registration, including in resource-limited settings; however, methodology and results should be carefully assessed. interventions are needed to increase the completeness of registration and to reduce the number of initial defaulters." a semi-markov model to assess reliably survival patterns from birth to death in free-ranging populations,continuous function; cormack-jolly-seber model; long-lived species; mixture; nonlinear model; reduce additive weibull; siler,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CHOQUET R;VIALLEFONT A;ROUAN L;GAANOUN K;GAILLARD JM,"1. semi-markov models explicitly define the distribution of waiting time duration and have been used as a convenient framework for modelling the time spent in one physiological state in previous biological studies. 2. here, we focus on the modelling of the time spent within a life-cycle stage (e. g. juvenile, adult and old) by individuals over their lifetime from capture-mark-recapture data, which are commonly used to estimate demographic parameters in free-ranging populations. 3. we propose a parametric model (1) with a semi-markov state, (2) associated to a hazard function and (3) accounting for imperfect detection to assess reliably survival patterns from birth to death. 4. these models indeed outperform models with a linear trend or a quadratic form, often selected as the best model for survival in capture-recapture studies. 5. moreover, our approach offers the first opportunity to estimate statistically rather than visually the age of the onset of actuarial senescence, associated with confidence intervals. 6. the application of this new approach to the detailed long-term study of survival in roe deer at trois fontaines (france) illustrates the relevance of semi-markov models to assess survival patterns from birth to death." a new method for estimating animal abundance with two sources of data in capture-recapture studies,abundance; humpback whales; joint modelling; jolly-seber model; open population; two-source jolly-seber model,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MADON B;GIMENEZ O;MCARDLE B;BAKER CS;GARRIGUE C,"1. mark-recapture studies are often used to estimate population size based on a single source of individual identification data such as natural markings or artificial tags. however, with the development of molecular ecology, multiple sources of identification can be obtained for some species and combining them to obtain population size estimates would certainly provide better information about abundance than each survey can provide alone. 2. we propose an extension of the jolly-seber model to infer abundance by combining two sources of capture-recapture data. the need to merge both sources of data was motivated by studies of humpback whales in which both photo-identification and dna from skin biopsy samples are often collected. as whales are not necessarily available by both sampling methods on any given occasion, they can appear twice in the combined data set if no combined sampling ever occurred during the survey, i.e. being photographed and genotyped on the same occasion. our model thus combines the two sources of information by estimating the possible overlap. monte carlo simulations are used to assess the properties of the present estimator that is then used to estimate the size of the humpback whale population in new caledonia. the new open-population estimator is also compared with classic closed-population estimators incorporating either temporal and/or individual heterogeneity in the capture probability: the purpose was to evaluate which approach (closed or open population) was the least biased for an open population with individual heterogeneous capture probabilities. 3. when all assumptions are met, the estimator is unbiased as long as the probability of being double-tagged (e. g. photographed and biopsied on the same occasion) on every occasion is above 0 2. 4. the humpback whale case study in new caledonia shows that our two-source jolly-seber (tsjs) estimator could be more efficient in estimating population size than models based only on one type of data. for monitoring purposes, the proposed method provides an efficient alternative to the existing approaches and a productive direction for future work to deal with multiple sources of data to estimate abundance. 5. r-codes formatting the data and implementing the tsjs model are provided in resource s5." -population recovery of black rhinoceros in north-west namibia following poaching,allee effects; density dependence; hunting; mark-recapture; matrix model; population regulation; transient dynamics,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,BRODIE JF;MUNTIFERING J;HEARN M;LOUTIT B;LOUTIT R;BRELL B;URI-KHOB S;LEADER-WILLIAMS N;DU PREEZ P,"curtailing overharvest, whether illegal or legal, is often a critical conservation objective. yet even if overexploitation can be stopped, subsequent rates of population recovery can be highly variable due to allee effects, alterations to age and sex structure and disruptions of animal social systems. moreover, understanding the influence of density dependence can be difficult but important for long-term management. here, we investigate the dynamics of black rhinoceros diceros bicornis in the kunene region of namibia as they recover from illegal hunting. we use multi-strata mark-recapture models to examine survival and stage-transition rates from 1992 to 2005. survivorship estimates ranged from 0.793 for calves to 0.910 for adult males and 0.944 for adult females. the annual reproductive rate in adult females was estimated at 0.315. model selection showed that these vital rates were time invariant, suggesting that allee effects and transient dynamics did not have an important effect upon population dynamics, even in the early stages of recovery. relative population density increased significantly from 1992 to 2005 once illegal hunting had ceased in kunene. however, the best-fit models did not include relative density in the estimation of survival or stage-transition rates. we then used the vital rates generated from our mark-recapture analysis to build matrix projection models that assessed overall population dynamics. the female-only model gave a population growth rate estimate of lambda = 1.011. two-sex models suggest that the growth rate of the population could range from 0.990 to 1.012. the relatively slow growth rate of this population, even without hunting or density dependence, could stem from the low productivity of the region. adult females had the highest reproductive value and their survival had the highest elasticity among vital rates. translocating adult females would lead to the fastest initial population growth rate in founder populations but would have the most impact on the source population." +population recovery of black rhinoceros in north-west namibia following poaching,allee effects; density dependence; hunting; mark-recapture; matrix model; population regulation; transient dynamics,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,BRODIE JF;MUNTIFERING J;HEARN M;LOUTIT B;LOUTIT R;BRELL B;URI KHOB S;LEADER WILLIAMS N;DU PREEZ P,"curtailing overharvest, whether illegal or legal, is often a critical conservation objective. yet even if overexploitation can be stopped, subsequent rates of population recovery can be highly variable due to allee effects, alterations to age and sex structure and disruptions of animal social systems. moreover, understanding the influence of density dependence can be difficult but important for long-term management. here, we investigate the dynamics of black rhinoceros diceros bicornis in the kunene region of namibia as they recover from illegal hunting. we use multi-strata mark-recapture models to examine survival and stage-transition rates from 1992 to 2005. survivorship estimates ranged from 0.793 for calves to 0.910 for adult males and 0.944 for adult females. the annual reproductive rate in adult females was estimated at 0.315. model selection showed that these vital rates were time invariant, suggesting that allee effects and transient dynamics did not have an important effect upon population dynamics, even in the early stages of recovery. relative population density increased significantly from 1992 to 2005 once illegal hunting had ceased in kunene. however, the best-fit models did not include relative density in the estimation of survival or stage-transition rates. we then used the vital rates generated from our mark-recapture analysis to build matrix projection models that assessed overall population dynamics. the female-only model gave a population growth rate estimate of lambda = 1.011. two-sex models suggest that the growth rate of the population could range from 0.990 to 1.012. the relatively slow growth rate of this population, even without hunting or density dependence, could stem from the low productivity of the region. adult females had the highest reproductive value and their survival had the highest elasticity among vital rates. translocating adult females would lead to the fastest initial population growth rate in founder populations but would have the most impact on the source population." "survival rates in a small hibernator, the edible dormouse: a comparison across europe",NA,ECOGRAPHY,LEBL K;BIEBER C;ADAMIK P;FIETZ J;MORRIS P;PILASTRO A;RUF T,"understanding how local environmental factors lead to temporal variability of vital rates and to plasticity of life history tactics is one of the central questions in population ecology. we used long-term capture-recapture data from five populations of a small hibernating rodent, the edible dormouse glis glis, collected over a large geographical range across europe, to determine and analyze both seasonal patterns of local survival and their relation to reproductive activity. in all populations studied, survival was lowest in early summer, higher in late summer and highest during hibernation in winter. in reproductive years survival was always lower than in non-reproductive years, and females had higher survival rates than males. very high survival rates during winter indicate that edible dormice rarely die from starvation due to insufficient energy reserves during the hibernation period. increased mortality in early summer was most likely caused by high predation risk and unmet energy demands. those effects have probably an even stronger impact in reproductive years, in which dormice were more active. although these patterns could be found in all areas, there were also considerable differences in average survival rates, with resulting differences in mean lifetime reproductive success between populations. our results suggest that edible dormice have adapted their life history strategies to maximize lifetime reproductive success depending on the area specific frequency of seeding events of trees producing energy-rich seeds." "mark-recapture on large spatial scale reveals long distance dispersal in the marsh fritillary, euphydryas aurinia",butterfly ecology; dispersal kernel function; grassland conservation; lepidoptera; metapopulation dynamics; mobility; nymphalidae,ECOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY,ZIMMERMANN K;FRIC Z;JISKRA P;KOPECKOVA M;VLASANEK P;ZAPLETAL M;KONVICKA M,"1. long distance dispersal (ldd), or movements far beyond the occupied habitat borders, maintains the integrity of metapopulations in fragmented landscapes. recent studies on butterflies increasingly reveal that ldd exists even in species that were long regarded as sedentary. mark-recapture (mr) studies covering larger study areas typically reveal movements among distant colonies. 2. we studied dispersal of the eu-protected, regionally endangered euphydryas aurinia rottemburg butterfly in the czech republic, using two complementary mr approaches. the single system study was carried out for eight seasons within 30 habitat patches covering 28 ha. the multiple populations study was carried out for a single season, but covering almost all czech colonies of the species (82 colonies, 110 distinct patches, total area 324 ha within ca 1500 km(2)). 3. single system mean lifetime movements were consistently higher for males, but slopes of dispersal kernel power functions were shallower for females, implying that higher proportions of females crossed distances of several kilometres. 4. the multiple populations study allowed detection of 51 lifetime movements exceeding 5 km (41 males, 10 females) and 14 movements exceeding 10 km (13 males, 1 female). both mean lifetime movements and slopes of the dispersal kernels varied among systems, with no consistent pattern between sexes. all czech republic populations are within 0.1% movement probability of both sexes, whereas 1% movement probability delimits three separate management units. 5. dispersal predictions from local data underestimate total mobility, warning against the use of local mr data for extrapolating long-distance movements. local dispersal data, however, remain useful for analysing finer details of insect mobility." "synergistic influences of phase, density, and climatic variation on the dynamics of fluctuating populations",capture-mark-recapture (cmr) analysis; density-dependent and density-independent processes; microtus ochrogaster; population growth; pradel's temporal symmetry cmr model; prairie vole; recruitment; survival,ECOLOGY,GOSWAMI VR;GETZ LL;HOSTETLER JA;OZGUL A;OLI MK,"although ecologists have long recognized that certain mammalian species exhibit high-amplitude, often multiannual, fluctuations in abundance, their causes have remained poorly understood and the subject of intense debate. a key contention has been the relative role of density-dependent and density-independent processes in governing population dynamics. we applied capture-mark-recapture analysis to 25 years of monthly trapping data from a fluctuating prairie vole microtus ochrogaster population in illinois, usa, to estimate realized population growth rates and associated vital rates (survival and recruitment) and modeled them as a function of vole density and density-independent climatic variation. we also tested for phase dependence and seasonality in the effects of the above processes. variation in the realized population growth rate was best explained by phase-specific changes in vole density lagged by one month and mean monthly temperatures with no time lags. the underlying vital rates, survival and recruitment, were influenced by the additive and interactive effects of phase, vole density, and mean monthly temperatures. our results are consistent with the observation that large-scale population fluctuations are characterized by phase-specific changes in demographic and physiological characteristics. our findings also support the growing realization that the interaction between climatic variables and density-dependent factors may be a widespread phenomenon, and they suggest that the direction and magnitude of such interactive effects may be phase specific. we conclude that density-dependent and density-independent climatic variables work in tandem during each phase of density fluctuations to drive the dynamics of fluctuating populations." @@ -3960,13 +3967,13 @@ coexistence in streams: do source-sink dynamics allow salamanders to persist wit "efficacy of aluminum phosphide tablets to control richardson's ground squirrel (spermophilus richardsonii) populations in southern saskatchewan, canada",aluminum phosphide; pesticide; phostoxin (r); prairies; richardson's ground squirrels; rodent control,CROP PROTECTION,PROULX G;MACKENZIE N;MACKENZIE K;WALSH K,"the objective of this study was to assess, using a capture-recapture program, the effectiveness of aluminum phosphide tablets for control of richardson's ground squirrels (spermophilus richardsonii) in southern saskatchewan grasslands, from april to july 2007-2009. aluminum phosphide tablets were tested in study plots in moist or dry soil conditions, where burrow openings had either been marked with a flag (to ensure that all openings would be found and treated) before treatment or left unmarked. in five study plots with moist soil conditions and flagged burrow openings, the mean control level was 80.9 (sd = 6.3) %. in two study plots with dry soil conditions and flagged burrow openings, and one study with moist soil conditions and unflagged burrow openings, control levels were < 60%. it is recommended that aluminum phosphide tablets be used to control richardson's ground squirrels in relatively small areas (i.e., < 5 ha) with moist soil conditions and flagged burrow openings, or in specific sites where there are still high concentrations of ground squirrels after an initial treatment with poison food baits. (c) 2011 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." exploring sensitivity of a multistate occupancy model to inform management decisions,california spotted owl; lithobates sylvatica; multistate model; patch occupancy dynamics; second-order markov; strix occidentalis occidentalis; wood frog,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,GREEN AW;BAILEY LL;NICHOLS JD,"1. dynamic occupancy models are often used to investigate questions regarding the processes that influence patch occupancy and are prominent in the fields of population and community ecology and conservation biology. recently, multistate occupancy models have been developed to investigate dynamic systems involving more than one occupied state, including reproductive states, relative abundance states and joint habitat-occupancy states. here we investigate the sensitivities of the equilibrium-state distribution of multistate occupancy models to changes in transition rates. 2. we develop equilibrium occupancy expressions and their associated sensitivity metrics for dynamic multistate occupancy models. to illustrate our approach, we use two examples that represent common multistate occupancy systems. the first example involves a three-state dynamic model involving occupied states with and without successful reproduction (california spotted owl strix occidentalis occidentalis), and the second involves a novel way of using a multistate occupancy approach to accommodate second-order markov processes (wood frog lithobates sylvatica breeding and metamorphosis). 3. in many ways, multistate sensitivity metrics behave in similar ways as standard occupancy sensitivities. when equilibrium occupancy rates are low, sensitivity to parameters related to colonisation is high, while sensitivity to persistence parameters is greater when equilibrium occupancy rates are high. sensitivities can also provide guidance for managers when estimates of transition probabilities are not available. 4. synthesis and applications. multistate models provide practitioners a flexible framework to define multiple, distinct occupied states and the ability to choose which state, or combination of states, is most relevant to questions and decisions about their own systems. in addition to standard multistate occupancy models, we provide an example of how a second-order markov process can be modified to fit a multistate framework. assuming the system is near equilibrium, our sensitivity analyses illustrate how to investigate the sensitivity of the system-specific equilibrium state(s) to changes in transition rates. because management will typically act on these transition rates, sensitivity analyses can provide valuable information about the potential influence of different actions and when it may be prudent to shift the focus of management among the various transition rates." habitat quality and habitat selection of golden-winged warblers in costa rica: an application of hierarchical models for open populations,apparent survival; dail-madsen model; golden-winged warbler; habitat quality; non-breeding season; population dynamics; recruitment; vermivora chrysoptera; winter ecology,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,CHANDLER RB;KING DI,"1. identifying high-quality habitat is integral to effective species conservation efforts and requires information about habitat-specific abundance and demographics. this information is lacking for many species of conservation concern because of the inherent difficulties associated with implementing mark-recapture studies at large spatial scales. 2. the golden-winged warbler vermivora chrysoptera is a neotropical-nearctic migratory bird experiencing a long-term population decline; yet no information about non-breeding season habitat quality or habitat selection exists to inform conservation efforts. we used a novel hierarchical model that requires only spatially and temporally replicated count data to estimate habitat-specific abundance, apparent survival, recruitment and detection probability of golden-winged warblers wintering in costa rica. we quantified habitat selection at the home-range level using radiotelemetry. 3. golden-winged warblers were absent from tropical dry forest and were most abundant in pre-montane evergreen forest. within their home ranges, golden-winged warblers selected microhabitat features associated with intermediate disturbance that reflected their preference for foraging in hanging dead leaves. 4. consistent with other evidence of a declining population, local population size decreased over the duration of the study. the rate of decrease was higher during the non-breeding season than among seasons. we found no differences in apparent survival or recruitment among habitat types; however, our estimates of these parameters were imprecise. 5. synthesis and applications. golden-winged warblers are forest-dependent species during the non-breeding season and have specialized microhabitat requirements that make them vulnerable to ongoing tropical deforestation. however, advanced secondary forests can provide the requisite microhabitat features, and because we found no evidence of reduced survival in this habitat type, regenerating forest on degraded lands may be an effective component of a conservation strategy for this species. our study also demonstrates that information on population dynamics and habitat quality can be obtained using repeated counts instead of mark-recapture methods." -the spectrum of malignancies in hiv-infected patients in 2006 in france: the oncovih study,hiv infection; malignancy; cross-sectional study; capture-recapture,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CANCER,LANOY E;SPANO JP;BONNET F;GUIGUET M;BOUE F;CADRANEL J;CARCELAIN G;COUDERC LJ;FRANGE P;GIRARD PM;OKSENHENDLER E;POIZOT-MARTIN I;SEMAILLE C;AGUT H;KATLAMA C;COSTAGLIOLA D,"since no large descriptive studies of incident cancers in hiv-infected patients are available in france, the nationwide cross-sectional oncovih study aimed to prospectively report new malignancies diagnosed in hiv-infected patients in cancer centers and hiv/aids centers. we estimated the number of cancers in france for the year 2006 using the capture-recapture methods with two sources: oncovih and the fhdh anrs-co4 cohort, as well as the completeness of the sources. incidence and relative risks (rr) to the general population were estimated. in 2006, 672 new malignancies in 668 patients were reported in oncovih; the most common were non hodgkin's lymphoma (nhl, 21.5%), kaposi's sarcoma (ks, 16.0%), lung cancer (9.4%), anal cancer (8.2%), hodgkin's lymphoma (7.6%), skin cancers excluding melanoma (6.8%), and liver cancer (5.6%). based on the capture-recapture approach, the estimated number of malignancies was 1320 and non-aids-defining malignancies (nadm) represented 68% of cases. the overall ascertainment of malignancies were 53%, and 59%, in the oncovih study, and the fhdh anrs-co4 cohort, respectively. the estimated incidence of cancer among hiv-infected patients was 14 per 1000 person-years. compared with the general population, the estimated rr in hiv-infected patients was 3.5 (95% ci 3.3-3.8) in men and 3.6 (95% ci 3.2-4.0) in women, and was particularly elevated in younger patients. even in the era of combined antiretroviral therapy, the incidence of cancer is higher in hiv-infected persons than in the general population. a large variety of malignancies were diagnosed, and the majority were nadm." +the spectrum of malignancies in hiv-infected patients in 2006 in france: the oncovih study,hiv infection; malignancy; cross-sectional study; capture-recapture,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CANCER,LANOY E;SPANO JP;BONNET F;GUIGUET M;BOUE F;CADRANEL J;CARCELAIN G;COUDERC LJ;FRANGE P;GIRARD PM;OKSENHENDLER E;POIZOT MARTIN I;SEMAILLE C;AGUT H;KATLAMA C;COSTAGLIOLA D,"since no large descriptive studies of incident cancers in hiv-infected patients are available in france, the nationwide cross-sectional oncovih study aimed to prospectively report new malignancies diagnosed in hiv-infected patients in cancer centers and hiv/aids centers. we estimated the number of cancers in france for the year 2006 using the capture-recapture methods with two sources: oncovih and the fhdh anrs-co4 cohort, as well as the completeness of the sources. incidence and relative risks (rr) to the general population were estimated. in 2006, 672 new malignancies in 668 patients were reported in oncovih; the most common were non hodgkin's lymphoma (nhl, 21.5%), kaposi's sarcoma (ks, 16.0%), lung cancer (9.4%), anal cancer (8.2%), hodgkin's lymphoma (7.6%), skin cancers excluding melanoma (6.8%), and liver cancer (5.6%). based on the capture-recapture approach, the estimated number of malignancies was 1320 and non-aids-defining malignancies (nadm) represented 68% of cases. the overall ascertainment of malignancies were 53%, and 59%, in the oncovih study, and the fhdh anrs-co4 cohort, respectively. the estimated incidence of cancer among hiv-infected patients was 14 per 1000 person-years. compared with the general population, the estimated rr in hiv-infected patients was 3.5 (95% ci 3.3-3.8) in men and 3.6 (95% ci 3.2-4.0) in women, and was particularly elevated in younger patients. even in the era of combined antiretroviral therapy, the incidence of cancer is higher in hiv-infected persons than in the general population. a large variety of malignancies were diagnosed, and the majority were nadm." "striped dolphins and short-beaked common dolphins in the gulf of corinth, greece: abundance estimates from dorsal fin photographs",striped dolphin; stenella coeruleoalba; short-beaked common dolphin; delphinus delphis; abundance; photo-identification; mixed groups; mediterranean sea; gulf of corinth; greece,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,BEARZI G;BONIZZONI S;AGAZZI S;GONZALVO J;CURREY RJC,"capture-recapture methods relying on dorsal fin natural markings have never been applied successfully to striped dolphins, stenella coeruleoalba, and were rarely used to assess abundance of short-beaked common dolphins, delphinus delphis. we used digital photo-identification to obtain abundance estimates of striped and common dolphins living in mixed groups in the gulf of corinth, greece. the proportion of either species was calculated based on the relative number of photographs of adult animals showing relevant portions of their body during conspicuous surfacings. striped dolphins and common dolphins averaged 95.0% and 3.2% of all individuals, respectively. animals showing intermediate pigmentation accounted for another 1.8%. striped dolphin numbers were relatively high, with a point estimate of 835 animals (95% ci = 631-1,106). common dolphins numbers were low (point estimate 28 animals; 95% ci = 11-73) and individuals were scattered within striped dolphin groups, indicating that this common dolphin population may be nonviable. within a semiclosed gulf exposed to considerable anthropogenic impact, the future of both dolphin species is of concern due to their suspected geographic isolation and restricted extent of occurrence. information provided here can be used to inform timely conservation efforts." long-term population dynamics in a mediterranean aquatic snake,long-term population dynamics; aquatic snakes; population ecology; italy,ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH,LUISELLI L;MADSEN T;CAPIZZI D;RUGIERO L;PACINI N;CAPULA M,"a review of several long-term studies has recently suggested that snakes might be declining in large parts of the world. additional data from other long-term studies are therefore urgently needed in order to assess the generalities of such suggested declines. based on a 20-year study, we analyzed demographic data on adult dice snakes (natrix tessellata) studied in central italy between 1985 and 2004. both male and female dice snakes were relatively long-lived, with no significant differences in longevity between the sexes. individual males and females were observed over a maximum of 10 and 14 years, respectively. however, the among-year recapture rates between the year the snakes were initially captured and the subsequent year (i.e., year 1 to year 2) was significantly lower (45%) than the among-year recapture rates during subsequent years (74%; i.e., year 2 to year 3), suggesting that a large proportion of the snakes at first capture were in fact not resident within our study area, and hence many snakes were migrating in and out of our 2-km stream study site, with no inter-sexual difference in dispersal rates. sex ratio was virtually equal if we consider the study period as a whole. significant annual fluctuations were, however, observed through the study. in 1985-1990, 1993-1995, 1998 and 1999 the sex ratio was male-biased, whereas in 2000-2004 female-biased. in terms of both survival and recapture probabilities, model selection showed that akaike's information criterion favored the model incorporating body size, with the model incorporating year having an intermediate likelihood, and the model with sex included being the most disfavored. total population number estimates suggest an average 86 adult individuals along the 2 km of stream with only minor annual variations. however, a significant decrease in the number of males occurred during the last 6 years of our study. thus, further monitoring of this population is warranted in light of the decline of snake populations reported recently." "behavioral ecology of heteragrion consors hagen (odonata, megapodagrionidae): a shade-seek atlantic forest damselfly",mating systems; reproductive biology; temporal budget; thermoregulation; territoriality,REVISTA BRASILEIRA DE ENTOMOLOGIA,LOIOLA GR;DE MARCO P,"behavioral ecology of heteragrion consors hagen (odonata: megapodagrionidae): a shade-seek atlantic forest dam-selfly. the intensity of the inter and intra-sexual selection can affect male behavioral traits as territorial fidelity and aggressiveness allowing the existence of different strategies. however, its differential success could be affected by environmental - as the diel variation in temperature - and physiological constrains - as the variation in thermoregulatory abilities. in this context, we present a behavioral analysis of heteragrion consors (zygoptera, megapodagrionidae) trying to characterize its mating system, did l activity pattern, temporal budget, territoriality and reproductive biology. these data were obtained based on field observations using the focal individual method and mark-recapture techniques in 120 m of a shaded atlantic forest stream in brazil. the males of this species were territorial, varying in its local fidelity, while the females appear sporadically. males were perched in the majority of the time, but were also observed in cleaning movements, longitudinal abdominal flexion, wing flexion and sperm transfer during perch. the males presented a perched thermoregulatory behavior related to an exothermic regulation. foraging and agonistic interactions were rare, but dominate the other behavioral activities. abdominal movements associated to long lasting copula pointed to the existence of sperm competition in this species. males performed contact post-copulatory guarding of the females. these observations pointed to a non-resource mating system for this species." extreme spawning-site fidelity in atlantic cod,broadcast spawners; farmed escapees; gadus morhua; homing; population structure,ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,SKJAERAASEN JE;MEAGER JJ;KARLSEN O;HUTCHINGS JA;FERNO A,"based on a 3-year mark-recapture study, evidence is provided of spawning-site fidelity in atlantic cod (gadus morhua) at a scale (<1 km) smaller than documented previously. coastal regions where barriers to dispersal exist may allow for local population dynamics and adaptation to develop in broadcast-spawning marine fish at extremely fine spatial scales." population ecology and movement of the american cockroach (dictyoptera: blattidae) in sewers,periplaneta americana; sewage system; population ecology; age-class structure; mark-recapture,JOURNAL OF MEDICAL ENTOMOLOGY,TEE HS;SAAD AR;LEE CY,"the population size, age-class structure, and movement of the american cockroach, periplaneta americana (l.) (dictyoptera: blattidae), were studied in three sewers in penang, malaysia, from september 2008 to october 2009. eighteen to 20 glass-jar traps (two per manhole) were deployed for a 24-h period during each sampling occasion at each sewer. adults and nymphs were active throughout the study period, with an average monthly trap catch of 57-97 adults and 79-99 nymphs. the mean proportions of adults and nymphs at the three sewers ranged from 0.47 to 0.57. of the 2,177 male and 2,717 female cockroaches marked and released over the three sewers, recapture rates were 29.4-45.8 and 30.8-47.0%, respectively. the proportion of marked males and females did not differ significantly from the proportion of recaptured marked males and females. however, the mean number of times a marked female was recaptured was significantly greater than that of males. of the 783 males and 1,030 females that were marked and recaptured, 19.4 and 24.7%, respectively, had moved between manholes, and significantly more females than males moved between manholes. of the 406 recaptured marked adults that moved between manholes, 90.4% moved a distance of 2-20 m from their initial release site; one male moved 192 m, the longest distance recorded. trap catch on each sampling occasion was positively correlated with daily mean temperature. the number of cockroach movements between manholes also was correlated with the mean daily minimum temperature." -"fatal occupational injuries in nicaragua, 2005",fatal occupational injuries; economic activity; nicaragua; capture-recapture; underestimation,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OCCUPATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH,LOPEZ-BONILLA IM;FLORES-URBINA L;PARTANEN T;WESSELING C,"we attempt to estimate the rate of fatal occupational injuries (foi) in nicaragua for 2005, using 10 incomplete data sources. based on the 173 identified fois, the crude empirical foi rate estimate was 8.3 per 100,000 employed (12.3 men; 1.8 women) and highest in the 25-29 age group (15). the overall rate, corrected by capture recapture modeling, was 11.6. manufacturing represented a high rate (11.7); the formal economy rate (12.3) was higher than the informal economy (6); mining (110.3) and electricity (76.2) had the highest industry rates; and the most common agents of fois were motor vehicles. with 10 major sources, the extent of fois remains grossly underestimated and biased across worker strata. the fois among informal and agricultural workers tend to remain invisible, as there is no systematic surveillance by any agency. changes in legislation and implementation are necessary to correct the situation." +"fatal occupational injuries in nicaragua, 2005",fatal occupational injuries; economic activity; nicaragua; capture-recapture; underestimation,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OCCUPATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH,LOPEZ BONILLA IM;FLORES URBINA L;PARTANEN T;WESSELING C,"we attempt to estimate the rate of fatal occupational injuries (foi) in nicaragua for 2005, using 10 incomplete data sources. based on the 173 identified fois, the crude empirical foi rate estimate was 8.3 per 100,000 employed (12.3 men; 1.8 women) and highest in the 25-29 age group (15). the overall rate, corrected by capture recapture modeling, was 11.6. manufacturing represented a high rate (11.7); the formal economy rate (12.3) was higher than the informal economy (6); mining (110.3) and electricity (76.2) had the highest industry rates; and the most common agents of fois were motor vehicles. with 10 major sources, the extent of fois remains grossly underestimated and biased across worker strata. the fois among informal and agricultural workers tend to remain invisible, as there is no systematic surveillance by any agency. changes in legislation and implementation are necessary to correct the situation." estimating migratory connectivity of gray catbirds (dumetella carolinensis) using geolocator and mark-recapture data,dumetella carolinensis; geolocators; gray catbird; mark-recapture; migratory connectivity,AUK,RYDER TB;FOX JW;MARRA PP,"understanding the connectivity between breeding and nonbreeding populations of migratory birds is fundamental to our knowledge of biological phenomena such as population dynamics and dispersal. moreover, our ability to quantify migratory connectivity has inevitable consequences for both conservation and management of species that utilize distinct geographic locations. technology is rapidly advancing our ability to track birds throughout the annual cycle and to collect data on the degree of connectivity among breeding and nonbreeding populations. we combined two direct methods, mark recapture (n = 17) and geolocation (n = 6), to estimate the migratory connectivity of breeding and nonbreeding populations of gray catbirds (dumetella carolinensis). data from geolocators show that birds breeding in the mid-atlantic overwinter in both cuba and southern florida. mark recapture data supported our geolocator results but also provided a broader spatial perspective by documenting that mid-atlantic and midwestern populations occupy distinct geographic localities during the nonbreeding period. this research underscores the importance of geolocators, as well as other tools, to advance our understanding of migratory connectivity. finally, our results highlight the potential value of u.s. geological survey (usgs) bird banding laboratory mark recapture data, which are often underutilized in ornithological research. received 6 january 2011, accepted 24 april 2011." habitat use does not reflect habitat quality for henslow's sparrows (ammodramus henslowii) wintering in fire-managed longleaf pine savannas,ammodramus henslowii; body condition; demography; diet analysis; habitat use; henslow's sparrow; overwintering ecology; resource availability,AUK,JOHNSON EI;DIMICALI JK;STOUFFER PC;BROOKS ME,"interpreting habitat quality requires an understanding of the consequences of habitat use because bird density alone may not reflect habitat quality. although habitat use can be readily quantified, subsequent effects remain elusive for most species, especially for migrants on the wintering grounds. wintering henslow's sparrow (ammodramus henslowii) densities in longleaf pine (pinus palustris) savannas are fire-dependent, with highest bird densities in the first winter after a fire, but reduced density in subsequent winters without fire. we determined habitat characteristics associated with variation in bird density in the first and second winters following fire and then followed birds' diet, condition, and survival in 10 plots over two winters. habitat structure and seed energy availability, but not plant species composition, were equally important for explaining bird density, except for two outlier plots with extremely high seed production and fewer birds than expected. henslow's sparrows consumed a variety of seeds and arthropods, which indicates that they are generalists capable of responding to fire-mediated changes in seed composition. body condition decreased in midwinter, associated with a decrease of arthropods in the birds' diet. although henslow's sparrow densities responded strongly to ephemeral savanna conditions, consequences of habitat use were negligible because survival and three measures of body condition did not vary with years since fire or among age and sex classes. these aspects of the winter ecology of sexually monochromatic henslow's sparrows are consistent with tenets of the ideal free distribution, whereby differences in bird density between habitats result in equal fitness. received 14 october 2010, accepted 27 march 2011." which proximate factor determines sexual size dimorphism in tiger snakes?,body condition; diet; food intake; growth pattern; sexual dimorphism; survival,BIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY,BONNET X;LORIOUX S;PEARSON D;AUBRET F;BRADSHAW D;DELMAS V;FAUVEL T,"diverse interactions between factors that influence body size complicate the identification of the primary determinants of sexual size dimorphism. using data from a long-term field study (1997-2009), we examined the contributions of the main proximate factors potentially influencing sexual size dimorphism from birth to adulthood in tiger snakes (notechis scutatus). data on body size, body mass and body condition of neonates, juveniles and adults were obtained by mark recapture. frequent recaptures allowed us to monitor reproductive status, diet and food intake, and to estimate survival and growth rates in age and sex classes. additional data from females held briefly in captivity enabled us to assess reproductive output and the body mass lost at parturition (proxies for reproductive effort). from birth to maturity, individuals of both sexes experienced similar growth and mortality rates. we found no difference in diet, feeding and survival rates between the sexes, nor between juveniles and adults. on maturity, despite comparable diet and food intake by both sexes, the high energy requirements of vitellogenesis and gestation were responsible for a depletion of body reserves and probably resulted in a marked decrease in growth rates. males were largely exempt from such costs of reproduction, and so could grow faster than females and attain larger body sizes. the absence of niche divergence between the sexes (uniformity of habitat, lack of predators) suggests that the impact of differential energetic investment for reproduction on growth rate is probably the main proximate factor influencing sexual size dimorphism in this species. (c) 2011 the linnean society of london, biological journal of the linnean society, 2011, 103, 668-680." @@ -3975,7 +3982,7 @@ genetic mark-recapture population estimation in black bears and issues of scale, inferring causal factors for a declining population of bottlenose dolphins via temporal symmetry capture-recapture modeling,cumulative impacts; demography; fiordland; information theory; population decline; reverse-time capture-mark-recapture; tursiops truncatus,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,CURREY RJC;DAWSON SM;SCHNEIDER K;LUSSEAU D;BOISSEAU OJ;HAASE PA;SLOOTEN E,"we applied temporal symmetry capture-recapture (tscr) models to assess the strength of evidence for factors potentially responsible for population decline in bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in doubtful sound, new zealand from 1995 to 2008. model selection was conducted to estimate recruitment and population growth rates. there were similar levels of support for three different models, each reflecting distinct trends in recruitment. modeling yielded low overall estimates of recruitment (0.0249, 95% ci: 0.0174-0.0324) and population growth rate (0.9642, 95% ci: 0.9546-0.9737). the tscr rate of population decline was consistent with an estimate derived from trends in abundance (lambda = 0.9632, 95% ci: 0.9599-0.9665). the tscr model selection confirmed the influence of a decline in the survival of calves (<1 yr old) since 2002 for population trends. however, tscr population growth rates did not exceed 1 in any year between 1995 and 2008, indicating the population was declining prior to 2002. a separate reduction in juvenile survival (1-3 yr old) prior to 2002 was identified as a likely contributing factor in the population decline. thus, tscr modeling indicated the potential cause of the population decline in doubtful sound: cumulative impacts on individuals <3 yr old resulting in a reduced recruitment." contact patterns as a risk factor for bovine tuberculosis infection in a free-living adult brushtail possum trichosurus vulpecula population,contact structure; mycobacterium bovis; risk factor; infection dynamics; wildlife disease; zoonosis,PREVENTIVE VETERINARY MEDICINE,PORPHYRE T;MCKENZIE J;STEVENSON MA,"the aim of this study was to identify risk factors for bovine tuberculosis (tb) in a free-roaming, capture-mark-recapture monitored possum trichosurus vulpecula population in a 22-ha study site at castlepoint, new zealand from 1 april 1989 to 31 march 1994. a matched case-control design was used to evaluate the influence of sex, habitat and contact opportunities on tb risk. cases comprised possums identified as tb-positive throughout the study period. controls were selected from the group of possums that were captured and showed no clinical signs of tb throughout the study period. measures derived from a social network analysis of possum capture locations such as degree, clustering coefficient (cc) and betweenness were used to represent potential contact opportunities among possums. network analysis measures recorded for individual possums in the 12-month period before a diagnosis of tb were evaluated in a conditional logistic regression model. we found no evidence of an association between case status and the total number of possums with which there was potential contact (degree) (p = 0.5). the odds of cases being exposed to unit increases in the number of tb-positive contacts was 2.50 (95% ci 1.24-5.05; p < 0.01) times that of controls. this effect was conditional on the total number of potential contacts made, with a negative interaction with increasing degree. these findings indicate that potential contact with tb-positive possums increases the odds of disease whereas potential contact with large numbers of possums does not. this suggests that multiple contacts with tb-positive possum(s) are necessary for transmission of tb and this is more likely to occur in networks that are smaller. we challenge the hypothesis that contact with large numbers of individuals increases the probability of becoming tb infected and argue that individual contact behaviour is a determinant of the creation of tb foci within free-living possum populations. (c) 2011 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." "the impact of introduced predators, light-induced mortality of fledglings and poaching on the dynamics of the cory's shearwater (calonectris diomedea) population from the azores, northeastern subtropical atlantic",procellariiformes; population dynamics; light-induced mortality; azores; calonectris diomedea,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,FONTAINE R;GIMENEZ O;BRIED J,"cory's shearwater (calonectris diomedea) is a procellariiform seabird which breeds in the mediterranean and the north-eastern subtropical atlantic, and which is considered ""vulnerable"" in europe due to recent declines at some localities. in the azores archipelago (atlantic), the introduction of mammalian predators by man has led to petrels being extirpated from the main islands, except for cory's shearwater. currently, the azorean population of cory's shearwaters represents 65% of the species' world population. however, its dynamics remains unknown, although: (1) numbers might have declined by 43% between 1996 and 2001, (2) on the main islands, the young suffer mortality from introduced mammals, poachers, and urban lights upon fledging, and (3) at sea, the level of fishery mortality remains unknown. to fill this gap, we conducted a 7-year demographic survey on a mammal-free islet in the azores to determine adult survival rate using capture-mark-recapture of the breeders and to estimate fecundity. we also assessed urban mortality using the data from the rescue campaigns annually conducted in the archipelago. urban mortality concerned about 6% of fledglings, but its importance greatly varied among islands. when rescue campaigns occur, the rate might drop below 0.5%. overall, our simulations concerning the next 100 years do not allow excluding a decrease in cory's shearwater numbers in the azores without rescue campaigns (by 87% under the least favourable scenario). rescue campaigns should only slow down the decline unless, simultaneously, lower competition for nests compared to vila islet allows adults to breed almost every year on the main islands and juvenile survival exceeds a threshold value. since adult survival rate was high (>0.93), an eventual decline of the azorean population of cory's shearwaters would probably not result from fishery mortality of adults, but rather from poor fledgling productivity and perhaps also from low survival during the first year at sea. (c) 2011 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -exclusion of ground predators improves northern lapwing vanellus vanellus chick survival,chick predation; electric fence; northern lapwing; multistate mark-recapture analysis; radiotracking; vanellus vanellus,IBIS,RICKENBACH O;GRUEBLER MU;SCHAUB M;KOLLER A;NAEF-DAENZER B;SCHIFFERLI L,"many farmland-breeding wader species have declined across europe, probably due to reductions in reproductive output caused by high nest losses as a result of agriculture or predation, or low chick survival between hatching and fledging. most studies have focused on nest failures, and the factors affecting post-hatching survival of chicks are poorly known. in an experimental approach, we fenced parts of the arable foraging areas of northern lapwing vanellus vanellus families to quantify chick survival simultaneously in the presence and absence of ground predators. lapwing chicks were radiotagged to estimate survival probabilities by daily locations, applying multistate capture-recapture models. during the night, chick survival was considerably lower outside fenced plots than within. during the day, chick survival was higher than at night and did not differ between protected and unprotected plots. this suggests that nocturnal ground predators such as red foxes vulpes vulpes were responsible for a significant proportion of chick mortality. cumulative survival probability from hatching to fledging was 0.24 in chicks within fenced plots, but virtually zero in chicks outside fenced plots. in farmland, temporary electric fences can be effective in minimizing the impact of ground predators and offer a promising short-term method to increase fledging success of precocial birds." +exclusion of ground predators improves northern lapwing vanellus vanellus chick survival,chick predation; electric fence; northern lapwing; multistate mark-recapture analysis; radiotracking; vanellus vanellus,IBIS,RICKENBACH O;GRUEBLER MU;SCHAUB M;KOLLER A;NAEF DAENZER B;SCHIFFERLI L,"many farmland-breeding wader species have declined across europe, probably due to reductions in reproductive output caused by high nest losses as a result of agriculture or predation, or low chick survival between hatching and fledging. most studies have focused on nest failures, and the factors affecting post-hatching survival of chicks are poorly known. in an experimental approach, we fenced parts of the arable foraging areas of northern lapwing vanellus vanellus families to quantify chick survival simultaneously in the presence and absence of ground predators. lapwing chicks were radiotagged to estimate survival probabilities by daily locations, applying multistate capture-recapture models. during the night, chick survival was considerably lower outside fenced plots than within. during the day, chick survival was higher than at night and did not differ between protected and unprotected plots. this suggests that nocturnal ground predators such as red foxes vulpes vulpes were responsible for a significant proportion of chick mortality. cumulative survival probability from hatching to fledging was 0.24 in chicks within fenced plots, but virtually zero in chicks outside fenced plots. in farmland, temporary electric fences can be effective in minimizing the impact of ground predators and offer a promising short-term method to increase fledging success of precocial birds." how big is the lyme problem? using novel methods to estimate the true number of lyme disease cases in british columbia residents from 1997 to 2008,borrelia burgdorferi; capture-recapture; epidemiology; ixodes pacificus; lyme disease,VECTOR-BORNE AND ZOONOTIC DISEASES,HENRY B;ROTH D;REILLY R;MACDOUGALL L;MAK S;LI M;MUHAMAD M,"lyme disease (ld) is rare in british columbia (bc) and, despite being a reportable condition since 1994, may be underreported. here we review all provincial laboratory and clinical databases to determine the number of ld cases reported in bc from 1997 to 2008. we analyzed demographic characteristics of ld cases and used capture-recapture methodology to estimate the true number of cases in bc for this period. from 1997 to 2008, 93 confirmed cases of ld were reported in bc. conservative capture-recapture estimates place the true number of ld cases in bc during this period at 142 (95% confidence interval: 111-224), indicating up to 40% underreporting of this rare disease. despite this underreporting, bc continues to have low endemic risk of ld. strategies are needed to increase both physician awareness and the use of preventive measures in the bc population, including for those traveling to other endemic areas." multistate mark-recapture analysis reveals no effect of blood sampling on survival and recapture of eastern kingbirds (tyrannus tyrannus),blood sampling; detectability; eastern kingbird; mark-recapture; multistate model; survival; tyrannus tyrannus,AUK,REDMOND LJ;MURPHY MT,"the experimentally supported and prevailing opinion is that blood sampling has few to no long-term effects on survival of birds when conducted properly, and blood sampling has become a vital addition to the toolbox of many ornithologists. however, many of the studies that concluded that blood sampling had negligible effects on birds used approaches that did not account for temporary emigration and probability of capture. to date, the only study to have done so found that blood sampling had a strong negative effect on survival. we conducted a mark recapture analysis of 8 years of banding and bleeding data on eastern kingbirds (tyrannus tyrannus) to determine whether survival was negatively influenced by blood sampling. our analyses adjusted for temporary emigration and probability of recapture and accounted for (1) transitions between the bled and the nonbled state and (2) a change in protocol roughly midway through the study that resulted in a change from single to often multiple (and larger) draws of blood per year from single individuals. we found that survival rates of nonbled (0.61) and bled (0.67) males were statistically indistinguishable and that bled females had a higher probability of survival than nonbled females (0.68 and 0.58, respectively). the change to larger and more frequent blood samples was also not associated with a change in survival. our data show that when accepted protocols were followed, blood sampling had no detectable influence on the survival of adult eastern kingbirds. whether this applies generally awaits analyses using similarly rigorous methods on other species. received 29 december 2010, accepted 30 march 2011." "demography of acanthochelys spixii (testudines, chelidae) in the brazilian cerrado",reptilia; testudines; chelidae; acanthochelys spixii; freshwater turtle; demography; mark-recapture; survivorship; brazil; cerrado,CHELONIAN CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,NETO HJF;BRASIL MA;HORTA GD;BARROS TO;FALCON GB;COLLI GR,"we estimated demographic parameters for acanthochelys spixii in parque nacional de brasilia, distrito federal, brazil, based on 4 years of data collection, and also analyzed the effects of sex, temporal variation, and climatic factors on population dynamics. the adult sex ratio did not vary significantly from 1:1. by using the akaike's information criterion, selection of candidate models constrained for climatic variables indicated that the interaction between total rainfall and average air temperature from the previous month as well as recapture probability (p) on a monthly basis explained most variation in demographic parameters, with a constant annual apparent survival (phi) value of 0.82. recapture rates during the study period varied from 0.01 to 0.23 and, during the dry season, from 0.01 to 0.04. the monthly average population size was 30 adult turtles, with values between 10 and 35 adults over 4 years. the annual population growth rates were 1.37 for 2005-2006 and 0.59 for 2006-2007. the small population size of acanthochelys spixii seems characteristic of chelids in the area, and maintaining it depends on preserving natural ecosystems inside parque nacional de brasilia." @@ -3988,7 +3995,7 @@ estimation of short-term tag-induced mortality in horseshoe crabs limulus polyph an extension of chao's estimator of population size based on the first three capture frequency counts,estimation of population size; capture-recapture methods; horvitz-thompson estimator; chaos estimator; homogeneous and heterogeneous poisson models; negative binomial,COMPUTATIONAL STATISTICS & DATA ANALYSIS,LANUMTEANG K;BOHNING D,"a new estimator for estimating the size of an elusive target population is presented using frequency counts from capture-recapture sampling. the proposed estimator is developed by extending the idea of chaos estimator using monotonicity of ratios of neighbouring frequency counts under a specific poisson mixture sampling framework, the poisson-gamma mixture or negative binomial. the new estimator is achieved using a simple linear model on the basis of the log-ratio of neighbouring frequency counts as dependent variable which is valid under the poisson-gamma mixture. a simulation study is provided to study the performance of the proposed estimator under a variety of heterogeneous poisson capture probabilities. confidence interval estimation is done by means of an approximating normal approach and a modified bootstrap method, and was found to perform well. a variety of real data sets were also examined in order to illustrate the use of the proposed method. (c) 2011 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." demography and dispersal ability of a threatened saproxylic beetle: a mark-recapture study of the rosalia longicorn (rosalia alpina),NA,PLOS ONE,DRAG L;HAUCK D;POKLUDA P;ZIMMERMANN K;CIZEK L,"the rosalia longicorn or alpine longhorn (coleoptera: cerambycidae) is an endangered and strictly protected icon of european saproxylic biodiversity. despite its popularity, lack of information on its demography and mobility may compromise adoption of suitable conservation strategies. the beetle experienced marked retreat from nw part of its range; its single population survives n of the alps and w of the carpathians. the population inhabits several small patches of old beech forest on hill-tops of the ralska upland, czech republic. we performed mark-recapture study of the population and assessed its distribution pattern. our results demonstrate the high mobility of the beetle, including dispersal between hills (up to 1.6 km). the system is thus interconnected; it contained similar to 2000 adult beetles in 2008. estimated population densities were high, ranging between 42 and 84 adult beetles/hectare a year. the population survives at a former military-training ground despite long-term isolation and low cover of mature beech forest (similar to 1%). its survival could be attributed to lack of forestry activities between the 1950s and 1990s, slow succession preventing canopy closure and undergrowth expansion, and probably also to the distribution of habitat patches on conspicuous hill-tops. in order to increase chances of the population for long term survival, we propose to stop clear-cuts of old beech forests, increase semi-open beech woodlands in areas currently covered by conifer plantations and active habitat management at inhabited sites and their wider environs." theory put into practice: an r implementation of the infinite-dimensional model,evolution; function valued trait; infinite-dimensional model; growth trajectory; phenotypic variation; selection,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,KUPARINEN A;BYORKLUND M,"the infinite dimensional model (idm) is an approach that has been developed for the analyses of phenotypic variation in function valued traits such as growth trajectories and continuous reaction norms. this model is particularly suited for the analysis of the potential and the constraints for growth to evolve under selection on body size. despite of its applicability to a broad range of study systems idm has only been applied in a handful of studies, as it is mathematically demanding for scientists not familiar with quantitative genetics methods. here, we present a user-friendly r implementation of idm, demonstrate its performance with growth data on nine-spined stickleback (pungitius pungitius). in addition to rearing experiments, individual based size-at-age trajectories are often measured in wild in mark-recapture studies or estimated retrospectively from scales or bones. therefore, our r implementation of idm should be applicable to many studies conducted in wild and in a lab, and be useful by making the methodologically challenging idm approach more easily accessible also in the fields where quantitative genetics methods are less standardly used. (c) 2011 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -how many men who have sex with men and female sex workers live in el salvador? using respondent-driven sampling and capture-recapture to estimate population sizes,NA,SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED INFECTIONS,PAZ-BAILEY G;JACOBSON JO;GUARDADO ME;HERNANDEZ FM;NIETO AI;ESTRADA M;CRESWELL J,"objective to estimate the numbers of female sex workers (fsw) and men who have sex with men (msm) in san salvador, el salvador. design and methods a capture-recapture exercise was conducted among msm and fsw in san salvador in 2008. the first capture was done by distributing key chains to both msm and fsw populations through local non-governmental organizations (ngo) that work with these groups. the second capture was done during the course of an integrated behavioural and biological survey (ibbs) using respondent-driven sampling (rds). the proportion receiving a key chain estimated from the ibbs study was adjusted by rds-derived weights. results the first capture included 400 fsw and 400 msm. of the 624 msm interviewed in the ibbs, 36 (5.8% crude; 3.2% adjusted rds) had received the key chain. the estimated population size of msm in san salvador was 12 480 (95% ci 7235 to 17 725). of the 663 fsw interviewed in the ibbs, 39 (5.9% crude; 6.9% adjusted rds) had received the key chain. the estimated number of fsw was 5765 (95% ci 4253 to 7277). conclusions the capture-recapture exercise was successfully linked to an ibbs to obtain city-level population sizes for msm and fsw, providing valuable information at a low cost. size estimates are crucial for programme planning for national aids programmes, ngos and stakeholders working with these populations and for hiv projection models." +how many men who have sex with men and female sex workers live in el salvador? using respondent-driven sampling and capture-recapture to estimate population sizes,NA,SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED INFECTIONS,PAZ BAILEY G;JACOBSON JO;GUARDADO ME;HERNANDEZ FM;NIETO AI;ESTRADA M;CRESWELL J,"objective to estimate the numbers of female sex workers (fsw) and men who have sex with men (msm) in san salvador, el salvador. design and methods a capture-recapture exercise was conducted among msm and fsw in san salvador in 2008. the first capture was done by distributing key chains to both msm and fsw populations through local non-governmental organizations (ngo) that work with these groups. the second capture was done during the course of an integrated behavioural and biological survey (ibbs) using respondent-driven sampling (rds). the proportion receiving a key chain estimated from the ibbs study was adjusted by rds-derived weights. results the first capture included 400 fsw and 400 msm. of the 624 msm interviewed in the ibbs, 36 (5.8% crude; 3.2% adjusted rds) had received the key chain. the estimated population size of msm in san salvador was 12 480 (95% ci 7235 to 17 725). of the 663 fsw interviewed in the ibbs, 39 (5.9% crude; 6.9% adjusted rds) had received the key chain. the estimated number of fsw was 5765 (95% ci 4253 to 7277). conclusions the capture-recapture exercise was successfully linked to an ibbs to obtain city-level population sizes for msm and fsw, providing valuable information at a low cost. size estimates are crucial for programme planning for national aids programmes, ngos and stakeholders working with these populations and for hiv projection models." effects of environmental variability and breeding experience on northern elephant seal demography,climate; el nino; el nino-southern oscillation (enso); mammal; mirounga angustirostris; phocidae; reproductive success; survival,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LEE DE,"demographic rates of animals (i.e., survival and breeding success) generally increase with experience early in life, but temporal variation in the effect of experience on demography is not well understood. the demographic difference between inexperienced versus experienced breeders can be accentuated during poor environmental conditions when food is scarce, or the difference can remain constant regardless of environmental fluctuation. i tested the hypothesis that environmental variation accentuates the difference between inexperienced and experienced breeders using 20 years of capture mark recapture data for northern elephant seals (mirounga angustirostris) from the farallon islands, california. i estimated year-specific survival probabilities, breeding propensity (the probability that an individual will breed in year x), and breeding success of primiparous (inexperienced) and multiparous (experienced) females. primiparous breeders did not suffer more than experienced breeders during years of environmental stress. the selection hypothesis (a decrease in heterogeneity in individual quality within cohorts over time, based on selection pressure) could explain the experience-related improvement in survival and breeding success. lower variances in survival of multiparous breeders suggest that primiparous adults constitute a more heterogeneous portion of the population, and the 1st breeding event might act as a selective process leading to a more homogeneous pool of multiparous breeders." "diet of an opportunistically frugivorous carnivore, martes flavigula, in subtropical forest",china; diet; food-resource exploitation; frugivory; marten; manes flavigula; subtropical forest; switching,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,ZHOU YB;NEWMAN C;BUESCHING CD;ZALEWSKI A;KANEKO Y;MACDONALD DW;XIE ZQ,"in response to foraging for foods that fluctuate in availability, generalists often exhibit the ability to switch between different food sources. many of the carnivora on an omnivorous frugivorous diet display temporal dietary switching and specialism, but the mechanisms underlying this are incompletely understood. here we studied the diet of the opportunistically frugivorous yellow-throated marten (manes flavigula) with regard to food-resource exploitation in a subtropical forest of central china. diet was determined through scat analyses combined with surveys to estimate local food abundance. peak fruit consumption and the lowest utilization of small mammals occurred when fruit abundance reached its temporal maximum in the environment in synchrony with a concomitant peak in small mammal abundance. when both fruits and small mammals were least abundant in the environment, the marten's diet shifted to the maximum utilization of small mammals with no fruit consumption. this dietary switching could not be explained by the fluctuation in the abundance of principal prey in the environment, that is, small mammals, but by the ease of procurement of fruit at peak fruiting season. the marten's diet thus does not simply reflect primary resource abundance but is a function of the relative abundance and inferred availability of alternative food types. this case study of the yellow-throated marten provides insight into foraging strategies that depend on the relative, temporal availability of food types, a phenomenon observed for other generalist omnivores (including several carnivora)." population status of the eastern hellbender (cryptobranchus alleganiensis alleganiensis) in indiana,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,BURGMEIER NG;UNGER SD;SUTTON TM;WILLIAMS RN,"studies that assess current and historical population densities accurately provide valuable information for management of wildlife species, particularly those in need of immediate conservation concern. the eastern hellbender (cryptobranchus alleganiensis alleganiensis) has experienced drastic declines throughout its range during the previous few decades. this study documents its continued decline over the past 25 years in the last known remaining population in southern indiana. we conducted mark recapture surveys from june 2008 to october 2008 and july 2009 to september 2009 at 35 sites. despite a considerable increase in effort over previous surveys, we documented fewer total captures and extremely low population densities. density was estimated at 0.06 individuals/100 m(2), and catch per unit effort was 0.05 individuals/person hour throughout the entire study area. this represents not only a significant decline in numbers from the historical study, but also is well below that reported for populations throughout the species' range. sex ratios were skewed significantly toward males (2.6 males : 1 female). no subadults or larvae were found, and only two nests were located. this population consists almost exclusively of large, older-age class individuals that show limited signs of reproduction." @@ -3998,7 +4005,7 @@ population size estimation based upon ratios of recapture probabilities,chao-bun "distribution, abundance, and movements of the bottlenose dolphin (tursiops truncatus) in the pelagos sanctuary mpa (north-west mediterranean sea)",tursiops truncatus; bottlenose dolphin; pelagos sanctuary; mediterranean sea; abundance; protection,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,GNONE G;BELLINGERI M;DHERMAIN F;DUPRAZ F;NUTI S;BEDOCCHI D;MOULINS A;ROSSO M;ALESSI J;MCCREA RS;AZZELLINO A;AIROLDI S;PORTUNATO N;LARAN S;DAVID L;DI MEGLIO N;BONELLI P;MONTESI G;TRUCCHI R;FOSSA F;WURTZ M,"1. the pelagos sanctuary is the largest marine protected area of the mediterranean sea (87 500 km(2)), and is located in the north-west part of the basin. the presence of the bottlenose dolphin in this area is well documented but its distribution and abundance are not well known. 2. the present study collected and analysed data from 10 different research groups operating in the pelagos sanctuary from 1994 to 2007. photo-identification data were used to analyse the displacement behaviour of the dolphins and to estimate their abundance through mark-recapture modelling. 3. results show that the distribution of bottlenose dolphin is confined to the continental shelf within the 200 m isobath, with a preference for shallow waters of less than 100 m depth. 4. bottlenose dolphins seem to be more densely present in the eastern part of the sanctuary and along the north-west coast of corsica. 5. bottlenose dolphins show a residential attitude with excursions usually within a distance of 80 km (50 km on average). a few dolphins exhibit more wide-ranging journeys, travelling up to 427 km between sub-areas. 6. the displacement analysis identified two (sub)populations of bottlenose dolphins, one centred on the eastern part of the sanctuary and the other one around the west coast of corsica. 7. in 2006, the eastern (sub)population was estimated to comprise 510-552 individuals, while 368-429 individuals were estimated in the corsican (sub)population. it was estimated that in total, 884-1023 bottlenose dolphins were living in the pelagos sanctuary mpa in the same year. 8. the designation of a number of special areas of conservation (sacs) under the habitats directive is discussed as a possible tool to protect the bottlenose dolphin in the pelagos sanctuary and in the whole of the mediterranean sea. copyright (c) 2011 john wiley & sons, ltd." evaluation of mass trapping and mating disruption for managing prionus californicus (coleoptera: cerambycidae) in hop production yards,"pest management; pheromone; 3,5-dimethyldodecanoic acid",JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY,MAKI EC;MILLAR JG;RODSTEIN J;HANKS LM;BARBOUR JD,"larvae of prionus californicus motschulsky (coleoptera: cerambycidae) feed on the roots of many types of woody perennial crops and are serious pests of hop in the northwestern united states. the adult males are strongly attracted to a volatile sex pheromone, (3r,5s)-3,5-dimethyldodecanoic acid, that is produced by females. here, we summarize the results of field experiments that evaluated the potential for using the synthetic pheromone (in a blend of all four possible stereoisomers) to manage infestations of p. californicus in commercial hop yards by mass trapping or mating disruption. our research provides evidence that mass trapping may be effective in reducing mating success of the females: positioning surrogate females (sentinel traps baited with a low dose of pheromone) within a square of eight pheromone-baited traps resulted in an 88% reduction in the number of wild males that reached the sentinel traps compared with sentinel traps that were surrounded by traps baited with blank lures. similarly, surrogate females that were surrounded by pheromone lures (without traps) were reached by 84% fewer wild males than surrogate females surrounded by blank lures, suggesting that mating disruption also may be effective. a mark-recapture experiment indicated that male p. californicus were attracted to traps baited with 1 mg of pheromone from as far away as 585 m. these studies indicate that 3,5-dimethyldodecanoic acid has very good potential for managing p. californicus in hop yards, and perhaps in other crops where it is a pest." "abundance, demography and population structure of pelophylax ridibundus (anura: ranidae) in 26-august national park (turkey)",pelophylax ridibundus; population size; skeletochronology; reproduction,NORTH-WESTERN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,ERISMIS UC,"demography and population structure aspects of the eurasian marsh frog pelophylax ridibundus were studied in 26-august national park (turkey) for a duration of four years (2005-2008). the mark-recapture study showed that population size varied from year to year, and declined more than threefold in 2005 in comparison with the preceding years. sexual maturity was reached at 2 years of age in males and at 3 years in females. the mean age of male and female frogs were 4.82 +/- 1.08 and 5.73 +/- 1.06 years. the growth was rapid during the early years in both sexes, and tended to slow down substantially when they reached 1-2 years for males, and 2-3 years for females. there was a significant positive corelation between svl of female and males in amplexus (r=0.71, df=21, p<0.001). the minimum and maximum recorded values of egg number were 1255 eggs for a three-year old frog with a svl of 62.48 mm and 2610 eggs for an eight-year old frog with a 98.46 mm of svl. the mean +/- sd of the eggs diameter calculated in 1.62 +/- 0.49 mm, varied from 1.30 mm to 2.55 mm." -"population size effects on the behaviour of libellula fulva (odonata: libellulidae) males, a five year study",mark-resight; population size; intraspecific fight; mating success; odonata,NORTH-WESTERN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,"NAGY HB;LASZLO Z;KOVER S;SZALLASSY N;DEVAI G","we tested the hypothesis that population density alters male territorial and mating behaviour of dragonflies. we predicted that males at higher densities fight more and mate less. during five years we studied two libellula fulva populations along two small lowland creeks in east hungary. using mark-resight method we marked a total number of 1454 dragonfly males. our results show that on the two study sites there were different population densities. at higher population densities the number of matings per male decreased, but population size had no effect on the frequency of intraspecific fights. however, the long run study showed remarkable difference from the outcome of partial analyzes which underlines the importance of studies overtaken through several years." +"population size effects on the behaviour of libellula fulva (odonata: libellulidae) males, a five year study",mark-resight; population size; intraspecific fight; mating success; odonata,NORTH-WESTERN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,NAGY HB;LASZLO Z;KOVER S;SZALLASSY N;DEVAI G,"we tested the hypothesis that population density alters male territorial and mating behaviour of dragonflies. we predicted that males at higher densities fight more and mate less. during five years we studied two libellula fulva populations along two small lowland creeks in east hungary. using mark-resight method we marked a total number of 1454 dragonfly males. our results show that on the two study sites there were different population densities. at higher population densities the number of matings per male decreased, but population size had no effect on the frequency of intraspecific fights. however, the long run study showed remarkable difference from the outcome of partial analyzes which underlines the importance of studies overtaken through several years." estimating population size and trends of the swedish brown bear ursus arctos population,brown bear; dna; faeces; genetic; monitoring; observations; population size; survey; ursus arctos; volunteers,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,KINDBERG J;SWENSON JE;ERICSSON G;BELLEMAIN E;MIQUEL C;TABERLET P,"estimating population size and trends are key issues in the conservation and management of large carnivores. the rebounding brown bear ursus arctos population in sweden is monitored by two different systems, both relying on voluntary resources. population estimates have been calculated using capture-mark-recapture methods, based on dna-based scat surveys in five of the six swedish counties with established bear populations. a total of 1,358 genotypes were identified using dna extracted from collected scats. an independent ongoing programme, the large carnivore observation index (lcoi), was initiated in 1998. the lcoi uses effort-corrected observations of bears by moose alces alces hunters during the moose hunt (> 2 million observation hours/year) and has shown a good correlation with relative population density of bears using the dna-based method. from this, we have calculated population trends during the period 1998-2007. using an exponential model, we estimated the yearly increase in the bear population to be 4.5% at the national level, varying between 0 and 10.2% in different counties. we used the regional population estimates and the trends from the lcoi, taking the variation from both systems into account using parametric bootstrapping, to calculate the regional as well as the national population size in sweden in fall 2008. in one case (the northernmost county; norrbotten) a dna-scat survey was lacking, so we used assumptions based on data from the neighbouring county to estimate population size. we estimated the swedish brown bear population to be 3,298 individuals (2,9683,667; 95% confidence intervals) in 2008. our results suggest that reliable information, necessary for the management of the brown bear population can be obtained from volunteers using standardised methods." life history benefits of residency in a partially migrating pond-breeding amphibian,breeding probability; capture-recapture; life history trade-offs; migration phenology; multistate mark-recapture; notophthalmus viridescens; partial migration; red-spotted newts; skipping reproduction; survival,ECOLOGY,GRAYSON KL;BAILEY LL;WILBUR HM,"species with partial migration, where a portion of a population migrates and the other remains residential, provide the opportunity to evaluate conditions for migration and test mechanisms influencing migratory decisions. we conducted a five-year study of two populations of red-spotted newts (notophthalmus viridescens), composed of individuals that either remain as residents in the breeding pond over the winter or migrate to the terrestrial habitat. we used multistate mark-recapture methods to (1) test for differences in survival probability between migrants and residents, (2) determine if migrants breed every year or skip opportunities for reproduction, and (3) estimate the frequency of individuals switching migratory tactic. we used estimates of life history parameters from the natural populations in combination with previous experimental work to evaluate processes maintaining partial migration at the population level and to assess mechanisms influencing the decision to migrate. based on capture-recapture information on over 3000 individuals, we found that newts can switch migratory tactics over their lifetime. we conclude that migrants and residents coexist through conditional asymmetries, with residents having higher fitness and inferior individuals adopting the migrant tactic. we found that newts are more likely to switch from residency to migrating than the reverse and males were more likely to remain as residents. migration differences between the sexes are likely driven by reproduction benefits of residency for males and high energetic costs of breeding resulting in lower breeding frequencies for females. environmental conditions also influence partial migration within a population; we found support for density-dependent processes in the pond strongly influencing the probability of migrating. our work illustrates how migration can be influenced by a complex range of individual and environmental factors and enhances our understanding of the conditions necessary for the evolution and maintenance of partial migration within populations." "artificial nests as an alternative to studies of arboreal small mammal populations: a five-year study in the atlantic forest, brazil",didelphidae; mark-recapture; live trapping; population dynamics; marsupials,ZOOLOGIA,LORETTO D;VIEIRA MV,"despite the great diversity of brazilian atlantic forest small mammals, natural history of most species is unknown due to their cryptic and nocturnal habits, but also due to the inadequacy of methods to capture some species, especially those of arboreal habits. a new technique, based on the use of artificial nests (an) to record arboreal marsupials, is presented. artificial nests were combined with traditional live traps to study the population ecology of four didelphid marsupial species. after 62 months of monitoring, 119 individuals were recorded 243 times (total success = 5.2%). only 26 individuals (22%) were recorded by both an and live trap methods, and two of the four species were never captured by live traps, only by an. live traps alone would have provided biased data of the structure of small mammal assemblages, creating artificial tendencies in population dynamics of many species. detectability estimates based on mark-recapture data could correct bias resulting from the use only live traps, but these estimates require that at least some individuals of each age class or stage are captured. only the combination of an and live traps can produce more accurate data on population dynamics and assemblage structure. this study demonstrates that artificial nests represent a new method that should be combined with live traps in studies of small mammal assemblages and populations." @@ -4010,7 +4017,7 @@ diet and fuelling of the globally threatened aquatic warbler at autumn migration video tracking in the extreme: a new possibility for tracking nocturnal underwater transparent animals with fluorescent elastomer tags,multitracking; vie tags; fish; anguilla anguilla glass eels; migration; swimming behavior; motion analysis,BEHAVIOR RESEARCH METHODS,DELCOURT J;YLIEFF M;BOLLIET V;PONCIN P;BARDONNET A,"initially developed so that an individual could be recognized in mark-recapture studies of aquatic animals, fluorescent visible implant elastomer (vie) tags are used here for a new application in ethometry: the study of the behavior of transparent animals in dim light or in darkness using automatic tracking technology. the application and validation of this multitracking method is tested in the context of research on the estuarine migratory behavior of the glass eel (anguilla anguilla), a crucial point to better understand the dynamics of this endangered species. the method makes it possible to measure the activity (notably the distance and speed) of four individuals as a function of tidal and nycthemeral rhythms in the same flume (a circular aquarium simulating river or estuarine conditions) across a wide time scale (from seconds to weeks)." estimating demographic parameters for capture-recapture data in the presence of multiple mark types,mark-recapture; mark-loss; halichoerus grypus; multiple mark types; integrated analysis,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,SMOUT S;KING R;POMEROY P,"in mark-recapture studies, various techniques can be used to uniquely identify individual animals, such as ringing, tagging or photo-identification using natural markings. in some long-term studies more than one type of marking procedure may be implemented during the study period. in these circumstances, ignoring the different mark types can produce biased survival estimates since the assumption that the different mark types are equally catchable (homogeneous capture probability across mark types) may be incorrect. we implement an integrated approach where we simultaneously analyse data obtained using three different marking techniques, assuming that animals can be cross-classified across the different mark types. we discriminate between competing models using the aic statistic. this technique also allows us to estimate both relative mark-loss probabilities and relative recapture efficiency rates for the different marking methods. we initially perform a simulation study to explore the different biases that can be introduced if we assume a homogeneous recapture probability over mark type, before applying the method to a real dataset. we make use of data obtained from an intensive long-term observational study of uk female grey seals (halichoerus grypus) at a single breeding colony, where three different methods are used to identify individuals within a single study: branding, tagging and photo-identification based on seal coat pattern or pelage." "validation of annual periodicity in otoliths of red snapper, lutjanus campechanus",otolith aging; mark-recapture; growth rate; opaque zones,ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY OF FISHES,SZEDLMAYER ST;BEYER SG,"the periodicity of otolith growth increments (opaque and translucent zones) from adult red snapper (lutjanus campechanus) was examined through a mark and recapture study (2005-2010), and laboratory holding of hatchery reared red snapper over a 2 year period (2002-2004). wild red snapper (n = 295) were caught hook-and-line, marked with anchor tags, injected with oxytetracycline dihydrate (otc), and released in the gulf of mexico 15-40 km south of dauphin island, alabama. marked fish were recaptured up to 2.8 years after release (n = 35) and sagittal otoliths were dissected, sectioned and examined under white and blue-violet light. the number of opaque growth zones past the otc mark was compared to time at liberty for each fish and supported an annual periodicity of growth increment formation. also, most (87%) of the hatchery reared fish showed two opaque zones that supported an annual increment formation rate. however, an unusual timing of opaque zone formation was shown for mark-recaptured fish. based on known timing of otc marking, otoliths from mark-recapture fish showed opaque zone formation from late summer (august) to early winter (december). this fall formation of opaque zones is in contrast to previous studies and its timing may relate to the end of spawning for this species." -using molecular and observational techniques to estimate the number and raiding patterns of crop-raiding elephants,habitual behaviour; males; molecular censusing; wildlife-human conflict,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,CHIYO PI;MOSS CJ;ARCHIE EA;HOLLISTER-SMITH JA;ALBERTS SC,"p>1. conflict between humans and animals, generated by behaviours like crop raiding, can represent a major threat to the survival and conservation of protected species. crop raiding is an example where the conflict is assumed to be attributable to a small number of habitually raiding animals. no studies have systematically tested this assumption on african elephants loxodonta africana. 2. in the greater amboseli basin, in southern kenya, we determined the number of elephants that come into conflict with humans through crop raiding, their gender, and their patterns of raiding. we tracked footprints, and observed elephants after they raided farms, and genotyped dna extracted from faeces collected from raided farms. using these data, we estimated the number of raiders with asymptotic regression and count models. 3. we found that 241 elephants from several elephant populations in the amboseli basin raided farms. raiders were independent males; we detected no females raiding crops. approximately 35% of the raiders were from the amboseli elephant population, representing about 1/3 of the independent males in that population. approximately 12% of raiders from the amboseli elephant population were habitual and were responsible for 56% of elephant raiding events. 4. synthesis and applications. our results suggest that targeted elimination of habitual raiders could in theory reduce crop raiding. however, the large pool of occasional raiders, the availability of palatable crops in areas of conflict, and the link between crop-raiding and natural male foraging tactics, indicates great potential for recruitment of habitual raiders from this pool of occasional raiders. furthermore, shooting of raiders as a strategy for reducing crop raiding carries a high risk of misidentifying habitual raiders. we suggest instead an ethical management strategy that uses remote monitoring of raiders as an early warning system for crop protection, and longitudinal studies to evaluate the development of habitual raiding." +using molecular and observational techniques to estimate the number and raiding patterns of crop-raiding elephants,habitual behaviour; males; molecular censusing; wildlife-human conflict,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,CHIYO PI;MOSS CJ;ARCHIE EA;HOLLISTER SMITH JA;ALBERTS SC,"p>1. conflict between humans and animals, generated by behaviours like crop raiding, can represent a major threat to the survival and conservation of protected species. crop raiding is an example where the conflict is assumed to be attributable to a small number of habitually raiding animals. no studies have systematically tested this assumption on african elephants loxodonta africana. 2. in the greater amboseli basin, in southern kenya, we determined the number of elephants that come into conflict with humans through crop raiding, their gender, and their patterns of raiding. we tracked footprints, and observed elephants after they raided farms, and genotyped dna extracted from faeces collected from raided farms. using these data, we estimated the number of raiders with asymptotic regression and count models. 3. we found that 241 elephants from several elephant populations in the amboseli basin raided farms. raiders were independent males; we detected no females raiding crops. approximately 35% of the raiders were from the amboseli elephant population, representing about 1/3 of the independent males in that population. approximately 12% of raiders from the amboseli elephant population were habitual and were responsible for 56% of elephant raiding events. 4. synthesis and applications. our results suggest that targeted elimination of habitual raiders could in theory reduce crop raiding. however, the large pool of occasional raiders, the availability of palatable crops in areas of conflict, and the link between crop-raiding and natural male foraging tactics, indicates great potential for recruitment of habitual raiders from this pool of occasional raiders. furthermore, shooting of raiders as a strategy for reducing crop raiding carries a high risk of misidentifying habitual raiders. we suggest instead an ethical management strategy that uses remote monitoring of raiders as an early warning system for crop protection, and longitudinal studies to evaluate the development of habitual raiding." diagnosing the timing of demographic bottlenecks: sub-adult survival in red-billed choughs,apparent survival probability; capture-mark-recapture; conservation ecology; declining population; demographic variation; mortality,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,REID JM;BIGNAL EM;BIGNAL S;BOGDANOVA MI;MONAGHAN P;MCCRACKEN DI,"p>1. determining the precise timing and location of major demographic bottlenecks, such as periods of low survival, is key to identifying ecological causes of variation in population growth rate. such understanding is key to designing efficient and effective mitigation. 2. in a protected population of red-billed chough pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax on islay, scotland, variation in population growth rate largely reflects among-year variation in first-year survival. first-year survival was unprecedentedly low during 2007-2010, threatening population viability. 3. we used colour-ring resightings to estimate monthly survival probabilities (theta(m)) throughout the first year from fledging for eight chough cohorts (totalling 519 individuals) representing the full observed range of variation in first-year survival. we thereby identify the time and location of recent low survival. 4. on average across all cohorts, theta(m) varied among months, being low during the first month after ringing (may-june, accounting for c. 24% of all first-year mortality) and high during the last 4 months of the first year (january-may, accounting for c. 6% of all first-year mortality). most mortality (c. 70%) occurred after fledglings dispersed from natal territories. 5. the 2007-2009 cohorts experienced low theta(m) during july-december. this represents an additional low survival period compared to previous cohorts rather than decreased theta(m) across all months or further decreases through periods when theta(m) was low across all cohorts. 6. synthesis and applications. these data have general relevance in showing that dramatically low annual survival, which needs to spark rapid management action, can reflect different and unanticipated periods of low survival rather than exaggeration of typical variation. with specific regard to conserving islay's chough population, our data show that sub-adult survival has recently been low during july-december, probably reflecting conditions on key grassland foraging areas. managers aiming to increase population viability should increase invertebrate diversity, abundance and availability at these times and locations, thereby increasing foraging options available to choughs." responses of leopard panthera pardus to the recovery of a tiger panthera tigris population,diet shift; food habits; intra-guild competition; spatial capture-recapture; sympatric large carnivores; terai-arc landscape; ungulate population,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,HARIHAR A;PANDAV B;GOYAL SP,"p>1. several conservation initiatives are aiming to improve the status of the rapidly dwindling populations of tiger panthera tigris. however, possible cascading effects of intra-guild competition on other sympatric carnivores are rarely considered while planning such recovery programmes. 2. in this study, we examine how, following the reduction of anthropogenic pressures by relocation of pastoralists, a recovering tiger population affects leopards panthera pardus in the chilla range of rajaji national park (rnp), india. by combining data gathered over 4 years (2004-2005 to 2007-2008) on prey availability, food habits and population density of the two predators, we investigate some of the mechanisms of niche partitioning. 3. based on existing information, we predicted that there would be high dietary overlap between the two predators. over time, optimal habitats would be dominated by tigers forcing leopards to the periphery of the protected area where they would subsist on small prey and domestic livestock. consequently, leopards would occur at a lower density where sympatric with tigers. 4. our results confirmed that annual dietary overlap (0 center dot 89, 0 center dot 82, 0 center dot 78, 0 center dot 77) between the two predators was high during the study. as expected, we observed a shift in the diet of leopards towards a significantly higher intake of domestic prey (similar to 6 center dot 8% to similar to 31 center dot 8%) and small prey (similar to 9% to similar to 36%). mean leopard density declined from 9 center dot 76 animals per 100 km2 in 2004-2005 to 2 center dot 07 per 100 km2 in 2007-2008, while the mean density of tigers increased from 3 center dot 31 per 100 km2 to 5 center dot 81 per 100 km2 over the same period. 5. synthesis and applications. although based on small sample sizes, our study revealed that over the 4 years following the relocation of pastoralists out of rnp, the tiger population recovered but leopard densities declined sharply. the concurrent shift in leopard diet indicated heightened livestock depredation from the surrounding area. therefore, it is important that conservation initiatives targeting the recovery of tigers should be preceded by careful examination of interspecific interactions with sympatric carnivores. comprehensive human-carnivore conflict management measures like monitoring the extent of livestock depredation, improving livestock management and providing adequate compensation and/or insurance schemes are critical for successfully implementing such conservation efforts." "long-term individual identification and site fidelity of white sharks, carcharodon carcharias, off california using dorsal fins",NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,ANDERSON SD;CHAPPLE TK;JORGENSEN SJ;KLIMLEY AP;BLOCK BA,"abstract mark-recapture techniques can be used to estimate white shark (carcharodon carcharias) population abundance. these frameworks are based on assumptions that marks are conserved and animals are present at the sampling location over the entire duration of the study. though these assumptions have been validated across short-time scales for white sharks, long-term studies of population trends are dependent on these assumptions being valid across longer periods. we use 22 years of photographic data from aggregation sites in central california to support the use of dorsal fin morphology as long-term individual identifiers. we identified five individuals over 16-22 years, which support the use of dorsal fins as long-time individual identifiers, illustrate strong yearly site fidelity to coastal aggregation sites across extended time periods (decades), and provide the first empirical validation of white shark longevity > 22 years. these findings support the use of fin morphology in mark-recapture frameworks for white sharks." @@ -4019,7 +4026,7 @@ a hierarchical bayesian approach to record linkage and population size problems, demographic consequences of migratory stopover: linking red knot survival to horseshoe crab spawning abundance,apparent survival; calidris canutus; limulus polyphemus; match/mismatch; migration carry-over effects; multistate models; robust design,ECOSPHERE,MCGOWAN CP;HINES JE;NICHOLS JD;LYONS JE;SMITH DR;KALASZ KS;NILES LJ;DEY AD;CLARK NA;ATKINSON PW;MINTON CDT;KENDALL W,"understanding how events during one period of the annual cycle carry over to affect survival and other fitness components in other periods is essential to understanding migratory bird demography and conservation needs. previous research has suggested that western atlantic red knot (calidris canutus rufa) populations are greatly affected by horseshoe crab (limulus polyphemus) egg availability at delaware bay stopover sites during their spring northward migration. we present a mass-based multistate, capture-recapture/resighting model linking (1) red knot stopover mass gain to horseshoe crab spawning abundance and (2) subsequent apparent annual survival to mass state at the time of departure from the delaware bay stopover area. the model and analysis use capture-recapture/resighting data with over 16,000 individual captures and 13,000 resightings collected in delaware bay over a 12 year period from 1997-2008, and the results are used to evaluate the central management hypothesis that red knot populations can be influenced by horseshoe crab harvest regulations as part of a larger adaptive management effort. model selection statistics showed support for a positive relationship between horseshoe crab spawning abundance during the stopover and the probability of red knots gaining mass (parameter coefficient from the top model (b) over cap = 1.71, (se) over cap = 0.46). our analyses also supported the link between red knot mass and apparent annual survival, although average estimates for the two mass classes differed only slightly. the addition of arctic snow depth as a covariate influencing apparent survival improved the fit of the data to the models (parameter coefficient from the top model (b) over cap = 0.50, (se) over cap = 0.08). our results indicate that managing horseshoe crab resources in the delaware bay has the potential to improve red knot population status." "noninvasive genetic monitoring of tiger (panthera tigris tigris) population of orang national park in the brahmaputra floodplain, assam, india",panthera tigris tigris; noninvasive genetics; population estimation; microsatellites; orang national park; assam; northeast india,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,BORTHAKUR U;BARMAN RD;DAS C;BASUMATARY A;TALUKDAR A;AHMED MF;TALUKDAR BK;BHARALI R,"the brahmaputra valley of assam, india, is one of the prime habitats for the endangered royal bengal tiger panthera tigris tigris. with dwindling global population, estimation of the minimum number of tigers has always been a curiosity to wildlife researchers as well as to protected area managers. in the present study, dna-based techniques were used for identifying individual tigers present in orang national park of assam, from 57 faecal samples collected during february 2009. orang national park stands as an island of a single forest patch along the north bank of river brahmaputra. the present study confirms the presence of 17 individual tigers in orang national park, with five male and 12 female. dna-based capture-recapture analysis yielded minimum range estimate of 18 and 19 individuals, with possible overestimates of population size following two models of capture probability in capwire. the results of our genetic counting of tigers are compared with the estimates of 19 tigers based on pugmark analysis by the state forest department in 2000 and an independent capture-recapture estimate of 14 (+/- 3.6) individuals based on photographic identity study in 2009. looking at high mortality of tigers in the area, with 19 reported deaths during 2000 to 2009, our results indicate high individual turnover in the area. this study shows that orang national park harbours a healthy breeding population of tigers. however, the possibility of a source-sink dynamics operating in the landscape could not be ruled out, with possible immigration from nearby kaziranga national park on the south bank of brahmaputra, which has the highest reported density of the species in the world." "demography of the san francisco gartersnake in coastal san mateo county, california",abundance; bayesian analysis; california; jolly-seber model; population trend; san francisco gartersnake; snake; survival; thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia,JOURNAL OF FISH AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HALSTEAD BJ;WYLIE GD;AMARELLO M;SMITH JJ;THOMPSON ME;ROUTMAN EJ;CASAZZA ML,"the san francisco gartersnake thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia has been federally listed as endangered since 1967, but little demographic information exists for this species. we examined the demography of a san francisco gartersnake population on approximately 213 ha of california coastal prairie in san mateo county, california, from 2007 to 2010. the best-supported mark-recapture model indicated annual variation in daily capture probabilities and annual survival rates. abundance increased throughout the study period, with a mean total population from 2008 to 2010 of 443 (95% ci = 313-646) individuals. annual survival was slightly greater than that of most other gartersnakes, with an annual probability of survival of 0.78 (0.55-0.95) in 2008-2009 and 0.75 (0.49-0.93) in 2009-2010. mean annual per capita recruitment rates were 0.73 (0.02-2.50) in 2008-2009 and 0.47 (0.02-1.42) in 2009-2010. from 2008 to 2010, the probability of an increase in abundance at this site was 0.873, with an estimated increase of 115 (282 to 326) individuals. the estimated population growth rate in 2008-2009 was 1.52 (0.73-3.29) and in 2009-2010 was 1.21 (0.70-2.17). although this population is probably stable or increasing in the short term, long-term studies of the status of the san francisco gartersnake at other sites are required to estimate population trends and to elucidate mechanisms that promote the recovery of this charismatic member of our native herpetofauna." -photo-identification of individual weedy seadragons phyllopteryx taeniolatus and its application in estimating population dynamics,abundance; mark-recapture; population; survival; syngnathid,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,MARTIN-SMITH KM,"forty-three individual adult weedy seadragons phyllopteryx taeniolatus were identified from underwater images using patterns of spots and blotches on the lateral surface of the abdomen. these patterns were unique and did not change over the 18 month course of the study and could therefore be used to identify individuals when estimating population variables using non-invasive capture-mark-recapture and accumulation curve methods. two similar neighbouring sites in southern tasmania showed considerable differences in their estimated populations of p. taeniolatus. estimated annual survival was > 80% at one site suggesting that p. taeniolatus may be considerably longer lived than other syngnathids with a maximum life span in excess of 10 years. males incubating embryos were observed from october to march and at least two clutches could be borne during this period. this technique of photo-identification could provide a cheap and effective way to monitor populations of this iconic species across its range, particularly in conjunction with optimized pattern-recognition software. (c) 2011 the author journal of fish biology (c) 2011 the fisheries society of the british isles" +photo-identification of individual weedy seadragons phyllopteryx taeniolatus and its application in estimating population dynamics,abundance; mark-recapture; population; survival; syngnathid,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,MARTIN SMITH KM,"forty-three individual adult weedy seadragons phyllopteryx taeniolatus were identified from underwater images using patterns of spots and blotches on the lateral surface of the abdomen. these patterns were unique and did not change over the 18 month course of the study and could therefore be used to identify individuals when estimating population variables using non-invasive capture-mark-recapture and accumulation curve methods. two similar neighbouring sites in southern tasmania showed considerable differences in their estimated populations of p. taeniolatus. estimated annual survival was > 80% at one site suggesting that p. taeniolatus may be considerably longer lived than other syngnathids with a maximum life span in excess of 10 years. males incubating embryos were observed from october to march and at least two clutches could be borne during this period. this technique of photo-identification could provide a cheap and effective way to monitor populations of this iconic species across its range, particularly in conjunction with optimized pattern-recognition software. (c) 2011 the author journal of fish biology (c) 2011 the fisheries society of the british isles" "residency time, migration route and survival of atlantic salmon salmo salar smolts in a canadian fjord",acoustic telemetry; capture-mark-recapture; distribution; newfoundland; program mark,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,DEMPSON JB;ROBERTSON MJ;PENNELL CJ;FUREY G;BLOOM M;SHEARS M;OLLERHEAD LMN;CLARKE KD;HINKS R;ROBERTSON GJ,"atlantic salmon salmo salar smolts (n = 181) from two rivers were surgically implanted with acoustic transmitters and released to determine migration route, residency time and survival in a 50 km long estuarine fjord located on the south coast of newfoundland, canada. data obtained from automated receivers placed throughout the bay d'espoir fjord indicated that migrating smolts used different routes to reach the outer areas of the fjord. the duration of time that smolts spent in the immediate estuary zone also differed between the two localities (7 and 17 days) although the total time smolts were resident in the fjord was similar and extensive (40 days). many smolts were resident for periods of 4-8 weeks moving back and forth in the outer part of the fjord where maximum water depths range from 300 to 700 m. survival in the estuary zone was greater for smolts with prolonged residency in estuarine habitat. overall smolt survival to the fjord exit was moderately high (54-85%), indicating that the initial phase of migration did not coincide with a period of unusually high mortality. (c) 2011 crown copyright journal of fish biology (c) 2011 the fisheries society of the british isles" "density of fishers and the efficacy of relative abundance indices and small-scale occupancy estimation to detect a population decline on the hoopa valley indian reservation, california",cameras; capture; fisher; martes pennanti; occupancy; relative abundance index; track-plate,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,MATTHEWS SM;HIGLEY JM;YAEGER JS;FULLER TK,"we used a mark-resight design to calculate density estimates of fisher (martes pennanti), a candidate for listing under the united states endangered species act, on the hoopa valley indian reservation in northwestern california, usa in order to determine population status in 1998 and 2005. our density estimation results and simultaneous population-monitoring data provided a post hoc opportunity to evaluate the relative efficacy of 3 classical indexing techniques (catch-per-unit-effort, frequency of detection at camera stations, and frequency of detection at track-plate stations) and small-scale occupancy estimation to accurately detect population change. we calculated densities (and 95% ci) of 52 (43-64) and 14 (13-16) fishers/100 km(2) in 1998 and 2005, respectively. we detected a decline in the relative abundance of fishers between 1998 and 2005 using catch-per-unit-effort indices (chi(2) >= 10.18, p <= 0.007), but not in magnitude similar to our density estimates. we detected an increase (chi(2) = 4.23, p = 0.040) and no difference (chi(2) = 1.38, p = 0.240) in the relative abundance of fishers between surveys using frequency of detection indices at camera stations and at track-plate stations, respectively. occupancy estimates did not differ between 1998 and 2005. we speculate changes in prey habitat, increases in predation, disease, or some combination of these potential causes, were responsible for the population decline. our results reinforce the importance of careful thought given to the study goals and potential limitations of any technique. for populations deemed valuable (e.g., at risk or sensitive), we suggest managers consider adopting more defensible, large-scale occupancy estimation or mark-recapture methods to monitor changes in population sizes. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." a generalized method to determine detectability of rare and cryptic species using the ornate box turtle as a model,detectability; detection probability; illinois; mark-recapture; ornate box turtle; radiotelemetry; sand prairie; terrapene ornata; visual-encounter survey,WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN,REFSNIDER JM;MITCHELL TS;STREBY HM;STRICKLAND JT;WARNER DA;JANZEN FJ,"estimates regarding population parameters are often based on data from surveys. to ensure that such estimates are as accurate as possible, it is important to know the detectability resulting from the particular survey method used. we used radiotelemetry to measure detectability of ornate box turtles (terrapene ornata), using visual-encounter surveys in a sand prairie in northwestern illinois, usa. we found that the overall detection probability of visual-encounter surveys was 0.03, and our high frequency of nondetection was due to a failure to detect visible turtles rather than turtles being underground or hidden in dense vegetation. despite the substantial population density at our study site, visual-encounter surveys failed to detect box turtles on most visits, which resulted in a prohibitively high number of surveys that would be required to accurately estimate population size or to infer absence of the species from a site. our method of using radiotelemetry to measure detection probability of a survey method could be easily applied to other small, cryptic, or rare species. however, our low detection probability and high frequency of nondetections recommend against use of visual-encounter surveys alone in estimating population parameters for ornate box turtles. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." @@ -4031,7 +4038,7 @@ estimating population characteristics of two saproxylic beetles: a mark-recaptur on the feasibility of applying capture-recapture experiments for web evolution estimations,web evolution; capture recapture method; estimation model,APPLIED MATHEMATICS LETTERS,ANAGNOSTOPOULOS I;STAVROPOULOS P,"this paper proposes a novel application for estimating the size and evolution of web page populations, based on the capture-recapture methodology, which is mainly used in wildlife biological studies. firstly, we present the necessary modifications and amendments needed for the web capture-recapture paradigm, and then we discuss the limitations confronted. the paper provides the implementation details of the proposed web capture recapture model along with its initial assessment. the anticipated outcome was to examine whether we can conduct capture-recapture experiments on the web (or a web sub-universe such as an internet search engine directory), in order to further estimate evolution rates in web page populations. (c) 2011 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." disease and the extended phenotype: parasites control host performance and survival through induced changes in body plan,NA,PLOS ONE,GOODMAN BA;JOHNSON PTJ,"background: by definition, parasites harm their hosts. however, some forms of parasite-induced alterations increase parasite transmission between hosts, such that manipulated hosts can be considered extensions of the parasite's phenotype. while well accepted in principle, surprisingly few studies have quantified how parasite manipulations alter host performance and survival under field and laboratory conditions. methodology/principal findings: by interfering with limb development, the trematode ribeiroia ondatrae causes particularly severe morphological alterations within amphibian hosts that provide an ideal system to evaluate parasite-induced changes in phenotype. here, we coupled laboratory performance trials with a capture-mark-recapture study of 1388 pacific chorus frogs (pseudacris regilla) to quantify the effects of parasite-induced malformations on host locomotion, foraging, and survival. malformations, which affected similar to 50% of metamorphosing frogs in nature, caused dramatic reductions in all measures of organismal function. malformed frogs exhibited significantly shorter jumping distances (41% reduction), slower swimming speeds (37% reduction), reduced endurance (66% reduction), and lower foraging success relative to infected hosts without malformations. furthermore, while normal and malformed individuals had comparable survival within predator-free exclosures, deformed frogs in natural populations had 22% lower biweekly survival than normal frogs and rarely recruited to the adult population over a two-year period. conclusions/significance: our results highlight the ability of parasites to deeply alter multiple dimensions of host phenotype with important consequences for performance and survival. these patterns were best explained by malformation status, rather than infection per se, helping to decouple the direct and indirect effects of parasitism on host fitness." in situ measurement of coastal ocean movements and survival of juvenile pacific salmon,acoustic arrays; pacific ocean shelf tracking; mark-recapture,PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,WELCH DW;MELNYCHUK MC;PAYNE JC;RECHISKY EL;PORTER AD;JACKSON GD;WARD BR;VINCENT SP;WOOD CC;SEMMENS J,"many salmon populations in both the pacific and atlantic oceans have experienced sharply decreasing returns and high ocean mortality in the past two decades, with some populations facing extirpation if current marine survival trends continue. our inability to monitor the movements of marine fish or to directly measure their survival precludes experimental tests of theories concerning the factors regulating fish populations, and thus limits scientific advance in many aspects of fisheries management and conservation. here we report a large-scale synthesis of survival and movement rates of free-ranging juvenile salmon across four species, 13 river watersheds, and 44 release groups of salmon smolts (>3,500 fish tagged in total) in rivers and coastal ocean waters, including an assessment of where mortality predominantly occurs during the juvenile migration. of particular importance, our data indicate that, over the size range of smolts tagged, (i) smolt survival was not strongly related to size at release, (ii) tag burden did not appear to strongly reduce the survival of smaller animals, and (iii) for at least some populations, substantial mortality occurred much later in the migration and more distant from the river of origin than generally expected. our findings thus have implications for determining where effort should be invested to improve the accuracy of salmon forecasting, to understand the mechanisms driving salmon declines, and to predict the impact of climate change on salmon stocks." -convergent evolution of kin-based sociality in a lizard,sociality; kin; convergent evolution; dispersal; group stability; xantusia vigilis,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,DAVIS AR;CORL A;SURGET-GROBA Y;SINERVO B,"studies of social birds and mammals have produced extensive theory regarding the formation and dynamics of kin-based social groups in vertebrates. however, comparing kin dynamics in birds and mammals to social reptiles provides the opportunity to identify selective factors that promote independent origins of kin sociality across vertebrates. we combined a 5-year mark-recapture study with a dna microsatellite analysis of relatedness in a social lizard (xantusia vigilis) to examine the formation and stability of kin groups. we found that these lizards are highly sedentary and that groups often form through the delayed dispersal of offspring. groups containing juveniles had higher relatedness than adult-only groups, as juveniles were commonly found in aggregations with at least one parent and/or sibling. groups containing nuclear family members were more stable than groups of less-related lizards, as predicted by social theory. we conclude that x. vigilis aggregations conform to patterns of kin sociality observed in avian and mammalian systems and represent an example of convergent evolution in social systems. we suggest that kin-based sociality in this and other lizards may be a by-product of viviparity, which can promote delayed juvenile dispersal by allowing prolonged interaction between a neonate and its mother." +convergent evolution of kin-based sociality in a lizard,sociality; kin; convergent evolution; dispersal; group stability; xantusia vigilis,PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,DAVIS AR;CORL A;SURGET GROBA Y;SINERVO B,"studies of social birds and mammals have produced extensive theory regarding the formation and dynamics of kin-based social groups in vertebrates. however, comparing kin dynamics in birds and mammals to social reptiles provides the opportunity to identify selective factors that promote independent origins of kin sociality across vertebrates. we combined a 5-year mark-recapture study with a dna microsatellite analysis of relatedness in a social lizard (xantusia vigilis) to examine the formation and stability of kin groups. we found that these lizards are highly sedentary and that groups often form through the delayed dispersal of offspring. groups containing juveniles had higher relatedness than adult-only groups, as juveniles were commonly found in aggregations with at least one parent and/or sibling. groups containing nuclear family members were more stable than groups of less-related lizards, as predicted by social theory. we conclude that x. vigilis aggregations conform to patterns of kin sociality observed in avian and mammalian systems and represent an example of convergent evolution in social systems. we suggest that kin-based sociality in this and other lizards may be a by-product of viviparity, which can promote delayed juvenile dispersal by allowing prolonged interaction between a neonate and its mother." efficacy of dry ice-baited traps for sampling amblyomma americanum (acari: ixodidae) varies with life stage but not habitat,amblyomma americanum; mark-recapture; carbon dioxide trap sampling; tick-borne disease,JOURNAL OF MEDICAL ENTOMOLOGY,KENSINGER BJ;ALLAN BF,"the carbon dioxide-baited trap is the most common and effective method for sampling vector life-stage amblyomma americanum (l.) (acari: ixodidae), although confounding environmental variables are rarely considered. a mark-recapture experiment was designed to compare recapture proportions of a. americanum nymphs and adults between two habitat types: old field and oak hickory forest. powdered fluorescent dye was used to mark a. americanum ticks released in 1-m increments from carbon dioxide-baited traps. adults were recaptured in significantly higher proportion than nymphs, but habitat type had no significant effect on recapture proportions. tick abundance is an important parameter in the estimation of human risk of exposure to tick-borne disease and the influence of life stage on capture rates should be considered when calculating entomological risk." planning for success: identifying effective and efficient survey designs for monitoring,cost analysis; monte carlo simulation; population trend; sample size; statistical power; study planning,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,REYNOLDS JH;THOMPSON WL;RUSSELL B,"selecting a survey design to detect change through time in an ecological resource requires balancing the speed with which a given level of change can be detected against the cost of monitoring. planning studies allow one to assess these tradeoffs and identify the optimal design choices for a specific scenario of change. however, such studies seldom are conducted. even worse, they seem least likely to be undertaken when they offer the most insight - when survey methods and monitoring designs are complex and not well captured by simple statistical models. this may be due to limited technical capacity within management agencies. without such planning, managers risk a potentially severe waste of monitoring resources on ineffective and inefficient monitoring, and institutions will remain ignorant of the true costs of information and the potential efficiency gains afforded by a moderate increase in technical capacity. we discuss the importance of planning studies, outline their main components, and illustrate the process through an investigation of competing designs for monitoring for declining brown bear (ursus arctos) densities in southwestern alaska. the results provide guidance on how long monitoring must be sustained before any change is likely to be detected (under a scenario of rather strong true decline), the optimal designs for detecting a change, and a tradeoff where accepting a delay of 2 years in detecting the change could reduce the monitoring cost by almost 50%. this report emphasizes the importance of planning studies for guiding monitoring decisions. published by elsevier ltd." "demography of asian elephants (elephas maximus) at uda walawe national park, sri lanka based on identified individuals",asian elephant; elephas maximus; demography; population estimation; capture-recapture,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,DE SILVA S;RANJEEWA ADG;WEERAKOON D,"we provide estimates of population size and other demographic variables for individually-identified asian elephants (elephas maximus) in uda walawe national park (uwnp), sri lanka based on systematic year-round observations. two hundred and eighty-six adult females and 241 adult males were identified, of which four adults (2% of males) had tusks. sightings-based demographic models showed seasonal immigration and emigration from the study area. the total population, including non-adults, was between 804 and 1160 individuals. density ranged from 102 to 116 adult females per 100 km(2) and remains at this level throughout the year. this large, un-fragmented population of asian elephants should be of high conservation priority. we find that estimates of survivorship and migration rates should be based on long sampling intervals when possible, but estimates of density and population size can still be made when observations are constrained to shorter intervals, if spatial data are available. we offer suggestions to guide census design for other elephant populations or cryptic species. we urge that other locations be systematically surveyed as well using photographic identification. (c) 2011 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." @@ -4045,20 +4052,20 @@ inferring microhabitat preferences of lilium catesbaei (liliaceae),discriminant a method for unbiased estimation of population abundance along curvy margins,transect sampling; quadrat sampling; horvitz-thompson estimator; pacific herring; clupea pallasi; population density,ENVIRONMETRICS,MA L;STEIN ML;WANG M;SHELTON AO;PFISTER CA;WILDER KJ,"estimating species abundance via transects and quadrats has the advantage over other methods (such as mark-recapture) that they can be less expensive and do not require handling the animals. transect-quadrat sampling along habitat boundaries with complex geometry often leads to uneven selection probability over the sampling region. these uneven selection probabilities must be properly taken into account in constructing unbiased estimates of abundance. this requires that the selection probabilities be known by design or be computable. we discuss the implications of this requirement on sampling design and introduce a computational method based on a cubic-spline approximation to the habitat margin for estimating the selection probabilities. we present the method in the context of a study of pacific herring (clupea pallasi) egg abundance along coastal southeast alaska, and show that an unbiased estimate constructed based on the computed selection probabilities (the horvitz-thompson (h-t) estimator) corrects for a potential bias in the estimate for egg abundance relative to the unweighted sample mean estimate. the sampling strategy used in the herring study, together with our method for computing the sampling probabilities, provides an economical and effective way to study species abundance along curvy habitat boundaries. copyright (c) 2010 john wiley & sons, ltd." size and structure of a photographically identified population of manta rays manta alfredi in southern mozambique,NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,MARSHALL AD;DUDGEON CL;BENNETT MB,"the size and structure of a photographically identified population of reef manta ray, manta alfredi, were examined at aggregation sites over a four-year period in southern mozambique. the use and standardisation of photo-id techniques was examined as a minimally-intrusive means to study this species. using these techniques, we report on the size, structure and seasonality of this population of m. alfredi. in total, 449 individuals were identified during this time period, 40.5% of which were re-sighted on at least one occasion. the longest period between re-sighting events was 1,252 days. during the study period, annual population size estimates for m. alfredi ranged from 149 to 454 individuals. the superpopulation size estimate for the entire study period was 802 individuals, the first reported for m. alfredi at a monitored aggregation site. a highly significant sex bias was evident with a female:male ratio of 3.55:1. the majority of rays (89.9% males; 49.7% females) were considered mature, with most individuals between 3.0 and 4.9 m in disc width. manta alfredi were observed at the study sites in each month of the calendar year. the maximum number of individual rays seen per dive was 30. large numbers of rays (20 + per dive) were seen in the months of november, december and january, which coincide with the breeding season. natural markings were unique to individuals and did not change substantially with time, which provided further support for their use in the identification of individual m. alfredi over multiple years. multiple re-sightings of individual m. alfredi suggest that many individuals in this population exhibit site fidelity to the examined aggregation sites. as target subsistence fishing for m. alfredi exists along the mozambican coastline, management efforts to monitor and prevent overexploitation at these critical habitats should be a priority." irrawaddy dolphin demography in the mekong river: an application of mark-resight models,aquatic mammal; cambodia; conservation; freshwater; lao pdr; laos; mark-recapture; orcaella brevirostris; photographic identification; robust design; threatened species,ECOSPHERE,RYAN GE;DOVE V;TRUJILLO F;DOHERTY PF,"riverine irrawaddy dolphin populations are critically endangered and much uncertainty exists over the population status in the mekong river of northeast cambodia and southern lao people's democratic republic (lao pdr). we conducted 11 surveys over three years to estimate abundance at each survey as well as survival and the probability of individuals becoming unavailable for detection between surveys. we utilized novel mark-resight estimators to account for the detection process in estimating these parameters. annual survival was 0.977 (0.040 se) and movement in (0.060) and out (0.018) of an observable state was low. we estimated abundance at 84.5 (95% ci = 77.9-91.2) with little change over our surveys. we also estimated recruitment and population growth rate for the marked, and presumably older, individuals by estimating seniority using a reverse-time model. seniority was estimated at 0.999 (0.028 se), recruitment at 0.001 and population growth rate at 0.978. although the population size appears to be stable, we believe this represents the slow disappearance of a long-lived animal with no recruitment. along with the isolated nature of the population and reduced population size as compared to historical estimates, we believe this population is in serious threat of extirpation. we believe there may be as few as 7 or 8 animals in lao pdr and that the species is at risk of extinction there in the short-term. although recent management actions (e.g., outlawing of explosive fishing and some restriction on the use of gill-nets) have likely been beneficial we believe identifying population goals to work towards, identifying additional management actions to improve recruitment, and designing the survey methods to best estimate the success of these actions is needed." -estimating drowning deaths in northern iran using capture-recapture method,drowning; capture-recapture; injury surveillance; iran,HEALTH POLICY,KIAKALAYEH AD;MOHAMMADI R;EKMAN DS;YOUSEFZADE-CHABOK S;BEHBOUDI F;JANSSON B,"background: descriptive epidemiological study has shown that drowning is a problem health in low and middle income countries. to analyze records of drowning deaths from two injury registry systems, to ascertain a true estimate of drowning-mortality, it can help to follow up drowning prevention policy. methods: this study uses capture-recapture methods to arrive at a more accurate estimate of the number of drowning events occurring over a one-year period in guilan and mazandran provinces, in northern iran. records from the iran's forensic medical system and death registry system were compared, using five matching approaches based on various combinations of the following variables: gender, place of drowning, date of death, victim age, name, region of residence, and/or place of residence. results: the results revealed that the estimated number of drowning cases in the study population is much higher than official figures, ranging from 5.26 to 8.25 per 100,000 residents compared to the national figure of 4.5 per 100,000. the completeness of death registry system records for drowning was 70% of corrected estimates while the completeness of records from forensic medicine was 54.4%. conclusion: we conclude that the use of capture-recapture methodology may provide better accuracy in measuring drowning events. this method may also help reduce bias in the estimate of incidence rates and comparison of different populations. crown copyright (c) 2010 published by elsevier ireland ltd. all rights reserved." +estimating drowning deaths in northern iran using capture-recapture method,drowning; capture-recapture; injury surveillance; iran,HEALTH POLICY,KIAKALAYEH AD;MOHAMMADI R;EKMAN DS;YOUSEFZADE CHABOK S;BEHBOUDI F;JANSSON B,"background: descriptive epidemiological study has shown that drowning is a problem health in low and middle income countries. to analyze records of drowning deaths from two injury registry systems, to ascertain a true estimate of drowning-mortality, it can help to follow up drowning prevention policy. methods: this study uses capture-recapture methods to arrive at a more accurate estimate of the number of drowning events occurring over a one-year period in guilan and mazandran provinces, in northern iran. records from the iran's forensic medical system and death registry system were compared, using five matching approaches based on various combinations of the following variables: gender, place of drowning, date of death, victim age, name, region of residence, and/or place of residence. results: the results revealed that the estimated number of drowning cases in the study population is much higher than official figures, ranging from 5.26 to 8.25 per 100,000 residents compared to the national figure of 4.5 per 100,000. the completeness of death registry system records for drowning was 70% of corrected estimates while the completeness of records from forensic medicine was 54.4%. conclusion: we conclude that the use of capture-recapture methodology may provide better accuracy in measuring drowning events. this method may also help reduce bias in the estimate of incidence rates and comparison of different populations. crown copyright (c) 2010 published by elsevier ireland ltd. all rights reserved." "diurnal behavior and habitat preferences of erebia aethiops, an aberrant lowland species of a mountain butterfly clade",butterfly activity; habitat preferences; diurnal behavior; season; temperature,JOURNAL OF INSECT BEHAVIOR,SLAMOVA I;KLECKA J;KONVICKA M,"erebia aethiops is an aberrant lowland representative of a predominately arctic and alpine butterfly genus. we used behavioral records obtained during a mark-recapture study (mr) to extract information about its adult diurnal and within-season activity, and to compare its activity with previously studied mountain erebia species. similarly to them, maintenance activities (nectaring, basking) increased with season. contrary to mountain relatives, e. aethiops nectars in morning hours and spends the hottest parts of the day in the shade. therefore, high rather than low temperatures seem to be limiting e. aethiops activity. we also compared microhabitat preferences of sexes, finding that females preferred grassy patches, whereas males often entered scrub and sparse canopy forest. the study illustrates the utility of auxiliary mr data to analyze butterfly activity, and points to the necessity of finely structured habitat mosaics for e. aethiops, an open woodland species that retracted to abandoned grasslands and has become vulnerable in central europe." -effects of roads and crabbing pressures on diamondback terrapin populations in coastal georgia,crab trap; diamondback terrapin; malaclemys terrapin; mortality; roads; turtle,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GROSSE AM;MAERZ JC;HEPINSTALL-CYMERMAN J;DORCAS ME,"human activities, including the harvesting of natural resources and land development, place substantial pressure on wildlife. the diamondback terrapin (malaclemys terrapin) is a small, estuarine species of emydid turtle in decline and at risk due to a suite of human activities. vehicle-induced mortality from increasing coastal traffic and bycatch mortality in crab pots have been recognized as 2 of the primary conservation concerns for terrapins. we used mark-recapture estimates of terrapin density and sex ratio from repeated seining samples of 29 randomly stratified selected tidal creeks to evaluate the current relationships between road and crabbing pressures and the abundance, sex ratio, and size distribution of terrapin populations along the georgia coast. we obtained 2005 captures of 1,547 individual terrapins among 29 tidal creeks sampled. population density estimates ranged from 0 to 1,040 terrapins/km among tidal creeks with a median density of 65 terrapins/km. among all sites, terrapin density declined with increasing crabbing activity within the creek, but was not related to proximity to roads. sex ratios did not vary significantly with crabbing activity or proximity to roads; however, we found a significantly larger proportion of smaller-sized terrapins in creeks with no crabbing activity. although roads may have significant localized effects on terrapin populations, we found no measurable association between proximity to roads and current variation in terrapin density along the georgia coast. however, we did find that terrapin density and the proportion of smaller sized individuals within the population were negatively associated with crabbing activities. bycatch from commercial and recreational activities threaten many species. we add to a growing body of research showing crabbing activities are affecting diamondback terrapin populations across much of the species' range. states committed to the conservation of terrapins and coastal species should focus on reducing bycatch risk; for example by regulating soak times and locations, requiring the use of bycatch reduction devices, and removing abandoned or lost crab pots from coastal habitats. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." +effects of roads and crabbing pressures on diamondback terrapin populations in coastal georgia,crab trap; diamondback terrapin; malaclemys terrapin; mortality; roads; turtle,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GROSSE AM;MAERZ JC;HEPINSTALL CYMERMAN J;DORCAS ME,"human activities, including the harvesting of natural resources and land development, place substantial pressure on wildlife. the diamondback terrapin (malaclemys terrapin) is a small, estuarine species of emydid turtle in decline and at risk due to a suite of human activities. vehicle-induced mortality from increasing coastal traffic and bycatch mortality in crab pots have been recognized as 2 of the primary conservation concerns for terrapins. we used mark-recapture estimates of terrapin density and sex ratio from repeated seining samples of 29 randomly stratified selected tidal creeks to evaluate the current relationships between road and crabbing pressures and the abundance, sex ratio, and size distribution of terrapin populations along the georgia coast. we obtained 2005 captures of 1,547 individual terrapins among 29 tidal creeks sampled. population density estimates ranged from 0 to 1,040 terrapins/km among tidal creeks with a median density of 65 terrapins/km. among all sites, terrapin density declined with increasing crabbing activity within the creek, but was not related to proximity to roads. sex ratios did not vary significantly with crabbing activity or proximity to roads; however, we found a significantly larger proportion of smaller-sized terrapins in creeks with no crabbing activity. although roads may have significant localized effects on terrapin populations, we found no measurable association between proximity to roads and current variation in terrapin density along the georgia coast. however, we did find that terrapin density and the proportion of smaller sized individuals within the population were negatively associated with crabbing activities. bycatch from commercial and recreational activities threaten many species. we add to a growing body of research showing crabbing activities are affecting diamondback terrapin populations across much of the species' range. states committed to the conservation of terrapins and coastal species should focus on reducing bycatch risk; for example by regulating soak times and locations, requiring the use of bycatch reduction devices, and removing abandoned or lost crab pots from coastal habitats. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." a novel method to improve individual animal identification based on camera-trapping data,adjusted rand index; animal natural marks; bobcat; camera-trapping; individual identification; jasper ridge biological preserve; lynx rufus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,MENDOZA E;MARTINEAU PR;BRENNER E;DIRZO R,"we present a novel method to improve individual identification of animals based on camera-trapping data. the method combines computer tools and human visual recognition to help multiple users to reach identification agreement. application of this method to a bobcat (lynx rufus) picture database from the jasper ridge biological preserve resulted in a progressive increase in identification agreement between 2 users, as measured by the adjusted rand index (ari). an initial ari value of 0.28 increased to a final value of 0.84 (1 maximum agreement). in contrast, comparisons involving random picture groupings consistently rendered low ari values (<= 0.05). the numbers of individuals named by the 2 users decreased from initial values of 46 and 43 to final values of 25 and 29, respectively. the tool presented here will help researchers and wildlife managers to identify individual mammals and monitor populations. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." -partial migration in a robust brown trout population of a patagonian river,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,O'NEAL SL;STANFORD JA,"life history plasticity, particularly partial migration (i.e., coexistence of resident and anadromous forms), probably plays a major role in the ability of brown trout salmo trutta to dominate food webs after introduction into patagonian rivers. we documented brown trout establishment, distribution, and life history variation in relation to habitat features in the rio grande, tierra del fuego, argentina. results support the hypothesis that rio grande brown trout developed an anadromous life history form (""sea trout"") two decades after introduction in relation to localized food limitation as the population expanded throughout the basin. tributary streams with only resident fish were narrower and had significantly higher levels of specific conductance and soluble reactive phosphorus than streams that were inhabited by both resident and anadromous brown trout. invertebrate biomass was two to three times higher and juvenile brown trout density was significantly higher in resident-only sites than in streams with both life history forms. density-dependent growth was not evident and juvenile condition was higher in resident-only streams. these findings suggest that food availability influences the individual decision to migrate, although genetic and other factors are probably also involved. mark-recapture analysis showed that approximately 38,000-55,000 adult sea trout returned annually to the rio grande in 2006 and 2007, making it one of the most robust sea trout populations in the world. however, native fishes have apparently declined to near extirpation as the brown trout population has expanded." +partial migration in a robust brown trout population of a patagonian river,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,O NEAL SL;STANFORD JA,"life history plasticity, particularly partial migration (i.e., coexistence of resident and anadromous forms), probably plays a major role in the ability of brown trout salmo trutta to dominate food webs after introduction into patagonian rivers. we documented brown trout establishment, distribution, and life history variation in relation to habitat features in the rio grande, tierra del fuego, argentina. results support the hypothesis that rio grande brown trout developed an anadromous life history form (""sea trout"") two decades after introduction in relation to localized food limitation as the population expanded throughout the basin. tributary streams with only resident fish were narrower and had significantly higher levels of specific conductance and soluble reactive phosphorus than streams that were inhabited by both resident and anadromous brown trout. invertebrate biomass was two to three times higher and juvenile brown trout density was significantly higher in resident-only sites than in streams with both life history forms. density-dependent growth was not evident and juvenile condition was higher in resident-only streams. these findings suggest that food availability influences the individual decision to migrate, although genetic and other factors are probably also involved. mark-recapture analysis showed that approximately 38,000-55,000 adult sea trout returned annually to the rio grande in 2006 and 2007, making it one of the most robust sea trout populations in the world. however, native fishes have apparently declined to near extirpation as the brown trout population has expanded." genetic signature of population fragmentation varies with mobility in seven bird species of a fragmented kenyan cloud forest,afrotropical; birds; dispersal; genetic clustering; genetic differentiation; landscape connectivity; taita hills,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,CALLENS T;GALBUSERA P;MATTHYSEN E;DURAND EY;GITHIRU M;HUYGHE JR;LENS L,"habitat fragmentation can restrict geneflow, reduce neighbourhood effective population size, and increase genetic drift and inbreeding in small, isolated habitat remnants. the extent to which habitat fragmentation leads to population fragmentation, however, differs among landscapes and taxa. commonly, researchers use information on the current status of a species to predict population effects of habitat fragmentation. such methods, however, do not convey information on species-specific responses to fragmentation. here, we compare levels of past population differentiation, estimated from microsatellite genotypes, with contemporary dispersal rates, estimated from multi-strata capture-recapture models, to infer changes in mobility over time in seven sympatric, forest-dependent bird species of a kenyan cloud forest archipelago. overall, populations of sedentary species were more strongly differentiated and clustered compared to those of vagile ones, while geographical patterning suggested an important role of landscape structure in shaping genetic variation. however, five of seven species with broadly similar levels of genetic differentiation nevertheless differed substantially in their current dispersal rates. we conclude that post-fragmentation levels of vagility, without reference to past population connectivity, may not be the best predictor of how forest fragmentation affects the life history of forest-dependent species. as effective conservation strategies often hinge on accurate prediction of shifts in ecological and genetic relationships among populations, conservation practices based solely upon current population abundances or movements may, in the long term, prove to be inadequate." fitness landscape of atlantic cod shaped by harvest selection and natural selection,atlantic cod; behaviour; capture-recapture; harvest selection; natural selection; telemetry,EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY,OLSEN EM;MOLAND E,"harvesting may lead to evolutionary changes in life histories on a contemporary time scale, changes that could be maladaptive in natural contexts. however, our understanding of the strength and direction of harvest-induced selection versus natural selection is still limited, partly due to the difficulty of tracking the fate of individuals in the wild. here, we present direct estimates of harvest mortality, natural mortality and site fidelity of coastal atlantic cod (gadus morhua) from the norwegian skagerrak coast. furthermore, we present standardised selection differentials for fish body size. estimates are obtained from acoustic telemetry, where we continuously monitored fish (n = 60) within a semi-sheltered area using a network of 25 listening stations. to obtain additional information about harvested cod, all fish (body size: 30-66 cm) were also tagged with traditional t-bar tags with a printed reward of 500 nok (60 e). we estimate that 75% of the fish died within the study area during 1 year. fishing mortality was markedly higher than natural mortality. together, recreational fishers and commercial fishers caught at least 50% of the tagged fish during 1 year. standardised selection differentials showed that fisheries targeted larger fish (i.e. favoured the survival of smaller fish), while natural selection favoured the survival of larger fish. albeit on a small scale, we provide empirical evidence that harvesting can have a dominant influence on the fitness landscape experienced by a marine fish such as the atlantic cod. we suggest that no-take marine reserves may help to counter evolutionary impacts of harvesting in the ocean." to breed or not to breed: a seabird's response to extreme climatic events,el nino; intermittent breeding; age at first breeding attempt; mark-recapture; seabirds; sea surface temperature,BIOLOGY LETTERS,CUBAYNES S;DOHERTY PF;SCHREIBER EA;GIMENEZ O,"intermittent breeding is an important life-history strategy that has rarely been quantified in the wild and for which drivers remain unclear. it may be the result of a trade-off between survival and reproduction, with individuals skipping breeding when breeding conditions are below a certain threshold. heterogeneity in individual quality can also lead to heterogeneity in intermittent breeding. we modelled survival, recruitment and breeding probability of the red-footed booby (sula sula), using a 19 year mark-recapture dataset involving more than 11 000 birds. we showed that skipping breeding was more likely in el-nino years, correlated with an increase in the local sea surface temperature, supporting the hypothesis that it may be partly an adaptive strategy of birds to face the trade-off between survival and reproduction owing to environmental constraints. we also showed that the age-specific probability of first breeding attempt was synchronized among different age-classes and higher in el-nino years. this result suggested that pre-breeders may benefit from lowered competition with experienced breeders in years of high skipping probabilities." "capture-recapture analysis of all-cause mortality data in bohol, philippines",NA,POPULATION HEALTH METRICS,CARTER KL;WILLIAMS G;TALLO V;SANVICTORES D;MADERA H;RILEY I,"background: despite the importance of mortality data for effective planning and monitoring of health services, official reporting systems rarely capture every death. the completeness of death reporting and the subsequent effect on mortality estimates were examined in six municipalities of bohol province in the philippines using a system review and capture-recapture analysis. methods: reports of deaths were collected from records at local civil registration offices, health centers and hospitals, and parish churches. records were reconciled using a specific set of matching criteria, and both a two-source and a three-source capture-recapture analysis was conducted. for the two-source analysis, civil registry and health data were combined due to dependence between these sources and analyzed against the church data. results: significant dependence between civil registration and health reporting systems was identified. there were 8,075 unique deaths recorded in the study area between 2002 and 2007. we found 5% to 10% of all deaths were not reported to any source, while government records captured only 77% of all deaths. life expectancy at birth (averaged for 2002-2007) was estimated at 65.7 years and 73.0 years for males and females, respectively. this was one to two years lower than life expectancy estimated from reconciled reported deaths from all sources, and four to five years lower than life expectancy estimated from civil registration data alone. reporting patterns varied by age and municipality, with childhood deaths more underreported than adult deaths. infant mortality was underreported in civil registration data by 62%. conclusions: deaths are underreported in bohol, with inconsistent reporting procedures contributing to this situation. uncorrected mortality measures would subsequently be misleading if used for health planning and evaluation purposes. these findings highlight the importance of ensuring that official mortality estimates from the philippines are derived from data that have been assessed for underreporting and corrected as necessary." -adult survival and population growth rate in colorado big brown bats (eptesicus fuscus),big brown bats; colorado; eptesicus fuscus; matrix models; population growth; seasonality; sensitivity analysis; survival,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,O'SHEA TJ;ELLISON LE;STANLEY TR,"we studied adult survival and population growth at multiple maternity colonies of big brown bats (eptesicus fuscus) in fort collins, colorado. we investigated hypotheses about survival using information-theoretic methods and mark recapture analyses based on passive detection of adult females tagged with passive integrated transponders. we constructed a 3-stage life-history matrix model to estimate population growth rate (x) and assessed the relative importance of adult survival and other life-history parameters to population growth through elasticity and sensitivity analysis. annual adult survival at 5 maternity colonies monitored from 2001 to 2005 was estimated at 0.79 (95% confidence interval [95% ci] = 0.77-0.82). adult survival varied by year and roost, with low survival during an extreme drought year, a finding with negative implications for bat populations because of the likelihood of increasing drought in western north america due to global climate change. adult survival during winter was higher than in summer, and mean life expectancies calculated from survival estimates were lower than maximum longevity records. we modeled adult survival with recruitment parameter estimates from the same population. the study population was growing (lambda = 1.096; 95% ci = 1.057-1.135). adult survival was the most important demographic parameter for population growth. growth clearly had the highest elasticity to adult survival, followed by juvenile survival and adult fecundity (approximately equivalent in rank). elasticity was lowest for fecundity of yearlings. the relative importances of the various life-history parameters for population growth rate are similar to those of large mammals." +adult survival and population growth rate in colorado big brown bats (eptesicus fuscus),big brown bats; colorado; eptesicus fuscus; matrix models; population growth; seasonality; sensitivity analysis; survival,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,O SHEA TJ;ELLISON LE;STANLEY TR,"we studied adult survival and population growth at multiple maternity colonies of big brown bats (eptesicus fuscus) in fort collins, colorado. we investigated hypotheses about survival using information-theoretic methods and mark recapture analyses based on passive detection of adult females tagged with passive integrated transponders. we constructed a 3-stage life-history matrix model to estimate population growth rate (x) and assessed the relative importance of adult survival and other life-history parameters to population growth through elasticity and sensitivity analysis. annual adult survival at 5 maternity colonies monitored from 2001 to 2005 was estimated at 0.79 (95% confidence interval [95% ci] = 0.77-0.82). adult survival varied by year and roost, with low survival during an extreme drought year, a finding with negative implications for bat populations because of the likelihood of increasing drought in western north america due to global climate change. adult survival during winter was higher than in summer, and mean life expectancies calculated from survival estimates were lower than maximum longevity records. we modeled adult survival with recruitment parameter estimates from the same population. the study population was growing (lambda = 1.096; 95% ci = 1.057-1.135). adult survival was the most important demographic parameter for population growth. growth clearly had the highest elasticity to adult survival, followed by juvenile survival and adult fecundity (approximately equivalent in rank). elasticity was lowest for fecundity of yearlings. the relative importances of the various life-history parameters for population growth rate are similar to those of large mammals." "demography of adults of the marsh fritillary butterfly, euphydryas aurinia (lepidoptera: nymphalidae) in the czech republic: patterns across sites and seasons",lepidoptera; nymphalidae; euphydryas aurinia; marsh fritillary; butterfly conservation; demography; density dependence; grasslands; local dynamics; metapopulation,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENTOMOLOGY,ZIMMERMANN K;BLAZKOVA P;CIZEK O;FRIC Z;HULA V;KEPKA P;NOVOTNY D;SLAMOVA I;KONVICKA M,"the marsh fritillary (euphydryas aurinia) (lepidoptera: nymphalidae) has declined across europe, including the czech republic. current conservation strategies rely on prevention of habitat loss and degradation, and increase in habitat quality and connectivity via promoting traditional grassland management. the population structure and adult demography parameters of a single population was investigated for eight years (single system), and of all the known czech populations (multiple populations) for a single year, using mark-recapture. there was substantial variation in the patterns of adult demography, both among years in the single system and among the multiple populations in a single year. in the single system, the date of the first flight of an adult varied by 18 days over the 8 years and total annual numbers varied with a coefficient of variation of 0.40 (females fluctuating more than males). the average density was ca 80 adults/ha. the population size displayed density-dependence, i.e. decreased following years with high adult numbers, with an equilibrium density of 90 individuals/ha. the average density of the multiple populations was ca 120 individuals/ha. the estimated total population for the czech republic was 25,000 individuals (17,000 males / 8,000 females) in 2007, which does not indicate an imminent threat of extinction. the regional persistence of e. aurinia is likely to depend on recolonisation of temporarily vacant sites by dispersing individuals, facilitated by local shifts in adult flight phenology to that better adapted to local conditions." "turtle populations at a heavily used recreational site: ichetucknee springs state park, columbia county, florida",florida; freshwater; ichetucknee; pseudemys; spring run; sternotherus; trachemys; turtle,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,CHAPIN KJ;MEYLAN PA,"nearly 189,000 people visited ichetucknee springs state park in 2002, a number 55,000 greater than 10 years prior. because the number of visitors is likely to increase in the future, it is important to determine baseline population levels for turtle species inhabiting the springs. we studied the freshwater turtle fauna of a 5.16 km (10.99 ha) section of ichetucknee spring run, columbia county, florida using mark-recapture methods. we compared turtle population estimates to historical data from ichetucknee spring run and rainbow run, marion county, florida, usa. we developed a geographic information system (gis) to analyze the spatial relationships of the turtle community. the turtle faunas of the two spring runs are nearly identical, but do have notable differences in species composition (e.g., trachemys scripta at ichetucknee run is replaced by pseudemys floridana at rainbow run). population structure of pseudemys concinna differs significantly between sites and may reflect take of large adults at rainbow run for human consumption. although preliminary, population estimates of sternotherus minor at ichetucknee run rival historical estimates. gis analysis of the distribution of habitats and turtle captures along ichetucknee spring run suggest the recognition of four distinct portions, or ""reaches,"" that are relevant to turtle distributions. identification of changes in the turtle community and consideration of possible causes can contribute to management strategies that will help to maintain the overall health of this icon among florida's natural attractions." a power analysis for the use of counts of egg masses to monitor wood frog (lithobates sylvaticus) populations,amphibians; lithobates sylvaticus; monitoring; power analysis; wood frog,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,SCHERER RD;TRACEY JA,"counts of numbers of egg masses have been proposed as a state variable for monitoring wood frog (lithobates sylvaticus) populations, and some important benefits of this approach have been identified (e.g., low cost). if the power to detect trends in time series of numbers of egg masses is low, however, this approach may not be useful. we used computer simulation to evaluate the effects of several parameters on the statistical power of detecting trends in counts of numbers of egg masses. results of the simulations indicate that a minimum of nine years of monitoring is necessary to have high statistical power (>= 0.80) for detecting a 10% decline per year. for populations experiencing low rates of annual decline (<= 4% annually), two decades or more of monitoring data are required to achieve high levels of power. increasing the proportion of egg masses detected by surveyors results in only minor improvements in statistical power, while increasing the type i error rate (alpha) results in greater improvements. insufficient duration of financial and institutional support for collection of data is a common cause of failure in monitoring programs. the results of this study provide guidance regarding the necessary duration of monitoring programs for amphibian populations and highlight components of the sampling design that can be altered to improve statistical power." -estimating potential reproductive costs in the survival of a xenosaurid lizard,capture-mark-recapture; life-history; multi-model inference; trade-off; xenosaurus grandis grandis,HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL,ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ,"both females and males may suffer from increased mortality risk as a result of the activities and physiological processes associated with reproduction. in this study i estimated sex-specific reproductive costs in the survival rates of a viviparous and territorial lizard (xenosaurus grandis grandis), accounting for the potential effects of population density, population growth rate and the size of individuals. i used a multi-model inference framework to test the following hypotheses: 1) female survival rate should decrease when they experience the late phases of embryo development and immediately after births take place; and 2) male survival rate should decrease when they search and compete for potential mates. capture-mark-recapture data supported the first hypothesis but not the second. female survival appeared to decrease right before and after parturition events. in contrast, male survival did not decrease during the mating season. i discuss the potential causes and implications of this sex-specific trade-off between reproduction and survival." +estimating potential reproductive costs in the survival of a xenosaurid lizard,capture-mark-recapture; life-history; multi-model inference; trade-off; xenosaurus grandis grandis,HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL,ZUNIGA VEGA JJ,"both females and males may suffer from increased mortality risk as a result of the activities and physiological processes associated with reproduction. in this study i estimated sex-specific reproductive costs in the survival rates of a viviparous and territorial lizard (xenosaurus grandis grandis), accounting for the potential effects of population density, population growth rate and the size of individuals. i used a multi-model inference framework to test the following hypotheses: 1) female survival rate should decrease when they experience the late phases of embryo development and immediately after births take place; and 2) male survival rate should decrease when they search and compete for potential mates. capture-mark-recapture data supported the first hypothesis but not the second. female survival appeared to decrease right before and after parturition events. in contrast, male survival did not decrease during the mating season. i discuss the potential causes and implications of this sex-specific trade-off between reproduction and survival." reproductive ecology of the stream-dwelling frog feirana taihangnicus in central china,breeding; life history; oviposition habitat,HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL,CHEN XH;YANG J;QIAO L;ZHANG LX;LU X,"we studied the breeding ecology of feirana taihangnicus, a stream-dwelling frog endemic to central china, in a forest-covered mountainous area in north henan. frogs emerged from hibernation in mid march and oviposition took place between late april and early may. about one week before the oviposition period, both sexes had swollen cloacas, with tubercles being present on the dorsal skin of adult males. males never developed vocal sacs, nuptial pads or any other obvious structures used in amplexus. males were smaller than females. sex ratio of the breeding population was female-biased. communal oviposition habitats, which were used repeatedly across years, were in sun-exposed, slow-flowing sections of the stream. eggs were found on the underside of rocks, deposited in a single layer. clutch size per female averaged 425 eggs and egg diameter 3.63 mm. larvae spent up to 27 months in streams before completing metamorphosis. mark-recapture data showed that 306-513 frogs were present during the breeding season along the 5.5 km long stream in 2006, but only 131 frogs were detected in 2010. frogs tended to use the same oviposition sites across years. in light of these data we discuss conservation needs for this species, which has a restricted distribution, specialized habitat and extended larval period." skeletochronology of phalanges underestimates the true age of long-lived alpine newts (ichthyosaura alpestris),age; amphibians; longevity; mark-recapture; urodeles,HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL,WAGNER A;SCHABETSBERGER R;SZTATECSNY M;KAISER R,"skeletochronology has become the most widely used method of ageing amphibians. however, bone remodelling, double lines and rapprochement of peripheral lines all hamper exact skeletochronological age determination. in a long-term field study, the age of long-lived alpine newts (ichthyosaura alpestris) from a high-altitude population was estimated from cross-sections of phalanges at the time of tagging with pit tags and again 10-16 years later. the skeletochronologically assessed age at recapture underestimated the time since first capture by 2-19 years, and the observed deviance increased with increasing age estimates at first capture." "fluctuations in lemming populations in north yukon, canada, 2007-2010",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY-REVUE CANADIENNE DE ZOOLOGIE,KREBS CJ;REID D;KENNEY AJ;GILBERT S,"we estimated population density of brown lemmings (lemmus sibiricus (kerr, 1792)), greenland collared lemmings (dicrostonyx groenlandicus (traill, 1823)), and tundra voles (microtus oeconomus (pallas, 1776)) on herschel island from 2007 to 2010 by mark-recapture on three live-trapping areas. limited data were also available from komakuk beach on the north yukon coast. in contrast to most previous studies, brown and collared lemmings were partly out of phase. brown lemmings on herschel reached peak density in 2007-2008 and were low in 2009-2010, while collared lemmings were at peak density in 2007-2008 and again in 2010. large adult male body size was characteristic of peak population:;. brown lemmings increased dramatically in the peak summer of 2008 and collared lemmings increased rapidly when winter breeding under the snow was successful in 2009-2010. by contrast, at komakuk beach, we could see no clear signs of fluctuations in these three species. winter snow conditions may be too severe for population persistence on the coastal plain along the north coast of the yukon. further work is needed to unravel why peak lemming densities are so variable among sites and why lemming fluctuations are so pronounced on the arctic coastal plain of alaska and virtually absent on the coastal plain of the north yukon." @@ -4066,7 +4073,7 @@ monitoring bald eagles using lists of nests: response to watts and duerr,bald ea "accounting for transients when estimating abundance of bottlenose dolphins in choctawhatchee bay, florida",abundance; bottlenose dolphin; mark-recapture; photo-identification; residents; superpopulation; transients; tursiops truncatus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CONN PB;GORGONE AM;JUGOVICH AR;BYRD BL;HANSEN LJ,"we investigated the potential for using mark-recapture models to estimate abundance of bottlenose dolphin populations in open systems (e. g., bays, estuaries). a major challenge in these systems is that immigration and emigration occur during sampling, thus violating one of the most basic assumptions of mark-recapture models. we assumed that dolphins using our study site were composed of both residents (those that used the study area almost exclusively during our study), and transients (those that passed through our study area but did not remain long), and examined several mark-recapture estimators for their ability to accurately and precisely estimate the abundance of residents and the superpopulation (i.e., residents + transients). using simulated data, we found that a novel approach accounting for transients resulted in estimators with less bias, smaller absolute relative error, and confidence interval coverage closer to nominal than other approaches, but this novel approach required intensive sampling and that the ""correct"" transient pattern be specified. in contrast, classical mark-recapture estimators for closed populations often overestimated the number of residents and underestimated the superpopulation. using photo-identification records, a model-averaged estimate of the superpopulation of bottlenose dolphins in and around choctawhatchee bay, florida was 232 (se = 13) animals. we estimated resident abundance at 179 (se = 8), which was lower than the number of unique animals we encountered (188). our results appear promising for developing monitoring programs for bottlenose dolphins and other taxa in open systems. our estimators should prove useful to wildlife managers who wish to base conservation decisions on estimates of the number of animals that reside primarily in their study or management area. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." density estimation in a wolverine population using spatial capture-recapture models,bayesian; capture-recapture; density; gulo gulo; motion-detection cameras; spatial models; wolverine,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,ROYLE JA;MAGOUN AJ;GARDNER B;VALKENBURG P;LOWELL RE,"classical closed-population capture-recapture models do not accommodate the spatial information inherent in encounter history data obtained from camera-trapping studies. as a result, individual heterogeneity in encounter probability is induced, and it is not possible to estimate density objectively because trap arrays do not have a well-defined sample area. we applied newly-developed, capture-recapture models that accommodate the spatial attribute inherent in capture-recapture data to a population of wolverines (gulo gulo) in southeast alaska in 2008. we used camera-trapping data collected from 37 cameras in a 2,140-km(2) area of forested and open habitats largely enclosed by ocean and glacial icefields. we detected 21 unique individuals 115 times. wolverines exhibited a strong positive trap response, with an increased tendency to revisit previously visited traps. under the trap-response model, we estimated wolverine density at 9.7 individuals/1,000 km(2) (95% bayesian ci: 5.9-15.0). our model provides a formal statistical framework for estimating density from wolverine camera-trapping studies that accounts for a behavioral response due to baited traps. further, our model-based estimator does not have strict requirements about the spatial configuration of traps or length of trapping sessions, providing considerable operational flexibility in the development of field studies. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." evaluation of noninvasive genetic sampling methods for cougars in yellowstone national park,cougars; genotyping errors; hair snares; individual identification; noninvasive genetic sampling; puma concolor; radio-collar; snow tracking; yellowstone national park,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SAWAYA MA;RUTH TK;CREEL S;ROTELLA JJ;STETZ JB;QUIGLEY HB;KALINOWSKI ST,"conventional methods for monitoring cougar, puma concolor, populations involve capture, tagging, and radio-collaring, but these methods are time-consuming, expensive, and logistically challenging. for difficult-to-study species such as cougars, noninvasive genetic sampling (ngs) may be a useful alternative. the ability to identify individuals from samples collected through ngs methods provides many opportunities for developing population-monitoring tools, but the utility of these survey methods is dependent upon collection of samples and accurate genotyping of those samples. in january 2003, we initiated a 3-yr evaluation of ngs methods for cougars using a radio-collared population in yellowstone national park (ynp), usa. our goals were to: 1) determine which dna collection method, hair snares or snow tracking, provided a better method for obtaining samples for genetic analysis, 2) evaluate reliability of the genetic data derived from hair samples collected in the field, and 3) evaluate the potential of ngs for demographic monitoring of cougar populations. snow tracking yielded more hair samples and was more cost effective than snagging hair with rub pads. samples collected from bed sites and natural hair snags (e. g., branch tips, thorn bushes) while snow tracking accurately identified and sexed 22 individuals (9 f, 13 m). the ratio of the count from snow tracking to the count from radio-telemetry was 15: 24 in winter 2004, 13: 12 in 2005, and 22: 29 for both years combined. annual capture probabilities for obtaining dna from snow tracking varied considerably between years for females (0.42 in 2004 and 0.88 in 2005) but were more consistent for males (0.77 in 2004 and 0.88 in 2005). our results indicate that snow tracking can be an efficient, reliable ngs method for cougars in ynp and has potential for estimating demographic and genetic parameters of other carnivore populations in similar climates. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." -characterization of small microsatellite loci isolated in endangered indiana bat (myotis sodalis) for use in non-invasive sampling,indiana bat; microsatellite; myotis sodalis; non invasive sampling,CONSERVATION GENETICS RESOURCES,OYLER-MCCANCE SJ;FIKE JA,"primers for 10 microsatellite loci were developed specifically to amplify low quantity and quality dna in the endangered indiana bat (myotis sodalis). in a screen of 20 individuals from a population in missouri, the 10 loci were found to have levels of variability ranging from seven to 18 alleles. no loci were found to be linked, although two loci revealed significant departures from hardy-weinberg equilibrium. these microsatellite loci will be applicable for population genetic analyses and for use in mark-recapture studies that utilize dna collected non-invasively from fecal pellets, which will ultimately aid in management efforts." +characterization of small microsatellite loci isolated in endangered indiana bat (myotis sodalis) for use in non-invasive sampling,indiana bat; microsatellite; myotis sodalis; non invasive sampling,CONSERVATION GENETICS RESOURCES,OYLER MCCANCE SJ;FIKE JA,"primers for 10 microsatellite loci were developed specifically to amplify low quantity and quality dna in the endangered indiana bat (myotis sodalis). in a screen of 20 individuals from a population in missouri, the 10 loci were found to have levels of variability ranging from seven to 18 alleles. no loci were found to be linked, although two loci revealed significant departures from hardy-weinberg equilibrium. these microsatellite loci will be applicable for population genetic analyses and for use in mark-recapture studies that utilize dna collected non-invasively from fecal pellets, which will ultimately aid in management efforts." "polar bear population status in the northern beaufort sea, canada, 1971-2006",aboriginal hunting; arctic; beaufort sea; climate warming; open-population capture-recapture models; polar bears; population estimation; sea ice; survival rates; ursus maritimus,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,STIRLING I;MCDONALD TL;RICHARDSON ES;REGEHR EV;AMSTRUP SC,"polar bears (ursus maritimus) of the northern beaufort sea (nb) population occur on the perimeter of the polar basin adjacent to the northwestern islands of the canadian arctic archipelago. sea ice converges on the islands through most of the year. we used open-population capture-recapture models to estimate population size and vital rates of polar bears between 1971 and 2006 to: (1) assess relationships between survival, sex and age, and time period; (2) evaluate the long-term importance of sea ice quality and availability in relation to climate warming; and (3) note future management and conservation concerns. the highest-ranking models suggested that survival of polar bears varied by age class and with changes in the sea ice habitat. model-averaged estimates of survival (which include harvest mortality) for senescent adults ranged from 0.37 to 0.62, from 0.22 to 0.68 for cubs of the year (coy) and yearlings, and from 0.77 to 0.92 for 2-4 year-olds and adults. horvtiz-thompson (ht) estimates of population size were not significantly different among the decades of our study. the population size estimated for the 2000s was 980 +/- 155 (mean and 95% ci). these estimates apply primarily to that segment of the nb population residing west and south of banks island. the nb polar bear population appears to have been stable or possibly increasing slightly during the period of our study. this suggests that ice conditions have remained suitable and similar for feeding in summer and fall during most years and that the traditional and legal inuvialuit harvest has not exceeded sustainable levels. however, the amount of ice remaining in the study area at the end of summer, and the proportion that continues to lie over the biologically productive continental shelf (<300 m water depth) has declined over the 35-year period of this study. if the climate continues to warm as predicted, we predict that the polar bear population in the northern beaufort sea will eventually decline. management and conservation practices for polar bears in relation to both aboriginal harvesting and offshore industrial activity will need to adapt." how many genetic markers to tag an individual? an empirical assessment of false matching rates among close relatives,abundance estimation; conservation; error rates; genetic tagging; humpback whale; mark-recapture; megaptera novaeangliae; microsatellite; monitoring; number of loci; probability of identity; relatedness,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,REW MB;ROBBINS J;MATTILA D;PALSBOLL PJ;BERUBE M,"genetic identification of individuals is now commonplace, enabling the application of tagging methods to elusive species or species that cannot be tagged by traditional methods. a key aspect is determining the number of loci required to ensure that different individuals have non-matching multi-locus genotypes. closely related individuals are of particular concern because of elevated matching probabilities caused by their recent coancestry. this issue may be addressed by increasing the number of loci to a level where full siblings (the relatedness category with the highest matching probability) are expected to have non-matching multi-locus genotypes. however, increasing the number of loci to meet this ""full-sib criterion"" greatly increases the laboratory effort, which in turn may increase the genotyping error rate resulting in an upward-biased mark-recapture estimate of abundance as recaptures are missed due to genotyping errors. we assessed the contribution of false matches from close relatives among 425 maternally related humpback whales, each genotyped at 20 microsatellite loci. we observed a very low (0.5-4%) contribution to falsely matching samples from pairs of first-order relatives (i.e., parent and offspring or full siblings). the main contribution to falsely matching individuals from close relatives originated from second-order relatives (e. g., half siblings), which was estimated at; 9%. in our study, the total number of observed matches agreed well with expectations based upon the matching probability estimated for unrelated individuals, suggesting that the full-sib criterion is overly conservative, and would have required a 280% relative increase in effort. we suggest that, under most circumstances, the overall contribution to falsely matching samples from close relatives is likely to be low, and hence applying the full-sib criterion is unnecessary. in those cases where close relatives may present a significant issue, such as unrepresentative sampling, we propose three different genotyping strategies requiring only a modest increase in effort, which will greatly reduce the number of false matches due to the presence of related individuals." use of the superpopulation approach to estimate breeding population size: an example in asynchronously breeding birds,ardea; asynchrony; bias; eudocimus; everglades; jolly-seber; mark-recapture; nest turnover; peak count; population size; superpopulation; waders,ECOLOGY,WILLIAMS KA;FREDERICK PC;NICHOLS JD,"many populations of animals are fluid in both space and time, making estimation of numbers difficult. much attention has been devoted to estimation of bias in detection of animals that are present at the time of survey. however, an equally important problem is estimation of population size when all animals are not present on all survey occasions. here, we showcase use of the superpopulation approach to capture-recapture modeling for estimating populations where group membership is asynchronous, and where considerable overlap in group membership among sampling occasions may occur. we estimate total population size of long-legged wading bird (great egret and white ibis) breeding colonies from aerial observations of individually identifiable nests at various times in the nesting season. initiation and termination of nests were analogous to entry and departure from a population. estimates using the superpopulation approach were 47-382% larger than peak aerial counts of the same colonies. our results indicate that the use of the superpopulation approach to model nesting asynchrony provides a considerably less biased and more efficient estimate of nesting activity than traditional methods. we suggest that this approach may also be used to derive population estimates in a variety of situations where group membership is fluid." @@ -4094,15 +4101,15 @@ using multistate recapture modelling to assess age-specific bottlenecks in breed seasonal variability in survivorship of a cooperatively breeding tropical passerine,alophoixus pallidus; cooperative breeding; mark-resighting; survival; tropical passerine,ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH,SANKAMETHAWEE W;PIERCE AJ;HARDESTY BD;GALE GA,"survival of tropical passerines is thought to be higher than those in northern temperate regions, but relatively few tropical studies have addressed this issue, particularly in tropical asia. we examined factors that may have influenced the survival rate of a cooperatively breeding bird, the puff-throated bulbul (alophoixus pallidus), in an evergreen forest in northeastern thailand. these factors included year, season (breeding and non-breeding), sex, and presence of helper(s) in a family group. we present evidence of breeding season-dependent survival in a tropical passerine using an information theoretic approach based on both mark-recapture and resighting data collected during 6 years of study. based on colour-banded adults the annual survival rate did not vary significantly among years (average = 0.85 +/- a 0.02 se). the mean lifespan (mls) for the population was 6.22 +/- a 4.38 se years. survivorship was lower during the breeding season (0.89 +/- a 0.02 se) than during the non-breeding season (0.96 +/- a 0.02 se). the mls of males and females was 6.70 +/- a 7.73 se and 5.87 +/- a 4.88 se years, respectively. the annual survival rate we observed was high compared to the estimates of other tropical and temperate passerines, possibly due to the relatively stable climatic conditions in tropical latitudes and puff-throated bulbuls being generalists that exploit a wide range of food resources both in space and time." absence of kin structure in a population of the group-living rodent octodon degus,offspring associations; relatedness; social groups; spatial genetic autocorrelation analysis,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY,QUIRICI V;FAUGERON S;HAYES LD;EBENSPERGER LA,"variation in sociality may have an important impact on population genetic structure. in highly social species, the formation of kin clusters leads to decreasing variation within but increasing genetic variation among social groups. studies on less social species in which social groups may be more short lived have revealed a greater diversity of consequences on the genetic structure of populations. thus, studies on populations of less social species can more precisely highlight how social structure and genetic structure covary in wild populations. we explored the relationship between natal dispersal and social structuring (i.e., whether social group are composed of kin) at the local population in a social rodent, octodon degus, using a combination of direct (capture-mark-recapture) and indirect (codominat genetic markers) methods. previous studies of degus indicated that social groups were characterized by high turnover rate of group members and no sex bias dispersal. as we expected, there was an absence of correlation between social and genetic structure; moreover, social groups were not characterized by high levels of genetic relatedness (r: no different form background population). direct and indirect (corrected assignment index) methods revealed an absence of sex-biased dispersal. moreover, this method reveled that our study population was composed of resident and immigrant individuals. moreover, dispersal distances have no effect on kin structure as reveled by the spatial genetic autocorrelation analysis. beside some degree of offspring association (r: among juveniles of a same group higher than background population), high turnover rate, dispersal, and perhaps a promiscuous or polyandry mating system seem to avoid a kin genetic structure, thereby limiting the opportunity for the evolution of kin-selected social behavior." a multistate capture-recapture modeling strategy to separate true survival from permanent emigration for a passive integrated transponder tagged population of stream fish,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,HORTON GE;LETCHER BH;KENDALL WL,"robust estimates of survival and movement are important for informing the recovery of fish populations as well as for the study of life history, behavior, and population ecology. we present a multistate capture-recapture model that allows separate and simultaneous estimation of true survival and fidelity to the study reach in the presence of imperfect recapture and detection probabilities. the key study design element that permitted this separation was the use of a multiple-antenna array to detect passive integrated transponder (pit) tagged individuals as they emigrated from the study area. the modeling approach incorporated live recapture data during discrete sampling occasions with observational data on antenna detections of tagged individuals as they exited the study area between sampling occasions. the multistate emigration model was applied to empirical data from a stream-dwelling, pit-tagged cohort of atlantic salmon salmo salar for which emigration was continuously monitored by using a pair of stationary pit tag antennas. the study design we outline presents a way to inform key management, recovery, and ecological questions. our analysis showed how estimates of the joint probability of surviving and remaining faithful to the study reach (apparent survival) that were based solely on live recapture data (e. g., from the cormack-jolly-seber model) masked the patterns that were revealed when true survival and emigration were separately estimated with the multistate emigration model. use of the multistate model also allowed us to consider size dependence in survival and emigration in a straightforward way; the estimated size-dependent functions support hypotheses regarding the mechanisms leading to survival or emigration responses of atlantic salmon and other stream-dwelling salmonids." -"demography of a semelparous, high-elevation population of sceloporus bicanthalis (lacertilia: phrynosomatidae) from the nevado de toluca volcano, mexico",NA,SOUTHWESTERN NATURALIST,RODRIGUEZ-ROMERO F;SMITH GR;MENDEZ-SANCHEZ F;HERNANDEZ-GALLEGOS O;NAVA PS;DE LA CRUZ FRM,"we studied demography of a population of viviparous lizard, sceloporus bicanthalis, from nevado de toluca volcano, mexico, using mark-recapture methods. age structure of this population varied seasonally due to an increase in number of juveniles over summer, although neonates were observed in every month. estimated average density was 304 individuals/ha. snout-vent length at sexual maturity in viviparous s. bicanthalis was 31 min in males and 32 mm in females. males survived longer than females, with an expected lifespan of 15 months, compared to 8 months for females. net reproductive rate of this population was 1, suggesting it was at equilibrium, while generation time was 7 months. this is population has a semelparous life cycle." -coexisting with fire: the case of the terrestrial tortoise testudo graeca in mediterranean shrublands,capture-recapture; movement; population dynamics; quasi-extinction probabilities; stochastic population models; survival,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,SANZ-AGUILAR A;ANADON JD;GIMENEZ A;BALLESTAR R;GRACIA E;ORO D,"fire and fire management are recognized as important factors in biodiversity conservation. measuring species-level demographic, behavioural and population responses to different fire regimes is essential for designing adequate management policies. here we assessed the impact of fire on survival rates, reproduction and movement patterns in testudo graeca, an endangered terrestrial tortoise inhabiting the mediterranean region, a system in which fire plays a relevant role in the functioning of their ecosystems. then we predicted the probabilities of quasi-extinction of t. graeca under several fire regimes and population sizes by means of stochastic population models. our results showed that fire caused direct and delayed reductions in local survival, young individuals being the most affected. there were not differences in fecundity and movement patterns of tortoises between burned and unburned areas. population models showed a strong variation in the probability of quasi-extinction of populations depending on the fire regime and the population size. under fire frequencies similar to those occurring in the wild (<1 fire every 20-30 years) most tortoise populations seemed to buffer the effects of fires. however, when this threshold value of fire frequency was surpassed, the probability of quasi-extinction of populations exploded for all populations, except for those with the largest sizes. t. graeca populations may be able to cope with natural current fire frequencies, but the effects of more recurrent fires may severely threaten the species. our results have straightforward applications for fire management purposes in those areas of the mediterranean region where this endangered species is present. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +"demography of a semelparous, high-elevation population of sceloporus bicanthalis (lacertilia: phrynosomatidae) from the nevado de toluca volcano, mexico",NA,SOUTHWESTERN NATURALIST,RODRIGUEZ ROMERO F;SMITH GR;MENDEZ SANCHEZ F;HERNANDEZ GALLEGOS O;NAVA PS;DE LA CRUZ FRM,"we studied demography of a population of viviparous lizard, sceloporus bicanthalis, from nevado de toluca volcano, mexico, using mark-recapture methods. age structure of this population varied seasonally due to an increase in number of juveniles over summer, although neonates were observed in every month. estimated average density was 304 individuals/ha. snout-vent length at sexual maturity in viviparous s. bicanthalis was 31 min in males and 32 mm in females. males survived longer than females, with an expected lifespan of 15 months, compared to 8 months for females. net reproductive rate of this population was 1, suggesting it was at equilibrium, while generation time was 7 months. this is population has a semelparous life cycle." +coexisting with fire: the case of the terrestrial tortoise testudo graeca in mediterranean shrublands,capture-recapture; movement; population dynamics; quasi-extinction probabilities; stochastic population models; survival,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,SANZ AGUILAR A;ANADON JD;GIMENEZ A;BALLESTAR R;GRACIA E;ORO D,"fire and fire management are recognized as important factors in biodiversity conservation. measuring species-level demographic, behavioural and population responses to different fire regimes is essential for designing adequate management policies. here we assessed the impact of fire on survival rates, reproduction and movement patterns in testudo graeca, an endangered terrestrial tortoise inhabiting the mediterranean region, a system in which fire plays a relevant role in the functioning of their ecosystems. then we predicted the probabilities of quasi-extinction of t. graeca under several fire regimes and population sizes by means of stochastic population models. our results showed that fire caused direct and delayed reductions in local survival, young individuals being the most affected. there were not differences in fecundity and movement patterns of tortoises between burned and unburned areas. population models showed a strong variation in the probability of quasi-extinction of populations depending on the fire regime and the population size. under fire frequencies similar to those occurring in the wild (<1 fire every 20-30 years) most tortoise populations seemed to buffer the effects of fires. however, when this threshold value of fire frequency was surpassed, the probability of quasi-extinction of populations exploded for all populations, except for those with the largest sizes. t. graeca populations may be able to cope with natural current fire frequencies, but the effects of more recurrent fires may severely threaten the species. our results have straightforward applications for fire management purposes in those areas of the mediterranean region where this endangered species is present. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." movement rates and distances of wintering harlequin ducks: implications for population structure,age; dispersal distances; harlequin ducks; histrionicus histrionicus; movement rates; paired status; population structure,WATERBIRDS,REGEHR HM,"population structure of harlequin ducks (histrionic-us histrionicus) wintering in the strait of georgia, british columbia, was evaluated by generating age, sex, paired status and distance-specific movement rates with multi-stratum mark-recapture analyses, and age and sex-specific movement distances through surveys of marked individuals. annual movement distances and rates did not differ by sex, but only 2-4% of adults (third year and after-third year) compared to 7-11% of subadults (hatch year and second year) moved among locations per year and distance moved decreased with age. adults were highly site faithful regardless of sex and paired status. the stepping stone gene flow model estimated the among population component of genetic variance (f-st) at 0.005, suggesting that winter movement by subadults was sufficient to explain results of previous genetic analyses that detected no fine scale genetic structuring. seasonal movement rates indicated that at least 95% of individuals molt and winter in the same location, and that annual aggregation at pacific herring (clupea pallasi) spawning sites facilitates demographic mixing and gene flow. low annual movement rates (0.001) between the northern and southern strait of georgia and dispersal by both sexes suggest that a metapopulation distribution may function within the pacific coast range, which is relevant to the geographic scale of management. movement rates and distances suggest that subadult survival rates are particularly vulnerable to underestimation. received 28 february 2010, accepted 3 june 2010." a new method for estimating growth transition matrices,growth; length-based models; mark-recapture; transition matrices,BIOMETRICS,HILLARY RM,the vast majority of population models work using age or stage not length but there are many cases where animals cannot be aged sensibly or accurately. for these cases length-based models form the logical alternative but there has been little work done to develop and compare different methods of estimating growth transition matrices to be used in such models. this article demonstrates how a consistent bayesian framework for estimating growth parameters and a novel method for constructing length transition matrices accounts for variation in growth in a clear and consistent manner and avoids potential subjective choices required using more established methods. the inclusion of the resultant growth uncertainty in population assessment models and the potential impact on management decisions is also addressed. multistate mark-recapture model selection using score tests,branta canadensis; canada goose; mark-recapture; memory model; model selection,BIOMETRICS,MCCREA RS;MORGAN BJT,"although multistate mark-recapture models are recognized as important, they lack a simple model-selection procedure. this article proposes and evaluates a step-up approach to select appropriate models for multistate mark-recapture data using score tests. only models supported by the data require fitting, so that over-complicated model structures with too many parameters do not need to be considered. typically only a small number of models are fitted, and the procedure is also able to identify parameter-redundant and near-redundant models. the good performance of the technique is demonstrated using simulation, and the approach is illustrated on a three-region canada goose data set. in this case, it identifies a new model that is much simpler than the best model previously considered for this application." capture-recapture smooth estimation of age-specific survival probabilities in animal populations,k-fold cross-validation; generalized cross-validation; penalized likelihood; senescence; age-structured populations,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,VIALLEFONT A,"yielding sound estimates of survival according to age in wild populations where senescence or other age-related variations may occur is very important to management decision makers, and remains challenging. this paper proposes to use penalized maximum likelihood to obtain smooth estimates of annual survival probabilities across age in populations of wild animals followed by capture-recapture. we propose to use two different types of smoothing penalties, and we use nu-fold cross-validation to select the best value of the tuning parameter for the intensity of smoothing. we then assess the accuracy of the method by a simulation study with two different shapes of the relationship between age and survival, and we conclude that a careful use of this method provides reliable noise-free estimates of age-specific annual survival. we apply this procedure to the motivating data from a population of roe deer known to exhibit a marked decrease of survival with age, and we compare our results with those previously published on this population." recapture models under equality constraints for the conditional capture probabilities,capture history; capture-recapture; conditional likelihood; equality constraint; population size,BIOMETRIKA,FARCOMENI A,we introduce a general class of capture-recapture models in which capture probabilities depend on capture history. we discuss constrained versions of the saturated model based on equality constraints. inference can be performed through a simple estimating equation. the approach is illustrated on a dataset concerning great copper butterflies in willamette valley of oregon. modeling misidentification errors that result from use of genetic tags in capture-recapture studies,closed population models; genotype; population size estimate; natural tags; photographic identification; misidentification,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,YOSHIZAKI J;BROWNIE C;POLLOCK KH;LINK WA,"misidentification of animals is potentially important when naturally existing features (natural tags) such as dna fingerprints (genetic tags) are used to identify individual animals. for example, when misidentification leads to multiple identities being assigned to an animal, traditional estimators tend to overestimate population size. accounting for misidentification in capture-recapture models requires detailed understanding of the mechanism. using genetic tags as an example, we outline a framework for modeling the effect of misidentification in closed population studies when individual identification is based on natural tags that are consistent over time (non-evolving natural tags). we first assume a single sample is obtained per animal for each capture event, and then generalize to the case where multiple samples (such as hair or scat samples) are collected per animal per capture occasion. we introduce methods for estimating population size and, using a simulation study, we show that our new estimators perform well for cases with moderately high capture probabilities or high misidentification rates. in contrast, conventional estimators can seriously overestimate population size when errors due to misidentification are ignored." -individual differences in reproductive costs examined using multi-state methods,individual quality; mark-recapture; red deer; survival; trade-off,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,MOYES K;MORGAN B;MORRIS A;MORRIS S;CLUTTON-BROCK T;COULSON T,"p>1. trade-offs among life-history traits are common because individuals have to partition limited resources between multiple traits. reproductive costs are generally assumed to be high, resulting in reduced survival and fecundity in the following year. however, it is common to find positive rather than negative correlations between life-history traits. 2. here, we use a data set from the individual-based study of red deer on the isle of rum to examine how these costs vary between individuals and at different ages, using multi-state mark-recapture methodology. 3. females that had reproduced frequently in the past incurred lower costs of reproduction in terms of survival in the following year and were more likely to reproduce in two consecutive years. older individuals and those that had not reproduced frequently exhibited higher costs. 4. these results highlight the importance of considering heterogeneity and individual quality when examining trade-offs and demonstrate the effectiveness of using detailed long-term data sets to explore life-history strategies using multi-state mark-recapture models." +individual differences in reproductive costs examined using multi-state methods,individual quality; mark-recapture; red deer; survival; trade-off,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,MOYES K;MORGAN B;MORRIS A;MORRIS S;CLUTTON BROCK T;COULSON T,"p>1. trade-offs among life-history traits are common because individuals have to partition limited resources between multiple traits. reproductive costs are generally assumed to be high, resulting in reduced survival and fecundity in the following year. however, it is common to find positive rather than negative correlations between life-history traits. 2. here, we use a data set from the individual-based study of red deer on the isle of rum to examine how these costs vary between individuals and at different ages, using multi-state mark-recapture methodology. 3. females that had reproduced frequently in the past incurred lower costs of reproduction in terms of survival in the following year and were more likely to reproduce in two consecutive years. older individuals and those that had not reproduced frequently exhibited higher costs. 4. these results highlight the importance of considering heterogeneity and individual quality when examining trade-offs and demonstrate the effectiveness of using detailed long-term data sets to explore life-history strategies using multi-state mark-recapture models." "rates and causes of death in chiradzulu district, malawi, 2008: a key informant study",mortality; cause of death; hiv; aids; malawi; verbal autopsy,TROPICAL MEDICINE & INTERNATIONAL HEALTH,CHECCHI F;NYASULU P;CHANDRAMOHAN D;ROBERTS B,"in september 2008, we measured all-cause mortality in chiradzulu district, malawi (population 291 000) over a 60-day retrospective period, using capture recapture analysis of three lists of deaths provided by (i) key community informants, (ii) graveyard officials and (iii) health system sources. estimated crude and under-5-year mortality rates were 18.6(95% ci 13.9-24.5) and 30.6(95% ci 17.5 - 59.9) deaths per 1000 person-years. we also classified causes of death through verbal autopsy interviews on 50 deaths over the previous 40 days. half of deaths were attributable to infection, and half of deaths among children aged under 5 were attributable to neonatal causes. hiv/aids was the leading cause of death (16.6%), with a cause-attributable mortality rate of 1.8 (0.4-3.6) deaths per 1000 person-years." "life history variation in the spotted tree frog, litoria spenceri (anura: hylidae), from southeastern australia",age; australia; body size; conservation; life history; litoria spenceri; longevity; skeletochronology,HERPETOLOGICA,GILLESPIE GR,"knowledge of life history and population demography of threatened amphibians is poor. i used skeletochronolog in conjunction with mark recapture data to examine growth rates, age at maturity, and longevity of the spotted tree frog. litoria spenceri, a critically endangered australian species. ages were reliably determined for 578 individuals across two populations at 335- and 1110-m elevation. females attained larger body sizes than males and took longer to reach sexual maturity, consistent with most anurans. males matured at 2 yr and females at 3-4 yr at lower elevations, whereas at higher elevations, males matured at 3-4 yr and females took up to 6 yr to mature, which is slow compared with most anurans. overall, l. spenceri is long-lived, with a maximum confirmed age of 14 yr. these life history attributes have implications for population dynamics of l spenceri, which may have markedly different demographic responses to certain threatening processes compared with faster growing, shorter lived species. this study highlights the value and need for more life history and demographic data on threatened species. generalizations about population demography and dynamics across environmental gradients should be made cautiously." should all fish in mark-recapture experiments be double-tagged? lessons learned from tagging coastal cod (gadus morhua),cod; double-tagging; mark-recapture; tag detection; tag loss; tag reporting,ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,BJORNSSON B;KARLSSON H;THORSTEINSSON V;SOLMUNDSSON J,"cod (gadus morhua) were tagged outside and inside ""herds"" formed by anthropogenic feeding in an icelandic fjord. recapture rates were twice as high for fish double-tagged with one surgically implanted electronic tag and one anchor tag (46.6 and 62.2%) than with fish tagged with only a single anchor tag (20.0 and 29.2%) outside and inside the herds, respectively. the two main reasons for the differences observed in recapture rates were higher detection and reporting rates for the double-tagged fish. in cage experiments, 8% of the fish receiving implanted tags died during the first 2 d after tagging. for double-tagged fish, tag loss was similar to 10% for both tag types. about 80% of the tags were returned by fishers and 20% by fish processors. the tag detection rate by fishers was estimated at similar to 45 and similar to 80% for single-and double-tagged fish, and the reporting rate at similar to 74 and similar to 100% for single-and double-tagged fish, respectively. it is proposed for future tagging studies to double-tag all fish routinely, placing one tag dorsally and one ventrally, to enhance the detection rate and to account for tag loss." @@ -4112,9 +4119,9 @@ survival of white ibises (eudocimus albus) in response to chronic experimental m influence of lung parasites on the growth rates of free-ranging and captive adult cane toads,anuran; bufo marinus; invasive species; rhabdias pseudosphaerocephala; rhinella marina,OECOLOGIA,KELEHEAR C;BROWN GP;SHINE R,"many parasites affect the viability of their hosts, but detailed studies combining empirical data from both the field and the laboratory are limited. consequently, the nature and magnitude of such effects are poorly known for many important host-parasite systems, including macroparasites of amphibians. we examined the effects of lungworm (rhabdias pseudosphaerocephala) infections in cane toads (bufo marinus) within their invasive australian range. the host-specificity of this parasite suggests that it might serve as a biological control agent for toads in australia, if infection proves to reduce toad viability. mark-recapture studies in the field (near darwin, northern territory) revealed lowered growth rates in infected adult toads when compared to uninfected toads, and a laboratory experiment confirmed causality: experimental infection with r. pseudosphaerocephala reduce toad growth rates. in combination with previous work on the current host-parasite system, it is now evident that nematode lungworms reduce the viability of both newly metamorphosed and adult cane toads, and do so in the field as well as in the laboratory. rhabdias pseudosphaerocephala may be a valuable component of a biological control strategy for cane toads in australia." "degradation of the crocodile population in the olifants river gorge of kruger national park, south africa",abundance; availability bias; detectability bias; spot-light counts; aerial surveys; population growth; disease,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,FERREIRA SM;PIENAAR D,"1. top predators such as crocodiles often reflect ecosystem degradation. the recent spate of close to 200 nile crocodile deaths may reflect the ecosystem state of the olifants-letaba river system in the kruger national park. this paper investigates whether the crocodile deaths were indeed the consequence of a rare and perhaps acute event given the variability in annual population growth rates of crocodilians. 2. spotlight-and helicopter-based surveys designed to correct for availability and detectability bias were used to estimate population sizes of crocodiles from 2008 to 2010 in and around the olifants river gorge, the focal area of crocodile deaths. 3. correction factors derived from individually observed crocodiles for both spotlight-and helicopter-based counts were lower than those typically used for nile crocodiles as well as other crocodile species. even so, corrected spotlight-and helicopter-based estimates were comparable and the number of crocodiles in the focal study area declined significantly from 780 (95% ci: 637-1222) to between 460 (spotlight estimate, 95% ci: 375-665) and 505 (aerial estimate, 95% ci: 559-1746) during the period of crocodile deaths. the average annual decline of 35% was at the lower end of the distribution of annual population growth rates across the rivers of kruger national park. 4. the crocodile deaths reflect a possible rare event that suggests a degraded crocodile population, possibly the consequences of broad-scale cascades of environmental deterioration of the olifants-letaba river system. 5. even so, the potential risk of local demise of the population in the focal study area in the short term may be diminished through evolutionary, demographic and spatial resilience inherent within crocodiles that can accommodate the as yet unknown disease dynamics of pansteatitis. copyright (c) 2011 john wiley & sons, ltd." improving density estimates for elusive carnivores: accounting for sex-specific detection and movements using spatial capture-recapture models for jaguars in central brazil,bayesian analysis; camera trapping; cerrado; panthera onca; sex-specific movements,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,SOLLMANN R;FURTADO MM;GARDNER B;HOFER H;JACOMO ATA;TORRES NM;SILVEIRA L,"owing to habitat conversion and conflict with humans, many carnivores are of conservation concern. because of their elusive nature, camera trapping is a standard tool for studying carnivores. in many vertebrates, sex-specific differences in movements - and therefore detection by cameras - are likely. we used camera trapping data and spatially explicit sex-specific capture-recapture models to estimate jaguar density in emas national park in the central brazilian cerrado grassland, an ecological hotspot of international importance. our spatially explicit model considered differences in movements and trap encounter rate between genders and the location of camera traps (on/off road). we compared results with estimates from a sex-specific non-spatial capture-recapture model. the spatial model estimated a density of 0.29 jaguars 100 km(-2) and showed that males moved larger distances and had higher trap encounter rates than females. encounter rates with off-road traps were one tenth of those for on-road traps. in the non-spatial model, males had a higher capture probability than females; density was estimated at 0.62 individuals 100 km(-2). the non-spatial model likely overestimated density because it did not adequately account for animal movements. the spatial model probably underestimated density because it assumed a uniform distribution of jaguars within and outside the reserve. overall, the spatial model is preferable because it explicitly considers animal movements and allows incorporating site-specific and individual covariates. with both methods, jaguar density was lower than reported from most other study sites. for rare species such as grassland jaguars, spatially explicit capture-recapture models present an important advance for informed conservation planning. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -studying the reproductive skipping behavior in long-lived birds by adding nest inspection to individual-based data,breeding dispersal; breeding frequency; calonectris diomedea; capture-recapture; cory's shearwater; individual-based data; multi-event; recapture; reproductive trade-offs,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,SANZ-AGUILAR A;TAVECCHIA G;GENOVART M;IGUAL JM;ORO D;ROUAN L;PRADEL R,"the frequency at which individuals breed is an important parameter in population, as well as in evolutionary, studies. however, when nonbreeding individuals are absent from the study area, the reproductive skipping is usually confounded with a recapture failure and cannot be estimated directly. yet, there are situations in which external information may help to estimate reproductive skipping. such a situation is found with nest-tenacious birds: the fact that an individual is not encountered in its previous nest is a good indication that it must be skipping reproduction. we illustrate here a general probabilistic framework in which we merged the classical individual capture-recapture information with nest-based information to obtain the simultaneous estimate of recapture, survival, reproductive skipping, and within-colony breeding dispersal probabilities using multi-event models. we applied this approach to cory's shearwater (calonectris diomedea), a long-lived burrow-nesting seabird. by comparing results with those obtained from the analysis of the capture-recapture information alone, we showed that the model separates successfully the probabilities of recapture from those of temporal emigration. we found that the probabilities of future reproduction and breeding-site fidelity were lower for individuals temporarily absent from the colony, suggesting a lower intrinsic quality of intermittent breeders. the new probabilistic framework presented here allowed us to refine the estimates of demographic parameters by simply adding nest-based data, a type of information usually collected in the field but never included in the analysis of individual-based data. our approach also provides a new and flexible way to test hypotheses on temporal emigration and breeding dispersal in longitudinal data." +studying the reproductive skipping behavior in long-lived birds by adding nest inspection to individual-based data,breeding dispersal; breeding frequency; calonectris diomedea; capture-recapture; cory's shearwater; individual-based data; multi-event; recapture; reproductive trade-offs,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,SANZ AGUILAR A;TAVECCHIA G;GENOVART M;IGUAL JM;ORO D;ROUAN L;PRADEL R,"the frequency at which individuals breed is an important parameter in population, as well as in evolutionary, studies. however, when nonbreeding individuals are absent from the study area, the reproductive skipping is usually confounded with a recapture failure and cannot be estimated directly. yet, there are situations in which external information may help to estimate reproductive skipping. such a situation is found with nest-tenacious birds: the fact that an individual is not encountered in its previous nest is a good indication that it must be skipping reproduction. we illustrate here a general probabilistic framework in which we merged the classical individual capture-recapture information with nest-based information to obtain the simultaneous estimate of recapture, survival, reproductive skipping, and within-colony breeding dispersal probabilities using multi-event models. we applied this approach to cory's shearwater (calonectris diomedea), a long-lived burrow-nesting seabird. by comparing results with those obtained from the analysis of the capture-recapture information alone, we showed that the model separates successfully the probabilities of recapture from those of temporal emigration. we found that the probabilities of future reproduction and breeding-site fidelity were lower for individuals temporarily absent from the colony, suggesting a lower intrinsic quality of intermittent breeders. the new probabilistic framework presented here allowed us to refine the estimates of demographic parameters by simply adding nest-based data, a type of information usually collected in the field but never included in the analysis of individual-based data. our approach also provides a new and flexible way to test hypotheses on temporal emigration and breeding dispersal in longitudinal data." frailty in state-space models: application to actuarial senescence in the dipper,actuarial senescence; bayesian; cinclus cinclus; dipper; frailty; individual heterogeneity; state-space models; survival,ECOLOGY,MARZOLIN G;CHARMANTIER A;GIMENEZ O,"senescence, a decrease in life history traits with age, is a within-individual process. the lack of suitable methods to deal with individual heterogeneity has long impeded progress in exploring senescence in wild populations. analyses of survival senescence are additionally complicated by the often neglected issue of imperfect detectability. to deal with both these issues, we developed state-space models to analyze capture-mark-recapture data while accounting for individual heterogeneity by incorporating random effects. we illustrated our approach by applying it to 29 years of data on breeding females in a dipper (cinclus cinclus) population. we highlighted patterns of age-related variation in annual survival by statistical comparisons of piecewise linear, quadratic, gompertz, and weibull survival models. the gompertz model was ranked first in our set. it provided strong evidence for actuarial senescence with an onset of senescence estimated at about 2.3 years. the probability for this model to involve a frailty was 0.15, and the probability to involve an individual latent effect in detection was about 0.4. the estimated mean age at first reproduction was 1.2 years. the general case model described here in detail should encourage the reanalysis of actuarial senescence in cases where imperfect detection or individual heterogeneity is suspected." -conditional male dimorphism and alternative reproductive tactics in a neotropical arachnid (opiliones),conditional strategy; environmental cue; male polyphenism; phenotypic plasticity; status dependence; threshold,EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY,BUZATTO BA;REQUENA GS;LOURENCO RS;MUNGUIA-STEYER R;MACHADO G,"in arthropods, most cases of morphological dimorphism within males are the result of a conditional evolutionarily stable strategy (ess) with status-dependent tactics. in conditionally male-dimorphic species, the status' distributions of male morphs often overlap, and the environmentally cued threshold model (et) states that the degree of overlap depends on the genetic variation in the distribution of the switchpoints that determine which morph is expressed in each value of status. here we describe male dimorphism and alternative mating behaviors in the harvestman serracutisoma proximum. majors express elongated second legs and use them in territorial fights; minors possess short second legs and do not fight, but rather sneak into majors' territories and copulate with egg-guarding females. the static allometry of second legs reveals that major phenotype expression depends on body size (status), and that the switchpoint underlying the dimorphism presents a large amount of genetic variation in the population, which probably results from weak selective pressure on this trait. with a mark-recapture study, we show that major phenotype expression does not result in survival costs, which is consistent with our hypothesis that there is weak selection on the switchpoint. finally, we demonstrate that switchpoint is independent of status distribution. in conclusion, our data support the et model prediction that the genetic correlation between status and switchpoint is low, allowing the status distribution to evolve or to fluctuate seasonally, without any effect on the position of the mean switchpoint." +conditional male dimorphism and alternative reproductive tactics in a neotropical arachnid (opiliones),conditional strategy; environmental cue; male polyphenism; phenotypic plasticity; status dependence; threshold,EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY,BUZATTO BA;REQUENA GS;LOURENCO RS;MUNGUIA STEYER R;MACHADO G,"in arthropods, most cases of morphological dimorphism within males are the result of a conditional evolutionarily stable strategy (ess) with status-dependent tactics. in conditionally male-dimorphic species, the status' distributions of male morphs often overlap, and the environmentally cued threshold model (et) states that the degree of overlap depends on the genetic variation in the distribution of the switchpoints that determine which morph is expressed in each value of status. here we describe male dimorphism and alternative mating behaviors in the harvestman serracutisoma proximum. majors express elongated second legs and use them in territorial fights; minors possess short second legs and do not fight, but rather sneak into majors' territories and copulate with egg-guarding females. the static allometry of second legs reveals that major phenotype expression depends on body size (status), and that the switchpoint underlying the dimorphism presents a large amount of genetic variation in the population, which probably results from weak selective pressure on this trait. with a mark-recapture study, we show that major phenotype expression does not result in survival costs, which is consistent with our hypothesis that there is weak selection on the switchpoint. finally, we demonstrate that switchpoint is independent of status distribution. in conclusion, our data support the et model prediction that the genetic correlation between status and switchpoint is low, allowing the status distribution to evolve or to fluctuate seasonally, without any effect on the position of the mean switchpoint." "a capture-recapture model with double-marking, live and dead encounters, and heterogeneity of reporting due to auxiliary mark loss",e-surge; mixture of information; multi-event; recoveries; tag loss,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,JUILLET C;CHOQUET R;GAUTHIER G;PRADEL R,"capture-recapture (cr) models assume marked individuals remain at risk of capture, which may not be true if individuals lose their mark or emigrate definitively from the study area. using a double-marking protocol, with a main and auxiliary mark, and both live encounters and dead recoveries at a large scale, partially frees cr models from this assumption. however, the auxiliary mark may fall off and its presence is often not mentioned when dead individuals are reported. we propose a new model to deal with heterogeneity of detection and uncertainty of the presence of an auxiliary mark in a multi-event framework. our general model, based on a double-marking protocol, uses information from physical captures/recaptures, distant observations and main mark recoveries from dead animals. we applied our model to a 13-year data set of a harvested species, the greater snow goose. we obtained seasonal survival estimates for adults of both sexes. survival estimates differed between models where the presence of the auxiliary mark upon recovery was ignored versus those where the presence was accounted for. in the multi-event framework, seasonal survival estimates are no longer biased because the heterogeneity due to the presence of an auxiliary mark is accounted for in the estimation of recovery rates. note: an illustration of the implementation of our model in e-surge is available online." emergence of culex pipiens from overwintering hibernacula,culex pipiens; overwintering; mark-recapture; west nile virus,JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MOSQUITO CONTROL ASSOCIATION,CIOTA AT;DRUMMOND CL;DROBNACK J;RUBY MA;KRAMER LD;EBEL GD,"overwintering populations of culex pipiens, the principal enzootic vector of west nile virus in the northeastern usa, were studied over 3 consecutive winters from 2006 to 2008, using mark-recapture techniques to determine when cx. pipiens females began to disperse from overwintering hibernacula and how their survival influenced early season populations. in february of each year, cx. pipiens were aspirated and marked using fluorescent powder; 4,067, 752, and 3,070 diapausing cx. pipiens were marked in each successive year. mosquitoes were then trapped from mid-april to early may of each year using 19 centers for disease control and prevention (cdc) light traps and 16 cdc gravid traps. a total of 348, 39, and 111 culex mosquitoes were captured in the spring of 2006, 2007, and 2008, respectively. the number of mosquitoes marked in overwintering habitats is generally positively correlated with the number of mosquitoes recaptured in the early spring (linear regression, r-2 = 5 0.79, p = 0.04), yet results also suggest that seasonal variations beyond overwintering population size are likely important in determining the success of emergent populations. a single marked cx. pipiens was captured in both 2006 and 2008. in 2006, the mosquito was captured 0.5 km from its overwintering site while in 2008 the mosquito was captured 0.3 km from its overwintering site. in all study years, mosquitoes consistently began exiting overwintering hibernacula the 3rd week of april, yet evidence of earlier exodus was observed in 2007, when outside temperatures were significantly higher in preceding days and months." potential benefits from currently available three pneumococcal vaccines for children - population-based evaluation,invasive pneumococcal disease; pneumococcal conjugate vaccine; epidemiology; incidence,KLINISCHE PADIATRIE,RUCKINGER S;VAN DER LINDEN M;SIEDLER A;VON KRIES R,"background: currently there are 3 pneumococcal vaccines available in germany. the aim of this study is to evaluate the potential of the three currently available pneumococcal vaccines to reduce the burden of invasive pneumococcal disease in children. subjects: children younger than 16 years who have been hospitalized because of ipd between july 2007 and june 2009 in a german pediatric hospitals. method: surveillance of ipd in german pediatric hospitals and laboratories serving these hospitals. the case definition is isolation of streptococcus pneumoniae from any normally sterile body site. the actual number of ipd cases is based on the capture recapture method combining information from both reporting systems. results: in the study period an estimated yearly number of 164 ipd cases occurred among children younger than 2 years compared to 144 and 116 cases among children aged 2-4 years and 5-15 years. among children under 2 years of age, 69 cases were caused by serotypes covered by pcv10 compared to 103 cases potentially preventable by pcv13. among children aged 2-4 years 94 ipd cases were caused by serotypes covered by pcv13 compared to 108 cases covered by ppv23. conclusion: the newly available pneumococcal conjugate vaccines with better serotype coverage have the potential to further reduce ipd burden in germany. the additional benefit of vaccination of children aged 2-4 years at high risk for pneumococcal infections with ppv23 is questionable." @@ -4135,11 +4142,11 @@ a new statistical approach to estimate global file populations from local observ mark-recapture techniques in statistical tests for imprecise data,hypothesis testing; imprecise data analysis; multi-valued mappings; probability bounds; multi-valued test function,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF APPROXIMATE REASONING,COUSO I;SANCHEZ L,"we aim to construct suitable tests when we have imprecise information about a sample. more specifically, we assume that we get a collection of n sets of values, each one characterizing an imprecise measurement. each set specifies where the true sample value is (and where it is not) with full confidence, but it does not provide any additional information. our main objectives are twofold: first we will review different kinds of tests in the literature about inferential statistics with random sets and discuss the approach that best suits our definition of imprecise data. secondly, we will show that we can take advantage from mark and recapture techniques to improve the accuracy of our decisions. these techniques will be specially important when the population is small enough (with respect to the sample size) that recaptures are common. they also seem to be useful when resampling techniques are involved in the decision process. (c) 2010 elsevier inc. all rights reserved." "growth, mortality and tag retention of small anguilla anguilla marked with visible implant elastomer tags and coded wire tags under laboratory conditions",NA,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ICHTHYOLOGY,SIMON J;DORNER H,"p>growth, and potential marking-related mortality of small european eel anguilla anguilla (l.) after marking with visible implant elastomer tags (vie) and coded wire tags (cwt) were investigated over a 6-month period in a laboratory experiment. in addition, mark retention after marking was examined for another 16.5 months. neither marking method had a significant effect on growth (p > 0.05) or mortality (p > 0.05). after 32 days detection of the vie marks implanted on the ventral surface and along the base of the ventral tail fin margin was 98 and 100%, respectively, but decreased to 9 and 66% after 512 days. retention of the cwt implanted in the dorsal musculature of a. anguilla was 99% after 32 days and did not change by day 512. it was therefore concluded that marking-induced mortality was nil for both marking types over the 6-month period. generally, both methods are found to be suitable for marking young a. anguilla. vie tags, however, should be used for short-time mark-recapture experiments only, and should be injected at the base of the ventral fin margin. the use of cwts seems to be the more suitable marking method for long-term mark-recapture experiments. nevertheless, field tests are necessary to evaluate these marking methods." home-range sizes of social groups of mongolian gerbils meriones unguiculatus,food availability; group size; inner mongolia; seasonal change; social organization; space use,JOURNAL OF ARID ENVIRONMENTS,WANG Y;LIU W;WANG G;WAN X;ZHONG W,spacing behavior is important to the population regulation and social organization of rodents however little is known regarding the factors influencing space use by rodent social groups we tested the hypotheses that food resources in the typical steppe would be so abundant that food availability would not be a limiting factor of home-range sizes of social groups of mongolian gerbils (meriones unguiculatus) we also assessed the effects of social organization on the home-range size of social groups of gerbils using capture recapture methods home ranges of social groups of mongolian gerbils did not differ in size between the breeding and non-breeding periods however home ranges overlapped more during the breeding period than during the non-breeding period overlap of home ranges might allow male gerbils to access female mates of neighboring colonies during the breeding period home-range sizes of social groups were positively related to number of males during the breeding period but positively related to group size and number of females during the non-breeding period therefore social organization influenced home-range sizes of social groups our hypothesis that food availability is not a limiting factor of space use by social groups of mongolian gerbils from spring through autumn was supported (c) 2010 elsevier ltd all rights reserved -lessons from a failed translocation program with a seabird species: determinants of success and conservation value,conservation; chick translocation; dispersal; ecological trap; metapopulation; release site; survival,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,ORO D;MARTINEZ-ABRAIN A;VILLUENDAS E;SARZO B;MINGUEZ E;CARDA J;GENOVART M,"conservation diagnosis of ex situ techniques (e.g. releasing chicks by hacking) cannot be evaluated without quantitative assessment of the fate of individuals, mainly their survival and recruitment. here we use a long-term monitoring at a large spatial scale of a hacking programme (i.e. chick translocations) for audouin's gulls in an uninhabited site so as to establish a new breeding patch and reinforce the meta-population. the success of the programme relied on the assumption that birds tend to recruit to the site where they fledge (i.e. they were philopatric). multi-state capture-recapture models applied to a large dataset (more than 43,500 resights at 30 colonies during 1999-2010) were used to evaluate the survival of released chicks and the probability of being philopatric. adult survival was high, but juvenile survival was lower than that of wild gulls, suggesting that there was a cost associated with hacking only during their first year of life. as expected, most released birds returned to the hacking site, but very few (including immigrants from abroad) attempted to breed here. dispersal was inversely correlated with distance from the hacking site and positively associated with the population size of the patch (i.e. conspecific attraction). even though most hacking procedures met the ecological conditions to succeed, results clearly showed that the program failed to establish a new breeding site. the ability of prospecting and the attraction made by conspecifics at established sites may be a constraint for the success of hacking programs, particularly for social and nomadic species. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +lessons from a failed translocation program with a seabird species: determinants of success and conservation value,conservation; chick translocation; dispersal; ecological trap; metapopulation; release site; survival,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,ORO D;MARTINEZ ABRAIN A;VILLUENDAS E;SARZO B;MINGUEZ E;CARDA J;GENOVART M,"conservation diagnosis of ex situ techniques (e.g. releasing chicks by hacking) cannot be evaluated without quantitative assessment of the fate of individuals, mainly their survival and recruitment. here we use a long-term monitoring at a large spatial scale of a hacking programme (i.e. chick translocations) for audouin's gulls in an uninhabited site so as to establish a new breeding patch and reinforce the meta-population. the success of the programme relied on the assumption that birds tend to recruit to the site where they fledge (i.e. they were philopatric). multi-state capture-recapture models applied to a large dataset (more than 43,500 resights at 30 colonies during 1999-2010) were used to evaluate the survival of released chicks and the probability of being philopatric. adult survival was high, but juvenile survival was lower than that of wild gulls, suggesting that there was a cost associated with hacking only during their first year of life. as expected, most released birds returned to the hacking site, but very few (including immigrants from abroad) attempted to breed here. dispersal was inversely correlated with distance from the hacking site and positively associated with the population size of the patch (i.e. conspecific attraction). even though most hacking procedures met the ecological conditions to succeed, results clearly showed that the program failed to establish a new breeding site. the ability of prospecting and the attraction made by conspecifics at established sites may be a constraint for the success of hacking programs, particularly for social and nomadic species. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." the incidence and outcomes of fetomaternal alloimmune thrombocytopenia: a uk national study using three data sources,fetomaternal alloimmune thrombocytopenia; incidence; epidemiology; cohort,BRITISH JOURNAL OF HAEMATOLOGY,KNIGHT M;PIERCE M;ALLEN D;KURINCZUK JJ;SPARK P;ROBERTS DJ;MURPHY MF,"p>fetomaternal alloimmune thrombocytopenia (fmait) is the most common cause of severe neonatal thrombocytopenia in otherwise well, term infants. first pregnancies are often severely affected. this descriptive, population-based national study was undertaken in order to inform the case for antenatal screening. cases were identified using three sources and capture-recapture techniques used to generate a robust incidence estimate. one hundred and seventy three cases were identified between october 2006 and september 2008. an extra 20 cases were estimated from capture-recapture analysis, giving an estimated incidence of clinically detected fmait of 12 center dot 4 cases per 100 000 total births (95%confidence interval: 10 center dot 7, 14 center dot 3). fifty-two cases (30%) were known at the start of pregnancy; 120 (70%) were unknown (n = 115) or unrecognized (n = 5). unknown cases were more likely to experience a haemorrhagic complication (67% vs. 5%) (p < 0 center dot 001) and more likely to have an intracranial haemorrhage (20% vs. 4%) (p = 0 center dot 014) than known cases receiving antenatal management. in view of the incidence of severe disease identified, further assessment of the case for antenatal screening is important. there were a number of cases in which the significance of a history of fmait in a previous sibling was not recognized and there is a need to raise awareness of the importance of this diagnosis." annual survival of house finches in relation to west nile virus,adult survival; carpodacus mexicanus; house finch; mark-recapture; west nile virus,CONDOR,PELLEGRINI AR;WRIGHT S;REISEN WK;TREITERER B;ERNEST HB,"from 2001 to 2008, we estimated probabilities of survival and encounter of adult house finches (carpodacus mexicanus) breeding at stone lakes national wildlife refuge, sacramento county, california, from capture recapture data on birds trapped with mist nets and ground traps. our primary objectives were to determine when west nile virus (wnv, flaviviridae, flavivirus.) arrived at the site and if survivorship changed after this arrival. we monitored viral activity by screening blood samples from house finches for wnv antibodies with an enzyme immunoassay and by testing mosquito pools for viral rna. wnv arrived after the breeding season in late 2004, so we compared data from 2001-2004 (pre-wnv) to that from 2005-2008 (post-wnv). we found a decrease in annual survival following the arrival of wnv (pre-wnv, 0.59; post wnv, 0.47), which, if representative, may have contributed to the reported decline in the abundance of this species in northern california." not all who wander are lost: nest fidelity in xylocopa virginica examined by mark recapture,x. virginica; nest; relocation; drifting,INSECTES SOCIAUX,PESO M;RICHARDS MH,"relocation to novel nests (sometimes called drifting) in flying hymenoptera is often interpreted as the result of navigation error and guard bees erroneously admitting foreign individuals into the nest. we studied nest fidelity and nest relocation of both females and males in a nesting aggregation of xylocopa virginica in southern ontario, canada, where females can nest either solitarily or socially. adult female and male bees were trapped at nest entrances, individually paint marked, and then released. subsequent recapture patterns were used to assess nest fidelity: that is, how faithful individuals were to their home nest and how often they moved to another nest. bees were considered to have relocated if they were recaptured in a nest different from the one in which they were initially trapped, indicating that they had spent at least one night in a new nest. some females were only captured in one nest, some occasionally moved to new nests, temporarily or permanently, and a few were never caught in the same nest twice. in addition, females relocated to nests that were further away in 2007 when population density was low, suggesting that they seek out and claim nesting spaces when they are available. males relocated more frequently than females, with most drifting from nest to nest in no obvious pattern. this indicates that males spend the night wherever space is available or in nests nearest to their territories. this study reveals that for both female and male x. virginica, nest membership is not as stable as once thought." -"costs and benefits of radio-collaring on the behavior, demography, and conservation of owl monkeys (aotus azarai) in formosa, argentina",darting; demography; dimorphism; dispersal; radio-collar; telemetry,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY,JUAREZ CP;ROTUNDO MA;BERG W;FERNANDEZ-DUQUE E,"the benefits to researchers of capturing and collaring free-ranging primates are numerous, but so are the actual and potential costs to the individuals. we aimed to 1) evaluate quantitatively the possible demographic long-term costs of radio-collaring a free-ranging primate species, and 2) evaluate qualitatively the costs to the subjects and the overall benefits to the research program that results from monitoring a large number of groups with collared individuals during many years. between 2000 and 2009, we captured, recaptured, and radio-collared 146 owl monkeys (aotus azarai) to study the behavior, demography, and genetics of the species. to evaluate the potential long-term costs of the collaring procedures on the population, we compared the demographic composition of groups (n = 20) in our core study area with those of undisturbed groups (n = 20) in a control area within the same forest. groups in both areas ranged in size between 2 and 5 individuals. surprisingly, group size tended to be larger among the study groups owing to more infants and juveniles in those groups than in the control groups. the benefits to the research program have included, among others, the reliable identification of individuals, increased sample sizes, the recovery of specimens, studies of dispersal, outreach activities, and conservation education. still, some of the benefits will become tangible only when the project persists on time; is fully approved and supported by local authorities; and has broad community participation, as well as conservation and education goals. thus, any serious initiative to capture and collar individuals should be the result of an extremely careful evaluation of benefits and costs." +"costs and benefits of radio-collaring on the behavior, demography, and conservation of owl monkeys (aotus azarai) in formosa, argentina",darting; demography; dimorphism; dispersal; radio-collar; telemetry,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY,JUAREZ CP;ROTUNDO MA;BERG W;FERNANDEZ DUQUE E,"the benefits to researchers of capturing and collaring free-ranging primates are numerous, but so are the actual and potential costs to the individuals. we aimed to 1) evaluate quantitatively the possible demographic long-term costs of radio-collaring a free-ranging primate species, and 2) evaluate qualitatively the costs to the subjects and the overall benefits to the research program that results from monitoring a large number of groups with collared individuals during many years. between 2000 and 2009, we captured, recaptured, and radio-collared 146 owl monkeys (aotus azarai) to study the behavior, demography, and genetics of the species. to evaluate the potential long-term costs of the collaring procedures on the population, we compared the demographic composition of groups (n = 20) in our core study area with those of undisturbed groups (n = 20) in a control area within the same forest. groups in both areas ranged in size between 2 and 5 individuals. surprisingly, group size tended to be larger among the study groups owing to more infants and juveniles in those groups than in the control groups. the benefits to the research program have included, among others, the reliable identification of individuals, increased sample sizes, the recovery of specimens, studies of dispersal, outreach activities, and conservation education. still, some of the benefits will become tangible only when the project persists on time; is fully approved and supported by local authorities; and has broad community participation, as well as conservation and education goals. thus, any serious initiative to capture and collar individuals should be the result of an extremely careful evaluation of benefits and costs." can the abundance of tigers be assessed from their signs?,camera trap; double sampling; indices of abundance; mark-recapture; panthera tigris; power analysis; regression models,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,JHALA Y;QURESHI Q;GOPAL R,"p>1. indices of abundance offer cost effective and rapid methods for estimating abundance of endangered species across large landscapes, yet their wide usage is controversial due to their potential of being biased. here, we assess the utility of indices for the daunting task of estimating the abundance of the endangered tiger at landscape scales. 2. we use double sampling to estimate two indices of tiger abundance (encounters of pugmarks and scats per km searched) and calibrate those indices against contemporaneous estimates of tiger densities obtained using camera-trap mark-recapture (ctmr) at 21 sites (5185 km2) in central and north india. we use simple and multiple weighted regressions to evaluate relationships between tiger density and indices. a model for estimating tiger density from indices was validated by jackknife analysis and precision was assessed by correlating predicted tiger density with ctmr density. we conduct power analysis to estimate the ability of ctmr and of indices to detect changes in tiger density. 3. tiger densities ranged between 0 center dot 25 and 19 tigers 100 km-2 were estimated with an average coefficient of variation of 13 center dot 2(se 2 center dot 5)%. tiger pugmark encounter rates explained 84% of the observed variability in tiger densities. after removal of an outlier (corbett), square root transformed scat encounter rates explained 82% of the variation in tiger densities. 4. a model including pugmark and scat encounters explained 95% of the variation in tiger densities with good predictive ability (press r2 = 0 center dot 99). overall, ctmr could detect tiger density changes of > 12% with 80% power at alpha = 0 center dot 3, while the index based model had 50% to 85% power to detect > 30% declines. the power of indices to detect declines increased at high tiger densities. 5. synthesis and applications. indices of tiger abundance obtained from across varied habitats and a range of tiger densities could reliably estimate tiger abundance. financial and temporal costs of estimating indices were 7% and 34% respectively, of those for ctmr. the models and methods presented herein have application in evaluation of the abundance of cryptic carnivores at landscape scales and form part of the protocol used by the indian government for evaluating the status of tigers." "growth patterns in free-ranging bank voles, myodes glareolus (schreber 1780) from a mountainous area in central italy",body length; central italy; growth trajectories; interannual variations; long-term study; myodes; rodentia,MAMMALIA,AMORI G;LUISELLI L,"growth patterns are nearly unknown in free-ranging rodents. here, we analyse growth patterns (in body length) in relation to sex, year and population density in a population of bank voles, myodes glareolus, studied by the capture-mark-recapture method at a mountainous site in central italy during a 12-year period. in our study, (i) male and female bank voles had very similar growth rates and growth trajectories as described by von bertalanffy growth functions; (ii) growth rates strongly varied interannually; and (iii) growth rates were independent on population densities, i. e., there was no density-dependence mechanism following individual growth rates in bank voles. the general implications of these patterns are discussed." are low but statistically significant levels of genetic differentiation in marine fishes 'biologically meaningful'? a case study of coastal atlantic cod,atlantic cod; dispersal; effective population size; tagging; temporal genetic stability,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,KNUTSEN H;OLSEN EM;JORDE PE;ESPELAND SH;ANDRE C;STENSETH NC,"a key question in many genetic studies on marine organisms is how to interpret a low but statistically significant level of genetic differentiation. do such observations reflect a real phenomenon, or are they caused by confounding factors such as unrepresentative sampling or selective forces acting on the marker loci? further, are low levels of differentiation biologically trivial, or can they represent a meaningful and perhaps important finding? we explored these issues in an empirical study on coastal atlantic cod, combining temporally replicated genetic samples over a 10-year period with an extensive capture-mark-recapture study of individual mobility and population size. the genetic analyses revealed a pattern of differentiation between the inner part of the fjord and the open skerries area at the fjord entrance. overall, genetic differentiation was weak (average f-st = 0.0037), but nevertheless highly statistical significant and did not depend on particular loci that could be subject to selection. this spatial component dominated over temporal change, and temporal replicates clustered together throughout the 10-year period. consistent with genetic results, the majority of the recaptured fish were found close to the point of release, with < 1% of recaptured individuals dispersing between the inner fjord and outer skerries. we conclude that low levels of genetic differentiation in this marine fish can indeed be biologically meaningful, corresponding to separate, temporally persistent, local populations. we estimated the genetically effective sizes (n-e) of the two coastal cod populations to 198 and 542 and found a n-e/n (spawner) ratio of 0.14." @@ -4147,7 +4154,7 @@ geographical distribution and movement patterns of cinnamon warbling-finch (poos "community composition and annual survival of lowland tropical forest birds on the osa peninsula, costa rica",annual survival; avian community composition; fragmentation; mark-recapture; osa peninsula; species richness,ORNITOLOGIA NEOTROPICAL,WILSON S;COLLISTER DM;WILSON AG,"tropical deforestation has resulted in many landscapes where forests exist as patches of varying size and connectivity within a human-dominated landscape. understanding the implications of these landscapes for biodiversity and population dynamics is now a major challenge for tropical conservation biology. we examined community composition and annual survival of birds in a partially deforested landscape on the osa peninsula of costa rica, which is a region of high biodiversity and increasing conservation concern. our study was based on seven years of mist-netting surveys on a 3 ha plot and a single year of point counts. these counts were conducted in two habitat types: a fragmented landscape with a mix of forest patches and open agricultural areas, and an approximately 100 ha patch of mature forest. estimated species richness tended to be higher in the fragmented landscape (116 vs 89), likely because this landscape still contains moderate forest cover thus supporting species that tolerate some deforestation as well as species that prefer more open habitats. accordingly, 43 species were only detected in the fragmented habitats while 22 were only detected in forest. the latter result suggests that some forest specialists have been able to persist in this partially deforested region, likely because of the presence of larger forest patches and connectivity between them. our surveys also included moderate numbers of the endangered black-cheeked ant-tanager (habia atrimaxillaris), which was primarily detected in areas of greater forest cover. for eight common passerines, apparent annual survival of adults ranged from a low of 0.35 +/- 0.07 (sd) for ochre-bellied flycatchers (mionectes oleagineus) to a high of 0.81 +/- 0.11 for black-hooded antshrikes (thamnophilus bridges,) with an average of 0.63 +/- 0.05 across all species. this average rate is similar to other studies that have estimated survival with mist-net mark-recapture techniques elsewhere in the tropics. our study provides one of the first assessments of avian community composition and survival in countryside landscapes on the osa peninsula. conservation goals will increasingly need to consider such landscapes and we discuss additional studies that could further our knowledge in the region. accepted 4 august 2011." a lower bound model for multiple record systems estimation with heterogeneous catchability,capture-recapture model; latent class model; mixture model; poisson regression,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BIOSTATISTICS,RIVEST LP,"this work considers the estimation of the size n of a closed population using incomplete lists of its members. capture histories are constructed by establishing the presence or the absence of each individual in all the lists available. models for data featuring a heterogeneous catchability and list dependencies are considered. a log-linear model leading to a lower bound for the population size is derived for a known set of list dependencies and a latent catchability variable with an arbitrary distribution. this generalizes chao's lower bound to models with interactions. the proposed model can be used to carry out a search for important list interactions. it also provides diagnostic information about the nature of the underlying heterogeneity. indeed, it is shown that the poisson maximum likelihood estimator of n under a dichotomous latent class model does not exist for a particular set of lb models. several distributions for the heterogeneous catchability are considered; they allow to investigate the sensitivity of the population size estimate to the model for the heterogeneous catchability." community structure and abundance of bottlenose dolphins tursiops truncatus in coastal waters of the northeast gulf of mexico,bottlenose dolphin; photographic identification; mark-recapture; community structure; abundance,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,TYSON RB;NOWACEK SM;NOWACEK DP,"we examined bottlenose dolphin tursiops truncatus community structure and abundance in the northeast gulf of mexico coastal waters stretching from st. vincent sound to alligator harbor, florida, usa. photographic-identification surveys were conducted between may 2004 and october 2006 to gain an understanding of dolphin distribution in this region. dolphins were distributed year-round throughout the region; however, individual sighting records indicate that 2 parapatric dolphin communities exist. we conducted mark-recapture surveys using photographic-identification techniques to estimate the abundance of dolphins inhabiting the 2 areas these communities reside in: st. vincent sound/apalachicola bay, western; and st. george sound/alligator harbor, eastern. sighting records of individual dolphins from 2004 to 2008 support the existence of 2 communities in these areas; only 3.5% of distinctive dolphins photographed were seen in both western and eastern areas. the 2 communities differ in their structure: the eastern area supports a more transient population with 45.7% of distinctive dolphins photo graphed only once compared with 28.3% in the west. independent estimates of abundance (n, 95% ci = [low, high]) were calculated using the chapman modification of the lincoln-petersen method for june 2007 and for january and february 2008 for the eastern area (242 [141-343], 395 [273-516]) and for the western survey area (197 [130-264], 111 [71-150]), respectively. our results serve as a baseline that can be used by the us national marine fisheries service to manage bottlenose dolphins in this region." -analysis of prinobius myardi mulsant population dynamics in a mediterranean cork oak stand,NA,ANNALES DE LA SOCIETE ENTOMOLOGIQUE DE FRANCE,LOPEZ-PANTOJA G;DOMINGUEZ L;SANCHEZ-OSORIO I,"the dehesa is a silvopastoral system of a high economic and ecological significance in the iberian peninsula that is protected under the eec/92143 habitat directive. one of the most serious problems the dehesa system is currently facing is oak decline. this tree decay process is largely caused by three xylophagous cerambycids of which prinobius myardi is the least known. in this study, we used a capture-mark-recapture method to identify the models best fitting the behaviour of this species with a view to estimating basic population parameters such as survival rate (phi), recapture rate (p) and transiency index (t). prinobius myardi adults were captured by hand following visual detection in the trees of a cork oak (quercus suber) plot located in the close vicinity of the donana national park (sw spain). males exhibited a constant survival rate exceeding 85.4% throughout their flight period, a maximum transiency index of 1.82% and a recapture rate ranging from 42.50% to 76.90%. these results are suggestive of a sedentary behaviour in p. myardi males. by contrast, the small number of females captured precluded calculation of the previous parameters for this gender; in any case, field observations revealed a fleeing, less sedentary behaviour with respect to the males." +analysis of prinobius myardi mulsant population dynamics in a mediterranean cork oak stand,NA,ANNALES DE LA SOCIETE ENTOMOLOGIQUE DE FRANCE,LOPEZ PANTOJA G;DOMINGUEZ L;SANCHEZ OSORIO I,"the dehesa is a silvopastoral system of a high economic and ecological significance in the iberian peninsula that is protected under the eec/92143 habitat directive. one of the most serious problems the dehesa system is currently facing is oak decline. this tree decay process is largely caused by three xylophagous cerambycids of which prinobius myardi is the least known. in this study, we used a capture-mark-recapture method to identify the models best fitting the behaviour of this species with a view to estimating basic population parameters such as survival rate (phi), recapture rate (p) and transiency index (t). prinobius myardi adults were captured by hand following visual detection in the trees of a cork oak (quercus suber) plot located in the close vicinity of the donana national park (sw spain). males exhibited a constant survival rate exceeding 85.4% throughout their flight period, a maximum transiency index of 1.82% and a recapture rate ranging from 42.50% to 76.90%. these results are suggestive of a sedentary behaviour in p. myardi males. by contrast, the small number of females captured precluded calculation of the previous parameters for this gender; in any case, field observations revealed a fleeing, less sedentary behaviour with respect to the males." rural roads as barriers to the movements of small mammals,habitat fragmentation; barrier; wood mouse; bank vole; animal movements,APPLIED ECOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH,MACPHERSON D;MACPHERSON JL;MORRIS P,"over the last 50 years increasing fragmentation of habitats has occurred due to road building. fragmenting a large population into smaller ones can have a negative effect on population demography. in england much small mammal habitat occurs in suburban and rural areas where the majority of roads are either single track or two lanes, and traffic density is light. this study investigated the effect of minor roads on the movements of two small mammals, the wood mouse (apodemus sylvaticus) and bank vole (myodes glareolus). capture-mark-recapture was used to study movements beside and across rural roads of two different widths. the results suggest that even small roads less than 6metres wide, with relatively little traffic, do act as partial barriers for these small mammals, reducing their movement between habitats on either side of the road. it is evident that island populations are being created as a result of road construction, even access roads within nature reserves." capture-recapture estimation by means of empirical bayesian smoothing with an application to the geographical distribution of hidden scrapie in great britain,capture-recapture; empirical bayes methods; geographical analysis; non-parametric mixture model,JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY SERIES C-APPLIED STATISTICS,BOHNING D;KUHNERT R;VILAS VD,"the paper discusses population size estimation on the basis of a frequency distribution of zero-truncated counts and is motivated by a study on the geographical distribution of hidden scrapie in great britain. aggregation of scrapie cases is considered at the county level and results in sparse zero-truncated count distributions which make the application of conventional capture-recapture procedures for estimating the hidden part of the scrapie-affected population difficult. we suggest a smoothed generalization of zelterman's estimator of population size which overcomes the overestimation bias of the conventional zelterman estimator and instead produces a lower bound, which is typically larger than chao's lower bound estimator. the estimator uses an empirical bayes approach with various choices for the prior distribution including a parametric choice of the gamma distribution as well as various non-parametric distributions. a simulation study investigates the performance of the new estimators, and also in comparison with conventional estimators. the empirical bayes estimator with a non-parametric mixture model as prior performs well and the boundary problem of the conventional non-parametric discrete mixture model estimator leading to spurious population size is avoided. in the application to hidden scrapie in great britain the new estimators lead to maps of scrapie of observed-hidden ratios as well as completeness of the current surveillance system." survival of alytes cisternasii tadpoles in stream pools: a capture-recapture study using photo-identification,amphibia; density; habitat characteristics; i(3)s; mark,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,RIBEIRO J;REBELO R,"for amphibians with complex life cycles, the regulation of populations may occur in each life history stage and although available data stress the importance of studying amphibian population dynamics during the larval stage, most studies so far still focus only on the adult phase, due to the difficulty to estimate larval survival under field conditions. through a two-months capture-recapture study of 646 photo-identified tadpoles of alytes cisternasii we aimed to estimate tadpole survival in isolated temporary stream pools - their main habitat - as well as to evaluate how pool characteristics and intraspecific competition (tadpole density) affect this parameter. photo-identification was performed with the help of the software i(3)s. we used the popan formulation of the jolly-seber model to estimate survival rates and population size in 9 stream pools. tadpole density varied from similar to 1 to 40 tadpoles . m(-2). tadpole weekly survival was relatively high, varying from 75 to 99% . week(-1). among-pool differences in survival were best explained by pool depth, and not by tadpole density or other pool characteristics. the lower survival estimates were obtained for the deep pools. the very high survival estimates for some pools are an indication that this type of discrete habitat may play an important role for this species. to our knowledge, this is the first time that photo-identification is used to obtain estimates for survival and density of tadpoles." @@ -4157,9 +4164,9 @@ evaluating mark-recapture sampling designs for fish in an open riverine system,b inflammation in digits of unmarked and toe-tipped wild hylids,NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,PHILLOTT AD;MCDONALD KR;SKERRATT LF,"context. the use of toe-tipping (removal of the toe pad) in mark-recapture studies of anurans is controversial because of the unknown risk of infection and potential impact on animal survival. aims. we compared the inflammation rates of digits in unmarked and toe-tipped wild hylid frogs (litoria genimaculata, l. nannotis, l. rheocola and nyctimystes dayi) to determine if marked amphibians present with a greater proportion of affected digits than unmarked animals. methods. we examined marked and unmarked frogs captured on streams in northern queensland over a 12-month period for phalangeal inflammation. key results. of 777 unmarked frogs, 0.4% presented with digits showing inflammation because of natural causes. after toe-tipping, 59.1% of the frogs were recaptured within a mean of 97 days +/- standard deviation of 102 days, with macroscopic inflammation observed in 1.3% of marked animals. the proportion of marked frogs with inflamed, toe-tipped digits did not differ significantly from that of inflamed digits in unmarked frogs (fisher exact test p = 0.085) but the odds ratio (3.417, 0.851-13.730) indicated a greater likelihood of inflamed digits occurring in toe-tipped than unmarked frogs. conclusions. although the risk of inflammation increased 3-fold in marked hylids, the low proportion of frogs affected (1.3%) indicated the potential pathological risk of toe-tipping did not outweigh the benefits of using the marking method. implications. this study suggests that toe-tipping may be an appropriate and relatively safe marking method in stream-dwelling hylid populations." the influence of neighbourhood socio-demographic factors on densities of free-roaming cat populations in an urban ecosystem in israel,abundance; anthropogenic factors; capture-recapture; mark; popan; socio-economic status,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,FINKLER H;HATNA E;TERKEL J,"context. free-roaming cat populations are abundant in many urban ecosystems worldwide. their management is necessary for reasons of public health, risk of wildlife predation and cat welfare related to their high densities. trap-neuter-return (tnr) programs are now the main cat population control strategy in urban areas. however, the efficacy of such strategies is difficult to evaluate without more precise estimates of cat numbers and a better knowledge of anthropogenic influences on cat densities. aims. we aimed to estimate free-roaming cat population numbers and density in residential neighbourhoods in tel aviv, and to investigate population densities in relation to several socio-demographic factors. methods. we compared free-roaming cat population densities in terms of neighbourhood socio-economic status (ses), housing type, human density and percentage of residential and commercial areas. five consecutive cat density surveys were carried out in eight residential neighbourhoods in israel - four in northern tel aviv, characterised by high ses, and four in southern tel aviv, characterised by low ses. the photographic capture-recapture technique was used and abundance estimates were evaluated using the mark program. regression analyses examined the effect of socio-demographic factors on cat densities. key results. neighbourhood socio-economic status significantly influenced kitten density and proportion of neutered cats in the total population: southern neighbourhoods had higher kitten densities and lower neutered cat proportions compared with northern neighbourhoods. higher adult cat densities featured in mixed profile neighbourhoods of residential and commercial areas compared with solely residential neighbourhoods. using the linear equation from the regression analysis the entire free-roaming cat population in tel aviv was extrapolated to 39 000 cats. conclusions. the results suggest that adult cat and kitten densities depend in part on socio-demographic factors, specifically on neighbourhood socio-economic status and the proportion of residential area. implications. our findings in tel aviv may be used to improve cat management efforts, by focusing on neighbourhoods hosting higher cat densities; as well as to improve cat welfare by focusing on neighbourhoods with lower neutering rates and higher kitten densities. finally, the current study may serve as a basis for studies in other cities with similar cat overpopulation problems." "modelling detectability of kiore (rattus exulans) on aguiguan, mariana islands, to inform possible eradication and monitoring efforts",absolute density; capture probability; detection probability; mark-recapture; neophobia,NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,ADAMS AAY;STANFORD JW;WIEWEL AS;RODDA GH,"estimating the detection probability of introduced organisms during the pre-monitoring phase of an eradication effort can be extremely helpful in informing eradication and post-eradication monitoring efforts, but this step is rarely taken. we used data collected during 11 nights of mark-recapture sampling on aguiguan, mariana islands, to estimate introduced kiore (rattus exulans peale) density and detection probability, and evaluated factors affecting detectability to help inform possible eradication efforts. modelling of 62 captures of 48 individuals resulted in a model-averaged density estimate of 55 kiore/ha. kiore detection probability was best explained by a model allowing neophobia to diminish linearly (i.e. capture probability increased linearly) until occasion 7, with additive effects of sex and cumulative rainfall over the prior 48 hours. detection probability increased with increasing rainfall and females ware up to three times more likely than males to be trapped. in this paper, we illustrate the type of information that can be obtained by modelling mark-recapture data collected during pre-eradication monitoring and discuss the potential of using these data to inform eradication and post-eradication monitoring efforts." -accuracy and precision of skink counts from artificial retreats,capture-mark-recapture; index; monitoring; oligosoma polychroma; pitfall trapping,NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,LETTINK M;O'DONNELL CFJ;HOARE JM,"index counts are commonly used to detect spatial and temporal changes in the size of wildlife populations. for indices to be valid there must be a constant (usually linear) relationship between the index and population size. in a study conducted in the eglinton valley (fiordland, south island, new zealand), single-day index counts of common skinks (oligosoma polychroma) from artificial retreats were compared with capture-mark-recapture (cmr) estimates of population size ((n) over cap) obtained by pitfall trapping. generalised linear models revealed that skink counts from artificial retreats provided a reasonably accurate (p < 0.05) and highly precise (p < 0.001) index of population size, but only if sampling was conducted under optimal weather conditions. density ranged from 3639 (2591-6827; 95% ci) to 9245 (6346-16431) skinks ha(-1), which was high compared with other common skink populations. we recommend: (1) long-term monitoring of common skinks in the eglinton valley, using the index method described herein; (2) calibration of index counts against population size estimates collected from other habitats and species." +accuracy and precision of skink counts from artificial retreats,capture-mark-recapture; index; monitoring; oligosoma polychroma; pitfall trapping,NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,LETTINK M;O DONNELL CFJ;HOARE JM,"index counts are commonly used to detect spatial and temporal changes in the size of wildlife populations. for indices to be valid there must be a constant (usually linear) relationship between the index and population size. in a study conducted in the eglinton valley (fiordland, south island, new zealand), single-day index counts of common skinks (oligosoma polychroma) from artificial retreats were compared with capture-mark-recapture (cmr) estimates of population size ((n) over cap) obtained by pitfall trapping. generalised linear models revealed that skink counts from artificial retreats provided a reasonably accurate (p < 0.05) and highly precise (p < 0.001) index of population size, but only if sampling was conducted under optimal weather conditions. density ranged from 3639 (2591-6827; 95% ci) to 9245 (6346-16431) skinks ha(-1), which was high compared with other common skink populations. we recommend: (1) long-term monitoring of common skinks in the eglinton valley, using the index method described herein; (2) calibration of index counts against population size estimates collected from other habitats and species." natural markings of cuvier's beaked whale ziphius cavirostris in the mediterranean sea,heterogeneity; mark rate; natural mark; photo-identification; scarring,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE,ROSSO M;BALLARDINI M;MOULINS A;WURTZ M,"errors in analysis using natural marks have been recognised since the early development of mark-recapture techniques. in this nine-year study, the mark types present on cuvier's beaked whales ziphius cavirostris in the mediterranean sea were categorised in order to assess the reliability of natural marks for long-term photo-identification studies. mark prevalence, abundance and gain/loss rates among age/sex classes were investigated. results showed that cuvier's beaked whales were extensively marked (96% of population; mean = 48 marks per individual, range 0-169), with up to 10 different mark types. however, only five mark types should be considered reliable: notch, large scar, back indentation, medium scrape and large stripe. marks caused by intraspecific interaction were the most abundant and prevalent mark types. in high-quality photographs, 71% of the population was reliably marked, but reliable marks were unevenly distributed within the population and their prevalence appeared to be strongly correlated to age and sex of individuals. the gain rate of scrapes that could be used reliably for identification was six times higher in mature males than females of the same age. this was the case for mature as well as immature males, suggesting that aggressive interaction among males may start early in their life, before reaching maturity. this difference between sexes may cause an over-representation of males in a typical photo-identification database, especially among immature individuals." -a capture-recapture model for exploring multi-species synchrony in survival,adult survival; atlantic puffin; bayesian models; common guillemot; environmental covariates; interspecific synchronisation; partition of variance; random effects; razorbill; winbugs,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,LAHOZ-MONFORT JJ;MORGAN BJT;HARRIS MP;WANLESS S;FREEMAN SN,"1. although recent decades have seen much development of statistical methods to estimate demographical parameters such as reproduction, and survival and migration probabilities, the focus is usually the estimation of parameters for individual species. this is despite the fact that several species may live in close proximity, sometimes competing for the same resources. there is therefore a great need for new methods that enable a better integration of demographical data, e.g. the study of synchrony between sympatric species, which are subject to common environmental stochasticity and potentially similar biotic interactions. 2. we propose a mark-recapture statistical model that uses random effect terms for studying synchrony in a demographical parameter at a multi-species level, adapting a framework initially developed to study multi-site synchrony to this novel situation. the model allows us to divide between-year variance in a demographical parameter into a 'synchronous' component, common to all species considered, and species-specific 'asynchronous' components, as well as to estimate the proportion of each component accounted for by environmental covariates. 3. we demonstrate the method with data from three colonially breeding auk species that share resources during the breeding season at the isle of may, scotland. mark-resight information has been collected since 1984 for atlantic puffins fratercula arctica, common guillemots uria aalge and razorbills alca torda marked as breeding adults. we explore the relationship between synchrony in the species' survival and two environmental covariates. 4. most of the between-year variation was synchronous to the three species, and the same environmental covariates acted simultaneously as synchronising and desynchronising agents of adult survival, possibly through different indirect causation paths. 5. synthesis and applications. the model proposed allows the investigation of multi-species synchrony and asynchrony in adult survival, as well as the role of environmental covariates in generating them. it provides insight into whether sympatric species respond similarly or differently to changes in their environment, and helps to disentangle the sources of these differences. the estimated indices of synchrony/asynchrony can facilitate the generation of further hypotheses about similarities/differences in these species' ecology, such as the potential overlap of wintering areas. the method is readily applicable to other species, ecosystems and demographical parameters." +a capture-recapture model for exploring multi-species synchrony in survival,adult survival; atlantic puffin; bayesian models; common guillemot; environmental covariates; interspecific synchronisation; partition of variance; random effects; razorbill; winbugs,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,LAHOZ MONFORT JJ;MORGAN BJT;HARRIS MP;WANLESS S;FREEMAN SN,"1. although recent decades have seen much development of statistical methods to estimate demographical parameters such as reproduction, and survival and migration probabilities, the focus is usually the estimation of parameters for individual species. this is despite the fact that several species may live in close proximity, sometimes competing for the same resources. there is therefore a great need for new methods that enable a better integration of demographical data, e.g. the study of synchrony between sympatric species, which are subject to common environmental stochasticity and potentially similar biotic interactions. 2. we propose a mark-recapture statistical model that uses random effect terms for studying synchrony in a demographical parameter at a multi-species level, adapting a framework initially developed to study multi-site synchrony to this novel situation. the model allows us to divide between-year variance in a demographical parameter into a 'synchronous' component, common to all species considered, and species-specific 'asynchronous' components, as well as to estimate the proportion of each component accounted for by environmental covariates. 3. we demonstrate the method with data from three colonially breeding auk species that share resources during the breeding season at the isle of may, scotland. mark-resight information has been collected since 1984 for atlantic puffins fratercula arctica, common guillemots uria aalge and razorbills alca torda marked as breeding adults. we explore the relationship between synchrony in the species' survival and two environmental covariates. 4. most of the between-year variation was synchronous to the three species, and the same environmental covariates acted simultaneously as synchronising and desynchronising agents of adult survival, possibly through different indirect causation paths. 5. synthesis and applications. the model proposed allows the investigation of multi-species synchrony and asynchrony in adult survival, as well as the role of environmental covariates in generating them. it provides insight into whether sympatric species respond similarly or differently to changes in their environment, and helps to disentangle the sources of these differences. the estimated indices of synchrony/asynchrony can facilitate the generation of further hypotheses about similarities/differences in these species' ecology, such as the potential overlap of wintering areas. the method is readily applicable to other species, ecosystems and demographical parameters." resolving some of the complexity of a mixed-origin walleye population in the east basin of lake erie using a mark-recapture study,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,ZHAO YM;EINHOUSE DW;MACDOUGALL TM,"at least two genetically distinct populations of walleye sander vitreus reproduce in lake erie: one west-basin-origin population and one east-basin-origin population. each year, some west-basin-origin walleyes migrate to the east basin and create a mixed-origin walleye population. uncertainties associated with this migratory behavior make it difficult to describe the dynamics of the east-basin-origin population. we used mark-recapture analysis to estimate the dynamics of the east-basin-origin walleye population and to measure the contribution of west-basin-origin walleyes to the total walleye harvest in the east basin. compared with the west-basin-origin walleyes, the east-basin-origin walleyes experienced lower fishing pressure, lower natural mortality, and a higher survival rate. on average, the west-basin-origin walleye migrants comprised about 90% of the annual harvest in the east basin. the number of the west-basin-origin walleyes migrating to the east basin was linearly related to their abundance. walleyes showed a strong fidelity to their spawning sites. this study provided an approach to the assessment of population dynamics and the management of walleye fisheries in the east basin of lake erie." are communal nesting counts as useful as mark-recapture data for estimating population size in snakes?,comparative analyses; demography; field techniques; italy; serpentes; statistics,HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL,LUISELLI L;RUGIERO L;CAPULA M,"snakes are rather difficult subjects for demographic studies. when snakes are not abundant in the field, herpetologists have learnt that a good method for population studies is to rely on mass captures at den sites. in several snake species females also exhibit oviposition at communal nest sites, which are utilized year after year. these oviposition sites may then serve to record individuals for snake population studies. here, we compared population size estimates generated from a 17-year study of gravid females at a communal nesting site (cnf) with population size estimates from the same snake population across an 8-year traditional capture mark recapture (cm r) study. although in our case only open population methods are appropriate for calculating yearly population sizes, we also used closed population methods in order to highlight an eventual effect of the models used. as a study species, we used the european whip snake (hierophis viridiflavus) at a site in mediterranean central italy. overall, population size estimates were significantly different between the two methods, with estimates from the cnf samples always higher than those obtained with traditional cmr. this difference was particularly strong with closed population methods, but still evident with open population models when the whole study period was considered. however, there were no statistical differences between population sizes estimated with cnf and cmr when only a subset of years (2002-2009) was used. no statistical relationship between population size estimates with cmr against cnf by year was uncovered, showing that cnf samples did not capture inter-annual variations in population sizes. we conclude that it might not be sound to use population size estimates from cnf samples instead of more traditional cmr studies, although yearly population size variations may at least in part be responsible for the differences between cnf and cmr estimates." postnatal development of morphological features and vocalization in the pomona leaf-nosed bat hipposideros pomona,body mass; echolocation calls; epiphyseal gap; length of forearm; hipposideros pomona; isolation calls,ACTA THERIOLOGICA,JIN LR;LIN AQ;SUN KP;LIU Y;FENG J,"based on mark-recapture data, we studied the postnatal development of morphological features and vocalization of the pomona leaf-nosed bat (hipposideros pomona). morphological changes indicated that body mass and length of forearm followed a linear pattern of growth until 13 days of age at mean growth rates of 0.14 g/day and 1.08 mm/day, respectively, and thereafter, growth rates slowed. the length of the total epiphyseal gap of the fourth metacarpal phalangeal joint showed a linear increase for up to 10 days, followed by a linear decrease until day 40 at a mean rate of 0.09 mm/day. together, two equations permitted estimation of the age of h. pomona pups between 1 and 40 days. the logistic equation provided the best fit to the empirical curves for body mass and length of forearm, studies of vocal development showed that the precursors of echolocation calls were not emitted until day 7 after birth. as the pups grew, the dominant frequency (df) of isolation calls increased and number of harmonics (nh) decreased, whereas the duration remained relatively stable. the df and bfm(2) (the bandwidth of the terminal frequency-modulated sweep from the second harmonic) of the early echolocation calls increased; however, the nh and duration decreased." @@ -4174,7 +4181,7 @@ estimation of claims in an outbound automotive supply chain using capture-recapt population estimation and monitoring of an endangered lagomorph,capture-recapture; lagomorph; pellet count; population estimation; rabbit density; sylvilagus palustris hefneri,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SCHMIDT JA;MCCLEERY RA;SCHMIDT PM;SILVY NJ;LOPEZ RR,"we conducted the most intensive estimate of the endangered lower keys marsh rabbit (sylvilagus palustris hefneri) metapopulation to date using pellet surveys and capture-recapture methodology. we livetrapped 83 rabbits, evaluated 5 closed population models, and selected the model that best represented the data. we considered the variation in behavioral response model the best model and correlated (r(2) = 0.913) its patch population estimates to patch pellet densities. from the prediction equation, we generated a range-wide metapopulation estimate of 317 rabbits, a western clade population of 257 rabbits, an eastern clade population of 25 rabbits, and translocated marsh rabbit populations of 35 and zero on little pine and water keys, respectively. a subset of patches whose marsh rabbit subpopulations were last estimated in 1993 exhibited a 46% decline in abundance over 15 yr. due to the low estimate of the eastern clade population, special effort should be initiated to avoid loss of genetic diversity. the prediction equation suffers from limited data at high pellet densities, patches with >= 5 pellets/m(2). future studies should investigate if the slope of the regression is indeed near 1 by sampling patches across the range of pellet densities, especially those with >= 5 pellets/m(2). the equation provides managers a quick, efficient, and noninvasive method to estimate marsh rabbit abundance from pellet counts but the confidence of predicted rabbit densities from high pellet density patches is low. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." estimating abundance of sitka black-tailed deer using dna from fecal pellets,abundance; alaska; density; dna; fecal pellets; forest; logging; mark-recapture; odocoileus hemionus sitkensis; sitka black-tailed deer,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,BRINKMAN TJ;PERSON DK;CHAPIN FS;SMITH W;HUNDERTMARK KJ,"densely vegetated environments have hindered collection of basic population parameters on forest-dwelling ungulates. our objective was to develop a mark-recapture technique that used dna from fecal pellets to overcome constraints associated with estimating abundance of ungulates in landscapes where direct observation is difficult. we tested our technique on sitka black-tailed deer (odocoileus hemionus sitkensis) in the temperate coastal rainforest of southeast alaska. during 2006-2008, we sampled fecal pellets of deer along trail transects in 3 intensively logged watersheds on prince of wales island, alaska. we extracted dna from the surface of fecal pellets and used microsatellite markers to identify individual deer. with genotypes of individual deer, we estimated abundance of deer with moderate precision (+/- 20%) using mark-recapture models. combining all study sites, we identified a 30% (se 5.1%) decline in abundance during our 3-year study, which we attributed to 3 consecutive severe winters. we determined that deer densities in managed land logged > 30 years ago (7 deer/km(2), se = 1.3) supported fewer deer compared to both managed land logged < 30 years ago (10 deer/km(2), se = 1.5) and unmanaged land (12 deer/km(2), se = 1.4). our study provides the first estimates of abundance (based on individually identified deer) for sitka black-tailed deer and the first estimates of abundance of an unenclosed ungulate population using dna from fecal pellets. our tool enables managers to accurately and precisely estimate the abundance of deer in densely vegetated habitats using a non-invasive approach. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." forest bird mortality and baiting practices in new zealand aerial 1080 operations from 1986 to 2009,brushtail possum; meta-analysis; non-target mortality; poison baits; sodium fluoroacetate; trichosurus vulpecula,NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,VELTMAN CJ;WESTBROOKE IM,"we collated 48 surveys of individually banded birds or birds fitted with radio transmitters that were checked before and after 1080 poison (sodium fluoroacctate) baits were aerially distributed to control brushtail possums (trichosurus vulpecula) in new zealand forests. the surveys were associated with 34 pest control operations from 1986 to 2009 and covered 13 native bird species, of which four were kiwi (apteryx spp.). sample sizes ranged from 1 to 46 birds (median 15). in 12 cases a sample of 1 to 42 birds (median 13) was surveyed in an untreated area at the same time. in total, 748 birds were checked before and after operations and 48 birds disappeared or were found dead. in non-treatment areas, 193 birds were checked and four died. surveys of kiwi, whio (hymenolaimus malacorhynchos), kaka (nestor meridionalis) and kokako (callaeas cinerea) were grouped for meta-analyses. the 95% pooled upper confidence bounds for the point estimate of zero mortality were each less than 4% for kiwi, kaka and kokako indicating only a small risk of mortality during 1080 pest control operations. prefeeding with non-toxic baits increased from 22% (1998-1999) to 79% (2007-2008) in 322 operations on public conservation lands but was used in only 9 (26%) of the operations during which individually marked birds were monitored. we caution that failure to observe bird deaths in small samples may lead to weak inference about zero mortality across a population, most surveys in the review did not involve prefeeding, and that 11 native bird species for which deaths were reported after 1080 operations have not been studied." -"demographics and vulnerability of a unique australian fish, the weedy seadragon phyllopteryx taeniolatus",mark-recapture analyses; conservation; growth; survival rate; population dynamics; endemic australian fish,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,SANCHEZ-CAMARA J;MARTIN-SMITH K;BOOTH DJ;FRITSCHI J;TURON X,"the weedy seadragon phyllopteryx taeniolatus is a vulnerable and endemic australian fish and also an icon and flagship species for marine conservation. however, little is known about its population dynamics, which hinders the establishment of conservation policies. we have previously demonstrated seadragons to be highly site-attached, so we estimated population densities, growth and survival of weedy seadragons using mark-recapture techniques at 5 sites in new south wales (nsw, 34 degrees s) and tasmania (tas, 43 degrees s), near the northern and southeastern limit of distribution for the species, over a 7 yr period. population densities varied from ca. 10 to 70 seadragons ha(-1) depending on site and year. there was a significant decline in the number of weedy seadragon sightings per unit area searched in 2 out of 3 study sites near sydney, nsw, from 2001 to 2007. there was also a decline at one of the 2 sites surveyed in the lower derwent estuary, tas, in 2009 compared to 2003 and 2004. survival rates at nsw sites ranged from 0.62 to 0.65 yr(-1) and were higher at tas sites where they ranged from 0.71 to 0.77 yr(-1). birth occurred approximately 3 mo later and seadragons exhibited significant slower growth in tas (maximum adult size x growth rate parameter, l-infinity x k = 31.02) compared to nsw (l-infinity x k = 55.15). this study is the first population assessment of seadragons over ecologically relevant spatial and temporal scales, and shows differences in the dynamics of populations at different latitudes. it also shows declines in some populations at widely separated sites. determining whether these declines are natural interannual fluctuations or whether they are caused by environmental or habitat changes must be a priority for conservation." +"demographics and vulnerability of a unique australian fish, the weedy seadragon phyllopteryx taeniolatus",mark-recapture analyses; conservation; growth; survival rate; population dynamics; endemic australian fish,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,SANCHEZ CAMARA J;MARTIN SMITH K;BOOTH DJ;FRITSCHI J;TURON X,"the weedy seadragon phyllopteryx taeniolatus is a vulnerable and endemic australian fish and also an icon and flagship species for marine conservation. however, little is known about its population dynamics, which hinders the establishment of conservation policies. we have previously demonstrated seadragons to be highly site-attached, so we estimated population densities, growth and survival of weedy seadragons using mark-recapture techniques at 5 sites in new south wales (nsw, 34 degrees s) and tasmania (tas, 43 degrees s), near the northern and southeastern limit of distribution for the species, over a 7 yr period. population densities varied from ca. 10 to 70 seadragons ha(-1) depending on site and year. there was a significant decline in the number of weedy seadragon sightings per unit area searched in 2 out of 3 study sites near sydney, nsw, from 2001 to 2007. there was also a decline at one of the 2 sites surveyed in the lower derwent estuary, tas, in 2009 compared to 2003 and 2004. survival rates at nsw sites ranged from 0.62 to 0.65 yr(-1) and were higher at tas sites where they ranged from 0.71 to 0.77 yr(-1). birth occurred approximately 3 mo later and seadragons exhibited significant slower growth in tas (maximum adult size x growth rate parameter, l-infinity x k = 31.02) compared to nsw (l-infinity x k = 55.15). this study is the first population assessment of seadragons over ecologically relevant spatial and temporal scales, and shows differences in the dynamics of populations at different latitudes. it also shows declines in some populations at widely separated sites. determining whether these declines are natural interannual fluctuations or whether they are caused by environmental or habitat changes must be a priority for conservation." use of parasites as tags in delineating stocks of atlantic cod (gadus morhua) from the southern gulf of st. lawrence and the cape breton shelf,parasite; biological tags; stock structure; atlantic cod,FISHERIES RESEARCH,MCCLELLAND G;MELENDY J,"parasites were inventoried on and in 470 atlantic cod (gadus morhua) collected from the southern gulf of st. lawrence, nafo (north atlantic fisheries organization) division 41, and cape breton shelf (nafo subdivision 4vn) in september of 2004 and 2005, and august 2006, respectively. forward stepwise discriminant function analysis (dfa) of the 41 samples indicated that the nematodes, hysterothylacium aduncum, and pseudoterranova decipiens and the acanthocephalans echinorhynchus gadi and corynosoma strumosum were significant in the classification of cod to eastern or western 4t. cross-validation yielded a classification efficiency of 74% overall, thereby supporting the findings of earlier mark-recapture studies which have indicated that 41 cod are comprised of discrete eastern and western spawning groups. further analyses indicated that western 41 cod was distinct not only from eastern 4t cod, but also differed from cod from the smokey channel and cape breton shelf slopewaters (4vn), with rates of misclassification ranging from 6% to 9%. hence, ""parasite tags"" may prove useful for monitoring the exploitation of cod from western 41 during their annual migration through the cabot strait and while over-wintering along the edge of the cape breton shelf where mixing with eastern 41 and 4vn cod may occur. similar results could be achieved with migrant cod from eastern 4t through analyses of parasite markers together with host meristic or morphometric parameters. crown copyright (c) 2010 published by elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." "population ecology of peltocephalus dumerilianus (testudines, podocnemididae) in two tributaries of the rio negro, amazonas, brazil",NA,INTERCIENCIA,DE LA OSSA J;VOGT RC,"in the present work about peltocephalus dumerilianus (""bighead"" amazon turtle), an aquatic chelonian inhabiting the amazon basin, the sex composition was analyzed by the capture-recapture method in two tributaries of the rio negro, and morphometric parameters were compared individually and by sex. by means of a mathematical model the populational abundance was calculated. also, through telemetry, the occupied home range was calculated according to sex, and differences among populations were established." abundance and richness of small mammals in fragmented atlantic forest of southeastern brazil,small mammals; landscape ecology; fragmentation; atlantic forest; brazil,JOURNAL OF NATURAL HISTORY,PASSAMANI M;FERNANDEZ FAS,"understanding the mechanisms that determine the abundance of small mammals in fragmented landscapes is crucial for the conservation of their populations. the abundance of marsupials and rodents was studied from 1999 to 2001 in fragments of atlantic forest. a capture-mark-recapture study was carried out in three small fragments (2.8-9.1 ha), two medium-sized fragments (158.9-197.6 ha) and three control areas within an 840-ha forest block. twenty small mammal species were captured and the abundance was higher in small fragments than in either medium-sized or large ones. the marsupial marmosops incanus and the rodent euryoryzomys russatus were more abundant in small fragments; the marsupials caluromys philander and gracilinanus microtarsus showed a trend in the opposite direction. our results suggest that several species are positively affected by increased productivity or by the habitat changes produced by edge effects in small fragments, including a sparser canopy and denser understorey vegetation." @@ -4190,8 +4197,8 @@ the superpopulation approach for estimating the population size of ' prolonged ' "the effect of helpers on the postfledging period in a cooperatively breeding bird, the sociable weaver",capture-mark-recapture; dispersal; helping behaviour; kin competition; philetairus socius; sociable weaver; survival,ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR,COVAS R;DEVILLE AS;DOUTRELANT C;SPOTTISWOODE CN;GREGOIRE A,"understanding the evolution of cooperation requires determining the costs and benefits of cooperative behaviour. in cooperative breeders, where nonbreeding individuals assist in raising offspring, these 'helpers' are expected to increase the fitness of breeders and hence empirical research has focused on the effect they have on reproductive output and breeder survival. however, the effects of helpers during the postfledging period are poorly known because of the difficulty of tracking fledglings in the wild. helper presence might be beneficial for fledglings, for example through continuous food delivery or increased predator vigilance, but potential competition between helpers and fledglings, or changes in investment of parents assisted by helpers, could counteract these positive effects and have a negative influence on postfledging survival probabilities or promote dispersal. we investigated the survival of juvenile sociable weavers, philetairus socius, raised in pairs alone versus pairs with helpers by using capture-mark-recapture methods to control for individual detectability in survival estimation. we found that local survival in the first year was reduced in young raised by groups versus those raised by pairs. this may reflect either higher mortality or emigration of juveniles raised in groups. hence, our study reveals significant postfledging effects of cooperative breeding that have not been reported previously and that need to be investigated in studies addressing the evolution of cooperative breeding. (c) 2010 the association for the study of animal behaviour. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." abundance estimates of killer whales at subantarctic marion island,orcinus orca; photo-identification; population size; mark-recapture; southern ocean; count,AQUATIC BIOLOGY,REISINGER RR;DE BRUYN PJN;BESTER MN,"killer whales orcinus orca are apex predators known to have important effects on marine ecosystems. a fundamental step towards understanding their role in ecosystems, and vital for their informed management and conservation, is the rigorous estimation of their abundance. studies concerning this species have used mark-recapture analytical techniques to estimate abundance, but enumeration of identifiable individuals is more common. this study estimated the abundance of killer whales occurring inshore at subantarctic marion island. mark-recapture analyses were performed using nearly 10 000 photographs taken from 2006 to 2009. using careful quality control criteria, we identified 37 ind. the evident capture heterogeneity violates the underlying assumptions of the open population popan parameterization in the software program mark we initially used. we thus used the simpler chapman modified lincoln-petersen estimator, calculating a population size of 37 ind. (95% ci = 29 to 44) for the period 2006 to 2007 and 32 ind. (95% ci = 30 to 33) for 2007 to 2008. both estimates are close to the catalogue size, suggesting that enumeration is an accurate measure of abundance in this study. our results are comparable to recent abundance estimates for the neighbouring crozet archipelago (similar to 1000 km due east). no rigorous approach has been used previously to estimate the abundance of killer whales at marion island. this estimate provides a foundation for further research related to the sociality and potential ecological impact of this population of killer whales in the southern ocean." "population size and site fidelity of north atlantic minke whales (balaenoptera acutorostrata acutorostrata) off the atlantic coast of nova scotia, canada",photo-identification; mark-recapture; minke whale; balaenoptera acutorostrata; site fidelity,AQUATIC MAMMALS,BARTHA GB;GOWANS S;SIMARD P;TETLEY M;KEITH EO,"the site fidelity of north atlantic minke whales (balaenoptera acutorostrata acutorostrata) off the coast of halifax, nova scotia, canada (approximately 1,800 km(2)) was examined and their population size estimated. during 258 d of boat-based surveys, 1,158 photographs (black and white film plus digital) of minke whales were collected during the summer months (primarily june through august) between 1997 and 2008. while 100 individuals were identified over the 10-y study, only 40 individuals possessed reliable marks (notches on the dorsal fin). of the unique (i.e., reliably marked) individuals, 35% were observed on more than 1 d (14/40), and 12.5% were photographed in more than 1 y (5/40). the population size was estimated to be 43 unique individuals (28 se) with an estimate loss rate (that includes mortality, permanent emigration, and mark change) of 35.2%/y (28.1 se). as 51% of the population was estimated to possess reliable marks, the total population size for this area was estimated at 84 individuals." -quality of case ascertainment in cancer registries: a proposal for a virtual three-source capture-recapture technique,capture-recapture; estimated percentage completeness (epc); virtual three-source model; thailand,ASIAN PACIFIC JOURNAL OF CANCER PREVENTION,SUWANRUNGRUANG K;SRIPLUNG H;ATTASARA P;TEMIYASATHIT S;BUASOM R;WAISRI N;DAOPRASERT K;KAMSA-ARD S;TASANAPITAK C,"background: the ability and behaviour of the capture-recapture method using a virtual three-source model for evaluation of the level of completeness of case ascertainment requires exploration. methods: cancer cases obtained from 9 population-based cancer registries in thailand during 2003 to 2007 were applied for capture-recapture using a model based on clinical, pathological and mortality data. these three virtual sources were derived from three actual items common to all cancer registries: the basis of diagnosis, icd-o morphology code, and last known patient status. poisson regression models were fit to the data to estimate parameters which were then transformed into demographic values. a linear model was used to determine the predictors and estimated percentage of completeness (epc) in case ascertainment among the cancer registries. results: the epc was greater than 97% in 5 and less than 90% in 4 registries. the worst had an epc of 70%. the percentage death certificate only (%dco) and the interaction between %dco and morphological verification (mv) were significantly associated with epc. other factors intrinsic to registries also exerted influence on the epc. conclusions: in addition to other standard indicators to monitor completeness of cancer registries, the present virtual three-source capture-recapture model can be routinely used to estimate the level of completeness of case ascertainment in cancer registries." -"distribution, abundance and demography of green pythons (morelia viridis) in cape york peninsula, australia",NA,AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,"NATUSCH DJD;NATUSCH DFS","the green python (morelia viridis) is an iconic snake species highly sought after in the pet trade and is the target of illegal collection. despite their popularity, some important ecological attributes of green pythons remain unknown, making their effective conservation management difficult. detection-only surveys were conducted throughout the potential range of the green python in australia, and intensive mark-recapture surveys were conducted in the areas where there have been previous records. in total, 298 green pythons were located in the iron, mcilwraith and kawadji-ngaachi ranges of cape york, distributed over an estimated area of 2289 km(2), where they frequented rainforest habitats and adjacent vine thickets. they were not found in the lockerbie scrub or jardine river catchment, despite anecdotal records. green python density was estimated to be 540 km(-2) in the iron range and 200 km(-2) in the mcilwraith range, where the percentages of adults captured were 56% and 83%, respectively. the differences between abundance and population demographics in the iron and mcilwraith ranges may be due to differences in prey abundance and the impacts of collection. the results of this study provide baseline data to conservation managers and policy makers for the future conservation management of this species in australia." +quality of case ascertainment in cancer registries: a proposal for a virtual three-source capture-recapture technique,capture-recapture; estimated percentage completeness (epc); virtual three-source model; thailand,ASIAN PACIFIC JOURNAL OF CANCER PREVENTION,SUWANRUNGRUANG K;SRIPLUNG H;ATTASARA P;TEMIYASATHIT S;BUASOM R;WAISRI N;DAOPRASERT K;KAMSA ARD S;TASANAPITAK C,"background: the ability and behaviour of the capture-recapture method using a virtual three-source model for evaluation of the level of completeness of case ascertainment requires exploration. methods: cancer cases obtained from 9 population-based cancer registries in thailand during 2003 to 2007 were applied for capture-recapture using a model based on clinical, pathological and mortality data. these three virtual sources were derived from three actual items common to all cancer registries: the basis of diagnosis, icd-o morphology code, and last known patient status. poisson regression models were fit to the data to estimate parameters which were then transformed into demographic values. a linear model was used to determine the predictors and estimated percentage of completeness (epc) in case ascertainment among the cancer registries. results: the epc was greater than 97% in 5 and less than 90% in 4 registries. the worst had an epc of 70%. the percentage death certificate only (%dco) and the interaction between %dco and morphological verification (mv) were significantly associated with epc. other factors intrinsic to registries also exerted influence on the epc. conclusions: in addition to other standard indicators to monitor completeness of cancer registries, the present virtual three-source capture-recapture model can be routinely used to estimate the level of completeness of case ascertainment in cancer registries." +"distribution, abundance and demography of green pythons (morelia viridis) in cape york peninsula, australia",NA,AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,NATUSCH DJD;NATUSCH DFS,"the green python (morelia viridis) is an iconic snake species highly sought after in the pet trade and is the target of illegal collection. despite their popularity, some important ecological attributes of green pythons remain unknown, making their effective conservation management difficult. detection-only surveys were conducted throughout the potential range of the green python in australia, and intensive mark-recapture surveys were conducted in the areas where there have been previous records. in total, 298 green pythons were located in the iron, mcilwraith and kawadji-ngaachi ranges of cape york, distributed over an estimated area of 2289 km(2), where they frequented rainforest habitats and adjacent vine thickets. they were not found in the lockerbie scrub or jardine river catchment, despite anecdotal records. green python density was estimated to be 540 km(-2) in the iron range and 200 km(-2) in the mcilwraith range, where the percentages of adults captured were 56% and 83%, respectively. the differences between abundance and population demographics in the iron and mcilwraith ranges may be due to differences in prey abundance and the impacts of collection. the results of this study provide baseline data to conservation managers and policy makers for the future conservation management of this species in australia." variation in age-structured vital rates of a long-lived raptor: implications for population growth,capture-recapture; demography; elasticity; matrix population models; milvus migrans; population dynamics; sensitivity; survival,BASIC AND APPLIED ECOLOGY,SERGIO F;TAVECCHIA G;BLAS J;LOPEZ L;TANFERNA A;HIRALDO F,"age-structured variation in multiple vital-rates is a fundamental determinant of population growth, with important implications for conservation management. however, for many long-lived vertebrates such as birds of prey, such variation has been usually examined in shorter-lived species. here, we investigate the pattern of age-related variation in fitness components and its repercussions on population growth for a migratory raptorial bird, the black kite (milvus migrans), with a longer lifespan than most other previous model species. both survival and offspring production varied along the lifespan in conjunction with the sequence of major life history stages: they were lowest during the initial years of life, increased steeply during the period of progressive incorporation of floaters in the breeding sector of the population (age 2-6), levelled off between 7 and 11 years of life, declined with senescence after age 12, and increased again for the few high-quality individuals capable of reaching age 18-25. this pattern was more gradual, asymmetrical and protracted than in shorter-lived species. matrix modelling estimated a stationary growth rate, which was more sensitive to changes in survival in early life rather than to survival in adult life, contrary to expectations for long-lived species. our results highlight: (1) a growing appreciation of the importance of juvenile survival for population dynamics, (2) the need for caution on the generalization that population-trends of long-lived species are primarily determined by adult survival, and (3) that the trajectory of the breeding populations of migratory species may be determined by environmental variation experienced in early life in staging areas located far away from breeding areas." "testing the effects of deer grazing on two woodland rodents, bankvoles and woodmice",apodemus sylvaticus; myodes glareolus; exclosures; habitat degradation; jolly-seber; inter-specific competition; predator avoidance,BASIC AND APPLIED ECOLOGY,BUESCHING CD;NEWMAN C;JONES JT;MACDONALD DW,"over the past 200 years, deer numbers have risen world-wide. the associated increase in browsing pressure and trampling often resulted in significant vegetation changes and associated conservation problems in other taxa. in this study we investigated the effects of increased deer browsing (0.4-1.5 deer/ha) on a temperate woodland ecosystem by comparing small mammal communities and vegetation characteristics in 4 deer-free exclosures with adjacent woodland transects subjected to deer grazing. jolly-seber analyses of capture-mark-recapture (cmr) results revealed that the significant reduction of bushes and shrubs in deer-grazed woodland was associated with significantly lower rodent densities than in deer-free exclosures at all times. however, whereas bankvoles (myodes glareolus) outnumbered woodmice (apodemus sylvaticus) in exclosures by 4:1, on average there were 1.6 times as many woodmice in the open woodland than bankvoles. population structure did not differ between animals caught in exclosures vs. open woodland in terms of body weight, reproductive status, age structure nor sex ratio in either species. our results highlight the need of bankvoles for denser understorey as protection from predators, compared with the woodmouse's greater agility and resulting ability to escape predators in open woodland as well as the ability to exploit arboreal habitats. the study emphasises the necessity for effective and informed deer management in order to conserve forest ecosystems." assessing breeding success in common woodland birds using a novel method,NA,BIRD STUDY,SAGE RB;HOODLESS AN;HEWSON CM;WILSON S;LE CLARE C;MARCHANT JH;DRAYCOTT RAH;FULLER RJ,"capsule repeated counts of fledged broods can provide a useful estimate of breeding success for most common woodland birds. aims to assess the efficacy of comparing fledged-brood survey data with territory mapping using simple mark-recapture analysis techniques to provide an estimate of breeding success for common woodland birds that does not involve finding nests. methods three observers undertook territory mapping surveys of adults, followed by counts of fledged broods four times a week during may-july 2007 in two 15 ha woods each, both in southern england. using known fledging to maturity periods, these counts were used to calculate daily detection probabilities for broods of ubiquitous species. these enabled fledged brood territory occupancy probabilities (i.e. brood to territory ratios) to be estimated that take account of the possibility that broods were present but missed by surveys. results of the 19 species found in all six woods, mean daily detection probability estimates for fledged broods of 17 species ranged from 0.17 to 0.50 with significant variation between woods for 12 species, but within region/observer for four species. the mean probability of detecting a brood at least once was over 75% using four visits per week and over 50% using two visits. only for great spotted woodpeckers dendrocopos major and garden warblers sylvia borin was the fledging period too short and the daily detection probability too low to provide a reasonable estimate of the territory occupancy probability. conclusion daily detection probabilities for fledged broods of most common woodland birds were sufficiently high to enable useable estimates of fledged-brood territory occupancy probabilities to be made based on a survey programme involving two or three visits per week between late may and the end june. the method used may have application as a means of providing a relatively easily derived productivity index for woodland bird monitoring programmes or for research studies." @@ -4206,7 +4213,7 @@ can rarefaction be used to estimate song repertoire size in birds?,behavioral ac wolf in sheep's clothing: effects of predation by small-bodied fish on survival and behaviour of salamander larvae,amphibian; behaviour; cannibalism; conservation; experiments; fish predation,ECOSCIENCE,PAGNUCCO KS;PASZKOWSKI CA;SCRIMGEOUR GJ,"fish can affect amphibian larvae directly through consumption or indirectly by eliciting antipredator behaviours that incur fitness costs. because of predation, long-toed salamanders (ambystoma macrodactylum) typically show an allotopic distribution with fish. linnet lake (waterton lakes national park, alberta, canada) represents the unusual situation in which salamanders coexist with a small-bodied cyprinid, lake chub (couesius plumbeus). however, the salamander population resident to linnet lake has declined in recent years. our objective was to assess the role of lake chub in the decline of this salamander population by combining field observations and laboratory experiments. we used mark-recapture techniques to estimate the size of the 2 populations. we found little evidence of successful salamander reproduction, and the adult population had decreased by 60% in 14 y. in contrast, a large population of lake chub was present. experiments showed that lake chub between 70 and 100 mm could consume salamander larvae < 40 mm in length. larvae responded to the presence of lake chub by reducing activity and increasing refuge use, especially during the day. our study is one of few to document the ability of a native small-bodied fish to consume amphibian larvae. the coexistence of fish and salamanders may result from a dynamic interplay between periodic extirpation of fish by winter hypoxia and of salamanders by predation, punctuated by episodes of re-colonization or strong recruitment." "response of white sucker (catostomus commersoni) to pulp and paper mill effluent in the androscoggin river, maine, usa",pulp mill effluents; metabolic disruption; endocrine disruption; fish reproduction; eutrophication,ENVIRONMENTAL TOXICOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY,MOWER BF;MUNKITTRICK KR;MCMASTER ME;VAN BENEDEN RJ,"adverse effects of pulp and paper mill effluent on fish populations have been well documented in many countries over the last two decades some of the initial studies were at mills with conventional chlorine bleaching and no secondary effluent treatment following installation of secondary treatment, changes in bleaching technology to elemental chlorine free bleaching and other process changes adverse effects on fish were reduced or eliminated at some mills because no two mills are exactly alike it is difficult to predict adverse impacts of any given mill on fish populations in 1994 a study of female white sucker (catostomus commersoni) in the androscoggin river maine usa showed induction of mixed function oxidase reductions in gonad size and plasma estradiol and an increase in plasma testosterone in fish downstream of discharges from three large bleached kraft pulp and paper mills and host community municipal sewage treatment plants (stp) after all three mills switched to elemental chlorine free bleaching in the late 1990s studies from 2001 to 2003 found that the pattern of reproductive impacts on white sucker populations measured in 1994 was not repeated in addition population estimates of white sucker from 2002 to 2003 using mark recapture techniques found that densities and biomass were well within the range of those of a reference population and of those reported in the literature for unimpacted populations detailed studies immediately above and below each mill/sewage treatment plant showed no evidence of reproductive effects however a clear pattern of eutrophication was noted which increased cumulatively downstream below each mill/stp environ toxicol chem 2011 30 142-153 (c) 2010 setac" effects of river temperature and climate warming on stock-specific survival of adult migrating fraser river sockeye salmon (oncorhynchus nerka),capture-mark-recapture; climate change; large-scale telemetry; ocean and river capture; pacific salmon; stochastic simulations; upriver migration,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,MARTINS EG;HINCH SG;PATTERSON DA;HAGUE MJ;COOKE SJ;MILLER KM;LAPOINTE MF;ENGLISH KK;FARRELL AP,"mean summer water temperatures in the fraser river (british columbia, canada) have increased by similar to 1.5 degrees c since the 1950s. in recent years, record high river temperatures during spawning migrations of fraser river sockeye salmon (oncorhynchus nerka) have been associated with high mortality events, raising concerns about long-term viability of the numerous natal stocks faced with climate warming. in this study, the effect of freshwater thermal experience on spawning migration survival was estimated by fitting capture-recapture models to telemetry data collected for 1474 adults (captured in either the ocean or river between 2002 and 2007) from four fraser river sockeye salmon stock-aggregates (chilko, quesnel, stellako-late stuart and adams). survival of adams sockeye salmon was the most impacted by warm temperatures encountered in the lower river, followed by that of stellako-late stuart and quesnel. in contrast, survival of chilko fish was insensitive to the encountered river temperature. in all stocks, in-river survival of ocean-captured sockeye salmon was higher than that of river-captured fish and, generally, the difference was more pronounced under warm temperatures. the survival-temperature relationships for ocean-captured fish were used to predict historic (1961-1990) and future (2010-2099) survival under simulated lower river thermal experiences for the quesnel, stellako-late stuart and adams stocks. a decrease of 9-16% in survival of all these stocks was predicted by the end of the century if the fraser river continues to warm as expected. however, the decrease in future survival of adams sockeye salmon would occur only if fish continue to enter the river abnormally early, towards warmer periods of the summer, as they have done since 1995. the survival estimates and predictions presented here are likely optimistic and emphasize the need to consider stock-specific responses to temperature and climate warming into fisheries management and conservation strategies." -"ocelot density in the caribbean slope of the talamanca region, costa rica",leopardus pardalis; density; camera-trapping; central america,HYSTRIX-ITALIAN JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,GONZALEZ-MAYA JF;CARDENAL-PORRAS J,"ocelot leopardus pardons is one of the most widespread species in america. nevertheless, its ecology, distribution and population status are not well known in several countries, including costa rica. here we present the first published population density estimations in costa rica and the first effort for the caribbean slope of the country. using camera-trapping, we estimated ocelot density through capture-recapture analysis within the talamanca-caribbean biological corridor. an abundance of 8 and 5 individuals were estimated by mo and mh models, respectively. based on previous home-range studies, three effective sampling areas (esa) were used to estimate absolute density. density was calculated in 8.95, 10.33 and 11.61 individuals (mo model) and 5.59, 6.45 and 7.25 (mh model) individuals x 100 km(-2) for the maximum, mean and minimum esa estimates, respectively. gross extrapolations of the expected population size indicate a low abundance and co-dependence between the corridor and surrounding areas for the long term maintenance of the species in the region." +"ocelot density in the caribbean slope of the talamanca region, costa rica",leopardus pardalis; density; camera-trapping; central america,HYSTRIX-ITALIAN JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,GONZALEZ MAYA JF;CARDENAL PORRAS J,"ocelot leopardus pardons is one of the most widespread species in america. nevertheless, its ecology, distribution and population status are not well known in several countries, including costa rica. here we present the first published population density estimations in costa rica and the first effort for the caribbean slope of the country. using camera-trapping, we estimated ocelot density through capture-recapture analysis within the talamanca-caribbean biological corridor. an abundance of 8 and 5 individuals were estimated by mo and mh models, respectively. based on previous home-range studies, three effective sampling areas (esa) were used to estimate absolute density. density was calculated in 8.95, 10.33 and 11.61 individuals (mo model) and 5.59, 6.45 and 7.25 (mh model) individuals x 100 km(-2) for the maximum, mean and minimum esa estimates, respectively. gross extrapolations of the expected population size indicate a low abundance and co-dependence between the corridor and surrounding areas for the long term maintenance of the species in the region." apparent survival and return rate of breeders in the southern temperate white-rumped swallow tachycineta leucorrhoa,mark-recapture; nesting success; tachycineta bicolor; tachycineta leucorrhoa,IBIS,BULIT F;MASSONI V,"life-histories and demographic parameters of southern temperate bird species have been little studied. we estimated return rates between years and sexes, and adult apparent survival and recapture probabilities with mark-recapture data on white-rumped swallows and found a lower return rate of unsuccessful females. there was little support for influences of sex or year on survival rates. the estimates were equivalent to the lowest value reported for a northern congener, in contrast to the prediction of geographical variation under life-history theory." "progress in the surveillance and control of legionella infection in france, 1998-2008",legionnaires' disease; legionella; epidemiology; control; surveillance,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES,CAMPESE C;BITAR D;JARRAUD S;MAINE C;FOREY F;ETIENNE J;DESENCLOS JC;SAURA C;CHE D,"background: in france, the notification of legionnaires' disease (ld) has been mandatory since 1987. following a study showing an important under-reporting of the disease, the surveillance system was strengthened in 1997: the urinary antigen detection test was introduced as a new diagnostic tool and guidelines for prevention and control of the disease were implemented. after these measures, the incidence of ld increased gradually, reaching 2.5 per 100 000 in 2005, and then slightly decreased (2.0 per 100 000 in 2008). methods: data from the mandatory notification system and from the national reference centre for legionella were analysed. analysis covered the 1998-2008 period. results: during the period 1998-2008 a total of 11 147 cases of ld were reported in france through the mandatory system. the majority of cases were diagnosed by urinary antigen test. the median age of cases was 61 years, the male to female ratio was 2.9, and the case fatality rate was 13%. exposure during travel was documented for 17% of cases. a hospital-acquired infection was suspected for 9% of cases, and this percentage decreased from 21% in 1998 to 7% in 2008. over this period, 14 community outbreaks were identified involving 380 cases, and cooling towers were the most probable source of infection for 13. no outbreak was reported in 2008. registration at the regional level of all cooling towers became mandatory at the end of 2004, and the 1997 prevention and control guidelines were updated in 2005. in recent years, several regulations have also been implemented in the hospital setting and care homes for the elderly. conclusion: all these measures have contributed to strengthen the french surveillance system and improve our ability to better prevent, detect, and control ld. (c) 2010 international society for infectious diseases. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "distribution, movement, and microhabitat use of the introduced predatory snail euglandina rosea in hawaii: implications for management",habitat preference; jacobs' selectivity index; achatinella,INVERTEBRATE BIOLOGY,MEYER WM;COWIE RH,"the purposeful introduction of the land snail euglandina rosea, which feeds exclusively on snails and slugs, has been implicated as a major factor in the decline of diverse pacific island land snail faunas. we report on the distribution, movement patterns, and microhabitat preferences of e. rosea in a gulch in the waianae mountains, oahu, hawaii, because such data will help focus management actions at a local scale to protect native snail populations in areas where e. rosea is established. the waianae mountains harbor many endangered or threatened snails, most currently found in isolated habitat patches near the ridges. conversely, most living individuals (28/29) and shells (46/56) of e. rosea were collected within the gulch, which supported higher densities of other native and non-native snails, and was cooler and more moist than the ridges. thirteen individuals of e. rosea were tracked (eight directly using a bobbin and thread method, and five indirectly by mark-recapture); most (10/13) moved on average <2.5 m per week (range 0.1-25.21 m), and all stayed within the gulch. members of e. rosea preferred leaf litter over open, fern/shrub, or wood microhabitats. there were large differences in the population density of e. rosea over small spatial scales, indicating that there may be places where native snail populations could persist even in areas where populations of e. rosea are established. identifying areas with differing population densities of e. rosea is critical for not only understanding why some native snail species may be more vulnerable to extinction, but also to locate areas where predation pressure is low and conservation efforts will be most likely to succeed." @@ -4220,9 +4227,9 @@ ecological and methodological factors affecting detectability and population est reliability of catch per unit effort (cpue) for evaluation of reintroduction programs - a comparison of the mark-recapture method with standardized trapping,astacus astacus; cpue; capture-recapture; reintroduction; evaluation,KNOWLEDGE AND MANAGEMENT OF AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS,ZIMMERMAN JKM;PALO RT,"catch per unit effort (cpue) is used as a standardized trapping method by local fishermen and in monitoring studies. in this study, cpue was compared with population estimates made with a capture-recapture method based on the passive integrated transponder (pit-tag) marking of individuals. the results show a stronger positive correlation between the estimated population sizes from the capture-recapture method with an estimated cpue effort of 120 traps. the fishermen used 15 traps, and even this effort showed a fair correlation with the mark-recapture estimates. this indicates that the standardized way of trapping with 15 traps can be used to evaluate reintroduction programs and monitor crayfish populations." "growth of burrowing crayfish parastacus pugnax (poeppig, 1835) determined by marking technique",growth; mark-recapture; burrowing crayfish; parastacus pugnax; chile,LATIN AMERICAN JOURNAL OF AQUATIC RESEARCH,IBARRA M;ARANA PM,"a modified tag belt type was used in the burrowing crayfish (parastacus pugnax), in the central-south of chile. the parameters asymptotic carapace length (lc(infinity)) and rate of increase (k) were determined through the gulland & holt (1959) method. the parameter t(0) was determined by the inverse equation of von bertalanffy model, which allowed to establish that the growth curves in length and weight are defined by the parameters k = 0.35 mm yr(-1), t(0) = -0.38 years, lc(infinity) = 55.9 mm and w-infinity = 83.8 g. these values were similar to those of samastacus spinifrons, chilean species with high potential for aquaculture, and similar to those of other south american parastacids such as p. brasiliensis and p. deffosus." who ends up in the eagle owl pellets? a new method to assess whether water voles experience different predation risk,arvicola amphibius; bubo bubo; capture-mark-recapture; norway; optimal foraging theory; predation,MAMMALIAN BIOLOGY,MELIS C;HOLMERN T;RINGSBY TH;SAETHER BE,"using field methods that provide unbiased estimates of predation risk is challenging for medium and small sized prey. we conducted this study in a simple predator-prey system (sleneset archipelago, northern norway) where eagle owls bubo bubo depend on water vole arvicola amphibius and other predators are absent, and we tested the prediction that substandard individuals (i.e. with lower body condition) would be exposed to higher predation risk. in summer 2007-2009 we capture-mark-recaptured water voles with passive integrated transponder tags inserted by injection under the skin of the neck. we then searched and scanned the study area for passive transponders in eagle owl pellets and compared the body condition of predated and unknown fate individuals by means of logistic regression models. substandard water voles had a higher probability of being predated by eagle owl, suggesting that voles in compromised condition were more vulnerable to predation. therefore natural selection may be at work also through avian ambush predators. (c) 2011 deutsche gesellschaft fur saugetierkunde. published by elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." -"survival probability of immature green turtles in two foraging grounds at culebra, puerto rico",survival probability; chelonia mydas; cormack-jolly-seber; capture-mark-recapture study; fibropapillomatosis,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,PATRICIO AR;VELEZ-ZUAZO X;DIEZ CE;VAN DAM R;SABAT AM,"inshore bays are key foraging grounds for immature green turtles chelonia mydas. at these confined areas, capture-mark-recapture (cmr) programs generate valuable information that can be used to estimate vital rates, essential for the effective conservation of this endangered species. we compiled the cmr history profiles of 273 individuals from 13 yr of in-water surveys and employed the cormack-jolly-seber model to estimate the survival probabilities of green turtles in 2 neritic bays at culebra municipality, puerto rico. the cmr profiles were grouped into 2 size classes: juvenile and subadult. no adults were captured during the study. we found no significant differences in survival probability between the green turtles occupying each bay. we also assessed the survival probability of fibropapillomatosis (fp)-afflicted turtles versus fp-free turtles and found no significant differences among these groups. however, there was a significant difference in survival between the 2 size classes. juveniles showed a higher survival probability (0.8322, 95% ci = 0.7875 to 0.8690) than subadults (0.5290, 95% ci = 0.3851 to 0.6682). the low survival of subadults is potentially biased by the permanent emigration of some of these individuals. previous studies have shown that larger immatures leave shallow protected bays and occupy deeper open waters, sometimes associated with adults. juveniles seem to be resident, and their survival rate can serve as a reference value for viability analysis. this is the first study on the survival of green turtles in the west indies." -vital rates of pink abalone haliotis corrugata estimated from mark-recapture data to inform recovery,haliotis corrugata; pink abalone; demography; restoration; matrix model; growth modeling; survival rate; maturity; marine conservation,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,BUTTON CA;ROGERS-BENNETT L,"pink abalone haliotis corrugata have declined dramatically in southern california despite once being the most important species in the abalone fishery before its closure in 1997. we estimated vital rates using mark-recapture data of pink abalone from san diego (2003-2007) and santa catalina island (1970-1972), california, and juveniles reared in the laboratory in san diego (2006-2007). we fit 7 growth functions to annual growth increment data to estimate age at maturity, time to reach the minimum legal size (mls) in the historic fishery, and the number of reproductive years before reaching the mls. we used demographic data to construct a growth transition probability matrix based on the best-fit (richards) model. we estimated that pink abalone grow slowly (k = 0.07 yr(-1)), reaching a maximum length of 200 mm, and have high adult survivorship (0.77 yr(-1)). we used non-lethal methods to estimate size at maturity, which was 99 mm for males and 103 mm for females (8.2 to 8.7 yr), with 19 yr to reach fishery size. survival rates in this population did not differ between years or genders, but severe cuts to the foot during handling did decrease survivorship. despite low population densities, we show evidence of some juvenile recruitment to the region. the slow growth rates suggest that the populations within the southern california abalone fishery closure area could take 30 yr to recover, provided there is successful reproduction and the high survival of adults continues without illegal fishing. estimating vital rates and demographic characteristics using non-lethal methods provides critical information for investigating the dynamics of low-density populations." -life in the lead: extreme densities of narwhals monodon monoceros in the offshore pack ice,abundance; density; greenland; narwhal; pack ice; site fidelity,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,LAIDRE KL;HEIDE-JORGENSEN MP,"there is a paucity of information on abundance, densities, and habitat selection of narwhals monodon monoceros in the offshore pack ice of baffin bay, west greenland, despite the critical importance of winter foraging regions and considerable sea ice declines in the past decades. we conducted a double-platform visual aerial survey over a narwhal wintering ground to obtain pack ice densities and develop the first fully corrected abundance estimate using point conditional mark-recapture distance sampling. continuous video recording and digital images taken along the track-line allowed for in situ quantification of winter narwhal habitat and for the estimation of fine-scale narwhal habitat selection and habitat-specific sighting probabilities. abundance at the surface was estimated at 3484 (coefficient of variation [cv] = 0.46) including whales missed by observers. the fully corrected abundance of narwhals was 18 044 (cv = 0.46), or approximately one-quarter of the entire baffin bay population. the narwhal wintering ground surveyed (similar to 9500 km(2)) had 2.4 to 3.2% open water based on estimates from satellite imagery (nasa moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer) and 1565 digital photographic images collected on the trackline. thus, the similar to 18000 narwhals had access to 233 km2 of open water, resulting in an average density of similar to 77 narwhals km(-2) open water. narwhal sighting probability near habitats with < 10% or 10 to 50% open water was significantly higher than sighting probability in habitats with > 50% open water, suggesting narwhals select optimal foraging areas in dense pack ice regardless of open water availability. this study provides the first quantitative ecological data on densities and habitat selection of narwhals in pack ice foraging regions that are rapidly being altered with climate change." +"survival probability of immature green turtles in two foraging grounds at culebra, puerto rico",survival probability; chelonia mydas; cormack-jolly-seber; capture-mark-recapture study; fibropapillomatosis,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,PATRICIO AR;VELEZ ZUAZO X;DIEZ CE;VAN DAM R;SABAT AM,"inshore bays are key foraging grounds for immature green turtles chelonia mydas. at these confined areas, capture-mark-recapture (cmr) programs generate valuable information that can be used to estimate vital rates, essential for the effective conservation of this endangered species. we compiled the cmr history profiles of 273 individuals from 13 yr of in-water surveys and employed the cormack-jolly-seber model to estimate the survival probabilities of green turtles in 2 neritic bays at culebra municipality, puerto rico. the cmr profiles were grouped into 2 size classes: juvenile and subadult. no adults were captured during the study. we found no significant differences in survival probability between the green turtles occupying each bay. we also assessed the survival probability of fibropapillomatosis (fp)-afflicted turtles versus fp-free turtles and found no significant differences among these groups. however, there was a significant difference in survival between the 2 size classes. juveniles showed a higher survival probability (0.8322, 95% ci = 0.7875 to 0.8690) than subadults (0.5290, 95% ci = 0.3851 to 0.6682). the low survival of subadults is potentially biased by the permanent emigration of some of these individuals. previous studies have shown that larger immatures leave shallow protected bays and occupy deeper open waters, sometimes associated with adults. juveniles seem to be resident, and their survival rate can serve as a reference value for viability analysis. this is the first study on the survival of green turtles in the west indies." +vital rates of pink abalone haliotis corrugata estimated from mark-recapture data to inform recovery,haliotis corrugata; pink abalone; demography; restoration; matrix model; growth modeling; survival rate; maturity; marine conservation,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,BUTTON CA;ROGERS BENNETT L,"pink abalone haliotis corrugata have declined dramatically in southern california despite once being the most important species in the abalone fishery before its closure in 1997. we estimated vital rates using mark-recapture data of pink abalone from san diego (2003-2007) and santa catalina island (1970-1972), california, and juveniles reared in the laboratory in san diego (2006-2007). we fit 7 growth functions to annual growth increment data to estimate age at maturity, time to reach the minimum legal size (mls) in the historic fishery, and the number of reproductive years before reaching the mls. we used demographic data to construct a growth transition probability matrix based on the best-fit (richards) model. we estimated that pink abalone grow slowly (k = 0.07 yr(-1)), reaching a maximum length of 200 mm, and have high adult survivorship (0.77 yr(-1)). we used non-lethal methods to estimate size at maturity, which was 99 mm for males and 103 mm for females (8.2 to 8.7 yr), with 19 yr to reach fishery size. survival rates in this population did not differ between years or genders, but severe cuts to the foot during handling did decrease survivorship. despite low population densities, we show evidence of some juvenile recruitment to the region. the slow growth rates suggest that the populations within the southern california abalone fishery closure area could take 30 yr to recover, provided there is successful reproduction and the high survival of adults continues without illegal fishing. estimating vital rates and demographic characteristics using non-lethal methods provides critical information for investigating the dynamics of low-density populations." +life in the lead: extreme densities of narwhals monodon monoceros in the offshore pack ice,abundance; density; greenland; narwhal; pack ice; site fidelity,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,LAIDRE KL;HEIDE JORGENSEN MP,"there is a paucity of information on abundance, densities, and habitat selection of narwhals monodon monoceros in the offshore pack ice of baffin bay, west greenland, despite the critical importance of winter foraging regions and considerable sea ice declines in the past decades. we conducted a double-platform visual aerial survey over a narwhal wintering ground to obtain pack ice densities and develop the first fully corrected abundance estimate using point conditional mark-recapture distance sampling. continuous video recording and digital images taken along the track-line allowed for in situ quantification of winter narwhal habitat and for the estimation of fine-scale narwhal habitat selection and habitat-specific sighting probabilities. abundance at the surface was estimated at 3484 (coefficient of variation [cv] = 0.46) including whales missed by observers. the fully corrected abundance of narwhals was 18 044 (cv = 0.46), or approximately one-quarter of the entire baffin bay population. the narwhal wintering ground surveyed (similar to 9500 km(2)) had 2.4 to 3.2% open water based on estimates from satellite imagery (nasa moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer) and 1565 digital photographic images collected on the trackline. thus, the similar to 18000 narwhals had access to 233 km2 of open water, resulting in an average density of similar to 77 narwhals km(-2) open water. narwhal sighting probability near habitats with < 10% or 10 to 50% open water was significantly higher than sighting probability in habitats with > 50% open water, suggesting narwhals select optimal foraging areas in dense pack ice regardless of open water availability. this study provides the first quantitative ecological data on densities and habitat selection of narwhals in pack ice foraging regions that are rapidly being altered with climate change." the prevalence of problem drug use in lithuania,problem drug use; prevalence; capture-recapture method; opioid users,MEDICINA-LITHUANIA,ASTRAUSKIENE A;DOBROVOLSKIJ V;STUKAS R,"the aim of this study was to estimate and assess the prevalence of problem drug use in lithuania. materials and methods. the capture-recapture method was used to estimate the prevalence of problem drug use. for the study, the data concerning problem drug users were collected from the databases of health care and law enforcement institutions. the target group consisted of permanent users (aged 15-64 years) of heroin and other opioids and/or a combination of drugs. results. in lithuania, 431 monitored problem drug users were identified in 2005, 482 in 2006, and 447 in 2007. the male-to-female ratio among the monitored problem drug users was 6:1 in 2006 and 4:1 in 2005 and 2007. the mean age of the monitored problem drug users was 26.8 years in 2005, 27.6 years in 2006, and 28.0 years in 2007. in total, 5699 problem drug users were identified (95% ci, 5552 to 5849) in 200.5, 5800(95% ci, 5652 to 5951) ill 2006, and 5458 (95% ci, 5314 to 5605) in 2007. according to the gathered data, the prevalence of problem drug use was 2.3 cases per 1000 lithuanian population aged 15-64 years in 2005, 2.5 in 2006, and 2.4 in 2007. conclusions. the study showed one of the lowest prevalence of problem drug use in lithuania as in germany, the netherlands, greece, and cyprus. in 2005-2007, problem drug users were mainly young men of employable age in lithuania." individual variation in movement throughout the life cycle of a stream-dwelling salmonid fish,brook charr; dispersal; movement; life cycle; salvelinus fontinalis,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,MORRISSEY MB;FERGUSON MM,"stream-dwelling fish populations have long served as important models of animal movement. populations of adult stream-dwelling fishes are generally composed of a mix of relatively sedentary and mobile individuals. however, we do not know whether this pattern that we typically observe among adults is indicative of patterns of movement that occur throughout the life cycle. therefore, we do not know whether we can apply these patterns to understanding or predicting processes such as migration and thus the potential for the evolution of genetic differences among populations. we test the general hypothesis that patterns of movement throughout the life cycle are consistent with patterns of movement inferred by indirect genetic methods and, more specifically, that the characteristics of the mobile fraction of the population are consistent with patterns of genetic differentiation. we used parentage analyses to infer the movements of alevin brook charr (salvelinus fontinalis) in freshwater river, newfoundland, canada, and a capture-recapture study of one cohort in this population to infer movement throughout the rest of the life cycle. we found that alevins move large distances shortly after emergence, primarily in the downstream direction, and that the population is composed of a mix of relatively sedentary and mobile individuals throughout all other intervals of the life cycle. in contrast, when we considered movements of individuals first captured as juveniles and eventually recovered as reproductively mature adults, we found relatively large and uniform distributions of net movement distance. thus, heterogeneity in individual movement of adults is not representative of patterns of movement throughout the life cycle and therefore may provide only limited inference of population-level processes such as gene flow." "female philopatry and male-biased dispersal in a direct-developing salamander, plethodon cinereus",genetic spatial autocorrelation; microsatellite; plethodon cinereus; sex-biased dispersal,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,LIEBGOLD EB;BRODIE ED;CABE PR,"the local resource competition hypothesis and the local mate competition hypothesis were developed based on avian and mammalian systems to explain sex-biased dispersal. most avian species show a female bias in dispersal, ostensibly due to resource defence, and most mammals show a male bias, ostensibly due to male-male competition. these findings confound phylogeny with mating strategy; little is known about sex-biased dispersal in other taxa. resource defence and male-male competition are both intense in plethodon cinereus, a direct-developing salamander, so we tested whether sex-biased dispersal in this amphibian is consistent with the local resource competition hypothesis (female-biased) or the local mate competition hypothesis (male-biased). using fine-scale genetic spatial autocorrelation analyses, we found that females were philopatric, showing significant positive genetic structure in the shortest distance classes, with stronger patterns apparent when only territorial females were tested. males showed no spatial genetic structure over the shortest distances. mark-recapture observations of p. cinereus over 5 years were consistent with the genetic data: males dispersed farther than females during natal dispersal and 44% of females were recaptured within 1 m of their juvenile locations. we conclude that, in this population of a direct-developing amphibian, females are philopatric and dispersal is male-biased, consistent with the local mate competition hypothesis." @@ -4244,12 +4251,12 @@ drug-related deaths in france in 2007: estimates and implications,drug-related d global population status of shy albatross and an assessment of colony-specific trends and drivers,demography; fisheries by-catch; population status; shy albatross; thalassarche cauta,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,ALDERMAN R;GALES R;TUCK GN;LEBRETON JD,"context. monitoring the status of albatross populations and identifying the factors driving observed trends remain international conservation and management priorities. the shy albatross is endemic to australia and breeds only on three tasmanian islands. aims. to provide a reliable total population estimate for shy albatross, including an assessment of demographic trends for each of the three populations where possible. we consider also key drivers of population trends for each population, particularly the potential role of fisheries by-catch, with an overall aim of determining the status of the species. methods. aerial photography and ground surveys were used to estimate the number of annual breeding pairs and trends in adult and juvenile survival rates were calculated using mark-recapture methods. at-sea distribution data was used to identify population specific trends in the overlap of shy albatross and fisheries to evaluate the potential influence of fisheries by-catch on the populations. key results. the albatross island population increased post-harvesting but has recently stabilised at around 5200 breeding pairs, less than half its estimated historic size. this trajectory change appears driven by a decrease in juvenile survival. the small (170 breeding pairs) pedra branca population has recently declined, probably due to reduced breeding success associated with the increasing population of australasian gannets (morus serrator) on the island. the largest population (on mewstone) comprises at least 9500 breeding pairs. trends for this population are unknown. however, this paper demonstrates that these birds have greater overlap with trawl and longline fishing effort and are consequently at higher risk of fishing-related mortality. conclusions. given the extent of fisheries overlap, survival rates for mewstone individuals are likely to be lower than the albatross island population. combined with recent trends on pedra branca and albatross island, we suggest that the current status of the shy albatross is likely to be stable at best and quite possibly decreasing. implications. the concerns raised about the conservation status of shy albatross reinforce the importance of continued population monitoring focussed particularly on establishing the trend of mewstone. a thorough assessment of interactions with trawl fishing operations also is a management priority for this species." estimating and indexing feral cat population abundances using camera traps,abundance index; camera trap; felis catus; feral cat; mark-recapture,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,BENGSEN A;BUTLER J;MASTERS P,"context. the ability to monitor changes in population abundance is critical to the success of pest animal management and research programs. feral cats (felis catus) are an important pest animal, but current monitoring techniques have limited sensitivity or are limited in use to particular circumstances or habitats. recent advances in camera-trapping methods provide the potential to identify individual feral cats, and to use this information to estimate population abundances using capture-mark-recapture (cmr) methods. aims. here, we use a manipulative study to test whether camera-trapping and cmr methods can be used to estimate feral cat abundances. methods. we established a grid of infrared cameras and lure stations over three pastoral properties on kangaroo island, australia, for 15 days. we then reduced the population abundance with an intensive trapping program and repeated the camera survey. we estimated population abundances using robust design cmr models, and converted abundance estimates to densities using home-range data from gps tracking. we also calculated relative abundance indices from the same data. key results. the cmr methods produced credible estimates of the change in population abundance, with useful confidence intervals, showing a statistically identifiable population decline from at least 0.7 cats km(-2) before trapping down to 0.4 cats km(-2) after trapping. the indexing method also showed a statistically identifiable decrease in abundance. conclusions. camera-trapping and cmr methods can provide a useful method for monitoring changes in the absolute abundance of feral cat populations. camera-trap data may also be used to produce indices of relative abundance when the assumptions of cmr models cannot be met. implications. these methods are widely applicable. the ability to reliably estimate feral cat abundances allows for more effective management than is generally available." "dynamics of sex ratio in populations of cyclomorphic mammals (rodentia, cricetidae, muridae)",NA,ZOOLOGICHESKY ZHURNAL,OLENEV GV;GRIGORKINA EB,"as a result of the long-term monitoring (over 30 years) of the main parameters in natural populations of cyclomorphic mammals of the clethrionomys, microtus, and silvaemus genera at the ilmen reserve (chelyabinsk province, the southern urals), the phenomenology and analysis of the sex ratio are presented. the main factors potentially influencing the sex structure of the rodents, i.e. isolation of their settlements, population density, species peculiarities, animal belongings to alternative types of ontogenetic development, extreme affects, sex-dependant asynchronous mortality, as well as age cross, are considered. in the analysis of the sex structure in rodents, the belonging of individuals to a certain type of ontogeny is of great importance. the objective estimation of the sex ratio is given due to using the cmr - method (capture - marking - recapture). analysis of autumn-winter samples, when the reproduction has been completed and reproductively active individuals are eliminated, can be considered as an alternative approach. the conclusion is made that the dynamics of the sex structure in mouse-like rodents was ecologically specified; in hibernation, the selective sex-dependant elimination in individuals is absent. the sex ratio in cyclomorphic mammals is a variable parameter, which represents oscillations about the average, determined by both natural and casual reasons. methodological recommendations for the estimation of the sex structure of cyclomorphic mammals are given." -regional management units for marine turtles: a novel framework for prioritizing conservation and research across multiple scales,NA,PLOS ONE,WALLACE BP;DIMATTEO AD;HURLEY BJ;FINKBEINER EM;BOLTEN AB;CHALOUPKA MY;HUTCHINSON BJ;ABREU-GROBOIS FA;AMOROCHO D;BJORNDAL KA;BOURJEA J;BOWEN BW;DUENAS RB;CASALE P;CHOUDHURY BC;COSTA A;DUTTON PH;FALLABRINO A;GIRARD A;GIRONDOT M;GODFREY MH;HAMANN M;LOPEZ-MENDILAHARSU M;MARCOVALDI MA;MORTIMER JA;MUSICK JA;NEL R;PILCHER NJ;SEMINOFF JA;TROENG S;WITHERINGTON B;MAST RB,"background: resolving threats to widely distributed marine megafauna requires definition of the geographic distributions of both the threats as well as the population unit(s) of interest. in turn, because individual threats can operate on varying spatial scales, their impacts can affect different segments of a population of the same species. therefore, integration of multiple tools and techniques - including site-based monitoring, genetic analyses, mark-recapture studies and telemetry - can facilitate robust definitions of population segments at multiple biological and spatial scales to address different management and research challenges. methodology/principal findings: to address these issues for marine turtles, we collated all available studies on marine turtle biogeography, including nesting sites, population abundances and trends, population genetics, and satellite telemetry. we georeferenced this information to generate separate layers for nesting sites, genetic stocks, and core distributions of population segments of all marine turtle species. we then spatially integrated this information from fine-to coarse-spatial scales to develop nested envelope models, or regional management units (rmus), for marine turtles globally. conclusions/significance: the rmu framework is a solution to the challenge of how to organize marine turtles into units of protection above the level of nesting populations, but below the level of species, within regional entities that might be on independent evolutionary trajectories. among many potential applications, rmus provide a framework for identifying data gaps, assessing high diversity areas for multiple species and genetic stocks, and evaluating conservation status of marine turtles. furthermore, rmus allow for identification of geographic barriers to gene flow, and can provide valuable guidance to marine spatial planning initiatives that integrate spatial distributions of protected species and human activities. in addition, the rmu framework - including maps and supporting metadata - will be an iterative, user-driven tool made publicly available in an online application for comments, improvements, download and analysis." +regional management units for marine turtles: a novel framework for prioritizing conservation and research across multiple scales,NA,PLOS ONE,WALLACE BP;DIMATTEO AD;HURLEY BJ;FINKBEINER EM;BOLTEN AB;CHALOUPKA MY;HUTCHINSON BJ;ABREU GROBOIS FA;AMOROCHO D;BJORNDAL KA;BOURJEA J;BOWEN BW;DUENAS RB;CASALE P;CHOUDHURY BC;COSTA A;DUTTON PH;FALLABRINO A;GIRARD A;GIRONDOT M;GODFREY MH;HAMANN M;LOPEZ MENDILAHARSU M;MARCOVALDI MA;MORTIMER JA;MUSICK JA;NEL R;PILCHER NJ;SEMINOFF JA;TROENG S;WITHERINGTON B;MAST RB,"background: resolving threats to widely distributed marine megafauna requires definition of the geographic distributions of both the threats as well as the population unit(s) of interest. in turn, because individual threats can operate on varying spatial scales, their impacts can affect different segments of a population of the same species. therefore, integration of multiple tools and techniques - including site-based monitoring, genetic analyses, mark-recapture studies and telemetry - can facilitate robust definitions of population segments at multiple biological and spatial scales to address different management and research challenges. methodology/principal findings: to address these issues for marine turtles, we collated all available studies on marine turtle biogeography, including nesting sites, population abundances and trends, population genetics, and satellite telemetry. we georeferenced this information to generate separate layers for nesting sites, genetic stocks, and core distributions of population segments of all marine turtle species. we then spatially integrated this information from fine-to coarse-spatial scales to develop nested envelope models, or regional management units (rmus), for marine turtles globally. conclusions/significance: the rmu framework is a solution to the challenge of how to organize marine turtles into units of protection above the level of nesting populations, but below the level of species, within regional entities that might be on independent evolutionary trajectories. among many potential applications, rmus provide a framework for identifying data gaps, assessing high diversity areas for multiple species and genetic stocks, and evaluating conservation status of marine turtles. furthermore, rmus allow for identification of geographic barriers to gene flow, and can provide valuable guidance to marine spatial planning initiatives that integrate spatial distributions of protected species and human activities. in addition, the rmu framework - including maps and supporting metadata - will be an iterative, user-driven tool made publicly available in an online application for comments, improvements, download and analysis." computer-aided photo-identification system with an application to polar bears based on whisker spot patterns,capture recapture; chamfer; computer vision; image pattern matching; noninvasive identification; reliability; ursus maritimus,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,ANDERSON CJR;LOBO ND;ROTH JD;WATERMAN JM,"ecologists often rely on unique natural markings to identify individual free-ranging animals without disturbing them. we developed a computer-aided photo-identification system for identifying polar bears (ursus maritimus) based on whisker spot pattern recognition. we automated our system so that the selection of 3 reference points on the input image is the only manual step required during image preprocessing. our pattern-matching algorithm is unique in that the variability within spot patterns is considered fully rather than representing them as points and applying a point-pattern matching algorithm. we also measured the reliability of our method as probabilities of true positives and false positives using photographs of various qualities taken at different angles. when we excluded photographs of poor quality and angle the probability of true positives was >80% at a false positive probability of 10%. a new photograph could be preprocessed in <1 min and tested against a reference library of 100 individuals in <10 min. our computer-aided identification system could be extended for use in other species with variable spot patterns, which could be useful in efforts to estimate various population dynamics parameters essential for the study and conservation of wildlife, particularly threatened and endangered species. doe: 10.1644/09-mamm-a-425.1." effect of soil temperature and soil water content on fine root turnover rate in a california mixed conifer ecosystem,NA,JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-BIOGEOSCIENCES,KITAJIMA K;ANDERSON KE;ALLEN MF,"measurement of fine root production and turnover rate, the reciprocal of mean life span of a root population, is crucial to the understanding of the carbon cycle of an ecosystem as fine roots account for up to 30% of global terrestrial net primary production. our goal was to characterize fine root production, mortality, standing crop, and turnover rate in a mediterranean climate. using simulations, we established that our sampling interval must be less than monthly to keep the turnover rate error to less than 10%. adhering to this interval, we measured fine root turnover rate by mark-recapture modeling methods and compared predicted with observed turnover rates. the best selected model indicated that these rates were a function of diameter, length, soil temperature, and soil water content. turnover rate increased with decreasing diameter and length and increasing soil temperature and soil water content. we found a yearly pattern of hysteresis between fine root production, mortality, and turnover rate relative to soil temperature. this was explained by soil temperature-moisture hysteresis using our best selected model. production and turnover rate were greater in spring to early summer when both soil temperature and soil moisture were high, resulting in a seasonal variation of belowground net primary production. we suggest that this behavior could be a result of fine roots' strategy to cope with a limited growing season of a semiarid mediterranean climate." -characterization of small microsatellite loci for use in non invasive sampling studies of gunnison sage-grouse (centrocercus minimus),centrocercus minimus; gunnison sage-grouse; microsatellite; non invasive sampling,CONSERVATION GENETICS RESOURCES,OYLER-MCCANCE SJ;ST JOHN J,"primers for 10 microsatellite loci were developed specifically to amplify low quantity and quality dna for gunnison sage-grouse (centrocercus minimus), a species that has been petitioned for listing under the us endangered species act. in a screen of 20 individuals from the largest population in the gunnison basin, colorado, the 10 loci were found to have levels of variability ranging from two to seven alleles. no loci were found to be linked, although one locus revealed significant departures from hardy-weinberg equilibrium. these microsatellite loci will be applicable for population genetic analyses and for use in mark recapture studies that utilize dna collected non invasively from feathers and fecal pellets, which will ultimately aid in management efforts." -annual apparent survival rates of immature magnificent frigatebirds in a large breeding colony in western mexico,demographic rates; fregata magnificens; immature survival; mark-resighting; seabird,WATERBIRDS,GONZALEZ-JARAMILLO M;RANGEL-SALAZAR JL;DE LA CUEVA H,"annual apparent survival rates from 323 marked immature magnificent frigatebirds (fregata magnificens) were estimated using mark-recapture models for live encounter data in a six-year study (1998-2003) at isla isabel, the largest breeding colony in western mexico. a time and age immature apparent survival pattern was found: high and variable as yearling-juveniles (mean (phi) over cap (1)(1998-2000) = 0.78 +/- 0.22) and, later, moderate and constant as juvenile-subadults and subadults (mean (phi) over cap (2+) = 0.62 +/- 0.11). whereas resighting rate (p) increased with time (range = 0.00 [+/- 0.04] -0.87 [+/- 0.11]). the results suggest variation in true survival and emigration during the juvenile life phase, high true survival and high site fidelity of juvenile-subadults and subadults during the interval after marking, and constant and either low true survival or high emigration in the subsequent intervals. frigatebird apparent survival was predominantly higher in yearling juveniles than in subsequent age classes, an uncommon occurrence in other seabirds but likely with important demographic implications for species with long post-parental care and delayed maturity. received 13 october 2009, accepted 9 march 2010." -combining link-tracing sampling and cluster sampling to estimate totals and means of hidden human populations,capture-recapture; design-based approach; finite population; hard-to-access population; horvitz-thompson estimator; model-based approach; snowball sampling,JOURNAL OF OFFICIAL STATISTICS,FELIX-MEDINA MH;MONJARDIN PE,"felix-medina and thompson (2004) proposed a variant of link-tracing sampling in which it is assumed that only a portion of a hidden population, such as drug users or sex workers, is covered by a frame of sites where the members of the population can be found with high probability. a sample of sites is selected and the people on those sites are asked to nominate other members of the population to be included in the sample. we consider this sampling design, and propose several types of horvitz-thompson-like estimators of the total and the mean of a response variable, such as monthly drug expenses or number of sexual partners. we also propose horvitz-thompson-like estimators of the variances of the estimators of the total and the mean, as well as wald confidence intervals for these parameters. the results of several simulation studies with real and artificial data indicate that point and interval estimators of the total and mean perform well as long as all the assumptions about the stated models are satisfied and the number of nominees in the portion of the population not covered by the frame is not small, but that their performance deteriorates as the number of nominees decreases. the results also indicate that the proposed estimators are robust to deviations from the model that describes the numbers of people found on the sites, but not to deviations from the assumption that every member of the population has the same probability of being nominated by a particular site. however, in this case, the proposed estimators still yield estimates of the parameters of the correct order of magnitude." +characterization of small microsatellite loci for use in non invasive sampling studies of gunnison sage-grouse (centrocercus minimus),centrocercus minimus; gunnison sage-grouse; microsatellite; non invasive sampling,CONSERVATION GENETICS RESOURCES,OYLER MCCANCE SJ;ST JOHN J,"primers for 10 microsatellite loci were developed specifically to amplify low quantity and quality dna for gunnison sage-grouse (centrocercus minimus), a species that has been petitioned for listing under the us endangered species act. in a screen of 20 individuals from the largest population in the gunnison basin, colorado, the 10 loci were found to have levels of variability ranging from two to seven alleles. no loci were found to be linked, although one locus revealed significant departures from hardy-weinberg equilibrium. these microsatellite loci will be applicable for population genetic analyses and for use in mark recapture studies that utilize dna collected non invasively from feathers and fecal pellets, which will ultimately aid in management efforts." +annual apparent survival rates of immature magnificent frigatebirds in a large breeding colony in western mexico,demographic rates; fregata magnificens; immature survival; mark-resighting; seabird,WATERBIRDS,GONZALEZ JARAMILLO M;RANGEL SALAZAR JL;DE LA CUEVA H,"annual apparent survival rates from 323 marked immature magnificent frigatebirds (fregata magnificens) were estimated using mark-recapture models for live encounter data in a six-year study (1998-2003) at isla isabel, the largest breeding colony in western mexico. a time and age immature apparent survival pattern was found: high and variable as yearling-juveniles (mean (phi) over cap (1)(1998-2000) = 0.78 +/- 0.22) and, later, moderate and constant as juvenile-subadults and subadults (mean (phi) over cap (2+) = 0.62 +/- 0.11). whereas resighting rate (p) increased with time (range = 0.00 [+/- 0.04] -0.87 [+/- 0.11]). the results suggest variation in true survival and emigration during the juvenile life phase, high true survival and high site fidelity of juvenile-subadults and subadults during the interval after marking, and constant and either low true survival or high emigration in the subsequent intervals. frigatebird apparent survival was predominantly higher in yearling juveniles than in subsequent age classes, an uncommon occurrence in other seabirds but likely with important demographic implications for species with long post-parental care and delayed maturity. received 13 october 2009, accepted 9 march 2010." +combining link-tracing sampling and cluster sampling to estimate totals and means of hidden human populations,capture-recapture; design-based approach; finite population; hard-to-access population; horvitz-thompson estimator; model-based approach; snowball sampling,JOURNAL OF OFFICIAL STATISTICS,FELIX MEDINA MH;MONJARDIN PE,"felix-medina and thompson (2004) proposed a variant of link-tracing sampling in which it is assumed that only a portion of a hidden population, such as drug users or sex workers, is covered by a frame of sites where the members of the population can be found with high probability. a sample of sites is selected and the people on those sites are asked to nominate other members of the population to be included in the sample. we consider this sampling design, and propose several types of horvitz-thompson-like estimators of the total and the mean of a response variable, such as monthly drug expenses or number of sexual partners. we also propose horvitz-thompson-like estimators of the variances of the estimators of the total and the mean, as well as wald confidence intervals for these parameters. the results of several simulation studies with real and artificial data indicate that point and interval estimators of the total and mean perform well as long as all the assumptions about the stated models are satisfied and the number of nominees in the portion of the population not covered by the frame is not small, but that their performance deteriorates as the number of nominees decreases. the results also indicate that the proposed estimators are robust to deviations from the model that describes the numbers of people found on the sites, but not to deviations from the assumption that every member of the population has the same probability of being nominated by a particular site. however, in this case, the proposed estimators still yield estimates of the parameters of the correct order of magnitude." a likelihood framework for joint estimation of salmon abundance and migratory timing using telemetric mark-recapture,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,BROMAGHIN JF;GATES KS;PALMER DE,"many fisheries for pacific salmon oncorhynchus spp. are actively managed to meet escapement goal objectives. in fisheries where the demand for surplus production is high, an extensive assessment program is needed to achieve the opposing objectives of allowing adequate escapement and fully exploiting the available surplus. knowledge of abundance is a critical element of such assessment programs. abundance estimation using mark-recapture experiments in combination with telemetry has become common in recent years, particularly within alaskan river systems. fish are typically captured and marked in the lower river while migrating in aggregations of individuals from multiple populations. recapture data are obtained using telemetry receivers that are co-located with abundance assessment projects near spawning areas, which provide large sample sizes and information on population-specific mark rates. when recapture data are obtained from multiple populations, unequal mark rates may reflect a violation of the assumption of homogeneous capture probabilities. a common analytical strategy is to test the hypothesis that mark rates are homogeneous and combine all recapture data if the test is not significant. however, mark rates are often low, and a test of homogeneity may lack sufficient power to detect meaningful differences among populations. in addition, differences among mark rates may provide information that could be exploited during parameter estimation. we present a temporally stratified mark-recapture model that permits capture probabilities and migratory timing through the capture area to vary among strata. abundance information obtained from a subset of populations after the populations have segregated for spawning is jointly modeled with telemetry distribution data by use of a likelihood function. maximization of the likelihood produces estimates of the abundance and timing of individual populations migrating through the capture area, thus yielding substantially more information than the total abundance estimate provided by the conventional approach. the utility of the model is illustrated with data for coho salmon o. kisutch from the kasilof river in south-central alaska." "conservation needs of the critically endangered philippine forest turtle, siebenrockiella leytensis, in palawan, philippines",reptilia; testudines; geoemydidae; siebenrockiella leytensis; philippine forest turtle; endemic; mark-recapture; population size; exploitation; trade; in situ conservation; palawan; philippines,CHELONIAN CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,SCHOPPE S;MATILLANO J;CERVANCIA M;ACOSTA D,"the philippine forest turtle, siebenrockiella leytensis, is endemic to palawan and dumaran islands. its limited distribution, exploitation, and habitat destruction are the main threats to this critically endangered species. the populations of 5 sites in northern palawan were assessed in terms of habitat, population size, density, and structure. fieldwork was conducted from 28 january to 15 june 2007. turtles were collected through visual encounters and with pit fall and baited funnel traps. all captured individuals were marked and released after standard measurements were taken. considering the relatively short sample period, populations were considered ""closed,"" that is, with negligible birth, death, and migration. population size was then estimated using statistical analysis. information on exploitation was gathered through interviews. surveys revealed various degrees of habitat destruction and different levels of exploitation among sites. population size estimates varied from 10 to 110 individuals per site, and in the majority of sites, adults were most prevalent. densities ranged from 4.4 to 121.7 (mean 39.3 +/- 49.5) individuals/ha. the highest density and largest population were found at the least disturbed site. low densities were recorded in the more disturbed habitats, presumably as a result of exploitation. in 3 of the 5 sites turtles are heavily exploited either for local food consumption or for the international pet trade. findings justify its current status as critically endangered. in situ conservation of the most pristine population (site i) is recommended in line with further research on the biology, ecology, and distribution pattern of the species." "linear home range, movement, and spatial distribution of the suwannee cooter (pseudemys concinna suwanniensis) in a blackwater river",reptilia; testudines; emydidae; pseudemys concinna suwanniensis; freshwater turtle; ecology; behavior; blackwater river; santa fe river; florida; usa,CHELONIAN CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,KORNILEV YV;DODD CK;JOHNSTON GR,"a decreased tannin load during 2006-2007 in a northern florida blackwater river allowed us to make observations on the ecology of the suwannee cooter (pseudemys concinna suwanniensis), a species otherwise usually studied in clear, spring-fed rivers. we conducted a capture-mark-recapture study of this protected species and recorded the locations of marked individuals throughout a > 7.4-km study site for > 5 months. large suwannee cooters can be highly vagile and are capable of covering long distances rapidly (> 1.5 km in a day), with few individuals found. 5 km from previous capture locations. for large turtles, the propensity to move across different habitats and the size of the actively used linear home range varied extensively and were best explained by individual variation rather than by sexual differences. we observed an abundant population, including all size classes. turtle distribution throughout the site was unequal among river sections and was positively correlated with the number of basking sites and water depth. we recommend basking counts to monitor population trends in blackwater rivers, especially under conditions of high tannin concentrations when hand capturing turtles is difficult." @@ -4265,18 +4272,18 @@ disentangling stocking introgression and natural migration in brown trout: survi the threatened leiopelmatid frogs of new zealand: natural history integrates with conservation,conservation; frog; leiopelma; natural history; new zealand,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,BELL B,"over recent decades, investigators have studied many aspects of the natural history of the threatened and evolutionarily distinct leiopelma frogs of new zealand, effectively integrating natural history with conservation. to exemplify this, seven aspects of natural history (systematics, senses and defenses, threats, distribution and habitat, reproduction, demography, pathology) are related to 13 conservation needs, and the main linkages identified. this provides both a review of the frogs' natural history and an illustration of their conservation needs. leiopelmatids have declined markedly and lost species, with three larger species (l. auroraensis, l. markhami, l. waitomoensis) now extinct, and four extant species (l. archeyi, l. hamiltoni, l. hochstetteri, l. pakeka) all threatened and on the amphibian edge list. leiopelma archeyi tops that list. potential threats include invasive mammalian predators and emerging diseases, particularly amphibian chytrid fungus (batrachochytrium dendrobatidis). distribution surveys have clarified the frogs' current status, extending known ranges of some (i.e., l. archeyi, l. hochstetteri), and confirming restricted ranges of others (i.e., l. hamiltoni, l. pakeka). observations on captive leiopelma clarified patterns of reproduction and development, allowed assessment of evolutionary relationships, and are relevant to captive management of threatened populations. long-term demographic studies represent some of the most lengthy population research on wild anurans, providing conservation-relevant data, e. g., revealing a decline in l. archeyi in the late 1990s, coinciding with finding chytridiomycosis in the species. while leiopelma taxonomy needs more resolution, our knowledge of the natural history of these frogs has substantially informed conservation management, embracing programs dealing with habitat restoration, translocation, adaptive management, captive breeding, and disease prevention." a new method to estimate mortality in crisis-affected and resource-poor settings: validation study,mortality; death rate; validation; humanitarian; crisis; survey; surveillance; capture-recapture,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY,ROBERTS B;MORGAN OW;SULTANI MG;NYASULU P;RWEBANGILA S;MYATT M;SONDORP E;CHANDRAMOHAN D;CHECCHI F,"background data on mortality rates are crucial to guide health interventions in crisis-affected and resource-poor settings. the methods currently available to collect mortality data in such settings feature important methodological limitations. we developed and validated a new method to provide near real-time mortality estimates in such settings. methods we selected four study sites: kabul, afghanistan; mae la refugee camp, thailand; chiradzulu district, malawi; and lugufu and mtabila refugee camps, tanzania. we recorded information about all deaths in a 60-day period by asking key community informants and decedents' next of kin to refer interviewers to bereaved households. we used the total number of deaths and population estimates to calculate mortality rates for 60- and 30-day periods. for validation we compared these rates with a best estimate of mortality using capture-recapture analysis with two further independent lists of deaths. results the population covered by the new method was 76 476 persons in kabul, 43 794 in mae la camp, 54 418 in chiradzulu district and 80 136 in the tanzania camps. the informant method showed moderate sensitivity (55.0% in kabul, 64.0% in mae la, 72.5% in chiradzulu and 67.7% in tanzania), but performed better than the active surveillance system in the tanzania refugee camps. conclusions the informant method currently features moderate sensitivity for accurately assessing mortality, but warrants further development, particularly considering its advantages over current options (ease of implementation and analysis and near-real estimates of mortality rates). strategies should be tested to improve the performance of the informant method." multi-site integrated population modelling,great cormorant; kalman filter; mark-recapture data; phalacrocorax carbo; recruitment; state-space models,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,MCCREA RS;MORGAN BJT;GIMENEZ O;BESBEAS P;LEBRETON JD;BREGNBALLE T,"we examine the performance of a method of integrated population modelling for the joint analysis of different types of demographic data on individuals that exist in, and move between, different sites. the value of the approach is demonstrated by a simulation study which shows substantial improvement in parameter estimation when site-specific census data are combined with demographic data. the multivariate normal approximation to a multi-state mark-recapture likelihood is evaluated, and the performance of a diagonal variance-covariance matrix for the approximation is also examined. the work is motivated by a study of great cormorants. analysis of the cormorant data suggests that breeders survive better than non-breeders, and also that probabilities of recruitment to breeding have been declining over time for all the colonies of the study. supplementary material, including notes on the computation of standard errors and extended simulation results, are available online." -capture probability of released males of two bactrocera species (diptera: tephritidae) in detection traps in california,surveillance; invasive fruit flies; mark-recapture; male lures,JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY,SHELLY T;NISHIMOTO J;DIAZ A;LEATHERS J;WAR M;SHOEMAKER R;AL-ZUBAIDY M;JOSEPH D,"the genus bactrocera (diptera: tephritidae) includes approximate to 70 polyphagous species that are major pests of fruit and vegetable crops. most bactrocera species have limited geographic distributions, but several species are invasive, and many countries operate continuous trapping programs to detect infestations. in the united states, california maintains approximate to 25,000 traps (baited with male lures) specifically for bactrocera detection distributed over an area of approximate to 6,400 km(2) (2,500 miles(2)) in the los angeles area. although prior studies have used male lures to describe movement of bactrocera males, they do not explicitly relate capture probability with fly distance from lure-baited traps; consequently, they do not address the relative effectiveness of male lures in detecting incipient populations of bactrocera species. the objective of this study was to measure the distance-dependent capture probability of marked, released males of bactrocera dorsalis (hendel) and bactrocera cucurbitae (coquillett) (methyl eugenol- and cue lure-responding species, respectively) within the detection trapping grid operating in southern california. these data were then used to compute simple probability estimates for detecting populations of different sizes of the two species. methyl eugenol was the more powerful attractant, and based on the mark-recapture data, we estimated that b. dorsalis populations with as few as approximate to 50 males would always (>99.9%) be detected using the current trap density of five methyl eugenol-baited traps per 2.6 km(2) (1 mile(2)). by contrast, we estimated that certain detection of b. cucurbitae populations would not occur until these contained approximate to 350 males. the implications of the results for the california trapping system are discussed, and the findings are compared with mark-release-recapture data obtained for the same two species in hawaii." +capture probability of released males of two bactrocera species (diptera: tephritidae) in detection traps in california,surveillance; invasive fruit flies; mark-recapture; male lures,JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY,SHELLY T;NISHIMOTO J;DIAZ A;LEATHERS J;WAR M;SHOEMAKER R;AL ZUBAIDY M;JOSEPH D,"the genus bactrocera (diptera: tephritidae) includes approximate to 70 polyphagous species that are major pests of fruit and vegetable crops. most bactrocera species have limited geographic distributions, but several species are invasive, and many countries operate continuous trapping programs to detect infestations. in the united states, california maintains approximate to 25,000 traps (baited with male lures) specifically for bactrocera detection distributed over an area of approximate to 6,400 km(2) (2,500 miles(2)) in the los angeles area. although prior studies have used male lures to describe movement of bactrocera males, they do not explicitly relate capture probability with fly distance from lure-baited traps; consequently, they do not address the relative effectiveness of male lures in detecting incipient populations of bactrocera species. the objective of this study was to measure the distance-dependent capture probability of marked, released males of bactrocera dorsalis (hendel) and bactrocera cucurbitae (coquillett) (methyl eugenol- and cue lure-responding species, respectively) within the detection trapping grid operating in southern california. these data were then used to compute simple probability estimates for detecting populations of different sizes of the two species. methyl eugenol was the more powerful attractant, and based on the mark-recapture data, we estimated that b. dorsalis populations with as few as approximate to 50 males would always (>99.9%) be detected using the current trap density of five methyl eugenol-baited traps per 2.6 km(2) (1 mile(2)). by contrast, we estimated that certain detection of b. cucurbitae populations would not occur until these contained approximate to 350 males. the implications of the results for the california trapping system are discussed, and the findings are compared with mark-release-recapture data obtained for the same two species in hawaii." validating and corroborating the deposition of two annual growth zones in asteriscus otoliths of common carp cyprinus carpio from south africa's largest impoundment,biannual; edge analysis; lake gariep; length-frequency analysis; oxytetracycline,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,WINKER H;WEYL OLF;BOOTH AJ;ELLENDER BR,"a total of 816 common carp cyprinus carpio asteriscus otolith pairs were collected from lake gariep, south africa. otoliths were interpreted whole, submerged in methyl salicylate and viewed under transmitted light. the precision of growth zone counts of the primary reader was estimated at 5 center dot 54 and 7 center dot 03% using the average per cent error method and the coefficient of variation, respectively. age-bias plots indicated no systematic bias between the primary reader and the three secondary readers for up to nine growth zones (95% of the sample). growth zone deposition rate was validated using a mark-recapture experiment of chemically tagged c. carpio (n = 21) conducted in a large earthen pond under ambient conditions in the vicinity of lake gariep. the validation results were corroborated for the wild population by edge analysis and a length-based age-structured model. all three methods suggest that growth zone formation occurred biannually, exemplifying the importance of age validation as a prerequisite for understanding the life history of c. carpio." long generation time delays the genetic response to habitat fragmentation in the threatened florida sand skink,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,MCCOY ED;RICHMOND JQ;MUSHINSKY HR;BRITT EJ;GODLEY JS,"a recent study showed that populations of the threatened florida sand skink had limited loss of genetic diversity over the past 60 yr as a consequence of anthropogenic fragmentation. this study assumed that 60 yr represents 30-37 generations for the florida sand skink, but a new evaluation of mark recapture data shows that 60 yr represents only about 15 generations. this result suggests that too little time may have passed to observe the full genetic consequences of contemporary anthropogenic fragmentation in the florida sand skink and reinforces similar results from other species. we suggest that snapshots of existing genetic variability in fragmented populations are limited in their ability to predict the evolutionary fate of a species unless life-history attributes of the organism are taken into account." -habitat use and demographic characteristics of the west mexican cotton rat (sigmodon mascotensis),colima; cricetidae; density; hyperniche; logistic regression,MAMMALIA,SCHNELL GD;ROMERO-ALMARAZ MD;MARTINEZ-CHAPITAL ST;SANCHEZ-HERNANDEZ C;KENNEDY ML;BEST TL;WOOTEN MC;OWEN RD,"in tropical deciduous forest along the pacific coast in colima, mexico, we conducted eight-night mark-recapture studies of sigmodon mascotensis (january 2003-2005), evaluating habitat preferences and demography. yearly we established five grids with 100 trapping stations (one ground and one elevated trap; 24,000 trap-nights), each evaluated for 14 environmental measures. we captured 96 s. mascotensis 274 times on 10 grids, most at ground level (85.6%), with densities of 0.84-25.31 individuals/ha. adults predominated (88.2%), sex ratio (males: females) was 1:0.74, and males were heavier. sigmodon mascotensis co-occurred with oryzomys couesi and baiomys musculus more often and heteromys pictus less often than chance expectation. for 2004, univariate analyses indicated that stations frequented had more ground cover in woody plants, forbs and grasses; less in litter and bare ground; more vegetation low and less high; lower and more open canopy; and longer distance to nearest tree. logistic regression indicated preference for open canopy, dense low vegetation, little litter and longer distance to nearest tree. nonparametric multiplicative regression showed occurrence likelihood decreased as litter increased and increased with increasing slope, average hits at 1 m and average distance to nearest tree. the likelihood was high with no or low canopy, as well as high canopy." +habitat use and demographic characteristics of the west mexican cotton rat (sigmodon mascotensis),colima; cricetidae; density; hyperniche; logistic regression,MAMMALIA,SCHNELL GD;ROMERO ALMARAZ MD;MARTINEZ CHAPITAL ST;SANCHEZ HERNANDEZ C;KENNEDY ML;BEST TL;WOOTEN MC;OWEN RD,"in tropical deciduous forest along the pacific coast in colima, mexico, we conducted eight-night mark-recapture studies of sigmodon mascotensis (january 2003-2005), evaluating habitat preferences and demography. yearly we established five grids with 100 trapping stations (one ground and one elevated trap; 24,000 trap-nights), each evaluated for 14 environmental measures. we captured 96 s. mascotensis 274 times on 10 grids, most at ground level (85.6%), with densities of 0.84-25.31 individuals/ha. adults predominated (88.2%), sex ratio (males: females) was 1:0.74, and males were heavier. sigmodon mascotensis co-occurred with oryzomys couesi and baiomys musculus more often and heteromys pictus less often than chance expectation. for 2004, univariate analyses indicated that stations frequented had more ground cover in woody plants, forbs and grasses; less in litter and bare ground; more vegetation low and less high; lower and more open canopy; and longer distance to nearest tree. logistic regression indicated preference for open canopy, dense low vegetation, little litter and longer distance to nearest tree. nonparametric multiplicative regression showed occurrence likelihood decreased as litter increased and increased with increasing slope, average hits at 1 m and average distance to nearest tree. the likelihood was high with no or low canopy, as well as high canopy." demographic parameters of akodon montensis (mammalia: rodentia) in an atlantic forest remnant of southeastern brazil,akodon montensis; atlantic forest; home range; population size; southeastern brazil,MAMMALIA,JORDAO JC;RAMOS FN;DA SILVA VX,"small mammals seem to be affected by edge effects, hence understanding the local dynamics of these populations is important to assess the risks to which they are exposed. the objective of this study was to compare population size, sex ratio and home range size of the rodent akodon montensis (cricetidae) between the edge and interior of an atlantic forest fragment in the dry (june-august) and rainy (december-february) seasons. the population was sampled using capture-mark-recapture methods and a spool-and-line device was used to map the movements. the population size was significantly higher in the rainy season relative to the dry season, and this pattern can be related to the higher food availability in this period, as observed in other studies. however, there was no difference in the number of individuals captured in the edge and interior. the home range size showed no significant differences between edge and interior and between males and females, although, in a general way, the females showed a greater home range size related to the males. the absence of differences between edge and interior could result from the small size of the remnants and extrapolation of edge conditions to the interior." estimating population size using capture-recapture encounter histories created from point-coordinate locations of animals,abundance estimation; animal locations; athene cunicularia; burrowing owl; capture-recapture; point-coordinate capture-recapture; point location; space use; spatially explicit capture-recapture,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MANNING JA;GOLDBERG CS,"1. estimating population size is a fundamental objective of many animal monitoring programmes. capture-recapture methods are often used to estimate population size from repeated sampling of uniquely marked animals, but capturing and marking animals can be cost prohibitive and affect animal behaviours, which can bias population estimates. 2. we developed a method to construct spatially explicit capture-recapture encounter histories from locations of unmarked animals for estimating population size with conventional capture-recapture models. prior estimates of the maximum distance individuals move in the population is used to set a summary statistic and process subsequent capture-recapture survey data. animal locations are recorded as point coordinates during survey occasions, and the parameter of interest is abundance of individual activity centres. 3. we applied this method to data from a point-coordinate capture-recapture survey of burrowing owls athene cunicularia in the imperial valley of california, usa. we also used simulations to examine the utility of this technique for additional species with variable detection probabilities, levels of home range overlap and distributions of activity centres within a survey area. 4. the estimates from empirical and simulation studies were precise and unbiased when detection probabilities were high and territorial overlap was low. 5. this method of estimating population size from point locations fills a gap in non-invasive census and long-term monitoring methods available for conspicuous species and provides accurate estimates of burrowing owl territory abundance. the method requires high detection probabilities, low levels of home range overlap and that individuals use activity centres. we believe that these requirements can be met, with suitable survey protocols, for numerous songbird and reptile species." "sex-biased dispersal and natal philopatry in the diamondback terrapin, malaclemys terrapin",assignment tests; diamondback terrapin; malaclemys terrapin; microsatellite dna; natal philopatry; sex-biased dispersal,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,SHERIDAN CM;SPOTILA JR;BIEN WF;AVERY HW,"nesting ecology and population studies indicate that diamondback terrapins (malaclemys terrapin) exhibit nest site fidelity and high habitat fidelity. however, genetic studies indicate high levels of gene flow. because dispersal affects the genetics and population dynamics of a species, we used six highly polymorphic microsatellite markers to investigate sex-biased dispersal and natal philopatry of m. terrapin in barnegat bay, nj. we compared results of spatial autocorrelation analysis, assignment methods and wright's fst estimators to a mark-recapture analysis. mark-recapture analysis over a 4-year period indicated that most individuals have relatively small home ranges (<2 km), with mature females displaying greater home ranges than males. goodness of fit analysis of our mark-recapture study indicated that some juvenile males were likely transient individuals moving through our study location. mean assignment indices and first-generation migrant tests indicated that mature males were more prone to disperse than mature females, but first-generation migrant tests indicated that per capita there are more female than male dispersers. thus, the relative importance of males and females on gene flow in terrapin populations may change in relation to population sex ratios. spatial autocorrelation analysis indicated that mature females exhibited natal philopatry to nesting beaches, but first-generation migrant tests indicated that a small number of females failed to nest on natal beaches. finally, we discuss the important conservation implications of male-biased dispersal and natal philopatry in the diamondback terrapin." "ms prevalence in new zealand, an ethnically and latitudinally diverse country",ethnicity; gender ratio; latitude; multiple sclerosis; prevalence,MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS JOURNAL,TAYLOR BV;PEARSON JF;CLARKE G;MASON DF;ABERNETHY DA;WILLOUGHBY E;SABEL C,"background: the prevalence of multiple sclerosis (ms) is not uniform, with a latitudinal gradient of prevalence present in most studies. understanding the drivers of this gradient may allow a better understanding of the environmental factors involved in ms pathogenesis. method: the new zealand national ms prevalence study (nzmsps) is a cross-sectional study of people with definite ms (dms) (mcdonald criteria 2005) resident in new zealand on census night, 7 march 2006, utilizing multiple sources of notification. capture-recapture analysis (cra) was used to estimate missing cases. results: of 2917 people with dms identified, the crude prevalence was 72.4 per 100,000 population, and 73.1 per 100,000 when age-standardized to the european population. cra estimated that 96.7% of cases were identified. a latitudinal gradient was seen with ms prevalence increasing three-fold from the north (35 degrees s) to the south (48 degrees s). the gradient was non-uniform; females with relapsing-remitting/secondary-progressive (rrms/spms) disease have a gradient 11 times greater than males with primary-progressive ms (p < 1 x 10(-7)). dms was significantly less common among those of maori ethnicity. conclusions: this study confirms the presence of a robust latitudinal gradient of ms prevalence in new zealand. this gradient is largely driven by european females with the rrms/spms phenotype. these results indicate that the environmental factors that underlie the latitudinal gradient act differentially by gender, ethnicity and ms phenotype. a better understanding of these factors may allow more targeted ms therapies aimed at modifiable environmental triggers at the population level." effects of experimental population extinction for the spatial population dynamics of the butterfly parnassius smintheus,NA,OIKOS,MATTER SF;ROLAND J,"while many studies have examined factors potentially impacting the rate of local population extinction, few experimental studies have examined the consequences of extinction for spatial population dynamics. here we report results from a large-scale, long-term experiment examining the effects of local population extinction for the dynamics of surrounding populations. from 2001-2008 we removed all adult butterflies from two large, neighboring populations within a system of 17 subpopulations of the rocky mountain apollo butterfly, parnassius smintheus. surrounding populations were monitored using individual, mark-recapture methods. we found that population removal decreased immigration to surrounding populations in proportion to their connectivity to the removed populations. correspondingly, within-generation population abundance declined. despite these effects, we saw little consistent impact between generations. the extinction rates of surrounding populations were unaffected and local population growth was not consistently reduced by the lack of immigration. the broader results show that immigration affects local abundance within generations, but dynamics are mediated by density-dependence within populations and by broader density-independent factors acting between generations. the loss of immigrants resulting from extinction has little impact on the persistence of local populations in this system." "estimating the rotavirus hospitalization disease burden and trends, using capture-recapture methods",acute gastroenteritis; capture-recapture; disease burden; population-based; rotavirus,PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASE JOURNAL,STAAT MA;RICE MA;DONAUER S;PAYNE DC;BRESEE JS;MAST TC;CURNS AT;CORTESE MM;CONNELLY B;MCNEAL M;WARD RL;BERNSTEIN DI;PARASHAR UD;SALISBURY S,"background: rotavirus surveillance is needed to provide estimates of disease burden and to evaluate the effect of vaccination programs. our objective was to use capture-recapture methods to estimate rotavirus hospitalization rates and to examine trends over time. methods: children <3 years of age residing in hamilton county, ohio hospitalized with acute gastroenteritis, and laboratory-confirmed rotavirus between 1997 and 2008 were identified through 2 independent surveillance systems: an active system with prospective enrollment of children admitted with acute gastroenteritis and a passive system of children identified by rotavirus testing as part of their usual medical care. capture-recapture methods compared cases from both systems to estimate the number of missed cases from either system. using census data for hamilton county, rates per 10,000 with 95% confidence intervals (ci) for rotavirus hospitalizations were estimated. results: overall, 486 cases were identified using active surveillance and 244 using passive surveillance, with 127 cases captured by both. using capture-recapture methods, the overall rate in children <3 years old was 26.9/10,000; ci: 24.1, 30.6. rates varied by year: highest in 1998 (48.1/10,000; ci: 32.4, 92.2) and lowest in 2008 (3.2/10,000; ci: 2.1, 6.1) after rotavirus vaccine introduction. among children <5 years old, rates were highest in <3-month-old children (51.8/10,000; ci: 39.4, 75.1) and lowest in older age groups: 24 to 35 months (20.5/10,000; ci: 14.7, 30.3) and 36 to 59 months (4.1/10,000; ci: 2.9, 7.2). rates from capture-recapture methods and adjusted active system were comparable. conclusions: capture-recapture methods were a useful tool to estimate rotavirus disease burden and to monitor trends, especially in the era of rotavirus immunization." -"sexual dimorphism of aspidoscelis costata costata (squamata: teiidae) in the south of the state of mexico, mexico",fecundity selection; reptiles; sexual selection,REVISTA CHILENA DE HISTORIA NATURAL,AGUILAR-MORENO M;RODRIGUEZ-ROMERO FD;ARAGON-MARTINEZ A;MUNOZ-MANZANO JA;GRANADOS-GONZALEZ G;HERNANDEZ-GALLEGOS O,"sexual dimorphism is a widespread characteristic in lizards, and it has been related to the individual fitness. sexual dimorphism was investigated in aspidoscelis costata costata (squamata) to the south of the state of mexico, mexico, relating to its body proportions highly similar within the teiidae. study area was located at 1500 m. adult individuals from mark-recapture study were used. morphometric characteristics were measured in individuals of a. costata costata: snout-vent length, mass, head length, head width, head height, femur length and interlimb length. males were larger than females for svl and mass. at the same body, males had longer heads and femur and shorter interlimb length than did conspecific females. the sexual dimorphism of a. costata costata can be explained by selection sexual selection and fecundity selection." -population dynamics of the bat dermanura tolteca (chiroptera: phyllostomidae) in a tropical forest in mexico,phyllostomidae; population size; polyestrous; capture-recapture; bats; tropical rain forest; reproductive pattern,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,GARCIA-GARCIA JL;SANTOS-MORENO A;RODRIGUEZ-ALAMILLA A,"the fruit-eating bat, dermanura tolteca. has a broad geographic distribution in mexico and it is a very important seed dispersal of neotropical plants. nonetheless, information on the biology of this bat species is scarce, especially with regard to demography. we studied some ecological aspects and population dynamics of d. tolteca from southeastern mexican state of oaxaca. the study was conducted in a perennial tropical forest, over a period of 80 nights, a sampling effort of 73 200 mist-net-hour, from may 2006 to august 2007. a total of 176 specimens were captured. 98 females and 78 males. population size was estimated in 237 individuals in the study area, with a greater number during rainy season. the population density of this bat, in its range of distribution in mexico is low compared to other nose-leaf bats. captures were correlated with monthly precipitation, and this result may be linked to food resources abundance in tropical and subtropical areas. the reproductive pattern was bimodal polyestrous, with birth periods between august-september and april-june. greater body mass was observed in females than males. the male-female ratio and age-related demographics were similar to other nose-leaf bats. the biological characteristics of d. tolteca are typical of nose-leaf bats of the family phyllostomidae. rev. biol. trop. 58 (4): 1323-1334. epub 2010 december 01." +"sexual dimorphism of aspidoscelis costata costata (squamata: teiidae) in the south of the state of mexico, mexico",fecundity selection; reptiles; sexual selection,REVISTA CHILENA DE HISTORIA NATURAL,AGUILAR MORENO M;RODRIGUEZ ROMERO FD;ARAGON MARTINEZ A;MUNOZ MANZANO JA;GRANADOS GONZALEZ G;HERNANDEZ GALLEGOS O,"sexual dimorphism is a widespread characteristic in lizards, and it has been related to the individual fitness. sexual dimorphism was investigated in aspidoscelis costata costata (squamata) to the south of the state of mexico, mexico, relating to its body proportions highly similar within the teiidae. study area was located at 1500 m. adult individuals from mark-recapture study were used. morphometric characteristics were measured in individuals of a. costata costata: snout-vent length, mass, head length, head width, head height, femur length and interlimb length. males were larger than females for svl and mass. at the same body, males had longer heads and femur and shorter interlimb length than did conspecific females. the sexual dimorphism of a. costata costata can be explained by selection sexual selection and fecundity selection." +population dynamics of the bat dermanura tolteca (chiroptera: phyllostomidae) in a tropical forest in mexico,phyllostomidae; population size; polyestrous; capture-recapture; bats; tropical rain forest; reproductive pattern,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,GARCIA GARCIA JL;SANTOS MORENO A;RODRIGUEZ ALAMILLA A,"the fruit-eating bat, dermanura tolteca. has a broad geographic distribution in mexico and it is a very important seed dispersal of neotropical plants. nonetheless, information on the biology of this bat species is scarce, especially with regard to demography. we studied some ecological aspects and population dynamics of d. tolteca from southeastern mexican state of oaxaca. the study was conducted in a perennial tropical forest, over a period of 80 nights, a sampling effort of 73 200 mist-net-hour, from may 2006 to august 2007. a total of 176 specimens were captured. 98 females and 78 males. population size was estimated in 237 individuals in the study area, with a greater number during rainy season. the population density of this bat, in its range of distribution in mexico is low compared to other nose-leaf bats. captures were correlated with monthly precipitation, and this result may be linked to food resources abundance in tropical and subtropical areas. the reproductive pattern was bimodal polyestrous, with birth periods between august-september and april-june. greater body mass was observed in females than males. the male-female ratio and age-related demographics were similar to other nose-leaf bats. the biological characteristics of d. tolteca are typical of nose-leaf bats of the family phyllostomidae. rev. biol. trop. 58 (4): 1323-1334. epub 2010 december 01." "capture recapture for estimating the size of the female sex worker population in three cities in cote d'ivoire and in kisumu, western kenya",female sex workers; size estimation; capture-recapture; mapping; aids prevention; africa,TROPICAL MEDICINE & INTERNATIONAL HEALTH,VUYLSTEKE B;VANDENHOUDT H;LANGAT L;SEMDE G;MENTEN J;ODONGO F;ANAPAPA A;SIKA L;BUVE A;LAGA M,"objective to estimate the female sex worker population size in three cities in cote d'ivoire and in kisumu, kenya. methods capture recapture was used, calculating size estimates by first 'tagging' a number of individuals and, through an independent recapture, calculating the proportion of overlap. the same procedures were used in all four cities. in the first phase, members of the target population were 'captured' and 'marked' by giving them a capture card, six days later, in the same places and at the same time, a second sample was 'captured', which comprised a certain number of people who were captured in the first round. during the exercise, questions were asked to estimate the coverage of the sex worker clinics. results using capture recapture, the estimated number of female sex workers was 1160 in yamoussoukro (95% ci 1053-1287), 1202 in wbouake (95% ci 1128-1279), 1916 in san pedro (95% ci 1809-2030) and 1350 in kisumu (95% cl 1261-1443). the proportion of female sex workers in cote d'ivoire who had visited the clinic ranged from 15% in yamoussoukro to 30% in san pedro and was 34% in kisumu. conclusions capture recapture was successfully applied to estimate the population size of female sex workers. these estimations were urgently needed to help mobilize an increased response to hiv, to assess programme coverage and to estimate potential impact of the targeted intervention." an option for measuring maternal mortality in developing countries: a survey using community informants,NA,BMC PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH,QOMARIYAH SN;BRAUNHOLTZ D;ACHADI EL;WITTEN KH;PAMBUDI ES;ANGGONDOWATI T;LATIEF K;GRAHAM WJ,"background: the maternal mortality ratio (mmr) remains high in most developing countries. local, recent estimates of mmr are needed to motivate policymakers and evaluate interventions. but, estimating mmr, in the absence of vital registration systems, is difficult. this paper describes an efficient approach using village informant networks to capture maternal death cases (maternal deaths from informants/maternal death follow on review or made-in/made-for) developed to address this gap, and examines its validity and efficiency. methods: made-in used two village informant networks - heads of neighbourhood units (rts) and health volunteers (kaders). informants were invited to attend separate network meetings - through the village head (for the rt) and through health centre for the kaders. attached to the letter was a form with written instructions requesting informants list deaths of women of reproductive age (wra) in the village during the previous two years. at a 'listing meeting' the informants' understanding on the form was checked, informants could correct their forms, and then collectively agreed a consolidated list. made-for consisted of visits relatives of likely pregnancy related deaths (prds) identified from made-in, to confirm the prd status and gather information about the cause of death. capture-recapture (crc) analysis enabled estimation of coverage rates of the two networks, and of total prds. results: the rt network identified a higher proportion of prds than the kaders (estimated 0.85 vs. 0.71), but the latter was easier and cheaper to access. assigned prd status amongst identified wra deaths was more accurate for the kader network, and seemingly for more recent deaths, and for deaths from rural areas. assuming information on live births from an existing source to calculate the mmr, made-in/made-for cost only $0.1 (us) per women-year risk of exposure, substantially cheaper than alternatives. conclusions: this study shows that reliable local, recent estimates of mmr can be obtained relatively cheaply using two independent informant networks to identify cases. neither network captured all prds, but capture-recapture analysis allowed self-calibration. however, it requires careful avoidance of false-positives, and matching of cases identified by both networks, which was achieved by the home visit." exposing malaria in-host diversity and estimating population diversity by capture-recapture using massively parallel pyrosequencing,plasmodium falciparum; next generation sequencing,PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,JULIANO JJ;PORTER K;MWAPASA V;SEM R;ROGERS WO;ARIEY F;WONGSRICHANALAI C;READ A;MESHNICK SR,"malaria infections commonly contain multiple genetically distinct variants. mathematical and animal models suggest that interactions among these variants have a profound impact on the emergence of drug resistance. however, methods currently used for quantifying parasite diversity in individual infections are insensitive to low-abundance variants and are not quantitative for variant population sizes. to more completely describe the in-host complexity and ecology of malaria infections, we used massively parallel pyrosequencing to characterize malaria parasite diversity in the infections of a group of patients. by individually sequencing single strands of dna in a complex mixture, this technique can quantify uncommon variants in mixed infections. the in-host diversity revealed by this method far exceeded that described by currently recommended genotyping methods, with as many as sixfold more variants per infection. in addition, in paired pre- and posttreatment samples, we show a complex milieu of parasites, including variants likely up-selected and down-selected by drug therapy. as with all surveys of diversity, sampling limitations prevent full discovery and differences in sampling effort can confound comparisons among samples, hosts, and populations. here, we used ecological approaches of species accumulation curves and capture-recapture to estimate the number of variants we failed to detect in the population, and show that these methods enable comparisons of diversity before and after treatment, as well as between malaria populations. the combination of ecological statistics and massively parallel pyrosequencing provides a powerful tool for studying the evolution of drug resistance and the in-host ecology of malaria infections." @@ -4286,7 +4293,7 @@ relationship between fecal pellet counts and snowshoe hare density in western wy drought leads to collapse of black-tailed prairie dog populations reintroduced to the chihuahuan desert,black-tailed prairie dog; chihuahuan desert; conservation plan; cynomys ludovicianus; historic range; population collapse; population dynamics; reintroduction,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,FACKA AN;ROEMER GW;MATHIS VL;KAM M;GEFFEN E,"recently, a conservation strategy developed to restore populations of black-tailed prairie dog (cynomys ludovicianus) suggested reintroducing animals into the chihuahuan desert grasslands of the southwestern united states. rainfall in desert habitats is lower and more variable compared to rainfall near the center of the prairie dog's range. additionally, peak rainfall comes months after prairie dogs reproduce in these desert systems. thus, southwestern populations may be less prolific and fluctuate more than those found in northerly climes. using mark-recapture and mark-resight techniques, we estimated reproduction and monthly survival from 577 individuals inhabiting 6 reintroduced colonies from 2003 to 2005 in the northern chihuahuan desert. during 2003 precipitation was 64% of the long-term average, whereas both 2004 and 2005 had near-average precipitation. probability that a female became pregnant, number of juvenile prairie dogs emerging from maternity burrows, and date of emergence were all correlated to adult female body mass. adult monthly survival decreased from >0.95 during spring to 0.70 in summer 2003, following a rapid loss in adult body mass that coincided with low precipitation. in 2003 monthly juvenile survival was near zero on 2 of the 3 largest colonies and growth rates of juveniles were half that of subsequent years. estimated population size declined by 68% (range = 18-91%) from 2003 to 2004, and 5 of 6 populations declined an average of 75% from their original introduction size. prairie dog populations in desert environs may have a high risk of extirpation caused by weather patterns indicative of desert climates. our results are important for those managers involved in the conservation of prairie dogs and we suggest that regional differences should be carefully considered prior to any reintroduction effort." no direct fitness benefits of helping in a cooperative breeder despite higher survival of helpers,condition; direct fitness; helper; long-tailed tit; survival,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY,MEADE J;HATCHWELL BJ,"helpers in cooperatively breeding species may gain direct fitness benefits that increase their survival probability and/or reproductive success. however, survival and productivity may be influenced by many other factors, including variation in dispersal, nepotistic interactions, or individual condition. high helper survival relative to nonhelpers has been reported in the long-tailed tit aegithalos caudatus, a cooperative breeder where helpers are failed breeders that redirect care toward kin. using capture-mark-recapture analysis of a long-term data set, we confirm this result and show that it is not attributable to differential dispersal. then, using only males with first-order relatives (to control for any effects of nepotism), we investigated the survival of 3 groups of failed breeders (i.e., potential helpers): survival of helpers was highest (61%) but, contrary to predictions based on direct benefits, survival of 2 categories of nonhelpers differed; those with helping opportunities had the lowest survival rate (24%), whereas those without helping opportunities had intermediate survival (52%). we suggest that the groups varied in condition; helpers are in good condition, males with helping opportunities who did not help are in poor condition, and nonhelpers without helping opportunities comprise a mixture of birds in good and poor condition. this conclusion was supported by differences in the timing of breeding (a proxy for condition) between groups: helpers bred earliest and nonhelpers with helping opportunities bred latest. furthermore, we found no evidence that helpers gained any future reproductive benefits. we suggest that condition rather than benefits accrued as a direct result of helping influenced helper survival." population trends in northern spotted owls: associations with climate in the pacific northwest,adult survival; barred owl; climate; rate of population change; recruitment; strix occidentalis caurina; weather,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,GLENN EM;ANTHONY RG;FORSMAN ED,"we used reverse time capture-mark-recapture models to describe associations between rate of population change (lambda) and climate for northern spotted owls (strix occidentalis caurina) at six long-term study areas in washington and oregon, usa. populations in three of six areas showed strong evidence of declining populations, while populations in two additional areas were likely declining as well. at four areas. lambda was positively associated with wetter-than-normal conditions during the growing season, which likely affects prey availability. lambda was also negatively associated with cold, wet winters and nesting seasons, and the number of hot summer days. the amount of annual variation in lambda accounted for by climate varied across study areas (3-85%). rate of population change was more sensitive to adult survival than to recruitment: however, there was considerable variation among years and across study areas for all demographic rates. while annual survival was more closely related to regional climate conditions, recruitment was often associated with local weather. in addition to climate, declines in recruitment at four of six areas were associated with increased presence of barred owls. climate change models predict warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers for the pacific northwest in the first half of the 21st century. our results indicate that these conditions have the potential to negatively affect annual survival, recruitment, and consequently population growth rates for northern spotted owls. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -effects of non-cropped landscape diversity on spatial dynamics of farmland birds in intensive farming systems,specialization; occupancy; colonization; farmland; non-cropped habitat diversity; france,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,CHIRON F;FILIPPI-CODACCIONI O;JIGUET F;DEVICTOR V,"increasing habitats diversity in agricultural landscapes has been proposed as a key measure for reversing the decline of farmland biodiversity in europe. however, indicators used for assessing such a potential compensation effect usually only rely on species diversity and abundance while ignoring variations in species-specific vulnerability. the extent to which habitat diversity may reverse the decline of specialist species in europe to farming systems is thus still unclear. in this study, we investigate whether the effect of non-cropped habitat diversity on farmland birds' occurrences was dependent on species' specialization for habitats. in particular, we focused on the relative effects of non-cropped habitat diversity on species' abilities to persist or to colonize new vacant areas. we used a capture-recapture statistical framework to study the spatial dynamics of 20 farmland bird species in france monitored from 2001 to 2007. we found that non-cropped landscape diversity reduces both the probabilities that a species becomes extinct locally and that a species colonizes new vacant areas, and the occupancy rate. although this suggests a possible stabilizing effect of the surrounding habitat diversity on species occurrence in farming systems, the occupancy was only weakly affected. moreover, we found that the most specialist species were the more negatively affected by this landscape diversity in terms of colonization abilities. we argue that accounting for the differences in habitat specialization among farmland species can improve conservation policies dedicated to the management of landscape diversity. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +effects of non-cropped landscape diversity on spatial dynamics of farmland birds in intensive farming systems,specialization; occupancy; colonization; farmland; non-cropped habitat diversity; france,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,CHIRON F;FILIPPI CODACCIONI O;JIGUET F;DEVICTOR V,"increasing habitats diversity in agricultural landscapes has been proposed as a key measure for reversing the decline of farmland biodiversity in europe. however, indicators used for assessing such a potential compensation effect usually only rely on species diversity and abundance while ignoring variations in species-specific vulnerability. the extent to which habitat diversity may reverse the decline of specialist species in europe to farming systems is thus still unclear. in this study, we investigate whether the effect of non-cropped habitat diversity on farmland birds' occurrences was dependent on species' specialization for habitats. in particular, we focused on the relative effects of non-cropped habitat diversity on species' abilities to persist or to colonize new vacant areas. we used a capture-recapture statistical framework to study the spatial dynamics of 20 farmland bird species in france monitored from 2001 to 2007. we found that non-cropped landscape diversity reduces both the probabilities that a species becomes extinct locally and that a species colonizes new vacant areas, and the occupancy rate. although this suggests a possible stabilizing effect of the surrounding habitat diversity on species occurrence in farming systems, the occupancy was only weakly affected. moreover, we found that the most specialist species were the more negatively affected by this landscape diversity in terms of colonization abilities. we argue that accounting for the differences in habitat specialization among farmland species can improve conservation policies dedicated to the management of landscape diversity. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." ecological and genetic measurements of dispersal in a threatened dragonfly,assignment test; conservation genetics; gene flow; leucorrhinia caudalis; mark-recapture; odonata,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,KELLER D;BRODBECK S;FLOSS I;VONWIL G;HOLDEREGGER R,"leucorrhinia caudalis is a rare dragonfly, threatened throughout its european distribution. the species was formerly widespread in the swiss lowlands, but only a single population remained in the 1980s. however, a spread has recently been observed, with additional ponds being colonised, sometimes at considerable distance. despite this evidence of recent long-distance dispersal, it is unknown whether l. caudalis regularly moves among ponds or whether this is a rather rare event. a combination of an ecological mark-resight and a population genetic study was applied to investigate contemporary dispersal and the genetic footprint of the recent population history of l. caudalis in switzerland. dna for genetic micro-satellite analysis was extracted from exuviae. the mark-resight study and the genetic analysis gave congruent results. they showed that l. caudalis is mostly a sedentary species, with only a few contemporary dispersal events over distances up to 5 km being observed. the genetic analysis was in agreement with the recent population history of the swiss populations. the oldest and largest population showed large genetic diversity and acted as source population for the recent spread of l caudalis in switzerland. recurrent gene flow among this source population and close populations caused substantial local genetic variation in the latter, as well as low population differentiation. the two recently founded distant populations (>= 30 km distance) were genetically less diverse and highly differentiated. these distant populations and another recently colonised population also expressed signatures of genetic bottlenecks. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." use of breeding and nonbreeding encounters to estimate survival and breeding-site fidelity of the piping plover at the great lakes,barker model; capture-mark-recapture; charadrius melodus; piping plover; breeding site fidelity; survival,CONDOR,LEDEE OE;ARNOLD TW;ROCHE EA;CUTHBERT FJ,"in the great lakes region, numbers of the piping plover (charadrius melodus) are gradually increasing, but the population of <100 pairs is still at risk of extinction and remains sensitive to fluctuations in adult survival. given the central role of adult survival in population recovery, an accurate estimate of this quantity is essential. using a barker model and 11 years of mark-resighting data of breeding and nonbreeding piping plovers (1998-2008), we estimated true adult survival (s), probability of detection of breeding birds (p), probability of detection nonbreeding birds (r), and site fidelity (f). adults' survival rate averaged 0.76 but with considerable annual process variation (sigma = 0.05) and strong evidence of decline over this period. the probability of detection of breeding birds was near perfect (p = 1.00, 95% cl 0.97-1.00), but probabilities of detection of nonbreeders were substantially lower, although they increased from approximately 0.25 to 0.50 through the study period because of increased effort in observation and reporting. the birds' fidelity to the area of the great lakes in which they were monitored was high (<(x)over bar> = 0.91, 95% cl 0.66-0.98), with evidence of an increase through time that we attribute to increased intensity of monitoring. evidence for a decline in true adult survival over nearly a decade suggests a pressing need for research on the timing and causes of adult mortality in this population." multistate modeling of habitat dynamics: factors affecting florida scrub transition probabilities,"aphelocoma coerulescens; capture-recapture; disturbance; fire; florida scrub-jay; kennedy space center/merritt island national wildlife refuge, florida, usa; land cover; multistate models; patch dynamics; restoration; scrub",ECOLOGY,BREININGER DR;NICHOLS JD;DUNCAN BW;STOLEN ED;CARTER GM;HUNT DK;DRESE JH,"many ecosystems are influenced by disturbances that create specific successional states and habitat structures that species need to persist. estimating transition probabilities between habitat states and modeling the factors that influence such transitions have many applications for investigating and managing disturbance-prone ecosystems. we identify the correspondence between multistate capture-recapture models and markov models of habitat dynamics. we exploit this correspondence by fitting and comparing competing models of different ecological covariates affecting habitat transition probabilities in florida scrub and flatwoods, a habitat important to many unique plants and animals. we subdivided a large scrub and flatwoods ecosystem along central florida's atlantic coast into 10-ha grid cells, which approximated average territory size of the threatened florida scrub-jay (aphelocoma coerulescens), a management indicator species. we used 1.0-m resolution aerial imagery for 1994, 1999, and 2004 to classify grid cells into four habitat quality states that were directly related to florida scrub-jay source-sink dynamics and management decision making. results showed that static site features related to fire propagation (vegetation type, edges) and temporally varying disturbances (fires, mechanical cutting) best explained transition probabilities. results indicated that much of the scrub and flatwoods ecosystem was resistant to moving from a degraded state to a desired state without mechanical cutting, an expensive restoration tool. we used habitat models parameterized with the estimated transition probabilities to investigate the consequences of alternative management scenarios on future habitat dynamics. we recommend this multistate modeling approach as being broadly applicable for studying ecosystem, land cover, or habitat dynamics. the approach provides maximum-likelihood estimates of transition parameters, including precision measures, and can be used to assess evidence among competing ecological models that describe system dynamics." @@ -4295,7 +4302,7 @@ spatially explicit inference for open populations: estimating demographic parame are badgers 'under the weather'? direct and indirect impacts of climate variation on european badger (meles meles) population dynamics,badger; capture-mark-recapture; climate change; meles; rta,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,MACDONALD DW;NEWMAN C;BUESCHING CD;NOUVELLET P,"weather conditions, and how they in turn define and characterize regional climatic conditions, are a primary limit on global species diversity and distribution, and increasing variability in global and regional climates have significant implications for species and habitat conservation. a capture-mark-recapture study revealed that badger (meles meles) life history parameters interact in complicated ways with annual variability in the seasonality of temperature and rainfall, both in absolute and in phenological terms. a strong predictive relationship was observed between survival and both temperature and late-summer rainfall. this link at the population dynamics level was related to individual body-weight increases observed between summer and autumn. in addition, fecundity was correlated with spring rainfall and temperature. we investigated and confirmed that relationships were consistent with observed variation in the intensity of a parasitic infection. finally, fecundity during any given year correlated with conditions in the preceding autumn. badger survival also correlated with late winter weather conditions. this period is critical for badgers insofar as it coincides with their peak involvement in road traffic accidents (rtas). rta rate during this period was linked strongly to temperature, underlining the intricate ways in which a changing climate might interact with anthropogenic agents to influence species' population processes. equinoctial conditions produced significant population driver effects. that is, while summers will always be relatively warm compared with winters, spring and autumn weather can be more variable and functionally delimit the 'productive' vs. nonproductive period of the year in terms of badger behavioural and physiological cycles. this study highlights how appropriately informed conservation strategies, mindful of trends in climatic conditions, will become ever-more essential to ensure the survival of many species globally." "cohort variation, climate effects and population dynamics in a short-lived lizard",cohort effect; life history; rainfall; reptiles; temperature,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,LE GALLIARD JF;MARQUIS O;MASSOT M,"p>1. demographic theory and empirical studies indicate that cohort variation in demographic traits has substantial effects on population dynamics of long-lived vertebrates but cohort effects have been poorly investigated in short-lived species. 2. cohort effects were quantified in the common lizard (zootoca vivipara jacquin 1787), a short-lived ectothermic vertebrate, for body size, reproductive traits and age-specific survival with mark-recapture data collected from 1989 to 2005 in two wetlands. we assessed cohort variation and covariation in demographic traits, tested the immediate and delayed effects of climate conditions (temperature and rainfall), and predicted consequences for population growth. 3. most demographic traits exhibited cohort variation, but this variation was stronger for juvenile growth and survival, sub-adult survival and breeding phenology than for other traits. 4. cohort variation was partly explained by a web of immediate and delayed effects of climate conditions. rainfall and temperature influenced distinct life-history traits and the periods of gestation and early juvenile life were critical stages for climate effects. 5. cohort covariation between demographic traits was usually weak, apart from a negative correlation between juvenile and sub-adult body growth suggesting compensatory responses. an age-structured population model shows that cohort variation influences population growth mainly through direct numerical effects of survival variation early in life. 6. an understanding of cohort effects is necessary to predict critical life stages and climatic determinants of population dynamics, and therefore demographic responses to future climate warming." the aquatic turtle assemblage inhabiting a highly altered landscape in southeast missouri,agriculture; big oak tree state park; hydrology; population demography; red-eared slider; trachemys scripta,JOURNAL OF FISH AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GLORIOSO BM;VAUGHN AJ;WADDLE JH,"turtles are linked to energetic food webs as both consumers of plants and animals and prey for many species. turtle biomass in freshwater systems can be an order of magnitude greater than that of endotherms. therefore, declines in freshwater turtle populations can change energy transfer in freshwater systems. here we report on a mark-recapture study at a lake and adjacent borrow pit in a relict tract of bottomland hardwood forest in the mississippi river floodplain in southeast missouri, which was designed to gather baseline data, including sex ratio, size structure, and population size, density, and biomass, for the freshwater turtle population. using a variety of capture methods, we captured seven species of freshwater turtles (snapping turtle chelydra serpentina; red-eared slider trachemys scripta; southern painted turtle chrysemys dorsalis; river cooter pseudemys concinna; false map turtle graptemys pseudogeographica; eastern musk turtle sternotherus odoratus; spiny softshell apalone spinifera) comprising four families (chelydridae, emydidae, kinosternidae, trinoychidae). with the exception of red-eared sliders, nearly all individuals captured were adults. most turtles were captured by baited hoop-nets, and this was the only capture method that caught all seven species. the unbaited fyke net was very successful in the borrow pit, but only captured four of the seven species. basking traps and deep-water crawfish nets had minimal success. red-eared sliders had the greatest population estimate (2,675), density (205/ha), and biomass (178 kg/ha). two species exhibited a sex-ratio bias: snapping turtles c. serpentina in favor of males, and spiny softshells a. spinifera in favor of females." -range-wide piping plover survival: correlated patterns and temporal declines,apparent survival; charadrius melodus; conservation; cross-seasonal effects; piping plover; population biology; program mark; shorebird,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,ROCHE EA;COHEN JB;CATLIN DH;AMIRAULT-LANGLAIS DL;CUTHBERT FJ;GRATTO-TREVOR CL;FELIO J;FRASER JD,"geographically isolated breeding populations of migratory shorebirds may be demographically connected through shared nonbreeding habitats. we used long-term (1998-2008) mark-recapture data on piping plovers (charadrius melodus) collected from 7 separate studies located throughout north america to conduct a range-wide analysis of after hatch year apparent survival (phi(ahy)). our objectives were to compare concurrent survival estimates from disparate breeding sites and determine whether estimates followed similar trends or were correlated among breeding populations with shared wintering grounds. average survival estimates were higher for great plains populations (range 5 0.69-0.81) than for great lakes and atlantic coast populations (range = 0.56-0.71). linear trend models indicated that apparent survival declined in 4 out of 7 populations, was unchanged in 3, and was generally highest among great plains populations. based on a post hoc analysis, we found evidence of correlated year-to-year fluctuations in annual survival among populations wintering primarily along the southeastern united states atlantic coast and gulf coast. our results indicate shared overwintering or stopover sites may influence annual variation in survival among geographically disparate breeding populations. declines in piping plover survival are a cause for concern, and our results highlight the need for conservation efforts to include habitat used during the migratory and wintering periods." +range-wide piping plover survival: correlated patterns and temporal declines,apparent survival; charadrius melodus; conservation; cross-seasonal effects; piping plover; population biology; program mark; shorebird,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,ROCHE EA;COHEN JB;CATLIN DH;AMIRAULT LANGLAIS DL;CUTHBERT FJ;GRATTO TREVOR CL;FELIO J;FRASER JD,"geographically isolated breeding populations of migratory shorebirds may be demographically connected through shared nonbreeding habitats. we used long-term (1998-2008) mark-recapture data on piping plovers (charadrius melodus) collected from 7 separate studies located throughout north america to conduct a range-wide analysis of after hatch year apparent survival (phi(ahy)). our objectives were to compare concurrent survival estimates from disparate breeding sites and determine whether estimates followed similar trends or were correlated among breeding populations with shared wintering grounds. average survival estimates were higher for great plains populations (range 5 0.69-0.81) than for great lakes and atlantic coast populations (range = 0.56-0.71). linear trend models indicated that apparent survival declined in 4 out of 7 populations, was unchanged in 3, and was generally highest among great plains populations. based on a post hoc analysis, we found evidence of correlated year-to-year fluctuations in annual survival among populations wintering primarily along the southeastern united states atlantic coast and gulf coast. our results indicate shared overwintering or stopover sites may influence annual variation in survival among geographically disparate breeding populations. declines in piping plover survival are a cause for concern, and our results highlight the need for conservation efforts to include habitat used during the migratory and wintering periods." apparent survival and population growth of snowy plovers in coastal northern california,apparent survival; charadrius alexandrinus nivosus; demography; fecundity; immigration; mark-recapture; population growth; snowy plover,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,MULLIN SM;COLWELL MA;MCALLISTER SE;DINSMORE SJ,"an accurate understanding of factors influencing survival and how they affect population growth are required to determine the best conservation strategies for small populations, especially near the limit of a species' range. we estimated adult and juvenile survival for a small population of the threatened western snowy plover (charadrius alexandrinus nivosus) in coastal northern california over 7 years (2001-2007). we also evaluated population structure and growth to determine the relative importance of immigration and local recruitment. apparent survival for adult males (phi = 0.61 +/- 0.08) was greater than that of adult females (phi = 0.50 +/- 0.11), and survival of adults was greater than for juveniles (phi = 0.40 +/- 0.06). an algebraic assessment of population growth (lambda) revealed that fecundity and survival were insufficient to maintain the population (lambda = 0.66-0.77), whereas estimates based on consecutive annual counts (lambda = 0.96 +/- 0.26) and a pradel model (lambda = 0.92 +/- 0.11) suggested the population was more stable. these results, combined with annual variation in the number of newly marked plovers, indicate that the local population was maintained by immigration and can be classified as a sink. management actions aimed at increasing fecundity, including predator control and greater restrictions on human activity, may be necessary to maintain this population; actions aimed at increasing adult survival are more challenging." maned wolf survival rate in central brazil,brazil; cerrado; chrysocyon brachyurus; maned wolf; mark-recapture models; radio-telemetry; survival rate,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,SOLLMANN R;FURTADO MM;JACOMO ATA;TORRES NM;SILVEIRA L,"although many carnivores are of conservation concern, most are poorly studied. the maned wolf chrysocyon brachyurus illiger, 1811 is the largest south american canid with a broad distribution; however, the largest portion of its range is in the brazilian cerrado savannah, where due to intensive agricultural expansion, it is threatened by habitat loss. maned wolf population trends are virtually unknown. we analyzed radio telemetry data from a 13-year study in emas national park, central brazil, with burnham's live recapture/dead recovery models in the program mark to obtain the first analytically sound estimate of the apparent maned wolf survival rate. we constructed 16 candidate models including variation in survival rate and resighting probability associated with an individual's sex or age and year of study. apparent adult survival rate throughout the study ranged from 0.28 (se=0.08) to 0.97 (se=0.06). there was no evidence for sex specificity but strong support for time variation. model weights supported an age effect and the subadult survival rate was 0.63 (se=0.15). results indicate similar life patterns for male and female maned wolves and similar mortality risks for adults and subadults in the study area. the observed temporal fluctuations of adult survival rate are important for population dynamics as they decrease average population growth rates. population dynamics are central for conservation planning and our results are an important step towards a better understanding of the maned wolf's ecology." "response of small mammal populations to fuel treatment and precipitation in a ponderosa pine forest, new mexico",chipmunk; deer mouse; microtus; new mexico; peromyscus manuculatus; thinning,RESTORATION ECOLOGY,BAGNE KE;FINCH DM,"mechanical and fire treatments are commonly used to reduce fuels where land use practices have encouraged accumulation of woody debris and high densities of trees. treatments focus on restoration of vegetation structure, but will also affect wildlife populations. small mammal populations were monitored before and after dense tree stands were thinned on 2,800 ha in nm, u.s.a. mammals were live-trapped in upland and riparian habitats from 2002 to 2006 in thinned and unthinned forests. populations of deer mice (peromyscus maniculatus) and voles (microtus spp.) were estimated using mark-recapture data. an index of abundance was used for chipmunks (tamias spp.) and woodrats (neotoma spp.). deer mice responded positively to thinning in 2005 in upland and riparian habitats. voles responded positively to thinning in 2005 and 2006 in riparian habitats. there was no change related to thinning in relative abundance of chipmunks and woodrats or in total small mammal biomass. because abiotic processes affect wildlife populations, we also examined response of deer mouse populations to precipitation. after removing treatment effects, populations were modeled with winter and summer precipitation. in both upland and riparian habitats, deer mouse populations had a curvilinear response to precipitation from the preceding winter, while responding negatively to summer rainfall only in riparian habitats. increases in deer mice populations occurred on thinned sites during a year of high winter precipitation, generally associated with depressed populations, indicating that forest thinning moderated this relationship. results suggest that precipitation plays a role in determining timing and presence of response to restoration treatments." @@ -4319,9 +4326,10 @@ nest box use by woodland dormice (graphiurus murinus): the influence of life cyc how much searching is enough? comprehensive versus optimal retrieval for technology assessments,databases; bibliographic; technology assessment; biomedical; information retrieval; selection bias; sensitivity and specificity,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT IN HEALTH CARE,BOOTH A,"objectives: the aim of this study is to review briefly different methods for determining the optimal retrieval of studies for inclusion in a health technology assessment (hta) report. methods: this study reviews the methodology literature related to specific methods for evaluating yield from literature searching strategies and for deciding whether to continue or desist in the searching process. results: eight different methods were identified. these include using the capture recapture technique; obtaining feedback from the commissioner of the hta report; seeking the disconfirming case; undertaking comparison against a known gold standard; evaluating retrieval of known items; recognizing the law of diminishing returns, specifying a priori stopping rules, and identifying a point of theoretical saturation. conclusions: while this study identified a variety of possible methods, there has been very little formal evaluation of the specific strengths and weaknesses of the different techniques. the author proposes an evaluation agenda drawing on an examination of existing data together with exploration of the specific impact of missing relevant studies." an evaluation of the completeness and accuracy of active tuberculosis reporting in the united states military,tuberculosis; surveillance evaluation; military medicine; capture-recapture,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TUBERCULOSIS AND LUNG DISEASE,MANCUSO JD;TOBLER SK;EICK AA;OLSEN CH,"setting: despite the low incidence of tuberculosis (tb) in the united states military, there is uncertainty in the overall reporting and estimates of incidence. objective: to assess tb reporting in the active component us military. design: tb notification in the us military was compared with three other data sources: laboratory, hospitalization and pharmacy records. sensitivity and positive predictive value were estimated for all data sources using a gold standard of either a reportable medical event (rme) reported as confirmed or a positive laboratory result for mycobacterium tuberculosis. uncorrected and capture-recapture (cr) methods were used to estimate underreporting and completeness of data sources. results: completeness of reporting of pulmonary tb cases was estimated as 72.4% uncorrected or 58.3% with cr. even after correction for possible underreporting, the incidence of active pulmonary tb was only 0.87 per 100000 person-years between 2004 and 2006. conclusion: the rate of active tb in the us military is low. like civilian surveillance, us military rme surveillance may substantially underreport tb incidence rates. expanding surveillance to include data sources such as hospitalizations and pharmacy records will increase the number of tb diagnoses at the cost of including many false-positives." the prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis in argentina a capture-recapture study in a city of buenos aires province,rheumatoid arthritis; prevalence; survey; epidemiology,JCR-JOURNAL OF CLINICAL RHEUMATOLOGY,SCUBLINSKY D;VENAROTTI H;CITERA G;MESSINA OD;SCHEINES E;RILLO O;ARTURI A;HOFMAN J;SOMMA LF;CASADO G;IANNANTUONO RF;GONZALEZ CD,"objective: the objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis (ra) in the population of a city of 70,000 inhabitants located in buenos aires, argentina. methods: based on the hypothesis that ra is an underdiagnosed disease in argentina, a capture-recapture method was applied. a local registry of ra patients of lujan city was taken as the primary source; a telephone survey was specifically carried out as a secondary source of information. patients suspected of having ra were referred to a local hospital to be examined by a team of 12 rheumatologists. anamnesis and physical examination were followed by hand and foot radiography and erythrocyte sedimentation rate and rheumatoid factor measurements. results: according to the american college of rheumatology criteria, a prevalence rate of 0.94% (95% confidence interval [ci], 0.86%-1.02%) was found in the surveyed population; in agreement with other studies, this prevalence was higher in women when compared with men (for female, 1.54% [95% ci, 1.40%-1.69%]; for male, 0.40% [95% ci, 0.32%-0.49%]). conclusion: the prevalence of ra in a representative sample of the population of a city from the central region of argentina seems to be close to 1%." +new flight distances record for alates of odontotermes formosanus (isoptera: termitidae),alate termites; flight distances; odontotermes formosanus; mark-recapture,JOURNAL OF ENTOMOLOGICAL SCIENCE,HU JA;ZHONG JH;XIAO WL,NA the adaptive value of gluttony: predators mediate the life history trade-offs of satiation threshold,lycosidae; optimal foraging theory; overeating; performance trait; selection gradient,JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY,PRUITT JN;KRAUEL JJ,"animals vary greatly in their tendency to consume large meals. yet, whether or how meal size influences fitness in wild populations is infrequently considered. using a predator exclusion, mark-recapture experiment, we estimated selection on the amount of food accepted during an ad libitum feeding bout (hereafter termed 'satiation threshold') in the wolf spider schizocosa ocreata. individually marked, size-matched females of known satiation threshold were assigned to predator exclusion and predator inclusion treatments and tracked for a 40-day period. we also estimated the narrow-sense heritability of satiation threshold using dam-on-female-offspring regression. in the absence of predation, high satiation threshold was positively associated with larger and faster egg case production. however, these selective advantages were lost when predators were present. we estimated the heritability of satiation threshold to be 0.56. taken together, our results suggest that satiation threshold can respond to selection and begets a life history trade-off in this system: high satiation threshold individuals tend to produce larger egg cases but also suffer increased susceptibility to predation." combining capture-recapture data and pedigree information to assess heritability of demographic parameters in the wild,binary trait; capture-recapture animal model; cormack-jolly-seber model; individual heterogeneity; state-space model; threshold model,JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY,PAPAIX J;CUBAYNES S;BUORO M;CHARMANTIER A;PERRET P;GIMENEZ O,"quantitative genetic analyses have been increasingly used to estimate the genetic basis of life-history traits in natural populations. imperfect detection of individuals is inherent to studies that monitor populations in the wild, yet it is seldom accounted for by quantitative genetic studies, perhaps leading to flawed inference. to facilitate the inclusion of imperfect detection of individuals in such studies, we develop a method to estimate additive genetic variance and assess heritability for binary traits such as survival, using capture-recapture (cr) data. our approach combines mixed-effects cr models with a threshold model to incorporate discrete data in a standard 'animal model' approach. we employ markov chain monte carlo sampling in a bayesian framework to estimate model parameters. we illustrate our approach using data from a wild population of blue tits (cyanistes caeruleus) and present the first estimate of heritability of adult survival in the wild. in agreement with the prediction that selection should deplete additive genetic variance in fitness, we found that survival had low heritability. because the detection process is incorporated, capture-recapture animal models (cram) provide unbiased quantitative genetics analyses of longitudinal data collected in the wild." -abundance of narwhals (monodon monoceros) on the hunting grounds in greenland,abundance estimation; aerial survey; arctic; climate change; greenland; mark-recapture distance sampling; narwhal; satellite tracking,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,HEIDE-JORGENSEN MP;LAIDRE KL;BURT ML;BORCHERS DL;MARQUES TA;HANSEN RG;RASMUSSEN M;FOSSETTE S,"narwhals (monodon monoceros l.) occur in the atlantic sector of the arctic where for centuries they have been subject to subsistence hunting by inuit in greenland and canada. scientific advice on the sustainable levels of removals from narwhal populations provides the basis for quotas implemented in both greenland and canada. the scientific advice relies heavily on extensive aerial surveys that are the only feasible way to acquire data on narwhal densities and abundance throughout their range. in some areas lack of information on abundance, in combination with high exploitation levels, has caused conservation concerns leading to restrictions on the international trade in narwhal tusks. narwhals also are regarded as highly sensitive to habitat disturbance caused by global warming. this study analyzed data from aerial sighting surveys covering four major narwhal hunting grounds in greenland. the surveys were conducted as double observer experiments with 2 independent observation platforms, 1 at the front and 1 at the rear of the survey plane. the sighting data were analyzed using mark recapture distance sampling techniques that allow for correction for whales that were missed by the observers. the surveys also were corrected for animals that were submerged during the passage of the survey plane, using diving and submergence data from satellite-linked time depth recorders deployed on 2 free-ranging narwhals. the abundance of narwhals on the wintering ground in west greenland in 2006 was 7,819 (95% confidence interval [ci]: 4,358-14,029). the abundances of narwhals in inglefield bredning and melville bay, northwest greenland in 2007 were 8,368 (95% ci: 5,209-13,442) and 6,024 (95% ci: 1,403-25,860), respectively. the abundance of narwhals in east greenland in 2008 was 6,444 (95% ci: 2,505-16,575). these surveys provide the first estimates of narwhal abundance from important hunting areas in east and west greenland and provide larger and more complete estimates from previously surveyed hunting grounds in inglefield bredning. the estimates can be used for setting catch limits for the narwhal harvest in west and east greenland and as a baseline for examining the effects of climate change on narwhal abundance. dot: 10.1644/09-mamm-a-198.1." +abundance of narwhals (monodon monoceros) on the hunting grounds in greenland,abundance estimation; aerial survey; arctic; climate change; greenland; mark-recapture distance sampling; narwhal; satellite tracking,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,HEIDE JORGENSEN MP;LAIDRE KL;BURT ML;BORCHERS DL;MARQUES TA;HANSEN RG;RASMUSSEN M;FOSSETTE S,"narwhals (monodon monoceros l.) occur in the atlantic sector of the arctic where for centuries they have been subject to subsistence hunting by inuit in greenland and canada. scientific advice on the sustainable levels of removals from narwhal populations provides the basis for quotas implemented in both greenland and canada. the scientific advice relies heavily on extensive aerial surveys that are the only feasible way to acquire data on narwhal densities and abundance throughout their range. in some areas lack of information on abundance, in combination with high exploitation levels, has caused conservation concerns leading to restrictions on the international trade in narwhal tusks. narwhals also are regarded as highly sensitive to habitat disturbance caused by global warming. this study analyzed data from aerial sighting surveys covering four major narwhal hunting grounds in greenland. the surveys were conducted as double observer experiments with 2 independent observation platforms, 1 at the front and 1 at the rear of the survey plane. the sighting data were analyzed using mark recapture distance sampling techniques that allow for correction for whales that were missed by the observers. the surveys also were corrected for animals that were submerged during the passage of the survey plane, using diving and submergence data from satellite-linked time depth recorders deployed on 2 free-ranging narwhals. the abundance of narwhals on the wintering ground in west greenland in 2006 was 7,819 (95% confidence interval [ci]: 4,358-14,029). the abundances of narwhals in inglefield bredning and melville bay, northwest greenland in 2007 were 8,368 (95% ci: 5,209-13,442) and 6,024 (95% ci: 1,403-25,860), respectively. the abundance of narwhals in east greenland in 2008 was 6,444 (95% ci: 2,505-16,575). these surveys provide the first estimates of narwhal abundance from important hunting areas in east and west greenland and provide larger and more complete estimates from previously surveyed hunting grounds in inglefield bredning. the estimates can be used for setting catch limits for the narwhal harvest in west and east greenland and as a baseline for examining the effects of climate change on narwhal abundance. dot: 10.1644/09-mamm-a-198.1." factors influencing densities of striped hyenas (hyaena hyaena) in arid regions of india,abundance estimation; capture-recapture; denning refugia; land use; livestock; semiarid zones,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,SINGH P;GOPALASWAMY AM;KARANTH KU,"the striped hyena (hyaena hyaena), despite being a threatened species, frequently occurs in human-dominated landscapes of india's rajasthan state. we estimated hyena densities using photographic capture recapture sampling to identify key ecological factors influencing hyena abundances in such areas. our 2 study sites (307 km(2) in kumbhalgarh wildlife sanctuary and 218 km(2) in esrana forest range) had different topographies and levels of human disturbances. we proposed explicit hypotheses regarding effects of livestock densities and topographic features on hyena abundances. we tested these hypotheses by examining the correspondence of estimated hyena densities to food availability in the form of livestock carcasses and potential refugia offered by hilly terrain. sampling efforts of 548 and 538 camera-trap nights were invested in kumbhalgarh and esrana, respectively. density estimates (hyenas/100 km(2)) based on capture recapture sampling were higher (6.5 +/- 2.6 se) for kumbhalgarh than esrana (3.67 +/- 0.3 se). our results supported the prediction that denning refugia in hilly terrain sustain higher hyena densities, but the prediction that higher livestock densities maintain higher hyena densities was not supported. because the striped hyena is a threatened species for which few data exist, our findings have major potential utility for range-wide conservation of the species. doi: 10.1644/09-mamm-a-159.1." slatkin's paradox: when direct observation and realized gene flow disagree. a case study in ficus,fig; fig wasp; gene flow; pollen dispersal; seed dispersal; slatkin's paradox,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,YU H;NASON JD;GE XJ;ZENG JQ,"in flying insects, there is frequently a lack of congruence between empirical estimates of local demographic parameters and the prediction that differentiation between populations should decrease with increasing dispersal, a puzzling phenomenon known as slatkin's paradox. here, we generalize slatkin's paradox to other taxa, drawing from available information on dispersal to predict the relative importance of pollen vs. seed migration in structuring broad-scale patterns of genetic variation in ficus hirta, a dioecious fig whose pollen is dispersed by minute, species-specific fig wasps and whose seeds are disseminated by a variety of vagile vertebrates (especially bats and birds). local-scale observational and genetic studies of dioecious understory figs suggest comparable rates of pollen and seed migration. in contrast, we found unusually low nuclear differentiation (f(st) = 0.037, r(st) = 0.074) and high chloroplast differentiation (g(st) = 0.729, n(st) = 0.798) among populations separated by up to 2850 km, leading us to reject the hypothesis of equal pollen and seed migration rates and to obtain an equilibrium estimate of the ratio of pollen to seed migration of r = 16.2-36.3. we reconcile this example of slatkin's paradox with previously published data for dioecious figs and relate it to the picture of exceptionally long-distance wasp-mediated pollen dispersal that is emerging for large monoecious fig trees. more generally, we argue that slatkin's paradox is a general phenomenon and suggest it may be common in plants and animals." "a regional approach for monitoring salmonid status and trends: results from a pilot study in coastal mendocino county, california",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,GALLAGHER SP;WRIGHT DW;COLLINS BW;ADAMS PB,"in coastal california, many evolutionarily significant units (esus) of chinook salmon oncorhynchus tshawytscha, coho salmon o. kisutch, and steelhead o. mykiss are listed under the federal endangered species act (esa). monitoring species status at the esu or esu subdivision scale requires specialized sampling. the purposes of this study were (1) to evaluate abundance estimated from a generalized random tessellation stratified (grts) design and compare the results with those from a more intensive stratified random monitoring program and (2) to evaluate the statistical power of the design to detect population trends. this 3-year pilot study considered five mendocino county streams as an example region of coastal california to evaluate a two-stage sampling approach for monitoring regional escapement. under this scheme, regional redd surveys (stage 1) were conducted in stream reaches in a grts sampling design. ten percent of anadromous habitat was sampled in year 1 and 10-35% in years 2 and 3. spawner : redd ratios were derived from smaller-scale census watersheds (stage 2) where ""true"" escapement was estimated using capture-recapture methods. regional escapement was then estimated from expanded redd counts, calibrated by spawner : redd ratios. as an alternative, more intensive method for estimating escapement, three survey streams were also sampled in a stratified random design. the results, added to counts from the census basins, produced more rigorous ""sum-of-streams'' estimates for comparison with the grts sampling. redd counts and the resulting escapement estimates were reliable for regional monitoring. the grts and sum-of-streams estimates overlapped, and the variation in the 95% confidence intervals did not change after 15%. our results suggest that a sample size of 15% or 41 or more reaches (whichever results in fewer survey reaches) should have adequate precision and statistical power to detect regional trends in salmon populations. we recommend that this monitoring approach be applied at regional spatial scales consistent with esa recovery planning efforts." @@ -4339,7 +4347,7 @@ very high population estimates and limited movement of snail-killing flies (dipt open capture-recapture models with heterogeneity: ii. jolly-seber model,abundance; capture-recapture; finite mixture model; heterogeneity; jolly-seber; maximum likelihood; non-parametric mle; open populations; schwarz-arnason,BIOMETRICS,PLEDGER S;POLLOCK KH;NORRIS JL,"estimation of abundance is important in both open and closed population capture-recapture analysis, but unmodeled heterogeneity of capture probability leads to negative bias in abundance estimates. this article defines and develops a suite of open population capture-recapture models using finite mixtures to model heterogeneity of capture and survival probabilities. model comparisons and parameter estimation use likelihood-based methods. a real example is analyzed, and simulations are used to check the main features of the heterogeneous models, especially the quality of estimation of abundance, survival, recruitment, and turnover. the two major advances in this article are the provision of realistic abundance estimates that take account of heterogenetiy of capture, and an appraisal of the amount of overestimation of survival arising from conditioning on the first capture when heterogeneity of survival is present." small mammals of the southeast tver oblast. communication 1. the fauna and biotopic distribution,biodiversity; small mammals; fauna; tver oblast; pitfalls; snap traps; live traps,CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS OF ECOLOGY,SHCHIPANOV NA;KOUPTSOV AV;KALININ AA;DEMIDOVA TB;OLEINICHENKO VY;LYAPINA MG;ALEKSANDROV DY;RASPOPOVA AA;PAVLOVA SV;TUMASYAN PA,"the authors analyze the data of a 12-year monitoring of small mammal populations with live-catch cage traps, snap traps, and pitfall traps. eighteen species were trapped. biotopical distributions of the species are outlined. the study shows that snap-trapping and pitfall-trapping results are not in complete agreement. capture-mark-recapture live-trapping results are consistent with averaged results obtained with snap traps and pitfalls, standardized to a unit of distance." understanding the migration ecology of european red admirals vanessa atalanta using stable hydrogen isotopes,NA,ECOGRAPHY,BRATTSTROM O;BENSCH S;WASSENAAR LI;HOBSON KA;AKESSON S,"tracking migratory movement of small animals with variable migration patterns is difficult with standard mark-recapture methods or genetic analysis. we used stable hydrogen isotope (delta d) measurements of wings from european red admirals vanessa atalanta to study several aspects of this species' migration. in the central part of southern europe we found large differences in delta d values between red admirals sampled in autumn and spring supporting the hypothesis that reproduction takes place in the mediterranean region during winter. there was also an apparent influx to southern europe in the spring of individuals with a more southerly origin, since many samples had higher delta d values and similar to those expected from coastal areas of north africa. we found a clear seasonal difference in the delta d values of red admirals sampled in northern europe. spring migrants arriving in northern europe generally had high delta d values that indicated a southerly origin. in autumn, delta d values suggested that red admirals were mostly from regions close to the sampling sites, but throughout the sampling period there were always individuals with delta d values suggesting non-local origins. the migration pattern of this species is supposedly highly variable and plastic. delta d differences between individuals in the western part of europe were generally small making migratory patterns difficult to interpret. however, butterflies from western europe were apparently isolated from those from north-eastern europe, since delta d values in the western region rarely corresponded to those of autumn migrants from the north-east. use of delta d data for inferring butterfly migration in europe is complex, but our study showed that this technique can be used to help uncover previously unknown aspects of red admiral migration." -"tillage affects the activity-density, absolute density, and feeding damage of the pea leaf weevil in spring pea",sitonalineatus; pisum sativum; conservation-tillage; no-till; pitfall trapping; mark-recapture; capture rate; trapping efficiency; pest management; coleoptera; curculionidae,ENTOMOLOGIA EXPERIMENTALIS ET APPLICATA,HATTEN TD;DAHLQUIST RM;EIGENBRODE SD;BOSQUE-PEREZ NA,"conversion from conventional-tillage (ct) to no-tillage (nt) agriculture can affect pests and beneficial organisms in various ways. nt has been shown to reduce the relative abundance and feeding damage of pea leaf weevil (plw), sitona lineatus l. (coleoptera: curculionidae) in spring pea, especially during the early-season colonization period in the palouse region of northwest idaho. pitfall traps were used to quantify tillage effects on activity-density of plw in field experiments conducted during 2001 and 2002. as capture rate of pitfall traps for plw might be influenced by effects of tillage treatment, two mark-recapture studies were employed to compare trapping rates in nt and ct spring pea during 2003. also in 2003, direct sampling was used to estimate plw densities during the colonization period, and to assess plw feeding damage on pea. plw activity-density was significantly lower in nt relative to ct during the early colonization period (may) of 2001 and 2002, and during the late colonization period (june) of 2002. activity-density was not different between treatments during the early emergence (july) or late emergence (august) periods in either year of the study. trap capture rates did not differ between tillage systems in the mark-recapture studies, suggesting that pitfall trapping provided unbiased estimates of plw relative abundances. plw absolute densities and feeding damage were significantly lower in nt than in ct. these results indicate that nt provides a pest suppression benefit in spring pea." +"tillage affects the activity-density, absolute density, and feeding damage of the pea leaf weevil in spring pea",sitonalineatus; pisum sativum; conservation-tillage; no-till; pitfall trapping; mark-recapture; capture rate; trapping efficiency; pest management; coleoptera; curculionidae,ENTOMOLOGIA EXPERIMENTALIS ET APPLICATA,HATTEN TD;DAHLQUIST RM;EIGENBRODE SD;BOSQUE PEREZ NA,"conversion from conventional-tillage (ct) to no-tillage (nt) agriculture can affect pests and beneficial organisms in various ways. nt has been shown to reduce the relative abundance and feeding damage of pea leaf weevil (plw), sitona lineatus l. (coleoptera: curculionidae) in spring pea, especially during the early-season colonization period in the palouse region of northwest idaho. pitfall traps were used to quantify tillage effects on activity-density of plw in field experiments conducted during 2001 and 2002. as capture rate of pitfall traps for plw might be influenced by effects of tillage treatment, two mark-recapture studies were employed to compare trapping rates in nt and ct spring pea during 2003. also in 2003, direct sampling was used to estimate plw densities during the colonization period, and to assess plw feeding damage on pea. plw activity-density was significantly lower in nt relative to ct during the early colonization period (may) of 2001 and 2002, and during the late colonization period (june) of 2002. activity-density was not different between treatments during the early emergence (july) or late emergence (august) periods in either year of the study. trap capture rates did not differ between tillage systems in the mark-recapture studies, suggesting that pitfall trapping provided unbiased estimates of plw relative abundances. plw absolute densities and feeding damage were significantly lower in nt than in ct. these results indicate that nt provides a pest suppression benefit in spring pea." bayesian analysis of abundance for binomial sighting data with unknown number of marked individuals,individual heterogeneity; mark-resight; marking and sighting; markov chain monte carlo; population size,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,MCCLINTOCK BT;HOETING JA,"the mark-resight method for estimating the size of a closed population can in many circumstances be a less expensive and less invasive alternative to traditional mark-recapture. despite its potential advantages, one major drawback of traditional mark-resight methodology is that the number of marked individuals in the population available for resighting needs to be known exactly. in real field studies, this can be quite difficult to accomplish. here we develop a bayesian model for estimating abundance when sighting data are acquired from distinct sampling occasions without replacement, but the exact number of marked individuals is unknown. by first augmenting the data with some fixed number of individuals comprising a marked ""super population,"" the problem may then be reformulated in terms of estimating the proportion of this marked super population that was actually available for resighting. this then allows the data for the marked population available for resighting to be modeled as random realizations from a binomial logit-normal distribution. we demonstrate the use of our model to estimate the new zealand robin (petroica australis) population size in a region of fiordland national park, new zealand. we then evaluate the performance of the proposed model relative to other estimators via a series of simulation experiments. we generally found our model to have advantages over other models when sample sizes are smaller with individually heterogeneous resighting probabilities. due to limited budgets and the inherent variability between individuals, this is a common occurrence in mark-resight population studies. winbugs and r code to carry out these analyses is available from http://www.stat.colostate.edu/similar to jah/software." investigating evolutionary trade-offs in wild populations of atlantic salmon (salmo salar): incorporating detection probabilities and individual heterogeneity,bayesian inference; cost of reproduction; life-history theory; selective survival; state-space model,EVOLUTION,BUORO M;PREVOST E;GIMENEZ O,"evolutionary trade-offs among demographic parameters are important determinants of life-history evolution. investigating such trade-offs under natural conditions has been limited by inappropriate analytical methods that fail to address the bias in demographic estimates that can result when issues of detection (uncertain detection of individual) are ignored. we propose a new statistical approach to quantify evolutionary trade-offs in wild populations. our method is based on a state-space modeling framework that focuses on both the demographic process of interest as well as the observation process. as a case study, we used individual mark-recapture data for stream-dwelling atlantic salmon juveniles in the scorff river (southern brittany, france). in freshwater, juveniles face two life-history choices: migration to the ocean and sexual maturation (for males). trade-offs may appear with these life-history choices and survival, because all are energy dependent. we found a cost of reproduction on survival for fish staying in freshwater and a survival advantage associated with the ""decision"" to migrate. our modeling framework opens up promising prospects for the study of evolutionary trade-offs when some life-history traits are not, or only partially, observable." evaluation of four models for estimating the population size of largemouth bass in an experimental pond,delury method; largemouth bass; mark and recapture; population estimation; program capture,FISHERIES SCIENCE,KATANO O,"the utility of four commonly used models for estimating population size in teleosts was tested. sixty-five individually marked largemouth bass, micropterus salmoides, were introduced into a concrete pond. fishing surveys were conducted every 2 days for a period of 19 days. the collected data were then used to estimate the population size under a variety of conditions using the following models: mark/recapture (petersen method), delury (first model), and two models of the software program capture. comparison of the actual population size with population estimates obtained using the mark/recapture method showed that the percentage of absolute error was <30% in all cases in which the number of fish caught and marked in the first survey was >30% of the population. using the delury method and model 1 of capture, the population estimates were biased toward underestimation, but the error was <30% when the number of fish caught in all surveys was >70%. in contrast, in model 2 of capture, the error was relatively small when the percentage of fish caught in all surveys was <70%. these conditions for minimizing errors should be taken into account by fisheries managers when estimating the population size of largemouth bass." @@ -4349,15 +4357,15 @@ dispersal versus site tenacity of adult and juvenile red-backed salamanders (ple dwarfs and cannibals in the arctic: production of arctic char (salvelinus alpinus (l.)) at two trophic levels,exploitation; sport fishing harvest; conservation biology,HYDROBIOLOGIA,BERG OK;FINSTAD AG;OLSEN PH;ARNEKLEIV JV;NILSSEN K,"due to extensive cannibalism, arctic char (salvelinus alpinus (l.)) often represent the two highest trophic levels in arctic freshwater ecosystem where arctic char often is the only freshwater fish present. there is a general lack of char stock size and production estimates from arctic lakes although high catchability and late maturation of large piscivorous individuals raise considerable management challenges because large growing forms are a valued resource. here, we use mark-recapture to estimate the biomass of both invertebrate feeding dwarfs (60-150 mm) and their cannibalistic conspecifics (> 150 mm) in a small arctic lake at bear island (74.5a degrees n, 19.0a degrees e; 11.3 ha; mean depth 1.8 m). biomass was 10.1 and 2.0 kg ha(-1) and production was 2.1 and 0.5 kg ha(-1) yr(-1) for dwarfs and cannibals, respectively. all the production of invertebrate feeding small char was removed by the cannibals. the low production of the arctic lake ecosystems combined with high catchability of large piscivorous char indicates that these stocks may be particularly vulnerable to exploitation. we finally point out the similarity between arctic and sub-arctic alpine populations of arctic char in production and life-history parameters." analysis of an extended batch marking experiment using estimating equations,mark-recapture experiments; open population; population size; pseudo-likelihood; survival probability,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,HUGGINS R;WANG Y;KEARNS J,"estimating equations give a flexible method of inference when the likelihood is either intractable or is not fully specified. here we consider a batch marking experiment where the full likelihood is complex and without resorting to devices such as the computationally intensive expectation-maximization (em) algorithm is intractable. however, a pseudo-likelihood that yields tractable estimating equations may be easily constructed and its effectiveness is demonstrated via simulation studies. the methodology was applied to study the abundance of oriental weatherloach in a waterbody in south-eastern australia. the programs and data set used in this article are available in the online supplements." determinants of partial bird migration in the amazon basin,bolivia; cerrado; flycatcher; seasonality; tyrannidae,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,JAHN AE;LEVEY DJ;HOSTETLER JA;MAMANI AM,"1. little is known about mechanisms that drive migration of birds at tropical latitudes. because most migratory bird species in south america have populations that are present year-round, partial migration (in which only some individuals of a given population migrate at the end of the breeding season) is likely to be common, providing an opportunity to assess proximate mechanisms of migration. 2. two non-mutually exclusive hypotheses explaining intraspecific variation in migratory behaviour were tested in a tropical kingbird tyrannus melancholicus population in the southern amazon basin, where a dramatic dry season decrease in the abundance of insect food for kingbirds may promote migration of some individuals. 3. the dominance hypothesis predicts sub-dominant individuals migrate at the end of the breeding season and dominant individuals do not, whereas the body size hypothesis predicts smaller individuals migrate and larger individuals do not. 4. based on 4 years of data on individually-marked birds, strong support was found for occurrence of partial migration in the study population. 5. in the best model, the largest males (which are typically older and dominant to younger individuals) had the highest probability of migrating. younger females (which are the smallest individuals in the population) were also more likely to migrate than other kingbirds, except the largest males. thus, an individual's probability of migrating was associated with a more complex interaction of size, age and sex than predicted by current hypotheses. 6. these results suggest that determinants of migratory behaviour differ between north temperate and tropical latitudes. most tests of partial migration theory have been conducted on granivores (e.g. emberizids) or omnivores (e.g. turdids and icterids) at north temperate latitudes, where seasonality is primarily defined by temperature cycles. in tropical south america, however, the most common long-distance migrants are primarily insectivorous (i.e. tyrannids), and seasonality is largely defined by rainfall cycles. 7. we propose a hypothesis based on seasonal food limitation to explain partial migration of primarily insectivorous species in seasonal tropical habitats." -empirical evidence of senescence in adult damselflies (odonata: zygoptera),ageing; akaike information criterion; field study; hazard; makeham; mark; odonata; winmodest; zygoptera,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,SHERRATT TN;LAIRD RA;HASSALL C;LOWE CD;HARVEY IF;WATTS PC;CORDERO-RIVERA A;THOMPSON DJ,"p>1. age-dependent increases in mortality have been documented in a variety of species of insect under laboratory conditions. however, while strong statistical evidence has been presented for senescence in vertebrate populations in the wild, we know little about the rate and shape of senescence in wild populations of insects. 2. odonates (damselflies and dragonflies) provide excellent candidate species for evaluating demographic senescence as they are large enough to be marked individually and they are easily re-sighted without recapture. the prevailing opinion - based entirely on qualitative examination of the declines in log numbers alive with time since marking - is that odonates exhibit age-independent daily survivorship. 3. here, we examine mark-recapture data on the azure damselfly coenagrion puella over two consecutive seasons. for the first time, we evaluate and compare the fit of quantitative models that not only account for weather-dependent daily variation in daily re-sighting rates, but also age-dependent variation in daily survivorship. 4. models with age-dependent declines in daily survivorship provide a more parsimonious explanation for the data than similar models without these age-dependent effects. in general, models in which mortality increases in an exponential (gompertz) fashion explain the mark-recapture sequences more efficiently than a range of alternative models, including those in which mortality increases as a power function (weibull) or reaches a plateau (logistic). these results are indicative of a general senescent decline in physiological functioning, which is particularly marked after 15 days as a mature adult. 5. weather (temperature, sun and precipitation) and initial mite load influenced the probability of daily re-sighting. weather and mite load also influenced daily survivorship, but their effects differed between seasons. 6. overall, fitting models with age as an explicit covariate demonstrates that odonates do indeed senesce. this contradicts previously held assumptions that odonata do not exhibit age-dependent survivorship in the wild." -experience-dependent natal philopatry of breeding greater flamingos,breeding dispersal; ideal despotic distribution; intraspecific competition; m-surge; outbreeding; flyway; phenotype matching,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,BALKIZ O;BECHET A;ROUAN L;CHOQUET R;GERMAIN C;AMAT JA;RENDON-MARTOS M;BACCETTI N;NISSARDI S;OZESMI U;PRADEL R,"p>1. contrary to the generally high level of natal philopatry (i.e. likelihood that individuals breed at their natal colony) found in first-breeding colonial birds, little is known of natal philopatry later in life. most hypotheses advanced to explain natal philopatry are valid at all ages. however, for young and inexperienced birds, the benefits of natal philopatry may be counterbalanced by the costs of intraspecific competition at the natal colony making dispersal temporarily advantageous. in turn, experience may increase competitive ability and make natal philopatry advantageous again. 2. we evaluated this hypothesis on the large-scale dispersal of greater flamingos phoenicopterus roseus breeding among three colonies comprising > 85% of the western mediterranean metapopulation. the camargue (france) and fuente de piedra (spain) are large and saturated colonies while molentargius (sardinia) is a recent and growing colony. 3. we used a 20-year capture-mark-resighting dataset of 4900 flamingos ringed as chicks in camargue and fuente de piedra and breeding at the three colonies. we assessed the effects of natal colony and breeding experience (first-time observed breeders versus confirmed experienced breeders) on dispersal using multistate capture-recapture models. dispersal to an unobservable state accounted for temporary emigration. 4. fidelity was higher at the natal colony (> 84%) than elsewhere. fidelity increased with experience in the two large colonies (camargue and fuente de piedra) suggesting a large-scale experience-related despotic distribution. breeding dispersal was significant (up to 61% and 52% for first-time breeders and experienced breeders, respectively) so that colony dynamics is affected by exchanges with other colonies. except for fuente-born breeders leaving molentargius, dispersal to the natal colony was higher than to any other colonies. 5. survival was not higher at the natal colony. inexperienced birds likely had lower breeding success at the camargue and skipped reproduction after having emigrated to the other large colony but not to molentargius. breeding at molentargius could allow avoiding queuing (and non-breeding) at the large colonies while gaining experience and competitive ability for future attempts. 6 natal philopatry appears as an important driver of large-scale breeding dispersal in the greater flamingo. the fitness advantage of natal philopatry is likely experience-dependent and mediated by the variations of intraspecific competition." +empirical evidence of senescence in adult damselflies (odonata: zygoptera),ageing; akaike information criterion; field study; hazard; makeham; mark; odonata; winmodest; zygoptera,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,SHERRATT TN;LAIRD RA;HASSALL C;LOWE CD;HARVEY IF;WATTS PC;CORDERO RIVERA A;THOMPSON DJ,"p>1. age-dependent increases in mortality have been documented in a variety of species of insect under laboratory conditions. however, while strong statistical evidence has been presented for senescence in vertebrate populations in the wild, we know little about the rate and shape of senescence in wild populations of insects. 2. odonates (damselflies and dragonflies) provide excellent candidate species for evaluating demographic senescence as they are large enough to be marked individually and they are easily re-sighted without recapture. the prevailing opinion - based entirely on qualitative examination of the declines in log numbers alive with time since marking - is that odonates exhibit age-independent daily survivorship. 3. here, we examine mark-recapture data on the azure damselfly coenagrion puella over two consecutive seasons. for the first time, we evaluate and compare the fit of quantitative models that not only account for weather-dependent daily variation in daily re-sighting rates, but also age-dependent variation in daily survivorship. 4. models with age-dependent declines in daily survivorship provide a more parsimonious explanation for the data than similar models without these age-dependent effects. in general, models in which mortality increases in an exponential (gompertz) fashion explain the mark-recapture sequences more efficiently than a range of alternative models, including those in which mortality increases as a power function (weibull) or reaches a plateau (logistic). these results are indicative of a general senescent decline in physiological functioning, which is particularly marked after 15 days as a mature adult. 5. weather (temperature, sun and precipitation) and initial mite load influenced the probability of daily re-sighting. weather and mite load also influenced daily survivorship, but their effects differed between seasons. 6. overall, fitting models with age as an explicit covariate demonstrates that odonates do indeed senesce. this contradicts previously held assumptions that odonata do not exhibit age-dependent survivorship in the wild." +experience-dependent natal philopatry of breeding greater flamingos,breeding dispersal; ideal despotic distribution; intraspecific competition; m-surge; outbreeding; flyway; phenotype matching,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,BALKIZ O;BECHET A;ROUAN L;CHOQUET R;GERMAIN C;AMAT JA;RENDON MARTOS M;BACCETTI N;NISSARDI S;OZESMI U;PRADEL R,"p>1. contrary to the generally high level of natal philopatry (i.e. likelihood that individuals breed at their natal colony) found in first-breeding colonial birds, little is known of natal philopatry later in life. most hypotheses advanced to explain natal philopatry are valid at all ages. however, for young and inexperienced birds, the benefits of natal philopatry may be counterbalanced by the costs of intraspecific competition at the natal colony making dispersal temporarily advantageous. in turn, experience may increase competitive ability and make natal philopatry advantageous again. 2. we evaluated this hypothesis on the large-scale dispersal of greater flamingos phoenicopterus roseus breeding among three colonies comprising > 85% of the western mediterranean metapopulation. the camargue (france) and fuente de piedra (spain) are large and saturated colonies while molentargius (sardinia) is a recent and growing colony. 3. we used a 20-year capture-mark-resighting dataset of 4900 flamingos ringed as chicks in camargue and fuente de piedra and breeding at the three colonies. we assessed the effects of natal colony and breeding experience (first-time observed breeders versus confirmed experienced breeders) on dispersal using multistate capture-recapture models. dispersal to an unobservable state accounted for temporary emigration. 4. fidelity was higher at the natal colony (> 84%) than elsewhere. fidelity increased with experience in the two large colonies (camargue and fuente de piedra) suggesting a large-scale experience-related despotic distribution. breeding dispersal was significant (up to 61% and 52% for first-time breeders and experienced breeders, respectively) so that colony dynamics is affected by exchanges with other colonies. except for fuente-born breeders leaving molentargius, dispersal to the natal colony was higher than to any other colonies. 5. survival was not higher at the natal colony. inexperienced birds likely had lower breeding success at the camargue and skipped reproduction after having emigrated to the other large colony but not to molentargius. breeding at molentargius could allow avoiding queuing (and non-breeding) at the large colonies while gaining experience and competitive ability for future attempts. 6 natal philopatry appears as an important driver of large-scale breeding dispersal in the greater flamingo. the fitness advantage of natal philopatry is likely experience-dependent and mediated by the variations of intraspecific competition." colored plastic and metal leg bands do not affect survival of piping plover chicks,banding; capture effect; charadrius melodus; endangered species; marking effect; mark-recapture; multistate; piping plover; shorebird,JOURNAL OF FIELD ORNITHOLOGY,ROCHE EA;ARNOLD TW;STUCKER JH;CUTHBERT FJ,"leg bands are commonly used to mark shorebird chicks as young as 1-d old, but little is known about the possible impacts of bands on survival of prefledging shorebirds. we used a mark-recapture framework to assess the impact of bands and banding-related disturbance on prefledging survival in a federally endangered population of piping plovers (charadrius melodus) breeding in the great lakes region from 2000 to 2008. we banded approximately 96% of all surviving chicks hatched prior to fledging, typically between 5 and 15 d of age. we used a multistate approach in program mark whereby individuals contributed data as unbanded chicks before capture (n = 1073) and as banded chicks afterward (n = 780). the cumulative probability of surviving through 24 d of age was 0.63 and did not differ between banded and unbanded chicks. in addition, we found a positive effect of banding-related disturbance on survival up to 3 d following banding (beta = 0.60 ci: 0.17-1.02), possibly due to increased postbanding vigilance on the part of chicks and adults. our results indicate that banding has no detrimental effect on survival of piping plover chicks prior to fledging and that current capture and banding methods are appropriate for this endangered species." nest-site fidelity in parental male bluegill lepomis macrochirus: spatial patterns and the influence of prior mating success,dispersal; mating success; philopatry,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,BARTLETT JA;WARD MP;LANDSMAN SJ;EPIFANIO JM,"a 4 year mark-recapture study examined the pattern of nesting site fidelity of parental-type male bluegill lepomis macrochirus. the study results indicated that iteroparous male l. macrochirus choose new nest sites near their own previously used sites. the scale of site fidelity varied, but generally males choose to renest within shoreline areas rather than specific or exact nest locations (94% within-year, 86% among-years). iteroparous males also displayed no preference to nest in proximity to neighbouring males from previous colonies to suggest social fidelity. contrary to expectation, manipulating males' reproductive success had no significant effect on the pattern or scale of male reproductive site fidelity." effects of exploitation on black bear populations at white river national wildlife refuge,abundance; black bear; dna; population growth; robust design; ursus americanus; white river,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CLARK JD;EASTRIDGE R;HOOKER MJ,"we live-trapped american black bears (ursus americanus) and sampled dna from hair at white river national wildlife refuge, arkansas, usa, to estimate annual population size (n), growth (lambda), and density. we estimated n and lambda with open population models, based on live-trapping data collected from 1998 through 2006, and robust design models for genotyped hair samples collected from 2004 through 2007. population growth was weakly negative (i.e., 95% ci included 1.0) for males (0.901, 95% ci = 0.645-1.156) and strongly negative (i.e., 95% ci excluded 1.0) for females (0.846, 95% ci = 0.711-0.981), based on live-trapping data, with n from 1999 to 2006 ranging from 94.1 (95% ci = 70.3-137.1) to 45.2 (95% ci = 27.1-109.3), respectively, for males and from 151.4 (95% ci = 127.6-185.8) to 47.1 (95% ci = 24.4-140.4), respectively, for females. likewise, mean annual l based on hair-sampling data was weakly negative for males (0.742, 95% ci = 0.043-1.441) and strongly negative for females (0.782, 95% ci = 0.661-0.903), with abundance estimates from 2004 to 2007 ranging from 29.1 (95% ci = 21.2-65.8) to 11.9 (95% ci = 11.0-26.9), respectively, for males and from 54.4 (95% ci = 44.3-77.1) to 27.4 (95% ci = 24.9-36.6), respectively, for females. we attribute the decline in the number of females in this isolated population to a decrease in survival caused by a past translocation program and by hunting adjacent to the refuge. we suggest that managers restructure the quota-based harvest limits until these growth rates recover." survival and breeding transitions for a reintroduced bison population: a multistate approach,badlands national park; bison bison; breeding state transition; culling; demography; mark-recapture; reintroduction,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PYNE MI;BYRNE KM;HOLFELDER KA;MCMANUS L;BUHNERKEMPE M;BURCH N;CHILDERS E;HAMILTON S;SCHROEDER G;DOHERTY PF,"the iconic plains bison (bison bison) have been reintroduced to many places in their former range, but there are few scientific data evaluating the success of these reintroductions or guiding the continued management of these populations. relying on mark-recapture data, we used a multistate model to estimate bison survival and breeding transition probabilities while controlling for the recapture process. we tested hypotheses in these demographic parameters associated with age, sex, reproductive state, and environmental variables. we also estimated biological process variation in survival and breeding transition probabilities by factoring out sampling variation. the recapture rate of females and calves was high (0.78 +/- 0.15 [se]) and much lower for males (0.41 +/- 0.23), especially older males (0.17 +/- 0.15). we found that overall bison survival was high (>0.8) and that males (0.80 +/- 0.13) survived at lower rates than females (0.94 +/- 0.04), but as females aged survival declined (0.89 +/- 0.05 for f >= 15 yr old). lactating and non-lactating females survived at similar rates. we found that females can conceive early (approx. 1.5 yr of age) and had a high probability (approx. 0.8) of breeding in consecutive years, until age 13.5 years, when females that were non-lactating tended to stay in that state. our results suggest senescence in reproduction and survival for females. we found little support for the effect of climatic covariates on demographic rates, perhaps because the park's current population management goals were predicated from drought-year conditions. this reintroduction has been successful, but continued culling actions will need to be employed and an adaptive management approach is warranted. our demographic approach can be applied to other heavily managed large-ungulate systems with few or no natural predators." increasing incidence of childhood type 1 diabetes in montenegro from 1997 to 2006,epidemiology; incidence; montenegro; type 1 diabetes,PEDIATRIC DIABETES,SAMARDZIC M;MARINKOVIC J;KOCEV N;CUROVIC N;TERZIC N,"objective: to determine and analyze the incidence of type 1 diabetes mellitus (t1dm) in 0- to 14-yr-old children in montenegro from 1997 to 2006. research design and methods: this was a prospective study. primary case ascertainment came from a diabetes register and secondary independent data source was from prescription data. age and sex-standardized incidence rates were calculated using direct method, assuming an equal distribution in each age/sex group. the 95% confidence interval (ci) were estimated assuming the poisson distribution. the independent effects of calendar year, two 5-yr time periods, sex and age groups were estimated with poisson regression modeling. results: during the 10-yr period, 184 new cases of type 1 diabetes were identified. case ascertainment was 100% complete using the capture-recapture method. the mean annual standardized incidence rate over the 10-yr period was 13.4/100 000/yr (95% ci: 11.5-15.5). it increased on average by 4.6% per year (95% ci: -0.4 to -9.6%, p = 0.07). the time-period specific incidence rate from year 1997 to 2001 was significantly lower (10.8; 8.5-13.5) compared with the second period from 2002 to 2006 (16.3; 13.3-19.7), (p < 0.0001). the age-specific incidence for the 0-4-yr age group was significantly lower (8.9; 6.3-12.3) than in 5- to 9-yr age group (14.1; 10.8-18.1); and in the 10-14 yr group (17.2; 13.7-21.3) per 100 000 children. conclusions: the incidence rate in last 5 yr places montenegro in the group of countries with moderate risk for development of type 1 diabetes in children. the average annual increase in incidence is 4.6%." habitat preferences as related to the prolonged dormancy of perennial herbs and ferns,dormancy; ellenberg's indicator values,PLANT ECOLOGY,REINTAL M;TALI K;HALDNA M;KULL T,"prolonged dormancy (hereafter dormancy), a phenomenon in which a perennial herbaceous plant does not sprout for one or more years, is examined. the phenomenon may be more frequent than stated so far and discovery of its role in plant life history and performance is still underway. data from published papers was reviewed and all known species exhibiting dormancy were analysed from the aspect of species ecological values. adaptation to environmental factors (light, moisture, ph and nitrogen as estimated by ellenberg indicator values) influences the maximum duration of dormancy. a higher proportion of plants are dormant in species that prefer to grow in good light conditions, dry sites and infertile soil. the duration of dormant period is longer in species that prefer to grow in dry sites and/or calcareous soils. a range of factors, we believe, control plant behaviour, however, it is suggested that environmental stress is the principal factor inducing dormancy." -restoration of plant-pollinator interactions: pollination neighborhood and asymmetric pollen flow between restored habitats in a beetle-pollinated aroid,colombia; cyclocephala spp; isolation-by-distance model; multi-strata mark-recapture models,RESTORATION ECOLOGY,GARCIA-ROBLEDO C,"two processes globally threatening natural ecosystems are changes in land use and deforestation. two methods used to restore threatened ecosystems are: (1) unassisted forest regeneration, which promotes the establishment of plants and fauna arriving from surrounding habitats and (2) assisted restoration, which involves the reconstruction of forests by planting native or exotic trees. functional attributes, such as plant-pollinator interactions, are essential for ecosystem recovery. unfortunately, information regarding the effect of restoration on pollination systems is limited. forty years ago, a tropical cloud forest in colombia was restored through unassisted forest regeneration, as well as by establishing monospecific plantations of the exotic chinese ash fraxinus chinensis. the understories of both restoration strategies were colonized by the beetle-pollinated aroid xanthosoma daguense. using isolation-by-distance and multi-strata mark-recapture models, i estimated in each restoration strategy two fundamental pollination processes: (1) the magnitude of x. daguense pollination neighborhood and (2) the directionality of pollen flow among plants colonizing both restoration strategies. in addition, i recorded pollinator visits and fruit production for x. daguense in each restored habitats. the pollination neighborhood of x. daguense in the ash plantation is two times larger than its pollination neighborhood in natural regeneration. inflorescences in the ash plantation donated 10 times more pollen to inflorescences in natural regeneration. plants in natural regeneration produced two times more infructescences and more fruits than plants in ash plantation. results show that the selection of different restoration strategies can alter two major components of plant-pollinator interactions in plants colonizing restored habitats, pollination neighborhoods, and pollen flow within the population." +restoration of plant-pollinator interactions: pollination neighborhood and asymmetric pollen flow between restored habitats in a beetle-pollinated aroid,colombia; cyclocephala spp; isolation-by-distance model; multi-strata mark-recapture models,RESTORATION ECOLOGY,GARCIA ROBLEDO C,"two processes globally threatening natural ecosystems are changes in land use and deforestation. two methods used to restore threatened ecosystems are: (1) unassisted forest regeneration, which promotes the establishment of plants and fauna arriving from surrounding habitats and (2) assisted restoration, which involves the reconstruction of forests by planting native or exotic trees. functional attributes, such as plant-pollinator interactions, are essential for ecosystem recovery. unfortunately, information regarding the effect of restoration on pollination systems is limited. forty years ago, a tropical cloud forest in colombia was restored through unassisted forest regeneration, as well as by establishing monospecific plantations of the exotic chinese ash fraxinus chinensis. the understories of both restoration strategies were colonized by the beetle-pollinated aroid xanthosoma daguense. using isolation-by-distance and multi-strata mark-recapture models, i estimated in each restoration strategy two fundamental pollination processes: (1) the magnitude of x. daguense pollination neighborhood and (2) the directionality of pollen flow among plants colonizing both restoration strategies. in addition, i recorded pollinator visits and fruit production for x. daguense in each restored habitats. the pollination neighborhood of x. daguense in the ash plantation is two times larger than its pollination neighborhood in natural regeneration. inflorescences in the ash plantation donated 10 times more pollen to inflorescences in natural regeneration. plants in natural regeneration produced two times more infructescences and more fruits than plants in ash plantation. results show that the selection of different restoration strategies can alter two major components of plant-pollinator interactions in plants colonizing restored habitats, pollination neighborhoods, and pollen flow within the population." population parameters of peromyscus leucopus (white-footed deermice) inhabiting a heavy metal contaminated superfund site,NA,SOUTHWESTERN NATURALIST,PHELPS KL;MCBEE K,"we used standard mark-recapture techniques to investigate ecological characteristics of populations of peromyscus leucopus (white-footed deermice) inhabiting two locations within a site contaminated by heavy metals, tar creek superfund site, and reference sites, lake carl blackwell and oologah wildlife management area, in northeastern oklahoma. basic demographic parameters such as size of population, rate of survival, rate of recapture, mean minimum longevity, number of reproductively active females, reproductive success, and incidence of infestation by but flies (cuterebra fontinella) were not significantly different between contaminated and reference sites. however, adult, non-reproductive p. leucopus inhabiting contaminated sites had, on average, a larger body mass than those front reference sites. other indicators of overall individual health, dental condition and prevalence of botfly infestations were significantly different among populations. instances of extensive mottling of the tipper and lower incisors, a reliable indicator of exposure to contamination by heavy metals, were only noted in individuals inhabiting contaminated sites. unfortunately, no direct link between contamination and alterations to some population parameters could be established." interpond movements of western painted turtles (chrysemys picta) in east-central kansas,NA,SOUTHWESTERN NATURALIST,HOUSE WJ;NALL IM;THOMAS RB,"the general paradigm associated with overland movements of semi-aquatic turtles between aquatic habitats predicts that males move more frequently and for greater distances than females and juveniles, and that larger individuals move more frequently than smaller individuals. we used capture-mark-recapture techniques to examine interpond movement patterns of western painted turtles (chrysemys picta) among a complex of eight ponds in east-central kansas in 2007. we assessed the broad applicability of predictions of the general paradigm by testing the billowing hypotheses: 1) males make interpond movements more frequently than females, 2) larger adult-sized individuals make interpond movements more frequently than,juveniles, 3) propensity for pond-to-pond movement varies as a function of size within categories (i.e., males, females, and juveniles), and 4) mean minimum distance traveled between ponds is greatest for males. the proportion of males that moved between ponds was not significantly different from that of females, and we did not observe a significant difference in proportion of adults and juveniles categorized as movers. mean length of plastron of individuals classified as movers and non-movers was not significantly different within either females or juveniles. males categorized as non-movers were significantly larger than those that made interpond movements. mean minimum distance traveled between ponds was not significantly different. among males, females, and juveniles. thus, our results were not consistent with any of the predictions of the general paradigm. costs and benefits associated with overland movements of turtles are likely to vary both spatially and temporally. we suggest that as cost-benefit ratios vary, so should predictions about the propensity for interpond movements among turtles of different sexes, sizes, and ontogenetic stages." persistence of colorado river cutthroat trout populations in isolated headwater streams of wyoming,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,COOK N;RAHEL FJ;HUBERT WA,"for populations of cutthroat trout oncorhynchus clarkii, isolation in headwater streams may provide protection from invasion by nonnative species but also may enhance a population's vulnerability to extirpation. we assessed the risk of extirpation for eight colorado river cutthroat trout o. clarkii pleuriticus populations isolated above water diversion structures in the north fork little snake river drainage, wyoming. the populations had been isolated for 25-44 years, occupied headwater streams that ranged from 850 to 6,100 m in length, and had adult populations that were estimated to range from 12 to 506 fish. adult population sizes were compared with published occurrence models to identify populations that may be at risk of extirpation. one population had experienced an 11% annual rate of decline in abundance over the past 29 years, but there was no evidence of declines among the other populations. there was evidence of recruitment failure for age-1 fish in two of the smaller populations. abundance estimates and published logistic regression models consistently identified the largest tributary in the drainage as being the most likely to support a colorado river cutthroat trout population in the future and the smallest tributary as being the least likely to support a population in the future. the analyses indicated that isolated populations may persist for decades, but small effective population sizes can make populations vulnerable to eventual loss of genetic variability and to extirpation." @@ -4388,7 +4396,7 @@ mhc-dependent survival in a wild population: evidence for hidden genetic benefit "effects of pup age, maternal age, and birth date on pre-weaning survival rates of weddell seals in erebus bay, antarctica",NA,OIKOS,PROFFITT KM;ROTELLA JJ;GARROTT RA,"identifying factors affecting juvenile survival is important to understanding the dynamics of populations and may also provide insights into life history theory and the selective forces shaping evolution. quantifying the relative influence of the various potential selective forces for the post-birth, maternal dependency, and independent periods is difficult and often limits investigators to estimating a single juvenile survival rate for the first year of life, or from birth to recruitment. we examined survival of individually marked weddell seal leptonychotes weddellii pups during the maternal dependency period in erebus bay, antarctica from 2005-2007. we used mark-recapture models to evaluate competing a priori hypotheses regarding variation in daily pre-weaning survival rates (phi) during the first 42 days of age. the a priori model receiving the most support from the data supported several of our predictions: (phi) over cap increased with pup age and was higher for pups born later in the season and to older mothers. increases in (phi) over cap with increasing pup age may have been due to improved resilience to the environment, phenotypic selection against the frailest pups, or both. maternal age was more important to (phi) over cap than was maternal experience or age of primiparity, potentially indicating that age-related increases in body mass allow greater offspring provisioning, or age-related improvements in competitive abilities benefit offspring during the period of maternal care. depending on the timing of birth and the age of the mother, (phi) over cap (42 days) ranged from 0.79 ( se = 0.05) to 0.98 ( se = 0.01). these exceptionally high pre-weaning survival rates contrast with estimates from other large terrestrial and marine mammal species where neonate survival is considerably lower and suggest that in species with similar life histories, pre-weaning survival probability may be buffered from both predators and environmental fluctuations during the period of maternal nutritional dependency. climatic changes affecting stability of ice used for pupping substrate or extent of fast-ice buffering pupping colonies from predators have the potential to reduce pre-weaning survival and may have important implications for population growth rates." desiccation cracks act as natural seed traps in flood-meadow systems,alluvial meadows; burial experiment; grassland; seed fate; soil seed bank,PLANT AND SOIL,BURMEIER S;ECKSTEIN RL;OTTE A;DONATH TW,"desiccation cracks are a natural phenomenon of clay-rich soils that form via soil shrinkage during dry conditions. our aim was to test the seed trapping potential of such cracks and assess its impact on seed bank formation in a flood-meadow ecosystem. we documented crack patterns on permanent plots and analysed the soil seed content along and adjacent to cracks. seed translocation via cracks was tested with a mark-recapture experiment, and post-entrapment seed fate was tested with a burial experiment. most cracks re-opened in the same positions in consecutive dry periods. along cracks, most seeds were found in 10-20 cm depth, whereas adjacent to cracks most seeds were found in 0-5 cm depth. the majority of seeds found in shallow depths adjacent to cracks belonged to species that were also present in the above-ground vegetation, whereas this rate was always under 50% along desiccation cracks. the mark-recapture experiment gave evidence for vertical seed translocation through desiccation cracks. post-entrapment seed fate differed between species and burial depth, with a trend towards increasing survival with increasing depth. we conclude that desiccation cracks act as natural seed traps, foster seed bank formation and thus influence plant community dynamics in flood meadow systems." survival differences and the effect of environmental instability on breeding dispersal in an adelie penguin meta-population,antarctica; avian demography; climate change; philopatry; population dynamics,PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,DUGGER KM;AINLEY DG;LYVER PO;BARTON K;BALLARD G,"high survival and breeding philopatry was previously confirmed for the adelie penguin (pygoscelis adeliae) during a period of stable environmental conditions. however, movements of breeding adults as a result of an unplanned natural experiment within a four-colony meta-population provided interesting insights into this species' population dynamics. we used multistate mark-recapture models to investigate apparent survival and dispersal of breeding birds in the southwestern ross sea during 12 breeding seasons (1996-2007). the natural experiment was facilitated by the temporary grounding of two immense icebergs that (i) erected a veritable fence separating colonies and altering migration routes and (ii) added additional stress by trapping extensive sea ice in the region during 5 of 12 y. colony size varied by orders of magnitude, allowing investigation of apparent survival and dispersal rates in relation to both environmental conditions and colony size within this meta-population. apparent survival was lowest for the smallest colony (4,000 pairs) and similar for the medium (45,000 pairs) and large colonies (155,000 pairs), despite increased foraging effort expended by breeders at the largest colony. dispersal of breeding birds was low (<1%), except during years of difficult environmental conditions when movements increased, especially away from the smallest colony (3.5%). decreased apparent survival at the smallest colony could reflect differences in migration chronology and winter habitat use compared with the other colonies, or it may reflect increased permanent emigration to colonies outside this meta-population. contrary to current thought, breeding penguins are not always philopatric. rather, stressful conditions can significantly increase dispersal rates." -using track-plate footprints in fisher mark recapture population estimation,NA,AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST,O'NEIL E;SWANSON BJ,obtaining accurate estimates of fisher (martes pennanti) population abundance is challenging to resource management agencies given the large home ranges and low densities at which fisher occur. current methods for estimating population abundance are expensive in terms of equipment required and hours worked indicating a need for a less labor and equipment intensive method. track-plate footprinting is a method of individually identifying fisher by the papillae patterns found on the metacarpal pad. we evaluated the technique of track-plate footprinting as a mark-recapture method to estimate population abundance of fisher in the ottawa national forest of michigan's upper peninsula. we placed covered track-plates using copy toner and a medium of contact paper as a method of obtaining footprints of fisher for individual identification. over 1548 trap-nights we identified 24 prints from nine different fisher with four individuals being recaptured. program mark produced a population estimate of 13 animals with a 95% confidence interval of 8-20 animals. our study shows that track-plate footprinting is a viable method for estimating population abundance of fisher under natural conditions. +using track-plate footprints in fisher mark recapture population estimation,NA,AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST,O NEIL E;SWANSON BJ,obtaining accurate estimates of fisher (martes pennanti) population abundance is challenging to resource management agencies given the large home ranges and low densities at which fisher occur. current methods for estimating population abundance are expensive in terms of equipment required and hours worked indicating a need for a less labor and equipment intensive method. track-plate footprinting is a method of individually identifying fisher by the papillae patterns found on the metacarpal pad. we evaluated the technique of track-plate footprinting as a mark-recapture method to estimate population abundance of fisher in the ottawa national forest of michigan's upper peninsula. we placed covered track-plates using copy toner and a medium of contact paper as a method of obtaining footprints of fisher for individual identification. over 1548 trap-nights we identified 24 prints from nine different fisher with four individuals being recaptured. program mark produced a population estimate of 13 animals with a 95% confidence interval of 8-20 animals. our study shows that track-plate footprinting is a viable method for estimating population abundance of fisher under natural conditions. are landscape structures insurmountable barriers for foraging bees? a mark-recapture study with two solitary pollen specialist species,landscape barrier; fragmentation; foraging distance; chelostoma florisomne; hoplitis adunca,APIDOLOGIE,ZURBUCHEN A;BACHOFEN C;MULLER A;HEIN S;DORN S,"to investigate whether landscape structures act as insurmountable barriers for foraging bees, we conducted mark-recapture studies with two pollen-specialist solitary species. foraging options of the bees were confined to host plant stands across different landscape structures. differences in altitude of more than 130 m were overcome and forests covering a distance of up to 480 m were crossed by chelostoma florisomne. a broad river and a motorway with intense traffic did not represent insurmountable barriers for hoplitis adunca. for c. florisomne, total foraging distances of up to 650 m were measured, but foraging females were recorded predominantly on host plant patches available in relatively close vicinity to their nesting site. while landscape structures might impede foraging in endangered bees, the investigated landscape structures clearly did not act as insurmountable physical barriers for the two common solitary bee species tested in our study." biomass removal by dolphins and fisheries in a mediterranean sea coastal area: do dolphins have an ecological impact on fisheries?,cetaceans; fisheries; ecological interactions; mediterranean sea,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,BEARZI G;AGAZZI S;GONZALVO J;BONIZZONI S;COSTA M;PETROSELLI A,"1. dolphins are often claimed to compete with fisheries, including through removal of substantial biomass. to calculate the biomass removed by fisheries and the degree of resource overlap with dolphins in a coastal area of greece, estimates of dolphin abundance based on photographic capture-recapture were combined with an assessment of fishing effort and catch. 2. the estimated total biomass consumed annually by local dolphin populations - 15 short-beaked common dolphins and 42 common bottlenose dolphins - was 15.5 and 89.8 tonnes, respectively. the total biomass removed by the local fishing fleet (307 fishing boats) was 3469.2 tonnes, i.e. about 33 times greater than that removed by dolphins. 3. dolphins removed 2.9% of the total biomass, fisheries 97.1%. nine purse seiners (representing only 3% of the active fishing fleet) were responsible for 31.9% of biomass removal. similarity of biomass composition between dolphins and fisheries was expressed by a pianka index of 0.46 for common dolphins and 0.66 for bottlenose dolphins. 4. overlap differed according to fishing gear. common dolphin overlap was higher with purse seiners (0.82), and lower with beach seiners (0.31), bottom trawlers (0.11) and trammel boats (0.06). there was virtually no overlap with longliners (0.02). bottlenose dolphin overlap was higher with trammel boats (0.89) and bottom trawlers (0.75), and lower with longliners (0.38), purse seiners (0.24) and beach seiners (0.18). there was minimal overlap (0.12) between the two dolphin species. 5. this study suggests that ecological interactions between dolphins and fisheries in this coastal area have minor effects on fisheries. conversely, prey depletion resulting from overfishing can negatively affect dolphins. fisheries management measures consistent with national and eu legislation are proposed to ensure sustainability and to protect marine biodiversity. copyright (c) 2010 john wiley & sons, ltd." "estimation of fatalities due to road traffic crashes in karachi, pakistan, using capture-recapture method",road traffic crashes; road traffic injuries; estimation; capture-recapture method; fatalities,ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH,LATEEF MU,"the objective of the study was to estimate the magnitude of road traffic fatalities occurring in karachi, pakistan. a 2-source capture-recapture model was applied to obtain a reliable estimate of the magnitude of the problem. a conservative adjusted estimate of fatalities generated, using data from 2 sources matched by at least name, gender, age, and location. in 2008, police reported 616 fatalities whereas hospitals recorded 1092 fatalities due to road traffic crashes. the capture-recapture analysis estimated at least 1375 fatalities. police data show 55% deficit from the estimated figure and 43.6% deficit from the observed one, whereas hospital data show 20.6% deficit from the estimation. road traffic crashes and resulting fatalities and injuries are a much more substantial health problem than is evident from official statistics. the capture-recapture analysis can be used as a tool to provide affordable and reliable estimates in developing countries where routine official statistics suffer from underreporting." @@ -4408,14 +4416,14 @@ disease burden of prosthetic joint infections after hip and knee joint replaceme time trend and geographic distribution of treated patients with congenital hypothyroidism relative to the number of available endocrinologists in japan,NA,JOURNAL OF PEDIATRICS,GU YH;KATO T;HARADA S;INOMATA H;AOKI K,"objective to investigate the time trend and geographic distribution of treated patients with congenital hypothyroidism (ch) and explore their possible relationship to the availability of endocrinologists in japan. study design the 2-source capture-recapture method was used to estimate the total number of patients. the ratio of the total estimated number of patients with ch to the number of endocrinologists and spearman correlation coefficients were calculated. curve fitting for changes in incidence or prevalence was estimated. results the incidence and prevalence of ch exhibited upward trends, with linear slopes of increase during the period 1994-2002. a statistically significant positive correlation was observed between the prevalence of ch and the ratio of the number of patients with ch to the number of endocrinologists in the 10 regions studied. the prevalence of ch was significantly higher in the regions with a higher ratio of patients with ch to endocrinologists, and also in younger patients. conclusions a shortage of endocrinologists may be one reason for the upward trend in the incidence and prevalence of treated patients with ch. (j pediatr 2010;157:153-7)." concordance of commercial data sources for neighborhood-effects studies,concordance; geographic information systems; capture-recapture methods; neighborhood studies; built environment,JOURNAL OF URBAN HEALTH-BULLETIN OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE,HOEHNER CM;SCHOOTMAN M,"growing evidence supports a relationship between neighborhood-level characteristics and important health outcomes. one source of neighborhood data includes commercial databases integrated with geographic information systems to measure availability of certain types of businesses or destinations that may have either favorable or adverse effects on health outcomes; however, the quality of these data sources is generally unknown. this study assessed the concordance of two commercial databases for ascertaining the presence, locations, and characteristics of businesses. businesses in the st. louis, missouri area were selected based on their four-digit standard industrial classification (sic) codes and classified into 14 business categories. business listings in the two commercial databases were matched by standardized business name within specified distances. concordance and coverage measures were calculated using capture-recapture methods for all businesses and by business type, with further stratification by census-tract-level population density, percent below poverty, and racial composition. for matched listings, distance between listings and agreement in four-digit sic code, sales volume, and employee size were calculated. overall, the percent agreement was 32% between the databases. concordance and coverage estimates were lowest for health-care facilities and leisure/entertainment businesses; highest for popular walking destinations, eating places, and alcohol/tobacco establishments; and varied somewhat by population density. the mean distance (sd) between matched listings was 108.2 (179.0) m with varying levels of agreement in four-digit sic (percent agreement = 84.6%), employee size (weighted kappa = 0.63), and sales volume (weighted kappa = 0.04). researchers should cautiously interpret findings when using these commercial databases to yield measures of the neighborhood environment." "efficient, noninvasive genetic sampling for monitoring reintroduced wolves",canis lupus; noninvasive genetic monitoring; population density; population estimation; probability of capture; wolf,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,STENGLEIN JL;WAITS LP;AUSBAND DE;ZAGER P;MACK CM,"traditional methods of monitoring gray wolves (canis lupus) are expensive and invasive and require extensive efforts to capture individual animals. noninvasive genetic sampling (ngs) is an alternative method that can provide data to answer management questions and complement already-existing methods. in a 2-year study, we tested this approach for idaho gray wolves in areas of known high and low wolf density. to focus sampling efforts across a large study area and increase our chances of detecting reproductive packs, we visited 964 areas with landscape characteristics similar to known wolf rendezvous sites. we collected scat or hair samples from 20% of sites and identified 122 wolves, using 8-9 microsatellite loci. we used the minimum count of wolves to accurately detect known differences in wolf density. maximum likelihood and bayesian single-session population estimators performed similarly and accurately estimated the population size, compared with a radiotelemetry population estimate, in both years, and an average of 1.7 captures per individual were necessary for achieving accurate population estimates. subsampling scenarios revealed that both scat and hair samples were important for achieving accurate population estimates, but visiting 75% and 50% of the sites still gave reasonable estimates and reduced costs. our research provides managers with an efficient and accurate method for monitoring high-density and low-density wolf populations in remote areas." -photographic mark-recapture analysis of clustered mammal-eating killer whales around the aleutian islands and gulf of alaska,NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,DURBAN J;ELLIFRIT D;DAHLHEIM M;WAITE J;MATKIN C;BARRETT-LENNARD L;ELLIS G;PITMAN R;LEDUC R;WADE P,"we used photographic mark-recapture methods to estimate the number of mammal-eating ""transient"" killer whales using the coastal waters from the central gulf of alaska to the central aleutian islands, around breeding rookeries of endangered steller sea lions. we identified 154 individual killer whales from 6,489 photographs collected between july 2001 and august 2003. a bayesian mixture model estimated seven distinct clusters (95% probability interval = 7-10) of individuals that were differentially covered by 14 boat-based surveys exhibiting varying degrees of association in space and time. markov chain monte carlo methods were used to sample identification probabilities across the distribution of clusters to estimate a total of 345 identified and undetected whales (95% probability interval = 255-487). estimates of covariance between surveys, in terms of their coverage of these clusters, indicated spatial population structure and seasonal movements from these near-shore waters, suggesting spatial and temporal variation in the predation pressure on coastal marine mammals." +photographic mark-recapture analysis of clustered mammal-eating killer whales around the aleutian islands and gulf of alaska,NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,DURBAN J;ELLIFRIT D;DAHLHEIM M;WAITE J;MATKIN C;BARRETT LENNARD L;ELLIS G;PITMAN R;LEDUC R;WADE P,"we used photographic mark-recapture methods to estimate the number of mammal-eating ""transient"" killer whales using the coastal waters from the central gulf of alaska to the central aleutian islands, around breeding rookeries of endangered steller sea lions. we identified 154 individual killer whales from 6,489 photographs collected between july 2001 and august 2003. a bayesian mixture model estimated seven distinct clusters (95% probability interval = 7-10) of individuals that were differentially covered by 14 boat-based surveys exhibiting varying degrees of association in space and time. markov chain monte carlo methods were used to sample identification probabilities across the distribution of clusters to estimate a total of 345 identified and undetected whales (95% probability interval = 255-487). estimates of covariance between surveys, in terms of their coverage of these clusters, indicated spatial population structure and seasonal movements from these near-shore waters, suggesting spatial and temporal variation in the predation pressure on coastal marine mammals." temporally stable genetic variability and dynamic kinship structure in a fluctuating population of the root vole microtus oeconomus,arvicolid rodents; fluctuating population; kin structure; temporal genetic variability,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,PILOT M;DABROWSKI MJ;JANCEWICZ E;SCHTICKZELLE N;GLIWICZ J,"genetic variability, kin structure and demography of a population are mutually dependent. population genetic theory predicts that under demographically stable conditions, neutral genetic variability reaches equilibrium between gene flow and drift. however, density fluctuations and non-random mating, resulting e.g. from kin clustering, may lead to changes in genetic composition over time. theoretical models also predict that changes in kin structure may affect aggression level and recruitment, leading to density fluctuations. these predictions have been rarely tested in natural populations. the aim of this study was to analyse changes in genetic variability and kin structure in a local population of the root vole (microtus oeconomus) that underwent a fourfold change in mean density over a 6-year period. intensive live-trapping resulted in sampling 88% of individuals present in the study area, as estimated from mark-recapture data. based on 642 individual genotypes at 20 microsatellite loci, we compared genetic variability and kin structure of this population between consecutive years. we found that immigration was negatively correlated with density, while the number of kin groups was positively correlated with density. this is consistent with theoretical predictions that changes in kin structure play an important role in population fluctuations. despite the changes in density and kin structure, there was no genetic differentiation between years. population-level genetic diversity measures did not significantly vary in time and remained relatively high (h-e range: 0.72-0.78). these results show that a population that undergoes significant demographic and social changes may maintain high genetic variability and stable genetic composition." when are genetic methods useful for estimating contemporary abundance and detecting population trends?,abundance; effective population size; genetic monitoring; population size; population trend,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY RESOURCES,TALLMON DA;GREGOVICH D;WAPLES RS;BAKER CS;JACKSON J;TAYLOR BL;ARCHER E;MARTIEN KK;ALLENDORF FW;SCHWARTZ MK,"the utility of microsatellite markers for inferring population size and trend has not been rigorously examined, even though these markers are commonly used to monitor the demography of natural populations. we assessed the ability of a linkage disequilibrium estimator of effective population size (n(e)) and a simple capture-recapture estimator of abundance (n) to quantify the size and trend of stable or declining populations (true n = 100-10,000), using simulated wright-fisher populations. neither method accurately or precisely estimated abundance at sample sizes of s = 30 individuals, regardless of true n. however, if larger samples of s = 60 or 120 individuals were collected, these methods provided useful insights into abundance and trends for populations of n = 100-500. at small population sizes (n = 100 or 250), precision of the n(e) estimates was improved slightly more by a doubling of loci sampled than by a doubling of individuals sampled. in general, monitoring n(e) proved a more robust means of identifying stable and declining populations than monitoring n over most of the parameter space we explored, and performance of the n(e) estimator is further enhanced if the n(e)/n ratio is low. however, at the largest population size (n = 10,000), n estimation outperformed n(e). both methods generally required >= 5 generations to pass between sampling events to correctly identify population trend." "evaluating the status of the endangered tiger panthera tigris and its prey in panna tiger reserve, madhya pradesh, india",india; local extinction; mark-recapture; occupancy; panna tiger reserve; panthera tigris; tiger; ungulates,ORYX,GOPAL R;QURESHI Q;BHARDWAJ M;SINGH RKJ;JHALA YV,"we evaluated the status of tigers panthera tigris and their prey in panna tiger reserve using occupancy surveys, camera-trap mark-recapture population estimation, and distance sampling along foot transects, in 2006. forest range tiger occupancy in the panna landscape (3,500 km(2)) estimated by 1,077 surveys of 5 km each was 29% +/- se 1. within occupied ranges of the reserve a mean of 68% +/- se 7 of forest beats had tiger signs. a total of 800 camera-trap nights yielded 24 captures of seven individual adult tigers within an effective trap area of 185.0 +/- se 15.8 km(-2). the best model incorporating individual heterogeneity (m-h) estimated the tiger population to be 9 +/- se 2. tiger density was 4.9 +/- se 1.5 per 100 km(2) and was lower than that reported in 2002 (6.49 tigers per 100 km(2)). both occupancy and density indicated a decline of the tiger population in the reserve. mean ungulate density was 42.4 +/- se 8.4 km(-2) and comparable to other tiger reserves. since our survey in 2006 tiger status in panna has deteriorated further because of poaching. panna was occupied by dacoits in late 2006 and anti-insurgent activities caused further disturbances. in late 2008 there was a single male tiger left in panna but he has not been seen since january 2009. the madhya pradesh forest department has reintroduced three tigers to panna from neighbouring tiger reserves. panna, along with sariska tiger reserve, exemplifies the vulnerability of small, isolated tiger populations to local extinctions caused by poaching, even in areas with suitable habitat and sufficient prey." estimation of survival rate and extinction probability for stage-structured populations with overlapping life stages,"amphibians; fecundity; knm method; natterjack toad, bufo calamita; population viability analysis; stage frequency data",POPULATION ECOLOGY,AUBRY A;BECART E;DAVENPORT J;EMMERSON MC,"the development of methods providing reliable estimates of demographic parameters (e.g., survival rates, fecundity) for wild populations is essential to better understand the ecology and conservation requirements of individual species. a number of methods exist for estimating the demographics of stage-structured populations, but inherent mathematical complexity often limits their uptake by conservation practitioners. estimating survival rates for pond-breeding amphibians is further complicated by their complex migratory and reproductive behaviours, often resulting in nonobservable states and successive cohorts of eggs and tadpoles. here we used comprehensive data on 11 distinct breeding toad populations (bufo calamita) to clarify and assess the suitability of a relatively simple method [the kiritani-nakasuji-manly (knm) method] to estimate the survival rates of stage-structured populations with overlapping life stages. the study shows that the knm method is robust and provides realistic estimates of amphibian egg and larval survival rates for species in which breeding can occur as a single pulse or over a period of several weeks. the study also provides estimates of fecundity for seven distinct toad populations and indicates that it is essential to use reliable estimates of fecundity to limit the risk of under- or overestimating the survival rates when using the knm method. survival and fecundity rates for b. calamita populations were then used to define population matrices and make a limited exploration of their growth and viability. the findings of the study recently led to the implementation of practical conservation measures at the sites where populations were most vulnerable to extinction." "first description of reproductive behavior of the amazonian damselfly chalcopteryx rutilans (rambur) (odonata, polythoridae)",amazonia; lek; residency; sexual selection; territory,REVISTA BRASILEIRA DE ENTOMOLOGIA,RESENDE DC;DE MARCO P,"first description of reproductive behavior of the amazonian damselfly chalcopteryx ruffians (rambur) (odonata, polythoridae). polythoridae comprise a widespread group of species in the new world tropics, but little is known about their behavior or life history. here, we described the reproductive behavior of amazonian chalchopteryx ruffians, using mark-recapture techniques. males were resident and territorial, though we found disputes (complex flight manoeuvres) to be rare. trunks (rotting wood) were important to male persistence in sites, as these are the locations preferred by females for oviposition. the mating system of c. ruffians may be comparable to the resource limitation category, described by conrad & pritchard (1992), where males cannot control female access to oviposition sites. so, female choice becomes important and apparently, the observed displays (in which males flash the coppery coloration of their hind wings) may be related to attraction of females to territories, as in a lek system." "age- and sex-specific survival estimates incorporating tag loss for new zealand sea lions, phocarctos hookeri",auckland islands; demography; fisheries interactions; management; mark-recapture method; multistate model; phocarctos hookeri; new zealand sea lion; new zealand's subantarctic; population dynamics,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,CHILVERS BL;MACKENZIE DI,"the estimation of life-history parameters for a threatened species is important for understanding its biology and helping to determine management options. this research investigates age- and sex-related survival estimates incorporating tag loss for new zealand (nz) sea lions (phocarctos hookeri) from sandy bay, enderby island, auckland islands, new zealand, using multistate mark recapture data from known-age individuals over 8 years (1997-1998 to 2005-2006). survival estimates and tag loss rates differed significantly by sex and age class, with adult males having the lowest tag retention of any age or sex class and females >= 3 years old having lower survival estimates than their male counterparts. the variability and lower female survival relative to males is a critical problem for nz sea lions, because even small changes in adult female survival significantly affect population trends for such large, long-lived mammals. doi: 10.1644/09-mamm-a-285.1." -dynamics of gene-modified progenitor cells analyzed by tracking retroviral integration sites in a human scid-x1 gene therapy trial,NA,BLOOD,WANG GP;BERRY CC;MALANI N;LEBOULCH P;FISCHER A;HACEIN-BEY-ABINA S;CAVAZZANA-CALVO M;BUSHMAN FD,"x-linked severe-combined immunodeficiency (scid-x1) has been treated by therapeutic gene transfer using gamma-retroviral vectors, but insertional activation of proto-oncogenes contributed to leukemia in some patients. here we report a longitudinal study of gene-corrected progenitor cell populations from 8 patients using 454 pyrosequencing to map vector integration sites, and extensive resampling to allow quantification of clonal abundance. the number of transduced cells infused into patients initially predicted the subsequent diversity of circulating cells. a capture-recapture analysis was used to estimate the size of the gene-corrected cell pool, revealing that less than 1/100th of the infused cells had long-term repopulating activity. integration sites were clustered even at early time points, often near genes involved in growth control, and several patients harbored expanded cell clones with vectors integrated near the cancer-implicated genes ccnd2 and hmga2, but remain healthy. integration site tracking also documented that chemotherapy for adverse events resulted in successful control. the longitudinal analysis emphasizes that key features of transduced cell populations-including diversity, integration site clustering, and expansion of some clones-were established early after transplantation. the approaches to sequencing and bioinformatics analysis reported here should be widely useful in assessing the outcome of gene therapy trials. (blood. 2010; 115(22): 4356-4366)" +dynamics of gene-modified progenitor cells analyzed by tracking retroviral integration sites in a human scid-x1 gene therapy trial,NA,BLOOD,WANG GP;BERRY CC;MALANI N;LEBOULCH P;FISCHER A;HACEIN BEY ABINA S;CAVAZZANA CALVO M;BUSHMAN FD,"x-linked severe-combined immunodeficiency (scid-x1) has been treated by therapeutic gene transfer using gamma-retroviral vectors, but insertional activation of proto-oncogenes contributed to leukemia in some patients. here we report a longitudinal study of gene-corrected progenitor cell populations from 8 patients using 454 pyrosequencing to map vector integration sites, and extensive resampling to allow quantification of clonal abundance. the number of transduced cells infused into patients initially predicted the subsequent diversity of circulating cells. a capture-recapture analysis was used to estimate the size of the gene-corrected cell pool, revealing that less than 1/100th of the infused cells had long-term repopulating activity. integration sites were clustered even at early time points, often near genes involved in growth control, and several patients harbored expanded cell clones with vectors integrated near the cancer-implicated genes ccnd2 and hmga2, but remain healthy. integration site tracking also documented that chemotherapy for adverse events resulted in successful control. the longitudinal analysis emphasizes that key features of transduced cell populations-including diversity, integration site clustering, and expansion of some clones-were established early after transplantation. the approaches to sequencing and bioinformatics analysis reported here should be widely useful in assessing the outcome of gene therapy trials. (blood. 2010; 115(22): 4356-4366)" species diversity and population dynamics of rodents in a farm-fallow field mosaic system in central tanzania,population dynamics; rodents; species diversity; tanzania,AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,MAKUNDI RH;MASSAWE AW;MULUNGU LS;KATAKWEBA A,"a capture-mark-recapture study was undertaken in central tanzania to compare variations in community structure and population dynamics of rodents in two types of habitats. the study was conducted in fallow field mosaic habitat dominated by perennial and annual grasses (grid bea) and a more heterogeneous habitat (grid beb) which was previously woodland cleared of most trees with vegetation dominated by shrubs, bushes, scattered trees and perennial grass. the relative abundance of rodents in bea was: mastomys natalensis (73.5%) > aethomys chrysophilus (8.9%) > gerbilliscus vicina (7.3%) > arvicanthis neumanni (6.1%) > acomys spinosissimus (4.1%) and for grid beb: m. natalensis (67.6%) > g. vicina (11.2%) > a. neumanni (10.3%) > a. chrysophilus (7.6%) > a. spinosissimus (2.9%). graphiurus sp., mus minutoides, saccostomus mearnsi, lemniscomys striatus and l. griselda were rare and only occasionally trapped in beb. spatial variations in population density were non-significant except for a. chrysophilus. significant temporal variations within grids were observed, with synchrony of population peaks for some species. the rare species boosted species richness of grid beb rather artificially, without significantly contributing to higher species diversity. temporal variations in simpson's diversity indices between grids were non-significant except for three out of twenty-one trapping sessions." dynamics of extinction of a small population of the three-spined stickleback (gasterosteus aculeatus l) caused by habitat modification,stickleback; habitat destruction; extinction vortex; abundance; length distribution; condition; backwater,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,WOOTTON RJ,"1. abundance of a population of three-spined stickleback, gasterosteus aculeatus l., in a small backwater of afon rheidol in mid-wales (uk) was estimated annually each october from 1972 to 1999 by mark-recapture. 2. the population became extinct in 2000, because of land-use changes in 1995, which modified the drainage pattern through the backwater, causing the backwater to eventually dry up. 3. the final decline to extinction started from an estimated abundance of 1550 in 1998 and the abundance in 1999, the year before extinction, was 85. the smallest abundance from which the population showed an increase was 670. 4. two years before extinction (1998), the population was characterized by an anomalously high proportion of small fish. 5. there was a significant power relationship between the years to extinction and population size, but if the data were analysed in two periods, 1972-1989 and 1990-1999, the relationship was only significant for the second period. 6. there was no relationship between time to extinction and per capita annual rate of increase (k), although values of k were unusually low in the last two years before extinction. 7. time to extinction was not related to mean length, mean mass or the condition of the fish. 8. the results suggest that the indicators of impending extinction may vary with the causes of extinction and may be ambiguous, even when a long time-series of demographic data is available. copyrightr (c) 2010 john wiley & sons, ltd." "timing and condition-related effects on recapture probability, mass change and stopover length of spring migrating songbirds on a small mediterranean island",mass gain; mediterranean sea; passerine; recapture probability; spring migration; stopover,ARDEOLA,TENAN S;SPINA F,"timing and condition-related effects on recapture probability, mass change and stopover length of spring migrating songbirds on a small mediterranean island. we investigated, at the intra-specific level, the effects of variables such as physical condition, time, date and year of first capture, on the recapture probability, on the probability of improving physical condition during stopover and on the minimum stopover length. over 61,000 records from 14 species have been used, composed of capture/recapture collected in a period of seven years. the probability of a bird being retrapped increased for those individuals initially trapped later in the clay and with a lower physical condition. also, the probability of improving energetic condition, during a stopover of at least two days, increased with worse energetic conditions at first capture. a longer stopover would allow improvement of the initial condition, even in the case of a small mediterranean island with limited food resources. this might offer an opportunity for migrants to avoid situations of unbearable physical stress after the demanding crossing of the sahara and mediterranean." @@ -4430,8 +4438,8 @@ assessing spatial and temporal population dynamics of cryptic species: an exampl seeking a second opinion: uncertainty in disease ecology,host and pathogen dynamics; imperfect detection; incidence; misclassification; observation error; occupancy; presence-absence; prevalence; spatial epidemiology; species occurrence,ECOLOGY LETTERS,MCCLINTOCK BT;NICHOLS JD;BAILEY LL;MACKENZIE DI;KENDALL WL;FRANKLIN AB,"analytical methods accounting for imperfect detection are often used to facilitate reliable inference in population and community ecology. we contend that similar approaches are needed in disease ecology because these complicated systems are inherently difficult to observe without error. for example, wildlife disease studies often designate individuals, populations, or spatial units to states (e.g., susceptible, infected, post-infected), but the uncertainty associated with these state assignments remains largely ignored or unaccounted for. we demonstrate how recent developments incorporating observation error through repeated sampling extend quite naturally to hierarchical spatial models of disease effects, prevalence, and dynamics in natural systems. a highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza virus in migratory waterfowl and a pathogenic fungus recently implicated in the global loss of amphibian biodiversity are used as motivating examples. both show that relatively simple modifications to study designs can greatly improve our understanding of complex spatio-temporal disease dynamics by rigorously accounting for uncertainty at each level of the hierarchy." seeing the forest through the trees: differential dispersal of hylobius warreni within modified forest habitats,hylobius warreni; mark-recapture; mark-release; dispersal; matrix habitat,ENVIRONMENTAL ENTOMOLOGY,KLINGENBERG MD;BJORKLUND N;AUKEMA BH,"hylobius warreni wood, also known as the warren root collar weevil, is a flightless insect that feeds on conifers throughout the boreal forests of canada. mature trees typically can withstand feeding, but larval feeding around the root collar may cause mortality to young trees. recently, a large outbreak of mountain pine beetle (dendroctonus ponderosae hopkins) has killed a high proportion of mature lodgepole pine (pinus contorta douglas variety latifolia) across british columbia, canada. this raises concerns that adult weevils may migrate from mature forests with reduced host pools into adjacent young forests that had been salvaged and replanted. to study movement of these walking weevils in different habitat types, we constructed three research plots consisting of various combinations of live-, dead-, and mixed (i.e., live and dead) -tree habitats. we observed dispersal patterns of individually labeled insects using a novel insect trap attached to the base of trees. approximately 35% of insects were recaptured over 1 mo. weevils were least likely to be recaptured proximate to the release location when released in a habitat with dead trees. movement rates therein were almost double the rates of insects moving through live- or mixed-tree habitats. our findings support the hypothesis that h. warreni may disperse out of habitats with dead trees into areas with higher proportions of green trees. our findings are discussed in the context of habitat discrimination and potential increases in herbivory by h. warreni in western canada given salvage harvesting activities after outbreaks of mountain pine beetle." spatiotemporal variation in linear natural selection on body color in wild guppies (poecilia reticulata),adaptive divergence; linear selection; mark-recapture; predation; selection differential; selection gradient,EVOLUTION,WEESE DJ;GORDON SP;HENDRY AP;KINNISON MT,"we conducted 10 mark-recapture experiments in natural populations of trinidadian guppies to test hypotheses concerning the role of viability selection in geographic patterns of male color variation. previous work has reported that male guppies are more colorful in low-predation sites than in high-predation sites. this pattern of phenotypic variation has been theorized to reflect differences in the balance between natural (viability) selection that disfavors bright male color (owing to predation) and sexual selection that favors bright color (owing to female choice). our results support the prediction that male color is disfavored by viability selection in both predation regimes. however, it does not support the prediction that viability selection against male color is weaker in low-predation experiments. instead, some of the most intense bouts of selection against color occurred in low-predation experiments. our results illustrate considerable spatiotemporal variation in selection among experiments, but such variation was not generally correlated with local patterns of color diversity. more complex selective interactions, possibly including the indirect effects of predators on variation in mating behavior, as well as other environmental factors, might be required to more fully explain patterns of secondary sexual trait variation in this system." -long-term survival effect of corticosterone manipulation in black-legged kittiwakes,glucocorticoids; mortality; long-lived seabirds; rissa tridactyla,GENERAL AND COMPARATIVE ENDOCRINOLOGY,GOUTTE A;ANGELIER F;WELCKER J;MOE B;CLEMENT-CHASTEL C;GABRIELSEN GW;BECH C;CHASTEL O,"the secretion of corticosterone in response to stress is thought to be an adaptive mechanism, which promotes immediate survival at the expense of current reproduction. however, at the individual level, the hypothesis of a corticosterone-related survival appears to be complex. in this study, we tested this hypothesis by combining for the first time an experimental manipulation of corticosterone levels and capture-mark-recapture (cmr) models. to do so, we increased corticosterone levels of chick-rearing black-legged kittiwakes (rissa tridactyla) via subcutaneous implants. then, we monitored the long-term survival of kittiwakes over the 2 consecutive years. corticosterone-implanted birds showed a significantly lower apparent annual survival than sham-implanted ones (46.9% vs 77.8%). this result is supported by the well-known deleterious effects of elevated corticosterone levels on cognitive and immune functions. alternately and in the light of recent studies, our experimental manipulation may have down-regulated the endogenous secretion of corticosterone through a prolonged negative feedback if so, the corticosterone-implanted kittiwakes may have failed to trigger an appropriate stress response during subsequent life-threatening perturbations, hence being unable to adjust their behavior and physiology toward immediate survival. this study highlights the complex long-term consequences of corticosterone manipulation on fitness in free-living vertebrates. (c) 2010 elsevier inc. all rights reserved." -estimating tuberculosis case detection rate in resource-limited countries: a capture-recapture study in egypt,tuberculosis; surveillance; record linkage; capture-recapture analysis; resource-limited,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TUBERCULOSIS AND LUNG DISEASE,BASSILI A;GRANT AD;EI-MOHGAZY E;GALAL A;GLAZIOU P;SEITA A;ABUBAKAR I;BIERRENBACH AL;CROFTS JP;VAN HEST NA,"setting: most countries endemic and highly endemic for tuberculosis (tb) still do not have reliable tb surveillance systems. indirect estimation of tb incidence is needed to monitor the performance of the national tuberculosis programme (ntp) in the context of the world health organization implementation and impact targets for tb control. objective: to estimate the case detection rate (cdr) of all tb cases and sputum smear-positive tb cases in egypt in 2007. methods: record linkage and three-source capturere-capture analysis of data collected through active prospective longitudinal surveillance within the public and private non-ntp sector in four egyptian governorates selected by stratified cluster random sampling. results: for all tb cases, the estimated cdr of ntpsurveillance and completeness of case ascertainment after record linkage was respectively 55% (95%ci 46-68) and 62% (95%ci 52-77). for sputum smear-positive tb cases, these proportions were respectively 66% (95%ci 55-75) and 72% (95%ci 60-82). conclusion: this pilot study shows that representative sampling, prospective surveillance in the non-ntp sector, record linkage and capture-recapture analysis can improve cdr estimation. for global, standardised and reliable use, this methodology should be further developed. until then, all resource-limited countries should strengthen their national surveillance systems in the context of the stop tb strategy." +long-term survival effect of corticosterone manipulation in black-legged kittiwakes,glucocorticoids; mortality; long-lived seabirds; rissa tridactyla,GENERAL AND COMPARATIVE ENDOCRINOLOGY,GOUTTE A;ANGELIER F;WELCKER J;MOE B;CLEMENT CHASTEL C;GABRIELSEN GW;BECH C;CHASTEL O,"the secretion of corticosterone in response to stress is thought to be an adaptive mechanism, which promotes immediate survival at the expense of current reproduction. however, at the individual level, the hypothesis of a corticosterone-related survival appears to be complex. in this study, we tested this hypothesis by combining for the first time an experimental manipulation of corticosterone levels and capture-mark-recapture (cmr) models. to do so, we increased corticosterone levels of chick-rearing black-legged kittiwakes (rissa tridactyla) via subcutaneous implants. then, we monitored the long-term survival of kittiwakes over the 2 consecutive years. corticosterone-implanted birds showed a significantly lower apparent annual survival than sham-implanted ones (46.9% vs 77.8%). this result is supported by the well-known deleterious effects of elevated corticosterone levels on cognitive and immune functions. alternately and in the light of recent studies, our experimental manipulation may have down-regulated the endogenous secretion of corticosterone through a prolonged negative feedback if so, the corticosterone-implanted kittiwakes may have failed to trigger an appropriate stress response during subsequent life-threatening perturbations, hence being unable to adjust their behavior and physiology toward immediate survival. this study highlights the complex long-term consequences of corticosterone manipulation on fitness in free-living vertebrates. (c) 2010 elsevier inc. all rights reserved." +estimating tuberculosis case detection rate in resource-limited countries: a capture-recapture study in egypt,tuberculosis; surveillance; record linkage; capture-recapture analysis; resource-limited,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TUBERCULOSIS AND LUNG DISEASE,BASSILI A;GRANT AD;EI MOHGAZY E;GALAL A;GLAZIOU P;SEITA A;ABUBAKAR I;BIERRENBACH AL;CROFTS JP;VAN HEST NA,"setting: most countries endemic and highly endemic for tuberculosis (tb) still do not have reliable tb surveillance systems. indirect estimation of tb incidence is needed to monitor the performance of the national tuberculosis programme (ntp) in the context of the world health organization implementation and impact targets for tb control. objective: to estimate the case detection rate (cdr) of all tb cases and sputum smear-positive tb cases in egypt in 2007. methods: record linkage and three-source capturere-capture analysis of data collected through active prospective longitudinal surveillance within the public and private non-ntp sector in four egyptian governorates selected by stratified cluster random sampling. results: for all tb cases, the estimated cdr of ntpsurveillance and completeness of case ascertainment after record linkage was respectively 55% (95%ci 46-68) and 62% (95%ci 52-77). for sputum smear-positive tb cases, these proportions were respectively 66% (95%ci 55-75) and 72% (95%ci 60-82). conclusion: this pilot study shows that representative sampling, prospective surveillance in the non-ntp sector, record linkage and capture-recapture analysis can improve cdr estimation. for global, standardised and reliable use, this methodology should be further developed. until then, all resource-limited countries should strengthen their national surveillance systems in the context of the stop tb strategy." a measurement error model for heterogeneous capture probabilities in mark-recapture experiments: an estimating equation approach,horvitz-thompson; mark-recapture; measurement error; population size,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,HUGGINS R;HWANG WH,"logistic models for capture probabilities that depend on covariates are effective if the covariates can be measured exactly. if there is measurement error so that a surrogate for the covariate is observed rather than the covariate itself, simple adjustments may be made if the parameters of joint distribution of the covariate and the surrogate are known. here we consider the case when a surrogate is observed whenever an individual is captured and the parameters must also be estimated from the data. an estimating equation regression calibration approach is developed and it is illustrated on a real dataset where the surrogate is an individual bird's wing-length, which varies from occasion to occasion. this article has supplementary material online." improving estimates of abundance by aggregating sparse capture-recapture data,abundance estimation; data aggregation; mark-recapture; program capture; program mark; population parameters,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,LITT AR;STEIDL RJ,"inferences about abundance often are based on unadjusted counts of individuals observed, in part, because of the large amount of data required to generate reliable estimates of abundance. where capture-recapture data are sparse, aggregating data across multiple sample elements by pooling species, locations, and sampling periods increases the information available for modeling detection probability, a necessary step for estimating abundance reliably. the process of aggregating sample elements involves balancing trade-offs related to the number of aggregated elements; although larger aggregates increase the amount of information available for estimation, they often require more complex models. we describe a heuristic approach for aggregating data for studies with multiple sample elements, use simulated data to evaluate the efficacy of aggregation, and illustrate the approach using data from a field study. aggregating data systematically improved reliability of model selection and increased accuracy of abundance estimates while still providing estimates of abundance for each original sample unit, an important benefit necessary to maintain the design and sampling structure of a study. within the framework of capture-recapture sampling, aggregating data improves estimates of abundance and increases the reliability of subsequent inferences made from sparse data. additional tables and datasets may be found in the online supplements." estimating population growth rate from capture-recapture data in presence of capture heterogeneity,coefficient of proportionality; losses on capture; maximum likelihood; mixture models; multinomial models; peromyscus maniculatus,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,PRADEL R;CHOQUET R;LIMA M;MERRITT J;CRESPIN L,"the direct estimation and modeling of population growth rate from capture-recapture data has now seen a number of applications. however, the original model cannot accommodate heterogeneous capture probabilities. while studying a population of small mammals peromyscus maniculatus, we became concerned that the peak of population size may be estimated too late in the year because of heterogeneous catchability. hence, we developed a variation of the original model with a finite number of catchability classes. the results obtained with the new model are more in agreement with the known biology of this population. a bibliographic appendix and computer code are available online." @@ -4448,31 +4456,31 @@ ecological coexistence of low-density populations of apodemus sylvaticus and a. some general comparative points on chao's and zelterman's estimators of the population size,capture-recapture approach; chao's lower-bound estimator; modified zelterman estimator; zelterman's estimator,SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF STATISTICS,BOHNING D,"two simple and frequently used capture-recapture estimates of the population size are compared: chao's lower-bound estimate and zelterman's estimate allowing for contaminated distributions. in the poisson case it is shown that if there are only counts of ones and twos, the estimator of zelterman is always bounded above by chao's estimator. if counts larger than two exist, the estimator of zelterman is becoming larger than that of chao's, if only the ratio of the frequencies of counts of twos and ones is small enough. a similar analysis is provided for the binomial case. for a two-component mixture of poisson distributions the asymptotic bias of both estimators is derived and it is shown that the zelterman estimator can experience large overestimation bias. a modified zelterman estimator is suggested and also the bias-corrected version of chao's estimator is considered. all four estimators are compared in a simulation study." interregional breeding dispersal of adult roseate terns,breeding dispersal; buzzards bay; intercolony movement; maine; massachusetts; petit manan island; philopatry; roseate tern; sterna dougallii; stratton island,WATERBIRDS,SPENDELOW JA;MOSTELLO CS;NISBET ICT;HALL CS;WELCH L,"long-distance breeding dispersal is infrequent among seabirds and has rarely been quantified. six adult roseate terns (sterna dougallii) that had bred at colony sites in buzzards bay, massachusetts, usa from 20042006 switched regions and moved 200-400 km to two colony sites in maine between 2005 and 2007. two of the emigrants presumably had nested for at least eight years in massachusetts before moving to maine, demonstrating that even long-time philopatric residents of one region may switch to another region. received 6 october 2009, accepted 25 february 2010." hunting impact on the population dynamics of pyrenean grey partridge perdix perdix hispaniensis,cause-specific mortality; demography; grey partridge; perdix perdix hispaniensis; population growth rate; radio-tracking; recruitment; survival,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,BESNARD A;NOVOA C;GIMENEZ O,"the grey partridge perdix perdix used to be a common and widespread species throughout the temperate zone of western eurasia, but its populations have markedly declined in most parts of its native range since the 1950s. the pyrenean subspecies p. p. hispaniensis is threatened by alteration of its habitat, and despite ecological and hunting interest in this subspecies, the impact of harvest on population sustainability remains largely unknown. we assessed mortality of pyrenean grey partridge and its influence on the population growth rate during 1992-2001 in the french pyrenees. cause-specific mortality rates were estimated using multistate capture-recapture models based on fates of 67 radio-equipped birds. annual recruitment was estimated as the ratio of juvenile birds to adult birds in harvested samples. mammalian predators and raptors were each responsible for a 5% monthly mortality rate. at the peak of hunting activity (i.e. october), hunting was responsible for a 30% mortality rate in some years. modeled population growth rates appeared stable without hunting but negative with hunting. the estimated difference in population growth rates under the two regimes was 0.46. our estimates of population growth suggest that the population was decreasing during our study, whereas it appeared stable based on ground counts. we discuss this discrepancy and proposed management actions." -"what is the spatial unit for a wintering teal anas crecca? weekly day roost fidelity inferred from nasal saddles in the camargue, southern france",anas crecca; capture-mark-recapture; nasal saddles; roost fidelity; teal; transience,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,GUILLEMAIN M;DEVINEAU O;BROCHET AL;FUSTER J;FRITZ H;GREEN AJ;GAUTHIER-CLERC M,"dabbling ducks generally use distinct day roost and nocturnal habitats, the set of which constitute their 'functional unit'. the rate at which these birds may switch between day roosts has never been quantified. using resightings of nasal-saddled birds and capture-recapture modelling in the camargue, southern france, we estimated the weekly probability that a teal anas crecca switches from one day roost to another one nearby (transition probabilities). we also estimated the probability that a teal survives and remains in our study area, consisting of four neighbouring roosts (apparent survival). birds were highly faithful to one specific water body if they remained in our study area (i.e. weekly rate of switching between roosts was only about 2-6%), but the probability that an individual remained within one of the four roosts from one week to the next (local weekly apparent survival rate) was only 60-70%. intensive search efforts led to a 60% detection probability. low local apparent survival coupled with very high site fidelity within the system suggests that two distinct strategies may coexist, i.e. frequent movement between distant winter quarters vs very high fidelity to the very same local wetland. such strategies may be used successively by the same individuals, or may alternatively represent distinct bird categories (i.e. transients vs residents). in any case, these different strategies suggest that habitat management procedures need to be considered at both local and flyway scales simultaneously. the former may ensure that sites repeatedly used by the same individuals can provide adequate conditions to birds when they remain in a given winter quarter, while the latter will ensure transient birds find appropriate sites within the network of distant wetlands they may use as successive wintering quarters during a season." +"what is the spatial unit for a wintering teal anas crecca? weekly day roost fidelity inferred from nasal saddles in the camargue, southern france",anas crecca; capture-mark-recapture; nasal saddles; roost fidelity; teal; transience,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,GUILLEMAIN M;DEVINEAU O;BROCHET AL;FUSTER J;FRITZ H;GREEN AJ;GAUTHIER CLERC M,"dabbling ducks generally use distinct day roost and nocturnal habitats, the set of which constitute their 'functional unit'. the rate at which these birds may switch between day roosts has never been quantified. using resightings of nasal-saddled birds and capture-recapture modelling in the camargue, southern france, we estimated the weekly probability that a teal anas crecca switches from one day roost to another one nearby (transition probabilities). we also estimated the probability that a teal survives and remains in our study area, consisting of four neighbouring roosts (apparent survival). birds were highly faithful to one specific water body if they remained in our study area (i.e. weekly rate of switching between roosts was only about 2-6%), but the probability that an individual remained within one of the four roosts from one week to the next (local weekly apparent survival rate) was only 60-70%. intensive search efforts led to a 60% detection probability. low local apparent survival coupled with very high site fidelity within the system suggests that two distinct strategies may coexist, i.e. frequent movement between distant winter quarters vs very high fidelity to the very same local wetland. such strategies may be used successively by the same individuals, or may alternatively represent distinct bird categories (i.e. transients vs residents). in any case, these different strategies suggest that habitat management procedures need to be considered at both local and flyway scales simultaneously. the former may ensure that sites repeatedly used by the same individuals can provide adequate conditions to birds when they remain in a given winter quarter, while the latter will ensure transient birds find appropriate sites within the network of distant wetlands they may use as successive wintering quarters during a season." on the estimation of disease prevalence by latent class models for screening studies using two screening tests with categorical disease status verified in test positives only,maximum likelihood; bayesian inference; diagnostic test; dependence; screening; latent class models,STATISTICS IN MEDICINE,CHU HT;ZHOU YJ;COLE SR;IBRAHIM JG,"to evaluate the probabilities of a disease state, ideally all subjects in a study should be diagnosed by a definitive diagnostic or gold standard test. however, since definitive diagnostic tests are often invasive and expensive, it is generally unethical to apply them to subjects whose screening tests are negative. in this article, we consider latent class models for screening studies with two imperfect binary diagnostic tests and a definitive categorical disease status measured only for those with at least one positive screening test. specifically, we discuss a conditional-independent and three homogeneous conditional-dependent latent class models and assess the impact of misspecification of the dependence structure on the estimation of disease category probabilities using frequentist and bayesian approaches. interestingly, the three homogeneous-dependent models can provide identical goodness-of-fit but substantively different estimates for a given study. however, the parametric form of the assumed dependence structure itself is not 'testable' from the data, and thus the dependence structure modeling considered here can only be viewed as a sensitivity analysis concerning a more complicated non-identifiable model potentially involving a heterogeneous dependence structure. furthermore, we discuss bayesian model averaging together with its limitations as an alternative way to partially address this particularly challenging problem. the methods are applied to two cancer screening studies, and simulations are conducted to evaluate the performance of these methods. in summary, further research is needed to reduce the impact of model misspecification on the estimation of disease prevalence in such settings. copyright (c) 2010 john wiley & sons, ltd." -"condition and phenotype-dependent dispersal in a damselfly, calopteryx splendens",NA,PLOS ONE,CHAPUT-BARDY A;GREGOIRE A;BAGUETTE M;PAGANO A;SECONDI J,"individual dispersal decisions may be affected by the internal state of the individual and the external information of its current environment. here we estimated the influence of dispersal on survival and investigated if individual phenotype (sex and wing length) and environmental condition (conspecific density and sex-ratio) affected dispersal decisions in the banded damselfly, calopteryx splendens. as suspected from the literature, we showed that the proportion of dispersing individuals was higher in females than in males. we also found negative-density dependent dispersal in both sexes and influence of sex-ratio on dispersal. individuals moved less when sex-ratio was male biased. these results are consistent with a lek mating system where males aggregate in a place and hold mating territories. contrary to our expectations, neither dispersal nor survival was affected by wing length. nevertheless, mean adult survival was about 8% lower in dispersing individuals than in residents. this might reflect a mortality cost due to dispersal." +"condition and phenotype-dependent dispersal in a damselfly, calopteryx splendens",NA,PLOS ONE,CHAPUT BARDY A;GREGOIRE A;BAGUETTE M;PAGANO A;SECONDI J,"individual dispersal decisions may be affected by the internal state of the individual and the external information of its current environment. here we estimated the influence of dispersal on survival and investigated if individual phenotype (sex and wing length) and environmental condition (conspecific density and sex-ratio) affected dispersal decisions in the banded damselfly, calopteryx splendens. as suspected from the literature, we showed that the proportion of dispersing individuals was higher in females than in males. we also found negative-density dependent dispersal in both sexes and influence of sex-ratio on dispersal. individuals moved less when sex-ratio was male biased. these results are consistent with a lek mating system where males aggregate in a place and hold mating territories. contrary to our expectations, neither dispersal nor survival was affected by wing length. nevertheless, mean adult survival was about 8% lower in dispersing individuals than in residents. this might reflect a mortality cost due to dispersal." "prospective, national clinical and epidemiologic study on imported childhood malaria in the united kingdom and the republic of ireland",incidence; p. falciparum; risk factors; severe malaria; treatment,PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASE JOURNAL,LADHANI S;GARBASH M;WHITTY CJM;CHIODINI PL;AIBARA RJ;RIORDAN FAI;SHINGADIA D,"background: current knowledge of clinical features of imported childhood malaria is largely limited to small, retrospective, and/or single-center case series. this prospective, population-based study describes the epidemiology and clinical features of imported childhood malaria in children <16 years in the united kingdom and republic of ireland. methods: active prospective national surveillance with clinical data collection was performed between january 1, 2006 and january 31, 2007 through the british pediatric surveillance unit and capture-recapture analysis using cases reported independently to respective national surveillance centers. results: there were 290 cases, including 186 reported through the british pediatric surveillance unit with clinical details. capture-recapture analysis estimated the burden of imported childhood malaria to be 2.8/100,000 per year for the united kingdom and 4.6/100,000 per year for ireland. black-african children born in the united kingdom and ireland and traveling to west africa during school holidays without antimalarial prophylaxis accounted for the majority of cases. thirty of 117 children (26%) who had traveled to a malaria-endemic country had previously been diagnosed with malaria, reflecting missed opportunities to educate families on malaria prevention. a third of children (46/148) with plasmodium falciparum malaria fulfilled world health organization criteria for severe or potentially complicated malaria, although only 11/46 (24%) required intensive care. the choice of antimalarials varied considerably among hospitals and within the same hospital. however, recrudescence occurred in only 1 child and none died. conclusions: interventions to prevent imported childhood malaria should focus on black-african families traveling to west africa, while pediatricians should be offered clearer guidance on the treatment of childhood malaria." estimation of the dispersal ability of melanotus okinawensis (coleoptera: elateridae) larvae in soil,wireworm; bait trap; rice seed; mortality; diffusion coefficient,APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY AND ZOOLOGY,ARAKAKI N;HOKAMA Y;YAMAMURA K,the dispersal distance of the larvae of the sugarcane click beetle melanotus okinawensis ohira (coleoptera: elateridae) in soil was estimated using the mark-recapture method. grid lines with 30-cm intervals were set 10 x 10 in a fallow field after sugarcane harvest. sixty marked larvae were released twice at the center of the grid. the tip of the corneous process on the last abdominal segment was cut and used for marking. germinating rice seed baits were placed at the 10 x 10 intersection points of grid lines at a depth of 10 cm in order to recapture larvae. all traps were examined at two-day intervals. the estimate of lifetime natural mean dispersal distance (+/- se) was 105.6 (+/- 20.1) cm. the estimate of the natural survival rate per day was 0.861. the diffusion coefficient was estimated to be 613. influence of irradiation on dispersal ability and survival rate in the sugarcane click beetle melanotus okinawensis ohira (coleoptera: elateridae),sterile insect; gamma radiation; mark-recapture,APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY AND ZOOLOGY,ARAKAKI N;NAGAYAMA A;KISHITA M;NAKAMOTO Y;SOKEI Y;YAMAMURA K,"in estimating the population abundance by the mark-recapture method using male-attractant pheromone traps, the release of sterile males is preferable, because they do not increase the reproductive rate of wild females by increasing the mating rate. we estimated the influence of gamma radiation on males of the sugarcane click beetle melanotus okinawensis ohira (coleoptera: elateridae) to determine an appropriate dose of gamma radiation in laboratory and field experiments. the hatchability of eggs was examined for 0, 50, 70, 90, and 150 gy. no hatchings were observed in eggs laid by females which mated with males treated with doses of 70, 90 and 150 gy. the longevity of adults in the laboratory was estimated with 0, 30, 50, 70, 90, 150, and 200 gy. analysis by the proportional hazard model indicated that irradiation significantly reduces the survival rate in the laboratory even if the dose is 30 gy. mean dispersal distance in the field was estimated with 0, 50, 90, and 150 gy. three hundred marked beetles for each dose were released at the center of ikei island on 1 and 3 april 2003. the estimates were 274, 219, 192, and 289 m, respectively, and we could not detect a significant influence of irradiation on the mean dispersal distance. field survival rates were estimated using jolly-seber, yamamura, and yamamura b methods at okinawa prefectural experiment station in naha for two doses of irradiation, 0 and 90 gy; we could not detect significant differences between the two survival rates. the mortality added in the field was estimated to be much greater than the mortality caused by irradiation when we focus on the experiment within 12 days after release, if the dose of irradiation is lower than 90 gy. it was therefore concluded that 90 gy will be an appropriate dose for preparing sterile males to estimate population abundance and survival rate in the field within 12 days after release." "how has the remnant population of the threatened frog leiopelma pakeka (anura: leiopelmatidae) fared on maud island, new zealand, over the past 25 years?",anura; capture-recapture; conservation; demography; modelling,AUSTRAL ECOLOGY,BELL BD;PLEDGER SA,"despite widespread global reports of declining amphibian populations, supporting long-term census data are few, limiting opportunities to study changes in numbers and survival over time. however, in new zealand, for the past 25 years (1983-2008), we studied leiopelma pakeka, a threatened, terrestrial frog that inhabits rocky boulder banks under forest on maud island. using night sampling at least annually on two 12 x 12 m plots, we had 5390 captures of 1000+ individuals, 327 on one plot (grid 1), 751 on the other (grid 2). the mean (+/- se) number of frogs found per night was 11.3 (+/- 0.6) on grid 1 and 25.6 (+/- 1.4) on grid 2. we used capture-recapture models to estimate population size, proportion of animals remaining beneath the surface and survival rate. the mean (+/- se) population estimate was 131 (+/- 14.7) frogs on grid 1 and 367 (+/- 38.7) on grid 2. over 25 years the estimated population increased on grid 1 and fluctuated on grid 2. some frogs were captured on most sampling visits, others less often, evidently failing to emerge from cover each visit. using a combination of open and closed population models, we estimated the mean (+/- se) proportion remaining underground was 0.63 (+/- 0.12) on grid 1 and 0.53 (+/- 0.07) on grid 2. our research represents one of the longest-run population studies of any frog, and we recorded significant longevity, two males reaching 35+ and 37+ years, a female 34+ years. no significant differences occurred between mean annual survival rates of apparent females and males, or between the two sites. the number of toes clipped for individual identification had little influence on the return rate, once the effect of time of first capture was removed." -offspring sex ratios reflect lack of repayment by auxiliary males in a cooperatively breeding passerine,cooperative breeding; malurus melanocephalus; local competition; offspring sex ratios; red-backed fairy-wren; repayment hypothesis,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY,VARIAN-RAMOS CW;KARUBIAN J;TALBOTT V;TAPIA I;WEBSTER MS,"the repayment hypothesis posits that primary sex ratios in cooperative species should be biased towards the helping sex because these offspring ""repay"" a portion of their cost through helping behavior and therefore are less expensive to produce. however, many cooperatively breeding birds and mammals do not show the predicted bias in the primary sex ratio. recent theoretical work has suggested that the repayment hypothesis should only hold when females gain a large fitness advantage from the presence of auxiliary adults in the group. when auxiliaries provide little or no fitness advantage, competition between relatives should lead to sex ratios biased towards the dispersing (non-helping) sex. we examined the benefits auxiliaries provide to females and corresponding offspring sex ratios in the red-backed fairy-wren (malurus melanocephalus), a cooperatively breeding australian bird with male auxiliary helpers. we found that auxiliaries provide little or no benefit to female reproductive success or survival. as predicted, the population primary sex ratio was biased towards daughters, the dispersing sex, and females with auxiliaries produced female-biased broods whereas females without auxiliaries produced unbiased broods. moreover, offspring sex ratios were more strongly biased toward females in years when auxiliaries were more common in the population. these results suggest that offspring sex ratios are associated with competition among the non-dispersing sex in this species, and also that females may use cues to assess local breeding opportunities for their offspring." +offspring sex ratios reflect lack of repayment by auxiliary males in a cooperatively breeding passerine,cooperative breeding; malurus melanocephalus; local competition; offspring sex ratios; red-backed fairy-wren; repayment hypothesis,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY,VARIAN RAMOS CW;KARUBIAN J;TALBOTT V;TAPIA I;WEBSTER MS,"the repayment hypothesis posits that primary sex ratios in cooperative species should be biased towards the helping sex because these offspring ""repay"" a portion of their cost through helping behavior and therefore are less expensive to produce. however, many cooperatively breeding birds and mammals do not show the predicted bias in the primary sex ratio. recent theoretical work has suggested that the repayment hypothesis should only hold when females gain a large fitness advantage from the presence of auxiliary adults in the group. when auxiliaries provide little or no fitness advantage, competition between relatives should lead to sex ratios biased towards the dispersing (non-helping) sex. we examined the benefits auxiliaries provide to females and corresponding offspring sex ratios in the red-backed fairy-wren (malurus melanocephalus), a cooperatively breeding australian bird with male auxiliary helpers. we found that auxiliaries provide little or no benefit to female reproductive success or survival. as predicted, the population primary sex ratio was biased towards daughters, the dispersing sex, and females with auxiliaries produced female-biased broods whereas females without auxiliaries produced unbiased broods. moreover, offspring sex ratios were more strongly biased toward females in years when auxiliaries were more common in the population. these results suggest that offspring sex ratios are associated with competition among the non-dispersing sex in this species, and also that females may use cues to assess local breeding opportunities for their offspring." "decline and likely extinction of a northern australian native rodent, the brush-tailed rabbit-rat conilurus penicillatus",capture-mark-recapture (cmr); threatened species; fire management; population viability analysis (pva); survival,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,FIRTH RSC;BROOK BW;WOINARSKI JCZ;FORDHAM DA,"contemporary fire patterns are considered the most likely cause for regional population decline amongst small to medium mammals in northern tropical australia. here we assess the extinction risk faced by a vulnerable north australian native rodent, the brush-tailed rabbit-rat conilurus penicillatus in relation to fire frequency. this species has recently suffered a significant contraction in range. we provide the first quantitative evidence to demonstrate the immediate threat destructive wildfires and regular annual fire pose to the long-term population persistence of c. penicillatus. we show that late-dry season fires cause a reduction in both juvenile and adult survival probabilities. however, abundance declined at the unburnt as well as a frequently burnt site, suggesting that fire exclusion alone does not guarantee the species' long-term persistence. our model projections indicate that the remaining populations of c. penicillatus on the northern territory mainland risk extirpation within the next ten years. conservation requires decisive management action to ameliorate extensive and destructive fires. a multi-faceted management plan needs to focus on restoring a fire management regime which generates a fine-scale mosaic of burnt and unburnt habitat, and the release of captive bred animals into fenced reserves free of exotic predators. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -population ecology of the riparian frog eleutherodactylus cuneatus in cuba,anurans; diel activity; growth; habitat use; mark-recapture; population dynamics,BIOTROPICA,FONG A;HERO JM;VINA R;BIGNOTTE-GIRO I,"a population of the poorly known riparian frog eleutherodactylus cuneatus was studied for 1 yr along a mountain stream in eastern cuba. we examined population structure, seasonal and daily activity, growth, and habitat use using mark-recapture and call-point counts. juveniles were observed during all survey periods with a spike in march. higher numbers of adults were present in may-july, associated with longer day length, warmer temperatures, and the onset of the rainy season. this was coincident with higher calling activity away from the stream, suggesting an increase in both reproductive and nonreproductive activity in the warmer months between may and september. the number of individuals peaked at 2000-2200 h, but high numbers of individuals were visible throughout the night. lower activity levels were observed throughout the day. population size estimates were 84-131 adults and 124-304 juveniles, with averages of 110 and 236 individuals, survival rates were high but capture probabilities were low for a 5-d period in march 2004. growth rate was negatively related to the size of recaptured individuals, although decreases in growth rate were slight. frogs were found either in the water (49.7%), or in the banks and on the ground adjacent to the stream where most individuals were found on the ground under the cover of rocks, leaf litter, or large palm fronds. these results provide baseline knowledge of e. cuneatus population dynamics and ecology needed for a rapid detection of any decline this population may undergo in the future." -behavior and survival of white-tailed deer neonates in two suburban forest preserves,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,PICCOLO BP;VAN DEELEN TR;HOLLIS-ETTER K;ETTER DR;WARNER RE;ANCHOR C,"neonatal survival influences growth of unhunted populations of suburban white-tailed deer (odocoileus virginianus (zimmerman, 1780)). understanding the interaction of habitat and survival may inform conservation efforts and studies of life history of cervids at high density. we chose two forest preserves representative of forests in suburban chicago. we radio-marked 56 neonates (1999-2001) to investigate mortality and habitat use. through 1 july, 21 of 29 (72%) neonates and 6 of 22 (27%) died mostly because of predation by coyotes (canis latrans say, 1823). akaike's information criterion suggested that optimal mark-recapture models of survival contained covariates reflecting differences by preserve and timing chosen to coincide with behavioral change from hiding to accompanying the doe. survival was lower during early parturition (0.26-0.78) relative to the latter part (0.90-0.96). early fawns (hiders) at one site had lower survival (0.26-0.29) than fawns at the other (0.78). lower survival associated with larger home ranges, greater movement, and reduced understory cover, suggesting that hiding cover may mediate fawn survival in the presence of predators. our study demonstrates spatial heterogeneity in population biology of suburban deer and suggests that site-specific differences may influence neonate survival in the face of coyote predation." +population ecology of the riparian frog eleutherodactylus cuneatus in cuba,anurans; diel activity; growth; habitat use; mark-recapture; population dynamics,BIOTROPICA,FONG A;HERO JM;VINA R;BIGNOTTE GIRO I,"a population of the poorly known riparian frog eleutherodactylus cuneatus was studied for 1 yr along a mountain stream in eastern cuba. we examined population structure, seasonal and daily activity, growth, and habitat use using mark-recapture and call-point counts. juveniles were observed during all survey periods with a spike in march. higher numbers of adults were present in may-july, associated with longer day length, warmer temperatures, and the onset of the rainy season. this was coincident with higher calling activity away from the stream, suggesting an increase in both reproductive and nonreproductive activity in the warmer months between may and september. the number of individuals peaked at 2000-2200 h, but high numbers of individuals were visible throughout the night. lower activity levels were observed throughout the day. population size estimates were 84-131 adults and 124-304 juveniles, with averages of 110 and 236 individuals, survival rates were high but capture probabilities were low for a 5-d period in march 2004. growth rate was negatively related to the size of recaptured individuals, although decreases in growth rate were slight. frogs were found either in the water (49.7%), or in the banks and on the ground adjacent to the stream where most individuals were found on the ground under the cover of rocks, leaf litter, or large palm fronds. these results provide baseline knowledge of e. cuneatus population dynamics and ecology needed for a rapid detection of any decline this population may undergo in the future." +behavior and survival of white-tailed deer neonates in two suburban forest preserves,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,PICCOLO BP;VAN DEELEN TR;HOLLIS ETTER K;ETTER DR;WARNER RE;ANCHOR C,"neonatal survival influences growth of unhunted populations of suburban white-tailed deer (odocoileus virginianus (zimmerman, 1780)). understanding the interaction of habitat and survival may inform conservation efforts and studies of life history of cervids at high density. we chose two forest preserves representative of forests in suburban chicago. we radio-marked 56 neonates (1999-2001) to investigate mortality and habitat use. through 1 july, 21 of 29 (72%) neonates and 6 of 22 (27%) died mostly because of predation by coyotes (canis latrans say, 1823). akaike's information criterion suggested that optimal mark-recapture models of survival contained covariates reflecting differences by preserve and timing chosen to coincide with behavioral change from hiding to accompanying the doe. survival was lower during early parturition (0.26-0.78) relative to the latter part (0.90-0.96). early fawns (hiders) at one site had lower survival (0.26-0.29) than fawns at the other (0.78). lower survival associated with larger home ranges, greater movement, and reduced understory cover, suggesting that hiding cover may mediate fawn survival in the presence of predators. our study demonstrates spatial heterogeneity in population biology of suburban deer and suggests that site-specific differences may influence neonate survival in the face of coyote predation." age-specific survival estimates of king eiders derived from satellite telemetry,adult survival; hatch-year survival; king eider; natal philopatry; satellite telemetry; somateria spectabilis,CONDOR,OPPEL S;POWELL AN,"age- and sex-specific survival and dispersal are important components in the dynamics and genetic structure of bird populations. for many avian taxa survival rates at the adult and juvenile life stages differ, but in long-lived species juveniles' survival is logistically challenging to study. we present the first estimates of hatch-year annual survival rates for a sea duck, the king eider (somateria spectabilis), estimated from satellite telemetry. from 2006 to 2008 we equipped pre-fledging king eiders with satellite transmitters on breeding grounds in alaska and estimated annual survival rates during their first 2 years of life with known-fate models. we compared those estimates to survival rates of adults marked in the same area from 2002 to 2008. hatch-year survival varied by season during the first year of life, and model-averaged annual survival rate was 0.67 (95% ci: 0.48-0.80). we did not record any mortality during the second year and were therefore unable to estimate second-year survival rate. adults' survival rate was constant through the year (0.94, 95% ci: 0.86-0.97). no birds appeared to breed during their second summer. while 88% of females with an active transmitter (n=9) returned to their natal area at the age of 2 years, none of the 2-year old males (n=3) did. this pattern indicates that females' natal philopatry is high and suggests that males' higher rates of dispersal may account for sex-specific differences in apparent survival rates of juvenile sea ducks when estimated with mark recapture methods." "a demographic analysis of population responses to the manipulation of adult males in calomys venustus (rodentia, sigmodontinae)",population growth; seniority; sigmodontinae; small mammals; survival,ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH,PRIOTTO J;GOMEZ D;POLOP J,"in many species of mammals, adults play an important role in influencing the survival and/or reproduction of juveniles. adult males could have a negative effect on population density when their absence becomes a limiting factor in female fertilization. we tested the hypotheses that the absence of overwintering males (adult males) reduces the population growth rate through a delay in the onset of reproductive activity of cohort 1 females in calomys venustus populations. the study was carried out in two control and two experimental enclosures (0.25 ha). adult males were removed after their offspring were born. weekly trapping sessions were carried out from spring to autumn. to estimate population growth rates (lambda), apparent survival (i center dot) and seniority probability (gamma) were estimated using capture-mark-recapture models. models were constructed with these two parameters and recapture probability (p) constrained to vary as a function of time, enclosure and/or treatment. we derived estimates of population growth rates through the estimates of i center dot and gamma. the best models for i center dot and gamma did not show a treatment effect. variability between the four enclosures was greater than between control and experimental enclosures. enclosures had different growth rates at the beginning of the study but were equaled at the end. temporal variation in population growth rates was a result of temporal variation of gamma. the two controls showed the highest growth rates earlier in time. the results did not support the hypothesis tested in this study. it seems that the number of overwintering males do not affect the population growth rate." dispersal of four fritillary butterflies within identical landscape,conservation; euphydryas aurinia; melitaea athalia; melitaea diamina; brenthis ino; metapopulation; mobility; population ecology; survival,ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH,FRIC Z;HULA V;KLIMOVA M;ZIMMERMANN K;KONVICKA M,"both species-specific traits and landscape configuration, such as area and connectivity of habitat patches plus the character of uninhabitable matrix, affect animal movements in fragmented landscapes. difficulties with disentangling species-specific and landscape effects have obscured comparisons among species, hindering the understanding of dispersal in metapopulations. to circumvent this complication, we performed a mark-recapture study of four related nymphalid butterflies within identical landscape and in single season. the studied species were three melitaeinae checkerspots (euphydryas aurinia, melitaea athalia, melitaea diamina) and one argynnini fritillary (brenthis ino). applying the virtual migration model revealed that (1) except for mortality within habitat, model parameters differed from those found for the studied species elsewhere; (2) the three melitaeinae species were more akin in movement parameters than the argynnini representative (i.e., b. ino); (3) within melitaeinae, differences between sexes were more prominent than differences among species; (4) melitaeinae males left natal patches more readily than females, while the opposite applied to b. ino; (5) males of m. diamina and both sexes of b. ino exhibited highest values of dispersal mortality; (6) except for females of m. diamina and both sexes of b. ino, immigration and emigration scaled with area in females but not in males. finding (1) demonstrates that geometry of habitat network affects mobility considerably and that transferring dispersal parameters across systems is unwarranted. still, (2-6) demonstrate that within identical networks, related species follow similar dispersal patterns, suggesting that conservation scenarios suitable for a well-studied model species would suite related species as well." -erod activity and stable isotopes in seabirds to disentangle marine food web contamination after the prestige oil spill,cytochrome p450; seabird; oil spill; diet; survival,ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION,VELANDO A;MUNILLA I;LOPEZ-ALONSO M;FREIRE J;PEREZ C,"in this study, we measured via surgical sampling hepatic erod activity in yellow-legged gulls from oiled and unoiled colonies, 17 months after the prestige oil spill. we also analyzed stable isotope composition in feathers of the biopsied gulls, in an attempt to monitor oil incorporation into marine food web. we found that yellow-legged gulls in oiled colonies were being exposed to remnant oil as shown by hepatic erod activity levels. erod activity was related to feeding habits of individual gulls with apparent consequences on delayed lethality. capture-recapture analysis of biopsied gulls suggests that the surgery technique did not affect gull survival, giving support to this technique as a monitoring tool for oil exposure assessment. our study highlights the combination of different veterinary, toxicological and ecological methodologies as a useful approach for the monitoring of exposure to remnant oil after a large oil spill. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +erod activity and stable isotopes in seabirds to disentangle marine food web contamination after the prestige oil spill,cytochrome p450; seabird; oil spill; diet; survival,ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION,VELANDO A;MUNILLA I;LOPEZ ALONSO M;FREIRE J;PEREZ C,"in this study, we measured via surgical sampling hepatic erod activity in yellow-legged gulls from oiled and unoiled colonies, 17 months after the prestige oil spill. we also analyzed stable isotope composition in feathers of the biopsied gulls, in an attempt to monitor oil incorporation into marine food web. we found that yellow-legged gulls in oiled colonies were being exposed to remnant oil as shown by hepatic erod activity levels. erod activity was related to feeding habits of individual gulls with apparent consequences on delayed lethality. capture-recapture analysis of biopsied gulls suggests that the surgery technique did not affect gull survival, giving support to this technique as a monitoring tool for oil exposure assessment. our study highlights the combination of different veterinary, toxicological and ecological methodologies as a useful approach for the monitoring of exposure to remnant oil after a large oil spill. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." improving inferences from fisheries capture-recapture studies through remote detection of pit tags,NA,FISHERIES,HEWITT DA;JANNEY EC;HAYES BS;SHIVELY RS,"models for capture-recapture data are commonly used in analyses of the dynamics of fish and wildlife populations, especially for estimating vital parameters such as survival. capture-recapture methods provide more reliable inferences than other methods commonly used in fisheries studies. however, for rare or elusive fish species, parameter estimation is often hampered by small probabilities of re-encountering tagged fish when encounters are obtained through traditional sampling methods. we present a case study that demonstrates how remote antennas for passive integrated transponder (pit) tags can increase encounter probabilities and the precision of survival estimates from capture-recapture models. between 1999 and 2007, trammel nets were used to capture and tag over 8,400 endangered adult lost river suckers (deltistes luxatus) during the spawning season in upper klamath lake, oregon. despite intensive sampling at relatively discrete spawning areas, encounter probabilities from cormack-jolly-seber models were consistently low (< 0.2) and the precision of apparent annual survival estimates was poor. beginning in 2005, remote pit tag antennas were deployed at known spawning locations to increase the probability of re-encountering tagged fish. we compare results based only on physical recaptures with results based on both physical recaptures and remote detections to demonstrate the substantial improvement in estimates of encounter probabilities (approaching 100%) and apparent annual survival provided by the remote detections. the richer encounter histories provided robust inferences about the dynamics of annual survival and have made it possible to explore more realistic models and hypotheses about factors affecting the conservation and recovery of this endangered species. recent advances in technology related to pit tags have paved the way for creative implementation of large-scale tagging studies in systems where they were previously considered impracticable." cohort variation in offspring growth and survival: prenatal and postnatal factors in a late-maturing viviparous snake,environmental canalization; maternal effects; squamates; variable environment,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,BARON JP;LE GALLIARD JF;TULLY T;FERRIERE R,"p>1. recruitment to adulthood plays an important role in the population dynamics of late-maturing organisms as it is usually variable. compared to birds and mammals, few studies assessing the contributions to this variation of environmental factors, offspring traits and maternal traits have been carried out for late-maturing snakes. 2. cohort variation in recruitment through offspring growth and survival in the meadow viper (vipera ursinii ursinii) was evaluated from 13 years of mark-recapture data collected at mont ventoux, france. in this species, females are mature at the age of 4-6 years and adult survival and fecundity rates are high and constant over time. 3. offspring were difficult to catch during the first 3 years of their lives, but their mean annual probability of survival was reasonably high (0 center dot 48 +/- 0 center dot 11 se). mass and body condition at birth (mass residuals) varied significantly between years, decreased with litter size, and increased with maternal length. 4. cohorts of offspring in better condition at birth grew faster, but offspring growth was not affected by sex, habitat or maternal traits. 5. survival varied considerably between birth cohorts, some cohorts having a high-survival rate and others having essentially no survivors. no difference in mass or body condition at birth was found between cohorts with 'no survival' and 'good survival'. however, offspring survival in cohorts with good survival was positively correlated with mass at birth and negatively correlated with body condition at birth. 6. thus, variation in offspring performance was influenced by direct environmental effects on survival and indirect environmental effects on growth, mediated by body condition at birth. effects of maternal traits were entirely channelled through offspring traits." -argali abundance in the afghan pamir using capture-recapture modeling from fecal dna,abundance estimate; afghanistan; argali; fecal samples; mark-recapture; noninvasive sampling; ovis ammon,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HARRIS RB;WINNIE J;AMISH SJ;BEJA-PEREIRA A;GODINHO R;COSTA V;LUIKART G,"estimating population size in a mark-recapture framework using dna obtained from remotely collected genetic samples (e.g., feces) has become common in recent years but rarely has been used for ungulates. using dna extracted from fecal pellets, we estimated the size of an argali (ovis ammon) population that was believed to be isolated from others within the big pamir mountains, afghanistan, an area where access was difficult and expensive. we used closed-capture models to estimate abundance, and pradel models to examine closure assumptions, both as implemented in program mark. we also made visual counts of argali in the big pamirs, allowing comparison of count indices of abundance with modeled estimates. our model-averaged estimate for female argali in the big pamir was 172 (95% ci = 117-232), which was about 23% higher than our best assessment using uncorrected visual counts. however, mark-recapture models suggested that males were not a closed population; thus, we were unable to provide a meaningful estimate of overall population size. males either suffered much higher mortality than females during the sampling period, or, more likely, males moved in and out of the big pamir area. although information from dna did not provide a clear overall population estimate, it suggested that the big pamir was not isolated from other argali populations, which could not have been confirmed with visual observations alone. estimating argali population size using mark-recapture models and fecal dna is feasible but may be too expensive for frequent monitoring of large and remote populations. our study demonstrates the importance of sex identification and separate abundance estimation for each sex, especially if movement ecology differs by sex." +argali abundance in the afghan pamir using capture-recapture modeling from fecal dna,abundance estimate; afghanistan; argali; fecal samples; mark-recapture; noninvasive sampling; ovis ammon,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HARRIS RB;WINNIE J;AMISH SJ;BEJA PEREIRA A;GODINHO R;COSTA V;LUIKART G,"estimating population size in a mark-recapture framework using dna obtained from remotely collected genetic samples (e.g., feces) has become common in recent years but rarely has been used for ungulates. using dna extracted from fecal pellets, we estimated the size of an argali (ovis ammon) population that was believed to be isolated from others within the big pamir mountains, afghanistan, an area where access was difficult and expensive. we used closed-capture models to estimate abundance, and pradel models to examine closure assumptions, both as implemented in program mark. we also made visual counts of argali in the big pamirs, allowing comparison of count indices of abundance with modeled estimates. our model-averaged estimate for female argali in the big pamir was 172 (95% ci = 117-232), which was about 23% higher than our best assessment using uncorrected visual counts. however, mark-recapture models suggested that males were not a closed population; thus, we were unable to provide a meaningful estimate of overall population size. males either suffered much higher mortality than females during the sampling period, or, more likely, males moved in and out of the big pamir area. although information from dna did not provide a clear overall population estimate, it suggested that the big pamir was not isolated from other argali populations, which could not have been confirmed with visual observations alone. estimating argali population size using mark-recapture models and fecal dna is feasible but may be too expensive for frequent monitoring of large and remote populations. our study demonstrates the importance of sex identification and separate abundance estimation for each sex, especially if movement ecology differs by sex." evaluation of bear rub surveys to monitor grizzly bear population trends,bear rubs; grizzly bear; mark-recapture; montana; noninvasive genetic sampling; northern continental divide ecosystem; pradel model; trend monitoring; ursus arctos,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,STETZ JB;KENDALL KC;SERVHEEN C,"wildlife managers need reliable estimates of population size, trend, and distribution to make informed decisions about how to recover at-risk populations, yet obtaining these estimates is costly and often imprecise. the grizzly bear (ursus arctos) population in northwestern montana, usa, has been managed for recovery since being listed under the united states endangered species act in 1975, yet no rigorous data were available to evaluate the program's success. we used encounter data from 379 grizzly bears identified through bear rub surveys to parameterize a series of pradel model simulations in program mark to assess the ability of noninvasive genetic sampling to estimate population growth rates. we evaluated model performance in terms of 1) power to detect gender-specific and population-wide declines in population abundance, 2) precision and relative bias of growth rate estimates, and 3) sampling effort required to achieve 80% power to detect a decline within 10 years. simulations indicated that ecosystem-wide, annual bear rub surveys would exceed 80% power to detect a 3% annual decline within 6 years. robust-design models with 2 simulated surveys per year provided precise and unbiased annual estimates of trend, abundance, and apparent survival. designs incorporating one survey per year require less sampling effort but only yield trend and apparent survival estimates. our results suggest that systematic, annual bear rub surveys may provide a viable complement or alternative to telemetry-based methods for monitoring trends in grizzly bear populations." "mark-recapture accurately estimates census for tuatara, a burrowing reptile",conservation management; cryptic species; lincoln-peterson estimator; mark-recapture; new zealand; sphenodon punctatus; stephens island; tuatara,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,MOORE JA;GRANT T;BROWN D;KEALL SN;NELSON NJ,"estimates of population size are necessary for effective management of threatened and endangered species, but accurate estimation is often difficult when species are cryptic. we evaluated effectiveness of mark-recapture techniques using the lincoln-peterson estimator for predicting true census size of a population of tuatara (sphenodon punctatus), a burrowing reptile that is a conservation priority in new zealand. we found that lincoln-peterson estimates (n (n) over cap = 85) were accurate for predicting the census size (n = 87) after only a 3-day mark-recapture survey. we recommend this method as a cost-effective way to accurately estimate population size for isolated, inaccessible tuatara populations, because it requires limited personnel, expertise, and time, and has low environmental impact on fragile sites." reference bayesian methods for recapture models with heterogeneity,capture-recapture models; heterogeneity; bayesian inference; population size; default prior; model choice,TEST,FARCOMENI A;TARDELLA L,"in the context of capture-recapture experiments heterogeneous capture probabilities are often perceived as one of the most challenging features to be incorporated in statistical models. in this paper we propose within a bayesian framework a new modeling strategy for inference on the unknown population size in the presence of heterogeneity of subject characteristics. our approach is attractive in that parameters are easily interpretable. moreover, no parametric distributional assumptions are imposed on the latent distribution of individual heterogeneous propensities to be captured. bayesian inference based on marginal likelihood by-passes some common identifiability issues, and a formal default prior distribution can be derived. alternative default prior choices are considered and compared. performance of our formal default approach is favorably evaluated with two real data sets and with a small simulation study." capture-recapture analysis of east coast fever in smallholder dairy herds in the dar es salaam region of tanzania,capture-recapture analysis; east coast fever; prevalence; smallholder dairy herd; tanzania,VETERINARY JOURNAL,KIVARIA FM;NOORDHUIZEN JPTM,"the prevalence of and case fatality rate due to east coast fever (ecf) were estimated in 1402 dairy cattle in 87 small herds in the dar es salaam region of tanzania, from january 2003 to january 2005 using a capture-recapture method. information on clinical cases and deaths due to ecf were obtained from farm records and from a questionnaire-based cross-sectional survey conducted between july 2003 and march 2005 as part of longitudinal studies of bovine mastitis in these herds. the number of clinical cases identified was 567 (from farm records) and 496 (from the questionnaire), and the number of deaths recorded were 305 (from farm records) and 251 (from the questionnaire). in all, 450 clinical cases and 191 deaths due to ecf were identified from the two sources, giving an observed prevalence of 32% (cl(95%) 30-35%) and observed case fatality rate of 42% (cl(95%) 38-47%). following application of the capture-recapture method, the estimated number of clinical cases and deaths was 625 (cl(95%) 617-633) and 401 (cl(95%) 384-418), respectively. the respective prevalence and case fatality rates were 45% (cl(95%) 41-48%) and 64% (cl(95%) 60-68%). the estimates obtained using the capture-recapture method are higher than those identified by traditional cross-sectional studies conducted in the same study area, and probably provide a more accurate epidemiological picture of ecf in this region of tanzania. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "population size, survival, longevity, and movements of the biscutate swift in southern brazil",NA,ANNALES ZOOLOGICI FENNICI,PICHORIM M;MONTEIRO ELA,"we provide information on population parameters in colonies of the biscutate swift from southern brazil using the capture recapture technique. we captured 1020 adults, 233 nestlings and 25 subadults, totaling 1278 marked birds. models with capture probabilities varying with time and individual animal (capture program), and with constant survival and time-dependent recapture (mark program) best fit the data. the results of both methods were relatively similar because the models selected suggested that mortality, recruitment or movement events were unimportant. population sizes were estimated to be between 187 and 1902 individuals in the four colonies studied. the estimated mean annual survival for the species was 0.88, a value corresponding to an average longevity of 18 years. little individual movement occurred among the colonies; the largest displacement observed was 120 km. one of the colonies did not display the same capture pattern as that of the others, probably due to space conflicts or shelter occupation time. our data show that in southern brazil biscutate swifts do not migrate, possibly because food availability is more constant throughout the year than in other regions (southeast and northeast) where migration occurs." -"mass immunisation campaign in a roma settled community created an opportunity to estimate its size and measles vaccination uptake, poland, 2009",NA,EUROSURVEILLANCE,STEFANOFF P;ORLIKOVA H;ROGALSKA J;KAZANOWSKA-ZIELINSKA E;SLODZINSKI J,"during a mass immunisation campaign following an outbreak of measles in a roma community settled in the town of pulawy, poland, we performed an estimation of the size of this roma population and an assessment of its vaccination uptake. we obtained a list of roma residing in pulawy from the local municipality and estimated using a simple capture-recapture formula that pulawy had 377 roma residents (43% under 20 years old), which was 27% more than the 295 registered at the municipality. during the vaccination campaign, demographic information was recorded that could be linked to information from the municipality list as well as to prior immunisation status. among the people whose data were recorded during the vaccination campaign, 14% were not registered at the primary healthcare centres, and were therefore deprived of access to healthcare. among 102 screened subjects under the age of 20 years, 51% were vaccinated according to schedule. vaccine uptake for the first dose of measles-containing vaccine was 56% (54/96) and for the second dose 37% (18/49). the present study indicates the need to get a better demographic overview of roma communities living in poland and to understand the barriers limiting their access to healthcare and social services. organisation of catch-up immunisations of this vulnerable population is necessary." -"recruitment in a colorado population of big brown bats: breeding probabilities, litter size, and first-year survival",big brown bats; breeding probabilities; colorado; eptesicus fuscus; fecundity; litter size; maternity colonies; recruitment; reproduction; survival,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,O'SHEA TJ;ELLISON LE;NEUBAUM DJ;NEUBAUM MA;REYNOLDS CA;BOWEN RA,"we used mark-recapture estimation techniques and radiography to test hypotheses about 3 important aspects of recruitment in big brown bats (eptesicus fuscus) in fort collins. colorado. adult breeding probabilities, litter size, and 1st-year survival of young. we marked 2,968 females with passive integrated transponder (pit) tags at multiple sites during 2001-2005 and based our assessments on direct recaptures (breeding probabilities) and passive detection with automated pit tag readers (1st-year survival) we interpreted our data in relation to hypotheses regarding demographic influences of hat age. roost, and effects of years with unusual environmental conditions. extreme drought (2002) and arrival of a west nile virus epizootic (2003). conditional breeding probabilities at 6 roosts sampled in 2002-2005 were estimated as 0 64 (95% confidence interval [95% ci] = 0 53-0 73) in 1-year-old females, but were consistently high (95% cl = 0 94-0 96) and did not vary by roost. year. or prior year breeding status in older adults. mean litter size was 1.11 (95% cl = 1.05-1.17), based on examination of 112 pregnant females by radiography litter size was not higher in older or lamer females and was similar to results of other studies in western north america despite wide variation in latitude first-year survival was estimated as 0 67 (95% ci 0 61-0 73) for weaned females at 5 maternity roosts over 5 consecutive years, was lower than adult survival (0 79, 95% ci = 0 77-0.81), and varied by roost. based on model selection criteria, strong evidence exists for complex roost and year effects on 1st-year survival first year survival was lowest in bats born during the drought year juvenile females that did not return to roosts as 1-year-olds had lower body condition indices in late summer of their natal year than those known to survive. doi: 10 1644/08-mamm-a-295.1" +"mass immunisation campaign in a roma settled community created an opportunity to estimate its size and measles vaccination uptake, poland, 2009",NA,EUROSURVEILLANCE,STEFANOFF P;ORLIKOVA H;ROGALSKA J;KAZANOWSKA ZIELINSKA E;SLODZINSKI J,"during a mass immunisation campaign following an outbreak of measles in a roma community settled in the town of pulawy, poland, we performed an estimation of the size of this roma population and an assessment of its vaccination uptake. we obtained a list of roma residing in pulawy from the local municipality and estimated using a simple capture-recapture formula that pulawy had 377 roma residents (43% under 20 years old), which was 27% more than the 295 registered at the municipality. during the vaccination campaign, demographic information was recorded that could be linked to information from the municipality list as well as to prior immunisation status. among the people whose data were recorded during the vaccination campaign, 14% were not registered at the primary healthcare centres, and were therefore deprived of access to healthcare. among 102 screened subjects under the age of 20 years, 51% were vaccinated according to schedule. vaccine uptake for the first dose of measles-containing vaccine was 56% (54/96) and for the second dose 37% (18/49). the present study indicates the need to get a better demographic overview of roma communities living in poland and to understand the barriers limiting their access to healthcare and social services. organisation of catch-up immunisations of this vulnerable population is necessary." +"recruitment in a colorado population of big brown bats: breeding probabilities, litter size, and first-year survival",big brown bats; breeding probabilities; colorado; eptesicus fuscus; fecundity; litter size; maternity colonies; recruitment; reproduction; survival,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,O SHEA TJ;ELLISON LE;NEUBAUM DJ;NEUBAUM MA;REYNOLDS CA;BOWEN RA,"we used mark-recapture estimation techniques and radiography to test hypotheses about 3 important aspects of recruitment in big brown bats (eptesicus fuscus) in fort collins. colorado. adult breeding probabilities, litter size, and 1st-year survival of young. we marked 2,968 females with passive integrated transponder (pit) tags at multiple sites during 2001-2005 and based our assessments on direct recaptures (breeding probabilities) and passive detection with automated pit tag readers (1st-year survival) we interpreted our data in relation to hypotheses regarding demographic influences of hat age. roost, and effects of years with unusual environmental conditions. extreme drought (2002) and arrival of a west nile virus epizootic (2003). conditional breeding probabilities at 6 roosts sampled in 2002-2005 were estimated as 0 64 (95% confidence interval [95% ci] = 0 53-0 73) in 1-year-old females, but were consistently high (95% cl = 0 94-0 96) and did not vary by roost. year. or prior year breeding status in older adults. mean litter size was 1.11 (95% cl = 1.05-1.17), based on examination of 112 pregnant females by radiography litter size was not higher in older or lamer females and was similar to results of other studies in western north america despite wide variation in latitude first-year survival was estimated as 0 67 (95% ci 0 61-0 73) for weaned females at 5 maternity roosts over 5 consecutive years, was lower than adult survival (0 79, 95% ci = 0 77-0.81), and varied by roost. based on model selection criteria, strong evidence exists for complex roost and year effects on 1st-year survival first year survival was lowest in bats born during the drought year juvenile females that did not return to roosts as 1-year-olds had lower body condition indices in late summer of their natal year than those known to survive. doi: 10 1644/08-mamm-a-295.1" spatiotemporal variation in akodon montensis (cricetidae: sigmodontinae) and hantaviral seroprevalence in a subtropical forest ecosystem,akodon montensis; hantavirus; land conversion; mbaracayu; biosphere reserve; paraguay; rodentia; simodontinae; upper parana atlantic forest; viral ecology,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,OWEN RD;GOODIN DG;KOCH DE;CHU YK;JONSSON CB,"relatively little information is available concerning the natural history or population ecology of the montane akodont. akodon montensis. a sigmodontine species that harbors jabora and ape aime hantaviruses on the basis of mark-recapture sampling of 3 locales during 2 years. this report provides comparative data on populational and other characteristics of the species near its distributional limit, in the upper parana atlantic forest in paraguay we found a montensis to be almost exclusively terrestrial (nonarboreal) and to vary in population density among locales and between years. findings consistent with earlier studies. population density was not related either to neotropical seasonality or to most precipitation variables, but sex ratio varied seasonally, which has not been reported previously we evaluated the seroprevalence of hantavirus in a montensis. in association with external. populational, and individual variables as in most previous studies of rodent hantavirus systems, seroprevalence varied among sampling locales and was higher among males however, unlike previous reports. especially those from north america. we did not find a correspondence between seroplevalence and population density. seasonal variation, or most precipitation variables simple and direct associations between seroprevalence levels and either seasonality or precipitation may be less characteristic of humid neotropical or subtropical systems our analyses revealed that seropositive animals exhibit several noteworthy behavioral and hie-history modifications, in particular that they have larger home ranges than do seronegatives, exhibit greater maximum distance moved, have greater home range displacement between sampling sessions. particularly those individuals that are seroconvertmg during the same period, and have greater longevity, especially among males in general. these characteristics could be postulated as favorable to the capacity of the virus to be transmitted horizontally to other hosts doi. 10 1644/09-mamm-a-152.1." use of multiple dispersal pathways facilitates amphibian persistence in stream networks,amphibian decline; dendritic ecological network; stream salamander; plethodontidae; movement,PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,GRANT EHC;NICHOLS JD;LOWE WH;FAGAN WF,"although populations of amphibians are declining worldwide, there is no evidence that salamanders occupying small streams are experiencing enigmatic declines, and populations of these species seem stable. theory predicts that dispersal through multiple pathways can stabilize populations, preventing extinction in habitat networks. however, empirical data to support this prediction are absent for most species, especially those at risk of decline. our mark-recapture study of stream salamanders reveals both a strong upstream bias in dispersal and a surprisingly high rate of overland dispersal to adjacent headwater streams. this evidence of route-dependent variation in dispersal rates suggests a spatial mechanism for population stability in headwater-stream salamanders. our results link the movement behavior of stream salamanders to network topology, and they underscore the importance of identifying and protecting critical dispersal pathways when addressing region-wide population declines." estimating evolution of freshness in internet cache directories under the capture-recapture methodology,web caching; internet search services; freshness; web evolution; capture-recapture methodology,COMPUTER NETWORKS,ANAGNOSTOPOULOS I;ANAGNOSTOPOULOS C;VERGADOS DD,"in this paper, we describe a new web sampling scheme for measuring the evolution of freshness in search engines. the methodology used is the capture-recapture, which is mainly applied for estimating evolution rates in wildlife biological studies. after modifications and amendments, necessary for web paradigm application, we conducted three capture-recapture experiments of different duration over the caches of google and msn. in parallel, we used a typical sampling scheme, similar to many other web sampling approaches used in the literature, to evaluate the robustness of our proposal. the paper provides the implementation details of a web-based capture-recapture model along with its assessment. the results show that through the capture-recapture methodology we are able not only to measure the freshness of the tested search services but also to monitor its evolution over time, with a substantially lower amount of required sampling instances. it was not our intention to compare the performance of google and msn. however, through our experiments, we observed that although one sometimes presents better refresh rates than the other, in general both search services have virtually equal capabilities in refreshing their directories and providing new and up-to-date results to their users. (c) 2009 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." @@ -4481,20 +4489,22 @@ estimating evolution of freshness in internet cache directories under the captur "tracking the decline of the once-common butterfly: delayed oviposition, demography and population genetics in the hermit chazara briseis",allozyme electrophoresis; lepidoptera; mark-recapture; metapopulation; minimum viable population; reproductive effort; satyrinae,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,KADLEC T;VRBA P;KEPKA P;SCHMITT T;KONVICKA M,"large populations, seemingly not at risk of extinction, can decline rapidly due to alteration of habitat. this appears to be the case of the butterfly chazara briseis, which is declining in all of central and eastern europe, even from apparently large areas of its steppe grassland habitats. we combined mark-recapture, allozyme electrophoresis and adult behaviour observation to study the last remaining metapopulation of this once-widespread butterfly in the czech republic. the total population estimate was 1300 males and 1050 females in 10 colonies within a 70 km2 landscape. adults were long-lived, and inseminated females required several weeks before they started ovipositing. models using realistic lengths of the preoviposition period estimated that due to background mortality, only 25-55% of the female census population lived long enough to contribute to the next generation. this demographic load was unlikely to be balanced by an increased fecundity. allozyme electrophoresis of 22 loci revealed much higher allelic variation than in most other studies of butterflies living in small populations (mean heterozygosity: 20.7%). if expressed as per individual colony, the genetic variation did not correlate with population density, survival or longevity. this was probably due to frequent movements among colonies; during 8 weeks of adult flight, 5.1% of recaptured males and 3.6% of recaptured females moved between colonies. the high preoviposition mortality indicates that populations of this species must contain more individuals compared with populations not suffering this additional demographic load. the high allelic diversity of each single colony suggests that the population as a whole has not undergone genetic bottlenecks, but now may be facing risks of inbreeding depression due to allele frequency shifts and the possible increase of weakly deleterious alleles. in the past, high effective population sizes were maintained by frequent dispersal in dense networks of steppic grasslands. generous habitat restoration is necessary to safeguard populations of this specialized, yet formerly common species." a general bayesian hierarchical model for estimating survival of nests and young,duckling survival; goodness-of-fit; heterogeneity; nest survival; overdispersion; random effects,AUK,SCHMIDT JH;WALKER JA;LINDBERG MS;JOHNSON DS;STEPHENS SE,"models for estimating survival probability of nests and young have changed dramatically since the development of the mayfield method. improvements in software and a steady increase in computing power have allowed more complexity and realism in these models, allowing researchers to provide better estimates of survival and to relate survival rates to relevant covariates. however, many current analysis methods utilize fixed-effects models with the implicit assumption that the covariates explain all of the variation in the data, other than random variation within a specified family of distributions. this is generally a strong assumption, and, in the presence of heterogeneity and lack of independence, these estimates have been shown to be negatively biased. others have begun to explore random-effects models for these situations, but a readily applicable bayesian approach has been lacking. we present a general bayesian modeling framework appropriate for survival of both nests and young that simultaneously allows for the inclusion of individual covariates and random effects and provides a measure of goodness-of-fit. we used previously published data on survival of common goldeneye (bucephala clangula) ducklings in interior alaska and on nest survival in three species of prairie-nesting clucks that nested in the missouri coteau region of north dakota to demonstrate this approach. the inclusion of a brood-level random effect in the common goldeneye example increased point estimates and credible interval [ci] coverage from 0.62 (95% cl: 0.49-0.73) and 0.66 (95% ci: 0.58-0.74) for 2002 and 2003, respectively, to 0.69 (95% ci: 0.42-0.88) and 0.74 (95% ci: 0.57-0.88) for 2002 and 2003, respectively. received 4 january 2009, accepted 10 september 2009." challenging conservation of migratory species: sahelian rainfalls drive first-year survival of the vulnerable lesser kestrel falco naumanni,capture-recapture; global changes; raptor conservation; wintering grounds,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MIHOUB JB;GIMENEZ O;PILARD P;SARRAZIN F,"in the context of attested global changes, accurate estimation of whether climatic fluctuations impact on population demographic parameters is needed for adequate management, especially for migratory species. we present a capture-recapture analysis linking survival rates of the vulnerable lesser kestrel (falco naumanni) to annual rainfalls in the sahel region, considered as a proxy of climatic conditions on wintering grounds. recapture data were obtained from field observations of individuals ringed and sexed as juveniles over a 14-year monitoring period (1994-2007). we addressed a common but problematic situation in birds where. (i) sex is known with certainty for first-summer or older birds but only suspected for juveniles, and (ii) a large proportion of individuals never return to the study population (e g. transient behavior) transient behavior and unknown sexes were explicitly integrated considering a two age class in a multistate capture-recapture model. survival was time-varying for juveniles (geometric mean: 0 499 +/- 0 021) but constant - and higher - for adults (0.718 +/- 0 013) yearling survival probabilities were strongly correlated with rainfalls in the sahel, suggesting a high dependence of juvenile upon the wintering conditions while taking sex uncertainty into account, we detected no sex-dependence in survival incorporating the sensitivity of survival of wintering migratory birds to climatic variables such as precipitations in arid sahelian ecosystem may allow to model conservation scenarios with a greater realism. finally, we encourage the development of international management strategies for migratory species on wintering areas in addition to the existing conservation actions on summering mediterranean grounds. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved" +estimating detection probabilities of tagged fish migrating past fixed receiver stations using only local information,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,MELNYCHUK MC;WALTERS CJ,NA importance of accounting for detection heterogeneity when estimating abundance: the case of french wolves,canis lupus; e-surge; individual heterogeneity; mark-recapture; mixture models; multievent model; population size,CONSERVATION BIOLOGY,CUBAYNES S;PRADEL R;CHOQUET R;DUCHAMP C;GAILLARD JM;LEBRETON JD;MARBOUTIN E;MIQUEL C;REBOULET AM;POILLOT C;TABERLET P;GIMENEZ O,"assessing conservation strategies requires reliable estimates of abundance. because detecting all individuals is most often impossible in free-ranging populations, estimation procedures have to account for a <1 detection probability. capture-recapture methods allow biologists to cope with this issue of detectability. nevertheless, capture-recapture models for open populations are built on the assumption that all individuals share the same detection probability, although detection heterogeneity among individuals has led to underestimating abundance of closed populations. we developed multievent capture-recapture models for an open population and proposed an associated estimator of population size that both account for individual detection heterogeneity (idh). we considered a two-class mixture model with weakly and highly detectable individuals to account for idh. in a noninvasive capture-recapture study of wolves we based on genotypes identified in feces and hairs, we found a large underestimation of population size (27% on average) occurred when idh was ignored." estimation of census and effective population sizes: the increasing usefulness of dna-based approaches,population size estimation; noninvasive sampling; remote genetic monitoring; abundance; bottleneck; n-e/n-c ratio; habitat fragmentation,CONSERVATION GENETICS,LUIKART G;RYMAN N;TALLMON DA;SCHWARTZ MK;ALLENDORF FW,"population census size (n (c)) and effective population sizes (n (e)) are two crucial parameters that influence population viability, wildlife management decisions, and conservation planning. genetic estimators of both n (c) and n (e) are increasingly widely used because molecular markers are increasingly available, statistical methods are improving rapidly, and genetic estimators complement or improve upon traditional demographic estimators. we review the kinds and applications of estimators of both n (c) and n (e), and the often undervalued and misunderstood ratio of effective-to-census size (n (e) /n (c)). we focus on recently improved and well evaluated methods that are most likely to facilitate conservation. finally, we outline areas of future research to improve n (e) and n (c) estimation in wild populations." individual heterogeneity in studies on marked animals using numerical integration: capture-recapture mixed models,capture-recapture mixed models; cr2m; european dippers; finite mixture models; generalized linear mixed models; likelihood-ratio test; mark-recapture models; random effects; sociable weavers; survival estimation; winbugs,ECOLOGY,GIMENEZ O;CHOQUET R,"in conservation and evolutionary ecology, quantifying and accounting for individual heterogeneity in vital rates of open populations is of particular interest. individual random effects have been used in capture-recapture models, adopting a bayesian framework with markov chain monte carlo (mcmc) to carry out estimation and inference. as an alternative, we show how numerical integration via the gauss-hermite quadrature (ghq) can be efficiently used to approximate the capture-recapture model likelihood with individual random effects. we compare the performance of the two approaches (mcmc vs. ghq) and finite mixture models using two examples, including data on european dippers and sociable weavers. besides relying on standard statistical tools, ghq was found to be faster than mcmc simulations. our approach is implemented in program e-surge. overall, capture-recapture mixed models (cr2ms), implemented either via a ghq approximation or mcmc simulations, have potential important applications in population biology." climatic influence on demographic parameters of a tropical seabird varies with age and sex,"blue-footed booby; capture-recapture modeling; climate; demography; life-history traits; population dynamic, seabird; sula nebouxii",ECOLOGY,ORO D;TORRES R;RODRIGUEZ C;DRUMMOND H,"in marine ecosystems climatic fluctuation and other physical variables greatly influence population dynamics, but differential effects of physical variables on the demographic parameters of the two sexes and different age classes are largely unexplored. we analyzed the effects of climate on the survival and recruitment of both sexes and several age classes of a long-lived tropical seabird, the blue-footed booby (sula nebouxii), using long-term observations on marked individuals. results demonstrated a complex interaction between yearly fluctuations in climate (both local and global indexes, during both winter and breeding season) and the sex and age of individuals. youngest birds' survival and recruitment were commonly affected by local climate, whereas oldest birds' parameters tended to be constant and less influenced by environmental variables. these results confirm the theoretical prediction that sex- and age-related variation in life-history demographic traits is greater under poor environmental conditions, and they highlight the importance of including variability in fitness components in demographic and evolutionary models. males and females showed similar variation in survival but different recruitment patterns, in relation to both age and the spatial scale of climatic influence (local or global). results indicate different life-history tactics for each sex and different ages, with birds likely trying to maximize their fitness by responding to the environmental contingencies of each year." "status, distribution and microhabitats of blanchard's cricket frog acris blanchardi in south dakota",acris crepitans; acris blanchardi; blanchard's cricket frog; distribution; microhabitats; south dakota,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,BURDICK SL;SWANSON DL,"blanchard's cricket frog (acris blanchardi) reaches the northwestern extent of its distribution in south dakota. historically these frogs ranged throughout much of southeastern south dakota, but recent reports suggest that the species is a very rare resident within the state. we used standardized breeding-season auditory surveys coupled with visual encounter and mark-recapture surveys to assess the status and distribution of blanchard's cricket frog in south dakota. for sites with sufficient frogs, we also measured microhabitats to delineate microhabitat features of potential importance to cricket frogs. we found blanchard's cricket frogs at scattered locations in southeastern south dakota along the drainages of the missouri, big sioux, and james rivers and emanuel creek. we detected no frogs along the vermillion river drainage or in western portions of the historic range in south dakota, suggesting that blanchard's cricket frogs no longer occupy these sites, although more intensive surveys will be required to fully document their extirpation from these areas. summer frog abundances were low, except at springfield bottoms, bon homme county, where we estimated population size along a 100-meter stretch of shoreline at 29 to 140 individuals. microhabitats occupied by frogs were close to water (average distance to water 13-44 cm) and exhibited significantly less variable temperatures than random points, although mean temperature did not differ between occupied and random points. substrates occupied by frogs included mud, vegetation, and mud-vegetation and water-vegetation borders, but distribution of frogs among substrates did not differ significantly from random. in summary, blanchard's cricket frogs are seasonally common in southeastern south dakota, but apparently occupy only portions of their former range within the state, and occur on mud or vegetation substrates close to stream or pond edges." watersnake eden: use of stormwater retention ponds by mangrove salt marsh snakes (nerodia clarkii compressicauda) in urban florida,artificial wetlands; biomass; habitat disturbance; herbicide; mark-recapture; reptiles; reconciliation ecology; vegetation loss,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,ACKLEY JW;MEYLAN PA,"we studied variation in population size and biomass of a mangrove salt marsh snake (nerodia clarkii compressicauda) population in two artificial ponds in st. petersburg, florida, usa. a remarkably large biomass (25.4 kg/ha, one of the highest observed in snakes) was maintained for at least six months until the herbicide aquamaster (tm) (glyphosate) was applied to the study area. two months after application, the dead emergent vegetation collapsed into the pond. our following population estimate of snakes was significantly lower, possibly due to emigration after the change in physical habitat structure. we suggest that, with proper management strategies, modified and artificial aquatic habitats in florida could provide a means of supporting biodiversity within the context of urban development." +between-winter emigration rates are linked to reproductive output in greenland white-fronted geese anser albifrons flavirostris,capture-mark-recapture; density-dependent dispersal; multi-state models; source; sink,IBIS,MARCHI C;SANZ IF;BLOT E;HANSEN J;WALSH AJ;FREDERIKSEN M;FOX AD,NA estimating individual survival using territory occupancy data on unmarked animals,bayesian analysis; capture recapture; common birds census; robust design; state-space models; territory colonization; territory fidelity; winbugs,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,ROTH T;AMRHEIN V,"p>1. survival estimation forms the basis of much ecological research, and usually requires data on marked animals. in population studies of territorial animals, however, data are often collected on animal territory occupancy without identification of individuals. previously, these data could not be used to estimate demographic parameters such as survival. 2. we developed a hierarchical site-occupancy model for estimating survival from territory occupancy data without individual identification. we defined survival as the probability that an individual occupying a territory survives until the next reproductive period and settles in the same territory again. to evaluate our model, we used simulated data as well as real data from a long-term study on nightingales luscinia megarhynchos, from which mark-recapture data and territory occupancy data were available. 3. when applied to simulated data sets on territory occupancy, with parameter settings that are typical for different monitoring programmes (i.e. 10 years duration, three or eight visits per season, and 55 or 200 territories surveyed), our model yielded unbiased estimates of survival if the probability of detecting an occupied territory during a single visit was p = 0 center dot 5 or p = 0 center dot 7. 4. when applied to the data on nightingale territory occupancy, estimates of survival from our model were very similar to the estimates obtained from a traditional mark-recapture model (cormack-jolly-seber model) applied to the ringing data from the same nightingale population. 5.synthesis and applications. data collection for mark-recapture analysis is usually invasive and labour intensive, and suitable data are rarely available from large-scale monitoring programmes covering entire regions or countries. applying our model to territory occupancy data from such monitoring programmes could make large amounts of data available for research on animal demography." estimation of immigration rate using integrated population models,athene noctua; bayesian; capture-recapture; identifiability; population counts; reproductive success; survival; state-space model,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,ABADI F;GIMENEZ O;ULLRICH B;ARLETTAZ R;SCHAUB M,"p>1. the dynamics of many populations is strongly affected by immigrants. however, estimating and modelling immigration is a real challenge. in the past, several methods have been developed to estimate immigration rate but they either require strong assumptions or combine in a piecewise manner the results from separate analyses. in most methods the effects of covariates cannot be modelled formally. 2. we developed a bayesian integrated population model which combines capture-recapture data, population counts and information on reproductive success into a single model that estimates and models immigration rate, while directly assessing the impact of environmental covariates. 3. we assessed parameter identifiability by comparing posterior distributions of immigration rates under varying priors, and illustrated the application of the model with long term demographic data of a little owl athene noctua population from southern germany. we further assessed the impact of environmental covariates on immigration. 4. the resulting posterior distributions were insensitive to different prior distributions and dominated by the observed data, indicating that the immigration rate was identifiable. average yearly immigration into the little owl population was 0 center dot 293 (95% credible interval 0 center dot 183-0 center dot 418), which means that ca 0 center dot 3 female per resident female entered the population every year. immigration rate tended to increase with increasing abundance of voles, the main prey of little owls. 5.synthesis and applications. the means to estimate and model immigration is an important step towards a better understanding of the dynamics of geographically open populations. the demographic estimates obtained from the developed integrated population model facilitate population diagnoses and can be used to assess population viability. the structural flexibility of the model should constitute a useful tool for wildlife managers and conservation ecologists." "movement and habitat selection by argia vivida (hagen) (odonata, coenagrionidae) in fuel-modified forest",odonata; fuel management; habitat; dispersal; movement,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,KORTELLO AD;HAM SJ,"fuel management for wildfire protection is becoming increasingly common in the wildland-urban interface and may have conservation implications for species with restricted distributions and limited dispersal abilities. to evaluate the impact of forest fuel management on the damselfly argia vivida at the northern margin of its range, we examined terrestrial movements and habitat associations using capture-mark-recapture and point count techniques. we found that habitats away from the springs were particularly important for a. vivida females. most damselflies travelled at least 50 m between capture and recapture and patches of cleared forest up to this size did not pose a barrier to movement. although a. vivida typically roosts in trees at night, cleared fuel treatment areas were preferred over unmodified or thinned forest as daytime basking and foraging sites. preferred sites were also characterized by heterogeneous canopy closure, i.e., a clearing adjacent to unmodified forest with a closed canopy. we speculate that this behaviour derives from the species' thermoregulation requirements; the use of sunspots for thermal basking during the day and the use of forest cover at night to slow the radiant loss of heat. our findings demonstrate the scale of movements that define available habitat and the importance of both daytime and night time habitat requirements in considering terrestrial foraging and movement corridors. consequently, conservation efforts for this species in fuel management areas should focus on maintaining unmodified stands of dense trees in association with cleared patches of appropriate dimension, rather than a uniformly thinned forest." "effects of narrow roads on the movement of carabid beetles (coleoptera, carabidae) in nopporo forest park, hokkaido",fragmentation; barrier; mark-recapture; road ecology,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,YAMADA Y;SASAKI H;HARAUCHI Y,"forest-dwelling carabid beetles that have no flight ability were studied using mark-recapture methods in late-june to mid-october 2007. this study was done to determine the effects of narrow roads in nopporo forest park, hokkaido on carabid beetle movement and habitat use. the investigation was conducted at four sites: one site was an abandoned grassy road with a width of 3.5 m, two sites were gravel roads with widths of 3.5 and 4.5 m, and another site was an asphalt-paved road with a width of 4.5 m. a total of 3,580 individuals from six species of carabid beetles were collected using dry pit-fall traps, and recapture rates ranged from 6.1 to 36.2%. all examined roads acted as barriers against the movement of leptocarabus arboreus ishikarinus. all roads, except the abandoned grassy road, acted as a barrier against carabus granulatus yezoensis movement. forest-roadside verge comparisons demonstrated that some carabid beetles avoid even narrow roadside verges. harmful effects increase with increasing road width and both paved roads and narrow roads negatively affect the movement of carabid beetles inhabiting the bordering forest. therefore, forest specialist beetles are influenced by a barrier effect that starts at the forest road verge, and this barrier effect may be exacerbated by vehicular traffic. therefore, these barrier effects on carabid beetles should be considered when planning and implementing road construction and maintenance in forests." "estimating the levels of acute drug-related deaths in france, 2001-2002: a simple technique to measure bias in overdoses recording",drug-related deaths; invisible population; capture-recapture; france,JOURNAL OF SUBSTANCE USE,JANSSEN E,"objective: to estimate under-recording of drug-related deaths in france. materials: a capture-recapture indicator is proposed with a view to estimating the number of drug-related deaths. the indicator is applied when cross-checking general mortality registry and police data sources. results: the under-recording of drug-related deaths was reaching 40% for the 2 years considered on the basis of the estimator. conclusion: the hypothesis adopted is that the deaths were subject to erroneous coding, and the causes classified as unknown or ill-defined. official data should be interpreted with caution. nevertheless, this issue should not hide the effects of an early implemented harm reduction policy. further analysis is required to confirm and extrapolate the findings." -quantifying and disentangling dispersal in metacommunities: how close have we come? how far is there to go?,metacommunity; dispersal; metapopulation; spatial variation; environmental heterogeneity; connectivity; mark-recapture,LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY,JACOBSON B;PERES-NETO PR,"much of ecological research centers around discovering the underlying factors for species distribution; three such factors are of central importance: local environment, landscape features and dispersal. while all have been simplified in the past, the recent increase in metapopulation and metacommunity research makes being able to quantify dispersal all that much more necessary. in order to increase our knowledge about metacommunities in the ""real word"", it is clearly time to start thinking critically about whether and how the methods that are currently available for measuring dispersal within metapopulations can be adapted. the goal of this contribution is to present and argue the technical difficulties involved in measuring dispersal within metacommunities through: (1) discussing the merits and pitfalls of some potential direct (e.g., mark-recapture) and indirect methods (e.g., isolation measures, patchiness) for studying the effects of dispersal at the metapopulation and metacommunity level; (2) discuss the types of questions that can be tackled at the metacommunity level in light of methodological decisions; and (3) make the point that the technical difficulties of measuring dispersal for multiple species may leave us with little other options than using indirect methods to estimate dispersal in metacommunities." +quantifying and disentangling dispersal in metacommunities: how close have we come? how far is there to go?,metacommunity; dispersal; metapopulation; spatial variation; environmental heterogeneity; connectivity; mark-recapture,LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY,JACOBSON B;PERES NETO PR,"much of ecological research centers around discovering the underlying factors for species distribution; three such factors are of central importance: local environment, landscape features and dispersal. while all have been simplified in the past, the recent increase in metapopulation and metacommunity research makes being able to quantify dispersal all that much more necessary. in order to increase our knowledge about metacommunities in the ""real word"", it is clearly time to start thinking critically about whether and how the methods that are currently available for measuring dispersal within metapopulations can be adapted. the goal of this contribution is to present and argue the technical difficulties involved in measuring dispersal within metacommunities through: (1) discussing the merits and pitfalls of some potential direct (e.g., mark-recapture) and indirect methods (e.g., isolation measures, patchiness) for studying the effects of dispersal at the metapopulation and metacommunity level; (2) discuss the types of questions that can be tackled at the metacommunity level in light of methodological decisions; and (3) make the point that the technical difficulties of measuring dispersal for multiple species may leave us with little other options than using indirect methods to estimate dispersal in metacommunities." cohort and tag-site-specific tag-loss rates in mark-recapture studies: a southern elephant seal cautionary case,cohort heterogeneity; double tagging; mark-resight; marker-loss; mirounga leonina; marion island; phocids; tag shedding; tag placement,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,OOSTHUIZEN WC;DE BRUYN PJN;BESTER MN;GIRONDOT M,"p>marker-loss is a common feature of mark-recapture studies and important as it may bias parameter estimation. a slight alteration in tag-site of double tagged southern elephant seals (mirounga leonina), marked at marion island from 1983 to 2005 in an ongoing mark-recapture program, had important consequences for tag-loss. we calculated age-specific tag-retention rates and cumulative tag-retention probabilities using a maximum likelihood model selection approach in the software application tag_loss 3.2.0. under the tag-loss independence assumption, double tag-loss of inner interdigital webbing tags (iit; 17 cohorts) remained below 1% in the first 5 yr and increased monotonically as seals aged, with higher tag-loss in males. lifetime cumulative iit tag-loss was 11.9% for females and 18.4% for males, and equivalent for all cohorts. changing the tag-site to the outer interdigital webbing (oit; 6 cohorts) resulted in increased and cohort-dependent tag-loss, although the variation (mean +/- 95% ci) in cumulative tag-loss probabilities never exceeded 5.3% between cohorts at similar age. although different studies may homogenize techniques, we advocate the importance of data set-specific assessment of tag-loss rates to ensure greatest confidence in population parameters obtained from mark-recapture experiments. permanent marking should be implemented where feasible." -use of portable antennas to estimate abundance of pit-tagged fish in small streams: factors affecting detection probability,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,O'DONNELL MJ;HORTON GE;LETCHER BH,"portable passive integrated transponder (pit) tag antenna systems can be valuable in providing reliable estimates of the abundance of tagged atlantic salmon salmo salar in small streams under a wide range of conditions. we developed and employed pit tag antenna wand techniques in two controlled experiments and an additional case study to examine the factors that influenced our ability to estimate population size. we used pollock's robust-design capture-mark-recapture model to obtain estimates of the probability of first detection (p), the probability of redetection (c), and abundance (n) in the two controlled experiments. first, we conducted an experiment in which tags were hidden in fixed locations. although p and c varied among the three observers and among the three passes that each observer conducted, the estimates of n were identical to the true values and did not vary among observers. in the second experiment using free-swimming tagged fish, p and c varied among passes and time of day. additionally, estimates of n varied between day and night and among age-classes but were within 10% of the true population size. in the case study, we used the cormack-jolly-seber model to examine the variation in p, and we compared counts of tagged fish found with the antenna wand with counts collected via electrofishing. in that study, we found that although p varied for age-classes, sample dates, and time of day, antenna and electrofishing estimates of n were similar, indicating that population size can be reliably estimated via pit tag antenna wands. however, factors such as the observer, time of day, age of fish, and stream discharge can influence the initial and subsequent detection probabilities." +use of portable antennas to estimate abundance of pit-tagged fish in small streams: factors affecting detection probability,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,O DONNELL MJ;HORTON GE;LETCHER BH,"portable passive integrated transponder (pit) tag antenna systems can be valuable in providing reliable estimates of the abundance of tagged atlantic salmon salmo salar in small streams under a wide range of conditions. we developed and employed pit tag antenna wand techniques in two controlled experiments and an additional case study to examine the factors that influenced our ability to estimate population size. we used pollock's robust-design capture-mark-recapture model to obtain estimates of the probability of first detection (p), the probability of redetection (c), and abundance (n) in the two controlled experiments. first, we conducted an experiment in which tags were hidden in fixed locations. although p and c varied among the three observers and among the three passes that each observer conducted, the estimates of n were identical to the true values and did not vary among observers. in the second experiment using free-swimming tagged fish, p and c varied among passes and time of day. additionally, estimates of n varied between day and night and among age-classes but were within 10% of the true population size. in the case study, we used the cormack-jolly-seber model to examine the variation in p, and we compared counts of tagged fish found with the antenna wand with counts collected via electrofishing. in that study, we found that although p varied for age-classes, sample dates, and time of day, antenna and electrofishing estimates of n were similar, indicating that population size can be reliably estimated via pit tag antenna wands. however, factors such as the observer, time of day, age of fish, and stream discharge can influence the initial and subsequent detection probabilities." "lake sturgeon population status and demography in the kettle river, minnesota, 1992-2007",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,DIETERMAN DJ;FRANK J;PAINOVICH N;STAPLES DF,"we assessed population status and estimated selected demographic parameters for lake sturgeon acipenser fulvescens in the kettle river, minnesota, using capture-recapture tagging data collected from 1992 to 2007. the lake sturgeon is an imperiled species of special concern in minnesota, with population declines attributed to overfishing, pollution, and establishment of dams. in 1995, the recreational fishery was closed and the only dam on the kettle river (sandstone dam) was removed, in part to promote lake sturgeon recovery. recent incidental capture of lake sturgeon by anglers is prompting interest in re-opening the recreational fishery. we gathered information to determine (1) status and demography of the kettle river population, (2) the effect of dam removal, and (3) the feasibility of re-opening the recreational fishery. open-population capture-recapture models were used to examine population status and estimate survival, seniority, and the relative importance of survival and recruitment for influencing population trends. the rate of population change (lambda) indicated that the population was barely maintaining itself (average lambda across years 1.02; 95% confidence interval [ci] = 0.86-1.16). annual population estimates ranged from about 130 fish to almost 300 fish but had wide cis. similarly, estimates of new lake sturgeon entering the population each year (either from within-population recruitment or immigration) were variable and ranged from 0 to over 100. annual survival was nearly constant at about 80%. growth was slow relative to other populations but averaged about 28 mm/year for ages 6-21. a seniority parameter indicated that 49-87% of individuals in the population in a given year consisted of population members that survived from the previous year. this suggested that the population was essentially maintaining itself through a combination of episodic recruitment and relatively constant survival. recent low recruitment may be due to a short-term disturbance from sediment released when the dam was removed in 1995. maintaining closure of the recreational fishery still appears necessary. bolstering of recruitment may be needed to increase the population. full recovery will require patience for this long-lived, late-maturing, infrequently reproducing species." estimation and modeling of electrofishing capture efficiency for fishes in wadeable warmwater streams,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,PRICE AL;PETERSON JT,"stream fish managers often use fish sample data to inform management decisions affecting fish populations. fish sample data, however, can be biased by the same factors affecting fish populations. to minimize the effect of sample biases on decision making, biologists need information on the effectiveness of fish sampling methods. we evaluated single-pass backpack electrofishing and seining combined with electrofishing by following a dual-gear, mark-recapture approach in 61 blocknetted sample units within first-to third-order streams. we also estimated fish movement out of unblocked units during sampling. capture efficiency and fish abundances were modeled for 50 fish species by use of conditional multinomial capture recapture models. the best-approximating models indicated that capture efficiencies were generally low and differed among species groups based on family or genus. efficiencies of single-pass electrofishing and seining combined with electrofishing were greatest for catostomidae and lowest for ictaluridae. fish body length and stream habitat characteristics (mean cross-sectional area, wood density, mean current velocity, and turbidity) also were related to capture efficiency of both methods, but the effects differed among species groups. we estimated that, on average, 23% of fish left the unblocked sample units, but net movement varied among species. our results suggest that (1) common warmwater stream fish sampling methods have low capture efficiency and (2) failure to adjust for incomplete capture may bias estimates of fish abundance. we suggest that managers minimize bias from incomplete capture by adjusting data for site-and species-specific capture efficiency and by choosing sampling gear that provide estimates with minimal bias and variance. furthermore, if block nets are not used, we recommend that managers adjust the data based on unconditional capture efficiency." "effects of a conservative rock bass length limit on angler participation, sport fish populations, and crayfish prey in a missouri ozark stream",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,ROELL MJ;DISTEFANO RJ,"rock bass ambloplites rupestris are popular with anglers in missouri ozark streams, second only to smallmouth bass micropterus dolomieu. historically, fishery biologists emphasized the management of smallmouth bass, but in the late 1980s they sought higher-quality rock bass fisheries and thus the information needed to recommend harvest regulations. using a conservative minimum length limit of 230 mm (9 in) total length (tl) in a heavily exploited rock bass fishery in the big piney river, missouri, we assessed the direct and indirect effects on angler participation and attitudes (by means of an angler survey), the abundance (mark-recapture analysis) and growth rates (scale analysis) of rock bass and smallmouth bass, sport fish predation on crayfishes (order decapoda; diet analysis), and crayfish densities (stratified quadrat sampling). these measures were evaluated for 3 years (1992-1994) before the length limit was imposed and for 6 years afterward (1995-2000) on a 17.1-km-long regulation section and a 10.4-km-long reference section. our results indicate that the length limit (1) had substantial angler support, as shown by their attitudes and compliance with the regulation; (2) reduced the hours fished by rock bass anglers, smallmouth bass anglers, and all anglers; (3) increased the abundances of larger rock bass and smallmouth bass substantially; (4) did not reduce the growth rates of rock bass or smallmouth bass; (5) did not proportionally reduce the predation on crayfishes or increase the percentage of empty stomachs; and (6) did not reduce the densities of crayfishes. after a review of the options for long-term management, fishery administrators and managers elected to manage big piney river rock bass with a minimum-tl regulation of 205 mm (8 in) on 124 km of river. managers on five other rivers (one with shadow bass a. ariommus) have done likewise on an additional 448 km, and the outcomes of these decisions are currently being monitored on all six rivers." @@ -4503,11 +4513,11 @@ an assessment of carnivore relative abundance and density in the eastern rainfor consideration of detectability and sampling in measuring biodiversity,biodiversity; detectability; ecological sampling; alpha diversity; diversity index,PAKISTAN JOURNAL OF STATISTICS,SARKAR MMA;HUQ M;HOSSAIN SS,"biodiversity is usually represented by species richness, diversity and evenness. many indices have been developed to measure the different aspects of biodiversity. but none of them has considered detectability and sampling technique in account. in our study we have introduced detectability in the usual indices in a way that is based on some specific sampling methods and we have estimated the population characteristics through sample while perceiving the effect of introducing detectability on these usual indices. significant differences have been observed by utilizing the line transect method and the capture-recapture method on locally collected data. the proposed method of considering detectability and sampling in measuring biodiversity are better than usual method of calculating indices." underreporting of major obstetric haemorrhage in the netherlands,blood transfusion; capture-recapture method; major of obstetric haemorrhage; severe maternal morbidity; underreporting,TRANSFUSION MEDICINE,ZWART JJ;YAZDANI ST;HARVEY MS;DE VRIES RRP;VAN ROOSMALEN J,"major obstetric haemorrhage (moh) is the main cause of severe maternal morbidity, incidence being estimated at 4 center dot 5 per 1000 deliveries. cases are not routinely registered in the netherlands. the objective of this study is to quantify the degree of underreporting of moh in a large nationwide survey of severe acute maternal morbidity in the netherlands (lemmon) and to estimate the true incidence of moh in the netherlands. retrospective cross-match of the lemmon-database with the databases of local blood transfusion laboratories in 65 of 98 hospitals in the netherlands during a 20-month period, using the capture-recapture method was used. from 16 of 65 centres, the reported transfusion data could not be confirmed by a local obstetrician for logistical reasons. these centres were excluded leaving 49 hospitals available for final analysis. in both databases together, 1018 unique cases of moh were identified. underreporting to lemmon was 35%. hence, the true incidence of moh in the netherlands is at least 6 center dot 1 instead of 4 center dot 5 per 1000 deliveries. the estimated underreporting of moh of 35% is considerable. underreporting is inherent to large observational multicentre studies and should be anticipated and quantified to facilitate fair comparison of epidemiologic data." effect of land-use on small mammal abundance and diversity in a forest-farmland mosaic landscape in south-eastern norway,bank vole; field vole; grey-sided vole; wood mouse; landscape heterogeneity,FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,PANZACCHI M;LINNELL JDC;MELIS C;ODDEN M;ODDEN J;GORINI L;ANDERSEN R,"during the last century the boreal forests of south-eastern norway have been converted into patchworks of agricultural areas, clear-cuts and even-aged conifer monocultures. even though scandinavian forest ecosystems are strongly influenced by small mammals' dynamics, the effects of anthropogenic changes on these communities are still debated. we conducted an extensive capture-mark-recapture study to examine the relative abundance and distribution of 11 species of small mammals during the reproductive season with respect to all available landscape-scale habitat types and fine-scale vegetation characteristics. at the landscape scale, the highest abundance and diversity of small mammals was recorded in abandoned meadows. the community was dominated by myodes glareolus in old abandoned meadows sparsely colonized by trees and bushes, and by micron's agrestis in younger grass-dominated meadows, likely reflecting inter-specific competition and niche separation. notwithstanding the remarkably low availability of both types of meadows, these habitats sustained by far the highest abundance of small mammals. intensively managed forest monocultures at logging age and cultivated fields sustained the lowest abundance of small mammals. however, while the former also supported the lowest species diversity, the latter unexpectedly sustained the highest number of species. only apodemus sylvaticus attained highest densities in cultivated fields, but its marked association with forest edges clearly indicates its need for landscape-scale complexity. contrary to previous theories, clear-cuts and forests overall did not support the highest abundance of m. agrestis and m. glareolus. both young and mature forests failed to explain a significant amount of variation in community structure when taking into account other habitat types. however, a few old clear-cuts characterized by higher vegetational complexity, and a few stands preserving characteristics typical of late successional stages (moss, berries, woody debris) were able to support relatively high abundance of small mammals. our study shows that sampling in all available habitats at different spatial scales is essential for a comprehensive understanding of community dynamics in forest-farmland ecosystems, as even habitat types that are under-represented at the landscape scale might play a significant role for the community dynamics. forest-farmland mosaic landscapes with a high degree of heterogeneity at both large spatial scale (e.g. meadows, shelterbelts) and at fine-scales (e.g. varied and multi-layered ground cover) allow for the conservation of small mammal diversity and abundance in human-dominated areas. nonetheless, the low number of myodes rujocanus trapped in this highly fragmented mosaic landscape supports the hypothesis that habitat fragmentation negatively affects the dynamic of this forest specialist. (c) 2010 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -"baffin bay narwhal population distribution and numbers: aerial surveys in the canadian high arctic, 2002-04",monodontidae; line transect; mark-recapture distance sampling; population size; high arctic; fiord,ARCTIC,RICHARD PR;LAAKE JL;HOBBS RC;HEIDE-JORGENSEN MP;ASSELIN NC;CLEATOR H,"aerial surveys of narwhals (monodon monoceros) were conducted in the canadian high arctic during the month of august from 2002 to 2004. the surveys covered the waters of barrow strait, prince regent inlet, the gulf of boothia, admiralty inlet, eclipse sound, and the eastern coast of baffin island, using systematic sampling methods. fiords were flown along a single transect down the middle. near-surface population estimates increased by 1.9%-8.7% when corrected for perception bias. the estimates were further increased by a factor of approximately 3, to account for individuals not seen because they were diving when the survey plane flew over (availability bias). these corrections resulted in estimates of 27 656 (se = 14 939) for the prince regent and gulf of boothia area, 20 225 (se = 7285) for the eclipse sound area, and 10 073 (se = 3123) for the east baffin island fiord area. the estimate for the admiralty inlet area was 5362 (se = 2681) but is thought to be biased. surveys could not be done in other known areas of occupation, such as the waters of the cumberland peninsula of east baffin, and channels farther west of the areas surveyed (peel sound, viscount melville sound, smith sound and jones sound, and other channels of the canadian arctic archipelago). despite these probable biases and the incomplete coverage, results of these surveys show that the summering range of narwhals in the canadian high arctic is vast. if narwhals are philopatric to their summering areas, as they appear to be, the total population of that range could number more than 60 000 animals. the largest numbers are in the western portion of their summer range, around somerset island, and also in the eclipse sound area. however, these survey estimates have large variances due to narwhal aggregation in some parts of the surveyed areas." +"baffin bay narwhal population distribution and numbers: aerial surveys in the canadian high arctic, 2002-04",monodontidae; line transect; mark-recapture distance sampling; population size; high arctic; fiord,ARCTIC,RICHARD PR;LAAKE JL;HOBBS RC;HEIDE JORGENSEN MP;ASSELIN NC;CLEATOR H,"aerial surveys of narwhals (monodon monoceros) were conducted in the canadian high arctic during the month of august from 2002 to 2004. the surveys covered the waters of barrow strait, prince regent inlet, the gulf of boothia, admiralty inlet, eclipse sound, and the eastern coast of baffin island, using systematic sampling methods. fiords were flown along a single transect down the middle. near-surface population estimates increased by 1.9%-8.7% when corrected for perception bias. the estimates were further increased by a factor of approximately 3, to account for individuals not seen because they were diving when the survey plane flew over (availability bias). these corrections resulted in estimates of 27 656 (se = 14 939) for the prince regent and gulf of boothia area, 20 225 (se = 7285) for the eclipse sound area, and 10 073 (se = 3123) for the east baffin island fiord area. the estimate for the admiralty inlet area was 5362 (se = 2681) but is thought to be biased. surveys could not be done in other known areas of occupation, such as the waters of the cumberland peninsula of east baffin, and channels farther west of the areas surveyed (peel sound, viscount melville sound, smith sound and jones sound, and other channels of the canadian arctic archipelago). despite these probable biases and the incomplete coverage, results of these surveys show that the summering range of narwhals in the canadian high arctic is vast. if narwhals are philopatric to their summering areas, as they appear to be, the total population of that range could number more than 60 000 animals. the largest numbers are in the western portion of their summer range, around somerset island, and also in the eclipse sound area. however, these survey estimates have large variances due to narwhal aggregation in some parts of the surveyed areas." spring migration of ruffs philomachus pugnax in fryslan: estimates of staging duration using resighting data,capture-recapture models; catching effects; colour-ringing; encounter methods; shorebird migration; staging/stopover duration; radio telemetry; resighting data,ARDEA,VERKUIL YI;WIJMENGA JJ;HOOIJMEIJER JCEW;PIERSMA T,"seasonal bird migration involves long flights, but most time is actually spent at intermediate staging areas. the duration of stay at these sites can be evaluated with mark recapture methods that employ day-to-day local encounters of individually marked birds. estimates of staging duration are based on two probabilities: the immigration probability, the complement of a bird's seniority to an area, and the emigration probability, the complement of the staying probability. estimating total staging duration from seniority and staying probabilities requires validation for resighting data and here we compare three data categories of ruffs philomachus pugnax passing through the netherlands during northward migration: (1) newly colour-ringed, (2) previously colour-ringed and (3) radio-tagged ruffs (recorded by automated receiving stations). between 2004 and 2008, 4363 resighting histories and 95 telemetry recording histories were collected. as sample sizes for females were low, only data for males were analysed. possible catching effects affecting estimates of staging duration were explored. staying probability was estimated for all data. seniority however. could not be estimated for newly marked ruffs; the assumption of equal 'capture' probability for reverse-time models applied to estimate seniority is violated for seasonal resighting histories starting with a catching event. therefore, estimates of total staging duration were based on resightings of previously colour-marked birds only. for radio-tagged birds a minimal staging duration (time between tagging and last recording) was calculated. modelling indicated that newly colour-ringed birds had a higher staying probability than previously colour-ringed birds, but the difference translated to a prolonged staging duration in newly ringed birds of only 0.4-0.5 d, suggesting a very small catching effect. the minimal staging duration of radio-tagged birds validated estimates of staging duration for colour-ringed birds in 2007 but not in 2005. in 2005 a low resighting probability resulted in underestimates of staging duration. we conclude that (1) estimates of staying probability can be affected by catching although effects on staging duration might be small, and that (2) low resighting probabilities can lead to underestimates in staging duration. in our study previously ringed ruffs resighted in 2006-08 yielded reliable estimates of staging duration as data had sufficiently high resighting probabilities. average staging durations varied between 19 d in 2008 and 23 d in 2006." apparent survival of adult thayer's and glaucous gulls nesting sympatrically in the canadian high arctic,capture-mark-resight (cmr); thayer's gull; glaucous gull; adult; survival,ARDEA,ALLARD KA;GILCHRIST HG;BRETON AR;GILBERT CD;MALLORY ML,"we estimated apparent survival of 33 adult thayer's gulls larus thayeri and 21 adult glaucous gulls larus hyperboreus nesting sympatrically at a small colony on st. helena island, nunavut, in canada's high arctic, using five consecutive years (2003-2007) of capture-mark-resight data. resighting probabilities were high in all years for both species (0.97). mean survival for thayer's (0.81 +/- 0.05) was low, but for glaucous gulls (0.86 +/- 0.05) was comparable to estimates of survival reported for large gulls elsewhere. both species showed high annual variation in survival, with one year each of noticeably lower survival, suggesting that some factors acting on survival may have differed between species and could reflect different species' exposure to natural or anthropogenic stressors. our findings contribute to the limited demographic information on these polar gulls, and provide a basis for future comparisons should they be affected by changes in their polar environments." abundance and habitat preferences of the southernmost population of mink: implications for managing a recent island invasion,capture-mark-recapture; castor canadensis; chile; exotic species; management; neovison vison; population size; sign surveys; trapping; wetlands,BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,SCHUTTLER E;IBARRA JT;GRUBER B;ROZZI R;JAX K,"since 2001 invasive american mink has been known to populate navarino island, an island located in the pristine wilderness of the cape horn biosphere reserve, chile, lacking native carnivorous mammals. as requested by scientists and managers, our study aims at understanding the population ecology of mink in order to respond to conservation concerns. we studied the abundance of mink in different semi-aquatic habitats using live trapping (n = 1,320 trap nights) and sign surveys (n = 68 sites). with generalized linear models we evaluated mink abundance in relation to small-scale habitat features including habitats engineered by invasive beavers (castor canadensis). mink have colonized the entire island and signs were found in 79% of the surveys in all types of semi-aquatic habitats. yet, relative population abundance (0.75 mink/km of coastline) was still below densities measured in other invaded or native areas. the habitat model accuracies indicated that mink were generally less specific in habitat use, probably due to the missing limitations normally imposed by predators or competitors. the selected models predicted that mink prefer to use shrubland instead of open habitat, coastal areas with heterogeneous shores instead of flat beaches, and interestingly, that mink avoid habitats strongly modified by beavers. our results indicate need for immediate mink control on navarino island. for this future management we suggest that rocky coastal shores should be considered as priority sites deserving special conservation efforts. further research is needed with respect to the immigration of mink from adjacent islands and to examine facilitating or hampering relationships between the different invasive species present, especially if integrative management is sought." -"a mark-recapture population estimate for invasive silver carp (hypophthalmichthys molitrix) in the la grange reach, illinois river",hypophthalmichthys molitrix; illinois river; invasive species; mark-recapture; population estimate; silver carp,BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS,SASS GG;COOK TR;IRONS KS;MCCLELLAND MA;MICHAELS NN;O'HARA TM;STROUB MR,"invasive silver carp (hypophthalmichthys molitrix) populations have expanded greatly in the upper mississippi river system (umrs) since their introduction in the early 1970s. we conducted a chapman-modified, continuous schnabel mark-recapture population and biomass estimate for silver carp (106-901 mm) in the la grange reach, illinois river during 2007-2008. we estimated a total of 328,192 (95% ci 231,226-484,474) silver carp (2,544 per river km 1,792-3,756) comprising 705 (95% ci; 496-1,040) metric tons of biomass (5.5 metric tons per river km 3.8-8.1). long term resource monitoring program (ltrmp) data from the la grange reach showed an exponential increase in silver carp catches since 1998, with an intrinsic rate of increase approaching 84%. in 2008, silver carp comprised about 51% of the total ltrmp annual fish collection. to our knowledge, this large river reach may contain the greatest ambient densities of wild silver carp in the world. our findings provide a target for reduction efforts and also emphasize the importance of the la grange reach as a source population for potential expansion of the species to the laurentian great lakes." +"a mark-recapture population estimate for invasive silver carp (hypophthalmichthys molitrix) in the la grange reach, illinois river",hypophthalmichthys molitrix; illinois river; invasive species; mark-recapture; population estimate; silver carp,BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS,SASS GG;COOK TR;IRONS KS;MCCLELLAND MA;MICHAELS NN;O HARA TM;STROUB MR,"invasive silver carp (hypophthalmichthys molitrix) populations have expanded greatly in the upper mississippi river system (umrs) since their introduction in the early 1970s. we conducted a chapman-modified, continuous schnabel mark-recapture population and biomass estimate for silver carp (106-901 mm) in the la grange reach, illinois river during 2007-2008. we estimated a total of 328,192 (95% ci 231,226-484,474) silver carp (2,544 per river km 1,792-3,756) comprising 705 (95% ci; 496-1,040) metric tons of biomass (5.5 metric tons per river km 3.8-8.1). long term resource monitoring program (ltrmp) data from the la grange reach showed an exponential increase in silver carp catches since 1998, with an intrinsic rate of increase approaching 84%. in 2008, silver carp comprised about 51% of the total ltrmp annual fish collection. to our knowledge, this large river reach may contain the greatest ambient densities of wild silver carp in the world. our findings provide a target for reduction efforts and also emphasize the importance of the la grange reach as a source population for potential expansion of the species to the laurentian great lakes." double-observer line transect methods: levels of independence,distance sampling; double-observer methods; full independence; limiting independence; line transect sampling; point independence,BIOMETRICS,BUCKLAND ST;LAAKE JL;BORCHERS DL,"p>double-observer line transect methods are becoming increasingly widespread, especially for the estimation of marine mammal abundance from aerial and shipboard surveys when detection of animals on the line is uncertain. the resulting data supplement conventional distance sampling data with two-sample mark-recapture data. like conventional mark-recapture data, these have inherent problems for estimating abundance in the presence of heterogeneity. unlike conventional mark-recapture methods, line transect methods use knowledge of the distribution of a covariate, which affects detection probability (namely, distance from the transect line) in inference. this knowledge can be used to diagnose unmodeled heterogeneity in the mark-recapture component of the data. by modeling the covariance in detection probabilities with distance, we show how the estimation problem can be formulated in terms of different levels of independence. at one extreme, full independence is assumed, as in the petersen estimator (which does not use distance data); at the other extreme, independence only occurs in the limit as detection probability tends to one. between the two extremes, there is a range of models, including those currently in common use, which have intermediate levels of independence. we show how this framework can be used to provide more reliable analysis of double-observer line transect data. we test the methods by simulation, and by analysis of a dataset for which true abundance is known. we illustrate the approach through analysis of minke whale sightings data from the north sea and adjacent waters." uncovering a latent multinomial: analysis of mark-recapture data with misidentification,dna fingerprints; mark-recapture; misidentification; multinomial; natural tags; null space,BIOMETRICS,LINK WA;YOSHIZAKI J;BAILEY LL;POLLOCK KH,"natural tags based on dna fingerprints or natural features of animals are now becoming very widely used in wildlife population biology. however, classic capture-recapture models do not allow for misidentification of animals which is a potentially very serious problem with natural tags. statistical analysis of misidentification processes is extremely difficult using traditional likelihood methods but is easily handled using bayesian methods. we present a general framework for bayesian analysis of categorical data arising from a latent multinomial distribution. although our work is motivated by a specific model for misidentification in closed population capture-recapture analyses, with crucial assumptions which may not always be appropriate, the methods we develop extend naturally to a variety of other models with similar structure. suppose that observed frequencies f are a known linear transformation f = a'x of a latent multinomial variable x with cell probability vector pi = pi(theta). given that full conditional distributions [theta vertical bar x] can be sampled, implementation of gibbs sampling requires only that we can sample from the full conditional distribution [x vertical bar f, theta], which is made possible by knowledge of the null space of a'. we illustrate the approach using two data sets with individual misidentification, one simulated, the other summarizing recapture data for salamanders based on natural marks." trends in agricultural impact and recovery of wetlands in prairie canada,agriculture; covariates; impact rates; multistate models; prairie canada; recovery rates; wetlands,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,BARTZEN BA;DUFOUR KW;CLARK RG;CASWELL FD,"despite widespread recognition that they provide valuable ecosystem services and contribute significantly to global biodiversity, over half of the world's wetlands have been lost, primarily to agriculture. wetland loss is evident in prairie canada, but comprehensive information about causes of ongoing impact for existing wetlands is lacking. habitat data collected for similar to 10 500 wetlands during annual waterfowl surveys (1985-2005) were analyzed using multistate models to estimate rates of wetland impact and recovery from agricultural activities in the canadian prairies. an impact was defined as an agricultural activity that visibly altered a wetland margin (natural vegetation surrounding wetland interiors) or basin (interior depression capable or holding water), whereas recovery was deemed to have occurred if agricultural activities had ceased and effects were no longer visibly apparent. we estimated separate impact and recovery rates for wetland basins and wetland margins and considered covariates such as location, time, wetness indices, land use, and wetland permanence. results indicate that impact rates for wetland margins have declined over dine, likely due to a decreasing percentage of unaffected wetlands on the landscape. recovery rates for margins were always lower than impact rates, suggesting progressive incidence or impacts to wetlands over time. unlike margins, impact and recovery rates for basins fluctuated 1 may pond densities, which we used as a wetness index. shallow ephemeral wetlands located in agricultural fields had the highest impact and lowest recovery rates relative to wetlands with higher water permanence or situated in areas or lower agricultural intensity. high rates and incidence of wetland impact in conjunction with low recovery rates clearly demonstrate the need for stronger wetland protection in prairie canada." @@ -4528,13 +4538,15 @@ hierarchical modelling and estimation of abundance and population trends in meta edge behaviour in a minute parasitic wasp,advection-diffusion models; anagrus; dispersal; edge behaviour; landscape; prokelisia,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,REEVE JD;CRONIN JT,"p>1. changes in the density of an organism near a boundary elements (edge effects) are often thought to be generated by changes in movement behaviour, but in most cases the mechanism underlying these effects is unknown. 2. we quantified the movement behaviour of a minute parasitic wasp, anagrus columbi, in relation to edges in its habitat. this wasp attacks eggs of the planthopper prokelisia crocea, which inhabits a wet prairie ecosystem composed of patches of its host plant prairie cordgrass (spartina pectinata) interspersed within a matrix of mudflat, smooth brome (bromus inermis) and native grasses. two edge types are common in this system, cordgrass-mudflat and cordgrass-brome. 3. we conducted mark-recapture experiments in which wasps were released at the cordgrass-matrix edge and 50 cm within cordgrass or matrix, for both edge types. the marked wasps were recaptured using a grid of sticky traps. we fitted an advection-diffusion model to these data, yielding estimates of the diffusion rate and advection coefficient for cordgrass and matrix, for each release position and edge type. 4. the spatial distribution of wasps was well-described by the advection-diffusion model. the pattern suggests that marked wasps strongly biased their movements towards the edge when released in matrix, and to a lesser extent when released in cordgrass, while edge releases showed little bias. the advection coefficients were similar for the two edge types, as were the diffusion rates for the three substrates (cordgrass, brome, mudflat). the diffusive and advective components of movement were of comparable magnitude for matrix and cordgrass releases, suggesting equal amounts of directed and random movement. 5. our results suggest the wasps are attracted to cordgrass patches across short distances, and that bias in their movements may concentrate them at the patch edge. their edge behaviour is qualitatively different from that of the host insect. 6. the methodology described here could be readily adapted to other systems, where direct observations of movement are difficult but mark-recapture studies are feasible." retention of panjet-applied alcian blue by cyprinids,chub; dace; mark longevity; mark-recapture; passive integrated transponder (pit); roach,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,BOLLAND JD;COWX IG;LUCAS MC,"panjet-applied alcian blue did not produce a reliable long-term (> 5 months) mark. average time to mark loss was 9.5 months for chub leuciscus cephalus, 6.0 months for dace leuciscus leuciscus and 11.1 months for roach rutilus rutilus. growth rate did not influence retention." abundance and sexual size dimorphism of the giant gartersnake (thamnophis gigas) in the sacramento valley of california,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,WYLIE GD;CASAZZA ML;GREGORY CJ;HALSTEAD BJ,"the giant gartersnake (thamnophis gigas) is restricted to wetlands of the central valley of california. because of wetland loss in this region, the giant gartersnake is both federally and state listed as threatened. we conducted mark-recapture studies of four populations of the giant gartersnake in the sacramento valley (northern central valley), california, to obtain baseline data on abundance and density to assist in recovery planning for this species. we sampled habitats that ranged from natural, unmanaged marsh to constructed managed marshes and habitats associated with rice agriculture. giant gartersnake density in a natural wetland (1.90 individuals/ha) was an order of magnitude greater than in a managed wetland subject to active season drying (0.17 individuals/ha). sex ratios at all sites were not different from 1 : 1, and females were longer and heavier than males. females had greater body condition than males, and individuals at the least disturbed sites had significantly greater body condition than individuals at the managed wetland. the few remaining natural wetlands in the central valley are important, productive habitat for the giant gartersnake, and should be conserved and protected. wetlands constructed and restored for the giant gartersnake should be modeled after the permanent, shallow wetlands representative of historic giant gartersnake habitat." -"seasonal variation in survivorship and mortality of desert tortoises in the sonoran desert, arizona",NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,RIEDLE JD;AVERILL-MURRAY RC;GRANDMAISON DD,"we determined annual survivorship and causes of mortality at two desert tortoise, gopherus agassizii, study sites in the sonoran desert, arizona, based on radio-telemetry data. annual survivorship was high (89-97%), did not differ between sexes, and was comparable to previous studies using mark recapture methods. survivorship between sexes differed seasonally at one site, based on differences in seasonal activity patterns and differential exposure to predation by mountain lions, puma concolor. in the absence of mammalian predation, seasonal survivorship did not differ between sexes. the next leading cause of mortality was failure to right oneself after a fall or after being flipped during reproductive or combat events." +"seasonal variation in survivorship and mortality of desert tortoises in the sonoran desert, arizona",NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,RIEDLE JD;AVERILL MURRAY RC;GRANDMAISON DD,"we determined annual survivorship and causes of mortality at two desert tortoise, gopherus agassizii, study sites in the sonoran desert, arizona, based on radio-telemetry data. annual survivorship was high (89-97%), did not differ between sexes, and was comparable to previous studies using mark recapture methods. survivorship between sexes differed seasonally at one site, based on differences in seasonal activity patterns and differential exposure to predation by mountain lions, puma concolor. in the absence of mammalian predation, seasonal survivorship did not differ between sexes. the next leading cause of mortality was failure to right oneself after a fall or after being flipped during reproductive or combat events." "population structure and growth of immature green turtles at mantanani, sabah, malaysia",NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,PILCHER N,"in southeast asia, virtually all knowledge about sea turtle biology is derived via nesting beach studies. this study investigated life-stage parameters for a foraging population of immature green turtles chelonia mydas off the coast of borneo, malaysia, to elucidate a significant portion of the at-sea life-stage component. mark-recapture provided new data on localized movements between captures, growth, and residency period. laparoscopic examination provided information on sex ratios and maturity. turtles moved only an average of 380 m between recaptures and exhibited site-fidelity over several recaptures spanning up to two years. size classes suggested all animals were juveniles and ranged from 38-80 cm ccl. growth rates among recaptures averaged 3.6 cm yr(-1). laparoscopic examinations of the gonads confirmed that all individuals were immature, with a sex ratio of 1m : 4f. these initial data on foraging c. mydas population structure and dynamics are of use for life-stage population models and turtle management and recovery planning." -capture-recapture method for assessing publication bias,meta-analysis; publication bias; review literature; capture-recapture,JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN MEDICAL SCIENCES,POOROLAJAL J;HAGHDOOST AA;MAHMOODI M;MAJDZADEH R;NASSERI-MOGHADDAM S;FOTOUHI A,"background: publication bias is an important factor that may result in selection bias and lead to overestimation of the intervention effect. in this study, the focus was on using capture-recapture method as a statistical procedure which may possibly be a practical means for measuring the amount of publication bias. methods: a systematic review was conducted to estimate the duration of protection provided by hepatitis b vaccine by measuring the anamnestic immune response to booster doses of vaccine and retrieved studies from three separate sources of electronic databases, reference lists of the studies, and conference databases as well as contact with experts and manufacturers. capture-recapture and some conventional methods such as funnel plot, begg test, egger test, and trim and fill method were employed for assessing publication bias. results: based on capture-recapture method, completeness of the overall search results was 87.2% [95% ci: 84.6% to 89.0%] and log-linear model suggested 5 [95% ci: 4.2 to 6.2] missing studies. the funnel plot was asymmetric while begg and egger tests results were statistically insignificant and trill and fill approach made no change in pooled effect. conclusions: capture-recapture method may be a useful practical approach for estimating the number of missing studies which are not usually detected by search strategy. as a result, use of capture-recapture method as an alternative approach could be suggested for estimating the extent of publication bias based on overlapping information rather than mirror image of extreme values on funnel plot." +capture-recapture method for assessing publication bias,meta-analysis; publication bias; review literature; capture-recapture,JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN MEDICAL SCIENCES,POOROLAJAL J;HAGHDOOST AA;MAHMOODI M;MAJDZADEH R;NASSERI MOGHADDAM S;FOTOUHI A,"background: publication bias is an important factor that may result in selection bias and lead to overestimation of the intervention effect. in this study, the focus was on using capture-recapture method as a statistical procedure which may possibly be a practical means for measuring the amount of publication bias. methods: a systematic review was conducted to estimate the duration of protection provided by hepatitis b vaccine by measuring the anamnestic immune response to booster doses of vaccine and retrieved studies from three separate sources of electronic databases, reference lists of the studies, and conference databases as well as contact with experts and manufacturers. capture-recapture and some conventional methods such as funnel plot, begg test, egger test, and trim and fill method were employed for assessing publication bias. results: based on capture-recapture method, completeness of the overall search results was 87.2% [95% ci: 84.6% to 89.0%] and log-linear model suggested 5 [95% ci: 4.2 to 6.2] missing studies. the funnel plot was asymmetric while begg and egger tests results were statistically insignificant and trill and fill approach made no change in pooled effect. conclusions: capture-recapture method may be a useful practical approach for estimating the number of missing studies which are not usually detected by search strategy. as a result, use of capture-recapture method as an alternative approach could be suggested for estimating the extent of publication bias based on overlapping information rather than mirror image of extreme values on funnel plot." local post-stratification in dual system accuracy and coverage evaluation for the us census,capture-recapture; erroneous enumeration; kernel smoothing; missing values; population size estimation,JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN STATISTICAL ASSOCIATION,CHEN SX;TANG CY;MULE VT,"we consider a local post-stratification approach to analyze the capture recapture dual system accuracy and coverage evaluation (a c e) data associated with the 2000 u s census the local post-stratification is carried out via a nonparantetnc regression estimation of the census enumeration and the correct enumeration functions we propose a nonparametric population size estimator that is designed to accommodate some key aspects of the a c e missing values, erroneous enumerations, and extra covariates affecting the missingness and correct enumeration the resulting estimates are compared with estimates from a convent tonal post-stratification and a logistic regression approach in an analysis on the 2000 census a c e data" growth and home range size of the gracile mouse opossum gracilinanus microtarsus (marsupialia: didelphidae) in brazilian cerrado,body mass; cerrado; growth; home range; marsupial; population ecology,JOURNAL OF TROPICAL ECOLOGY,FERNANDES FR;CRUZ LD;MARTINS EG;DOS REIS SF,"differences in growth patterns between the sexes of the gracile mouse opossum gracilinanus microtarsus and the consequences for home range size were investigated in a savanna habitat (cerrado) of south-eastern brazil. a total of 51 juvenile individuals of gracilinanus microtarsus was monitored using capture-mark-recapture from november 2005 to august 2006. the increase in body mass of gracile mouse opossums was described using the gompertz growth model. male gracile mouse opossums grew faster than females (dimorphic ratio of 1.5). home range size. estimated with the minimum convex polygon method. was positively related to body mass. model selection using akaike's information criterion (aic(c)) and incorporating body mass, sex and season as independent variables showed that the best-supported model describing variance in home range sizes included only body mass. our data suggest that a greater body mass gain in juvenile males is probably the proximate cause of sexual dimorphism ill adult. gracile mouse opossums and that energetic needs required for growth have a greater influence ill home range size." prevalence and incidence of endocrine disorders in children: results of a survey in baden-wuerttemberg and bavaria (endoprin bb) 2000-2001,incidence; prevalence; children; endocrine disorders,KLINISCHE PADIATRIE,SCHWEIZER R;BLUMENSTOCK G;MANGELSDORF K;EHEHALT S;ROSSNER L;DORN T;BINDER G;RANKE MB,"background: sparse data is available on the incidence of endocrine disorders among children in germany. aim: a pioneer study was established to analyse, in the german states of baden-wuerttemberg (bw) and bavaria (by), the incidence and prevalence of congenital adrenal hyperplasia (ags; cah), precocious puberty (pp), primary congenital hypothyreosis (pch), graves disease (mb), and growth disorders related to the ullrich-turner syndrome (uts) and growth hormone deficiency (ghd). methods: participation in the study involved each paediatric hospital in bw and by (n = 63), and all regional paediatricians belonging to the association of statutory health insurance physicians (shi) practising in these states (n = 1 443). data collection was done from january 1, 2000, to december 31, 2001, and included all patients in the 0-<18 age range. results: completeness of data was 81% for cah and 55% for uts (capture-mark-recapture method). the incidence rate (ir, per 100 000/year) versus prevalence rate (per 100 000 at the time point december 31, 2001) was: cah 0.64 vs. 9.60; pp 2.42 vs. 10,85; pch 1.88 vs. 14.97; mb 0.89 vs. 3.25; uts 2.15 vs. 29.07; and ghd 3.47 (ir). among neonates, the incidence of cah was 1/7794; pch 1/2629 and uts 1/2300. conclusions: a pioneer study has been established in germany for investigating the frequency of ags (cah), pp, pch, mb, uts, and ghd among children and adolescents. our data shows that these disorders occur in approx. 2 700 children per year in total germany, and about 12 000 of these children need to be treated in specialized paediatric endocrinological centres." -modeling disease vector occurrence when detection is imperfect: infestation of amazonian palm trees by triatomine bugs at three spatial scales,NA,PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES,ABAD-FRANCH F;FERRAZ G;CAMPOS C;PALOMEQUE FS;GRIJALVA MJ;AGUILAR HM;MILES MA,"background: failure to detect a disease agent or vector where it actually occurs constitutes a serious drawback in epidemiology. in the pervasive situation where no sampling technique is perfect, the explicit analytical treatment of detection failure becomes a key step in the estimation of epidemiological parameters. we illustrate this approach with a study of attalea palm tree infestation by rhodnius spp. (triatominae), the most important vectors of chagas disease (cd) in northern south america. methodology/principal findings: the probability of detecting triatomines in infested palms is estimated by repeatedly sampling each palm. this knowledge is used to derive an unbiased estimate of the biologically relevant probability of palm infestation. we combine maximum-likelihood analysis and information-theoretic model selection to test the relationships between environmental covariates and infestation of 298 amazonian palm trees over three spatial scales: region within amazonia, landscape, and individual palm. palm infestation estimates are high (40-60%) across regions, and well above the observed infestation rate (24%). detection probability is higher (similar to 0.55 on average) in the richest-soil region than elsewhere (similar to 0.08). infestation estimates are similar in forest and rural areas, but lower in urban landscapes. finally, individual palm covariates (accumulated organic matter and stem height) explain most of infestation rate variation. conclusions/significance: individual palm attributes appear as key drivers of infestation, suggesting that cd surveillance must incorporate local-scale knowledge and that peridomestic palm tree management might help lower transmission risk. vector populations are probably denser in rich-soil sub-regions, where cd prevalence tends to be higher; this suggests a target for research on broad-scale risk mapping. landscape-scale effects indicate that palm triatomine populations can endure deforestation in rural areas, but become rarer in heavily disturbed urban settings. our methodological approach has wide application in infectious disease research; by improving eco-epidemiological parameter estimation, it can also significantly strengthen vector surveillance-control strategies." +use of photographic capture-recapture sampling to estimate density of striped hyena (hyaena hyaena): implications for conservation,camera traps; india; individual identification; rajaji national park; stripe pattern,MAMMALIA,HARIHAR A;GHOSH M;FERNANDES M;PANDAV B;GOYAL SP,NA +capture-recapture models with heterogeneity to study survival senescence in the wild,NA,OIKOS,PERON G;CROCHET PA;CHOQUET R;PRADEL R;LEBRETON JD;GIMENEZ O,NA +modeling disease vector occurrence when detection is imperfect: infestation of amazonian palm trees by triatomine bugs at three spatial scales,NA,PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES,ABAD FRANCH F;FERRAZ G;CAMPOS C;PALOMEQUE FS;GRIJALVA MJ;AGUILAR HM;MILES MA,"background: failure to detect a disease agent or vector where it actually occurs constitutes a serious drawback in epidemiology. in the pervasive situation where no sampling technique is perfect, the explicit analytical treatment of detection failure becomes a key step in the estimation of epidemiological parameters. we illustrate this approach with a study of attalea palm tree infestation by rhodnius spp. (triatominae), the most important vectors of chagas disease (cd) in northern south america. methodology/principal findings: the probability of detecting triatomines in infested palms is estimated by repeatedly sampling each palm. this knowledge is used to derive an unbiased estimate of the biologically relevant probability of palm infestation. we combine maximum-likelihood analysis and information-theoretic model selection to test the relationships between environmental covariates and infestation of 298 amazonian palm trees over three spatial scales: region within amazonia, landscape, and individual palm. palm infestation estimates are high (40-60%) across regions, and well above the observed infestation rate (24%). detection probability is higher (similar to 0.55 on average) in the richest-soil region than elsewhere (similar to 0.08). infestation estimates are similar in forest and rural areas, but lower in urban landscapes. finally, individual palm covariates (accumulated organic matter and stem height) explain most of infestation rate variation. conclusions/significance: individual palm attributes appear as key drivers of infestation, suggesting that cd surveillance must incorporate local-scale knowledge and that peridomestic palm tree management might help lower transmission risk. vector populations are probably denser in rich-soil sub-regions, where cd prevalence tends to be higher; this suggests a target for research on broad-scale risk mapping. landscape-scale effects indicate that palm triatomine populations can endure deforestation in rural areas, but become rarer in heavily disturbed urban settings. our methodological approach has wide application in infectious disease research; by improving eco-epidemiological parameter estimation, it can also significantly strengthen vector surveillance-control strategies." "determining natal origins of birds using stable isotopes (delta s-34, delta d, delta n-15, delta c-13) model validation and spatial resolution for mid-continent mallards",assignment test; classification tree; mallard natal origin stable isotope,WATERBIRDS,COULTON DW;CLARK RG;HEBERT CE,the use of tissue stable isotope values to track animal movements is well-established but independent tests of existing models and assignment accuracy at coarse spatial scales and for non model species are rare assignment error associated with an existing model for distinguishing origins of north american mallards (anas platyrhyn chos) on the basis of feather delta s-34 delta d delta n-15 and delta c-13 values was evaluated prior information about regional movements reported in mallard mark recapture studies was accounted for and new models generated and applied to independent data obtained from flightless juvenile mallard and lesser scaup (aythya affinis) assignment error of an existing model was reduced from 14 to 8% by incorporating pilot information about mallard movement rates between pacific and mid-continent flyways (range 0 to <1%) in flyway specific models the revised mid-continent model correctly assigned 86% of 70 flightless hatch year mallards captured at breeding areas in central north america during 2005 to origin assignment accuracy ranged from 76 to 91% over five 1 latitude increments where boreal forest and prairie regions were increasingly separated from a focal aspen parkland region here separating boreal forest and prairie regions from the aspen parkland b) 4 latitude provided the highest relative assignment success rates among all three regions estimated origins of known source scaup were accurate (14 of 16) for birds with feathers grown in aspen parkland but not (0 of 5) for those grown in the canadian north western boreal for est the results support the use of multiple feather isotopes for assigning natal origins of birds at broad geographic scales but evaluation of factors affecting species specific isotope differences is required for application of existing models to other species received 18 april 2009 accepted 9 december 2009 distribution of non-breeding great lakes piping plovers (charadrius melodus) along atlantic and gulf of mexico coastlines ten years of band sightings,charadrius melodus conservation; critical habitat endangered species; great lakes; piping plover migration; non breeding site fidelity; winter distribution,WATERBIRDS,STUCKER JH;CUTHBERT FJ;WINN B;NOEL BL;MADDOCK SB;LEARY PR;CORDES J;WEMMER LC,in 1993 a mark recapture effort was initiated to band annually all great lakes piping plover nesting adults and offspring with voluntary reporting by observers >430 sightings of 154 individually marked great lakes banded birds were documented on the wintering grounds during 1995 2005 this paper reports non breeding distribution and site fidelity and identifies critical habitat units used by this population during the winter information obtained through banded bird sightings indicates that the winter range of great lakes piping plovers extends from north carolina to texas and the bahamas with the majority (75%) of reported individuals wintering in georgria and florida about 95% of sightings were near or within federally designated winter critical habitat for piping plovers within season (52%) and between year (62%) site fidelity was documented for resightings within 3 5 km of initial sighting although breeding pairs do not winter in close association there is some evidence to suggest that offspring winter closer to the male rather than the female parent (p value = 0 03) and adult males and females appear to exhibit latitudinal segregation (p value < 0 001) females reach the winter grounds before males arriving in july and staying through april (similar to 9 months) or 75% of the annual cycle the study is the first to identify winter distribution for the great lakes piping plover population the significant proportion of the annual cycle spent on the wintering grounds emphasizes the importance of habitat protection during the non breeding season for this federally listed population received 26 december 2008 accepted 1 december 2009 a comparison of green-winged teal anas crecca survival and harvest between europe and north america,anas crecca carolinenis; anus crecca crecca; capture-mark-recapture; eurasian teal; green-winged teal; harvest; population dynamics; recoveries; waterfowl,WILDLIFE BIOLOGY,DEVINEAU O;GUILLEMAIN M;JOHNSON AR;LEBRETON JD,"the impact of waterfowl harvest on the dynamics of duck populations remains incompletely understood. while wide-scale monitoring and management programs have been set up in north america, far less has been done in europe where populations and harvest are essentially managed at country level with a sole focus on population size. hence, comparing north american waterfowl populations with european waterfowl populations could be useful in suggesting flyway-scale management options in europe. in our paper, we analyse historical capture-recapture-recoveries data for the european teal anas crecca crecca and we compare the computed survival and harvest rates to those obtained from a north american recovery data set for the green-winged teal anas crecca carolinensis, its sister taxon. during 1960-1976, the annual probability of survival was slightly lower in europe (average over sexes: 0.485 +/- 0.101) than in north america (0.545 +/- 0.010 for both sexes). assuming a 30% ring reporting rate, our estimate of the annual harvest rate was about three times higher in europe (average over sexes: 0.178 +/- 0.051) than in north america (average over sexes: 0.071 +/- 0.014). although the european population increased over the study period and continues to do so, such a hunting pressure may potentially reduce our flexibility in managing this population due to uncertainties such as environmental changes, and have deleterious effects in the long term. we use our results to discuss waterfowl research and management in europe. initiating studies to estimate ring reporting rate would be an essential first step to properly evaluate the impact of harvest on the dynamics of the teal population in europe." @@ -4544,13 +4556,13 @@ natal philopatry and apparent survival of juvenile semipalmated plovers,NA,WILSO "spatial ecology of the oregon gartersnake, thamnophis atratus hydrophilus, in a free-flowing stream environment",NA,COPEIA,WELSH HH;WHEELER CA;LIND AJ,"spatial patterns of animals have important implications for population dynamics and can reveal other key aspects of a species' ecology. movements and the resulting spatial arrangements have fitness and genetic consequences for both individuals and populations. we studied the spatial and dispersal patterns of the oregon gartersnake, thamnophis atratus hydrophilus, using capture-recapture techniques. snakes showed aggregated dispersion. frequency distributions of movement distances were leptokurtic; the degree of kurtosis was highest for juvenile males and lowest for adult females. males were more frequently recaptured at locations different from their initial capture sites, regardless of age class. dispersal of neonates was not biased, whereas juvenile and adult dispersal were male-biased, indicating that the mechanisms that motivate individual movements differed by both age class and sex. males were recaptured within shorter time intervals than females, and juveniles were recaptured within shorter time intervals than adults. we attribute differences in capture intervals to higher detectability of males and juveniles, a likely consequence of their greater mobility. the aggregated dispersion appears to be the result of multi-scale habitat selection, and is consistent with the prey choices and related foraging strategies exhibited by the different age classes. inbreeding avoidance in juveniles and mate-searching behavior in adults may explain the observed male-biased dispersal patterns." using multistate mark-recapture methods to model adult salmonid migration in an industrialized river,chinook salmon; memory effects; multistate model; radiotelemetry; release-recapture,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,BUCHANAN RA;SKALSKI JR,"a multistate mark-recapture (msmr) model of the adult salmonid migration through the lower columbia river and into the snake river was developed, designed for radiotelemetry detections at dams and tributary mouths. the model focuses on upstream-directed travel, with states determined from observed fish movement patterns indicating directed upstream travel, downstream travel (fallback), and use of non-natal tributaries. the model was used to analyze telemetry data from 846 migrating adult spring-summer chinook salmon (oncorhynchus tshawytscha) tagged in 1996 at bonneville dam on the columbia river. we used the model to test competing hypotheses regarding delayed effects of fallback at dams and visits to tributaries, and to define and estimate migration summary measures. tagged fish had an average probability of 0.755 ((se) over cap = 0.018) of ending migration at a tributary or upstream of lower granite dam on the snake river, and a probability of 0.245 ((se) over cap = 0.018) of unaccountable loss (i.e., mortality or mainstem spawning) between the release site downstream of bonneville dam and lower granite dam. the highest probability of unaccountable loss (0.092; (se) over cap = 0.012) was in the reach between bonneville dam and the dalles dam. study fish used the tributaries primarily as exits from the hydrosystem, and visits to non-natal tributaries had no significant effect on subsequent movement upriver (p = 0.4245). however, fallback behavior had a small effect on subsequent tributary entry and exit (p = 0.0530), with fish using tributaries as resting areas after reascending bonneville dam after fallback. the spatial msmr model developed here can be adapted to address additional questions about the interaction of migrating organisms with their environment. or for the study of migrations in other river systems. (c) 2009 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." "completeness of hepatitis, brucellosis, syphilis, measles and hiv/aids surveillance in izmir, turkey",NA,BMC PUBLIC HEALTH,DURUSOY R;KARABABA AO,"background: according to the surveillance system in turkey, most diseases are notified only by clinicians, without involving laboratory notification. it is assumed that a considerable inadequacy in notifications exists; however, this has not been quantified by any researcher. our aim was to evaluate the completeness of communicable disease surveillance in the province of izmir, turkey for the year of 2003 by means of estimating the incidences of diseases. methods: data on positive laboratory results for the notifiable and serologically detectable diseases hepatitis a, b, c, brucellosis, syphilis, measles and hiv detected in 2003 in izmir (population 3.5 million) were collected from serology laboratories according to who surveillance standards and compared to the notifications received by the provincial health directorate. data were checked for duplicates and matched. incidences were estimated with the capture-recapture method. sensitivities of both notifications and laboratory data were calculated according to these estimates. results: among laboratories performing serologic tests (n = 158) in izmir, 84.2% accepted to participate, from which 23,515 positive results were collected. following the elimination of duplicate results as well as of cases residing outside of izmir, the total number was 11,402. the total number of notifications was 1802. notification rates of cases found in laboratories were 31.6% for hepatitis a, 12.1% for acute hepatitis b, 31.8% for brucellosis, 25.9% for syphilis and 100% for hiv confirmation. conclusions: it was discovered that for hepatitis a, b, c, brucellosis and syphilis, there is a considerable under-notification by clinicians and that laboratory data has the potential of contributing greatly to their surveillance. the inclusion of laboratories in the surveillance system of these diseases could help to achieve completeness of reporting." -vulnerable island carnivores: the endangered endemic dwarf procyonids from cozumel island,carnivore conservation; dwarf coati; mark-recapture; nasua nelsoni; procyon pygmaeus; pygmy raccoon; population ecology,BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,MCFADDEN KW;GARCIA-VASCO D;CUARON AD;VALENZUELA-GALVAN D;MEDELLIN RA;GOMPPER ME,"insular carnivores represent some of the most critically threatened species, but also the least known. to evaluate the conservation status of these species, thorough abundance estimates are urgently required. to better understand the population biology and conservation status of the endemic and threatened pygmy raccoon (procyon pygmaeus) and dwarf coati (nasua nelsoni) on cozumel island, mexico, we worked island-wide to identify the presence of these species, and for the pygmy raccoon we studied several populations in depth during 2001-2003. on cozumel, trapping was conducted for > 6,600 trap nights in 19 locations of varying habitat types. a total of 96 pygmy raccoons (47 males and 49 females) and a single adult, male dwarf coati (n. nelsoni) were captured. estimated total annual pygmy raccoon population size +/- a se was 80 +/- a 26.1, resulting in an average density of 22 +/- a 5.1 raccoons/km(2) for the three small sites where the animals persist. based in part on the findings of this study that indicate these species have a restricted range and small population numbers, the iucn recently changed the listing of the pygmy raccoon to critically endangered from endangered. in contrast, the status of the dwarf coati (endangered) has not been changed, although the taxon is in eminent danger of extinction and in need of immediate conservation action." +vulnerable island carnivores: the endangered endemic dwarf procyonids from cozumel island,carnivore conservation; dwarf coati; mark-recapture; nasua nelsoni; procyon pygmaeus; pygmy raccoon; population ecology,BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,MCFADDEN KW;GARCIA VASCO D;CUARON AD;VALENZUELA GALVAN D;MEDELLIN RA;GOMPPER ME,"insular carnivores represent some of the most critically threatened species, but also the least known. to evaluate the conservation status of these species, thorough abundance estimates are urgently required. to better understand the population biology and conservation status of the endemic and threatened pygmy raccoon (procyon pygmaeus) and dwarf coati (nasua nelsoni) on cozumel island, mexico, we worked island-wide to identify the presence of these species, and for the pygmy raccoon we studied several populations in depth during 2001-2003. on cozumel, trapping was conducted for > 6,600 trap nights in 19 locations of varying habitat types. a total of 96 pygmy raccoons (47 males and 49 females) and a single adult, male dwarf coati (n. nelsoni) were captured. estimated total annual pygmy raccoon population size +/- a se was 80 +/- a 26.1, resulting in an average density of 22 +/- a 5.1 raccoons/km(2) for the three small sites where the animals persist. based in part on the findings of this study that indicate these species have a restricted range and small population numbers, the iucn recently changed the listing of the pygmy raccoon to critically endangered from endangered. in contrast, the status of the dwarf coati (endangered) has not been changed, although the taxon is in eminent danger of extinction and in need of immediate conservation action." camera-trapping forest-woodland wildlife of western uganda reveals how gregariousness biases estimates of relative abundance and distribution,biodiversity; duiker; giant forest hog; group living; leopard; mark-recapture; non-invasive monitoring,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,TREVES A;MWIMA P;PLUMPTRE AJ;ISOKE S,"camera traps are increasingly used to estimate relative abundance and distribution of wildlife. these methods are powerful and efficient ways to inventory multiple species simultaneously and count rare, secretive individuals across landscapes. however the estimation methods demand assumptions about relative capture probability that may not hold well for gregarious animals. we present results from the first systematic, camera-trap study in forest-wood land, western uganda. within a landscape of seven protected areas with globally important biodiversity, we detected >36 species of large mammals and birds in 8841 camera-trap days. species photographed in groups of two or more individuals produced higher estimates of relative abundance and wider distribution than species photographed as single individuals. we propose these findings reflect higher detectability for animals that forage or travel in groups. we discuss how capture-recapture theory should be adapted to account for both non-independence among individuals in groups and for the interaction between individual and temporal variation in capture probability. we also identify several species that deserve greater conservation attention in uganda and beyond. among them, leopards were unexpectedly rare, especially when compared to the sympatric african golden cat. we recommend against a recent policy on leopard trophy hunting, at least in western uganda. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." site fidelity of the declining amphibian rana sierrae (sierra nevada yellow-legged frog),NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,MATTHEWS KR;PREISLER HK,"from 1997 to 2006, we used mark-recapture models to estimate the site fidelity of 1250 sierra nevada yellow-legged frogs (rana sierrae) in kings canyon national park, california, usa, during their three main activity periods of overwintering, breeding, and feeding. to quantify site fidelity, the tendency to return to and reuse previously occupied habitats, we used multistrata models (with water bodies as the strata) and potential function analyses. the probability of returning to previously used water bodies during all activity periods was typically greater than 80% and always greater than the probability of moving to other water bodies. site fidelity models (with lake-specific movement transitions) were favored over those models that held movement transitions equal between lakes. potential function analyses demonstrated that frogs were most strongly attracted to their original capture lakes rather than moving to the nearest available breeding or overwintering lake. under current disturbances in high-elevation sierra nevada lakes (exotic trout, climate change), site fidelity is problematic because frogs return to lakes subject to drying or those with fish rather than dispersing to other lakes. future recovery of declining species will need to focus efforts towards restoring habitats when animals maintain strong site fidelity even when their habitats deteriorate." "effects of more frequent and prolonged el nino events on life-history parameters of the degu, a long-lived and slow-reproducing rodent",enso; global warming; life history; octodon degus; rainfall variation; reproduction; semiarid; survival; vital rates,CONSERVATION BIOLOGY,PREVITALI MA;MESERVE PL;KELT DA;MILSTEAD WB;GUTIERREZ JR,"global climate change (gcc) can have profound effects on species whose ecology is governed primarily by climatic factors. the ecology of small mammals inhabiting semiarid chile is strongly affected by the el nino southern oscillation (enso). during la nina events in this area, dry conditions prevail and species may disappear from the thorn-scrub habitat. conversely, el nino events bring high rainfall, and associated pulses of food trigger small-mammal population increases. we used capture-mark-recapture to study responses of the degu (octodon degus), a dominant small mammal, to variation in rainfall over 18 years. in response to a recent trend toward wetter conditions, degus reached record-high densities and maintained more stable numbers in the area. underlying mechanisms involved variation in adult survival, juvenile persistence, and fecundity linked to rainfall changes during consecutive years (i.e., rainfall phases). during prolonged droughts, degus had low survival and produced fewer offspring, with low persistence. following high rainfall, these parameters reversed; consecutive wet years resulted in further increases. weak declines in fecundity and adult survival and high persistence of juveniles explained delayed responses to deteriorating conditions in initial dry years. if gcc leads to increased frequency of el nino events, we anticipate greater numerical dominance of degus in semiarid chile and possible range expansion. furthermore, degus have strong impacts on other small mammal and some plant species, are important prey species, and are agricultural pests and disease reservoirs. hence, gcc has the potential to dramatically influence their ecology in northern chile and to have cascading effects on other components of this system." value of semi-open corridors for simultaneously connecting open and wooded habitats: a case study with ground beetles,carabid beetle; connectivity; corridor; forest; fragmentation,CONSERVATION BIOLOGY,EGGERS B;MATERN A;DREES C;EGGERS J;HARDTLE W;ASSMANN T,"to counteract habitat fragmentation, the connectivity of a landscape should be enhanced. corridors are thought to facilitate movement between disconnected patches of habitat, and linear strips of habitat connecting isolated patches are a popular type of corridor. on the other hand, the creation of new corridors can lead to fragmentation of the surrounding habitat. for example, heathland corridors connect patches of heathland and alternatively hedgerows connect patches of woodland. nevertheless, these corridors themselves also break up previously connected patches of their surrounding habitat and in so doing fragment another type of habitat (heathland corridors fragment woodlands and woodland strips or hedgerows fragment heath-lands). to overcome this challenge we propose the use of semi-open habitats (a mixture of heathland and woodland vegetation) as conservation corridors to enable dispersal of both stenotopic heathland and woodland species. we used two semi-open corridors with a mosaic of heathland and woody vegetation to investigate the efficiency of semi-open corridors for species dispersal and to assess whether these corridors might be a suitable approach for nature conservation. we conducted a mark-recapture study on three stenotopic flightless carabid beetles of heathlands and woodlands and took an inventory of all the carabid species in two semi-open corridors. both methodological approaches showed simultaneous immigration of woodland and heathland species in the semi-open corridor. detrended correspondence analysis showed a clear separation of the given habitats and affirmed that semi-open corridors are a good strategy for connecting woodlands and heathlands. the best means of creating and preserving semi-open corridors is probably through extensive grazing." "an examination of the population dynamics of syngnathid fishes within tampa bay, florida, usa",syngnathids; habitat-use; seahorse; pipefish; population density; mark-recapture,CURRENT ZOOLOGY,MASONJONES HD;ROSE E;MCRAE LB;DIXSON DL,"seagrass ecosystems worldwide have been declining, leading to a decrease in associated fish populations, especially those with low mobility such as syngnathids (pipefish and seahorses). this two-year pilot study investigated seasonal patterns in density, growth, site fidelity, and population dynamics of tampa bay (fl) syngnathid fishes at a site adjacent to two marinas under construction. using a modified mark-recapture technique, fish were collected periodically from three closely located sites that varied in seagrass species (thalassia spp., syringodium spp., and mixed-grass sites) and their distance from open water, but had consistent physical/chemical environmental characteristics. fish were marked, photographed for body size and gender measurements, and released the same day at the capture site. of the 5695 individuals surveyed, 49 individuals were recaptured, indicating a large, flexible population. population density peaks were observed in july of both years, with low densities in late winter and late summer. spatially, syngnathid densities were highest closest to the mouth of the bay and lowest near the shoreline. seven species of syngnathid fishes were observed, and species-specific patterns of seagrass use emerged during the study. however, only two species, syngnathus scovelli and hippocampus zosterae, were observed at high frequencies. for these two species, body size decreased across the study period, but while s. scovelli's population density decreased, h. zosterae's increased. across six of the seven species, population size declined over the course of this preliminary study; however, seasonal shifts were impossible to distinguish from potential anthropogenic effects of construction [current zoology 56(1): 118-133, 2010]." -"roles of human disturbance, precipitation, and a pathogen on the survival and reproductive probabilities of deer mice","deer mice; density dependence; great basin desert, central utah, usa; human disturbance; off-road vehicles; peromyscus maniculatus; precipitation; reproduction; seasonality; sin nombre virus; survival",ECOLOGY,PREVITALI MA;LEHMER EM;PEARCE-DUVET JMC;JONES JD;CLAY CA;WOOD BA;ELY PW;LAVERTY SM;DEARING MD,"climate change, human disturbance, and disease can have large impacts on the dynamics of a species by affecting the likelihood of survival and reproduction of individuals. we investigated the roles of precipitation, off-road vehicle (orv) alteration of habitat, and infection with sin nombre virus on the survival and reproductive probabilities of deer mice (peromyscus maniculatus). we used generalized linear mixed models to estimate the effects of these factors and their interactions by fitting capture-recapture data collected seasonally from 2002 to 2007 at 17 sites in the great basin desert of central utah, usa. during periods with high precipitation, we found no difference in survival and reproductive probabilities between seasons, but during drier periods, we found a reduction of overwinter survival and fall reproductive activity. precipitation also interacted with disturbance to affect survival probabilities and female reproduction; in periods with low precipitation, deer mice on highly disturbed sites had extremely low survival probabilities and low reproductive probabilities of females compared to those of individuals from low-disturbance sites. however, high precipitation ameliorated the effect of disturbance on both parameters. deer mice from sites with high impact of orv disturbance also had low survival over summer. additionally, male reproductive probabilities were diminished on highly disturbed sites in both seasons; in contrast, they were reduced only in the fall on low-disturbance sites. density had an overall negative effect on survival and reproductive probabilities of deer mice. for females, the negative effect on reproductive activity was amplified in highly disturbed sites. we found no effect of hantavirus infection on survival probabilities of deer mice. overall, this study revealed complexity in the determinants of deer mouse survival and reproduction given by the effects of a number of significant interactions among explanatory variables. thus, factors that may not appear to have a strong effect when investigated alone can still be influential by modulating the effect of a different factor." +"roles of human disturbance, precipitation, and a pathogen on the survival and reproductive probabilities of deer mice","deer mice; density dependence; great basin desert, central utah, usa; human disturbance; off-road vehicles; peromyscus maniculatus; precipitation; reproduction; seasonality; sin nombre virus; survival",ECOLOGY,PREVITALI MA;LEHMER EM;PEARCE DUVET JMC;JONES JD;CLAY CA;WOOD BA;ELY PW;LAVERTY SM;DEARING MD,"climate change, human disturbance, and disease can have large impacts on the dynamics of a species by affecting the likelihood of survival and reproduction of individuals. we investigated the roles of precipitation, off-road vehicle (orv) alteration of habitat, and infection with sin nombre virus on the survival and reproductive probabilities of deer mice (peromyscus maniculatus). we used generalized linear mixed models to estimate the effects of these factors and their interactions by fitting capture-recapture data collected seasonally from 2002 to 2007 at 17 sites in the great basin desert of central utah, usa. during periods with high precipitation, we found no difference in survival and reproductive probabilities between seasons, but during drier periods, we found a reduction of overwinter survival and fall reproductive activity. precipitation also interacted with disturbance to affect survival probabilities and female reproduction; in periods with low precipitation, deer mice on highly disturbed sites had extremely low survival probabilities and low reproductive probabilities of females compared to those of individuals from low-disturbance sites. however, high precipitation ameliorated the effect of disturbance on both parameters. deer mice from sites with high impact of orv disturbance also had low survival over summer. additionally, male reproductive probabilities were diminished on highly disturbed sites in both seasons; in contrast, they were reduced only in the fall on low-disturbance sites. density had an overall negative effect on survival and reproductive probabilities of deer mice. for females, the negative effect on reproductive activity was amplified in highly disturbed sites. we found no effect of hantavirus infection on survival probabilities of deer mice. overall, this study revealed complexity in the determinants of deer mouse survival and reproduction given by the effects of a number of significant interactions among explanatory variables. thus, factors that may not appear to have a strong effect when investigated alone can still be influential by modulating the effect of a different factor." habitat selection and abundance of common genets genetta genetta using camera capture-mark-recapture data,camera trap; capture-mark-recapture; common genet; density estimate; genetta genetta; program capture,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,SARMENTO PB;CRUZ JP;EIRA CI;FONSECA C,"using camera-trapping techniques, the present study, conducted from 2005 to 2007, provides common genet abundance estimates in serra da malcata nature reserve (central-eastern portugal). we estimated genet abundance using the software capture. it was possible to obtain a capture success of 1.49 captures/100 trap-nights. considering the heterogeneity model (m-h), which presents higher biological significance, the estimated density varied between 0.50 (95% ci = 0.43-0.56 genets/km(2)) to 0.92 (95% ci = 0.87-0.97 genets/km(2)) genets/km(2) with an average density value of 0.70 genets/km(2) (95% ci = 0.58-0.82 genets/km(2)). these estimates emphasized this technique as a reliable method for assessing average genet density over large spatial scales and for monitoring future changes in genet numbers. in terms of habitat selection, genets selected quercus rotundifolia and arbutus unedo woodlands and avoided erica spp. and cistus ladanifer scrubland and eucalyptus stands. considering the landscape heterogeneity outside the reserve, our study emphasizes the importance of the protected area for small carnivore conservation." "estimating angling effort and participation in a multi-user, inland fishery in south africa",lake gariep; mark-recapture; recreational; subsistence,FISHERIES MANAGEMENT AND ECOLOGY,ELLENDER BR;WEYL OLF;WINKER H;STELZHAMMER H;TRAAS GRL,"p>angler counts, on-lake interviews and a household survey were used to estimate angler effort and participation in lake gariep, south africa's largest inland water body. annual fishing effort was estimated from instantaneous counts at 16392 angler day-1 yr-1. recreational and subsistence anglers contributed 41 and 59% to the total annual fishing effort, respectively. household surveys in lakeshore settlements estimated that >= 914 anglers fished the lake and minimum daily fishing effort in one of the fishing areas assessed was 77 anglers. as a result of recall bias, these estimates were almost twice as high as those determined by direct counts. a low cost method of assessing participation by applying a mark-recapture model to the proportion of anglers whom had been previously interviewed during eight bimonthly sampling events was tested. the model converged in three of four applications (2 areas x 2 sectors). the mark-recapture method revealed similar numbers of anglers to the estimate of regular anglers (fishing 1-3 times a week) from the household survey and was considered an appropriate estimator for the number of subsistence anglers. regardless of the assessment method the results show that the resource is of importance to subsistence livelihoods, which is an important management consideration in future fisheries development and rights allocation processes." estimating deep web data source size by capture-recapture method,deep web; estimators; capture-recapture,INFORMATION RETRIEVAL,LU JG;LI DD,"this paper addresses the problem of estimating the size of a deep web data source that is accessible by queries only. since most deep web data sources are non-cooperative, a data source size can only be estimated by sending queries and analyzing the returning results. we propose an efficient estimator based on the capture-recapture method. first we derive an equation between the overlapping rate and the percentage of the data examined when random samples are retrieved from a uniform distribution. this equation is conceptually simple and leads to the derivation of an estimator for samples obtained by random queries. since random queries do not produce random documents, it is well known that the traditional methods by random queries underestimate the size, i.e., those estimators have negative bias. based on the simple estimator for random samples, we adjust the equation so that it can handle the samples returned by random queries. we conduct both simulation studies and experiments on corpora including gov2, reuters, newsgroups, and wikipedia. the results show that our method has small bias and standard deviation." @@ -4567,7 +4579,7 @@ estimating survival and migration route probabilities of juvenile chinook salmon adult survival and microsatellite diversity in possums: effects of major histocompatibility complex-linked microsatellite diversity but not multilocus inbreeding estimators,survival; mark-recapture; major histocompatibility complex; assignment test; parasite load,OECOLOGIA,BANKS SC;DUBACH J;VIGGERS KL;LINDENMAYER DB,"adult survival is perhaps the fitness parameter most important to population growth in long-lived species. intrinsic and extrinsic covariates of survival are therefore likely to be important drivers of population dynamics. we used long-term mark-recapture data to identify genetic, individual and environmental covariates of local survival in a natural population of mountain brushtail possums (trichosurus cunninghami). rainfall and intra-individual diversity at microsatellite dna markers were associated with increased local survival of adults and juveniles. we contrasted the performance of several microsatellite heterozygosity measures, including internal relatedness (ir), homozygosity by loci (hl) and the mean multilocus estimate of the squared difference in microsatellite allele sizes within an individual (mean d (2)). however, the strongest effect on survival was not associated with multilocus microsatellite diversity (which would indicate a genome-wide inbreeding effect), but a subset of two loci. this included a major histocompatibility complex (mhc)-linked marker and a putatively neutral microsatellite locus. for both loci, diversity measures incorporating allele size information had stronger associations with survival than measures based on heterozygosity, whether or not allele frequency information was included (such as ir). increased survival was apparent among heterozygotes at the mhc-linked locus, but the benefits of heterozygosity to survival were reduced in heterozygotes with larger differences in allele size. the effect of heterozygosity on fitness-related traits was supported by data on endoparasites in a subset of the individuals studied in this population. there was no apparent density dependence in survival, nor an effect of sex, age or immigrant status. our findings suggest that in the apparent absence of inbreeding, variation at specific loci can generate strong associations between fitness and diversity at linked markers." long- and short-term influence of environment on recruitment in a species with highly delayed maturity,black-browed albatross; breeding decision; natal conditions; environmental variability; immature survival,OECOLOGIA,NEVOUX M;WEIMERSKIRCH H;BARBRAUD C,"short-term effects of environmental perturbations on various life history traits are reasonably well documented in birds and mammals. but, in the present context of global climate change, there is a need to consider potential long-term effects of natal conditions to better understand and predict the consequences of these changes on population dynamics. the environmental conditions affecting offspring during their early development may determine their lifetime reproductive performance, and therefore the number of recruits produced by a cohort. in this study, we attempted to link recruitment to natal and recent (previous year) conditions in the long-lived black-browed albatross (thalassarche melanophrys) at kerguelen islands. the environmental variability was described using both climatic variables over breeding (sea surface temperature anomaly) and non-breeding grounds (southern oscillation index), and variables related to the colony (breeding success and colony size). immature survival was linked to the breeding success of the colony in the year of birth, which was expected to reflect the average seasonal parental investment. at the cohort level, this initial mortality event may act as a selective filter shaping the number, and presumably the quality (breeding frequency, breeding success probability), of the individuals that recruit into the breeding population. the decision to start breeding was strongly structured by the age of the individuals and adjusted according to recent conditions. an effect of natal conditions was not detected on this parameter, supporting the selection hypothesis. recruitment, as a whole, was thus influenced by a combination of long- and short-term environmental impacts. our results highlight the complexity of the influence of environmental factors on such long-lived species, due to the time-lag (associated with a delayed maturity) between the impact of natal conditions on individuals and their repercussion on the breeding population." unravelling causality from correlations: revealing the impacts of endemic ectoparasites on a protected species (tuatara),body condition; host-parasite dynamics; ticks; trombiculid mites; conservation,PARASITOLOGY,GODFREY SS;MOORE JA;NELSON NJ;BULL CM,"understanding the impacts of endemic parasites on protected hosts is an essential element of conservation management. however, where manipulative experiments are unethical, causality cannot be inferred from observational correlative studies. instead, we used an experimental structure to explore temporal associations between body condition of a protected reptile, the tuatara (sphenodon punctatus) and infestation with ectoparasites (ticks and mites). we surveyed tuatara in a mark-recapture study on stephens island (new zealand), which encompassed the pre-peak, peak and post-peak infestation periods for each ectoparasite. tick loads during the peak infestation period were negatively related to body condition of tuatara. body condition before the peak was not related to subsequent infestation rates; however, tick loads in the peak were negatively related to subsequent changes in body condition. mite loads during the peak infestation period were not correlated with body condition of tuatara. body condition before the peak had no effect on subsequent mite infestation rates, but mite loads of small males during the peak were negatively related to subsequent changes in body condition. our results suggest that both ectoparasites reduce the body condition of tuatara, which has implications for the long-term conservation management of this host and its parasites." -multiple sclerosis in haute-garonne: an important underestimate of prevalence,multiple sclerosis; epidemiology; prevalence; capture-recapture,REVUE D EPIDEMIOLOGIE ET DE SANTE PUBLIQUE,SAGNES-RAFFY C;GOURRAUD PA;HANNON V;BOURREL R;LAFFONTAN MA;GAULENE MC;VIALA F;CLANET M,"introduction. - in france, the prevalence of multiple sclerosis is estimated between 65 and 125 patients per 100,000 inhabitants with a south-west towards north-east gradient. nevertheless, the epidemiology of multiple sclerosis remains still imperfectly known, the recent studies being realized, either in a region of france, or from a single data source and thus suscepted not to be exhaustive. objective. - assessing the prevalence of the multiple sclerosis in 2005 in haute-garonne by matching several data sources completed by a capture-recapture method; estimating the exhaustivity of each of the sources. methods. - the data sources were hospital data (drg for the hospitalization, data of consultation), data of public health insurance system (main health insurance, agricultural health insurance, social welfare for self employed), and data from the mipsep network. the linkage was based on name, maiden name, first name, date of birth and sex and allowed a first estimation of the number of cases. models of loglinear regression allowed estimating the total number of case and the sensitivity of each source. results. - the total number of cases obtained by matching several sources of information amounted to 1549. the use of several data sources increased by 25.6% the maximum number of patients identified with a single source of information (national health insurance, any insurance). according to the model used, the method of capture-recapture estimated the number of cases up to 1722. therefore, this study estimated a prevalence of multiple sclerosis between 110 and 149 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in haute-garonne. conclusion. - the prevalence of the multiple sclerosis is largely underestimated in haute-garonne and questions the magnitude over the so-called gradient. matching several sources of information is indispensable to improve collection of the total number of cases. (c) 2009 elsevier masson sas. all rights reserved." +multiple sclerosis in haute-garonne: an important underestimate of prevalence,multiple sclerosis; epidemiology; prevalence; capture-recapture,REVUE D EPIDEMIOLOGIE ET DE SANTE PUBLIQUE,SAGNES RAFFY C;GOURRAUD PA;HANNON V;BOURREL R;LAFFONTAN MA;GAULENE MC;VIALA F;CLANET M,"introduction. - in france, the prevalence of multiple sclerosis is estimated between 65 and 125 patients per 100,000 inhabitants with a south-west towards north-east gradient. nevertheless, the epidemiology of multiple sclerosis remains still imperfectly known, the recent studies being realized, either in a region of france, or from a single data source and thus suscepted not to be exhaustive. objective. - assessing the prevalence of the multiple sclerosis in 2005 in haute-garonne by matching several data sources completed by a capture-recapture method; estimating the exhaustivity of each of the sources. methods. - the data sources were hospital data (drg for the hospitalization, data of consultation), data of public health insurance system (main health insurance, agricultural health insurance, social welfare for self employed), and data from the mipsep network. the linkage was based on name, maiden name, first name, date of birth and sex and allowed a first estimation of the number of cases. models of loglinear regression allowed estimating the total number of case and the sensitivity of each source. results. - the total number of cases obtained by matching several sources of information amounted to 1549. the use of several data sources increased by 25.6% the maximum number of patients identified with a single source of information (national health insurance, any insurance). according to the model used, the method of capture-recapture estimated the number of cases up to 1722. therefore, this study estimated a prevalence of multiple sclerosis between 110 and 149 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in haute-garonne. conclusion. - the prevalence of the multiple sclerosis is largely underestimated in haute-garonne and questions the magnitude over the so-called gradient. matching several sources of information is indispensable to improve collection of the total number of cases. (c) 2009 elsevier masson sas. all rights reserved." measuring and modeling the seasonal changes of an urban green treefrog (hyla cinerea) population,anuran population; capture-mark-recapture; statistical population estimates; stage structured model; model-to-data fits; extinction probability; intra-annual fluctuations,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,ACKLEH AS;CARTER J;COLE L;NGUYEN T;MONTE J;PETTIT C,"green treefrogs (hyla cinerea) were captured, marked, measured and released at an urban study site in lafayette, la, during the 2004 and 2005 breeding seasons. a statistical method based on a generalization of the hypergeometric distribution was used to derive weekly time-series estimates of the population sizes. to describe the population dynamics, a stage structured mathematical model was developed and compared to time-series obtained from the weekly population estimates study using a least-squares approach. two fitting experiments were done: (1) using uniform distribution for the birth rate during the breeding season; (2) using a birth rate distributed according to weekly data on frog calling intensity. although both model-to-data fits look very promising during the years 2004 and 2005 and result in similar inherent survivorship rates for the tadpoles, juvenile and adult frogs, the fit that uses the calling data predicts a lower number of tadpoles and frogs in the long term than the one that uses uniform birth distribution. the parameter estimates resulting from these fitting experiments are used in the context of stochastic simulations to derive extinction and persistence probabilities for this population. due to the oscillatory dynamics (with high amplitude) evidenced by the capture-recapture data and corroborated by the model, it is suggested that anuran monitoring efforts should take into account the natural intra-annual variation in population size. (c) 2009 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." "postnatal growth and age estimation in the ashy leaf-nosed bat, hipposideros cineraceus",hipposideros cineraceus; postnatal growth; age estimation; nonlinear growth models,ACTA CHIROPTEROLOGICA,JIN LR;LIN AQ;SUN KP;LIU Y;FENG JA,"we quantified changes in body mass, forearm length, and the total length of the epiphyseal gap of the fourth metacarpal-phalangeal joint of the ashy leaf-nosed bat (hipposideros cineraceus) based on mark-recapture data obtained in fangkong cave in hekou, yunnan province, china we used these data to develop empirical growth curves, to derive growth rates, to establish age-predictive equations, and to compare growth parameters based on three nonlinear growth models forearm length and body mass of pups followed a linear pattern of growth until day 17, with mean growth rates of 0 81 mm/day and 009 g/day, respectively and thereafter their growth rates increased more slowly the length of the epiphyseal gap initially increased linearly up to day 13 and then decreased linearly at a mean rate of 0.07 mm/day until day 37 an equation for estimating age based on forearm length was valid when this dimension was <= 27 6 mm, whereas the equation based on the length of the epiphyseal gap was valid for forearm lengths >= 243 mm together, these two equations permit estimation of the age of h cineraceus pups between 1 and 37 days of the three nonlinear growth models (logistic. gompertz, and von bertalanffy), the logistic equation provided the best fit to the empirical curves for body mass and forearm length" density estimation and survey validation for swift fox vulpes velox in oklahoma,swift fox; mark recapture; density estimates; indices of relative abundance; oklahoma,ACTA THERIOLOGICA,CRIFFIELD MA;HELLGREN EC;LESLIE DM,"the swift fox vulpes velox say, 1823, a small canid native to shortgrass prairie ecosystems of north america, has been the subject of enhanced conservation and research interest because of restricted distribution and low densities. previous studies have described distributions of the species in the southern great plains, but data on density are required to evaluate indices of relative abundance and monitor population trends. we examined regressions of swift fox density (estimated by mark-recapture) on timed-track surveys, scat surveys, and catch-per-unit effort indices. seventy-nine swift foxes (42 male, 37 female) were captured 151 times during 10240 trapnights between may 2003 and december 2004 in the panhandle of oklahoma, usa. density estimates, based on mark-recapture data from autumn 2004, were 0.08-0.44 foxes/km(2). survey indices explained 51 to 76% of the variation in estimates of fox density. our study indicates that surveys of time-to-track encounters and scat deposition rates show promise in monitoring trends in population abundance over large areas." @@ -4575,17 +4587,17 @@ density estimation and survey validation for swift fox vulpes velox in oklahoma, the law and incomplete database information as confounders in epidemiologic research on occupational injuries and illnesses,occupational accidents; epidemiologic methods; capture-recapture; surveillance,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE,OLEINICK A;ZAIDMAN B,"background capture-recapture studies report undercounting of work injuries/illnesses with days away from work (dafw) in the bureau of labor statistics annual survey of occupational injuries and illnesses (bls soii) by 25-68% depending oil the state and undercounting by various state workers' compensation (wc) systems of eligible claims by 5-35%. methods statutory/regulatory criteria defining eligible cases are used to adjust counts in the 1998-2001 minnesota's wc system and the bls soh to permit comparison and to evaluate the recent studies. missing information in the employer database used in the capture-recapture studies is tabulated. an attempt is made to harmonize results with two additional databases counting work injuries. results counts in the bls soh moderately undercount by 10-16% the number of wc cases. we believe that matching in capture-recapture studies is adversely affected by misperceptions regarding the application of statutory/regulatory eligibility criteria and by missing data. the result is that the reported undercounts in both the bls soii and several state wc databases are overstated in the capture-recapture studies. although three of four databases call be approximately harmonized, the fourth cannot. conclusions more precisely targeted information is needed before decisions regarding redesign of the bls survey are made or before legislative or administrative changes in the wc are contemplated. am. j. ind. med. 53:23-36, 2010. (c) 2009 wiley-liss, inc." "capture-mark-recapture analysis reveals survival correlates in salamandrina perspicillata (savi, 1821)",breeding probability; density dependent emigration; lifespan; transience; two-age class model,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,ANGELINI C;ANTONELLI D;UTZERI C,"we carried out a mark-recapture survival analysis of female salamandrina perspicillata in two central italian populations. overall survival was similar in both populations (about 85-90% per year) and the estimated lifespan was about twelve years. we detected transients in one population, possibly related to the high density of females in this site. the breeding probability of females was independent from that of the preceding year." movements of alpine newts (mesotriton alpestris) between small aquatic habitats (ruts) during the breeding season,amphibians; habitat supplementation; rut; site fidelity; temporary pond,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,KOPECKY O;VOJAR J;DENOEL M,"many species with complex life cycles, such as caudate amphibians, migrate from terrestrial to aquatic habitats for reproduction. however, movements between reproductive ponds within a breeding season have rarely been studied and are usually considered to be limited. our aim was to determine whether this pattern occurs frequently in alpine newts (mesotriton alpestris) inhabiting complexes of small ruts on muddy forest tracks. we analysed capture-recapture data for individually marked newts as a function of locality, sex, body condition and hydroperiod throughout the breeding season. more than one third of the newts changed their ruts. movements occurred more often towards ruts that did not dry during the breeding season. the body condition of males that changed ponds (but not that of females) was higher compared to that of resident newts in one of the studied populations. the relatively high frequency of movements between ruts can be seen as an adaptive strategy in unpredictable habitats which have a high probability of drying. the promiscuous pattern of newts also favours low site tenacity, because few sexual partners are available in each rut. because of the broad occurrence of this kind of habitat, future studies should take into account these movements to better understand newt population dynamics and how to apply adequate conservation measures." -photographic identification in reptiles: a matter of scales,capture-recapture; individual-identification; lacerta bilineata; lizards; marking; photographic identification; podarcis muralis,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,SACCHI R;SCALI S;PELLITTERI-ROSA D;PUPIN F;GENTILLI A;TETTAMANTI S;CAVIGIOLI L;RACINA L;MAIOCCHI V;GALEOTTI P;FASOLA M,"photographic identification is a promising marking technique alternative to the toe-clipping, since it is completely harmless, cheap, and it allows long time identification of individuals. its application to ecological studies is mainly limited by the time consuming to compare pictures within large datasets and the huge variation of ornamentation patterns among different species, which prevent the possibility that a single algorithm can effectively work for more than few species. scales of reptiles offer an effective alternative to ornamentations for computer aided identification procedures, since both shape and size of scales are unique to each individual, thus acting as a fingerprint like ornamentation patterns do. we used the interactive individual identification system (i(3)s) software to assess whether different individuals of two species of european lizards (podarcis muralis and lacerta bilineata) can be reliably photographically identified using the pattern of the intersections among pectoral scales as fingerprints. we found that i(3)s was able to identify different individuals among two samples of 21 individuals for each species independently from the error associated to the ability of the operators in collecting pictures and in digitizing the pattern of intersections among pectoral scales. in a database of 1043 images of p. muralis collected between 2007 and 2008, the software recognized 98% of recaptures within each year, and 99% of the recaptures between years. in addition, 99% and 96% of matches were ranked among the top five, and no more than 5 minutes were needed for digitizing and processing each image. the lepidosis of reptiles is a reliable alternative to ornamentation patterns in photographic identification of reptiles, which can be effectively analysed using the i3s software. this result represents a significant improvement in photographic identification of reptiles since (i) this procedure can be easily extended to most other species of reptiles, (ii) all kind of individuals within a species can be marked (i. e., young, subadults and adults) despite the differences in ornamentation patterns, and (iii) it is the only technique for species, like the western green lizard, which lack a clear ornamentation pattern." +photographic identification in reptiles: a matter of scales,capture-recapture; individual-identification; lacerta bilineata; lizards; marking; photographic identification; podarcis muralis,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,SACCHI R;SCALI S;PELLITTERI ROSA D;PUPIN F;GENTILLI A;TETTAMANTI S;CAVIGIOLI L;RACINA L;MAIOCCHI V;GALEOTTI P;FASOLA M,"photographic identification is a promising marking technique alternative to the toe-clipping, since it is completely harmless, cheap, and it allows long time identification of individuals. its application to ecological studies is mainly limited by the time consuming to compare pictures within large datasets and the huge variation of ornamentation patterns among different species, which prevent the possibility that a single algorithm can effectively work for more than few species. scales of reptiles offer an effective alternative to ornamentations for computer aided identification procedures, since both shape and size of scales are unique to each individual, thus acting as a fingerprint like ornamentation patterns do. we used the interactive individual identification system (i(3)s) software to assess whether different individuals of two species of european lizards (podarcis muralis and lacerta bilineata) can be reliably photographically identified using the pattern of the intersections among pectoral scales as fingerprints. we found that i(3)s was able to identify different individuals among two samples of 21 individuals for each species independently from the error associated to the ability of the operators in collecting pictures and in digitizing the pattern of intersections among pectoral scales. in a database of 1043 images of p. muralis collected between 2007 and 2008, the software recognized 98% of recaptures within each year, and 99% of the recaptures between years. in addition, 99% and 96% of matches were ranked among the top five, and no more than 5 minutes were needed for digitizing and processing each image. the lepidosis of reptiles is a reliable alternative to ornamentation patterns in photographic identification of reptiles, which can be effectively analysed using the i3s software. this result represents a significant improvement in photographic identification of reptiles since (i) this procedure can be easily extended to most other species of reptiles, (ii) all kind of individuals within a species can be marked (i. e., young, subadults and adults) despite the differences in ornamentation patterns, and (iii) it is the only technique for species, like the western green lizard, which lack a clear ornamentation pattern." sex ratio of breeding common toads (bufo bufo) - influence of survival and skipped breeding,breeding strategy; capture-recapture; semelparous; life history; mark; temporary emigration,AMPHIBIA-REPTILIA,LOMAN J;MADSEN T,"anuran sex ratio at breeding sites is typically male biased. such sex ratios may be due to poor female survival, to females not breeding as frequently as males and/or to males becoming sexually mature earlier than females. in the present study, the first two factors are analyzed in a common toad (bufo bufo) population in southern sweden. toads were captured, marked and recaptured at the breeding site during 5 years. within season capture patterns were analyzed using the jolly-seber model and among-year captures using the closed robust design model. population estimates of males and females yielded an among year variation in breeding population sex ratio, ranging from 16% to 34% females. on average, 41% (proportion adult alive but not breeding) of the females skipped breeding seasons, whereas the corresponding estimate for males was less than 5%. yearly survival averaged 42% for adult female and 63% for adult male toads. first year adult males and females had a lower survival rate than older toads. our results demonstrate that both a female biased mortality rate and a higher proportion of skipped breeding in females contribute to the observed male biased sex ratio. however, a deterministic model suggests other factors may also be involved to obtain this degree of male biased sex ratio, the most likely being that females mature at a later age than male toads." unusual behaviour of an immature loggerhead turtle released in the alboran sea,sea turtle; captivity; capture-mark-recapture; post-release; mediterranean sea,ANIMAL BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,BELLIDO JJ;BAEZ JC;CASTILLO JJ;MARTIN JJ;MONS JL;REAL R,"unusual behaviour of an immature loggerhead turtle released in the alboran sea. a juvenile loggerhead turtle with buoyancy problems was captured in the alboran sea (mediterranean sea, south of spain) and released 14 months later after healing. six days after the release, the turtle was seen swimming 42 km from the point of release, displaying unusual behaviour. we re captured and released it again, 95 nautical miles offshore, near the alboran island. ten days later the turtle arrived at the beach close to where it had been maintained in captivity. we discuss these findings in the context of behavioural alteration and habituation in released sea turtles. capture mark recapture studies of sea turtles should be approached with caution as manipulated animals may modify their usual behaviour." -variation of abundance and density of puma concolor in zones of high and low concentration of camera traps in central mexico,capture-recapture; demography; ecology; felid; sierra nanchititla natural reserve,ANIMAL BIOLOGY,SORIA-DIAZ L;MONROY-VILCHIS O;RODRIGUEZ-SOTO C;ZARCO-GONZALEZ MM;URIOS V,"little is known about the status of puma concolor populations in central and south america. due to this reason, the present study contributes to the knowledge on puma populations providing information on abundance and density in sierra nanchititla, mexico, as well as comparing recorded values against those obtained from zones of high and low concentration of camera traps. the sampling was carried out during a period of 30 months, which were divided into 3-month independent blocks. for the 8 first blocks, ten camera traps were set in an area where the separation among cameras was 1.6 km, and in the 2 last blocks 17 camera traps were set in an area where the separation was 4.6 km. the abundance was estimated between 2 and 5 individuals for the area with the highest concentration of cameras, lower than the abundance obtained in the area with the lowest concentration of cameras, i.e., 6 individuals. the density of the area with the highest camera concentration had a variation between 2.74 and 6.86 individuals/100 km(2) in an effective survey area of 72.8 km(2) and for the area of lowest concentration it was 1.21 individual/100 km(2) in an effective survey area of 492.6 km(2). (c) koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2010." +variation of abundance and density of puma concolor in zones of high and low concentration of camera traps in central mexico,capture-recapture; demography; ecology; felid; sierra nanchititla natural reserve,ANIMAL BIOLOGY,SORIA DIAZ L;MONROY VILCHIS O;RODRIGUEZ SOTO C;ZARCO GONZALEZ MM;URIOS V,"little is known about the status of puma concolor populations in central and south america. due to this reason, the present study contributes to the knowledge on puma populations providing information on abundance and density in sierra nanchititla, mexico, as well as comparing recorded values against those obtained from zones of high and low concentration of camera traps. the sampling was carried out during a period of 30 months, which were divided into 3-month independent blocks. for the 8 first blocks, ten camera traps were set in an area where the separation among cameras was 1.6 km, and in the 2 last blocks 17 camera traps were set in an area where the separation was 4.6 km. the abundance was estimated between 2 and 5 individuals for the area with the highest concentration of cameras, lower than the abundance obtained in the area with the lowest concentration of cameras, i.e., 6 individuals. the density of the area with the highest camera concentration had a variation between 2.74 and 6.86 individuals/100 km(2) in an effective survey area of 72.8 km(2) and for the area of lowest concentration it was 1.21 individual/100 km(2) in an effective survey area of 492.6 km(2). (c) koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2010." evaluating capture-recapture population and density estimation of tigers in a population with known parameters,1/2 mmdm; bias and precision; camera density; effective trapping area; home-range radius; kanha tiger reserve india; sampling cost; spatial likelihood density estimation,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,SHARMA RK;JHALA Y;QURESHI Q;VATTAKAVEN J;GOPAL R;NAYAK K,"conservation strategies for endangered species require accurate and precise estimates of abundance. unfortunately, obtaining unbiased estimates can be difficult due to inappropriate estimator models and study design. we evaluate population-density estimators for tigers panthera tigris in kanha tiger reserve, india, using camera traps in conjunction with telemetry (n=6) in a known minimum population of 14 tigers. an effort of 462 trap nights over 42 days yielded 44 photographs of 12 adult tigers. using closed population estimators, the best-fit model (program capture) accounted for individual heterogeneity (m-h). the least biased and precise population estimate ((n) over cap (se) [(n) over cap]) was obtained by the m-h jackknife 1 (jk1) [14 (1.89)] in program care-2. tiger density ((d) over cap (se) [(d) over cap]) per 100 km(2) was estimated at 13 (2.08) when the effective trapping area was estimated using the half mean maximum distance moved (1/2 mmdm), 8.1 (2.08), using the home-range radius, 7.8 (1.59), with the full mmdm and 8.0 (3.0) with the spatial likelihood method in program density 4.1. the actual density of collared tigers (3.27 per 100 km2) was closely estimated by home-range radius at 3.9 (0.76), full mmdm at 3.48 (0.81) and spatial likelihood at 3.78 (1.54), but overestimated by 1/2 mmdm at 6 (0.81) tigers per 100 km(2). sampling costs (rs. 450 per camera day) increased linearly with camera density, while the precision of population estimates leveled off at 25 cameras per 100 km(2). at simulated low tiger densities, a camera density of 50 per 100 km(2) with an effort of 8 trap nights km(-2) provided 95% confidence coverage, but estimates lacked precision." comparing the effectiveness of computerized adverse drug event monitoring systems to enhance clinical decision support for hospitalized patients,clinical decision support; pharmacy information systems; error management and prevention; data collection; system improvement,APPLIED CLINICAL INFORMATICS,PETRATOS GN;KIM Y;EVANS RS;WILLIAMS SD;GARDNER RM,"objective: performance of computerized adverse drug event (ade) monitoring of electronic health records through a prospective ade monitor and icd9-coded clinical text review operating independently and simultaneously on the same patient population for a 10-year period are compared. requirements are compiled for clinical decision support in pharmacy systems to enhance ade detection. methods: a large tertiary care facility in utah, with a history of quality improvement using its advanced hospital information system, was leveraged in this study. icd9-based review of clinical charts (icd9 system) was compared quantitatively and qualitatively to computer-assisted pharmacist-verified ades (ade monitor). the capture-recapture statistical method was applied to the data to determine an estimated prevalence of ades. results: a total estimated ade prevalence of 5.53% (13,420/242,599) was calculated, with the icd9 system identifying 2,604 or 19.4%, and the ade monitor 3,386 or 25.2% of all estimated ades. both methods commonly identified 4.9% of all estimated ades and matched 62.0% of the time, each having its strength in detecting a slightly different domain of ades. 70% of the ade documentation in the clinical notes was found in the discharge summaries. conclusion: coupled with spontaneous reporting, computerized methods account for approximately half of all ades that can currently be detected. to enhance ade monitoring and patient safety in a hospitalized setting, pharmacy information systems should incorporate prospective structuring and coding of the text in clinical charts and using that data alongside computer-generated alerts of laboratory results and drug orders. natural language processing can aid computerized detection by automating the coding, in real-time, of physician text from clinical charts so that decision support rules can be created and applied. new detection strategies and enhancements to existing systems should be researched to enhance the detection of ades since approximately half are not currently detected." -life in (and out of) the lagoon: fine-scale movements of green turtles tracked using time-depth recorders,green turtle; chelonia mydas; spatial ecology; seagrass; coral reef; time-depth recorder; tdr,AQUATIC BIOLOGY,BLUMENTHAL JM;AUSTIN TJ;BOTHWELL JB;BRODERICK AC;EBANKS-PETRIE G;OLYNIK JR;ORR MF;SOLOMON JL;WITT MJ;GODLEY BJ,"tracking fine-scale movements in relation to threats is fundamental to the management of exploited marine species, yet there is considerable difficulty associated with gathering such data at sea. by combining a capture-recapture study with deployment of time-depth recorders (tdrs) and ultrasonic tags, we elucidated distribution and daily movements of juvenile green turtles chelonia mydas exposed to a legal marine turtle fishery in the cayman islands. for instrumented turtles, distinct diel activity patterns were observed: dives during the day were shorter and more active than those at night, implying diurnal foraging and nocturnal resting. spatially, while capture and recapture locations suggested fidelity to a shallow lagoon, when turtles were fitted with tdrs and ultrasonic tags we demonstrated that they regularly moved out of the lagoon and onto the reef, where they could legally be captured in the marine turtle fishery. our results are thus novel and valuable in a management context in that we demonstrated that seemingly protected aggregations of juvenile green turtles within a lagoon were, in fact, exposed to legal capture on a near-daily basis. this emphasizes the importance of assessing diel activity patterns of juvenile marine turtles, particularly with respect to directed take and other threats." +life in (and out of) the lagoon: fine-scale movements of green turtles tracked using time-depth recorders,green turtle; chelonia mydas; spatial ecology; seagrass; coral reef; time-depth recorder; tdr,AQUATIC BIOLOGY,BLUMENTHAL JM;AUSTIN TJ;BOTHWELL JB;BRODERICK AC;EBANKS PETRIE G;OLYNIK JR;ORR MF;SOLOMON JL;WITT MJ;GODLEY BJ,"tracking fine-scale movements in relation to threats is fundamental to the management of exploited marine species, yet there is considerable difficulty associated with gathering such data at sea. by combining a capture-recapture study with deployment of time-depth recorders (tdrs) and ultrasonic tags, we elucidated distribution and daily movements of juvenile green turtles chelonia mydas exposed to a legal marine turtle fishery in the cayman islands. for instrumented turtles, distinct diel activity patterns were observed: dives during the day were shorter and more active than those at night, implying diurnal foraging and nocturnal resting. spatially, while capture and recapture locations suggested fidelity to a shallow lagoon, when turtles were fitted with tdrs and ultrasonic tags we demonstrated that they regularly moved out of the lagoon and onto the reef, where they could legally be captured in the marine turtle fishery. our results are thus novel and valuable in a management context in that we demonstrated that seemingly protected aggregations of juvenile green turtles within a lagoon were, in fact, exposed to legal capture on a near-daily basis. this emphasizes the importance of assessing diel activity patterns of juvenile marine turtles, particularly with respect to directed take and other threats." "analysis of whale shark rhincodon typus aggregations near south an atoll, maldives archipelago",whale shark; rhincodon typus; maldives archipelago; mark-recapture; photo-identification,AQUATIC BIOLOGY,RILEY MJ;HALE MS;HARMAN A;REES RG,"we made surveys for whale sharks rhincodon typus on a total of 99 d from april through june each year from 2006 to 2008 along the southern fringe of the south an atoll, maldives archipelago. we recorded the length and sex of each shark observed and made photographs to facilitate repeated identification from their spot patterns using pattern-recognition software. we identified 64 whale sharks from digital photographs taken during 220 sightings over 3 yr. approx. 87 % of those sharks were immature males. the average length of recognisable sharks was 5.98 m (range 2.5 to 10.5 m), significantly shorter than that reported for whale sharks in other aggregations in the indian ocean. our findings suggest that these sharks are either a small proportion of a local population or perhaps an even smaller component of a regional population in the western indian ocean. we applied a lincoln-petersen closed-population mark-recapture model and a jolly-seber open-population model to estimate population size, but found that neither model provided reliable results because key assumptions of each were not met." inferring vertical and horizontal movements of juvenile marine turtles from time-depth recorders,habitat utilisation; spatial ecology; coral reef; hawksbill turtle; eretrnochelys imbricata; telemetry; british virgin islands,AQUATIC BIOLOGY,WITT MJ;MCGOWAN A;BLUMENTHAL JM;BRODERICK AC;GORE S;WHEATLEY D;WHITE J;GODLEY BJ,"acquiring knowledge of the spatial ecology of many aquatic species, particularly their juvenile life stages, is challenging when they are small in size; this limits the attachment of tracking devices that routinely provide spatially explicit information on larger juveniles and adults. using depth utilisation data gathered by time-depth recorders, we inferred patterns of habitat utilisation of juvenile hawksbill turtles eretmochelys imbricata occupying a shallow reef system in the caribbean. hawksbill turtles (n = 9, curved carapace length = 42.3 +/- 9.7 cm, range = 27.7 to 60.0 cm) demonstrated diel patterns of behaviour, with greater activity and shorter dives during the day (mean duration = 7.5 +/- 5.0 min, range = 2.6 to 34.4 mm) and longer, less active dives during the night (mean duration = 16.6 +/- 12.0 min, range = 2.5 to 61.5 min). a level of fidelity to sites facilitated recaptures (mean minimum straight-line distance from release of tdr-equipped turtles to their subsequent recapture locations = 0.9 +/- 0.9 km, range = 0.01 to 2.3 km), but recapture success after 130 h, over a 43 d period, was relatively low: of 19 individuals instrumented, 9 were recaptured. from depth records, i.e. maximum depths achieved, it was clear that some recaptured individuals moved considerably during the monitoring period; 3 individuals moved to deeper waters, with minimum possible straight-line movement distances from their capture sites of 3.7 to 9.2 km. these findings emphasize the likely influence of habitat structure on site fidelity and further highlight that data from traditional capture mark recapture studies could lead to an underestimation of home-range size." physiological response of wild dugongs (dugong dugon) to out-of-water sampling for health assessment,dugong; dugong dugon; capture; sampling; vital signs; heart rate; oral temperature; respiration; health assessment; manatee; sirenian,AQUATIC MAMMALS,LANYON JM;SNEATH HL;LONG T;BONDE RK,"the dugong (dugong dugon) is a vulnerable marine mammal with large populations living in urban queensland waters. a mark-recapture program for wild dugongs has been ongoing in southern queensland since 2001. this program has involved capture and in-water sampling of more than 700 dugongs where animals have been held at the water surface for 5 min to be gene-tagged, measured, and biopsied. in 2008, this program expanded to examine more comprehensively body condition, reproductive status, and the health of wild dugongs in moreton bay. using sea world's research vessel, captured dugongs were lifted onto a boat and sampled out-of-water to obtain accurate body weights and morphometrics, collect blood and urine samples for baseline health parameters and hormone profiles, and ultrasound females for pregnancy status. in all, 30 dugongs, including two pregnant females, were sampled over 10 d and restrained on deck for up to 55 min each while biological data were collected. each of the dugongs had their basic temperature-heart rate-respiration (thr) monitored throughout their period of handling, following protocols developed for the west indian manatee (trichechus manatus). this paper reports on the physiological response of captured dugongs during this out-of-water operation as indicated by their vital signs and the suitability of the manatee monitoring protocols to this related sirenian species. a recommendation is made that the range of vital signs of these wild dugongs be used as benchmark criteria of normal parameters for other studies that intend to sample dugongs out-of-water." -determinants of territorial recruitment in bonelli's eagle (aquila fasciata) populations,aquila fasciata; bonelli's eagle; hieraaetus fasciatus; natal dispersal; raptors; seniority probability; territory selection,AUK,HERNANDEZ-MATIAS A;REAL J;PRADEL R;RAVAYROL A;VINCENT-MARTIN N;BOSCA F;CHEYLAN G,"recruitment is an essential component of the life history and population dynamics of bird species. we provide comprehensive information on the determinants of territorial recruitment in populations of the endangered bonelli's eagle (aquila fasciata). field work was based on a long-term study of two populations located in the northwest of this species i range, one in catalonia (northeastern spain) and the other in provence and languedoc-roussillon (southeastern france). nestlings were banded (n=451 marked birds) and known territories were intensively monitored during the period 1.980-2007. first, a global return rate of 9.97% (45 recruits) was calculated, with no significant differences between the two populations. second, results showed that both the birth year and the breeding success of the birth territory had significant effects oil recruitment probability: nestlings from territories with better breeding success were more likely to recruit. third, seniority analyses based on capture-resighting techniques were used to estimate the age-specific probabilities that a territorial bird in a given year was inexperienced. the parameter estimates for this probability ranged from 0.985 to 0.999 for 2-year-olds and from 0.763 to 0.808 for 3-year-olds and then fell drastically to 0.066-0.272 for 4-year-olds and older. fourth, females were found to disperse farther than males. additionally, there was a significant interaction between sex and area of birth, in that females from catalonia dispersed farther than females from france. finally, previously occupied territories located in the highest-quality areas with the highest territorial density were found to be the most attractive to inexperienced individuals. received 19 january 2009, accepted 16 may 2009." +determinants of territorial recruitment in bonelli's eagle (aquila fasciata) populations,aquila fasciata; bonelli's eagle; hieraaetus fasciatus; natal dispersal; raptors; seniority probability; territory selection,AUK,HERNANDEZ MATIAS A;REAL J;PRADEL R;RAVAYROL A;VINCENT MARTIN N;BOSCA F;CHEYLAN G,"recruitment is an essential component of the life history and population dynamics of bird species. we provide comprehensive information on the determinants of territorial recruitment in populations of the endangered bonelli's eagle (aquila fasciata). field work was based on a long-term study of two populations located in the northwest of this species i range, one in catalonia (northeastern spain) and the other in provence and languedoc-roussillon (southeastern france). nestlings were banded (n=451 marked birds) and known territories were intensively monitored during the period 1.980-2007. first, a global return rate of 9.97% (45 recruits) was calculated, with no significant differences between the two populations. second, results showed that both the birth year and the breeding success of the birth territory had significant effects oil recruitment probability: nestlings from territories with better breeding success were more likely to recruit. third, seniority analyses based on capture-resighting techniques were used to estimate the age-specific probabilities that a territorial bird in a given year was inexperienced. the parameter estimates for this probability ranged from 0.985 to 0.999 for 2-year-olds and from 0.763 to 0.808 for 3-year-olds and then fell drastically to 0.066-0.272 for 4-year-olds and older. fourth, females were found to disperse farther than males. additionally, there was a significant interaction between sex and area of birth, in that females from catalonia dispersed farther than females from france. finally, previously occupied territories located in the highest-quality areas with the highest territorial density were found to be the most attractive to inexperienced individuals. received 19 january 2009, accepted 16 may 2009." objective bayesian estimation for the number of species,jerreys' prior; mixed-poisson; noninformative prior; reference prior; species richness estimation,BAYESIAN ANALYSIS,BARGER K;BUNGE J,"objective priors have been used in bayesian models for estimating the number of species in a population, but they have not been examined in depth. here we derive the form of two objective priors, using bernardo's reference method and jerreys' rule, based on the mixed-poisson likelihood used in the single-abundance-sample species problem. these derivations are based on asymptotic results for estimates of integer-valued parameters. the factored form of these priors justifies the use of independent prior distributions for the parameter of interest (the number of species) and the nuisance parameters (of the stochastic abundance distribution). we find that the reference prior is preferable overall to the prior resulting from jerreys' rule. although a comprehensive objective bayesian approach can be come analytically intractable for more complicated models, the essence of the approach can be upheld in practice. we analyze several datasets to show that the method can be implemented in practice and that it yields good results, comparable with current competing methods." "removal of introduced predators, but not artificial refuge supplementation, increases skink survival in coastal duneland",artificial retreats; baci; capture-recapture; habitat manipulation; oligosoma maccanni; predator control,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,LETTINK M;NORBURY G;CREE A;SEDDON PJ;DUNCAN RP;SCHWARZ CJ,"exotic predators can have detrimental impacts on indigenous fauna. lethal predator control is commonly used to reduce predator impacts, but is not always feasible, effective or ethical. a promising non-lethal alternative is refuge supplementation for prey. we conducted a before-after control-impact (baci) experiment over 3 years to determine the relative effects of predator removal (by exclosure fencing) and artificial refuge supplementation on survival of mccann's skink (oligosoma maccanni) in duneland on kaitorete spit (south island, new zealand). skink populations on 0.0625 ha-grids were randomly assigned to four treatment groups, each replicated four times: (a) predator exclosure only; (b) artificial retreats only; (c) exclosure + artificial retreats, and (d) control (no exclosure or artificial retreats), and monitored annually by pitfall trapping. capture-recapture analysis was used to estimate the difference in annual survival probability between pre- and post-treatment periods. on average, survival increased only at grids that received the exclosure-only treatment (effect size of 0.03 (0.017-0.043; unconditional 95% ci)). reduction in predator abundance (by lethal predator control or predator exclusion), but not artificial refuge supplementation, is predicted to benefit mccann's skink. our findings add to other studies highlighting the detrimental impacts of exotic predators on indigenous prey and calls for improved means of reducing predator impacts. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." large-scale noninvasive genetic monitoring of wolverines using scats reveals density dependent adult survival,capture-mark-recapture; demographic parameters; gulo gulo; harvest rate; large carnivore; vital rates,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,BROSETH H;FLAGSTAD O;WARDIG C;JOHANSSON M;ELLEGREN H,"noninvasive genetic monitoring has the potential to estimate vital rates essential for conservation and management of many species. in a long-term genetic capture-mark-recapture study using scats we evaluated temporal variation in adult survival in a wolverine (gulo gulo) population in southern norway. in contrast to most previous studies of large mammals we found evidence for negative density dependence in adult survival in this large carnivore. both sexes showed the same pattern of density dependence, with higher annual survival rates in adult females than males. in addition, we also found an additive mortality effect of harvesting in the population, resulting in the lowest adult survival rates at a combination of high population density and high harvest rate. the additive effects of density and harvest on adult survival of wolverines have relevance to the conservation and management of solitary carnivores with strong intrasexual territoriality, especially for species where combats among conspecifics can cause serious injury or even mortality. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." @@ -4601,35 +4613,35 @@ an easy way to reduce pit-tag loss in rodents,passive integrated transponders; t "an assessment of integrated population models: bias, accuracy, and violation of the assumption of independence",accuracy; bayesian; capture-recapture; dependent data; independent data; individual-based model; leslie matrix model; population survey data; reproductive success; state-space model,ECOLOGY,ABADI F;GIMENEZ O;ARLETTAZ R;SCHAUB M,"understanding population dynamics requires accurate estimates of demographic rates. integrated population models combine demographic and survey data into a single, comprehensive analysis and provide more coherent estimates of vital rates. integrated population models rely on the assumption that different data sets are independent, which is frequently violated in practice. moreover, the precision that call be gained using integrated modeling compared to conventional modeling is only known from empirical studies. the present study used simulation methods to assess how the violation of the assumption of independence affects the statistical properties of the parameter estimators. further, the gains in precision and accuracy from the model were explored under varying sample sizes. for capture-recapture, population survey, and reproductive success, we generated independent and dependent data that were analyzed with integrated and conventional models. we found only a minimal impact of the violation of the assumption of independence on the parameter estimates. furthermore, we observed an overall gain in precision and accuracy when all three data sets were analyzed simultaneously. this was particularly pronounced when the sample size was small. these findings contribute to clearing the way for the application of integrated population models in practice." joint effects of inverse density-dependence and extreme environmental variation on the viability of a social bird species,allee effect; capture-recapture; carrying capacity; catastrophes; population size; threatened species,ECOSCIENCE,DOXA A;THEODOROU K;HATZILACOU D;CRIVELLI A;ROBERT A,"environmental stochasticity and density-dependence can have critical synergetic effects on population dynamics, especially when dealing with threatened species. in this study, we examine the effects of these interactions on the dynamics of a vulnerable bird species, the dalmatian pelican (pelicanus crispus). we conducted demographic analysis and population dynamics modelling of the amvrakikos pelican population (western greece) based on a 20-y dataset. results indicated that annual juvenile survival probability is low (mean = 0.65) and varies according to both negative (regulation) and positive (allee effect) density-dependent processes. in contrast, adult survival is relatively high (mean = 0.95) and less variable. deterministic and stochastic population dynamics models based on means, inter-annual variances, and covariances between vital rates revealed that the population is increasing deterministically. simulations of the extinction risk for the study population and also for various population sizes revealed that short-term extinction risk remains extremely low, even for very small populations of the species. however, when we considered the possibility of rare catastrophic events and their interactions with density-dependence patterns, the projected extinction risk increased dramatically, especially for small populations. given that many european dalmatian pelican populations are small, most of them could be at risk for local extinction. our results illustrate the critical and general importance of considering interactions between all potential factors of extinction in population viability assessments." "incidence of childhood diabetes in children aged less than 15 years and its clinical and metabolic characteristics at the time of diagnosis: data from the childhood diabetes registry of saxony, germany",epidemiology; diabetes incidence; type 1 diabetes; ketoacidosis,HORMONE RESEARCH IN PAEDIATRICS,GALLER A;STANGE T;MULLER G;NAKE A;VOGEL C;KAPELLEN T;BARTELT H;KUNATH H;KOCH R;KIESS W;ROTHE U,"aims: the childhood diabetes registry in saxony, germany, examined the incidence and metabolic characteristics of childhood diabetes. methods: in the federal state of saxony, newly diagnosed cases of diabetes in children and adolescents aged less than 15 years were registered continuously from 1999 until 2008. family history, date of diagnosis, clinical and laboratory parameters were obtained. reported cases were ascertained by public health departments as an independent data source and verified using the capture-recapture method. results: a total of 865 children and adolescents with newly diagnosed diabetes were registered in saxony. about 96% of them were classified as having type 1 diabetes, 0.6% had type 2 diabetes, 2.4% had maturity-onset diabetes of the young (mody), and 1.4% had other types of diabetes. the age-standardized incidence rate of type 1 diabetes was estimated at 17.5 per 100,000 children per year. completeness of ascertainment as calculated by the capture-recapture method amounted to 93.6%. at the time of diagnosis, 27.1% of children with type 1 diabetes had ketoacidosis, 1.5% had a blood ph <7.0, and 1.1% were unconscious. conclusion: the registry provided data about the incidence rates and clinical presentation of childhood diabetes in a defined german population. we observed higher incidence rates compared to previous surveys. copyright (c) 2010 s. karger ag, basel" -assessing population size of martino's vole (dinaromys bogdanovi) in central bosnia,dinaromys bogdanovi; rarity; population density; cmr; balkan biodiversity,HYSTRIX-ITALIAN JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,KRYSTUFEK B;ENGELBERGER S;MUZAFEROVIC S;BUZAN EV;SKOK J;SKRIJELJ R;HERZIG-STRASCHIL B,"we carried out a capture-mark-recapture study on martino's vole dinaromys bogdanovi on mt. bjelasnica, central bosnia. during two trapping sessions (june and september 2008) we recorded 21 individuals which were captured 33 times. voles were trapped significantly more frequently during the night (85% of all captures). in june all the animals were adult females while three age classes (juvenile, subadult and adult) were distinguished in september. no reproductive activity was recorded in mid-june and not a single adult female was evidently pregnant in september. also, subadults (n = 6) did not show reproductive activity. martino's voles proved sedentary and only two individuals moved between trap stations. ten adults were captured in two sessions on an area of 5.67 ha, resulting in a population density of about 2.5 voles per hectare." +assessing population size of martino's vole (dinaromys bogdanovi) in central bosnia,dinaromys bogdanovi; rarity; population density; cmr; balkan biodiversity,HYSTRIX-ITALIAN JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,KRYSTUFEK B;ENGELBERGER S;MUZAFEROVIC S;BUZAN EV;SKOK J;SKRIJELJ R;HERZIG STRASCHIL B,"we carried out a capture-mark-recapture study on martino's vole dinaromys bogdanovi on mt. bjelasnica, central bosnia. during two trapping sessions (june and september 2008) we recorded 21 individuals which were captured 33 times. voles were trapped significantly more frequently during the night (85% of all captures). in june all the animals were adult females while three age classes (juvenile, subadult and adult) were distinguished in september. no reproductive activity was recorded in mid-june and not a single adult female was evidently pregnant in september. also, subadults (n = 6) did not show reproductive activity. martino's voles proved sedentary and only two individuals moved between trap stations. ten adults were captured in two sessions on an area of 5.67 ha, resulting in a population density of about 2.5 voles per hectare." combined impacts of longline fisheries and climate on the persistence of the amsterdam albatross diomedia amsterdamensis,diomedea amsterdamensis; fishing effort; indian ocean dipole; multistate capture-recapture models; stochastic matrix models,IBIS,RIVALAN P;BARBRAUD C;INCHAUSTI P;WEIMERSKIRCH H,"incidental capture of seabirds in longline fishing gear is a central issue in the conservation of many long-lived marine species. despite growing evidence of climate-induced effects on population trends of long-lived species, climate change remains generally overlooked in most risk assessments of seabirds. because variation in climate may interact with the detrimental effects of bycatch, considering climate is of great importance, especially in the context of ongoing global warming. this paper examines the combined effects of bycatch and climate change on the persistence of one of the world's rarest birds, the amsterdam albatross diomedea amsterdamensis, which has a single population in the upland plateau of amsterdam island (southeast indian ocean). using continuous monitoring from 1983 onwards, we first estimated the relationship between climate and the species' demographic parameters. we then built a stochastic matrix population model to estimate the population growth rate and the probability that the population declines below the level recorded in 1983 of nine breeding pairs under different scenarios involving the joint effects of additional mortality caused by longline fisheries and climate change. the results suggest that the demography of the amsterdam albatross is influenced by climate in both breeding and wintering grounds and that these relationships may to some extent compensate for the impact of additive bycatch mortality. however, these compensatory effects would be negligible if the annual additional mortality exceeds around six individuals per year, suggesting that the resumption of longline fishery in the foraging range of the amsterdam albatross would rapidly put this species at risk of extinction." estimation of european wildcat population size in sicily (italy) using camera trapping and capture-recapture analyses,felis silvestris silvestris; marking system; camera trap; etna volcano,ITALIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,ANILE S;BIZZARRI L;RAGNI B,"the wildcat is an elusive species that is threatened with extinction in many areas of its european distribution. in sicily the wildcat lives in a wide range of habitats; this study was done on mount etna. in 2006, after an exploration of the study area, we used camera traps with the aim of obtaining photographs of the wildcat. after this pilot study we used the experience and data collected to develop a protocol to provide an estimation of the density of the wildcat's population using capture-recapture analyses and the natural coat-marking system to recognize different specimens. we placed two trapping lines adjacent to each other that were run in two consecutive data collection periods. camera traps worked together for 671 trap-days and we obtained 27 pictures of wildcats, from which we were able to determine 9 different specimens. then we constructed the history capture of each individual and we used the software capture to generate an estimation of the density of our study area (0.93 +/- 0.13 wildcat per 100 ha). this value is higher than those calculated in other studies: many possible events could determine this high density in the wildcat population." 'la nina'-driven atlantic storms affect winter survival of mediterranean cory's shearwaters,cory's shearwater; survival; enso; nao; oil spill,ITALIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,BOANO G;BRICHETTI P;FOSCHI UF,"to test a previous hypothesis of a relationship between the adult survival rates of mediterranean cory's shearwaters (calonectris d. diomedea) and la nina-driven atlantic storms, we analysed 18 years of capture-mark-recapture data of adults ringed at a breeding colony in the tremiti islands. we used the program mark to model survival and capture probabilities as functions of time-specific external variables such as the effect of temporal variations on capture probability and of climatic (enso, nao, sst) and non-climatic factors (oil spills and fishery production) on shearwater survival. the model selection process of the program indicated that survival declined the most in la nina years, when a greater number of storms were expected in the wintering range; oil spills and interaction with fisheries are worthy of attention too. our analysis confirms the results of previous work, suggesting that the el nino southern oscillation (enso) cycle is the main force governing climatic and ecological factors responsible for lowering cory's shearwater survival rates during la nina years, probably through the effects of the enhanced atlantic hurricane season." survival and breeding of polar bears in the southern beaufort sea in relation to sea ice,climate change; habitat loss; life-cycle graph; stage-specific vital rates,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,REGEHR EV;HUNTER CM;CASWELL H;AMSTRUP SC;STIRLING I,"p>1. observed and predicted declines in arctic sea ice have raised concerns about marine mammals. in may 2008, the us fish and wildlife service listed polar bears (ursus maritimus) - one of the most ice-dependent marine mammals - as threatened under the us endangered species act. 2. we evaluated the effects of sea ice conditions on vital rates (survival and breeding probabilities) for polar bears in the southern beaufort sea. although sea ice declines in this and other regions of the polar basin have been among the greatest in the arctic, to date population-level effects of sea ice loss on polar bears have only been identified in western hudson bay, near the southern limit of the species' range. 3. we estimated vital rates using multistate capture-recapture models that classified individuals by sex, age and reproductive category. we used multimodel inference to evaluate a range of statistical models, all of which were structurally based on the polar bear life cycle. we estimated parameters by model averaging, and developed a parametric bootstrap procedure to quantify parameter uncertainty. 4. in the most supported models, polar bear survival declined with an increasing number of days per year that waters over the continental shelf were ice free. in 2001-2003, the ice-free period was relatively short (mean 101 days) and adult female survival was high (0 center dot 96-0 center dot 99, depending on reproductive state). in 2004 and 2005, the ice-free period was longer (mean 135 days) and adult female survival was low (0 center dot 73-0 center dot 79, depending on reproductive state). breeding rates and cub litter survival also declined with increasing duration of the ice-free period. confidence intervals on vital rate estimates were wide. 5. the effects of sea ice loss on polar bears in the southern beaufort sea may apply to polar bear populations in other portions of the polar basin that have similar sea ice dynamics and have experienced similar, or more severe, sea ice declines. our findings therefore are relevant to the extinction risk facing approximately one-third of the world's polar bears." influence of climate and reproductive timing on demography of little brown myotis myotis lucifugus,breeding probability; capture-recapture; climate change; robust design,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,FRICK WF;REYNOLDS DS;KUNZ TH,"1. estimating variation in demographic rates, such as survival and fecundity, is important for testing life-history theory and identifying conservation and management goals. 2. we used 16 years (1993-2008) of mark-recapture data to estimate age-specific survival and breeding probabilities of the little brown myotis myotis lucifugus leconte in southern new hampshire, usa. using kendall & nichols' (1995) full-likelihood approach of the robust design to account for temporary emigration, we tested whether survival and breeding propensity is influenced by regional weather patterns and timing of reproduction. 3. our results demonstrate that adult female survival of m. lucifugus ranged from 0.63 (95% cl = 0.56, 0.68) to 0.90 (95% cl = 0.77, 0.94), and was highest in wet years with high cumulative summer precipitation. first-year survival [range: 0.23 (95% cl = 0.14, 0.35) to 0.46 (95% cl = 0.34, 0.57)] was considerably lower than adult survival and depended on pup date of birth, such that young born earlier in the summer (c. late may) had a significantly higher probability of surviving their first year than young born later in the summer (c. mid-july). similarly, the probability of young females returning to the maternity colony to breed in the summer following their birth year was higher for individuals born earlier in the summer [range: 0.23 (95% cl = 0.08, 0.50) to 0.53 (95% cl = 0.30, 0.75)]. 4. the positive influence of early parturition on 1st-year survival and breeding propensity demonstrates significant fitness benefits to reproductive timing in this temperate insectivorous bat. 5. climatic factors can have important consequences for population dynamics of temperate bats, which may be negatively affected by summer drying patterns associated with global climate change. 6. understanding long-term demographic trends will be important in the face of a novel disease phenomenon (white-nose syndrome) that is associated with massive mortalities in hibernating bat species, including m. lucifugus, in the northeastern united states." habitat-specific differences in adult survival rates and its links to parental workload and on-nest predation,cavity nesting; dispersal; farmland bird; parental effort; predation risk,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,LOW M;ARLT D;EGGERS S;PART T,"p>1. adult survival rates strongly affect population growth, but few studies have quantified if and why adult survival differs between breeding habitats. we investigated potential causes of habitat-specific adult survival rates for male and female northern wheatears (oenanthe oenanthe l.) breeding in swedish farmland. 2. we used multistate mark-recapture models based on 1263 breeding records between 1993 and 2007 to estimate survival rates based on habitat-type (short vs. tall ground vegetation) and breeding-success state parameters. we also used breeding-season observations from 2002 to 2007 and an experimental manipulation of ground vegetation height to identify factors influencing adult mortality. 3. females had lower annual survival than males (0 center dot 42 +/- 0 center dot 02 vs. 0 center dot 50 +/- 0 center dot 02); this difference largely resulted from low female survival in tall habitats because of higher nest-predation risk and the large proportion of adult females being killed on the nest (> 20%) during nest predation events. 4. among successful breeders, both sexes displayed similar survival rates, but survival was lower for breeders in tall as compared to short habitats (0 center dot 43 +/- 0 center dot 03 vs. 0 center dot 51 +/- 0 center dot 02). experimental manipulation of ground vegetation height, controlling for individual and territory quality (n = 132), suggested the cost of rearing young to be higher in tall habitats (survival of successful breeders in tall vs. short; 0 center dot 43 +/- 0 center dot 11 vs. 0 center dot 57 +/- 0 center dot 05). 5. detailed observations of food provisioning behaviour during chick rearing revealed a habitat-related difference in parental workload corresponding to the observed habitat differences in adult survival for successful breeders. adults breeding in tall habitats were forced to forage further from the nest relative to short-habitat breeders (mean +/- se; 69 +/- 10 vs. 21 +/- 2 m), which increased the estimated daily workload for adults in tall vs. short habitats by c. 20%. 6. on-nest predation and parental workload during chick rearing combine to largely explain habitat-specific adult survival rates. the results have implications for our understanding of adult sex ratios, causes of source-sink demography and habitat-specific growth rates. furthermore, it suggests short field margins and other residual habitat elements to be important for the conservation of farmland passerines breeding in cropland plains." -improving the analysis of movement data from marked individuals through explicit estimation of observer heterogeneity,NA,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,KORNER-NIEVERGELT F;SAUTER A;ATKINSON PW;GUELAT J;KANIA W;KERY M;KOPPEN U;ROBINSON RA;SCHAUB M;THORUP K;VAN DER JEUGD H;VAN NOORDWIJK AJ,"ring re-encounter data, in particular ring recoveries, have made a large contribution to our understanding of bird movements. however, almost every study based on ring re-encounter data has struggled with the bias caused by unequal observer distribution. re-encounter probabilities are strongly heterogeneous in space and over time. if this heterogeneity can be measured or at least controlled for, the enormous number of ring re-encounter data collected can be used effectively to answer many questions. here, we review four different approaches to account for heterogeneity in observer distribution in spatial analyses of ring re-encounter data. the first approach is to measure re-encounter probability directly. we suggest that variation in ring re-encounter probability could be estimated by combining data whose re-encounter probabilities are close to one (radio or satellite telemetry) with data whose re-encounter probabilities are low (ring re-encounter data). the second approach is to measure the spatial variation in re-encounter probabilities using environmental covariates. it should be possible to identify powerful predictors for ring re-encounter probabilities. a third approach consists of the comparison of the actual observations with all possible observations using randomization techniques. we encourage combining such randomisations with ring re-encounter models that we discuss as a fourth approach. ring re-encounter models are based on the comparison of groups with equal re-encounter probabilities. together these four approaches could improve our understanding of bird movements considerably. we discuss their advantages and limitations and give directions for future research." -do individuals in better condition survive for longer? field survival estimates according to male alternative reproductive tactics and sex,alternative reproductive tactics; capture-recapture; condition; females; males; survival,JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY,MUNGUIA-STEYER R;CORDOBA-AGUILAR A;ROMO-BELTRAN A,"there is a gap in terms of the supposed survival differences recorded in the field according to individual condition. this is partly due to our inability to assess survival in the wild. here we applied modern statistical techniques to field-gathered data in two damselfly species whose males practice alternative reproductive tactics (arts) and whose indicators of condition in both sexes are known. in paraphlebia zoe, there are two art: a larger black-winged (bw) male which defends mating territories and a smaller hyaline-winged (hw) male that usually acts as a satellite. in this species, condition in both morphs is correlated with body size. in calopteryx haemorrhoidalis, males follow tactics according to their condition with males in better condition practicing a territorial art. in addition, in this species, condition correlates positively with wing pigmentation in both sexes. our prediction for both species was that males practicing the territorial tactic will survive less longer than males using a nonterritorial tactic, and larger or more pigmented animals will survive for longer. in p. zoe, bw males survived less than females but did not differ from hw males, and not necessarily larger individuals survived for longer. in fact, size affected survival but only when group identity was analysed, showing a positive relationship in females and a slightly negative relationship in both male morphs. for c. haemorrhoidalis, survival was larger for more pigmented males and females, but size was not a good survival predictor. our results partially confirm assumptions based on the maintenance of arts. our results also indicate that female pigmentation, correlates with a fitness component - survival - as proposed by recent sexual selection ideas applied to females." +improving the analysis of movement data from marked individuals through explicit estimation of observer heterogeneity,NA,JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY,KORNER NIEVERGELT F;SAUTER A;ATKINSON PW;GUELAT J;KANIA W;KERY M;KOPPEN U;ROBINSON RA;SCHAUB M;THORUP K;VAN DER JEUGD H;VAN NOORDWIJK AJ,"ring re-encounter data, in particular ring recoveries, have made a large contribution to our understanding of bird movements. however, almost every study based on ring re-encounter data has struggled with the bias caused by unequal observer distribution. re-encounter probabilities are strongly heterogeneous in space and over time. if this heterogeneity can be measured or at least controlled for, the enormous number of ring re-encounter data collected can be used effectively to answer many questions. here, we review four different approaches to account for heterogeneity in observer distribution in spatial analyses of ring re-encounter data. the first approach is to measure re-encounter probability directly. we suggest that variation in ring re-encounter probability could be estimated by combining data whose re-encounter probabilities are close to one (radio or satellite telemetry) with data whose re-encounter probabilities are low (ring re-encounter data). the second approach is to measure the spatial variation in re-encounter probabilities using environmental covariates. it should be possible to identify powerful predictors for ring re-encounter probabilities. a third approach consists of the comparison of the actual observations with all possible observations using randomization techniques. we encourage combining such randomisations with ring re-encounter models that we discuss as a fourth approach. ring re-encounter models are based on the comparison of groups with equal re-encounter probabilities. together these four approaches could improve our understanding of bird movements considerably. we discuss their advantages and limitations and give directions for future research." +do individuals in better condition survive for longer? field survival estimates according to male alternative reproductive tactics and sex,alternative reproductive tactics; capture-recapture; condition; females; males; survival,JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY,MUNGUIA STEYER R;CORDOBA AGUILAR A;ROMO BELTRAN A,"there is a gap in terms of the supposed survival differences recorded in the field according to individual condition. this is partly due to our inability to assess survival in the wild. here we applied modern statistical techniques to field-gathered data in two damselfly species whose males practice alternative reproductive tactics (arts) and whose indicators of condition in both sexes are known. in paraphlebia zoe, there are two art: a larger black-winged (bw) male which defends mating territories and a smaller hyaline-winged (hw) male that usually acts as a satellite. in this species, condition in both morphs is correlated with body size. in calopteryx haemorrhoidalis, males follow tactics according to their condition with males in better condition practicing a territorial art. in addition, in this species, condition correlates positively with wing pigmentation in both sexes. our prediction for both species was that males practicing the territorial tactic will survive less longer than males using a nonterritorial tactic, and larger or more pigmented animals will survive for longer. in p. zoe, bw males survived less than females but did not differ from hw males, and not necessarily larger individuals survived for longer. in fact, size affected survival but only when group identity was analysed, showing a positive relationship in females and a slightly negative relationship in both male morphs. for c. haemorrhoidalis, survival was larger for more pigmented males and females, but size was not a good survival predictor. our results partially confirm assumptions based on the maintenance of arts. our results also indicate that female pigmentation, correlates with a fitness component - survival - as proposed by recent sexual selection ideas applied to females." improving the precision of third-party results by monitoring browsing behaviour and evolution in internet search engine caches,meta-search algorithms; internet evolution; user browsing behaviour; ranking third-party results,JOURNAL OF INTERNET TECHNOLOGY,ANAGNOSTOPOULOS I,"due to the extremely rapid growth of web, search engines cannot index the new information at the same time or with the same priority. besides, web search services index the disseminated information with different algorithms, having as result different response time in updating their directories. in this paper, we propose a meta-search algorithm, which is capable of self-adapting over the continuous changes that occur on the indexed web, using a web evolution adaptation mechanism. this mechanism carries out statistical results according to the rationale of the capture-recapture experiments conducted in wildlife biological studies. the meta-search algorithm also records the user's browsing behaviour during his search activities. the paper provides the implementation details of the proposed meta-search ranking algorithm along with its initial assessment. we prove in our approach, that when user's browsing, behaviour is jointly used with a dynamic survey mechanism, which scores the ability of each search service to adapt in the incessant evolution of the web, a more effective meta-search is provided. experimental results showed that the precision of the third-party results in several recall levels were increased within a six-month period. for acquiring third-party results we used five known web search services, namely altavista, google, lycos, msn, and yahoo!" -recapture processes and biological inference in monitoring burrow-nesting seabirds,capture-recapture analysis; monitoring scheme; procellariiformes; survival probability; transients,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,SANZ-AGUILAR A;TAVECCHIA G;MINGUEZ E;MASSA B;LO VALVO F;BALLESTEROS GA;BARBERA GG;AMENGUAL JF;RODRIGUEZ A;MCMINN M;ORO D,"capture-mark-recapture methods are used widely for monitoring and diagnosis of bird populations as they permit robust estimates of population abundance and demographic parameters (e.g. survival) to be obtained from incomplete records of individual life histories. the statistical analysis of these data relies on the important assumption that individuals of the same local populations (i.e. colony) have the same parameters (the homogeneity assumption). we used data from six medium- to long-term monitoring schemes of local mediterranean populations of the european storm petrel hydrobates pelagicus to empirically show that the level of individual heterogeneity and the consequent bias in the parameter of interest depend on the recapture methodology, which has important consequences for the experimental design. we found that the recapture probability varied over time and among methodologies. the study design had a strong influence on the proportion of transients caught (i.e. individuals not recaptured after marking); however, the survival probability estimate for resident birds was fairly similar across the studies. the differences found in survival seem to depend on the biological variability between sites (e.g. predation pressure), and not on the recapture methods." +recapture processes and biological inference in monitoring burrow-nesting seabirds,capture-recapture analysis; monitoring scheme; procellariiformes; survival probability; transients,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,SANZ AGUILAR A;TAVECCHIA G;MINGUEZ E;MASSA B;LO VALVO F;BALLESTEROS GA;BARBERA GG;AMENGUAL JF;RODRIGUEZ A;MCMINN M;ORO D,"capture-mark-recapture methods are used widely for monitoring and diagnosis of bird populations as they permit robust estimates of population abundance and demographic parameters (e.g. survival) to be obtained from incomplete records of individual life histories. the statistical analysis of these data relies on the important assumption that individuals of the same local populations (i.e. colony) have the same parameters (the homogeneity assumption). we used data from six medium- to long-term monitoring schemes of local mediterranean populations of the european storm petrel hydrobates pelagicus to empirically show that the level of individual heterogeneity and the consequent bias in the parameter of interest depend on the recapture methodology, which has important consequences for the experimental design. we found that the recapture probability varied over time and among methodologies. the study design had a strong influence on the proportion of transients caught (i.e. individuals not recaptured after marking); however, the survival probability estimate for resident birds was fairly similar across the studies. the differences found in survival seem to depend on the biological variability between sites (e.g. predation pressure), and not on the recapture methods." estimation of a population size through capture-mark-recapture method: a comparison of various point and interval estimators,hypergeometric distribution; bias; mse; coverage probability; parametric bootstrap,JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL COMPUTATION AND SIMULATION,YANG X;PAL N,"this article deals with the estimation of a fixed population size through capture-mark-recapture method that gives rise to hypergeometric distribution. there are a few well-known and popular point estimators available in the literature, but no good comprehensive comparison is available about their merits. apart from the available estimators, an empirical bayes (eb) estimator of the population size is proposed. we compare all the point estimators in terms of relative bias and relative mean squared error. next, two new interval estimators -(a) an eb highest posterior distribution interval and (b) a frequentist interval estimator based on a parametric bootstrap method, are proposed. the comparison is then carried among the two proposed interval estimators and interval estimators derived from the currently available estimators in terms of coverage probability and average length (al). based on comprehensive numerical results, we rank and recommend the point estimators as well as interval estimators for practical use. finally, a real-life data set for a green treefrog population is used as a demonstration for all the methods discussed." demographic parameters of rural and urban adult resident canada geese in georgia,band recovery; branta canadensis; burnham model; harvest; mark-recapture; program mark; recovery; resident canada geese; survival,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,BALKCOM GD,"in many urban metropolitan areas, resident canada goose (branta canadensis) populations have grown to nuisance levels in spite of increasing harvest opportunity. to document differences in demographic parameters between urban and rural geese, i estimated probabilities of survival, recapture, recovery, and fidelity for adult resident canada geese between 2001 and 2006 using banding, live recapture, and dead recovery data from 2 distinct banding locations in georgia, usa. adult survival rates were higher for urban geese (0.958, se = 0.020) than for rural geese (0.682, se = 0.049). using estimated recovery probabilities of 0.505 (se = 0.107) for urban and 0.463 (se = 0.045) for rural geese, along with current estimates of crippling loss and reporting rate, the estimated mean harvest rate for urban geese was 0.029 (se = 0.006) and for rural geese was 0.202 (se = 0.020). fidelity rates were similar between urban (0.730, se = 0.033) and rural geese (0.713, se = 0.069). this information suggests that urban segments of the canada goose population have substantially higher survival than rural geese and are harvested at a very low rate, and that liberalizing hunting regulations may have little impact on georgia's urban goose population. wildlife managers may need to consider options other than sport hunting to control nuisance goose populations in urban areas." demography and life history of a viviparous central african caecilian amphibian,gymnophiona; ageing; skeletochronology; ontogeny; seasonality; cameroon; africa,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,SCHOLZ S;ORLIK M;GONWOU LN;KUPFER A,"many tropical ecosystems support exceptional levels of amphibian diversity, but in contrast to their temperate counterparts, many aspects of their biology are little studied and poorly understood. demographic studies give valuable insights into the age structure and life histories of amphibian populations, thus they are of high importance in making accurate and precise conservation assessments in the light of current global amphibian declines. we analysed age structure and growth ill a population of the viviparous caccilian geotrypetes seraphini, a caecilian amphibian from mount cameroon, central africa, by using skeletochronology. we detected lines of arrested growth (lag) in mid-body vertebrae and interpreted them as indicators of a seasonal growth pattern. we expect that lag are materialized at a rate of one per year. ill our sample male reach sexual maturity at an early age (age class 0 +), whereas females mature later (age class i +). maximum longevity in our sample was estimated at 4+ years. body size (total length) was significantly smaller in males than in females. our study shows that skeletochronology is a highly suitable method to determine caecilian growth and age. caecilian amphibians show a high diversity of reproductive modes including unusual brood care and parental investment strategies. in order to deepen our understanding of their ecology and evolution, many more demographic studies on other species and lineages are needed." using dispersal rates to guide translocation across impermeable wildlife reserve boundaries: hawaiian tree snails as a practical example,achatinella; ompg; program mark; cmr; conservation,MALACOLOGIA,HALL KT;BAKER MB;HADFIELD MG,"discontinuous wildlife reserves can lead to inbreeding depression for fragmented populations of threatened species. to offset such effects, conservation managers frequently turn to translocation strategies, such as the one-migrant-per-generation rule (ompg), which relies on many unrealistic assumptions of wright's (1931) island model. we therefore propose an alternate translocation approach based on the natural dispersal rates of focal species, using two endangered hawaiian tree snails species, achatinella sowerbyana and a. mustelina, as practical examples. the rate at which tree snails historically dispersed across reserve boundaries can be used to guide contemporary translocation across those dispersal barriers. snail movements were monitored for three years using capture-mark-recapture (cmr) methods, and analyzed with a multi-strata model in program mark to obtain survival and dispersal rates. we tested and ranked models, including age, time, weather, and location effects on survival, dispersal, and capture probabilities. annual mortality ranged from over 50% to less than 20%, by site, mirroring expectations from anecdotal observations of predator abundances. monthly dispersal rates between isolated tree clusters were recorded between 3% and 24% of a population, depending on the population's exposure to severe weather rather than its species designation. simulations based on dispersal-distance distributions were then applied to estimate emigration rates beyond the finite study sites. emigration rates ranged among sites from 0.7% to 6.7% of the population per month, translating to between 6 and > 100 emigrants per year, depending on the density of snails at each site and the site's dimensions. the site boundaries are directly analogous to current and future reserve designs, and we show how such emigration rates can be used to guide two-way translocation rates across such artificial barriers." "use of space by necromys lasiurus (rodentia, sigmodontinae) in a grassland among atlantic forest fragments",necromys lasiurus; home range; mating systems; rodents; territoriality,MAMMALIAN BIOLOGY,PIRES AD;FERNANDEZ FAD;FELICIANO BR;DE FREITAS D,"the spatial patterns presented by the rodent necromys lasiurus were studied through capture-mark-recapture in a grassland among atlantic coastal forest fragments in southeastern brazil. males moved farther than females. males moved similar distances in the dry and wet seasons, whereas females moved significantly longer distances in the dry season. home ranges sizes were estimated for 32 individuals, and varied from 0.02 to 0.52 ha. males had larger home ranges than females when all data are pooled and in the wet season; in the dry season home ranges of both sexes were of similar sizes. home range sizes did not vary significantly between seasons for either sex. home ranges of males overlapped extensively among themselves and with females, whereas females showed mutually exclusive home ranges. the spatial patterns described here are consistent with the results found for this species in different habitats and they suggest that n. lasiurus has a promiscuous mating system. (c) 2009 deutsche gesellschaft fur saugetierkunde. published by elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." -"microhabitat preferences and spatial distribution of the vesper rat (nyctomys sumichrasti) in colima, mexico",ecology; population density; logistic regression; sex ratio; cricetidae,MAMMALIAN BIOLOGY,SCHNELL GD;GILLAND EA;SANCHEZ-HERNANDEZ C;ROMERO-ALMARAZ MD;KENNEDY ML;BEST TL;WOOTEN MC,"the vesper rat (nyctomys sumichrasti), a little-known arboreal rodent, was encountered during mark-recapture studies in colima, mexico, in january 2003-2007. we trapped on the pacific coast at playa de oro (2003-2005) and in northern colima (2006-2007). each year five trap grids were established in heavily vegetated areas and typically run for 8 nights (100 trap stations per grid, each station with a ground trap and an arboreal trap elevated 1-2 m, 10 x 10 configuration with adjacent stations 10 m apart; 1,600 trap-nights per grid; 40,000 trap-nights total). nyctomys sumichrasti occurs throughout most of colima. on grids we captured 29 individuals a total of 41 times, with 90.2% of captures in arboreal traps and 69.0% of animals being adults. the sex ratio of adults was 1.22:1 (males:females), not statistically different from 1:1. most adult females (77.8%) were pregnant or lactating. mean mass was 41.3 and 38.6 g for males and females, respectively (p>0.05). mean greatest distances traveled were longer for males (60.6 m) than females (20.2 m), with an overall mean of 40.4 m. one to six individuals were captured on 9 of 25 grids, with density estimates of 0.87-4.09/ha. we contrasted 14 environmental measures (most involving vegetation structure) for stations where n. sumichrasti was caught and not caught using logistic regression and nonparametric multiplicative regression, finding the species frequented sites flat to moderate in slope with considerable ground litter and relatively sparse high vegetation. in northern colima, n. sumichrasti used areas with close trees, an open understory, and little grass. other studies indicate the species sometimes occupies similar areas but with a relatively dense understory. (c) 2010 deutsche gesellschaft fur saugetierkunde. published by elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." +"microhabitat preferences and spatial distribution of the vesper rat (nyctomys sumichrasti) in colima, mexico",ecology; population density; logistic regression; sex ratio; cricetidae,MAMMALIAN BIOLOGY,SCHNELL GD;GILLAND EA;SANCHEZ HERNANDEZ C;ROMERO ALMARAZ MD;KENNEDY ML;BEST TL;WOOTEN MC,"the vesper rat (nyctomys sumichrasti), a little-known arboreal rodent, was encountered during mark-recapture studies in colima, mexico, in january 2003-2007. we trapped on the pacific coast at playa de oro (2003-2005) and in northern colima (2006-2007). each year five trap grids were established in heavily vegetated areas and typically run for 8 nights (100 trap stations per grid, each station with a ground trap and an arboreal trap elevated 1-2 m, 10 x 10 configuration with adjacent stations 10 m apart; 1,600 trap-nights per grid; 40,000 trap-nights total). nyctomys sumichrasti occurs throughout most of colima. on grids we captured 29 individuals a total of 41 times, with 90.2% of captures in arboreal traps and 69.0% of animals being adults. the sex ratio of adults was 1.22:1 (males:females), not statistically different from 1:1. most adult females (77.8%) were pregnant or lactating. mean mass was 41.3 and 38.6 g for males and females, respectively (p>0.05). mean greatest distances traveled were longer for males (60.6 m) than females (20.2 m), with an overall mean of 40.4 m. one to six individuals were captured on 9 of 25 grids, with density estimates of 0.87-4.09/ha. we contrasted 14 environmental measures (most involving vegetation structure) for stations where n. sumichrasti was caught and not caught using logistic regression and nonparametric multiplicative regression, finding the species frequented sites flat to moderate in slope with considerable ground litter and relatively sparse high vegetation. in northern colima, n. sumichrasti used areas with close trees, an open understory, and little grass. other studies indicate the species sometimes occupies similar areas but with a relatively dense understory. (c) 2010 deutsche gesellschaft fur saugetierkunde. published by elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." hawksbill sea turtles in seagrass pastures: success in a peripheral habitat,NA,MARINE BIOLOGY,BJORNDAL KA;BOLTEN AB,"hawksbill sea turtles, eretmochelys imbricata, are closely associated with coral reef and other hard-bottom habitats. seagrass pastures are peripheral habitats for caribbean hawksbills. with the decline in quality and quantity of coral reefs, seagrass habitats may become more important for hawksbills. we use data from a 30-year mark-recapture study of hawksbills and green turtles, chelonia mydas, in the southern bahamas to assess the quality of a seagrass habitat for hawksbills. size distribution, residence times, and body condition index for the seagrass hawksbill aggregation are similar to those of hawksbill aggregations over caribbean reefs. somatic growth rates of seagrass hawksbills are in the upper range of those reported for reef hawksbills. based on these parameters, peripheral seagrass habitats can support healthy, productive hawksbill aggregations. during the 30-year study, a sixfold variation in green turtle density in the study area did not affect the productivity or body condition of hawksbills." "population density, survival and movement of blue crabs in estuarine salt marsh nurseries",blue crab; callinectes sapidus; mark-recapture; survival; salt marsh,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,JOHNSON EG;EGGLESTON DB,"the importance of a broad suite of complex structured habitats as nurseries for estuarine fauna is well recognized. in contrast, recent evidence indicates the nursery value of salt marshes and contiguous unvegetated mud flats for blue crabs are underestimated. to assess the nursery value of salt marsh tidal creeks for the blue crab callinectes sapidus in coastal north carolina, usa, we quantified population density, survival and movement patterns of juvenile blue crabs in 2 tidal salt marsh creeks during summer and fall. survival rates of blue crab juveniles were high (0.98 d(-1)) and similar in both creek systems. juvenile crabs exhibited a high degree of site fidelity to a given marsh creek during summer-fall, suggesting that losses were predominantly due to mortality, not emigration. our study provides critical information on the demographic processes underlying the importance of salt marshes as nurseries for estuarine-dependent species, and was novel in that it: (1) measured density, survival and emigration concurrently; and (2) enabled the identification of individuals, which allowed for the assessment of the relationship between blue crab size, survival and capture probability. we conclude that the observed patterns of abundance, survival and habitat utilization of blue crabs within tidal salt marsh creeks in north carolina are consistent with the hypothesis that salt marsh creeks are important nurseries for blue crabs. further, the relatively high use of the marsh surface by juvenile blue crabs, combined with a general lack of directed sampling within these complex habitats, suggests that crab densities may be even higher in salt marshes than previously thought." "sex-specific survival in the humpback whale megaptera novaeangliae in the gulf of st. lawrence, canada",sex-specific survival; mark-recapture models; humpback whale; gulf of st. lawrence; mating strategies,MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES,RAMP C;BERUBE M;PALSBOLL P;HAGEN W;SEARS R,"sex-biased adult mortality is commonly observed in the animal kingdom. in mammals, a predominantly male-biased mortality is found in species with a polygynous mating system, while in monogamous taxa, female-biased mortality prevails. in the largest of all mammals, the mysticeti, no sex-specific mortality has been found so far apart from that found in biased whaling data. we estimated sex-specific survival rates using an akaike information criterion (aic(c))-based model selection of 18 yr of mark-recapture data from a north atlantic humpback whale feeding aggregation, the gulf of st. lawrence, canada. we found a significantly higher survival rate for females (0.992; 95% ci 0.985-0.999) than for males (0.971; 0.943-0.985). humpback whales are a typical polygynous species, with males competing intensively for mates while females bear the costs of pregnancy and lactation. however, the existing data did not allow us to test if differential costs of reproduction are causing the skew in mortality. we could not preclude stock-specific differences, such as contamination levels, migratory distances, and reproductive parameters (e.g. calving intervals, age at sexual maturity), and further data are needed to investigate the underlying reasons." "population size estimate of indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins in the algoa bay region, south africa",indo-pacific bottlenose dolphin; tursiops aduncus; mark-recapture analyses; population estimate; algoa bay-eastern cape-south africa,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,REISINGER RR;KARCZMARSKI L,"p>this study estimates the population size of indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins (tursiops aduncus) in the algoa bay region on the eastern cape coast of south africa. mark-recapture analyses were performed on photo-identification data collected on 54 occasions during a 3-yr-study period. using a photographic data set of over 10,000 id-images, 1,569 individuals were identified, 131 of which were photographed on more than one occasion. using the popan formulation in the software program mark, a total population of approximately 28,482 individuals (95% ci = 16,220-40,744; cv = 0.220), was estimated (estimate corrected for the proportion of distinctive individuals in the population). this is the largest population estimate to date for this species along the south african coast, suggesting that the bottlenose dolphins inhabiting the algoa bay region represent part of a substantially larger population that ranges along a considerable length of the south african coast." density of the near threatened jaguar panthera onca in the caatinga of north-eastern brazil,brazil; caatinga; camera trap; density; jaguar; panthera onca; serra da capivara national park,ORYX,SILVEIRA L;JACOMO ATA;ASTETE S;SOLLMANN R;TORRES NM;FURTADO MM;MARINHO J,"we report the first estimate of jaguar density in the semi-arid caatinga biome of north-eastern brazil. during august-october 2007, in the serra da capivara national park, we used camera traps to identify and count jaguars. jaguar abundance and density were calculated using mark-recapture models. in a sampling effort of 1,249 camera-trap-nights we identified 12 adult jaguars and estimated an 2 abundance of 14 +/- 3.6 jaguars in an area of 524 km(2), i.e. a density of 2.67 +/- 1.00 jaguars per 100 km(2). this estimate is higher than in most other brazilian biomes and indicates serra da capivara national park as an important reserve for protecting jaguars in north-eastern brazil." -"immature east pacific green turtles (chelonia mydas) use multiple foraging areas off the pacific coast of baja california sur, mexico: first evidence from mark-recapture data",NA,PACIFIC SCIENCE,SENKO J;LOPEZ-CASTRO MC;KOCH V;NICHOLS WJ,"since 2001, grupo tortuguero has been conducting monthly in-water monitoring of east pacific green turtles (chelonia mydas), also known as black turtles, at four neritic foraging areas (bahia magdalena, laguna san ignacio, punta abreojos, laguna ojo de liebre) along the pacific coast of baja california stir, mexico. extensive tagging (883 turtles tagged of 1,183 turtles captured) and recaptures (154 tagged turtles recaptured at least once) at these four areas suggest that immature fast pacific green turtles show strong site fidelity to their neritic foraging grounds. however, in 2007, we recaptured two immature turtles, one in laguna san ignacio and the other in bahia magdalena, that were both originally captured in punta abreojos. to our knowledge, this represents the first direct evidence of immature east pacific green turtles using multiple foraging areas along the baja california peninsula. this report highlights the importance of long-term monitoring efforts that encompass several habitats on a relatively large spatial scale (similar to 80 km between punta abreojos and laguna san ignacio and similar to 300 km between punta abreojos and bahia magdalena) to better understand the movements and habitat use of immature last pacific green turtles on their neritic foraging areas." +"immature east pacific green turtles (chelonia mydas) use multiple foraging areas off the pacific coast of baja california sur, mexico: first evidence from mark-recapture data",NA,PACIFIC SCIENCE,SENKO J;LOPEZ CASTRO MC;KOCH V;NICHOLS WJ,"since 2001, grupo tortuguero has been conducting monthly in-water monitoring of east pacific green turtles (chelonia mydas), also known as black turtles, at four neritic foraging areas (bahia magdalena, laguna san ignacio, punta abreojos, laguna ojo de liebre) along the pacific coast of baja california stir, mexico. extensive tagging (883 turtles tagged of 1,183 turtles captured) and recaptures (154 tagged turtles recaptured at least once) at these four areas suggest that immature fast pacific green turtles show strong site fidelity to their neritic foraging grounds. however, in 2007, we recaptured two immature turtles, one in laguna san ignacio and the other in bahia magdalena, that were both originally captured in punta abreojos. to our knowledge, this represents the first direct evidence of immature east pacific green turtles using multiple foraging areas along the baja california peninsula. this report highlights the importance of long-term monitoring efforts that encompass several habitats on a relatively large spatial scale (similar to 80 km between punta abreojos and laguna san ignacio and similar to 300 km between punta abreojos and bahia magdalena) to better understand the movements and habitat use of immature last pacific green turtles on their neritic foraging areas." survival and fidelity of an enclosed white-tailed deer population using capture-recapture-reporting data,dispersal; emigration; high-tensile electric fence; immigration; mortality; odocoileus virginianus,POPULATION ECOLOGY,WEBB SL;GEE KL;WANG GM,"the number of animal populations enclosed by impermeable fences has increased, which poses issues related to the behavior of individuals and populations. despite the increased number of fenced enclosures, there is a paucity of survival and fidelity data on white-tailed deer (odocoileus virginianus) from fenced enclosures. therefore, we examined marked deer recaptures and resightings over 13 years for an enclosed population of white-tailed deer in oklahoma, usa, to estimate survival and fidelity parameters. we found that a step model was the best model of survival for both sexes. survival of females and males was greater after hunting was suspended. average female survival was 77% before hunting was suspended but increased to 98% after. male survival was also greater after (99%) hunting was suspended compared to before (58%). females exhibited greater site fidelity (84-94%) than males for all age groups except old individuals, which showed similar site fidelities for males and females. fidelity was highest for old males (85%), followed by adult (74%), fawn (61%), and yearling males (56%). our high-tensile electric fence allowed management goals to be achieved through increased survival while potentially maintaining genetic diversity through the exchange of limited numbers of individuals from surrounding areas. however, if the goal is to confine deer to limit disease spread or protect sensitive areas (e.g., airports) from deer encroachment, then other fence designs may be necessary, because our fence was not completely effective at controlling deer movements for these purposes." "estimated causes of death in thailand, 2005: implications for health policy",NA,POPULATION HEALTH METRICS,PORAPAKKHAM Y;RAO C;PATTARAARCHACHAI J;POLPRASERT W;VOS T;ADAIR T;LOPEZ AD,"background: almost 400,000 deaths are registered each year in thailand. their value for public health policy and planning is greatly diminished by incomplete registration of deaths and by concerns about the quality of cause-of-death information. this arises from misclassification of specified causes of death, particularly in hospitals, as well as from extensive use of ill-defined and vague codes to attribute the underlying cause of death. detailed investigations of a sample of deaths in and out of hospital were carried out to identify misclassification of causes and thus derive a best estimate of national mortality patterns by age, sex, and cause of death. methods: a nationally representative sample of 11,984 deaths in 2005 was selected, and verbal autopsy interviews were conducted for almost 10,000 deaths. verbal autopsy procedures were validated against 2,558 cases for which medical record review was possible. misclassification matrices for leading causes of death, including ill-defined causes, were developed separately for deaths inside and outside of hospitals and proportionate mortality distributions constructed. estimates of mortality undercount were derived from ""capture-recapture"" methods applied to the 200506 survey of population change. proportionate mortality distributions were applied to this mortality ""envelope"" and ill-defined causes redistributed according to global burden of disease methods to yield final estimates of mortality levels and patterns in 2005. results: estimated life expectancy in thailand in 2005 was 68.5 years for males and 75.6 years for females, two years lower than vital registration data suggest. upon correction, stroke is the leading cause of death in thailand (10.7%), followed by ischemic heart disease (7.8%) and hiv/aids (7.4%). other leading causes are road traffic accidents (males) and diabetes mellitus (females). in many cases, estimated mortality is at least twice what is estimated in vital registration. leading causes of death have remained stable since 1999, with the exception of a large decline in hiv/aids mortality. conclusions: field research into the accuracy of cause-of-death data can result in substantially different patterns of mortality than suggested by routine death registration. misclassification errors are likely to have very significant implications for health policy debates. routine incorporation of validated verbal autopsy methods could significantly improve cause-of-death data quality in thailand." completeness of suspected measles reporting in a southern district of nigeria,measles; reporting; completeness; capture-recapture,PUBLIC HEALTH,ODEGA CC;FATIREGUN AA;OSAGBEMI GK,"objective: to determine the completeness of reporting of suspected measles cases to a local health authority in southern nigeria. study design: retrospective. methods: suspected measles cases were identified in all 23 health facilities in aniocha south local government area (lga) of delta state, southern nigeria by retrospective review of the health facilities' registers and the lga surveillance records between 1 january 2007 and 30 june 2008. a capture-recapture method was used to obtain an estimate of the total number of measles cases expected for the study area within the study period. the completeness of reporting was calculated as a ratio of the number of measles cases reported to the lga by hospitals to the number of cases estimated by the capture-recapture method. results: an estimate of 87 measles cases was obtained with the capture-recapture method. the overall completeness of reporting was 11.5% (95% confidence interval 8.1-19.6%). conclusion: the number of suspected measles cases seems to have been grossly underreported in this area. (c) 2009 the royal society for public health. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." dynamic heterogeneity and life histories,individual heterogeneity; fitness; life history; life course; phenotypic variation,REPRODUCTIVE AGING,TULJAPURKAR S;STEINER UK,"biodemography is increasingly focused on the large and persistent differences between individuals within populations in fitness components (age at death, reproductive success) and fitness-related components (health, biomarkers) in humans and other species. to study such variation we propose the use of dynamic models of observable phenotypes of individuals. phenotypic change in turn determines variation among individuals in their fitness components over the life course. we refer to this dynamic accumulation of fitness differences as dynamic heterogeneity and illustrate it for an animal population in which longitudinal data are studied using multistate capture-mark-recapture models. although our approach can be applied to any characteristic, for our empirical example we use reproduction as the phenotypic character to define stages. we indicate how our stage-structured model describes the nature of the variation among individual characteristics that is generated by dynamic heterogeneity. we conclude by discussing our ongoing and planned work on animals and humans. we also discuss the connections between our work and recent work on human mortality, disability and health, and life course theory." quantitative assessment of salmonid escapement techniques,escapement; area-under-the-curve; carcass abundance; mark-recapture; passage count; peak count; redd count,REVIEWS IN FISHERIES SCIENCE,PARSONS AL;SKALSKI JR,"most reviews of salmonid escapement estimation techniques have been based on logistical considerations or site-specific applications and not on statistical first principles. we reviewed six categories of salmon escapement techniques: area-under-the-curve, carcass abundance, mark-recapture, passage count, peak count, and redd count methods, based on statistical accuracy (i.e., unbiasedness), precision, and the ability to meet model assumptions. within each of these categories of escapement techniques, we make recommendations on the best approaches to use for valid estimates and suggest five considerations when selecting an escapement estimation method. currently in the pacific northwest, peak spawner counts are the most commonly employed technique and least defensible on a statistical basis than other methods. we recommend statistical accuracy and precision be given higher consideration when monitoring often increasingly scarce salmon resources." -"""didn't you see that bug ... ?"" investigating disease vector occurrence when detection is imperfect",detection; occurrence; vector ecology; triatominae,REVISTA DA SOCIEDADE BRASILEIRA DE MEDICINA TROPICAL,ABAD-FRANCH F;FERRAZ G,"as with most insect disease vectors, triatomine bugs are often small and dull-colored; in addition, triatomines spend the day inside secluded microenvironments such as wall cracks. as a result, detection failures are common in chagas disease vector surveys. but how important and hard to solve is this problem? we argue that imperfect detection is pervasive and can seriously mislead control program management and vector ecology studies. the standard response involves developing more sensitive detection methods; thus, active searches can be enhanced by using 'flush-out' chemicals or ultra-violet lights, and several 'sensing devices' have been designed and tested. however, these methods tend to be costly and rarely reach the high sensitivity they aim for; community involvement in vector notification is probably the most efficient approach to long-term surveillance. still, detection failures persist, and we show how explicitly incorporating them into the analyses effectively improves infestation rate estimates. repeated sampling of potentially infested sites (such as households) yields 'detection histories' that can be used to estimate occupancy rates (infestation) and detection probabilities (the sensitivity of the searching method). both can in turn be modeled as a function of covariates, generating detailed information not only on detection and occurrence, but also on local extinction and re-colonization dynamics and with a measure of uncertainty around each estimate. this results in powerful tools for decision-making, including evidence-based optimization of resource use and adaptive management schemes. we expect these approaches to progressively become standard practice both in control-surveillance programs and in academic and operational research." +"""didn't you see that bug ... ?"" investigating disease vector occurrence when detection is imperfect",detection; occurrence; vector ecology; triatominae,REVISTA DA SOCIEDADE BRASILEIRA DE MEDICINA TROPICAL,ABAD FRANCH F;FERRAZ G,"as with most insect disease vectors, triatomine bugs are often small and dull-colored; in addition, triatomines spend the day inside secluded microenvironments such as wall cracks. as a result, detection failures are common in chagas disease vector surveys. but how important and hard to solve is this problem? we argue that imperfect detection is pervasive and can seriously mislead control program management and vector ecology studies. the standard response involves developing more sensitive detection methods; thus, active searches can be enhanced by using 'flush-out' chemicals or ultra-violet lights, and several 'sensing devices' have been designed and tested. however, these methods tend to be costly and rarely reach the high sensitivity they aim for; community involvement in vector notification is probably the most efficient approach to long-term surveillance. still, detection failures persist, and we show how explicitly incorporating them into the analyses effectively improves infestation rate estimates. repeated sampling of potentially infested sites (such as households) yields 'detection histories' that can be used to estimate occupancy rates (infestation) and detection probabilities (the sensitivity of the searching method). both can in turn be modeled as a function of covariates, generating detailed information not only on detection and occurrence, but also on local extinction and re-colonization dynamics and with a measure of uncertainty around each estimate. this results in powerful tools for decision-making, including evidence-based optimization of resource use and adaptive management schemes. we expect these approaches to progressively become standard practice both in control-surveillance programs and in academic and operational research." population ecology of small rodents in sown wild flower areas in western switzerland,NA,REVUE D ECOLOGIE-LA TERRE ET LA VIE,ELMIGER R;RAMSEIER M;NENTWIG W;AIROLDI JP,"small mammal communities on four sown wild flower areas in western switzerland were studied from spring to autumn 2005 using the capture-recapture method. we trapped 666 animals belonging to microtus arvalis, apodemus sylvaticus, apodemus flavicollis and crocidura russula. m. arvalis, the most abundant species, reached a peak of 581 animals/ha known to be alive (mna) on one area in late september. spring populations of m. arvalis were very low on all fields. a preliminary study in 2003-2004 showed a very low number of animals known to be alive during the winter months and a similar population growth in spring. population turnover was generally high with up to 81 % of the population renewed in a one-week period (august). on all fields, there was a surplus of female m. arvalis. in august and september, the difference from 1 : 1 ratio was significant in one field, apparently a result of differential survival rate and recruitment between sexes. there was no significant difference in body mass between adult females and adult males. the second most frequent species, a. sylvaticus reached densities of up to 225 animals/ha on one area, but only 60-100 animals/ha, on the other three sites." "spatial and temporal patterns of upriver migration by sockeye salmon populations in the wood river system, bristol bay, alaska",NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,DOCTOR KK;HILBORN R;ROWSE M;QUINN T,"knowledge of temporal segregation in migration timing among populations is critical for management of fisheries that exploit a complex of populations with an overlap in timing. we examined the potential for fishery selection on populations of sockeye salmon oncorhynchus nerka in the wood river system, bristol bay, alaska, by determining the relationship between migration timing (hence, vulnerability to fishing) and the population of origin and breeding date. we assessed migration patterns among populations with a multiyear mark-recapture study testing the hypotheses that the timing of upriver migration varies systematically with respect to spawning habitat, lake of origin, and spawning population. the results revealed organization in migration timing through the wood river among populations spawning in the streams, beaches, and rivers of the system. the primary source of variation in migration timing among populations was spawning habitat and, to a lesser extent, the lake of origin. stream-spawning populations migrated before river-spawning populations, consistent with the earlier spawning in streams than in rivers. however, beach-spawning populations were among the earliest to migrate, yet they spawned as late as river spawners. a likelihood model revealed that spawn timing was not tightly coupled with migration timing by populations through the wood river, and there was broad overlap in migration timing among spawning populations. results also revealed a link between migration timing and arrival on spawning grounds within a population that was intensively sampled, indicating that early upriver migrants also tended to enter the spawning grounds before later-migrating individuals. fisheries that are selective with respect to timing can have strong effects on the phenotypic and genotypic diversity of the populations under such pressure, and the phenomenon of temporally biased fisheries merits further investigation." road crossing designs and their impact on fish assemblages of great plains streams,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,BOUSKA WW;PAUKERT CP,"a mark-recapture field study was conducted to determine fish passage at 5 concrete box culverts and 5 low-water crossings (concrete slabs vented by culverts) as well as 10 control sites (below a natural riffle) in flint hills streams of northeastern kansas. additionally, we tested the upstream passage of four fish species native to great plains streams (topeka shiner notropis topeka, green sunfish lepomis cyanellus, red shiner cyprinella lutrensis, and southern redbelly dace phoxinus erythrogaster) through three simulated crossing designs (box culverts, round corrugated culverts, and natural rock riffles) at water velocities of 0.1 to 1.1 m/s in an experimental stream. the field study indicated that cyprinids were twice as likely to move upstream of box culverts than low-water crossings and 1.4 times as likely to move upstream of control reaches than any crossing type. the best models indicated that the proportion of cyprinids that moved upstream increased with decreased culvert slope and length, perching, and increased culvert width. our controlled experiment indicated that fish can move through velocities up to 1.1 m/s in a 1.86-m simulated stream and that the proportion of fish that moved upstream did not differ among crossing designs for southern redbelly dace, green sunfish, or topeka shiner; however, natural rock riffles had lower proportional movements (mean 0.19) than the box (0.38) or corrugated culvert designs (0.43) for red shiners. water velocity did not affect the proportional upstream movement of any species except that of topeka shiners, which increased with water velocity. crossing design alone may not determine fish passage, and water velocities up to 1.1 m/s may not affect the passage of many great plains fishes. barriers to fish movement may be the result of other factors (e. g., perching, slope, and crossing length). the use of properly designed and installed crossings has promise in conserving great plains stream fishes." @@ -4648,7 +4660,7 @@ sphragis in parnassius mnemosyne (lepidoptera: papilionidae): male-derived insem comparing species assemblages via species accumulation curves,binomial mixtures; species richness,BIOMETRICS,MAO CX;LI J,"p>comparing species assemblages given incidence-based data is of importance in ecological studies, often done by a visual inspection of estimated species accumulation curves or by an ad hoc use of 95% pointwise confidence bands of these curves. it is shown that comparing species assemblages is a challenging problem. a chi 2 test is proposed. an adjustment using an eigenvalue decomposition is proposed to overcome computational difficulties. the bootstrap method is also suggested to approximate the distribution of the proposed test statistic. the eigenvalue adjusted (eva) chi 2 test and the eva-bootstrap test are assessed by a simulation study. both the eva-chi 2 and the eva-bootstrap tests are applied to a study that involves two woody seedling species assemblages." inference on population size in binomial detectability models,asymptotic distribution; bias; capture-recapture sampling; conditional maximum likelihood; distance sampling; interval estimation; maximum likelihood,BIOMETRIKA,FEWSTER RM;JUPP PE,"many models for biological populations, including simple mark-recapture models and distance sampling models, involve a binomially distributed number, n, of observations x(1), ..., x(n) on members of a population of size n. two popular estimators of (n, theta), where theta is a vector parameter, are the maximum likelihood estimator ((n) over cap, (theta) over cap) and the conditional maximum likelihood estimator ((n) over cap (c) (theta) over cap (c)) based on the conditional distribution of x(1), ..., x(n) given n. we derive the large-n asymptotic distributions of (((n) over cap, (theta) over cap) and ((n) over cap (c) (theta) over cap (c)), and give formulae for the biases of log (n) over cap and log (n) over cap (c). we show that the difference (n) over capc -(n) over cap is, remarkably, of order 1 and we give a simple formula for the leading part of this difference. simulations indicate that in many cases this formula is very accurate and that confidence intervals based on the asymptotic distribution have excellent coverage. an extension to product-binomial models is given." estimation in capture-recapture models when covariates are subject to measurement errors and missing data,capture-recapture; em algorithm; estimating function; measurement error; population size; missing covariate,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF STATISTICS-REVUE CANADIENNE DE STATISTIQUE,XI LQ;WATSON R;WANG JP;YIP PSF,"for capture-recapture models when covariates are subject to measurement errors and missing data, a set of estimating equations is constructed to estimate population size and relevant parameters. these estimating equations can be solved by an algorithm similar to the em algorithm. the proposed method is also applicable to the situation when covariates with no measurement errors have missing data. simulation studies are used to assess the performance of the proposed estimator. the estimator is also applied to a capture-recapture experiment on the bird species prinia flaviventris in hong kong. the canadian journal of statistics 37: 645-658; 2009 (c) 2009 statistical society of canada" -evaluation of childhood acute leukemia incidence and underreporting in brazil by capture-recapture methodology,childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia; cancer registries; capture and recapture,CANCER EPIDEMIOLOGY,AZEVEDO-SILVA F;REIS RD;SANTOS MD;LUIZ RR;POMBO-DE-OLIVEIRA MS,"background: population-based cancer registries (pbcr) are important in cancer epidemiology as they provide the basis for monitoring cancer incidence. childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (all) is said to have lower incidence in developing countries, which has implications for its pathogenesis, but there are few studies concerning the completeness of cancer registries in developing countries. this study analyzes the number of cases and incidence of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia in three different cities in brazil and estimates underreporting cases and possible pbcr failures. methods: we evaluated the completeness of pbcr and the incidence rates of childhood all from three different brazilian cities using the two-source capture-recapture method. the sources used were a population-based registry and databases from a diagnosis reference laboratory in 2001 and the chapman's formula was used to calculate the estimates. results: the estimated incidence was 5.76, 6.32 and 5.48 per 100,000 inhabitants for salvador, recife and belo horizonte, respectively. the estimated completeness of childhood all in pbcrs was 15.5%, 35.4% and 29.2%, respectively, for salvador, recife and belo horizonte. conclusions: there was a high estimated underreporting of childhood leukemia cases in some brazilian cities. the relationship between information systems and the capture-recapture method application improved epidemiological estimates. childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia incidence rates are similar to those of developed countries. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +evaluation of childhood acute leukemia incidence and underreporting in brazil by capture-recapture methodology,childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia; cancer registries; capture and recapture,CANCER EPIDEMIOLOGY,AZEVEDO SILVA F;REIS RD;SANTOS MD;LUIZ RR;POMBO DE OLIVEIRA MS,"background: population-based cancer registries (pbcr) are important in cancer epidemiology as they provide the basis for monitoring cancer incidence. childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (all) is said to have lower incidence in developing countries, which has implications for its pathogenesis, but there are few studies concerning the completeness of cancer registries in developing countries. this study analyzes the number of cases and incidence of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia in three different cities in brazil and estimates underreporting cases and possible pbcr failures. methods: we evaluated the completeness of pbcr and the incidence rates of childhood all from three different brazilian cities using the two-source capture-recapture method. the sources used were a population-based registry and databases from a diagnosis reference laboratory in 2001 and the chapman's formula was used to calculate the estimates. results: the estimated incidence was 5.76, 6.32 and 5.48 per 100,000 inhabitants for salvador, recife and belo horizonte, respectively. the estimated completeness of childhood all in pbcrs was 15.5%, 35.4% and 29.2%, respectively, for salvador, recife and belo horizonte. conclusions: there was a high estimated underreporting of childhood leukemia cases in some brazilian cities. the relationship between information systems and the capture-recapture method application improved epidemiological estimates. childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia incidence rates are similar to those of developed countries. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." global burden and epidemiology of tuberculosis,tuberculosis; epidemiology; burden; incidence; prevalence; mortality,CLINICS IN CHEST MEDICINE,GLAZIOU P;FLOYD K;RAVIGLIONE M,"tuberculosis (tb) ranks second only to human immunodeficiency virus as a cause of death from an infectious agent (1.77 million deaths from tb in 2007). global targets for reductions in the epidemiologic burden of tb have been set for 2015 and 2050 within the context of the millennium development goals and the stop tb partnership. achieving these targets is the focus of national and international efforts in tb control, and demonstrating whether or not they are achieved is of major importance. this article discusses: the methods used by the world health organization to estimate the global burden of tb; estimates of incidence, prevalence, and mortality for 2007, combined with assessment of progress toward the 2015 targets for reductions in these indicators based on trends since 1990 and projections up to 2015; trends in tb notifications and case detection rates; and prospects for elimination of tb by 2050." pheromone monitoring of rare and threatened insects: exploiting a pheromone-kairomone system to estimate prey and predator abundance,conservation; mark-recapture; monitoring; pheromone; saproxylic,CONSERVATION BIOLOGY,LARSSON MC;SVENSSON GP,"pheromone-based monitoring is a promising new method for assessing the conservation status of many threatened insect species. we examined the versatility and usefulness of pheromone-based monitoring by integrating a pheromone-kairomone trapping system and pitfall trapping system in the monitoring of two saproxylic beetles, the hermit beetle osmoderma eremita (coleoptera: scarabaeidae) and its predator elater ferrugineus (coleoptera: elateridae), which live inside hollow trees. we performed mark-recapture studies of both species with unbaited pitfall traps in oak hollows combined with pheromone-baited funnel traps suspended from oak branches to intercept dispersing individuals. for o. eremita, the integrated trapping system showed that the population in the study sites may be considerably higher than estimates based on extrapolation from pitfall trapping alone (approximately 3400 vs. 1100 or 1800 individuals, respectively). recaptures between odor-baited funnel traps showed that males and females had similar dispersal rates, but estimating the number of dispersing individuals was problematic due to declining recapture probability between subsequent capture events. our conservative estimate, assuming a linear decrease in capture probability, suggested that around 1900 individuals, or at least half of the o. eremita population, may perform flights from their natal host trees, representing higher dispersal rates than previous estimates. e. ferrugineus was rarely caught in pitfall traps. one hundred thirty-nine individuals, likely almost exclusively females, were caught in odor-baited funnel traps with approximately 4% recapture probability. if recapture probability over consecutive capture events follows that of o. eremita, this would correspond to a total population size of 2500-3000 individuals of the predator; similar to its supposed prey o. eremita. our results demonstrate that pheromone-based monitoring is a valuable tool in the study of species or life-history stages that would otherwise be inaccessible." how far do songbirds disperse?,NA,ECOGRAPHY,TITTLER R;VILLARD MA;FAHRIG L,"dispersal distances determine the scales over which many population processes occur. knowledge of these distances may therefore be crucial in determining the appropriate spatial scales for research and management. however, dispersal distances are difficult to measure, especially for vagile organisms like songbirds. for these species, the use of traditional mark-recapture and radio-telemetry methods is problematic. we used positive one-year time-lagged correlations in abundance to estimate natal dispersal distances. using the north american breeding bird survey database, we examined one-year time-lagged correlations between pairs of north american songbird samples separated by 10-100 km. we submit that consistent positive one-year time-lagged correlations reflect the exchange of individuals through dispersal. we found positive one-year time-lagged correlations between pairs of samples from 25 different songbird species. the median distances of these correlations ranged from 15 to 95 km, depending on the species. these distances were positively correlated with body size and wing length. dispersal appears to be the most parsimonious explanation for the time-lagged correlations we observed in these species. the putative dispersal distances we measured are generally an order of magnitude longer than those reported in the literature." @@ -4667,20 +4679,20 @@ effectiveness and adequacy of well sampling using baited traps for monitoring th population status of hellbender salamanders (cryptobranchus alleganiensis) in the allegheny river drainage of new york state,NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,FOSTER RL;MCMILLAN AM;ROBLEE KJ,"studies that document changes in long-lived species are valuable in determining how demographic and environmental changes are affecting populations. this study documents apparent declines in eastern hellbender (cryptobranchus alleganiensis) populations over the last 20 years in the allegheny river drainage of new york state. we compared current mark-recapture data to similar data collected in the 1980s at eight sites using a comparable method of capture (rock turning). in addition, we employed several other methods of capture including trapping, bank searching, and night fighting. despite these extra efforts, the number of hellbenders captured was less than the number captured historically. hellbenders were extirpated from a single site and the ecological density (number of individuals per 10 m(2) of habitable area) decreased in several other sites relative to the 1980s. current and historical populations contained more mature adults than juveniles, but we found more hellbenders <20 cm total length at five sites compared to the 1980s study. the sex ratio changed from predominantly female in the 1980s to predominantly male currently. eggs in nests were found in both studies, although little is known about egg or larval survival and overall recruitment. although demographic issues such as reproduction and recruitment may be contributing to hellbender declines in the allegheny drainage, these do not appear to have changed drastically from the 1980s. other possible causes of decline include factors such as land use changes, introduced species, or some other environmental issue." "sources, sinks, and spatial ecology of cotton mice in longleaf pine stands undergoing restoration",cotton mouse; fire; longleaf pine; peromyscus gossypinus; recruitment; reverse time; robust design; source-sink dynamics; survival,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,SHARP NW;MITCHELL MS;GRAND JB,"the fire and fire surrogate study-a replicated, manipulative experiment-sought the most economically and ecologically efficient way to restore the nation's fire-maintained ecosystems. as part of this study, we conducted a 3-year mark-recapture study, comprising 105,000 trap-nights, to assess demographic responses of cotton mice (peromyscus gossypinus) to fire and fire surrogate treatments at the gulf coastal plain site, where longleaf pine was the ecosystem to be restored. we compared competing models to evaluate restoration effects on variation in apparent survival and recruitment over time, space, and treatment, and incorporated measures of available source habitat for cotton mice with reverse-time modeling to infer immigration from outside the study area. the top-ranked survival model contained only variation over time, but the closely ranked 2nd and 3rd models included variation over space and treatment, respectively. the top 4 recruitment models all included effects for availability of source habitat and treatments. burning appeared to degrade habitat quality for cotton mice, showing demographic characteristics of a sink, but treatments combining fire with thinning of trees or application of herbicide to the understory appeared to improve habitat quality, possibly creating sources. bottomland hardwoods outside the study also acted as sources by providing immigrants to experimental units. models suggested that population dynamics operated over multiple spatial scales. treatments applied to 15-ha stands probably only caused local variation in vital rates within the larger population." determinants of home range and activity in two semi-aquatic lizards,varanid; home range; reptile; lizard; spatial; linear modelling; seasonality,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,SMITH JG;GRIFFITHS AD,"by living in close proximity to waterbodies, semi-aquatic varanids may be able to sustain activity and maintain relatively smaller home ranges than their terrestrial counterparts because of access to important resources (food and water) that are less abundant in terrestrial systems during dry seasons. the factors influencing home range and movement were examined in two semi-aquatic australian varanids, varanus mertensi and varanus indicus. we used radio-telemetry and mark-recapture techniques to examine differences in space use between sexes, seasons and body sizes in the top end of the northern territory of australia. both v. mertensi and v. indicus were active throughout the year, unlike terrestrial varanids in this region. varanus indicus had small home ranges when compared with other similar sized varanids, whereas the home ranges of v. mertensi varied substantially. body size influenced the home range of v. indicus, with larger animals having larger home ranges, but not for v. mertensi. an interaction between body size and gender influenced the distance v. indicus moved, whereas interactions between body size, gender and seasonality all influenced the distance that v. mertensi moved." -"interaction of landscape and life history attributes on genetic diversity, neutral divergence and gene flow in a pristine community of salmonids",atlantic salmon; arctic charr; brook trout; gros morne national park; landlocked; landscape genetics; newfoundland,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,GOMEZ-UCHIDA D;KNIGHT TW;RUZZANTE DE,"landscape genetics holds promise for the forecasting of spatial patterns of genetic diversity based on key environmental features. yet, the degree to which inferences based on single species can be extended to whole communities is not fully understood. we used a pristine and spatially structured community of three landlocked salmonids (salvelinus fontinalis, salmo salar, and salvelinus alpinus) from gros morne national park (newfoundland, canada) to test several predictions on the interacting effects of landscape and life history variation on genetic diversity, neutral divergence, and gene flow (m, migration rate). landscape factors consistently influenced multispecies genetic patterns: (i) waterfalls created strong dichotomies in genetic diversity and divergence between populations above and below them in all three salmonids; (ii) contemporary m decreased with waterway distance in all three species, while neutral genetic divergence (theta) increased with waterway distance, albeit in only two taxa; (iii) river flow generally produced downstream-biased m between populations when waterfalls separated these, but not otherwise. in contrast, we expected differential life history to result in a hierarchy of neutral divergence (s. salar > s. fontinalis > s. alpinus) based on disparities in dispersal abilities and population size from previous mark-recapture studies. such hierarchy additionally matched varying degrees of spatial genetic structure among species revealed through individual-based analyses. we conclude that, whereas key landscape attributes hold power to predict multispecies genetic patterns in equivalent communities, they are likely to interact with species-specific life history attributes such as dispersal, demography, and ecology, which will in turn affect holistic conservation strategies." +"interaction of landscape and life history attributes on genetic diversity, neutral divergence and gene flow in a pristine community of salmonids",atlantic salmon; arctic charr; brook trout; gros morne national park; landlocked; landscape genetics; newfoundland,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,GOMEZ UCHIDA D;KNIGHT TW;RUZZANTE DE,"landscape genetics holds promise for the forecasting of spatial patterns of genetic diversity based on key environmental features. yet, the degree to which inferences based on single species can be extended to whole communities is not fully understood. we used a pristine and spatially structured community of three landlocked salmonids (salvelinus fontinalis, salmo salar, and salvelinus alpinus) from gros morne national park (newfoundland, canada) to test several predictions on the interacting effects of landscape and life history variation on genetic diversity, neutral divergence, and gene flow (m, migration rate). landscape factors consistently influenced multispecies genetic patterns: (i) waterfalls created strong dichotomies in genetic diversity and divergence between populations above and below them in all three salmonids; (ii) contemporary m decreased with waterway distance in all three species, while neutral genetic divergence (theta) increased with waterway distance, albeit in only two taxa; (iii) river flow generally produced downstream-biased m between populations when waterfalls separated these, but not otherwise. in contrast, we expected differential life history to result in a hierarchy of neutral divergence (s. salar > s. fontinalis > s. alpinus) based on disparities in dispersal abilities and population size from previous mark-recapture studies. such hierarchy additionally matched varying degrees of spatial genetic structure among species revealed through individual-based analyses. we conclude that, whereas key landscape attributes hold power to predict multispecies genetic patterns in equivalent communities, they are likely to interact with species-specific life history attributes such as dispersal, demography, and ecology, which will in turn affect holistic conservation strategies." calibrations to estimate absolute numbers of new zealand fur seal (arctocephalus forsteri) pups from direct counts,mark-recapture; pup production; terrain; otago; new zealand,NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF MARINE AND FRESHWATER RESEARCH,WATSON DM;LALAS C;SEDDON PJ,"annual direct counts of seal pups can indicate long-term trends in population size, but mark-recapture estimates are needed to deduce absolute numbers. a calibration between results from these two methods would facilitate the use of direct counts to estimate absolute numbers, an outcome that is relatively quick, cheap and minimises disturbance of animals. mark-recapture estimates for the numbers of new zealand fur seal (arctocephalus forsteri) pups in 2003 at 10 colonies at otago, southeastern new zealand, were compared with independent single counts at the same colonies. a single ratio to estimate absolute numbers (y) from direct counts (x) was not statistically significant. instead, two ratios were deduced, based on differences in habitat among colonies: y = 1.51x for colonies with hiding places for pups and y = 0.96x for colonies without hiding places. application of these calibrations and their 95% prediction intervals produce estimates and ranges for the absolute numbers of pups from single annual counts." -"effects of temporary tributary use on escapement estimates of adult fall chinook salmon in the deschutes river, oregon",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,"NAUGHTON GP;JEPSON MA;PEERY CA;BRUN CV;GRAHAM JC","international managers use escapement estimates of the deschutes river, oregon, population of fall chinook salmon oncorhynchus tshawytscha to forecast abundance and assess population health. fish are externally marked in the deschutes river, and a subsample of the marked fish is recovered on the spawning grounds to provide data for estimating escapement. escapement would be overestimated if some of the marked fish exited the deschutes river prior to spawning (i.e., used this tributary temporarily). we used mark-recapture and radiotelemetry techniques to calculate (1) the proportion of adult fall chinook salmon that entered the deschutes river and subsequently exited the river prior to spawning and (2) the effect of such temporary entrances on spawning ground escapement estimates. we used separate criteria to calculate maximum and minimum temporary tributary use rates, which were then used to adjust the escapement estimates made with external-tag data alone. over the 3 years of study, the adjusted estimates were approximately 4-29% lower than the unadjusted estimates. we conclude that failure to adjust escapement estimates for temporary tributary use might lead to inflated harvest targets. to partially account for temporary tributary use, the lower 95% confidence limit for an escapement estimate could be used to regulate harvest." +"effects of temporary tributary use on escapement estimates of adult fall chinook salmon in the deschutes river, oregon",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,NAUGHTON GP;JEPSON MA;PEERY CA;BRUN CV;GRAHAM JC,"international managers use escapement estimates of the deschutes river, oregon, population of fall chinook salmon oncorhynchus tshawytscha to forecast abundance and assess population health. fish are externally marked in the deschutes river, and a subsample of the marked fish is recovered on the spawning grounds to provide data for estimating escapement. escapement would be overestimated if some of the marked fish exited the deschutes river prior to spawning (i.e., used this tributary temporarily). we used mark-recapture and radiotelemetry techniques to calculate (1) the proportion of adult fall chinook salmon that entered the deschutes river and subsequently exited the river prior to spawning and (2) the effect of such temporary entrances on spawning ground escapement estimates. we used separate criteria to calculate maximum and minimum temporary tributary use rates, which were then used to adjust the escapement estimates made with external-tag data alone. over the 3 years of study, the adjusted estimates were approximately 4-29% lower than the unadjusted estimates. we conclude that failure to adjust escapement estimates for temporary tributary use might lead to inflated harvest targets. to partially account for temporary tributary use, the lower 95% confidence limit for an escapement estimate could be used to regulate harvest." precise determination of the diversity of a combinatorial antibody library gives insight into the human immunoglobulin repertoire,hmm; phage display; pyrosequencing; cdrs,PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,GLANVILLE J;ZHAI WW;BERKA J;TELMAN D;HUERTA G;MEHTA GR;NI I;MEI L;SUNDAR PD;DAY GMR;COX D;RAJPAL A;PONS J,"antibody repertoire diversity, potentially as high as 10(11) unique molecules in a single individual, confounds characterization by conventional sequence analyses. in this study, we present a general method for assessing human antibody sequence diversity displayed on phage using massively parallel pyrosequencing, a novel application of kabat column-labeled profile hidden markov models, and translated complementarity determining region (cdr) capture-recapture analysis. pyrosequencing of domain amplicon and rca pcr products generated 1.5 x 10(6) reads, including more than 1.9 x 10(5) high quality, full-length sequences of antibody variable fragment (fv) variable domains. novel methods for germline and cdr classification and fine characterization of sequence diversity in the 6 cdrs are presented. diverse germline contributions to the repertoire with random heavy and light chain pairing are observed. all germline families were found to be represented in 1.7 x 10(4) sequences obtained from repeated panning of the library. while the most variable cdr (cdr-h3) presents significant length and sequence variability, we find a substantial contribution to total diversity from somatically mutated germline encoded cdrs 1 and 2. using a capture-recapture method, the total diversity of the antibody library obtained from a human donor immunoglobulin m (igm) pool was determined to be at least 3.5 x 10(10). the results provide insights into the role of igm diversification, display library construction, and productive germline usages in antibody libraries and the humoral repertoire." "invasive meningococcal disease: completeness and timeliness of reporting of confirmed cases in thames valley, 2006-2007",meningococcal infections; disease notification; population surveillance; retrospective studies; time factors,PUBLIC HEALTH,PARANTHAMAN K;KENT L;MCCARTHY N;GRAY SJ,"objectives: regular evaluation of disease surveillance systems is essential. this study assessed the completeness and timeliness of reporting of invasive meningococcal disease (imd) in thames valley in 2006-2007. study design: retrospective review of two data sources used in disease surveillance: the list of notified cases to the thames valley health protection unit (tvhpu) and the list of confirmed cases at the reference laboratory during 2006-2007. methods: the datasets were compared by checking patient name, date of birth, sample date and date of onset of illness. completeness was estimated using tilling's capture-recapture method. timeliness was assessed by calculating the difference between the date of admission and the date of notification to the tvhpu. results: the estimated completeness of reporting of imd cases was calculated as 90.5% (95% confidence interval 88.6-92.4). thirty-six percent of cases were notified on the day of admission, 63% were notified within 1 day and 72% were notified within 2 days (range 0-36 days). conclusions: timeliness and completeness of reporting of imd was clearly suboptimal. it is critical to educate clinicians on the need to notify all suspected cases of imd to public health authorities in a timely manner. (c) 2009 the royal society for public health. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "structure and organization of rodent assembles of a forest of the sierra madre occidental, durango, mexico",assemble; conservation; rodent; sierra madre occidental; temperate forest,REVISTA CHILENA DE HISTORIA NATURAL,ARAGON EE;GARZA A;CERVANTES FA,"biodiversity of temperate forests in the mountain region called ""sierra madre"", at western mexico, is rich. this zone lies in the transition zone, a biogeographical important area of north america characterized by a remarkable local environmental heterogeneity. however, little is known about the taxonomic composition, and organization of the assemblage of native small mammal, and the influence of local ecological factors, particularly from different vegetation types. therefore, we were interested in documenting the species composition and structure of the small mammal assemblages of this sierra and provide insights into the nesting level of the community and deviations from a random organization. the study area was a place named ""el durangueno"" ranch, durango, mexico. three different vegetation types (grassland, and oak-pine and pine-oak forests) were sampled there during every season of 2005 to 2006. during three consecutive nights rodents of each site were captured, recaptured, and taxonomically identified. results produced 520 individuals (386 captures, 134 recaptures) of 18 small mammal species (14 mice, four squirrels) of different body sizes that represent neartic. neotropical, or shared affinity; endemicity of taxa was found as well as taxa in some extinction risk category. species richness and eveness were high and the diversity and population levels were moderate. although high density of small mammals highlights oak-pine forest whereas dominance of some species occurs in pine-oak forest perhaps due to disturbance. spatial pattern of medium-size species was not at random. assemble of species revealed a non-nested pattern and displayed a log-normal distribution, characterized by four common and widely distributed rodent species (peromyscus truei, p. maniculatus, reithrodontomys montanus, and sigmodon leucotis), and seven of restricted distribution. on the other hand, several species were allocated to different trophic-niche guilds, as revealed by their reported food preferences, that were composed by up to two dominant species by site. in conclusion, the small mammal assemblage of forests of sierra madre is distinctive and diverse, is not structured at random and vegetation may be one of the ecological factors that have played an important evolutionary role." "microgeographic body size variation in a high elevation andean anole (anolis mariarum; squamata, polychrotidae)",body size; growth rates; bergmann's rule; morphometrics; lepidosis; geographic variation; common garden study; precipitation; temperature,REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL,BOCK BC;ORTEGA AM;ZAPATA AM;PAEZ VP,"intra-specific body size variation is common and often is assumed to be adaptive. studies of body size variation among sites should include or consider environmental and ecological variables in their designs. additionally, reciprocal transplant or common garden studies will support which variables are really contributing to the observed body size variation. this study analyzed the microgeographic body size variation in anolis mariarum, a small lizard endemic to antioquia, colombia. parameters such as body size, shape, and lepidosis variation were quantified in 217 adult a. mariarum, belonging to six populations separated by less than 80km. results showed that significant body size variation was not related to differences among sites in mean annual temperature, but covaried with mean annual precipitation, with the largest individuals occurring in dryer sites. mark-recapture data obtained from 115 individuals from both the wettest and dryest sites from october 2004 to april 2005 showed that growth rates were higher at the latter. eight males from each site were captured at the end of the mark-recapture study and reared for two months under identical conditions in a common garden study. individuals from both sites grew faster when reared in the laboratory with food provided ad libitum. although growth rates of males from the two populations did not differ significantly in the laboratory, males from the dryest site still maintained a significantly larger asymptotic body size in their growth trajectories. multivariate analyses also demonstrated that both males and females from the six populations differed in terms of body shape and lepidosis. however, only female body size was found to covary significantly with an environmental gradient (precipitation). a. mariarum does not conform to bergmann's rule, but the relationship found between mean body size and asympotic growth with mean annual precipitation at these sites needs further analysis. generally, studies of intra-specific body size variation should consider a number of additional phenotypic traits to provide stronger baseline information on the degree of overall divergence among populations, including those likely to be selectively neutral, before interpreting results of analyses on the body size differences. rev. biol. trop. 57 (4): 1253-1262. epub 2009 december 01." -"effect of harvesting, vegetation structure and composition on the abundance and demography of the land crab cardisoma guanhumi in puerto rico",cardisoma guanhumi; land crabs; mark recapture; harvesting; population dynamics; mangrove forest; leaf litter,WETLANDS ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,RODRIGUEZ-FOURQUET C;SABAT AM,"cardisoma guanhumi is the focus of an important artisanal fishery in puerto rico. data on land crab landings point towards a dramatic decline in their abundance. this is cause for concern given the intrinsic value of the fishery and the important role these crabs play in coastal ecosystems. in this paper we examine the effect of harvesting and habitat quality on the abundance, survival, and size structure of c. guanhumi. to accomplish this we conducted a capture-mark-recapture study for a period of 18 months at three localities with minimal or no harvesting, and three with intense harvesting. habitat quality at the six study sites was assessed by measuring vegetation composition-structure and litter biomass. we also conducted a leaf consumption experiment to evaluate leaf litter selectivity and limitation. mean crab abundance differed significantly among sites, and this variation was significantly explained by differences in crab survival among sites. sites with less harvesting tended to have higher survivorship and more crabs than sites where harvesting took place. crabs mean size differed among study sites and was inversely related to abundance. vegetation composition and structure, leaf litter standing stock and leaf-litter consumption differed among study sites. however, only some of these habitat characteristics are directly related to crab abundance or demography. there is a tendency for sites with a high leaf litter standing stock and large basal area to have the largest crabs but in low abundance. this study shows that c. guanhumi populations are very sensitive to increases in mortality that result from harvesting, and that the historical decline in abundance of this crab in puerto rico can be explained, in part, by an increase in trapping effort. our results also indicate that c. guanhumi is a very plastic species, capable of occupying diverse types of coastal forests and a leaf litter generalist." +"effect of harvesting, vegetation structure and composition on the abundance and demography of the land crab cardisoma guanhumi in puerto rico",cardisoma guanhumi; land crabs; mark recapture; harvesting; population dynamics; mangrove forest; leaf litter,WETLANDS ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,RODRIGUEZ FOURQUET C;SABAT AM,"cardisoma guanhumi is the focus of an important artisanal fishery in puerto rico. data on land crab landings point towards a dramatic decline in their abundance. this is cause for concern given the intrinsic value of the fishery and the important role these crabs play in coastal ecosystems. in this paper we examine the effect of harvesting and habitat quality on the abundance, survival, and size structure of c. guanhumi. to accomplish this we conducted a capture-mark-recapture study for a period of 18 months at three localities with minimal or no harvesting, and three with intense harvesting. habitat quality at the six study sites was assessed by measuring vegetation composition-structure and litter biomass. we also conducted a leaf consumption experiment to evaluate leaf litter selectivity and limitation. mean crab abundance differed significantly among sites, and this variation was significantly explained by differences in crab survival among sites. sites with less harvesting tended to have higher survivorship and more crabs than sites where harvesting took place. crabs mean size differed among study sites and was inversely related to abundance. vegetation composition and structure, leaf litter standing stock and leaf-litter consumption differed among study sites. however, only some of these habitat characteristics are directly related to crab abundance or demography. there is a tendency for sites with a high leaf litter standing stock and large basal area to have the largest crabs but in low abundance. this study shows that c. guanhumi populations are very sensitive to increases in mortality that result from harvesting, and that the historical decline in abundance of this crab in puerto rico can be explained, in part, by an increase in trapping effort. our results also indicate that c. guanhumi is a very plastic species, capable of occupying diverse types of coastal forests and a leaf litter generalist." spatial organization of the clouded apollo butterfly (parnassius mnemosyne) in lake onega basin,NA,ZOOLOGICHESKY ZHURNAL,GORBACH VV;KABANEN DN,"the distribution and interaction of local clouded apollo butterfly (parnassius mnemosyne) populations were studied on bolshoi klimenetskii island (lake onega, russia). within an area of 10 km(2), the butterflies occur in 27 discrete habitat patches - small meadows located within forests and their periphery. the mark-recapture results confirmed that occupied patches were interrelated by streams of individuals. based on exponential distribution, local and migratory movements of the butterflies were separated, and a model describing movement frequencies from distance is proposed. the generalization of the habitat patches using the pca's q-technique and indices of isolation as measures of similarity between the objects in initial matrices allowed revealing four subpopulations that occupy separate plots of the area with a network of suitable habitats. according to available data on the local movements of butterflies, an area of residence with two zones was determined for each subpopulation: the central (0.3 km in diameter), within which the movements of butterflies are most intensive, and the peripheral (0.3 to 0.5 km), which is rarely visited by butterflies, ones. long-distance movements from one occupied area to another one were registered for 8% of marked butterflies; migration between all subpopulations was recorded. among the migrants, the male to female ratio was 6 : 1; the maximum distance covered by a butterfly was 2.68 km. the wide-spread opinion that the clouded apollo is extremely sedentary species with the low migratory potential is refuted." -study designs and evaluation models for emergency department public health research,public health; clinical research; study design; program evaluation; models; validity; assessment,ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE,BRODERICK KB;RANNEY ML;VACA FE;D'ONOFRIO G;ROTHMAN RE;RHODES KV;BECKER B;HAUKOOS JS,"public health research requires sound design and thoughtful consideration of potential biases that may influence the validity of results. it also requires careful implementation of protocols and procedures that are likely to translate from the research environment to actual clinical practice. this article is the product of a breakout session from the 2009 academic emergency medicine consensus conference entitled ""public health in the ed: screening, surveillance, and intervention"" and serves to describe in detail aspects of performing emergency department (ed)-based public health research, while serving as a resource for current and future researchers. in doing so, the authors describe methodologic features of study design, participant selection and retention, and measurements and analyses pertinent to public health research. in addition, a number of recommendations related to research methods and future investigations related to public health work in the ed are provided. public health investigators are poised to make substantial contributions to this important area of research, but this will only be accomplished by employing sound research methodology in the context of rigorous program evaluation." -cross-analysis of hazmat road accidents using multiple databases,road accident; hazmat; accident database; spatial analysis; cross-analysis,ACCIDENT ANALYSIS AND PREVENTION,TREPANIER M;LEROUX MH;DE MARCELLIS-WARIN N,"road selection for hazardous materials transportation relies heavily on risk analysis. with risk being generally expressed as a product of the probability of occurrence and the expected consequence, one will understand that risk analysis is data intensive. however, various authors have noticed the lack of statistical reliability of hazmat accident databases due to the systematic underreporting of such events. also, official accident databases alone are not always providing all the information required (economical impact, road conditions, etc.). in this paper, we attempt to integrate many data sources to analyze hazmat accidents in the province of quebec, canada. databases on dangerous goods accidents, road accidents and work accidents were cross-analyzed. results show that accidents can hardly be matched and that these databases suffer from underreporting. police records seem to have better coverage than official records maintained by hazmat authorities. serious accidents are missing from government's official databases (some involving deaths or major spills) even though their declaration is mandatory. (c) 2008 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +study designs and evaluation models for emergency department public health research,public health; clinical research; study design; program evaluation; models; validity; assessment,ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE,BRODERICK KB;RANNEY ML;VACA FE;D ONOFRIO G;ROTHMAN RE;RHODES KV;BECKER B;HAUKOOS JS,"public health research requires sound design and thoughtful consideration of potential biases that may influence the validity of results. it also requires careful implementation of protocols and procedures that are likely to translate from the research environment to actual clinical practice. this article is the product of a breakout session from the 2009 academic emergency medicine consensus conference entitled ""public health in the ed: screening, surveillance, and intervention"" and serves to describe in detail aspects of performing emergency department (ed)-based public health research, while serving as a resource for current and future researchers. in doing so, the authors describe methodologic features of study design, participant selection and retention, and measurements and analyses pertinent to public health research. in addition, a number of recommendations related to research methods and future investigations related to public health work in the ed are provided. public health investigators are poised to make substantial contributions to this important area of research, but this will only be accomplished by employing sound research methodology in the context of rigorous program evaluation." +cross-analysis of hazmat road accidents using multiple databases,road accident; hazmat; accident database; spatial analysis; cross-analysis,ACCIDENT ANALYSIS AND PREVENTION,TREPANIER M;LEROUX MH;DE MARCELLIS WARIN N,"road selection for hazardous materials transportation relies heavily on risk analysis. with risk being generally expressed as a product of the probability of occurrence and the expected consequence, one will understand that risk analysis is data intensive. however, various authors have noticed the lack of statistical reliability of hazmat accident databases due to the systematic underreporting of such events. also, official accident databases alone are not always providing all the information required (economical impact, road conditions, etc.). in this paper, we attempt to integrate many data sources to analyze hazmat accidents in the province of quebec, canada. databases on dangerous goods accidents, road accidents and work accidents were cross-analyzed. results show that accidents can hardly be matched and that these databases suffer from underreporting. police records seem to have better coverage than official records maintained by hazmat authorities. serious accidents are missing from government's official databases (some involving deaths or major spills) even though their declaration is mandatory. (c) 2008 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." maternal effects increase within-family variation in offspring survival,egg size; offspring survival; maternal investment; brood reduction,AMERICAN NATURALIST,REED WL;CLARK ME;VLECK CM,"maternal effects are environmental components of phenotypes that complicate relationships between natural selection and evolution because they often affect phenotypes and fitness simultaneously. we studied the effects of egg size variation on juvenile survival in a population of american coots (fulica americana). we experimentally evaluated egg size variation at three levels: across the population, within natal nests, and within foster nests. natal nests accounted for the most variation in population egg size. within clutches, early-laid eggs were larger than later-laid eggs, with the exception of first-laid eggs, which were small. in the fostering experiment, posthatching survival was most strongly related to egg size relative to natal siblings and natal hatching order and less so to egg size within foster nests. these effects on survival were found even though young from natal nests were neither raised together nor raised by genetic parents. these results indicate that females allocate resources unequally among offspring such that offspring from larger, early-laid eggs have higher survival than offspring from smaller, later-laid eggs, regardless of their size relative to foster siblings or to mean population egg size. these results suggest that egg size variation can be maintained through selection on maternal investment strategies and not on egg size per se." efficient bait for sampling the wireworm melanotus okinawensis (coleoptera: elateridae) in a sugarcane field,attractant; rice seed; pest management; saccharum officinarum,APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY AND ZOOLOGY,ARAKAKI N;HOKAMA Y;YAMAMURA K,"bait trap efficiencies were compared to construct a sampling method for wireworms, larvae of the click beetle melanotus okinawensis (coleoptera: elateridae). various combinations of bait material, bait preparation methods, and bait exposure periods were compared. wireworms were more efficiently attracted by germinating rice seeds than other bait materials, such as sweet potato, potato, and carrot. among the bait materials related to rice, germinating rice seeds attracted significantly more wireworms than other materials, such as unpolished rice, polished rice, rice seeds, and rice husks. rice bran and germinating unpolished rice were lesser attractants than germinating rice seeds. attractiveness increased only slightly with increasing periods of incubation of rice seeds. attractiveness increased more slowly with the increase of rice seeds, indicating that 30g was sufficient for attraction. the number of captured wireworms increased with increasing periods of field exposure, but we judged that three days of exposure might be an appropriate choice because the difficulty of handling traps increased with increasing periods of exposure. under semiarid soil conditions, bait attractiveness was greatly enhanced by daily irrigation. it was shown that germinating rice seeds with moistened sphagnum moss are as effective as germinating rice seeds with daily irrigation." -comparison of databases for iranian articles; access to evidence on substance abuse and addiction,information storage and retrieval; iran; methods; periodicals; substance-related disorders,ARCHIVES OF IRANIAN MEDICINE,AMIN-ESMAILI M;NEDJAT S;MOTEVALIAN A;RAHIMI-MOVAGHAR A;MAJDZADEH R,"background: with the expansion of scientific documents worldwide and the growth of iranian articles published in recent years, highly sensitive electronic resources containing scientific studies can be of great help to researchers at different stages of research. this study has been conducted to examine the sensitivity of domestic and international databases to locate iranian articles related to substance abuse disorders or addiction. methods: iranian articles in three domestic databases (iranpsych, iranmedex, and sid) and three international databases (psycinfo, embase, and medline) were compared, separately. all articles in english or persian related to the subject in one year period (2002) were selected by two reviewers. the log linear model was applied to estimate the total number of articles and sensitivity of each database. results: as a whole, 129 persian articles and 29 english articles related to addiction were found in six domestic and international databases. among domestic databases the sensitivity of each database (iranpsych, iranmedex, and sid) was estimated to be 66.5, 55.7 and 40.5%, respectively. among the international databases (psycinfo, embase and medline) were estimated to have 22.1, 19.1 and 17.6% coverage, respectively. a crossover search of articles retrieved from domestic databases showed that 11.6% of the iranian articles had been published in english in international journals. conclusion: our findings suggest that after searching at least one general and one specialized iranian database, 80% of studies relevant to addiction in iran can be accessed. introduction of developing countries' domestic databases can be beneficial in a more comprehensive access to scientific documentations." +comparison of databases for iranian articles; access to evidence on substance abuse and addiction,information storage and retrieval; iran; methods; periodicals; substance-related disorders,ARCHIVES OF IRANIAN MEDICINE,AMIN ESMAILI M;NEDJAT S;MOTEVALIAN A;RAHIMI MOVAGHAR A;MAJDZADEH R,"background: with the expansion of scientific documents worldwide and the growth of iranian articles published in recent years, highly sensitive electronic resources containing scientific studies can be of great help to researchers at different stages of research. this study has been conducted to examine the sensitivity of domestic and international databases to locate iranian articles related to substance abuse disorders or addiction. methods: iranian articles in three domestic databases (iranpsych, iranmedex, and sid) and three international databases (psycinfo, embase, and medline) were compared, separately. all articles in english or persian related to the subject in one year period (2002) were selected by two reviewers. the log linear model was applied to estimate the total number of articles and sensitivity of each database. results: as a whole, 129 persian articles and 29 english articles related to addiction were found in six domestic and international databases. among domestic databases the sensitivity of each database (iranpsych, iranmedex, and sid) was estimated to be 66.5, 55.7 and 40.5%, respectively. among the international databases (psycinfo, embase and medline) were estimated to have 22.1, 19.1 and 17.6% coverage, respectively. a crossover search of articles retrieved from domestic databases showed that 11.6% of the iranian articles had been published in english in international journals. conclusion: our findings suggest that after searching at least one general and one specialized iranian database, 80% of studies relevant to addiction in iran can be accessed. introduction of developing countries' domestic databases can be beneficial in a more comprehensive access to scientific documentations." unreliable amphibian population metrics may obfuscate more than they reveal,amphibians; age structure; body condition; counts; forest management; monitoring; plethodon elongatus; plethodon stormi; reliable inference; source-sink dynamics; sampling,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,KROLL AJ;RUNGE JP;MACCRACKEN JG,"welsh et al. [welsh, h.h., jr. pope, k.l., wheeler, c.a., 2008. using multiple metrics to assess the effects of forest succession on population status: a comparative study of two terrestrial salamanders in the us pacific northwest. biological conservation 141, pp. 1149-1160] argued for the use of four metrics to monitor population status of two terrestrial amphibians, the siskiyou mountains (plethodon stormi) and del norte (plethodon elongatus) salamanders. we show that inherent problems exist with welsh et al.'s application of all four of these metrics, and that their inferences about population status are likely to be uncertain as a consequence and potentially misleading to managers. welsh et al. (2008) used data from different populations and different years to estimate detection probabilities for both p. elongatus and p. stormi, a decision which assumes that detection probabilities do not differ across sites and populations are closed. in addition, welsh et al. (2008) present count data for both salamanders, a metric that assumes capture probability does not vary by age, gender, size, other individual characteristics, and most importantly in their application, habitat characteristics. welsh et al. (2008) estimated survival based upon age ratios. age ratios are known to be biased when immigration and emigration are unequal conn et al. [conn, p.b., doherty, p.f., jr. nichols, j.d., 2005. comparative demography of new world populations of thrushes (turdus spp.): comment. ecology 86, pp. 2536-2541]. in source-sink systems, immigration and emigration are expected to be unequal. thus, the use of this estimation technique to characterize survival in source-sink systems is invalid unless it can be shown that immigration and emigration are equal, a rare occurrence in source-sink systems. the final metric used by welsh et al. (2008) was an index of body condition, i.e., the residuals of a least squares regression of mass on the length. several recent articles have outlined a number of potential problems with the technique and a theoretically more robust and efficient alternative has been published. unfortunately, welsh et al. (2008) did not provide the details (model diagnostic statistics, tests of assumptions) needed to assess whether or not their analyses of body condition may be accurate. we think that evaluation of specific hypotheses, well-designed sampling programs, and methods such as mark-recapture and ratio sampling are more likely to provide reliable inference than re-analysis of old data sets that were collected for other purposes and obsolete methods (i.e.. counting individuals on single occasions) that are known to be flawed. we agree that potential forest management impacts to sensitive taxa require evaluation and monitoring, and that changes in occupancy and abundance are useful metrics for this task (while recognizing that, when feasible to collect, information about reproductive success and survival is superior). however, reliable inference about potential impacts can only be made if reliable methods are employed and if critical assumptions receive empirical evaluation. we offer several suggestions to strengthen inference about management treatments. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." timing of migration and patterns of winter settlement by henslow's sparrows,ammodramus henslowii; demographics; dna sexing; dominance hierarchy; henslow's sparrow; post-migration movements; winter,CONDOR,JOHNSON EI;DIMICELI JK;STOUFFER PC,"fall arrival is an important period in the life history of migratory birds because processes during this period determine where birds spend the winter, which is linked to subsequent survival and condition at the time of spring migration. henslow's sparrows (ammodramus henslowii) winter in savannas of longleaf pine (pinus palustris), but their secretive behavior limits our knowledge of their winter ecology, including behavioral processes that lead to their documented preference of an ephemeral habitat-recently burned savannas. we expected that upon arrival henslow's sparrows actively seek out recently burned savannas and that their over-winter location is dependent on intraspecific interactions during the arrival period. we conducted a 2-year mark-recapture study in southeastern louisiana longleaf pine savannas to examine these predictions. bird densities were highest in savannas burned during the previous growing season. there was a large turnover of transient individuals in october and early november, but the proportion of dispersing birds was not related to the number of years since fire or to the bird's age or sex. early-season movements did not result in skewed age or sex distributions associated with years since fire, suggesting the lack of a class-mediated competitive hierarchy. birds were then site faithful from late november through spring departure, which began in march and lasted through mid april, with males departing first." habitat-specific breeder survival of florida scrub-jays: inferences from multistate models,aphelocoma coerulescens; capture-recapture; disturbance; fire; florida scrub-jay; multistate models; patch dynamics; restoration; scrub; survival,ECOLOGY,BREININGER DR;NICHOLS JD;CARTER GM;ODDY DM,"quantifying habitat-specific survival and changes in habitat quality within disturbance-prone habitats is critical for understanding population dynamics and variation in fitness, and for managing degraded ecosystems. we used 18 years of color-banding data and multistate capture-recapture models to test whether habitat quality within territories influences survival and detection probability of breeding florida scrub-jays (aphelocoma coerulescens) and to estimate bird transition probabilities from one territory quality state to another. our study sites were along central florida's atlantic coast and included two of the four largest metapopulations within the species range. we developed markov models for habitat transitions and compared these to bird transition probabilities. florida scrub-jay detection probabilities ranged from 0.88 in the tall territory state to 0.99 in the optimal state; detection probabilities were intermediate in the short state. transition probabilities were similar for birds and habitat in grid cells mapped independently of birds. thus, bird transitions resulted primarily from habitat transitions between states over time and not from bird movement. survival ranged from 0.71 in the short state to 0.82 in the optimal state, with tall states being intermediate. we conclude that average florida scrub-jay survival will remain at levels that lead to continued population declines because most current habitat quality is only marginally suitable across most of the species range. improvements in habitat are likely to be slow and difficult because tall states are resistant to change and the optimal state represents an intermediate transitional stage. the multistate modeling approach to quantifying survival and habitat transition probabilities is useful for quantifying habitat transition probabilities and comparing them to bird transition probabilities to test for habitat selection in dynamic environments." @@ -4696,7 +4708,7 @@ validating aerial photographic mark-recapture for naturally marked feral horses, using time-dependent models to investigate body condition and growth rate of the giant gartersnake,california; mark-recapture; mediterranean climate; reproductive strategy; sexual dimorphism; snake; thamnophis gigas,JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,COATES PS;WYLIE GD;HALSTEAD BJ;CASAZZA ML,"identifying links between phenotypic attributes and fitness is a primary goal of reproductive ecology. differences in within-year patterns of body condition between sexes of gartersnakes in relation to reproduction and growth are not fully understood. we conducted an 11-year field study of body condition and growth rate of the giant gartersnake thamnophis gigas across 13 study areas in the central valley of california, usa. we developed a priori mixed effects models of body condition index (bci), which included covariates of time, sex and snout-vent length and reported the best-approximating models using an information theoretic approach. also, we developed models of growth rate index (gri) using covariates of sex and periods based on reproductive behavior. the largest difference in bci between sexes, as predicted by a non-linear (cubic) time model, occurred during the mating period when female body condition (0.014 +/- 0.001 se) was substantially greater than males (-0.027 +/- 0.002 se). males likely allocated energy to search for mates, while females likely stored energy for embryonic development. we also provided evidence that males use more body energy reserves than females during hibernation, perhaps because of different body temperatures between sexes. we found gri of male snakes was substantially lower during the mating period than during a non-mating period, which indicated that a trade-off existed between searching for mates and growth. these findings contribute to our understanding of snake ecology in a mediterranean climate." hierarchical spatial genetic structure of common eiders (somateria mollissima) breeding along a migratory corridor,barrier islands; beaufort sea; common eider; dispersal; gene flow; microsatellites; mtdna; philopatry; somateria mollissima; spatial genetic structure,AUK,SONSTHAGEN SA;TALBOT SL;LANCTOT RB;SCRIBNER KT;MCCRACKEN KG,"documentation of spatial genetic discordance among breeding populations of arctic-nesting avian species is important, because anthropogenic change is altering environmental linkages at micro- and macrogeographic scales. we estimated levels of population subdivision within pacific common eiders (somateria mollissima v-nigrum) breeding on 12 barrier islands in the western beaufort sea, alaska, using molecular markers and capture-mark-recapture (cmr) data. common eider populations were genetically structured on a microgeographic scale. regional comparisons between populations breeding on island groups separated by 90 km (mikkelsen bay and simpson lagoon) revealed structuring at 1.4 microsatellite loci (f(st) = 0.004, p < 0.01), a nuclear intron (f(st) = 0.022, p = 0.02), and mitochondrial dna (phi(st) = 0.082, p < 0.05). the cmr data (n = 34) did not indicate female dispersal between island groups. concordance between genetic and cmr data indicates that females breeding in the western beaufort sea are strongly philopatric to island groups rather than to a particular island. despite the apparent high site fidelity of females, coalescence-based models of gene flow suggest that asymmetrical western dispersal occurs between island groups and is likely mediated by mikkelsen bay females stopping early on spring migration at simpson lagoon to breed. alternatively, late-arriving females may be predisposed to nest in simpson lagoon because of the greater availability and wider distribution of nesting habitat. our results indicate that genetic discontinuities, mediated by female philopatry, can exist at microgeographic scales along established migratory corridors. received 31 october 2008, accepted 3 may 2009." reintroducing endangered vancouver island marmots: survival and cause-specific mortality rates of captive-born versus wild-born individuals,age-at-release; captive-breeding; capture-mark-recapture; cause-specific mortality; demography; endangered species management; marmota vancouverensis; population dynamics; radio-telemetry; reintroduction; survival; vancouver island marmot,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,AALTONEN K;BRYANT AA;HOSTETLER JA;OLI MK,"recovery of the endangered vancouver island marmot (marmota vancouverensis) is contingent upon releases of captive-born marmots into natural habitats. success of such re-introduction programs largely depends on the ability of released animals to survive in the wild. however, whether and to what extent survival and cause-specific mortality rates of captive-born marmots differ from those of their wild-born counterparts remains unknown. we used radio-telemetry (1992-2007) and mark-resighting (1987-2007) data to estimate seasonal and annual survival rates of the vancouver island marmot, to compare survival and cause-specific mortality rates of captive-born marmots that have been released into the natural habitat with those of wild-born marmots, and to test for the effect of age-at-release on survival of the released marmots. analysis of radio-telemetry data suggested no difference in survival of males versus females. however, annual survival of captive-born marmots released into the wild was low (s = 0.605; 95% ci = 0.507-0.696) compared to wild-born marmots (s = 0.854; 95% ci = 0.760-0.915). marmots released as 2-year-old or older survived more successfully than those released as yearlings. additional forensic evidence reinforced the idea that predation was the most important cause of mortality. causes of death differed significantly between captive-born and wild-born marmots. predation by golden eagles (aquila chrysaetus) was the most important cause of mortality for captive-born marmots, whereas predation by wolves (canis lupus) and cougars (fells concolor) was more important for wild-born marmots. age-specific apparent annual survival rate, estimated using the combined mark-resighting and radio-telemetry data, was lowest for pups (s = 0.500; 95% ci = 0.375-0.616) and highest for yearlings and adults (s = 0.656; 95% ci = 0.604-0.705); and apparent survival of 2-year-old was similar to that of yearlings and adults (s = 0.649; 95% ci = 0.527-0.754). our results, based on the analysis of radio-telemetry data, suggest that delaying release of captive-born marmots until 2 years of age may enhance their probability of survival in the wild, and will likely improve the success of the release program. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -reduced effective population size in an overexploited population of the nile crocodile (crocodylus niloticus),population decline; effective population size; overexploitation; genetic diversity; microsatellites; crocodylus niloticus,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,BISHOP JM;LESLIE AJ;BOURQUIN SL;O'RYAN C,"unchecked exploitation of wildlife resources is one of the major factors influencing species persistence throughout the world today. a significant consequence of exploitation is the increasing rate at which genetic diversity is lost as populations decline. recent studies suggest that life history traits affecting population growth, particularly in long-lived species, may act to moderate the impact of population decline on genetic variation and lead to remnant populations that appear genetically diverse despite having passed through substantial demographic bottlenecks. in this study we show that the retention of genetic variation in a partially recovered population of nile crocodile is deceptive, as it masks the reality of a significant decline in the population's effective size (n-e). repeated episodes of unchecked hunting in the mid to late 20th century have today led to a five-fold decrease in the population's n-e. using current census data we estimate the contemporary n-e/n ratio as similar to 0.05 and, in light of quotas that permit the ongoing removal of adults, simulated the likely effects of genetic drift on extant levels of variation. results indicate that even if the current effective size is maintained, both allelic diversity and heterozygosity will decline. our findings have complex implications for long-lived species: an emphasis on the retention of genetic variation alone, whilst disregarding the effects of population decline on effective size, may ultimately obscure the continued decline and extinction of exploited populations. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +reduced effective population size in an overexploited population of the nile crocodile (crocodylus niloticus),population decline; effective population size; overexploitation; genetic diversity; microsatellites; crocodylus niloticus,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,BISHOP JM;LESLIE AJ;BOURQUIN SL;O RYAN C,"unchecked exploitation of wildlife resources is one of the major factors influencing species persistence throughout the world today. a significant consequence of exploitation is the increasing rate at which genetic diversity is lost as populations decline. recent studies suggest that life history traits affecting population growth, particularly in long-lived species, may act to moderate the impact of population decline on genetic variation and lead to remnant populations that appear genetically diverse despite having passed through substantial demographic bottlenecks. in this study we show that the retention of genetic variation in a partially recovered population of nile crocodile is deceptive, as it masks the reality of a significant decline in the population's effective size (n-e). repeated episodes of unchecked hunting in the mid to late 20th century have today led to a five-fold decrease in the population's n-e. using current census data we estimate the contemporary n-e/n ratio as similar to 0.05 and, in light of quotas that permit the ongoing removal of adults, simulated the likely effects of genetic drift on extant levels of variation. results indicate that even if the current effective size is maintained, both allelic diversity and heterozygosity will decline. our findings have complex implications for long-lived species: an emphasis on the retention of genetic variation alone, whilst disregarding the effects of population decline on effective size, may ultimately obscure the continued decline and extinction of exploited populations. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." evaluation of non-invasive genetic sampling methods for estimating tiger population size,fecal dna; genetic capture; recapture sampling; panthera tigris; population estimation; individual identification; elusive carnivores; scats; carnivore conservation,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MONDOL S;KARANTH KU;KUMAR NS;GOPALASWAMY AM;ANDHERIA A;RAMAKRISHNAN U,"there is often a conservation need to estimate population abundances of elusive, low-density, wide-ranging carnivore species. because of logistical constraints, investigators often employ non-invasive 'captures' that may involve 'genetic' or 'photographic' sampling in such cases. established capture-recapture (cr) methods offer a powerful analytical tool for such data. in this paper, we developed a rigorous combination of captive, laboratory and field-based protocols for identifying individual tigers (panthers tigris) from fecal dna. we explored trade-offs between numbers of microsatellite loci used for reliable individual identifications and the need for higher capture rates for robust analyses. our field surveys of scats were also specifically designed for cr analyses, enabling us to test for population closure, estimate capture probabilities and tiger abundance. consequently, we could compare genetic capture estimates to results of a 'photographic capture' study of tigers at the same site. the estimates using the heterogeneity model (m-h-jackknife) for fecal dna survey were [mt+1 = 26; p = 0.09 and (n) over cap (s (e) over cap[(n) over cap])=66 (12.98)] in close agreement with those from the photographic survey [(mt+1 = 29; p = 0.04 and (n) over cap (s (e) over cap[(n) over cap]) = 66 (13.8)]. our results revealed that designing field surveys of scats explicitly for cr data analyses generate reliable estimates of capture probability and abundance for elusive, low density species such as tigers. the study also highlights the importance of rigorous field survey and laboratory protocols for reliable abundance estimation in contexts where other approaches such as camera-trapping or physical tagging of animals may not be practical options. crown copyright (c) 2009 published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "evaluating recreational fisheries for an endangered species: a case study of taimen, hucho taimen, in mongolia",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,JENSEN OP;GILROY DJ;HOGAN Z;ALLEN BC;HRABIK TR;WEIDEL BC;CHANDRA S;VANDER ZANDEN MJ,"understanding the tradeoff between exploitation and conservation is difficult in data-poor situations, which are typical for most recreational fisheries, even in developed countries. in a developing country where the target species is endangered, the stakes arc higher and the management resources are fewer. we combined a mark-recapture experiment, life history invariants, and meta-analysis to parameterize a delay-difference model for a population of the endangered giant eurasian trout (taimen, hucho taimen) in northern mongolia. the model allowed lis to evaluate the impacts of a recreational fishery for taimen based on a suite of population characteristics including equilibrium abundance, biomass, and mean weight. the bayesian framework and monte carlo simulations combine disparate sources of information while keeping track of uncertainty as it propagates through the model. in the case of taimen in the eg-uur watershed, the existing catch-release recreational fishery has likely reduced taimen abundance, biomass, and mean weight by less than 10% compared with levels predicted in the absence of recreational fishing. in comparison, if all taimen caught in this fishery were retained (as they are elsewhere in mongolia), there is a 57% chance that such harvest levels, if maintained, would lead to the eventual extirpation of the population." on hierarchical loglinear models in capture-recapture studies,NA,COMPUTATIONAL STATISTICS & DATA ANALYSIS,YOU N;MAO CX,"hierarchical loglinear models are widely used in capture-recapture studies. it is important to implement these models so that a full model selection procedure can be carried out. an algorithm used to count the number of monotone boolean functions is adopted to generate all the monotone boolean functions, which in turn is used to generate all coefficient matrices of hierarchical loglinear models. the proposed methods are implemented in an r package. two real examples are analyzed for illustration. (c) 2009 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." @@ -4704,7 +4716,7 @@ on hierarchical loglinear models in capture-recapture studies,NA,COMPUTATIONAL S interactive effects of distance and matrix on the movements of a peatland dragonfly,NA,ECOGRAPHY,CHIN KS;TAYLOR PD,"we conducted a mark-release-recapture survey of a peatland dragonfly (leucorrhinia hudsonica) in each of two years (2002; 2003) in a harvested forest landscape in western newfoundland, canada. the odds of an individual male moving between peatlands was influenced by both the distance between peatlands and the type of intervening habitat (the matrix). specifically, at meso scales (> 700 m) there was a positive effect of the amount of cut matrix between peatlands on the odds of moving, but at fine scales (< 700 m) there was the opposite effect; proportionally fewer individuals moved between peatlands. the odds of moving out of a peatland decreased as the surface area of water in the peatland increased. multi-state mark-recapture models showed that the daily probability of a male moving between any two peatlands was 1.9% in 2002 and 6.9% in 2003 (n=1527 and 1280 marked individuals). the results suggest that additional empirical studies that directly measure patterns of movement with respect to landscape structure at multiple spatial scales in other taxa and situations are needed in order to uncover other possible non-linear changes in behavior." population density estimated from locations of individuals on a passive detector array,acoustic census methods; area search; camera trap; fecal dna; maximum likelihood; microphone array; passive detector array; population density; proximity detector; signal strength; spatially explicit capture-recapture,ECOLOGY,EFFORD MG;DAWSON DK;BORCHERS DL,"the density of a closed population of animals occupying stable home ranges may be estimated from detections of individuals on an array of detectors, using newly developed methods for spatially explicit capture-recapture. likelihood-based methods provide estimates for data from multi-catch traps or from devices that record presence without restricting animal movement (""proximity"" detectors such as camera traps and hair snags). as originally proposed, these methods require multiple sampling intervals. we show that equally precise and unbiased estimates may be obtained from a single sampling interval, using only the spatial pattern of detections. this considerably extends the range of possible applications, and we illustrate the potential by estimating density from simulated detections of bird vocalizations on a microphone array. acoustic detection can be defined as occurring when received signal strength exceeds a threshold. we suggest detection models for binary acoustic data, and for continuous data comprising measurements of all signals above the threshold. while binary data are often sufficient for density estimation, modeling signal strength improves precision when the microphone array is small." assessing the effect on survival of natal dispersal using multistate capture-recapture models,dispersal costs; european hare; france; lepus europaeus; multistate capture-recapture models; natal dispersal; recoveries; telemetry,ECOLOGY,DEVILLARD S;BRAY Y,"despite their crucial importance in understanding and modeling of the evolution of natal dispersal, it is still difficult to reliably estimate the costs of natal dispersal. we have developed a multistate capture-recapture model, mixing telemetry and recoveries, to simultaneously estimate natal dispersal probability, survival probability of dispersers vs. philopatric individuals, and the proportions of individuals dying from different causes. by applying this model to the european hare (lepus europaeus), we show that dispersing juveniles suffer from a considerably higher mortality rate during their first post-weaning year compared to philopatric juveniles, due to both hunters and predators. we emphasize the usefulness and reliability of our model in the broader context of studies of natal dispersal costs, as well as the evolutionary and management implications of such a dispersal cost in declining european hare populations." -modeling survival at multi-population scales using mark-recapture data,atlantic puffin; bayesian modeling; demography; deviance information criterion; environmental forcing; fratercula arctica; mixed model; multi-population scale; sea surface temperature; synchronization; winbugs,ECOLOGY,GROSBOIS V;HARRIS MP;ANKER-NILSSEN T;MCCLEERY RH;SHAW DN;MORGAN BJT;GIMENEZ O,"the demography of vertebrate populations is governed in part by processes operating at large spatial scales that have synchronizing effects on demographic parameters over large geographic areas, and in part, by local processes that generate fluctuations that are independent across populations. we describe a statistical model for the analysis of individual monitoring data at the multi-population scale that allows us to (1) split up temporal variation in survival into two components that account for these two types of processes and (2) evaluate the role of environmental factors in generating these two components. we derive from this model an index of synchrony among populations in the pattern of temporal variation in survival, and we evaluate the extent to which environmental factors contribute to synchronize or desynchronize survival variation among populations. when applied to individual monitoring data from four colonies of the atlantic puffin (fratercula arctica), 67% of between-year variance in adult survival was accounted for by a global spatial-scale component, indicating substantial synchrony among colonies. local sea surface temperature (sst) accounted for 40% of the global spatial-scale component but also for an equally large fraction of the local-scale component. sst thus acted at the same time as both a synchronizing and a desynchronizing agent. between-year variation in adult survival not explained by the effect of local sst was as synchronized as total between-year variation, suggesting that other unknown environmental factors acted as synchronizing agents. our approach, which focuses on demographic mechanisms at the multi-population scale, ideally should be combined with investigations of population size time series in order to characterize thoroughly the processes that underlie patterns of multi-population dynamics and, ultimately, range dynamics." +modeling survival at multi-population scales using mark-recapture data,atlantic puffin; bayesian modeling; demography; deviance information criterion; environmental forcing; fratercula arctica; mixed model; multi-population scale; sea surface temperature; synchronization; winbugs,ECOLOGY,GROSBOIS V;HARRIS MP;ANKER NILSSEN T;MCCLEERY RH;SHAW DN;MORGAN BJT;GIMENEZ O,"the demography of vertebrate populations is governed in part by processes operating at large spatial scales that have synchronizing effects on demographic parameters over large geographic areas, and in part, by local processes that generate fluctuations that are independent across populations. we describe a statistical model for the analysis of individual monitoring data at the multi-population scale that allows us to (1) split up temporal variation in survival into two components that account for these two types of processes and (2) evaluate the role of environmental factors in generating these two components. we derive from this model an index of synchrony among populations in the pattern of temporal variation in survival, and we evaluate the extent to which environmental factors contribute to synchronize or desynchronize survival variation among populations. when applied to individual monitoring data from four colonies of the atlantic puffin (fratercula arctica), 67% of between-year variance in adult survival was accounted for by a global spatial-scale component, indicating substantial synchrony among colonies. local sea surface temperature (sst) accounted for 40% of the global spatial-scale component but also for an equally large fraction of the local-scale component. sst thus acted at the same time as both a synchronizing and a desynchronizing agent. between-year variation in adult survival not explained by the effect of local sst was as synchronized as total between-year variation, suggesting that other unknown environmental factors acted as synchronizing agents. our approach, which focuses on demographic mechanisms at the multi-population scale, ideally should be combined with investigations of population size time series in order to characterize thoroughly the processes that underlie patterns of multi-population dynamics and, ultimately, range dynamics." "home range, range overlap, and site fidelity of introduced siberian chipmunks in a suburban french forest",capture-mark-recapture; introduced chipmunk; home range; multiyear site fidelity; range overlap; tamias sibiricus,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,MARMET J;PISANU B;CHAPUIS JL,"home range size, range overlap, and multiyear site fidelity were investigated for introduced siberian chipmunks (tamias sibiricus) in a french suburban forest from bimonthly trapping sessions for 4 years (2004-2007). annual home range sizes (100% minimum convex polygon, +/- se) were estimated from 39 trapping histories of 28 different adult residents. males (n = 13, 1.86 +/- 0.32 ha) had a home range 2.5 times larger than females (n = 26, 0.71 +/- 0.08 ha); a male home range included significantly more trapping centers (arithmetic mean of capture locations) of females (5.5 +/- 0.7) than of males (2.3 +/- 0.5). chipmunks exhibited strong multiyear site fidelity: mean distance between annual trapping centers of individuals trapped over two successive years was small (n = 82, 26 +/- 2 m) compared to the largest home range length (ranging from 36 to 281 m); overlap between annual home range sizes of residents was 84 +/- 5% (n = 11). these results improve our understanding of the space occupation of this unknown species in a novel environment." rainfall in arid zones: possible effects of climate change on the population ecology of blue cranes,capture-mark-recapture; climate forcing; environmental stochasticity; leslie matrix; ring recovery,FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY,ALTWEGG R;ANDERSON MD,"p>1. understanding the demographic mechanisms through which climate affects population dynamics is critical for predicting climate change impacts on biodiversity. in arid habitats, rainfall is the most important forcing climatic factor. rainfall in arid zones is typically variable and unpredictable, and we therefore hypothesise that its seasonality and variability may be as important for the population ecology of arid zone animals as its total amount. 2. here we examine the effect of these aspects of rainfall on reproduction and age specific survival of blue cranes (anthropoides paradiseus lichtenstein) in the semi-arid eastern nama karoo, south africa. we then use our results to predict the effect of changes in rainfall at the population level. 3. using combined capture-mark-resighting and dead-recovery models, we estimated average survival of cranes to be 0 center dot 53 in their first year, 0 center dot 73 in their second and third year, and 0 center dot 96 for older birds. 4. we distinguished between three seasons, based on the blue cranes' breeding phenology: early breeding season, late breeding season and nonbreeding season. cranes survived better with increasing rainfall during the late but not early breeding season. based on road counts and success of monitored nests, reproduction was positively associated with rainfall during the early but not late breeding season. 5. a matrix population model predicted that population growth rate would increase with increasing rainfall. a stochastic analysis showed that variation in early breeding season rainfall increased population growth slightly due to the nonlinear relationship between rainfall and reproduction. this effect was opposed by the effect of variation in late breeding season rainfall on survival and overall, variation in rainfall had a negligible effect on population growth. 6. our results allow predictions to be made for a range of climate-change scenarios. for example, a shift in seasonality with drier springs but wetter summers would likely decrease reproduction but increase survival, with little overall effect on population growth." wolf survival and population trend using non-invasive capture-recapture techniques in the western alps,alps; canis lupus; capture-recapture; genetic; monitoring; population size; survival; wolves,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,MARUCCO F;PLETSCHER DH;BOITANI L;SCHWARTZ MK;PILGRIM KL;LEBRETON JD,"1. reliable estimates of population parameters are often necessary for conservation management but these are hard to obtain for elusive, rare and wide-ranging species such as wolves canis lupus. this species has naturally recolonized parts of its former habitat in western europe; however, an accurate and cost-effective method to assess population trend and survival has not been implemented yet. 2. we used open-model capture-recapture (cr) sampling with non-invasive individual identifications derived from faecal genotyping to estimate survival and trend in abundance for wolves in the western alps between 1999 and 2006. our sampling strategy reduced individual heterogeneity in recaptures, thus minimizing bias and increasing the precision of the estimates. 3. young wolves had lower apparent annual survival rates (0.24 +/- 0.06) than adult wolves (0.82 +/- 0.04); survival rates were lower in the summer than in the winter for both young and adults. the wolf population in the study area increased from 21 +/- 9.6 wolves in 1999 to 47 +/- 11.2 wolves in late winter 2005; the population growth rate (lambda = 1.04 +/- 0.27) was lower than that recorded for other recolonizing wolf populations. 4. we found a positive trend in wolf abundance, regardless of the method used. however, the abundance estimate based on snow-tracking was on average 36.2% (sd = 13.6%) lower than that from cr modelling, because young dispersing wolves are likely to have lower sign detection rates in snow-track surveys, a problem adequately addressed by cr sampling. 5. synthesis and applications. we successfully implemented a new method to assess large carnivore population trend and survival at large spatial scales. these are the first such estimates for wolves in italy and in the alps and have important management implications. our approach can be widely applied to broader spatial and temporal scales for other elusive and wide-ranging species in europe and elsewhere." @@ -4712,7 +4724,7 @@ camera trapping photographic rate as an index of density in forest ungulates,abu intercalibration of hydroacoustic and mark-recapture methods for assessing the spawning population size of a threatened fish species,bootstrap; cyprinid freshwater fish; homing; horizontal beaming; jolly-seber; spawning migration,JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY,RAKOWITZ G;KUBECKA J;FESL C;KECKEIS H,"hydroacoustic counting and a three-year mark-recapture study with passive integrated transponders (pit tags) were used to estimate the size of a spawning population of nase chondrostoma nasus, a threatened potamodromous cyprinid that undertakes annual spawning migrations into a tributary of the danube river. in 2005, the estimates of the size of the spawning population from the hydroacoustic counts (n = 2234, 95% cl 1929-2538) and from the jolly-seber model (n = 1198, 95% cl 461-5842) corresponded well. estimates from the jackknife-estimator based on the hydroacoustic counts yielded slightly higher values (n = 2783, 95% cl 2529-3037), but were still in the same order of magnitude as those from the hydroacoustic and mark-recapture approach. at low run-size, hydroacoustic counting was more time consuming and technically demanding than mark-recapture studies. at the same time, it was non-invasive, provided real-time data on a fine temporal scale, and estimates showed less variability than the jolly-seber model. mark-recapture of fish in spawning streams involved substantial disturbance at a sensitive stage of the life cycle. hence, hydroacoustics is highly suited for population estimates of threatened potamodromous fishes, where interference needs to be minimized." "demography and population viability of polar bears in the gulf of boothia, nunavut",demography; mark-recapture; polar bear; ursus maritimus; population viability analysis (pva); program mark; harvest,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,TAYLOR MK;LAAKE J;MCLOUGHLIN PD;CLUFF HD;MESSIER F,"we estimated demographic parameters and harvest risks for polar bears (ursus maritimus) inhabiting the gulf of boothia, nunavut, from 1976 to 2000. we computed survival and abundance from capture-recapture and recovery data (630 marks) using a burnham joint live-dead model implemented in program mark. annual mean total survival (including harvest) was 0.889 +/- 0.179 ((x) over bar +/- 1 se) for cubs, 0.883 +/- 0.087 for subadults (ages 1-4), 0.919 +/- 0.044 for adult females, and 0.917 +/- 0.041 for adult males. abundance in the last 3 yr of study was 1,592 +/- 361 bears. mean size of newborn litters was 1.648 +/- 0.098 cubs. by age 7, 0.97 +/- 0.30 of available females were producing litters. harvest averaged 38.4 +/- 4.2 bears/year in the last 5 yr of study; however, the 2002-2007 kill averaged 56.4 bears/yr. we used a harvested population viability analysis (pva) to examine impacts of increasing rates of harvest. we estimated the current population growth rate, lambda(h), to be 1.025 +/- 0.032. although this suggests the population is growing, progressive environmental changes may require more frequent population inventory studies to maintain the same levels of harvest risk." marker-assisted determination of the relationship between body size and reproductive success and consequences for evaluation of adaptive life histories,body size; brook charr; costs of reproduction; life history; maturation; reproductive success; salvelinus fontinalis,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,MORRISSEY MB;FERGUSON MM,"we tested for differences in the predicted optimal ages at first maturity in brook charr (salvelinus fontinalis) in freshwater river, newfoundland, when life-history data were collated based on the marker-assisted estimation of the relationship between body size and reproductive success rather than using fecundity as a surrogate for reproductive success. jointly with capture-recapture data to estimate the growth and survival costs of reproduction, we found that weak relationships between body size and reproductive success generate selection against delayed maturation. this finding would not have held for females if the relationship between body size and fecundity had been used as a surrogate for the relationship between body size and reproductive success. this shows that predictions of optimal life histories can be qualitatively changed when using molecular markers to directly evaluate age- and/or size-specific effects of body size on reproductive success." -"evaluating the reintroduction potential of lahontan cutthroat trout in fallen leaf lake, california",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,AL-CHOKHACHY R;PEACOCK M;HEKI LG;THIEDE G,"we evaluated the potential for reintroducing lahontan cutthroat trout oncorhynchus clarkii henshawi. a species listed under the endangered species act, into a lacustrine system where the biotic community has changed dramatically since the species' extirpation there. since 2002. 76,547 lahontan cutthroat trout have been reintroduced into fallen leaf lake, california; we used creel surveys. diet data, mark-recapture methods. bioenergetics modeling, and netting data across seasons to evaluate the habitat use, growth, and relative abundance of lahontan cutthroat trout and the abundance. diet. habitat use, and predation by nonnative species. sampling totals (n = 2) and survey observations (n = 3) indicate low survival and abundance of reintroduced fish and together with creel data indicate the importance of epilimnetic habitats across size-classes. despite substantial growth. lahontan cutthroat trout exhibited low condition factor values (average = 0.69). we found substantial predation pressure front a large population of lake trout salvelinus namaycush ((n) over cap = 8.799 fish: 95% confidence interval [ci] 4,990-16,530 fish): analysis of lake trout diets showed an increase in piscivory and in the percentage of stomachs containing lahontan cutthroat trout anchor tags with increasing predator size. overall. we estimated that lake trout consumed over 38% of reintroduced lahontan cutthroat trout (mean number consumed = 7,736 fish: 95% ci = 4,388-14,534 fish). with bioenergetics modeling, however. we estimated that lake trout consumed considerable amounts of salmonid biomass during this period (mean biomass = 3,137 kg: 95% cl = 1 779 5,993 kg), which greatly exceeded the biomass of lahontan cutthroat trout reintroduced in 2006. during the stratification period, there was little overlap in habitat use between lake trout and lahontan cutthroat trout, but overlap was high during the spring and autumn. we found moderate-sized populations of nonnative brown trout salmo trutta, kokanee o. nerka (lacustrine sockeye salmon), and rainbow trout o. mykiss. together, our results suggest that lahontan cutthroat trout have few refugia front direct and indirect negative interactions with normative species and that alternative approaches are needed." +"evaluating the reintroduction potential of lahontan cutthroat trout in fallen leaf lake, california",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,AL CHOKHACHY R;PEACOCK M;HEKI LG;THIEDE G,"we evaluated the potential for reintroducing lahontan cutthroat trout oncorhynchus clarkii henshawi. a species listed under the endangered species act, into a lacustrine system where the biotic community has changed dramatically since the species' extirpation there. since 2002. 76,547 lahontan cutthroat trout have been reintroduced into fallen leaf lake, california; we used creel surveys. diet data, mark-recapture methods. bioenergetics modeling, and netting data across seasons to evaluate the habitat use, growth, and relative abundance of lahontan cutthroat trout and the abundance. diet. habitat use, and predation by nonnative species. sampling totals (n = 2) and survey observations (n = 3) indicate low survival and abundance of reintroduced fish and together with creel data indicate the importance of epilimnetic habitats across size-classes. despite substantial growth. lahontan cutthroat trout exhibited low condition factor values (average = 0.69). we found substantial predation pressure front a large population of lake trout salvelinus namaycush ((n) over cap = 8.799 fish: 95% confidence interval [ci] 4,990-16,530 fish): analysis of lake trout diets showed an increase in piscivory and in the percentage of stomachs containing lahontan cutthroat trout anchor tags with increasing predator size. overall. we estimated that lake trout consumed over 38% of reintroduced lahontan cutthroat trout (mean number consumed = 7,736 fish: 95% ci = 4,388-14,534 fish). with bioenergetics modeling, however. we estimated that lake trout consumed considerable amounts of salmonid biomass during this period (mean biomass = 3,137 kg: 95% cl = 1 779 5,993 kg), which greatly exceeded the biomass of lahontan cutthroat trout reintroduced in 2006. during the stratification period, there was little overlap in habitat use between lake trout and lahontan cutthroat trout, but overlap was high during the spring and autumn. we found moderate-sized populations of nonnative brown trout salmo trutta, kokanee o. nerka (lacustrine sockeye salmon), and rainbow trout o. mykiss. together, our results suggest that lahontan cutthroat trout have few refugia front direct and indirect negative interactions with normative species and that alternative approaches are needed." a method for monitoring movements of small fishes in urban streams,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,FICKE AD;MYRICK CA,"the front range region of colorado is all ecological transition zone between the rocky mountains and the western great plains. changes to streams resulting front urban and agricultural land uses have contributed to the decline of many plains and transition zone fishes. the fragmentation of stream systems by darns, weirs, and diversions is among,, the most detrimental of these changes. these structures call inhibit fish spawning migrations. the search for sporadic resources, and recolonization of empty habitats. to assess the magnitude of the problem. there is a distinct need to determine whether existing instream structures are barriers to migration. a relatively simple method of doing so involves giving fish a unique mark and tracking their movements ill the vicinity of a suspected barrier. we individually marked fish (15 species; 2,724 individuals) with visual implant elastomer (vie) marks and tracked their movements across a grade control structure in spring creek in fort collins, colorado. results front a multistratum mark-recapture analysis showed that the grade control structure in spring creck prevented upstream movement by most fish. the approach we used identifies problematic instream structures that impede movements and present a potential stressor to fish assemblages in urban streams. the use of individual vie marks is one of the few methods that can provide accurate information oil the movements of small-bodied fishes in streams. but the commonly encountered design issues associated with this type of study must be considered." multi-annual density fluctuations and habitat size enhance genetic variability in two northern voles,NA,OIKOS,EHRICH D;YOCCOZ NG;IMS RA,"in order to gain a better understanding of the consequences of population density cycles and landscape structure for the genetic composition in time and space of vole populations, we analyzed the multiannual genetic structure of the two numerically dominant, sympatric small rodent species of northernmost fennoscandia. red voles myodes rutilus and grey-sided voles m. rufocanus were trapped in the subarctic birch forest along three fjords over five years. along each fjord, there were four or five altitudinal transects each with five trapping stations. spring and fall population densities were estimated from mark-recapture data. grey-sided voles exhibited higher amplitude density fluctuations than red voles. polymorphism at eight or nine microsatellite loci, determined in 1228 voles, was used to estimate local genetic diversity and differentiation among samples. genetic diversity was higher in grey-sided voles than in red voles. spring densities had no effect on local genetic diversity or on differentiation. the amplitude of density fluctuations and the extent of favorable habitat (sub-arctic birch forest) surrounding each site had a positive effect on genetic diversity, and the amplitude of density fluctuations had a negative effect on differentiation in red voles, for which fluctuating populations were compared with more stable populations. the harmonic mean of densities, reflecting average population sizes, had a negative effect on genetic diversity in red voles, but a positive effect in grey-sided voles, for which only fluctuating populations were compared. no other effects were significant for grey-sided voles. a temporal assignment test showed that the spatial structure was more stable in time for populations with more stable population dynamics. altogether our results suggest that high amplitude density fluctuations lead to more gene flow and higher genetic diversity in vole populations." sinks without borders: snowshoe hare dynamics in a complex landscape,NA,OIKOS,GRIFFIN PC;MILLS LS,"a full understanding of population dynamics of wide-ranging animals should account for the effects that movement and habitat use have on individual contributions to population growth or decline. quantifying the per-capita, habitat-specific contribution to population growth can clarify the value of different patch types, and help to differentiate population sources from population sinks. snowshoe hares, lepus americanus, routinely use various habitat types in the landscapes they inhabit in the contiguous us, where managing forests for high snowshoe hare density is a priority for conservation of canada lynx, lynx canadensis. we estimated density and demographic rates via mark-recapture live trapping and radio-telemetry within four forest stand structure (fss) types at three study areas within heterogeneous managed forests in western montana. we found support for known fate survival models with time-varying individual covariates representing the proportion of locations in each of the fss types, with survival rates decreasing as use of open young and open mature fss types increased. the per-capita contribution to overall population growth increased with use of the dense mature or dense young fss types and decreased with use of the open young or open mature fss types, and relatively high levels of immigration appear to be necessary to sustain hares in the open fss types. our results support a conceptual model for snowshoe hares in the southern range in which sink habitats (open areas) prevent the buildup of high hare densities. more broadly, we use this system to develop a novel approach to quantify demographic sources and sinks for animals making routine movements through complex fragmented landscapes." @@ -4723,14 +4735,14 @@ subsampling photographic capture-recapture data of tigers (panthera tigris) to m "survival rates for a declining population of bottlenose dolphins in doubtful sound, new zealand: an information theoretic approach to assessing the role of human impacts",capture-mark-recapture; fiordland; hydroelectric power; information theory; leslie matrix model; population viability; tourism impacts; tursiops sp.,AQUATIC CONSERVATION-MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS,CURREY RJC;DAWSON SM;SLOOTEN E;SCHNEIDER K;LUSSEAU D;BOISSEAU OJ;HAASE P;WILLIAMS JA,"1. the bottlenose dolphins of doubtful sound, new zealand are a declining population at the southern limit of the species' range, exposed to impacts from tourism and habitat modification. patterns in apparent annual survival were analysed from photographic resightings of naturally marked adults (1990 to 2008) and calves within the first year of life (1994 to 2008) using capture-recapture models. 2. the most parsimonious model for adults provided a time-invariant, sex-invariant estimate of survival (phi(a(1990-2008)) = 0.9374; 95% ci: 0.9170-0.9530), marginally lower than prior estimates for wild bottlenose dolphins. 3. the most parsimonious model for calves indicated a significant time-variant decline in survival from an estimate similar to other populations (phi(c(1994-2001)) = 0.8621; 95% ci: 0.6851-0.9473) to a current estimate that is, to our knowledge, the lowest recorded for free-ranging bottlenose dolphins (phi(c(2002-2008)) = 0.3750; 95% ci: 0.2080-0.5782). 4. information theoretic evidence ratios suggested that observed patterns in calf survival were 22 times more likely to be explained by a decline coincident with the opening of a second tailrace tunnel for a hydroelectric power station than by a decline in any other year or across multiple years. 5. projections using an age-structured stochastic population model indicated that the current level of calf survival was unsustainable (population decline: 100% of model runs; population extinction: 41.5% of model runs) and was a key factor in the observed population decline in doubtful sound. copyright (c) 2008 john wiley & sons, ltd." age-specific density-dependent survival in mediterranean gulls larus melanocephalus,survival; dispersal; density-dependence; allee effect; coloniality; mark-recapture,ARDEA,TE MARVELDE L;MEININGER PL;FLAMANT R;DINGEMANSE NJ,"survival and reproductive rates often decrease with increasing population density. such negative density dependence reflects a changing net balance between the benefits and costs of presence of others with increasing density. when densities are low, however, survival and reproductive rates might increase rather than decrease with increasing density (allee effect), for example in colonial species. relationships between fitness and density are therefore expected to change with population density. we studied the relationship between apparent annual survival and population density in a population of mediterranean gulls larus melanocephalus from establishment onwards for a period of 13 years, using capture-recapture techniques. the results confirmed our expectation: apparent survival increased with density at low densities (i.e. an allee effect), but survival decreased with density at high densities. post-hoc analyses revealed that the allee effect could only be shown for juveniles, not for adults, suggesting that the allee effect might have been age-specific. these patterns in apparent survival reflect the combined effects of density on true survival and on permanent emigration, and both mechanisms are discussed." survival rates of adult european grebes (podicipedidae),population dynamics; survival; ring recoveries; mark-recapture; podiceps cristatus; podiceps nigricollis; tachybaptus ruficollis,ARDEA,ABT K;KONTER A,"ring recoveries of dead individuals from all over europe and covering a period of 57 years were collected to study survival of great crested podiceps cristatus (n = 433), black-necked p. nigricollis (n = 95) and little grebes tachybaptus ruficollis (n = 295). survival rates of adult birds were estimated by fitting simple mark-recapture models via maximum-likelihood. realizing that the samples were extremely heterogeneous and possibly biased, it was further investigated how the survival data conformed to information from literature on fledging success, age at first breeding, and long-term population trends. in the great crested grebe, ring recoveries were biased towards young birds, as indicated by a marked, untypical increase in apparent survival after the age of 3 years. also, the whole-sample estimate of 0.66 was too low to match the other demographic parameters. the survival rate of 0.75 (95% cl 0.69-0.80) estimated for birds of 4 years and older conformed well with the breeding performance established for great crested grebes and is thus considered as a realistic estimate for adult birds. the survival rate estimate of 0.63 (95% cl 0.55-0.70) for the black-necked grebe seemed a slight underestimate given estimates for the other demographic parameters. apart from a possible, albeit undetected, sample bias towards younger birds, some influence of ring loss cannot be excluded, because in contrast to the other two species, the black-necked grebe sample contained a high proportion of aluminium rings. the survival rate of little grebe was estimated at 0.60 (95% cl: 0.55-0.64), which corresponded well with other demographic data." -an indication of long-term group formation in tufted duck aythya fuligula,aythya ferina; aythya fuligula; grouping behaviour; long-term pair bonds; waterbird; wintering,ARDEA,HOFER J;KORNER-NIEVERGELT F;KORNER-NIEVERGELT P;KESTENHOLZ M;JENNI L,"many waterbird species assemble in large aggregations during winter. in most species, these aggregations are generally thought to be composed of individuals not familiar to each other. in this study, we analysed mark-recapture data of tufted ducks aythya fuligula and common pochard a. ferina from four wintering places in switzerland to assess whether individual birds were recaptured non-independently of each other one or more years later. we found that individual tufted ducks caught together during a previous winter were re-caught together more often than expected by chance. our results suggest that winter flocks of tufted ducks may be socially structured to an extent unknown so far. we discuss a number of hypotheses that could explain our observations, but clearly, much more work needs to be done to confirm our observation and to understand its causes." +an indication of long-term group formation in tufted duck aythya fuligula,aythya ferina; aythya fuligula; grouping behaviour; long-term pair bonds; waterbird; wintering,ARDEA,HOFER J;KORNER NIEVERGELT F;KORNER NIEVERGELT P;KESTENHOLZ M;JENNI L,"many waterbird species assemble in large aggregations during winter. in most species, these aggregations are generally thought to be composed of individuals not familiar to each other. in this study, we analysed mark-recapture data of tufted ducks aythya fuligula and common pochard a. ferina from four wintering places in switzerland to assess whether individual birds were recaptured non-independently of each other one or more years later. we found that individual tufted ducks caught together during a previous winter were re-caught together more often than expected by chance. our results suggest that winter flocks of tufted ducks may be socially structured to an extent unknown so far. we discuss a number of hypotheses that could explain our observations, but clearly, much more work needs to be done to confirm our observation and to understand its causes." the effect of translocation on movement behaviour-a test of the assumptions of behavioural studies,capture-mark-recapture; handling effect; oedipoda caerulescens; orthoptera,BEHAVIOURAL PROCESSES,HEIDINGER IMM;POETHKE HJ;BONTE D;HEIN S,"animal movement behaviour is intensively investigated with capture-mark-recapture studies. for the analysis of such experiments, the influence of marking technique, handling and translocation of marked animals on movement pattern is of crucial importance since it may mask or overrule the effects of the main research question. here we present a capture-mark-recapture experiment on the movement behaviour of the blue-winged grasshopper oedipoda caerulescens. we analyzed the influence of translocation of individuals from familiar to unfamiliar sites. our study clearly demonstrates a significant influence of translocation to unfamiliar sites on the movement behaviour of o. caerulescens. translocated individuals moved longer distances, showed smaller daily turning angles, and thus movements were more directed than those of resident individuals. the effect of translocation on daily moved distances was most pronounced on the first day of the experiment. we thus conclude that at least for the first day after translocation, movement behaviour is significantly influenced by translocation itself data ignoring this influence will be unsuitable for the prediction of dispersal behaviour, habitat detection capability or habitat preference. (c) 2009 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." predicting the time to colonization of the parasitoid diadegma semiclausum: the importance of the shape of spatial dispersal kernels for biological control,mark-capture; mark-recapture; parasitoid; spatial scale; earliness; biological control,BIOLOGICAL CONTROL,BIANCHI FJJA;SCHELLHORN NA;VAN DER WERF W,"the time at which natural enemies colonize crop fields is an important determinant of their ability to suppress pest populations. this timing depends on the distance between source and sink habitats in the landscape. here we estimate the time to colonization of sink habitats from a distant source habitat, using empirical mark-capture data of diadegma semiclausum in broccoli. the data originated from experiments conducted at two locations and dispersal was quantified by suction sampling before and after a major disturbance. three dispersal kernels were fitted to the dispersal data: a normal, a negative exponential, and a square root negative exponential kernel. these kernels are characterized by a thin, intermediate and a fat tail, respectively. the dispersal kernels were included in an integro-difference equation model for parasitoid population redistribution to generate estimates of time to colonization of d. semiclausum in sink habitats at distances between 100 and 2000 m from a source. we show that the three dispersal kernels receive similar support from the data, but can produce a wide range of outcomes. the estimated arrival time of 1% of the d. semiclausum population at a distance 2000 m from the source ranges from 12 days to a length of time greatly exceeding the life span of the parasitoid. the square root negative exponential function, having the thickest tail among the tested functions, gave the fastest spread and colonization in three of the four data sets, but it gave the slowest redistribution in the fourth. in all four data sets, the rate of accumulation at the target increased with the mean dispersal distance of the fitted kernel model, irrespective of the fatness of the tail. this study underscores the importance of selecting a proper dispersal kernel for modelling spread and colonization time of organisms, and of the collection of pertinent data that enable kernel estimation and that can discriminate between different kernel shapes. crown copyright (c) 2009 published by elsevier inc. all rights reserved." incorporating genotype uncertainty into mark-recapture-type models for estimating abundance using dna samples,allelic dropout; bayesian inference; mark recapture; markov chain monte carlo; microsatellite; noninvasive genetic sampling; population estimation,BIOMETRICS,WRIGHT JA;BARKER RJ;SCHOFIELD MR;FRANTZ AC;BYROM AE;GLEESON DM,"p>sampling dna noninvasively has advantages for identifying animals for uses such as mark-recapture modeling that require unique identification of animals in samples. although it is possible to generate large amounts of data from noninvasive sources of dna, a challenge is overcoming genotyping errors that can lead to incorrect identification of individuals. a major source of error is allelic dropout, which is failure of dna amplification at one or more loci. this has the effect of heterozygous individuals being scored as homozygotes at those loci as only one allele is detected. if errors go undetected and the genotypes are naively used in mark-recapture models, significant overestimates of population size can occur. to avoid this it is common to reject low-quality samples but this may lead to the elimination of large amounts of data. it is preferable to retain these low-quality samples as they still contain usable information in the form of partial genotypes. rather than trying to minimize error or discarding error-prone samples we model dropout in our analysis. we describe a method based on data augmentation that allows us to model data from samples that include uncertain genotypes. application is illustrated using data from the european badger (meles meles)." a multilevel model for continuous time population estimation,closed population; continuous time; hierarchical model; population estimation,BIOMETRICS,SUTHERLAND JM;CASTELLUCCIO P;SCHWARZ CJ,"p>statistical methods have been developed and applied to estimating populations that are difficult or too costly to enumerate. known as multilist methods in epidemiological settings, individuals are matched across lists and estimation of population size proceeds by modeling counts in incomplete multidimensional contingency tables (based on patterns of presence/absence on lists). as multilist methods typically assume that lists are compiled instantaneously, there are few options available for estimating the unknown size of a closed population based on continuously (longitudinally) compiled lists. however, in epidemiological settings, continuous time lists are a routine byproduct of administrative functions. existing methods are based on time-to-event analyses with a second step of estimating population size. we propose an alternative approach to address the twofold epidemiological problem of estimating population size and of identifying patient factors related to duration (in days) between visits to a health care facility. a bayesian framework is proposed to model interval lengths because, for many patients, the data are sparse; many patients were observed only once or twice. the proposed method is applied to the motivating data to illustrate the methods' applicability. then, a small simulation study explores the performance of the estimator under a variety of conditions. finally, a small discussion section suggests opportunities for continued methodological development for continuous time population estimation." a bayesian mark-recapture model for multiple-recapture data in a catch-and-release fishery,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,WHITLOCK R;MCALLISTER M,"this paper extends a state-space bayesian mark-recapture framework to multiple-recapture data to estimate fishery-specific capture and mortality rates and seasonal movement rates for fish in different length classes. the methodology is applied to tag recapture data for white sturgeon (acipenser transmontanus) collected in the recreational fishery and the canadian department of fisheries and ocean's test fishery at albion in the lower fraser river. significant differences were found between some estimated movement rates by season and length class, supporting the notion of there being marked differences in seasonal movement patterns between different life history stages of a. transmontanus in the lower fraser river. uncertainty in the tag reporting rate parameter, quantified using a recreational creel sampling program, is summarized by a prior distribution. the utility of recreational fishing effort as a model covariate in accounting for seasonal and spatial variation in recapture rates is addressed using bayesian model evaluation criteria. the data provide strong support in favour of models that include fishing effort as a covariate. the appropriate level of stratification for the recreational catchability parameter q is assessed using bayesian model evaluation criteria; models in which q is estimated by season and length class have the highest posterior probabilities." "life history of nanos viettei (paulian, 1976) (coleoptera: scarabaeidae: canthonini), a representative of an endemic clade of dung beetles in madagascar",NA,COLEOPTERISTS BULLETIN,VILJANEN H,"nanos viettei (paulian, 1976) is it nocturnal generalist dung beetle mostly feeding oil carrion. despite its relatively small size (6 mm), n. viettei is a long-lived (up to two years) species with extremely low life-time fecundity (maximum four offspring) and very low mobility (based on mark-recapture studies). matings are promiscuous and, exceptionally for canthonini, males typically guard the female for at least several hours after mating. there is no bisexual cooperation or mate courtship unlike in many other scarabaeidae. heterospecific copulation was observed in captivity, supporting the hypothesis of genetic introgression between closely related species for which there is some molecular evidence. hybridization and low hybrid fitness may at least partly explain the exclusive geographical ranges of species in the 'viettei species-group'." -"the potential distance of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus dispersal by mallard, common teal and eurasian pochard",influenza a virus; wild ducks; dispersal; risk areas; wetlands; h5n1,ECOHEALTH,BROCHET AL;GUILLEMAIN M;LEBARBENCHON C;SIMON G;FRITZ H;GREEN AJ;RENAUD F;THOMAS F;GAUTHIER-CLERC M,"waterbirds represent the major natural reservoir for low pathogenic (lp) avian influenza viruses (aiv). among the wide diversity of subtypes that have been described, two of them (h5 and h7) may become highly pathogenic (hp) after their introduction into domestic bird populations and cause severe outbreaks, as is the case for hp h5n1 in south-eastern asia. recent experimental studies demonstrated that hp h5n1 aiv infection in ducks does not necessarily have significant pathological effects. these results suggest that wild migratory ducks may asymptomatically carry hp aiv and potentially spread viruses over large geographical distances. in this study, we investigated the potential spreading distance of hp aiv by common teal (anas crecca), mallard (a. platyrhynchos), and eurasian pochard (aythya ferina). based on capture-mark-recapture method, we characterized their wintering movements from a western mediterranean wetland (camargue, south of france) and identified the potential distance and direction of virus dispersal. such data may be crucial in determining higher-risk areas in the case of hp aiv infection detection in this major wintering quarter, and may serve as a valuable reference for virus outbreaks elsewhere." +"the potential distance of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus dispersal by mallard, common teal and eurasian pochard",influenza a virus; wild ducks; dispersal; risk areas; wetlands; h5n1,ECOHEALTH,BROCHET AL;GUILLEMAIN M;LEBARBENCHON C;SIMON G;FRITZ H;GREEN AJ;RENAUD F;THOMAS F;GAUTHIER CLERC M,"waterbirds represent the major natural reservoir for low pathogenic (lp) avian influenza viruses (aiv). among the wide diversity of subtypes that have been described, two of them (h5 and h7) may become highly pathogenic (hp) after their introduction into domestic bird populations and cause severe outbreaks, as is the case for hp h5n1 in south-eastern asia. recent experimental studies demonstrated that hp h5n1 aiv infection in ducks does not necessarily have significant pathological effects. these results suggest that wild migratory ducks may asymptomatically carry hp aiv and potentially spread viruses over large geographical distances. in this study, we investigated the potential spreading distance of hp aiv by common teal (anas crecca), mallard (a. platyrhynchos), and eurasian pochard (aythya ferina). based on capture-mark-recapture method, we characterized their wintering movements from a western mediterranean wetland (camargue, south of france) and identified the potential distance and direction of virus dispersal. such data may be crucial in determining higher-risk areas in the case of hp aiv infection detection in this major wintering quarter, and may serve as a valuable reference for virus outbreaks elsewhere." flexible hierarchical mark-recapture modeling for open populations using winbugs,bayesian; hierarchical modeling; winbugs,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,SCHOFIELD MR;BARKER RJ;MACKENZIE DI,"hierarchical mark-recapture models offer three advantages over classical mark-recapture models: (i) they allow expression of complicated models in terms of simple components; (ii) they provide a convenient way of modeling missing data and latent variables in a way that allows expression of relationships involving latent variables in the model; (iii) they provide a convenient way of introducing parsimony into models involving many nuisance parameters. expressing models using the complete data likelihood we show how many of the standard mark-recapture models for open populations can be readily fitted using the software winbugs. we include examples that illustrate fitting the cormack-jolly-seber model, multi-state and multi-event models, models including auxiliary data, and models including density dependence." trap mortality in mark-recapture studies,mark-recapture; trap mortality; removal; behavior; persistence; likelihood inference,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,RAMSEY FL;JOHNSTON A,"when animals die in traps in a mark-recapture study, straightforward likelihood inferences are possible in a class of models. the class includes m-0, m-t, and m-b as reported by white et al. (los alamos national laboratory, la-8787-nerp, pp 235, 1982), those that do not involve heterogeneity. we include three markov chain ""persistence"" models and show that they provide good fits in a trapping study of deer mice in the cascade-siskiyou national monument of southern oregon where trapping mortality was high." a comparison of techniques to sample salamander assemblages along highland streams of maryland,amphibians; area constrained survey; biological monitoring; cover board survey; drift fence survey; highland streams; leaf litter bags; maryland; quadrat leaf litter search; salamanders,ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT,STRAIN GF;RAESLY RL;HILDERBRAND RH,"amphibians may be useful indicators of biological condition in small streams so determining which sampling technique maximizes encounters at the least cost and at the optimal time of year is important. area constrained surveys (acs), used by the maryland biological stream survey, were tested against cover board surveys, drift fences with pitfall and funnel traps, quadrat leaf litter searches, and leaf litter bags. sixteen, 100 m-long sites were established in headwater streams in the savage river state forest in garrett county, maryland. each technique was randomly assigned to a 25 m stream section within each overall sampling site, and sites were sampled once each month from may to october (2005) with additional sampling in march and april (2006). area constrained surveys yielded means of 2.7 taxa and 14.9 total individuals per sampling visit, which was significantly higher than the yield of all other methods in all months except october and march, when yields were low for all techniques. area constrained surveys were also significantly more cost-effective per taxon and per individual compared to all other methods. september produced the most taxa and individuals, october and march produced the least, and yields for april through august were similar to september. we employed removal sampling at four sites in april 2006, but abundance could not be estimated because a significant linear decrease in the accumulated catch versus catch per unit effort did not occur for three of the sites." @@ -4756,14 +4768,14 @@ disruptive selection in natural populations: the roles of ecological specializat assessing climatic influences on rodent density: a neural network modelling approach and a case study in central italy,climate change; climatic influences; neural networks; habitat suitability modelling; rodents,ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES,PASINI A;SZPUNAR G;AMORI G;LANGONE R;CRISTALDI M,"in a climate change regime (observed in the past and forecasted for the future), it becomes more and more important to assess the role of the climatic environment in influencing the density of some species of interest. in this paper, using density data from capture-mark-recapture (cmr) of yellow-necked mouse (apodemus flavicollis), we perform non-linear analyses and apply a neural network (nn) model ( conceived for recognising links in complex systems) in order to establish which climatic parameters represent the driving forcings of rodent density in central italy. we discover direct ad indirect climatic effects on this variable and, finally, a satisfying reconstruction of yellow-necked mouse densities over the last 20 years is achieved by a nn model. a further ""hindcast"" in the past (back to 1965) is performed by the model trained on a recent period and clear trends can be recognised in the record of reconstructed densities." occasional intraguild predation structuring small mammal assemblages: the marsupial didelphis aurita in the atlantic forest of brazil,community structure; interference; interspecific competition; regression method; restinga vegetation,AUSTRAL ECOLOGY,MOURA MC;VIEIRA MV;CERQUEIRA R,"the didelphid marsupial, didelphis aurita, is suggested as an intraguild predator and as key-species in small mammal assemblages of the atlantic forest of brazil. the field experiments required to test this hypothesis are complex to implement, but the recent revival of regression methods offers a viable alternative. here we use the dynamic and static regression methods to determine the importance of d. aurita as a competitor and intraguild predator. capture-recapture data from two localities in the rio de janeiro state were used, garrafao (municipality of guapimirim), a coastal forest of the serra do mar, and barra de marica, a costal sand dune vegetation. population and microhabitat variables were monitored from april 1997 to april 2003 in garrafao, and from january 1986 to july 1990 in barra de marica. microhabitat variables were related to canopy, plant, litter and rock covers, obstruction from 0 to 1.5 m, and number of logs. exploitation competition was tested by the dynamic method, which models the effects of d. aurita on the per capita growth rate of a species. interference by predation or competition was tested by the static method, where the abundance of d. aurita at trap stations was regressed against the abundance of other small mammals, after removal of any variation associated with microhabitat factors. exploitation competition was not detected, but the interference of d. aurita was pervasive, affecting all small mammals studied in the two localities. the clear avoidance of d. aurita by all small mammals tested in two localities of different physiognomies indicates that it functions as an intraguild predator, even if actual predation by d. aurita is an occasional event." use of monitoring data and population viability analysis to inform reintroduction decisions: peregrine falcons in the midwestern united states,falco peregrinus anatum; mark-recapture; ramas; spatially-explicit pva,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,WAKAMIYA SM;ROY CL,"the peregrine falcon (falco peregrinus anatum) has not yet recolonized natural cliff sites in illinois and much of the lower midwestern us, and remains restricted to urban areas. we constructed a landscape-linked population viability analysis using ramas/gis software to compare possible reintroduction strategies for the species. habitat-specific (i.e. cliff and urban) demographic parameters such as survival, fecundity, and dispersal rates were derived from the midwest peregrine society database for peregrines in the central mississippi river region during 1982-2006. we simulated a base scenario of no reintroduction and 18 models of reintroduction with varying cohort sizes, supplementation schedules, and number of reintroduction sites, and used the lake superior population to test our model. our analysis indicated that even without reintroductions in illinois, the peregrine population in the lower midwestern region is slowly increasing and is not likely to go extinct. recolonization of cliff sites in southern illinois likely will occur via dispersal from urban populations, however further research on dispersal rates between urban areas and cliffs is needed. analysis indicated that the most cost-effective reintroduction strategy would be priced at approximately $280,000 and would result in only two additional breeding pairs compared to the no-action scenario. thus, funds would be more effectively used in other management efforts such as habitat preservation. this study provides an example of how post-release monitoring can be used to inform future reintroduction plans. published by elsevier ltd." -interference competition in a threatened seabird community: a paradox for a successful conservation,competition; threatened community; seabirds; dispersal; habitat availability; spain,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,ORO D;PEREZ-RODRIGUEZ A;MARTINEZ-VILALTA A;BERTOLERO A;VIDAL F;GENOVART M,"it is often assumed that conservation actions targeting a threatened community (e.g. habitat protection) will result in similar benefits for all species. however, complex interactions between species, such as interference competition, may result in displacement of subordinate, vulnerable species. we analysed here the spatio-temporal population dynamics of a threatened seabird community since the protection in the 1980s of several breeding sites at the ebro delta, western mediterranean, spain during 1980-2007. competition for the most suitable patches was governed by body size, with smaller species avoiding associations with larger, dominant species. we tested whether the density increase of the larger species (yellow-legged gull larus michahellis and audouin's gull larus audouinii) at la banya (the highest quality patch within the delta) affected species diversity at the local level. as expected, such diversity decreased, resulting also from the colonisation of other sites by smaller species, some abandoning the former area. the conservation paradox appeared because the interference competition was dominated not only by the largest species of the community, the yellow-legged gull, which is sometimes considered a pest species, but also by the vulnerable audouin's gull, a flagship species which has ca. 65% of the total world population at la banya. nevertheless, the availability of alternative patches within the ebro delta ensured a high biodiversity at regional scale. results highlight the role of turnover of competing species within a community in ecosystem function and stability, and the importance of alternative sites and dispersal abilities for the conservation of vulnerable communities. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +interference competition in a threatened seabird community: a paradox for a successful conservation,competition; threatened community; seabirds; dispersal; habitat availability; spain,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,ORO D;PEREZ RODRIGUEZ A;MARTINEZ VILALTA A;BERTOLERO A;VIDAL F;GENOVART M,"it is often assumed that conservation actions targeting a threatened community (e.g. habitat protection) will result in similar benefits for all species. however, complex interactions between species, such as interference competition, may result in displacement of subordinate, vulnerable species. we analysed here the spatio-temporal population dynamics of a threatened seabird community since the protection in the 1980s of several breeding sites at the ebro delta, western mediterranean, spain during 1980-2007. competition for the most suitable patches was governed by body size, with smaller species avoiding associations with larger, dominant species. we tested whether the density increase of the larger species (yellow-legged gull larus michahellis and audouin's gull larus audouinii) at la banya (the highest quality patch within the delta) affected species diversity at the local level. as expected, such diversity decreased, resulting also from the colonisation of other sites by smaller species, some abandoning the former area. the conservation paradox appeared because the interference competition was dominated not only by the largest species of the community, the yellow-legged gull, which is sometimes considered a pest species, but also by the vulnerable audouin's gull, a flagship species which has ca. 65% of the total world population at la banya. nevertheless, the availability of alternative patches within the ebro delta ensured a high biodiversity at regional scale. results highlight the role of turnover of competing species within a community in ecosystem function and stability, and the importance of alternative sites and dispersal abilities for the conservation of vulnerable communities. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." the demographics of destruction: isolated populations of arboreal snails and sustained predation by rats on the island of moloka'i 1982-2006,achatinellidae; hawaiian tree snails; mark-recapture; partulina redfieldi; rat predation; species reintroduction,BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS,HADFIELD MG;SAUFLER JE,"populations of partulina redfieldi, an achatinelline tree snail studied in four isolated trees, grew 100-900% between 1983 and 1995. beginning in 1995, populations declined by 85%, and shells of rat-killed snails accumulated beneath the trees. while rat-marked shells were always present in the study area, numbers increased significantly. despite a rat-abatement program begun in 1995, the snails continued to disappear, which we conclude was due to continued rat migration into the study area, despite baiting, and a switch in rat-food preference toward the snails. in neighboring forest where tree canopies are more continuous, snail density is lower and rat predation is not apparent. captive-bred snails were successfully introduced to a small unoccupied tree in the same area in 1989, and this population suffered the same fate as the natural snail populations. since 2000, p. redfieldi populations have remained low and rat predation continues." a combined telemetry - tag return approach to estimate fishing and natural mortality rates of an estuarine fish,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,BACHELER NM;BUCKEL JA;HIGHTOWER JE;PARAMORE LM;POLLOCK KH,"a joint analysis of tag return and telemetry data should improve estimates of mortality rates for exploited fishes; however, the combined approach has thus far only been tested in terrestrial systems. we tagged subadult red drum (sciaenops ocellatus) with conventional tags and ultrasonic transmitters over 3 years in coastal north carolina, usa, to test the efficacy of the combined telemetry - tag return approach. there was a strong seasonal pattern to monthly fishing mortality rate (f) estimates from both conventional and telemetry tags; highest f values occurred in fall months and lowest levels occurred during winter. although monthly f values were similar in pattern and magnitude between conventional tagging and telemetry, information on f in the combined model came primarily from conventional tags. the estimated natural mortality rate (m) in the combined model was low (estimated annual rate +/- standard error: 0.04 +/- 0.04) and was based primarily upon the telemetry approach. using high-reward tagging, we estimated different tag reporting rates for state agency and university tagging programs. the combined telemetry - tag return approach can be an effective approach for estimating f and m as long as several key assumptions of the model are met." estimating exploitation rates of migrating yellowtail flounder (limanda ferruginea) using multistate mark-recapture methods incorporating tag loss and variable reporting rates,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,COWEN L;WALSH SJ;SCHWARZ CJ;CADIGAN N;MORGAN J,"multistate mark-recapture models can be used to model migration through stratification of the study area into states (location). however, the incorporation of both tag loss and reporting rates is new to the multistate paradigm. we develop a migration model for fish that incorporates tag loss and reporting rates but has as its primary purpose the modelling of exploitation and natural mortality rates. this model is applied to a 2000-2004 yellowtail flounder (limanda ferruginea) tagging study on the grand bank of newfoundland, canada. we found that exploitation rates varied over both location and years, ranging from 0.000 to 0.047. migration into the centre of the grand bank (state 2) was three times higher than migration out. the estimate of the instantaneous annual natural mortality rate was 0.256, which is equivalent to an annual survival rate of 0.880. we describe how these mortality estimates will be quite valuable in specifying an assessment model for this stock." declines in woodland salamander abundance associated with non-native earthworm and plant invasions,alliaria petiolata; berberis thunbergii; earthworm invasion; forest leaf litter; invasive plants; salamander,CONSERVATION BIOLOGY,MAERZ JC;NUZZO VA;BLOSSEY B,"factors that negatively affect the quality of wildlife habitat are a major concern for conservation. non-native species invasions, in particular, are perceived as a global threat to the quality of wildlife habitat. recent evidence indicates that some changes to understory plant communities in northern temperate forests of north america, including invasions by 3 non-native plant species, are facilitated by non-native earthworm invasion. furthermore, non-native earthworm invasions cause a reduction in leaf litter on the forest floor, and the loss of forest leaf litter is commonly associated with declines in forest fauna, including amphibians. we conducted a mark-recapture study of woodland salamander abundance across plant invasion fronts at 10 sites to determine whether earthworm or plant invasions were associated with reduced salamander abundance. salamander abundance declined exponentially with decreasing leaf litter volume. there was no significant relationship between invasive plant cover and salamander abundance, independent of the effects of leaf litter loss due to earthworm invasion. an analysis of selected salamander prey abundance (excluding earthworms) at 4 sites showed that prey abundance declined with declining leaf litter. the loss of leaf litter layers due to non-native earthworm invasions appears to be negatively affecting woodland salamander abundance, in part, because of declines in the abundance of small arthropods that are a stable resource for salamanders. our results demonstrate that earthworm invasions pose a significant threat to woodland amphibian fauna in the northeastern united states, and that plant invasions are symptomatic of degraded amphibian habitat but are not necessarily drivers of habitat degradation." "evidence for gene flow differs from observed dispersal patterns in the humboldt penguin, spheniscus humboldti",humboldt penguin; gene flow; dispersal; population structure; microsatellites,CONSERVATION GENETICS,SCHLOSSER JA;DUBACH JM;GARNER TWJ;ARAYA B;BERNAL M;SIMEONE A;SMITH KA;WALLACE RS,"the humboldt penguin, once common throughout its range, is today listed as vulnerable by the iucn. mark-recapture and telemetry studies indicate that adult humboldt penguins are sedentary, suggesting strong genetic differentiation between colonies. we developed genotypes for 336 individuals at 12 microsatellite loci sampled at four different localities spanning the entire range of this species. results show that long-term gene flow has occurred but appears to be affected by geographic distance as pairwise f (st) comparisons involving the colony at punta san juan (peru) and the two colonies at algarrobo (central chile) and puihuil (southern chile) are significant. bayesian estimates of recent migration rates indicate substantial dispersal among all colonies. despite the dramatic decline in numbers, we did not observe a bottleneck in any population. furthermore, we did not detect a founder effect in the recently discovered colony at puihuil. as our indirect estimates signal strong gene flow between populations, we suggest that humboldt penguin colonies need to be managed as a metapopulation rather than as discrete management units." comparison of multimammate mouse (mastomys natalensis) demography in monoculture and mosaic agricultural habitat: implications for pest management,tanzania; rodent; capture-recapture; survival; seniority; breeding; population density,CROP PROTECTION,SLUYDTS V;DAVIS S;MERCELIS S;LEIRS H,"extensive monocultures are often believed to be more vulnerable to attacks by insect pests than crops in a heterogeneous landscape. in monocultures the insect pests find abundant resources when the crops are in the susceptible stage and they migrate or enter diapause when the crop is removed. for rodents, escaping from temporarily poor conditions is relatively more difficult, and therefore we predicted that a population of rodent pests in a monoculture with synchronised periods of absence of the field crop, would do less well when compared with a population in a heterogeneous landscape. the multimammate mouse (mastomys natalensis) is a major pest in rural areas throughout sub-saharan africa. it appears difficult to control since it has an opportunistic diet and the capacity for explosive population growth. we compared demographic rates between a population in an extensive maize monoculture and a population in a mixed landscape of smaller maize fields. we used data from a 4-year monthly capture-recapture study. time series of abundance estimates for the two sites showed remarkable synchrony. timing and duration of reproduction were comparable, although more females were observed to mature in the mosaic compared to the monoculture. the probability of capture was higher in the mosaic structured grid for both the subadult and adult part of the population. the model selection procedure demonstrated that a model without an effect of habitat in both survival and seniority received most support from the data. no differences in the multimammate mouse demography between the monoculture and mosaic structured habitat were observed which had a substantial impact on population dynamics. this means that rodent management options in both agricultural systems could focus on the same aspects of rodent ecology. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -differential mortality drives life-history evolution and population dynamics in the fish brachyrhaphis rhabdophora,age-specific mortality hypothesis; brachyrhaphis rhabdophora; costa rica; elasticity analysis; live-bearer; poeciliidae; population growth rate; population matrix modeling; predation,ECOLOGY,JOHNSON JB;ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ,"life-history theory predicts that populations experiencing different levels of extrinsic mortality will evolve divergent reproductive strategies. previous work in the live-bearing fish brachyrhaphis rhabdophora shows that individuals from populations that occur with piscivorous fish mature earlier and at smaller sizes and have more and smaller offspring than fish from populations without predators. however, until now, there have been no data to demonstrate that differences in mortality rates actually exist between predator and predator-free sites. here we present the results of a serial mark-recapture field study designed to estimate mortality rates in natural populations of b. rhabodophora from costa rica. we found that fish from predator environments experience higher overall mortality rates and proportionally higher adult mortality rates than fish from predator-free environments. we then ask what impact differences in mortality rates have on b. rhabdophora population dynamics. using a population matrix modeling approach, we found that b. rhabdophora that co-occur with predators have population growth rates similar to those without predators and both have confidence intervals that span lambda = 1.0. however, elasticity analysis revealed that the most important life-history stages for population growth in predator environments are found early in life and include growth through early ontogenetic stages and survival as small adults; in contrast, the most important life-history stages for population growth in predator-free environments occur late in life, including survival once large juvenile and adult stages are reached. hence, we demonstrate two important links between predation and population demography, one ecological due to the direct impacts of predator-induced mortality and the other expressed through predator-mediated reproductive adaptation." +differential mortality drives life-history evolution and population dynamics in the fish brachyrhaphis rhabdophora,age-specific mortality hypothesis; brachyrhaphis rhabdophora; costa rica; elasticity analysis; live-bearer; poeciliidae; population growth rate; population matrix modeling; predation,ECOLOGY,JOHNSON JB;ZUNIGA VEGA JJ,"life-history theory predicts that populations experiencing different levels of extrinsic mortality will evolve divergent reproductive strategies. previous work in the live-bearing fish brachyrhaphis rhabdophora shows that individuals from populations that occur with piscivorous fish mature earlier and at smaller sizes and have more and smaller offspring than fish from populations without predators. however, until now, there have been no data to demonstrate that differences in mortality rates actually exist between predator and predator-free sites. here we present the results of a serial mark-recapture field study designed to estimate mortality rates in natural populations of b. rhabodophora from costa rica. we found that fish from predator environments experience higher overall mortality rates and proportionally higher adult mortality rates than fish from predator-free environments. we then ask what impact differences in mortality rates have on b. rhabdophora population dynamics. using a population matrix modeling approach, we found that b. rhabdophora that co-occur with predators have population growth rates similar to those without predators and both have confidence intervals that span lambda = 1.0. however, elasticity analysis revealed that the most important life-history stages for population growth in predator environments are found early in life and include growth through early ontogenetic stages and survival as small adults; in contrast, the most important life-history stages for population growth in predator-free environments occur late in life, including survival once large juvenile and adult stages are reached. hence, we demonstrate two important links between predation and population demography, one ecological due to the direct impacts of predator-induced mortality and the other expressed through predator-mediated reproductive adaptation." "the effect of body size on cottonmouth (agkistrodon piscivorus) survival, recapture probability, and behavior in an alabama swamp",agkistrodon piscivorus; behavior; capture-mark-recapture; cottonmouth; life history; survival; snake,HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION AND BIOLOGY,KOONS DN;BIRKHEAD RD;BOBACK SM;WILLIAMS MI;GREENE MP,"in an effort to improve knowledge of cottonmouth (agkistrodon piscivorus) life history and behavior, we conducted a capture-mark-recapture study in tuskegee national forest, alabama over four years to examine the influence of body size on survival, recapture probabilities, and behavior; as well as monitor change in the population's body-size distribution over time. our estimate of annual cottonmouth survival (0.79) is among the highest reported for all snakes. although we did not detect an effect of body size on survival, the probability of recapturing individuals increased with body size up to a snout-vent-length of 82 cm, after which it remained approximately constant. relative to large snakes, small snakes were more likely to be found in a resting coil and less likely to move away from researchers, suggesting that our lower probability of recapturing small snakes was not due to behavioral avoidance of researchers but perhaps dispersal patterns or microhabitat use. furthermore, the observed frequency of snakes <= 30 cm in length increased each year, indicative of an increase in recruitment over time. our findings provide new information about cottonmouth life history, and we suggest future paths of research that could further enhance knowledge of cottonmouth demography and population dynamics." some like it hot: microclimatic variation affects the abundance and movements of a critically endangered dung beetle,agricultural landscapes; anthropophilic species; climate change; dispersal; habitat loss; microclimate; onthophagus gibbulus,INSECT CONSERVATION AND DIVERSITY,ROSLIN T;AVOMAA T;LEONARD M;LUOTO M;OVASKAINEN O,"1. habitat loss and fragmentation is a leading cause of species extinction. this not only concerns loss of major habitats, but also loss of microclimatic heterogeneity within such habitats. 2. in this study, we examine the effects of microclimate on the abundance and movements of onthophagus gibbulus, a dung beetle associated with pastoral habitats. while formerly widespread in southern finland, the species is now critically endangered at a national level, persisting within an area of 6 km(2). 3. we divided the finnish distribution of o. gibbulus into 50 x 50-m grid cells, characterised local microclimate by incident solar radiation, and surveyed the distribution of o. gibbulus within a subset of cells. to investigate the impact of microclimatic conditions on dung beetle movements, we conducted a mark-release-recapture study. 4. our approach allowed us to estimate the national population size of o. gibbulus- a figure rarely available for endangered insect species. the finnish population of o. gibbulus comprises between 2000 and 6000 individuals. 5. the abundance of beetles per dung pat increases with incident solar radiation, and beetles are more likely to move towards warmer than colder spots in the landscape. 6. overall, our study depicts o. gibbulus as a thermophile confined to the warmest part of the landscape, and offers loss of microclimatic variation as the cause for its large-scale decline. to conserve o. gibbulus and similar species, we need to consider not only the amount of macrohabitats, but also the amount and distribution of microclimatic variation within them. future predictions are complicated by ongoing climate change." unaccounted mortality in salmon fisheries: non-retention in gillnets and effects on estimates of spawners,delayed mortality; ecosystem engineers; fishery-induced injury; mark-recapture analysis; natural resource management; pacific salmon; population dynamics; stock-recruitment estimation,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,BAKER MR;SCHINDLER DE,"p> effective and sustainable natural resource management is enhanced when the consequences of exploitative practices are fully understood and acknowledged. commercial fisheries devote considerable resources to maximize the harvest of target species and minimize interference with non-target stocks. appropriately, bycatch and discard of non-target stocks are recognized as critical economic and conservation concerns. few studies, however, have examined non-retention mortality in target stocks. non-retention, where fish are engaged by fishing gear but not landed, is rarely quantified and the effects on stocks are unknown. mortality due to non-retention may have important effects on the dynamics of exploited populations. we surveyed spawning populations of sockeye salmon oncorhynchus nerka that had traversed commercial fisheries in bristol bay, alaska, to estimate the incidence of non-retention in gillnets and the severity of injuries associated with entanglement. to better understand how gillnet injury affects spawning success, we tagged and monitored stream-spawning fish and applied a maximum likelihood model to mark-recapture data. a substantial portion (11-29%) of spawning sockeye salmon exhibited clear signs of past entanglement with commercial gillnets. survival among such fish was significantly reduced. more than half of the fish that reach natal spawning grounds with fishery-related injuries fail to reproduce. this suggests that estimates of spawning stocks are inflated by 5-15% at minimum. synthesis and applications. our analyses indicate that non-retention in gillnet fisheries is an important and under-appreciated consequence of the exploitation of salmon. stock estimates for exploited populations that do not account for non-retention mortality overestimate the number of reproductively viable fish. unaccounted mortality and interannual variation in the magnitude of this mortality may prevent accurate estimates of viable spawners, confound our understanding of the relationship between stock size and recruitment, impede optimal management and obscure the ecosystem impacts of migratory stocks in coastal watersheds. given the magnitude of non-retention in this fishery, explicit consideration of non-retention mortality may be warranted across a wide range of exploited populations." @@ -4797,12 +4809,12 @@ patterns of mortality for each life-history stage in a population of the endange "demography and conservation of the white-tailed tropicbird phaethon lepturus on aride island, western indian ocean",adult survival; habitat management; mark-recapture model; population matrix model; white-tailed tropicbird,JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,CATRY T;RAMOS JA;MONTICELLI D;BOWLER J;JUPITER T;LE CORRE M,"the white-tailed tropicbird phaethon lepturus breeding population of aride island, seychelles, has experienced a strong decline in the recent past. to predict the future trends of the white-tailed tropicbird population on aride island and understand the urgency of applying management procedures, we developed a population matrix model. we estimated white-tailed tropicbird adult survival rate over a 12-year period and investigated whether oceanographic conditions (el nio southern oscillation, enso, and inter-annual climate variability in the indian ocean, indian ocean dipole, iod) or local factors (pisonia grandis fruiting events) potentially affect adult survival. annual adult survival could not be linked to inter-annual variability in oceanographic conditions, but may be more influenced by pisonia fruiting events, which, overall, accounts for 23.2% of the adult mortality. the growth rate of the population, primarily influenced by annual adult survival, was estimated to be 0.946, which indicates an annual population decline of 5.4%. at the current rate, the probability of extinction of this population would be 99% in 170 years. management scenarios studied through monte carlo simulations, assuming small increments in adult survival and/or breeding success, dramatically reduce the risk of extinction of white-tailed tropicbirds. habitat management, in order to maintain an open canopy and little understorey vegetation, appears to be crucial for the conservation of white-tailed tropicbirds on aride island, as has already been shown for other ground-nesting tropical seabirds nesting on forested islands." comparison of national malaria surveillance system with the national notifiable diseases surveillance system in the united states,capture-recapture; malaria; surveillance; united states,JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH MANAGEMENT AND PRACTICE,HWANG J;MCCLINTOCK S;KACHUR SP;SLUTSKER L;ARGUIN P,"background: the centers for disease control and prevention (cdc) is in the process of integrating the existing dual mechanisms for reporting cases of malaria diagnosed in the united states into a single electronic reporting mechanism. before adoption of this new system, an evaluation of the existing systems for state-level reporting of malaria data to the cdc was conducted. methods: cdc guidelines for evaluating surveillance systems were used to assess the attributes of the national malaria surveillance system (nmss), the current national notifiable diseases surveillance system (nndss), and the projected fully integrated nndss. we analyzed data collected from nmss and nndss from 2001 to 2005 using the chandra-sekar-deming method to estimate completeness of reporting. results: the projected fully integrated system was assessed likely to perform better than either of the existing systems on all attributes except stability. the overall completeness of reporting was estimated to be 80.3 percent for nndss and 74.7 percent for nmss. conclusions: both existing systems have reasonably high ascertainment of cases. a fully integrated system with malaria-specific data fields would improve upon existing systems if it proved to be stable." the effects of largemouth bass virus on a quality largemouth bass population in arkansas,epizootic; infectious diseases; largemouth bass virus; population effects,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE DISEASES,NEAL JW;EGGLETON MA;GOODWIN AE,"a 22.4-ha impoundment experienced an outbreak of largemouth bass (micropterus salmoides) virus (lmbv) disease in the summer of 2006. all dead or daring largemouth bass observed throughout the entire event were recorded and removed. in this study, we estimated mortality and examined size distribution, condition, and biomass following the outbreak. boat-mounted electrofishing was used to collect largemouth bass for a mark-recapture population estimate and other population metrics. fish samples were examined for evidence of lmbv, other infectious diseases, and physical abnormalities. cell cultures inoculated with samples from moribund fish developed cytopathic effects typical of lmbv, and polymerase chain reaction (pcr) confirmed the presence of lmbv. the total number (n +/- 95% confidence interval) of stock-size largemouth bass remaining was estimated to be 2,301 +/- 528 fish (1.03 bass/ha). the total observed mortality, including dead and dying individuals, during the lmbv outbreak was 176 largemouth bass (7% of the initial population). the total biomass remaining was estimated at 1,592 kg of stock-size bass and a relative biomass of 71.5 kg of stock-size largemouth bass per hectare. largemouth bass size structure was dominated i)v quality and preferred (300-510 mm) size classes, with very few memorable-size or larger (> 510 mm) fish, and the relative weight of largemouth bass was unusually variable. these results demonstrate that largemouth bass abundance and biomass in the reservoir remained very high despite mortalities attributed to a lmbv outbreak." -population indices versus correlated density estimates of black-footed ferret abundance,black-footed ferret; carnivores; density estimation; mark-recapture; mustela nigripes; spotlighting; wyoming,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GRENIER MB;BUSKIRK SW;ANDERSON-SPRECHER R,"estimating abundance of carnivore populations is problematic because individuals typically are elusive, nocturnal, and dispersed across the landscape. rare or endangered carnivore populations are even more difficult to estimate because of small sample sizes. considering behavioral ecology of the target species can drastically improve survey efficiency and effectiveness. previously, abundance of the black-footed ferret (mustela nigripes) was monitored by spotlighting and generating indices of relative abundance because reintroduced populations were slow to establish. indices, however, lack variance estimates and are costly to generate for the black-footed ferret. we therefore used spotlight surveys and live-trapping in conjunction with a robust mark-recapture estimator to improve abundance monitoring for the black-footed ferret, one of north america's most endangered carnivores. we estimated abundance of the black-footed ferret at shirley basin, wyoming, usa, using correlated density estimates and program mark. we compared our results to 2 indices of relative abundance, minimum number alive and predicted number of ferrets from litter counts. the correlated density estimate for the black-footed ferret ((n) over cap (r) 229; 95% ci = 161-298) was similar to minimum number alive ((n) over cap 192) and predicted number of ferrets from litter counts ((n) over cap 235). the efficiency and effectiveness of survey methods we used for the black-footed ferret were high by carnivoran standards. our results suggest that the sampling approach we utilized can be implemented for a fraction of the cost and effort required to generate 2 indices of relative abundance for the black-footed ferret. although we recommend managers implement a similar survey approach to monitor abundance of reintroduced populations of the black-footed ferret, analysis with sparse data sets will be problematic. until the black-footed ferret becomes widespread and abundant at a reintroduction site, spotlighting will remain preferable as a means to generate indices of distribution and relative abundance for the black-footed ferret. (journal of wildlife management 73(5): 669-676; 2009)" +population indices versus correlated density estimates of black-footed ferret abundance,black-footed ferret; carnivores; density estimation; mark-recapture; mustela nigripes; spotlighting; wyoming,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GRENIER MB;BUSKIRK SW;ANDERSON SPRECHER R,"estimating abundance of carnivore populations is problematic because individuals typically are elusive, nocturnal, and dispersed across the landscape. rare or endangered carnivore populations are even more difficult to estimate because of small sample sizes. considering behavioral ecology of the target species can drastically improve survey efficiency and effectiveness. previously, abundance of the black-footed ferret (mustela nigripes) was monitored by spotlighting and generating indices of relative abundance because reintroduced populations were slow to establish. indices, however, lack variance estimates and are costly to generate for the black-footed ferret. we therefore used spotlight surveys and live-trapping in conjunction with a robust mark-recapture estimator to improve abundance monitoring for the black-footed ferret, one of north america's most endangered carnivores. we estimated abundance of the black-footed ferret at shirley basin, wyoming, usa, using correlated density estimates and program mark. we compared our results to 2 indices of relative abundance, minimum number alive and predicted number of ferrets from litter counts. the correlated density estimate for the black-footed ferret ((n) over cap (r) 229; 95% ci = 161-298) was similar to minimum number alive ((n) over cap 192) and predicted number of ferrets from litter counts ((n) over cap 235). the efficiency and effectiveness of survey methods we used for the black-footed ferret were high by carnivoran standards. our results suggest that the sampling approach we utilized can be implemented for a fraction of the cost and effort required to generate 2 indices of relative abundance for the black-footed ferret. although we recommend managers implement a similar survey approach to monitor abundance of reintroduced populations of the black-footed ferret, analysis with sparse data sets will be problematic. until the black-footed ferret becomes widespread and abundant at a reintroduction site, spotlighting will remain preferable as a means to generate indices of distribution and relative abundance for the black-footed ferret. (journal of wildlife management 73(5): 669-676; 2009)" estimating detection probabilities of waterfowl broods from ground-based surveys,brood surveys; detection probability; ducks; mark-recapture; north dakota; prairie pothole region; roadside surveys; sightability; waterfowl,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PAGANO AM;ARNOLD TW,"brood: pair ratios could provide an economical method for assessing spatial or temporal variation in waterfowl productivity, but such estimators are severely biased by incomplete detection of broods. we conducted 3 sequential counts of 1,357 waterfowl broods in northeastern north dakota, usa, and used closed-population mark-recapture models to estimate total brood abundance while controlling for variation in detection probabilities (p). blue-winged teal (anas discors) broods had the lowest average detection probability (p = 0.305), whereas diving-duck broods had the highest average detectability (p = 0.571). detection was generally highest in morning or evening, but temporal patterns varied among species and there was no survey window that maximized detection probabilities for all species. detection probabilities averaged 0.108 (sd = 0.056) higher for an experienced observer versus an inexperienced observer. detection probabilities were 0.044 higher for roadside versus walk-up surveys and increased with increasing brood size, total brood abundance, survey date, wind speed, temperature, cloud cover, and amount of time spent surveying each wetland. detection probabilities declined with increasing wetland size and amount of tall peripheral vegetation. our mark-recapture results indicated that a traditional unreplicated brood survey would have missed 67.5% of estimated broods, summed over all species. use of closed-population mark-recapture techniques provided an effective method for reducing this bias and identifying and quantifying factors that reduce detection probabilities of waterfowl broods. we recommend that future brood surveys incorporate 2 or 3 temporally segregated replicate counts to allow for formal estimation of detection probabilities. (journal of wildlife management 73(5): 686-694; 2009)" importance of nest predation by alien rodents and avian poxvirus in conservation of oahu elepaio,avian poxvirus; chasiempis sandwichensis; elepaio; hawaii; mark-recapture; poxvirus avium; predator control; survival,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,VANDERWERF EA,"the oahu elepaio (chasiempis sandwichensis ibidis) is an endangered forest bird endemic to the hawaiian island of oahu (usa) and is threatened by nest predation from alien rodents and mosquito-borne diseases. i investigated importance of these threats and evaluated success of conservation efforts from 1995 to 2008. i controlled rodents with snap-traps and bait stations in 3 valleys and switched sites from non-treatment to treatment over time. i mist-netted and color-banded 91 elepaio, inspected them for symptoms of avian poxvirus (poxvirus avium), and estimated survival using multistate mark-recapture models. i determined annual fecundity of each breeding pair and monitored success of 212 nests. the oldest known oahu elepaio was >= 15 years old. survival of females was higher with rodent control (0.82 +/- 0.05) than without (0.55 +/- 0.12), but survival of males was not affected by rodent control (0.86 +/- 0.02 with vs. 0.84 +/- 0.04 without). survival of elepaio with active or inactive pox-like lesions was 4-10% lower than survival of elepaio with no pox symptoms. rodent control resulted in higher annual fecundity (0.69 +/- 0.05 vs. 0.33 +/- 0.06 fledglings/pair) and nest success (62% vs. 33%). female site-fidelity, mate fidelity, and female encounter probability were lower in the absence of rodent control because more females switched territories and mates after nest failure. population growth calculated from survival and fecundity estimates was stable with rodent control (1.07 +/- 0.04) but declining without rodent control (0.69 +/- 0.05). elepaio numbers have continued to decline despite rodent control, probably because some young birds disperse into adjacent unmanaged areas that act as sinks. the best immediate management strategy for oahu elepaio is to conduct rodent control over larger areas. restoration of native forest would benefit elepaio by providing nest sites that are less attractive to rodents. construction of predator-proof fences and eradication of predators would provide the best long-term protection for elepaio. (journal of wildlife management 73(5): 737-746; 2009)" evaluating abundance estimate precision and the assumptions of a count-based index for small mammals,abundance estimation; capture per unit effort (cpue); index; live-trapping; mark-recapture; program mark; removal; snap-trapping,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,WIEWEL AS;ADAMS AAY;RODDA GH,"conservation and management of small mammals requires reliable knowledge of population size. we investigated precision of mark-recapture and removal abundance estimates generated from live-trapping and snap-trapping data collected at sites on guam (n = 7), rota (n = 4), saipan (n = 5), and tinian (n = 3), in the mariana islands. we also evaluated a common index, captures per unit effort (cpue), as a predictor of abundance. in addition, we evaluated cost and time associated with implementing live-trapping and snap-trapping and compared species-specific capture rates of selected live-and snap-traps. for all species, mark-recapture estimates were consistently more precise than removal estimates based on coefficients of variation and 95% confidence intervals. the predictive utility of cpue was poor but improved with increasing sampling duration. nonetheless, modeling of sampling data revealed that underlying assumptions critical to application of an index of abundance, such as constant capture probability across space, time, and individuals, were not met. although snap-trapping was cheaper and faster than live-trapping, the time difference was negligible when site preparation time was considered. rattus diardii spp. captures were greatest in haguruma live-traps (standard trading co., honolulu, hi) and victor snap-traps (woodstream corporation, lititz, pa), whereas suncus murinus and mus musculus captures were greatest in sherman live-traps (h. b. sherman traps, inc., tallahassee, fl) and museum special snap-traps (woodstream corporation). although snap-trapping and cpue may have utility after validation against more rigorous methods, validation should occur across the full range of study conditions. resources required for this level of validation would likely be better allocated towards implementing rigorous and robust methods. (journal of wildlife management 73(5): 761-771; 2009)" "survival rate, abundance, and residency of long-finned pilot whales in the strait of gibraltar",long-finned pilot whales; population estimation; survival rate; population growth rate; strait of gibraltar; anthropogenic impact,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,VERBORGH P;DE STEPHANIS R;PEREZ S;JAGET Y;BARBRAUD C;GUINET C,"p>long-finned pilot whales in the strait of gibraltar are distributed over the main shipping routes. this exposes them to risks of collisions and probable acoustic and physical disturbance. this species is also the target of whale-watching operations. the aim of this study was to estimate the annual population size, survival rate, and population growth rate of pilot whales occurring in the strait and their inter-annual variation using photo-identification. a robust design was used to estimate all three parameters. a total of 10,784 individual pilot whale fins were photographed and analyzed. the population size estimation in summer ranged from a low of 147 individuals in 1999 to a high of 265 individuals in 2003. the annual population growth rate was estimated from mark recapture models to be 5.5%. the survival rate of adults was estimated at 0.982 (95% ci: 0.955-0.993). the same individuals have been observed between years. this suggests that this population is resident in the strait, at least during summer. this study provides baseline knowledge prior to a predicted increase in shipping traffic throughout the main foraging area due to the opening in 2007 of a major shipping harbor along the moroccan coast of the strait." -incidence rate of nontuberculous mycobacterial disease in immunocompetent children a prospective nationwide surveillance study in germany,nontuberculous mycobacteria; lymphadenitis; capture-recapture method; incidence; surveillance,PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASE JOURNAL,REUSS AM;WIESE-POSSELT M;WEISSMANN B;SIEDLER A;ZUSCHNEID I;AN DER HEIDEN M;CLAUS H;VON KRIES R;HAAS WH,"an increasing incidence in disease caused by nontuberculous mycobacteria is being reported. we investigated the burden of disease in immunocompetent german children in a prospective nationwide study from april 2003 to september 2005. ninety-seven percent of children presented with lymphadenitis; median age was 2.5 years. using the capture-recapture method, we estimated a cumulative incidence rate of 3.1/100000 children." +incidence rate of nontuberculous mycobacterial disease in immunocompetent children a prospective nationwide surveillance study in germany,nontuberculous mycobacteria; lymphadenitis; capture-recapture method; incidence; surveillance,PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASE JOURNAL,REUSS AM;WIESE POSSELT M;WEISSMANN B;SIEDLER A;ZUSCHNEID I;AN DER HEIDEN M;CLAUS H;VON KRIES R;HAAS WH,"an increasing incidence in disease caused by nontuberculous mycobacteria is being reported. we investigated the burden of disease in immunocompetent german children in a prospective nationwide study from april 2003 to september 2005. ninety-seven percent of children presented with lymphadenitis; median age was 2.5 years. using the capture-recapture method, we estimated a cumulative incidence rate of 3.1/100000 children." application of a multistate model to estimate culvert effects on movement of small fishes,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,NORMAN JR;HAGLER MM;FREEMAN MC;FREEMAN BJ,"while it is widely acknowledged that culverted road-stream crossings may impede fish passage, effects of culverts on movement of nongame and small-bodied fishes have not been extensively studied and studies generally have not accounted for spatial variation in capture probabilities. we estimated probabilities for upstream and downstream movement of small (30-120 rum standard length) benthic and water column fishes across stream reaches with and without culverts at four road-stream crossings over a 4-6-week period. movement and reach-specific capture probabilities were estimated using multistate capture-recapture models. although none of the culverts were complete barriers to passage, only a bottomless-box culvert appeared to permit unrestricted upstream and downstream movements by benthic fishes based on model estimates of movement probabilities. at two box culverts that were perched above the water surface at base flow, observed movements were limited to water column fishes and to intervals when runoff from storm events raised water levels above the perched level. only a single fish was observed to move through a partially embedded pipe culvert. estimates for probabilities of movement over distances equal to at least the length of one culvert were low (e.g., generally <= 0.03, estimated for 1-2-week intervals) and had wide 95% confidence intervals as a consequence of few observed movements to nonadjacent reaches. estimates of capture probabilities varied among reaches by a factor of 2 to over 10, illustrating the importance of accounting for spatially variable capture rates when estimating movement probabilities with capture-recapture data. longer-term studies are needed to evaluate temporal variability in stream fish passage at culverts (e.g., in relation to streamflow variability) and to thereby better quantify the degree of population fragmentation caused by road-stream crossings with culverts." modelling dispersal with diffusion and habitat selection: analytical results for highly fragmented landscapes,dispersal; random walk; edge-mediate behavior; diffusion model; conditional occupancy times; metapopulation,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,ZHENG CZ;PENNANEN J;OVASKAINEN O,"quantifying dispersal is crucial both for understanding ecological population dynamics, and for gaining insight into factors that affect the genetic structure of populations. the role of dispersal becomes pronounced in highly fragmented landscapes inhabited by spatially structured populations. we consider a landscape consisting of a set of habitat patches surrounded by unsuitable matrix, and model dispersal by assuming that the individuals follow a random walk with parameters that may be specific to the habitat type. we allow for spatial variation in patch quality, and account for edge-mediated behavior, the latter meaning that the individuals bias their movement towards the patches when close to an edge between a patch and the matrix. we employ a diffusion approximation of the random walk model to derive analytical expressions for various characteristics of the dispersal process. for example, we derive formulae for the time that an individual is expected to spend in its current patch i, and for the time that it will spend in the matrix, both conditional on the individual hitting next a given patch j before hitting any of the other patches or dying. the analytical formulae are based on the assumptions that the landscape is infinitely large, that the patches are circularly shaped, and that the patches are small compared to interpatch distances. we evaluate the effect of these assumptions by comparing the analytical results to numerical results in a real patch network that violates all of the three assumptions. we then consider a landscape that fulfills the assumptions, and show that in this case the analytical results are in a very good agreement with the numerical results. the results obtained here allow the construction of computationally efficient dispersal models that can be used as components of metapopulation models. (c) 2009 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." modelling predation by transient leopard seals for an ecosystem-based management of southern ocean fisheries,bioenergetics; data augmentation; dispersal; food consumption; hydrurga leptonyx; mark-recapture; mcmc; prey choice; state-space model; sub-antarctic,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,FORCADA J;MALONE D;ROYLE JA;STANILAND IJ,"correctly quantifying the impacts of rare apex marine predators is essential to ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries management, where harvesting must be sustainable for targeted species and their dependent predators. this requires modelling the uncertainty in such processes as predator life history, seasonal abundance and movement, size-based predation, energetic requirements, and prey vulnerability. we combined these uncertainties to evaluate the predatory impact of transient leopard seals on a community of mesopredators (seals and penguins) and their prey at south georgia, and assess the implications for an ecosystem-based management. the mesopredators are highly dependent on antarctic krill and icefish, which are targeted by regional fisheries. we used a state-space formulation to combine (1) a mark-recapture open-population model and individual identification data to assess seasonally variable leopard seal arrival and departure dates, numbers, and residency times; (2) a size-based bioenergetic model; and (3) a size-based prey choice model from a diet analysis. our models indicated that prey choice and consumption reflected seasonal changes in leopard seal population size and structure, size-selective predation and prey vulnerability. a population of 104 (90-125) leopard seals, of which 64% were juveniles, consumed less than 2% of the antarctic fur seal pup production of the area (50% of total ingested energy, ie), but ca. 12-16% of the local gentoo penguin population (20% ie). antarctic krill (28% ie) were the only observed food of leopard seal pups and supplemented the diet of older individuals. direct impacts on krill and fish were negligible, but the ""escapement"" due to leopard seal predation on fur seal pups and penguins could be significant for the mackerel icefish fishery at south georgia. these results suggest that: (1) rare apex predators like leopard seals may control, and may depend on, populations of mesopredators dependent on prey species targeted by fisheries: and (2) predatory impacts and community control may vary throughout the predator's geographic range, and differ across ecosystems and management areas, depending on the seasonal abundance of the prey and the predator's dispersal movements. this understanding is important to integrate the predator needs as natural mortality of its prey in models to set prey catch limits for fisheries. reliable estimates of the variability of these needs are essential for a precautionary interpretation in the context of an ecosystem-based management. (c) 2009 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." @@ -4811,13 +4823,13 @@ factors affecting the population dynamics of two toads (anura: bufonidae) in a s modelling single nucleotide effects in phosphoglucose isomerase on dispersal in the glanville fritillary butterfly: coupling of ecological and evolutionary dynamics,evolution of dispersal; life-history evolution; metapopulation; correlated random walk; phosphoglucose isomerase gene; habitat fragmentation,PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,ZHENG CZ;OVASKAINEN O;HANSKI I,"dispersal comprises a complex life-history syndrome that influences the demographic dynamics of especially those species that live in fragmented landscapes, the structure of which may in turn be expected to impose selection on dispersal. we have constructed an individual-based evolutionary sexual model of dispersal for species occurring as metapopulations in habitat patch networks. the model assumes correlated random walk dispersal with edge-mediated behaviour (habitat selection) and spatially correlated stochastic local dynamics. the model is parametrized with extensive data for the glanville fritillary butterfly. based on empirical results for a single nucleotide polymorphism (snp) in the phosphoglucose isomerase (pgi) gene, we assume that dispersal rate in the landscape matrix, fecundity and survival are affected by a locus with two alleles, a and c, individuals with the c allele being more mobile. the model was successfully tested with two independent empirical datasets on spatial variation in pgi allele frequency. first, at the level of local populations, the frequency of the c allele is the highest in newly established isolated populations and the lowest in old isolated populations. second, at the level of sub-networks with dissimilar numbers and connectivities of patches, the frequency of c increases with decreasing network size and hence with decreasing average metapopulation size. the frequency of c is the highest in landscapes where local extinction risk is high and where there are abundant opportunities to establish new populations. our results indicate that the strength of the coupling of the ecological and evolutionary dynamics depends on the spatial scale and is asymmetric, demographic dynamics having a greater immediate impact on genetic dynamics than vice versa." can gene flow have negative demographic consequences? mixed evidence from stream threespine stickleback,adaptational constraints; eco-evolutionary dynamics; migration load; migrational meltdown; species' range,PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,MOORE JS;HENDRY AP,"dispersal and gene flow can have both positive and negative effects on population size, but little empirical support from nature exists for the negative effects. we test for such effects in a stream population of threespine stickleback (gasterosteus aculeatus l.) that is subject to high gene flow from a lake and is thus maladapted to stream conditions. in this system, maladaptation increases with distance along the stream, and this increase is associated with decreasing population densities until stickleback are no longer present (2.5 km from the lake). we conducted field experiments to inform whether this association might reflect a negative role for gene flow in constraining population size and therefore causing a local range limit. we specifically tested predictions deriving from theory: peripheral populations should show partial local adaptation, be under strong selection and not simply be maintained by dispersal. first, a transplant experiment suggested a weak home-site advantage in the peripheral population. second, a mark-recapture study showed directional selection for a stream-adapted phenotype in 1 of 2 years. third, another mark-recapture experiment showed that dispersal is limited to the point that positive demographic effects of dispersal are probably minimal. we conclude that, although gene flow does constrain morphological maladaptation in the outlet stream population, the evidence for its contribution to population size and range limits is mixed. we discuss the implications of our work for the study of factors influencing the evolution of species' ranges." retention in the british national health service of medical graduates trained in britain: cohort studies,NA,BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL,GOLDACRE MJ;DAVIDSON JM;LAMBERT TW,"objective to report the percentage of graduates from british medical schools who eventually practise medicine in the british nhs. design cohort studies using postal questionnaires, employment data, and capture-recapture analysis. setting great britain. subjects 32 430 graduates from all british medical schools in nine graduation cohorts from 1974 to 2002, subdivided into home based medical students ( those whose homes were in great britain when they entered medical school) and those from overseas ( whose homes were outside great britain when they entered medical school). main outcome measures working in the nhs at seven census points from two to 27 years after qualification. results of home based doctors, 88% of men (6807 of 7754) and 88% of women (7909 of 8985) worked as doctors in the nhs two years after qualification. the corresponding values were 87% of men (7483 of 8646) and 86% of women (7364 of 8594) at five years; 86% ( 6803 of 7872) and 86% (5407 of 6321) at 10 years; 85% (5404 of 6331) and 84% (3206 of 3820) at 15 years; and 82% ( 2534 of 3089) and 81% (1132 of 1395) at 20 years. attrition from the nhs had not increased in recent cohorts compared with older ones at similar times after graduation. of overseas students, 76% (776 of 1020) were in the nhs at two years, 72% (700 of 972) at five years, 63% (448 of 717) at ten years, and 52% (128 of 248) at 20 years. conclusions the majority of british medical graduates from british medical schools practise in the nhs in both the short and long term. differences between men and women in this respect are negligible. a majority of doctors from overseas homes remain in britain for their years as junior doctors, but eventually about half leave the nhs." -estimating population size and hidden demographic parameters with state-space modeling,fecundity; hidden parameters; population dynamics; soay sheep; state-space modeling; survival,AMERICAN NATURALIST,TAVECCHIA G;BESBEAS P;COULSON T;MORGAN BJT;CLUTTON-BROCK TH,"recent research has shown how process variability and measurement error in ecological time series can be separated using state-space modeling techniques to combine individual-based data with population counts. we extend the current maximum likelihood approaches to allow the incorporation of sex-and age-dependent counts and provide an application to data from a population of soay sheep living on the st. kilda archipelago. we then empirically evaluate the performance and potential of the method by sequentially omitting portions of the data available. we show that the use of multivariate time series extends the power of the state-space modeling approach. the variance of measurement error was found to be smaller for males and the sex ratio of lambs to be skewed toward females and constant over time. our results indicated that demographic parameters estimated using state-space modeling without relevant individual-based data were in close agreement with those obtained from mark-recapture-recovery analyses alone. similarly, estimates of population size obtained when the corresponding count observations were unavailable were close to those from the entire data set. we conclude that the approach illustrated here has great potential for estimating hidden demographic parameters, planning studies on population monitoring, and estimating both historical and future population size." +estimating population size and hidden demographic parameters with state-space modeling,fecundity; hidden parameters; population dynamics; soay sheep; state-space modeling; survival,AMERICAN NATURALIST,TAVECCHIA G;BESBEAS P;COULSON T;MORGAN BJT;CLUTTON BROCK TH,"recent research has shown how process variability and measurement error in ecological time series can be separated using state-space modeling techniques to combine individual-based data with population counts. we extend the current maximum likelihood approaches to allow the incorporation of sex-and age-dependent counts and provide an application to data from a population of soay sheep living on the st. kilda archipelago. we then empirically evaluate the performance and potential of the method by sequentially omitting portions of the data available. we show that the use of multivariate time series extends the power of the state-space modeling approach. the variance of measurement error was found to be smaller for males and the sex ratio of lambs to be skewed toward females and constant over time. our results indicated that demographic parameters estimated using state-space modeling without relevant individual-based data were in close agreement with those obtained from mark-recapture-recovery analyses alone. similarly, estimates of population size obtained when the corresponding count observations were unavailable were close to those from the entire data set. we conclude that the approach illustrated here has great potential for estimating hidden demographic parameters, planning studies on population monitoring, and estimating both historical and future population size." prescribed fire and conservation of a threatened mountain grassland specialist: a capture-recapture study on the orsini's viper in the french alps,conservation; threatened species; fire impact; fire management; mark-recapture; multistate modeling; survival; vipera ursinii,ANIMAL CONSERVATION,LYET A;CHEYLAN M;PRODON R;BESNARD A,"burning has traditionally been used in the southern french alps to maintain open lands for grazing. in the context of land use abandonment, prescribed burning may be the only realistic practical tool available to oppose encroachment by woody plants in numerous mountainous landscapes. although only recently developed as a modern tool for wildfire prevention and management of pastoral grasslands, this practice is now becoming widespread, which raises the issue of its impact on the fauna in general, and on endangered species in particular. we studied the impact of a prescribed fire on the survival and small-scale movements of one of the rarest snakes in europe, the orsini's viper vipera ursinii, in order to evaluate its potential threat to population sustainability. we evaluated the body condition of snakes and the quality of their habitat, more precisely the abundance of grasshoppers as the main food resource, and the vegetation cover as shelter. about 3.6 ha of a 8.8 ha study site was burnt in autumn 2003. snake population parameters were estimated using multi-state capture-mark-recapture methods. we demonstrate that burning reduced the survival of the vipers by more than half during the first year following the fire. contrary to what was expected, there was no evidence of emigration from the burned to the unburned area immediately after the fire. despite the decrease in grasshopper density and vegetation cover in the burned area, there was no evidence of mid-term mortality in snakes that could result from an increased predation rate or from the reduced body condition of snakes. as such high mortality, mainly or entirely due to the direct effect of fire, is likely to have large repercussions on population sustainability, we suggest several improvements of prescribed fire protocols to minimize their impact and strongly emphasize the need for a prescribed fire policy that takes into account specific recommendations for threatened species like orsini's viper. the case of the orsini's viper is very typical of conservation problems in open mountain lands, and we believe that our research will help determine the most suitable approach for long-term conservation of biodiversity in such semi-natural ecosystems." a covariate adjustment for zero-truncated approaches to estimating the size of hidden and elusive populations,population size estimation; capture-recapture; estimation under model misspecification; truncated poisson and binomial likelihood; elusive population,ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,BOHNING D;VAN DER HEUDEN PGM,"in this paper we consider the estimation of population size from one-source capture-recapture data, that is, a list in which individuals can potentially be found repeatedly and where the question is how many individuals are missed by the list. as a typical example, we provide data from a drug user study in bangkok from 2001 where the list consists of drug users who repeatedly contact treatment institutions. drug users with 1, 2, 3, ... contacts occur, but drug users with zero contacts are not present, requiring the size of this group to be estimated. statistically, these data can be considered as stemming from a zero-truncated count distribution, we revisit an estimator for the population size suggested by zelterman that is known to be robust under potential unobserved heterogeneity. we demonstrate that the zelterman estimator can be viewed as a maximum likelihood estimator for a locally truncated poisson likelihood which is equivalent to a binomial likelihood. this result allows the extension of the zelterman estimator by means of logistic regression to include observed heterogeneity in the form of covariates. we also review ail estimator proposed by chao and explain why we are not able to obtain similar results for this estimator. the zelterman estimator is applied in two case studies, the first a drug user study from bangkok, the second an illegal immigrant study in the netherlands. our results suggest the new estimator should be used, in particular, if substantial unobserved heterogeneity is present." "population dynamics of long-tailed ducks breeding on the yukon-kuskokwim delta, alaska",alaska; clangula hyemalis; elasticity; long-tailed duck; population dynamics; sensitivity; sea duck; vital rates; yukon-kuskokwim delta,ARCTIC,SCHAMBER JL;FLINT PL;GRAND JB;WILSON HM;MORSE JA,"population estimates for long-tailed ducks in north america have declined by nearly 50% over the past 30 years. life history and population dynamics of this species are difficult to ascertain, because the birds nest at low densities across a broad range of habitat types. between 1991 and 2004, we collected information on productivity and survival of long-tailed ducks at three locations on the yukon-kuskokwim delta. clutch size averaged 7.1 eggs, and nesting success averaged 30%. duckling survival to 30 days old averaged 10% but was highly variable among years, ranging from 0% to 25%. apparent annual survival of adult females based on mark-recapture of nesting females was estimated at 74%. we combined these estimates of survival and productivity into a matrix-based population model, which predicted an annual population decline of 19%. elasticities indicated that population growth rate (lambda) was most sensitive to changes in adult female survival. further, the relatively high sensitivity (lambda) to duckling survival suggests that low duckling survival may be a bottleneck to productivity in some years. these data represent the first attempt to synthesize a population model for this species. although our analyses were hampered by the small sample sizes inherent in studying a dispersed nesting species, our model provides a basis for management actions and can be enhanced as additional data become available." "assessment of the impacts of hydrological fluctuations and salt pans abandonment on greater flamingos in the camargue, south of france",buffer; dye; mark-recapture; global change; mediterranean; lagoon; waterbirds,BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,BECHET A;GERMAIN C;SANDOZ A;HIRONS GJM;GREEN RE;WALMSLEY JG;JOHNSON AR,"flamingos forage in both commercial salt pans and natural marshes and lagoons along the french mediterranean coast. in order to assess the impact of changes in management of commercial salt pans and hydrological fluctuations on this flagship species, we evaluated the foraging areas of breeding flamingos using the resightings of 283 breeding flamingos marked with dye at the colony in 1987 and 1989, two years with contrasting hydrological conditions. teams of observers searched all suitable habitats within 80 km of the colony during the four days following marking and recorded presence of off-duty flamingos. about one-third of the birds were found within 10 km of the colony, but some were seen up to 70 km away. about 24-54% of the birds were found in permanent brackish lagoons and 18-60% in the salt pans, the two most important habitats. in 1989, a dry year with lower water levels in the natural wetlands, the proportion of breeding flamingos using salt pans was twice as high [53%, range (47-60%)] as in 1987 [26%, range (18-29%)], this habitat thus acting as a refuge. most of the feeding areas shown to be important for flamingos breeding in the camargue are thus susceptible to variations according to rainfall and to transformations or drying out if the salt pans are abandoned. our results provide essential benchmarks to reconsider the conservation of this flagship species when management of commercial salt pans changes." on comparison of mixture models for closed population capture-recapture studies,bias decomposition; boundary problems; intrinsic bias,BIOMETRICS,MAO CX;YOU N,"a mixture model is a natural choice to deal with individual heterogeneity in capture-recapture studies. pledger (2000, biometrics 56, 434-442; 2005, biometrics 61, 868-876) advertised the use of the two-point mixture model. dorazio and royle (2003, biometrics 59, 351-364; 2005, biometrics 61, 874-876) suggested that the beta-binomial model has advantages. the controversy is related to the nonidentifiability of the population size (ink, 2003, biometrics 59, 1123-1130) and certain boundary problems. the total bias is decomposed into an intrinsic bias, an approximation bias, and an estimation bias. we propose to assess the approximation bias, the estimation bias, and the variance, with the intrinsic bias excluded when comparing different estimators. the boundary problems in both models and their impacts are investigated. real epidemiological and ecological examples are analyzed." -bayesian analysis to correct false-negative errors in capture-recapture photo-id abundance estimates,capture-recapture; false-negative errors; bayesian models; multiple imputation,BRAZILIAN JOURNAL OF PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS,DA-SILVA CQ,capture-recapture methods are largely used for estimating the size of some cetacean populations. the application of those methods for photo-identification data of recognizable individuals is very common. poor quality photographs may lead the analyst to identify two sightings of the same individual as being different (false-negative errors). this kind of matching error inflates population size estimates. we develop a bayesian approach to obtain bias corrected estimates of the population size n. the method can be used for m-t type capture recapture models (otis et al. wildlife monographs 62 (1978) 1-135) involving two or more sampling occasions. we used the methodology for simulated data. +bayesian analysis to correct false-negative errors in capture-recapture photo-id abundance estimates,capture-recapture; false-negative errors; bayesian models; multiple imputation,BRAZILIAN JOURNAL OF PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS,DA SILVA CQ,capture-recapture methods are largely used for estimating the size of some cetacean populations. the application of those methods for photo-identification data of recognizable individuals is very common. poor quality photographs may lead the analyst to identify two sightings of the same individual as being different (false-negative errors). this kind of matching error inflates population size estimates. we develop a bayesian approach to obtain bias corrected estimates of the population size n. the method can be used for m-t type capture recapture models (otis et al. wildlife monographs 62 (1978) 1-135) involving two or more sampling occasions. we used the methodology for simulated data. professional assistance during birth and maternal mortality in two indonesian districts,NA,BULLETIN OF THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION,RONSMANS C;SCOTT S;QOMARIYAH SN;ACHADI E;BRAUNHOLTZ D;MARSHALL T;PAMBUDI E;WITTEN KH;GRAHAM WJ,"objective to examine determinants of maternal mortality and assess the effect of programmes aimed at increasing the number of births attended by health professionals in two districts in west java, indonesia. methods we used informant networks to characterize all maternal deaths, and a capture-recapture method to estimate the total number of maternal deaths. through a survey of recent births we counted all midwives practising in the two study districts. we used case-control analysis to examine determinants of maternal mortality, and cohort analysis to estimate overall maternal mortality ratios. findings the overall maternal mortality ratio was 435 per 100 000 live births (95% confidence interval, ci: 376-498). only 33% of women gave birth with assistance from a health professional, and among them, mortality was extremely high for those in the lowest wealth quartile range (2303 per 100 000) and remained very high for those in the lower middle and upper middle quartile ranges (1218 and 778 per 100 000, respectively). this is perhaps because the women, especially poor ones, may have sought help only once a serious complication had arisen. conclusion achieving equitable coverage of all births by health professionals is still a distant goal in indonesia, but even among women who receive professional care, maternal mortality ratios remain surprisingly high. this may reflect the limitations of home-based care. phased introduction of fee exemption and transport incentives to enable all women to access skilled delivery care in health centres and emergency care in hospitals may be a feasible; sustainable way to reduce indonesia's maternal mortality ratio." "australia's national trends in the incidence of type 1 diabetes in 0-14-year-olds, 2000-2006",australia; child; epidemiology; incidence; trend; type 1 diabetes,DIABETIC MEDICINE,CATANZARITI L;FAULKS K;MOON L;WATERS AM;FLACK J;CRAIG ME,"to determine the national incidence of type 1 diabetes in children aged 0-14 years and examine trends in incidence between 2000 and 2006 by age, sex and calendar year. case ascertainment was from the australian national diabetes register, a prospective population-based incidence register established in 1999, with two sources of ascertainment: the national diabetes services scheme and the australasian paediatric endocrine group's state-based registers. denominator data were from the australian bureau of statistics. there were 6350 new cases of type 1 diabetes (3323 boys and 3027 girls). case ascertainment was 97.1% complete using the capture-recapture method. the mean adjusted incidence rate for 2000-2006 was 21.6 per 100 000 person-years [95% confidence interval (ci) 21.0, 22.1], and increased from 19.8 in 2000 to 23.4 per 100 000 in 2006, an average increase of 2.8% (95% ci 1.5, 4.1) per year. mean incidence for the 7-year period increased with age, and was significantly higher in boys aged 0-4 years and 10-14 years than in girls of the same age. the incidence of type 1 diabetes among 0-14-year-olds in australia is very high compared with available data from many other countries. the rate of increase observed globally in the last decade has continued well into this decade in australia. the rising incidence cannot be explained by changes in genetic susceptibility; there is an urgent need to examine the environmental factors that have contributed to this increase. the findings of this study also have important implications for resource planning." what drives long-distance dispersal? a test of theoretical predictions,amphibian; behavior; connectivity; gyrinophilus porphyriticus; habitat variability; headwater stream; kurtosis; leptokurtic; long-distance dispersal; movement; salamander; spatial ecology,ECOLOGY,LOWE WH,"long-distance dispersal (ldd) may contribute disproportionately to species persistence in fragmented landscapes, non-native invasions, and range shifts in response to climate change. however, direct data on ldd are extremely limited, leaving us with little understanding of why it occurs. i used six years of mark-recapture data on the stream salamander gyrinophilus porphyriticus to test theoretical predictions of how variation in habitat quality affects ldd. frequency of ldd was quantified using the kurtosis of yearly movement distributions from recaptured animals in a 1-km headwater stream. temporal and spatial variation in habitat quality were quantified with spatially explicit data on the body condition and dispersion of individuals throughout the study stream. using information-theoretic model selection criteria, i found that ldd increased during periods of low average body condition and low spatial variation in body condition. consistent with basic theory, my results indicate that temporal variation in habitat quality is critical to initiating dispersal, and that ldd increases when animals must move farther to encounter higher-quality habitat. this suggests that information on how habitat quality varies in time and space can be useful for predicting ldd. more broadly, this study highlights the value of direct data on animal movement for testing dispersal theory." @@ -4837,8 +4849,8 @@ the fall migration flyways of monarch butterflies in eastern north america revea "bayou virus detected in non-oryzomyine rodent hosts: an assessment of habitat composition, reservoir community structure, and marsh rice rat social dynamics",bayou virus (bayv) spillover; oryzomys palustris; virus-host specificity; host switching; marsh rice rat,JOURNAL OF VECTOR ECOLOGY,HOLSOMBACK TS;MCINTYRE NE;NISBETT RA;STRAUSS RE;CHU YK;ABUZEINEH AA;DE LA SANCHA N;DICK CW;JONSSON CB;MORRIS BEL,"in the united states, bayou virus (bayv) ranks second only to sin nombre virus (snv) in terms of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (hps) incidents, having been confirmed in cases from texas and louisiana since its discovery in 1994. this study on bayv infection among sympatric, non-oryzomyine rodents (""spillover"") in freeport, tx, is the first to link patterns of hantavirus interspecific spillover with the spatiotemporal ecology of the primary host (marsh rice rat, oryzomys palustris). mark-recapture and/or harvest methods were employed from march 2002 through may 2004 in two macrohabitat types. rodent blood samples were screened for the presence of igg antibody to bayv antigen by ifa after which ab-positive blood, saliva, and urine were analyzed for the presence of viral rna by nested rt-pcr. from 727 non-oryzomyine captures, five seropositive (but not viral rna positive) individuals were detected: one each of baiomys taylori, peromyscus leucopus, and reithrodontomys fulvescens; and two sigmodon hispidus. spillover hosts were not associated with macrohabitat where o. palustris abundance, density, or seroprevalence was highest. rather, spillover occurred in the macrohabitat indicative of greater overall disturbance (as indicated by grazing and exotic plant diversity) and overall biodiversity. spillover occurred during periods of high seroprevalence detected elsewhere within the study region. spillover locations differed significantly from all other capture locations in terms of percent water, shrub, and grass cover. although greater habitat and mammal diversity of old-fields may serve to reduce seroprevalence levels by tempering intraspecific contacts between rice rats, greater diversity also may create an ecologically opportunistic setting for bayv spillover. impacts of varying levels of disturbance and biodiversity on transmission dynamics represent a vastly uncharacterized component of the evolutionary ecology of hantaviruses. journal of vector ecology 34 (1): 9-21. 2009." "microhabitat characteristics of akodon montensis, a reservoir for hantavirus, and hantaviral seroprevalence in an atlantic forest site in eastern paraguay",hantavirus; akodon montensis; microhabitat; atlantic forest; paraguay,JOURNAL OF VECTOR ECOLOGY,GOODIN DG;PAIGE R;OWEN RD;GHIMIRE K;KOCH DE;CHU YK;JONSSON CB,"hantaviruses may cause serious disease when transmitted to humans by their rodent hosts. since their emergence in the americas in 1993, there have been extensive efforts to understand the role of environmental factors on the presence of these viruses in their host rodent populations. hps outbreaks have been linked to precipitation, but climatic factors alone have not been sufficient to predict the spatial-temporal dynamics of the environment-reservoir-virus system. using a series of mark-recapture sampling sites located at the mbaracayu biosphere reserve, an atlantic forest site in eastern paraguay, we investigated the hypothesis that microhabitat might also influence the prevalence of jabora hantavirus within populations of its reservoir species, akodon montensis. seven trapping sessions were conducted during 2005-2006 at four sites chosen to capture variable microhabitat conditions within the study site. analysis of microhabitat preferences showed that a. montensis preferred areas with little forest overstory and denser vegetation cover on and near the ground. moreover, there was a significant difference in the microhabitat occupied by antibody-positive vs antibody-negative rodents, indicating that microhabitats with greater overstory cover may promote transmission and maintenance of hantavirus in a. montensis. journal of vector ecology 34 (1): 104-113. 2009." "mark-recapture estimates of recruitment, survivorship and population growth rate for the screwworm fly, cochliomyia hominivorax",cochliomyia hominivorax; calliphoridae; diptera; insecta; mark; mark-recapture; pradel; screwworm,MEDICAL AND VETERINARY ENTOMOLOGY,MATLOCK RB;SKODA SR,"pradel model mark-release-recapture estimates of survivorship, phi, recruitment, f, and the rate of density-independent population growth, lambda, are presented for eight mark-recapture studies of the screwworm cochliomyia hominivorax (coquerel) (diptera: calliphoridae) from costa rica, totalling 19 573 released and 4476 recaptured flies. corroborative estimates of survivorship and the rate of population growth based on an extensive review of the literature are also reported. weighted-mean +/- standard error of the mean (sem) mark-release-recapture estimates of survivorship, recruitment and the rate of population growth were phi = 0.798 +/- 0.008, f = 0.193 +/- 0.008 :and lambda = 1.005 +/- 0.002, respectively. population doubling time was estimated from lambda at 139 days. estimates of phi and lambda from the literature both exceeded those calculated by mark-recapture methods and estimates of population doubling times were consequently shorter." -optional strategies for reduced metabolism in gray mouse lemurs,microcebus murinus; daily torpor; hibernation; body temperature,"NATURWISSENSCHAFTEN",SCHMID J;GANZHORN JU,"among the order of primates, torpor has been described only for the small malagasy cheirogaleids microcebus and cheirogaleus. the nocturnal, gray mouse lemur, microcebus murinus (approx. 60 g), is capable of entering into and spontaneously arousing from apparently daily torpor during the dry season in response to reduced temperatures and low food and water sources. mark-recapture studies indicated that this primate species might also hibernate for several weeks, although physiological evidence is lacking. in the present study, we investigated patterns of body temperature in two free-ranging m. murinus during the austral winter using temperature-sensitive data loggers implanted subdermally. one lemur hibernated and remained inactive for 4 weeks. during this time, body temperature followed the ambient temperature passively with a minimum body temperature of 11.5a degrees c, interrupted by irregular arousals to normothermic levels. under the same conditions, the second individual displayed only short bouts of torpor in the early morning hours but maintained stable normothermic body temperatures throughout its nocturnal activity. reduction of body temperature was less pronounced in the mouse lemur that utilized short bouts of torpor with a minimum value of 27a degrees c. despite the small sample size, our findings provide the first physiological confirmation that free-ranging individuals of m. murinus from the humid evergreen littoral rain forest have the option to utilize short torpor bouts or hibernation under the same conditions as two alternative energy-conserving physiological solutions to environmental constraints." -"prevalence of buruli ulcer in akonolinga health district, cameroon: results of a cross sectional survey",NA,PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES,PORTEN K;SAILOR K;COMTE E;NJIKAP A;SOBRY A;SIHOM F;MEVA'A A;EYANGOH S;MYATT M;NACKERS F;GRAIS RF,"background: buruli ulcer (bu) is a chronic, indolent necrotizing disease of the skin and underlying tissues caused by mycobacterium ulcerans, which may result in functional incapacity. in 2002, medecins sans frontieres (msf) opened a bu programme in akonolinga hospital, cameroon, offering antibiotic treatment, surgery and general medical care. six hundred patients have been treated in the project to date. however, due to the nature of the disease and its stigmatization, determining the exact prevalence and burden of disease is difficult and current estimates may not reflect the magnitude of the problem. the objectives of this survey were to estimate the prevalence of bu in the health district of akonolinga, describe the geographic extension of the highly endemic area within the health district, and determine the programme coverage and its geographical distribution. methodology/principal findings: we conducted a cross-sectional population survey using centric systematic area sampling (csas). a 15615 km grid (quadrats of 225 km(2)) was overlaid on a map of akonolinga district with its position chosen to maximize the area covered by the survey. quadrats were selected if more than 50% of the quadrat was inside of the health district. the chiefdom located closest to the centre of each quadrat was selected and buruli cases were identified using an active case finding strategy ( the sensitivity of the strategy was estimated by capture-recapture). who-case definitions were used for nodules, plaque, ulcer, oedema and sequelae. out of a total population of 103,000 inhabitants, 26,679 were surveyed within the twenty quadrats. sensitivity of the case finding strategy was estimated to be 84% (95% ci 54-97%). the overall prevalence was 0.47% (n = 105) for all cases including sequelae and 0.25% ( n = 56) for active stages of the disease. five quadrats had a high prevalence of >0.6% to 0.9%, 5 a prevalence >0.3% to 0.6% and 10 quadrats <0.3%. the quadrats with the high prevalence were situated along the rivers nyong and mfoumou. overall coverage of the project was 18% (12-27%) for all cases and 16% (9-18%) for active cases, but was limited to the quadrats neighbouring akonolinga hospital. conclusions/significance: prevalence was highest in the area neighbouring the nyong river. coverage was limited to the area close to the hospital and efforts have to be made to increase access to care in the high prevalence areas. use of the csas method was particularly useful for project planning and to identify priority areas of intervention. an added benefit of the method is that the survey procedure incorporated an awareness campaign, providing information about the disease and treatment to the population." +optional strategies for reduced metabolism in gray mouse lemurs,microcebus murinus; daily torpor; hibernation; body temperature,NATURWISSENSCHAFTEN,SCHMID J;GANZHORN JU,"among the order of primates, torpor has been described only for the small malagasy cheirogaleids microcebus and cheirogaleus. the nocturnal, gray mouse lemur, microcebus murinus (approx. 60 g), is capable of entering into and spontaneously arousing from apparently daily torpor during the dry season in response to reduced temperatures and low food and water sources. mark-recapture studies indicated that this primate species might also hibernate for several weeks, although physiological evidence is lacking. in the present study, we investigated patterns of body temperature in two free-ranging m. murinus during the austral winter using temperature-sensitive data loggers implanted subdermally. one lemur hibernated and remained inactive for 4 weeks. during this time, body temperature followed the ambient temperature passively with a minimum body temperature of 11.5a degrees c, interrupted by irregular arousals to normothermic levels. under the same conditions, the second individual displayed only short bouts of torpor in the early morning hours but maintained stable normothermic body temperatures throughout its nocturnal activity. reduction of body temperature was less pronounced in the mouse lemur that utilized short bouts of torpor with a minimum value of 27a degrees c. despite the small sample size, our findings provide the first physiological confirmation that free-ranging individuals of m. murinus from the humid evergreen littoral rain forest have the option to utilize short torpor bouts or hibernation under the same conditions as two alternative energy-conserving physiological solutions to environmental constraints." +"prevalence of buruli ulcer in akonolinga health district, cameroon: results of a cross sectional survey",NA,PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES,PORTEN K;SAILOR K;COMTE E;NJIKAP A;SOBRY A;SIHOM F;MEVA A A;EYANGOH S;MYATT M;NACKERS F;GRAIS RF,"background: buruli ulcer (bu) is a chronic, indolent necrotizing disease of the skin and underlying tissues caused by mycobacterium ulcerans, which may result in functional incapacity. in 2002, medecins sans frontieres (msf) opened a bu programme in akonolinga hospital, cameroon, offering antibiotic treatment, surgery and general medical care. six hundred patients have been treated in the project to date. however, due to the nature of the disease and its stigmatization, determining the exact prevalence and burden of disease is difficult and current estimates may not reflect the magnitude of the problem. the objectives of this survey were to estimate the prevalence of bu in the health district of akonolinga, describe the geographic extension of the highly endemic area within the health district, and determine the programme coverage and its geographical distribution. methodology/principal findings: we conducted a cross-sectional population survey using centric systematic area sampling (csas). a 15615 km grid (quadrats of 225 km(2)) was overlaid on a map of akonolinga district with its position chosen to maximize the area covered by the survey. quadrats were selected if more than 50% of the quadrat was inside of the health district. the chiefdom located closest to the centre of each quadrat was selected and buruli cases were identified using an active case finding strategy ( the sensitivity of the strategy was estimated by capture-recapture). who-case definitions were used for nodules, plaque, ulcer, oedema and sequelae. out of a total population of 103,000 inhabitants, 26,679 were surveyed within the twenty quadrats. sensitivity of the case finding strategy was estimated to be 84% (95% ci 54-97%). the overall prevalence was 0.47% (n = 105) for all cases including sequelae and 0.25% ( n = 56) for active stages of the disease. five quadrats had a high prevalence of >0.6% to 0.9%, 5 a prevalence >0.3% to 0.6% and 10 quadrats <0.3%. the quadrats with the high prevalence were situated along the rivers nyong and mfoumou. overall coverage of the project was 18% (12-27%) for all cases and 16% (9-18%) for active cases, but was limited to the quadrats neighbouring akonolinga hospital. conclusions/significance: prevalence was highest in the area neighbouring the nyong river. coverage was limited to the area close to the hospital and efforts have to be made to increase access to care in the high prevalence areas. use of the csas method was particularly useful for project planning and to identify priority areas of intervention. an added benefit of the method is that the survey procedure incorporated an awareness campaign, providing information about the disease and treatment to the population." a latent variable regression model for capture-recapture data,NA,COMPUTATIONAL STATISTICS & DATA ANALYSIS,THANDRAYEN J;WANG Y,"capture-recapture methods are used to estimate the prevalence of diseases in the field of epidemiology. the information used for estimation purposes are available from multiple lists, whereby giving rise to the problems of list dependence and heterogeneity. in this paper, modelling is focused on the heterogeneity part. we present a new binomial latent class model which takes into account both the observed and unobserved heterogeneity within capture-recapture data. we adopt the conditional likelihood approach and perform estimation via the em algorithm. we also derive the mathematical expressions for the computation of the standard error of the unknown population size. an application to data on diabetes patients in a town in northern italy is discussed. (c) 2009 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." on the question of proportionality of the count of observed scrapie cases and the size of holding,NA,BMC VETERINARY RESEARCH,BOHNING D;VILAS VJD,"background: the present paper investigates the question of a suitable basic model for the number of scrapie cases in a holding and applications of this knowledge to the estimation of scrapie-ffected holding population sizes and adequacy of control measures within holding. is the number of scrapie cases proportional to the size of the holding in which case it should be incorporated into the parameter of the error distribution for the scrapie counts? or, is there a different - potentially more complex - relationship between case count and holding size in which case the information about the size of the holding should be better incorporated as a covariate in the modeling? methods: we show that this question can be appropriately addressed via a simple zero-truncated poisson model in which the hypothesis of proportionality enters as a special offset-model. model comparisons can be achieved by means of likelihood ratio testing. the procedure is illustrated by means of surveillance data on classical scrapie in great britain. furthermore, the model with the best fit is used to estimate the size of the scrapie-affected holding population in great britain by means of two capture-recapture estimators: the poisson estimator and the generalized zelterman estimator. results: no evidence could be found for the hypothesis of proportionality. in fact, there is some evidence that this relationship follows a curved line which increases for small holdings up to a maximum after which it declines again. furthermore, it is pointed out how crucial the correct model choice is when applied to capture-recapture estimation on the basis of zero-truncated poisson models as well as on the basis of the generalized zelterman estimator. estimators based on the proportionality model return very different and unreasonable estimates for the population sizes. conclusion: our results stress the importance of an adequate modelling approach to the association between holding size and the number of cases of classical scrapie within holding. reporting artefacts and speculative biological effects are hypothesized as the underlying causes of the observed curved relationship. the lack of adjustment for these artefacts might well render ineffective the current strategies for the control of the disease." livestock-handling injuries in agriculture: an analysis of colorado workers' compensation data,occupational injury; agriculture; livestock; workers' compensation,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE,DOUPHRATE DI;ROSECRANCE JC;STALLONES L;REYNOLDS SJ;GILKEY DP,"background previous studies have reported that livestock-handling injuries are among the most severe of agricultural injuries. this study identifies the costs, characteristics, and contributing factors associated with livestock-handling injuries among colorado dairy farmers, cattle/livestock raisers, and cattle dealers. methods a 10-year (1997-2006) history of colorado's workers' compensation claims data was used for analysis. descriptive analyses of livestock-handling injury claims were performed. claim cost analysis was also conducted. the agent-host-environment epidemiological model was used to analyze injury event descriptions. results a total of 1,114 livestock-handling claims were analyzed. claims associated with milking parlor tasks represented nearly 50% of injuries among dairy workers. claims associated with riding horseback, sorting/penning cattle, and livestock-handling equipment represented high proportions of livestock-handling injuries among cattle/livestock raisers and cattle dealers. claims associated with livestock-handling represented the highest percentage of high-cost and high-severity injuries in all three sectors. conclusions livestock-handling injuries are a significant problem, more costly, and result in more time off work than other causes of agricultural injuries. there is a strong and compelling need to develop cost-effective interventions to reduce the number of livestock-handling injuries in agriculture. am. j. ind. med. 52:391-407, 2009. (c) 2009 wiley-liss, inc." @@ -4863,10 +4875,10 @@ tag loss probabilities are not independent: assessing and quantifying the assump "incidence of type 1 diabetes mellitus in children: results from the population registry of the madrid region, 1997-2005",incidence; trends; seasonality; type 1 diabetes,MEDICINA CLINICA,TORRAS BZ;REAL JLC;CASTELLANO RB;FERNANDEZ JR;OLIVER JA;VERGAZ A,"background and objective: incidence of type 1 diabetes mellitus (dm) varies importantly worldwide, including european countries, and even among regions within a country. the aim of this study is to describe the incidence of type 1 dm in the madrid region. material and method: we included 1130 new cases of type i dm in children below 15 years of age, which were notified to the diabetes registry from january, 1997 to december, 2005. case ascertainment was evaluated through the capture-recapture method. the data was analysed using poisson regression models. results: the incidence rate in this period was 15.9/100,000 persons-years (95% confidence interval, 15.0-16.8). completeness of ascertainment was 82%. the incidence by age group was 12.1 (0-4 years), 18.2 (5-9 years) and 17.4 by 100,000 persons-years (10-14 years). the incidence data showed no significant changes in the studied period. we observed a seasonal variation in the incidence, with the greatest incidence in the cold months. conclusions: the estimated incidence of type i dm ranks in an intermediate position with regard to that estimated more recently in other spanish regions. during the period 1997-2005, the incidence has maintained stable in the madrid region. (c) 2008 elsevier espana, s.l. all rights reserved." sex ratios and survival probabilities of brown-headed cowbirds (molothrus ater) in southwest colorado,brown-headed cowbird; colorado; demography; mark-recapture; molothrus ater; sex ratio; survival probability,AUK,ORTEGA JC;ORTEGA CP,"we live-trapped and banded brown-headed cowbirds (molothrus ater; n = 1,722 individuals) to evaluate sex ratios and survival probabilities during the breeding season at the san juan basin research center, la plata county, colorado, from 1992 to 1999. for adult brown-headed cowbirds, sex ratios varied significantly among years, and sex ratios were always male-biased within a year. in hatch-year (hy) cowbirds, and within years, sex ratios were similarly male-biased, but there was no difference among years in hy sex ratios. using the program mark, for adult females, second-year (sy) males, and after-second-year (asy) males, the most parsimonious model, phi((g*a2-t/.))p((t)) suggested that some variation occurred among these groups in individual survival probability (phi) to the next year after the initial year of capture and in all following years. however, this model indicated no differences among these groups to best describe the probability of recapturing an individual (p). for hy individuals, analyses in mark indicated that the most parsimonious model, phi((a2-./.))p((t)) did not include any differences in survival probability between the sexes, and survival probability was constant for the cohorts and periods examined. we also found some evidence that the residency status of adult brown-headed cowbirds potentially affected their frequency of recapture in the following year. in adults, the male-biased sex ratios that we observed were very likely the result of decreased survival probability of adult females compared with both sy and asy males. additionally, the male-biased sex ratios of adults may have already begun to develop in hy individuals. received 6 september 2007 accepted 15 october 2008." differential migration between discrete populations of juvenile red-tailed hawks (buteo jamaicensis),banding; buteo jamaicensis; hawk-watch counts; microsatellite; migration; red-tailed hawk,AUK,HULL JM;ERNEST HB;HARLEY JA;FISH AM;HULL AC,"migratory species are of increased conservation concern because of their reliance on multiple, geographically disjunct habitats. all understanding of how long-term ecological processes and contemporary population genetic patterns are related is critical for effective management and conservation of such species. combining traditional long-term census and mark-recapture data with temporally focused molecular genetic data call help inform these efforts. we used 24 years of banding data, 15 years of migration counts, and molecular genetic data from 17 microsatellite loci to describe the migration phenology, direction, and population connectivity of red-tailed hawks (buteo jamaicensis) migrating through the marin peninsula, california. count data indicated two distinct peak periods of movement across years: 15 august-30 september and 1 october-30 november. band-encounter data from these two periods revealed a significant difference ill movement: individuals it) the early period of migration (15 august-30 september) displayed little net movement, whereas individuals from the second period (1 october-30 november) showed directional, southward suggest that the early-season period primarily involves a population from central california, movement. finally, molecular genetic data sup whereas the second period includes both individuals from central california and individuals from desert regions of the intermountain west. these analyses provide important information for interpreting long-term red-tailed hawk count and banding data and offer an example of how traditional population-monitoring; methods call be combined with molecular genetic markers. received 2 july 2008, accepted 2.3 december 2008." -"detecting declines in the abundance of a bull trout (salvelinus confluentus) population: understanding the accuracy, precision, and costs of our efforts",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,AL-CHOKHACHY R;BUDY P;CONNER M,"using empirical field data for bull trout (salvelinus confluentus), we evaluated the trade-off between power and sampling effort-cost using monte carlo simulations of commonly collected mark-recapture-resight and count data, and we estimated the power to detect changes in abundance across different time intervals. we also evaluated the effects of monitoring different components of a population and stratification methods on the precision of each method. our results illustrate substantial variability in the relative precision, cost, and information gained from each approach. while grouping estimates by age or stage class substantially increased the precision of estimates, spatial stratification of sampling units resulted in limited increases in precision. although mark-resight methods allowed for estimates of abundance versus indices of abundance, our results suggest snorkel surveys may be a more affordable monitoring approach across large spatial scales. detecting a 25% decline in abundance after 5 years was not possible, regardless of technique (power = 0.80), without high sampling effort (48% of study site). detecting a 25% decline was possible after 15 years, but still required high sampling efforts. our results suggest detecting moderate changes in abundance of freshwater salmonids requires considerable resource and temporal commitments and highlight the difficulties of using abundance measures for monitoring bull trout populations." +"detecting declines in the abundance of a bull trout (salvelinus confluentus) population: understanding the accuracy, precision, and costs of our efforts",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,AL CHOKHACHY R;BUDY P;CONNER M,"using empirical field data for bull trout (salvelinus confluentus), we evaluated the trade-off between power and sampling effort-cost using monte carlo simulations of commonly collected mark-recapture-resight and count data, and we estimated the power to detect changes in abundance across different time intervals. we also evaluated the effects of monitoring different components of a population and stratification methods on the precision of each method. our results illustrate substantial variability in the relative precision, cost, and information gained from each approach. while grouping estimates by age or stage class substantially increased the precision of estimates, spatial stratification of sampling units resulted in limited increases in precision. although mark-resight methods allowed for estimates of abundance versus indices of abundance, our results suggest snorkel surveys may be a more affordable monitoring approach across large spatial scales. detecting a 25% decline in abundance after 5 years was not possible, regardless of technique (power = 0.80), without high sampling effort (48% of study site). detecting a 25% decline was possible after 15 years, but still required high sampling efforts. our results suggest detecting moderate changes in abundance of freshwater salmonids requires considerable resource and temporal commitments and highlight the difficulties of using abundance measures for monitoring bull trout populations." using nitrogen stable isotopes to detect long-distance movement in a threatened cutthroat trout (oncorhynchus clarkii utah),NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,SEPULVEDA AJ;COLYER WT;LOWE WH;VINSON MR,"interior cutthroat trout occupy small fractions of their historic ranges and existing populations often are relegated to headwater habitats. conservation requires balancing protection for isolated genetically pure populations with restoration of migratory life histories by reconnecting corridors between headwater and mainstem habitats. identification of alternative life history strategies within a population is critical to these efforts. we tested the application of nitrogen stable isotopes to discern fluvial from resident bonneville cutthroat trout (bct; oncorhynchus clarkii utah) in a headwater stream. fluvial bct migrate from headwater streams with good water quality to mainstem habitats with impaired water quality. resident bct remain in headwater streams. we tested two predictions: (i) fluvial bct have a higher delta n-15 than residents, and (ii) fluvial bct delta n-15 reflects diet and delta n-15 enrichment characteristics of mainstem habitats. we found that fluvial delta n-15 was greater than resident delta n-15 and that delta n-15 was a better predictor of life history than fish size. our data also showed that fluvial and resident bct had high diet overlap in headwater sites and that delta n-15 of lower trophic levels was greater in mainstem sites than in headwater sites. we conclude that the high delta n-15 values of fluvial bct were acquired in mainstem sites." evaluating existing movement hypotheses in linear systems using larval stream salamanders,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY,CECALA KK;PRICE SJ;DORCAS ME,"because of their linear nature, streams provide a restrictive framework to understand the movement ecology of many animals. stream movements have been characterized under two competing hypotheses. the colonization hypothesis dictates that small individuals experience passive drift, but concurrent, upstream movement by larger individuals replaces the loss of small individuals. alternatively, the production hypothesis suggests that downstream movements are a consequence of limited resource availability. previous research suggests that large larvae should move upstream and vice versa for small larvae, which should therefore be found downstream more often. we conducted a mark-recapture study of larval red salamanders (pseudotriton ruber (sonnini de manoncourt and latreille, 1801)) to assess the validity of these hypotheses. we found that no larvae exhibited downstream movement (skew = 0.361, p = 0.019; biased upstream), and large larvae were the only size cohort to exhibit directional movement upstream (skew = 0.901, p = 0.035). contrary to predictions under the colonization hypothesis, small larvae were found upstream more frequently than large larvae (n = 871, h = 16.29, df = 2, p < 0.001). our results suggest that larval movements are related to abiotic stream conditions, and we conclude that neither hypothesis fully explains stream movement. in the absence of drift, new movement hypotheses are necessary to describe persistent upstream movement in streams. these hypotheses should consider individual causes of movement and the direction of movements that will improve the fitness of the organism." -"upper respiratory tract disease, force of infection, and effects on survival of gopher tortoises","apparent survival; florida, usa; force of infection; gopher tortoise; gopherus polyphemus; multistate mark-recapture models; mycoplasma agassizii; pathogen transmission; upper respiratory tract disease (urtd); wildlife diseases",ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,OZGUL A;OLI MK;BOLKER BM;PEREZ-HEYDRICH C,"upper respiratory tract disease (urtd) caused by mycoplasma agassizii has been hypothesized to contribute to the decline of some wild populations of gopher tortoises (gopherus polyphemus). however, the force of infection (foi) and the effect of urtd on survival in free-ranging tortoise populations remain unknown. using four years (2003-2006) of mark-recapture and epidemiological data collected from 10 populations of gopher tortoises in central florida, usa, we estimated the foi (probability per year of a susceptible tortoise becoming infected) and the effect of urtd (i.e., seropositivity to m. agassizii) on apparent survival rates. sites with high (>= 25%) seroprevalence had substantially higher foi (0.22 +/- 0.03; mean +/- se) than low (<25%) seroprevalence sites (0.04 +/- 0.01). our results provide the first quantitative evidence that the rate of transmission of m. agassizii is directly related to the seroprevalence of the population. seropositive tortoises had higher apparent survival (0.99 +/- 0.0001) than seronegatives (0.88 +/- 0.03), possibly because seropositive tortoises represent individuals that survived the initial infection, developed chronic disease, and experienced lower mortality during the four-year span of our study. however, two lines of evidence suggested possible effects of mycoplasmal urtd on tortoise survival. first, one plausible model suggested that susceptible (seronegative) tortoises in high seroprevalence sites had lower apparent survival rates than did susceptible tortoises in low seroprevalence sites, indicating a possible acute effect of infection. second, the number of dead tortoise remains detected during annual site surveys increased significantly with increasing site seroprevalence, from; 1 to; 5 shell remains per 100 individuals. if (as our results suggest) urtd in fact reduces adult survival, it could adversely influence the population dynamics and persistence of this late-maturing, long-lived species." +"upper respiratory tract disease, force of infection, and effects on survival of gopher tortoises","apparent survival; florida, usa; force of infection; gopher tortoise; gopherus polyphemus; multistate mark-recapture models; mycoplasma agassizii; pathogen transmission; upper respiratory tract disease (urtd); wildlife diseases",ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,OZGUL A;OLI MK;BOLKER BM;PEREZ HEYDRICH C,"upper respiratory tract disease (urtd) caused by mycoplasma agassizii has been hypothesized to contribute to the decline of some wild populations of gopher tortoises (gopherus polyphemus). however, the force of infection (foi) and the effect of urtd on survival in free-ranging tortoise populations remain unknown. using four years (2003-2006) of mark-recapture and epidemiological data collected from 10 populations of gopher tortoises in central florida, usa, we estimated the foi (probability per year of a susceptible tortoise becoming infected) and the effect of urtd (i.e., seropositivity to m. agassizii) on apparent survival rates. sites with high (>= 25%) seroprevalence had substantially higher foi (0.22 +/- 0.03; mean +/- se) than low (<25%) seroprevalence sites (0.04 +/- 0.01). our results provide the first quantitative evidence that the rate of transmission of m. agassizii is directly related to the seroprevalence of the population. seropositive tortoises had higher apparent survival (0.99 +/- 0.0001) than seronegatives (0.88 +/- 0.03), possibly because seropositive tortoises represent individuals that survived the initial infection, developed chronic disease, and experienced lower mortality during the four-year span of our study. however, two lines of evidence suggested possible effects of mycoplasmal urtd on tortoise survival. first, one plausible model suggested that susceptible (seronegative) tortoises in high seroprevalence sites had lower apparent survival rates than did susceptible tortoises in low seroprevalence sites, indicating a possible acute effect of infection. second, the number of dead tortoise remains detected during annual site surveys increased significantly with increasing site seroprevalence, from; 1 to; 5 shell remains per 100 individuals. if (as our results suggest) urtd in fact reduces adult survival, it could adversely influence the population dynamics and persistence of this late-maturing, long-lived species." an evaluation of density-dependent and density-independent influences on population growth rates in weddell seals,antarctica; climate; density dependence; leptonychotes weddellii; population dynamics; population growth rate; weddell seal,ECOLOGY,ROTELLA JJ;LINK WA;NICHOLS JD;HADLEY GL;GARROTT RA;PROFFITT KM,"much of the existing literature that evaluates the roles of density-dependent and density-independent factors on population dynamics has been called into question in recent years because measurement errors were not properly dealt with in analyses. using state-space models to account for measurement errors, we evaluated a set of competing models for a 22-year time series of mark-resight estimates of abundance for a breeding population of female weddell seals (leptonychotes weddellii) studied in erebus bay, antarctica. we tested for evidence of direct density dependence in growth rates and evaluated whether equilibrium population size was related to seasonal sea-ice extent and the southern oscillation index (soi). we found strong evidence of negative density dependence in annual growth rates for a population whose estimated size ranged from 438 to 623 females during the study. based on bayes factors, a density-dependence-only model was favored over models that also included environmental covariates. according to the favored model, the population had a stationary distribution with a mean of 497 females (sd = 60.5), an expected growth rate of 1.10 (95% credible interval 1.08-1.15) when population size was 441 females, and a rate of 0.90 (95% credible interval 0.87-0.93) for a population of 553 females. a model including effects of soi did receive some support and indicated a positive relationship between soi and population size. however, effects of soi were not large, and including the effect did not greatly reduce our estimate of process variation. we speculate that direct density dependence occurred because rates of adult survival, breeding, and temporary emigration were affected by limitations on per capita food resources and space for parturition and pup-rearing. to improve understanding of the relative roles of various demographic components and their associated vital rates to population growth rate, mark-recapture methods can be applied that incorporate both environmental covariates and the seal abundance estimates that were developed here. an improved understanding of why vital rates change with changing population abundance will only come as we develop a better understanding of the processes affecting marine food resources in the southern ocean." hierarchical models for estimating density from dna mark-recapture studies,"abundance; adirondacks, new york, usa; bayesian analysis; bears; dna sampling; hair-snare trapping; hierarchical model; spatial capture-recapture; ursus americanus",ECOLOGY,GARDNER B;ROYLE JA;WEGAN MT,"genetic sampling is increasingly used as a tool by wildlife biologists and managers to estimate abundance and density of species. typically, dna is used to identify individuals captured in an array of traps ( e. g., baited hair snares) from which individual encounter histories are derived. standard methods for estimating the size of a closed population can be applied to such data. however, due to the movement of individuals on and off the trapping array during sampling, the area over which individuals are exposed to trapping is unknown, and so obtaining unbiased estimates of density has proved difficult. we propose a hierarchical spatial capture-recapture model which contains explicit models for the spatial point process governing the distribution of individuals and their exposure to ( via movement) and detection by traps. detection probability is modeled as a function of each individual's distance to the trap. we applied this model to a black bear ( ursus americanus) study conducted in 2006 using a hair-snare trap array in the adirondack region of new york, usa. we estimated the density of bears to be 0.159 bears/km(2), which is lower than the estimated density (0.410 bears/km(2)) based on standard closed population techniques. a bayesian analysis of the model is fully implemented in the software program winbugs." "diagnoses of, and deaths from, severe liver disease due to hepatitis c in england between 2000 and 2005 estimated using multiple data sources",england; hepatitis c; hepatocellular carcinoma; liver cirrhosis,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,MANN AG;RAMSAY ME;BRANT LJ;BALOGUN MA;COSTELLA A;HARRIS HE;SCHEME HSS,"matching individuals reported to a sentinel surveillance scheme for hepatitis c between 2000 and 2005 to individuals with a hospital episode for hepatitis c-related liver disease in the same hospitals, we estimated that the number of cases of hepatitis c-related end-stage liver disease in these english hospitals was 42% (597/419) higher than hospital episode statistics (hes) would indicate. further, matching records of hepatitis c-related deaths in hes to death certificates, we estimated that, between 2000 and 2005, the true number of deaths from hepatitis c-related end-stage liver disease was between 185% (353/124) and 257% (378/106) higher than the number recorded in routine mortality statistics. we provide estimates of under-recording that can be used to modify existing models of disease burden due to hepatitis c and provide a simple approach to improve the monitoring of trends in severe hepatitis c-related morbidity over time." @@ -4877,38 +4889,39 @@ evaluating methods for counting cryptic carnivores,camera-trapping; density esti "age-specific effect of heterozygosity on survival in alpine marmots, marmota marmota",capture-mark-recapture; inbreeding; mammal; microsatellite; over-dominance,MOLECULAR ECOLOGY,COHAS A;BONENFANT C;KEMPENAERS B;ALLAINE D,"the fitness consequences of heterozygosity and the mechanisms underpinning them are still highly controversial. using capture-mark-recapture models, we investigated the effects of individual heterozygosity, measured at 16 microsatellite markers, on age-dependent survival and access to dominance in a socially monogamous mammalian species, the alpine marmot. we found a positive correlation between standardized multilocus heterozygosity and juvenile survival. however, there was no correlation between standardized multilocus heterozygosity and either survival of older individuals or access to dominance. the disappearance of a significant heterozygosity fitness correlation when individuals older than juveniles are considered is consistent with the prediction that differences in survival among individuals are maximal early in life. the lack of a correlation between heterozygosity and access to dominance may be a consequence of few homozygous individuals attaining the age at which they might reach dominance. two hypotheses have been proposed to explain heterozygosity-fitness correlations: genome-wide effects reflected by all markers or local effects of specific markers linked to genes that determine fitness. in accordance with genome-wide effects of heterozygosity, we found significant correlations between heterozygosities calculated across single locus or across two sets of eight loci. thus, the genome-wide heterozygosity effect seems to explain the observed heterozygosity-fitness correlation in the alpine marmot." capture efficiency and size selectivity of channel catfish and blue catfish sampling gears,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,BUCKMEIER DL;SCHLECHTE JW,"we used proportional recapture data from mark recapture experiments to directly estimate capture efficiency (percentage of fish captured per standard level of effort) and size selectivity (for 50-mm size-groups) of catfish sampling gears. hoop-net series were evaluated for collecting channel catfish ictalurus punctatus, and low-frequency, pulsed dc electrofishing was evaluated for collecting blue catfish i. furcatus. to examine spatial and temporal variability, capture efficiency and size selectivity were estimated in river and reservoir habitats during june, july, and september 2005. selectivity of experimental gill nets was also assessed. capture efficiency of hoop nets for channel catfish was consistent across months and between river and reservoir habitats (2.7-14.3% per 12 hoop-net series). capture efficiency of low-frequency electrofishing was low (frequently, <= 1% per 120 min) and variable; recapture rates were greatest in river habitat during july and september. hoop-net series collected representative samples of channel catfish between 250 and 556 min total length. likewise, blue catfish between 250 and 855 mm were fully vulnerable to low-frequency electrofishing. although fish smaller than 250 min were captured, they were frequently underrepresented in the catch of both gears. size selectivity was not affected by habitat or month sampled for either gear type or either species. capture efficiency of experimental gill nets was very low for both channel catfish and blue catfish (about 0.2% in 46 gill-net nights), and gill nets were more size selective than other gears. based oil our findings, hoop-net series and low-frequency electrofishing provide accurate size structure data for adult channel catfish and blue catfish, respectively, from both river and reservoir habitat types. hoop-net series also provide consistent estimates of channel catfish relative abundance; however. relative abundance data for blue catfish collected with low-frequency electrofishing should be used with caution due to observed variability in capture efficiency." survival of female common eiders somateria m. mollissima in a declining population of the northern baltic sea,adult female apparent survival; mark-recapture; north atlantic oscillation; common eider; baltic sea,OECOLOGIA,HARIO M;MAZEROLLE MJ;SAUROLA P,"in long-lived species, adult survival is the population parameter having the highest elasticity, and therefore, it can be expected to be least affected by climatic variations. we studied the dynamics and survival of breeding female common eiders somateria mollissima mollissima in the baltic sea from 1960 to 2007. using nest censuses and capture-recapture methods, we investigated: (1) the annual apparent survival (phi) of breeding females, (2) the survival-mediated population fluctuation, (3) weather effects on survival, and (4) long-term population trends. based on capture histories of 6,393 females, average phi was 0.882 (95% confidence interval 0.864, 0.899). we found no relationship between population growth rate and survival. furthermore, the highest ranking models, based on akaike's information criterion, indicated no effect of the north atlantic oscillation index on the phi of eider females. population size, assessed from nest counts, has been steadily declining since 1985. despite the long time series (48 years), the overall variation in the phi rates remained comparatively narrow, at maximum ranging only 10% between 2 consecutive years. results imply that declining female survival is not the driving force behind the population decline, and we hypothesize that the overall poor fledging success and the consequent low recruitment explain the decreasing trend of nest densities since 1985." -survival in a long-lived territorial migrant: effects of life-history traits and ecological conditions in wintering and breeding areas,NA,OIKOS,GRANDE JM;SERRANO D;TAVECCHIA G;CARRETE M;CEBALLOS O;DIAZ-DELGADO R;TELLA JL;DONAZAR JA,"despite its key role in population dynamics and evolutionary ecology, little is known about factors shaping survival in long-lived territorial species. here, we assessed several hypotheses that might explain variability in survival in a migratory spanish population of a long-lived territorial species, the egyptian vulture neophron percnopterus, using a 16-year monitoring period and live-encounter histories of 835 individually marked birds. cormack-jolly-seber capture-recapture models showed no evidence for effects of sex or nestling body condition on survival. however, the normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi; an indicator of primary productivity) of natal territories had positive effects on juvenile survival, indicating that environmental conditions experienced early in life can determine survival prospects. survival increased with age (0.73 +/- 0.02 in the first 2 years to 0.78 +/- 0.03 in years 3 and 4) to later decrease when birds were five years old (0.60 +/- 0.05), the age at which they acquire the adult plumage, abandon the communal lifestyle of juveniles, and may look for a breeding territory. at older ages, survival was higher for non-breeding (0.75 +/- 0.02) and breeding adults (0.83 +/- 0.02). among the latter, birds that recruited into better territories had higher survival prospects. age-specific variation in survival in this species may be related to behavioural changes linked to dispersal and recruitment into the breeding population, while survival prospects of adult birds strongly depend on breeding territory selection. these results suggest a tradeoff between recruiting soon, and thus reducing mortality costs of a long and extensive dispersal period, and trying to recruit into a good quality territory. finally, annual survival rates for birds of all age classes were positively related with the ndvi in their african wintering grounds. although this relationship was probably mediated by food availability, further research is needed to properly identify the limiting factors that are affecting trans-saharan migrants, especially in light of global climate change." +survival in a long-lived territorial migrant: effects of life-history traits and ecological conditions in wintering and breeding areas,NA,OIKOS,GRANDE JM;SERRANO D;TAVECCHIA G;CARRETE M;CEBALLOS O;DIAZ DELGADO R;TELLA JL;DONAZAR JA,"despite its key role in population dynamics and evolutionary ecology, little is known about factors shaping survival in long-lived territorial species. here, we assessed several hypotheses that might explain variability in survival in a migratory spanish population of a long-lived territorial species, the egyptian vulture neophron percnopterus, using a 16-year monitoring period and live-encounter histories of 835 individually marked birds. cormack-jolly-seber capture-recapture models showed no evidence for effects of sex or nestling body condition on survival. however, the normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi; an indicator of primary productivity) of natal territories had positive effects on juvenile survival, indicating that environmental conditions experienced early in life can determine survival prospects. survival increased with age (0.73 +/- 0.02 in the first 2 years to 0.78 +/- 0.03 in years 3 and 4) to later decrease when birds were five years old (0.60 +/- 0.05), the age at which they acquire the adult plumage, abandon the communal lifestyle of juveniles, and may look for a breeding territory. at older ages, survival was higher for non-breeding (0.75 +/- 0.02) and breeding adults (0.83 +/- 0.02). among the latter, birds that recruited into better territories had higher survival prospects. age-specific variation in survival in this species may be related to behavioural changes linked to dispersal and recruitment into the breeding population, while survival prospects of adult birds strongly depend on breeding territory selection. these results suggest a tradeoff between recruiting soon, and thus reducing mortality costs of a long and extensive dispersal period, and trying to recruit into a good quality territory. finally, annual survival rates for birds of all age classes were positively related with the ndvi in their african wintering grounds. although this relationship was probably mediated by food availability, further research is needed to properly identify the limiting factors that are affecting trans-saharan migrants, especially in light of global climate change." "distribution, density, and biomass of introduced small mammals in the southern mariana islands",NA,PACIFIC SCIENCE,WIEWEL AS;ADAMS AAY;RODDA GH,"although it is generally accepted that introduced small mammals have detrimental effects on island ecology, our understanding of these effects is frequently limited by incomplete knowledge of small mammal distribution, density, and biomass. such information is especially critical in the mariana islands, where small mammal density is inversely related to effectiveness of brown tree snake (boiga irregularis) control tools, such as mouse-attractant traps. we used mark-recapture sampling to determine introduced small mammal distribution, density, and biomass in the major habitats of guam, rota, saipan, and tinian, including grassland, leucaena forest, and native limestone forest. of the five species captured, rattus diardii (sensu robins et al. 2007) was most common across habitats and islands. in contrast, mus musculus was rarely captured at forested sites, suncus murinus was not captured on rota, and r. exulans and r. norvegicus captures were uncommon. modeling indicated that neophobia, island, sex, reproductive status, and rain amount influenced r. diardii capture probability, whereas time, island, and capture heterogeneity influenced s. murinus and m. musculus capture probability. density and biomass were much greater on rota, saipan, and tinian than on guam, most likely a result of brown tree snake predation pressure on the latter island. rattus diardii and m. musculus density and biomass were greatest in grassland, whereas s. murinus density and biomass were greatest in leucaena forest. the high densities documented during this research suggest that introduced small mammals (especially r. diardii) are impacting abundance and diversity, of the native fauna and flora of the mariana islands. further, brown tree snake control and management tools that rely on mouse attractants will be less effective on rota, saipan, and tinian than on guam. if the brown tree snake becomes established on these islands, high-density introduced small mammal populations will likely facilitate and support a high-density brown tree snake population, even as native species are reduced or extirpated." evidence of a possible decline since 1989 in false killer whales (pseudorca crassidens) around the main hawaiian islands,NA,PACIFIC SCIENCE,REEVES RR;LEATHERWOOD S;BAIRD RW,"recent evidence indicates that there is a small, demographically isolated, island-associated population of false killer whales (pseudorca crassidens) around the main hawaiian islands. although it is known that false killer whales in hawai'i are sometimes killed or seriously injured in the hawai'i-based long-line fishery, it is not known whether such interactions have resulted in a reduction in population size or whether other factors have been negatively influencing population size. we report the results of an aerial survey in june and july 1989, the purpose of which was to obtain a minimum count of the number of false killer whales around the main hawaiian islands. the false killer whale was the third most commonly seen species of odontocete off the island of hawai'i during the survey, representing 17% of sightings. groups of more than 300 individuals were seen on three different days, with minimum counts of 380, 460, and 470 individuals in these groups. the encounter rate, relative species ranking, and average group size from die 1989 survey were all substantially greater than those from more recent aerial and ship-based surveys. the largest group observed in 1989 (470) contained almost four times as many whales as estimated for the entire main hawaiian islands from recent aerial surveys (121 individuals, cv = 0.47) or mark-recapture analyses (123 individuals, cv = 0.72). therefore, the population of false killer whales around the main hawaiian islands may have declined substantially since 1989. the cause or causes of such a decline are uncertain." estimating number of families for an urban fox population by using two public data sets,double-observation method; government data; road kill; vulpes vulpes,POPULATION ECOLOGY,URAGUCHI K;YAMAMURA K;SAITOH T,"the number of families in the urban fox population of sapporo, japan, was estimated from two sets of data reported by the public to government: records of road-killed foxes (information-a) and records of complaints about foxes (information-b). we assumed that fox populations consist of families that have exclusive home ranges, i.e., territories, during the period between gestation and dispersal. the urban area was then divided into hexagons that correspond to the territories. the locations from the two sets of records during the territorial period were plotted on the map. the number of fox families for which information-a and/or b was reported was estimated by counting the number of hexagons that include the record. the total number of families was estimated by using a double-observation method. we adopted chapman's unbiased estimator which is based on the hypergeometric distribution that corresponds to the conditional likelihood. we demonstrated the possibility of estimating the abundance of animals from government data such as road kill and complaints if the animals have territories." drug related deaths in france. a critical view,overdoses; under-reporting; france,REVUE D EPIDEMIOLOGIE ET DE SANTE PUBLIQUE,JANSSEN E,"background. - available data suggest a reduction in the number of overdoses due to psychoactive substances (tobacco and alcohol excluded) in france. nevertheless, official levels remain considerably low compared to other european countries, and strong differences between the different sources providing information support the hypothesis of under-reporting. methods. - two cross-tabulations of the main sources of information (police data and national mortality registry on one hand; police data and on another hand) allow the use of easy-to-compute, capture-recapture based indicators to estimate the invisible population (i.e. hidden overdoses). results. - results support a significant under-reporting of overdoses, reaching a minimum level of 30%. conclusion. - unlike official claims, there has been a rise in overdoses in france during the last decade. besides the applied corrections, levels of overdoses still remain low. attention should be paid to death certification. other issues of interest are the lack of a common definition and the need for greater institutional coordination. (c) 2009 elsevier masson sas. all rights reserved." estimating brown hyaena occupancy using baited camera traps,africa; camera; carnivore; detection probability; hyaena; lure; occupancy,SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH,THORN M;SCOTT DM;GREEN M;BATEMAN PW;CAMERON EZ,"conservation and management of brown hyaenas (hyaena brunnea) is hampered by a lack of information on abundance and distribution, which is difficult and labour-intensive to obtain. however, occupancy surveys offer a potentially efficient and robust means of assessing brown hyaena populations. we evaluate the efficacy of camera trapping for estimating brown hyaena occupancy, and the effect of environmental variables and lures on detection probability. we estimated population density in pilanesberg national park, south africa, at 2.8/100 km(2), occupancy at 1.0 and model-averaged detection probability at 0.1. using a fish lure increased detection probability to 0.2 and significantly increased encounter rates. we also found that brown hyaenas are more likely to be detected in areas of scrub or woodland rather than grassland. our results suggest that 13 camera sites would be needed to achieve an occupancy estimate with s.e. of 0.05, and a minimum of 16-34 sampling occasions (with and without the fish lure) should be used in comparable study areas. we conclude that camera trapping is a viable method of estimating brown hyaena occupancy at local and landscape scales and capture-recapture analysis is also possible at a local scale." -acute cerebellar ataxia in the netherlands: a study on the association with vaccinations and varicella zoster infection,ataxia; vaccination; varicella,VACCINE,VAN DER MAAS NAT;VERMEER-DE BONDT PE;DE MELKER H;KEMMEREN JM,"aim: acute cerebellar ataxia (aca, sudden onset of truncal ataxia and gait disturbances) usually follows a benign illness (25% varicella). it is also described after vaccination, like mmr and varicella zoster virus (vzv). we will establish incidence rates of (varicella related) aca and assess the attributable risk of vaccination to aca in the netherlands. method: data on aca in children, following infections, like varicella, and vaccinations, obtained from prospective, active pediatric surveillance and passive surveillance on adverse events following immunizations (aefi) were compared with hospitalization data for ataxia. capture-recapture (crc) method was used to estimate the burden of aca in the netherlands. results: 45 children with aca were included (44 and 1 reported by pediatric and aef1 surveillance respectively, 30 were hospitalized). chickenpox preceded aca in 15 cases, one case followed mmr. of the hospitalization reports, 13 fulfilled the criteria for aca. using crc the estimated number of hospitalized aca cases was 42. for varicella related aca, this estimate was 10, resulting in an incidence rate of 0.7:100,000 (95%ci 0.52-0.94, all cases) and 0.17:100,000 (95%ci 0.09-0.31, varicella related cases) for children under 15 years of age. conclusion: the incidence rates were comparable with other studies. we found no association with mmr, but chickenpox was clearly related to aca. according to age-specific seroprevalence data the incidence rate of aca was 5: 100,000 vzv infections for children up to 5 years, compared to an aca-reporting rate of 0.15:100,000 doses vzv-vaccine. therefore, uptake of vzv-vaccine in the immunization programme will diminish the incidence rate of aca. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +acute cerebellar ataxia in the netherlands: a study on the association with vaccinations and varicella zoster infection,ataxia; vaccination; varicella,VACCINE,VAN DER MAAS NAT;VERMEER DE BONDT PE;DE MELKER H;KEMMEREN JM,"aim: acute cerebellar ataxia (aca, sudden onset of truncal ataxia and gait disturbances) usually follows a benign illness (25% varicella). it is also described after vaccination, like mmr and varicella zoster virus (vzv). we will establish incidence rates of (varicella related) aca and assess the attributable risk of vaccination to aca in the netherlands. method: data on aca in children, following infections, like varicella, and vaccinations, obtained from prospective, active pediatric surveillance and passive surveillance on adverse events following immunizations (aefi) were compared with hospitalization data for ataxia. capture-recapture (crc) method was used to estimate the burden of aca in the netherlands. results: 45 children with aca were included (44 and 1 reported by pediatric and aef1 surveillance respectively, 30 were hospitalized). chickenpox preceded aca in 15 cases, one case followed mmr. of the hospitalization reports, 13 fulfilled the criteria for aca. using crc the estimated number of hospitalized aca cases was 42. for varicella related aca, this estimate was 10, resulting in an incidence rate of 0.7:100,000 (95%ci 0.52-0.94, all cases) and 0.17:100,000 (95%ci 0.09-0.31, varicella related cases) for children under 15 years of age. conclusion: the incidence rates were comparable with other studies. we found no association with mmr, but chickenpox was clearly related to aca. according to age-specific seroprevalence data the incidence rate of aca was 5: 100,000 vzv infections for children up to 5 years, compared to an aca-reporting rate of 0.15:100,000 doses vzv-vaccine. therefore, uptake of vzv-vaccine in the immunization programme will diminish the incidence rate of aca. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." structurally missing data problems in multiple list capture-recapture data,capture-recapture; covariate; missing data,ASTA-ADVANCES IN STATISTICAL ANALYSIS,HEIJDEN P;ZWANE E;HESSEN D,"multiple-list capture-recapture data can be used to estimate the size of a population. in this manuscript two problems are studied and solved using a common solution. the first problem is that the lists refer to different but overlapping populations. an example is that lists refer to different but overlapping regions, different but overlapping periods in time, or different but overlapping age groups. the second problem is that each list has a set of covariates and the sets of covariates are not identical. by considering both problems as missing data problems, a solution is obtained through the em algorithm. this approach is illustrated by two examples." estimators in capture-recapture studies with two sources,estimators of chapman; chao; lincoln-petersen; mckendrick; zelterman; covariate adjustment; variance estimators,ASTA-ADVANCES IN STATISTICAL ANALYSIS,BRITTAIN S;BOHNING D,"this paper investigates the applications of capture-recapture methods to human populations. capture-recapture methods are commonly used in estimating the size of wildlife populations but can also be used in epidemiology and social sciences, for estimating prevalence of a particular disease or the size of the homeless population in a certain area. here we focus on estimating the prevalence of infectious diseases. several estimators of population size are considered: the lincoln-petersen estimator and its modified version, the chapman estimator, chao's lower bound estimator, the zelterman's estimator, mckendrick's moment estimator and the maximum likelihood estimator. in order to evaluate these estimators, they are applied to real, three-source, capture-recapture data. by conditioning on each of the sources of three source data, we have been able to compare the estimators with the true value that they are estimating. the chapman and chao estimators were compared in terms of their relative bias. a variance formula derived through conditioning is suggested for chao's estimator, and normal 95% confidence intervals are calculated for this and the chapman estimator. we then compare the coverage of the respective confidence intervals. furthermore, a simulation study is included to compare chao's and chapman's estimator. results indicate that chao's estimator is less biased than chapman's estimator unless both sources are independent. chao's estimator has also the smaller mean squared error. finally, the implications and limitations of the above methods are discussed, with suggestions for further development." -integrated methodology for multiple systems estimation and record linkage using a missing data formulation,capture-recapture; heterogeneity; data fusion; em algorithm; fellegi-sunter linkage; missing data,ASTA-ADVANCES IN STATISTICAL ANALYSIS,FIENBERG SE;MANRIQUE-VALLIER D,"there are now three essentially separate literatures on the topics of multiple systems estimation, record linkage, and missing data. but in practice the three are intimately intertwined. for example, record linkage involving multiple data sources for human populations is often carried out with the expressed goal of developing a merged database for multiple system estimation (mse). similarly, one way to view both the record linkage and mse problems is as ones involving the estimation of missing data. this presentation highlights the technical nature of these interrelationships and provides a preliminary effort at their integration." +integrated methodology for multiple systems estimation and record linkage using a missing data formulation,capture-recapture; heterogeneity; data fusion; em algorithm; fellegi-sunter linkage; missing data,ASTA-ADVANCES IN STATISTICAL ANALYSIS,FIENBERG SE;MANRIQUE VALLIER D,"there are now three essentially separate literatures on the topics of multiple systems estimation, record linkage, and missing data. but in practice the three are intimately intertwined. for example, record linkage involving multiple data sources for human populations is often carried out with the expressed goal of developing a merged database for multiple system estimation (mse). similarly, one way to view both the record linkage and mse problems is as ones involving the estimation of missing data. this presentation highlights the technical nature of these interrelationships and provides a preliminary effort at their integration." camcr: computer-assisted mixture model analysis for capture-recapture count data,camcr; capture-recapture; chao's and zelterman's estimator of population size; mixture of truncated poisson distributions,ASTA-ADVANCES IN STATISTICAL ANALYSIS,KUHNERT R;BOHNING D,"population size estimation with discrete or nonparametric mixture models is considered, and reliable ways of construction of the nonparametric mixture model estimator are reviewed and set into perspective. construction of the maximum likelihood estimator of the mixing distribution is done for any number of components up to the global nonparametric maximum likelihood bound using the em algorithm. in addition, the estimators of chao and zelterman are considered with some generalisations of zelterman's estimator. all computations are done with camcr, a special software developed for population size estimation with mixture models. several examples and data sets are discussed and the estimators illustrated. problems using the mixture model-based estimators are highlighted." multiple-record systems estimation using latent class models,capture-recapture; conditional likelihood; em algorithm; identifiability; multinomial logit,AUSTRALIAN & NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF STATISTICS,WANG Y;THANDRAYEN J,"capture-recapture methods (also referred to as 'multiple-record systems') have been widely used in enumerating human populations in the fields of epidemiology and public health. in this article, we introduce latent class models into multiple-record systems to account for unobserved heterogeneity in the population. two approaches, the full and the conditional likelihood, are proposed to estimate the unknown population abundance. we also suggest rules to diagnose identifiability of the proposed latent class models. the methodologies are illustrated by two real examples: the first is to count the undercount of homelessness in the adelaide central business district, and the second concerns the incidence of diabetes in a small italian town." "boldness and behavioral syndromes in the bluegill sunfish, lepomis macrochirus",activity; boldness; exploration; personality; risk taking; temperament,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY,WILSON ADM;GODIN JGJ,"in recent years, evidence for interindividual variation in ""personality"" within animal populations has been accumulating. personality is defined as consistency in an individual's behavioral responses over time and/or across situations. one personality trait that has potentially far-reaching implications for behavioral ecology, and may provide insight into the mechanisms by which consistent behavioral correlations arise, is that of boldness. boldness is defined as the tendency of an individual to take risks and be exploratory in novel contexts. using the framework of behavioral syndromes, we tested for individual differences in boldness in the laboratory among field-caught juvenile bluegill sunfish (lepomis macrochirus) within and across the contexts of exploratory behavior, activity, and risk taking (e.g., antipredator) behavior. after such testing, individuals were tagged and returned to their lake of origin as part of a mark-recapture study testing for the repeatability of individual differences in boldness. here, we report strong and consistent individual differences in boldness within and across all 3 behavioral contexts. additionally, we observed that at least some boldness behaviors were repeatable after a 1-3 month recapture period. this study provides novel evidence for a boldness syndrome in sunfish, as well as insight into how behavioral types (e.g., shy/bold) may evolve and be maintained in natural populations." socprog programs: analysing animal social structures,social analysis; software; association,BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY,WHITEHEAD H,"socprog is a set of programs which analyses data on animal associations. data usually come from observations of the social behaviour of individually identifiable animals. associations among animals, sampling periods, restrictions on the data and association indices can be defined very flexibly. socprog can analyse data sets including 1,000 or more individuals. association matrices are displayed using sociograms, principal coordinates analysis, multidimensional scaling and cluster analyses. permutation tests, mantel and related tests and matrix correlation methods examine hypotheses about preferred associations among individuals and classes of individual. weighted network statistics are calculated and can be tested against null hypotheses. temporal analyses include displays of lagged association rates (rates of reassociation following an association). models can be fitted to lagged association rates. multiple association measures, including measures produced by other programs such as genetic or range use data, may be analysed using mantel tests and principal components analysis. socprog also performs mark-recapture population analyses and movement analyses. socprog is written in the programming language matlab and may be downloaded free from the world wide web." the use of camera traps for estimating tiger and leopard populations in the high altitude mountains of bhutan,bhutan; panthera tigris; panthera pardus; conflicts; capture-recapture,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,WANG SW;MACDONALD DW,"we used camera traps in combination with capture-recapture data analysis to provide the first reliable density estimates for tigers and leopards from the high altitude and rugged terrain in bhutan's jigme singye wangchuck national park. fifty days of camera trapping in each of five study zones collapsed into two trapping blocks, resulted in a sampling effort of 4050 trap days. camera trapping yielded 17 tiger photos (14 left flanked and 3 right flanked) and 48 leopard photos (25 left flanked and 23 right flanked). using photos of these left flank, the closed heterogeneous jackknife model m-h was the best fit for the capture history data. a capture probability ((p) over cap) of 0.04 was obtained for both tigers and leopards, thus generating population size (n) of 8 tigers (se = 2.12) and 16 leopards (se = 2.91) with densities of 0.52 tiger 100 km(-2) and 1.04 leopard 100 km(-2). photographic evidence indicated that tigers and leopards did not overlap in their spatial use of space. tigers preferred less disturbed areas located further away from settlements, while leopards appeared to be more resilient to disturbances in so far as they were found nearer to human settlements. camera trapping using a capture-recapture framework was an effective tool for assessing population sizes for tiger and leopard in low density areas such as bhutan. (c) 2008 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." estimating abundance using mark-resight when sampling is with replacement or the number of marked individuals is unknown,bowden's estimator; individual heterogeneity; mark-recapture; population size; prairie dog; program mark; program noremark,BIOMETRICS,MCCLINTOCK BT;WHITE GC;ANTOLIN MF;TRIPP DW,"although mark-resight methods can often be a less expensive and less invasive means for estimating abundance in long-term population monitoring programs, two major limitations of the estimators are that they typically require sampling without replacement and/or the number of marked individuals available for resighting to be known exactly. these requirements can often be difficult to achieve. here we address these limitations by introducing the poisson log and zero-truncated poisson log-normal mixed effects models (pne and zpne, respectively). the generalized framework of the models allow the efficient use of covariates in modeling resighting rate and individual heterogeneity parameters, information-theoretic model selection and multimodel inference, and the incorporation of individually unidentified marks. both models may be implemented using standard statistical computing software, but they have also been added to the mark-recapture freeware package program mark. we demonstrate the use and advantages of (z) pne using black-tailed prairie dog data recently collected in colorado. we also investigate the expected relative performance of the models in simulation experiments. compared to other available estimators, we generally found (z) pne to be more precise with little or no loss in confidence interval coverage. with the recent introduction of the logit-normal mixed effects model and (z) pne, a more flexible and efficient framework for mark-resight abundance estimation is now available for the sampling conditions most commonly encountered in these studies." -"estimation of rates of births, deaths, and immigration from mark-recapture data",births; immigration; mark-recapture; model checking; survival; tits,BIOMETRICS,O'HARA RB;LAMPILA S;ORELL M,"the analysis of mark-recapture data is undergoing a period of development and expansion. here we contribute to that by presenting a model which includes both births and immigration, as well as the usual deaths. data come from a long-term study of the willow tit (parus montanus), where we can assume that all births are recorded, and hence immigrants can also be identified as birds captured as adults for the first time. we model the rates of immigration, birth rate per parent, and death rates of juveniles and adults. using a hierarchical model allows us to incorporate annual variation in these parameters. the model is fitted to the data using markov chain monte carlo, as a bayesian analysis. in addition to the model fitting, we also check several aspects of the model fit, in particular whether survival varies with age or immigrant status, and whether capture probability is affected by previous capture history. the latter check is important, as independence of capture histories is a key assumption that simplifies the model considerably. here we find that the capture probability depends strongly on whether the individual was captured in the previous year." +"estimation of rates of births, deaths, and immigration from mark-recapture data",births; immigration; mark-recapture; model checking; survival; tits,BIOMETRICS,O HARA RB;LAMPILA S;ORELL M,"the analysis of mark-recapture data is undergoing a period of development and expansion. here we contribute to that by presenting a model which includes both births and immigration, as well as the usual deaths. data come from a long-term study of the willow tit (parus montanus), where we can assume that all births are recorded, and hence immigrants can also be identified as birds captured as adults for the first time. we model the rates of immigration, birth rate per parent, and death rates of juveniles and adults. using a hierarchical model allows us to incorporate annual variation in these parameters. the model is fitted to the data using markov chain monte carlo, as a bayesian analysis. in addition to the model fitting, we also check several aspects of the model fit, in particular whether survival varies with age or immigrant status, and whether capture probability is affected by previous capture history. the latter check is important, as independence of capture histories is a key assumption that simplifies the model considerably. here we find that the capture probability depends strongly on whether the individual was captured in the previous year." atlantic salmon (salmo salar) smolt production: the relative importance of survival and body growth,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,HORTON GE;LETCHER BH;BAILEY MM;KINNISON MT,"the complex life history of atlantic salmon (salmo salar) coupled with interacting abiotic and biotic factors leads to extreme demographic variability across the species range. our goal was to evaluate the relative importance of survival and body growth in determining smolt production across space and time. we used passive integrated transponder tags and capture-mark-recapture analyses to estimate survival, emigration, and growth for six cohorts of presmolt atlantic salmon in two streams (three cohorts per stream) in new england, usa. we observed remarkable among-cohort consistency in mean monthly survival during a 17-month period from age-0+ autumn to age-2+ spring yet high variability in monthly survival over shorter time intervals (seasons). despite this latter variability, survival did not translate into among cohort differences in proportions of age-2+ versus age-3+ smolts. alternatively, the high variability across seasons and cohorts in mean individual growth rate did lead to differences in within-cohort proportions of age-2+ versus age-3+ smolts (regardless of stream). we conclude that in our two small study streams, variability in growth and size impacted smolt age and ultimately, smolt production. density-dependent effects on growth at the scale of the entire study site represent a possible mechanism underlying our observations." -natal dispersal and social organization of the swamp antechinus (antechinus minimus) in a high-density island population,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY-REVUE CANADIENNE DE ZOOLOGIE,SALE MG;KRAAIJEVELD-SMIT FJL;ARNOULD JPY,"radiotelemetry, mark-recapture trapping, and microsatellite analysis of genetic variation among three subpopulations were used to investigate the natal dispersal patterns, genetic structure, and social organization within a high-density island population of an insectivorous marsupial, the swamp antechinus (antechinus minimus (e. geoffroy saint-hilaire, 1803)). both demographic and genetic data indicated a high degree of philopatry for both sexes. associated with high philopatry is low gene flow, often leading to high population genetic structuring. however, there was only weak evidence to support this; allele frequencies and genotype composition of one population tended to be different from the other two. interestingly, timing of breeding of this subpopulation was delayed compared with the other two subpopulations. the philopatry of both sexes and the apparent lack of kin avoidance behaviour could lead to inbreeding. however, no apparent inbreeding effects were observed and offspring survival was high compared with mainland populations. the fact that male home-range size increased during the breeding season, overlapping with several females, and single females were found nesting with different males at the time of mating (and vice versa) indicates a promiscuous mating system. potentially, this may reduce inbreeding to some extent. alternatively, inbreeding may not be purposefully avoided, potentially leading to purging of detrimental alleles, thereby reducing their damaging effects on inbreeding." +natal dispersal and social organization of the swamp antechinus (antechinus minimus) in a high-density island population,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY-REVUE CANADIENNE DE ZOOLOGIE,SALE MG;KRAAIJEVELD SMIT FJL;ARNOULD JPY,"radiotelemetry, mark-recapture trapping, and microsatellite analysis of genetic variation among three subpopulations were used to investigate the natal dispersal patterns, genetic structure, and social organization within a high-density island population of an insectivorous marsupial, the swamp antechinus (antechinus minimus (e. geoffroy saint-hilaire, 1803)). both demographic and genetic data indicated a high degree of philopatry for both sexes. associated with high philopatry is low gene flow, often leading to high population genetic structuring. however, there was only weak evidence to support this; allele frequencies and genotype composition of one population tended to be different from the other two. interestingly, timing of breeding of this subpopulation was delayed compared with the other two subpopulations. the philopatry of both sexes and the apparent lack of kin avoidance behaviour could lead to inbreeding. however, no apparent inbreeding effects were observed and offspring survival was high compared with mainland populations. the fact that male home-range size increased during the breeding season, overlapping with several females, and single females were found nesting with different males at the time of mating (and vice versa) indicates a promiscuous mating system. potentially, this may reduce inbreeding to some extent. alternatively, inbreeding may not be purposefully avoided, potentially leading to purging of detrimental alleles, thereby reducing their damaging effects on inbreeding." short-term size-specific distribution and movement patterns of juvenile flatfish in a pacific estuary derived through length-frequency and mark-recapture data,estuarine emigration; flatfish; movement; nursery habitat,CIENCIAS MARINAS,HERZKA SZ;GRIFFITHS R;FODRIE FJ;MCCARTHY ID,"evaluating small-scale distribution and movement patterns of juvenile fishes within estuarine systems is necessary for identifying favorable nursery habitats and adequately interpreting local instantaneous growth and mortality estimates. fine-scale, size-specific catch per unit effort (cpue, catch per 500 m tow) and movement of juvenile flatfish were studied in punta banda estuary, baja california, mexico, during the summer of 2004. after dividing the estuary into five contiguous sections, habitat utilization and movement were analyzed using two complimentary approaches. we intensively surveyed the estuary throughout the summer to document the size-specific distribution of flatfishes. california halibut and diamond turbot were captured throughout the estuary on all sampling dates, indicating that the entire system serves as habitat for juveniles. multiple regression analysis indicated that the crue of california halibut was significantly and negatively related to temperature and depth, although the model exhibited low explanatory power. in contrast, the cpue of diamond turbot was only significantly and negatively related to depth. cpue was not related to salinity for either species. analyses of site- and time-specific length-frequency distributions indicated movement by all flatfishes on the time scale of weeks, which is likely due to the estuarine emigration of fish >140 mm standard length. in addition, an estuary-wide mark-recapture study was performed. visible elastomer implants were used to tag 697 california halibut, 442 diamond turbot, and 128 spotted turbot. based on section-specific crue and the area of the estuary, we tagged 3-6% of the local population of each species in a given month. four californian halibut and two diamond turbot were recaptured within hundreds of meters of where they were released. hence, we observed residency and movement at the same time. this study indicates that short-term movement and its underlying causes should be taken into account when assessing patterns of juvenile habitat utilization." "effects of age, size, and density on natural survival for an important coral reef fishery species, yellow tang, zebrasoma flavescens",density dependence; post-settlement mortality; acanthuridae; aquarium fishery management; model selection; program mark,CORAL REEFS,CLAISSE JT;MCTEE SA;PARRISH JD,"hundreds of thousands of juvenile yellow tang, zebrasoma flavescens, are caught each year in the state of hawai'i (usa) for the live aquarium trade. as part of an extensive adaptive management strategy built around a network of protected areas, an emphasis was placed on understanding this important species' life history. multiple capture-mark-recapture techniques and a model selection approach to data analysis in program mark were used to estimate the effects of individual age and conspecific density on natural per-capita daily survival probabilities of yellow tang recruits (recently settled individuals, 30-50 mm total length) and the effects of body size and site on natural per-capita monthly survival probabilities for juveniles (58-127 mm total length). the models of recruit survival that included additive effects of density and age were best supported by the data and indicated an increase of survival with age and decrease of survival with increased conspecific density. at 1 day post-settlement, the model averaged daily per-capita survival probability ranged from 0.963 (95% ci: 0.932-0.981) at a low density of 0.1 recruits m(-2) to 0.848 (95% ci: 0.752-0.911) at a high density of 1.3 recruits m(-2). the best supported model of juvenile survival had no effect of fish length or site, with a constant monthly per-capita survival of 0.939 (95% ci: 0.925-0.950). only about 1% of recruits may survive to adulthood when protected from fishing. these results can be used to better analyze and interpret data from protected area monitoring surveys and refine management practices. continued long-term monitoring, combined with targeted life history studies and demographic modeling, is needed to further investigate the population level effects of fishing yellow tang juveniles." "how to monitor elusive lizards: comparison of capture-recapture methods on giant day geckos (gekkonidae, phelsuma madagascariensis grandis) in the masoala rainforest exhibit, zurich zoo",capture-mark-recapture; finite-mixture models; model averaging; accumulation curve method; line transect method; method comparison,ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH,WANGER TC;MOTZKE I;FURRER SC;BROOK BW;GRUBER B,"rapid and reliable estimation of population size is needed for the efficient monitoring of animal populations of conservation concern. unfortunately, technical advances in this area have not been paralleled in uptake in conservation, which may be due to difficulties in implementation or the lack of general guidelines for application. here we tested five different methods used to estimate population size [capture-mark-recapture (cmr), finite-mixture models, model averaging of finite-mixture models, accumulation curve methods (acm), and the line transect method (lt)] using extensive capture-recapture data of the giant day gecko (gekkonidae, phelsuma madagascariensis grandis, gray 1870) at the masoala rainforest exhibit, zurich zoo. when the complete data were analyzed [30 sessions (and 27 sessions for the lt)], all methods except the lt produced similar estimates of population size. the simple acm gave a small coefficient of variation (cv), but did not cover the most likely value of population size at moderate sampling effort. nevertheless, the acm was the only method that showed a reasonable convergence when subsets of data were used. cmr and pledger models included the reference value in their confidence intervals (ci) after 25 and 30 sessions, respectively. although model averaging did slightly improve the estimate, the cv was still high for the full dataset. our method of using subsets of data to test the robustness of estimates is simple to apply and could be adopted more widely in such analyzes to evaluate sensitivity to method of evaluation. in conclusion, simple accumulation methods showed similar efficiency to more complex statistical models, and are likely to be sufficiently precise for most conservation monitoring purposes." modeling species occurrence dynamics with multiple states and imperfect detection,california spotted owl; green frog; multiple states; occupancy modeling; rana clamitans; relative abundance; reproductive state; state transition probabilities; strix occidentalis occidentalis; system dynamics,ECOLOGY,MACKENZIE DI;NICHOLS JD;SEAMANS ME;GUTIERREZ RJ,"recent extensions of occupancy modeling have focused not only on the distribution of species over space, but also on additional state variables ( e. g., reproducing or not, with or without disease organisms, relative abundance categories) that provide extra information about occupied sites. these biologist-driven extensions are characterized by ambiguity in both species presence and correct state classification, caused by imperfect detection. we. first show the relationships between independently published approaches to the modeling of multistate occupancy. we then extend the pattern-based modeling to the case of sampling over multiple seasons or years in order to estimate state transition probabilities associated with system dynamics. the methodology and its potential for addressing relevant ecological questions are demonstrated using both maximum likelihood ( occupancy and successful reproduction dynamics of california spotted owl) and markov chain monte carlo estimation approaches ( changes in relative abundance of green frogs in maryland). just as multistate capture-recapture modeling has revolutionized the study of individual marked animals, we believe that multistate occupancy modeling will dramatically increase our ability to address interesting questions about ecological processes underlying population-level dynamics." cross-scale environmental influences on migratory stopover behaviour,autumn; climate; departure; enso; mark-recapture; migration; nao; passerine; stopover; weather,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,CALVERT AM;TAYLOR PD;WALDE S,"migratory species may be especially sensitive to climate change because their lifecycles are affected by dynamic ecological processes operating at global spatial scales. insight into environmental effects upon en route decisions by migrants can therefore be a critical first step toward assessing their vulnerability to future climatic shifts. we extracted behaviour-related parameters from a recent formulation of multistate mark-recapture models, and used them to evaluate the importance of variation in local weather and broad-scale climate to decisions made by autumn passerine migrants at a coastal stopover site in atlantic canada. we found dramatic interannual fluctuations in the proportion of migrants that were transient (departing within a day of arrival), with annual average values ranging from 24% to 96% over the years 1996-2007. however, the relationships of stopover behaviour (transience and departure probability) to local weather (wind and precipitation) and to regional climatic fluctuations were similar across three distinct species groups and for birds of different fuel-loads, indicating the potential for both immediate (day-to-day) and long-term environmental influences (spanning several seasons). this cross-scale approach contributes valuable information toward the conservation of migrants in the face of a changing climate by (i) quantifying environmental influences on stopover behaviour in broad temporal and geographic contexts, and (ii) demonstrating largely parallel interannual variation in stopover site-use among birds with contrasting migratory timing and strategies." demographic parameters of the neotropical freshwater turtle hydromedusa maximiliani (chelidae),atlantic rainforest; hydromedusa maximiliani; population growth rate; population structure; sex ratio; survival,HERPETOLOGICA,MARTINS FI;SOUZA FL,"despite the high species richness of the family chelidae (side-necked turtles) in south america, few, demographic studies are available for a neotropical chelid turtle. here we report data front a long-term (1993-2006) study of hydromedusa maximiliani. population size was estimated for two periods (1993-1994 and 2003-2006) by the jolly-seber capture-mark-recapture method and the demographic parameters were estimated by cormack-jolly-seber model. the population size estimates showed values that increased over the study period (front 235 to 318 individuals in a 250 ha area), although this result must be viewed with caution despite the large confidence intervals of the estimates. significantly fewer individuals of intermediate body sizes (80-100 nun plastron length) were present in the 1993-1994 period compared to the 2003-2006 period. the population was female biased with male:female ratio of 1:2. survival rate (phi) was considerably higher for adult females than for males. the estimated annual population growth rate (lambda) was 1.012, and the estimated temporal process variance, the variation in the population growth rate, was practically null. these demographic parameters indicate it healthy population, probably reflecting the protected status of the study area." -"rearing cycle and other reproductive parameters of the xerophitic mouse opossum marmosa xerophila (didelphimorphia: didelphidae) in the peninsula of paraguana, venezuela",didelphidae; marmosa xerophila; reproduction; semiarid zones; venezuela,INTERCIENCIA,THIELEN DR;CABELLO DR;BIANCHI-PEREZ G;RAMONI-PERAZZI P,"some reproductive parameters were measured in 60 adult females of marmosa xerophila to infer the significance of some adaptations to a semi-arid ecosystem when compared to m. robinsoni, a filogenetically closely related species inhabiting more humid environments. the study was carried out in a tropical thorny woodland in the peninsula of paraguana, falcon state, venezuela. field data were collected by two methods: capture-mark-recapture and radioactive tagging. a reproductive peak occurred in june and july, during the dry season. post-lactating females were detected from july to february. there was no reproductive activity, from march to may. the rearing cycle lasted 60 days and the mean litter size was 7.9 young. the reproductive strategy of m. xerophila is similar to the rainforest species m. robinsoni, reflecting a great plasticity that allows marmosa species to adapt successfully to different neotropical ecosystems." +"rearing cycle and other reproductive parameters of the xerophitic mouse opossum marmosa xerophila (didelphimorphia: didelphidae) in the peninsula of paraguana, venezuela",didelphidae; marmosa xerophila; reproduction; semiarid zones; venezuela,INTERCIENCIA,THIELEN DR;CABELLO DR;BIANCHI PEREZ G;RAMONI PERAZZI P,"some reproductive parameters were measured in 60 adult females of marmosa xerophila to infer the significance of some adaptations to a semi-arid ecosystem when compared to m. robinsoni, a filogenetically closely related species inhabiting more humid environments. the study was carried out in a tropical thorny woodland in the peninsula of paraguana, falcon state, venezuela. field data were collected by two methods: capture-mark-recapture and radioactive tagging. a reproductive peak occurred in june and july, during the dry season. post-lactating females were detected from july to february. there was no reproductive activity, from march to may. the rearing cycle lasted 60 days and the mean litter size was 7.9 young. the reproductive strategy of m. xerophila is similar to the rainforest species m. robinsoni, reflecting a great plasticity that allows marmosa species to adapt successfully to different neotropical ecosystems." strong philopatry derived from capture-recapture records does not lead to fine-scale genetic differentiation in lesser kestrels,genetic structure; gene flow; capture-recapture; conservation genetics; genetic diversity,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,ALCAIDE M;SERRANO D;TELLA JL;NEGRO JJ,"the integration of capture-recapture and molecular approaches can improve our understanding of the consequences of habitat fragmentation on population connectivity. here we employed microsatellites to test dispersal hypotheses derived from intense and long-term ringing programmes of the lesser kestrel falco naumanni in western europe. re-encounters of 1308 marked individuals in spain have revealed that most first-time breeders settled within 10 km from their natal colony, with a negative association between dispersal and geographical distance. although these findings would predict fine-scale spatial patterns of genetic differentiation, the genetic impact of rarely reported events concerning long-distance effective dispersal (> 100 km) is unknown. first, we investigated a spatially structured and geographically isolated population located in north-eastern spain, where capture-recapture records and genetic data could be appropriately compared over similar spatial and temporal scales. spatial autocorrelation analyses (n = 174 nestlings from different broods) did not reveal either significant differences in average relatedness at any distance class nor decreased relatedness as a function of distance. at a broader spatial scale, bayesian analysis of population structure (n = 432 nestlings) indicated panmixia across western europe. however, f(st) comparisons between four geographically distinct populations indicated low but significant genetic differentiation. our genetic data would therefore challenge traditional assumptions associating philopatry with the emergence of fine-scale genetic structuring. this could be because even low levels of gene flow are enough to preclude the development of local genetic structure. nevertheless, the analysis of a geographically isolated and small population from southern france exemplifies a situation in which restricted dispersal has translated into weak but consistently significant genetic differentiation. relevant to conservation genetics and evolutionary biology, our results may lessen the genetic concerns derived from population fragmentation at relatively small geographical scales in species with apparently limited dispersal abilities, but raises concerns about increased genetic divergence in small and isolated demes." assessment of mark-recapture models to estimate the abundance of a humpback whale feeding aggregation in southeast alaska,abundance; capture probability; endangered species; heterogeneity; humpback whales; mark-recapture; monitoring; movement; photo identification; southeast alaska,JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY,STRALEY JM;QUINN TJ;GABRIELE CM,"the aim of this study was to use photographs of the unique pattern on the ventral surface of the flukes to estimate the abundance of humpback whales (megaptera novaeangliae) in a discrete feeding aggregation in northern southeast alaska. the study was located in northern southeast alaska, usa, in the eastern north pacific ocean. this study evaluated mark-recapture models, ranging from the simpler models (pooled and stratified, closed petersen estimators) to more complex multi-strata models (closed darroch and open hilborn). the akaike information criterion, corrected (aicc) was used as a model comparison statistic. our best estimate of whale abundance in northern southeast alaska in 2000 is 961 whales [95% confidence interval (657, 1076)]. this estimate comes from the hilborn open, multi-strata approach with constant migration over time, time-dependent capture probabilities by area, and a fixed survival rate of 0.98. the simpler models were problematic owing to several aspects of whale behaviour, including that (1) the whales did not mix randomly throughout the study area, (2) some whales emigrated temporarily outside the study area and were not available for capture, and (3) whales were not equally identifiable because they did not behave in the same way when they showed their flukes upon diving. this led to heterogeneity in capture probability and a bias in the estimates. the more complex models stratified by area, and using migration movements among areas, compensated for some of these issues when estimating population size. we believe that the hilborn open, multi-strata model produced the best estimate because: (1) it incorporated the best information about survival, (2) it used detailed information about the various release groups, (3) the analysis provided an integrated environment in which parameters such as migration and capture probabilities are shared, (4) the three strata encompassed a large portion of the areas used by whales, and (5) the hilborn model selected was superior in terms of model selection criteria and biological realism. these data provide valuable insights into the numbers and movements of humpback whales in three areas of southeast alaska." "detection, survival rates and dynamics of a cryptic plant, asclepias meadii : applications of mark-recapture models to long-term monitoring studies",estimation of population size; herbivory; long-term study; mead's milkweed; observer error; population trajectory; rare plant; survey,JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY,ALEXANDER HM;SLADE NA;KETTLE WD;PITTMAN GL;REED AW,"1. analysis of population trajectories is central to assessing risk in populations of conservation concern. in animal studies, researchers realize that probabilities of detection of individuals are often less than one. plants can also escape detection due to dormancy, herbivory, or observer error, but such information is rarely incorporated into population studies. 2. we monitored a population of asclepias meadii, a rare long-lived prairie perennial. despite standardized methods, numbers of observed plants fluctuated greatly from 1992 to 2006. individual plants often had periods of 1-5 years between initial and final sighting when no stems were found. to determine the actual population trajectories, we estimated rates of survival and population growth using mark-recapture models. we also estimated initial and resighting probabilities of detection. in 2007, we repeated surveys to identify reasons for low detection probabilities. 3. we estimated 95% annual survival and a population growth rate of 1.023. probabilities of initial detection were low (typically from 0.120 to 0.311 depending on prairie burn treatment), whereas average probability of detection for marked plants was 0.728. 4. comparisons of survival estimates from 15-and 8-year data sets revealed that survival estimates decline in the final years of a multi-year period, probably due to heterogeneity in encounter histories. 5. by conducting three different surveys in 2007, we found that both herbivory over a multiple-week period and observer error contributed substantially to gaps in detection. 6. synthesis. probabilities of detection that are less than one complicate interpretation of population dynamics, whether of mobile animals or inconspicuous plants. our work illustrates three general points that could apply to many plant population studies: (i) mark-recapture models may provide insights on vital rates and population trajectories despite the extreme variability in count data that can arise because of low detectability, (ii) probabilities of initial detection can be quantified and can be considerably less than probabilities of resighting, and (iii) repeated surveys can help researchers determine the degree to which dormancy, herbivory, or observer error contribute to low probabilities of detection. consideration of these points can improve the design and analysis of monitoring programs." -"using soundscape recordings to estimate bird species abundance, richness, and composition",abundance estimation; acoustic recordings; detection probability; sampling techniques; soundscape; species richness; temporal removal method,JOURNAL OF FIELD ORNITHOLOGY,CELIS-MURILLO A;DEPPE JL;ALLEN MF,"point counts are the most frequently used technique for sampling bird populations and communities, but have well-known limitations such as inter- and intraobserver errors and limited availability of expert field observers. the use of acoustic recordings to survey birds offers solutions to these limitations. we designed a soundscape recording system (srs) that combines a four-channel, discrete microphone system with a quadraphonic playback system for surveying bird communities. we compared the effectiveness of srs and point counts for estimating species abundance, richness, and composition of riparian breeding birds in california by comparing data collected simultaneously using both methods. we used the temporal-removal method to estimate individual bird detection probabilities and species abundances using the program mark. akaike's information criterion provided strong evidence that detection probabilities differed between the two survey methods and among the 10 most common species. the probability of detecting birds was higher when listening to srs recordings in the laboratory than during the field survey. additionally, srs data demonstrated a better fit to the temporal-removal model assumptions and yielded more reliable estimates of detection probability and abundance than point-count data. our results demonstrate how the perceptual constraints of observers can affect temporal detection patterns during point counts and thus influence abundance estimates derived from time-of-detection approaches. we used a closed-population capture-recapture approach to calculate jackknife estimates of species richness and average species detection probabilities for srs and point counts using the program capture. srs and point counts had similar species richness and detection probabilities. however, the methods differed in the composition of species detected based on jaccard's similarity index. most individuals (83%) detected during point counts vocalized at least once during the survey period and were available for detection using a purely acoustic technique, such as srs. srs provides an effective method for surveying bird communities, particularly when most species are detected by sound. srs can eliminate or minimize observer biases, produce permanent records of surveys, and resolve problems associated with the limited availability of expert field observers." +"using soundscape recordings to estimate bird species abundance, richness, and composition",abundance estimation; acoustic recordings; detection probability; sampling techniques; soundscape; species richness; temporal removal method,JOURNAL OF FIELD ORNITHOLOGY,CELIS MURILLO A;DEPPE JL;ALLEN MF,"point counts are the most frequently used technique for sampling bird populations and communities, but have well-known limitations such as inter- and intraobserver errors and limited availability of expert field observers. the use of acoustic recordings to survey birds offers solutions to these limitations. we designed a soundscape recording system (srs) that combines a four-channel, discrete microphone system with a quadraphonic playback system for surveying bird communities. we compared the effectiveness of srs and point counts for estimating species abundance, richness, and composition of riparian breeding birds in california by comparing data collected simultaneously using both methods. we used the temporal-removal method to estimate individual bird detection probabilities and species abundances using the program mark. akaike's information criterion provided strong evidence that detection probabilities differed between the two survey methods and among the 10 most common species. the probability of detecting birds was higher when listening to srs recordings in the laboratory than during the field survey. additionally, srs data demonstrated a better fit to the temporal-removal model assumptions and yielded more reliable estimates of detection probability and abundance than point-count data. our results demonstrate how the perceptual constraints of observers can affect temporal detection patterns during point counts and thus influence abundance estimates derived from time-of-detection approaches. we used a closed-population capture-recapture approach to calculate jackknife estimates of species richness and average species detection probabilities for srs and point counts using the program capture. srs and point counts had similar species richness and detection probabilities. however, the methods differed in the composition of species detected based on jaccard's similarity index. most individuals (83%) detected during point counts vocalized at least once during the survey period and were available for detection using a purely acoustic technique, such as srs. srs provides an effective method for surveying bird communities, particularly when most species are detected by sound. srs can eliminate or minimize observer biases, produce permanent records of surveys, and resolve problems associated with the limited availability of expert field observers." estimating survival of precocial chicks during the prefledging period using a catch-curve analysis and count-based age-class data,catch-curve; charadrius melodus; chick survival; count data; fecundity; piping plover; reproductive success,JOURNAL OF FIELD ORNITHOLOGY,MCGOWAN CP;MILLSPAUGH JJ;RYAN MR;KRUSE CD;PAVELKA G,"estimating reproductive success for birds with precocial young can be difficult because chicks leave nests soon after hatching and individuals or broods can be difficult to track. researchers often turn to estimating survival during the prefledging period and, though effective, mark-recapture based approaches are not always feasible due to cost, time, and animal welfare concerns. using a threatened population of piping plovers (charadrius melodus) that breeds along the missouri river, we present an approach for estimating chick survival during the prefledging period using long-term (1993-2005), count-based, age-class data. we used a modified catch-curve analysis, and data collected during three 5-day sampling periods near the middle of the breeding season. the approach has several ecological and statistical assumptions and our analyses were designed to minimize the probability of violating those assumptions. for example, limiting the sampling periods to only 5 days gave reasonable assurance that population size was stable during the sampling period. annual daily survival estimates ranged from 0.825 (sd = 0.03) to 0.931 (0.02) depending on year and sampling period, with these estimates assuming constant survival during the prefledging period and no change in the age structure of the population. the average probability of survival to fledging ranged from 0.126 to 0.188. our results are similar to other published estimates for this species in similar habitats. this method of estimating chick survival may be useful for a variety of precocial bird species when mark-recapture methods are not feasible and only count-based age class data are available." "demography and endangerment of the utila island spiny-tailed iguana, ctenosaura bakeri",NA,JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY,GUTSCHE A;STREICH WJ,"we studied the population biology of the spiny-tailed iguana (ctenosaura bakeri) endemic to the honduran island of utila and previously assumed to be close to extinction. here, for the first time, we present a comprehensive mapping of its overall distribution and nesting area. the total range of c. bakeri comprised about 1,091 ha of mangrove swamp. nesting sites were restricted to 109 ha of sandy coastal territory. we used two closed capture-recapture models to estimate adult population densities at 35-78 and 72-114 adults/ha within three mangrove areas, respectively. population densities were largely related to the presence of suitable retreats. population estimates for the entire mangrove habitat based on these mean adult densities ranged from 57,823-93,826 individuals, far higher than earlier reports have suggested. also, no evidence was found for an unbalanced demographic structure. about 27% of all iguanas captured were juveniles (< 150 mm snout-vent length). notably, juveniles were difficult to detect and capture, and additional sightings of 0.8-2.3 juveniles/day indicated even higher abundances than given by captures. the sex ratio of males to females (1 : 1.2) was consistent with reports of adult social groups in other large iguanids. threats to c. bakeri included hunting and habitat pollution but mainly the loss of habitat and nesting sites caused by unrestricted property development. without proper habitat management, we anticipate significant declines of the c. bakeri population within the next 20 yr." +"density of leopards (panthera pardus) in the chilla range of rajaji national park, uttarakhand, india",camera traps; capture-recapture; density; leopards,MAMMALIA,HARIHAR A;PANDAV B;GOYAL SP,NA "movement of reef fishes across boundaries of marine protected areas in danjugan island, negros occidental, philippines",danjugan island; fish movement; marine protected areas; reef fishes; tagging,PHILIPPINE AGRICULTURAL SCIENTIST,AURELLADO MEB;HILOMEN VV;ALINO PM;LUMBAB V,"the potential benefits of marine protected areas (mpas) to fisheries was investigated by examining the movement of adult fish across boundaries between mpas and adjacent fished areas in danjugan island, negros occidental, philippines using mark-recapture methods and visual tracking. tagging and recapture of targeted species were conducted inside and outside three mpas of the island almost every month from 2001 to 2003. of the 530 fishes tagged (422 and 108 tagged inside and outside mpas, respectively), only 44 fishes were recaptured. most of the recaptures occurred near the site of tagging (26 inside and 10 outside mpas), showing the relatively sedentary nature of reef fishes. however, eight fishes tagged inside the east mpa were caught outside by fishers at distances ranging from about 300 to more than 1000 m from sites of tagging mostly during the night with the use of hook-and-line and gillnet. movements of the recaptured fishes outside the east mpa appeared to be driven by daily feeding migrations and influenced by reef topography. this is the first tagging study in the philippines to demonstrate directly the potential of mpas as sources of adult fishes to nearby fished areas." evaluating avian community dynamics in restored riparian habitats with mark-recapture models,NA,WILSON JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY,JOHNSON TN;APPLEGATE RD;HOOVER DE;GIPSON PS;SANDERCOCK BK,"estimates of community attributes such as species richness, local extinction, and turnover are critical when evaluating ecological restoration efforts. estimates of species richness based on counts can be biased by variation in the probability of detection among different species. we quantified the effects of livestock exclusion on riparian bird communities using mark-recapture models to account for variation in species detection rates. specifically, we estimated species richness and other community parameters for fenced and grazed sites with robust design models where closed-captures were treated as mixtures, and then used transition rates to calculate derived vital rates for avian communities. estimates of species richness based on unadjusted counts were correlated with estimates from robust design models, but counts failed to detect important temporal changes in species richness. estimates of species richness from robust design models increased at fenced and grazed sites over an 8-year period, but community vital rates were unaffected by cattle exclusion. we examined qualitative changes in abundance of birds in four nesting guilds, and concluded that temporal changes may have been driven by regional dynamics in avian communities. our mark-recapture analysis allowed us to compare standardized estimates of community parameters between habitats, observers, and time periods after accounting for variation in detection rates. robust design models are a useful tool that will facilitate accurate assessments of community dynamics following future restoration efforts. received 12 march 2007. accepted 29 june 2008." "life in the supralittoral fringe: microhabitat choice, mobility and growth in the tropical perwinkle cenchritis (=tectarius) muricatus (linneaus, 1758)",age; growth; littorinid; microhabitat; supralittoral,JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY,JUDGE ML;DUELL R;BURRIESCI L;MOARSI W,"the littorinid snail, cenchritis muricatus, inhabits supralittoral vertical rocky walls along caribbean shores, at times surpassing 14 meters above mean sea level. as the sole macrofaunal representative of this habitat, this marine gastropod presumably experiences extraordinary conditions of thermal load and desiccation. in order to understand the effect of behavioral choices on periwinkle survivorship and growth, snail distribution, microhabitat utilization, and crawling speed were documented in st john (us virgin islands). in general, snails rarely inhabited open surfaces: instead, periwinkles were commonly observed in microhabitats that may reduce water and heat stresses (e.g., >75% in crevices and depressions). snails found on occasional buttonwood trees (conocarpus erectus) were larger than elsewhere. although typically found in repose, c. muricatus crawling speed on moist, shaded, and smooth substrata averaged more than 3 cm.min(-1), but did not vary with slope. repeated mark-recapture of tagged periwinkles exhibited high recovery rates (ca. 35% after 4 yr), absence of mortality, and a projected cessation of growth at 16.5 mm (shell height). nearly 10% of marked individuals were recaptured every year. dead, tagged snails were never noted; indeed, seven individuals were only recovered once, a full 4 yrs after release. site-specific growth rates were absent. projections using von bertalanffy growth functions (vbgf) suggest that periwinkles will require 15+ years to achieve the maximum shell height. these vbgf models cannot address extraordinary individuals reaching 22 mm. c. muricatus's remarkable supralittoral distribution may be explained by physiological tolerance, selection of microhabitats, lack of predators and long lifespan. (c) 2008 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." @@ -4930,7 +4943,7 @@ differential use of identical food resources by reticulitermes flavipes (isopter epidemics of squirrelpox virus disease in red squirrels (sciurus vulgaris): temporal and serological findings,NA,EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION,CARROLL B;RUSSELL P;GURNELL J;NETTLETON P;SAINSBURY AW,"squirrelpox virus (sqpv) causes a fatal disease in free-living red squirrels (sciurus vulgaris) which has contributed to their decline in the united kingdom. given the difficulty of carrying out and funding experimental investigations on free-living wild mammals, data collected from closely monitored natural outbreaks of disease is crucial to our understanding of disease epidemiology. a conservation programme was initiated in the 1990s to bolster the population of red squirrels in the coniferous woodland of thetford chase, east anglia. in 1996, 24 red squirrels were reintroduced to thetford from northumberland and cumbria, while in 1999 a captive breeding and release programme commenced, but in both years the success of the projects was hampered by an outbreak of sqpv disease in which seven and four red squirrels died respectively. valuable information on the host-pathogen dynamics of sqpv disease was gathered by telemetric and mark-recapture monitoring of the red squirrels. sqpv disease characteristics were comparable to other virulent poxviral infections: the incubation period was <15 days; the course of the disease an average of 10 days and younger animals were significantly more susceptible to disease. sqpv disease places the conservation of the red squirrel in jeopardy in the united kingdom unless practical disease control methods can be identified." "prevalence of multiple sclerosis in buenos aires, argentina using the capture-recapture method",argentina; capture-recapture; multiple sclerosis; prevalence; south america,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY,CRISTIANO E;PATRUCCO L;ROJAS JI;CACERES F;CARRA A;CORREALE J;GARCEA O;GOLD L;TESSLER J;KREMENCHUTZKY M,scarce data exist about multiple sclerosis (ms) prevalence in south america. the objective of the study is to determine the prevalence of ms in a high populated area from argentina (greater buenos aires metropolitan area) using the capture-recapture methodology. greater buenos aires is the generic denomination that refers to the megalopolis comprised by the autonomous city of buenos aires and the surrounding conurbation of the province of buenos aires. the study was carried out taking july 1996 as the prevalence month. we used capture-recapture method to estimate the prevalence of ms cross matching registries from four ms centers. a total of 803 registries were obtained from the four lists. log-linear model for capture-recapture method was used to analyze the data. the population of the area based on the 1990 census was 12 594 974; the number of ms cases estimated amongst sources interactions were between 1833 and 2359; the prevalence estimated ranged from 14 to 19.8 cases per 100 000 inhabitants. this is the first study to provide epidemiological data on the prevalence of ms in a large population in argentina (greater buenos aires metropolitan area). further epidemiological studies will clarify the true prevalence of ms in south america. a hierarchical model for estimating density in camera-trap studies,bayesian analysis; camera trapping; carnivore surveys; density estimation; hierarchical model; markov chain monte carlo; point process; spatial capture-recapture; tigers; trapping grid,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,ROYLE JA;NICHOLS JD;KARANTH KU;GOPALASWAMY AM,"estimating animal density using capture-recapture data from arrays of detection devices such as camera traps has been problematic due to the movement of individuals and heterogeneity in capture probability among them induced by differential exposure to trapping. we develop a spatial capture-recapture model for estimating density from camera-trapping data which contains explicit models for the spatial point process governing the distribution of individuals and their exposure to and detection by traps. we adopt a bayesian approach to analysis of the hierarchical model using the technique of data augmentation. the model is applied to photographic capture-recapture data on tigers panthera tigris in nagarahole reserve, india. using this model, we estimate the density of tigers to be 14.3 animals per 100 km(2) during 2004. synthesis and applications. our modelling framework largely overcomes several weaknesses in conventional approaches to the estimation of animal density from trap arrays. it effectively deals with key problems such as individual heterogeneity in capture probabilities, movement of traps, presence of potential 'holes' in the array and ad hoc estimation of sample area. the formulation, thus, greatly enhances flexibility in the conduct of field surveys as well as in the analysis of data, from studies that may involve physical, photographic or dna-based 'captures' of individual animals." -evaluation of trap capture in a geographically closed population of brown treesnakes on guam,behavioural response; boiga irregularis; capture heterogeneity; ephemeral effect; huggins closed capture model; invasive species; size selectivity,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,TYRRELL CL;CHRISTY MT;RODDA GH;ADAMS AA;ELLINGSON AR;SAVIDGE JA;DEAN-BRADLEY K;BISCHOF R,"open population mark-recapture analysis of unbounded populations accommodates some types of closure violations (e.g. emigration, immigration). in contrast, closed population analysis of such populations readily allows estimation of capture heterogeneity and behavioural response, but requires crucial assumptions about closure (e.g. no permanent emigration) that are suspect and rarely tested empirically. in 2003, we erected a double-sided barrier to prevent movement of snakes in or out of a 5-ha semi-forested study site in northern guam. this geographically closed population of > 100 snakes was monitored using a series of transects for visual searches and a 13 x 13 trapping array, with the aim of marking all snakes within the site. forty-five marked snakes were also supplemented into the resident population to quantify the efficacy of our sampling methods. we used the program mark to analyse trap captures (101 occasions), referenced to census data from visual surveys, and quantified heterogeneity, behavioural response, and size bias in trappability. analytical inclusion of untrapped individuals greatly improved precision in the estimation of some covariate effects. a novel discovery was that trap captures for individual snakes consisted of asynchronous bouts of high capture probability lasting about 7 days (ephemeral behavioural effect). there was modest behavioural response (trap happiness) and significant latent (unexplained) heterogeneity, with small influences on capture success of date, gender, residency status (translocated or not), and body condition. trapping was shown to be an effective tool for eradicating large brown treesnakes boiga irregularis (> 900 mm snout-vent length, svl). synthesis and applications. mark-recapture modelling is commonly used by ecological managers to estimate populations. however, existing models involve making assumptions about either closure violations or response to capture. physical closure of our population on a landscape scale allowed us to determine the relative importance of covariates influencing capture probability (body size, trappability periods, and latent heterogeneity). this information was used to develop models in which different segments of the population could be assigned different probabilities of capture, and suggests that modelling of open populations should incorporate easily measured, but potentially overlooked, parameters such as body size or condition." +evaluation of trap capture in a geographically closed population of brown treesnakes on guam,behavioural response; boiga irregularis; capture heterogeneity; ephemeral effect; huggins closed capture model; invasive species; size selectivity,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,TYRRELL CL;CHRISTY MT;RODDA GH;ADAMS AA;ELLINGSON AR;SAVIDGE JA;DEAN BRADLEY K;BISCHOF R,"open population mark-recapture analysis of unbounded populations accommodates some types of closure violations (e.g. emigration, immigration). in contrast, closed population analysis of such populations readily allows estimation of capture heterogeneity and behavioural response, but requires crucial assumptions about closure (e.g. no permanent emigration) that are suspect and rarely tested empirically. in 2003, we erected a double-sided barrier to prevent movement of snakes in or out of a 5-ha semi-forested study site in northern guam. this geographically closed population of > 100 snakes was monitored using a series of transects for visual searches and a 13 x 13 trapping array, with the aim of marking all snakes within the site. forty-five marked snakes were also supplemented into the resident population to quantify the efficacy of our sampling methods. we used the program mark to analyse trap captures (101 occasions), referenced to census data from visual surveys, and quantified heterogeneity, behavioural response, and size bias in trappability. analytical inclusion of untrapped individuals greatly improved precision in the estimation of some covariate effects. a novel discovery was that trap captures for individual snakes consisted of asynchronous bouts of high capture probability lasting about 7 days (ephemeral behavioural effect). there was modest behavioural response (trap happiness) and significant latent (unexplained) heterogeneity, with small influences on capture success of date, gender, residency status (translocated or not), and body condition. trapping was shown to be an effective tool for eradicating large brown treesnakes boiga irregularis (> 900 mm snout-vent length, svl). synthesis and applications. mark-recapture modelling is commonly used by ecological managers to estimate populations. however, existing models involve making assumptions about either closure violations or response to capture. physical closure of our population on a landscape scale allowed us to determine the relative importance of covariates influencing capture probability (body size, trappability periods, and latent heterogeneity). this information was used to develop models in which different segments of the population could be assigned different probabilities of capture, and suggests that modelling of open populations should incorporate easily measured, but potentially overlooked, parameters such as body size or condition." black and white or shades of grey? detectability of adelie penguins during shipboard surveys in the antarctic pack-ice,antarctica; detectability; distance sampling; double observers; line transect; mark-recapture; point independence; population estimation; seabird; southern ocean,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,SOUTHWELL C;LOW M,"estimates of penguin abundance are important for developing marine ecosystem models and assessing potential competition between penguins and fisheries operations. most shipboard surveys of penguins use strip transect (st) or conventional distance sampling (cds) methods to estimate abundance, but the assumptions of these methods are largely untested. to test their validity for surveys of adelie penguins in the antarctic pack-ice, we recorded mark-recapture line-transect data and estimated detectability using a point-independence (pi) analysis. contrary to st assumptions, detectability declined markedly with distance from the transect line and varied with group size, substrate and observer position. estimated detection probabilities across a 300-m strip width, which has frequently been used in shipboard surveys, ranged from 0.09 for single penguins in water to 0.91 for groups of > 5 penguins on ice floes. contrary to cds assumptions, only two-thirds of detections close to the transect line by one observer team were detected by the second team. estimated detection probabilities on the transect line ranged from 0.30 for single penguins in water to 0.92 for large groups of penguins on ice. synthesis and applications. most shipboard surveys have not accounted for incomplete detection, potentially resulting in large negative biases that may vary between surveys. recent theoretical improvements provide the potential for these biases to be addressed, but this requires application of more sophisticated and rigorous survey protocols. application of pi analysis to mark-recapture line transect data demonstrated that substantial improvement to abundance estimates could be achieved for penguins compared with previously used methods. the protocols required for pi estimation can be applied to shipboard surveys of slow-moving species such as penguins and seals, but may be difficult to apply to species moving faster than the survey platform, such as flying seabirds. the benefits of multiple observers are maximized only if they operate independently. for multi-species surveys, it would be beneficial to have multiple teams of observers, each focussing on a species group. improved estimation of marine predator abundance will facilitate the development of more realistic ecosystem models and allow improved management of the impact of fisheries operations on non-target species." estimating survival and movements using both live and dead recoveries: a case study of oystercatchers confronted with habitat change,coastal engineering; demography; emigration; haematopus ostralegus; habitat loss; multistate capture-recapture model; ringing data; winter severity; wintering waders,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,DURIEZ O;SAETHER SA;ENS BJ;CHOQUET R;PRADEL R;LAMBECK RHD;KLAASSEN M,"animals facing partial habitat loss can try to survive in the remaining habitat or emigrate. effects on survival and movements should be studied simultaneously since survival rates may be underestimated if emigrants are not considered, and since emigrants may experience reduced survival. we analysed movements and survival of adult wintering oystercatcher haematopus ostralegus in response to the 1986-1987 partial closure of the oosterschelde in the dutch delta. this reduced by one-third the tidal area of this major european wintering area for waders. we developed a novel variant of a multistate capture-recapture model allowing simultaneous estimation of survival and movement between sites using a mixture of data (live recaptures and dead recoveries). we used a two-step process, first estimating movements between sites followed by site-specific survival rates. most birds were faithful to their ringing site. winter survival was negatively affected by winter severity and was lowest among birds changing wintering site (i.e. moving outside of the oosterschelde). during mild winters, survival rates were very high, and similar to before the closure in both changed and unchanged sectors of the oosterschelde. however, the combined effect of habitat loss with severe winters decreased the survival of birds from changed sectors and induced emigration. the coastal engineering project coincided with three severe winters and high food stock, making assessment of its effects difficult. however, the habitat loss seems to have had less impact on adult survival and movements than did winter severity. synthesis and applications. human-induced habitat change may result in population decline through costly emigration or reduced survival or reproduction of individuals that stay. long-term monitoring of marked individuals helps to understand how populations respond to environmental change, but site-specific survival and movement rates should be integrated in the same model in order to maximize the information yield. our modelling approach facilitates this because it allows the inclusion of recoveries from outside the study area." the capture mark-recapture technique can be used as a stopping rule when searching in systematic reviews,medical informatics; systematic reviews; poisson regression analysis; statistical modeling; information retrieval; databases,JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY,KASTNER M;STRAUS SE;MCKIBBON KA;GOLDSMITH CH,"objective: researchers have no empirically based search stopping rule when looking for potentially relevant articles for inclusion in systematic reviews. we tested a stopping strategy based on capture-mark-recapture (cmr; i.e., the horizon estimate) statistical modeling to estimate the total number of articles in the domain of clinical decision support tools for osteoporosis disease management using four large bibliographic databases (medline, embase, cinahl, and ebm reviews). study design and setting: retrospective evaluation of the horizon estimate using a systematic review of randomized controlled trials (rcts) at two levels of article screening: title and abstract (1,246 potentially relevant articles) and full text (42 potentially relevant articles). results: the cmr model suggests that the total number of potential articles was 1,838 for the first level of screening, and 49 for the full-text level. the four databases provided 68% of known articles for the first level of screening and 81% for full-text screening. conclusions: the cmr technique can be used in systematic reviews to estimate the closeness to capturing the total body of literature on a given topic. more studies are needed to objectively determine the usefulness of horizon estimates as a stopping rule strategy for systematic review searching. (c) 2008 elsevier inc. all rights reserved." @@ -4941,7 +4954,7 @@ edge effect on density estimates of a radiotracked population of yellow-necked m retention time of telazol in black bears,american black bear; chemical immobilization; hunting; mark-recapture; sedation; telazol; tranquilize; ursus americanus; west virginia; wildlife management,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,RYAN CW;VAUGHAN MR;MELDRUM JB;DUNCAN RB;EDWARDS JW,"telazol (r) (fort dodge animal health, fort dodge, ia) is an effective immobilization drug for american black bears (ursus americanus), but concern exists regarding retention time of this drug in tissues relative to human consumption of bears. therefore, we evaluated retention time of telazol in captured american black bears immobilized with telazol and held in captivity for 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, or 21 days. we detected telazol in muscle and liver of one bear on day 7, in serum from 2 bears on day 7, and in urine of one bear each on day 3 and day 14. our findings suggest telazol is metabolized and eliminated quickly from the bear's system and should allow managers additional flexibility in mark-recapture studies and nuisance situations. (journal of wildlife management 73(2): 210-213; 2009)" "protecting window-size female american lobster, homarus americanus, to increase egg production",mark-recapture model; conservation measure; egg production,NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF MARINE AND FRESHWATER RESEARCH,MACMILLAN R;COMEAU M;MALLET M,"a new conservation measure aimed at protecting the larger broodstock (females with a carapace length between 115 and 129 mm, i.e., window-size females, wsf) to enhance egg production was implemented in 2003 for the american lobster (homarus americanus) fishery in the southern gulf of st. lawrence, canada. to assess the effectiveness of this new measure, a tagging project was carried out between 2004 and 2007 in the hillsborough bay area with the collaboration of local harvesters. based on a single mark-recapture petersen model, the estimated catch rates of wsf not carrying eggs under the abdomen in the study area varied between 40% and 53%. the catch-per-unit-effort (animals per 100 traps) of both berried (egg-bearing) and non-berried wsf increased from 0.2 to 0.8 and 1.0 to 1.6, respectively, between 2004 and 2007. based on the estimated number of non-berried wsf in the population observed during the spring fishery between 2004 and 2007, the potential total egg production for wsf was estimated at 1.1 billion in the study area. from this total, 515 million eggs would have been produced by wsf directly protected by the conservation measure, i.e., females that would have been harvested if not for the new regulation. finally, the contribution of berried wsf to the annual egg production in the study area increased from 4% to 23% between 2003 and 2007 based on the at-sea sampling programme and the fecundity curve. wsf that represented 10% of the total berried female population in 2007 contributed 23% of the annual egg production. hence, the protection of wsf seems to be an effective conservation measure to increase egg production based on the catch-per-unit-effort and egg production." aerial survey as a tool to estimate whale shark abundance trends,aerial survey; catch-mark-recapture; population estimation; rhincodon typus; whale shark,JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY,ROWAT D;GORE M;MEEKAN MG;LAWLER IR;BRADSHAW CJA,"aerial surveys have been used to estimate population abundance of both terrestrial and marine species; in the marine environment this has largely been used for air-breathing species that spend time regularly at the surface. whale sharks spend a large proportion of their time close to the surface and so are amenable to aerial survey techniques. this study presents the results of six years of synoptic aerial belt-surveys done nearly daily during the peak whale shark season around the island of mahe, seychelles. a total of 580 survey flights were flown providing 699.7 hours of survey record. a seasonal peak of shark sightings per hour was recorded in september or october in most years with the maximum on a single survey of 28.4 h(-1) in october 2006. the aerial survey data were used to generate an estimate of relative population abundance indicating that highest mean annual relative population estimate was also in 2006, with an estimate of 38, while the lowest mean estimate was 11 in 2004. these estimates were then compared to weekly capture-mark-recapture estimates of abundance based on unique individual identification data. the results indicate that the use of aerial survey data alone may give an acceptable indication of instantaneous relative population abundance but further refinement is necessary to estimate absolute regional abundance. (c) 2008 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -cancer screening in us workers,NA,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH,VIDAL L;LEBLANC WG;MCCOLLISTER KE;ARHEART KL;CHUNG-BRIDGES K;CHRIST S;CABAN-MARTINEZ AJ;LEWIS JE;LEE DJ;CLARK J;DAVILA EP;FLEMING LE,"regular cancer screening can prevent the development of some cancers and increase patient survival for other cancers. we evaluated the reported cancer screening prevalence among a nationally representative sample of all us workers with data from the 2000 and 2005 cancer screening supplements of the national health interview survey. overall, workers with the lowest rates of health insurance coverage (in particular, hispanic workers, agricultural workers, and construction workers) reported the lowest cancer screening. there was no significant improvement from 2000 to 2005. (am j public health. 2009;99:59-65. doi:10.2106/ajph.2008.135699)" +cancer screening in us workers,NA,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH,VIDAL L;LEBLANC WG;MCCOLLISTER KE;ARHEART KL;CHUNG BRIDGES K;CHRIST S;CABAN MARTINEZ AJ;LEWIS JE;LEE DJ;CLARK J;DAVILA EP;FLEMING LE,"regular cancer screening can prevent the development of some cancers and increase patient survival for other cancers. we evaluated the reported cancer screening prevalence among a nationally representative sample of all us workers with data from the 2000 and 2005 cancer screening supplements of the national health interview survey. overall, workers with the lowest rates of health insurance coverage (in particular, hispanic workers, agricultural workers, and construction workers) reported the lowest cancer screening. there was no significant improvement from 2000 to 2005. (am j public health. 2009;99:59-65. doi:10.2106/ajph.2008.135699)" ecological characteristics of small mammal communities at a superfund site,NA,AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST,PHELPS KL;MCBEE K,"wildlife species can serve as biomonitors of environmental health and are prognostic of ecotoxicological consequences when contaminants are introduced into the environment. small mammals, particularly rodents, comprise the majority of indicator species used in terrestrial biomonitoring studies; however, many biomonitoring studies address acute effects over relatively short periods. we still know little regarding effects of chronic exposure to contaminants on small mammals. the overall goal of this study was to determine ecological characteristics of small mammal communities inhabiting a heavy metal contaminated site, tar creek superfund site, compared to reference sites located in northeastern oklahoma over a 2 y timeframe. primary hazardous materials present at tar creek superfund site include lead, zinc and cadmium. mark-recapture techniques were employed to test the hypothesis that structure and composition of small mammal communities inhabiting this contaminated site would he significantly altered compared to uncontaminated reference sites. contaminated and reference sites were similar in vegetation compositional characteristics. small mammal communities inhabiting tar creek superfund site had reduced species diversity, including richness and evenness, compared to reference sites. furthermore, communities within tar creek superfund site were dominated by a single species, peromyscus leucopus (white-footed mouse). species composition was different between contaminated sites and reference sites as evidenced by detrended correspondence analysis, with contaminated sites being more similar to each other than to either reference site. no direct link between site contamination and disparities among most ecological characteristics could be established." "sexual selection favours large body size in males of a tropical snake (stegonotus cucullatus, colubridae)",paternity; reproductive success; reptile; serpentes; sexual dimorphism; slatey-grey snake; stegenotus cucullaus,ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR,DUBEY S;BROWN GP;MADSEN T;SHINE R,"information on the phenotypic correlates of male reproductive success can provide important insights into the operation of sexual selection, and the nature of evolutionary forces on phenotypic traits such as male body size. we combined results from a long-term mark-recapture field study with genetic analyses for identifying paternity of offspring to quantify male reproductive success in a colubrid snake species from tropical australia. because previous work has shown that male slatey-grey snakes, stegonotus cucullatus, attain larger body sizes than do conspecific females, we predicted that larger males would have higher reproductive success. our paternity assignments of 219 offspring ( 24 clutches) supported this prediction: larger males fathered more offspring, not because they obtained more matings, but because they fathered a higher proportion of offspring within the clutches to which they did contribute. multiple paternity was common ( mean of 2.3 fathers per clutch, range 1-5). our results demonstrate the utility of molecular approaches to clarify mating systems in field populations of snakes, and suggest that the evolution of extreme male-biased sexual size dimorphism in this species is attributable to enhanced reproductive success afforded by larger body size in males. (c) 2008 the association for the study of animal behaviour. published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." evaluation of a new technique for marking anurans,amphibian; florida; mark-recapture; marking; toe-clip; treefrog; visible implant elastomer; vie-c technique,APPLIED HERPETOLOGY,CAMPBELL TS;IRVIN P;CAMPBELL KR;HOFFMANN K;DYKES ME;HARDING AJ;JOHNSON SA,"amphibians can be very difficult to mark because of their extraordinary powers of regeneration. although many amphibian marking techniques have been developed, few meet the rigorous assumptions of capture-mark-recapture models. also, excessive toe-clipping may affect frog survivorship adversely. we tested the efficacy of a new hybrid marking technique (vie-c) that combines visible implant elastomer (vie) and toe-clipping on four species of treefrogs in west-central florida. of the 840 treefrogs recaptured over a 15-month period, only one mark was unreadable. a significantly higher percentage of vie marks (80%) than toe-clips (55%) remained viable for the duration of the study. on average, toe-clips remained readable for 100 days, and vie marks remained readable for 112 days. there were no significant species differences in the length of time that either type of mark lasted. the hybrid vie-c method represents an improvement over either method used alone, but the vie mark will be more helpful in correctly reading and clarifying toe-clipping errors than will toe-clips be helpful in reading and clarifying vie marks. (c) koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2009" @@ -4949,10 +4962,10 @@ dasl(n)e: the challenge of developing a regional database for autism spectrum di ascertainment and accuracy of down syndrome cases reported in congenital anomaly registers in england and wales,NA,ARCHIVES OF DISEASE IN CHILDHOOD-FETAL AND NEONATAL EDITION,SAVVA GM;MORRIS JK,"objective: congenital anomaly registers allow the rates of anomalies to be monitored and are essential for understanding their epidemiology. we estimate the ascertainment and accuracy of records of down syndrome (os) on national and regional registers in england and wales. methods: probabilistic record linkage was used to match records of ds from three sources: the national down syndrome cytogenetic register (ndscr), seven regional members of the british isles network of congenital anomaly registers (binocar) and the national congenital anomaly system (ncas). capture-recapture methods were then used to estimate the ascertainment of each register. results: the ndscr and binocar registers ascertain around 95% of both pre-natally and post-natally diagnosed cases of ds. was collects data only on births and ascertains 55% of cases of ds births, which is currently around 25% of all ds diagnoses. ncas ascertainment varies according to whether a binocar register covering the same area contributes information to ncas, varying from 80% in areas where regional registers contribute to 50% where regional registers do not. conclusions: active case finding through regional registers is essential for monitoring congenital anomalies. the ascertainment of the ndscr and binocar is sufficient to provide reliable epidemiology and surveillance of congenital anomalies, whereas that of ncas is not." staging behavior in red knot (calidris canutus) in delaware bay: implications for monitoring mass and population size,calidris canutus; delaware bay; mark-recapture models; mass gain; passage population size; red knot; staging ecology; turnover,AUK,GILLINGS S;ATKINSON PW;BAKER AJ;BENNETT KA;CLARK NA;COLE KB;GONZALEZ PM;KALASZ KS;MINTON CDT;NILES LJ;PORTER RC;SERRANO ID;SITTERS HP;WOODS JL,"many migratory birds use staging sites to gain essential resources to fuel their ongoing migration. understanding staging strategies reveals much about migration systems and is essential if one is concerned with monitoring population trends and mass gains, two of the principal methods for assessing the ""health"" of a migratory population. in spring 2004, we investigated the staging behavior in delaware bay of red knot (calidris canutus) using mark-recapture techniques and resightings of birds marked in the preceding spring. individuals staged for 11-12 days, which declined to 8-10 days late in the season. arrivals were asynchronous, but departures tended to be synchronized. a simple sensitivity analysis showed that the mark-recapture analysis estimated length of stay to within +10% and confirmed biases in monitoring trends and mass gains using peak counts and mass-on-date regressions. alternative methods using staging duration to estimate passage population size and mass gains were shown to be unbiased. using these methods, we estimated a passage population size in 2004 of 18,000 red knot that arrived at an average mass of ill g and, on average, gained mass at 7.2 g day(-1). thus, in 2004, the passage population was substantially smaller than the recent peak count of 50,360 in 1998, which confirms a significant decline in the number of red knot staging in delaware bay. use of refined techniques such as these is essential if management decisions such as those in delaware bay are to be based on firm scientific advice. received 24 november 2006, accepted 17 june 2008." multistate models for estimation of survival and reproduction in the grey-headed albatross (thalassarche chrysostoma),grey-headed albatross; mark-recapture; open robust design; temporary emigration; thalassarche chrysostoma; unobservable state,AUK,CONVERSE SJ;KENDALL WL;DOHERTY PF;RYAN PG,"reliable in formation on demography is necessary for conservation of albatrosses, the most threatened family of pelagic birds. albatross survival has been estimated using mark-recapture data and the cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) model. however, albatross exhibit skipped breeding, violating assumptions of the cjs model. multistate modeling integrating unobservable states is a promising toot for such situations. we applied multistate models to data on grey-headed albatross (thalassarche chrysostoma) to evaluate model performance and describe demographic patterns. these included a multistate equivalent of the cjs model (ms-2), including successful and failed breeding states and ignoring temporary emigration, and three versions of a four-state multistate model that accounts for temporary emigration by integrating unobservable states: a model (ms-4) with one sample per breeding season, a robust design model (rdms-4) with multiple samples per season and geographic closure within the season, and an open robust design model (ordms-4) with multiple samples per season and staggered entry and exit of animals within the season. survival estimates from the ms-2 model were higher than those from the ms-4 model, which resulted in apparent percent relative bias averaging 2.2%. the ordms-4 model was more appropriate than the rdms-4 model, given that staggered entry and exit occurred. annual survival probability for grey-headed albatross at marion island was 0.951. +/- 0.006 (se), and the probability of skipped breeding in a subsequent year averaged 0.938 for successful and 0.163 for failed breeders. we recommend that multistate models with unobservable states, combined with robust-design sampling, be used in studies of species that exhibit temporary emigration. received 13 november 2007 accepted 25 june 2008." -identification of individual and population-level variation in vocalizations of the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher (empidonax traillii extimus),empidonax traillii extimus; mark-recapture; monitoring; neural networks; willow flycatcher; vocal individuality,AUK,FERNANDEZ-JURICIC E;DEL NEVO AJ;POSTON R,"an understanding of individuality in animal vocalizations can assist in tracking individuals spatially and temporally, and is particularly useful for species of conservation concern. we determined whether fitz bew vocalizations of the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher (empidonax traillii extimus) showed vocal individuality, assessed the differences in vocal individuality among three populations, and tested the ability of predictive vocalization models to reidentify individuals. fitz bew vocalizations were recorded from two populations in arizona (roosevelt lake and san pedro river) and one in california (kern river). individuality was determined using discriminant function analysis (dfa) and trained artificial neural networks (ann). southwestern willow flycatchers showed individuality in the fitz bew, with the models correctly classifying 81-86% of the vocalizations. we also found population-level variations: vocal structure differed substantially between roosevelt lake and kern river, but vocal structure in the san pedro river population overlapped with that of the other two populations. these population differences could be related to dispersal patterns of adults or offspring, patterns of territory establishment, or habitat structure differences. the ann vocalization models reidentified an average of 81% of the individuals and were able to identify novel individuals. on the basis of these results, we recommend that acoustic tracking should complement rather than replace current monitoring practices, given its logistical limitations. we provide a basic understanding of vocal parameters that can be used in the future to study different aspects related to vocal individuality (e.g., taxonomic, seasonal, yearly, and sex differences). received 18 june 2007, accepted 25 june 2008." +identification of individual and population-level variation in vocalizations of the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher (empidonax traillii extimus),empidonax traillii extimus; mark-recapture; monitoring; neural networks; willow flycatcher; vocal individuality,AUK,FERNANDEZ JURICIC E;DEL NEVO AJ;POSTON R,"an understanding of individuality in animal vocalizations can assist in tracking individuals spatially and temporally, and is particularly useful for species of conservation concern. we determined whether fitz bew vocalizations of the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher (empidonax traillii extimus) showed vocal individuality, assessed the differences in vocal individuality among three populations, and tested the ability of predictive vocalization models to reidentify individuals. fitz bew vocalizations were recorded from two populations in arizona (roosevelt lake and san pedro river) and one in california (kern river). individuality was determined using discriminant function analysis (dfa) and trained artificial neural networks (ann). southwestern willow flycatchers showed individuality in the fitz bew, with the models correctly classifying 81-86% of the vocalizations. we also found population-level variations: vocal structure differed substantially between roosevelt lake and kern river, but vocal structure in the san pedro river population overlapped with that of the other two populations. these population differences could be related to dispersal patterns of adults or offspring, patterns of territory establishment, or habitat structure differences. the ann vocalization models reidentified an average of 81% of the individuals and were able to identify novel individuals. on the basis of these results, we recommend that acoustic tracking should complement rather than replace current monitoring practices, given its logistical limitations. we provide a basic understanding of vocal parameters that can be used in the future to study different aspects related to vocal individuality (e.g., taxonomic, seasonal, yearly, and sex differences). received 18 june 2007, accepted 25 june 2008." effect of distance-related heterogeneity on population size estimates from point counts,bias; capture-recapture; distance-related heterogeneity; mixture models; point counts; repeated counts,AUK,EFFORD MG;DAWSON DK,"point counts are used widely to index bird populations. variation in the proportion of birds counted is a known source of error, and for robust inference it has been advocated that counts be converted to estimates of absolute population size. we used simulation to assess nine methods for the conduct and analysis of point counts when the data included distance-related heterogeneity of individual detection probability. distance from the observer is a ubiquitous source of heterogeneity, because nearby birds are more easily detected than distant ones. several recent methods (dependent double-observer, time of first detection, time of detection, independent multiple-observer, and repeated counts) do not account for distance-related heterogeneity, at least in their simpler forms. we assessed bias in estimates of population size by simulating counts with fixed radius w over four time intervals (occasions). detection probability per occasion was modeled as a half-normal function of distance with scale parameter sigma and intercept g(0) = 1.0. bias varied with sigma/w; values of sigma inferred from published studies were often <25 m, which suggests a bias of >50% for a 100-m fixed-radius count. more critically, the bias of adjusted counts sometimes varied more than that of unadjusted counts, and inference from adjusted counts would be less robust. the problem was not solved by using mixture models or including distance as a covariate. conventional distance sampling performed well in simulations, but its assumptions are difficult to meet in the field. we conclude that no existing method allows effective estimation of population size from point counts. received 29 november 2007 accepted 1 july 2008." dormancy in caladenia: a bayesian approach to evaluating latency,NA,AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY,TREMBLAY RL;PEREZ ME;LARCOMBE M;BROWN A;QUARMBY J;BICKERTON D;FRENCH G;BOULD A,"dormancy is common in many terrestrial orchids in southern australia and other temperate environments. the difficulty for conservation and management when considering dormancy is ascertaining whether non-emergent plants are dormant or dead. here we use a multi-state capture-recapture method, undertaken over several seasons, to determine the likelihood of a plant becoming dormant or dying following its annual emergent period and evaluate the frequency of the length of dormancy. we assess the transition probabilities from time series of varying lengths for the following nine terrestrial orchids in the genus caladenia: c. amoena, c. argocalla, c. clavigera, c. elegans, c. graniticola, c. macroclavia, c. oenochila, c. rosella and c. valida from victoria, south australia and western australia. we used a bayesian approach for estimating survivorship, dormancy and the likelihood of death from capture-recapture data. considering all species together, the probability of surviving from one year to the next was similar to 86%, whereas the likelihood of observing an individual above ground in two consecutive years was similar to 74%. all species showed dormancy of predominantly 1 year, whereas dormancy of three or more years was extremely rare (<2%). the results have practical implications for conservation, in that (1) population sizes of caladenia species are more easily estimated by being able to distinguish the likelihood of an unseen individual being dormant or dead, (2) population dynamics of individuals can be evaluated by using a 1-3-year dormancy period and (3) survey effort is not wasted on monitoring individuals that have not emerged for many years." -"effects of a marine fishery reserve and habitat characteristics in the abundance and demography of the red hind grouper, epinephelus guttatus",serranidae; habitat choice; density; size-structure; capture-mark-recapture; survivorship,CARIBBEAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE,LOPEZ-RIVERA MD;SABAT AM,"no-take marine fishery reserves have been established worldwide to reduce the impact of overfishing in marine ecosystems and to restore depleted fishery stocks. in this study we used capture-mark-recapture methodology to evaluate the effectiveness of a small no-take marine fishery reserve in enhancing local abundance, size structure, survival and growth of the red hind grouper, epinephelus guttatus. the benthic and fish communities were also characterized to discern between the effects of reserve protection from those of habitat variability. a total of 342 red hinds were captured at three localities inside and three outside (200 inside, 142 outside), with a recapture rate of 21.9%. all recaptures were made at the site of initial capture. density of red hind groupers significantly differed among localities; however, no effect of the reserve was evident. the highest red hind grouper densities were found in hard ground habitats irrespective of management (i.e. inside vs. outside no-take marine fishery reserve). survival and growth rates did not vary significantly among localities or between management treatments. however, red hind groupers inside the reserve were significantly larger than those outside. significant differences in benthic community structure were found among localities, but not between management treatments. variation in red hind grouper population parameters among sites did not correlate with benthic community variables, except for relief, that correlated negatively with red hind grouper density. the overriding factor accounting for differences in red hind grouper density among sites appears to be habitat choice, not the protection from fishing conferred by the reserve." +"effects of a marine fishery reserve and habitat characteristics in the abundance and demography of the red hind grouper, epinephelus guttatus",serranidae; habitat choice; density; size-structure; capture-mark-recapture; survivorship,CARIBBEAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE,LOPEZ RIVERA MD;SABAT AM,"no-take marine fishery reserves have been established worldwide to reduce the impact of overfishing in marine ecosystems and to restore depleted fishery stocks. in this study we used capture-mark-recapture methodology to evaluate the effectiveness of a small no-take marine fishery reserve in enhancing local abundance, size structure, survival and growth of the red hind grouper, epinephelus guttatus. the benthic and fish communities were also characterized to discern between the effects of reserve protection from those of habitat variability. a total of 342 red hinds were captured at three localities inside and three outside (200 inside, 142 outside), with a recapture rate of 21.9%. all recaptures were made at the site of initial capture. density of red hind groupers significantly differed among localities; however, no effect of the reserve was evident. the highest red hind grouper densities were found in hard ground habitats irrespective of management (i.e. inside vs. outside no-take marine fishery reserve). survival and growth rates did not vary significantly among localities or between management treatments. however, red hind groupers inside the reserve were significantly larger than those outside. significant differences in benthic community structure were found among localities, but not between management treatments. variation in red hind grouper population parameters among sites did not correlate with benthic community variables, except for relief, that correlated negatively with red hind grouper density. the overriding factor accounting for differences in red hind grouper density among sites appears to be habitat choice, not the protection from fishing conferred by the reserve." assessment and tag program adaption methods for exploratory fisheries in the camlr convention area: an example application for division 58.43a,exploratory fisheries; interim management; division 58.4.3a; d. eleginoides; ccamlr,CCAMLR SCIENCE,HILLARY RM,"a methodology for the initial stock assessment and adaption of catch limits and tagging rates is presented for new and exploratory stocks in the camlr convention area. the assessment methodology is designed to be able to accommodate mark-recapture data, catch (legal and illegal, unreported and unregulated (iuu)) and relative abundance data into an integrated assessment framework when more detailed data are not available - namely catch-at-length/age data and tagging data at-length/age. a simple algorithm, based upon the petersen abundance estimator, is defined whereby catch limits and tagging rates can be adjusted together to define tagging levels that will produce an expected abundance estimate in the following year of a given precision whilst ensuring the sustainable exploitation of the stock as per the ccamlr management procedure. the combination of the assessment and tagging rate adaption methods can then form the basis of an early management plan for exploratory fisheries. the accuracy of the catch limit and tag-rate adaption algorithm is tested using the assessment results for toothfish in ccamlr subarea 48.3 and the assessment method is applied to the catch (legal and iuu) and mark-recapture data for patagonian toothfish (dissostichus eleginoides) in division 58.4.3a with catch limit and tag-rate recommendations being made given the assessment results and using the catch limit/tag-rate adaption algorithm." transformed logit confidence intervals for small populations in single capture-recapture estimation,asymptotic normality; coverage probability; dual-system estimation; expected width; monte carlo study; odds ratio; pivotal statistic; profile likelihood,COMMUNICATIONS IN STATISTICS-SIMULATION AND COMPUTATION,SADINLE M,"the good performance of logit confidence intervals for the odds ratio with small samples is well known. this is true unless the actual odds ratio is very large. in single capture-recapture estimation the odds ratio is equal to 1 because of the assumption of independence of the samples. consequently, a transformation of the logit confidence intervals for the odds ratio is proposed in order to estimate the size of a closed population under single capture-recapture estimation. it is found that the transformed logit interval, after adding .5 to each observed count before computation, has actual coverage probabilities near to the nominal level even for small populations and even for capture probabilities near to 0 or 1, which is not guaranteed for the other capture-recapture confidence intervals proposed in statistical literature. thus, given that the .5 transformed logit interval is very simple to compute and has a good performance, it is appropriate to be implemented by most users of the single capture-recapture method." conditionally unbiased estimation of population size under plant-capture,capture-recapture; factorial series distribution; gould-hopper number; petersen estimator,COMMUNICATIONS IN STATISTICS-THEORY AND METHODS,ASHBRIDGE J;GOUDIE IBJ,a target population is increased by the insertion of a known number of planted individuals. the standard equal catchability model used in mark-recapture is assumed to be applicable to the augmented population. this article considers a conditionally unbiased estimator of the unknown size of the target population. its performance is seen to compare favorably with that of the maximum likelihood estimator and a petersen-type estimator. estimators of the standard deviation of the conditionally unbiased estimator are also considered. @@ -4960,15 +4973,16 @@ estimation of covariate distribution with capture-recapture data,conditional lik sampling design considerations for demographic studies: a case of colonial seabirds,albatross; buffer area; capture-recapture; dead recoveries; double banding; incidental observations; less invasive robust design; multistate models; phoebastria immutabilis; phoebastria nigripes; robust design; tag loss,ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS,KENDALL WL;CONVERSE SJ;DOHERTY PF;NAUGHTON MB;ANDERS A;HINES JE;FLINT E,"for the purposes of making many informed conservation decisions, the main goal for data collection is to assess population status and allow prediction of the consequences of candidate management actions. reducing the bias and variance of estimates of population parameters reduces uncertainty in population status and projections, thereby reducing the overall uncertainty under which a population manager must make a decision. in capture recapture studies, imperfect detection of individuals, unobservable life-history states, local movement outside study areas, and tag loss can cause bias or precision problems with estimates of population parameters. furthermore, excessive disturbance to individuals during capture-recapture sampling may be of concern because disturbance may have demographic consequences. we address these problems using as an example a monitoring program for black-footed albatross (phoebastria nigripes) and laysan albatross (phoebastria immutabilis) nesting populations in the northwestern hawaiian islands. to mitigate these estimation problems, we describe a synergistic combination of sampling design and modeling approaches. solutions include multiple capture periods per season and multistate, robust design statistical models, dead recoveries and incidental observations, telemetry and data loggers, buffer areas around study plots to neutralize the effect of local movements outside study plots, and double banding and statistical models that account for band loss. we also present a variation on the robust capture-recapture design and a corresponding statistical model that minimizes disturbance to individuals. for the albatross case study, this less invasive robust design was more time efficient and, when used in combination with a traditional robust design, reduced the standard error of detection probability by 14% with only two hours of additional effort in the field. these field techniques and associated modeling approaches are applicable to studies of most taxa being marked and in some cases have individually been applied to studies of birds, fish, herpetofauna, and mammals." modeling misidentification errors in capture-recapture studies using photographic identification of evolving marks,capture-recapture; closed-population models; evolving tags; misidentification; natural tags; photographic identification; population size estimate,ECOLOGY,YOSHIZAKI J;POLLOCK KH;BROWNIE C;WEBSTER RA,"misidentification of animals is potentially important when naturally existing features (natural tags) are used to identify individual animals in a capture-recapture study. photographic identification (photoid) typically uses photographic images of animals' naturally existing features as tags (photographic tags) and is subject to two main causes of identification errors: those related to quality of photographs (non-evolving natural tags) and those related to changes in natural marks (evolving natural tags). the conventional methods for analysis of capture-recapture data do not account for identification errors, and to do so requires a detailed understanding of the misidentification mechanism. focusing on the situation where errors are due to evolving natural tags, we propose a misidentification mechanism and outline a framework for modeling the effect of misidentification in closed population studies. we introduce methods for estimating population size based on this model. using a simulation study, we show that conventional estimators can seriously overestimate population size when errors due to misidentification are ignored, and that, in comparison, our new estimators have better properties except in cases with low capture probabilities (< 0.2) or low misidentification rates (< 2.5%)." survival and population growth rate of the threatened siberian flying squirrel (pteromys volans) in a fragmented forest landscape,habitat loss; mark-recapture; source-sink,ECOSCIENCE,LAMPILA S;WISTBACKA R;MAKELA A;ORELL M,"habitat loss is the major phenomenon threatening species in the boreal forests. one example of a threatened species affected by habitat loss is the siberian flying squirrel (pteromys volans). we used mark-recapture data from 1992 to 2004 for 3 flying squirrel populations to estimate the demographic parameters of these populations. average adult survival was 0.43-0.53, and probability of surviving and staying near the natal territory through the first winter was 0.23-0.30 in different populations. these values are low compared to survival estimates presented in the literature for other sciurid species. the estimated population growth rates indicated population decline in all areas. in one of the areas, we found a decline in adult survival and population growth rate during the study. this decline was demonstrated to be linked to ongoing habitat loss due to logging. low survival and emigration probabilities suggest that these populations are likely to be sinks. this highlights the need to ensure dispersal between the remaining patches of suitable habitat for successful conservation of this and other species associated with old-growth forests. the situation is worrisome as the studied populations are situated in an area where flying squirrel population densities have traditionally been high." -population density and microhabitat selection in the ground beetle species brachinus crepitans (coleoptera: carabidae),brachinus crepitans linnaeus 1758; capture-recapture; moist habitats; population dynamics,ENTOMOLOGIA GENERALIS,BRIGIC A;VUJCIC-KARLO S;STANCIC Z;ALEGRO A;KEPCIJA RM,"brachinus crepitans linnaeus 1758 is a species of dry, open habitats. previous studies have shown that in croatia, this species inhabits open habitats, but is not restricted to dry habitats. the objective of this study was to investigate the distribution and seasonal dynamics of b crepitans at four sites with varying vegetation types around a small, shallow aquatic area. pitfall traps and the capture-recapture methods were used. the results show that b crepitans prefers open, periodically flooded habitats, though it was also found in dense, closed complexes with amorpha fruticosa. seasonal dynamics varied from those observed in central europe. population density was estimated at 1.42 beetles m(-2)." +population density and microhabitat selection in the ground beetle species brachinus crepitans (coleoptera: carabidae),brachinus crepitans linnaeus 1758; capture-recapture; moist habitats; population dynamics,ENTOMOLOGIA GENERALIS,BRIGIC A;VUJCIC KARLO S;STANCIC Z;ALEGRO A;KEPCIJA RM,"brachinus crepitans linnaeus 1758 is a species of dry, open habitats. previous studies have shown that in croatia, this species inhabits open habitats, but is not restricted to dry habitats. the objective of this study was to investigate the distribution and seasonal dynamics of b crepitans at four sites with varying vegetation types around a small, shallow aquatic area. pitfall traps and the capture-recapture methods were used. the results show that b crepitans prefers open, periodically flooded habitats, though it was also found in dense, closed complexes with amorpha fruticosa. seasonal dynamics varied from those observed in central europe. population density was estimated at 1.42 beetles m(-2)." spatial population structure of the predatory ground beetle carabus yaconinus (coleoptera: carabidae) in the mixed farmland-woodland satoyama landscape of japan,coleoptera; carabidae; carabus yaconinus; adult movement; agroecosystem; conservation biological control; ecotone; forest edge; mark-recapture; natural enemy; sexual behaviour,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENTOMOLOGY,KAGAWA Y;MAETO K,"to conserve the predators and parasitoids of agricultural pests it is necessary to understand their population structure in a mixed landscape, and to consider the spatial and temporal changes in their distribution and movement of adults and larvae. we studied the distribution and movement of the ground beetle carabus yaconinus ( coleoptera: carabidae), which inhabits farmland-woodland landscapes. we placed a large number of pitfall traps along the border between a wood and an orchard and counted the number of c. yaconinus adults and larvae caught in the traps from 13 april to 28 june 2005. some of the adults were marked before they were released. adults were most abundant at the edge of the wood and the number caught gradually decreased when entering into the wood. in contrast, larvae were only found in the interior of the wood, although they moved closer to the edge of the wood as they matured. adult females were collected within the wood and neighbouring orchards more frequently than adult males. it is likely that females enter woodlands in search of oviposition sites and leave woodlands in search of high-protein food sources to support reproduction. for sustaining populations of c. yaconinus it is necessary to have woodlands of at least 60 m in width adjacent to farmland. it is possible to design an appropriate landscape if the habitat requirements of the predatory arthropods are well understood." capturerecapture estimates of the local prevalence of problem drug use in six french cities,NA,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH,VAISSADE L;LEGLEYE S,"background: general population surveys do not provide reliable estimates of problem drug users, which are essential for drug use prevention and treatment policies. indirect estimation methods, especially capturerecapture method, are preferred. problem drug use receives now a growing interest on a european level. very few studies using this method have been carried out in france especially on a multicentric level. method: six three-sample capturerecapture analyses were carried out in urban areas of lille, lyon, marseille, metz, rennes, toulouse. data were collected in 2006 from different sources including treatment data, harm reduction and social data and law enforcement data. users of opiates, cocaine/crack, stimulants and/or hallucinogens aged 1564 were identified. log-linear models were fitted to the data in order to test different interactions between the data sources representing potential dependencies. the simplest model was selected on the basis of its akaike information criterion (aic) and log-likelihood ratio tests. confidence intervals were estimated using the likelihood interval method. results: the total number of problem drug users was estimated to be 7900 (95 ci 630010 200) in lille, 8400 (630011 800) in lyon, 5600 (42007700) in marseille, 2300 (17003200) in metz, 1500 (11002300) in rennes and 5400 (43006900) in toulouse (estimates are rounded to nearest 100). these figures correspond to the following prevalence rates of the population aged 1564 years: 10.8 per thousand (8.614.0) in lille, 10.6 (8.015.0) in lyon, 10.3 (7.714.2) in marseille, 10.8 (8.015.0) in metz, 7.6 (5.611.7) in rennes, 10.1 (8.012.9) in toulouse. conclusions: although the confidence intervals are wide, the method provides valuable information on the extent of problem drug use." does venting promote survival of released fish?,NA,FISHERIES,WILDE GR,"fishes captured and brought to the surface by commercial and recreational fishers may suffer a variety of injuries that collectively are referred to as barotrauma. to relieve barotrauma symptoms, particularly those associated with an expanded swim bladder, some anglers deflate, or vent, the swim bladder (or body cavity when the swim bladder has ruptured) of fishes before releasing them. i compiled 17 studies that assessed the potential benefits of venting in 21 fish species and i composite group. these studies provided 39 sample estimates that compare survival (n = 18) and recapture rates (n = 21) of vented and unvented fish. i used relative risk to summarize results of individual studies, which allowed me to combine results from experimental and capture-recapture studies. overall, there was little evidence that venting benefited fish survival. venting was equally ineffective for freshwater and marine fishes and its efficacy was unaffected based on whether venting was performed by fishery biologists or anglers. the effects of venting did vary with capture depth: venting was slightly beneficial to fish captured from shallow waters, but appeared to be increasingly harmful for fish captured from progressively deeper waters. the available evidence suggests that venting fish should not only be discouraged by fishery management agencies, but given the possibility that venting may adversely affect survival of fish captured from deep water, this practice should be prohibited, rather than required by regulation." direct and indirect estimates of black crappie size selectivity to a common sampling gear: potential biases and limitations for assessment,size selectivity; catchability; otter trawls; black crappie; direct/indirect measures of gear selectivity,FISHERIES RESEARCH,BINION GR;ALLEN MS;CATALANO MJ;PINE WE,"reliable stock assessments require estimates of gear selectivity to separate selection from true changes in population structure, but true measures of selectivity are rare in the literature. we estimated size selectivity of bottom trawl sampling for black crappie pomoxis nigromaculatus using capture-recapture methods to directly measure the effects of fish size on catchability, (q, the fraction of a fish stock collected with a given unit of fishing effort) at lake jeffords, florida, usa. additional indirect estimates of selectivity were obtained with a population model applied to long-term data at four florida lakes. direct measures of selectivity indicated catchability was highest for the 90-119 mm length-group and lowest for fish greater than or equal to 180 mm, with q declining by a factor of 2 or 3 for large fish relative to small fish. the indirect age-structured modeling approach revealed dome-shaped gear selectivity patterns with relative selectivities peaking at age-1 for three of four lakes. overall model trends indicated greater selectivity of younger fish (age-0 and age-1) to the gear followed by decreasing relative selectivity to older age-classes (age-2+). trawl selectivity patterns suggested that otter trawls would be best for monitoring the abundance of small black crappie and useful for indices of recruitment. our results showed that adult black crappie were underrepresented in bottom trawl samples which would influence age structure and growth rate estimates and the effectiveness of this gear as an assessment tool for tracking adult black crappie populations. (c) 2008 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." global climate patterns explain range-wide synchronicity in survival of a migratory seabird,adult survival; capture-recapture models; climate; cory's shearwater; southern oscillation; synchrony,GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,JENOUVRIER S;THIBAULT JC;VIALLEFONT A;VIDALS P;RISTOW D;MOUGIN JL;BRICHETTI P;BORG JJ;BRETAGNOLLE V,"to predict the impact of climate change over the whole species distribution range, comparison of adult survival variations over large spatial scale is of primary concern for long-lived species populations that are particularly susceptible to decline if adult survival is reduced. in this study, we estimated and compared adult survival rates between 1989 and 1997 of six populations of cory's shearwater (calonectris diomedea) spread across 4600 km using capture-recapture models. we showed that mean annual adult survival rates are different among populations along a longitudinal gradient and between sexes. variation in adult survival is synchronized among populations, with three distinct groups: (1) both females and males of corsica, tremiti, and selvagem (annual survival range 0.88-0.96); (2) both females and males of frioul and females from crete (0.82-0.92); and (3) both females and males of malta and males from crete (0.74-0.88). the total variation accounted for by the common pattern of variation is on average 71%, suggesting strong environmental forcing. at least 61% of the variation in survival is explained by the southern oscillation index fluctuations. we suggested that atlantic hurricanes and storms during la nina years may increase adult mortality for cory's shearwater during winter months. for long-lived seabird species, variation in adult survival is buffered against environmental variability, although extreme climate conditions such as storms significantly affect adult survival. the effect of climate at large spatial scales on adult survival during the nonbreeding period may lead to synchronization of variation in adult survival over the species' range and has large effects on the meta-population trends. one can thus worry about the future of such long-lived seabirds species under the predictions of higher frequency of extreme large-scale climatic events." +survival of turtle doves streptopelia turtur in relation to western africa environmental conditions,capture-mark-recapture model; food resource; migration; wintering,IBIS,ERAUD C;BOUTIN JM;RIVIERE M;BRUN J;BARBRAUD C;LORMEE H,NA improving product quality by multiple inspections: prior and posterior planning of serial inspection procedures,inspection error; quality control; screening; bayesian model,IIE TRANSACTIONS,CHUN YH,"in many practical situations, a complex product is inspected more than once in a sequential manner to further improve its quality. in this paper, the problem of designing the multiple inspection plan via a bayesian method is considered. as a prior distribution in the bayesian model, a negative binomial distribution that has many desirable properties is used. two types of design problem are considered. in prior planning of a serial inspection procedure, the number of inspections necessary to achieve a desired level of quality must be determined prior to starting the inspection process. in posterior planning, the inspection process can be terminated if the product meets a given level of quality. in both cases, the improved level of quality is measured in this paper either by the expected number of undetected errors still remaining in the product or by the probability of no undetected errors in the product." methods for developing country level estimates of the incidence of deaths and non-fatal injuries from road traffic crashes,road traffic injuries; low-income countries; injury surveillance; health metrics,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INJURY CONTROL AND SAFETY PROMOTION,BHALLA K;SHAHRAZ S;BARTELS D;ABRAHAM J,"the estimates of the incidence of deaths and non-fatal injuries from road traffic crashes are essential inputs for prioritising national health and transport policies. this article sketches a methodology for assembling such estimates at the country level by piecing together data from a wide array of sources that include death registers, hospital records, funeral records, health surveys and police reports. using examples of the types of data sources available in four developing countries ( iran, mexico, ghana and india), methods are proposed for making these consistent and extrapolating to estimates of injury incidence at the country level. this requires filling information gaps, mapping from varying case definitions, deriving population-based incidence estimates from sources that may not track denominator populations, and appropriately reapportioning cases assigned to poorly specified causes. the principles proposed here will form the methodological basis for a series of country reports to be published in the future." -parthenogenetic ischnura hastata revisited: present status and notes on population ecology and behaviour (odonata: coenagrionidae),odonata; dragonfly; ischnura hastata; parthenogenesis; population size; survivorship; fertility; underwater oviposition; water quality; azores archipelago,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ODONATOLOGY,LORENZO-CARBALLA MO;BEATTY CD;UTZERI C;VIEIRA V;CORDERO-RIVERA A,"populations of ischnura hastata found in the azores archipelago represent the only known example of parthenogenesis in the order odonata. in this paper, we present results from fieldwork done on the islands of sao miguel, pico, santa maria, and graciosa, aimed at characterizing population ecology and habitat preferences of this species. sampling of several ponds in the islands of sao miguel and pico showed that i. hastata occurred in oligotrophic ponds, but was absent from all eutrophic ponds sampled, many of which have been impacted by cattle grazing and water extraction by humans. this suggests that parthenogenetic populations are highly sensitive to eutrophication, which may be different from suggested habitat preferences of sexual populations for this species. mark-recapture studies showed i. hastata to occur in high densities in the studied populations. although life expectancy of mature females was estimated at less than one week, their high fecundity and fertility could potentially explain the large number of individuals observed in some of the studied sites. submerged oviposition seems to be a common behaviour, probably evolved as an adaptation to unfavourable climatic conditions and to avoid egg desiccation caused by water depletion. in summary, this work represents a first attempt to study the ecology and population biology of parthenogenetic populations of i. hastata, and may help us to understand the unique conditions under which these populations could have evolved and how to best insure their conservation." +parthenogenetic ischnura hastata revisited: present status and notes on population ecology and behaviour (odonata: coenagrionidae),odonata; dragonfly; ischnura hastata; parthenogenesis; population size; survivorship; fertility; underwater oviposition; water quality; azores archipelago,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ODONATOLOGY,LORENZO CARBALLA MO;BEATTY CD;UTZERI C;VIEIRA V;CORDERO RIVERA A,"populations of ischnura hastata found in the azores archipelago represent the only known example of parthenogenesis in the order odonata. in this paper, we present results from fieldwork done on the islands of sao miguel, pico, santa maria, and graciosa, aimed at characterizing population ecology and habitat preferences of this species. sampling of several ponds in the islands of sao miguel and pico showed that i. hastata occurred in oligotrophic ponds, but was absent from all eutrophic ponds sampled, many of which have been impacted by cattle grazing and water extraction by humans. this suggests that parthenogenetic populations are highly sensitive to eutrophication, which may be different from suggested habitat preferences of sexual populations for this species. mark-recapture studies showed i. hastata to occur in high densities in the studied populations. although life expectancy of mature females was estimated at less than one week, their high fecundity and fertility could potentially explain the large number of individuals observed in some of the studied sites. submerged oviposition seems to be a common behaviour, probably evolved as an adaptation to unfavourable climatic conditions and to avoid egg desiccation caused by water depletion. in summary, this work represents a first attempt to study the ecology and population biology of parthenogenetic populations of i. hastata, and may help us to understand the unique conditions under which these populations could have evolved and how to best insure their conservation." application of harmonic radar technology to monitor tree snail dispersal,telemetry; mark-recapture; wind dispersal; achatinella,INVERTEBRATE BIOLOGY,HALL KT;HADFIELD MG,"planned conservation efforts for tree snails of the endangered genus achatinella, endemic to the island of o'ahu, hawai'i, will include translocations among the remaining wild and captive-bred populations. in order to establish optimal levels of artificial migration among neighboring groups of snails within fragmented populations, efforts to determine natural dispersal rates through direct observation were initiated. capture-mark-recapture (cmr) efforts have proved inadequate for obtaining the requisite dispersal estimates, due to low recapture probabilities. in addition, snail dispersal beyond the boundaries of a finite cmr study site was indistinguishable from mortality. in the preliminary study reported here, both the low recapture probability and dispersal detection problems of past cmr efforts were addressed by using harmonic radar tracking. this approach yielded rough dispersal estimates that were unattainable using cmr alone by providing 100% recapture rates even beyond the normal survey area boundaries. extensive snail movements within clusters of connected trees were frequently observed after tracking for merely a few hours, although movements between unconnected trees were rare and recorded only after monthly survey intervals. just 11 out of 40 tracked snails made between-tree movements (average distance of 4.94 +/- 1.52 m) during the entire 7-month study, and provided the only data utilizable for inferring gene flow in and out of subpopulations. meteorological data loggers were deployed when tracking began to look for an association between such snail movement and weather fluctuations. the resultant data indicate that increases in both wind gusts and humidity facilitate dispersal (r-2=0.77, p-value < 0.001), and that passive wind dispersal alone may be responsible for many snail movements (r-2=0.59, p-value=0.0014). despite having provided coarse estimates of short-term dispersal and corresponding wind influences, the limitations of the radar method can be substantial." "adult sex ratio in the parnassius mnemosyne butterfly: effects of survival, migration, and weather",butterfly conservation; effective population size; jolly-seber; mark-recapture; lepidoptera; papilionidae; population estimates,ISRAEL JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION,VLASANEK P;HAUCK D;KONVICKA M,"sex ratio biases in animal populations influence the genetically effective population size, and thus are of interest in conservation. a butterfly group in which many authors report biases towards males is the genus parnassius latreille, 1804 (papilionidae). using a vulnerable woodland species, p. mnemosyne, we carried out a detailed marking campaign designed to eliminate biases towards individual sexes on marking. we then estimated the numbers of males and females using constrained linear models (clms) (cormack-jolly-seber and jolly-seber in mark); compared details of mobility between males and females using the virtual migration (vm) model; and built clms containing weather variables in order to directly assess weather effects on survival. the estimated population size was 4000 adults, with a male : female sex ratio of 1.5-1.6. both daily and average catchability were higher for males, while the residence values (i.e., survival) were higher for females. migration parameters were similar for the sexes, with slightly lower male survival within patches and slightly higher male emigration. clms with weather substituted for or added to marking days performed worse than models with mere marking days, and although weather affected the sexes differently, males still retained lower survival. the surplus of adult males in the studied population of mnemosyne was real, not caused by increased male survival or a difference in mobility. therefore, the bias toward males must appear prior to adult emergence, probably during the larval period." "response to enrichment, type and timing: small mammals vary in their response to a springtime cicada but not a carbohydrate pulse",food addition; paradox of enrichment; pterygodermatities permoysci; pulsed resources; seasonal nutrition,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,VANDEGRIFT KJ;HUDSON PJ,"masting events in the autumn provide a carbohydrate-rich pulse of resources that can influence the dynamics of small mammals and their natural enemies. similar patterns are observed with the periodical cicada emergence which provides a protein-rich pulse in the spring, but comparisons are confounded by timing and food type. we compared the influence of a naturally occurring spring pulse of cicadas with an experimental spring pulse of carbohydrate-rich seeds. we used a replicated population level field experiment and capture-mark-recapture techniques to record the vital rates, demographics, and abundance of peromyscus leucopus (the white-footed mouse), as well as other small mammals and their parasites. the density of p. leucopus on grids where cicadas emerged was 55% higher than controls as a consequence of early breeding. this was followed by an increase in the prevalence of the nematode pterygodermatities peromysci, reduced breeding and decreased recruitment rates. other small mammals including tamias striatus (eastern chipmunk) and blarina brevicauda (short-tailed shrew), increased in density, but there was no affect on sorex cinereus (masked shrew). in contrast to the presence of cicadas, there was no influence of sunflower seed supplementation on small mammal density, vital rates, or reproduction with the exception of an increase in b. brevicauda density. the response of small mammals to seasonal pulses depends on timing, food type, and species." @@ -4981,7 +4995,7 @@ maned wolf density in a central brazilian grassland reserve,abundance; brazil; b temporal patterns of apparent leg band retention in north american geese,band retention; branta canadensis; branta hutchinsii; cackling geese; canada geese; chen caerulescens; chen rossii; ross's geese; snow geese,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,ZIMMERMAN GS;KENDALL WL;MOSER TJ;WHITE GC;DOHERTY PF,"an important assumption of mark-recapture studies is that individuals retain their marks, which has not been assessed for goose reward bands. we estimated aluminum leg band retention probabilities and modeled how band retention varied with band type ( standard vs. reward band), band age (1-40 months), and goose characteristics ( species and size class) for canada (branta canadensis), cackling ( branta hutchinsii), snow ( chen caerulescens), and ross's ( chen rossii) geese that field coordinators double-leg banded during a north american goose reward band study (n = 40,999 individuals from 15 populations). we conditioned all models in this analysis on geese that were encountered with >= 1 leg band still attached (n = 5,747 dead recoveries and live recaptures). retention probabilities for standard aluminum leg bands were high ((theta) over cap (s) 0.9995, se < 0.001) and constant over 1-40 months. in contrast, apparent retention probabilities for reward bands demonstrated an interactive relationship between 5 size and species classes ( small cackling, medium canada, large canada, snow, and ross's geese). in addition, apparent retention probabilities for each of the 5 classes varied quadratically with time, being lower immediately after banding and at older age classes. the differential retention probabilities among band type ( reward vs. standard) that we observed suggests that 1) models estimating reporting probability should incorporate differential band loss if it is nontrivial, 2) goose managers should consider the costs and benefits of double-banding geese on an operational basis, and 3) the united states geological survey bird banding lab should modify protocols for receiving recovery data. ( journal of wildlife management 73( 1): 82-88; 2009)" a comparison of trapping- and radiotelemetry-based estimates of home range of the neotropical opossum philander frenatus,didelphimorphia; home range; live trapping; radio-tracking; atlantic forest,MAMMALIAN BIOLOGY,LIRA PK;FERNANDEZ FAD,"home ranges of individuals of the gray four-eyed opossum philander frenatus were studied by capture-mark-recapture (cmr) and radiotelemetry, within a set of eight atlantic forest fragments surrounded by a grassland matrix in the state of rio de janeiro, southeastern brazil. trapping sessions were carried out in all the forest fragments and ill the grassland matrix. adult individuals were fitted with radio-collar transmitters and monitored throughout the night. locations were obtained by the ""homing-in oil the animal"" method. home-range sizes of the individuals with five or more captures or locations were estimated through the minimum convex polygon method. home-range sizes estimated by radiotelemetry ranged from 0.6 to 7.4 ha (n = 8), and by cmr ranged from 0.1 to 12.1 ha (n = 17); home-range sizes estimated by radiotelemetry did not differ significantly from those based on cmr. however, comparing radiotelemetry with different cmr designs, the former estimates were larger than those based on either cmr using a single grid or cmr using two grids, but not larger than those based on multiple-grid cmr. in specific cases, animals monitored via radiotelemetry for only one or two nights showed larger home ranges than most individuals for which home ranges were estimated by cmr. two individuals for which home-range sizes were estimated by both techniques showed larger home ranges when data from radiotelemetry were used. these data indicated that cmr can provide results comparable to radiotelemetry when multiple grids, spread across the landscape, are used, although this necessitates an intensive trapping effort. on the other hand, single- and double-grid cmr tend to underestimate home-ranges compared to radiotelemetry. (c) 2008 deutsche gesellschaft fur saugetierkunde. published by elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." male reproductive success in plateau pikas (ochotona curzoniae): a microsatellite analysis,male reproductive success; microsatellites; paternity analysis; plateau pika,MAMMALIAN BIOLOGY,YIN BF;YANG SM;WEI WH;ZHANG YM,"in many social species, competition and cooperation between group members may lead to a large variance in reproductive success among individuals, especially for adult male. from april to august 2002, we studied the adult male reproductive success of plateau pikas in haibei alpine meadow ecosystem research station, chinese academy of science, using microsatellite analysis of paternity, mark-recapture and behavioral observations. our result indicated that the reproductive success of adult males had a large variance. its average was 6 individuals and range was from 0 to 13 individuals. one-third of males sired 63.22% offspring. there was a hierarchy system in polygynandrous families. although the reproductive success of dominant males was higher than that of subordinate males, subordinate males still play an important role in the reproductive success of the population. (c) 2009 published by elsevier gmbh on behalf of deutsche gesellschaft fur saugetierkunde." -a long term study of small mammal populations in a brazilian agricultural landscape,marsupials; monitoring; rodents; wild reservoirs,MAMMALIAN BIOLOGY,BONECKER ST;PORTUGAL LG;COSTA-NETO SF;GENTILE R,"long-term monitoring of small mammal populations is very important to understand the variations in temporal abundance on a large time scale, which are related to ecological, economic and epidemiological phenomena. the aim of this study is to monitor the populations of the marsupials didelphis aurita and philander frenatus and the rodents nectomys squamipes, akodon cursor and oligorysomys nigripes in a locality of typical brazilian rural landscape, sumidouro municipality, rio de janeiro state, brazil. a mark-recapture study was conducted during five years. we analyzed the population dynamics, the reproduction and age structure of these species. both marsupials presented higher population sizes in the end of wet period and beginning of the dry period, which can be explained by the seasonal reproduction which begins in the middle of the dry period and ends in the last months of the wet period. n. squamipes reproduced throughout the year but mostly during rainy periods, due to the close association of this rodent to resources found in the water. higher survivorship and recruitment rates were in the end of the wet season. the rodent a. cursor had an opportunist reproduction, resulting in high turnover rates. survivorship increased with the effects of the dry periods. o. nigripes showed a clear annual pattern of population cycle with peaks during the dry season. the rodents did not show potential to present outbreaks and become agricultural pests. the annual population cycles of o. nigripes and the unique peak of a. cursor population during five years highlight attention to their importance as wild reservoirs of the hantavirus disease. their ecological characteristics associated to their opportunistic behavior make these species prone to be good reservoirs of zoonoses. (c) 2009 deutsche gesellschaft far saugetierkunde. published by elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." +a long term study of small mammal populations in a brazilian agricultural landscape,marsupials; monitoring; rodents; wild reservoirs,MAMMALIAN BIOLOGY,BONECKER ST;PORTUGAL LG;COSTA NETO SF;GENTILE R,"long-term monitoring of small mammal populations is very important to understand the variations in temporal abundance on a large time scale, which are related to ecological, economic and epidemiological phenomena. the aim of this study is to monitor the populations of the marsupials didelphis aurita and philander frenatus and the rodents nectomys squamipes, akodon cursor and oligorysomys nigripes in a locality of typical brazilian rural landscape, sumidouro municipality, rio de janeiro state, brazil. a mark-recapture study was conducted during five years. we analyzed the population dynamics, the reproduction and age structure of these species. both marsupials presented higher population sizes in the end of wet period and beginning of the dry period, which can be explained by the seasonal reproduction which begins in the middle of the dry period and ends in the last months of the wet period. n. squamipes reproduced throughout the year but mostly during rainy periods, due to the close association of this rodent to resources found in the water. higher survivorship and recruitment rates were in the end of the wet season. the rodent a. cursor had an opportunist reproduction, resulting in high turnover rates. survivorship increased with the effects of the dry periods. o. nigripes showed a clear annual pattern of population cycle with peaks during the dry season. the rodents did not show potential to present outbreaks and become agricultural pests. the annual population cycles of o. nigripes and the unique peak of a. cursor population during five years highlight attention to their importance as wild reservoirs of the hantavirus disease. their ecological characteristics associated to their opportunistic behavior make these species prone to be good reservoirs of zoonoses. (c) 2009 deutsche gesellschaft far saugetierkunde. published by elsevier gmbh. all rights reserved." movement behaviour and shelter choice of the native crayfish austropotamobius pallipes complex: survey on a population in a semi-natural pond in northern italy,movement; locomotion; shelter; location fidelity; austropotamobius pallipes complex; semi-natural pond,MARINE AND FRESHWATER BEHAVIOUR AND PHYSIOLOGY,GHIA D;FEA G;SPAIRANI M;BERNINI F;NARDI PA,"this is a study of movements and artificial shelters use by a 3-year established population of austropotamobius pallipes complex, in a lentic environment in the parco lombardo della valle del ticino (nw italy). home-checking and mark-recapture methods were used to investigate movements of 178 crayfish and shelter use by 389 crayfish in summer and in autumn. most crayfish (97.2%) moved but the movement was highly variable. the greater part of the distances moved was less than 10 m day(-1). multi-hole bricks with one opening have been mostly selected, and the lower level was preferentially occupied; frequently a single crayfish per brick was found. the animal's size affected the majority of the analysed variables: mean daily distance, area fidelity, level of shelter; on the other hand no case was significant for sex. the results highlight that this species is fairly mobile and could colonize waterbodies with similar features even rather rapidly. mobility does not appear to affect the endangered status of this species." radio-tagging and tracking of translocated trout cod (maccullochella macquariensis: percichthyidae) in an upland river,captive breeding; dispersal; habitat use; mortality; re-introduction,MARINE AND FRESHWATER RESEARCH,EBNER BC;JOHNSTON L;LINTERMANS M,"radio-tracking provides an effective means of studying the spatial ecology of threatened fishes where almost inaccessible habitats and species rarity render conventional mark-recapture methods impractical. initially, validation of an effective radio-tagging method is required; in the present study, an aquaria trial based on nine hatchery-reared, adult male maccullochella maquariensis (percichthyidae) was conducted. fish resumed feeding within days of being internally implanted with a radio-tag, and tag rejection was not observed (0%, n = 9) based on a 2-month observational period. following release into an upland stream, individual-specific movements resulted in upstream (n = 1) and downstream (n = 6) dispersal as well as fidelity to the release site (n = 2) at the completion of the study. individuals established small home-ranges (mean length of river used by an individual per diel period ranged from 47 to 292 m) and were most active in the early morning and evening (n = 6). complete survivorship of individuals bearing active radio-transmitters (n = 8) was recorded up until 4 months after release. however, an estimated zero or one individual was alive when the last active radio-tag expired 11 months after release (n = 8). the present study highlights the use of radio-tracking in monitoring the dispersal and survivorship of small numbers of hatchery-reared threatened fish released into natural habitats as part of species re-introduction programs." "estimation of survival and detection probabilities for multiple tagged salmon stocks with nested migration routes, using a large-scale telemetry array",capture-recapture; cjs; detection efficiency; fish mortality; program mark,MARINE AND FRESHWATER RESEARCH,MELNYCHUK MC,"mark-recapture models for estimating survival and detection probabilities of tagged animals that migrate past successive receiver stations can incorporate multiple, linked stocks to improve detection probability estimates. when multiple release groups are analysed in a common framework, detection information can be shared to compensate for small sample sizes and provide generality beyond single-stock approaches. methods for structuring complex detection history data and applying standard mark-recapture models are presented, allowing for information sharing among multiple stocks under nested migration route structures, where some portions of routes are shared with other stocks and other portions are unique. possible biases from split-route migration patterns within a release group are described, along with a simple method of correcting these biases using stock-specific parameters that incorporate movement probabilities. environmental covariates can be paired with stock-specific run timing data to model stock-specific detection probabilities that change seasonally. finally, a method for assessing the redundancy of receivers on a multiple-receiver detection line is described, based on considerations of receiver line geometry. examples are drawn from detection data of juvenile salmon on the pacific ocean shelf tracking project (post) array, but the methods presented here are transferable to other systems." @@ -5007,17 +5021,3 @@ effect of experimental manipulation on survival and recruitment of feral pigs,NA estimating the density of free-ranging wild horses in rugged gorges using a photographic mark-recapture technique,NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,VERNES K;FREEMAN M;NESBITT B,"estimating the density of large, feral species such as wild horses at landscape scales can present a logistical hurdle for wildlife managers attempting to set density-based management targets. we undertook aerial surveys of wild horses by using a helicopter in guy fawkes river national park in north-eastern new south wales across 3 years to determine whether meaningful density estimates could be obtained efficiently by a mark-recapture technique based on recognition of individual horses. horse groups photographed from the air on the first of two surveys conducted each year were 'marked' on the basis of a unique combination of colours and natural markings, and 'recaptured' if they were photographed and identified on the second survey. population size was estimated with the program mark using a range of population estimators; however, because horses appeared to be evading detection on the second survey of each year, we chose a final estimation model that accounted for detection shyness in the study species. in 2005, the density estimate was 3.8 horses per km(2) (upper and lower 95% cl = 3.5-5.7 horses per km(2)). following horse control in these catchments, the estimate in 2007 was 2.3 horses per km(2) (upper and lower 95% cl = 2.1-3.4 horses per km(2)), and this change in density can be accounted for by the known number of horses removed from the survey area between survey periods. overall, the technique proved useful for estimating densities of wild horses in deeply dissected gorge country where other estimation techniques (such as line transects) are not practical; however, low recapture rates in one of the years of the study shows that the technique may not always be applicable. our technique should also be suitable for surveying other large mammals with broad ranges in open environments, provided recognition of individuals from unique marks is possible." aerial baiting with 1080 to control wild dogs does not affect the populations of two common small mammal species,NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,FENNER S;KORTNER G;VERNES K,"more than most other animal control techniques, toxic baiting is fraught with the potential impact on non-target species. in the present study, we investigated the effect of aerial baiting with 1080 to control wild dogs in north-eastern new south wales (nsw), australia, on populations of southern bush rats (rattus fuscipes assimilis) and brown antechinus (antechinus stuartii), using a controlled experiment. six populations, three each within widely spaced baited and unbaited trapping grids, were monitored before and after bait laying. to develop capture-mark-recapture indices, separate 4-day trapping surveys were undertaken twice before and twice after meat baits (250 g containing 6 mg sodium fluoroacetate, 1080) were delivered from a helicopter at 40 baits per kilometre. to assess non-fatal bait consumption, all baits contained rhodamine b (rhb), which gets incorporated into the vibrissae of animals that have ingested this marker. neither mammal population decreased in size after baiting, nor was there any increase in population turnover rates or changes in the movement patterns of either species. furthermore, no trapped animal tested positive for rhb, suggesting that these small mammals rarely consume meat baits, and that, at the population level, the impact of baiting on them was likely negligible. it is therefore unlikely that the current practise of aerial baiting in nsw, although effective in reducing dog activity, threatens populations of these two common species and perhaps small mammals in general." "field-based evaluation of scat dna methods to estimate population abundance of the spotted-tailed quoll (dasyurus maculatus), a rare australian marsupial",NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,RUIBAL M;PEAKALL R;CLARIDGE A;FIRESTONE K,"context. dna extracted non-invasively from remotely collected scat samples has been used successfully to enumerate populations of a few endangered mammal species. however, scat dna surveys relying on scent-marking behaviours need to identify if age-or sex-specific variations or seasonal changes in scat scent-marking patterns affect population estimates. furthermore, owing to the low quantity and quality of scat dna, a thorough assessment of the technique is needed when it is applied to different species to ensure that individual identification is reliable. aims. in the current study, microsatellite genetic profiles derived from 208 remotely collected scats of the spotted-tailed quoll (dasyurus maculatus), a rare australian marsupial carnivore, were compared with dna profiles from tissue of 22 live-trapped individuals from the same study area to critically assess the reliability of the non-invasive method to estimate population abundance. methods. scat samples were collected at scent-marking sites over 4 consecutive months (april-july 2005), 7 weeks of which overlapped with the trapping program to allow direct comparisons of population estimates. key results. combining a multiple-tubes approach with error checking analyses provided reliable genetic tags and resulted in the detection of the majority of the live- trapped population (18 of 22 individuals). ten additional individuals not known from trapping were also observed from scat dna. a longer-term sampling regime was required for scats than for trapping to allow direct detection of a large proportion of the population and to provide a comparable population estimate. critically, the 4-month scat collection period highlighted the importance of performing scat surveys during the mating season when scat scent marking is more frequent, and to avoid sex and age biases in scat marking patterns. implications. non-invasive scat dna sampling methods that rely on scent-marking behaviours need to consider the duration of the sampling period and temporal differences in behaviours by the sexes and age groups to ensure that meaningful population estimates are achieved." -capture-recapture methods for the social and medical sciences,NA,BIOMETRICAL JOURNAL,MCCREA RS,NA -can the camera lie? a nonpermanent nick in a bottlenose dolphin (tursiops truncatus),NA,AQUATIC MAMMALS,QUICK NJ;CHENEY B;THOMPSON PM;HAMMOND PS,NA -"using the two-source capture-recapture method to estimate the incidence and case ascertainment of congenital rubella syndrome in australia, 1993-2013",NA,WESTERN PACIFIC SURVEILLANCE AND RESPONSE,MARTIN N;DURRHEIM D;KHANDAKER G;BUTLER M;JONES C,NA -inferences about population dynamics from count data using multistate models: a comparison to capture-recapture approaches,NA,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ZIPKIN EF;SILLETT TS;GRANT EHC;CHANDLER RB;ROYLE JA,NA -what shall i do now? state-dependent variations of life-history traits with aging in wandering albatrosses,NA,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,PARDO D;BARBRAUD C;WEIMERSKIRCH H,NA -capture-recapture methods and party activism in britain,NA,JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY HISTORY,COHEN G;MATES L;FLINN A,NA -"abundance estimates of irrawaddy dolphins in chilika lagoon, india, using photo-identification based mark-recapture methods",NA,MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE,SUTARIA D;MARSH H,NA -new flight distances record for alates of odontotermes formosanus (isoptera: termitidae),alate termites; flight distances; odontotermes formosanus; mark-recapture,JOURNAL OF ENTOMOLOGICAL SCIENCE,HU JA;ZHONG JH;XIAO WL,NA -estimating detection probabilities of tagged fish migrating past fixed receiver stations using only local information,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,MELNYCHUK MC;WALTERS CJ,NA -between-winter emigration rates are linked to reproductive output in greenland white-fronted geese anser albifrons flavirostris,capture-mark-recapture; density-dependent dispersal; multi-state models; source; sink,IBIS,MARCHI C;SANZ IF;BLOT E;HANSEN J;WALSH AJ;FREDERIKSEN M;FOX AD,NA -use of photographic capture-recapture sampling to estimate density of striped hyena (hyaena hyaena): implications for conservation,camera traps; india; individual identification; rajaji national park; stripe pattern,MAMMALIA,HARIHAR A;GHOSH M;FERNANDES M;PANDAV B;GOYAL SP,NA -capture-recapture models with heterogeneity to study survival senescence in the wild,NA,OIKOS,PERON G;CROCHET PA;CHOQUET R;PRADEL R;LEBRETON JD;GIMENEZ O,NA -"density of leopards (panthera pardus) in the chilla range of rajaji national park, uttarakhand, india",camera traps; capture-recapture; density; leopards,MAMMALIA,HARIHAR A;PANDAV B;GOYAL SP,NA -survival of turtle doves streptopelia turtur in relation to western africa environmental conditions,capture-mark-recapture model; food resource; migration; wintering,IBIS,ERAUD C;BOUTIN JM;RIVIERE M;BRUN J;BARBRAUD C;LORMEE H,NA diff --git a/data/papers_in_ecological_journals.csv b/data/papers_in_ecological_journals.csv old mode 100644 new mode 100755 index fee55f0..b69b62b --- a/data/papers_in_ecological_journals.csv +++ b/data/papers_in_ecological_journals.csv @@ -8,17 +8,17 @@ integrated population models: powerful methods to embed individual processes in acoustic telemetry as a potential tool for mixed-stock analysis of fishery harvest: a feasibility study using lake erie walleye,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,FAUST MD;VANDERGOOT CS;BRENDEN TO;KRAUS RT;HARTMAN T;KRUEGER CC,"understanding stock composition is critical for sustainable management of mixed-stock fisheries. when natural markers routinely used for stock discrimination fail, alternative techniques are required. we investigated the feasibility of using acoustic telemetry to estimate spawning population contributions to a mixed-stock fishery using lake erie's summer walleye (sander vitreus) recreational fishery as a case study. postrelease survival was estimated after tagging and used to inform simulations to evaluate how contribution estimates could be affected by survival, sample size, and expected population contributions. walleye experienced low short-term survival after tagging, but showed higher survival after 100 days, likely allowing fish to return to spawning areas the following spring. based on simulations, accuracy and precision of population composition increased with an increase in the number of tagged fish released, and both appeared to stabilize when >= 200 tagged fish were released. results supported the feasibility of using acoustic telemetry to estimate spawning population contributions to mixed-stock fisheries in lake erie." the challenges of recognising individuals with few distinguishing features: identifying red foxes vulpes vulpes from camera-trap photos,NA,PLOS ONE,DORNING J;HARRIS S,"over the last two decades, camera traps have revolutionised the ability of biologists to undertake faunal surveys and estimate population densities, although identifying individuals of species with subtle markings remains challenging. we conducted a two-year camera-trapping study as part of a long-term study of urban foxes: our objectives were to determine whether red foxes could be identified individually from camera-trap photos, and highlight camera-trapping protocols and techniques to facilitate photo identification of species with few or subtle natural markings. we collected circa 800,000 camera-trap photos over 4945 camera days in suburban gardens in the city of bristol, uk: 152,134 (19%) included foxes, of which 13,888 (9%) contained more than one fox. these provided 174,063 timestamped capture records of individual foxes; 170,923 were of foxes >= 3 months old. younger foxes were excluded because they have few distinguishing features. we identified the individual (192 different foxes: 110 males, 49 females, 33 of unknown sex) in 168,417 (99%) of these capture records; the remainder could not be identified due to poor image quality or because key identifying feature(s) were not visible. we show that carefully designed survey techniques facilitate individual identification of subtly-marked species. accuracy is enhanced by camera-trapping techniques that yield large numbers of high resolution, colour images from multiple angles taken under varying environmental conditions. while identifying foxes manually was labour-intensive, currently available automated identification systems are unlikely to achieve the same levels of accuracy, especially since different features were used to identify each fox, the features were often inconspicuous, and their appearance varied with environmental conditions. we discuss how studies based on low numbers of photos, or which fail to identify the individual in a significant proportion of photos, risk losing important biological information, and may come to erroneous conclusions." alzheimer's disease: estimating its prevalence rate in a french geographical unit using the national alzheimer data bank and national health insurance information systems,NA,PLOS ONE,BAILLY L;DAVID R;CHEVRIER R;GREBET J;MONCADA M;FUCH A;SCIORTINO V;ROBERT P;PRADIER C,"background reliable epidemiological data on alzheimer's disease are scarce. however, these are necessary to adapt healthcare policy in terms of prevention, care and social needs related to this condition. to estimate the prevalence rate in the alpes-maritimes on the french riviera, with a population of one million, we present a capture-recapture procedure applied to cases of alzheimer's disease, based on two epidemiological surveillance systems. methods to estimate the total number of patients affected by alzheimer's disease, a capture-recapture study included a cohort of patients with alzheimer's disease or receiving medications only eligible for use for this condition, recorded by a specific health insurance information system (health insurance cohort, hic), and those registered in the french national alzheimer's data bank (""banque nationale alzheimer"", bna) in 2010 and 2011. we applied bayesian estimation of the mt ecological model, taking into account age and gender as covariates, i.e. factors of inhomogeneous catchability. results overall, 5,562 patients with alzheimer's disease were recorded, of whom only 856 were common to both information systems. mean age and f/m sex ratio differed between bna and hic surveillance systems, 81 vs 84 years and 2.7 vs 3.2, respectively. a bayesian estimation, with age and gender as covariates, yields an estimate of 15,060 cases of alzheimer's disease [95%hpdi: 14,490-15,630] in the alpes-maritimes. the completeness of the hic and bna databases were respectively of 25.4% and 17.2%. the estimated prevalence rate among the population over 65 years old was 6.3% in 2010-2011. conclusions this study demonstrates that it is possible to determine the number of subjects affected by alzheimer's disease in a geographical unit, using available data from two existing surveillance systems in france, i.e. 15,060 cases in the alpes-maritimes. this is the first stage of a population-based approach in view of adapting available resources to the population's needs." -evaluating european life conservation projects: improvements in survival of an endangered vulture,capture-recapture; conservation programme success; egyptian vulture; environmental education; long-term monitoring; mortality; poisoning; ring loss,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,BADIA-BOHER JA;SANZ-AGUILAR A;DE LA RIVA M;GANGOSO L;VAN OVERVELD T;GARCIA-ALFONSO M;LUZARDO OP;SUAREZ-PEREZ A;DONAZAR JA,"long-lived avian scavengers are threatened worldwide and thus, are common targets of conservation plans. however, scientific evidence of both the factors limiting populations and effectiveness of management actions are greatly needed in order to develop more efficient and successful conservation strategies. we assessed the effectiveness of conservation actions applied within a life-nature project aimed at improving the long-term survival of the critically endangered canarian egyptian vulture: including education campaigns for public awareness and control of illegal poisoning and the modification of power lines to reduce the risk of accidents. we formulated a multievent capture-mark-recapture model to obtain estimates of survival for juvenile, subadult and adult birds accounting for probabilities of resight, recovery and losses of metal and colour rings. models supported a substantial enhancement in survival for subadult and adult birds and a moderate improvement for juveniles after the implementation of life actions. ring loss probabilities became notably high in the middle to long term. poisoning events became very rare after life was implemented, suggesting a positive effect of environmental education and awareness campaigns. entanglements and collisions in power lines were also efficiently mitigated. instead, electrocutions became the most identified cause of death in the post-life stage. synthesis and applications. our results highlight the improvement of survival in a threatened island vulture population after the implementation of a european life conservation project. on small islands, with small human populations and few stakeholders, education and awareness campaigns can be especially effective for biodiversity conservation. we also demonstrate the need to complement conservation programmes with long-term monitoring, which is essential to evaluate the effectiveness of actions, especially for long-lived species. foreign language abstract resumen las aves carroneras de larga vida estan amenazadas a nivel mundial y por ello son objeto de numerosos planes de conservacion. sin embargo, para mejorar la eficiencia y el exito de los planes de conservacion, se requieren mas estudios cientificos que evaluen los factores que limitan sus poblaciones y la efectividad de las diferentes estrategias de conservacion. hemos evaluado la eficacia de las acciones de conservacion llevadas a cabo dentro del marco de un proyecto life para mejorar la supervivencia a largo plazo del alimoche canario, una subespecie en peligro critico de extincion: campanas de sensibilizacion y divulgacion para reducir el uso de venenos y modificacion de tendidos electricos para reducir el riesgo de accidentes. para ello, hemos desarrollado un modelo multievento de captura-recaptura que permite estimar la supervivencia de juveniles, subadultos y adultos teniendo en cuenta las probabilidades de observacion, recuperacion de cadaveres y perdida de anillas de metal y pvc. los modelos mostraron un considerable aumento de la supervivencia de subadultos y adultos, junto con un ligero aumento de la supervivencia de juveniles, tras la implementacion de las acciones del proyecto life. la probabilidad de perdida de anillas fue alta a medio-largo plazo. tras la implementacion del programa life las muertes por envenenamiento pasaron a ser escasas, lo que sugiere un efecto positivo de las campanas de sensibilizacion y divulgacion. las colisiones y los enganches en tendidos electricos tambien fueron mitigados de forma efectiva. por el contrario, las muertes por electrocucion no cesaron, convirtiendose asi en la principal causa de mortalidad detectada.sintesis y aplicaciones. nuestros resultados destacan el aumento de supervivencia en una especie amenazada - una poblacion insular de alimoche - tras la implementacion de un proyecto life europeo. en islas pequenas, con poca poblacion humana y un numero reducido de agentes sociales, las campanas de sensibilizacion y divulgacion pueden resultar especialmente efectivas para garantizar la conservacion de la biodiversidad. es necesario complementar los programas de conservacion con seguimientos a largo plazo para evaluar la efectividad de sus acciones, especialmente en el caso de especies de larga vida. our results highlight the improvement of survival in a threatened island vulture population after the implementation of a european life conservation project. on small islands, with small human populations and few stakeholders, education and awareness campaigns can be especially effective for biodiversity conservation. we also demonstrate the need to complement conservation programmes with long-term monitoring, which is essential to evaluate the effectiveness of actions, especially for long-lived species." +evaluating european life conservation projects: improvements in survival of an endangered vulture,capture-recapture; conservation programme success; egyptian vulture; environmental education; long-term monitoring; mortality; poisoning; ring loss,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,BADIA BOHER JA;SANZ AGUILAR A;DE LA RIVA M;GANGOSO L;VAN OVERVELD T;GARCIA ALFONSO M;LUZARDO OP;SUAREZ PEREZ A;DONAZAR JA,"long-lived avian scavengers are threatened worldwide and thus, are common targets of conservation plans. however, scientific evidence of both the factors limiting populations and effectiveness of management actions are greatly needed in order to develop more efficient and successful conservation strategies. we assessed the effectiveness of conservation actions applied within a life-nature project aimed at improving the long-term survival of the critically endangered canarian egyptian vulture: including education campaigns for public awareness and control of illegal poisoning and the modification of power lines to reduce the risk of accidents. we formulated a multievent capture-mark-recapture model to obtain estimates of survival for juvenile, subadult and adult birds accounting for probabilities of resight, recovery and losses of metal and colour rings. models supported a substantial enhancement in survival for subadult and adult birds and a moderate improvement for juveniles after the implementation of life actions. ring loss probabilities became notably high in the middle to long term. poisoning events became very rare after life was implemented, suggesting a positive effect of environmental education and awareness campaigns. entanglements and collisions in power lines were also efficiently mitigated. instead, electrocutions became the most identified cause of death in the post-life stage. synthesis and applications. our results highlight the improvement of survival in a threatened island vulture population after the implementation of a european life conservation project. on small islands, with small human populations and few stakeholders, education and awareness campaigns can be especially effective for biodiversity conservation. we also demonstrate the need to complement conservation programmes with long-term monitoring, which is essential to evaluate the effectiveness of actions, especially for long-lived species. foreign language abstract resumen las aves carroneras de larga vida estan amenazadas a nivel mundial y por ello son objeto de numerosos planes de conservacion. sin embargo, para mejorar la eficiencia y el exito de los planes de conservacion, se requieren mas estudios cientificos que evaluen los factores que limitan sus poblaciones y la efectividad de las diferentes estrategias de conservacion. hemos evaluado la eficacia de las acciones de conservacion llevadas a cabo dentro del marco de un proyecto life para mejorar la supervivencia a largo plazo del alimoche canario, una subespecie en peligro critico de extincion: campanas de sensibilizacion y divulgacion para reducir el uso de venenos y modificacion de tendidos electricos para reducir el riesgo de accidentes. para ello, hemos desarrollado un modelo multievento de captura-recaptura que permite estimar la supervivencia de juveniles, subadultos y adultos teniendo en cuenta las probabilidades de observacion, recuperacion de cadaveres y perdida de anillas de metal y pvc. los modelos mostraron un considerable aumento de la supervivencia de subadultos y adultos, junto con un ligero aumento de la supervivencia de juveniles, tras la implementacion de las acciones del proyecto life. la probabilidad de perdida de anillas fue alta a medio-largo plazo. tras la implementacion del programa life las muertes por envenenamiento pasaron a ser escasas, lo que sugiere un efecto positivo de las campanas de sensibilizacion y divulgacion. las colisiones y los enganches en tendidos electricos tambien fueron mitigados de forma efectiva. por el contrario, las muertes por electrocucion no cesaron, convirtiendose asi en la principal causa de mortalidad detectada.sintesis y aplicaciones. nuestros resultados destacan el aumento de supervivencia en una especie amenazada - una poblacion insular de alimoche - tras la implementacion de un proyecto life europeo. en islas pequenas, con poca poblacion humana y un numero reducido de agentes sociales, las campanas de sensibilizacion y divulgacion pueden resultar especialmente efectivas para garantizar la conservacion de la biodiversidad. es necesario complementar los programas de conservacion con seguimientos a largo plazo para evaluar la efectividad de sus acciones, especialmente en el caso de especies de larga vida. our results highlight the improvement of survival in a threatened island vulture population after the implementation of a european life conservation project. on small islands, with small human populations and few stakeholders, education and awareness campaigns can be especially effective for biodiversity conservation. we also demonstrate the need to complement conservation programmes with long-term monitoring, which is essential to evaluate the effectiveness of actions, especially for long-lived species." "seasonal variation of mortality, detectability, and body condition in a population of the adder (vipera berus)",capture-recapture; predation; seasonal variation; survival; vulnerability,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BAUWENS D;CLAUS K,"we analyzed seasonal variation in mortality rates in adult males and females of the european adder (vipera berus), using data collected during a 13-year capture-recapture study (2005-2017) in a large population. we concurrently obtained quantitative information on the seasonal variation in the detectability and body condition of adders. our results show strong seasonality in body condition, encounter, and capture rates of adult adders, and these patterns differ markedly between sexes and between breeding and nonbreeding females. seasonal variation in mortality rates was however virtually nonexistent in males and moderately low in both breeding and nonbreeding females. in addition, we found no evidence for among-year differences in the seasonal mortality schedules of males and females. during periods of intensive basking, both males and pregnant females are highly visible for humans, but are not subject to strong natural mortality. this low susceptibility to predation is presumably induced by various factors, including the limitation of overt exposure to short periods of time and specific microhabitats, the dorsal coloration pattern that provides cryptic protection and possibly also an aposematic warning signal, and presumed seasonal differences in the foraging behavior and food requirements of natural predators. our data provide some evidence that female adders, but not males, are relatively vulnerable to predation during the seasonal migrations between the hibernation and feeding habitats. mortality in the females was not much elevated during their breeding years, but was notably highest in the spring of the ensuing nonbreeding year. after giving birth, reproductive females are extremely emaciated and have a weakened general condition. they then run the risk of dying from starvation either before, during, or after hibernation. the higher mortality after giving birth, that is sustained over a period of ca. 9 months, should be considered as an indirect and delayed survival cost of reproduction." abundance and ecological associations of small mammals,cascade mountains; deer mice (peromyscus maniculatus); habitat; humboldt's flying squirrels (glaucomys oregonensis); mark-recapture; oregon; population cycle; townsend's chipmunks (neotamias townsendii); western red-backed voles (myodes californicus),JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,WELDY MJ;EPPS CW;LESMEISTER DB;MANNING T;LINNELL MA;FORSMAN ED,"effective conservation and management of small mammals require knowledge of the population dynamics of co-occurring species. we estimated the abundances, autocorrelations, and spatiotemporal associations of 4 small-mammal species from 2011-2016 using live-trapping mark-recapture methods on 9 sites across elevation and canopy openness gradients of a late-successional forest in the h. j. andrews experimental forest, on the west slope of the oregon cascades. we also quantified species-specific spatial variation in adult sex ratios and body mass. we used huggins closed capture models to estimate site- and year-specific abundances of 4 target species: humboldt's flying squirrels (glaucomys oregonensis), townsend's chipmunks (neotamias townsendii), western red-backed voles (myodes californicus), and deer mice (peromyscus maniculatus). we estimated the temporal autocorrelations among site- and species-specific abundance estimates and used generalized linear mixed effects models to investigate the effects of 7 spatiotemporal covariates on species-specific mean abundance estimates. species-specific adult sex ratios, juvenile to adult ratios, and adult body masses were not widely variable among study sites. abundance estimates varied by as much as 4-fold among years and 6-fold among sites. humboldt's flying squirrel abundance was temporally autocorrelated at intervals of 1 and 5 years, townsend's chipmunk abundance was temporally autocorrelated at intervals of 1-4 years, and western red-backed vole abundance was temporally autocorrelated at 1, 4, and 5 years. mean fall abundance estimates were associated with elevation and climate and in some cases, canopy openness and berry-producing shrubs, but the direction of the association differed among species for some covariates. our findings could provide additional management tools for small-mammal abundance objectives, and highlight the importance of careful covariate selection in studies using indices of small-mammal abundance. (c) 2019 the authors. journal of wildlife management published by wiley periodicals, inc. on behalf of the wildlife society." northern bobwhite chick survival and effects of weather,brood; colinus virginianus; demographics; live-dead recovery; neonate; precipitation; precocial; temperature,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,TERHUNE TM;PALMER WE;WELLENDORF SD,"reliable vital rates for all life stages are necessary to identify limiting factors in wildlife populations and inform sound wildlife management. the difficulty associated with capturing and tagging precocial young, such as northern bobwhite chicks (colinus virginianus), and linking variation in recruitment to ecological conditions has contributed to significant knowledge gaps in their population ecology. during 1999-2017, we captured and patagial-tagged <= 12-day-old bobwhite chicks (n = 3,576) and estimated their survival from time of capture (jun-sep) to fall and winter (nov and jan) recapture and winter (feb) recovery. we used burnham's model implemented in program mark to integrate mark-recapture and dead-recovery (via harvest) data to estimate survival for the 19-year study. by including weather covariates, we also evaluated explicit hypotheses related to temperature and precipitation effects on chick survival. we found inter-annual, intra-annual, and intra-seasonal variation in chick survival with an average annual daily survival estimate of 0.9887 (95% ci = 0.9321, 0.9918). precipitation amount and number of precipitation (>0.635 cm) events during the first 4 weeks post-tagging decreased the daily survival rate of chicks curvilinearly. average minimum daily temperature and maximum daily temperature effects on survival were negligible, but an interaction between minimum temperature and cumulative precipitation during the first 14 days post-tagging affected survival. we recommend population modelers incorporate intra- and inter-annual variation in chick survival to improve predictions. observed variation in chick survival rates portends a significant opportunity to improve population management for bobwhites and other game birds. (c) 2019 the wildlife society" sampling design and analytical advances allow for simultaneous density estimation of seven sympatric carnivore species from camera trap data,camera trap; spatially explicit models; multispecies; population density; sampling design,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,RICH LN;MILLER DAW;MUNOZ DJ;ROBINSON HS;MCNUTT JW;KELLY MJ,"population density is a fundamental parameter needed to assess wildlife populations but is difficult to obtain given species are often wide-ranging and elusive. photographic capture-recapture techniques do not require direct observations and thus, have become a common approach for estimating wildlife densities. to date, however, these studies have typically focused on single species. our research explores study design- and analytical-based approaches for expanding photographic capture-recapture studies to assess multiple species simultaneously. we developed a hybrid-sampling scheme that varied inter-camera distances and used simulations to test the efficacy of this design versus a systematically spaced grid in estimating densities of species with varied space use. through simulations we found the hybrid design facilitated density estimates for a wider range of species with little or no cost in accuracy for most species. we implemented a hybrid camera design across a 1154-km(2) area in northern botswana to estimate densities of lions, spotted hyenas, leopards, wild dogs, servals, civets, and aardwolves. we estimated densities of these small- to wide-ranging carnivores, where all or some portion of the population was individually identifiable, using spatially explicit capture-recapture and mark-resight models. mean estimates ranged from 1.2 (95% ci = 0.72-1.99) lions to 10.1 (95% ci = 8.69-11.63) spotted hyenas/100 km(2) and provided empirical information needed for the conservation of these species in botswana. our research demonstrates how photographic capture-recapture studies can be expanded to estimate the densities of multiple species versus just a single species within a community, thus increasing the conservation value of this globally implemented approach." "divergent population trends following the cessation of legal grizzly bear hunting in southwestern british columbia, canada",population recovery; brown bear; pradel robust design; small population; ursus arctos; spatial capture-recapture,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MCLELLAN ML;MCLELLAN BN;SOLLMANN R;LAMB CT;APPS CD;WITTMER HU,"we conducted dna capture-recapture monitoring of grizzly bears (ursus arctos) from 5 to 17 years after hunting was stopped in two adjacent but genetically distinct populations in southwestern british columbia, canada. we used spatial capture-recapture and non-spatial pradel robust design modelling to estimate population density, trends, and the demographic components of population change for each population. the larger population had 21.5 bears/1000 km(2) and was growing (lambda(pradel) = 1.02 +/- 0.02 se; lambda(secr) = 1.01 +/- 4.6 x 10(-5) se) following the cessation of hunting. the adjacent smaller population had 6.3 bears/1000 km(2) and was likely declining (lambda(pradel) = 0.95 +/- 0.03 se; lambda(secr) = 0.98 +/- 0.02 se). estimates of apparent survival and apparent recruitment indicated that lower recruitment was the dominant factor limiting population growth in the smaller population. factors limiting reproductive rates and population density could include poor habitat quality, particularly the abundance of high-energy foods, genetic allee effects due to a long period of population isolation, or demographic effects affecting infanticide rates. the cessation of hunting was insufficient to promote population recovery for the low density, isolated population. our research highlights the importance of considering mortality thresholds in addition to small population effects and habitat quality when recovering large carnivore populations." -satellite-detected forest disturbance forecasts american marten population decline: the case for supportive space-based monitoring,land-use change; spatial capture-recapture; american marten; remote sensing; monitoring; species distribution model,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,CLARE J;MCKINNEY ST;SIMONS-LEGAARD EM;DEPUE JE;LOFTIN CS,"limited monitoring resources often constrain rigorous monitoring practices to species or populations of conservation concern. insufficient monitoring can induce a tautology as lack of monitoring resources makes it difficult to determine whether a species or population deserves additional monitoring resources. when in-situ monitoring resources are limited, remote habitat monitoring could be a useful supplementary tool, as linking parameterized species distribution models to spatially explicit time-series of environmental correlates allows iterative prediction of population change. yet the performance of predictive forecasts or hindcasts has been difficult to evaluate. we paired contemporary field data, historic population estimates, and a remotely-sensed archive of landscape change to evaluate predictions of american marten (martes americana) population decline owing to habitat loss in maine, usa. we estimated contemporary spatial patterns in marten density relative to landscape disturbance with spatial capture-recapture models. we compared current density estimates to historical density calculations to evaluate population decline, and compared historical calculations to habitat-based model predictions to evaluate the efficacy of habitat monitoring as a proxy for direct monitoring. marten density was negatively associated with the proportion of surrounding regenerating forest, and point estimates within focal townships were 50-80% lower than historical calculations. habitat-based hindcasts of marten density across our entire focal area interest suggested a smaller population decline (roughly 50%) within our focal area. thus, although habitat-based predictions underpredicted marten decline, they provided correct directional inference. habitat monitoring and predictions from species distribution models may provide useful inference about population changes given trends in habitat at limited expense when in-situ information is lacking." +satellite-detected forest disturbance forecasts american marten population decline: the case for supportive space-based monitoring,land-use change; spatial capture-recapture; american marten; remote sensing; monitoring; species distribution model,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,CLARE J;MCKINNEY ST;SIMONS LEGAARD EM;DEPUE JE;LOFTIN CS,"limited monitoring resources often constrain rigorous monitoring practices to species or populations of conservation concern. insufficient monitoring can induce a tautology as lack of monitoring resources makes it difficult to determine whether a species or population deserves additional monitoring resources. when in-situ monitoring resources are limited, remote habitat monitoring could be a useful supplementary tool, as linking parameterized species distribution models to spatially explicit time-series of environmental correlates allows iterative prediction of population change. yet the performance of predictive forecasts or hindcasts has been difficult to evaluate. we paired contemporary field data, historic population estimates, and a remotely-sensed archive of landscape change to evaluate predictions of american marten (martes americana) population decline owing to habitat loss in maine, usa. we estimated contemporary spatial patterns in marten density relative to landscape disturbance with spatial capture-recapture models. we compared current density estimates to historical density calculations to evaluate population decline, and compared historical calculations to habitat-based model predictions to evaluate the efficacy of habitat monitoring as a proxy for direct monitoring. marten density was negatively associated with the proportion of surrounding regenerating forest, and point estimates within focal townships were 50-80% lower than historical calculations. habitat-based hindcasts of marten density across our entire focal area interest suggested a smaller population decline (roughly 50%) within our focal area. thus, although habitat-based predictions underpredicted marten decline, they provided correct directional inference. habitat monitoring and predictions from species distribution models may provide useful inference about population changes given trends in habitat at limited expense when in-situ information is lacking." simulation-based validation of spatial capture-recapture models: a case study using mountain lions,NA,PLOS ONE,PATERSON JT;PROFFITT K;JIMENEZ B;ROTELLA J;GARROTT R,"spatial capture-recapture (scr) models have improved the ability to estimate densities of rare and elusive animals. however, scr models have seldom been validated even as model formulations diversify and expand to incorporate new sampling methods and/or additional sources of information on model parameters. information on the relationship between encounter probabilities, sources of additional information, and the reliability of density estimates, is rare but crucial to assessing reliability of scr-based estimates. we used a simulation-based approach that incorporated prior empirical work to assess the accuracy and precision of density estimates from scr models using spatially unstructured sampling. to assess the consequences of sparse data and potential sources of bias, we simulated data under six scenarios corresponding to three different levels of search effort and two levels of correlation between search effort and animal density. we then estimated density for each scenario using four models that included increasing amounts of information from harvested individuals and telemetry to evaluate the impact of additional sources of information. model results were sensitive to the quantity of available information: density estimates based on low search effort were biased high and imprecise, whereas estimates based on high search effort were unbiased and precise. a correlation between search effort and animal density resulted in a positive bias in density estimates, though the bias decreased with increasingly informative datasets. adding information from harvested individuals and telemetered individuals improved density estimates based on low and moderate effort but had negligible impact for datasets resulting from high effort. we demonstrated that density estimates from scr models using spatially unstructured sampling are reliable when sufficient information is provided. accurate density estimates can result if empirical-based simulations such as those presented here are used to develop study designs with appropriate amounts of effort and information sources." a small native predator reduces reproductive success of a large invasive fish as revealed by whole-lake experiments,NA,PLOS ONE,POOLE JR;BAJER PG,"the extent to which native fish communities might control the success of invasive fish has been of interest to ecologists, but it has been rarely addressed using experiments. we conducted an experiment in six small lakes in the upper mississippi region to test the effects of a small native predator, bluegill sunfish (lepomis macrochirus) on the recruitment of a large, invasive fish, the common carp (cyprinus carpio). bluegills are predominant throughout the region and were previously shown to consume carp eggs and larvae. we stocked both lakes at each of our 3 sites with adult carp (spawners) and one lake at each site with bluegills. we repeated the experiment at two of the three sites for two consecutive years. in each lake we assessed the abundance of post-larval carp one month after spawning (backpack electrofishing surveys) and at the end of the season (mark-recapture). for each site/year combination, catch rate of post-larval carp was typically an order of magnitude higher in control than bluegill lakes, but it often declined quickly over time. the abundance of end-of-seasonal juveniles was significantly higher (no 95% ci overlap) in control lakes than in bluegill lakes, except for one pair of lakes during one year when both the control and bluegill lake had similar, low abundance of end-of-season carp. overall, our results support the hypothesis that common carp recruitment is substantially reduced in habitats dominated by bluegills. we also suggest our results may be applicable to other species, and that managers should explore how predation on early life stages may control other invasive species." generalized spatial mark-resight models with incomplete identification: an application to red fox density estimates,camera trapping; generalized spatial mark-resight; incomplete identification; mark; red fox; telemetry,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,JIMENEZ J;CHANDLER R;TOBAJAS J;DESCALZO E;MATEO R;FERRERAS P,"1. the estimation of abundance of wildlife populations is an essential part of ecological research and monitoring. spatially explicit capture-recapture (scr) models are widely used for abundance and density estimation, frequently through individual identification of target species using camera-trap sampling. 2. generalized spatial mark-resight (gen-smr) is a recently developed scr extension that allows for abundance estimation when only a subset of the population is recognizable by artificial or natural marks. however, in many cases, it is not possible to read the marks in camera-trap pictures, even though individuals can be recognized as marked. we present a new extension of gen-smr that allows for this type of incomplete identification. 3. we used simulation to assess how the number of marked individuals and the individual identification rate influenced bias and precision. we demonstrate the model's performance in estimating red fox (vulpes vulpes) density with two empirical datasets characterized by contrasting densities and rates of identification of marked individuals. according to the simulations, accuracy increases with the number of marked individuals (m), but is less sensitive to changes in individual identification rate (delta). in our case studies of red fox density estimation, we obtained a posterior mean of 1.60 (standard deviation sd: 0.32) and 0.28 (sd: 0.06) individuals/km(2), in high and low density, with an identification rate of 0.21 and 0.91, respectively. 4. this extension of gen-smr is broadly applicable as it addresses the common problem of incomplete identification of marked individuals during resighting surveys." -"what keeps ""living dead' alive: demography of a small and isolated population of maculinea (=phengaris) alcon",flight period; foodplant availability; genetic diversity; life span; mark-recapture; species persistence,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,NOWICKI P;DEONIZIAK K;DZIEKANSKA I;KOSTRO-AMBROZIAK A;PLAZIO E;RUTKOWSKI R;SIELEZNIEW M,"small and isolated populations are prone to future extinctions and thus perceived as living dead'. although generally considered to be of low conservation value, their existence can still enhance species survival at the landscape scale through improving the connectivity of other populations and facilitating some (even if little) gene flow. we investigated the demography and genetic status of a tiny and highly isolated local population of maculinea (=phengaris) alcon near its distribution margin with the aim of identifying the features that allow it to persist. the study comprised intensive mark-recapture, surveys of gentiana pneumonanthe foodplants and butterfly eggs laid on them, as well as genetic analyses. the population has been found to be characterised by low genetic diversity and estimated at only a few tens of individuals. the foodplant availability turned out to be the most obvious factor limiting m. alcon abundance. nevertheless, the life expectancy of adult butterflies is fairly long, and their flight period very short, implying that most individuals occur within the same time window. together with the relatively little protandry observed, i.e. almost synchronous emergence of males and females, this increases the chances of random mating among the individuals. moreover, the butterflies move freely across the core habitat fragment. all things concerned, the effective population size is presumably not much lower than the recorded population size. our findings provide guidelines for pinpointing those among living dead' populations that are likely to be the most persistent and thus worth conservation efforts aimed at preserving them." +"what keeps ""living dead' alive: demography of a small and isolated population of maculinea (=phengaris) alcon",flight period; foodplant availability; genetic diversity; life span; mark-recapture; species persistence,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,NOWICKI P;DEONIZIAK K;DZIEKANSKA I;KOSTRO AMBROZIAK A;PLAZIO E;RUTKOWSKI R;SIELEZNIEW M,"small and isolated populations are prone to future extinctions and thus perceived as living dead'. although generally considered to be of low conservation value, their existence can still enhance species survival at the landscape scale through improving the connectivity of other populations and facilitating some (even if little) gene flow. we investigated the demography and genetic status of a tiny and highly isolated local population of maculinea (=phengaris) alcon near its distribution margin with the aim of identifying the features that allow it to persist. the study comprised intensive mark-recapture, surveys of gentiana pneumonanthe foodplants and butterfly eggs laid on them, as well as genetic analyses. the population has been found to be characterised by low genetic diversity and estimated at only a few tens of individuals. the foodplant availability turned out to be the most obvious factor limiting m. alcon abundance. nevertheless, the life expectancy of adult butterflies is fairly long, and their flight period very short, implying that most individuals occur within the same time window. together with the relatively little protandry observed, i.e. almost synchronous emergence of males and females, this increases the chances of random mating among the individuals. moreover, the butterflies move freely across the core habitat fragment. all things concerned, the effective population size is presumably not much lower than the recorded population size. our findings provide guidelines for pinpointing those among living dead' populations that are likely to be the most persistent and thus worth conservation efforts aimed at preserving them." dispersal in a metapopulation of the critically endangered danube clouded yellow butterfly colias myrmidone: implications for conservation,life span; mark-recapture; sex-biased dispersal; forestry; mobility; virtual migration model,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,SIELEZNIEW M;DEONIZIAK K;DZIEKANSKA I;NOWICKI P,"colias myrmidone has suffered a dramatic decline in europe, and now its occurrence is restricted to just a few countries. we investigated one of the last viable metapopulations (knyszyn forest, ne poland), where the butterfly is almost completely dependent on forestry, inhabiting some clearings and young tree plantations rich in larval food plants (chamaecytisus ruthenicus) and nectar resources. intensive mark-recapture studies were performed in 2017 on eight occupied patches separated by 0.5-5km. the overall population size of imagoes in the second brood was calculated at about 750 individuals. sex ratio was shown to be well-balanced and average residency was estimated at 5.6 days. dispersal occurred mostly between neighbouring patches, and isolation of patches contributed to the high mortality of emigrants. the average distance covered during dispersal was significantly higher for males. however, females left small patches much more readily than males. these patches were probably used only as stepping stone' sites in dispersal. restricted dispersal could be related to barriers created by forest stands but it is also not excluded that individuals living in an isolated metapopulation become increasingly sedentary and our results are an early warning sign. the most distant local population was clearly isolated, with hardly any immigration from the other populations. to maintain a network of more stable habitat patches some clearings should be left deforested and appropriately managed. however this goal is difficult to achieve under the current forestry rules and therefore (re)creation of habitats on other available open areas should be considered." exposure of breeding albatrosses to the agent of avian cholera: dynamics of antibody levels and ecological implications,capture-mark-recapture; disease ecology; immuno-ecology; maternal antibodies; seabird; serological dynamics; survival,OECOLOGIA,GAMBLE A;GARNIER R;JAEGER A;GANTELET H;THIBAULT E;TORTOSA P;BOURRET V;THIEBOT JB;DELORD K;WEIMERSKIRCH H;TORNOS J;BARBRAUD C;BOULINIER T,"despite critical implications for disease dynamics and surveillance in wild long-lived species, the immune response after exposure to potentially highly pathogenic bacterial disease agents is still poorly known. among infectious diseases threatening wild populations, avian cholera, caused by the bacterium pasteurella multocida, is a major concern. it frequently causes massive mortality events in wild populations, notably affecting nestlings of indian yellow-nosed albatrosses (thalassarche carteri) in the indian ocean. if adults are able to mount a long-term immune response, this could have important consequences regarding the dynamics of the pathogen in the local host community and the potential interest of vaccinating breeding females to transfer immunity to their offspring. by tracking the dynamics of antibodies against p. multocida during 4years and implementing a vaccination experiment in a population of yellow-nosed albatrosses, we show that a significant proportion of adults were naturally exposed despite high annual survival for both vaccinated and non-vaccinated individuals. adult-specific antibody levels were thus maintained long enough to inform about recent exposure. however, only low levels of maternal antibodies could be detected in nestlings the year following a vaccination of their mothers. a modification of the vaccine formulation and the possibility to re-vaccinate females 2years after the first vaccination revealed that vaccines have the potential to elicit a stronger and more persistent response. such results highlight the value of long-term observational and experimental studies of host exposure to infectious agents in the wild, where ecological and evolutionary processes are likely critical for driving disease dynamics." seasonal climate effects on the survival of a hibernating mammal,capture-mark-recapture; climate change; fitness; ground squirrel; phenology; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,FALVO CA;KOONS DN;AUBRY LM,"global climate change and associated regional climate variability is impacting the phenology of many species, ultimately altering individual fitness and population dynamics. yet, few studies have considered the effects of pertinent seasonal climate variability on phenology and fitness. hibernators may be particularly susceptible to changes in seasonal climate since they have a relatively short active season in which to reproduce and gain enough mass to survive the following winter. to understand whether and how seasonal climate variability may be affecting hibernator fitness, we estimated survival from historical (1964-1968) and contemporary (2014-2017) mark-recapture data collected from the same population of uinta ground squirrels (ugs, urocitellus armatus), a hibernator endemic to the western united states. despite a locally warming climate, the phenology of ugs did not change over time, yet season-specific climate variables were important in regulating survival rates. specifically, older age classes experienced lower survival when winters or the following springs were warm, while juveniles benefited from warmer winter temperatures. although metabolic costs decrease with decreasing temperature in the hibernacula, arousal costs increase with decreasing temperature. our results suggest that this trade-off is experienced differently by immature and mature individuals. we also observed an increase in population density during that time period, suggesting resources are less limited today than they used to be. cheatgrass is now dominating the study site and may provide a better food source to ugs than native plants did historically." @@ -31,33 +31,33 @@ the black brant population is declining based on mark recapture,arctic; banding; time-for-space substitution in n-mixture modeling and population monitoring,hierarchical models; monitoring; population dynamics; population size; species decline; trend,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,COSTA A;ONETO F;SALVIDIO S,"population size is a fundamental state variable in ecology, and the analysis of temporal variation in abundance (i.e., detection of trends) is a prime objective in wildlife monitoring. however, population abundance cannot be directly observed because part of the population remains undetected and methods that account for imperfect detection are often not used. capture-mark-recapture approaches give reliable estimates of abundance but are time- and effort-consuming. in the last decade, the application of hierarchical, or n-mixture, models that use repeated counts of unmarked animals seem to give great advantages in the estimation of population size. hierarchical models require repeated surveys at multiple sites, but sometimes only data obtained for a single site in successive years are available. we applied the time-for-space substitution implemented within the n-mixture modeling framework to estimate population size and evaluate the dynamics of the endangered european leaf-toed gecko (euleptes europaea) surveyed >20 years. we compared these results with capture-mark-recapture estimates obtained from the same population and over the same time period. estimates and trends were comparable and both methods indicated similar population declines; moreover, n-mixture modeling indicated temperature affected detection. therefore, the application of the time-for-space substitution in hierarchical modeling seems valuable and may be useful in species monitoring and conservation. (c) 2019 the wildlife society." "taxonomic and conservation implications of population genetic admixture, mito-nuclear discordance, and male-biased dispersal of a large endangered snake, drymarchon couperi",NA,PLOS ONE,FOLT B;BAUDER J;SPEAR S;STEVENSON D;HOFFMAN M;OAKS JR;WOOD PL;JENKINS C;STEEN DA;GUYER C,"accurate species delimitation and description are necessary to guide effective conservation of imperiled species, and this synergy is maximized when multiple data sources are used to delimit species. we illustrate this point by examining drymarchon couperi (eastern indigo snake), a large, federally-protected species in north america that was recently divided into two species based on gene sequence data from three loci and heuristic morphological assessment. here, we re-evaluate the two-species hypothesis for d. couperi by evaluating both population genetic and gene sequence data. our analyses of 14 microsatellite markers revealed 6-8 genetic population clusters with significant admixture, particularly across the contact zone between the two hypothesized species. phylogenetic analyses of gene sequence data with maximum-likelihood methods suggested discordance between mitochondrial and nuclear markers and provided phylogenetic support for one species rather than two. for these reasons, we place drymarchon kolpobasileus into synonymy with d. couperi. we suggest inconsistent patterns between mitochondrial and nuclear dna are driven by high dispersal of males relative to females. we advocate for species delimitation exercises that evaluate admixture and gene flow in addition to phylogenetic analyses, particularly when the latter reveal monophyletic lineages. this is particularly important for taxa, such as squamates, that exhibit strong sex-biased dispersal. problems associated with over-delimitation of species richness can become particularly acute for threatened and endangered species, because of high costs to conservation when taxonomy demands protection of more individual species than are supported by accumulating data." a mark-recapture approach for estimating population size of the endangered ringed seal (phoca hispida saimensis),NA,PLOS ONE,KOIVUNIEMI M;KURKILAHTI M;NIEMI M;AUTTILA M;KUNNASRANTA M,"reliable population estimates are fundamental to the conservation of endangered species. we evaluate here the use of photo-identification (photo-id) and mark-recapture techniques for estimating the population size of the endangered saimaa ringed seal (phoca hispida saimensis). photo-id data based on the unique pelage patterns of individuals were collected by means of camera traps and boat-based surveys during the molting season in two of the species' main breeding areas, over a period of five years in the pihlajavesi basin and eight years in the haukivesi basin. an open model approach provided minimum population estimates for these two basins. the results indicated high survival rates and site fidelity among the adult seals. more accurate estimates can be obtained in the future by increasing the surveying effort both spatially and temporally. the method presented here proved effective for evaluating population size objectively, whereas the results of the current snow lair censuses are dependent on varying winter conditions, for instance. we therefore suggest that a photo-id-based non-invasive mark-recapture method should be used for estimating saimaa ringed seal abundances in order to ensure reliable, transparent population monitoring under changing climatic conditions." -"asian water monitors (varanus salvator) remain common in peninsular malaysia, despite intense harvesting",abundance; cites; density; hunting; non-detriment; population demographic; sustainable use; wildlife trade,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,KHADIEJAH S;RAZAK N;WARD-FEAR G;SHINE R;NATUSCH DJD,"context each year, between 50000 and 120000 asian water monitors (varanus salvator, to >2 m total length) are harvested from the wild in peninsular malaysia for their skins. under the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (cites), international trade is allowable only if it is sustainable. aims to assess the sustainability of malaysia's harvest of water monitors by quantifying the abundance and demography of v. salvator in the wild, and to develop cost-effective methods for estimating the parameters needed to evaluate sustainability. methods we conducted trapping surveys to determine the abundance, population demography and density of v. salvator in four habitat types in five states in peninsular malaysia in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2018. key results of 1025 lizards captured, only 63% (mostly females) were within the preferred body-size range exploited for commercial trade. densities were high (37-372 lizards km(-2) based on estimated population sizes; 1-35 lizards km(-2) based on number of animals captured). anthropogenic habitats (e.g. oil palm plantations) contained denser populations of monitors than did natural habitats where no hunting occurs, but mean body sizes were smaller. conclusions despite intensive harvesting for many decades, v. salvator remains abundant and widespread. harvesting alters the demographic structure of lizard populations, but harvests of v. salvator in malaysia are likely to be sustainable because a significant proportion of the population is not exploited. implications ongoing monitoring is required to continually reassess harvest sustainability. for this purpose, relatively simple population approaches, such as line-trapping transects to elucidate relative abundances, can provide important data on the makeup of hunted populations of water monitors more cost-effectively than can mark-recapture studies for assessments of sustainable use of these economically important lizards." +"asian water monitors (varanus salvator) remain common in peninsular malaysia, despite intense harvesting",abundance; cites; density; hunting; non-detriment; population demographic; sustainable use; wildlife trade,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,KHADIEJAH S;RAZAK N;WARD FEAR G;SHINE R;NATUSCH DJD,"context each year, between 50000 and 120000 asian water monitors (varanus salvator, to >2 m total length) are harvested from the wild in peninsular malaysia for their skins. under the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (cites), international trade is allowable only if it is sustainable. aims to assess the sustainability of malaysia's harvest of water monitors by quantifying the abundance and demography of v. salvator in the wild, and to develop cost-effective methods for estimating the parameters needed to evaluate sustainability. methods we conducted trapping surveys to determine the abundance, population demography and density of v. salvator in four habitat types in five states in peninsular malaysia in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2018. key results of 1025 lizards captured, only 63% (mostly females) were within the preferred body-size range exploited for commercial trade. densities were high (37-372 lizards km(-2) based on estimated population sizes; 1-35 lizards km(-2) based on number of animals captured). anthropogenic habitats (e.g. oil palm plantations) contained denser populations of monitors than did natural habitats where no hunting occurs, but mean body sizes were smaller. conclusions despite intensive harvesting for many decades, v. salvator remains abundant and widespread. harvesting alters the demographic structure of lizard populations, but harvests of v. salvator in malaysia are likely to be sustainable because a significant proportion of the population is not exploited. implications ongoing monitoring is required to continually reassess harvest sustainability. for this purpose, relatively simple population approaches, such as line-trapping transects to elucidate relative abundances, can provide important data on the makeup of hunted populations of water monitors more cost-effectively than can mark-recapture studies for assessments of sustainable use of these economically important lizards." a hierarchical bayesian approach for handling missing classification data,cervus elaphus nelsoni; classification data; demographic ratio; elk; hierarchical bayesian statistics; missing not at random data; multinomial distribution; proportion estimation; sex ratio; wildlife management,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,KETZ AC;JOHNSON TL;HOOTEN MB;HOBBS NT,"ecologists use classifications of individuals in categories to understand composition of populations and communities. these categories might be defined by demographics, functional traits, or species. assignment of categories is often imperfect, but frequently treated as observations without error. when individuals are observed but not classified, these ""partial"" observations must be modified to include the missing data mechanism to avoid spurious inference. we developed two hierarchical bayesian models to overcome the assumption of perfect assignment to mutually exclusive categories in the multinomial distribution of categorical counts, when classifications are missing. these models incorporate auxiliary information to adjust the posterior distributions of the proportions of membership in categories. in one model, we use an empirical bayes approach, where a subset of data from one year serves as a prior for the missing data the next. in the other approach, we use a small random sample of data within a year to inform the distribution of the missing data. we performed a simulation to show the bias that occurs when partial observations were ignored and demonstrated the altered inference for the estimation of demographic ratios. we applied our models to demographic classifications of elk (cervus elaphus nelsoni) to demonstrate improved inference for the proportions of sex and stage classes. we developed multiple modeling approaches using a generalizable nested multinomial structure to account for partially observed data that were missing not at random for classification counts. accounting for classification uncertainty is important to accurately understand the composition of populations and communities in ecological studies." assessing the effect of density on population growth when modeling individual encounter data,audouin's gull; capture-recapture; gibbs variable selection; open population estimation; population dynamics; pradel model; rate of population change; temporal symmetry model,ECOLOGY,TENAN S;TAVECCHIA G;ORO D;PRADEL R,"the relative role of density-dependent and density-independent variation in vital rates and population size remains largely unsolved. despite its importance to the theory and application of population ecology, and to conservation biology, quantifying the role and strength of density dependence is particularly challenging. we present a hierarchical formulation of the temporal symmetry approach, also known as the pradel model, that permits estimation of the strength of density dependence from capture-mark-reencounter data. a measure of relative population size is built in the model and serves to detect density dependence directly on population growth rate. the model is also extended to account for temporal random variability in demographic rates, allowing estimation of the temporal variance of population growth rate unexplained by density dependence. we thus present a model-based approach that enable to test and quantify the effect of density-dependent and density-independent factors affecting population fluctuations in a single modeling framework. more generally, we use this modeling framework along with simulated and empirical data to show the value of including density dependence when modeling individual encounter data without the need for auxiliary data." -drivers of survival in a small mammal of conservation concern: an assessment using extensive genetic non-invasive sampling in fragmented farmland,agricultural intensification; capwire; cormark-jolly-seber; mediterranean farmland; microtus cabrerae; road effects,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,PROENCA-FERREIRA A;FERREIRA C;LEITAO I;PAUPERIO J;SABINO-MARQUES H;BARBOSA S;LAMBIN X;ALVES PC;BEJA P;MOREIRA F;MIRA A;PITA R,"although important to guide conservation management, detailed demographic studies on rare or elusive species inhabiting fragmented, human-dominated landscapes are often hampered by the species' low densities, and the logistic and ethical constraints in obtaining reliable information covering large areas. genetic non-invasive sampling (gnis) provides cost-effective access to demographic information, though its application to small mammals is still scarce. we used gnis to infer on the demography of an endemic small mammal, the cabrera vole (microtus cabrerae), occurring as a spatially-structured population in a 462-ha mediterranean farmland landscape. we intensively sampled fresh vole feces in four seasons, extracted the dna, and performed individual identification based on genotypes built using nine microsatellites. we then estimated population size and individual survival relative to environmental variables, controlling for heterogeneity in capture probabilities using capture-mark-recapture modelling. population size increased during the wet season and decreased during the dry season, while survival remained constant across the study period. individuals captured along road-verges and around water-bodies survived longer than those captured near agricultural fields. the use of gnis on a heterogeneous landscape such as our study area allowed us to demonstrate that human land-use activities affect cabrera vole demographic parameters in mediterranean farmland, with implications for conservation planning towards its long-term persistence. our approach can be widely applied to other elusive small mammals of conservation concern, but for which informative demographic data are still scarce." +drivers of survival in a small mammal of conservation concern: an assessment using extensive genetic non-invasive sampling in fragmented farmland,agricultural intensification; capwire; cormark-jolly-seber; mediterranean farmland; microtus cabrerae; road effects,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,PROENCA FERREIRA A;FERREIRA C;LEITAO I;PAUPERIO J;SABINO MARQUES H;BARBOSA S;LAMBIN X;ALVES PC;BEJA P;MOREIRA F;MIRA A;PITA R,"although important to guide conservation management, detailed demographic studies on rare or elusive species inhabiting fragmented, human-dominated landscapes are often hampered by the species' low densities, and the logistic and ethical constraints in obtaining reliable information covering large areas. genetic non-invasive sampling (gnis) provides cost-effective access to demographic information, though its application to small mammals is still scarce. we used gnis to infer on the demography of an endemic small mammal, the cabrera vole (microtus cabrerae), occurring as a spatially-structured population in a 462-ha mediterranean farmland landscape. we intensively sampled fresh vole feces in four seasons, extracted the dna, and performed individual identification based on genotypes built using nine microsatellites. we then estimated population size and individual survival relative to environmental variables, controlling for heterogeneity in capture probabilities using capture-mark-recapture modelling. population size increased during the wet season and decreased during the dry season, while survival remained constant across the study period. individuals captured along road-verges and around water-bodies survived longer than those captured near agricultural fields. the use of gnis on a heterogeneous landscape such as our study area allowed us to demonstrate that human land-use activities affect cabrera vole demographic parameters in mediterranean farmland, with implications for conservation planning towards its long-term persistence. our approach can be widely applied to other elusive small mammals of conservation concern, but for which informative demographic data are still scarce." the adequacy of aging techniques in vertebrates for rapid estimation of population mortality rates from age distributions,age estimation; aging error; birth rate; demographics; mark-recapture; survival rate,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ZHAO MJ;KLAASSEN CAJ;LISOVSKI S;KLAASSEN M,"as a key parameter in population dynamics, mortality rates are frequently estimated using mark-recapture data, which requires extensive, long-term data sets. as a potential rapid alternative, we can measure variables correlated to age, allowing the compilation of population age distributions, from which mortality rates can be derived. however, most studies employing such techniques have ignored their inherent inaccuracy and have thereby failed to provide reliable mortality estimates. in this study, we present a general statistical model linking birth rate, mortality rate, and population age distributions. we next assessed the reliability and data needs (i.e., sample size) for estimating mortality rate of eight different aging techniques. the results revealed that for half of the aging techniques, correlations with age varied considerably, translating into highly variable accuracies when used to estimate mortality rate from age distributions. telomere length is generally not sufficiently correlated to age to provide reliable mortality rate estimates. dna methylation, signal-joint t-cell recombination excision circle (sjtrec), and racemization are generally more promising techniques to ultimately estimate mortality rate, if a sufficiently high sample size is available. otolith ring counts, otolithometry, and age-length keys in fish, and skeletochronology in reptiles, mammals, and amphibians, outperformed all other aging techniques and generated relatively accurate mortality rate estimation with a sample size that can be feasibly obtained. provided the method chosen is minimizing and estimating the error in age estimation, it is possible to accurately estimate mortality rates from age distributions. the method therewith has the potential to estimate a critical, population dynamic parameter to inform conservation efforts within a limited time frame as opposed to mark-recapture analyses." population genetics reveals high connectivity of giant panda populations across human disturbance features in key nature reserve,conservation genetics; gene flow; giant panda; population connectivity,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,QIAO MJ;CONNOR T;SHI XG;HUANG J;HUANG Y;ZHANG HM;RAN JH,"the giant panda is an example of a species that has faced extensive historical habitat fragmentation, and anthropogenic disturbance and is assumed to be isolated in numerous subpopulations with limited gene flow between them. to investigate the population size, health, and connectivity of pandas in a key habitat area, we noninvasively collected a total of 539 fresh wild giant panda fecal samples for dna extraction within wolong nature reserve, sichuan, china. seven validated tetra-microsatellite markers were used to analyze each sample, and a total of 142 unique genotypes were identified. nonspatial and spatial capture-recapture models estimated the population size of the reserve at 164 and 137 individuals (95% confidence intervals 153-175 and 115-163), respectively. relatively high levels of genetic variation and low levels of inbreeding were estimated, indicating adequate genetic diversity. surprisingly, no significant genetic boundaries were found within the population despite the national road g350 that bisects the reserve, which is also bordered with patches of development and agricultural land. we attribute this to high rates of migration, with four giant panda road-crossing events confirmed within a year based on repeated captures of individuals. this likely means that giant panda populations within mountain ranges are better connected than previously thought. increased development and tourism traffic in the area and throughout the current panda distribution pose a threat of increasing population isolation, however. maintaining and restoring adequate habitat corridors for dispersal is thus a vital step for preserving the levels of gene flow seen in our analysis and the continued conservation of the giant panda meta-population in both wolong and throughout their current range." -"ecology of the growth of anolis nebulosus (squamata: dactyloidae) in a seasonal tropical environment in the chamela region, jalisco, mexico",age class; capture-recapture; chamela jalisco; growth parameters; sexual maturity; von bertalanffy model,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HERNANDEZ-SALINAS U;RAMIREZ-BAUTISTA A;CRUZ-ELIZALDE R;MEIRI S;BERRIOZABAL-ISLAS C,"juvenile growth rates are thought to be restricted by available food resources. in animals that grow throughout the year, such as tropical lizards, growth is therefore predicted to be faster during the rainy season. we test this prediction using a population of anolis nebulosusby describing the growth trajectories of both sexes using nonlinear regression models, and we then correlate the growth rates of individuals with food available in the environment, precipitation, and temperature. the von bertalanffy model fits the growth rates of the females better, while the logistic-by-length model fits the males better. according to both models, the males grew faster than females, reaching slightly smaller sizes at adulthood. males reached sexual maturity when 35mm long, at an age of seven months, and females matured at 37mm (svl), taking nine months to reach this size. in 1989, juvenile males and females grew more in both seasons (rainy and dry) than adults; for 1990, there were no differences by season or between age classes. these results are interesting since in the 1989 and 1990 rainy seasons, practically the same orders of prey and the greatest abundance of prey available in the environment were registered. a possible explanation could be that predation was more intense in 1990 than in 1989. there is little evidence that food, temperature, and humidity affect growth rates of a. nebulosus, refuting our predictions. this is mainly due to the low variation in growth observed in 1990. therefore we think that the growth of this species reflects a complex combination of ecological and genetic factors." +"ecology of the growth of anolis nebulosus (squamata: dactyloidae) in a seasonal tropical environment in the chamela region, jalisco, mexico",age class; capture-recapture; chamela jalisco; growth parameters; sexual maturity; von bertalanffy model,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HERNANDEZ SALINAS U;RAMIREZ BAUTISTA A;CRUZ ELIZALDE R;MEIRI S;BERRIOZABAL ISLAS C,"juvenile growth rates are thought to be restricted by available food resources. in animals that grow throughout the year, such as tropical lizards, growth is therefore predicted to be faster during the rainy season. we test this prediction using a population of anolis nebulosusby describing the growth trajectories of both sexes using nonlinear regression models, and we then correlate the growth rates of individuals with food available in the environment, precipitation, and temperature. the von bertalanffy model fits the growth rates of the females better, while the logistic-by-length model fits the males better. according to both models, the males grew faster than females, reaching slightly smaller sizes at adulthood. males reached sexual maturity when 35mm long, at an age of seven months, and females matured at 37mm (svl), taking nine months to reach this size. in 1989, juvenile males and females grew more in both seasons (rainy and dry) than adults; for 1990, there were no differences by season or between age classes. these results are interesting since in the 1989 and 1990 rainy seasons, practically the same orders of prey and the greatest abundance of prey available in the environment were registered. a possible explanation could be that predation was more intense in 1990 than in 1989. there is little evidence that food, temperature, and humidity affect growth rates of a. nebulosus, refuting our predictions. this is mainly due to the low variation in growth observed in 1990. therefore we think that the growth of this species reflects a complex combination of ecological and genetic factors." toward reliable population density estimates of partially marked populations using spatially explicit mark-resight methods,camera trap; capture-recapture; fox; maximum likelihood; mesopredator; survey design; vulpes vulpes,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CARTER A;POTTS JM;ROSHIER DA,"camera traps are used increasingly to estimate population density for elusive and difficult to observe species. a standard practice for mammalian surveys is to place cameras on roads, trails, and paths to maximize detections and/or increase efficiency in the field. however, for many species it is unclear whether track-based camera surveys provide reliable estimates of population density. understanding how the spatial arrangement of camera traps affects population density estimates is of key interest to contemporary conservationists and managers given the rapid increase in camera-based wildlife surveys. we evaluated the effect of camera-trap placement, using several survey designs, on density estimates of a widespread mesopredator, the red fox vulpes vulpes, over a two-year period in a semi-arid conservation reserve in south-eastern australia. further, we used the certainty in the identity and whereabouts of individuals (via gps collars) to assess how resighting rates of marked foxes affect density estimates using maximum likelihood spatially explicit mark-resight methods. fox detection rates were much higher at cameras placed on tracks compared with off-track cameras, yet in the majority of sessions, camera placement had relatively little effect on point estimates of density. however, for each survey design, the precision of density estimates varied considerably across sessions, influenced heavily by the absolute number of marked foxes detected, the number of times marked foxes was resighted, and the number of detection events of unmarked foxes. our research demonstrates that the precision of population density estimates using spatially explicit mark-resight models is sensitive to resighting rates of identifiable individuals. nonetheless, camera surveys based either on- or off-track can provide reliable estimates of population density using spatially explicit mark-resight models. this underscores the importance of incorporating information on the spatial behavior of the subject species when planning camera-trap surveys." -impacts of nonnative brown trout on yellowstone cutthroat trout in a tributary stream,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,AL-CHOKHACHY R;SEPULVEDA AJ,"nonnative trout are a considerable threat to native salmonids, yet our understanding of the mechanisms behind interspecific interactions remains limited. we evaluated the impacts of nonnative brown trout salmo salar on a population of yellowstone cutthroat trout oncorhynchus clarkii bouvieri in montana. we contrasted diets, growth, and survival of yellowstone cutthroat trout occurring in allopatry (i.e., where no brown trout were present) with individuals sympatric (i.e., co-occurring) with nonnative brown trout. we assessed summer and autumn diets using gastric lavage methods and survival and growth using mark-recapture analyses. overlap in diets at sites where yellowstone cutthroat trout were sympatric with brown trout was high during july (horn's index: h = 0.94) and october (h = 0.83). in the presence of brown trout, yellowstone cutthroat trout growth rates were significantly lower for juvenile (<175 mm) length and adult (>= 175 mm) length and mass than in allopatric sites. allopatric yellowstone cutthroat trout survival was greater across size-classes; the most pronounced difference was in the age-2 size-class (125-175 mm). together, these results in concert with observed changes in length-frequency data, indicating a considerable lack of yellowstone cutthroat trout recruitment where they are sympatric with brown trout, suggest the negative implications of brown trout are notable." +impacts of nonnative brown trout on yellowstone cutthroat trout in a tributary stream,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,AL CHOKHACHY R;SEPULVEDA AJ,"nonnative trout are a considerable threat to native salmonids, yet our understanding of the mechanisms behind interspecific interactions remains limited. we evaluated the impacts of nonnative brown trout salmo salar on a population of yellowstone cutthroat trout oncorhynchus clarkii bouvieri in montana. we contrasted diets, growth, and survival of yellowstone cutthroat trout occurring in allopatry (i.e., where no brown trout were present) with individuals sympatric (i.e., co-occurring) with nonnative brown trout. we assessed summer and autumn diets using gastric lavage methods and survival and growth using mark-recapture analyses. overlap in diets at sites where yellowstone cutthroat trout were sympatric with brown trout was high during july (horn's index: h = 0.94) and october (h = 0.83). in the presence of brown trout, yellowstone cutthroat trout growth rates were significantly lower for juvenile (<175 mm) length and adult (>= 175 mm) length and mass than in allopatric sites. allopatric yellowstone cutthroat trout survival was greater across size-classes; the most pronounced difference was in the age-2 size-class (125-175 mm). together, these results in concert with observed changes in length-frequency data, indicating a considerable lack of yellowstone cutthroat trout recruitment where they are sympatric with brown trout, suggest the negative implications of brown trout are notable." non-circular home ranges and the estimation of population density,anisotropic detection function; density estimation; home range; non-circularity; radiotelemetry; spatially explicit capture-recapture; study design; telemetry-scaled non-spatial estimator,ECOLOGY,EFFORD MG,"spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models have emerged as one solution to the problem of estimating the population density of mobile and cryptic animals. spatial models embody assumptions regarding the spatial distribution of individuals and the spatial detection process. the detection process is modeled in secr as a radial decline in detection probability with distance from the activity center of each individual. this would seem to require that home ranges are circular. the robustness of secr when home ranges are not circular has been the subject of conflicting statements. ivan et al. previously compared the secr density estimator to a telemetry-scaled non-spatial estimator. i suggest that the apparent non-robustness of secr in their study was a simulation artefact. new simulations of elliptical home ranges establish that the secr density estimator is largely robust to non-circularity when detectors are spread in two dimensions, but may be very biased if the detector array is linear and home ranges align with the array. transformation to isotropy reduces bias from designs of intermediate dimension, such as hollow square arrays. possible alignment of home ranges should be considered when designing detector arrays." "occurrence, fate, and confounding influence of ghost passive integrated transponder tags in an intensively monitored watershed",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,BOND RM;NICOL CL;KIERNAN JD;SPENCE BC,"over the last three decades, passive integrated transponder (pit) tags have been widely used to study fish populations. interpretation of pit tag detections, however, can be confounded by the presence of ghost tags, tags liberated when a fish dies. we used a combination of mobile antenna surveys, stationary antenna detections, and multistate mark-recapture modeling to assess the abundance and fate of ghost tags in a coastal california watershed. accumulation of ghost tags from released hatchery-origin coho salmon (oncorhynchus kisutch) smolts was substantial during california's recent drought, with 2224 ghost tags identified during mobile reader surveys. between surveys, pit tags moved downstream a median distance of 346 m and a maximum distance of 1982 m. stationary antenna array detections indicated that these movements occurred during high-flow events, concurrent with live fish movement. the multistate model estimated that, during winter, approximately 40% of tags were buried in the substrate beyond the read range of mobile readers. failure to account for transport and burial dynamics of ghost tags can lead to biased estimates of fish abundance, survival, and movement." long-term monitoring of ocelot densities in belize,belize; camera-trapping; density; multi-session models; ocelots; sex-specific models; spatially explicit capture-recapture,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SATTER CB;AUGUSTINE BC;HARMSEN BJ;FOSTER RJ;SANCHEZ EE;WULTSCH C;DAVIS ML;KELLY MJ,"ocelots (leopardus pardalis) are listed as least concern on the international union for conservation of nature (iucn) red list of threatened species, yet we lack knowledge on basic demographic parameters across much of the ocelot's geographic range, including population density. we used camera-trapping methodology and spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models with sex-specific detection function parameters to estimate ocelot densities across 7 field sites over 1 to 12 years (from data collected during 2002-2015) in belize, central america. ocelot densities in the broadleaf rainforest sites ranged between 7.2 and 22.7 ocelots/100 km(2), whereas density in the pine (pinus spp.) forest site was 0.9 ocelots/100 km(2). applying an inverse-variance weighted average over all years for each broadleaf site increased precision and resulted in average density ranging from 8.5 to 13.0 ocelots/100 km(2). males often had larger movement parameter estimates and higher detection probabilities at their activity centers than females. in most years, the sex ratio was not significantly different from 50:50, but the pooled sex ratio estimated using an inverse weighted average over all years indicated a female bias in 1 site, and a male bias in another. we did not detect any population trends as density estimates remained relatively constant over time; however, the power to detect such trends was generally low. our secr density estimates were lower but more precise than previous estimates and indicated population stability for ocelots in belize. (c) 2018 the authors. journal of wildlife management published by wiley periodicals, inc. on behalf of the wildlife society." estimation of movement and mortality of atlantic menhaden during 1966-1969 using a bayesian multi-state mark-recovery model,brownie dead recovery model; forage fish; natural mortality; fishing mortality; brevoortia tyrannus,FISHERIES RESEARCH,LILJESTRAND EM;WILBERG MJ;SCHUELLER AM,"atlantic menhaden brevoortia tyrannus is an economically and ecologically important forage fish targeted by large-scale commercial reduction and bait fisheries. in the late 1960s, the national marine fisheries service conducted a mark-recovery study in which they tagged over one million adult atlantic menhaden. mark-recapture models at the time did not allow for estimation of movement rates. our objective was to reanalyze these data to simultaneously estimate natural mortality, fishing mortality, and movement probability during 1966-1969. we developed a bayesian version of the brownie model that incorporated fishing mortality, natural mortality, and movement among four regions of the northwest atlantic continental shelf ecosystem at a monthly time step. the model also accounted for both tag loss and tag detection probability. during may-june, an estimated 91% of atlantic menhaden from north and south carolina moved northwards. atlantic menhaden largely remained within the same coastal region from june to october. in the winter, an estimated 55% of the tagged sample north of the chesapeake bay moved southward to the chesapeake bay and north and south carolina. however, the fraction of the tagged sample undertaking these movements was substantially smaller than previously described. the estimated instantaneous natural mortality rate, 1.17 yr(-1) (1.09-1.23 yr(-1), 95% ci), was greater than previously reported. instantaneous fishing mortality was spatially and temporally variable and as high as 1.74 yr(-1) in north and south carolina during 1967. understanding the historical seasonal spatial dynamics of this stock will improve contemporary survey design and management, as these dynamics may persist today." multi-state dead recovery mark-recovery model performance for estimating movement and mortality rates,atlantic menhaden; brevoortia tyrannus; brownie mark-recovery model; mark-recovery study design; mark-recapture,FISHERIES RESEARCH,LILJESTRAND EM;WILBERG MJ;SCHUELLER AM,"multi-state mark-recovery models are used to estimate movement and mortality rates of terrestrial and aquatic animals. these models have become especially popular in the last 20 years since technology and statistical techniques have improved to accommodate the extensive data requirements. however, the ability of multi-state mark-recovery models to estimate movement rates has received little evaluation, with few studies exploring the effects of alternative release and recovery designs on the bias and precision of estimates. our objectives were to evaluate the effects of the spatio-temporal pattern of releases, pattern of recovery efforts, and number of releases on the performance of a multi-state mark-recovery model. we generated mark-recovery data from a spatial model and fitted them using a multi-state dead recovery model that included prior distributions on movement rates, natural mortality, and catchability. we generated data using a spatially variable schedule of releases and effort, and a release size of about 1 million individuals to mimic a mark-recovery study conducted for atlantic menhaden brevoortia tyrannus in the late 1960s. we also ran alternative scenarios of sample size and spatially uniform releases and effort, either by themselves or in combination to determine their effects on the accuracy of the estimates. the model generally produced unbiased estimates of mortality rates with median error < 0.02 yr(-1) for all scenarios, but some biases were present for the movement rates. movement rates and catchability were more accurately and precisely estimated in scenarios that included spatially uniform fishing effort, while spatially uniform releases had little to no effect on bias or precision of estimated movement rates. increased sample size improved accuracy of all parameter estimates except for the lowest movement rates. future mark-recovery experiments that use a multi-state dead recovery model may benefit from distributing recovery effort uniformly over time and space." -"agreement between primary care and hospital diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: a cross-sectional, observational study using record linkage",NA,PLOS ONE,O'NEILL B;KALIA S;ALIARZADEH B;MOINEDDIN R;FUNG WLA;SULLIVAN F;MALOUL A;BERNARD S;GREIVER M,"people with serious mental illness die 10-25 years sooner than people without these conditions. multiple challenges to accessing and benefitting from healthcare have been identified amongst this population, including a lack of coordination between mental health services and general health services. it has been identified in other conditions such as diabetes that accurate documentation of diagnosis in the primary care chart is associated with better quality of care. it is suspected that if a patient admitted to the hospital with serious mental illness is then discharged without adequate identification of their diagnosis in the primary care setting, follow up (such as medication management and care coordination) may be more difficult. we identified cohorts of patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder who accessed care through the north york family health team (a group of 77 family physicians in toronto, canada) and north york general hospital (a large community hospital) between january 1, 2012 and december 31, 2014. we identified whether labeling for these conditions was concordant between the two settings and explored predictors of concordant labeling. this was a retrospective cross-sectional study using de-identified data from the health databank collaborative, a linked primary care-hospital database. we identified 168 patients with schizophrenia and 370 patients with bipolar disorder. overall diagnostic concordance between primary care and hospital records was 23.2% for schizophrenia and 15.7% for bipolar disorder. concordance was higher for those with multiple (2+) inpatient visits (for schizophrenia: or 2.42; 95% ci 0.64-9.20 and for bipolar disorder: or 8.38; 95% ci 3.16-22.22). capture-recapture modeling estimated that 37.4% of patients with schizophrenia (95% ci 20.7-54.1) and 39.6% with bipolar disorder (95% ci 25.7-53.6) had missing labels in both settings when adjusting for patients' age, sex, income quintiles and co-morbidities. in this sample of patients accessing care at a large family health team and community hospital, concordance of diagnostic information about serious mental illness was low. interventions should be developed to improve diagnosis and continuity of care across multiple settings." +"agreement between primary care and hospital diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: a cross-sectional, observational study using record linkage",NA,PLOS ONE,O NEILL B;KALIA S;ALIARZADEH B;MOINEDDIN R;FUNG WLA;SULLIVAN F;MALOUL A;BERNARD S;GREIVER M,"people with serious mental illness die 10-25 years sooner than people without these conditions. multiple challenges to accessing and benefitting from healthcare have been identified amongst this population, including a lack of coordination between mental health services and general health services. it has been identified in other conditions such as diabetes that accurate documentation of diagnosis in the primary care chart is associated with better quality of care. it is suspected that if a patient admitted to the hospital with serious mental illness is then discharged without adequate identification of their diagnosis in the primary care setting, follow up (such as medication management and care coordination) may be more difficult. we identified cohorts of patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder who accessed care through the north york family health team (a group of 77 family physicians in toronto, canada) and north york general hospital (a large community hospital) between january 1, 2012 and december 31, 2014. we identified whether labeling for these conditions was concordant between the two settings and explored predictors of concordant labeling. this was a retrospective cross-sectional study using de-identified data from the health databank collaborative, a linked primary care-hospital database. we identified 168 patients with schizophrenia and 370 patients with bipolar disorder. overall diagnostic concordance between primary care and hospital records was 23.2% for schizophrenia and 15.7% for bipolar disorder. concordance was higher for those with multiple (2+) inpatient visits (for schizophrenia: or 2.42; 95% ci 0.64-9.20 and for bipolar disorder: or 8.38; 95% ci 3.16-22.22). capture-recapture modeling estimated that 37.4% of patients with schizophrenia (95% ci 20.7-54.1) and 39.6% with bipolar disorder (95% ci 25.7-53.6) had missing labels in both settings when adjusting for patients' age, sex, income quintiles and co-morbidities. in this sample of patients accessing care at a large family health team and community hospital, concordance of diagnostic information about serious mental illness was low. interventions should be developed to improve diagnosis and continuity of care across multiple settings." use of hidden markov capture-recapture models to estimate abundance in the presence of uncertainty: application to the estimation of prevalence of hybrids in animal populations,anthropogenic introgression; capture-recapture; hidden markov models; hybridization; multievent models; prevalence; viterbi algorithm,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SANTOSTASI NL;CIUCCI P;CANIGLIA R;FABBRI E;MOLINARI L;REGGIONI W;GIMENEZ O,"estimating the relative abundance (prevalence) of different population segments is a key step in addressing fundamental research questions in ecology, evolution, and conservation. the raw percentage of individuals in the sample (naive prevalence) is generally used for this purpose, but it is likely to be subject to two main sources of bias. first, the detectability of individuals is ignored; second, classification errors may occur due to some inherent limits of the diagnostic methods. we developed a hidden markov (also known as multievent) capture-recapture model to estimate prevalence in free-ranging populations accounting for imperfect detectability and uncertainty in individual's classification. we carried out a simulation study to compare naive and model-based estimates of prevalence and assess the performance of our model under different sampling scenarios. we then illustrate our method with a real-world case study of estimating the prevalence of wolf (canis lupus) and dog (canis lupus familiaris) hybrids in a wolf population in northern italy. we showed that the prevalence of hybrids could be estimated while accounting for both detectability and classification uncertainty. model-based prevalence consistently had better performance than naive prevalence in the presence of differential detectability and assignment probability and was unbiased for sampling scenarios with high detectability. we also showed that ignoring detectability and uncertainty in the wolf case study would lead to underestimating the prevalence of hybrids. our results underline the importance of a model-based approach to obtain unbiased estimates of prevalence of different population segments. our model can be adapted to any taxa, and it can be used to estimate absolute abundance and prevalence in a variety of cases involving imperfect detection and uncertainty in classification of individuals (e.g., sex ratio, proportion of breeders, and prevalence of infected individuals)." precision gain versus effort with joint models using detection/non-detection and banding data,abundance; data integration; integrated population models; recruitment; study design; survival; western bluebird; wildfire effects,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SANDERLIN JS;BLOCK WM;STROHMEYER BE;SAAB VA;GANEY JL,"capture-recapture techniques provide valuable information, but are often more cost-prohibitive at large spatial and temporal scales than less-intensive sampling techniques. model development combining multiple data sources to leverage data source strengths and for improved parameter precision has increased, but with limited discussion on precision gain versus effort. we present a general framework for evaluating trade-offs between precision gained and costs associated with acquiring multiple data sources, useful for designing future or new phases of current studies.we illustrated how bayesian hierarchical joint models using detection/non-detection and banding data can improve abundance, survival, and recruitment inference, and quantified data source costs in a northern arizona, usa, western bluebird (sialia mexicana) population. we used an 8-year detection/non-detection (distributed across the landscape) and banding (subset of locations within landscape) data set to estimate parameters. we constructed separate models using detection/non-detection and banding data, and a joint model using both data types to evaluate parameter precision gain relative to effort.joint model parameter estimates were more precise than single data model estimates, but parameter precision varied (apparent survival>abundance>recruitment). banding provided greater apparent survival precision than detection/non-detection data. therefore, little precision was gained when detection/non-detection data were added to banding data. additional costs were minimal; however, additional spatial coverage and ability to estimate abundance and recruitment improved inference. conversely, more precision was gained when adding banding to detection/non-detection data at higher cost. spatial coverage was identical, yet survival and abundance estimates were more precise. justification of increased costs associated with additional data types depends on project objectives.we illustrate a general framework for evaluating precision gain relative to effort, applicable to joint data models with any data type combination. this framework evaluates costs and benefits from and effort levels between multiple data types, thus improving population monitoring designs." -covariate and multinomial: accounting for distance in movement in capture-recapture analyses,covariate; dependent estimates; link function; multinomial logit; transformations; variance-covariance matrix,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GUERY L;ROUAN L;DESCAMPS S;BETY J;FERNANDEZ-CHACON A;GILCHRIST G;PRADEL R,"many biological quantities cannot be measured directly but rather need to be estimated from models. estimates from models are statistical objects with variance and, when derived simultaneously, covariance. it is well known that their variance-covariance (vc) matrix must be considered in subsequent analyses. although it is always preferable to carry out the proposed analyses on the raw data themselves, a two-step approach cannot always be avoided. this situation arises when the parameters of a multinomial must be regressed against a covariate. the delta method is an appropriate and frequently recommended way of deriving variance approximations of transformed and correlated variables. implementing the delta method is not trivial, and there is a lack of a detailed information on the procedure in the literature for complex situations such as those involved in constraining the parameters of a multinomial distribution. this paper proposes a how-to guide for calculating the correct vc matrices of dependant estimates involved in multinomial distributions and how to use them for testing the effects of covariates in post hoc analyses when the integration of these analyses directly into a model is not possible. for illustrative purpose, we focus on variables calculated in capture-recapture models, but the same procedure can be applied to all analyses dealing with correlated estimates with multinomial distribution and their variances and covariances." +covariate and multinomial: accounting for distance in movement in capture-recapture analyses,covariate; dependent estimates; link function; multinomial logit; transformations; variance-covariance matrix,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GUERY L;ROUAN L;DESCAMPS S;BETY J;FERNANDEZ CHACON A;GILCHRIST G;PRADEL R,"many biological quantities cannot be measured directly but rather need to be estimated from models. estimates from models are statistical objects with variance and, when derived simultaneously, covariance. it is well known that their variance-covariance (vc) matrix must be considered in subsequent analyses. although it is always preferable to carry out the proposed analyses on the raw data themselves, a two-step approach cannot always be avoided. this situation arises when the parameters of a multinomial must be regressed against a covariate. the delta method is an appropriate and frequently recommended way of deriving variance approximations of transformed and correlated variables. implementing the delta method is not trivial, and there is a lack of a detailed information on the procedure in the literature for complex situations such as those involved in constraining the parameters of a multinomial distribution. this paper proposes a how-to guide for calculating the correct vc matrices of dependant estimates involved in multinomial distributions and how to use them for testing the effects of covariates in post hoc analyses when the integration of these analyses directly into a model is not possible. for illustrative purpose, we focus on variables calculated in capture-recapture models, but the same procedure can be applied to all analyses dealing with correlated estimates with multinomial distribution and their variances and covariances." making use of multiple surveys: estimating breeding probability using a multievent-robust design capture-recapture model,auxiliary data; breeding propensity; elephant seal; incidental observations; intermittent breeding; robust design; unobservable state,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,OOSTHUIZEN WC;PRADEL R;BESTER MN;DE BRUYN PJN,"increased environmental stochasticity due to climate change will intensify temporal variance in the life-history traits, and especially breeding probabilities, of long-lived iteroparous species. these changes may decrease individual fitness and population viability and is therefore important to monitor. in wild animal populations with imperfect individual detection, breeding probabilities are best estimated using capture-recapture methods. however, in many vertebrate species (e.g., amphibians, turtles, seabirds), nonbreeders are unobservable because they are not tied to a territory or breeding location. although unobservable states can be used to model temporary emigration of nonbreeders, there are disadvantages to having unobservable states in capture-recapture models. the best solution to deal with unobservable life-history states is therefore to eliminate them altogether. here, we achieve this objective by fitting novel multievent-robust design models which utilize information obtained from multiple surveys conducted throughout the year. we use this approach to estimate annual breeding probabilities of capital breeding female elephant seals (mirounga leonina). conceptually, our approach parallels a multistate version of the barker/robust design in that it combines robust design capture data collected during discrete breeding seasons with observations made at other times of the year. a substantial advantage of our approach is that the nonbreeder state became observable when multiple data sources were analyzed together. this allowed us to test for the existence of state-dependent survival (with some support found for lower survival in breeders compared to nonbreeders), and to estimate annual breeding transitions to and from the nonbreeder state with greater precision (where current breeders tended to have higher future breeding probabilities than nonbreeders). we used program e-surge (2.1.2) to fit the multievent-robust design models, with uncertainty in breeding state assignment (breeder, nonbreeder) being incorporated via a hidden markov process. this flexible modeling approach can easily be adapted to suit sampling designs from numerous species which may be encountered during and outside of discrete breeding seasons." estimability of migration survival rates from integrated breeding and winter capture-recapture data,bayesian; cormack-jolly-seber; demography; integrated population model; mark-recapture; migration; migratory connectivity; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,RUSHING CS,"long-distance migration is a common phenomenon across the animal kingdom but the scale of annual migratory movements has made it difficult for researchers to estimate survival rates during these periods of the annual cycle. estimating migration survival is particularly challenging for small-bodied species that cannot carry satellite tags, a group that includes the vast majority of migratory species. when capture-recapture data are available for linked breeding and non-breeding populations, estimation of overall migration survival is possible but current methods do not allow separate estimation of spring and autumn survival rates. recent development of a bayesian integrated survival model has provided a method to separately estimate the latent spring and autumn survival rates using capture-recapture data, though the accuracy and precision of these estimates has not been formally tested. here, i used simulated data to explore the estimability of migration survival rates using this model. under a variety of biologically realistic scenarios, i demonstrate that spring and autumn migration survival can be estimated from the integrated survival model, though estimates are biased toward the overall migration survival probability. the direction and magnitude of this bias are influenced by the relative difference in spring and autumn survival rates as well as the degree of annual variation in these rates. the inclusion of covariates can improve the model's performance, especially when annual variation in migration survival rates is low. migration survival rates can be estimated from relatively short time series (4-5years), but bias and precision of estimates are improved when longer time series (10-12years) are available. the ability to estimate seasonal survival rates of small, migratory organisms opens the door to advancing our understanding of the ecology and conservation of these species. application of this method will enable researchers to better understand when mortality occurs across the annual cycle and how the migratory periods contribute to population dynamics. integrating summer and winter capture data requires knowledge of the migratory connectivity of sampled populations and therefore efforts to simultaneously collect both survival and tracking data should be a high priority, especially for species of conservation concern." effects of distance on detectability of arctic waterfowl using double-observer sampling during helicopter surveys,aerial survey; detection probability; distance sampling; mark-recapture,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ALISAUSKAS RT;CONN PB,"aerial survey is an important, widely employed approach for estimating free-ranging wildlife over large or inaccessible study areas. we studied how a distance covariate influenced probability of double-observer detections for birds counted during a helicopter survey in canada's central arctic. two observers, one behind the other but visually obscured from each other, counted birds in an incompletely shared field of view to a distance of 200 m. each observer assigned detections to one of five 40-m distance bins, guided by semi-transparent marks on aircraft windows. detections were recorded with distance bin, taxonomic group, wing-flapping behavior, and group size. we compared two general model-based estimation approaches pertinent to sampling wildlife under such situations. one was based on double-observer methods without distance information, that provide sampling analogous to that required for mark-recapture (mr) estimation of detection probability, (p) over cap, and group abundance, (g) over cap, along a fixed-width strip transect. the other method incorporated double-observer mr with a categorical distance covariate (mrd). a priori, we were concerned that estimators from mr models were compromised by heterogeneity in (p) over cap due to un-modeled distance information; that is, more distant birds are less likely to be detected by both observers, with the predicted effect that (p) over cap would be biased high, and (g) over cap biased low. we found that, despite increased complexity, mrd models (delta aicc range: 0-16) fit data far better than mr models (delta aicc range: 204-258). however, contrary to expectation, the more naive mr estimators of p were biased low in all cases, but only by 2%-5% in most cases. we suspect that this apparently anomalous finding was the result of specific limitations to, and trade-offs in, visibility by observers on the survey platform used. while mr models provided acceptable point estimates of group abundance, their far higher stranded errors (0%-40%) compared to mrd estimates would compromise ability to detect temporal or spatial differences in abundance. given improved precision of mrd models relative to mr models, and the possibility of bias when using mr methods from other survey platforms, we recommend avian ecologists use mrd protocols and estimation procedures when surveying arctic bird populations." -estimating age-dependent survival when juveniles resemble females: invasive ring-necked parakeets as an example,age-specific survival; capture-recapture; delayed plumage maturation; multievent models; ring-necked parakeet; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SENAR JC;ARROYO L;ORTEGA-SEGALERVA A;CARRILLO JG;TOMAS X;MONTALVO T;SANZ-AGUILAR A,"many species only show sexual dimorphism at the age of maturity, such that juveniles typically resemble females. under these circumstances, estimating accurate age-specific demographic parameters is challenging. here, we propose a multievent model parameterization able to estimate age-dependent survival using capture-recapture data with uncertainty in age and sex assignment of individuals. we illustrate this modeling approach with capture-recapture data from the ring-necked parakeet psittacula krameri. we analyzed capture, recapture, and resighting data (439 recaptures/resightings) of 156 ring-necked parakeets tagged with neck collars in barcelona city from 2003 to 2016 to estimate the juvenile and adult survival rate. our models successfully estimated the survival probabilities of the different age classes considered. survival probability was similar between adults (0.83, 95% ci=0.77-0.87) and juveniles during their second (0.79, 95% ci=0.58-0.87) and third winter (0.83, 95% ci=0.65-0.88). the youngest juveniles (1st winter) showed a slightly lower survival (0.57, 95% ci=0.37-0.79). among adults, females showed a slightly higher survival than males (0.87, 95% ci=0.78-0.93; and 0.80, 95% ci=0.73-0.86, respectively). these high survival figures predict high population persistence in this species and urge management policies. the analysis also stresses the usefulness of multievent models to estimate juvenile survival when age cannot be fully ascertained." -disease-structured n-mixture models: a practical guide to model disease dynamics using count data,bayesian; dail-madsen model; disease ecology; emerging infectious diseases; generalized n-mixture model; hierarchical models; host-pathogen interaction; mark-recapture models; multistate models; occupancy model,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,DIRENZO GV;CHE-CASTALDO C;SAUNDERS SP;GRANT EHC;ZIPKIN EF,"obtaining inferences on disease dynamics (e.g., host population size, pathogen prevalence, transmission rate, host survival probability) typically requires marking and tracking individuals over time. while multistate mark-recapture models can produce high-quality inference, these techniques are difficult to employ at large spatial and long temporal scales or in small remnant host populations decimated by virulent pathogens, where low recapture rates may preclude the use of mark-recapture techniques. recently developed n-mixture models offer a statistical framework for estimating wildlife disease dynamics from count data. n-mixture models are a type of state-space model in which observation error is attributed to failing to detect some individuals when they are present (i.e., false negatives). the analysis approach uses repeated surveys of sites over a period of population closure to estimate detection probability. we review the challenges of modeling disease dynamics and describe how n-mixture models can be used to estimate common metrics, including pathogen prevalence, transmission, and recovery rates while accounting for imperfect host and pathogen detection. we also offer a perspective on future research directions at the intersection of quantitative and disease ecology, including the estimation of false positives in pathogen presence, spatially explicit disease-structured n-mixture models, and the integration of other data types with count data to inform disease dynamics. managers rely on accurate and precise estimates of disease dynamics to develop strategies to mitigate pathogen impacts on host populations. at a time when pathogens pose one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, statistical methods that lead to robust inferences on host populations are critically needed for rapid, rather than incremental, assessments of the impacts of emerging infectious diseases." +estimating age-dependent survival when juveniles resemble females: invasive ring-necked parakeets as an example,age-specific survival; capture-recapture; delayed plumage maturation; multievent models; ring-necked parakeet; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SENAR JC;ARROYO L;ORTEGA SEGALERVA A;CARRILLO JG;TOMAS X;MONTALVO T;SANZ AGUILAR A,"many species only show sexual dimorphism at the age of maturity, such that juveniles typically resemble females. under these circumstances, estimating accurate age-specific demographic parameters is challenging. here, we propose a multievent model parameterization able to estimate age-dependent survival using capture-recapture data with uncertainty in age and sex assignment of individuals. we illustrate this modeling approach with capture-recapture data from the ring-necked parakeet psittacula krameri. we analyzed capture, recapture, and resighting data (439 recaptures/resightings) of 156 ring-necked parakeets tagged with neck collars in barcelona city from 2003 to 2016 to estimate the juvenile and adult survival rate. our models successfully estimated the survival probabilities of the different age classes considered. survival probability was similar between adults (0.83, 95% ci=0.77-0.87) and juveniles during their second (0.79, 95% ci=0.58-0.87) and third winter (0.83, 95% ci=0.65-0.88). the youngest juveniles (1st winter) showed a slightly lower survival (0.57, 95% ci=0.37-0.79). among adults, females showed a slightly higher survival than males (0.87, 95% ci=0.78-0.93; and 0.80, 95% ci=0.73-0.86, respectively). these high survival figures predict high population persistence in this species and urge management policies. the analysis also stresses the usefulness of multievent models to estimate juvenile survival when age cannot be fully ascertained." +disease-structured n-mixture models: a practical guide to model disease dynamics using count data,bayesian; dail-madsen model; disease ecology; emerging infectious diseases; generalized n-mixture model; hierarchical models; host-pathogen interaction; mark-recapture models; multistate models; occupancy model,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,DIRENZO GV;CHE CASTALDO C;SAUNDERS SP;GRANT EHC;ZIPKIN EF,"obtaining inferences on disease dynamics (e.g., host population size, pathogen prevalence, transmission rate, host survival probability) typically requires marking and tracking individuals over time. while multistate mark-recapture models can produce high-quality inference, these techniques are difficult to employ at large spatial and long temporal scales or in small remnant host populations decimated by virulent pathogens, where low recapture rates may preclude the use of mark-recapture techniques. recently developed n-mixture models offer a statistical framework for estimating wildlife disease dynamics from count data. n-mixture models are a type of state-space model in which observation error is attributed to failing to detect some individuals when they are present (i.e., false negatives). the analysis approach uses repeated surveys of sites over a period of population closure to estimate detection probability. we review the challenges of modeling disease dynamics and describe how n-mixture models can be used to estimate common metrics, including pathogen prevalence, transmission, and recovery rates while accounting for imperfect host and pathogen detection. we also offer a perspective on future research directions at the intersection of quantitative and disease ecology, including the estimation of false positives in pathogen presence, spatially explicit disease-structured n-mixture models, and the integration of other data types with count data to inform disease dynamics. managers rely on accurate and precise estimates of disease dynamics to develop strategies to mitigate pathogen impacts on host populations. at a time when pathogens pose one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, statistical methods that lead to robust inferences on host populations are critically needed for rapid, rather than incremental, assessments of the impacts of emerging infectious diseases." land tenure shapes black bear density and abundance on a multi-use landscape,american black bear; habitat; hunting; population estimation; resource-selection function; spatially explicit capture-recapture; ursus americanus,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,LOOSEN AE;MOREHOUSE AT;BOYCE MS,"global biodiversity is decreasing rapidly. parks and protected lands, while designed to conserve wildlife, often cannot provide the habitat protection needed for wide-ranging animals such as the american black bear (ursus americanus). conversely, private lands are often working landscapes (e.g., farming) that have high human footprints relative to protected lands. in southwestern alberta, road densities are highest on private lands and black bears can be hunted year-round. on protected lands, road densities are lowest, and hunting is prohibited. on public lands under the jurisdiction of the provincial government (crown lands), seasonal hunting is permitted. population estimates are needed to calculate sustainable harvest levels and to monitor population trends. in our study area, there has never been a robust estimate of black bear density and spatial drivers of black bear density are poorly understood. we used non-invasive genetic sampling and indices of habitat productivity and human disturbance to estimate density and abundance for male and female black bears in 2013 and 2014 using two methods: spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) and resource-selection functions (rsf). land tenure best explained spatial variation in black bear density. black bear densities for females and males were highest on parkland and lowest on crown lands. sex ratios were female-biased on private lands, likely a result of lower harvests and movement of females out of areas with high male density. synthesis and application: both secr and rsf methods clearly indicate spatial structuring of black bear density, with a strong influence based on how lands are managed. land tenure influences the distribution of available foods and risk from humans. we emphasize the need for improved harvest reporting, particularly for non-licensed hunting on private land, to estimate the extent of black bear harvest mortality." combining capture-recapture data and known ages allows estimation of age-dependent survival rates,age; bayesian; individual growth; otoliths; state-space; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BIRD T;LYON J;WOTHERSPOON S;TODD C;TONKIN Z;MCCARTHY M,"in many animal populations, demographic parameters such as survival and recruitment vary markedly with age, as do parameters related to sampling, such as capture probability. failing to account for such variation can result in biased estimates of population-level rates. however, estimating age-dependent survival rates can be challenging because ages of individuals are rarely known unless tagging is done at birth. for many species, it is possible to infer age based on size. in capture-recapture studies of such species, it is possible to use a growth model to infer the age at first capture of individuals. we show how to build estimates of age-dependent survival into a capture-mark-recapture model based on data obtained in a capture-recapture study. we first show how estimates of age based on length increments closely match those based on definitive aging methods. in simulated analyses, we show that both individual ages and age-dependent survival rates estimated from simulated data closely match true values. with our approach, we are able to estimate the age-specific apparent survival rates of murray and trout cod in the murray river, australia. our model structure provides a flexible framework within which to investigate various aspects of how survival varies with age and will have extensions within a wide range of ecological studies of animals where age can be estimated based on size." a local evaluation of the individual state-space to scale up bayesian spatial capture-recapture,computation speed; local evaluation of the state-space; spatial capture-recapture; wolverines,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MILLERET C;DUPONT P;BONENFANT C;BROSETH H;FLAGSTAD O;SUTHERLAND C;BISCHOF R,"spatial capture-recapture models (scr) are used to estimate animal density and to investigate a range of problems in spatial ecology that cannot be addressed with traditional nonspatial methods. bayesian approaches in particular offer tremendous flexibility for scr modeling. increasingly, scr data are being collected over very large spatial extents making analysis computational intensive, sometimes prohibitively so. to mitigate the computational burden of large-scale scr models, we developed an improved formulation of the bayesian scr model that uses local evaluation of the individual state-space (less). based on prior knowledge about a species' home range size, we created square evaluation windows that restrict the spatial domain in which an individual's detection probability (detector window) and activity center location (ac window) are estimated. we used simulations and empirical data analyses to assess the performance and bias of scr with less. less produced unbiased estimates of scr parameters when the ac window width was >= 5 sigma (sigma: the scale parameter of the half-normal detection function), and when the detector window extended beyond the edge of the ac window by 2 sigma. importantly, less considerably decreased the computation time needed for fitting scr models. in our simulations, less increased the computation speed of scr models up to 57-fold. we demonstrate the power of this new approach by mapping the density of an elusive large carnivore-the wolverine (gulo gulo)-with an unprecedented resolution and across the species' entire range in norway (> 200,000 km(2)). our approach helps overcome a major computational obstacle to population and landscape-level scr analyses. the less implementation in a bayesian framework makes the customization and fitting of scr accessible for practitioners working at scales that are relevant for conservation and management." -variations in age- and sex-specific survival rates help explain population trend in a discrete marine mammal population,calf survival; capture-recapture; mortality rate; population dynamics; sex-specific survival; tursiops,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CIVIL MA;CHENEY B;QUICK NJ;ISLAS-VILLANUEVA V;GRAVES JA;JANIK VM;THOMPSON PM;HAMMOND PS,"understanding the drivers underlying fluctuations in the size of animal populations is central to ecology, conservation biology, and wildlife management. reliable estimates of survival probabilities are key to population viability assessments, and patterns of variation in survival can help inferring the causal factors behind detected changes in population size. we investigated whether variation in age- and sex-specific survival probabilities could help explain the increasing trend in population size detected in a small, discrete population of bottlenose dolphins tursiops truncatus off the east coast of scotland. to estimate annual survival probabilities, we applied capture-recapture models to photoidentification data collected from 1989 to 2015. we used robust design models accounting for temporary emigration to estimate juvenile and adult survival, multistate models to estimate sex-specific survival, and age models to estimate calf survival. we found strong support for an increase in juvenile/adult annual survival from 93.1% to 96.0% over the study period, most likely caused by a change in juvenile survival. examination of sex-specific variation showed weaker support for this trend being a result of increasing female survival, which was overall higher than for males and animals of unknown sex. calf survival was lower in the first than second year; a bias in estimating third-year survival will likely exist in similar studies. there was some support first-born calf survival being lower than for calves born subsequently. coastal marine mammal populations are subject to the impacts of environmental change, increasing anthropogenic disturbance and the effects of management measures. survival estimates are essential to improve our understanding of population dynamics and help predict how future pressures may impact populations, but obtaining robust information on the life history of long-lived species is challenging. our study illustrates how knowledge of survival can be increased by applying a robust analytical framework to photoidentification data." +variations in age- and sex-specific survival rates help explain population trend in a discrete marine mammal population,calf survival; capture-recapture; mortality rate; population dynamics; sex-specific survival; tursiops,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CIVIL MA;CHENEY B;QUICK NJ;ISLAS VILLANUEVA V;GRAVES JA;JANIK VM;THOMPSON PM;HAMMOND PS,"understanding the drivers underlying fluctuations in the size of animal populations is central to ecology, conservation biology, and wildlife management. reliable estimates of survival probabilities are key to population viability assessments, and patterns of variation in survival can help inferring the causal factors behind detected changes in population size. we investigated whether variation in age- and sex-specific survival probabilities could help explain the increasing trend in population size detected in a small, discrete population of bottlenose dolphins tursiops truncatus off the east coast of scotland. to estimate annual survival probabilities, we applied capture-recapture models to photoidentification data collected from 1989 to 2015. we used robust design models accounting for temporary emigration to estimate juvenile and adult survival, multistate models to estimate sex-specific survival, and age models to estimate calf survival. we found strong support for an increase in juvenile/adult annual survival from 93.1% to 96.0% over the study period, most likely caused by a change in juvenile survival. examination of sex-specific variation showed weaker support for this trend being a result of increasing female survival, which was overall higher than for males and animals of unknown sex. calf survival was lower in the first than second year; a bias in estimating third-year survival will likely exist in similar studies. there was some support first-born calf survival being lower than for calves born subsequently. coastal marine mammal populations are subject to the impacts of environmental change, increasing anthropogenic disturbance and the effects of management measures. survival estimates are essential to improve our understanding of population dynamics and help predict how future pressures may impact populations, but obtaining robust information on the life history of long-lived species is challenging. our study illustrates how knowledge of survival can be increased by applying a robust analytical framework to photoidentification data." "metapopulation dynamics of roseate terns: sources, sinks and implications for conservation management decisions",demography; density dependence; dispersal; immigration; integrated population model; metapopulation dynamics; roseate tern; seabirds,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,SEWARD A;RATCLIFFE N;NEWTON S;CALDOW R;PIEC D;MORRISON P;CADWALLENDER T;DAVIES W;BOLTON M,"habitat management to restore or create breeding sites may allow metapopulations to increase in size and reduce the risk of demographic stochasticity or disasters causing metapopulation extinction. however, if newly restored or created sites are of low quality, they may act as sinks that draw individuals away from better quality sites to the detriment of metapopulation size. following intensive conservation effort, the metapopulation of roseate tern (sterna dougallii) in nw europe is recovering from a large crash in numbers, but most former colonies remain unoccupied and hence are potential targets for restoration. to inform conservation efforts, we studied the dynamics of this metapopulation with a multistate integrated population model to assess each of the three main colonies for important demographic contributors to population growth rate, source/sink status and possible density dependence. all three study colonies are managed for roseate terns (and other tern species) in similar ways, but the demographic processes vary considerably between colonies. the largest colony is a source involved in almost all dispersal, and its growth is determined by survival rates and productivity. productivity and juvenile apparent survival at the largest colony appear to be density-dependent. although the mechanisms are unclear, this may provide an increasing impetus for emigration of recruits to other colonies in future. the smallest of the three colonies is a sink, relying on immigration for its growth. simulation models suggest the metapopulation would be c. 10% larger in the absence of dispersal to the sink colony. this work indicates that, due to variable site quality, aims to enhance both distribution and size of metapopulations may be mutually exclusive. in this case, before future attempts to encourage recolonisation of former sites, assessments of site suitability should be undertaken, focusing on food availability and isolation from predators to maximise the likelihood of attaining levels of productivity and survival that avoid creation of a sink population to the detriment of the overall metapopulation size." multiple density-dependent processes shape the dynamics of a spatially structured amphibian population,amphibian; density dependence; dispersal; population growth rate; spatially structured populations; survival; triturus cristatus,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,CAYUELA H;SCHMIDT BR;WEINBACH A;BESNARD A;JOLY P,"understanding the mechanisms that regulate the dynamics of spatially structured populations (ssp) is a critical challenge for ecologists and conservation managers. internal population processes such as births and deaths occur at a local level, while external processes such as dispersal take place at an inter-population level. at both levels, density dependence is expected to play a critical role. at a patch scale, demographic traits (e.g., survival, breeding success) and the population growth rate can be influenced by density either negatively (e.g., competition effect) or positively (e.g., allee effects). at the scale of an ssp, although positive density-dependent dispersal has been widely reported, an increasing number of studies have highlighted negative density-dependent dispersal. while many studies have investigated the effects of density on population growth or on dispersal, few have simultaneously examined density-dependent effects at the scale of both the local population and the entire ssp. in this study, we examine how density is related to demographic processes at both the pond level (survival and population growth) and the ssp level (between-pond dispersal) in a pond-breeding amphibian, the great crested newt (triturus cristatus). the study was based on 20 years of individual capture-recapture (cr) data (from 1996 to 2015) gathered from an ssp made up of 12 experimental ponds (""patches""). we first used a cr multievent model to estimate both survival and dispersal rates in specific ponds as a function of distance between ponds. then, using a second cr multievent model, we examined whether survival and recapture rates were influenced by population density in a pond. lastly, we used state-space time series models to investigate whether density affected population growth in each pond. our results found a positive density-dependent effect on survival and a negative density-dependent effect on departure. in addition, the findings indicate that population growth was negatively related to density in all 12 ponds. these results support the hypothesis that in ssps, density may have multiple and contrasting effects on demographic parameters and growth rates within local populations as well as on dispersal. this study underlines the need to better understand how density dependence may influence potential trade-offs between life-history strategies and life-history stages." comparing clustered sampling designs for spatially explicit estimation of population density,bear; cluster; density; mark-recapture; simulation; spatially explicit; ursus,POPULATION ECOLOGY,CLARK JD,"spatially explicit capture-recapture methods do not assume that animals have equal access to sampling devices (e.g., detectors), which allows for gaps in the sampling extent and nonuniform (e.g., clustered) sampling designs. however, the performance (i.e., relative root mean squared error [rrmse], confidence interval coverage, relative bias and relative standard error) of clustered detector arrays has not been thoroughly evaluated. i used simulations to evaluate the performance of various detector and cluster spacings, cluster configurations (i.e., number of detectors arranged in a square grid), sampling extents and number of sampling occasions for estimating population density, the relationship between detection rate and distance to a detector from the animal's center of activity (sigma) and base detection rates, using american black bears (ursus americanus) as a case study. my simulations indicated that a wide range of detector configurations can provide reliable estimates if spacing between detectors in clusters is 1 sigma and 3 sigma. a number of cluster configurations and occasion lengths produced estimates that were unbiased, resulted in good spatial coverage, and were relatively precise. moreover, increasing the duration of sampling, establishing large study areas, increasing detection rates and spacing clusters so that cross-cluster sampling of individuals can occur could help ameliorate deficiencies in the detector layout. these results have application for a wide array of species and sampling methods (e.g., dna sampling, camera trapping, mark-resight and search-encounter) and suggest that clustered sampling can significantly reduce the effort necessary to provide reliable estimates of population density across large spatial extents that previously would have been infeasible with nonclustered sampling designs." @@ -68,12 +68,12 @@ effects of prescribed fire on san francisco gartersnake survival and movement,ca efficacy of depletion models for estimating abundance of endangered fishes in streams,depletion sampling; bayesian mixture models; endangered species; known abundance; removal sampling; variable detection,FISHERIES RESEARCH,STEWART DR;BUTLER MJ;JOHNSON LA;CAJERO A;YOUNG AN;HARRIS GM,"conservation programs for imperiled fish require a sampling method for quantifying their habitat relationships and their progress toward recovery, via abundance estimation and subsequent monitoring. depletion sampling is a commonly used method, although the assumptions of homogeneous capture probabilities are tenuous. recently, bayesian hierarchical models have been used to describe the conditional relationships between abundance of animals and detection probability, but their performance remains untested when detection varies across successive passes. we tested such approaches within a depletion-sampling framework for estimating abundance of three endemic and imperiled fish species in southeastern arizona, usa. our procedure uses depletion sampling, via simulation and field trials, and removes the untenable assumption of constant detectability across sampling passes. specifically, we evaluated how population size, the number of depletion passes, the probability of fish detection, the amount of decline in this probability across removal passes, and the effects of variable detection probability affect bias and precision when using models with constant and variable detection probability. abundance estimates were negatively biased when detection probability declined by 20% or more across successive passes, with detection probability < 0.30 on the first pass. when detection probability declined by < 10% across successive passes, unbiased estimates could be attained with detection probabilities of 0.20. increasing depletion passes improved precision but not bias. field trials underscored the importance of incorporating changes in detection probability among species and successive depletion passes. our work demonstrates the efficacy of depletion experiments to estimate abundance, and highlights the importance of sampling a known abundance to accompany simulation analyses. monitoring programs ignoring variability in detection probability using a depletion framework can produce biased abundance estimates." migration tactics affect spawning frequency in an iteroparous salmonid (salvelinus malma) from the arctic,NA,PLOS ONE,GALLAGHER CP;HOWLAND KL;SANDSTROM SJ;HALDEN NM,"otolith strontium and multi-year mark-recapture information were used to characterize associations between migration patterns and spawning frequencies in an anadromous dolly varden (salvelinus malma) population (rat river, northwest territories, canada) that undertakes a long migration between freshwater spawning/overwintering (fish creek; a tributary to rat river) and marine feeding habitats (beaufort sea) (similar to 800 km round trip). reconstructions of lifetime annual migration histories among otolith annuli was matched to information on reproductive status (current-year 'spawner' or 'non-spawner') that was known in two different, sometimes successive, years for each fish. two migratory life histories were observed: fish either migrated annually after smoltification or periodically skipped an annual ocean migration to remain in freshwater and spawn. different spawning frequencies were detected where fish not migrating annually tended to spawn in alternate years (84.6%) more often than those migrating annually (50%). additionally, annually migrating fish had lower longevity (<= 9 years vs. <= 13 years). the evaluation of differences in spawning frequency between sexes, independent of migration tactic, revealed males (84.6%) skipped spawning more often than females (51.2%) suggesting fitness trade-offs between life histories differ between sexes. further, some fish returned from the sea considerably earlier than the majority of other current-year migrants. our findings demonstrate intrapopulation diversity in migration behaviour and reproductive frequency." a new mark-recapture approach for abundance estimation of social species,NA,PLOS ONE,HICKEY JR;SOLLMANN R,"accurate estimates of population abundance are a critical component of species conservation efforts in order to monitor the potential recovery of populations. capture-mark-recapture (cmr) is a widely used approach to estimate population abundance, yet social species moving in groups violate the assumption of cmr approaches that all individuals in the population are detected independently. we developed a closed cmr model that addresses an important characteristic of group-living species-that individual-detection probability typically is conditional on group detection. henceforth termed the two-step model, this approach first estimates group-detection probability and then-conditional on group detection-estimates individual-detection probability for individuals within detected groups. overall abundance is estimated assuming that undetected groups have the same average group size as detected groups. we compared the performance of this two-step cmr model to a conventional (one-step) closed cmr model that ignored group structure. we assessed model sensitivity to variation in both group- and individual-detection probability. both models returned overall unbiased estimates of abundance, but the one-step model returned deceptively narrow bayesian confidence intervals (bci) that failed to encompass the correct population abundance an average 52% of the time. contrary, under the two-step model, ci coverage was on average 96%. both models had similar root mean squared errors (rmse), except for scenarios with low group detection probability, where the two-step model had much lower rmse. for illustration with a real data set, we applied the two-step and regular model to non-invasive genetic capture-recapture data of mountain gorillas (gorilla beringei beringei). as with simulations, abundance estimates under both models were similar, but the two-step model estimate had a wider confidence interval. results support using the two-step model for species living in constant groups, particularly when group detection probability is low, to reduce risk of bias and adequately portray uncertainty in abundance estimates. important sources of variation in detection need to be incorporated into the two-step model when applying it to field data." -early returning long-distance migrant males do pay a survival cost,capture-mark-recapture; differential migration; fitness; optimal timing; protandry,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,LERCHE-JORGENSEN M;KORNER-NIEVERGELT F;TOTTRUP AP;WILLEMOES M;THORUP K,"timing of return to the breeding area presumably optimizes breeding output in migrants. how timing affects the other components of fitness - survival, has been comparatively little studied. returning too early in spring is expected to be associated with high mortality in insectivorous migrants when weather conditions are still unsuitable. yet, males in particular arrive early to get access to the best territories which have been suggested to cause arrival before it is optimal for their survival. for the outward migration in autumn, timing is presumably less directly associated with reproduction and fitness and how it might affect survival is not well understood. we use data of eight songbird species ringed across denmark to investigate how timing of return migration in spring and departure migration in autumn close to the breeding areas affects survival for short- and long-distance migrants. further, we compare survival optimum to the timing of males and females at a stopover site in denmark in three sexually dimorphic, protandric species. we find a clear relationship between return migration and survival which differs between short- and long-distance migrants: survival decreases with date for short-distance migrants and a bell-shaped relationship, with low survival for earliest and latest individuals, for long-distance migrants. in protandric species, the majority of males return before survival is optimal, whereas females on average return close to the survival optimum. the pattern of survival in relation to autumn timing is less clear, although a similar bell-shaped relationship is suggested for long-distance migrants. our findings support the predicted mortality consequences of too early return to the breeding grounds and also that selection for early return in males leads to suboptimal migration timing regarding survival." +early returning long-distance migrant males do pay a survival cost,capture-mark-recapture; differential migration; fitness; optimal timing; protandry,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,LERCHE JORGENSEN M;KORNER NIEVERGELT F;TOTTRUP AP;WILLEMOES M;THORUP K,"timing of return to the breeding area presumably optimizes breeding output in migrants. how timing affects the other components of fitness - survival, has been comparatively little studied. returning too early in spring is expected to be associated with high mortality in insectivorous migrants when weather conditions are still unsuitable. yet, males in particular arrive early to get access to the best territories which have been suggested to cause arrival before it is optimal for their survival. for the outward migration in autumn, timing is presumably less directly associated with reproduction and fitness and how it might affect survival is not well understood. we use data of eight songbird species ringed across denmark to investigate how timing of return migration in spring and departure migration in autumn close to the breeding areas affects survival for short- and long-distance migrants. further, we compare survival optimum to the timing of males and females at a stopover site in denmark in three sexually dimorphic, protandric species. we find a clear relationship between return migration and survival which differs between short- and long-distance migrants: survival decreases with date for short-distance migrants and a bell-shaped relationship, with low survival for earliest and latest individuals, for long-distance migrants. in protandric species, the majority of males return before survival is optimal, whereas females on average return close to the survival optimum. the pattern of survival in relation to autumn timing is less clear, although a similar bell-shaped relationship is suggested for long-distance migrants. our findings support the predicted mortality consequences of too early return to the breeding grounds and also that selection for early return in males leads to suboptimal migration timing regarding survival." non-linear effect of sea ice: spectacled eider survival declines at both extremes of the ice spectrum,bering sea; mark-recapture; sea ice; somateria fischeri; spectacled eider; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CHRISTIE KS;HOLLMEN TE;FLINT P;DOUGLAS D,"understanding the relationship between environmental factors and vital rates is an important step in predicting a species' response to environmental change. species associated with sea ice are of particular concern because sea ice is projected to decrease rapidly in polar environments with continued levels of greenhouse gas emissions. the relationship between sea ice and the vital rates of the spectacled eider, a threatened species that breeds in alaska and russia and winters in the bering sea, appears to be complex. while severe ice can impede foraging for benthic prey, ice also suppresses wave action and provides a platform on which eiders roost, thereby reducing thermoregulation costs. we analyzed a 23-year mark-recapture dataset for spectacled eiders nesting on kigigak island in western alaska, and tested survival models containing different ice and weather-related covariates. we found that much of the variation in eider survival could be explained by the number of days per year with >95% sea ice concentration at the bering sea core wintering area. furthermore, the data supported a quadratic relationship with sea ice rather than a linear one, indicating that intermediate sea ice concentrations were optimal for survival. we then used matrix population models to project population trajectories using general circulation model (gcm) outputs of daily sea ice cover. gcms projected reduced sea ice at the wintering area by year 2100 under a moderated emissions scenario (rcp 4.5) and nearly ice-free conditions under an unabated emissions scenario (rcp 8.5). under rcp 4.5, stochastic models projected an increase in population size until 2069 coincident with moderate ice conditions, followed by a decline in population size as ice conditions shifted from intermediate to mostly ice-free. under rcp 8.5, eider abundance increased until 2040 and then decreased to near extirpation toward the end of the century as the bering sea became ice-free. considerable uncertainty around parameter estimates for survival in years with minimal sea ice contributed to variation in stochastic projections of future population size, and this uncertainty could be reduced with additional survival data from low-ice winters." the effects of early sandbar formation on the abundance and ecology of coho salmon (oncorhynchus kisutch) and steelhead trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) in a central california coastal lagoon,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,OSTERBACK AMK;KERN CH;KANAWI EA;PEREZ JM;KIERNAN JD,"we investigated how extreme drought conditions influenced the abundance, growth, movement, and seawater readiness of juvenile coho salmon (oncorhynchus kisutch) and steelhead trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) in a small central california coastal lagoon. in 2015, the seasonal sandbar at the mouth of scott creek formed over 2 months earlier than average, effectively trapping fish in the lagoon for 7 additional months (mid-may through december) before outmigration opportunities eventually resumed. monthly mark-recapture sampling demonstrated that juvenile coho salmon and steelhead were able to persist in the lagoon during extended periods of high water temperature and low dissolved oxygen concentration. both salmonid species exhibited similar temporal trends in abundance, growth, and na+-k+-atpase activity levels during lagoon residence; however, abundance and growth rates were consistently higher for steelhead. stationary passive integrated transponder tag antenna detections revealed recurrent movement of individuals between the warm lagoon and cooler lower mainstem creek, suggesting individuals regulated key physiological processes by moving between the adjacent habitats. our study provides new insight concerning the consequences of drought for imperiled salmonid populations and underscores the importance of life-history diversity during extreme climatic events." "context-dependent dispersal, public information, and heterospecific attraction in newts",dispersal; heterospecific attraction; public information; triturus cristatus; ichthyosaura alpestris; lissotriton helveticus,OECOLOGIA,CAYUELA H;GROLET O;JOLY P,"dispersal is one of the main processes that determine community structure. individuals make dispersal decisions according to environmental and/or social cues that reflect the fitness prospects in a given patch. the presence and abundance of heterospecifics within the same ecological guild, and/or their breeding success, may act as public information that influences movement decisions. to date, most studies investigating the role of heterospecific attraction have focused on habitat choice, using both experimental and correlational approaches. the present study is the first to examine how long-term variation in heterospecific density in breeding patches may affect dispersal patterns in spatially structured populations. we investigate how the dispersal decisions of the great crested newt (triturus cristatus) are related to the variable density of two other newt species, the alpine newt (ichthyosaura alpestris) and the palmate newt (lissotriton helveticus). to examine this issue, we used capture-recapture data collected in an experimental pond network over a 20-year period. the results revealed that the great crested newt's dispersal is context dependent and is affected by variation in heterospecific density: individuals were less likely to emigrate from ponds with high heterospecific density and were more likely to immigrate to ponds with high heterospecific density. these findings suggest that individuals adjust their dispersal decisions at least partly based on public information provided by heterospecifics. this mechanism may play a critical role in the dynamics of spatially structured populations and community functioning." measuring agreement among experts in classifying camera images of similar species,bobcat; canada lynx; expert identification; image classification; lynx canadensis; lynx rufus,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GOOLIAFF TJ;HODGES KE,"camera trapping and solicitation of wildlife images through citizen science have become common tools in ecological research. such studies collect many wildlife images for which correct species classification is crucial; even low misclassification rates can result in erroneous estimation of the geographic range or habitat use of a species, potentially hindering conservation or management efforts. however, some species are difficult to tell apart, making species classification challenging-but the literature on classification agreement rates among experts remains sparse. here, we measure agreement among experts in distinguishing between images of two similar congeneric species, bobcats (lynx rufus) and canada lynx (lynx canadensis). we asked experts to classify the species in selected images to test whether the season, background habitat, time of day, and the visible features of each animal (e.g., face, legs, tail) affected agreement among experts about the species in each image. overall, experts had moderate agreement (fleiss' kappa = 0.64), but experts had varying levels of agreement depending on these image characteristics. most images (71%) had >= 1 expert classification of ""unknown,"" and many images (39%) had some experts classify the image as ""bobcat"" while others classified it as ""lynx."" further, experts were inconsistent even with themselves, changing their classifications of numerous images when they were asked to reclassify the same images months later. these results suggest that classification of images by a single expert is unreliable for similar-looking species. most of the images did obtain a clear majority classification from the experts, although we emphasize that even majority classifications may be incorrect. we recommend that researchers using wildlife images consult multiple species experts to increase confidence in their image classifications of similar sympatric species. still, when the presence of a species with similar sympatrics must be conclusive, physical or genetic evidence should be required." -density feedbacks mediate effects of environmental change on population dynamics of a semidesert rodent,environmental drivers; environmental stochasticity; life table response experiment; matrix model; perturbation analysis; population dynamics; rodent; vital rate,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,"NATER CR;VAN BENTHEM KJ;CANALE CI;SCHRADIN C;OZGUL A","population dynamics are the result of an interplay between extrinsic and intrinsic environmental drivers. predicting the effects of environmental change on wildlife populations therefore requires a thorough understanding of the mechanisms through which different environmental drivers interact to generate changes in population size and structure. in this study, we disentangled the roles of temperature, food availability and population density in shaping short- and long-term population dynamics of the african striped mouse, a small rodent inhabiting a semidesert with high intra- and interannual variation in environmental conditions. we parameterized a female-only stage-structured matrix population model with vital rates depending on temperature, food availability and population density, using monthly mark-recapture data from 1609 mice trapped over 9years (2005-2014). we then applied perturbation analyses to determine relative strengths and demographic pathways of these drivers in affecting population dynamics. furthermore, we used stochastic population projections to gain insights into how three different climate change scenarios might affect size, structure and persistence of this population. we identified food availability, acting through reproduction, as the main driver of changes in both short- and long-term population dynamics. this mechanism was mediated by strong density feedbacks, which stabilized the population after high peaks and allowed it to recover from detrimental crashes. density dependence thus buffered the population against environmental change, and even adverse climate change scenarios were predicted to have little effect on population persistence (extinction risk over 100years <5%) despite leading to overall lower abundances. explicitly linking environment-demography relationships to population dynamics allowed us to accurately capture past population dynamics. it further enabled establishing the roles and relative importances of extrinsic and intrinsic environmental drivers, and we conclude that doing this is essential when investigating impacts of climate change on wildlife populations." +density feedbacks mediate effects of environmental change on population dynamics of a semidesert rodent,environmental drivers; environmental stochasticity; life table response experiment; matrix model; perturbation analysis; population dynamics; rodent; vital rate,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,NATER CR;VAN BENTHEM KJ;CANALE CI;SCHRADIN C;OZGUL A,"population dynamics are the result of an interplay between extrinsic and intrinsic environmental drivers. predicting the effects of environmental change on wildlife populations therefore requires a thorough understanding of the mechanisms through which different environmental drivers interact to generate changes in population size and structure. in this study, we disentangled the roles of temperature, food availability and population density in shaping short- and long-term population dynamics of the african striped mouse, a small rodent inhabiting a semidesert with high intra- and interannual variation in environmental conditions. we parameterized a female-only stage-structured matrix population model with vital rates depending on temperature, food availability and population density, using monthly mark-recapture data from 1609 mice trapped over 9years (2005-2014). we then applied perturbation analyses to determine relative strengths and demographic pathways of these drivers in affecting population dynamics. furthermore, we used stochastic population projections to gain insights into how three different climate change scenarios might affect size, structure and persistence of this population. we identified food availability, acting through reproduction, as the main driver of changes in both short- and long-term population dynamics. this mechanism was mediated by strong density feedbacks, which stabilized the population after high peaks and allowed it to recover from detrimental crashes. density dependence thus buffered the population against environmental change, and even adverse climate change scenarios were predicted to have little effect on population persistence (extinction risk over 100years <5%) despite leading to overall lower abundances. explicitly linking environment-demography relationships to population dynamics allowed us to accurately capture past population dynamics. it further enabled establishing the roles and relative importances of extrinsic and intrinsic environmental drivers, and we conclude that doing this is essential when investigating impacts of climate change on wildlife populations." "lions and leopards coexist without spatial, temporal or demographic effects of interspecific competition",carnivore; demography; interspecific competition; multispecies occupancy model; panthera leo; panthera pardus; species density; temporal overlap,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,MILLER JRB;PITMAN RT;MANN GKH;FULLER AK;BALME GA,"although interspecific competition plays a principal role in shaping species behaviour and demography, little is known about the population-level outcomes of competition between large carnivores, and the mechanisms that facilitate coexistence. we conducted a multilandscape analysis of two widely distributed, threatened large carnivore competitors to offer insight into coexistence strategies and assist with species-level conservation. we evaluated how interference competition affects occupancy, temporal activity and population density of a dominant competitor, the lion (panthera leo), and its subordinate competitor, the leopard (panthera pardus). we collected camera-trap data over 3years in 10 study sites covering 5,070km(2). we used multispecies occupancy modelling to assess spatial responses in varying environmental and prey conditions and competitor presence, and examined temporal overlap and the relationship between lion and leopard densities across sites and years. results showed that both lion and leopard occupancy was independent ofrather than conditional ontheir competitor's presence across all environmental covariates. marginal occupancy probability for leopard was higher in areas with more bushy, hideable habitat, human (tourist) activity and topographic ruggedness, whereas lion occupancy decreased with increasing hideable habitat and increased with higher abundance of very large prey. temporal overlap was high between carnivores, and there was no detectable relationship between species densities. lions pose a threat to the survival of individual leopards, but they exerted no tractable influence on leopard spatial or temporal dynamics. furthermore, lions did not appear to suppress leopard populations, suggesting that intraguild competitors can coexist in the same areas without population decline. aligned conservation strategies that promote functioning ecosystems, rather than target individual species, are therefore advised to achieve cost- and space-effective conservation." evaluating spatially explicit density estimates of unmarked wildlife detected by remote cameras,bayesian; density; mark-recapture; monitoring; remote camera; spatial count model; spatially explicit; visual marking,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,EVANS MJ;RITTENHOUSE TAG,"1. remote cameras have become a promising, cost-effective tool for monitoring wildlife populations. yet, for species where individuals are indistinguishable, remote cameras' ability to provide robust and precise density estimates has been limited without the use of invasive marking. 2. using the american black bear as a model species, we evaluated methods for estimating wildlife densities using remote camera detections of unmarked individuals against estimates from spatial capture-recapture (scr) models using individual detections. we also tested the effect of incorporating varying proportions of marked individuals on model accuracy and precision. 3. spatial count (sc) models using unmarked individuals produced estimates of bear density within 0.6% of those from scr. we extended sc models to incorporate variation in density as a function of land use/land cover, and identified identical relationships between variation in bear densities and housing density as obtained using scr. incorporating individual detection data from simultaneous non-invasive genetic sampling lead to more precise, but biased estimates. 4. synthesis and applications. our results identify contexts in which camera count data can be used as an alternative to spatial capture-recapture (scr) when individual identification is prohibitive. spatial count models provided an accurate, but less precise replication of spatial capture-recapture density estimates and may provide consistent insights into spatial variation in density. mixed samples of camera counts and auxiliary individual detections are likely to be of limited use, but fitting spatial count models to populations with partial visual markings could improve their precision." evaluating conservation effectiveness in a tanzanian community wildlife management area,community-based natural resource management; conservation biology; ecological monitoring; impact assessment; ungulate; wildlife management area,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,LEE DE,"in tanzania, community-based natural resource management (cbnrm) of wildlife occurs through wildlife management areas (wmas). the wmas consist of multiple villages designating land and managing it for wildlife conservation in return for a portion of subsequent tourism revenues. the ecological success or failure of wmas for wildlife conservation is rarely quantified but is important for evaluating the efficacy of specific projects and the general concept of cbnrm. i used 3 analyses to evaluate the ecological effectiveness of wildlife conservation actions in the burunge wma. i compared wildlife and livestock densities inside and outside a wma using 1 year of distance sampling data and compared wild and domestic ungulate densities before and after the implementation of management changes that increased wildlife protections within a subsection of burunge wma using 6 years of distance sampling surveys. i also compared giraffe (giraffa camelopardalis) survival and population growth rate before and after the implementation of management changes that increased wildlife protections in a subsection of burunge wma using 5 years of photographic capture-recapture data. i found greater densities of wildlife and lower densities of livestock inside the wma compared with outside. after the management changes, i documented significantly higher densities of several wild ungulate species and lower densities of domestic ungulates in the wma. i found giraffe survival and population growth rate both increased in response to the management changes. results indicated the wma is effectively providing habitat and protection for wild ungulates while generally excluding domestic livestock. ungulate densities, and giraffe survival and population growth rate over time indicated the management changes enacted in 2014-2015 resulted in positive effects for wild ungulates. these combined results indicate the ecological effectiveness of burunge wma and provide evidence that cbnrm can have positive effects on wildlife populations, particularly when support to grassroots law enforcement is provided. (c) 2018 the wildlife society." @@ -99,19 +99,19 @@ dermal mycobacteriosis and warming sea surface temperatures are associated with "links between blood parasites, blood chemistry, and the survival of nestling american crows",acute infection; avian health parameters; avian malaria; ecoimmunology; immunocompetence; pathogenicity,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,TOWNSEND AK;WHEELER SS;FREUND D;SEHGAL RNM;BOYCE WM,"many studies have used the avian hemosporidians (leucocytozoon, plasmodium, and hemoproteus) to test hypotheses of host-parasite co-evolution, yet documented health and survival consequences of these blood parasites vary among studies and generalizations about their pathogenicity are debatable. in general, the negative effects of the hemosporidians are likely to be greatest during acute infections of young birds, yet most previous studies in wild passerines have examined chronic effects in adults. here, we evaluated responses of nestling american crows (corvus brachyrhynchos) to acute infection (prevalence and burden), as well as its short- and long-term survival consequences. we used panel of nine hematological and biochemical parameters that are regularly used to evaluate the health of domestic animals, including leukocyte profiles, hematocrit, and plasma proteins. we assessed the effects of infection on survival in a mark-recapture framework. overall, 56% of crows (n=321 samples) were infected by at least one of the three genera. infections by all genera were associated with elevated plasma proteins and globulins, which could indicate an adaptive immune response. however, only plasmodium infections were associated with low hematocrit (anemia) and lower fledging success, possibly mediated by the negative effect of low hematocrit values on body condition. moreover, early plasmodium infection (<40days of age) had long-term survival implications: it was associated with lower apparent survival probability within 3years after fledging. these results suggest that young crows mounted an adaptive immune response to all three genera. short- and long-term pathological effects, however, were only apparent with plasmodium infections." alaskan brown bears (ursus arctos) aggregate and display fidelity to foraging neighborhoods while preying on pacific salmon along small streams,genetic capture-mark-recapture; noninvasive population estimation; oncorhynchus nerka; predation; sockeye salmon,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,WIRSING AJ;QUINN TP;CUNNINGHAM CJ;ADAMS JR;CRAIG AD;WAITS LP,"the interaction between brown bears (ursus arctos) and pacific salmon (oncorhynchus spp.) is important to the population dynamics of both species and a celebrated example of consumer-mediated nutrient transport. yet, much of the site-specific information we have about the bears in this relationship comes from observations at a few highly visible but unrepresentative locations and a small number of radio-telemetry studies. consequently, our understanding of brown bear abundance and behavior at more cryptic locations where they commonly feed on salmon, including small spawning streams, remains limited. we employed a noninvasive genetic approach (barbed wire hair snares) over four summers (2012-2015) to document patterns of brown bear abundance and movement among six spawning streams for sockeye salmon, o.nerka, in southwestern alaska. the streams were grouped into two trios on opposite sides of lake aleknagik. thus, we predicted that most bears would forage within only one trio during the spawning season because of the energetic costs associated with swimming between them or traveling around the lake and show fidelity to particular trios across years because of the benefits of familiarity with local salmon dynamics and stream characteristics. huggins closed-capture models based on encounter histories from genotyped hair samples revealed that as many as 41 individuals visited single streams during the annual 6-week sampling season. bears also moved freely among trios of streams but rarely moved between these putative foraging neighborhoods, either during or between years. by implication, even small salmon spawning streams can serve as important resources for brown bears, and consistent use of stream neighborhoods by certain bears may play an important role in spatially structuring coastal bear populations. our findings also underscore the efficacy of noninvasive hair snagging and genetic analysis for examining bear abundance and movements at relatively fine spatial and temporal scales." estimating disperser abundance using open population models that incorporate data from continuous detection passive integrated transponder arrays,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,DZUL MC;YACKULIC CB;KORMAN J,"autonomous passive integrated transponder (pit) tag antenna systems continuously detect individually marked organisms at one or more fixed points over long time periods. estimating abundance using data from autonomous antennas can be challenging because these systems do not detect unmarked individuals. here we pair pit antenna data from a tributary with mark-recapture sampling data in a mainstem river to estimate the number of fish moving from the mainstem to the tributary. we then use our model to estimate abundance of non-native rainbow trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) that move from the colorado river to the little colorado river, the latter of which is important spawning and rearing habitat for federally endangered humpback chub (gila cypha). we estimate that 226 rainbow trout (95% confidence interval: 127-370) entered the little colorado river from october 2013 to april 2014. we discuss the challenges of incorporating detections from autonomous pit antenna systems into mark-recapture population models, particularly in regards to using information about spatial location to estimate movement and detection probabilities." -disentangling synergistic disease dynamics: implications for the viral biocontrol of rabbits,biocontrol; disease transmission; epidemiological dynamics; host-pathogen interactions; invasive species management; myxoma virus; rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus; virulence,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,WELLS K;FORDHAM DA;BROOK BW;CASSEY P;COX T;O'HARA RB;SCHWENSOW NI,"european rabbits (oryctolagus cuniculus) have been exposed to rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (rhdv) and myxoma virus (myxv) in their native and invasive ranges for decades. yet, the long-term effects of these viruses on rabbit population dynamics remain poorly understood. in this context, we analysed 17years of detailed capture-mark-recapture data (2000-2016) from turretfield, south australia, using a probabilistic state-space hierarchical modelling framework to estimate rabbit survival and epidemiological dynamics. while rhdv infection and disease-induced death were most prominent during annual epidemics in winter and spring, we found evidence for continuous infection of susceptible individuals with rhdv throughout the year. rhdv-susceptible rabbits had, on average, 25% lower monthly survival rates compared to immune individuals, while the average monthly force of infection in winter and spring was similar to 38%. these combined to result in an average infection-induced mortality rate of 69% in winter and spring. individuals susceptible to myxv and immune to rhdv had similar survival probabilities to those having survived infections from both viruses, whereas individuals susceptible to both rhdv and myxv had higher survival probabilities than those susceptible to rhdv and immune to myxv. this suggests that myxv may reduce the future survival rates of individuals that endure initial myxv infection. there was no evidence for long-term changes in disease-induced mortality and infection rates for either rhdv or myxv. we conclude that continuous, year-round virus perpetuation (and perhaps heterogeneity in modes of transmission and infectious doses during and after epidemics) acts to reduce the efficiency of rhdv and myxv as biocontrol agents of rabbits in their invasive range. however, if virulence can be maintained as relatively constant through time, rhdv and myxv will likely continue realizing strong benefits as biocontrol agents." +disentangling synergistic disease dynamics: implications for the viral biocontrol of rabbits,biocontrol; disease transmission; epidemiological dynamics; host-pathogen interactions; invasive species management; myxoma virus; rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus; virulence,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,WELLS K;FORDHAM DA;BROOK BW;CASSEY P;COX T;O HARA RB;SCHWENSOW NI,"european rabbits (oryctolagus cuniculus) have been exposed to rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (rhdv) and myxoma virus (myxv) in their native and invasive ranges for decades. yet, the long-term effects of these viruses on rabbit population dynamics remain poorly understood. in this context, we analysed 17years of detailed capture-mark-recapture data (2000-2016) from turretfield, south australia, using a probabilistic state-space hierarchical modelling framework to estimate rabbit survival and epidemiological dynamics. while rhdv infection and disease-induced death were most prominent during annual epidemics in winter and spring, we found evidence for continuous infection of susceptible individuals with rhdv throughout the year. rhdv-susceptible rabbits had, on average, 25% lower monthly survival rates compared to immune individuals, while the average monthly force of infection in winter and spring was similar to 38%. these combined to result in an average infection-induced mortality rate of 69% in winter and spring. individuals susceptible to myxv and immune to rhdv had similar survival probabilities to those having survived infections from both viruses, whereas individuals susceptible to both rhdv and myxv had higher survival probabilities than those susceptible to rhdv and immune to myxv. this suggests that myxv may reduce the future survival rates of individuals that endure initial myxv infection. there was no evidence for long-term changes in disease-induced mortality and infection rates for either rhdv or myxv. we conclude that continuous, year-round virus perpetuation (and perhaps heterogeneity in modes of transmission and infectious doses during and after epidemics) acts to reduce the efficiency of rhdv and myxv as biocontrol agents of rabbits in their invasive range. however, if virulence can be maintained as relatively constant through time, rhdv and myxv will likely continue realizing strong benefits as biocontrol agents." demographic response to patch destruction in a spatially structured amphibian population,amphibians; dispersal; habitat destruction; habitat rehabilitation; logging; spatially structured population; survival; yellow-bellied toad,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,CAYUELA H;BESNARD A;QUAY L;HELDER R;LENA JP;JOLY P;PICHENOT J,"1. economic activities such as logging and mineral extraction can result in the creation of new anthropogenic habitats that host specific biodiversity, including protected species. however, the legislation in many western european countries requires the rehabilitation of ""damaged"" areas following logging and mining operations, which can eliminate these early successional habitats. conservation managers face a dilemma in these situations, but often lack knowledge about the impacts of environmental rehabilitation on the population dynamics of pioneer species and so are unable to take this into account in their actions. 2. we investigated the demography of a spatially structured population of an endangered amphibian (bombina variegata) that uses waterbodies created by logging activities as breeding sites. using capture-recapture (cr) data collected during a 9-year study period, we examined how the destruction of breeding patches due to environmental rehabilitation affected adult survival and the long-term population growth rate. for this purpose, we used recently developed capture-recapture multievent models to estimate survival and dispersal rates in the spatially structured population. we then used these estimates to simulate population trajectories and viability depending on differing frequency of breeding patch destruction. 3. the multievent models revealed that dispersal not resulting from patch loss was relatively high and was sex biased. they also highlighted that patch destruction had a negative impact on adult survival. moreover, simulations showed that the increase in patch destruction frequency had a strong negative influence on the population growth rate, even when the number of patches remained constant over time. this impact was intensified if female fecundity was also affected." "a multi-isotope (delta c-13, delta n-15, delta s-34, delta h-2) approach to establishing migratory connectivity in lesser snow geese: tracking an overabundant species",NA,PLOS ONE,FOWLER DN;WEBB EB;BALDWIN FB;VRTISKA MP;HOBSON KA,"expanding populations of north american midcontinent lesser snow geese (anser caerulescens caerulescens) have potential to alter ecosystems throughout the arctic and subarctic where they breed. efforts to understand origins of harvested lesser snow geese to better inform management decisions have traditionally required mark-recapture approaches, while aerial photographic surveys have typically been used to identify breeding distributions. as a potential alternative, isotopic patterns that are metabolically fixed within newly grown flight feathers following summer molting could provide inferences regarding geographic breeding origin of individuals, without the need for prior capture. our objective was to assess potential to use four stable isotopes (delta c-13, delta n-15, delta s-34, delta h-2) from feather material to determine breeding origins. we obtained newly grown flight feathers from individuals during summer banding at three arctic and two subarctic breeding colonies in 2014 (n = 56) and 2016 (n = 45). we used linear discriminant analyses to predict breeding origins from models using combinations of stable isotopes as predictors and evaluated model accuracy when predicting colony, subregion, or subpopulation levels. we found a strong inverse relationship between delta h-2 values and increasing latitude (r-2 = 0.83), resulting in differences (f-4,f- 51 = 90.41, p < 0.0001) among sampled colonies. no differences in delta c-13 or delta n-15 were detected among colonies, although delta s-34 in akimiski island, baffin island, and karrak lake were more enriched (f4, 51 = 11.25, p < 0.0001). using delta h-2 values as a predictor, discriminant analyses improved accuracy in classification level as precision decreased [model accuracy = 67% (colony), 88% (subregion), 94% (subpopulation)]. application of the isotopic methods we describe could be used to provide an alternative monitoring method of population metrics, such as overall breeding population distribution, region-specific productivity and migratory connectivity that are informative to management decision makers and provide insight into cross-seasonal effects that may influence migratory behavior." influence of sex and transients on survival and detection probabilities of the southeastern beach mouse,capture-recapture; coastal dune; coastal strand; peromyscus polionotus niveiventris,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,BREININGER DR;ODDY DM;STOLEN ED;HUNT DK,"we used cormack-jolly-seber capture-recapture analyses to investigate differences in monthly survival of the southeastern beach mouse (peromyscus polionotus niveiventris) between sexes, between juveniles and adults, and effects due to the presence of transients that can bias survival estimates. we accounted for transients (e.g., nonresidents) by distinguishing survival for the initial month after an individuals' 1st capture from monthly survival after the 1st recapture. survival estimates for 1st captures and recaptures of females were 0.70 and 0.78, respectively. survival estimates for 1st captures and recaptures of males were 0.74 and 0.80, respectively. our results showed that a comparably small proportion of transients (females = 0.10; males = 0.08) can bias survival estimates." """in a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings"": woodlands in an agricultural matrix maintain functionality of a wintering bird community",NA,PLOS ONE,SYIEM BL;GOSWAMI VR;VASUDEVZ D,"the agricultural matrix has increasingly been recognized for its potential to supplement protected areas (pas) in biodiversity conservation. this potential is highly contextual, depending on composition and spatial configuration of matrix elements and their mechanistic relationship with biological communities. we investigate the effects of local vegetation structure, and proximity to a pa on the site-use of different guilds in a wintering bird community within the pa, and in wooded land-use types in the surrounding matrix. we used occupancy models to estimate covariate-guild relationships and predict site-use. we also compared species richness (estimated through capture-recapture models) and species naive site-use between the pa and the matrix to evaluate taxonomic changes. we found that tree cover did not limit the site-use of most guilds of the community, probably due to high canopy cover across all chosen sites. exceptions to this were guilds comprising generalist species. shrub cover and bamboo cover had important effects on some woodland-associated guilds, suggesting a change in limiting factors for site-use under adequate tree cover. site-use across the matrix was high for all analyzed guilds. this was found to be due to three non-exclusive reasons: (i) presence of one or more ubiquitous species (found all across the landscape) within some guilds, (ii) redundancy of species within guilds that buffered against a decrease in site-use, and (iii) turnover in guild composition/abundances to more generalist species from pa to matrix. estimated species richness was higher in the matrix (107 +/- 11; mean +/- se) than in the pa (90 +/- 7), which may have been in part due to the addition of generalist species in the matrix. understanding factors that limit biological communities is crucial to better managing the ever-increasing matrix for biodiversity conservation. our study provides insights into the effects of different components of vegetation structure on the bird community in wooded land-use types in the matrix. we highlight the value of woodlands surrounding pas in maintaining multiple guilds, and hence, the functionality of a wintering bird community. however, we caution that the matrix may fall short in retaining some specialized species of the community." -demographics and spatial ecology in a population of cryptic wood white butterfly leptidea juvernica in northern ireland,cryptic wood white; leptidea juvernica; pieridae; population ecology; spatial ecology; host plant distribution; butterfly conservation,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,O'NEILL J;MONTGOMERY I,"the cryptic wood white leptidea juvernica is one of a newly-discovered species complex comprising three morphologically similar species in europe. in the british isles, l. juvernica is absent from great britain, but is widespread in ireland, where it has experienced recent declines; it is classed as a priority species in northern ireland. using a mark-recapture approach, this study aims to elucidate the population and spatial ecology of l. juvernica based on a population resident on a small, suburban site and to propose conservation measures. the results demonstrated that populations of l. juvernica, even on small sites, can reach high numbers during the peak flight season. unusually for european pieridae, there was only weak evidence of protandry in this population, possibly reflecting weather conditions prior to the flight season. the spatial distribution and abundance of l. juvernica was associated with the distribution of its larval host-plants, as well as maintaining close proximity to south-facing habitat edges for shelter. males had a closer association to sheltered habitat edges, whilst females were found more commonly on open ground with a shorter sward which was the preferred egg-laying habitat. long vegetation in sheltered areas was important for roosting during periods of non-activity. these results inform conservation measures which will benefit l. juvernica; appropriate measures focus on habitat management providing a mosaic of open, semi-natural grassland interspersed with tall vegetation, scrub, and trees." +demographics and spatial ecology in a population of cryptic wood white butterfly leptidea juvernica in northern ireland,cryptic wood white; leptidea juvernica; pieridae; population ecology; spatial ecology; host plant distribution; butterfly conservation,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,O NEILL J;MONTGOMERY I,"the cryptic wood white leptidea juvernica is one of a newly-discovered species complex comprising three morphologically similar species in europe. in the british isles, l. juvernica is absent from great britain, but is widespread in ireland, where it has experienced recent declines; it is classed as a priority species in northern ireland. using a mark-recapture approach, this study aims to elucidate the population and spatial ecology of l. juvernica based on a population resident on a small, suburban site and to propose conservation measures. the results demonstrated that populations of l. juvernica, even on small sites, can reach high numbers during the peak flight season. unusually for european pieridae, there was only weak evidence of protandry in this population, possibly reflecting weather conditions prior to the flight season. the spatial distribution and abundance of l. juvernica was associated with the distribution of its larval host-plants, as well as maintaining close proximity to south-facing habitat edges for shelter. males had a closer association to sheltered habitat edges, whilst females were found more commonly on open ground with a shorter sward which was the preferred egg-laying habitat. long vegetation in sheltered areas was important for roosting during periods of non-activity. these results inform conservation measures which will benefit l. juvernica; appropriate measures focus on habitat management providing a mosaic of open, semi-natural grassland interspersed with tall vegetation, scrub, and trees." reproductive habitat provisioning promotes survival and reproduction of the endangered endemic damselfly calopteryx exul,conservation; restoration; oviposition; odonates; plants; oviposition; algeria,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,MELLAL MK;BENSOUILAH M;HOUHAMDI M;KHELIFA R,"effective habitat management is predicted to have positive effects on populations and species of conservation concern. although studies have shown that ecological processes such as colonization can be promoted after habitat management, we still need more information on the survival and reproductive consequences at the individual level in order to reach positive conservation outcome. here we assess the effects of reproductive habitat supplementation (host oviposition plant) on survival and mating success of an endangered endemic damselfly, calopteryx exul, using capture-mark-recapture data. we first determined that the species prefer to oviposit on floating leaves of potamogeton spp. based on cormack-jolly-seber modeling, we found that recapture and survival probabilities were positively affected by the number of the host oviposition patches of the host plant. moreover, we showed a strong positive relationship between adult lifespan and lifetime mating success. our results suggest that host-plant provisioning for reproduction not only increases the survival of individuals, but also increases the number of matings per lifetime. the procedure of supplying reproductive sites may enhance population growth of threatened odonates and other aquatic insects." mortality of mule deer fawns in a natural gas development area,anthropogenic disturbances; colorado; mule deer; natural gas development; odocoileus hemionus; population dynamics; predation; survival,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PETERSON ME;ANDERSON CR;NORTHRUP JM;DOHERTY PF,"recent natural gas development has caused concern among wildlife managers, researchers, and stakeholders over the potential effects on wildlife and their habitats. specifically, understanding how this development and other factors influence mule deer (odocoileus hemionus) fawn (i.e., 0-6 months old) mortality rates, recruitment, and subsequently population dynamics have been identified as knowledge gaps. thus, we tested predictions concerning the relationship between natural gas development, adult female, fawn birth, and temporal (weather) characteristics on fawn mortality in the piceance basin of northwestern colorado, usa, from 2012-2014. we captured and radio-collared 184 fawns and estimated apparent cause-specific mortality in areas with relatively high or low levels of natural gas development using a multi-state model. mean daily predation probability was similar in the high versus low development areas. predation was the leading cause of fawn mortality in both areas and decreased from 0-14 days old. black bear (ursus americanus; 22% of all mortalities, n=17) and cougar (felis concolor; 36% of all mortalities, n=6) predation was the leading cause of mortality in the high and low development areas, respectively. predation of fawns was negatively correlated with the distance from a female's core area to a producing well pad on winter or summer range. contrary to expectations, predation of fawns was positively correlated with rump fat thickness of adult females. well pad densities and development activity were relatively low during our study, indicating that the observed intensity of development did not appear to influence daily predation probability. our results suggest maintaining development activity thresholds at levels we observed to potentially minimize the effects of development on fawn mortality. however, we caution that higher development intensity and drilling activity in flatter, less rugged areas with less concealment cover could influence fawn mortality. managers should maintain low development densities in areas where topography and vegetation offer less concealment. overall, region-specific data (e.g., development intensity, topography, predator assemblages, and associated predation risk) are needed to better understand the effects of natural gas development on fawn mortality. (c) 2018 the wildlife society." "sunning themselves in heaps, knots, and snarls: the extraordinary abundance and demography of island watersnakes",body size; capture-mark-recapture; life history; population estimation; process variance; realized population growth; survival; vital rates,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,KING RB;STANFORD KM;JONES PC,"snakes represent a sizable fraction of vertebrate biodiversity, but until recently, data on their demography have been sparse. consequently, generalizations regarding patterns of variation are weak and the potential for population projections is limited. we address this information gap through an analysis of spatial and temporal variation in demography (population size, annual survival, and realized population growth) of the lake erie watersnake, nerodia sipedon insularum, and a review of snake survival more generally. our study spans a period during which the lake erie watersnake was listed as threatened under the u.s. endangered species act, recovered, and was delisted. we collected capture-mark-recapture data at 14 study sites over 20years, accruing 20,000 captures of 13,800 individually marked adults. lake erie watersnakes achieve extraordinary abundance, averaging 520adults per km of shoreline (ca. 260adult per ha) at our study sites (range=160-1,600adults per km; ca. 80-800adults per ha) and surpassing population recovery and postdelisting monitoring criteria. annual survival averages 0.68 among adult females and 0.76 among adult males, varies among sites, and is positively correlated with body size among study sites. temporal process variance in annual survival is low, averaging 0.0011 or less than 4% of total variance; thus, stochasticity in annual survival may be of minor significance to snake extinction risk. estimates of realized population growth indicate that population size has been stable or increasing over the course of our study. more generally, snake annual survival overlaps broadly across continents, climate zones, families, subfamilies, reproductive modes, body size categories, maturation categories, and parity categories. differences in survival in relation to size, parity, and maturation are in the directions predicted by life history theory but are of small magnitude with much variation around median values. overall, annual survival appears to be quite plastic, varying with food availability, habitat quality, and other ecological variables." reducing effects of dispersal on the bias of 2-sample mark-recapture estimators of stream fish abundance,NA,PLOS ONE,MCNAIR JN;RUETZ CR;CARLSON A;SUH J,"the 2-sample mark-recapture method with chapman's estimator is often used by inland fishery managers to estimate the reach-scale abundance of stream fish. an important assumption of this method is that no dispersal into or out of the study reach occurs between the two samples. violations of this assumption are probably common in practice, but their effect on bias (systematic error) of abundance estimates is poorly understood, especially in small populations. estimation methods permitting dispersal exist but, for logistical reasons, often are infeasible for routine assessments in streams. the purpose of this paper is to extend available results regarding effects of dispersal on the bias of chapman's estimator as applied to reach-scale studies of stream fish abundance. we examine for the first time the joint effects of dispersal and sampling variation on the bias of this estimator. to reduce the bias effects of dispersal, we propose a modified sampling scheme in which the original study reach is expanded, a central subreach is sampled during the mark session (sample 1), and the entire reach is sampled during the recapture session (sample 2). this modified sampling scheme can substantially reduce bias effects of dispersal without requiring unique marking of individual fish or additional site visits. analytical and simulation results show that sampling variation tends to create negative bias with respect to study-reach abundance, while dispersal tends to create positive bias; the net effect can be positive, negative, or zero, depending on the true abundance, capture probabilities, and amount and nature of dispersal. in most cases, simply expanding the study reach is an effective way to reduce dispersal-related bias of chapman's estimator, but expanding the study reach and employing the modified sampling scheme we propose is a better alternative for accurately estimating abundance with the same level of sampling effort." compounding effects of human development and a natural food shortage on a black bear population along a human development-wildland interface,abundance; american black bear; climate; density; gps; human-bear conflict; integrated population models; population growth; spatial capture-recapture; ursus americanus,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,LAUFENBERG JS;JOHNSON HE;DOHERTY PF;BRECK SW,"human development and climate change are two stressors that threaten numerous wildlife populations, and their combined effects are likely to be most pronounced along the human development-wildland interface where changes in both natural and anthropogenic conditions interact to affect wildlife. to better understand the compounding influence of these stressors, we investigated the effects of a climate-induced natural food shortage on the dynamics of a black bear population in the vicinity of durango, colorado. we integrated 4 years of dna-based capture-mark-recapture data with gps-based telemetry data to evaluate the combined effects of human development and the food shortage on the abundance, population growth rate, and spatial distribution of female black bears. we documented a 57% decline in female bear abundance immediately following the natural food shortage coinciding with an increase in human-caused bear mortality (e.g., vehicle collisions, harvest and lethal removals) primarily in developed areas. we also detected a change in the spatial distribution of female bears with fewer bears occurring near human development in years immediately following the food shortage, likely as a consequence of high mortality near human infrastructure during the food shortage. given expected future increases in human development and climate-induced food shortages, we expect that bear dynamics may be increasingly influenced by human-caused mortality, which will be difficult to detect with current management practices. to ensure long-term sustainability of bear populations, we recommend that wildlife agencies invest in monitoring programs that can accurately track bear populations, incorporate non-harvest human-caused mortality into management models, and work to reduce human-caused mortality, particularly in years with natural food shortages." "spatio-temporal migratory dynamics of jasus frontalis (milne edwards, 1837) in alexander selkirk island, juan fernandez archipelago, chile",NA,PLOS ONE,ROMAN C;ERNST B;THIEL M;MANRIQUEZ P;CHAMORRO J,"knowledge about the spatial patterns and movements of crustaceans has gained importance since the creation of marine protected areas and the development of spatial management for benthic ecosystems. the juan fernandez spiny lobster (jasus frontalis) is an endemic marine species and most valuable resource that exhibits migratory dynamics in a highly spatially regulated fishery. to study movement patterns around alexander selkirk island, a mark-recapture program was implemented in 2008, when approximately 7000 non-commercial (undersized) lobsters were tagged and followed for nearly 14 months. using quantitative georeferenced data, this study revealed spatial structuring of juan fernandez spiny lobster and tested hypotheses about alongshore and inshore-offshore movements. eight clusters were identified around alexander selkirk island, with moderate time-varying connectivity between them. seasonal inshore-offshore movements were detected all around the island, but more conspicuously to the north. average travelling distance was 1.2 km (1.7 sd). our results confirmed that towards the end of austral spring males and females embark in a seasonal offshore migration to deeper waters, returning to shallower waters only during winter. these findings quantitatively consolidate the conceptual migratory model that local fishermen had already inferred for this resource from about a century of sustainable fishing." -challenges of implementing mark-recapture studies on poorly marked gregarious delphinids,NA,PLOS ONE,HUPMAN K;STOCKIN KA;POLLOCK K;PAWLEY MDM;DWYER SL;LEA C;TEZANOS-PINTO G,"population parameters of poorly marked gregarious species are difficult to estimate. this is the case for common dolphins (delphinus sp.), a genus known for its lack of distinctive marks resulting in a low mark ratio. furthermore, the widespread nature of common dolphins results in low recaptures. we developed reliable photo-identification protocols to ensure accurate identification of individuals in the hauraki gulf, new zealand. these protocols combined the use of nicks and notches and pigmentation patterns for identification and included the development of a distinctiveness threshold. the data were further stratified by the level of distinctiveness of each individual (as distinctive or highly-distinctive). photo-identification surveys were conducted from january 2010 to december 2013. mark-recapture techniques were implemented through a popan super-population approach to estimate seasonal apparent survival, capture probability and abundance of dolphins. a total of 2,083 unique adult common dolphins were identified, 51.3% were classified as d1 (highly distinctive; n = 1,069) and 48.7% as d2 (distinctive; n = 1,014). of all individuals identified, 34.3% (n = 704) were re-sighted over subsequent years. the proportion of marked dolphins (when compared to unmarked dolphins) was 26.3% for d1 and 46.4% for d1 & d2, respectively. apparent survival was estimated at 0.767 (ci = 0.694-0.827) for d1 animals, and 0.796 (ci = 0.729-0.850) for d1 & d2 combined. for d1 only, seasonal abundance varied from 732 (ci = 460-1,177) in autumn 2010 to 5,304 (ci = 4,745-5,930) in spring 2013. while the inclusion of d2 individuals may offer a more precise estimate of total abundance, the inability to determine additional sources of bias (for example, arising from under or overestimated mark ratios) meant that estimates for d1 individuals were deemed the least biased for this population. the photo-identification protocol, stratification of the data and steps taken to eliminate potential model violations provided a useful and novel approach to estimate population parameters for common dolphins. these approaches could be implemented for other large gregarious populations (>= 500 individuals) of animals with poor natural markings." +challenges of implementing mark-recapture studies on poorly marked gregarious delphinids,NA,PLOS ONE,HUPMAN K;STOCKIN KA;POLLOCK K;PAWLEY MDM;DWYER SL;LEA C;TEZANOS PINTO G,"population parameters of poorly marked gregarious species are difficult to estimate. this is the case for common dolphins (delphinus sp.), a genus known for its lack of distinctive marks resulting in a low mark ratio. furthermore, the widespread nature of common dolphins results in low recaptures. we developed reliable photo-identification protocols to ensure accurate identification of individuals in the hauraki gulf, new zealand. these protocols combined the use of nicks and notches and pigmentation patterns for identification and included the development of a distinctiveness threshold. the data were further stratified by the level of distinctiveness of each individual (as distinctive or highly-distinctive). photo-identification surveys were conducted from january 2010 to december 2013. mark-recapture techniques were implemented through a popan super-population approach to estimate seasonal apparent survival, capture probability and abundance of dolphins. a total of 2,083 unique adult common dolphins were identified, 51.3% were classified as d1 (highly distinctive; n = 1,069) and 48.7% as d2 (distinctive; n = 1,014). of all individuals identified, 34.3% (n = 704) were re-sighted over subsequent years. the proportion of marked dolphins (when compared to unmarked dolphins) was 26.3% for d1 and 46.4% for d1 & d2, respectively. apparent survival was estimated at 0.767 (ci = 0.694-0.827) for d1 animals, and 0.796 (ci = 0.729-0.850) for d1 & d2 combined. for d1 only, seasonal abundance varied from 732 (ci = 460-1,177) in autumn 2010 to 5,304 (ci = 4,745-5,930) in spring 2013. while the inclusion of d2 individuals may offer a more precise estimate of total abundance, the inability to determine additional sources of bias (for example, arising from under or overestimated mark ratios) meant that estimates for d1 individuals were deemed the least biased for this population. the photo-identification protocol, stratification of the data and steps taken to eliminate potential model violations provided a useful and novel approach to estimate population parameters for common dolphins. these approaches could be implemented for other large gregarious populations (>= 500 individuals) of animals with poor natural markings." large-scale movements of postcopulatory female blue crabs callinectes sapidus in tidal and nontidal estuaries of north carolina,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,DARNELL MZ;KEMBERLING AA,"for migratory species, understanding the timing, direction, and mechanism of migration is critical for successful fisheries management. we investigated migratory movements of postcopulatory female blue crabs callinectes sapidus in three estuaries with different tidal regimes in north carolina using a mark-recapture study. all crabs tagged were within about 2weeks of the terminal molt to maturity (mating generally takes place immediately after the molt). in general, distances traveled (mean +/- se=6.8 +/- 0.6km) and net movement rates (0.5 +/- 0.05km/d) were quite low compared to those in previous studies of mature (but not necessarily recently molted) female crabs, suggesting that rapid seaward migration does not take place until several weeks after mating, presumably upon production of a clutch of eggs. although most crabs moved short distances (85% moved<15km), movement was generally oriented seaward, indicating that some down-estuary movement occurs prior to oviposition, especially in crabs mating in low-salinity estuaries that would be unsuitable for embryonic and larval development. crabs moving seaward in the weeks between molting/mating and first oviposition were likely walking rather than swimming and taking advantage of seaward currents, as indicated by the low movement rates and similarities among the three areas." multiple anthropogenic interventions drive puma survival following wolf recovery in the greater yellowstone ecosystem,apex predators; biodiversity; competition; hunting; population dynamics; reintroductions,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ELBROCH LM;MARESCOT L;QUIGLEY H;CRAIGHEAD D;WITTMER HU,"humans are primary drivers of declining abundances and extirpation of large carnivores worldwide. management interventions to restore biodiversity patterns, however, include carnivore reintroductions, despite the many unresolved ecological consequences associated with such efforts. using multistate capture-mark-recapture models, we explored age-specific survival and cause-specific mortality rates for 134 pumas (puma concolor) monitored in the greater yellowstone ecosystem during gray wolf (canis lupus) recovery. we identified two top models explaining differences in puma survivorship, and our results suggested three management interventions (unsustainable puma hunting, reduction in a primary prey, and reintroduction of a dominant competitor) have unintentionally impacted puma survival. specifically, puma survival across age classes was lower in the 6-month hunting season than the 6-month nonhunting season; human-caused mortality rates for juveniles and adults, and predation rates on puma kittens, were higher in the hunting season. predation on puma kittens, and starvation rates for all pumas, also increased as managers reduced elk (cervus elaphus) abundance in the system, highlighting direct and indirect effects of competition between recovering wolves and pumas over prey. our results emphasize the importance of understanding the synergistic effects of existing management strategies and the recovery of large, dominant carnivores to effectively conserve subordinate, hunted carnivores in human-dominated landscapes." "efficacy of low-cost, side-scan sonar for surveying alligator gars",NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,FLEMING BP;DAUGHERTY DJ;SMITH NG;BETSILL RK,"side-scan sonar (sss) provides an efficient, nonintrusive sampling tool for many fisheries applications. professional-grade systems have proven useful for species-specific detection of large, distinctive fishes; however, these systems are often cost prohibitive for widespread use. lower-cost, consumer-grade systems are becoming increasingly popular for fisheries applications and have been used extensively to map aquatic habitat. however, these systems often produce lower-resolution imagery that may limit species-specific applications. we used experimental ponds stocked with known fish assemblages and a field-based mark-recapture study to determine the efficacy of a consumer-grade sss system in surveying alligator gars atractosteus spatula. three ponds were stocked with known abundances of alligator gars and other sympatric fishes. a fourth pond remained unstocked to assess false positives; a fifth was stocked only with other species to quantify misidentification. replicate sonar images of each pond were then recorded using a humminbird 998c system. for the field-based application, we used gill nets to mark and recapture alligator gars and estimate population size within a closed backwater of the guadalupe river, texas. following final recapture, we recorded replicate imagery of the backwater. imagery from both evaluations was interpreted by three independent readers of varying experience without knowledge of image origin. the results from the ponds indicated a low rate of false detection (7%) and misidentification (4%). the number of alligator gars identified was positively related to density; however, the probability of detection varied among readers (range, 0.27-0.71) and was positively related to experience. in contrast, all readers estimated alligator gar abundance in the backwater within 10% of the population estimated from the mark-recapture data. our results suggest that low-cost sss can provide an effective, noninvasive alternative to traditional sampling techniques for alligator gars." @@ -123,17 +123,17 @@ hierarchical bayesian estimation of unobserved salmon passage through weirs,NA,C on the robustness of n-mixture models,abundance estimation; bayesian p-value; count data; detection probability; n-mixture model; robustness,ECOLOGY,LINK WA;SCHOFIELD MR;BARKER RJ;SAUER JR,"n-mixture models provide an appealing alternative to mark-recapture models, in that they allow for estimation of detection probability and population size from count data, without requiring that individual animals be identified. there is, however, a cost to using the n-mixture models: inference is very sensitive to the model's assumptions. we consider the effects of three violations of assumptions that might reasonably be expected in practice: double counting, unmodeled variation in population size over time, and unmodeled variation in detection probability over time. these three examples show that small violations of assumptions can lead to large biases in estimation. the violations of assumptions we consider are not only small qualitatively, but are also small in the sense that they are unlikely to be detected using goodness-of-fit tests. in cases where reliable estimates of population size are needed, we encourage investigators to allocate resources to acquiring additional data, such as recaptures of marked individuals, for estimation of detection probabilities." linking demographic processes and foraging ecology in wandering albatross-conservation implications,capture-mark-recapture; diomedea exulans; population dynamics; vital rates,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,WEIMERSKIRCH H,"1. population dynamics and foraging ecology are two fields of the population ecology that are generally studied separately. yet, foraging determines allocation processes and therefore demography. studies on wandering albatrosses diomedea exulans over the past 50years have contributed to better understand the links between population dynamics and foraging ecology. this article reviews how these two facets of population ecology have been combined to better understand ecological processes, but also have contributed fundamentally for the conservation of this long-lived threatened species. 2. wandering albatross research has combined a 50-year long-term study of marked individuals with two decades of tracking studies that have been initiated on this species, favoured by its large size and tameness. 3. at all stages of their life history, the body mass of individuals plays a central role in allocation processes, in particular in influencing adult and juvenile survival, decisions to recruit into the population or to invest into provisioning the offspring or into maintenance. 4. strong age-related variations in demographic parameters are observed and are linked to age-related differences in foraging distribution and efficiency. marked sex-specific differences in foraging distribution, foraging efficiency and changes in mass over lifetime are directly related to the strong sex-specific investment in breeding and survival trajectories of the two sexes, with body mass playing a pivotal role especially in males. 5. long-term study has allowed determining the sex-specific and age-specific demographic causes of population decline, and the tracking studies have been able to derive where and how these impacts occur, in particular the role of long-line fisheries." eastern massasauga demography and extinction risk under prescribed-fire scenarios,abundance; age-specific survival; eastern massasauga (sistrurus catenatus); extinction; litter size; michigan; prescribed fire; reproductive frequency,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HILEMAN ET;KING RB;FAUST LJ,"the use of poorly estimated or surrogate population parameter estimates to assess population viability may result in misleading predictions. consequently, a critical first step to understanding population health and the effects of land management practices on threatened species is estimation of site-specific demographic parameters. a major threat to the eastern massasauga (sistrurus catenatus) is habitat loss due to encroachment of woody vegetation and invasive species. current land management practices require periodic burning or mowing to maintain habitat suitability. although these methods improve habitat quality, they may also increase the risk of depredation due to reduced ground cover if burns are too extensive or cause mortality if conducted when snakes are active. we fitted contemporary capture-recapture and matrix models to an 8-year dataset to estimate population parameters for an eastern massasauga population near the range center of the species, where the largest number of eastern massasauga populations may still persist. from 2009 to 2016, we captured 826 eastern massasaugas 1,776 times. in general, annual survival increased with increasing age (age 0=0.38, age 1=0.65, age 2=0.67, age 3 females=0.71, age 3 males=0.66). abundance estimates ranged from 84 to 140 adults and annual reproductive frequency was 0.44 (95% ci=0.29-0.59). we simulated increased mortality due to prescribed burns during spring, fall, and late fall for 50 and 100 years. the baseline model, which incorporated current prescribed-fire practices, indicated a stable population with only a 0.2-0.6% probability of extinction over 100 years, suggesting that management practices at this site are sustainable if they remain unchanged. simulations of conservative increases in mortality due to fire changed the probability of extinction little over 50 years (0.7%) but increased probability of extinction up to 24.5% over 100 years in the most pessimistic prescribed-burn scenario. these prescribed-burn simulations may be comparable to burn regimes used at other eastern massasauga sites. the population parameters estimated here provide information needed for assessing range-wide population viability and investigating geographic variation in eastern massasauga demography. (c) 2018 the wildlife society. we estimated a suite of eastern massasauga population parameters using an 8-year capture-recapture dataset and simulated the effects prescribed fire during spring, fall, and late fall had on extinction risk. these prescribed fire scenarios, which may be comparable to burn regimes used by other land managers, changed the probability of extinction little over 50 years (0.7%) but increased probability of extinction up to 24.5% over 100 years in the most pessimistic scenario." -spatial capture-recapture design and modelling for the study of small mammals,NA,PLOS ONE,ROMAIRONE J;JIMENEZ J;LUQUE-LARENA JJ;MOUGEOT F,"spatial capture-recapture modelling (scr) is a powerful analytical tool to estimate density and derive information on space use and behaviour of elusive animals. yet, scr has been seldom applied to the study of ecologically keystone small mammals. here we highlight its potential and requirements with a case study on common voles (microtus arvalis). first, we address mortality associated with live-trapping, which can be high in small mammals, and must be kept minimal. we designed and tested a nest box coupled with a classic sherman trap and show that it allows a 5-fold reduction of mortality in traps. second, we address the need to adjust the trapping grid to the individual home range to maximize spatial recaptures. in may-june 2016, we captured and tagged with transponders 227 voles in a 1.2-ha area during two monthly sessions. using a bayesian scr with a multinomial approach, we estimated: (1) the baseline detection rate and investigated variation according to sex, time or behaviour (aversion/attraction after a previous capture); (2) the parameter sigma that describes how detection probability declines as a function of the distance to an individual's activity centre, and investigated variation according to sex; and (3) density and population sex-ratio. we show that reducing the maximum distance between traps from 12 to 9.6m doubled spatial recaptures and improved model predictions. baseline detection rate increased over time (after overcoming a likely aversion to entering new odourless traps) and was greater for females than males in june. the sigma parameter of males was twice that of females, indicating larger home ranges. density estimates were of 142.92 +/- 38.50 and 168.25 +/- 15.79 voles/ha in may and june, respectively, with 2-3 times more females than males. we highlight the potential and broad applicability that scr offers and provide specific recommendations for using it to study small mammals like voles." -identifying individual cougars (puma concolor) in remote camera images -implications for population estimates,NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,ALEXANDER PD;GESE EM,"context several studies have estimated cougar (puma concolor) abundance using remote camera trapping in conjunction with capture-mark-recapture (cmr) type analyses. however, this methodology (photo-cmr) requires that photo-captured individuals are individually recognisable (photo identification). photo identification is generally achieved using naturally occurring marks (e.g. stripes or spots) that are unique to each individual. cougars, however, are uniformly pelaged, and photo identification must be based on subtler attributes such as scars, ear nicks or body morphology. there is some debate as to whether these types of features are sufficient for photo-cmr, but there is little research directly evaluating its feasibility with cougars. aim we aimed to examine researchers' ability to reliably identify individual cougars in photographs taken from a camera-trapping survey, in order to evaluate the appropriateness of photo-cmr for estimating cougar abundance or cmr-derived parameters. methods we collected cougar photo detections using a grid of 55 remote camera traps in north-west wyoming, usa. the photo detections were distributed to professional biologists working in cougar research, who independently attempted to identify individuals in a pairwise matching process. we assessed the level to which their results agreed, using simple percentage agreement and fleiss's kappa. we also generated and compared spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) density estimates using their resultant detection histories. key results there were no cases where participants were in full agreement on a cougar's id. agreement in photo identification among participants was low (n=7; simple agreement=46.7%; fleiss's kappa=0.183). the resultant secr density estimates ranged from 0.7 to 13.5 cougars per 100km(2) (n=4; s.d.=6.11). conclusion we were unable to produce reliable estimates of cougar density using photo-cmr, due to our inability to accurately photo-tag detected individuals. abundance estimators that do not require complete photo-tagging (i.e. mark-resight) were also infeasible, given the lack of agreement on any single cougar's id. implications this research suggested that there are substantial problems with the application of photo-cmr to estimate the size of cougar populations. although improvements in camera technology or field methods may resolve these issues, researchers attempting to use this method on cougars should be cautious." +spatial capture-recapture design and modelling for the study of small mammals,NA,PLOS ONE,ROMAIRONE J;JIMENEZ J;LUQUE LARENA JJ;MOUGEOT F,"spatial capture-recapture modelling (scr) is a powerful analytical tool to estimate density and derive information on space use and behaviour of elusive animals. yet, scr has been seldom applied to the study of ecologically keystone small mammals. here we highlight its potential and requirements with a case study on common voles (microtus arvalis). first, we address mortality associated with live-trapping, which can be high in small mammals, and must be kept minimal. we designed and tested a nest box coupled with a classic sherman trap and show that it allows a 5-fold reduction of mortality in traps. second, we address the need to adjust the trapping grid to the individual home range to maximize spatial recaptures. in may-june 2016, we captured and tagged with transponders 227 voles in a 1.2-ha area during two monthly sessions. using a bayesian scr with a multinomial approach, we estimated: (1) the baseline detection rate and investigated variation according to sex, time or behaviour (aversion/attraction after a previous capture); (2) the parameter sigma that describes how detection probability declines as a function of the distance to an individual's activity centre, and investigated variation according to sex; and (3) density and population sex-ratio. we show that reducing the maximum distance between traps from 12 to 9.6m doubled spatial recaptures and improved model predictions. baseline detection rate increased over time (after overcoming a likely aversion to entering new odourless traps) and was greater for females than males in june. the sigma parameter of males was twice that of females, indicating larger home ranges. density estimates were of 142.92 +/- 38.50 and 168.25 +/- 15.79 voles/ha in may and june, respectively, with 2-3 times more females than males. we highlight the potential and broad applicability that scr offers and provide specific recommendations for using it to study small mammals like voles." +identifying individual cougars (puma concolor) in remote camera images - implications for population estimates,NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,ALEXANDER PD;GESE EM,"context several studies have estimated cougar (puma concolor) abundance using remote camera trapping in conjunction with capture-mark-recapture (cmr) type analyses. however, this methodology (photo-cmr) requires that photo-captured individuals are individually recognisable (photo identification). photo identification is generally achieved using naturally occurring marks (e.g. stripes or spots) that are unique to each individual. cougars, however, are uniformly pelaged, and photo identification must be based on subtler attributes such as scars, ear nicks or body morphology. there is some debate as to whether these types of features are sufficient for photo-cmr, but there is little research directly evaluating its feasibility with cougars. aim we aimed to examine researchers' ability to reliably identify individual cougars in photographs taken from a camera-trapping survey, in order to evaluate the appropriateness of photo-cmr for estimating cougar abundance or cmr-derived parameters. methods we collected cougar photo detections using a grid of 55 remote camera traps in north-west wyoming, usa. the photo detections were distributed to professional biologists working in cougar research, who independently attempted to identify individuals in a pairwise matching process. we assessed the level to which their results agreed, using simple percentage agreement and fleiss's kappa. we also generated and compared spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) density estimates using their resultant detection histories. key results there were no cases where participants were in full agreement on a cougar's id. agreement in photo identification among participants was low (n=7; simple agreement=46.7%; fleiss's kappa=0.183). the resultant secr density estimates ranged from 0.7 to 13.5 cougars per 100km(2) (n=4; s.d.=6.11). conclusion we were unable to produce reliable estimates of cougar density using photo-cmr, due to our inability to accurately photo-tag detected individuals. abundance estimators that do not require complete photo-tagging (i.e. mark-resight) were also infeasible, given the lack of agreement on any single cougar's id. implications this research suggested that there are substantial problems with the application of photo-cmr to estimate the size of cougar populations. although improvements in camera technology or field methods may resolve these issues, researchers attempting to use this method on cougars should be cautious." "integrated analysis for population estimation, management impact evaluation, and decision-making for a declining species",bayesian inference; diamondback terrapin; mark-recapture; multistate model; population viability analysis; road mortality,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,CRAWFORD BA;MOORE CT;NORTON TM;MAERZ JC,"a challenge for making conservation decisions is predicting how wildlife populations respond to multiple, concurrent threats and potential management strategies, usually under substantial uncertainty. integrated modeling approaches can improve estimation of demographic rates necessary for making predictions, even for rare or cryptic species with sparse data, but their use in management applications is limited. we developed integrated models for a population of diamondback terrapins (malaclemys terrapin) impacted by road-associated threats to (i) jointly estimate demographic rates from two mark-recapture datasets, while directly estimating road mortality and the impact of management actions deployed during the study; and (ii) project the population using population viability analysis under simulated management strategies to inform decision-making. without management, population extirpation was nearly certain due to demographic impacts of road mortality, predators, and vegetation. installation of novel flashing signage increased survival of terrapins that crossed roads by 30%. signage, along with small roadside barriers installed during the study, increased population persistence probability, but the population was still predicted to decline. management strategies that included actions targeting multiple threats and demographic rates resulted in the highest persistence probability, and roadside barriers, which increased adult survival, were predicted to increase persistence more than other actions. our results support earlier findings showing mitigation of multiple threats is likely required to increase the viability of declining populations. our approach illustrates how integrated models may be adapted to use limited data efficiently, represent system complexity, evaluate impacts of threats and management actions, and provide decision-relevant information for conservation of at-risk populations." estimating the completeness of death registration: an empirical method,NA,PLOS ONE,ADAIR T;LOPEZ AD,"introduction many national and subnational governments need to routinely measure the completeness of death registration for monitoring and statistical purposes. existing methods, such as death distribution and capture-recapture methods, have a number of limitations such as inaccuracy and complexity that prevent widespread application. this paper presents a novel empirical method to estimate completeness of death registration at the national and subnational level. methods random-effects models to predict the logit of death registration completeness were developed from 2,451 country-years in 110 countries from 1970 +/- 2015 using the global burden of disease 2015 database. predictors include the registered crude death rate, under-five mortality rate, population age structure and under-five death registration completeness. models were developed separately for males, females and both sexes. findings all variables are highly significant and reliably predict completeness of registration across a wide range of registered crude death rates (r-squared 0.85). mean error is highest at medium levels of observed completeness. the models show quite close agreement between predicted and observed completeness for populations outside the dataset. there is high concordance with the hybrid death distribution method in brazilian states. uncertainty in the under-five mortality rate, assessed using the dataset and in colombian departmentos, has minimal impact on national level predicted completeness, but a larger effect at the subnational level. conclusions the method demonstrates sufficient flexibility to predict a wide range of completeness levels at a given registered crude death rate. the method can be applied utilising data readily available at the subnational level, and can be used to assess completeness of deaths reported from health facilities, censuses and surveys. its utility is diminished where the adult mortality rate is unusually high for a given under-five mortality rate. the method overcomes the considerable limitations of existing methods and has considerable potential for widespread application by national and subnational governments." quantifying lion (panthera leo) demographic response following a three-year moratorium on trophy hunting,NA,PLOS ONE,MWEETWA T;CHRISTIANSON D;BECKER M;CREEL S;ROSENBLATT E;MERKLE J;DROGE E;MWAPE H;MASONDE J;SIMPAMBA T,"factors that limit african lion populations are manifold and well-recognized, but their relative demographic effects remain poorly understood, particularly trophy hunting near protected areas. we identified and monitored 386 individual lions within and around south luangwa national park, zambia, for five years (2008-2012) with trophy hunting and for three additional years (2013-2015) during a hunting moratorium. we used these data with mark-resight models to estimate the effects of hunting on lion survival, recruitment, and abundance. the best survival models, accounting for imperfect detection, revealed strong positive effects of the moratorium, with survival increasing by 17.1 and 14.0 percentage points in subadult and adult males, respectively. smaller effects on adult female survival and positive effects on cub survival were also detected. the sex-ratio of cubs shifted from unbiased during trophy-hunting to female-biased during the moratorium. closed mark-recapture models revealed a large increase in lion abundance during the hunting moratorium, from 116 lions in 2012 immediately preceding the moratorium to 209 lions in the last year of the moratorium. more cubs were produced each year of the moratorium than in any year with trophy hunting. lion demographics shifted from a male-depleted population consisting mostly of adult (>= 4 years) females to a younger population with more (>29%) adult males. these data show that the three-year moratorium was effective at growing the luangwa lion population and increasing the number of adult males. the results suggest that moratoria may be an effective tool for improving the sustainability of lion trophy hunting, particularly where systematic monitoring, conservative quotas, and age-based harvesting are difficult to enforce." -under-reporting of pertussis in ontario: a canadian immunization research network (cirn) study using capture-recapture,NA,PLOS ONE,CROWCROFT NS;JOHNSON C;CHEN C;LI Y;MARCHAND-AUSTIN A;BOLOTIN S;SCHWARTZ K;DEEKS SL;JAMIESON F;DREWS S;RUSSELL ML;SVENSON LW;SIMMONDS K;MAHMUD SM;KWONG JC,"introduction under-reporting of pertussis cases is a longstanding challenge. we estimated the true number of pertussis cases in ontario using multiple data sources, and evaluated the completeness of each source. methods we linked data from multiple sources for the period 2009 to 2015: public health reportable disease surveillance data, public health laboratory data, and health administrative data (hospitalizations, emergency department visits, and physician office visits). to estimate the total number of pertussis cases in ontario, we used a three-source capture-recapture analysis stratified by age (infants, or aged one year and older) and adjusting for dependency between sources. we used the bayesian information criterion to compare models. results using probable and confirmed reported cases, laboratory data, and combined hospitalizations/emergency department visits, the estimated total number of cases during the six-year period amongst infants was 924, compared with 545 unique observed cases from all sources. using the same sources, the estimated total for those aged 1 year and older was 12,883, compared with 3,304 observed cases from all sources. only 37% of infants and 11% for those aged 1 year and over admitted to hospital or seen in an emergency department for pertussis were reported to public health. public health reporting sensitivity varied from 2% to 68% depending on age group and the combination of data sources included. sensitivity of combined hospitalizations and emergency department visits varied from 37% to 49% and of laboratory data from 1% to 50%. conclusions all data sources contribute cases and are complementary, suggesting that the incidence of pertussis is substantially higher than suggested by routine reports. the sensitivity of different data sources varies. better case identification is required to improve pertussis control in ontario." +under-reporting of pertussis in ontario: a canadian immunization research network (cirn) study using capture-recapture,NA,PLOS ONE,CROWCROFT NS;JOHNSON C;CHEN C;LI Y;MARCHAND AUSTIN A;BOLOTIN S;SCHWARTZ K;DEEKS SL;JAMIESON F;DREWS S;RUSSELL ML;SVENSON LW;SIMMONDS K;MAHMUD SM;KWONG JC,"introduction under-reporting of pertussis cases is a longstanding challenge. we estimated the true number of pertussis cases in ontario using multiple data sources, and evaluated the completeness of each source. methods we linked data from multiple sources for the period 2009 to 2015: public health reportable disease surveillance data, public health laboratory data, and health administrative data (hospitalizations, emergency department visits, and physician office visits). to estimate the total number of pertussis cases in ontario, we used a three-source capture-recapture analysis stratified by age (infants, or aged one year and older) and adjusting for dependency between sources. we used the bayesian information criterion to compare models. results using probable and confirmed reported cases, laboratory data, and combined hospitalizations/emergency department visits, the estimated total number of cases during the six-year period amongst infants was 924, compared with 545 unique observed cases from all sources. using the same sources, the estimated total for those aged 1 year and older was 12,883, compared with 3,304 observed cases from all sources. only 37% of infants and 11% for those aged 1 year and over admitted to hospital or seen in an emergency department for pertussis were reported to public health. public health reporting sensitivity varied from 2% to 68% depending on age group and the combination of data sources included. sensitivity of combined hospitalizations and emergency department visits varied from 37% to 49% and of laboratory data from 1% to 50%. conclusions all data sources contribute cases and are complementary, suggesting that the incidence of pertussis is substantially higher than suggested by routine reports. the sensitivity of different data sources varies. better case identification is required to improve pertussis control in ontario." estimating dispersal in spatiotemporally variable environments using multievent capture-recapture modeling,capture-recapture; dispersal; dynamic landscapes; metapopulation; multi-event models; survival,ECOLOGY,CAYUELA H;PRADEL R;JOLY P;BONNAIRE E;BESNARD A,"dispersal is a key process in ecological and evolutionary dynamics. spatiotemporal variation in habitat availability and characteristics has been suggested to be one of the main cause involved in dispersal evolution and has a strong influence on metapopulation dynamics. in recent decades, the study of dispersal has led to the development of capture-recapture (cr) models that allow movement between sites to be quantified, while handling imperfect detection. for studies involving numerous recapture sites, lagrange et al. (2014) proposed a multievent cr model that allows dispersal to be estimated while omitting site identity by distinguishing between individuals that stay and individuals that move. more recently, cayuela et al. (2017) extended this model to allow survival and dispersal probabilities to differ for the different types of habitat represented by several sites within a study area. yet in both of these modeling systems, the state of sites is assumed to be static over time, which is not a realistic assumption in dynamic landscapes. for that purpose, we generalized the multievent cr model proposed by cayuela et al. (2017) to allow the estimation of dispersal, survival and recapture probabilities when a site may appear or disappear over time (model 1) or when the characteristics of a site fluctuate over space and time (model 2). this paper first presents these two new modeling systems, and then provides an illustration of their efficacy and usefulness by applying them to simulated cr data and data collected on two metapopulations of amphibians. model 1 was tested using cr data recorded on a metapopulation of yellow-bellied toads (bombina variegata). in this first empirical case, we examined whether the drying-out dynamics of ponds and the past dispersal status of an individual might affect dispersal behavior. our study revealed that the probability of facultative dispersal (i.e., from a pond group that remained available/flooded) fluctuated between years and was higher in individuals that had previously dispersed. model 2 was tested using cr data collected on a metapopulation of great crested newts (triturus cristatus). in this second empirical example, we investigated whether the density of alpine newts (ichthyosaura alpestris), a potential competitor, might affect the dispersal and survival of the crested newt. our study revealed that the departure rate was lower in ponds with a high density of heterospecifics than in ponds with a low density of heterospecifics at both inter-annual and intra-annual scales. moreover, annual survival was slightly higher in ponds with a high density of heterospecifics. overall, our findings indicate that these multievent cr models provide a highly flexible means of modeling dispersal in dynamic landscapes." "dynamic occupancy modelling reveals a hierarchy of competition among fishers, grey foxes and ringtails",bassariscus astutus; dynamic occupancy model; jolly-seber; pekania pennanti; source community; spatial capture-recapture; translocation; urocyon cinereoargenteus,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,GREEN DS;MATTHEWS SM;SWIERS RC;CALLAS RL;YAEGER JS;FARBER SL;SCHWARTZ MK;POWELL RA,"1. determining how species coexist is critical for understanding functional diversity, niche partitioning and interspecific interactions. identifying the direct and indirect interactions among sympatric carnivores that enable their coexistence is particularly important to elucidate because they are integral for maintaining ecosystem function. 2. we studied the effects of removing nine fishers (pekania pennanti) on their population dynamics and used this perturbation to elucidate the interspecific interactions among fishers, grey foxes (urocyon cinereoargenteus) and ringtails (bassariscus astutus). grey foxes (family: canidae) are likely to compete with fishers due to their similar body sizes and dietary overlap, and ringtails (family: procyonidae), like fishers, are semi-arboreal species of conservation concern. we used spatial capture-recapture to investigate fisher population numbers and dynamic occupancy models that incorporated interspecific interactions to investigate the effects members of these species had on the colonization and persistence of each other's site occupancy. 3. the fisher population showed no change in density for up to 3 years following the removals of fishers for translocations. in contrast, fisher site occupancy decreased in the years immediately following the translocations. during this same time period, site occupancy by grey foxes increased and remained elevated through the end of the study. 4. we found a complicated hierarchy among fishers, foxes and ringtails. fishers affected grey fox site persistence negatively but had a positive effect on their colonization. foxes had a positive effect on ringtail site colonization. thus, fishers were the dominant small carnivore where present and negatively affected foxes directly and ringtails indirectly. 5. coexistence among the small carnivores we studied appears to reflect dynamic spatial partitioning. conservation and management efforts should investigate how intraguild interactions may influence the recolonization of carnivores to previously occupied landscapes." estimating mortality rates among passerines caught for ringing with mist nets using data from previously ringed birds,avian; bird ringing; injury; mark-recapture; mortality; passerine; trapping; welfare,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CLEWLEY GD;ROBINSON RA;CLARK JA,"mist netting is the most commonly used method for catching birds for scientific ringing, but despite decades of use, there have been few attempts to quantify the associated potential risks to the individuals caught. any incidence of mortality through capture and handling, however low, is of potential ethical concern and may also introduce biases into the data. we estimate the mortality rate associated with capture of previously ringed (recaptured) passerines from the british and irish ringing scheme (c. 1.5 million records) caught using mist nets. the importance of species, age, mass, month, time, previous captures, and an index of predator occurrence was tested using generalized linear mixed-effects models. the average mortality rate was 0.0011, most of which was reported to occur before the individuals had been extracted from the nets (c. 70% of incidents). juveniles appeared to be at higher risk and the incidence of predation from mist nets was seasonal, with increased risk during the winter. species differed in their reported mortality rates with the apparent risk being greatest for chiffchaff phylloscopus collybita (0.0029) and bullfinch pyrrhula pyrrhula (0.0027). to improve our understanding (and hence minimize risk in future), we recommend collecting more complete data on incidences of mortality, and also injuries; exercising increased care when the species we have identified as being at greater risk are likely to be captured, and ensuring there are robust procedures for the checking of nets (as most reported incidents of mortality occur before handling). we also recommend that all ringing schemes should collate and make available data on capture-related mortality. overall rates of mortality associated with capture, although, were low and support the use of mist netting as a safe capture technique, without undue bias from mortality, when used by appropriately trained individuals." effects of flow-related variables on oversummer survival of juvenile coho salmon in intermittent streams,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,OBEDZINSKI M;PIERCE SN;HORTON GE;DEITCH MJ,"while many studies have established the importance of streamflow as a driver of fish population dynamics, few have examined relationships between survival of juvenile salmonids and flow-related variables in intermittent streams. with predictions for a higher frequency of drought conditions due to climate change and the associated increasing human demand for water during the dry season, understanding fish-flow relationships is becoming increasingly important for the protection of sensitive aquatic species. to examine the effects of low streamflow on juvenile salmonids rearing in small intermittent streams, we estimated survival and collected environmental data in four coastal california watersheds from 2011 to 2013. we used an individual-based mark-recapture modeling approach to evaluate the influence of flow-related variables on oversummer survival of pit-tagged juvenile coho salmon oncorhynchus kisutch stocked into eight stream reaches. survival was positively associated with streamflow magnitude, wetted volume, and dissolved oxygen and negatively associated with days of disconnected surface flow (days of disconnection) and temperature. days of disconnection best explained survival, though the relationship varied by geomorphic reach type. survival was lower in alluvial reaches than in bedrock and clay reaches and showed a faster rate of decline with increasing days of disconnection and drought condition. in all reaches, the onset of pool disconnection represented a turning point at which water quality, water quantity, and survival declined. for this reason, we suggest that days of disconnection (or the flow magnitude at which pools become disconnected) is a useful metric for identifying flow-impaired reaches, informing streamflow protection strategies, and prioritizing streamflow enhancement efforts designed to benefit sensitive salmonid populations in intermittent streams." -"combining genetic, isotopic, and field data to better describe the influence of dams and diversions on burbot movement in the wind river drainage, wyoming",NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,HOOLEY-UNDERWOOD Z;MANDEVILLE EG;GERRITY P;DEROMEDI J;JOHNSON K;WALTERS AW,"dams and water diversions fragment habitat, entrain fish, and alter fish movement. many burbot lota lota populations are declining, with dams and water diversions thought to be a major threat. we used multiple methods to identify burbot movement patterns and assess entrainment into an irrigation system in the wind river, wyoming. we assessed seasonal movement of burbot with a mark-recapture (pit tagging) study, natal origins of entrained fish with otolith microchemistry, and historic movement with genotyping by sequencing. we found limited evidence of entrainment in irrigation waters across all approaches. the mark-recapture study indicated that out-migration from potential source populations could be influenced by flow regime but was generally low. otolith and genomic results suggested the presence of a self-sustaining population within the irrigation network. we conclude that emigration from natural tributary populations is not the current source of the majority of burbot found in irrigation waters. instead, reservoir and irrigation canal construction has created novel habitat in which burbot have established a population. using a multi-scale approach increased our inferential abilities and mechanistic understanding of movement patterns between natural and managed systems." +"combining genetic, isotopic, and field data to better describe the influence of dams and diversions on burbot movement in the wind river drainage, wyoming",NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,HOOLEY UNDERWOOD Z;MANDEVILLE EG;GERRITY P;DEROMEDI J;JOHNSON K;WALTERS AW,"dams and water diversions fragment habitat, entrain fish, and alter fish movement. many burbot lota lota populations are declining, with dams and water diversions thought to be a major threat. we used multiple methods to identify burbot movement patterns and assess entrainment into an irrigation system in the wind river, wyoming. we assessed seasonal movement of burbot with a mark-recapture (pit tagging) study, natal origins of entrained fish with otolith microchemistry, and historic movement with genotyping by sequencing. we found limited evidence of entrainment in irrigation waters across all approaches. the mark-recapture study indicated that out-migration from potential source populations could be influenced by flow regime but was generally low. otolith and genomic results suggested the presence of a self-sustaining population within the irrigation network. we conclude that emigration from natural tributary populations is not the current source of the majority of burbot found in irrigation waters. instead, reservoir and irrigation canal construction has created novel habitat in which burbot have established a population. using a multi-scale approach increased our inferential abilities and mechanistic understanding of movement patterns between natural and managed systems." pacific decadal and el nino oscillations shape survival of a seabird,capture-mark-recapture methods; climatic oscillations; cost of reproduction; el nino southern oscillation; pacific decadal oscillation; seabirds; survival,ECOLOGY,CHAMPAGNON J;LEBRETON JD;DRUMMOND H;ANDERSON DJ,"understanding and modeling population change is urgently needed to predict effects of climate change on biodiversity. high trophic-level organisms are influenced by fluctuations of prey quality and abundance, which themselves may depend on climate oscillations. modeling effects of such fluctuations is challenging because prey populations may vary with multiple climate oscillations occurring at different time scales. the analysis of a 28-yr time series of capture-recapture data of a tropical seabird, the nazca booby (sula granti), in the galapagos, ecuador, allowed us to test for demographic effects of two major ocean oscillations occurring at distinct time-scales: the inter-annual el nino southern oscillation (enso) and inter-decadal oscillations. as expected for a tropical seabird, survival of fledgling birds was highly affected by extreme enso events; by contrast, neither recruitment nor breeding participation were affected by either enso or decadal oscillations. more interesting, adult survival, a demographic trait that canalizes response to environmental variations, was unaffected by inter-annual enso oscillations yet was shaped by the pacific decadal oscillation and small pelagic fish regime. adult survival decreased during oceanic conditions associated with higher breeding success, an association probably mediated in this species by costs of reproduction that reduce survival when breeding attempts end later. to our knowledge, this is the first study suggesting that survival of a vertebrate can be vulnerable to a natural multidecadal oscillation." density of american black bears in new mexico,american black bear; capture-recapture; density estimation; dna degradation; new mexico; ursus americanus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GOULD MJ;CAIN JW;ROEMER GW;GOULD WR;LILEY SG,"considering advances in noninvasive genetic sampling and spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models, the new mexico department of game and fish sought to update their density estimates for american black bear (ursus americanus) populations in new mexico, usa, to aide in setting sustainable harvest limits. we estimated black bear density in the sangre de cristo, sandia, and sacramento mountains, new mexico, 2012-2014. we collected hair samples from black bears using hair traps and bear rubs and used a sex marker and a suite of microsatellite loci to individually genotype hair samples. we then estimated density in a secr framework using sex, elevation, land cover type, and time to model heterogeneity in detection probability and the spatial scale over which detection probability declines. we sampled the populations using 554 hair traps and 117 bear rubs and collected 4,083 hair samples. we identified 725 (367 male, 358 female) individuals. our density estimates varied from 16.5bears/100km(2) (95% ci=11.6-23.5) in the southern sacramento mountains to 25.7bears/100km(2) (95% ci=13.2-50.1) in the sandia mountains. overall, detection probability at the activity center (g0) was low across all study areas and ranged from 0.00001 to 0.02. the low values of g0 were primarily a result of half of all hair samples for which genotypes were attempted failing to produce a complete genotype. we speculate that the low success we had genotyping hair samples was due to exceedingly high levels of ultraviolet (uv) radiation that degraded the dna in the hair. despite sampling difficulties, we were able to produce density estimates with levels of precision comparable to those estimated for black bears elsewhere in the united states. (c) 2018 the wildlife society." density trends and demographic signals uncover the long-term impact of transmissible cancer in tasmanian devils,devil facial tumour disease; life history traits; population trends; sarcophilus harrisii; scr; spatial capture-recapture; tasmanian devil; threatened species; transmissible cancer; wildlife disease,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,LAZENBY BT;TOBLER MW;BROWN WE;HAWKINS CE;HOCKING GJ;HUME F;HUXTABLE S;ILES P;JONES ME;LAWRENCE C;THALMANN S;WISE P;WILLIAMS H;FOX S;PEMBERTON D,"1. monitoring the response of wild mammal populations to threatening processes is fundamental to effective conservation management. this is especially true for infectious diseases, which may have dynamic and therefore unpredictable interactions with their host. 2. we investigate the long-term impact of a transmissible cancer, devil facial tumour disease (dftd), on the endemic tasmanian devil. we analyse trends in devil spotlight counts and density across the area impacted by the disease. we investigate the demographic parameters which might be driving these trends, and use spatial capture-recapture models to examine whether dftd has affected home range size. 3. we found that devils have declined by an average of 77% in areas affected by dftd, and that there is a congruent trend of ongoing small decline in spotlight counts and density estimates. despite this, devils have persisted to date within each of nine monitoring sites. one site is showing as yet unexplained small increases in density 8-10 years after the emergence of dftd. 4. we also found the prevalence of dftd has not abated despite large declines in density and that diseased sites continue to be dominated by young devils. the long-term impact of the disease has been partially offset by increased fecundity in the form of precocial breeding in 1-year-old females, and more pouch young per female in diseased sites. the lower densities resulting from dftd did not affect home range size. 5. synthesis and applications. transmission of devil facial tumour disease continues despite large declines in devil density over multiple generations. plasticity in life history traits has ameliorated the impact of devil facial tumour disease, however broad-scale trends in density show ongoing decline. in light of this, devil facial tumour disease and the impact of stochastic events on the reduced densities wrought by the disease, continue to threaten devils. in the absence of methods to manage disease in wild populations, we advocate managing the low population densities resulting from disease rather than disease per se. ." @@ -143,21 +143,21 @@ using growth ring formation to study growth patterns of exploited sea urchin (lo one-step estimation of networked population size: respondent-driven capture-recapture with anonymity,NA,PLOS ONE,KHAN B;LEE HW;FELLOWS I;DOMBROWSKI K,"size estimation is particularly important for populations whose members experience dispro-portionate health issues or pose elevated health risks to the ambient social structures in which they are embedded. efforts to derive size estimates are often frustrated when the population is hidden or hard-to-reach in ways that preclude conventional survey strategies, as is the case when social stigma is associated with group membership or when group members are involved in illegal activities. this paper extends prior research on the problem of network population size estimation, building on established survey/sampling methodologies commonly used with hard-to-reach groups. three novel one-step, network-based population size estimators are presented, for use in the context of uniform random sampling, respondent-driven sampling, and when networks exhibit significant clustering effects. we give provably sufficient conditions for the consistency of these estimators in large configuration networks. simulation experiments across a wide range of synthetic network topologies validate the performance of the estimators, which also perform well on a real-world location-based social networking data set with significant clustering. finally, the proposed schemes are extended to allow them to be used in settings where participant anonymity is required. systematic experiments show favorable tradeoffs between anonymity guarantees and estimator performance. taken together, we demonstrate that reasonable population size estimates are derived from anonymous respondent driven samples of 250-750 individuals, within ambient populations of 5,000-40,000. the method thus represents a novel and cost-effective means for health planners and those agencies concerned with health and disease surveillance to estimate the size of hidden populations. we discuss limitations and future work in the concluding section." increased male bias in eider ducks can be explained by sex-specific survival of prime-age breeders,NA,PLOS ONE,RAMULA S;OST M;LINDEN A;KARELL P;KILPI M,"in contrast to theoretical predictions of even adult sex ratios, males are dominating in many bird populations. such bias among adults may be critical to population growth and viability. nevertheless, demographic mechanisms for biased adult sex ratios are still poorly understood. here, we examined potential demographic mechanisms for the recent dramatic shift from a slight female bias among adult eider ducks (somateria mollissima) to a male bias (about 65% males) in the baltic sea, where the species is currently declining. we analysed a nine-year dataset on offspring sex ratio at hatching based on molecularly sexed ducklings of individually known mothers. moreover, using demographic data from long-term individual-based capture-recapture records, we investigated how sex-specific survival at different ages after fledgling can modify the adult sex ratio. more specifically, we constructed a stochastic two-sex matrix population model and simulated scenarios of different survival probabilities for males and females. we found that sex ratio at hatching was slightly female-biased (52.8%) and therefore unlikely to explain the observed male bias among adult birds. our stochastic simulations with higher survival for males than for females revealed that despite a slight female bias at hatching, study populations shifted to a male-biased adult sex ratio (> 60% males) in a few decades. this shift was driven by prime reproductive-age individuals(>5-year-old), with sex-specific survival of younger age classes playing a minor role. hence, different age classes contributed disproportion ally to population dynamics. we argue that an alternative explanation for the observed male dominance among adults sex-biased dispersal can be considered redundant and is unlikely, given the ecology of the species. the present study highlights the importance of considering population structure and age-specific vital rates when assessing population dynamics and management targets." health care providers' compliance with the notifiable diseases surveillance system in south africa,NA,PLOS ONE,BENSON FG;LEVIN J;RISPEL LC,"background the optimal performance of a notifiable disease surveillance system (ndss) is dependent on health care provider (hcp) compliance with communicable disease notification. hcp compliance ensures appropriate investigation and control measures by relevant health care authorities. this study examines the compliance of hcps with the ndss in south africa and factors associated with their compliance. methods a cross-sectional survey was carried out in three randomly selected provinces. we stratified by type of facility, and recruited clusters of hcps on survey day to participate. all consenting hcps in the randomly selected health care facilities on the day of the survey, completed a questionnaire that elicited information on socio-demographic characteristics and notification practices. the data were analysed using stata (r) 14, using the identifiers for stratum and cluster as well as the calculated sampling weights. results the study found that 58% of 919 hcps diagnosed a notifiable disease in the year preceding the survey. the majority of these professionals (92%) indicated that they had reported the disease, but only 51% of those notified the disease/s correctly to the department of health. paediatricians were less likely to notify correctly (or 0.01, 95% ci 0.00-0.12, p = 0.001). the factors that influenced notification were hcps perceptions of workload (or 0.84, 95% ci 0.70-0.99, p = 0.043) and that notification data are not useful (or 0.84, 95% ci 0.71-0.99, p = 0.040). the study found no association between correct notification and hcps willingness to notify, experience or training on the ndss, understanding of the purpose of the ndss, knowledge of what to notify, or perception of feedback given. conclusions the compliance of hcps in south africa with the ndss is suboptimal. in light of the important role of hcps in the effective functioning of the ndss, information on ndss usefulness and guidelines on correct notification procedures are needed to increase their compliance." -do responsibly managed logging concessions adequately protect jaguars and other large and medium-sized mammals? two case studies from guatemala and peru,reduced-impact logging; multi-species occupancy model; spatial capture-recapture; madre de dios; peten; maya biosphere reserve; camera traps; forest management,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,TOBLER MW;ANLEU RG;CARRILLO-PERCASTEGUI SE;SANTIZO GP;POLISAR J;HARTLEY AZ;GOLDSTEIN I,"large areas of tropical forest have been designated for timber production but logging practices vary widely. reduced-impact logging is considered best practice and third-party certification aims to ensure that strict standards are met. this includes minimizing the number of roads constructed, avoiding sensitive areas and strictly regulating hunting. large scale camera trap grids were utilized in guatemala and peru to evaluate the impact of reduced-impact logging in certified concessions upon the large and medium-sized mammal fauna with special emphasis on jaguars (panthera once). spatial capture-recapture models showed that jaguar density in peru (4.54 +/- 0.83 ind. 100 km(-2)) was significantly higher than in guatemala (1.52 +/- 0.34 ind. 100 km(-2)) but in both regions, densities were comparable to protected areas. camera traps detected 22 species of large and medium sized mammals in guatemala and 27 in peru and a multi-species occupancy model revealed that logging had no negative impact on any of the species studied and actually had an initial positive impact on several herbivore species. we found no avoidance of logging roads; in fact, many species, especially carnivores, frequently used logging roads as movement corridors. our results indicate that well-managed logging concessions can maintain important populations of large and medium-sized mammals including large herbivores and large carnivores as long as hunting is controlled and timber volumes extracted are low. responsible forest management would therefore be an ideal activity in the buffer zones and multiple use zones of protected areas creating much less impact and conflict than alternatives such as agriculture or cattle ranching while still providing economic opportunities. logging concessions can also play an important role in maintaining landscape connectivity between protected areas." +do responsibly managed logging concessions adequately protect jaguars and other large and medium-sized mammals? two case studies from guatemala and peru,reduced-impact logging; multi-species occupancy model; spatial capture-recapture; madre de dios; peten; maya biosphere reserve; camera traps; forest management,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,TOBLER MW;ANLEU RG;CARRILLO PERCASTEGUI SE;SANTIZO GP;POLISAR J;HARTLEY AZ;GOLDSTEIN I,"large areas of tropical forest have been designated for timber production but logging practices vary widely. reduced-impact logging is considered best practice and third-party certification aims to ensure that strict standards are met. this includes minimizing the number of roads constructed, avoiding sensitive areas and strictly regulating hunting. large scale camera trap grids were utilized in guatemala and peru to evaluate the impact of reduced-impact logging in certified concessions upon the large and medium-sized mammal fauna with special emphasis on jaguars (panthera once). spatial capture-recapture models showed that jaguar density in peru (4.54 +/- 0.83 ind. 100 km(-2)) was significantly higher than in guatemala (1.52 +/- 0.34 ind. 100 km(-2)) but in both regions, densities were comparable to protected areas. camera traps detected 22 species of large and medium sized mammals in guatemala and 27 in peru and a multi-species occupancy model revealed that logging had no negative impact on any of the species studied and actually had an initial positive impact on several herbivore species. we found no avoidance of logging roads; in fact, many species, especially carnivores, frequently used logging roads as movement corridors. our results indicate that well-managed logging concessions can maintain important populations of large and medium-sized mammals including large herbivores and large carnivores as long as hunting is controlled and timber volumes extracted are low. responsible forest management would therefore be an ideal activity in the buffer zones and multiple use zones of protected areas creating much less impact and conflict than alternatives such as agriculture or cattle ranching while still providing economic opportunities. logging concessions can also play an important role in maintaining landscape connectivity between protected areas." estimating individual fitness in the wild using capture-recapture data,delifing; growth rate; imperfect detection; lifetime reproductive success; mark-recapture; state-space models,POPULATION ECOLOGY,GIMENEZ O;GAILLARD JM,"the concept of darwinian fitness is central in evolutionary ecology, and its estimation has motivated the development of several approaches. however, measuring individual fitness remains challenging in empirical case studies in the wild. measuring fitness requires a continuous monitoring of individuals from birth to death, which is very difficult to get in part because individuals may or may not be controlled at each reproductive event and recovered at death. imperfect detection hampers keeping track of mortality and reproductive events over the whole lifetime of individuals. we propose a new statistical approach to estimate individual fitness while accounting for imperfect detection. based on hidden process modelling of longitudinal data on marked animals, we show that standard metrics to quantify fitness, namely lifetime reproductive success, individual growth rate and lifetime individual contribution to population growth, can be extended to cope with imperfect detection inherent to most monitoring programs in the wild. we illustrate our approach using data collected on individual roe deer in an intensively monitored population." identifying important conservation areas for the clouded leopard neofelis nebulosa in a mountainous landscape: inference from spatial modeling techniques,conservation planning; density; occupancy models; site use; spatial autocorrelation,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,PENJOR U;MACDONALD DW;WANGCHUK S;TANDIN T;TAN CKW,"the survival of large carnivores is increasingly precarious due to extensive human development that causes the habitat loss and fragmentation. habitat selection is influenced by anthropogenic as well as environmental factors, and understanding these relationships is important for conservation management. we assessed the environmental and anthropogenic variables that influence site use of clouded leopard neofelis nebulosa in bhutan, estimated their population density, and used the results to predict the species' site use across bhutan. we used a large camera-trap dataset from the national tiger survey to estimate for clouded leopards, for the first time in bhutan, (1) population density using spatially explicit capture-recapture models and (2) site-use probability using occupancy models accounting for spatial autocorrelation. population density was estimated at d = 0.40 (0.10 sd) and d maximum-likelihood=0.30 (0.12 se) per 100km(2). clouded leopard site use was positively associated with forest cover and distance to river while negatively associated with elevation. mean site-use probability (from the bayesian spatial model) was =0.448 (0.076 sd). when spatial autocorrelation was ignored, the probability of site use was overestimated, =0.826 (0.066 sd). predictive mapping allowed us to identify important conservation areas and priority habitats to sustain the future of these elusive, ambassador felids and associated guilds. multiple sites in the south, many of them outside of protected areas, were identified as habitats suitable for this species, adding evidence to conservation planning for clouded leopards in continental south asia." a mark-recapture-based approach for estimating angler harvest,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,HANSEN JM;VAN KIRK RW,"fishing effort in traditional creel surveys is derived from instantaneous angler counts, which in some fisheries can carry a high cost in personnel time, resources, and safety. to estimate angler effort more efficiently and at lower cost, we used mark-recapture methods to estimate weekly angler populations in pacific salmon oncorhynchus spp. and steelhead o. mykiss fisheries on the salmon river, idaho. weekly harvest estimates were the product of weekly angler population, mean number of days fished per angler per week, and mean harvest per angler per day. we compared traditional and mark-recapture estimates of weekly harvest using paired analysis on a sample of 48weeks. we found no significant difference in harvest estimates between traditional and mark-recapture methods, and the mark-recapture estimates in our fisheries could be made at a savings of up to 50% in vehicle mileage associated with conducting angler counts. however, the width of 95% cis around harvest estimates was significantly higher for the mark-recapture method, due to higher upper confidence limits resulting from right-skewness of the sampling distribution of the mark-recapture-based estimator. precision could be improved by replacing time spent on counts in the traditional method with more time spent capturing anglers at access sites, still providing savings in vehicle mileage." evaluating the effect of dam removals on yellow-phase american eel abundance in a northeastern us watershed,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,TURNER SM;CHASE BC;BEDNARSKI MS,"the negative effects of dams and the benefits of dam removal for anadromous fish populations have been well documented. effects of dams on catadromous anguillidae species may be less drastic, although documentation of the response of catadromous fishes to dam removal is limited. we developed a mark-recapture study design to estimate the abundance of catadromous american eel anguilla rostrata within a small coastal watershed and compare abundance estimates before and after barrier removal. in the mill river, taunton, massachusetts, four dams have or will be modified for passage or removed. mark-recapture sampling and modeling methods were developed and applied in lake sabbatia, the source of the mill river, over 4years from the initiation of restoration. rectangular eel traps had higher cpue than double-funnel traps used in previous studies, and a tag retention study found high retention rates by using established methods (94% overall). abundances of yellow-phase american eels have increased with improved passage and recruitment to sampling gear during the study period. dam removal could have substantial benefits to the coastwide stock of american eels, and methods to evaluate changes in abundances are important for resource management as well as restoration ecology and project selection." under-ice population density estimation of alaska blackfish,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,FRALEY KM;HAYNES TB;LOPEZ JA,"the alaska blackfish dallia pectoralis is an understudied but ecologically important mudminnow occurring in lentic ecosystems of subarctic and arctic alaska. we sampled a population of alaska blackfish during the winter months in an upland pond near fairbanks, alaska, and we used a simple mark-recapture estimator to provide the first population estimate for this species. we found that alaska blackfish density in the pond was approximately 0.27individuals/m(2), equating to an estimated biomass of 15g/m(2) of pond surface area, which is similar to density estimates reported for other mudminnow species. we tested capture methods and found that under-ice minnow trapping was a poor method during early winter (september-december) but was highly effective near methane sumps and areas of high muskrat ondatra zibethicus activity in late winter (march-april). qualitatively, nearshore minnow trapping, seining, and kicknetting during the ice-free season were less effective than under-ice trapping. cursorily, pelvic fin clips were more effective for batch marking of alaska blackfish than two types of subcutaneous tags, given the high numbers of individuals we captured and the species' relatively small body size and dark skin, which hindered tag visualization. we demonstrated that alaska blackfish can occur at high densities in their typical habitat, underscoring their importance as forage fish in alaskan freshwater ecosystems that support subsistence and sport fisheries for piscivorous fishes. extending this approach across the geographic range of alaska blackfish will improve understanding of the ecological role of this species in the varying aquatic ecosystems where it occurs." -counting bears in the iranian caucasus: remarkable mismatch between scientifically-sound population estimates and perceptions,bear abundance; spatial capture-recapture; noninvasive genetic sampling; perceptions; guesstimates; evidence-based conservation,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MOQANAKI EM;JIMENEZ J;BENSCH S;LOPEZ-BAO JV,"lack of reliable information on the status of species often leads managers to exclusively rely on experiential knowledge, opinions or perceptions, usually derived from personnel associated with natural resource management agencies. yet, the accuracy of these sources of information remains largely untested. we approached this challenge, which is particularly common for wildlife monitoring programs in developing countries, using a population of asian brown bears (ursus arctos) in the iranian caucasus as case study. we conducted a non-invasive, genetic, spatial capture-recapture (scr) study to estimate bear density across a core protected area, arasbaran biosphere reserve, and compared our estimate of bear abundance with rangers' perceptions as collated through interviews. the perceived abundance of bears by local rangers was between 3 and 5 times higher than our scr estimate of 40 bears (2.5-97.5% bayesian credible intervals = 27-70; density: 4.88 bears/100 km(2)). our results suggest that basing management of the local bear population on perceptions of population status may result in overestimating the likelihood of population persistence. our findings offer a scientific baseline for an evidence -based conservation policy for brown bears in iran, and the broader caucasus ecoregion. the majority of threatened terrestrial megafauna occur in developing countries, where collecting and analyzing demographic data remain challenging. delayed conservation responses due to the lack of, or erroneous knowledge of population status of such imperiled species may have serious consequences." +counting bears in the iranian caucasus: remarkable mismatch between scientifically-sound population estimates and perceptions,bear abundance; spatial capture-recapture; noninvasive genetic sampling; perceptions; guesstimates; evidence-based conservation,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MOQANAKI EM;JIMENEZ J;BENSCH S;LOPEZ BAO JV,"lack of reliable information on the status of species often leads managers to exclusively rely on experiential knowledge, opinions or perceptions, usually derived from personnel associated with natural resource management agencies. yet, the accuracy of these sources of information remains largely untested. we approached this challenge, which is particularly common for wildlife monitoring programs in developing countries, using a population of asian brown bears (ursus arctos) in the iranian caucasus as case study. we conducted a non-invasive, genetic, spatial capture-recapture (scr) study to estimate bear density across a core protected area, arasbaran biosphere reserve, and compared our estimate of bear abundance with rangers' perceptions as collated through interviews. the perceived abundance of bears by local rangers was between 3 and 5 times higher than our scr estimate of 40 bears (2.5-97.5% bayesian credible intervals = 27-70; density: 4.88 bears/100 km(2)). our results suggest that basing management of the local bear population on perceptions of population status may result in overestimating the likelihood of population persistence. our findings offer a scientific baseline for an evidence -based conservation policy for brown bears in iran, and the broader caucasus ecoregion. the majority of threatened terrestrial megafauna occur in developing countries, where collecting and analyzing demographic data remain challenging. delayed conservation responses due to the lack of, or erroneous knowledge of population status of such imperiled species may have serious consequences." inferring species interactions through joint mark-recapture analysis,bayesian; competition; density dependence; gila cypha; interspecific; intraspecific; mark-recapture; oncorhynchus mykiss; predation,ECOLOGY,YACKULIC CB;KORMAN J;YARD MD;DZUL M,"introduced species are frequently implicated in declines of native species. in many cases, however, evidence linking introduced species to native declines is weak. failure to make strong inferences regarding the role of introduced species can hamper attempts to predict population viability and delay effective management responses. for many species, mark-recapture analysis is the more rigorous form of demographic analysis. however, to our knowledge, there are no mark-recapture models that allow for joint modeling of interacting species. here, we introduce a two-species mark-recapture population model in which the vital rates (and capture probabilities) of one species are allowed to vary in response to the abundance of the other species. we use a simulation study to explore bias and choose an approach to model selection. we then use the model to investigate species interactions between endangered humpback chub (gila cypha) and introduced rainbow trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) in the colorado river between 2009 and 2016. in particular, we test hypotheses about how two environmental factors (turbidity and temperature), intraspecific density dependence, and rainbow trout abundance are related to survival, growth, and capture of juvenile humpback chub. we also project the long-term effects of different rainbow trout abundances on adult humpback chub abundances. our simulation study suggests this approach has minimal bias under potentially challenging circumstances (i.e., low capture probabilities) that characterized our application and that model selection using indicator variables could reliably identify the true generating model even when process error was high. when the model was applied to rainbow trout and humpback chub, we identified negative relationships between rainbow trout abundance and the survival, growth, and capture probability of juvenile humpback chub. effects on interspecific interactions on survival and capture probability were strongly supported, whereas support for the growth effect was weaker. environmental factors were also identified to be important and in many cases stronger than interspecific interactions, and there was still substantial unexplained variation in growth and survival rates. the general approach presented here for combining mark-recapture data for two species is applicable in many other systems and could be modified to model abundance of the invader via other modeling approaches." -the interacting effects of forestry and climate change on the demography of a group-living bird population,climate change; forestry; demography; elasticity analysis; multi-state mark-recapture,OECOLOGIA,LAYTON-MATTHEWS K;OZGUL A;GRIESSER M,"anthropogenic degradation of natural habitats is a global driver of wildlife population declines. local population responses to such environmental perturbations are generally well understood, but in socially structured populations, interactions between environmental and social factors may influence population responses. thus, understanding how habitat degradation affects the dynamics of these populations requires simultaneous consideration of social and environmental mechanisms underlying demographic responses. here we investigated the effect of habitat degradation through commercial forestry on spatiotemporal dynamics of a group-living bird, the siberian jay, perisoreus infaustus, in boreal forests of northern sweden. we assessed the interacting effects of forestry, climate and population density on stage-specific, seasonal life-history rates and population dynamics, using long-term, individual-based demographic data from 70 territories in natural and managed forests. stage-specific survival and reproductive rates, and consequently population growth, were lower in managed forests than in natural forests. population growth was most sensitive to breeder survival and was more sensitive to early dispersing juveniles than those delaying dispersal. forestry decreased population growth in managed forests by reducing reproductive success and breeder survival. increased snow depth improved winter survival, and warmer spring temperatures enhanced reproductive success, particularly in natural forests. population growth was stable in natural forests but it was declining in managed forests, and this difference accelerated under forecasted climate scenarios. thus, climatic change could exacerbate the rate of forestry-induced population decline through reduced snow cover in our study species, and in other species with similar life-history characteristics and habitat requirements." +the interacting effects of forestry and climate change on the demography of a group-living bird population,climate change; forestry; demography; elasticity analysis; multi-state mark-recapture,OECOLOGIA,LAYTON MATTHEWS K;OZGUL A;GRIESSER M,"anthropogenic degradation of natural habitats is a global driver of wildlife population declines. local population responses to such environmental perturbations are generally well understood, but in socially structured populations, interactions between environmental and social factors may influence population responses. thus, understanding how habitat degradation affects the dynamics of these populations requires simultaneous consideration of social and environmental mechanisms underlying demographic responses. here we investigated the effect of habitat degradation through commercial forestry on spatiotemporal dynamics of a group-living bird, the siberian jay, perisoreus infaustus, in boreal forests of northern sweden. we assessed the interacting effects of forestry, climate and population density on stage-specific, seasonal life-history rates and population dynamics, using long-term, individual-based demographic data from 70 territories in natural and managed forests. stage-specific survival and reproductive rates, and consequently population growth, were lower in managed forests than in natural forests. population growth was most sensitive to breeder survival and was more sensitive to early dispersing juveniles than those delaying dispersal. forestry decreased population growth in managed forests by reducing reproductive success and breeder survival. increased snow depth improved winter survival, and warmer spring temperatures enhanced reproductive success, particularly in natural forests. population growth was stable in natural forests but it was declining in managed forests, and this difference accelerated under forecasted climate scenarios. thus, climatic change could exacerbate the rate of forestry-induced population decline through reduced snow cover in our study species, and in other species with similar life-history characteristics and habitat requirements." when carapace governs size: variation among age classes and individuals in a free-ranging ectotherm with delayed maturity,cohorts; indeterminate growth; longevity; tortoise; vbs,OECOLOGIA,ARSOVSKI D;TOMOVIC L;GOLUBOVIC A;NIKOLIC S;STERIJOVSKI B;AJTIC R;BALLOUARD JM;BONNET X,"juvenile growth strongly impacts life-history traits during adulthood. yet, in juveniles with delayed maturity, elusiveness has hindered age-specific studies of growth, precluding any detailed research on its consequences later in life. different complex growth patterns have been extracted from captive animals, suggesting species-specific trajectories occur in free-ranging animals. how pronounced are growth and body size variation (vbs) throughout a long-lived ectotherm's life? is vbs constant among age classes prior to maturity, or do compensatory and/or cumulative effects driven by long-lived-animal-specific strategies create distinct vbs cohorts, to ensure survival? to tackle the issue, we modelled growth data from continuous and dense annual capture-mark-recapture sampling (5096 body measurements of 1134 free-ranging individuals) of both immature and mature, long-lived hermann's tortoises. we analysed population, cohort, and individual-based growth and vbs. growth ring inferred ages were cross validated with annual recaptures in 289 juveniles. analyses unravelled an s-shaped growth curve and identified three age cohorts across which vbs increases in a step-wise manner. neonate-specific constraints and compensatory effects seem to control vbs until 4 years of age, possibly promoting survival with size. subsequently, a hardened carapace takes over and cumulative effects fuelled by faster growth progressively increase vbs. whereas ungulates are in a hurry to attain adult size before growth ceases (minimizing vbs), indeterminately growing tortoises can shape individual asymptotic sizes even after growth decelerates. tortoise size is clearly shaped by age-specific ecological constraints; interestingly, it is likely the carapace that conducts the strategy, rather than maturity per se." -no flood effect on recruitment in a louisiana black bear population,capture-mark-recapture; endangered species; pradel model; robust design; temporal symmetry; ursus americanus luteolus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CLARK JD;O'CONNELL-GOODE KC;LOWE CL;MURPHY SM;MAEHR SC;DAVIDSON M;LAUFENBERG JS,"a flood event in 2011 had minor impacts on apparent survival and movement probabilities of a small, isolated population of louisiana black bears (ursus americanus luteolus) in the upper atchafalaya river basin, louisiana, usa. however, the potential effects of the flood on recruitment of juveniles into the population, then listed as threatened under the united states endangered species act, were not evaluated. we used hair trapping data collected from 2007 to 2015 and pradel temporal symmetry models in a robust-design framework to investigate changes in per capita recruitment that could have resulted from the flood. we detected 91 bears (37 m:54 f) within the flooded area during our study period, ranging from 21 to 44 individuals/year. models that tested for reduced recruitment resulting from the flood were not supported more than models with constant recruitment, and the population growth rate did not decline. although we documented marginally lower recruitment following the 2011 flood, lag effects and detectability biases complicated our analysis. we suggest that wildlife managers continue monitoring recruitment and survival in this recently delisted black bear population given the potential for heightened flood frequency and severity in the future. (c) 2017 the wildlife society. using capture-mark-recapture hair trapping data from 2007 to 2015 and pradel temporal symmetry models, we investigated potential changes in louisiana black bear (ursus americanus luteolus) recruitment because of a flooding event that occurred in 2011 in the upper atchafalaya river basin, louisiana, usa. hypotheses of reduced recruitment were not supported and population growth probabilities did not decline but we suggest that wildlife managers continue monitoring this recently delisted black bear population given the potential for heightened flood frequency and severity in the future." -extraction of dna from captive-sourced feces and molted feathers provides a novel method for conservation management of new zealand kiwi (apteryx spp.),apteryx spp; conservation; feces; low-template dna; microsatellites; noninvasive,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,RAMON-LACA A;WHITE DJ;WEIR JT;ROBERTSON HA,"although some taxa are increasing in number due to active management and predator control, the overall number of kiwi (apteryx spp.) is declining. kiwi are cryptic and rare, meaning current monitoring tools, such as call counts, radio telemetry, and surveys using detection dogs are labor-intensive, yield small datasets, and require substantial resources or provide inaccurate estimates of population sizes. a noninvasive genetic approach could help the conservation effort. we optimized a panel of 23 genetic markers (22 autosomal microsatellite loci and an allosomal marker) to discriminate between all species of kiwi and major lineages within species, while simultaneously determining sex. markers successfully amplified from both fecal and shed feather dna samples collected in captivity. we found that dna extraction was more efficient from shed feathers, but dna quality was greater with feces, although this was sampling dependent. our microsatellite panel was able to distinguish between contemporary kiwi populations and lineages and provided pi values in the range of 4.3x10(-5) to 2.0x10(-19), which in some cases were sufficient for individualization and mark-recapture studies. as such, we have tested a wide-reaching, noninvasive molecular approach that will improve conservation management by providing better parameter estimates associated with population ecology and demographics such as abundance, growth rates, and genetic diversity." +no flood effect on recruitment in a louisiana black bear population,capture-mark-recapture; endangered species; pradel model; robust design; temporal symmetry; ursus americanus luteolus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CLARK JD;O CONNELL GOODE KC;LOWE CL;MURPHY SM;MAEHR SC;DAVIDSON M;LAUFENBERG JS,"a flood event in 2011 had minor impacts on apparent survival and movement probabilities of a small, isolated population of louisiana black bears (ursus americanus luteolus) in the upper atchafalaya river basin, louisiana, usa. however, the potential effects of the flood on recruitment of juveniles into the population, then listed as threatened under the united states endangered species act, were not evaluated. we used hair trapping data collected from 2007 to 2015 and pradel temporal symmetry models in a robust-design framework to investigate changes in per capita recruitment that could have resulted from the flood. we detected 91 bears (37 m:54 f) within the flooded area during our study period, ranging from 21 to 44 individuals/year. models that tested for reduced recruitment resulting from the flood were not supported more than models with constant recruitment, and the population growth rate did not decline. although we documented marginally lower recruitment following the 2011 flood, lag effects and detectability biases complicated our analysis. we suggest that wildlife managers continue monitoring recruitment and survival in this recently delisted black bear population given the potential for heightened flood frequency and severity in the future. (c) 2017 the wildlife society. using capture-mark-recapture hair trapping data from 2007 to 2015 and pradel temporal symmetry models, we investigated potential changes in louisiana black bear (ursus americanus luteolus) recruitment because of a flooding event that occurred in 2011 in the upper atchafalaya river basin, louisiana, usa. hypotheses of reduced recruitment were not supported and population growth probabilities did not decline but we suggest that wildlife managers continue monitoring this recently delisted black bear population given the potential for heightened flood frequency and severity in the future." +extraction of dna from captive-sourced feces and molted feathers provides a novel method for conservation management of new zealand kiwi (apteryx spp.),apteryx spp; conservation; feces; low-template dna; microsatellites; noninvasive,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,RAMON LACA A;WHITE DJ;WEIR JT;ROBERTSON HA,"although some taxa are increasing in number due to active management and predator control, the overall number of kiwi (apteryx spp.) is declining. kiwi are cryptic and rare, meaning current monitoring tools, such as call counts, radio telemetry, and surveys using detection dogs are labor-intensive, yield small datasets, and require substantial resources or provide inaccurate estimates of population sizes. a noninvasive genetic approach could help the conservation effort. we optimized a panel of 23 genetic markers (22 autosomal microsatellite loci and an allosomal marker) to discriminate between all species of kiwi and major lineages within species, while simultaneously determining sex. markers successfully amplified from both fecal and shed feather dna samples collected in captivity. we found that dna extraction was more efficient from shed feathers, but dna quality was greater with feces, although this was sampling dependent. our microsatellite panel was able to distinguish between contemporary kiwi populations and lineages and provided pi values in the range of 4.3x10(-5) to 2.0x10(-19), which in some cases were sufficient for individualization and mark-recapture studies. as such, we have tested a wide-reaching, noninvasive molecular approach that will improve conservation management by providing better parameter estimates associated with population ecology and demographics such as abundance, growth rates, and genetic diversity." spatial patterns of the frog oophaga pumilio in a plantation system are consistent with conspecific attraction,colonization; habitat selection; nearest-neighbor analysis; neotropics; spatial ecology,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,FOLT B;DONNELLY MA;GUYER C,"the conspecific attraction hypothesis predicts that individuals are attracted to conspecifics because conspecifics may be cues to quality habitat and/or colonists may benefit from living in aggregations. poison frogs (dendrobatidae) are aposematic, territorial, and visually orientedthree characteristics which make dendrobatids an appropriate model to test for conspecific attraction. in this study, we tested this hypothesis using an extensive mark-recapture dataset of the strawberry poison frog (oophaga pumilio) from la selva biological station, costa rica. data were collected from replicate populations in a relatively homogenous theobroma cacao plantation, which provided a unique opportunity to test how conspecifics influence the spatial ecology of migrants in a controlled habitat with homogenous structure. we predicted that (1) individuals entering a population would aggregate with resident adults, (2) migrants would share sites with residents at a greater frequency than expected by chance, and (3) migrant home ranges would have shorter nearest-neighbor distances (nnd) to residents than expected by chance. the results were consistent with these three predictions: relative to random simulations, we observed significant aggregation, home-range overlap, and nnd distribution functions in four, five, and six, respectively, of the six migrant-resident groups analyzed. conspecific attraction may benefit migrant o.pumilio by providing cues to suitable home sites and/or increasing the potential for social interactions with conspecifics; if true, these benefits should outweigh the negative effects of other factors associated with aggregation. the observed aggregation between migrant and resident o.pumilio is consistent with conspecific attraction in dendrobatid frogs, and our study provides rare support from a field setting that conspecific attraction may be a relevant mechanism for models of anuran spatial ecology." genotyping validates photo-identification by the head scale pattern in a large population of the european adder (vipera berus),capture-recapture; double-marking; genotyping; individual recognition; natural markings,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BAUWENS D;CLAUS K;MERGEAY J,"capture-mark-recapture procedures are a basic tool in population studies and require that individual animals are correctly identified throughout their lifetime. a method that has become more and more popular uses photographic records of natural markings, such as pigmentation pattern and scalation configuration. as with any other marking tool, the validity of the photographic identification technique should be evaluated thoroughly. here, we report on a large-scale double-marking study in which european adders (vipera berus) were identified by both microsatellite genetic markers and by the pattern of head scalation. samples that were successfully genotyped for all nine loci yielded 624 unique genotypes, which matched on a one-to-one basis with the individual assignments based on the head scalation pattern. thus, adders considered as different individuals by their genotypes were also identified as different individuals by their head scalation pattern, and vice versa. overall, variation in the numbers, shape, and arrangement of the head scales enabled us to distinguish among 3200+ photographed individual snakes. adders that were repeatedly sequenced genetically over intervals of 2-3years showed no indication whatsoever for a change in the head scale pattern. photographic records of 900+ adders that were recaptured over periods of up to 12years showed a very detailed and precise match of the head scale characteristics. these natural marks are thus robust over time and do not change during an individual's lifetime. with very low frequency (0.3%), we detected small changes in scalation that were readily discernible and could be attributed to physical injury or infection. our study provides a conclusive validation for the use of photo-identification by head scale patterns in the european adder." -estimating animal density without individual recognition using information derivable exclusively from camera traps,animal movement; camera trap; density estimation; distance sampling; individual recognition; population monitoring; random encounter model; rest model; trapping rate; ungulates,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,"NAKASHIMA Y;FUKASAWA K;SAMEJIMA H","1. efficient and reliable methods for estimating animal density are essential to wildlife conservation and management. camera trapping is an increasingly popular tool in this area of wildlife research, with further potential arising from technological improvements, such as video-recording functions that allow for behavioural observation of animals. this information may be useful in the estimation of animal density, even without individual recognition. although several models applicable to species lacking individual markings (i.e. unmarked populations) have been developed, a methodology incorporating behavioural information from videos has not yet been established. 2. we developed a likelihood-based model: the random encounter and staying time (rest) model. it is an extension of the random encounter model by rowcliffe et al. (j appl ecol 45: 1228, 2008). the rest model describes the relationship among staying time, trapping rate, and density, which is estimable using a frequentist or bayesian approach. we tested the reliability and feasibility of the rest model using monte carlo simulations. we also applied the approach in the african rainforest and compared the results with those of a line-transect survey. 3. the simulations showed that the rest model provided unbiased estimates of animal density. even when animal movement speeds varied among individuals, and when animals travelled in pairs, the model provided unbiased density estimates. however, the rest model was vulnerable to unsynchronized activity patterns among individuals. moreover, it is necessary to use a camera model with a fast and reliable infrared sensor and to set the camera trap's parameters appropriately (i.e. video length, delay period). the field survey showed that the staying time of two ungulate species in the african rainforest exhibited good fit with a temporal parametric distribution, and the rest model provided density estimates consistent with those of a line-transect survey. 4. synthesis and applications. the random encounter and staying time model provides better efficiency and higher feasibility than the random encounter model in estimating animal density without individual recognition. careful application of the random encounter and staying time model provides the potential to estimate density of many ground-dwelling vertebrates lacking individually recognizable markings, and thus should be an effective method for population monitoring." +estimating animal density without individual recognition using information derivable exclusively from camera traps,animal movement; camera trap; density estimation; distance sampling; individual recognition; population monitoring; random encounter model; rest model; trapping rate; ungulates,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,NAKASHIMA Y;FUKASAWA K;SAMEJIMA H,"1. efficient and reliable methods for estimating animal density are essential to wildlife conservation and management. camera trapping is an increasingly popular tool in this area of wildlife research, with further potential arising from technological improvements, such as video-recording functions that allow for behavioural observation of animals. this information may be useful in the estimation of animal density, even without individual recognition. although several models applicable to species lacking individual markings (i.e. unmarked populations) have been developed, a methodology incorporating behavioural information from videos has not yet been established. 2. we developed a likelihood-based model: the random encounter and staying time (rest) model. it is an extension of the random encounter model by rowcliffe et al. (j appl ecol 45: 1228, 2008). the rest model describes the relationship among staying time, trapping rate, and density, which is estimable using a frequentist or bayesian approach. we tested the reliability and feasibility of the rest model using monte carlo simulations. we also applied the approach in the african rainforest and compared the results with those of a line-transect survey. 3. the simulations showed that the rest model provided unbiased estimates of animal density. even when animal movement speeds varied among individuals, and when animals travelled in pairs, the model provided unbiased density estimates. however, the rest model was vulnerable to unsynchronized activity patterns among individuals. moreover, it is necessary to use a camera model with a fast and reliable infrared sensor and to set the camera trap's parameters appropriately (i.e. video length, delay period). the field survey showed that the staying time of two ungulate species in the african rainforest exhibited good fit with a temporal parametric distribution, and the rest model provided density estimates consistent with those of a line-transect survey. 4. synthesis and applications. the random encounter and staying time model provides better efficiency and higher feasibility than the random encounter model in estimating animal density without individual recognition. careful application of the random encounter and staying time model provides the potential to estimate density of many ground-dwelling vertebrates lacking individually recognizable markings, and thus should be an effective method for population monitoring." size-selectivity for british columbia sablefish (anoplopoma fimbria) estimated from a long-term tagging study,fishery size-selectivity; tagging-data; sablefish; anoplopoma fimbria; dome-shaped selectivity; stock assessment,FISHERIES RESEARCH,JONES MK;COX S,"the underlying size-distribution of commercial fish stocks is usually unknown, so fishery size-selectivity must be estimated as a latent process embedded within age-structured stock assessments. however, dome-shaped fishery size-selectivity, in particular, is often inestimable because decreasing selectivity is confounded with mortality at older ages. in this paper, we test for dome-shaped selectivity in british columbia's sablefish fishery using a long-term tagging data set. we incorporate alternative fishery size-selectivity assumptions within a mark-recapture framework based on an asymptotic logistic model and dome-shaped models using gamma and normal probability density functions. we also fit each model using both time-invariant and time-varying parameterizations. our results strongly suggest dome-shaped size-selectivity for tagged-sablefish in longline trap, longline hook, and bottom trawl fisheries. time-varying models were generally favored over time-invariant models, although alternative time-varying models often produced similar statistical fits. dome-shaped selectivity in longline fisheries could be a function of fishery targeting, fish movement, or by lower reporting rates for large size classes." forest bat population dynamics over 14 years at a climate refuge: effects of timber harvesting and weather extremes,NA,PLOS ONE,LAW BS;CHIDEL M;LAW PR,"long-term data are needed to explore the interaction of weather extremes with habitat alteration; in particular, can 'refugia' buffer population dynamics against climate change and are they robust to disturbances such as timber harvesting. because forest bats are good indicators of ecosystem health, we used 14 years (1999-2012) of mark-recapture data from a suite of small tree-hollow roosting bats to estimate survival, abundance and body condition in harvested and unharvested forest and over extreme el nino and la nina weather events in southeastern australia. trapping was replicated within an experimental forest, located in a climate refuge, with different timber harvesting treatments. we trapped foraging bats and banded 3043 with a 32% retrap rate. mark-recapture analyses allowed for dependence of survival on time, species, sex, logging treatment and for transients. a large portion of the population remained resident, with a maximum time to recapture of nine years. the effect of logging history (unlogged vs 16-30 years post-logging regrowth) on apparent survival was minor and species specific, with no detectable effect for two species, a positive effect for one and negative for the other. there was no effect of logging history on abundance or body condition for any of these species. apparent survival of residents was not strongly influenced by weather variation (except for the smallest species), unlike previous studies outside of refugia. despite annual variation in abundance and body condition across the 14 years of the study, no relationship with extreme weather was evident. the location of our study area in a climate refuge potentially buffered bat population dynamics from extreme weather. these results support the value of climate refugia in mitigating climate change impacts, though the lack of an external control highlights the need for further studies on the functioning of climate refugia. relatively stable population dynamics were not compromised by timber harvesting, suggesting ecologically sustainable harvesting may be compatible with climate refugia." how difficult is it to reintroduce a dragonfly? fifteen years monitoring leucorrhinia dubia at the receiving site,conservation translocation; dragonfly reintroduction; odonata; long-term monitoring,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,DOLNY A;SIGUTOVA H;OZANA S;CHOLEVA L,"conservation translocations (including reintroductions) are potentially powerful tools for wildlife conservation, and their use has increased worldwide. however, most studies have focused on vertebrates, with the long-term impact and ecological progress of translocations being neglected. moreover, such projects rarely target insects. the present study reports the long-term persistence of a population of leucorrhinia dubia (odonata: libellulidae) reintroduced to artificially created bog pools in the czech republic. eighty (pen)ultimate instar l. dubia larvae were translocated in 2001, and the dragonfly assemblage at the reintroduction site was monitored for 15 years following larvae release. in 2015-2017, the capture-mark-recapture method, the jolly-seber model, and exuviae collection were used to evaluate the demography of the translocated population. microsatellite analysis was performed to assess the genetic variability of source and reintroduced populations. over the monitored period, population size increased (80 larvae released vs. 108-115 exuviae and 75 adults at the end of the study) and l. dubia became a dominant species, whereas the composition and abundance of the local dragonfly assemblage were not substantially changed. these results indicate that reintroductions are effective measures for dragonfly conservation, as translocating a relatively small number of individuals led to the establishment of a self-sustaining population. using (pen)ultimate instar larvae was optimal for dragonfly translocation, but the availability of a high-quality habitat and the active collaboration with nature conservation authorities were vital for the successful outcome. genetic analysis suggested that the translocated population might serve as a source of genetic variation for the original population, if depleted." @@ -169,7 +169,7 @@ a novel approach to estimating density of american badgers (taxidea taxus) using fitness correlates of age at primiparity in a hunted moose population,age of maturity; cost of reproduction; individual heterogeneity; life history; ungulates,OECOLOGIA,MARKUSSEN SS;LOISON A;HERFINDAL I;SOLBERG EJ;HAANES H;ROED KH;HEIM M;SAETHER BE,"trade-offs between fitness-related traits are predicted from the principle of resource allocation, where increased fecundity or parental investment leads to reduced future reproduction or survival. however, fitness traits can also be positively correlated due to individual differences (e.g. body mass). age at primiparity could potentially explain variation in individual fitness either because early primiparity is costly, or it may lead to higher lifetime reproductive success. based on long-term monitoring and genetic parentage assignment of an island population of moose, we quantified reproductive performance and survival, and examined whether early maturing females have higher total calf production than late maturing females. we explored if harvesting of calves affected the subsequent reproductive success of their mothers, i.e. also due to a post-weaning cost of reproduction, and whether there are any intergenerational effects of female reproductive success. there was a positive relationship between current and future reproduction. the probability to reproduce was lower for females that were unsuccessful the year before, indicating a strong quality effect on productivity. females that started to reproduce as 2-year olds had a slightly higher total calf production compared to those starting at age three or four. high-performing mothers were also correlated with daughters that performed well in terms of reproductive success. our results suggest that the observed individual heterogeneity in fitness could be associated with differences in age at primiparity. this heterogeneity was not affected by reproductive costs associated with tending for a calf post-weaning." completeness and reliability of mortality data in viet nam: implications for the national routine health management information system,NA,PLOS ONE,HONG TT;HOA NP;WALKER SM;HILL PS;RAO C,"background mortality statistics form a crucial component of national health management information systems (hmis). however, there are limitations in the availability and quality of mortality data at national level in viet nam. this study assessed the completeness of recorded deaths and the reliability of recorded causes of death (cod) in the a6 death registers in the national routine hmis in viet nam. methodology and findings 1477 identified deaths in 2014 were reviewed in two provinces. a capture-recapture method was applied to assess the completeness of the a6 death registers. 1365 household verbal autopsy (va) interviews were successfully conducted, and these were reviewed by physicians who assigned multiple and underlying cause of death (ucod). these ucods from va were then compared with the cods recorded in the a6 death registers, using kappa scores to assess the reliability of the a6 death register diagnoses. the overall completeness of the a6 death registers in the two provinces was 89.3% (95% ci: 87.8-90.8). no cod recorded in the a6 death registers demonstrated good reliability. there is very low reliability in recording of cardiovascular deaths (kappa for stroke = 0.47 and kappa for ischaemic heart diseases = 0.42) and diabetes (kappa = 0.33). the reporting of deaths due to road traffic accidents, hiv and some cancers are at a moderate level of reliability with kappa scores ranging between 0.57-0.69 (p< 0.01). va methods identify more specific cod than the a6 death registers, and also allow identification of multiple cods. conclusions the study results suggest that data completeness in hmis a6 death registers in the study sample of communes was relatively high (nearly 90%), but triangulation with death records from other sources would improve the completeness of this system. further, there is an urgent need to enhance the reliability of cod recorded in the a6 death registers, for which va methods could be effective. focussed consultation among stakeholders is needed to develop a suitable mechanism and process for integrating va methods into the national routine hmis a6 death registers in viet nam." estimating population extinction thresholds with categorical classification trees for louisiana black bears,NA,PLOS ONE,LAUFENBERG JS;CLARK JD;CHANDLER RB,"monitoring vulnerable species is critical for their conservation. thresholds or tipping points are commonly used to indicate when populations become vulnerable to extinction and to trigger changes in conservation actions. however, quantitative methods to determine such thresholds have not been well explored. the louisiana black bear (ursus americanus luteolus) was removed from the list of threatened and endangered species under the u.s. endangered species act in 2016 and our objectives were to determine the most appropriate parameters and thresholds for monitoring and management action. capture mark recapture (cmr) data from 2006 to 2012 were used to estimate population parameters and variances. we used stochastic population simulations and conditional classification trees to identify demographic rates for monitoring that would be most indicative of heighted extinction risk. we then identified thresholds that would be reliable predictors of population viability. conditional classification trees indicated that annual apparent survival rates for adult females averaged over 5 years ((phi)over-bar(5)) was the best predictor of population persistence. specifically, population persistence was estimated to be >= 95% over 100 years when ((phi)over-bar(5) >= 0.90, suggesting that this statistic can be used as threshold to trigger management intervention. our evaluation produced monitoring protocols that reliably predicted population persistence and was cost-effective. we conclude that population projections and conditional classification trees can be valuable tools for identifying extinction thresholds used in monitoring programs." -environmental dna (edna): a tool for quantifying the abundant but elusive round goby (neogobius melanostomus),NA,PLOS ONE,NEVERS MB;BYAPPANAHALLI MN;MORRIS CC;SHIVELY D;PRZYBYLA-KELLY K;SPOLJARIC AM;DICKEY J;ROSEMAN EF,"environmental dna (edna) is revolutionizing biodiversity monitoring, occupancy estimates, and real-time detections of invasive species. in the great lakes, the round goby (neogobius melanostomus), an invasive benthic fish from the black sea, has spread to encompass all five lakes and many tributaries, outcompeting or consuming native species; however, estimates of round goby abundance are confounded by behavior and habitat preference, which impact reliable methods for estimating their population. by integrating edna into round goby monitoring, improved estimates of biomass may be obtainable. we conducted mesocosm experiments to estimate rates of goby dna shedding and decay. further, we compared edna with several methods of traditional field sampling to compare its use as an alternative/complementary monitoring method. environmental dna decay was comparable to other fish species, and first-order decay was lower at 12 degrees c (k = 0.043) than at 19 degrees c (k = 0.058). round goby edna was routinely detected in known invaded sites of lake michigan and its tributaries (range log10 4.8 +/- 6.2 cn/l), but not upstream of an artificial fish barrier. traditional techniques (mark-recapture, seining, trapping) in lakes michigan and huron resulted in fewer, more variable detections than edna, but trapping and edna were correlated (pearson r = 0.87). additional field testing will help correlate round goby abundance with edna, providing insight on its role as a prey fish and its impact on food webs." +environmental dna (edna): a tool for quantifying the abundant but elusive round goby (neogobius melanostomus),NA,PLOS ONE,NEVERS MB;BYAPPANAHALLI MN;MORRIS CC;SHIVELY D;PRZYBYLA KELLY K;SPOLJARIC AM;DICKEY J;ROSEMAN EF,"environmental dna (edna) is revolutionizing biodiversity monitoring, occupancy estimates, and real-time detections of invasive species. in the great lakes, the round goby (neogobius melanostomus), an invasive benthic fish from the black sea, has spread to encompass all five lakes and many tributaries, outcompeting or consuming native species; however, estimates of round goby abundance are confounded by behavior and habitat preference, which impact reliable methods for estimating their population. by integrating edna into round goby monitoring, improved estimates of biomass may be obtainable. we conducted mesocosm experiments to estimate rates of goby dna shedding and decay. further, we compared edna with several methods of traditional field sampling to compare its use as an alternative/complementary monitoring method. environmental dna decay was comparable to other fish species, and first-order decay was lower at 12 degrees c (k = 0.043) than at 19 degrees c (k = 0.058). round goby edna was routinely detected in known invaded sites of lake michigan and its tributaries (range log10 4.8 +/- 6.2 cn/l), but not upstream of an artificial fish barrier. traditional techniques (mark-recapture, seining, trapping) in lakes michigan and huron resulted in fewer, more variable detections than edna, but trapping and edna were correlated (pearson r = 0.87). additional field testing will help correlate round goby abundance with edna, providing insight on its role as a prey fish and its impact on food webs." when roads appear jaguars decline: increased access to an amazonian wilderness area reduces potential for jaguar conservation,NA,PLOS ONE,ESPINOSA S;CELIS G;BRANCH LC,"roads are a main threat to biodiversity conservation in the amazon, in part, because roads increase access for hunters. we examine how increased landscape access by hunters may lead to cascading effects that influence the prey community and abundance of the jaguar (panthera onca), the top amazonian terrestrial predator. understanding such ecological effects originating from anthropogenic actions is essential for conservation and management of wildlife populations in areas undergoing infrastructure development. our study was conducted in yasunf biosphere reserve, the protected area with highest potential for jaguar conservation in ecuador, and an area both threatened by road development and inhabited by indigenous groups dependent upon bushmeat. we surveyed prey and jaguar abundance with camera traps in four sites that differed in accessibility to hunters and used site occupancy and spatially explicit capture-recapture analyses to evaluate prey occurrence and estimate jaguar density, respectively. higher landscape accessibility to hunters was linked with lower occurrence and biomass of game, particularly white-lipped peccary (tayassu pecan) and collared peccary (pecari tajacu), the primary game for hunters and prey for jaguars. jaguar density was up to 18 times higher in the most remote site compared to the most accessible site. our results provide a strong case for the need to: 1) consider conservation of large carnivores and other wildlife in policies about road construction in protected areas, 2) coordinate conservation initiatives with local governments so that development activities do not conflict with conservation objectives, and 3) promote development of community-based strategies for wildlife management that account for the needs of large carnivores." living on the edge: opportunities for amur tiger recovery in china,amur tiger; habitat use; density; occupancy modeling; cattle grazing; transboundary conservation,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,WANG TM;ROYLE JA;SMITH JLD;ZOU L;LU XY;LI T;YANG HT;LI ZL;FENG RN;BIAN YJ;FENG LM;GE JP,"sporadic sightings of the endangered amur tiger panthera tigris altaica along the china-russia border during the late 1990s sparked efforts to expand this subspecies distribution and abundance by restoring potentially suitable habitats in the changbai mountains. to guide science-based recovery efforts and provide a baseline for future monitoring of this border population, empirical, quantitative information is needed on what resources and management practices promote or limit the occurrence of tigers in the region. we established a large-scale field camera-trapping network to estimate tiger density, survival and recruitment in the hunchun nature reserve and the surrounding area using an open population spatially explicit capture-recapture model. we then fitted an occupancy model that accounted for detectability and spatial autocorrelation to assess the relative influence of habitat, major prey, disturbance and management on tiger habitat use patterns. our results show that the ranges of most tigers abut the border with russia. tiger densities ranged between 0.20 and 0.27 individuals/100 km(2) over the study area; in the hunchun nature reserve, the tiger density was three times higher than that in the surrounding inland forested area. tiger occupancy was strongly negatively related to heavy cattle grazing, human settlements and roads and was positively associated with sika deer abundance and vegetation cover. these findings can help to identify the drivers of tiger declines and dispersal limits and refine strategies for tiger conservation in the human-dominated transboundary landscape. progressively alleviating the impacts of cattle and human disturbances on the forest, and simultaneously addressing the economic needs of local communities, should be key priority actions to increase tiger populations. the long-term goal is to expand tiger distribution by improving habitats for large ungulates." wildlife disease ecology from the individual to the population: insights from a long-term study of a naturally infected european badger population,disease dynamics; disease ecology; long-term study; mycobacterium bovis; pathogen transmission; superspreader; wildlife epidemiology,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,MCDONALD JL;ROBERTSON A;SILK MJ,"1. long-term individual-based datasets on host-pathogen systems are a rare and valuable resource for understanding the infectious disease dynamics in wildlife. a study of european badgers (meles meles) naturally infected with bovine tuberculosis (btb) at woodchester park in gloucestershire (uk) has produced a unique dataset, facilitating investigation of a diverse range of epidemiological and ecological questions with implications for disease management. 2. since the 1970s, this badger population has been monitored with a systematic mark-recapture regime yielding a dataset of >15,000 captures of >3,000 individuals, providing detailed individual life-history, morphometric, genetic, reproductive and disease data. 3. the annual prevalence of btb in the woodchester park badger population exhibits no straightforward relationship with population density, and both the incidence and prevalence of mycobacterium bovis show marked variation in space. the study has revealed phenotypic traits that are critical for understanding the social structure of badger populations along with mechanisms vital for understanding disease spread at different spatial resolutions. 4. woodchester-based studies have provided key insights into how host ecology can influence infection at different spatial and temporal scales. specifically, it has revealed heterogeneity in epidemiological parameters; intrinsic and extrinsic factors affecting population dynamics; provided insights into senescence and individual life histories; and revealed consistent individual variation in foraging patterns, refuge use and social interactions. 5. an improved understanding of ecological and epidemiological processes is imperative for effective disease management. woodchester park research has provided information of direct relevance to btb management, and a better appreciation of the role of individual heterogeneity in disease transmission can contribute further in this regard. 6. the woodchester park study system now offers a rare opportunity to seek a dynamic understanding of how individual-, group- and population-level processes interact. the wealth of existing data makes it possible to take a more integrative approach to examining how the consequences of individual heterogeneity scale to determine population-level pathogen dynamics and help advance our understanding of the ecological drivers of host-pathogen systems." @@ -181,12 +181,12 @@ insights on dispersal and recruitment paradigms: sex-and age-dependent variation "optimizing lifetime reproductive output: intermittent breeding as a tactic for females in a long-lived, multiparous mammal",finite-mixture capture-recapture models; individual heterogeneity; life-history trade-offs; mirounga leonina; reproductive costs; state uncertainty,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,DESPREZ M;GIMENEZ O;MCMAHON CR;HINDELL MA;HARCOURT RG,"1. in iteroparous species, intermittent breeding is an important life-history tactic that can greatly affect animal population growth and viability. despite its importance, few studies have quantified the consequences of breeding pauses on lifetime reproductive output, principally because calculating lifetime reproductive output requires knowledge of each individual's entire reproductive history. this information is extremely difficult to obtain in wild populations. 2. we applied novel statistical approaches that account for uncertainty in state assessment and individual heterogeneity to an 18-year capture-recapture dataset of 6,631 female southern elephant seals from macquarie island. we estimated survival and breeding probabilities, and investigated the consequences of intermittent breeding on lifetime reproductive output. 3. we found consistent differences in females' demographic performance between two heterogeneity classes. in particular, breeding imbued a high cost on survival in the females from the heterogeneity class 2, assumed to be females of lower quality. individual quality also appeared to play a major role in a female's decision to skip reproduction with females of poorer quality more likely to skip breeding events than females of higher quality. 4. skipping some breeding events allowed females from both heterogeneity classes to increase lifetime reproductive output over females that bred annually. however, females of lower quality produced less offspring over their lifetime. 5. intermittent breeding seems to be used by female southern elephant seals as a tactic to offset reproductive costs on survival and enhance lifetime reproductive output but remains unavoidable and driven by individual-specific constraints in some other females." interacting effects of unobserved heterogeneity and individual stochasticity in the life history of the southern fulmar,frailty; individual quality; latent; life expectancy; lifetime reproductive success,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,JENOUVRIER S;AUBRY LM;BARBRAUD C;WEIMERSKIRCH H;CASWELL H,"1. individuals are heterogeneous in many ways. some of these differences are incorporated as individual states (e.g. age, size, breeding status) in population models. however, substantial amounts of heterogeneity may remain unaccounted for, due to unmeasurable genetic, maternal or environmental factors. 2. such unobserved heterogeneity (uh) affects the behaviour of heterogeneous cohorts via intra-cohort selection and contributes to inter-individual variance in demographic outcomes such as longevity and lifetime reproduction. variance is also produced by individual stochasticity, due to random events in the life cycle of wild organisms, yet no study thus far has attempted to decompose the variance in demographic outcomes into contributions from uh and individual stochasticity for an animal population in the wild. 3. we developed a stage-classified matrix population model for the southern fulmar breeding on ile des petrels, antarctica. we applied multievent, multistate mark-recapture methods to estimate a finite mixture model accounting for uh in all vital rates and markov chain methods to calculate demographic outcomes. finally, we partitioned the variance in demographic outcomes into contributions from uh and individual stochasticity. 4. we identify three uh groups, differing substantially in longevity, lifetime reproductive output, age at first reproduction and in the proportion of the life spent in each reproductive state. - 14% of individuals at fledging have a delayed but high probability of recruitment and extended reproductive life span. - 67% of individuals are less likely to reach adulthood, recruit late and skip breeding often but have the highest adult survival rate. - 19% of individuals recruit early and attempt to breed often. they are likely to raise their offspring successfully, but experience a relatively short life span. unobserved heterogeneity only explains a small fraction of the variances in longevity (5.9%), age at first reproduction (3.7%) and lifetime reproduction (22%). 5. uh can affect the entire life cycle, including survival, development and reproductive rates, with consequences over the lifetime of individuals and impacts on cohort dynamics. the respective role of uh vs. individual stochasticity varies greatly among demographic outcomes. we discuss the implication of our finding for the gradient of life-history strategies observed among species and argue that individual differences should be accounted for in demographic studies of wild populations." generalized spatial mark-resight models with an application to grizzly bears,banff national park; carnivore; grizzly bear; hierarchical model; point process models; population density; remote camera; spatial capture-recapture; spatial mark-resight; telemetry,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,WHITTINGTON J;HEBBLEWHITE M;CHANDLER RB,"1. the high cost associated with capture-recapture studies presents a major challenge when monitoring and managing wildlife populations. recently developed spatial mark-resight (smr) models were proposed as a cost-effective alternative because they only require a single marking event. however, existing smr models ignore the marking process and make the tenuous assumption that marked and unmarked populations have the same encounter probabilities. this assumption will be violated in most situations because the marking process results in different spatial distributions of marked and unmarked animals. 2. we developed a generalized smr model that includes sub-models for the marking and resighting processes, thereby relaxing the assumption that marked and unmarked populations have the same spatial distributions and encounter probabilities. 3. our simulation study demonstrated that conventional smr models produce biased density estimates with low credible interval coverage (cic) when marked and unmarked animals had differing spatial distributions. in contrast, generalized smr models produced unbiased density estimates with correct cic in all scenarios. 4. we applied our smr model to grizzly bear (ursus arctos) data where the marking process occurred along a transportation route through banff and yoho national parks, canada. twenty-two grizzly bears were trapped, fitted with radiocollars and then detected along with unmarked bears on 214 remote cameras. closed population density estimates (posterior median1 sd) averaged from 2012 to 2014 were much lower for conventional smr models (7.41.0 bears per 1,000km(2)) than for generalized smr models (12.4 +/- 1.5). when compared to previous dna-based estimates, conventional smr estimates erroneously suggested a 51% decline in density. conversely, generalized smr estimates were similar to previous estimates, indicating that the grizzly bear population was relatively stable. 5. synthesis and applications. mark-resight studies often cost less than capture-recapture studies, but require that marked and unmarked animals have equal encounter rates. generalized spatial mark-resight models relax this assumption by including sub-models for both the marking and resighting processes. they produce unbiased density estimates even when marked and unmarked animals have differing spatial distributions and encounter rates. they thus provide a cost-effective and widely applicable approach for estimating the density of wildlife populations." -"high genetic structure and low mitochondrial diversity in bottlenose dolphins of the archipelago of bocas del toro, panama: a population at risk?",NA,PLOS ONE,BARRAGAN-BARRERA DC;MAY-COLLADO LJ;TEZANOS-PINTO G;ISLAS-VILLANUEVA V;CORREA-CARDENAS CA;CABALLERO S,"the current conservation status of the bottlenose dolphin (tursiops truncatus) under the iucn is 'least concern'. however, in the caribbean, small and localized populations of the 'inshore form' may be at higher risk of extinction than the 'worldwide distributed form' due to a combination of factors including small population size, high site fidelity, genetic isolation, and range overlap with human activities. here, we study the population genetic structure of bottlenose dolphins from the archipelago of bocas del toro in panama. this is a small population characterized by high site fidelity and is currently heavily-impacted by the local dolphin- watching industry. we collected skin tissue samples from 25 dolphins to study the genetic diversity and structure of this population. we amplified a portion of the mitochondrial control region (mtdna-cr) and nine microsatellite loci. the mtdna-cr analyses revealed that dolphins in bocas del toro belong to the 'inshore form', grouped with the bahamascolombia- cuba-mexico population unit. they also possess a unique haplotype new for the caribbean. the microsatellite data indicated that the bocas del toro dolphin population is highly structured, likely due to restricted movement patterns. previous abundance estimates obtained with mark-recapture methods reported a small population of 80 dolphins (95% ci = 72-87), which is similar to the contemporary effective population size estimated in this study (ne = 73 individuals; ci = 18.0 - infinity; 0.05). the combination of small population size, high degree of genetic isolation, and intense daily interactions with dolphin-watching boats puts the bocas del toro dolphin to at high risk of extinction. despite national guidelines to regulate the dolphin-watching industry in bocas del toro and ongoing educational programs for tour operators, only in 2012 seven animals have died due to boat collisions. our results suggest that the conservation status of bottlenose dolphins in bocas del toro should be elevated to 'endangered' at the national level, as a precautionary measure while population and viability estimates are conducted." +"high genetic structure and low mitochondrial diversity in bottlenose dolphins of the archipelago of bocas del toro, panama: a population at risk?",NA,PLOS ONE,BARRAGAN BARRERA DC;MAY COLLADO LJ;TEZANOS PINTO G;ISLAS VILLANUEVA V;CORREA CARDENAS CA;CABALLERO S,"the current conservation status of the bottlenose dolphin (tursiops truncatus) under the iucn is 'least concern'. however, in the caribbean, small and localized populations of the 'inshore form' may be at higher risk of extinction than the 'worldwide distributed form' due to a combination of factors including small population size, high site fidelity, genetic isolation, and range overlap with human activities. here, we study the population genetic structure of bottlenose dolphins from the archipelago of bocas del toro in panama. this is a small population characterized by high site fidelity and is currently heavily-impacted by the local dolphin- watching industry. we collected skin tissue samples from 25 dolphins to study the genetic diversity and structure of this population. we amplified a portion of the mitochondrial control region (mtdna-cr) and nine microsatellite loci. the mtdna-cr analyses revealed that dolphins in bocas del toro belong to the 'inshore form', grouped with the bahamascolombia- cuba-mexico population unit. they also possess a unique haplotype new for the caribbean. the microsatellite data indicated that the bocas del toro dolphin population is highly structured, likely due to restricted movement patterns. previous abundance estimates obtained with mark-recapture methods reported a small population of 80 dolphins (95% ci = 72-87), which is similar to the contemporary effective population size estimated in this study (ne = 73 individuals; ci = 18.0 - infinity; 0.05). the combination of small population size, high degree of genetic isolation, and intense daily interactions with dolphin-watching boats puts the bocas del toro dolphin to at high risk of extinction. despite national guidelines to regulate the dolphin-watching industry in bocas del toro and ongoing educational programs for tour operators, only in 2012 seven animals have died due to boat collisions. our results suggest that the conservation status of bottlenose dolphins in bocas del toro should be elevated to 'endangered' at the national level, as a precautionary measure while population and viability estimates are conducted." estimating dispersal rates of steller sea lion (eumetopias jubatus) mother-pup pairs from a natal rookery using mark-resight data,NA,PLOS ONE,KUHN CE;CHUMBLEY K;FRITZ L;JOHNSON D,"to monitor population trends of steller sea lions (eumetopias jubatus) in alaska, newborn pups are counted during aerial surveys. these surveys are scheduled to occur after the majority of pups are born, but before pups begin to spend significant time in the water. some studies have reported dispersal of mother-pup pairs away from breeding beaches during the pupping season (july), which may influence survey results. using a multistate mark-recapture model with state uncertainty, we estimated the amount of dispersal during the pupping season based on observations of permanently marked sea lions. research was conducted at land-based observation sites on marmot island, alaska, between 2000 and 2013. both marked adult females with dependent pups and marked pups were observed at two rookery beaches from may to july. cumulative dispersal rates were minimal (< 1%) prior to the planned start of the aerial survey (23 june) and increased to 11.2% by the planned survey completion date (10 july). the increased cumulative dispersal rate during the remainder of the observation period (end of july) suggests potential bias in surveys that occur beyond 10 july, however surveys past this date are rare (< 10% between 1973 and 2016). as a result, movements of mother-pup pairs during the pupping season are not likely to influence aerial survey estimates." response of pumas (puma concolor) to migration of their primary prey in patagonia,NA,PLOS ONE,GELIN ML;BRANCH LC;THORNTON DH;NOVARO AJ;GOULD MJ;CARAGIULO A,"large-scale ungulate migrations result in changes in prey availability for top predators and, as a consequence, can alter predator behavior. migration may include entire populations of prey species, but often prey populations exhibit partial migration with some individuals remaining resident and others migrating. interactions of migratory prey and predators have been documented in north america and some other parts of the world, but are poorly studied in south america. we examined the response of pumas (puma concolor) to seasonal migration of guanacos (lama guanicoe) in la payunia reserve in northern patagonia argentina, which is the site of the longest known ungulate migration in south america. more than 15,000 guanacos migrate seasonally in this landscape, and some guanacos also are resident year-round. we hypothesized that pumas would respond to the guanaco migration by consuming more alternative prey rather than migrating with guanacos because of the territoriality of pumas and availability of alternative prey throughout the year at this site. to determine whether pumas moved seasonally with the guanacos, we conducted camera trapping in the summer and winter range of guanacos across both seasons and estimated density of pumas with spatial mark-resight (smr) models. also, we analyzed puma scats to assess changes in prey consumption in response to guanaco migration. density estimates of pumas did not change significantly in the winter and summer range of guanacos when guanacos migrated to and from these areas, indicating that pumas do not follow the migration of guanacos. pumas also did not consume more alternative native prey or livestock when guanaco availability was lower, but rather fed primarily on guanacos and some alternative prey during all seasons. alternative prey were most common in the diet during summer when guanacos also were abundant on the summer range. the response of pumas to the migration of guanacos differs from sites in the western north america where entire prey populations migrate and pumas migrate with their prey or switch to more abundant prey when their primary prey migrates." does forest extent affect salamander survival? evidence from a long-term demographic study of a tropical newt,core terrestrial habitat; mark-recapture; paramesotriton hongkongensis; robust design; salamandridae,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,LAU A;KARRAKER NE;DUDGEON D,"forest loss has been associated with reduced survival in many vertebrates, and previous research on amphibians has mostly focused on effects at early life stages. paramesotriton hongkongensis is a tropical newt that breeds in streams but spends up to 10months per year in terrestrial habitats. populations are threatened by habitat degradation and collection for the pet trade, but the cryptic terrestrial lifestyle of this newt has limited our understanding of its population ecology, which inhibits development of a species-specific conservation plan. we conducted an eight-year (2007-2014) mark-recapture study on four p. hongkongensis populations in hong kong and used these data to evaluate relationships between forest cover, body size, and rainfall on survival and to estimate population sizes. hong kong has been subjected to repeated historic territory-wide deforestation, and thus, we wanted to determine whether there was a link between forest extent as a proxy of habitat quality and newt demography. annual survival was positively associated with forest cover within core habitat of all populations and negatively related to body size. mean annual survival (similar to 60%) was similar to that of other stream-dwelling amphibians, but varied among years and declined substantially in 2012-2013, perhaps due to illegal collection. despite the link between forest extent and survival, population sizes declined at the most forested site by 40% and increased by 104% and 134% at two others. forest protection and consequential secondary succession during recent decades in hong kong may have been responsible for persistence of p. hongkongensis populations." -"quantifying long-term population growth rates of threatened bull trout: challenges, lessons learned, and opportunities",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,BUDY PE;BOWERMAN T;AL-CHOKHACHY R;CONNER M;SCHALLER H,"temporal symmetry models (tsm) represent advances in the analytical application of mark-recapture data to population status assessments. for a population of char, we employed 10 years of active and passive mark-recapture data to quantify population growth rates using different data sources and analytical approaches. estimates of adult population growth rate were 1.01 (95% confidence interval = 0.84-1.20) using a temporal symmetry model (lambda(tsm)), 0.96 (0.68-1.34) based on logistic regressions of annual snorkel data (lambda(a)), and 0.92 (0.77-1.11) from redd counts (lambda(r)). top-performing tsms included an increasing time trend in recruitment (f) and changes in capture probability (p). there was only a 1% chance the population decreased >= 50%, and a 10% chance it decreased >= 30% (lambda(mcmc); based on bayesian markov chain monte carlo procedure). size structure was stable; however, the adult population was dominated by small adults, and over the study period there was a decline in the contribution of large adults to total biomass. juvenile condition decreased with increasing adult densities. utilization of these different information sources provided a robust weight-of-evidence approach to identifying population status and potential mechanisms driving changes in population growth rates." -reliable effective number of breeders/adult census size ratios in seasonal-breeding species: opportunity for integrative demographic inferences based on capture-mark-recapture data and multilocus genotypes,amphibians; demography; mating system; polygamy; sample size; sibship size prior,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SANCHEZ-MONTES G;WANG JL;ARINO AH;VIZMANOS JL;MARTINEZ-SOLANO I,"the ratio of the effective number of breeders (n-b) to the adult census size (n-a), n-b/n-a, approximates the departure from the standard capacity of a population to maintain genetic diversity in one reproductive season. this information is relevant for assessing population status, understanding evolutionary processes operating at local scales, and unraveling how life-history traits affect these processes. however, our knowledge on n-b/n-a ratios in nature is limited because estimation of both parameters is challenging. the sibship frequency (sf) method is adequate for reliable n-b estimation because it is based on sibship and parentage reconstruction from genetic marker data, thereby providing demographic inferences that can be compared with field-based information. in addition, capture-mark-recapture (cmr) robust design methods are well suited for n-a estimation in seasonal-breeding species. we used tadpole genotypes of three pond-breeding amphibian species (epidalea calamita, hyla molleri, and pelophylax perezi, n=73-96 single-cohort tadpoles/species genotyped at 15-17 microsatellite loci) and candidate parental genotypes (n=94-300 adults/species) to estimate n-b by the sf method. to assess the reliability of n-b estimates, we compared sibship and parentage inferences with field-based information and checked for the convergence of results in replicated subsampled analyses. finally, we used cmr data from a 6-year monitoring program to estimate annual n-a in the three species and calculate the n-b/n-a ratio. reliable ratios were obtained for e.calamita (n-b/n-a=0.18-0.28) and p.perezi (0.5), but in h.molleri, n-a could not be estimated and genetic information proved insufficient for reliable n-b estimation. integrative demographic studies taking full advantage of sf and cmr methods can provide accurate estimates of the n-b/n-a ratio in seasonal-breeding species. importantly, the sf method provides results that can be readily evaluated for reliability. this represents a good opportunity for obtaining robust demographic inferences with wide applications for evolutionary and conservation research." +"quantifying long-term population growth rates of threatened bull trout: challenges, lessons learned, and opportunities",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,BUDY PE;BOWERMAN T;AL CHOKHACHY R;CONNER M;SCHALLER H,"temporal symmetry models (tsm) represent advances in the analytical application of mark-recapture data to population status assessments. for a population of char, we employed 10 years of active and passive mark-recapture data to quantify population growth rates using different data sources and analytical approaches. estimates of adult population growth rate were 1.01 (95% confidence interval = 0.84-1.20) using a temporal symmetry model (lambda(tsm)), 0.96 (0.68-1.34) based on logistic regressions of annual snorkel data (lambda(a)), and 0.92 (0.77-1.11) from redd counts (lambda(r)). top-performing tsms included an increasing time trend in recruitment (f) and changes in capture probability (p). there was only a 1% chance the population decreased >= 50%, and a 10% chance it decreased >= 30% (lambda(mcmc); based on bayesian markov chain monte carlo procedure). size structure was stable; however, the adult population was dominated by small adults, and over the study period there was a decline in the contribution of large adults to total biomass. juvenile condition decreased with increasing adult densities. utilization of these different information sources provided a robust weight-of-evidence approach to identifying population status and potential mechanisms driving changes in population growth rates." +reliable effective number of breeders/adult census size ratios in seasonal-breeding species: opportunity for integrative demographic inferences based on capture-mark-recapture data and multilocus genotypes,amphibians; demography; mating system; polygamy; sample size; sibship size prior,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SANCHEZ MONTES G;WANG JL;ARINO AH;VIZMANOS JL;MARTINEZ SOLANO I,"the ratio of the effective number of breeders (n-b) to the adult census size (n-a), n-b/n-a, approximates the departure from the standard capacity of a population to maintain genetic diversity in one reproductive season. this information is relevant for assessing population status, understanding evolutionary processes operating at local scales, and unraveling how life-history traits affect these processes. however, our knowledge on n-b/n-a ratios in nature is limited because estimation of both parameters is challenging. the sibship frequency (sf) method is adequate for reliable n-b estimation because it is based on sibship and parentage reconstruction from genetic marker data, thereby providing demographic inferences that can be compared with field-based information. in addition, capture-mark-recapture (cmr) robust design methods are well suited for n-a estimation in seasonal-breeding species. we used tadpole genotypes of three pond-breeding amphibian species (epidalea calamita, hyla molleri, and pelophylax perezi, n=73-96 single-cohort tadpoles/species genotyped at 15-17 microsatellite loci) and candidate parental genotypes (n=94-300 adults/species) to estimate n-b by the sf method. to assess the reliability of n-b estimates, we compared sibship and parentage inferences with field-based information and checked for the convergence of results in replicated subsampled analyses. finally, we used cmr data from a 6-year monitoring program to estimate annual n-a in the three species and calculate the n-b/n-a ratio. reliable ratios were obtained for e.calamita (n-b/n-a=0.18-0.28) and p.perezi (0.5), but in h.molleri, n-a could not be estimated and genetic information proved insufficient for reliable n-b estimation. integrative demographic studies taking full advantage of sf and cmr methods can provide accurate estimates of the n-b/n-a ratio in seasonal-breeding species. importantly, the sf method provides results that can be readily evaluated for reliability. this represents a good opportunity for obtaining robust demographic inferences with wide applications for evolutionary and conservation research." examining the occupancy-density relationship for a low-density carnivore,carnivore; density estimation; detection-non-detection data; fisher; hair snares; non-invasive sampling; occupancy; pekania pennanti; remote cameras; spatial capture-recapture,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,LINDEN DW;FULLER AK;ROYLE JA;HARE MP,"1. the challenges associated with monitoring low-density carnivores across large landscapes have limited the ability to implement and evaluate conservation and management strategies for such species. non-invasive sampling techniques and advanced statistical approaches havealleviated some of these challenges and can even allow for spatially explicit estimates of density, one of the most valuable wildlife monitoring tools. 2. for some species, individual identification comes at no cost when unique attributes (e.g. pelage patterns) can be discerned with remote cameras, while other species require viable genetic material and expensive laboratory processing for individual assignment. prohibitive costs may still force monitoring efforts to use species distribution or occupancy as a surrogate for density, which may not be appropriate under many conditions. 3. here, we used a large-scale monitoring study of fisher pekania pennanti to evaluate the effectiveness of occupancy as an approximation to density, particularly for informing harvest management decisions. we combined remote cameras with baited hair snares during 2013-2015 to sample across a 70096-km(2) region of western new york, usa. we fit occupancy and royle-nichols models to species detection-non-detection data collected by cameras, and spatial capture-recapture (scr) models to individual encounter data obtained by genotyped hair samples. variation in the state variables within 15-km(2) grid cells was modelled as a function of landscape attributes known to influence fisher distribution. 4. we found a close relationship between grid cell estimates of fisher state variables from the models using detection-non-detection data and those from the scr model, likely due to informative spatial covariates across a large landscape extent and a grid cell resolution that worked well with the movement ecology of the species. fisher occupancy and density were both positively associated with the proportion of coniferous-mixed forest and negatively associated with road density. as a result, spatially explicit management recommendations for fisher were similar across models, though relative variation was dampened for the detection-non-detection data. 5. synthesis and applications. our work provides empirical evidence that models using detection-non-detection data can make similar inferences regarding relative spatial variation of the focal population to models using more expensive individual encounters when the selected spatial grain approximates or is marginally smaller than home range size. when occupancy alone is chosen as a cost-effective state variable for monitoring, simulation and sensitivity analyses should be used to understand how inferences from detection-non-detection data will be affected by aspects of study design and species ecology." are removal-based abundance models robust to fish behavior?,depletion estimate; removal estimate; bias; mark recapture; abundance; fish behavior,FISHERIES RESEARCH,VAN POORTEN BT;BARRETT B;WALTERS CJ;AHRENS RNM,"removal methods are some of the most common statistical tools for estimating fish abundance in streams and lakes, yet they are prone to produce biased estimates when the assumption of constant capture probability is violated. in response, numerous authors have modified the classic removal models to control for non-constant capture probability. a variety of fish behaviors can cause capture, probability to vary across individuals or over time, such as dominance hierarchies, escaping capture or persistent individual differences in capture probability due to activity or aggression; yet knowing exactly which behaviors may affect capture probability is generally unknown. we assessed the robustness of five removal models (i.e., the leslie model, three behavior-dependent models and a density dependent capture probability model) and their ability to provide consistently accurate and precise abundance estimates irrespective of the exhibited behavior. we fitted each model to catch data generated from five behavioral models that mimicked a range of animal behaviors in a closed population. additionally, we evaluated the improvements that can be gained by including marked fish in the removal process and in that case, compared estimation models with a peterson mark-recapture estimation. results indicate that no single removal model is robust to non-constant capture probability, however, the density-dependent capture probability model performed moderately better than other models when only removal data were used. we found that the addition of marked fish results in a substantial improvement in accuracy and precision across all removal models when mark-recapture assumptions are met. however, these improvements diminished substantially when mark-recapture assumptions were violated. due to the difficulties in assessing assumptions, our findings suggest that including marked fish in the removal process may unknowingly reduce accuracy and precision of initial abundance estimate and that this type of experimental design should be avoided in many instances." "vertical organization of the division of labor within nests of the florida harvester ant, pogonomyrmex badius",NA,PLOS ONE,TSCHINKEL WR;HANLEY N,"in the florida harvester ant, pogonomyrmex badius, foragers occur only in the top 15 cm of the nest, whereas brood and brood-care workers reside mostly in the deepest regions, yet the food and seeds foragers collect must be transported downward 30 to 80 cm to seed chambers and up to 2 m to brood chambers. using mark-recapture techniques with fluorescent printer's ink, we identified a class of workers that ranges widely within the vertical structure of the nest, rapidly moving materials dropped by foragers in the upper regions downward, and excavated soil from deeper upward. within the nest, only 5% of foragers were recovered below 20 cm depth, but about 30% of transfer workers and 82% of unmarked workers were found there. below 70 cm depth, 90% of workers were unmarked, and were probably involved mostly in brood care. during the summer, the transfer workers comprise about a quarter of the nest population, while foragers make up about 40%. workers marked as transfer workers later appear as foragers, while those marked as foragers die and disappear from the foraging population, suggesting that transfer workers are younger, and age into foraging. the importance of these findings for laboratory studies of division of labor are discussed. the efficient allocation of labor is a key component of superorganismal fitness." @@ -200,40 +200,40 @@ the robustness of brownie tag return models to complex spatiotemporal dynamics e from gestation to weaning: combining robust design and multi-event models unveils cost of lactation in a large herbivore,cmr; individual heterogeneity; juvenile survival; pyrenean chamois rupicapra pyrenaica pyrenaica; reproductive success; trade-offs; ungulates,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,RICHARD Q;TOIGO C;APPOLINAIRE J;LOISON A;GAREL M,"the cost of current reproduction on survival or future reproduction is one of the most studied trade-offs governing resource distribution between fitness components. results have often been clouded, however, by the existence of individual heterogeneity, with high-quality individuals able to allocate energy to several functions simultaneously, at no apparent cost. surprisingly, it has also rarely been assessed within a breeding season by breaking down the various reproductive efforts of females from gestation to weaning, even though resource availability and energy requirements vary greatly. we filled this gap by using an intensively monitored population of pyrenean chamois and by expanding a new methodological approach integrating robust design in a multi-event framework. we distinguished females that gave birth or not, and among reproducing females whether they lost their kid or successfully raised it until weaning. we estimated spring and summer juvenile survival, investigated whether gestation, lactation or weaning incurred costs on the next reproductive occasion, and assessed how individual heterogeneity influenced the detection of such costs. contrary to expectations if trade-offs occur, we found a positive relationship between gestation and adult survival suggesting that non-breeding females are in poor condition. costs of reproduction were expressed through negative relationships between lactation and both subsequent breeding probability and spring juvenile survival. such costs could be detected only once individual heterogeneity (assessed as two groups contrasting good vs. poor breeders) and time variations in juvenile survival were accounted for. early lactation decreased the probability of future reproduction, providing quantitative evidence of the fitness cost of this period recognized as the most energetically demanding in female mammals and critical for neonatal survival. the new approach employed made it possible to estimate two components of kid survival that are often considered practically unavailable in free-ranging populations, and also revealed that reproductive costs appeared only when contrasting the different stages of reproductive effort. from an evolutionary perspective, our findings stressed the importance of the temporal resolution at which reproductive cost is studied, and also provided insights on the reproductive period during which internal and external factors would be expected to have the greatest fitness impact." state-space mark-recapture estimates reveal a recent decline in abundance of north atlantic right whales,bayesian mark-recapture; eubalaena glacialis; open population abundance; recovery; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,PACE RM;CORKERON PJ;KRAUS SD,"north atlantic right whales (eubalaena glacialis muller 1776) present an interesting problem for abundance and trend estimation in marine wildlife conservation. they are long lived, individually identifiable, highly mobile, and one of the rarest of cetaceans. individuals are annually resighted at different rates, primarily due to varying stay durations among several principal habitats within a large geographic range. to date, characterizations of abundance have been produced that use simple accounting procedures with differing assumptions about mortality. to better characterize changing abundance of north atlantic right whales between 1990 and 2015, we adapted a state-space formulation with jolly-seber assumptions about population entry (birth and immigration) to individual resighting histories and fit it using empirical bayes methodology. this hierarchical model included accommodation for the effect of the substantial individual capture heterogeneity. estimates from this approach were only slightly higher than published accounting procedures, except for the most recent years (when recapture rates had declined substantially). north atlantic right whales' abundance increased at about 2.8% per annum from median point estimates of 270 individuals in 1990 to 483 in 2010, and then declined to 2015, when the final estimate was 458 individuals (95% credible intervals 444-471). the probability that the population's trajectory post-2010 was a decline was estimated at 99.99%. of special concern was the finding that reduced survival rates of adult females relative to adult males have produced diverging abundance trends between sexes. despite constraints in recent years, both biological (whales' distribution changing) and logistical (fewer resources available to collect individual photo-identifications), it is still possible to detect this relatively recent, small change in the population's trajectory. this is thanks to the massive dataset of individual north atlantic right whale identifications accrued over the past three decades. photo-identification data provide biological information that allows more informed inference on the status of this species." "density, abundance, survival, and ranging patterns of common bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in mississippi sound following the deepwater horizon oil spill",NA,PLOS ONE,MULLIN KD;MCDONALD T;WELLS RS;BALMER BC;SPEAKMAN T;SINCLAIR C;ZOLMAN ES;HORNSBY F;MCBRIDE SM;WILKINSON KA;SCHWACKE LH,"after the deepwater horizon (dwh) oil spill began in april 2010, studies were initiated on northern gulf of mexico common bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) in mississippi sound (mss) to determine density, abundance, and survival, during and after the oil spill, and to compare these results to previous research in this region. seasonal boat-based photo-identification surveys (2010-2012) were conducted in a section of mss to estimate dolphin density and survival, and satellite-linked telemetry (2013) was used to determine ranging patterns. telemetry suggested two different ranging patterns in mss: (1) inshore waters with seasonal movements into mid-mss, and (2) around the barrier islands exclusively. based upon these data, dolphin density was estimated in two strata (inshore and island) using a spatially-explicit robust-design capture-recapture model. inshore and island density varied between 0.77-1.61 dolphins km(-2) ((x) over bar = 1.42, 95% ci: 1.28-1.53) and 3.32-5.74 dolphins km(-2) ((x) over bar = 4.43, 95% ci: 2.70-5.63), respectively. the estimated annual survival rate for dolphins with distinctive fins was very low in the year following the spill, 0.73 (95% ci: 0.67-0.78), and consistent with the occurrence of a large scale cetacean unusual mortality event that was in part attributed to the dwh oil spill. fluctuations in density were not as large or seasonally consistent as previously reported. total abundance for mss extrapolated from density results ranged from 4,610 in july 2011 to 3,046 in january 2012 ((x) over bar = 3,469, 95% ci: 3,113-3,725)." -"apparent survival and cost of reproduction for white-lined tanager (tachyphonus rufus, thraupidae) in the northern atlantic rainforest, brazil",NA,PLOS ONE,MACARIO P;PICHORIM M;DOHERTY PF;TOLEDO-LIMA GS;OLIVEIRA TM;CAMARA TPF;MELO SM;SILVEIRA JLS;ARAUJO JC;FRANCA LF,"understanding latitudinal variation in avian life-history traits has been a focus of many demographic studies around the world. however, we still know little about annual or intra-annual demographic variation within tropical regions or about how factors such as breeding season and precipitation influence demographic rates. in this study, we estimated intra-annual apparent survival of the white-lined tanager (tachyphonus rufus) using capture-markrecapture data from northeastern brazil. we tested whether survival varied seasonally (breeding vs. non-breeding), with rainfall, by age and residence status in our study area. intra-annual apparent survival was correlated with the reproductive cycle, being lower during the breeding (0.65 +/- 0.16 se) vs. the non-breeding season (0.97 +/- 0.05 se). the annual apparent survival (similar to 0.6) was relatively low for a tropical species. in both years, we observed highest abundance in spring (november, 3.1-3.7 birds/ha) and lowest abundance in autumn-winter periods (may-august, 1.1-1.4 bird/ha). the low survival during the breeding season probably reflects the trade-off between survival and reproduction and the cost of reproduction. our findings represent an advance in the understanding of the demography of tropical birds because we did not find a predicted high annual apparent survival, and we elucidated some aspects of intra-annual variation in survival. further exploration of latitudinal variation in demographic traits, especially in diverse, but poorly known habitats is needed to fully vet and develop life history theories." +"apparent survival and cost of reproduction for white-lined tanager (tachyphonus rufus, thraupidae) in the northern atlantic rainforest, brazil",NA,PLOS ONE,MACARIO P;PICHORIM M;DOHERTY PF;TOLEDO LIMA GS;OLIVEIRA TM;CAMARA TPF;MELO SM;SILVEIRA JLS;ARAUJO JC;FRANCA LF,"understanding latitudinal variation in avian life-history traits has been a focus of many demographic studies around the world. however, we still know little about annual or intra-annual demographic variation within tropical regions or about how factors such as breeding season and precipitation influence demographic rates. in this study, we estimated intra-annual apparent survival of the white-lined tanager (tachyphonus rufus) using capture-markrecapture data from northeastern brazil. we tested whether survival varied seasonally (breeding vs. non-breeding), with rainfall, by age and residence status in our study area. intra-annual apparent survival was correlated with the reproductive cycle, being lower during the breeding (0.65 +/- 0.16 se) vs. the non-breeding season (0.97 +/- 0.05 se). the annual apparent survival (similar to 0.6) was relatively low for a tropical species. in both years, we observed highest abundance in spring (november, 3.1-3.7 birds/ha) and lowest abundance in autumn-winter periods (may-august, 1.1-1.4 bird/ha). the low survival during the breeding season probably reflects the trade-off between survival and reproduction and the cost of reproduction. our findings represent an advance in the understanding of the demography of tropical birds because we did not find a predicted high annual apparent survival, and we elucidated some aspects of intra-annual variation in survival. further exploration of latitudinal variation in demographic traits, especially in diverse, but poorly known habitats is needed to fully vet and develop life history theories." density-dependent signaling: an alternative hypothesis on the function of chemical signaling in a non-territorial solitary carnivore,NA,PLOS ONE,LAMB CT;MOWAT G;GILBERT SL;MCLELLAN BN;NIELSEN SE;BOUTIN S,"brown bears are known to use rubbing behavior as a means of chemical communication, but the function of this signaling is unclear. one hypothesis that has gained support is that male bears rub to communicate dominance to other males. we tested the communication of dominance hypothesis in a low-density brown bear population in southeast british columbia. we contrasted rubbing rates for male and female bears during and after the breeding season using ten years of dna-mark-recapture data for 643 individuals. here we demonstrate that male brown bears rub 60% more during the breeding than the non-breeding season, while female rubbing had no seasonal trends. per capita rub rates by males were, on average, 2.7 times higher than females. our results suggest that the function of rubbing in the rocky mountains may not only be to communicate dominance, but also to self-advertise for mate attraction. we propose that the role of chemical communication in this species may be density-dependent, where the need to self-advertise for mating is inversely related to population density and communicating for dominance increases with population density. we suggest that future endeavors to elucidate the function of rubbing should sample the behavior across a range of population densities using camera trap and genotypic data." mismeasured mortality: correcting estimates of wolf poaching in the united states,carnivore; endangered species; illegal; lethal control; mark-recapture; regulated take,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,TREVES A;ARTELLE KA;DARIMONT CT;PARSONS DR,"measuring rates and causes of mortalities is important in animal ecology and management. observing the fates of known individuals is a common method of estimating life history variables, including mortality patterns. it has long been assumed that data lost when known animals disappear were unbiased. we test and reject this assumption under conditions common to most, if not all, studies using marked animals. we illustrate the bias for 4 endangered wolf populations in the united states by reanalyzing data and assumptions about the known and unknown fates of marked wolves to calculate the degree to which risks of different causes of death were mismeasured. we find that, when using traditional methods, the relative risk of mortality from legal killing measured as a proportion of all known fates was overestimated by 0.05-0.16 and the relative risk of poaching was underestimated by 0.17-0.44. we show that published government estimates are affected by these biases and, importantly, are underestimating the risk of poaching. the underestimates have obscured the magnitude of poaching as the major threat to endangered wolf populations. we offer methods to correct estimates of mortality risk for marked animals of any taxon and describe the conditions under which traditional methods produce more or less bias. we also show how correcting past and future estimates of mortality parameters can address uncertainty about wildlife populations and increase the predictability and sustainability of wildlife management interventions." ecological and phenotypic effects on survival and habitat transitions of white-footed mice,fitness; habitat type; mark-recapture; multi-state model; peromyscus leucopus; space familiarity,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,HANNEBAUM SL;BROWN CR;BOOTH W,"animals often confine their movements to familiar areas and preferred habitats, resulting in increased fitness through enhanced survival and reproduction. however, the link between preferential habitat use and fitness is rarely tested, especially when individual phenotype is considered. through multi-state modeling of mark-recapture data, we assessed the influence of habitat type, sex, and body size on the daily survival and habitat-transition probabilities of white-footed mice (peromyscus leucopus). habitat states tested were forest edge versus forest interior, and grassy versus shrubby habitat. females were more likely to survive than males, and mass had a positive effect, whereas foot length a negative effect on survival. females were more likely to exhibit habitat-type fidelity between edge and interior states than males. body mass negatively affected daily transition between edge and interior, whereas foot length had a positive effect. individuals were most likely to remain within the shrubby habitat and leave the grassy habitat. mass had a negative effect on daily transition probability between grassy and shrubby habitats, foot length had a positive effect, and sex had no effect. individuals with the greatest probability of moving between habitat types had the lowest probability of survival, likely a result of occupying unfamiliar space. our results show that white-footed mice in general seem to select habitat types where fitness expectations are likely to be greatest, but that transitions between habitats often depend on phenotypic characteristics of individuals." "populations and activity patterns of clouded leopards and marbled cats in dampa tiger reserve, india",activity patterns; clouded leopard; conservation; ecology; felids; lushai hills; marbled cat; population,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,SINGH P;MACDONALD DW,"the rapidly declining tropical forests of asia support a diversity of felid species, many of which are rare and little known. we used camera traps in dampa tiger reserve (tr), mizoram, northeastern india, to estimate population density and describe activity patterns of 2 rare felids, the clouded leopard (neofelis nebulosa) and marbled cat (pardofelis marmorata). with a survey effort of 4,962 trap nights, we obtained 84 photo-captures of clouded leopards and 36 of marbled cats. we used spatially explicit capture-recapture methods to estimate population densities of both species. using the bayesian approach implemented in spacecap, we derived estimates of 5.14 (+/- 1.80 sd)/100 km(2) for clouded leopards and 5.03 (+/- 2.07 sd)/100 km(2) for marbled cats. using camera-trap images, we compared diel activity patterns and activity overlaps for these 2 rare felids, together with 3 other sympatric carnivores, by estimating a coefficient of overlap between species. among felids, clouded leopards and golden cats (catopuma temminckii) displayed the highest overlap in activity, whereas marbled cats and leopard cats (prionailurus bengalensis) showed the lowest, with marbled cats being primarily diurnal and leopard cats nocturnal. our study provides the first density estimates from continental southeast asia for marbled cats and one of the highest recorded densities for clouded leopards. these results are of special significance since dampa sustains an ecosystem that has in recent times undergone near extirpation of large predators." data integration for inference about spatial processes: a model-based approach to test and account for data inconsistency,NA,PLOS ONE,TENAN S;PEDRINI P;BRAGALANTI N;GROFF C;SUTHERLAND C,"recently-developed methods that integrate multiple data sources arising from the same ecological processes have typically utilized structured data from well-defined sampling protocols (e.g., capture-recapture and telemetry). despite this new methodological focus, the value of opportunistic data for improving inference about spatial ecological processes is unclear and, perhaps more importantly, no procedures are available to formally test whether parameter estimates are consistent across data sources and whether they are suitable for integration. using data collected on the reintroduced brown bear population in the italian alps, a population of conservation importance, we combined data from three sources: traditional spatial capture-recapture data, telemetry data, and opportunistic data. we developed a fully integrated spatial capture-recapture (scr) model that included a model-based test for data consistency to first compare model estimates using different combinations of data, and then, by acknowledging data-type differences, evaluate parameter consistency. we demonstrate that opportunistic data lend itself naturally to integration within the scr framework and highlight the value of opportunistic data for improving inference about space use and population size. this is particularly relevant in studies of rare or elusive species, where the number of spatial encounters is usually small and where additional observations are of high value. in addition, our results highlight the importance of testing and accounting for inconsistencies in spatial information from structured and unstructured data so as to avoid the risk of spurious or averaged estimates of space use and consequently, of population size. our work supports the use of a single modeling framework to combine spatially-referenced data while also accounting for parameter consistency." -larval assemblages of large saproxylic cerambycids in iberian oak forests: wood quality and host preference shape resource partitioning,cerambyx; ecological succession; niche differentiation; oak decline; prinobius; sympatry,POPULATION ECOLOGY,TORRES-VILA LM;ZUGASTI-MARTINEZ C;MENDIOLA-DIAZ FJ;DE-JUAN-MURILLO JM;SANCHEZ-GONZALEZ A;CONEJO-RODRIGUEZ Y;PONCE-ESCUDERO F;FERNANDEZ-MORENO F,"oak open woodlands are widespread in southwestern iberia and present outstanding ecological, biodiversity and socio-economic values. evergreen species (holm and cork oaks) are prevalent but deciduous oaks may be also locally important. three large xylophagous cerambycids are associated to these oaks, cerambyx welensii (cw), c. cerdo (cc) and prinobius myardi (pm). like other saproxylic insects, these cerambycids are essential to the nutrient cycle, wood degradation and tree hollow formation, significantly contributing to biodiversity in oak forests. these cerambycids may also potentially colonise healthy living trees and become harmful or pest species. factors driving their larval ecology are almost unknown, especially in oak forests harbouring mixed populations living in sympatry. wood samples (n = 500 bolts) from 348 colonised trees were examined during 2011-2016 across the extremadura region (41,634 km(2)). bolts were measured, scored into five wood quality classes, dissected, and all target cerambycids were collected, measured, reared and taxonomically identified. we then determined species-specific prevalence, niche breadth, niche overlap, age structure and population density depending on wood quality, host preference, tree part, wood size, altitude and sun exposure. wood quality and host preference were major factors segregating interspecific resource partitioning. cw was prevalent on cork oak decayed wood, and pm on holm oak degraded wood. host tree part was involved in cerambyx larval niche segregation, with cw prevalent in the fork/branches and cc in the trunk/base. pm was never found inhabiting deciduous oaks. our results may be useful to improve sustainable forest management practices in iberian oak open woodlands." -controlling invasive predators enhances the long-term survival of endangered new zealand long-tailed bats (chalinolobus tuberculatus): implications for conservation of bats on oceanic islands,mammals; rats; mustelids; predator control; climate change; population models,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,O'DONNELL CFJ;PRYDE MA;VAN DAM-BATES P;ELLIOTT GP,"invasive mammalian predators pose one of the greatest threats to biodiversity globally, particularly on oceanic islands. however, little is known about the impacts of these invasive predators on bats (chiroptera), one of the most specious mammal groups, and one of the most widespread groups of mammals threatened on oceanic islands (> 200 spp.). nearly 50% of the world's threatened bats are island endemics and because they are often the only native mammals on islands, they fulfil important ecological roles such as pollination and seed dispersal. long-tailed bats (chalinolobus tuberculatus) are critically endangered because of predation by exotic mammals, particularly ship rats (rattus ratios), introduced by humans to the island archipelago of new zealand. we monitored the survival of bats in three colonies in temperate rainforest in fiordland over 22 years. since 2009, we controlled predators during irruption phases and compared survival of bats in previously untreated areas with survival in forest blocks treated using rodenticides deployed in bait stations. survival was estimated using multi-state mark-recapture models in program mark 7.0 with > 15,000 bats tagged. survival was primarily dependent on year and age of bats, although seedfall intensity of the dominant canopy tree and predator management was also influential. survival in long-tailed bats was as high as, or higher, than figures for bats generally in years with low predator numbers or predator control. survival was markedly higher in treatment years when predators were managed (0.82 compared to 0.55). population modelling indicated managed colonies will increase (lambda > 1.05) whereas unmanaged colonies will decline (lambda = 0.89 - 0.98) under scenarios that reflect increased frequency of beech mast and predator irruptions. thus, effective predator control is essential for recovering long-tailed bat populations. warming temperatures indicate that predator irruptions are becoming more frequent, which would require more predator control in the future than at present if declines in bat populations are to be reversed. these results are relevant to the conservation of threatened bats on oceanic islands, given the abundance of exotic mammalian predators, particularly ship rats, on them." +larval assemblages of large saproxylic cerambycids in iberian oak forests: wood quality and host preference shape resource partitioning,cerambyx; ecological succession; niche differentiation; oak decline; prinobius; sympatry,POPULATION ECOLOGY,TORRES VILA LM;ZUGASTI MARTINEZ C;MENDIOLA DIAZ FJ;DE JUAN MURILLO JM;SANCHEZ GONZALEZ A;CONEJO RODRIGUEZ Y;PONCE ESCUDERO F;FERNANDEZ MORENO F,"oak open woodlands are widespread in southwestern iberia and present outstanding ecological, biodiversity and socio-economic values. evergreen species (holm and cork oaks) are prevalent but deciduous oaks may be also locally important. three large xylophagous cerambycids are associated to these oaks, cerambyx welensii (cw), c. cerdo (cc) and prinobius myardi (pm). like other saproxylic insects, these cerambycids are essential to the nutrient cycle, wood degradation and tree hollow formation, significantly contributing to biodiversity in oak forests. these cerambycids may also potentially colonise healthy living trees and become harmful or pest species. factors driving their larval ecology are almost unknown, especially in oak forests harbouring mixed populations living in sympatry. wood samples (n = 500 bolts) from 348 colonised trees were examined during 2011-2016 across the extremadura region (41,634 km(2)). bolts were measured, scored into five wood quality classes, dissected, and all target cerambycids were collected, measured, reared and taxonomically identified. we then determined species-specific prevalence, niche breadth, niche overlap, age structure and population density depending on wood quality, host preference, tree part, wood size, altitude and sun exposure. wood quality and host preference were major factors segregating interspecific resource partitioning. cw was prevalent on cork oak decayed wood, and pm on holm oak degraded wood. host tree part was involved in cerambyx larval niche segregation, with cw prevalent in the fork/branches and cc in the trunk/base. pm was never found inhabiting deciduous oaks. our results may be useful to improve sustainable forest management practices in iberian oak open woodlands." +controlling invasive predators enhances the long-term survival of endangered new zealand long-tailed bats (chalinolobus tuberculatus): implications for conservation of bats on oceanic islands,mammals; rats; mustelids; predator control; climate change; population models,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,O DONNELL CFJ;PRYDE MA;VAN DAM BATES P;ELLIOTT GP,"invasive mammalian predators pose one of the greatest threats to biodiversity globally, particularly on oceanic islands. however, little is known about the impacts of these invasive predators on bats (chiroptera), one of the most specious mammal groups, and one of the most widespread groups of mammals threatened on oceanic islands (> 200 spp.). nearly 50% of the world's threatened bats are island endemics and because they are often the only native mammals on islands, they fulfil important ecological roles such as pollination and seed dispersal. long-tailed bats (chalinolobus tuberculatus) are critically endangered because of predation by exotic mammals, particularly ship rats (rattus ratios), introduced by humans to the island archipelago of new zealand. we monitored the survival of bats in three colonies in temperate rainforest in fiordland over 22 years. since 2009, we controlled predators during irruption phases and compared survival of bats in previously untreated areas with survival in forest blocks treated using rodenticides deployed in bait stations. survival was estimated using multi-state mark-recapture models in program mark 7.0 with > 15,000 bats tagged. survival was primarily dependent on year and age of bats, although seedfall intensity of the dominant canopy tree and predator management was also influential. survival in long-tailed bats was as high as, or higher, than figures for bats generally in years with low predator numbers or predator control. survival was markedly higher in treatment years when predators were managed (0.82 compared to 0.55). population modelling indicated managed colonies will increase (lambda > 1.05) whereas unmanaged colonies will decline (lambda = 0.89 - 0.98) under scenarios that reflect increased frequency of beech mast and predator irruptions. thus, effective predator control is essential for recovering long-tailed bat populations. warming temperatures indicate that predator irruptions are becoming more frequent, which would require more predator control in the future than at present if declines in bat populations are to be reversed. these results are relevant to the conservation of threatened bats on oceanic islands, given the abundance of exotic mammalian predators, particularly ship rats, on them." designing cost-effective capture-recapture surveys for improving the monitoring of survival in bird populations,"survey design; optimisation; statistical power; cost efficiency, stage-structured population",BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,LIEURY N;DEVILLARD S;BESNARD A;GIMENEZ O;HAMEAU O;PONCHON C;MILLON A,"population monitoring traditionally relies on population counts, accounting or not for the issue of detectability. however, this approach does not permit to go into details on demographic processes. therefore, capture-recapture (cr) surveys have become popular tools for scientists and practitioners willing to measure survival response to environmental change or conservation actions. however, cr surveys are expensive and their design is often driven by the available resources, without estimation about the level of precision they provide for detecting changes in survival, despite optimising resource allocation in wildlife monitoring is increasingly important. investigating how cr surveys could be optimised by manipulating resource allocation among different design components is therefore critically needed. we have conducted a simulation experiment exploring the statistical power of a wide range of cr survey designs to detect changes in the survival rate of birds. cr surveys differ in terms of number of breeding pairs monitored, number of offspring and adults marked, resighting effort and survey duration. we compared open-nest (on) and nest-box (nb) monitoring types, using medium- and long-lived model species. increasing survey duration and number of pairs monitored increased statistical power. long survey duration can provide accurate estimations for long-lived birds even for small population size (15 pairs). a cost-benefit analysis revealed that for long-lived on species, ringing as many chicks as possible appears as the most effective survey component, unless a technique for capturing breeding birds at low cost is available to compensate for reduced local recruitment. for medium-lived nb species, focusing the nb rounds at a period that maximises the chance to capture breeding females inside nest-boxes is more rewarding than ringing all chicks. we show that integrating economic costs is crucial when designing cr surveys and discuss ways to improve efficiency by reducing duration to a time scale compatible with management and conservation issues." understanding inter-reach variation in brown trout (salmo trutta) mortality rates using a hierarchical bayesian state-space model,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,BRET V;CAPRA H;GOURAUD V;LAMOUROUX N;PIFFADY J;TISSOT L;RIVOT E,"successful management and protection of wild animal populations relies on good understanding of their life cycles. because population dynamics depends on intricate interactions of biological and ecological processes at various scales, new approaches are needed that account for the variability of demographic processes and associated parameters in a hierarchy of spatial scales. a hierarchical bayesian model for the resident brown trout (salmo trutta) life cycle was built to assess the relative influence of local and general determinants of mortality. the model was fitted to an extensive data set collected in 40 river reaches, combining abundance and environmental data (hydraulics, water temperature). density-dependent mortality of juveniles increased at low water temperatures and decreased with shelter availability. high water temperature increased densitydependent mortality in adults. the model could help to predict monthly juvenile and adult mortality under scenarios of global warming and changes in shelter availability due to habitat degradation or restoration." -variation in fine-scale genetic structure and local dispersal patterns between peripheral populations of a south american passerine bird,breeding dispersal; capture-mark-recapture; fine-scale genetic structure; intraspecific variation; natal dispersal; thorn-tailed rayadito,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BOTERO-DELGADILLO E;QUIRICI V;POBLETE Y;CUEVAS E;KUHN S;GIRG A;TELTSCHER K;POULIN E;KEMPENAERS B;VASQUEZ RA,"the distribution of suitable habitat influences natal and breeding dispersal at small spatial scales, resulting in strong microgeographic genetic structure. although environmental variation can promote interpopulation differences in dispersal behavior and local spatial patterns, the effects of distinct ecological conditions on within-species variation in dispersal strategies and in fine-scale genetic structure remain poorly understood. we studied local dispersal and fine-scale genetic structure in the thorn-tailed rayadito (aphrastura spinicauda), a south american bird that breeds along a wide latitudinal gradient. we combine capture-mark-recapture data from eight breeding seasons and molecular genetics to compare two peripheral populations with contrasting environments in chile: navarino island, a continuous and low density habitat, and fray jorge national park, a fragmented, densely populated and more stressful environment. natal dispersal showed no sex bias in navarino but was female-biased in the more dense population in fray jorge. in the latter, male movements were restricted, and some birds seemed to skip breeding in their first year, suggesting habitat saturation. breeding dispersal was limited in both populations, with males being more philopatric than females. spatial genetic autocorrelation analyzes using 13 polymorphic microsatellite loci confirmed the observed dispersal patterns: a fine-scale genetic structure was only detectable for males in fray jorge for distances up to 450m. furthermore, two-dimensional autocorrelation analyzes and estimates of genetic relatedness indicated that related males tended to be spatially clustered in this population. our study shows evidence for context-dependent variation in natal dispersal and corresponding local genetic structure in peripheral populations of this bird. it seems likely that the costs of dispersal are higher in the fragmented and higher density environment in fray jorge, particularly for males. the observed differences in microgeographic genetic structure for rayaditos might reflect the genetic consequences of population-specific responses to contrasting environmental pressures near the range limits of its distribution." +variation in fine-scale genetic structure and local dispersal patterns between peripheral populations of a south american passerine bird,breeding dispersal; capture-mark-recapture; fine-scale genetic structure; intraspecific variation; natal dispersal; thorn-tailed rayadito,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BOTERO DELGADILLO E;QUIRICI V;POBLETE Y;CUEVAS E;KUHN S;GIRG A;TELTSCHER K;POULIN E;KEMPENAERS B;VASQUEZ RA,"the distribution of suitable habitat influences natal and breeding dispersal at small spatial scales, resulting in strong microgeographic genetic structure. although environmental variation can promote interpopulation differences in dispersal behavior and local spatial patterns, the effects of distinct ecological conditions on within-species variation in dispersal strategies and in fine-scale genetic structure remain poorly understood. we studied local dispersal and fine-scale genetic structure in the thorn-tailed rayadito (aphrastura spinicauda), a south american bird that breeds along a wide latitudinal gradient. we combine capture-mark-recapture data from eight breeding seasons and molecular genetics to compare two peripheral populations with contrasting environments in chile: navarino island, a continuous and low density habitat, and fray jorge national park, a fragmented, densely populated and more stressful environment. natal dispersal showed no sex bias in navarino but was female-biased in the more dense population in fray jorge. in the latter, male movements were restricted, and some birds seemed to skip breeding in their first year, suggesting habitat saturation. breeding dispersal was limited in both populations, with males being more philopatric than females. spatial genetic autocorrelation analyzes using 13 polymorphic microsatellite loci confirmed the observed dispersal patterns: a fine-scale genetic structure was only detectable for males in fray jorge for distances up to 450m. furthermore, two-dimensional autocorrelation analyzes and estimates of genetic relatedness indicated that related males tended to be spatially clustered in this population. our study shows evidence for context-dependent variation in natal dispersal and corresponding local genetic structure in peripheral populations of this bird. it seems likely that the costs of dispersal are higher in the fragmented and higher density environment in fray jorge, particularly for males. the observed differences in microgeographic genetic structure for rayaditos might reflect the genetic consequences of population-specific responses to contrasting environmental pressures near the range limits of its distribution." quantification of within- and between-farm dispersal of culicoides biting midges using an immunomarking technique,african horse sickness virus; arbovirus; bluetongue virus; capture-mark-recapture; ceratopogonidae; epizootic-haemorrhagic disease virus; ovalbumin; protein marking; schmallenberg virus; vector-borne disease,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,SANDERS CJ;HARRUP LE;TUGWELL LA;BRUGMAN VA;ENGLAND M;CARPENTER S,"1. culicoides biting midges (diptera, ceratopogonidae) are vectors of arboviruses that cause significant economic and welfare impact. local-scale spread of culicoides-borne arboviruses is largely determined by the between-farm movement of infected culicoides. 2. study of the dispersal behaviour of culicoides by capture-mark-recapture (cmr) is problematic due to the likelihood of mortality and changes in behaviour upon capture caused by the small size and fragility of these insects, evidenced by low recapture rates. to counter the problem of using cmr with culicoides, this study utilised an ovalbumin immunomarking technique to quantify the within-and between-farm dispersal of culicoides in southern england. 3. both within-and between-farm dispersal of culicoides was observed. of the 9058 culicoides collected over 22 nights of trapping, 600 ovalbumin-positive culicoides, of 12 species including those implicated as arbovirus vectors, were collected with a maximum dispersal distance of 3125 m. 4. this study provides the first species-level data on the between-farm dispersal of potential bluetongue, schmallenberg and african horse sickness virus vectors in northern europe. high-resolution meteorological data determined upwind and downwind flight by culicoides had occurred. cumulative collection and meteorological data suggest 1 5.6% of flights over 1 km were upwind of the treatment area and 84.4% downwind. 5. synthesis and applications. the use of immunomarking eliminates the potential adverse effects on survival and behaviour of insect collection prior to marking, substantially improving the resolution and accuracy of estimates of the dispersal potential of small and delicate vector species such as culicoides. using this technique, quantification of the range of culicoides dispersal with regard to meteorological conditions including wind direction will enable improved, data-driven modelling of the spread of culicoides-borne arboviruses and will inform policy response to incursions and outbreaks." chronic plasmodium brasilianum infections in wild peruvian tamarins,NA,PLOS ONE,ERKENSWICK GA;WATSA M;PACHECO MA;ESCALANTE AA;PARKER PG,"there is an increased interest in potential zoonotic malarias. to date, plasmodium malariae that infects humans remains indistinguishable from plasmodium brasilianum, which is widespread among new world primates. distributed throughout tropical central and south america, the callitrichidae are small arboreal primates in which detection of natural plasmodium infection has been extremely rare. most prior screening efforts have been limited to small samples, the use of low-probability detection methods, or both. rarely have screening efforts implemented a longitudinal sampling design. through an annual mark-recapture program of two sympatric callitrichids, the emperor (saguinus imperator) and saddleback (saguinus fuscicollis) tamarins, whole blood samples were screened for plasmodium by microscopy and nested pcr of the cytochrome b gene across four consecutive years (2012-2015). following the first field season, approximately 50% of the samples collected each subsequent year were from recaptured individuals. in particular, out of 245 samples from 129 individuals, 11 samples from 6 individuals were positive for plasmodium, and all but one of these infections was found in s. imperator. importantly, the cytochrome b sequences were 100% identical to former isolates of p. malariae from humans and p. brasilianum from saimiri sp. chronic infections were detected as evidenced by repeated infections (7) from two individuals across the 4-year study period. furthermore, 4 of the 5 infected emperor tamarins were part of a single group spanning the entire study period. overall, the low prevalence reported here is consistent with previous findings. this study identifies two new natural hosts for p. brasilianum and provides evidence in support of chronic infections in wildlife populations. given that callitrichids are often found in mixed-species associations with other primates and can be resilient to human-disturbed environments, they could contribute to the maintenance of p. malariae populations if future work provides entomological and epidemiological evidence indicating human zoonotic infections." integrating sign surveys and telemetry data for estimating brown bear (ursus arctos) density in the romanian carpathians,carpathians; n-mixture model; population density; romania; track survey; ursus arctos,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,POPESCU VD;IOSIF R;POP MI;CHIRIAC S;BOUROS G;FURNAS BJ,"accurate population size estimates are important information for sustainable wildlife management. the romanian carpathians harbor the largest brown bear (ursus arctos) population in europe, yet current management relies on estimates of density that lack statistical oversight and ignore uncertainty deriving from track surveys. in this study, we investigate an alternative approach to estimate brown bear density using sign surveys along transects within a novel integration of occupancy models and home range methods. we performed repeated surveys along 2-km segments of forest roads during three distinct seasons: spring 2011, fall-winter 2011, and spring 2012, within three game management units and a natura 2000 site. we estimated bears abundances along transects using the number of unique tracks observed per survey occasion via n-mixture hierarchical models, which account for imperfect detection. to obtain brown bear densities, we combined these abundances with the effective sampling area of the transects, that is, estimated as a function of the median (+/- bootstrapped se) of the core home range (5.58 +/- 1.08 km(2)) based on telemetry data from 17 bears tracked for 1-month periods overlapping our surveys windows. our analyses yielded average brown bear densities (and 95% confidence intervals) for the three seasons of: 11.5 (7.8-15.3), 11.3 (7.4-15.2), and 12.4 (8.6-16.3) individuals/100 km(2). across game management units, mean densities ranged between 7.5 and 14.8 individuals/100 km(2). our method incorporates multiple sources of uncertainty (e.g., effective sampling area, imperfect detection) to estimate brown bear density, but the inference fundamentally relies on unmarked individuals only. while useful as a temporary approach to monitor brown bears, we urge implementing dna capture-recapture methods regionally to inform brown bear management and recommend increasing resources for gps collars to improve estimates of effective sampling area." accounting for imperfect detection of groups and individuals when estimating abundance,abundance; aerial surveys; distance sampling; double observer; grouped animals; mark-recapture-distance-sampling; n-mixture models,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CLEMENT MJ;CONVERSE SJ;ROYLE JA,"if animals are independently detected during surveys, many methods exist for estimating animal abundance despite detection probabilities <1. common estimators include double-observer models, distance sampling models and combined double-observer and distance sampling models (known as mark-recapture-distance-sampling models; mrds). when animals reside in groups, however, the assumption of independent detection is violated. in this case, the standard approach is to account for imperfect detection of groups, while assuming that individuals within groups are detected perfectly. however, this assumption is often unsupported. we introduce an abundance estimator for grouped animals when detection of groups is imperfect and group size may be under-counted, but not over-counted. the estimator combines an mrds model with an n-mixture model to account for imperfect detection of individuals. the new mrds-nmix model requires the same data as an mrds model (independent detection histories, an estimate of distance to transect, and an estimate of group size), plus a second estimate of group size provided by the second observer. we extend the model to situations in which detection of individuals within groups declines with distance. we simulated 12 data sets and used bayesian methods to compare the performance of the new mrds-nmix model to an mrds model. abundance estimates generated by the mrds-nmix model exhibited minimal bias and nominal coverage levels. in contrast, mrds abundance estimates were biased low and exhibited poor coverage. many species of conservation interest reside in groups and could benefit from an estimator that better accounts for imperfect detection. furthermore, the ability to relax the assumption of perfect detection of individuals within detected groups may allow surveyors to re-allocate resources toward detection of new groups instead of extensive surveys of known groups. we believe the proposed estimator is feasible because the only additional field data required are a second estimate of group size." -estimating extinction risk with minimal data,extinction; modeling; risk assessment; conservation; occupancy; cormack-jolly-seber models,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,WEISS-LEHMAN C;DAVIES KF;CLEMENTS C;MELBOURNE BA,"anthropogenic pressures on the global biome are causing widespread species declines and extinctions. assessing the extinction risk faced by individual species is a critical first step in combating this trend. however, we lack high quality demographic data to do so for the vast majority of plant and animal species. we present an efficient modeling approach to estimate extinction risk based on a statistical framework from the mark-recapture literature. we assessed the model's performance using a combination of simulated data, results from a protist microcosm experiment, and data from a long-term, large-scale habitat fragmentation experiment in southeastern australia. simulation experiments showed the model is robust to missing data as well as biological processes not included explicitly in the model's assumptions. fitting the model to data from the protist experiment yielded accurate predictions of the regional extinction dynamics observed in the system, even with a relatively low level of replication. finally, the model was able to accurately predict the observed dynamics in the habitat fragmentation experiment. the model provides a robust and accurate method to evaluate a species' extinction risk. since it only requires presence/absence data, applies to a wide range of survey designs, and allows for observational uncertainty and missing data, it can be applied to many datasets that existing models cannot accommodate. for these reasons, the model should be useful in conservation settings." +estimating extinction risk with minimal data,extinction; modeling; risk assessment; conservation; occupancy; cormack-jolly-seber models,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,WEISS LEHMAN C;DAVIES KF;CLEMENTS C;MELBOURNE BA,"anthropogenic pressures on the global biome are causing widespread species declines and extinctions. assessing the extinction risk faced by individual species is a critical first step in combating this trend. however, we lack high quality demographic data to do so for the vast majority of plant and animal species. we present an efficient modeling approach to estimate extinction risk based on a statistical framework from the mark-recapture literature. we assessed the model's performance using a combination of simulated data, results from a protist microcosm experiment, and data from a long-term, large-scale habitat fragmentation experiment in southeastern australia. simulation experiments showed the model is robust to missing data as well as biological processes not included explicitly in the model's assumptions. fitting the model to data from the protist experiment yielded accurate predictions of the regional extinction dynamics observed in the system, even with a relatively low level of replication. finally, the model was able to accurately predict the observed dynamics in the habitat fragmentation experiment. the model provides a robust and accurate method to evaluate a species' extinction risk. since it only requires presence/absence data, applies to a wide range of survey designs, and allows for observational uncertainty and missing data, it can be applied to many datasets that existing models cannot accommodate. for these reasons, the model should be useful in conservation settings." spatially explicit population estimates for black bears based on cluster sampling,abundance; black bear; clustered sampling; density; florida; spatially explicit capture-recapture; ursus americanus floridanus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HUMM JM;MCCOWN JW;SCHEICK BK;CLARK JD,"we estimated abundance and density of the 5 major black bear (ursus americanus) subpopulations (i.e., eglin, apalachicola, osceola, ocala-st. johns, big cypress) in florida, usa with spatially explicit capture-mark-recapture (scr) by extracting dna from hair samples collected at barbed-wire hair sampling sites. we employed a clustered sampling configuration with sampling sites arranged in 3x3 clusters spaced 2km apart within each cluster and cluster centers spaced 16km apart (center to center). we surveyed all 5 subpopulations encompassing 38,960km(2) during 2014 and 2015. several landscape variables, most associated with forest cover, helped refine density estimates for the 5 subpopulations we sampled. detection probabilities were affected by site-specific behavioral responses coupled with individual capture heterogeneity associated with sex. model-averaged bear population estimates ranged from 120 (95% ci=59-276) bears or a mean 0.025 bears/km(2) (95% ci=0.011-0.44) for the eglin subpopulation to 1,198 bears (95% ci=949-1,537) or 0.127 bears/km(2) (95% ci=0.101-0.163) for the ocala-st. johns subpopulation. the total population estimate for our 5 study areas was 3,916 bears (95% ci=2,914-5,451). the clustered sampling method coupled with information on land cover was efficient and allowed us to estimate abundance across extensive areas that would not have been possible otherwise. clustered sampling combined with spatially explicit capture-recapture methods has the potential to provide rigorous population estimates for a wide array of species that are extensive and heterogeneous in their distribution. (c) 2017 the wildlife society. we estimated abundance and density of the 5 major black bear subpopulations in florida with non-invasive spatially explicit capture-mark-recapture methods based on a clustered sampling configuration. clustered sampling combined with spatially explicit capture-recapture methods have the potential to provide rigorous population estimates for a wide array of species that are extensive and heterogeneous in their distribution." assessment of individual and conspecific reproductive success as determinants of breeding dispersal of female tree swallows: a capture-recapture approach,capture-recapture data; dispersal; multievent model; reproductive success; social information; tree swallow,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,LAGRANGE P;GIMENEZ O;DOLIGEZ B;PRADEL R;GARANT D;PELLETIER F;BELISLE M,"breeding dispersal is a key process of population structure and dynamics and is often triggered by an individual's breeding failure. in both colonial and territorial birds, reproductive success of conspecifics (rsc) can also lead individuals to change breeding sites after a failure on a site. yet, few studies have simultaneously investigated the independent contribution of individual reproductive success (rsi) and of rsc on dispersal decision. here, we develop a modeling framework to disentangle the effects of rsi and rsc on demographic parameters, while accounting for imperfect individual detection and other confounding factors such as age or dispersal behavior in the previous year. using a 10-year capture-recapture dataset composed of 1,595 banded tree swallows, we assessed the effects of nonmanipulated rsi and rsc on female breeding dispersal in this semicolonial passerine. dispersal was strongly driven by rsi, but not by rsc. unsuccessful females were 9.5-2.5 times more likely to disperse than successful ones, depending if they had dispersed or not in the previous year, respectively. unsuccessful females were also three times less likely to be detected than successful ones. contrary to theoretical and empirical studies, rsc did not drive the decision to disperse but influenced the selection of the following breeding site once dispersal had been initiated. because detection of individuals was driven by rsi, which was positively correlated to rsc, assuming a perfect detection as in previous studies may have lead us to conclude that rsc affected dispersal patterns, yet our approach corrected for this bias. overall, our results suggest that the value and use of rsc as public information to guide dispersal decisions are likely dictated by multiple ecological determinants, such as landscape structure and extent, if this cue is indeed used." "an age-dependent fitness cost of migration? old trans-saharan migrating spoonbills breed later than those staying in europe, and late breeders have lower recruitment",breeding success; carry-over effect; evolution; life history; migration; post-fledging survival; recruitment; timing of breeding; wintering site,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,LOK T;VELDHOEN L;OVERDIJK O;TINBERGEN JM;PIERSMA T,"1. migration is a widespread phenomenon in the animal kingdom. on the basis of the considerable variation that exists between and within species, and even within populations, we may be able to infer the (age- and sex-specific) ecological trade- offs- and constraints moulding migration systems from assessments of fitness associated with migration and wintering in different areas. 2. during three consecutive breeding seasons, we compared the reproductive performance (timing of breeding, breeding success, chick body condition and post-fledging survival) of eurasian spoonbills platalea leucorodia that breed at a single breeding site in the netherlands, but migrate different distances (c. 4,500 vs. 2,000 km, - either or not crossing the sahara) to and from wintering areas in southern europe and west africa. using mark-recapture analysis, we further investigated whether survival until adulthood (recruitment probability) of chicks hatched between 2006 and 2010 was related to their hatch date and body condition. 3. long-distance migrants bred later, particularly the males, and raised chicks of poorer body condition than short-distance migrants. hatch dates strongly advanced with increasing age in short-distance migrants, but hardly advanced in long-distance migrants, causing the difference in timing of breeding between long- and short-distance migrants to be more pronounced among older birds. 4. breeding success and chick body condition decreased over the season, and chicks that fledged late in the season or in poor condition were less likely to survive until adulthood. as a result, long- distance migrants-particularly the males and older birds-likely recruit fewer offspring into the breeding population than short-distance migrants. this inference is important for predicting the population-level consequences of changes in winter habitat suitability throughout the wintering range. 5. assuming that the long- distance migrants-being the birds that occupy the traditional wintering areas-are not the poorer quality birds, and that the observed age-dependent patterns in timing of breeding are driven by within-individual effects and not by selective disappearance, our results suggest that the strategy of long- distance migration, involving the crossing of the sahara to winter in west africa, incurred a cost by reducing reproductive output, albeit a cost paid only later in life." declining survival of black brant from subarctic and arctic breeding areas,band recovery rates; branta bernicla nigricans; brownie models; joint live and dead mark-recapture; population dynamics; seber reporting rate,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,LEACH AG;WARD DH;SEDINGER JS;LINDBERG MS;BOYD WS;HUPP JW;RITCHIE RJ,"since the mid 1990s, the number of black brant (branta bernicla nigricans; brant) nests on the yukon-kuskokwim delta (ykd), alaska, usa, the historically predominant breeding area of brant, has declined steadily. this has caused researchers and managers to question if arctic breeding populations can compensate for the reduction in brant nests on the ykd. an important component of the assessment of brant population dynamics is having current estimates of first-year and adult survival. we banded brant at 4 locations in arctic alaska and western canada, and at 1 location in the subarctic, the tutakoke river (tr) colony on the ykd, 1990-2015. we used joint live and dead mark-recapture models to estimate first-year and adult (1 yr old) survival of brant. we also used band recovery rates from a brownie model to assess temporal trends in band recovery rates of adult brant. first-year survival of brant hatched at tr declined from approximately 0.60 to <0.20 and, although first-year survival generally was higher for goslings marked in the arctic, their survival declined from approximately 0.70 in the early 1990s to 0.45 in the 2010s. annual survival of adult females decreased from an average of 0.881 (95% ci=0.877-0.885) to 0.822 (95% ci=0.815-0.829) at tr and from 0.851 (95% ci=0.843-0.860) to 0.821 (95% ci=0.805-0.836) in the arctic, from 1990 to 2014. band recovery rates of adults generally were <1.25% until the last several years of study, when they reached 3.5%. although the current harvest rates may be partially additive to natural mortality, we do not believe that harvest is the main influence on the declines in survival. the general decline in survival rates of brant breeding across a large geographic area may be influenced by a reduction in the quality of migration and wintering ground habitats. we suggest an analysis of seasonal survival of brant to test the hypothesis that declining habitat quality on wintering or spring migration areas is reducing survival. our results suggest that the number of breeding pairs at tr will continue to decline and also brings into question the ability of arctic breeding populations to grow at a rate necessary to offset the declines on the ykd. researchers should continue to closely monitor survival and harvest rates of brant, and assess methods currently used to monitor their abundance. (c) 2017 the wildlife society. we found that survival of gosling and adult black brant from subarctic and arctic breeding areas in alaska and western arctic canada has declined since 1990. numbers of brant nests on major colonies, fall age-ratios, and survival rates have all declined; however, estimates of abundance from mid-winter surveys have increased in recent years, indicating further work is needed to resolve conflicting abundance and demographic data for brant." integrated population models reveal local weather conditions are the key drivers of population dynamics in an aerial insectivore,capture-mark-recapture; climate change; demography; horvitz-thompson estimator; long-distance migrant bird,OECOLOGIA,WEEGMAN MD;ARNOLD TW;DAWSON RD;WINKLER DW;CLARK RG,"changes to weather patterns under a warming climate are complex: while warmer temperatures are expected virtually worldwide, decreased mean precipitation is expected at mid-latitudes. migratory birds depend on broad-scale weather patterns to inform timing of movements, but may be more susceptible to local weather patterns during sedentary periods. we constructed bayesian integrated population models (ipms) to assess whether continental or local weather effects best explained population dynamics in an environmentally sensitive aerial insectivorous bird, the tree swallow (tachycineta bicolor), along a transcontinental gradient from british columbia to saskatchewan to new york, and tested whether population dynamics were synchronous among sites. little consistency existed among sites in the demographic rates most affecting population growth rate or in correlations among rates. juvenile apparent survival at all sites was stable over time and greatest in new york, whereas adult apparent survival was more variable among years and sites, and greatest in british columbia and saskatchewan. fledging success was greatest in saskatchewan. local weather conditions explained significant variation in adult survival in saskatchewan and fledging success in new york, corroborating the hypothesis that local more than continental weather drives the population dynamics of this species and, therefore, demographic synchrony measured at three sites was limited. nonetheless, multi-population ipms can be a powerful tool for identifying correlated population trajectories caused by synchronous demographic rates, and can pinpoint the scale at which environmental drivers are responsible for changes. we caution against applying uniform conservation actions for populations where synchrony does not occur or is not fully understood." -"life histories and conservation of long-lived reptiles, an illustration with the american crocodile (crocodylus acutus)",capture-mark-recapture; crocodylian; demography; population dynamics; sensitivity analysis,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,BRIGGS-GONZALEZ V;BONENFANT C;BASILLE M;CHERKISS M;BEAUCHAMP J;MAZZOTTI F,"successful species conservation is dependent on adequate estimates of population dynamics, but age-specific demographics are generally lacking for many long-lived iteroparous species such as large reptiles. accurate demographic information -allows estimation of population growth rate, as well as projection of future population sizes and quantitative analyses of fitness trade-offs involved in the evolution of life-history strategies. here, a long-term capture-recapture study was conducted from 1978 to 2014 on the american crocodile (crocodylus acutus) in southern florida. over the study period, 7,427 hatchlings were marked and 380 individuals were recaptured for as many as 25 years. we estimated survival to be strongly age dependent with hatchlings having the lowest survival rates (16%) but increasing to nearly 90% at adulthood based on mark-recapture models. more than 5% of the female population were predicted to be reproductive by age 8 years; the age-specific proportion of reproductive females steadily increased until age 18 when more than 95% of females were predicted to be reproductive. population growth rate, estimated from a leslie-lefkovitch stage-class model, showed a positive annual growth rate of 4% over the study period. using a prospective sensitivity analysis, we revealed that the adult stage, as expected, was the most critical stage for population growth rate; however, the survival of younger crocodiles before they became reproductive also had a surprisingly high elasticity. we found that variation in age-specific fecundity has very limited impact on population growth rate in american crocodiles. we used a comparative approach to show that the original life-history strategy of american crocodiles is actually shared by other large, long-lived reptiles: while adult survival rates always have a large impact on population growth, this decreases with declining increasing growth rates, in favour of a higher elasticity of the juvenile stage. crocodiles, as a long-lived and highly fecund species, deviate from the usual association of life histories of ""slow"" species. current management practices are focused on nests and hatchling survival; however, protection efforts that extend to juvenile crocodiles would be most effective for conservation of the species, especially in an ever-developing landscape." -a field assessment of claw removal impacts on the movement and survival of stone crabs menippe spp.,renewable fishery; claw-only fishery; crab fishery; voluntary adherence; protection of spawning stock; survival,FISHERIES RESEARCH,DUERMIT E;SHERVETTE V;WHITAKER JD;KINGSLEY-SMITH PR;WILBER D,"claw-only crab fisheries are often marketed as renewable because crabs are returned to the water after declawing to regenerate claws and re-enter the fishery. the challenge of managing a claw-only fishery for stone crabs (menippe spp.) is compounded by varying regulations throughout their range that include the number of claws harvested from a crab and use of a seasonal closure to protect spawning females. we conducted mark-recapture studies to examine crab responses to claw removal in the field and compared claw handedness and type (crusher, intermediate, pincer) in a wild population to commercial landings to examine compliance with fishery regulations in a one-claw fishery with no seasonal closure. declawed crabs were recaptured less frequently than control crabs, particularly if claw removal created large wounds. control crabs were more commonly recaptured within one month of tagging and declawed crabs recaptured one to three months after tagging, suggesting that declawed crabs were less mobile or less motivated to feed initially after claws were harvested and that, over time, intact crabs left the study area. crabs with fishery-related, regenerated claws comprised 3% of crabs with legal claws. claw type ratios in a limited assessment of the commercial catch most closely reflected expected ratios consistent with a two-claw fishery, indicating that voluntary adherence to current one-claw fishing regulations is not universal. in fisheries needing better protection of spawning stock, a seasonal closure on fishing could be instituted to ensure better protection of spawning. (c) 2017 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +"life histories and conservation of long-lived reptiles, an illustration with the american crocodile (crocodylus acutus)",capture-mark-recapture; crocodylian; demography; population dynamics; sensitivity analysis,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,BRIGGS GONZALEZ V;BONENFANT C;BASILLE M;CHERKISS M;BEAUCHAMP J;MAZZOTTI F,"successful species conservation is dependent on adequate estimates of population dynamics, but age-specific demographics are generally lacking for many long-lived iteroparous species such as large reptiles. accurate demographic information -allows estimation of population growth rate, as well as projection of future population sizes and quantitative analyses of fitness trade-offs involved in the evolution of life-history strategies. here, a long-term capture-recapture study was conducted from 1978 to 2014 on the american crocodile (crocodylus acutus) in southern florida. over the study period, 7,427 hatchlings were marked and 380 individuals were recaptured for as many as 25 years. we estimated survival to be strongly age dependent with hatchlings having the lowest survival rates (16%) but increasing to nearly 90% at adulthood based on mark-recapture models. more than 5% of the female population were predicted to be reproductive by age 8 years; the age-specific proportion of reproductive females steadily increased until age 18 when more than 95% of females were predicted to be reproductive. population growth rate, estimated from a leslie-lefkovitch stage-class model, showed a positive annual growth rate of 4% over the study period. using a prospective sensitivity analysis, we revealed that the adult stage, as expected, was the most critical stage for population growth rate; however, the survival of younger crocodiles before they became reproductive also had a surprisingly high elasticity. we found that variation in age-specific fecundity has very limited impact on population growth rate in american crocodiles. we used a comparative approach to show that the original life-history strategy of american crocodiles is actually shared by other large, long-lived reptiles: while adult survival rates always have a large impact on population growth, this decreases with declining increasing growth rates, in favour of a higher elasticity of the juvenile stage. crocodiles, as a long-lived and highly fecund species, deviate from the usual association of life histories of ""slow"" species. current management practices are focused on nests and hatchling survival; however, protection efforts that extend to juvenile crocodiles would be most effective for conservation of the species, especially in an ever-developing landscape." +a field assessment of claw removal impacts on the movement and survival of stone crabs menippe spp.,renewable fishery; claw-only fishery; crab fishery; voluntary adherence; protection of spawning stock; survival,FISHERIES RESEARCH,DUERMIT E;SHERVETTE V;WHITAKER JD;KINGSLEY SMITH PR;WILBER D,"claw-only crab fisheries are often marketed as renewable because crabs are returned to the water after declawing to regenerate claws and re-enter the fishery. the challenge of managing a claw-only fishery for stone crabs (menippe spp.) is compounded by varying regulations throughout their range that include the number of claws harvested from a crab and use of a seasonal closure to protect spawning females. we conducted mark-recapture studies to examine crab responses to claw removal in the field and compared claw handedness and type (crusher, intermediate, pincer) in a wild population to commercial landings to examine compliance with fishery regulations in a one-claw fishery with no seasonal closure. declawed crabs were recaptured less frequently than control crabs, particularly if claw removal created large wounds. control crabs were more commonly recaptured within one month of tagging and declawed crabs recaptured one to three months after tagging, suggesting that declawed crabs were less mobile or less motivated to feed initially after claws were harvested and that, over time, intact crabs left the study area. crabs with fishery-related, regenerated claws comprised 3% of crabs with legal claws. claw type ratios in a limited assessment of the commercial catch most closely reflected expected ratios consistent with a two-claw fishery, indicating that voluntary adherence to current one-claw fishing regulations is not universal. in fisheries needing better protection of spawning stock, a seasonal closure on fishing could be instituted to ensure better protection of spawning. (c) 2017 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." genetic sampling for estimating density of common species,density estimators; fecal pellets; noninvasive genetic sampling; snowshoe hare; spatial capture-ecapture,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CHENG E;HODGES KE;SOLLMANN R;MILLS LS,"understanding population dynamics requires reliable estimates of population density, yet this basic information is often surprisingly difficult to obtain. with rare or difficult-to--capture species, genetic surveys from noninvasive collection of hair or scat has proved cost-efficient for estimating densities. here, we explored whether noninvasive genetic sampling (ngs) also offers promise for sampling a relatively common species, the snowshoe hare (lepus americanus erxleben, 1777), in comparison with traditional live trapping. we optimized a protocol for single-session ngs sampling of hares. we compared spatial capture-recapture population estimates from live trapping to estimates derived from ngs, and assessed ngs costs. ngs provided population estimates similar to those derived from live trapping, but a higher density of sampling plots was required for ngs. the optimal ngs protocol for our study entailed deploying 160 sampling plots for 4 days and genotyping one pellet per plot. ngs laboratory costs ranged from approximately $670 to $3000 usd per field site. while live trapping does not incur laboratory costs, its field costs can be considerably higher than for ngs, especially when study sites are difficult to access. we conclude that ngs can work for common species, but that it will require field and laboratory pilot testing to develop cost-effective sampling protocols." which temporal resolution to consider when investigating the impact of climatic data on population dynamics? the case of the lesser horseshoe bat (rhinolophus hipposideros),rhinolophus hipposideros; temporal resolution; model averaging; climatic variables; population demography,OECOLOGIA,JAN PL;FARCY O;BOIREAU J;LE TEXIER E;BAUDOIN A;LE GOUAR P;PUECHMAILLE SJ;PETIT EJ,"climatic variables are often considered when studying environmental impacts on population dynamics of terrestrial species. however, the temporal resolution considered varies depending on studies, even among studies of the same taxa. most studies interested in climatic impacts on populations tend to average climatic data across timeframes covering life cycle periods of the organism in question or longer, even though most climatic databases provide at least a monthly resolution. we explored the impact of climatic variables on lesser horseshoe bat (rhinolophus hipposideros) demography based on count data collected at 94 maternity colonies from 2000 to 2014 in britanny, france. meteorological data were considered using different time resolutions (month, life cycle period and year) to investigate their adequacy. model averaging was used to detect significant predictors for each temporal resolution. our results show that the finest temporal resolution, e.g. month, was more informative than coarser ones. precipitation predictors were particularly decisive, with a negative impact on colony sizes when rainfall occurred in october, and a positive impact for june precipitations. fecundity was influenced by april weather. this highlights the strong impact of climatic conditions during crucial but short time periods on the population dynamics of bats. we demonstrate the importance of choosing an appropriate time resolution and suggest that analogous studies should consider fine-scale temporal resolution (e.g. month) to better grasp the relationship between population dynamics and climatic conditions." -comparison of photo-matching algorithms commonly used for photographic capture-recapture studies,amphident; aphis; capture-recapture; i3s; photographic identification; wild-id,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MATTHE M;SANNOLO M;WINIARSKI K;SPITZEN-VAN DER SLUIJS A;GOEDBLOED D;STEINFARTZ S;STACHOW U,"photographic capture-recapture is a valuable tool for obtaining demographic information on wildlife populations due to its noninvasive nature and cost-effectiveness. recently, several computer-aided photo-matching algorithms have been developed to more efficiently match images of unique individuals in databases with thousands of images. however, the identification accuracy of these algorithms can severely bias estimates of vital rates and population size. therefore, it is important to understand the performance and limitations of state-of-the-art photo-matching algorithms prior to implementation in capture-recapture studies involving possibly thousands of images. here, we compared the performance of four photo-matching algorithms; wild-id, i3s pattern+, aphis, and amphident using multiple amphibian databases of varying image quality. we measured the performance of each algorithm and evaluated the performance in relation to database size and the number of matching images in the database. we found that algorithm performance differed greatly by algorithm and image database, with recognition rates ranging from 100% to 22.6% when limiting the review to the 10 highest ranking images. we found that recognition rate degraded marginally with increased database size and could be improved considerably with a higher number of matching images in the database. in our study, the pixel-based algorithm of amphident exhibited superior recognition rates compared to the other approaches. we recommend carefully evaluating algorithm performance prior to using it to match a complete database. by choosing a suitable matching algorithm, databases of sizes that are unfeasible to match by eye can be easily translated to accurate individual capture histories necessary for robust demographic estimates." +comparison of photo-matching algorithms commonly used for photographic capture-recapture studies,amphident; aphis; capture-recapture; i3s; photographic identification; wild-id,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MATTHE M;SANNOLO M;WINIARSKI K;SPITZEN VAN DER SLUIJS A;GOEDBLOED D;STEINFARTZ S;STACHOW U,"photographic capture-recapture is a valuable tool for obtaining demographic information on wildlife populations due to its noninvasive nature and cost-effectiveness. recently, several computer-aided photo-matching algorithms have been developed to more efficiently match images of unique individuals in databases with thousands of images. however, the identification accuracy of these algorithms can severely bias estimates of vital rates and population size. therefore, it is important to understand the performance and limitations of state-of-the-art photo-matching algorithms prior to implementation in capture-recapture studies involving possibly thousands of images. here, we compared the performance of four photo-matching algorithms; wild-id, i3s pattern+, aphis, and amphident using multiple amphibian databases of varying image quality. we measured the performance of each algorithm and evaluated the performance in relation to database size and the number of matching images in the database. we found that algorithm performance differed greatly by algorithm and image database, with recognition rates ranging from 100% to 22.6% when limiting the review to the 10 highest ranking images. we found that recognition rate degraded marginally with increased database size and could be improved considerably with a higher number of matching images in the database. in our study, the pixel-based algorithm of amphident exhibited superior recognition rates compared to the other approaches. we recommend carefully evaluating algorithm performance prior to using it to match a complete database. by choosing a suitable matching algorithm, databases of sizes that are unfeasible to match by eye can be easily translated to accurate individual capture histories necessary for robust demographic estimates." population dynamics of dromiciops gliroides (microbiotheriidae) in an austral temperate forest,capture-recapture; hierarchical bayesian analysis; natural disturbance; patagonia,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,OLIVER AB;AMICO GC;RIVAROLA MD;MORALES JM,"dromiciops gliroides is an arboreal marsupial endemic to the southern temperate forest located between 36 degrees s and 43 degrees s in both chile and argentina. this species is a key seed disperser of many native plants, including the keystone mistletoe, tristerix corymbosus. we studied the population fluctuation of d. gliroides and the possible effects of natural disturbances on the population. we estimated density, abundance, survival, and recruitment ratios for 7 years (2009-2011 and 2013-2016) at reserva llao llao, argentina, using capture-recapture techniques. a jolly-seber model with robust design was fitted using a hierarchical bayesian approach. the estimated mean abundance during these 7 years was 81 individuals. the highest abundances were observed in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2014 (98 individuals on average). the years with lowest abundance were 2013, 2015, and 2016 (60 individuals on average), which coincided with the occurrence of natural disturbances in the study area (eruption of the puyehue-cordon caulle volcano, the flowering of chusquea bamboo and a subsequent rodent outbreak, and an unusually dry summer). these results suggest that the observed population fluctuations of d. gliroides could be related to natural forest disturbances." evaluating the impact of man-made disasters on imperiled species: piping plovers and the deepwater horizon oil spill,piping plover; charadrius melodus; deepwater horizon oil spill; shorebird winter ecology; anthropogenic disturbance,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,GIBSON D;CATLIN DH;HUNT KL;FRASER JD;KARPANTY SM;FRIEDRICH MJ;BIMBI MK;COHEN JB;MADDOCK SB,"even in the presence of environmental safeguards, catastrophic accidents related to anthropogenic activities occur that can result in both immediate and chronic impacts on local biota. however, due to the unplanned nature of catastrophes, studies aimed to identify the effects of these accidents on an ecosystem and its inhabitants often have imperfect study designs that are reactive rather than proactive, resulting in methodological and analytical challenges. on 20 april 2010, following an explosion on the deepwater horizon oil rig, a well blowout occurred on the seafloor approximately 80 km off the louisiana coast in the gulf of mexico. this blowout resulted in the largest marine oil spill in united states history, which impacted critical migratory stopover and overwintering habitat for many seabird and shorebird species, including species of high conservation concern such as the piping plover (charadrius melodus). here, we assessed the potential longer-term demographic impacts of the deepwater horizon oil spill on piping plovers in a capture-mark-recapture framework. we examined whether a series of demographic processes, including probabilities of remaining at a specific wintering site, over-winter and annual apparent survival, winter stopover duration, and abundance varied among oiled and unoiled habitats. we found that the perceived amount of oiling on land, in water, and on individual birds, as well as numerous demographic processes, were spatially or temporally variable. however, we found little support that piping plover demography was negatively influenced by the magnitude of oil observed at an impacted area, or that demographic rates substantially varied between reference and oil impacted areas. nor did we find that piping plovers that were observed to be oiled had lower survival probabilities following the dwh oil spill relative to non-oiled individuals from the same winter population. although we did not find that the deepwater horizon oil spill substantially influenced piping plovers, our methods provide an analytical framework to more appropriately address both the near or long-term impacts of an anthropogenic disturbance on a species." annual survival and seasonal hunting mortality of midcontinent snow geese,arctic; harvest; hunting; mark-recapture; mortality; population management; seasonal; snow geese; survival,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CALVERT AM;ALISAUSKAS RT;WHITE GC,"annual banding programs have allowed the estimation of key demographic parameters for many populations of harvested wildlife, yet they often provide little insight into vital rate variation among seasonally occupied habitats or among regions with differing hunting regulations. for lesser snow geese (chen caerulescens caerulescens) in the midcontinent of north america, rapid growth in abundance and the consequent implementation of special conservation measures present a scenario where seasonal mortality estimates would be highly valuable. we evaluated variation in hunting mortality of adult and young geese among 3 seasons (autumn, winter, and spring) based on annual banding data from breeding colonies north and south of 608nlatitude, and seasonal hunting recoveries from the united states and canada. using band-recovery models and data covering 1999 through 2015, we first estimated annual survival for geese of both age classes and breeding locations, and then subsequently used seasonal hunting recoveries to derive estimates of seasonal hunting mortality and annual non-hunting mortality. simulation models validated the accuracy of this approach. hunting mortality in winter generally exceeded that during spring and autumn, but our estimates suggested that hunting mortality represented a small fraction of annual mortality for adult and young birds. consistent with recent studies, our estimates pointed to a greater harvest effect for the smaller subarctic population breeding near southern hudson bay, canada, than for the large arctic population breeding farther north. although mean kill rates were higher for young than adult geese, natural mortality for young was high and temporally variable, implying that some hunting mortality experienced by young geese during their first year could be compensated by natural causes of death. natural (non-hunting) mortality and annual survival showed greater temporal variation than seasonal kill rates in adults and young geese, highlighting the importance of non-harvest factors (e.g., climate, habitat, population density) to the dynamics of these populations. these novel estimates of seasonal kill rates and non-hunting mortality contribute further support to the notion that internal dynamics of the lesser snow goose midcontinent population, including natural mortality and recruitment, currently influence population trajectory more than ongoing interventions through harvest management. (c) 2017 the wildlife society." -high and variable mortality of leatherback turtles reveal possible anthropogenic impacts,bycatch; declining population; enso; long-lived; mei; sea turtle,ECOLOGY,TOMILLO PS;ROBINSON NJ;SANZ-AGUILAR A;SPOTILA JR;PALADINO FV;TAVECCHIA G,"the number of nesting leatherback turtles (dermochelys coriacea) in the eastern pacific ocean has declined dramatically since the late 1980s. this decline has been attributed to egg poaching and interactions with fisheries. however, it is not clear how much of the decline should also be ascribed to variability in the physical characteristics of the ocean. we used data on individually marked turtles that nest at playa grande, costa rica, to address whether climatic variability affects survival and inter-breeding interval. because some turtles might nest undetected, we used capture-recapture models to model survival probability accounting for a detection failure. in addition, as the probability of reproduction is constrained by past nesting events, we formulated a new parameterization to estimate inter-breeding intervals and contrast hypotheses on the role of climatic covariates on reproductive frequency. average annual survival for the period 1993-2011 was low (0.78) and varied over time ranging from 0.49 to 0.99 with a negative temporal trend mainly due to the high mortality values registered after 2004. survival probability was not associated with the multivariate enso index of the south pacific ocean (mei) but this index explained 24% of the temporal variability in the reproductive frequency. the probability of a turtle to permanently leave after the first encounter was 26%. this high proportion of transients might be associated with a high mortality cost of the first reproduction or with a long-distance nesting dispersal after the first nesting season. although current data do not allow separating these two hypotheses, low encounter rate at other locations and high investment in reproduction, supports the first hypothesis. the low and variable annual survival probability has largely contributed to the decline of this leatherback population. the lack of correlation between survival probability and the most important climatic driver of oceanic processes in the pacific discards a climate-related decline and point to anthropogenic sources of mortality as the main causes responsible for the observed population decline." +high and variable mortality of leatherback turtles reveal possible anthropogenic impacts,bycatch; declining population; enso; long-lived; mei; sea turtle,ECOLOGY,TOMILLO PS;ROBINSON NJ;SANZ AGUILAR A;SPOTILA JR;PALADINO FV;TAVECCHIA G,"the number of nesting leatherback turtles (dermochelys coriacea) in the eastern pacific ocean has declined dramatically since the late 1980s. this decline has been attributed to egg poaching and interactions with fisheries. however, it is not clear how much of the decline should also be ascribed to variability in the physical characteristics of the ocean. we used data on individually marked turtles that nest at playa grande, costa rica, to address whether climatic variability affects survival and inter-breeding interval. because some turtles might nest undetected, we used capture-recapture models to model survival probability accounting for a detection failure. in addition, as the probability of reproduction is constrained by past nesting events, we formulated a new parameterization to estimate inter-breeding intervals and contrast hypotheses on the role of climatic covariates on reproductive frequency. average annual survival for the period 1993-2011 was low (0.78) and varied over time ranging from 0.49 to 0.99 with a negative temporal trend mainly due to the high mortality values registered after 2004. survival probability was not associated with the multivariate enso index of the south pacific ocean (mei) but this index explained 24% of the temporal variability in the reproductive frequency. the probability of a turtle to permanently leave after the first encounter was 26%. this high proportion of transients might be associated with a high mortality cost of the first reproduction or with a long-distance nesting dispersal after the first nesting season. although current data do not allow separating these two hypotheses, low encounter rate at other locations and high investment in reproduction, supports the first hypothesis. the low and variable annual survival probability has largely contributed to the decline of this leatherback population. the lack of correlation between survival probability and the most important climatic driver of oceanic processes in the pacific discards a climate-related decline and point to anthropogenic sources of mortality as the main causes responsible for the observed population decline." adult demography of an isolated population of the threatened butterfly scarce heath coenonympha hero and its conservation implications,flight period; life span; mark-recapture; protandry; sex ratio; temporal fragmentation,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,SIELEZNIEW M;NOWICKI P,"scarce heath coenonympha hero is considered to be one of the most seriously threatened european butterflies, especially declining in western and central europe. it usually occurs in small, discrete colonies forming metapopulation systems, but the exchange of individuals between habitat patches is considered limited. therefore the persistence of the species in fragmented systems is likely to depend largely on the demography of local populations. we investigated a highly isolated population of the species in poland with mark-release-recapture (mrr). the seasonal population size was assessed at 168 adults, with a well balanced sex ratio. the slightly higher capture probability of females that we recorded is quite atypical for butterflies and may be related to the vegetation structure at the site. the flight period was relatively short (22 days), and the adult life span was estimated at 6.59 days, i.e., twice as long when compared with adult longevity in two other threatened coenonympha species. consequently, the temporal fragmentation index (i.e., the ratio of flight period length to adult life span) was calculated at 3.3, which is the lowest value recorded among all congeneric species, suggesting that temporal fragmentation is not a major problem in the investigated population. nevertheless, the population may be at risk of extinction due to its small size and isolation. moreover, the area of c. hero habitat has decreased considerably over the last decade due to afforestation. our findings indicate the need for immediate conservation actions, in particular for the removal of tree seedlings that encroach on the butterfly habitat." "consequences of severe habitat fragmentation on density, genetics, and spatial capture-recapture analysis of a small bear population",NA,PLOS ONE,MURPHY SM;AUGUSTINE B;ULREY WA;GUTHRIE JM;SCHEICK BK;MCCOWN JW;COX JJ,"loss and fragmentation of natural habitats caused by human land uses have subdivided several formerly contiguous large carnivore populations into multiple small and often isolated subpopulations, which can reduce genetic variation and lead to precipitous population declines. substantial habitat loss and fragmentation from urban development and agriculture expansion relegated the highlands-glades subpopulation (hgs) of florida, usa, black bears (ursus americanus floridanus) to prolonged isolation; increasing human land development is projected to cause >= 50% loss of remaining natural habitats occupied by the hgs in coming decades. we conducted a noninvasive genetic spatial capture-recapture study to quantitatively describe the degree of contemporary habitat fragmentation and investigate the consequences of habitat fragmentation on population density and genetics of the hgs. remaining natural habitats sustaining the hgs were significantly more fragmented and patchier than those supporting florida's largest black bear subpopulation. genetic diversity was low (a(r) = 3.57; h-e = 0.49) and effective population size was small (n-e = 25 bears), both of which remained unchanged over a period spanning one bear generation despite evidence of some immigration. subpopulation density (0.054 bear/km(2)) was among the lowest reported for black bears, was significantly female-biased, and corresponded to a subpopulation size of 98 bears in available habitat. conserving remaining natural habitats in the area occupied by the small, genetically depauperate hgs, possibly through conservation easements and government land acquisition, is likely the most important immediate step to ensuring continued persistence of bears in this area. our study also provides evidence that preferentially placing detectors (e.g., hair traps or cameras) primarily in quality habitat across fragmented landscapes poses a challenge to estimating density-habitat covariate relationships using spatial capture-recapture models. because habitat fragmentation and loss are likely to increase in severity globally, further investigation of the influence of habitat fragmentation and detector placement on estimation of this relationship is warranted." -description of an establishment event by the invasive asian longhorned beetle (anoplophora glabripennis) in a suburban landscape in the northeastern united states,NA,PLOS ONE,HULL-SANDERS H;PEPPER E;DAVIS K;TROTTER RT,"the establishment of non-native species is commonly described as occurring in three phases: arrival, establishment, and dispersal. both arrival and dispersal by the asian longhorned beetle (anoplophora glabripennis motschulsky), a xylophagous cerambycid native to china and the korean peninsula, has been documented for multiple locations in both north america and europe, however the transitional phase, establishment, is not well understood for this species due to the need to rapidly remove populations to prevent dispersal and assist eradication, and the evident variation in the behavior of populations. here we describe the dynamics of an establishment event for the asian longhorned beetle in a small, isolated population within the regulated quarantine zone near worcester, massachusetts, usa. these data were collected during an opportunity afforded by logistical limits on the cooperative asian longhorned beetle eradication program administered by state, federal, and local government partners. seventy-one infested red maple (acer rubrum) trees and 456 interspersed un-infested trees were surveyed in an isolated, recently established population within a similar to 0.29 ha stand in a suburban wetland conservation area in which nearly 90% of the trees were host species, and nearly 80% were acer rubrum. tree-ring analyses show that within this establishing population, asian longhorned beetles initially infested one or two a. rubrum, before moving through the stand to infest additional a. rubrum based not on distance or direction, but on tree size, with infestation biased towards trees with larger trunk diameters. survey data from the larger landscape suggest this population may have generated long-distance dispersers (similar to 1400 m), and that these dispersal events occurred before the originally infested host trees were fully exploited by the beetle. the distribution and intensity of damage documented in this population suggest dispersal here may have been spatially more rapid and diffuse than in other documented infestations. dispersal at these larger spatial scales also implies that when beetles move beyond the closed canopy of the stand, the direction of dispersal may be linked to prevailing winds." -disentangling the effects of predation and oceanographic fluctuations in the mortality of two allopatric seabird populations,capture-recapture; climate; multievent; storm petrel; survival,POPULATION ECOLOGY,MATOVIC N;CADIOU B;ORO D;SANZ-AGUILAR A,"life-history traits of migratory seabirds are influenced by changing conditions at breeding and wintering grounds. climatic conditions and predation are known to impact populations' survival rates, but few studies examine their effect simultaneously. we used multievent capture-recapture models to assess mortality due to environmental conditions and predation in breeding european storm petrels (hydrobates pelagicus) in two allopatric colonies (mediterranean and atlantic). predatory mortality at the colonies showed annual variation, being around 0.05 in certain years. mortality at sea differed between the two oceanic basins, and was lower in the mediterranean colony [0.11, 95% ci (0.09, 0.14)] when compared to the atlantic colony [0.18, 95% ci (0.15, 0.22)]. the western mediterranean oscillation index (wemoi) explained 57% of the temporal variability in mortality of mediterranean breeders. in comparison, 43% of the temporal variability in mortality of atlantic breeders was explained by the winter st helena index (whix) and el nino-southern oscillation index (wenso). our results suggest that mediterranean breeders remain in this basin for wintering where they may face lower migratory costs and more favourable environmental conditions. in contrast, atlantic breeders' mortality may be due to higher cost of migration, changing upwelling conditions in the benguela current and heavy storms over their migratory route during la nina events. this study underlines the importance of modelling separately different causes of mortality when testing the effects of climatic covariates." +description of an establishment event by the invasive asian longhorned beetle (anoplophora glabripennis) in a suburban landscape in the northeastern united states,NA,PLOS ONE,HULL SANDERS H;PEPPER E;DAVIS K;TROTTER RT,"the establishment of non-native species is commonly described as occurring in three phases: arrival, establishment, and dispersal. both arrival and dispersal by the asian longhorned beetle (anoplophora glabripennis motschulsky), a xylophagous cerambycid native to china and the korean peninsula, has been documented for multiple locations in both north america and europe, however the transitional phase, establishment, is not well understood for this species due to the need to rapidly remove populations to prevent dispersal and assist eradication, and the evident variation in the behavior of populations. here we describe the dynamics of an establishment event for the asian longhorned beetle in a small, isolated population within the regulated quarantine zone near worcester, massachusetts, usa. these data were collected during an opportunity afforded by logistical limits on the cooperative asian longhorned beetle eradication program administered by state, federal, and local government partners. seventy-one infested red maple (acer rubrum) trees and 456 interspersed un-infested trees were surveyed in an isolated, recently established population within a similar to 0.29 ha stand in a suburban wetland conservation area in which nearly 90% of the trees were host species, and nearly 80% were acer rubrum. tree-ring analyses show that within this establishing population, asian longhorned beetles initially infested one or two a. rubrum, before moving through the stand to infest additional a. rubrum based not on distance or direction, but on tree size, with infestation biased towards trees with larger trunk diameters. survey data from the larger landscape suggest this population may have generated long-distance dispersers (similar to 1400 m), and that these dispersal events occurred before the originally infested host trees were fully exploited by the beetle. the distribution and intensity of damage documented in this population suggest dispersal here may have been spatially more rapid and diffuse than in other documented infestations. dispersal at these larger spatial scales also implies that when beetles move beyond the closed canopy of the stand, the direction of dispersal may be linked to prevailing winds." +disentangling the effects of predation and oceanographic fluctuations in the mortality of two allopatric seabird populations,capture-recapture; climate; multievent; storm petrel; survival,POPULATION ECOLOGY,MATOVIC N;CADIOU B;ORO D;SANZ AGUILAR A,"life-history traits of migratory seabirds are influenced by changing conditions at breeding and wintering grounds. climatic conditions and predation are known to impact populations' survival rates, but few studies examine their effect simultaneously. we used multievent capture-recapture models to assess mortality due to environmental conditions and predation in breeding european storm petrels (hydrobates pelagicus) in two allopatric colonies (mediterranean and atlantic). predatory mortality at the colonies showed annual variation, being around 0.05 in certain years. mortality at sea differed between the two oceanic basins, and was lower in the mediterranean colony [0.11, 95% ci (0.09, 0.14)] when compared to the atlantic colony [0.18, 95% ci (0.15, 0.22)]. the western mediterranean oscillation index (wemoi) explained 57% of the temporal variability in mortality of mediterranean breeders. in comparison, 43% of the temporal variability in mortality of atlantic breeders was explained by the winter st helena index (whix) and el nino-southern oscillation index (wenso). our results suggest that mediterranean breeders remain in this basin for wintering where they may face lower migratory costs and more favourable environmental conditions. in contrast, atlantic breeders' mortality may be due to higher cost of migration, changing upwelling conditions in the benguela current and heavy storms over their migratory route during la nina events. this study underlines the importance of modelling separately different causes of mortality when testing the effects of climatic covariates." dealing with many correlated covariates in capture-recapture models,animal demography; population dynamics; principal-component capture-recapture model; snow petrel; survival estimation,POPULATION ECOLOGY,GIMENEZ O;BARBRAUD C,"capture-recapture models for estimating demographic parameters allow covariates to be incorporated to better understand population dynamics. however, high-dimensionality and multicollinearity can hamper estimation and inference. principal component analysis is incorporated within capture-recapture models and used to reduce the number of predictors into uncorrelated synthetic new variables. principal components are selected by sequentially assessing their statistical significance. we provide an example on seabird survival to illustrate our approach. our method requires standard statistical tools, which permits an efficient and easy implementation using standard software." the causes of dispersal and the cost of carry-over effects for an endangered bird in a dynamic wetland landscape,environmental conditions; hydrology; initiation date; personal information; phenology; philopatry; public information; search costs; structural equation model,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,ROBERTSON EP;FLETCHER RJ;AUSTIN JD,"1. the decision to disperse or remain philopatric between breeding seasons has important implications for both ecology and evolution, including the potential for carry-over effects, where an individual's previous history affects its current performance. carry-over effects are increasingly documented although underlying mechanisms remain unclear. 2. here we test for potential carry-over effects and their mechanisms by uniting hypotheses for the causes and consequences of habitat selection and dispersal across space and time. we linked hypotheses regarding different types of factors and information (environmental conditions, personal and public information) predicted to impact reproductive success and dispersal for an endangered, wetland-dependent bird, the snail kite (rostrhamus sociabilis plumbeus). to do so, we coupled structural equation modelling with 20 years of mark-recapture and nesting data across the breeding range of this species to isolate potential direct and indirect effects of these factors. 3. we found that water depth at nest sites explained subsequent emigration rates via an indirect path through the use of personal, not public, information. importantly, we found that these dispersers tended to initiate nests later the following breeding season. this pattern explained a phenological mismatch of nesting with hydrological conditions, whereby immigrants tended to nest later, late nesters tended to experience lower water depths, higher nest failure occurred at lower water depths and higher nest failure explained subsequent breeding dispersal. 4. these results identified a novel potential mechanism for carry-over effects: a phenological mismatch with environmental conditions (water depth) that occurred potentially due to time costs of dispersal. our results also highlighted a substantial benefit of philopatry-earlier initiation of reproduction-which allows philopatric individuals to better coincide with environmental conditions that are beneficial for successful reproduction. 5. these results have implications for our mechanistic understanding and prediction of carry-over effects, and emphasize that local conservation strategies, such as water management, can explain future demography at distant sites connected through dispersal." "demographics, reproduction, growth, and abundance of jollyville plateau salamanders (eurycea tonkawae)",natural history; plethodontidae; reproductive phenology; von bertalanffy,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BENDIK NF,"insights into the ecology and natural history of the neotenic salamander, eurycea tonkawae, are provided from eight years of capture-recapture data from 10,041 captures of 7,315 individuals at 16 sites. eurycea tonkawae exhibits seasonal reproduction, with peak gravidity occurring in the fall and winter. size frequency data indicated recruitment occurred in the spring and summer. open-population capture-recapture models revealed a similar seasonal pattern at two of three sites, while recruitment was dependent on flow at the third site. females can reach sexual maturity within one year, and oviposition likely takes place below ground. the asymptotic body length of 1,290 individuals was estimated as 31.73 mm (at ca. two years of age), although there was substantial heterogeneity among growth trajectories. longevity was approximately eight years, and the median age for a recaptured adult was 2.3 years. abundance estimated from closed-population and robust-design capture-recapture models varied widely within and among sites (range 41-834), although, surprisingly, dramatic changes in abundance were not observed following prolonged dry periods. seasonal migration patterns of second-year and older adults may help explain lower ratios of large individuals and higher temporary emigration during the latter half of the year, but further study is required. low numbers of captures and recaptures precluded the use of open-population models to estimate demographic parameters at several sites; therefore, closed-population (or robust-design) methods are generally recommended. based on observations of their life history and population demographics, e. tonkawae seems well adapted to conditions where spring flow is variable and surface habitat periodically goes dry." @@ -243,10 +243,10 @@ improving inference for aerial surveys of bears: the importance of assumptions a "ski areas affect pacific marten movement, habitat use, and density",density; marten; martes caurina; movement; occupancy; recreation; ski area; spatially explicit capture recapture,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SLAUSON KM;ZIELINSKI WJ;SCHWARTZ MK,"alpine ski recreation is one of the most popular outdoor winter sports globally but often involves habitat modification and dense human activity, both of which can harm wildlife. we investigated the effects of ski area development and winter recreation activities on movement, occupancy, and density of pacific martens (martes caurina) in the lake tahoe region of california and nevada, usa by comparing 3 ski and 3 control study areas. we systematically surveyed martens using live traps and hair snares during spring-summer and winter seasons from 2009 through 2011 to identify how martens responded to the year-round effects of habitat fragmentation from ski area development and the seasonal effects of winter recreation activities. martens selectively moved between remnant forest patches with the shortest crossing distances across open, non-forested ski runs in both seasons, with the effect more pronounced in females. overall, habitat connectivity was reduced by 41% in ski areas compared to habitat not fragmented by ski runs. during spring-summer, occupancy rates were not different between habitat within or outside of ski operations areas. during winter, however, occupancy was significantly lower inside (52%) ski area boundaries than outside (88%) them. reduced detection probability in ski areas indicated martens also reduced the frequency of use of operations areas in winter. using spatially explicit capture-recapture models, we found that marten density did not differ between ski areas and controls during spring, but during winter female density declined at ski areas by 63% compared to spring-summer and was < 50% of female density compared to controls. this suggests that females seasonally avoid habitat in ski areas by shifting their habitat use to areas outside ski operations boundaries during winter. although male marten density did not differ, the lack of resident males > 3 years old coupled with higher annual turnover rates suggests male densities at ski areas may be reliant on annual male immigration. in winter, martens avoided using habitat in ski operations areas when recreation activity was greatest. winter ski recreation may not be incompatible with marten use of habitat in ski areas, but habitat fragmentation from ski areas affects marten movement and recreation activities affect seasonal habitat occupancy and female density. maintaining functional habitat connectivity, via networks of short ski run crossings that link habitat in and out of ski areas, will be important for maintaining or improving marten use of remnant habitat in developed ski areas. (c) 2017 the wildlife society" "identifying key demographic parameters of a small island-associated population of indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins (reunion, indian ocean)",NA,PLOS ONE,DULAU V;ESTRADE V;FAYAN J,"photo-identification surveys of indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins were conducted from 2009 to 2014 off reunion island (55 degrees e33'/21 degrees s07'), in the indian ocean. robust design models were applied to produce the most reliable estimate of population abundance and survival rate, while accounting for temporary emigration from the survey area (west coast). the sampling scheme consisted of a five-month (june-october) sampling period in each year of the study. the overall population size at reunion was estimated to be 72 individuals (se = 6.17, 95% ci = 61-85), based on a random temporary emigration (gamma"") of 0.096 and a proportion of 0.70 (se = 0.03) distinct individuals. the annual survival rate was 0.93 (+/- 0.018 se, 95% ci = 0.886-0.958) and was constant over time and between sexes. models considering gender groups indicated different movement patterns between males and females. males showed null or quasi-null temporary emigration (gamma"" = gamma' < 0.01), while females showed a random temporary emigration (gamma"") of 0.10, suggesting that a small proportion of females was outside the survey area during each primary sampling period. sex-specific temporary migration patterns were consistent with movement and residency patterns observed in other areas. the robust design approach provided an appropriate sampling scheme for deriving island-associated population parameters, while allowing to restrict survey effort both spatially (i.e. west coast only) and temporally (five months per year). although abundance and survival were stable over the six years, the small population size of fewer than 100 individuals suggested that this population is highly vulnerable. priority should be given to reducing any potential impact of human activity on the population and its habitat." importance of demographic surveys and public lands for the conservation of eastern hellbenders cryptobranchus alleganiensis alleganiensis in southeast usa,NA,PLOS ONE,FREAKE MJ;DEPERNO CS,"comparisons of recent and historic population demographic studies of eastern hellbenders cryptobranchus alleganiensis alleganiensis have identified significant population declines and extirpations associated with habitat degradation, poor water quality and disease, leading to nomination as a candidate for listing under the endangered species act. however, populations in the southern appalachian region of the range have received less attention despite relatively high levels of watershed protection due to the establishment of federally protected national forest and national park public lands. these watersheds likely represent some of the best remaining available habitat, yet the lack of published studies make assessment of population stability and viability very difficult. our objectives were to (1) conduct a capture-mark-recapture (cmr) demographic study and a point transect survey on the hiwassee river in tennessee which is designated a national scenic river, and is largely contained within the cherokee national forest, (2) quantify the size structure of the population, (3) compare abundance, survival and recruitment with historic and contemporary hellbender populations across the range, (4) assess the importance of this population and the significance of national forest and national park lands in the context of hellbender population conservation in the southeastern united states. we detected all age classes present, with larval hellbenders comprising 21.5% of captures. using a combination of static life table and cmr methods, we determined that survival rates during the first year were low ( similar to 10%), but were high (68-94%) for taggable sized hellbenders. density of hellbenders at the study site was very high (84 taggable sized hellbenders per 100m of river) compared to recent demographic studies conducted in other regions of the range. we detected hellbenders over similar to 28 km of river, with a mean density of 23 taggable sized hellbenders per 100m of river, and a total population estimate of 6440 taggable hellbenders. national forest and national park lands are likely to continue to play a particularly important role in providing suitable habitat for hellbenders in the southern appalachians. in fact, only six of 21 known hellbender locations in tennessee appear to show consistent larval recruitment, all of which are located within or adjacent to national forest or national park land." -natal and breeding philopatry of female steller sea lions in southeastern alaska,NA,PLOS ONE,HASTINGS KK;JEMISON LA;PENDLETON GW;RAUM-SURYAN KL;PITCHER KW,"information on drivers of dispersal is critical for wildlife conservation but is rare for long-lived marine mammal species with large geographic ranges. we fit multi-state mark-recapture models to resighting data of 369 known-aged steller sea lion (eumetopias jubatus) females marked as pups on their natal rookeries in southeastern alaska from 1994-2005 and monitored from 2001-15. we estimated probabilities of females being first observed parous at their natal site (natal philopatry), and of not moving breeding sites among years (breeding philopatry) at large (> 400 km, all five rookeries in southeastern alaska) and small (< 4 km, all islands within the largest rookery, forrester island complex, f) spatial scales. at the rookery scale, natal philopatry was moderately high (0.776-0.859) for most rookeries and breeding philopatry was nearly 1, with < 3% of females switching breeding rookeries between years. at more populous islands at f, natal philopatry was 0.500-0.684 versus 0.295-0.437 at less populous islands, and breeding philopatry was 0.919-0.926 versus 0.604-0.858. at both spatial scales, the probability of pupping at a non-natal site increased with population size of, and declined with distance from, the destination site. natal philopatry of < 1 would increase gene flow, improve population resilience, and promote population recovery after decline in a heterogeneous environment. very high breeding philopatry suggests that familiarity with neighboring females and knowledge of the breeding site (the topography of pupping sites and nearby foraging locations) may be a critical component to reproductive strategies of sea lions." +natal and breeding philopatry of female steller sea lions in southeastern alaska,NA,PLOS ONE,HASTINGS KK;JEMISON LA;PENDLETON GW;RAUM SURYAN KL;PITCHER KW,"information on drivers of dispersal is critical for wildlife conservation but is rare for long-lived marine mammal species with large geographic ranges. we fit multi-state mark-recapture models to resighting data of 369 known-aged steller sea lion (eumetopias jubatus) females marked as pups on their natal rookeries in southeastern alaska from 1994-2005 and monitored from 2001-15. we estimated probabilities of females being first observed parous at their natal site (natal philopatry), and of not moving breeding sites among years (breeding philopatry) at large (> 400 km, all five rookeries in southeastern alaska) and small (< 4 km, all islands within the largest rookery, forrester island complex, f) spatial scales. at the rookery scale, natal philopatry was moderately high (0.776-0.859) for most rookeries and breeding philopatry was nearly 1, with < 3% of females switching breeding rookeries between years. at more populous islands at f, natal philopatry was 0.500-0.684 versus 0.295-0.437 at less populous islands, and breeding philopatry was 0.919-0.926 versus 0.604-0.858. at both spatial scales, the probability of pupping at a non-natal site increased with population size of, and declined with distance from, the destination site. natal philopatry of < 1 would increase gene flow, improve population resilience, and promote population recovery after decline in a heterogeneous environment. very high breeding philopatry suggests that familiarity with neighboring females and knowledge of the breeding site (the topography of pupping sites and nearby foraging locations) may be a critical component to reproductive strategies of sea lions." "low population viability in small endangered orchid populations: genetic variation, seedling recruitment and stochasticity",epipactis atrorubens; genetic diversity; mark-recapture model; population growth rate; population viability; transition matrix,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,HENS H;PAKANEN VM;JAKALANIEMI A;TUOMI J;KVIST L,"there are only few studies that use both demographic and genetic data to assess population viability of plant species. we combined genetic and demographic data from 11 endangered perennial orchid populations of varying size in order to reveal determinants of viability. small populations had substantially lower viability compared to large populations. seedling recruitment rates were remarkably lower in small populations; this was not due to pollination limitation or inbreeding depression because the fruit set and heterozygosity were not correlated with population size, suggesting that there may be differences in successful germination. low recruitment resulted in significantly lower predicted population growth rates in small populations. the impact of stochasticity on viability varied among populations and stochastic simulations indicated that only one large population was viable, whereas all the other large populations were predicted to go extinct within decades. while there was a positive correlation between the deterministic population growth rate and allelic richness, we did not find any other correlations between genetic variation and fitness or population size. the study populations are likely remnant populations of a once large meta-population that decreased in size due to unfavourable environmental conditions. management should focus on the maintenance of large population size, which is needed to avoid negative consequences of stochasticity and to enhance seedling recruitment rates." long-term monitoring of phengaris (lepidoptera: lycaenidae) butterflies in the pa (tm) elou surroundings (czech republic): is the waterway construction a serious threat?,extinction risk; phengaris teleius; phengaris nausithous; population size; natura 2000; threat assessment; waterway construction,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,VRABEC V;KULMA M;BUBOVA T;NOWICKI P,"the monitoring of sympatrically occurring phengaris teleius and p. nausithous metapopulations in the surroundings of pa (tm) elou, czech republic, was launched over a decade ago in connection with the planned waterway construction on the elbe river. the mark-recapture surveys were initially restricted to 10 habitat patches on the right river bank, but in 2010 three new patches were discovered on the opposite bank. we use the monitoring results for 2011-2015 to assess how the discovery of additional populations alters the impact evaluation of the prospective construction. the overall abundance of p. teleius in the recently discovered populations was about twice as high as on the right bank (ca. 2,800 vs. 1,400 adults on average), while the numbers of p. nausithous on both banks proved to be balanced (at ca. 600 adults on average). furthermore, we confirmed a substantial exchange of butterflies between population representing both banks, which indicates a well-integrated metapopulation in both species. since the waterway would partly destroy the two largest populations on the right bank, the potential loss due to its construction is estimated at 40.1-64.3% p. teleius individuals and 20.2-47.4% p. nausithous individuals occurring there. nevertheless, concerning the entire metapopulation, the predicted decline is considerably smaller, reaching 13.9-25.7% in p. teleius and 8.5-20.0% in p. nausithous. consequently, a long-term survival of the species is likely even in the case of the waterway construction, as long as appropriate management is applied on the unaffected habitat patches." -population demography of the endangered large blue butterfly maculinea arion in europe,age-dependent survival; distributional range; mark-recapture; protandry; sex ratio,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,OSVATH-FERENCZ M;BONELLI S;NOWICKI P;PEREGOVITS L;RAKOSY L;SIELEZNIEW M;KOSTRO-AMBROZIAK A;DZIEKANSKA I;KOROSI A,"demographic parameters such as survival, sex ratio and abundance can profoundly affect the viability of populations and thus are of primary importance in species of conservation concern. although numerous studies have been published on certain aspects of the ecology and evolution of the endangered large blue butterfly maculinea arion, there is still a lack of detailed knowledge on its populations' demography. moreover, m. arion populates a variety of xerothermic habitats throughout its european range using various food plants and host ants, which leads to complications in its conservation. our aim was to estimate demographic parameters of m. arion populations in different parts of its european range. detailed mark-recapture sampling was conducted on populations in four different countries. we often found that daily apparent survival probability declined with increasing age of individuals, but there was no difference between male and female survival. in smaller populations, the sex ratio was rather female-biased. our most interesting result was the lack of protandry in some populations that might be a consequence of selection against reproductive asynchrony in small populations or a polyandrous mating system. the perfect coincidence of male and female phenology can positively affect the effective population size, because the lack of reproductive asynchrony increases the chance of male-female encounters. abundance of the studied populations ranged between 100 and 1,600 individuals, smaller populations were on the verge of extinction. habitat of the threatened small populations was either overgrazed or abandoned, while habitat of larger, stable populations was lightly grazed." +population demography of the endangered large blue butterfly maculinea arion in europe,age-dependent survival; distributional range; mark-recapture; protandry; sex ratio,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,OSVATH FERENCZ M;BONELLI S;NOWICKI P;PEREGOVITS L;RAKOSY L;SIELEZNIEW M;KOSTRO AMBROZIAK A;DZIEKANSKA I;KOROSI A,"demographic parameters such as survival, sex ratio and abundance can profoundly affect the viability of populations and thus are of primary importance in species of conservation concern. although numerous studies have been published on certain aspects of the ecology and evolution of the endangered large blue butterfly maculinea arion, there is still a lack of detailed knowledge on its populations' demography. moreover, m. arion populates a variety of xerothermic habitats throughout its european range using various food plants and host ants, which leads to complications in its conservation. our aim was to estimate demographic parameters of m. arion populations in different parts of its european range. detailed mark-recapture sampling was conducted on populations in four different countries. we often found that daily apparent survival probability declined with increasing age of individuals, but there was no difference between male and female survival. in smaller populations, the sex ratio was rather female-biased. our most interesting result was the lack of protandry in some populations that might be a consequence of selection against reproductive asynchrony in small populations or a polyandrous mating system. the perfect coincidence of male and female phenology can positively affect the effective population size, because the lack of reproductive asynchrony increases the chance of male-female encounters. abundance of the studied populations ranged between 100 and 1,600 individuals, smaller populations were on the verge of extinction. habitat of the threatened small populations was either overgrazed or abandoned, while habitat of larger, stable populations was lightly grazed." food availability as a major driver in the evolution of life-history strategies of sibling species,age at first reproduction; bats; demography; life-history trade-off; multistate capture-recapture model; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ARLETTAZ R;CHRISTE P;SCHAUB M,"life-history theory predicts trade-offs between reproductive and survival traits such that different strategies or environmental constraints may yield comparable lifetime reproductive success among conspecifics. food availability is one of the most important environmental factors shaping developmental processes. it notably affects key life-history components such as reproduction and survival prospect. we investigated whether food resource availability could also operate as an ultimate driver of life-history strategy variation between species. during 13 years, we marked and recaptured young and adult sibling mouse-eared bats (myotis myotis and myotis blythii) at sympatric colonial sites. we tested whether distinct, species-specific trophic niches and food availability patterns may drive interspecific differences in key life-history components such as age at first reproduction and survival. we took advantage of a quasi-experimental setting in which prey availability for the two species varies between years (pulse vs. nonpulse resource years), modeling mark-recapture data for demographic comparisons. prey availability dictated both adult survival and age at first reproduction. the bat species facing a more abundant and predictable food supply early in the season started its reproductive life earlier and showed a lower adult survival probability than the species subjected to more limited and less predictable food supply, while lifetime reproductive success was comparable in both species. the observed life-history trade-off indicates that temporal patterns in food availability can drive evolutionary divergence in life-history strategies among sympatric sibling species." surviving at high elevations: an inter- and intra-specific analysis in a mountain bird community,adult survival; elevation; inter-specific variation; capture-recapture analyses; passerines,OECOLOGIA,BASTIANELLI G;TAVECCHIA G;MELENDEZ L;SEOANE J;OBESO JR;LAIOLO P,"elevation represents an important selection agent on self-maintenance traits and correlated life histories in birds, but no study has analysed whether life-history variation along this environmental cline is consistent among and within species. in a sympatric community of passerines, we analysed how the average adult survival of 25 open-habitat species varied with their elevational distribution and how adult survival varied with elevation at the intra-specific level. for such purpose, we estimated intra-specific variation in adult survival in two mountainous species, the water pipit (anthus spinoletta) and the northern wheatear (oenanthe oenanthe) in nw spain, by means of capture-recapture analyses. at the inter-specific level, high-elevation species showed higher survival values than low elevation ones, likely because a greater allocation to self-maintenance permits species to persist in alpine environments. at the intra-specific level, the magnitude of survival variation was lower by far. nevertheless, water pipit survival slightly decreased at high elevations, while the proportion of transient birds increased. in contrast, no such relationships were found in the northern wheatear. intra-specific analyses suggest that living at high elevation may be costly, such as for the water pipit in our case study. therefore, it seems that a species can persist with viable populations in uplands, where extrinsic mortality is high, by increasing the investment in self-maintenance and prospecting behaviours." "estimating tadpole-detection rates using visual field surveys: effects of survey time, tadpole species and tadpole density",amphibian; babina subaspera; detection probability; elastomer; mark-recapture; occupancy model; odorrana splendida; stream,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,IWAI N,"context. when understanding species occupancy, estimation of detection probability for the target species is often required, provided by repeated surveys. however, if the actual detection probability of the species is determined experimentally, such estimates are not required, and the reliability of the occupancy data obtained by a particular survey effort can be determined. aims. the aim of this study was to determine the detection rate of tadpoles using visual field surveys, as well as to explore the effects of survey time, species and tadpole density on the tadpole-detection rate. the suitability of visual surveys for detecting tadpole occupancy was also assessed. methods. batch-identified tadpoles were released into several pools and repeatedly counted over successive days to calculate detection rates using visual observation. in experiment 1, the effects of tag colour, survey time (morning vs night) and species on the detection rates of two species of tadpoles (babina subaspera and odorrana splendida) were examined. in experiment 2, the effects of tadpole density on o. splendida were examined. key results. detection rates varied by survey time, species and tadpole density; mean rates ranged from 0.2 to 0.6 for b. subaspera and 0.4 to 0.8 for o. splendida, with higher rates at night. there was a negative relationship between detection rate and tadpole density. based on these detection rates, it was calculated that single visual surveys of o. splendida tadpoles can achieve detection probabilities near 1.0 when more than four individuals occur in a patch. conclusions. variations in detection probability should be considered in field surveys. if the factors that cause variations in detection rates are controlled, visual surveys of tadpoles should, at least in some species, provide detection probabilities near 1.0. implications. when repeated surveys to estimate species occupancy are not practicable, determination of the actual detection probability of the target species using real detection rates provides a robust alternative approach." @@ -272,7 +272,7 @@ quantifying dispersal of a non-aggressive saprophytic bark beetle,NA,PLOS ONE,ME estimating survival in the apennine brown bear accounting for uncertainty in age classification,apennine brown bear; hair-snagging; multievent models; non-invasive genetic sampling; small populations; survival,POPULATION ECOLOGY,GERVASI V;BOITANI L;PAETKAU D;POSILLICO M;RANDI E;CIUCCI P,"for most rare and elusive species, estimating age-specific survival is a challenging task, although it is an important requirement to understand the drivers of population dynamics, and to inform conservation actions. apennine brown bears ursus arctos marsicanus are a small, isolated population under a severe risk of extinction, for which the main demographic mechanisms underlying population dynamics are still unknown, and population trends have not been formally assessed. we present a 12-year analysis of their survival rates using non-invasive genetic sampling data collected through four different sampling techniques. by using multi-event capture-recapture models, we estimated survival probabilities for two broadly defined age classes (cubs and older individuals), even though the age of the majority of sampled bears was unknown. we also applied the pradel model to provide a preliminary assessment of population trend during the study period. survival was different between cubs [i center dot = 0.51, 95% ci (0.22, 0.79)], adult males [i center dot = 0.85, 95% ci (0.76, 0.91)] and adult females [i center dot = 0.92, 95% ci (0.87, 0.95)], no temporal variation in survival emerged, suggesting that bear survival remained substantially stable throughout the study period. the pradel analysis of population trend yielded an estimate of lambda = 1.009 [se = 0.018; 95% ci (0.974, 1.046)]. our results indicate that, despite the status of full legal protection, the basically stable demography of this relict population is compatible with the observed lack of range expansion, and that a relatively high cub mortality could be among the main factors depressing recruitment and hence population growth." early-life density-dependence effects on growth and survival in subantarctic fur seals,arctocephalus tropicalis; capture-mark-recapture; growth model; marine top predator; population dynamics; state space model,POPULATION ECOLOGY,PACOUREAU N;AUTHIER M;DELORD K;GUINET C;BARBRAUD C,"understanding the regulation of natural populations has been a long-standing research program in ecology. current knowledge on marine mammals and seabirds is biased toward the adult component of populations and lacking are studies investigating the juvenile component. our goal was to estimate demographic parameters on the pre-weaning stage of a subantarctic fur seal (arctocephalus tropicalis) population on amsterdam island, suspected to be regulated by density-dependence. the influence of abundance on growth parameters (length and weight) and survival was assessed over a study period spanning 16 years. we evidenced a negative trend in population growth rate when density increased. density-dependence models were favored for pup body size and mass growth. abundance had a clear influence on body length at high population-density, pups grew slower and were smaller at weaning than pups born in years with low population density. abundance partly explained pup body mass variation and a weak effect was detected on pre-weaning survival. the causal mechanisms may be increased competition for food resources between breeding females, leading to a reduction of maternal input to their pups. our results suggested that pup favored survival over growth and the development of their diving abilities in order to withstand the extreme fasting periods that are characteristic of this fur seal population. this analysis provides significant insight of density-dependent processes on early-life demographic parameters of a long lived and top-predator species, and more specifically on the pre-weaning stage with important consequences for our understanding of individual long-term fitness and population dynamics." "monitoring the saproxylic longhorn beetle morimus asper: investigating season, time of the day, dead wood characteristics and odour traps",cerambycidae; coleoptera; detection probability; freshly cut log piles; morimus funereus; pitfall traps,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,HARDERSEN S;CUCCURULLO A;BARDIANI M;BOLOGNA MA;MAURA M;MAURIZI E;ROVERSI PF;PEVERIERI GS;CHIARI S,"monitoring of rare or localized saproxylic species is essential for assessing species extinction risk and to investigate the ecological integrity of forests. morimus asper (sulzer, 1776) (coleoptera, cerambycidae) is a longhorn beetle for which many aspects of its biology are still unknown and this hampers the development of a standard monitoring protocol. here we investigated two different systems to attract m. asper in the reserve bosco della fontana (italy): freshly cut log piles (fclps) and pitfall traps baited with selected chemical compounds. the fclps were composed from logs of two tree species (quercus robur l. or carpinus betulus l.) utilizing wood of three diameter classes (small: 5-12 cm; medium: 13-30 cm; large: 31-60 cm). the occurrence and the detection of m. asper varied during the season and during the time of the day. m. asper was more common in the first half of the season and was more frequently detected at 20:00. occupancy models did not show a clear influence of log diameter and tree species on species occupancy. in contrast, when analysing the abundance data, a significantly higher number of individuals was intercepted on fclps made from q. robur and on those with a diameter above 13 cm. the baited pitfall traps did not catch any m. asper, even though some of the substances tested are known to attract other species belonging to the same subfamily (lamiinae)." -"context-dependent local movements of the blue-tailed damselfly, ischnura elegans: effects of pond characteristics and the landscape matrix",odonates; environmental context; capture-mark-recapture; individual tracking; translocation,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,LE GALL M;CHAPUT-BARDY A;HUSTE A,"the loss of ponds and the fragmentation of their surrounding landscape negatively impacts the biodiversity of wetlands, such as damselflies. they are short-distance dispersers and can be influenced by the quality of suitable habitats and the landscape matrix. the aim of this study was to test the effect of the environmental context (i.e. pond characteristics and the surrounding landscape) on movements and survival probability in a damselfly species, ischnura elegans. three approaches (i.e. capture-mark-recapture, individual tracking and translocation studies) were performed in northwestern france. the characteristics of ponds did not influence damselfly survival. however, the landscape context affected movements within ponds, and between ponds. individuals from open-field ponds moved over longer distances than individuals from urban ponds. moreover, in cases of disturbances, such as a pond drying up, movements from one pond to another were observed only in the open-field context. the ecological quality of the pond did not appear to affect survival of individuals, probably because i. elegans has a high tolerance to changes in ecological factors. however, higher local movements depend on the degree of openness of the landscape. landscape context is hence a key issue in damselfly conservation planning and in maintaining ecological continuities, such as along greenways and blueways, and specifically the degree of landscape openness during pond creation." +"context-dependent local movements of the blue-tailed damselfly, ischnura elegans: effects of pond characteristics and the landscape matrix",odonates; environmental context; capture-mark-recapture; individual tracking; translocation,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,LE GALL M;CHAPUT BARDY A;HUSTE A,"the loss of ponds and the fragmentation of their surrounding landscape negatively impacts the biodiversity of wetlands, such as damselflies. they are short-distance dispersers and can be influenced by the quality of suitable habitats and the landscape matrix. the aim of this study was to test the effect of the environmental context (i.e. pond characteristics and the surrounding landscape) on movements and survival probability in a damselfly species, ischnura elegans. three approaches (i.e. capture-mark-recapture, individual tracking and translocation studies) were performed in northwestern france. the characteristics of ponds did not influence damselfly survival. however, the landscape context affected movements within ponds, and between ponds. individuals from open-field ponds moved over longer distances than individuals from urban ponds. moreover, in cases of disturbances, such as a pond drying up, movements from one pond to another were observed only in the open-field context. the ecological quality of the pond did not appear to affect survival of individuals, probably because i. elegans has a high tolerance to changes in ecological factors. however, higher local movements depend on the degree of openness of the landscape. landscape context is hence a key issue in damselfly conservation planning and in maintaining ecological continuities, such as along greenways and blueways, and specifically the degree of landscape openness during pond creation." male greater sage-grouse movements among leks,availability bias; centrocercus urophasianus; greater sage-grouse; interlek movements; lek fidelity; multistate mark-recapture; wyoming.,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,FREMGEN AL;ROTA CT;HANSEN CP;RUMBLE MA;GAMO RS;MILLSPAUGH JJ,"movements among leks by breeding birds (i. e., interlek movements) could affect the population ' s genetic flow, complicate use of lek counts as a population index, and indicate a change in breeding behavior following a disturbance. we used a bayesian multi-state mark-recapture model to assess the daily probability of male greater sage- grouse (centrocercus urophasianus) interlek movements and estimate factors influencing movements among leks. we fitted 145 males with solar argos global positioning systems platform transmitter terminals over 4 years (2011-2014) in carbon county, wyoming, usa. the daily probability of a male sage- grouse moving among leks ranged 0.003 (95% ci =0.000-0.010) in 2011 to 0.010 (95% ci = 0.001-0.021) in 2013, indicating high daily lek fidelity throughout the season, although there was a 5-42% chance annually a male would move at least once to another lek throughout the season (x days analyzed/m= 55 +/- 3.3 days [se]). interlek movement probabilities were strongly affected by day of year, peaking early in the lek season. interlek movements were positively associated with elevation. seasonal interlek movements occurredmore frequently than previously reported, and can bias lek counts in early spring as males move from low to high elevation leks, which reinforces interlek movements as a critical component of lek ecology. (c) 2017 the wildlife society." role of breeding and natal movements in lifetime dispersal of a forest-dwelling rodent,bequeathal; gene flow; movement ecology; population spread,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SELONEN V;WISTBACKA R,"the lifetime movements of an individual determine the gene flow and invasion potential of the species. however, sex dependence of dispersal and selective pressures driving dispersal have gained much more attention than dispersal at different life and age stages. natal dispersal is more common than dispersal between breeding attempts, but breeding dispersal may be promoted by resource availability and competition. here, we utilize mark-recapture data on the nest-box population of siberian flying squirrels to analyze lifetime dispersal patterns. natal dispersal means the distance between the natal nest and the nest used the following year, whereas breeding movements refer to the nest site changes between breeding attempts. the movement distances observed here were comparable to distances reported earlier from radio-telemetry studies. breeding movements did not contribute to lifetime dispersal distance and were not related to variation in food abundance or habitat patch size. breeding movements of males were negatively, albeit not strongly, related to male population size. in females, breeding movement activity was low and was not related to previous breeding success or to competition between females for territories. natal philopatry was linked to apparent death of a mother; that is, we did not find evidence for mothers bequeathing territories for offspring, like observed in some other rodent species. our results give an example of a species in which breeding movements are not driven by environmental variability or nest site quality. different evolutionary forces often operate in natal and breeding movements, and our study supports the view that juveniles are responsible for redistributing individuals within and between populations. this emphasizes the importance of knowledge on natal dispersal, if we want to understand consequences of movement ecology of the species at the population level." unexpected decline in a population of speckled tortoises,corvids; demography; habitat suitability; homopus signatus; mortality; namaqualand; population dynamics; predation; succulent karoo; tortoise,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,LOEHR VJT,"long-lived, iteroparous species exhibit various mechanisms to overcome temporary unfavorable conditions and promote adult survival and population persistence. consequently, populations may appear relatively stable while subtle and slow-progressing threats cause their decline. the speckled tortoise (homopus signatus) is a long-lived, iteroparous species in south africa that is thought to be secure in areas that meet the species ' known requirements. to verify its stability, i monitored a dense speckled tortoise population, integrating 2 mark-recapture studies (2000-2004 and 2012-2015) in long-term joint live and dead encounters and popan population models. from 2000 to 2015, the study site remained fenced, ungrazed, and was not modified in any way, yet the size-class frequency distribution, sex ratio, and abundance of speckled tortoises drastically changed. population numbers decreased 66%, mainly because of the disappearance of juveniles and males. modeling results identified a reduction in the number of entrants into the population (via births and immigration) as the likely cause of population changes, whereas apparent survival remained high. observations, in part anecdotal, of increasing numbers of pied crows (corvus albus) on the study site suggest that increased predation on speckled tortoise hatchlings contributed to the population decline. examination of rainfall data for 1990-2015 did not reveal evidence of aridification in the study area, a documented cause of reduced reproduction in speckled tortoises. the results of this study caution against the assumption that areas in the range of the speckled tortoise that meet its known requirements can maintain healthy populations. (c) 2017 the wildlife society" @@ -292,7 +292,7 @@ combining the cohen-fishman growth increment model with a box-cox transformation when perception reflects reality: non-native grass invasion alters small mammal risk landscapes and survival,habitat homogenization; habitat selection; human-induced habitat change; invasion biology; invasive species; optimal foraging; predation risk,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CERADINI JP;CHALFOUN AD,"modification of habitat structure due to invasive plants can alter the risk landscape for wildlife by, for example, changing the quality or availability of refuge habitat. whether perceived risk corresponds with actual fitness outcomes, however, remains an important open question. we simultaneously measured how habitat changes due to a common invasive grass (cheatgrass, bromus tectorum) affected the perceived risk, habitat selection, and apparent survival of a small mammal, enabling us to assess how well perceived risk influenced important behaviors and reflected actual risk. we measured perceived risk by nocturnal rodents using a giving-up density foraging experiment with paired shrub (safe) and open (risky) foraging trays in cheatgrass and native habitats. we also evaluated microhabitat selection across a cheatgrass gradient as an additional assay of perceived risk and behavioral responses for deer mice (peromyscus maniculatus) at two spatial scales of habitat availability. finally, we used mark-recapture analysis to quantify deer mouse apparent survival across a cheatgrass gradient while accounting for detection probability and other habitat features. in the foraging experiment, shrubs were more important as protective cover in cheatgrass-dominated habitats, suggesting that cheatgrass increased perceived predation risk. additionally, deer mice avoided cheatgrass and selected shrubs, and marginally avoided native grass, at two spatial scales. deer mouse apparent survival varied with a cheatgrass-shrub interaction, corresponding with our foraging experiment results, and providing a rare example of a native plant mediating the effects of an invasive plant on wildlife. by synthesizing the results of three individual lines of evidence (foraging behavior, habitat selection, and apparent survival), we provide a rare example of linkage between behavioral responses of animals indicative of perceived predation risk and actual fitness outcomes. moreover, our results suggest that exotic grass invasions can influence wildlife populations by altering risk landscapes and survival." "low leopard populations in protected areas of maputaland: a consequence of poaching, habitat condition, abundance of prey, and a top predator",africa; bayesian approach; competition; poaching; prey abundance; spatially explicit capture-recapture; threats,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,RAMESH T;KALLE R;ROSENLUND H;DOWNS CT,"identifying the primary causes affecting population densities and distribution of flagship species are necessary in developing sustainable management strategies for large carnivore conservation. we modeled drivers of spatial density of the common leopard (panthera pardus) using a spatially explicit capture-recapturebayesian approach to understand their population dynamics in the maputaland conservation unit, south africa. we camera-trapped leopards in four protected areas (pas) of varying sizes and disturbance levels covering 198 camera stations. ours is the first study to explore the effects of poaching level, abundance of prey species (small, medium, and large), competitors (lion panthera leo and spotted hyenas crocuta crocuta), and habitat on the spatial distribution of common leopard density. twenty-six male and 41 female leopards were individually identified and estimated leopard density ranged from 1.6 +/- 0.62/100km(2) (smallest pandumo) to 8.4 +/- 1.03/100km(2) (largest pawestern shores). although dry forest thickets and plantation habitats largely represented the western shores, the plantation areas had extremely low leopard density compared to native forest. we found that leopard density increased in areas when low poaching levels/no poaching was recorded in dry forest thickets and with high abundance of medium-sized prey, but decreased with increasing abundance of lion. because local leopard populations are vulnerable to extinction, particularly in smaller pas, the long-term sustainability of leopard populations depend on developing appropriate management strategies that consider a combination of multiple factors to maintain their optimal habitats." climatic conditions produce contrasting influences on demographic traits in a long-distance arctic migrant,annual routine; canadian arctic; capture-mark-recapture; climate change; population demography,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,CLEASBY IR;BODEY TW;VIGFUSDOTTIR F;MCDONALD JL;MCELWAINE G;MACKIE K;COLHOUN K;BEARHOP S,"1. the manner in which patterns of variation and interactions among demographic rates contribute to population growth rate (lambda) is key to understanding how animal populations will respond to changing climatic conditions. 2. migratory species are likely to be particularly sensitive to climatic conditions as they experience a range of different environments throughout their annual cycle. however, few studies have provided fully integrated demographic analyses of migratory populations in response to changing climatic conditions. 3. here, we employed integrated population models to demonstrate that the environmental conditions experienced during a short but critical period play a central role in the demography of a long-distance migrant, the light-bellied brent goose (branta bernicla hrota). 4. female survival was positively associated with june north atlantic oscillation (nao) values, whereas male survival was not. in contrast, breeding productivity was negatively associated with june nao, suggesting a trade-off between female survival and reproductive success. both adult female and adult male survival showed low temporal variation, whereas there was high temporal variation in recruitment and breeding productivity. in addition, while annual population growth was positively correlated with annual breeding productivity, a sensitivity analysis revealed that population growth was most sensitive to changes in adult survival. 5. our results demonstrate that the environmental conditions experienced during a relatively short-time window at the start of the breeding season play a critical role in shaping the demography of a long-distant arctic migrant. crucially, different demographic rates responded in opposing directions to climatic variation, emphasising the need for integrated analysis of multiple demographic traits when understanding population dynamics." -hard choices in assessing survival past dams - a comparison of single -and paired-release strategies,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,ZYDLEWSKI J;STICH D;SIGOURNEY D,"mark-recapture models are widely used to estimate survival of salmon smolts migrating past dams. paired releases have been used to improve estimate accuracy by removing components of mortality not attributable to the dam. this method is accompanied by reduced precision because (i) sample size is reduced relative to a single, large release; and (ii) variance calculations inflate error. we modeled an idealized system with a single dam to assess trade-offs between accuracy and precision and compared methods using root mean squared error (rmse). simulations were run under predefined conditions (dam mortality, background mortality, detection probability, and sample size) to determine scenarios when the paired release was preferable to a single release. we demonstrate that a paired-release design provides a theoretical advantage over a single-release design only at large sample sizes and high probabilities of detection. at release numbers typical of many survival studies, paired release can result in overestimation of dam survival. failures to meet model assumptions of a paired release may result in further overestimation of dam-related survival. under most conditions, a single-release strategy was preferable." +hard choices in assessing survival past dams - a comparison of single- and paired-release strategies,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,ZYDLEWSKI J;STICH D;SIGOURNEY D,"mark-recapture models are widely used to estimate survival of salmon smolts migrating past dams. paired releases have been used to improve estimate accuracy by removing components of mortality not attributable to the dam. this method is accompanied by reduced precision because (i) sample size is reduced relative to a single, large release; and (ii) variance calculations inflate error. we modeled an idealized system with a single dam to assess trade-offs between accuracy and precision and compared methods using root mean squared error (rmse). simulations were run under predefined conditions (dam mortality, background mortality, detection probability, and sample size) to determine scenarios when the paired release was preferable to a single release. we demonstrate that a paired-release design provides a theoretical advantage over a single-release design only at large sample sizes and high probabilities of detection. at release numbers typical of many survival studies, paired release can result in overestimation of dam survival. failures to meet model assumptions of a paired release may result in further overestimation of dam-related survival. under most conditions, a single-release strategy was preferable." evaluating genetic capture-recapture using a chimpanzee population of known size,capwire; genetic census; genotyping; microsatellites; pan troglodytes; population size estimators; spatially explicit,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GRANJON AC;ROWNEY C;VIGILANT L;LANGERGRABER KE,"genetic capture-recapture (cr) estimates of population size have potential for aiding the conservation and management of rare or elusive animals. to date, few studies have explored the performance of genetic cr estimates by implementing them in a population of known size. we evaluated the accuracy and precision of genetic cr estimates by genotyping fecal samples collected opportunistically over the territory of a well-studied group of approximately 190 previously identified and genotyped eastern chimpanzees (pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) in kibale national park, uganda. we compared the performance of genetic cr estimates based on 3-month and 3-year sampling periods to explore the impact of lengthened sample periods, which are expected to increase accuracy and precision of estimates but also increase the chances of violating population closure assumptions. we compared the effects of using spatial and non-spatial models and equal or heterogeneous detection probabilities upon estimates. over the 3-year period, we detected 54% of the group members and produced population size estimates with more accuracy and narrower confidence intervals than the 3-month sampling period. the population remained effectively closed over the 3 years and detection heterogeneity was linked to age but not sex. non-spatial methods estimated group size more accurately than spatially explicit methods, which had a stronger tendency to underestimate population size. this study suggests that genetic cr may produce accurate and precise population size estimates if substantial effort is allocated to sample collection and genotyping. (c) 2016 the wildlife society. we evaluated the performance of several genetic capture-recapture estimators of population size in a chimpanzee group whose size was independently known. precision and accuracy were superior when calculated on samples collected over 3 years versus 3 months, showing that the positive effect of increased sample size outweighed the potentially negative effect of violating population closure in this slow life-history species." population abundance estimation with heterogeneous encounter probabilities using numerical integration,abundance estimation; capture-mark-reencounter; huggins estimator; individual heterogeneity; m-h; numerical integration; program mark,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,WHITE GC;COOCH EG,"estimation of population abundance is a common problem in wildlife ecology and management. capture-mark-reencounter (cmr) methods using marked animals are a standard approach, particularly in recent history with the development of innovative methods of marking using camera traps or dna samples. however, estimates of abundance from multiple encounters of marked individuals are biased low when individual heterogeneity of encounter probabilities is not accounted for in the estimator. we evaluated the operating characteristics of the huggins logit-normal estimator through computer simulations, using gaussian-hermite quadrature to model individual encounter heterogeneity. we simulated individual encounter data following a factorial design with 2 levels of sampling occasions (t=5, 10), 3 levels of abundance (n=100, 500, 1,000), 4 levels of median detection probabilities (p=0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6) for each sampling occasion (on the probability scale), and 4 levels of individual heterogeneity (sigma(p)=0, 0.5, 1, 2; on the logit normal scale), resulting in a design space consisting of 96 simulation scenarios (2x3x4x4). for each scenario, we performed 1,000 simulations using the huggins estimators m-t, m-0, m-tre, and m-0re, where the re subscript corresponds to the random effects model. as expected, the m-t and m-0 estimators were biased when individual heterogeneity was present but unbiased for sigma(p)=0 data. the estimators for m-tre and m-0re were biased high for n=100 and median p0.2 but showed little bias elsewhere. the bias is attributed to the occasional sets of data that result in a low overall detection probability and a resulting highly skewed sampling distribution of this result is confirmed in that the median of the sampling distributions was only slightly biased high. the random effects estimators performed poorly for sigma(p)=0 data, mainly because a log link function forces the estimate of sigma(p)>0. however, the fletcher statistic provided useful evidence to evaluate sigma(p)>0, as did likelihood ratio tests of the null hypothesis sigma(p)=0. generally, confidence interval coverage of n appears close to the nominal 95% expected when the estimator is not biased. (c) 2017 the wildlife society. estimates of population abundance from multiple encounters of marked individuals are biased low when individual heterogeneity of encounter probabilities is not accounted for in the estimator. through computer simulations, we found that the huggins logit-normal estimator with gaussian-hermite quadrature to integrate out individual random effects eliminates major bias of the abundance estimates with an adequate number of sampling occasions and reasonable detection probabilities." decline in territory size and fecundity as a response to carrying capacity in an endangered songbird,carrying capacity; cowbird parasitism; density-dependence; integrated population model; population regulation,OECOLOGIA,HARTMANN SA;OPPEL S;SEGELBACHER G;JUINA ME;SCHAEFER HM,"density-dependent processes are fundamental mechanisms for the regulation of populations. ecological theories differ in their predictions on whether increasing population density leads to individual adjustments of survival and reproductive output or to dominance and monopolization of resources. here, we use a natural experiment to examine which factors limit population growth in the only remaining population of the endangered pale-headed brush finch (atlapetes pallidiceps). for three distinct phases (a phase of population suppression, 2001-2002; expansion due to conservation management, 2003-2008; and equilibrium phase, 2009-2014), we estimated demographic parameters with an integrated population model using population size, the proportion of successfully breeding pairs and their productivity, territory size, and mark-recapture data of adult birds. a low proportion of successful breeders due to brood parasitism (0.42, 95% credible interval 0.26-0.59) limited population growth before 2003; subsequent culling of the brood parasite resulted in a two-fold increase of the proportion of successful breeders during the 'expansion phase'. when the population approached the carrying capacity of its habitat, territory size declined by more than 50% and fecundity declined from 1.9 (1.54-2.27) to 1.3 (1.12-1.53) chicks per breeding pair, but the proportion of successful breeders remained constant (expansion phase: 0.85; 0.76-0.93; equilibrium phase: 0.86; 0.79-0.92). this study demonstrates that limiting resources can lead to individual adjustments instead of despotic behavior, and the individual reduction of reproductive output at high population densities is consistent with the slow life-history of many tropical species." @@ -313,7 +313,7 @@ annual movements of acoustic-tagged white sturgeon in the lower reaches of the f assessing reservoir largemouth bass standardized boat electrofishing: effect of catchability on density and size structure indices,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,TYSZKO SM;HANGSLEBEN MA;ZWEIFEL RD;PRITT JJ;CONROY JD,"understanding catchability-the fraction of a stock caught by a defined unit of effort-is crucial to using fisheries assessment data to index abundance. we conducted mark-recapture experiments to estimate catchability and evaluate standard boat electrofishing methods for assessing populations of largemouth bass micropterus salmoides. we then used a resampling analysis to test for differences in bass cpue (fish/h and fish/km) between two high-density reservoirs and one low-density reservoir and among surveys within each reservoir. we compared scenarios using surveys conducted only during (1) the standard time period (mid-april to mid-may) and (2) the entire assessment period (early april to mid-june). we considered the percentage of significant differences in cpue between the high-density and low-density reservoirs to represent statistical power (i.e., the ability to detect a difference in cpue when a difference actually exists) and the percentage of significant differences in cpue between surveys in the same reservoir to represent the false-positive rate (i.e., the detection of a difference in cpue when no difference in density exists). catchability and cpue were greatest and least variable during recapture events conducted during the standard period. the mean catchability of sub-stock length largemouth bass (150-200 mm) and memorable-length bass (>= 510 mm) was significantly less than those for other length categories. statistical power exceeded 80%, and the false-positive rate was generally less than 10% for sampling during the standard period at as few as six electrofishing sites. when including samples from outside the standard period, power was lower and the false-positive rate was as high as 60%. power and false-positive rate were similar whether effort was measured in time or distance. our results emphasize that standardized springtime boat electrofishing assessments validly index largemouth bass density and size structure." association patterns and population dynamics of bottlenose dolphins in the strait of sicily (central mediterranean sea): implication for management,abundance; associations; fission-fusion society; population size; tursiops truncatus,POPULATION ECOLOGY,PAPALE E;CERAULO M;GIARDINO G;BUFFA G;FILICIOTTO F;GRAMMAUTA R;MACCARRONE V;MAZZOLA S;BUSCAINO G,"an understanding of the population dynamics and social organization of cetaceans is essential to manage the influence of anthropogenic activities. in this study, the population size, site fidelity and social interactions of bottlenose dolphins in the strait of sicily (italy) were investigated to provide recommendations for their conservation. mark-recapture analysis was based on the encounter histories of 103 marked dolphins from 2004 to 2015. the popan formulation of the jolly-seber model in mark software was used to estimate the size of the super-population. site fidelity and social organization were estimated for individuals re-sighted ae3 times. the estimated population size was 140 (se = 15.75; 95% ci = 106-164). dolphins had low site fidelity, and both adults and sub-adults move outside the study area. females with calves used the area longer than other individuals. based on our results, dolphins' home range likely extended beyond the study area. the mean value of the half-weight association index was low and the preferred association was by casual acquaintance. however, we found a distinct aggregation of post-parturition females during the final 2 years of the study. therefore, the pattern of association was apparently a response to an ecological requirement, which was the possibility to breed in high productivity waters. whether these individuals are part of a larger pelagic population is unknown; however, we can conclude that the management of only coastal waters is insufficient for the conservation of dolphins in the strait of sicily." isotopic structure of lake whitefish in lake huron: evidence for regional and local populations based on resource use,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,EBERTS RL;WISSEL B;SIMPSON GL;CRAWFORD SS;STOTT W;HANNER RH;MANZON RG;WILSON JY;BOREHAM DR;SOMERS CM,"lake whitefish coregonus clupeaformis is the most commercially valuable species in lake huron. the fishery for this species has historically been managed based on 25 management units (17 in canada, 8 in the usa). however, congruence between the contemporary population structure of lakewhitefish and management units is poorly understood. we used stable isotopes of carbon (delta c-13) and nitrogen (delta n-15), food web markers that reflect patterns in resource use (i.e., prey, location, habitat), to assess the population structure of spawning-phase lake whitefish collected from 32 sites (1,474 fish) across lake huron. we found large isotopic variation among fish from different sites (ranges: delta c-13 = 10.2 parts per thousand, delta n-15 = 5.5 parts per thousand) and variable niche size and levels of overlap (standard ellipse area = 1.0-4.3 parts per thousand(2)). lake huron contained spawning-phase fish from four major isotopic clusters largely defined by extensive variation in delta c-13, and the isotopic composition of fish sampled was spatially structured both within and between lake basins. based on cluster compositions, we identified six putative regional groups, some of which represented sites of high diversity (three to four clusters) and others with less (one to two clusters). analysis of isotopic values from lake whitefish collected from summer feeding locations and baseline prey items showed similar isotopic variation and established spatial linkage between spawning-phase and summer fish. our results show that summer feeding location contributes strongly to the isotopic structure we observed in spawning-phase fish. one of the regional groups we identified in northern georgian bay is highly distinct based on isotopic composition and possibly ecologically unique within lake huron. our findings are congruent with several previous studies using different markers (genetics, mark-recapture), and we conclude that current management units are generally too small and numerous to reflect the population structure of lake whitefish in lake huron." -causes of mortality in depleted populations of atlantic cod estimated from multi-event modelling of mark-recapture and recovery data,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,FERNANDEZ-CHACON A;MOLAND E;ESPELAND SH;KLEIVEN AR;OLSEN EM,"knowledge on mortality causes is key for an effective management of animal populations and can help to restore depleted fish stocks. here we investigated the mortality dynamics of coastal atlantic cod (gadus morhua) in skagerrak, southern norway, by analyzing local mark-recapture and recovery data collected from 2005 to 2013 (n = 9360 fish, mean length = 41 cm, range = 16-93 cm). by applying multi-event models to the data, we could link field observations to multiple ""dead states"" and estimate the proportion of deaths associated with different fishing gears while controlling for unobserved mortality and detection errors. deaths due to hand lines and fixed gear types were dominant compared with other causes, especially in legal-sized cod (>= 40 cm). gear-specific mortality changed over time and between size classes, but annual survival remained low and stable (similar to 0.3). assuming fully additive mortality, we predicted annual survival of cod to be above 0.5 if only one or both of the dominant gear types were removed, providing insights on the relative impact of diverse harvesting practices on local population dynamics." +causes of mortality in depleted populations of atlantic cod estimated from multi-event modelling of mark-recapture and recovery data,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,FERNANDEZ CHACON A;MOLAND E;ESPELAND SH;KLEIVEN AR;OLSEN EM,"knowledge on mortality causes is key for an effective management of animal populations and can help to restore depleted fish stocks. here we investigated the mortality dynamics of coastal atlantic cod (gadus morhua) in skagerrak, southern norway, by analyzing local mark-recapture and recovery data collected from 2005 to 2013 (n = 9360 fish, mean length = 41 cm, range = 16-93 cm). by applying multi-event models to the data, we could link field observations to multiple ""dead states"" and estimate the proportion of deaths associated with different fishing gears while controlling for unobserved mortality and detection errors. deaths due to hand lines and fixed gear types were dominant compared with other causes, especially in legal-sized cod (>= 40 cm). gear-specific mortality changed over time and between size classes, but annual survival remained low and stable (similar to 0.3). assuming fully additive mortality, we predicted annual survival of cod to be above 0.5 if only one or both of the dominant gear types were removed, providing insights on the relative impact of diverse harvesting practices on local population dynamics." behavioral connectivity among bighorn sheep suggests potential for disease spread,behavioral connectivity; bighorn sheep; disease; idaho; multi-state mark-recapture; ovis canadensis; salmon river; social groups,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,BORG NJ;MITCHELL MS;LUKACS PM;MACK CM;WAITS LP;KRAUSMAN PR,"connectivity is important for population persistence and can reduce the potential for inbreeding depression. connectivity between populations can also facilitate disease transmission; respiratory diseases are one of the most important factors affecting populations of bighorn sheep (ovis canadensis). the mechanisms of connectivity in populations of bighorn sheep likely have implications for spread of disease, but the behaviors leading to connectivity between bighorn sheep groups are not well understood. from 2007-2012, we radio-collared and monitored 56 bighorn sheep in the salmon river canyon in central idaho. we used cluster analysis to define social groups of bighorn sheep and then estimated connectivity between these groups using a multi-state mark-recapture model. social groups of bighorn sheep were spatially segregated and linearly distributed along the salmon river canyon. monthly probabilities of movement between adjacent male and female groups ranged from 0.08 (0.004 se) to 0.76 (+/- 0.068) for males and 0.05 (+/- 0.132) to 0.24 (+/- 0.034) for females. movements of males were extensive and probabilities of movement were considerably higher during the rut. probabilities of movement for females were typically smaller than those of males and did not change seasonally. whereas adjacent groups of bighorn sheep along the salmon river canyon were well connected, connectivity between groups north and south of the salmon river was limited. the novel application of a multi-state model to a population of bighorn sheep allowed us to estimate the probability of movement between adjacent social groups and approximate the level of connectivity across the population. our results suggest high movement rates of males during the rut are the most likely to result in transmission of pathogens among both male and female groups. potential for disease spread among female groups was smaller but non-trivial. land managers can plan grazing of domestic sheep for spring and summer months when males are relatively inactive. removal or quarantine of social groups may reduce probability of disease transmission in populations of bighorn sheep consisting of linearly distributed social groups. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." measuring the growth rate in three populations of larval lampreys with mark-recapture techniques,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,EVANS TM,"the growth rate of larval lampreys (ammocoetes) is of critical importance for scientists and managers seeking to better understand, control, and protect lamprey populations. to date, measurements of ammocoete growth have often relied upon indirect methods (e.g., length frequency), but direct measurements of growth rate in wild populations are rare. lamprey ammocoetes in three streams were individually marked with visible implant elastomer and were subsequently recaptured. ammocoete growth was variable among sites and among sample events (from -0.035 to 0.18 mm/d; from -0.0022 to 0.012 g/d), and maturation to the juvenile or adult stage was estimated to take 4-10 years, with some animals possibly requiring more time. american brook lampreys lethenteron appendix grew 0.13 mm/d or 0.0055 g/d on average, whereas the growth of sea lampreys petromyzon marinus was variable, with ammocoetes experiencing significantly higher mean growth at one site (0.12 mm/d; 0.0025 g/d) than at the other site (0.032 mm/d; 0.00039 g/d). these estimates provide support for the generally long growth periods of ammocoetes but also suggest that variability plays a wider role even within populations. the variability in growth rate may provide ammocoetes with a highly flexible life history, allowing them to exploit habitats under a variety of conditions potentially encountered during development." geographical heterogeneity of multiple sclerosis prevalence in france,NA,PLOS ONE,PIVOT D;DEBOUVERIE M;GRZEBYK M;BRASSAT D;CLANET M;CLAVELOU P;CONFAVREUX C;EDAN G;LERAY E;MOREAU T;VUKUSIC S;HEDELIN G;GUILLEMIN F,"introduction geographical variation in the prevalence of multiple sclerosis (ms) is controversial. heterogeneity is important to acknowledge to adapt the provision of care within the healthcare system. we aimed to investigate differences in prevalence of ms in departments in the french territory. methods we estimated ms prevalence on october 31, 2004 in 21 administrative departments in france (22% of the metropolitan departments) by using multiple data sources: the main french health insurance systems, neurologist networks devoted to ms and the technical information agency of hospitalization. we used a spatial bayesian approach based on estimating the number of ms cases from 2005 and 2008 capture-recapture studies to analyze differences in prevalence. results the age-and sex-standardized prevalence of ms per 100,000 inhabitants ranged from 68.1 (95% credible interval 54.6, 84.4) in hautes-pyrenees (southwest france) to 296.5 (258.8, 338.9) in moselle (northeast france). the greatest prevalence was in the northeast departments, and the other departments showed great variability. discussion by combining multiple data sources into a spatial bayesian model, we found heterogeneity in ms prevalence among the 21 departments of france, some with higher prevalence than anticipated from previous publications. no clear explanation related to health insurance coverage and hospital facilities can be advanced. population migration, socioeconomic status of the population studied and environmental effects are suspected." @@ -322,7 +322,7 @@ challenges of monitoring reintroduction outcomes: insights from the conservation annual survival of allegheny woodrats in a nonequilibrium metapopulation,allegheny woodrat; apparent survival; cormack-jolly-seber; genetic rescue; heterozygosity; inbreeding; mark-recapture; metapopulation; neotoma magister,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,SMYSER TJ;STAUFFER GE;JOHNSON SA;HUDSON CM;RHODES OE;SWIHART RK,"many declining populations of the imperiled allegheny woodrat (neotoma magister) function as nonequilibrium metapopulations in which rates of subpopulation extirpation exceed recolonization. quantifying and maximizing survival rates thus becomes critical for the conservation of these spatially structured populations. we used encounter histories of individually marked woodrats from subpopulations in indiana, monitored annually from 2005 to 2013, to 1) estimate apparent annual survival rates while accounting for imperfect detection, 2) evaluate differences in apparent survival between unaugmented subpopulations and subpopulations reestablished or restored through translocation efforts, and 3) describe the effect of genetic diversity on survival. from cormack-jolly-seber models developed in a bayesian framework, apparent survival was greater for adults than for juveniles, greater for females than males, and there was a modest negative effect of density dependence. although heterozygosity rates at 11 microsatellites increased among reinforced subpopulations following translocations, we observed no effect of heterozygosity on apparent survival. however, after translocations, average apparent survival was approximately 14% greater among recipient subpopulations than remnant subpopulations. this suggests that viability of recipient subpopulations was limited by low connectivity and the absence of genetic benefits conveyed by immigration or the potential for patches to be recolonized following local extinction. under conditions of reduced connectivity, translocation among subpopulations to replicate natural gene flow may be appropriate to facilitate the long-term persistence of this and perhaps other nonequilibrium metapopulations." negative effects of density on space use of small mammals differ with the phase of the masting-induced population cycle,density dependence; home range; mast seeding; population cycles; space use; spatially explicit capture recapture,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BOGDZIEWICZ M;ZWOLAK R;REDOSH L;RYCHLIK L;CRONE EE,"home range size generally decreases with increasing population density, but testing how this relationship is influenced by other factors (e.g., food availability, kin structure) is a difficult task. we used spatially explicit capture-recapture models to examine how home range size varies with population density in the yellow-necked mouse (apodemus flavicollis). the relationship between population density and home range size was studied at two distinct phases of population fluctuations induced by beech (fagus sylvatica) masting: post-mast peak in abundance (first summer after mast, n = 2) and subsequent crash (second summer after mast, n = 2). we live-trapped mice from june to september to avoid the confounding effects of autumn seedfall on home range size. in accordance with general predictions, we found that home range size was negatively associated with population density. however, after controlling for the effect of density, home ranges of mice were larger in post-mast years than during the crash phase. this indicates a higher spatial overlap among neighbors in post-mast years. we suggest that the increased spatial overlap is caused by negative density-dependent dispersal that leads to high relatedness of individuals within population in the peak phase of the cycle." evaluating within-population variability in behavior and demography for the adaptive potential of a dispersal-limited species to climate change,adaptive capacity; behavioral plasticity; climate change; color morph; demography; plethodon cinereus,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MUNOZ DJ;HESED KM;GRANT EHC;MILLER DAW,"multiple pathways exist for species to respond to changing climates. however, responses of dispersal-limited species will be more strongly tied to ability to adapt within existing populations as rates of environmental change will likely exceed movement rates. here, we assess adaptive capacity in plethodon cinereus, a dispersal-limited woodland salamander. we quantify plasticity in behavior and variation in demography to observed variation in environmental variables over a 5-year period. we found strong evidence that temperature and rainfall influence p. cinereus surface presence, indicating changes in climate are likely to affect seasonal activity patterns. we also found that warmer summer temperatures reduced individual growth rates into the autumn, which is likely to have negative demographic consequences. reduced growth rates may delay reproductive maturity and lead to reductions in size-specific fecundity, potentially reducing population-level persistence. to better understand within-population variability in responses, we examined differences between two common color morphs. previous evidence suggests that the color polymorphism may be linked to physiological differences in heat and moisture tolerance. we found only moderate support for morph-specific differences for the relationship between individual growth and temperature. measuring environmental sensitivity to climatic variability is the first step in predicting species' responses to climate change. our results suggest phenological shifts and changes in growth rates are likely responses under scenarios where further warming occurs, and we discuss possible adaptive strategies for resulting selective pressures." -the strength of the association between heterozygosity and probability of interannual local recruitment increases with environmental harshness in blue tits,cyanistes caeruleus; functional and neutral markers; genotype-by-environment interaction; heterozygosity; hfc; selection differential,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,FERRER ES;GARCIA-NAVAS V;SANZ JJ;ORTEGO J,"the extent of inbreeding depression and the magnitude of heterozygosity-fitness correlations (hfc) have been suggested to depend on the environmental context in which they are assayed, but little evidence is available for wild populations. we combine extensive molecular and capture-mark-recapture data from a blue tit (cyanistes caeruleus) population to (1) analyze the relationship between heterozygosity and probability of interannual adult local recruitment and (2) test whether environmental stress imposed by physiologically suboptimal temperatures and rainfall influence the magnitude of hfc. to address these questions, we used two different arrays of microsatellite markers: 14 loci classified as neutral and 12 loci classified as putatively functional. we found significant relationships between heterozygosity and probability of interannual local recruitment that were most likely explained by variation in genomewide heterozygosity. the strength of the association between heterozygosity and probability of interannual local recruitment was positively associated with annual accumulated precipitation. annual mean heterozygosity increased over time, which may have resulted from an overall positive selection on heterozygosity over the course of the study period. finally, neutral and putatively functional loci showed similar trends, but the former had stronger effect sizes and seemed to better reflect genomewide heterozygosity. overall, our results show that hfc can be context dependent, emphasizing the need to consider the role of environmental heterogeneity as a key factor when exploring the consequences of individual genetic diversity on fitness in natural populations." +the strength of the association between heterozygosity and probability of interannual local recruitment increases with environmental harshness in blue tits,cyanistes caeruleus; functional and neutral markers; genotype-by-environment interaction; heterozygosity; hfc; selection differential,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,FERRER ES;GARCIA NAVAS V;SANZ JJ;ORTEGO J,"the extent of inbreeding depression and the magnitude of heterozygosity-fitness correlations (hfc) have been suggested to depend on the environmental context in which they are assayed, but little evidence is available for wild populations. we combine extensive molecular and capture-mark-recapture data from a blue tit (cyanistes caeruleus) population to (1) analyze the relationship between heterozygosity and probability of interannual adult local recruitment and (2) test whether environmental stress imposed by physiologically suboptimal temperatures and rainfall influence the magnitude of hfc. to address these questions, we used two different arrays of microsatellite markers: 14 loci classified as neutral and 12 loci classified as putatively functional. we found significant relationships between heterozygosity and probability of interannual local recruitment that were most likely explained by variation in genomewide heterozygosity. the strength of the association between heterozygosity and probability of interannual local recruitment was positively associated with annual accumulated precipitation. annual mean heterozygosity increased over time, which may have resulted from an overall positive selection on heterozygosity over the course of the study period. finally, neutral and putatively functional loci showed similar trends, but the former had stronger effect sizes and seemed to better reflect genomewide heterozygosity. overall, our results show that hfc can be context dependent, emphasizing the need to consider the role of environmental heterogeneity as a key factor when exploring the consequences of individual genetic diversity on fitness in natural populations." the value of terrestrial ecotones as refuges for winter damselflies (odonata: lestidae),dragonflies; habitat selection; habitat loss; cryptic behavior; disturbance,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,HARABIS F,"habitat requirements of many species may vary significantly throughout the lifecycle. species are often forced to exchange their habitats to meet requirements of different life stages. due to the effect of human activities, however, there is a loss of habitat complexity and a consequent disappearance of species associated with multiple habitat types. this also applies to freshwater invertebrates occurring in temporary habitats. however, it appears that many species are able to meet their habitat requirements even in a human-altered landscape. the aim of this study was to analyze the habitat preferences of the damselfly sympecma fusca in an area significantly influenced by human interventions. according to the results of a capture-mark-recapture study and generalized additive models, i found that, during a pre-reproductive period (in the autumn), imagoes utilize predominantly insolated ecotones, which constitute only a small fraction of the available terrestrial habitat. during the reproductive period (in spring), however, imagoes completely change their priorities in favor of reproductive success. at this time, males use ecotones only in adverse weather conditions. ecotones allow the species to survive a long pre-reproductive period. however, suitable habitat conditions may be lost because of inappropriate interventions (e.g., mowing). these small-scale interventions often resemble natural disturbances and may not necessarily lead to the extinction of an entire population. imagoes are able to move on to different habitat patches, but only if they have alternative habitats. this outcome indicates that maintaining a high heterogeneity of keystone structures is crucial for maintaining high levels of biodiversity." a novel application of multi-event modeling to estimate class segregation in a highly migratory oceanic vertebrate,capture probability; class segregation; mark-recapture; multi-event; robust design; sexual segregation; size segregation; temporary emigration; white shark,ECOLOGY,CHAPPLE TK;CHAMBERT T;KANIVE PE;JORGENSEN SJ;ROTELLA JJ;ANDERSON SD;CARLISLE AB;BLOCK BA,"spatial segregation of animals by class (i.e., maturity or sex) within a population due to differential rates of temporary emigration (te) from study sites can be an important life history feature to consider in population assessment and management. however, such rates are poorly known; new quantitative approaches to address these knowledge gaps are needed. we present a novel application of multi-event models that takes advantage of two sources of detections to differentiate temporary emigration from apparent absence to quantify class segregation within a study population of double-marked (photo-identified and tagged with coded acoustic transmitters) white sharks (carcharodon carcharias) in central california. we use this model to test if sex-specific patterns in te result in disparate apparent capture probabilities (p(o)) between male and female white sharks, which can affect the observed sex ratio. the best-supported model showed a contrasting pattern of pr(te) from coastal aggregation sites between sexes (for males pr[te]=0.015 [95% ci=0.00, 0.31] and pr[te]=0.57 [0.40, 0.72] for females), but not maturity classes. additionally, by accounting for pr(te) and imperfect detection, we were able to estimate class-specific values of true capture probability (p(*)) for tagged and untagged sharks. the best-supported model identified differences between maturity classes but no difference between sexes or tagging impacts (tagged mature sharks p(*)=0.55 (0.46-0.63) and sub-adult sharks p*=0.36 (0.25, 0.50); and untagged mature sharks p(*)=0.50 (0.39-0.61) and sub-adults p(*)=0.18 (0.10, 0.31). estimated sex-based differences in p(o) were linked to sex-specific differences in pr(te) but not in p(*); once the pr(te) is accounted for, the p(*) between sexes was not different. these results indicate that the observed sex ratio is not a consequence of unequal detectability and sex-specific values of pr(te) are important drivers of the observed male-dominated sex ratio. our modeling approach reveals complex class-specific patterns in pr(te) and p(*) in a mark-recapture data set, and highlights challenges for the population modeling and conservation of white sharks in central california. the model we develop here can be used to estimate rates of temporary emigration and class segregation when two detection methods are used." assessing the detectability of road crossing effects in streams: mark-recapture sampling designs under complex fish movement behaviours,barrier permeability; connectivity; fish passage; habitat fragmentation; laplace dispersal kernel; optimal sampling design; power analysis; road ecology; salvelinus fontinalis; simulation,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,PEPINO M;RODRIGUEZ MA;MAGNAN P,"most reviews of stream fish connectivity have highlighted the urgent need for standardized methods to quantify the effects of barriers such as road crossings on fish movement and incorporate the complexity of fish behaviours. a question that has not been fully addressed yet in field assessments of fish stream connectivity is which conditions influence the detectability of road crossing effects. failure to detect existing road crossing effects can result from shortcomings in sampling design that lead to low statistical power. here, we propose general barrier dispersal models to allow for asymmetry in barrier permeability and changes in movement behaviours of fish confronting a barrier. despite the increased realism of these ecological assumptions, it remains to be determined whether asymmetric barriers and altered movement behaviours can be unambiguously detected using mark-recapture trials. we used simulations within a modelling framework that explicitly incorporates barrier and behavioural effects to assess the statistical power of various mark-recapture sampling designs under different combinations of design and ecological constraints. key insights from our simulations are that (i) the spatial extent of the study reach critically affects detectability of barrier effects; (ii) the number of recaptured individuals that cross a barrier has greater effect on detectability than the total number of recaptures on both sides of the barrier; and (iii) detectability of asymmetry in barrier permeability and of altered movement behaviours increases with both linear fish density and effect size.synthesis and applications. the proposed dispersal models, incorporating asymmetric barrier permeability and changes in movement behaviours of fish confronting a barrier, are of broad importance in the quantification of habitat connectivity in streams and rivers. our simulation approach provides precise guidelines for improving the sampling design by adjusting the spatial extent of the study reach based on a priori knowledge of ecological constraints. this study highlights the importance of evaluating the detectability of the effects of barriers such as road crossings and carefully planning the sampling design of mark-recapture studies before conducting costly field trials and provides quantitative tools to help achieve these goals. the proposed dispersal models, incorporating asymmetric barrier permeability and changes in movement behaviours of fish confronting a barrier, are of broad importance in the quantification of habitat connectivity in streams and rivers. our simulation approach provides precise guidelines for improving the sampling design by adjusting the spatial extent of the study reach based on a priori knowledge of ecological constraints. this study highlights the importance of evaluating the detectability of the effects of barriers such as road crossings and carefully planning the sampling design of mark-recapture studies before conducting costly field trials and provides quantitative tools to help achieve these goals. editor's choice" @@ -346,17 +346,17 @@ modeling late-summer distribution of golden eagles (aquila chrysaetos) in the we capture-recapture estimators in epidemiology with applications to pertussis and pneumococcal invasive disease surveillance,NA,PLOS ONE,BRAEYE T;VERHEAGEN J;MIGNON A;FLIPSE W;PIERARD D;HUYGEN K;SCHIRVEL C;HENS N,"introduction surveillance networks are often not exhaustive nor completely complementary. in such situations, capture-recapture methods can be used for incidence estimation. the choice of estimator and their robustness with respect to the homogeneity and independence assumptions are however not well documented. methods we investigated the performance of five different capture-recapture estimators in a simulation study. eight different scenarios were used to detect and combine case-information. the scenarios increasingly violated assumptions of independence of samples and homogeneity of detection probabilities. belgian datasets on invasive pneumococcal disease (ipd) and pertussis provided motivating examples. results no estimator was unbiased in all scenarios. performance of the parametric estimators depended on how much of the dependency and heterogeneity were correctly modelled. model building was limited by parameter estimability, availability of additional information (e.g. covariates) and the possibilities inherent to the method. in the most complex scenario, methods that allowed for detection probabilities conditional on previous detections estimated the total population size within a 20-30% error-range. parametric estimators remained stable if individual data sources lost up to 50% of their data. the investigated nonparametric methods were more susceptible to data loss and their performance was linked to the dependence between samples; overestimating in scenarios with little dependence, underestimating in others. issues with parameter estimability made it impossible to model all suggested relations between samples for the ipd and pertussis datasets. for ipd, the estimates for the belgian incidence for cases aged 50 years and older ranged from 44 to 58/100,000 in 2010. the estimates for pertussis (all ages, belgium, 2014) ranged from 24.2 to30.8/100,000. conclusion we encourage the use of capture-recapture methods, but epidemiologists should preferably include datasets for which the underlying dependency structure is not too complex, a priori investigate this structure, compensate for it within the model and interpret the results with the remaining unmodelled heterogeneity in mind." "human-wildlife conflict, benefit sharing and the survival of lions in pastoralist community-based conservancies",community conservation; conservation benefits; livestock; maasai mara; mark-recapture; pastoralism; pastoral settlements; protected areas; retaliation; sight-resight,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,BLACKBURN S;HOPCRAFT JGC;OGUTU JO;MATTHIOPOULOS J;FRANK L,"like many wildlife populations across africa, recent analyses indicate that african lions are declining rapidly outside of small fenced areas. community conservancies - privately protected areas that engage community members in conservation - may potentially maintain wildlife populations in unfenced pastoralist regions, but their effectiveness in conserving large carnivores has been largely unknown until now. we identify drivers of lion survival in community conservancies within the masai mara ecosystem, kenya, applying mark-recapture analyses to continuous sight-resight surveys. we use the number of livestock and human settlements as proxies for potential human-lion conflict whilst controlling for environmental variables and lion socioecology. average lion densities within the mara conservancies between 2008 and 2013 (1187 lions 100km(-2)) were 26 times higher than those previously reported in 2003. survival rates varied amongst prides and were highest for lions utilizing central regions of conservancies. the number of livestock settlements (bomas [corrals] and manyattas) that were not members of a conservancy, and that fell within a pride home-range, had a large negative effect onfemale survival and was the most influential external predictor in models. these non-conservancy settlements accounted for 372% of total observed variation in survival, whereas conservancy settlements, which benefit financially from wildlife through their membership, had no effect on lion survival. internal drivers of survival agreed with known ecology and social behaviour including age plus a negative effect of male takeovers on cub survival <6months. vegetation cover, prey availability and the density of grazing livestock within a pride's range did not explain patterns in lion survival.synthesis and applications. we show that lion densities have increased substantially within the mara conservancies over the last decade and suggest that the creation of community conservancies has benefitted their survival. this suggests that lions can survive outside of fenced areas within pastoral regions if communities gain benefits from wildlife. we highlight the importance of expanding existing conservancies beyond their current geographical and political scope and forming buffer zones if wildlife ranges outside them. we suggest that changing attitudes to predators should be a key goal of community-based conservancies. further work is recommended to identify what specific aspects of conservancy membership promote lion survival." post-release effects on reintroduced populations of hihi,capture-mark-recapture; hihi; mark; new zealand; notiomystis cincta; post-release effects; reintroduction; survival,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PANFYLOVA J;BEMELMANS E;DEVINE C;FROST P;ARMSTRONG D,"modeling survival of reintroduced populations is critical for understanding population dynamics and therefore making appropriate management decisions. we analyzed survival data collected over the first 2 years after a reintroduction of hihi (notiomystis cincta), an endangered new zealand forest bird, to bushy park, a conservation reserve in new zealand enclosed by a predator-exclusion fence. we constructed a set of candidate models representing different hypotheses about the effects of age, sex, and post-release acclimation on survival, and used model averaging to obtain parameter estimates reflecting the relative support for the models. in combination with fecundity data, we constructed a stochastic population model incorporating uncertainty in parameter estimation, and used this to project population dynamics over the next 10 years. the survival analysis indicated that female survival was unusually low over a 6-month acclimation period; hence, this initial low survival was not reflected in the estimates of long-term survival obtained through model averaging. the resulting projections showed that although population growth was highly uncertain, there was a negligible probability of extinction over the next 10 years, therefore indicating that the existing management regime (i.e., supplementary feeding and nest box maintenance) should be continued. in contrast, if post-release effects had not been accounted for, the projections would have shown a high probability of decline under this management regime. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." -targeting season and age for optimizing control of invasive rabbits,bayesian mark-recapture; density dependence; invasive species control; management implementation schemes; oryctolagus; population viability analysis,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,WELLS K;CASSEY P;SINCLAIR RG;MUTZE GJ;PEACOCK DE;LACY RC;COOKE BD;O'HARA RB;BROOK BW;FORDHAM DA,"the effectiveness of invasive species control can be influenced by seasonal fluctuations in reproduction in response to environmental conditions. however, it is difficult to determine how demography and environmental conditions affect the efficacy of different control efforts from field trials alone. we incorporated an ontogenetic growth model into a hierarchical bayesian mark-recapture model to estimate age-structured seasonal survival rates for european rabbits (oryctolagus cuniculus) in australia, based on a >15-year data set. we integrated this demographic information into an individual-based simulation model, which reproduces seasonal birth-death processes, to test the effectiveness of pest-management schemes that differed in intensity, specificity to age groups, and seasonal timing. control measures that were simulated to affect only juveniles had a negligible effect on population size, whereas targeting subadults and adults led to considerable population declines when applied after the breeding season. management that affected rabbits of all age groups caused significant population reductions. however, even repeated control efforts that caused 95% mortality each year only resulted in predictions of local population extirpation after an average of 119 calendar weeks in the absence of immigration. our simulation study supports the use of pest rabbit control methods that account for demographic dynamics explicitly, and target those individuals with high reproductive potential. more broadly, we show that local and temporal population extirpation, or recovery, depends largely on the trade-off between control intensity and frequency for species with recurrent population oscillations. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." +targeting season and age for optimizing control of invasive rabbits,bayesian mark-recapture; density dependence; invasive species control; management implementation schemes; oryctolagus; population viability analysis,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,WELLS K;CASSEY P;SINCLAIR RG;MUTZE GJ;PEACOCK DE;LACY RC;COOKE BD;O HARA RB;BROOK BW;FORDHAM DA,"the effectiveness of invasive species control can be influenced by seasonal fluctuations in reproduction in response to environmental conditions. however, it is difficult to determine how demography and environmental conditions affect the efficacy of different control efforts from field trials alone. we incorporated an ontogenetic growth model into a hierarchical bayesian mark-recapture model to estimate age-structured seasonal survival rates for european rabbits (oryctolagus cuniculus) in australia, based on a >15-year data set. we integrated this demographic information into an individual-based simulation model, which reproduces seasonal birth-death processes, to test the effectiveness of pest-management schemes that differed in intensity, specificity to age groups, and seasonal timing. control measures that were simulated to affect only juveniles had a negligible effect on population size, whereas targeting subadults and adults led to considerable population declines when applied after the breeding season. management that affected rabbits of all age groups caused significant population reductions. however, even repeated control efforts that caused 95% mortality each year only resulted in predictions of local population extirpation after an average of 119 calendar weeks in the absence of immigration. our simulation study supports the use of pest rabbit control methods that account for demographic dynamics explicitly, and target those individuals with high reproductive potential. more broadly, we show that local and temporal population extirpation, or recovery, depends largely on the trade-off between control intensity and frequency for species with recurrent population oscillations. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." identification of robust microsatellite markers for wild pig fecal dna,degradation; feces; microsatellites; noninvasive; south carolina; sus scrofa; wild pigs,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,KIEREPKA EM;UNGER SD;KEITER DA;BEASLEY JC;RHODES OE;CUNNINGHAM FL;PIAGGIO AJ,"collection of fecal samples for use in a genetic capture-mark-recapture framework has become popular as a noninvasive method of monitoring wildlife populations. a major caveat to this process, however, is that fecal samples often yield low quality dna that is prone to genotyping errors, potentially leading to biases in population parameter estimation. therefore, considerable care is required to identify robust genetic markers, especially in hot or humid conditions that may accelerate dna degradation. we identified microsatellite loci in wild pig (sus scrofa) fecal samples that were robust and informative within warm, humid ecosystems. to examine how degradation affected genotyping success, we sampled pig feces across 5 days and calculated how the number of quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qpcr) cycles required to reach the fluorescent threshold (c-t) changed over time. we identified 17 microsatellite loci that had high polymorphism and amplification success and low genotyping error rates (0-0.050 per locus). in the degradation experiment, c-t increased over the 5 days, but in the absence of rain, the majority of samples produced accurate genotypes after 5 days (2,211/2,550 genotypes). based on the high amplification success and low error rates, even after 5 days of exposure to warm, humid conditions, these loci are useful for estimating population parameters in pig fecal samples. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." -overwintering strategies of migratory birds: a novel approach for estimating seasonal movement patterns of residents and transients,migration; movement; multi-state model; neotropical; open robust design; probability of entry; site persistence; state uncertainty; survival,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,RUIZ-GUTIERREZ V;KENDALL WL;SARACCO JF;WHITE GC,"our understanding of movement patterns in wildlife populations has played an important role in current ecological knowledge and can inform landscape conservation decisions. direct measures of movement can be obtained using marked individuals, but this requires tracking individuals across a landscape or multiple sites. we demonstrate how movements can be estimated indirectly using single-site, capture-mark-recapture (cmr) data with a multi-state open robust design with state uncertainty model (msord-su). we treat residence and transience as two phenotypic states of overwintering migrants and use time- and state-dependent probabilities of site entry and persistence as indirect measures of movement. we applied the msord-su to data on eight species of overwintering neotropical birds collected in 14 countries between 2002 and 2011. in addition to entry and persistence probabilities, we estimated the proportions of residents at a study site and mean residence times. we identified overwintering movement patterns and residence times that contrasted with prior categorizations of territoriality. most species showed an evidence of residents entering sites at multiple time intervals, with transients tending to enter between peak resident movement times. persistence and the proportion of residents varied by latitude, but were not always positively correlated for a given species.synthesis and applications. our results suggest that migratory songbirds commonly move among habitats during the overwintering period. substantial proportions of populations appear to be comprised of transient individuals, and residents tend to persist at specific sites for relatively short periods of time. this information on persistence and movement patterns should be explored for specific habitats to guide landscape management on the wintering grounds, such as determining which habitats are conserved or restored as part of certification programmes of tropical agroforestry crops. we suggest that research and conservation efforts on neotropical migrant songbirds focus on identifying landscape configurations and regional habitat networks that support these diverse overwintering strategies to secure full life cycle conservation." +overwintering strategies of migratory birds: a novel approach for estimating seasonal movement patterns of residents and transients,migration; movement; multi-state model; neotropical; open robust design; probability of entry; site persistence; state uncertainty; survival,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,RUIZ GUTIERREZ V;KENDALL WL;SARACCO JF;WHITE GC,"our understanding of movement patterns in wildlife populations has played an important role in current ecological knowledge and can inform landscape conservation decisions. direct measures of movement can be obtained using marked individuals, but this requires tracking individuals across a landscape or multiple sites. we demonstrate how movements can be estimated indirectly using single-site, capture-mark-recapture (cmr) data with a multi-state open robust design with state uncertainty model (msord-su). we treat residence and transience as two phenotypic states of overwintering migrants and use time- and state-dependent probabilities of site entry and persistence as indirect measures of movement. we applied the msord-su to data on eight species of overwintering neotropical birds collected in 14 countries between 2002 and 2011. in addition to entry and persistence probabilities, we estimated the proportions of residents at a study site and mean residence times. we identified overwintering movement patterns and residence times that contrasted with prior categorizations of territoriality. most species showed an evidence of residents entering sites at multiple time intervals, with transients tending to enter between peak resident movement times. persistence and the proportion of residents varied by latitude, but were not always positively correlated for a given species.synthesis and applications. our results suggest that migratory songbirds commonly move among habitats during the overwintering period. substantial proportions of populations appear to be comprised of transient individuals, and residents tend to persist at specific sites for relatively short periods of time. this information on persistence and movement patterns should be explored for specific habitats to guide landscape management on the wintering grounds, such as determining which habitats are conserved or restored as part of certification programmes of tropical agroforestry crops. we suggest that research and conservation efforts on neotropical migrant songbirds focus on identifying landscape configurations and regional habitat networks that support these diverse overwintering strategies to secure full life cycle conservation." demography of the critically endangered balearic shearwater: the impact of fisheries and time to extinction,bycatch; conservation; discards; environmental policies; extinction; marine predator; multievent capture-recapture; population models; survival,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,GENOVART M;ARCOS JM;ALVAREZ D;MCMINN M;MEIER R;WYNN RB;GUILFORD T;ORO D,"world-wide, many seabirds are affected by fisheries in opposing ways: as a source of mortality from bycatch, but also by providing discards as a predictable and abundant food resource. this applies to the balearic shearwater puffinus mauretanicus, the most endangered european seabird, whose time to extinction was estimated at only 40years a decade ago. since the previous assessment, new data and more sophisticated demographic modelling have become available, and new fishing policies from the european union (common fisheries policy, cfp) will apply, posing different scenarios for the viability of the species. thus, there is both an urgent need and an opportunity for a more reliable update of the conservation status of the species. demographic data were collected between 1985 and 2014 at one of the world's largest colonies. most demographic parameters were estimated using multievent capture-recapture modelling. some parameters, such as bycatch rate, immature individual survival and recruitment, were estimated for the first time. we incorporated estimates into stochastic population models to forecast time to extinction and assess the viability under different management scenarios, accounting for upcoming fishing policies. adult survival was much lower than expected (0809, se: 0013) and largely influenced by bycatch, which accounted for a minimum of 0455 (se: 0230) of total mortality. breeding success was positively correlated with discard availability. recruitment started at low rates in 3-year-old birds (0030, se: 00455), increasing in following age classes and was almost complete at 6years. under the present scenario, we predict a time to extinction of 61years (95% ci: 55-69).synthesis and applications. population projections suggest that the actual impact of fisheries on balearic shearwaters is unsustainable and the imminent discard ban under the new common fisheries policy may accelerate the declining trend. this study demonstrates that reducing the bycatch rates of fisheries is an unavoidable and urgent conservation measure for avoiding the extinction of the species. we also advise setting up demographic long-term studies, to allow researchers to diagnose, with reliability, the effectiveness of management actions. these actions will also benefit many other marine top-predator species affected by this anthropogenic impact." -capturing individual-level parameters of influenza a virus dynamics in wild ducks using multistate models,avian influenza; epidemiology; host-pathogen dynamics; individual-based monitoring; influenza a virus; multistate capture-recapture; outbreaks; sir model; waterfowl; zoonosis,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,AVRIL A;GROSBOIS V;LATORRE-MARGALEF N;GAIDET N;TOLF C;OLSEN B;WALDENSTROM J,"disease prevalence in wildlife is governed by epidemiological parameters (infection and recovery rates) and response to infection, both of which vary within and among individual hosts. studies quantifying these individual-scale parameters and documenting their source of variation in wild hosts are fundamental for predicting disease dynamics. such studies do not exist for the influenza a virus (iav), despite its strong impact on the global economy and public health. using capture-recaptures of 3500 individual mallards anas platyrhynchos during seven migration seasons at a stopover site in southern sweden, we provide the first empirical description of the individual-based mechanisms of iav dynamics in a wild reservoir host. for most years, prevalence and risk of iav infection peaked at a single time during the autumn migration season, but the timing, shape and intensity of the infection curve showed strong annual heterogeneity. in contrast, the seasonal pattern of recovery rate only varied in intensity across years. adults and juveniles displayed similar seasonal patterns of infection and recovery each year. however, compared to adults, juveniles experienced twice the risk of becoming infected, whereas recovery rates were similar across age categories. finally, we did not find evidence that infection influenced the timing of emigration.synthesis and applications. our study provides robust empirical estimates of epidemiological parameters for predicting influenza a virus (iav) dynamics. however, the strong annual variation in infection curves makes forecasting difficult. prevalence data can provide reliable surveillance indicators as long as they catch the variation in infection risk. however, individual-based monitoring of infection is required to verify this assumption in areas where surveillance occurs. in this context, monitoring of captive sentinel birds kept in close contact with wild birds is useful. the fact that infection does not impact the timing of migration underpins the potential for mallards to spread viruses rapidly over large geographical scales. hence, we strongly encourage iav surveillance with a multistate capture-recapture approach along the entire migratory flyway of mallards." +capturing individual-level parameters of influenza a virus dynamics in wild ducks using multistate models,avian influenza; epidemiology; host-pathogen dynamics; individual-based monitoring; influenza a virus; multistate capture-recapture; outbreaks; sir model; waterfowl; zoonosis,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,AVRIL A;GROSBOIS V;LATORRE MARGALEF N;GAIDET N;TOLF C;OLSEN B;WALDENSTROM J,"disease prevalence in wildlife is governed by epidemiological parameters (infection and recovery rates) and response to infection, both of which vary within and among individual hosts. studies quantifying these individual-scale parameters and documenting their source of variation in wild hosts are fundamental for predicting disease dynamics. such studies do not exist for the influenza a virus (iav), despite its strong impact on the global economy and public health. using capture-recaptures of 3500 individual mallards anas platyrhynchos during seven migration seasons at a stopover site in southern sweden, we provide the first empirical description of the individual-based mechanisms of iav dynamics in a wild reservoir host. for most years, prevalence and risk of iav infection peaked at a single time during the autumn migration season, but the timing, shape and intensity of the infection curve showed strong annual heterogeneity. in contrast, the seasonal pattern of recovery rate only varied in intensity across years. adults and juveniles displayed similar seasonal patterns of infection and recovery each year. however, compared to adults, juveniles experienced twice the risk of becoming infected, whereas recovery rates were similar across age categories. finally, we did not find evidence that infection influenced the timing of emigration.synthesis and applications. our study provides robust empirical estimates of epidemiological parameters for predicting influenza a virus (iav) dynamics. however, the strong annual variation in infection curves makes forecasting difficult. prevalence data can provide reliable surveillance indicators as long as they catch the variation in infection risk. however, individual-based monitoring of infection is required to verify this assumption in areas where surveillance occurs. in this context, monitoring of captive sentinel birds kept in close contact with wild birds is useful. the fact that infection does not impact the timing of migration underpins the potential for mallards to spread viruses rapidly over large geographical scales. hence, we strongly encourage iav surveillance with a multistate capture-recapture approach along the entire migratory flyway of mallards." "the endangered damselfly coenagrion ornatum in post-mining streams: population size, habitat requirements and restoration",drainage ditches; headwaters; insect conservation; odonata; restoration ecology; secondary habitats,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,TICHANEK F;TROPEK R,"the damselfly coenagrion ornatum represents a threatened species of lowland headwater streams. although the species is threatened in western and central europe, it is known at a system of post-mining drainage ditches in the radovesicka spoil heap (northwestern bohemia, czech republic). this study aimed to estimate its population size in this post-mining stream system, and to explore habitat preferences of both its larvae and adults with respect to various environmental factors. the adults were captured-recaptured along 5.2 km of the ditches in june 2012; larvae were sampled in 64 study sites (i.e., 27-meter-long sections of the same ditches) in april 2012. the adult population size was estimated via log-linear models with the robust design on 4544 individuals (1560 +/- 391 females and 2983 +/- 298 males). larvae were present in a third of the sections. glms revealed that both larvae and adults required emergent vegetation with a high proportion of eleocharis spp. plants. the adults preferred the slow-flowing and shallow streams with 2-meter-high banksides covered by intermediately tall vegetation (similar to 40 cm), whereas the larval abundance was supported by a high in-stream vegetation heterogeneity and a patchy cover of rocks on the streambeds. these results indicate that the post-mining streams could represent a valuable secondary habitat for the complete life cycle of this relatively large population of the endangered headwater specialist. therefore, we recommend consideration of the conservation potential of such ditches during post-mining sites restoration and their subsequent management." spatial variation in giraffe demography: a test of 2 paradigms,conservation biology; demography; ltre; population biology; population structure; prospective matrix analysis; retrospective matrix analysis; tropical ecology; ungulate demography; vital rates,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LEE DE;BOND ML;KISSUI BM;KIWANGO YA;BOLGER DT,"examination of spatial variation in demography among or within populations of the same species is a topic of growing interest in ecology. we examined whether spatial variation in demography of a tropical megaherbivore followed the "" temporal paradigm"" or the "" adult survival paradigm"" of ungulate population dynamics formulated from temperate-zone studies. we quantified spatial variation in demographic rates for giraffes (giraffa camelopardalis) at regional and continental scales. regionally, we used photographic capture-mark-recapture data from 860 adult females and 449 calves to estimate adult female survival, calf survival, and reproduction at 5 sites in the tarangire ecosystem of tanzania. we examined potential mechanisms for spatial variation in regional demographic rates. at the continental scale, we synthesized demographic estimates from published studies across the range of the species. we created matrix population models for all sites at both scales and used prospective and retrospective analyses to determine which vital rate was most important to variation in population growth rate. spatial variability of demographic parameters at the continental scale was in agreement with the temporal paradigm of low variability in adult survival and more highly variable reproduction and calf survival. in contrast, at the regional scale, adult female survival had higher spatial variation, in agreement with the adult survival paradigm. at both scales, variation in adult female survival made the greatest contribution to variation in local population growth rates. our work documented contrasting patterns of spatial variation in demographic rates of giraffes at 2 spatial scales, but at both scales, we found the same vital rate was most important. we also found anthropogenic impacts on adult females are the most likely mechanism of regional population trajectories." differences in movement pattern and detectability between males and females influence how common sampling methods estimate sex ratio,NA,PLOS ONE,RODRIGUES JFM;COELHO MTP,"sampling the biodiversity is an essential step for conservation, and understanding the efficiency of sampling methods allows us to estimate the quality of our biodiversity data. sex ratio is an important population characteristic, but until now, no study has evaluated how efficient are the sampling methods commonly used in biodiversity surveys in estimating the sex ratio of populations. we used a virtual ecologist approach to investigate whether active and passive capture methods are able to accurately sample a population's sex ratio and whether differences in movement pattern and detectability between males and females produce biased estimates of sex-ratios when using these methods. our simulation allowed the recognition of individuals, similar to mark-recapture studies. we found that differences in both movement patterns and detectability between males and females produce biased estimates of sex ratios. however, increasing the sampling effort or the number of sampling days improves the ability of passive or active capture methods to properly sample sex ratio. thus, prior knowledge regarding movement patterns and detectability for species is important information to guide field studies aiming to understand sex ratio related patterns." dead or gone? bayesian inference on mortality for the dispersing sex,african lion; age-specific mortality; dispersal; sex differences in mortality; siler model; true survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BARTHOLD JA;PACKER C;LOVERIDGE AJ;MACDONALD DW;COLCHERO F,"estimates of age-specific mortality are regularly used in ecology, evolution, and conservation research. however, estimating mortality of the dispersing sex, in species where one sex undergoes natal dispersal, is difficult. this is because it is often unclear whether members of the dispersing sex that disappear from monitored areas have died or dispersed. here, we develop an extension of a multievent model that imputes dispersal state (i.e., died or dispersed) for uncertain records of the dispersing sex as a latent state and estimates age-specific mortality and dispersal parameters in a bayesian hierarchical framework. to check the performance of our model, we first conduct a simulation study. we then apply our model to a long-term data set of african lions. using these data, we further study how well our model estimates mortality of the dispersing sex by incrementally reducing the level of uncertainty in the records of male lions. we achieve this by taking advantage of an expert's indication on the likely fate of each missing male (i.e., likely died or dispersed). we find that our model produces accurate mortality estimates for simulated data of varying sample sizes and proportions of uncertain male records. from the empirical study, we learned that our model provides similar mortality estimates for different levels of uncertainty in records. however, a sensitivity of the mortality estimates to varying uncertainty is, as can be expected, detectable. we conclude that our model provides a solution to the challenge of estimating mortality of the dispersing sex in species with data deficiency due to natal dispersal. given the utility of sex-specific mortality estimates in biological and conservation research, and the virtual ubiquity of sex-biased dispersal, our model will be useful to a wide variety of applications." -effects of human land-use on africa's only forest-dependent fetid: the african golden cat caracal aurata,bushmeat; camera trap; density; gabon; logging; spatial capture-recapture,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,BAHAA-EL-DIN L;SOLLMANN R;HUNTER LTB;SLOTOW R;MACDONALD DW;HENSCHEL P,"africa's equatorial forests are threatened by widespread deforestation and bushmeat hunting, with both threats spreading into formerly remote areas due to rapid human population growth and large-scale expansions of commercial resource extraction such as logging and mining, as well as forest clearing for agriculture. many globally threatened species are endemic to these forests, but the potential effects of these threats are not well understood. using the case of the forest-dependent african golden cat, we assess the potential effects of disturbance including logging and hunting on population density. we applied spatially-explicit capture-recapture models to camera trap data to estimate density across a human land-use gradient at five sites in central gabon. we found density was highest at a pristine, undisturbed site (16.23 [+/- 5.84 se] individuals per 100 km(2)) and lowest at a village site with moderate levels of mostly subsistence bushmeat hunting (3.8[+/- 2.23 se] individuals per 100 km(2)). logging concessions can support important densities of the species (10.18 [+/- 3.54 se] and 12.84 [+/- 4.25 se] individuals per 100 km(2)), with the higher estimate of the two for the concession certified by the forest stewardship council (fsc) versus the non-certified concession. while protected intact forests are the main strongholds for golden cats, well-managed logging concessions may also play an important role in the conservation of golden cats and other threatened species. (c) 2016 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -integrating population dynamics models and distance sampling data: a spatial hierarchical state-space approach,akaike information criterion; density dependence; distance sampling; fin whale (balaenoptera physalus); gaussian process; maximum likelihood estimation; model identifiability; nonlinear autoregressive model; ricker model; spatial modelling; state-space models,ECOLOGY,"NADEEM K;MOORE JE;ZHANG Y;CHIPMAN H","stochastic versions of gompertz, ricker, and various other dynamics models play a fundamental role in quantifying strength of density dependence and studying long-term dynamics of wildlife populations. these models are frequently estimated using time series of abundance estimates that are inevitably subject to observation error and missing data. this issue can be addressed with a state-space modeling framework that jointly estimates the observed data model and the underlying stochastic population dynamics (spd) model. in cases where abundance data are from multiple locations with a smaller spatial resolution (e.g., from mark-recapture and distance sampling studies), models are conventionally fitted to spatially pooled estimates of yearly abundances. here, we demonstrate that a spatial version of spd models can be directly estimated from short time series of spatially referenced distance sampling data in a unified hierarchical state-space modeling framework that also allows for spatial variance (covariance) in population growth. we also show that a full range of likelihood based inference, including estimability diagnostics and model-selection, is feasible in this class of models using a data cloning algorithm. we further show through simulation experiments that the hierarchical state--space framework introduced herein efficiently captures the underlying dynamical parameters and spatial abundance distribution. we apply our methodology by analyzing a time series of line-transect distance sampling data for fin whales (balaenoptera physalus) off the u.s. west coast. although there were only seven surveys conducted during the study time frame, 1991-2014, our analysis detected presence of strong density regulation and provided reliable estimates of fin whale densities. in summary, we show that the integrative framework developed herein allows ecologists to better infer key population characteristics such as presence of density regulation and spatial variability in a population's intrinsic growth potential." +effects of human land-use on africa's only forest-dependent fetid: the african golden cat caracal aurata,bushmeat; camera trap; density; gabon; logging; spatial capture-recapture,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,BAHAA EL DIN L;SOLLMANN R;HUNTER LTB;SLOTOW R;MACDONALD DW;HENSCHEL P,"africa's equatorial forests are threatened by widespread deforestation and bushmeat hunting, with both threats spreading into formerly remote areas due to rapid human population growth and large-scale expansions of commercial resource extraction such as logging and mining, as well as forest clearing for agriculture. many globally threatened species are endemic to these forests, but the potential effects of these threats are not well understood. using the case of the forest-dependent african golden cat, we assess the potential effects of disturbance including logging and hunting on population density. we applied spatially-explicit capture-recapture models to camera trap data to estimate density across a human land-use gradient at five sites in central gabon. we found density was highest at a pristine, undisturbed site (16.23 [+/- 5.84 se] individuals per 100 km(2)) and lowest at a village site with moderate levels of mostly subsistence bushmeat hunting (3.8[+/- 2.23 se] individuals per 100 km(2)). logging concessions can support important densities of the species (10.18 [+/- 3.54 se] and 12.84 [+/- 4.25 se] individuals per 100 km(2)), with the higher estimate of the two for the concession certified by the forest stewardship council (fsc) versus the non-certified concession. while protected intact forests are the main strongholds for golden cats, well-managed logging concessions may also play an important role in the conservation of golden cats and other threatened species. (c) 2016 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +integrating population dynamics models and distance sampling data: a spatial hierarchical state-space approach,akaike information criterion; density dependence; distance sampling; fin whale (balaenoptera physalus); gaussian process; maximum likelihood estimation; model identifiability; nonlinear autoregressive model; ricker model; spatial modelling; state-space models,ECOLOGY,NADEEM K;MOORE JE;ZHANG Y;CHIPMAN H,"stochastic versions of gompertz, ricker, and various other dynamics models play a fundamental role in quantifying strength of density dependence and studying long-term dynamics of wildlife populations. these models are frequently estimated using time series of abundance estimates that are inevitably subject to observation error and missing data. this issue can be addressed with a state-space modeling framework that jointly estimates the observed data model and the underlying stochastic population dynamics (spd) model. in cases where abundance data are from multiple locations with a smaller spatial resolution (e.g., from mark-recapture and distance sampling studies), models are conventionally fitted to spatially pooled estimates of yearly abundances. here, we demonstrate that a spatial version of spd models can be directly estimated from short time series of spatially referenced distance sampling data in a unified hierarchical state-space modeling framework that also allows for spatial variance (covariance) in population growth. we also show that a full range of likelihood based inference, including estimability diagnostics and model-selection, is feasible in this class of models using a data cloning algorithm. we further show through simulation experiments that the hierarchical state--space framework introduced herein efficiently captures the underlying dynamical parameters and spatial abundance distribution. we apply our methodology by analyzing a time series of line-transect distance sampling data for fin whales (balaenoptera physalus) off the u.s. west coast. although there were only seven surveys conducted during the study time frame, 1991-2014, our analysis detected presence of strong density regulation and provided reliable estimates of fin whale densities. in summary, we show that the integrative framework developed herein allows ecologists to better infer key population characteristics such as presence of density regulation and spatial variability in a population's intrinsic growth potential." variation in the age of first reproduction: different strategies or individual quality?,capture-mark-recapture; individual heterogeneity; life-history plasticity; reaction norm; trade-off; wandering albatross,ECOLOGY,FAY R;BARBRAUD C;DELORD K;WEIMERSKIRCH H,"although age at first reproduction is a key demographic parameter that is probably under high selective pressure, it is highly variable and the cause of this variability is not well understood. two non-exclusive hypotheses may explain such variability. it could be the expression of different individual strategies, i.e., different allocation strategies in fitness components, or the consequences of individual difference in intrinsic quality, i.e., some individuals always doing better than others in all fitness components. we tested these hypotheses in the wandering albatross investigating relationships between the age at first reproduction and subsequent adult demographic traits. using finite mixture capture recapture modeling, we demonstrate that the age at first reproduction is negatively related to both reproductive performances and adult survival, suggesting that individual quality was an important factor explaining variation in the age at first reproduction. our results suggest that age at first breeding is a good predictor of quality in this long-lived seabird species." a recipe for postfledging survival in great tits parus major: be large and be early (but not too much),breeding success; cormack-jolly-seber models; fledging condition; hyperthermia; long-term study,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,RODRIGUEZ S;VAN NOORDWIJK AJ;ALVAREZ E;BARBA E,"survival of juveniles during the postfledging period can be markedly low, which may have major consequences on avian population dynamics. knowing which factors operating during the nesting phase affect postfledging survival is crucial to understand avian breeding strategies. we aimed to obtain a robust set of predictors of postfledging local survival using the great tit (parus major) as a model species. we used mark-recapture models to analyze the effect of hatching date, temperatures experienced during the nestling period, fledging size and body mass on first-year postfledging survival probability of great tit juveniles. we used data from 5192 nestlings of first clutches ringed between 1993 and 2010. mean first-year postfledging survival probability was 15.2%, and it was lower for smaller individuals, as well as for those born in either very early or late broods. our results stress the importance of choosing an optimum hatching period, and raising large chicks to increase first-year local survival probability in the studied population." density-dependent reproduction causes winter crashes in a common vole population,cmr; density dependence; microtus arvalis; population cycles; recruitment; survival,POPULATION ECOLOGY,PINOT A;BARRAQUAND F;TEDESCO E;LECOUSTRE V;BRETAGNOLLE V;GAUFFRE B,"common voles in western france exhibit three-year population cycles with winter crashes after large outbreaks. during the winter of 2011-2012, we monitored survival, reproduction, recruitment and population growth rate of common voles at different densities (from low to outbreak densities) in natura to better understand density dependence of demographic parameters. between october and april, the number of animals decreased irrespective of initial density. however, the decline was more pronounced when october density was higher (loss of a parts per thousand 54 % of individuals at low density and 95 % at high density). using capture-mark-recapture models with pradel's temporal symmetry approach, we found a negative effect of density on recruitment and reproduction. in contrast, density had a slightly positive effect on survival indicating that mortality did not drive the steeper declines in animal numbers at high density. we discuss these results in a population cycle framework, and suggest that crashes after outbreaks could reflect negative effects of density dependence on reproduction rather than changes in mortality rates." @@ -368,18 +368,18 @@ monitoring coyote population dynamics with fecal dna and spatial capture-recaptu age-specific survival in the socially monogamous alpine marmot (marmota marmota): evidence of senescence,ageing; cooperative breeder; multievent models; sciurids,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,BERGER V;LEMAITRE JF;DUPONT P;ALLAINE D;GAILLARD JM;COHAS A,"we investigated age-specific variation in survival of dominant individuals in a long-lived and monogamous mammal, the alpine marmot (marmota marmota), from a large dataset collected during a 24-year intensive monitoring of a free-ranging population. we found evidence of actuarial senescence in dominant individuals for both sexes. survivorship was constant with age until dominant marmots were between 6 and 8 years of age and declined markedly thereafter. no between sex differences occurred in the intensity of actuarial senescence, which might be related to the weak intensity of sexual selection in this socially monogamous mammal. more investigations are needed to know whether cooperative breeding, hibernation, and monogamy, which are key features of the alpine marmot life history, could have shaped the patterns of actuarial senescence we report." demographic shifts related to mycoheterotrophy and their fitness impacts in two cephalanthera species,cephalanthera; loss of photosynthesis; mixotrophy; mycoheterotrophy; orchidaceae,ECOLOGY,SHEFFERSON RP;ROY M;PUTTSEPP U;SELOSSE MA,"evolutionary losses of photosynthesis in terrestrial plants all originate in photosynthetic ancestors. the adaptive context under which this transition happens has remained elusive because of the rarity of plants in which both photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic forms exist as a polymorphism. here, we report on demographic patterns in photosynthetic (""green"") and nonphotosynthetic (""albino"") individuals within populations of two such species, cephalanthera damasonium and c. longifolia, which also acquire nutrition from their mycorrhizal hosts (partial mycoheterotrophy). we hypothesized that demographic shifts in albinos relative to greens would include compensatory patterns with respect to fitness, such that maladaptive changes to survival or reproduction would be adaptively countered by changes to other parameters, such as growth probabilities. we tracked individuals in two populations of c. damasonium for 3 yr, and in one population of c. longifolia for 14 yr. we then analyzed vital rates for both phenotypes using general linear mixed models (glmms) and multi-state capture mark-recapture models (cmr), and used these models to develop size-classified, function-based population projection matrices. we estimated fitness as the deterministic population growth rate (.) for each phenotype, and explored the impact of shifts in demographic patterns to albinism via life table response experiments (ltres). mortality differed between greens and albinos, but not similarly across species. albinos generally sprouted less than greens, and flowered more when small but less at other times. albinos typically had a higher probability of fruiting, although their lower flower numbers yielded lower numbers of fruits overall. fitness did not differ significantly among phenotypes. thus, we did not find significant evidence that albinism is adaptive or maladaptive; however, if in fact it is the latter, then we did find evidence of incomplete compensation for declines in survival and reproduction from growth transitions, particularly to small flowering size classes in c. damasonium, and to large vegetative size classes in c. longifolia. these patterns indicate some support for the idea that albinism may lead to the speciation of mycoheterotrophic plants." "effects of a protection gradient on carnivore density and survival: an example with leopards in the luangwa valley, zambia",anthropogenic effects; bushmeat; harvest; leopard; panthera pardus; prey depletion; robust design,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ROSENBLATT E;CREEL S;BECKER MS;MERKLE J;MWAPE H;SCHUETTE P;SIMPAMBA T,"human activities on the periphery of protected areas can limit carnivore populations, but measurements of the strength of such effects are limited, largely due to difficulties of obtaining precise data on population density and survival. we measured how density and survival rates of a previously unstudied leopard population varied across a gradient of protection and evaluated which anthropogenic activities accounted for observed patterns. insights into this generalist's response to human encroachment are likely to identify limiting factors for other sympatric carnivore species. motion-sensitive cameras were deployed systematically in adjacent, similarly sized, and ecologically similar study areas inside and outside zambia's south luangwa national park (slnp) from 2012 to 2014. the sites differed primarily in the degree of human impacts: slnp is strictly protected, but the adjacent area was subject to human encroachment and bushmeat poaching throughout the study, and trophy hunting of leopards prior to 2012. we used photographic capture histories with robust design capture-recapture models to estimate population size and sex-specific survival rates for the two areas. leopard density within slnp was 67% greater than in the adjacent area, but annual survival rates and sex ratios did not detectably differ between the sites. prior research indicated that wire-snare occurrence was 5.2 times greater in the areas adjacent to the park. these results suggest that the low density of leopards on the periphery of slnp is better explained by prey depletion, rather than by direct anthropogenic mortality. long-term spatial data from concurrent lion studies suggested that interspecific competition did not produce the observed patterns. large carnivore populations are often limited by human activities, but science-based management policies depend on methods to rigorously and quantitatively assess threats to populations of concern. using noninvasive robust design capture-recapture methods, we systematically assessed leopard density and survival across a protection gradient and identified bushmeat poaching as the likely limiting factor. this approach is of broad value to evaluate the impacts of anthropogenic activities on carnivore populations that are distributed across gradients of protection." -purse-seine vessels as platforms for monitoring the population status of dolphin species in the eastern tropical pacific ocean,dolphin abundance; line-transect; cpue; bycatch; generalized additive model,FISHERIES RESEARCH,LENNERT-CODY CE;MAUNDER MN;FIEDLER PC;MINAMI M;GERRODETTE T;RUSIN J;MINTE-VERA CV;SCOTT M;BUCKLAND ST,"in the eastern tropical pacific ocean, yellowfin tuna (thunnus albacares) are often found in association with spotted (stenella attenuata) and spinner (stenella longirostris) dolphins. purse-seine vessels use this co-occurrence to locate the tuna by searching for dolphins and associated birds. data collected by onboard observers since the late 1970s were used to develop indices of relative abundance for dolphins, based on line-transect methodology, when the primary method of detection of dolphin herds was with binoculars. however, trend estimation was subsequently discontinued in 2000 due to concerns about changes in reporting rates of dolphin herd detections with increased use of helicopter and radar search. at present, as a result of a hiatus in fishery-independent surveys since 2006, fisheries observer data are the only source of information with which to monitor the status of eastern tropical pacific ocean dolphin populations. in this paper, trend estimation with the onboard observer data is revisited using a sightings-per-unit-effort approach. despite different assumptions and model structure, the results indicate a lack of independence between the distribution of search effort and the search methods used, and the abundance of dolphin herds associated with tunas, on several spatial and temporal scales. this lack of independence poses a considerable challenge to the development of a reliable index of relative abundance for dolphins with these data. given these results, alternatives for dolphin abundance estimation are discussed. one alternative is the use of purse-seine vessels for line-transect surveys during fishery closure periods. another alternative is the use of purse-seine vessels during normal fishing operations as platforms for the collection of mark-recapture data (e.g., passive integrated transponder tags or genetics sampling). life-history data collection, as a supplement to the collection of other data types, is also discussed. further research and development is needed to assess whether these alternative methods will be useful. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +purse-seine vessels as platforms for monitoring the population status of dolphin species in the eastern tropical pacific ocean,dolphin abundance; line-transect; cpue; bycatch; generalized additive model,FISHERIES RESEARCH,LENNERT CODY CE;MAUNDER MN;FIEDLER PC;MINAMI M;GERRODETTE T;RUSIN J;MINTE VERA CV;SCOTT M;BUCKLAND ST,"in the eastern tropical pacific ocean, yellowfin tuna (thunnus albacares) are often found in association with spotted (stenella attenuata) and spinner (stenella longirostris) dolphins. purse-seine vessels use this co-occurrence to locate the tuna by searching for dolphins and associated birds. data collected by onboard observers since the late 1970s were used to develop indices of relative abundance for dolphins, based on line-transect methodology, when the primary method of detection of dolphin herds was with binoculars. however, trend estimation was subsequently discontinued in 2000 due to concerns about changes in reporting rates of dolphin herd detections with increased use of helicopter and radar search. at present, as a result of a hiatus in fishery-independent surveys since 2006, fisheries observer data are the only source of information with which to monitor the status of eastern tropical pacific ocean dolphin populations. in this paper, trend estimation with the onboard observer data is revisited using a sightings-per-unit-effort approach. despite different assumptions and model structure, the results indicate a lack of independence between the distribution of search effort and the search methods used, and the abundance of dolphin herds associated with tunas, on several spatial and temporal scales. this lack of independence poses a considerable challenge to the development of a reliable index of relative abundance for dolphins with these data. given these results, alternatives for dolphin abundance estimation are discussed. one alternative is the use of purse-seine vessels for line-transect surveys during fishery closure periods. another alternative is the use of purse-seine vessels during normal fishing operations as platforms for the collection of mark-recapture data (e.g., passive integrated transponder tags or genetics sampling). life-history data collection, as a supplement to the collection of other data types, is also discussed. further research and development is needed to assess whether these alternative methods will be useful. (c) 2015 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." "optimization of scat detection methods for a social ungulate, the wild pig, and experimental evaluation of factors affecting detection of scat",NA,PLOS ONE,KEITER DA;CUNNINGHAM FL;RHODES OE;IRWIN BJ;BEASLEY JC,"collection of scat samples is common in wildlife research, particularly for genetic capture-mark-recapture applications. due to high degradation rates of genetic material in scat, large numbers of samples must be collected to generate robust estimates. optimization of sampling approaches to account for taxa-specific patterns of scat deposition is, therefore, necessary to ensure sufficient sample collection. while scat collection methods have been widely studied in carnivores, research to maximize scat collection and noninvasive sampling efficiency for social ungulates is lacking. further, environmental factors or scat morphology may influence detection of scat by observers. we contrasted performance of novel radial search protocols with existing adaptive cluster sampling protocols to quantify differences in observed amounts of wild pig (sus scrofa) scat. we also evaluated the effects of environmental (percentage of vegetative ground cover and occurrence of rain immediately prior to sampling) and scat characteristics (fecal pellet size and number) on the detectability of scat by observers. we found that 15- and 20-m radial search protocols resulted in greater numbers of scats encountered than the previously used adaptive cluster sampling approach across habitat types, and that fecal pellet size, number of fecal pellets, percent vegetative ground cover, and recent rain events were significant predictors of scat detection. our results suggest that use of a fixed-width radial search protocol may increase the number of scats detected for wild pigs, or other social ungulates, allowing more robust estimation of population metrics using noninvasive genetic sampling methods. further, as fecal pellet size affected scat detection, juvenile or smaller-sized animals may be less detectable than adult or large animals, which could introduce bias into abundance estimates. knowledge of relationships between environmental variables and scat detection may allow researchers to optimize sampling protocols to maximize utility of noninvasive sampling for wild pigs and other social ungulates." "density and biomass estimates by removal for an amazonian crocodilian, paleosuchus palpebrosus",NA,PLOS ONE,CAMPOS Z;MAGNUSSON WE,"direct counts of crocodilians are rarely feasible and it is difficult to meet the assumptions of mark-recapture methods for most species in most habitats. catch-out experiments are also usually not logistically or morally justifiable because it would be necessary to destroy the habitat in order to be confident that most individuals had been captured. we took advantage of the draining and filling of a large area of flooded forest during the building of the santo antnio dam on the madeira river to obtain accurate estimates of the density and biomass of paleosuchus palpebrosus. the density, 28.4 non-hatchling individuals per km(2), is one of the highest reported for any crocodilian, except for species that are temporarily concentrated in small areas during dry-season drought. the biomass estimate of 63.15 kg*km(-2) is higher than that for most or even all mammalian carnivores in tropical forest. p. palpebrosus may be one of the world's most abundant crocodilians." an efficient acoustic density estimation method with human detectors applied to gibbons in cambodia,NA,PLOS ONE,KIDNEY D;RAWSON BM;BORCHERS DL;STEVENSON BC;MARQUES TA;THOMAS L,"some animal species are hard to see but easy to hear. standard visual methods for estimating population density for such species are often ineffective or inefficient, but methods based on passive acoustics show more promise. we develop spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) methods for territorial vocalising species, in which humans act as an acoustic detector array. we use secr and estimated bearing data from a single-occasion acoustic survey of a gibbon population in northeastern cambodia to estimate the density of calling groups. the properties of the estimator are assessed using a simulation study, in which a variety of survey designs are also investigated. we then present a new form of the secr likelihood for multi-occasion data which accounts for the stochastic availability of animals. in the context of gibbon surveys this allows model-based estimation of the proportion of groups that produce territorial vocalisations on a given day, thereby enabling the density of groups, instead of the density of calling groups, to be estimated. we illustrate the performance of this new estimator by simulation. we show that it is possible to estimate density reliably from human acoustic detections of visually cryptic species using secr methods. for gibbon surveys we also show that incorporating observers' estimates of bearings to detected groups substantially improves estimator performance. using the new form of the secr likelihood we demonstrate that estimates of availability, in addition to population density and detection function parameters, can be obtained from multi-occasion data, and that the detection function parameters are not confounded with the availability parameter. this acoustic secr method provides a means of obtaining reliable density estimates for territorial vocalising species. it is also efficient in terms of data requirements since since it only requires routine survey data. we anticipate that the low-tech field requirements will make this method an attractive option in many situations where populations can be surveyed acoustically by humans." ocelot (leopardus pardalis) density in central amazonia,NA,PLOS ONE,DA ROCHA DG;SOLLMANN R;RAMALHO EE;ILHA R;TAN CKW,"ocelots (leopardus pardalis) are presumed to be the most abundant of the wild cats throughout their distribution range and to play an important role in the dynamics of sympatric small-felid populations. however, ocelot ecological information is limited, particularly for the amazon. we conducted three camera-trap surveys during three consecutive dry seasons to estimate ocelot density in amana reserve, central amazonia, brazil. we implemented a spatial capture-recapture (scr) model that shared detection parameters among surveys. a total effort of 7020 camera-trap days resulted in 93 independent ocelot records. the estimate of ocelot density in amana reserve (24.84 +/- se 6.27 ocelots per 100 km(2)) was lower than at other sites in the amazon and also lower than that expected from a correlation of density with latitude and rainfall. we also discuss the importance of using common parameters for survey scenarios with low recapture rates. this is the first density estimate for ocelots in the brazilian amazon, which is an important stronghold for the species." "availability and quality of size estimations of female sex workers, men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs and transgender women in low- and middle-income countries",NA,PLOS ONE,SABIN K;ZHAO JK;CALLEJA JMG;SHENG Y;GARCIA SA;REINISCH A;KOMATSU R,"objective to assess the availability and quality of population size estimations of female sex workers (fsw), men who have sex with men (msm), people who inject drug (pwid) and transgender women. methods size estimation data since 2010 were retrieved from global reporting databases, global fund grant application documents, and the peer-reviewed and grey literature. overall quality and availability were assessed against a defined set of criteria, including estimation methods, geographic coverage, and extrapolation approaches. estimates were compositely categorized into 'nationally adequate', 'nationally inadequate but locally adequate', 'documented but inadequate methods', 'undocumented or untimely' and 'no data.' findings of 140 countries assessed, 41 did not report any estimates since 2010. among 99 countries with at least one estimate, 38 were categorized as having nationally adequate estimates and 30 as having nationally inadequate but locally adequate estimates. multiplier, capture-recapture, census and enumeration, and programmatic mapping were the most commonly used methods. most countries relied on only one estimate for a given population while about half of all reports included national estimates. a variety of approaches were applied to extrapolate from sites-level numbers to national estimates in two-thirds of countries. conclusions size estimates for fsw, msm, pwid and transgender women are increasingly available but quality varies widely. the different approaches present challenges for data use in design, implementation and evaluation of programs for these populations in half of the countries assessed. guidance should be further developed to recommend: a) applying multiple estimation methods; b) estimating size for a minimum number of sites; and, c) documenting extrapolation approaches." -jaguar densities across human-dominated landscapes in colombia: the contribution of unprotected areas to long term conservation,NA,PLOS ONE,BORON V;TZANOPOULOS J;GALLO J;BARRAGAN J;JAIMES-RODRIGUEZ L;SCHALLER G;PAYAN E,"large carnivores such as jaguars (panthera onca) are species of conservation concern because they are suffering population declines and are keystone species in their ecosystems. their large area requirements imply that unprotected and ever-increasing agricultural regions can be important habitats as they allow connectivity and dispersal among core protected areas. yet information on jaguar densities across unprotected landscapes it is still scarce and crucially needed to assist management and range-wide conservation strategies. our study provides the first jaguar density estimates of colombia in agricultural regions which included cattle ranching, the main land use in the country, and oil palm cultivation, an increasing land use across the neotropics. we used camera trapping across two agricultural landscapes located in the magdalena river valley and in the colombian llanos (47-53 stations respectively; >2000 trap nights at both sites) and classic and spatially explicit capture-recapture models with the sex of individuals as a covariate. density estimates were 2.52 +/- 0.46-3.15 +/- 1.08 adults/100 km(2) in the magdalena valley, whereas 1.12 +/- 0.13-2.19 +/- 0.99 adults/100 km(2) in the colombian llanos, depending on analysis used. we suggest that jaguars are able to live across unprotected human-use areas and co-exist with agricultural landscapes including oil-palm plantations if natural areas and riparian habitats persist in the landscape and hunting of both jaguar and prey is limited. in the face of an expanding agriculture across the tropics we recommend land-use planning, adequate incentives, regulations, and good agricultural practices for range-wide jaguar connectivity and survival." +jaguar densities across human-dominated landscapes in colombia: the contribution of unprotected areas to long term conservation,NA,PLOS ONE,BORON V;TZANOPOULOS J;GALLO J;BARRAGAN J;JAIMES RODRIGUEZ L;SCHALLER G;PAYAN E,"large carnivores such as jaguars (panthera onca) are species of conservation concern because they are suffering population declines and are keystone species in their ecosystems. their large area requirements imply that unprotected and ever-increasing agricultural regions can be important habitats as they allow connectivity and dispersal among core protected areas. yet information on jaguar densities across unprotected landscapes it is still scarce and crucially needed to assist management and range-wide conservation strategies. our study provides the first jaguar density estimates of colombia in agricultural regions which included cattle ranching, the main land use in the country, and oil palm cultivation, an increasing land use across the neotropics. we used camera trapping across two agricultural landscapes located in the magdalena river valley and in the colombian llanos (47-53 stations respectively; >2000 trap nights at both sites) and classic and spatially explicit capture-recapture models with the sex of individuals as a covariate. density estimates were 2.52 +/- 0.46-3.15 +/- 1.08 adults/100 km(2) in the magdalena valley, whereas 1.12 +/- 0.13-2.19 +/- 0.99 adults/100 km(2) in the colombian llanos, depending on analysis used. we suggest that jaguars are able to live across unprotected human-use areas and co-exist with agricultural landscapes including oil-palm plantations if natural areas and riparian habitats persist in the landscape and hunting of both jaguar and prey is limited. in the face of an expanding agriculture across the tropics we recommend land-use planning, adequate incentives, regulations, and good agricultural practices for range-wide jaguar connectivity and survival." practical bias correction in aerial surveys of large mammals: validation of hybrid double-observer with sightability method against known abundance of feral horse (equus caballus) populations,NA,PLOS ONE,LUBOW BC;RANSOM JI,"reliably estimating wildlife abundance is fundamental to effective management. aerial surveys are one of the only spatially robust tools for estimating large mammal populations, but statistical sampling methods are required to address detection biases that affect accuracy and precision of the estimates. although various methods for correcting aerial survey bias are employed on large mammal species around the world, these have rarely been rigorously validated. several populations of feral horses (equus caballus) in the western united states have been intensively studied, resulting in identification of all unique individuals. this provided a rare opportunity to test aerial survey bias correction on populations of known abundance. we hypothesized that a hybrid method combining simultaneous double-observer and sightability bias correction techniques would accurately estimate abundance. we validated this integrated technique on populations of known size and also on a pair of surveys before and after a known number was removed. our analysis identified several covariates across the surveys that explained and corrected biases in the estimates. all six tests on known populations produced estimates with deviations from the known value ranging from -8.5% to +13.7% and <0.7 standard errors. precision varied widely, from 6.1% cv to 25.0% cv. in contrast, the pair of surveys conducted around a known management removal produced an estimated change in population between the surveys that was significantly larger than the known reduction. although the deviation between was only 9.1%, the precision estimate (cv = 1.6%) may have been artificially low. it was apparent that use of a helicopter in those surveys perturbed the horses, introducing detection error and heterogeneity in a manner that could not be corrected by our statistical models. our results validate the hybrid method, highlight its potentially broad applicability, identify some limitations, and provide insight and guidance for improving survey designs." counting cats: spatially explicit population estimates of cheetah (acinonyx jubatus) using unstructured sampling data,NA,PLOS ONE,BROEKHUIS F;GOPALASWAMY AM,"many ecological theories and species conservation programmes rely on accurate estimates of population density. accurate density estimation, especially for species facing rapid declines, requires the application of rigorous field and analytical methods. however, obtaining accurate density estimates of carnivores can be challenging as carnivores naturally exist at relatively low densities and are often elusive and wide-ranging. in this study, we employ an unstructured spatial sampling field design along with a bayesian sex-specific spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) analysis, to provide the first rigorous population density estimates of cheetahs (acinonyx jubatus) in the maasai mara, kenya. we estimate adult cheetah density to be between 1.28 +/- 0.315 and 1.34 +/- 0.337 individuals/100km(2) across four candidate models specified in our analysis. our spatially explicit approach revealed 'hotspots' of cheetah density, highlighting that cheetah are distributed heterogeneously across the landscape. the secr models incorporated a movement range parameter which indicated that male cheetah moved four times as much as females, possibly because female movement was restricted by their reproductive status and/or the spatial distribution of prey. we show that secr can be used for spatially unstructured data to successfully characterise the spatial distribution of a low density species and also estimate population density when sample size is small. our sampling and modelling framework will help determine spatial and temporal variation in cheetah densities, providing a foundation for their conservation and management. based on our results we encourage other researchers to adopt a similar approach in estimating densities of individually recognisable species." a granular view of a snow leopard population using camera traps in central china,snow leopard; camera trap; china; density; monitoring,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,ALEXANDER JS;ZHANG CC;SHI K;RIORDAN P,"successful conservation of the endangered snow leopard (panthera uncia) relies on the effectiveness of monitoring programmes. we present the results of a 19-month camera trap survey effort, conducted as part of a long-term study of the snow leopard population in qilianshan national nature reserve of gansu province, china. we assessed the minimum number of individual snow leopards and population density across different sampling periods using spatial capture-recapture methods. between 2013-2014, we deployed 34 camera traps across an area of 375 km(2), investing a total of 7133 trap-days effort. we identified a total number of 17-19 unique individuals from photographs (10-12 adults, five sub-adults and two cubs). the total number of individuals identified and estimated density varied across sampling periods, between 10-15 individuals and 1.46-329 snow leopards per 100 km(2) respectively. we demonstrate that snow leopard surveys of limited scale and conducted over short sampling periods only present partial views of a dynamic and transient system. we also underline the challenges in achieving a sufficient sample size of captures and recaptures to assess trends in snow leopard population size and/or density for policy and conservation decision-making. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." tarangire revisited: consequences of declining connectivity in a tropical ungulate population,bayesian estimation; corridor; habitat change; population dynamics; site fidelity; tarangire-manyara ecosystem,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MORRISON TA;LINK WA;NEWMARK WD;FOLEY CAH;BOLGER DT,"the hyper-abundance of migratory wildlife in many ecosystems depends on maintaining access to seasonally available resources. in eastern and southern africa, land-use change and a loss of connectivity have coincided with widespread declines in the abundance and geographic range of ungulate populations. using photographic capture-mark-recapture, we examine the historical pattern of loss of connectivity and its impact on population trends in a partially migratory wildebeest population in northern tanzania. to estimate abundance, we use a novel modeling approach that overcomes bias associated with photo misidentifications. our data indicate (1) diminished connectivity within and between seasonal areas as a result of human activities, (2) a reduction in the overall population size compared to historical numbers, with high variability over time, (3) the continued use of highly constrained movement corridors between the three main seasonal ranges, (4) higher recruitment in the non-migratory subpopulation (lake manyara national park) than in other areas of the ecosystem, and (5) an increase in the relative abundance of resident to migrant wildebeest. recent conservation efforts to protect seasonal habitat and to enforce anti-poaching policies outside protected areas have likely helped stabilize the population, at least temporarily, but we caution that several key vulnerabilities remain. (c) 2016 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -effects of nature-based tourism and environmental drivers on the demography of a small dolphin population,tourist exposure; environmental conditions; robust design demography; coastal dolphins; western indian ocean,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,PEREZ-JORGE S;GOMES I;HAYES K;CORTI G;LOUZAO M;GENOVART M;ORO D,"many marine top predators are experiencing significant declines due to anthropogenic impacts, and therefore reliable monitoring is essential to understand their population dynamics. we used pollock's robust design capture recapture modelling to assess the influence of oceanographic variables, artisanal fisheries and human disturbance on several demographic parameters (abundance, temporary emigration and survival) of the indo-pacific bottlenose dolphin (tursiops aduncus), using long-term data on marked individuals from east africa. photo identification data was collected over 551 boat-based surveys between 2006 and 2009, with 137 individuals identified. our best fitting model indicated that exposure to tourism (represented by the number of tourist boats) increased the probability of dolphins seasonally emigrating from the study area. the return rate of temporary emigrants was negatively linked to the seasonal sea surface temperature, probably associated with food availability. that model supported the existence of heterogeneity in annual local survival estimates, with transient dolphins showing a lower value than resident individuals (0.78 and 0.98, respectively). furthermore, abundance estimates showed a small population size ranging from 19 individuals (95% ci: 11-33) to a maximum of 104 dolphins (95% ci: 78-139). this small population, together with their high site fidelity and coastal distribution, might be particularly vulnerable to human disturbances. this study highlights the influence of environmental and anthropogenic factors on dolphin demography and population dynamics and the need to integrate these drivers to provide robust evidences for conservation stakeholders in an adaptive management framework. (c) 2016 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +effects of nature-based tourism and environmental drivers on the demography of a small dolphin population,tourist exposure; environmental conditions; robust design demography; coastal dolphins; western indian ocean,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,PEREZ JORGE S;GOMES I;HAYES K;CORTI G;LOUZAO M;GENOVART M;ORO D,"many marine top predators are experiencing significant declines due to anthropogenic impacts, and therefore reliable monitoring is essential to understand their population dynamics. we used pollock's robust design capture recapture modelling to assess the influence of oceanographic variables, artisanal fisheries and human disturbance on several demographic parameters (abundance, temporary emigration and survival) of the indo-pacific bottlenose dolphin (tursiops aduncus), using long-term data on marked individuals from east africa. photo identification data was collected over 551 boat-based surveys between 2006 and 2009, with 137 individuals identified. our best fitting model indicated that exposure to tourism (represented by the number of tourist boats) increased the probability of dolphins seasonally emigrating from the study area. the return rate of temporary emigrants was negatively linked to the seasonal sea surface temperature, probably associated with food availability. that model supported the existence of heterogeneity in annual local survival estimates, with transient dolphins showing a lower value than resident individuals (0.78 and 0.98, respectively). furthermore, abundance estimates showed a small population size ranging from 19 individuals (95% ci: 11-33) to a maximum of 104 dolphins (95% ci: 78-139). this small population, together with their high site fidelity and coastal distribution, might be particularly vulnerable to human disturbances. this study highlights the influence of environmental and anthropogenic factors on dolphin demography and population dynamics and the need to integrate these drivers to provide robust evidences for conservation stakeholders in an adaptive management framework. (c) 2016 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." no effect of blood sampling or phytohaemagglutinin injection on postfledging survival in a wild songbird,capture-mark-recapture; house wren; recruitment; troglodytes aedon,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BOWERS EK;SAKALUK SK;THOMPSON CF,"the injection of phytohaemagglutinin (pha) and sampling of blood are widely used in studies of wild vertebrates to assess components of immune and endocrine function and health state and to obtain genetic material. despite the pervasive use of these techniques in the life sciences, their potential effects on survival are rarely considered. for example, whether injection of the immunogen pha into body parts critical for locomotion (e.g., the prepatagium, or wing web, in birds) affects survival has not been tested. here, we test whether injection of pha into the wing web and blood sampling from nestling house wrens affects their subsequent recruitment and survival as breeding adults. capture-mark-recapture analysis on a large sample of young (n = 20,152 fledglings from 3959 broods) treated over 10 years revealed that neither pha injection nor blood sampling affected individual survival and detection probability. recruitment as a breeder varied among years, but this variation was not attributable to sampling effort, or the percent of all adults identified at the nest during a given year. variation in the percent of adults identified was primarily attributable to the effect of nest depredation on our ability to capture nesting pairs. our results indicating lack of an effect of blood sampling and immune stimulation on survival are encouraging, but we recommend further work to assess the potential negative effects of all commonly used techniques on the survival of study subjects in the wild, including the potential costs associated with mounting various immunological responses." estimating population size using single-nucleotide polymorphism-based pedigree data,brown bear; noninvasive sampling; pedigree reconstruction; population estimate; rarefaction; single-nucleotide polymorphism; snp,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SPITZER R;NORMAN AJ;SCHNEIDER M;SPONG G,"reliable population estimates are an important aspect of sustainable wildlife management and conservation but can be difficult to obtain for rare and elusive species. here, we test a new census method based on pedigree reconstruction recently developed by creel and rosenblatt (2013). using a panel of 96 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (snps), we genotyped fecal samples from two swedish brown bear populations for pedigree reconstruction. based on 433 genotypes from central sweden (cs) and 265 from northern sweden (ns), the population estimates (n = 630 for cs, n = 408 for ns) fell within the 95% ci of the official estimates. the precision and accuracy improved with increasing sampling intensity. like genetic capture-mark-recapture methods, this method can be applied to data from a single sampling session. pedigree reconstruction combined with noninvasive genetic sampling may thus augment population estimates, particularly for rare and elusive species for which sampling may be challenging." validation of back-calculated body lengths and timing of growth mark deposition in hawaiian green sea turtles,chelonia mydas; growth rate; line of arrested growth; mark-recapture; oxytetracycline; skeletochronology,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GOSHE LR;SNOVER ML;HOHN AA;BALAZS GH,"somatic growth rate data for wild sea turtles can provide insight into life-stage durations, time to maturation, and total lifespan. when appropriately validated, the technique of skeletochronology allows prior growth rates of sea turtles to be calculated with considerably less time and labor than required by mark-recapture studies. we applied skeletochronology to 10 dead, stranded green turtles chelonia mydas that had previously been measured, tagged, and injected with otc (oxytetracycline) during mark-recapture studies in hawaii for validating skeletochronological analysis. we tested the validity of back-calculating carapace lengths (cls) from diameters of lags (lines of arrested growth), which mark the outer boundaries of individual skeletal growth increments. this validation was achieved by comparing cls estimated from measurements of the lag proposed to have been deposited closest to the time of tagging to actual cls measured at the time of tagging. measureable otc-mark diameters in five turtles also allowed us to investigate the time of year when lags are deposited. we found no significant difference between cls measured at tagging and those estimated through skeletochronology, which supports calculation of somatic growth rates by taking the difference between cls estimated from successive lag diameters in humerus bones for this species. back-calculated cls associated with the otc mark and growth mark deposited closest to tagging indicated that annual lags are deposited in the spring. the results of this validation study increase confidence in utilization of skeletochronology to rapidly obtain accurate age and growth data for green turtles." @@ -390,7 +390,7 @@ endemicity of chytridiomycosis features pathogen overdispersion,aggregation; amp demographic response of northern spotted owls to barred owl removal,barred owl; competition; demography; northern spotted owl; removal experiment,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,DILLER LV;HAMM KA;EARLY DA;LAMPHEAR DW;DUGGER KM;YACKULIC CB;SCHWARZ CJ;CARLSON PC;MCDONALD TL,"federally listed as threatened in 1990 primarily because of habitat loss, the northern spotted owl (strix occidentalis caurina) has continued to decline despite conservation efforts resulting in forested habitat being reserved throughout its range. recently, there is growing evidence the congeneric invasive barred owl (strix varia) may be responsible for the continued decline primarily by excluding spotted owls from their preferred habitat. we used a long-term demographic study for spotted owls in coastal northern california as the basis for a pilot barred owl removal experiment. our demography study used capture-recapture, reproductive output, and territory occupancy data collected from 1990 to 2013 to evaluate trends in vital rates and populations. we used a classic before-after-control-impact (baci) experimental design to investigate the demographic response of northern spotted owls to the lethal removal of barred owls. according to the best 2-species dynamic occupancy model, there was no evidence of differences in barred or northern spotted owl occupancy prior to the initiation of the treatment (barred owl removal). after treatment, barred owl occupancy was lower in the treated relative to the untreated areas and spotted owl occupancy was higher relative to the untreated areas. barred owl removal decreased spotted owl territory extinction rates but did not affect territory colonization rates. as a result, spotted owl occupancy increased in the treated area and continued to decline in the untreated areas. prior to and after barred owl removal, there was no evidence that average fecundity differed on the 2 study areas. however, the greater number of occupied spotted owl sites on the treated areas resulted in greater productivity in the treated areas based on empirical counts of fledged young. prior to removal, survival was declining at a rate of approximately 0.2% per year for treated and untreated areas. following treatment, estimated survival was 0.859 for the treated areas and 0.822 for the untreated areas. derived estimates of population change on both study areas showed the same general decline before removal with an estimated slope of -0.0036 per year. following removal, the rate of population change on the treated areas increased to an average of 1.029 but decreased to an average of 0.870 on the untreated areas. the results from this first experiment demonstrated that lethal removal of barred owls allowed the recovery of northern spotted owl populations in the treated portions of our study area. if additional federally funded barred owl removal experiments provide similar results, this could be the foundation for development of a long-term conservation strategy for northern spotted owls. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." estimating the population size and genetic diversity of amur tigers in northeast china,NA,PLOS ONE,DOU HL;YANG HT;FENG LM;MOU P;WANG TM;GE JP,"over the past century, the endangered amur tiger (panthera tigris altaica) has experienced a severe contraction in demography and geographic range because of habitat loss, poaching, and prey depletion. in its historical home in northeast china, there appears to be a single tiger population that includes tigers in southwest primorye and northeast china; however, the current demographic status of this population is uncertain. information on the abundance, distribution and genetic diversity of this population for assessing the efficacy of conservation interventions are scarce. we used noninvasive genetic detection data from scats, capture-recapture models and an accumulation curve method to estimate the abundance of amur tigers in northeast china. we identified 11 individual tigers (6 females and 5 males) using 10 microsatellite loci in three nature reserves between april 2013 and may 2015. these tigers are confined primarily to a hunchun nature reserve along the border with russia, with an estimated population abundance of 9-11 tigers during the winter of 2014-2015. they showed a low level of genetic diversity. the mean number of alleles per locus was 2.60 and expected and observed heterozygosity were 0.42 and 0.49, respectively. we also documented long-distance dispersal (similar to 270 km) of a male amur tiger to huangnihe nature reserve from the border, suggesting that the expansion of neighboring russian populations may eventually help sustain chinese populations. however, the small and isolated population recorded by this study demonstrate that there is an urgent need for more intensive regional management to create a tiger-permeable landscape and increased genetic connectivity with other populations." scent lure effect on camera-trap based leopard density estimates,NA,PLOS ONE,BRACZKOWSKI AR;BALME GA;DICKMAN A;FATTEBERT J;JOHNSON P;DICKERSON T;MACDONALD DW;HUNTER L,"density estimates for large carnivores derived from camera surveys often have wide confidence intervals due to low detection rates. such estimates are of limited value to authorities, which require precise population estimates to inform conservation strategies. using lures can potentially increase detection, improving the precision of estimates. however, by altering the spatio-temporal patterning of individuals across the camera array, lures may violate closure, a fundamental assumption of capture-recapture. here, we test the effect of scent lures on the precision and veracity of density estimates derived from camera-trap surveys of a protected african leopard population. we undertook two surveys (a 'control' and 'treatment' survey) on phinda game reserve, south africa. survey design remained consistent except a scent lure was applied at camera-trap stations during the treatment survey. lures did not affect the maximum movement distances (p = 0.96) or temporal activity of female (p = 0.12) or male leopards (p = 0.79), and the assumption of geographic closure was met for both surveys (p >0.05). the numbers of photographic captures were also similar for control and treatment surveys (p = 0.90). accordingly, density estimates were comparable between surveys (although estimates derived using non-spatial methods (7.28-9.28 leopards/100km(2)) were considerably higher than estimates from spatially-explicit methods (3.40-3.65 leopards/100km(2)). the precision of estimates from the control and treatment surveys, were also comparable and this applied to both non-spatial and spatial methods of estimation. our findings suggest that at least in the context of leopard research in productive habitats, the use of lures is not warranted." -adult population ecology and egg laying strategy in the 'cruciata' ecotype of the endangered butterfly maculinea alcon (lepidoptera: lycaenidae),host plant; mark-recapture; sex ratio; species conservation; survival; vegetation characteristics,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,OSVATH-FERENCZ M;CZEKES Z;MOLNAR G;MARKO B;VIZAUER TC;RAKOSY L;NOWICKI P,"population dynamics studies in insects mostly focus on a specific life stage of a species and seldom consider different stages. here, we studied the population demography of a protected maculinea alcon 'cruciata' population and the factors that could influence the distribution of eggs. the results of the mark-recapture survey showed a relatively short flight period between mid-june and mid-july with a clearly marked early peak period. unlike in many other butterflies, protandry was not strong. the total population of m. alcon 'cruciata' was estimated at 699 individuals. the survival rate, and consequently the average life span, was relatively low. eggs showed a highly aggregated pattern, and egg numbers were positively related to general shoot size, while the number of flower buds and the features of the surrounding vegetation did not display any effect on egg laying. based on our findings, the studied population appears viable, but specific management techniques could ensure optimal conditions for egg laying in this protected butterfly." +adult population ecology and egg laying strategy in the 'cruciata' ecotype of the endangered butterfly maculinea alcon (lepidoptera: lycaenidae),host plant; mark-recapture; sex ratio; species conservation; survival; vegetation characteristics,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,OSVATH FERENCZ M;CZEKES Z;MOLNAR G;MARKO B;VIZAUER TC;RAKOSY L;NOWICKI P,"population dynamics studies in insects mostly focus on a specific life stage of a species and seldom consider different stages. here, we studied the population demography of a protected maculinea alcon 'cruciata' population and the factors that could influence the distribution of eggs. the results of the mark-recapture survey showed a relatively short flight period between mid-june and mid-july with a clearly marked early peak period. unlike in many other butterflies, protandry was not strong. the total population of m. alcon 'cruciata' was estimated at 699 individuals. the survival rate, and consequently the average life span, was relatively low. eggs showed a highly aggregated pattern, and egg numbers were positively related to general shoot size, while the number of flower buds and the features of the surrounding vegetation did not display any effect on egg laying. based on our findings, the studied population appears viable, but specific management techniques could ensure optimal conditions for egg laying in this protected butterfly." detection and apparent survival of pit-tagged stream fish in winter,brown trout; european sculpin; ice; sweden; tracking,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,WEBER C;SCHEUBER H;NILSSON C;ALFREDSEN KT,"environmental fluctuations exert strong control on behavior, survival, and fitness of stream biota. technical improvements increasingly allow for tracking the response of large numbers of individuals to environmental fluctuations, for instance, by remote detection of animals equipped with pit (passive integrated transponder) tags. pit tags were implanted into 393 juvenile and adult brown trout salmo trutta l. and european sculpin cottus gobio l. in a boreal stream subjected to considerable ice formation. with weekly trackings over 6 months, we quantified apparent survival and detection probability in relation to biological, environmental, and methodological factors. individuals with a higher physical condition in autumn showed a higher apparent survival; this pattern was consistent across all species and age classes. detection probability decreased with increasing thickness of the surface ice layer; this effect was most pronounced for juvenile trout and benthic-living sculpin, both tagged with smaller-sized tags. detection probability was reduced in structurally complex habitats. our study demonstrates that apparent survival and particularly detection probability may show pronounced spatiotemporal variation. in order to compare results from different sampling occasions and sites, a good knowledge of the study site and of the regulating factors is crucial." immigration enhances fast growth of a newly established source population,apparent survival; colonization; leslie matrix; local survival; metapopulation; new colony; population dynamics,ECOLOGY,SANTORO S;GREEN AJ;FIGUEROLA J,"immigration and local recruitment play a central role in determining the growth rate of breeding populations. unraveling these processes in newly established populations is of great importance to increase our understanding of how species change their distributions in response to global change. we studied the largest colony of glossy ibis (plegadis falcinellus) in western europe (established in 1996 in donana, sw-spain) by using capture-recapture methods, count estimates, and projection matrix modeling to: (1) test the effect of resource availability and competition on local recruitment dynamics, (2) investigate the contribution of local recruitment vs. immigration on population growth, and (3) assess the role of this population in source/sink dynamics. we found different dynamics before and after the establishment of satellite colonies in donana in 2004. between 1996 and 2003, the population increased rapidly, fueled by immigrants (approximate to 58 breeding females/yr). between 2003 and 2007, however, both colony size increase and immigration were negligible. immigration played a major role in colony growth, but simultaneously this colony was a source population driving expansion of the species range as suggested by (1) absolute and relative estimates of the observed growth rate relative to that predicted by self-recruitment, and (2) numerous observations of donana-born individuals breeding elsewhere. local recruitment, which was particularly high for first-year individuals (probability >0.8 for the early study years), was not directly related to resource availability or previous-year breeding success. local recruitment decreased rapidly at a threshold population size, however, when other satellite colonies became established at donana. our study suggests that even when recruitment at an early age and high productivity are observed, immigration can still play a pivotal role in promoting the fast growth of new populations at the edge of a species range, at least until density-dependent effects arise. this process can be so fast that within a few years a new population can itself become a source population, further driving range expansion of the species." beyond climate envelope projections: roe deer survival and environmental change,capreolus capreolus; climate change; lynx lynx; ndvi; predation; roe deer; survival; vegetation,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,DAVIS ML;STEPHENS PA;KJELLANDER P,"research on climate change impacts has focused on projecting changes in the geographic ranges of species, with less emphasis on the vital rates giving rise to species distributions. managing ungulate populations under future climate change will require an understanding of how their vital rates are affected by direct climatic effects and the indirect climatic and non-climatic effects that are often overlooked by climate impact studies. we used generalized linear models and capture-mark-recapture models to assess the influence of a variety of direct climatic, indirect climatic, and non-climatic predictors on the survival of roe deer (capreolus capreolus) at 2 sites in sweden. the models indicated that although direct climatic effects (e.g., precipitation) explained some variation in survival, indirect climatic effects (e.g., an index of vegetation production), and non-climatic effects (hunting by lynx [lynx lynx] and humans) had greater explanatory power. climate change is likely to increase vegetation productivity in northern europe, and, coupled with the positive effects of vegetation productivity on roe deer survival, might lead to population increases in the future. survival was negatively affected by lynx presence where these predators occur and by human harvest in the site that lacked predators. in the future, managers might find that a combination of increased harvest and predation by recovering carnivore populations may be necessary to mitigate climate-induced increases in roe deer survival. considering vegetation availability and predation effects is likely to improve predictions of ungulate population responses to variation in climate and, therefore, inform management under future climate change. (c) 2016 the wildlife society." @@ -416,17 +416,17 @@ spatiotemporal factors affecting detection of black bears during noninvasive cap "density, distribution, and genetic structure of grizzly bears in the cabinet-yaak ecosystem",bear rub; cabinet-yaak ecosystem; density estimation; genetic detection; grizzly bear; hair corral; huggins-pledger capture-recapture models; pedigree; spatially explicit capture-recapture models; ursus arctos,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,KENDALL KC;MACLEOD AC;BOYD KL;BOULANGER J;ROYLE JA;KASWORM WF;PAETKAU D;PROCTOR MF;ANNIS K;GRAVES TA,"the conservation status of the 2 threatened grizzly bear (ursus arctos) populations in the cabinet-yaak ecosystem (cye) of northern montana and idaho had remained unchanged since designation in 1975; however, the current demographic status of these populations was uncertain. no rigorous data on population density and distribution or analysis of recent population genetic structure were available to measure the effectiveness of conservation efforts. we used genetic detection data from hair corral, bear rub, and opportunistic sampling in traditional and spatial capture-recapture models to generate estimates of abundance and density of grizzly bears in the cye. we calculated mean bear residency on our sampling grid from telemetry data using huggins and pledger models to estimate the average number of bears present and to correct our superpopulation estimates for lack of geographic closure. estimated grizzly bear abundance (all sex and age classes) in the cye in 2012 was 48-50 bears, approximately half the population recovery goal. grizzly bear density in the cye (4.3-4.5 grizzly bears/1,000 km(2)) was among the lowest of interior north american populations. the sizes of the cabinet (n=22-24) and yaak (n=18-22) populations were similar. spatial models produced similar estimates of abundance and density with comparable precision without requiring radio-telemetry data to address assumptions of geographic closure. the 2 populations in the cye were demographically and reproductively isolated from each other and the cabinet population was highly inbred. with parentage analysis, we documented natural migrants to the cabinet and yaak populations by bears born to parents in the selkirk and northern continental divide populations. these events supported data from other sources suggesting that the expansion of neighboring populations may eventually help sustain the cye populations. however, the small size, isolation, and inbreeding documented by this study demonstrate the need for comprehensive management designed to support cye population growth and increased connectivity and gene flow with other populations. published 2015. this article is a u.s. government work and is in the public domain in the usa." "estimation of the brown bear population on the kenai peninsula, alaska",alaska; brown bear; genetics; hair dna; kenai peninsula; mark-recapture; population; pradel model; ursus arctos,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,MORTON JM;WHITE GC;HAYWARD GD;PAETKAU D;BRAY MP,"the brown bear population on the kenai peninsula, alaska, has not been empirically estimated previously because conventional aerial methods over this heavily forested landscape were infeasible. we applied a rapid field protocol to a dna-based, mark-recapture approach on a large and tightly bounded sample frame to estimate brown bear abundance. we used lure to attract bears to barbed wire stations deployed in 145 9-kmx9-km cells systematically distributed across 10,200km(2) of available habitat on the kenai national wildlife refuge and chugach national forest during 31 consecutive days in early summer 2010. using 2 helicopters and 4 2-person field crews, we deployed the stations during a 6-day period and subsequently revisited these stations on 5 consecutive 5-day trap sessions. we extracted dna to identify individual bears and developed capture histories as input to mark-recapture models. combined with data from radio-telemetered bears, 243 brown bears were alive on the kenai peninsula in 2010, but we used only 99 females and 104 males in modeling. we used akaike's information criterion selection and model averaging to estimate 428 (95% lognormal ci=353-539) brown bears (including all age classes) on the study area. despite low recaptures rates, we achieved reasonable precision by ensuring geographic and demographic population closure through a spatially comprehensive sample frame and very short sampling window. we reduced bias by including information from rub trees and telemetered females (i.e., occasion 0). extrapolating the density estimate of 42 bears/1,000 km(2) of available habitat on the study area to the kenai peninsula suggests a peninsula-wide population of 582 brown bears (95% lognormal ci=469-719). despite a density estimate that is low compared to other coastal brown bear populations in alaska and genetic evidence that suggests this peninsular population is insular, harvest management has been liberalized since 2012. we recommend this population estimate serve as the benchmark for future management. published 2015. this article is a u.s. government work and is in the public domain in the usa." "population size estimation of men who have sex with men in tbilisi, georgia; multiple methods and triangulation of findings",NA,PLOS ONE,SULABERIDZE L;MIRZAZADEH A;CHIKOVANI I;SHENGELIA N;TSERETELI N;GOTSADZE G,"introduction an accurate estimation of the population size of men who have sex with men (msm) is critical to the success of hiv program planning and to monitoring of the response to epidemic as a whole, but is quite often missing. in this study, our aim was to estimate the population size of msm in tbilisi, georgia and compare it with other estimates in the region. methods in the absence of a gold standard for estimating the population size of msm, this study reports a range of methods, including network scale-up, mobile/web apps multiplier, service and unique object multiplier, network-based capture-recapture, handcock rds-based and wisdom of crowds methods. to apply all these methods, two surveys were conducted: first, a household survey among 1,015 adults from the general population, and second, a respondent driven sample of 210 msm. we also conducted a literature review of msm size estimation in eastern european and central asian countries. results the median population size of msm generated from all previously mentioned methods was estimated to be 5,100 (95% confidence interval (ci): 3,243 +/- 9,088). this corresponds to 1.42% (95% ci: 0.9% +/- 2.53%) of the adult male population in tbilisi. conclusion our size estimates of the msm population (1.42% (95% ci: 0.9% +/- 2.53%) of the adult male population in tbilisi) fall within ranges reported in other eastern european and central asian countries. these estimates can provide valuable information for country level hiv prevention program planning and evaluation. furthermore, we believe, that our results will narrow the gap in data availability on the estimates of the population size of msm in the region." -estimating recruitment and survival in partially monitored populations,calonectris diomedea; capture-recapture; demography; dispersal; experimental design; multi-event; partial monitoring; population modelling; scopoli's shearwater; vital rates,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,SANZ-AGUILAR A;IGUAL JM;ORO D;GENOVART M;TAVECCHIA G,"in evolutionary and ecological studies, demographic parameters are commonly derived from detailed information collected on a limited number of individuals or in a confined sector of the breeding area. this partial monitoring is expected to underestimate survival and recruitment processes because individuals marked in a monitored location may move to or recruit in an unobservable site. we formulate a multi-event capture-recapture model using e-surge software which incorporates additional information on breeding dispersal and the proportion of monitored sites to obtain unbiased estimates of survival and recruitment rates. using simulated data, we assessed the biases in recruitment, survival and population growth rate when monitoring 10-90% of the whole population in a short- and a long-lived species with low breeding dispersal. finally, we illustrate the approach using real data from a long-term monitoring program of a colony of scopoli's shearwaters calonectris diomedea. we found that demographic parameters estimated without considering the proportion of the area monitored were generally underestimated. these biases caused a substantial error in the estimated population growth rate, especially when a low proportion of breeding individuals were monitored. the proposed capture-recapture model successfully corrected for partial monitoring and provided robust demographic estimates. synthesis and applications. in many cases, animal breeding populations can only be monitored partially. consequently, recruitment and immature survival are underestimated, but the extent of these biases depends on the proportion of the area that remains undetected and the degree of breeding dispersal. we present a new method to obtain robust and unbiased measures of survival and recruitment processes from capture-recapture data. the method can be applied to any monitored population regardless of the type of nests (e.g. artificial or natural) or breeding system (e.g. colonial or territorial animals), and it only relies on an estimate of the proportion of the monitored area. the unbiased estimates obtained by this method can be used to improve the reliability of predictions of demographic population models for species' conservation and management." +estimating recruitment and survival in partially monitored populations,calonectris diomedea; capture-recapture; demography; dispersal; experimental design; multi-event; partial monitoring; population modelling; scopoli's shearwater; vital rates,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,SANZ AGUILAR A;IGUAL JM;ORO D;GENOVART M;TAVECCHIA G,"in evolutionary and ecological studies, demographic parameters are commonly derived from detailed information collected on a limited number of individuals or in a confined sector of the breeding area. this partial monitoring is expected to underestimate survival and recruitment processes because individuals marked in a monitored location may move to or recruit in an unobservable site. we formulate a multi-event capture-recapture model using e-surge software which incorporates additional information on breeding dispersal and the proportion of monitored sites to obtain unbiased estimates of survival and recruitment rates. using simulated data, we assessed the biases in recruitment, survival and population growth rate when monitoring 10-90% of the whole population in a short- and a long-lived species with low breeding dispersal. finally, we illustrate the approach using real data from a long-term monitoring program of a colony of scopoli's shearwaters calonectris diomedea. we found that demographic parameters estimated without considering the proportion of the area monitored were generally underestimated. these biases caused a substantial error in the estimated population growth rate, especially when a low proportion of breeding individuals were monitored. the proposed capture-recapture model successfully corrected for partial monitoring and provided robust demographic estimates. synthesis and applications. in many cases, animal breeding populations can only be monitored partially. consequently, recruitment and immature survival are underestimated, but the extent of these biases depends on the proportion of the area that remains undetected and the degree of breeding dispersal. we present a new method to obtain robust and unbiased measures of survival and recruitment processes from capture-recapture data. the method can be applied to any monitored population regardless of the type of nests (e.g. artificial or natural) or breeding system (e.g. colonial or territorial animals), and it only relies on an estimate of the proportion of the monitored area. the unbiased estimates obtained by this method can be used to improve the reliability of predictions of demographic population models for species' conservation and management." can camera trapping provide accurate estimates of small mammal (myodes rutilus and peromyscus maniculatus) density in the boreal forest?,camera trapping; density estimation; hit window; myodes rutilus; peromyscus maniculatus; yukon,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,VILLETTE P;KREBS CJ;JUNG TS;BOONSTRA R,"estimating population densities of small mammals (< 100g) has typically been carried out by intensive livetrapping, but this technique may be stressful to animals and the effort required is considerable. here, we used camera traps to detect small mammal presence and assessed if this provided a feasible alternative to livetrapping for density estimation. during 2010-2012, we used camera trapping in conjunction with mark-recapture livetrapping to estimate the density of northern red-backed voles (myodes rutilus) and deer mice (peromyscus maniculatus) in the boreal forest of yukon, canada. densities for these 2 species ranged from 0.29 to 9.21 animals/ha and 0 to 5.90 animals/ha, respectively, over the course of this investigation. we determined if hit window-the length of time used to group consecutive videos together as single detections or ""hits""-has an effect on the correlation between hit rate and population density. the relationship between hit rate and density was sensitive to hit window duration for myodes with r (2) values ranging from 0.45 to 0.59, with a 90-min hit window generating the highest value. this relationship was not sensitive to hit window duration for peromyscus, with r (2) values for the tested hit windows ranging from 0.81 to 0.84. our results indicate that camera trapping may be a robust method for estimating density of small rodents in the boreal forest when the appropriate hit window duration is selected and that camera traps may be a useful tool for the study of small mammals in boreal forest habitat." -higher hiv rna viral load in recent patients with symptomatic acute hiv infection in lyon university hospitals,NA,PLOS ONE,GIRERD-GENESSAY I;BARATIN D;FERRY T;CHIDIAC C;RONIN V;VANHEMS P,"introduction increased human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) virulence at infection has been suggested by a meta-analysis based on viral load and cd4 t lymphocytes (cd4) count during acute infection. this result was obtained after secondary analyses of large databases, facilitating the detection of differences. similar finding in cohorts of more modest sample size would indicate that the effect could be more substantial. methods change from initial cd4 count and hiv viral load after acute hiv infection by calendar year was explored in patients treated at lyon university hospitals. all patients admitted to our hospitals with acute hiv infection between 1996 and 2013 were included in our study. initial cd4 count and viral load before the start of anti-retroviral treatment were analyzed. trends over time were assessed in linear models. results initial cd4 count remained similar over time. however, in 2006-2013, initial viral load rose significantly (+1.12 log(10)/ml/year, p = 0.01). conclusion our data, obtained from a single hospital cohort, confirmed findings from a large meta-analysis, showed increased initial viremia at acute hiv infection since 2006 and suggesting potentially higher hiv virulence in recent years." +higher hiv rna viral load in recent patients with symptomatic acute hiv infection in lyon university hospitals,NA,PLOS ONE,GIRERD GENESSAY I;BARATIN D;FERRY T;CHIDIAC C;RONIN V;VANHEMS P,"introduction increased human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) virulence at infection has been suggested by a meta-analysis based on viral load and cd4 t lymphocytes (cd4) count during acute infection. this result was obtained after secondary analyses of large databases, facilitating the detection of differences. similar finding in cohorts of more modest sample size would indicate that the effect could be more substantial. methods change from initial cd4 count and hiv viral load after acute hiv infection by calendar year was explored in patients treated at lyon university hospitals. all patients admitted to our hospitals with acute hiv infection between 1996 and 2013 were included in our study. initial cd4 count and viral load before the start of anti-retroviral treatment were analyzed. trends over time were assessed in linear models. results initial cd4 count remained similar over time. however, in 2006-2013, initial viral load rose significantly (+1.12 log(10)/ml/year, p = 0.01). conclusion our data, obtained from a single hospital cohort, confirmed findings from a large meta-analysis, showed increased initial viremia at acute hiv infection since 2006 and suggesting potentially higher hiv virulence in recent years." "effects of photo and genotype-based misidentification error on estimates of survival, detection and state transition using multistate survival models",NA,PLOS ONE,WINIARSKI KJ;MCGARIGAL K,"we simulated multistate capture histories (chs) by varying state survival (phi), detection (p) and transition (psi), number of total capture occasions and releases per capture occasion and then modified these scenarios to mimic false rejection error (fre), a common misidentification error, resulting from the failure to match samples of the same individual. we then fit a multistate model and estimated accuracy, bias and precision of state-specific phi, p and psi to better understand the effects of fre on different simulation scenarios. as expected, phi, and p, decreased in accuracy with fre, with lower accuracy when chs were simulated under a shorter-term study and a lower number of releases per capture occasion (lower sample size). accuracy of. estimates were robust to fre except in those ch scenarios simulated using low sample size. the effect of fre on bias was not consistent among parameters and differed by ch scenario. as expected, phi was negatively biased with increased fre (except for the low. low p ch scenario simulated with a low sample size), but we found that the magnitude of bias differed by scenario (high p ch scenarios were more negatively biased). state transition was relatively unbiased, except for the low p ch scenarios simulated with a low sample size, which were positively biased with fre, and high p ch scenarios simulated with a low sample size. the effect of fre on precision was not consistent among parameters and differed by scenario and sample size. precision of phi decreased with fre and was lowest with the low phi low p ch scenarios. precision of p estimates also decreased with fre under all scenarios, except the low phi high p ch scenarios. however, precision of psi increased with fre, except for those ch scenarios simulated with a low sample size. our results demonstrate how fre leads to loss of accuracy in parameter estimates in a multistate model with the exception of. when estimated using an adequate sample size." first direct evidence for natal wintering ground fidelity and estimate of juvenile survival in the new zealand southern right whale eubalaena australis,NA,PLOS ONE,CARROLL EL;FEWSTER RM;CHILDERHOUSE SJ;PATENAUDE NJ;BOREN L;BAKER CS,"juvenile survival and recruitment can be more sensitive to environmental, ecological and anthropogenic factors than adult survival, influencing population-level processes like recruitment and growth rate in long-lived, iteroparous species such as southern right whales. conventionally, southern right whales are individually identified using callosity patterns, which do not stabilise until 6-12 months, by which time the whale has left its natal wintering grounds. here we use dna profiling of skin biopsy samples to identify individual southern right whales from year of birth and document their return to the species' primary wintering ground in new zealand waters, the subantarctic auckland islands. we find evidence of natal fidelity to the new zealand wintering ground by the recapture of 15 of 57 whales, first sampled in year of birth and available for subsequent recapture, during winter surveys to the auckland islands in 1995-1998 and 2006-2009. four individuals were recaptured at the ages of 9 to 11, including two females first sampled as calves in 1998 and subsequently resampled as cows with calves in 2007. using these capture-recapture records of known-age individuals, we estimate changes in survival with age using cormack-jolly-seber models. survival is modelled using discrete age classes and as a continuous function of age. using a bootstrap method to account for uncertainty in model selection and fitting, we provide the first direct estimate of juvenile survival for this population. our analyses indicate a high annual apparent survival for juveniles at between 0.87 (standard error (se) 0.17, to age 1) and 0.95 (se 0.05: ages 2-8). individual identification by dna profiling is an effective method for long-term demographic and genetic monitoring, particularly in animals that change identifiable features as they develop or experience tag loss over time." hiding in plain sight: a case for cryptic metapopulations in brook trout (salvelinus fontinalis),NA,PLOS ONE,KAZYAK DC;HILDERBRAND RH;KING TL;KELLER SR;CHHATRE VE,"a fundamental issue in the management and conservation of biodiversity is how to define a population. spatially contiguous fish occupying a stream network have often been considered to represent a single, homogenous population. however, they may also represent multiple discrete populations, a single population with genetic isolation-by-distance, or a metapopulation. we used microsatellite dna and a large-scale mark-recapture study to assess population structure in a spatially contiguous sample of brook trout (salvelinus fontinalis), a species of conservation concern. we found evidence for limited genetic exchange across small spatial scales and in the absence of barriers to physical movement. markrecapture and stationary passive integrated transponder antenna records demonstrated that fish from two tributaries very seldom moved into the opposite tributary, but movements between the tributaries and mainstem were more common. using bayesian genetic clustering, we identified two genetic groups that exhibited significantly different growth rates over three years of study, yet survival rates were very similar. our study highlights the importance of considering the possibility of multiple genetically distinct populations occurring within spatially contiguous habitats, and suggests the existence of a cryptic metapopulation: a spatially continuous distribution of organisms exhibiting metapopulation-like behaviors." "habitat preference for fire scars by feral cats in cape york peninsula, australia",NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,MCGREGOR HW;CLIFF HB;KANOWSKI J,"context. feral cats are implicated in the decline of terrestrial native mammals across northern australia. research in the kimberley region of north-western australia found feral cats strongly selected for fire scars when hunting, suggesting that intensifying fire regimes will have severe consequences for declining prey species. aims. we tested the generality of cat-fire interaction beyond the kimberley, by measuring habitat selection of feral cats in relation to fire scars and habitat types in north-eastern australia. methods. our study was conducted at piccaninny plains wildlife sanctuary, cape york peninsula. we live-captured feral cats during the dry season of 2015, released them with gps collars set to record fixes at 15-min intervals, and recaptured cats 4 months later. we created dynamic habitat maps of vegetation types, fire and wetlands, and compared cat habitat selection using discrete choice modelling. we also measured cat density from arrays of camera traps and examined cat diet by analysis of stomach contents. key results. we obtained gps movement data from 15 feral cats. feral cats selected strongly for recent fire scars (1 or 2 months old), but avoided fire scars 3 months old or older. three long-distance movements were recorded, all directed towards recent fire scars. cats also selected for open wetlands, and avoided rainforests. density of cats at piccaninny plains was higher than recorded elsewhere in northern australia. all major vertebrate groups were represented in cat diet. conclusions. we showed that feral cats in north-eastern australia strongly select for recent fire scars and open wetlands. these results are consistent with those from the kimberley. together, these studies have shown that amplified predation facilitated by loss of cover is likely to be a fundamental factor driving mammal decline across northern australia." abundance estimate for and habitat use by early juvenile atlantic sturgeon within the delaware river estuary,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,HALE EA;PARK IA;FISHER MT;WONG RA;STANGL MJ;CLARK JH,"the atlantic sturgeon acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus historically supported a significant commercial fishery along the eastern coast of north america. however, overfishing led to substantial population declines with contributions from other anthropogenic impacts, including vessel strikes and contaminants that continue to impede recovery. our work is the first to estimate the abundance of early juvenile (age 0-1), resident atlantic sturgeon in the delaware river estuary. using the schumacher and eschmeyer mark-recapture estimator for multiple censuses, we estimated 3,656 (95% ci = 1,935-33,041) individuals used the delaware river estuary as a nursery in 2014. we found no significant change in mean length during the course of our study (november-december), and lengths of age 0-1 atlantic sturgeon ranged from 220 to 515 mm tl. further, using a passive acoustic receiver array, we identified significant habitat areas where age-0-1 juveniles spend considerable amounts of time; this included the marcus hook area and some habitat use downriver and upriver of marcus hook at cherry island and the chester range. our results support the idea that a spawning population of atlantic sturgeon exists in the delaware river and that some level of early juvenile recruitment is continuing to persist despite current depressed population levels. understanding trends in abundance, habitat use, and other population metrics for natal river atlantic sturgeon will allow for better conservation and management of the species." -density and activity patterns of pumas in hunted and non-hunted areas in central argentina,calden forest; camera surveys; hunting; mark-resight; population density; puma concolor,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,ZANON-MARTINEZ JI;KELLY MJ;MESA-CRUZ JB;SARASOLA JH;DEHART C;TRAVAINI A,"context. hunting has demographic effects on large and medium carnivores, causing population reductions and even extinctions worldwide. yet, there is little information on carnivore demographic parameters and spatial and temporal land-use patterns in areas experiencing sport hunting, thus hindering effective conservation plans for such areas. aims. we estimated densities and determined activity patterns of pumas (puma concolor) from camera-trapping surveys in a protected area and in a game reserve with sport hunting, in the calden forest of central argentina. methods. we used both non-spatial and spatial mark-resight techniques to estimate and compare puma densities and we used kernel-density estimation (kde) techniques to analyse and compare puma activity patterns between study sites. key results. puma densities estimated from spatial models were lower than densities estimated from non-spatial mark-resight techniques. however, estimated density of pumas in the protected area was always higher (range = 4.89-9.32 per 100 km(2)) than in the game reserve (range = 0.52-1.98 per 100 km(2)), regardless of the estimation technique used. trapping rates for large mammal prey were similar across sites. pumas exhibited more nocturnal behaviour and high activity peaks at 0600 hours and 1100 hours in the hunted game reserve, whereas puma activity was spread more evenly around the clock in the protected area. conclusions. the higher puma densities in the protected area reflect the potential for such areas to function as refugia in a human-dominated landscape. however, the game reserve had a lower puma density than the protected area despite high trap rates of large prey, indicating that these areas may function as attractive sinks. implications. our results could indicate that puma sport hunting in the calden forest should be managed at a metapopulation, regional level, and include both no-hunting areas (protected area, as potential sources) and hunting areas (game reserves, as potential sinks). considering that our study areas were small and that this was an unreplicated study, we urge more research to be conducted, so as to determine whether sport hunting is compatible with puma conservation in the region." +density and activity patterns of pumas in hunted and non-hunted areas in central argentina,calden forest; camera surveys; hunting; mark-resight; population density; puma concolor,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,ZANON MARTINEZ JI;KELLY MJ;MESA CRUZ JB;SARASOLA JH;DEHART C;TRAVAINI A,"context. hunting has demographic effects on large and medium carnivores, causing population reductions and even extinctions worldwide. yet, there is little information on carnivore demographic parameters and spatial and temporal land-use patterns in areas experiencing sport hunting, thus hindering effective conservation plans for such areas. aims. we estimated densities and determined activity patterns of pumas (puma concolor) from camera-trapping surveys in a protected area and in a game reserve with sport hunting, in the calden forest of central argentina. methods. we used both non-spatial and spatial mark-resight techniques to estimate and compare puma densities and we used kernel-density estimation (kde) techniques to analyse and compare puma activity patterns between study sites. key results. puma densities estimated from spatial models were lower than densities estimated from non-spatial mark-resight techniques. however, estimated density of pumas in the protected area was always higher (range = 4.89-9.32 per 100 km(2)) than in the game reserve (range = 0.52-1.98 per 100 km(2)), regardless of the estimation technique used. trapping rates for large mammal prey were similar across sites. pumas exhibited more nocturnal behaviour and high activity peaks at 0600 hours and 1100 hours in the hunted game reserve, whereas puma activity was spread more evenly around the clock in the protected area. conclusions. the higher puma densities in the protected area reflect the potential for such areas to function as refugia in a human-dominated landscape. however, the game reserve had a lower puma density than the protected area despite high trap rates of large prey, indicating that these areas may function as attractive sinks. implications. our results could indicate that puma sport hunting in the calden forest should be managed at a metapopulation, regional level, and include both no-hunting areas (protected area, as potential sources) and hunting areas (game reserves, as potential sinks). considering that our study areas were small and that this was an unreplicated study, we urge more research to be conducted, so as to determine whether sport hunting is compatible with puma conservation in the region." double-observer evaluation of pronghorn aerial line-transect surveys,antilocapra americana; detection bias; distance sampling; mark-recapture; population estimation,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,SMYSER TJ;GUENZEL RJ;JACQUES CN;GARTON EO,"context. distance sampling is used to estimate abundance for several taxa, including pronghorn (antilocapra americana). comparisons between population estimates derived from quadrat sampling and distance sampling suggest that distance sampling underestimates pronghorn density, likely owing to violations of the critical assumption of distance sampling that all pronghorn within the innermost distance band (a band; nearest to the aircraft) are detected. aims. we sought to rigorously test the assumption that all pronghorn clusters are detected within the innermost distance band by applying a double-observer approach to an established pronghorn aerial-survey protocol. additionally, we evaluated potential effects of cluster size, landscape composition and seat position (front seat versus rear) on the probability of detection. methods. we conducted aerial line-transect distance-sampling surveys using independent, paired observers and modelled the probability of detection with mark-recapture distance-sampling (mrds) analysis techniques that explicitly estimate the probability of detection for pronghorn clusters in the innermost distance band. we compared density estimates produced by themrdsanalysis with those produced by multiple-covariate distance sampling (mcds), a method that assumes complete detection for clusters on the transect line. key results. weidentified violations of the assumption that all clusters within the innermost distance band were detected, which would contribute to proportional biases in density estimates for analysis techniques that assume complete detection. the frequency of missed clusters was modest from the front-seat position, with 45 of the 47 (96%) clusters in the a band detected. in contrast, the frequency of missed clusters was more substantial for the rear position, from which 37 of 47 (79%) clusters in the a band were detected. further, our analysis showed that cluster size and landscape composition were important factors for pronghorn sightability. conclusions. when implementing standard survey methodologies, pronghorn aerial-line transect surveys underestimated population densities. a double-observer survey configuration allowed us to quantify and correct for the bias caused by the failure of observers to detect all pronghorn clusters within the innermost distance band. implications. population monitoring programs should incorporate double-observer validation trials to quantify the extent of bias owing to undetected clusters within the innermost distance band realised under typical survey conditions. wildlife managers can improve the precision of pronghorn aerial line-transect surveys by incorporating cluster size and measures of landscape composition and complexity into detection models without incurring additional survey costs." -modelling survival and breeding dispersal to unobservable nest sites,blue penguin; breeding-site fidelity; capture-recapture; merging information; multi-event model; seabirds,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,TAVECCHIA G;SANZ-AGUILAR A;CANNELL B,"context demographic parameters in wildlife populations are typically estimated by monitoring a limited number of individuals in observable sites and assuming that these are representative of the whole population. if individuals permanently disperse to unobservable breeding sites, recruitment and immature survival are expected to be negatively biased and breeding-site fidelity cannot be investigated. aims to develop a method to obtain unbiased estimated of survival, recruitment and breeding dispersal when individuals can move to, or recruit in, unobservable sites. methods we used the flexibility of multi-event capture-recapture models to estimate dispersal and recruitment to unobservable sites, merging observations made at two sites within the same breeding locations. we illustrated the model with data on little penguin (eudyptula minor) breeding in artificial as well as in natural nests. natural nests are unknown or inaccessible and birds in these sites remain unobservable. encounters at beaches surrounding the colony suggested that marked animals can permanently move to unobservable nests. we built the multi-event model considering two possible states of the individuals (alive breeding in a nest box and alive in a natural nest) and three types of observations (encountered at a nest only, encountered at the beach only and encountered at both places). this model ensured that the breeding dispersal to unobservable places became estimable. key results results indicate that the estimated survival was 8% higher than when recaptures at artificial nests were analysed alone. also, fidelity to artificial nests was 12% lower than to natural nests. this might reflect the greater availability of natural sites or, alternatively, a heterogeneity between these two types of nest. conclusions we obtained an estimate of local survival of little penguins breeding at penguin island that incorporates the permanent migration to unobservable sites and found an asymmetric dispersion towards natural nests. implication our conclusions suggest a need for more careful treatment of data derived from artificial sites alone, as demographic parameters might be underestimated if animals prefer natural breeding sites or if they are in greater proportion compared with artificial ones. the analytical approach presented can be applied to many biological systems, when animals might move into inaccessible or unobservable breeding sites." +modelling survival and breeding dispersal to unobservable nest sites,blue penguin; breeding-site fidelity; capture-recapture; merging information; multi-event model; seabirds,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,TAVECCHIA G;SANZ AGUILAR A;CANNELL B,"context demographic parameters in wildlife populations are typically estimated by monitoring a limited number of individuals in observable sites and assuming that these are representative of the whole population. if individuals permanently disperse to unobservable breeding sites, recruitment and immature survival are expected to be negatively biased and breeding-site fidelity cannot be investigated. aims to develop a method to obtain unbiased estimated of survival, recruitment and breeding dispersal when individuals can move to, or recruit in, unobservable sites. methods we used the flexibility of multi-event capture-recapture models to estimate dispersal and recruitment to unobservable sites, merging observations made at two sites within the same breeding locations. we illustrated the model with data on little penguin (eudyptula minor) breeding in artificial as well as in natural nests. natural nests are unknown or inaccessible and birds in these sites remain unobservable. encounters at beaches surrounding the colony suggested that marked animals can permanently move to unobservable nests. we built the multi-event model considering two possible states of the individuals (alive breeding in a nest box and alive in a natural nest) and three types of observations (encountered at a nest only, encountered at the beach only and encountered at both places). this model ensured that the breeding dispersal to unobservable places became estimable. key results results indicate that the estimated survival was 8% higher than when recaptures at artificial nests were analysed alone. also, fidelity to artificial nests was 12% lower than to natural nests. this might reflect the greater availability of natural sites or, alternatively, a heterogeneity between these two types of nest. conclusions we obtained an estimate of local survival of little penguins breeding at penguin island that incorporates the permanent migration to unobservable sites and found an asymmetric dispersion towards natural nests. implication our conclusions suggest a need for more careful treatment of data derived from artificial sites alone, as demographic parameters might be underestimated if animals prefer natural breeding sites or if they are in greater proportion compared with artificial ones. the analytical approach presented can be applied to many biological systems, when animals might move into inaccessible or unobservable breeding sites." an experimental evaluation of electrofishing catchability and catch depletion abundance estimates of larval lampreys in a wadeable stream: use of a hierarchical approach,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,HARRIS JE;JOLLEY JC;SILVER GS;YUEN H;WHITESEL TA,"some lamprey species are in decline, and assessments of local abundance could benefit research and conservation. in wadeable streams, larval lampreys are collected by using specialized backpack electrofishing techniques, although catchability has not been sufficiently evaluated. we assessed removal models for estimating the local abundance of larval lampreys in experimental net-pen enclosures within a wadeable stream. known numbers of larvae were seeded at densities of 4-130 larvae/m(2) into 1-m(2) enclosures that were lined with fine sand and placed into cedar creek, washington (columbia river basin). depletion sampling in each enclosure (n = 69) was conducted by three to five electrofishing passes, and abundance was estimated by six removal models that assumed different catchability functions. catchability averaged 0.28. for the standard removal model, which assumed that catchability varied independently by enclosure but not by pass, the 95% highest posterior density credible intervals (95% hpd-cis) were very large relative to the abundance estimates. models assuming that catchability was either equal or a random factor among all enclosures and passes generally produced accurate (mean bias = -0.04) estimates of abundance, and 95% hpd-cis were much smaller. based on our data set, the expected bias of abundance estimates for 80% of simulations was less than 20% if five passes were completed from at least four randomly selected quadrats and if catchability was assumed to be a random factor. additional sampling may be needed at low lamprey densities (especially <4 larvae/m(2)). our results suggest that local abundance of larval lampreys in wadeable streams can be effectively estimated by depletion sampling at multiple 1-m(2) quadrats and by use of a hierarchical removal model." seasonal mortality and movement patterns of white bass in a southeastern us reservoir,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,LINCOLN KJ;ADAY DD;RICE JA,"little is known about the fundamental aspects of the life history, ecology, and population dynamics of white bass morone chrysops in southern u.s. reservoirs, making management of this species difficult. recent concerns from the north carolina wildlife resources commission regarding potential population declines in north carolina prompted an effort to expand the knowledge base of white bass in reservoirs. our study aimed to address mortality (fishing mortality, f, and natural mortality, m) as one potential mechanism related to their population declines and to assess seasonal movement and habitat patterns of reservoir white bass throughout the year using telemetry. we implanted acoustic transmitters into 50 white bass in spring 2012 and into 25 white bass in spring 2013. b. everett jordan reservoir, a relatively shallow and eutrophic reservoir located in the piedmont region of north carolina, was separated into four different subbasins that were surveyed each month for tagged fish. fish were monitored using an array of passive receivers and monthly active tracking surveys. a monthly capture history was used as the input for a multistate capture-recapture model in a bayesian framework to estimate instantaneous monthly mortality rates. total annual mortality was 76%. the annual exploitation rate (60%) was greater than the natural mortality rate (15%); however, both f and m exhibited seasonal variation and peaked during spring months in 2012 and 2013. white bass did not use any specific habitat type but were located relatively far from shore and in deep water during cooler months. the use of subbasins in the system was not equal; other than during the spawning run white bass concentrated in several areas within the two deepest subbasins of the reservoir. overall, the high f observed in the spring suggests that adjusting the current liberal harvest limits will help mitigate mortality and aid in the management of reservoir white bass populations." complex demographic responses of a common small mammal to a plant invasion,eragrostis lehmanniana; grasslands; habitat quality; life-history strategy; non-native plants; sigmodon arizonae,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,LITT AR;STEIDL RJ,"context invasions by non-native plants can alter the abundance and distribution of resources that can affect habitat quality for native animals. aims we sought to understand the demographic consequences of a plant invasion on a functionally and numerically important rodent in a grassland ecosystem. specifically, we evaluated how abundance, survival, reproductive activity and population structure of arizona cotton rats (sigmodon arizonae) varied across a gradient of invasion by eragrostis lehmanniana (lehmann lovegrass), a bunchgrass native to africa that has invaded grasslands in north america. methods over a four-year period, we used capture-recapture methods to survey small mammals on 54 1-ha plots between 10 and 13 times. we used vegetation data collected each autumn to quantify biomass of non-native grass, total biomass and vegetation heterogeneity to characterise vegetation structure on each plot. key results we captured 1344 individual cotton rats during 106560 trap-nights across all sampling periods. in areas dominated by non-native grass, abundance of cotton rats increased 7- to 10-fold and survival increased by 117% relative to areas dominated by native grasses. in contrast, reproductive activity of adults decreased by 62% for females and 28% for males, and the proportion of adults in the population decreased by 20% in these same areas. conclusions demography of arizona cotton rats differed markedly in areas invaded by a non-native plant relative to native grasslands, supporting the long-held idea that life histories can reflect local environmental conditions. because distributions of many non-native plants are predicted to increase in response to future changes in natural and anthropogenic drivers, the potential breadth of these complex effects on communities of native animal is immense. implications the complex variation in demographic responses across the invasion gradient suggests that it may be necessary to evaluate a suite of vital rates to fully understand the consequences of plant invasions on animals. this is especially important for species of conservation concern because single demographic parameters, which are used frequently as targets to gauge the success of conservation and management activities, could be misleading." @@ -437,7 +437,7 @@ estimating riverwide abundance of juvenile fish populations: how much sampling i developing recreational harvest regulations for an unexploited lake trout population,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,LENKER MA;WEIDEL BC;JENSEN OP;SOLOMON CT,"developing fishing regulations for previously unexploited populations presents numerous challenges, many of which stem from a scarcity of baseline information about abundance, population productivity, and expected angling pressure. we used simulation models to test the effect of six management strategies (catch and release; trophy, minimum, and maximum length limits; and protected and exploited slot length limits) on an unexploited population of lake trout salvelinus namaycush in follensby pond, a 393-ha lake located in new york state's adirondack park. we combined field and literature data and mark-recapture abundance estimates to parameterize an agestructured population model and used the model to assess the effects of each management strategy on abundance, catch per unit effort (cpue), and harvest over a range of angler effort (0-2,000 angler-days/year). lake trout density (3.5 fish/ha for fish >= age 13, the estimated age at maturity) was similar to densities observed in other unexploited systems, but growth rate was relatively slow. maximum harvest occurred at levels of effort <= 1,000 angler-days/year in all the scenarios considered. regulations that permitted harvest of large postmaturation fish, such as new york's standard lake trout minimum size limit or a trophy size limit, resulted in low harvest and high angler cpue. regulations that permitted harvest of small and sometimes immature fish, such as a protected slot or maximum size limit, allowed high harvest but resulted in low angler cpue and produced rapid declines in harvest with increases in effort beyond the effort consistent with maximum yield. management agencies can use these results to match regulations to management goals and to assess the risks of different management options for unexploited lake trout populations and other fish species with similar life history traits." overdispersion in the estimation of salmon escapements by mark-recapture surveys and its related factors,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,MIYAKOSHI Y;KITADA S,"the petersen method, a well-known mark-recapture method, is frequently used in the estimation of escapement of pacific salmon oncorhynchus spp. robust estimates and associated variances can be obtained when the underlying assumptions of this method are met. however, in field surveys, it is often difficult to meet these assumptions because wild animals are often not randomly distributed. when the sampling variance of the estimator exceeds its binomial variance (resulting in overdispersion), the petersen model underestimates variance. we assessed the occurrence of overdispersion in the mark-recapture data collected to estimate the escapements of masu salmon oncorhynchus masou in a river in northern japan in 1998 and 1999. the dispersion parameters estimated from 2-year data were 2.89 and 2.51 for males and 1.45 and 1.52 for females, indicating that overdispersion occurred in all cases. the magnitude of overdispersion for males exceeded that for females, probably related to differences in the postspawning behaviors of the sexes, as represented by the changes of the sex ratio of masu salmon recovered on the spawning grounds. in this paper, we propose a simple procedure to detect the occurrence of overdispersion in multiple-recovery mark-recapture data." status and habitat use of scaphirhynchus sturgeons in an important fluvial corridor: implications for river habitat enhancement,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,HINTZ WD;GLOVER DC;GARVEY JE;KILLGORE KJ;HERZOG DP;SPIER TW;COLOMBO RE;HRABIK RA,"in the central united states, recovery efforts for populations of the federally endangered pallid sturgeon scaphirhynchus albus have been ongoing since its listing in 1990. its congener, the shovelnose sturgeon s. platorynchus, has also recently been listed as threatened where it overlaps with pallid sturgeon. the status of both species in the mississippi river is unknown and so are habitat enhancement priorities that would benefit their recovery. using field data collected from 2002 through 2005, we (1) estimated the adult population size of both species using mark-recapture methods and (2) quantified habitat use of these sturgeons with multiple gears to elucidate habitat enhancement priorities in the middle mississippi river-an important fluvial corridor that connects the upper mississippi river and missouri river basins with the lower mississippi river basin. population size was estimated to be 1,516 (95% ci = 710-3,463) pallid sturgeon (five individuals per river kilometer [rkm]) and 82,336 (95% ci = 59,438-114,585) shovelnose sturgeon (266 individuals/rkm). our population estimate showed a low relative abundance of pallid sturgeon in this corridor. however, the population estimate suggests pallid sturgeon abundance has increased since its listing in 1990. shovelnose sturgeon were more abundant than pallid sturgeon, but whether the shovelnose sturgeon population is increasing, decreasing, or stable remains unknown. among 10 habitat types, both species were most frequent at the downstream ends of alluvial islands. pallid and shovelnose sturgeons were restricted to flow rates < 1.0 m/s, and their abundance was greatest in depths ranging from 4.5 to 14 m. we suggest alluvial island enhancement may facilitate sturgeon recovery in the middle mississippi river." -robust and defensible mark-recapture methodologies for salmonid escapement: modernizing the use of data and resources,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,VELEZ-ESPINO LA;IRVINE JR;WINTHER I;DUNLOP R;MULLINS G;SINGER K;TROUTON N,"estimates of population size, required for most ecological investigations, are often achieved by mark-recapture experiments, frequently by applying pooled or stratified petersen estimators. unfortunately, the closure assumption required by petersen estimators is frequently violated in the estimation of salmonid escapement, even though the consequences of this violation have been known for decades. we illustrate how biologists and analysts can and should make better use of statistical, mathematical, and computational advances in their analysis of mark-recapture data. modern, easily applied approaches address and minimize the effects of violations to the model assumptions on which abundance estimators are based. using examples from research estimating the numbers of chinook salmon oncorhynchus tshawytscha escaping fisheries to spawn, this study demonstrates and provides evidence in support of the use of a robust and defensible approach to salmonid escapement estimation based on the analysis of individual encounter histories. the main attributes of the approach include (1) testing for demographic closure, (2) allowing different hypotheses about the demographic attributes and capture history of the studied population to be expressed within a model selection framework, encompassing suites of open-or closed-population approaches, and (3) optimizing the use of information by embracing the opportunities that mark-recapture experiments generate to increase our knowledge of salmonid ecology and hence improve both future study designs and management decisions. this study also demonstrates that discrepancies (positive) in abundance estimates produced with the petersen estimator relative to those produced by the ""best models"" from robust estimators are inversely proportional to sampling rates." +robust and defensible mark-recapture methodologies for salmonid escapement: modernizing the use of data and resources,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,VELEZ ESPINO LA;IRVINE JR;WINTHER I;DUNLOP R;MULLINS G;SINGER K;TROUTON N,"estimates of population size, required for most ecological investigations, are often achieved by mark-recapture experiments, frequently by applying pooled or stratified petersen estimators. unfortunately, the closure assumption required by petersen estimators is frequently violated in the estimation of salmonid escapement, even though the consequences of this violation have been known for decades. we illustrate how biologists and analysts can and should make better use of statistical, mathematical, and computational advances in their analysis of mark-recapture data. modern, easily applied approaches address and minimize the effects of violations to the model assumptions on which abundance estimators are based. using examples from research estimating the numbers of chinook salmon oncorhynchus tshawytscha escaping fisheries to spawn, this study demonstrates and provides evidence in support of the use of a robust and defensible approach to salmonid escapement estimation based on the analysis of individual encounter histories. the main attributes of the approach include (1) testing for demographic closure, (2) allowing different hypotheses about the demographic attributes and capture history of the studied population to be expressed within a model selection framework, encompassing suites of open-or closed-population approaches, and (3) optimizing the use of information by embracing the opportunities that mark-recapture experiments generate to increase our knowledge of salmonid ecology and hence improve both future study designs and management decisions. this study also demonstrates that discrepancies (positive) in abundance estimates produced with the petersen estimator relative to those produced by the ""best models"" from robust estimators are inversely proportional to sampling rates." spawning site fidelity of wild and hatchery lake trout (salvelinus namaycush) in northern lake huron,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,BINDER TR;RILEY SC;HOLBROOK CM;HANSEN MJ;BERGSTEDT RA;BRONTE CR;HE J;KRUEGER CC,"fidelity to high-quality spawning sites helps ensure that adults repeatedly spawn at sites that maximize reproductive success. fidelity is also an important behavioural characteristic to consider when hatchery-reared individuals are stocked for species restoration, because artificial rearing environments may interfere with cues that guide appropriate spawning site selection. acoustic telemetry was used in conjunction with cormack-jolly-seber capture-recapture models to compare degree of spawning site fidelity of wild and hatchery-reared lake trout (salvelinus namaycush) in northern lake huron. annual survival was estimated to be between 77% and 81% and did not differ among wild and hatchery males and females. site fidelity estimates were high in both wild and hatchery-reared lake trout (ranging from 0.78 to 0.94, depending on group and time filter), but were slightly lower in hatchery-reared fish than in wild fish. the ecological implication of the small difference in site fidelity between wild and hatchery-reared lake trout is unclear, but similarities in estimates suggest that many hatchery-reared fish use similar spawning sites to wild fish and that most return to those sites annually for spawning." "seasonal and spatial patterns of growth of rainbow trout in the colorado river in grand canyon, arizona",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,YARD MD;KORMAN J;WALTERS CJ;KENNEDY TA,"rainbow trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) have been purposely introduced in many regulated rivers, with inadvertent consequences on native fishes. we describe how trout growth rates and condition could be influencing trout population dynamics in a 130 km section of the colorado river below glen canyon dam based on a large-scale mark-recapture program where similar to 8000 rainbow trout were recaptured over a 3-year period (2012-2014). there were strong temporal and spatial variations in growth in both length and weight as predicted from von bertalanffy and bioenergetic models, respectively. there was more evidence for seasonal variation in the growth coefficient and annual variation in the asymptotic length. bioenergetic models showed more variability for growth in weight across seasons and years than across reaches. these patterns were consistent with strong seasonal variation in invertebrate drift and effects of turbidity on foraging efficiency. highest growth rates and relative condition occurred in downstream reaches with lower trout densities. results indicate that reduction in rainbow trout abundance in glen canyon will likely increase trout size in the tailwater fishery and may reduce downstream dispersal into grand canyon." habitat- and density-dependent demography of a colonial raptor in mediterranean agro-ecosystems,agricultural intensification; capture-recapture model; colony size; farmland birds; land-use; lesser kestrel,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,DI MAGGIO R;CAMPOBELLO D;TAVECCHIA G;SARA M,"agricultural intensification is considered the major cause of decline in farmland bird populations, especially in the mediterranean region. food shortage increased by the interaction between agricultural intensification and density-dependent mechanisms could influence the population dynamics of colonial birds. we used demographic data on lesser kestrels (falco naumanni), a key species of mediterranean pseudo-steppes, to understand the importance of land-use changes and density-dependent mechanisms in the light of its fluctuating conservation status in the western palearctic. our analysis indicated an important influence of land uses (artichokes, arable and grassland fields) and colony size on kestrel survival rates. the strong habitat effect revealed the unsuitability of intensive arable lands with respect to extensive grasslands for lesser kestrels. notably, artichokes, a winter intensive crop, proved to be a high-quality habitat as they were associated with survival values equal to those of grassland. this is likely due to prey availability and reveals that non-traditional crops may provide suitable habitats for lesser kestrels. information theeory gave strong support to the negative influence of colony size on fecundity, albeit a small one, for its positive effect on survival probability. the estimated population growth rate was negative for all three habitats, indicating a decline over time and urging conservation actions in all of the areas studied. this decline was much higher in colonies surrounded by arable fields. in sensitivity analyses, lambda-indicated that adult survival was the parameter with the greatest effect on population growth, followed by survival of fledglings and fecundity. our study showed how the costs and benefits of group living interact with agricultural intensification to drive species demography. in addition, we integrated significant information on one of the largest lesser kestrel populations to fine tune the most effective conservation strategy to prevent the collapse of the species in a relevant part of its range. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." @@ -456,7 +456,7 @@ pronounced genetic structure and site fidelity among native muskellunge populati population dynamics of feral horses (equus caballus) in an exotic coniferous plantation in australia,invasive species; fertility; mark-recapture; population ecology; population dynamics; population growth; population management; population modelling; survival; reproduction,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,ZABEK MA;BERMAN DM;BLOMBERG SP;COLLINS CW;WRIGHT J,"context understanding population dynamics of invasive species is crucial for the development of management strategies. feral horses (equus caballus) are a growing problem in the tuan-toolara state forest (ttsf), a coniferous plantation in south-eastern queensland, australia. aim the population dynamics of the ttsf feral horses was not known. therefore, the study was designed to characterise the major vital parameters of this population and, using these data, develop a long-term management plan. methods the study was conducted over 3 years (2011-14) involving 522 individually identified horses. foaling rates were used to calculate fecundity. body fat distribution was estimated using body condition score (bcs), which reflects the nutritional, metabolic and general health of individual animals. multi state mark-capture population models were used to estimate age-specific survival, and the leslie age-structured projection matrix model was used to determine the annual rate at which the population increased. key results the mean annual fecundity was low (0.230.07s.d.). the mean bcs of the population was mid-range (2.550.51s.d.) with adult females having lower scores than other age and gender groups. survival estimates were consistently high (0.92-0.95) across all age groups. the average annual finite rate of population increase () for the 3 years of the study was 1.09. sensitivity analysis demonstrated that the population growth rate was almost seven times more sensitive to changes in adult survival compared with juvenile survival, and almost twice as sensitive to changes in fecundity. key conclusions population dynamics of the ttsf feral horses were comparable to other feral horse populations similarly challenged by environmental nutritional limitations. implications defining population dynamics of the ttsf feral horses permits the formulation of management goals that can be audited and adapted as required. the most effective strategy for controlling population growth in the ttsf would involve the continuing removal of substantial numbers of adult females or manipulation of survival and/or fecundity. as selective removal will likely alter the adult sex ratio and age structure of the population, ongoing assessment is necessary to minimise adverse welfare outcomes." analysis on population level reveals trappability of wild rodents is determined by previous trap occupant,NA,PLOS ONE,BROUARD MJ;COULSON T;NEWMAN C;MACDONALD DW;BUESCHING CD,"live trapping is central to the study of small mammals. thus, any bias needs to be understood and accounted for in subsequent analyses to ensure accurate population estimates. one rarely considered bias is the behavioural response of individuals to the trap, in particular the olfactory cues left behind by previous occupants (po). we used a data set of 8,115 trap nights spanning 17 separate trapping sessions between august 2002 and november 2013 in wytham woods, oxfordshire, uk to examine if the decision to enter a trap was affected by the po, if this was detectable in traditional capture-mark-recapture trapping data (i.e., individuals not uniquely marked), and if it was possible for this effect to bias the population estimates obtained. data were collected on apodemus sylvaticus, myodes glareolus, and microtus agrestis. three generalised linear models revealed a significant tendency for the three species to enter traps with same-species po. with, for example, a. sylvaticus 9.1 times more likely to enter a same species po trap compared to one that contained a m. agrestis in the grassland during the nocturnal period. simulation highlighted that, when all other factors are equal, the species with the highest po effect will have the highest capture rate and therefore return more accurate population estimates. despite the large dataset, certain species-, sex-, and/or age-combinations were under-represented, and thus no effects of any additional individual-specific characteristics could be evaluated. uniquely marking individuals would allow for the po effect to be disentangled from other biases such as trap-shyness and spatial heterogeneity, but may not be possible in all cases and will depend on the aims of the study and the resources available." dynamics of chytridiomycosis during the breeding season in an australian alpine amphibian,NA,PLOS ONE,BRANNELLY LA;HUNTER DA;LENGER D;SCHEELE BC;SKERRATT LF;BERGER L,"understanding disease dynamics during the breeding season of declining amphibian species will improve our understanding of how remnant populations persist with endemic infection, and will assist the development of management techniques to protect disease-threatened species from extinction. we monitored the endangered litoria verreauxii alpina (alpine treefrog) during the breeding season through capture-mark-recapture (cmr) studies in which we investigated the dynamics of chytridiomycosis in relation to population size in two populations. we found that infection prevalence and intensity increased throughout the breeding season in both populations, but infection prevalence and intensity was higher (3.49 and 2.02 times higher prevalence and intensity, respectively) at the site that had a 90-fold higher population density. this suggests that bd transmission is density-dependent. weekly survival probability was related to disease state, with heavily infected animals having the lowest survival. there was low recovery from infection, especially when animals were heavily infected with bd. sympatric amphibian species are likely to be reservoir hosts for the disease and can play an important role in the disease ecology of bd. although we found 0% prevalence in crayfish (cherax destructor), we found that a sympatric amphibian (crinia signifera) maintained 100% infection prevalence at a high intensity throughout the season. our results demonstrate the importance of including infection intensity into cmr disease analysis in order to fully understand the implications of disease on the amphibian community. we recommend a combined management approach to promote lower population densities and ensure consistent progeny survival. the most effective management strategy to safeguard the persistence of this susceptible species might be to increase habitat area while maintaining a similar sized suitable breeding zone and to increase water flow and area to reduce drought." -retrofitting of power lines effectively reduces mortality by electrocution in large birds: an example with the endangered bonelli's eagle,birds of prey; bonelli's eagle; mortality causes; multistate capture-recapture; population dynamics; electrocution mitigation; survival probability,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,CHEVALLIER C;HERNANDEZ-MATIAS A;REAL J;VINCENT-MARTIN N;RAVAYROL A;BESNARD A,"mortality caused by power lines is a conservation problem for many vulnerable bird species. many large species are especially threatened by electrocution as they frequently perch on pylons leading to electrocution that typically causes death. electrocution mitigation measures have been implemented to protect several species; however, a resulting decrease in mortality due to these measures has not previously been demonstrated at the population scale. in this study, we used data from a long-term capture-recapture programme (combining resightings of live birds and recovery of dead birds) carried out on the french population of the bonelli's eagle aquila fasciata from 1990 to 2009 to estimate the impact of the insulation of power lines on key demographic rates. we found that the survival probability of all age classes increased after the insulation of dangerous power lines, due to a decrease in mortality caused by electrocution. this decrease was partially compensated for by an increase in other causes of death. our findings show that insulation of power lines has a strong positive impact on juveniles and immature birds and a lesser impact on adults. the overall increase in survival due to power line insulation led to a sharp increase in predicted population growth rates (from 082 to 098), although our findings still suggest that the population is not self-sustaining. elasticity values indicate that adult survival is the key parameter in the population dynamics of this species, and since adult mortality caused by electrocution seemed close to zero, our ability to act on this parameter is limited. this study demonstrates that insulation of power lines is relevant for the conservation of large bird species at a population scale as it allows the survival rate of all age classes to increase and thus in turn has a strong positive impact on population growth rates.synthesis and applications. we demonstrated that mortality rates induced by electrocution are considerable and have major consequences for the population viability of birds. we also demonstrated that electrocution mitigation measures can lead to a sharp increase in survival through reducing mortality from electrocution leading to improved population viability. in the light of these results, there is an urgent need that conservationists contact power line stakeholders not only to urge them to generalize retrofitting actions but also, in planning new infrastructure development, to plan for less harmful power lines, since this will be far less costly than developing a posteriori mitigation actions. we demonstrated that mortality rates induced by electrocution are considerable and have major consequences for the population viability of birds. we also demonstrated that electrocution mitigation measures can lead to a sharp increase in survival through reducing mortality from electrocution leading to improved population viability. in the light of these results, there is an urgent need that conservationists contact power line stakeholders not only to urge them to generalize retrofitting actions but also, in planning new infrastructure development, to plan for less harmful power lines, since this will be far less costly than developing a posteriori mitigation actions." +retrofitting of power lines effectively reduces mortality by electrocution in large birds: an example with the endangered bonelli's eagle,birds of prey; bonelli's eagle; mortality causes; multistate capture-recapture; population dynamics; electrocution mitigation; survival probability,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,CHEVALLIER C;HERNANDEZ MATIAS A;REAL J;VINCENT MARTIN N;RAVAYROL A;BESNARD A,"mortality caused by power lines is a conservation problem for many vulnerable bird species. many large species are especially threatened by electrocution as they frequently perch on pylons leading to electrocution that typically causes death. electrocution mitigation measures have been implemented to protect several species; however, a resulting decrease in mortality due to these measures has not previously been demonstrated at the population scale. in this study, we used data from a long-term capture-recapture programme (combining resightings of live birds and recovery of dead birds) carried out on the french population of the bonelli's eagle aquila fasciata from 1990 to 2009 to estimate the impact of the insulation of power lines on key demographic rates. we found that the survival probability of all age classes increased after the insulation of dangerous power lines, due to a decrease in mortality caused by electrocution. this decrease was partially compensated for by an increase in other causes of death. our findings show that insulation of power lines has a strong positive impact on juveniles and immature birds and a lesser impact on adults. the overall increase in survival due to power line insulation led to a sharp increase in predicted population growth rates (from 082 to 098), although our findings still suggest that the population is not self-sustaining. elasticity values indicate that adult survival is the key parameter in the population dynamics of this species, and since adult mortality caused by electrocution seemed close to zero, our ability to act on this parameter is limited. this study demonstrates that insulation of power lines is relevant for the conservation of large bird species at a population scale as it allows the survival rate of all age classes to increase and thus in turn has a strong positive impact on population growth rates.synthesis and applications. we demonstrated that mortality rates induced by electrocution are considerable and have major consequences for the population viability of birds. we also demonstrated that electrocution mitigation measures can lead to a sharp increase in survival through reducing mortality from electrocution leading to improved population viability. in the light of these results, there is an urgent need that conservationists contact power line stakeholders not only to urge them to generalize retrofitting actions but also, in planning new infrastructure development, to plan for less harmful power lines, since this will be far less costly than developing a posteriori mitigation actions. we demonstrated that mortality rates induced by electrocution are considerable and have major consequences for the population viability of birds. we also demonstrated that electrocution mitigation measures can lead to a sharp increase in survival through reducing mortality from electrocution leading to improved population viability. in the light of these results, there is an urgent need that conservationists contact power line stakeholders not only to urge them to generalize retrofitting actions but also, in planning new infrastructure development, to plan for less harmful power lines, since this will be far less costly than developing a posteriori mitigation actions." conservation under uncertainty: optimal network protection strategies for worst-case disturbance events,conservation planning; disturbance; life expectancy; movement; network fortification -interdiction; optimization; spatial networks; spatial prioritization; survival,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,ACEVEDO MA;SEFAIR JA;SMITH JC;REICHERT B;FLETCHER RJ,"conservation goals are ideally set after a thorough understanding of potential threats; however, predicting future spatial patterns of threats, such as disturbance, remains challenging. here, we develop a novel extension of network fortification-interdiction models (nfim) that deals with uncertainty in future spatial patterns of disturbance by optimally selecting sites that will best mitigate a worst-case scenario for a given magnitude of disturbance. this approach uses information on between-patch movement probabilities and patch-specific survival, which can be estimated from mark-recapture data, to optimize life expectancy. optimization occurs in three interrelated stages: protection, followed by disturbance and then assessment. we applied the modelling approach to two mark-recapture data sets: roseate terns sterna dougallii in the north-eastern united states and the everglade snail kite rostrhamus sociabilis plumbeus in florida. we contrasted the results to a more conventional approach of protecting sites that maximize connectivity (by minimizing the distances among protected sites) and a bi-objective model that maximizes connectivity and the number of individuals under protection. protecting sites that best mitigate future worst-case disturbance scenarios consistently resulted in higher predicted life expectancies than protecting patches that minimize dispersal distance. predicted life expectancy was similar between nfim and the bi-objective model for the small roseate tern network, yet the nfim predicted higher life expectancy than any of the scenarios in the bi-objective model in the snail kite network.synthesis and applications. this application of interdiction models prescribed a combination of patches for protection that results in the least possible decrease in life expectancy. our analyses of the snail kite and roseate tern networks suggest that managing to protect these prescribed patches by the network fortification -interdiction models (i.e. protecting against the worst-case disturbance scenario) is more beneficial than managing patches that minimize dispersal distance or maximize the number of individuals under protection if the conservation goal is to ensure the long-term persistence of a species. this application of interdiction models prescribed a combination of patches for protection that results in the least possible decrease in life expectancy. our analyses of the snail kite and roseate tern networks suggest that managing to protect these prescribed patches by the network fortification -interdiction models (i.e. protecting against the worst-case disturbance scenario) is more beneficial than managing patches that minimize dispersal distance or maximize the number of individuals under protection if the conservation goal is to ensure the long-term persistence of a species." maximizing mating opportunities: higher autumn swarming activity in male versus female myotis bats,chiroptera; hibernacula; life history strategy; movements; myotis; population dynamics; sex-specific; swarming,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,BURNS LE;BRODERS HG,"many animal taxa exhibit intersexual differences in sociality and resource selection that can result in variation in energy allocation budgets. asymmetry of reproductive energetics between sexes can lead to intersexual variation in behavior to maximize lifetime reproductive success. temperate bats show marked intersexual differences during summer when sexual segregation occurs. although some intersexual differences have been shown in activities during the autumn mating period, they have not been examined in the context of fitness consequences for each sex. we studied autumn swarming activity of little brown and northern myotis bats (myotis lucifugus and m. septentrionalis) in nova scotia, canada, to test predictions of the hypothesis that intersexual variation in swarming behaviors occurs to maximize fitness. we conducted capture-mark-recapture surveys at swarming sites to characterize the nature and extent of intersexual variation in swarming activities. relative to females, males occurred in disproportionally large numbers; had longer swarming seasons overlapping the female swarming season; and accounted for a disproportionately large number of recaptures at swarming sites suggesting that they had returned more frequently. no movements among swarming sites, which ranged in pairwise distance from 27.9 to 98.9 km, were detected for either species. activity at swarming sites was highest early in the season for both species. as predicted, males engaged more frequently in swarming activities than females which likely reflect males maximizing opportunities for mating. although their activities overlap during this period, differences suggest sex-specific activity budgets and it is likely that for each sex, individuals reconcile energetic constraints differently to maximize fitness." climate and density influence annual survival and movement in a migratory songbird,american redstart; annual survival; breeding dispersal; density; el nino southern oscillation; multistate mark-recapture; normalized difference vegetation index; setophaga ruticilla,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MCKELLAR AE;REUDINK MW;MARRA PP;RATCLIFFE LM;WILSON S,"assessing the drivers of survival across the annual cycle is important for understanding when and how population limitation occurs in migratory animals. density-dependent population regulation can occur during breeding and non-breeding periods, and large-scale climate cycles can also affect survival throughout the annual cycle via their effects on local weather and vegetation productivity. most studies of survival use mark-recapture techniques to estimate apparent survival, but true survival rates remain obscured due to unknown rates of permanent emigration. this is especially problematic when assessing annual survival of migratory birds, whose movement between breeding attempts, or breeding dispersal, can be substantial. we used a multistate approach to examine drivers of annual survival and one component of breeding dispersal (habitat-specific movements) in a population of american redstarts (setophaga ruticilla) over 11 years in two adjacent habitat types. annual survival displayed a curvilinear relation to the southern oscillation index, with lower survival during la nina and el nino conditions. although redstart density had no impact on survival, habitat-specific density influenced local movements between habitat types, with redstarts being less likely to disperse from their previous year's breeding habitat as density within that habitat increased. this finding was strongest in males and may be explained by conspecific attraction influencing settlement decisions. survival was lowest in young males, but movement was highest in this group, indicating that apparent survival rates were likely biased low due to permanent emigration. our findings demonstrate the utility of examining breeding dispersal in mark-recapture studies and complement recent work using spatially explicit models of dispersal probability to obtain greater accuracy in survival estimates." @@ -469,12 +469,12 @@ spatial distribution drivers of amur leopard density in northeast china,amur leo relative contribution of local demography and immigration in the recovery of a geographically-isolated population of the endangered egyptian vulture,bird population dynamics; evidence-based conservation; integrated population models; capture-mark-recapture; neophron percnopterus; supplementary feeding,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,LIEURY N;GALLARDO M;PONCHON C;BESNARD A;MILLON A,"in a context of increasing concern for biodiversity conservation but decreasing resources devoted to species management, measuring the impact of actions is critically needed so as to optimise conservation practices. long-term longitudinal data collected on marked individuals allow for an assessment of the demographic response of a population to conservation actions while accounting for potential confounding factors. this study focused on the recovery of a geographically-isolated population of the endangered egyptian vulture in south-eastern france, which experienced food shortages induced by major changes in habitat and sanitary legislation limiting the abandonment of dead animals in the field. the survival rates and population dynamics of the egyptian vulture were computed, following the implementation of supplementary feeding stations, while accounting for the potential variation in environmental conditions on wintering grounds, reproduction and immigration. an integrated population model (ipm) was used to combine capture-resighting data with recoveries of dead birds, breeding surveys and counts of territorial pairs over a 16-year period. results showed that the implementation of vulture restaurants improved the local survival rates and successfully stabilised the local demography of egyptian vultures; this despite a reduction in average fecundity due to compensatory density feedback. moreover, throughout the study period, about two thirds of the new recruits into the breeding population were immigrants, suggesting immigration constantly sustained the egyptian vulture population in south-eastern france. however, we did not detect any effect of vulture restaurants on the immigration rate, indicating that the improvement of local survival by vulture restaurants remained the main driver of the positive shift in the population dynamics. this study highlights the positive impact of vulture restaurants on egyptian vulture population restoration by compensating for natural food limitations. it also points out the methodological importance of estimating immigration for understanding population dynamics and that large-scale monitoring and internationally-concerted conservation should be promoted. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." apparent survival of north atlantic right whales after entanglement in fishing gear,by-catch; fisheries interactions; mark-recapture; endangered species; north america,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,ROBBINS J;KNOWLTON AR;LANDRY S,"the impacts of human activities on cryptic marine species can be difficult to assess. the north atlantic right whale is an endangered species numbering just over 500 individuals. entanglement in fishing gear is one documented source of injury and mortality, but population-level effects have been difficult to quantify. we used documented entanglements, long-term population studies and mark-recapture statistical techniques to evaluate the effect of these events on north atlantic right whale survival. estimates were based on 50 individuals observed carrying entangling gear between 1995 and 2008, and compared to 459 others that were never observed with gear during the same period. entangled adults had low initial apparent survival (0.749, 95% cl: 0.601-0.855), but those that survived the first year achieved a survival rate (0.952, 95% cl: 0.907-0.977) that was more comparable to unaffected adult females (0.961,95% ci: 0.941-0.974) and males (0.986,95% ci: 0.975-0.993). juveniles had a post-entanglement survival rate that was comparable to the initial survival of entangled adults (0.733, 95% cl: 0.532-0.869) and lower than un-impacted juveniles (0.978, 95% ci: 0.969-0.985). of three entanglement characteristics examined, health impacts were most predictive of subsequent survival, but the entanglement configuration and the resulting injuries also appeared to affect outcome. when the entanglement configuration was assessed as high risk, human intervention (disentanglement) improved the survival outcome. this is the first mark-recapture estimate of entanglement survival for any whale species. the results indicate the need for continued mitigation efforts for this species, as well as for a better understanding of entanglement impacts in other baleen whale populations. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." estimating occupancy dynamics for large-scale monitoring networks: amphibian breeding occupancy across protected areas in the northeast united states,ambystoma maculatum; hierarchical models; luthobates sylvaticus; occupancy; population trend,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MILLER DAW;GRANT EHC,"regional monitoring strategies frequently employ a nested sampling design where a finite set of study areas from throughout a region are selected and intensive sampling occurs within a subset of sites within the individual study areas. this sampling protocol naturally lends itself to a hierarchical analysis to account for dependence among subsamples. implementing such an analysis using a classic likelihood framework is computationally challenging when accounting for detection errors in species occurrence models. bayesian methods offer an alternative approach for fitting models that readily allows for spatial structure to be incorporated. we demonstrate a general approach for estimating occupancy when data come from a nested sampling design. we analyzed data from a regional monitoring program of wood frogs (lithobates sylvaticus) and spotted salamanders (ambystoma maculatum) in vernal pools using static and dynamic occupancy models. we analyzed observations from 2004 to 2013 that were collected within 14 protected areas located throughout the northeast united states. we use the data set to estimate trends in occupancy at both the regional and individual protected area levels. we show that occupancy at the regional level was relatively stable for both species. however, substantial variation occurred among study areas, with some populations declining and some increasing for both species. in addition, when the hierarchical study design is not accounted for, one would conclude stronger support for latitudinal gradient in trends than when using our approach that accounts for the nested design. in contrast to the model that does not account for nesting, the nested model did not include an effect of latitude in the 95% credible interval. these results shed light on the range-level population status of these pond-breeding amphibians, and our approach provides a framework that can be used to examine drivers of local and regional occurrence dynamics." -"population and genetic outcomes 20years after reintroducing bobcats (lynx rufus) to cumberland island, georgia usa",fecal dna; felid; microsatellites; population genetics; population viability; reintroduction; scat; spatially explicit capture-recapture population estimation,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,DIEFENBACH D;HANSEN L;BOHLING J;MILLER-BUTTERWORTH C,"in 1988-1989, 32 bobcats lynx rufus were reintroduced to cumberland island (cuis), georgia, usa, from which they had previously been extirpated. they were monitored intensively for 3years immediately post-reintroduction, but no estimation of the size or genetic diversity of the population had been conducted in over 20years since reintroduction. we returned to cuis in 2012 to estimate abundance and effective population size of the present-day population, as well as to quantify genetic diversity and inbreeding. we amplified 12 nuclear microsatellite loci from dna isolated from scats to establish genetic profiles to identify individuals. we used spatially explicit capture-recapture population estimation to estimate abundance. from nine unique genetic profiles, we estimate a population size of 14.4 (se=3.052) bobcats, with an effective population size (n-e) of 5-8 breeding individuals. this is consistent with predictions of a population viability analysis conducted at the time of reintroduction, which estimated the population would average 12-13 bobcats after 10years. we identified several pairs of related bobcats (parent-offspring and full siblings), but similar to 75% of the pairwise comparisons were typical of unrelated individuals, and only one individual appeared inbred. despite the small population size and other indications that it has likely experienced a genetic bottleneck, levels of genetic diversity in the cuis bobcat population remain high compared to other mammalian carnivores. the reintroduction of bobcats to cuis provides an opportunity to study changes in genetic diversity in an insular population without risk to this common species. opportunities for natural immigration to the island are limited; therefore, continued monitoring and supplemental bobcat reintroductions could be used to evaluate the effect of different management strategies to maintain genetic diversity and population viability. the successful reintroduction and maintenance of a bobcat population on cuis illustrates the suitability of translocation as a management tool for re-establishing felid populations." +"population and genetic outcomes 20years after reintroducing bobcats (lynx rufus) to cumberland island, georgia usa",fecal dna; felid; microsatellites; population genetics; population viability; reintroduction; scat; spatially explicit capture-recapture population estimation,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,DIEFENBACH D;HANSEN L;BOHLING J;MILLER BUTTERWORTH C,"in 1988-1989, 32 bobcats lynx rufus were reintroduced to cumberland island (cuis), georgia, usa, from which they had previously been extirpated. they were monitored intensively for 3years immediately post-reintroduction, but no estimation of the size or genetic diversity of the population had been conducted in over 20years since reintroduction. we returned to cuis in 2012 to estimate abundance and effective population size of the present-day population, as well as to quantify genetic diversity and inbreeding. we amplified 12 nuclear microsatellite loci from dna isolated from scats to establish genetic profiles to identify individuals. we used spatially explicit capture-recapture population estimation to estimate abundance. from nine unique genetic profiles, we estimate a population size of 14.4 (se=3.052) bobcats, with an effective population size (n-e) of 5-8 breeding individuals. this is consistent with predictions of a population viability analysis conducted at the time of reintroduction, which estimated the population would average 12-13 bobcats after 10years. we identified several pairs of related bobcats (parent-offspring and full siblings), but similar to 75% of the pairwise comparisons were typical of unrelated individuals, and only one individual appeared inbred. despite the small population size and other indications that it has likely experienced a genetic bottleneck, levels of genetic diversity in the cuis bobcat population remain high compared to other mammalian carnivores. the reintroduction of bobcats to cuis provides an opportunity to study changes in genetic diversity in an insular population without risk to this common species. opportunities for natural immigration to the island are limited; therefore, continued monitoring and supplemental bobcat reintroductions could be used to evaluate the effect of different management strategies to maintain genetic diversity and population viability. the successful reintroduction and maintenance of a bobcat population on cuis illustrates the suitability of translocation as a management tool for re-establishing felid populations." "multimark: an r package for analysis of capture-recapture data consisting of multiple ""noninvasive"" marks",bayesian multimodel inference; capture-recapture; cormack-jolly-seber; latent multinomial; mark-recapture; markov chain monte carlo; multiple lists; population size,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MCCLINTOCK BT,"i describe an open-source r package, multimark, for estimation of survival and abundance from capture-mark-recapture data consisting of multiple noninvasive marks. noninvasive marks include natural pelt or skin patterns, scars, and genetic markers that enable individual identification in lieu of physical capture. multimark provides a means for combining and jointly analyzing encounter histories from multiple noninvasive sources that otherwise cannot be reliably matched (e.g., left- and right-sided photographs of bilaterally asymmetrical individuals). the package is currently capable of fitting open population cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) and closed population abundance models with up to two mark types using bayesian markov chain monte carlo (mcmc) methods. multimark can also be used for bayesian analyses of conventional capture-recapture data consisting of a single-mark type. some package features include (1) general model specification using formulas already familiar to most r users, (2) ability to include temporal, behavioral, age, cohort, and individual heterogeneity effects in detection and survival probabilities, (3) improved mcmc algorithm that is computationally faster and more efficient than previously proposed methods, (4) bayesian multimodel inference using reversible jump mcmc, and (5) data simulation capabilities for power analyses and assessing model performance. i demonstrate use of multimark using left- and right-sided encounter histories for bobcats (lynx rufus) collected from remote single-camera stations in southern california. in this example, there is evidence of a behavioral effect (i.e., trap happy response) that is otherwise indiscernible using conventional single-sided analyses. the package will be most useful to ecologists seeking stronger inferences by combining different sources of mark-recapture data that are difficult (or impossible) to reliably reconcile, particularly with the sparse datasets typical of rare or elusive species for which noninvasive sampling techniques are most commonly employed. addressing deficiencies in currently available software, multimark also provides a user-friendly interface for performing bayesian multimodel inference using capture-recapture data consisting of a single conventional mark or multiple noninvasive marks." a spatially explicit capture-recapture estimator for single-catch traps,density estimation; single-catch trap likelihood; spatially explicit capture-recapture; statistical methods,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,DISTILLER G;BORCHERS DL,"single-catch traps are frequently used in live-trapping studies of small mammals. thus far, a likelihood for single-catch traps has proven elusive and usually the likelihood for multicatch traps is used for spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) analyses of such data. previous work found the multicatch likelihood to provide a robust estimator of average density. we build on a recently developed continuous-time model for secr to derive a likelihood for single-catch traps. we use this to develop an estimator based on observed capture times and compare its performance by simulation to that of the multicatch estimator for various scenarios with nonconstant density surfaces. while the multicatch estimator is found to be a surprisingly robust estimator of average density, its performance deteriorates with high trap saturation and increasing density gradients. moreover, it is found to be a poor estimator of the height of the detection function. by contrast, the single-catch estimators of density, distribution, and detection function parameters are found to be unbiased or nearly unbiased in all scenarios considered. this gain comes at the cost of higher variance. if there is no interest in interpreting the detection function parameters themselves, and if density is expected to be fairly constant over the survey region, then the multicatch estimator performs well with single-catch traps. however if accurate estimation of the detection function is of interest, or if density is expected to vary substantially in space, then there is merit in using the single-catch estimator when trap saturation is above about 60%. the estimator's performance is improved if care is taken to place traps so as to span the range of variables that affect animal distribution. as a single-catch likelihood with unknown capture times remains intractable for now, researchers using single-catch traps should aim to incorporate timing devices with their traps." "juvenile salmonid growth, survival, and production in a large river floodplain modified by beavers (castor canadensis)",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,MALISON RL;EBY LA;STANFORD JA,"beavers (castor canadensis) may strongly influence juvenile salmon production by damming spring brooks that are primary rearing habitats on expansive floodplains of large pacific rim salmon rivers. we studied three floodplain rearing habitats in the kwethluk river, alaska: free-flowing (beaver-free, n = 3) and beaver-influenced (below beaver dams, n = 4) spring brooks and early-successional beaver ponds (n = 4). we analyzed juvenile coho (oncorhynchus kisutch) and chinook (oncorhynchus tshawytschwa) salmon movement, survival, densities, and growth using a multistate robust capture-mark-recapture design. survival (46% to 80%) and densities (0.9 fish.m(-2)) were highest in beaver-free spring brooks. ponds had lower salmon densities, producing less biomass per unit area than beaver-influenced or beaver-free spring brooks (1.87 +/- 0.57 g.m(-2) vs. 2.98 +/- 1.22 and 3.23 +/- 0.73 g.m(-2)). however, ponds covered 2x greater area than either type of spring brook and therefore produced more salmon biomass at the floodplain scale than either type of spring brook (175 kg vs. 149 kg in beaver-influenced spring brooks and 140 kg in beaver-free spring brooks). we conclude that beaver damming of floodplain spring brooks produces bigger juveniles and more total biomass, but spring brooks produce significantly more, albeit smaller, coho and chinook juveniles. thus, the presence of beavers on the floodplain increases habitat variation, which provides a larger range of growth opportunities for juvenile salmon." mark-recapture estimation of snag standing rates in northern arizona mixed-conifer and ponderosa pine forests,aspen; dead trees; douglas-fir; gambel oak; pinus ponderosa; snag dynamics; snag longevity; white fir,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GANEY JL;WHITE GC;JENNESS JS;VOJTA SC,"snags (standing dead trees) are important components of forests that provide resources for numerous species of wildlife and contribute to decay dynamics and other ecological processes. managers charged with managing populations of snags need information about standing rates of snags and factors influencing those rates, yet such data are limited for ponderosa pine (pinus ponderosa) and especially mixed-conifer forests in the southwestern united states. we monitored standing rates of snags in 1-ha plots in arizona mixed-conifer (n=53 plots) and ponderosa pine (n=60 plots) forests from 1997 through 2012. we used the burnham live-dead, mark-resight model in program mark and multimodel inference to estimate standing rates during 5-year intervals while accounting for imperfect detection. because snag standing rates may be influenced by plot characteristics, we used plots rather than snags as sampling units and conducted bootstrap analyses (500 iterations per model) to resample plots and estimate standing rates and associated parameters. we modeled standing rates in 3 discrete steps. first, we selected a parsimonious base model from a set of models including snag species, and then we evaluated models created by adding snag and plot covariates to the base model in steps 2 and 3, respectively. snag standing rates differed among snag species and 5-year sampling intervals. standing rates were positively related to snag diameter, negatively related to snag height, and were lower for snags with intact tops than for broken-topped snags. standing rates also were positively related to topographic roughness, elevation, tree density, and an index of northness, and negatively related to slope and relative topographic exposure. our results provide comparative data on standing rates of multiple species of snags based on a large and spatially extensive sample and rigorous analysis, and quantify the relative importance of several snag and plot characteristics on those rates. they indicate that modeling snag dynamics is complicated by both spatial and temporal variation in standing rates and identify areas where further work is needed to facilitate such modeling. published 2015. this article is a u.s. government work and is in the public domain in the usa." -indirect effects of bioinvasions in yellowstone lake: the response of river otters to declines in native cutthroat trout,aquatic-terrestrial linkages; capture-recapture; introduced species; noninvasive sampling; population size; spawning,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,CRAIT JR;REGEHR EV;BEN-DAVID M,"nonnative species threaten ecosystems throughout the world including protected reserves. in yellowstone national park, river otters lontra canadensis depend on native cutthroat trout as prey. however, nonnative lake trout and whirling disease have significantly reduced the abundance of these native fish in the park's largest body of water, yellowstone lake. we studied the demographic and behavioral responses of otters to declining cutthroat trout on yellowstone lake and its tributaries. from 2002-2008, we monitored otter activity at latrine (scentmarking) sites, collected scat for prey identification, and used individual genotypes from scat and hair samples to evaluate survival and abundance with capture-recapture methods. otter activity at latrines decreased with declines in cutthroat trout, and the prevalence of these fish in otter scat declined from 73% to 53%. cutthroat trout numbers were the best predictor of temporal variation in apparent survival, and mean annual survival for otters was low (0.72). the density of otters in out study area (1 otter per 13.4 km of shoreline) was also low, and evidence of a recent genetic bottleneck suggests that otter abundance might have declined prior to our study. river otters in and around yellowstone lake appear to be responding to reductions in cutthroat trout via changes in distribution, diet, and possibly survival and abundance. our results provide a baseline estimate for monitoring the broader outcome of management efforts to conserve native cutthroat trout and emphasize the indirect ecosystem consequences of invasive species. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +indirect effects of bioinvasions in yellowstone lake: the response of river otters to declines in native cutthroat trout,aquatic-terrestrial linkages; capture-recapture; introduced species; noninvasive sampling; population size; spawning,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,CRAIT JR;REGEHR EV;BEN DAVID M,"nonnative species threaten ecosystems throughout the world including protected reserves. in yellowstone national park, river otters lontra canadensis depend on native cutthroat trout as prey. however, nonnative lake trout and whirling disease have significantly reduced the abundance of these native fish in the park's largest body of water, yellowstone lake. we studied the demographic and behavioral responses of otters to declining cutthroat trout on yellowstone lake and its tributaries. from 2002-2008, we monitored otter activity at latrine (scentmarking) sites, collected scat for prey identification, and used individual genotypes from scat and hair samples to evaluate survival and abundance with capture-recapture methods. otter activity at latrines decreased with declines in cutthroat trout, and the prevalence of these fish in otter scat declined from 73% to 53%. cutthroat trout numbers were the best predictor of temporal variation in apparent survival, and mean annual survival for otters was low (0.72). the density of otters in out study area (1 otter per 13.4 km of shoreline) was also low, and evidence of a recent genetic bottleneck suggests that otter abundance might have declined prior to our study. river otters in and around yellowstone lake appear to be responding to reductions in cutthroat trout via changes in distribution, diet, and possibly survival and abundance. our results provide a baseline estimate for monitoring the broader outcome of management efforts to conserve native cutthroat trout and emphasize the indirect ecosystem consequences of invasive species. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." compensatory immigration counteracts contrasting conservation strategies of wolverines (gulo gulo) within scandinavia,gulo gulo; harvest; multi-state models; non-invasive genetic sampling; survival; trans-boundary management; wolverine,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,GERVASI V;BROSETH H;NILSEN EB;ELLEGREN H;FLAGSTAD O;LINNELL JDC,"in wide ranging species, portions of the same population often fall within different administrative jurisdictions; where different regulations apply. the same species can be fully protected or heavily harvested on different sides of a border. this can generate a source-sink dynamic from the areas with lower to those with higher mortality, a process known as compensatory immigration. we tested this hypothesis on the wolverine (gulo o gulo) population of southern scandinavia, which is shared between two countries: sweden and norway. wolverines are fully protected in sweden, but subject to intensive population regulation in norway. using non-invasive genetic sampling and capture-recapture modeling, we analyzed the dynamics of wolverine survival and emigration patterns between 2002 and 2013. wolverines in norway experienced a lower survival than in sweden. migration across the national border was directed towards movements from sweden to norway. there was a functional relationship between harvest rate in norway and emigration rates across the national border, both at the individual and population level, thus confirming the compensatory immigration hypothesis. contrasting management regimes within the same population can generate undesired demographic and spatial dynamics, jeopardize conservation goals on the two sides of a border, and reduce the efficiency of management actions. this calls for the adoption of a coordinate population approach in large carnivore conservation and management. failing to do so can cause a waste of the already limited resources allocated for large carnivore conservation, and it might hinder effective conflict mitigation. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." evidence of population resistance to extreme low flows in a fluvial-dependent fish species,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,KATZ RA;FREEMAN MC,"extreme low streamflows are natural disturbances to aquatic populations. species in naturally intermittent streams display adaptations that enhance persistence during extreme events; however, the fate of populations in perennial streams during unprecedented low-flow periods is not well-understood. biota requiring swift-flowing habitats may be especially vulnerable to flow reductions. we estimated the abundance and local survival of a native fluvial-dependent fish species (etheostoma inscriptum) across 5 years encompassing historic low flows in a sixth-order southeastern usa perennial river. based on capture-mark-recapture data, the study shoal may have acted as a refuge during severe drought, with increased young-of-the-year (yoy) recruitment and occasionally high adult immigration. contrary to expectations, summer and autumn survival rates (30 days) were not strongly depressed during low-flow periods, despite 25%-80% reductions in monthly discharge. instead, yoy survival increased with lower minimum discharge and in response to small rain events that increased low-flow variability. age-1+ fish showed the opposite pattern, with survival decreasing in response to increasing low-flow variability. results from this population dynamics study of a small fish in a perennial river suggest that fluvial-dependent species can be resistant to extreme flow reductions through enhanced yoy recruitment and high survival." bayesian modeling of prion disease dynamics in mule deer using population monitoring and capture-recapture data,NA,PLOS ONE,GEREMIA C;MILLER MW;HOETING JA;ANTOLIN MF;HOBBS NT,"epidemics of chronic wasting disease (cwd) of north american cervidae have potential to harm ecosystems and economies. we studied a migratory population of mule deer (odocoileus hemionus) affected by cwd for at least three decades using a bayesian framework to integrate matrix population and disease models with long-term monitoring data and detailed process-level studies. we hypothesized cwd prevalence would be stable or increase between two observation periods during the late 1990s and after 2010, with higher cwd prevalence making deer population decline more likely. the weight of evidence suggested a reduction in the cwd outbreak over time, perhaps in response to intervening harvest-mediated population reductions. disease effects on deer population growth under current conditions were subtle with a 72% chance that cwd depressed population growth. with cwd, we forecasted a growth rate near one and largely stable deer population. disease effects appear to be moderated by timing of infection, prolonged disease course, and locally variable infection. long-term outcomes will depend heavily on whether current conditions hold and high prevalence remains a localized phenomenon." @@ -491,7 +491,7 @@ spatially explicit capture-recapture analysis of bobcat (lynx rufus) density: im age-related effects of chronic hantavirus infection on female host fecundity,disease transmission; endemic pathogen; female fecundity; host-pathogen interaction; resource allocation,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,KALLIO ER;HELLE H;KOSKELA E;MAPPES T;VAPALAHTI O,"pathogens often cause detrimental effects to their hosts and, consequently, may influence host population dynamics that may, in turn, feed back to pathogen transmission dynamics. understanding fitness effects of pathogens upon animal host populations can help to predict the risks that zoonotic pathogens pose to humans. here we determine whether chronic infection by puumala hantavirus (puuv) affects important fitness-related traits, namely the probability of breeding, reproductive effort and mother and offspring condition, in the bank vole (myodes glareolus). using 9years empirical data in a puuv endemic area in central finland, we found differences between reproductive characteristics of puuv-infected and uninfected female bank voles. young infected females had a significantly higher, and old individuals lower, likelihood of reproducing than uninfected animals during the middle of the breeding season. the implication is that puuv infection may have long-term deleterious effects that are observed at old age, while in young individuals, the infection may enhance breeding probability by directing resources towards current breeding. moreover, puuv infection was related with the mother's body condition. infected mothers were in poorer condition than uninfected mothers in the early breeding season, but were in better condition than uninfected mothers during the middle of the breeding season. offspring body condition was positively associated with mother's body condition, which, in turn, was related to the puuv infection status of the mother. our findings indicate that chronic infection may affect the reproduction of female hosts, but the effect is dependent on the host age. the effect of chronic hantavirus infection was small and density-independent and hence unlikely to contribute to the cyclic population dynamics of the host. however, the effects on a female's reproductive output might affect the abundance of young susceptible individuals in the population and hence influence the transmission and persistence of the pathogen. although experimental and long-term capture-mark-recapture studies are required to further clarify the fitness effects of hantavirus infection and their consequences for pathogen dynamics, this study shows that the infection may have complex effects that are dependent on the age of the individual and the time of the breeding season." antagonistic effect of helpers on breeding male and female survival in a cooperatively breeding bird,cooperative breeding; family conflicts; investment; life-history strategies; sex-specific selection,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,PAQUET M;DOUTRELANT C;HATCHWELL BJ;SPOTTISWOODE CN;COVAS R,"cooperatively breeding species are typically long lived and hence, according to theory, are expected to maximize their lifetime reproductive success through maximizing survival. under these circumstances, the presence of helpers could be used to lighten the effort of current reproduction for parents to achieve higher survival. in addition, individuals of different sexes and ages may follow different strategies, but whether male and female breeders and individuals of different ages benefit differently from the presence of helpers has often been overlooked. moreover, only one study that investigated the relationship between parental survival and the presence of helpers used capture-mark-recapture analyses (cmr). these methods are important since they allow us to account for the non-detection of individuals that are alive in the population but not detected, and thus, the effects on survival and recapture probability to be disentangled. here, we used multi-event cmr methods to investigate whether the number of helpers was associated with an increase in survival probability for male and female breeders of different ages in the sociable weaver philetairus socius. in this species, both sexes reduce their feeding rate in the presence of helpers. we therefore predicted that the presence of helpers should increase the breeders' survival in both sexes, especially early in life when individuals potentially have more future breeding opportunities. in addition, sociable weaver females reduce their investment in eggs in the presence of helpers, so we predicted a stronger effect of helpers on female than male survival. as expected we found that females had a higher survival probability when breeding with more helpers. unexpectedly, however, male survival probability decreased with increasing number of helpers. this antagonistic effect diminished as the breeders grew older. these results illustrate the complexity of fitness costs and benefits underlying cooperative behaviours and how these may vary with the individuals' sex and age. they also highlight the need for further studies on the sex-specific effects of helpers on survival." seasonal demography of a cyclic lemming population in the canadian arctic,bylot island; fecundity; lemmus; population cycles; population limitation; probability of survival; snow cover; winter nests,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,FAUTEUX D;GAUTHIER G;BERTEAUX D,"the causes of cyclical fluctuations in animal populations remain a controversial topic in ecology. food limitation and predation are two leading hypotheses to explain small mammal population dynamics in northern environments. we documented the seasonal timing of the decline phases and demographic parameters (survival and reproduction) associated with population changes in lemmings, allowing us to evaluate some predictions from these two hypotheses. we studied the demography of brown lemmings (lemmus trimucronatus), a species showing 3- to 4-year population cycles in the canadian arctic, by combining capture-mark-recapture analysis of summer live-trapping with monitoring of winter nests over a 10-year period. we also examined the effects of some weather variables on survival. we found that population declines after a peak occurred between the summer and winter period and not during the winter. during the summer, population growth was driven by change in survival, but not in fecundity or proportion of juveniles, whereas in winter population growth was driven by changes in late summer and winter reproduction. we did not find evidence for direct density dependence on summer demographic parameters, though our analysis was constrained by the paucity of data during the low phase. body mass, however, was highest in peak years. weather effects were detected only in early summer when lemming survival was positively related to snow depth at the onset of melt but negatively related to rainfall. our results show that high mortality causes population declines of lemmings during summer and fall, which suggests that predation is sufficient to cause population crashes, whereas high winter fecundity is the primary factor leading to population irruptions. the positive association between snow depth and early summer survival may be due to the protective cover offered by snow against predators. it is still unclear why reproduction remains low during the low phase." -camera traps and mark-resight models: the value of ancillary data for evaluating assumptions,ancillary data; camera traps; detection bias; mark-resight; population estimation; procyon lotor; raccoon,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PARSONS AW;SIMONS TR;POLLOCK KH;STOSKOPF MK;STOCKING JJ;O'CONNELL AF,"unbiased estimators of abundance and density are fundamental to the study of animal ecology and critical for making sound management decisions. capture-recapture models are generally considered the most robust approach for estimating these parameters but rely on a number of assumptions that are often violated but rarely validated. mark-resight models, a form of capture-recapture, are well suited for use with noninvasive sampling methods and allow for a number of assumptions to be relaxed. we used ancillary data from continuous video and radio telemetry to evaluate the assumptions of mark-resight models for abundance estimation on a barrier island raccoon (procyon lotor) population using camera traps. our island study site was geographically closed, allowing us to estimate real survival and in situ recruitment in addition to population size. we found several sources of bias due to heterogeneity of capture probabilities in our study, including camera placement, animal movement, island physiography, and animal behavior. almost all sources of heterogeneity could be accounted for using the sophisticated mark-resight models developed by mcclintock et al. (2009b) and this model generated estimates similar to a spatially explicit mark-resight model previously developed for this population during our study. spatially explicit capture-recapture models have become an important tool in ecology and confer a number of advantages; however, non-spatial models that account for inherent individual heterogeneity may perform nearly as well, especially where immigration and emigration are limited. non-spatial models are computationally less demanding, do not make implicit assumptions related to the isotropy of home ranges, and can provide insights with respect to the biological traits of the local population. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." +camera traps and mark-resight models: the value of ancillary data for evaluating assumptions,ancillary data; camera traps; detection bias; mark-resight; population estimation; procyon lotor; raccoon,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PARSONS AW;SIMONS TR;POLLOCK KH;STOSKOPF MK;STOCKING JJ;O CONNELL AF,"unbiased estimators of abundance and density are fundamental to the study of animal ecology and critical for making sound management decisions. capture-recapture models are generally considered the most robust approach for estimating these parameters but rely on a number of assumptions that are often violated but rarely validated. mark-resight models, a form of capture-recapture, are well suited for use with noninvasive sampling methods and allow for a number of assumptions to be relaxed. we used ancillary data from continuous video and radio telemetry to evaluate the assumptions of mark-resight models for abundance estimation on a barrier island raccoon (procyon lotor) population using camera traps. our island study site was geographically closed, allowing us to estimate real survival and in situ recruitment in addition to population size. we found several sources of bias due to heterogeneity of capture probabilities in our study, including camera placement, animal movement, island physiography, and animal behavior. almost all sources of heterogeneity could be accounted for using the sophisticated mark-resight models developed by mcclintock et al. (2009b) and this model generated estimates similar to a spatially explicit mark-resight model previously developed for this population during our study. spatially explicit capture-recapture models have become an important tool in ecology and confer a number of advantages; however, non-spatial models that account for inherent individual heterogeneity may perform nearly as well, especially where immigration and emigration are limited. non-spatial models are computationally less demanding, do not make implicit assumptions related to the isotropy of home ranges, and can provide insights with respect to the biological traits of the local population. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." population density and climate shape early-life survival and recruitment in a long-lived pelagic seabird,capture-mark-recapture; diomedea exulans; juvenile vital rates; population dynamics; wandering albatross,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,FAY R;WEIMERSKIRCH H;DELORD K;BARBRAUD C,"our understanding of demographic processes is mainly based on analyses of traits from the adult component of populations. early-life demographic traits are poorly known mainly for methodological reasons. yet, survival of juvenile and immature individuals is critical for the recruitment into the population and thus for the whole population dynamic, especially for long-lived species. this bias currently restrains our ability to fully understand population dynamics of long-lived species and life-history theory. the goal of this study was to estimate the early-life demographic parameters of a long-lived species with a long immature period (9-10years), to test for sex and age effects on these parameters and to identify the environmental factors encountered during the period of immaturity that may influence survival and recruitment. using capture-mark-recapture multievent models allowing us to deal with uncertain and unobservable individual states, we analysed a long-term data set of wandering albatrosses to estimate both age- and sex-specific early-life survival and recruitment. we investigated environmental factors potentially driving these demographic traits using climatic and fisheries covariates and tested for density dependence. our study provides for the first time an estimate of annual survival during the first 2years at sea for an albatross species (08010014). both age and sex affected early-life survival and recruitment processes of this long-lived seabird species. early-life survival and recruitment were highly variable across years although the sensitivity of young birds to environmental variability decreased with age. early-life survival was negatively associated with sea surface temperature, and recruitment rate was positively related to both southern annular mode and sea surface temperature. we found strong evidence for density-dependent mortality of juveniles. population size explained 41% of the variation of this parameter over the study period. these results indicate that early-life survival and recruitment were strongly age and sex dependent in a dimorphic long-lived species. in addition, early-life demographic parameters were affected by natal environmental conditions and by environmental conditions faced during the period of immaturity. finally, our results constitute one of the first demonstrations of density dependence on juvenile survival in seabirds, with major consequences for our understanding of population dynamics in seabirds." habitat selection of gray seals (halichoerus grypus) in a marine protected area in france,conservation; glm; gray seal; habitat preference; iroise sea; management; spatial planning; telemetry,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HUON M;JONES EL;MATTHIOPOULOS J;MCCONNELL B;CAURANT F;VINCENT C,"in france, the first marine national park was set up in 2007 in the iroise sea, western brittany, encompassing several special areas of conservation (sac). the park is resident to 1 of only 3 gray seal colonies in france. the at-sea habitat use of gray seals in the marine park is poorly understood and direct interactions with human activities are expected. we investigated habitat selection of gray seals within the marine park to provide spatial planning recommendations to local conservation management. we obtained data from 19 seals tracked between 2010 and 2013. we used generalized linear models to investigate their habitat selection using distance to haulout, distance to shore, bathymetry, tidal current, and sediment type as explanatory variables. the tracked individuals spent 67% of their time within the boundaries of the marine park. we investigated return trips to focus on habitat selection within the iroise sea. the deviance explained by the final model was 76%. distance to haulout explained 47% of the deviance (seals selected short distances), bathymetry explained 40% (with bimodal selection for waters shallower than 50 m or deeper than 150 m), distance to shore explained 6% (selected distances less than 40 km), current explained 5% (selected weak currents), and sediment explained 2% (selected rocky areas). habitat selection was concentrated in shallow waters located in the main archipelago of the marine park. the map of selected habitat will help identify potential conflicts of space use between seals and human activities such as fishing and leisure activities. this study has an important ecological and management value. it is the first of its kind in a marine park in france, and one of the few studies of gray seals at the periphery of their range. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." face value: towards robust estimates of snow leopard densities,NA,PLOS ONE,ALEXANDER JS;GOPALASWAMY AM;SHI K;RIORDAN P,"when densities of large carnivores fall below certain thresholds, dramatic ecological effects can follow, leading to oversimplified ecosystems. understanding the population status of such species remains a major challenge as they occur in low densities and their ranges are wide. this paper describes the use of non-invasive data collection techniques combined with recent spatial capture-recapture methods to estimate the density of snow leopards panthera uncia. it also investigates the influence of environmental and human activity indicators on their spatial distribution. a total of 60 camera traps were systematically set up during a three-month period over a 480 km(2) study area in qilianshan national nature reserve, gansu province, china. we recorded 76 separate snow leopard captures over 2,906 trap-days, representing an average capture success of 2.62 captures/100 trap-days. we identified a total number of 20 unique individuals from photographs and estimated snow leopard density at 3.31 (se = 1.01) individuals per 100 km(2). results of our simulation exercise indicate that our estimates from the spatial capture recapture models were not optimal to respect to bias and precision (rmses for density parameters less or equal to 0.87). our results underline the critical challenge in achieving sufficient sample sizes of snow leopard captures and recaptures. possible performance improvements are discussed, principally by optimising effective camera capture and photographic data quality." @@ -502,28 +502,28 @@ estimating population sizes of leopard cats in the western ghats using camera su limited catching bias in a wild population of birds with near-complete census information,capture methods; house sparrow; island populations; methodology; ornithology; trappability,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SIMONS MJP;WINNEY I;NAKAGAWA S;BURKE T;SCHROEDER J,"animal research often relies on catching wild animals; however, individuals may have different trappability, and this can generate bias. we studied bias in mist netting, the main method for catching wild birds. the unusually high resighting rate in our study populationhouse sparrows (passer domesticus) on lundy island (england)allowed us to obtain accurate estimates of the population size. this unique situation enabled us to test for catching bias in mist netting using deviations from the expected poisson distribution. there was no evidence that a fraction of the birds in the population consistently remained uncaught. however, we detected a different bias: more birds than expected were captured only once within a year. this bias probably resulted from a mixture of fieldworkers sometimes ignoring rapid recaptures and birds becoming net shy after their first capture. we had sufficient statistical power with the available data to detect a substantial uncaught fraction. therefore, our data are probably unbiased toward catching specific individuals from our population. our analyses demonstrate that intensively monitored natural insular populations, in which population size can be estimated precisely, provide the potential to address important unanswered questions without concerns about a fraction of the population remaining uncaught. our approach can help researchers to test for catching bias in closely monitored wild populations for which reliable estimates of population size and dispersal are available." "applying a random encounter model to estimate lion density from camera traps in serengeti national park, tanzania",camera traps; density estimation; habitat; lion; panthera leo; random encounter model; rem; serengeti,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CUSACK JJ;SWANSON A;COULSON T;PACKER C;CARBONE C;DICKMAN AJ;KOSMALA M;LINTOTT C;ROWCLIFFE JM,"the random encounter model (rem) is a novel method for estimating animal density from camera trap data without the need for individual recognition. it has never been used to estimate the density of large carnivore species, despite these being the focus of most camera trap studies worldwide. in this context, we applied the rem to estimate the density of female lions (panthera leo) from camera traps implemented in serengeti national park, tanzania, comparing estimates to reference values derived from pride census data. more specifically, we attempted to account for bias resulting from non-random camera placement at lion resting sites under isolated trees by comparing estimates derived from night versus day photographs, between dry and wet seasons, and between habitats that differ in their amount of tree cover. overall, we recorded 169 and 163 independent photographic events of female lions from 7,608 and 12,137 camera trap days carried out in the dry season of 2010 and the wet season of 2011, respectively. although all rem models considered over-estimated female lion density, models that considered only night-time events resulted in estimates that were much less biased relative to those based on all photographic events. we conclude that restricting rem estimation to periods and habitats in which animal movement is more likely to be random with respect to cameras can help reduce bias in estimates of density for female serengeti lions. we highlight that accurate rem estimates will nonetheless be dependent on reliable measures of average speed of animal movement and camera detection zone dimensions. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." endangered florida panther population size determined from public reports of motor vehicle collision mortalities,abundance; capture-recapture; citizen science; dead recovery; human-wildlife ecology; imperfect detection; mark-resight; puma concolor coryi; risk of collision; telemetry,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,MCCLINTOCK BT;ONORATO DP;MARTIN J,"reliably estimating the abundance of rare or elusive animals is notoriously difficult. an archetypical example is the endangered florida panther, whose conservation status is intrinsically linked to population size, but for which reliable abundance information is lacking across its range. this is due not only to the inherent difficulty of sampling a rare and elusive species over a large geographic area, but also because of restricted scientific access to private land. human interactions with wildlife are a regular occurrence, and interactions with non-scientists constitute an important and underutilized source of information about species distribution and abundance. for example, motor vehicle collisions with florida panthers are recurrent on the vast network of roads within the public and private lands comprising its range in southern florida, usa. capitalizing on a tendency for the public to report collisions with species of concern to wildlife officials, we describe a novel methodology using public reports along with routine telemetry monitoring data to produce the first statistically defensible population estimates for the florida panther across its entire breeding range. in essence, our approach uses traffic volume and road density to estimate the probability of motor vehicle collision mortality from telemetered animals and models counts reported by the public accordingly. despite low motor vehicle collision mortality probabilities, our methodology achieved abundance estimates of reasonable precision (29% cv) that was similar to that of previous panther studies using conventional approaches on much smaller study areas. while recovery criteria require establishment of three distinct populations of 240 florida panthers, we found this single population may never have exceeded 150 individuals from 2000 to 2012.synthesis and applications. by extracting critical demographic information from underutilized aspects of human-wildlife ecology, our citizen-based approach can cost less than conventional alternatives and could conceivably be used for long-term population monitoring of other species over broad geographic areas, for example from reports of avian wind farm collisions, beached whales or marine mammal boat strikes. an additional benefit is that it can be applied to historical data sets of carcass recovery programmes, in our case permitting abundance estimation over a 13-year period. by extracting critical demographic information from underutilized aspects of human-wildlife ecology, our citizen-based approach can cost less than conventional alternatives and could conceivably be used for long-term population monitoring of other species over broad geographic areas, for example from reports of avian wind farm collisions, beached whales or marine mammal boat strikes. an additional benefit is that it can be applied to historical data sets of carcass recovery programmes, in our case permitting abundance estimation over a 13-year period." -movement and population size of two dung beetle species in an andean agricultural landscape dominated by sun-grown coffee,scarabaeinae; colombian andes; mark-recapture; jolly-seber; population size,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,CULTID-MEDINA C;MARTINEZ-QUINTERO BG;ESCOBAR F;DE ULLOA PC,"understanding how species use and persist in agricultural areas is useful for planning conservation efforts at the landscape scale. information at the population level is scarce, even for organisms, such as dung beetles, that are traditionally used in biodiversity studies to evaluate the effects of anthropic disturbance. based on multiple mark-recapture events, the description of movement patterns and three population parameters (population size, survival and recruitment) were compared for two dung beetle species (dichotomius cf. alyattes and oxysternon conspicillatum) in a fragmented andean landscape dominated by sun-grown coffee crops. interspecific differences were detected in movement patterns and in the minimum distance moved across the landscape, with the latter associated with wing loading and species habitat preferences. d. cf. alyattes was captured in both the forest and in sun-grown coffee plots, but tended to limit its movement to patches of forest, while o. conspicillatum covered large distances in short periods of time across the sun-grown coffee crops (ca. 1.7 km/24 h). the population of each species increased during the months of greatest precipitation, prior to the recruitment of new beetles. given their great capacity for movement, habitat preference and their differential use of the landscape, the species studied can be used as models to evaluate the functional connectivity of andean landscapes under high anthropic demand. our results support the idea of the differential response of species to land-use changes, an aspect that should be considered for effective biodiversity conservation and ecosystem functioning in human-dominated landscapes." +movement and population size of two dung beetle species in an andean agricultural landscape dominated by sun-grown coffee,scarabaeinae; colombian andes; mark-recapture; jolly-seber; population size,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,CULTID MEDINA C;MARTINEZ QUINTERO BG;ESCOBAR F;DE ULLOA PC,"understanding how species use and persist in agricultural areas is useful for planning conservation efforts at the landscape scale. information at the population level is scarce, even for organisms, such as dung beetles, that are traditionally used in biodiversity studies to evaluate the effects of anthropic disturbance. based on multiple mark-recapture events, the description of movement patterns and three population parameters (population size, survival and recruitment) were compared for two dung beetle species (dichotomius cf. alyattes and oxysternon conspicillatum) in a fragmented andean landscape dominated by sun-grown coffee crops. interspecific differences were detected in movement patterns and in the minimum distance moved across the landscape, with the latter associated with wing loading and species habitat preferences. d. cf. alyattes was captured in both the forest and in sun-grown coffee plots, but tended to limit its movement to patches of forest, while o. conspicillatum covered large distances in short periods of time across the sun-grown coffee crops (ca. 1.7 km/24 h). the population of each species increased during the months of greatest precipitation, prior to the recruitment of new beetles. given their great capacity for movement, habitat preference and their differential use of the landscape, the species studied can be used as models to evaluate the functional connectivity of andean landscapes under high anthropic demand. our results support the idea of the differential response of species to land-use changes, an aspect that should be considered for effective biodiversity conservation and ecosystem functioning in human-dominated landscapes." heterogeneous movement of insectivorous amazonian birds through primary and secondary forest: a case study using multistate models with radiotelemetry data,amazon; fidelity fragmentation; neotropical birds; secondary forest; multistate models; movement probability,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,POWELL LL;WOLFE JD;JOHNSON EI;HINES JE;NICHOLS JD;STOUFFER PC,"given rates of deforestation, disturbance, and secondary forest accumulation in tropical rainforests, there is a great need to quantify habitat use and movement among different habitats. this need is particularly pronounced for animals most sensitive to disturbance, such as insectivorous understory birds. here we use multistate capture-recapture models with radiotelemetry data to determine the successional stage at which within-day movement probabilities of amazonian birds in secondary forest are similar to those in primary forest. we radio-tracked three common understory insectivore species in primary and secondary forest at the biological dynamics of forest fragments project near manaus, brazil: two woodcreepers, glyphorynchus spirurus (n = 19) and xiphorhynchus pardalotus (n = 18), and the terrestrial antthrush formicarius colma (n = 19). forest age was a strong predictor of fidelity to a given habitat. all three species showed greater fidelity to primary forest than to 8-14-year-old secondary forest, indicating the latter's relatively poor quality. the two woodcreeper species used 12-18-year-old secondary forest in a manner comparable to continuous forest, but f. colma avoided moving even to 27-31-year-old secondary forest the oldest at our site. our results suggest that managers concerned with less sensitive species can assume that forest reserves connected by 12-18-year-old secondary forest corridors are effectively connected. on the other hand, >30 years are required after land abandonment before secondary forest serves as a primary forest-like conduit for movement by f. colma; more sensitive terrestrial insectivores may take longer still. published by elsevier ltd." a comparison of grizzly bear demographic parameters estimated from non-spatial and spatial open population capture-recapture models,NA,PLOS ONE,WHITTINGTON J;SAWAYA MA,"capture-recapture studies are frequently used to monitor the status and trends of wildlife populations. detection histories from individual animals are used to estimate probability of detection and abundance or density. the accuracy of abundance and density estimates depends on the ability to model factors affecting detection probability. non-spatial capture-recapture models have recently evolved into spatial capture-recapture models that directly include the effect of distances between an animal's home range centre and trap locations on detection probability. most studies comparing non-spatial and spatial capture-recapture biases focussed on single year models and no studies have compared the accuracy of demographic parameter estimates from open population models. we applied open population non-spatial and spatial capture-recapture models to three years of grizzly bear dna-based data from banff national park and simulated data sets. the two models produced similar estimates of grizzly bear apparent survival, per capita recruitment, and population growth rates but the spatial capture-recapture models had better fit. simulations showed that spatial capture-recapture models produced more accurate parameter estimates with better credible interval coverage than non-spatial capture-recapture models. non-spatial capture-recapture models produced negatively biased estimates of apparent survival and positively biased estimates of per capita recruitment. the spatial capture-recapture grizzly bear population growth rates and 95% highest posterior density averaged across the three years were 0.925 (0.786-1.071) for females, 0.844 (0.703-0.975) for males, and 0.882 (0.779-0.981) for females and males combined. the non-spatial capture-recapture population growth rates were 0.894 (0.758-1.024) for females, 0.825 (0.700-0.948) for males, and 0.863 (0.771-0.957) for both sexes. the combination of low densities, low reproductive rates, and predominantly negative population growth rates suggest that banff national park's population of grizzly bears requires continued conservation-oriented management actions." shifting effects of ocean conditions on survival and breeding probability of a long-lived seabird,NA,PLOS ONE,SCHMIDT AE;DYBALA KE;BOTSFORD LW;EADIE JM;BRADLEY RW;JAHNCKE J,"with a rapidly changing climate, there is an increasing need to predict how species will respond to changes in the physical environment. one approach is to use historic data to estimate the past influence of environmental variation on important demographic parameters and then use these relationships to project the abundance of a population or species under future climate scenarios. however, as novel climate conditions emerge, novel species responses may also appear. in some systems, environmental conditions beyond the range of those observed during the course of most long-term ecological studies are already evident. yet little attention has been given to how these novel conditions may be influencing previously established environment-species relationships. here, we model the relationships between ocean conditions and the demography of a long-lived seabird, brandt's cormorant (phalacrocorax penicillatusi), in central california and show that these relationships have changed in recent years. beginning in 2007/2008, the response of brandt's cormorant, an upper trophic level predator, to ocean conditions shifted, resulting in lower than predicted survival and breeding probability. survival was generally less variable than breeding probability and was initially best predicted by the basin-scale forcing of the el nino southern oscillation rather than local ocean conditions. the shifting response of brandt's cormorant to ocean conditions may be just a proximate indication of altered dynamics in the food web and that important forage fish are not responding to the physical ocean environment as expected. these changing relationships have important implications for our ability to project the effects of future climate change for species and communities." mark-resight estimates of seasonal variation in harbor seal abundance and site fidelity,haul-out probability; individual-based; mark-recapture; phoca vitulina; photo-identification; population dynamics,POPULATION ECOLOGY,CORDES LS;THOMPSON PM,"monitoring trends in abundance of pinnipeds typically involves counting seals at terrestrial haul-out sites during the breeding season. counts of seals made at other times of the year are typically lower; however, it is often unknown whether this is because fewer animals are present or whether lower counts simply reflect a reduction in haul-out probability. here we illustrate how photo-identification data from an individual-based study of harbor seals (phoca vitulina) can be used to estimate seasonal variation in abundance and site fidelity. monthly data collected over a two-year period were analyzed using a mark-recapture mark-resight model accounting for individuals transitioning between observable and unobservable states. levels of site fidelity were high throughout the year and abundance estimates showed no seasonal pattern. this suggests that individual seals used haul-out sites to the same extent throughout the year, and that peaks in counts during the breeding season are a result of seasonal changes in haul-out probability. the results of this study have implications for understanding population sub-structuring, gene flow and disease spread." the first description of population density and habitat use of the mainland clouded leopard neofelis nebulosa within a logged-primary forest in south east asia,belum-temengor; camera-trap; density; habitat use; peninsular malaysia; spatially explicit capture-recapture,POPULATION ECOLOGY,MOHAMAD SW;RAYAN DM;CHRISTOPHER WCT;HAMIRUL M;MOHAMED A;LAU CF;SIWAN ES,"the mainland clouded leopard (neofelis nebulosa) is classified as vulnerable under the iucn red list, meaning that it faces a high risk of extinction in the wild. however, hardly any ecological research has been published on this species apart from several radiotelemetry studies in thailand and nepal, and one camera-trapping study in india. here we present findings on the clouded leopard from a camera-trapping study conducted in temengor forest reserve (a logged-over forest) and royal belum state park (a primary forest) within peninsular malaysia. using the spatially-explicit capture-recapture method, the density from temengor forest reserve and royal belum state park was estimated at 3.46 +/- a se 1.00 and 1.83 +/- a se 0.61, respectively. clouded leopard habitat use was found to be highly influenced by the availability of small and medium prey species and therefore intrinsically highlights the potential conservation importance of species such as pig-tailed macaques, porcupine, mouse deer and small carnivores. these findings provide the first estimates of density and habitat use of this species in a logged-primary forest from both peninsular malaysia and south east asia. our study provides important baseline information on clouded leopards and contributes to filling up the knowledge gap that exists in understanding the population ecology of this species, not only within peninsular malaysia, but also on a regional level." rapid growth and genetic diversity retention in an isolated reintroduced black bear population in the central appalachians,appalachia; black bear; demographics; founder event; iteroparous; kentucky; population genetics; reintroduction; tennessee; ursus americanus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,MURPHY SM;COX JJ;CLARK JD;AUGUSTINE BC;HAST JT;GIBBS D;STRUNK M;DOBEY S,"animal reintroductions are important tools of wildlife management to restore species to their historical range, and they can also create unique opportunities to study population dynamics and genetics from founder events. we used non-invasive hair sampling in a systematic, closed-population capture-mark-recapture (cmr) study design at the big south fork (bsf) area in kentucky during 2010 and tennessee during 2012 to estimate the demographic and genetic characteristics of the black bear (ursus americanus) population that resulted from a reintroduced founding population of 18 bears in 1998. we estimated 38 (95% ci: 31-66) and 190 (95% ci: 170-219) bears on the kentucky and tennessee study areas, respectively. based on the tennessee abundance estimate alone, the mean annual growth rate was 18.3% (95% ci: 17.4-19.5%) from 1998 to 2012. we also compared the genetic characteristics of bears sampled during 2010-2012 to bears in the population during 2000-2002, 2-4 years following reintroduction, and to the source population. we found that the level of genetic diversity since reintroduction as indicated by expected heterozygosity (h-e) remained relatively constant (h-e(source,h- 2004)=0.763, h-e(bsf,h- 2000-2002)=0.729, h-e(bsf,h- 2010-2012)=0.712) and the effective number of breeders (n-b) remained low but had increased since reintroduction in the absence of sufficient immigration (n-b(bsf,n- 2000-2002)=12, n-b(bsf,n- 2010-2012)=35). this bear population appears to be genetically isolated, but contrary to our expectations, we did not find evidence of genetic diversity loss or other deleterious genetic effects typically observed from small founder groups. we attribute that to high initial genetic diversity in the founder group combined with overlapping generations and rapid population growth. although the population remains relatively small, the reintroduction using a small founder group appears to be demographically and genetically sustainable. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." -melanistic leopards reveal their spots: infrared camera traps provide a population density estimate of leopards in malaysia,camera trap; corridor; density estimate; leopard; logged forest; mark-recapture; panthera pardus; peninsular malaysia,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HEDGES L;LAM WY;CAMPOS-ARCEIZ A;RAYAN DM;LAURANCE WF;LATHAM CJ;SAABAN S;CLEMENTS GR,"to date, leopards (panthera pardus) in peninsular malaysia have been overlooked by large carnivore researchers. this is in part due to the country's unique population of individuals that are almost all melanistic, which makes it nearly impossible to identify individuals using camera traps for estimating leopard density. we discovered a novel modification to infrared flash camera traps, which forces the camera into night mode, that allows us to consistently and clearly see the spots of a melanistic leopard. the aim of this project was 1) to determine the feasibility of identifying melanistic leopards with confidence using infrared flash camera traps, and 2) to establish a density estimate for the leopard population in a wildlife corridor in malaysia using maximum likelihood and bayesian spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models. both secr approaches yielded a leopard density of approximately 3 individuals/100km(2). our estimates represent the first density estimate of leopards in malaysia and arguably, the world's first successful attempt to estimate the population size of a species with melanistic phenotypes. because we have demonstrated that melanistic leopards can be monitored with confidence using infrared cameras, future studies should employ our approach instead of relying on scars or body shape for identification. ultimately, our approach can facilitate more accurate assessments of leopard population trends, particularly in regions where melanistic phenotypes largely occur. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." +melanistic leopards reveal their spots: infrared camera traps provide a population density estimate of leopards in malaysia,camera trap; corridor; density estimate; leopard; logged forest; mark-recapture; panthera pardus; peninsular malaysia,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HEDGES L;LAM WY;CAMPOS ARCEIZ A;RAYAN DM;LAURANCE WF;LATHAM CJ;SAABAN S;CLEMENTS GR,"to date, leopards (panthera pardus) in peninsular malaysia have been overlooked by large carnivore researchers. this is in part due to the country's unique population of individuals that are almost all melanistic, which makes it nearly impossible to identify individuals using camera traps for estimating leopard density. we discovered a novel modification to infrared flash camera traps, which forces the camera into night mode, that allows us to consistently and clearly see the spots of a melanistic leopard. the aim of this project was 1) to determine the feasibility of identifying melanistic leopards with confidence using infrared flash camera traps, and 2) to establish a density estimate for the leopard population in a wildlife corridor in malaysia using maximum likelihood and bayesian spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models. both secr approaches yielded a leopard density of approximately 3 individuals/100km(2). our estimates represent the first density estimate of leopards in malaysia and arguably, the world's first successful attempt to estimate the population size of a species with melanistic phenotypes. because we have demonstrated that melanistic leopards can be monitored with confidence using infrared cameras, future studies should employ our approach instead of relying on scars or body shape for identification. ultimately, our approach can facilitate more accurate assessments of leopard population trends, particularly in regions where melanistic phenotypes largely occur. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." survival and local recruitment are driven by environmental carry-over effects from the wintering area in a migratory seabird,common tern; marine primary productivity; migration; naoi; soi; sterna hirundo,OECOLOGIA,SZOSTEK KL;BECKER PH,"we estimated annual apparent survival rates, as well as local recruitment rates in different age groups and for different breeding status in the common tern sterna hirundo using mark-recapture analysis on a long-term individual-based dataset from a breeding colony in germany. strong inter-annual variability in survival rates became apparent, especially in prospectors. local recruitment also varied strongly between years and age groups. to explain these fluctuations, we linked survival and recruitment estimates to several environmental covariates expected to be limiting during the wintering period and migration, including the global climate indices of north atlantic oscillation and southern oscillation, fish abundance indices, and marine primary productivity in the west african wintering area. contrary to expectations, global indices did not seem to be linked strongly to vital rates. results showed that primary productivity had the strongest effect on annual survival, especially in young and inexperienced individuals. primary productivity in the wintering area was also strongly associated with the probability of recruitment in the following breeding season, indicating that conditions during winter can have carry-over effects on the life cycle of individuals." integrating acoustic telemetry into mark-recapture models to improve the precision of apparent survival and abundance estimates,cjs; js; popan; broadnose sevengill sharks; capture-recapture; population estimation,OECOLOGIA,DUDGEON CL;POLLOCK KH;BRACCINI JM;SEMMENS JM;BARNETT A,"capture-mark-recapture models are useful tools for estimating demographic parameters but often result in low precision when recapture rates are low. low recapture rates are typical in many study systems including fishing-based studies. incorporating auxiliary data into the models can improve precision and in some cases enable parameter estimation. here, we present a novel application of acoustic telemetry for the estimation of apparent survival and abundance within capture-mark-recapture analysis using open population models. our case study is based on simultaneously collecting longline fishing and acoustic telemetry data for a large mobile apex predator, the broadnose sevengill shark (notorhynchus cepedianus), at a coastal site in tasmania, australia. cormack-jolly-seber models showed that longline data alone had very low recapture rates while acoustic telemetry data for the same time period resulted in at least tenfold higher recapture rates. the apparent survival estimates were similar for the two datasets but the acoustic telemetry data showed much greater precision and enabled apparent survival parameter estimation for one dataset, which was inestimable using fishing data alone. combined acoustic telemetry and longline data were incorporated into jolly-seber models using a monte carlo simulation approach. abundance estimates were comparable to those with longline data only; however, the inclusion of acoustic telemetry data increased precision in the estimates. we conclude that acoustic telemetry is a useful tool for incorporating in capture-mark-recapture studies in the marine environment. future studies should consider the application of acoustic telemetry within this framework when setting up the study design and sampling program." -"action on multiple fronts, illegal poisoning and wind farm planning, is required to reverse the decline of the egyptian vulture in southern spain",capture-recapture; neophron percnopterus; survival; fecundity; recruitment; pva,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,SANZ-AGUILAR A;SANCHEZ-ZAPATA JA;CARRETE M;BENITEZ JR;AVILA E;ARENAS R;DONAZAR JA,"large body-sized avian scavengers, including the egyptian vulture (neophron percnopterus), are globally threatened due to human-related mortality so guidelines quantifying the efficacy of different management approaches are urgently needed. we used 14 years of territory and individual-based data on a small and geographically isolated spanish population to estimate survival, recruitment and breeding success. we then forecasted their population viability under current vital rates and under management scenarios that mitigated the main sources of non-natural mortality at breeding grounds (fatalities from wind farms and illegal poisoning). mean breeding success was 0.68 (sd = 0.17) under current conditions. annual probabilities of survival were 0.72 (se = 0.06) for fledglings and 2 yr old non-breeders, 0.73 (se = 0.04) for non-breeders older than 2 yrs old and 0.93 (se = 0.04) for breeders. probabilities of recruitment were 0 for birds aged 1-4, 0.10 (se = 0.06) for birds aged 5 and 0.19 (se = 0.09) for older birds. population viability analyses estimated an annual decline of 3-4% of the breeding population under current conditions. our results indicate that only by combining different management actions in the breeding area, especially by removing the most important causes of human-related mortality (poisoning and collisions on wind farms), will the population grow and persist in the long term. reinforcement with captive breeding may also have positive effects but only in combination with the reduction in causes of non-natural mortality. these results, although obtained for a focal species, may be applicable to other endangered populations of long-lived avian scavengers inhabiting southern europe. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +"action on multiple fronts, illegal poisoning and wind farm planning, is required to reverse the decline of the egyptian vulture in southern spain",capture-recapture; neophron percnopterus; survival; fecundity; recruitment; pva,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,SANZ AGUILAR A;SANCHEZ ZAPATA JA;CARRETE M;BENITEZ JR;AVILA E;ARENAS R;DONAZAR JA,"large body-sized avian scavengers, including the egyptian vulture (neophron percnopterus), are globally threatened due to human-related mortality so guidelines quantifying the efficacy of different management approaches are urgently needed. we used 14 years of territory and individual-based data on a small and geographically isolated spanish population to estimate survival, recruitment and breeding success. we then forecasted their population viability under current vital rates and under management scenarios that mitigated the main sources of non-natural mortality at breeding grounds (fatalities from wind farms and illegal poisoning). mean breeding success was 0.68 (sd = 0.17) under current conditions. annual probabilities of survival were 0.72 (se = 0.06) for fledglings and 2 yr old non-breeders, 0.73 (se = 0.04) for non-breeders older than 2 yrs old and 0.93 (se = 0.04) for breeders. probabilities of recruitment were 0 for birds aged 1-4, 0.10 (se = 0.06) for birds aged 5 and 0.19 (se = 0.09) for older birds. population viability analyses estimated an annual decline of 3-4% of the breeding population under current conditions. our results indicate that only by combining different management actions in the breeding area, especially by removing the most important causes of human-related mortality (poisoning and collisions on wind farms), will the population grow and persist in the long term. reinforcement with captive breeding may also have positive effects but only in combination with the reduction in causes of non-natural mortality. these results, although obtained for a focal species, may be applicable to other endangered populations of long-lived avian scavengers inhabiting southern europe. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "the czech surveillance system for invasive pneumococcal disease, 2008-2013: a follow-up assessment and sensitivity estimation",NA,PLOS ONE,STOCK NK;MALY M;SEBESTOVA H;ORLIKOVA H;KOZAKOVA J;KRIZOVA P,"background invasive pneumococcal disease (ipd) is caused by streptococcus pneumoniae and mostly presents as pneumonia, sepsis or meningitis. a notable portion of ipd cases is vaccine preventable and the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (pcv) was introduced into the routine childhood immunization programs in many countries during the last decades. objectives before pcv introduction in the czech republic in 2010, a national surveillance system for ipd was implemented in 2008 and further improved in 2011. in this study, we describe the new surveillance system for the first time and measure its sensitivity between 2010 and 2013 using the capture-recapture method. furthermore, we describe the recent epidemiological trend of ipd, taking sensitivity estimates into account. results and conclusions between 2010 and 2013 the estimated sensitivity of the overall ipd surveillance increased from 81% to 99%. the sensitivity of individual reporting sources increased from 72% to 87% for the laboratory system and from 31% to 89% for the epidemiological notification system. crucial for this improvement was the introduction of quarterly report reminders in 2011. due to positive source dependency, the presented sensitivity estimates are most probably overestimated and reflect the upper limit of reporting completeness. stratification showed variation in sensitivity of reporting particularly according to region. an effect of the pvc vaccination in the czech republic is visible in the incidence of ipd in target age groups (<5y). this influence was not evident in the total ipd incidence and may interfere with increasing sensitivity of reporting. in 2013, an increase in the ipd incidence was observed. this finding requires further observation and a detailed vaccine impact analysis is needed to assess the current immunization strategy." estimating population size for capercaillie (tetrao urogallus l.) with spatial capture-recapture models based on genotypes from one field sample,NA,PLOS ONE,MOLLET P;KERY M;GARDNER B;PASINELLI G;ROYLE JA,"we conducted a survey of an endangered and cryptic forest grouse, the capercaillie tetrao urogallus, based on droppings collected on two sampling occasions in eight forest fragments in central switzerland in early spring 2009. we used genetic analyses to sex and individually identify birds. we estimated sex-dependent detection probabilities and population size using a modern spatial capture-recapture (scr) model for the data from pooled surveys. a total of 127 capercaillie genotypes were identified (77 males, 46 females, and 4 of unknown sex). the scr model yielded atotal population size estimate (posterior mean) of 137.3 capercaillies (posterior sd 4.2, 95% cri 130-147). the observed sex ratio was skewed towards males (0.63). the posterior mean of the sex ratio under the scr model was 0.58 (posterior sd 0.02, 95% cri 0.54-0.61), suggesting a male-biased sex ratio in our study area. a subsampling simulation study indicated that a reduced sampling effort representing 75% of the actual detections would still yield practically acceptable estimates of total size and sex ratio in our population. hence, field work and financial effort could be reduced without compromising accuracy when the scr model is used to estimate key population parameters of cryptic species." -unintended consequences of management actions in salt pond restoration: cascading effects in trophic interactions,NA,PLOS ONE,TAKEKAWA JY;ACKERMAN JT;BRAND LA;GRAHAM TR;EAGLES-SMITH CA;HERZOG MP;TOPPING BR;SHELLENBARGER GG;KUWABARA JS;MRUZ E;PIOTTER SL;ATHEARN ND,"salt evaporation ponds have played an important role as habitat for migratory waterbirds across the world, however, efforts to restore and manage these habitats to maximize their conservation value has proven to be challenging. for example, salinity reduction has been a goal for restoring and managing former salt evaporation ponds to support waterbirds in the south bay salt pond restoration project in san francisco bay, california, usa. here, we describe a case study of unexpected consequences of a low-dissolved oxygen (do) event on trophic interactions in a salt pond system following management actions to reduce salinity concentrations. we document the ramifications of an anoxic event in water quality including salinity, do, and temperature, and in the response of the biota including prey fish biomass, numerical response by california gulls (larus californicus), and chick survival of forster's tern (sterna forsteri). management actions intended to protect receiving waters resulted in decreased do concentrations that collapsed to zero for >= 4 consecutive days, resulting in an extensive fish kill. do depletion likely resulted from an algal bloom that arose following transition of the pond system from high to low salinity as respiration and decomposition outpaced photosynthetic production. we measured a >= 6-fold increase in biomass of fish dropped on the levee by foraging avian predators compared with weeks prior to and following the low-do event. california gulls rapidly responded to the availability of aerobically-stressed and vulnerable fish and increased in abundance by two orders of magnitude. mark-recapture analysis of 254 forster's tern chicks indicated that their survival declined substantially following the increase in gull abundance. thus, management actions to reduce salinity concentrations resulted in cascading effects in trophic interactions that serves as a cautionary tale illustrating the importance of understanding the interaction of water quality and trophic structure when managing restoration of salt ponds." +unintended consequences of management actions in salt pond restoration: cascading effects in trophic interactions,NA,PLOS ONE,TAKEKAWA JY;ACKERMAN JT;BRAND LA;GRAHAM TR;EAGLES SMITH CA;HERZOG MP;TOPPING BR;SHELLENBARGER GG;KUWABARA JS;MRUZ E;PIOTTER SL;ATHEARN ND,"salt evaporation ponds have played an important role as habitat for migratory waterbirds across the world, however, efforts to restore and manage these habitats to maximize their conservation value has proven to be challenging. for example, salinity reduction has been a goal for restoring and managing former salt evaporation ponds to support waterbirds in the south bay salt pond restoration project in san francisco bay, california, usa. here, we describe a case study of unexpected consequences of a low-dissolved oxygen (do) event on trophic interactions in a salt pond system following management actions to reduce salinity concentrations. we document the ramifications of an anoxic event in water quality including salinity, do, and temperature, and in the response of the biota including prey fish biomass, numerical response by california gulls (larus californicus), and chick survival of forster's tern (sterna forsteri). management actions intended to protect receiving waters resulted in decreased do concentrations that collapsed to zero for >= 4 consecutive days, resulting in an extensive fish kill. do depletion likely resulted from an algal bloom that arose following transition of the pond system from high to low salinity as respiration and decomposition outpaced photosynthetic production. we measured a >= 6-fold increase in biomass of fish dropped on the levee by foraging avian predators compared with weeks prior to and following the low-do event. california gulls rapidly responded to the availability of aerobically-stressed and vulnerable fish and increased in abundance by two orders of magnitude. mark-recapture analysis of 254 forster's tern chicks indicated that their survival declined substantially following the increase in gull abundance. thus, management actions to reduce salinity concentrations resulted in cascading effects in trophic interactions that serves as a cautionary tale illustrating the importance of understanding the interaction of water quality and trophic structure when managing restoration of salt ponds." reproductive consequences of the timing of seasonal movements in a nonmigratory wild bird population,"arrival time; breeding success; capture-recapture-resight; great tit; parus major; reproductive outcome; super-population; synchronous arrival; wytham woods, uk",ECOLOGY,MATECHOU E;CHENG SC;KIDD LR;GARROWAY CJ,"animal movement patterns, whether related to dispersal, migration, or ranging behaviors, vary in time. individual movements reflect the outcomes of interactions between an individual's condition and a multitude of underlying ecological processes. theory predicts that when competition for breeding territories is high, individuals should arrive at breeding sites earlier than what would otherwise be optimal for breeding in the absence of competition. this is because priority at a site can confer significant competitive advantages leading to better breeding outcomes. empirical data from long-distance migrants support this theory. however, it has not been tested within the context of fine-scale movements in nonmigratory populations. we assessed the effect of arrival time at a breeding site on reproductive outcomes in an intensively monitored resident population of great tits (parus major). the population was monitored passively, via passive integrated transponder (pit) tag loggers, and actively, via catching, during breeding and nonbreeding seasons. we developed new capture-recapture-resight models that use both data types to model breeding outcome conditional on the unknown individual arrival times. in accordance with theory, individuals arrived at the woods synchronously in waves that were large at the beginning of the nonbreeding season and small toward the end, with very few arrivals in the intervening period. there was a strong effect of arrival time on the probability of breeding; the earlier an individual arrived, the more likely it was to successfully establish a nest that reached the incubation period. however, once nests were established, they had equal probabilities of failing early, regardless of arrival time. finally, there was moderate evidence of a negative effect of arrival time on the probability of successfully fledging nestlings. these empirical findings are consistent with theoretical models that suggest an important role for competition in shaping fine-scale seasonal movements. our capture-recapture-resight models are extensible and suitable for a variety of applications, particularly when the goal is to estimate the effects of unobservable arrival times on subsequent ecological outcomes." spatial variation in population density affects dispersal behavior in brush mice,density dependence; dispersal; peromyscus boylii; population density; spatially explicit capture-recapture models,ECOLOGY,WOJAN CM;KNAPP SM;MABRY KE,"population density can influence all three phases of natal dispersal: departure from the place of birth, searching the landscape, and selecting a new site in which to settle. the direction of the effect of density on dispersal should be affected by the relative costs and benefits of living in an area with high population density. animals may benefit from high population density due to mate availability and predator risk dilution, but may also face increased competition in high density areas. these conflicting mechanisms should influence the pattern of change in population density between pre- and post-dispersal locations: do dispersing individuals choose to move to areas of higher or lower population density than that at their natal site? we examined the influence of density on dispersal in brush mice (peromyscus boylii). we documented pre-and post-dispersal locations of individuals using both radio telemetry and live-trapping, and used a spatially explicit capture-recapture model to estimate density across the landscape. we also tested for a relationship between dispersal distance and local population density at the natal site. animals tended to settle in areas with higher population densities than where they were born. this pattern held when landscape-level changes in population density were incorporated: the magnitude of change in local population density between the pre-and post-dispersal locations of a given individual tended to be greater than would be explained by increasing population density across the landscape alone. further, dispersal distances were shorter when local natal population density was higher." -"social structure and abundance of coastal bottlenose dolphins, tursiops truncatus, in the normano-breton gulf, english channel",abundance; bottlenose dolphins tursiops truncatus; fission-fusion; mark-recapture; normano-breton gulf; photo-identification; social structure,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LOUIS M;GALLY F;BARBRAUD C;BEESAU J;TIXIER P;SIMON-BOUHET B;LE REST K;GUINET C,"a large, but poorly studied, bottlenose dolphin community, tursiops truncatus, inhabits coastal waters of normandy (normano-breton gulf, english channel, france). in this study, the social structure and abundance of this community were assessed using photo-identification techniques. like other bottlenose dolphin communities worldwide, this resident community has a fission-fusion social structure with fluid associations among individuals (half-weight index = 0.10). association patterns were highly variable as indicated by a high social differentiation (s = 0.95 +/- 0.03). the majority of associations were casual, lasting days to months. however, individuals exhibited also a smaller proportion of long-term relationships. a mean group size of 26 was large compared with other resident coastal communities, and variable, ranging from 1 to 100, which could be the results of ecological conditions, in particular resource predictability and availability. analyses also showed that the community was organized in 3 social clusters that were not completely isolated from each other. abundance was estimated at 420 dolphins (95% confidence interval: 331-521), making this coastal community one of the largest identified along european coastlines. because human activities in the gulf are expected to increase in the upcoming years, long-term demographic monitoring of this dolphin community will be critical for its management." -"island-island and island-mainland movements of the curacaoan long-nosed bat, leptonycteris curasoae",dutch caribbean; leptonycteris curasoae; long-distance movements; mark-recapture; migration; venezuela,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,SIMAL F;DE LANNOY C;GARCIA-SMITH L;DOEST O;DE FREITAS JA;FRANKEN F;ZAANDAM I;MARTINO A;GONZALEZ-CARCACIA JA;PENALOZA CL;BERTUOL P;SIMAL D;NASSAR JM,"of the 3 species comprising the genus leptonycteris miller, l. curasoae has been the least studied with respect to its long-distance flights and potential for seasonal migrations. we studied long-distance movements between islands and between islands and the mainland in the curacaoan long-nosed bat. we used mark-recapture with periodic sampling and marking of bats in aruba, curacao, bonaire, and 1 location (butare) in falcon state, on the venezuelan coastline. between october 2008 and april 2014, we captured a total of 7,518 individuals at 11 sites (aruba: n = 1,827, curacao: 778, bonaire: 4,128, and butare: 785). between 78.3% and 98.0% of the bats captured at each island and mainland were marked, and the overall percentage of recaptured animals across all sampling sites was 8.31% (n = 529). l. curasoae inhabits the 3 islands year-round. on each island, it roosts in several caves, which can be used alternatively by the same individuals. despite being a resident species, l. curasoae can perform long-distance oversea flights between islands and between islands and the south american mainland. a total of 11 long-distance flights were recorded (2 bonaire-aruba, 4 bonaire-curacao, 1 curacao-bonaire, 1 bonaire-venezuela, and 3 aruba-venezuela). we propose that populations of this species in aruba, curacao, bonaire, and falcon state, venezuela, exchange individuals, and part of the insular populations migrate seasonally southward as a response to cyclical changes in local resource availability and the yearly reproductive regime." +"social structure and abundance of coastal bottlenose dolphins, tursiops truncatus, in the normano-breton gulf, english channel",abundance; bottlenose dolphins tursiops truncatus; fission-fusion; mark-recapture; normano-breton gulf; photo-identification; social structure,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LOUIS M;GALLY F;BARBRAUD C;BEESAU J;TIXIER P;SIMON BOUHET B;LE REST K;GUINET C,"a large, but poorly studied, bottlenose dolphin community, tursiops truncatus, inhabits coastal waters of normandy (normano-breton gulf, english channel, france). in this study, the social structure and abundance of this community were assessed using photo-identification techniques. like other bottlenose dolphin communities worldwide, this resident community has a fission-fusion social structure with fluid associations among individuals (half-weight index = 0.10). association patterns were highly variable as indicated by a high social differentiation (s = 0.95 +/- 0.03). the majority of associations were casual, lasting days to months. however, individuals exhibited also a smaller proportion of long-term relationships. a mean group size of 26 was large compared with other resident coastal communities, and variable, ranging from 1 to 100, which could be the results of ecological conditions, in particular resource predictability and availability. analyses also showed that the community was organized in 3 social clusters that were not completely isolated from each other. abundance was estimated at 420 dolphins (95% confidence interval: 331-521), making this coastal community one of the largest identified along european coastlines. because human activities in the gulf are expected to increase in the upcoming years, long-term demographic monitoring of this dolphin community will be critical for its management." +"island-island and island-mainland movements of the curacaoan long-nosed bat, leptonycteris curasoae",dutch caribbean; leptonycteris curasoae; long-distance movements; mark-recapture; migration; venezuela,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,SIMAL F;DE LANNOY C;GARCIA SMITH L;DOEST O;DE FREITAS JA;FRANKEN F;ZAANDAM I;MARTINO A;GONZALEZ CARCACIA JA;PENALOZA CL;BERTUOL P;SIMAL D;NASSAR JM,"of the 3 species comprising the genus leptonycteris miller, l. curasoae has been the least studied with respect to its long-distance flights and potential for seasonal migrations. we studied long-distance movements between islands and between islands and the mainland in the curacaoan long-nosed bat. we used mark-recapture with periodic sampling and marking of bats in aruba, curacao, bonaire, and 1 location (butare) in falcon state, on the venezuelan coastline. between october 2008 and april 2014, we captured a total of 7,518 individuals at 11 sites (aruba: n = 1,827, curacao: 778, bonaire: 4,128, and butare: 785). between 78.3% and 98.0% of the bats captured at each island and mainland were marked, and the overall percentage of recaptured animals across all sampling sites was 8.31% (n = 529). l. curasoae inhabits the 3 islands year-round. on each island, it roosts in several caves, which can be used alternatively by the same individuals. despite being a resident species, l. curasoae can perform long-distance oversea flights between islands and between islands and the south american mainland. a total of 11 long-distance flights were recorded (2 bonaire-aruba, 4 bonaire-curacao, 1 curacao-bonaire, 1 bonaire-venezuela, and 3 aruba-venezuela). we propose that populations of this species in aruba, curacao, bonaire, and falcon state, venezuela, exchange individuals, and part of the insular populations migrate seasonally southward as a response to cyclical changes in local resource availability and the yearly reproductive regime." fire frequency matters more than fire size: testing the pyrodiversity-biodiversity paradigm for at-risk small mammals in an australian tropical savanna,extinction; fire intensity; fire management; population viability analysis; savanna; threatened species; simulation experiment,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,GRIFFITHS AD;GARNETT ST;BROOK BW,"patch-mosaic burning is a widely accepted practical approach to managing biodiversity, whereby spatial and temporal diversity of fire is manipulated to benefit biotic diversity. we use simulation experiments based on stochastic population viability analysis to evaluate the implications of contrasting patch-mosaic burning scenarios for the population dynamics and risk of decline of four species of small mammals in northern australia. our results, based on models developed from detailed mark-recapture data, suggest that fire frequency has more influence on small-mammal persistence than fire extent. risk of extinction increased for all four species when fire frequency exceeded once every five years. under current ambient fire regimes most australia tropical savannas burn more frequently and therefore seem to have unfavourable consequences for this faunal group and risk precipitating severe future declines. crown copyright (c) 2015 published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -"neighbouring populations, opposite dynamics: influence of body size and environmental variation on the demography of stream-resident brown trout (salmo trutta)",size-structured populations; e-surge; habitat heterogeneity; temperature; trout,OECOLOGIA,FERNANDEZ-CHACON A;GENOVART M;ALVAREZ D;CANO JM;OJANGUREN AF;RODRIGUEZ-MUNOZ R;NICIEZA AG,"in organisms such as fish, where body size is considered an important state variable for the study of their population dynamics, size-specific growth and survival rates can be influenced by local variation in both biotic and abiotic factors, but few studies have evaluated the complex relationships between environmental variability and size-dependent processes. we analysed a 6-year capture-recapture dataset of brown trout (salmo trutta) collected at 3 neighbouring but heterogeneous mountain streams in northern spain with the aim of investigating the factors shaping the dynamics of local populations. the influence of body size and water temperature on survival and individual growth was assessed under a multi-state modelling framework, an extension of classical capture-recapture models that considers the state (i.e. body size) of the individual in each capture occasion and allows us to obtain state-specific demographic rates and link them to continuous environmental variables. individual survival and growth patterns varied over space and time, and evidence of size-dependent survival was found in all but the smallest stream. at this stream, the probability of reaching larger sizes was lower compared to the other wider and deeper streams. water temperature variables performed better in the modelling of the highest-altitude population, explaining over a 99 % of the variability in maturation transitions and survival of large fish. the relationships between body size, temperature and fitness components found in this study highlight the utility of multi-state approaches to investigate small-scale demographic processes in heterogeneous environments, and to provide reliable ecological knowledge for management purposes." +"neighbouring populations, opposite dynamics: influence of body size and environmental variation on the demography of stream-resident brown trout (salmo trutta)",size-structured populations; e-surge; habitat heterogeneity; temperature; trout,OECOLOGIA,FERNANDEZ CHACON A;GENOVART M;ALVAREZ D;CANO JM;OJANGUREN AF;RODRIGUEZ MUNOZ R;NICIEZA AG,"in organisms such as fish, where body size is considered an important state variable for the study of their population dynamics, size-specific growth and survival rates can be influenced by local variation in both biotic and abiotic factors, but few studies have evaluated the complex relationships between environmental variability and size-dependent processes. we analysed a 6-year capture-recapture dataset of brown trout (salmo trutta) collected at 3 neighbouring but heterogeneous mountain streams in northern spain with the aim of investigating the factors shaping the dynamics of local populations. the influence of body size and water temperature on survival and individual growth was assessed under a multi-state modelling framework, an extension of classical capture-recapture models that considers the state (i.e. body size) of the individual in each capture occasion and allows us to obtain state-specific demographic rates and link them to continuous environmental variables. individual survival and growth patterns varied over space and time, and evidence of size-dependent survival was found in all but the smallest stream. at this stream, the probability of reaching larger sizes was lower compared to the other wider and deeper streams. water temperature variables performed better in the modelling of the highest-altitude population, explaining over a 99 % of the variability in maturation transitions and survival of large fish. the relationships between body size, temperature and fitness components found in this study highlight the utility of multi-state approaches to investigate small-scale demographic processes in heterogeneous environments, and to provide reliable ecological knowledge for management purposes." characterizing avian survival along a rural-to-urban land use gradient,"avian demography; birds; citizen science; land use gradients; mark-recapture; neighborhood nestwatch; resource availability; survival; top-down vs. bottom-up processes; urbanization; washington, dc, usa",ECOLOGY,EVANS BS;RYDER TB;REITSMA R;HURLBERT AH;MARRA PP,"many avian species persist in human-dominated landscapes; however, little is known about the demographic consequences of urbanization in these populations. given that urban habitats introduce novel benefits (e.g., anthropogenic resources) and pressures (e.g., mortality risks), conflicting mechanisms have been hypothesized to drive the dynamics of urban bird populations. top-down processes such as predation predict reduced survivorship in suburban and urban habitats, whereas bottom-up processes, such as increased resource availability, predict peak survival in suburban habitats. in this study, we use mark-recapture data of seven focal species encountered between 2000 and 2012 to test hypotheses about the processes that regulate avian survival along an urbanization gradient in greater washington, d.c., usa. american robin, gray catbird, northern cardinal, and song sparrow exhibited peak survival at intermediate and upper portions of the rural-to-urban gradient; this pattern supports the hypothesis that bottom-up processes (e.g., resource availability) can drive patterns of avian survival in some species. in contrast, carolina chickadee showed no response and carolina and house wren showed a slightly negative response to urban land cover. these contrasting results underscore the need for comparative studies documenting the mechanisms that drive demography and how those factors differentially affect urban adapted and urban avoiding species." -multi-event capture-recapture analysis reveals individual foraging specialization in a generalist species,"anthropogenic food subsidies; capture-recapture modeling; ciconia ciconia; donana, southwestern spain; ecological processes; foraging behavior; multi-event analysis; niche specialization; refuse dumps; ricefields; white stork",ECOLOGY,SANZ-AGUILAR A;JOVANI R;MELIAN CJ;PRADEL R;TELLA JL,"populations of species typically considered trophic generalists may include specialized individuals consistently feeding on certain resources. optimal foraging theory states that individuals should feed on those resources most valuable to them. this, however, may vary according to individual differences in detecting or processing resources, different optimization criteria, and competitive abilities. white storks (ciconia ciconia) are trophic generalists at the population level. their european population recovery has been attributed to increased wintering in southern europe (rather than africa) where they feed upon new anthropogenic food subsidies: predictable dumps and less predictable and more difficult to detect, but abundant, invasive procambarus clarkii crayfishes in ricefields. we studied the foraging strategies of resident and wintering storks in southwestern spain in ricefields and dumps, predicting that more experience in the study area (residents vs. immigrants, old vs. young) would increase ricefield specialization. we developed the first multi-event capture-recapture model to evaluate behavioral consistency, analyzing 3042 observations of 1684 banded storks. there were more specialists among residents (72%) than immigrants (40%). all resident specialists foraged in ricefields, and ricefield use increased with individual age. in contrast, some immigrants specialized on either dumps (24%) or ricefields (16%), but the majority were generalists (60%). our results provide empirical evidence of high individual foraging consistency within a generalist species and a differential resource selection by individuals of different ages and origins, probably related to their previous experience in the foraging area. thus, future changes in food resource availability at either of the two anthropogenic subsidies (ricefields or dumps) may differentially impact individuals of different ages and origins making up the wintering population. the use of multi-event capture-recapture modeling has proven useful for studying interindividual variability in behavior." +multi-event capture-recapture analysis reveals individual foraging specialization in a generalist species,"anthropogenic food subsidies; capture-recapture modeling; ciconia ciconia; donana, southwestern spain; ecological processes; foraging behavior; multi-event analysis; niche specialization; refuse dumps; ricefields; white stork",ECOLOGY,SANZ AGUILAR A;JOVANI R;MELIAN CJ;PRADEL R;TELLA JL,"populations of species typically considered trophic generalists may include specialized individuals consistently feeding on certain resources. optimal foraging theory states that individuals should feed on those resources most valuable to them. this, however, may vary according to individual differences in detecting or processing resources, different optimization criteria, and competitive abilities. white storks (ciconia ciconia) are trophic generalists at the population level. their european population recovery has been attributed to increased wintering in southern europe (rather than africa) where they feed upon new anthropogenic food subsidies: predictable dumps and less predictable and more difficult to detect, but abundant, invasive procambarus clarkii crayfishes in ricefields. we studied the foraging strategies of resident and wintering storks in southwestern spain in ricefields and dumps, predicting that more experience in the study area (residents vs. immigrants, old vs. young) would increase ricefield specialization. we developed the first multi-event capture-recapture model to evaluate behavioral consistency, analyzing 3042 observations of 1684 banded storks. there were more specialists among residents (72%) than immigrants (40%). all resident specialists foraged in ricefields, and ricefield use increased with individual age. in contrast, some immigrants specialized on either dumps (24%) or ricefields (16%), but the majority were generalists (60%). our results provide empirical evidence of high individual foraging consistency within a generalist species and a differential resource selection by individuals of different ages and origins, probably related to their previous experience in the foraging area. thus, future changes in food resource availability at either of the two anthropogenic subsidies (ricefields or dumps) may differentially impact individuals of different ages and origins making up the wintering population. the use of multi-event capture-recapture modeling has proven useful for studying interindividual variability in behavior." novel use of pit tags in sea cucumbers: promising results with the commercial species cucumaria frondosa,NA,PLOS ONE,GIANASI BL;VERKAIK K;HAMEL JF;MERCIER A,"the lack of a reliable and innocuous mark-recapture method has limited studies that would provide essential information for the management of commercial sea cucumbers. tagging sea cucumbers is notoriously difficult because of their plastic nature and autolysis capacities. the markers that have so far been tested, mainly on or through the body wall, were either lost rapidly or had major drawbacks (e.g. suitable only for batch identification, requiring complex analysis, causing infections, necrosis, behavioural changes and mortality). the present study explored the efficacy of passive integrated transponder (pit) tags for individually marking sea cucumbers by assessing retention rates and long-term side effects of tags inserted in previously unstudied tissues/organs. individuals of the species cucumaria frondosa were tagged in the body wall, aquapharyngeal bulb and at the base of the oral tentacles. they were monitored closely for evidence of stress, infection, change in feeding and spawning behaviour and tag retention rate. implanting the tag in an oral tentacle to reach the hydrovascular system of the aquapharyngeal bulb achieved the best retention rates in full-size individuals: from a maximum of 92% after 30 days to 68% at the end of the experimental period (300 days). efficacy was lower in smaller individuals (84% after 30 d and 42% after 300 d). following a slight increase in cloacal movements for 15 h post tagging, no side effect was noted in sea cucumbers tagged in the aquapharyngeal bulb via the tentacles. feeding and spawning behaviours were not affected and no signs of infections or abnormal cell development in the vicinity of the tags were observed. this study indicates that marking sea cucumbers with 8.2 mm long pit tags implanted via the oral tentacle is an effective technique, yielding relatively high retention rates over long periods without any detectable physiological or behavioural effects." non-invasive genetic mark-recapture as a means to study population sizes and marking behaviour of the elusive eurasian otter (lutra lutra),NA,PLOS ONE,LAMPA S;MIHOUB JB;GRUBER B;KLENKE R;HENLE K,"quantifying population status is a key objective in many ecological studies, but is often difficult to achieve for cryptic or elusive species. here, non-invasive genetic capture-mark-recapture (cmr) methods have become a very important tool to estimate population parameters, such as population size and sex ratio. the eurasian otter (lutra lutra) is such an elusive species of management concern and is increasingly studied using faecal-based genetic sampling. for unbiased sex ratios or population size estimates, the marking behaviour of otters has to be taken into account. using 2132 otter faeces of a wild otter population in upper lusatia (saxony, germany) collected over six years (2006-2012), we studied the marking behaviour and applied closed population cmr models accounting for genetic mis-identification to estimate population sizes and sex ratios. we detected a sex difference in the marking behaviour of otters with jelly samples being more often defecated by males and placed actively exposed on frequently used marking sites. since jelly samples are of higher dna quality, it is important to not only concentrate on this kind of samples or marking sites and to invest in sufficiently high numbers of repetitions of non-jelly samples to ensure an unbiased sex ratio. furthermore, otters seemed to increase marking intensity due to the handling of their spraints, hence accounting for this behavioural response could be important. we provided the first precise population size estimate with confidence intervals for upper lusatia (for 2012: (n) over cap = 20 +/- 2.1, 95% ci = 16-25) and showed that spraint densities are not a reliable index for abundances. we further demonstrated that when minks live in sympatry with otters and have comparably high densities, a non-negligible number of supposed otter samples are actually of mink origin. this could severely bias results of otter monitoring if samples are not genetically identified." random versus game trail-based camera trap placement strategy for monitoring terrestrial mammal communities,NA,PLOS ONE,CUSACK JJ;DICKMAN AJ;ROWCLIFFE JM;CARBONE C;MACDONALD DW;COULSON T,"camera trap surveys exclusively targeting features of the landscape that increase the probability of photographing one or several focal species are commonly used to draw inferences on the richness, composition and structure of entire mammal communities. however, these studies ignore expected biases in species detection arising from sampling only a limited set of potential habitat features. in this study, we test the influence of camera trap placement strategy on community-level inferences by carrying out two spatially and temporally concurrent surveys of medium to large terrestrial mammal species within tanzania's ruaha national park, employing either strictly game trail-based or strictly random camera placements. we compared the richness, composition and structure of the two observed communities, and evaluated what makes a species significantly more likely to be caught at trail placements. observed communities differed marginally in their richness and composition, although differences were more noticeable during the wet season and for low levels of sampling effort. lognormal models provided the best fit to rank abundance distributions describing the structure of all observed communities, regardless of survey type or season. despite this, carnivore species were more likely to be detected at trail placements relative to random ones during the dry season, as were larger bodied species during the wet season. our findings suggest that, given adequate sampling effort (> 1400 camera trap nights), placement strategy is unlikely to affect inferences made at the community level. however, surveys should consider more carefully their choice of placement strategy when targeting specific taxonomic or trophic groups." @@ -534,9 +534,9 @@ red squirrel middens influence abundance but not diversity of other vertebrates, carbon (delta c-13) and nitrogen (delta n-15) stable isotope signatures in bat fur indicate swarming sites have catchment areas for bats from different summering areas,NA,PLOS ONE,SEGERS JL;BRODERS HG,"migratory patterns of bats are not well understood and traditional methods to study this, like capture-mark-recapture, may not provide enough detail unless there are many records. stable isotope profiles of many animal species have been used to make inferences about migration. each year myotis lucifugus and m. septentrionalis migrate from summering roosts to swarming caves and mines in the fall, but the pattern of movement between them is not well understood. in this study, fur delta c-13 and delta n-15 values of 305 m. lucifugus and 200 m. septentrionalis were analyzed to make inferences about migration patterns between summering areas and swarming sites in nova scotia, canada. we expected that there would be greater variability in delta c-13 and delta n-15 among individuals at swarming sites because it was believed that these sites are used by individuals originating from many summering areas. there was extensive overlap in the standard ellipse area, corrected for small sample sizes (sea(c)), of bats at swarming sites and much less overlap in sea(c) among groups sampled at summering areas. meaningful inference could not be made on m. septentrionalis because their low variation in sea(c) may have been the result of sampling only 3 summering areas. however, for m. lucifugus, swarming sites had larger sea(c) than summering areas and predictive discriminant analysis assigned swarming bats to multiple summering areas, supporting the contention that swarming bats are mixed aggregations of bats from several summering areas. together, these data support the contention that swarming sites have catchment areas for bats from multiple summering areas and it is likely that the catchment areas for swarming sites overlap. these data suggest that delta c-13 and delta n-15 profiling of bat fur offer some potential to make inferences about regional migration in bats." do american dippers obtain a survival benefit from altitudinal migration?,NA,PLOS ONE,GREEN DJ;WHITEHORNE IBJ;MIDDLETON HA;MORRISSEY CA,"studies of partial migrants provide an opportunity to assess the cost and benefits of migration. previous work has demonstrated that sedentary american dippers (residents) have higher annual productivity than altitudinal migrants that move to higher elevations to breed. here we use a ten-year (30 period) mark-recapture dataset to evaluate whether migrants offset their lower productivity with higher survival during the migration-breeding period when they occupy different habitat, or early and late-winter periods when they coexist with residents. mark-recapture models provide no evidence that apparent monthly survival of migrants is higher than that of residents at any time of the year. the best-supported model suggests that monthly survival is higher in the migration-breeding period than winter periods. another well-supported model suggested that residency conferred a survival benefit, and annual apparent survival (calculated from model weighted monthly apparent survival estimates using the delta method) of residents (0.511 +/- 0.038se) was slightly higher than that of migrants (0.487 +/- 0.032). winter survival of american dippers was influenced by environmental conditions; monthly apparent survival increased as maximum daily flow rates increased and declined as winter temperatures became colder. however, we found no evidence that environmental conditions altered differences in winter survival of residents and migrants. since migratory american dippers have lower productivity and slightly lower survival than residents our data suggests that partial migration is likely an outcome of competition for limited nest sites at low elevations, with less competitive individuals being forced to migrate to higher elevations in order to breed." functional responses of retaliatory killing versus recreational sport hunting of leopards in south africa,NA,PLOS ONE,SWANEPOEL LH;SOMERS MJ;DALERUM F,"predation strategies in response to altering prey abundances can dramatically influence the demographic effects of predation. despite this, predation strategies of humans are rarely incorporated into quantitative assessments of the demographic impacts of humans killing carnivores. this scarcity largely seems to be caused by a lack of data. in this study, we contrasted predation strategies exhibited by people involved in retaliatory killing and recreational sport hunting of leopards (panthera pardus) in the waterberg district municipality, south africa. we predicted a specialist predation strategy exemplified by a type ii functional response for retaliatory killing, and a generalist strategy exemplified by a type iii functional response for recreational sport hunting. we could not distinguish between a type i, a type ii, or a type iii functional response for retaliatory killing, but the most parsimonious model for recreational sport hunting corresponded to a type i functional response. kill rates were consistently higher for retaliatory killing than for recreational sport hunting. our results indicate that retaliatory killing of leopards may have severe demographic consequences for leopard populations, whereas the demographic consequences of recreational sport hunting likely are less dramatic." -experimental island invasion of house mice,bottleneck; carrying capacity; founder; incursion; logistic; mus musculus,POPULATION ECOLOGY,"NATHAN HW;CLOUT MN;MACKAY JWB;MURPHY EC;RUSSELL JC","the ability of invasive species to recurrently establish populations from small numbers of founders, while threatened species struggle at the same low population sizes, is a paradox in conservation biology. little is known about the mechanisms contributing to the post-arrival success of low density invasive populations as most invasive species research focuses on established, high density populations. experimental studies are powerful, but generally limited to laboratory or invertebrate experiments. here, we experimentally demonstrate that vertebrate mammal invasion from a very small (n = 2) number of founders follows relatively simple deterministic predictions. an intentional island invasion of introduced house mice (mus musculus linnaeus) from one founding pair closely tracked the density dependent logistic growth curve and reached the seasonal carrying capacity of a previously extant population in only 5 months. carrying capacity reflected both density dependent and independent processes. in contrast to the previously incumbent population, the invading population retained a marked genetic signal of its recent founder event, but the populations were otherwise demographically indistinguishable. stochastic events such as individual variability, supplemental immigration and ecological release, but not allee effects, played important roles during colonisation, but following establishment dynamics rapidly became deterministic, with little demographic impact of reduced genetic diversity. the small population paradigm appears to have little influence on the population dynamics of highly successful invasive species." +experimental island invasion of house mice,bottleneck; carrying capacity; founder; incursion; logistic; mus musculus,POPULATION ECOLOGY,NATHAN HW;CLOUT MN;MACKAY JWB;MURPHY EC;RUSSELL JC,"the ability of invasive species to recurrently establish populations from small numbers of founders, while threatened species struggle at the same low population sizes, is a paradox in conservation biology. little is known about the mechanisms contributing to the post-arrival success of low density invasive populations as most invasive species research focuses on established, high density populations. experimental studies are powerful, but generally limited to laboratory or invertebrate experiments. here, we experimentally demonstrate that vertebrate mammal invasion from a very small (n = 2) number of founders follows relatively simple deterministic predictions. an intentional island invasion of introduced house mice (mus musculus linnaeus) from one founding pair closely tracked the density dependent logistic growth curve and reached the seasonal carrying capacity of a previously extant population in only 5 months. carrying capacity reflected both density dependent and independent processes. in contrast to the previously incumbent population, the invading population retained a marked genetic signal of its recent founder event, but the populations were otherwise demographically indistinguishable. stochastic events such as individual variability, supplemental immigration and ecological release, but not allee effects, played important roles during colonisation, but following establishment dynamics rapidly became deterministic, with little demographic impact of reduced genetic diversity. the small population paradigm appears to have little influence on the population dynamics of highly successful invasive species." demography and mobility of three common understory butterfly species from tropical rain forest of papua new guinea,jolly-seber; lepidoptera; mark-release-recapture; melanesia; papilionoidea,POPULATION ECOLOGY,VLASANEK P;NOVOTNY V,"the mobility of butterflies determines their ability to find host plant species, and thus their potential host plant range, as well as their ability to maintain meta-populations in fragmented habitats. while butterfly movement has been extensively studied for temperate species, very little is known for tropical forest species. a mark-release-recapture study of the three most common butterfly species in the understory of a lowland primary rainforest in papua new guinea included 3,705, 394 and 317 marked individuals of danis danis, taenaris sp. and parthenos aspila respectively, with 1,031, 78 and 40 butterfly individuals recaptured at least once. over a period of 6 weeks there were almost 22,000 individuals belonging to these three species hatching within or entering our four study plots totaling 14.58 ha in area. the most abundant species, d. danis, with 20,000 individuals, showed highly variable population densities during the study. the residency time in the studied plots was highest for p. aspila (84 days), as individual butterflies stayed mostly in a single gap; we estimated that less than 1 % of individuals disperse 1 km or more. similar movement probability was found in d. danis whilst in taenaris sp., 10 % of the population disperses a parts per thousand yen1 km. movement distances of d. danis were more than sufficient to locate its host plant, derris elliptica, which occurred in 61 % of the 20 x 20 m subplots within a 50 ha plot. compared with temperate species, our three species have much longer life spans, but their movement patterns remain within the known mobility estimates of temperate species. the mobility of d. danis is close to the average for temperate lycaenidae, while taenaris sp. is more mobile and p. aspila less mobile than the mean for all temperate species." -abundance and demography of bottlenose dolphins inhabiting a subtropical estuary in the southwestern atlantic ocean,abundance; bottlenose dolphin; mark-recapture; power analysis; sex ratio; survival; tursiops truncatus,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,FRUET PF;DAURA-JORGE FG;MOLLER LM;GENOVES RC;SECCHI ER,"we conducted a mark-recapture (mr) analysis from 8 years (2005-2012) of photo-identification data collected systematically to investigate demographic parameters of a community of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) inhabiting the patos lagoon estuary and adjacent marine coast in southern brazil. under the most parsimonious model of pollock's robust design, which disregarded the effects of temporary emigration, the estimate of annual apparent survival was higher for adult females (0.97, 95% ci: 0.91-0.99) than for adult males (0.88, 95% ci: 0.75-0.94) and juveniles (0.83, 95% ci: 0.64-0.93), which may explain an observed bias in sex ratio (1 male:2 females) of known adult dolphins in this community. an increase in abundance of marked individuals was observed during the first 6 years of sampling when the number of new recruits surpassed mortality, followed by a remarkable decrease in the last 2 years when an inverse ratio of recruits/deaths occurred. yearly changes in abundance ((lambda) over cap (t)) varied from -0.1 to 0.07. total abundance estimates were highly precise (the highest coefficient of variation was 0.053) and did not exceed 88 individuals. abundance estimates were similar to a previous mr study conducted in the same area almost a decade earlier, suggesting a relative stable dolphin community over the last 14 years. the apparent stability in abundance, however, should be viewed with caution since this community would need a substantial mortality of at least 10% before a decline in abundance is detected with a desirable statistical power of 90%." +abundance and demography of bottlenose dolphins inhabiting a subtropical estuary in the southwestern atlantic ocean,abundance; bottlenose dolphin; mark-recapture; power analysis; sex ratio; survival; tursiops truncatus,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,FRUET PF;DAURA JORGE FG;MOLLER LM;GENOVES RC;SECCHI ER,"we conducted a mark-recapture (mr) analysis from 8 years (2005-2012) of photo-identification data collected systematically to investigate demographic parameters of a community of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncatus) inhabiting the patos lagoon estuary and adjacent marine coast in southern brazil. under the most parsimonious model of pollock's robust design, which disregarded the effects of temporary emigration, the estimate of annual apparent survival was higher for adult females (0.97, 95% ci: 0.91-0.99) than for adult males (0.88, 95% ci: 0.75-0.94) and juveniles (0.83, 95% ci: 0.64-0.93), which may explain an observed bias in sex ratio (1 male:2 females) of known adult dolphins in this community. an increase in abundance of marked individuals was observed during the first 6 years of sampling when the number of new recruits surpassed mortality, followed by a remarkable decrease in the last 2 years when an inverse ratio of recruits/deaths occurred. yearly changes in abundance ((lambda) over cap (t)) varied from -0.1 to 0.07. total abundance estimates were highly precise (the highest coefficient of variation was 0.053) and did not exceed 88 individuals. abundance estimates were similar to a previous mr study conducted in the same area almost a decade earlier, suggesting a relative stable dolphin community over the last 14 years. the apparent stability in abundance, however, should be viewed with caution since this community would need a substantial mortality of at least 10% before a decline in abundance is detected with a desirable statistical power of 90%." integrating citizen-science data with movement models to estimate the size of a migratory golden eagle population,aquila chrysaetos canadensis; citizen-science; golden eagle; hawk-count data; mark-recapture; raptor migration,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,DENNHARDT AJ;DUERR AE;BRANDES D;KATZNER TE,"estimating population size is fundamental to conservation and management. population size is typically estimated using survey data, computer models, or both. some of the most extensive and often least expensive survey data are those collected by citizen-scientists. a challenge to citizen-scientists is that the vagility of many organisms can complicate data collection. as a result, animal-movement effects on data collection can adversely affect modeling of those data. thus, it would be helpful to develop methods that integrate citizen-science datasets with models that account for animal movement. we used hawk-count data collected by citizen-scientists to estimate the number of golden eagles (aquila chrysaetos canadensis) migrating through pennsylvania, usa. to do this, we designed a computer model to simulate migratory flights of eagles to estimate what proportion of the population is available (i.e., within visible range or close enough) to be counted at hawk-count sites in pennsylvania. we then conducted a multi-state mark-recapture analysis to estimate detection probability (i.e., the rate at which birds within visible range are observed) of migrating eagles. finally, we used availability rates and detection probabilities to adjust raw hawk-count data to produce estimates of population size. our models suggest that 24% (+/- 14; mean +/- se) of migrating golden eagles are available to be counted at hawk-count sites, and that 55% (+/- 1.6) of the available eagles are detected by hawk-count observers. we estimate that 5122 (+/- 1338) golden eagles migrate annually through pennsylvania. our analysis provides the first quantitative estimate of the size of the eastern golden eagle population, and we demonstrate the utility of one approach to use citizen-science data to address a pressing, conservation goal-population size estimation. (c) 2015 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "watershed-scale effectiveness of floodplain habitat restoration for juvenile coho salmon in the chilliwack river, british columbia",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,OGSTON L;GIDORA S;FOY M;ROSENFELD J,"although billions of dollars have been spent restoring degraded watersheds worldwide, watershed-scale studies evaluating their effectiveness are rare. to mitigate damage from past logging activities, the floodplain of the upper chilliwack river watershed (similar to 600 km(2)) was extensively restored from 1996 to 2000 through off-channel habitat restoration. the contribution of restored habitat to watershed-scale production of wild coho (oncorhynchus kisutch) smolts was estimated through an extensive mark-recapture program in 2002. 27%-34% of the production of the estimated 247 200 out-migrating coho smolts could be attributed to the 157 000 m(2) of newly created habitat. area-based habitat models from the literature performed reasonably well in predicting smolt production from restored habitat, providing an acceptable first-order approach for evaluating production benefits of restoration. the costs of smolt production integrated over 30 years ranged from us$0.69-us$10.05 per smolt, falling within the range of hatchery production costs reported elsewhere (typical cost of similar to us$1.00 per smolt) at the most cost-effective restoration sites. this study demonstrates that large-scale habitat restoration can effectively enhance fish production at a watershed scale, at a cost that may be comparable to hatchery smolt production." predicting bobcat abundance at a landscape scale and evaluating occupancy as a density index in central wisconsin,bobcat; detection probability; distribution-density relationships; lynx rufus; population estimate; spatially explicit capture-recapture; trail cameras; wisconsin,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CLARE JDJ;ANDERSON EM;MACFARLAND DM,"the abundance of low-density species like carnivores is logistically difficult to directly estimate at a meaningful scale. predictive distribution models are often used as a surrogate for density estimation. but because density can continue to increase as occupancy asymptotes at 1, occupancy may have little value as an index, and home range expansion in marginal habitat may further confound the association. we sought to estimate bobcat population size at a landscape scale (14,286km(2)) in central wisconsin, which provided an opportunity to relate predicted occurrence to individual space use and population density. we sampled bobcats using motion-sensitive trail cameras at 9 arrays across central wisconsin. we estimated bobcat site-specific occupancy, and regressed these estimates as linear or asymptotic functions of site-specific density to determine the strength and shape of their association. we subsequently modeled both parameters relative to habitat covariates and repeated the regression process. a linear functional relationship between density and occupancy was most supported when detection parameters were held constant (w(i)=0.97, r-2=0.72) and when detection, occurrence, and density were modeled as a function of habitat covariates (w(i)=0.99, r-2=0.95). this suggests that repeated presence-absence data alone may be an efficient and reliable method for inferring spatial patterns in bobcat density or identifying habitat types with greater density potential in the northern parts of its range. bobcat occupancy and density were both positively associated with surrounding woody cover and wetland edge density. our most supported spatially explicit capture-recapture model estimated bobcat abundance as 362 adult individuals (95% ci 272-490) across the study area. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." @@ -546,7 +546,7 @@ mark-recapture and mark-resight methods for estimating abundance with remote cam territory tenure increases with repertoire size in brownish-flanked bush warbler,NA,PLOS ONE,XIA CW;WEI CT;ZHANG YY,"song repertoire size is often cited as a classic example of a secondary sexual trait in birds. models of sexual selection and empirical tests of their predictions have often related secondary sexual traits to longevity. however, the relationship between repertoire size and longevity is unclear. using capture-mark-recapture studies in two populations of the brownish-flanked bush warbler cettia fortipes, we found that males with a repertoire size of three maintained territory tenure for a longer duration than did males with a repertoire size of two. these results provide evidence that even a minimal difference in repertoire size can serve as a potential signal of territory tenure capability." mixture models for distance sampling detection functions,NA,PLOS ONE,MILLER DL;THOMAS L,"we present a new class of models for the detection function in distance sampling surveys of wildlife populations, based on finite mixtures of simple parametric key functions such as the half-normal. the models share many of the features of the widely-used ""key function plus series adjustment"" (k+a) formulation: they are flexible, produce plausible shapes with a small number of parameters, allow incorporation of covariates in addition to distance and can be fitted using maximum likelihood. one important advantage over the k+a approach is that the mixtures are automatically monotonic non-increasing and non-negative, so constrained optimization is not required to ensure distance sampling assumptions are honoured. we compare the mixture formulation to the k+a approach using simulations to evaluate its applicability in a wide set of challenging situations. we also re-analyze four previously problematic real-world case studies. we find mixtures outperform k+a methods in many cases, particularly spiked line transect data (i.e., where detectability drops rapidly at small distances) and larger sample sizes. we recommend that current standard model selection methods for distance sampling detection functions are extended to include mixture models in the candidate set." demographics of the disappearing bottlenose dolphin in argentina: a common species on its way out?,NA,PLOS ONE,VERMEULEN E;BRAGER S,"populations of the once common bottlenose dolphin (tursiops truncatus) in argentina have precipitously declined throughout the country in the past decades. unfortunately, local declines of common species are easily overlooked when establishing priorities for conservation. in this study, demographics of what may well be the last remaining resident population in the country were assessed using mark-recapture analysis (pollock's robust design) of a photo-identification dataset collected during 2006-2011 in bahia san antonio (patagonia, argentina). total abundance, corrected for unmarked individuals, ranged from 40 (95% ci: 16.1-98.8) to 83 (95% ci = 45.8-151.8) individuals and showed a decrease over the years. adult survival rates varied between 0.97 (+/- 0.037 se) and 0.99 (+/- 0.010 se). average calving interval equalled 3.5 +/- 1.03 years, with 3.5 births/year in the entire population and a minimum annual birth rate of 4.2%. however, data suggest that calves may have been born and lost before being documented, underestimating birth rate, calf mortality, and possibly the number of reproductive females. either way, the recruitment rate of calves appears to be insufficient to support the size of the population. this population is relatively small and declining. considering the disappearance of populations north and south of the study area, an incessant decline will have severe consequences for the continuous existence of this species in argentina, indicating an urgent need for serious conservation efforts. this study provides insight into how the failure to recognize local population declines can threaten the national (and eventually the international) status of a common species like the bottlenose dolphin." -partitioning detectability components in populations subject to within-season temporary emigration using binomial mixture models,NA,PLOS ONE,O'DONNELL KM;THOMPSON FR;SEMLITSCH RD,"detectability of individual animals is highly variable and nearly always < 1; imperfect detection must be accounted for to reliably estimate population sizes and trends. hierarchical models can simultaneously estimate abundance and effective detection probability, but there are several different mechanisms that cause variation in detectability. neglecting temporary emigration can lead to biased population estimates because availability and conditional detection probability are confounded. in this study, we extend previous hierarchical binomial mixture models to account for multiple sources of variation in detectability. the state process of the hierarchical model describes ecological mechanisms that generate spatial and temporal patterns in abundance, while the observation model accounts for the imperfect nature of counting individuals due to temporary emigration and false absences. we illustrate our model's potential advantages, including the allowance of temporary emigration between sampling periods, with a case study of southern red-backed salamanders plethodon serratus. we fit our model and a standard binomial mixture model to counts of terrestrial salamanders surveyed at 40 sites during 3-5 surveys each spring and fall 2010-2012. our models generated similar parameter estimates to standard binomial mixture models. aspect was the best predictor of salamander abundance in our case study; abundance increased as aspect became more northeasterly. increased time-since-rainfall strongly decreased salamander surface activity (i.e. availability for sampling), while higher amounts of woody cover objects and rocks increased conditional detection probability (i.e. probability of capture, given an animal is exposed to sampling). by explicitly accounting for both components of detectability, we increased congruence between our statistical modeling and our ecological understanding of the system. we stress the importance of choosing survey locations and protocols that maximize species availability and conditional detection probability to increase population parameter estimate reliability." +partitioning detectability components in populations subject to within-season temporary emigration using binomial mixture models,NA,PLOS ONE,O DONNELL KM;THOMPSON FR;SEMLITSCH RD,"detectability of individual animals is highly variable and nearly always < 1; imperfect detection must be accounted for to reliably estimate population sizes and trends. hierarchical models can simultaneously estimate abundance and effective detection probability, but there are several different mechanisms that cause variation in detectability. neglecting temporary emigration can lead to biased population estimates because availability and conditional detection probability are confounded. in this study, we extend previous hierarchical binomial mixture models to account for multiple sources of variation in detectability. the state process of the hierarchical model describes ecological mechanisms that generate spatial and temporal patterns in abundance, while the observation model accounts for the imperfect nature of counting individuals due to temporary emigration and false absences. we illustrate our model's potential advantages, including the allowance of temporary emigration between sampling periods, with a case study of southern red-backed salamanders plethodon serratus. we fit our model and a standard binomial mixture model to counts of terrestrial salamanders surveyed at 40 sites during 3-5 surveys each spring and fall 2010-2012. our models generated similar parameter estimates to standard binomial mixture models. aspect was the best predictor of salamander abundance in our case study; abundance increased as aspect became more northeasterly. increased time-since-rainfall strongly decreased salamander surface activity (i.e. availability for sampling), while higher amounts of woody cover objects and rocks increased conditional detection probability (i.e. probability of capture, given an animal is exposed to sampling). by explicitly accounting for both components of detectability, we increased congruence between our statistical modeling and our ecological understanding of the system. we stress the importance of choosing survey locations and protocols that maximize species availability and conditional detection probability to increase population parameter estimate reliability." "ecological, evolutionary and social constraints on reproductive effort: are hoary marmots really biennial breeders?",NA,PLOS ONE,PATIL VP;KARELS TJ;HIK DS,"biennial breeding is a rare life-history trait observed in animal species living in harsh, unproductive environments. this reproductive pattern is thought to occur in 10 of 14 species in the genus marmota, making marmots useful model organisms for studying its ecological and evolutionary implications. biennial breeding in marmots has been described as an obligate pattern which evolved as a mechanism to mitigate the energetic costs of reproduction (evolved constraint hypothesis). however, recent anecdotal evidence suggests that it is a facultative pattern controlled by annual variation in climate and food availability (environmental constraint hypothesis). finally, in social animals like marmots, biennial breeding could result from reproductive competition between females within social groups (social constraint hypothesis). we evaluated these three hypotheses using mark-recapture data from an 8-year study of hoary marmot (marmota caligata) population dynamics in the yukon. annual variation in breeding probability was modeled using multi-state markrecapture models, while other reproductive life-history traits were modeled with generalized linear mixed models. hoary marmots were neither obligate nor facultative biennial breeders, and breeding probability was insensitive to evolved, environmental, or social factors. however, newly mature females were significantly less likely to breed than older individuals. annual breeding did not result in increased mortality. female survival and, to a lesser extent, average fecundity were correlated with winter climate, as indexed by the pacific decadal oscillation. hoary marmots are less conservative breeders than previously believed, and the evidence for biennial breeding throughout marmota, and in other arctic/alpine/antarctic animals, should be re-examined. prediction of future population dynamics requires an accurate understanding of life history strategies, and of how life history traits allow animals to cope with changes in weather and other demographic influences." use of pit tags to assess individual heterogeneity of laboratory-reared juveniles of the endangered cumberlandian combshell (epioblasma brevidens) in a mark-recapture study,bayesian; cumberlandian combshell (epioblasma brevidens); detection probability; heterogeneity; hierarchic model; mark-recapture; pit tag; survival rate,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HUA D;JIAO Y;NEVES R;JONES J,"the federally endangered cumberlandian combshell (epioblasma brevidens) was propagated and reared to taggable size (5-10mm), and released to the powell river, tennessee, to augment a relict population. methodology using passive integrated transponder (pit) tags on these mussels greatly facilitated the detection process. the overall mean detection probability and survival rate of released individuals reached 97.8 to 98.4% and 99.7 to 99.9% (per month), respectively, during nine successive recapture occasions in the 2-year study period, regardless of seasonality. nonhierarchical models and hierarchical models incorporating individual and seasonal variations through a bayesian approach were compared and resulted in similar performance of prediction for detection probability and survival rate of mussels. this is the first study to apply the mark-recapture method to laboratory-reared mussels using pit tags and stochastic models. quantitative analyses for individual heterogeneity allowed examination of demographic variance and effects of heterogeneity on population dynamics, although the individual and seasonal variations were small in this study. our results provide useful information in implementing conservation strategies of this faunal group and a framework for other species or similar studies." "lessons learned from implementing three, large-scale tuna tagging programmes in the western and central pacific ocean",bigeye tuna; yellowfin; skipjack; pacific ocean; mark-recapture,FISHERIES RESEARCH,LEROY B;NICOL S;LEWIS A;HAMPTON J;KOLODY D;CAILLOT S;HOYLE S,"in the western and central pacific ocean mark-recapture experiments have been an integral part of monitoring tuna stocks since the late 1970s. the data from tagging campaigns have been included in stock assessments since the 1980s and in integrated analyses since the late 1990s. ensuring that tagging experiments are implemented in a manner that satisfies the incorporation of the data in stock assessment is important to maximize the return on investment. we review three large scale tuna experiments implemented in the western and central pacific ocean to synthesize the lessons learned so that future tagging programmes can save considerable time and money, and maximize the quantity and quality of the data needed to obtain more accurate and precise assessments of stock status. we highlight particular knowledge gaps that require further attention, and suggest some approaches, both technological and methodological, from which future studies could benefit in order to improve our understanding of tuna biology. (c) 2013 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." @@ -555,7 +555,7 @@ determining the age of tropical tunas in the indian ocean from otolith microstru covariates of release mortality and tag loss in large-scale tuna tagging experiments,mark-recapture; post-release mortality; electronic tags; conventional tags; oxytetracycline; tag shedding,FISHERIES RESEARCH,HOYE SD;LEROY BM;NICOL SJ;HAMPTON WJ,"the data from tag-recapture experiments, which are used to help understand animal behaviour and dynamics, and to provide input data for population models such as stock assessments, are affected by mortality associated with tagging and by tag shedding. these processes introduce bias and uncertainty into parameters estimated in population models such as tuna stock assessments. the causes and magnitudes of tag shedding and post-release mortality in tuna tagging experiments are not well understood. we analysed data from tuna tagging experiments in the western pacific (330,000 releases) and indian oceans (168,000 releases) to investigate factors affecting post-release mortality and tag shedding. tag return rates were modelled as functions of the tagger identity, tagger experience, tagging assistant, tagging station, treatment of the fish, use of oxytetracycline, ulna species, and size at release. the release event was included in models as a fixed effect, so that differences in recapture rate among release events did not affect other parameter estimates. we found differences in tag return rates among taggers and tagging assistants, with tagger experience, and between tagging stations. substantially lower return rates were associated with some types of damage to fish and with internally implanted tags, and when oxytetracycline was injected. return rates varied with tuna size and species. in the western pacific yellowfin and bigeye return rates were more affected by some covariates than were skipjack, while differences were not observed in the indian ocean, where sample sizes were smaller. results suggest that tagging mortality may be quite high, and that more care and better recording of fish treatment would increase the reliability of assessment inputs. we provide new effective release numbers that have been adjusted to allow for estimated tagging mortality and tag shedding. (c) 2014 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." evaluation of tag mixing assumptions in western pacific ocean skipjack tuna stock assessment models,mark-recapture; tag mixing; stock assessment; diffusion; skipjack,FISHERIES RESEARCH,KOLODY D;HOYLE S,"fish population estimators (for abundance, mortality and movement) from conventional tagging (mark-recapture) programmes require the assumption that tagged individuals are equally vulnerable to recapture as the (relevant portion of the) untagged population. most commercial tuna species are distributed over millions of square km, with poorly understood stock structure and movement dynamics, while tags tend to be released in much smaller areas that are selected for logistical reasons. if the tags do not mix sufficiently with the general population this could substantially bias tuna stock assessments. we outline two simple quantitative methods for evaluating tag mixing, and apply them to western pacific ocean skipjack tuna (katsuwonis pelamis). the first approach compares, in a discrete time window, the spatial distributions of tag recoveries from pairs of release events that were separated in space and/or time. significant differences between the recovery distributions indicate that tags from the two release events are not fully mixed with each other, such that one or both release events cannot be fully mixed with the general population either. the second approach tests whether tag density (number of recovered tags per unit of catch) is spatially homogeneous for an individual release event. both tests focus on detecting incomplete mixing and neither can prove that full mixing has been achieved. the analyses provide strong evidence that tag mixing assumptions are not being met in recent western pacific skipjack tuna stock assessments. simple diffusion models were fit to the tag density observations and used to simulate the potential magnitude of mixing biases using simple estimators for abundance and natural and fishing mortality. options for reformulating the skipjack assessment are discussed. (c) 2014 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." length-based brownie mark-recapture models: derivation and application to indian ocean skipjack tuna,length-based; mark-recapture; brownie model; skipjack tuna,FISHERIES RESEARCH,HILLARY RM;EVESON JP,"standard brownie mark-recapture models follow tagged cohorts of fish meaning an age-based setting is required, but there are many populations for which length-at-age cannot be characterised. this paper details the derivation of a length-based brownie mark-recapture model, with specific application to indian ocean skipjack tuna. instead of following cohorts (often tagged a number of times) the model follows the recapture history of animals tagged in a given length class and period. for indian ocean skipjack reporting rate uncertainty, related to mixing assumptions, is accounted for using two extreme options. various mortality model structures were explored and length-specific natural mortality and a separable model for fishing mortality were ultimately selected. absolute values of fishing and natural mortality depend strongly on the reporting rate assumptions, with total mortality being far more robust to assumptions about reporting rates. estimates of fishing mortality were highest between mid 2006 and mid 2008, reducing thereafter to levels estimated in late 2005/early 2006. (c) 2014 published by elsevier b.v." -"robust estimates of environmental effects on population vital rates: an integrated capture-recapture model of seasonal brook trout growth, survival and movement in a stream network",annual survival; bayesian modelling; capture-mark-recapture; integrated model; movement; sensitivity; stream fish; stream network; survival,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,LETCHER BH;SCHUELLER P;BASSAR RD;NISLOW KH;COOMBS JA;SAKREJDA K;MORRISSEY M;SIGOURNEY DB;WHITELEY AR;O'DONNELL MJ;DUBREUIL TL,"1. modelling the effects of environmental change on populations is a key challenge for ecologists, particularly as the pace of change increases. currently, modelling efforts are limited by difficulties in establishing robust relationships between environmental drivers and population responses. we developed an integrated capture-recapture state-space model to estimate the effects of two key environmental drivers (stream flow and temperature) on demographic rates (body growth, movement and survival) using a long-term (11years), high-resolution (individually tagged, sampled seasonally) data set of brook trout (salvelinus fontinalis) from four sites in a stream network. our integrated model provides an effective context within which to estimate environmental driver effects because it takes full advantage of data by estimating (latent) state values for missing observations, because it propagates uncertainty among model components and because it accounts for the major demographic rates and interactions that contribute to annual survival. we found that stream flow and temperature had strong effects on brook trout demography. some effects, such as reduction in survival associated with low stream flow and high temperature during the summer season, were consistent across sites and age classes, suggesting that they may serve as robust indicators of vulnerability to environmental change. other survival effects varied across ages, sites and seasons, indicating that flow and temperature may not be the primary drivers of survival in those cases. flow and temperature also affected body growth rates; these responses were consistent across sites but differed dramatically between age classes and seasons. finally, we found that tributary and mainstem sites responded differently to variation in flow and temperature. annual survival (combination of survival and body growth across seasons) was insensitive to body growth and was most sensitive to flow (positive) and temperature (negative) in the summer and fall. these observations, combined with our ability to estimate the occurrence, magnitude and direction of fish movement between these habitat types, indicated that heterogeneity in response may provide a mechanism providing potential resilience to environmental change. given that the challenges we faced in our study are likely to be common to many intensive data sets, the integrated modelling approach could be generally applicable and useful." +"robust estimates of environmental effects on population vital rates: an integrated capture-recapture model of seasonal brook trout growth, survival and movement in a stream network",annual survival; bayesian modelling; capture-mark-recapture; integrated model; movement; sensitivity; stream fish; stream network; survival,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,LETCHER BH;SCHUELLER P;BASSAR RD;NISLOW KH;COOMBS JA;SAKREJDA K;MORRISSEY M;SIGOURNEY DB;WHITELEY AR;O DONNELL MJ;DUBREUIL TL,"1. modelling the effects of environmental change on populations is a key challenge for ecologists, particularly as the pace of change increases. currently, modelling efforts are limited by difficulties in establishing robust relationships between environmental drivers and population responses. we developed an integrated capture-recapture state-space model to estimate the effects of two key environmental drivers (stream flow and temperature) on demographic rates (body growth, movement and survival) using a long-term (11years), high-resolution (individually tagged, sampled seasonally) data set of brook trout (salvelinus fontinalis) from four sites in a stream network. our integrated model provides an effective context within which to estimate environmental driver effects because it takes full advantage of data by estimating (latent) state values for missing observations, because it propagates uncertainty among model components and because it accounts for the major demographic rates and interactions that contribute to annual survival. we found that stream flow and temperature had strong effects on brook trout demography. some effects, such as reduction in survival associated with low stream flow and high temperature during the summer season, were consistent across sites and age classes, suggesting that they may serve as robust indicators of vulnerability to environmental change. other survival effects varied across ages, sites and seasons, indicating that flow and temperature may not be the primary drivers of survival in those cases. flow and temperature also affected body growth rates; these responses were consistent across sites but differed dramatically between age classes and seasons. finally, we found that tributary and mainstem sites responded differently to variation in flow and temperature. annual survival (combination of survival and body growth across seasons) was insensitive to body growth and was most sensitive to flow (positive) and temperature (negative) in the summer and fall. these observations, combined with our ability to estimate the occurrence, magnitude and direction of fish movement between these habitat types, indicated that heterogeneity in response may provide a mechanism providing potential resilience to environmental change. given that the challenges we faced in our study are likely to be common to many intensive data sets, the integrated modelling approach could be generally applicable and useful." the lyme disease pathogen has no effect on the survival of its rodent reservoir host,NA,PLOS ONE,VOORDOUW MJ;LACHISH S;DOLAN MC,"zoonotic pathogens that cause devastating morbidity and mortality in humans may be relatively harmless in their natural reservoir hosts. the tick-borne bacterium borrelia burgdorferi causes lyme disease in humans but few studies have investigated whether this pathogen reduces the fitness of its reservoir hosts under natural conditions. we analyzed four years of capture-mark-recapture (cmr) data on a population of white-footed mice, peromyscus leucopus, to test whether b. burgdorferi and its tick vector affect the survival of this important reservoir host. we used a multi-state cmr approach to model mouse survival and mouse infection rates as a function of a variety of ecologically relevant explanatory factors. we found no effect of b. burgdorferi infection or tick burden on the survival of p. leucopus. our estimates of the probability of infection varied by an order of magnitude (0.051 to 0.535) and were consistent with our understanding of lyme disease in the northeastern united states. b. burgdorferi establishes a chronic avirulent infection in their rodent reservoir hosts because this pathogen depends on rodent mobility to achieve transmission to its sedentary tick vector. the estimates of b. burgdorferi infection risk will facilitate future theoretical studies on the epidemiology of lyme disease." estimating abundance of the remnant apennine brown bear population using multiple noninvasive genetic data sources,apennine brown bear; hair-snagging; huggins model; mark-recapture; noninvasive genetic sampling; population size; program mark; small populations; ursus,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,CIUCCI P;GERVASI V;BOITANI L;BOULANGER J;PAETKAU D;PRIVE R;TOSONI E,"accurate and precise estimates of population size are critical for effective management but can be particularly difficult to achieve for small populations of large carnivores. we approached this challenge by integrating multiple noninvasive data sources into a dna-based mark-recapture framework to estimate the abundance of the small and endangered apennine brown bear population. to improve sample size and coverage, we collected hair samples from june to september 2011 by concurrently using 4 noninvasive sampling methods: intensive hair-snagging (forty-three 5 x 5-km cells and five 12-day sampling sessions) plus secondary sampling methods (bear rub trees, alpine buckthorn aggregations, and incidental sampling). following marker selection based on tissue samples from 55 apennine bears, we used 13 microsatellites (plus gender) and quality assurance protocols to identify multilocus genotypes from hair samples. we used huggins closed models in program mark to estimate population size, which allowed us to account for spatial, temporal, and demographic components of heterogeneity in secondary sampling methods. based on 529 analyzed hair samples, 80.5% of which yielded high-confidence scores for all markers, we achieved a rather precise (cv = 7.9%) population estimate of 51 bears (95% ci = 47-66) including cubs. compared to a previous survey in 2008, our results provide evidence that the apennine brown bear population has not been declining in recent years. additionally, the relatively high (closure corrected) density (39.7 bears/1,000 km(2); 95% ci = 36.6-51.4) indicates that habitat productivity within the core range is currently adequate for bears and that effective conservation of this small bear population should aim to expand the bears' range across a larger portion of the central apennines. we examined if a reduction in sampling effort would affect the precision of our population estimates. reduced sample coverage, small sample size, and low hair-trap-capture probability preclude the adoption of a single sampling method or a subset of such to survey small bear populations if a comparable level of precision is required." "primary productivity and the demography of gracilinanus agilis, a small semelparous marsupial",age structure; capture-mark-recapture; didelphidae; food availability; population dynamics; semelparity,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,PUIDA DBC;PAGLIA AP,"we show in the present study that variations in the rates of survival and recruitment of the agile gracile opossum (gracilinanus agilis) are predominantly influenced by its life history instead of the variation in primary productivity that is common in the brazilian cerrado. for 5 years we monitored a population of g. agilis in a riparian forest running through the cerrado and assessed the relationship between survival and breeding season, as well as the relationship between recruitment and seasons (dry and rainy). we also tested for a relationship between these rates and variations in primary productivity. the survival of males was better predicted by reproductive season than primary productivity and survival decreased after the reproductive season. females showed a similar pattern. our data show the reproduction of g. agilis is seasonal, with recruitment in the rainy season. the demographic analysis made in the present study suggests the adoption of a semelparous strategy in this species." @@ -563,10 +563,10 @@ a forest-grassland boundary enhances patch quality for a grassland-dwelling butt integrated survival analysis using an event-time approach in a bayesian framework,charadrius montanus; continuous time; detection probability; event time; hazard rate; mountain plover; simulation; survival; unknown fate,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,WALSH DP;DREITZ VJ;HEISEY DM,"event-time or continuous-time statistical approaches have been applied throughout the biostatistical literature and have led to numerous scientific advances. however, these techniques have traditionally relied on knowing failure times. this has limited application of these analyses, particularly, within the ecological field where fates of marked animals may be unknown. to address these limitations, we developed an integrated approach within a bayesian framework to estimate hazard rates in the face of unknown fates. we combine failure/survival times from individuals whose fates are known and times of which are interval-censored with information from those whose fates are unknown, and model the process of detecting animals with unknown fates. this provides the foundation for our integrated model and permits necessary parameter estimation. we provide the bayesian model, its derivation, and use simulation techniques to investigate the properties and performance of our approach under several scenarios. lastly, we apply our estimation technique using a piece-wise constant hazard function to investigate the effects of year, age, chick size and sex, sex of the tending adult, and nesting habitat on mortality hazard rates of the endangered mountain plover (charadrius montanus) chicks. traditional models were inappropriate for this analysis because fates of some individual chicks were unknown due to failed radio transmitters. simulations revealed biases of posterior mean estimates were minimal ( 4.95%), and posterior distributions behaved as expected with rmse of the estimates decreasing as sample sizes, detection probability, and survival increased. we determined mortality hazard rates for plover chicks were highest at <5days old and were lower for chicks with larger birth weights and/or whose nest was within agricultural habitats. based on its performance, our approach greatly expands the range of problems for which event-time analyses can be used by eliminating the need for having completely known fate data." move it or lose it: movement and mortality of sablefish tagged in alaska,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,HANSELMAN DH;HEIFETZ J;ECHAVE KB;DRESSEL SC,"a basic step in understanding the dynamics of a fish population is to quantify movement and mortality rates. conventional mark-recapture experiments have provided the foundation for studies on animal movement, particularly for fish. previous studies have shown rapid mixing of sablefish (anoplopoma fimbria) among fishery regulatory areas, with the pattern of movement related to fish size. over 300 000 tag releases in alaska and over 27 000 tag recoveries from 1979 to 2009 were analyzed. we used a markov model to quantify annual movement probabilities among areas for three size groups of sablefish. the negative-binomial likelihood was used to model the tag-recovery data because of significant overdispersion. annual movement probabilities were high, ranging from 10% to 88% depending on area of occupancy at each time step and size group. overall, movement probabilities were very different between areas of occupancy and moderately different between size groups. estimated annual movement of small sablefish from the central gulf of alaska had the reverse pattern of a previous study, with 29% moving westward and 39% moving eastward. movement probabilities also varied annually, with decreasing movement until the late 1990s and increasing movement until 2009. year-specific magnitude in movement probability of large fish was highly negatively correlated with female spawning biomass estimates from the federal stock assessment. mean mortality estimates from time at liberty were similar to the federal stock assessment. incorporating these tag-recovery and movement data into a fully age-structured spatial stock assessment model will inform harvest apportionment strategies to conserve spawning biomass and maximize future yields." estimating cumulative exposure of wildlife to non-lethal disturbance using spatially explicit capture-recapture models,cumulative effects; encounter intensity; encounter probability; habitat use; marine mammal; minke whale; photo-id; spatial ecology; tourism impact,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CHRISTIANSEN F;BERTULLI CG;RASMUSSEN MH;LUSSEAU D,"impact assessments often focus on short-term behavioral responses of animals to human disturbance. however, the cumulative effects caused by repeated behavioral disruptions are of management concern because these effects have the potential to influence individuals' survival and reproduction. we need to estimate individual exposure rates to disturbance to determine cumulative effects. we present a new approach to estimate the spatial exposure of minke whales to whalewatching boats in faxafloi bay, iceland. we used recent advances in spatially explicit capture-recapture modeling to estimate the probability that whales would encounter a disturbance (i.e., whalewatching boat). we obtained spatially explicit individual encounter histories of individually identifiable animals using photo-identification. we divided the study area into 1-km(2) grid cells and considered each cell a spatially distinct sampling unit. we used capture history of individuals to model and estimate spatial encounter probabilities of individual minke whales across the study area, accounting for heterogeneity in sampling effort. we inferred the exposure of individual minke whales to whalewatching vessels throughout the feeding season by estimating individual whale encounters with vessels using the whale encounter probabilities and spatially explicit whalewatching intensity in the same area, obtained from recorded whalewatching vessel tracks. we then estimated the cumulative time whales spent with whalewatching boats to assess the biological significance of whalewatching disturbances. the estimated exposure levels to boats varied considerably between individuals because of both temporal and spatial variations in the activity centers of whales and the whalewatching intensity in the area. however, although some whales were repeatedly exposed to whalewatching boats throughout the feeding season, the estimated cumulative time they spent with boats was very low. although whalewatching boat interactions caused feeding disruptions for the whales, the estimated low cumulative exposure indicated that the whalewatching industry in its current state likely is not having any long-term negative effects on vital rates. (c) 2015 the wildlife society." -costs and benefits of late nesting in cliff swallows,cliff swallow; cost of reproduction; ectoparasites; fecundity; life history; petrochelidon pyrrhonota; reproductive phenology; survival; time of breeding,OECOLOGIA,BROWN CR;ROCHE EA;O'BRIEN VA,"many organisms of temperate latitudes exhibit declines in reproductive success as the breeding season advances. experiments can delay the onset of reproduction for early breeders to investigate the consequences of late nesting, but it is rarely possible to observe a distinct second round of nesting in species that normally nest only once. the colonial cliff swallow (petrochelidon pyrrhonota) is a migratory songbird that has a relatively short breeding season in the western great plains, usa, with birds rarely nesting late in the summer. previous work suggested that ectoparasitism is a primary reason why reproductive success in this species declines over the summer. at colony sites where nests were fumigated to remove ectoparasitic swallow bugs (oeciacus vicarius), cliff swallows frequently undertook a distinct round of late nesting after previously fledging young that year. mark-recapture revealed that late-nesting pairs at these colonies produced fewer offspring that survived to the next breeding season, and that survival of late-nesting adults was lower during the next year, relative to pairs nesting earlier in the season. these reproductive costs applied in the absence of ectoparasites and likely reflect other environmental costs of late nesting such as seasonal declines in food availability or a delayed start of fall migration. despite the costs, the estimated fitness for perennial early-and-late nesters in the absence of ectoparasites was equivalent to that of birds that nested only early in the season. the collective disadvantages of late nesting likely constrain most cliff swallows to raising a single brood in the middle latitudes of north america." +costs and benefits of late nesting in cliff swallows,cliff swallow; cost of reproduction; ectoparasites; fecundity; life history; petrochelidon pyrrhonota; reproductive phenology; survival; time of breeding,OECOLOGIA,BROWN CR;ROCHE EA;O BRIEN VA,"many organisms of temperate latitudes exhibit declines in reproductive success as the breeding season advances. experiments can delay the onset of reproduction for early breeders to investigate the consequences of late nesting, but it is rarely possible to observe a distinct second round of nesting in species that normally nest only once. the colonial cliff swallow (petrochelidon pyrrhonota) is a migratory songbird that has a relatively short breeding season in the western great plains, usa, with birds rarely nesting late in the summer. previous work suggested that ectoparasitism is a primary reason why reproductive success in this species declines over the summer. at colony sites where nests were fumigated to remove ectoparasitic swallow bugs (oeciacus vicarius), cliff swallows frequently undertook a distinct round of late nesting after previously fledging young that year. mark-recapture revealed that late-nesting pairs at these colonies produced fewer offspring that survived to the next breeding season, and that survival of late-nesting adults was lower during the next year, relative to pairs nesting earlier in the season. these reproductive costs applied in the absence of ectoparasites and likely reflect other environmental costs of late nesting such as seasonal declines in food availability or a delayed start of fall migration. despite the costs, the estimated fitness for perennial early-and-late nesters in the absence of ectoparasites was equivalent to that of birds that nested only early in the season. the collective disadvantages of late nesting likely constrain most cliff swallows to raising a single brood in the middle latitudes of north america." female weddell seals show flexible strategies of colony attendance related to varying environmental conditions,animal movement; colony attendance; leptonychotes weddellii; life history; mark-recapture; ross sea; antarctica; sea-ice extent; seasonal migration; temporary emigration; unobservable state; weddell seal,ECOLOGY,CHAMBERT T;ROTELLA JJ;GARROTT RA,"many animal life cycles involve movements among different habitats to fulfill varying resource demands. there are inherent costs associated with such movements, and the decision to leave or stay at a given location ought to be motivated by the benefits associated with potential target habitats. because movement patterns, especially those associated with reproduction, can have important implications for the success (survival, reproduction) of individual animals, and therefore a population's dynamics, it is important to identify and understand their sources of variation (environmental and individual). here, using a mark-recapture, multistate modeling approach, we investigated a set of a priori hypotheses regarding sources and patterns of variation in breeding-colony attendance for weddell seal (leptonychotes weddellii) females on sabbatical from pup production. for such females, colony attendance might be motivated by predation avoidance and positive social interactions related to reproduction, but some costs, such as reduced foraging opportunities or aggressive interactions with conspecifics, might also exist. we expected these benefits and costs to vary with a female's condition and the environment. results revealed that the probability of being absent from colonies was higher (1) in years when the extent of local sea ice was larger, (2) for the youngest and oldest individuals, and (3) for females with less reproductive experience. we also found substantial levels of residual individual heterogeneity in these rates. based on our a priori predictions, we postulate that the decision to attend breeding colonies or not is directly influenced by an individual's physiological condition, as well as by the ice-covered distance to good foraging areas, availability of predator-free haul-out sites, and the level of negative interactions with conspecifics inside colonies. our results support the idea that in iteroparous species, and colonial animals in particular, seasonal and temporary movements from/to reproductive sites represent flexible behavioral strategies that can play an important role in coping with environmental variability." improved models for predicting walleye abundance and setting safe harvest quotas in northern wisconsin lakes,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,HANSEN GJA;HENNESSY JM;CICHOSZ TA;HEWETT SW,"in wisconsin, the management of walleyes sander vitreus relies on a set of log-linear regressions to predict walleye abundance and to set safe harvest. the regression models predict mean walleye abundance from lake area, but they ignore variability among years; they also predict equal walleye populations in lakes with the same size and recruitment source. we evaluated three alternative models in terms of predictive accuracy and the risk of overharvest. we used 899 mark-recapture population estimates (collected between 1953 and 2013) from 219 lakes to develop and evaluate (1) a log-linear mixed-effects model that used all individual observations and estimated adult walleye abundance from lake area and lake-specific deviations from the overall intercept; (2) a mixed-effects model that builds on model 1 by adding a linear fixed effect of sampling year; and (3) a mixed-effects model that builds on model 1 by adding a random year effect. walleye abundance was positively correlated with lake area in all models and was negatively correlated with sampling year (when included). alternative models improved predictive accuracy by 17-22% over the current regression model. restricting data to those collected during the most recent 20 years improved model responsiveness to new data and reduced the value of including a linear time trend. when all data were used for model construction, the relative risk of overharvest was lowest under the mixed-effects model with a linear time trend; when the most recent 20 years of data were used, the risk was lowest under the mixed-effects model with a random year effect. accounting for variability among years would allow harvest to track changing walleye populations and would allow management to be more adaptive. we recommend using the mixed-effects model with a random year effect and restricting the data inputs to the most recent 20 years." -the influence of individual fish characteristics on survival and detection: similarities across two salmonid species,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,HOSTETTER NJ;EVANS AF;LOGE FJ;O'CONNOR RR;CRAMER BM;FRYER D;COLLIS K,"trait-selective mortality is of considerable management and conservation interest, especially when trends are similar across multiple species of conservation concern. in the columbia river basin, thousands of juvenile pacific salmonids oncorhynchus spp. are collected each year and are tagged at juvenile bypass system (jbs) facilities located at hydroelectric dams, thus allowing the tracking of population-level performance metrics (e.g., juvenile survival and juvenile-to-adult survival). several studies have suggested that juvenile salmonid survival is both size dependent and condition dependent, but little is known about trait-selective collection at jbs facilities. trait-selective collection (e.g., length-based or condition-based selectivity) is particularly important, as inferences to population-level performance metrics may be biased if both the survival and collection processes are influenced by similar characteristics. we used a capture-mark-recapture study to investigate length-and condition-selective survival and detection probabilities for two salmonid species in the columbia river basin. in 2014, juvenile steelhead o. mykiss (n = 11,201) and yearling chinook salmon o. tshawytscha (n = 7,943) were pit-tagged, measured (fl), examined for external condition characteristics (descaling, body injuries, fin damage, or disease symptoms), and released into the lower granite dam jbs facility on the snake river to continue seaward migration. results indicated similar trends in both length-and condition-selective juvenile survival and detection probabilities. for both species, survival probability was higher for longer, nondegraded individuals (those without descaling, body injuries, or fin damage). trends in detection probability were also consistent across species: shorter, degraded individuals were more likely to be detected at downstream jbs facilities than longer, healthier individuals. these results suggest that similar characteristics (fl and external condition) affect survival and detection processes for pit-tagged steelhead and yearling chinook salmon and that jbs facilities may selectively collect smaller, degraded individuals with lower probabilities of survival. the consistency in trait-selective survival and detection results has important management implications for several species of conservation concern." +the influence of individual fish characteristics on survival and detection: similarities across two salmonid species,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,HOSTETTER NJ;EVANS AF;LOGE FJ;O CONNOR RR;CRAMER BM;FRYER D;COLLIS K,"trait-selective mortality is of considerable management and conservation interest, especially when trends are similar across multiple species of conservation concern. in the columbia river basin, thousands of juvenile pacific salmonids oncorhynchus spp. are collected each year and are tagged at juvenile bypass system (jbs) facilities located at hydroelectric dams, thus allowing the tracking of population-level performance metrics (e.g., juvenile survival and juvenile-to-adult survival). several studies have suggested that juvenile salmonid survival is both size dependent and condition dependent, but little is known about trait-selective collection at jbs facilities. trait-selective collection (e.g., length-based or condition-based selectivity) is particularly important, as inferences to population-level performance metrics may be biased if both the survival and collection processes are influenced by similar characteristics. we used a capture-mark-recapture study to investigate length-and condition-selective survival and detection probabilities for two salmonid species in the columbia river basin. in 2014, juvenile steelhead o. mykiss (n = 11,201) and yearling chinook salmon o. tshawytscha (n = 7,943) were pit-tagged, measured (fl), examined for external condition characteristics (descaling, body injuries, fin damage, or disease symptoms), and released into the lower granite dam jbs facility on the snake river to continue seaward migration. results indicated similar trends in both length-and condition-selective juvenile survival and detection probabilities. for both species, survival probability was higher for longer, nondegraded individuals (those without descaling, body injuries, or fin damage). trends in detection probability were also consistent across species: shorter, degraded individuals were more likely to be detected at downstream jbs facilities than longer, healthier individuals. these results suggest that similar characteristics (fl and external condition) affect survival and detection processes for pit-tagged steelhead and yearling chinook salmon and that jbs facilities may selectively collect smaller, degraded individuals with lower probabilities of survival. the consistency in trait-selective survival and detection results has important management implications for several species of conservation concern." retention and stress effects of visible implant tags when marking western silvery minnow and its application to other cyprinids (family cyprinidae),NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,NEUFELD K;BLAIR S;POESCH M,"visible implant tags are commonly used in fisheries research to mark individuals or batches of fish as part of movement and mark-recapture studies. to be effective, these tags generally need to have high retention rates and little impact on the behavior or physiology of themarked individuals. we tested the retention rates of both visible implant elastomer (vie) and visible implant alphanumeric (via) tags in 80-139-mm western silvery minnow hybognathus argyritis over a 104-d period. we also measured plasma cortisol and lactate to determine the impact of tagging on stress levels. we found that vie tags had 100% retention and did not cause a significant increase in plasma cortisol levels, though plasma lactate levels were elevated in vie treatment groups. overall, vie tags were found to be suitable for marking western silvery minnow and similar species. visible implant alphanumeric tags had 36% retention over 104 d and did not cause significant increases in plasma cortisol, though plasma lactate was elevated in the treatment group with bothvie and via tags. given the high retention rates and low stress effects, vie tags appear to be more beneficial for use with western silvery minnow and similar-sized cyprinids." "evaluation of short-, mid- and long-term effects of toe clipping on a wild rodent",animal ethics; animal welfare; capture-mark-recapture; individual identification; mastomys natalensis; permanent marking; survival,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,BORREMANS B;SLUYDTS V;MAKUNDI RH;LEIRS H,"context. toe clipping is a widely used method for permanent marking of small mammals, but its effects are not well known, despite the ethical and scientific implications. most studies do not find any clear effects, but there is some indication that toe clipping can affect survival in specific cases. although effects on survival are arguably the most important, more subtle effects are also plausible, yet very few studies have included body condition and none has investigated effects on mobility. aims. we analysed the effects of toe clipping on free-living mastomys natalensis, a common, morphologically and behaviourally intermediate small rodent. methods. using a 17-year capture-mark-recapture dataset, we compared movement, body weight and survival between newly and previously clipped animals, and tested whether any of these parameters correlated with the number of clipped toes. key results. no evidence for a correlation between total number of clips and any of the variables was found. newly clipped animals had a slightly smaller weight change and larger travel distance than did those that were already clipped, and we show that this is most likely due to stress caused by being captured, clipped and handled for the first time rather than to the actual clipping. conclusions. the combination of trapping, handling and marking has a detectable effect on multimammate mice; however, there is no evidence for a clear effect of toe clipping. implications. our study suggests a re-evaluation of ethical guidelines on small-mammal experiments, so as to reach a rational, fact-based decision on which marking method to use." "reproduction and survival of rodents in crop fields: the effects of rainfall, crop stage and stone-bund density",arvicanthis dembeensis; ethiopia; mastomys awashensis; pest control,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,MEHERETU Y;WELEGERIMA K;SLUYDTS V;BAUER H;GEBREHIWOT K;DECKERS J;MAKUNDI R;LEIRS H,"context. reproduction and survival are two of the most important demographic factors that play a major role in changing population abundances of pest species over time and space, solid understanding of which is a useful input to forecast future population changes for proactive management. aims. we investigated the effects of rainfall, crop-development stage and density of stone bunds on reproductive patterns, and the effects of stone-bund density and sex on survival probabilities of two widespread rodent species (mastomys awashensis and arvicanthis dembeensis) in ethiopian highlands. methods. rodent population dynamics were monitored from april 2007 to february 2011, using capture-mark-recapture (cmr) technique in four 60 x 60 m permanent square grids for four consecutive cropping seasons. two of the grids represented fields with low stone-bund density (lsbd, similar to 15m apart) and the other two represented fields with high stone-bund density (hsbd, similar to 10m apart). key results. reproduction was seasonal, commencing during the wet season following the rain and continuing through the early dry season. we found an increase in the abundance of reproductively active female individuals of both species towards the milky and fruiting crop stages and around harvest period. we found no strong difference in survival probability between the two rodent species with variation in stone-bund density and sex. conclusion. stone bunds play a minor role in the reproduction and survival of the rodent species at the observed abundances. implications. in terms of pest management, the high local survival rates estimated for both rodent species matter more than survival differences owing to variations in stone-bund density and sex." @@ -599,19 +599,19 @@ improving abundance estimation by combining capture-recapture and occupancy data year-round effects of climate on demographic parameters of an arctic-nesting goose species,capture-mark-recapture; chen caerulescens atlantica; climate change; harvest; multistate model,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,VAN OUDENHOVE L;GAUTHIER G;LEBRETON JD,"understanding how climate change will affect animal population dynamics remains a major challenge, especially in long-distant migrants exposed to different climatic regimes throughout their annual cycle. we evaluated the effect of temperature throughout the annual cycle on demographic parameters (age-specific survival and recruitment, breeding propensity and fecundity) of the greater snow goose (chen caerulescens atlantica l.), an arctic-nesting species. as this is a hunted species, we used the theory of exploited populations to estimate hunting mortality separately from natural mortality in order to evaluate climatic effects only on the latter form of mortality. our analysis was based on a 22-year marking study (n=27150 females) and included live recaptures at the breeding colony and dead recoveries from hunters. we tested the effect of climatic covariates by applying a procedure that accounts for unexplained environmental variation in the demographic parameter to a multistate capture-mark-recapture recruitment model. breeding propensity, clutch size and hatching probability all increased with high temperatures on the breeding grounds. first-year survival to natural causes of mortality increased when temperature was high at the end of the summer, whereas adult survival was not affected by temperature. on the contrary, accession to reproduction decreased with warmer climatic conditions during the non-breeding season. survival was strongly negatively related to hunting mortality in adults, as expected, but not in first-year birds, which suggests the possibility of compensation between natural and hunting mortality in the latter group. we show that events occurring both at and away from the breeding ground can affect the demography of migratory birds, either directly or through carryover effects, and sometimes in opposite ways. this highlights the need to account for the whole life cycle of an animal when attempting to project the response of populations to future climatic changes." density-dependent intraspecific aggression regulates survival in northern yellowstone wolves (canis lupus),capture-recapture; density dependence; food availability; intraspecific competition; population regulation; top-predator; vital rate,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,CUBAYNES S;MACNULTY DR;STAHLER DR;QUIMBY KA;SMITH DW;COULSON T,"understanding the population dynamics of top-predators is essential to assess their impact on ecosystems and to guide their management. key to this understanding is identifying the mechanisms regulating vital rates. determining the influence of density on survival is necessary to understand the extent to which human-caused mortality is compensatory or additive. in wolves (canis lupus), empirical evidence for density-dependent survival is lacking. dispersal is considered the principal way in which wolves adjust their numbers to prey supply or compensate for human exploitation. however, studies to date have primarily focused on exploited wolf populations, in which density-dependent mechanisms are likely weak due to artificially low wolf densities. using 13years of data on 280 collared wolves in yellowstone national park, we assessed the effect of wolf density, prey abundance and population structure, as well as winter severity, on age-specific survival in two areas (prey-rich vs. prey-poor) of the national park. we further analysed cause-specific mortality and explored the factors driving intraspecific aggression in the prey-rich northern area of the park. overall, survival rates decreased during the study. in northern yellowstone, density dependence regulated adult survival through an increase in intraspecific aggression, independent of prey availability. in the interior of the park, adult survival was less variable and density-independent, despite reduced prey availability. there was no effect of prey population structure in northern yellowstone, or of winter severity in either area. survival was similar among yearlings and adults, but lower for adults older than 6years. our results indicate that density-dependent intraspecific aggression is a major driver of adult wolf survival in northern yellowstone, suggesting intrinsic density-dependent mechanisms have the potential to regulate wolf populations at high ungulate densities. when low prey availability or high removal rates maintain wolves at lower densities, limited inter-pack interactions may prevent density-dependent survival, consistent with our findings in the interior of the park." evaluation of artificial nest sites for long-term conservation of a burrow-nesting seabird,artificial nest boxes; australia; breeding performance; ecological traps; eudyptula minor; little penguins; mark-recapture; site fidelity,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SUTHERLAND DR;DANN P;JESSOP RE,"the persistence of many cavity-nesting animals is threatened by habitat modification and a shortage of suitable breeding sites. consequently, provision of alternative breeding sites is a frequently applied short- to medium-term conservation action. however, the effectiveness of provisioning for breeding success and persistence of breeding animals is rarely considered and could lead populations into an ecological trap. we evaluated the effectiveness of providing nest boxes for little penguins (eudyptula minor) compared with natural nests over 25 years. we assessed nest-box adoption and occupancy rates, compared breeding success (i.e., hatching and fledging success) and indices of productivity (i.e., observed brood size, total fledged chick mass, and the number of clutch initiations) with nest survival models and log-linear mixed effects models, and compared long-term residency patterns with link-barker mark-recapture models between artificial and natural nests. little penguins readily adopted nest boxes and breeding attempts were recorded in about 92% of nest boxes installed for 7 or more years. breeding productivity from 6,081 monitored clutches varied by year and was similar across nest types in most years, but in poor breeding seasons nest boxes performed better. survival rates to hatching and fledging averaged 7.6% and 8.6% greater in nest boxes, respectively. similarly, the average total observed mass of chicks produced per clutch was 11% heavier in nest boxes. annual site fidelity of 2,331 breeding penguins was similar in areas with nest boxes and areas with natural burrows, despite an average of 35% of natural burrows collapsing each year. nest-box provisioning for little penguins overcomes local nest-site limitation, improves breeding success, and can result in local population increases, so is not indicative of an ecological trap. however, a self-sustaining local population in the long term will require management strategies that address the underlying processes inhibiting population recovery and assist the transition from artificial nest sites back to natural nest sites. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." -rodent population and community responses to forest-based biofuel production,house mouse; intensive forestry; mus musculus; north carolina; peromyscus leucopus; pine plantation; pinus spp; small mammal; switchgrass; white-footed mouse,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HOMYACK JA;LUCIA-SIMMONS KE;MILLER DA;KALCOUNIS-RUEPPELL M,"intensively managed forests in the southeastern united states are a potential source of cellulosic bioenergy and, as conversion technologies improve and demand increases, a greater land area may be required to produce biofuel feedstocks. however, responses of wildlife to forest-based biofuel production are largely unknown. we examined the 4-year response of rodent populations and assemblages to a range of biofuel production regimes, including harvesting residual woody debris and intercropping switchgrass (panicum virgatum), in an intensively managed loblolly pine (pinus taeda) forest in eastern north carolina, usa. we investigated abundance, demography, and community response of rodents in a randomized and replicated field experiment using mark-recapture techniques during 2009-2012. whereas removal of downed woody biomass did not affect abundance, diversity, or demography of rodents, we detected species-specific effects of incorporating switchgrass. after switchgrass was well established, invasive house mice (mus musculus) were most abundant in plots with switchgrass. in contrast, white-footed mice (peromyscus leucopus) were commonly captured in plots without switchgrass and other rodents were not affected by biofuel treatments. across the study, natural succession exerted greater effects on rodent species and the rodent community than biofuel production regimes. as remaining logs and stumps decay and become limiting, downed wood may become more important to rodents. our results indicate that intercropping switchgrass and harvesting residual woody material had limited effects on rodents in the coastal plain of north carolina, usa within 4 years of stand establishment. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." +rodent population and community responses to forest-based biofuel production,house mouse; intensive forestry; mus musculus; north carolina; peromyscus leucopus; pine plantation; pinus spp; small mammal; switchgrass; white-footed mouse,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HOMYACK JA;LUCIA SIMMONS KE;MILLER DA;KALCOUNIS RUEPPELL M,"intensively managed forests in the southeastern united states are a potential source of cellulosic bioenergy and, as conversion technologies improve and demand increases, a greater land area may be required to produce biofuel feedstocks. however, responses of wildlife to forest-based biofuel production are largely unknown. we examined the 4-year response of rodent populations and assemblages to a range of biofuel production regimes, including harvesting residual woody debris and intercropping switchgrass (panicum virgatum), in an intensively managed loblolly pine (pinus taeda) forest in eastern north carolina, usa. we investigated abundance, demography, and community response of rodents in a randomized and replicated field experiment using mark-recapture techniques during 2009-2012. whereas removal of downed woody biomass did not affect abundance, diversity, or demography of rodents, we detected species-specific effects of incorporating switchgrass. after switchgrass was well established, invasive house mice (mus musculus) were most abundant in plots with switchgrass. in contrast, white-footed mice (peromyscus leucopus) were commonly captured in plots without switchgrass and other rodents were not affected by biofuel treatments. across the study, natural succession exerted greater effects on rodent species and the rodent community than biofuel production regimes. as remaining logs and stumps decay and become limiting, downed wood may become more important to rodents. our results indicate that intercropping switchgrass and harvesting residual woody material had limited effects on rodents in the coastal plain of north carolina, usa within 4 years of stand establishment. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." estimation of summer flounder (paralichthys dentatus) mortality rates using mark-recapture data from a recreational angler-tagging program,mortality; angler-tagging; mark-recapture; barker model; summer flounder,FISHERIES RESEARCH,HENDERSON MJ;FABRIZIO MC,"volunteer angler-tagging programs have the potential to become a valuable tool for estimating fish mortality rates. we applied a reduced version of the barker mark-recapture model to estimate summer flounder mortality rates using data collected by an angler-tagging program in virginia. over a period of 12 years, recreational anglers released 47513 summer flounder in the chesapeake bay and its tributaries, of which 3240 were subsequently encountered. to account for heterogeneity in survival rates arising from size-based variation in fishing pressure, we categorized individual fish into size classes and used a growth model to predict recruitment of fish into each size class. due to concerns regarding tag loss, a double-tagging study was conducted and revealed that summer flounder tag retention rates were low for both sublegal and legal sized fish (0.5 +/- 0.08 per year). the tag-loss corrected mortality probability estimates for the 30-day period following release were approximately 0.6 for sublegal fish (<36 cm) and 0.65 for larger fish. once we compensated for this short-term mortality, we found that sublegal summer flounder experience much greater apparent annual mortality rates than larger fish. this may reflect actual differences in mortality as well as the increased likelihood of smaller fish to permanently emigrate to locations with reduced encounter probabilities. due to these size-dependent mortality rates we were unable to estimate a natural mortality rate. we conclude that angler-tagging programs can provide some insights into fish mortality rates but, in order to do so, they must be carefully designed and account for the multiple violations of mark-recapture model assumptions. (c) 2014 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." "humpback whales off namibia: occurrence, seasonality, and a regional comparison of photographic catalogs and scarring",cookiecuner shark; humpback whale; isistius; killer whale; mark-recapture; migration; namibia; gabon; south africa; scarring,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,ELWEN SH;TONACHELLA N;BARENDSE J;COLLINS T;BEST PB;ROSENBAUM HC;LEENEY RH;GRIDLEY T,"humpback whales (megaptera novaeangliae) from a breeding ground off gabon (0-4 degrees s) and a migratory corridor/feeding ground on the west coast of south africa (wsa; 33 degrees s) differ genetically and in catch histories. interpretation of the population structure is hampered by the lack of data from the intervening 3,500 km of coastline or to the north of gabon. here we collate all relevant nongenetic data on humpback whales from namibia (similar to 23 degrees s) from 2005 to 2012 and compare these with corresponding data from gabon (2000-2006) and wsa (1983-2008). data from namibia include photographic catalogs of dorsal fin and tail fluke images, seasonal presence, and a photographic assessment of scarring and wounds from cookiecutter sharks (isistius sp.). no confirmed photographic identification matches could be made between namibia and gabon and only 2 potential matches were made between namibia and wsa from dorsal fins. humpback whales in namibia show a bimodal seasonality in occurrence, with a primary peak in austral winter (july) and a secondary peak in spring (september), but generally low directionality of movement. whales were never recorded to sing, competitive groups were rarely sighted, and very few calves were observed, making it unlikely that this is a breeding area. the prevalence of killer whale bite scars on flukes was similar at all sites. fresh bites from cookiecutter sharks were highest in namibia, intermediate in gabon, but almost nonexistent in wsa. we propose that animals seen in namibia in winter are on their northward migration and have intercepted the coast from farther offshore (where cookiecutter sharks occur), whereas animals seen in wsa in spring summer, where they are feeding during their southward migration, have followed a slow coastwise route within the cold benguela ecosystem, thus allowing time for cookiecutter bites to heal." high female mortality resulting in herd collapse in free-ranging domesticated reindeer (rangifer tarandus tarandus) in sweden,NA,PLOS ONE,AHMAN B;SVENSSON K;RONNEGARD L,"reindeer herding in sweden is a form of pastoralism practised by the indigenous sami population. the economy is mainly based on meat production. herd size is generally regulated by harvest in order not to overuse grazing ranges and keep a productive herd. nonetheless, herd growth and room for harvest is currently small in many areas. negative herd growth and low harvest rate were observed in one of two herds in a reindeer herding community in central sweden. the herds (a and b) used the same ranges from april until the autumn gathering in october-december, but were separated on different ranges over winter. analyses of capture-recapture for 723 adult female reindeer over five years (2007-2012) revealed high annual losses (7.1% and 18.4%, for herd a and b respectively). a continuing decline in the total reindeer number in herd b demonstrated an inability to maintain the herd size in spite of a very small harvest. an estimated breakpoint for when herd size cannot be kept stable confirmed that the observed female mortality rate in herd b represented a state of herd collapse. lower calving success in herd b compared to a indicated differences in winter foraging conditions. however, we found only minor differences in animal body condition between the herds in autumn. we found no evidence that a lower autumn body mass generally increased the risk for a female of dying from one autumn to the next. we conclude that the prime driver of the on-going collapse of herd b is not high animal density or poor body condition. accidents or disease seem unlikely as major causes of mortality. predation, primarily by lynx and wolverine, appears to be the most plausible reason for the high female mortality and state of collapse in the studied reindeer herding community." "teeth, sex, and testosterone: aging in the world's smallest primate",NA,PLOS ONE,ZOHDY S;GERBER BD;TECOT S;BLANCO MB;WINCHESTER JM;WRIGHT PC;JERNVALL J,"mouse lemurs (microcebus spp.) are an exciting new primate model for understanding human aging and disease. in captivity, microcebus murinus develops human-like ailments of old age after five years (e.g., neurodegeneration analogous to alzheimer's disease) but can live beyond 12 years. it is believed that wild microcebus follow a similar pattern of senescence observed in captive animals, but that predation limits their lifespan to four years, thus preventing observance of these diseases in the wild. testing whether this assumption is true is informative about both microcebus natural history and environmental influences on senescence, leading to interpretation of findings for models of human aging. additionally, the study of microcebus longevity provides an opportunity to better understand mechanisms of sex-biased longevity. longevity is often shorter in males of species with high male-male competition, such as microcebus, but mouse lemurs are sexually monomorphic, suggesting similar lifespans. we collected individual-based observations of wild brown mouse lemurs (microcebus rufus) from 2003-2010 to investigate sex-differences in survival and longevity. fecal testosterone was measured as a potential mechanism of sex-based differences in survival. we used a combination of high-resolution tooth wear techniques, mark-recapture, and hormone enzyme immunoassays. we found no dental or physical signs of senescence in m. rufus as old as eight years (n = 189, ages 1-8, mean = 2.59 +/- 1.63 se), three years older than captive, senescent congeners (m. murinus). unlike other polygynandrous vertebrates, we found no sex difference in age-dependent survival, nor sex or age differences in testosterone levels. while elevated male testosterone levels have been implicated in shorter lifespans in several species, this is one of the first studies to show equivalent testosterone levels accompanying equivalent lifespans. future research on captive aged individuals can determine if senescence is partially a condition of their captive environment, and studies controlling for various environmental factors will further our understanding of senescence." trap array configuration influences estimates and precision of black bear density and abundance,NA,PLOS ONE,WILTON CM;PUCKETT EE;BERINGER J;GARDNER B;EGGERT LS;BELANT JL,"spatial capture-recapture (scr) models have advanced our ability to estimate population density for wide ranging animals by explicitly incorporating individual movement. though these models are more robust to various spatial sampling designs, few studies have empirically tested different large-scale trap configurations using scr models. we investigated how extent of trap coverage and trap spacing affects precision and accuracy of scr parameters, implementing models using the r package secr. we tested two trapping scenarios, one spatially extensive and one intensive, using black bear (ursus americanus) dna data from hair snare arrays in south-central missouri, usa. we also examined the influence that adding a second, lower barbed-wire strand to snares had on quantity and spatial distribution of detections. we simulated trapping data to test bias in density estimates of each configuration under a range of density and detection parameter values. field data showed that using multiple arrays with intensive snare coverage produced more detections of more individuals than extensive coverage. consequently, density and detection parameters were more precise for the intensive design. density was estimated as 1.7 bears per 100 km(2) and was 5.5 times greater than that under extensive sampling. abundance was 279 (95% ci = 193-406) bears in the 16,812 km(2) study area. excluding detections from the lower strand resulted in the loss of 35 detections, 14 unique bears, and the largest recorded movement between snares. all simulations showed low bias for density under both configurations. results demonstrated that in low density populations with non-uniform distribution of population density, optimizing the tradeoff among snare spacing, coverage, and sample size is of critical importance to estimating parameters with high precision and accuracy. with limited resources, allocating available traps to multiple arrays with intensive trap spacing increased the amount of information needed to inform parameters with high precision." -can establishment success be determined through demographic parameters? a case study on five introduced bird species,NA,PLOS ONE,SANZ-AGUILAR A;ANADON JD;EDELAAR P;CARRETE M;TELLA JL,"the dominant criterion to determine when an introduced species is established relies on the maintenance of a self-sustaining population in the area of introduction, i.e. on the viability of the population from a demographic perspective. there is however a paucity of demographic studies on introduced species, and establishment success is thus generally determined by expert opinion without undertaking population viability analyses (pvas). by means of an intensive five year capture-recapture monitoring program (involving >12,000 marked individuals) we studied the demography of five introduced passerine bird species in southern spain which are established and have undergone a fast expansion over the last decades. we obtained useful estimates of demographic parameters (survival and reproduction) for one colonial species (ploceus melanocephalus), confirming the long-term viability of its local population through pvas. however, extremely low recapture rates prevented the estimation of survival parameters and population growth rates for widely distributed species with low local densities (estrilda troglodytes and amandava amandava) but also for highly abundant yet non-colonial species (estrilda astrild and euplectes afer). therefore, determining the establishment success of introduced passerine species by demographic criteria alone may often be troublesome even when devoting much effort to field-work. alternative quantitative methodologies such as the analysis of spatio-temporal species distributions complemented with expert opinion deserve thus their role in the assessment of establishment success of introduced species when estimates of demographic parameters are difficult to obtain, as is generally the case for non-colonial, highly mobile passerines." +can establishment success be determined through demographic parameters? a case study on five introduced bird species,NA,PLOS ONE,SANZ AGUILAR A;ANADON JD;EDELAAR P;CARRETE M;TELLA JL,"the dominant criterion to determine when an introduced species is established relies on the maintenance of a self-sustaining population in the area of introduction, i.e. on the viability of the population from a demographic perspective. there is however a paucity of demographic studies on introduced species, and establishment success is thus generally determined by expert opinion without undertaking population viability analyses (pvas). by means of an intensive five year capture-recapture monitoring program (involving >12,000 marked individuals) we studied the demography of five introduced passerine bird species in southern spain which are established and have undergone a fast expansion over the last decades. we obtained useful estimates of demographic parameters (survival and reproduction) for one colonial species (ploceus melanocephalus), confirming the long-term viability of its local population through pvas. however, extremely low recapture rates prevented the estimation of survival parameters and population growth rates for widely distributed species with low local densities (estrilda troglodytes and amandava amandava) but also for highly abundant yet non-colonial species (estrilda astrild and euplectes afer). therefore, determining the establishment success of introduced passerine species by demographic criteria alone may often be troublesome even when devoting much effort to field-work. alternative quantitative methodologies such as the analysis of spatio-temporal species distributions complemented with expert opinion deserve thus their role in the assessment of establishment success of introduced species when estimates of demographic parameters are difficult to obtain, as is generally the case for non-colonial, highly mobile passerines." using odour traps for population monitoring and dispersal analysis of the threatened saproxylic beetles osmoderma eremita and elater ferrugineus in central italy,conservation; kairomone; mark-recapture; pheromone; predator-prey; temperature,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,ZAULI A;CHIARI S;HEDENSTROM E;SVENSSON GP;CARPANETO GM,"pheromone-based monitoring could be a very efficient method to assess the conservation status of rare and elusive insect species, but there are still few studies for which pheromone traps have been used to obtain information on presence, abundance, phenology and movements of such insects. we performed a mark-recapture study of two threatened saproxylic beetles, osmoderma eremita (scarabaeidae) and its predator elater ferrugineus (elateridae), in two beech forests of central italy using pheromone baited window traps and unbaited pitfall traps. two lures were used: (1) the male-produced sex pheromone of o. eremita (racemic c-decalactone) to attract females of both species, and (2) the female-produced sex pheromone of e. ferrugineus (7-methyloctyl (z)-4-decenoate), to attract conspecific males. in total, 13 o. eremita and 1,247 e. ferrugineus individuals were trapped. for e. ferrugineus, males were detected earlier than females, and 7-methyloctyl (z)-4-decenoate was much more efficient lure compared to racemic c-decalactone in detecting its presence. the population size at the two sites were estimated to 520 and 1,369 individuals, respectively. our model suggests a sampling effort of ten traps checked for 3 days being sufficient to detect the presence of e. ferrugineus at a given site. the distribution of dispersal distances for the predator was best described by the negative exponential function with 1 % of the individuals dispersing farther than 1,600 m from their natal site. in contrast to studies on these beetles in northern europe, the activity pattern of the two beetle species was not influenced by variation in temperature during the season." in situ tagging technique for fishes provides insight into growth and movement of invasive lionfish,animal health; animal movement; fish behavior; invasive species; mark-recapture; pterois volitans; red lionfish; site fidelity; tagging method,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,AKINS JL;MORRIS JA;GREEN SJ,"information on fish movement and growth is primarily obtained through the marking and tracking of individuals with external tags, which are usually affixed to anesthetized individuals at the surface. however, the quantity and quality of data obtained by this method is often limited by small sample sizes owing to the time associated with the tagging process, high rates of tagging-related mortality, and displacement of tagged individuals from the initial capture location. to address these issues, we describe a technique for applying external streamer and dart tags in situ, which uses scuba divers to capture and tag individual fish on the sea floor without the use of anesthetic. we demonstrate this method for indo-pacific lionfish (pterois volitans/p. miles), species which are particularly vulnerable to barotrauma when transported to and handled at the surface. to test our method, we tagged 161 individuals inhabiting 26 coral reef locations in the bahamas over a period of 3 years. our method resulted in no instances of barotrauma, reduced handling and recovery time, and minimal post-tagging release displacement compared with conventional ex situ tag application. opportunistic resighting and recapture of tagged individuals reveals that lionfish exhibit highly variable site fidelity, movement patterns, and growth rates on invaded coral reef habitats. in total, 24% of lionfish were resighted between 29 and 188 days after tagging. of these, 90% were located at the site of capture, while the remaining individuals were resighted between 200 m and 1.1 km from initial site of capture over 29 days later. in situ growth rates ranged between 0.1 and 0.6 mm/day. while individuals tagged with streamer tags posted slower growth rates with increasing size, as expected, there was no relationship between growth rate and fish size for individuals marked with dart tags, potentially because of large effects of tag presence on the activities of small bodied lionfish (i.e., < 150 mm), where the tag was up to 7.6% of the lionfish's mass. our study offers a novel in situ tagging technique that can be used to provide critical information on fish site fidelity, movement patterns, and growth in cases where ex situ tagging is not feasible." demographic variation in the uk serotine bat: filling gaps in knowledge for management,eptesicus serotinus; favourable conservation status; prereproductive delay; reproduction; survival; temporal variation,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CHAUVENET ALM;HUTSON AM;SMITH GC;AEGERTER JN,"species of conservation concern, or those in conflict with man, are most efficiently managed with an understanding of their population dynamics. european bats exemplify the need for successful and cost-effective management for both reasons, often simultaneously. across europe, bats are protected, and the concept of favourable conservation status (fcs) is used as a key tool for the assessment and licensing of disruptive actions to populations. however, for efficient decision-making, this assessment requires knowledge on the demographic rates and long-term dynamics of populations. we used capture-mark-recapture to describe demographic rates for the serotine bat (eptesicus serotinus) at two sites in england and investigate the transition rates between three stages: juveniles, immatures, and breeders. we then use these rates in an individual-based population dynamics model to investigate the expected trajectories for both populations. our results demonstrate for the first time the presence and scale of temporal variation in this species' demography. we describe the lengthy prereproductive period (3.5 years) that female serotines experience. finally, we show how site-specific variation in demographic rates can produce divergent population trajectories. effective management of european bat populations can be achieved through the understanding of life histories, and local demographic rates and population dynamics, in order to anticipate the presence of source and sink sites in the landscape. using the serotine bat in england, we show that these can be obtained from rigorous and systematic studies of long-term demographic datasets." experimental evaluation shows limited influence of pine plantations on the connectivity of highly fragmented bird populations,australia; birds; dispersal; functional connectivity; matrix; pine and conifer plantations; population synchrony,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,MORTELLITI A;WESTGATE MJ;LINDENMAYER DB,"1. conversion of natural and agricultural areas to conifer plantations is an important element of global change. despite their widespread distribution and global importance, it is still unclear whether conifer plantations hinder or enhance movement by biota. 2. population connectivity is difficult to quantify without detailed studies such as those using capture-mark-recapture methods. a novel solution is to quantify the synchrony in abundance between populations over time. using this approach, more connected populations are expected to display synchrony, whereas disconnected populations are expected to fluctuate asynchronously. here, we compared the relative effects of spatial proximity and matrix type on the population synchrony of a suite of forest-dependent birds in a long-term, fully controlled, and replicated landscape-scale experiment in south-eastern australia. 3. our experiment consisted of comparing bird populations inhabiting remnant eucalypt patches surrounded by radiata pine pinus radiata plantations (50 patches) with bird populations inhabiting remnant eucalypt patches where the surrounding landscapes are grazing fields (55 patches). our data set encompassed 10 years and included 52 bird species characterized by different life history traits. after controlling for the effects of rainfall and patch characteristics on population dynamics, we found that spatial proximity, not matrix type, was the main driver of population synchrony for 16 species. the effect of the pine plantation matrix was negative (it reduced synchrony). however, the magnitude of its effect was particularly low (being significant only in four species). 4. synthesis and applications. our results show that pine plantations do not increase connectivity. in fact, they have little effect, with the exception of a few species, for which they may constitute a barrier. the implications of our findings for landscape management are that the conversion of agricultural areas to plantation forestry does not promote substantial movement of individuals (to the extent that would synchronize populations). therefore, plantation expansion should not be promoted on the belief that it increases connectivity relative to an agricultural matrix." habitat-specific effectiveness of feral cat control for the conservation of an endemic ground-nesting bird species,camera trapping; invasive species; meso-predator release effect; predator control; shorebird; spatially explicit mark-recapture; wader,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,OPPEL S;BURNS F;VICKERY J;GEORGE K;ELLICK G;LEO D;HILLMAN JC,"1. invasive non-native species are one of the greatest drivers of the loss of biodiversity world-wide. consequently, removing or controlling invasive predators should generally benefit vulnerable native species. however, especially on islands, where most mammalian predators are introduced, these predators may also prey on other invasive mammals. removing only apex predators may lead to increases of meso-predators that may in turn increase predation pressure on native wildlife. 2. we examined the benefits of a feral cat felis catus control programme on nest survival of a critically endangered ground-nesting bird, the st helena plover charadrius sanctaehelenae in two habitat types, harbouring c. 30% of the global population of this species. we monitored nest success and the activity of introduced mammals (cats, rabbits oryctolagus cuniculus, rats rattus rattus and rattus norvegicus, and mice mus musculus) over 2 years, before and after controlling feral cats. 3. live trapping removed 56 feral cats from our study areas. in the semi-desert, rabbit and mouse activity increased, but rat activity remained low after feral cat control. in pastures, rat and mouse activity increased after feral cat control, while rabbit activity remained constant. 4. nest survival of plovers increased more than threefold in the semi-desert, but increased only marginally in pastures. this difference may be due to an increase in rat activity and potentially rat predation following cat control in pastures, whereas no increase in rat activity was observed in the semi-desert. 5. synthesis and applications. our study shows habitat-specific consequences of feral cat control on ground-nesting bird productivity after 1 year, probably mediated by differences in the availability of alternative prey. the results highlight the importance of experimental trials and a thorough understanding of the interactions between multiple invasive species before predator-control operations are implemented over larger scales. on islands with multiple invasive species, there may not be a simple generic approach to predator management (other than removing all invasive species simultaneously)." -"patterns of spatio-temporal variation in the survival rates of a viviparous lizard: the interacting effects of sex, reproductive trade-offs, aridity, and human-induced disturbance",differential survival; life-history evolution; local selective pressures; reproductive costs; sceloporus grammicus,POPULATION ECOLOGY,PEREZ-MENDOZA HA;ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ;MARTORELL C;ZURITA-GUTIERREZ YH;SOLANO-ZAVALETA I;HERNANDEZ-ROSAS AL;MOLINA-MOCTEZUMA A,"examination of the spatial and temporal variation in survival rates provides insight on how the action of natural selection varies among populations of single species. in this study, we used mark-recapture data from seven populations of the viviparous lizard sceloporus grammicus in central mexico and a multi-model inference framework to examine interpopulation variation in the survival of adult males and females. we aimed to analyze the potential effects of aridity, human-induced disturbance, and reproductive costs on the survival rates of these lizards. for females in particular, we also searched for a negative relationship between litter size (adjusted for female size) and female survival. our results demonstrate seasonal changes in survival for males and females. in three out of our seven study sites female survival decreased during the birthing season. in contrast, male survival did not appear to decrease during the mating season. we found an interaction between site-specific aridity and reproductive season affecting female survival. a decrease in female survival during the birthing season was observed in relatively arid sites. in one of these arid sites we found a negative effect of size-adjusted litter size on female survival: females producing more offspring than those expected for their size were more likely to die. this result represents evidence of a physiological trade-off for gravid females occurring in at least one of the studied populations. interpopulation variation in the degree of human-induced disturbance could not explain the observed patterns of spatial variation in survival rates. our results demonstrate wide variation in sex-specific survival patterns of this viviparous lizard and provide evidence that negative associations between reproduction and survival are highly dependent on the local environmental conditions." +"patterns of spatio-temporal variation in the survival rates of a viviparous lizard: the interacting effects of sex, reproductive trade-offs, aridity, and human-induced disturbance",differential survival; life-history evolution; local selective pressures; reproductive costs; sceloporus grammicus,POPULATION ECOLOGY,PEREZ MENDOZA HA;ZUNIGA VEGA JJ;MARTORELL C;ZURITA GUTIERREZ YH;SOLANO ZAVALETA I;HERNANDEZ ROSAS AL;MOLINA MOCTEZUMA A,"examination of the spatial and temporal variation in survival rates provides insight on how the action of natural selection varies among populations of single species. in this study, we used mark-recapture data from seven populations of the viviparous lizard sceloporus grammicus in central mexico and a multi-model inference framework to examine interpopulation variation in the survival of adult males and females. we aimed to analyze the potential effects of aridity, human-induced disturbance, and reproductive costs on the survival rates of these lizards. for females in particular, we also searched for a negative relationship between litter size (adjusted for female size) and female survival. our results demonstrate seasonal changes in survival for males and females. in three out of our seven study sites female survival decreased during the birthing season. in contrast, male survival did not appear to decrease during the mating season. we found an interaction between site-specific aridity and reproductive season affecting female survival. a decrease in female survival during the birthing season was observed in relatively arid sites. in one of these arid sites we found a negative effect of size-adjusted litter size on female survival: females producing more offspring than those expected for their size were more likely to die. this result represents evidence of a physiological trade-off for gravid females occurring in at least one of the studied populations. interpopulation variation in the degree of human-induced disturbance could not explain the observed patterns of spatial variation in survival rates. our results demonstrate wide variation in sex-specific survival patterns of this viviparous lizard and provide evidence that negative associations between reproduction and survival are highly dependent on the local environmental conditions." to breed or not: a novel approach to estimate breeding propensity and potential trade-offs in an arctic-nesting species,breeding propensity; chen caerulescens atlantica; cost of reproduction; greater snow goose; heterogeneity; multi-event models; reproduction; reproduction strategy; survival; temporary emigration,ECOLOGY,SOUCHAY G;GAUTHIER G;PRADEL R,"breeding propensity, i.e., the probability that a mature female attempts to breed in a given year, is a critical demographic parameter in long-lived species. life-history theory predicts that this trait should be affected by reproductive trade-offs so that the probability of future reproduction should depend on the current reproductive investment. however, breeding propensity is one of the most difficult parameters to estimate because nonbreeders are often absent from the breeding area, thereby requiring the inclusion of unobservable states in the analysis. we developed a new methodological approach by integrating a robust design sampling scheme within the multi-event capture-recapture framework. our new model accounted for uncertainty in state assignation while allowing for departure of individuals between secondary sampling occasions. we applied this model to a long-term data set of female greater snow geese (chen caerulescens atlantica) to estimate breeding propensity and to investigate potential reproductive costs. we combined resightings during the nesting stage and recapture at the end of the breeding season to estimate breeding propensity and nesting success, and added recoveries to improve survival probability estimates. we found that both breeding propensity and nesting success depended upon breeding status in the previous year, though not survival. successful breeders had a lower breeding propensity than failed breeders in the following year, but a higher nesting success. individuals absent from the breeding colony had a low breeding propensity, but a high nesting success the following year. our results suggest a cost of reproduction on breeding propensity in the next year, but once females decide to breed, nesting success is likely driven by individual quality. an added benefit of our model is that, unlike previous models with unobservable states, all parameters were identifiable when survival and breeding probabilities were fully state dependent. our new multi-event framework is a flexible tool that can be applied to a large range of species to estimate breeding propensity and to investigate reproductive trade-offs." "estimates of annual survival, growth, and recruitment of a white-tailed ptarmigan population in colorado over 43 years",alpine; colorado; demography; lagopus leucura; weather,POPULATION ECOLOGY,WANN GT;ALDRIDGE CL;BRAUN CE,"long-term datasets for high-elevation species are rare, and considerable uncertainty exists in understanding how high-elevation populations have responded to recent climate warming. we present estimates of demographic vital rates from a 43-year population study of white-tailed ptarmigan (lagopus leucura), a species endemic to alpine habitats in western north america. we used capture-recapture models to estimate annual rates of apparent survival, population growth, and recruitment for breeding-age ptarmigan, and we fit winter weather covariates to models in an attempt to explain annual variation. there were no trends in survival over the study period but there was strong support for age and sex effects. the average rate of annual growth suggests a relatively stable breeding-age population ( = 1.036), but there was considerable variation between years for both population growth and recruitment rates. winter weather covariates only explained a small amount of variation in female survival and were not an important predictor of male survival. cumulative winter precipitation was found to have a quadratic effect on female survival, with survival being highest during years of average precipitation. cumulative winter precipitation was positively correlated with population growth and recruitment rates, although this covariate only explained a small amount of annual variation in these rates and there was considerable uncertainty among the models tested. our results provide evidence for an alpine-endemic population that has not experienced extirpation or drastic declines. however, more information is needed to understand risks and vulnerabilities of warming effects on juveniles as our analysis was confined to determination of vital rates for breeding-age birds." "survival, demography, and growth of gopher tortoises (gopherus polyphemus) from three study sites with different management histories",demography; gopher tortoise; gopherus polyphemus; growth; habitat management; population recovery; survivorship,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,TUBERVILLE TD;TODD BD;HERMANN SM;MICHENER WK;GUYER C,"recovery or sustainable management of wildlife populations often entails management of habitat on which they depend. in this regard, turtles pose unique conservation challenges because of their life histories. the combination of late maturity, low survival when young, and dependence on high adult survival suggests they may be slow to respond demographically to conventional habitat management. thus, long-term studies are necessary to understand population dynamics and recovery potential in these species. we used 5-11 years of mark-recapture data from 3 populations to evaluate survivorship, demography, and somatic growth of gopher tortoises (gopherus polyphemus). green grove and wade tract (southwest ga) are ecological reserves with a history of land management compatible with tortoises. in contrast, conecuh national forest (south-central al) is a closed-canopy pine plantation with prior intensive site preparation but where management intervention improved habitat for tortoises during the study. apparent survival was high for mature tortoises (87-98%) compared to immature tortoises (70-82%). adults comprised 57-79% of individuals captured, with green grove and wade tract populations dominated by larger individuals but conecuh having a more uniform size distribution. the largest adults captured at conecuh (297mm maximum carapace length [cl]) were smaller than the largest adults from green grove (337mm cl) or wade tract (341mm cl), although characteristic growth constants from von bertalanffy models were similar among sites. we suggest these results indicate a recovering population at conecuh, where habitat conditions for gopher tortoises have improved despite a legacy of intense predation by humans and reduced habitat quality at the inception of this national forest. further, we recommend using a combination of short-term and long-term monitoring metrics to assess population recovery in such long-lived species. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." @@ -641,14 +641,14 @@ road traffic deaths and injuries are under-reported in ethiopia: a capture-recap polar bears from space: assessing satellite imagery as a tool to track arctic wildlife,NA,PLOS ONE,STAPLETON S;LARUE M;LECOMTE N;ATKINSON S;GARSHELIS D;PORTER C;ATWOOD T,"development of efficient techniques for monitoring wildlife is a priority in the arctic, where the impacts of climate change are acute and remoteness and logistical constraints hinder access. we evaluated high resolution satellite imagery as a tool to track the distribution and abundance of polar bears. we examined satellite images of a small island in foxe basin, canada, occupied by a high density of bears during the summer ice-free season. bears were distinguished from other light-colored spots by comparing images collected on different dates. a sample of ground-truthed points demonstrated that we accurately classified bears. independent observers reviewed images and a population estimate was obtained using mark-recapture models. this estimate (n : 94; 95% confidence interval: 92-105) was remarkably similar to an abundance estimate derived from a line transect aerial survey conducted a few days earlier (n: 102; 95% ci: 69-152). our findings suggest that satellite imagery is a promising tool for monitoring polar bears on land, with implications for use with other arctic wildlife. large scale applications may require development of automated detection processes to expedite review and analysis. future research should assess the utility of multi-spectral imagery and examine sites with different environmental characteristics." grass invasion increases top-down pressure on an amphibian via structurally mediated effects on an intraguild predator,anaxyrus americanus; ecosystem engineer; food web; habitat complexity; indirect effects; intraguild predation; invasive; microstegium vimineum; trophic cascade; wolf spider,ECOLOGY,DEVORE JL;MAERZ JC,"plants serve as both basal resources and ecosystem engineers, so plant invasion may exert trophic influences on consumers both via bottom-up processes and by altering the environmental context in which trophic interactions occur. to determine how these mechanisms affect a native predator we used a mark recapture study in eight pairs of 58-m(2) field enclosures to measure the influence of japanese stilt grass invasion on 3200 recently metamorphosed american toads. toad survivorship was lower in invaded habitats despite abiotic effects that favor amphibians. prey densities were also lower in invaded habitats, but growth was unaffected. frequent spider predation events in invaded habitats led us to use factorial field cage manipulations of stilt grass and lycosid spiders to determine if invasion increases predation rates. spiders persisted at higher densities in the presence of stilt grass, and toad survival was lowest in cages with both grass and spiders. invasion alone did not significantly reduce toad survival. our results demonstrate that despite prey reductions and abiotic effects, it is increased spider persistence that reduces toad survival in invaded habitats. invasion therefore affects resident forest floor consumers by modifying trophic interactions between native species, causing structurally mediated reductions in intraguild predation rates among spiders, with cascading implications for toad survival." assessing population viability while accounting for demographic and environmental uncertainty,ashfall events; bayesian analysis; environmental stochasticity; icterus oberi; integrated population model; island endemics; juvenile survival; lesser antilles; montserrat oriole; population viability analysis; tropical forest; volcanic activity,ECOLOGY,OPPEL S;HILTON G;RATCLIFFE N;FENTON C;DALEY J;GRAY G;VICKERY J;GIBBONS D,"predicting the future trend and viability of populations is an essential task in ecology. because many populations respond to changing environments, uncertainty surrounding environmental responses must be incorporated into population assessments. however, understanding the effects of environmental variation on population dynamics requires information on several important demographic parameters that are often difficult to estimate. integrated population models facilitate the integration of time series data on population size and all existing demographic information from a species, allowing the estimation of demographic parameters for which limited or no empirical data exist. although these models are ideal for assessments of population viability, they have so far not included environmental uncertainty. we incorporated environmental variation in an integrated population model to account for both demographic and environmental uncertainty in an assessment of population viability. in addition, we used this model to estimate true juvenile survival, an important demographic parameter for population dynamics that is difficult to estimate empirically. we applied this model to assess the past and future population trend of a rare island endemic songbird, the montserrat oriole icterus oberi, which is threatened by volcanic activity. montserrat orioles experienced lower survival in years with volcanic ashfall, causing periodic population declines that were compensated by higher seasonal fecundity in years with high pre-breeding season rainfall. due to the inclusion of both demographic and environmental uncertainty in the model, the estimated population growth rate in the immediate future was highly imprecise (95% credible interval 0.844-1.105), and the probability of extinction after three generations (in the year 2028) was low (2.1%). this projection demonstrates that accounting for both demographic and environmental sources of uncertainty provides a more realistic assessment of the viability of populations under unknown future environmental conditions." -"impact of human disturbance, density, and environmental conditions on the survival probabilities of pipistrelle bat (pipistrellus pipistrellus)",capture-recapture; chiroptera; demography; density dependence; human perturbation,POPULATION ECOLOGY,LOPEZ-ROIG M;SERRA-COBO J,"natural and anthropogenic disturbances can strongly impact population dynamics of species and are often responsible for zoonotic emerging infectious diseases. however, long-term studies on the demographic consequences of human disturbances are unusual. we used 6 years (1995-2000) of mark-recapture data to investigate how climatic conditions, human disturbance and density affect sex- and age-specific apparent survival probabilities of the pipistrelle bat (pipistrellus pipistrellus, schreber 1774) in a maternity colony. our study demonstrated that density played an important role in population dynamics of pipistrelle bat and that its effect differed with respect to age and sex. notably, human disturbance caused a strong decline of adult female survival, suggesting that perturbations have important consequences in bat-colony dynamics. juvenile female survival was negatively influenced by density, being considerably lower in high densities. in contrast, juvenile and adult males were apparently not affected as they had constant survival probabilities. although climatic factors can markedly affect population dynamics of temperate insectivorous bats, in this study, the weather conditions did not influence the survival rates of pipistrelle bats. we provide the first report that demonstrates the density-dependent effect on bat survival. that is especially relevant to better understanding of the bat-population dynamics and to evaluate the consequences of human disturbance and their potential changes in the maternity colony structure." +"impact of human disturbance, density, and environmental conditions on the survival probabilities of pipistrelle bat (pipistrellus pipistrellus)",capture-recapture; chiroptera; demography; density dependence; human perturbation,POPULATION ECOLOGY,LOPEZ ROIG M;SERRA COBO J,"natural and anthropogenic disturbances can strongly impact population dynamics of species and are often responsible for zoonotic emerging infectious diseases. however, long-term studies on the demographic consequences of human disturbances are unusual. we used 6 years (1995-2000) of mark-recapture data to investigate how climatic conditions, human disturbance and density affect sex- and age-specific apparent survival probabilities of the pipistrelle bat (pipistrellus pipistrellus, schreber 1774) in a maternity colony. our study demonstrated that density played an important role in population dynamics of pipistrelle bat and that its effect differed with respect to age and sex. notably, human disturbance caused a strong decline of adult female survival, suggesting that perturbations have important consequences in bat-colony dynamics. juvenile female survival was negatively influenced by density, being considerably lower in high densities. in contrast, juvenile and adult males were apparently not affected as they had constant survival probabilities. although climatic factors can markedly affect population dynamics of temperate insectivorous bats, in this study, the weather conditions did not influence the survival rates of pipistrelle bats. we provide the first report that demonstrates the density-dependent effect on bat survival. that is especially relevant to better understanding of the bat-population dynamics and to evaluate the consequences of human disturbance and their potential changes in the maternity colony structure." "the montana deer and elk hunting population: the importance of cohort group, license price, and population demographics on hunter retention, recruitment, and population change",baby boomers; deer; elk; hunter recruitment; hunter retention; license price; license purchase probability; mark-recapture; montana; pradel model,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SCHORR RA;LUKACS PM;GUDE JA,"big-game hunting is a valuable resource for outdoor recreation opportunities, an economic driver for state and local economies, and the primary mechanism for funding game and non-game wildlife management. however, hunting license sales are declining, leading many state wildlife management agencies to re-evaluate funding and management structures. understanding the mechanisms behind such declines, and diagnosing the persistence of such trends is necessary to anticipate license fund fluctuations. to examine hunter recruitment and retention rates, we analyzed a data set of >490,000 deer and elk license records from 2002 to 2011 from the montana fish, wildlife and parks' automated licensing system. we used a temporal symmetry model in a mark-recapture framework to estimate hunter retention, recruitment rates, and population change, and then used population change estimates to forecast future hunter populations. we used covariates of gender, age, residency, and license price to improve model parsimony. millennial generation hunters increased during the 11-year analysis, and this was driven by high recruitment rates of young hunters, especially women, but recruitment decreased dramatically as youth aged. because baby boomers constitute such a large proportion of the hunting population, decreases in recruitment and retention in this cohort drove declines in the montana hunter population. increasing license price decreased the probability of recruiting and retaining hunters. the hunter population was stable until 2006, but has been declining since that time with nearly a 50% decline in hunter recruitment from 2002 to 2011. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." experimentally decoupling reproductive investment from energy storage to test the functional basis of a life-history trade-off,anolis; cost of reproduction; energy allocation; estradiol; fat body; lizard; mark-recapture; natural selection; phenotypic manipulation; survival,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,COX RM;LOVERN MB;CALSBEEK R,"the ubiquitous life-history trade-off between reproduction and survival has long been hypothesized to reflect underlying energy-allocation trade-offs between reproductive investment and processes related to self-maintenance. although recent work has questioned whether energy-allocation models provide sufficient explanations for the survival cost of reproduction, direct tests of this hypothesis are rare, especially in wild populations. this hypothesis was tested in a wild population of brown anole lizards (anolis sagrei) using a two-step experiment. first, stepwise variation in reproductive investment was created using unilateral and bilateral ovariectomy (ovx) along with intact (sham) control. next, this manipulation was decoupled from its downstream effects on energy storage by surgically ablating the abdominal fat stores from half of the females in each reproductive treatment. as predicted, unilateral ovx (intermediate reproductive investment) induced levels of growth, body condition, fat storage and breeding-season survival that were intermediate between the high levels of bilateral ovx (no reproductive investment) and the low levels of sham (full reproductive investment). ablation of abdominal fat bodies had a strong and persistent effect on energy stores, but it did not influence post-breeding survival in any of the three reproductive treatments. this suggests that the energetic savings of reduced reproductive investment do not directly enhance post-breeding survival, with the caveat that only one aspect of energy storage was manipulated and ovx itself had no overall effect on post-breeding survival. this study supports the emerging view that simple energy-allocation models may often be insufficient as explanations for the life-history trade-off between reproduction and survival." -large-scale movements in european badgers: has the tail of the movement kernel been underestimated?,btb; btb vaccination; culling; dispersal kernel; landscape scale; mark-recapture; meles meles; sex-biased dispersal; wildlife management,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,BYRNE AW;QUINN JL;O'KEEFFE JJ;GREEN S;SLEEMAN DP;MARTIN SW;DAVENPORT J,"characterizing patterns of animal movementis a major aimin population ecology, and yet doing so at an appropriate spatial scale remains a major challenge. estimating the frequency and distances of movements is of particular importance when species are implicated in the transmission of zoonotic diseases. european badgers (meles meles) areclassically viewed as exhibiting limited dispersal, and yet their movements bring them into conflict with farmers due to their potential to spread bovine tuberculosis in parts of their range.considerable uncertainty surrounds themovement potential of badgers, and this may be related tothe spatial scale of previous empirical studies.we conducted a large-scale mark-recapture study (755km2; 2008-2012; 1935 capture events; 963 badgers) to investigate movement patterns in badgers, and undertook a comparative meta-analysis using published data from 15 european populations. the dispersal movement (>1km) kernel followed an inverse power-law function, with a substantial tail' indicating the occurrence of rare long-distance dispersal attempts during the study period. the mean recorded distance from this distribution was 2 center dot 6km, the 95 percentile was 7 center dot 3km and the longest recorded was 22 center dot 1km. dispersal frequency distributions were significantly different between genders; males dispersed more frequently than females, but females made proportionally more long-distance dispersal attempts than males. we used a subsampling approach to demonstrate that the appropriate minimum spatial scale to characterize badger movements in our study population was 80km2, substantially larger than many previous badger studies. furthermore, the meta-analysis indicated a significant association between maximum movement distance and study area size, while controlling for population density. maximum long-distance movements were often only recorded by chance beyond the boundaries of study areas. these findings suggest that the tail of the badger movement distribution is currently underestimated. the implications of this for understanding the spatial ecology of badger populations and for the design of disease intervention strategies are potentially significant." -selection based on the size of the black tie of the great tit may be reversed in urban habitats,divergent selection; parus major; plumage coloration; survival; trap response; urban adaptation,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SENAR JC;CONROY MJ;QUESADA J;MATEOS-GONZALEZ F,"a standard approach to model how selection shapes phenotypic traits is the analysis of capture-recapture data relating trait variation to survival. divergent selection, however, has never been analyzed by the capture-recapture approach. most reported examples of differences between urban and nonurban animals reflect behavioral plasticity rather than divergent selection. the aim of this paper was to use a capture-recapture approach to test the hypothesis that divergent selection can also drive local adaptation in urban habitats. we focused on the size of the black breast stripe (i.e., tie width) of the great tit (parus major), a sexual ornament used in mate choice. urban great tits display smaller tie sizes than forest birds. because tie size is mostly genetically determined, it could potentially respond to selection. we analyzed capture/recapture data of male great tits in barcelona city (n = 171) and in a nearby (7 km) forest (n = 324) from 1992 to 2008 using mark. when modelling recapture rate, we found it to be strongly influenced by tie width, so that both for urban and forest habitats, birds with smaller ties were more trap-shy and more cautious than their larger tied counterparts. when modelling survival, we found that survival prospects in forest great tits increased the larger their tie width (i.e., directional positive selection), but the reverse was found for urban birds, with individuals displaying smaller ties showing higher survival (i.e., directional negative selection). as melanin-based tie size seems to be related to personality, and both are heritable, results may be explained by cautious personalities being favored in urban environments. more importantly, our results show that divergent selection can be an important mechanism in local adaptation to urban habitats and that capture-recapture is a powerful tool to test it." +large-scale movements in european badgers: has the tail of the movement kernel been underestimated?,btb; btb vaccination; culling; dispersal kernel; landscape scale; mark-recapture; meles meles; sex-biased dispersal; wildlife management,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,BYRNE AW;QUINN JL;O KEEFFE JJ;GREEN S;SLEEMAN DP;MARTIN SW;DAVENPORT J,"characterizing patterns of animal movementis a major aimin population ecology, and yet doing so at an appropriate spatial scale remains a major challenge. estimating the frequency and distances of movements is of particular importance when species are implicated in the transmission of zoonotic diseases. european badgers (meles meles) areclassically viewed as exhibiting limited dispersal, and yet their movements bring them into conflict with farmers due to their potential to spread bovine tuberculosis in parts of their range.considerable uncertainty surrounds themovement potential of badgers, and this may be related tothe spatial scale of previous empirical studies.we conducted a large-scale mark-recapture study (755km2; 2008-2012; 1935 capture events; 963 badgers) to investigate movement patterns in badgers, and undertook a comparative meta-analysis using published data from 15 european populations. the dispersal movement (>1km) kernel followed an inverse power-law function, with a substantial tail' indicating the occurrence of rare long-distance dispersal attempts during the study period. the mean recorded distance from this distribution was 2 center dot 6km, the 95 percentile was 7 center dot 3km and the longest recorded was 22 center dot 1km. dispersal frequency distributions were significantly different between genders; males dispersed more frequently than females, but females made proportionally more long-distance dispersal attempts than males. we used a subsampling approach to demonstrate that the appropriate minimum spatial scale to characterize badger movements in our study population was 80km2, substantially larger than many previous badger studies. furthermore, the meta-analysis indicated a significant association between maximum movement distance and study area size, while controlling for population density. maximum long-distance movements were often only recorded by chance beyond the boundaries of study areas. these findings suggest that the tail of the badger movement distribution is currently underestimated. the implications of this for understanding the spatial ecology of badger populations and for the design of disease intervention strategies are potentially significant." +selection based on the size of the black tie of the great tit may be reversed in urban habitats,divergent selection; parus major; plumage coloration; survival; trap response; urban adaptation,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SENAR JC;CONROY MJ;QUESADA J;MATEOS GONZALEZ F,"a standard approach to model how selection shapes phenotypic traits is the analysis of capture-recapture data relating trait variation to survival. divergent selection, however, has never been analyzed by the capture-recapture approach. most reported examples of differences between urban and nonurban animals reflect behavioral plasticity rather than divergent selection. the aim of this paper was to use a capture-recapture approach to test the hypothesis that divergent selection can also drive local adaptation in urban habitats. we focused on the size of the black breast stripe (i.e., tie width) of the great tit (parus major), a sexual ornament used in mate choice. urban great tits display smaller tie sizes than forest birds. because tie size is mostly genetically determined, it could potentially respond to selection. we analyzed capture/recapture data of male great tits in barcelona city (n = 171) and in a nearby (7 km) forest (n = 324) from 1992 to 2008 using mark. when modelling recapture rate, we found it to be strongly influenced by tie width, so that both for urban and forest habitats, birds with smaller ties were more trap-shy and more cautious than their larger tied counterparts. when modelling survival, we found that survival prospects in forest great tits increased the larger their tie width (i.e., directional positive selection), but the reverse was found for urban birds, with individuals displaying smaller ties showing higher survival (i.e., directional negative selection). as melanin-based tie size seems to be related to personality, and both are heritable, results may be explained by cautious personalities being favored in urban environments. more importantly, our results show that divergent selection can be an important mechanism in local adaptation to urban habitats and that capture-recapture is a powerful tool to test it." estimating the abundance of rare and elusive carnivores from photographic-sampling data when the population size is very small,camera traps; capture-recapture; heterogeneous detection; small population,POPULATION ECOLOGY,GERBER BD;IVAN JS;BURNHAM KP,"conservation and management agencies require accurate and precise estimates of abundance when considering the status of a species and the need for directed actions. due to the proliferation of remote sampling cameras, there has been an increase in capture-recapture studies that estimate the abundance of rare and/or elusive species using closed capture-recapture estimators (c-r). however, data from these studies often do not meet necessary statistical assumptions. common attributes of these data are (1) infrequent detections, (2) a small number of individuals detected, (3) long survey durations, and (4) variability in detection among individuals. we believe there is a need for guidance when analyzing this type of sparse data. we highlight statistical limitations of closed c-r estimators when data are sparse and suggest an alternative approach over the conventional use of the jackknife estimator. our approach aims to maximize the probability individuals are detected at least once over the entire sampling period, thus making the modeling of variability in the detection process irrelevant, estimating abundance accurately and precisely. we use simulations to demonstrate when using the unconditional-likelihood m (0) (constant detection probability) closed c-r estimator with profile-likelihood confidence intervals provides reliable results even when detection varies by individual. if each individual in the population is detected on average of at least 2.5 times, abundance estimates are accurate and precise. when studies sample the same species at multiple areas or at the same area over time, we suggest sharing detection information across datasets to increase precision when estimating abundance. the approach suggested here should be useful for monitoring small populations of species that are difficult to detect." estimating tag reporting rates for tropical tuna fleets of the indian ocean,reporting rate; indian ocean; tropical tuna; bayesian; tagging; mark-recapture,FISHERIES RESEARCH,CARRUTHERS T;FONTENEAU A;HALLIER JP,"estimates of tag reporting rates are necessary in order to estimate tag-recovery rates and interpret tagging data in terms of movement rates, exploitation rates and abundance. we describe a bayesian framework for the estimation of reporting rates for multiple fleets using coincidental tagging and catch data dis-aggregated by fish size, species, location and time. the method was applied to the data of the indian ocean tuna tagging programme (2006-2011) and tag seeding experiment of the indian ocean tuna commission (2004-2009). reporting rates were estimated for 13 indian ocean tuna fleets. these estimates varied widely from 94% for the european union purse seine fleet to less than 1% for fishing operations of non-longline/non-purse seine fleets in the eastern indian ocean. generally, reporting rates were high compared with estimates for tuna fisheries in other oceans. (c) 2014 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -demographic status and genetic tagging of endangered capercaillie in nw spain,NA,PLOS ONE,MORAN-LUIS M;FAMELI A;BLANCO-FONTAO B;FERNANDEZ-GIL A;RODRIGUEZ-MUNOZ R;QUEVEDO M;MIROL P;BANUELOS MJ,"counting rare and elusive animals and evaluating their demographic status, are fundamental yet challenging aspects of population ecology and conservation biology. we set out to estimate population size (n-c), genetic effective population size (n-e (gen)), sex ratio, and movements based on genetic tagging for the threatened cantabrian capercaillie. we used 9 microsatellite loci to genotype 134 droppings collected at 34 display areas during the breeding season. using genetic capture-mark-recapture, we estimated 93 individuals (n-c, 95% ci: 70-116) in an area of about 500 km(2), with sex ratio biased towards males (1: 1.6). estimated n-e gen (35.5) was 38% of n-c, notably higher than the published average in wild populations. this capercaillie population is small and well within concern in terms of population viability. by genetic tagging, we detected mostly short movements; just a few males were recaptured between contiguous display areas. non-invasive surveys of endangered populations have a great potential, yet adequate sample size and location are key to obtain reliable information on conservation status." +demographic status and genetic tagging of endangered capercaillie in nw spain,NA,PLOS ONE,MORAN LUIS M;FAMELI A;BLANCO FONTAO B;FERNANDEZ GIL A;RODRIGUEZ MUNOZ R;QUEVEDO M;MIROL P;BANUELOS MJ,"counting rare and elusive animals and evaluating their demographic status, are fundamental yet challenging aspects of population ecology and conservation biology. we set out to estimate population size (n-c), genetic effective population size (n-e (gen)), sex ratio, and movements based on genetic tagging for the threatened cantabrian capercaillie. we used 9 microsatellite loci to genotype 134 droppings collected at 34 display areas during the breeding season. using genetic capture-mark-recapture, we estimated 93 individuals (n-c, 95% ci: 70-116) in an area of about 500 km(2), with sex ratio biased towards males (1: 1.6). estimated n-e gen (35.5) was 38% of n-c, notably higher than the published average in wild populations. this capercaillie population is small and well within concern in terms of population viability. by genetic tagging, we detected mostly short movements; just a few males were recaptured between contiguous display areas. non-invasive surveys of endangered populations have a great potential, yet adequate sample size and location are key to obtain reliable information on conservation status." "survival, recruitment, and population growth rate of an important mesopredator: the northern raccoon",NA,PLOS ONE,TROYER EM;DEVITT SEC;SUNQUIST ME;GOSWAMI VR;OLI MK,"populations of mesopredators (mid-sized mammalian carnivores) are expanding in size and range amid declining apex predator populations and ever-growing human presence, leading to significant ecological impacts. despite their obvious importance, population dynamics have scarcely been studied for most mesopredator species. information on basic population parameters and processes under a range of conditions is necessary for managing these species. here we investigate survival, recruitment, and population growth rate of a widely distributed and abundant mesopredator, the northern raccoon (procyon lotor), using pradel's temporal symmetry models and >6 years of monthly capture-mark-recapture data collected in a protected area. monthly apparent survival probability was higher for females (0.949, 95% ci = 0.936-0.960) than for males (0.908, 95% ci = 0.893-0.920), while monthly recruitment rate was higher for males (0.091, 95% ci = 0.078-0.106) than for females (0.054, 95% ci = 0.042-0.067). finally, monthly realized population growth rate was 1.000 (95% ci = 0.996-1.004), indicating that our study population has reached a stable equilibrium in this relatively undisturbed habitat. there was little evidence for substantial temporal variation in population growth rate or its components. our study is one of the first to quantify survival, recruitment, and realized population growth rate of raccoons using long-term data and rigorous statistical models." reliability of different mark-recapture methods for population size estimation tested against reference population sizes constructed from field data,NA,PLOS ONE,GRIMM A;GRUBER B;HENLE K,"reliable estimates of population size are fundamental in many ecological studies and biodiversity conservation. selecting appropriate methods to estimate abundance is often very difficult, especially if data are scarce. most studies concerning the reliability of different estimators used simulation data based on assumptions about capture variability that do not necessarily reflect conditions in natural populations. here, we used data from an intensively studied closed population of the arboreal gecko gehyra variegata to construct reference population sizes for assessing twelve different population size estimators in terms of bias, precision, accuracy, and their 95%-confidence intervals. two of the reference populations reflect natural biological entities, whereas the other reference populations reflect artificial subsets of the population. since individual heterogeneity was assumed, we tested modifications of the lincoln-petersen estimator, a set of models in programs mark and care-2, and a truncated geometric distribution. ranking of methods was similar across criteria. models accounting for individual heterogeneity performed best in all assessment criteria. for populations from heterogeneous habitats without obvious covariates explaining individual heterogeneity, we recommend using the moment estimator or the interpolated jackknife estimator (both implemented in capture/mark). if data for capture frequencies are substantial, we recommend the sample coverage or the estimating equation (both models implemented in care-2). depending on the distribution of catchabilities, our proposed multiple lincoln-petersen and a truncated geometric distribution obtained comparably good results. the former usually resulted in a minimum population size and the latter can be recommended when there is a long tail of low capture probabilities. models with covariates and mixture models performed poorly. our approach identified suitable methods and extended options to evaluate the performance of mark-recapture population size estimators under field conditions, which is essential for selecting an appropriate method and obtaining reliable results in ecology and conservation biology, and thus for sound management." persisting in a windy habitat: population ecology and behavioral adaptations of two endemic grasshopper species in the cape region (south africa),dispersal; habitat connectivity; habitat utilization; orthoptera; restionid fynbos; wetland conservation,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,MATENAAR D;BRODER L;BAZELET CS;HOCHKIRCH A,"global biodiversity hotspots are rich in endemic insect species, many of which are threatened by the ongoing anthropogenic pressures on their habitats. the cape region (south africa) is one of these biodiversity hotspots, maintaining a high number of endemics. however, the ecology of most insect species in this region remains poorly understood. the two orthoptera species betiscoides meridionalis and betiscoides parva are endemic to the cape region and specialized on restio vegetation. they are threatened by increasing wildfire frequencies and invasions of non-native plant species. however, this information has been inferred from habitat changes, whereas no ecological study on these species has been conducted since they have been described. in order to facilitate conservation management, information on the ecology of these species is urgently required. the aim of our study was (1) to obtain data on the population ecology (particularly population sizes and mobility), and (2) to study the behavior of both species in response to environmental factors. for this purpose a mark-recapture-study and an observational behavior study were conducted. both species had small population sizes and a low mobility with males moving greater distances than females. wind had a strong influence on the behavior of betiscoides, particularly on the small males of b. parva. future studies might thus focus on the question whether wind-exposure is a critical factor for habitat choice of this species. we strongly recommend enhancing the connectivity of restio habitats and restoring these habitats to prevent extinction of specialized insect species." @@ -656,12 +656,12 @@ does your species have memory? analyzing capture-recapture data with memory mode using dynamic n-mixture models to test cavity limitation on northern flying squirrel demographic parameters using experimental nest box supplementation,abundance; apparent survival; baci design; dail-madsen open n-mixture model; glaucomys sabrinus; habitat selection; manipulative experiment; recruitment; snags; tree cavities,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,PRIOL P;MAZEROLLE MJ;IMBEAU L;DRAPEAU P;TRUDEAU C;RAMIERE J,"dynamic n-mixture models have been recently developed to estimate demographic parameters of unmarked individuals while accounting for imperfect detection. we propose an application of the dail and madsen (: biometrics, 67, 577-587) dynamic n-mixture model in a manipulative experiment using a before-after control-impact design (baci). specifically, we tested the hypothesis of cavity limitation of a cavity specialist species, the northern flying squirrel, using nest box supplementation on half of 56 trapping sites. our main purpose was to evaluate the impact of an increase in cavity availability on flying squirrel population dynamics in deciduous stands in northwestern quebec with the dynamic n-mixture model. we compared abundance estimates from this recent approach with those from classic capture-mark-recapture models and generalized linear models. we compared apparent survival estimates with those from cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) models. average recruitment rate was 6 individuals per site after 4years. nevertheless, we found no effect of cavity supplementation on apparent survival and recruitment rates of flying squirrels. contrary to our expectations, initial abundance was not affected by conifer basal area (food availability) and was negatively affected by snag basal area (cavity availability). northern flying squirrel population dynamics are not influenced by cavity availability at our deciduous sites. consequently, we suggest that this species should not be considered an indicator of old forest attributes in our study area, especially in view of apparent wide population fluctuations across years. abundance estimates from n-mixture models were similar to those from capture-mark-recapture models, although the latter had greater precision. generalized linear mixed models produced lower abundance estimates, but revealed the same relationship between abundance and snag basal area. apparent survival estimates from n-mixture models were higher and less precise than those from cjs models. however, n-mixture models can be particularly useful to evaluate management effects on animal populations, especially for species that are difficult to detect in situations where individuals cannot be uniquely identified. they also allow investigating the effects of covariates at the site level, when low recapture rates would require restricting classic cmr analyses to a subset of sites with the most captures." heterozygosity-fitness correlations in a wild mammal population: accounting for parental and environmental effects,capture-mark-recapture survival analysis; european badger; heterozygosity-fitness correlations; inbreeding depression; meles meles; paternal effects,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ANNAVI G;NEWMAN C;BUESCHING CD;MACDONALD DW;BURKE T;DUGDALE HL,"hfcs (heterozygosity-fitness correlations) measure the direct relationship between an individual's genetic diversity and fitness. the effects of parental heterozygosity and the environment on hfcs are currently under-researched. we investigated these in a high-density u. k. population of european badgers (meles meles), using a multimodel capture-mark-recapture framework and 35 microsatellite loci. we detected interannual variation in first-year, but not adult, survival probability. adult females had higher annual survival probabilities than adult males. cubs with more heterozygous fathers had higher first-year survival, but only in wetter summers; there was no relationship with individual or maternal heterozygosity. moist soil conditions enhance badger food supply (earthworms), improving survival. in dryer years, higher indiscriminate mortality rates appear to mask differential heterozygosity-related survival effects. this paternal interaction was significant in the most supported model; however, the model-averaged estimate had a relative importance of 0.50 and overlapped zero slightly. first-year survival probabilities were not correlated with the inbreeding coefficient (f); however, small sample sizes limited the power to detect inbreeding depression. correlations between individual heterozygosity and inbreeding were weak, in line with published meta-analyses showing that hfcs tend to be weak. we found support for general rather than local heterozygosity effects on first-year survival probability, and g2 indicated that our markers had power to detect inbreeding. we emphasize the importance of assessing how environmental stressors can influence the magnitude and direction of hfcs and of considering how parental genetic diversity can affect fitness-related traits, which could play an important role in the evolution of mate choice." marine survival difference between wild and hatchery-reared steelhead trout determined during early downstream migration,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,MELNYCHUK MC;KORMAN J;HAUSCH S;WELCH DW;MCCUBBING DJF;WALTERS CJ,"we observed large survival differences between wild and hatchery-reared steelhead trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) during the juvenile downstream migration immediately after release, which persisted through adult life. following a railway spill of sodium hydroxide into the cheakamus river, british columbia, a short-term conservation hatchery rearing program was implemented for steelhead. we used acoustic telemetry and mark-recapture models to estimate survival of wild and (or) hatchery-reared steelhead during 4 years of the smolt migration, with both groups released in 2008. after adjusting for estimated freshwater residualization, 7%-13% of wild smolts and 30%-40% of hatchery smolts died in the first 3 km of the migration. estimated survival from release to ocean entry was 71%-84% for wild fish and 26%-40% for hatchery fish and to exit from the strait of georgia system was 22%-33% for wild fish and 3.5%-6.7% for hatchery fish. a calculated 2.3-fold survival difference established during the downstream migration was similar to that after the return of adult spawners, as return rates were 8.0% for wild fish and 4.1% for hatchery fish. contrary to current understanding, a large proportion of salmon mortality in the smolt-to-adult period, commonly termed ""marine mortality"", may actually occur prior to ocean entry." -efficiency of electrofishing in turbid lowland rivers: implications for measuring temporal change in fish populations,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,LYON JP;BIRD T;NICOL S;KEARNS J;O'MAHONY J;TODD CR;COWX IG;BRADSHAW CJA,"to quantify how electrofishing capture probability varies over time and across physiochemical and disturbance gradients in a turbid lowland river, we tagged between 68 and 95 fish.year(-1) with radio transmitters and up to 424 fish.year(-1) with external and passive integrated transponder (pit) tags. we surveyed the site noninvasively using radiotelemetry to determine which of the radio-tagged fish were present (effectively closing the radio-tagged population to emigration) and then electrofished to estimate the proportion of available fish that were captured based on both this and standard mark-recapture methods. we replicated the electrofishing surveys three times over a minimum of 12 days each year, for 7 years. electrofishing capture probability varied between 0.020 and 0.310 over the 7 years and between four different large-bodied species (murray cod (maccullochella peelii), trout cod (maccullochella macquariensis), golden perch (macquaria ambigua ambigua), and silver perch (bidyanus bidyanus)). river turbidity associated with increased river discharge negatively influenced capture probability. increasing fish length increased detection of fish up to 500 mm for murray cod, after which capture probability decreased. variation in capture probability in large lowland rivers results in additional uncertainty when estimating population size or relative abundance. research and monitoring programs using fish as an indicator should incorporate strategies to lessen potential error that might result from changes in capture probabilities." +efficiency of electrofishing in turbid lowland rivers: implications for measuring temporal change in fish populations,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,LYON JP;BIRD T;NICOL S;KEARNS J;O MAHONY J;TODD CR;COWX IG;BRADSHAW CJA,"to quantify how electrofishing capture probability varies over time and across physiochemical and disturbance gradients in a turbid lowland river, we tagged between 68 and 95 fish.year(-1) with radio transmitters and up to 424 fish.year(-1) with external and passive integrated transponder (pit) tags. we surveyed the site noninvasively using radiotelemetry to determine which of the radio-tagged fish were present (effectively closing the radio-tagged population to emigration) and then electrofished to estimate the proportion of available fish that were captured based on both this and standard mark-recapture methods. we replicated the electrofishing surveys three times over a minimum of 12 days each year, for 7 years. electrofishing capture probability varied between 0.020 and 0.310 over the 7 years and between four different large-bodied species (murray cod (maccullochella peelii), trout cod (maccullochella macquariensis), golden perch (macquaria ambigua ambigua), and silver perch (bidyanus bidyanus)). river turbidity associated with increased river discharge negatively influenced capture probability. increasing fish length increased detection of fish up to 500 mm for murray cod, after which capture probability decreased. variation in capture probability in large lowland rivers results in additional uncertainty when estimating population size or relative abundance. research and monitoring programs using fish as an indicator should incorporate strategies to lessen potential error that might result from changes in capture probabilities." monitoring abundance and phenology in (multivoltine) butterfly species: a novel mixture model,ukbms; stopover duration; parameter redundancy; common blue butterfly; super-population; normal mixtures; sample counts,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,MATECHOU E;DENNIS EB;FREEMAN SN;BRERETON T,"data from 'citizen science' surveys are increasingly valuable in identifying declines in widespread species, but require special attention in the case of invertebrates, with considerable variation in number, seasonal flight patterns and, potentially, voltinism. there is a need for reliable and more informative methods of inference in such cases. we focus on data consisting of sample counts of individuals that are not uniquely identifiable, collected at one or more sites. arrival or emergence and departure or death of individuals take place during the study. we introduce a new modelling approach, which borrows ideas from the 'stopover' capture-recapture literature, that permits the estimation of parameters of interest, such as mean arrival times and relative abundance, or in some cases, absolute abundance, and the comparison of these between sites. the model is evaluated using an extensive simulation study which demonstrates that the estimates for the parameters of interest obtained by the model are reliable, even when the data sets are sparse, as is often the case in reality. when applied to data for the common blue butterfly polyommatus icarus at a large number of sites, the results suggest that mean emergence times, as well as the relative sizes of the broods, are linked to site northing, and confirm field experience that the species is bivoltine in the south of the uk but practically univoltine in the north. synthesis and applications. our proposed 'stopover' model is parameterized with biologically informative constituents: times of emergence, survival rate and relative brood sizes. estimates of absolute or relative abundance that can be obtained alongside these underlying variables are robust to the presence of missing observations and can be compared in a statistically rigorous framework. these estimates are direct indices of abundance, rather than 'sightings', implicitly adjusted for the possible presence of repeat sightings during a season. at the same time, they provide indices of change in demographic and phenological parameters that may be of use in identifying the factors underlying population change. the model is widely applicable and this will increase the utility of already valuable and influential long-standing surveys in monitoring the effects of environmental change on phenology or abundance." a simulation study of acoustic-assisted tracking of whales for mark-recapture surveys,NA,PLOS ONE,PEEL D;MILLER BS;KELLY N;DAWSON S;SLOOTEN E;DOUBLE MC,"collecting enough data to obtain reasonable abundance estimates of whales is often difficult, particularly when studying rare species. passive acoustics can be used to detect whale sounds and are increasingly used to estimate whale abundance. much of the existing effort centres on the use of acoustics to estimate abundance directly, e. g. analysing detections in a distance sampling framework. here, we focus on acoustics as a tool incorporated within mark-recapture surveys. in this context, acoustic tools are used to detect and track whales, which are then photographed or biopsied to provide data for mark-recapture analyses. the purpose of incorporating acoustics is to increase the encounter rate beyond using visual searching only. while this general approach is not new, its utility is rarely quantified. this paper predicts the ""acoustically-assisted'' encounter rate using a discrete-time individual-based simulation of whales and survey vessel. we validate the simulation framework using existing data from studies of sperm whales. we then use the framework to predict potential encounter rates in a study of antarctic blue whales. we also investigate the effects of a number of the key parameters on encounter rate. mean encounter rates from the simulation of sperm whales matched well with empirical data. variance of encounter rate, however, was underestimated. the simulation of antarctic blue whales found that passive acoustics should provide a 1.7-3.0 fold increase in encounter rate over visual-only methods. encounter rate was most sensitive to acoustic detection range, followed by vocalisation rate. during survey planning and design, some indication of the relationship between expected sample size and effort is paramount; this simulation framework can be used to predict encounter rates and establish this relationship. for a case in point, the simulation framework indicates unequivocally that real-time acoustic tracking should be considered for quantifying the abundance of antarctic blue whales via mark-recapture methods." the number of scholarly documents on the public web,NA,PLOS ONE,KHABSA M;GILES CL,"the number of scholarly documents available on the web is estimated using capture/recapture methods by studying the coverage of two major academic search engines: google scholar and microsoft academic search. our estimates show that at least 114 million english-language scholarly documents are accessible on the web, of which google scholar has nearly 100 million. of these, we estimate that at least 27 million (24%) are freely available since they do not require a subscription or payment of any kind. in addition, at a finer scale, we also estimate the number of scholarly documents on the web for fifteen fields: agricultural science, arts and humanities, biology, chemistry, computer science, economics and business, engineering, environmental sciences, geosciences, material science, mathematics, medicine, physics, social sciences, and multidisciplinary, as defined by microsoft academic search. in addition, we show that among these fields the percentage of documents defined as freely available varies significantly, i.e., from 12 to 50%." the effects of birth weight and maternal care on survival of juvenile steller sea lions (eumetopias jubatus),NA,PLOS ONE,MANISCALCO JM,"steller sea lions were listed as endangered following a collapse of the western distinct population beginning in the late 1970s. low juvenile survival has been implicated as a factor in the decline. i conducted a multistate mark-recapture analysis to estimate juvenile survival in an area of the western population where sea lions are showing signs of recovery. survival for males and females was 80% between 3 weeks and 1 year of age. approximately 20% of juveniles continued to be nursed by their mothers between ages 1 and 2 and 10% between ages 2 and 3. survival for juveniles that suckled beyond 1 year was 88.2% and 89.9% to ages 2 and 3, respectively. in contrast, survival for individuals weaned by age 1 was 40.6% for males and 64.2% for females between ages 1 and 2. birth mass positively influenced survival for juveniles weaned at age 1 but had little effect on individuals continuing to suckle. cumulative survival to age 4 was double that estimated during the population decline in this region. evidence suggests that western steller sea lions utilize a somewhat different maternal strategy than those in the eastern distinct population. western adult females generally invest more in their pups during the first year but wean offspring by age 1 more often. this results in better survival to age 1, but greater mortality between ages 1 and 3 compared to the eastern population. different maternal strategies may reflect density dependent pressures of populations at opposite levels of abundance." -movement patterns in a partial migrant: a multi-event capture-recapture approach,NA,PLOS ONE,GOURLAY-LAROUR ML;PRADEL R;GUILLEMAIN M;GUITTON JS;L'HOSTIS M;SANTIN-JANIN H;CAIZERGUES A,"partial migration is a pervasive albeit poorly studied phenomenon by which some individuals of a population migrate while others are residents. it has tremendous consequences on seasonal variations of population size/structure and therefore management. using a multi-event capture-mark-recapture/recovery (cmr) approach, we assessed seasonal site occupancy, survival and site fidelity of a partially migratory diving duck, the common pochard (aythya ferina), in an area potentially including both local breeders and winter visitors. the modelling exercise indeed discriminated two different categories of individuals. first, locally breeding females which had a probability of being present in our study area during winter of 0.41. females of this category were found to be more faithful to their breeding site than males (breeding site fidelity probabilities of 1 and 0.11, respectively). the second category of birds were winter visitors, which included adults of both sexes, whose probability of being present in the study area during the breeding season was nil, and young of both sexes with a 0.11 probability of being present in the area during the breeding season. all wintering individuals, among which there was virtually no locally breeding male, displayed a high fidelity to our study area from one winter to the next (0.41-0.43). estimated annual survival rates differed according to age (adults 0.69, young 0.56). for both age classes mortality was higher during late winter/early spring than during summer/early winter. our study is among the first to show how and under which conditions the multi-event approach can be employed for investigating complex movement patterns encountered in partial migrants, providing a convenient tool for overcoming state uncertainty. it also shows why studying patterns of probability of individual presence/movements in partial migrants is a key towards understanding seasonal variations in numbers." +movement patterns in a partial migrant: a multi-event capture-recapture approach,NA,PLOS ONE,GOURLAY LAROUR ML;PRADEL R;GUILLEMAIN M;GUITTON JS;L HOSTIS M;SANTIN JANIN H;CAIZERGUES A,"partial migration is a pervasive albeit poorly studied phenomenon by which some individuals of a population migrate while others are residents. it has tremendous consequences on seasonal variations of population size/structure and therefore management. using a multi-event capture-mark-recapture/recovery (cmr) approach, we assessed seasonal site occupancy, survival and site fidelity of a partially migratory diving duck, the common pochard (aythya ferina), in an area potentially including both local breeders and winter visitors. the modelling exercise indeed discriminated two different categories of individuals. first, locally breeding females which had a probability of being present in our study area during winter of 0.41. females of this category were found to be more faithful to their breeding site than males (breeding site fidelity probabilities of 1 and 0.11, respectively). the second category of birds were winter visitors, which included adults of both sexes, whose probability of being present in the study area during the breeding season was nil, and young of both sexes with a 0.11 probability of being present in the area during the breeding season. all wintering individuals, among which there was virtually no locally breeding male, displayed a high fidelity to our study area from one winter to the next (0.41-0.43). estimated annual survival rates differed according to age (adults 0.69, young 0.56). for both age classes mortality was higher during late winter/early spring than during summer/early winter. our study is among the first to show how and under which conditions the multi-event approach can be employed for investigating complex movement patterns encountered in partial migrants, providing a convenient tool for overcoming state uncertainty. it also shows why studying patterns of probability of individual presence/movements in partial migrants is a key towards understanding seasonal variations in numbers." compensatory heterogeneity in spatially explicit capture-recapture data,carnivores; density estimates; dna; effective sampling area; grizzly bear; heterogeneity; home range; secr; sex differences; single-detector sampling area; spatially explicit capture-recapture; ursus arctos,ECOLOGY,EFFORD MG;MOWAT G,"spatially explicit capture-recapture methods, used widely to estimate the abundance of large carnivores, allow for movement within home ranges during sampling. probability of detection is a decreasing function of distance from the home range center, with one parameter for magnitude and another for spatial scale. sex-based and other differences in home range size potentially cause heterogeneity in individual detection and bias in estimates of density. the two parameters of detection have hitherto been treated as independent, but we suggest that an inverse relation is expected when detection probability depends on time spent near the detector. variation in the spatial scale of detection is then compensated by reciprocal variation in the magnitude parameter. we define a net measure of detection (single-detector sampling area, a(0)), and show by simulation that its coefficient of variation (cv) is a better predictor of bias than the cv of either component or the sum of their squared cvs. in an example using the grizzly bear ursus arctos, the estimated sex variation in a(0) was small despite large variation in each component. from the simulations, the relative bias of density estimates was generally negligible (<5%) when cv(a(0)) < 30%. parameterization of the detection model in terms of a(0) and spatial scale can be more parsimonious and significantly aids the biological interpretation of detection parameters." when is a parasite not a parasite? effects of larval tick burdens on white-footed mouse survival,bayesian analysis; capture-mark-recapture model; ectoparasites; ixodes scapularis; peromyscus leucopus; state-space model; survival,ECOLOGY,HERSH MH;LADEAU SL;PREVITALI MA;OSTFELD RS,"many animal species can carry considerable burdens of ectoparasites: parasites living on the outside of a host's body. ectoparasite infestation can decrease host survival, but the magnitude and even direction of survival effects can vary depending on the type of ectoparasite and the nature and duration of the association. when ectoparasites also serve as vectors of pathogens, the effects of ectoparasite infestation on host survival have the potential to alter disease dynamics by regulating host populations and stabilizing transmission. we quantified the impact of larval ixodes scapularis tick burdens on both within-season and overwinter survival of white-footed mice (peromyscus leucopus) using a hierarchical bayesian capture-mark-recapture model. i. scapularis and p. leucopus are, respectively, vectors and competent reservoirs for the causative agents of lyme disease, anaplasmosis, and babesiosis. using a data set of 5587 individual mouse capture histories over sixteen years, we found little evidence for any effect of tick burdens on either within-season or overwinter mouse survival probabilities. in male mice, tick burdens were positively correlated with within-season survival probabilities. mean maximum tick burdens were also positively correlated with population rates of change during the concurrent breeding season. the apparent indifference of mice to high tick burdens may contribute to their effectiveness as reservoir hosts for several human zoonotic pathogens." density and demography of snowshoe hares in central colorado,colorado; demography; density; forest management; lepus americanus; recruitment; snowshoe hare; survival; telemetry,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,IVAN JS;WHITE GC;SHENK TM,"to improve understanding of snowshoe hare ecology in the southern rockies and enhance the ability of agency personnel to manage subalpine landscapes for snowshoe hares (lepus americanus) and lynx (lynx canadensis) in the region, we estimated snowshoe hare density, survival, and recruitment in west-central colorado, usa from july 2006-march 2009. we sampled 3 types of forest stands that purportedly provide good habitat for hares: 1) mature engelmann spruce (picea engelmannii)-subalpine fir (abies lasiocarpa), 2) early seral, even-aged lodgepole pine (pinus contorta), and 3) mid-seral, even-aged lodgepole pine that had been pre-commercially thinned. in all forest types and all seasons, snowshoe hare densities were <1.0 hares/ha. during summer, hare densities [+/- se] were highest in early seral lodgepole pine (0.20 [0.01] to 0.66 [0.07] hares/ha), lowest in mid-seral lodgepole pine (0.01 [0.04] to 0.03 [0.03] hares/ha), and intermediate in mature spruce-fir (0.01 [0.002] to 0.26 [0.08] hares/ha). during winter, densities were more similar among the 3 stand types. annual survival of hares was highest in mature spruce-fir (0.14 [0.05] to 0.20 [0.07]) and similar between the 2 lodgepole stand types (0.10 [0.03] to 0.16 [0.06]). stand attributes indicative of dense cover were positively correlated with density estimates and explained relatively more spatial process variance in hare densities than other attributes. these same attributes were not positively correlated with hare survival. both density and survival of hares in early seral lodgepole stands were positively correlated with the extent of similar stands in the surrounding landscape. recruitment of juvenile hares occurred during all 3 summers in early seral lodgepole stands, 2 of 3 summers in mature spruce-fir stands, and in only 1 of 3 summers in mid-seral lodgepole. based on estimates of density and demography specific to each forest type, we conclude that managers should maintain mature spruce-fir and early seral lodgepole stand types rather than thinned, midseral lodgepole stands to benefit snowshoe hares (and by association lynx) in central colorado. given the more persistent nature of spruce-fir compared to early seral lodgepole, and the fact that such stands cover considerably more area, mature spruce-fir may be the most valuable forest type for snowshoe hares in the region. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." @@ -671,18 +671,18 @@ monitoring abundance of golden eagles in the western united states,aerial survey stopover duration of mallards during autumn in the illinois river valley,anas platyrhynchos; conservation; dabbling duck; illinois river valley; joint venture; mallard; mark-recapture; migration; stopover duration; waterfowl,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HAGY HM;YETTER AP;STODOLA KW;HORATH MM;HINE CS;WARD MP;BENSON TJ;SMITH RV;STAFFORD JD,"estimates of time spent at migratory stopovers are often used to develop habitat conservation objectives for a variety of avian species, namely waterfowl. because of limited previous research and a need for accurate conservation planning objectives, we estimated stopover duration and factors influencing stay of mallards (anas platyrhynchos) in illinois using radio telemetry during autumns 2009 and 2010. total stopover duration of migrating mallards was approximately 68 days and was approximately twice that of previous studies which could have significant implications on habitat needs used for conservation planning purposes. duration of stay post-capture did not vary by sex, body condition, year, or age but was inversely related to capture date. our results suggest that wetland conservation objectives could increase 16.2% if our contemporary estimates were included in current planning models of the upper mississippi river and great lakes region joint venture. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." estimating migratory connectivity of birds when re- encounter probabilities are heterogeneous,bird banding laboratory; migratory connectivity; multistate model; nearctic-neotropical migrant; re-encounter probability,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,COHEN EB;HOSTETLER JA;ROYLE JA;MARRA PP,"understanding the biology and conducting effective conservation of migratory species requires an understanding of migratory connectivity - the geographic linkages of populations between stages of the annual cycle. unfortunately, for most species, we are lacking such information. the north american bird banding laboratory (bbl) houses an extensive database of marking, recaptures and recoveries, and such data could provide migratory connectivity information for many species. to date, however, few species have been analyzed for migratory connectivity largely because heterogeneous re-encounter probabilities make interpretation problematic. we accounted for regional variation in re-encounter probabilities by borrowing information across species and by using effort covariates on recapture and recovery probabilities in a multistate capture-recapture and recovery model. the effort covariates were derived from recaptures and recoveries of species within the same regions. we estimated the migratory connectivity for three tern species breeding in north america and over-wintering in the tropics, common (sterna hirundo), roseate (sterna dougallii), and caspian terns (hydroprogne caspia). for western breeding terns, model-derived estimates of migratory connectivity differed considerably from those derived directly from the proportions of re-encounters. conversely, for eastern breeding terns, estimates were merely refined by the inclusion of re-encounter probabilities. in general, eastern breeding terns were strongly connected to eastern south america, and western breeding terns were strongly linked to the more western parts of the nonbreeding range under both models. through simulation, we found this approach is likely useful for many species in the bbl database, although precision improved with higher re-encounter probabilities and stronger migratory connectivity. we describe an approach to deal with the inherent biases in bbl banding and re-encounter data to demonstrate that this large dataset is a valuable source of information about the migratory connectivity of the birds of north america." probabilistic maturation reaction norms assessed from mark- recaptures of wild fish in their natural habitat,age and size at maturation; growth; life-history evolution; phenotypic plasticity; salmo trutta; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,OLSEN EM;SERBEZOV D;VOLLESTAD LA,"reaction norms are a valuable tool in evolutionary biology. lately, the probabilistic maturation reaction norm approach, describing probabilities of maturing at combinations of age and body size, has been much applied for testing whether phenotypic changes in exploited populations of fish are mainly plastic or involving an evolutionary component. however, due to typical field data limitations, with imperfect knowledge about individual life histories, this demographic method still needs to be assessed. using 13years of direct mark-recapture observations on individual growth and maturation in an intensively sampled population of brown trout (salmo trutta), we show that the probabilistic maturation reaction norm approach may perform well even if the assumption of equal survival of juvenile and maturing fish does not hold. earlier studies have pointed out that growth effects may confound the interpretation of shifts in maturation reaction norms, because this method in its basic form deals with body size rather than growth. in our case, however, we found that juvenile body size, rather than annual growth, was more strongly associated with maturation. viewed against earlier studies, our results also underscore the challenges of generalizing life-history patterns among species and populations." -"population dynamics of the critically endangered golden lancehead pitviper, bothrops insularis: stability or decline?",NA,PLOS ONE,GUIMARAES M;MUNGUIA-STEYER R;DOHERTY PF;MARTINS M;SAWAYA RJ,"little is known about vital rates of snakes generally because of the difficulty in collecting data. here we used a robust design mark-recapture model to estimate survival, behavioral effects on capture probability, temporary emigration, abundance and test the hypothesis of population decline in the golden lancehead pitviper, bothrops insularis, an endemic and critically endangered species from southeastern brazil. we collected data at irregular intervals over ten occasions from 2002 to 2010. survival was slightly higher in the wet season than in the dry season. temporal emigration was high, indicating the importance of accounting for this parameter both in the sampling design and modeling. no behavioral effects were detected on capture probability. we detected an average annual population decrease (lambda = 0.93, ci = 0.47- 1.38) during the study period, but estimates included high uncertainty, and caution in interpretation is needed. we discuss the potential effects of the illegal removal of individuals and the implications of the vital rates obtained for the future persistence and conservation of this endemic, endangered species." +"population dynamics of the critically endangered golden lancehead pitviper, bothrops insularis: stability or decline?",NA,PLOS ONE,GUIMARAES M;MUNGUIA STEYER R;DOHERTY PF;MARTINS M;SAWAYA RJ,"little is known about vital rates of snakes generally because of the difficulty in collecting data. here we used a robust design mark-recapture model to estimate survival, behavioral effects on capture probability, temporary emigration, abundance and test the hypothesis of population decline in the golden lancehead pitviper, bothrops insularis, an endemic and critically endangered species from southeastern brazil. we collected data at irregular intervals over ten occasions from 2002 to 2010. survival was slightly higher in the wet season than in the dry season. temporal emigration was high, indicating the importance of accounting for this parameter both in the sampling design and modeling. no behavioral effects were detected on capture probability. we detected an average annual population decrease (lambda = 0.93, ci = 0.47- 1.38) during the study period, but estimates included high uncertainty, and caution in interpretation is needed. we discuss the potential effects of the illegal removal of individuals and the implications of the vital rates obtained for the future persistence and conservation of this endemic, endangered species." "tracking natal dispersal in a coastal population of a migratory songbird using feather stable isotope (delta h-2, delta s-34) tracers",NA,PLOS ONE,HACHE S;HOBSON KA;BAYNE EM;VAN WILGENBURG SL;VILLARD MA,"adult birds tend to show high fidelity to their breeding territory or disperse over relatively short distances. gene flow among avian populations is thus expected to occur primarily through natal dispersal. although natal dispersal is a critical demographic process reflecting the area over which population dynamics take place, low recapture rates of birds breeding for the first time have limited our ability to reliably estimate dispersal rates and distances. stable isotope approaches can elucidate origins of unmarked birds and so we generated year-and age-specific delta h-2 and delta s-34 feather isoscapes (ca. 180 000 km(2)) of coastal-breeding ovenbirds (seiurus aurocapilla) and used bivariate probability density functions to assign the likely natal areas of 35 males recruited as first-year breeders into a population located in northwestern new brunswick, canada. most individuals (80-94% depending on the magnitude of an age correction factor used; i.e. 28-33 out of 35) were classified as residents (i.e. fledged within our study area) and estimated minimum dispersal distances of immigrants were between 40 and 240 km. even when considering maximum dispersal distances, the likely origin of most first-year breeders was<200 km from our study area. our method identified recruitment into our population from large geographic areas with relatively few samples whereas previous mark-recapture based methods have required orders of magnitude more individuals to describe dispersal at such geographic scales. natal dispersal movements revealed here suggest the spatial scale over which many population processes are taking place and we suggest that conservation plans aiming to maintain populations of ovenbirds and ecologically-similar species should consider management units within 100 or at most 200 km of target breeding populations." "comparing capture-recapture, mark-resight, and spatial mark-resight models for estimating puma densities via camera traps",camera trapping; capture-recapture; density; neotropics; puma concolor; spatial mark-resight,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,RICH LN;KELLY MJ;SOLLMANN R;NOSS AJ;MAFFEI L;ARISPE RL;PAVIOLO A;DE ANGELO CD;DI BLANCO YE;DI BITETTI MS,"camera-trapping surveys, in combination with traditional capture recapture or spatially explicit capture recapture techniques, have become popular for estimating the density of individually identifiable carnivores. when only a portion of the population is uniquely identifiable, traditional and spatial mark-resight models provide a viable alternative. we reanalyzed a data set that used photographic capture recapture methods to estimate the densities of pumas (puma concolor) across 3 study sites in belize, argentina, and bolivia using newer, more-advanced modeling including spatial and nonspatial mark-resight techniques. additionally, we assessed how photo identification influenced density estimates by comparing estimates based on capture histories constructed by 3 independent investigators. we estimated the abundances of pumas using mark-resight models in program mark and then estimated densities ad hoc. we also estimated densities directly using spatial mark-resight models implemented in a bayesian framework. puma densities did not vary substantially among observers but estimates generated from the 3 statistical techniques did differ. density estimates (pumas/100 km(2)) from spatial mark resight models were lower (0.22-7.92) and had increased precision compared to those from nonspatial capture recapture (0.50-19.35) and mark-resight techniques (0.54-14.70). our study is the 1st to estimate the density of a population of carnivores, where only a subset of the individuals are naturally marked, using camera-trapping surveys in combination with spatial mark-resight models. the development of spatial mark-resight and spatially explicit capture-recapture techniques creates the potential for using a single camera-trapping array to estimate the density of multiple, sympatric carnivores, including both partially marked and uniquely marked species." "density dependence or climatic variation? factors influencing survival, recruitment, and population growth rate of virginia opossums",didelphis virginiana; mesopredator release; population dynamics; pradel's capture-mark-recapture model; recruitment; survival,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,TROYER EM;DEVITT SEC;SUNQUIST ME;GOSWAMI VR;OLI MK,"mesopredators play an increasingly important role in ecosystems where apex predators have been eliminated, but population ecology of these midsized mammalian carnivores remains poorly understood. we applied pradel's temporal symmetry models to > 6 years of monthly capture mark recapture data and investigated factors influencing apparent survival, recruitment, and realized population growth rate of the virginia opossum (didelphis virginiana), an important mesopredator with unique life-history characteristics. apparent survival did not vary temporally; monthly survival probabilities were 0.86 +/- 0.01 (se) for females and 0.76 +/- 0.02 for males. recruitment rate varied monthly, with the highest recruitment in december (0.32 +/- 0.12 for females and 0.57 +/- 0.22 for males). realized population growth rate varied monthly and was also highest in december (1.30 +/- 0.17). both recruitment and population growth rate were positively influenced by the monthly coefficient of variation of precipitation. there was no evidence of density-dependent influences on opossum population dynamics, nor was there evidence of competition from the raccoon (procyon lotor), a sympatric and abundant mesopredator. our study is the 1st to simultaneously report survival, recruitment, and population growth rate of virginia opossums and to investigate factors influencing these rates. in doing so, we provide important insights into the population dynamics of an increasingly influential mesopredator." identification of pummelo cultivars by using a panel of 25 selected snps and 12 dna segments,NA,PLOS ONE,WU B;ZHONG GY;YUE JQ;YANG RT;LI C;LI YJ;ZHONG Y;WANG X;JIANG B;ZENG JW;ZHANG L;YAN ST;BEI XJ;ZHOU DG,"pummelo cultivars are usually difficult to identify morphologically, especially when fruits are unavailable. the problem was addressed in this study with the use of two methods: high resolution melting analysis of snps and sequencing of dna segments. in the first method, a set of 25 snps with high polymorphic information content were selected from snps predicted by analyzing ests and sequenced dna segments. high resolution melting analysis was then used to genotype 260 accessions including 55 from myanmar, and 178 different genotypes were thus identified. a total of 99 cultivars were assigned to 86 different genotypes since the known somatic mutants were identical to their original genotypes at the analyzed snp loci. the myanmar samples were genotypically different from each other and from all other samples, indicating they were derived from sexual propagation. statistical analysis showed that the set of snps was powerful enough for identifying at least 1000 pummelo genotypes, though the discrimination power varied in different pummelo groups and populations. in the second method, 12 genomic dna segments of 24 representative pummelo accessions were sequenced. analysis of the sequences revealed the existence of a high haplotype polymorphism in pummelo, and statistical analysis showed that the segments could be used as genetic barcodes that should be informative enough to allow reliable identification of 1200 pummelo cultivars. the high level of haplotype diversity and an apparent population structure shown by dna segments and by snp genotypes, respectively, were discussed in relation to the origin and domestication of the pummelo species." -climate driven life histories: the case of the mediterranean storm petrel,NA,PLOS ONE,SOLDATINI C;ALBORES-BARAJAS YV;MASSA B;GIMENEZ O,"seabirds are affected by changes in the marine ecosystem. the influence of climatic factors on marine food webs can be reflected in long-term seabird population changes. we modelled the survival and recruitment of the mediterranean storm petrel (hydrobates pelagicus melitensis) using a 21-year mark-recapture dataset involving almost 5000 birds. we demonstrated a strong influence of prebreeding climatic conditions on recruitment age and of rainfall and breeding period conditions on juvenile survival. the results suggest that the juvenile survival rate of the mediterranean subspecies may not be negatively affected by the predicted features of climate change, i.e., warmer summers and lower rainfall. based on considerations of winter conditions in different parts of the mediterranean, we were able to draw inferences about the wintering areas of the species for the first time." +climate driven life histories: the case of the mediterranean storm petrel,NA,PLOS ONE,SOLDATINI C;ALBORES BARAJAS YV;MASSA B;GIMENEZ O,"seabirds are affected by changes in the marine ecosystem. the influence of climatic factors on marine food webs can be reflected in long-term seabird population changes. we modelled the survival and recruitment of the mediterranean storm petrel (hydrobates pelagicus melitensis) using a 21-year mark-recapture dataset involving almost 5000 birds. we demonstrated a strong influence of prebreeding climatic conditions on recruitment age and of rainfall and breeding period conditions on juvenile survival. the results suggest that the juvenile survival rate of the mediterranean subspecies may not be negatively affected by the predicted features of climate change, i.e., warmer summers and lower rainfall. based on considerations of winter conditions in different parts of the mediterranean, we were able to draw inferences about the wintering areas of the species for the first time." incidence and geographical variation of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als) in southern germany - completeness of the als registry swabia,NA,PLOS ONE,UENAL H;ROSENBOHM A;KUFELDT J;WEYDT P;GODER K;LUDOLPH A;ROTHENBACHER D;NAGEL G,"objective of this paper was to investigate the incidence, potential geographical clusters and the completeness of the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als) registry in southern germany (swabia). age-standardized incidence rates (asr) and ratios (sir) as well as 95% confidence intervals (ci) were estimated at county level. capture-recapture (care) procedures were applied taking data source dependency into account to estimate the quality of case ascertainment in the als registry swabia. we identified 438 als cases (53% men, 47% women) in the target population of about 8.4 mio inhabitants. the gender ratio (men:women) was 1.1:1. the mean age at onset of als was 63.8 (sd = 11.9) years for men and 66.0 (12.2) for women. the age distribution peaked in the age group 70-74 years. the asr of als was 2.5 per 100,000 person years (py; 95% ci:2.3-2.7). the mean sir was 1.1 per 100,000 py (95% ci:1.0-1.2). high sir suggesting geographical clusters were observed in two counties (goppingen and bodenseekreis), but the variation was not statistically significant (p-values = 0.2 and 0.5). the percentage of care estimated missing cases was 18.9% in the registry yielding an asr of 3.1 per 100,000 py. the high coverage of the care estimated completeness of the als registry swabia indicates excellent quality for future projects. regional variations have to be investigated further." sex ratio bias and extinction risk in an isolated population of tuatara (sphenodon punctatus),NA,PLOS ONE,GRAYSON KL;MITCHELL NJ;MONKS JM;KEALL SN;WILSON JN;NELSON NJ,"understanding the mechanisms underlying population declines is critical for preventing the extinction of endangered populations. positive feedbacks can hasten the process of collapse and create an 'extinction vortex,' particularly in small, isolated populations. we provide a case study of a male-biased sex ratio creating the conditions for extinction in a natural population of tuatara (sphenodon punctatus) on north brother island in the cook strait of new zealand. we combine data from long term mark-recapture surveys, updated model estimates of hatchling sex ratio, and population viability modeling to measure the impacts of sex ratio skew. results from the mark-recapture surveys show an increasing decline in the percentage of females in the adult tuatara population. our monitoring reveals compounding impacts on female fitness through reductions in female body condition, fecundity, and survival as the male-bias in the population has increased. additionally, we find that current nest temperatures are likely to result in more male than female hatchlings, owing to the pattern of temperature-dependent sex determination in tuatara where males hatch at warmer temperatures. anthropogenic climate change worsens the situation for this isolated population, as projected temperature increases for new zealand are expected to further skew the hatchling sex ratio towards males. population viability models predict that without management intervention or an evolutionary response, the population will ultimately become entirely comprised of males and functionally extinct. our study demonstrates that sex ratio bias can be an underappreciated threat to population viability, particularly in populations of long-lived organisms that appear numerically stable." use of posterior predictive checks as an inferential tool for investigating individual heterogeneity in animal population vital rates,bayesian inference; dynamic heterogeneity; fixed heterogeneity; individual variation; leptonychotes weddellii; model checking; posterior predictive checking; state-space models,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CHAMBERT T;ROTELLA JJ;HIGGS MD,"the investigation of individual heterogeneity in vital rates has recently received growing attention among population ecologists. individual heterogeneity in wild animal populations has been accounted for and quantified by including individually varying effects in models for mark-recapture data, but the real need for underlying individual effects to account for observed levels of individual variation has recently been questioned by the work of tuljapurkar et al. (ecology letters, 12, 93, 2009) on dynamic heterogeneity. model-selection approaches based on information criteria or bayes factors have been used to address this question. here, we suggest that, in addition to model-selection, model-checking methods can provide additional important insights to tackle this issue, as they allow one to evaluate a model's misfit in terms of ecologically meaningful measures. specifically, we propose the use of posterior predictive checks to explicitly assess discrepancies between a model and the data, and we explain how to incorporate model checking into the inferential process used to assess the practical implications of ignoring individual heterogeneity. posterior predictive checking is a straightforward and flexible approach for performing model checks in a bayesian framework that is based on comparisons of observed data to model-generated replications of the data, where parameter uncertainty is incorporated through use of the posterior distribution. if discrepancy measures are chosen carefully and are relevant to the scientific context, posterior predictive checks can provide important information allowing for more efficient model refinement. we illustrate this approach using analyses of vital rates with long-term mark-recapture data for weddell seals and emphasize its utility for identifying shortfalls or successes of a model at representing a biological process or pattern of interest." "mark recapture estimates of dispersal ability and observations on the territorial behaviour of the rare hoverfly, hammerschmidtia ferruginea (diptera, syrphidae)",saproxylic; populus tremula; mate seeking; distribution,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,ROTHERAY EL;BUSSIERE LF;MOORE P;BERGSTROM L;GOULSON D,"in order to effectively manage habitat for fragmented populations, we need to know details of resource utilisation, and the capacity of species to colonise unoccupied habitat patches. dispersal is vital in maintaining viable populations in increasingly fragmented environments by allowing re-colonisation of areas in which populations have gone extinct. in the uk, the endangered aspen hoverfly hammerschmidtia ferruginea (fall,n 1817) (diptera, syrphidae) depends on a limited and transient breeding habitat: decaying aspen wood populus tremula l. (salicaceae). conservation management for h. ferruginea involves encouraging aspen expansion across scotland, and ensuring retention, maintenance and continuity of dead wood where h. ferruginea has been recorded and in areas that may link populations. in order to do this effectively we need to know how far h. ferruginea can disperse. by taking advantage of the tendency of adults to group on decaying aspen logs, we estimated dispersal ability through mark recapture techniques. in the first year, 1,066 flies were marked as they emerged from aspen logs and 78 were re-sighted at artificially-placed decaying aspen logs up to 4 km from the release site. in the second year, of 1,157 individually marked flies, 112 were re-sighted and one was observed 5 km from the release site. territorial behaviour was recorded at all (19) decaying aspen log locations. in total, 72 males were recorded defending territories, which overlapped with 68 % of recorded female oviposition sites. among males only, wing length was positively associated with dispersal. while these results show h. ferruginea is capable of locating decaying logs up to 5 km away, most dispersing individuals (68 %) were recorded at 1 km, which should be taken into account in developing management protocols. if enough dead wood is available it should be distributed within a radius of 1-2 km, and where possible, as stepping-stones linking up aspen woodlands. we discuss the implications of our findings for the natural history of this species, and make recommendations for its conservation management." population dynamics of reintroduced gunnison's prairie dogs in the southern portion of their range,burrowing mammals; conservation; cynomys gunnisoni; grassland; reintroduction; restoration; survival; translocations,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,DAVIDSON AD;FRIGGENS MT;SHOEMAKER KT;HAYES CL;ERZ J;DURAN R,"burrowing, herbivorous mammals play important roles as ecosystem engineers and keystone species of grassland ecosystems around the world, but populations of many species have declined dramatically because of myriad threats from human activities. prairie dogs (cynomys spp.) play important roles in shaping the central grasslands of north america, and have declined by about 98% across their range, with consequent losses in associated species and grassland habitat. this has prompted much interest in restoring their populations to protected areas. managers lack a clear understanding of the long-term success of reintroductions, however, and how success may vary across different species of prairie dogs and their widespread geographic ranges. we reintroduced over 1,000 gunnison's prairie dogs (c. gunnisoni) to a semiarid grassland ecosystem in the southern portion of their range in central new mexico, usa, and used standard capture-recapture methods to study their population dynamics over a period of 8 years. mean adult survival was 27% over the course of the study, with precipitation identified as the primary driver of survival. estimated survival was below 12% during severe drought periods and during the first few years following initial reintroduction, the latter likely because of high predation. consequently, multiple releases of animals were required to prevent extirpation, and the long-term sustainability of this population remains questionable. over the 8 years of our study, our site experienced 4 severe droughts during spring, the key period for prairie dog mating, pregnancy, and lactation. production of offspring at the site was low, likely because of the dry and variable conditions that occurred. we show that prairie dog restoration in semi-arid grassland environments that are typical of the lower elevations and southern extent of their range may not succeed in producing viable colonies, and that dedicated management for multiple years is needed to counteract periods of slow or negative population growth. our findings underscore the importance of maintaining and expanding existing colonies wherever possible in these more arid regions, and suggest that reintroductions should be treated as a secondary management strategy. our work also reveals the high vulnerability of prairie dog population extinction due to drought, which has important implications for gunnison's prairie dog conservation under a warming and drying climate. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." -coping with heterogeneity to detect species on a large scale: n-mixture modeling applied to red-legged partridge abundance,alectoris rufa; detectability; france; game species; monitoring; n-mixture; occupancy; playback,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,JAKOB C;PONCE-BOUTIN F;BESNARD A,"the reliability of long-term population estimates is crucial for conservation and management purposes. most game species population monitoring programs assume that count indices are proportionally related to abundance. however, this assumption is untenable when detection varies spatially and temporally. we assessed whether n-mixture models, which allow detection modeling using spatially and temporally repeated count data, were relevant for monitoring the population of red-legged partridge (alectoris rufa). unbiased estimates are needed for calculating hunting quotas for this game species. we used the simple aural playback point-countmethod and a dataset of 121 point-transects (n = 16,288 counts) collected from 1992 to 2010. covariates such as date, hour, wind, rain, and vegetation density influenced detection probability. estimated abundance ranged from 0 to 15 males per point and exhibited variable coefficients of variation depending on sites (range: 0.14-1.31, mean: 0.44). we found a positive and linear relationship between the abundance estimated by the n-mixture model and the densities provided by 2 other counting methods, square sampling and kilometric abundance index, but not with blank beat. we established a maximum detection radius for the playback surveys, which enabled conversion of abundance at the points into density. the n-mixture modeling approach is more cost-effective for game species monitoring than capture-recapture methods or square sampling, and more reliable than indices of relative abundances. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." +coping with heterogeneity to detect species on a large scale: n-mixture modeling applied to red-legged partridge abundance,alectoris rufa; detectability; france; game species; monitoring; n-mixture; occupancy; playback,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,JAKOB C;PONCE BOUTIN F;BESNARD A,"the reliability of long-term population estimates is crucial for conservation and management purposes. most game species population monitoring programs assume that count indices are proportionally related to abundance. however, this assumption is untenable when detection varies spatially and temporally. we assessed whether n-mixture models, which allow detection modeling using spatially and temporally repeated count data, were relevant for monitoring the population of red-legged partridge (alectoris rufa). unbiased estimates are needed for calculating hunting quotas for this game species. we used the simple aural playback point-countmethod and a dataset of 121 point-transects (n = 16,288 counts) collected from 1992 to 2010. covariates such as date, hour, wind, rain, and vegetation density influenced detection probability. estimated abundance ranged from 0 to 15 males per point and exhibited variable coefficients of variation depending on sites (range: 0.14-1.31, mean: 0.44). we found a positive and linear relationship between the abundance estimated by the n-mixture model and the densities provided by 2 other counting methods, square sampling and kilometric abundance index, but not with blank beat. we established a maximum detection radius for the playback surveys, which enabled conversion of abundance at the points into density. the n-mixture modeling approach is more cost-effective for game species monitoring than capture-recapture methods or square sampling, and more reliable than indices of relative abundances. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." demographic responses to mercury exposure in two closely related antarctic top predators,survival; catharacta maccormicki; brown skua; capture-recapture; population projections; southern ocean; reproductive performance; pollution; heavy metals; catharacta lonnbergi; population dynamics; south polar skua,ECOLOGY,GOUTTE A;BUSTAMANTE P;BARBRAUD C;DELORD K;WEIMERSKIRCH H;CHASTEL O,"although toxic chemicals constitute a major threat for wildlife, their effects have been mainly assessed at the individual level and under laboratory conditions. predicting population-level responses to pollutants in natural conditions is a major and ultimate task in ecological and ecotoxicological research. the present study aims to estimate the effect of mercury (hg) levels on future apparent survival rates and breeding performances. we used a long-term data set (similar to 10 years) and recently developed methodological tools on two closely related antarctic top predators, the south polar skua catharacta maccormicki from adelie land and the brown skua c. lonnbergi from the kerguelen archipelago. adult survival rates and breeding probabilities were not affected by hg levels, but breeding success in the following year decreased with increasing hg levels. although south polar skuas exhibited much lower hg levels than brown skuas, they suffered from higher hg-induced breeding failure. this species difference could be attributed to an interaction between hg and other environmental perturbations, including climate change and a complex cocktail of pollutants. by including hg-dependent demographic parameters in population models, we showed a weak population decline in response to increasing hg levels. this demographic decline was more pronounced in south polar skuas than in brown skuas. hence, hg exposure differently affects closely related species. the wide range of environmental perturbations in antarctic regions could exacerbate the demographic responses to hg levels. in that respect, we urge future population modeling to take into account the coupled effects of climate change and anthropogenic pollution to estimate population projections." "high rates of growth recorded for hawksbill sea turtles in anegada, british virgin islands",caribbean; conservation; growth rates; hawksbill turtle; sex ratio; sexual maturity,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HAWKES LA;MCGOWAN A;BRODERICK AC;GORE S;WHEATLEY D;WHITE J;WITT MJ;GODLEY BJ,"management of species of conservation concern requires knowledge of demographic parameters, such as rates of recruitment, survival, and growth. in the caribbean, hawksbill turtles (eretmochelys imbricata) have been historically exploited in huge numbers to satisfy trade in their shells and meat. in the present study, we estimated growth rate of juvenile hawksbill turtles around anegada, british virgin islands, using capture-mark-recapture of 59 turtles over periods of up to 649days. turtles were recaptured up to six times, having moved up to 5.9km from the release location. across all sizes, turtles grew at an average rate of 9.3cmyear(-1) (range 2.3-20.3cmyear(-1)), and gained mass at an average of 3.9kgyear(-1) (range 850g-16.1kgyear(-1)). carapace length was a significant predictor of growth rate and mass gain, but there was no relationship between either variable and sea surface temperature. these are among the fastest rates of growth reported for this species, with seven turtles growing at a rate that would increase their body size by more than half per year (51-69% increase in body length). this study also demonstrates the importance of shallow water reef systems for the developmental habitat for juvenile hawksbill turtles. although growth rates for posthatching turtles in the pelagic, and turtles larger than 61cm, are not known for this population, the implications of this study are that caribbean hawksbill turtles in some areas may reach body sizes suggesting sexual maturity in less time than previously considered." evaluating monitoring methods to guide adaptive management of a threatened amphibian ( litoria aurea),amphibian; auditory; conservation; cost benefit analysis; mark-recapture; tadpole; visual encounter survey,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BOWER DS;PICKETT EJ;STOCKWELL MP;POLLARD CJ;GARNHAM JI;SANDERS MR;CLULOW J;MAHONY MJ,"prompt detection of declines in abundance or distribution of populations is critical when managing threatened species that have high population turnover. population monitoring programs provide the tools necessary to identify and detect decreases in abundance that will threaten the persistence of key populations and should occur in an adaptive management framework which designs monitoring to maximize detection and minimize effort. we monitored a population of litoria aurea at sydney olympic park over 5years using mark-recapture, capture encounter, noncapture encounter, auditory, tadpole trapping, and dip-net surveys. the methods differed in the cost, time, and ability to detect changes in the population. only capture encounter surveys were able to simultaneously detect a decline in the occupancy, relative abundance, and recruitment of frogs during the surveys. the relative abundance of l.aurea during encounter surveys correlated with the population size obtained from mark-recapture surveys, and the methods were therefore useful for detecting a change in the population. tadpole trapping and auditory surveys did not predict overall abundance and were therefore not useful in detecting declines. monitoring regimes should determine optimal survey times to identify periods where populations have the highest detectability. once this has been achieved, capture encounter surveys provide a cost-effective method of effectively monitoring trends in occupancy, changes in relative abundance, and detecting recruitment in populations." @@ -691,26 +691,28 @@ one step forward: contrasting the effects of toe clipping and pit tagging on fro does seasonality drive spatial patterns in demography? variation in survival in african reed warblers acrocephalus baeticatus across southern africa does not reflect global patterns,avian life history; capture-mark-recapture; jags; multistate state-space; seasonality; spatial variation,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,JANSEN DYM;ABADI F;HAREBOTTLE D;ALTWEGG R,"among birds, northern temperate species generally have larger clutches, shorter development periods and lower adult survival than similarly-sized southern and tropical species. even though this global pattern is well accepted, the driving mechanism is still not fully understood. the main theories are founded on the differing environmental seasonality of these zones (higher seasonality in the north). these patterns arise in cross-species comparisons, but we hypothesized that the same patterns should arise among populations within a species if different types of seasonality select for different life histories. few studies have examined this. we estimated survival of an azonal habitat specialist, the african reed warbler, across the environmentally diverse african subcontinent, and related survival to latitude and to the seasonality of the different environments of their breeding habitats. data (1998-2010) collected through a public ringing scheme were analyzed with hierarchical capture-mark-recapture models to determine resident adult survival and its spatial variance across sixteen vegetation units spread across four biomes. the models were defined as state-space multi-state models to account for transience and implemented in a bayesian framework. we did not find a latitudinal trend in survival or a clear link between seasonality and survival. spatial variation in survival was substantial across the sixteen sites (spatial standard deviation of the logit mean survival: 0.70, 95% credible interval (cri): 0.33-1.27). mean site survival ranged from 0.49 (95% cri: 0.18-0.80) to 0.83 (95% cri: 0.62-0.97) with an overall mean of 0.67 (95% cri: 0.47-0.85). a hierarchical modeling approach enabled us to estimate spatial variation in survival of the african reed warbler across the african subcontinent from sparse data. although we could not confirm the global pattern of higher survival in less seasonal environments, our findings from a poorly studied region contribute to the study of life-history strategies." testing the consistency of wildlife data types before combining them: the case of camera traps and telemetry,camera trap; capture rate; data consistency; detection probability; fisher; home range; pekania pennanti; sierra nevada; telemetry; wildlife monitoring,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,POPESCU VD;DE VALPINE P;SWEITZER RA,"wildlife data gathered by different monitoring techniques are often combined to estimate animal density. however, methods to check whether different types of data provide consistent information (i.e., can information from one data type be used to predict responses in the other?) before combining them are lacking. we used generalized linear models and generalized linear mixed-effects models to relate camera trap probabilities for marked animals to independent space use from telemetry relocations using 2years of data for fishers (pekania pennanti) as a case study. we evaluated (1) camera trap efficacy by estimating how camera detection probabilities are related to nearby telemetry relocations and (2) whether home range utilization density estimated from telemetry data adequately predicts camera detection probabilities, which would indicate consistency of the two data types. the number of telemetry relocations within 250 and 500m from camera traps predicted detection probability well. for the same number of relocations, females were more likely to be detected during the first year. during the second year, all fishers were more likely to be detected during the fall/winter season. models predicting camera detection probability and photo counts solely from telemetry utilization density had the best or nearly best akaike information criterion (aic), suggesting that telemetry and camera traps provide consistent information on space use. given the same utilization density, males were more likely to be photo-captured due to larger home ranges and higher movement rates. although methods that combine data types (spatially explicit capture-recapture) make simple assumptions about home range shapes, it is reasonable to conclude that in our case, camera trap data do reflect space use in a manner consistent with telemetry data. however, differences between the 2years of data suggest that camera efficacy is not fully consistent across ecological conditions and make the case for integrating other sources of space-use data." "a quantitative life history of endangered humpback chub that spawn in the little colorado river: variation in movement, growth, and survival",dams; fitness trade-offs; grand canyon; hydrology; multistate; partial migration; size-dependent; skip spawning; tributary,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,YACKULIC CB;YARD MD;KORMAN J;VAN HAVERBEKE DR,"while the ecology and evolution of partial migratory systems (defined broadly to include skip spawning) have been well studied, we are only beginning to understand how partial migratory populations are responding to ongoing environmental change. environmental change can lead to differences in the fitness of residents and migrants, which could eventually lead to changes in the frequency of the strategies in the overall population. here, we address questions concerning the life history of the endangered gila cypha (humpback chub) in the regulated colorado river and the unregulated tributary and primary spawning area, the little colorado river. we develop eight multistate models for the population based on three movement hypotheses, in which states are defined in terms of fish size classes and river locations. we fit these models to mark-recapture data collected in 2009-2012. we compare survival and growth estimates between the colorado river and little colorado river and calculate abundances for all size classes. the best model supports the hypotheses that larger adults spawn more frequently than smaller adults, that there are residents in the spawning grounds, and that juveniles move out of the little colorado river in large numbers during the monsoon season (july-september). monthly survival rates for g.cypha in the colorado river are higher than in the little colorado river in all size classes; however, growth is slower. while the hypothetical life histories of life-long residents in the little colorado river and partial migrants spending most of its time in the colorado river are very different, they lead to roughly similar fitness expectations when we used expected number of spawns as a proxy. however, more research is needed because our study period covers a period of years when conditions in the colorado river for g.cypha are likely to have been better than has been typical over the last few decades." -estimation of capture probabilities using generalized estimating equations and mixed effects approaches,closed population; generalized linear models; generalized linear mixed models; heterogeneity; population size estimation,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,AKANDA MAS;ALPIZAR-JARA R,"modeling individual heterogeneity in capture probabilities has been one of the most challenging tasks in capture-recapture studies. heterogeneity in capture probabilities can be modeled as a function of individual covariates, but correlation structure among capture occasions should be taking into account. a proposed generalized estimating equations (gee) and generalized linear mixed modeling (glmm) approaches can be used to estimate capture probabilities and population size for capture-recapture closed population models. an example is used for an illustrative application and for comparison with currently used methodology. a simulation study is also conducted to show the performance of the estimation procedures. our simulation results show that the proposed quasi-likelihood based on gee approach provides lower se than partial likelihood based on either generalized linear models (glm) or glmm approaches for estimating population size in a closed capture-recapture experiment. estimator performance is good if a large proportion of individuals are captured. for cases where only a small proportion of individuals are captured, the estimates become unstable, but the gee approach outperforms the other methods." +estimation of capture probabilities using generalized estimating equations and mixed effects approaches,closed population; generalized linear models; generalized linear mixed models; heterogeneity; population size estimation,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,AKANDA MAS;ALPIZAR JARA R,"modeling individual heterogeneity in capture probabilities has been one of the most challenging tasks in capture-recapture studies. heterogeneity in capture probabilities can be modeled as a function of individual covariates, but correlation structure among capture occasions should be taking into account. a proposed generalized estimating equations (gee) and generalized linear mixed modeling (glmm) approaches can be used to estimate capture probabilities and population size for capture-recapture closed population models. an example is used for an illustrative application and for comparison with currently used methodology. a simulation study is also conducted to show the performance of the estimation procedures. our simulation results show that the proposed quasi-likelihood based on gee approach provides lower se than partial likelihood based on either generalized linear models (glm) or glmm approaches for estimating population size in a closed capture-recapture experiment. estimator performance is good if a large proportion of individuals are captured. for cases where only a small proportion of individuals are captured, the estimates become unstable, but the gee approach outperforms the other methods." using mark-recapture information to validate and assess age and growth of long-lived fish species,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,HAMEL MJ;KOCH JD;STEFFENSEN KD;PEGG MA;HAMMEN JJ;RUGG ML,"long-lived species from marine and freshwater environments have experienced declines linked to anthropogenic effects such as overexploitation, dam construction, and habitat modification. an understanding of the age structure and the associated dynamics determined from these data for long-lived species is critical for both perseverance of at-risk species and maintenance of exploited species. we used pallid sturgeon (scaphirhynchus albus) to evaluate the efficacy of mark-recapture data from known-age, hatchery-reared fish (ages 1 to 7) to corroborate age and growth estimates obtained from sectioned pectoral fin rays. accuracy of age estimates from known-age fish was 13%, whereas 72% of estimates were within 2 years of the true age. annual growth was significantly different between estimated growth (back-calculated) and actual observations of tagged pallid sturgeon. age for pallid sturgeon of any given size was estimated with parameters derived from mark-recapture data, and the predicted length-at-age relation was similar to observations from known individuals. in instances where age determination for all ages of interest cannot be verified, mark-recapture appears to be a viable solution for examining growth and has shown promise as a tool for estimating ages in long-lived species with calcified structures that are difficult to read." "are habitat loss, predation risk and climate related to the drastic decline in a siberian flying squirrel population? a 15-year study",alternative prey hypothesis; landscape change; mark-recapture analysis; population regulation,POPULATION ECOLOGY,KOSKIMAKI J;HUITU O;KOTIAHO JS;LAMPILA S;MAKELA A;SULKAVA R;MONKKONEN M,"to devise effective conservation actions, it is important to know which factors are associated with the population parameters of a declining population. using mark-recapture methods, we estimated the annual population size, growth rate and survival probability of an ear-tagged flying squirrel population over a 15-year period in a 4,500 ha study area in western finland. the species is considered vulnerable, but detailed knowledge concerning population sizes or trends is lacking. the population parameters and changes therein were regressed against habitat availability, an indicator of predation pressure, and mean winter temperature (an indicator of climate change), to reveal potential reasons for trends in the population. the best-fit models suggested the annual growth rate to be below one, and on average it was 0.93 (+/- 0.06; se) across the 15-year period. the survival probability was about 0.22 (+/- 0.03) for juveniles and 0.50 (+/- 0.03) for adults. the population size of adult flying squirrels decreased from 65 (+/- 11) individuals in 1995 to 29 (+/- 6) individuals in 2009. the number of flying squirrels was associated with the amount of available habitat, but the decline in population size was more rapid than the loss of habitat area. if the current decreasing trend in habitat availability continues, the population might become extinct by the year 2020. to halt the population decline, it is necessary to refrain from clear-cutting mature spruce stands until new suitable habitats develop from the maturation of younger forests." estimating the consequences of multiple threats and management strategies for semi- aquatic turtles,diamondback terrapin; malaclemys terrapin; matrix model; nest predation; population growth rate; road mortality; roads,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,CRAWFORD BA;MAERZ JC;NIBBELINK NP;BUHLMANN KA;NORTON TM,"1. roads are pervasive fixtures on most landscapes but are typically among many factors contributing to wildlife population declines. addressing road mortality as part of larger conservation efforts is challenging because it can be difficult to measure per capita mortality from roads and other concurrent threats. 2. we used 4 years of mark-recapture-recovery data for diamondback terrapins malaclemys terrapin on a causeway in georgia, usa, to directly estimate threats of adult road mortality and nest predation, contrast the consequences to population growth using stage-based matrix models and make management recommendations to stabilize the population. 3. mean estimated annual adult road mortality was 11.1% (range = 4.4-16.4%). estimated annual nest predation was 61.9%. we estimated that the population was declining (lambda < 0.98) in all scenarios where both threats were included. variation in adult survival was the most influential (highest elasticity) contributor to population growth relative to other demographic rates; however, lambda would remain below 1 with any nest predation rate exceeding our estimate even if actions to mitigate road mortality were 100% effective. 4. synthesis and applications. our study provides some of the first direct estimates of vehicle mortality rates and shows that mortality can remain sufficiently high among years to cause population declines. we also demonstrate that management actions focused on singular threats are inadequate for recovering populations. we conclude that integrated road and predator management is necessary to conserve turtle populations, and we suggest alternative strategies to compensate for some vehicle mortality and nest depredation." -exploring the consequences of reducing survey effort for detecting individual and temporal variability in survival,data thinning; hidden parameters; individual covariates; integrated population model; juvenile survival; long-term monitoring; mark-recapture-recovery; productivity; survey design; uria aalge,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,LAHOZ-MONFORT JJ;HARRIS MP;MORGAN BJT;FREEMAN SN;WANLESS S,"1. long-term monitoring programmes often involve substantial input of skilled staff time. in mark-recapture studies, considerable effort is usually devoted to both marking and recapturing/resighting individuals. given increasing budgetary constraints, it is essential to streamline field protocols to minimize data redundancy while still achieving targets such as detecting trends or ecological effects. 2. we evaluated different levels of field effort investment in marking and resighting individuals by resampling existing mark-recapture-recovery data to construct plausible scenarios of changes in field protocols. we demonstrate the method with 26years data from a common guillemot uria aalge monitoring programme at a major north sea colony. we also assess the impact of stopping the ringing of chicks on our ability to study population demography using integrated population models (ipm) fitted to data including information on breeding adults. different data sets were removed artificially to explore the ability to compensate for missing data. 3. current ringing effort at this colony appears adequate but resighting effort could be halved while still maintaining the capacity to monitor first-year survival and detect the effect of hatch date on survival prospects. 4. the ipm appears robust for estimating survival, productivity or abundance of the breeding population, but has limited capacity to recover year-specific first-year survival when chick data are omitted. if productivity were not monitored, the inclusion of chick data would be essential to estimate it, albeit imprecisely. 5. synthesis and applications. post-study evaluation can help streamline existing long-term environmental monitoring programmes. to our knowledge, this study is the first use of data thinning of existing mark-recapture-recovery data to identify potential field effort reductions. we also highlight how alternative monitoring scenarios can be evaluated with integrated population models when data are collected on different aspects of demography and abundance. when effort reduction is necessary, both approaches provide decision-support tools for adjusting field protocols to collect demographic data. the framework has broad applicability to other taxa and demographic parameters, provided suitable long-term data are available, and we discuss its use in different contexts. post-study evaluation can help streamline existing long-term environmental monitoring programmes. to our knowledge, this study is the first use of data thinning of existing mark-recapture-recovery data to identify potential field effort reductions. we also highlight how alternative monitoring scenarios can be evaluated with integrated population models when data are collected on different aspects of demography and abundance. when effort reduction is necessary, both approaches provide decision-support tools for adjusting field protocols to collect demographic data. the framework has broad applicability to other taxa and demographic parameters, provided suitable long-term data are available, and we discuss its use in different contexts." +exploring the consequences of reducing survey effort for detecting individual and temporal variability in survival,data thinning; hidden parameters; individual covariates; integrated population model; juvenile survival; long-term monitoring; mark-recapture-recovery; productivity; survey design; uria aalge,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,LAHOZ MONFORT JJ;HARRIS MP;MORGAN BJT;FREEMAN SN;WANLESS S,"1. long-term monitoring programmes often involve substantial input of skilled staff time. in mark-recapture studies, considerable effort is usually devoted to both marking and recapturing/resighting individuals. given increasing budgetary constraints, it is essential to streamline field protocols to minimize data redundancy while still achieving targets such as detecting trends or ecological effects. 2. we evaluated different levels of field effort investment in marking and resighting individuals by resampling existing mark-recapture-recovery data to construct plausible scenarios of changes in field protocols. we demonstrate the method with 26years data from a common guillemot uria aalge monitoring programme at a major north sea colony. we also assess the impact of stopping the ringing of chicks on our ability to study population demography using integrated population models (ipm) fitted to data including information on breeding adults. different data sets were removed artificially to explore the ability to compensate for missing data. 3. current ringing effort at this colony appears adequate but resighting effort could be halved while still maintaining the capacity to monitor first-year survival and detect the effect of hatch date on survival prospects. 4. the ipm appears robust for estimating survival, productivity or abundance of the breeding population, but has limited capacity to recover year-specific first-year survival when chick data are omitted. if productivity were not monitored, the inclusion of chick data would be essential to estimate it, albeit imprecisely. 5. synthesis and applications. post-study evaluation can help streamline existing long-term environmental monitoring programmes. to our knowledge, this study is the first use of data thinning of existing mark-recapture-recovery data to identify potential field effort reductions. we also highlight how alternative monitoring scenarios can be evaluated with integrated population models when data are collected on different aspects of demography and abundance. when effort reduction is necessary, both approaches provide decision-support tools for adjusting field protocols to collect demographic data. the framework has broad applicability to other taxa and demographic parameters, provided suitable long-term data are available, and we discuss its use in different contexts. post-study evaluation can help streamline existing long-term environmental monitoring programmes. to our knowledge, this study is the first use of data thinning of existing mark-recapture-recovery data to identify potential field effort reductions. we also highlight how alternative monitoring scenarios can be evaluated with integrated population models when data are collected on different aspects of demography and abundance. when effort reduction is necessary, both approaches provide decision-support tools for adjusting field protocols to collect demographic data. the framework has broad applicability to other taxa and demographic parameters, provided suitable long-term data are available, and we discuss its use in different contexts." animal reintroductions: an innovative assessment of survival,adaptive management; anaxyrus boreas; rocky mountain national park; multistate robust design,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MUTHS E;BAILEY LL;WATRY MK,"quantitative evaluations of reintroductions are infrequent and assessments of milestones reached before a project is completed, or abandoned due to lack of funding, are rare. however, such assessments, which are promoted in adaptive management frameworks, are critical. quantification can provide defensible estimates of biological success, such as the number of survivors from a released cohort, with associated cost per animal. it is unlikely that the global issues of endangered wildlife and population declines will abate, therefore, assurance colonies and reintroductions are likely to become more common. if such endeavors are to be successful biologically or achieve adequate funding, implementation must be more rigorous and accountable. we use a novel application of a multistate, robust design capture-recapture model to estimate survival of reintroduced tadpoles through metamorphosis (i.e., the number of individuals emerging from the pond) and thereby provide a quantitative measure of effort and success for an ""in progress"" reintroduction of toads. our data also suggest that tadpoles released at later developmental stages have an increased probability of survival and that eggs laid in the wild hatched at higher rates than eggs laid by captive toads. we illustrate how an interim assessment can identify problems, highlight successes, and provide information for use in adjusting the effort or implementing a decision-theoretic adaptive management strategy. published by elsevier ltd." coastal nurseries and their importance for conservation of sea kraits,NA,PLOS ONE,BONNET X;BRISCHOUX F;BONNET C;PLICHON P;FAUVEL T,"destruction and pollution of coral reefs threaten these marine biodiversity hot stops which shelter more than two thirds of sea snake species. notably, in many coral reef ecosystems of the western pacific ocean, large populations of sea kraits (amphibious sea snakes) have drastically declined during the past three decades. protecting remaining healthy populations is thus essential. in new caledonia, coral reefs shelter numerous sea krait colonies spread throughout an immense lagoon (24,000 km(2)). sea kraits feed on coral fish but lay their eggs on land. however, ecological information on reproduction and juveniles is extremely fragmentary, precluding protection of key habitats for reproduction. our 10 years mark recapture study on yellow sea kraits (l. saintgironsi >8,700 individuals marked) revealed that most neonates aggregate in highly localized coastal sites, where they feed and grow during several months before dispersal. hundreds of females emigrate seasonally from remote populations (>50 km away) to lay their eggs in these coastal nurseries, and then return home. protecting these nurseries is a priority to maintain recruitment rate, and to retain sea krait populations in the future." evaluation of calcein for estimating abundance of lake trout alevins on a spawning reef,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,MARSDEN JE;KELSEY KP;RILEY JW;HATT J,"reproduction by stocked lake trout salvelinus namaycush is generally estimated as the relative abundance of fry, that is, catch per unit effort in emergent fry traps and in beam trawls, but these estimates have high variance due to spatially heterogeneous distributions of fry. we used calcein, which produces a fluorescent mark in calcified structures, to batch-mark fry and generate a mark-recapture estimate of fry abundance on a small, shallow spawning reef. eggs collected from feral lake trout in lake champlain, vermont were reared at ambient lake temperatures, and fry were marked 7 d after hatching. fry were immersed in a salt solution for osmotic induction and then placed for 4min in a calcein solution. after marking, 18,000 fry were released on a spawning reef, and 2,000 fry were maintained in the hatchery. wild-caught fry and hatchery fry were checked for marks every 2-9 d. mark clarity was highest in the mandible and tail rays. marks may have faded, but they did not disappear: marks were visible in the mandible in 100% of hatchery fry after 68 d. an average of 37% of wild-caught fry had marks, yielding a chapman population estimate (+/- sd) of 47,486 +/- 2,301. the mark-recapture estimate was within the range of fry abundance estimated over 6years based on egg density data and estimates of hatching success but was substantially higher than estimated for the same year-class. this work supports prior estimates of fry abundance and provides a potential method for assessing fry abundance on deep reefs and the success of fry stocking. received june 4, 2013; accepted november 20, 2013" application of the genetic mark-recapture technique for run size estimation of yukon river chinook salmon,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,HAMAZAKI T;DECOVICH N,"we present an application of the genetic mark-recapture technique to estimate salmon run size in a large river. application of this technique requires modifications to estimation methodology. under a typical lincoln-petersen mark-recapture estimation of salmon run size (n = m/p), individual fish are captured and marked (m) in the lower river and are recaptured (m) at escapement (e: the number of fish reached spawning ground) monitoring sites selected upriver where the proportion of marked individuals (p = m/e) is estimated. in this genetic mark-recapture technique, the marked individuals are not captured and recaptured, but rather the naturally distinctive genetic (marked) population is captured and recaptured. genetically, the lower river population is a mixture of multiple genetic stocks, whereas the upriver escapement population consists of a single genetic stock. hence, the mark-recapture experiment (n = m/p(m)) is reversed. the proportion of ""marked"" genetic stock (p(m)) is estimated in the lower river, and size of the ""marked"" stock in the lower river (m) is estimated by summing its upriver escapement (e-m) and harvest (c-m) between the lower and upper portions of river (m = e-m+c-m). the harvest is calculated as a product of total upriver harvest (c) and the proportion of the ""marked"" stock (p(cm)) in the harvest (c-m = c center dot p(cm)). further, when the proportion of multiple genetic stocks (p(k)) is identified, stock-specific run size (n-k = n center dot p(k)), escapement (e-k = n-k-c-k, where c-k = c center dot p(ck)), and exploitation rate (ex(k) = c-k /n-k) can also be estimated, which provides substantially more information than does the conventional approach. we illustrate an application of this technique for estimating run size of chinook salmon oncorhynchus tshawytscha in the yukon river, alaska. received june 6, 2013; accepted november 20, 2013" demographic status of komodo dragons populations in komodo national park,island populations; abundance; survival; population growth; endemics; reptile; indonesia,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,PURWANDANA D;ARIEFIANDY A;IMANSYAH MJ;RUDIHARTO H;SENO A;CIOFI C;FORDHAM DA;JESSOP TS,"the komodo dragon (varanus komodoensis) is the world's largest lizard and endemic to five islands in eastern indonesia. the current management of this species is limited by a paucity of demographic information needed to determine key threats to population persistence. here we conducted a large scale trapping study to estimate demographic parameters including population growth rates, survival and abundance for four komodo dragon island populations in komodo national park. a combined capture mark recapture framework was used to estimate demographic parameters from 925 marked individuals monitored between 2003 and 2012. island specific estimates of population growth, survival and abundance, were estimated using open population capture-recapture analyses. large island populations are characterised by near or stable population growth (i.e. lambda similar to 1), whilst one small island population (gili motang) appeared to be in decline (lambda = 0.68 +/- 0.09). population differences were evident in apparent survival, with estimates being higher for populations on the two large islands compared to the two small islands. we extrapolated island specific population abundance estimates (considerate of species habitat use) to produce a total population abundance estimate of 2448 (95% ci: 2067-2922) komodo dragons in komodo national park. our results suggest that park managers must consider island specific population dynamics for managing and recovering current populations. moreover understanding what demographic, environmental or genetic processes act independently, or in combination, to cause variation in current population dynamics is the next key step necessary to better conserve this iconic species. (c) 2014 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." effects of exploitation on an overabundant species: the lesser snow goose predicament,harvest; additive mortality; chen caerulescens caerulescens; compensatory mortality; native invasive species; cause-specific mortality; capture-mark-recapture; population control,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,KOONS DN;ROCKWELL RF;AUBRY LM,"invasive and overabundant species are an increasing threat to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning world-wide. as such, large amounts of money are spent each year on attempts to control them. these efforts can, however, be thwarted if exploitation is compensated demographically or if populations simply become too numerous for management to elicit an effective and rapid functional response. we examined the influence of these mechanisms on cause-specific mortality in lesser snow geese using multistate capture-reencounter methods. the abundance and destructive foraging behaviours of snow geese have created a trophic cascade that reduces (sub-) arctic plant, insect and avian biodiversity, bestowing them the status of 'overabundant'. historically, juvenile snow geese suffered from density-related degradation of their saltmarsh brood-rearing habitat. this allowed harvest mortality to be partially compensated by non-harvest mortality (process correlation between mortality sources: rho=-0 center dot 47; 90% bci: -0 center dot 72 to -0 center dot 04). snow goose family groups eventually responded to their own degradation of habitat by dispersing to non-degraded areas. this relaxed the pressure of density dependence on juvenile birds, but without this mechanism for compensation, harvest began to have an additive effect on overall mortality (rho=0 center dot 60; 90% bci: -0 center dot 06 to 0 center dot 81). in adults, harvest had an additive effect on overall mortality throughout the 42-year study (rho=0 center dot 24; 90% bci: -0 center dot 59 to 0 center dot 67). with the aim of controlling overabundant snow geese, the conservation order amendment to the international migratory bird treaty was implemented in february of 1999 to allow for harvest regulations that had not been allowed since the early 1900s (e.g. a spring harvest season, high or unlimited bag limits and use of electronic calls and unplugged shotguns). although harvest mortality momentarily increased following these actions, the increasing abundance of snow geese has since induced a state of satiation in harvest that has driven harvest rates below the long-term average. more aggressive actions will thus be needed to halt the growth and spread of the devastating trophic cascade that snow geese have triggered. our approach to investigating the impacts of population control efforts on cause-specific mortality will help guide more effective management of invasive and overabundant species world-wide." -assessing sex-related chick provisioning in greater flamingo phoenicopterus roseus parents using capture-recapture models,waterbirds; multistate capture-recapture models; stable isotopes; sexual size dimorphism; sexual segregation; parental care; foraging ecology,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,RENDON MA;GARRIDO A;RENDON-MARTOS M;RAMIREZ JM;AMAT JA,"in sexually dimorphic species, the parental effort of the smaller sex may be reduced due to competitive exclusion in the feeding areas by the larger sex or physiological constraints. however, to determine gender effects on provisioning patterns, other intrinsic and extrinsic factors affecting parental effort should be accounted for. greater flamingos (phoenicopterus roseus) exhibit sexual size dimorphism. in fuente de piedra colony, the lake dries out almost completely during the breeding season and both parents commute between breeding and foraging sites >130km away during the chick-rearing period. applying multistate capture-recapture models to daily observations of marked parents, we determined the effects of sex, and their interactions with other intrinsic and extrinsic factors, on the probability of chick desertion and sojourn in the colony and feeding areas. moreover, using stable isotopes in the secretions that parents produce to feed their chicks, we evaluated sex-specific use of wetlands. the probability of chick attendance (complementary to chick desertion) was >0 center dot 98. chick desertion was independent of parental sex, but decreased with parental age. females stayed in the feeding areas for shorter periods [mean: 7 center dot 5 (95% ci: 6 center dot 0-9 center dot 4) days] than males [9 center dot 2 (7 center dot 3-11 center dot 8) days]. isotopic signatures of secretions did not show sex differences in delta c-13, but males' secretions were enriched in delta n-15, suggesting they fed on prey of higher trophic levels than females. both parents spent approximately 1day in the colony, but females prolonged their mean stay when the lake dried out. females also allocated more time to foraging in the flooded areas remaining in the colony, likely because they were energetically more stressed than males. the results indicate that sex-specific provisioning behaviour in greater flamingo is related to differential effects of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. males seem forage less efficiently than females, whereas females' body condition seems to be lower after feeding the chick. our methodology may be extended to species that feed on distant food sources and that do not visit their offspring daily, to elucidate patterns of chick-provisioning behaviour." +assessing sex-related chick provisioning in greater flamingo phoenicopterus roseus parents using capture-recapture models,waterbirds; multistate capture-recapture models; stable isotopes; sexual size dimorphism; sexual segregation; parental care; foraging ecology,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,RENDON MA;GARRIDO A;RENDON MARTOS M;RAMIREZ JM;AMAT JA,"in sexually dimorphic species, the parental effort of the smaller sex may be reduced due to competitive exclusion in the feeding areas by the larger sex or physiological constraints. however, to determine gender effects on provisioning patterns, other intrinsic and extrinsic factors affecting parental effort should be accounted for. greater flamingos (phoenicopterus roseus) exhibit sexual size dimorphism. in fuente de piedra colony, the lake dries out almost completely during the breeding season and both parents commute between breeding and foraging sites >130km away during the chick-rearing period. applying multistate capture-recapture models to daily observations of marked parents, we determined the effects of sex, and their interactions with other intrinsic and extrinsic factors, on the probability of chick desertion and sojourn in the colony and feeding areas. moreover, using stable isotopes in the secretions that parents produce to feed their chicks, we evaluated sex-specific use of wetlands. the probability of chick attendance (complementary to chick desertion) was >0 center dot 98. chick desertion was independent of parental sex, but decreased with parental age. females stayed in the feeding areas for shorter periods [mean: 7 center dot 5 (95% ci: 6 center dot 0-9 center dot 4) days] than males [9 center dot 2 (7 center dot 3-11 center dot 8) days]. isotopic signatures of secretions did not show sex differences in delta c-13, but males' secretions were enriched in delta n-15, suggesting they fed on prey of higher trophic levels than females. both parents spent approximately 1day in the colony, but females prolonged their mean stay when the lake dried out. females also allocated more time to foraging in the flooded areas remaining in the colony, likely because they were energetically more stressed than males. the results indicate that sex-specific provisioning behaviour in greater flamingo is related to differential effects of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. males seem forage less efficiently than females, whereas females' body condition seems to be lower after feeding the chick. our methodology may be extended to species that feed on distant food sources and that do not visit their offspring daily, to elucidate patterns of chick-provisioning behaviour." movements of dolphinfish (coryphaena hippurus) along the u.s. east coast as determined through mark and recapture data,dolphinfish; movements; migrations; connectivity; us east coast; mark-recapture,FISHERIES RESEARCH,MERTEN W;APPELDOORN R;HAMMOND D,"conventional mark and recapture (n = 306 recaptures) and satellite monitoring data (n = 6 transmitters) were used to examine small and large scale dispersal and movement patterns of dolphinfish (coryphaena hippurus) along the u.s. east coast. movement rates were dependent upon region, latitude, and distance from shore released. movements from florida to the south-atlantic bight (sab) (44.67 +/- 39.53 km/d) and florida to northeastern north carolina (mab) (44.62 +/- 15.31 km/d) had the highest observed rates, while movements within the sab were the slowest (11.80 +/- 27.94 km/d). regional movement headings varied with latitude, with dolphinfish released from florida keys to central florida displaying the most directional variability, with 3.5% conducting southerly movements. the majority of the southerly movements occurred during fall. the maximum straightline dispersal rate was 238.25 km/d and the greatest displacement distance was 1915 km observed in 51 days between the florida keys and long island, new york. understanding the movements of dolphinfish along the u.s. east coast is the first step toward better predicting seasonal and annual stock abundances by state and elucidating state-to-state stock connectivity. on a larger scale, identifying movement patterns along the east coast is a pre-requisite to describing the spatial and temporal movement patterns to other regions such as the bahamas and caribbean sea. (c) 2013 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -initial effects of the national pcv7 childhood immunization program on adult invasive pneumococcal disease in israel,NA,PLOS ONE,REGEV-YOCHAY G;RAHAV G;RIESENBERG K;WIENER-WELL Y;STRAHILEVITZ J;STEIN M;GLIKMAN D;WEBER G;POTASMAN I;DAGAN R,"background: pcv7 was introduced as universal childhood vaccination in israel in july 2009 and pcv13 in november 2010. here we report data on adult invasive pneumococcal disease (ipd), two years post pcv7 implementation and before an expected effect of pcv13. methods: an ongoing nationwide active-surveillance (all 27 laboratories performing blood cultures in israel), providing all blood & csf s. pneumoniae isolates from persons >18 y was initiated in july 2009. capture-recapture method assured reporting of >95% cases. all isolates were serotyped in one central laboratory. ipd outcome and medical history were recorded in 90%. second year post pcv implementation is compared to the first year. results: during july 2009 to june 2011, 970 ipd cases were reported (annual incidence [/100,000] of 9.17 and 10.16 in the two consecutive years, respectively). respective case fatality rates (cfrs) were 20% and 19.1%. incidence of ipd and cfr increased with age and number of comorbidities. incidence rate was significantly greater during the second winter, 7.79/100,000 vs. 6.14/100,000 in first winter, p = 0.004, with a non-significant decrease during summer months (3.02 to 2.48/100,000). the proportion of ipd cases due to pcv7-serotypes decreased from 27.5% to 13.1% (first to second year) (p<0.001). yet, non-pcv13-strains increased from 32.7% to 40.2% (p = 0.017). the increase in non-pcv13-strains was highly significant in immunocompromised patients and to a lesser degree in non-immunocompromised at risk or in older patients (>64 y). among younger/healthier patients serotype 5 was the major increasing serotype. penicillin and ceftriaxone resistance decreased significantly in the second year. conclusions: while overall annual incidence of ipd did not change, the indirect effect of pcv7 vaccination was evident by the significant decrease in pcv7 serotypes across all age groups. increase in non-vt13 strains was significant in immunocompromised patients. a longer follow-up is required to appreciate the full effect of infant vaccination on annual ipd." +initial effects of the national pcv7 childhood immunization program on adult invasive pneumococcal disease in israel,NA,PLOS ONE,REGEV YOCHAY G;RAHAV G;RIESENBERG K;WIENER WELL Y;STRAHILEVITZ J;STEIN M;GLIKMAN D;WEBER G;POTASMAN I;DAGAN R,"background: pcv7 was introduced as universal childhood vaccination in israel in july 2009 and pcv13 in november 2010. here we report data on adult invasive pneumococcal disease (ipd), two years post pcv7 implementation and before an expected effect of pcv13. methods: an ongoing nationwide active-surveillance (all 27 laboratories performing blood cultures in israel), providing all blood & csf s. pneumoniae isolates from persons >18 y was initiated in july 2009. capture-recapture method assured reporting of >95% cases. all isolates were serotyped in one central laboratory. ipd outcome and medical history were recorded in 90%. second year post pcv implementation is compared to the first year. results: during july 2009 to june 2011, 970 ipd cases were reported (annual incidence [/100,000] of 9.17 and 10.16 in the two consecutive years, respectively). respective case fatality rates (cfrs) were 20% and 19.1%. incidence of ipd and cfr increased with age and number of comorbidities. incidence rate was significantly greater during the second winter, 7.79/100,000 vs. 6.14/100,000 in first winter, p = 0.004, with a non-significant decrease during summer months (3.02 to 2.48/100,000). the proportion of ipd cases due to pcv7-serotypes decreased from 27.5% to 13.1% (first to second year) (p<0.001). yet, non-pcv13-strains increased from 32.7% to 40.2% (p = 0.017). the increase in non-pcv13-strains was highly significant in immunocompromised patients and to a lesser degree in non-immunocompromised at risk or in older patients (>64 y). among younger/healthier patients serotype 5 was the major increasing serotype. penicillin and ceftriaxone resistance decreased significantly in the second year. conclusions: while overall annual incidence of ipd did not change, the indirect effect of pcv7 vaccination was evident by the significant decrease in pcv7 serotypes across all age groups. increase in non-vt13 strains was significant in immunocompromised patients. a longer follow-up is required to appreciate the full effect of infant vaccination on annual ipd." trap configuration and spacing influences parameter estimates in spatial capture-recapture models,NA,PLOS ONE,SUN CC;FULLER AK;ROYLE JA,"an increasing number of studies employ spatial capture-recapture models to estimate population size, but there has been limited research on how different spatial sampling designs and trap configurations influence parameter estimators. spatial capture-recapture models provide an advantage over non-spatial models by explicitly accounting for heterogeneous detection probabilities among individuals that arise due to the spatial organization of individuals relative to sampling devices. we simulated black bear (ursus americanus) populations and spatial capture-recapture data to evaluate the influence of trap configuration and trap spacing on estimates of population size and a spatial scale parameter, sigma, that relates to home range size. we varied detection probability and home range size, and considered three trap configurations common to large-mammal mark-recapture studies: regular spacing, clustered, and a temporal sequence of different cluster configurations (i.e., trap relocation). we explored trap spacing and number of traps per cluster by varying the number of traps. the clustered arrangement performed well when detection rates were low, and provides for easier field implementation than the sequential trap arrangement. however, performance differences between trap configurations diminished as home range size increased. our simulations suggest it is important to consider trap spacing relative to home range sizes, with traps ideally spaced no more than twice the spatial scale parameter. while spatial capture-recapture models can accommodate different sampling designs and still estimate parameters with accuracy and precision, our simulations demonstrate that aspects of sampling design, namely trap configuration and spacing, must consider study area size, ranges of individual movement, and home range sizes in the study population." fine-scale genetic structure and cryptic associations reveal evidence of kin-based sociality in the african forest elephant,NA,PLOS ONE,SCHUTTLER SG;PHILBRICK JA;JEFFERY KJ;EGGERT LS,"spatial patterns of relatedness within animal populations are important in the evolution of mating and social systems, and have the potential to reveal information on species that are difficult to observe in the wild. this study examines the fine-scale genetic structure and connectivity of groups within african forest elephants, loxodonta cyclotis, which are often difficult to observe due to forest habitat. we tested the hypothesis that genetic similarity will decline with increasing geographic distance, as we expect kin to be in closer proximity, using spatial autocorrelation analyses and tau k-r tests. associations between individuals were investigated through a non-invasive genetic capture-recapture approach using network models, and were predicted to be more extensive than the small groups found in observational studies, similar to fission-fusion sociality found in african savanna (loxodonta africana) and asian (elephas maximus) species. dung samples were collected in lope national park, gabon in 2008 and 2010 and genotyped at 10 microsatellite loci, genetically sexed, and sequenced at the mitochondrial dna control region. we conducted analyses on samples collected at three different temporal scales: a day, within six-day sampling sessions, and within each year. spatial autocorrelation and tau k-r tests revealed genetic structure, but results were weak and inconsistent between sampling sessions. positive spatial autocorrelation was found in distance classes of 0-5 km, and was strongest for the single day session. despite weak genetic structure, individuals within groups were significantly more related to each other than to individuals between groups. social networks revealed some components to have large, extensive groups of up to 22 individuals, and most groups were composed of individuals of the same matriline. although fine-scale population genetic structure was weak, forest elephants are typically found in groups consisting of kin and based on matrilines, with some individuals having more associates than observed from group sizes alone." revisiting western hudson bay: using aerial surveys to update polar bear abundance in a sentinel population,abundance estimation; aerial survey; distance sampling; hudson bay; marine mammal; mark-recapture,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,STAPLETON S;ATKINSON S;HEDMAN D;GARSHELIS D,"capture-based studies of the western hudson bay (wh) polar bear population in canada have reported declines in abundance, survival, and body condition, but these findings are inconsistent with the perceptions of local people. to address this uncertainty about current status, we conducted a comprehensive aerial survey of this population during august, 2011, when the region was ice-free and bears were on shore. we flew a combination of overland transects oriented perpendicular to the coastline, coastal transects parallel to shore, and transects across small islands. we used distance sampling and sight-resight protocols to estimate abundance. bears were concentrated along the coast in central and southern manitoba and ontario portions of the population, although sightings >10 km inland were not uncommon in central manitoba. we analyzed 2 combinations of data and derived an abundance estimate of 1030 bears (95% ci: similar to 754-1406). this figure is similar to a 2004 mark-recapture estimate but higher than projections indicating declining abundance since then. our results suggest that mark-recapture estimates may have been negatively biased due to limited spatial sampling. we observed large numbers of bears summering in southeastern wh, an area not regularly sampled by mark-recapture. consequently, previous mark-recapture estimates are not directly comparable to our aerial survey of the entire population. whereas our results do not necessarily contradict the reported declines in this population, we believe that improvements are needed in monitoring, and methodological limitations and inconsistencies must be resolved to accurately assess status and the impacts of climate change. (c) 2014 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "monitoring presence, abundance and survival probability of the stag beetle, lucanus cervus, using visual and odour-based capture methods: implications for conservation",capture-mark-recapture; dead wood; italy; lucanidae; population size estimates; saproxylic,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,CHIARI S;ZAULI A;AUDISIO P;CAMPANARO A;DONZELLI PF;ROMITI F;SVENSSON GP;TINI M;CARPANETO GM,"a capture-mark-recapture study on the threatened saproxylic beetle lucanus cervus was carried out in a chestnut (castanea sativa) woodland located in northern italy, using visual encounter surveys (ves) as well as aerial flight interception traps and pitfall traps (pt), both of which were baited with different odour lures. in total, 111 males and 25 females were captured, and ves was by far the most efficient method, accounting for 93 % of first captures, and 95 % of all captures. stag beetles were not significantly attracted to any tested odour, and many pt were damaged by wild boars (sus scrofa). flying males were the most frequent adults observed during the season. the use of a net is necessary to capture the stag beetles, in order to evaluate the population parameters and to assess the local status of threat for the species. capture data revealed that body size (i.e. body weight and elytron length) influences the survival probability of stag beetles, showing a lower survival probability for larger males. felt-tip pen marking on the ventral sclerites of head and pronotum is a reliable and long lasting method for marking beetles, as proved by the use of an independent marking procedure with a small drill. assessing the presence and threat status of l. cervus across europe is urgently needed, and with no efficient odour-based strategy available, collection of adult beetles, dead or alive, by ves is the most reliable way to monitor this emblematic species." increased flexibility for modeling telemetry and nest-survival data using the multistate framework,black duck; known fate; lynx; mallard; mark-recapture; multistate; nest survival; survival; telemetry,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,DEVINEAU O;KENDALL WL;DOHERTY PF;SHENK TM;WHITE GC;LUKACS PM;BURNHAM KP,"although telemetry is one of the most common tools used in the study of wildlife, advances in the analysis of telemetry data have lagged compared to progress in the development of telemetry devices. we demonstrate how standard known-fate telemetry and related nest-survival data analysis models are special cases of the more general multistate framework. we present a short theoretical development, and 2 case examples regarding the american black duck and the mallard. we also present a more complex lynx data analysis. although not necessary in all situations, the multistate framework provides additional flexibility to analyze telemetry data, which may help analysts and biologists better deal with the vagaries of real-world data collection. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." factors influencing survival of canada geese breeding in southern quebec,age; body condition; branta canadensis maxima; harvest distribution; hatching date; quebec; survival; temperate-nesting canada goose,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PILOTTE C;REED ET;RODRIGUE J;GIROUX JF,"temperate nesting canada geese are considered a nuisance in many regions of eastern north america. in southern quebec, a breeding population became established 20 years ago and has grown steadily since that time. because of the long-lived nature of geese, understanding the factors that influence annual survival is critical to the management of these populations. our objectives were to describe the spatiotemporal distribution of the harvest of canada geese that breed in southern quebec, determine how year, sex, and age affect survival rates, and to evaluate the effects of hatch date and body condition near fledging on juvenile survival. we conducted mixed live recapture and dead recovery capture-mark-recapture analyses using data from birds banded as pre-fledged juveniles between 2003 and 2009 (n=3,972). recoveries were distributed near the breeding area and along the east coast of the united states. juveniles were mainly recovered in quebec and yearlings in the united states. harvest during the special early hunting season in quebec represented only 9% of the total harvest. annual survival rates were similar for both males and females, but varied among years for each age class. survival averaged 0.82 (95% ci 0.76-0.87) for juveniles, 0.76 (0.69-0.82) for yearlings, and 0.82 (0.75-0.87) for adults. we observed a negative relationship between hatch date and juvenile survival but did not find significant effects of body condition and age at banding on survival. in addition to a short migration, a possible explanation for the high survival of juveniles includes the use by family groups predominantly of areas that are not open to hunting. the use of rural habitats where susceptibility to hunting is high, combined with the behavior of molt migration could explain the lower survival rates of yearlings than juveniles. we argue that high survival rates for all age classes contribute significantly to the growth of this population. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." +inferences about population dynamics from count data using multistate models: a comparison to capture-recapture approaches,NA,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ZIPKIN EF;SILLETT TS;GRANT EHC;CHANDLER RB;ROYLE JA,NA +what shall i do now? state-dependent variations of life-history traits with aging in wandering albatrosses,NA,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,PARDO D;BARBRAUD C;WEIMERSKIRCH H,NA "climate, social factors and research disturbance influence population dynamics in a declining sociable weaver metapopulation",allee effect; capture-mark-recapture; colonial bird; environmental stochasticity; metapopulation model,OECOLOGIA,ALTWEGG R;DOUTRELANT C;ANDERSON MD;SPOTTISWOODE CN;COVAS R,"population trends are determined by gains through reproduction and immigration, and losses through mortality and emigration. these demographic quantities and resulting population dynamics are affected by different external and internal drivers. we examined how these demographic quantities were affected by weather, research-induced disturbance, local density, colony site and year in a metapopulation of 17 sociable weaver (philetairus socius) colonies over 17 years of study (4 years for reproduction). most colonies declined, but at different rates. the four demographic quantities were related to different drivers. survival strongly varied among years and colonies and was positively related to rainfall and negatively related to extreme temperature (together explaining 30 % of variation) and disturbance (measured as number of captures conducted at a colony; 7 %). there was a trend for a positive relationship between reproduction and rainfall (50 %). movement was mainly related to local density: individuals were more likely to emigrate from small to large colonies and from colonies that were either well below or above their long-term mean. they were more likely to immigrate into colonies that were nearby, and below their mean size. we then quantified the effects of these relationships on metapopulation dynamics using a multi-site matrix projection model. rainfall was potentially a strong driver of metapopulation dynamics. in addition, field-work disturbance might have contributed to the decline of this metapopulation but could not explain its full magnitude. hence, through a combination of analytical methods we were able to obtain information on the main drivers affecting dynamics in a declining metapopulation." "connectivity between flyway populations of waterbirds: assessment of rates of exchange, their causes and consequences",cold weather movement; demography; e-surge; genetic connectivity; multi-state model; pink-footed geese; population delineation,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,MADSEN J;TJORNLOV RS;FREDERIKSEN M;MITCHELL C;SIGFUSSON AT,"1. conservation and management of migratory waterbirds use flyway populations as the basic unit, and knowledge of the delineation, rate of exchange and gene flow between populations is fundamental. however, for the majority of global flyway populations, information is too fragmentary to address connectivity between populations and, hence, insufficient to inform management. 2. we investigated the demographic connectivity between the eastern (breeding in svalbard and wintering in denmark, the netherlands and belgium) and western (breeding in greenland or iceland and wintering in britain) flyway populations of pink-footed geese anser brachyrhynchus based on resightings of marked geese from both populations. previous genetic analyses suggested a modest gene flow between the two populations. 3. capture-recapture analysis conservatively estimated that mean annual movement probabilities were low (eastern to western population: 0.071%, 95% ci = 0.033-0.15%; western to eastern: 0.076%, 95% ci=0.031-0.18%). movement probability from eastern to western flyway populations increased in years with high snow cover in the southernmost winter range in belgium. life histories of exchanged individuals from eastern to western (32 different individuals during 1988-2010) revealed that the majority entered britain via belgium and the netherlands during winter; some returned to the eastern population via belgium and/or the netherlands, others moved northwards in britain during the spring and appear to have migrated directly from britain (western population) to norway (eastern population). none of the birds from the eastern population emigrated permanently, but some individuals turned up in britain in consecutive years. out of nine individuals switching from western to eastern flyway populations, three returned to britain; the others were not subsequently resighted. an alternative winter strategy and spring flyway over britain to norway is suggested, used by hundreds to thousands of eastern birds, particularly following severe winters. thus, the two populations currently appear to be demographically closed; low genetic connectivity probably reflects dispersal over longer time. 4. synthesis and applications. current initiatives to internationally manage the eastern population of pink-footed geese do not need to consider net immigration in predictive harvest models. for waterbirds in general, a targeted approach to evaluate connectivity, using classic marking studies in combination with molecular methods and focussed sampling on breeding grounds, is recommended to better underpin management decisions at population levels." contrasting past and current numbers of bears visiting yellowstone cutthroat trout streams,black bear; capture-mark-recapture; cutthroat trout; grizzly bear; jolly-seber; pradel-recruitment; robust design,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,TEISBERG JE;HAROLDSON MA;SCHWARTZ CC;GUNTHER KA;FORTIN JK;ROBBINS CT,"spawning cutthroat trout (oncorhynchus clarkii bouvieri) were historically abundant within tributary streams of yellowstone lake within yellowstone national park and were a highly digestible source of energy and protein for yellowstone's grizzly bears (ursus arctos) and black bears (u. americanus). the cutthroat trout population has subsequently declined since the introduction of non-native lake trout (salvelinus namaycush), and in response to effects of drought and whirling disease (myxobolus cerebralis). the trout population, duration of spawning runs, and indices of bear use of spawning streams had declined in some regions of the lake by 1997-2000. we initiated a 3-year study in 2007 to assess whether numbers of spawning fish, black bears, and grizzly bears within and alongside stream corridors had changed since 1997-2000. we estimated numbers of grizzly bears and black bears by first compiling encounter histories of individual bears visiting 48 hair-snag sites along 35 historically fished streams. we analyzed dna encounter histories with pradel-recruitment and jolly-seber (popan) capture-mark-recapture models. when compared to 1997-2000, the current number of spawning cutthroat trout per stream and the number of streams with cutthroat trout has decreased. we estimated that 48 (95% ci=42-56) male and 23 (95% ci=21-27) female grizzly bears visited the historically fished tributary streams during our study. in any 1-year, 46 to 59 independent grizzly bears (8-10% of estimated greater yellowstone ecosystem population) visited these streams. when compared with estimates from the 1997 to 2000 study and adjusted for equal effort, the number of grizzly bears using the stream corridors decreased by 63%. additionally, the number of black bears decreased between 64% and 84%. we also document an increased proportion of bears of both species visiting front-country (i.e., near human development) streams. with the recovery of cutthroat trout, we suggest bears that still reside within the lake basin will readily use this high-quality food resource. (c) 2014 the wildlife society." @@ -718,10 +720,10 @@ relative survival of gags mycteroperca microlepis released within a recreational evaluating the relationship between mean catch per unit effort and abundance for littoral cyprinids in small boreal shield lakes,fathead minnow; pearl dace; minnow trap; trap net; experimental lakes area; mark-recapture,FISHERIES RESEARCH,GUZZO MM;RENNIE MD;BLANCHFIELD PJ,"catch per unit effort (cpue) is commonly used as a relative measure of littoral fish abundance; however, few studies have examined this relationship for boreal shield lakes. we used non-linear regression to generate relationships between mark-recapture abundance estimates and mean cpue derived from 7 years of standardized fishing using baited minnow traps for two common cyprinid species; pearl dace (margariscus margarita) and fathead minnows (pimephales promelas), in littoral areas of two small boreal lakes. we produced significant, positive cpue-abundance relationships for pearl dace and fathead minnows. pearl dace were less variable in daily cpue during the course of the study, suggesting they may require less sampling effort than fathead minnows to precisely estimate their population size. density estimates derived from our estimates of abundance were consistent with those from similar boreal shield lakes, providing confidence in our method to estimate abundance. finally, we developed relationships to estimate population size from long-term monitoring data collected on these same cyprinid species using two types of small mesh trap nets. non-linear relationships were developed between mean trap net cpue and abundance estimates derived from minnow traps for fathead minnows, but not pearl dace. these relationships should permit population estimates from mean cpue data collected using similar capture methods in similar lakes. (c) 2013 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." effects of red-backed salamanders on ecosystem functions,NA,PLOS ONE,HOCKING DJ;BABBITT KJ,"ecosystems provide a vast array of services for human societies, but understanding how various organisms contribute to the functions that maintain these services remains an important ecological challenge. predators can affect ecosystem functions through a combination of top-down trophic cascades and bottom-up effects on nutrient dynamics. as the most abundant vertebrate predator in many eastern us forests, woodland salamanders (plethodon spp.) likely affect ecosystems functions. we examined the effects of red-backed salamanders (plethodon cinereus) on a variety of forest ecosystem functions using a combined approach of large-scale salamander removals (314-m(2) plots) and small-scale enclosures (2 m(2)) where we explicitly manipulated salamander density (0, 0.5, 1, 2, 4 m(-2)). in these experiments, we measured the rates of litter and wood decomposition, potential nitrogen mineralization and nitrification rates, acorn germination, and foliar insect damage on red oak seedlings. across both experimental venues, we found no significant effect of red-backed salamanders on any of the ecosystem functions. we also found no effect of salamanders on intraguild predator abundance (carabid beetles, centipedes, spiders). our study adds to the already conflicting evidence on effects of red-backed salamander and other amphibians on terrestrial ecosystem functions. it appears likely that the impact of terrestrial amphibians on ecosystem functions is context dependent. future research would benefit from explicitly examining terrestrial amphibian effects on ecosystem functions under a variety of environmental conditions and in different forest types." abundance and survival rates of the hawai'i island associated spinner dolphin (stenella longirostris) stock,NA,PLOS ONE,TYNE JA;POLLOCK KH;JOHNSTON DW;BEJDER L,"reliable population estimates are critical to implement effective management strategies. the hawai'i island spinner dolphin (stenella longirostris) is a genetically distinct stock that displays a rigid daily behavioural pattern, foraging offshore at night and resting in sheltered bays during the day. consequently, they are exposed to frequent human interactions and disturbance. we estimated population parameters of this spinner dolphin stock using a systematic sampling design and capture-recapture models. from september 2010 to august 2011, boat-based photo-identification surveys were undertaken monthly over 132 days (>1,150 hours of effort; >100,000 dorsal fin images) in the four main resting bays along the kona coast, hawai'i island. all images were graded according to photographic quality and distinctiveness. over 32,000 images were included in the analyses, from which 607 distinctive individuals were catalogued and 214 were highly distinctive. two independent estimates of the proportion of highly distinctive individuals in the population were not significantly different (p = 0.68). individual heterogeneity and time variation in capture probabilities were strongly indicated for these data; therefore capture-recapture models allowing for these variations were used. the estimated annual apparent survival rate (product of true survival and permanent emigration) was 0.97 se +/- 0.05. open and closed capture-recapture models for the highly distinctive individuals photographed at least once each month produced similar abundance estimates. an estimate of 221 +/- 4.3 se highly distinctive spinner dolphins, resulted in a total abundance of 631 +/- 60.1 se, (95% ci 524-761) spinner dolphins in the hawai'i island stock, which is lower than previous estimates. when this abundance estimate is considered alongside the rigid daily behavioural pattern, genetic distinctiveness, and the ease of human access to spinner dolphins in their preferred resting habitats, this hawai'i island stock is likely more vulnerable to negative impacts from human disturbance than previously believed." -evaluating the status of and african wild dogs lycaon pictus and cheetahs acinonyx jubatus through tourist-based photographic surveys in the kruger national park,NA,PLOS ONE,MARNEWICK K;FERREIRA SM;GRANGE S;WATERMEYER J;MAPUTLA N;DAVIES-MOSTERT HT,"the kruger national park is a stronghold for african wild dog lycaon pictus and cheetah acinonyx jubatus conservation in south africa. tourist photographic surveys have been used to evaluate the minimum number of wild dogs and cheetahs alive over the last two decades. photographic-based capture-recapture techniques for open populations were used on data collected during a survey done in 2008/9. models were run for the park as a whole and per region (northern, central, southern). a total of 412 (329-495; se 41.95) cheetahs and 151 (144-157; se 3.21) wild dogs occur in the kruger national park. cheetah capture probabilities were affected by time (number of entries) and sex, whereas wild dog capture probabilities were affected by the region of the park. when plotting the number of new individuals identified against the number of entries received, the addition of new wild dogs to the survey reached an asymptote at 210 entries, but cheetahs did not reach an asymptote. the cheetah population of kruger appears to be acceptable, while the wild dog population size and density are of concern. the effectiveness of tourist-based surveys for estimating population sizes through capture-recapture analyses is shown." +evaluating the status of and african wild dogs lycaon pictus and cheetahs acinonyx jubatus through tourist-based photographic surveys in the kruger national park,NA,PLOS ONE,MARNEWICK K;FERREIRA SM;GRANGE S;WATERMEYER J;MAPUTLA N;DAVIES MOSTERT HT,"the kruger national park is a stronghold for african wild dog lycaon pictus and cheetah acinonyx jubatus conservation in south africa. tourist photographic surveys have been used to evaluate the minimum number of wild dogs and cheetahs alive over the last two decades. photographic-based capture-recapture techniques for open populations were used on data collected during a survey done in 2008/9. models were run for the park as a whole and per region (northern, central, southern). a total of 412 (329-495; se 41.95) cheetahs and 151 (144-157; se 3.21) wild dogs occur in the kruger national park. cheetah capture probabilities were affected by time (number of entries) and sex, whereas wild dog capture probabilities were affected by the region of the park. when plotting the number of new individuals identified against the number of entries received, the addition of new wild dogs to the survey reached an asymptote at 210 entries, but cheetahs did not reach an asymptote. the cheetah population of kruger appears to be acceptable, while the wild dog population size and density are of concern. the effectiveness of tourist-based surveys for estimating population sizes through capture-recapture analyses is shown." the proximate causes of sexual size dimorphism in phrynocephalus przewalskii,NA,PLOS ONE,ZHAO W;LIU NF,"sexual size dimorphism (ssd) is a common phenomenon and is a central topic in evolutionary biology. recently, the importance of pursuing an ontogenetic perspective of ssd has been emphasized, to elucidate the proximate physiological mechanisms leading to its evolution. however, such research has seldom focused on the critical periods when males and females diverge. using mark-recapture data, we investigated the development of ssd, sex-specific survivorship, and growth rates in phrynocephalus przewalskii (agamidae). we demonstrated that both male and female lizards are reproductively mature at age 10-11 months (including 5 months hibernation). male-biased ssd in snout-vent length (svl) was only found in adults and was fully expressed at age 11 months (june of the first full season of activity), just after sexual maturation. however, male-biased ssd in tail length (tl), hind-limb length (ll), and head width (hw) were fully expressed at age 9-10 months, just before sexual maturation. analysis of age-specific linear growth rates identified sexually dimorphic growth during the fifth growth month (age 10-11 months) as the proximate cause of ssd in svl. the males experienced higher mortality than females in the first 2 years and only survived better than females after ssd was well developed. this suggests that the critical period of divergence in the sizes of male and female p. przewalskii occurs between 10 and 11 months of age (may to june during the first full season of activity), and that the sexual difference in growth during this period is the proximate cause. however, the sexual difference in survivorship cannot explain the male-biased ssd in svl. our results indicate that performance-related characteristics, such as tl, hw, and ll diverged earlier than svl. the physiological mechanisms underlying the different growth patterns of males and females may reflect different energy allocations associated with their different reproductive statuses." seasonal survival probabilities suggest low migration mortality in migrating bats,NA,PLOS ONE,GIAVI S;MORETTI M;BONTADINA F;ZAMBELLI N;SCHAUB M,"migration is adaptive if survival benefits are larger than costs of residency. many aspects of bat migration ecology such as migratory costs, stopover site use and fidelity are largely unknown. since many migrating bats are endangered, such information is urgently needed to promote conservation. we selected the migrating leisler's bat (nyctalus leisleri) as model species and collected capture-recapture data in southern switzerland year round during 6 years. we estimated seasonal survival and site fidelity with cormack-jolly-seber models that accounted for the presence of transients fitted with bayesian methods and assessed differences between sexes and seasons. activity peaked in autumn and spring, whereas very few individuals were caught during summer. we hypothesize that the study site is a migratory stopover site used during fall and spring migration for most individuals, but there is also evidence for wintering. additionally, we found strong clues for mating during fall. summer survival that included two major migratory journeys was identical to winter survival in males and slightly higher in females, suggesting that the migratory journeys did not bear significant costs in terms of survival. transience probability was in both seasons higher in males than in females. our results suggest that, similarly to birds, leisler's bat also use stopover sites during migration with high site fidelity. in contrast to most birds, the stopover site was also used for mating and migratory costs in terms of survival seemed to be low. transients' analyses highlighted strong individual variation in site use which makes particularly challenging the study and modelling of their populations as well as their conservation." -growth and maximum size of tiger sharks (galeocerdo cuvier) in hawaii,NA,PLOS ONE,MEYER CG;O'MALLEY JM;PAPASTAMATIOU YP;DALE JJ;HUTCHINSON MR;ANDERSON JM;ROYER MA;HOLLAND KN,"tiger sharks (galecerdo cuvier) are apex predators characterized by their broad diet, large size and rapid growth. tiger shark maximum size is typically between 380 & 450 cm total length (tl), with a few individuals reaching 550 cm tl, but the maximum size of tiger sharks in hawaii waters remains uncertain. a previous study suggested tiger sharks grow rather slowly in hawaii compared to other regions, but this may have been an artifact of the method used to estimate growth (unvalidated vertebral ring counts) compounded by small sample size and narrow size range. since 1993, the university of hawaii has conducted a research program aimed at elucidating tiger shark biology, and to date 420 tiger sharks have been tagged and 50 recaptured. all recaptures were from hawaii except a single shark recaptured off isla jacques cousteau (24 degrees 13'17 '' n 109 degrees 52'14 '' w), in the southern gulf of california (minimum distance between tag and recapture sites = approximately 5,000 km), after 366 days at liberty (dal). we used these empirical mark-recapture data to estimate growth rates and maximum size for tiger sharks in hawaii. we found that tiger sharks in hawaii grow twice as fast as previously thought, on average reaching 340 cm tl by age 5, and attaining a maximum size of 403 cm tl. our model indicates the fastest growing individuals attain 400 cm tl by age 5, and the largest reach a maximum size of 444 cm tl. the largest shark captured during our study was 464 cm tl but individuals >450 cm tl were extremely rare (0.005% of sharks captured). we conclude that tiger shark growth rates and maximum sizes in hawaii are generally consistent with those in other regions, and hypothesize that a broad diet may help them to achieve this rapid growth by maximizing prey consumption rates." +growth and maximum size of tiger sharks (galeocerdo cuvier) in hawaii,NA,PLOS ONE,MEYER CG;O MALLEY JM;PAPASTAMATIOU YP;DALE JJ;HUTCHINSON MR;ANDERSON JM;ROYER MA;HOLLAND KN,"tiger sharks (galecerdo cuvier) are apex predators characterized by their broad diet, large size and rapid growth. tiger shark maximum size is typically between 380 & 450 cm total length (tl), with a few individuals reaching 550 cm tl, but the maximum size of tiger sharks in hawaii waters remains uncertain. a previous study suggested tiger sharks grow rather slowly in hawaii compared to other regions, but this may have been an artifact of the method used to estimate growth (unvalidated vertebral ring counts) compounded by small sample size and narrow size range. since 1993, the university of hawaii has conducted a research program aimed at elucidating tiger shark biology, and to date 420 tiger sharks have been tagged and 50 recaptured. all recaptures were from hawaii except a single shark recaptured off isla jacques cousteau (24 degrees 13'17 '' n 109 degrees 52'14 '' w), in the southern gulf of california (minimum distance between tag and recapture sites = approximately 5,000 km), after 366 days at liberty (dal). we used these empirical mark-recapture data to estimate growth rates and maximum size for tiger sharks in hawaii. we found that tiger sharks in hawaii grow twice as fast as previously thought, on average reaching 340 cm tl by age 5, and attaining a maximum size of 403 cm tl. our model indicates the fastest growing individuals attain 400 cm tl by age 5, and the largest reach a maximum size of 444 cm tl. the largest shark captured during our study was 464 cm tl but individuals >450 cm tl were extremely rare (0.005% of sharks captured). we conclude that tiger shark growth rates and maximum sizes in hawaii are generally consistent with those in other regions, and hypothesize that a broad diet may help them to achieve this rapid growth by maximizing prey consumption rates." effects of low-level culling of feral cats in open populations: a case study from the forests of southern tasmania,NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,LAZENBY BT;MOONEY NJ;DICKMAN CR,"context feral cats (felis catus) threaten biodiversity in many parts of the world, including australia. low-level culling is often used to reduce their impact, but in open cat populations the effectiveness of culling is uncertain. this is partly because options for assessing this management action have been restricted to estimating cat activity rather than abundance. aims we measured the response, including relative abundance, of feral cats to a 13-month pulse of low-level culling in two open sites in southern tasmania. methods to do this we used remote cameras and our analysis included identification of individual feral cats. we compared estimates of relative abundance obtained via capture-mark-recapture and minimum numbers known to be alive, and estimates of activity obtained using probability of detection and general index methods, pre- and post-culling. we also compared trends in cat activity and abundance over the same time period at two further sites where culling was not conducted. key results contrary to expectation, the relative abundance and activity of feral cats increased in the cull-sites, even though the numbers of cats captured per unit effort during the culling period declined. increases in minimum numbers of cats known to be alive ranged from 75% to 211% during the culling period, compared with pre- and post-cull estimates, and probably occurred due to influxes of new individuals after dominant resident cats were removed. conclusions our results showed that low-level ad hoc culling of feral cats can have unwanted and unexpected outcomes, and confirmed the importance of monitoring if such management actions are implemented. implications if culling is used to reduce cat impacts in open populations, it should be as part of a multi-faceted approach and may need to be strategic, systematic and ongoing if it is to be effective." use by small mammals of a chronosequence of tropical rainforest revegetation,NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,WHITEHEAD T;GOOSEM M;PREECE ND,"context. the conversion of tropical rainforest to grazing pasture results in a drastic change in small-mammal community composition. restoring the landscape through ecological revegetation is thus an increasingly important management technique to conserve rainforest mammals. aims. this study aimed to determine the habitat ages at which species of small mammals recolonised revegetated habitats on the southern atherton tablelands, north-eastern queensland, australia. we focussed on changes in rainforest mammal abundance and diversity with increasing habitat age. methods. small-mammal trapping and mark-recapture techniques investigated mammal diversity, abundance and community composition within remnant rainforest, three age classes of ecological revegetation and abandoned grazing pasture. key results. small-mammal community composition differed between remnant rainforest and abandoned grazing pasture. the pasture and 3-year old revegetated sites were similar in composition, both lacking rainforest small mammals. six-and 7-year old revegetation plantings provided suboptimal habitat for both rainforest and grassland mammals, whereas 16-and 22-year old revegetated habitats were dominated by rainforest species, with some individuals being frequently recaptured. conclusions. as revegetated habitats aged, the small-mammal community composition transitioned from a grassland-like composition to a community dominated by rainforest species. implications. although rainforest small mammals were very occasionally captured within the 6- and 7-year old habitats, revegetated plantings were not dominated by rainforest species until the habitat was 16 years old. this highlights the importance of commencing revegetation as early as possible to minimise future population declines and maximise the conservation of rainforest mammals." "evaluating the accuracy and precision of multiple abundance estimators using state-space models: a case study for a threatened population of chinook salmon in johnson creek, idaho",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,CHASCO BE;WARD EJ;HESSE JA;RABE C;KINZER R;VOGEL JL;ORME R,"over the last century, chinook salmon oncorhynchus tshawytscha populations in the pacific northwest have experienced dramatic declines, leading to many of them being listed as threatened under the endangered species act. the abundance of these threatened populations relative to the thresholds for delisting remains the primary metric for assessing recovery, yet determining the true population abundances from multiple survey types with unknown levels of accuracy and precision remains difficult. the abundance of the spring-summer chinook salmon population in johnson creek, idaho, has been measured using a mark-recapture survey and three different redd count surveys (rcss) that vary temporally and spatially. using a state-space model, we determined the accuracy and precision of each survey type by decoupling the observation error of the survey from the process error describing the annual variability in the true population abundance. we then extended the results of the model to determine the risk of managers' incorrectly delisting the population (a type i error) or incorrectly keeping it listed (a type ii error). finally, we show that salmon managers with data-limited populations (primarily those with only single-pass index rcss) might use the results of our risk analysis to determine whether expanding survey efforts to minimize management risks is appropriate when they are confronted with dwindling financial resources. for example, we determined that although both the multiple-pass extended rcs (cv = 0.06) and mark-recapture surveys (cv = 0.14) provide unbiased estimates of salmon abundance in johnson creek, the mark-recapture study can have annual costs that are 30-100 times greater. managers may determine that directing research funds toward acquiring information unique to weir-based mark-recapture surveys (i.e., migration timing, good genetics samples, etc.) may not be justified for all populations." @@ -756,10 +758,10 @@ correcting length-frequency distributions for imperfect detection,NA,NORTH AMERI females better face senescence in the wandering albatross,breeding success; breeding probability; capture-mark-recapture; diomedea exulans; seabird; senescence; sexual dimorphism; survival,OECOLOGIA,PARDO D;BARBRAUD C;WEIMERSKIRCH H,"sex differences in lifespan and aging are widespread among animals. since investment in current reproduction can have consequences on other life-history traits, the sex with the highest cost of breeding is expected to suffer from an earlier and/or stronger senescence. this has been demonstrated in polygynous species that are highly dimorphic. however in monogamous species where parental investment is similar between sexes, sex-specific differences in aging patterns of life-history traits are expected to be attenuated. here, we examined sex and age influences on demographic traits in a very long-lived and sexually dimorphic monogamous species, the wandering albatross (diomedea exulans). we modelled within the same model framework sex-dependent variations in aging for an array of five life-history traits: adult survival, probability of returning to the breeding colony, probability of breeding and two measures of breeding success (hatching and fledging). we show that life-history traits presented contrasted aging patterns according to sex whereas traits were all similar at young ages. both sexes exhibited actuarial and reproductive senescence, but, as the decrease in breeding success remained similar for males and females, the survival and breeding probabilities of males were significantly more affected than females. we discuss our results in the light of the costs associated to reproduction, age-related pairing and a biased operational sex-ratio in the population leading to a pool of non-breeders of potentially lower quality and therefore more subject to death or breeding abstention. for a monogamous species with similar parental roles, the patterns observed were surprising and when placed in a gradient of observed age/sex-related variations in life-history traits, wandering albatrosses were intermediate between highly dimorphic polygynous and most monogamous species." assessment of the fishing impact on the silver eel stock in the baltic using survival analysis,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,DEKKER W;SJOBERG NB,"restoration of the depleted stock of the european eel (anguilla anguilla (l.)) requires anthropogenic impacts to be quantified, reduced, and controlled. in this article, we assess the impact of the silver eel fishery on the baltic coast in sweden, applying survival analysis to 60 years of mark-recapture experiments, involving 8000 recaptures out of 18 000 releases. the hazard of being recaptured (overall 46%) varies along the coast and declined substantially over the decades. but, most notably, the hazard for the individual diminishes strongly after the first kilometres en route. this individualized hazard disqualifies the more traditional mark-recapture methodology, which assumes random recaptures. we advocate the general use of survival analysis for conventional mark-recapture data. the result of our analysis indicates that the impact of the fishery just prior the 2009 fishing restrictions was in the order of 10%-in itself well within sustainability limits, though only but one of the factors contributing to the mortality in the baltic sea." "monitoring of the saproxylic beetle morimus asper (sulzer, 1776) (coleoptera: cerambycidae) with freshly cut log piles",bait; conservation; dead wood; mark-recapture; morimus funereus; presence,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,CHIARI S;BARDIANI M;ZAULI A;HARDERSEN S;MASON F;SPADA L;CAMPANARO A,"quantitative information on population size, structure and dynamics are urgently needed for assessing species extinction risk and developing monitoring measures, especially for beetles belonging to the threatened guild of saproxylic organisms. here freshly cut log piles (fclp) were tested for the monitoring of the longhorn beetle morimus asper (sulzer, 1776) (coleoptera: cerambycidae). novel mathematical models based on presence-absence or count data were compared with the most commonly used capture-recapture methods to investigate if less invasive and easier approaches may be suitable for large-scale monitoring of this species and other large saproxylic beetles. the use of fclp as bait was reliable to detect the presence and abundance of m. asper, and capture events were not influenced by the phenomena of trap-happiness or trap-shyness. in order to obtain accurate presence-absence estimates of m. asper at a reasonable cost piles of at least 0.25 m(3) are suggested. models which take into account the abundance of the species without marking individuals were the best compromise between costs and accuracy of estimation. therefore, a reliable assessment of the population size of m. asper, can be based on count data without marking individuals. because fclp attract adults of m. asper and other saproxylic beetles, they could act also as potential ecological traps if chipped and/or removed after the sampling season. therefore, if fclp are used in monitoring as a part of conservation programmes, the piles should be left until completely decayed." -rapid assessment of rat eradication after aerial baiting,detection; invasive rodents; island restoration; modelling; pest management; rattus rattus; surveillance; tropical islands,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,SAMANIEGO-HERRERA A;ANDERSON DP;PARKES JP;AGUIRRE-MUNOZ A,"eradication of introduced rodents on islands is increasingly implemented as a conservation tool. aerial baiting, currently the main eradication technique, provides no information on whether eradication has been achieved. success is usually evaluated after a standard period of 2years with no sign of rodents. we describe a novel approach to assess the success of eradication efforts based on a project to eradicate ship rats rattus rattus from isabel island (82ha), mexico. we used detection and home-range parameters obtained from a capture-recapture study completed prior to aerial baiting to build a spatial-survey model that predicts probability of eradication after the treatment. the spatial-survey model estimated a >99% probability of success after two surveys with no rats detected. this approach can be used to make eradication projects more cost-effective. survivors, if any, could be located and dispatched by localized control methods. this avoids repeat aerial baiting of the whole island if failure becomes apparent. this model is a useful tool for (a) assessing the probability of eradication within weeks, rather than years of an operation, and (b) predicting the required survey effort to achieve a probability of success consistent with the costs and risks of falsely declaring eradication success. synthesis and applications: rapid assessment of success after rodent eradication efforts on islands results in financial savings by potentially reducing the duration of the projects. improvements in biosecurity guidelines might also accrue as delays in detecting rats after an operation may confound their identification as offspring of survivors or re-invaders. advanced techniques and predictive modelling will increase confidence among partners and donors and allow more efficient achievement of regional programmes." +rapid assessment of rat eradication after aerial baiting,detection; invasive rodents; island restoration; modelling; pest management; rattus rattus; surveillance; tropical islands,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,SAMANIEGO HERRERA A;ANDERSON DP;PARKES JP;AGUIRRE MUNOZ A,"eradication of introduced rodents on islands is increasingly implemented as a conservation tool. aerial baiting, currently the main eradication technique, provides no information on whether eradication has been achieved. success is usually evaluated after a standard period of 2years with no sign of rodents. we describe a novel approach to assess the success of eradication efforts based on a project to eradicate ship rats rattus rattus from isabel island (82ha), mexico. we used detection and home-range parameters obtained from a capture-recapture study completed prior to aerial baiting to build a spatial-survey model that predicts probability of eradication after the treatment. the spatial-survey model estimated a >99% probability of success after two surveys with no rats detected. this approach can be used to make eradication projects more cost-effective. survivors, if any, could be located and dispatched by localized control methods. this avoids repeat aerial baiting of the whole island if failure becomes apparent. this model is a useful tool for (a) assessing the probability of eradication within weeks, rather than years of an operation, and (b) predicting the required survey effort to achieve a probability of success consistent with the costs and risks of falsely declaring eradication success. synthesis and applications: rapid assessment of success after rodent eradication efforts on islands results in financial savings by potentially reducing the duration of the projects. improvements in biosecurity guidelines might also accrue as delays in detecting rats after an operation may confound their identification as offspring of survivors or re-invaders. advanced techniques and predictive modelling will increase confidence among partners and donors and allow more efficient achievement of regional programmes." impact of farmland use on population density and activity patterns of serval in south africa,camera trap; capture recapture models; conservation; land use; leptailurus serval; south africa,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,RAMESH T;DOWNS CT,"the drakensberg midlands, south africa are experiencing unprecedented levels of habitat change. despite the serval (leptailurus serval) being a near-threatened wetland specialist, no studies have investigated their response to land use. to assess their abundance, we used camera trapping at 3 sites differing in intensity of farmland use with capture recapture models. a total of 1,320 camera trap nights across the 3 sites yielded 26 and 28 servals. we detected no major difference in servals/100 km(2) among the 3 sites using spatially explicit maximum-likelihood (7.6 +/- 2.3; 6.5 +/- 2.7; 6.5 +/- 2.6) and bayesian (7.7 +/- 1.6; 6.2 +/- 1.9; 6.9 +/- 2.1) methods in sites a, b, and c, respectively. servals were mainly crepuscular and nocturnal. the mardia-watson-wheeler test showed significant difference in activity in a and c compared with b, whereas it showed no difference between a and c. servals avoided activity during the day in the intensively farmed b. abundance analysis at the broader habitat scale may not have detected variation among sites. differences need to be tested at smaller spatial scales. the statistical approaches in this study provide the 1st robust estimation of serval population size. this estimation of a medium-sized felid with changing land use can assist their management and conservation." evidence for an association between post-fledging dispersal and microsatellite multilocus heterozygosity in a large population of greater flamingos,NA,PLOS ONE,GILLINGHAM MAF;CEZILLY F;WATTIER R;BECHET A,"dispersal can be divided into three stages: departure, transience and settlement. despite the fact that theoretical studies have emphasized the importance of heterozygosity on dispersal strategies, empirical evidence of its effect on different stages of dispersal is lacking. here, using multi-event capture-mark-recapture models, we show a negative association between microsatellite multilocus heterozygosity (mlh; 10 loci; n = 1023) and post-fledging dispersal propensity for greater flamingos, phoenicopterus roseus, born in southern france. we propose that the negative effects of inbreeding depression affects competitive ability and therefore more homozygous individuals are more likely to disperse because they are less able to compete within the highly saturated natal site. finally, a model with the effect of mlh on propensity of post-fledgling dispersers to disperse to the long-distance sites of africa was equivalent to the null model, suggesting that mlh had low to no effect on dispersal distance. variations in individual genetic quality thus result in context-dependent heterogeneity in dispersal strategies at each stage of dispersal. our results have important implications on fitness since sites visited early in life are known to influence site selection later on in life and future survival." -innate immunity correlates with host fitness in wild boar (sus scrofa) exposed to classical swine fever,NA,PLOS ONE,ROSSI S;DOUCELIN A;LE POTIER MF;ERAUD C;GILOT-FROMONT E,"constitutive humoral immunity (chi) is thought to be a first-line of protection against pathogens invading vertebrate hosts. however, clear evidence that chi correlates with host fitness in natural conditions is still lacking. this study explores the relationship between chi, measured using a haemagglutination-haemolysis assay (hahl), and resistance to classical swine fever virus (csfv) among wild boar piglets. the individual dynamics of hahl during piglet growth was analysed, using 423 serum samples from 92 piglets repeatedly captured in the absence of csfv (in 2006) within two areas showing contrasting food availability. natural antibody levels increased with age, but, in the youngest piglets antibody levels were higher in individuals from areas with the highest food availability. complement activity depended on natural antibody levels and piglets' body condition. in the presence of csfv (i.e., in 2005 within one area), serum samples from piglets that were repeatedly captured were used to assess whether piglet hahl levels affected csfv status at a later capture. the correlation between chi and resistance to csfv was tested using 79 hahl measures from 23 piglets captured during a csfv outbreak. both natural antibodies and complement activity levels measured at a given time correlated negatively to the subsequent probability of becoming viremic. finally, capture-mark-recapture models showed that piglets with medium/high average complement activity, independently of their age, were significantly less at risk of becoming viremic and more likely to develop a specific immune response than piglets with low complement activity. additionally, piglets with high average complement activity showed the highest survival prospects. this study provides evidence linking chi to individual fitness within a natural mammal population. the results also highlight the potential of hahl assays to explore the dynamics and co-evolution between wildlife mammal hosts and blood-borne parasites interacting with the chi." +innate immunity correlates with host fitness in wild boar (sus scrofa) exposed to classical swine fever,NA,PLOS ONE,ROSSI S;DOUCELIN A;LE POTIER MF;ERAUD C;GILOT FROMONT E,"constitutive humoral immunity (chi) is thought to be a first-line of protection against pathogens invading vertebrate hosts. however, clear evidence that chi correlates with host fitness in natural conditions is still lacking. this study explores the relationship between chi, measured using a haemagglutination-haemolysis assay (hahl), and resistance to classical swine fever virus (csfv) among wild boar piglets. the individual dynamics of hahl during piglet growth was analysed, using 423 serum samples from 92 piglets repeatedly captured in the absence of csfv (in 2006) within two areas showing contrasting food availability. natural antibody levels increased with age, but, in the youngest piglets antibody levels were higher in individuals from areas with the highest food availability. complement activity depended on natural antibody levels and piglets' body condition. in the presence of csfv (i.e., in 2005 within one area), serum samples from piglets that were repeatedly captured were used to assess whether piglet hahl levels affected csfv status at a later capture. the correlation between chi and resistance to csfv was tested using 79 hahl measures from 23 piglets captured during a csfv outbreak. both natural antibodies and complement activity levels measured at a given time correlated negatively to the subsequent probability of becoming viremic. finally, capture-mark-recapture models showed that piglets with medium/high average complement activity, independently of their age, were significantly less at risk of becoming viremic and more likely to develop a specific immune response than piglets with low complement activity. additionally, piglets with high average complement activity showed the highest survival prospects. this study provides evidence linking chi to individual fitness within a natural mammal population. the results also highlight the potential of hahl assays to explore the dynamics and co-evolution between wildlife mammal hosts and blood-borne parasites interacting with the chi." combining camera-trapping and noninvasive genetic data in a spatial capture-recapture framework improves density estimates for the jaguar,brazil; caatinga; carnivores; estimator performance; panthera onca; population estimation; scat survey,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,SOLLMANN R;TORRES NM;FURTADO MM;JACOMO ATD;PALOMARES F;ROQUES S;SILVEIRA L,"abundance and density are key pieces of information for questions related to ecology and conservation. these quantities, however, are difficult to obtain for rare and elusive species, where even intensive sampling effort can yield sparse data. here, we combine data from camera-trapping and noninvasive genetic sampling (scat surveys) of a jaguar population in the caatinga of northeastern brazil, where the species is threatened and little studied. we analyze data of both survey types separately and jointly in the framework of spatial capture recapture. density estimates were 1.45 (+/- 0.46) for the camera-trap data alone, 2.03 (+/- 0.77) for the genetic data alone, and 1.57 (+/- 0.43) and 2.45 (+/- 0.70) for the two methods, respectively, in the joint analysis. density and other parameters were estimated more precisely in the joint model. particularly the differences in movement between males and females were estimated much more precisely when combining both data sources, especially compared to the genetic data set alone. when compared to a previous non-spatial capture recapture approach, present density estimates were more precise, demonstrating the superior statistical performance of spatial over non-spatial capture recapture models. the ability to combine different surveys into a single analysis with shared parameter allows for more precise population estimates, while at the same time enabling researchers to employ complementary survey techniques in the study of little known species. (c) 2013 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." known unknowns in an imperfect world: incorporating uncertainty in recruitment estimates using multi-event capture-recapture models,breeding state assignment; multistate capture-recapture models; primiparity; southern elephant seals; state uncertainty; vital rates,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,DESPREZ M;MCMAHON CR;HINDELL MA;HARCOURT R;GIMENEZ O,"studying the demography of wild animals remains challenging as several of the critical parts of their life history may be difficult to observe in the field. in particular, determining with certainty when an individual breeds for the first time is not always obvious. this can be problematic because uncertainty about the transition from a prebreeder to a breeder state - recruitment - leads to uncertainty in vital rate estimates and in turn in population projection models. to avoid this issue, the common practice is to discard imperfect data from the analyses. however, this practice can generate a bias in vital rate estimates if uncertainty is related to a specific component of the population and reduces the sample size of the dataset and consequently the statistical power to detect effects of biological interest. here, we compared the demographic parameters assessed from a standard multistate capture-recapture approach to the estimates obtained from the newly developed multi-event framework that specifically accounts for uncertainty in state assessment. using a comprehensive longitudinal dataset on southern elephant seals, we demonstrated that the multi-event model enabled us to use all the data collected (6639 capture-recapture histories vs. 4179 with the multistate model) by accounting for uncertainty in breeding states, thereby increasing the precision and accuracy of the demographic parameter estimates. the multi-event model allowed us to incorporate imperfect data into demographic analyses. the gain in precision obtained has important implications in the conservation and management of species because limiting uncertainty around vital rates will permit predicting population viability with greater accuracy." a multievent approach to estimating pair fidelity and heterogeneity in state transitions,great tit; heterogeneous recapture rates; multievent mark-recapture modeling; survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CULINA A;LACHISH S;PRADEL R;CHOQUET R;SHELDON BC,"fidelity rates of pair-bonded individuals are of considerable interest to behavioral and population biologists as they can influence population structure, mating rates, population productivity, and gene flow. estimates of fidelity rates calculated from direct observations of pairs in consecutive breeding seasons may be biased because (i) individuals that are not seen are assumed to be dead, (ii) variation in the detectability of individuals is ignored, and (iii) pair status must be known with certainty. this can lead to a high proportion of observations being ignored. this approach also restricts the way variation in fidelity rates for different types of individuals, or the covariation between fidelity and other vital rates (e.g., survival) can be analyzed. in this study, we develop a probabilistic multievent capture-mark-recapture (mecmr) modeling framework for estimating pair fidelity rates that accounts for imperfect detection rates and capture heterogeneity, explicitly incorporates uncertainty in the assessment of pair status, and allows estimates of state-dependent survival and fidelity rates to be obtained simultaneously. we demonstrate the utility of our approach for investigating patterns of fidelity in pair-bonded individuals, by applying it to 30years of breeding data from a wild population of great tits parus major linnaeus. results of model selection supported state-dependent recapture, survival, and fidelity rates. recapture rates were higher for individuals breeding with their previous partner than for those breeding with a different partner. faithful birds that were breeding with the same partner as in the previous breeding season (i.e., at t-1) experienced substantially higher survival rates (between t and t+1) and were also more likely to remain faithful to their current partner (i.e., to remain in the faithful state at t+1). first year breeders were more likely to change partner than older birds. these findings imply that traditional estimates, which do not account for state-dependent parameters, may be both inaccurate and biased, and hence, inferences based on them may conceal important biological effects. this was demonstrated in the analysis of simulated capture histories, which showed that our mecmr model was able to estimate state-dependant survival and pair fidelity rates in the face of varying state-dependant recapture rates robustly, and more accurately, than the traditional method. in addition, this new modeling approach provides a statistically rigorous framework for testing hypothesis about the causes and consequences of fidelity to a partner for natural populations. the novel modeling approach described here can readily be applied, either in its current form or via extension, to other populations and other types of dyadic interactions (e.g., between nonpaired individuals, such as parent-offspring relationships, or between individuals and locations, such as nest-site fidelity)." @@ -779,11 +781,11 @@ seasonal variation in density dependence in age-specific survival of a long-dist addressing depletion failure and estimating gear efficiency using back-calculation of capture probabilities,program mark; capture probability; removal method; depletion failure; gear selection,FISHERIES RESEARCH,FETHERMAN ER;LEPAK JM,"removal abundance (n) estimation methods are commonly used in fisheries but if capture probability (p) is not accurately estimated accurate estimates of n cannot be obtained. further, if adequate depletions are not achieved during removal, this must be addressed to improve data collection and estimation procedures. here, two disparate research projects are used as case studies to illustrate: (1) a method in program mark for back-calculating p estimated by the removal method following depletion failure; and (2) a program mark modeling approach used to estimate efficiency of gear deployed in removal studies. in the first case study, a depletion failure occurred in white sucker catostomus commersonii populations sampled concurrently with rainbow trout oncorhynchus mykiss populations using a weighted seine. back-calculation of closed capture-recapture estimates of p was used to account for depletion failure and obtain per-pass estimates of p for both species. the second case study describes a pilot experiment to determine the efficacy of two removal gears deployed to estimate n of fathead minnows pimephales promelas in cattle troughs. back-calculation of p was used to select the appropriate gear to complete removal estimates in future studies. results indicate that using program mark to back-calculate estimates of p allows researchers to detect problems associated with capture that may have resulted in depletion failure. further, the method allows for comparisons of gear efficiency prior to full-scale experimentation. (c) 2013 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." combining data from 43 standardized surveys to estimate densities of female american black bears by spatially explicit capture-recapture,carnivore; density estimation; individual heterogeneity; noninvasive sampling; ontario; ursus americanus,POPULATION ECOLOGY,HOWE EJ;OBBARD ME;KYLE CJ,"spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models are gaining popularity for estimating densities of mammalian carnivores. they use spatially explicit encounter histories of individual animals to estimate a detection probability function described by two parameters: magnitude (g (0)), and spatial scale (sigma). carnivores exhibit heterogeneous detection probabilities and home range sizes, and exist at low densities, so g (0) and sigma likely vary, but field surveys often yield inadequate data to detect and model the variation. we sampled american black bears (ursus americanus) on 43 study areas in on, canada, 2006-2009. we detected 713 animals 1810 times; however, study area-specific samples were sometimes small (6-34 individuals detected 13-93 times). we compared aic (c) values from secr models fit to the complete data set to evaluate support for various forms of variation in g (0) and sigma, and to identify a parsimonious model for aggregating data among study areas to estimate detection parameters more precisely. models that aggregated data within broad habitat classes and years were supported over those with study area-specific g (0) and sigma (delta aic (c) a parts per thousand yen 30), and precision was enhanced. several other forms of variation in g (0) and sigma, including individual heterogeneity, were also supported and affected density estimates. if study design cannot eliminate detection heterogeneity, it should ensure that samples are sufficient to detect and model it. where this is not feasible, combing sparse data across multiple surveys could allow for improved inference." conserving europe's most endangered butterfly: the macedonian grayling (pseudochazara cingovskii),lepidoptera; conservation; endemism; red list; iucn,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,VEROVNIK R;MICEVSKI B;MAES D;WYNHOFF I;VAN SWAAY C;WARREN M,"the macedonian grayling is listed as critically endangered in the recent iucn red list of european butterflies because of its extreme rarity and habitat loss due to quarrying. this categorisation was, however, based on rather limited knowledge on its actual distribution, population size and habitat requirements. in 2012, we conducted field surveys to acquire more information. we found the species at six new sites extending its known range of suitable habitat to just under 10 km(2). the daily population size was estimated using capture-mark-recapture method in the most densely populated part of the pletvar pass site at more than 650 individuals. adults proved to be extremely sedentary, not moving far even within the continuous habitat on the same slope. oviposition was observed on dry plant material and in a rock crevice close to the potential larval host plant festuca sp. quarrying is confirmed to be the main threat to the habitat of the macedonian grayling with five out of seven populated sites containing active marble quarries. due to the enlargement of the known area of occupancy, its threat status would now be estimated at endangered. despite the restricted knowledge about its distribution and trends in the population size, the iucn criteria proved to be applicable to determine the threat status of a rare and localized butterfly such as pseudochazara cingovskii. its original assessment of being called the most threatened butterfly in europe resulted in immediate research project and subsequent actions that will undoubtedly help to conserve it in the future." -non-lethal method of dna sampling in euglossine bees supported by mark-recapture experiments and microsatellite genotyping,tissue sampling; antennae; orchid bees; euglossa cordata; eulaema nigrita,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,OI CA;LOPEZ-URIBE MM;CERVINI M;DEL LAMA MA,"non-lethal sampling methods are of great interest for conservation genetic studies to prevent the death of individuals in populations that are threatened or in decline. with this aim, we tested a non-lethal method of partial antennae removal for dna sampling in two euglossine bee species: euglossa cordata and eulaema nigrita. we validated the survival of the individuals through mark-recapture experiments during 16 months. the quality and quantity of the tissue for dna analysis was verified through amplification and genotyping of nine and eleven microsatellite loci, respectively. our results from the mark-recapture experiments showed equal recapture rates of individuals with intact and removed antennae (e. cordata chi(2) = 2.492, df = 1, p = 0.114; e. nigrita chi(2) = 1.683, df = 1, p = 0.194). microsatellite loci were successfully genotyped in 97.1 and 97.6 % of the e. cordata and e. nigrita individuals, respectively. our results validate the feasibility of using antennae tissue for dna genetic analysis without compromising the survival of individual bees." +non-lethal method of dna sampling in euglossine bees supported by mark-recapture experiments and microsatellite genotyping,tissue sampling; antennae; orchid bees; euglossa cordata; eulaema nigrita,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,OI CA;LOPEZ URIBE MM;CERVINI M;DEL LAMA MA,"non-lethal sampling methods are of great interest for conservation genetic studies to prevent the death of individuals in populations that are threatened or in decline. with this aim, we tested a non-lethal method of partial antennae removal for dna sampling in two euglossine bee species: euglossa cordata and eulaema nigrita. we validated the survival of the individuals through mark-recapture experiments during 16 months. the quality and quantity of the tissue for dna analysis was verified through amplification and genotyping of nine and eleven microsatellite loci, respectively. our results from the mark-recapture experiments showed equal recapture rates of individuals with intact and removed antennae (e. cordata chi(2) = 2.492, df = 1, p = 0.114; e. nigrita chi(2) = 1.683, df = 1, p = 0.194). microsatellite loci were successfully genotyped in 97.1 and 97.6 % of the e. cordata and e. nigrita individuals, respectively. our results validate the feasibility of using antennae tissue for dna genetic analysis without compromising the survival of individual bees." band reporting rates of waterfowl: does individual heterogeneity bias estimated survival rates?,band recoveries; bias; heterogeneous recovery rates; individual random effects; logit normal; ring recoveries; seber model; waterfowl survival,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,WHITE GC;CORDES LS;ARNOLD TW,"in capture-recapture studies, the estimation accuracy of demographic parameters is essential to the efficacy of management of hunted animal populations. dead recovery models based upon the reporting of rings or bands are often used for estimating survival of waterfowl and other harvested species. however, distance from the ringing site or condition of the bird may introduce substantial individual heterogeneity in the conditional band reporting rates (r), which could cause bias in estimated survival rates (s) or suggest nonexistent individual heterogeneity in s. to explore these hypotheses, we ran two sets of simulations (n=1000) in mark using seber's dead recovery model, allowing time variation on both s and r. this included a series of heterogeneity models, allowing substantial variation on logit(r), and control models with no heterogeneity. we conducted simulations using two different values of s: s=0.60, which would be typical of dabbling ducks such as mallards (anas platyrhynchos), and s=0.80, which would be more typical of sea ducks or geese. we chose a mean reporting rate on the logit scale of -1.9459 with sd=1.5 for the heterogeneity models (producing a back-transformed mean of 0.196 with sd=0.196, median=0.125) and a constant reporting rate for the control models of 0.196. within these sets of simulations, estimation models where sigma(s)=0 and sigma(s)>0 (sigma(s) is sd of individual survival rates on the logit scale) were incorporated to investigate whether real heterogeneity in r would induce apparent individual heterogeneity in s. models where sigma(s)=0 were selected approximately 91% of the time over models where sigma(s)>0. simulation results showed < 0.05% relative bias in estimating survival rates except for models estimating sigma(s)>0 when true s=0.8, where relative bias was a modest 0.5%. these results indicate that considerable variation in reporting rates does not cause major bias in estimated survival rates of waterfowl, further highlighting the robust nature of dead recovery models that are being used for the management of harvested species." diets of sympatric red wolves and coyotes in northeastern north carolina,dietary overlap; dna genotyping; canis latrans; canis rufus; coyote; food habits; red wolf; scat,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,MCVEY JM;COBB DT;POWELL RA;STOSKOPF MK;BOBLING JH;WAITS LP;MOORMAN CE,"the recent co-occurrence of red wolves (canis rufus) and coyotes (canis latrans) in eastern north carolina provides a unique opportunity to study prey partitioning by sympatric canids. we collected scats from this region and examined them for prey contents. we used fecal dna analysis to identify which taxa deposited each scat and multinomial modeling designed for mark-recapture data to investigate diets of sympatric red wolves and coyotes. diets of red wolves and coyotes did not differ, but the proportion of small rodents in the composite scats of both canids was greater in the spring than in the summer. white-tailed deer (odocoileus virginianus), rabbits (sylvilagus spp.), and small rodents were the most common diet items in canid scats. the similarity of diet between red wolves and coyotes suggests that these 2 species may be affecting prey populations similarly." evidence for plasticity in the frequency of skipped breeding opportunities in common toads,bufo bufo; capture-recapture; life history; temperate zone; temporary emigration,POPULATION ECOLOGY,MUTHS E;SCHERER RD;BOSCH J,"breeding is limited by energetic or environmental constraints and long-lived species sometimes skip breeding opportunities. environmental conditions may vary considerably across the geographic and elevational range of a species and species that can respond through variation in life history strategies are likely to maintain populations at the extremes of their ranges. the decision to skip breeding enables animals to adjust life history to circumstances, and plasticity in behavior allows implementation of adjustments. elevational patterns suggest that breeding may be limited physiologically at high elevations (e.g., greater probability of skipped breeding; resources and environmental conditions more variable) in contrast to low elevations (probability of skipping breeding lower; resources and environmental conditions more predictable). we estimated the probabilities of survival and skipped breeding in a high-elevation population of common toads and compared estimates to existing data for common toads at low elevations, and to another toad species inhabiting a similar high elevation environment. female common toads at high elevations tend to have high probabilities of skipping breeding and survival relative to data for common toads at low elevations, and appear to use a similar strategy of skipping breeding in response to similar environmental constraints as other toads at high elevations. we provide evidence of variability in this aspect of life history for common toads. understanding variation in life history within widely distributed species is critical. knowing that certain life history strategies are employed on a continuum informs conservation efforts, especially as impacts of climate change are likely to be different depending on elevation." -the thermoregulatory strategy of two sympatric colubrid snakes affects their demography,climate; ectothermy; growth; snakes; survival; thermoregulation,POPULATION ECOLOGY,LELIEVRE H;RIVALAN P;DELMAS V;BALLOUARD JM;BONNET X;BLOUIN-DEMERS G;LOURDAIS O,"population dynamics of terrestrial vertebrates are affected by climatic fluctuations, notably in ectotherms. an understanding of the interaction between physiology and demographic processes is necessary to predict the impacts of climate change. reptiles are particularly sensitive to temperature, but only a few studies have explored the relationship between thermoregulatory strategy and demography in these animals. using 12 years of mark-recapture data on two sympatric colubrid snakes (hierophis viridiflavus and zamenis longissimus), we tested whether demographic parameters are influenced by contrasted thermoregulatory strategies. the thermophilic and conspicuous species (h. viridiflavus) grew faster than the thermoconforming and secretive species (z. longissimus), and this difference was most pronounced in open habitats, suggesting that the metabolic benefits associated with high thermal preferences depend on environmental factors at small spatial scales. survival varied annually in both species, but was not lower in h. viridiflavus despite a higher degree of exposure. in z. longissimus, survival was negatively affected by low temperatures during the active season, possibly underlying an exposure trade-off." +the thermoregulatory strategy of two sympatric colubrid snakes affects their demography,climate; ectothermy; growth; snakes; survival; thermoregulation,POPULATION ECOLOGY,LELIEVRE H;RIVALAN P;DELMAS V;BALLOUARD JM;BONNET X;BLOUIN DEMERS G;LOURDAIS O,"population dynamics of terrestrial vertebrates are affected by climatic fluctuations, notably in ectotherms. an understanding of the interaction between physiology and demographic processes is necessary to predict the impacts of climate change. reptiles are particularly sensitive to temperature, but only a few studies have explored the relationship between thermoregulatory strategy and demography in these animals. using 12 years of mark-recapture data on two sympatric colubrid snakes (hierophis viridiflavus and zamenis longissimus), we tested whether demographic parameters are influenced by contrasted thermoregulatory strategies. the thermophilic and conspicuous species (h. viridiflavus) grew faster than the thermoconforming and secretive species (z. longissimus), and this difference was most pronounced in open habitats, suggesting that the metabolic benefits associated with high thermal preferences depend on environmental factors at small spatial scales. survival varied annually in both species, but was not lower in h. viridiflavus despite a higher degree of exposure. in z. longissimus, survival was negatively affected by low temperatures during the active season, possibly underlying an exposure trade-off." abundance and survival of pacific humpback whales in a proposed critical habitat area,NA,PLOS ONE,ASHE E;WRAY J;PICARD CR;WILLIAMS R,"humpback whales (megaptera novaeangliae) were hunted commercially in canada's pacific region until 1966. depleted to an estimated 1,400 individuals throughout the north pacific, humpback whales are listed as threatened under canada's species at risk act (sara) and endangered under the us endangered species act. we conducted an 8-year photo-identification study to monitor humpback whale usage of a coastal fjord system in british columbia (bc), canada that was recently proposed as candidate critical habitat for the species under sara. this participatory research program built collaborations among first nations, environmental non-governmental organizations and academics. the study site, including the territorial waters of gitga'at first nation, is an important summertime feeding destination for migratory humpback whales, but is small relative to the population's range. we estimated abundance and survivorship using mark-recapture methods using photographs of naturally marked individuals. abundance of humpback whales in the region was large, relative to the site's size, and generally increased throughout the study period. the resulting estimate of adult survivorship (0.979, 95% ci: 0.914, 0.995) is at the high end of previously reported estimates. a high rate of resights provides new evidence for inter-annual site fidelity to these local waters. habitat characteristics of our study area are considered ecologically significant and unique, and this should be considered as regulatory agencies consider proposals for high-volume crude oil and liquefied natural gas tanker traffic through the area. monitoring population recovery of a highly mobile, migratory species is daunting for low-cost, community-led science. focusing on a small, important subset of the animals' range can make this challenge more tractable. given low statistical power and high variability, our community is considering simpler ecological indicators of population health, such as the number of individuals harmed or killed each year by human activities, including ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear." "skin lesions in european hibernating bats associated with geomyces destructans, the etiologic agent of white-nose syndrome",NA,PLOS ONE,WIBBELT G;PUECHMAILLE SJ;OHLENDORF B;MUHLDORFER K;BOSCH T;GORFOL T;PASSIOR K;KURTH A;LACREMANS D;FORGET F,"white-nose syndrome (wns) has claimed the lives of millions of hibernating insectivorous bats in north america. its etiologic agent, the psychrophilic fungus geomyces destructans, causes skin lesions that are the hallmark of the disease. the fungal infection is characterized by a white powdery growth on muzzle, ears and wing membranes. while wns may threaten some species of north american bats with regional extinction, infection in hibernating bats in europe seems not to be associated with significant mortality. we performed histopathological investigations on biopsy samples of 11 hibernating european bats, originating from 4 different countries, colonized by g. destructans. one additional bat was euthanized to allow thorough examination of multiple strips of its wing membranes. molecular analyses of touch imprints, swabs and skin samples confirmed that fungal structures were g. destructans. additionally, archived field notes on hibernacula monitoring data in the harz mountains, germany, over an 11-year period (2000-2011) revealed multiple capture-recapture events of 8 banded bats repeatedly displaying characteristic fungal colonization. skin lesions of g. destructans-affected hibernating european bats are intriguingly similar to the epidermal lesions described in north american bats. nevertheless, deep invasion of fungal hyphae into the dermal connective tissue with resulting ulceration like in north american bats was not observed in the biopsy samples of european bats; all lesions found were restricted to the layers of the epidermis and its adnexae. two bats had mild epidermal cupping erosions as described for north american bats. the possible mechanisms for any difference in outcomes of g. destructans infection in european and north american bats still need to be elucidated." comparison of two life history strategies after impoundment of a historically anadromous stock of columbia river redband trout,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,HOLECEK DE;SCARNECCHIA DL,"in this study we collected information on abundance, age structure, migration, and exploitation to characterize the population demographics and reproductive characteristics of a historically anadromous columbia river redband trout oncorhynchus mykiss gairdneri population now isolated in a southwestern idaho reservoir and limited to resident and adfluvial life histories. we estimated there were 3,905 adfluvial individuals in mann creek reservoir in october 2008 based on a mark-recapture population estimate. the adfluvial population sex ratio of 2.78 females per male captured at a weir, peak spawn timing near the peak of the hydrograph (late april), age at spawning (4-6years), and growth patterns (slow growth in the stream followed by rapid growth in the reservoir) were all characteristic of an anadromous population. resident fish abundance was not estimated, but the fish were characterized by relatively slow growth, earlier sexual maturity, and a reverse sex ratio (0.23 females per male) compared with the adfluvial fish. the two life histories (resident and adfluvial) and their differential use by the sexes are consistent with life history theory, which suggests female salmonids maximize fitness by increasing body size and fecundity while males attempt to maximize survival at the expense of growth. the migratory fish in this drainage that could have historically exercised an anadromous life history appear to be exercising the next-best option, an adfluvial life history, which has relatively similar costs and benefits to the anadromous form as distinct from the stream-resident form. future studies should evaluate other similar native populations isolated in reservoir systems because these populations could play a role in recovery of endangered steelhead (anadromous rainbow trout) populations in the western usa. received december 4, 2012; accepted april 18, 2013" @@ -791,8 +793,8 @@ effective sociodemographic population assessment of elusive species in ecology a extensive sampling of polar bears (ursus maritimus) in the northwest passage (canadian arctic archipelago) reveals population differentiation across multiple spatial and temporal scales,conservation genetics; dna microsatellites; marine mammals; mark-recapture; mitochondrial dna; species at risk,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CAMPAGNA L;DE GROOT PJV;SAUNDERS BL;ATKINSON SN;WEBER DS;DYCK MG;BOAG PT;LOUGHEED SC,"as global warming accelerates the melting of arctic sea ice, polar bears (ursus maritimus) must adapt to a rapidly changing landscape. this process will necessarily alter the species distribution together with population dynamics and structure. detailed knowledge of these changes is crucial to delineating conservation priorities. here, we sampled 361 polar bears from across the center of the canadian arctic archipelago spanning the gulf of boothia (gb) and m'clintock channel (mc). we use dna microsatellites and mitochondrial control region sequences to quantify genetic differentiation, estimate gene flow, and infer population history. two populations, roughly coincident with gb and mc, are significantly differentiated at both nuclear (f-st = 0.01) and mitochondrial (f-st = 0.47; f-st = 0.29) loci, allowing bayesian clustering analyses to assign individuals to either group. our data imply that the causes of the mitochondrial and nuclear genetic patterns differ. analysis of mtdna reveals the matrilineal structure dates at least to the holocene, and is common to individuals throughout the species' range. these mtdna differences probably reflect both genetic drift and historical colonization dynamics. in contrast, the differentiation inferred from microsatellites is only on the scale of hundreds of years, possibly reflecting contemporary impediments to gene flow. taken together, our data suggest that gene flow is insufficient to homogenize the gb and mc populations and support the designation of gb and mc as separate polar bear conservation units. our study also provide a striking example of how nuclear dna and mtdna capture different aspects of a species demographic history." realized population change for long-term monitoring: california spotted owl case study,bayesian mcmc approach; california; california spotted owl; hierarchical model monitoring; pradel's temporal symmetry model; random effects estimator; rate of population change; realized population change; strix occidentalis occidentalis,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CONNER MM;KEANE JJ;GALLAGHER CV;JEHLE G;MUNTON TE;SHAKLEE PA;GERRARD RA,"the annual rate of population change ((t)) is a good metric for evaluating population performance because it summarizes survival and recruitment rates and can be used for open populations. another measure of population performance, realized population change ((t)) is an encompassing metric of population trend over a period of time; it is the ratio of population size at an end time period relative to the initial population size. our first goal was to compare mean and (t) as summaries of population change over time. our second goal was to evaluate different methods for estimating these parameters; specifically we wished to compare the value of estimates from fixed effects models, random effects estimates from mixed effects models, and bayesian markov chain monte carlo (mcmc) methods. our final goal was to evaluate the use of the posterior distribution of (t) as a means for estimating the probability of population decline retrospectively. to meet these goals, we used california spotted owl (strix occidentalis occidentalis) data collected on 3 study areas from 1990 to 2011 as a case study. the estimated mcmc median s for 2 of the study areas were 0.986 and 0.993, indicating declining populations, whereas median was 1.014 for the third study area, indicating an increasing population. for 2 of the study areas, estimated mcmc median (t)s over the 18-year monitoring period were 0.78 and 0.89, suggesting 21% and 11% declines in population size, whereas the third study area was 1.22 suggesting a 22% increase. results from (t) analyses highlight that small differences in mean from 1.0 (stationary) can result in large differences in population size over a longer time period; these temporal effects are better depicted by (t). fixed effects, random effects, and mcmc estimates of mean and median and of (t) were similar (9% relative difference). the estimate of temporal process variance was larger for mcmc than the random effects estimates. results from a bayesian approach using mcmc simulations indicated that the probabilities of a 15% decline over 18 years were 0.69, 0.40, and 0.04 for the 3 study areas, whereas the probabilities the populations were stationary or increasing were 0.07, 0.22, and 0.82. for retrospective analyses of monitored populations, using bayesian mcmc methods to generate a posterior distribution of (t) is a valuable conservation and management tool for robustly estimating probabilities of specified declines of interest. (c) 2013 the wildlife society." use of capture-recapture models with mark-resight data to estimate abundance of aleutian cackling geese,abundance; aleutian cackling goose; branta hutchinsii leucopareia; capture-recapture; capture-resight; jolly-seber; lincoln-petersen; mark-recapture; mark-resight; pollock's robust design; popan,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SANDERS TA;TROST RE,"the aleutian cackling goose (branta hutchinsii leucopareia) was listed as endangered in 1967, downgraded to threatened in 1990, and removed from protection under the endangered species act in 2001. accurate determination of population status continues to be a priority for management agencies because of the population's past listing as endangered, the species status as a game bird, and because population expansion has resulted in increased crop damage complaints. we compared estimates of marked aleutian goose abundance from available mark-resight data during 1996-2012 using capture-recapture jolly-seber (popan formulation) and robust design (closed capture) models. we derived an estimate of aleutian goose abundance by expanding an estimate of marked-bird abundance by the ratio of total to marked geese. robust design models provided strong evidence of even-flow and markovian temporary emigration from observable to unobservable states between annual sampling periods, and popan estimates were biased as a result of this movement. the observable population increased in abundance from 790 in 1975 to 134,703 (se=10,866, 95% ci=113,405-156,002) geese in 2012. however, total (observable and unobservable) population size was 216,564 geese based on an estimated probability (0.622) of being available for observation. annual survival probability was 0.80 (se=0.05). current data collection allows estimation of annual observable abundance with a coefficient of variation of 8%. robust design offers a means of estimating abundance of partially marked wildlife populations in the presence or absence of temporary emigration, which can result from partial study area access and is likely a common situation for many populations. mark-resight is a cost-effective approach (compared to capture-recapture studies and aerial surveys) that can be applied to successfully estimate demographic parameters of other populations. (c) 2013 the wildlife society." -assessing the effectiveness of a hunting moratorium on target and non-target species,hunting moratorium; common coot; crested coot; southern europe; management effectiveness; waterfowl; survival probability,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MARTINEZ-ABRAIN A;VIEDMA C;GOMEZ JA;BARTOLOME MA;JIMENEZ J;GENOVART M;TENAN S,"information on the effectiveness of wildlife management actions is scarce, despite the great relevance of this type of information for maximizing conservation goals while minimizing resource expenditure. here we assess the management effectiveness of a four-year hunting moratorium, addressed to protecting a declining waterbird game species: common coot fulica atra. we also studied the indirect benefits that this management action could have had on a non-target endangered species (crested coot fulica cristata), currently being reintroduced in the study region (comunidad valenciana, eastern spain). we found that wintering common coots interrupted their marked negative trend coinciding with the hunting moratorium, and before-after-control-impact modelling confirmed this fact. however breeding common coots continued their negative trend in numbers. we also found that crested coots increased their wintering numbers during the hunting moratorium years but not during breeding. we detected a strong and time variant cost of release on survival probability of crested coots, but annual survival probability was found to be constant and low for experienced birds, with no clear effects of the hunting moratorium on survival probability. we conclude that the moratorium had some positive effect on both species, but we suggest that lack of enforcement during a traditional hunting practice at the end of each hunting season, most likely precluded the moratorium having a long-lasting effect on the breeding numbers and probably on survival, of both species. hence, when fully-enforced hunting moratoria are difficult to implement, we recommend the creation of hunting preserves of high habitat quality to attract coots during the winter, allowing its subsequent reproduction during the breeding season. (c) 2013 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -spatial and temporal variation in survival of a rare reptile: a 22-year study of sonoran desert tortoises,capture-recapture; climate change; demography; drought; gopherus morafkai,OECOLOGIA,ZYLSTRA ER;STEIDL RJ;JONES CA;AVERILL-MURRAY RC,"although many species may be vulnerable to changes in climate, forecasting species-level responses can be challenging given the array of physiological, behavioral, and demographic attributes that might be affected. one strategy to improve forecasts is to evaluate how species responded to climatic variation in the past. we used 22 years of capture-recapture data for sonoran desert tortoises (gopherus morafkai) collected from 15 locations across their geographic range in arizona to evaluate how environmental factors affected spatial and temporal variation in survival. although rates of annual survival were generally high ( = 0.92), survival of adults decreased with drought severity, especially in portions of their range that were most arid and nearest to cities. in three locations where large numbers of carcasses from marked tortoises were recovered, survival of adults was markedly lower during periods of severe drought ( = 0.77-0.81) compared to all other periods ( = 0.93-0.98). assuming continued levels of dependency of humans on fossil fuels, survival of adult tortoises is predicted to decrease by an average of 3 % during 2035-2060 relative to survival during 1987-2008 in 14 of the 15 populations we studied. this decrease could reduce persistence of tortoise populations, especially in arid portions of their range. temporal and spatial variation in drought conditions are important determinants of survival in adult desert tortoises." +assessing the effectiveness of a hunting moratorium on target and non-target species,hunting moratorium; common coot; crested coot; southern europe; management effectiveness; waterfowl; survival probability,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MARTINEZ ABRAIN A;VIEDMA C;GOMEZ JA;BARTOLOME MA;JIMENEZ J;GENOVART M;TENAN S,"information on the effectiveness of wildlife management actions is scarce, despite the great relevance of this type of information for maximizing conservation goals while minimizing resource expenditure. here we assess the management effectiveness of a four-year hunting moratorium, addressed to protecting a declining waterbird game species: common coot fulica atra. we also studied the indirect benefits that this management action could have had on a non-target endangered species (crested coot fulica cristata), currently being reintroduced in the study region (comunidad valenciana, eastern spain). we found that wintering common coots interrupted their marked negative trend coinciding with the hunting moratorium, and before-after-control-impact modelling confirmed this fact. however breeding common coots continued their negative trend in numbers. we also found that crested coots increased their wintering numbers during the hunting moratorium years but not during breeding. we detected a strong and time variant cost of release on survival probability of crested coots, but annual survival probability was found to be constant and low for experienced birds, with no clear effects of the hunting moratorium on survival probability. we conclude that the moratorium had some positive effect on both species, but we suggest that lack of enforcement during a traditional hunting practice at the end of each hunting season, most likely precluded the moratorium having a long-lasting effect on the breeding numbers and probably on survival, of both species. hence, when fully-enforced hunting moratoria are difficult to implement, we recommend the creation of hunting preserves of high habitat quality to attract coots during the winter, allowing its subsequent reproduction during the breeding season. (c) 2013 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +spatial and temporal variation in survival of a rare reptile: a 22-year study of sonoran desert tortoises,capture-recapture; climate change; demography; drought; gopherus morafkai,OECOLOGIA,ZYLSTRA ER;STEIDL RJ;JONES CA;AVERILL MURRAY RC,"although many species may be vulnerable to changes in climate, forecasting species-level responses can be challenging given the array of physiological, behavioral, and demographic attributes that might be affected. one strategy to improve forecasts is to evaluate how species responded to climatic variation in the past. we used 22 years of capture-recapture data for sonoran desert tortoises (gopherus morafkai) collected from 15 locations across their geographic range in arizona to evaluate how environmental factors affected spatial and temporal variation in survival. although rates of annual survival were generally high ( = 0.92), survival of adults decreased with drought severity, especially in portions of their range that were most arid and nearest to cities. in three locations where large numbers of carcasses from marked tortoises were recovered, survival of adults was markedly lower during periods of severe drought ( = 0.77-0.81) compared to all other periods ( = 0.93-0.98). assuming continued levels of dependency of humans on fossil fuels, survival of adult tortoises is predicted to decrease by an average of 3 % during 2035-2060 relative to survival during 1987-2008 in 14 of the 15 populations we studied. this decrease could reduce persistence of tortoise populations, especially in arid portions of their range. temporal and spatial variation in drought conditions are important determinants of survival in adult desert tortoises." winter weather versus group thermoregulation: what determines survival in hibernating mammals?,climate change; cooperative breeding; hoary marmot; mark-recapture; pacific decadal; oscillation; snowpack; survival; social structure,OECOLOGIA,PATIL VP;MORRISON SF;KARELS TJ;HIK DS,"for socially hibernating mammals, the effectiveness of huddling as a means of energy conservation should increase with group size. however, group size has only been linked to increased survival in a few hibernating species, and the relative importance of social structure versus winter conditions during hibernation remains uncertain. we studied the influence of winter weather conditions, social group composition, age-structure, and other environmental factors and individual attributes on the overwinter survival of hoary marmots (marmota caligata) in the yukon territory, canada. juvenile hoary marmot survival was negatively correlated with the mean winter (november to may) pacific decadal oscillation (pdo) index. survival in older age-classes was negatively correlated with pdo lagged by 1 year. social group size and structure were weakly correlated with survival in comparison to pdo. the relationship between winter pdo and survival was most likely due to the importance of snowpack as insulation during hibernation. the apparent response of hoary marmots to changing winter conditions contrasted sharply with those of other marmot species and other mammalian alpine herbivores. in conclusion, the severity of winter weather may constrain the effectiveness of group thermoregulation in socially hibernating mammals." temporal variation of juvenile survival in a long-lived species: the role of parasites and body condition,elasticity; mortality; cestodes; body mass; geese,OECOLOGIA,SOUCHAY G;GAUTHIER G;PRADEL R,"studies of population dynamics of long-lived species have generally focused on adult survival because population growth should be most sensitive to this parameter. however, actual variations in population size can often be driven by other demographic parameters, such as juvenile survival, when they show high temporal variability. we used capture-recapture data from a long-term study of a hunted, migratory species, the greater snow goose (chen caerulescens atlantica), to assess temporal variability in first-year survival and the relative importance of natural and hunting mortality. we also conducted a parasite-removal experiment to determine the effect of internal parasites and body condition on temporal variation in juvenile survival. we found that juvenile survival showed a higher temporal variability than adult survival and that natural mortality was more important than hunting mortality, unlike in adults. parasite removal increased first-year survival and reduced its annual variability in females only. body condition at fledging was also positively correlated with first-year survival in treated females. with reduced parasite load, females, which are thought to invest more in their immune system than males according to bateman's principle, could probably reallocate more energy to growth than males, leading to a higher survival. treated birds also had a higher survival than control ones during their second year, suggesting a developmental effect that manifested later in life. our study shows that natural factors such as internal parasites may be a major source of variation in juvenile survival of a long-lived, migratory bird, which has implications for its population dynamics." effects of tail-clipping on survivorship and growth of larval salamanders,ambystoma californiense; cattle tank; genetic sampling; mark-recapture; regeneration; visual implant elastomer,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,POLICH RL;SEARCY CA;SHAFFER HB,"tissue samples used for genetic analyses are increasingly necessary for proper management of rare or endangered species, yet growing evidence suggests that traditional methods used to sample or mark amphibians have detrimental fitness effects. we used a semi-natural mesocosm experiment to determine the effect of larval tail-clipping on growth and survival of the endangered california tiger salamander. even with relatively extreme levels of tail loss, we found no effect on survival, mass, or snout-vent length. we recommend larval tail-clipping as a low-impact method for collecting tissue samples from pond-breeding amphibians. (c) 2013 the wildlife society." @@ -804,13 +806,13 @@ a standardized technique to back-calculate length at age from unsectioned walley the ecology and conservation of hadramphus tuberculatus (pascoe 1877) (coleoptera: curculionidae: molytinae),canterbury knobbled weevil; hadramphus tuberculatus; mark-recapture; new zealand; captive rearing; critically endangered,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,FOUNTAIN ED;WISEMAN BH;CRUICKSHANK RH;PATERSON AM,"the critically endangered weevil, hadramphus tuberculatus (pascoe 1877), was considered extinct until its rediscovery in 2004. once widespread throughout the canterbury plains, currently the only known population is at burkes pass scenic reserve, canterbury, new zealand. little information regarding the ecology and behaviour of this species has been recorded. a mark-recapture study was conducted over 3 years (2009-2011) to obtain more information on the population size, sex-ratio, and weevil movement within the reserve. non-lethal pitfall traps were used for live capture of h. tuberculatus; weevils were measured, sexed, photographed, and given a unique id on the elytra. analysis of the mark-recapture data indicated a decrease in population size over the 3 years with estimated population sizes of 138 in 2009, 90 in 2010 and 76 in 2011. the sex-ratio of the population was even. in addition to mark-recapture, methods of captive rearing were explored. the results from this study will be used to assist conservation of h. tuberculatus and provide valuable information for developing an ex situ breeding program. we suggest that the population is vulnerable and must be carefully managed if extinction is to be avoided." natal philopatry in four european species of dragonflies (odonata: sympetrinae) and possible implications for conservation management,dragonfly conservation; sympetrum depressiusculum; odonata; dispersal; site fidelity; population estimates,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,DOLNY A;MIZICOVA H;HARABIS F,"in europe, the species sympetrum depressiusculum is classified as vulnerable with a high risk of extinction in the wild. it is a habitat specialist, the presumed main reason for its vulnerability is the destruction of its natural habitats. other causes of its general extinction are unknown. published information regarding dispersal rate and philopatry is not available, although these are evolutionary strategies that can play key roles in susceptibility to environmental change. we compared the rate of philopatry in s. depressiusculum and three other related, abundant but not endangered species of the same genus (s. sanguineum, s. striolatum, s. vulgatum). we collected data in a very isolated site in the czech republic, more than 100 km distant from another known population of the species. using exuviae collection (total of 6,157 exuviae) and capture-mark-recapture (total of 2,188 adults marked) methods, we acquired data allowing us to compare the numbers of emerged individuals and adults returning to the maternal site. we found a difference of nearly an order of magnitude between the philopatry of s. depressiusculum and the three other species. while in s. depressiusculum philopatry was almost 100 %, in the other species it was < 10 %. we suggest the high rate of philopatry can influence the vulnerability of s. depressiusculum in landscape altered by humans. strict protection of the natal sites is very important for preserving species having this evolutionary strategy, and reintroductions and translocations should also be undertaken to reduce the extinction risk of this endangered species." estimation of bird and bat mortality at wind-power farms with superpopulation models,bioeconomic models; carcass search; eastern red bat; golden eagle; hoary bat; optimal sampling design; superpopulation; wildlife fatalities; wind power; wind turbines,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,PERON G;HINES JE;NICHOLS JD;KENDALL WL;PETERS KA;MIZRAHI DS,"1. collision of birds and bats with turbines in utility-scale wind farms is an increasing cause of concern. 2. carcass counts conducted to quantify the take' of protected species need to be corrected for carcass persistence probability (removal by scavengers and decay) and detection probability (searcher efficiency). these probabilities may vary with time since death, because of intrinsic changes in carcass properties with age and of heterogeneity (preferential removal of easy-to-detect carcasses). 3. in this article, we describe the use of superpopulation capture-recapture models to perform the required corrections to the raw count data. we review how to make such models age specific and how to combine trial experiments with carcass searches in order to accommodate the fact that carcasses are stationary (which affects the detection process). 4. we derive information about optimal sampling design (proportion of the turbines to sample, number of sampling occasions, interval between sampling occasions) and use simulations to illustrate the expected precision of mortality estimates. we analyse data from a small wind farm in new jersey, in which we find the estimated number of fatalities to be twice the number of carcasses found. 5. synthesis and applications. our approach to estimation of wind farm mortality based on data from carcass surveys is flexible and can accommodate a range of different sampling designs and biological hypotheses. resulting mortality estimates can be used (1) to quantify the required amount of compensation actions, (2) to inform mortality projections for proposed wind development sites and (3) to inform decisions about management of existing wind farms." -using multiple data sources provides density estimates for endangered florida panther,camera-trapping; mark-resight; population estimation; puma concolor coryi; spatial capture-recapture; telemetry; unmarked populations,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,SOLLMANN R;GARDNER B;CHANDLER RB;SHINDLE DB;ONORATO DP;ROYLE JA;O'CONNELL AF,"1. to assess recovery of endangered species, reliable information on the size and density of the target population is required. in practice, however, this information has proved hard to acquire, especially for large carnivores that exist at low densities, are cryptic and range widely. many large carnivore species such as the endangered florida panther puma concolor coryi lack clear visual features for individual identification; thus, using standard approaches for estimating population size, such as camera-trapping and capture-recapture modelling, has so far not been possible. 2. we developed a spatial capture-recapture model that requires only a portion of the individuals in the population to be identifiable, using data from two 9-month camera-trapping surveys conducted within the core range of panthers in southwestern florida. identity of three radio-collared individuals was known, and we incorporated their telemetry location data into the model to improve parameter estimates. 3. the resulting density estimates of 151 (+/- 081) and 146 (+/- 076) florida panthers per 100km(2) for each year are the first estimates for this endangered subspecies and are consistent with estimates for other puma subspecies. 4. a simulation study showed that estimates of density may exhibit some positive bias but coverage of the true values by 95% credible intervals was nominal. 5. synthesis and applications. this approach provides a framework for monitoring the florida panther - and other species without conspicuous markings - while fully accounting for imperfect detection and varying sampling effort, issues of fundamental importance in the monitoring of wildlife populations." +using multiple data sources provides density estimates for endangered florida panther,camera-trapping; mark-resight; population estimation; puma concolor coryi; spatial capture-recapture; telemetry; unmarked populations,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,SOLLMANN R;GARDNER B;CHANDLER RB;SHINDLE DB;ONORATO DP;ROYLE JA;O CONNELL AF,"1. to assess recovery of endangered species, reliable information on the size and density of the target population is required. in practice, however, this information has proved hard to acquire, especially for large carnivores that exist at low densities, are cryptic and range widely. many large carnivore species such as the endangered florida panther puma concolor coryi lack clear visual features for individual identification; thus, using standard approaches for estimating population size, such as camera-trapping and capture-recapture modelling, has so far not been possible. 2. we developed a spatial capture-recapture model that requires only a portion of the individuals in the population to be identifiable, using data from two 9-month camera-trapping surveys conducted within the core range of panthers in southwestern florida. identity of three radio-collared individuals was known, and we incorporated their telemetry location data into the model to improve parameter estimates. 3. the resulting density estimates of 151 (+/- 081) and 146 (+/- 076) florida panthers per 100km(2) for each year are the first estimates for this endangered subspecies and are consistent with estimates for other puma subspecies. 4. a simulation study showed that estimates of density may exhibit some positive bias but coverage of the true values by 95% credible intervals was nominal. 5. synthesis and applications. this approach provides a framework for monitoring the florida panther - and other species without conspicuous markings - while fully accounting for imperfect detection and varying sampling effort, issues of fundamental importance in the monitoring of wildlife populations." are urban green spaces suitable for woodland carabids? first insights from a short-term experiment,urban ecology; capture-mark-recapture; woodland carabids; abax parallelepipedus; survival probability; urban green space,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,VERGNES A;CHANTEPIE S;ROBERT A;CLERGEAU P,"one consequence of the spatial expansion of cities is the multiplication of highly fragmented and diverse green spaces immediately surrounded by urban areas. whereas the global expansion of urban areas is a growing concern for the viability of woodland arthropods, the suitability of green spaces as refuges to arthropods needs to be clarified. in order to assess and compare the survival rates of the woodland carabid abax parallelepipedus in four types of green urban sites (remnant forest patch, urban park, woody corridor and set of gardens), we conducted a capture-mark-recapture experiment based on 483 individuals collected in a forest located in a natural landscape (considered as the control site) and released into the various green spaces. results indicated strong heterogeneity in survival probability between green spaces. survival rates were slightly higher in the control site than in the remnant forest patch, the urban park and the corridor, which appear suitable for the survival of the species. however, it was substantially lower in the gardens. the analysis further revealed that these differences in survival are largely explained by the differences of within -site habitat fragmentation. by indicating that urban green spaces may contribute unequally to woodland carabids survival, our study highlights that the modification of local environmental conditions alone (increase of temperature, increase of soil pollution and change in food availability) could not explain the negative effect of urbanization. this study argues for the development of corridors in cities in order to favour the colonisation of green spaces by woodland carabids." spotting the right spot: computer-aided individual identification of the threatened cerambycid beetle rosalia alpina,forest; habitats directive; mark-recapture; monitoring; photoidentification; population,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,CACI G;BISCACCIANTI AB;CISTRONE L;BOSSO L;GARONNA AP;RUSSO D,"individual identification of animals is of paramount importance to analyze population size, dispersal, habitat preferences or behaviour. especially for sensitive, threatened species, it is advisable to develop non-invasive recognition methods avoiding direct handling and tagging of the study subjects to be applied to procedures such as marking-recapture. here we present an application of the (is)-s-3 software for the individual recognition of the rosalia longicorn rosalia alpina based on the contour digitization of the spots present on the beetle's elytra. classification performances to individual level tested on an overall sample of 290 images (one per subject) were 94.8 (both elytra), 94.5 (right elytron) and 95.2 % (left elytron). since (is)-s-3 leaves the final decision to the operator, such high classification performances may be refined further in the final step leading to a fully reliable identification. we found that the identification performance was statistically supported and that the influence of two main error sources (contour tracing and angle under which the images were taken) was negligible. our approach minimizes the subjectivity of a qualitative manual comparison of images and greatly reduces the time taken to visually retrieve the image of an individual especially for large photo libraries. it may be successfully used in surveys covering large areas and involving many untrained operators such as volunteers or park rangers. we propose that (is)-s-3 can be applied to other insect species presenting characteristic spot patterns. to our best knowledge, this is the first study using computer-aided identification of a terrestrial arthropod." "bayesian implementation of a time stratified lincoln-petersen estimator for salmon abundance in the upper matanuska river, alaska, usa",pacific salmon; bayesian modeling; mark-recapture; time stratified; winbugs,FISHERIES RESEARCH,SETHI SA;TANNER TL,"time stratified lincoln-petersen mark-recapture models can generate estimates of salmon abundance that are robust to capture heterogeneity. bayesian implementation of these estimators provides a flexible framework to formulate different model structures, including random effects structures and models with functional relationships between parameters and covariates, and can successfully generate estimates in the face of sparse data. in this article, we used a bayesian time stratified lincoln-petersen model to provide first ever abundance estimates of chum, oncorhynchus keta, coho, o. kisutch, and sockeye salmon, o. nerka, in the upper matanuska river, alaska, usa, using tagging data from 2009. for each species, we formulated a suite of twelve model structures and used deviance information criterion based multimodel inference and model averaging to estimate salmon abundance. model averaged point estimates for upper river 2009 chum, coho, and sockeye salmon were 54,720, 11,430, and 13,750, fish respectively, supporting a growing body of ecological research which demonstrates that glacial river systems can sustain significant pacific salmon runs. results identified time varying probability of capture for chum and coho salmon, and population estimates were 17% and 8% higher, respectively, than estimates from a simple pooled lincoln-petersen model which has been demonstrated to be biased low in the face of capture heterogeneity. capture heterogeneity was not found for sockeye salmon, and the model averaged time stratified and pooled lincoln-petersen estimates agreed closely. time stratified models can potentially produce more accurate estimates, however, the additional model complexity results in less precise abundance estimates compared to the simple pooled lincoln-petersen estimator. published by elsevier b.v." -"larger body size at metamorphosis enhances survival, growth and performance of young cane toads (rhinella marina)",NA,PLOS ONE,CABRERA-GUZMAN E;CROSSLAND MR;BROWN GP;SHINE R,"body size at metamorphosis is a key trait in species (such as many anurans) with biphasic life-histories. experimental studies have shown that metamorph size is highly plastic, depending upon larval density and environmental conditions (e.g. temperature, food supply, water quality, chemical cues from conspecifics, predators and competitors). to test the hypothesis that this developmental plasticity is adaptive, or to determine if inducing plasticity can be used to control an invasive species, we need to know whether or not a metamorphosing anuran's body size influences its subsequent viability. for logistical reasons, there are few data on this topic under field conditions. we studied cane toads (rhinella marina) within their invasive australian range. metamorph body size is highly plastic in this species, and our laboratory studies showed that larger metamorphs had better locomotor performance (both on land and in the water), and were more adept at catching and consuming prey. in mark-recapture trials in outdoor enclosures, larger body size enhanced metamorph survival and growth rate under some seasonal conditions. larger metamorphs maintained their size advantage over smaller siblings for at least a month. our data support the critical but rarely-tested assumption that all else being equal, larger body size at metamorphosis is likely to enhance an individual's long term viability. thus, manipulations to reduce body size at metamorphosis in cane toads may help to reduce the ecological impact of this invasive species." +"larger body size at metamorphosis enhances survival, growth and performance of young cane toads (rhinella marina)",NA,PLOS ONE,CABRERA GUZMAN E;CROSSLAND MR;BROWN GP;SHINE R,"body size at metamorphosis is a key trait in species (such as many anurans) with biphasic life-histories. experimental studies have shown that metamorph size is highly plastic, depending upon larval density and environmental conditions (e.g. temperature, food supply, water quality, chemical cues from conspecifics, predators and competitors). to test the hypothesis that this developmental plasticity is adaptive, or to determine if inducing plasticity can be used to control an invasive species, we need to know whether or not a metamorphosing anuran's body size influences its subsequent viability. for logistical reasons, there are few data on this topic under field conditions. we studied cane toads (rhinella marina) within their invasive australian range. metamorph body size is highly plastic in this species, and our laboratory studies showed that larger metamorphs had better locomotor performance (both on land and in the water), and were more adept at catching and consuming prey. in mark-recapture trials in outdoor enclosures, larger body size enhanced metamorph survival and growth rate under some seasonal conditions. larger metamorphs maintained their size advantage over smaller siblings for at least a month. our data support the critical but rarely-tested assumption that all else being equal, larger body size at metamorphosis is likely to enhance an individual's long term viability. thus, manipulations to reduce body size at metamorphosis in cane toads may help to reduce the ecological impact of this invasive species." epidemiology of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (sspe) in germany from 2003 to 2009: a risk estimation,NA,PLOS ONE,SCHONBERGER K;LUDWIG MS;WILDNER M;WEISSBRICH B,"subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (sspe) is a fatal long-term complication of measles infection. we performed an estimation of the total number of sspe cases in germany for the period 2003 to 2009 and calculated the risk of sspe after an acute measles infection. sspe cases were collected from the surveillance unit for rare paediatric diseases in germany and the institute of virology and immunobiology at the university of wurzburg. the total number of sspe cases was estimated by capture-recapture analysis. for the period 2003 to 2009, 31 children with sspe who were treated at german hospitals were identified. the capture-recapture estimate was 39 cases (95% confidence interval: 29.2-48.0). the risk of developing sspe for children contracting measles infection below 5 years of age was calculated as 1:1700 to 1:3300. this risk is in the same order of magnitude as the risk of a fatal acute measles infection." -population dynamics and range expansion in nine-banded armadillos,NA,PLOS ONE,LOUGHRY WJ;PEREZ-HEYDRICH C;MCDONOUGH CM;OLI MK,"understanding why certain species can successfully colonize new areas while others do not is a central question in ecology. the nine-banded armadillo (dasypus novemcinctus) is a conspicuous example of a successful invader, having colonized much of the southern united states in the last 200 years. we used 15 years (1992-2006) of capture-mark-recapture data from a population of armadillos in northern florida in order to estimate, and examine relationships among, various demographic parameters that may have contributed to this ongoing range expansion. modeling across a range of values for gamma, the probability of juveniles surviving in the population until first capture, we found that population growth rates varied from 0.80 for gamma = 0.1, to 1.03 for gamma = 1.0. growth rates approached 1.0 only when gamma >= 0.80, a situation that might not occur commonly because of the high rate of disappearance of juveniles. net reproductive rate increased linearly with gamma, but life expectancy (estimated at 3 years) was independent of gamma. we also found that growth rates were lower during a 3-year period of hardwood removal that removed preferred habitat than in the years preceding or following. life-table response experiment (ltre) analysis indicated the decrease in growth rate during logging was primarily due to changes in survival rates of adults. likewise, elasticity analyses of both deterministic and stochastic population growth rates revealed that survival parameters were more influential on population growth than were those related to reproduction. collectively, our results are consistent with recent theories regarding biological invasions which posit that populations no longer at the leading edge of range expansion do not exhibit strong positive growth rates, and that high reproductive output is less critical in predicting the likelihood of successful invasion than are life-history strategies that emphasize allocation of resources to future, as opposed to current, reproduction." +population dynamics and range expansion in nine-banded armadillos,NA,PLOS ONE,LOUGHRY WJ;PEREZ HEYDRICH C;MCDONOUGH CM;OLI MK,"understanding why certain species can successfully colonize new areas while others do not is a central question in ecology. the nine-banded armadillo (dasypus novemcinctus) is a conspicuous example of a successful invader, having colonized much of the southern united states in the last 200 years. we used 15 years (1992-2006) of capture-mark-recapture data from a population of armadillos in northern florida in order to estimate, and examine relationships among, various demographic parameters that may have contributed to this ongoing range expansion. modeling across a range of values for gamma, the probability of juveniles surviving in the population until first capture, we found that population growth rates varied from 0.80 for gamma = 0.1, to 1.03 for gamma = 1.0. growth rates approached 1.0 only when gamma >= 0.80, a situation that might not occur commonly because of the high rate of disappearance of juveniles. net reproductive rate increased linearly with gamma, but life expectancy (estimated at 3 years) was independent of gamma. we also found that growth rates were lower during a 3-year period of hardwood removal that removed preferred habitat than in the years preceding or following. life-table response experiment (ltre) analysis indicated the decrease in growth rate during logging was primarily due to changes in survival rates of adults. likewise, elasticity analyses of both deterministic and stochastic population growth rates revealed that survival parameters were more influential on population growth than were those related to reproduction. collectively, our results are consistent with recent theories regarding biological invasions which posit that populations no longer at the leading edge of range expansion do not exhibit strong positive growth rates, and that high reproductive output is less critical in predicting the likelihood of successful invasion than are life-history strategies that emphasize allocation of resources to future, as opposed to current, reproduction." individual heterogeneity in reproductive rates and cost of reproduction in a long-lived vertebrate,bayesian statistics; individual variation; life-history theory; marine mammals; population dynamics; posterior predictive checks,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CHAMBERT T;ROTELLA JJ;HIGGS MD;GARROTT RA,"individual variation in reproductive success is a key feature of evolution, but also has important implications for predicting population responses to variable environments. although such individual variation in reproductive outcomes has been reported in numerous studies, most analyses to date have not considered whether these realized differences were due to latent individual heterogeneity in reproduction or merely random chance causing different outcomes among like individuals. furthermore, latent heterogeneity in fitness components might be expressed differently in contrasted environmental conditions, an issue that has only rarely been investigated. here, we assessed (i) the potential existence of latent individual heterogeneity and (ii) the nature of its expression (fixed vs. variable) in a population of female weddell seals (leptonychotes weddellii), using a hierarchical modeling approach on a 30-year mark-recapture data set consisting of 954 individual encounter histories. we found strong support for the existence of latent individual heterogeneity in the population, with robust individuals expected to produce twice as many pups as ""frail"" individuals. moreover, the expression of individual heterogeneity appeared consistent, with only mild evidence that it might be amplified when environmental conditions are severe. finally, the explicit modeling of individual heterogeneity allowed us to detect a substantial cost of reproduction that was not evidenced when the heterogeneity was ignored." long-term exclosure of large terrestrial vertebrates: implications of defaunation for seedling demographics in the amazon rainforest,defaunation; exclosure; herbivory; non-trophic interactions; peccaries; seedling demography; survival,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,BECK H;SNODGRASS JW;THEBPANYA P,"""empty forests"" in which humans have driven large vertebrate species to extinction lack myriad direct and indirect species interactions. this may alter key ecosystem processes, including trophic cascades, disturbance regimes, and nutrient cycling. past research concerning the effects of tropical forest defaunation mainly compared sites with an intact fauna with sites having degraded faunal communities. however, experimental studies on seedling demographics at individual sites, with the same abiotic and biotic conditions, over a long period of time are still scarce. in this research we conducted a 7-year experiment within a completely intact and pristine forest in manu national park, peru to elucidate the effects of defaunation on tree seedling demographics and densities. we constructed semipermeable exclosures that prevented access of large terrestrial vertebrates, but allowed free passage of small- and medium-sized species. new tree seedlings taller than 5 cm were tagged and followed. jolly-seber mark-recapture models were used to estimate density, survival, and recruitment of seedlings. seedling density in the exclosures continued to increase significantly after the first year of the study. only during the first 2 years was seedling survival higher in the exclosures. the numbers of new recruits were consistently higher in exclosures when compared to open control plots throughout the study. in accord with increased density, survival, and recruitment in exclosure plots, we also observed increased understory vegetation cover. our results suggest that defaunation can have long-term effects on seedling demographics and density, which could ultimately influence the composition and diversity of the canopy tree community. (c) 2013 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." influence of data quality and quantity from a multiyear tagging program on an integrated fish stock assessment,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,ZIEGLER PE,"using a modeling framework for toothfish (dissostichus spp.) population dynamics, fishing, and data collection, this study investigated how the bias and precision of biomass estimates from an integrated tag-based assessment are influenced by various aspects of a multiyear tagging program, particularly the effects of the size of tagged fish compared with the size of fish in the catch (tag size-overlap), numbers of tagged fish, duration of the tagging program, using catch-at-length or catch-at-age data as auxiliary data, and stock depletion levels. biomass estimates generally improved with more and better-quality tagging data. the results showed that even when tag releases were distributed over a relatively large number of size classes, low recapture numbers collected in short tagging programs with a 100% tag size-overlap were sufficient for robust and unbiased assessments. particularly in the early stages of the tagging program, a high tag size-overlap was imperative to maximize the likelihood of a robust assessment. biomass estimates were largely unaffected by the stock depletion level; however, using catch-at-age compared with catch-at-length improved recruitment estimates and resulted in more conservative biomass estimates." @@ -845,21 +847,21 @@ variability in temporary emigration rates of individually marked female weddell bear historical ranges revisited: documenting the increase of a once-extirpated population in nevada,black bear; extirpated population; historical records; nevada; population estimation; ursus americanus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,LACKEY CW;BECKMANN JP;SEDINGER J,"black bears (ursus americanus) were once abundant in nevada and distributed throughout the state, yet recognition of the species' historical occurrence in the state is uncommon and has therefore been ignored in published distribution maps for north america. the lack of representation on distribution maps is likely due to the lack of any scientific data or research on bears in nevada until 1987. historical records dating back to the 1840s compiled by nevada department of wildlife (ndow) biologist robert mcquivey indicate presence of black bears throughout the state in the 1800s through about 1930. the paucity of historical references after 1931 suggest extirpation of black bears from nevada's interior mountain ranges by this time. we report on historical records of black bears in the state of nevada and the results of a current population estimate of black bears derived from a sample of marked bears (n=420) captured 707 times between 1997 and 2008. using pradel and cormackjollyseber models in program mark, we estimated overall population size, finite rate of growth (=1.16), quarterly and annual survival rates for males and females, seasonal capture probabilities, and recruitment rates. our results indicate an overall population size of 262 +/- 31 adult black bears in western nevada. these results suggest that the once abundant, then extirpated population of black bears in nevada is increasing at an annual average rate of 16%. although the current distribution is limited to the western part of the state, our findings suggest possible expansion of the population into historical habitat within the interior and eastern portions of the state that have been absent of bears for >80 years. finally, based on historical records, we present suggested revised historical distribution maps for black bears that include the great basin ranges in nevada. (c) 2013 the wildlife society." revisiting the effect of capture heterogeneity on survival estimates in capture-mark-recapture studies: does it matter?,NA,PLOS ONE,ABADI F;BOTHA A;ALTWEGG R,"recently developed capture-mark-recapture methods allow us to account for capture heterogeneity among individuals in the form of discrete mixtures and continuous individual random effects. in this article, we used simulations and two case studies to evaluate the effectiveness of continuously distributed individual random effects at removing potential bias due to capture heterogeneity, and to evaluate in what situation the added complexity of these models is justified. simulations and case studies showed that ignoring individual capture heterogeneity generally led to a small negative bias in survival estimates and that individual random effects effectively removed this bias. as expected, accounting for capture heterogeneity also led to slightly less precise survival estimates. our case studies also showed that accounting for capture heterogeneity increased in importance towards the end of study. though ignoring capture heterogeneity led to a small bias in survival estimates, such bias may greatly impact management decisions. we advocate reducing potential heterogeneity at the sampling design stage. where this is insufficient, we recommend modelling individual capture heterogeneity in situations such as when a large proportion of the individuals has a low detection probability (e.g. in the presence of floaters) and situations where the most recent survival estimates are of great interest (e.g. in applied conservation)." accounting for imperfect detection is critical for inferring marine turtle nesting population trends,NA,PLOS ONE,PFALLER JB;BJORNDAL KA;CHALOUPKA M;WILLIAMS KL;FRICK MG;BOLTEN AB,"assessments of population trends based on time-series counts of individuals are complicated by imperfect detection, which can lead to serious misinterpretations of data. population trends of threatened marine turtles worldwide are usually based on counts of nests or nesting females. we analyze 39 years of nest-count, female-count, and capture-mark-recapture (cmr) data for nesting loggerhead turtles (caretta caretta) on wassaw island, georgia, usa. annual counts of nests and females, not corrected for imperfect detection, yield significant, positive trends in abundance. however, multistate open robust design modeling of cmr data that accounts for changes in imperfect detection reveals that the annual abundance of nesting females has remained essentially constant over the 39-year period. the dichotomy could result from improvements in surveys or increased within-season nest-site fidelity in females, either of which would increase detection probability. for the first time in a marine turtle population, we compare results of population trend analyses that do and do not account for imperfect detection and demonstrate the potential for erroneous conclusions. past assessments of marine turtle population trends based exclusively on count data should be interpreted with caution and re-evaluated when possible. these concerns apply equally to population assessments of all species with imperfect detection." -"accounting for age uncertainty in growth modeling, the case study of yellowfin tuna (thunnus albacares) of the indian ocean",NA,PLOS ONE,DORTEL E;MASSIOT-GRANIER F;RIVOT E;MILLION J;HALLIER JP;MORIZE E;MUNARON JM;BOUSQUET N;CHASSOT E,"age estimates, typically determined by counting periodic growth increments in calcified structures of vertebrates, are the basis of population dynamics models used for managing exploited or threatened species. in fisheries research, the use of otolith growth rings as an indicator of fish age has increased considerably in recent decades. however, otolith readings include various sources of uncertainty. current ageing methods, which converts an average count of rings into age, only provide periodic age estimates in which the range of uncertainty is fully ignored. in this study, we describe a hierarchical model for estimating individual ages from repeated otolith readings. the model was developed within a bayesian framework to explicitly represent the sources of uncertainty associated with age estimation, to allow for individual variations and to include knowledge on parameters from expertise. the performance of the proposed model was examined through simulations, and then it was coupled to a two-stanza somatic growth model to evaluate the impact of the age estimation method on the age composition of commercial fisheries catches. we illustrate our approach using the saggital otoliths of yellowfin tuna of the indian ocean collected through large-scale mark-recapture experiments. the simulation performance suggested that the ageing error model was able to estimate the ageing biases and provide accurate age estimates, regardless of the age of the fish. coupled with the growth model, this approach appeared suitable for modeling the growth of indian ocean yellowfin and is consistent with findings of previous studies. the simulations showed that the choice of the ageing method can strongly affect growth estimates with subsequent implications for age-structured data used as inputs for population models. finally, our modeling approach revealed particularly useful to reflect uncertainty around age estimates into the process of growth estimation and it can be applied to any study relying on age estimation." +"accounting for age uncertainty in growth modeling, the case study of yellowfin tuna (thunnus albacares) of the indian ocean",NA,PLOS ONE,DORTEL E;MASSIOT GRANIER F;RIVOT E;MILLION J;HALLIER JP;MORIZE E;MUNARON JM;BOUSQUET N;CHASSOT E,"age estimates, typically determined by counting periodic growth increments in calcified structures of vertebrates, are the basis of population dynamics models used for managing exploited or threatened species. in fisheries research, the use of otolith growth rings as an indicator of fish age has increased considerably in recent decades. however, otolith readings include various sources of uncertainty. current ageing methods, which converts an average count of rings into age, only provide periodic age estimates in which the range of uncertainty is fully ignored. in this study, we describe a hierarchical model for estimating individual ages from repeated otolith readings. the model was developed within a bayesian framework to explicitly represent the sources of uncertainty associated with age estimation, to allow for individual variations and to include knowledge on parameters from expertise. the performance of the proposed model was examined through simulations, and then it was coupled to a two-stanza somatic growth model to evaluate the impact of the age estimation method on the age composition of commercial fisheries catches. we illustrate our approach using the saggital otoliths of yellowfin tuna of the indian ocean collected through large-scale mark-recapture experiments. the simulation performance suggested that the ageing error model was able to estimate the ageing biases and provide accurate age estimates, regardless of the age of the fish. coupled with the growth model, this approach appeared suitable for modeling the growth of indian ocean yellowfin and is consistent with findings of previous studies. the simulations showed that the choice of the ageing method can strongly affect growth estimates with subsequent implications for age-structured data used as inputs for population models. finally, our modeling approach revealed particularly useful to reflect uncertainty around age estimates into the process of growth estimation and it can be applied to any study relying on age estimation." fisheries bycatch as an inadvertent human-induced evolutionary mechanism,NA,PLOS ONE,BARBRAUD C;TUCK GN;THOMSON R;DELORD K;WEIMERSKIRCH H,"selective harvesting of animals by humans can affect the sustainability and genetics of their wild populations. bycatch - the accidental catch of non-target species - spans the spectrum of marine fauna and constitutes a harvesting pressure. individual differences in attraction to fishing vessels and consequent susceptibility to bycatch exist, but few studies integrate this individual heterogeneity with demography. here, we tested for the evidence and consequences of individual heterogeneity on the demography of the wandering albatross, a seabird heavily affected by fisheries bycatch. we found strong evidence for heterogeneity in survival with one group of individuals having a 5.2% lower annual survival probability than another group, and a decrease in the proportion of those individuals with the lowest survival in the population coinciding with a 7.5 fold increase in fishing effort in the foraging areas. potential causes for the heterogeneity in survival are discussed and we suggest that bycatch removed a large proportion of individuals attracted by fishing vessels and had significant phenotypic and population consequences." multiple weather factors affect apparent survival of european passerine birds,NA,PLOS ONE,SALEWSKI V;HOCHACHKA WM;FIEDLER W,"weather affects the demography of animals and thus climate change will cause local changes in demographic rates. in birds numerous studies have correlated demographic factors with weather but few of those examined variation in the impacts of weather in different seasons and, in the case of migrants, in different regions. using capture-recapture models we correlated weather with apparent survival of seven passerine bird species with different migration strategies to assess the importance of selected facets of weather throughout the year on apparent survival. contrary to our expectations weather experienced during the breeding season did not affect apparent survival of the target species. however, measures for winter severity were associated with apparent survival of a resident species, two short-distance/partial migrants and a long-distance migrant. apparent survival of two short distance migrants as well as two long-distance migrants was further correlated with conditions experienced during the non-breeding season in spain. conditions in africa had statistically significant but relatively minor effects on the apparent survival of the two long-distance migrants but also of a presumably short-distance migrant and a short-distance/partial migrant. in general several weather effects independently explained similar amounts of variation in apparent survival for the majority of species and single factors explained only relatively low amounts of temporal variation of apparent survival. although the directions of the effects on apparent survival mostly met our expectations and there are clear predictions for effects of future climate we caution against simple extrapolations of present conditions to predict future population dynamics. not only did weather explains limited amounts of variation in apparent survival, but future demographics will likely be affected by changing interspecific interactions, opposing effects of weather in different seasons, and the potential for phenotypic and microevolutionary adaptations." "boat anchoring impacts coastal populations of the pen shell, the largest bivalve in the mediterranean",pinna nobilis; habitat; population structure; hierarchical models; bayesian analysis; data augmentation; capture-recapture; population size; individual covariate,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,HENDRIKS IE;TENAN S;TAVECCHIA G;MARBA N;JORDA G;DEUDERO S;ALVAREZ E;DUARTE CM,"the decline of important coastal habitats, like seagrass meadows, is likely to influence populations of associated species, like the noble pen shell, pinna nobilis. here we used a bayesian formulation of individual covariate models to derive a reliable estimate of populations of p. nobilis in shallow, and thus usually most impacted, areas around the island of majorca, balearic islands, spain. at six evaluated sites we find quite distinct densities ranging from 1.4 to 10.0 individuals/100 m(2). these differences in density could not be explained by habitat factors like shoot density and meadow cover, nor did dislodgement by storms (evaluated by maximum wind speeds at the sites) seem to play an important role. however, noble pen shell density was related to anchoring as at sites where anchoring was not permitted the average density was 7.9 individuals/100 m(2) while in sites where ships anchored the density was on average 1.7 individuals/100 m(2). as for the conservation of posidonia oceanica meadows, for the associated population of p. nobilis it would be of utmost importance to reduce anchoring pressure as a conservation measure for these endangered and protected bivalves. (c) 2013 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "inferring geographic origin, population structure and migration routes of a wintering population of mediterranean gulls from resightings data",capture-recapture; larus melanocephalus; movement strategy; site-fidelity; spatial variation; survival,POPULATION ECOLOGY,CARBONERAS C;TAVECCHIA G;GENOVART M;REQUENA S;OLIVE M;ORO D,"winter congregations of migratory birds are made by individuals of different origins and generally assumed to be variable across space and time, but the demographic characteristics of these temporal populations are poorly known. we used 2,216 observations of 472 colour-ringed individuals to estimate the annual local survival of mediterranean gulls larus melanocephalus wintering in ne spain. in addition, by gathering the ringing information on the 19,856 individuals marked as fledglings in 18 countries between 1990 and 2009, we were able to infer the composition of population in relation to the country of origin. we coupled these estimates with geographic information to contrast hypotheses on the migratory pattern most likely used by the gulls in their first migration from their natal colonies to the wintering area. the probability of reaching the study area was negatively associated with the distance from the natal colony. data were consistent with a migratory strategy that combines fluvial and coastal routes in an optimal way, seeking minimal distance along favourable terrain. we found that, after the first year, annual local survival at the wintering site (0.81 on average) was comparable with the one estimated at the breeding colonies, indicating a high individual fidelity to the areas used in winter. our work shows that winter groupings may behave as real populations, shaped by breeding output and survival, and that the geographic origin of wintering birds can be explained by a simple model. the study of winter congregations can help understand a species' population structure and movement strategies." -population ecology of the nine-banded armadillo in florida,apparent survival; armadillo; capture probability; costs of reproduction; dasypus noveminctus; logging; mark-recapture analysis,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LOUGHRY WJ;PEREZ-HEYDRICH C;MCDONOUGH CM;OLI MK,"we used 15 years (1992-2006) of capture-mark-recapture (cmr) data obtained from a population of nine-banded armadillos (dasypus novemcinctus) located at the tall timbers research station near tallahassee, florida and multistate cmr models to estimate and model capture probabilities, annual apparent survival, and transition probabilities between reproductive and nonreproductive states (for adult females only). using an information theoretic approach, we then examined various influences on these parameters. across all years, capture probability, p, was higher for adults than for yearlings, and higher for males than for females. there was also substantial yearly variation. conditional on survival, the annual transition probability, psi, for reproductive adult females to remain reproductive was 0.853 +/- 0.044; the estimate for nonreproductive adult females to become reproductive was 0.388 +/- 0.060. annual apparent survival, s, was lowest for juveniles (s = 0.541 +/- 0.118) and highest for reproductive adult females (s = 0.753 +/- 0.034). contrary to expectation, these data provided no evidence for a cost of reproduction among adult females. finally, annual apparent survival was lower for all animals during an extensive hardwood removal that occurred from 1998 to 2000 than in either preceding or subsequent years." +population ecology of the nine-banded armadillo in florida,apparent survival; armadillo; capture probability; costs of reproduction; dasypus noveminctus; logging; mark-recapture analysis,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LOUGHRY WJ;PEREZ HEYDRICH C;MCDONOUGH CM;OLI MK,"we used 15 years (1992-2006) of capture-mark-recapture (cmr) data obtained from a population of nine-banded armadillos (dasypus novemcinctus) located at the tall timbers research station near tallahassee, florida and multistate cmr models to estimate and model capture probabilities, annual apparent survival, and transition probabilities between reproductive and nonreproductive states (for adult females only). using an information theoretic approach, we then examined various influences on these parameters. across all years, capture probability, p, was higher for adults than for yearlings, and higher for males than for females. there was also substantial yearly variation. conditional on survival, the annual transition probability, psi, for reproductive adult females to remain reproductive was 0.853 +/- 0.044; the estimate for nonreproductive adult females to become reproductive was 0.388 +/- 0.060. annual apparent survival, s, was lowest for juveniles (s = 0.541 +/- 0.118) and highest for reproductive adult females (s = 0.753 +/- 0.034). contrary to expectation, these data provided no evidence for a cost of reproduction among adult females. finally, annual apparent survival was lower for all animals during an extensive hardwood removal that occurred from 1998 to 2000 than in either preceding or subsequent years." pacific halibut on the move: a renewed understanding of adult migration from a coastwide tagging study,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,WEBSTER RA;CLARK WG;LEAMAN BM;FORSBERG JE,"results of a coastwide tagging study show that ontogenetic migration of pacific halibut (hippoglossus stenolepis) continues for larger fish, whereas in recent years the assumption had been that only smaller, younger fish migrated. in 2003-2004, a total of 67 000 pacific halibut tagged with passive integrated transponder tags were released by the international pacific halibut commission (iphc) from oregon to the bering sea. portside scanning recovered over 3000 of these tags. models were fitted that allowed commercial fishing mortality to be a function of fish length, year, and iphc regulatory area, while migration probability was a function of area and length. estimates from the models support the view that exploitation rates were much higher in eastern than western areas prior to the reduction of quotas following new results from a coastwide stock assessment in 2007. we explore possible explanations for differences between tagging and iphc stock assessment results and note that this research provides confirmation of historical inferences regarding patterns of halibut migration based on conventional tagging." estimating abundance and population trends when detection is low and highly variable: a comparison of three methods for the hermann's tortoise,abundance estimation; activity modeling; capturerecapture; distance sampling; hermann's tortoise; n-mixture; power analysis; radiotelemetry; testudo hermanni,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,COUTURIER T;CHEYLAN M;BERTOLERO A;ASTRUC G;BESNARD A,"assessing population trends is a basic prerequisite to carrying out adequate conservation strategies. selecting an appropriate method to monitor animal populations can be challenging, particularly for low-detection species such as reptiles. this study compares 3 detection-corrected abundance methods (capturerecapture, distance sampling, and n-mixture) used to assess population size of the threatened hermann's tortoise. we used a single dataset of 432 adult tortoise observations collected at 118 sampling sites in the plaine des maures, southeastern france. we also used a dataset of 520 tortoise observations based on radiotelemetry data collected from 10 adult females to estimate and model the availability (g0) needed for distance sampling. we evaluated bias for n-mixture and capturerecapture, by using simulations based on different values of detection probabilities. finally, we conducted a power analysis to estimate the ability of the 3 methods to detect changes in hermann's tortoise abundances. the abundance estimations we obtained using distance sampling and n-mixture models were respectively 1.75 and 2.19 times less than those obtained using the capturerecapture method. our results indicated that g0 was influenced by temperature variations and can differ for the same temperature on different days. simulations showed that the n-mixture models provide unstable estimations for species with detection probabilities <0.5, whereas capturerecapture estimations were unbiased. power analysis showed that none of the 3 methods were precise enough to detect slow population changes. we recommend that great care should be taken when implementing monitoring designs for species with large variation in activity rates and low detection probabilities. although n-mixture models are easy to implement, we would not recommend using them in situations where the detection probability is very low at the risk of providing biased estimates. among the 3 methods allowing estimation of tortoise abundances, capturerecapture should be preferred to assess population trends. (c) 2013 the wildlife society." using auxiliary telemetry information to estimate animal density from capture-recapture data,density; geographic closure; mark-recapture; telemetry,ECOLOGY,IVAN JS;WHITE GC;SHENK TM,"estimation of animal density is fundamental to ecology, and ecologists often pursue density estimates using grids of detectors (e.g., cameras, live traps, hair snags) to sample animals at a study site. however, under such a framework, reliable estimates can be difficult to obtain because animals move on and off of the site during the sampling session (i.e., the site is not closed geographically). generally, practitioners address lack of geographic closure by inflating the area sampled by the detectors based on the mean distance individuals moved between trapping events or invoking hierarchical models in which animal density is assumed to be a spatial point process, and detection is modeled as a declining function of distance to a detector. we provide an alternative in which lack of geographic closure is sampled directly using telemetry, and this auxiliary information is used to compute estimates of density based on a modified huggins closed-capture estimator. contrary to other approaches, this method is free from assumptions regarding the distribution and movement of animals on the landscape, the stationarity of their home ranges, and biases induced by abnormal movements in response to baited detectors. the estimator is freely available in program mark." using simulation to compare methods for estimating density from capture-recapture data,closure; density; geographic closure; mean maximum distance moved; simulation; spatially explicit capture-recapture; telemetry; trapping grid,ECOLOGY,IVAN JS;WHITE GC;SHENK TM,"estimation of animal density is fundamental to wildlife research and management, but estimation via mark-recapture is often complicated by lack of geographic closure of study sites. contemporary methods for estimating density using mark-recapture data include (1) approximating the effective area sampled by an array of detectors based on the mean maximum distance moved (mmdm) by animals during the sampling session, (2) spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) methods that formulate the problem hierarchically with a process model for animal density and an observation model in which detection probability declines with distance from a detector, and (3) a telemetry estimator (telem) that uses auxiliary telemetry information to estimate the proportion of animals on the study site. we used simulation to compare relative performance (percent error) of these methods under all combinations of three levels of detection probability (0.2, 0.4, 0.6), three levels of occasions (5, 7, 10), and three levels of abundance (10, 20, 40 animals). we also tested each estimator using five different models for animal home ranges. telem performed best across most combinations of capture probabilities, sampling occasions, true densities, and home range configurations, and performance was unaffected by home range shape. secr outperformed mmdm estimators in nearly all comparisons and may be preferable to telem at low capture probabilities, but performance varied with home range configuration. mmdm estimators exhibited substantial positive bias for most simulations, but performance improved for elongated or infinite home ranges." effects of chemical immobilization on the movement rates of free-ranging polar bears,anesthesia; canadian arctic; capture effects; polar bears; remote drug delivery; satellite telemetry; telazol; tiletamine; ursus maritimus; zolazepam,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,THIEMANN GW;DEROCHER AE;CHERRY SG;LUNN NJ;PEACOCK E;SAHANATIEN V,"the capture and handling of free-ranging animals is an important tool for wildlife research, conservation, and management. however, live capture may expose individual animals to risk of injury, impairment, or mortality. the polar bear (ursus maritimus) is a species of conservation concern throughout its range and physical mark-recapture techniques have formed the basis of polar bear research and harvest management for decades. we examined movement patterns of polar bears postcapture to measure their recovery from chemical immobilization and determine whether captured bears experienced prolonged effects that would affect individual fitness. adult female (n = 61) and juvenile (n = 13) polar bears in 3 canadian subpopulations were captured during the course of other studies using a combination of tiletamine hydrochloride and zolazepam hydrochloride delivered via remote injection from a helicopter. bears were fitted with satellite-linked global positioning system collars and we used 3 individual-based metrics to assess their recovery from immobilization: time to move 50 m; time to move 100 m; and time to reach a baseline movement rate threshold (km/day) derived from each individual's movements in a fully recovered state (i.e., 30-60 days postcapture). there were no differences in recovery rate metrics across years, age classes, or between females with cubs of different ages. when compared across subpopulations, only the time to move 50 m differed, being shortest in the southern beaufort sea. bears captured on land during the ice-free period in western hudson bay and foxe basin were more variable in their response to capture than were those handled on the sea ice of the beaufort sea, but in all 3 areas, bears showed gradual increases in movement rates. movement rates indicative of recovery were often reached 48 h after capture and 51 (69%) of 74 bears appeared to be fully recovered in <= 3 days. consistent with preliminary work on chemical immobilization of polar bears, there was no relationship between drug dose and rate of recovery. our results indicated that polar bears captured in different locations, seasons, and life-history stages recovered predictably from chemical immobilization in a time frame that is unlikely to affect individual fitness." "population ecology of polar bears in davis strait, canada and greenland",arctic; harp seal; harvest; density effects; mark-recapture; polar bear; population demography; sea ice; ursus maritimus; wildlife management,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PEACOCK E;TAYLOR MK;LAAKE J;STIRLING I,"until recently, the sea ice habitat of polar bears was understood to be variable, but environmental variability was considered to be cyclic or random, rather than progressive. harvested populations were believed to be at levels where density effects were considered not significant. however, because we now understand that polar bear demography can also be influenced by progressive change in the environment, and some populations have increased to greater densities than historically lower numbers, a broader suite of factors should be considered in demographic studies and management. we analyzed 35 years of capture and harvest data from the polar bear (ursus maritimus) subpopulation in davis strait, including data from a new study (20052007), to quantify its current demography. we estimated the population size in 2007 to be 2,158 +/- 180 (se), a likely increase from the 1970s. we detected variation in survival, reproductive rates, and age-structure of polar bears from geographic sub-regions. survival and reproduction of bears in southern davis strait was greater than in the north and tied to a concurrent dramatic increase in breeding harp seals (pagophilus groenlandicus) in labrador. the most supported survival models contained geographic and temporal variables. harp seal abundance was significantly related to polar bear survival. our estimates of declining harvest recovery rate, and increasing total survival, suggest that the rate of harvest declined over time. low recruitment rates, average adult survival rates, and high population density, in an environment of high prey density, but deteriorating and variable ice conditions, currently characterize the davis strait polar bears. low reproductive rates may reflect negative effects of greater densities or worsening ice conditions. (c) 2013 the wildlife society." -individual turnover in common pochards wintering in western france,anatidae; aythya ferina; ducks; emigration; multistate cmr modeling; population volume,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GOURLAY-LAROUR ML;PRADEL R;GUILLEMAIN M;SANTIN-JANIN H;L'HOSTIS M;CAIZERGUES A,"studying movements and population turnover is a prerequisite of management and conservation policies. understanding the relative importance of known wintering sites requires estimating total number of birds using a wintering site with robust statistical methods because counts alone do not account for turnover. to study movements of common pochards (aythya ferina) during winter (oct to mar) in western france, we used a combination of band-recoveries and capturerecapture data. we constructed a multi-state model to estimate monthly local survival and probability of movements between the banding site and other wintering sites, accounting for individual sex and age. we observed significant movements between sites and high population turnover even during winter. we did not detect any effect of age or sex on movement probabilities, except at the beginning of the winter when first-year individuals had a lower emigration probability. this result suggests that these inexperienced birds did not explore the wintering area like adults, at least early in the season. combining our estimates (survival and emigration) and winter counts data, we computed the number of individuals using our study area throughout winter. this total was twice the maximum number of individuals counted in winter. unexpectedly, low estimates for apparent survival suggest that permanent emigration occurred; although, recaptures and resightings revealed some birds traveled long distances from the capture site. we hypothesize that this permanent emigration was due to birds moving to areas where observation and hunting pressures were reduced compared to those in the french territory. if this hypothesis is true, high turnover rate would prevail not only at the scale of the wetland but also at the scale of the country. (c) the wildlife society, 2013" +individual turnover in common pochards wintering in western france,anatidae; aythya ferina; ducks; emigration; multistate cmr modeling; population volume,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GOURLAY LAROUR ML;PRADEL R;GUILLEMAIN M;SANTIN JANIN H;L HOSTIS M;CAIZERGUES A,"studying movements and population turnover is a prerequisite of management and conservation policies. understanding the relative importance of known wintering sites requires estimating total number of birds using a wintering site with robust statistical methods because counts alone do not account for turnover. to study movements of common pochards (aythya ferina) during winter (oct to mar) in western france, we used a combination of band-recoveries and capturerecapture data. we constructed a multi-state model to estimate monthly local survival and probability of movements between the banding site and other wintering sites, accounting for individual sex and age. we observed significant movements between sites and high population turnover even during winter. we did not detect any effect of age or sex on movement probabilities, except at the beginning of the winter when first-year individuals had a lower emigration probability. this result suggests that these inexperienced birds did not explore the wintering area like adults, at least early in the season. combining our estimates (survival and emigration) and winter counts data, we computed the number of individuals using our study area throughout winter. this total was twice the maximum number of individuals counted in winter. unexpectedly, low estimates for apparent survival suggest that permanent emigration occurred; although, recaptures and resightings revealed some birds traveled long distances from the capture site. we hypothesize that this permanent emigration was due to birds moving to areas where observation and hunting pressures were reduced compared to those in the french territory. if this hypothesis is true, high turnover rate would prevail not only at the scale of the wetland but also at the scale of the country. (c) the wildlife society, 2013" when celibacy matters: incorporating non-breeders improves demographic parameter estimates,NA,PLOS ONE,PARDO D;WEIMERSKIRCH H;BARBRAUD C,"in long-lived species only a fraction of a population breeds at a given time. non-breeders can represent more than half of adult individuals, calling in doubt the relevance of estimating demographic parameters from the sole breeders. here we demonstrate the importance of considering observable non-breeders to estimate reliable demographic traits: survival, return, breeding, hatching and fledging probabilities. we study the long-lived quasi-biennial breeding wandering albatross (diomedea exulans). in this species, the breeding cycle lasts almost a year and birds that succeed a given year tend to skip the next breeding occasion while birds that fail tend to breed again the following year. most non-breeders remain unobservable at sea, but still a substantial number of observable non-breeders (onb) was identified on breeding sites. using multi-state capture-mark-recapture analyses, we used several measures to compare the performance of demographic estimates between models incorporating or ignoring onb: bias (difference in mean), precision (difference is standard deviation) and accuracy (both differences in mean and standard deviation). our results highlight that ignoring onb leads to bias and loss of accuracy on breeding probability and survival estimates. these effects are even stronger when studied in an age-dependent framework. biases on breeding probabilities and survival increased with age leading to overestimation of survival at old age and thus actuarial senescence and underestimation of reproductive senescence. we believe our study sheds new light on the difficulties of estimating demographic parameters in species/taxa where a significant part of the population does not breed every year. taking into account onb appeared important to improve demographic parameter estimates, models of population dynamics and evolutionary conclusions regarding senescence within and across taxa." -"computer-assisted photo identification outperforms visible implant elastomers in an endangered salamander, eurycea tonkawae",NA,PLOS ONE,BENDIK NF;MORRISON TA;GLUESENKAMP AG;SANDERS MS;O'DONNELL LJ,"despite recognition that nearly one-third of the 6300 amphibian species are threatened with extinction, our understanding of the general ecology and population status of many amphibians is relatively poor. a widely-used method for monitoring amphibians involves injecting captured individuals with unique combinations of colored visible implant elastomer (vie). we compared vie identification to a less-invasive method - computer-assisted photographic identification (photoid) - in endangered jollyville plateau salamanders (eurycea tonkawae), a species with a known range limited to eight stream drainages in central texas. we based photoid on the unique pigmentation patterns on the dorsal head region of 1215 individual salamanders using identification software wild-id. we compared the performance of photoid methods to vies using both 'high-quality' and 'low-quality' images, which were taken using two different camera types and technologies. for high-quality images, the photoid method had a false rejection rate of 0.76% compared to 1.90% for vies. using a comparable dataset of lower-quality images, the false rejection rate was much higher (15.9%). photo matching scores were negatively correlated with time between captures, suggesting that evolving natural marks could increase misidentification rates in longer term capture-recapture studies. our study demonstrates the utility of large-scale capture-recapture using photo identification methods for eurycea and other species with stable natural marks that can be reliably photographed." +"computer-assisted photo identification outperforms visible implant elastomers in an endangered salamander, eurycea tonkawae",NA,PLOS ONE,BENDIK NF;MORRISON TA;GLUESENKAMP AG;SANDERS MS;O DONNELL LJ,"despite recognition that nearly one-third of the 6300 amphibian species are threatened with extinction, our understanding of the general ecology and population status of many amphibians is relatively poor. a widely-used method for monitoring amphibians involves injecting captured individuals with unique combinations of colored visible implant elastomer (vie). we compared vie identification to a less-invasive method - computer-assisted photographic identification (photoid) - in endangered jollyville plateau salamanders (eurycea tonkawae), a species with a known range limited to eight stream drainages in central texas. we based photoid on the unique pigmentation patterns on the dorsal head region of 1215 individual salamanders using identification software wild-id. we compared the performance of photoid methods to vies using both 'high-quality' and 'low-quality' images, which were taken using two different camera types and technologies. for high-quality images, the photoid method had a false rejection rate of 0.76% compared to 1.90% for vies. using a comparable dataset of lower-quality images, the false rejection rate was much higher (15.9%). photo matching scores were negatively correlated with time between captures, suggesting that evolving natural marks could increase misidentification rates in longer term capture-recapture studies. our study demonstrates the utility of large-scale capture-recapture using photo identification methods for eurycea and other species with stable natural marks that can be reliably photographed." effects of culling on mesopredator population dynamics,NA,PLOS ONE,BEASLEY JC;OLSON ZH;BEATTY WS;DHARMARAJAN G;RHODES OE,"anthropogenic changes in land use and the extirpation of apex predators have facilitated explosive growth of mesopredator populations. consequently, many species have been subjected to extensive control throughout portions of their range due to their integral role as generalist predators and reservoirs of zoonotic disease. yet, few studies have monitored the effects of landscape composition or configuration on the demographic or behavioral response of mesopredators to population manipulation. during 2007 we removed 382 raccoons (procyon lotor) from 30 forest patches throughout a fragmented agricultural ecosystem to test hypotheses regarding the effects of habitat isolation on population recovery and role of range expansion and dispersal in patch colonization of mesopredators in heterogeneous landscapes. patches were allowed to recolonize naturally and demographic restructuring of patches was monitored from 2008-2010 using mark-recapture. an additional 25 control patches were monitored as a baseline measure of demography. after 3 years only 40% of experimental patches had returned to pre-removal densities. this stagnant recovery was driven by low colonization rates of females, resulting in little to no within-patch recruitment. colonizing raccoons were predominantly young males, suggesting that dispersal, rather than range expansion, was the primary mechanism driving population recovery. contrary to our prediction, neither landscape connectivity nor measured local habitat attributes influenced colonization rates, likely due to the high dispersal capability of raccoons and limited role of range expansion in patch colonization. although culling is commonly used to control local populations of many mesopredators, we demonstrate that such practices create severe disruptions in population demography that may be counterproductive to disease management in fragmented landscapes due to an influx of dispersing males into depopulated areas. however, given the slow repopulation rates observed in our study, localized depopulation may be effective at reducing negative ecological impacts of mesopredators in fragmented landscapes at limited spatial and temporal scales." population recovery following decline in an endangered stream-breeding frog (mixophyes fleayi) from subtropical australia,NA,PLOS ONE,NEWELL DA;GOLDINGAY RL;BROOKS LO,"amphibians have undergone dramatic declines and extinctions worldwide. prominent among these have been the stream-breeding frogs in the rainforests of eastern australia. the amphibian chytrid fungus batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (bd) has been postulated as the primary cause of these declines. we conducted a capture-mark-recapture study over a 7-year period on the endangered fleay's barred frog (mixophyes fleayi) at two independent streams (30 km apart) in order to assess the stability of these populations. this species had undergone a severe decline across its narrow geographic range. mark-recapture modelling showed that the number of individuals increased 3-10 fold along stream transects over this period. frog detection probabilities were frequently above 50% but declined as the populations increased. adult survival was important to overall population persistence in light of low recruitment events, suggesting that longevity may be a key factor in this recovery. one male and female were present in the capture record for >6 years. this study provides an unambiguous example of population recovery in the presence of bd." mate-searching behaviour of common and rare wasps and the implications for pollen movement of the sexually deceptive orchids they pollinate,NA,PLOS ONE,MENZ MHM;PHILLIPS RD;DIXON KW;PEAKALL R;DIDHAM RK,"pollinator behaviour directly affects patterns of pollen movement and outcrossing rates in plants. in orchids pollinated by sexual deception of insects, patterns of pollen movement are primarily determined by the mate-searching behaviour of the deceived males. here, using a capture-mark-recapture study (cmr) and dietary analysis, we compare mate-searching behaviour in relation to local abundance of two pollinator species and explore the implications for pollen movement in sexually deceptive drakaea (orchidaceae). drakaea are pollinated solely by the sexual deception of male thynnine wasps. the rare drakaea elastica and widespread d. livida occur sympatrically and are pollinated by the rare but locally common zaspilothynnus gilesi, and the widespread and abundant z. nigripes, respectively. local abundance was significantly different with z. nigripes twice as abundant as z. gilesi. for the 653 marked wasps, there was no significant difference in median movement distance between z. gilesi and z. nigripes. however, the maximum movement distance was twice as high for z. gilesi (556 m) compared with z. nigripes (267 m). this is up to three times greater than previously reported for thynnines in cmr studies. recapture rates were six times higher in z. gilesi (57%) compared to z. nigripes (9%). pollen loads and wasp longevity were similar, suggesting that this difference in recapture rate arises due to differences in the number of males moving at a scale >500 m rather than through diet or mortality. differences in the frequency of longer movements may arise due to variation in the spatial distribution of the wingless females. we predict that pollen movement will largely be restricted to within populations of drakaea (<500 m), with few movements between populations (>500 m)." @@ -867,8 +869,8 @@ big cats in our backyards: persistence of large carnivores in a human dominated recapture heterogeneity in cliff swallows: increased exposure to mist nets leads to net avoidance,NA,PLOS ONE,ROCHE EA;BROWN CR;BROWN MB;LEAR KM,"ecologists often use mark-recapture to estimate demographic variables such as abundance, growth rate, or survival for samples of wild animal populations. a common assumption underlying mark-recapture is that all animals have an equal probability of detection, and failure to meet or correct for this assumption-as when certain members of the population are either easier or more difficult to capture than other animals-can lead to biased and inaccurate demographic estimates. we built within-year and among-years cormack-jolly-seber recaptures-only models to identify causes of capture heterogeneity for a population of colonially nesting cliff swallows (petrochelidon pyrrhonota) caught using mist-netting as a part of a 20-year mark-recapture study in southwestern nebraska, u. s. a. daily detection of cliff swallows caught in stationary mist nets at their colony sites declined as the birds got older and as the frequency of netting at a site within a season increased. experienced birds' avoidance of the net could be countered by sudden disturbances that startled them into a net, such as when we dropped a net over the side of a bridge or flushed nesting cliff swallows into a stationary net positioned at a colony entrance. our results support the widely held, but seldom tested, belief that birds learn to avoid stationary mist nets over time, but also show that modifications of traditional field methods can reduce this source of recapture heterogeneity." "accuracy, precision, and cost-effectiveness of conventional dung density and fecal dna based survey methods to estimate asian elephant (elephas maximus) population size and structure",abundance estimates; capture-mark-recapture; elusive species; microsatellites; molecular scatology; population monitoring,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,HEDGES S;JOHNSON A;AHLERING M;TYSON M;EGGERT LS,"non-invasive dna-based capture-mark-recapture (cmr) methods have been developed to estimate population size and other parameters and have the advantage that samples can be collected without the need to see or disturb the animals. there are, however, few comparisons of dna-based cmr estimates of animal population size with estimates from non-genetic methods. we compared the results of a dung-density based survey of an asian elephant (elephas maximus) population with a simultaneous fecal dna-based cmr survey of the same population. we found 545 dung-piles along 116 line transects, converted dung-pile density to elephant density using rates of defecation and dung disappearance, and derived a population estimate of 141 (95% ci = [95, 208]) elephants. we collected 267 fecal samples during three cmr sampling sessions: 215 (81%) yielded sufficient genotypic information for analysis and gave an estimated population size of 132 (95% ci = [120,149]) elephants, closely matching the estimate produced by the dung-density method but with greater precision. the dna-based method also provided information on population structure. we conclude that dna-based cmr methods provide more precise abundance estimates, and more data about population structure and dynamics, than dung density-based methods. fecal dna-based cmr methods also require less time in the field and can be used when dung density methods are impracticable. finally, fecal dna based cmr methods are now cheaper than dung density based methods when line transect survey costs are approximately equal to cmr survey costs and dung decay rate monitoring costs are greater than laboratory costs (which will usually be the case). (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." estimating jaguar densities with camera traps: problems with current designs and recommendations for future studies,spatially explicit capture recapture model (secr); panthera onca; density estimation; mean maximum distance moved (mmdm); simulation; camera traps,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,TOBLER MW;POWELL GVN,"camera traps have become the main method for estimating jaguar (panthera onca) densities. over 74 studies have been carried out throughout the species range following standard design recommendations. we reviewed the study designs used by these studies and the results obtained. using simulated data we evaluated the performance of different statistical methods for estimating density from camera trap data including the closed-population capture-recapture models m-o and m-h with a buffer of 1/2 and the full mean maximum distance moved (mmdm) and spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models under different study designs and scenarios. we found that for the studies reviewed density estimates were negatively correlated with camera polygon size and mmdm estimates were positively correlated. the simulations showed that for camera polygons that were smaller than approximately one home range density estimates for all methods had a positive bias. for large polygons the mh mmdm and secr model produced the most accurate results and elongated polygons can improve estimates with the secr model. when encounter rates and home range sizes varied by sex, estimates had a negative bias for models that did not include sex as a covariate. based on the simulations we concluded that the majority of jaguar camera trap studies did not meet the requirements necessary to produce unbiased density estimates and likely overestimated true densities. we make clear recommendations for future study designs with respect to camera layout, number of cameras, study length, and camera placement. our findings directly apply to camera trap studies of other large carnivores. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -high jaguar densities and large population sizes in the core habitat of the southwestern amazon,bayesian analysis; camera trapping; madre de dios; panthera onca; peru; spatially explicit capture-recapture model,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,TOBLER MW;CARRILLO-PERCASTEGUI SE;ZUNIGA HARTLEY A;POWELL GVN,"over 80% of the currently occupied range of the jaguar (panthera onca) lies in the amazon. however, few density estimates exist for this habitat. between 2005 and 2010 we carried out six camera trap surveys at three different sites in the department of madre de dios in the peruvian amazon. we analyzed our data using a bayesian spatially explicit capture recapture model (secr) with sex covariates to account for differences in home range size and detection probabilities of male and female jaguars. as several of our camera grids where too small for reliable density estimates, we used estimates for the sigma parameter from the largest camera grid to correct for the bias. density estimates for our surveys were similar with an average density of 4.4 +/- 0.7 jaguar 100 km(-2). both home range size and encounter rates varied significantly between sexes with males having a larger home range and higher encounter rate than females. our estimated sex ratio was 1:1.5 compared to an observed ratio of 1.9:1. not accounting for sex would have resulted in an underestimation of the true density. the densities found in this study are among the highest documented and show that the amazon is indeed a core habitat for the jaguar. we estimate that three jaguar conservation units in our study region (areas defined by experts as having a high conservation priority) could harbor as many as 6000 jaguars (cl: 4278-8142). (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -a spatial mark-resight model augmented with telemetry data,abundance; bayesian statistics; camera trapping; density; mark-resight; metropolis-within-gibbs sampler; population estimation; procyon lotor; raccoons; spatial capture-recapture; telemetry,ECOLOGY,SOLLMANN R;GARDNER B;PARSONS AW;STOCKING JJ;MCCLINTOCK BT;SIMONS TR;POLLOCK KH;O'CONNELL AF,"abundance and population density are fundamental pieces of information for population ecology and species conservation, but they are difficult to estimate for rare and elusive species. mark-resight models are popular for estimating population abundance because they are less invasive and expensive than traditional mark-recapture. however, density estimation using mark-resight is difficult because the area sampled must be explicitly defined, historically using ad hoc approaches. we developed a spatial mark-resight model for estimating population density that combines spatial resighting data and telemetry data. incorporating telemetry data allows us to inform model parameters related to movement and individual location. our model also allows <100% individual identification of marked individuals. we implemented the model in a bayesian framework, using a custom-made metropolis-within-gibbs markov chain monte carlo algorithm. as an example, we applied this model to a mark-resight study of raccoons (procyon lotor) on south core banks, a barrier island in cape lookout national seashore, north carolina, usa. we estimated a population of 186.71 +/- 14.81 individuals, which translated to a density of 8.29 +/- 0.66 individuals/km(2) (mean +/- sd). the model presented here will have widespread utility in future applications, especially for species that are not naturally marked." +high jaguar densities and large population sizes in the core habitat of the southwestern amazon,bayesian analysis; camera trapping; madre de dios; panthera onca; peru; spatially explicit capture-recapture model,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,TOBLER MW;CARRILLO PERCASTEGUI SE;ZUNIGA HARTLEY A;POWELL GVN,"over 80% of the currently occupied range of the jaguar (panthera onca) lies in the amazon. however, few density estimates exist for this habitat. between 2005 and 2010 we carried out six camera trap surveys at three different sites in the department of madre de dios in the peruvian amazon. we analyzed our data using a bayesian spatially explicit capture recapture model (secr) with sex covariates to account for differences in home range size and detection probabilities of male and female jaguars. as several of our camera grids where too small for reliable density estimates, we used estimates for the sigma parameter from the largest camera grid to correct for the bias. density estimates for our surveys were similar with an average density of 4.4 +/- 0.7 jaguar 100 km(-2). both home range size and encounter rates varied significantly between sexes with males having a larger home range and higher encounter rate than females. our estimated sex ratio was 1:1.5 compared to an observed ratio of 1.9:1. not accounting for sex would have resulted in an underestimation of the true density. the densities found in this study are among the highest documented and show that the amazon is indeed a core habitat for the jaguar. we estimate that three jaguar conservation units in our study region (areas defined by experts as having a high conservation priority) could harbor as many as 6000 jaguars (cl: 4278-8142). (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +a spatial mark-resight model augmented with telemetry data,abundance; bayesian statistics; camera trapping; density; mark-resight; metropolis-within-gibbs sampler; population estimation; procyon lotor; raccoons; spatial capture-recapture; telemetry,ECOLOGY,SOLLMANN R;GARDNER B;PARSONS AW;STOCKING JJ;MCCLINTOCK BT;SIMONS TR;POLLOCK KH;O CONNELL AF,"abundance and population density are fundamental pieces of information for population ecology and species conservation, but they are difficult to estimate for rare and elusive species. mark-resight models are popular for estimating population abundance because they are less invasive and expensive than traditional mark-recapture. however, density estimation using mark-resight is difficult because the area sampled must be explicitly defined, historically using ad hoc approaches. we developed a spatial mark-resight model for estimating population density that combines spatial resighting data and telemetry data. incorporating telemetry data allows us to inform model parameters related to movement and individual location. our model also allows <100% individual identification of marked individuals. we implemented the model in a bayesian framework, using a custom-made metropolis-within-gibbs markov chain monte carlo algorithm. as an example, we applied this model to a mark-resight study of raccoons (procyon lotor) on south core banks, a barrier island in cape lookout national seashore, north carolina, usa. we estimated a population of 186.71 +/- 14.81 individuals, which translated to a density of 8.29 +/- 0.66 individuals/km(2) (mean +/- sd). the model presented here will have widespread utility in future applications, especially for species that are not naturally marked." catchability model selection for estimating the composition of fishes and invertebrates within dynamic aquatic ecosystems,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,LAURETTA MV;CAMP EV;PINE WE;FRAZER TK,"we evaluated alternative catchability models for estimating the composition of fishes and decapods in two coastal rivers sampled via capture-recapture boat electrofishing, seine removal sampling, and throw trap removal sampling. information criteria were used to select between linear and nonlinear catchability models and assess heterogeneity in catchability coefficients across populations, sampling reaches, and sampling events. the selected electrofishing catchability model assumed linearity between catch per unit effort and population density, with heterogeneity in catchability coefficients among taxa and between rivers. linear models were selected for seine and throw trap samples, with heterogeneity in catchability coefficients among taxa, sampling reaches, and sampling events. we emphasize the importance of estimating population density, rather than abundance exclusively, when accurate community composition estimates are needed. the analytical techniques employed have broad-scale application in quantifying key components of ecosystems by integrating information from multiple sampling gears targeting different taxa or trophic guilds and in accounting for variable sampling intensity and catchability heterogeneity in the estimation of community composition." "correlates of estuarine survival of atlantic salmon postsmolts from the southern upland, nova scotia, canada",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,HALFYARD EA;GIBSON AJF;STOKESBURY MJW;RUZZANTE DE;WHORISKEY FG,"acoustic telemetry is a useful tool to monitor the estuarine survival and behaviour of atlantic salmon postsmolts. most frequently, survival is reported as the static fraction of tagged postsmolts detected, and while the timing or location of mortality may be reported, covariates of survival or the relationship between migratory behaviour and survival are less often described. in this study, we used acoustic telemetry to follow atlantic salmon smolts migrating to sea from four rivers in nova scotia, canada. further, we tested the relationship between migratory behaviour and survival and used mark-recapture models to examine the role of body length and tag-to-body mass as survival covariates. survival was most heavily impacted in estuarine habitats closest to head-of-tide. survival was affected by body length at three of four sites. the shape and spatial variability of the body length - survival relationship provided insight on mortality vectors, highlighting the potential roles of predation and osmotic stress. survival was not influenced by repeated landward-seaward migratory movements; however, there was a significant correlation between residency and survival." ice-dependent winter survival of juvenile atlantic salmon,apparent survival; energy content; ice cover; salmo salar; size-dependent mortality,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HEDGER RD;NAESJE TF;FISKE P;UGEDAL O;FINSTAD AG;THORSTAD EB,"changes in snow and ice conditions are some of the most distinctive impacts of global warming in cold temperate and arctic regions, altering the environment during a critical period for survival for most animals. laboratories studies have suggested that reduced ice cover may reduce the survival of stream dwelling fishes in northern environments. this, however, has not been empirically investigated in natural populations in large rivers. here, we examine how the winter survival of juvenile atlantic salmon in a large natural river, the river alta (norway, 70 degrees n), is affected by the presence or absence of surface ice. apparent survival rates for size classes corresponding to parr and presmolts were estimated using capture-mark-recapture and cormack-jolly-seber models for an ice-covered and an ice-free site. apparent survival (phi) in the ice-covered site was greater than in the ice-free site, but did not depend on size class (0.64 for both parr and presmolt). in contrast, apparent survival in the ice-free site was lower for larger individuals (0.33) than smaller individuals (0.45). the over-winter decline in storage energy was greater for the ice-free site than the ice-covered site, suggesting that environmental conditions in the ice-free site caused a strong depletion in energy reserves likely affecting survival. our findings highlight the importance of surface ice for the winter survival of juvenile fish, thus, underpinning that climate change, by reducing ice cover, may have a negative effect on the survival of fish adapted to ice-covered habitats during winter." @@ -877,7 +879,7 @@ risky business or simple solution - relative abundance indices from camera-trapp life history constraints contribute to the vulnerability of a declining north american rattlesnake,survival; age at maturation; longevity; fidelity; pine savannas; longleaf pine,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,WALDRON JL;WELCH SM;BENNETT SH;KALINOWSKY WG;MOUSSEAU TA,"delayed maturation and age-biased dispersal work in concert under past selection to maximize individual fitness and contribute to population viability; however, these life history attributes can become dysfunctional in a dynamic, anthropogenic landscape when important population demographics cannot redistribute in response to novel landscape change. we used long-term monitoring data to estimate age at maturity, potential longevity, survival, and fidelity for the declining eastern diamondback rattlesnake (edb), crotalus adamanteus. we used radio telemetry data and known-fate models to examine adult survival, and we combined mark-recapture and radio telemetry data to examine survival and fidelity using a combined recapture/recovery model. monthly adult survival was higher during the active season (april-november; 99.5%) as compared to the inactive season (december-march; 96.3%), despite a higher probability of detecting human-caused mortalities during the active season. rattlesnakes matured in 7.1 years and potential longevity exceeded 20 years. fidelity estimates indicated mature edbs had a low probability of dispersing from the study area, while younger, sexually immature individuals were more likely to emigrate. the combination of a slow life history and an ontogenetic shift in emigration suggests edb life history limits the species' ability to respond to landscape change, shedding further light on edb imperilment. management efforts will benefit from activities that maintain high adult survival. furthermore, edb fidelity should be considered in conservation plans, particularly in light of the species' longevity, as these characteristics suggest that mature edbs may not readily redistribute at the landscape scale in response to habitat degradation. (c) 2012 published by elsevier ltd." "sex-specific correlations of individual heterozygosity, parasite load, and scalation asymmetry in a sexually dichromatic lizard",NA,PLOS ONE,SHANER PJL;CHEN YR;LIN JW;KOLBE JJ;LIN SM,"heterozygosity-fitness correlations (hfcs) provide insights into the genetic bases of individual fitness variation in natural populations. however, despite decades of study, the biological significance of hfcs is still under debate. in this study, we investigated hfcs in a large population of the sexually dimorphic lizard takydromus viridipunctatus (lacertidae). because of the high prevalence of parasitism from trombiculid mites in this lizard, we expect individual fitness (i.e., survival) to decrease with increasing parasite load. furthermore, because morphological asymmetry is likely to influence individuals' mobility (i.e., limb asymmetry) and male biting ability during copulation (i.e., head asymmetry) in this species, we also hypothesize that individual fitness should decrease with increasing morphological asymmetry. although we did not formally test the relationship between morphological asymmetry and fitness in this lizard, we demonstrated that survival decreased with increasing parasite load using a capture-mark-recapture data set. we used a separate sample of 140 lizards to test the correlations between individual heterozygosity (i.e., standardized mean d(2) and hl based on 10 microsatellite loci) and the two fitness traits (i.e., parasite load and morphological asymmetry). we also evaluated and excluded the possibility that single-locus effects produced spurious hfcs. our results suggest male-only, negative correlations between individual heterozygosity and parasite load and between individual heterozygosity and asymmetry, suggesting sex-specific, positive hfcs. male t. viridipunctatus with higher heterozygosity tend to have lower parasite loads (i.e., higher survival) and lower asymmetry, providing a rare example of hfc in reptiles." photographic capture-recapture sampling for assessing populations of the indian gliding lizard draco dussumieri,NA,PLOS ONE,SREEKAR R;PURUSHOTHAM CB;SAINI K;RAO SN;PELLETIER S;CHAPLOD S,"the usage of invasive tagging methods to assess lizard populations has often been criticised, due to the potential negative effects of marking, which possibly cause increased mortality or altered behaviour. the development of safe, less invasive techniques is essential for improved ecological study and conservation of lizard populations. in this study, we describe a photographic capture-recapture (cr) technique for estimating draco dussumieri (agamidae) populations. we used photographs of the ventral surface of the patagium to identify individuals. to establish that the naturally occurring blotches remained constant through time, we compared capture and recapture photographs of 45 pen-marked individuals after a 30 day interval. no changes in blotches were observed and individual lizards could be identified with 100% accuracy. the population density of d. dussumieri in a two hectare areca-nut plantation was estimated using the cr technique with ten sampling occasions over a ten day period. the resulting recapture histories for 24 individuals were analysed using population models in the program capture. all models indicated that nearly all individuals were captured. the estimated probability for capturing d. dussumieri on at least one occasion was 0.92 and the estimated population density was 13 +/- 1.65 lizards/ha. our results demonstrate the potential for applying cr to population studies in gliding lizards (draco spp.) and other species with distinctive markings." -juvenile survival in a neotropical migratory songbird is lower than expected,NA,PLOS ONE,MCKIM-LOUDER MI;HOOVER JP;BENSON TJ;SCHELSKY WM,"attempts to estimate and identify factors influencing first-year survival in passerines, survival between fledging and the first reproductive attempt (i.e. juvenile survival), have largely been confounded by natal dispersal, particularly in long-distance migratory passerines. we studied prothonotary warblers (protonotaria citrea) breeding in nest boxes to estimate first-year survival while accounting for biases related to dispersal that are common in mark-recapture studies. the natal dispersal distribution (median = 1420 m; n = 429) and a distance-dependent recruitment rate, which controls for effects of study site configuration, both indicated a pattern of short-distance natal dispersal. this pattern was consistent with results of a systematic survey for birds returning outside the nest box study sites (up to 30 km in all directions) within a majority (81%) of total available bottomland forest habitat, further suggesting that permanent emigration outside of the study system was rare. we used multistate mark-recapture modeling to estimate first-year survival and incorporated factors thought to influence survival while accounting for the potential confounding effects of dispersal on recapture probabilities for warblers that fledged during 2004-2009 (n = 6093). overall, the average first-year survival for warblers reared without cowbird nestmates was 0.11 (95% ci = 0.09-0.13), decreased with fledging date (0.22 early to 0.03 late) and averaged 40% lower for warblers reared with a brood parasite nestmate. first-year survival was less than half of the rate thought to represent population replacement in migratory passerines (similar to 0.30). this very low rate suggests that surviving the first year of life for many neotropical migratory species is even more difficult than previously thought, forcing us to rethink estimates used in population models." +juvenile survival in a neotropical migratory songbird is lower than expected,NA,PLOS ONE,MCKIM LOUDER MI;HOOVER JP;BENSON TJ;SCHELSKY WM,"attempts to estimate and identify factors influencing first-year survival in passerines, survival between fledging and the first reproductive attempt (i.e. juvenile survival), have largely been confounded by natal dispersal, particularly in long-distance migratory passerines. we studied prothonotary warblers (protonotaria citrea) breeding in nest boxes to estimate first-year survival while accounting for biases related to dispersal that are common in mark-recapture studies. the natal dispersal distribution (median = 1420 m; n = 429) and a distance-dependent recruitment rate, which controls for effects of study site configuration, both indicated a pattern of short-distance natal dispersal. this pattern was consistent with results of a systematic survey for birds returning outside the nest box study sites (up to 30 km in all directions) within a majority (81%) of total available bottomland forest habitat, further suggesting that permanent emigration outside of the study system was rare. we used multistate mark-recapture modeling to estimate first-year survival and incorporated factors thought to influence survival while accounting for the potential confounding effects of dispersal on recapture probabilities for warblers that fledged during 2004-2009 (n = 6093). overall, the average first-year survival for warblers reared without cowbird nestmates was 0.11 (95% ci = 0.09-0.13), decreased with fledging date (0.22 early to 0.03 late) and averaged 40% lower for warblers reared with a brood parasite nestmate. first-year survival was less than half of the rate thought to represent population replacement in migratory passerines (similar to 0.30). this very low rate suggests that surviving the first year of life for many neotropical migratory species is even more difficult than previously thought, forcing us to rethink estimates used in population models." effect of illegal harvest on apparent survival of amazon river dolphins (inia geoffrensis),barker model; boto; calophysus macropterus; mark-recapture; bait; poaching,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MINTZER VJ;MARTIN AR;DA SILVA VMF;BARBOUR AB;LORENZEN K;FRAZER TK,"the amazon river dolphin (inia geoffrensis), or boto, is illegally harvested for use as bait in fisheries for the catfish calophysus macropterus. to determine the effect of this harvest, we estimated apparent survival for a boto population in the central brazilian amazon where direct harvest is known to have occurred since 2000. for our analysis, we used capture and recapture/resighting data of 528 marked botos over a 17-year period (1994-2011). time-dependent models estimated that apparent survival after the first reports of harvest (phi = 0.899; se = 0.007) was significantly lower than in years prior to harvest (phi = 0.968; se = 0.009). the decline in apparent survival suggests that current harvest rates exceed conservation limits and may be unsustainable. this issue requires the attention of natural resource managers from all countries of the amazon basin, as the harvest is widespread and decline in survival could be mirrored in numerous locales. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." spatial capture-recapture models for jointly estimating population density and landscape connectivity,animal movement; ecological distance; landscape connectivity; least-cost path; resistance surface; spatial capture-recapture,ECOLOGY,ROYLE JA;CHANDLER RB;GAZENSKI KD;GRAVES TA,"population size and landscape connectivity are key determinants of population viability, yet no methods exist for simultaneously estimating density and connectivity parameters. recently developed spatial capture-recapture (scr) models provide a framework for estimating density of animal populations but thus far have not been used to study connectivity. rather, all applications of scr models have used encounter probability models based on the euclidean distance between traps and animal activity centers, which implies that home ranges are stationary, symmetric, and unaffected by landscape structure. in this paper we devise encounter probability models based on ""ecological distance,"" i.e., the least-cost path between traps and activity centers, which is a function of both euclidean distance and animal movement behavior in resistant landscapes. we integrate least-cost path models into a likelihood-based estimation scheme for spatial capture-recapture models in order to estimate population density and parameters of the least-cost encounter probability model. therefore, it is possible to make explicit inferences about animal density, distribution, and landscape connectivity as it relates to animal movement from standard capture-recapture data. furthermore, a simulation study demonstrated that ignoring landscape connectivity can result in negatively biased density estimators under the naive scr model." density estimations of the eurasian lynx (lynx lynx) in the swiss alps,camera-trapping; density; half mean maximum distance moved (1/2 mmdm); lynx lynx; mean maximum distance moved (mmdm); spatial capture-recapture (scr); switzerland; telemetry,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,PESENTI E;ZIMMERMANN F,"use of photographic capture recapture analyses to estimate abundance of species with distinctive natural marks has become an important tool for monitoring rare or cryptic species, or both. two different methods are available to estimate density: nonspatial capture recapture models where the trap polygon is buffered with the half or full mean maximum distance moved by animals captured at more than 1 trap (1/2 mmdm or mmdm, respectively); or spatial capture recapture (scr) models that explicitly incorporate movement into the model. we used data from radiotracked eurasian lynx (lynx lynx) in the northwestern swiss alps (nwsa) during a low (1.0 lynx/100 km(2)) and a high (1.9-2.1 lynx/100 km(2)) lynx population density to test if lynx space use was density dependent. second, we compared lynx density estimates resulting from these 2 different methods using camera-trapping data collected during winters 2007-2008 and 2009-2010 in the nwsa. our results indicated lynx space use was negatively correlated with density. lynx density estimates in all habitats using mmdm (0.86 and 0.97 lynx/100 km(2) in winters 2007-2008 and 2009-2010, respectively) were significantly lower than scr model estimates, whereas there was no significant difference between scr model (1.47 and 1.38) and 1/2 mmdm (1.37 and 1.51) density estimates. in the nwsa, which currently harbors the most abundant lynx population in switzerland, 1/2 mmdm and scr models provided more realistic lynx density estimates compared to the mmdm, which lies in the lower range of densities. overall, the scr model is preferable because it considers animal movements explicitly and is not biased by an informal estimation of the effective sampling area." @@ -898,14 +900,14 @@ nocturnal distance sampling of a mediterranean population of fallow deer is cons evidence for an age-dependent influence of environmental variations on a long-lived seabird's life-history traits,black-browed albatross; breeding probability; breeding success; capture-mark-recapture; chick body condition; fisheries bycatch; kerguelen islands; sea surface temperature; senescence; southern oscillation index; survival; thalassarche melanophris,ECOLOGY,PARDO D;BARBRAUD C;AUTHIER M;WEIMERSKIRCH H,"theoretical and empirical studies have highlighted the effects of age on several life-history traits in wild populations. there is also increasing evidence for environmental effects on their demographic traits. however, quantifying how individuals differentially respond to environmental variations according to their age remains a challenge in ecology. in a population of black-browed albatrosses monitored during 43 years, we analyzed how life-history traits varied according to age, and whether individuals of different ages responded in different ways to environmental conditions. to do so, we: (1) examined how age affected seven life-history traits, (2) investigated differences in temporal variance of demographic traits between age classes, and (3) tested for age-dependent effects of climate and fisheries covariates on demographic traits. overall, there was a tendency for traits to improve during the first years of life (5-10 years), to peak and remain stable at middle age (10-30 years), and decline at old ages. at young ages, survival and reproductive parameters increased, except offspring body condition at fledging, suggesting that younger parents had already acquired good foraging capacities. however, they suffered from inexperience in breeding as suggested by their higher breeding failures during incubation. there was evidence for reproductive and actuarial senescence. in particular, breeding success and offspring body condition declined abruptly, suggesting altered foraging capacities of old individuals. middle-aged individuals had the lowest temporal variance of demographic traits. although this is predicted by the theory of environmental canalization, it could also results from a higher susceptibility of young and old birds due to their respective inexperience and senescence. the highest temporal variances were found in old individuals. survival was significantly influenced by sea surface temperatures in the foraging zone of this albatross population during breeding. during warm events survival of young and old individuals improved, whereas a decrease was observed for middle-aged individuals. presumably, during cold years with poor environmental conditions, young and old breeding birds may suffer more from intraspecific competition for resources than middle-aged individuals. this study showed that age, known as a major factor structuring demography in long-lived species, can also potentially influence the response of populations to global change." the impact of increased food availability on survival of a long-distance migratory bird,"annual survival; climate change; fair isle, uk; food availability; food supplementation experiment; land-use change; migratory birds; northern wheatear; oenanthe oenanthe",ECOLOGY,SEWARD AM;BEALE CM;GILBERT L;JONES TH;THOMAS RJ,"temperature-, rainfall- and habitat-driven change in food availability is one likely mechanism by which anthropogenic factors may affect animal population dynamics and species distributions. long-distance migratory birds must synchronize their migrations with food availability at locations hundreds or thousands of kilometers apart, so changes in the overall abundance of food or the phenology of peaks in food availability may be critical factors influencing annual survival. in this study we used experimental food supplementation at a breeding site to examine and compare the impact of changing food supply on annual survival of adult migratory birds and their offspring. we provided supplemental food to northern wheatears (oenanthe oenanthe) breeding on fair isle, uk, to infer the sensitivity of annual survival to increases in natural food availability. food-supplemented wheatears exhibited higher rates of annual survival than control wheatears, and the strength of this effect varied with age. food supplementation led to 1.56 times higher annual survival of juveniles and 1.22 times higher survival of adults. survival of juveniles was related to their own food availability as fledglings, but not to whether their parents were food-supplemented or unfed control adults. this increased survival, combined with increased breeding productivity associated with food supplementation, implies that an increase in natural food availability, of the magnitude simulated in our experiment, would increase the population growth rate of wheatears on fair isle from approximately lambda - 0.93 (a contracting population) to lambda - 1.14 (an expanding population)." impacts of introduced european hedgehogs on endemic skinks and weta in tussock grassland,damage function; erinaceus europaeus; experiment; hemiandrus spp.; oligosoma maccanni; o. polychroma; predation,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,JONES C;NORBURY G;BELL T,"context. control of introduced pest species is based on the premise that there is a relationship between pest abundance and impact, but this relationship is rarely defined. aim. we investigated the impacts of introduced european hedgehogs (erinaceus europaeus) on two species of small endemic skink (oligosoma spp.) and flightless, nocturnal endemic orthopteran ground weta (hemiandrus spp.), using an enclosure-based experimental manipulation of hedgehog density in tussock grasslands in the south island of new zealand. methods. we used capture-mark-recapture methods to estimate the densities of skinks before and after exposure to a range of hedgehog densities over a 3-month period and also compared changes in indices of abundance of skink demographic groups and ground weta. key results. faecal analysis confirmed that hedgehogs consumed skinks and invertebrates in the enclosures. the proportional change between capture sessions in numbers of captured juvenile mccann's skinks (o. maccanni) declined with increasing hedgehog density. similarly, the proportional change in the numbers of ground weta encountered in pitfall traps showed a highly significant negative relationship with increasing hedgehog density. total species abundances and numbers in other demographic skink groups did not change significantly in relation to hedgehog density. for overall skink abundance estimates, there was an apparent trend suggesting that changes in abundance were more negative with increasing hedgehog density, but this did not reach statistical significance for either skink species. conclusions. our results confirmed that hedgehogs are important predators of small native fauna, but suggested that highly abundant prey populations may be buffered against significant impacts. implications. less abundant prey and some demographic groups within populations, however, may be at significant risk from hedgehog predation." -contrasting effects of climatic variability on the demography of a trans-equatorial migratory seabird,breeding success; capture-recapture; cory's shearwater; migratory seabird; multi-event modelling; nest dispersal; reproductive skipping; survival; transient,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,GENOVART M;SANZ-AGUILAR A;FERNANDEZ-CHACON A;IGUAL JM;PRADEL R;FORERO MG;ORO D,"large-scale seasonal climatic indices, such as the north atlantic oscillation (nao) index or the southern oscillation index (soi), account for major variations in weather and climate around the world and may influence population dynamics in many organisms. however, assessing the extent of climate impacts on species and their life-history traits requires reliable quantitative statistical approaches. we used a new analytical tool in markrecapture, the multi-event modelling, to simultaneously assess the influence of climatic variation on multiple demographic parameters (i.e. adult survival, transient probability, reproductive skipping and nest dispersal) at two mediterranean colonies of the cory's shearwater calonectris diomedea, a trans-equatorial migratory long-lived seabird. we also analysed the impact of climate in the breeding success at the two colonies. we found a clear temporal variation of survival for cory's shearwaters, strongly associated to the large-scale soi especially in one of the colonies (up to 66% of variance explained). atlantic hurricane season is modulated by the soi and coincides with shearwater migration to their wintering areas, directly affecting survival probabilities. however, the soi was a better predictor of survival probabilities than the frequency of hurricanes; thus, we cannot discard an indirect additive effect of soi via food availability. accordingly, the proportion of transients was also correlated with soi values, indicating higher costs of first reproduction (resulting in either mortality or permanent dispersal) when bad environmental conditions occurred during winter before reproduction. breeding success was also affected by climatic factors, the nao explaining c. 41% of variance, probably as a result of its effect in the timing of peak abundance of squid and small pelagics, the main prey for shearwaters. no climatic effect was found either on reproductive skipping or on nest dispersal. contrarily to what we expect for a long-lived organism, large-scale climatic indexes had a more pronounced effect on survival and transient probabilities than on less sensitive fitness parameters such reproductive skipping or nest dispersal probabilities. the potential increase in hurricane frequency because of global warming may interact with other global change agents (such as incidental bycatch and predation by alien species) nowadays impacting shearwaters, affecting future viability of populations." +contrasting effects of climatic variability on the demography of a trans-equatorial migratory seabird,breeding success; capture-recapture; cory's shearwater; migratory seabird; multi-event modelling; nest dispersal; reproductive skipping; survival; transient,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,GENOVART M;SANZ AGUILAR A;FERNANDEZ CHACON A;IGUAL JM;PRADEL R;FORERO MG;ORO D,"large-scale seasonal climatic indices, such as the north atlantic oscillation (nao) index or the southern oscillation index (soi), account for major variations in weather and climate around the world and may influence population dynamics in many organisms. however, assessing the extent of climate impacts on species and their life-history traits requires reliable quantitative statistical approaches. we used a new analytical tool in markrecapture, the multi-event modelling, to simultaneously assess the influence of climatic variation on multiple demographic parameters (i.e. adult survival, transient probability, reproductive skipping and nest dispersal) at two mediterranean colonies of the cory's shearwater calonectris diomedea, a trans-equatorial migratory long-lived seabird. we also analysed the impact of climate in the breeding success at the two colonies. we found a clear temporal variation of survival for cory's shearwaters, strongly associated to the large-scale soi especially in one of the colonies (up to 66% of variance explained). atlantic hurricane season is modulated by the soi and coincides with shearwater migration to their wintering areas, directly affecting survival probabilities. however, the soi was a better predictor of survival probabilities than the frequency of hurricanes; thus, we cannot discard an indirect additive effect of soi via food availability. accordingly, the proportion of transients was also correlated with soi values, indicating higher costs of first reproduction (resulting in either mortality or permanent dispersal) when bad environmental conditions occurred during winter before reproduction. breeding success was also affected by climatic factors, the nao explaining c. 41% of variance, probably as a result of its effect in the timing of peak abundance of squid and small pelagics, the main prey for shearwaters. no climatic effect was found either on reproductive skipping or on nest dispersal. contrarily to what we expect for a long-lived organism, large-scale climatic indexes had a more pronounced effect on survival and transient probabilities than on less sensitive fitness parameters such reproductive skipping or nest dispersal probabilities. the potential increase in hurricane frequency because of global warming may interact with other global change agents (such as incidental bycatch and predation by alien species) nowadays impacting shearwaters, affecting future viability of populations." density and genetic structure of black bears in coastal south carolina,american black bear; coastal south carolina; dna sampling; genetic structure; population density; spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr); ursus americanus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,DREWRY JM;VAN MANEN FT;RUTH DM,"the frequency of black bear (ursus americanus) sightings, vehicle collisions, and nuisance incidents in the coastal region of south carolina has increased over the past 4 decades. to develop the statewide black bear management and conservation strategy, the south carolina department of natural resources needed reliable information for the coastal population. because no such data were available, we initiated a study to determine population density and genetic structure of black bears. we selected 2 study areas that were representative of the major habitat types in the study region: lewis ocean bay consisted primarily of carolina bays and pocosin habitats, whereas carvers bay was representative of extensive pine plantations commonly found in the region. we established hair snares on both study areas to obtain dna from hair samples during 8 weekly sampling periods in 2008 and again in 2009. we used genotypes to obtain capture histories of sampled bears. we estimated density using spatially explicit capturerecapture (secr) models and used information-theoretic procedures to fit parameters for capture heterogeneity and behavioral responses and to test if density and model parameters varied by year. model-averaged density was 0.046?bears/km2 (se?=?0.011) for carvers bay and 0.339?bears/km2 (se?=?0.056) for lewis ocean bay. next, we sampled habitat covariates for all locations in the secr sampling grid to derive spatially explicit estimates of density based on habitat characteristics. addition of habitat covariates had substantial support, and accounted for differences in density between carvers bay and lewis ocean bay; black bear density showed a negative association with the area of pine forests (4.5-km2 scale) and a marginal, positive association with the area of pocosin habitat (0.3-km2 scale). bear density was not associated with pine forest at a smaller scale (0.3-km2), nor with major road density or an index of largest patch size. predicted bear densities were low throughout the coastal region and only a few larger areas had high predicted densities, most of which were centered on public lands (e.g., francis marion national forest, lewis ocean bay). we sampled a third bear population in the green swamp area of north carolina for genetic structure analyses and found no evidence of historic fragmentation among the 3 sampled populations. neither did we find evidence of more recent barriers to gene exchange; with the exception of 1 recent migrant, bayesian population assignment techniques identified only a single population cluster that incorporated all 3 sampled areas. bears in the region may best be managed as 1 population. if the goal is to maintain or increase bear densities, demographic connectivity of high-density areas within the low-density landscape matrix is a key consideration and managers would need to mitigate potential impacts of planned highway expansions and anticipated development. because the distribution of black bears in coastal south carolina is not fully known, the regional map of potential black bear density can be used to identify focal areas for management and sites that should be surveyed for occupancy or where more intensive studies are needed. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." spotlight surveys for white-tailed deer: monitoring panacea or exercise in futility?,capture-recapture; data bootstrapping; detection probability; monitoring; odocoileus virginianus; spotlight surveys; variance components; white-tailed deer,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,COLLIER BA;DITCHKOFF SS;RUTH CR;RAGLIN JB,"many monitoring programs for white-tailed deer (odocoileus virginianus) on both private and public lands across the united states have long relied on the use of road-based spotlight surveys for monitoring population size and trends. research has suggested spotlight surveys are ineffective and that road-based surveys for deer are biased because of highly variable detection rates. to evaluate variability in detection rates relative to the assumption that repeated surveys along roads will provide reliable trend data for use in calculating deer density estimates, we collected 5 years of thermal-imager and spotlight survey data using a multiple-observer, closed-capture approach. using a huggin's closed capture model, data bootstrapping, and variance components analyses, our results suggest that density estimates for white-tailed deer generated from data collected during road-based spotlight surveys are likely not reflective of the standing deer population. detection probabilities during individual spotlight surveys ranged from 0.00 to 0.80 (median?=?0.45) across all surveys, and differed by observer, survey, management unit, and survey transect replicate. mean spotlight detection probability (0.41) and process standard deviation (0.12) estimates indicated considerable variability across surveys, observers, transects, and years, which precludes the generation of a correction factor or use of spotlight data to evaluate long-term trends at any scale. although recommended by many state, federal, and non-governmental agencies, our results suggest that the benefit of spotlight survey data for monitoring deer populations is limited and likely represents a waste of resources with no appreciable management information gained. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." achieving no net loss in habitat offset of a threatened frog required high offset ratio and intensive monitoring,habitat offset; mitigation; restoration; uncertainty; amphibian; no net loss; multiplier,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,PICKETT EJ;STOCKWELL MP;BOWER DS;GARNHAM JI;POLLARD CJ;CLULOW J;MAHONY MJ,"the use of habitat offset to mitigate the impact of development on threatened species is becoming increasingly popular. despite a plethora of theoretical work on the requirements of habitat offset to achieve no net loss, there are very few examples of successful habitat offset programs and monitoring regimes to detect success. we present a case study of a population of the threatened green and golden bell frog (litoria aurea) which was impacted by urban development through the removal of nine ponds. development was concurrent with habitat offset and construction of a large number of ponds which resulted in a 19-fold increase in available pond area. through the use of mark recapture surveys, the population size was determined pre- and post-development. despite the creation of ponds in the immediate vicinity of the development there was a decrease in the pond area and a measured decline in the population located within the area where the development occurred. however, the overall pond construction program also involved the addition of considerable habitat away from the immediate vicinity of the development which resulted in a 19-fold increase in pond area and an approximate 1.2-3.5-fold increase in population size. no net loss in population size to 95% confidence was achieved only when including all pond construction. this study demonstrated that to achieve no net loss for a habitat offset program can require extensive levels of habitat creation with intensive monitoring to detect it. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." detection and plant monitoring programs: lessons from an intensive survey of asclepias meadii with five observers,NA,PLOS ONE,ALEXANDER HM;REED AW;KETTLE WD;SLADE NA;ROELS SAB;COLLINS CD;SALISBURY V,"monitoring programs, where numbers of individuals are followed through time, are central to conservation. although incomplete detection is expected with wildlife surveys, this topic is rarely considered with plants. however, if plants are missed in surveys, raw count data can lead to biased estimates of population abundance and vital rates. to illustrate, we had five independent observers survey patches of the rare plant asclepias meadii at two prairie sites. we analyzed data with two mark-recapture approaches. using the program capture, the estimated number of patches equaled the detected number for a burned site, but exceeded detected numbers by 28% for an unburned site. analyses of detected patches using huggins models revealed important effects of observer, patch state (flowering/nonflowering), and patch size (number of stems) on probabilities of detection. although some results were expected (i.e. greater detection of flowering than nonflowering patches), the importance of our approach is the ability to quantify the magnitude of detection problems. we also evaluated the degree to which increased observer numbers improved detection: smaller groups (3-4 observers) generally found 90 - 99% of the patches found by all five people, but pairs of observers or single observers had high error and detection depended on which individuals were involved. we conclude that an intensive study at the start of a long-term monitoring study provides essential information about probabilities of detection and what factors cause plants to be missed. this information can guide development of monitoring programs. citation: alexander hm, reed aw, kettle wd, slade na, bodbyl roels sa, et al. (2012) detection and plant monitoring programs: lessons from an intensive survey of asclepias meadii with five observers. plos one 7(12): e52762. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0052762" breeding experience might be a major determinant of breeding probability in long-lived species: the case of the greater flamingo,NA,PLOS ONE,PRADEL R;CHOQUET R;BECHET A,"the probability of breeding is known to increase with age early in life in many long-lived species. this increase may be due to experience accumulated through past breeding attempts. recent methodological advances allowing accounting for unobserved breeding episodes, we analyzed the encounter histories of 14716 greater flamingos over 25 years to get a detailed picture of the interactions of age and experience. survival did not improve with experience, seemingly ruling out the selection hypothesis. breeding probability varied within three levels of experience : no breeding experience, 1 experience, 2+ experiences. we fitted models with and without among-individual differences in breeding probabilities by including or not an additive individual random effect. including the individual random effect improved the model fit less than including experience but the best model retained both. however, because modeling individual heterogeneity by means of an additive static individual random effect is currently criticized and may not be appropriate, we discuss the results with and without random effect. without random effect, breeding probability of inexperienced birds was always > 3 times lower than that of same age experienced birds, and breeding probability increased more with one additional experience than with one additional year of age. with random effects, the advantage of experience was unequivocal only after age 9 while in young having > 1 experience was penalizing. another pattern, that breeding probability of birds with < 2 experiences dropped after some age (8 without random effect; up to 11 with it), may point to differences in the timing of reproductive senescence or to the existence of a sensitive period for acquiring behavioral skills. overall, the role of experience appears strong in this long-lived species. we argue that overlooking the role of experience may hamper detection of trade-offs and assessment of individual heterogeneity. however, manipulative experiments are desirable to confirm our finding. citation: pradel r, choquet r, bechet a (2012) breeding experience might be a major determinant of breeding probability in long-lived species: the case of the greater flamingo. plos one 7(12): e51016. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0051016" -identification of hidden key hepatitis c populations: an evaluation of screening practices using mixed epidemiological methods,NA,PLOS ONE,VERMEIREN APA;DUKERS-MUIJRERS NHTM;VAN LOO IHM;STALS F;VAN DAM DW;AMBERGEN T;HOEBE CJPA,"background: hepatitis c virus (hcv) is a major cause of liver diseases worldwide. due to its asymptomatic nature, screening is necessary for identification. because screening of the total population is not cost effective, it is important to identify which risk factors for positivity characterize the key populations in which targeting of screening yields the highest numbers of hcv positives, and assess which of these key populations have remained hidden to current care. methods: laboratory registry data (2002-2008) were retrieved for all hcv tests (23,800) in the south of the netherlands (adult population 500,000). screening trends were tested using poisson regression and chi-square tests. risk factors for hcv positivity were assessed using a logistic regression. the hidden hcv-positive population was estimated by a capture-recapture approach. results: the number of tests increased over time (2,388 to 4,149, p<.01). nevertheless, the positivity rate among those screened decreased between 2002 and 2008 (6.3% to 2.1%, p<.01). the population prevalence was estimated to be 0.49% (95%ci 0.41-0.59). of all hcv-positive patients, 66% were hidden to current screening practices. risk factors associated with positivity were low socio-economic status, male sex, and age between 36-55. in future screening 48% (95%ci 37-63) of total patients and 47% (95%ci 32-70) of hidden patients can be identified by targeting 9% (men with low socio-economic status, between 36-55 years old) of the total population. conclusions: although the current hcv screening policy increasingly addresses high-risk populations, it only reaches one third of positive patients. this study shows that combining easily identifiable demographic risk factors can be used to identify key populations as a likely target for effective hcv screening. we recommend strengthening screening among middle-aged man, living in low socio-economic neighborhoods." -population estimation and trappability of the european badger (meles meles): implications for tuberculosis management,NA,PLOS ONE,BYRNE AW;O'KEEFFE J;GREEN S;SLEEMAN DP;CORNER LAL;GORMLEY E;MURPHY D;MARTIN SW;DAVENPORT J,"estimates of population size and trappability inform vaccine efficacy modelling and are required for adaptive management during prolonged wildlife vaccination campaigns. we present an analysis of mark-recapture data from a badger vaccine (bacille calmette-guerin) study in ireland. this study is the largest scale (755 km 2) mark-recapture study ever undertaken with this species. the study area was divided into three approximately equal-sized zones, each with similar survey and capture effort. a mean badger population size of 671 (sd: 76) was estimated using a closed-subpopulation model (cspm) based on data from capturing sessions of the entire area and was consistent with a separate multiplicative model. minimum number alive estimates calculated from the same data were on average 49-51% smaller than the cspm estimates, but these are considered severely negatively biased when trappability is low. population densities derived from the cspm estimates were 0.82-1.06 badgers km 22, and broadly consistent with previous reports for an adjacent area. mean trappability was estimated to be 34-35% per session across the population. by the fifth capture session, 79% of the adult badgers caught had been marked previously. multivariable modelling suggested significant differences in badger trappability depending on zone, season and age-class. there were more putatively trap-wary badgers identified in the population than trap-happy badgers, but wariness was not related to individual's sex, zone or season of capture. live-trapping efficacy can vary significantly amongst sites, seasons, age, or personality, hence monitoring of trappability is recommended as part of an adaptive management regime during large-scale wildlife vaccination programs to counter biases and to improve efficiencies. citation: byrne aw, o'keeffe j, green s, sleeman dp, corner lal, et al. (2012) population estimation and trappability of the european badger (meles meles): implications for tuberculosis management. plos one 7(12): e50807. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0050807" +identification of hidden key hepatitis c populations: an evaluation of screening practices using mixed epidemiological methods,NA,PLOS ONE,VERMEIREN APA;DUKERS MUIJRERS NHTM;VAN LOO IHM;STALS F;VAN DAM DW;AMBERGEN T;HOEBE CJPA,"background: hepatitis c virus (hcv) is a major cause of liver diseases worldwide. due to its asymptomatic nature, screening is necessary for identification. because screening of the total population is not cost effective, it is important to identify which risk factors for positivity characterize the key populations in which targeting of screening yields the highest numbers of hcv positives, and assess which of these key populations have remained hidden to current care. methods: laboratory registry data (2002-2008) were retrieved for all hcv tests (23,800) in the south of the netherlands (adult population 500,000). screening trends were tested using poisson regression and chi-square tests. risk factors for hcv positivity were assessed using a logistic regression. the hidden hcv-positive population was estimated by a capture-recapture approach. results: the number of tests increased over time (2,388 to 4,149, p<.01). nevertheless, the positivity rate among those screened decreased between 2002 and 2008 (6.3% to 2.1%, p<.01). the population prevalence was estimated to be 0.49% (95%ci 0.41-0.59). of all hcv-positive patients, 66% were hidden to current screening practices. risk factors associated with positivity were low socio-economic status, male sex, and age between 36-55. in future screening 48% (95%ci 37-63) of total patients and 47% (95%ci 32-70) of hidden patients can be identified by targeting 9% (men with low socio-economic status, between 36-55 years old) of the total population. conclusions: although the current hcv screening policy increasingly addresses high-risk populations, it only reaches one third of positive patients. this study shows that combining easily identifiable demographic risk factors can be used to identify key populations as a likely target for effective hcv screening. we recommend strengthening screening among middle-aged man, living in low socio-economic neighborhoods." +population estimation and trappability of the european badger (meles meles): implications for tuberculosis management,NA,PLOS ONE,BYRNE AW;O KEEFFE J;GREEN S;SLEEMAN DP;CORNER LAL;GORMLEY E;MURPHY D;MARTIN SW;DAVENPORT J,"estimates of population size and trappability inform vaccine efficacy modelling and are required for adaptive management during prolonged wildlife vaccination campaigns. we present an analysis of mark-recapture data from a badger vaccine (bacille calmette-guerin) study in ireland. this study is the largest scale (755 km 2) mark-recapture study ever undertaken with this species. the study area was divided into three approximately equal-sized zones, each with similar survey and capture effort. a mean badger population size of 671 (sd: 76) was estimated using a closed-subpopulation model (cspm) based on data from capturing sessions of the entire area and was consistent with a separate multiplicative model. minimum number alive estimates calculated from the same data were on average 49-51% smaller than the cspm estimates, but these are considered severely negatively biased when trappability is low. population densities derived from the cspm estimates were 0.82-1.06 badgers km 22, and broadly consistent with previous reports for an adjacent area. mean trappability was estimated to be 34-35% per session across the population. by the fifth capture session, 79% of the adult badgers caught had been marked previously. multivariable modelling suggested significant differences in badger trappability depending on zone, season and age-class. there were more putatively trap-wary badgers identified in the population than trap-happy badgers, but wariness was not related to individual's sex, zone or season of capture. live-trapping efficacy can vary significantly amongst sites, seasons, age, or personality, hence monitoring of trappability is recommended as part of an adaptive management regime during large-scale wildlife vaccination programs to counter biases and to improve efficiencies. citation: byrne aw, o'keeffe j, green s, sleeman dp, corner lal, et al. (2012) population estimation and trappability of the european badger (meles meles): implications for tuberculosis management. plos one 7(12): e50807. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0050807" extreme weather and experience influence reproduction in an endangered bird,climate change; cost of reproduction; drought; florida snail kite; mark-recapture; multistate models; population viability; robust design; rostrhamus sociabilis plumbeus; state uncertainty,ECOLOGY,REICHERT BE;CATTAU CE;FLETCHER RJ;KENDALL WL;KITCHENS WM,"extreme weather events, such as droughts and heat waves, are expected to become more severe and more frequent in the coming years, and understanding their impacts on demographic rates is of increasing interest to both evolutionary ecologists and conservation practitioners. an individual's breeding probability can be a sensitive indicator of the decision to initiate reproductive behavior under varying environmental conditions, has strong fitness consequences, and can be considered the first step in a life history trade-off between allocating resources for breeding activities or self-survival. using a 14-year time series spanning large variation in climatic conditions and the entirety of a population's breeding range, we estimated the effects of extreme weather conditions (drought) on the state-specific probabilities of breeding and survival of an endangered bird, the florida snail kite (rostrhamus sociabilis plumbeus). our analysis accounted for uncertainty in breeding status assignment, a common source of uncertainty that is often ignored when states are based on field observations. breeding probabilities in adult kites (> 1 year of age) decreased during droughts, whereas the probability of breeding in young kites (1 year of age) tended to increase. individuals attempting to breed showed no evidence of reduced future survival. although population viability analyses of this species and other species often implicitly assume that all adults will attempt to breed, we find that breeding probabilities were significantly < 1 for all 13 estimable years considered. our results suggest that experience is an important factor determining whether or not individuals attempt to breed during harsh environmental conditions and that reproductive effort may be constrained by an individual's quality and/or despotic behavior among individuals attempting to breed." carry-over effects of spring hunt and climate on recruitment to the natal colony in a migratory species,arctic; capture-mark-recapture; harvest; multistate model; population management; snow geese,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,JUILLET C;CHOQUET R;GAUTHIER G;LEFEBVRE J;PRADEL R,"in long-lived species, temporal variation in recruitment, defined as the entry of new individuals into the breeding population, can have a large effect on population growth rate. while hunting, as a management tool, is generally expected to control population size via increased mortality, it may also act by affecting recruitment. although the impact of hunting on survival is well studied, less attention has been paid to the non-lethal impacts of hunting on recruitment. to control the population size of the greater snow goose chen caerulescens atlantica, an overabundant arctic-nesting species, a spring hunting season was implemented from 1999 onwards in addition to the traditional autumn and winter hunting seasons. we investigated the potential carry-over effect of spring hunting on recruitment of females to their natal colony on bylot island, nunavut, canada from 1992 to 2005 while accounting for other potential confounding factors, primarily climatic effects. we applied a multistate capture-mark-recapture recruitment model to a dataset of known-age individuals (n = 12 100), combining live recaptures at the breeding colony with dead recoveries from hunters. annual variation in recruitment probability was best explained by spring hunt and a synthetic variable combining the climatic conditions experienced during migration (extreme values of the north atlantic oscillation index) with conditions upon arrival at the breeding grounds (snow cover). this model accounted for 58% of the temporal variation in recruitment, while the harvest rate or the climatic index taken alone accounted for 38% each. in the year with the highest spring hunting pressure (adult harvest rate 6%), recruitment was reduced by up to 50% compared to years with no hunt and similar average climatic conditions. synthesis and applications. we conclude that there was a negative impact of the spring hunt not only on survival but also on recruitment in greater snow geese. these non-lethal effects of hunting must be considered in management decisions aimed at controlling overabundant populations where recruitment is an important driver of population growth, as occurs in geese. our study is also relevant to other situations such as in threatened species still exposed to hunting, as consideration of non-lethal effects of hunting may be critical for their conservation." long-term demographic consequences of habitat fragmentation to a tropical understory bird community,apparent survival; biodiversity hotspot; deforestation; eastern arc; fragmentation; mark-recapture; population growth rate; recruitment; seniority; tanzania; tropical; understory bird,ECOLOGY,KORFANTA NM;NEWMARK WD;KAUFFMAN MJ,"tropical deforestation continues to cause population declines and local extinctions in centers of avian diversity and endemism. although local species extinctions stem from reductions in demographic rates, little is known about how habitat fragmentation influences survival of tropical bird populations or the relative importance of survival and fecundity in ultimately shaping communities. we analyzed 22 years of mark-recapture data to assess how fragmentation influenced apparent survival, recruitment, and realized population growth rate within 22 forest understory bird species in the usambara mountains, tanzania. this represents the first such effort, in either tropical or temperate systems, to characterize the effect of deforestation on avian survival across such a broad suite of species. long-term demographic analysis of this suite of species experiencing the same fragmented environment revealed considerable variability in species' responses to fragmentation, in addition to general patterns that emerged from comparison among species. across the understory bird community as a whole, we found significantly lower apparent survival and realized population growth rate in small fragments relative to large, demonstrating fragmentation effects to demographic rates long after habitat loss. demographic rates were depressed across five feeding guilds, suggesting that fragmentation sensitivity was not limited to insectivores. seniority analyses, together with a positive effect of fragmentation on recruitment, indicated that depressed apparent survival was the primary driver of population declines and observed extinctions. we also found a landscape effect, with lower vital rates in one mountain range relative to another, suggesting that fragmentation effects may add to other large-scale drivers of population decline. overall, realized population growth rate (lambda) estimates were < 1 for most species, suggesting that future population persistence, even within large forest fragments, is uncertain in this biodiversity hotspot." @@ -916,26 +918,26 @@ evaluation of tuberculosis underreporting in greece through comparison with anti stress-induced tradeoffs in a free-living lizard across a variable landscape: consequences for individuals and populations,NA,PLOS ONE,LUCAS LD;FRENCH SS,"current life history theory suggests that the allocation of energetic resources between competing physiological needs should be dictated by an individual's longevity and pace of life. one key physiological pathway likely to contribute to the partitioning of resources is the vertebrate stress response. by increasing circulating glucocorticoids the stress response can exert a suite of physiological effects, such as altering immune function. we investigated the effects of stress physiology on individual immunity, reproduction and oxidative stress, across an urban landscape. we sampled populations in and around st. george, utah, examining corticosterone in response to restraint stress, two innate immune measures, reproductive output, and the presence of both reactive oxygen metabolites and antioxidant binding capacity, in populations of common side-blotched lizards (uta stansburiana) experiencing variable levels of environmental stress. additionally, using capture-mark-recapture techniques, we examined the relationships between these physiological parameters and population-level differences. our results reveal elevated physiological stress corresponds with suppressed immunity and increased oxidative stress. interestingly, urban populations experiencing the most physiological stress also exhibited greater reproductive output and decreased survival relative to rural populations experiencing less physiological stress, demonstrating a tradeoff between reproduction and life maintenance processes. our results suggest that environmental stress may augment life history strategy in this fast-paced species, and that shifts in life history strategy can in turn affect the population at large. finally, the urban environment poses definite challenges for organisms, and while it appears that side-blotched lizards are adjusting physiologically, it is unknown what fitness costs these physiological adjustments accrue." bayesian estimation of humpback whale (megaptera novaeangliae) population abundance and movement patterns in southeastern alaska,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,HENDRIX AN;STRALEY J;GABRIELE CM;GENDE SM,"we used a mechanistic movement model within a bayesian framework to estimate survival, abundance, and rate of increase for a population of humpback whales (megaptera novaeangliae) subject to a long-term photographic capture-recapture effort in southeastern alaska, usa (seak). multiple competing models were fitted that differed in movement, recapture rates, and observation error using deviance information criterion. the median annual survival probability in the selected model was 0.996 (95% central probability interval (cri): 0.984, 0.999), which is among the highest reported for this species. movement among areas was temporally dynamic, although whales exhibited high area fidelity (probability of returning to same area of >= 0.75) throughout the study. median abundance was 1585 whales in 2008 (95% cri: 1455, 1644). incorporating an abundance estimate of 393 (95% confidence interval: 331, 455) whales from 1986, the median rate of increase was 5.1% (95% cri: 4.4%, 5.9%). although applied here to cetaceans in seak, the framework provides a flexible approach for estimating mortality and movement in populations that move among sampling areas." "integrated modeling of communities: parasitism, competition, and demographic synchrony in sympatric ducks",breeding success; canvasback aythya vaselineria; capture-mark-recapture; competition; density regulation; functional redundancy; neutral theory; niche theory; parasitism; redhead aythya americana; survival; waterfowl breeding population and habitat survey,ECOLOGY,PERON G;KOONS DN,"functionally similar species often co-occur within an ecosystem, and they can compete for or facilitate each other's access to resources. the coupled dynamics of such species play an important role in shaping biodiversity and an ecosystem's resilience to perturbations. here we study two congeneric north american ducks: redhead aythya americana and canvasback a. vaselineria. both are largely sympatric during the breeding season, and in addition to competition, facultative parasitic egg-laying can lead to interspecific density dependence. using multi-population integrated models, we combined capture-recovery data, population surveys, and age ratio data in order to simultaneously estimate the mechanistic drivers of fecundity, survival, and population dynamics for both species. canvasback numbers positively affected redhead fecundity, whereas redhead numbers negatively affected canvasback fecundity, as expected due to parasitism. this interaction was modulated by wetland habitat availability in a way that matched the observation that redhead hens parasitize canvasback nests under all conditions but exhibit typical nesting behavior more frequently during years with numerous ponds. once these effects of density and habitat were statistically controlled for, we found high levels of interspecific synchrony in both fecundity and survival (respectively, 75% and 49% of remaining variation). thus, both neutral and non-neutral mechanisms affected the dynamics of these functionally similar species. in this and other systems, our method can be used to test hypotheses about species coexistence and to gain insights into the demographic drivers of community dynamics." -to leave or not to leave: survival trade-offs between different migratory strategies in the greater flamingo,arrival-time hypothesis; capture-recapture; environmental conditions; phoenicopterus ruber; wintering,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,SANZ-AGUILAR A;BECHET A;GERMAIN C;JOHNSON AR;PRADEL R,"1. the balance between costs and benefits of migration under different environmental, density-dependent and individual conditions may promote a broad range of migratory behaviours. we studied the factors influencing first-year migration and subsequent fidelity or dispersal among wintering areas, and the survival costs of different wintering behaviours in the greater flamingo (phoenicopterus roseus). 2. we analysed by multievent capturerecapture modelling among-site dispersal/fidelity and site-dependent survival probabilities from 22 671 flamingos ringed in the camargue (france) between 1977 and 2010 and resighted subsequently in their wintering grounds classified as france, iberian peninsula, italy and north africa. 3. we found that first- and second-year birds either resident or wintering at medium distances from their birth place, survived better than those wintering further afield. however, under severe winter conditions (extremely cold winter 19841985), individuals with the sedentary strategy suffered the highest levels of mortality. from the third winter onwards, the pattern of survival reversed: the long-distance wintering individuals (i.e. north africa) survived better. 4. the proportion of first-year birds migrating for wintering was highly variable among cohorts and increased with favourable environmental conditions (wet years). after the first winter, birds showed high fidelity (>90%) to their previous wintering area and wintered preferably near their natal colony when they became adults (>2 years). 5. survival estimates suggest that long-distance migration was costly for young and inexperienced individuals. nonetheless, for adults, the most southern wintering areas seem to offer the most favourable local conditions for overwinter survival. 6. the higher availability of intermediate stopover sites during wet years may facilitate first-year migration. then, once they have some wintering experience, flamingos appear to favour the known wintering grounds. as they grow older, dispersing towards the vicinity of the natal colony may provide higher breeding prospects for individuals wintering closer to this high-quality and saturated breeding ground, as predicted by the arrival-time hypothesis." -fecal genotyping reveals demographic variation in river otters inhabiting a contaminated environment,british columbia; capture-mark-recapture; contaminants; fecal genotyping; lontra canadensis; non-invasive monitoring; population genetics; river otter,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GUERTIN DA;BEN-DAVID M;HARESTAD AS;ELLIOTT JE,"the deposition and accumulation of persistent contaminants into coastal systems can have lingering negative consequences for wildlife populations and their habitats. using multi-locus genotyping of non-invasively collected feces, we assessed the effects of such pollution on reproduction, survival, genetic variability, and abundance of river otters (lontra canadensis) along a gradient of urbanindustrial development on southern vancouver island, british columbia, canada. genetic analyses indicated a pattern consistent with small-scale structuring, with individuals partitioned into 2 local subpopulationsthose identified in the contaminated harbors of southern vancouver island and points west (colwood/harbors), and those inhabiting uncontaminated habitat east of the harbors (oak bay). genetic and demographic analyses for the 2 clusters provide strong support for the conclusion that, despite contamination concerns, colwood/harbors river otters exhibited acceptable levels of survival and successfully reproduced (i.e., high levels of relatedness, high self-recruitment, and high emigration). however, our data indicate that the colwood/harbors area constitutes lower quality habitat supporting lower densities of otters, especially during winter, and excess individuals produced in that region emigrate to other areas. immigration into colwood/harbors, however, seems limited, possibly because of behavioral aversion of non-habituated otters to anthropogenic disturbance associated with the harbors and limited optimal otter habitat. our findings suggest that the effects of chronic contaminant exposure at the population level may be inadvertently mitigated through the behavioral decisions of individuals to avoid poor quality habitats. we conclude that populations of river otters can persist in and around locally contaminated sites if relatively less disturbed and contaminated habitats remain in the vicinity of the affected areas. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." +to leave or not to leave: survival trade-offs between different migratory strategies in the greater flamingo,arrival-time hypothesis; capture-recapture; environmental conditions; phoenicopterus ruber; wintering,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,SANZ AGUILAR A;BECHET A;GERMAIN C;JOHNSON AR;PRADEL R,"1. the balance between costs and benefits of migration under different environmental, density-dependent and individual conditions may promote a broad range of migratory behaviours. we studied the factors influencing first-year migration and subsequent fidelity or dispersal among wintering areas, and the survival costs of different wintering behaviours in the greater flamingo (phoenicopterus roseus). 2. we analysed by multievent capturerecapture modelling among-site dispersal/fidelity and site-dependent survival probabilities from 22 671 flamingos ringed in the camargue (france) between 1977 and 2010 and resighted subsequently in their wintering grounds classified as france, iberian peninsula, italy and north africa. 3. we found that first- and second-year birds either resident or wintering at medium distances from their birth place, survived better than those wintering further afield. however, under severe winter conditions (extremely cold winter 19841985), individuals with the sedentary strategy suffered the highest levels of mortality. from the third winter onwards, the pattern of survival reversed: the long-distance wintering individuals (i.e. north africa) survived better. 4. the proportion of first-year birds migrating for wintering was highly variable among cohorts and increased with favourable environmental conditions (wet years). after the first winter, birds showed high fidelity (>90%) to their previous wintering area and wintered preferably near their natal colony when they became adults (>2 years). 5. survival estimates suggest that long-distance migration was costly for young and inexperienced individuals. nonetheless, for adults, the most southern wintering areas seem to offer the most favourable local conditions for overwinter survival. 6. the higher availability of intermediate stopover sites during wet years may facilitate first-year migration. then, once they have some wintering experience, flamingos appear to favour the known wintering grounds. as they grow older, dispersing towards the vicinity of the natal colony may provide higher breeding prospects for individuals wintering closer to this high-quality and saturated breeding ground, as predicted by the arrival-time hypothesis." +fecal genotyping reveals demographic variation in river otters inhabiting a contaminated environment,british columbia; capture-mark-recapture; contaminants; fecal genotyping; lontra canadensis; non-invasive monitoring; population genetics; river otter,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GUERTIN DA;BEN DAVID M;HARESTAD AS;ELLIOTT JE,"the deposition and accumulation of persistent contaminants into coastal systems can have lingering negative consequences for wildlife populations and their habitats. using multi-locus genotyping of non-invasively collected feces, we assessed the effects of such pollution on reproduction, survival, genetic variability, and abundance of river otters (lontra canadensis) along a gradient of urbanindustrial development on southern vancouver island, british columbia, canada. genetic analyses indicated a pattern consistent with small-scale structuring, with individuals partitioned into 2 local subpopulationsthose identified in the contaminated harbors of southern vancouver island and points west (colwood/harbors), and those inhabiting uncontaminated habitat east of the harbors (oak bay). genetic and demographic analyses for the 2 clusters provide strong support for the conclusion that, despite contamination concerns, colwood/harbors river otters exhibited acceptable levels of survival and successfully reproduced (i.e., high levels of relatedness, high self-recruitment, and high emigration). however, our data indicate that the colwood/harbors area constitutes lower quality habitat supporting lower densities of otters, especially during winter, and excess individuals produced in that region emigrate to other areas. immigration into colwood/harbors, however, seems limited, possibly because of behavioral aversion of non-habituated otters to anthropogenic disturbance associated with the harbors and limited optimal otter habitat. our findings suggest that the effects of chronic contaminant exposure at the population level may be inadvertently mitigated through the behavioral decisions of individuals to avoid poor quality habitats. we conclude that populations of river otters can persist in and around locally contaminated sites if relatively less disturbed and contaminated habitats remain in the vicinity of the affected areas. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." estimating abundance of mountain lions from unstructured spatial sampling,bayesian analysis; cougars; genetic sampling; montana; puma concolor; snow tracking; spatial capture-recapture; spatial models,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,RUSSELL RE;ROYLE JA;DESIMONE R;SCHWARTZ MK;EDWARDS VL;PILGRIM KP;MCKELVEY KS,"mountain lions (puma concolor) are often difficult to monitor because of their low capture probabilities, extensive movements, and large territories. methods for estimating the abundance of this species are needed to assess population status, determine harvest levels, evaluate the impacts of management actions on populations, and derive conservation and management strategies. traditional markrecapture methods do not explicitly account for differences in individual capture probabilities due to the spatial distribution of individuals in relation to survey effort (or trap locations). however, recent advances in the analysis of capturerecapture data have produced methods estimating abundance and density of animals from spatially explicit capturerecapture data that account for heterogeneity in capture probabilities due to the spatial organization of individuals and traps. we adapt recently developed spatial capturerecapture models to estimate density and abundance of mountain lions in western montana. volunteers and state agency personnel collected mountain lion dna samples in portions of the blackfoot drainage (7,908?km2) in west-central montana using 2 methods: snow back-tracking mountain lion tracks to collect hair samples and biopsy darting treed mountain lions to obtain tissue samples. overall, we recorded 72 individual capture events, including captures both with and without tissue sample collection and hair samples resulting in the identification of 50 individual mountain lions (30 females, 19 males, and 1 unknown sex individual). we estimated lion densities from 8 models containing effects of distance, sex, and survey effort on detection probability. our population density estimates ranged from a minimum of 3.7 mountain lions/100?km2 (95% ci 2.35.7) under the distance only model (including only an effect of distance on detection probability) to 6.7 (95% ci 3.111.0) under the full model (including effects of distance, sex, survey effort, and distance?x?sex on detection probability). these numbers translate to a total estimate of 293 mountain lions (95% ci 182451) to 529 (95% ci 245870) within the blackfoot drainage. results from the distance model are similar to previous estimates of 3.6 mountain lions/100?km2 for the study area; however, results from all other models indicated greater numbers of mountain lions. our results indicate that unstructured spatial sampling combined with spatial capturerecapture analysis can be an effective method for estimating large carnivore densities. published 2012. this article is a u.s. government work and is in the public domain in the usa." statistical distribution of age readings of known-age sablefish (anoplopoma fimbria),known-age fish; age reading errors; geometric distribution; misclassification matrix; sablefish; stock assessment,FISHERIES RESEARCH,HANSELMAN DH;CLARK WG;HEIFETZ J;ANDERL DM,"a mark-recapture experiment provided a collection of 172 known-age sablefish from alaska waters. otoliths from each fish were read by three readers. the readings have a positive bias among young fish and a negative bias among older fish. among otoliths of the same age, some tended to give consistently high or low annulus counts, so that the variance of age readings at each true age was about half due to variance among otoliths and half due to variance among replicate readings of individual otoliths. the statistical distribution of age reading errors is well described by an asymmetrical two-sided geometric distribution with age-varying parameters. for comparison, the error distribution was estimated with naive methods that do not use the known ages and that assume the readings are unbiased. these estimated distributions do not match the actual error distributions very well, but they do a surprisingly good job of predicting the distribution of age readings from a stock assessment model's internal estimate of a true age composition. they also produce estimates of recruitment and biomass close to those obtained with the actual error distributions when used in the present sablefish stock assessment. published by elsevier b.v." basin characteristics and temperature improve abundance estimates from standard index netting of rainbow trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) in small lakes,index netting; bayesian analysis; gillnets; uncertainty,FISHERIES RESEARCH,WARD HGM;ASKEY PJ;POST JR;VARKEY DA;MCALLISTER MK,"fisheries management often requires efficient methods for assessing populations across a variety of sampling units. we develop a model to assess the status of rainbow trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) in lakes using a fixed length of multimesh gillnets. we use mark-recapture data to examine how gillnet capture efficiency varies with lake-basin characteristics. once we accounted for variation in lake-size (net-effort density), we found that capture efficiency was best explained by surface water temperature at the time of gillnetting and lake-basin characteristics (proportion of littoral area). we use bayesian techniques to fit our model to the data and explore how uncertainty in the estimated parameters leads to uncertainty in population estimates. our analysis suggests that lake size, temperature and the proportion of littoral area can be used to predict population size using this index netting method. in addition to providing density estimates, our results help to better understand how fish ecology and behavior influences gillnet catches. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." transmission ecology of sin nombre hantavirus in naturally infected north american deermouse populations in outdoor enclosures,NA,PLOS ONE,BAGAMIAN KH;TOWNER JS;KUENZI AJ;DOUGLASS RJ;ROLLIN PE;WALLER LA;MILLS JN,"sin nombre hantavirus (snv), hosted by the north american deermouse (peromyscus maniculatus), causes hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (hps) in north america. most transmission studies in the host were conducted under artificial conditions, or extrapolated information from mark-recapture data. previous studies using experimentally infected deermice were unable to demonstrate snv transmission. we explored snv transmission in outdoor enclosures using naturally infected deermice. deermice acquiring snv in enclosures had detectable viral rna in blood throughout the acute phase of infection and acquired significantly more new wounds (indicating aggressive encounters) than uninfected deermice. naturally-infected wild deermice had a highly variable antibody response to infection, and levels of viral rna sustained in blood varied as much as 100-fold, even in individuals infected with identical strains of virus. deermice that infected other susceptible individuals tended to have a higher viral rna load than those that did not infect other deermice. our study is a first step in exploring the transmission ecology of snv infection in deermice and provides new knowledge about the factors contributing to the increase of the prevalence of a zoonotic pathogen in its reservoir host and to changes in the risk of hps to human populations. the techniques pioneered in this study have implications for a wide range of zoonotic disease studies." "paternal care decreases foraging activity and body condition, but does not impose survival costs to caring males in a neotropical arachnid",NA,PLOS ONE,REQUENA GS;BUZATTO BA;MARTINS EG;MACHADO G,"exclusive paternal care is the rarest form of parental investment in nature and theory predicts that the maintenance of this behavior depends on the balance between costs and benefits to males. our goal was to assess costs of paternal care in the harvestman iporangaia pustulosa, for which the benefits of this behavior in terms of egg survival have already been demonstrated. we evaluated energetic costs and mortality risks associated to paternal egg-guarding in the field. we quantified foraging activity of males and estimated how their body condition is influenced by the duration of the caring period. additionally, we conducted a one-year capture-mark-recapture study and estimated apparent survival probabilities of caring and non-caring males to assess potential survival costs of paternal care. our results indicate that caring males forage less frequently than non-caring individuals (males and females) and that their body condition deteriorates over the course of the caring period. thus, males willing to guard eggs may provide to females a fitness-enhancing gift of cost-free care of their offspring. caring males, however, did not show lower survival probabilities when compared to both non-caring males and females. reduction in mortality risks as a result of remaining stationary, combined with the benefits of improving egg survival, may have played an important and previously unsuspected role favoring the evolution of paternal care. moreover, males exhibiting paternal care could also provide an honest signal of their quality as offspring defenders, and thus female preference for caring males could be responsible for maintaining the trait." "sex- and age-specific survival of harbor seals (phoca vitulina) from tugidak island, alaska",harbor seal; mark-recapture; natural markings; phoca vitulina; photograph identification; survival,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,HASTINGS KK;SMALL RJ;PENDLETON GW,"we estimated sex- and age-specific apparent survival of harbor seals (phoca vitulina richardii) born at tugidak island, alaska, from 2000 to 2007 using mark recapture models and photographs of ventral pelage markings to identify individuals. estimates of annual apparent survival (1 - (mortality + emigration)) of females were from 0.05 to 0.10 higher than those of males and were 0.820 for weaning (similar to 1 month) to 1 year, 0.865 for 1-3 years, and 0.929 at 3-7 years. annual survival of males was 0.717, 0.782, and 0.879 for the same ages. highest mortality occurred preweaning, with cumulative mortality to 4 weeks of age of 0.259, indicating this is the most vulnerable period for tugidak harbor seals. estimates of survival, not biased by misidentification, required that an individual had at least 2 good-quality, matching photographs in the photograph library. the number of photographs available for matching improved resighting probabilities from 0.43 for seals with 2 photographs to 0.69 for seals with 8 photographs, but this heterogeneity did not affect survival estimates. survival estimates based on photograph-identification data were nearly identical to those based on resightings of flipper-tagged seals using mark recapture models with a preliminary double-tag loss estimate of 2.5% per year. photograph identification of natural pelage markings provides a viable method for estimating vital rates of harbor seals even at large haul-outs (>1,000 animals) and may be useful for populations of conservation concern that require low disturbance of animals or where capturing sufficient numbers of seals for artificial marking is not feasible." -rigorous gharial population estimation in the chambal: implications for conservation and management of a globally threatened crocodilian,abundance estimation; chambal river; closed-population models; detection; gavialis gangeticus; individual identification; noninvasive; photographic capture-recapture; program mark,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,"NAIR T;THORBJARNARSON JB;AUST P;KRISHNASWAMY J","india's chambal river hosts the largest population of the critically endangered gharial. boat-based daylight surveys to date only provide indices of relative abundance, without measures of survey bias or error. no attempt to quantify detection probabilities in these surveys has yet been made, and thus, absolute density estimates of this population remain unknown. we surveyed 75 km of the river chambal and photographed individual gharials for capturerecapture analysis. the total sampling effort yielded 400 captures. population closure was supported (z = -1.48, p = 0.069), and closed-population models were used to estimate abundances. models were selected using the akaike information criterion (aic) index of model fit. the best model estimated 231 +/- 32 adult, 83 +/- 23 subadult and 89 +/- 19 juvenile gharials (mean +/- se), respectively, while the model-averaged estimate was 220 +/- 28 adult, 76 +/- 16 subadults and 93 +/- 16 juvenile gharials, respectively. the best model estimated absolute densities of 3.08 +/- 0.43, 1.11 +/- 0.3 and 1.19 +/- 0.25 adult, subadult and juvenile gharials km-1, respectively, while the model-averaged estimate was 2.93 +/- 0.37, 1.01 +/- 0.21 and 1.24 +/- 0.21 adult, subadult and juvenile gharials km-1, respectively, compared with relative densities of 0.94, 0.45 and 0.30 adult, subadult and juvenile gharials km-1, respectively, from boat-based daylight surveys. on the basis of our best model, we suggest a detection probability based correction factor of 3.27, 2.47 and 3.97 to boat-based daylight survey estimates of adult, subadult and juvenile gharials, respectively. synthesis and applications. used within the framework of capturerecapture analysis, photoidentification provides a reliable and noninvasive method of estimating population size and structure in crocodilians. we also opine that without determining the current status of gharials, highly intensive strategies, such as the egg-collection and rear-and-release programmes being implemented currently, initiated on the basis of underestimates of population sizes, are unwarranted and divert valuable conservation resources away from field-based protection measures, which are essential in the face of threats like hydrologic diversions, sand mining, fishing and bankside cultivation." +rigorous gharial population estimation in the chambal: implications for conservation and management of a globally threatened crocodilian,abundance estimation; chambal river; closed-population models; detection; gavialis gangeticus; individual identification; noninvasive; photographic capture-recapture; program mark,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,NAIR T;THORBJARNARSON JB;AUST P;KRISHNASWAMY J,"india's chambal river hosts the largest population of the critically endangered gharial. boat-based daylight surveys to date only provide indices of relative abundance, without measures of survey bias or error. no attempt to quantify detection probabilities in these surveys has yet been made, and thus, absolute density estimates of this population remain unknown. we surveyed 75 km of the river chambal and photographed individual gharials for capturerecapture analysis. the total sampling effort yielded 400 captures. population closure was supported (z = -1.48, p = 0.069), and closed-population models were used to estimate abundances. models were selected using the akaike information criterion (aic) index of model fit. the best model estimated 231 +/- 32 adult, 83 +/- 23 subadult and 89 +/- 19 juvenile gharials (mean +/- se), respectively, while the model-averaged estimate was 220 +/- 28 adult, 76 +/- 16 subadults and 93 +/- 16 juvenile gharials, respectively. the best model estimated absolute densities of 3.08 +/- 0.43, 1.11 +/- 0.3 and 1.19 +/- 0.25 adult, subadult and juvenile gharials km-1, respectively, while the model-averaged estimate was 2.93 +/- 0.37, 1.01 +/- 0.21 and 1.24 +/- 0.21 adult, subadult and juvenile gharials km-1, respectively, compared with relative densities of 0.94, 0.45 and 0.30 adult, subadult and juvenile gharials km-1, respectively, from boat-based daylight surveys. on the basis of our best model, we suggest a detection probability based correction factor of 3.27, 2.47 and 3.97 to boat-based daylight survey estimates of adult, subadult and juvenile gharials, respectively. synthesis and applications. used within the framework of capturerecapture analysis, photoidentification provides a reliable and noninvasive method of estimating population size and structure in crocodilians. we also opine that without determining the current status of gharials, highly intensive strategies, such as the egg-collection and rear-and-release programmes being implemented currently, initiated on the basis of underestimates of population sizes, are unwarranted and divert valuable conservation resources away from field-based protection measures, which are essential in the face of threats like hydrologic diversions, sand mining, fishing and bankside cultivation." "assessment of genotyping accuracy in a non-invasive dna-based population survey of asiatic black bears (ursus thibetanus): lessons from a large-scale pilot study in iwate prefecture, northern japan",allelic dropout; error rate; false alleles; hair trap; microsatellite,POPULATION ECOLOGY,UNO R;KONDO M;YUASA T;YAMAUCHI K;TSURUGA H;TAMATE HB;YONEDA M,"non-invasive dna genotyping using hair samples has become a common method in population surveys of asiatic black bears (ursus thibetanus) in japan; however, the accuracy of the genotyping data has rarely been discussed in empirical studies. therefore, we conducted a large-scale pilot study to examine genotyping accuracy and sought an efficient way of error-checking hair-trapping data. we collected 2,067 hair samples, successfully determined the genotypes of 1,245 samples, and identified 295 individuals. the genotyping data were further divided into 3 subsets of data according to the number of hairs used for dna extraction in each sample (1-4, 5-9, and a parts per thousand yen10 hairs), and the error rates of allelic dropout and false alleles were estimated for each subset using a maximum likelihood method. the genotyping error rates in the samples with a parts per thousand yen10 hairs were found to be lower than those in the samples with 1-4 and 5-9 hairs. the presence of erroneous genotypes among the identified individuals was further checked using a post hoc goodness-of-fit test that determined the match between the expected and observed frequencies of individual homozygotes at 0-6 loci. the results indicated the presence of erroneous genotypes, possibly as a result of allelic dropout, in the samples. therefore, for improved accuracy, it is recommended that samples containing a parts per thousand yen10 hairs should be used for genotyping and a post hoc goodness-of-fit test should be performed to exclude erroneous genotypes before proceeding with downstream analysis such as capture-mark-recapture estimation." -"tag loss in the lobster palinurus elephas (fabricius, 1787) and implications for population assessment with capture-mark-recapture methods",capture-mark-recapture; double tagging; tag loss; return rate bias; palinurus elephas,FISHERIES RESEARCH,GONZALEZ-VICENTE L;DIAZ D;MALLOL S;GONI R,"assessments of animal populations by mark-recapture methods rest on the assumption that all marked animals are recognizable, yet a variety of processes, such as molting in crustaceans, can lead to tag shedding. in this paper we estimate the shedding rate of t-bar anchor tags in the european spiny lobster palinurus elephas from double tagging experiments conducted in the wild. during four annual consecutive surveys (1999-2002) lobsters were caught, double-tagged and released. the evolution of the subsequent double- and single-tag recaptures was traced during the following ten years (2000-2009). the estimated instantaneous rate of tag loss was 6.8%year(-1) in males and 5.0%year(-1) in females tagged during intermolt. these tag-shedding rates are low compared to most published values for similar species. data also suggested that there is poorer tag retention when tagging immature individuals or during premolt. we simulate and discuss the impact of undetected recaptures on the return rate and the implications for population assessment in the particular case of p. elephas. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +"tag loss in the lobster palinurus elephas (fabricius, 1787) and implications for population assessment with capture-mark-recapture methods",capture-mark-recapture; double tagging; tag loss; return rate bias; palinurus elephas,FISHERIES RESEARCH,GONZALEZ VICENTE L;DIAZ D;MALLOL S;GONI R,"assessments of animal populations by mark-recapture methods rest on the assumption that all marked animals are recognizable, yet a variety of processes, such as molting in crustaceans, can lead to tag shedding. in this paper we estimate the shedding rate of t-bar anchor tags in the european spiny lobster palinurus elephas from double tagging experiments conducted in the wild. during four annual consecutive surveys (1999-2002) lobsters were caught, double-tagged and released. the evolution of the subsequent double- and single-tag recaptures was traced during the following ten years (2000-2009). the estimated instantaneous rate of tag loss was 6.8%year(-1) in males and 5.0%year(-1) in females tagged during intermolt. these tag-shedding rates are low compared to most published values for similar species. data also suggested that there is poorer tag retention when tagging immature individuals or during premolt. we simulate and discuss the impact of undetected recaptures on the return rate and the implications for population assessment in the particular case of p. elephas. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." population-specific escapement of columbia river fall chinook salmon: tradeoffs among estimation techniques,aggregated; mark-recapture; multinomial; pit; radiotelemetry; stratified,FISHERIES RESEARCH,HYUN SY;KEEFER ML;FRYER JK;JEPSON MA;SHARMA R;CAUDILL CC;WHITEAKER JM;NAUGHTON GP,"in the multi-stock columbia river system, managers estimate fall chinook salmon, oncorhynchus tshawytscha (walbaum), escapements using various combinations of spawning ground surveys, harvest data and fish counts at dams and hatcheries. our objectives were to improve upon the traditional methods, and to evaluate trade-offs among methods. using data from radio-tagged (n=4421) and pit-tagged (n=1950) adult salmon over eight years, we applied a mark-recapture method to estimate population-specific escapements, both aggregating data within year and stratifying them by week mark-recapture estimates differed between estimation techniques and from estimates generated using traditional methods. stratifying data by week measured escapement estimate uncertainty more reasonably than aggregating data within year. radiotelemetry provided better spatial resolution among populations for tributary spawners whereas pit tags provided low-cost, easily replicated estimates using an existing detection system. mark-recapture techniques had several advantages over current practices: quantifying uncertainty, transparent methods and reduced sensitivity to survey biases. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." "movements, behaviour and survival of adult cook strait giant weta (deinacrida rugosa; anostostomatidae: orthoptera) immediately after translocation as revealed by radiotracking",orthoptera; translocation; conservation; radiotelemetry; monitoring; new zealand,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,WATTS C;EMPSON R;THORNBURROW D;ROHAN M,"giant weta (orthoptera: anostostomatidae) are large flightless new zealand insects vulnerable to predation from introduced mammals. some species have been transferred to islands or mammal-free mainland sanctuaries to establish additional populations. radiotelemetry was used to investigate behaviour, movements and survival of adult cook strait giant weta (deinacrida rugosa) immediately after translocation into karori sanctuary, new zealand, to describe their initial movements, and to assess the importance of this establishment phase in relation to the long-term viability of the population. the average distance moved between consecutive daytime refuges for translocated male d. rugosa within karori sanctuary was significantly further than for resident weta on matiu-somes island. in contrast, translocated female weta moved significantly smaller distances between consecutive daytime refuges within karori sanctuary than those on matiu-somes island. translocated d. rugosa travelled significantly further between consecutive daytime refuges between 19 and 45 days after release than during the first 19 days and more than 45 days of radiotracking. deinacrida rugosa survived well following translocation and there was only limited evidence of predation despite an increased abundance of indigenous avian and reptilian predators being present, and the presence of low numbers of mice. the establishment potential of this population was not adversely affected by movements and survival of the weta immediately after translocation. it still remains to be seen if a self-sustaining population of d. rugosa develops in karori sanctuary but the indications are that the species is present because progeny of the translocated weta are regularly seen within karori sanctuary. radiotelemetry provided valuable insights into the behaviour of adult d. rugosa and it could be appropriate for monitoring other large bodied invertebrates." -nest boxes: a successful management tool for the conservation of an endangered seabird,mediterranean storm petrel; hydrobates pelagicus; survival; breeding success; predation,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,LIBOIS E;GIMENEZ O;ORO D;MINGUEZ E;PRADEL R;SANZ-AGUILAR A,"nowadays seabirds are among the most threatened animal taxa. due to introduction by humans of mammalian predators on large islands, mediterranean storm petrels are now confined to islets and considered locally vulnerable, especially threatened by predatory overabundant gulls. in this study, we evaluate the effectiveness of nest boxes installation as a management measure for their conservation at benidorm island (spain). we compare demographic parameters of individuals breeding in natural nests and nest boxes using capture-recapture and generalized linear mixed models. our results show higher survival rates and breeding success probabilities for birds breeding in artificial nests than in natural sites, probably as a consequence of protection against gulls. following the installation and successful occupation of nest boxes, breeding numbers of storm petrels greatly increased. although conservation measures have proved highly effective we recommend the maintenance of the monitoring and evidence-based management of the storm petrel breeding population. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +nest boxes: a successful management tool for the conservation of an endangered seabird,mediterranean storm petrel; hydrobates pelagicus; survival; breeding success; predation,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,LIBOIS E;GIMENEZ O;ORO D;MINGUEZ E;PRADEL R;SANZ AGUILAR A,"nowadays seabirds are among the most threatened animal taxa. due to introduction by humans of mammalian predators on large islands, mediterranean storm petrels are now confined to islets and considered locally vulnerable, especially threatened by predatory overabundant gulls. in this study, we evaluate the effectiveness of nest boxes installation as a management measure for their conservation at benidorm island (spain). we compare demographic parameters of individuals breeding in natural nests and nest boxes using capture-recapture and generalized linear mixed models. our results show higher survival rates and breeding success probabilities for birds breeding in artificial nests than in natural sites, probably as a consequence of protection against gulls. following the installation and successful occupation of nest boxes, breeding numbers of storm petrels greatly increased. although conservation measures have proved highly effective we recommend the maintenance of the monitoring and evidence-based management of the storm petrel breeding population. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." high-speed railways are not barriers to pyronia tithonus butterfly movements,lepidoptera; dispersal; mark-recapture; homing behaviour; grassland,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,VANDEVELDE JC;PENONE C;JULLIARD R,"linear infrastructures such as railways and roads can be barriers to the movements of individuals and, hence, may have strong impacts on populations. we tested the barrier effect of a high-speed railway for pyronia tithonus, a butterfly species showing homing behaviour when displaced. we captured, marked and displaced 152 individuals in two different locations. one-third of the butterflies were released at a capture plot, one-third on the other side of the railway (in a similar habitat) and one-third on the same side but 100 m away from the capture plot. we obtained recapture rates of 40 and 23 % per location. many (31 %) butterflies crossed the railway, showing homing behaviour. thus, contrary to wide, busy roads, high-speed railways do not seem to be barriers for these butterflies. we suggest that in an intensive agrarian landscape, railway verges can play a substitution habitat role for grassland butterflies." using a temporal symmetry model to assess population change and recruitment in the preble's meadow jumping mouse (zapus hudsonius preblei),apparent survival; lambda; population change; pradel model; preble's meadow jumping mouse; recruitment; zapus hudsonius preblei,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,SCHORR RA,"the preble's meadow jumping mouse (zapus hudsonius preblei [pmjm]) is a rare rodent of southeastern wyoming and central colorado that has been the center of debates regarding subspecies' genetic identity and the application of the endangered species act. i analyzed a 7-year pmjm mark recapture data set using a temporal symmetry model (pradel model) to estimate apparent survival (phi), recruitment (f), population change (lambda), and vital rate influence on lambda. deer mouse (peromyscus maniculatus) captures depressed phi, suggesting that competition for resources may decrease pmjm survival. vole-mediated habitat changes or voles' affinity for quality riparian habitats may explain why pmjm phi and f increased with meadow vole (microtus pennsylvanicus) captures. based on early-summer and late-summer sampling from 2000 to 2006, lambda. estimates were 0.87 +/- 0.06 se and 0.87 +/- 0.11 se, respectively, and f had a greater influence on lambda than did phi. this pmjm population is losing connectivity to eastern, northern, and southern tributaries from habitat degradation and storm-water and municipal runoff erosion. the loss of the adjoining habitat and the pmjms that were supported by this habitat prevents new recruitment via immigration. because of the importance of recruitment to pmjm population stability, tributaries and the riparian habitat along these tributaries are vital to pmjm conservation. scale-appropriate habitat sampling, assessments of reproductive success, and detailed demographic studies to estimate vital demographic parameters will help identify how particular habitat components impact fecundity and immigration." -demography of straw-colored fruit bats in ghana,capture-recapture; eidolon helvum; multistate model; population dynamics; survival; tooth cementum,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,HAYMAN DTS;MCCREA R;RESTIF O;SUU-IRE R;FOOKS AR;WOOD JLN;CUNNINGHAM AA;ROWCLIFFE JM,"eidolon helvum is widely distributed across sub-saharan africa where it forms large, dense colonies. the species is migratory and satellite telemetry studies have demonstrated that individuals can migrate over 2,500 km. it is a common source of bush meat in west africa and evidence of infection with potentially zoonotic viruses has been found in west african colonies. the species, therefore, is of interest to both ecologists and those interested in public health. despite this, demographic parameters of the species are unknown. we focused our study primarily on it colony of up to 1,000,000 bats that roost in trees in accra, ghana to obtain estimates of birth rate and survival probability. aging of bats by examination of tooth cementum annuli allowed use of life tables to indicate an annual survival probability for juveniles of 0.43 (95% confidence interval [ci] 0.16-0.77) and for adults of 0.83 (95% ci 0.73-0.93). additionally, an annual adult survival probability of 0.63 (95% ci 0.27-0.88) was estimated by following 98 radiocollared bats over a year; capture recapture data were analyzed using multistate models to address the confounding factor of emigration. true survival probabilities may be in between the 2 estimates, because permanent emigration may lead to underestimation in the capture recapture study, and population decline may lead to overestimation in the life table analysis. birth rates (0.96 young per female per year, 95% ci 0.92-0.98) and colony size changes were also estimated. estimation of these key parameters will allow future analyses of both infection dynamics within, and harvest sustainability of, e. helvum populations." +demography of straw-colored fruit bats in ghana,capture-recapture; eidolon helvum; multistate model; population dynamics; survival; tooth cementum,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,HAYMAN DTS;MCCREA R;RESTIF O;SUU IRE R;FOOKS AR;WOOD JLN;CUNNINGHAM AA;ROWCLIFFE JM,"eidolon helvum is widely distributed across sub-saharan africa where it forms large, dense colonies. the species is migratory and satellite telemetry studies have demonstrated that individuals can migrate over 2,500 km. it is a common source of bush meat in west africa and evidence of infection with potentially zoonotic viruses has been found in west african colonies. the species, therefore, is of interest to both ecologists and those interested in public health. despite this, demographic parameters of the species are unknown. we focused our study primarily on it colony of up to 1,000,000 bats that roost in trees in accra, ghana to obtain estimates of birth rate and survival probability. aging of bats by examination of tooth cementum annuli allowed use of life tables to indicate an annual survival probability for juveniles of 0.43 (95% confidence interval [ci] 0.16-0.77) and for adults of 0.83 (95% ci 0.73-0.93). additionally, an annual adult survival probability of 0.63 (95% ci 0.27-0.88) was estimated by following 98 radiocollared bats over a year; capture recapture data were analyzed using multistate models to address the confounding factor of emigration. true survival probabilities may be in between the 2 estimates, because permanent emigration may lead to underestimation in the capture recapture study, and population decline may lead to overestimation in the life table analysis. birth rates (0.96 young per female per year, 95% ci 0.92-0.98) and colony size changes were also estimated. estimation of these key parameters will allow future analyses of both infection dynamics within, and harvest sustainability of, e. helvum populations." life-history and spatial determinants of somatic growth dynamics in komodo dragon populations,NA,PLOS ONE,LAVER RJ;PURWANDANA D;ARIEFIANDY A;IMANSYAH J;FORSYTH D;CIOFI C;JESSOP TS,"somatic growth patterns represent a major component of organismal fitness and may vary among sexes and populations due to genetic and environmental processes leading to profound differences in life-history and demography. this study considered the ontogenic, sex-specific and spatial dynamics of somatic growth patterns in ten populations of the world's largest lizard the komodo dragon (varanus komodoensis). the growth of 400 individual komodo dragons was measured in a capture-mark-recapture study at ten sites on four islands in eastern indonesia, from 2002 to 2010. generalized additive mixed models (gamms) and information-theoretic methods were used to examine how growth rates varied with size, age and sex, and across and within islands in relation to site-specific prey availability, lizard population density and inbreeding coefficients. growth trajectories differed significantly with size and between sexes, indicating different energy allocation tactics and overall costs associated with reproduction. this leads to disparities in maximum body sizes and longevity. spatial variation in growth was strongly supported by a curvilinear density-dependent growth model with highest growth rates occurring at intermediate population densities. sex-specific trade-offs in growth underpin key differences in komodo dragon life-history including evidence for high costs of reproduction in females. further, inverse density-dependent growth may have profound effects on individual and population level processes that influence the demography of this species." evaluation of remote delivery of passive integrated transponder (pit) technology to mark large mammals,NA,PLOS ONE,WALTER WD;ANDERSON CW;VERCAUTEREN KC,"methods to individually mark and identify free-ranging wildlife without trapping and handling would be useful for a variety of research and management purposes. the use of passive integrated transponder technology could be an efficient method for collecting data for mark-recapture analysis and other strategies for assessing characteristics about populations of various wildlife species. passive integrated transponder tags (pit) have unique numbered frequencies and have been used to successfully mark and identify mammals. we tested for successful injection of pit and subsequent functioning of pit into gelatin blocks using 4 variations of a prototype dart. we then selected the prototype dart that resulted in the least depth of penetration in the gelatin block to assess the ability of pit to be successfully implanted into muscle tissue of white-tailed deer (odocoileus virginianus) post-mortem and long-term in live, captive rocky mountain elk (cervus elaphus). the prototype dart with a 12.7 mm (0.5 inch) needle length and no powder charge resulted in the shallowest mean (+/- sd) penetration depth into gelatin blocks of 27.0 mm (+/-5.6 mm) with 2.0 psi setting on the dan-inject co2-pressured rifle. eighty percent of pit were successfully injected in the muscle mass of white-tailed deer post-mortem with a mean (+/- sd) penetration depth of 22.2 mm (+/-3.8 mm; n = 6). we injected pit successfully into 13 live, captive elk by remote delivery at about 20 m that remained functional for 7 months. we successfully demonstrated that pit could be remotely delivered in darts into muscle mass of large mammals and remain functional for >6 months. although further research is warranted to fully develop the technique, remote delivery of pit technology to large mammals is possible using prototype implant darts." -latitudinal and seasonal effects on growth of the australian eastern king prawn (melicertus plebejus),NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,LLOYD-JONES LR;WANG YG;COURTNEY AJ;PROSSER AJ;MONTGOMERY SS,"the growth of the australian eastern king prawn (melicertus plebejus) is understood in greater detail by quantifying the latitudinal effect. the latitudinal effect is the change in the species' growth rate during migration. mark-recapture data (n = 1635, latitude 22.21 degrees s-34.00 degrees s) presents northerly movement of the eastern king prawn, with new south wales prawns showing substantial average movement of 140 km (standard deviation: 176 km) north. a generalized von bertalanffy growth model framework is used to incorporate the latitudinal effect together with the canonical seasonal effect. applying this method to eastern king prawn mark-recapture data guarantees consistent estimates for the latitudinal and seasonal effects. for m. plebejus, it was found that growth rate peaks on 25 and 29 january for males and females, respectively; is at a minimum on 27 and 31 july, respectively; and that the shape parameter, k (per year), changes by -0.0236 and -0.0556 every 1 degree of latitude south increase for males and females, respectively." +latitudinal and seasonal effects on growth of the australian eastern king prawn (melicertus plebejus),NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,LLOYD JONES LR;WANG YG;COURTNEY AJ;PROSSER AJ;MONTGOMERY SS,"the growth of the australian eastern king prawn (melicertus plebejus) is understood in greater detail by quantifying the latitudinal effect. the latitudinal effect is the change in the species' growth rate during migration. mark-recapture data (n = 1635, latitude 22.21 degrees s-34.00 degrees s) presents northerly movement of the eastern king prawn, with new south wales prawns showing substantial average movement of 140 km (standard deviation: 176 km) north. a generalized von bertalanffy growth model framework is used to incorporate the latitudinal effect together with the canonical seasonal effect. applying this method to eastern king prawn mark-recapture data guarantees consistent estimates for the latitudinal and seasonal effects. for m. plebejus, it was found that growth rate peaks on 25 and 29 january for males and females, respectively; is at a minimum on 27 and 31 july, respectively; and that the shape parameter, k (per year), changes by -0.0236 and -0.0556 every 1 degree of latitude south increase for males and females, respectively." demographic response to perturbations: the role of compensatory density dependence in a north american duck under variable harvest regulations and changing habitat,additivity; capture-mark-recapture; capture-recovery; compensation; disturbance; integrated population models; leslie matrix; sensitivity; waterfowl breeding population and habitat survey,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,PERON G;NICOLAI CA;KOONS DN,"1. most wild animal populations are subjected to many perturbations, including environmental forcing and anthropogenic mortality. how population size varies in response to these perturbations largely depends on life-history strategy and density regulation. 2. using the mid-continent population of redhead aythya americana (a north american diving duck), we investigated the population response to two major perturbations, changes in breeding habitat availability (number of ponds in the study landscape) and changes in harvest regulations directed at managing mortality patterns (bag limit). we used three types of data collected at the continental scale (capturerecovery, population surveys and age- and sex ratios in the harvest) and combined them into integrated population models to assess the interaction between density dependence and the effect of perturbations. 3. we observed a two-way interaction between the effects on fecundity of pond number and population density. hatch-year female survival was also density dependent. matrix modelling showed that population booms could occur after especially wet years. however, the effect of moderate variation in pond number was generally offset by density dependence the following year. 4. mortality patterns were insensitive to changes in harvest regulations and, in males at least, insensitive to density dependence as well. we discuss potential mechanisms for compensation of hunting mortality as well as possible confounding factors. 5. our results illustrate the interplay of density dependence and environmental variation both shaping population dynamics in a harvested species, which could be generalized to help guide the dual management of habitat and harvest regulations." exploiting uncertain ecological fieldwork data with multi-event capture-recapture modelling: an example with bird sex assignment,fieldwork; multi-event capture-recapture; sex assignment; survival probability; uncertainty,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,GENOVART M;PRADEL R;ORO D,"1. sex plays a crucial role in evolutionary life histories. however, the inclusion of sex in demographic analysis may be a challenge in fieldwork, particularly in monomorphic species. although behavioural data may help us to sex individuals in the field, this kind of data is unlikely to be error free and is usually discarded. 2. here we propose a multi-event capturerecapture model that enables us to exploit uncertain field observations regarding the sex of individuals based on behavioural or morphological criteria. the multi-event capturerecapture model allows us to account for sex uncertainty not restricting our ability to estimate the parameters of interest. in this case, by adding the confirmed sex of just a few individuals, we greatly improve the efficiency of the optimization algorithm. 3. using such an approach, we analysed sex differences in demographic parameters (e.g. survival, transience and sex ratio) in a population of audouins gulls using observations from long-term fieldwork monitoring (19882007). we also assessed the probability of ascertaining sex over time and the probability of error for each field-sexing criterion. 4. we detected no strong effect of sex on either survival or transience probabilities, and both sexes showed a decreasing trend in survival over time and transience probability after recruitment increased with age and over time. the probability of ascertaining sex over time depended on observers experience. strikingly, courtship feeding (but not copulation) emerged as the most reliable clue for sexing individuals, which would suggest that audouins gulls engage in same-sex sexual behaviour such as same-sex mounting. 5. the present modelling emerged as a reliable method for estimating demographic parameters and state transition parameters in ecological studies in which field observations of sex or other individual states are assigned erroneously and uncertainly. this approach could also be useful for applied ecologists for assessing the reliability of their criteria for assigning sex or other individual covariates in the field, thereby permitting them to optimizing their field ecological protocols." frog population viability under present and future climate conditions: a bayesian state-space approach,capture-recapture analysis; climate change; ecological forecasting; population viability analysis; rana luteiventris; snow-water equivalence,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,MCCAFFERY R;SOLONEN A;CRONE E,"1. world-wide extinctions of amphibians are at the forefront of the biodiversity crisis, with climate change figuring prominently as a potential driver of continued amphibian decline. as in other taxa, changes in both the mean and variability of climate conditions may affect amphibian populations in complex, unpredictable ways. in western north america, climate models predict a reduced duration and extent of mountain snowpack and increased variability in precipitation, which may have consequences for amphibians inhabiting montane ecosystems. 2. we used bayesian capturerecapture methods to estimate survival and transition probabilities in a high-elevation population of the columbia spotted frog (rana luteiventris) over 10 years and related these rates to interannual variation in peak snowpack. then, we forecasted frog population growth and viability under a range of scenarios with varying levels of change in mean and variance in snowpack. 3. over a range of future scenarios, changes in mean snowpack had a greater effect on viability than changes in the variance of snowpack, with forecasts largely predicting an increase in population viability. population models based on snowpack during our study period predicted a declining population. 4. although mean conditions were more important for viability than variance, for a given mean snowpack depth, increases in variability could change a population from increasing to decreasing. therefore, the influence of changing climate variability on populations should be accounted for in predictive models. the bayesian modelling framework allows for the explicit characterization of uncertainty in parameter estimates and ecological forecasts, and thus provides a natural approach for examining relative contributions of mean and variability in climatic variables to population dynamics. 5. longevity and heterogeneous habitat may contribute to the potential for this amphibian species to be resilient to increased climatic variation, and shorter-lived species inhabiting homogeneous ecosystems may be more susceptible to increased variability in climate conditions." @@ -948,7 +950,7 @@ golden mice (ochrotomys nuttalli) co-occurrence with peromyscus and the abundant "survival, fidelity, and recovery rates of white-winged doves in texas",banding; harvest; multi-state capture recapture; site fidelity; survival; recovery rates; texas; white-winged dove; zenaida asiatica,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,COLLIER BA;KREMER SR;MASON CD;PETERSON MJ;CALHOUN KW,"management of migratory birds at the national level has historically relied on regulatory boundaries for definition of harvest restrictions and estimation of demographic parameters. most species of migratory game birds are not expanding their ranges, so migratory corridors are approximately fixed. white-winged doves (zenaida asiatica), however, have undergone significant variation in population structure with marked range expansion occurring in texas, and range contraction in arizona, during the last 30 years. because >85% of white-winged dove harvest in the united states (approx. 1.3 million annually) now occurs in texas, information on vital rates of expanding white-winged dove populations is necessary for informed management. we used band recovery and markrecapture data to investigate variation in survival and harvest across 3 geographic strata for white-winged doves banded in the pre-hunting season in texas during 20072010. we banded 60,742 white-winged doves, recovered 2,458 bands via harvest reporting, and recaptured 455 known-age birds between 2007 and 2010. the best supporting model found some evidence for geographic differences in survival rates among strata (ac) in both hatch-year (juvenile; a?=?0.205 [se?=?0.0476], b?=?0.213 [se?=?0.0278], c?=?0.364 [se?=?0.0254]) and after-hatch year (adult; a?=?0.483 [se?=?0.0775], b?=?0.465 [se?=?0.0366], c?=?0.538 [se?=?0.251]) birds. white-winged doves had a low probability of moving among strata (0.009) or being recaptured (0.002) across all strata. harvest recovery rates were concordant with estimates for other dove species, but were variable across geographic strata. based on our results, harvest management strategies for white-winged doves in texas and elsewhere should consider differences in population vital rates among geographic strata. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." comparative survival and recovery of ross's and lesser snow geese from canada's central arctic,arctic; chen caerulescens caerulescens; chen rossii; lesser snow goose; nest initiation date; queen maud gulf; ross's goose; survival; weather,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,TRAYLOR JJ;ALISAUSKAS RT;SLATTERY SM;DRAKE KL,"large increases in several populations of north american arctic geese have resulted in ecosystem-level effects from associated herbivory. consequently, some breeding populations have shown density dependence in recruitment through declines in food availability. differences in population trajectories of lesser snow geese (chen caerulescens caerulescens; hereafter snow geese) and ross's geese (c. rossii) breeding in mixed-species colonies south of queen maud gulf (qmg), in canada's central arctic, suggest that density dependence may be limiting snow goose populations. specifically, long-term declines in age ratios (immature:adult) of harvested snow geese may have resulted from declines in juvenile survival. thus, we focused on juvenile (first-year) survival of snow and ross's geese in relation to timing of reproduction (annual mean nest initiation date) and late summer weather. we banded ross's and snow geese from 1991 to 2008 in the qmg migratory bird sanctuary. we used age-structured mark-recapture models to estimate annual survival rates for adults and juveniles from recoveries of dead birds. consistent with life history differences, juvenile snow geese survived at rates higher than juvenile ross's geese. juvenile survival of both species also was lower in late seasons, but was unrelated to arctic weather measured during a 17-day period after banding. we found no evidence of density dependence (i.e., a decline in juvenile survival over time) in either species. we also found no interspecific differences in age-specific hunting vulnerability, though juveniles were more vulnerable than adults in both species, as expected. thus, interspecific differences in survival were unrelated to harvest. lower survival of juvenile ross's geese may result from natural migration mortality related to smaller body size (e.g., greater susceptibility to inclement weather or predation) compared to juvenile snow geese. despite lower first-year survival, recruitment by ross's geese may still be greater than that by snow geese because of earlier sexual maturity, greater breeding propensity, and higher nest success by ross's geese. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." estimating size and trend of the north interlake woodland caribou population using fecal-dna and capture-recapture models,abundance estimate; capture-recapture; fecal genotyping; genotyping error; non-invasive genetic sampling; rangifer tarandus caribou; species at risk; trend analysis; woodland caribou,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HETTINGA PN;ARNASON AN;MANSEAU M;CROSS D;WHALEY K;WILSON PJ,"a critical step in recovery efforts for endangered and threatened species is the monitoring of population demographic parameters. as part of these efforts, we evaluated the use of fecal-dna based capturerecapture methods to estimate population sizes and population rate of change for the north interlake woodland caribou herd (rangifer tarandus caribou), manitoba, canada. this herd is part of the boreal population of woodland caribou, listed as threatened under the federal species at risk act (2003) and the provincial manitoba endangered species act (2006). between 2004 and 2009 (9 surveys), we collected 1,080 fecal samples and identified 180 unique genotypes (102 females and 78 males). we used a robust design survey plan with 2 surveys in most years and analysed the data with program mark to estimate encounter rates (p), apparent survival rates (phi), rates of population change (lambda), and population sizes (n). we estimated these demographic parameters for males and females and for 2 genetic clusters within the north interlake. the population size estimates were larger for the lower than the upper north interlake area and the proportion of males was lower in the lower (33%) than the upper north interlake (49%). population rate of change for the entire north interlake area (20052009) using the robust design pradel model was significantly <1.0 (??=?0.90, 95% ci: 0.820.99) and varied between sex and area with the highest being for males in lower north interlake (??=?0.98, 95% ci: 0.831.13) and the lowest being for females in upper north interlake (??=?0.83, 95% ci: 0.690.97). the additivity of lambda between sex and area is supported on the log scale and translates into males having a lambda that is 0.09 greater than females and independent of sex, lower north interlake having a ? that is 0.06 greater than upper north interlake. population estimates paralleled these declining trends, which correspond to trends observed in other fragmented populations of woodland caribou along the southern part of their range. the results of this study clearly demonstrate the applicability and success of non-invasive genetic sampling in monitoring populations of woodland caribou. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." -implications of goat eradication on the survivorship of the galapagos hawk,eradication program; floaters; galapagos islands; herbivores; introduced species; survivorship; tropical raptor,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,RIVERA-PARRA JL;LEVENSTEIN KM;BEDNARZ JC;VARGAS FH;CARRION V;PARKER PG,"non-native mammals cause ecological disasters in island ecosystems and their eradication is usually considered beneficial to native biodiversity. goats (capra hircus) were introduced to santiago island, galapagos, ecuador, in the early 1800s, and their numbers increased to about 100,000 by 1970. a goat eradication campaign initiated in 2002 was successful, eliminating the last individuals in 2006. to evaluate the effects of goat eradication, between 1998 and 2010 we studied the galapagos hawk (buteo galapagoensis) population on santiago island before, during, and after eradication. we used a 12-year data set in a capturemarkrecapture analysis to estimate the apparent survivorship of territorial adults in 33 breeding territories, and a 5-year data set to estimate the population sizes of the floater (non-territorial) fraction of the population. juvenile floaters showed a drastic decline starting in 2006 and continuing in 2007, 2008, and 2010, which we attribute to the completion of goat eradication in 2006, and subsequent habitat changes. we found a significant decline in adult survivorship after the goat eradication program. additionally, group size positively affected adult survivorship in this cooperatively polyandrous raptor, presumably reflecting the benefit of shared defense and offspring provisioning during harsher conditions. the changes in the hawk population after goat eradication are an example of unforeseen consequences of a restoration program, and we hypothesize that these changes are adjustments towards a new equilibrium under the current ecosystem characteristics and capacity. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." +implications of goat eradication on the survivorship of the galapagos hawk,eradication program; floaters; galapagos islands; herbivores; introduced species; survivorship; tropical raptor,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,RIVERA PARRA JL;LEVENSTEIN KM;BEDNARZ JC;VARGAS FH;CARRION V;PARKER PG,"non-native mammals cause ecological disasters in island ecosystems and their eradication is usually considered beneficial to native biodiversity. goats (capra hircus) were introduced to santiago island, galapagos, ecuador, in the early 1800s, and their numbers increased to about 100,000 by 1970. a goat eradication campaign initiated in 2002 was successful, eliminating the last individuals in 2006. to evaluate the effects of goat eradication, between 1998 and 2010 we studied the galapagos hawk (buteo galapagoensis) population on santiago island before, during, and after eradication. we used a 12-year data set in a capturemarkrecapture analysis to estimate the apparent survivorship of territorial adults in 33 breeding territories, and a 5-year data set to estimate the population sizes of the floater (non-territorial) fraction of the population. juvenile floaters showed a drastic decline starting in 2006 and continuing in 2007, 2008, and 2010, which we attribute to the completion of goat eradication in 2006, and subsequent habitat changes. we found a significant decline in adult survivorship after the goat eradication program. additionally, group size positively affected adult survivorship in this cooperatively polyandrous raptor, presumably reflecting the benefit of shared defense and offspring provisioning during harsher conditions. the changes in the hawk population after goat eradication are an example of unforeseen consequences of a restoration program, and we hypothesize that these changes are adjustments towards a new equilibrium under the current ecosystem characteristics and capacity. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." a comparison of methods for estimating raccoon abundance: implications for disease vaccination programs,density; mammal; mesopredator; procyon lotor; rabies; raccoon; resource selection function; vaccine,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,BEASLEY JC;BEATTY WS;ATWOOD TC;JOHNSON SR;RHODES OE,"accurate estimates of demographic parameters are critical to the management of wildlife populations, including management programs focused on controlling the spread of zoonotic diseases. rabies managers in the united states department of agriculture (usda) have applied a simple raccoon (procyon lotor) abundance index (rai) based on cumulative catch of unique raccoons per unit area to determine vaccine-bait distribution densities. this approach was designed to allow for both the collection of biological samples and to index raccoon abundance to determine bait densities for oral rabies programs. however, post-baiting surveillance data indicate that, on average, only 30% of raccoons sampled have vaccine induced rabies antibody titers, suggesting that bait densities may not be well calibrated to raccoon densities. we trapped raccoons using both capture-mark-recapture (cmr) and the standard rai to evaluate the accuracy of the current index-based methodology for estimating raccoon density. we then developed a resource selection function from spatial data collected from radio-collared raccoons to standardize trap placement within the existing rai protocol, and evaluated the performance of this modified rai approach relative to cmr for estimating raccoon population size. both abundance and density estimates derived using the rai consistently underestimated raccoon population sizes compared with cmr methods. similarly, although the use of resource selection models to inform trap placement appeared to improve the accuracy of the rai, the effectiveness of this method was inconsistent because of an inability to account for variance in detection probabilities. despite the logistical advantages of using indices to estimate population parameters to determine vaccine bait distribution densities, our results suggest that adjustments may be necessary to more accurately quantify raccoon abundance, which should improve the effectiveness of rabies management in the united states. in particular, estimates of detection probabilities are needed to more precisely quantify abundance estimates and ensure appropriate vaccine coverage rates. (c) 2012 the wildlife society." the interaction between reproductive cost and individual quality is mediated by oceanic conditions in a long-lived bird,endangered species; environmental stochasticity; individual quality; long-lived species; monteiro's storm-petrel; oceanodroma monteiroi; praia islet; azores; reproductive cost; survival analysis,ECOLOGY,ROBERT A;PAIVA VH;BOLTON M;JIGUET F;BRIED J,"environmental variability, costs of reproduction, and heterogeneity in individual quality are three important sources of the temporal and interindividual variations in vital rates of wild populations. based on an 18-year monitoring of an endangered, recently described, long-lived seabird, monteiro's storm-petrel (oceanodroma monteiroi), we designed multistate survival models to separate the effects of the reproductive cost (breeders vs. nonbreeders) and individual quality (successful vs. unsuccessful breeders) in relation to temporally variable demographic and oceanographic properties. the analysis revealed a gradient of individual quality from nonbreeders, to unsuccessful breeders, to successful breeders. the survival rates of unsuccessful breeders (0.90 +/- 0.023, mean +/- se) tended to decrease in years of high average breeding success and were more sensitive to oceanographic variation than those of both (high-quality) successful breeders (0.97 +/- 0.015) and (low-quality) nonbreeders (0.83 +/- 0.028). overall, our results indicate that reproductive costs act on individuals of intermediate quality and are mediated by environmental harshness." monitoring butterfly abundance: beyond pollard walks,NA,PLOS ONE,PELLET J;BRIED JT;PARIETTI D;GANDER A;HEER PO;CHERIX D;ARLETTAZ R,"most butterfly monitoring protocols rely on counts along transects (pollard walks) to generate species abundance indices and track population trends. it is still too often ignored that a population count results from two processes: the biological process (true abundance) and the statistical process (our ability to properly quantify abundance). because individual detectability tends to vary in space (e.g., among sites) and time (e.g., among years), it remains unclear whether index counts truly reflect population sizes and trends. this study compares capture-mark-recapture (absolute abundance) and count-index (relative abundance) monitoring methods in three species (maculinea nausithous and iolana iolas: lycaenidae; minois dryas: satyridae) in contrasted habitat types. we demonstrate that intraspecific variability in individual detectability under standard monitoring conditions is probably the rule rather than the exception, which questions the reliability of count-based indices to estimate and compare specific population abundance. our results suggest that the accuracy of count-based methods depends heavily on the ecology and behavior of the target species, as well as on the type of habitat in which surveys take place. monitoring programs designed to assess the abundance and trends in butterfly populations should incorporate a measure of detectability. we discuss the relative advantages and inconveniences of current monitoring methods and analytical approaches with respect to the characteristics of the species under scrutiny and resources availability." @@ -960,9 +962,9 @@ density estimation in tiger populations: combining information for strong infere "promoting community-based bird monitoring in the tropics: conservation, research, environmental education, capacity-building, and local incomes",biodiversity conservation; capacity-building; climate change; conservation biology; development; ecosystem services; education; endangered species; environmental awareness; global change; population dynamics; tropical ecology,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,SEKERCIOGLU CH,"long-term, locally-based biodiversity monitoring programs are essential for understanding and mitigating the effects of global change on tropical biodiversity while providing capacity-building, environmental education, and public outreach. however, these programs are lacking in most tropical countries. birds are the best-known major group of organism, comprise excellent environmental indicators, are relatively easy to monitor, and are met with enthusiasm and interest by people worldwide. bird monitoring programs using mist nets and bird banding (ringing) are especially valuable, as these well-established techniques enable the use of capture-mark-recapture (cmr) models to measure population change and other demographic parameters. equally important for conservation, the ability to capture and release birds makes it possible to provide hands-on ornithological training and educational activities to students, conservationists, villagers, decision-makers, journalists, and other local people. bird banding programs provide local jobs for research assistants, who often go on to productive careers in conservation, education, research, or ecotourism. long-term bird banding stations also provide the nuclei, infrastructure, and staff for monitoring, education, and conservation programs focused on other taxa. as successful examples from costa rica and ethiopia show, bird monitoring programs that integrate conservation, ecological research, environmental education, capacity-building, and income generation are cost-effective tools to achieve the goals of community-based biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction in the developing world. therefore, locally-based and long-term bird monitoring programs should be encouraged, established, and funded throughout the tropics. (c) 2011 published by elsevier ltd." "estimating brownian motion dispersal rate, longevity and population density from spatially explicit mark-recapture data on tropical butterflies",brownian motion; dispersal; effective trapping area; mark-recapture; survival; tropical butterflies,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,TUFTO J;LANDE R;RINGSBY TH;ENGEN S;SAETHER BE;WALLA TR;DEVRIES PJ,"1. we develop a bayesian method for analysing markrecapture data in continuous habitat using a model in which individuals movement paths are brownian motions, life spans are exponentially distributed and capture events occur at given instants in time if individuals are within a certain attractive distance of the traps. 2. the joint posterior distribution of the dispersal rate, longevity, trap attraction distances and a number of latent variables representing the unobserved movement paths and time of death of all individuals is computed using gibbs sampling. 3. an estimate of absolute local population density is obtained simply by dividing the poisson counts of individuals captured at given points in time by the estimated total attraction area of all traps. our approach for estimating population density in continuous habitat avoids the need to define an arbitrary effective trapping area that characterized previous markrecapture methods in continuous habitat. 4. we applied our method to estimate spatial demography parameters in nine species of neotropical butterflies. path analysis of interspecific variation in demographic parameters and mean wing length revealed a simple network of strong causation. larger wing length increases dispersal rate, which in turn increases trap attraction distance. however, higher dispersal rate also decreases longevity, thus explaining the surprising observation of a negative correlation between wing length and longevity." standardizing the double-observer survey method for estimating mountain ungulate prey of the endangered snow leopard,capra ibex; bharal; pseudois nayaur; ovis; central asia,OECOLOGIA,SURYAWANSHI KR;BHATNAGAR YV;MISHRA C,"mountain ungulates around the world have been threatened by illegal hunting, habitat modification, increased livestock grazing, disease and development. mountain ungulates play an important functional role in grasslands as primary consumers and as prey for wild carnivores, and monitoring of their populations is important for conservation purposes. however, most of the several currently available methods of estimating wild ungulate abundance are either difficult to implement or too expensive for mountainous terrain. a rigorous method of sampling ungulate abundance in mountainous areas that can allow for some measure of sampling error is therefore much needed. to this end, we used a combination of field data and computer simulations to test the critical assumptions associated with double-observer technique based on capture-recapture theory. the technique was modified and adapted to estimate the populations of bharal (pseudois nayaur) and ibex (capra sibirica) at five different sites. conducting the two double-observer surveys simultaneously led to underestimation of the population by 15%. we therefore recommend separating the surveys in space or time. the overall detection probability for the two observers was 0.74 and 0.79. our surveys estimated mountain ungulate populations (+/- 95% confidence interval) of 735 (+/- 44), 580 (+/- 46), 509 (+/- 53), 184 (+/- 40) and 30 (+/- 14) individuals at the five sites, respectively. a detection probability of 0.75 was found to be sufficient to detect a change of 20% in populations of > 420 individuals. based on these results, we believe that this method is sufficiently precise for scientific and conservation purposes and therefore recommend the use of the double-observer approach (with the two surveys separated in time or space) for the estimation and monitoring of mountain ungulate populations." -fish catchability and comparison of four electrofishing crews in mediterranean streams,capture probability; fish abundance; sampling effort; program mark; water framework directive,FISHERIES RESEARCH,BENEJAM L;ALCARAZ C;BENITO J;CAIOLA N;CASALS F;MACEDA-VEIGA A;DE SOSTOA A;GARCIA-BERTHOU E,"the knowledge of capture efficiency and side effects of electrofishing is essential for research and monitoring of stream fish populations. differences amongst electrofishing crews have hardly been investigated and are particularly important given the on-going implementation of the water framework directive and wide-ranging exchange of data worldwide. we aimed to assess fish catchability in mediterranean streams and to compare four electrofishing crews (with minor differences in gears used) and their short-term effects on fish populations. in eight different sites, we compared two adjacent stations, one sampled with conventional single-pass catch-effort data and the other closed with block nets and with four-pass removal estimates. we used a williams' cross-over design to estimate the independent effects of repeated sampling in four consecutive days, site and crew and also to assess a potential carry-over effect. we modelled capture probability and estimated population size using program mark and an information-theoretic framework. our results show that electrofishing was generally efficient in these reaches, with 50-100% of the species and of 40-60% of the individuals captured in a single pass. the cpue was significantly higher at sites blocked with nets than at open sites, but observed richness was not significantly different. capture probability was generally not constant along removal passes and increased with fish size. observed fish richness and species composition did not depend on electrofishing crew and fishing day and there was no significant carryover effect. there were, however, significant differences in single-pass cpue estimates amongst electrofishing crews, after accounting for other sources of variation. there was also a significant carry-over effect, surprisingly with increasing fish captured after fishing by specific crews. overall, our results suggest that although capture probability depends heavily on a number of factors (such as species, size, and sampling site) and needs careful consideration, the effect of electrofishing crew is negligible for assessment of species richness and composition but considerable for fish abundance. (c) 2011 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +fish catchability and comparison of four electrofishing crews in mediterranean streams,capture probability; fish abundance; sampling effort; program mark; water framework directive,FISHERIES RESEARCH,BENEJAM L;ALCARAZ C;BENITO J;CAIOLA N;CASALS F;MACEDA VEIGA A;DE SOSTOA A;GARCIA BERTHOU E,"the knowledge of capture efficiency and side effects of electrofishing is essential for research and monitoring of stream fish populations. differences amongst electrofishing crews have hardly been investigated and are particularly important given the on-going implementation of the water framework directive and wide-ranging exchange of data worldwide. we aimed to assess fish catchability in mediterranean streams and to compare four electrofishing crews (with minor differences in gears used) and their short-term effects on fish populations. in eight different sites, we compared two adjacent stations, one sampled with conventional single-pass catch-effort data and the other closed with block nets and with four-pass removal estimates. we used a williams' cross-over design to estimate the independent effects of repeated sampling in four consecutive days, site and crew and also to assess a potential carry-over effect. we modelled capture probability and estimated population size using program mark and an information-theoretic framework. our results show that electrofishing was generally efficient in these reaches, with 50-100% of the species and of 40-60% of the individuals captured in a single pass. the cpue was significantly higher at sites blocked with nets than at open sites, but observed richness was not significantly different. capture probability was generally not constant along removal passes and increased with fish size. observed fish richness and species composition did not depend on electrofishing crew and fishing day and there was no significant carryover effect. there were, however, significant differences in single-pass cpue estimates amongst electrofishing crews, after accounting for other sources of variation. there was also a significant carry-over effect, surprisingly with increasing fish captured after fishing by specific crews. overall, our results suggest that although capture probability depends heavily on a number of factors (such as species, size, and sampling site) and needs careful consideration, the effect of electrofishing crew is negligible for assessment of species richness and composition but considerable for fish abundance. (c) 2011 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." unusually high body mass in virginia meadow voles,body growth; life span; mass; meadow vole; microtus pennsylvanicus; virginia,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LONGTIN SB;ROSE RK,"we used monthly capture-mark-recapture information to determine growth rates and life spans for 2 populations of meadow voles studied for 28 and 29 months in eastern virginia in order to learn whether the exceptionally large body masses of some voles were due to rapid growth, long lives, or both. on 1 study grid, 64 males (19%) and 43 nonpregnant females (11%) were >= 70 g, with the largest male being 89 g. mostly positive growth rates (averaging 1.1-3.9 g/month) were recorded, even in autumn and winter months, times when meadow voles are losing mass in northern populations, where most studies of body growth have been conducted. periods of low mean body mass were associated with low population density more than high body mass was associated with high population density. patterns of body mass dynamics were related more to season than to density in our populations. we concluded that the large body masses we observed in some voles were due more to long field lives than to unusually high rates of body growth." -a multi-event model to study stage-dependent dispersal in radio-collared hares: when hunting promotes costly transience,capture-recapture; dispersal costs; lepus europaeus; predation risk; telemetry,ECOLOGY,AVRIL A;LETTY J;PRADEL R;LEONARD Y;SANTIN-JANIN H;PONTIER D,"behavioral ecologists have often assumed that dispersal is costly mainly because of unfamiliarity with traversed habitats during dispersal and energy costs of the movement per se; thus, dispersers that have successfully settled should experience survival rates comparable to those of philopatric individuals. in this paper, we tested that hypothesis using 152 radio-collared european hares in a harvested population. we developed a multi-event capture-recapture model, combining telemetry data and recoveries and separately modeling the foray probability, the settlement probability, and the permanent dispersal probability. the parameterization introduced here raises the possibility of separately testing effects on survival and dispersal probabilities at each stage of dispersal (departure, transience, and settlement). in accordance with our expectations, we reveal that dispersers incur higher mortality risks during transience and the early settlement period than philopatric individuals or settled dispersers. we also found that dispersers suffer from higher risks of being shot. those results illustrate that unfamiliarity with the habitat during transience makes dispersal costly and that settled dispersers may enjoy survival rates comparable to those of philopatric individuals. surprisingly, we also found that individuals have a higher probability of foraying during the hunting season. we suggest that hunting and related disturbances increase dispersal costs both by increasing mortality risk during transience and (perhaps) by increasing movement rates. we emphasize the need to take human pressures into account as factors that may drive the demographics of movements in populations." +a multi-event model to study stage-dependent dispersal in radio-collared hares: when hunting promotes costly transience,capture-recapture; dispersal costs; lepus europaeus; predation risk; telemetry,ECOLOGY,AVRIL A;LETTY J;PRADEL R;LEONARD Y;SANTIN JANIN H;PONTIER D,"behavioral ecologists have often assumed that dispersal is costly mainly because of unfamiliarity with traversed habitats during dispersal and energy costs of the movement per se; thus, dispersers that have successfully settled should experience survival rates comparable to those of philopatric individuals. in this paper, we tested that hypothesis using 152 radio-collared european hares in a harvested population. we developed a multi-event capture-recapture model, combining telemetry data and recoveries and separately modeling the foray probability, the settlement probability, and the permanent dispersal probability. the parameterization introduced here raises the possibility of separately testing effects on survival and dispersal probabilities at each stage of dispersal (departure, transience, and settlement). in accordance with our expectations, we reveal that dispersers incur higher mortality risks during transience and the early settlement period than philopatric individuals or settled dispersers. we also found that dispersers suffer from higher risks of being shot. those results illustrate that unfamiliarity with the habitat during transience makes dispersal costly and that settled dispersers may enjoy survival rates comparable to those of philopatric individuals. surprisingly, we also found that individuals have a higher probability of foraying during the hunting season. we suggest that hunting and related disturbances increase dispersal costs both by increasing mortality risk during transience and (perhaps) by increasing movement rates. we emphasize the need to take human pressures into account as factors that may drive the demographics of movements in populations." evaluating population recovery for sea turtles under nesting beach protection while accounting for nesting behaviours and changes in availability,bycatch; capture-mark-recapture; extended cormack-jolly-seber; fixed-knot spline; leatherback sea turtle; loggerhead sea turtle; longline tuna fishing; robust design data; tag loss; western indian ocean,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,THORSON JT;PUNT AE;NEL R,"1. sea turtles and sea birds generally have high conservation importance world-wide and are often difficult to survey except when present on nesting grounds. consequently, many such surveys tag nesting individuals and use tag-resighting models to estimate population size and assess anthropogenic impacts. however, the conventional cormacjollyseber (cjs) tag-resighting model is problematic for these species for three reasons: individuals often return to nesting areas in alternating years because of high energetic costs for nesting, estimated detectability confounds changes in survey efficiency with availability on the surveyed beach, and tag loss is confounded with mortality. 2. we develop a robust design model that uses higher-order markovian transitions to approximate skip-nesting behaviours and incorporates multiple observations for each nesting individual to estimate changes in availability (the probability of returning to the surveyed area rather than alternative nesting areas). we approximate time-varying effects using a flexible spline method and demonstrate the model using data for leatherback sea turtles dermochelys coriacea and loggerhead sea turtles caretta caretta in south africa. 3. the apparent lack of recovery for leatherback sea turtles after implementing beach protection, as observed in nest count data, is likely to be due to declining detectability caused by decreased availability during population recovery (e.g. habitat expansion). by contrast, loggerhead sea turtles have approximately constant detectability and stable abundance since the 1970s. 4. we find that increased fishing effort has no explanatory power regarding changes in survival for either species. 5. synthesis and applications. based on study results, we recommend that future tag-resighting programmes for sea turtles and birds are accompanied periodically by count surveys beyond the regularly monitored nesting areas to evaluate evidence of range expansion. however, the identification of range expansion in historical data is only possible using model-based inference and robust design methods such as presented in this study." comparison and cost-benefit analysis of pit tag antennae resighting and seine-net recapture techniques for survival analysis of an estuarine-dependent fish,centropomus undecimalis; mark-recapture; open population survival; juvenile fish; telemetry; marine,FISHERIES RESEARCH,BARBOUR AB;ADAMS AJ;YESS T;BEHRINGER DC;WOLFE RK,"studies of fish ecology are enhanced by precise and accurate knowledge of survival, which can be estimated from capture-recapture/resighting based survival probabilities. we conducted a cost-benefit analysis of resighting by an array of 11 autonomous pit tag antennae and recapture by seine netting, and compared the effectiveness of the two methods for recapturing/resighting marked fish in an estuarine environment. during three separate marking periods, we marked a total of 2109 fish with pit tags, recapturing 106 by seine (5.0%) and resighting 1700 by antennae (80.6%). antennae resulted in precise monthly survival estimates while seine netting did not, but antennae did not collect ancillary data (e.g., growth) and their use was limited to areas where fish used constricted passes <10-30m in width. despite a reliance on seine nets to capture fish for marking and high initial construction costs, the cost-effectiveness of pit tag antennae (us$45-$57 per unique fish resighted) exceeded that of seine netting (us$167-$934). considering physical capture was required to mark fish, the use of pit tag antennae is a dual-method approach incorporating both physical captures and telemetry. this dual-method approach can collect cost-effective and highly detailed data that could enhance our ability to make informed management and conservation decisions. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." "mobility and microhabitat utilization in a flightless wetland grasshopper, chorthippus montanus (charpentier, 1825)",dispersal; habitat preferences; mark-recapture; microhabitat use; orthoptera; wetland conservation,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,WEYER J;WEINBERGER J;HOCHKIRCH A,"wetlands are among the most threatened habitat types on our planet. their decline will probably even intensify under climate change. many biota are strongly dependent on wetlands, including a large number of invertebrate species. the populations of such hygrophilous species become increasingly disconnected due to the ongoing fragmentation of their habitats. this is particularly true for species with reduced dispersal capacities, such as flightless insects. we studied mobility, population size and microhabitat utilization in a population of an endangered grasshopper species, the water-meadow grasshopper, . our mark-recapture study revealed that the cumulative movement distance of the adults was on average 23.5 m with a maximum of 104 m. the microhabitat analysis showed that both sexes of preferred warmer patches with greater radiation than measured at control sites. niche overlap among sexes was stronger than expected by chance, while niche overlap between insects and controls showed the opposite pattern. our results suggest that is strongly restricted to its habitat and is probably not able to cross larger distances through unsuitable vegetation. hence, we assume that the populations of this flightless insect species are strongly isolated. however, the effect of the rare macropterous morph of on gene flow remains unknown. wetland restoration is crucial to reconnect the existing wetland patches in central europe and thereby reduce the negative effects of habitat fragmentation on wetland species." @@ -985,7 +987,7 @@ trends in volume migration chronology in spring staging pacific black brant,bran spatial heterogeneity in mortality and its impact on the population dynamics of eurasian woodcocks,capture-recapture; capture-recovery; hunting management; scolopax rusticola; spatially explicit; survival,POPULATION ECOLOGY,PERON G;FERRAND Y;CHOQUET R;PRADEL R;GOSSMANN F;BASTAT C;GUENEZAN M;BAUTHIAN I;JULLIARD R;GIMENEZ O,"spatial heterogeneity, especially in mortality risk, is a major factor shaping population dynamics. here we study the impacts of spatial heterogeneity in hunting pressure on the demography of eurasian woodcock scolopax rusticola, a relatively long-lived migratory game bird. we develop capture-recapture-recovery models in which both seasonality and spatial variation in hunting pressure are accounted for, and fit them to individual-based data collected across the french wintering range (> 44000 banded individuals) as well as recoveries from spring stopovers and breeding grounds in europe. our results quantify spatial variation in survival probability in the wintering areas. they highlight the role of source-sink dynamics involving juvenile settlement decisions, as well as the importance of mortality outside the winter quarters. we also discuss the impact of spatial heterogeneity for demographic parameter estimation and data collection at the range scale." population and behavioural responses of native prey to alien predation,antechinus; bush rat; chemical cues; giving-up density; invasive predators,OECOLOGIA,KOVACS EK;CROWTHER MS;WEBB JK;DICKMAN CR,"the introduction of invasive alien predators often has catastrophic effects on populations of na < ve native prey, but in situations where prey survive the initial impact a predator may act as a strong selective agent for prey that can discriminate and avoid it. using two common species of australian small mammals that have persisted in the presence of an alien predator, the european red fox vulpes vulpes, for over a century, we hypothesised that populations of both would perform better where the activity of the predator was low than where it was high and that prey individuals would avoid signs of the predator's presence. we found no difference in prey abundance in sites with high and low fox activity, but survival of one species-the bush rat rattus fuscipes-was almost twofold higher where fox activity was low. juvenile, but not adult rats, avoided fox odour on traps, as did individuals of the second prey species, the brown antechinus, antechinus stuartii. both species also showed reduced activity at foraging trays bearing fox odour in giving-up density (gud) experiments, although guds and avoidance of fox odour declined over time. young rats avoided fox odour more strongly where fox activity was high than where it was low, but neither adult r. fuscipes nor a. stuartii responded differently to different levels of fox activity. conservation managers often attempt to eliminate alien predators or to protect predator-na < ve prey in protected reserves. our results suggest that, if predator pressure can be reduced, otherwise susceptible prey may survive the initial impact of an alien predator, and experience selection to discriminate cues to its presence and avoid it over the longer term. although predator reduction is often feasible, identifying the level of reduction that will conserve prey and allow selection for avoidance remains an important challenge." estimating animal abundance in ground beef batches assayed with molecular markers,NA,PLOS ONE,HU XS;SIMILA J;PLATZ SS;MOORE SS;PLASTOW G;MEGHEN CN,"estimating animal abundance in industrial scale batches of ground meat is important for mapping meat products through the manufacturing process and for effectively tracing the finished product during a food safety recall. the processing of ground beef involves a potentially large number of animals from diverse sources in a single product batch, which produces a high heterogeneity in capture probability. in order to estimate animal abundance through dna profiling of ground beef constituents, two parameter-based statistical models were developed for incidence data. simulations were applied to evaluate the maximum likelihood estimate (mle) of a joint likelihood function from multiple surveys, showing superiority in the presence of high capture heterogeneity with small sample sizes, or comparable estimation in the presence of low capture heterogeneity with a large sample size when compared to other existing models. our model employs the full information on the pattern of the capture-recapture frequencies from multiple samples. we applied the proposed models to estimate animal abundance in six manufacturing beef batches, genotyped using 30 single nucleotide polymorphism (snp) markers, from a large scale beef grinding facility. results show that between 411 similar to 1367 animals were present in six manufacturing beef batches. these estimates are informative as a reference for improving recall processes and tracing finished meat products back to source." -modeling trap-awareness and related phenomena in capture-recapture studies,NA,PLOS ONE,PRADEL R;SANZ-AGUILAR A,"trap-awareness and related phenomena whereby successive capture events are not independent is a feature of the majority of capture-recapture studies. this phenomenon was up to now difficult to incorporate in open population models and most authors have chosen to neglect it although this may have damaging consequences. focusing on the situation where animals exhibit a trap response at the occasion immediately following one where they have been trapped but revert to their original naive state if they are missed once, we show that trap-dependence is more naturally viewed as a state transition and is amenable to the current models of capture-recapture. this approach has the potential to accommodate lasting or progressively waning trap effects." +modeling trap-awareness and related phenomena in capture-recapture studies,NA,PLOS ONE,PRADEL R;SANZ AGUILAR A,"trap-awareness and related phenomena whereby successive capture events are not independent is a feature of the majority of capture-recapture studies. this phenomenon was up to now difficult to incorporate in open population models and most authors have chosen to neglect it although this may have damaging consequences. focusing on the situation where animals exhibit a trap response at the occasion immediately following one where they have been trapped but revert to their original naive state if they are missed once, we show that trap-dependence is more naturally viewed as a state transition and is amenable to the current models of capture-recapture. this approach has the potential to accommodate lasting or progressively waning trap effects." motorways and bird traffic casualties: carcasses surveys and scavenging bias,bird mortality; carcass persistence; survey biases; scavengers activity; motorways,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,GUINARD E;JULLIARD R;BARBRAUD C,"most survey methods developed to estimate abundance of killed animals on motorways may be biased due to the unequal detectability of carcasses, their persistence time on the lanes, and scavengers activities. unbiased surveys are needed to evaluate the relationships between bird casualties (mortality), motorways characteristics, and the neighbouring avifauna. the present study conducted on four motorways in france, aimed to evaluate factors affecting persistence and encounter probabilities and variations in scavenging activity to obtain unbiased estimates of bird traffic casualties. each motorway was surveyed once per season during multiple years and we used capture-recapture methods to estimate detection and carcass persistence rates. results showed that surveys by car were as efficient as surveys by foot in detecting carcasses on the pavement, but less efficient for carcasses on verges. passeriformes represented the most numerous casualties, and the barn owl (tyto alba) was the most frequently killed species. encounter probabilities were constant and high (0.957 +/- 0.007). average daily persistence probability was 0.976 +/- 0.003. persistence probabilities were higher for large and old carcasses, during summer, and differed between seasons, but were relatively similar between years. scavenging activities, estimated using experimental carcasses disposed on the safe lanes of motorways, varied between years, seasons, and differed between diurnal and nocturnal periods. a peak in scavenging activity occurred during diurnal periods in spring. results suggest that surveys must take into account carcass characteristics and seasonal variability to obtain unbiased estimates of road killed birds on motorways, as well as variation in scavenging rates. (c) 2012 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." variation in songbird migratory behavior offers clues about adaptability to environmental change,climate; departure; mark-recapture; passerine; stopover,OECOLOGIA,CALVERT AM;MACKENZIE SA;FLEMMING JM;TAYLOR PD;WALDE SJ,"for seasonally migrating birds, aspects of migratory behavior, such as the use of temperate versus tropical wintering areas, may influence their ability to respond to environmental change. here, we infer potential flexibility in songbird migration from variation in two alternative stopover behaviors. hierarchical bayesian mark-recapture modeling was used to quantify stopover decisions over 19 years for four temperate and four tropical migratory species at a stopover site in southern canada. short-distance temperate migrants exhibited higher variability in behavior and greater responses to local weather than longer-distance tropical migrants, as measured by transience (the proportion of birds stopping < 24 h, i.e. seeking brief sanctuary or subsequently relocating) and departure (re-initiation of migration by birds that stopped over for > 24 h). in contrast to many previous works on climate-migration associations, annual variation in stopover behavior did not show strong links to broad-scale climatic fluctuations for either temperate or tropical migrants, nor was there any indication of directional changes in stopover behavior over the past two decades. in addition to suggesting that migratory songbirds-particularly tropical-wintering species-may face increasing threats with future climatic variability, our study highlights the potential importance of flexibility in en-route behavior for resilience to environmental change." from metamorphosis to maturity in complex life cycles: equal performance of different juvenile life history pathways,age-specific breeding probability; amphibian; cohort iteroparity; compensatory growth; complex life cycle; life history transition; maturity; metamorphosis; pelobates fuscus; sex-specific life histories; size; survival,ECOLOGY,SCHMIDT BR;HODL W;SCHAUB M,"performance in one stage of a complex life cycle may affect performance in the subsequent stage. animals that start a new stage at a smaller size than conspecifics may either always remain smaller or they may be able to ""catch up'' through plasticity, usually elevated growth rates. we study how size at and date of metamorphosis affected subsequent performance in the terrestrial juvenile stage and lifetime fitness of spadefoot toads (pelobates fuscus). we analyzed capture-recapture data of >3000 individuals sampled during nine years with mark-recapture models to estimate first-year juvenile survival probabilities and age-specific first-time breeding probabilities of toads, followed by model selection to assess whether these probabilities were correlated with size at and date of metamorphosis. males attained maturity after two years, whereas females reached maturity 2-4 years after metamorphosis. age at maturity was weakly correlated with metamorphic traits. in both sexes, first-year juvenile survival depended positively on date of metamorphosis and, in males, also negatively on size at metamorphosis. in males, toads that metamorphosed early at a small size had the highest probability to reach maturity. however, because very few toadlets metamorphosed early, the vast majority of male metamorphs had a very similar probability to reach maturity. a matrix projection model constructed for females showed that different juvenile life history pathways resulted in similar lifetime fitness. we found that the effects of date of and size at metamorphosis on different juvenile traits cancelled each other out such that toads that were small or large at metamorphosis had equal performance. because the costs and benefits of juvenile life history pathways may also depend on population fluctuations, ample phenotypic variation in life history traits may be maintained." @@ -995,16 +997,16 @@ testing hypotheses in evolutionary ecology with imperfect detection: capture-rec growth response of largemouth bass (micropterus salmoides) to catch-and-release angling: a 27-year mark-recapture study,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,CLINE TJ;WEIDEL BC;KITCHELL JF;HODGSON JR,"catch-and-release angling is gaining popularity worldwide and plays an increasingly important role in both fisheries management and conservation. mortality from catch-and-release angling is well documented across species, but the sublethal effects have not been evaluated in a natural setting. laboratory studies have yielded mixed results regarding catch-and-release impacts on fish growth. these studies do not adequately capture the scales of stress and variability of a natural system. we used a 27-year mark-recapture study of 1050 individually tagged largemouth bass (micropterus salmoides) to determine the effects of catch-and-release angling on the growth in a natural setting. individual bass were angled one to six times per season. recapture intervals ranged from 1 to 98 days. largemouth bass exhibited a post-release period (similar to 6 days) of weight loss. following this weight loss, we observed a subsequent period of compensatory growth facilitating recovery to normal weight. we found that catch-and-release angling had little impact on the overall seasonal growth patterns of largemouth bass and therefore should have limited adverse effects on growth-dependent ecological functions." "population dynamics and asynchrony at fine spatial scales: a case history of sockeye salmon (oncorhynchus nerka) population structure in alaska, usa",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,QUINN TP;RICH HB;GOSSE D;SCHTICKZELLE N,"pacific salmon (oncorhynchus spp.) exemplify the ways in which populations are structured by homing and the abiotic factors affecting their dynamics in discrete breeding and rearing habitats. what is the finest spatial scale of their population structure, and where do clusters of spatially proximate breeding groups lie along the continuum from isolated populations - metapopulation - patchy panmictic population? to investigate these questions, we monitored sockeye salmon, oncorhynchus nerka, spawning in a complex of habitats similar to 1 km apart, joining to form a single stream flowing into iliamna lake, alaska, usa. annual surveys revealed levels of asynchrony in productivity that were comparable with values reported for sockeye salmon spawning in separate streams flowing into lakes elsewhere in bristol bay. a mark-recapture study revealed very little movement of spawning adults among habitats. the ponds occupied at highest density varied among years, and salmon consistently arrived and spawned later in one pond than the others. these results are consistent with the hypothesis that the salmon structured as a small-scale metapopulation rather than a single panmictic population." are lemming winter nest counts a good index of population density?,brown lemming; collared lemming; dicrostonyx groenlandicus; lemmus trimucronatus; microtus oeconomus; population index; tundra vole,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,KREBS CJ;BILODEAU F;REID D;GAUTHIER G;KENNEY AJ;GILBERT S;DUCHESNE D;WILSON DJ,"lemmings construct nests of grass and moss under the snow during winter, and counting these nests in spring is 1 method of obtaining an index of winter density and habitat use. we counted winter nests after snow melt on fixed grids on 5 areas scattered across the canadian arctic and compared these nest counts to population density estimated by mark recapture on the same areas in spring and during the previous autumn. collared lemmings were a common species in most areas, some sites had an abundance of brown lemmings, and only 2 sites had tundra voles. winter nest counts were correlated with lemming densities estimated in the following spring (r(s)=0.80, p<0.001), but less well correlated with densities the previous autumn (r(s)=0.55, p<0.001). winter nest counts can be used to predict spring lemming densities with a log-log regression that explains 64% of the observed variation. winter nest counts are best treated as an approximate index and should not be used when precise, quantitative lemming density estimates are required. nest counts also can be used to provide general information about habitat-use in winter, predation rates by weasels, and the extent of winter breeding." -"population abundance, natural history, and habitat use by the arboreal marsupial dromiciops gliroides in rural chiloe island, chile",capture-recapture; communal nesting; countryside; old-growth forest; population density; selectively logged forest; temperate rain forest,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,CELIS-DIEZ JL;HETZ J;MARIN-VIAL PA;FUSTER G;NECOCHEA P;VASQUEZ RA;JAKSIC FM;ARMESTO JJ,"populations of the endemic and threatened marsupial dromiciops gliroides were studied in logged and unlogged forest patches and shrublands in a rural area of northern chiloe island (42 degrees s), chile. we expected to find differences in abundance, with higher densities in unlogged, old-growth remnant forests. individuals were livetrapped over 4 years (2005-2009) at the peak of their breeding (november) and nonbreeding (february) seasons. we estimated population densities using capture mark recapture procedures. home range, diet (through fecal content), and health status (ectoparasite loads) were assessed for captured individuals. we estimated the length of the breeding season by the levels of reproductive hormones, whereas winter torpor was documented using artificial nest boxes. population densities varied seasonally in accordance with breeding, with higher densities recorded during summer, and were similar in old-growth and in logged forests, but were considerable higher in forests than in shrublands. d. gliroides reproduced well in both unlogged and logged forests. social torpor was documented for the 1st time and was fairly frequent (64%), especially among juveniles. home ranges were 2 times larger for males than for females. we confirmed the omnivorous diet of d. gliroides, with predominant consumption of arthropods, and a higher consumption of fleshy fruits during summer. habitat and animal age had significant effects on ectoparasite prevalence, with higher incidences among juveniles in logged forests. we conclude that d. gliroides is not a rare species in remnant forests in the rural landscape of chiloe island. this result is crucial for the assessment of its conservation status and offers clues for designing better conservation strategies for this living fossil in anthropogenic landscapes." +"population abundance, natural history, and habitat use by the arboreal marsupial dromiciops gliroides in rural chiloe island, chile",capture-recapture; communal nesting; countryside; old-growth forest; population density; selectively logged forest; temperate rain forest,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,CELIS DIEZ JL;HETZ J;MARIN VIAL PA;FUSTER G;NECOCHEA P;VASQUEZ RA;JAKSIC FM;ARMESTO JJ,"populations of the endemic and threatened marsupial dromiciops gliroides were studied in logged and unlogged forest patches and shrublands in a rural area of northern chiloe island (42 degrees s), chile. we expected to find differences in abundance, with higher densities in unlogged, old-growth remnant forests. individuals were livetrapped over 4 years (2005-2009) at the peak of their breeding (november) and nonbreeding (february) seasons. we estimated population densities using capture mark recapture procedures. home range, diet (through fecal content), and health status (ectoparasite loads) were assessed for captured individuals. we estimated the length of the breeding season by the levels of reproductive hormones, whereas winter torpor was documented using artificial nest boxes. population densities varied seasonally in accordance with breeding, with higher densities recorded during summer, and were similar in old-growth and in logged forests, but were considerable higher in forests than in shrublands. d. gliroides reproduced well in both unlogged and logged forests. social torpor was documented for the 1st time and was fairly frequent (64%), especially among juveniles. home ranges were 2 times larger for males than for females. we confirmed the omnivorous diet of d. gliroides, with predominant consumption of arthropods, and a higher consumption of fleshy fruits during summer. habitat and animal age had significant effects on ectoparasite prevalence, with higher incidences among juveniles in logged forests. we conclude that d. gliroides is not a rare species in remnant forests in the rural landscape of chiloe island. this result is crucial for the assessment of its conservation status and offers clues for designing better conservation strategies for this living fossil in anthropogenic landscapes." effects of habitat disturbance on a peromyscus leucopus (rodentia: cricetidae) population in western pennsylvania,demography; density; disturbance; peromyscus leucopus; stability; suboptimal habitat; white-footed mouse,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LINZEY AV;REED AW;SLADE NA;KESNER MH,"many species of wild mammals occur in habitats that have been disturbed by fragmentation or degraded in quality. previous researchers have hypothesized that demographic characteristics of populations may shift with changes in environmental conditions, with self-regulatory ability increasing with environmental suitability. we studied responses of white-footed mice (peromyscus leucopus) to habitat disturbance. given that optimal habitat for this species is deciduous woodland, we predicted that populations in habitats disturbed by cutting woody vegetation would be lower and more variable in density than in undisturbed habitat, density and stability of populations in disturbed habitat would increase over time, survival would be higher in undisturbed than in disturbed habitat, and populations in undisturbed habitat would show a greater degree of self-regulation. this 6-year study in western pennsylvania involved 3 replicated study sites (each 3.8 ha), with woody vegetation removed on half of each site prior to beginning the study. density in disturbed treatment averaged 65% of density in undisturbed habitat. there were no differences between treatments in survival or in population growth rates over time. population trends over time were similar between treatments, populations in disturbed habitat did not become more stable with time, and density did not converge with that of undisturbed habitat. although populations in the undisturbed habitat were clearly self-regulating, those in disturbed habitats were not. despite expectations that demographic performance will align with environmental suitability, it may be difficult to ascribe a particular demography to a habitat generalist such as p. leucopus." -effects of wind farms and food scarcity on a large scavenging bird species following an epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy,bovine spongiform encephalopathy; gyps fulvus; mortality; population model; rescue effect; scavenging birds; wind farms,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,MARTINEZ-ABRAIN A;TAVECCHIA G;REGAN HM;JIMENEZ J;SURROCA M;ORO D,"1. wind farms are emerging as a major cause of mortality of large scavenging bird species, which may be catastrophic when they operate in concert with other threats. as a study model, we examine the impact of wind turbines on the population dynamics of a soaring bird species, when acting in conjunction with a sudden decrease in food availability following the european bovine spongiform encephalopathy (bse) epidemic. 2. in spain, vultures have been provided with supplementary food at traditional vulture restaurants for centuries. in 2006/2007, these feeding stations were closed as part of disease control measures. at the same time, wind farms were deployed within the vulture foraging range. we used capture-recapture data and direct observation to monitor the impacts of these changes on the vulture population. 3. the number of breeding pairs decreased by c. 24%, adult survival by 30% and fecundity by 35%. however, the population recovered as soon as the perturbations ceased, the vulture restaurants were reopened, and the most problematic wind turbines were closed. population recovery was faster than predicted by a retrospective stochastic population model. 4. our analyses indicate that fecundity and survival were influenced predominantly by wind turbines. food scarcity promoted a shift in foraging behaviour that drove vultures to fly into the path of wind turbines as they sought out new food sources in a landfill site. elasticity and sensitivity analyses of the population model showed that mortality of adult birds had a much greater effect on population declines than mortality of immature birds, whereas reduction in fecundity had negligible effects. 5. the most likely explanation for the rapid recovery of the vulture population is that the observed decline in breeding pairs was not solely because of increased mortality. the decline probably included dispersal away from the area and a greater incidence of skipped breeding during the perturbation years. subsequent immigration from large nearby populations was probably a factor in population recovery. 6. synthesis and applications. where specific wind turbines are causing substantial mortality, their closure is an effective management response. for vulture populations dependent on supplemental feeding stations, the feeding sites should be relocated away from the most problematic wind turbines, or other anthropogenic sources of mortality, to prevent negative impacts. we recommend the establishment of scattered, low-value food sources to replicate historical conditions and to avoid the problems associated with high concentrations of individuals in one place." +effects of wind farms and food scarcity on a large scavenging bird species following an epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy,bovine spongiform encephalopathy; gyps fulvus; mortality; population model; rescue effect; scavenging birds; wind farms,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,MARTINEZ ABRAIN A;TAVECCHIA G;REGAN HM;JIMENEZ J;SURROCA M;ORO D,"1. wind farms are emerging as a major cause of mortality of large scavenging bird species, which may be catastrophic when they operate in concert with other threats. as a study model, we examine the impact of wind turbines on the population dynamics of a soaring bird species, when acting in conjunction with a sudden decrease in food availability following the european bovine spongiform encephalopathy (bse) epidemic. 2. in spain, vultures have been provided with supplementary food at traditional vulture restaurants for centuries. in 2006/2007, these feeding stations were closed as part of disease control measures. at the same time, wind farms were deployed within the vulture foraging range. we used capture-recapture data and direct observation to monitor the impacts of these changes on the vulture population. 3. the number of breeding pairs decreased by c. 24%, adult survival by 30% and fecundity by 35%. however, the population recovered as soon as the perturbations ceased, the vulture restaurants were reopened, and the most problematic wind turbines were closed. population recovery was faster than predicted by a retrospective stochastic population model. 4. our analyses indicate that fecundity and survival were influenced predominantly by wind turbines. food scarcity promoted a shift in foraging behaviour that drove vultures to fly into the path of wind turbines as they sought out new food sources in a landfill site. elasticity and sensitivity analyses of the population model showed that mortality of adult birds had a much greater effect on population declines than mortality of immature birds, whereas reduction in fecundity had negligible effects. 5. the most likely explanation for the rapid recovery of the vulture population is that the observed decline in breeding pairs was not solely because of increased mortality. the decline probably included dispersal away from the area and a greater incidence of skipped breeding during the perturbation years. subsequent immigration from large nearby populations was probably a factor in population recovery. 6. synthesis and applications. where specific wind turbines are causing substantial mortality, their closure is an effective management response. for vulture populations dependent on supplemental feeding stations, the feeding sites should be relocated away from the most problematic wind turbines, or other anthropogenic sources of mortality, to prevent negative impacts. we recommend the establishment of scattered, low-value food sources to replicate historical conditions and to avoid the problems associated with high concentrations of individuals in one place." modelling mortality causes in longitudinal data in the presence of tag loss: application to raptor poisoning and electrocution,capture-recapture; electrocution; multi-event; poisoning; radiotracking; red kite,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,TAVECCHIA G;ADROVER J;NAVARRO AM;PRADEL R,"1. a first step for the effective management of vulnerable populations is to identify population threats and measure their relative impact on population fluctuations. the relative importance of proximate causes of mortality can be calculated from longitudinal data using capturemarkrecapture models. if marks are lost or cease to function, survival is underestimated. 2. we provide an analytical framework based on conditional probabilities to obtain a robust estimate of the contribution of multiple sources of mortality while accounting for tag loss and imperfect detection. 3. we applied this approach to radiotracking and wing tags-resighting data of red kites milvus milvus to estimate the impact of illegal poisoning and the mortality by electrocution on power lines in the island of mallorca (spain). 4. illegal poisoning was responsible for 53% of the total mortality and electrocution on power lines for 12%. results indicated that poisoning-related mortality was higher in immature birds, probably due to their more wide-ranging prospective behaviour. 5. assuming the two human-related mortalities are additive, the survival probability of kites would increase by 17% (from 0.76 to 0.91) if both threats were removed. 6. synthesis and applications. we present a new approach to estimate the contribution of different sources of mortality accounting for tag loss, state uncertainty and detection failures in wildlife populations. our results will allow the demographic consequences of human-related mortality in threatened populations to be refined. the approach is suitable for the study of multiplicative latent processes in a vast range of applied conservation studies such as, for example, wildlife epidemiology." detection probability in aerial surveys of feral horses,abundance; bias; equus caballus; observation error; population estimation; simultaneous double-count; visibility; wild horse,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,RANSOM JI,"observation bias pervades data collected during aerial surveys of large animals, and although some sources can be mitigated with informed planning, others must be addressed using valid sampling techniques that carefully model detection probability. nonetheless, aerial surveys are frequently employed to count large mammals without applying such methods to account for heterogeneity in visibility of animal groups on the landscape. this often leaves managers and interest groups at odds over decisions that are not adequately informed. i analyzed detection of feral horse (equus caballus) groups by dual independent observers from 24 fixed-wing and 16 helicopter flights using mixed-effect logistic regression models to investigate potential sources of observation bias. i accounted for observer skill, population location, and aircraft type in the model structure and analyzed the effects of group size, sun effect (position related to observer), vegetation type, topography, cloud cover, percent snow cover, and observer fatigue on detection of horse groups. the most important model-averaged effects for both fixed-wing and helicopter surveys included group size (fixed-wing: odds ratio?=?0.891, 95% ci?=?0.8500.935; helicopter: odds ratio?=?0.640, 95% ci?=?0.5870.698) and sun effect (fixed-wing: odds ratio?=?0.632, 95% ci?=?0.3501.141; helicopter: odds ratio?=?0.194, 95% ci?=?0.0800.470). observer fatigue was also an important effect in the best model for helicopter surveys, with detection probability declining after 3?hr of survey time (odds ratio?=?0.278, 95% ci?=?0.1440.537). biases arising from sun effect and observer fatigue can be mitigated by pre-flight survey design. other sources of bias, such as those arising from group size, topography, and vegetation can only be addressed by employing valid sampling techniques such as double sampling, markresight (batch-marked animals), markrecapture (uniquely marked and identifiable animals), sightability bias correction models, and line transect distance sampling; however, some of these techniques may still only partially correct for negative observation biases. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." study design and mark-recapture estimates of dispersal: a case study with the endangered damselfly coenagrion mercuriale,damselfly; dispersal; dragonfly; mark-release-recapture; movement; study design,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,HASSALL C;THOMPSON DJ,"accurate data on dispersal ability are vital to the understanding of how species are affected by fragmented landscapes. however, three factors may limit the ability of field studies to detect a representative sample of dispersal events: (1) the number of individuals monitored, (2) the area over which the study is conducted and (3) the time over which the study is conducted. using sub-sampling of mark-release-recapture data from a study on the endangered damselfly coenagrion mercuriale (charpentier), we show that maximum dispersal distance is strongly related to the number of recaptured individuals in the mark-release-recapture study and the length of time over which the study is conducted. median dispersal distance is only related significantly to the length of the study. spatial extent is not associated with either dispersal measure in our analysis. previously consideration has been given to the spatial scale of dispersal experiments but we demonstrated conclusively that temporal scale and the number of marked individuals also have the potential to affect the measurement of dispersal. based on quadratic relationships between the maximum dispersal distance, recapture number and length of study, we conclude that a previous study was of sufficient scale to characterise the dispersal kernel of c. mercuriale. our method of analysis could be used to ensure that the results of mark-release-recapture studies are independent of levels of spatial and temporal investment. improved confidence in dispersal estimates will enable better management decisions to be made for endangered species." human altered ecosystems: suitable habitats as well as ecological traps for dragonflies (odonata): the matter of scale,odonata; ecological traps; metapopulation dynamics; leucorrhinia pectoralis; habitat quality; secondary habitats,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,HARABIS F;DOLNY A,"habitat loss and degradation can be considered as major threats to freshwater invertebrates. these often irreversible processes lead to reduction of habitat patch quality and cause local extinctions of dragonflies, notably of habitat specialists. however, the biodiversity of specific secondary habitats is very high. here, we present findings from a 10-year study that intensively monitored odonate fauna in the upper silesian industrial coal region having many secondary habitats characterized by very frequent disturbances due to soil instability. we evaluated qualitative changes in the dragonfly assemblages on 10 patches using a modified dragonfly biotic index. data analysis was supplemented by a model examining population dynamics of the threatened dragonfly leucorrhinia pectoralis, using the capture-mark-recapture method, as an effective indicator of habitat quality. we show that dynamics of environmental conditions in secondary habitats are reflected in population dynamics of dragonfly populations and assemblages. as frequency of l. pectoralis population extinctions within the patch is considerable and independent of size and spatial isolation of single habitats, these can be regarded as ecological traps. nevertheless, the metapopulation dynamics may be a key adaptation of dragonflies to frequent freshwater habitat disturbances. we suggest that local extinctions are effectively balanced with (re-)colonization of newly emerging freshwater habitats. these findings have implications for potential conservation management of specific human-made habitats, because secondary habitats with a great diversity of succession stages arising directly as a consequence of environmental instability may be considered as partial alternatives to natural habitats in cultural landscapes." high river temperature reduces survival of sockeye salmon (oncorhynchus nerka) approaching spawning grounds and exacerbates female mortality,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,MARTINS EG;HINCH SG;PATTERSON DA;HAGUE MJ;COOKE SJ;MILLER KM;ROBICHAUD D;ENGLISH KK;FARRELL AP,"recent studies have shown that warm temperatures reduce survival of adult migrating sockeye salmon (oncorhynchus nerka), but knowledge gaps exist on where high-temperature-related mortality occurs along the migration and whether females and males are differentially impacted by river temperature. in this study, we monitored 437 radio-tagged fraser river sockeye salmon and used capture-mark-recapture modelling approaches to investigate whether river thermal conditions differentially influence (i) spatial patterns of survival along a 413-km stretch of migration and (ii) survival of the sexes. regardless of water temperature, survival decreased in the river section containing the most hydraulically difficult passages of the migration. however, when water temperature was warm (19 degrees c), survival decreased even further in the final 186 km of the migration prior to reaching the spawning grounds, particularly in females. female and male survival differed but only when they experienced warm river temperatures. under such conditions, the overall freshwater migration survival of males was 1.6 times higher (0.79 +/- 0.09 standard error, se) than that of females (0.50 +/- 0.11 se). as maturing female sockeye salmon maintain higher levels of plasma cortisol compared with males, we suspect that females could be immuno-compromised and thus less resistant to pathogens whose rates of development are accelerated by warm temperatures." a critique of density estimation from camera-trap data,abundance estimation; camera trap; capture-recapture; closed population model; density estimation,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,FOSTER RJ;HARMSEN BJ,"densities of elusive terrestrial mammals are commonly estimated from camera-trap data. typically, this is a 2-step process involving 1) fitting conventional closed population capturerecapture models to estimate abundance, and 2) using ad hoc methods to determine the effective trapping area. the methodology needs to be accurate, robust, and reliable when results are used to guide wildlife management. we critically review 47 published studies and discuss the problems associated with contemporary population estimates of elusive species from camera-trap data. in particular we discuss 1) individual identification, 2) sample size and capture probability, 3) camera location and spacing, 4) the size of the study area, and 5) ad hoc density estimation from the calculation of an effective trapping area. we also discuss the recently developed spatially explicit capturerecapture (secr) models as an alternative approach that does not require the intermediate step of estimating an effective trapping area. we recommend 1) greater transparency in study design and quality of the data, 2) greater rigor when reviewing manuscripts, and 3) that more attention is given to the survey design to ensure data are of sufficient quality for analysis. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." -a triple-isotope approach to predict the breeding origins of european bats,NA,PLOS ONE,POPA-LISSEANU AG;SORGEL K;LUCKNER A;WASSENAAR LI;IBANEZ C;KRAMER-SCHADT S;CIECHANOWSKI M;GORFOL T;NIERMANN I;BEUNEUX G;MYSLAJEK RW;JUSTE J;FONDERFLICK J;KELM DH;VOIGT CC,"despite a commitment by the european union to protect its migratory bat populations, conservation efforts are hindered by a poor understanding of bat migratory strategies and connectivity between breeding and wintering grounds. traditional methods like mark-recapture are ineffective to study broad-scale bat migratory patterns. stable hydrogen isotopes (delta d) have been proven useful in establishing spatial migratory connectivity of animal populations. before applying this tool, the method was calibrated using bat samples of known origin. here we established the potential of delta d as a robust geographical tracer of breeding origins of european bats by measuring delta d in hair of five sedentary bat species from 45 locations throughout europe. the delta d of bat hair strongly correlated with well-established spatial isotopic patterns in mean annual precipitation in europe, and therefore was highly correlated with latitude. we calculated a linear mixed-effects model, with species as random effect, linking delta d of bat hair to precipitation delta d of the areas of hair growth. this model can be used to predict breeding origins of european migrating bats. we used delta c-13 and delta n-15 to discriminate among potential origins of bats, and found that these isotopes can be used as variables to further refine origin predictions. a triple-isotope approach could thereby pinpoint populations or subpopulations that have distinct origins. our results further corroborated stable isotope analysis as a powerful method to delineate animal migrations in europe." +a triple-isotope approach to predict the breeding origins of european bats,NA,PLOS ONE,POPA LISSEANU AG;SORGEL K;LUCKNER A;WASSENAAR LI;IBANEZ C;KRAMER SCHADT S;CIECHANOWSKI M;GORFOL T;NIERMANN I;BEUNEUX G;MYSLAJEK RW;JUSTE J;FONDERFLICK J;KELM DH;VOIGT CC,"despite a commitment by the european union to protect its migratory bat populations, conservation efforts are hindered by a poor understanding of bat migratory strategies and connectivity between breeding and wintering grounds. traditional methods like mark-recapture are ineffective to study broad-scale bat migratory patterns. stable hydrogen isotopes (delta d) have been proven useful in establishing spatial migratory connectivity of animal populations. before applying this tool, the method was calibrated using bat samples of known origin. here we established the potential of delta d as a robust geographical tracer of breeding origins of european bats by measuring delta d in hair of five sedentary bat species from 45 locations throughout europe. the delta d of bat hair strongly correlated with well-established spatial isotopic patterns in mean annual precipitation in europe, and therefore was highly correlated with latitude. we calculated a linear mixed-effects model, with species as random effect, linking delta d of bat hair to precipitation delta d of the areas of hair growth. this model can be used to predict breeding origins of european migrating bats. we used delta c-13 and delta n-15 to discriminate among potential origins of bats, and found that these isotopes can be used as variables to further refine origin predictions. a triple-isotope approach could thereby pinpoint populations or subpopulations that have distinct origins. our results further corroborated stable isotope analysis as a powerful method to delineate animal migrations in europe." evidence for parr growth as a factor affecting parr-to-smolt survival,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,CONNOR WP;TIFFAN KF,"data collected on juvenile anadromous salmonids implanted with passive integrated transponder (pit) tags are used in mark-recapture analyses to understand the factors affecting survival of fish estimated between rearing in riverine habitat and dam passage. we estimated parr-to-smolt survival of pit-tagged naturally produced subyearling fall chinook salmon oncorhynchus tshawytscha to examine the previously unexplored influences of environmental and biological conditions measured prior to reservoir entry. mean (+/- se) parr-to-smolt survival of the early migrating cohorts was 45.4 +/- 6.3% (n = 13) compared with 37.4 +/- 4.7% (n = 13) for later migrating cohorts. annual mean parr-to-smolt survival differed widely across years ranging from a low of 9.6 +/- 0.5% (n = 2) in 2001 to a high of 81.7 +/- 4.6% (n = 2) in 1999. parr growth prior to reservoir entry and reservoir velocity provided the most information on variability in parr-to-smolt survival (n = 26, r-2 = 0.75, corrected akaike's information criterion [aic(c)] = -5.01). we suggest that parr growth and reservoir velocity were directly proportional to parr-to-smolt survival because fast growth and downstream movement reduces the time when fish are vulnerable to predators. the effect of reservoir velocity comports with previous published studies and supports management efforts to increase reservoir velocity. few if any published studies explicitly relate parr growth measured on individual fish to survival estimated for their cohorts in freshwater. this study provides empirical evidence that upholds the long-held belief that any anthropogenic activity that reduces growth of juvenile salmonids during freshwater rearing has the potential to reduce their survival." estimating and predicting collection probability of fish at dams using multistate modeling,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,PLUMB JM;CONNOR WP;TIFFAN KF;MOFFITT CM;PERRY R;ADAMS NS,"dams can be equipped with a bypass that routes a portion of the fish that enter the turbine intakes away from the powerhouse into flumes, where they can be counted. daily passage abundance can be estimated by dividing the number of fish counted in the bypass by the sampling rate and then dividing the resulting quotient by the collection probability (i.e., the proportion of the fish population passing the dam that is bypassed). we used multistate mark-recapture modeling to evaluate six candidate models for predicting the collection probabilities of radio-tagged subyearling fall chinook salmon (n = 3,852) as a function of 1-2-d time periods (general model), four different combinations of outflow (i.e., the total volume of water passing the dam) and turbine allocation (i.e., the proportion of outflow directed through the turbines), and a null (intercept only) model. the best-fit model was the additive combination of turbine allocation and outflow, which explained 71% of the null deviance. cross validation of the best-fit model accounted for the variation that may arise from different data sets and the ensuing parameter values on the collection probability estimates and yielded a standard error of 0.613 that can be used to construct approximate 95% prediction intervals in nonstudy years. such estimates have been unavailable and will be useful anywhere estimates of daily passage abundance at dams with bypasses are needed to manage migratory fishes." movement and capture efficiency of radio-tagged salmonids sampled by electrofishing,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,YOUNG MK;SCHMETTERLING DA,"electrofishing-based estimates of fish abundance are common. most population models assume that samples are drawn from a closed population, but population closure is sometimes difficult to achieve. consequently, we individually electrofished 103 radio-tagged trout of two species, westslope cutthroat trout oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi and brook trout salvelinus fontinalis, in five streams in western montana to quantify the influence of habitat and fish size on capture efficiency and movement related to electrofishing with unpulsed dc. first-pass capture efficiency was 46% and declined on subsequent passes. no variables were related to capture efficiency, and only the percentage of cobble or larger substrate was related to the probability that uncaptured fish would move during the first electrofishing pass. about 20% of the uncaptured fish did not move, and 95% traveled less than 18 m. we concluded that for these streams, the bias in abundance estimates from disregarding movement would be relatively minor." @@ -1054,16 +1056,16 @@ evidence for positive density-dependent emigration in butterfly metapopulations, the island syndrome and population dynamics of introduced rats,body-size; demography; density; rattus rattus; spatially explicit capture-recapture,OECOLOGIA,RUSSELL JC;RINGLER D;TROMBINI A;LE CORRE M,"the island syndrome predicts directional changes in the morphology and demography of insular vertebrates, due to changes in trophic complexity and migration rates caused by island size and isolation. however, the high rate of human-mediated species introductions to some islands also increases trophic complexity, and this will reduce the perceived insularity on any such island. we test four hypotheses on the role of increased trophic complexity on the island syndrome, using introduced black rats (rattus rattus) on two isolated coral atolls in the mozambique channel. europa island has remained relatively pristine and insular, with few species introductions, whereas juan de nova island has had many species introductions, including predators and competitors of rats, anthropogenically increasing its trophic complexity. in the most insular environments, the island syndrome is expected to generate increases in body size and densities of rodents but decreases in the rates of reproduction and population cycling. morphology and reproduction were compared using linear regression and canonical discriminant analysis, while density and population cycling were compared using spatially explicit capture-recapture analysis. results were compared to other insular black rat populations in the mozambique channel and were consistent with predictions from the island syndrome. the manifestation of an island syndrome in rodents depends upon the trophic composition of a community, and may not relate to island size alone when many species additions, such as invasions, have occurred. the differing patterns of rodent population dynamics on each island provide information for future rodent eradication operations." anticipation and tracking of pulsed resources drive population dynamics in eastern chipmunks,american beech; anticipatory reproduction; capture-mark-recapture; eastern chipmunk; fagus grandifolia; life-history trade-offs; masting; reproduction skipping; resource tracking; resource-consumer interactions; tamias striatus,ECOLOGY,BERGERON P;REALE D;HUMPHRIES MM;GARANT D,"pulsed systems are characterized by boom and bust cycles of resource production that are expected to cascade through multiple trophic levels. many of the consumers within pulsed resource systems have specific adaptations to cope with these cycles that may serve to either amplify or dampen their community-wide consequences. we monitored a seed predator, the eastern chipmunk (tamias striatus), in an american beech (fagus grandifolia) dominated forest, and used capture-mark-recapture analyses to estimate chipmunk vital rates and relate them to interannual variation in beech seed production. the summer activity and reproduction of adults anticipated autumn beech production, with high activity and intense reproduction occurring in summers prior to beech masts. chipmunks also reproduced every spring following a beech mast. however, adult survival was independent of beech production. in contrast, juvenile survival was lower in years of mast failure than in years of mast production, but their activity was consistently high and independent of beech production. population growth was strongly affected by the number of juveniles and therefore by beech seed production, which explains nearly 70% of variation in population growth. our results suggest that a combination of resource-dependent reproduction and variable activity levels associated with anticipation and response to resource pulses allows consumers to buffer potential deleterious effects of low food abundance on their survival." fitness effects of endemic malaria infections in a wild bird population: the importance of ecological structure,avian malaria; plasmodium; blue tits (cyanistes caeruleus); host-parasite interactions; life-history trade-offs; multistate mark-recapture models,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,LACHISH S;KNOWLES SCL;ALVES R;WOOD MJ;SHELDON BC,"1. parasites can have important effects on host populations influencing either fecundity or mortality, but understanding the magnitude of these effects in endemic host-parasite systems is challenging and requires an understanding of ecological processes affecting both host and parasite. 2. avian blood parasites (haemoproteus and plasmodium) have been much studied, but the effects of these parasites on hosts in areas where they are endemic remains poorly known. 3. we used a multistate modelling framework to explore the effects of chronic infection with plasmodium on survival and recapture probability in a large data set of breeding blue tits, involving 3424 individuals and 3118 infection diagnoses over nine years. 4. we reveal strong associations between chronic malaria infection and both recapture and survival, effects that are dependent on the clade of parasite, on host traits and on the local risk of infection. 5. infection with plasmodium relictum was associated with reduced recapture probability and increased survival, compared to p. circumflexum, suggesting that these parasites have differing virulence and cause different types of selection on this host. 6. our results suggest a large potential survival cost of acute infections revealed by modelling host survival as a function of the local risk of infection. 7. our analyses suggest not only that endemic avian malaria may have multiple fitness effects on their hosts and that these effects are species dependent, but also that adding ecological structure (in this case parasite species and spatial variation in disease occurrence) to analyses of host-parasite interactions is an important step in understanding the ecology and evolution of these systems." -misleading population estimates: biases and consistency of visual surveys and matrix modelling in the endangered bearded vulture,NA,PLOS ONE,MARGALIDA A;ORO D;CORTES-AVIZANDA A;HEREDIA R;DONAZAR JA,"conservation strategies for long-lived vertebrates require accurate estimates of parameters relative to the populations' size, numbers of non-breeding individuals (the ""cryptic"" fraction of the population) and the age structure. frequently, visual survey techniques are used to make these estimates but the accuracy of these approaches is questionable, mainly because of the existence of numerous potential biases. here we compare data on population trends and age structure in a bearded vulture (gypaetus barbatus) population from visual surveys performed at supplementary feeding stations with data derived from population matrix-modelling approximations. our results suggest that visual surveys overestimate the number of immature (<2 years old) birds, whereas subadults (3-5 y.o.) and adults (>6 y.o.) were underestimated in comparison with the predictions of a population model using a stable-age distribution. in addition, we found that visual surveys did not provide conclusive information on true variations in the size of the focal population. our results suggest that although long-term studies (i.e. population matrix modelling based on capture-recapture procedures) are a more time-consuming method, they provide more reliable and robust estimates of population parameters needed in designing and applying conservation strategies. the findings shown here are likely transferable to the management and conservation of other long-lived vertebrate populations that share similar life-history traits and ecological requirements." +misleading population estimates: biases and consistency of visual surveys and matrix modelling in the endangered bearded vulture,NA,PLOS ONE,MARGALIDA A;ORO D;CORTES AVIZANDA A;HEREDIA R;DONAZAR JA,"conservation strategies for long-lived vertebrates require accurate estimates of parameters relative to the populations' size, numbers of non-breeding individuals (the ""cryptic"" fraction of the population) and the age structure. frequently, visual survey techniques are used to make these estimates but the accuracy of these approaches is questionable, mainly because of the existence of numerous potential biases. here we compare data on population trends and age structure in a bearded vulture (gypaetus barbatus) population from visual surveys performed at supplementary feeding stations with data derived from population matrix-modelling approximations. our results suggest that visual surveys overestimate the number of immature (<2 years old) birds, whereas subadults (3-5 y.o.) and adults (>6 y.o.) were underestimated in comparison with the predictions of a population model using a stable-age distribution. in addition, we found that visual surveys did not provide conclusive information on true variations in the size of the focal population. our results suggest that although long-term studies (i.e. population matrix modelling based on capture-recapture procedures) are a more time-consuming method, they provide more reliable and robust estimates of population parameters needed in designing and applying conservation strategies. the findings shown here are likely transferable to the management and conservation of other long-lived vertebrate populations that share similar life-history traits and ecological requirements." intraspecific cache pilferage by larder-hoarding red squirrels (tamiasciurus hudsonicus),food cache; kleptoparasitism; larder-hoarding; midden; pilfering; red squirrels; stealing,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,DONALD JL;BOUTIN S,"although cases of pilfering food are reported commonly in the mammal literature, the factors affecting pilfering rates among individuals and between populations within the same species remain relatively unknown. we measured individual pilfering rates in 2 populations of highly territorial larder-hoarding red squirrels (tamiasciurus hudsonicus) in kluane, yukon, canada. one population received artificial food supplementation (where all individuals had ad libitum food) and had a 2-fold higher density than the control population. we knew the age, relatedness, and spatial relationship of all individuals in each population, and we had a measure of the food resources (cones) cached by each individual and their fates through the study. results from experimental removal of territory owners suggested that younger squirrels with smaller food caches were more likely to pilfer when provided the opportunity. however, using a mark-recapture study of marked spruce cones under natural conditions, we found that few individuals (14%) pilfered, and stolen cones represented only 0.3% of total cones that were larder-hoarded. pilfering occurs at a much lower rate in kluane than reported for red squirrels in other regions and is less than rates reported for scatter-hoarding species." bayesian state-space model of fin whale abundance trends from a 1991-2008 time series of line-transect surveys in the california current,balaenoptera physalus; cetacean density; distance sampling; hierarchical modelling; multi-model inference,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,MOORE JE;BARLOW J,"1. estimating temporal trends in animal abundance is central to ecology and conservation, but obtaining useful trend estimates is challenging when animal detection rates vary across surveys (e.g. because of differences in observers or conditions). methods exist for obtaining abundance estimates using capture-recapture and distance sampling protocols, but only recently have some of these been extended to allow direct estimation of abundance trends when detection rates vary. extensions to distance sampling for > 2 surveys have not yet been demonstrated. 2. we demonstrate a bayesian approach for estimating abundance and population trends, using a time series of line-transect data for endangered fin whales balaenoptera physalus off the west coast of the united states. we use a hierarchical model to partition state and observation processes. population density is modelled as a function of covariates and random process terms, while observed counts are modelled as an overdispersed poisson process with rates estimated as a function of population density and detection probability, which is modelled using distance sampling theory. we used deviance information criteria to make multi-model inference about abundance and trend estimates. 3. bayesian posterior distributions for trend parameters provide strong evidence of increasing fin whale abundance in the california current study area from 1991 to 2008, while individual abundance estimates during survey years were considerably more precise than previously reported estimates using the same data. assuming no change in underlying population dynamics, we predict continued increases in fin whale numbers over the next decade. our abundance projections account for both sampling error in parameter estimates and process variance in annual abundance about the mean trend. 4. synthesis and applications. bayesian hierarchical modelling offers numerous benefits for analysing animal abundance trends. in our case, these included its implicit handling of sampling covariance, flexibility to accommodate random effects and covariates, ability to compare trend models of different functional forms and ability to partition sampling and process error to make predictions. ultimately, by placing distance sampling within a more general hierarchical framework, we obtained more precise abundance estimates and an inference about fin whale trends that would have otherwise been difficult." "demographic response to environmental variation in breeding, stopover and non-breeding areas in a migratory passerine",carry-over effect; demography; migration; ndvi; lanius collurio,OECOLOGIA,SCHAUB M;JAKOBER H;STAUBER W,"demographic rates of migratory species passing through several areas during their annual cycle may be affected by environmental conditions at each of these areas. recent studies provide evidence that their impact is not necessarily immediate, but can be delayed. we studied survival, reproductive success and arrival date at the breeding grounds of red-backed shrikes lanius collurio, a trans-saharan migrant, in relation to weather and vegetation on the breeding grounds, the stopover sites during migration and in the wintering areas. these environmental factors are used as proxy of the shrike's food supply. we analysed detailed demographic data of some 4,600 individuals from 25 years with multistate capture-recapture and mixed models. survival probabilities of juveniles and breeders of both sexes varied in parallel across time, suggesting that all cohorts were sensitive to similar causes of mortality. reproductive performance increased with temperature and decreased with rainfall on the breeding area. moreover, it increased with vegetation cover in the sahelian stopover area used on autumn migration suggesting a carry-over effect. arrival date was negatively affected by spring temperatures in the breeding area. hence, demographic rates were affected by environmental factors on the breeding grounds, but also outside and elsewhere. this suggests that the shrike's population dynamics are driven by environmental factors operating at various scales of space and time. however, only a small amount of the temporal variation in demographic rates is explained by the environmental factors considered, suggesting that additional factors, such as those operating during migration, might be important." -evaluating the importance of demographic connectivity in a marine metapopulation,demography; elasticity; larval dispersal; life-stage-simulation analysis; metapopulation; mytilus californianus; mytilus galloprovincialis; population connectivity,ECOLOGY,CARSON HS;COOK GS;LOPEZ-DUARTE PC;LEVIN LA,"recently researchers have gone to great lengths to measure marine metapopulation connectivity via tagging, genetic, and trace-elemental fingerprinting studies. these empirical estimates of larval dispersal are key to assessing the significance of metapopulation connectivity within a demographic context, but the life-history data required to do this are rarely available. to evaluate the demographic consequences of connectivity we constructed seasonal, size-structured metapopulation matrix models for two species of mytilid mussel in san diego county, california, usa. the self-recruitment and larval exchange terms were produced from a time series of realized connectivities derived from trace-elemental fingerprinting of larval shells during spring and fall from 2003 to 2008. both species exhibited a strong seasonal pattern of southward movement of recruits in spring and northward movement in fall. growth and mortality terms were estimated using mark recapture data from representative sites for each species and subpopulation, and literature estimates of juvenile mortality. fecundity terms were estimated using county-wide settlement data from 2006-2008; these data reveal peak reproduction and recruitment in fall for mytilus californianus, and spring for m. galloprovincialis. elasticity and life-stage simulation analyses were employed to identify the season- and subpopulation-specific vital rates and connectivity terms to which the metapopulation growth rate (lambda) was most sensitive. for both species, metapopulation growth was most sensitive to proportional changes in adult fecundity, survival and growth of juvenile stages, and population connectivity, in order of importance, but relatively insensitive to adult growth or survival. the metapopulation concept was deemed appropriate for both mytilus species as exchange between the subpopulations was necessary for subpopulation persistence. however, highest metapopulation growth occurred in years when a greater proportion of recruits was retained within the predominant source subpopulation. despite differences in habitat and planktonic duration, both species exhibited similar overall metapopulation dynamics with respect to key life stages and processes. however, different peak reproductive periods in an environment of seasonal current reversals led to different regional (subpopulation) contributions to metapopulation maintenance; this result emphasizes the importance of connectivity analysis for spatial, management of coastal resources." +evaluating the importance of demographic connectivity in a marine metapopulation,demography; elasticity; larval dispersal; life-stage-simulation analysis; metapopulation; mytilus californianus; mytilus galloprovincialis; population connectivity,ECOLOGY,CARSON HS;COOK GS;LOPEZ DUARTE PC;LEVIN LA,"recently researchers have gone to great lengths to measure marine metapopulation connectivity via tagging, genetic, and trace-elemental fingerprinting studies. these empirical estimates of larval dispersal are key to assessing the significance of metapopulation connectivity within a demographic context, but the life-history data required to do this are rarely available. to evaluate the demographic consequences of connectivity we constructed seasonal, size-structured metapopulation matrix models for two species of mytilid mussel in san diego county, california, usa. the self-recruitment and larval exchange terms were produced from a time series of realized connectivities derived from trace-elemental fingerprinting of larval shells during spring and fall from 2003 to 2008. both species exhibited a strong seasonal pattern of southward movement of recruits in spring and northward movement in fall. growth and mortality terms were estimated using mark recapture data from representative sites for each species and subpopulation, and literature estimates of juvenile mortality. fecundity terms were estimated using county-wide settlement data from 2006-2008; these data reveal peak reproduction and recruitment in fall for mytilus californianus, and spring for m. galloprovincialis. elasticity and life-stage simulation analyses were employed to identify the season- and subpopulation-specific vital rates and connectivity terms to which the metapopulation growth rate (lambda) was most sensitive. for both species, metapopulation growth was most sensitive to proportional changes in adult fecundity, survival and growth of juvenile stages, and population connectivity, in order of importance, but relatively insensitive to adult growth or survival. the metapopulation concept was deemed appropriate for both mytilus species as exchange between the subpopulations was necessary for subpopulation persistence. however, highest metapopulation growth occurred in years when a greater proportion of recruits was retained within the predominant source subpopulation. despite differences in habitat and planktonic duration, both species exhibited similar overall metapopulation dynamics with respect to key life stages and processes. however, different peak reproductive periods in an environment of seasonal current reversals led to different regional (subpopulation) contributions to metapopulation maintenance; this result emphasizes the importance of connectivity analysis for spatial, management of coastal resources." "genetic connectivity among populations of an endangered snake species from southeastern australia (hoplocephalus bungaroides, elapidae)",australia; conservation genetics; parentage analyses; reptile; elapidae; microsatellite loci,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,DUBEY S;SUMNER J;PIKE DA;KEOGH JS;WEBB JK;SHINE R,"for endangered species that persist as apparently isolated populations within a previously more extensive range, the degree of genetic exchange between those populations is critical to conservation and management. a lack of gene flow can exacerbate impacts of threatening processes and delay or prevent colonization of sites after local extirpation. the broad-headed snake, hoplocephalus bungaroides, is a small venomous species restricted to a handful of disjunct reserves near sydney, australia. mark-recapture studies have indicated low vagility for this ambush predator, suggesting that gene flow also may be low. however, our analyses of 11 microsatellite loci from 163 snakes collected in morton national park, from six sites within a 10-km diameter, suggest relatively high rates of gene flow among sites. most populations exchange genes with each other, with one large population serving as a source area and smaller populations apparently acting as sinks. about half of the juvenile snakes, for which we could reliably infer parentage, were collected from populations other than those in which we collected their putative parents. as expected from the snakes' reliance on rocky outcrops during cooler months of the year, most gene flow appears to be along sandstone plateaux rather than across the densely forested valleys that separate plateaux. the unexpectedly high rates of gene flow on a landscape scale are encouraging for future conservation of this endangered taxon. for example, wildlife managers could conserve broad-headed snakes by restoring habitats near extant source populations in areas predicted to be least affected by future climate change." density estimation for small mammals from livetrapping grids: rodents in northern canada,density 4; density estimation; dicrostonyx groenlandicus; lemmus sibiricus; microtus; myodes rutilus; peromyscus maniculatus; yukon,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,KREBS CJ;BOONSTRA R;GILBERT S;REID D;KENNEY AJ;HOFER EJ,"management agencies and quantitative ecologists need robust estimates of population density. the best way of converting population estimates of livetrapped small mammals to population density is not clear. we estimated population density on livetrapping grids with 4 estimators applied to 3 species of boreal forest and 3 species of tundra rodents to test for relative differences in density estimators. we used 2 spatial estimators proposed by efford (2009) and 2 traditional boundary-strip estimators designed for grid livetrapping. we analyzed mark-recapture data from 104 trapping sessions from the boreal forest at kluane, yukon (n = 4,818 individuals), and 56 trapping sessions from tundra areas of herschel island and komakuk beach in northern yukon (n = 1,327 individuals). for boreal forest rodents on average both boundary-strip methods produced density estimates larger than efford's maximum-likelihood (ml) estimator by as much as 50% at all population densities up to 25 animals/ha. for tundra rodents both boundary-strip methods produced density estimates smaller than efford's ml at low density (<1.5/ha) and larger than efford's ml density by 36-63% at high density (25/ha). efford's inverse prediction estimator produced larger density estimates than the ml estimator by 4% for the boreal forest and 32% for the tundra rodents. relationships were high between all the estimators, such that trends in density could be inferred from all methods. determining the bias in population density estimators in small mammals will require data from populations spatially closed and completely enumerated. for our small mammals efford's ml estimator typically provided density estimates smaller than those produced by conventional boundary-strip estimators." low individual-level dietary plasticity in an island-invasive generalist forager,alien invasive rodents; capture-mark-recapture; dietary shift; invasion success; resource use,POPULATION ECOLOGY,RUFFINO L;RUSSELL JC;PISANU B;CAUT S;VIDAL E,"the ability of invasive mammals to adjust their diet in response to new or variable resources is often proposed to explain their invasion success on islands with differing environmental conditions, especially islands with strong spatiotemporal changes in the nature and abundance of their resources. in this study, we investigated how habitat heterogeneity and seasonal fluctuation in resource quality affect dietary breadth and plasticity in an island-invasive rodent, the black rat rattus rattus, on a small mediterranean island. we tested for dietary plasticity of rats at both the individual and population levels by using traditional dietary and stable isotope analyses at successively increasing time scales, coupled with a long-term study of individual rats in three habitats of close proximity. dietary and movement analyses both indicated that r. rattus is able to exploit a wide range of resources and habitats. however, dietary plasticity and habitat breadth were far narrower at the individual level. results revealed that rats exclusively used resources found in their local habitat, and very few individuals moved among adjacent habitats in pursuit of higher-quality resources, despite those resources being abundant in their immediate environment. this counterintuitive finding suggests that intraspecific interactions must restrict rat mobility. our results suggest that even on small islands, accessibility of patchy and high-quality resources to individuals from the entire population is not systematic. this result has important implications when quantifying invasive rodent impacts on patchily distributed species, especially when studies use indirect methods such as dietary analyses as a substitute for direct observations of predatory behavior." new insights on the management of wildlife diseases using multi-state recapture models: the case of classical swine fever in wild boar,NA,PLOS ONE,ROSSI S;TOIGO C;HARS J;POL F;HAMANN JL;DEPNER K;LE POTIER MF,"background: the understanding of host-parasite systems in wildlife is of increasing interest in relation to the risk of emerging diseases in livestock and humans. in this respect, many efforts have been dedicated to controlling classical swine fever (csf) in the european wild boar. but csf eradication has not always been achieved even though vaccination has been implemented at a large-scale. piglets have been assumed to be the main cause of csf persistence in the wild since they appeared to be more often infected and less often immune than older animals. however, this assumption emerged from laboratory trials or cross-sectional surveys based on the hunting bags. methodology/principal findings: in the present paper we conducted a capture-mark-recapture study in free-ranging wild boar piglets that experienced both csf infection and vaccination under natural conditions. we used multi-state capture recapture models to estimate the immunization and infection rates, and their variations according to the periods with or without vaccination. according to the model prediction, 80% of the infected piglets did not survive more than two weeks, while the other 20% quickly recovered. the probability of becoming immune did not increase significantly during the summer vaccination sessions, and the proportion of immune piglets was not higher after the autumn vaccination. conclusions/significance: given the high lethality of csf in piglets highlighted in our study, we consider unlikely that piglets could maintain the chain of csf virus transmission. our study also revealed the low efficacy of vaccination in piglets in summer and autumn, possibly due to the low palatability of baits to that age class, but also to the competition between baits and alternative food sources. based on this new information, we discuss the prospects for the improvement of csf control and the interest of the capture-recapture approach for improving the understanding of wildlife diseases." -prisoners in their habitat? generalist dispersal by habitat specialists: a case study in southern water vole (arvicola sapidus),NA,PLOS ONE,CENTENO-CUADROS A;ROMAN J;DELIBES M;GODOY JA,"habitat specialists inhabiting scarce and scattered habitat patches pose interesting questions related to dispersal such as how specialized terrestrial mammals do to colonize distant patches crossing hostile matrices. we assess dispersal patterns of the southern water vole (arvicola sapidus), a habitat specialist whose habitat patches are distributed through less than 2% of the study area (overall 600 km(2)) and whose populations form a dynamic metapopulational network. we predict that individuals will require a high ability to move through the inhospitable matrix in order to avoid genetic and demographic isolations. genotypes (n = 142) for 10 microsatellites and sequences of the whole mitochondrial control region (n = 47) from seven localities revealed a weak but significant genetic structure partially explained by geographic distance. none of the landscape models had a significant effect on genetic structure over that of the euclidean distance alone and no evidence for efficient barriers to dispersal was found. contemporary gene flow was not severely limited for a. sapidus as shown by high migration rates estimates (>10%) between non-neighbouring areas. sex-biased dispersal tests did not support differences in dispersal rates, as shown by similar average axial parent-offspring distances, in close agreement with capture-mark-recapture estimates. as predicted, our results do not support any preferences of the species for specific landscape attributes on their dispersal pathways. here, we combine field and molecular data to illustrate how a habitat specialist mammal might disperse like a habitat generalist, acquiring specific long-distance dispersal strategies as an adaptation to patchy, naturally fragmented, heterogeneous and unstable habitats." +prisoners in their habitat? generalist dispersal by habitat specialists: a case study in southern water vole (arvicola sapidus),NA,PLOS ONE,CENTENO CUADROS A;ROMAN J;DELIBES M;GODOY JA,"habitat specialists inhabiting scarce and scattered habitat patches pose interesting questions related to dispersal such as how specialized terrestrial mammals do to colonize distant patches crossing hostile matrices. we assess dispersal patterns of the southern water vole (arvicola sapidus), a habitat specialist whose habitat patches are distributed through less than 2% of the study area (overall 600 km(2)) and whose populations form a dynamic metapopulational network. we predict that individuals will require a high ability to move through the inhospitable matrix in order to avoid genetic and demographic isolations. genotypes (n = 142) for 10 microsatellites and sequences of the whole mitochondrial control region (n = 47) from seven localities revealed a weak but significant genetic structure partially explained by geographic distance. none of the landscape models had a significant effect on genetic structure over that of the euclidean distance alone and no evidence for efficient barriers to dispersal was found. contemporary gene flow was not severely limited for a. sapidus as shown by high migration rates estimates (>10%) between non-neighbouring areas. sex-biased dispersal tests did not support differences in dispersal rates, as shown by similar average axial parent-offspring distances, in close agreement with capture-mark-recapture estimates. as predicted, our results do not support any preferences of the species for specific landscape attributes on their dispersal pathways. here, we combine field and molecular data to illustrate how a habitat specialist mammal might disperse like a habitat generalist, acquiring specific long-distance dispersal strategies as an adaptation to patchy, naturally fragmented, heterogeneous and unstable habitats." including mark-recapture data into a spatial age-structured model: walleye pollock (theragra chakogramma) in the eastern bering sea,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,HULSON PJF;MILLER SE;IANELLI JN;QUINN TJ,"integrated assessment models used to evaluate fish stocks are becoming increasingly complex, with some capable of incorporating spatial considerations. such a model has been developed to estimate movement of walleye pollock (theragra chalcogramma) between the northwestern and southeastern eastern bering sea. in this study, we investigate the feasibility of estimating movement using spatially disaggregated data supplemented by tagging data. monte carlo simulation was used to test accuracy and variability of parameter estimation in model scenarios with and without tagging information. total biomass estimates for models with and without tagging data were unbiased, but uncertainty was smaller when tagging data were available. uncertainty was also reduced in regional biomass and movement parameters when including tagging data. our findings indicate that tagging information would be important to provide reliable spatially explicit fisheries management advice for eastern bering sea pollock." relationship of external fish condition to pathogen prevalence and out-migration survival in juvenile steelhead,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,HOSTETTER NJ;EVANS AF;ROBY DD;COLLIS K;HAWBECKER M;SANDFORD BP;THOMPSON DE;LOGE FJ,"understanding how the external condition of juvenile salmonids is associated with internal measures of health and subsequent out-migration survival can be valuable for population monitoring programs. this study investigated the use of a rapid, nonlethal, external examination to assess the condition of run-of-the-river juvenile steelhead oncorhynchus mykiss migrating from the snake river to the pacific ocean. we compared the external condition (e. g., body injuries, descaling, external signs of disease, fin damage, and ectoparasite infestations) with (1) the internal condition of a steelhead as measured by the presence of selected pathogens detected by histopathology and polymerase chain reaction analysis and (2) out-migration survival through the snake and columbia rivers as determined by passive integrated transponder (pit) tag technology. the results from steelhead captured and euthanized (n = 222) at lower monumental dam on the lower snake river in 2008 indicated that external condition was significantly correlated with selected measures of internal condition. the odds of testing positive for a pathogen were 39.2, 24.3, and 5.6 times greater for steelhead with severe or moderate external signs of disease or more than 20% descaling, respectively. capture-recapture models of 22,451 pit-tagged steelhead released at lower monumental dam in 2007-2009 indicated that external condition was significantly correlated with juvenile survival. the odds of out-migration survival for steelhead with moderate or severe external signs of disease, more than 20% descaling, or severe fin damage were 5.7, 4.9, 1.6, and 1.3 times lower, respectively, than those for steelhead without these external conditions. this study effectively demonstrated that specific measures of external condition were associated with both the internal condition and out-migration survival of juvenile steelhead." "survival of migrating atlantic salmon smolts through the penobscot river, maine: a prerestoration assessment",NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,HOLBROOK CM;KINNISON MT;ZYDLEWSKI J,"survival, distribution, and behavior of hatchery (n = 493) and naturally reared (n = 133) smolts of atlantic salmon salmo salar migrating through the penobscot river and estuary in maine were evaluated with acoustic telemetry in 2005 and 2006. survival and use of a secondary migration path (the stillwater branch) were estimated with a multistate mark-recapture model. higher rates of mortality per kilometer (range = 0.01-0.22) were observed near release sites and within reaches that contained three particular dams: howland, west enfield, and milford dams. estimated total survival of tagged hatchery smolts through entire individual reaches containing those dams ranged from 0.52 (se = 0.18) to 0.94 (se = 0.09), whereas survival through most of the reaches without dams exceeded 0.95. of those smolts that survived to the penobscot river-stillwater branch split at marsh island, most (>= 74%) remained in the main stem around marsh island, where they experienced lower survival than fish that used the stillwater branch. movement rates of hatchery-reared smolts were significantly lower through reaches containing dams than through reaches that lacked dams. smolts arriving at dams during the day experienced longer delays than smolts arriving at night. planned removal of two dams in this system is expected to enhance the passage of smolts through the main-stem corridor. however, the dams currently scheduled for removal (great works and veazie dams) had less influence on smolt survival than some of the dams that will remain. this case study shows that by examining prerestoration migration dynamics throughout entire river systems rather than just in the vicinity of particular dams, tracking studies can help prioritize restoration efforts or predict the costs and benefits of future hydrosystem changes." @@ -1077,7 +1079,7 @@ comparison of noninvasive genetic and camera-trapping techniques for surveying s long-term population dynamics of a managed burrowing owl colony,airport; athene cunicularia; burrowing owl; california; demography; life table response experiment; mark recapture; population dynamics; survival,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,BARCLAY JH;KORFANTA NM;KAUFFMAN MJ,"we analyzed the population dynamics of a burrowing owl (athene cunicularia) colony at mineta san jose international airport in san jose, california, usa from 1990-2007. this colony was managed by using artificial burrows to reduce the occurrence of nesting owls along runways and within major airport improvement projects during the study period. we estimated annual reproduction in natural and artificial burrows and age-specific survival rates with mark-recapture techniques, and we estimated the relative contribution of these vital rates to population dynamics using a life table response experiment. the breeding colony showed 2 distinct periods of change: high population growth from 7 nesting pairs in 1991 to 40 pairs in 2002 and population decline to 17 pairs in 2007. reproduction was highly variable: annual nesting success (pairs that raised >= 1 young) averaged 79% and ranged from 36% to 100%, whereas fecundity averaged 3.36 juveniles/pair and ranged from 1.43 juveniles/pair to 4.54 juveniles/pair. we estimated annual adult survival at 0.710 during the period of colony increase from 1996 to 2001 and 0.465 during decline from 2002 to 2007, but there was no change in annual survival of juveniles between the 2 time periods. long-term population growth rate (lambda) estimated from average vital rates was lambda(a) 1.072 with lambda(i) 1.288 during colony increase and lambda(d) = 0.921 (delta lambda = 0.368) during decline. a life table response experiment showed that change in adult survival rate during increasing and declining phases explained more than twice the variation in growth rate than other vital rates. our findings suggest that management and conservation of declining burrowing owl populations should address factors that influence adult survival. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." correlates of survival in swainson's hawks breeding in northern california,buteo swainsoni; reproduction; survival; swainson's hawk; trade-off,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,BRIGGS CW;WOODBRIDGE B;COLLOPY MW,"we used a 30-year study of breeding swainson's hawks (buteo swainsoni) in northern california to examine correlates of adult apparent survival using multistate models in program mark. specifically, we examined age-related patterns in adult apparent survival and how adult survival was correlated with average annual nest productivity, annual reproductive output, western juniper (juniperus occidentalis) density around nest sites, distance to agriculture, and amount of agriculture within a territory. annual estimates of adult survival varied from 0.85 to 0.9 (se = 0.02). there were no indications of senescence or other patterns of age-related changes in adult apparent survival. adult survival was inversely correlated with average reproductive output, with individuals producing >2 offspring having decreased survival, reflecting a possible trade-off between reproduction and survival. conversely, reproduction in any year was positively correlated with survival, providing evidence of individual quality influencing adult survival. the distance an individual had to travel to agriculture, where most individuals forage, was negatively related to survival. primary productivity within the average swainson's hawk territory was positively correlated with adult survival. our results indicate that individuals may have higher survival and fitness in areas with high proportions of irrigated agriculture that provides high prey densities, particularly alfalfa. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." "effects of predator treatments, individual traits, and environment on moose survival in alaska",additive; alces alces; canis lupus; condition; indices; limitation; predation; survival; ursus americanus; ursus arctos,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,KEECH MA;LINDBERG MS;BOERTJE RD;VALKENBURG P;TARAS BD;BOUDREAU TA;BECKMEN KB,"we studied moose (alces alces) survival, physical condition, and abundance in a 3-predator system in western interior alaska, usa, during 2001-2007. our objective was to quantify the effects of predator treatments on moose population dynamics by investigating changes in survival while evaluating the contribution of potentially confounding covariates. in may 2003 and 2004, we reduced black bear (ursus americanus) and brown bear (u. arctos) numbers by translocating bears >= 240 km from the study area. aircraft-assisted take reduced wolf (canis lupus) numbers markedly in the study area during 2004-2007. we estimated black bears were reduced by approximately 96% by june 2004 and recovered to within 27% of untreated numbers by may 2007. brown bears were reduced approximately 50% by june 2004. late-winter wolf numbers were reduced by 75% by 2005 and likely remained at these levels through 2007. in addition to predator treatments, moose hunting closures during 2004-2007 reduced harvests of male moose by 60% in the study area. predator treatments resulted in increased calf survival rates during summer (primarily from reduced black bear predation) and autumn (primarily from reduced wolf predation). predator treatments had little influence on survival of moose calves during winter; instead, calf survival was influenced by snow depth and possibly temperature. increased survival of moose calves during summer and autumn combined with relatively constant winter survival in most years led to a corresponding increase in annual survival of calves following predator treatments. nonpredation mortalities of calves increased following predator treatments; however, this increase provided little compensation to the decrease in predation mortalities resulting from treatments. thus, predator-induced calf mortality was primarily additive. summer survival of moose calves was positively related to calf mass (beta > 0.07, se = 0.073) during treated years and lower (beta = -0.82, se = 0.247) for twins than singletons during all years. following predator treatments, survival of yearling moose increased 8.7% for females and 21.4% for males during summer and 2.2% for females and 15.6% for males during autumn. annual survival of adult (>= 2 yr old) female moose also increased in treated years and was negatively (beta = -0.21, se = 0.078) related to age. moose density increased 45%, from 0.38 moose/km(2) in 2001 to 0.55 moose/km(2) in 2007, which resulted from annual increases in overall survival of moose, not increases in reproductive rates. indices of nutritional status remained constant throughout our study despite increased moose density. this information can be used by wildlife managers and policymakers to better understand the outcomes of predator treatments in alaska and similar environments. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." -"salt marsh harvest mouse demography and habitat use in the suisun marsh, california",density; diked; microhabitat; persistence; reithrodontomys raviventris halicoetes; reproduction; salt marsh harvest mouse; suisun marsh; tidal; wetlands,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SUSTAITA D;QUICKERT PF;PATTERSON L;BARTHMAN-THOMPSON L;ESTRELLA S,"we undertook a 2-year (2002-2004) mark-recapture study to investigate demographic performance and habitat use of salt marsh harvest mice (reithrodontomys raviventris halicoetes) in the suisun marsh. we examined the effects of different wetland types and microhabitats on 3 demographic variables: density, reproductive potential, and persistence. our results indicate that microhabitats dominated by mixed vegetation or pickleweed (salicornia spp.) supported similar salt marsh harvest mouse densities, reproductive potential, and persistence throughout much of the year, whereas few salt marsh harvest mice inhabited upland grass-dominated microhabitats. we found that densities were higher in diked wetlands, whereas post-winter persistence was higher in tidal wetlands, and reproductive potential did not differ statistically between wetland types. our results emphasize the importance of mixed vegetation for providing adequate salt marsh harvest mouse habitat and suggest that, despite their physiognomic and hydrological differences, both diked and tidal wetlands support salt marsh harvest mouse populations by promoting different demographic attributes. we recommend that habitat management, restoration, and enhancement efforts include areas containing mixed vegetation in addition to pickleweed in both diked and tidal wetlands. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." +"salt marsh harvest mouse demography and habitat use in the suisun marsh, california",density; diked; microhabitat; persistence; reithrodontomys raviventris halicoetes; reproduction; salt marsh harvest mouse; suisun marsh; tidal; wetlands,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SUSTAITA D;QUICKERT PF;PATTERSON L;BARTHMAN THOMPSON L;ESTRELLA S,"we undertook a 2-year (2002-2004) mark-recapture study to investigate demographic performance and habitat use of salt marsh harvest mice (reithrodontomys raviventris halicoetes) in the suisun marsh. we examined the effects of different wetland types and microhabitats on 3 demographic variables: density, reproductive potential, and persistence. our results indicate that microhabitats dominated by mixed vegetation or pickleweed (salicornia spp.) supported similar salt marsh harvest mouse densities, reproductive potential, and persistence throughout much of the year, whereas few salt marsh harvest mice inhabited upland grass-dominated microhabitats. we found that densities were higher in diked wetlands, whereas post-winter persistence was higher in tidal wetlands, and reproductive potential did not differ statistically between wetland types. our results emphasize the importance of mixed vegetation for providing adequate salt marsh harvest mouse habitat and suggest that, despite their physiognomic and hydrological differences, both diked and tidal wetlands support salt marsh harvest mouse populations by promoting different demographic attributes. we recommend that habitat management, restoration, and enhancement efforts include areas containing mixed vegetation in addition to pickleweed in both diked and tidal wetlands. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." mark-recapture using tetracycline and genetics reveal record-high bear density,abundance estimation; alexander archipelago; black bear; components of variance; mark-recapture; microsatellites; southeast alaska; tetracycline biomarker; ursus americanus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PEACOCK E;TITUS K;GARSHELIS DL;PEACOCK MM;KUC M,"we used tetracycline biomarking, augmented with genetic methods to estimate the size of an american black bear (ursus americanus) population on an island in southeast alaska. we marked 132 and 189 bears that consumed remote, tetracycline-laced baits in 2 different years, respectively, and observed 39 marks in 692 bone samples subsequently collected from hunters. we genetically analyzed hair samples from bait sites to determine the sex of marked bears, facilitating derivation of sex-specific population estimates. we obtained harvest samples from beyond the study area to correct for emigration. we estimated a density of 155 independent bears/100 km(2), which is equivalent to the highest recorded for this species. this high density appears to be maintained by abundant, accessible natural food. our population estimate (approx. 1,000 bears) could be used as a baseline and to set hunting quotas. the refined biomarking method for abundance estimation is a useful alternative where physical captures or dna-based estimates are precluded by cost or logistics. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." estimating mountain goat abundance using dna from fecal pellets,abundance; british columbia; dna; fecal pellets; mark-recapture; mountain goats; oreamnos americanus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,POOLE KG;REYNOLDS DM;MOWAT G;PAETKAU D,"non-invasive collection of tissue samples to obtain dna for microsatellite genotyping required to estimate population size has been used for many wildlife species but rarely for ungulates. we estimated mountain goat (oreamnos americanus) population size on a mountain complex in southwestern british columbia by identification of individuals using dna obtained from fecal pellet and hair samples collected during 3 sampling sessions. we identified 55 individuals from 170 samples that were successfully genotyped, and estimated a population of 77 mountain goats (se = 7.4). mean capture probability was 0.38 (se = 0.037) per session. our technique provides one of the first statistically rigorous estimates of abundance of an ungulate species using dna derived primarily from fecal pellets. our technique enables managers to obtain minimum counts or population estimates of ungulates in areas of low sightability that can be used for conservation and management. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." nonparametric spatial regression of survival probability: visualization of population sinks in eurasian woodcock,bayesian state-space modeling; bivariate radial spline; capture-mark-recapture; capturerecovery; eurasian woodcock; generalized additive models (gam); hunting management; leslie matrix; population growth rate; scolopax rusticola; smooth function; sustainability of wildlife exploitation,ECOLOGY,PERON G;FERRAND Y;GOSSMANN F;BASTAT C;GUENEZAN M;GIMENEZ O,"both evolutionary ecologists and wildlife managers make inference based on how fitness and demography vary in space. spatial variation in survival can be difficult to assess in the wild because (1) multisite study designs are not well suited to populations that are continuously distributed across a large area and (2) available statistical models accounting for detectability less than 1.0 do not easily cope with geographical coordinates. here we use penalized splines within a bayesian state-space modeling framework to estimate and visualize survival probability in two dimensions. the approach is flexible in that no parametric form for the relationship between survival and coordinates need be specified a priori. to illustrate our method, we study a game species, the eurasian woodcock scolopax rusticola, based on band recovery data (5000 individuals) collected over a >50 000-km(2) area in west-central france with contrasted habitats and hunting pressures. we find that spatial variation in survival probability matches an index of hunting pressure and creates a mosaic of population sources and sinks. such analyses could provide guidance concerning the spatial management of hunting intensity or could be used to identify pathways of spatial variation in fitness, for example, to study adaptation to changing landscape and climate." @@ -1095,7 +1097,7 @@ demography and dispersal ability of a threatened saproxylic beetle: a mark-recap effects of environmental variability and breeding experience on northern elephant seal demography,climate; el nino; el nino-southern oscillation (enso); mammal; mirounga angustirostris; phocidae; reproductive success; survival,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LEE DE,"demographic rates of animals (i.e., survival and breeding success) generally increase with experience early in life, but temporal variation in the effect of experience on demography is not well understood. the demographic difference between inexperienced versus experienced breeders can be accentuated during poor environmental conditions when food is scarce, or the difference can remain constant regardless of environmental fluctuation. i tested the hypothesis that environmental variation accentuates the difference between inexperienced and experienced breeders using 20 years of capture mark recapture data for northern elephant seals (mirounga angustirostris) from the farallon islands, california. i estimated year-specific survival probabilities, breeding propensity (the probability that an individual will breed in year x), and breeding success of primiparous (inexperienced) and multiparous (experienced) females. primiparous breeders did not suffer more than experienced breeders during years of environmental stress. the selection hypothesis (a decrease in heterogeneity in individual quality within cohorts over time, based on selection pressure) could explain the experience-related improvement in survival and breeding success. lower variances in survival of multiparous breeders suggest that primiparous adults constitute a more heterogeneous portion of the population, and the 1st breeding event might act as a selective process leading to a more homogeneous pool of multiparous breeders." "diet of an opportunistically frugivorous carnivore, martes flavigula, in subtropical forest",china; diet; food-resource exploitation; frugivory; marten; manes flavigula; subtropical forest; switching,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,ZHOU YB;NEWMAN C;BUESCHING CD;ZALEWSKI A;KANEKO Y;MACDONALD DW;XIE ZQ,"in response to foraging for foods that fluctuate in availability, generalists often exhibit the ability to switch between different food sources. many of the carnivora on an omnivorous frugivorous diet display temporal dietary switching and specialism, but the mechanisms underlying this are incompletely understood. here we studied the diet of the opportunistically frugivorous yellow-throated marten (manes flavigula) with regard to food-resource exploitation in a subtropical forest of central china. diet was determined through scat analyses combined with surveys to estimate local food abundance. peak fruit consumption and the lowest utilization of small mammals occurred when fruit abundance reached its temporal maximum in the environment in synchrony with a concomitant peak in small mammal abundance. when both fruits and small mammals were least abundant in the environment, the marten's diet shifted to the maximum utilization of small mammals with no fruit consumption. this dietary switching could not be explained by the fluctuation in the abundance of principal prey in the environment, that is, small mammals, but by the ease of procurement of fruit at peak fruiting season. the marten's diet thus does not simply reflect primary resource abundance but is a function of the relative abundance and inferred availability of alternative food types. this case study of the yellow-throated marten provides insight into foraging strategies that depend on the relative, temporal availability of food types, a phenomenon observed for other generalist omnivores (including several carnivora)." life history benefits of residency in a partially migrating pond-breeding amphibian,breeding probability; capture-recapture; life history trade-offs; migration phenology; multistate mark-recapture; notophthalmus viridescens; partial migration; red-spotted newts; skipping reproduction; survival,ECOLOGY,GRAYSON KL;BAILEY LL;WILBUR HM,"species with partial migration, where a portion of a population migrates and the other remains residential, provide the opportunity to evaluate conditions for migration and test mechanisms influencing migratory decisions. we conducted a five-year study of two populations of red-spotted newts (notophthalmus viridescens), composed of individuals that either remain as residents in the breeding pond over the winter or migrate to the terrestrial habitat. we used multistate mark-recapture methods to (1) test for differences in survival probability between migrants and residents, (2) determine if migrants breed every year or skip opportunities for reproduction, and (3) estimate the frequency of individuals switching migratory tactic. we used estimates of life history parameters from the natural populations in combination with previous experimental work to evaluate processes maintaining partial migration at the population level and to assess mechanisms influencing the decision to migrate. based on capture-recapture information on over 3000 individuals, we found that newts can switch migratory tactics over their lifetime. we conclude that migrants and residents coexist through conditional asymmetries, with residents having higher fitness and inferior individuals adopting the migrant tactic. we found that newts are more likely to switch from residency to migrating than the reverse and males were more likely to remain as residents. migration differences between the sexes are likely driven by reproduction benefits of residency for males and high energetic costs of breeding resulting in lower breeding frequencies for females. environmental conditions also influence partial migration within a population; we found support for density-dependent processes in the pond strongly influencing the probability of migrating. our work illustrates how migration can be influenced by a complex range of individual and environmental factors and enhances our understanding of the conditions necessary for the evolution and maintenance of partial migration within populations." -using molecular and observational techniques to estimate the number and raiding patterns of crop-raiding elephants,habitual behaviour; males; molecular censusing; wildlife-human conflict,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,CHIYO PI;MOSS CJ;ARCHIE EA;HOLLISTER-SMITH JA;ALBERTS SC,"p>1. conflict between humans and animals, generated by behaviours like crop raiding, can represent a major threat to the survival and conservation of protected species. crop raiding is an example where the conflict is assumed to be attributable to a small number of habitually raiding animals. no studies have systematically tested this assumption on african elephants loxodonta africana. 2. in the greater amboseli basin, in southern kenya, we determined the number of elephants that come into conflict with humans through crop raiding, their gender, and their patterns of raiding. we tracked footprints, and observed elephants after they raided farms, and genotyped dna extracted from faeces collected from raided farms. using these data, we estimated the number of raiders with asymptotic regression and count models. 3. we found that 241 elephants from several elephant populations in the amboseli basin raided farms. raiders were independent males; we detected no females raiding crops. approximately 35% of the raiders were from the amboseli elephant population, representing about 1/3 of the independent males in that population. approximately 12% of raiders from the amboseli elephant population were habitual and were responsible for 56% of elephant raiding events. 4. synthesis and applications. our results suggest that targeted elimination of habitual raiders could in theory reduce crop raiding. however, the large pool of occasional raiders, the availability of palatable crops in areas of conflict, and the link between crop-raiding and natural male foraging tactics, indicates great potential for recruitment of habitual raiders from this pool of occasional raiders. furthermore, shooting of raiders as a strategy for reducing crop raiding carries a high risk of misidentifying habitual raiders. we suggest instead an ethical management strategy that uses remote monitoring of raiders as an early warning system for crop protection, and longitudinal studies to evaluate the development of habitual raiding." +using molecular and observational techniques to estimate the number and raiding patterns of crop-raiding elephants,habitual behaviour; males; molecular censusing; wildlife-human conflict,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,CHIYO PI;MOSS CJ;ARCHIE EA;HOLLISTER SMITH JA;ALBERTS SC,"p>1. conflict between humans and animals, generated by behaviours like crop raiding, can represent a major threat to the survival and conservation of protected species. crop raiding is an example where the conflict is assumed to be attributable to a small number of habitually raiding animals. no studies have systematically tested this assumption on african elephants loxodonta africana. 2. in the greater amboseli basin, in southern kenya, we determined the number of elephants that come into conflict with humans through crop raiding, their gender, and their patterns of raiding. we tracked footprints, and observed elephants after they raided farms, and genotyped dna extracted from faeces collected from raided farms. using these data, we estimated the number of raiders with asymptotic regression and count models. 3. we found that 241 elephants from several elephant populations in the amboseli basin raided farms. raiders were independent males; we detected no females raiding crops. approximately 35% of the raiders were from the amboseli elephant population, representing about 1/3 of the independent males in that population. approximately 12% of raiders from the amboseli elephant population were habitual and were responsible for 56% of elephant raiding events. 4. synthesis and applications. our results suggest that targeted elimination of habitual raiders could in theory reduce crop raiding. however, the large pool of occasional raiders, the availability of palatable crops in areas of conflict, and the link between crop-raiding and natural male foraging tactics, indicates great potential for recruitment of habitual raiders from this pool of occasional raiders. furthermore, shooting of raiders as a strategy for reducing crop raiding carries a high risk of misidentifying habitual raiders. we suggest instead an ethical management strategy that uses remote monitoring of raiders as an early warning system for crop protection, and longitudinal studies to evaluate the development of habitual raiding." diagnosing the timing of demographic bottlenecks: sub-adult survival in red-billed choughs,apparent survival probability; capture-mark-recapture; conservation ecology; declining population; demographic variation; mortality,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,REID JM;BIGNAL EM;BIGNAL S;BOGDANOVA MI;MONAGHAN P;MCCRACKEN DI,"p>1. determining the precise timing and location of major demographic bottlenecks, such as periods of low survival, is key to identifying ecological causes of variation in population growth rate. such understanding is key to designing efficient and effective mitigation. 2. in a protected population of red-billed chough pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax on islay, scotland, variation in population growth rate largely reflects among-year variation in first-year survival. first-year survival was unprecedentedly low during 2007-2010, threatening population viability. 3. we used colour-ring resightings to estimate monthly survival probabilities (theta(m)) throughout the first year from fledging for eight chough cohorts (totalling 519 individuals) representing the full observed range of variation in first-year survival. we thereby identify the time and location of recent low survival. 4. on average across all cohorts, theta(m) varied among months, being low during the first month after ringing (may-june, accounting for c. 24% of all first-year mortality) and high during the last 4 months of the first year (january-may, accounting for c. 6% of all first-year mortality). most mortality (c. 70%) occurred after fledglings dispersed from natal territories. 5. the 2007-2009 cohorts experienced low theta(m) during july-december. this represents an additional low survival period compared to previous cohorts rather than decreased theta(m) across all months or further decreases through periods when theta(m) was low across all cohorts. 6. synthesis and applications. these data have general relevance in showing that dramatically low annual survival, which needs to spark rapid management action, can reflect different and unanticipated periods of low survival rather than exaggeration of typical variation. with specific regard to conserving islay's chough population, our data show that sub-adult survival has recently been low during july-december, probably reflecting conditions on key grassland foraging areas. managers aiming to increase population viability should increase invertebrate diversity, abundance and availability at these times and locations, thereby increasing foraging options available to choughs." responses of leopard panthera pardus to the recovery of a tiger panthera tigris population,diet shift; food habits; intra-guild competition; spatial capture-recapture; sympatric large carnivores; terai-arc landscape; ungulate population,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,HARIHAR A;PANDAV B;GOYAL SP,"p>1. several conservation initiatives are aiming to improve the status of the rapidly dwindling populations of tiger panthera tigris. however, possible cascading effects of intra-guild competition on other sympatric carnivores are rarely considered while planning such recovery programmes. 2. in this study, we examine how, following the reduction of anthropogenic pressures by relocation of pastoralists, a recovering tiger population affects leopards panthera pardus in the chilla range of rajaji national park (rnp), india. by combining data gathered over 4 years (2004-2005 to 2007-2008) on prey availability, food habits and population density of the two predators, we investigate some of the mechanisms of niche partitioning. 3. based on existing information, we predicted that there would be high dietary overlap between the two predators. over time, optimal habitats would be dominated by tigers forcing leopards to the periphery of the protected area where they would subsist on small prey and domestic livestock. consequently, leopards would occur at a lower density where sympatric with tigers. 4. our results confirmed that annual dietary overlap (0 center dot 89, 0 center dot 82, 0 center dot 78, 0 center dot 77) between the two predators was high during the study. as expected, we observed a shift in the diet of leopards towards a significantly higher intake of domestic prey (similar to 6 center dot 8% to similar to 31 center dot 8%) and small prey (similar to 9% to similar to 36%). mean leopard density declined from 9 center dot 76 animals per 100 km2 in 2004-2005 to 2 center dot 07 per 100 km2 in 2007-2008, while the mean density of tigers increased from 3 center dot 31 per 100 km2 to 5 center dot 81 per 100 km2 over the same period. 5. synthesis and applications. although based on small sample sizes, our study revealed that over the 4 years following the relocation of pastoralists out of rnp, the tiger population recovered but leopard densities declined sharply. the concurrent shift in leopard diet indicated heightened livestock depredation from the surrounding area. therefore, it is important that conservation initiatives targeting the recovery of tigers should be preceded by careful examination of interspecific interactions with sympatric carnivores. comprehensive human-carnivore conflict management measures like monitoring the extent of livestock depredation, improving livestock management and providing adequate compensation and/or insurance schemes are critical for successfully implementing such conservation efforts." long-term trends in survival of a declining population: the case of the little owl (athene noctua) in the netherlands,demography; conservation; ringing data; multistate capture-recapture; vital rates,OECOLOGIA,LE GOUAR PJ;SCHEKKERMAN H;VAN DER JEUGD HP;BOELE A;VAN HARXEN R;FUCHS P;STROEKEN P;VAN NOORDWIJK AJ,"the little owl (athene noctua) has declined significantly in many parts of europe, including the netherlands. to understand the demographic mechanisms underlying their decline, we analysed all available dutch little owl ringing data. the data set spanned 35 years, and included more than 24,000 ringed owls, allowing detailed estimation of survival rates through multi-state capture-recapture modelling taking dispersal into account. we investigated geographical and temporal variation in age-specific survival rates and linked annual survival estimates to population growth rate in corresponding years, as well as to environmental covariates. the best model for estimating survival assumed time effects on both juvenile and adult survival rates, with average annual survival estimated at 0.258 (se = 0.047) and 0.753 (se = 0.019), respectively. juvenile survival rates decreased with time whereas adult survival rates fluctuated regularly among years, low survival occurring about every 4 years. years when the population declined were associated with low juvenile survival. more than 60% of the variation in juvenile survival was explained by the increase in road traffic intensity or in average temperature in spring, but these correlations rather reflect a gradual decrease in juvenile survival coinciding with long-term global change than direct causal effects. surprisingly, vole dynamics did not explain the cyclic dynamics of adult survival rate. instead, dry and cold years led to low adult survival rates. low juvenile survival rates, that limit recruitment of first-year breeders, and the regular occurrence of years with poor adult survival, were the most important determinants of the population decline of the little owl." @@ -1105,10 +1107,10 @@ disease and the extended phenotype: parasites control host performance and survi planning for success: identifying effective and efficient survey designs for monitoring,cost analysis; monte carlo simulation; population trend; sample size; statistical power; study planning,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,REYNOLDS JH;THOMPSON WL;RUSSELL B,"selecting a survey design to detect change through time in an ecological resource requires balancing the speed with which a given level of change can be detected against the cost of monitoring. planning studies allow one to assess these tradeoffs and identify the optimal design choices for a specific scenario of change. however, such studies seldom are conducted. even worse, they seem least likely to be undertaken when they offer the most insight - when survey methods and monitoring designs are complex and not well captured by simple statistical models. this may be due to limited technical capacity within management agencies. without such planning, managers risk a potentially severe waste of monitoring resources on ineffective and inefficient monitoring, and institutions will remain ignorant of the true costs of information and the potential efficiency gains afforded by a moderate increase in technical capacity. we discuss the importance of planning studies, outline their main components, and illustrate the process through an investigation of competing designs for monitoring for declining brown bear (ursus arctos) densities in southwestern alaska. the results provide guidance on how long monitoring must be sustained before any change is likely to be detected (under a scenario of rather strong true decline), the optimal designs for detecting a change, and a tradeoff where accepting a delay of 2 years in detecting the change could reduce the monitoring cost by almost 50%. this report emphasizes the importance of planning studies for guiding monitoring decisions. published by elsevier ltd." "demography of asian elephants (elephas maximus) at uda walawe national park, sri lanka based on identified individuals",asian elephant; elephas maximus; demography; population estimation; capture-recapture,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,DE SILVA S;RANJEEWA ADG;WEERAKOON D,"we provide estimates of population size and other demographic variables for individually-identified asian elephants (elephas maximus) in uda walawe national park (uwnp), sri lanka based on systematic year-round observations. two hundred and eighty-six adult females and 241 adult males were identified, of which four adults (2% of males) had tusks. sightings-based demographic models showed seasonal immigration and emigration from the study area. the total population, including non-adults, was between 804 and 1160 individuals. density ranged from 102 to 116 adult females per 100 km(2) and remains at this level throughout the year. this large, un-fragmented population of asian elephants should be of high conservation priority. we find that estimates of survivorship and migration rates should be based on long sampling intervals when possible, but estimates of density and population size can still be made when observations are constrained to shorter intervals, if spatial data are available. we offer suggestions to guide census design for other elephant populations or cryptic species. we urge that other locations be systematically surveyed as well using photographic identification. (c) 2011 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." a comparison of tagging methodology for north pacific giant octopus enteroctopus dofleini,enteroctopus dofleini; tagging; mark-recapture; peterson disc; visible implant elastomer,FISHERIES RESEARCH,BARRY PD;TAMONE SL;TALLMON DA,"new opportunities for the export of food grade octopus have furthered interest in developing an actively managed directed fishery for north pacific giant octopus enteroctopus dofleini in alaska state waters. trawl, long-line, and pot fisheries already harvest over 230 metric tons of octopus as bycatch annually. managed under the authority of commissioner's permits, applications for directed harvest in most management regions have historically been rejected due to the lack of information on stock status. our limited knowledge of octopus movement, age structure, and demography hamper the ability to successfully manage this potential fishery. chief among these obstacles is the lack of abundance estimates on which to base harvest guidelines. while catch-per-unit-effort estimates can be made from bycatch data and used as a proxy of abundance, these estimates can often be inaccurate. mark-recapture estimates can be more accurate, but can also be expensive and require an effective means of marking individuals. we compared two different tags in order to assess their effectiveness for use on octopuses. we tagged 97 octopuses with modified peterson discs and visible implant elastomer tags in kachemak bay, alaska. three tagged octopuses were recaptured, making a statistically sound tag comparison difficult. our data suggest that visible implant elastomer tags will be a more effective means of marking octopuses. (c) 2011 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -effects of roads and crabbing pressures on diamondback terrapin populations in coastal georgia,crab trap; diamondback terrapin; malaclemys terrapin; mortality; roads; turtle,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GROSSE AM;MAERZ JC;HEPINSTALL-CYMERMAN J;DORCAS ME,"human activities, including the harvesting of natural resources and land development, place substantial pressure on wildlife. the diamondback terrapin (malaclemys terrapin) is a small, estuarine species of emydid turtle in decline and at risk due to a suite of human activities. vehicle-induced mortality from increasing coastal traffic and bycatch mortality in crab pots have been recognized as 2 of the primary conservation concerns for terrapins. we used mark-recapture estimates of terrapin density and sex ratio from repeated seining samples of 29 randomly stratified selected tidal creeks to evaluate the current relationships between road and crabbing pressures and the abundance, sex ratio, and size distribution of terrapin populations along the georgia coast. we obtained 2005 captures of 1,547 individual terrapins among 29 tidal creeks sampled. population density estimates ranged from 0 to 1,040 terrapins/km among tidal creeks with a median density of 65 terrapins/km. among all sites, terrapin density declined with increasing crabbing activity within the creek, but was not related to proximity to roads. sex ratios did not vary significantly with crabbing activity or proximity to roads; however, we found a significantly larger proportion of smaller-sized terrapins in creeks with no crabbing activity. although roads may have significant localized effects on terrapin populations, we found no measurable association between proximity to roads and current variation in terrapin density along the georgia coast. however, we did find that terrapin density and the proportion of smaller sized individuals within the population were negatively associated with crabbing activities. bycatch from commercial and recreational activities threaten many species. we add to a growing body of research showing crabbing activities are affecting diamondback terrapin populations across much of the species' range. states committed to the conservation of terrapins and coastal species should focus on reducing bycatch risk; for example by regulating soak times and locations, requiring the use of bycatch reduction devices, and removing abandoned or lost crab pots from coastal habitats. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." +effects of roads and crabbing pressures on diamondback terrapin populations in coastal georgia,crab trap; diamondback terrapin; malaclemys terrapin; mortality; roads; turtle,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GROSSE AM;MAERZ JC;HEPINSTALL CYMERMAN J;DORCAS ME,"human activities, including the harvesting of natural resources and land development, place substantial pressure on wildlife. the diamondback terrapin (malaclemys terrapin) is a small, estuarine species of emydid turtle in decline and at risk due to a suite of human activities. vehicle-induced mortality from increasing coastal traffic and bycatch mortality in crab pots have been recognized as 2 of the primary conservation concerns for terrapins. we used mark-recapture estimates of terrapin density and sex ratio from repeated seining samples of 29 randomly stratified selected tidal creeks to evaluate the current relationships between road and crabbing pressures and the abundance, sex ratio, and size distribution of terrapin populations along the georgia coast. we obtained 2005 captures of 1,547 individual terrapins among 29 tidal creeks sampled. population density estimates ranged from 0 to 1,040 terrapins/km among tidal creeks with a median density of 65 terrapins/km. among all sites, terrapin density declined with increasing crabbing activity within the creek, but was not related to proximity to roads. sex ratios did not vary significantly with crabbing activity or proximity to roads; however, we found a significantly larger proportion of smaller-sized terrapins in creeks with no crabbing activity. although roads may have significant localized effects on terrapin populations, we found no measurable association between proximity to roads and current variation in terrapin density along the georgia coast. however, we did find that terrapin density and the proportion of smaller sized individuals within the population were negatively associated with crabbing activities. bycatch from commercial and recreational activities threaten many species. we add to a growing body of research showing crabbing activities are affecting diamondback terrapin populations across much of the species' range. states committed to the conservation of terrapins and coastal species should focus on reducing bycatch risk; for example by regulating soak times and locations, requiring the use of bycatch reduction devices, and removing abandoned or lost crab pots from coastal habitats. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." a novel method to improve individual animal identification based on camera-trapping data,adjusted rand index; animal natural marks; bobcat; camera-trapping; individual identification; jasper ridge biological preserve; lynx rufus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,MENDOZA E;MARTINEAU PR;BRENNER E;DIRZO R,"we present a novel method to improve individual identification of animals based on camera-trapping data. the method combines computer tools and human visual recognition to help multiple users to reach identification agreement. application of this method to a bobcat (lynx rufus) picture database from the jasper ridge biological preserve resulted in a progressive increase in identification agreement between 2 users, as measured by the adjusted rand index (ari). an initial ari value of 0.28 increased to a final value of 0.84 (1 maximum agreement). in contrast, comparisons involving random picture groupings consistently rendered low ari values (<= 0.05). the numbers of individuals named by the 2 users decreased from initial values of 46 and 43 to final values of 25 and 29, respectively. the tool presented here will help researchers and wildlife managers to identify individual mammals and monitor populations. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." -partial migration in a robust brown trout population of a patagonian river,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,O'NEAL SL;STANFORD JA,"life history plasticity, particularly partial migration (i.e., coexistence of resident and anadromous forms), probably plays a major role in the ability of brown trout salmo trutta to dominate food webs after introduction into patagonian rivers. we documented brown trout establishment, distribution, and life history variation in relation to habitat features in the rio grande, tierra del fuego, argentina. results support the hypothesis that rio grande brown trout developed an anadromous life history form (""sea trout"") two decades after introduction in relation to localized food limitation as the population expanded throughout the basin. tributary streams with only resident fish were narrower and had significantly higher levels of specific conductance and soluble reactive phosphorus than streams that were inhabited by both resident and anadromous brown trout. invertebrate biomass was two to three times higher and juvenile brown trout density was significantly higher in resident-only sites than in streams with both life history forms. density-dependent growth was not evident and juvenile condition was higher in resident-only streams. these findings suggest that food availability influences the individual decision to migrate, although genetic and other factors are probably also involved. mark-recapture analysis showed that approximately 38,000-55,000 adult sea trout returned annually to the rio grande in 2006 and 2007, making it one of the most robust sea trout populations in the world. however, native fishes have apparently declined to near extirpation as the brown trout population has expanded." -adult survival and population growth rate in colorado big brown bats (eptesicus fuscus),big brown bats; colorado; eptesicus fuscus; matrix models; population growth; seasonality; sensitivity analysis; survival,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,O'SHEA TJ;ELLISON LE;STANLEY TR,"we studied adult survival and population growth at multiple maternity colonies of big brown bats (eptesicus fuscus) in fort collins, colorado. we investigated hypotheses about survival using information-theoretic methods and mark recapture analyses based on passive detection of adult females tagged with passive integrated transponders. we constructed a 3-stage life-history matrix model to estimate population growth rate (x) and assessed the relative importance of adult survival and other life-history parameters to population growth through elasticity and sensitivity analysis. annual adult survival at 5 maternity colonies monitored from 2001 to 2005 was estimated at 0.79 (95% confidence interval [95% ci] = 0.77-0.82). adult survival varied by year and roost, with low survival during an extreme drought year, a finding with negative implications for bat populations because of the likelihood of increasing drought in western north america due to global climate change. adult survival during winter was higher than in summer, and mean life expectancies calculated from survival estimates were lower than maximum longevity records. we modeled adult survival with recruitment parameter estimates from the same population. the study population was growing (lambda = 1.096; 95% ci = 1.057-1.135). adult survival was the most important demographic parameter for population growth. growth clearly had the highest elasticity to adult survival, followed by juvenile survival and adult fecundity (approximately equivalent in rank). elasticity was lowest for fecundity of yearlings. the relative importances of the various life-history parameters for population growth rate are similar to those of large mammals." +partial migration in a robust brown trout population of a patagonian river,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,O NEAL SL;STANFORD JA,"life history plasticity, particularly partial migration (i.e., coexistence of resident and anadromous forms), probably plays a major role in the ability of brown trout salmo trutta to dominate food webs after introduction into patagonian rivers. we documented brown trout establishment, distribution, and life history variation in relation to habitat features in the rio grande, tierra del fuego, argentina. results support the hypothesis that rio grande brown trout developed an anadromous life history form (""sea trout"") two decades after introduction in relation to localized food limitation as the population expanded throughout the basin. tributary streams with only resident fish were narrower and had significantly higher levels of specific conductance and soluble reactive phosphorus than streams that were inhabited by both resident and anadromous brown trout. invertebrate biomass was two to three times higher and juvenile brown trout density was significantly higher in resident-only sites than in streams with both life history forms. density-dependent growth was not evident and juvenile condition was higher in resident-only streams. these findings suggest that food availability influences the individual decision to migrate, although genetic and other factors are probably also involved. mark-recapture analysis showed that approximately 38,000-55,000 adult sea trout returned annually to the rio grande in 2006 and 2007, making it one of the most robust sea trout populations in the world. however, native fishes have apparently declined to near extirpation as the brown trout population has expanded." +adult survival and population growth rate in colorado big brown bats (eptesicus fuscus),big brown bats; colorado; eptesicus fuscus; matrix models; population growth; seasonality; sensitivity analysis; survival,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,O SHEA TJ;ELLISON LE;STANLEY TR,"we studied adult survival and population growth at multiple maternity colonies of big brown bats (eptesicus fuscus) in fort collins, colorado. we investigated hypotheses about survival using information-theoretic methods and mark recapture analyses based on passive detection of adult females tagged with passive integrated transponders. we constructed a 3-stage life-history matrix model to estimate population growth rate (x) and assessed the relative importance of adult survival and other life-history parameters to population growth through elasticity and sensitivity analysis. annual adult survival at 5 maternity colonies monitored from 2001 to 2005 was estimated at 0.79 (95% confidence interval [95% ci] = 0.77-0.82). adult survival varied by year and roost, with low survival during an extreme drought year, a finding with negative implications for bat populations because of the likelihood of increasing drought in western north america due to global climate change. adult survival during winter was higher than in summer, and mean life expectancies calculated from survival estimates were lower than maximum longevity records. we modeled adult survival with recruitment parameter estimates from the same population. the study population was growing (lambda = 1.096; 95% ci = 1.057-1.135). adult survival was the most important demographic parameter for population growth. growth clearly had the highest elasticity to adult survival, followed by juvenile survival and adult fecundity (approximately equivalent in rank). elasticity was lowest for fecundity of yearlings. the relative importances of the various life-history parameters for population growth rate are similar to those of large mammals." monitoring bald eagles using lists of nests: response to watts and duerr,bald eagle; dual frame sampling; list frame; nesting,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,SAUER JR;OTTO MC;KENDALL WL;ZIMMERMAN GS,"the post-delisting monitoring plan for bald eagles (haliaeetus leucocephalus) roposed use of a dual-frame sample design, in which sampling of known nest sites in combination with additional area-based sampling is used to estimate total number of nesting bald eagle pairs. watts and duerr (2010) used data from repeated observations of bald eagle nests in virginia, usa to estimate a nest turnover rate and used this rate to simulate decline in number of occupied nests in list nests over time. results of watts and duerr suggest that, given the rates of loss of nests from the list of known nest sites in virginia, the list information will be of little value to sampling unless lists are constantly updated. those authors criticize the plan for not placing sufficient emphasis on updating and maintaining lists of bald eagle nests. watts and duerr's metric of turnover rate does not distinguish detectability or temporary nonuse of nests from permanent loss of nests and likely overestimates turnover rate. we describe a multi-state capture-recapture model that allows appropriate estimation of rates of loss of nests, and we use the model to estimate rates of loss from a sample of nests from maine, usa. the post-delisting monitoring plan addresses the need to maintain and update the lists of nests, and we show that dual frame sampling is an effective approach for sampling nesting bald eagle populations. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." "accounting for transients when estimating abundance of bottlenose dolphins in choctawhatchee bay, florida",abundance; bottlenose dolphin; mark-recapture; photo-identification; residents; superpopulation; transients; tursiops truncatus,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CONN PB;GORGONE AM;JUGOVICH AR;BYRD BL;HANSEN LJ,"we investigated the potential for using mark-recapture models to estimate abundance of bottlenose dolphin populations in open systems (e. g., bays, estuaries). a major challenge in these systems is that immigration and emigration occur during sampling, thus violating one of the most basic assumptions of mark-recapture models. we assumed that dolphins using our study site were composed of both residents (those that used the study area almost exclusively during our study), and transients (those that passed through our study area but did not remain long), and examined several mark-recapture estimators for their ability to accurately and precisely estimate the abundance of residents and the superpopulation (i.e., residents + transients). using simulated data, we found that a novel approach accounting for transients resulted in estimators with less bias, smaller absolute relative error, and confidence interval coverage closer to nominal than other approaches, but this novel approach required intensive sampling and that the ""correct"" transient pattern be specified. in contrast, classical mark-recapture estimators for closed populations often overestimated the number of residents and underestimated the superpopulation. using photo-identification records, a model-averaged estimate of the superpopulation of bottlenose dolphins in and around choctawhatchee bay, florida was 232 (se = 13) animals. we estimated resident abundance at 179 (se = 8), which was lower than the number of unique animals we encountered (188). our results appear promising for developing monitoring programs for bottlenose dolphins and other taxa in open systems. our estimators should prove useful to wildlife managers who wish to base conservation decisions on estimates of the number of animals that reside primarily in their study or management area. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." density estimation in a wolverine population using spatial capture-recapture models,bayesian; capture-recapture; density; gulo gulo; motion-detection cameras; spatial models; wolverine,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,ROYLE JA;MAGOUN AJ;GARDNER B;VALKENBURG P;LOWELL RE,"classical closed-population capture-recapture models do not accommodate the spatial information inherent in encounter history data obtained from camera-trapping studies. as a result, individual heterogeneity in encounter probability is induced, and it is not possible to estimate density objectively because trap arrays do not have a well-defined sample area. we applied newly-developed, capture-recapture models that accommodate the spatial attribute inherent in capture-recapture data to a population of wolverines (gulo gulo) in southeast alaska in 2008. we used camera-trapping data collected from 37 cameras in a 2,140-km(2) area of forested and open habitats largely enclosed by ocean and glacial icefields. we detected 21 unique individuals 115 times. wolverines exhibited a strong positive trap response, with an increased tendency to revisit previously visited traps. under the trap-response model, we estimated wolverine density at 9.7 individuals/1,000 km(2) (95% bayesian ci: 5.9-15.0). our model provides a formal statistical framework for estimating density from wolverine camera-trapping studies that accounts for a behavioral response due to baited traps. further, our model-based estimator does not have strict requirements about the spatial configuration of traps or length of trapping sessions, providing considerable operational flexibility in the development of field studies. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." @@ -1123,8 +1125,8 @@ leptidea sinapis (wood white butterfly) egg-laying habitat and adult dispersal s monitoring tiger populations using intensive search in a capture-recapture framework,camera traps; mark-recapture; panthera tigris; population monitoring; source populations; spatially explicit capture-recapture,POPULATION ECOLOGY,SHARMA RK;JHALA YV,"tigers (panthera tigris) today face multiple threats to their survival in the form of habitat loss, poaching, depletion of wild prey through illegal hunting and loss of connectivity between populations. monitoring of tigers is crucial to evaluate their status and react adaptively to management problems. though camera traps are becoming increasingly popular with researchers enumerating cryptic and elusive animals, they have not been embedded in the regular management activities of tiger reserves. tiger monitoring, though an important part of the management, is usually implemented using the unreliable pugmark approach. camera trap-based studies are few, usually of short duration, and are generally conducted by individual scientists and organizations. in this study, we integrate photographic mark-recapture with the routine activity of searching and locating tigers for tourist viewing by the park management in meadows of kanha tiger reserve which form a part of the tourism zone. we validate the density estimates from ""tiger search approach"" against those obtained from camera trapping and radio-telemetry conducted in conjunction in the same area. tiger density ((d) over cap (se[(d) over cap]) per 100 km(2) for camera traps and tiger search, respectively, was estimated at 12.0 (1.95) and 12.0 (1.76) when effective trapping area was estimated using the half mean maximum distance moved (1/2 mmdm), 7.6 (1.94) and 7.5 (1.97) using the home range radius, 7.3 (1.49) and 7.5 (1.97) with the full mmdm, and 8.0 (3.0) and 6.88 (2.39) with the spatial likelihood method in program density 4.1. camera trapping, however, was five times more expensive than the tiger search method. our study suggests that ""tiger search approach"" can be used as a regular monitoring tool in the tourism zones of tiger reserves, where often most of the source populations are located." non-invasive genetic monitoring of wild central chimpanzees,NA,PLOS ONE,ARANDJELOVIC M;HEAD J;RABANAL LI;SCHUBERT G;METTKE E;BOESCH C;ROBBINS MM;VIGILANT L,"background: an assessment of population size and structure is an important first step in devising conservation and management plans for endangered species. many threatened animals are elusive, rare and live in habitats that prohibit directly counting individuals. for example, a well-founded estimate of the number of great apes currently living in the wild is lacking. developing methods to obtain accurate population estimates for these species is a priority for their conservation management. genotyping non-invasively collected faecal samples is an effective way of evaluating a species' population size without disruption, and can also reveal details concerning population structure. methodology/principal findings: we opportunistically collected wild chimpanzee faecal samples for genetic capture-recapture analyses over a four-year period in a 132 km 2 area of loango national park, gabon. of the 444 samples, 46% yielded sufficient quantities of dna for genotyping analysis and the consequent identification of 121 individuals. using genetic capture-recapture, we estimate that 283 chimpanzees (range: 208-316) inhabited the research area between february 2005 and july 2008. since chimpanzee males are patrilocal and territorial, we genotyped samples from males using variable y-chromosome microsatellite markers and could infer that seven chimpanzee groups are present in the area. genetic information, in combination with field data, also suggested the occurrence of repeated cases of intergroup violence and a probable group extinction. conclusions/significance: the poor amplification success rate resulted in a limited number of recaptures and hence only moderate precision (38%, measured as the entire width of the 95% confidence interval), but this was still similar to the best results obtained using intensive nest count surveys of apes (40% to 63%). genetic capture-recapture methods applied to apes can provide a considerable amount of novel information on chimpanzee population size and structure with minimal disturbance to the animals and represent a powerful complement to traditional field-based methods." a multistate capture-recapture modeling strategy to separate true survival from permanent emigration for a passive integrated transponder tagged population of stream fish,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,HORTON GE;LETCHER BH;KENDALL WL,"robust estimates of survival and movement are important for informing the recovery of fish populations as well as for the study of life history, behavior, and population ecology. we present a multistate capture-recapture model that allows separate and simultaneous estimation of true survival and fidelity to the study reach in the presence of imperfect recapture and detection probabilities. the key study design element that permitted this separation was the use of a multiple-antenna array to detect passive integrated transponder (pit) tagged individuals as they emigrated from the study area. the modeling approach incorporated live recapture data during discrete sampling occasions with observational data on antenna detections of tagged individuals as they exited the study area between sampling occasions. the multistate emigration model was applied to empirical data from a stream-dwelling, pit-tagged cohort of atlantic salmon salmo salar for which emigration was continuously monitored by using a pair of stationary pit tag antennas. the study design we outline presents a way to inform key management, recovery, and ecological questions. our analysis showed how estimates of the joint probability of surviving and remaining faithful to the study reach (apparent survival) that were based solely on live recapture data (e. g., from the cormack-jolly-seber model) masked the patterns that were revealed when true survival and emigration were separately estimated with the multistate emigration model. use of the multistate model also allowed us to consider size dependence in survival and emigration in a straightforward way; the estimated size-dependent functions support hypotheses regarding the mechanisms leading to survival or emigration responses of atlantic salmon and other stream-dwelling salmonids." -coexisting with fire: the case of the terrestrial tortoise testudo graeca in mediterranean shrublands,capture-recapture; movement; population dynamics; quasi-extinction probabilities; stochastic population models; survival,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,SANZ-AGUILAR A;ANADON JD;GIMENEZ A;BALLESTAR R;GRACIA E;ORO D,"fire and fire management are recognized as important factors in biodiversity conservation. measuring species-level demographic, behavioural and population responses to different fire regimes is essential for designing adequate management policies. here we assessed the impact of fire on survival rates, reproduction and movement patterns in testudo graeca, an endangered terrestrial tortoise inhabiting the mediterranean region, a system in which fire plays a relevant role in the functioning of their ecosystems. then we predicted the probabilities of quasi-extinction of t. graeca under several fire regimes and population sizes by means of stochastic population models. our results showed that fire caused direct and delayed reductions in local survival, young individuals being the most affected. there were not differences in fecundity and movement patterns of tortoises between burned and unburned areas. population models showed a strong variation in the probability of quasi-extinction of populations depending on the fire regime and the population size. under fire frequencies similar to those occurring in the wild (<1 fire every 20-30 years) most tortoise populations seemed to buffer the effects of fires. however, when this threshold value of fire frequency was surpassed, the probability of quasi-extinction of populations exploded for all populations, except for those with the largest sizes. t. graeca populations may be able to cope with natural current fire frequencies, but the effects of more recurrent fires may severely threaten the species. our results have straightforward applications for fire management purposes in those areas of the mediterranean region where this endangered species is present. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -individual differences in reproductive costs examined using multi-state methods,individual quality; mark-recapture; red deer; survival; trade-off,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,MOYES K;MORGAN B;MORRIS A;MORRIS S;CLUTTON-BROCK T;COULSON T,"p>1. trade-offs among life-history traits are common because individuals have to partition limited resources between multiple traits. reproductive costs are generally assumed to be high, resulting in reduced survival and fecundity in the following year. however, it is common to find positive rather than negative correlations between life-history traits. 2. here, we use a data set from the individual-based study of red deer on the isle of rum to examine how these costs vary between individuals and at different ages, using multi-state mark-recapture methodology. 3. females that had reproduced frequently in the past incurred lower costs of reproduction in terms of survival in the following year and were more likely to reproduce in two consecutive years. older individuals and those that had not reproduced frequently exhibited higher costs. 4. these results highlight the importance of considering heterogeneity and individual quality when examining trade-offs and demonstrate the effectiveness of using detailed long-term data sets to explore life-history strategies using multi-state mark-recapture models." +coexisting with fire: the case of the terrestrial tortoise testudo graeca in mediterranean shrublands,capture-recapture; movement; population dynamics; quasi-extinction probabilities; stochastic population models; survival,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,SANZ AGUILAR A;ANADON JD;GIMENEZ A;BALLESTAR R;GRACIA E;ORO D,"fire and fire management are recognized as important factors in biodiversity conservation. measuring species-level demographic, behavioural and population responses to different fire regimes is essential for designing adequate management policies. here we assessed the impact of fire on survival rates, reproduction and movement patterns in testudo graeca, an endangered terrestrial tortoise inhabiting the mediterranean region, a system in which fire plays a relevant role in the functioning of their ecosystems. then we predicted the probabilities of quasi-extinction of t. graeca under several fire regimes and population sizes by means of stochastic population models. our results showed that fire caused direct and delayed reductions in local survival, young individuals being the most affected. there were not differences in fecundity and movement patterns of tortoises between burned and unburned areas. population models showed a strong variation in the probability of quasi-extinction of populations depending on the fire regime and the population size. under fire frequencies similar to those occurring in the wild (<1 fire every 20-30 years) most tortoise populations seemed to buffer the effects of fires. however, when this threshold value of fire frequency was surpassed, the probability of quasi-extinction of populations exploded for all populations, except for those with the largest sizes. t. graeca populations may be able to cope with natural current fire frequencies, but the effects of more recurrent fires may severely threaten the species. our results have straightforward applications for fire management purposes in those areas of the mediterranean region where this endangered species is present. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +individual differences in reproductive costs examined using multi-state methods,individual quality; mark-recapture; red deer; survival; trade-off,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,MOYES K;MORGAN B;MORRIS A;MORRIS S;CLUTTON BROCK T;COULSON T,"p>1. trade-offs among life-history traits are common because individuals have to partition limited resources between multiple traits. reproductive costs are generally assumed to be high, resulting in reduced survival and fecundity in the following year. however, it is common to find positive rather than negative correlations between life-history traits. 2. here, we use a data set from the individual-based study of red deer on the isle of rum to examine how these costs vary between individuals and at different ages, using multi-state mark-recapture methodology. 3. females that had reproduced frequently in the past incurred lower costs of reproduction in terms of survival in the following year and were more likely to reproduce in two consecutive years. older individuals and those that had not reproduced frequently exhibited higher costs. 4. these results highlight the importance of considering heterogeneity and individual quality when examining trade-offs and demonstrate the effectiveness of using detailed long-term data sets to explore life-history strategies using multi-state mark-recapture models." influence of lung parasites on the growth rates of free-ranging and captive adult cane toads,anuran; bufo marinus; invasive species; rhabdias pseudosphaerocephala; rhinella marina,OECOLOGIA,KELEHEAR C;BROWN GP;SHINE R,"many parasites affect the viability of their hosts, but detailed studies combining empirical data from both the field and the laboratory are limited. consequently, the nature and magnitude of such effects are poorly known for many important host-parasite systems, including macroparasites of amphibians. we examined the effects of lungworm (rhabdias pseudosphaerocephala) infections in cane toads (bufo marinus) within their invasive australian range. the host-specificity of this parasite suggests that it might serve as a biological control agent for toads in australia, if infection proves to reduce toad viability. mark-recapture studies in the field (near darwin, northern territory) revealed lowered growth rates in infected adult toads when compared to uninfected toads, and a laboratory experiment confirmed causality: experimental infection with r. pseudosphaerocephala reduce toad growth rates. in combination with previous work on the current host-parasite system, it is now evident that nematode lungworms reduce the viability of both newly metamorphosed and adult cane toads, and do so in the field as well as in the laboratory. rhabdias pseudosphaerocephala may be a valuable component of a biological control strategy for cane toads in australia." improving density estimates for elusive carnivores: accounting for sex-specific detection and movements using spatial capture-recapture models for jaguars in central brazil,bayesian analysis; camera trapping; cerrado; panthera onca; sex-specific movements,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,SOLLMANN R;FURTADO MM;GARDNER B;HOFER H;JACOMO ATA;TORRES NM;SILVEIRA L,"owing to habitat conversion and conflict with humans, many carnivores are of conservation concern. because of their elusive nature, camera trapping is a standard tool for studying carnivores. in many vertebrates, sex-specific differences in movements - and therefore detection by cameras - are likely. we used camera trapping data and spatially explicit sex-specific capture-recapture models to estimate jaguar density in emas national park in the central brazilian cerrado grassland, an ecological hotspot of international importance. our spatially explicit model considered differences in movements and trap encounter rate between genders and the location of camera traps (on/off road). we compared results with estimates from a sex-specific non-spatial capture-recapture model. the spatial model estimated a density of 0.29 jaguars 100 km(-2) and showed that males moved larger distances and had higher trap encounter rates than females. encounter rates with off-road traps were one tenth of those for on-road traps. in the non-spatial model, males had a higher capture probability than females; density was estimated at 0.62 individuals 100 km(-2). the non-spatial model likely overestimated density because it did not adequately account for animal movements. the spatial model probably underestimated density because it assumed a uniform distribution of jaguars within and outside the reserve. overall, the spatial model is preferable because it explicitly considers animal movements and allows incorporating site-specific and individual covariates. with both methods, jaguar density was lower than reported from most other study sites. for rare species such as grassland jaguars, spatially explicit capture-recapture models present an important advance for informed conservation planning. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." frailty in state-space models: application to actuarial senescence in the dipper,actuarial senescence; bayesian; cinclus cinclus; dipper; frailty; individual heterogeneity; state-space models; survival,ECOLOGY,MARZOLIN G;CHARMANTIER A;GIMENEZ O,"senescence, a decrease in life history traits with age, is a within-individual process. the lack of suitable methods to deal with individual heterogeneity has long impeded progress in exploring senescence in wild populations. analyses of survival senescence are additionally complicated by the often neglected issue of imperfect detectability. to deal with both these issues, we developed state-space models to analyze capture-mark-recapture data while accounting for individual heterogeneity by incorporating random effects. we illustrated our approach by applying it to 29 years of data on breeding females in a dipper (cinclus cinclus) population. we highlighted patterns of age-related variation in annual survival by statistical comparisons of piecewise linear, quadratic, gompertz, and weibull survival models. the gompertz model was ranked first in our set. it provided strong evidence for actuarial senescence with an onset of senescence estimated at about 2.3 years. the probability for this model to involve a frailty was 0.15, and the probability to involve an individual latent effect in detection was about 0.4. the estimated mean age at first reproduction was 1.2 years. the general case model described here in detail should encourage the reanalysis of actuarial senescence in cases where imperfect detection or individual heterogeneity is suspected." @@ -1132,7 +1134,7 @@ estimating detection and density of the andean cat in the high andes,argentina; nautilus at risk - estimating population size and demography of nautilus pompilius,NA,PLOS ONE,DUNSTAN A;BRADSHAW CJA;MARSHALL J,"the low fecundity, late maturity, long gestation and long life span of nautilus suggest that this species is vulnerable to over-exploitation. demand from the ornamental shell trade has contributed to their rapid decline in localized populations. more data from wild populations are needed to design management plans which ensure nautilus persistence. we used a variety of techniques including capture-mark-recapture, baited remote underwater video systems, ultrasonic telemetry and remotely operated vehicles to estimate population size, growth rates, distribution and demographic characteristics of an unexploited nautilus pompilius population at osprey reef (coral sea, australia). we estimated a small and dispersed population of between 844 and 4467 individuals (14.6-77.4 km(-2)) dominated by males (83: 17 male: female) and comprised of few juveniles (<10%). these results provide the first nautilid population and density estimates which are essential elements for long-term management of populations via sustainable catch models. results from baited remote underwater video systems provide confidence for their more widespread use to assess efficiently the size and density of exploited and unexploited nautilus populations worldwide." spread of plague among black-tailed prairie dogs is associated with colony spatial characteristics,cynomys ludovicianus; disease; epizootic; mark-recapture; multi-state; program mark; yersinia pestis,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,JOHNSON TL;CULLY JF;COLLINGE SK;RAY C;FREY CM;SANDERCOCK BK,"sylvatic plague (yersinia pestis) is an exotic pathogen that is highly virulent in black-tailed prairie dogs (cynomys ludovicianus) and causes widespread colony losses and individual mortality rates >95%. we investigated colony spatial characteristics that may influence inter-colony transmission of plague at 3 prairie dog colony complexes in the great plains. the 4 spatial characteristics we considered include: colony size, euclidean distance to nearest neighboring colony, colony proximity index, and distance to nearest drainage (dispersal) corridor. we used multi-state mark-recapture models to determine the relationship between these colony characteristics and probability of plague transmission among prairie dog colonies. annual mapping of colonies and mark-recapture analyses of disease dynamics in natural colonies led to 4 main results: 1) plague outbreaks exhibited high spatial and temporal variation, 2) the site of initiation of epizootic plague may have substantially influenced the subsequent inter-colony spread of plague, 3) the long-term effect of plague on individual colonies differed among sites because of how individuals and colonies were distributed, and 4) colony spatial characteristics were related to the probability of infection at all sites although the relative importance and direction of relationships varied among sites. our findings suggest that conventional prairie dog conservation management strategies, including promoting large, highly connected colonies, may need to be altered in the presence of plague. (c) 2011 the wildlife society." "a mark-recapture study of hatchery-reared juvenile european lobsters, homarus gammarus, released at the rocky island of helgoland (german bight, north sea) from 2000 to 2009",growth; homarus gammarus; hatchery-reared lobster; mark-recapture; north sea,FISHERIES RESEARCH,SCHMALENBACH I;MEHRTENS F;JANKE M;BUCHHOLZ F,"from 2000 to 2005 about 5400 one-year-old hatchery-reared lobsters (homarus gammarus) were tagged and released at the rocky island of helgoland, north sea. to date, 1-8% of the different release cohorts were recaptured in the field and 8-19% of these lobsters were recaptured from the semi-open area of the outer harbour. the recaptured lobsters indicated good development and growth conditions. the smallest berried females caught were 83 mm carapace length and 4 years old. the proportion of cultured lobsters to all measured lobsters captured around the island was 3-8% in the years 2007-2009. the population size of two cohorts was assessed using the lincoln-peterson method and the estimated survival rate averaged 30% and 40%. minimum landing size of cultured lobsters was reached after 4-7 years. cultured lobsters showed strong fidelity to their release sites, and thus remained around the island of helgoland. a basis has been laid to enhance this endangered lobster population by means of a large scale restocking programme. (c) 2010 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -lessons from a failed translocation program with a seabird species: determinants of success and conservation value,conservation; chick translocation; dispersal; ecological trap; metapopulation; release site; survival,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,ORO D;MARTINEZ-ABRAIN A;VILLUENDAS E;SARZO B;MINGUEZ E;CARDA J;GENOVART M,"conservation diagnosis of ex situ techniques (e.g. releasing chicks by hacking) cannot be evaluated without quantitative assessment of the fate of individuals, mainly their survival and recruitment. here we use a long-term monitoring at a large spatial scale of a hacking programme (i.e. chick translocations) for audouin's gulls in an uninhabited site so as to establish a new breeding patch and reinforce the meta-population. the success of the programme relied on the assumption that birds tend to recruit to the site where they fledge (i.e. they were philopatric). multi-state capture-recapture models applied to a large dataset (more than 43,500 resights at 30 colonies during 1999-2010) were used to evaluate the survival of released chicks and the probability of being philopatric. adult survival was high, but juvenile survival was lower than that of wild gulls, suggesting that there was a cost associated with hacking only during their first year of life. as expected, most released birds returned to the hacking site, but very few (including immigrants from abroad) attempted to breed here. dispersal was inversely correlated with distance from the hacking site and positively associated with the population size of the patch (i.e. conspecific attraction). even though most hacking procedures met the ecological conditions to succeed, results clearly showed that the program failed to establish a new breeding site. the ability of prospecting and the attraction made by conspecifics at established sites may be a constraint for the success of hacking programs, particularly for social and nomadic species. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +lessons from a failed translocation program with a seabird species: determinants of success and conservation value,conservation; chick translocation; dispersal; ecological trap; metapopulation; release site; survival,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,ORO D;MARTINEZ ABRAIN A;VILLUENDAS E;SARZO B;MINGUEZ E;CARDA J;GENOVART M,"conservation diagnosis of ex situ techniques (e.g. releasing chicks by hacking) cannot be evaluated without quantitative assessment of the fate of individuals, mainly their survival and recruitment. here we use a long-term monitoring at a large spatial scale of a hacking programme (i.e. chick translocations) for audouin's gulls in an uninhabited site so as to establish a new breeding patch and reinforce the meta-population. the success of the programme relied on the assumption that birds tend to recruit to the site where they fledge (i.e. they were philopatric). multi-state capture-recapture models applied to a large dataset (more than 43,500 resights at 30 colonies during 1999-2010) were used to evaluate the survival of released chicks and the probability of being philopatric. adult survival was high, but juvenile survival was lower than that of wild gulls, suggesting that there was a cost associated with hacking only during their first year of life. as expected, most released birds returned to the hacking site, but very few (including immigrants from abroad) attempted to breed here. dispersal was inversely correlated with distance from the hacking site and positively associated with the population size of the patch (i.e. conspecific attraction). even though most hacking procedures met the ecological conditions to succeed, results clearly showed that the program failed to establish a new breeding site. the ability of prospecting and the attraction made by conspecifics at established sites may be a constraint for the success of hacking programs, particularly for social and nomadic species. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." can the abundance of tigers be assessed from their signs?,camera trap; double sampling; indices of abundance; mark-recapture; panthera tigris; power analysis; regression models,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,JHALA Y;QURESHI Q;GOPAL R,"p>1. indices of abundance offer cost effective and rapid methods for estimating abundance of endangered species across large landscapes, yet their wide usage is controversial due to their potential of being biased. here, we assess the utility of indices for the daunting task of estimating the abundance of the endangered tiger at landscape scales. 2. we use double sampling to estimate two indices of tiger abundance (encounters of pugmarks and scats per km searched) and calibrate those indices against contemporaneous estimates of tiger densities obtained using camera-trap mark-recapture (ctmr) at 21 sites (5185 km2) in central and north india. we use simple and multiple weighted regressions to evaluate relationships between tiger density and indices. a model for estimating tiger density from indices was validated by jackknife analysis and precision was assessed by correlating predicted tiger density with ctmr density. we conduct power analysis to estimate the ability of ctmr and of indices to detect changes in tiger density. 3. tiger densities ranged between 0 center dot 25 and 19 tigers 100 km-2 were estimated with an average coefficient of variation of 13 center dot 2(se 2 center dot 5)%. tiger pugmark encounter rates explained 84% of the observed variability in tiger densities. after removal of an outlier (corbett), square root transformed scat encounter rates explained 82% of the variation in tiger densities. 4. a model including pugmark and scat encounters explained 95% of the variation in tiger densities with good predictive ability (press r2 = 0 center dot 99). overall, ctmr could detect tiger density changes of > 12% with 80% power at alpha = 0 center dot 3, while the index based model had 50% to 85% power to detect > 30% declines. the power of indices to detect declines increased at high tiger densities. 5. synthesis and applications. indices of tiger abundance obtained from across varied habitats and a range of tiger densities could reliably estimate tiger abundance. financial and temporal costs of estimating indices were 7% and 34% respectively, of those for ctmr. the models and methods presented herein have application in evaluation of the abundance of cryptic carnivores at landscape scales and form part of the protocol used by the indian government for evaluating the status of tigers." inflammation in digits of unmarked and toe-tipped wild hylids,NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,PHILLOTT AD;MCDONALD KR;SKERRATT LF,"context. the use of toe-tipping (removal of the toe pad) in mark-recapture studies of anurans is controversial because of the unknown risk of infection and potential impact on animal survival. aims. we compared the inflammation rates of digits in unmarked and toe-tipped wild hylid frogs (litoria genimaculata, l. nannotis, l. rheocola and nyctimystes dayi) to determine if marked amphibians present with a greater proportion of affected digits than unmarked animals. methods. we examined marked and unmarked frogs captured on streams in northern queensland over a 12-month period for phalangeal inflammation. key results. of 777 unmarked frogs, 0.4% presented with digits showing inflammation because of natural causes. after toe-tipping, 59.1% of the frogs were recaptured within a mean of 97 days +/- standard deviation of 102 days, with macroscopic inflammation observed in 1.3% of marked animals. the proportion of marked frogs with inflamed, toe-tipped digits did not differ significantly from that of inflamed digits in unmarked frogs (fisher exact test p = 0.085) but the odds ratio (3.417, 0.851-13.730) indicated a greater likelihood of inflamed digits occurring in toe-tipped than unmarked frogs. conclusions. although the risk of inflammation increased 3-fold in marked hylids, the low proportion of frogs affected (1.3%) indicated the potential pathological risk of toe-tipping did not outweigh the benefits of using the marking method. implications. this study suggests that toe-tipping may be an appropriate and relatively safe marking method in stream-dwelling hylid populations." the influence of neighbourhood socio-demographic factors on densities of free-roaming cat populations in an urban ecosystem in israel,abundance; anthropogenic factors; capture-recapture; mark; popan; socio-economic status,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,FINKLER H;HATNA E;TERKEL J,"context. free-roaming cat populations are abundant in many urban ecosystems worldwide. their management is necessary for reasons of public health, risk of wildlife predation and cat welfare related to their high densities. trap-neuter-return (tnr) programs are now the main cat population control strategy in urban areas. however, the efficacy of such strategies is difficult to evaluate without more precise estimates of cat numbers and a better knowledge of anthropogenic influences on cat densities. aims. we aimed to estimate free-roaming cat population numbers and density in residential neighbourhoods in tel aviv, and to investigate population densities in relation to several socio-demographic factors. methods. we compared free-roaming cat population densities in terms of neighbourhood socio-economic status (ses), housing type, human density and percentage of residential and commercial areas. five consecutive cat density surveys were carried out in eight residential neighbourhoods in israel - four in northern tel aviv, characterised by high ses, and four in southern tel aviv, characterised by low ses. the photographic capture-recapture technique was used and abundance estimates were evaluated using the mark program. regression analyses examined the effect of socio-demographic factors on cat densities. key results. neighbourhood socio-economic status significantly influenced kitten density and proportion of neutered cats in the total population: southern neighbourhoods had higher kitten densities and lower neutered cat proportions compared with northern neighbourhoods. higher adult cat densities featured in mixed profile neighbourhoods of residential and commercial areas compared with solely residential neighbourhoods. using the linear equation from the regression analysis the entire free-roaming cat population in tel aviv was extrapolated to 39 000 cats. conclusions. the results suggest that adult cat and kitten densities depend in part on socio-demographic factors, specifically on neighbourhood socio-economic status and the proportion of residential area. implications. our findings in tel aviv may be used to improve cat management efforts, by focusing on neighbourhoods hosting higher cat densities; as well as to improve cat welfare by focusing on neighbourhoods with lower neutering rates and higher kitten densities. finally, the current study may serve as a basis for studies in other cities with similar cat overpopulation problems." @@ -1155,24 +1157,24 @@ heterogeneous capture rates in low density populations and consequences for capt "augmenting mark-recapture with beach counts to estimate the abundance of little penguins on penguin island, western australia",closed mark-recapture models; count methods; double sampling; eudyptula minor; penguin island,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,CANNELL B;POLLOCK K;BRADLEY S;WOOLLER R;SHERWIN W;SINCLAIR J,"context. penguin island supports the largest colony of little penguins in western australia. it is subjected to a suite of anthropogenic threats because of its proximity to an increasing urban population. for effective management of the colony, it is necessary to not only have knowledge of the size of the colony, but also the population trend of the colony. aims. to demonstrate a new cost-effective method of estimating the island-wide population of penguins on penguin island. methods. we estimated the island-wide population by combining mark-recapture sampling over 2 years on part of the island and beach counts of penguins arriving at night around the entire island. we estimated the abundance using closed population models, allowing for sex and time effects in capture probabilities. we had four capture occasions in 2008 only, and so considered heterogeneity of capture probabilities (m-h), using the chao heterogeneity moment estimator. the proportion of all penguins counted that arrived at the four mark-recapture sites was then used to inflate the population estimate for the whole island. key results. in all, 62% of all penguins counted used the four mark-recapture sites. in 2007, there were an estimated 2369 +/- 198 penguins, and 1543 +/- 82 in 2008. when capture heterogeneity was allowed for in 2008, this estimate increased to 2069 +/- 172. conclusions. fewer eggs were laid and all measures of breeding performance were lower in 2008 than in 2007. hence, the lower population estimate is most likely to represent fewer birds attempting to breed. however, further work on population estimates is required to determine whether capture heterogeneity occurs in both good and poor breeding years. capture rates were affected by the presence of a full moon and high tides. implications. the estimate of the population can be used as part of the basis of a long-term monitoring program needed for effective management of the penguin colony. however, such studies must be coincident with the monitoring of a suite of reproductive and foraging parameters if short-term impacts of threats are to be recognised and well managed." global population status of shy albatross and an assessment of colony-specific trends and drivers,demography; fisheries by-catch; population status; shy albatross; thalassarche cauta,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,ALDERMAN R;GALES R;TUCK GN;LEBRETON JD,"context. monitoring the status of albatross populations and identifying the factors driving observed trends remain international conservation and management priorities. the shy albatross is endemic to australia and breeds only on three tasmanian islands. aims. to provide a reliable total population estimate for shy albatross, including an assessment of demographic trends for each of the three populations where possible. we consider also key drivers of population trends for each population, particularly the potential role of fisheries by-catch, with an overall aim of determining the status of the species. methods. aerial photography and ground surveys were used to estimate the number of annual breeding pairs and trends in adult and juvenile survival rates were calculated using mark-recapture methods. at-sea distribution data was used to identify population specific trends in the overlap of shy albatross and fisheries to evaluate the potential influence of fisheries by-catch on the populations. key results. the albatross island population increased post-harvesting but has recently stabilised at around 5200 breeding pairs, less than half its estimated historic size. this trajectory change appears driven by a decrease in juvenile survival. the small (170 breeding pairs) pedra branca population has recently declined, probably due to reduced breeding success associated with the increasing population of australasian gannets (morus serrator) on the island. the largest population (on mewstone) comprises at least 9500 breeding pairs. trends for this population are unknown. however, this paper demonstrates that these birds have greater overlap with trawl and longline fishing effort and are consequently at higher risk of fishing-related mortality. conclusions. given the extent of fisheries overlap, survival rates for mewstone individuals are likely to be lower than the albatross island population. combined with recent trends on pedra branca and albatross island, we suggest that the current status of the shy albatross is likely to be stable at best and quite possibly decreasing. implications. the concerns raised about the conservation status of shy albatross reinforce the importance of continued population monitoring focussed particularly on establishing the trend of mewstone. a thorough assessment of interactions with trawl fishing operations also is a management priority for this species." estimating and indexing feral cat population abundances using camera traps,abundance index; camera trap; felis catus; feral cat; mark-recapture,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,BENGSEN A;BUTLER J;MASTERS P,"context. the ability to monitor changes in population abundance is critical to the success of pest animal management and research programs. feral cats (felis catus) are an important pest animal, but current monitoring techniques have limited sensitivity or are limited in use to particular circumstances or habitats. recent advances in camera-trapping methods provide the potential to identify individual feral cats, and to use this information to estimate population abundances using capture-mark-recapture (cmr) methods. aims. here, we use a manipulative study to test whether camera-trapping and cmr methods can be used to estimate feral cat abundances. methods. we established a grid of infrared cameras and lure stations over three pastoral properties on kangaroo island, australia, for 15 days. we then reduced the population abundance with an intensive trapping program and repeated the camera survey. we estimated population abundances using robust design cmr models, and converted abundance estimates to densities using home-range data from gps tracking. we also calculated relative abundance indices from the same data. key results. the cmr methods produced credible estimates of the change in population abundance, with useful confidence intervals, showing a statistically identifiable population decline from at least 0.7 cats km(-2) before trapping down to 0.4 cats km(-2) after trapping. the indexing method also showed a statistically identifiable decrease in abundance. conclusions. camera-trapping and cmr methods can provide a useful method for monitoring changes in the absolute abundance of feral cat populations. camera-trap data may also be used to produce indices of relative abundance when the assumptions of cmr models cannot be met. implications. these methods are widely applicable. the ability to reliably estimate feral cat abundances allows for more effective management than is generally available." -regional management units for marine turtles: a novel framework for prioritizing conservation and research across multiple scales,NA,PLOS ONE,WALLACE BP;DIMATTEO AD;HURLEY BJ;FINKBEINER EM;BOLTEN AB;CHALOUPKA MY;HUTCHINSON BJ;ABREU-GROBOIS FA;AMOROCHO D;BJORNDAL KA;BOURJEA J;BOWEN BW;DUENAS RB;CASALE P;CHOUDHURY BC;COSTA A;DUTTON PH;FALLABRINO A;GIRARD A;GIRONDOT M;GODFREY MH;HAMANN M;LOPEZ-MENDILAHARSU M;MARCOVALDI MA;MORTIMER JA;MUSICK JA;NEL R;PILCHER NJ;SEMINOFF JA;TROENG S;WITHERINGTON B;MAST RB,"background: resolving threats to widely distributed marine megafauna requires definition of the geographic distributions of both the threats as well as the population unit(s) of interest. in turn, because individual threats can operate on varying spatial scales, their impacts can affect different segments of a population of the same species. therefore, integration of multiple tools and techniques - including site-based monitoring, genetic analyses, mark-recapture studies and telemetry - can facilitate robust definitions of population segments at multiple biological and spatial scales to address different management and research challenges. methodology/principal findings: to address these issues for marine turtles, we collated all available studies on marine turtle biogeography, including nesting sites, population abundances and trends, population genetics, and satellite telemetry. we georeferenced this information to generate separate layers for nesting sites, genetic stocks, and core distributions of population segments of all marine turtle species. we then spatially integrated this information from fine-to coarse-spatial scales to develop nested envelope models, or regional management units (rmus), for marine turtles globally. conclusions/significance: the rmu framework is a solution to the challenge of how to organize marine turtles into units of protection above the level of nesting populations, but below the level of species, within regional entities that might be on independent evolutionary trajectories. among many potential applications, rmus provide a framework for identifying data gaps, assessing high diversity areas for multiple species and genetic stocks, and evaluating conservation status of marine turtles. furthermore, rmus allow for identification of geographic barriers to gene flow, and can provide valuable guidance to marine spatial planning initiatives that integrate spatial distributions of protected species and human activities. in addition, the rmu framework - including maps and supporting metadata - will be an iterative, user-driven tool made publicly available in an online application for comments, improvements, download and analysis." +regional management units for marine turtles: a novel framework for prioritizing conservation and research across multiple scales,NA,PLOS ONE,WALLACE BP;DIMATTEO AD;HURLEY BJ;FINKBEINER EM;BOLTEN AB;CHALOUPKA MY;HUTCHINSON BJ;ABREU GROBOIS FA;AMOROCHO D;BJORNDAL KA;BOURJEA J;BOWEN BW;DUENAS RB;CASALE P;CHOUDHURY BC;COSTA A;DUTTON PH;FALLABRINO A;GIRARD A;GIRONDOT M;GODFREY MH;HAMANN M;LOPEZ MENDILAHARSU M;MARCOVALDI MA;MORTIMER JA;MUSICK JA;NEL R;PILCHER NJ;SEMINOFF JA;TROENG S;WITHERINGTON B;MAST RB,"background: resolving threats to widely distributed marine megafauna requires definition of the geographic distributions of both the threats as well as the population unit(s) of interest. in turn, because individual threats can operate on varying spatial scales, their impacts can affect different segments of a population of the same species. therefore, integration of multiple tools and techniques - including site-based monitoring, genetic analyses, mark-recapture studies and telemetry - can facilitate robust definitions of population segments at multiple biological and spatial scales to address different management and research challenges. methodology/principal findings: to address these issues for marine turtles, we collated all available studies on marine turtle biogeography, including nesting sites, population abundances and trends, population genetics, and satellite telemetry. we georeferenced this information to generate separate layers for nesting sites, genetic stocks, and core distributions of population segments of all marine turtle species. we then spatially integrated this information from fine-to coarse-spatial scales to develop nested envelope models, or regional management units (rmus), for marine turtles globally. conclusions/significance: the rmu framework is a solution to the challenge of how to organize marine turtles into units of protection above the level of nesting populations, but below the level of species, within regional entities that might be on independent evolutionary trajectories. among many potential applications, rmus provide a framework for identifying data gaps, assessing high diversity areas for multiple species and genetic stocks, and evaluating conservation status of marine turtles. furthermore, rmus allow for identification of geographic barriers to gene flow, and can provide valuable guidance to marine spatial planning initiatives that integrate spatial distributions of protected species and human activities. in addition, the rmu framework - including maps and supporting metadata - will be an iterative, user-driven tool made publicly available in an online application for comments, improvements, download and analysis." computer-aided photo-identification system with an application to polar bears based on whisker spot patterns,capture recapture; chamfer; computer vision; image pattern matching; noninvasive identification; reliability; ursus maritimus,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,ANDERSON CJR;LOBO ND;ROTH JD;WATERMAN JM,"ecologists often rely on unique natural markings to identify individual free-ranging animals without disturbing them. we developed a computer-aided photo-identification system for identifying polar bears (ursus maritimus) based on whisker spot pattern recognition. we automated our system so that the selection of 3 reference points on the input image is the only manual step required during image preprocessing. our pattern-matching algorithm is unique in that the variability within spot patterns is considered fully rather than representing them as points and applying a point-pattern matching algorithm. we also measured the reliability of our method as probabilities of true positives and false positives using photographs of various qualities taken at different angles. when we excluded photographs of poor quality and angle the probability of true positives was >80% at a false positive probability of 10%. a new photograph could be preprocessed in <1 min and tested against a reference library of 100 individuals in <10 min. our computer-aided identification system could be extended for use in other species with variable spot patterns, which could be useful in efforts to estimate various population dynamics parameters essential for the study and conservation of wildlife, particularly threatened and endangered species. doe: 10.1644/09-mamm-a-425.1." a likelihood framework for joint estimation of salmon abundance and migratory timing using telemetric mark-recapture,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,BROMAGHIN JF;GATES KS;PALMER DE,"many fisheries for pacific salmon oncorhynchus spp. are actively managed to meet escapement goal objectives. in fisheries where the demand for surplus production is high, an extensive assessment program is needed to achieve the opposing objectives of allowing adequate escapement and fully exploiting the available surplus. knowledge of abundance is a critical element of such assessment programs. abundance estimation using mark-recapture experiments in combination with telemetry has become common in recent years, particularly within alaskan river systems. fish are typically captured and marked in the lower river while migrating in aggregations of individuals from multiple populations. recapture data are obtained using telemetry receivers that are co-located with abundance assessment projects near spawning areas, which provide large sample sizes and information on population-specific mark rates. when recapture data are obtained from multiple populations, unequal mark rates may reflect a violation of the assumption of homogeneous capture probabilities. a common analytical strategy is to test the hypothesis that mark rates are homogeneous and combine all recapture data if the test is not significant. however, mark rates are often low, and a test of homogeneity may lack sufficient power to detect meaningful differences among populations. in addition, differences among mark rates may provide information that could be exploited during parameter estimation. we present a temporally stratified mark-recapture model that permits capture probabilities and migratory timing through the capture area to vary among strata. abundance information obtained from a subset of populations after the populations have segregated for spawning is jointly modeled with telemetry distribution data by use of a likelihood function. maximization of the likelihood produces estimates of the abundance and timing of individual populations migrating through the capture area, thus yielding substantially more information than the total abundance estimate provided by the conventional approach. the utility of the model is illustrated with data for coho salmon o. kisutch from the kasilof river in south-central alaska." body growth and mortality of the spiny lobster palinurus elephas within and outside a small marine protected area,spiny lobster; marine protected areas; body growth; mark-recapture studies; mortality rates,FISHERIES RESEARCH,BEVACQUA D;MELIA P;FOLLESA MC;DE LEO GA;GATTO M;CAU A,following the establishment of a small marine protected area (mpa) located off western sardinia (mediterranean sea) a long-term survey was conducted on a spiny lobster (palinurus elephas) population inhabiting the mpa and adjacent fishing grounds between 1998 and 2005 median carapace length increased by 1 9 mm year(-1) both within and outside the mpa on the contrary body size dispersion (iqr) increased by 0 9 mm year(-1) within the mpa and decreased by 0 6 mm year(-1) outside mark-recapture data were used to develop and calibrate a body growth model explicitly accounting for sexual dimorphism and inter-individual variability median asymptotic carapace length was equal to 116 mm in females and 185 mm in males age frequency distributions derived from size distributions through the body growth model were used to estimate mortality rates inside (ca 0 41 year(-1) natural mortality) and outside (ca 0 78 year(-1) natural + fishing mortality) the mpa results provide new estimates of key life history traits for this species and suggest that the mpa is effective in protecting lobsters despite its small dimensions (c) 2010 elsevier b v all rights reserved relationship between fecal pellet counts and snowshoe hare density in western wyoming,density; fecal pellet; lepus americanus; mark-recapture; snowshoe hare; wyoming,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,BERG ND;GESE EM,"snowshoe hares (lepus americanus) are an important prey species for canada lynx (lynx canadensis) and are considered critical for lynx population persistence. determination of snowshoe hare distribution and abundance is needed by land management agencies for lynx conservation. an accepted approach for estimating snowshoe hare abundance is the use of fecal-pellet plot counts. locally derived regression equations are preferred for accurate calibration of pellet counts to snowshoe hare density due to local differences in pellet deposition and decomposition. we used linear regression to examine correlations between snowshoe hare density, as determined by mark-recapture estimates, and pellet plot counts on both uncleared plots and annually cleared plots on the bridger-teton national forest, western wyoming, usa. we found significant correlations between snowshoe hare density estimates and fecal pellet counts for both uncleared and annually cleared pellet counts; however, the relationship was stronger (higher r) when using pellet counts from annually cleared plots. in addition, we found that adjusting the buffer size by omitting hard habitat edges (not used by hares) around trapping grids improved correlations between snowshoe hare density and fecal pellet counts for both uncleared plots and annually cleared plots. though precision is sacrificed when using uncleared plots, they may be useful as a coarse index of habitat use by snowshoe hares. our derived regression equations may be useful to identify important foraging habitat for canada lynx in western wyoming. land managers responsible for conserving snowshoe hare habitat in western wyoming may use these equations to monitor changes in hare populations among habitats and during prescribed management actions." drought leads to collapse of black-tailed prairie dog populations reintroduced to the chihuahuan desert,black-tailed prairie dog; chihuahuan desert; conservation plan; cynomys ludovicianus; historic range; population collapse; population dynamics; reintroduction,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,FACKA AN;ROEMER GW;MATHIS VL;KAM M;GEFFEN E,"recently, a conservation strategy developed to restore populations of black-tailed prairie dog (cynomys ludovicianus) suggested reintroducing animals into the chihuahuan desert grasslands of the southwestern united states. rainfall in desert habitats is lower and more variable compared to rainfall near the center of the prairie dog's range. additionally, peak rainfall comes months after prairie dogs reproduce in these desert systems. thus, southwestern populations may be less prolific and fluctuate more than those found in northerly climes. using mark-recapture and mark-resight techniques, we estimated reproduction and monthly survival from 577 individuals inhabiting 6 reintroduced colonies from 2003 to 2005 in the northern chihuahuan desert. during 2003 precipitation was 64% of the long-term average, whereas both 2004 and 2005 had near-average precipitation. probability that a female became pregnant, number of juvenile prairie dogs emerging from maternity burrows, and date of emergence were all correlated to adult female body mass. adult monthly survival decreased from >0.95 during spring to 0.70 in summer 2003, following a rapid loss in adult body mass that coincided with low precipitation. in 2003 monthly juvenile survival was near zero on 2 of the 3 largest colonies and growth rates of juveniles were half that of subsequent years. estimated population size declined by 68% (range = 18-91%) from 2003 to 2004, and 5 of 6 populations declined an average of 75% from their original introduction size. prairie dog populations in desert environs may have a high risk of extirpation caused by weather patterns indicative of desert climates. our results are important for those managers involved in the conservation of prairie dogs and we suggest that regional differences should be carefully considered prior to any reintroduction effort." population trends in northern spotted owls: associations with climate in the pacific northwest,adult survival; barred owl; climate; rate of population change; recruitment; strix occidentalis caurina; weather,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,GLENN EM;ANTHONY RG;FORSMAN ED,"we used reverse time capture-mark-recapture models to describe associations between rate of population change (lambda) and climate for northern spotted owls (strix occidentalis caurina) at six long-term study areas in washington and oregon, usa. populations in three of six areas showed strong evidence of declining populations, while populations in two additional areas were likely declining as well. at four areas. lambda was positively associated with wetter-than-normal conditions during the growing season, which likely affects prey availability. lambda was also negatively associated with cold, wet winters and nesting seasons, and the number of hot summer days. the amount of annual variation in lambda accounted for by climate varied across study areas (3-85%). rate of population change was more sensitive to adult survival than to recruitment: however, there was considerable variation among years and across study areas for all demographic rates. while annual survival was more closely related to regional climate conditions, recruitment was often associated with local weather. in addition to climate, declines in recruitment at four of six areas were associated with increased presence of barred owls. climate change models predict warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers for the pacific northwest in the first half of the 21st century. our results indicate that these conditions have the potential to negatively affect annual survival, recruitment, and consequently population growth rates for northern spotted owls. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -effects of non-cropped landscape diversity on spatial dynamics of farmland birds in intensive farming systems,specialization; occupancy; colonization; farmland; non-cropped habitat diversity; france,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,CHIRON F;FILIPPI-CODACCIONI O;JIGUET F;DEVICTOR V,"increasing habitats diversity in agricultural landscapes has been proposed as a key measure for reversing the decline of farmland biodiversity in europe. however, indicators used for assessing such a potential compensation effect usually only rely on species diversity and abundance while ignoring variations in species-specific vulnerability. the extent to which habitat diversity may reverse the decline of specialist species in europe to farming systems is thus still unclear. in this study, we investigate whether the effect of non-cropped habitat diversity on farmland birds' occurrences was dependent on species' specialization for habitats. in particular, we focused on the relative effects of non-cropped habitat diversity on species' abilities to persist or to colonize new vacant areas. we used a capture-recapture statistical framework to study the spatial dynamics of 20 farmland bird species in france monitored from 2001 to 2007. we found that non-cropped landscape diversity reduces both the probabilities that a species becomes extinct locally and that a species colonizes new vacant areas, and the occupancy rate. although this suggests a possible stabilizing effect of the surrounding habitat diversity on species occurrence in farming systems, the occupancy was only weakly affected. moreover, we found that the most specialist species were the more negatively affected by this landscape diversity in terms of colonization abilities. we argue that accounting for the differences in habitat specialization among farmland species can improve conservation policies dedicated to the management of landscape diversity. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +effects of non-cropped landscape diversity on spatial dynamics of farmland birds in intensive farming systems,specialization; occupancy; colonization; farmland; non-cropped habitat diversity; france,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,CHIRON F;FILIPPI CODACCIONI O;JIGUET F;DEVICTOR V,"increasing habitats diversity in agricultural landscapes has been proposed as a key measure for reversing the decline of farmland biodiversity in europe. however, indicators used for assessing such a potential compensation effect usually only rely on species diversity and abundance while ignoring variations in species-specific vulnerability. the extent to which habitat diversity may reverse the decline of specialist species in europe to farming systems is thus still unclear. in this study, we investigate whether the effect of non-cropped habitat diversity on farmland birds' occurrences was dependent on species' specialization for habitats. in particular, we focused on the relative effects of non-cropped habitat diversity on species' abilities to persist or to colonize new vacant areas. we used a capture-recapture statistical framework to study the spatial dynamics of 20 farmland bird species in france monitored from 2001 to 2007. we found that non-cropped landscape diversity reduces both the probabilities that a species becomes extinct locally and that a species colonizes new vacant areas, and the occupancy rate. although this suggests a possible stabilizing effect of the surrounding habitat diversity on species occurrence in farming systems, the occupancy was only weakly affected. moreover, we found that the most specialist species were the more negatively affected by this landscape diversity in terms of colonization abilities. we argue that accounting for the differences in habitat specialization among farmland species can improve conservation policies dedicated to the management of landscape diversity. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." ecological and genetic measurements of dispersal in a threatened dragonfly,assignment test; conservation genetics; gene flow; leucorrhinia caudalis; mark-recapture; odonata,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,KELLER D;BRODBECK S;FLOSS I;VONWIL G;HOLDEREGGER R,"leucorrhinia caudalis is a rare dragonfly, threatened throughout its european distribution. the species was formerly widespread in the swiss lowlands, but only a single population remained in the 1980s. however, a spread has recently been observed, with additional ponds being colonised, sometimes at considerable distance. despite this evidence of recent long-distance dispersal, it is unknown whether l. caudalis regularly moves among ponds or whether this is a rather rare event. a combination of an ecological mark-resight and a population genetic study was applied to investigate contemporary dispersal and the genetic footprint of the recent population history of l. caudalis in switzerland. dna for genetic micro-satellite analysis was extracted from exuviae. the mark-resight study and the genetic analysis gave congruent results. they showed that l. caudalis is mostly a sedentary species, with only a few contemporary dispersal events over distances up to 5 km being observed. the genetic analysis was in agreement with the recent population history of the swiss populations. the oldest and largest population showed large genetic diversity and acted as source population for the recent spread of l caudalis in switzerland. recurrent gene flow among this source population and close populations caused substantial local genetic variation in the latter, as well as low population differentiation. the two recently founded distant populations (>= 30 km distance) were genetically less diverse and highly differentiated. these distant populations and another recently colonised population also expressed signatures of genetic bottlenecks. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." multistate modeling of habitat dynamics: factors affecting florida scrub transition probabilities,"aphelocoma coerulescens; capture-recapture; disturbance; fire; florida scrub-jay; kennedy space center/merritt island national wildlife refuge, florida, usa; land cover; multistate models; patch dynamics; restoration; scrub",ECOLOGY,BREININGER DR;NICHOLS JD;DUNCAN BW;STOLEN ED;CARTER GM;HUNT DK;DRESE JH,"many ecosystems are influenced by disturbances that create specific successional states and habitat structures that species need to persist. estimating transition probabilities between habitat states and modeling the factors that influence such transitions have many applications for investigating and managing disturbance-prone ecosystems. we identify the correspondence between multistate capture-recapture models and markov models of habitat dynamics. we exploit this correspondence by fitting and comparing competing models of different ecological covariates affecting habitat transition probabilities in florida scrub and flatwoods, a habitat important to many unique plants and animals. we subdivided a large scrub and flatwoods ecosystem along central florida's atlantic coast into 10-ha grid cells, which approximated average territory size of the threatened florida scrub-jay (aphelocoma coerulescens), a management indicator species. we used 1.0-m resolution aerial imagery for 1994, 1999, and 2004 to classify grid cells into four habitat quality states that were directly related to florida scrub-jay source-sink dynamics and management decision making. results showed that static site features related to fire propagation (vegetation type, edges) and temporally varying disturbances (fires, mechanical cutting) best explained transition probabilities. results indicated that much of the scrub and flatwoods ecosystem was resistant to moving from a degraded state to a desired state without mechanical cutting, an expensive restoration tool. we used habitat models parameterized with the estimated transition probabilities to investigate the consequences of alternative management scenarios on future habitat dynamics. we recommend this multistate modeling approach as being broadly applicable for studying ecosystem, land cover, or habitat dynamics. the approach provides maximum-likelihood estimates of transition parameters, including precision measures, and can be used to assess evidence among competing ecological models that describe system dynamics." studying dispersal at the landscape scale: efficient combination of population surveys and capture-recapture data,black-headed gull; capture-recapture; central france; chroicocephalus ridibundus; colony size; e-surge; kalman filter; larus spp.; leslie matrix; metapopulation; spatially structured population,ECOLOGY,PERON G;CROCHET PA;DOHERTY PF;LEBRETON JD,"researchers often rely on capture-mark-recapture (cmr) data to study animal dispersal in the wild. yet their spatial coverage often does not encompass the entire dispersal range of the study individuals, sometimes producing misleading results. information contained in population surveys and variation in population spatial structure can be used to overcome this issue. we build an integrated model in a multisite context in which cmr data are only collected at a subset of sites, but numbers of breeding pairs are counted at all sites. in a black-headed gull chroicocephalus ridibundus population, the integrated-modeling approach induces an increase in precision for the demographic parameters of interest (variances, on average, were decreased by 20%) and provides a more precise extrapolation of results from the cmr data to the whole population. patterns of condition-dependent dispersal are therefore made easier to detect, and we obtain evidence for colony-size dependence in recruitment, dispersal, and breeding success. these results suggest that first-time breeders disperse to small colonies in order to recruit earlier. the exchange of experienced breeders between colonies appears as a main determinant of the observed variation in colony sizes." spatially explicit inference for open populations: estimating demographic parameters from camera-trap studies,andes mountains; argentina; bayesian analysis; camera trapping; data augmentation; hierarchical model; jolly-seber model; pampas cats; spatial capture-recapture; trapping arrays,ECOLOGY,GARDNER B;REPPUCCI J;LUCHERINI M;ROYLE JA,"we develop a hierarchical capture-recapture model for demographically open populations when auxiliary spatial information about location of capture is obtained. such spatial capture-recapture data arise from studies based on camera trapping, dna sampling, and other situations in which a spatial array of devices records encounters of unique individuals. we integrate an individual-based formulation of a jolly-seber type model with recently developed spatially explicit capture-recapture models to estimate density and demographic parameters for survival and recruitment. we adopt a bayesian framework for inference under this model using the method of data augmentation which is implemented in the software program winbugs. the model was motivated by a camera trapping study of pampas cats leopardus colocolo from argentina, which we present as an illustration of the model in this paper. we provide estimates of density and the first quantitative assessment of vital rates for the pampas cat in the high andes. the precision of these estimates is poor due likely to the sparse data set. unlike conventional inference methods which usually rely on asymptotic arguments, bayesian inferences are valid in arbitrary sample sizes, and thus the method is ideal for the study of rare or endangered species for which small data sets are typical." "cohort variation, climate effects and population dynamics in a short-lived lizard",cohort effect; life history; rainfall; reptiles; temperature,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,LE GALLIARD JF;MARQUIS O;MASSOT M,"p>1. demographic theory and empirical studies indicate that cohort variation in demographic traits has substantial effects on population dynamics of long-lived vertebrates but cohort effects have been poorly investigated in short-lived species. 2. cohort effects were quantified in the common lizard (zootoca vivipara jacquin 1787), a short-lived ectothermic vertebrate, for body size, reproductive traits and age-specific survival with mark-recapture data collected from 1989 to 2005 in two wetlands. we assessed cohort variation and covariation in demographic traits, tested the immediate and delayed effects of climate conditions (temperature and rainfall), and predicted consequences for population growth. 3. most demographic traits exhibited cohort variation, but this variation was stronger for juvenile growth and survival, sub-adult survival and breeding phenology than for other traits. 4. cohort variation was partly explained by a web of immediate and delayed effects of climate conditions. rainfall and temperature influenced distinct life-history traits and the periods of gestation and early juvenile life were critical stages for climate effects. 5. cohort covariation between demographic traits was usually weak, apart from a negative correlation between juvenile and sub-adult body growth suggesting compensatory responses. an age-structured population model shows that cohort variation influences population growth mainly through direct numerical effects of survival variation early in life. 6. an understanding of cohort effects is necessary to predict critical life stages and climatic determinants of population dynamics, and therefore demographic responses to future climate warming." -range-wide piping plover survival: correlated patterns and temporal declines,apparent survival; charadrius melodus; conservation; cross-seasonal effects; piping plover; population biology; program mark; shorebird,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,ROCHE EA;COHEN JB;CATLIN DH;AMIRAULT-LANGLAIS DL;CUTHBERT FJ;GRATTO-TREVOR CL;FELIO J;FRASER JD,"geographically isolated breeding populations of migratory shorebirds may be demographically connected through shared nonbreeding habitats. we used long-term (1998-2008) mark-recapture data on piping plovers (charadrius melodus) collected from 7 separate studies located throughout north america to conduct a range-wide analysis of after hatch year apparent survival (phi(ahy)). our objectives were to compare concurrent survival estimates from disparate breeding sites and determine whether estimates followed similar trends or were correlated among breeding populations with shared wintering grounds. average survival estimates were higher for great plains populations (range 5 0.69-0.81) than for great lakes and atlantic coast populations (range = 0.56-0.71). linear trend models indicated that apparent survival declined in 4 out of 7 populations, was unchanged in 3, and was generally highest among great plains populations. based on a post hoc analysis, we found evidence of correlated year-to-year fluctuations in annual survival among populations wintering primarily along the southeastern united states atlantic coast and gulf coast. our results indicate shared overwintering or stopover sites may influence annual variation in survival among geographically disparate breeding populations. declines in piping plover survival are a cause for concern, and our results highlight the need for conservation efforts to include habitat used during the migratory and wintering periods." +range-wide piping plover survival: correlated patterns and temporal declines,apparent survival; charadrius melodus; conservation; cross-seasonal effects; piping plover; population biology; program mark; shorebird,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,ROCHE EA;COHEN JB;CATLIN DH;AMIRAULT LANGLAIS DL;CUTHBERT FJ;GRATTO TREVOR CL;FELIO J;FRASER JD,"geographically isolated breeding populations of migratory shorebirds may be demographically connected through shared nonbreeding habitats. we used long-term (1998-2008) mark-recapture data on piping plovers (charadrius melodus) collected from 7 separate studies located throughout north america to conduct a range-wide analysis of after hatch year apparent survival (phi(ahy)). our objectives were to compare concurrent survival estimates from disparate breeding sites and determine whether estimates followed similar trends or were correlated among breeding populations with shared wintering grounds. average survival estimates were higher for great plains populations (range 5 0.69-0.81) than for great lakes and atlantic coast populations (range = 0.56-0.71). linear trend models indicated that apparent survival declined in 4 out of 7 populations, was unchanged in 3, and was generally highest among great plains populations. based on a post hoc analysis, we found evidence of correlated year-to-year fluctuations in annual survival among populations wintering primarily along the southeastern united states atlantic coast and gulf coast. our results indicate shared overwintering or stopover sites may influence annual variation in survival among geographically disparate breeding populations. declines in piping plover survival are a cause for concern, and our results highlight the need for conservation efforts to include habitat used during the migratory and wintering periods." apparent survival and population growth of snowy plovers in coastal northern california,apparent survival; charadrius alexandrinus nivosus; demography; fecundity; immigration; mark-recapture; population growth; snowy plover,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,MULLIN SM;COLWELL MA;MCALLISTER SE;DINSMORE SJ,"an accurate understanding of factors influencing survival and how they affect population growth are required to determine the best conservation strategies for small populations, especially near the limit of a species' range. we estimated adult and juvenile survival for a small population of the threatened western snowy plover (charadrius alexandrinus nivosus) in coastal northern california over 7 years (2001-2007). we also evaluated population structure and growth to determine the relative importance of immigration and local recruitment. apparent survival for adult males (phi = 0.61 +/- 0.08) was greater than that of adult females (phi = 0.50 +/- 0.11), and survival of adults was greater than for juveniles (phi = 0.40 +/- 0.06). an algebraic assessment of population growth (lambda) revealed that fecundity and survival were insufficient to maintain the population (lambda = 0.66-0.77), whereas estimates based on consecutive annual counts (lambda = 0.96 +/- 0.26) and a pradel model (lambda = 0.92 +/- 0.11) suggested the population was more stable. these results, combined with annual variation in the number of newly marked plovers, indicate that the local population was maintained by immigration and can be classified as a sink. management actions aimed at increasing fecundity, including predator control and greater restrictions on human activity, may be necessary to maintain this population; actions aimed at increasing adult survival are more challenging." climate change threatens polar bear populations: a stochastic demographic analysis,climate change; demography; ipcc; ltre analysis; matrix population models; polar bear; sea ice; stochastic growth rate; stochastic models; ursus maritimus,ECOLOGY,HUNTER CM;CASWELL H;RUNGE MC;REGEHR EV;AMSTRUP SC;STIRLING I,"the polar bear (ursus maritimus) depends on sea ice for feeding, breeding, and movement. significant reductions in arctic sea ice are forecast to continue because of climate warming. we evaluated the impacts of climate change on polar bears in the southern beaufort sea by means of a demographic analysis, combining deterministic, stochastic, environment-dependent matrix population models with forecasts of future sea ice conditions from ipcc general circulation models (gcms). the matrix population models classified individuals by age and breeding status; mothers and dependent cubs were treated as units. parameter estimates were obtained from a capture-recapture study conducted from 2001 to 2006. candidate statistical models allowed vital rates to vary with time and as functions of a sea ice covariate. model averaging was used to produce the vital rate estimates, and a parametric bootstrap procedure was used to quantify model selection and parameter estimation uncertainty. deterministic models projected population growth in years with more extensive ice coverage (2001-2003) and population decline in years with less ice coverage (2004-2005). ltre (life table response experiment) analysis showed that the reduction in lambda in years with low sea ice was due primarily to reduced adult female survival, and secondarily to reduced breeding. a stochastic model with two environmental states, good and poor sea ice conditions, projected a declining stochastic growth rate, log lambda(s), as the frequency of poor ice years increased. the observed frequency of poor ice years since 1979 would imply log lambda(s) approximate to -0.01, which agrees with available (albeit crude) observations of population size. the stochastic model was linked to a set of 10 gcms compiled by the ipcc; the models were chosen for their ability to reproduce historical observations of sea ice and were forced with ""business as usual"" (a1b) greenhouse gas emissions. the resulting stochastic population projections showed drastic declines in the polar bear population by the end of the 21st century. these projections were instrumental in the decision to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the u. s. endangered species act." explaining long-distance dispersal: effects of dispersal distance on survival and growth in a stream salamander,"dispersal distance; fitness; gyrinophilus porphyriticus; habitat selection; individual consequences; leptokurtic; long-distance dispersal; movement ecology; new hampshire, usa; population ecology; salamanders; spatial dynamics",ECOLOGY,LOWE WH,"long-distance dispersal (ldd) may contribute disproportionately to range expansions, the creation of new evolutionary lineages, and species persistence in human-dominated landscapes. however, because data on the individual consequences of dispersal distance are extremely limited, we have little insight on how ldd is maintained in natural populations. i used six years of spatially explicit capture-mark-recapture (cmr) data to test the prediction that individual performance increases with dispersal distance in the stream salamander gyrinophilus porphyriticus. dispersal distance was total distance moved along the 1-km study stream, ranging from 0 to 565 m. to quantify individual performance, i used cmr estimates of survival and individual growth rates based on change in body length. survival and growth rates increased significantly with dispersal distance. these relationships were not confounded by pre-dispersal body condition or by ecological gradients along the stream. individual benefits of ldd were likely caused by an increase in the upper limit of settlement site quality with dispersal distance. my results do not support the view that the fitness consequences of ldd are unpredictable and instead suggest that consistent evolutionary mechanisms may explain the prevalence of ldd in nature. they also highlight the value of direct cmr data for understanding the individual consequences of variation in dispersal distance and how that variation is maintained in natural populations." -abundance of narwhals (monodon monoceros) on the hunting grounds in greenland,abundance estimation; aerial survey; arctic; climate change; greenland; mark-recapture distance sampling; narwhal; satellite tracking,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,HEIDE-JORGENSEN MP;LAIDRE KL;BURT ML;BORCHERS DL;MARQUES TA;HANSEN RG;RASMUSSEN M;FOSSETTE S,"narwhals (monodon monoceros l.) occur in the atlantic sector of the arctic where for centuries they have been subject to subsistence hunting by inuit in greenland and canada. scientific advice on the sustainable levels of removals from narwhal populations provides the basis for quotas implemented in both greenland and canada. the scientific advice relies heavily on extensive aerial surveys that are the only feasible way to acquire data on narwhal densities and abundance throughout their range. in some areas lack of information on abundance, in combination with high exploitation levels, has caused conservation concerns leading to restrictions on the international trade in narwhal tusks. narwhals also are regarded as highly sensitive to habitat disturbance caused by global warming. this study analyzed data from aerial sighting surveys covering four major narwhal hunting grounds in greenland. the surveys were conducted as double observer experiments with 2 independent observation platforms, 1 at the front and 1 at the rear of the survey plane. the sighting data were analyzed using mark recapture distance sampling techniques that allow for correction for whales that were missed by the observers. the surveys also were corrected for animals that were submerged during the passage of the survey plane, using diving and submergence data from satellite-linked time depth recorders deployed on 2 free-ranging narwhals. the abundance of narwhals on the wintering ground in west greenland in 2006 was 7,819 (95% confidence interval [ci]: 4,358-14,029). the abundances of narwhals in inglefield bredning and melville bay, northwest greenland in 2007 were 8,368 (95% ci: 5,209-13,442) and 6,024 (95% ci: 1,403-25,860), respectively. the abundance of narwhals in east greenland in 2008 was 6,444 (95% ci: 2,505-16,575). these surveys provide the first estimates of narwhal abundance from important hunting areas in east and west greenland and provide larger and more complete estimates from previously surveyed hunting grounds in inglefield bredning. the estimates can be used for setting catch limits for the narwhal harvest in west and east greenland and as a baseline for examining the effects of climate change on narwhal abundance. dot: 10.1644/09-mamm-a-198.1." +abundance of narwhals (monodon monoceros) on the hunting grounds in greenland,abundance estimation; aerial survey; arctic; climate change; greenland; mark-recapture distance sampling; narwhal; satellite tracking,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,HEIDE JORGENSEN MP;LAIDRE KL;BURT ML;BORCHERS DL;MARQUES TA;HANSEN RG;RASMUSSEN M;FOSSETTE S,"narwhals (monodon monoceros l.) occur in the atlantic sector of the arctic where for centuries they have been subject to subsistence hunting by inuit in greenland and canada. scientific advice on the sustainable levels of removals from narwhal populations provides the basis for quotas implemented in both greenland and canada. the scientific advice relies heavily on extensive aerial surveys that are the only feasible way to acquire data on narwhal densities and abundance throughout their range. in some areas lack of information on abundance, in combination with high exploitation levels, has caused conservation concerns leading to restrictions on the international trade in narwhal tusks. narwhals also are regarded as highly sensitive to habitat disturbance caused by global warming. this study analyzed data from aerial sighting surveys covering four major narwhal hunting grounds in greenland. the surveys were conducted as double observer experiments with 2 independent observation platforms, 1 at the front and 1 at the rear of the survey plane. the sighting data were analyzed using mark recapture distance sampling techniques that allow for correction for whales that were missed by the observers. the surveys also were corrected for animals that were submerged during the passage of the survey plane, using diving and submergence data from satellite-linked time depth recorders deployed on 2 free-ranging narwhals. the abundance of narwhals on the wintering ground in west greenland in 2006 was 7,819 (95% confidence interval [ci]: 4,358-14,029). the abundances of narwhals in inglefield bredning and melville bay, northwest greenland in 2007 were 8,368 (95% ci: 5,209-13,442) and 6,024 (95% ci: 1,403-25,860), respectively. the abundance of narwhals in east greenland in 2008 was 6,444 (95% ci: 2,505-16,575). these surveys provide the first estimates of narwhal abundance from important hunting areas in east and west greenland and provide larger and more complete estimates from previously surveyed hunting grounds in inglefield bredning. the estimates can be used for setting catch limits for the narwhal harvest in west and east greenland and as a baseline for examining the effects of climate change on narwhal abundance. dot: 10.1644/09-mamm-a-198.1." factors influencing densities of striped hyenas (hyaena hyaena) in arid regions of india,abundance estimation; capture-recapture; denning refugia; land use; livestock; semiarid zones,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,SINGH P;GOPALASWAMY AM;KARANTH KU,"the striped hyena (hyaena hyaena), despite being a threatened species, frequently occurs in human-dominated landscapes of india's rajasthan state. we estimated hyena densities using photographic capture recapture sampling to identify key ecological factors influencing hyena abundances in such areas. our 2 study sites (307 km(2) in kumbhalgarh wildlife sanctuary and 218 km(2) in esrana forest range) had different topographies and levels of human disturbances. we proposed explicit hypotheses regarding effects of livestock densities and topographic features on hyena abundances. we tested these hypotheses by examining the correspondence of estimated hyena densities to food availability in the form of livestock carcasses and potential refugia offered by hilly terrain. sampling efforts of 548 and 538 camera-trap nights were invested in kumbhalgarh and esrana, respectively. density estimates (hyenas/100 km(2)) based on capture recapture sampling were higher (6.5 +/- 2.6 se) for kumbhalgarh than esrana (3.67 +/- 0.3 se). our results supported the prediction that denning refugia in hilly terrain sustain higher hyena densities, but the prediction that higher livestock densities maintain higher hyena densities was not supported. because the striped hyena is a threatened species for which few data exist, our findings have major potential utility for range-wide conservation of the species. doi: 10.1644/09-mamm-a-159.1." "a regional approach for monitoring salmonid status and trends: results from a pilot study in coastal mendocino county, california",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,GALLAGHER SP;WRIGHT DW;COLLINS BW;ADAMS PB,"in coastal california, many evolutionarily significant units (esus) of chinook salmon oncorhynchus tshawytscha, coho salmon o. kisutch, and steelhead o. mykiss are listed under the federal endangered species act (esa). monitoring species status at the esu or esu subdivision scale requires specialized sampling. the purposes of this study were (1) to evaluate abundance estimated from a generalized random tessellation stratified (grts) design and compare the results with those from a more intensive stratified random monitoring program and (2) to evaluate the statistical power of the design to detect population trends. this 3-year pilot study considered five mendocino county streams as an example region of coastal california to evaluate a two-stage sampling approach for monitoring regional escapement. under this scheme, regional redd surveys (stage 1) were conducted in stream reaches in a grts sampling design. ten percent of anadromous habitat was sampled in year 1 and 10-35% in years 2 and 3. spawner : redd ratios were derived from smaller-scale census watersheds (stage 2) where ""true"" escapement was estimated using capture-recapture methods. regional escapement was then estimated from expanded redd counts, calibrated by spawner : redd ratios. as an alternative, more intensive method for estimating escapement, three survey streams were also sampled in a stratified random design. the results, added to counts from the census basins, produced more rigorous ""sum-of-streams'' estimates for comparison with the grts sampling. redd counts and the resulting escapement estimates were reliable for regional monitoring. the grts and sum-of-streams estimates overlapped, and the variation in the 95% confidence intervals did not change after 15%. our results suggest that a sample size of 15% or 41 or more reaches (whichever results in fewer survey reaches) should have adequate precision and statistical power to detect regional trends in salmon populations. we recommend that this monitoring approach be applied at regional spatial scales consistent with esa recovery planning efforts." performance of spawner survey techniques at low abundance levels,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,GALLAGHER SP;ADAMS PB;WRIGHT DW;COLLINS BW,"population monitoring is essential to know whether coastal california's endangered species act-listed chinook salmon oncorhynchus tshawytscha, coho salmon o. kisutch, and steelhead o. mykiss stocks are progressing toward recovery. in coastal california, salmonids are at the southern edge of their range, and this one of many reasons they are not abundant. this provides unique challenges for monitoring, as different survey methods will result in estimates with different levels of accuracy and precision, which are important for evaluating population trends. for this study we intensively monitored three mendocino county watersheds to evaluate the reliability of two-stage data for monitoring regional escapement. under this scheme, regional spawning surveys (stage 1) were calibrated with data from intensively monitored watersheds (stage 2), where escapement was estimated using capture-recapture methods, redd counts, and fish counts. the objective of the study was to evaluate the quality of the stage 2 data for calibrating regional surveys. we evaluated the precision of live-fish capture-recapture estimates and compared these estimates with estimates derived from spawning survey data using carcass capture-recapture, area under the curve (auc), and redd counts. live-fish capture-recapture produced escapement estimates with narrower 95% confidence bounds where permanent structures were used to capture fish. redd counts converted to fish numbers using spawner : redd ratios were chosen for the regional salmonid monitoring method because they were reliable, economical, and less intrusive. converted redd counts were statistically and operationally similar to live-fish capture-recapture estimates but required fewer resources. the auc estimates were less reliable than converted redd counts and live-fish capture-recapture methods due to the sensitivity of the estimates of residence time and observer efficiency. finally, we found that carcass capture-recapture methods were operationally unsuccessful in coastal california streams. on the basis of our results, we recommend that annual spawner : redd ratios from intensively monitored watersheds be used to calibrate redd counts for regional status and trend monitoring of california's coastal salmonids." @@ -1181,8 +1183,8 @@ effectiveness of night snorkeling for estimating steelhead parr abundance in a l dispersal and habitat cuing of eurasian red squirrels in fragmented habitats,dispersal distance; habitat quality; landscape composition; natal habitat-biased dispersal; parentage assignment; sciurus vulgaris,POPULATION ECOLOGY,WAUTERS LA;VERBEYLEN G;PREATONI D;MARTINOLI A;MATTHYSEN E,"animal dispersal and subsequent settlement is a key process in the life history of many organisms, when individuals use demographic and environmental cues to target post-dispersal habitats where fitness will be highest. to investigate the hypothesis that environmental disturbance (habitat fragmentation) may alter these cues, we compared dispersal patterns of 60 red squirrels (sciurus vulgaris) in three study sites that differ in habitat composition and fragmentation. we determined dispersal distances, pre- and post-dispersal habitat types and survival using a combination of capture-mark-recapture, radio-tracking and genetic parentage assignment. most (75%) squirrels emigrated from the natal home range with mean dispersal distance of 1,014 +/- a 925 m (range 51-4,118 m). there were no sex-related differences in dispersal patterns and no differences in average dispersal distance, and the proportion of dispersers did not differ between sites. in one of the sites, dispersers settled in patches where density was lower than in the natal patch. in the least fragmented site, 90% of animals settled in the natal habitat type (habitat cuing) against 44-54% in the more strongly fragmented sites. overall, more squirrels settled in the natal habitat type than expected based on habitat availability, but this was mainly due to individuals remaining within the natal wood. in the highly fragmented landscape, habitat cuing among emigrants did not occur more frequently than expected. we concluded that increased habitat fragmentation seemed to reduce reliable cues for habitat choice, but that dispersing squirrels settled in patches with lower densities of same-sex animals than at the natal home range or patch, independent of degree of fragmentation." predation as a probable mechanism relating winter weather to population dynamics in a north american porcupine population,climate; fisher; predator-prey; seasonal survival; solar cycle; species interaction,POPULATION ECOLOGY,MABILLE G;DESCAMPS S;BERTEAUX D,"an abundance index of an eastern quebec population of north american porcupines (erethizon dorsatum) has cycled with superimposed periodicities of 11 and 22 years from 1868 to 2000. this cycle closely followed 11- and 22-year cycles in solar irradiance and local weather (e.g., winter precipitation and spring temperature), generating the hypothesis that solar activity may affect porcupine abundance through effects on local weather. we investigated the mechanisms linking porcupine abundance to local weather conditions using a 6-year study (2000-2005) involving individual mark-recapture, radio tracking, seasonal survival analyses and identification of mortality causes. summer (may-august) survival was high and constant over the study period, whereas winter (august-may) survival was lower and varied during the duration of our study. variations in local winter precipitation explained 89% of the variation in winter survival. porcupine predation rates appeared strongly related to snow conditions; 95% of depredated porcupines were killed when snow was covering the ground, and predation rates were higher in years with increased winter precipitation. our data thus support the hypothesis that changes in predation rates under different snow conditions were the mechanism relating climate to porcupine population dynamics, via modifications of the local predator-prey interactions and impacts on porcupine winter survival. our study adds to the growing body of evidence supporting an effect of climate on predator-prey processes. also, it identifies one possible mechanism involved in the relationship between solar irradiance and porcupine population cycles observed at this study site over a 130-year period." determinants of partial bird migration in the amazon basin,bolivia; cerrado; flycatcher; seasonality; tyrannidae,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,JAHN AE;LEVEY DJ;HOSTETLER JA;MAMANI AM,"1. little is known about mechanisms that drive migration of birds at tropical latitudes. because most migratory bird species in south america have populations that are present year-round, partial migration (in which only some individuals of a given population migrate at the end of the breeding season) is likely to be common, providing an opportunity to assess proximate mechanisms of migration. 2. two non-mutually exclusive hypotheses explaining intraspecific variation in migratory behaviour were tested in a tropical kingbird tyrannus melancholicus population in the southern amazon basin, where a dramatic dry season decrease in the abundance of insect food for kingbirds may promote migration of some individuals. 3. the dominance hypothesis predicts sub-dominant individuals migrate at the end of the breeding season and dominant individuals do not, whereas the body size hypothesis predicts smaller individuals migrate and larger individuals do not. 4. based on 4 years of data on individually-marked birds, strong support was found for occurrence of partial migration in the study population. 5. in the best model, the largest males (which are typically older and dominant to younger individuals) had the highest probability of migrating. younger females (which are the smallest individuals in the population) were also more likely to migrate than other kingbirds, except the largest males. thus, an individual's probability of migrating was associated with a more complex interaction of size, age and sex than predicted by current hypotheses. 6. these results suggest that determinants of migratory behaviour differ between north temperate and tropical latitudes. most tests of partial migration theory have been conducted on granivores (e.g. emberizids) or omnivores (e.g. turdids and icterids) at north temperate latitudes, where seasonality is primarily defined by temperature cycles. in tropical south america, however, the most common long-distance migrants are primarily insectivorous (i.e. tyrannids), and seasonality is largely defined by rainfall cycles. 7. we propose a hypothesis based on seasonal food limitation to explain partial migration of primarily insectivorous species in seasonal tropical habitats." -empirical evidence of senescence in adult damselflies (odonata: zygoptera),ageing; akaike information criterion; field study; hazard; makeham; mark; odonata; winmodest; zygoptera,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,SHERRATT TN;LAIRD RA;HASSALL C;LOWE CD;HARVEY IF;WATTS PC;CORDERO-RIVERA A;THOMPSON DJ,"p>1. age-dependent increases in mortality have been documented in a variety of species of insect under laboratory conditions. however, while strong statistical evidence has been presented for senescence in vertebrate populations in the wild, we know little about the rate and shape of senescence in wild populations of insects. 2. odonates (damselflies and dragonflies) provide excellent candidate species for evaluating demographic senescence as they are large enough to be marked individually and they are easily re-sighted without recapture. the prevailing opinion - based entirely on qualitative examination of the declines in log numbers alive with time since marking - is that odonates exhibit age-independent daily survivorship. 3. here, we examine mark-recapture data on the azure damselfly coenagrion puella over two consecutive seasons. for the first time, we evaluate and compare the fit of quantitative models that not only account for weather-dependent daily variation in daily re-sighting rates, but also age-dependent variation in daily survivorship. 4. models with age-dependent declines in daily survivorship provide a more parsimonious explanation for the data than similar models without these age-dependent effects. in general, models in which mortality increases in an exponential (gompertz) fashion explain the mark-recapture sequences more efficiently than a range of alternative models, including those in which mortality increases as a power function (weibull) or reaches a plateau (logistic). these results are indicative of a general senescent decline in physiological functioning, which is particularly marked after 15 days as a mature adult. 5. weather (temperature, sun and precipitation) and initial mite load influenced the probability of daily re-sighting. weather and mite load also influenced daily survivorship, but their effects differed between seasons. 6. overall, fitting models with age as an explicit covariate demonstrates that odonates do indeed senesce. this contradicts previously held assumptions that odonata do not exhibit age-dependent survivorship in the wild." -experience-dependent natal philopatry of breeding greater flamingos,breeding dispersal; ideal despotic distribution; intraspecific competition; m-surge; outbreeding; flyway; phenotype matching,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,BALKIZ O;BECHET A;ROUAN L;CHOQUET R;GERMAIN C;AMAT JA;RENDON-MARTOS M;BACCETTI N;NISSARDI S;OZESMI U;PRADEL R,"p>1. contrary to the generally high level of natal philopatry (i.e. likelihood that individuals breed at their natal colony) found in first-breeding colonial birds, little is known of natal philopatry later in life. most hypotheses advanced to explain natal philopatry are valid at all ages. however, for young and inexperienced birds, the benefits of natal philopatry may be counterbalanced by the costs of intraspecific competition at the natal colony making dispersal temporarily advantageous. in turn, experience may increase competitive ability and make natal philopatry advantageous again. 2. we evaluated this hypothesis on the large-scale dispersal of greater flamingos phoenicopterus roseus breeding among three colonies comprising > 85% of the western mediterranean metapopulation. the camargue (france) and fuente de piedra (spain) are large and saturated colonies while molentargius (sardinia) is a recent and growing colony. 3. we used a 20-year capture-mark-resighting dataset of 4900 flamingos ringed as chicks in camargue and fuente de piedra and breeding at the three colonies. we assessed the effects of natal colony and breeding experience (first-time observed breeders versus confirmed experienced breeders) on dispersal using multistate capture-recapture models. dispersal to an unobservable state accounted for temporary emigration. 4. fidelity was higher at the natal colony (> 84%) than elsewhere. fidelity increased with experience in the two large colonies (camargue and fuente de piedra) suggesting a large-scale experience-related despotic distribution. breeding dispersal was significant (up to 61% and 52% for first-time breeders and experienced breeders, respectively) so that colony dynamics is affected by exchanges with other colonies. except for fuente-born breeders leaving molentargius, dispersal to the natal colony was higher than to any other colonies. 5. survival was not higher at the natal colony. inexperienced birds likely had lower breeding success at the camargue and skipped reproduction after having emigrated to the other large colony but not to molentargius. breeding at molentargius could allow avoiding queuing (and non-breeding) at the large colonies while gaining experience and competitive ability for future attempts. 6 natal philopatry appears as an important driver of large-scale breeding dispersal in the greater flamingo. the fitness advantage of natal philopatry is likely experience-dependent and mediated by the variations of intraspecific competition." +empirical evidence of senescence in adult damselflies (odonata: zygoptera),ageing; akaike information criterion; field study; hazard; makeham; mark; odonata; winmodest; zygoptera,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,SHERRATT TN;LAIRD RA;HASSALL C;LOWE CD;HARVEY IF;WATTS PC;CORDERO RIVERA A;THOMPSON DJ,"p>1. age-dependent increases in mortality have been documented in a variety of species of insect under laboratory conditions. however, while strong statistical evidence has been presented for senescence in vertebrate populations in the wild, we know little about the rate and shape of senescence in wild populations of insects. 2. odonates (damselflies and dragonflies) provide excellent candidate species for evaluating demographic senescence as they are large enough to be marked individually and they are easily re-sighted without recapture. the prevailing opinion - based entirely on qualitative examination of the declines in log numbers alive with time since marking - is that odonates exhibit age-independent daily survivorship. 3. here, we examine mark-recapture data on the azure damselfly coenagrion puella over two consecutive seasons. for the first time, we evaluate and compare the fit of quantitative models that not only account for weather-dependent daily variation in daily re-sighting rates, but also age-dependent variation in daily survivorship. 4. models with age-dependent declines in daily survivorship provide a more parsimonious explanation for the data than similar models without these age-dependent effects. in general, models in which mortality increases in an exponential (gompertz) fashion explain the mark-recapture sequences more efficiently than a range of alternative models, including those in which mortality increases as a power function (weibull) or reaches a plateau (logistic). these results are indicative of a general senescent decline in physiological functioning, which is particularly marked after 15 days as a mature adult. 5. weather (temperature, sun and precipitation) and initial mite load influenced the probability of daily re-sighting. weather and mite load also influenced daily survivorship, but their effects differed between seasons. 6. overall, fitting models with age as an explicit covariate demonstrates that odonates do indeed senesce. this contradicts previously held assumptions that odonata do not exhibit age-dependent survivorship in the wild." +experience-dependent natal philopatry of breeding greater flamingos,breeding dispersal; ideal despotic distribution; intraspecific competition; m-surge; outbreeding; flyway; phenotype matching,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,BALKIZ O;BECHET A;ROUAN L;CHOQUET R;GERMAIN C;AMAT JA;RENDON MARTOS M;BACCETTI N;NISSARDI S;OZESMI U;PRADEL R,"p>1. contrary to the generally high level of natal philopatry (i.e. likelihood that individuals breed at their natal colony) found in first-breeding colonial birds, little is known of natal philopatry later in life. most hypotheses advanced to explain natal philopatry are valid at all ages. however, for young and inexperienced birds, the benefits of natal philopatry may be counterbalanced by the costs of intraspecific competition at the natal colony making dispersal temporarily advantageous. in turn, experience may increase competitive ability and make natal philopatry advantageous again. 2. we evaluated this hypothesis on the large-scale dispersal of greater flamingos phoenicopterus roseus breeding among three colonies comprising > 85% of the western mediterranean metapopulation. the camargue (france) and fuente de piedra (spain) are large and saturated colonies while molentargius (sardinia) is a recent and growing colony. 3. we used a 20-year capture-mark-resighting dataset of 4900 flamingos ringed as chicks in camargue and fuente de piedra and breeding at the three colonies. we assessed the effects of natal colony and breeding experience (first-time observed breeders versus confirmed experienced breeders) on dispersal using multistate capture-recapture models. dispersal to an unobservable state accounted for temporary emigration. 4. fidelity was higher at the natal colony (> 84%) than elsewhere. fidelity increased with experience in the two large colonies (camargue and fuente de piedra) suggesting a large-scale experience-related despotic distribution. breeding dispersal was significant (up to 61% and 52% for first-time breeders and experienced breeders, respectively) so that colony dynamics is affected by exchanges with other colonies. except for fuente-born breeders leaving molentargius, dispersal to the natal colony was higher than to any other colonies. 5. survival was not higher at the natal colony. inexperienced birds likely had lower breeding success at the camargue and skipped reproduction after having emigrated to the other large colony but not to molentargius. breeding at molentargius could allow avoiding queuing (and non-breeding) at the large colonies while gaining experience and competitive ability for future attempts. 6 natal philopatry appears as an important driver of large-scale breeding dispersal in the greater flamingo. the fitness advantage of natal philopatry is likely experience-dependent and mediated by the variations of intraspecific competition." effects of exploitation on black bear populations at white river national wildlife refuge,abundance; black bear; dna; population growth; robust design; ursus americanus; white river,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,CLARK JD;EASTRIDGE R;HOOKER MJ,"we live-trapped american black bears (ursus americanus) and sampled dna from hair at white river national wildlife refuge, arkansas, usa, to estimate annual population size (n), growth (lambda), and density. we estimated n and lambda with open population models, based on live-trapping data collected from 1998 through 2006, and robust design models for genotyped hair samples collected from 2004 through 2007. population growth was weakly negative (i.e., 95% ci included 1.0) for males (0.901, 95% ci = 0.645-1.156) and strongly negative (i.e., 95% ci excluded 1.0) for females (0.846, 95% ci = 0.711-0.981), based on live-trapping data, with n from 1999 to 2006 ranging from 94.1 (95% ci = 70.3-137.1) to 45.2 (95% ci = 27.1-109.3), respectively, for males and from 151.4 (95% ci = 127.6-185.8) to 47.1 (95% ci = 24.4-140.4), respectively, for females. likewise, mean annual l based on hair-sampling data was weakly negative for males (0.742, 95% ci = 0.043-1.441) and strongly negative for females (0.782, 95% ci = 0.661-0.903), with abundance estimates from 2004 to 2007 ranging from 29.1 (95% ci = 21.2-65.8) to 11.9 (95% ci = 11.0-26.9), respectively, for males and from 54.4 (95% ci = 44.3-77.1) to 27.4 (95% ci = 24.9-36.6), respectively, for females. we attribute the decline in the number of females in this isolated population to a decrease in survival caused by a past translocation program and by hunting adjacent to the refuge. we suggest that managers restructure the quota-based harvest limits until these growth rates recover." survival and breeding transitions for a reintroduced bison population: a multistate approach,badlands national park; bison bison; breeding state transition; culling; demography; mark-recapture; reintroduction,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PYNE MI;BYRNE KM;HOLFELDER KA;MCMANUS L;BUHNERKEMPE M;BURCH N;CHILDERS E;HAMILTON S;SCHROEDER G;DOHERTY PF,"the iconic plains bison (bison bison) have been reintroduced to many places in their former range, but there are few scientific data evaluating the success of these reintroductions or guiding the continued management of these populations. relying on mark-recapture data, we used a multistate model to estimate bison survival and breeding transition probabilities while controlling for the recapture process. we tested hypotheses in these demographic parameters associated with age, sex, reproductive state, and environmental variables. we also estimated biological process variation in survival and breeding transition probabilities by factoring out sampling variation. the recapture rate of females and calves was high (0.78 +/- 0.15 [se]) and much lower for males (0.41 +/- 0.23), especially older males (0.17 +/- 0.15). we found that overall bison survival was high (>0.8) and that males (0.80 +/- 0.13) survived at lower rates than females (0.94 +/- 0.04), but as females aged survival declined (0.89 +/- 0.05 for f >= 15 yr old). lactating and non-lactating females survived at similar rates. we found that females can conceive early (approx. 1.5 yr of age) and had a high probability (approx. 0.8) of breeding in consecutive years, until age 13.5 years, when females that were non-lactating tended to stay in that state. our results suggest senescence in reproduction and survival for females. we found little support for the effect of climatic covariates on demographic rates, perhaps because the park's current population management goals were predicated from drought-year conditions. this reintroduction has been successful, but continued culling actions will need to be employed and an adaptive management approach is warranted. our demographic approach can be applied to other heavily managed large-ungulate systems with few or no natural predators." persistence of colorado river cutthroat trout populations in isolated headwater streams of wyoming,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,COOK N;RAHEL FJ;HUBERT WA,"for populations of cutthroat trout oncorhynchus clarkii, isolation in headwater streams may provide protection from invasion by nonnative species but also may enhance a population's vulnerability to extirpation. we assessed the risk of extirpation for eight colorado river cutthroat trout o. clarkii pleuriticus populations isolated above water diversion structures in the north fork little snake river drainage, wyoming. the populations had been isolated for 25-44 years, occupied headwater streams that ranged from 850 to 6,100 m in length, and had adult populations that were estimated to range from 12 to 506 fish. adult population sizes were compared with published occurrence models to identify populations that may be at risk of extirpation. one population had experienced an 11% annual rate of decline in abundance over the past 29 years, but there was no evidence of declines among the other populations. there was evidence of recruitment failure for age-1 fish in two of the smaller populations. abundance estimates and published logistic regression models consistently identified the largest tributary in the drainage as being the most likely to support a colorado river cutthroat trout population in the future and the smallest tributary as being the least likely to support a population in the future. the analyses indicated that isolated populations may persist for decades, but small effective population sizes can make populations vulnerable to eventual loss of genetic variability and to extirpation." @@ -1205,23 +1207,24 @@ estimation of survival rate and extinction probability for stage-structured popu "age- and sex-specific survival estimates incorporating tag loss for new zealand sea lions, phocarctos hookeri",auckland islands; demography; fisheries interactions; management; mark-recapture method; multistate model; phocarctos hookeri; new zealand sea lion; new zealand's subantarctic; population dynamics,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,CHILVERS BL;MACKENZIE DI,"the estimation of life-history parameters for a threatened species is important for understanding its biology and helping to determine management options. this research investigates age- and sex-related survival estimates incorporating tag loss for new zealand (nz) sea lions (phocarctos hookeri) from sandy bay, enderby island, auckland islands, new zealand, using multistate mark recapture data from known-age individuals over 8 years (1997-1998 to 2005-2006). survival estimates and tag loss rates differed significantly by sex and age class, with adult males having the lowest tag retention of any age or sex class and females >= 3 years old having lower survival estimates than their male counterparts. the variability and lower female survival relative to males is a critical problem for nz sea lions, because even small changes in adult female survival significantly affect population trends for such large, long-lived mammals. doi: 10.1644/09-mamm-a-285.1." "bias, precision, and parameter redundancy in complex multistate models with unobservable states",albatross; identifiability; mark-recapture; parameter redundancy; robust design; salamanders; temporary emigration,ECOLOGY,BAILEY LL;CONVERSE SJ;KENDALL WL,"multistate mark-recapture models with unobservable states can yield unbiased estimators of survival probabilities in the presence of temporary emigration (i.e., in cases where some individuals are temporarily unavailable for capture). in addition, these models permit the estimation of transition probabilities between states, which may themselves be of interest; for example, when only breeding animals are available for capture. however, parameter redundancy is frequently a problem in these models, yielding biased parameter estimates and influencing model selection. using numerical methods, we examine complex multistate mark-recapture models involving two observable and two unobservable states. this model structure was motivated by two different biological systems: one involving island-nesting albatross, and another involving pond-breeding amphibians. we found that, while many models are theoretically identifiable given appropriate constraints, obtaining accurate and precise parameter estimates in practice can be difficult. practitioners should consider ways to increase detection probabilities or adopt robust design sampling in order to improve the properties of estimates obtained from these models. we suggest that investigators interested in using these models explore both theoretical identifiability and possible near-singularity for likely parameter values using a combination of available methods." three-pass depletion sampling accuracy of two electric fields for estimating trout abundance in a low-conductivity stream with limited habitat complexity,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,HABERA JW;KULP MA;MOORE SE;HENRY TB,"we evaluated three-pass depletion sampling for both ac and pulsed-dc electrofishing for estimating the population size of rainbow trout oncorhynchus mykiss in a representative low-conductivity (20-mu s/cm) southern appalachian stream with limited habitat complexity. trout capture efficiencies in such streams could be expected to exceed those observed in streams in which habitat is more complex; thus, depletion estimates could be much more accurate in the former. we also compared the results for two trout length-groups to investigate size-related differences. measured capture efficiency was 0.88 +/- 0.04 (95% confidence interval) for trout greater than 100 mm (typically adults) and 0.65 +/- 0.09 for trout less than 100 mm (age 0). population size was underestimated in each depletion sample. the errors for trout over 100 mm were generally small (mean, 12%; range, 3-23%), and the upper 95% confidence limits were usually within 10% of the true population size (n). underestimates of n were larger for trout under 100 mm (mean, 32%; range, 5-60%), although the upper 95% confidence limits were within 20% of the n for half of the samples. the results of a laboratory study confirmed that trout over 100 mm were immobilized at significantly lower voltage gradients than were smaller trout in both electric fields. we conclude that three-pass depletion sampling is relatively accurate in typical southern appalachian trout streams and that the underestimation errors for rainbow trout larger than 100 mm would be acceptable given basic inventory and monitoring goals." -"condition and phenotype-dependent dispersal in a damselfly, calopteryx splendens",NA,PLOS ONE,CHAPUT-BARDY A;GREGOIRE A;BAGUETTE M;PAGANO A;SECONDI J,"individual dispersal decisions may be affected by the internal state of the individual and the external information of its current environment. here we estimated the influence of dispersal on survival and investigated if individual phenotype (sex and wing length) and environmental condition (conspecific density and sex-ratio) affected dispersal decisions in the banded damselfly, calopteryx splendens. as suspected from the literature, we showed that the proportion of dispersing individuals was higher in females than in males. we also found negative-density dependent dispersal in both sexes and influence of sex-ratio on dispersal. individuals moved less when sex-ratio was male biased. these results are consistent with a lek mating system where males aggregate in a place and hold mating territories. contrary to our expectations, neither dispersal nor survival was affected by wing length. nevertheless, mean adult survival was about 8% lower in dispersing individuals than in residents. this might reflect a mortality cost due to dispersal." +"condition and phenotype-dependent dispersal in a damselfly, calopteryx splendens",NA,PLOS ONE,CHAPUT BARDY A;GREGOIRE A;BAGUETTE M;PAGANO A;SECONDI J,"individual dispersal decisions may be affected by the internal state of the individual and the external information of its current environment. here we estimated the influence of dispersal on survival and investigated if individual phenotype (sex and wing length) and environmental condition (conspecific density and sex-ratio) affected dispersal decisions in the banded damselfly, calopteryx splendens. as suspected from the literature, we showed that the proportion of dispersing individuals was higher in females than in males. we also found negative-density dependent dispersal in both sexes and influence of sex-ratio on dispersal. individuals moved less when sex-ratio was male biased. these results are consistent with a lek mating system where males aggregate in a place and hold mating territories. contrary to our expectations, neither dispersal nor survival was affected by wing length. nevertheless, mean adult survival was about 8% lower in dispersing individuals than in residents. this might reflect a mortality cost due to dispersal." "decline and likely extinction of a northern australian native rodent, the brush-tailed rabbit-rat conilurus penicillatus",capture-mark-recapture (cmr); threatened species; fire management; population viability analysis (pva); survival,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,FIRTH RSC;BROOK BW;WOINARSKI JCZ;FORDHAM DA,"contemporary fire patterns are considered the most likely cause for regional population decline amongst small to medium mammals in northern tropical australia. here we assess the extinction risk faced by a vulnerable north australian native rodent, the brush-tailed rabbit-rat conilurus penicillatus in relation to fire frequency. this species has recently suffered a significant contraction in range. we provide the first quantitative evidence to demonstrate the immediate threat destructive wildfires and regular annual fire pose to the long-term population persistence of c. penicillatus. we show that late-dry season fires cause a reduction in both juvenile and adult survival probabilities. however, abundance declined at the unburnt as well as a frequently burnt site, suggesting that fire exclusion alone does not guarantee the species' long-term persistence. our model projections indicate that the remaining populations of c. penicillatus on the northern territory mainland risk extirpation within the next ten years. conservation requires decisive management action to ameliorate extensive and destructive fires. a multi-faceted management plan needs to focus on restoring a fire management regime which generates a fine-scale mosaic of burnt and unburnt habitat, and the release of captive bred animals into fenced reserves free of exotic predators. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." cohort variation in offspring growth and survival: prenatal and postnatal factors in a late-maturing viviparous snake,environmental canalization; maternal effects; squamates; variable environment,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,BARON JP;LE GALLIARD JF;TULLY T;FERRIERE R,"p>1. recruitment to adulthood plays an important role in the population dynamics of late-maturing organisms as it is usually variable. compared to birds and mammals, few studies assessing the contributions to this variation of environmental factors, offspring traits and maternal traits have been carried out for late-maturing snakes. 2. cohort variation in recruitment through offspring growth and survival in the meadow viper (vipera ursinii ursinii) was evaluated from 13 years of mark-recapture data collected at mont ventoux, france. in this species, females are mature at the age of 4-6 years and adult survival and fecundity rates are high and constant over time. 3. offspring were difficult to catch during the first 3 years of their lives, but their mean annual probability of survival was reasonably high (0 center dot 48 +/- 0 center dot 11 se). mass and body condition at birth (mass residuals) varied significantly between years, decreased with litter size, and increased with maternal length. 4. cohorts of offspring in better condition at birth grew faster, but offspring growth was not affected by sex, habitat or maternal traits. 5. survival varied considerably between birth cohorts, some cohorts having a high-survival rate and others having essentially no survivors. no difference in mass or body condition at birth was found between cohorts with 'no survival' and 'good survival'. however, offspring survival in cohorts with good survival was positively correlated with mass at birth and negatively correlated with body condition at birth. 6. thus, variation in offspring performance was influenced by direct environmental effects on survival and indirect environmental effects on growth, mediated by body condition at birth. effects of maternal traits were entirely channelled through offspring traits." -argali abundance in the afghan pamir using capture-recapture modeling from fecal dna,abundance estimate; afghanistan; argali; fecal samples; mark-recapture; noninvasive sampling; ovis ammon,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HARRIS RB;WINNIE J;AMISH SJ;BEJA-PEREIRA A;GODINHO R;COSTA V;LUIKART G,"estimating population size in a mark-recapture framework using dna obtained from remotely collected genetic samples (e.g., feces) has become common in recent years but rarely has been used for ungulates. using dna extracted from fecal pellets, we estimated the size of an argali (ovis ammon) population that was believed to be isolated from others within the big pamir mountains, afghanistan, an area where access was difficult and expensive. we used closed-capture models to estimate abundance, and pradel models to examine closure assumptions, both as implemented in program mark. we also made visual counts of argali in the big pamirs, allowing comparison of count indices of abundance with modeled estimates. our model-averaged estimate for female argali in the big pamir was 172 (95% ci = 117-232), which was about 23% higher than our best assessment using uncorrected visual counts. however, mark-recapture models suggested that males were not a closed population; thus, we were unable to provide a meaningful estimate of overall population size. males either suffered much higher mortality than females during the sampling period, or, more likely, males moved in and out of the big pamir area. although information from dna did not provide a clear overall population estimate, it suggested that the big pamir was not isolated from other argali populations, which could not have been confirmed with visual observations alone. estimating argali population size using mark-recapture models and fecal dna is feasible but may be too expensive for frequent monitoring of large and remote populations. our study demonstrates the importance of sex identification and separate abundance estimation for each sex, especially if movement ecology differs by sex." +argali abundance in the afghan pamir using capture-recapture modeling from fecal dna,abundance estimate; afghanistan; argali; fecal samples; mark-recapture; noninvasive sampling; ovis ammon,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,HARRIS RB;WINNIE J;AMISH SJ;BEJA PEREIRA A;GODINHO R;COSTA V;LUIKART G,"estimating population size in a mark-recapture framework using dna obtained from remotely collected genetic samples (e.g., feces) has become common in recent years but rarely has been used for ungulates. using dna extracted from fecal pellets, we estimated the size of an argali (ovis ammon) population that was believed to be isolated from others within the big pamir mountains, afghanistan, an area where access was difficult and expensive. we used closed-capture models to estimate abundance, and pradel models to examine closure assumptions, both as implemented in program mark. we also made visual counts of argali in the big pamirs, allowing comparison of count indices of abundance with modeled estimates. our model-averaged estimate for female argali in the big pamir was 172 (95% ci = 117-232), which was about 23% higher than our best assessment using uncorrected visual counts. however, mark-recapture models suggested that males were not a closed population; thus, we were unable to provide a meaningful estimate of overall population size. males either suffered much higher mortality than females during the sampling period, or, more likely, males moved in and out of the big pamir area. although information from dna did not provide a clear overall population estimate, it suggested that the big pamir was not isolated from other argali populations, which could not have been confirmed with visual observations alone. estimating argali population size using mark-recapture models and fecal dna is feasible but may be too expensive for frequent monitoring of large and remote populations. our study demonstrates the importance of sex identification and separate abundance estimation for each sex, especially if movement ecology differs by sex." evaluation of bear rub surveys to monitor grizzly bear population trends,bear rubs; grizzly bear; mark-recapture; montana; noninvasive genetic sampling; northern continental divide ecosystem; pradel model; trend monitoring; ursus arctos,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,STETZ JB;KENDALL KC;SERVHEEN C,"wildlife managers need reliable estimates of population size, trend, and distribution to make informed decisions about how to recover at-risk populations, yet obtaining these estimates is costly and often imprecise. the grizzly bear (ursus arctos) population in northwestern montana, usa, has been managed for recovery since being listed under the united states endangered species act in 1975, yet no rigorous data were available to evaluate the program's success. we used encounter data from 379 grizzly bears identified through bear rub surveys to parameterize a series of pradel model simulations in program mark to assess the ability of noninvasive genetic sampling to estimate population growth rates. we evaluated model performance in terms of 1) power to detect gender-specific and population-wide declines in population abundance, 2) precision and relative bias of growth rate estimates, and 3) sampling effort required to achieve 80% power to detect a decline within 10 years. simulations indicated that ecosystem-wide, annual bear rub surveys would exceed 80% power to detect a 3% annual decline within 6 years. robust-design models with 2 simulated surveys per year provided precise and unbiased annual estimates of trend, abundance, and apparent survival. designs incorporating one survey per year require less sampling effort but only yield trend and apparent survival estimates. our results suggest that systematic, annual bear rub surveys may provide a viable complement or alternative to telemetry-based methods for monitoring trends in grizzly bear populations." "mark-recapture accurately estimates census for tuatara, a burrowing reptile",conservation management; cryptic species; lincoln-peterson estimator; mark-recapture; new zealand; sphenodon punctatus; stephens island; tuatara,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,MOORE JA;GRANT T;BROWN D;KEALL SN;NELSON NJ,"estimates of population size are necessary for effective management of threatened and endangered species, but accurate estimation is often difficult when species are cryptic. we evaluated effectiveness of mark-recapture techniques using the lincoln-peterson estimator for predicting true census size of a population of tuatara (sphenodon punctatus), a burrowing reptile that is a conservation priority in new zealand. we found that lincoln-peterson estimates (n (n) over cap = 85) were accurate for predicting the census size (n = 87) after only a 3-day mark-recapture survey. we recommend this method as a cost-effective way to accurately estimate population size for isolated, inaccessible tuatara populations, because it requires limited personnel, expertise, and time, and has low environmental impact on fragile sites." -"recruitment in a colorado population of big brown bats: breeding probabilities, litter size, and first-year survival",big brown bats; breeding probabilities; colorado; eptesicus fuscus; fecundity; litter size; maternity colonies; recruitment; reproduction; survival,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,O'SHEA TJ;ELLISON LE;NEUBAUM DJ;NEUBAUM MA;REYNOLDS CA;BOWEN RA,"we used mark-recapture estimation techniques and radiography to test hypotheses about 3 important aspects of recruitment in big brown bats (eptesicus fuscus) in fort collins. colorado. adult breeding probabilities, litter size, and 1st-year survival of young. we marked 2,968 females with passive integrated transponder (pit) tags at multiple sites during 2001-2005 and based our assessments on direct recaptures (breeding probabilities) and passive detection with automated pit tag readers (1st-year survival) we interpreted our data in relation to hypotheses regarding demographic influences of hat age. roost, and effects of years with unusual environmental conditions. extreme drought (2002) and arrival of a west nile virus epizootic (2003). conditional breeding probabilities at 6 roosts sampled in 2002-2005 were estimated as 0 64 (95% confidence interval [95% ci] = 0 53-0 73) in 1-year-old females, but were consistently high (95% cl = 0 94-0 96) and did not vary by roost. year. or prior year breeding status in older adults. mean litter size was 1.11 (95% cl = 1.05-1.17), based on examination of 112 pregnant females by radiography litter size was not higher in older or lamer females and was similar to results of other studies in western north america despite wide variation in latitude first-year survival was estimated as 0 67 (95% ci 0 61-0 73) for weaned females at 5 maternity roosts over 5 consecutive years, was lower than adult survival (0 79, 95% ci = 0 77-0.81), and varied by roost. based on model selection criteria, strong evidence exists for complex roost and year effects on 1st-year survival first year survival was lowest in bats born during the drought year juvenile females that did not return to roosts as 1-year-olds had lower body condition indices in late summer of their natal year than those known to survive. doi: 10 1644/08-mamm-a-295.1" +"recruitment in a colorado population of big brown bats: breeding probabilities, litter size, and first-year survival",big brown bats; breeding probabilities; colorado; eptesicus fuscus; fecundity; litter size; maternity colonies; recruitment; reproduction; survival,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,O SHEA TJ;ELLISON LE;NEUBAUM DJ;NEUBAUM MA;REYNOLDS CA;BOWEN RA,"we used mark-recapture estimation techniques and radiography to test hypotheses about 3 important aspects of recruitment in big brown bats (eptesicus fuscus) in fort collins. colorado. adult breeding probabilities, litter size, and 1st-year survival of young. we marked 2,968 females with passive integrated transponder (pit) tags at multiple sites during 2001-2005 and based our assessments on direct recaptures (breeding probabilities) and passive detection with automated pit tag readers (1st-year survival) we interpreted our data in relation to hypotheses regarding demographic influences of hat age. roost, and effects of years with unusual environmental conditions. extreme drought (2002) and arrival of a west nile virus epizootic (2003). conditional breeding probabilities at 6 roosts sampled in 2002-2005 were estimated as 0 64 (95% confidence interval [95% ci] = 0 53-0 73) in 1-year-old females, but were consistently high (95% cl = 0 94-0 96) and did not vary by roost. year. or prior year breeding status in older adults. mean litter size was 1.11 (95% cl = 1.05-1.17), based on examination of 112 pregnant females by radiography litter size was not higher in older or lamer females and was similar to results of other studies in western north america despite wide variation in latitude first-year survival was estimated as 0 67 (95% ci 0 61-0 73) for weaned females at 5 maternity roosts over 5 consecutive years, was lower than adult survival (0 79, 95% ci = 0 77-0.81), and varied by roost. based on model selection criteria, strong evidence exists for complex roost and year effects on 1st-year survival first year survival was lowest in bats born during the drought year juvenile females that did not return to roosts as 1-year-olds had lower body condition indices in late summer of their natal year than those known to survive. doi: 10 1644/08-mamm-a-295.1" spatiotemporal variation in akodon montensis (cricetidae: sigmodontinae) and hantaviral seroprevalence in a subtropical forest ecosystem,akodon montensis; hantavirus; land conversion; mbaracayu; biosphere reserve; paraguay; rodentia; simodontinae; upper parana atlantic forest; viral ecology,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,OWEN RD;GOODIN DG;KOCH DE;CHU YK;JONSSON CB,"relatively little information is available concerning the natural history or population ecology of the montane akodont. akodon montensis. a sigmodontine species that harbors jabora and ape aime hantaviruses on the basis of mark-recapture sampling of 3 locales during 2 years. this report provides comparative data on populational and other characteristics of the species near its distributional limit, in the upper parana atlantic forest in paraguay we found a montensis to be almost exclusively terrestrial (nonarboreal) and to vary in population density among locales and between years. findings consistent with earlier studies. population density was not related either to neotropical seasonality or to most precipitation variables, but sex ratio varied seasonally, which has not been reported previously we evaluated the seroprevalence of hantavirus in a montensis. in association with external. populational, and individual variables as in most previous studies of rodent hantavirus systems, seroprevalence varied among sampling locales and was higher among males however, unlike previous reports. especially those from north america. we did not find a correspondence between seroplevalence and population density. seasonal variation, or most precipitation variables simple and direct associations between seroprevalence levels and either seasonality or precipitation may be less characteristic of humid neotropical or subtropical systems our analyses revealed that seropositive animals exhibit several noteworthy behavioral and hie-history modifications, in particular that they have larger home ranges than do seronegatives, exhibit greater maximum distance moved, have greater home range displacement between sampling sessions. particularly those individuals that are seroconvertmg during the same period, and have greater longevity, especially among males in general. these characteristics could be postulated as favorable to the capacity of the virus to be transmitted horizontally to other hosts doi. 10 1644/09-mamm-a-152.1." "high natality rates of endangered steller sea lions in kenai fjords, alaska and perceptions of population status in the gulf of alaska",NA,PLOS ONE,MANISCALCO JM;SPRINGER AM;PARKER P,"steller sea lions experienced a dramatic population collapse of more than 80% in the late 1970s through the 1990s across their western range in alaska. one of several competing hypotheses about the cause holds that reduced female reproductive rates (natality) substantively contributed to the decline and continue to limit recovery in the gulf of alaska despite the fact that there have been very few attempts to directly measure natality in this species. we conducted a longitudinal study of natality among individual steller sea lions (n = 151) at a rookery and nearby haulouts in kenai fjords, gulf of alaska during 2003-2009. multi-state models were built and tested in program mark to estimate survival, resighting, and state transition probabilities dependent on whether or not a female gave birth in the previous year. the models that most closely fit the data suggested that females which gave birth had a higher probability of surviving and giving birth in the following year compared to females that did not give birth, indicating some females are more fit than others. natality, estimated at 69%, was similar to natality for steller sea lions in the gulf of alaska prior to their decline (67%) and much greater than the published estimate for the 2000s (43%) which was hypothesized from an inferential population dynamic model. reasons for the disparity are discussed, and could be resolved by additional longitudinal estimates of natality at this and other rookeries over changing ocean climate regimes. such estimates would provide an appropriate assessment of a key parameter of population dynamics in this endangered species which has heretofore been lacking. without support for depressed natality as the explanation for a lack of recovery of steller sea lions in the gulf of alaska, alternative hypotheses must be more seriously considered." challenging conservation of migratory species: sahelian rainfalls drive first-year survival of the vulnerable lesser kestrel falco naumanni,capture-recapture; global changes; raptor conservation; wintering grounds,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MIHOUB JB;GIMENEZ O;PILARD P;SARRAZIN F,"in the context of attested global changes, accurate estimation of whether climatic fluctuations impact on population demographic parameters is needed for adequate management, especially for migratory species. we present a capture-recapture analysis linking survival rates of the vulnerable lesser kestrel (falco naumanni) to annual rainfalls in the sahel region, considered as a proxy of climatic conditions on wintering grounds. recapture data were obtained from field observations of individuals ringed and sexed as juveniles over a 14-year monitoring period (1994-2007). we addressed a common but problematic situation in birds where. (i) sex is known with certainty for first-summer or older birds but only suspected for juveniles, and (ii) a large proportion of individuals never return to the study population (e g. transient behavior) transient behavior and unknown sexes were explicitly integrated considering a two age class in a multistate capture-recapture model. survival was time-varying for juveniles (geometric mean: 0 499 +/- 0 021) but constant - and higher - for adults (0.718 +/- 0 013) yearling survival probabilities were strongly correlated with rainfalls in the sahel, suggesting a high dependence of juvenile upon the wintering conditions while taking sex uncertainty into account, we detected no sex-dependence in survival incorporating the sensitivity of survival of wintering migratory birds to climatic variables such as precipitations in arid sahelian ecosystem may allow to model conservation scenarios with a greater realism. finally, we encourage the development of international management strategies for migratory species on wintering areas in addition to the existing conservation actions on summering mediterranean grounds. (c) 2010 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved" +estimating detection probabilities of tagged fish migrating past fixed receiver stations using only local information,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,MELNYCHUK MC;WALTERS CJ,NA individual heterogeneity in studies on marked animals using numerical integration: capture-recapture mixed models,capture-recapture mixed models; cr2m; european dippers; finite mixture models; generalized linear mixed models; likelihood-ratio test; mark-recapture models; random effects; sociable weavers; survival estimation; winbugs,ECOLOGY,GIMENEZ O;CHOQUET R,"in conservation and evolutionary ecology, quantifying and accounting for individual heterogeneity in vital rates of open populations is of particular interest. individual random effects have been used in capture-recapture models, adopting a bayesian framework with markov chain monte carlo (mcmc) to carry out estimation and inference. as an alternative, we show how numerical integration via the gauss-hermite quadrature (ghq) can be efficiently used to approximate the capture-recapture model likelihood with individual random effects. we compare the performance of the two approaches (mcmc vs. ghq) and finite mixture models using two examples, including data on european dippers and sociable weavers. besides relying on standard statistical tools, ghq was found to be faster than mcmc simulations. our approach is implemented in program e-surge. overall, capture-recapture mixed models (cr2ms), implemented either via a ghq approximation or mcmc simulations, have potential important applications in population biology." climatic influence on demographic parameters of a tropical seabird varies with age and sex,"blue-footed booby; capture-recapture modeling; climate; demography; life-history traits; population dynamic, seabird; sula nebouxii",ECOLOGY,ORO D;TORRES R;RODRIGUEZ C;DRUMMOND H,"in marine ecosystems climatic fluctuation and other physical variables greatly influence population dynamics, but differential effects of physical variables on the demographic parameters of the two sexes and different age classes are largely unexplored. we analyzed the effects of climate on the survival and recruitment of both sexes and several age classes of a long-lived tropical seabird, the blue-footed booby (sula nebouxii), using long-term observations on marked individuals. results demonstrated a complex interaction between yearly fluctuations in climate (both local and global indexes, during both winter and breeding season) and the sex and age of individuals. youngest birds' survival and recruitment were commonly affected by local climate, whereas oldest birds' parameters tended to be constant and less influenced by environmental variables. these results confirm the theoretical prediction that sex- and age-related variation in life-history demographic traits is greater under poor environmental conditions, and they highlight the importance of including variability in fitness components in demographic and evolutionary models. males and females showed similar variation in survival but different recruitment patterns, in relation to both age and the spatial scale of climatic influence (local or global). results indicate different life-history tactics for each sex and different ages, with birds likely trying to maximize their fitness by responding to the environmental contingencies of each year." estimating individual survival using territory occupancy data on unmarked animals,bayesian analysis; capture recapture; common birds census; robust design; state-space models; territory colonization; territory fidelity; winbugs,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,ROTH T;AMRHEIN V,"p>1. survival estimation forms the basis of much ecological research, and usually requires data on marked animals. in population studies of territorial animals, however, data are often collected on animal territory occupancy without identification of individuals. previously, these data could not be used to estimate demographic parameters such as survival. 2. we developed a hierarchical site-occupancy model for estimating survival from territory occupancy data without individual identification. we defined survival as the probability that an individual occupying a territory survives until the next reproductive period and settles in the same territory again. to evaluate our model, we used simulated data as well as real data from a long-term study on nightingales luscinia megarhynchos, from which mark-recapture data and territory occupancy data were available. 3. when applied to simulated data sets on territory occupancy, with parameter settings that are typical for different monitoring programmes (i.e. 10 years duration, three or eight visits per season, and 55 or 200 territories surveyed), our model yielded unbiased estimates of survival if the probability of detecting an occupied territory during a single visit was p = 0 center dot 5 or p = 0 center dot 7. 4. when applied to the data on nightingale territory occupancy, estimates of survival from our model were very similar to the estimates obtained from a traditional mark-recapture model (cormack-jolly-seber model) applied to the ringing data from the same nightingale population. 5.synthesis and applications. data collection for mark-recapture analysis is usually invasive and labour intensive, and suitable data are rarely available from large-scale monitoring programmes covering entire regions or countries. applying our model to territory occupancy data from such monitoring programmes could make large amounts of data available for research on animal demography." estimation of immigration rate using integrated population models,athene noctua; bayesian; capture-recapture; identifiability; population counts; reproductive success; survival; state-space model,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,ABADI F;GIMENEZ O;ULLRICH B;ARLETTAZ R;SCHAUB M,"p>1. the dynamics of many populations is strongly affected by immigrants. however, estimating and modelling immigration is a real challenge. in the past, several methods have been developed to estimate immigration rate but they either require strong assumptions or combine in a piecewise manner the results from separate analyses. in most methods the effects of covariates cannot be modelled formally. 2. we developed a bayesian integrated population model which combines capture-recapture data, population counts and information on reproductive success into a single model that estimates and models immigration rate, while directly assessing the impact of environmental covariates. 3. we assessed parameter identifiability by comparing posterior distributions of immigration rates under varying priors, and illustrated the application of the model with long term demographic data of a little owl athene noctua population from southern germany. we further assessed the impact of environmental covariates on immigration. 4. the resulting posterior distributions were insensitive to different prior distributions and dominated by the observed data, indicating that the immigration rate was identifiable. average yearly immigration into the little owl population was 0 center dot 293 (95% credible interval 0 center dot 183-0 center dot 418), which means that ca 0 center dot 3 female per resident female entered the population every year. immigration rate tended to increase with increasing abundance of voles, the main prey of little owls. 5.synthesis and applications. the means to estimate and model immigration is an important step towards a better understanding of the dynamics of geographically open populations. the demographic estimates obtained from the developed integrated population model facilitate population diagnoses and can be used to assess population viability. the structural flexibility of the model should constitute a useful tool for wildlife managers and conservation ecologists." "movement and habitat selection by argia vivida (hagen) (odonata, coenagrionidae) in fuel-modified forest",odonata; fuel management; habitat; dispersal; movement,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,KORTELLO AD;HAM SJ,"fuel management for wildfire protection is becoming increasingly common in the wildland-urban interface and may have conservation implications for species with restricted distributions and limited dispersal abilities. to evaluate the impact of forest fuel management on the damselfly argia vivida at the northern margin of its range, we examined terrestrial movements and habitat associations using capture-mark-recapture and point count techniques. we found that habitats away from the springs were particularly important for a. vivida females. most damselflies travelled at least 50 m between capture and recapture and patches of cleared forest up to this size did not pose a barrier to movement. although a. vivida typically roosts in trees at night, cleared fuel treatment areas were preferred over unmodified or thinned forest as daytime basking and foraging sites. preferred sites were also characterized by heterogeneous canopy closure, i.e., a clearing adjacent to unmodified forest with a closed canopy. we speculate that this behaviour derives from the species' thermoregulation requirements; the use of sunspots for thermal basking during the day and the use of forest cover at night to slow the radiant loss of heat. our findings demonstrate the scale of movements that define available habitat and the importance of both daytime and night time habitat requirements in considering terrestrial foraging and movement corridors. consequently, conservation efforts for this species in fuel management areas should focus on maintaining unmodified stands of dense trees in association with cleared patches of appropriate dimension, rather than a uniformly thinned forest." "effects of narrow roads on the movement of carabid beetles (coleoptera, carabidae) in nopporo forest park, hokkaido",fragmentation; barrier; mark-recapture; road ecology,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,YAMADA Y;SASAKI H;HARAUCHI Y,"forest-dwelling carabid beetles that have no flight ability were studied using mark-recapture methods in late-june to mid-october 2007. this study was done to determine the effects of narrow roads in nopporo forest park, hokkaido on carabid beetle movement and habitat use. the investigation was conducted at four sites: one site was an abandoned grassy road with a width of 3.5 m, two sites were gravel roads with widths of 3.5 and 4.5 m, and another site was an asphalt-paved road with a width of 4.5 m. a total of 3,580 individuals from six species of carabid beetles were collected using dry pit-fall traps, and recapture rates ranged from 6.1 to 36.2%. all examined roads acted as barriers against the movement of leptocarabus arboreus ishikarinus. all roads, except the abandoned grassy road, acted as a barrier against carabus granulatus yezoensis movement. forest-roadside verge comparisons demonstrated that some carabid beetles avoid even narrow roadside verges. harmful effects increase with increasing road width and both paved roads and narrow roads negatively affect the movement of carabid beetles inhabiting the bordering forest. therefore, forest specialist beetles are influenced by a barrier effect that starts at the forest road verge, and this barrier effect may be exacerbated by vehicular traffic. therefore, these barrier effects on carabid beetles should be considered when planning and implementing road construction and maintenance in forests." -use of portable antennas to estimate abundance of pit-tagged fish in small streams: factors affecting detection probability,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,O'DONNELL MJ;HORTON GE;LETCHER BH,"portable passive integrated transponder (pit) tag antenna systems can be valuable in providing reliable estimates of the abundance of tagged atlantic salmon salmo salar in small streams under a wide range of conditions. we developed and employed pit tag antenna wand techniques in two controlled experiments and an additional case study to examine the factors that influenced our ability to estimate population size. we used pollock's robust-design capture-mark-recapture model to obtain estimates of the probability of first detection (p), the probability of redetection (c), and abundance (n) in the two controlled experiments. first, we conducted an experiment in which tags were hidden in fixed locations. although p and c varied among the three observers and among the three passes that each observer conducted, the estimates of n were identical to the true values and did not vary among observers. in the second experiment using free-swimming tagged fish, p and c varied among passes and time of day. additionally, estimates of n varied between day and night and among age-classes but were within 10% of the true population size. in the case study, we used the cormack-jolly-seber model to examine the variation in p, and we compared counts of tagged fish found with the antenna wand with counts collected via electrofishing. in that study, we found that although p varied for age-classes, sample dates, and time of day, antenna and electrofishing estimates of n were similar, indicating that population size can be reliably estimated via pit tag antenna wands. however, factors such as the observer, time of day, age of fish, and stream discharge can influence the initial and subsequent detection probabilities." +use of portable antennas to estimate abundance of pit-tagged fish in small streams: factors affecting detection probability,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,O DONNELL MJ;HORTON GE;LETCHER BH,"portable passive integrated transponder (pit) tag antenna systems can be valuable in providing reliable estimates of the abundance of tagged atlantic salmon salmo salar in small streams under a wide range of conditions. we developed and employed pit tag antenna wand techniques in two controlled experiments and an additional case study to examine the factors that influenced our ability to estimate population size. we used pollock's robust-design capture-mark-recapture model to obtain estimates of the probability of first detection (p), the probability of redetection (c), and abundance (n) in the two controlled experiments. first, we conducted an experiment in which tags were hidden in fixed locations. although p and c varied among the three observers and among the three passes that each observer conducted, the estimates of n were identical to the true values and did not vary among observers. in the second experiment using free-swimming tagged fish, p and c varied among passes and time of day. additionally, estimates of n varied between day and night and among age-classes but were within 10% of the true population size. in the case study, we used the cormack-jolly-seber model to examine the variation in p, and we compared counts of tagged fish found with the antenna wand with counts collected via electrofishing. in that study, we found that although p varied for age-classes, sample dates, and time of day, antenna and electrofishing estimates of n were similar, indicating that population size can be reliably estimated via pit tag antenna wands. however, factors such as the observer, time of day, age of fish, and stream discharge can influence the initial and subsequent detection probabilities." "lake sturgeon population status and demography in the kettle river, minnesota, 1992-2007",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,DIETERMAN DJ;FRANK J;PAINOVICH N;STAPLES DF,"we assessed population status and estimated selected demographic parameters for lake sturgeon acipenser fulvescens in the kettle river, minnesota, using capture-recapture tagging data collected from 1992 to 2007. the lake sturgeon is an imperiled species of special concern in minnesota, with population declines attributed to overfishing, pollution, and establishment of dams. in 1995, the recreational fishery was closed and the only dam on the kettle river (sandstone dam) was removed, in part to promote lake sturgeon recovery. recent incidental capture of lake sturgeon by anglers is prompting interest in re-opening the recreational fishery. we gathered information to determine (1) status and demography of the kettle river population, (2) the effect of dam removal, and (3) the feasibility of re-opening the recreational fishery. open-population capture-recapture models were used to examine population status and estimate survival, seniority, and the relative importance of survival and recruitment for influencing population trends. the rate of population change (lambda) indicated that the population was barely maintaining itself (average lambda across years 1.02; 95% confidence interval [ci] = 0.86-1.16). annual population estimates ranged from about 130 fish to almost 300 fish but had wide cis. similarly, estimates of new lake sturgeon entering the population each year (either from within-population recruitment or immigration) were variable and ranged from 0 to over 100. annual survival was nearly constant at about 80%. growth was slow relative to other populations but averaged about 28 mm/year for ages 6-21. a seniority parameter indicated that 49-87% of individuals in the population in a given year consisted of population members that survived from the previous year. this suggested that the population was essentially maintaining itself through a combination of episodic recruitment and relatively constant survival. recent low recruitment may be due to a short-term disturbance from sediment released when the dam was removed in 1995. maintaining closure of the recreational fishery still appears necessary. bolstering of recruitment may be needed to increase the population. full recovery will require patience for this long-lived, late-maturing, infrequently reproducing species." estimation and modeling of electrofishing capture efficiency for fishes in wadeable warmwater streams,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,PRICE AL;PETERSON JT,"stream fish managers often use fish sample data to inform management decisions affecting fish populations. fish sample data, however, can be biased by the same factors affecting fish populations. to minimize the effect of sample biases on decision making, biologists need information on the effectiveness of fish sampling methods. we evaluated single-pass backpack electrofishing and seining combined with electrofishing by following a dual-gear, mark-recapture approach in 61 blocknetted sample units within first-to third-order streams. we also estimated fish movement out of unblocked units during sampling. capture efficiency and fish abundances were modeled for 50 fish species by use of conditional multinomial capture recapture models. the best-approximating models indicated that capture efficiencies were generally low and differed among species groups based on family or genus. efficiencies of single-pass electrofishing and seining combined with electrofishing were greatest for catostomidae and lowest for ictaluridae. fish body length and stream habitat characteristics (mean cross-sectional area, wood density, mean current velocity, and turbidity) also were related to capture efficiency of both methods, but the effects differed among species groups. we estimated that, on average, 23% of fish left the unblocked sample units, but net movement varied among species. our results suggest that (1) common warmwater stream fish sampling methods have low capture efficiency and (2) failure to adjust for incomplete capture may bias estimates of fish abundance. we suggest that managers minimize bias from incomplete capture by adjusting data for site-and species-specific capture efficiency and by choosing sampling gear that provide estimates with minimal bias and variance. furthermore, if block nets are not used, we recommend that managers adjust the data based on unconditional capture efficiency." "effects of a conservative rock bass length limit on angler participation, sport fish populations, and crayfish prey in a missouri ozark stream",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,ROELL MJ;DISTEFANO RJ,"rock bass ambloplites rupestris are popular with anglers in missouri ozark streams, second only to smallmouth bass micropterus dolomieu. historically, fishery biologists emphasized the management of smallmouth bass, but in the late 1980s they sought higher-quality rock bass fisheries and thus the information needed to recommend harvest regulations. using a conservative minimum length limit of 230 mm (9 in) total length (tl) in a heavily exploited rock bass fishery in the big piney river, missouri, we assessed the direct and indirect effects on angler participation and attitudes (by means of an angler survey), the abundance (mark-recapture analysis) and growth rates (scale analysis) of rock bass and smallmouth bass, sport fish predation on crayfishes (order decapoda; diet analysis), and crayfish densities (stratified quadrat sampling). these measures were evaluated for 3 years (1992-1994) before the length limit was imposed and for 6 years afterward (1995-2000) on a 17.1-km-long regulation section and a 10.4-km-long reference section. our results indicate that the length limit (1) had substantial angler support, as shown by their attitudes and compliance with the regulation; (2) reduced the hours fished by rock bass anglers, smallmouth bass anglers, and all anglers; (3) increased the abundances of larger rock bass and smallmouth bass substantially; (4) did not reduce the growth rates of rock bass or smallmouth bass; (5) did not proportionally reduce the predation on crayfishes or increase the percentage of empty stomachs; and (6) did not reduce the densities of crayfishes. after a review of the options for long-term management, fishery administrators and managers elected to manage big piney river rock bass with a minimum-tl regulation of 205 mm (8 in) on 124 km of river. managers on five other rivers (one with shadow bass a. ariommus) have done likewise on an additional 448 km, and the outcomes of these decisions are currently being monitored on all six rivers." @@ -1234,7 +1237,7 @@ hierarchical modelling and estimation of abundance and population trends in meta edge behaviour in a minute parasitic wasp,advection-diffusion models; anagrus; dispersal; edge behaviour; landscape; prokelisia,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,REEVE JD;CRONIN JT,"p>1. changes in the density of an organism near a boundary elements (edge effects) are often thought to be generated by changes in movement behaviour, but in most cases the mechanism underlying these effects is unknown. 2. we quantified the movement behaviour of a minute parasitic wasp, anagrus columbi, in relation to edges in its habitat. this wasp attacks eggs of the planthopper prokelisia crocea, which inhabits a wet prairie ecosystem composed of patches of its host plant prairie cordgrass (spartina pectinata) interspersed within a matrix of mudflat, smooth brome (bromus inermis) and native grasses. two edge types are common in this system, cordgrass-mudflat and cordgrass-brome. 3. we conducted mark-recapture experiments in which wasps were released at the cordgrass-matrix edge and 50 cm within cordgrass or matrix, for both edge types. the marked wasps were recaptured using a grid of sticky traps. we fitted an advection-diffusion model to these data, yielding estimates of the diffusion rate and advection coefficient for cordgrass and matrix, for each release position and edge type. 4. the spatial distribution of wasps was well-described by the advection-diffusion model. the pattern suggests that marked wasps strongly biased their movements towards the edge when released in matrix, and to a lesser extent when released in cordgrass, while edge releases showed little bias. the advection coefficients were similar for the two edge types, as were the diffusion rates for the three substrates (cordgrass, brome, mudflat). the diffusive and advective components of movement were of comparable magnitude for matrix and cordgrass releases, suggesting equal amounts of directed and random movement. 5. our results suggest the wasps are attracted to cordgrass patches across short distances, and that bias in their movements may concentrate them at the patch edge. their edge behaviour is qualitatively different from that of the host insect. 6. the methodology described here could be readily adapted to other systems, where direct observations of movement are difficult but mark-recapture studies are feasible." camera-trapping forest-woodland wildlife of western uganda reveals how gregariousness biases estimates of relative abundance and distribution,biodiversity; duiker; giant forest hog; group living; leopard; mark-recapture; non-invasive monitoring,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,TREVES A;MWIMA P;PLUMPTRE AJ;ISOKE S,"camera traps are increasingly used to estimate relative abundance and distribution of wildlife. these methods are powerful and efficient ways to inventory multiple species simultaneously and count rare, secretive individuals across landscapes. however the estimation methods demand assumptions about relative capture probability that may not hold well for gregarious animals. we present results from the first systematic, camera-trap study in forest-wood land, western uganda. within a landscape of seven protected areas with globally important biodiversity, we detected >36 species of large mammals and birds in 8841 camera-trap days. species photographed in groups of two or more individuals produced higher estimates of relative abundance and wider distribution than species photographed as single individuals. we propose these findings reflect higher detectability for animals that forage or travel in groups. we discuss how capture-recapture theory should be adapted to account for both non-independence among individuals in groups and for the interaction between individual and temporal variation in capture probability. we also identify several species that deserve greater conservation attention in uganda and beyond. among them, leopards were unexpectedly rare, especially when compared to the sympatric african golden cat. we recommend against a recent policy on leopard trophy hunting, at least in western uganda. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." site fidelity of the declining amphibian rana sierrae (sierra nevada yellow-legged frog),NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,MATTHEWS KR;PREISLER HK,"from 1997 to 2006, we used mark-recapture models to estimate the site fidelity of 1250 sierra nevada yellow-legged frogs (rana sierrae) in kings canyon national park, california, usa, during their three main activity periods of overwintering, breeding, and feeding. to quantify site fidelity, the tendency to return to and reuse previously occupied habitats, we used multistrata models (with water bodies as the strata) and potential function analyses. the probability of returning to previously used water bodies during all activity periods was typically greater than 80% and always greater than the probability of moving to other water bodies. site fidelity models (with lake-specific movement transitions) were favored over those models that held movement transitions equal between lakes. potential function analyses demonstrated that frogs were most strongly attracted to their original capture lakes rather than moving to the nearest available breeding or overwintering lake. under current disturbances in high-elevation sierra nevada lakes (exotic trout, climate change), site fidelity is problematic because frogs return to lakes subject to drying or those with fish rather than dispersing to other lakes. future recovery of declining species will need to focus efforts towards restoring habitats when animals maintain strong site fidelity even when their habitats deteriorate." -"roles of human disturbance, precipitation, and a pathogen on the survival and reproductive probabilities of deer mice","deer mice; density dependence; great basin desert, central utah, usa; human disturbance; off-road vehicles; peromyscus maniculatus; precipitation; reproduction; seasonality; sin nombre virus; survival",ECOLOGY,PREVITALI MA;LEHMER EM;PEARCE-DUVET JMC;JONES JD;CLAY CA;WOOD BA;ELY PW;LAVERTY SM;DEARING MD,"climate change, human disturbance, and disease can have large impacts on the dynamics of a species by affecting the likelihood of survival and reproduction of individuals. we investigated the roles of precipitation, off-road vehicle (orv) alteration of habitat, and infection with sin nombre virus on the survival and reproductive probabilities of deer mice (peromyscus maniculatus). we used generalized linear mixed models to estimate the effects of these factors and their interactions by fitting capture-recapture data collected seasonally from 2002 to 2007 at 17 sites in the great basin desert of central utah, usa. during periods with high precipitation, we found no difference in survival and reproductive probabilities between seasons, but during drier periods, we found a reduction of overwinter survival and fall reproductive activity. precipitation also interacted with disturbance to affect survival probabilities and female reproduction; in periods with low precipitation, deer mice on highly disturbed sites had extremely low survival probabilities and low reproductive probabilities of females compared to those of individuals from low-disturbance sites. however, high precipitation ameliorated the effect of disturbance on both parameters. deer mice from sites with high impact of orv disturbance also had low survival over summer. additionally, male reproductive probabilities were diminished on highly disturbed sites in both seasons; in contrast, they were reduced only in the fall on low-disturbance sites. density had an overall negative effect on survival and reproductive probabilities of deer mice. for females, the negative effect on reproductive activity was amplified in highly disturbed sites. we found no effect of hantavirus infection on survival probabilities of deer mice. overall, this study revealed complexity in the determinants of deer mouse survival and reproduction given by the effects of a number of significant interactions among explanatory variables. thus, factors that may not appear to have a strong effect when investigated alone can still be influential by modulating the effect of a different factor." +"roles of human disturbance, precipitation, and a pathogen on the survival and reproductive probabilities of deer mice","deer mice; density dependence; great basin desert, central utah, usa; human disturbance; off-road vehicles; peromyscus maniculatus; precipitation; reproduction; seasonality; sin nombre virus; survival",ECOLOGY,PREVITALI MA;LEHMER EM;PEARCE DUVET JMC;JONES JD;CLAY CA;WOOD BA;ELY PW;LAVERTY SM;DEARING MD,"climate change, human disturbance, and disease can have large impacts on the dynamics of a species by affecting the likelihood of survival and reproduction of individuals. we investigated the roles of precipitation, off-road vehicle (orv) alteration of habitat, and infection with sin nombre virus on the survival and reproductive probabilities of deer mice (peromyscus maniculatus). we used generalized linear mixed models to estimate the effects of these factors and their interactions by fitting capture-recapture data collected seasonally from 2002 to 2007 at 17 sites in the great basin desert of central utah, usa. during periods with high precipitation, we found no difference in survival and reproductive probabilities between seasons, but during drier periods, we found a reduction of overwinter survival and fall reproductive activity. precipitation also interacted with disturbance to affect survival probabilities and female reproduction; in periods with low precipitation, deer mice on highly disturbed sites had extremely low survival probabilities and low reproductive probabilities of females compared to those of individuals from low-disturbance sites. however, high precipitation ameliorated the effect of disturbance on both parameters. deer mice from sites with high impact of orv disturbance also had low survival over summer. additionally, male reproductive probabilities were diminished on highly disturbed sites in both seasons; in contrast, they were reduced only in the fall on low-disturbance sites. density had an overall negative effect on survival and reproductive probabilities of deer mice. for females, the negative effect on reproductive activity was amplified in highly disturbed sites. we found no effect of hantavirus infection on survival probabilities of deer mice. overall, this study revealed complexity in the determinants of deer mouse survival and reproduction given by the effects of a number of significant interactions among explanatory variables. thus, factors that may not appear to have a strong effect when investigated alone can still be influential by modulating the effect of a different factor." empirical comparison of density estimators for large carnivores,american black bear; carnivore; density estimation; edge effect; geographic closure; spatially explicit capture-recapture; ursus americanus,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,OBBARD ME;HOWE EJ;KYLE CJ,"1. population density is a critical ecological parameter informing effective wildlife management and conservation decisions. density is often estimated by dividing capture-recapture (c-r) estimates of abundance ((n) over cap) by size of the study area, but this relies on the assumption of geographic closure - a situation rarely achieved in studies of large carnivores. for geographically open populations (n) over cap is overestimated relative to the size of the study area because animals with only part of their home range on the study area are available for capture. this bias ('edge effect') is more severe when animals such as large carnivores range widely. to compensate for edge effect, a boundary strip around the trap array is commonly included when estimating the effective trap area ((a) over cap). various methods for estimating the width of the boundary strip are proposed, but (n) over cap/(a) over cap estimates of large carnivore density are generally mistrusted unless concurrent telemetry data are available to define (a) over cap. remote sampling by cameras or hair snags may reduce study costs and duration, yet without telemetry data inflated density estimates remain problematic. 2. we evaluated recently developed spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) models using data from a common large carnivore, the american black bear ursus americanus, obtained by remote sampling of 11 geographically open populations. these models permit direct estimation of population density from c-r data without assuming geographic closure. we compared estimates derived using this approach to those derived using conventional approaches that estimate density as (n) over cap/(a) over cap. 3. spatially explicit c-r estimates were 20-200% lower than densities estimated as (n) over cap/(a) over cap. aic(c) supported individual heterogeneity in capture probabilities and home range sizes. variable home range size could not be accounted for when estimating density as (n) over cap/(a) over cap. 4. synthesis and applications. we conclude that the higher densities estimated as (n) over cap/(a) over cap compared to estimates from secr models are consistent with positive bias due to edge effects in the former. inflated density estimates could lead to management decisions placing threatened or endangered large carnivores at greater risk. such decisions could be avoided by estimating density by secr when bias due to geographic closure violation cannot be minimized by study design." modelling detection probabilities to evaluate management and control tools for an invasive species,boiga irregularis; detection probability; eradication; heterogeneity; invasive species management; mark-recapture; visual searching,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,CHRISTY MT;ADAMS AAY;RODDA GH;SAVIDGE JA;TYRRELL CL,"1. for most ecologists, detection probability (p) is a nuisance variable that must be modelled to estimate the state variable of interest (i.e. survival, abundance, or occupancy). however, in the realm of invasive species control, the rate of detection and removal is the rate-limiting step for management of this pervasive environmental problem. 2. for strategic planning of an eradication (removal of every individual), one must identify the least likely individual to be removed, and determine the probability of removing it. 3. to evaluate visual searching as a control tool for populations of the invasive brown treesnake boiga irregularis, we designed a mark-recapture study to evaluate detection probability as a function of time, gender, size, body condition, recent detection history, residency status, searcher team and environmental covariates. 4. we evaluated these factors using 654 captures resulting from visual detections of 117 snakes residing in a 5-ha semi-forested enclosure on guam, fenced to prevent immigration and emigration of snakes but not their prey. visual detection probability was low overall ((p) over cap = 0 07 per occasion) but reached 0.18 under optimal circumstances. 5. our results supported sex-specific differences in detectability that were a quadratic function of size, with both small and large females having lower detection probabilities than males of those sizes. there was strong evidence for individual periodic changes in detectability of a few days duration, roughly doubling detection probability (comparing peak to non-elevated detections). snakes in poor body condition had estimated mean detection probabilities greater than snakes with high body condition. search teams with high average detection rates exhibited detection probabilities about twice that of search teams with low average detection rates. surveys conducted with bright moonlight and strong wind gusts exhibited moderately decreased probabilities of detecting snakes. 6.synthesis and applications. by emphasizing and modelling detection probabilities, we now know: (i) that eradication of this species by searching is possible, (ii) how much searching effort would be required, (iii) under what environmental conditions searching would be most efficient, and (iv) several factors that are likely to modulate this quantification when searching is applied to new areas. the same approach can be use for evaluation of any control technology or population monitoring programme." "evaluating the impact of non-lethal dna sampling on two butterflies, vanessa cardui and satyrodes eurydice",non-lethal sampling; survivability; mark-recapture; lepidoptera; conservation,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,HAMM CA;AGGARWAL D;LANDIS DA,"genetic sampling of endangered species can inform conservation management and potentially aid the long-term survival of a species. however, when dealing with very small populations of rare species, the sacrifice of whole animals may not be desirable or permitted. we set out to develop a demonstrably non-lethal method of obtaining dna from the federally-endangered mitchell's satyr butterfly, neonympha mitchellii mitchellii. because of its endangered status we developed our methods on related species. in greenhouse and fields trials, we demonstrate that removal of small amounts of hind wing (2-3 mm(2)) has no significant impact on the behavior or survival of vanessa cardui and satyrodes eurydice. based on these studies we were successful in obtaining a permit from the us fish and wildlife service to sample dna from n. m. mitchellii populations. we suggest that our results can be extended to the sampling of other rare butterfly species." @@ -1266,7 +1269,7 @@ transmission dynamics of tasmanian devil facial tumor disease may lead to diseas trend estimation in populations with imperfect detection,abundance; binomial mixture model; detectability; glm; hierarchical model; lizard; metapopulation design; monitoring; trend,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,KERY M;DORAZIO RM;SOLDAAT L;VAN STRIEN A;ZUIDERWIJK A;ROYLE JA,"p>1. trends of animal populations are of great interest in ecology but cannot be directly observed owing to imperfect detection. binomial mixture models use replicated counts to estimate abundance, corrected for detection, in demographically closed populations. here, we extend these models to open populations and illustrate them using sand lizard lacerta agilis counts from the national dutch reptile monitoring scheme. 2. our model requires replicated counts from multiple sites in each of several periods, within which population closure is assumed. counts are described by a hierarchical generalized linear model, where the state model deals with spatio-temporal patterns in true abundance and the observation model with imperfect counts, given that true state. we used winbugs to fit the model to lizard counts from 208 transects with 1-10 (mean 3) replicate surveys during each spring 1994-2005. 3. our state model for abundance contained two independent log-linear poisson regressions on year for coastal and inland sites, and random site effects to account for unexplained heterogeneity. the observation model for detection of an individual lizard contained effects of region, survey date, temperature, observer experience and random survey effects. 4. lizard populations increased in both regions but more steeply on the coast. detectability increased over the first few years of the study, was greater on the coast and for the most experienced observers, and highest around 1 june. interestingly, the population increase inland was not detectable when the observed counts were analysed without account of detectability. the proportional increase between 1994 and 2005 in total lizard abundance across all sites was estimated at 86% (95% cri 35-151). 5.synthesis and applications. open-population binomial mixture models are attractive for studying true population dynamics while explicitly accounting for the observation process, i.e. imperfect detection. we emphasize the important conceptual benefit provided by temporal replicate observations in terms of the interpretability of animal counts." bird population density estimated from acoustic signals,acoustic localization; bird counting; density estimation; microphone array; passive acoustic methods; sound attenuation; spatially explicit capture-recapture,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,DAWSON DK;EFFORD MG,"p>1. many animal species are detected primarily by sound. although songs, calls and other sounds are often used for population assessment, as in bird point counts and hydrophone surveys of cetaceans, there are few rigorous methods for estimating population density from acoustic data. 2. the problem has several parts - distinguishing individuals, adjusting for individuals that are missed, and adjusting for the area sampled. spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) is a statistical methodology that addresses jointly the second and third parts of the problem. we have extended secr to use uncalibrated information from acoustic signals on the distance to each source. 3. we applied this extension of secr to data from an acoustic survey of ovenbird seiurus aurocapilla density in an eastern us deciduous forest with multiple four-microphone arrays. we modelled average power from spectrograms of ovenbird songs measured within a window of 0 center dot 7 s duration and frequencies between 4200 and 5200 hz. 4. the resulting estimates of the density of singing males (0 center dot 19 ha-1 se 0 center dot 03 ha-1) were consistent with estimates of the adult male population density from mist-netting (0 center dot 36 ha-1 se 0 center dot 12 ha-1). the fitted model predicts sound attenuation of 0 center dot 11 db m-1 (se 0 center dot 01 db m-1) in excess of losses from spherical spreading. 5.synthesis and applications. our method for estimating animal population density from acoustic signals fills a gap in the census methods available for visually cryptic but vocal taxa, including many species of bird and cetacean. the necessary equipment is simple and readily available; as few as two microphones may provide adequate estimates, given spatial replication. the method requires that individuals detected at the same place are acoustically distinguishable and all individuals vocalize during the recording interval, or that the per capita rate of vocalization is known. we believe these requirements can be met, with suitable field methods, for a significant number of songbird species." "sources, sinks, and spatial ecology of cotton mice in longleaf pine stands undergoing restoration",cotton mouse; fire; longleaf pine; peromyscus gossypinus; recruitment; reverse time; robust design; source-sink dynamics; survival,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,SHARP NW;MITCHELL MS;GRAND JB,"the fire and fire surrogate study-a replicated, manipulative experiment-sought the most economically and ecologically efficient way to restore the nation's fire-maintained ecosystems. as part of this study, we conducted a 3-year mark-recapture study, comprising 105,000 trap-nights, to assess demographic responses of cotton mice (peromyscus gossypinus) to fire and fire surrogate treatments at the gulf coastal plain site, where longleaf pine was the ecosystem to be restored. we compared competing models to evaluate restoration effects on variation in apparent survival and recruitment over time, space, and treatment, and incorporated measures of available source habitat for cotton mice with reverse-time modeling to infer immigration from outside the study area. the top-ranked survival model contained only variation over time, but the closely ranked 2nd and 3rd models included variation over space and treatment, respectively. the top 4 recruitment models all included effects for availability of source habitat and treatments. burning appeared to degrade habitat quality for cotton mice, showing demographic characteristics of a sink, but treatments combining fire with thinning of trees or application of herbicide to the understory appeared to improve habitat quality, possibly creating sources. bottomland hardwoods outside the study also acted as sources by providing immigrants to experimental units. models suggested that population dynamics operated over multiple spatial scales. treatments applied to 15-ha stands probably only caused local variation in vital rates within the larger population." -"effects of temporary tributary use on escapement estimates of adult fall chinook salmon in the deschutes river, oregon",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,"NAUGHTON GP;JEPSON MA;PEERY CA;BRUN CV;GRAHAM JC","international managers use escapement estimates of the deschutes river, oregon, population of fall chinook salmon oncorhynchus tshawytscha to forecast abundance and assess population health. fish are externally marked in the deschutes river, and a subsample of the marked fish is recovered on the spawning grounds to provide data for estimating escapement. escapement would be overestimated if some of the marked fish exited the deschutes river prior to spawning (i.e., used this tributary temporarily). we used mark-recapture and radiotelemetry techniques to calculate (1) the proportion of adult fall chinook salmon that entered the deschutes river and subsequently exited the river prior to spawning and (2) the effect of such temporary entrances on spawning ground escapement estimates. we used separate criteria to calculate maximum and minimum temporary tributary use rates, which were then used to adjust the escapement estimates made with external-tag data alone. over the 3 years of study, the adjusted estimates were approximately 4-29% lower than the unadjusted estimates. we conclude that failure to adjust escapement estimates for temporary tributary use might lead to inflated harvest targets. to partially account for temporary tributary use, the lower 95% confidence limit for an escapement estimate could be used to regulate harvest." +"effects of temporary tributary use on escapement estimates of adult fall chinook salmon in the deschutes river, oregon",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,NAUGHTON GP;JEPSON MA;PEERY CA;BRUN CV;GRAHAM JC,"international managers use escapement estimates of the deschutes river, oregon, population of fall chinook salmon oncorhynchus tshawytscha to forecast abundance and assess population health. fish are externally marked in the deschutes river, and a subsample of the marked fish is recovered on the spawning grounds to provide data for estimating escapement. escapement would be overestimated if some of the marked fish exited the deschutes river prior to spawning (i.e., used this tributary temporarily). we used mark-recapture and radiotelemetry techniques to calculate (1) the proportion of adult fall chinook salmon that entered the deschutes river and subsequently exited the river prior to spawning and (2) the effect of such temporary entrances on spawning ground escapement estimates. we used separate criteria to calculate maximum and minimum temporary tributary use rates, which were then used to adjust the escapement estimates made with external-tag data alone. over the 3 years of study, the adjusted estimates were approximately 4-29% lower than the unadjusted estimates. we conclude that failure to adjust escapement estimates for temporary tributary use might lead to inflated harvest targets. to partially account for temporary tributary use, the lower 95% confidence limit for an escapement estimate could be used to regulate harvest." unreliable amphibian population metrics may obfuscate more than they reveal,amphibians; age structure; body condition; counts; forest management; monitoring; plethodon elongatus; plethodon stormi; reliable inference; source-sink dynamics; sampling,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,KROLL AJ;RUNGE JP;MACCRACKEN JG,"welsh et al. [welsh, h.h., jr. pope, k.l., wheeler, c.a., 2008. using multiple metrics to assess the effects of forest succession on population status: a comparative study of two terrestrial salamanders in the us pacific northwest. biological conservation 141, pp. 1149-1160] argued for the use of four metrics to monitor population status of two terrestrial amphibians, the siskiyou mountains (plethodon stormi) and del norte (plethodon elongatus) salamanders. we show that inherent problems exist with welsh et al.'s application of all four of these metrics, and that their inferences about population status are likely to be uncertain as a consequence and potentially misleading to managers. welsh et al. (2008) used data from different populations and different years to estimate detection probabilities for both p. elongatus and p. stormi, a decision which assumes that detection probabilities do not differ across sites and populations are closed. in addition, welsh et al. (2008) present count data for both salamanders, a metric that assumes capture probability does not vary by age, gender, size, other individual characteristics, and most importantly in their application, habitat characteristics. welsh et al. (2008) estimated survival based upon age ratios. age ratios are known to be biased when immigration and emigration are unequal conn et al. [conn, p.b., doherty, p.f., jr. nichols, j.d., 2005. comparative demography of new world populations of thrushes (turdus spp.): comment. ecology 86, pp. 2536-2541]. in source-sink systems, immigration and emigration are expected to be unequal. thus, the use of this estimation technique to characterize survival in source-sink systems is invalid unless it can be shown that immigration and emigration are equal, a rare occurrence in source-sink systems. the final metric used by welsh et al. (2008) was an index of body condition, i.e., the residuals of a least squares regression of mass on the length. several recent articles have outlined a number of potential problems with the technique and a theoretically more robust and efficient alternative has been published. unfortunately, welsh et al. (2008) did not provide the details (model diagnostic statistics, tests of assumptions) needed to assess whether or not their analyses of body condition may be accurate. we think that evaluation of specific hypotheses, well-designed sampling programs, and methods such as mark-recapture and ratio sampling are more likely to provide reliable inference than re-analysis of old data sets that were collected for other purposes and obsolete methods (i.e.. counting individuals on single occasions) that are known to be flawed. we agree that potential forest management impacts to sensitive taxa require evaluation and monitoring, and that changes in occupancy and abundance are useful metrics for this task (while recognizing that, when feasible to collect, information about reproductive success and survival is superior). however, reliable inference about potential impacts can only be made if reliable methods are employed and if critical assumptions receive empirical evaluation. we offer several suggestions to strengthen inference about management treatments. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." habitat-specific breeder survival of florida scrub-jays: inferences from multistate models,aphelocoma coerulescens; capture-recapture; disturbance; fire; florida scrub-jay; multistate models; patch dynamics; restoration; scrub; survival,ECOLOGY,BREININGER DR;NICHOLS JD;CARTER GM;ODDY DM,"quantifying habitat-specific survival and changes in habitat quality within disturbance-prone habitats is critical for understanding population dynamics and variation in fitness, and for managing degraded ecosystems. we used 18 years of color-banding data and multistate capture-recapture models to test whether habitat quality within territories influences survival and detection probability of breeding florida scrub-jays (aphelocoma coerulescens) and to estimate bird transition probabilities from one territory quality state to another. our study sites were along central florida's atlantic coast and included two of the four largest metapopulations within the species range. we developed markov models for habitat transitions and compared these to bird transition probabilities. florida scrub-jay detection probabilities ranged from 0.88 in the tall territory state to 0.99 in the optimal state; detection probabilities were intermediate in the short state. transition probabilities were similar for birds and habitat in grid cells mapped independently of birds. thus, bird transitions resulted primarily from habitat transitions between states over time and not from bird movement. survival ranged from 0.71 in the short state to 0.82 in the optimal state, with tall states being intermediate. we conclude that average florida scrub-jay survival will remain at levels that lead to continued population declines because most current habitat quality is only marginally suitable across most of the species range. improvements in habitat are likely to be slow and difficult because tall states are resistant to change and the optimal state represents an intermediate transitional stage. the multistate modeling approach to quantifying survival and habitat transition probabilities is useful for quantifying habitat transition probabilities and comparing them to bird transition probabilities to test for habitat selection in dynamic environments." bayesian inference in camera trapping studies for a class of spatial capture-recapture models,abundance; bayesian analysis; binomial point process; camera trapping; carnivore surveys; data augmentation; density estimation; hierarchical model; markov chain monte carlo; spatial capture-recapture; tigers; trapping array; trapping grid,ECOLOGY,ROYLE JA;KARANTH KU;GOPALASWAMY AM;KUMAR NS,"we develop a class of models for inference about abundance or density using spatial capture-recapture data from studies based on camera trapping and related methods. the model is a hierarchical model composed of two components: a point process model describing the distribution of individuals in space (or their home range centers) and a model describing the observation of individuals in traps. we suppose that trap- and individual-specific capture probabilities are a function of distance between individual home range centers and trap locations. we show that the models can be regarded as generalized linear mixed models, where the individual home range centers are random effects. we adopt a bayesian framework for inference under these models using a formulation based on data augmentation. we apply the models to camera trapping data on tigers from the nagarahole reserve, india, collected over 48 nights in 2006. for this study, 120 camera locations were used, but cameras were only operational at 30 locations during any given sample occasion. movement of traps is common in many camera-trapping studies and represents an important feature of the observation model that we address explicitly in our application." @@ -1275,15 +1278,15 @@ variation of adult survival drives population dynamics in a migrating forest bat temporal changes in population dynamics of american martens,abundance; age structure; chichagof island; demographics; fur trapping; mark-recapture; martes americana; southeast alaska; survival,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,FLYNN RW;SCHUMACHER TV,"population parameters of american martens ( martes americana) are often monitored to guide management actions. in order to better understand changing marten population demographics, we estimated marten abundance and several population parameters on a portion of northeast chichagof island (nci), southeast alaska, usa, using capture-mark-recapture methods in combination with radiotelemetry and compared these data with demographic estimates derived from the trapper catch from the larger nci area. we found that capture probability remained relatively high across trapping sessions by using a standard live-trapping protocol, and we found no evidence of capture probability being consistently affected by population or environmental factors. estimated marten numbers varied greatly over the period, ranging from a low of 14.1 martens (0.17/km(2)) during winter 1997-1998 to a high of 45.6 martens (0.55/km(2)) during winter 1995-1996. the annual trend was for decreasing numbers from winter 1990-1991 to winter 1992-1993, then increasing numbers through winter 1995-1996. by winter 1996- 1997, numbers had dropped substantially and remained low through 1997-1998. all population parameters varied temporally, including annual survival (0.34-1.00), sex ratio (1.0-3.5), mean age (0.5-2.9), body condition (20.08-1.35), and fecundity (0.44-2.70). yearly trapper catches on nci varied greatly from 19 to 354 martens (0.02 martens/km(2) to 0.31 martens/km(2)) because of changing trapper effort and marten abundance. we found mean ages of carcasses a good predictor of population mean age, but sex ratios were highly variable. marten numbers and fecundity were strongly correlated with rodent abundance, especially long-tailed voles (microtus longicaudus). by monitoring demographic parameters of the population or trapper-caught carcasses, managers can gain insight into temporal population dynamics. also, total captures of individuals may provide a useful estimate of marten numbers without the expense of radiocollaring and tracking individuals because population estimates were highly correlated with number of individuals captured during a standard survey. because of their high vulnerability to trapping, close monitoring of marten populations is important for the conservation and sustained-yield management of the species. a tracking strategy developed with input data on preseason abundance and age structure may be the best management approach, especially for small populations with limited immigration. (journal of wildlife management 73(8): 1269-1281; 2009)" validating aerial photographic mark-recapture for naturally marked feral horses,aerial survey; equus caballus; feral horse; heterogeneity; mark-recapture; population estimation; sighting probability; validation,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,LUBOW BC;RANSOM JI,"accurately estimating large mammal populations is a difficult challenge because species of interest often occupy vast areas and exhibit low and heterogeneous visibility. population estimation techniques using aerial surveys and statistical design and analysis methods provide a means for meeting this challenge, yet they have only rarely been validated because wild populations of known size suitable for field tests are rare. our study presents field validations of a photographic aerial mark-recapture technique that takes advantage of the recognizable natural markings on free-roaming feral horses (equus caballus) to accurately identify individual animals and groups of animals sighted on multiple occasions. the 3 small populations of feral horses (< 400 animals each) in the western united states used in the study were all closely monitored on a weekly basis by local researchers, thus providing test populations of known size. we were able to accurately estimate these population sizes with aerial surveys, despite rugged terrain and dense vegetation that created substantial heterogeneity of sighting probability among horse groups. our best estimates at the 3 sites were within 26.7%, 2.6%, and 28.6% of known truth (24.2% mean error, 6.0% mean absolute error). in contrast, we found undercount bias as large as 32% before any statistical corrections. the necessary corrections varied both temporally and spatially, in response to previous sighting history (behavioral response), and by the number of horses in a group. despite modeling some of the differences in horse-group visibility with sighting covariates, we found substantial residual unmodeled heterogeneity that contributed to underestimation of the true population by as much as 22.7% when we used models that did not fully account for these unmeasured sources. we also found that the cost of the accurate and validated methods presented here is comparable to that of raw count (so called, census) methods commonly employed across feral horse ranges in 10 western states. we believe this technique can assist managers in accurately estimating many feral horse populations and could be applied to other species with sufficiently diverse and distinguishable visible markings. (journal of wildlife management 73(8): 1420-1429; 2009)" reintroducing endangered vancouver island marmots: survival and cause-specific mortality rates of captive-born versus wild-born individuals,age-at-release; captive-breeding; capture-mark-recapture; cause-specific mortality; demography; endangered species management; marmota vancouverensis; population dynamics; radio-telemetry; reintroduction; survival; vancouver island marmot,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,AALTONEN K;BRYANT AA;HOSTETLER JA;OLI MK,"recovery of the endangered vancouver island marmot (marmota vancouverensis) is contingent upon releases of captive-born marmots into natural habitats. success of such re-introduction programs largely depends on the ability of released animals to survive in the wild. however, whether and to what extent survival and cause-specific mortality rates of captive-born marmots differ from those of their wild-born counterparts remains unknown. we used radio-telemetry (1992-2007) and mark-resighting (1987-2007) data to estimate seasonal and annual survival rates of the vancouver island marmot, to compare survival and cause-specific mortality rates of captive-born marmots that have been released into the natural habitat with those of wild-born marmots, and to test for the effect of age-at-release on survival of the released marmots. analysis of radio-telemetry data suggested no difference in survival of males versus females. however, annual survival of captive-born marmots released into the wild was low (s = 0.605; 95% ci = 0.507-0.696) compared to wild-born marmots (s = 0.854; 95% ci = 0.760-0.915). marmots released as 2-year-old or older survived more successfully than those released as yearlings. additional forensic evidence reinforced the idea that predation was the most important cause of mortality. causes of death differed significantly between captive-born and wild-born marmots. predation by golden eagles (aquila chrysaetus) was the most important cause of mortality for captive-born marmots, whereas predation by wolves (canis lupus) and cougars (fells concolor) was more important for wild-born marmots. age-specific apparent annual survival rate, estimated using the combined mark-resighting and radio-telemetry data, was lowest for pups (s = 0.500; 95% ci = 0.375-0.616) and highest for yearlings and adults (s = 0.656; 95% ci = 0.604-0.705); and apparent survival of 2-year-old was similar to that of yearlings and adults (s = 0.649; 95% ci = 0.527-0.754). our results, based on the analysis of radio-telemetry data, suggest that delaying release of captive-born marmots until 2 years of age may enhance their probability of survival in the wild, and will likely improve the success of the release program. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." -reduced effective population size in an overexploited population of the nile crocodile (crocodylus niloticus),population decline; effective population size; overexploitation; genetic diversity; microsatellites; crocodylus niloticus,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,BISHOP JM;LESLIE AJ;BOURQUIN SL;O'RYAN C,"unchecked exploitation of wildlife resources is one of the major factors influencing species persistence throughout the world today. a significant consequence of exploitation is the increasing rate at which genetic diversity is lost as populations decline. recent studies suggest that life history traits affecting population growth, particularly in long-lived species, may act to moderate the impact of population decline on genetic variation and lead to remnant populations that appear genetically diverse despite having passed through substantial demographic bottlenecks. in this study we show that the retention of genetic variation in a partially recovered population of nile crocodile is deceptive, as it masks the reality of a significant decline in the population's effective size (n-e). repeated episodes of unchecked hunting in the mid to late 20th century have today led to a five-fold decrease in the population's n-e. using current census data we estimate the contemporary n-e/n ratio as similar to 0.05 and, in light of quotas that permit the ongoing removal of adults, simulated the likely effects of genetic drift on extant levels of variation. results indicate that even if the current effective size is maintained, both allelic diversity and heterozygosity will decline. our findings have complex implications for long-lived species: an emphasis on the retention of genetic variation alone, whilst disregarding the effects of population decline on effective size, may ultimately obscure the continued decline and extinction of exploited populations. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +reduced effective population size in an overexploited population of the nile crocodile (crocodylus niloticus),population decline; effective population size; overexploitation; genetic diversity; microsatellites; crocodylus niloticus,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,BISHOP JM;LESLIE AJ;BOURQUIN SL;O RYAN C,"unchecked exploitation of wildlife resources is one of the major factors influencing species persistence throughout the world today. a significant consequence of exploitation is the increasing rate at which genetic diversity is lost as populations decline. recent studies suggest that life history traits affecting population growth, particularly in long-lived species, may act to moderate the impact of population decline on genetic variation and lead to remnant populations that appear genetically diverse despite having passed through substantial demographic bottlenecks. in this study we show that the retention of genetic variation in a partially recovered population of nile crocodile is deceptive, as it masks the reality of a significant decline in the population's effective size (n-e). repeated episodes of unchecked hunting in the mid to late 20th century have today led to a five-fold decrease in the population's n-e. using current census data we estimate the contemporary n-e/n ratio as similar to 0.05 and, in light of quotas that permit the ongoing removal of adults, simulated the likely effects of genetic drift on extant levels of variation. results indicate that even if the current effective size is maintained, both allelic diversity and heterozygosity will decline. our findings have complex implications for long-lived species: an emphasis on the retention of genetic variation alone, whilst disregarding the effects of population decline on effective size, may ultimately obscure the continued decline and extinction of exploited populations. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." evaluation of non-invasive genetic sampling methods for estimating tiger population size,fecal dna; genetic capture; recapture sampling; panthera tigris; population estimation; individual identification; elusive carnivores; scats; carnivore conservation,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,MONDOL S;KARANTH KU;KUMAR NS;GOPALASWAMY AM;ANDHERIA A;RAMAKRISHNAN U,"there is often a conservation need to estimate population abundances of elusive, low-density, wide-ranging carnivore species. because of logistical constraints, investigators often employ non-invasive 'captures' that may involve 'genetic' or 'photographic' sampling in such cases. established capture-recapture (cr) methods offer a powerful analytical tool for such data. in this paper, we developed a rigorous combination of captive, laboratory and field-based protocols for identifying individual tigers (panthers tigris) from fecal dna. we explored trade-offs between numbers of microsatellite loci used for reliable individual identifications and the need for higher capture rates for robust analyses. our field surveys of scats were also specifically designed for cr analyses, enabling us to test for population closure, estimate capture probabilities and tiger abundance. consequently, we could compare genetic capture estimates to results of a 'photographic capture' study of tigers at the same site. the estimates using the heterogeneity model (m-h-jackknife) for fecal dna survey were [mt+1 = 26; p = 0.09 and (n) over cap (s (e) over cap[(n) over cap])=66 (12.98)] in close agreement with those from the photographic survey [(mt+1 = 29; p = 0.04 and (n) over cap (s (e) over cap[(n) over cap]) = 66 (13.8)]. our results revealed that designing field surveys of scats explicitly for cr data analyses generate reliable estimates of capture probability and abundance for elusive, low density species such as tigers. the study also highlights the importance of rigorous field survey and laboratory protocols for reliable abundance estimation in contexts where other approaches such as camera-trapping or physical tagging of animals may not be practical options. crown copyright (c) 2009 published by elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." "evaluating recreational fisheries for an endangered species: a case study of taimen, hucho taimen, in mongolia",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,JENSEN OP;GILROY DJ;HOGAN Z;ALLEN BC;HRABIK TR;WEIDEL BC;CHANDRA S;VANDER ZANDEN MJ,"understanding the tradeoff between exploitation and conservation is difficult in data-poor situations, which are typical for most recreational fisheries, even in developed countries. in a developing country where the target species is endangered, the stakes arc higher and the management resources are fewer. we combined a mark-recapture experiment, life history invariants, and meta-analysis to parameterize a delay-difference model for a population of the endangered giant eurasian trout (taimen, hucho taimen) in northern mongolia. the model allowed lis to evaluate the impacts of a recreational fishery for taimen based on a suite of population characteristics including equilibrium abundance, biomass, and mean weight. the bayesian framework and monte carlo simulations combine disparate sources of information while keeping track of uncertainty as it propagates through the model. in the case of taimen in the eg-uur watershed, the existing catch-release recreational fishery has likely reduced taimen abundance, biomass, and mean weight by less than 10% compared with levels predicted in the absence of recreational fishing. in comparison, if all taimen caught in this fishery were retained (as they are elsewhere in mongolia), there is a 57% chance that such harvest levels, if maintained, would lead to the eventual extirpation of the population." population density estimated from locations of individuals on a passive detector array,acoustic census methods; area search; camera trap; fecal dna; maximum likelihood; microphone array; passive detector array; population density; proximity detector; signal strength; spatially explicit capture-recapture,ECOLOGY,EFFORD MG;DAWSON DK;BORCHERS DL,"the density of a closed population of animals occupying stable home ranges may be estimated from detections of individuals on an array of detectors, using newly developed methods for spatially explicit capture-recapture. likelihood-based methods provide estimates for data from multi-catch traps or from devices that record presence without restricting animal movement (""proximity"" detectors such as camera traps and hair snags). as originally proposed, these methods require multiple sampling intervals. we show that equally precise and unbiased estimates may be obtained from a single sampling interval, using only the spatial pattern of detections. this considerably extends the range of possible applications, and we illustrate the potential by estimating density from simulated detections of bird vocalizations on a microphone array. acoustic detection can be defined as occurring when received signal strength exceeds a threshold. we suggest detection models for binary acoustic data, and for continuous data comprising measurements of all signals above the threshold. while binary data are often sufficient for density estimation, modeling signal strength improves precision when the microphone array is small." assessing the effect on survival of natal dispersal using multistate capture-recapture models,dispersal costs; european hare; france; lepus europaeus; multistate capture-recapture models; natal dispersal; recoveries; telemetry,ECOLOGY,DEVILLARD S;BRAY Y,"despite their crucial importance in understanding and modeling of the evolution of natal dispersal, it is still difficult to reliably estimate the costs of natal dispersal. we have developed a multistate capture-recapture model, mixing telemetry and recoveries, to simultaneously estimate natal dispersal probability, survival probability of dispersers vs. philopatric individuals, and the proportions of individuals dying from different causes. by applying this model to the european hare (lepus europaeus), we show that dispersing juveniles suffer from a considerably higher mortality rate during their first post-weaning year compared to philopatric juveniles, due to both hunters and predators. we emphasize the usefulness and reliability of our model in the broader context of studies of natal dispersal costs, as well as the evolutionary and management implications of such a dispersal cost in declining european hare populations." -modeling survival at multi-population scales using mark-recapture data,atlantic puffin; bayesian modeling; demography; deviance information criterion; environmental forcing; fratercula arctica; mixed model; multi-population scale; sea surface temperature; synchronization; winbugs,ECOLOGY,GROSBOIS V;HARRIS MP;ANKER-NILSSEN T;MCCLEERY RH;SHAW DN;MORGAN BJT;GIMENEZ O,"the demography of vertebrate populations is governed in part by processes operating at large spatial scales that have synchronizing effects on demographic parameters over large geographic areas, and in part, by local processes that generate fluctuations that are independent across populations. we describe a statistical model for the analysis of individual monitoring data at the multi-population scale that allows us to (1) split up temporal variation in survival into two components that account for these two types of processes and (2) evaluate the role of environmental factors in generating these two components. we derive from this model an index of synchrony among populations in the pattern of temporal variation in survival, and we evaluate the extent to which environmental factors contribute to synchronize or desynchronize survival variation among populations. when applied to individual monitoring data from four colonies of the atlantic puffin (fratercula arctica), 67% of between-year variance in adult survival was accounted for by a global spatial-scale component, indicating substantial synchrony among colonies. local sea surface temperature (sst) accounted for 40% of the global spatial-scale component but also for an equally large fraction of the local-scale component. sst thus acted at the same time as both a synchronizing and a desynchronizing agent. between-year variation in adult survival not explained by the effect of local sst was as synchronized as total between-year variation, suggesting that other unknown environmental factors acted as synchronizing agents. our approach, which focuses on demographic mechanisms at the multi-population scale, ideally should be combined with investigations of population size time series in order to characterize thoroughly the processes that underlie patterns of multi-population dynamics and, ultimately, range dynamics." +modeling survival at multi-population scales using mark-recapture data,atlantic puffin; bayesian modeling; demography; deviance information criterion; environmental forcing; fratercula arctica; mixed model; multi-population scale; sea surface temperature; synchronization; winbugs,ECOLOGY,GROSBOIS V;HARRIS MP;ANKER NILSSEN T;MCCLEERY RH;SHAW DN;MORGAN BJT;GIMENEZ O,"the demography of vertebrate populations is governed in part by processes operating at large spatial scales that have synchronizing effects on demographic parameters over large geographic areas, and in part, by local processes that generate fluctuations that are independent across populations. we describe a statistical model for the analysis of individual monitoring data at the multi-population scale that allows us to (1) split up temporal variation in survival into two components that account for these two types of processes and (2) evaluate the role of environmental factors in generating these two components. we derive from this model an index of synchrony among populations in the pattern of temporal variation in survival, and we evaluate the extent to which environmental factors contribute to synchronize or desynchronize survival variation among populations. when applied to individual monitoring data from four colonies of the atlantic puffin (fratercula arctica), 67% of between-year variance in adult survival was accounted for by a global spatial-scale component, indicating substantial synchrony among colonies. local sea surface temperature (sst) accounted for 40% of the global spatial-scale component but also for an equally large fraction of the local-scale component. sst thus acted at the same time as both a synchronizing and a desynchronizing agent. between-year variation in adult survival not explained by the effect of local sst was as synchronized as total between-year variation, suggesting that other unknown environmental factors acted as synchronizing agents. our approach, which focuses on demographic mechanisms at the multi-population scale, ideally should be combined with investigations of population size time series in order to characterize thoroughly the processes that underlie patterns of multi-population dynamics and, ultimately, range dynamics." wolf survival and population trend using non-invasive capture-recapture techniques in the western alps,alps; canis lupus; capture-recapture; genetic; monitoring; population size; survival; wolves,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,MARUCCO F;PLETSCHER DH;BOITANI L;SCHWARTZ MK;PILGRIM KL;LEBRETON JD,"1. reliable estimates of population parameters are often necessary for conservation management but these are hard to obtain for elusive, rare and wide-ranging species such as wolves canis lupus. this species has naturally recolonized parts of its former habitat in western europe; however, an accurate and cost-effective method to assess population trend and survival has not been implemented yet. 2. we used open-model capture-recapture (cr) sampling with non-invasive individual identifications derived from faecal genotyping to estimate survival and trend in abundance for wolves in the western alps between 1999 and 2006. our sampling strategy reduced individual heterogeneity in recaptures, thus minimizing bias and increasing the precision of the estimates. 3. young wolves had lower apparent annual survival rates (0.24 +/- 0.06) than adult wolves (0.82 +/- 0.04); survival rates were lower in the summer than in the winter for both young and adults. the wolf population in the study area increased from 21 +/- 9.6 wolves in 1999 to 47 +/- 11.2 wolves in late winter 2005; the population growth rate (lambda = 1.04 +/- 0.27) was lower than that recorded for other recolonizing wolf populations. 4. we found a positive trend in wolf abundance, regardless of the method used. however, the abundance estimate based on snow-tracking was on average 36.2% (sd = 13.6%) lower than that from cr modelling, because young dispersing wolves are likely to have lower sign detection rates in snow-track surveys, a problem adequately addressed by cr sampling. 5. synthesis and applications. we successfully implemented a new method to assess large carnivore population trend and survival at large spatial scales. these are the first such estimates for wolves in italy and in the alps and have important management implications. our approach can be widely applied to broader spatial and temporal scales for other elusive and wide-ranging species in europe and elsewhere." camera trapping photographic rate as an index of density in forest ungulates,abundance estimation; camera traps; density estimation; duikers; eastern arc; index surveys; trap rate; udzungwa,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,ROVERO F;MARSHALL AR,"1. calibrating indices of animal abundance to true densities is critical in wildlife studies especially when direct density estimations are precluded by high costs, lack of required data or model parameters, elusiveness and rarity of target species. for studies deploying camera traps, the use of photographic rate (photographs per sampling time) as an index of abundance potentially applies to the majority of terrestrial mammals where individual recognition, and hence capture-recapture analysis, are unfeasible. the very few studies addressing this method have either been limited by lack of independence between trapping rates and density estimations, or because they combined different species, thus introducing potential bias in camera trap detection rates. this study uses a single model species from several sites to analyse calibration of trapping rates to independently derived estimations of density. the study also makes the first field test of the method by rowcliffe et al. (2008) for density derivation from camera trapping rates based on modelling animal-camera contacts. 2. we deployed camera traps along line transects at six sites in the udzungwa mountains of tanzania and correlated trapping rates of harvey's duiker cephalophus harveyi with densities estimated from counts made along the same transects. 3. we found a strong, linear relationship (r(2) = 0.90) between trapping rate and density. sampling precision analysis indicates that camera trapping rates reach satisfactory precision when trapping effort amounts to 250-300 camera days. density estimates using rowcliffe et al.'s (2008) gas model conversion are higher than from transect censuses; we discuss the possible reasons and stress the need for more field tests. 4. synthesis and applications. subject to rigorous and periodic calibration, and standardization of sampling procedures in time and over different sites, camera trapping rate is shown to be, in this study, a valid index of density in the target species. comparative data indicate that this may also apply to forest ungulates in general. the method has great potential for standardizing monitoring programmes and reducing the costs of wildlife surveys, especially in remote areas." -"evaluating the reintroduction potential of lahontan cutthroat trout in fallen leaf lake, california",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,AL-CHOKHACHY R;PEACOCK M;HEKI LG;THIEDE G,"we evaluated the potential for reintroducing lahontan cutthroat trout oncorhynchus clarkii henshawi. a species listed under the endangered species act, into a lacustrine system where the biotic community has changed dramatically since the species' extirpation there. since 2002. 76,547 lahontan cutthroat trout have been reintroduced into fallen leaf lake, california; we used creel surveys. diet data, mark-recapture methods. bioenergetics modeling, and netting data across seasons to evaluate the habitat use, growth, and relative abundance of lahontan cutthroat trout and the abundance. diet. habitat use, and predation by nonnative species. sampling totals (n = 2) and survey observations (n = 3) indicate low survival and abundance of reintroduced fish and together with creel data indicate the importance of epilimnetic habitats across size-classes. despite substantial growth. lahontan cutthroat trout exhibited low condition factor values (average = 0.69). we found substantial predation pressure front a large population of lake trout salvelinus namaycush ((n) over cap = 8.799 fish: 95% confidence interval [ci] 4,990-16,530 fish): analysis of lake trout diets showed an increase in piscivory and in the percentage of stomachs containing lahontan cutthroat trout anchor tags with increasing predator size. overall. we estimated that lake trout consumed over 38% of reintroduced lahontan cutthroat trout (mean number consumed = 7,736 fish: 95% ci = 4,388-14,534 fish). with bioenergetics modeling, however. we estimated that lake trout consumed considerable amounts of salmonid biomass during this period (mean biomass = 3,137 kg: 95% cl = 1 779 5,993 kg), which greatly exceeded the biomass of lahontan cutthroat trout reintroduced in 2006. during the stratification period, there was little overlap in habitat use between lake trout and lahontan cutthroat trout, but overlap was high during the spring and autumn. we found moderate-sized populations of nonnative brown trout salmo trutta, kokanee o. nerka (lacustrine sockeye salmon), and rainbow trout o. mykiss. together, our results suggest that lahontan cutthroat trout have few refugia front direct and indirect negative interactions with normative species and that alternative approaches are needed." +"evaluating the reintroduction potential of lahontan cutthroat trout in fallen leaf lake, california",NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,AL CHOKHACHY R;PEACOCK M;HEKI LG;THIEDE G,"we evaluated the potential for reintroducing lahontan cutthroat trout oncorhynchus clarkii henshawi. a species listed under the endangered species act, into a lacustrine system where the biotic community has changed dramatically since the species' extirpation there. since 2002. 76,547 lahontan cutthroat trout have been reintroduced into fallen leaf lake, california; we used creel surveys. diet data, mark-recapture methods. bioenergetics modeling, and netting data across seasons to evaluate the habitat use, growth, and relative abundance of lahontan cutthroat trout and the abundance. diet. habitat use, and predation by nonnative species. sampling totals (n = 2) and survey observations (n = 3) indicate low survival and abundance of reintroduced fish and together with creel data indicate the importance of epilimnetic habitats across size-classes. despite substantial growth. lahontan cutthroat trout exhibited low condition factor values (average = 0.69). we found substantial predation pressure front a large population of lake trout salvelinus namaycush ((n) over cap = 8.799 fish: 95% confidence interval [ci] 4,990-16,530 fish): analysis of lake trout diets showed an increase in piscivory and in the percentage of stomachs containing lahontan cutthroat trout anchor tags with increasing predator size. overall. we estimated that lake trout consumed over 38% of reintroduced lahontan cutthroat trout (mean number consumed = 7,736 fish: 95% ci = 4,388-14,534 fish). with bioenergetics modeling, however. we estimated that lake trout consumed considerable amounts of salmonid biomass during this period (mean biomass = 3,137 kg: 95% cl = 1 779 5,993 kg), which greatly exceeded the biomass of lahontan cutthroat trout reintroduced in 2006. during the stratification period, there was little overlap in habitat use between lake trout and lahontan cutthroat trout, but overlap was high during the spring and autumn. we found moderate-sized populations of nonnative brown trout salmo trutta, kokanee o. nerka (lacustrine sockeye salmon), and rainbow trout o. mykiss. together, our results suggest that lahontan cutthroat trout have few refugia front direct and indirect negative interactions with normative species and that alternative approaches are needed." a method for monitoring movements of small fishes in urban streams,NA,NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES MANAGEMENT,FICKE AD;MYRICK CA,"the front range region of colorado is all ecological transition zone between the rocky mountains and the western great plains. changes to streams resulting front urban and agricultural land uses have contributed to the decline of many plains and transition zone fishes. the fragmentation of stream systems by darns, weirs, and diversions is among,, the most detrimental of these changes. these structures call inhibit fish spawning migrations. the search for sporadic resources, and recolonization of empty habitats. to assess the magnitude of the problem. there is a distinct need to determine whether existing instream structures are barriers to migration. a relatively simple method of doing so involves giving fish a unique mark and tracking their movements ill the vicinity of a suspected barrier. we individually marked fish (15 species; 2,724 individuals) with visual implant elastomer (vie) marks and tracked their movements across a grade control structure in spring creek in fort collins, colorado. results front a multistratum mark-recapture analysis showed that the grade control structure in spring creck prevented upstream movement by most fish. the approach we used identifies problematic instream structures that impede movements and present a potential stressor to fish assemblages in urban streams. the use of individual vie marks is one of the few methods that can provide accurate information oil the movements of small-bodied fishes in streams. but the commonly encountered design issues associated with this type of study must be considered." subsampling photographic capture-recapture data of tigers (panthera tigris) to minimize closure violation and improve estimate precision: a case,capture probability; fidelity; immigration; pradel model; trap area; trap density,POPULATION ECOLOGY,HARIHAR A;PANDAV B;GOYAL SP,"most studies using photographic capture-recapture methodology estimate parameters of interest with ecological and sampling uncertainties. however, the effect of sampling effort on assumption violation and estimate precision has seldom been described using empirical data in studies estimating population size of tigers (panthera tigris tigris). in this study, we evaluate the influence of trap effort (trap area, mean cell area and trap density) on the assumption of geographic closure and their relationship with estimated capture probability. we do this by sub-sampling capture histories obtained for tigers from 30 trapping stations within the chilla range of rajaji national park, india. we assessed the importance of trapping effort on geographic closure by estimating fidelity ((f) over cap) and immigration (f) over cap under the pradel model. estimate precision (cv% [(n) over cap) was evaluated based on estimates of capture probability ((p) over cap). results of the pradel analysis suggested that larger trap area (ta) ensured geographic closure, while high trap densities (td) exhibited sex-specific heterogeneity in recapture probabilities p. simulation results suggested a significant positive correlation between estimates of ((p) over cap) and td. with increase in estimated capture probability, estimate precision (cv% [(n) over cap]) also improved sharply. comparison of prior studies towards optimizing sampling strategies is often compromised due to the difference in scale and methods of sampling. therefore, we -urge that subsampling within a dataset as illustrated in our study may prove to be an advantageous step towards standardizing photographic capture-recapture sampling methodology for management objectives." "habitat differences affect life history tactics of a pulsed resource consumer, the edible dormouse (glis glis)",beech-mast; capture-recapture models; local survival; program mark; reproductive strategy,POPULATION ECOLOGY,BIEBER C;RUF T,"we studied flexibility of life history tactics, in terms of habitat-dependent survival and reproduction, in a pulsed resource consumer, the edible dormouse (glis glis). we compared capture-mark-recapture data from three subpopulations of dormice: one in a homogeneous beech forest (forest), and two in patches of woodland (grove/hedge), with more constant but less energy-rich food availability (e.g., fleshy fruits), over a period of 5 years. the general seasonal pattern of hibernation and reproduction was similar in all three subpopulations. juveniles were born in only 3 out of 5 years at all study sites, which was paralleled by the occurrence of strong seed production in beech. reproductive output (number of juveniles/female) was lower at the two sites with low seed tree abundance (grove: 1.3; hedge: 2.0) than in the forest (4.4). yearly survival probability of adults was significantly lower in the forest (0.57, ci = 0.42-0.70) than in the areas grove and hedge (0.83, ci = 0.70-0.91). despite their shortened lifespan, estimated lifetime reproductive success of females in the forest was higher (6.2 young) than in the areas grove/hedge (4.8 young). together, these data indicate that, in more constant habitats (grove/hedge), lower reproductive investment was associated with increased longevity. however, dormice apparently maximise lifetime reproductive success by a 'sit tight' strategy that synchronises reproduction with energy rich seed pulses in deciduous forests." @@ -1296,10 +1299,10 @@ evaluation of camera trapping for estimating red fox abundance,camera trap; capt demography of verreaux's sifaka in a stochastic rainfall environment,lemurs; madagascar; mark-recapture; climate; time-series,OECOLOGIA,LAWLER RR;CASWELL H;RICHARD AF;RATSIRARSON J;DEWAR RE;SCHWARTZ M,"in this study, we use deterministic and stochastic models to analyze the demography of verreaux's sifaka (propithecus verreauxi verreauxi) in a fluctuating rainfall environment. the model is based on 16 years of data from beza mahafaly special reserve, southwest madagascar. the parameters in the stage-classified life cycle were estimated using mark-recapture methods. statistical models were evaluated using information-theoretic techniques and multi-model inference. the highest ranking model is time-invariant, but the averaged model includes rainfall-dependence of survival and breeding. we used a time-series model of rainfall to construct a stochastic demographic model. the time-invariant model and the stochastic model give a population growth rate of about 0.98. bootstrap confidence intervals on the growth rates, both deterministic and stochastic, include 1. growth rates are most elastic to changes in adult survival. many demographic statistics show a nonlinear response to annual rainfall but are depressed when annual rainfall is low, or the variance in annual rainfall is high. perturbation analyses from both the time-invariant and stochastic models indicate that recruitment and survival of older females are key determinants of population growth rate." "regional growth estimates of atlantic cod, gadus morhua: applications of the maximum likelihood grotag model to tagging data in the gulf of maine (usa/canada) region",atlantic cod; gadus morhua; growth; tagging; grotag; gulf of maine,FISHERIES RESEARCH,TALLACK SML,"the maximum likelihood grotag model was applied to mark-recapture data collected by the region-wide, collaborative 'northeast regional cod tagging program' to provide new, supplementary growth estimates for atlantic cod, gadus morhua, in the gulf of maine (usa/canada) region. the dataset (114 467, releases and 6334 recaptures) were filtered for quality, resulting in 3675 growth records which were categorized into stock management areas (5y, 5z and 4x) and fine-scale general areas (inshore gulf of maine, georges bank, cape cod and the bay of fundy). growth seasonality was detected and region-wide, growth peaked during july. the overall regional von bertalanffy estimate for cod was l(infinity) = 135.3 cm and k = 0.17, however statistically significant variation was found between management areas and between general areas throughout the study region. the fastest growth (k = 0.31) and smallest asymptotic size (l(infinity) = 105.7) were found for 5z cod, while cod in 5y showed slower growth (k = 0.13) but a larger asymptotic size (l(infinity) = 151.3); estimates for the canadian management area 4x (l(infinity) = 117.5, k = 0.22) were most similar to the 5z estimates. least squares analysis of length-at-age data yielded comparable results. the inshore gulf of maine estimate (l(infinity) = 154.5, k = 0.13) was highly consistent with that for management area 5y; similarly, the georges bank estimate (l(infinity) = 104.1, k = 0.26) supported the 5z estimate. however, more variability was seen in estimates for the bay of fundy (l(infinity) = 134.2, k = 0.16) and cape cod (l(infinity) = 173.5, k = 0.13). the differing growth rates between regions are thought to be influenced by cod movement patterns, grotag methodology and the number and size-structure of fish sampled in each region. (c) 2009 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." use of monitoring data and population viability analysis to inform reintroduction decisions: peregrine falcons in the midwestern united states,falco peregrinus anatum; mark-recapture; ramas; spatially-explicit pva,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,WAKAMIYA SM;ROY CL,"the peregrine falcon (falco peregrinus anatum) has not yet recolonized natural cliff sites in illinois and much of the lower midwestern us, and remains restricted to urban areas. we constructed a landscape-linked population viability analysis using ramas/gis software to compare possible reintroduction strategies for the species. habitat-specific (i.e. cliff and urban) demographic parameters such as survival, fecundity, and dispersal rates were derived from the midwest peregrine society database for peregrines in the central mississippi river region during 1982-2006. we simulated a base scenario of no reintroduction and 18 models of reintroduction with varying cohort sizes, supplementation schedules, and number of reintroduction sites, and used the lake superior population to test our model. our analysis indicated that even without reintroductions in illinois, the peregrine population in the lower midwestern region is slowly increasing and is not likely to go extinct. recolonization of cliff sites in southern illinois likely will occur via dispersal from urban populations, however further research on dispersal rates between urban areas and cliffs is needed. analysis indicated that the most cost-effective reintroduction strategy would be priced at approximately $280,000 and would result in only two additional breeding pairs compared to the no-action scenario. thus, funds would be more effectively used in other management efforts such as habitat preservation. this study provides an example of how post-release monitoring can be used to inform future reintroduction plans. published by elsevier ltd." -interference competition in a threatened seabird community: a paradox for a successful conservation,competition; threatened community; seabirds; dispersal; habitat availability; spain,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,ORO D;PEREZ-RODRIGUEZ A;MARTINEZ-VILALTA A;BERTOLERO A;VIDAL F;GENOVART M,"it is often assumed that conservation actions targeting a threatened community (e.g. habitat protection) will result in similar benefits for all species. however, complex interactions between species, such as interference competition, may result in displacement of subordinate, vulnerable species. we analysed here the spatio-temporal population dynamics of a threatened seabird community since the protection in the 1980s of several breeding sites at the ebro delta, western mediterranean, spain during 1980-2007. competition for the most suitable patches was governed by body size, with smaller species avoiding associations with larger, dominant species. we tested whether the density increase of the larger species (yellow-legged gull larus michahellis and audouin's gull larus audouinii) at la banya (the highest quality patch within the delta) affected species diversity at the local level. as expected, such diversity decreased, resulting also from the colonisation of other sites by smaller species, some abandoning the former area. the conservation paradox appeared because the interference competition was dominated not only by the largest species of the community, the yellow-legged gull, which is sometimes considered a pest species, but also by the vulnerable audouin's gull, a flagship species which has ca. 65% of the total world population at la banya. nevertheless, the availability of alternative patches within the ebro delta ensured a high biodiversity at regional scale. results highlight the role of turnover of competing species within a community in ecosystem function and stability, and the importance of alternative sites and dispersal abilities for the conservation of vulnerable communities. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." +interference competition in a threatened seabird community: a paradox for a successful conservation,competition; threatened community; seabirds; dispersal; habitat availability; spain,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,ORO D;PEREZ RODRIGUEZ A;MARTINEZ VILALTA A;BERTOLERO A;VIDAL F;GENOVART M,"it is often assumed that conservation actions targeting a threatened community (e.g. habitat protection) will result in similar benefits for all species. however, complex interactions between species, such as interference competition, may result in displacement of subordinate, vulnerable species. we analysed here the spatio-temporal population dynamics of a threatened seabird community since the protection in the 1980s of several breeding sites at the ebro delta, western mediterranean, spain during 1980-2007. competition for the most suitable patches was governed by body size, with smaller species avoiding associations with larger, dominant species. we tested whether the density increase of the larger species (yellow-legged gull larus michahellis and audouin's gull larus audouinii) at la banya (the highest quality patch within the delta) affected species diversity at the local level. as expected, such diversity decreased, resulting also from the colonisation of other sites by smaller species, some abandoning the former area. the conservation paradox appeared because the interference competition was dominated not only by the largest species of the community, the yellow-legged gull, which is sometimes considered a pest species, but also by the vulnerable audouin's gull, a flagship species which has ca. 65% of the total world population at la banya. nevertheless, the availability of alternative patches within the ebro delta ensured a high biodiversity at regional scale. results highlight the role of turnover of competing species within a community in ecosystem function and stability, and the importance of alternative sites and dispersal abilities for the conservation of vulnerable communities. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." a combined telemetry - tag return approach to estimate fishing and natural mortality rates of an estuarine fish,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,BACHELER NM;BUCKEL JA;HIGHTOWER JE;PARAMORE LM;POLLOCK KH,"a joint analysis of tag return and telemetry data should improve estimates of mortality rates for exploited fishes; however, the combined approach has thus far only been tested in terrestrial systems. we tagged subadult red drum (sciaenops ocellatus) with conventional tags and ultrasonic transmitters over 3 years in coastal north carolina, usa, to test the efficacy of the combined telemetry - tag return approach. there was a strong seasonal pattern to monthly fishing mortality rate (f) estimates from both conventional and telemetry tags; highest f values occurred in fall months and lowest levels occurred during winter. although monthly f values were similar in pattern and magnitude between conventional tagging and telemetry, information on f in the combined model came primarily from conventional tags. the estimated natural mortality rate (m) in the combined model was low (estimated annual rate +/- standard error: 0.04 +/- 0.04) and was based primarily upon the telemetry approach. using high-reward tagging, we estimated different tag reporting rates for state agency and university tagging programs. the combined telemetry - tag return approach can be an effective approach for estimating f and m as long as several key assumptions of the model are met." estimating exploitation rates of migrating yellowtail flounder (limanda ferruginea) using multistate mark-recapture methods incorporating tag loss and variable reporting rates,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,COWEN L;WALSH SJ;SCHWARZ CJ;CADIGAN N;MORGAN J,"multistate mark-recapture models can be used to model migration through stratification of the study area into states (location). however, the incorporation of both tag loss and reporting rates is new to the multistate paradigm. we develop a migration model for fish that incorporates tag loss and reporting rates but has as its primary purpose the modelling of exploitation and natural mortality rates. this model is applied to a 2000-2004 yellowtail flounder (limanda ferruginea) tagging study on the grand bank of newfoundland, canada. we found that exploitation rates varied over both location and years, ranging from 0.000 to 0.047. migration into the centre of the grand bank (state 2) was three times higher than migration out. the estimate of the instantaneous annual natural mortality rate was 0.256, which is equivalent to an annual survival rate of 0.880. we describe how these mortality estimates will be quite valuable in specifying an assessment model for this stock." -differential mortality drives life-history evolution and population dynamics in the fish brachyrhaphis rhabdophora,age-specific mortality hypothesis; brachyrhaphis rhabdophora; costa rica; elasticity analysis; live-bearer; poeciliidae; population growth rate; population matrix modeling; predation,ECOLOGY,JOHNSON JB;ZUNIGA-VEGA JJ,"life-history theory predicts that populations experiencing different levels of extrinsic mortality will evolve divergent reproductive strategies. previous work in the live-bearing fish brachyrhaphis rhabdophora shows that individuals from populations that occur with piscivorous fish mature earlier and at smaller sizes and have more and smaller offspring than fish from populations without predators. however, until now, there have been no data to demonstrate that differences in mortality rates actually exist between predator and predator-free sites. here we present the results of a serial mark-recapture field study designed to estimate mortality rates in natural populations of b. rhabodophora from costa rica. we found that fish from predator environments experience higher overall mortality rates and proportionally higher adult mortality rates than fish from predator-free environments. we then ask what impact differences in mortality rates have on b. rhabdophora population dynamics. using a population matrix modeling approach, we found that b. rhabdophora that co-occur with predators have population growth rates similar to those without predators and both have confidence intervals that span lambda = 1.0. however, elasticity analysis revealed that the most important life-history stages for population growth in predator environments are found early in life and include growth through early ontogenetic stages and survival as small adults; in contrast, the most important life-history stages for population growth in predator-free environments occur late in life, including survival once large juvenile and adult stages are reached. hence, we demonstrate two important links between predation and population demography, one ecological due to the direct impacts of predator-induced mortality and the other expressed through predator-mediated reproductive adaptation." +differential mortality drives life-history evolution and population dynamics in the fish brachyrhaphis rhabdophora,age-specific mortality hypothesis; brachyrhaphis rhabdophora; costa rica; elasticity analysis; live-bearer; poeciliidae; population growth rate; population matrix modeling; predation,ECOLOGY,JOHNSON JB;ZUNIGA VEGA JJ,"life-history theory predicts that populations experiencing different levels of extrinsic mortality will evolve divergent reproductive strategies. previous work in the live-bearing fish brachyrhaphis rhabdophora shows that individuals from populations that occur with piscivorous fish mature earlier and at smaller sizes and have more and smaller offspring than fish from populations without predators. however, until now, there have been no data to demonstrate that differences in mortality rates actually exist between predator and predator-free sites. here we present the results of a serial mark-recapture field study designed to estimate mortality rates in natural populations of b. rhabodophora from costa rica. we found that fish from predator environments experience higher overall mortality rates and proportionally higher adult mortality rates than fish from predator-free environments. we then ask what impact differences in mortality rates have on b. rhabdophora population dynamics. using a population matrix modeling approach, we found that b. rhabdophora that co-occur with predators have population growth rates similar to those without predators and both have confidence intervals that span lambda = 1.0. however, elasticity analysis revealed that the most important life-history stages for population growth in predator environments are found early in life and include growth through early ontogenetic stages and survival as small adults; in contrast, the most important life-history stages for population growth in predator-free environments occur late in life, including survival once large juvenile and adult stages are reached. hence, we demonstrate two important links between predation and population demography, one ecological due to the direct impacts of predator-induced mortality and the other expressed through predator-mediated reproductive adaptation." unaccounted mortality in salmon fisheries: non-retention in gillnets and effects on estimates of spawners,delayed mortality; ecosystem engineers; fishery-induced injury; mark-recapture analysis; natural resource management; pacific salmon; population dynamics; stock-recruitment estimation,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,BAKER MR;SCHINDLER DE,"p> effective and sustainable natural resource management is enhanced when the consequences of exploitative practices are fully understood and acknowledged. commercial fisheries devote considerable resources to maximize the harvest of target species and minimize interference with non-target stocks. appropriately, bycatch and discard of non-target stocks are recognized as critical economic and conservation concerns. few studies, however, have examined non-retention mortality in target stocks. non-retention, where fish are engaged by fishing gear but not landed, is rarely quantified and the effects on stocks are unknown. mortality due to non-retention may have important effects on the dynamics of exploited populations. we surveyed spawning populations of sockeye salmon oncorhynchus nerka that had traversed commercial fisheries in bristol bay, alaska, to estimate the incidence of non-retention in gillnets and the severity of injuries associated with entanglement. to better understand how gillnet injury affects spawning success, we tagged and monitored stream-spawning fish and applied a maximum likelihood model to mark-recapture data. a substantial portion (11-29%) of spawning sockeye salmon exhibited clear signs of past entanglement with commercial gillnets. survival among such fish was significantly reduced. more than half of the fish that reach natal spawning grounds with fishery-related injuries fail to reproduce. this suggests that estimates of spawning stocks are inflated by 5-15% at minimum. synthesis and applications. our analyses indicate that non-retention in gillnet fisheries is an important and under-appreciated consequence of the exploitation of salmon. stock estimates for exploited populations that do not account for non-retention mortality overestimate the number of reproductively viable fish. unaccounted mortality and interannual variation in the magnitude of this mortality may prevent accurate estimates of viable spawners, confound our understanding of the relationship between stock size and recruitment, impede optimal management and obscure the ecosystem impacts of migratory stocks in coastal watersheds. given the magnitude of non-retention in this fishery, explicit consideration of non-retention mortality may be warranted across a wide range of exploited populations." parental behaviour of a precocial species: implications for juvenile survival,brood movements; charadrius montanus; chick survival; detection probability; habitat selection; mountain plover; multi-strata; precocial species; shorebirds,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,DREITZ VJ,"p> parents determine habitat selection for precocial young by leading their young to foraging areas until the chicks attain full independence. there are potential benefits and costs to reproductive success associated with changing habitats while caring for young. this study investigated the relationship between different types of habitats and their quality on chick survival and brood movements of a declining upland shorebird, the mountain plover charadrius montanus. from 2004 to 2006, a total of 153 mountain plover broods were monitored on the primary breeding habitats in eastern colorado, usa; two shortgrass prairie habitats that were either occupied or unoccupied by black-tailed prairie dogs cynomys ludovicianus and agricultural lands. habitat quality hypotheses were tested using newly developed statistical applications to estimate survival of chicks and brood movement patterns. chick survival and brood movements were influenced by habitat. chick survival over the 30-day brood-rearing period was substantially higher on nesting habitat of shortgrass occupied by prairie dogs compared with agricultural land and shortgrass unoccupied by prairie dogs. the rate of brood movement away from shortgrass with prairie dogs was lower than shortgrass without prairie dogs, but higher than agricultural lands for each year of the study. this study suggests that complex processes influence how different habitats affect brood-rearing activity of mountain plovers. even though broods moved off nesting habitat of shortgrass occupied by prairie dogs, this habitat had the highest survival rate and is highly important to mountain plover reproductive success. synthesis and applications. in order to develop effective conservation strategies, the provision of adequate breeding habitat should include information on patterns of habitat selection for all stages of the breeding cycle, including the nesting and dependent young periods. from a conservation perspective, understanding the habitat use of young birds is critical when population dynamics show great sensitivity to survival of young. previous studies on mountain plovers have suggested that nest success is similar among shortgrass prairie habitats and agricultural lands. thus, conservation measures that increase nest success may be ineffective for mountain plovers unless they are accompanied by measures promoting chick survival." population ecology of wild mongolian gerbils meriones unguiculatus,demography; mark-recapture method; multistate model; population dynamics; robust-design model; survival probability; survival-reproduction trade-off,JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY,LIU W;WANG GM;WANG YN;ZHONG WQ;WAN XR,"northern rodent populations often exhibit temporal dynamics due to seasonal changes in demographic processes such as survival, reproduction, and movement. seasonal patterns in their demography partially result from seasonal changes in climate and resource availability. we studied the population ecology of mongolian gerbils (meriones unguiculatus), a social rodent living in groups year-round in desert grasslands of china, mongolia, and russia, using capture-recapture methods to investigate seasonal patterns in demography. gerbils were livetrapped biweekly from late april to late october 2006 in inner mongolian grasslands, china. we used robust-design models and cormack-jolly-seber models to estimate population size and apparent survival probability. additionally, we used multistate models to test for a trade-off between reproduction and survival. like other northern rodents, mongolian gerbils showed a single annual peak in abundance, but gerbil numbers peaked unusually early in june. gerbil populations were female-biased and also biased toward older individuals. the breeding season was restricted to the wet season from april to the end of august, and survival declined from april to october. we found a trade-off between survival and reproduction in males but not in females. kinship and cooperation among females may enhance survival to offset the cost of reproduction." @@ -1311,7 +1314,7 @@ sin nombre virus and rodent species diversity: a test of the dilution and amplif cost-effective abundance estimation of rare animals: testing performance of small-boat surveys for killer whales in british columbia,abundance; cetacean; distance sampling; line transect; mark-recapture; model averaging; small-boat survey,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,WILLIAMS R;THOMAS L,"top predators are often rare, subject to anthropogenic mortality, and possess life-history traits that make them inherently vulnerable to extinction. iucn criteria recognise populations as critically endangered when abundance is <250 mature individuals, but estimating abundance of rare species can be more challenging than for common ones. cost-effective methods are needed to provide robust abundance estimates. in marine environments, small boats are more widely accessible than large ships for researchers conducting sightings surveys with limited funds, but studies are needed into efficacy of small-boat surveys. this study compares line transect and mark-recapture estimates from small-boat surveys in summer 2004 and 2005 for 'northern resident' killer whales in british columbia to true population size, known from censuses conducted by fisheries and oceans canada. the line transect estimate of 195 animals (95% ci 27-559) used model averaging to incorporate uncertainty in the detection function, while the mark-recapture estimate of 239 animals (ci 154-370) used a simple two-sample chapman estimator. both methods produced estimates close to the true population size, which numbered 219 animals in 2004 and 235 in 2006, but both suffered from the small sample sizes and violations of some model assumptions that will vex most pilot studies of rare species. initial abundance estimates from relatively low-cost surveys can be thought of as hypotheses to be tested as new data are collected. for species of conservation concern, any cost-effective attempt to estimate absolute abundance will assist status assessments, as long as estimates are presented with appropriate caveats. (c) 2009 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." patterns of mortality for each life-history stage in a population of the endangered new zealand stitchbird,mark-recapture; inbreeding; nest-box; translocation; temperature-dependent mortality,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,LOW M;PART T,"using data from 396 breeding attempts over an 8-year period, we investigated age- and stage-specific survival rates and their modifying factors in a closed island population of the new zealand stitchbird (or hihi, notiomystis cincta du bus). survival probability generally increased over time; however, at each life-history transition, survival in the new stage started lower than at the end of the previous stage, creating a 'saw-tooth' function of age-related survival. the probability of an egg hatching was low (0.73 +/- 0.01): most likely a consequence of genetic bottlenecks previously endured by this population. there was strong support for a positive relationship between hatching rate and the subsequent survival of the female parent, and hatching success declining for females > 4 years old. nestling survival probability increased as a function of brood size and days since hatching, and decreased relative to daily maximum ambient temperature and hatching date. support for models including ambient temperature was greater than for other covariates, with the majority of this temperature-mediated survival effect being restricted to the early nestling stage. fledglings had low survival rates in the first two weeks after leaving the nest, with post-fledging survival related to the fledgling's mass. two months after fledging, juvenile survival probability plateaued and remained relatively constant for the following autumn, winter and spring/summer breeding season. there was no effect of sex or season on adult survival probability. however, there was strong support for age-specific variation in adult survival, with survival likelihood increasing during the first four years before showing evidence of a senescence decline. within-stage survival increases were likely related to stage-specific selection pressures initially weeding out individuals of poorer phenotypes for the environment specific to each life-history stage. such a mechanism explains the initial high mortality at life-history transitions; a well-adapted phenotype for one stage may not necessarily be so well adapted for subsequent stages. these patterns are not only valuable for examining life-history theory, but also for understanding the regulation of vital rates in an endangered species and providing a basis from which better population management models and harvesting regimes can be derived." "effects of individual quality, reproductive success and environmental variability on survival of a long-lived seabird",costs of reproduction; breeding experience; breeding quality; multistate mark-recapture models; trade-offs,JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY,LESCROEL A;DUGGER KM;BALLARD G;AINLEY DG,"heterogeneity in individual quality (i.e. individuals having different performance levels that are consistent throughout life) can drive the demography of iteroparous species, but quality in the context of environmental variability has rarely been evaluated. we investigated the demographic responses of a long-lived seabird, the adelie penguin (pygoscelis adeliae), to contrasting environmental conditions as a function of reproductive success, breeding quality (bq) and experience. a continuous index of bq (bqi) was developed to reflect an individual's ability, relative to others, to produce viable offspring. first, we assessed the relative importance of costs of reproduction vs. heterogeneity in quality by comparing survival and reproductive probabilities among deferred, successful and unsuccessful breeders under 'demanding' conditions using multistate capture-mark-recapture modelling. then, we quantified the influence of bqi on adult survival among experienced breeders vs. the whole study population under both 'normal' and 'demanding' conditions. higher survival rates were exhibited by successful (74-76%) compared to unsuccessful breeders (64%); the former also more frequently reproduced successfully at year t + 1. from 1997 to 2006, adult survival ranged from 64-79%, with bqi accounting for 91% of variability in the entire study population, but only 17% in experienced breeders. the weakened relationship between bqi and survival in experienced breeders supports the theory that selection during the first reproductive event accounts for a more homogeneous pool of experienced breeders. no significant effect of environmental covariates on survival was evident, suggesting that what appeared to be demanding conditions were within the range that could be buffered by this species. for the first time in seabirds, a quadratic relationship between adult survival and bqi showed that adult survival is shaped by both heterogeneity in quality and reproductive costs. our study confirms that population demographic patterns are affected by factors at the individuals' level (e.g., individual quality) that are obscured at population-scale levels." -population indices versus correlated density estimates of black-footed ferret abundance,black-footed ferret; carnivores; density estimation; mark-recapture; mustela nigripes; spotlighting; wyoming,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GRENIER MB;BUSKIRK SW;ANDERSON-SPRECHER R,"estimating abundance of carnivore populations is problematic because individuals typically are elusive, nocturnal, and dispersed across the landscape. rare or endangered carnivore populations are even more difficult to estimate because of small sample sizes. considering behavioral ecology of the target species can drastically improve survey efficiency and effectiveness. previously, abundance of the black-footed ferret (mustela nigripes) was monitored by spotlighting and generating indices of relative abundance because reintroduced populations were slow to establish. indices, however, lack variance estimates and are costly to generate for the black-footed ferret. we therefore used spotlight surveys and live-trapping in conjunction with a robust mark-recapture estimator to improve abundance monitoring for the black-footed ferret, one of north america's most endangered carnivores. we estimated abundance of the black-footed ferret at shirley basin, wyoming, usa, using correlated density estimates and program mark. we compared our results to 2 indices of relative abundance, minimum number alive and predicted number of ferrets from litter counts. the correlated density estimate for the black-footed ferret ((n) over cap (r) 229; 95% ci = 161-298) was similar to minimum number alive ((n) over cap 192) and predicted number of ferrets from litter counts ((n) over cap 235). the efficiency and effectiveness of survey methods we used for the black-footed ferret were high by carnivoran standards. our results suggest that the sampling approach we utilized can be implemented for a fraction of the cost and effort required to generate 2 indices of relative abundance for the black-footed ferret. although we recommend managers implement a similar survey approach to monitor abundance of reintroduced populations of the black-footed ferret, analysis with sparse data sets will be problematic. until the black-footed ferret becomes widespread and abundant at a reintroduction site, spotlighting will remain preferable as a means to generate indices of distribution and relative abundance for the black-footed ferret. (journal of wildlife management 73(5): 669-676; 2009)" +population indices versus correlated density estimates of black-footed ferret abundance,black-footed ferret; carnivores; density estimation; mark-recapture; mustela nigripes; spotlighting; wyoming,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,GRENIER MB;BUSKIRK SW;ANDERSON SPRECHER R,"estimating abundance of carnivore populations is problematic because individuals typically are elusive, nocturnal, and dispersed across the landscape. rare or endangered carnivore populations are even more difficult to estimate because of small sample sizes. considering behavioral ecology of the target species can drastically improve survey efficiency and effectiveness. previously, abundance of the black-footed ferret (mustela nigripes) was monitored by spotlighting and generating indices of relative abundance because reintroduced populations were slow to establish. indices, however, lack variance estimates and are costly to generate for the black-footed ferret. we therefore used spotlight surveys and live-trapping in conjunction with a robust mark-recapture estimator to improve abundance monitoring for the black-footed ferret, one of north america's most endangered carnivores. we estimated abundance of the black-footed ferret at shirley basin, wyoming, usa, using correlated density estimates and program mark. we compared our results to 2 indices of relative abundance, minimum number alive and predicted number of ferrets from litter counts. the correlated density estimate for the black-footed ferret ((n) over cap (r) 229; 95% ci = 161-298) was similar to minimum number alive ((n) over cap 192) and predicted number of ferrets from litter counts ((n) over cap 235). the efficiency and effectiveness of survey methods we used for the black-footed ferret were high by carnivoran standards. our results suggest that the sampling approach we utilized can be implemented for a fraction of the cost and effort required to generate 2 indices of relative abundance for the black-footed ferret. although we recommend managers implement a similar survey approach to monitor abundance of reintroduced populations of the black-footed ferret, analysis with sparse data sets will be problematic. until the black-footed ferret becomes widespread and abundant at a reintroduction site, spotlighting will remain preferable as a means to generate indices of distribution and relative abundance for the black-footed ferret. (journal of wildlife management 73(5): 669-676; 2009)" estimating detection probabilities of waterfowl broods from ground-based surveys,brood surveys; detection probability; ducks; mark-recapture; north dakota; prairie pothole region; roadside surveys; sightability; waterfowl,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,PAGANO AM;ARNOLD TW,"brood: pair ratios could provide an economical method for assessing spatial or temporal variation in waterfowl productivity, but such estimators are severely biased by incomplete detection of broods. we conducted 3 sequential counts of 1,357 waterfowl broods in northeastern north dakota, usa, and used closed-population mark-recapture models to estimate total brood abundance while controlling for variation in detection probabilities (p). blue-winged teal (anas discors) broods had the lowest average detection probability (p = 0.305), whereas diving-duck broods had the highest average detectability (p = 0.571). detection was generally highest in morning or evening, but temporal patterns varied among species and there was no survey window that maximized detection probabilities for all species. detection probabilities averaged 0.108 (sd = 0.056) higher for an experienced observer versus an inexperienced observer. detection probabilities were 0.044 higher for roadside versus walk-up surveys and increased with increasing brood size, total brood abundance, survey date, wind speed, temperature, cloud cover, and amount of time spent surveying each wetland. detection probabilities declined with increasing wetland size and amount of tall peripheral vegetation. our mark-recapture results indicated that a traditional unreplicated brood survey would have missed 67.5% of estimated broods, summed over all species. use of closed-population mark-recapture techniques provided an effective method for reducing this bias and identifying and quantifying factors that reduce detection probabilities of waterfowl broods. we recommend that future brood surveys incorporate 2 or 3 temporally segregated replicate counts to allow for formal estimation of detection probabilities. (journal of wildlife management 73(5): 686-694; 2009)" importance of nest predation by alien rodents and avian poxvirus in conservation of oahu elepaio,avian poxvirus; chasiempis sandwichensis; elepaio; hawaii; mark-recapture; poxvirus avium; predator control; survival,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,VANDERWERF EA,"the oahu elepaio (chasiempis sandwichensis ibidis) is an endangered forest bird endemic to the hawaiian island of oahu (usa) and is threatened by nest predation from alien rodents and mosquito-borne diseases. i investigated importance of these threats and evaluated success of conservation efforts from 1995 to 2008. i controlled rodents with snap-traps and bait stations in 3 valleys and switched sites from non-treatment to treatment over time. i mist-netted and color-banded 91 elepaio, inspected them for symptoms of avian poxvirus (poxvirus avium), and estimated survival using multistate mark-recapture models. i determined annual fecundity of each breeding pair and monitored success of 212 nests. the oldest known oahu elepaio was >= 15 years old. survival of females was higher with rodent control (0.82 +/- 0.05) than without (0.55 +/- 0.12), but survival of males was not affected by rodent control (0.86 +/- 0.02 with vs. 0.84 +/- 0.04 without). survival of elepaio with active or inactive pox-like lesions was 4-10% lower than survival of elepaio with no pox symptoms. rodent control resulted in higher annual fecundity (0.69 +/- 0.05 vs. 0.33 +/- 0.06 fledglings/pair) and nest success (62% vs. 33%). female site-fidelity, mate fidelity, and female encounter probability were lower in the absence of rodent control because more females switched territories and mates after nest failure. population growth calculated from survival and fecundity estimates was stable with rodent control (1.07 +/- 0.04) but declining without rodent control (0.69 +/- 0.05). elepaio numbers have continued to decline despite rodent control, probably because some young birds disperse into adjacent unmanaged areas that act as sinks. the best immediate management strategy for oahu elepaio is to conduct rodent control over larger areas. restoration of native forest would benefit elepaio by providing nest sites that are less attractive to rodents. construction of predator-proof fences and eradication of predators would provide the best long-term protection for elepaio. (journal of wildlife management 73(5): 737-746; 2009)" evaluating abundance estimate precision and the assumptions of a count-based index for small mammals,abundance estimation; capture per unit effort (cpue); index; live-trapping; mark-recapture; program mark; removal; snap-trapping,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,WIEWEL AS;ADAMS AAY;RODDA GH,"conservation and management of small mammals requires reliable knowledge of population size. we investigated precision of mark-recapture and removal abundance estimates generated from live-trapping and snap-trapping data collected at sites on guam (n = 7), rota (n = 4), saipan (n = 5), and tinian (n = 3), in the mariana islands. we also evaluated a common index, captures per unit effort (cpue), as a predictor of abundance. in addition, we evaluated cost and time associated with implementing live-trapping and snap-trapping and compared species-specific capture rates of selected live-and snap-traps. for all species, mark-recapture estimates were consistently more precise than removal estimates based on coefficients of variation and 95% confidence intervals. the predictive utility of cpue was poor but improved with increasing sampling duration. nonetheless, modeling of sampling data revealed that underlying assumptions critical to application of an index of abundance, such as constant capture probability across space, time, and individuals, were not met. although snap-trapping was cheaper and faster than live-trapping, the time difference was negligible when site preparation time was considered. rattus diardii spp. captures were greatest in haguruma live-traps (standard trading co., honolulu, hi) and victor snap-traps (woodstream corporation, lititz, pa), whereas suncus murinus and mus musculus captures were greatest in sherman live-traps (h. b. sherman traps, inc., tallahassee, fl) and museum special snap-traps (woodstream corporation). although snap-trapping and cpue may have utility after validation against more rigorous methods, validation should occur across the full range of study conditions. resources required for this level of validation would likely be better allocated towards implementing rigorous and robust methods. (journal of wildlife management 73(5): 761-771; 2009)" @@ -1333,7 +1336,7 @@ endangered cape sable seaside sparrow survival,age-specific; ammodramus maritimu incorporating genotyping error into non-invasive dna-based mark-recapture population estimates,dna markers; genotyping error; mark-release-recapture; microsatellite; non-invasive sampling; population size estimation,JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT,KNAPP SM;CRAIG BA;WAITS LP,"use of non-invasive sources of dna, such as hair or scat, to obtain a genetic mark for population estimates is becoming commonplace. unfortunately, with such marks, potentials for genotyping errors and for the shadow effect have resulted in use of many loci and amplification of each specimen many times at each locus, drastically increasing time and cost of obtaining a population estimate. we proposed a method, the genotyping uncertainty added variance adjustment (guava), which statistically adjusts for genotyping errors and the shadow effect, thereby allowing use of fewer loci and one amplification of each specimen per locus. using allele frequencies and estimates of genotyping error rates, we determined, for each pair of specimens, the probability that the pair was obtained from the same individual, whether or not their observed genotypes match. using these probabilities, we reconstructed possible capture history matrices and used this distribution to obtain a population estimate. with simulated data, we consistently found our estimates had lower bias and smaller variance than estimates based on single amplifications in which genotyping error was ignored and that were comparable to estimates based on data free of genotyping errors. we also demonstrated the method on a fecal dna data set from a population of red wolves (canis rufus). the guava estimate based on only one amplification genotypes compares favorably to the estimate based on consensus genotypes. a program to conduct the analysis is available from the first author for unix or windows platforms. application of guava may allow for increased accuracy in population estimates at reduced cost. (journal of wildlife management 73(4): 598-604; 2009)" "seasonal patterns of abundance, growth, and site fidelity of juvenile steelhead in a small coastal california stream",NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,SOGARD SM;WILLIAMS TH;FISH H,"populations of steelhead oncorhynchus mykiss throughout the central california coast are currently listed as threatened under the federal endangered species act. to better understand demographic processes during the juvenile freshwater stage. we quantified abundance, movement, and growth of juvenile steelhead among five reaches in it primary spawning area of soquel creek. we used mark-recapture methods to examine seasonal, density-dependent. and size-dependent patterns in these population metrics. many trends were stronger in age-0 fish than in age-i and older fish. estimated survival and retention within it reach were generally highest ill summer and lowest in winter-spring. density dependence was evident only in age-0 fish. with lower survival occurring an higher densities. survival was typically size-dependent. with lower survival of smaller fish in both age-classes. immigration. based oil movement of untagged fish into our sites between sampling periods. wits higher in winter-spring compared with summer and fall. immigration was generally independent of density but was size-dependent, with smaller fish more liked, to move than larger fish. average growth rates were low, rarely exceeding 0.3 mm/d. growth was fastest in winter-spring, potentially it function of higher flow rates and increased food availability. growth was generally size-dependent, with smaller fish growing faster than larger fish, a negative effect of fish density on growth was apparent only for age-0 fish in summer. high site fidelity was evident in high recapture rates of tagged fish. recaptures over periods of up to 4 years suggested likely expression of a nonanadromous life history by some individuals. the growth rates in this system suggest that fish rearing in upstream habitats cannot undergo smoltification and emigrate until they are at least age 2. our results provide it valuable baseline of demographic patterns for juvenile steelhead in representative freshwater habitat of the central california coast steellhead distinct population segment." an evaluation of data entry error and proofing methods for fisheries data,NA,TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY,JOHNSON CL;TEMPLE GM;PEARSONS TN;WEBSTER TD,"reducing data entry error has the potential to improve estimates produced by fisheries practitioners. however, the frequencies of data entry error and evaluations of the recommended protocols for dealing with data entry error have rarely been presented in fisheries-related literature. the objectives of our study were to determine the magnitude of data entry error in a typical fisheries data set, what kind of errors occurred most often. and how those errors might affect commonly generated estimates of abundance, size structure, and species richness. we evaluated four methods of data entry into proofing: (1) a single entry, (2) read-aloud proofing.(3)double-entry proofing, and (4) field use of it personal digital assistant (pda). we determined the quality of the data after the use of each method and compared common fisheries estimates derived front each with estimates generated front standardized data. total error discovered in the data set averaged 0.79 +/- 0.22 % (mean +/- sd) and consisted of 44.1% field-related error and 55.9% data entry errors. we found thin numbers of known errors remaining in the data were significantly lower when proofing, methods were ticked. abundance estimates derived front it single data entry were significantly different front those derived front data thin had undergone proofing. however, the magnitude of the difference (2.22%) was less than our limit of acceptable error and far less than the mean confidence interval of the estimates themselves (60.91%). further, no differences were detected in mark-recapture abundance estimates, estimates of size, or estimates of species richness. this suggests thin for most common fisheries estimates, a single entry of data or single, entry using a pda is sufficient. we subsequently found thin the use of automated en-or checking helped to ensure an acceptable level of data quality without the time and expense of more traditional error-checking methods." -"detecting declines in the abundance of a bull trout (salvelinus confluentus) population: understanding the accuracy, precision, and costs of our efforts",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,AL-CHOKHACHY R;BUDY P;CONNER M,"using empirical field data for bull trout (salvelinus confluentus), we evaluated the trade-off between power and sampling effort-cost using monte carlo simulations of commonly collected mark-recapture-resight and count data, and we estimated the power to detect changes in abundance across different time intervals. we also evaluated the effects of monitoring different components of a population and stratification methods on the precision of each method. our results illustrate substantial variability in the relative precision, cost, and information gained from each approach. while grouping estimates by age or stage class substantially increased the precision of estimates, spatial stratification of sampling units resulted in limited increases in precision. although mark-resight methods allowed for estimates of abundance versus indices of abundance, our results suggest snorkel surveys may be a more affordable monitoring approach across large spatial scales. detecting a 25% decline in abundance after 5 years was not possible, regardless of technique (power = 0.80), without high sampling effort (48% of study site). detecting a 25% decline was possible after 15 years, but still required high sampling efforts. our results suggest detecting moderate changes in abundance of freshwater salmonids requires considerable resource and temporal commitments and highlight the difficulties of using abundance measures for monitoring bull trout populations." +"detecting declines in the abundance of a bull trout (salvelinus confluentus) population: understanding the accuracy, precision, and costs of our efforts",NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,AL CHOKHACHY R;BUDY P;CONNER M,"using empirical field data for bull trout (salvelinus confluentus), we evaluated the trade-off between power and sampling effort-cost using monte carlo simulations of commonly collected mark-recapture-resight and count data, and we estimated the power to detect changes in abundance across different time intervals. we also evaluated the effects of monitoring different components of a population and stratification methods on the precision of each method. our results illustrate substantial variability in the relative precision, cost, and information gained from each approach. while grouping estimates by age or stage class substantially increased the precision of estimates, spatial stratification of sampling units resulted in limited increases in precision. although mark-resight methods allowed for estimates of abundance versus indices of abundance, our results suggest snorkel surveys may be a more affordable monitoring approach across large spatial scales. detecting a 25% decline in abundance after 5 years was not possible, regardless of technique (power = 0.80), without high sampling effort (48% of study site). detecting a 25% decline was possible after 15 years, but still required high sampling efforts. our results suggest detecting moderate changes in abundance of freshwater salmonids requires considerable resource and temporal commitments and highlight the difficulties of using abundance measures for monitoring bull trout populations." using nitrogen stable isotopes to detect long-distance movement in a threatened cutthroat trout (oncorhynchus clarkii utah),NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,SEPULVEDA AJ;COLYER WT;LOWE WH;VINSON MR,"interior cutthroat trout occupy small fractions of their historic ranges and existing populations often are relegated to headwater habitats. conservation requires balancing protection for isolated genetically pure populations with restoration of migratory life histories by reconnecting corridors between headwater and mainstem habitats. identification of alternative life history strategies within a population is critical to these efforts. we tested the application of nitrogen stable isotopes to discern fluvial from resident bonneville cutthroat trout (bct; oncorhynchus clarkii utah) in a headwater stream. fluvial bct migrate from headwater streams with good water quality to mainstem habitats with impaired water quality. resident bct remain in headwater streams. we tested two predictions: (i) fluvial bct have a higher delta n-15 than residents, and (ii) fluvial bct delta n-15 reflects diet and delta n-15 enrichment characteristics of mainstem habitats. we found that fluvial delta n-15 was greater than resident delta n-15 and that delta n-15 was a better predictor of life history than fish size. our data also showed that fluvial and resident bct had high diet overlap in headwater sites and that delta n-15 of lower trophic levels was greater in mainstem sites than in headwater sites. we conclude that the high delta n-15 values of fluvial bct were acquired in mainstem sites." an evaluation of density-dependent and density-independent influences on population growth rates in weddell seals,antarctica; climate; density dependence; leptonychotes weddellii; population dynamics; population growth rate; weddell seal,ECOLOGY,ROTELLA JJ;LINK WA;NICHOLS JD;HADLEY GL;GARROTT RA;PROFFITT KM,"much of the existing literature that evaluates the roles of density-dependent and density-independent factors on population dynamics has been called into question in recent years because measurement errors were not properly dealt with in analyses. using state-space models to account for measurement errors, we evaluated a set of competing models for a 22-year time series of mark-resight estimates of abundance for a breeding population of female weddell seals (leptonychotes weddellii) studied in erebus bay, antarctica. we tested for evidence of direct density dependence in growth rates and evaluated whether equilibrium population size was related to seasonal sea-ice extent and the southern oscillation index (soi). we found strong evidence of negative density dependence in annual growth rates for a population whose estimated size ranged from 438 to 623 females during the study. based on bayes factors, a density-dependence-only model was favored over models that also included environmental covariates. according to the favored model, the population had a stationary distribution with a mean of 497 females (sd = 60.5), an expected growth rate of 1.10 (95% credible interval 1.08-1.15) when population size was 441 females, and a rate of 0.90 (95% credible interval 0.87-0.93) for a population of 553 females. a model including effects of soi did receive some support and indicated a positive relationship between soi and population size. however, effects of soi were not large, and including the effect did not greatly reduce our estimate of process variation. we speculate that direct density dependence occurred because rates of adult survival, breeding, and temporary emigration were affected by limitations on per capita food resources and space for parturition and pup-rearing. to improve understanding of the relative roles of various demographic components and their associated vital rates to population growth rate, mark-recapture methods can be applied that incorporate both environmental covariates and the seal abundance estimates that were developed here. an improved understanding of why vital rates change with changing population abundance will only come as we develop a better understanding of the processes affecting marine food resources in the southern ocean." hierarchical models for estimating density from dna mark-recapture studies,"abundance; adirondacks, new york, usa; bayesian analysis; bears; dna sampling; hair-snare trapping; hierarchical model; spatial capture-recapture; ursus americanus",ECOLOGY,GARDNER B;ROYLE JA;WEGAN MT,"genetic sampling is increasingly used as a tool by wildlife biologists and managers to estimate abundance and density of species. typically, dna is used to identify individuals captured in an array of traps ( e. g., baited hair snares) from which individual encounter histories are derived. standard methods for estimating the size of a closed population can be applied to such data. however, due to the movement of individuals on and off the trapping array during sampling, the area over which individuals are exposed to trapping is unknown, and so obtaining unbiased estimates of density has proved difficult. we propose a hierarchical spatial capture-recapture model which contains explicit models for the spatial point process governing the distribution of individuals and their exposure to ( via movement) and detection by traps. detection probability is modeled as a function of each individual's distance to the trap. we applied this model to a black bear ( ursus americanus) study conducted in 2006 using a hair-snare trap array in the adirondack region of new york, usa. we estimated the density of bears to be 0.159 bears/km(2), which is lower than the estimated density (0.410 bears/km(2)) based on standard closed population techniques. a bayesian analysis of the model is fully implemented in the software program winbugs." @@ -1354,7 +1357,7 @@ species-specific barrier effects of a motorway on the habitat use of two threate "counting elusive animals: comparing field and genetic census of the entire mountain gorilla population of bwindi impenetrable national park, uganda",gorilla beringei beringei; population survey; molecular census; microsatellite genotyping; nest-counts; fecal samples,BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION,GUSCHANSKI K;VIGILANT L;MCNEILAGE A;GRAY M;KAGODA E;ROBBINS MM,"accurate population size estimates are an essential part of every effective management plan for conserving endangered species. however, censusing rare and elusive wild animals is challenging and often relies on counting indirect signs, such as nests or feces. despite widespread use, the accuracy of such estimates has rarely been evaluated. here we compare an estimate of population size derived solely from field data with that obtained from a combination of field and genetic data for the critically endangered population of mountain gorillas (gorilla beringei beringei) in bwindi impenetrable national park, uganda. after genotyping dna from 384 fecal samples at 16 microsatellite loci, the population size estimate was reduced by 10.1% to 302 individuals, compared with 336 gorillas estimated using the traditional nest-count based method alone. we found that both groups and lone silverbacks were double-counted in the field and that individuals constructed multiple nests with an overall rate of 7.8%, resulting in the overestimation of the population size in the absence of genetic data. since the error associated with the traditional field method exceeded the estimated population growth of 5% in the last 4 years, future genetic censusing will be needed to determine how the population size is changing. this study illustrates that newly improved molecular methods allow fast, efficient and relatively affordable genotyping of several hundred samples, suggesting that genetic censusing can be widely applied to provide accurate and reliable population size estimates for a wide variety of species. (c) 2008 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved." a less field-intensive robust design for estimating demographic parameters with mark-resight data,capture-recapture; cormack-jolly-seber; marking and sighting; multistate; new zealand robin; petroica australis; population size; program noremark; temporary emigration,ECOLOGY,MCCLINTOCK BT;WHITE GC,"the robust design has become popular among animal ecologists as a means for estimating population abundance and related demographic parameters with mark-recapture data. however, two drawbacks of traditional mark-recapture are financial cost and repeated disturbance to animals. mark-resight methodology may in many circumstances be a less expensive and less invasive alternative to mark-recapture, but the models developed to date for these data have overwhelmingly concentrated only on the estimation of abundance. here we introduce a mark-resight model analogous to that used in mark-recapture for the simultaneous estimation of abundance, apparent survival, and transition probabilities between observable and unobservable states. the model may be implemented using standard statistical computing software, but it has also been incorporated into the freeware package program mark. we illustrate the use of our model with mainland new zealand robin (petroica australis) data collected to ascertain whether this methodology may be a reliable alternative for monitoring endangered populations of a closely related species inhabiting the chatham islands. we found this method to be a viable alternative to traditional mark-recapture when cost or disturbance to species is of particular concern in long-term population monitoring programs." a hierarchical model for estimating density in camera-trap studies,bayesian analysis; camera trapping; carnivore surveys; density estimation; hierarchical model; markov chain monte carlo; point process; spatial capture-recapture; tigers; trapping grid,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,ROYLE JA;NICHOLS JD;KARANTH KU;GOPALASWAMY AM,"estimating animal density using capture-recapture data from arrays of detection devices such as camera traps has been problematic due to the movement of individuals and heterogeneity in capture probability among them induced by differential exposure to trapping. we develop a spatial capture-recapture model for estimating density from camera-trapping data which contains explicit models for the spatial point process governing the distribution of individuals and their exposure to and detection by traps. we adopt a bayesian approach to analysis of the hierarchical model using the technique of data augmentation. the model is applied to photographic capture-recapture data on tigers panthera tigris in nagarahole reserve, india. using this model, we estimate the density of tigers to be 14.3 animals per 100 km(2) during 2004. synthesis and applications. our modelling framework largely overcomes several weaknesses in conventional approaches to the estimation of animal density from trap arrays. it effectively deals with key problems such as individual heterogeneity in capture probabilities, movement of traps, presence of potential 'holes' in the array and ad hoc estimation of sample area. the formulation, thus, greatly enhances flexibility in the conduct of field surveys as well as in the analysis of data, from studies that may involve physical, photographic or dna-based 'captures' of individual animals." -evaluation of trap capture in a geographically closed population of brown treesnakes on guam,behavioural response; boiga irregularis; capture heterogeneity; ephemeral effect; huggins closed capture model; invasive species; size selectivity,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,TYRRELL CL;CHRISTY MT;RODDA GH;ADAMS AA;ELLINGSON AR;SAVIDGE JA;DEAN-BRADLEY K;BISCHOF R,"open population mark-recapture analysis of unbounded populations accommodates some types of closure violations (e.g. emigration, immigration). in contrast, closed population analysis of such populations readily allows estimation of capture heterogeneity and behavioural response, but requires crucial assumptions about closure (e.g. no permanent emigration) that are suspect and rarely tested empirically. in 2003, we erected a double-sided barrier to prevent movement of snakes in or out of a 5-ha semi-forested study site in northern guam. this geographically closed population of > 100 snakes was monitored using a series of transects for visual searches and a 13 x 13 trapping array, with the aim of marking all snakes within the site. forty-five marked snakes were also supplemented into the resident population to quantify the efficacy of our sampling methods. we used the program mark to analyse trap captures (101 occasions), referenced to census data from visual surveys, and quantified heterogeneity, behavioural response, and size bias in trappability. analytical inclusion of untrapped individuals greatly improved precision in the estimation of some covariate effects. a novel discovery was that trap captures for individual snakes consisted of asynchronous bouts of high capture probability lasting about 7 days (ephemeral behavioural effect). there was modest behavioural response (trap happiness) and significant latent (unexplained) heterogeneity, with small influences on capture success of date, gender, residency status (translocated or not), and body condition. trapping was shown to be an effective tool for eradicating large brown treesnakes boiga irregularis (> 900 mm snout-vent length, svl). synthesis and applications. mark-recapture modelling is commonly used by ecological managers to estimate populations. however, existing models involve making assumptions about either closure violations or response to capture. physical closure of our population on a landscape scale allowed us to determine the relative importance of covariates influencing capture probability (body size, trappability periods, and latent heterogeneity). this information was used to develop models in which different segments of the population could be assigned different probabilities of capture, and suggests that modelling of open populations should incorporate easily measured, but potentially overlooked, parameters such as body size or condition." +evaluation of trap capture in a geographically closed population of brown treesnakes on guam,behavioural response; boiga irregularis; capture heterogeneity; ephemeral effect; huggins closed capture model; invasive species; size selectivity,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,TYRRELL CL;CHRISTY MT;RODDA GH;ADAMS AA;ELLINGSON AR;SAVIDGE JA;DEAN BRADLEY K;BISCHOF R,"open population mark-recapture analysis of unbounded populations accommodates some types of closure violations (e.g. emigration, immigration). in contrast, closed population analysis of such populations readily allows estimation of capture heterogeneity and behavioural response, but requires crucial assumptions about closure (e.g. no permanent emigration) that are suspect and rarely tested empirically. in 2003, we erected a double-sided barrier to prevent movement of snakes in or out of a 5-ha semi-forested study site in northern guam. this geographically closed population of > 100 snakes was monitored using a series of transects for visual searches and a 13 x 13 trapping array, with the aim of marking all snakes within the site. forty-five marked snakes were also supplemented into the resident population to quantify the efficacy of our sampling methods. we used the program mark to analyse trap captures (101 occasions), referenced to census data from visual surveys, and quantified heterogeneity, behavioural response, and size bias in trappability. analytical inclusion of untrapped individuals greatly improved precision in the estimation of some covariate effects. a novel discovery was that trap captures for individual snakes consisted of asynchronous bouts of high capture probability lasting about 7 days (ephemeral behavioural effect). there was modest behavioural response (trap happiness) and significant latent (unexplained) heterogeneity, with small influences on capture success of date, gender, residency status (translocated or not), and body condition. trapping was shown to be an effective tool for eradicating large brown treesnakes boiga irregularis (> 900 mm snout-vent length, svl). synthesis and applications. mark-recapture modelling is commonly used by ecological managers to estimate populations. however, existing models involve making assumptions about either closure violations or response to capture. physical closure of our population on a landscape scale allowed us to determine the relative importance of covariates influencing capture probability (body size, trappability periods, and latent heterogeneity). this information was used to develop models in which different segments of the population could be assigned different probabilities of capture, and suggests that modelling of open populations should incorporate easily measured, but potentially overlooked, parameters such as body size or condition." black and white or shades of grey? detectability of adelie penguins during shipboard surveys in the antarctic pack-ice,antarctica; detectability; distance sampling; double observers; line transect; mark-recapture; point independence; population estimation; seabird; southern ocean,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,SOUTHWELL C;LOW M,"estimates of penguin abundance are important for developing marine ecosystem models and assessing potential competition between penguins and fisheries operations. most shipboard surveys of penguins use strip transect (st) or conventional distance sampling (cds) methods to estimate abundance, but the assumptions of these methods are largely untested. to test their validity for surveys of adelie penguins in the antarctic pack-ice, we recorded mark-recapture line-transect data and estimated detectability using a point-independence (pi) analysis. contrary to st assumptions, detectability declined markedly with distance from the transect line and varied with group size, substrate and observer position. estimated detection probabilities across a 300-m strip width, which has frequently been used in shipboard surveys, ranged from 0.09 for single penguins in water to 0.91 for groups of > 5 penguins on ice floes. contrary to cds assumptions, only two-thirds of detections close to the transect line by one observer team were detected by the second team. estimated detection probabilities on the transect line ranged from 0.30 for single penguins in water to 0.92 for large groups of penguins on ice. synthesis and applications. most shipboard surveys have not accounted for incomplete detection, potentially resulting in large negative biases that may vary between surveys. recent theoretical improvements provide the potential for these biases to be addressed, but this requires application of more sophisticated and rigorous survey protocols. application of pi analysis to mark-recapture line transect data demonstrated that substantial improvement to abundance estimates could be achieved for penguins compared with previously used methods. the protocols required for pi estimation can be applied to shipboard surveys of slow-moving species such as penguins and seals, but may be difficult to apply to species moving faster than the survey platform, such as flying seabirds. the benefits of multiple observers are maximized only if they operate independently. for multi-species surveys, it would be beneficial to have multiple teams of observers, each focussing on a species group. improved estimation of marine predator abundance will facilitate the development of more realistic ecosystem models and allow improved management of the impact of fisheries operations on non-target species." estimating survival and movements using both live and dead recoveries: a case study of oystercatchers confronted with habitat change,coastal engineering; demography; emigration; haematopus ostralegus; habitat loss; multistate capture-recapture model; ringing data; winter severity; wintering waders,JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,DURIEZ O;SAETHER SA;ENS BJ;CHOQUET R;PRADEL R;LAMBECK RHD;KLAASSEN M,"animals facing partial habitat loss can try to survive in the remaining habitat or emigrate. effects on survival and movements should be studied simultaneously since survival rates may be underestimated if emigrants are not considered, and since emigrants may experience reduced survival. we analysed movements and survival of adult wintering oystercatcher haematopus ostralegus in response to the 1986-1987 partial closure of the oosterschelde in the dutch delta. this reduced by one-third the tidal area of this major european wintering area for waders. we developed a novel variant of a multistate capture-recapture model allowing simultaneous estimation of survival and movement between sites using a mixture of data (live recaptures and dead recoveries). we used a two-step process, first estimating movements between sites followed by site-specific survival rates. most birds were faithful to their ringing site. winter survival was negatively affected by winter severity and was lowest among birds changing wintering site (i.e. moving outside of the oosterschelde). during mild winters, survival rates were very high, and similar to before the closure in both changed and unchanged sectors of the oosterschelde. however, the combined effect of habitat loss with severe winters decreased the survival of birds from changed sectors and induced emigration. the coastal engineering project coincided with three severe winters and high food stock, making assessment of its effects difficult. however, the habitat loss seems to have had less impact on adult survival and movements than did winter severity. synthesis and applications. human-induced habitat change may result in population decline through costly emigration or reduced survival or reproduction of individuals that stay. long-term monitoring of marked individuals helps to understand how populations respond to environmental change, but site-specific survival and movement rates should be integrated in the same model in order to maximize the information yield. our modelling approach facilitates this because it allows the inclusion of recoveries from outside the study area." small local population sizes and high habitat patch fidelity in a specialised solitary bee,andrena hattorfiana; knautia arvensis; apoidea; oligolecty; wild-bee; metapopulation; sedentary; dispersal; mark-recapture,JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION,FRANZEN M;LARSSON M;NILSSON S,"andrena hattorfiana is a rare solitary bee which has declined during the last decades throughout western europe. it is specialised to forage pollen from plants of the family dipsacaceae. knowledge of distribution, dispersal propensity, and local population sizes is essential for successful conservation of a. hattorfiana. the investigated local bee populations (n = 78) were dominated by small local populations and 60% were smaller than 10 female individuals and 80% were smaller than 50 female individuals. the area of the median occupied habitat patch was 1.25 hectare and harboured 7 female bees. mark-release-recapture studies of female a. hattorfiana revealed a sedentary behaviour. among pollen-foraging female bees the average registered distance moved was 46 m. the patch emigration rate was about 2%, with an observed maximum colonization distance of 900 m. only 10% of the individuals crossed areas without the pollen plant within grassland patches, such as unpaved roads, stone walls and small tree-stands, even if these areas were less than 10 m wide. this study shows that solitary bees can occur in local populations of extremely small size and they have a sedentary behaviour. these are features that usually increase the risk of local population extinction." @@ -1374,6 +1377,3 @@ effect of experimental manipulation on survival and recruitment of feral pigs,NA estimating the density of free-ranging wild horses in rugged gorges using a photographic mark-recapture technique,NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,VERNES K;FREEMAN M;NESBITT B,"estimating the density of large, feral species such as wild horses at landscape scales can present a logistical hurdle for wildlife managers attempting to set density-based management targets. we undertook aerial surveys of wild horses by using a helicopter in guy fawkes river national park in north-eastern new south wales across 3 years to determine whether meaningful density estimates could be obtained efficiently by a mark-recapture technique based on recognition of individual horses. horse groups photographed from the air on the first of two surveys conducted each year were 'marked' on the basis of a unique combination of colours and natural markings, and 'recaptured' if they were photographed and identified on the second survey. population size was estimated with the program mark using a range of population estimators; however, because horses appeared to be evading detection on the second survey of each year, we chose a final estimation model that accounted for detection shyness in the study species. in 2005, the density estimate was 3.8 horses per km(2) (upper and lower 95% cl = 3.5-5.7 horses per km(2)). following horse control in these catchments, the estimate in 2007 was 2.3 horses per km(2) (upper and lower 95% cl = 2.1-3.4 horses per km(2)), and this change in density can be accounted for by the known number of horses removed from the survey area between survey periods. overall, the technique proved useful for estimating densities of wild horses in deeply dissected gorge country where other estimation techniques (such as line transects) are not practical; however, low recapture rates in one of the years of the study shows that the technique may not always be applicable. our technique should also be suitable for surveying other large mammals with broad ranges in open environments, provided recognition of individuals from unique marks is possible." aerial baiting with 1080 to control wild dogs does not affect the populations of two common small mammal species,NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,FENNER S;KORTNER G;VERNES K,"more than most other animal control techniques, toxic baiting is fraught with the potential impact on non-target species. in the present study, we investigated the effect of aerial baiting with 1080 to control wild dogs in north-eastern new south wales (nsw), australia, on populations of southern bush rats (rattus fuscipes assimilis) and brown antechinus (antechinus stuartii), using a controlled experiment. six populations, three each within widely spaced baited and unbaited trapping grids, were monitored before and after bait laying. to develop capture-mark-recapture indices, separate 4-day trapping surveys were undertaken twice before and twice after meat baits (250 g containing 6 mg sodium fluoroacetate, 1080) were delivered from a helicopter at 40 baits per kilometre. to assess non-fatal bait consumption, all baits contained rhodamine b (rhb), which gets incorporated into the vibrissae of animals that have ingested this marker. neither mammal population decreased in size after baiting, nor was there any increase in population turnover rates or changes in the movement patterns of either species. furthermore, no trapped animal tested positive for rhb, suggesting that these small mammals rarely consume meat baits, and that, at the population level, the impact of baiting on them was likely negligible. it is therefore unlikely that the current practise of aerial baiting in nsw, although effective in reducing dog activity, threatens populations of these two common species and perhaps small mammals in general." "field-based evaluation of scat dna methods to estimate population abundance of the spotted-tailed quoll (dasyurus maculatus), a rare australian marsupial",NA,WILDLIFE RESEARCH,RUIBAL M;PEAKALL R;CLARIDGE A;FIRESTONE K,"context. dna extracted non-invasively from remotely collected scat samples has been used successfully to enumerate populations of a few endangered mammal species. however, scat dna surveys relying on scent-marking behaviours need to identify if age-or sex-specific variations or seasonal changes in scat scent-marking patterns affect population estimates. furthermore, owing to the low quantity and quality of scat dna, a thorough assessment of the technique is needed when it is applied to different species to ensure that individual identification is reliable. aims. in the current study, microsatellite genetic profiles derived from 208 remotely collected scats of the spotted-tailed quoll (dasyurus maculatus), a rare australian marsupial carnivore, were compared with dna profiles from tissue of 22 live-trapped individuals from the same study area to critically assess the reliability of the non-invasive method to estimate population abundance. methods. scat samples were collected at scent-marking sites over 4 consecutive months (april-july 2005), 7 weeks of which overlapped with the trapping program to allow direct comparisons of population estimates. key results. combining a multiple-tubes approach with error checking analyses provided reliable genetic tags and resulted in the detection of the majority of the live- trapped population (18 of 22 individuals). ten additional individuals not known from trapping were also observed from scat dna. a longer-term sampling regime was required for scats than for trapping to allow direct detection of a large proportion of the population and to provide a comparable population estimate. critically, the 4-month scat collection period highlighted the importance of performing scat surveys during the mating season when scat scent marking is more frequent, and to avoid sex and age biases in scat marking patterns. implications. non-invasive scat dna sampling methods that rely on scent-marking behaviours need to consider the duration of the sampling period and temporal differences in behaviours by the sexes and age groups to ensure that meaningful population estimates are achieved." -inferences about population dynamics from count data using multistate models: a comparison to capture-recapture approaches,NA,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ZIPKIN EF;SILLETT TS;GRANT EHC;CHANDLER RB;ROYLE JA,NA -what shall i do now? state-dependent variations of life-history traits with aging in wandering albatrosses,NA,ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,PARDO D;BARBRAUD C;WEIMERSKIRCH H,NA -estimating detection probabilities of tagged fish migrating past fixed receiver stations using only local information,NA,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES,MELNYCHUK MC;WALTERS CJ,NA diff --git a/data/papers_in_methodological_journals.csv b/data/papers_in_methodological_journals.csv old mode 100644 new mode 100755 index e008494..5d77b55 --- a/data/papers_in_methodological_journals.csv +++ b/data/papers_in_methodological_journals.csv @@ -11,11 +11,11 @@ estimation of population size when capture probability depends on individual sta the recent past and promising future for data integration methods to estimate species' distributions,data fusion; integrated distribution model; joint likelihood; spatial point process; species distribution modelling,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MILLER DAW;PACIFICI K;SANDERLIN JS;REICH BJ,"with the advance of methods for estimating species distribution models has come an interest in how to best combine datasets to improve estimates of species distributions. this has spurred the development of data integration methods that simultaneously harness information from multiple datasets while dealing with the specific strengths and weaknesses of each dataset. we outline the general principles that have guided data integration methods and review recent developments in the field. we then outline key areas that allow for a more general framework for integrating data and provide suggestions for improving sampling design and validation for integrated models. key to recent advances has been using point-process thinking to combine estimators developed for different data types. extending this framework to new data types will further improve our inferences, as well as relaxing assumptions about how parameters are jointly estimated. these along with the better use of information regarding sampling effort and spatial autocorrelation will further improve our inferences. recent developments form a strong foundation for implementation of data integration models. wider adoption can improve our inferences about species distributions and the dynamic processes that lead to distributional shifts." caste-specific demography and phenology in bumblebees: modelling beewalk data,citizen science; mixture models; phenology; population trends; productivity; stopover models,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,MATECHOU E;FREEMAN SN;COMONT R,"we present novel dynamic mixture models for the monitoring of bumblebee populations on an unprecedented geographical scale, motivated by the uk citizen science scheme beewalk. the models allow us for the first time to estimate bumblebee phenology and within-season productivity, defined as the number of individuals in each caste per colony in the population in that year, from citizen science data. all of these parameters are estimated separately for each caste, giving a means of considerable ecological detail in examining temporal changes in the complex life cycle of a social insect in the wild. due to the dynamic nature of the models, we are able to produce population trends for a number of uk bumblebee species using the available time-series. via an additional simulation exercise, we show the extent to which useful information will increase if the survey continues, and expands in scale, as expected. bumblebees are extraordinarily important components of the ecosystem, providing pollination services of vast economic impact and functioning as indicator species for changes in climate or land use. our results demonstrate the changes in both phenology and productivity between years and provide an invaluable tool for monitoring bumblebee populations, many of which are in decline, in the uk and around the world. supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear online." parameterizing the robust design in the bugs language: lifetime carry-over effects of environmental conditions during growth on a long-lived bird,bayesian; branta bernicla nigricans; breeding probability; capture-mark-recapture; carry-over effects; fitness; population dynamics; robust design,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,RIECKE TV;LEACH AG;GIBSON D;SEDINGER JS,"since the initial development of the robust design, this capture-recapture model structure has been modified to estimate temporary emigration and expanded to include auxiliary information such as band recovery and live resight data using maximum likelihood approaches. these developments have allowed investigators to separately assess individual and group effects on true survival, site fidelity, and temporary emigration. additionally, recent advances in the bugs language have allowed researchers to develop increasingly complex, user-specified models in bayesian frameworks. the robust design has rarely been implemented in the bugs language, and previous attempts to parameterize the robust design in bugs exhibited strong bias in estimates of temporary emigration rates. given the limitations of current parameterizations of the robust design in bayesian frameworks, and our research objectives, we have developed a parameterization of the robust design in the bugs language that produces unbiased estimates of all model parameters. we use this novel model structure to examine lifetime carry-over effects of environmental conditions during early life on annual breeding probabilities of pacific black brent branta bernicla nigricans breeding on the yukon-kuskokwim river delta in western alaska. we found that individuals that were more structurally developed as goslings bred at increased rates as adults (beta = 0.14, f = 0.94), with no effect on adult survival (beta = 0.01, f = 0.62). additionally, we provide evidence for long-term declines in apparent survival of breeding adult females at the population level (beta = -0.01, f = 0.90). this novel model structure can be easily expanded (gibson et al., in press) and has important implications for population modelling at broad scales, where we apply it to a declining population of pacific black brent. given long-term declines in gosling growth on the yukon-kuskokwim delta, we predict future declines in population trajectories as a result of lifetime carry-over effects of environmental conditions during growth on adult fecundity and long-term declines in adult survival." -bayesian modeling of individual growth variability using back-calculation: application to pink cusk-eel (genypterus blacodes) off chile,individual variability; von bertalanffy model; student-t distribution; pink cusk-eel; chile,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,CONTRERAS-REYES JE;QUINTERO FOL;WIFF R,"the von bertalanffy growth function (vbgf) with random effects has been widely used to estimate growth parameters incorporating individual variability of length-at-age. trajectories of individual growth can be inferred using either mark-recapture or back-calculation of length-at-age from growth marks in hard body parts such as otoliths. modem statistical methods evaluate individual variation usually from mark-recapture data, and the parameters describing this function are estimated using empirical bayes methods assuming gaussian error. in this paper, we combine recent studies in non-gaussian distributions and a bayesian approach to model growth variability using back-calculated data in harvested fish populations. we presumed that errors in the vbgf can be assumed as a student-t distribution, given the abundance of individuals with extreme length values. the proposed method was applied and compared to the standard methods using back-calculated length-at-age data for pink cusk-eel (genypterus blacodes) off chile. considering several information criteria, and comparing males and females, we have found that males grow significantly faster than females, and that length-at-age for both sexes exhibits extreme length observations. comparisons indicated that a student-t model with mixed effects describes best back-calculated data regarding pink cusk-eel. this framework merged the strengths of different approaches to estimate growth parameters in harvested fish populations, considering modeling of individual variability of length-at-age, bayesian inference, and distribution of errors from the student-t model." +bayesian modeling of individual growth variability using back-calculation: application to pink cusk-eel (genypterus blacodes) off chile,individual variability; von bertalanffy model; student-t distribution; pink cusk-eel; chile,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,CONTRERAS REYES JE;QUINTERO FOL;WIFF R,"the von bertalanffy growth function (vbgf) with random effects has been widely used to estimate growth parameters incorporating individual variability of length-at-age. trajectories of individual growth can be inferred using either mark-recapture or back-calculation of length-at-age from growth marks in hard body parts such as otoliths. modem statistical methods evaluate individual variation usually from mark-recapture data, and the parameters describing this function are estimated using empirical bayes methods assuming gaussian error. in this paper, we combine recent studies in non-gaussian distributions and a bayesian approach to model growth variability using back-calculated data in harvested fish populations. we presumed that errors in the vbgf can be assumed as a student-t distribution, given the abundance of individuals with extreme length values. the proposed method was applied and compared to the standard methods using back-calculated length-at-age data for pink cusk-eel (genypterus blacodes) off chile. considering several information criteria, and comparing males and females, we have found that males grow significantly faster than females, and that length-at-age for both sexes exhibits extreme length observations. comparisons indicated that a student-t model with mixed effects describes best back-calculated data regarding pink cusk-eel. this framework merged the strengths of different approaches to estimate growth parameters in harvested fish populations, considering modeling of individual variability of length-at-age, bayesian inference, and distribution of errors from the student-t model." estimating recruitment from capture-recapture data by modelling spatio-temporal variation in birth and age-specific survival rates,birth-death process; camera trapping; individual-based models; spatial capture-recapture; spatial demography; spatio-temporal point process; white-tailed deer,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CHANDLER RB;ENGEBRETSEN K;CHERRY MJ;GARRISON EP;MILLER KV,"1. understanding the factors influencing recruitment in animal populations is an important objective of many research and conservation programmes. however, evaluating hypotheses is challenging because recruitment is the outcome of birth and survival processes that are difficult to directly observe. capture-recapture is the most general framework for estimating recruitment in the presence of observation error, but existing methods ignore the underlying birth and survival processes, as well as age effects and spatial variation in vital rates. 2. we present an individual-based, spatio-temporal model that can be fit to capture-recapture data to draw inferences on the birth and survival processes governing recruitment dynamics. the number, dates, and spatial distribution of births are modelled as outcomes of a point process, and survival is modelled using a failure time approach. survival parameters can be modelled as functions of individuals traits and time-varying, spatial covariates. continuous-and discrete-time formulations are possible. we demonstrate the model using 7 months of camera data collected on white-tailed deer odocoileus virginianus fawns in big cypress national preserve. spot patterns were used to individually identify 28 fawns, detected 1,454 times between december 1, 2015 and july 1, 2016. 3. a total of 37 (95% ci: 30-49) fawns were born, of which 16 (95% ci: 10-23) survived 180 days to the recruitment age. mean parturition date was february 14 (95% ci: february 6-february 22), much earlier than in more temperate parts of the species' range, but coinciding with the dry season in southern florida. we found little evidence that mortality rates decreased with age, but the estimate of the age effect was imprecise. in contrast, we found strong evidence that encounter rates were age-specific and increased rapidly over the first month of life as fawns became more mobile. 4. our case study demonstrates the potential of this new model for advancing knowledge of spatial population dynamics by providing insights into the birth and juvenile survival processes that influence recruitment. because the model can be applied to data from noninvasive survey methods such as camera trapping, it is possible to apply it at broad spatial scales to understand how environmental variables and predator communities influence recruitment." joining the incompatible: exploiting purposive lists for the sample-based estimation of species richness,difference estimator; probabilistic sampling; purposive survey; supporting list; simulation,ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,CHIARUCCI A;DI BIASE RM;FATTORINI L;MARCHESELLI M;PISANI C,"the lists of species obtained by purposive sampling by field ecologists can be used to improve the sample-based estimation of species richness. a new estimator is here proposed as a modification of the difference estimator in which the species inclusion probabilities are estimated by means of the species frequencies from incidence data. if the species list used to support the estimation is complete the estimator guesses the true richness without error. in the case of incomplete lists, the estimator provides values invariably greater than the number of species detected by the combination of sample-based and purposive surveys. an asymptotically conservative estimator of the mean squared error is also provided. a simulation study based on two artificial communities is carried out in order to check the obvious increase in accuracy and precision with respect to the widely applied estimators based on the sole sample information. finally, the proposed estimator is adopted to estimate species richness in the maremma regional park, italy." modelling sound attenuation in heterogeneous environments for improved bioacoustic sampling of wildlife populations,acoustic monitoring; bioacoustics; distance sampling; least-cost path models; sound attenuation; sound pressure audiogram; spatial capture-recapture; telemetry,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ROYLE JA,"1. acoustic sampling methods are becoming increasingly important in biological monitoring. sound attenuation is one of the most important dynamics affecting the utility of acoustic data as it directly affects the probability of detection of individuals by acoustic sensor arrays and especially the localization of acoustic signals necessary in telemetry studies. therefore, models of sound attenuation are necessary to make efficient use of acoustic data in ecological monitoring and assessment applications. models of attenuation in widespread use are based on euclidean distance between source and sensor, which is justified under spherical attenuation of sound waves in homogeneous environments. 2. in this paper, i develop a model of sound attenuation based on a non-euclidean cost-weighted distance metric which contains attenuation coefficients that characterize the attenuation of sound due to environmental heterogeneity in the vicinity of an acoustic sensor array. 3. i show that parameters of the proposed attenuation model can be estimated by maximum likelihood using experimental data from an array of fixed sources, thus allowing investigators who use bioacoustic methods to devise explicit models of sound attenuation in situ and apply them to localization of sources and density estimation. in addition, drawing on analogy with spatial capture-recapture models, i argue that parameters of the non-euclidean model of attenuation can be estimated when source locations are unknown. thus, the models can be applied to real field studies which require estimation of attenuation parameters or localization of signals. 4. models of heterogeneous sound attenuation allow more accurate descriptions of acoustic monitoring data, and therefore should produce more accurate estimates of ecological parameters of interest, including source locations, density, and movement trajectories. moreover, the ability to test specific hypotheses about the effects of habitat and landscape structure on sound attenuation can improve the design of acoustic monitoring arrays and lead to more efficient deployment of acoustic sensing technology." -a length-based mark-recapture model for estimating abundance and recruitment: removing bias due to size-selective capture gear,mark-recapture; growth; abundance; size selectivity; length-based model; bias,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,VAN POORTEN BT;TAYLOR N;O'BRIEN D;WALTERS CJ,"we describe an unbiased length-based, age-structured mark-recapture (lamr) model for estimating length based abundance and recruitment of fish populations. many mark-recapture studies employ capture gear that is size-selective, leading to a larger and faster growing marked sub-population with a different capture probability than the unmarked sub-population, resulting in a basic violation of assumptions for many mark-recapture models. persistent differences in marked and unmarked individuals are estimated in our model using growth type group accounting. simulation-evaluation results indicate that the model produces largely unbiased estimates of recruitment and abundance across a range of sampling scenarios and population life-history types, and is robust to growth parameter misspecification. however, in older, slow growing populations, the model is prone to 'smearing' of recruitment estimates across early year-classes. the lamr model is applied to data from multiple wild populations of rainbow trout to estimate recruitment and abundance. overall, results indicate that the lamr model addresses shortcomings associated with using size-selective gear in mark-recapture studies to produce reliable estimates of recruitment and size-based abundance." +a length-based mark-recapture model for estimating abundance and recruitment: removing bias due to size-selective capture gear,mark-recapture; growth; abundance; size selectivity; length-based model; bias,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,VAN POORTEN BT;TAYLOR N;O BRIEN D;WALTERS CJ,"we describe an unbiased length-based, age-structured mark-recapture (lamr) model for estimating length based abundance and recruitment of fish populations. many mark-recapture studies employ capture gear that is size-selective, leading to a larger and faster growing marked sub-population with a different capture probability than the unmarked sub-population, resulting in a basic violation of assumptions for many mark-recapture models. persistent differences in marked and unmarked individuals are estimated in our model using growth type group accounting. simulation-evaluation results indicate that the model produces largely unbiased estimates of recruitment and abundance across a range of sampling scenarios and population life-history types, and is robust to growth parameter misspecification. however, in older, slow growing populations, the model is prone to 'smearing' of recruitment estimates across early year-classes. the lamr model is applied to data from multiple wild populations of rainbow trout to estimate recruitment and abundance. overall, results indicate that the lamr model addresses shortcomings associated with using size-selective gear in mark-recapture studies to produce reliable estimates of recruitment and size-based abundance." using partial aggregation in spatial capture recapture,partially aggregated binary model; spatial capture recapture; wolverines,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MILLERET C;DUPONT P;BROSETH H;KINDBERG J;ROYLE JA;BISCHOF R,"1. spatial capture-recapture (scr) models are commonly used for analysing data collected using noninvasive genetic sampling (ngs). opportunistic ngs often leads to detections that do not occur at discrete detector locations. therefore, spatial aggregation of individual detections into fixed detectors (e.g., centre of grid cells) is an option to increase computing speed of scr analyses. however, it may reduce precision and accuracy of parameter estimations. 2. using simulations, we explored the impact that spatial aggregation of detections has on a trade-off between computing time and parameter precision and bias, under a range of biological conditions. we used three different observation models: the commonly used poisson and bernoulli models, as well as a novel way to partially aggregate detections (partially aggregated binary model [pab]) to reduce the loss of information after aggregating binary detections. the pab model divides detectors into k subdetectors and models the frequency of subdetectors with more than one detection as a binomial response with a sample size of k. finally, we demonstrate the consequences of aggregation and the use of the pab model using ngs data from the monitoring of wolverine (gulo gulo) in norway. 3. spatial aggregation of detections, while reducing computation time, does indeed incur costs in terms of reduced precision and accuracy, especially for the parameters of the detection function. scr models estimated abundance with a low bias (< 10%) even at high degree of aggregation, but only for the poisson and pab models. overall, the cost of aggregation is mitigated when using the poisson and pab models. at the same level of aggregation, the pab observation model out-performs the bernoulli model in terms of accuracy of estimates, while offering the benefits of a binary observation model (less assumptions about the underlying ecological process) over the count-based model. 4. we recommend that detector spacing after aggregation does not exceed 1.5 times the scale-parameter of the detection function in order to limit bias. we recommend the use of the pab observation model when performing spatial aggregation of binary data as it can mitigate the cost of aggregation, compared to the bernoulli model." r2ucare: an r package to perform goodness-of-fit tests for capture-recapture models,arnason-schwarz; capture-mark-recapture; cormack-jolly-seber; model validation; r2ucare,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GIMENEZ O;LEBRETON JD;CHOQUET R;PRADEL R,"1. assessing the quality of fit of a statistical model to data is a necessary step for conducting safe inference. 2. we introduce r2ucare, an r package to perform goodness-of-fit tests for open single- and multi-state capture-recapture models. r2ucare also has various functions to manipulate capture-recapture data. 3. we remind the basics and provide guidelines to navigate towards testing the fit of capture-recapture models. we demonstrate the functionality of r2ucare through its application to real data." spatial capture-mark-resight estimation of animal population density,capture-mark-resight model; density estimation; maximum likelihood; overdispersion; spatial mark-resight; spatially explicit capture-recapture,BIOMETRICS,EFFORD MG;HUNTER CM,"sightings of previously marked animals can extend a capture-recapture dataset without the added cost of capturing new animals for marking. combined marking and resighting methods are therefore an attractive option in animal population studies, and there exist various likelihood-based non-spatial models, and some spatial versions fitted by markov chain monte carlo sampling. as implemented to date, the focus has been on modeling sightings only, which requires that the spatial distribution of pre-marked animals is known. we develop a suite of likelihood-based spatial mark-resight models that either include the marking phase (capture-mark-resight models) or require a known distribution of marked animals (narrow-sense mark-resight). the new models sacrifice some information in the covariance structure of the counts of unmarked animals; estimation is by maximizing a pseudolikelihood with a simulation-based adjustment for overdispersion in the sightings of unmarked animals. simulations suggest that the resulting estimates of population density have low bias and adequate confidence interval coverage under typical sampling conditions. further work is needed to specify the conditions under which ignoring covariance results in unacceptable loss of precision, or to modify the pseudolikelihood to include that information. the methods are applied to a study of ship rats rattus rattus using live traps and video cameras in a new zealand forest, and to previously published data." @@ -27,11 +27,11 @@ spatial capture-recapture with partial identity: an application to camera traps, on the reliability of n-mixture models for count data,ancillary statistic; capture recapture; log linear model; n-mixture models; partial likelihood,BIOMETRICS,BARKER RJ;SCHOFIELD MR;LINK WA;SAUER JR,"n-mixture models describe count data replicated in time and across sites in terms of abundance n and detectability p. they are popular because they allow inference about n while controlling for factors that influence p without the need for marking animals. using a capture-recapture perspective, we show that the loss of information that results from not marking animals is critical, making reliable statistical modeling of n and p problematic using just count data. one cannot reliably fit a model in which the detection probabilities are distinct among repeat visits as this model is overspecified. this makes uncontrolled variation in p problematic. by counter example, we show that even if p is constant after adjusting for covariate effects (the constant p assumption) scientifically plausible alternative models in which n (or its expectation) is non-identifiable or does not even exist as a parameter, lead to data that are practically indistinguishable from data generated under an n-mixture model. this is particularly the case for sparse data as is commonly seen in applications. we conclude that under the constant p assumption reliable inference is only possible for relative abundance in the absence of questionable and/or untestable assumptions or with better quality data than seen in typical applications. relative abundance models for counts can be readily fitted using poisson regression in standard software such as r and are sufficiently flexible to allow controlling for p through the use covariates while simultaneously modeling variation in relative abundance. if users require estimates of absolute abundance, they should collect auxiliary data that help with estimation of p." "simultaneous modelling of movement, measurement error, and observer dependence in mark-recapture distance sampling: an application to arctic bird surveys",aerial survey; double-observer; mark-recapture distance sampling; measurement error; movement; point independence,ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,CONN PB;ALISAUSKAS RT,"mark-recapture distance sampling is a promising method for surveying bird populations from aircraft in open landscapes. however, commonly available distance sampling estimators require that distances to target animals are made without error and that animals are stationary while sampling is being conducted. motivated by a recent bird survey where these requirements were routinely violated, we describe a marginal likelihood framework for estimating abundance from double-observer data that can accommodate movement and measurement error when observations are made consecutively (as with front and rear observers), when animals are uniformly distributed during detection by the first observer, and when detections consist of both moving and stationary animals. assuming that all animals are subject to measurement error and that some animals can move between detections, we integrate over unknown animal locations to construct a marginal likelihood for detection, movement, and measurement error parameters. estimates of animal abundance are then obtained using a modified horvitz-thompson-like estimator. in addition, unmodelled heterogeneity in detection probability can be accommodated through observer dependence parameters. using simulation, we show that our approach yields low bias compared to approaches that ignore movement and/or measurement error, including in cases where there is considerable detection heterogeneity. applying our approach to data from a double-observer waterfowl helicopter survey in northern canada, we are able to estimate bird density accounting for movement and measurement error and corrected for observer heterogeneity. our approach appears promising for generating unbiased estimates of bird abundance necessary for reliable conservation and management." estimating the size of an open population using sparse capture-recapture data,extrapolation; frequentist inference; mark-capture-recapture; population size estimation; sparse recaptures,BIOMETRICS,HUGGINS R;STOKLOSA J;ROACH C;YIP P,"sparse capture-recapture data from open populations are difficult to analyze using currently available frequentist statistical methods. however, in closed capture-recapture experiments, the chao sparse estimator (chao, 1989, biometrics45, 427-438) may be used to estimate population sizes when there are few recaptures. here, we extend the chao (1989) closed population size estimator to the open population setting by using linear regression and extrapolation techniques. we conduct a small simulation study and apply the models to several sparse capture-recapture data sets." -a simplified mark-release-recapture protocol to improve the cost effectiveness of repeated population size quantification,bog fritillary butterfly; boloria aquilonaris; boloria eunomia; capture-mark-recapture; catch effort; cranberry fritillary butterfly; long-term monitoring; mark software; sampling efforts,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,TURLURE C;PE'ER G;BAGUETTE M;SCHTICKZELLE N,"obtaining an accurate quantification of population size is often of prime importance in ecology and conservation biology (e.g. population viability analysis, a basic step for assessing species and population status in a given area and guiding effective conservation). when obtaining a reliable quantification of absolute (vs. relative) population size is required, mark-release-recapture (mrr) is a method of choice for many organisms. this is a highly reliable but costly procedure in terms of time and potential impact on species and sites. consequently, less costly alternatives are highly desirable for conservation and population ecologists. we present here a simplified mrr protocol to mitigate this cost of repeated mrr sampling with little compromise on the quality of the population size estimation. using one of the largest existing butterfly mrr databases, collected on two fritillary species over a period of 20years and >20 populations in belgium, we assessed the possibility to reduce the effort of collecting mrr data while keeping accurate quantification of total population size. by downsampling from the full datasets and calculating a range of demographic census metrics, we specifically investigated whether marking individuals is necessary, and whether the number of sampling sessions can be reduced. we found that (1) counting individuals is not enough: some individual marking, even in a simplistic way to differentiate newly recorded from previously seen individuals, is essential for estimating population size. (2) a simple linear conversion function (number of missed individuals for each marked one) can be used to compute population size from the number of individuals marked over a small number of mrr sampling sessions. (3) parameterizing this function is system specific, because it depends on detectability of individuals, but only requires an initial effort of traditional high-effort mrr in a few populations encompassing the expected range of population size, combined with previous knowledge on the species about potential factors affecting detectability. our simplified mrr protocol should allow scientists to obtain absolute population size estimates almost as good as with traditional high-effort mrr, but at a cost lowered in both the marking procedure and the intensity of field visits." +a simplified mark-release-recapture protocol to improve the cost effectiveness of repeated population size quantification,bog fritillary butterfly; boloria aquilonaris; boloria eunomia; capture-mark-recapture; catch effort; cranberry fritillary butterfly; long-term monitoring; mark software; sampling efforts,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,TURLURE C;PE ER G;BAGUETTE M;SCHTICKZELLE N,"obtaining an accurate quantification of population size is often of prime importance in ecology and conservation biology (e.g. population viability analysis, a basic step for assessing species and population status in a given area and guiding effective conservation). when obtaining a reliable quantification of absolute (vs. relative) population size is required, mark-release-recapture (mrr) is a method of choice for many organisms. this is a highly reliable but costly procedure in terms of time and potential impact on species and sites. consequently, less costly alternatives are highly desirable for conservation and population ecologists. we present here a simplified mrr protocol to mitigate this cost of repeated mrr sampling with little compromise on the quality of the population size estimation. using one of the largest existing butterfly mrr databases, collected on two fritillary species over a period of 20years and >20 populations in belgium, we assessed the possibility to reduce the effort of collecting mrr data while keeping accurate quantification of total population size. by downsampling from the full datasets and calculating a range of demographic census metrics, we specifically investigated whether marking individuals is necessary, and whether the number of sampling sessions can be reduced. we found that (1) counting individuals is not enough: some individual marking, even in a simplistic way to differentiate newly recorded from previously seen individuals, is essential for estimating population size. (2) a simple linear conversion function (number of missed individuals for each marked one) can be used to compute population size from the number of individuals marked over a small number of mrr sampling sessions. (3) parameterizing this function is system specific, because it depends on detectability of individuals, but only requires an initial effort of traditional high-effort mrr in a few populations encompassing the expected range of population size, combined with previous knowledge on the species about potential factors affecting detectability. our simplified mrr protocol should allow scientists to obtain absolute population size estimates almost as good as with traditional high-effort mrr, but at a cost lowered in both the marking procedure and the intensity of field visits." performance of multistate mark-recapture models for temporary emigration in the presence of survival costs,bias; power; simulation; survival; temporary emigration,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HENLE K;GRUBER B,"temporary emigration is widespread in animals and plants and has important implications for ecological processes, evolution and the conservation of species. it is increasingly studied with capture-mark-recapture (cmr) models. temporary emigration provides particular challenges to cmr analyses if it involves movement to an unobservable state. a multistate model in which individuals may move between an observable and an unobservable state (called te model) was developed for such cases. the model assumes equal survival probability in both states. this assumption may be violated, especially if temporary emigration involves trade-offs between survival and reproduction. a comprehensive assessment of the effects of unequal survival probability on power to detect temporary emigration and on bias and precision of estimates is still needed to understand the applicability and limits of the model. we assessed power to detect temporary emigration for four goodness-of-fit tests and evaluated bias and precision of estimates for the te model and for its combination with a robust design. our simulation study, based on 16,650 parameter combinations, shows that temporary emigration is more challenging than currently usually acknowledged. the tests 2.ct and 2.c are largely independent of the difference in survival probability between the states. in contrast, test 3.sr is sensitive to the difference in survival probability but also to emigration probability. tests 2.c and 2.ct have high power if a large part of the population temporarily emigrates and a large fraction of the individuals return on the next capture occasion. under this condition, bias is low and precision adequate even if the assumption of equal survival probability is violated. bias and precision are also satisfactory if the assumption is met but unsatisfactory or unreliable for the remaining parameter space. we conclude that the uncertainties whether an appropriate model was selected and whether the estimates from the selected model may be biased should be clearly communicated and that every endeavour should be made to make the unobservable state observable." a generalized chao estimator with measurement error and external information,chao estimator; external information; simex,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,DOTTO F;FARCOMENI A,"we present a generalized chao (gc) estimator based on a subject-occasion-specific design matrix. we then extend the gc estimator to (i) external information, in the form of non-linear constraints on subpopulation sizes and (ii) measurement error. for the first, we propose a reparameterization of the estimating equations. as a result, the constrained mle can be found with no additional computational efforts. for the second we generalize simex procedure to multiple measurement methods. in simulation we show that (even incorrect) external information can substantially decrease the mse. we illustrate with an application to a whale shark (rhincodon typus) population, where mostly jouvenile males are observed. we use external information on gender ratio of whale sharks to correct for low catchability of females, and our multivariate simex procedure to correct for measurement error in assessment of shark length. the resulting population size estimates are about 60% larger than the unconstrained-uncorrected counterparts." a test of positive association for detecting heterogeneity in capture for capture-recapture data,cormack-jolly-seber model; goodman-kruskal's gamma; goodness-of-fit,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,JEYAM A;MCCREA RS;BREGNBALLE T;FREDERIKSEN M;PRADEL R,"the cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) model assumes that all marked animals have equal recapture probabilities at each sampling occasion, but heterogeneity in capture often occurs and should be taken into account to avoid biases in parameter estimates. although diagnostic tests are generally used to detect trap-dependence or transience and assess the overall fit of the model, heterogeneity in capture is not routinely tested for. in order to detect and identify this phenomenon in a cjs framework, we propose a test of positive association between previous and future encounters using goodman-kruskal's gamma. this test is based solely on the raw capture histories and makes no assumption on model structure. the development of the test is motivated by a dataset of sandwich terns (thalasseus sandvicensis), and we use the test to formally show that they exhibit heterogeneity in capture. we use simulation to assess the performance of the test in the detection of heterogeneity in capture, compared to existing and corrected diagnostic goodness-of-fit tests, leslie's test of equal catchability and carothers' extension of the leslie test. the test of positive association is easy to use and produces good results, demonstrating high power to detect heterogeneity in capture. we recommend using this new test prior to model fitting as the outcome will guide the model-building process and help draw more accurate biological conclusions. supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear online." -accounting for uncertainty in duplicate identification and group size judgements in mark-recapture distance sampling,abundance; coefficient of variation; common dolphins; double-observer aerial surveys; group size; mark-recapture distance sampling,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HAMILTON ONP;KINCAID SE;CONSTANTINE R;KOZMIAN-LEDWARD L;WALKER CG;FEWSTER RM,"1. mark-recapture distance sampling (mrds) surveys with two independent observers are widely used to estimate wildlife population abundance. the analysis relies on accurate identification of duplicate sightings common to both observers, and correct judgements of group size, both of which are hard to achieve for species that exhibit complex grouping patterns. 2. in this paper, we examine the impact of these sources of uncertainty on bias and precision of abundance estimates, using a case study of 22 aerial surveys of common dolphins (delphinus delphis) in the hauraki gulf, new zealand. we develop a novel probabilistic method to identify duplicate observations, and account for various sources of uncertainty using a simulation-intensive approach. 3. for our case study, identifying duplicates using reasonable but arbitrary thresholds of time and angle discrepancies created a range of abundance estimates differing by up to 20%, whereas our novel threshold-free probabilistic analysis returned an estimate roughly central to this range. uncertainty in group size made a smaller impact of up to 5% on abundance estimates. all analysis choices returned similar values for the coefficient of variation, from 20 to 23%. 4. generating robust estimates of abundance, and accounting for all associated sources of uncertainty, is critical for informing conservation management. our novel approach provides a way to eliminate arbitrary decisions associated with mrds, and account for a wider range of uncertainties. our method allows for the reliable application of mrds to a wider range of terrestrial and marine species, and will be a useful tool for producing robust abundance estimates for species that exhibit complex grouping patterns." +accounting for uncertainty in duplicate identification and group size judgements in mark-recapture distance sampling,abundance; coefficient of variation; common dolphins; double-observer aerial surveys; group size; mark-recapture distance sampling,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HAMILTON ONP;KINCAID SE;CONSTANTINE R;KOZMIAN LEDWARD L;WALKER CG;FEWSTER RM,"1. mark-recapture distance sampling (mrds) surveys with two independent observers are widely used to estimate wildlife population abundance. the analysis relies on accurate identification of duplicate sightings common to both observers, and correct judgements of group size, both of which are hard to achieve for species that exhibit complex grouping patterns. 2. in this paper, we examine the impact of these sources of uncertainty on bias and precision of abundance estimates, using a case study of 22 aerial surveys of common dolphins (delphinus delphis) in the hauraki gulf, new zealand. we develop a novel probabilistic method to identify duplicate observations, and account for various sources of uncertainty using a simulation-intensive approach. 3. for our case study, identifying duplicates using reasonable but arbitrary thresholds of time and angle discrepancies created a range of abundance estimates differing by up to 20%, whereas our novel threshold-free probabilistic analysis returned an estimate roughly central to this range. uncertainty in group size made a smaller impact of up to 5% on abundance estimates. all analysis choices returned similar values for the coefficient of variation, from 20 to 23%. 4. generating robust estimates of abundance, and accounting for all associated sources of uncertainty, is critical for informing conservation management. our novel approach provides a way to eliminate arbitrary decisions associated with mrds, and account for a wider range of uncertainties. our method allows for the reliable application of mrds to a wider range of terrestrial and marine species, and will be a useful tool for producing robust abundance estimates for species that exhibit complex grouping patterns." point process models for spatio-temporal distance sampling data from a large-scale survey of blue whales,distance sampling; spatio-temporal modeling; stochastic partial differential equations; inla; spatial point process,ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,YUAN Y;BACHL FE;LINDGREN F;BORCHERS DL;ILLIAN JB;BUCKLAND ST;RUE H;GERRODETTE T,"distance sampling is a widely used method for estimating wildlife population abundance. the fact that conventional distance sampling methods are partly design-based constrains the spatial resolution at which animal density can be estimated using these methods. estimates are usually obtained at survey stratum level. for an endangered species such as the blue whale, it is desirable to estimate density and abundance at a finer spatial scale than stratum. temporal variation in the spatial structure is also important. we formulate the process generating distance sampling data as a thinned spatial point process and propose model-based inference using a spatial log-gaussian cox process. the method adopts a flexible stochastic partial differential equation (spde) approach to model spatial structure in density that is not accounted for by explanatory variables, and integrated nested laplace approximation (inla) for bayesian inference. it allows simultaneous fitting of detection and density models and permits prediction of density at an arbitrarily fine scale. we estimate blue whale density in the eastern tropical pacific ocean from thirteen shipboard surveys conducted over 22 years. we find that higher blue whale density is associated with colder sea surface temperatures in space, and although there is some positive association between density and mean annual temperature, our estimates are consistent with no trend in density across years. our analysis also indicates that there is substantial spatially structured variation in density that is not explained by available covariates." hidden markov models for extended batch data,batch marking; integrated population modeling; mark-recapture; open n-mixture models; viterbi algorithm; weather-loach,BIOMETRICS,COWEN LLE;BESBEAS P;MORGAN BJT;SCHWARZ CJ,"batch marking provides an important and efficient way to estimate the survival probabilities and population sizes of wild animals. it is particularly useful when dealing with animals that are difficult to mark individually. for the first time, we provide the likelihood for extended batch-marking experiments. it is often the case that samples contain individuals that remain unmarked, due to time and other constraints, and this information has not previously been analyzed. we provide ways of modeling such information, including an open n-mixture approach. we demonstrate that models for both marked and unmarked individuals are hidden markov models; this provides a unified approach, and is the key to developing methods for fast likelihood computation and maximization. likelihoods for marked and unmarked individuals can easily be combined using integrated population modeling. this allows the simultaneous estimation of population size and immigration, in addition to survival, as well as efficient estimation of standard errors and methods of model selection and evaluation, using standard likelihood techniques. alternative methods for estimating population size are presented and compared. an illustration is provided by a weather-loach data set, previously analyzed by means of a complex procedure of constructing a pseudo likelihood, the formation of estimating equations, the use of sandwich estimates of variance, and piecemeal estimation of population size. simulation provides general validation of the hidden markov model methods developed and demonstrates their excellent performance and efficiency. this is especially notable due to the large numbers of hidden states that may be typically required" the 2012 census of agriculture: a capture-recapture analysis,NA,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,YOUNG LJ;LAMAS AC;ABREU DA,"the census of agriculture is conducted every 5 years, in years ending in 2 and 7. the census list frame is incomplete, resulting in undercoverage. not all operations on the list frame respond, and, based on the response, some misclassification occurs. in 2012, a capture-recapture analysis was conducted to adjust for undercoverage, nonresponse, and misclassification. this was the first time capture-recapture methods were used to produce official statistics for an establishment survey. the number of records on the census mailing list that were classified as farms was 1,382,099, and the published estimate of the number of farms was 2,109,303, a 34.5% adjustment. the adjustment was greatest for farms with low production levels and for specialty farms, both of which are difficult to identify and add to the list. the methods used are described. challenges that arose in the implementation process are discussed. areas for enhancement being targeted for the 2017 census of agriculture are highlighted. supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear online." @@ -42,11 +42,11 @@ a general approach to model movement in (highly) fragmented patch networks,metap analysing movement behaviour and dynamic space-use strategies among habitats using multi-event capture-recapture modelling,amphibian; capture-recapture; dispersal; habitat selection; movement; multi-event model,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CAYUELA H;PRADEL R;JOLY P;BESNARD A,"1. the environment of most species is heterogeneous at different spatial and temporal scales; this heterogeneity can have a direct effect on various components of fitness. as a consequence, individual space-use and movement strategies are central issues in ecology and conservation and receive considerable attention from researchers. 2. in the last 30 years, this issue has led to the development of capture-recapture models that allow movement between sites to be quantified, while handling imperfect detection. for studies involving numerous recapture sites in which the emphasis is on dispersal or migration rather than movement between particular sites, lagrange et al. recently proposed a parsimonious cr multi-event model that contrasts individuals that move and individuals that stay in place, irrespective of the sites involved. 3. in this study, we developed a generalized version of this model to allow survival probability and movement probability to differ for different types of habitat to which the individual sites may be assigned. we investigated the potential of this new parameterization by studying the movements of an amphibian, the yellow-bellied toad (bombina variegata), in a set of breeding and resting/foraging ponds. 4. our capture-recapture multi-event model provides a highly flexible tool allowing users to model movements within and between several habitats. this approach can be potentially used to study movement behaviour and space-use strategies of a wide range of taxa." accounting for false mortality in telemetry tag applications,murray cod; trout cod; golden perch; capture-recapture; telemetry; tag failure,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,BIRD T;LYON J;WOTHERSPOON S;KING R;MCCARTHY M,"deaths of animals in the wild are rarely observed directly, which often limits understanding of survival rates. telemetry transmitters offer field ecologists the opportunity to observe mortality events in cases as the absence of animal movement. when observations of mortality are based on factors such as the absence of animal movement, live individuals can be mistaken for dead, resulting in biased estimates of survival. additionally, tag failure or emigration might also influence estimates of survival in telemetry studies. failing to account for mis-classification, tag failure, and emigration rates can result in overestimates of mortality rates by up two-fold, even when the data are corrected for obviously mistaken entries. we use a multi-state capture-recapture model with a misclassification parameter in estimating both the rate of permanent emigration and/or tag failure and the rate at which individuals are mistakenly identified as dead. we use this method on an annual telemetry survey of three species of native fish in the murray river, australia: murray cod (maccullochella peelii), trout cod (maccullochella macquariensis) and golden perch (macquaria ambigua). evidence for higher mortality rates in the first year post-implantation occurred for murray cod and golden perch, which is likely an effect of tagging and/or the transmitter, or transmitters shedding. using simulations, we confirm that our model approach is robust to a broad range of misclassification and transmitter failure rates. with these simulations we also demonstrate that misclassification models that do not account for emigration will likely be erroneous if live and dead animals have different probabilities of detection. these findings will have a broad interest to ecologists wishing to account for multiple sources of misclassification error in capture-mark-recapture studies, with the caveat that the specifics of the approach are dependent on species, transmitter types and other aspects of experimental design which may or may not be amenable to the misclassification framework. (c) 2017 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." bayesian methods for estimating animal abundance at large spatial scales using data from multiple sources,capture-recapture survey; car model; hierarchical bayes; model selection; occupancy survey; spatial confounding,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,DEY S;DELAMPADY M;PARAMESHWARAN R;KUMAR NS;SRIVATHSA A;KARANTH KU,"estimating animal distributions and abundances over large regions is of primary interest in ecology and conservation. specifically, integrating data from reliable but expensive surveys conducted at smaller scales with cost-effective but less reliable data generated from surveys at wider scales remains a central challenge in statistical ecology. in this study, we use a bayesian smoothing technique based on a conditionally autoregressive (car) prior distribution and bayesian regression to address this problem. we illustrate the utility of our proposed methodology by integrating (i) abundance estimates of tigers in wildlife reserves from intensive photographic capture-recapture methods, and (ii) estimates of tiger habitat occupancy from indirect sign surveys, conducted over a wider region. we also investigate whether the random effects which represent the spatial association due to the car structure have any confounding effect on the fixed effects of the regression coefficients." -graphical diagnostics for occupancy models with imperfect detection,dunn-smyth residuals; goodness-of-fit; imperfect detection; probability integral transforms,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,WARTON DI;STOKLOSA J;GUILLERA-ARROITA G;MACKENZIE DI;WELSH AH,"occupancy-detection models that account for imperfect detection have become widely used in many areas of ecology. as with any modelling exercise, it is important to assess whether the fitted model encapsulates the main sources of variation in the data, yet there have been few methods developed for occupancy-detection models that would allow practitioners to do so. in this paper, a new type of residual for occupancy-detection models is developed according to the method of dunn & smyth (journal of computational and graphical statistics, 5, 1996, 236-244). residuals are separately constructed to diagnose the occupancy and detection components of the model. because the residuals are quite noisy, we suggest fitting a smoother through plots of residuals against predictors of fitted values, with 95% confidence bands, to diagnose lack-of-fit. the method is illustrated using swiss squirrel data, and evaluated using simulations based on that dataset. plotting residuals against predictors or against fitted values performed reasonably well as methods for diagnosing violations of occupancy-detection model assumptions, particularly plots of residuals against a missing predictor. relatively high false positive rates were sometimes observed, but this seems to be controlled reasonably well by fitting smoothers to these plots and being guided in interpretation by 95% confidence bands around the smoothers." +graphical diagnostics for occupancy models with imperfect detection,dunn-smyth residuals; goodness-of-fit; imperfect detection; probability integral transforms,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,WARTON DI;STOKLOSA J;GUILLERA ARROITA G;MACKENZIE DI;WELSH AH,"occupancy-detection models that account for imperfect detection have become widely used in many areas of ecology. as with any modelling exercise, it is important to assess whether the fitted model encapsulates the main sources of variation in the data, yet there have been few methods developed for occupancy-detection models that would allow practitioners to do so. in this paper, a new type of residual for occupancy-detection models is developed according to the method of dunn & smyth (journal of computational and graphical statistics, 5, 1996, 236-244). residuals are separately constructed to diagnose the occupancy and detection components of the model. because the residuals are quite noisy, we suggest fitting a smoother through plots of residuals against predictors of fitted values, with 95% confidence bands, to diagnose lack-of-fit. the method is illustrated using swiss squirrel data, and evaluated using simulations based on that dataset. plotting residuals against predictors or against fitted values performed reasonably well as methods for diagnosing violations of occupancy-detection model assumptions, particularly plots of residuals against a missing predictor. relatively high false positive rates were sometimes observed, but this seems to be controlled reasonably well by fitting smoothers to these plots and being guided in interpretation by 95% confidence bands around the smoothers." modelling individual migration patterns using a bayesian nonparametric approach for capture-recapture data,chinese restaurant process; great crested newts; poisson-gamma process; reed warblers; shot-noise cox process; stopover data,ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,MATECHOU E;CARON F,"we present a bayesian nonparametric approach for modelling wildlife migration patterns using capture-recapture (cr) data. arrival times of individuals are modelled in continuous time and assumed to be drawn from a poisson process with unknown intensity function, which is modelled via a flexible nonparametric mixture model. the proposed cr framework allows us to estimate the following: (i) the total number of individuals that arrived at the site, (ii) their times of arrival and departure, and hence their stopover duration, and (iii) the density of arrival times, providing a smooth representation of the arrival pattern of the individuals at the site. we apply the model to data on breeding great crested newts (triturus cristatus) and on migrating reed warblers (acrocephalus scirpaceus). for the former, the results demonstrate the staggered arrival of individuals at the breeding ponds and suggest that males tend to arrive earlier than females. for the latter, they demonstrate the arrival of migrating flocks at the stopover site and highlight the considerable difference in stopover duration between caught and not-caught individuals." "petersen estimator, chapman adjustment, list effects, and heterogeneity",bias correction; capture-recapture; nonidentifiability,BIOMETRICS,MAO CX;HUANG RC;ZHANG SJ,we use a nonparametric mixture model for the purpose of estimating the size of a population from multiple lists in which both the individual effects and list effects are allowed to vary. we propose a lower bound of the population size that admits an analytic expression. the lower bound can be estimated without the necessity of model-fitting. the asymptotical normality of the estimator is established. both the estimator itself and that for the estimable bound of its variance are adjusted. these adjusted versions are shown to be unbiased in the limit. simulation experiments are performed to assess the proposed approach and real applications are studied. -the integration of mark re-encounter and tracking data to quantify migratory connectivity,integrated model; multi-state model; mark-recapture data; gps tracking; geolocation; data analysis; bayesian methods,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,KORNER-NIEVERGELT F;PREVOT C;HAHN S;JENNI L;LIECHTI F,"animals which spend subsequent seasons in different areas connect geographical regions. the connection between breeding and non-breeding grounds is defined as migratory connectivity. the quantification of such connectivity is important, because movements between different locations can have strong consequences for the moving animal as well as the encountered habitats or ecosystems. connectivity is usually investigated either on the basis of (few unsystematic) re-encounters of (often large numbers of) marked individuals or by observations of a few individuals tracked by remote sensing techniques, i.e. gps or geolocation. the combination of qualitatively different data sets can reduce the limitations of each type of data and thus improve the accuracy of the estimated connectivity parameters considerably. we formally combine individual tracking data and mark re-encounter data in a probabilistic model framework for quantifying connectivity. in a first example, we quantify migratory connectivity of a long-distance passerine migrant based on ring re-encounter and geolocator data. as a second example, we combine re-encounter data of ear-tagged wild boars with gps tracking data to estimate the spatial distribution of wild boars during the hunting and the non-hunting seasons. these two examples illustrate the use of the model in two different framework: 1) long-distance migration and, 2) seasonal (e.g. hunting induced) non-migratory movements. results from the integrated analyses provided more information than the informal comparison of the results from independent analyses on each data set separately. parameter estimates were more precise in the integrated analyses compared to the separate analyses and stronger conclusions could be drawn. the integration of mark re-encounter and tracking data reduces sampling bias and increases the value of both data sets but the weighting of each data set needs further investigation. (c) 2016 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -bayesian population size estimation using dirichlet process mixtures,capture-recapture; casualties in conflicts; dirichlet process mixtures; latent class models; model selection,BIOMETRICS,MANRIQUE-VALLIER D,"we introduce a new bayesian nonparametric method for estimating the size of a closed population from multiple-recapture data. our method, based on dirichlet process mixtures, can accommodate complex patterns of heterogeneity of capture, and can transparently modulate its complexity without a separate model selection step. additionally, it can handle the massively sparse contingency tables generated by large number of recaptures with moderate sample sizes. we develop an efficient and scalable mcmc algorithm for estimation. we apply our method to simulated data, and to two examples from the literature of estimation of casualties in armed conflicts." +the integration of mark re-encounter and tracking data to quantify migratory connectivity,integrated model; multi-state model; mark-recapture data; gps tracking; geolocation; data analysis; bayesian methods,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,KORNER NIEVERGELT F;PREVOT C;HAHN S;JENNI L;LIECHTI F,"animals which spend subsequent seasons in different areas connect geographical regions. the connection between breeding and non-breeding grounds is defined as migratory connectivity. the quantification of such connectivity is important, because movements between different locations can have strong consequences for the moving animal as well as the encountered habitats or ecosystems. connectivity is usually investigated either on the basis of (few unsystematic) re-encounters of (often large numbers of) marked individuals or by observations of a few individuals tracked by remote sensing techniques, i.e. gps or geolocation. the combination of qualitatively different data sets can reduce the limitations of each type of data and thus improve the accuracy of the estimated connectivity parameters considerably. we formally combine individual tracking data and mark re-encounter data in a probabilistic model framework for quantifying connectivity. in a first example, we quantify migratory connectivity of a long-distance passerine migrant based on ring re-encounter and geolocator data. as a second example, we combine re-encounter data of ear-tagged wild boars with gps tracking data to estimate the spatial distribution of wild boars during the hunting and the non-hunting seasons. these two examples illustrate the use of the model in two different framework: 1) long-distance migration and, 2) seasonal (e.g. hunting induced) non-migratory movements. results from the integrated analyses provided more information than the informal comparison of the results from independent analyses on each data set separately. parameter estimates were more precise in the integrated analyses compared to the separate analyses and stronger conclusions could be drawn. the integration of mark re-encounter and tracking data reduces sampling bias and increases the value of both data sets but the weighting of each data set needs further investigation. (c) 2016 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." +bayesian population size estimation using dirichlet process mixtures,capture-recapture; casualties in conflicts; dirichlet process mixtures; latent class models; model selection,BIOMETRICS,MANRIQUE VALLIER D,"we introduce a new bayesian nonparametric method for estimating the size of a closed population from multiple-recapture data. our method, based on dirichlet process mixtures, can accommodate complex patterns of heterogeneity of capture, and can transparently modulate its complexity without a separate model selection step. additionally, it can handle the massively sparse contingency tables generated by large number of recaptures with moderate sample sizes. we develop an efficient and scalable mcmc algorithm for estimation. we apply our method to simulated data, and to two examples from the literature of estimation of casualties in armed conflicts." estimation in closed capture-recapture models when covariates are missing at random,inverse probability weighting; missing at random; multiple imputation; population size estimation; regression calibration,BIOMETRICS,LEE SM;HWANG WH;TAPSOBA JD,"individual covariates are commonly used in capture-recapture models as they can provide important information for population size estimation. however, in practice, one or more covariates may be missing at random for some individuals, which can lead to unreliable inference if records with missing data are treated as missing completely at random. we show that, in general, such a naive complete-case analysis in closed capture-recapture models with some covariates missing at random underestimates the population size. we develop methods for estimating regression parameters and population size using regression calibration, inverse probability weighting, and multiple imputation without any distributional assumptions about the covariates. we show that the inverse probability weighting and multiple imputation approaches are asymptotically equivalent. we present a simulation study to investigate the effects of missing covariates and to evaluate the performance of the proposed methods. we also illustrate an analysis using data on the bird species yellow-bellied prinia collected in hong kong." bayesian analysis of jolly-seber type models,capture-recapture-resight data sets; integrated modelling; mixture models; reversible jump; semipalmated sandpipers; stopover data,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,MATECHOU E;NICHOLLS GK;MORGAN BJT;COLLAZO JA;LYONS JE,"we propose the use of finite mixtures of continuous distributions in modelling the process by which new individuals, that arrive in groups, become part of a wildlife population. we demonstrate this approach using a data set of migrating semipalmated sandpipers (calidris pussila) for which we extend existing stopover models to allow for individuals to have different behaviour in terms of their stopover duration at the site. we demonstrate the use of reversible jump mcmc methods to derive posterior distributions for the model parameters and the models, simultaneously. the algorithm moves between models with different numbers of arrival groups as well as between models with different numbers of behavioural groups. the approach is shown to provide new ecological insights about the stopover behaviour of semipalmated sandpipers but is generally applicable to any population in which animals arrive in groups and potentially exhibit heterogeneity in terms of one or more other processes." efficient markov chain monte carlo sampling for hierarchical hidden markov models,capture-recapture; effective sample size; hidden markov model; hierarchical model; mcmc; nimble; sampling efficiency,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,TUREK D;DE VALPINE P;PACIOREK CJ,"traditional markov chain monte carlo (mcmc) sampling of hidden markov models (hmms) involves latent states underlying an imperfect observation process, and generates posterior samples for top-level parameters concurrently with nuisance latent variables. when potentially many hmms are embedded within a hierarchical model, this can result in prohibitively long mcmc runtimes. we study combinations of existing methods, which are shown to vastly improve computational efficiency for these hierarchical models while maintaining the modeling flexibility provided by embedded hmms. the methods include discrete filtering of the hmm likelihood to remove latent states, reduced data representations, and a novel procedure for dynamic block sampling of posterior dimensions. the first two methods have been used in isolation in existing application-specific software, but are not generally available for incorporation in arbitrary model structures. using the nimble package for r, we develop and test combined computational approaches using three examples from ecological capture-recapture, although our methods are generally applicable to any embedded discrete hmms. these combinations provide several orders of magnitude improvement in mcmc sampling efficiency, defined as the rate of generating effectively independent posterior samples. in addition to being computationally significant for this class of hierarchical models, this result underscores the potential for vast improvements to mcmc sampling efficiency which can result from combinations of known algorithms." @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ modelling temporal and spatial variability in tag reporting-rates for newfoundla the influence of environmental parameters on the performance and detection range of acoustic receivers,aatams - imos; acoustic telemetry; detection probability; detection range; sentinel tags,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HUVENEERS C;SIMPFENDORFER CA;KIM S;SEMMENS JM;HOBDAY AJ;PEDERSON H;STIEGLITZ T;VALLEE R;WEBBER D;HEUPEL MR;PEDDEMORS V;HARCOURT RG,"acoustic telemetry is being increasingly used to study the ecology of many aquatic organisms. this widespread use has been advanced by national and international tracking programs that coordinate deployment of passive acoustic telemetry networks on a regional and continental scale to detect tagged animals. while it is well-known that environmental conditions can affect the performance of acoustic receivers, these effects are rarely quantified despite the profound implications for tag detection and hence the ecological inferences. here, we deployed eight receivers at different depths within the water column and at different orientations (hydrophone up or down) and 12 tags 200-800m from the receivers for 234days to investigate how the tag detection range of acoustic receivers varied through time and under different meteorologic and oceanographic conditions. the study showed that receiver depth and orientation, and time since deployment had the largest effect on the detection range. thermocline gradient and depth, and wind speed were the environmental factors most affecting detection range, while wind direction, precipitation and atmospheric pressure had negligible or no effect. comparison of results to a proposed general acoustic theory model and previous studies showed that findings from specific habitat types cannot be generalised and applied across other habitats or environments. a good understanding of the acoustic coverage and temporal variations in relation to environmental conditions are crucial to accurate interpretation of results, and ensuing management recommendations. we recommend that each study include stationary reference tags to measure changes in detection probability with time, help refine detection range, and be used to improve confidence in the reporting and interpretation of the data." hierarchical models for describing space-for-time variations in insect population size and sex-ratio along a primary succession,animal abundance; carabids; cold-adapted species; detection probability; removal sampling; sex-ratio,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,TENAN S;MAFFIOLETTI C;CACCIANIGA M;COMPOSTELLA C;SEPPI R;GOBBI M,"chronosequences of glacier retreat are useful for investigating primary successions over time periods that are longer than direct observation would permit. in this context, space-for-time substitution studies have been applied to assess the effects of climate change on invertebrate assemblages. however, population dynamics of insect species following retreating glaciers has been under-investigated until now due to difficulty in applying capture-recapture methods and correctly identifying species in the field. removal sampling methods are commonly used, but imperfect detectability is rarely accounted for in the analytical framework. in this paper we study the effects of environmental drivers of spatial, and indirectly temporal, variation in population size and sex-ratio of cold-adapted insects through a hierarchical framework for abundance. we show the importance of a metapopulation design, where samples are replicated in space and time, to model data from small and scattered populations, typically present in habitats with climate mediated selective pressure like those along glacier forelands. this scattered distribution can influence the observation or sampling process and thus species detectability. our results show that glacier retreat differently affects species-specific changes of population size and sex ratio along the chronosequence, even if the species are taxonomically related. small-sized populations occur on the glacier surface, near the glacier front, and in sites deglaciated for at least 100 yrs. on the contrary, larger populations occupy sites deglaciated for more than 20 yrs, but less than 100 yrs. this pattern is described by the concave relationship of abundance with both species richness of other arthropods (proxy of habitat complexity) and soil organic matter (proxy of soil maturity). sex-ratio showed opposite patterns in relation to time since deglaciation. hierarchical models that estimate abundance of spatially distinct subpopulations represent useful tools for accurately assessing changes in species abundance following climate change while accounting for possible bias associated with imperfect detectability, an issue which is often neglected in space-for-time substitution studies on invertebrates and, more generally, in studies involving pitfall trapping. (c) 2016 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." semi-markov arnason-schwarz models,capture-recapture-recovery; dwell-time distribution; hidden markov model; multi-state model,BIOMETRICS,KING R;LANGROCK R,"we consider multi-state capture-recapture-recovery data where observed individuals are recorded in a set of possible discrete states. traditionally, the arnason-schwarz model has been fitted to such data where the state process is modeled as a first-order markov chain, though second-order models have also been proposed and fitted to data. however, low-order markov models may not accurately represent the underlying biology. for example, specifying a (time-independent) first-order markov process involves the assumption that the dwell time in each state (i.e., the duration of a stay in a given state) has a geometric distribution, and hence that the modal dwell time is one. specifying time-dependent or higher-order processes provides additional flexibility, but at the expense of a potentially significant number of additional model parameters. we extend the arnason-schwarz model by specifying a semi-markov model for the state process, where the dwell-time distribution is specified more generally, using, for example, a shifted poisson or negative binomial distribution. a state expansion technique is applied in order to represent the resulting semi-markov arnason-schwarz model in terms of a simpler and computationally tractable hidden markov model. semi-markov arnason-schwarz models come with only a very modest increase in the number of parameters, yet permit a significantly more flexible state process. model selection can be performed using standard procedures, and in particular via the use of information criteria. the semi-markov approach allows for important biological inference to be drawn on the underlying state process, for example, on the times spent in the different states. the feasibility of the approach is demonstrated in a simulation study, before being applied to real data corresponding to house finches where the states correspond to the presence or absence of conjunctivitis." -an r package for analysing survival using continuous-time open capture-recapture models,estimation bias; frequentist inference; inhomogeneous poisson process; maximum likelihood estimation; survival analysis model,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,FOUCHET D;SANTIN-JANIN H;SAUVAGE F;YOCCOZ NG;PONTIER D,"1. capture-recapture software packages have proven to be very powerful tools for analysing factors affecting survival in wild populations. however, all such packages are limited to discrete-time protocols. appropriate survival analysis tools are still lacking for data acquired from continuous-time protocols. 2. we have developed a statistical method and propose an r package for analysing such data based on an extension of classical survival analysis models incorporating an inhomogeneous poisson process for modelling capture histories. first, data were simulated from a continuous-time protocol. these data were used to (i) compare survival estimation biases of discrete-and continuous-time approaches and (ii) investigate the performance and accuracy of our r package for four types of covariates: factors varying between individuals (like sex), in time (like climatic factors), both in time and between individuals (like physical condition) and age (as a categorical factor). secondly, the r package has been applied to a real data set for survival analysis of cats in the kerguelen archipelago (regrouping 682 cats over 20 years) as an illustrative example. 3. results of the simulated data analysis show that the method performs better than its discrete-time counterpart for analysing data acquired from continuous-time protocols. it provides unbiased parameter estimates for all parameters except those that vary both in time and between individuals - which is not surprising, since in our case, these factors were not updated in continuous time (i.e. only upon capture). when applied to the kerguelen cat data set, the results suggest that survival is lower in juveniles than in adults and subadults, varies between study sites and increases with physical condition, and this latter effect being more important in females than in males. sex, season, temporal linear trend in survival and the ndvi vegetation index were also tested but were not found to be significant. however, confidence intervals were too large (due to a low recapture rate) for excluding such effects. further analyses are still needed for rigorous covariate testing in this context. 4. in conclusion, continuous-time approaches - such as that presented in this paper - should be preferred when data acquired from continuous-time protocols is analysed." +an r package for analysing survival using continuous-time open capture-recapture models,estimation bias; frequentist inference; inhomogeneous poisson process; maximum likelihood estimation; survival analysis model,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,FOUCHET D;SANTIN JANIN H;SAUVAGE F;YOCCOZ NG;PONTIER D,"1. capture-recapture software packages have proven to be very powerful tools for analysing factors affecting survival in wild populations. however, all such packages are limited to discrete-time protocols. appropriate survival analysis tools are still lacking for data acquired from continuous-time protocols. 2. we have developed a statistical method and propose an r package for analysing such data based on an extension of classical survival analysis models incorporating an inhomogeneous poisson process for modelling capture histories. first, data were simulated from a continuous-time protocol. these data were used to (i) compare survival estimation biases of discrete-and continuous-time approaches and (ii) investigate the performance and accuracy of our r package for four types of covariates: factors varying between individuals (like sex), in time (like climatic factors), both in time and between individuals (like physical condition) and age (as a categorical factor). secondly, the r package has been applied to a real data set for survival analysis of cats in the kerguelen archipelago (regrouping 682 cats over 20 years) as an illustrative example. 3. results of the simulated data analysis show that the method performs better than its discrete-time counterpart for analysing data acquired from continuous-time protocols. it provides unbiased parameter estimates for all parameters except those that vary both in time and between individuals - which is not surprising, since in our case, these factors were not updated in continuous time (i.e. only upon capture). when applied to the kerguelen cat data set, the results suggest that survival is lower in juveniles than in adults and subadults, varies between study sites and increases with physical condition, and this latter effect being more important in females than in males. sex, season, temporal linear trend in survival and the ndvi vegetation index were also tested but were not found to be significant. however, confidence intervals were too large (due to a low recapture rate) for excluding such effects. further analyses are still needed for rigorous covariate testing in this context. 4. in conclusion, continuous-time approaches - such as that presented in this paper - should be preferred when data acquired from continuous-time protocols is analysed." the measurement of selection when detection is imperfect: how good are naive methods?,capture-mark-recapture; directional selection; mark; natural selection; selection gradients; simulation; stabilizing selection,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,WALLER J;SVENSSON EI,"1. the life spans of animals can be measured in natural populations by uniquely marking individuals and then releasing them into the field. selection on survival (a component of fitness) can subsequently be quantified by regressing the life spans of these marked individuals on their trait values. however, marked individuals are not always seen on every subsequent catching occasion, and for this reason, imperfect detection is considered a problem when estimating survival selection in natural populations. 2. capture-mark-recapture methods have been advocated as a powerful means to correct for imperfect detection. here, we use simulated and field data sets to evaluate the effect of assuming perfect detection ('naive methods'), when detection is really imperfect. we compared the performance of the naive methods with methods correcting for imperfect detection (mark-recapture methods, or mr). 3. although the effects of trait-dependent recapture probability are mitigated when recapture probability is high, mark-recapture methods still provide the safest choice when recapture probability might be trait-dependent. in our simulations, mark-recapture methods had a power advantage over naive methods, but all methods lost statistical power at low recapture probabilities. 4. the main advantage of mark-recapture methods over naive methods is the ability to control for hidden trait-dependent recapture probability, as it is often hard to tell a priori if trait dependence is an issue in a particular study. however, when trait-dependent recapture probability is weak, naive methods and mark-recapture methods perform similarly as long as recapture rates do not become too low, and the main problem of survival selection studies is still low statistical power. we provide a r package (easymark) alongside with this paper to facilitate future integration between mr methods and classical selection studies. easymark provides the opportunity to convert the regression coefficients from mr-approaches in to classical standardized selection gradients." extending the latent multinomial model with complex error processes and dynamic markov bases,bayesian inference; markov basis; markov chain monte carlo; mark-recapture; misidentification; queen snake (regina septemvittata),ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,BONNER SJ;SCHOFIELD MR;NOREN P;PRICE SJ,"the latent multinomial model (lmm) of link et al. [biometrics 66 (2010) 178-185] provides a framework for modelling mark-recapture data with potential identification errors. key is a markov chain monte carlo (mcmc) scheme for sampling configurations of the latent counts of the true capture histories that could have generated the observed data. assuming a linear map between the observed and latent counts, the mcmc algorithm uses vectors from a basis of the kernel to move between configurations of the latent data. schofield and bonner [biometrics 71 (2015) 1070-1080] shows that this is sufficient for some models within the framework but that a larger set called a markov basis is required when errors are more complex. we address two further challenges: (1) that models with complex error mechanisms may not fit within the lmm framework and (2) that markov bases can be difficult to compute for studies of even moderate size. we extend the framework to model the capture/demographic and error processes separately and develop a new mcmc algorithm using dynamic markov bases. our work is motivated by a study of queen snakes (regina septemvittata) and we use simulation to compare estimates of survival rates when snakes are marked with pit tags which have perfect identification versus brands which are prone to error." capture-recapture abundance estimation using a semi-complete data likelihood approach,bugs; capture-recapture; closed populations; individual heterogeneity; jags; spatially explicit,ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,KING R;MCCLINTOCK BT;KIDNEY D;BORCHERS D,"capture-recapture data are often collected when abundance estimation is of interest. in this manuscript we focus on abundance estimation of closed populations. in the presence of unobserved individual heterogeneity, specified on a continuous scale for the capture probabilities, the likelihood is not generally available in closed form, but expressible only as an analytically intractable integral. model-fitting algorithms to estimate abundance most notably include a numerical approximation for the likelihood or use of a bayesian data augmentation technique considering the complete data likelihood. we consider a bayesian hybrid approach, defining a ""semi-complete"" data likelihood, composed of the product of a complete data likelihood component for individuals seen at least once within the study and a marginal data likelihood component for the individuals not seen within the study, approximated using numerical integration. this approach combines the advantages of the two different approaches, with the semi-complete likelihood component specified as a single integral (over the dimension of the individual heterogeneity component). in addition, the models can be fitted within bugs/jags (commonly used for the bayesian complete data likelihood approach) but with significantly improved computational efficiency compared to the commonly used superpopulation data augmentation approaches (between about 10 and 77 times more efficient in the two examples we consider). the semicomplete likelihood approach is flexible and applicable to a range of models, including spatially explicit capture-recapture models. the model-fitting approach is applied to two different data sets: the first relates to snowshoe hares where model m-h is applied and the second to gibbons where a spatially explicit capture-recapture model is applied." @@ -90,7 +90,7 @@ mark-resight abundance estimation under incomplete identification of marked indi mc(mc)mc: exploring monte carlo integration within mcmc for mark-recapture models with individual covariates,data augmentation; mark-recapture; markov chain monte carlo; monte carlo integration; monte carlo within mcmc,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BONNER S;SCHOFIELD M,"estimating abundance from mark-recapture data is challenging when capture probabilities vary among individuals. initial solutions to this problem were based on fitting conditional likelihoods and estimating abundance as a derived parameter. more recently, bayesian methods using full likelihoods have been implemented via reversible jump markov chain monte carlo sampling (rjmcmc) or data augmentation (da). the latter approach is easily implemented in available software and has been applied to fit models that allow for heterogeneity in both open and closed populations. however, both rjmcmc and da may be inefficient when modelling large populations. we describe an alternative approach using monte carlo (mc) integration to approximate the posterior density within a markov chain monte carlo (mcmc) sampling scheme. we show how this monte carlo within mcmc (mcwm) approach may be used to fit a simple, closed population model including a single individual covariate and present results from a simulation study comparing rjmcmc, da and mcwm. we found that mcwm can provide accurate inference about population size and can be more efficient than both rjmcmc and da. the efficiency of mcwm can also be improved by using advanced mc methods like antithetic sampling. finally, we apply mcwm to estimate the abundance of meadow voles (microtus pennsylvanicus) at the patuxent wildlife research center in 1982 allowing for capture probabilities to vary as a function body mass." estimating true instead of apparent survival using spatial cormack-jolly-seber models,cormack-jolly-seber model; dispersal; lanius collurio; movement; sampling bias; spatial capture-recapture,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,SCHAUB M;ROYLE JA,"survival is often estimated from capture-recapture data using cormack-jolly-seber (cjs) models, where mortality and emigration cannot be distinguished, and the estimated apparent survival probability is the product of the probabilities of true survival and of study area fidelity. consequently, apparent survival is lower than true survival unless study area fidelity equals one. underestimation of true survival from capture-recapture data is a main limitation of the method. we develop a spatial version of the cjs model that allows estimation of true survival. besides the information about whether a specific individual was encountered at a given occasion, it is often recorded where the encounter occurred. thus, information is available about the fraction of dispersal that occurs within the study area, and we use it to model dispersal and estimate true survival. our model is formulated hierarchically and consists of survival, dispersal and observation submodels, assuming that encounters are possible anywhere within a study area. in a simulation study, our new spatial cjs model produced accurate estimates of true survival and dispersal behaviour for various sizes and shapes of the study area, even if emigration is substantial. however, when the information about dispersal is scarce due to low survival, low recapture probabilities and high emigration, the estimators are positively biased. moreover, survival estimates are sensitive to the assumed dispersal kernel. we applied the spatial cjs model to a data set of adult red-backed shrikes (lanius collurio). apparent survival of males (c.05) estimated with the cjs model was larger than in females (c.04), but the application of the spatial cjs model revealed that both sexes had similar survival probabilities (c.06). the mean breeding dispersal distance in females was c.700m, while males dispersed only c.250m between years. spatial cjs models enable study of dispersal and survival independent of study design constraints such as imperfect detection and size of the study area provided that some of the dispersing individuals remain in the study area. we discuss possible extensions of our model: alternative dispersal models and the inclusion of covariates and of a habitat suitability map." "separating mortality and emigration: modelling space use, dispersal and survival with robust-design spatial capture-recapture data",arvicoline (arvicolinae) rodents; bayesian analysis; competing risks; dispersal ecology; hierarchical modelling; individual random effects; life-history evolution; openbugs; winbugs; jags; posterior predictive checks; spacing behaviour,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ERGON T;GARDNER B,"capture-recapture (cr) techniques are commonly used to gain information about population dynamics, demography and life-history traits of populations. however, traditional cr models cannot separate mortality from emigration. recently developed spatial-capture-recapture (scr) models explicitly incorporate spatial information into traditional cr models, thus allowing for individuals' movements to be modelled explicitly. in this paper, we extend scr models using robust-design data to allow for both processes in which individuals can disappear from the population, mortality and dispersal, to be estimated separately. we formulate a general robust-design spatial capture-recapture (rd-scr) model, explore the properties of the model in a simulation study and compare the results to a cormack-jolly-seber model and a non-spatial robust-design model with temporary emigration. in the case study, we fit several versions of the general model to data on field voles (microtus agrestis) and compare the results with those from the non-spatial models fitted to the same data. we also evaluate assumptions of the fitted models with a series of simulation-based posterior predictive goodness-of-fit checks that are applicable to the scr models in general and the rd-scr model in particular. the simulation results show that the model preforms well under a wide range of dispersal distances. our model outperforms the traditional cr models in terms of both accuracy and precision for survival. the case study showed that adult females have an c. 35 times higher mortality rate than adult males. males have larger home ranges and disperse longer distances than females, but both males and females mostly move their activity centres within their previous home range between trapping sessions at 3-week intervals. our rd-scr model has several advantages compared to other approaches to estimate true' survival instead of only apparent' survival. additionally, the model extracts information about space use and dispersal distributions that are relevant for behavioural studies as well as studies of life-history variation, population dynamics and management. the model can be widely applied due to the flexible framework, and other variations of the model could easily be implemented." -a generalized estimating equations approach for capture-recapture closed population models,capture-recapture experiment; gee; heterogeneity; model selection; population size estimation; qic,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,AKANDA MAS;ALPIZAR-JARA R,"the estimation of population density animal population parameters, such as capture probability, population size, or population density, is an important issue in many ecological applications. capture-recapture data may be considered as repeated observations that are often correlated over time. if these correlations are not taken into account then parameter estimates may be biased, possibly producing misleading results. we propose a generalized estimating equations (gee) approach to account for correlation over time instead of assuming independence as in the traditional closed population capture-recapture studies. we also account for heterogeneity among observed individuals and over-dispersion, modelling capture probabilities as a function of covariates. the gee versions of all closed population capture-recapture models and their corresponding estimating equations are proposed. we evaluate the effect of accounting for correlation structures on capture-recapture model selection based on the quasi-likelihood information criterion (qic). an example is used for an illustrative application and for comparison to currently used methodology. a horvitz-thompson-like estimator is used to obtain estimates of population size based on conditional arguments. a simulation study is conducted to evaluate the performance of the gee approach in capture-recapture studies. the gee approach performs well for estimating population parameters, particularly when capture probabilities are high. the simulation results also reveal that estimated population size varies on the nature of the existing correlation among capture occasions." +a generalized estimating equations approach for capture-recapture closed population models,capture-recapture experiment; gee; heterogeneity; model selection; population size estimation; qic,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,AKANDA MAS;ALPIZAR JARA R,"the estimation of population density animal population parameters, such as capture probability, population size, or population density, is an important issue in many ecological applications. capture-recapture data may be considered as repeated observations that are often correlated over time. if these correlations are not taken into account then parameter estimates may be biased, possibly producing misleading results. we propose a generalized estimating equations (gee) approach to account for correlation over time instead of assuming independence as in the traditional closed population capture-recapture studies. we also account for heterogeneity among observed individuals and over-dispersion, modelling capture probabilities as a function of covariates. the gee versions of all closed population capture-recapture models and their corresponding estimating equations are proposed. we evaluate the effect of accounting for correlation structures on capture-recapture model selection based on the quasi-likelihood information criterion (qic). an example is used for an illustrative application and for comparison to currently used methodology. a horvitz-thompson-like estimator is used to obtain estimates of population size based on conditional arguments. a simulation study is conducted to evaluate the performance of the gee approach in capture-recapture studies. the gee approach performs well for estimating population parameters, particularly when capture probabilities are high. the simulation results also reveal that estimated population size varies on the nature of the existing correlation among capture occasions." advances and applications of occupancymodels,amphibian disease; batrachochytrium dendrobatidis; detection probability; dynamic multistate occurrence models; false positive; misidentification; multiscale; study design,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BAILEY LL;MACKENZIE DI;NICHOLS JD,"the past decade has seen an explosion in the development and application of models aimed at estimating species occurrence and occupancy dynamics while accounting for possible non-detection or species misidentification. we discuss some recent occupancy estimation methods and the biological systems that motivated their development. collectively, these models offer tremendous flexibility, but simultaneously place added demands on the investigator. unlike many mark-recapture scenarios, investigators utilizing occupancy models have the ability, and responsibility, to define their sample units (i.e. sites), replicate sampling occasions, time period over which species occurrence is assumed to be static and even the criteria that constitute detection' of a target species. subsequent biological inference and interpretation of model parameters depend on these definitions and the ability to meet model assumptions. we demonstrate the relevance of these definitions by highlighting applications from a single biological system (an amphibian-pathogen system) and discuss situations where the use of occupancy models has been criticized. finally, we use these applications to suggest future research and model development." spatially explicit integrated population models,count data; detection data; integrated population models; louisiana black bear; population dynamics; spatial capture-recapture; spatial scaling,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CHANDLER RB;CLARK JD,"studies of demographic processes are typically restricted to small geographic areas and short time periods due to the costs of marking and monitoring individuals. however, environmental changes are occurring at much broader spatial and temporal scales, and thus, inferences about the mechanisms governing population dynamics need to be scaled accordingly. recently developed integrated population models (ipms) represent an approach for doing so, by jointly analysing survey data and capture-recapture data. although promising, several shortcomings of conventional ipms exist, including difficulties accounting for spatial variation in demographic, movement and detection parameters; limited ability to make spatially explicit predictions of abundance or vital rates; and a requirement that the survey data and the capture-recapture data are independent. we demonstrate how each of these limitations can be resolved by adopting a spatial population dynamics model upon which both the survey data and the capture-recapture data are conditioned. we applied the model to 6 years of hair data collected on the threatened louisiana black bear ursus americanus luteolus. for years in which the hair samples were genotyped, the resulting data are information-rich (but expensive) spatial capture-recapture (scr) data. for the remaining years, the data are binary detection data, of the type often analysed using occupancy models. we compared estimates of demographic parameters and annual abundance using various combinations of the scr and detection data, and found that combining the scr data and the detection data resulted in more precise estimates of abundance relative to estimates that did not use the detection data. a simulation study provided additional evidence of increased precision, as well as evidence that the estimators of annual abundance are approximately unbiased. the ability to combine survey data and capture-recapture data using a spatially explicit model opens many possibilities for designing cost effective studies and scaling up inferences about the demographic processes influencing spatial and temporal population dynamics." accounting for behavioural response to capture when estimating population size from hair snare studies with missing data,behavioural response; closed population; dna; hair snare; mark-recapture; missing data,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,AUGUSTINE BC;TREDICK CA;BONNER SJ,"1 hair snares have become an established method for obtaining mark-recapture data for population size estimation of ursids and have recently been used to study other species including other carnivores, small mammals and ungulates. however, bias due to a behavioural response to capture in the presence of missing data has only recently been recognized and no statistical methodology exists to accommodate it. in a hair snare mark-recapture experiment, data can be missing if animals encounter a hair snare without leaving a hair sample, poor-quality samples are not genotyped, a fraction of all samples collected are genotyped due to cost considerations (subsampling) and/or not all genotyped hair samples provide an individual identification. these are all common features of hair snare mark-recapture experiments. here, we present methodology that accounts for a behavioural response to capture in the presence of missing data from (i) subsampling and (ii) failure of hair samples to produce an individual identification. four subprocesses are modelled-animal capture, hair deposition, researcher subsampling and dna amplification with key parameters estimated from functions of the number of hair samples left by individuals at traps. we assess the properties of this methodology (bias and interval coverage) via simulation and then apply this methodology to a previously published data set. our methodology removes bias and provides nominal interval coverage of population size for the simulation scenarios considered. in the example data set, we find that removing 75% of the hair samples leads to a 40% lower estimate of population size. our methodology corrects about half of this bias and we identify a second source of bias that has not previously been reported associated with differential trap visitation rates among individuals within trapping occasions. our methodology will allow researchers to reliably estimate the size of a closed population in the presence of a behavioural response to capture and missing data for a subset of missing data scenarios. it also provides a framework for understanding this generally unrecognized problem and for further extension to handle other missing data scenarios." @@ -105,7 +105,7 @@ bias from heterogeneous usage of space in spatially explicit capture-recapture a reply to efford on 'integrating resource selection information with spatial capture-recapture',animal population sampling; capture-recapture; density estimation; modelling; population ecology,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ROYLE JA;CHANDLER RB;SUN CC;FULLER AK,"1. we proposed (methods in ecology and evolution, 2013, 4) a model for combining telemetry data with spatial capture-recapture (scr) data that was vigorously criticized by efford (methods in ecology and evolution, 2014, 000, 000). efford's main claim was that our encounter probability model was incorrect, and therefore our r code and simulation results were wrong. 2. in fact, our encounter probability model is correct under the poisson point process model that we used as a basis for our integrated model. on the other hand, the basis for efford's claims clearly rest on the assumption of an alternative model which, while possibly useful, is distinct from that analysed in royle et al. (methods in ecology and evolution, 2013, 4). 3. a key point of royle et al. (methods in ecology and evolution, 2013, 4) was that active resource selection induces heterogeneity in encounter probability which, if unaccounted for, should bias estimates of population size or density. the models of royle et al. (methods in ecology and evolution, 2013, 4) and efford (methods in ecology and evolution, 2014, 000, 000) merely amount to alternative models of resource selection, and hence varying amounts of heterogeneity in encounter probability." estimating population size in the presence of temporary migration using a joint analysis of telemetry and capture-recapture data,bayesian methods; modelling; population ecology; sampling; statistics,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BIRD T;LYON J;NICOL S;MCCARTHY M;BARKER R,"1. temporary migration - where individuals can leave and re-enter a sampled population - is a feature of many capture-mark-recapture (cmr) studies of mobile populations which, if unaccounted for, can lead to biased estimates of population capture probabilities and consequently biased estimates of population abundance. 2. we present a method for incorporating radiotelemetry data within a cmr study to eliminate bias due to temporary migration using a bayesian state-space model. 3. our results indicate that using a relatively small number of telemetry tags, it is possible to greatly reduce bias in estimates of capture probabilities using telemetry data to model transition probabilities in and out of the sampling area. in a capture-recapture data set for trout cod in the murray river, australia, accounting for temporary migration led to overall higher estimates of capture probabilities than models assuming permanent or zero migration. also, individual heterogeneity in detectability can be managed through explicit modelling. we show how accounting for temporary migration when estimating capture probabilities can be used to estimate the abundance and size distribution of a population as though it were closed. 4. our model provides a basis for more complex models that might integrate telemetry data into other cmr scenarios, thus allowing for greater precision in estimates of vital rates that might otherwise be biased by temporary migration. our results highlight the importance of accounting for migration in survey design and parameter estimation, and the potential scope for supplementing large-scale cmr data sets with a subset of auxiliary data that provide information on processes that are hidden to primary sampling processes." "continuous-time spatially explicit capture-recapture models, with an application to a jaguar camera-trap survey",animal movement; data aggregation; density estimation; statistical methods; sufficiency,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BORCHERS D;DISTILLER G;FOSTER R;HARMSEN B;MILAZZO L,"1. many capture-recapture surveys of wildlife populations operate in continuous time, but detections are typically aggregated into occasions for analysis, even when exact detection times are available. this discards information and introduces subjectivity, in the form of decisions about occasion definition. 2. we develop a spatiotemporal poisson process model for spatially explicit capture-recapture (secr) surveys that operate continuously and record exact detection times. we show that, except in some special cases (including the case in which detection probability does not change within occasion), temporally aggregated data do not provide sufficient statistics for density and related parameters, and that when detection probability is constant over time, our continuous-time (ct) model is equivalent to an existing model based on detection frequencies. we use the model to estimate jaguar density from a camera-trap survey and conduct a simulation study to investigate the properties of a ct estimator and discrete-occasion estimators with various levels of temporal aggregation. this includes investigation of the effect on the estimators of spatiotemporal correlation induced by animal movement. 3. the ct estimator is found to be unbiased and more precise than discrete-occasion estimators based on binary capture data (rather than detection frequencies) when there is no spatiotemporal correlation. it is also found to be only slightly biased when there is correlation induced by animal movement, and to be more robust to inadequate detector spacing, while discrete-occasion estimators with binary data can be sensitive to occasion length, particularly in the presence of inadequate detector spacing. 4. our model includes as a special case a discrete-occasion estimator based on detection frequencies, and at the same time lays a foundation for the development of more sophisticated ct models and estimators. it allows modelling within-occasion changes in detectability, readily accommodates variation in detector effort, removes subjectivity associated with user-defined occasions and fully utilizes ct data. we identify a need for developing ct methods that incorporate spatiotemporal dependence in detections and see potential for ct models being combined with telemetry-based animal movement models to provide a richer inference framework." -hierarchical modelling of population growth rate from individual capture-recapture data,bayesian analysis; balearic shearwater; gibbs variable selection; mark-recapture; population dynamics; rate of population change; scopoli's shearwater; storm petrel; survival; temporal symmetry model,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,TENAN S;PRADEL R;TAVECCHIA G;IGUAL JM;SANZ-AGUILAR A;GENOVART M;ORO D,"1. estimating rates of population change is essential to achieving theoretical and applied goals in population ecology, and the pradel (1996, biometrics, 52: 703.) temporal symmetry method permits direct estimation and modelling of the growth rate of open populations, using capture-recapture data frommarked animals. 2. we present a bayesian formulation of the pradel approach that permits a hierarchical modelling of the biological and sampling processes. two parametrizations for the temporal symmetry likelihood are presented and implemented into a general purpose software in bugs language. 3. we first consider a set of simulated scenarios to evaluate performance of a bayesian variable selection approach to test the temporal linear trend on survival and seniority probability, population growth rate and detectability. we then provide an example application on individual detection information of three species of burrowing nesting seabirds, whose populations cannot be directly counted. for each species, we assess the strength of evidence for temporal random variation and the temporal linear trend on survival probability, population growth rate and detectability. 4. the bayesian formulation provides more flexibility, by easily allowing the extension of the original fixed time effects structure to random time effects, an option that is still impractical in a frequentist framework." +hierarchical modelling of population growth rate from individual capture-recapture data,bayesian analysis; balearic shearwater; gibbs variable selection; mark-recapture; population dynamics; rate of population change; scopoli's shearwater; storm petrel; survival; temporal symmetry model,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,TENAN S;PRADEL R;TAVECCHIA G;IGUAL JM;SANZ AGUILAR A;GENOVART M;ORO D,"1. estimating rates of population change is essential to achieving theoretical and applied goals in population ecology, and the pradel (1996, biometrics, 52: 703.) temporal symmetry method permits direct estimation and modelling of the growth rate of open populations, using capture-recapture data frommarked animals. 2. we present a bayesian formulation of the pradel approach that permits a hierarchical modelling of the biological and sampling processes. two parametrizations for the temporal symmetry likelihood are presented and implemented into a general purpose software in bugs language. 3. we first consider a set of simulated scenarios to evaluate performance of a bayesian variable selection approach to test the temporal linear trend on survival and seniority probability, population growth rate and detectability. we then provide an example application on individual detection information of three species of burrowing nesting seabirds, whose populations cannot be directly counted. for each species, we assess the strength of evidence for temporal random variation and the temporal linear trend on survival probability, population growth rate and detectability. 4. the bayesian formulation provides more flexibility, by easily allowing the extension of the original fixed time effects structure to random time effects, an option that is still impractical in a frequentist framework." using imputation and mixture model approaches to integrate multi-state capture-recapture models with assignment information,capture-recapture; dispersal; genetic assignment tests; imputation approach; kangaroo rat; mixture model; multi-state; population assignment procedure; robust-design; semiparametric; superpopulation,BIOMETRICS,WEN Z;POLLOCK KH;NICHOLS JD;WASER PM;CAO WH,"in this article, we first extend the superpopulation capture-recapture model to multiple states (locations or populations) for two age groups., wen et al., (2011; 2013) developed a new approach combining capture-recapture data with population assignment information to estimate the relative contributions of in situ births and immigrants to the growth of a single study population. here, we first generalize wen et al., (2011; 2013) approach to a system composed of multiple study populations (multi-state) with two age groups, where an imputation approach is employed to account for the uncertainty inherent in the population assignment information. then we develop a different, individual-level mixture model approach to integrate the individual-level population assignment information with the capture-recapture data. our simulation and real data analyses show that the fusion of population assignment information with capture-recapture data allows us to estimate the origination-specific recruitment of new animals to the system and the dispersal process between populations within the system. compared to a standard capture-recapture model, our new models improve the estimation of demographic parameters, including survival probability, origination-specific entry probability, and especially the probability of movement between populations, yielding higher accuracy and precision." fitting occupancy models with e-surge: hidden markov modelling of presence-absence data,capture-recapture; detectability; detection-non-detection; e-surge; hidden markov models; presence-absence; species occurrence,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GIMENEZ O;BLANC L;BESNARD A;PRADEL R;DOHERTY PF;MARBOUTIN E;CHOQUET R,"occupancy - the proportion of area occupied by a species - is a key notion for addressing important questions in ecology, biogeography and conservation biology. occupancy models allow estimating and inferring about species occurrence while accounting for false absences (or imperfect species detection). occupancy models can be formulated as hidden markov models (hmm) in which the state process captures the markovian dynamic of the actual but latent states, while the observation process consists of observations that are made from these underlying states. we show how occupancy models can be implemented in program e-surge, which was initially developed to analyse capture-recapture data in the hmm framework. replacing individuals by sites provides the user with access to several features of e-surge that are not available altogether or just not available in standard occupancy software: i) flexible model specification through a user-friendly syntax without having to write custom code, ii) decomposition of the observation and state processes in several steps to provide flexible parameterisation, iii) up-to-date diagnostics of model identifiability, and iv) advanced numerical algorithms to produce fast and reliable results (including site random effects). to illustrate e-surge features, we provide implementation and analysis details for several occupancy models. we also provide simulated and real-world examples as well as further specifications and information in a companion wiki platform http://occupancyinesurge.wikidot.com/." hide-and-seek in vegetation: time-to-detection is an efficient design for estimating detectability and occurrence,biodiversity monitoring; false absence; observer effect; site-occupancy models; survey effort,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BORNAND CN;KERY M;BUECHE L;FISCHER M,"ecology and conservation require reliable data on the occurrence of animals and plants. a major source of bias is imperfect detection, which, however, can be corrected for by estimation of detectability. in traditional occupancy models, this requires repeat or multi-observer surveys. recently, time-to-detection models have been developed as a cost-effective alternative, which requires no repeat surveys and hence costs could be halved. we compared the efficiency and reliability of time-to-detection and traditional occupancy models under varying survey effort. two observers independently searched for 17 plant species in 44100m(2) swiss grassland quadrats and recorded the time-to-detection for each species, enabling detectability to be estimated with both time-to-detection and traditional occupancy models. in addition, we gauged the relative influence on detectability of species, observer, plant height and two measures of abundance (cover and frequency). estimates of detectability and occupancy under both models were very similar. rare species were more likely to be overlooked; detectability was strongly affected by abundance. as a measure of abundance, frequency outperformed cover in its predictive power. the two observers differed significantly in their detection ability. time-to-detection models were as accurate as traditional occupancy models, but their data easier to obtain; thus they provide a cost-effective alternative to traditional occupancy models for detection-corrected estimation of occurrence." @@ -117,10 +117,10 @@ hierarchical spatial capture-recapture models: modelling population density in s "heterogeneity and behavioral response in continuous time capture-recapture, with application to street cannabis use in italy",behavioral response; capture-recapture; drug abuse; frailty; heterogeneity; horvitz-thompson estimator,ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,FARCOMENI A;SCACCIATELLI D,"we propose a general and flexible capture-recapture model in continuous time. our model incorporates time-heterogeneity, observed and unobserved individual heterogeneity, and behavioral response to capture. behavioral response can possibly have a delayed onset and a finite-time memory. estimation of the population size is based on the conditional likelihood after use of the em algorithm. we develop an application to the estimation of the number of adult cannabinoid users in italy." breeding return times and abundance in capture-recapture models,abundance; breeding return times; capture-recapture analysis; lake sturgeon; temporary emigration; unobserved state,BIOMETRICS,PLEDGER S;BAKER E;SCRIBNER K,"for many long-lived animal species, individuals do not breed every year, and are often not accessible during non-breeding periods. individuals exhibit site fidelity if they return to the same breeding colony or spawning ground when they breed. if capture and recapture is only possible at the breeding site, temporary emigration models are used to allow for only a subset of the animals being present in any given year. most temporary emigration models require the use of the robust sampling design, and their focus is usually on probabilities of annual survival and of transition between breeding and non-breeding states. we use lake sturgeon (acipenser fulvescens) data from a closed population where only a simple (one sample per year) sampling scheme is possible, and we also wish to estimate abundance as well as sex-specific survival and breeding return time probabilities. by adding return time parameters to the schwarz-arnason version of the jolly-seber model, we have developed a new likelihood-based model which yields plausible estimates of abundance, survival, transition and return time parameters. an important new finding from investigation of the model is the overestimation of abundance if a jolly-seber model is used when markovian temporary emigration is present." modeling individual specific fish length from capture-recapture data using the von bertalanffy growth curve,capture-recapture; hierarchical modeling; mcmc; model checking; von bertalanffy,BIOMETRICS,SCHOFIELD MR;BARKER RJ;TAYLOR P,"we use bayesian methods to explore fitting the von bertalanffy length model to tag-recapture data. we consider two popular parameterizations of the von bertalanffy model. the first models the data relative to age at first capture; the second models in terms of length at first capture. using data from a rainbow trout oncorhynchus mykiss study we explore the relationship between the assumptions and resulting inference using posterior predictive checking, cross validation and a simulation study. we find that untestable hierarchical assumptions placed on the nuisance parameters in each model can influence the resulting inference about parameters of interest. researchers should carefully consider these assumptions when modeling growth from tag-recapture data." -a comparison of marginal and conditional models for capture-recapture data with application to human rights violations data,capture-recapture; human rights; marginal models; multiple systems estimation,BIOMETRICS,MITCHELL S;OZONOFF A;ZASLAVSKY AM;HEDT-GAUTHIER B;LUM K;COULL BA,"human rights data presents challenges for capture-recapture methodology. lists of violent acts provided by many different groups create large, sparse tables of data for which saturated models are difficult to fit and for which simple models may be misspecified. we analyze data on killings and disappearances in casanare, colombia during years 1998 to 2007. our estimates differ whether we choose to model marginal reporting probabilities and odds ratios, versus modeling the full reporting pattern in a conditional (log-linear) model. with 2629 observed killings, a marginal model we consider estimates over 9000 killings, while conditional models we consider estimate 6000-7000 killings. the latter agree with previous estimates, also from a conditional model. we see a twofold difference between the high sample coverage estimate of over 10,000 killings and low sample coverage lower bound estimate of 5200 killings. we use a simulation study to compare marginal and conditional models with at most two-way interactions and sample coverage estimators. the simulation results together with model selection criteria lead us to believe the previous estimates of total killings in casanare may have been biased downward, suggesting that the violence was worse than previously thought. model specification is an important consideration when interpreting population estimates from capture recapture analysis and the casanare data is a protypical example of how that manifests." -a generalization of chao's estimator for covariate information,bias reduction; chao's estimator; closed capture-recapture; covariate modelling,BIOMETRICS,BOHNING D;VIDAL-DIEZ A;LERDSUWANSRI R;VIWATWONGKASEM C;ARNOLD M,"this note generalizes chao's estimator of population size for closed capture-recapture studies if covariates are available. chao's estimator was developed under unobserved heterogeneity in which case it represents a lower bound of the population size. if observed heterogeneity is available in form of covariates we show how this information can be used to reduce the bias of chao's estimator. the key element in this development is the understanding and placement of chao's estimator in a truncated poisson likelihood. it is shown that a truncated poisson likelihood (with log-link) with all counts truncated besides ones and twos is equivalent to a binomial likelihood (with logit-link). this enables the development of a generalized chao estimator as the estimated, expected value of the frequency of zero counts under a truncated (all counts truncated except ones and twos) poisson regression model. if the regression model accounts for the heterogeneity entirely, the generalized chao estimator is asymptotically unbiased. a simulation study illustrates the potential in gain of bias reduction. comparisons of the generalized chao estimator with the homogeneous zero-truncated poisson regression approach are supplied as well. the method is applied to a surveillance study on the completeness of farm submissions in great britain." +a comparison of marginal and conditional models for capture-recapture data with application to human rights violations data,capture-recapture; human rights; marginal models; multiple systems estimation,BIOMETRICS,MITCHELL S;OZONOFF A;ZASLAVSKY AM;HEDT GAUTHIER B;LUM K;COULL BA,"human rights data presents challenges for capture-recapture methodology. lists of violent acts provided by many different groups create large, sparse tables of data for which saturated models are difficult to fit and for which simple models may be misspecified. we analyze data on killings and disappearances in casanare, colombia during years 1998 to 2007. our estimates differ whether we choose to model marginal reporting probabilities and odds ratios, versus modeling the full reporting pattern in a conditional (log-linear) model. with 2629 observed killings, a marginal model we consider estimates over 9000 killings, while conditional models we consider estimate 6000-7000 killings. the latter agree with previous estimates, also from a conditional model. we see a twofold difference between the high sample coverage estimate of over 10,000 killings and low sample coverage lower bound estimate of 5200 killings. we use a simulation study to compare marginal and conditional models with at most two-way interactions and sample coverage estimators. the simulation results together with model selection criteria lead us to believe the previous estimates of total killings in casanare may have been biased downward, suggesting that the violence was worse than previously thought. model specification is an important consideration when interpreting population estimates from capture recapture analysis and the casanare data is a protypical example of how that manifests." +a generalization of chao's estimator for covariate information,bias reduction; chao's estimator; closed capture-recapture; covariate modelling,BIOMETRICS,BOHNING D;VIDAL DIEZ A;LERDSUWANSRI R;VIWATWONGKASEM C;ARNOLD M,"this note generalizes chao's estimator of population size for closed capture-recapture studies if covariates are available. chao's estimator was developed under unobserved heterogeneity in which case it represents a lower bound of the population size. if observed heterogeneity is available in form of covariates we show how this information can be used to reduce the bias of chao's estimator. the key element in this development is the understanding and placement of chao's estimator in a truncated poisson likelihood. it is shown that a truncated poisson likelihood (with log-link) with all counts truncated besides ones and twos is equivalent to a binomial likelihood (with logit-link). this enables the development of a generalized chao estimator as the estimated, expected value of the frequency of zero counts under a truncated (all counts truncated except ones and twos) poisson regression model. if the regression model accounts for the heterogeneity entirely, the generalized chao estimator is asymptotically unbiased. a simulation study illustrates the potential in gain of bias reduction. comparisons of the generalized chao estimator with the homogeneous zero-truncated poisson regression approach are supplied as well. the method is applied to a surveillance study on the completeness of farm submissions in great britain." insights into the latent multinomial model through mark-resight data on female grizzly bears with cubs-of-the-year,bayesian; discrete uniform; greater yellowstone ecosystem (gye); mark-recapture; population size,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,HIGGS MD;LINK WA;WHITE GC;HAROLDSON MA;BJORNLIE DD,"mark-resight designs for estimation of population abundance are common and attractive to researchers. however, inference from such designs is very limited when faced with sparse data, either from a low number of marked animals, a low probability of detection, or both. in the greater yellowstone ecosystem, yearly mark-resight data are collected for female grizzly bears with cubs-of-the-year (fcoy), and inference suffers from both limitations. to overcome difficulties due to sparseness, we assume homogeneity in sighting probabilities over 16 years of bi-annual aerial surveys. we model counts of marked and unmarked animals as multinomial random variables, using the capture frequencies of marked animals for inference about the latent multinomial frequencies for unmarked animals. we discuss undesirable behavior of the commonly used discrete uniform prior distribution on the population size parameter and provide openbugs code for fitting such models. the application provides valuable insights into subtleties of implementing bayesian inference for latent multinomial models. we tie the discussion to our application, though the insights are broadly useful for applications of the latent multinomial model." -accounting for matching uncertainty in two stage capture-recapture experiments using photographic measurements of natural marks,closed population; monodon monoceros; multivariate normal record linkage; photo-identification; population size estimation,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,TANCREDI A;AUGER-METHE M;MARCOUX M;LISEO B,"we propose a bayesian hierarchical modeling approach for estimating the size of a closed population from data obtained by identifying individuals through photographs of natural markings. we assume that noisy measurements of a set of distinctive features are available for each individual present in a photographic catalogue. to estimate the population size from two catalogues obtained during two different sampling occasions, we embed the standard two-stage capture-recapture model for closed population into a multivariate normal data matching model that identifies the common individuals across the catalogues. in addition to estimating the population size while accounting for the matching process uncertainty, this hierarchical modelling approach allows to identify the common individuals by using the information provided by the capture-recapture model. this way, our model also represents a novel and reliable tool able to reduce the amount of effort researchers have to expend in matching individuals. we illustrate and motivate the proposed approach via a real data set of photo-identification of narwhals. moreover, we compare our method with a set of possible alternative approaches by using both the empirical data set and a simulation study." +accounting for matching uncertainty in two stage capture-recapture experiments using photographic measurements of natural marks,closed population; monodon monoceros; multivariate normal record linkage; photo-identification; population size estimation,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,TANCREDI A;AUGER METHE M;MARCOUX M;LISEO B,"we propose a bayesian hierarchical modeling approach for estimating the size of a closed population from data obtained by identifying individuals through photographs of natural markings. we assume that noisy measurements of a set of distinctive features are available for each individual present in a photographic catalogue. to estimate the population size from two catalogues obtained during two different sampling occasions, we embed the standard two-stage capture-recapture model for closed population into a multivariate normal data matching model that identifies the common individuals across the catalogues. in addition to estimating the population size while accounting for the matching process uncertainty, this hierarchical modelling approach allows to identify the common individuals by using the information provided by the capture-recapture model. this way, our model also represents a novel and reliable tool able to reduce the amount of effort researchers have to expend in matching individuals. we illustrate and motivate the proposed approach via a real data set of photo-identification of narwhals. moreover, we compare our method with a set of possible alternative approaches by using both the empirical data set and a simulation study." "population abundance, size structure and sex-ratio in an insular lizard",population size; data augmentation; capture-mark-recapture; individual covariates; insular lizard; sex-ratio,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,TENAN S;VALLESPIR AR;IGUAL JM;MOYA O;ROYLE JA;TAVECCHIA G,"estimating population size and understanding its variation is a fundamental, yet complicated, aim of many ecological studies. we considered the problem of estimating spring and autumn population abundance, size-dependent population structure and sex-ratio of the endemic balearic lizard, podarcis lilfordi from a three occasions capture-recapture study. we used a bayesian formulation of individual covariate models to incorporate individual sex, size and trap-response. we first considered a set of simulated data with a medium-to-low probability of recapture and individual recapture heterogeneity to evaluate potential problems in model fitting and selection. results from simulated data indicated a low performance in parameter estimation and model selection when probability of detection was low (0.15-0.30). we found a negative permanent trap response and a positive effect of size on detection probability in the spring survey but not in the autumn one. the estimated mean densities varied from about 800 to 1000 lizards ha(-1), a high value when comparing with mainland lizard populations. the observed increase in abundance was probably due to a drop in territorial behaviour and the immigration of females into the area sampled. as a consequence, sex-ratio changed from nearly even in june (mean posterior, 95%cri; 0.928, 0.676-1.167) to a female-skewed population in october (0.612, 0.478-0.772). (c) 2013 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." estimating individual animal movement from observation networks,acoustic telemetry; detection probability; ornstein-uhlenbeck process; state-space model,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,PEDERSEN MW;WENG KC,"observation network data comprise animal presences detected by observer stations at fixed spatial locations. statistical analysis of these data is complicated by spatial bias in sampling and temporal variability in detection conditions. advanced methods for analysis of these data are required but are currently underdeveloped. we propose a state-space model (ssm) for observation network data to estimate detailed movements of individual animals. the underlying movement model is an ornstein-uhlenbeck (ou) process, which is stationary, and therefore has an inherent mechanism that models home range behaviour. an integral part of the approach is the detection function, which models the probability of logging animal presences. the detection function is also used to provide absence information when animals are undetected. since the ability to detect an animal often depends on time-varying external factors such as environmental conditions, we use covariate information about detection efficiency as control variables. via simulation, we found that movement estimation error scales log-linearly with network sparsity. this result can be used to indicate the number of stations necessary to achieve a desired upper bound on estimation error. furthermore, we found that the ssm outperforms existing techniques in terms of estimating detailed movements and that estimates are robust towards mis-specification of the detection function. we also tested the importance of accounting for time-varying detection conditions and found that the probability of making wrong conclusions decreases substantially when covariate information is exploited. the model is used to estimate movements and home range of a humphead wrasse (cheilinus undulatus) at palmyra atoll in the central pacific ocean. here, detection conditions have a strong diel component, which is controlled for using detection efficiency information from a reference device. the presented approach enhances the toolbox for analysis of observation network data as collected by acoustic telemetry or potentially other aspiring methods such as camera trapping and mobile phone tagging. by explicitly modelling movement and observation processes, the model integrates all sources of uncertainty and provides a sound statistical basis for making well-informed management decisions from imperfect information." on population size estimators in the poisson mixture model,capture-recapture; lower bounds; lower confidence limits,BIOMETRICS,MAO CX;YANG N;ZHONG JH,"estimating population sizes via capture-recapture experiments has enormous applications. the poisson mixture model can be adopted for those applications with a single list in which individuals appear one or more times. we compare several nonparametric estimators, including the chao estimator, the zelterman estimator, two jackknife estimators and the bootstrap estimator. the target parameter of the chao estimator is a lower bound of the population size. those of the other four estimators are not lower bounds, and they may produce lower confidence limits for the population size with poor coverage probabilities. a simulation study is reported and two examples are investigated." @@ -135,12 +135,12 @@ estimating age-specific survival when age is unknown: open population capture-re integrating resource selection information with spatial capture-recapture,animal movement; animal sampling; encounter probability; hierarchical modeling; marginal likelihood; resource selection; space usage; spatial capture-recapture,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ROYLE JA;CHANDLER RB;SUN CC;FULLER AK,"understanding space usage and resource selection is a primary focus of many studies of animal populations. usually, such studies are based on location data obtained from telemetry, and resource selection functions (rsfs) are used for inference. another important focus of wildlife research is estimation and modeling population size and density. recently developed spatial capture-recapture (scr) models accomplish this objective using individual encounter history data with auxiliary spatial information on location of capture. scr models include encounter probability functions that are intuitively related to rsfs, but to date, no one has extended scr models to allow for explicit inference about space usage and resource selection. in this paper we develop the first statistical framework for jointly modeling space usage, resource selection, and population density by integrating scr data, such as from camera traps, mist-nets, or conventional catch traps, with resource selection data from telemetered individuals. we provide a framework for estimation based on marginal likelihood, wherein we estimate simultaneously the parameters of the scr and rsf models. our method leads to increases in precision for estimating parameters of ordinary scr models. importantly, we also find that scr models alone can estimate parameters of rsfs and, as such, scr methods can be used as the sole source for studying space-usage; however, precision will be higher when telemetry data are available. finally, we find that scr models using standard symmetric and stationary encounter probability models may not fully explain variation in encounter probability due to space usage, and therefore produce biased estimates of density when animal space usage is related to resource selection. consequently, it is important that space usage be taken into consideration, if possible, in studies focused on estimating density using capture-recapture methods." response to: a new method for estimating animal abundance with two sources of data in capture-recapture studies,genetic markers; mark-recapture; multiple marks; non-invasive marks; photo-identification,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BONNER S,"mark-recapture studies that rely on multiple marks to identify individuals pose modeling challenges if the marks for each individual are not always linked. if an individual with unlinked marks is encountered on two occasions and different marks are observed, then it will appear that two different individuals were captured. failing to account for these missed matches will produce incorrect inference. madon etal. (methods in ecology and evolution 2011; 2: 390) proposes a modification of the jolly-seber estimator for such data computed by adjusting the observed counts of individuals first captured, recaptured or not captured but known to be alive on each occasion. the adjustment involves multiplying each of these counts by a constant factor, iid, intended to correct for double counting of individuals and constrained between 0 and 1. results of a simulation study provided in madon etal. (methods in ecology and evolution 2011; 2: 390) show that the proposed estimator is almost unbiased, but its uncertainty is underestimated and the true coverage of confidence intervals is consistently below the nominal value. i compute separate adjustment factors for each of the counts and show (i) that a constant adjustment is not appropriate and (ii) that the theoretical adjustment factor is sometimes >1. i believe that the use of a single adjustment factor between 0 and 1 is what causes the uncertainty to be underestimated and that complete models of the observation process are required to obtain valid results." spatially explicit models for inference about density in unmarked or partially marked populations,abundance estimation; camera traps; data augmentation; hierarchical models; n-mixture model; neyman-scott process; poisson cluster process; point counts; spatial capture-recapture; spatial point process; population density,ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,CHANDLER RB;ROYLE JA,"recently developed spatial capture-recapture (scr) models represent a major advance over traditional capture-recapture (cr) models because they yield explicit estimates of animal density instead of population size within an unknown area. furthermore, unlike nonspatial cr methods, scr models account for heterogeneity in capture probability arising from the juxtaposition of animal activity centers and sample locations. although the utility of scr methods is gaining recognition, the requirement that all individuals can be uniquely identified excludes their use in many contexts. in this paper, we develop models for situations in which individual recognition is not possible, thereby allowing scr concepts to be applied in studies of unmarked or partially marked populations. the data required for our model are spatially referenced counts made on one or more sample occasions at a collection of closely spaced sample units such that individuals can be encountered at multiple locations. our approach includes a spatial point process for the animal activity centers and uses the spatial correlation in counts as information about the number and location of the activity centers. camera-traps, hair snares, track plates, sound recordings, and even point counts can yield spatially correlated count data, and thus our model is widely applicable. a simulation study demonstrated that while the posterior mean exhibits frequentist bias on the order of 5-10% in small samples, the posterior mode is an accurate point estimator as long as adequate spatial correlation is present. marking a subset of the population substantially increases posterior precision and is recommended whenever possible. we applied our model to avian point count data collected on an unmarked population of the northern parula (parula americana) and obtained a density estimate (posterior mode) of 0.38 (95% ci: 0.19-1.64) birds/ha. our paper challenges sampling and analytical conventions in ecology by demonstrating that neither spatial independence nor individual recognition is needed to estimate population density-rather, spatial dependence can be informative about individual distribution and density." -estimating demographic parameters from capturerecapture data with dependence among individuals within clusters,capturerecapture; dispersal; heterogeneity; within-group variance; mixed models; pairs; siblings,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CHOQUET R;SANZ-AGUILAR A;DOLIGEZ B;NOGUE E;PRADEL R;GUSTAFSSON L;GIMENEZ O,"two-level data, in which level-1 units or individuals are nested within level-2 units or clusters, are very common in natural populations. however, very few multilevel analyses are conducted for data with imperfect detection of individuals. multilevel analyses are important to quantify the variability at each level of the data. in this study, we present two-level analyses for estimating demographic parameters from data with imperfect detection of individuals and with a source of individual variability that is nested within a source of cluster variability. this method allows separating and quantifying the phenotypic plasticity or facultative behavioural responses from the evolutionary responses. we illustrate our approach using data from studies of a long-lived perennially monogamous seabird, the cory's shearwater (calonectris diomedea) and a patchy population of collared flycatchers (ficedula albicollis). we demonstrate the existence of dependence in recapture probability between paired individuals in the cory's shearwater. in addition, we show that family structure has no influence on parentoffspring resemblance in collared flycatchers dispersal. the new method is implemented in program e-surge which is freely available from the internet." +estimating demographic parameters from capturerecapture data with dependence among individuals within clusters,capturerecapture; dispersal; heterogeneity; within-group variance; mixed models; pairs; siblings,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CHOQUET R;SANZ AGUILAR A;DOLIGEZ B;NOGUE E;PRADEL R;GUSTAFSSON L;GIMENEZ O,"two-level data, in which level-1 units or individuals are nested within level-2 units or clusters, are very common in natural populations. however, very few multilevel analyses are conducted for data with imperfect detection of individuals. multilevel analyses are important to quantify the variability at each level of the data. in this study, we present two-level analyses for estimating demographic parameters from data with imperfect detection of individuals and with a source of individual variability that is nested within a source of cluster variability. this method allows separating and quantifying the phenotypic plasticity or facultative behavioural responses from the evolutionary responses. we illustrate our approach using data from studies of a long-lived perennially monogamous seabird, the cory's shearwater (calonectris diomedea) and a patchy population of collared flycatchers (ficedula albicollis). we demonstrate the existence of dependence in recapture probability between paired individuals in the cory's shearwater. in addition, we show that family structure has no influence on parentoffspring resemblance in collared flycatchers dispersal. the new method is implemented in program e-surge which is freely available from the internet." flexible continuous-time modelling for heterogeneous animal movement,animal movement; continuous time; diffusion process; spatial heterogeneity,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,HARRIS KJ;BLACKWELL PG,"we describe a flexible class of continuous-time models for animal movement, allowing movement behaviour to depend on location in terms of a discrete set of regions and also on an underlying behavioural state. we demonstrate the ability of these models to represent complex behaviour and spatial heterogeneity, as found in real movement studies, while retaining tractability and the conceptual advantages of a continuous-time formulation. we discuss the relationship between the models defined here and a range of important applications, both when movement behaviour is the main focus and when it is essentially a nuisance process, for example in spatially explicit capture-recapture. (c) 2013 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." integrated analysis of capture-recapture-resighting data and counts of unmarked birds at stop-over sites,combined likelihoods; integrated population modeling; mark-recapture-resight model; mark-resight analysis; semipalmated sandpipers; stop-over duration,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,MATECHOU E;MORGAN BJT;PLEDGER S;COLLAZO JA;LYONS JE,"the models presented in this paper are motivated by a stop-over study of semipalmated sandpipers, calidris pusilla. two sets of data were collected at the stop-over site: a capture-recapture-resighting data set and a vector of counts of unmarked birds. the two data sets are analyzed simultaneously by combining a new model for the capturere-capture-resighting data set with a binomial likelihood for the counts. the aim of the analysis is to estimate the total number of birds that used the site and the average duration of stop-over. the combined analysis is shown to be highly efficient, even when just 1 % of birds are recaptured, and is recommended for similar investigations. this article has supplementary material online." analysis of photo-id data allowing for missed matches and individuals identified from opposite sides,grey seal; markrecapture; maximum likelihood; photo-id; population studies; survival,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HIBY L;PATERSON WD;REDMAN P;WATKINS J;TWISS SD;POMEROY P,"in many species, photo-identification could be used as an alternative to artificial marking to provide data on demographic parameters. however, unless the population is very small or fragmented, software may be required to pre-screen and reject most image pairs as potential matches. depending on the species and method used to obtain images, currently available software may falsely reject some matches. we estimate the false rejection rate (frr) of the extractcompare (ec) program when used to pre-screen images of female grey seals. filtering images manually to reduce the frr involves subjective assessment of image quality, reduces the amount of data available and may bias the results in favour of relatively well-marked individuals. the data may contain individuals identified only from the left side or the right side, as well as individuals identified from both sides. missed matches resulting from false rejections by pre-screening software and/or inclusion of individuals identified only from opposite sides cause some individuals to generate multiple encounter histories. we describe an open population model for data of this type which, given a measured risk of missing a match between a randomly selected pair of images of the same individual, provides maximum likelihood (ml) estimates of initial population size, survival/emigration and immigration/recruitment by calculating the expected frequency of any encounter history that could be generated. as a case study for the method, we used ec to pre-screen photographs of female grey seals on a breeding colony and generate encounter histories over five successive seasons. allowing for the measured frr, we calculated ml estimates for comparison with estimates from previous studies. we also used the model with encounter histories simulated using the same frr to give the same mixture of left side, right side and both sides histories and derived ml estimates for comparison with the values used to drive the simulation. with frr set at up to 33%, the method gave estimates of the abundance and survival parameters used in the simulation model that were biased by at most 4 center dot 7% up and 3% down, respectively. the results of the grey seal case study were consistent with previous estimates of apparent survival and trends in abundance." estimating stop over duration in the presence of trap-effects,capture-mark-recapture; hidden nonhomogeneous markov chain; hidden hybrid markov/semi-markov chain; immediate trap-effects,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,CHOQUET R;GUEDON Y;BESNARD A;GUILLEMAIN M;PRADEL R,"detection probability of individuals is increasingly taken into account during field monitoring schemes and in demographic models. conversely, it is often taken for granted that trappability of animals will remain fairly constant and broadly similar between individuals present in a given area. however, animals may change their behaviour after being trapped. in this paper, we introduce a new hidden markovian model to estimate stop over duration in the presence of trap-effects. this model combines nonhomogeneous markovian states with semi-markovian states in the non-observable state process, and simple distributions with first-order markov chains as observation models. this model generalizes previously proposed models and enables the joint modeling of the time of residence and the trap effect. two cases are considered, depending on whether or not emigration is time-dependent since arrival. we illustrate the latter with teal anas crecca wintering in camargue, southern france and we demonstrate the importance of handling trap-effects. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -towards good practice guidance in using camera-traps in ecology: influence of sampling design on validity of ecological inferences,arctic; subarctic ecosystem; detectability; error rate; occupancy; precision; sampling strategy; scavengers; species occurrence,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HAMEL S;KILLENGREEN ST;HENDEN JA;EIDE NE;ROED-ERIKSEN L;IMS RA;YOCCOZ NG,"the development of camera-traps has provided an opportunity to study ecological relationships and population dynamics of species that are rare, difficult to observe or capture. their use has seen a major increase recently, particularly with the recent progress in methods adapted to species for which individuals cannot be identified. we took advantage of extensive camera-trap data sets from large spatiotemporal-scale studies of a diverse assemblage of avian and mammalian scavengers in subarctic/arctic tundra to determine sampling designs that minimize detection errors (false-negative) and to evaluate the influence of sampling design on estimation of site occupancy. results showed that raw error rates in daily presence varied between 5 and 30% among species when using time-triggered cameras with a 5-min interval. using movement-triggered cameras resulted in larger raw error rates, between 30 and 70%, as well as a lower number of daily presences detected. increasing the time interval from 5 to 20min greatly increased the raw error rate in daily presence, but it had negligible impacts on estimates and precision of occupancy and detection probability. occupancy estimates were mostly influenced by variation in the number of days included during the sampling period. for most species, a threshold of between 20 and 30 problem-free days (i.e. without camera-related technical problems) was required to stabilize occupancy and detection probability, as well as to maximize their precision. based on the results, we discuss guidelines for establishing sampling designs according to the different ecological questions researchers might want to answer. to our knowledge, our study is the first to directly test the influence of sampling design in camera-trap studies, providing guidelines that are likely to be directly applicable to a large range of species and ecosystems." +towards good practice guidance in using camera-traps in ecology: influence of sampling design on validity of ecological inferences,arctic; subarctic ecosystem; detectability; error rate; occupancy; precision; sampling strategy; scavengers; species occurrence,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,HAMEL S;KILLENGREEN ST;HENDEN JA;EIDE NE;ROED ERIKSEN L;IMS RA;YOCCOZ NG,"the development of camera-traps has provided an opportunity to study ecological relationships and population dynamics of species that are rare, difficult to observe or capture. their use has seen a major increase recently, particularly with the recent progress in methods adapted to species for which individuals cannot be identified. we took advantage of extensive camera-trap data sets from large spatiotemporal-scale studies of a diverse assemblage of avian and mammalian scavengers in subarctic/arctic tundra to determine sampling designs that minimize detection errors (false-negative) and to evaluate the influence of sampling design on estimation of site occupancy. results showed that raw error rates in daily presence varied between 5 and 30% among species when using time-triggered cameras with a 5-min interval. using movement-triggered cameras resulted in larger raw error rates, between 30 and 70%, as well as a lower number of daily presences detected. increasing the time interval from 5 to 20min greatly increased the raw error rate in daily presence, but it had negligible impacts on estimates and precision of occupancy and detection probability. occupancy estimates were mostly influenced by variation in the number of days included during the sampling period. for most species, a threshold of between 20 and 30 problem-free days (i.e. without camera-related technical problems) was required to stabilize occupancy and detection probability, as well as to maximize their precision. based on the results, we discuss guidelines for establishing sampling designs according to the different ecological questions researchers might want to answer. to our knowledge, our study is the first to directly test the influence of sampling design in camera-trap studies, providing guidelines that are likely to be directly applicable to a large range of species and ecosystems." a general model of detectability using species traits,false absence; impact assessment; priors; surveillance; survey effort; trait-based model,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GARRARD GE;MCCARTHY MA;WILLIAMS NSG;BEKESSY SA;WINTLE BA,"imperfect detectability is a critical source of variation that limits ecological progress and frustrates effective conservation management. available modelling methods provide valuable detectability estimates, but these are typically species-specific. we present a novel application of time-to-detection modelling in which detectability of multiple species is a function of plant traits and observer characteristics. the model is demonstrated for plants in a temperate grassland community in south-eastern australia. we demonstrate that detectability can be estimated using observer experience, species population size and likelihood of flowering. the inclusion of flower colour and species distinctiveness improves the capacity of the model to predict detection rates for new species. we demonstrate the application of the general model to plants in a temperate grassland community, but this modelling method may be extended to other communities or taxa for which time-to-detection models are appropriate. detectability is influenced by traits of the species and the observer. general models can be used to derive detectability estimates where repeat survey data, point counts or mark-recapture data are not available. as these data are almost always absent for species of conservation concern, general models such as ours will be useful for informing minimum survey requirements for monitoring and impact assessment, without the delays and costs associated with data collection." implementing the trinomial mark-recapture-recovery model in program mark,mark-recapture-recovery; missing data; program mark; rmark; time varying individual covariates; trinomial model,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,BONNER SJ,"time-varying individual covariates present a challenge in modelling data from markrecapturerecovery (mrr) experiments of wild animals. many values of the covariate will be unknown because they can be observed only when an individual is captured, and the missing values cannot be ignored. catchpole et al. [journal of the royal statistical society: series b (statistical methodology), 70, 445460, 2008] presents one solution to this problem by constructing a conditional likelihood depending only on the observed covariate information the so-called trinomial model. this paper describes the link between the trinomial model and the markrecapturerecovery model of burnham (marked individuals in the study of bird population, 199213, 1993) and shows how the trinomial model can be implemented in the software package program mark. this provides the user with access to all of the features of program mark including the facilities for model building and model selection without having to write custom code. i provide details on the analysis of a simulated data set and discuss an r package developed to help users format their data and to implement the model through the existing rmark package." combining a bayesian nonparametric method with a hierarchical framework to estimate individual and temporal variation in growth,atlantic salmon; bayesian state space model; growth model; mark-recapture; random effects; gaussian process,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,SIGOURNEY DB;MUNCH SB;LETCHER BH,"growth modeling has long played an important role in ecology, conservation and management of many species. however, adopting a statistical framework that includes both temporal and individual variability in the growth dynamics has proven challenging. in this paper, we use a bayesian state space framework (bssf) to estimate parameters of a discrete time model from a mark-recapture data set of age-1 juvenile atlantic salmon. we use a gaussian process (gp) based approach to model variation in seasonal growth potential. in addition, we use auxiliary information on the food environment as prior knowledge of seasonal fluctuations in growth. parameters for the gp prior and measurement error variances were fixed to speed convergence. posterior estimates of model parameters were relatively insensitive to these choices. our model captures the seasonal growth dynamics of juvenile atlantic salmon as evidenced by close agreement between observed and predicted lengths (r(2) = 0.98). in addition, the relatively narrow confidence intervals indicated significant learning in the parameters of interest. finally, our model approach was able to accurately recover missing data points. although this model was applied to a mark-recapture dataset of atlantic salmon, the generality of the approach should make it applicable to a wide variety of size trajectory datasets, and thus, provides a useful tool to estimate individual and temporal variability in growth from datasets with repeated measurements. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." @@ -152,11 +152,11 @@ a computer-assisted system for photographic mark-recapture analysis,giraffa came estimating the strength of density dependence in the presence of observation errors using integrated population models,bayesian; demographic parameters; density dependence; identifiability; observation error; population growth rate,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,ABADI F;GIMENEZ O;JAKOBER H;STAUBER W;ARLETTAZ R;SCHAUB M,"assessing the strength of density dependence is crucial for understanding population dynamics, but its estimation is difficult. because estimates of population size and demographic parameters usually include errors due to imperfect detection, estimations of the strength of density dependence will be biased if obtained with conventional methods and lack statistical power to detect density dependence. we propose a bayesian integrated population model to study density dependence. the model allows assessing the effect of density both on the population growth rate as well as the demographic parameters while accounting for imperfect detection. we studied the performance of this model using simulation and illustrate its use with data on red-backed shrikes lanius collurio. our simulation results showed that the strength of density dependence is identifiable and it was estimated with higher precision using the integrated population model than the conventional regression model. as expected, the conventional regression model tended to overestimate density dependence at the population level whereas underestimates at the demographic level, but the bias was small. the analysis of the red-backed shrike data revealed negative density dependence at the population level most likely mediated by a density-dependent decline in adult survival. this work highlights the potential of integrated population models in assessing density dependence and its practical application in population studies. (c) 2012 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." people born in the middle east but residing in the netherlands: invariant population size estimates and the role of active and passive covariates,population size estimation; capture-recapture; collapsibility; multiple record-systems estimation; missing data; structural zeros,ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS,VAN DER HEIJDEN PGM;WHITTAKER J;CRUYFF M;BAKKER B;VAN DER VLIET R,"including covariates in loglinear models of population registers improves population size estimates for two reasons. first, it is possible to take heterogeneity of inclusion probabilities over the levels of a covariate into account; and second, it allows subdivision of the estimated population by the levels of the covariates, giving insight into characteristics of individuals that are not included in any of the registers. the issue of whether or not marginalizing the full table of registers by covariates over one or more covariates leaves the estimated population size estimate invariant is intimately related to collapsibility of contingency tables [biometrika 70 (1983) 567-578]. we show that, with information from two registers, population size invariance is equivalent to the simultaneous collapsibility of each margin consisting of one register and the covariates. we give a short path characterization of the loglinear model which describes when marginalizing over a covariate leads to different population size estimates. covariates that are collapsible are called passive, to distinguish them from covariates that are not collapsible and are termed active. we make the case that it can be useful to include passive covariates within the estimation model, because they allow a finer description of the population in terms of these covariates. as an example we discuss the estimation of the population size of people born in the middle east but residing in the netherlands." estimating abundance of cryptic but trappable animals using trapping point transects: a case study for key largo woodrats,abundance estimation; capture-recapture; distance sampling; key largo; neotoma floridana smalli; rodents; small mammals; woodrat,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,POTTS JM;BUCKLAND ST;THOMAS L;SAVAGE A,"1. obtaining robust abundance or density estimates is problematic for many rare or cryptic species. we combine elements of capturerecapture and distance sampling, to develop a method called trapping point transects (tpt), and we applied this method to estimate the abundance of the endangered key largo woodrat (neotoma floridana smalli). 2. trapping point transects requires two separate surveys to be held concurrently in space and time. in the main survey, the encounter rate (number of animals caught per trap per session) is measured. in the trial survey, animals whose locations are known prior to opening traps are used to estimate the detection function g(r) (the probability of capturing an animal given it is distance r from a trap when it is set), so the effective trapping area in the main survey can be estimated. it is assumed animals in the trial survey are a representative sample of all animals in the population. individual heterogeneity in trappability is accommodated using random effects in g(r). 3. performance of two tpt estimators was assessed by simulation. generally, when underlying capture probabilities were high [g(0) = 0.8] and between-individual variation was small, modest survey effort (360 trap nights in the trial survey) generated little bias in estimated abundance (c. 5%). uncertainty and relative bias in population estimates increased with decreasing capture probabilities and increasing between-individual variation. survey effort required to obtain unbiased estimates was also investigated. 4. given the challenges of working with cryptic, sparse or nocturnal species, we tested the validity of this method to estimate the abundance of the key largo woodrats between 2008 and 2011. 5. trapping point transects was found to be an effective monitoring method yielding annual estimates of the extant wild population of 693, 248, 78 and 256 animals, with cvs of 0.45, 0.55, 0.82 and 0.43, respectively. the tpt method could be adapted to a range of species that are otherwise very difficult to monitor." -estimating adult sex ratios from bird mist netting data,adult sex ratio; bayesian analysis; capture probability; detectability; mark-recapture,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,AMRHEIN V;SCAAR B;BAUMANN M;MINERY N;BINNERT JP;KORNER-NIEVERGELT F,"1. it is increasingly acknowledged that skewed adult sex ratios (asrs) may play an important role in ecology, evolution and conservation of animals. 2. in birds, published estimates on asrs mostly rely on mist netting data. however, previous studies suggested that mist nets or other trap types provide biased estimates on sex ratios, with males being more susceptible to capture than females. 3. we used data from a constant effort site ringing scheme to show how sex ratios that are corrected for sex- and year-specific capture probabilities can be directly estimated by applying capturerecapture analysis, for example, in a bayesian framework. 4. when capture data were pooled from the 19 years of study, we found that in the blackbird (turdus merula) and the blackcap (sylvia atricapilla), the observed proportions of males were 57% and 55%, respectively. however, when the observed annual proportions of males were corrected for the sex-specific capture probabilities, the proportions of males did not clearly differ from 50% in most study years, and thus, the apparent male-bias in the asrs almost completely disappeared. 5. we propose that published estimates on asrs in birds should be re-evaluated if based solely on observed sex ratios from mist netting studies. 6. we further propose that data from national bird ringing schemes and in particular from constant effort site ringing programs can provide valuable information on asrs, if analysed using capturerecapture models. we discuss important assumptions of those models; for example, movements that may differ between sexes should be taken into account, as well as the occurrence of transient individuals that do not hold breeding territories within a study site." +estimating adult sex ratios from bird mist netting data,adult sex ratio; bayesian analysis; capture probability; detectability; mark-recapture,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,AMRHEIN V;SCAAR B;BAUMANN M;MINERY N;BINNERT JP;KORNER NIEVERGELT F,"1. it is increasingly acknowledged that skewed adult sex ratios (asrs) may play an important role in ecology, evolution and conservation of animals. 2. in birds, published estimates on asrs mostly rely on mist netting data. however, previous studies suggested that mist nets or other trap types provide biased estimates on sex ratios, with males being more susceptible to capture than females. 3. we used data from a constant effort site ringing scheme to show how sex ratios that are corrected for sex- and year-specific capture probabilities can be directly estimated by applying capturerecapture analysis, for example, in a bayesian framework. 4. when capture data were pooled from the 19 years of study, we found that in the blackbird (turdus merula) and the blackcap (sylvia atricapilla), the observed proportions of males were 57% and 55%, respectively. however, when the observed annual proportions of males were corrected for the sex-specific capture probabilities, the proportions of males did not clearly differ from 50% in most study years, and thus, the apparent male-bias in the asrs almost completely disappeared. 5. we propose that published estimates on asrs in birds should be re-evaluated if based solely on observed sex ratios from mist netting studies. 6. we further propose that data from national bird ringing schemes and in particular from constant effort site ringing programs can provide valuable information on asrs, if analysed using capturerecapture models. we discuss important assumptions of those models; for example, movements that may differ between sexes should be taken into account, as well as the occurrence of transient individuals that do not hold breeding territories within a study site." simple estimation and test procedures in capture-mark-recapture mixed models,capture-mark-recapture; environmental covariates; glmm; mixed models; population dynamics; random effects,BIOMETRICS,LEBRETON JD;CHOQUET R;GIMENEZ O,"the need to consider in capture-recapture models random effects besides fixed effects such as those of environmental covariates has been widely recognized over the last years. however, formal approaches require involved likelihood integrations, and conceptual and technical difficulties have slowed down the spread of capturerecapture mixed models among biologists. in this article, we evaluate simple procedures to test for the effect of an environmental covariate on parameters such as time-varying survival probabilities in presence of a random effect corresponding to unexplained environmental variation. we show that the usual likelihood ratio test between fixed models is strongly biased, and tends to detect too often a covariate effect. permutation and analysis of deviance tests are shown to behave properly and are recommended. permutation tests are implemented in the latest version of program e-surge. our approach also applies to generalized linear mixed models." basta: an r package for bayesian estimation of age-specific survival from incomplete mark-recapture/recovery data with covariates,bayesian inference; capture-recapture; capture-recovery; free software; long-term individual-based data sets; r project; survival analysis,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,COLCHERO F;JONES OR;REBKE M,"1. understanding age-specific survival in wild animal populations is crucial to the study of population dynamics and is therefore an essential component of several fields including evolution, management and conservation. 2. we present bayesian survival trajectory analysis (basta), a free open-source software package for estimating age-specific survival from capturerecapture/recovery data under a bayesian framework. 3. the method copes with low recapture probabilities, unknown ages (e.g. because of left-truncation) and unknown ages at death (e.g. because of right-censoring). it estimates survival and detection parameters as well as the unknown birth and death times (i.e. latent states) while allowing users to test a range of survival models. in addition, the effect of continuous or categorical covariates can be evaluated. 4. this tool facilitates the analysis of age patterns of survival in long-term animal studies and will enable researchers to robustly infer the effect of covariates, even with large amounts of missing data." assessing individual heterogeneity using model selection criteria: how many mixture components in capture-recapture models?,capture-recapture; classification; individual heterogeneity; information criteria; mixture models; simulation experiment,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,CUBAYNES S;LAVERGNE C;MARBOUTIN E;GIMENEZ O,"1. capturerecapture mixture models are important tools in evolution and ecology to estimate demographic parameters and abundance while accounting for individual heterogeneity. a key step is to select the correct number of mixture components i) to provide unbiased estimates that can be used as reliable proxies of fitness or ingredients in management strategies and ii) classify individuals into biologically meaningful classes. however, there is no consensus method in the statistical literature for selecting the number of components. 2. in ecology, most studies rely on the akaike information criterion (aic) and the bayesian information criterion (bic) that has recently gained attention in ecology. the integrated completed likelihood criterion (icl; ieee transactions on pattern analysis and machine intelligence, 2000, 22, 719) was specifically developed to favour well-separated components, but its use has never been investigated in ecology. 3. we compared the performance of aic, bic and icl for selecting the number of components with regard to a) bias and accuracy of survival and detection estimates and b) success in selecting the true number of components using extensive simulations and data on wolf (canis lupus) that were used for management through survival and abundance estimation. 4. bias in survival and detection estimates was <0.02 for both aic and bic, and more than 0.09 for icl, while mean square error was <0.05 for all criteria. as expected, bias increased as heterogeneity increased. success rates of aic and bic in selecting the true number of components were better than icl (68% for aic, 58% for bic, and 16% for icl). as the degree of heterogeneity increased, aic (and bic in a lesser extent) overestimated the number of components, while icl often underestimated this number. for the wolf study, the 2-class model was selected by bic and icl, while aic could not decide between the 2- and 3-class models. 5. we recommend using aic or bic when the aim is to estimate parameters. regarding classification, we suggest taking the classification quality into account by using icl in conjunction with bic, pending further work to adapt its penalty term for capturerecapture data." -exploring causal pathways in demographic parameter variation: path analysis of mark-recapture data,atlantic puffin; bayesian inference; causal modelling; cormack-jolly-seber model; environmental covariates; survival estimation; winbugs,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GIMENEZ O;ANKER-NILSSEN T;GROSBOIS V,"1. inference about demographic parameters of animal and plant natural populations is important to evaluate the consequences of global changes on populations. investigating the factors driving their variation over space and time allows evaluating the relative importance of biotic and abiotic variables in shaping the dynamics of a population. although numerous studies have identified the factors possibly affecting population dynamics, they have barely formally determined the routes by which these different factors are related to demographic parameters. 2. we focus on mark-recapture (mr) models that provide unbiased estimators of demographic parameters, while explicitly coping with imperfect detection inherent to wild populations. mrmodels allow estimating the effect of covariates on demographic parameters and testing their significance in a regression-like framework. however, these models can only detect correlations and do not inform on causal pathways (e. g. direct vs. indirect effects) in the relationships between demographic parameters and the factors possibly explaining their variability. 3. we develop an integrated model to perform path analysis (pa) of mr data, to examine causal relationships among several (including demographic) variables. this approach is implemented in a bayesian framework usingmarkov chain monte carlo. 4. to motivate our developments, we analyse 17 years of mark-recapture data from atlantic puffins (fratercula arctica), to investigate the mechanisms through which environmental conditions have an impact on puffins' adult survival. using our pa-based mr modelling approach, we found that local climatic conditions had an indirect and lagged impact on puffin survival through their influence on local abundance of herring. besides, we found no evidence for any lagged effect through an alternative unknown pathway (e. g. abundance of another resource). 5. our method allows elucidating pathways through which environmental, trophic or densitydependent factors influence demographic parameters, while accounting for detectability < 1. this is a critical step to understand the interactions of a species with its environment and to predict the impacts of global change on its viability." +exploring causal pathways in demographic parameter variation: path analysis of mark-recapture data,atlantic puffin; bayesian inference; causal modelling; cormack-jolly-seber model; environmental covariates; survival estimation; winbugs,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,GIMENEZ O;ANKER NILSSEN T;GROSBOIS V,"1. inference about demographic parameters of animal and plant natural populations is important to evaluate the consequences of global changes on populations. investigating the factors driving their variation over space and time allows evaluating the relative importance of biotic and abiotic variables in shaping the dynamics of a population. although numerous studies have identified the factors possibly affecting population dynamics, they have barely formally determined the routes by which these different factors are related to demographic parameters. 2. we focus on mark-recapture (mr) models that provide unbiased estimators of demographic parameters, while explicitly coping with imperfect detection inherent to wild populations. mrmodels allow estimating the effect of covariates on demographic parameters and testing their significance in a regression-like framework. however, these models can only detect correlations and do not inform on causal pathways (e. g. direct vs. indirect effects) in the relationships between demographic parameters and the factors possibly explaining their variability. 3. we develop an integrated model to perform path analysis (pa) of mr data, to examine causal relationships among several (including demographic) variables. this approach is implemented in a bayesian framework usingmarkov chain monte carlo. 4. to motivate our developments, we analyse 17 years of mark-recapture data from atlantic puffins (fratercula arctica), to investigate the mechanisms through which environmental conditions have an impact on puffins' adult survival. using our pa-based mr modelling approach, we found that local climatic conditions had an indirect and lagged impact on puffin survival through their influence on local abundance of herring. besides, we found no evidence for any lagged effect through an alternative unknown pathway (e. g. abundance of another resource). 5. our method allows elucidating pathways through which environmental, trophic or densitydependent factors influence demographic parameters, while accounting for detectability < 1. this is a critical step to understand the interactions of a species with its environment and to predict the impacts of global change on its viability." inference on partially observed quasi-stationary markov chains with applications to multistate population models,arnason-schwarz model; batch marking; capture-recapture; little penguin; (eudyptula minor); quasi-stationary markov chains; transition probabilities,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,STOKLOSA J;DANN P;HUGGINS R,"if the full capture histories of captured individuals are available, inferences on multistate open population models may be conducted using the well known arnason-schwarz model. however, data of this detail is not always available. it is well known that inference on the transition probabilities of a markov chain may be conducted using aggregate data and we extend this approach to aggregate data on multistate open population models. we show that for parameters to be identifiable we need to augment the aggregate data and we achieve this by batch marking a cohort of individuals according to their initial state, so that the batch marking augments the aggregate data. model performance is examined by conducting several simulation studies and the model is applied to a real data set where full capture histories are available so it may be compared with the arnason-schwarz estimates. this article has supplementary material online." when can we ignore the problem of imperfect detection in comparative studies?,biodiversity monitoring; capture-mark-recapture; comparative studies; detection probability; nonparametric estimator; population size; sampling design; simulations; type i error,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,ARCHAUX F;HENRY PY;GIMENEZ O,"1. numbers of individuals or species are often recorded to test for variations in abundance or richness between treatments, habitat types, ecosystem management types, experimental treatments, time periods, etc. however, a difference in mean detectability among treatments is likely to lead to the erroneous conclusion that mean abundance differs among treatments. no guidelines exist to determine the maximum acceptable difference in detectability. 2. in this study, we simulated count data with imperfect detectability for two treatments with identical mean abundance (n) and number of plots (n(plots)) but different mean detectability (p). we then estimated the risk of erroneously concluding that n differed between treatments because the difference in p was ignored. the magnitude of the risk depended on p, nand nplots. 3. our simulations showed that even small differences in p can dramatically increase this risk. a detectability difference as small as 4-8% can lead to a 50-90% risk of erroneously concluding that a significant difference in n exists among treatments with identical n = 50 and n(plots) = 50. yet, differences in p of this magnitude among treatments or along gradients are commonplace in ecological studies. 4. fortunately, simple methods of accounting for imperfect detectability prove effective at removing detectability difference between treatments. 5. considering the high sensitivity of statistical tests to detectability differences among treatments, we conclude that accounting for detectability by setting up a replicated design, applied to at least part of the design scheme and analysing data with appropriate statistical tools, is always worthwhile when comparing count data (abundance, richness)." bias in estimation of adult survival and asymptotic population growth rate caused by undetected capture heterogeneity,bias; capture heterogeneity; mark-recapture; maximum population growth rate; population growth rate; population model; survival,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,FLETCHER D;LEBRETON JD;MARESCOT L;SCHAUB M;GIMENEZ O;DAWSON S;SLOOTEN E,"1. markrecapture studies are often used to estimate adult survival probability , which is an important demographic parameter for long-lived species, as it can have a large impact on the population growth rate. we consider the impact of variation in capture probability among individuals (capture heterogeneity) on the estimation of ? from a markrecapture study and thence on estimation of the asymptotic population growth rate . 2. we review the mechanisms by which capture heterogeneity arises, methods of allowing for it in the analysis, and use simulation to assess the power of detecting three types of capture heterogeneity (two-group heterogeneity, trap-response and temporary emigration) using standard mark-recapture lack-of-fit tests. 3. we use simulation to assess the bias that can arise in the estimation of phi from a mark-recapture study when we do not allow for capture heterogeneity. using a generic population model, we assess the effect this bias has on estimation of lambda. 4. we use our results on the power of the lack-of-fit tests, together with a measure of the size of the bias relative to the standard error of the estimate of phi, to assess which situations might lead to an important level of undetected bias. our results suggest that undetected bias is not likely to be an issue when there is trap-response, owing to the lack-of-fit tests having sufficient power to detect any trap-response that could lead to non-negligible bias. for two-group heterogeneity, the worst bias generally occurs when the difference between the capture probabilities for the two groups is moderate and both capture probabilities are low. for temporary emigration, the worst bias generally occurs when the rate of emigration and the capture probability are both low. 5. we illustrate the issues for conservation management using data from studies of hector's dolphin (cephalorhynchus hectori) in new zealand and wolves (canis lupus) in france. 6. previous studies have suggested that capture heterogeneity will generally lead to a relatively small bias in the estimate of phi. however, given the high sensitivity of the asymptotic population growth rate to adult survival, a small bias in phi might lead to nontrivial bias in the estimate of lambda." @@ -182,7 +182,7 @@ capture-recapture smooth estimation of age-specific survival probabilities in an modeling misidentification errors that result from use of genetic tags in capture-recapture studies,closed population models; genotype; population size estimate; natural tags; photographic identification; misidentification,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS,YOSHIZAKI J;BROWNIE C;POLLOCK KH;LINK WA,"misidentification of animals is potentially important when naturally existing features (natural tags) such as dna fingerprints (genetic tags) are used to identify individual animals. for example, when misidentification leads to multiple identities being assigned to an animal, traditional estimators tend to overestimate population size. accounting for misidentification in capture-recapture models requires detailed understanding of the mechanism. using genetic tags as an example, we outline a framework for modeling the effect of misidentification in closed population studies when individual identification is based on natural tags that are consistent over time (non-evolving natural tags). we first assume a single sample is obtained per animal for each capture event, and then generalize to the case where multiple samples (such as hair or scat samples) are collected per animal per capture occasion. we introduce methods for estimating population size and, using a simulation study, we show that our new estimators perform well for cases with moderately high capture probabilities or high misidentification rates. in contrast, conventional estimators can seriously overestimate population size when errors due to misidentification are ignored." "a capture-recapture model with double-marking, live and dead encounters, and heterogeneity of reporting due to auxiliary mark loss",e-surge; mixture of information; multi-event; recoveries; tag loss,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,JUILLET C;CHOQUET R;GAUTHIER G;PRADEL R,"capture-recapture (cr) models assume marked individuals remain at risk of capture, which may not be true if individuals lose their mark or emigrate definitively from the study area. using a double-marking protocol, with a main and auxiliary mark, and both live encounters and dead recoveries at a large scale, partially frees cr models from this assumption. however, the auxiliary mark may fall off and its presence is often not mentioned when dead individuals are reported. we propose a new model to deal with heterogeneity of detection and uncertainty of the presence of an auxiliary mark in a multi-event framework. our general model, based on a double-marking protocol, uses information from physical captures/recaptures, distant observations and main mark recoveries from dead animals. we applied our model to a 13-year data set of a harvested species, the greater snow goose. we obtained seasonal survival estimates for adults of both sexes. survival estimates differed between models where the presence of the auxiliary mark upon recovery was ignored versus those where the presence was accounted for. in the multi-event framework, seasonal survival estimates are no longer biased because the heterogeneity due to the presence of an auxiliary mark is accounted for in the estimation of recovery rates. note: an illustration of the implementation of our model in e-surge is available online." individual heterogeneity in recapture probability and survival estimates in cheetah,acinonyx jubatus; capture-mark-recapture; carnivores; continuous reproduction; cormack-jolly-seber; serengeti,ECOLOGICAL MODELLING,OLIVER LJ;MORGAN BJT;DURANT SM;PETTORELLI N,"accurate estimates of demographic parameters are key for understanding and predicting population dynamics and for providing insights for effective wildlife management. up until recently, no suitable methodology has been available to estimate survival probabilities of species with asynchronous reproduction and a high level of individual variation in capture probabilities. the present work develops a capture-mark-recapture model for cheetahs in the serengeti national park, tanzania, which (a) deals with continuous reproduction, (b) takes into account the high level of individual heterogeneity in capture probabilities and (c) is spatially explicit. results show that (1) our approach, which is an extensive modification of the cormack-jolly-seber model, provides a lower female adult survival estimate and a higher male adolescent survival estimate than previous approaches to estimate cheetah survival in the area, (2) using sighting location alone is not sufficient to capture the individual variation in resighting probabilities for both sexes, and (3) precision in estimated survival probabilities is generally increased. species which are individually recognizable, wide-ranging and/or where individuals differ substantially in sightability are particularly appropriate to our modelling approach, and our methodology would thus be appropriate for a wide number of species to provide more accurate estimates of survival. (c) 2010 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved." -a capture-recapture model for exploring multi-species synchrony in survival,adult survival; atlantic puffin; bayesian models; common guillemot; environmental covariates; interspecific synchronisation; partition of variance; random effects; razorbill; winbugs,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,LAHOZ-MONFORT JJ;MORGAN BJT;HARRIS MP;WANLESS S;FREEMAN SN,"1. although recent decades have seen much development of statistical methods to estimate demographical parameters such as reproduction, and survival and migration probabilities, the focus is usually the estimation of parameters for individual species. this is despite the fact that several species may live in close proximity, sometimes competing for the same resources. there is therefore a great need for new methods that enable a better integration of demographical data, e.g. the study of synchrony between sympatric species, which are subject to common environmental stochasticity and potentially similar biotic interactions. 2. we propose a mark-recapture statistical model that uses random effect terms for studying synchrony in a demographical parameter at a multi-species level, adapting a framework initially developed to study multi-site synchrony to this novel situation. the model allows us to divide between-year variance in a demographical parameter into a 'synchronous' component, common to all species considered, and species-specific 'asynchronous' components, as well as to estimate the proportion of each component accounted for by environmental covariates. 3. we demonstrate the method with data from three colonially breeding auk species that share resources during the breeding season at the isle of may, scotland. mark-resight information has been collected since 1984 for atlantic puffins fratercula arctica, common guillemots uria aalge and razorbills alca torda marked as breeding adults. we explore the relationship between synchrony in the species' survival and two environmental covariates. 4. most of the between-year variation was synchronous to the three species, and the same environmental covariates acted simultaneously as synchronising and desynchronising agents of adult survival, possibly through different indirect causation paths. 5. synthesis and applications. the model proposed allows the investigation of multi-species synchrony and asynchrony in adult survival, as well as the role of environmental covariates in generating them. it provides insight into whether sympatric species respond similarly or differently to changes in their environment, and helps to disentangle the sources of these differences. the estimated indices of synchrony/asynchrony can facilitate the generation of further hypotheses about similarities/differences in these species' ecology, such as the potential overlap of wintering areas. the method is readily applicable to other species, ecosystems and demographical parameters." +a capture-recapture model for exploring multi-species synchrony in survival,adult survival; atlantic puffin; bayesian models; common guillemot; environmental covariates; interspecific synchronisation; partition of variance; random effects; razorbill; winbugs,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,LAHOZ MONFORT JJ;MORGAN BJT;HARRIS MP;WANLESS S;FREEMAN SN,"1. although recent decades have seen much development of statistical methods to estimate demographical parameters such as reproduction, and survival and migration probabilities, the focus is usually the estimation of parameters for individual species. this is despite the fact that several species may live in close proximity, sometimes competing for the same resources. there is therefore a great need for new methods that enable a better integration of demographical data, e.g. the study of synchrony between sympatric species, which are subject to common environmental stochasticity and potentially similar biotic interactions. 2. we propose a mark-recapture statistical model that uses random effect terms for studying synchrony in a demographical parameter at a multi-species level, adapting a framework initially developed to study multi-site synchrony to this novel situation. the model allows us to divide between-year variance in a demographical parameter into a 'synchronous' component, common to all species considered, and species-specific 'asynchronous' components, as well as to estimate the proportion of each component accounted for by environmental covariates. 3. we demonstrate the method with data from three colonially breeding auk species that share resources during the breeding season at the isle of may, scotland. mark-resight information has been collected since 1984 for atlantic puffins fratercula arctica, common guillemots uria aalge and razorbills alca torda marked as breeding adults. we explore the relationship between synchrony in the species' survival and two environmental covariates. 4. most of the between-year variation was synchronous to the three species, and the same environmental covariates acted simultaneously as synchronising and desynchronising agents of adult survival, possibly through different indirect causation paths. 5. synthesis and applications. the model proposed allows the investigation of multi-species synchrony and asynchrony in adult survival, as well as the role of environmental covariates in generating them. it provides insight into whether sympatric species respond similarly or differently to changes in their environment, and helps to disentangle the sources of these differences. the estimated indices of synchrony/asynchrony can facilitate the generation of further hypotheses about similarities/differences in these species' ecology, such as the potential overlap of wintering areas. the method is readily applicable to other species, ecosystems and demographical parameters." continuous covariates in mark-recapture-recovery analysis: a comparison of methods,bayesian inference; imputation; individual covariates; mark-recapture-recovery; missing covariates; time-varying continuous covariates; trinomial model,BIOMETRICS,BONNER SJ;MORGAN BJT;KING R,"p>time varying, individual covariates are problematic in experiments with marked animals because the covariate can typically only be observed when each animal is captured. we examine three methods to incorporate time varying, individual covariates of the survival probabilities into the analysis of data from mark-recapture-recovery experiments: deterministic imputation, a bayesian imputation approach based on modeling the joint distribution of the covariate and the capture history, and a conditional approach considering only the events for which the associated covariate data are completely observed (the trinomial model). after describing the three methods, we compare results from their application to the analysis of the effect of body mass on the survival of soay sheep (ovis aries) on the isle of hirta, scotland. simulations based on these results are then used to make further comparisons. we conclude that both the trinomial model and bayesian imputation method perform best in different situations. if the capture and recovery probabilities are all high, then the trinomial model produces precise, unbiased estimators that do not depend on any assumptions regarding the distribution of the covariate. in contrast, the bayesian imputation method performs substantially better when capture and recovery probabilities are low, provided that the specified model of the covariate is a good approximation to the true data-generating mechanism." multi-site integrated population modelling,great cormorant; kalman filter; mark-recapture data; phalacrocorax carbo; recruitment; state-space models,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,MCCREA RS;MORGAN BJT;GIMENEZ O;BESBEAS P;LEBRETON JD;BREGNBALLE T,"we examine the performance of a method of integrated population modelling for the joint analysis of different types of demographic data on individuals that exist in, and move between, different sites. the value of the approach is demonstrated by a simulation study which shows substantial improvement in parameter estimation when site-specific census data are combined with demographic data. the multivariate normal approximation to a multi-state mark-recapture likelihood is evaluated, and the performance of a diagonal variance-covariance matrix for the approximation is also examined. the work is motivated by a study of great cormorants. analysis of the cormorant data suggests that breeders survive better than non-breeders, and also that probabilities of recruitment to breeding have been declining over time for all the colonies of the study. supplementary material, including notes on the computation of standard errors and extended simulation results, are available online." estimating population size using capture-recapture encounter histories created from point-coordinate locations of animals,abundance estimation; animal locations; athene cunicularia; burrowing owl; capture-recapture; point-coordinate capture-recapture; point location; space use; spatially explicit capture-recapture,METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION,MANNING JA;GOLDBERG CS,"1. estimating population size is a fundamental objective of many animal monitoring programmes. capture-recapture methods are often used to estimate population size from repeated sampling of uniquely marked animals, but capturing and marking animals can be cost prohibitive and affect animal behaviours, which can bias population estimates. 2. we developed a method to construct spatially explicit capture-recapture encounter histories from locations of unmarked animals for estimating population size with conventional capture-recapture models. prior estimates of the maximum distance individuals move in the population is used to set a summary statistic and process subsequent capture-recapture survey data. animal locations are recorded as point coordinates during survey occasions, and the parameter of interest is abundance of individual activity centres. 3. we applied this method to data from a point-coordinate capture-recapture survey of burrowing owls athene cunicularia in the imperial valley of california, usa. we also used simulations to examine the utility of this technique for additional species with variable detection probabilities, levels of home range overlap and distributions of activity centres within a survey area. 4. the estimates from empirical and simulation studies were precise and unbiased when detection probabilities were high and territorial overlap was low. 5. this method of estimating population size from point locations fills a gap in non-invasive census and long-term monitoring methods available for conspicuous species and provides accurate estimates of burrowing owl territory abundance. the method requires high detection probabilities, low levels of home range overlap and that individuals use activity centres. we believe that these requirements can be met, with suitable survey protocols, for numerous songbird and reptile species." @@ -217,4 +217,4 @@ a covariate adjustment for zero-truncated approaches to estimating the size of h on comparison of mixture models for closed population capture-recapture studies,bias decomposition; boundary problems; intrinsic bias,BIOMETRICS,MAO CX;YOU N,"a mixture model is a natural choice to deal with individual heterogeneity in capture-recapture studies. pledger (2000, biometrics 56, 434-442; 2005, biometrics 61, 868-876) advertised the use of the two-point mixture model. dorazio and royle (2003, biometrics 59, 351-364; 2005, biometrics 61, 874-876) suggested that the beta-binomial model has advantages. the controversy is related to the nonidentifiability of the population size (ink, 2003, biometrics 59, 1123-1130) and certain boundary problems. the total bias is decomposed into an intrinsic bias, an approximation bias, and an estimation bias. we propose to assess the approximation bias, the estimation bias, and the variance, with the intrinsic bias excluded when comparing different estimators. the boundary problems in both models and their impacts are investigated. real epidemiological and ecological examples are analyzed." a gamma-shaped detection function for line-transect surveys with mark-recapture and covariate data,contour transect; distance sampling; double-count; horvitz-thompson; population estimate,JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS,BECKER EF;QUANG PX,"we have developed a procedure for estimating animal population size from aerial survey data collected simultaneously by two observers on the same sighting platform. we used a line transect sample design where transects follow elevation contours in mountainous terrain. because our 10 data sets from aerial line transect surveys, conducted over a terrestrial environment, consistently show unimodal detection shapes, we chose a gamma-shaped detection function that is unimodal and admits covariates. we fit models separately to data from each observer, and then used all of the data to estimate the probabilities at the apex of the detection curves. we used a horvitz-thompson estimator to estimate the population size. we illustrate our procedure on a recently collected brown bear data set. the programs and data set used in this work are available in the online supplements." estimating abundance using mark-resight when sampling is with replacement or the number of marked individuals is unknown,bowden's estimator; individual heterogeneity; mark-recapture; population size; prairie dog; program mark; program noremark,BIOMETRICS,MCCLINTOCK BT;WHITE GC;ANTOLIN MF;TRIPP DW,"although mark-resight methods can often be a less expensive and less invasive means for estimating abundance in long-term population monitoring programs, two major limitations of the estimators are that they typically require sampling without replacement and/or the number of marked individuals available for resighting to be known exactly. these requirements can often be difficult to achieve. here we address these limitations by introducing the poisson log and zero-truncated poisson log-normal mixed effects models (pne and zpne, respectively). the generalized framework of the models allow the efficient use of covariates in modeling resighting rate and individual heterogeneity parameters, information-theoretic model selection and multimodel inference, and the incorporation of individually unidentified marks. both models may be implemented using standard statistical computing software, but they have also been added to the mark-recapture freeware package program mark. we demonstrate the use and advantages of (z) pne using black-tailed prairie dog data recently collected in colorado. we also investigate the expected relative performance of the models in simulation experiments. compared to other available estimators, we generally found (z) pne to be more precise with little or no loss in confidence interval coverage. with the recent introduction of the logit-normal mixed effects model and (z) pne, a more flexible and efficient framework for mark-resight abundance estimation is now available for the sampling conditions most commonly encountered in these studies." -"estimation of rates of births, deaths, and immigration from mark-recapture data",births; immigration; mark-recapture; model checking; survival; tits,BIOMETRICS,O'HARA RB;LAMPILA S;ORELL M,"the analysis of mark-recapture data is undergoing a period of development and expansion. here we contribute to that by presenting a model which includes both births and immigration, as well as the usual deaths. data come from a long-term study of the willow tit (parus montanus), where we can assume that all births are recorded, and hence immigrants can also be identified as birds captured as adults for the first time. we model the rates of immigration, birth rate per parent, and death rates of juveniles and adults. using a hierarchical model allows us to incorporate annual variation in these parameters. the model is fitted to the data using markov chain monte carlo, as a bayesian analysis. in addition to the model fitting, we also check several aspects of the model fit, in particular whether survival varies with age or immigrant status, and whether capture probability is affected by previous capture history. the latter check is important, as independence of capture histories is a key assumption that simplifies the model considerably. here we find that the capture probability depends strongly on whether the individual was captured in the previous year." +"estimation of rates of births, deaths, and immigration from mark-recapture data",births; immigration; mark-recapture; model checking; survival; tits,BIOMETRICS,O HARA RB;LAMPILA S;ORELL M,"the analysis of mark-recapture data is undergoing a period of development and expansion. here we contribute to that by presenting a model which includes both births and immigration, as well as the usual deaths. data come from a long-term study of the willow tit (parus montanus), where we can assume that all births are recorded, and hence immigrants can also be identified as birds captured as adults for the first time. we model the rates of immigration, birth rate per parent, and death rates of juveniles and adults. using a hierarchical model allows us to incorporate annual variation in these parameters. the model is fitted to the data using markov chain monte carlo, as a bayesian analysis. in addition to the model fitting, we also check several aspects of the model fit, in particular whether survival varies with age or immigrant status, and whether capture probability is affected by previous capture history. the latter check is important, as independence of capture histories is a key assumption that simplifies the model considerably. here we find that the capture probability depends strongly on whether the individual was captured in the previous year." diff --git a/data/papers_in_methodological_journals_annotated.csv b/data/papers_in_methodological_journals_annotated.csv old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/data/savedrecs(1).txt b/data/savedrecs(1).txt old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/data/savedrecs(10).txt b/data/savedrecs(10).txt old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/data/savedrecs(2).txt b/data/savedrecs(2).txt old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/data/savedrecs(3).txt b/data/savedrecs(3).txt old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/data/savedrecs(4).txt b/data/savedrecs(4).txt old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/data/savedrecs(5).txt b/data/savedrecs(5).txt old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/data/savedrecs(6).txt b/data/savedrecs(6).txt old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/data/savedrecs(7).txt b/data/savedrecs(7).txt old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/data/savedrecs(8).txt b/data/savedrecs(8).txt old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/data/savedrecs(9).txt b/data/savedrecs(9).txt old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/data/savedrecs.txt b/data/savedrecs.txt old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/figs/areas.png b/figs/areas.png old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/figs/authors.png b/figs/authors.png old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/figs/citingjournals.png b/figs/citingjournals.png old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/figs/countries.png b/figs/countries.png old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/figs/journals.png b/figs/journals.png old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/figs/years.png b/figs/years.png old mode 100644 new mode 100755 diff --git a/recap_analyses.Rmd b/recap_analyses.Rmd new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3261ee1 --- /dev/null +++ b/recap_analyses.Rmd @@ -0,0 +1,401 @@ +--- +title: "Analyses of the 2009-2019 research in capture-recapture" +author: "Olivier Gimenez" +date: "September, December 2019" +output: + html_document: + toc: TRUE + toc_depth: 2 + number_sections: true + theme: united + highlight: tango + df_print: paged + code_folding: hide +--- + +```{r setup, include=FALSE} +knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = TRUE, + cache = TRUE, + message = FALSE, + warning = FALSE, + dpi = 300, + fig.height=6, + fig.width = 1.777777*6, + cache.lazy = FALSE) +library(tidyverse) +theme_set(theme_light()) +``` + +# Introduction + +To determine the questions and methods folks have been interested in, I searched for capture-recapture papers in the Web of Science. +I found more than 5000 relevant papers on the 2009-2019 period. + +To make sense of this big corpus, I carried out bibliometric and textual analyses in the spirit of [Nakagawa et al. 2018](https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/fulltext/S0169-5347(18)30278-7). Explanations along with the code and results are in the next section `Quantitative analyses: Bibliometric and textual analyses`. I also inspected a sample of methodological and ecological papers, see the third section `Qualitative analyses: Making sense of the corpus of scientific papers on capture-recapture`. + +# Quantitative analyses: Bibliometric and textual analyses + +## Methods and data collection + +To carry out a bibliometric analysis of the capture-recapture literature over the last 10 years, I followed +the excellent [vignette of the `R` bibliometrix +package](http://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://github.com/massimoaria/bibliometrix/master/vignettes/bibliometrix-vignette.html). +I also carried out a text analysis using topic modelling, for which I followed the steps [here](https://yufree.cn/en/2017/07/07/text-mining/) and also used the [Text Mining with R](https://www.tidytextmining.com/) excellent book. + +To collect the data, I used the following settings: + +* Data source: Clarivate Analytics Web of Science (http://apps.webofknowledge.com) +* Data format: Plain text +* Query: capture-recapture OR mark-recapture OR capture-mark-recapture in Topic (search in title, abstract, author, keywords, and more) +* Timespan: 2009-2019 +* Document Type: Articles +* Query data: 5 August, 2019 + +We load the packages we need: +```{r} +library(bibliometrix) # bib analyses +library(quanteda) # textual data analyses +library(tidyverse) # manipulation and viz data +library(tidytext) # handle text +library(topicmodels) # topic modelling +``` + +Let us read in and format the data: +```{r message=FALSE, warning=FALSE} +# Loading txt or bib files into R environment +D <- readFiles("data/savedrecs.txt", + "data/savedrecs(1).txt", + "data/savedrecs(2).txt", + "data/savedrecs(3).txt", + "data/savedrecs(4).txt", + "data/savedrecs(5).txt", + "data/savedrecs(6).txt", + "data/savedrecs(7).txt", + "data/savedrecs(8).txt", + "data/savedrecs(9).txt", + "data/savedrecs(10).txt") +# Converting the loaded files into a R bibliographic dataframe +# (takes a minute or two) +M <- convert2df(D, dbsource="wos", format="plaintext") +``` + +I ended up with 5022 articles. Note that WoS only allows 500 items to be exported at once, therefore I had to repeat the same operation multiple times. + +We export back as a csv file for further inspection: +```{r eval = FALSE} +M %>% + mutate(title = tolower(TI), + abstract = tolower(AB), + authors = AU, + journal = SO, + keywords = tolower(DE)) %>% + select(title, keywords, journal, authors, abstract) %>% + write_csv("crdat.csv") +``` + +## Descriptive statistics + +WoS provides the user with a bunch of graphs, let’s have a look. + +Research areas are: ![areas](figs/areas.png) + +The number of publications per year is: ![years](figs/years.png) + +The countries of the first author are: ![countries](figs/countries.png) + +The journals are: ![journals](figs/journals.png) + +The most productive authors are: ![authors](figs/authors.png) + +The graphs for the dataset of citing articles (who uses and what +capture-recapture are used for) show the same patterns as the dataset of +published articles, except for the journals. There are a few different +journals from which a bunch of citations are coming from, namely +Biological Conservation, Scientific Reports, Molecular Ecology and +Proceedings of the Royal Society B - Biological Sciences: +![citingjournals](figs/citingjournals.png) + +We also want to produce our own descriptive statistics. Let’s have a look to the data with `R`. + +Number of papers per journal; +```{r} +dat <- as_tibble(M) +dat %>% + group_by(SO) %>% + count() %>% + filter(n > 50) %>% + ggplot(aes(reorder(SO, n), n)) + + geom_col() + + coord_flip() + + labs(title = "Nb of papers per journal") + + ylab('') + + xlab('') +``` + +Wordcloud: +```{r} +dat$abstract <- tm::removeWords(dat$AB, stopwords("english")) +abs_corpus <- corpus(dat$abstract) +abs_dfm <- dfm(abs_corpus, remove = stopwords("en"), remove_numbers = TRUE, remove_punct = TRUE) +textplot_wordcloud(abs_dfm, min_count = 1500) +``` + +Most common words in titles: +```{r} +wordft <- dat %>% + mutate(line = row_number()) %>% + filter(nchar(TI) > 0) %>% + unnest_tokens(word, TI) %>% + anti_join(stop_words) + +wordft %>% + count(word, sort = TRUE) + +wordft %>% + count(word, sort = TRUE) %>% + filter(n > 200) %>% + mutate(word = reorder(word, n)) %>% + ggplot(aes(word, n)) + + geom_col() + + xlab(NULL) + + ylab(NULL) + + coord_flip() + + labs(title = "Most common words in titles") +``` + +Most common words in abstracts: +```{r} +wordab <- dat %>% + mutate(line = row_number()) %>% + filter(nchar(AB) > 0) %>% + unnest_tokens(word, AB) %>% + anti_join(stop_words) + +wordab %>% + count(word, sort = TRUE) + +wordab %>% + count(word, sort = TRUE) %>% + filter(n > 1500) %>% + mutate(word = reorder(word, n)) %>% + ggplot(aes(word, n)) + + geom_col() + + xlab(NULL) + + ylab(NULL) + + coord_flip() + + labs(title = "Most common words in abstracts") +``` + +## Bibliometric results + +Now we turn to a more detailed analysis of the published articles. + +First calculate the main bibliometric measures: +```{r} +results <- biblioAnalysis(M, sep = ";") +options(width=100) +S <- summary(object = results, k = 10, pause = FALSE) +``` + +Visualize: +```{r} +plot(x = results, k = 10, pause = FALSE) +``` + +The 100 most frequent cited manuscripts: +```{r} +CR <- citations(M, field = "article", sep = ";") +cbind(CR$Cited[1:100]) +``` + +The most frequent cited first authors: +```{r} +CR <- citations(M, field = "author", sep = ";") +cbind(CR$Cited[1:25]) +``` + +Top authors productivity over time: +```{r} +topAU <- authorProdOverTime(M, k = 10, graph = TRUE) +``` + +## Network results + +Below is an author collaboration network, where nodes represent top 30 authors in terms of the numbers of authored +papers in our dataset; links are co-authorships. The Louvain algorithm is used throughout for clustering: +```{r} +M <- metaTagExtraction(M, Field = "AU_CO", sep = ";") +NetMatrix <- biblioNetwork(M, analysis = "collaboration", network = "authors", sep = ";") +net <- networkPlot(NetMatrix, n = 30, Title = "Collaboration network", type = "fruchterman", size=TRUE, remove.multiple=FALSE,labelsize=0.7,cluster="louvain") +``` + +Country collaborations: +```{r} +NetMatrix <- biblioNetwork(M, analysis = "collaboration", network = "countries", sep = ";") +net <- networkPlot(NetMatrix, n = 20, Title = "Country collaborations", type = "fruchterman", size=TRUE, remove.multiple=FALSE,labelsize=0.7,cluster="louvain") +``` + +A keyword co-occurrences network: +```{r} +NetMatrix <- biblioNetwork(M, analysis = "co-occurrences", network = "keywords", sep = ";") +# Main characteristics of the network +netstat <- networkStat(NetMatrix) +summary(netstat, k = 10) +net <- networkPlot(NetMatrix, normalize="association", weighted=T, n = 50, Title = "Keyword co-occurrences", type = "fruchterman", size=T,edgesize = 5,labelsize=0.7) +``` + +## Textual analysis: Topic modelling on abstracts + +To know everything about textual analysis and topic modelling in particular, I recommend the reading of [Text Mining with R](https://www.tidytextmining.com/). + +Clean and format the data: +```{r} +wordfabs <- dat %>% + mutate(line = row_number()) %>% + filter(nchar(AB) > 0) %>% + unnest_tokens(word, AB) %>% + anti_join(stop_words) %>% + filter(str_detect(word, "[^\\d]")) %>% + group_by(word) %>% + mutate(word_total = n()) %>% + ungroup() + +desc_dtm <- wordfabs %>% + count(line, word, sort = TRUE) %>% + ungroup() %>% + cast_dtm(line, word, n) +``` + +Perform the analysis, takes several minutes: +```{r} +desc_lda <- LDA(desc_dtm, k = 20, control = list(seed = 42)) +tidy_lda <- tidy(desc_lda) +``` + +Visualise results: +```{r} +top_terms <- tidy_lda %>% + filter(topic < 13) %>% + group_by(topic) %>% + top_n(10, beta) %>% + ungroup() %>% + arrange(topic, -beta) + +top_terms %>% + mutate(term = reorder(term, beta)) %>% + group_by(topic, term) %>% + arrange(desc(beta)) %>% + ungroup() %>% + mutate(term = factor(paste(term, topic, sep = "__"), + levels = rev(paste(term, topic, sep = "__")))) %>% + ggplot(aes(term, beta, fill = as.factor(topic))) + + geom_col(show.legend = FALSE) + + coord_flip() + + + scale_x_discrete(labels = function(x) gsub("__.+$", "", x)) + + labs(title = NULL, x = NULL, y = NULL) + + facet_wrap(~ topic, ncol = 3, scales = "free") +``` + +```{r} +ggsave('topic_abstracts.png', width = 9, dpi = 600) +``` + +This is quite informative! Topics can fairly easily be interpreted: 1 is about estimating fish survival, 2 is about photo-id, 3 is general about modeling and estimation, 4 is disease ecology, 5 is about estimating abundance of marine mammals, 6 is about capture-recapture in (human) health sciences, 7 is about the conservation of large carnivores (tigers, leopards), 8 is about growth and recruitment, 9 about prevalence estimation in humans, 10 is about the estimation of individual growth in fish, 11 is (not a surprise) about birds (migration and reproduction), and 12 is about habitat perturbations . + +# Qualitative analyses: Making sense of the corpus + +## Motivation + +My objective was to make a list of ecological questions and methods that +were addressed in these papers. I ended up with more than 5000 papers. +The bibliometric and text analyses above were useful, but I needed to +dig a bit deeper to achieve the objective. Here how I did. + +## Methodological papers + +First, I isolated the methodological journals. To do so, I focused the +search on journals that had published more than 10 papers about +capture-recapture over the last 10 years: +```{r} +library(tidyverse) +raw_dat <- read_csv(file = 'data/crdat.csv') + +raw_dat %>% + group_by(journal) %>% + filter(n() > 10) %>% + ungroup() %>% + count(journal) +``` + +By inspecting the list, I ended up with these journals: +```{r} +methods <- raw_dat %>% + filter(journal %in% c('BIOMETRICS', + 'ECOLOGICAL MODELLING', + 'JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS', + 'METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION', + 'ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS', + 'ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS')) + +methods %>% + count(journal, sort = TRUE) +``` + +Now I exported the 219 papers published in these methodological journals in a csv file: +```{r} +raw_dat %>% + filter(journal %in% c('BIOMETRICS', + 'ECOLOGICAL MODELLING', + 'JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS', + 'METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION', + 'ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS', + 'ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS')) %>% + write_csv('papers_in_methodological_journals.csv') +``` + +The next step was to annotate this file to determine the methods used. `R` could not help, and I had to do it by hand. I read the >200 titles and abstracts and added my tags in an extra column. Took me 2 hours or so. The task was cumbersome but very interesting. I enjoyed seeing what my colleagues have been working on. The results are in [this file](https://github.com/oliviergimenez/capture-recapture-review/blob/master/papers_in_methodological_journals_annotated.csv). + +By focusing the annotation on the methodological journals, I ignored all the methodological papers that had been published in other non-methodological journals like, among others, Ecology, Journal of Applied Ecology, Conservation Biology and Plos One which welcome methods. I address this issue below. In brief, I scanned the corpus of ecological papers and tagged all methodological papers (126 in total); I moved them to the [file of methodological papers](https://github.com/oliviergimenez/capture-recapture-review/blob/master/papers_in_methodological_journals_annotated.csv) and added a column to keep track of the paper original (methodological vs ecological corpus). + +## Ecological papers + +Second, I isolated the ecological journals. To do so, I focused the search +on journals that had been published more than 50 papers about +capture-recapture over the last 10 years, and I excluded the +methodological journals: +```{r} +ecol <- raw_dat %>% + filter(!journal %in% c('BIOMETRICS', + 'ECOLOGICAL MODELLING', + 'JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS', + 'METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION', + 'ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS', + 'ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL STATISTICS')) %>% + group_by(journal) %>% + filter(n() > 50) %>% + ungroup() + +ecol %>% + count(journal, sort = TRUE) + +ecol %>% + nrow() + +ecol %>% + write_csv('papers_in_ecological_journals.csv') +``` + +Again, I inspected the papers one by one. Took me several hours as there were >1000 papers (remember I moved the 126 methodological papers I found in ecological journals to the methodological corpus)! I mainly focused my reading on the titles and abstracts. I didn't annotate the papers. + +# Note + +This work initially started as a talk I gave at the [Wildlife Research and Conservation 2019 +conference](http://www.izw-berlin.de/welcome-234.html) in Berlin end of +September 2019. The slides can be downloaded [here](https://github.com/oliviergimenez/capture-recapture-review/blob/master/talkGimenez.pdf). There is also a version of the talk with my voice recorded on it [there](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RFQ3Dr6vVii4J5-8hMlPW81364JYG6CP), and a [Twitter thread](https://twitter.com/oaggimenez/status/1178044240036876289) of it. + +# `R` version used + +```{r} +sessionInfo() +```